2012级师范英语：任园园（2012501266）RenaissanceRenaissance refers to the period between the 14th and 17th century, and it means revival of interest in ancient Greek and Roman culture.Renaissance originated from Italy.From my perspective, there are 5 reasons to explain why Renaissance started from Italy and why did Renaissance happen at that time? There are 5 reasons: first,at the end of the Middle Ages , the Ottoman invased the Eastern Roman Empire, and when the Eastern Romans fleed,amount of culture and art of ancient Greek and Roman were brought into Italy, which provided a solid fundation of culture;Second, European trade in the Middle Ages mainly gathered around the coast of Mediterranean, which provided a material basis;Third, there were so many talents gathered in Italy, such as Dante, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Boccaccio,and Petrarch, who put new life and new spirit into Italy; Forth, because of the development of productivity, emerging bourgeoisie were dissatisfacted with spiritual control of church, and they eagered to shatter the shackles of church, and leaded a life which was full of freedom; Fifth,the Black Death,which was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years 1346–53, was the last straw, contributed to the outbreak of the Renaissance.During the Black Death’s ages, the Christian church suffered a lot. The church gradually lost prestige, spiritual authority, and leadership over the people. The church promised to treat and cure patients, and almost everyone at that time placed his hope on Church, more precisely, they counted upon God.When people saw the devastating disease,they wanted answers, but they didn't have any. Therefore, the plague not only gave a terrible strike to people and frustrated them but also gave a deadly strike to church, and people started to revolt against the church., so the Renaissance happened.Second, spirit of Renaissance is humanism and individualism. At that time, people tended to believe the reality and depended on themselves,it advocated individual liberation,and opposed medieval asceticism(禁欲主义）and religious views; it advocated science and cultural opposition to obscurantism(愚昧主义）.People began to struggle against church and to get rid of the shackles of the church on people's thinking; and it called for the right of individualism. We can see this point from Dante’s words,human's noble, speaking of its numerous achievements, have surpassed angel’s nobility.There is no doubt that the literators at that time held a view that human is much more important that God. People began to abandon something theological, philosophical basis of scholastic authority ,and traditional dogma; on the contrary, they were in favor of centralization of authority and objected to the feudal separatism(封建割据）. Among them, the representative works, Dante's Divine Comedy, Boccaccio's Decameron, Machiavelli's The Prince etc.Third, it brought great impact to the whole world.first and foremost, it influenced the Enlightment which was a movement of emancipating the mind and was an anti-feudal political movement.It was a age of Reason, and people began to explore the world by themselves by means of natural laws and some knowledge.Furthermore, it helped early bourgeois to accumulated original wealth.Renaissance started in Italy, as time went by, it was transferred from the Mediterranean coast to the Atlantic coast, some famous cities sprang up like mushrooms such as Rome, Florence, Venice and the Netherlands, and a series of new cities, because of this,capital industry and commerce began to flourish, the opening of New sea routes was opened at the 15th century,and it provided the precondition that promoted the Reformation and the subsequent bourgeois revolution .As can be seen from above, Renaissance was concentrated on human instead of God, and it advocated the new culture rather than theology which was charged by Catholic Church, and it was . considered as the turning pointfrom the Middle Ages to the Modern Times.Besides, I think Renaissance has similar to the New Culture Movement in China, because both of them emphasised the new thingking, new culture, and they all rebelled against the feudal oppression and exploitation. From the Renaissance, I understood three points: first, whether it is a country or an individual, if he hopes to make a progress, then, it’s of great necessity for him to develop and march forward.Many countries emerged at the age of Renaissance,becuase they grasped an excellent opportunity. Second, learning to reason in a right way is important, which requires our rational thinking and existing knowleged. We need to combine practice with theory, for everything isn’t an independent part, and they ha ve to attach to other things to exist.Third, to stress individualism is as an symbol of one’s.It can be distinguished from others and it makes one to achieve an outstanding and special role among people. In reality, we are supposed to be ourselves instead of following the mass trends, like the 90s generation, who pursuit a unique style. However, we can’t be self-centered too much and we need to maintain the cretain degree to show our speciality, otherwise, we’ll be easy to lose ourselves.Renaissance emphasized individualism, but there were some people who overstressed the individualism, which resulted to their arrogant and egocentric charcter.。
