When you think about how much we have progressed in the centuries since Medieval and Renaissance times, you realize that women have made leaps and bounds in some ways, and yet have stayed the same in others. Women have made great advances in the education of their gender and now, barring discrimination hold the same offices and get the same pay as men of equal educational backgrounds. Yet women have not really gained higher offices or gained power per say. Granted women holed positions of great power in governments and businesses today, but really how is that different from the queens and ladies of the past. The works of literature we have read so far all show the power that women of those times could exhibit.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a story written by a monk supposedly in the late 1400's, the lady of the story uses a type of power that many women have over just about all men. She tries to seduce the main character, Sir Gawain, one of King Arthur's greatest knights. Here is an excerpt form the book, showing some of her exploits trying to seduce Gawain.
""Good morning, Gawain," said that beautiful woman,.
"Your sleep is so innocent that anyone can catch you -.
And now you"re caught! If no one arranges a true, I"ll tie you to you bed - I will!".
Laughing, she teased him with a flurry of words." .
(pg. 87; line 1208-1212).
Although she doesn't succeed in getting Gawain into bed, she does succeed in making him falter in the ways of the knightly code. The power of seduction is one that all women, at one time or another, have exhibited on men.
Lady Macbeth, the wife of the title character in Shakespeare's Macbeth, also uses seduction to get her husband to kill his king. Although Macbeth loves his king and serves him well. It is the seduction by Lady Macbeth that pushes Macbeth over the edge and makes him decide to go forth with the killing. This excerpt shows some of Lady Macbeth's tactics.
The term renaissance means "rebirth". The European Renaissance was a period in history of renewed interest in the arts. The Renaissance began in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this Renaissance Europe had an increase in politics, urban commercial economy, education, art, and music. ... New forms of painting, art, and sculpture arose during the Renaissance. ...
This late medieval cultural movement in European civilization brought renewed interest in classical learning and values. The Renaissance began in Italy during the late 13th century and widely spread throughout Europe, finally ending in the 17th century. ... These tales formed the basis of many European literary works, such as Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet. ... Dramatic political changes occurred in Europe during the Renaissance. ... The Renaissance was a time that created a whole new culture. ...
History "The Renaissance" The renaissance was a period of time during the 1300's when Italy changed. The Renaissance spread throughout Western Europe, reaching its height in the 1500's. ... Renaissance artist gained work by attracting the support of a rich patron-a noble, a king, of even a pope. ... Renaissance art explored the physical world and the individual's role in it. ... As the plague started to die out, the rest of Europe started to prosper again, and the renaissance began spread into northern Europe. ...
At the beginning of the Renaissance, Italy was divided into some 250 self governing city-states, ranging from small towns of 2,000 individuals to some of the largest cities in Europe during that time, such as Florence, Milan, and Venice which all had about 100,000 citizens each. ... Despite the possible downfalls that the republic had on Venice, they had much power throughout Europe. ... Prior to Renaissance thinking Medieval Europe considered life to be sinful - that people should only be concerned about their duty to God and the afterlife. ... He described a group of men and women fleeing fr...
Among those were women, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, and all non-Europeans. Women did not want to be looked at as a background figure anymore, they were tired of the conservative lifestyle. The non-Europeans were encouraged to show America that not all immigrants were in poverty, if they had wealth of any kind they should show it. ... This Renaissance helped set many people into pushing for the civil rights movement. ... The poets of the renaissance gathered their work through their sense of pride rooted in their racial identities ("Harlem Renaissance Movement".4). ...
The Renaissance overlapped a period in European history called the Middle Ages. ... During the Renaissance many European scholars and artists studied the art and way of learning of Ancient Greece and Rome. ... The fact that the cities Italy, so strategically located between the Levant and Western Europe, were the oldest and wealthiest of the towns and helps to account for the leadership of Italy in the Renaissance. ... Even though the church had periods of weakness, it went hand and hand with extraordinary popular fervor in every part of Europe. ... The Renaissance was clearly a great peri...
The Renaissance/Early Modern Period is distinguished from other periods in European history almost entirely in intellectual or cultural terms. ... European historians overwhelmingly tend to place Europe's major break with its medieval and classical past with the discovery of America and the Reformation. ... Of all the practices of Renaissance Europe, nothing is used to distinguish the Renaissance from the Middle Ages more than humanism as both a program and a philosophy. ... In pursuing this program the argument goes that the humanists literally created the European Renaissance and ...
The Renaissance The Renaissance was a new age when people became less concerned with the mysteries of heaven and more interested in the things around them. ... One thing we can learn from the Renaissance age is learn how the Renaissance began and flourished in the Italian city-states. ... The scholars in the western part of Europe developed an interest in writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. ... The second thing we can learn from the Renaissance is how France was influenced by the Italian Renaissance. ... The third and last thing I learned from the Renaissance age was how the Englis...
DBQ: Renaissance Education Education during the Renaissance period had varying values, purposes, and topics depending on the culture it thrived on. ... Although women in Renaissance maintained the same roles in society as caretaker and hostess, they also witnessed a change in the value of education. Women were always expected to take care of the children and educate them in their early years. In the Renaissance, many educators believed that women should be educated in the fields that they master in. They believed that women should know reading and writing, to expand their knowledge of good m...