Your essay should be 500-750 words. Be sure to support your response with specific examples taken from Chapter 10 in your textbook, the posted excerpts of literature (choose ONLY one work of literature), and the Module 4 interactive guides. Answers should be detailed and specific with reference to particular lines of literature/poetry/lyrics where applicable. Unsupported answers will receive little or no credit, and vague answers will be graded down. See TOPIC below.
Explore how each example shows one or the other characteristic by using specific examples taken from the work itself, using quotations from the sources below and in-text parenthetical references to support your position.
Document quotations and paraphrases (MLA format), and include a Works Cited page. DO NOT USE OUTSIDE SOURCES OTHER THAN THOSE PROVIDED ON CANVAS.
Citation: Use your own ideas to write this essay. Quote sparingly and always introduce quotations and explain them. Document quotations and paraphrases using MLA format, and include a Works Cited page. Check under “Essays” on the course menu for examples of how to cite course materials
Follow standard essay format (thesis, supporting paragraphs—one for each discipline—and conclusion) to make it easier.
- Paragraph 1 (Introduction with thesis/topic statement and list of examples to be examined)
- Paragraph 2 (example 1-visual art with supporting quotation and citation)
- Paragraph 3 (example 2-literature with supporting quotation and citation)
- Paragraph 4 (example 3-music or religion/philosophy with supporting quotation and citation)
- Paragraph 5 (Conclusion with summary of how each example expressed the topic and a restatement of the thesis/topic as proven)
Use your Culture and Values textbook, the supplemental readings (posted excerpts), and the material in the Interactive Files in Module 4 to support your thesis. AT LEAST TWO OF THESE COURSE MATERIAL SOURCES SHOULD BE USED AND CITED IN YOUR ESSAY.
IMPORTANT: DO NOT USE OUTSIDE SOURCES OTHER THAN YOUR C&V TEXTBOOK AND THOSE sources PROVIDED ON BLACKBOARD in Module 4. Explanation of Topic: Tradition vs. Innovation: The Medieval worldview—a church-centered worldview—vs. the impending Renaissance worldview defined by humanism—a human centered worldview. The information for this essay will come mainly from the Chapter 10 and the posted readings and notes in the folder for Chapter 10 on Canvas.
Culture and Values describes the fourteenth century as an age of transition, transitions in cultural values and beliefs, which would ultimately result in a change from the medieval worldview to the humanistic worldview of the Renaissance throughout Western society (340). The topic asks you to discuss one artist, one writer, and one theologian/philosopher or musician who represent in their works either a traditional medieval worldview or an innovative break with tradition, which helped open the way for the humanism of the Renaissance. You do NOT have to choose three innovators or three traditionalists. As long as your thesis is clear, the supporting examples could be a mix of both traditionalists and innovators. On the other hand, Petrarch is known as the poet who straddles two eras—the Medieval and the Renaissance (see Chapter 10, and the interactive file in the folder for Chapter 10). In addition, the artists Cimabue and Duccio show signs of humanizing their portraits of the Madonna and Child, but Giotto is the artist who truly breaks with the traditional worldview represented in medieval art, which is largely one-dimensional and flat. Giotto, in contrast, paints a Madonna who looks like a real woman. She is in proportion, and her white drapery suggests that she is a woman rather than a one-dimensional stick figure (see pages 325 – 328, for more on “Painting in Florence: A Break with the Past”).