2.2 - Literature Flashcards
Who was Michel de Montaigne?
His fame rests on his essays, which exemplify renaissance individualism grounded in a humanism deried from greco roman antiquity. His essays are however distinguished less by depth of knowledge of the past than by a profound knowledge of the self.
His early essays contain numerous quotations from antiquity. In his second book however he relied less on the authority of the past and more on expressing views in his own voice. His third and last book of essays he used quotations sparingly, presenting an original self-portrait.
He said he wrote things about himself because he knew himself better than he knew anything else. He notes, however, that he exists in a state of flux. He also asks questions in his essays without providing answers, ´perhaps´ and ´i think´ are his most frequently used expressions.
The name for the genre he created, ´essai´, suggesting a process rather than a product, openness rather than conclusiveness, a journey and not a destination.
His search for questions rather than answers, and his affirmations of the individual, makes his work a landmark of Renaissance humanism.
Who was WIlliam Shakespeare?
greatest writer in the english language, a reputation that rests on plays and sonnets exploring complex states of mind and feeling in exuberant language rich with methaphor. His command is particularly evident in his soliloquies (meditative reflections spoken aloud).
His sonnets have drama as well as melodic lyricism. His sonnets circulated in manuscript before publication and were much admired.
His soliloquies further reveal the human spirit. In a soliloquy, Macbeth uses obsessive, bitter language to lament his ruined scheme. Written in blank verse, verse in unrhymed iambic pentameter (each line has ten syllables with alternating stresses), the soliloquy portrays Macbeth´s despair over the apparent meaninglessness of life.
His plays capture the imagination. Julius Caesar and other roman plays such as Coriolanus were given classical settings to highlight renaissance interest in the classical world. Romeo and Juliet, in contrast, was set in the Italian Renaissance and Hamlet in Denmark.
