Before discussing difference between renaissance literature and neo classical literature we must know about the word "Renaissance" . So let's discuss about what meaning of this word "Renaissance".
◆ What is Renaissance ?
Renaissance means rebirth, revival and a new growth of activity or interest in something, especially art, literature, or music.
"The Renaissance refers to the gradual enlightenment of the human mind after the darkness of the middle ages".
With the impact of Renaissance new scholarship developed and it brought about huge changes especially in vocabulary. The Renaissance was chiefly learned as "classical renaissance" .
◆ Difference between Renaissance literature & Neo classical literature :-
Renaissance is a cultural movement or a period between the Classical and Modern era. More than its cultural essence, the Renaissance period was known for its developments in art, painting, philosophy, architecture and other intellectual aspects. It was an era that witnessed the largest growth and development in Western Europe.
"The Renaissance" was a broad social movement that started in Italy in the 14th century and reached England around the early 16th century. In English literature it was noted for the great playwrights (most notably Shakespeare). They inherited some of the poetic traditions of the European Renaissance, most notably the sonnet, but it was really the plays that we remember today. That largely came to an end with The English Civil War, which shut down the theaters.
This period is marked by the famous plays.The writers of this priod celebrate free forms of literature. They saw people as basically good
Celebrate their free will, freedom, ambition, desperate adventure. They gave more important to individual needs. They believed that men can find meaning in freedom, enjoyment & selfhood.
"Neoclassicisism" is the movement that sprang up in the wake of the end of the Civil War, the Restoration, in the last quarter of the 17th century. It included the great early English novels (Robinson Crusoe, Tom Jones). It was also noted for the rebirth of English poetry under John Milton (reinventing the allegorical style in Paradise Lost) and John Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress). The Neoclassical period is generally reckoned to have ended with the rise of the Romantics in the early 19th century.
Neo classical period marked by the famous poetries. Literature was characterized by order , accuracy & structure
Neoclassical writers portrayed man as inherently flawed & relatively more human in nature. In this time conservatism flourished in both politics and literature (emphasised on restraint, self-control, common sense). The writers gave more importance to social needs.They believed that man can findeligion, natural order, government & literature.
●Renaissance period:-
This period is marked by the famous plays.
The writers of this priod celebrate free forms of literature
They saw people as basically good
Celebrate their free will, freedom, ambition, desperate adventure
They gave more important to individual needs
They believed that men can find meaning in freedom, enjoyment & selfhood.
●Neoclassical period :-
marked by the famous poetries
Literature was characterized by order , accuracy & structure
Neoclassical writers portrayed man as inherently flawed & relatively more human in nature
In this time conservatism flourished in both politics and literature (emphasised on restraint, self-control, common sense)
The writers gave more importance believed that man can find meaning in society, religion, natural order, government & literature.
So we can say that there are some various differences between this two ages.
Renaissance period was known for its Humanist approach in art while neoclassical art focused on more classical and pure elements of style. The Renaissance period opened gateways to new ideas and developments, while the neoclassicism period focused on retaining the Age of Enlightenment.
●Writer of Renaissance Age :-
◆William Shakespeare:-
William Shakespeare was the greatest writer of the era born in 1564. He was an actor and a poet but is best known for his plays. He also wrote tragedies and comedies, and Shakespeare became one of the most well-known playwrights in England. Some plays he is well known for are Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, and Henry V.
◆Miguel de Cervantes:-
Miguel was a Spanish influential writer during the Renaissance. He wrote numerous plays and works of fiction, including Novelas ejemplares in 1613. Cervantes was not widely known, however, until the publication of his most influential piece, Don Quixote de la Mancha. This novel was published in 1604 and made Cervantes extremely popular in Spain, and this novel tells of a country gentleman who searches for adventure in life.
◆Niccolo Machiavelli:-
Machiavelli was a diplomat in Florence who tried to answer how could a ruler guarantee that he would stay in power by writing The Prince in 1513. Machiavelli claimed that people were greedy and self-centered. He argued that rulers should not be good, and that rulers should do whatever is necessary to keep power and protect their city, including killing and lying. Today, when someone is called a Machiavellian, it means that they are acting tricky and not thinking about the good.
◆Francesco Petrarch:-
Francesco Petrarch was a poet and scholar that lived in the 1300s. He was known for his Italian poetry and wrote many famous poems, such as the Canzoniere and the Triofi. He was also a vey enthusiastic Latin scholar and wrote most of his poems in this language. He died in 1374, but he would influence later writers such as Boccaccio and Shakespeare.
◆Dante Alighieri:-
Dante Alighieri, often simply referred to as Dante, was a famous Italian poet during the Renaissance. The Divine Comedy is the most famous of his works, and is often considered the greatest literary work in the Italian language. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are often considered the best Italian writers in history. He often wrote his poems in the Italian vernacular rather than Latin, a choice that would later influence literary development all over Europe.
◆Geoffrey Chaucer:-
Geoffrey Chaucer, usually referred to as simply Chaucer, is a famous Italian writer that wrote in the English vernacular. His is widely recognized for his book The Canterbury Tales, but he also many other books, including The Book of the Duchess and The House of Fame. He is an important figure in developing the English vernacular we use today because he English he used in his writing is the ancestor of today’s everyday English language.
●Writer of Neoclassical Age :-
◆Alexander pope:-
Pope is in many respects a unique figure. In the first place, he was for a generation ‘’the poet’’ of a great nation. Poetry was limited in the early 18th century; there were few lyrics, little or no love poetry, no epics , no dramas or songs of nature worth considering ; but in the narrow field of satirist and deductive verse pope was the undisputed master.
◆Joseph Addison :-
Addison is easily master in the pleasure art of living with one’s fellows, It’s due to his prefect expression of that art, of that new social life which, as we have noted,was characteristic of the Age of Anne that Addison Occupies such a large place in the history of literate Addison is the sunshine ,which melts the ice and dries the mud and makes the earth thing with light and hope.
◆Richard Steele :-
Steele was in almost every respect the antithesis of his friend and fellow worrier a rollicking, good hearten emotional, lovable Irish man. He left the university to entire the Hurries guards. He was in turn soldier, captain, poet playwright essayist, Member of Parliament, twenty other things even more than Addison he ridicules vice and makes virtue lovely He is the originator of the Tatter and joins with Addison in creating the spectator.
◆John Dryden:-
Dryden occupies a seminal place in English critical history and affirmed of his essay of Dramatic poetry. Dryden’s critical works was extensive, treating of various genres such as epic tragedy ,comedy and dramatic theory, satire the relative virtues of ancient and modern writers as well as the nature of poetry and translation Dryden was also a consummate poet dramatist and translator .His poetic output reflects his shifting religious and political allegiances. Dryden was appointed poet laureate in 1668 and thereafter produced several major poems including the mock heroic ‘’Mac fleck on’’ and a political satire Absalom and Acidophil. He was renowned and tragedies Aurangzeb and All for love, or the world well lost.
