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Latin Literatures of Medieval and Early Modern Times in Europe and Beyond: A millennium heritage
Edited by Francesco Stella
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXIV] 2024
► pp. 684–701

Chapter 33
Starting anew

The conservative and innovative features of humanistic Latin literature

| Universidad de Buenos Aires

The article reviews the scholarly discussions regarding the definition and characteristics of humanism by focusing on the continuity and discontinuity theses, as well as the ideological and disciplinary implications that have shaped the intellectual field among medievalists and Renaissance scholars over two centuries. The conservative features of Italian humanism can be traced in the endurance of scholastic teaching in universities, medieval patterns of thought, pedagogical methods and traditional curriculum design. On the other hand, Italian humanism evinced an innovative meta-linguistic awareness that took the form of unprecedented debates on the historicity and status of languages, fostered new reading methods, rigorous philological approaches and a wide-ranging translation agenda.

Keywords: Renaissance, humanism, continuity, discontinuity, studia humanitatis, humanism and scholasticism, humanistic education, humanism and language
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Renaissance humanism: The birth of a concept
  • The early reactions to a new paradigm
  • The crumbling Renaissance mirage
  • The humanist polemic with scholasticism
  • Humanism and pedagogy
  • Humanism and the meta-linguistic breakthrough
  • Notes
  • References
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