Humanism of Russian classical literature. Prominent Renaissance Humanists and Their Works Prepare a story about any humanist person

The term humanism arose from the name of the circle of sciences that were engaged in poetically and artistically gifted people: "studia humanitatis" These are the sciences that studied everything human, as opposed to "studia divina" - that is, theology that studied everything divine

Humanists glorified: -Earthly life -Human joys -Sang of beauty, reason, spiritual freedom -Mocked of ignorance and greed -The main virtue of man was considered virtue -Virtue was considered the main dignity of a person

2. Writers - humanists At the beginning of the 16th century, sharp clashes between humanists and church scholasticism unfolded, which humanists ridiculed in the satirical works of Scholastica (Greek σχολαστι κός scholar Scholia - school) systematic Greek. medieval philosophy medieval philosophy centered around universities universities

Erasmus of Rotterdam () Dutch writer He became famous for the satirical work “Praise of Stupidity”: -Stupidity from the pulpit pronounces praise for itself -In modern society, everyone becomes fools among fools -Defended the dignity of a person who himself must choose his life path -He was an opponent of wars

“What is the difference between an old man and a child, except for the fact that the first is wrinkled and counts more days from birth? The same white hair, toothless mouth, small stature, addiction to milk, tongue-tied tongue, talkativeness, stupidity, forgetfulness, recklessness. In short, they are alike in every way. The more people age, the closer they are to children, and, finally, like real babies, not disgusted by life, not conscious of death, they leave the world.

“Without me, no community, no worldly connection would be pleasant and lasting: the people could not bear their sovereign for a long time, the master - a slave, the maid - the mistress, the teacher - the student, each other, the wife - her husband, a tenant is a house owner, a roommate is a roommate, a comrade is a comrade, if they did not mutually err, did not resort to flattery, did not spare other people's weaknesses, did not regale each other with the honey of stupidity "

Francois Rabelais () French writer Wrote the novel "Gargantua and Pantagruel": - Depicted representatives of French society - Described an ideal society where individual freedom reigns

3. Humanism in public life people tried to understand how and by what laws Machiavelli's society develops in the treatise "The Sovereign" showed the image of a real, not an ideal ruler: -Cunning -Hypocritical -Cruel -unprincipled Niccolo Machiavelli ()

The sovereign "needs to be able to manage both man and beast", for "in order to get around the trap, you need to be a fox, and a lion - to get around the trap, you need to be a fox, and a lion - to frighten the wolves" Machiavelli did not justify these qualities. reflected reality

Under the English king Henry 8, he served as Lord Chancellor Composed "Utopia" (a place that does not exist) Thomas More ()

Utopia: “There are 54 cities on Utopia; they are all big and gorgeous. In language, customs, institutions, laws, they are the same; the location is also the same for all, they have the same, as far as the terrain allows, and their appearance. Utopians work for everyone, no one owns property. Society provides abundance for everyone...and provides him with leisure for the free development of the mind. Discipline...: fixed hours of work, eating together; every person willingly follows it"

“True freedom consists in having complete power over oneself” He called for raising goodness in a child, love for science Michel Montaigne ()

Assignment: Paragraph 4 Answer the questions: - What is the Renaissance - What is humanism - What is the difference between the Renaissance man and the Middle Ages man - Why did interest in ancient philosophy increase during the Renaissance - What questions would you like to ask humanists?

Humanism, which marked a new era in the development of human society called the Renaissance. in those days was under the heavy burden of church prejudice, every free thought was cruelly suppressed. It was at that time in Florence that the philosophical doctrine was born, which made us look at the crown of God's creation in a new way.

The humanism of the Renaissance is a set of teachings representing a thinking person, able not only to go with the flow, but also able to resist and act independently. Its main direction is interest in each individual, faith in his spiritual and physical capabilities. It was the humanism of the Renaissance that proclaimed other principles of personality formation. A person in this teaching is presented as a creator, he is individual and not passive in his thoughts and actions.

