Nevertheless, the
very name of romance has wielded such a power in human affairs, and has
so habitually impressed the human imagination, that time is not misspent
in exhibiting its historical bearings. These great vague words, invented
to facilitate reference to whole centuries of human history--Middle Ages,
Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Revival of Romance--are very often
invoked as if they were something ultimate, as if the names themselves
were a sufficient explanation of all that they include. So an imperfect
terminology is used to gain esteem for an artificial and rigid conception
of things which were as fluid as life itself. The Renaissance, for
instance, in its strict original meaning, is the name for that renewed
study of the classical literatures which manifested itself throughout the
chief countries of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In
Italy, where the movement had its origin, no single conspicuous event can
be used to date it. The traditions inherited from Greece and Rome had
never lost their authority; but with the increase of wealth and leisure
in the city republics they were renewed and strengthened. From being
remnants and memories they became live models; Latin poetry was revived,
and Italian poetry was disciplined by the ancient masters. But the
Renaissance, when it reached the shores of England, so far from giving
new life to the literature it found there, at first degraded it.
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