|
Unit
13 |
|
English
201:
Masterpieces
of Western Literature |
Review:
You learned something about Renaissance
values. Specifically, Boccaccio's stories illustrate that:
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people have rights grounded in nature &/or
secular humanism. Today we call these universal human rights.
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the church has no right to pronounce people
wicked & deserving of hell from the moment they are born. One
may choose to believe this, but if so,
the authority for that assumption is grounded
in the individual who chooses
that belief, rather than in the institution
of the church that makes an objective
pronouncement.
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people have a right to their emotional &
sexual lives without being condemned as sinners who should feel guilty
for having natural emotions.
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no institution has the right to torture people
& defend it as a necessary means to do good.
You learned that the Renaissance institution
that Boccaccio & others hoped would replace the monastery was the college
of university.
You learned that Renaissance writers:
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used the vernacular instead of Latin
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addressed a literate, but not necessarily
elite, audience
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portrayed common people & common life,
instead of idealized queens (always with an allusion to the Queen of Heaven) & medieval knights
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advocated aesthetic values (beauty, humor) instead of being exclusively
dedicated to moral values that allow only for a didactic literature
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sowed the seeds of revolution against the feudal order of privilege &
totalitarianism that would germinate in claims for universal human rights, democracy, &
the culture devoted to reason
In our last lesson next week we will consider the early Renaissance writer
Cervantes. See you next week.