The new philosophical direction took ancient culture, art and literature as a basis, focusing on the spiritual essence of man. In the Middle Ages, science and culture were the prerogative of the church, which was very reluctant to share its accumulated knowledge and achievements. Renaissance humanism lifted this veil. First in Italy, and then gradually throughout Europe, universities began to form, in which, along with theosophical sciences, secular subjects began to be studied: mathematics, anatomy, music and the humanities.

The most famous humanists are: Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Francesco Petrarch, Leonardo da Vinci, Rafael Santi and Michelangelo Buanarotti. England gave the world such giants as William Shakespeare, Francis Bacon. France also gave Spain - Miguel de Cervantes, and Germany - Albrecht Dürer and Ulrich von Hutten. All these great scientists, educators, artists forever turned the worldview and consciousness of people and showed a reasonable, beautiful soul and thinking person. It is to them that all subsequent generations are indebted for the gifted opportunity to look at the world differently.

Humanism in the Renaissance put the virtues that a person possesses at the head of everything, and demonstrated the possibility of their development in a person (independently or with the participation of mentors).

Anthropocentrism differs from humanism in that a person, according to this trend, is the center of the universe, and everything that is located around should serve him. Many Christians, armed with this doctrine, proclaimed man the highest creature, while heaping on him the greatest burden of responsibility. Anthropocentrism and humanism of the Renaissance are very different from each other, so you need to be able to clearly distinguish between these concepts. An anthropocentrist is a person who is a consumer. He believes that everyone owes him something, he justifies exploitation and does not think about the destruction of wildlife. Its main principle is the following: a person has the right to live as he wants, and the rest of the world is obliged to serve him.

The anthropocentrism and humanism of the Renaissance were further used by many philosophers and scientists such as Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Hobbes and others. These two definitions have been repeatedly taken as a basis in various schools and trends. The most significant, of course, for all subsequent generations was humanism, which in the Renaissance sowed the seeds of goodness, enlightenment and reason, which even today, several centuries later, we consider the most important for a reasonable person. We descendants today enjoy the great achievements of the literature and art of the Renaissance, and modern science is based on many teachings and discoveries that originated in the 14th century and still exist. Renaissance humanism tried to teach him to respect himself and others, and our task is to be able to preserve and increase his best principles.

Theme: ITALIAN THEATER

The defining moment in the social and cultural life of Italy was its early economic development. The disintegration of feudal relations and the development of capitalism began primarily in Italy. Due to its geographical position, Italy, earlier than other countries of Western Europe, entered into close ties with the East, and this greatly enriched the Italian cities. Becoming commercial and industrial centers of Genoa, Venice, Florence entered the arena of international economic relations as independent city-states. Along with trade and industry, banking capital also developed in Italy in the 14th-15th centuries. The bankers, especially the Florentine ones, not only controlled the monetary operations of Italy, but also extended their influence to many European treasuries. The early development of capitalism in Italy not only brought the victory of the bourgeoisie over the nobility - it was accompanied by an inevitable aggravation of class contradictions between the big bourgeoisie and the mass of artisans and urban workers. The working masses, unable to endure the cruel exploitation by the bourgeoisie, rose up to fight against their masters.

The colossal accumulation of capital led to the aristocratization of the big bourgeoisie, which in turn influenced the general direction of Italian culture: it began to acquire an aristocratic character more and more clearly and, while maintaining an anti-feudal orientation, it developed mainly in court and learned circles, without focusing on the general population. This distance from the masses affected the humanistic theatrical art of Italy. The plays of the Italian humanists - comedies, tragedies and pastorals - were staged not for the general public, but for a select, aristocratic and learned audience. Carried out by amateurs, these performances were not systematic.

The lively folk theater of Italy, associated with folk farce and city carnival spectacles, went its own way and, being independent of literary drama, took shape by the middle of the 16th century as a theater of improvised comedy - comedy. del arte.

