Neo-Classical Humanism:

This movement refers to a renewed interest in Classical Greek and Roman literature, art and philosophy. It begins with the Italian Renaissance as early as 1300, with Dante and Petrarch, and it spreads throughout Europe, and in Britain via Chaucer, redefining the attitudes of Renaissance thinkers and artists toward mankind and our place in the universe.

In general, it is iterature, art and philosophy focusing on humankind as the center of concerns: life in this real world vs. the supernatural or life in a (Christian) afterlife. (contrast The Quest for the Grail, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight vs. The Canterbury Tales).

This is a general shift in attitude toward life and existence rather than a specific philosophy or strict set of ideas.
 

  -- Classical/Pagan (Greek/Roman) literature as an expression of wider love for man and nature:

          -- “Paganism”: Greek belief that soul and body are one: actions of the body naturally and properly expressed the humanity of the soul

-- Original goodness of man (vs. original sin)

-- If man is good and the body a natural expression of the soul, then the human body was good and beautiful

-- Relative tolerance for intellectual diversity, free thinking -- in stark contrast to the Inquisition

  -- NOT opposed to Christianity but correcting errors and excesses of Medieval church: attempt to show that Greek and Christian VIRTUE are the one and the same (in this way similar to the Reformation as both attempted to address excesses and errors of the Church)

 -- Movement truncated -- or deferred -- by Reformation and Puritanism

 -- As opposed to and in relation to Scholasticism: knowledge and art/music increasingly taken from monastic control; the logical (deductive logic) reconciliation of Christian theology to rational questions, originating in religious schools founded in 9^th/10^th centuries; asceticism (nature as a beautiful snare, the flesh as evil, monastic life).

 -- Strong effect on later Renaissance's Neo-Classical love, respect and copying Greek and Roman aesthetic/literary forms and topics.  Examples:

Michelangelo: Neo-Classical Humanism   Bernini: High Renaissance Neo-Classical Humanism

Petrarch: (1304-1374), Italy: translation of Greek/Roman literature into Latin (which, thru the printing press (c.1450), spreads them far and wide); reintroduces the sonnet form, Classical/Pagan themes such as romantic love, tragedy, heroism

Shakespeare (1564-1616): love of life, Greek tragedy, secular poetic form, love of free-spirited intellect, love of the individual, love of Romantic love.