Renaissance Research Paper

Ryan Besocke

Leroland

English 1

12 December 2014

Renaissance

For many, the Renaissance era was the light at the end of the Dark Ages. It was a time when art and architecture thrived, inspiring new inventions and ideas that will change the world. The Renaissance began in 1350 in northern Italy, after the Bubonic Plague killed more than half the population. The Renaissance was a rebirth where a diverse culture thrived like never before. Europe exploded with literature and art, bringing the works of artists like William Shakespeare and Michelangelo, whose masterpieces echoed throughout time. Shakespeare brought comedy, drama, and tragedy to the theater, while Michelangelo created a sense of wonder and enchantment with his statues and paintings.

Inventions such as eyeglasses and the printing press transformed everyday life. Leonardo da Vinci, an italian artist, mathematician, inventor, and writer is credited with some of the most innovative conceptions(). These creations would not be appreciated and utilized until the 1900s. Leonardo da Vinci may be most famous for his works as an artist, but he spent more time working on his endeavors in science and technology. Although da Vinci was a major contributor during the Renaissance, Galileo revolutionised our understanding by supporting the work of Copernicus. His work laid a foundation for the science of Kinetics and strength of materials. Galileo’s inventions include the telescope, which allowed for clearer vision of our solar

“The Renaissance of the arts coincided with the development of humanism, in which scholars studied and translated philosophical texts” (Beck). During this time, philosopher’s advanced thinking created historical pieces of work that are still read today. William shakespeare was called a literary genius, but most consider him to be an artist. He painted vivid pictures with words in his literary pieces and brought to live some of the most well known characters in his plays. “A total of 15,000 different words were used in his plays and a further 7000 were used in his poems and sonnets. This gave him a vocabulary of 21,000 words when the average vocabulary of the day in Stratford, England, was less than 500”("William Shakespeare Elizabethan Dictionary"). Shakespeare’s vocabulary helped add thousands of words to today’s dictionary. His writings and plays are studied today in schools across the world. “A well-rounded education logically must have a strong foundation in both modern and classical literature, the latter of which an in-depth study of Shakespearean works would more than satisfy” ("The Importance of Shakespeare"). Shakespearean literature allows students to take a step back in time to understand the lives of people during the Renaissance. His writings also have paved the way for modern literature because of the “fluidity of thought, word, rhythm, and sound