The Italian humanists were the first to create a new type of drama, which became the starting point for the entire subsequent development of European drama - in the forms of comedy, tragedy and pastoral. The first two genres had direct examples for themselves in the ancient theater. The pastoral was associated with the bucolic poetry of the ancients. Bucolistic poetry, which originated in the songs of the shepherds (the Greek word bukolikos - "shepherd"), gave an idyllic image of peaceful village life and love. The most prominent representatives in Ancient Greece were Theocritus, and in Ancient Rome Virgil.

Acquaintance with samples of ancient drama at first had a purely scientific, philological character in Italy. the works of Plautus and Terence, Sophocles and Eurypides were studied along with the works of Aristotle, Plato, Lucretius and Tacitus. The theatrical nature of these works did not interest humanist scholars of the 14th-15th centuries.

The rare performances that in these centuries were given in city squares were still of a religious, mystical nature and were treated by pundits as a product of the ignorant Middle Ages. In the opinion of the humanists, it was even insulting to bring the works of the ancient classics to the public stage: after all, the tragedies and comedies of ancient poets could delight only refined minds and only in reading the original.

It was customary for the Italian humanists to hold, following the example of the ancients, philosophical conversations in the open air. Somewhere under the shade of laurel trees or in a green meadow. They talked about the immortality of the soul or recited sonorous lines from Horace and Virgil. Thus, the professor of the University of Rome Pomponio Leto (1427-1497) showed particular ingenuity in arranging such conversations, who suggested reading them in faces. The news of the innovation of the Roman scientist soon spread throughout Italy. Among other spectacles at the courts, it became fashionable to show the comedies of Plautus. The fashion was so strong that Plautus was also played in Latin in the Vatican. However, not everyone understood Latin, so in the late 1470s, the humanist Batista Guarini of Ferrara began to translate the works of Plautus and Terentius into Italian. The second period in the development of the heritage of the Roman theater began.

But in the pre-court performance, the plot of Plautus remained only an excuse for a spectacular spectacle, in which the mythological interludes attracted the attention of the audience much more than the dramatic action itself. About 200 people took part in the production of this play. 5 houses were built on the stage, and at the apotheosis of the performance, even a ship "floated" on which the heroes went to their native lands. The celebration held in 1504 on the occasion of the marriage of the crown prince of Ferrara Alfonso D'Este with Lucrezia Borgia was especially pompous. They gave five Roman comedies with various interludes. Before the start of the performance, 110 participants in magnificent costumes paraded around the stage.

Such lessons of antiquity are extremely useful: they freed theatrical art from the captivity of religious plots and clearly demonstrated the schemes of the logical construction of the action. But still, the new time could feel the vital basis of Roman comedy and begin to master its experience only after the humanist writers turned to modern reality and themselves wanted to follow the path that Plautus and Terence once walked. In the conditions of the Italian theater, this kind of drama was called science comedy, because its creators were humanist scientists and it was designed for an educated public.

3.4. Topic: "SCIENTIFIED COMEDY"

The 16th century began. Italy has entered an era of crisis. Two major world events - the capture of Constantinople by the Turks (1453) and the discovery of America by Columbus (1492) - although not immediately, but made themselves felt: the economic prosperity of Italy began to wane. It lost its monopoly position as an intermediary between the West and the East. World trade now bypassed Italy, which now began to move backward. Both economically and politically, the bourgeoisie was weakening, while the nobility was growing stronger. Taking advantage of the internal fragmentation of the nation, the fall in the power and prestige of Italian cities, the powerful neighbors of Italy - France and Spain - captured the richest regions of the country.

