BOOK III RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1500-1660) CHAPTER VII BEGINNINGS OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION IN Renaissance THE close of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth formed a period of transition. The long period of the Middle Ages was rapidly passing away, and a new life was rapidly being shaped by new ideals and new modes of thought. Literature had declined, and its revival could come only with the advent of a new quickening impulse. Such impulse had already appeared and was growing more and more to the exercise of its full power. It was of a twofold nature. On the one hand was that great intellectual awakening which we call the Renaissance; and on the other was that great and Reforma spiritual awakening which we call the Refor- tion mation. These two great forces worked together to shape the general character of literature for over a century and a half. Never before or since has the race been so mightily stirred, and never elsewhere have we seen so great literary results. What wonder, when we consider the nature of the influences at work. The Renaissance was in very truth a new intellectual birth. Think for a moment of what it involved or implied. First, we have the revival of classic learning, revealing to the modern world the riches of ancient thought. Then came the introduction of printing, spread ing broadcast both the old and the new in literature. Then the discovery of America, revealing to men an unknown world. Then the Copernican system of astronomy, giving them new heavens as well as a new earth. To all this was added the religious fervor of the Reformation, quickening human life at its very centre. Such an intellectual and moral revolution is almost beyond conception; and the race that would not respond to such influences must be incapable of great literary expression. The English race did respond, and in a way that has made English poetry the crowning glory of the world's intellectual history. These new impulses, like the earlier introduction of Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons, were foreign in their English Re- origin. They were European rather than Engsponse lish. Yet the English race responded to them without any long period of assimilation. How shall we account for this, if it be true that a foreign influence must first enter into the very life-blood of a people before it can vitally affect their literature? The answer is not difficult. The new influences in a certain sense came from without; but they were merely the touch on the spring which let loose the restrained forces of the English mind, the suppressed religious passion of the English heart. They were the occasion rather than the adequate cause of the new movements. In other words, the true impulses of the new literature were not the Renaissance and the Reformation as independent forces, but rather the pent-up powers of the English nature which were now brought to a consciousness of themselves. The Renaissance and the Reformation did not create these powers; they found them already existing. If they had not so found them, the new influences would have worked comparatively in vain. This is not mere theory. Historical fact justifies our view that the intellectual and moral influences that create great |