The Premature Renaissance
The Flourishing of the Mother Tongue in 14th-Century Florence and London
Will be published approx. on 7. January 2027
Book
Hardback
368 pages
978-1-350-46281-6 (ISBN)
Description
Using a wide range of sources and a novel interdisciplinary approach, Jonathan Hughes convincingly argues that a renaissance occurred in late 14th-century Florence and London that had less to do with the discovery of classical antiquity than the inspiration of Dante's vernacular Divine Comedy. Hughes shines a light on how Petrarch, Boccaccio and Chaucer, writers working largely outside the traditional centres of Latin education and cultural authority like the universities, cathedrals and monasteries, realized that the language imparted by mothers to their children held the key to the creation of literature that was imaginative and personal; literature that explored the mysteries of the human personality, demonstrated the power of nature, and reflected the lives and worlds of ordinary people in the city streets and rural fields.
The Premature Renaissance reflects on the ways in which this literature challenged the pre-eminence of Latin and questioned ecclesiastical assumptions (even those of Dante) about the nature of reality, the justice of Divine judgment and the existence of an afterlife, giving prominence to the voice of women and their perspective in the process.
The book also considers how and why this was a brief and ultimately premature renaissance by examining the retreat of these intellectual pioneers from the bold and disturbing implications of their discoveries. In England there was an inevitable repressive response among the Latin educated patriarchy, whose intellectual and cultural authority had been so comprehensively challenged, while in Italy the heavy weight of classical antiquity stifled creative vernacular expression, preventing it from blossoming further at that time.
The Premature Renaissance reflects on the ways in which this literature challenged the pre-eminence of Latin and questioned ecclesiastical assumptions (even those of Dante) about the nature of reality, the justice of Divine judgment and the existence of an afterlife, giving prominence to the voice of women and their perspective in the process.
The book also considers how and why this was a brief and ultimately premature renaissance by examining the retreat of these intellectual pioneers from the bold and disturbing implications of their discoveries. In England there was an inevitable repressive response among the Latin educated patriarchy, whose intellectual and cultural authority had been so comprehensively challenged, while in Italy the heavy weight of classical antiquity stifled creative vernacular expression, preventing it from blossoming further at that time.
Reviews / Votes
Jonathan Hughes has written an original and challenging book in which he argues that Dante, Boccacio, Petrarch and Chaucer in different ways all gave women a new and independent voice free from the constraints of Marian imagery. This voice, he argues, was silenced by the attack on vernacular writing mounted by fifteenth century churchmen. This is a wide-ranging book which will provoke discussion and dissent, but it cannot be ignored. * Caroline Barron, Emeritus Professor of History, Royal Holloway University of London, UK * In the fourteenth century the compelling visions which had driven the development of European society were suddenly dispelled: papal monarchy was challenged and cut loose from Rome; Christendom was riven by the West's first continental war, and driven to retreat by the might of the Muslim East; and the very existence of those who worked to support those who prayed and those who fought was now found to hang in the balance of waves of famine and plague. To this tally, Jonathan Hughes suggests we should add another broken dream, the liberation of a literature in the language of the people. At the century's turn, Dante's Divine Comedy showed what cultural, religious, social and psychological transformations might flow from the mother tongue. His epic released a voice that was the polar opposite of the conventional medieval parent: imaginative, irreverent and unruly and, above all, anti-patriarchal. It was seized - Hughes argues, more than any other - by three writers of the next generation renowned in their own time for their creative force, Francesco Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio and Geoffrey Chaucer. Their work gave full throat to personal emotion, popular humour and the power of women but for Hughes still the true ambition of the vernacular was stifled by a Church establishment which renewed its own discourse with the readoption of classical Latin and raised its legal authority by restricting the use of the vernacular. Hughes' thesis is a fitting tribute to the texts that inspired it: like the Divine Comedy, a bold original, as colourful as the Decameron and as steeped in the literary canon as the Canterbury Tales. * James G. Clark, Professor of Medieval History, University of Exeter, UK *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Laminated cover
Illustrations
9 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-46281-6 (9781350462816)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jonathan Hughes is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, UK. He is also Guest Lecturer at the Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism, UK. His books include Pastors and Visionaries: Religion and Secular Life in Late Medieval Yorkshire (1988), The Religious Life of Richard III (1997) and Arthurian Myths and Alchemy: The Kingship of Edward IV (2002).
Content
Introduction
Part 1: The Freedom of the Vernacular
1. Under the Shade of the Laurel: Dante's Shadow
2. Dante and the Mother Tongue
3. Life's Pilgrimage
4. The Legacy of Beatrice: Lovesickness
5. The Pestilential Divide between Dante and his Followers
6. The Force of Nature
7. Nature's Inferno
8. Paradise Lost
9. Changing Perspectives on Light
10. Petrarch and Conflict with the Latin Patriarchy
11. Boccaccio and the Betrayal of the Father
12. The Emergence of the Woman's Voice
Part 2: The Patriarchal Response
13. Retreat into Classicism
14. The English Retreat from Imagination into Irony
15. The Context of Chaucer's Anxieties
16. The Silencing of Women
Conclusion: The Premature End of the Renaissance
Bibliography
Index
Part 1: The Freedom of the Vernacular
1. Under the Shade of the Laurel: Dante's Shadow
2. Dante and the Mother Tongue
3. Life's Pilgrimage
4. The Legacy of Beatrice: Lovesickness
5. The Pestilential Divide between Dante and his Followers
6. The Force of Nature
7. Nature's Inferno
8. Paradise Lost
9. Changing Perspectives on Light
10. Petrarch and Conflict with the Latin Patriarchy
11. Boccaccio and the Betrayal of the Father
12. The Emergence of the Woman's Voice
Part 2: The Patriarchal Response
13. Retreat into Classicism
14. The English Retreat from Imagination into Irony
15. The Context of Chaucer's Anxieties
16. The Silencing of Women
Conclusion: The Premature End of the Renaissance
Bibliography
Index