From the 40s of the 16th century, the pope and the Spanish Habsburgs led the pan-European reaction. Italy became its stronghold. In Rome, the supreme inquisitorial court was established (1542), and the most severe persecution of any manifestations of freethinking began. The Council of Trent, convened in 1545, worked out the most extensive program for the offensive of Catholic reaction in all countries of Western Europe. The true “dogs of the Lord” were the Nesuites, whose order was sanctioned by Pope Paul III in 1540. Periodically, “Indices of Forbidden Books” were published. Reading illegal literature could lead to the death penalty. Bonfires blazed, on which scientists and philosophers were burned ...

The art of the Renaissance has entered its late stage. The bright, cheerful ideal created by humanist artists still continued to exist, but he was forced to defend himself, defending himself from the feudal Catholic reaction. Illusions of universal harmony dissipated with every decade; the world, which seemed ideal, turned out to be turned inside out, as it were. The optimism characteristic of the public consciousness was still strong, free-thinking did not give up its positions, but a sober look, sarcasm and irony appeared. Comedy is the best example of this.

The lamp of the new theater was lit by the great Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto (1474 - 1533), the author of the world-famous poem "Furious Roland". His "Comedy of the chest" was shown during the carnival entertainment at the Ferrara court in 1508.

The first "learned comedy", although it was written according to the Roman model, had an independent plot.

The work of Ariosto's followers developed either in a purely entertaining direction, or with a bias towards a satirical comedy of manners - depending on which of the named tendencies of his comedies fascinated them.

In the face of increasing backlash, the entertainment genre has become the dominant genre. comedy intrigue. The first example of this kind of drama was the comedy of Bernardo Dovizi (the future Cardinal Bibbiena) "Calandria" (1513). Using the plot of Plavtov's "Menekhms" (Twins), the playwright turned the twin brothers into brother and sister and changed their dresses for more piquancy, and since both twins had a lot of love adventures, a lot of comical and not always decent ones arose along the way. situations. The comedy was staged at the ducal court in Urbino with all possible luxury - in magnificent scenery, with magnificent mythological interludes.

Italian comedy of the 16th century developed a certain standard over time. Built according to the laws of complicated intrigue, comedies constantly repeated the same situations with changelings, girls dressed in men's costumes, servants' tricks and comic failures of old people in love. Entertaining the aristocratic audience of their time, these lightweight plays have remained in their century without much interest.

Niccolo Machiavelli's (1469-1527) comedy "Mandrake" (1514) stands out against the background of little content creations - the most striking example of humanistic dramaturgy of the late period of the Italian Renaissance. This comedy of the famous writer, historian, politician is connected with the realistic and satirical tendencies of Ariosto's work and brings them to ideological and artistic maturity.

The life of the new century, observed by a demanding and thoughtful eye, no longer gave grounds for cloudless fun, and therefore comedy, while maintaining its major tone, becomes serious under the pen of humanist writers, the comic element is colored with sarcasm.

Niccolo Machiavelli brought comedy to the line of ideological struggle, making it satirical comedy. The satirical comedy was further developed in the work of two outstanding authors of the 16th century, Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) and the famous materialist philosopher and playwright Giordano Bruno (1548-1600).

In Aretino's plays, many modern types are deduced, vivid sketches of morals are given, and if the plots

These plays are not complete without anecdotal (often frivolous) situations, but this tribute to the century did not at all weaken their satirical power.

The last comedy of the Italian Renaissance, The Candlestick by Giordano Bruno (1582), had the same strong satirical fervor; in Russian translation is called "Neapolitan street"). Depicting lechers, pedants and charlatans in his play, the playwright denounced the mores that reigned in society, the thirst for profit.

The work of Italian comedians, the authors of "scientific comedy", was divorced from theatrical art, since theatrical groups, as a rule, did not stage plays of "scientific comedy". The authors themselves often looked at their works as purely literary, intended for reading. Therefore, the material of the comedies was poorly staged. This also applies to the satirical comedies of Pietro Aretino and Giordano Bruno. But the social significance of their plays did not diminish from this. Satirical comedy was the sharpest weapon in the struggle against the ever-increasing reaction. Reaction, pursuing freethinkers, threatened to kill Pietro Aretino, who had found refuge in free Venice, and overtook Bruno, who was executed by papal executioners in Rome in 1600.

