Renaissance and Shakespiare

Dear all today I have to talk about the Rebirth of culture,  art, and literature in Italy , and the rest of Europe.

 The Renaissance was a rebirth of the human spirit, a rebirth of creativity.  While taking the classical past as its model, the Renaissance was one of the most creative periods in human history, comparable only to the Golden Age of Hellenic Athens in the fifth century before Christ.  Florence has often been called the Athens of the Renaissance because so many great artists were born or worked there.

When one age ends and another begins, there are cross currents.  The declining or Late Middle-Ages are usually dated from 1300 to 1500.  It should be noted that this time overlaps with the Renaissance.  The glass is either half empty or half full.  It depends on one’s perspective.

There is a video that appears very interesting and appropriate to the illustration of the period:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhd-uwFonog

Rosalind is one of Shakespeare's most beloved heroines. She is far more intelligent than anyone else in “As You Like It”, and she has a spunky nature that enchants those who meet her. Harold Bloom states that Rosalind is "first in poise of all Shakespearian characters," and that she "is also his most triumphant, both in her own fate and in what she brings about for others"3. Rosalind dresses and acts like a man who then proceeds to act like a woman. This dual layer of disguise allows her to experience Orlando's love without any of the risk of a male/female courtship. She guides Orlando in the ways in which she would like to be wooed so that he will make no missteps when she comes to him as herself. Like Rosalind, Elizabeth adopted a male image as a means of protection. In order to intimidate visitors to her Privy Chamber, Elizabeth would stage "herself before the imposing image of her father that dominated Holbein's great wall painting of the Tudor dynasty"4. This "disguise" helped to protect her against those who would claim she was an ineffective leader because she was a woman. She also negated her perceived inferiority by "employing rhetorical strategies of identification with her father"5. Elizabeth stated that though she was a woman, she had courage as great as her father ever had. By defeminizing herself Elizabeth adopted her father's presence and "strove to make the greatness of her personage appear proportional to the greatness of her state"6. Another female character who protects herself by adopting a male persona is Viola. Shakespeare used disguises in many of his plays, but the one that best pairs with “As You Like It is Twelfth Night”.

Here you have the comment !!! What do you think?