Humanism

The term “renaissance” and humanism which are often applied to the same movement have properly narrower significance. The term “renaissance” though used by many writers to denote the whose transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern World, is more correctly applied to the Revival of Art resulting from the discovery and imitation of classic models in the 14th and 15th c.

Humanism applied to the Revival of Classical literature, and was so called b its leaders, following the example Pertrarch, because they held that the study of the classic “Litrae Humaniore” that is more human writings rather than the old theology was the best means of promoting the largest human interest. It was in the 16th century the word “Humanist” was going to signify one taught and worked in the “studia Humanitiates” that is grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy.; and distinguished form fields less concerned with the moral and imaginative aspects and activities of man, such as mathematics, natural philosophy and theology. Scholarly, humanists devoted themselves to the rediscovery and intense study of first roman and then Greek literature and culture, in particular the works of Cicero, Aristotle and Plato.

Humanists recovered edited, and expounded many ancient texts in Latin and Greeks and so contributed greatly to the store of materials and idea of the European Renaissance. Out of this, intellectual ferment there emerged a view of man and a philosophy quite different from medieval scholasticism in 19th c. this strand of Renaissance through was labeled humanism. Reason, balance and a proper dignity for man were the central ideals of humanists thought. Many humanists also stressed the need for a rounded development of men’s diverse powers, physical and mental, artistic and moral as opposed to merely technical or specialized training. Matthew Arnold opponent of humanism in the Victorian Period strongly defended the predominance of human studies in general education.