Research On The Effect Of Arabic Culture In Western European Renaissance Literature

The Renaissance is a great historical turn in the ideological and cultural development of Western Europe.In the past,the study of the Renaissance in Western academic research tended to construct the self-evolutional development course of the Western cultural spirit,rarely exceeding the scope of Europe.With the impetus of the academic field in the globalization,researchers have attempted to restructure a decentralized Renaissance.The Renaissance is the break in the traditional cognition chain of the awareness of self-evolution products inside the European Culture.As a result,the contributions of diverse cultures were highlighted,and the Renaissance presented a dynamic evolution of the complex blend between humanism and heterogeneous multiculturalism in the transitional period of Western Europe as a whole.Among them,Arabic Culture,an eye-catching cultural synthesis in the Middle Ages,played an indispensable role in promoting and advancing the new ideological and cultural changes in the Renaissance.However,scholars have rarely paid attention to researching the effect of Arabic Culture on the Renaissance Literature when focusing on historical reorganization of Arabic Culture in technology,economy and culture.Therefore,this paper aims at integrating the Renaissance Literature into the culture,spirit and logic evolution process of the human race in the perspective of culture and history,examining the nourishment and gestation of the Arabic culture and spirit resources on the humanistic connotation and artistic innovation of the Renaissance Literature,reassessing the value and significance of the influence of Arabic Culture on the Renaissance Literature.Arabic Culture in this paper refers to the culture formed and developed continuously from the 8^th century to the 13^th century.It not only integrated the essence of multinational culture,but also exerted a tremendous impact on the Western European Culture along with the extensive and close contact with Western Europe such as expansion of the Arab Empire.It inspired the emphasis of Western Europe on scientific spirit,rational knowledge,natural humanity and secular life.In a sense,it supported the occurrence of the Renaissance in Western Europe and new changes in the Renaissance Literature.Arabic Culture,in the time of promoting the emergence of cultural variables in the Renaissance Literature such as the way of thinking and values,and it also advanced the generation and construction of the core of the Renaissance humanism in Western Europe.Moreover,benefitting from the acquisition and reference,integration and penetration,and derivative and innovation from Arabic Culture,the Renaissance Literature showed humanistic connotation and value orientation differing from the Medieval Literature.It presented a qualitative change in ideology and culture and displayed abundant and complex ideological connotations and modern ethos.Therefore,this paper holds that the Renaissance Literature was under direct,indirect or potential effect of numerous factors of Arabic Culture.Arabic Culture factors on the Renaissance Literature deserve our in-depth exploration and research.First of all,this paper takes the empirical data in the first chapter as the foundation to construct the theoretical basis.The chapter focuses on the general trend of culture communication between the East and the West of the Middle and late Middle Ages,and then traces the transmission path of Arabic culture to the Western Europe.The paper argues that the transmission of culture presents the major flow of Eastern learning spreading westward on the whole.Four major approaches of cultural transmission are concluded:the Spanish Al-Andalus and Italian Sicilian cultural passages opened by the conquest of the Arab Empire against Western Europe,the cultural exchanges derived from the Crusades,cultural transmission promoted by the medieval trade and business communication,and culture spreading westward triggered by the Toledo translation movement in Spain.The chapter points out that the Arabic Eastern culture was able to overcome the regional obstacles and awaken the Renaissance in Western Europe and be an important cultural source that influenced the Renaissance Literature.Based on the mastery of the overall characteristics of the resources of Arabic cultural spirit that flew into Western Europe,the paper analyzes the four basic elements,namely,religion,science,philosophy and literature,concerned by Western European humanists in the second chapter.It expounds the intellectual thinking and humanistic spirit contained in these cultural factors and affirms the high-degree accordance of the human nature,and pays attention to the present life,advocating the human rationality and focusing on the scientific spirit with humanism—the core of literary thought in the Renaissance,and its requirements for realistic development.In this way,the Arabic culture helped initiate the cognition of humanism in the Renaissance.Further,it also participated in the construction of the temperament and character of literary ideology of the Renaissance Literature,triggered and bred new humanity variables of the Renaissance Literature.Thirdly,in order to examine the effect of Arabic cultural factors on the practice of Renaissance literature,this paper,proceeding from the way of thinking and values and based on the close reading,takes the view of the interpretation of cultural influence and the comparison of literary text.It explores the dynamic relationship between the Renaissance Literature and Arabic cultural factors in absorption,integration and transformation,focuses on interpretation of significant variables of the three subjects of the Renaissance Literature and literary concepts and clarifies the new changes resulted from the influence of Arabic culture on the Renaissance Literature from the spiritual category to the artistic structure.From chapters 3 to 6,the paper elaborates the effects of Arabic culture on the Renaissance Literature in aspects such as the outlook on life,love,wealth and literature meticulously,taking works as examples.The concerns of Arabic culture on the temporal life and thinking about human rationality take reference in Dante's The Divine Comedy on the concept of life construction,the contemplation of Cervantes's Don Quixote on the ideal of life,and the concept of love in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and the tragic love in Shakespeare's Othello,to see how the core elements such as desire and rationality in Arabic culture and literature influence the Western literature.Also,the desire for wealth is undisguised in the Decameron and Lazarillo de Tormes,the evolution view of wealth in which absorbs factors such as adventure,wisdom and enjoyment from Arabic literature.Moreover,in the literary form,the framework structure used in Renaissance literature and the formation of the structural model of picaresque novels are all benefited from the framework of Arabic narrative literature and artistic structures such as Maq?m?t.In the end,the paper holds that the effect of Arabic Culture on the Renaissance Literature shall be viewed in the perspective of history and culture.It is emphasized in the conclusion that the Renaissance is a product of the complex blend of diverse cultures.Arabic Culture has a significant effect on the Renaissance Literature.The external factor,integrated with the rise of the bourgeoisie and the revival of classical Greek tradition in a marvelous manner,changed the concepts of Renaissance humanists in Western Europe.Therefore,Renaissance Literature is by no means the product by making a cart behind closed doors,and there is no strict barrier between Eastern and Western cultures.