Ap Euro FRQ Sample-renaissance Humanism

Finally, the exploration of literature during the Italian Renaissance affected individual thought as well. Early writers such as Petrarch, named the “first man of letters,” believed literature to be a kind of philosophical calling in which one questioned the doubts of man. Writers no longer worried themselves over the technical subjects of the Middle Ages; they moved on to a higher degree of internal and personal thought. For example, Boccaccio’s Decameron ostensibly seems to entertain, but the stories hold deeper wisdom and morality regarding human behavior. Various writers also began writing in the vernacular, the common language, such as Dante in the Divine Comedy. A new field of criticism came about at around this time, textual criticism, the most famous instance of which Lorenzo Valla proved the Donation of Constantine a forgery. These all tie together to impart a renewed sense of Italian human being and singularity, with deep personal meanings conveyed through assorted literature.

Italian Renaissance humanism was conveyed in numerous ways, all expressing the central idea of individual roles in society. Politics, education, and literature all had major impacts on this chief idea. The return to the use of ancient Greco-Roman classics demonstrates the return of the “glorious” philosophies of Greece and Rome, which in turn shaped Italian humanistic individuality with lasting effects for centuries to come.