Renaissance

The course covers the »re-birth« of Petrarch, the »first humanist« and Renaissance poet, over Rabelais' model of the high Renaissance based on the faith in the greatness of the human being, to Shakespeare and Cervantes where the newly established Renaissance synthesis of the body and spirit started to dissolve opening the way to the baroque era. It deals with the epic poetry (Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto, Camoens) and equally with the lyric poetry (in the framework of the French renaissance, for example, the »Lyon cercle« and the group »La Pléiade« with the leading poets Du Bellay and Ronsard), with prose (Boccaccio, Marguerite de Navare, Rabelais, Cervantes) and drama (Elizabethan theatre, Shakespeare). For the better understanding of the ideal of the Renaissance beauty it is necessary to compare literature with visual arts (painting, sculture, architecture) and music. The course confronts students with the underlying question: is Renaissance a revolutionary beginning of the Modern Age as is usually thought, or an magnificent conclusion of the Middle Ages?