Right, so the story goes that the Renaissance saw the rebirth of European culture after the miserable Dark Ages, and that it ushered in the modern era of secularism, rationality, and individualism.
And those are all in the list of things we like here at Crash Course.
Mr. Green. I think you're forgetting Cool Ranch Doritos?
Yeah, fair enough. Then what's so controversial?
Well, the whole idea of a European Renaissance presupposes that Europe was like an island unto itself that was briefly enlightened when the Greeks were ascendant and then lost its way and then rediscovered its former European glory.
Furthermore, I'm going to argue that the Renaissance didn't even necessarily happen.
But first, let's assume that it did. Essentially, the Renaissance was an efflorescence of arts (primarily visual, but also to a lesser extent literary) and ideas in Europe that coincided with the rediscovery of Roman and Greek culture.
It's easiest to see this in terms of visual art, Renaissance art tends to feature a focus on the human form, somewhat idealized, as Roman and especially Greek art had.
And this "classicizing" is also rather apparent in the architecture of the Renaissance which featured all sorts of Greek columns and triangular pediments and Roman arches and domes.
In fact, looking at a Renaissance building you might even be able to fool yourself into thinking you're looking at an actual Greek building, if you sort of squint and ignore the fact that Greek buildings tend to be, you know, ruins.