The significance of "scientific comedy" is extremely great. Having restored the experience of the ancient comic theater, it is not only of significant artistic value in itself - it contributed to the development of the comedy genre in other European countries: in Spain, England, France. Even Shakespeare (in "The Taming of the Shrew" and Molière (in "Love Annoyance") are students of the Italian "learned comedy".

“Humanism is a special phenomenon in the spiritual life of the Renaissance. The meaning of this term in the Renaissance was fundamentally different than in the modern era, where "humanism" is close to "humanity" - "philanthropy".

In the XIV-XV centuries, the division of sciences into “divine sciences” (studia divina) and “human (humanitarian) sciences” (studia humana) was accepted, and the latter usually included grammar, rhetoric, literature and poetry, history and ethics. Humanists were called educated people, who knew these particular sciences especially well.

Since the second half of the 14th century, special importance has been attached to classical (Ancient Greek and Roman-Latin) literature. Greek and Latin writers began to be considered the true teachers of mankind, the authority was especially high. Virgil (in the Divine Comedy he serves Dante guide through Hell and Purgatory) and Cicero. Symptomatic in this sense is the thesis of one of the humanists - Germolai Barbara (1453-1493): "I recognize only two masters: Christ and literature."

Considered the first humanist petrarch (1304-1374). […]

Humanists focus on man, but not as a “vessel of sin” (which was typical of the Middle Ages), but as the most perfect creation of God, created in the “image of God”. Man, like God, is a creator, and this is his highest destiny.

The treatise can be considered programmatic in this sense. Gianozzo Manetti(1396-1459) "On the Dignity and Excellence of Man", which opened a long discussion about the "dignities of man". One of the most important ideas of the humanists was that a person should be evaluated not by his nobility or wealth, not by the merits of his ancestors, but only by what he himself has achieved. A high appreciation of the personality, of the individual, inevitably led to individualism.

Among the major Italian humanists is Lorenzo Vallo (1407-1457). Analyzing the texts, he proved the falsity of the so-called "Konstantin's gift" - allegedly the will of the emperor Constantine (III century), who left the Roman Empire as a legacy to the Roman bishops (popes). On this "document", which actually appeared only in the 8th century, the papacy's claims to secular power were based.

In their philosophical views Lorenzo Vallo was close to Epicureanism. In his treatise On Pleasure as a True Good, he proceeds from the pantheistic thesis about the identity of Nature and God. Divine nature cannot be the source of evil, but the desire for pleasure lies in the nature of man, it is a requirement of nature. Hence, no sensual pleasures are immoral. Lorenzo Vallo was an individualist: he believed that the interests of other people should be taken into account only insofar as they are associated with personal pleasures.

The largest representative of the humanism of the Northern Renaissance - Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536), nicknamed Rotterdam from his place of birth. He considered himself a student of Lorenzo Vallo, was a friend Thomas More and other humanists. He knew the ancient languages ​​well and did a lot of critical analysis of ancient and biblical texts. His influence and authority throughout Europe were exceptional. Of particular fame was his work "Praise of Stupidity", where various vices of people (including the clergy), and above all ignorance, are ridiculed.

He associated the improvement of people's living conditions with the spread of education. Erasmus of Rotterdam mercilessly criticized scholasticism and scholastics, but did not offer his own philosophical doctrine.

A special place in the culture and philosophy of the Northern Renaissance is occupied by the French philosopher Michel Montaigne (1533-1592). For him, skepticism became the banner of the fight against medieval dogmatism. He believed that to philosophize is to doubt. In ethical views, he was close to Epicureanism.

Grinenko G.V., History of Philosophy, M., Yurayt-Izdat, 2007, p. 249-251.