How Culture influences Literature

Culture is a term that can be described in several unique ways. Authors, such as Boccaccio, described culture through his writings and way of literature. Literature is a part of culture that has developed over centuries of authors and writings. Many aspects can affect literature and change the development of it. Some of these influencing factors are the development of technology, religion, and philosophy. All three of these are major advances in literature and influenced lives then, and continue to influence our lives even today. Literature is always changing, and will never stop. Literature is the key source for information and communication in the world; without it civilization would fall apart and cease to exist. Some say culture and literature go hand-in-hand, however, literature can be the prime example of what defines culture. Technology has changed exponentially over the past centuries, and because of that change literature has followed in due course.

One major aspect that affected Renaissance literature was the development of technology. Technology had quite a few influences upon it by different cultures, two of those cultures were European and Asian. Thus, technology had a huge impact on Renaissance literature by giving advancements and setting forth new ideas. Technology really set off in Italy during the Renaissance, and created productivity that was never seen before. The two main factors involving technology that changed the ways of literature were the printing press and the new paper content. The Printing press was a machine that automatically printed out writings that had already been written. This was a tremendous breakthrough as it replaced copyists. A copyist is a person who spent all their time rewriting a book word for word. Copyists were not only time consuming and expensive, they were also known to make errors. Another problem with the copyist system is people couldn’t always read the copier’s handwriting.

The Printing Press eliminated these problems by not relying on human intellectuality that led to errors, and instead allowing technology to do the work. “The new invention gained wide popularity because printed books were not only cheaper than manuscripts, but also less prone to copyists’ errors” (Invention, Technology, and Medicine: The Renaissance). Another invention during the Renaissance that gained popularity was the new plant fiber paper. This new method of paper was much more inexpensive than the common rag-cotton paper mixture. This technique would not be perfected until the late 1800’s but it still slowly started to replace the rag-cotton fiber papers.

The new paper also allows the ability to have illustrations. These new illustrations could help make books easier to read, more entertaining, and easier guides to follow for medical uses. Among having illustrations and costing less, this new paper is much easier and quicker to make than the old rag-cotton paper. The new plant-fiber paper became popular and began to spread throughout Europe. The Renaissance was not only affected by the advancement of technology, but also by the new writing styles and ideas expressed through religion.

Long ago, even before the Renaissance, all writing and stories were strictly religious. This was mainly due to the fact that only religious persons were literate. Those who did write were only writing for their religion, such as translations or stories passed down. These religious persons were not aware of the idea of writing about things that interested them, but instead writing for their church. Those who were not of religious persons, but did happen to be literate, would write similar to the religious stories and would reference the Bible. The Bible is the number one most translated and most popular book of all time. The Bible has given so much inspiration to Renaissance writers and artists. Religious books played an important part of literature and the Bible basically started literature.

The Bible has numerous stories that reflect allusions to it and can also be reasonable to assume many writers chose to reference the Bible because it was the most common book. “It may even be reasonable to assume it would be a theocracy in which all art was of religious nature and all writers were limited to a narrow scope of subjects” (Influence Renaissance Modern American Society, Culture, Art). Many other books that were starting to develop were known as manuals. The manuals were doctrines/books that would teach you and guide you to live a pure and righteous life. “Countless texts instructed readers about how to live a pious life and discussed Christian heroes” (Influence Renaissance Modern American Society, Culture, Art). The Renaissance broke this tradition however, by giving rebirth to literature, and allowing the writers to express themselves with new styles of writing.

The Renaissance moved away from the religious writings and focused more on the aspect of reality, and the lives of the people. However, one of the most well-known religious writing of the Renaissance was the ninety-five Theses by Martin Luther. Martin Luther disagreed with the church and wanted to tell them his opinions. He did this by writing a long list “the 95 Theses” and nailing it to the doors of the church. This action brought out many other writers to go against the church and rebel by writing how they felt about the crude behavior of the church. This led to other ideas such as philosophy being involved in literature.

A final aspect on the ways Renaissance affected literature was through philosophy. Philosophy hasn’t changed in itself for thousands of years, but it has affected many other ideas and culture. One of the main aspects of Philosophy during the Renaissance was the idea of Realism. Realism came to be because the enormous popularity of the common folk were interested in Realism. People during the Renaissance were so inspired and fascinated by Realism that it spread quickly and stayed; Realism is still very popular today. Realism is basically writing about real scenarios that are current and happening right now. Giovanni Boccaccio is considered the founder of Realism. He was the first person recognized for realistic characters and settings, which he used in one of his works named “The Decameron”. Leonardo Da Vinci took the idea of Realism and put it into his art, and started capturing the true insight of the human body.

Another important idea came about during the Renaissance, Humanism, which much like Realism is branching out of the Pre-Renaissance norms. Humanism is the writing and art composed completely on the detail and aspect of humans. In literature, Humanism is used to give real detail to the characters and make it so that the reader can relate to the main characters of the story. A philosopher named Francis Bacon, is credited with the founding of Humanism. Before Bacon, everyone thought that Religion and Philosophy go hand-in-hand and could not be separated. However, Bacon proved them wrong by setting the guidelines and using his power of deductive reasoning and making a clear division between Religion and Philosophy.

Before the Renaissance, one would follow the religious teachings and follow the norms of writing. However, during the Renaissance this all changed when, “Writers broke Renaissance norms of creating lofty characters who dealt with larger than life issues and instead sought to create characters who were witty, down to earth, and appealing to the average person” (Influence Renaissance Modern American Society, culture, Art). Thus changing the ways writers, philosophers, and artists all use to act and create their works.

Literature has changed drastically over the past few centuries due to the large number of writers and influencers. One may think that the three aspects that changed literature majorly were technology, religion, and philosophy during the Renaissance. Literature continues to make advances every day, some for the better, and some for the worse. Although literature changes every minute the impact it makes doesn’t change, literature has always played a big role in society and culture.

The main reason why literature is so important is because of the impact literature has on our lives and on our culture. Without the development of literature, society and modern day culture would be completely different. For an example, modern day language may not be as developed as it is today. However, the biggest impact on literature was during the Renaissance. The Renaissance became popular because of the deviance from Pre-Renaissance norms, and the collaborations of technology, literature, and art. The Renaissance was an enormous change in the writing world, and many will always remember the greatest time in history of literature.