Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Section I NEW CONTEXTS FOR CLASSICAL PAGAN CULTURE
- The Attitudes of Medieval Arabic Intellectuals towards Pythagorean Philosophy: different approaches and ways of influence
- Transcribing ‘Elegiac Comedies’: transformation of Greek and Latin theatrical traditions in twelfth- and thirteenth-century poetry
- Between Distance and Identification: reception of the ancient tradition in the Protestant religious poetry, the case of Wrocław, Gdańsk and Toruń in the context of Northern Humanism
- Section II NEW CONTEXTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN PAST
- Section III INTELLECTUAL INTERMEDIARIES BETWEEN CULTURES
- Section IV INTERCULTURAL CONTACTS AND DOMESTIC AGENDAS
Between Distance and Identification: reception of the ancient tradition in the Protestant religious poetry, the case of Wrocław, Gdańsk and Toruń in the context of Northern Humanism
from Section I - NEW CONTEXTS FOR CLASSICAL PAGAN CULTURE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Section I NEW CONTEXTS FOR CLASSICAL PAGAN CULTURE
- The Attitudes of Medieval Arabic Intellectuals towards Pythagorean Philosophy: different approaches and ways of influence
- Transcribing ‘Elegiac Comedies’: transformation of Greek and Latin theatrical traditions in twelfth- and thirteenth-century poetry
- Between Distance and Identification: reception of the ancient tradition in the Protestant religious poetry, the case of Wrocław, Gdańsk and Toruń in the context of Northern Humanism
- Section II NEW CONTEXTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN PAST
- Section III INTELLECTUAL INTERMEDIARIES BETWEEN CULTURES
- Section IV INTERCULTURAL CONTACTS AND DOMESTIC AGENDAS
Summary
Introduction
Whenever one thinks of the Renaissance, one focuses on its early and high phase; we remember, then, such phenomena as Italian humanism and the Reformation. The period immediately following its heyday tends to be overshadowed by the great changes of the epoch or, at most, is considered to be an introduction to a new chapter in the history of literature. In studying this period, it is all too easy to look either backwards to the preceding decades, or – timidly – toward what happened later. If something like this happened in literary reality, however, the intellectual transfer of tradition would be impossible, much as it is impossible to experience one's life outside of their existential present. Literature cannot be created in isolation from the past and tradition, but also it cannot develop outside the present. Every epoch may be likened to a turbulent sea which mellows with time, but still is made to move by an invigorating wave sustaining its life and consolidating its identity. Such an invigorating wave for the literature of the Renaissance may be found in studies on the traditions of classical antiquity.
In this article I would like to focus on one of the last waves of interest in the ancient tradition – just before the advent of the Baroque which expanded to cultural centres in Silesia (Wrocław) and the Royal Prussia (Toruń, Gdańsk), where the German form of studia humanitatis found its distinguished followers.
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- Cultures in MotionStudies in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods, pp. 71 - 86Publisher: Jagiellonian University PressPrint publication year: 2014