Studies in Renaissance Literature

SEMINAR IN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE AND CULTURE

The period that we now (usually) call the Renaissance saw the emergence of the modern “national” vernacular languages and literatures as vehicles of “high culture” and socio-political institutions.  It also witnessed a movement, usually known as humanism, dedicated to the recovery, study, and appropriation of the ancient languages—first “classical” Latin (as against the ecclesiastical idiom that had emerged over the course of the middle ages), then Greek, eventually Hebrew, “Chalcydean,” and other tongues. The problem of language in the Renaissance touches every aspect of life: the relations between the social classes, the interactions between Church and an increasingly prominent “secular” domain, the discourse of nationhood and ethnic identity, the encounters—imperializing, missionary, or otherwise—with non-European populations, and so on and on. In this course we will introduce the question of Renaissance multilingualism as it emerges historically (from Dante’s early defense, in Latin, of the “illustrious vernacular” as political and poetic language to the contemptuous ‘push-back’ of Latin humanism, to the emergence of prestige vernacular literatures—still modeled on the classics—in the sixteenth century); as it affects different geographical areas differently, while constituting the vehicle of communication between them (most notably, Italy, France, Spain, England, Germany); and as it permeates the most fundamental aspects of individual and collective life (religion; law; colonialism; class-relations; court-culture; and so on and on). At the heart of the course throughout will be the encounters among multiple languages within the experience and writing of key individuals and groups.  We will be interested, not only in the literary implications for major writers of the new linguistic multiplicity that haunts the Renaissance, but also in the institutions and agents that help shape the emergence of linguistic variety–copyists, printers, ambassadors, mariners, vagabonds. Among the authors whom we might consider, depending on the makeup of the group and the contours of our discussions, will be: Dante, Petrarch, St. Catherine,  Alberti, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Rabelais,  Du Bellay, Garcilaso, Luther, Wyatt, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Cervantes

Course Conducted in English

Reading Knowledge of Italian, French, Spanish, or Latin desirable

Course Requirements: Students are expected to attend and participate regularly.  There will be occasional in-class presentations and some shorter writing assignments.  The principal assignment for the course is a research paper of ca. 6000 words (20-25 pages), an advanced draft of which will be presented to the seminar during the final weeks of the semester.  Topics must be closely related to the concerns of the course although they may focus on authors, texts and issues not directly treated in seminar.