The Renaissance I:The Tudor Age

Cultural History of Britain

Lecture 6

Timeline 1485- Modern History of Britain 1485-1603: The Tudor Age

1509-47: Henry VIII 1534: Act of Supremacy 1535: execution of Thomas More (canonised in 1935) 1536-40: dissolution of monasteries

1558-1603: Elizabeth I (Elizabethan Age) Elizabethan Settlement 1588: Defeat of the Spanish Armada 1564-1616: William Shakespeare

1603-25: Jacobean Period 1625-42: Caroline Era 1640-49 : Civil War

1642-60: theatrical performances suspended, theatres closed 1649-60: Commonwealth Interregnum

General feature: overlap/mixture of medieval (Gothic) and modern phenomena (belated Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, Humanism and Reformation, early Enlightenment and Neo-Classicism) in culture

Context: Medieval vs. Renaissance

Characteristic Features of Renaissance on the Continent

Historical and Intellectual Context

• general economical, social and political changes and cultural

revival (Blamires 44-5)• Renaissance: rebirth or rediscovery of the values, ethics and

styles of classical Greece and Rome• transition: medieval humanism (Habib 215)• general tendencies:

this-worldly orientation (secularisation)

development of secular political philosophy

systematic examination of the world of nature, the human body and mind→rapid development of sciences

growth of Humanism (Protestant Reformation)

Renaissance Humanism (14-16th centuries)

representatives: Erasmus (1466-1536), Rabelais (1494-1553), Thomas More (1478-1535) (influence on literature: Chaucer, Marlow, Ben Johnson, Shakespeare)

relation to scholasticism (Habib 215)

man in the centre of the universe (Blamires 45)

secular worldview and scientific inquiry (Habib 216)

individualism (Habib 216)

Renaissance worldview↔medieval worldview (Blamires 45)

Reformation (16th century)Continent:

Lutheranism (1517, Martin Luther, Wittenberg) Calvinism (1536, John Calvin, The Institutes of the Protestant Religion)

Great Britain 1534: Church of England (Anglo-Catholic) Scottish Kirk (Presbyterian), Calvinist, formulated 1560-92 Elizabethan Age: Puritans

Originally: 800 Protestants fleeing to the continent during Mary I’s reign Elements of Lutheranism: salvation in faith only, absolute primacy of the Bible, personal

relationship with God, individualism Calvinist elements: belief in predestination, success in business as a sign of salvation,

diligence, ascetism 1620: Mayflower

• Influences – secularisation of arts• In general: Counter-Reformation and concomitant Baroque art precluded• Architecture: only indirect connections with the Italian Renaissance and Baroque models• Painting: complete break with medieval religious painting (whitewashed church

interiors)• Theatre: religious genres become redundant, Puritan ban on theatrical shows

Fine ArtsArchitecture: return to classical (Greek

and Roman) idealsHarmonious formsClarity, simplicity

Sculpture: dynamic, often monumental, focus on the (naked and perfect) human body

Painting: introduction of Renaissance perspectiveRaphael, School of Athens,c. 1510

Literary Renaissancerediscovery of the ancient classics - influx of scholarship from

Byzantium←1453: capture of Constantinople (Blamires 44)• knowledge of classical languages and original texts (Habib

232)• vernacular and secular culture and literature (Leitch 10)• court patronage (Habib 231)• discovery of printing →change of dissemination and public

(Habib 238)• started in Italy: Dante (c. 1265-1321), Petrarch (1304-74),

Boccaccio (1313-75)• Trecento• Quatrocento• Cinquecento

Gothic - Renaissance

England

Architecture: Tudor GothicAfter the Reformation: Gothic survives until 1600 – secular buildings (country

houses – glorification and stabilisation of the Queen’s power)Perpendicular Gothic in secular buildings = Tudor GothicOften mixed with Renaissance elements (hidden Tudor arches)

Hampton Court (from 1514) and Longleat House (1559-80)

Architecture: Renaissance

Kirby Hall (1570-75)

PaintingBeginning of the history of English

paintingSecular patronage → focus on

portraitureDemand for accurate likenessDemand for detailed justice of

finery and clothingNo specific demand for beauty for

its own sakeHumanism → realistic depictions“Imported” masters trained in a

more realistic school (craftsmen of secondary order apart from Holbein, Mannerism)

Native painters: “cult portraits” of the Queen, almost Byzantine formality

Hans Holbein, the YoungerSir Thomas More

Imported Renaissance Painting: Hans Holbein (1532-43)

Official court painterLinear traditionIntroduced the miniature

Mrs Pemberton (miniature)

“Limning”: The Typically English Genre of Miniature Painting

Developed from manuscript illuminationPersonal, private genre – meant for personal keeping or a presentNicholas Hilliard (1547-1619)

Originally a goldsmithPrecisionNo “smutting”Lively coloursMinute detailsOften jewelled

frameworks

Nicholas Hilliard, self-portrait (1577)

Portrait of an Unknown Man (flames of love)

The Golden Age of English Music

Domestic music-making startedTallis and Byrd: monopoly of music printingApart from the virginal: instruments available for middle-class

people evenSecular music

Madrigal: polyphonic vocal musical composition, partsong, parts varying between 2 and 8 William Byrd, Thomas Morley

Church musicMotet: sacred madrigal, polyphonic musical setting for choir,

short John Taverner, Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, John Bull

16th-century Musical Instruments

virginal

viols

recorders

flutes

Literature: Renaissance Authors

Sir Thomas More, UtopiaSir Thomas WyattSir Philip SidneyEdmund SpenserUniversity Wits:

John LylyRobert GreeneThomas NasheThomas Kyd Christopher Marlowe

William ShakespeareBen Jonson

Elizabethan Theatre, or “Mass Culture”: the Globe (1599)

Works CitedBlamires, Harry. A History of Literary Criticism. London: Macmillan, 1991.

Gaunt, William. English Painting – A Concise History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991.

Gelfert, Hans-Dieter: Nagy-Britannia rövid kultúrtörténete. Corvina, Budapest, 2005.

Habib, M. A. R. A History of Literary Criticism and Theory from Plato to the Present. London: Blackwell, 2008.

Halliday, F. E. An Illustrated Cultural History of England. London: Thames and Hudson, 1981.

Jenner, Michael. The Architectural Heritage of Britain and Ireland. Penguin: London, 1993.

Leitch, Vincent B., ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York, London: W. W. Norton, 2001.

Morgan, Kenneth O., ed. The Oxford History of Britain. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1984.

Watkin, David. English Architecture. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.