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LETTERATURA INGLESE III (MAURIZIO CALBI)

LETTERATURA INGLESE III (MAURIZIO CALBI). Humanism, Thomas More, Utopia. Renaissance ‘Man’ in Hamlet (II.ii).

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LETTERATURA INGLESE III (MAURIZIO CALBI)

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  1. LETTERATURA INGLESE III (MAURIZIO CALBI) Humanism, Thomas More, Utopia

  2. Renaissance ‘Man’ in Hamlet (II.ii) • HAMLETI have of late--butwherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone allcustom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavilywith my disposition that this goodly frame, theearth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this mostexcellent canopy, the air, look you, this braveo'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof frettedwith golden fire, why, it appears no other thing tome than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!how infinite in faculty! in form and moving howexpress and admirable! in action how like an angel!in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of theworld! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,what is this quintessence of dust?

  3. Hans Holbein the Younger's portrait of Sir Thomas More

  4. Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533)

  5. Humanism in England • William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre’s contacts with Italian humanist circles. • John Colet’s 1508 school for boys (good classical authors against the ‘barbarousness’ of medieval authors to increase “good Christian life and manners” in the children. • Thomas Linacre (1460-1524): the importance of Greek language and culture. Thomas More’s tutor. • 1516: Corpus Christi College in Oxford (Chair in Greek) • Erasmus’s stay in England (1499, 1509-1514)

  6. Humanism in England (2) • Not much concern for the status of the English language in earlier humanists such as Colet and More. • Notion of originality: going back to the origins, true sources. • Studia humanitatis: language, literature, and antiquities of Rome and Greece. • Sir Thomas Elyot and the beginning of vernacular humanism (enriching the English language by introducing Latin vocabulary and Greek syntax); • Roger Ascham (imitation of Cicero in the writing of English).

  7. Humanism in England (3) • Not explicit project, but by the time of Elizabeth English could compete with any of the other languages of Europe as a literary medium • Lessons of the past to be applied to the present (perfectibility of the present) • Thomas Elyot’s The Governor (1531): provide England with properly and liberally educated servants of the state, a new ‘aristocratic’ class (new power structure). • The public weal is “a body living, compact or made of sundry estates and degrees of men, which is disposed by the order of equity and governed by the rule and moderation of reason” • Educational programme, including dance as example of harmony.

  8. Thomas More (1477?-1535) • Born 7 February 1478 at Milk Street, London • Entered Parliament in 1504, appointed undersheriff of London in 1510 , became a member of the Privy Council in 1518, knighted in 1521, made Speaker of the House of Commons in 1523. • Made Lord Chancellor of England in 1529 , resigned in 1532, refused to swear an oath acknowledging the legitimacy of Anne and Henry's heirs in 1534, imprisoned in the Tower of London on charges of treason in 1534, executed 6 July 1535 at Tower Hill, the Tower of London. • Canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church in 1935

  9. The new intellectual • The ‘public’ function of the intellectual (for Erasmus, no direct involvement in politics; More’s career shows the dangers of vita activa, of being a counsellor to the King Henry VIII). • The public role of the intellectual discussed in More’s Utopia (published in conversational Latin in 1516 in Louvain and translated into English in 1551)

  10. Woodcut from the 1518 edition

  11. Utopia and the new ‘intellectual’ • Raphael Hythlodaeus: don’t get involved in politics. More (moros), instead, maintains that one cannot abandon politics altogether. • Moros=foolHutlos is nonsense in Ancient Greek • Daien (to distribute)

  12. More’s position (Moros=fool)

  13. The theatrical metaphor (NO) • “There is another philosophy that is better suited for political action, that takes its cue, adapts itself to the drama at hand, and acts its part neatly and well… Go through with the drama in hand as best as you can, and don’t spoil it simply because you happen to think another would be better” (Being in Plautus’s comedy, and come on stage as a serious philosopher)

  14. Hythlodaeus’s answer

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