HUMANISM

Humanism

 

Francesco Petrarca was born in
Arezzo, Italy 1304 and died in 1374. He was interested in classical writing, and wrote different kinds of work in Latin.  One of his works is, the poem that he wrote to Laura. This poem shows a lot of humanism because the author has connection with nature and looks most of the time for the perfect form of a woman, but this piece of art did not have a real person.

First, the time period is XVI century and this poem has connection to the Roman heritage and the human being, also the poem has love and beauty.  For example, in this stanza Francesco is expressing his emotions for this unreal woman, “calling out the name of my lady.” The readers can figure out that Laura is not a real person, but he looked for her no matter what. This kind of romanticism has connection with the creation of an unnatural person. The higher admiration of the author is looking for the impossible, and for the perfect love.

Moreover, when he said, “Bless be the day, and the month, and the year”, Francesco gives in this stanza traditional humanism because he show his poetry and philosophy, and he continues to have connection with nature, he compared his idyllic love with nature and connected himself with creation (God). In this stanza “where I acquire fame, and my thought, that are only of her”, this verse shows to the readers that the author had celebrated himself, and gives us his natural philosophy about nature and the readers can see that the author had individual emotion, and in addition, he talked about himself because we do not see any other person.

Finally, Francesco Patrarca made emphasis on the human body, and describes the woman’s body as perfect love, “as it did the angelic breast: serene, and sacred air, where Love pierced my heart with eyes of beauty”, here, the human body can see as classical resources, beauty and love. Also, the body perfection shows us in this description because the author wants to give us the perfect idea of a woman’s body.      

Culture

CULTURE             When we speak about our culture, we refer everything that locks up in our world, and where we are living. Our culture is where we come from, our traditions and idiosyncrasy. Therefore, our culture is stronger than our blood. In Stephen Greenblantt article he said, “Cultural analysis then is not definition an extrinsic analysis, as opposed to internal formal analysis of work of art. At the time, cultural analysis must be opposed on principle to rigid distinction between that which is within a text and that which lies outside.” In this thought, the author considering making a literary analysis about the culture of one country, town, or region, it is important to know about the traditions and background of the country the document originally came from. Also the person who tries to make the analysis will need to push beyond the boundaries of the text. In addition about the quote of Stephen Greenblantt; the readers would make a social understanding does the work depends because readers need to know who write the article, or the books. For example, if we read a referring book, article or novel of the French revolution, it would be most important for the readers to know, who is the author that wrote the book and his or her autobiography? Also, if it is book translation that was made by the translator, then this translator must have a near relation with the French culture, because, it is important that the author have a good knowledge, familiarity, and excellent information about the topic that he or she want to write, and also know the culture and history.But the readers must have their own thought of the subject that they are trying to analyze because if the readers have read trustworthy sources, then his or her analysis would be brilliant. Furthermore, readers’ analysis of literary text need to have freedom of thought, also his or her work is necessary to have knowledge and facts of the movement, and the period of the book. This kind of research can give us a good idea how to write a critical analysis of the literary work that we pretend to do. Also, the author said readers need to find the differences between his or her values that would be implicit in the work they are reading, for me it is important, also, because everybody is different, and our point of view is intrinsic of our culture, and it is that way that we analyze.