The Emergence of Humanism in the Renaissance Era

Conceptual thinking during the Renaissance Era happened to be a great changing point in the brief, yet ever so important history of common man. Vast ideas would be construed in this time frame as early as the 12th and 13th centuries, constituting radical beliefs that challenged the status quo of human nature. Ideas taken for granted during today’s 21st century lifestyle of man happened to be constantly shaped by the advanced minds among educated connoisseurs of knowledge during the Renaissance. Generic thoughts of human nature that the world holds for granted today, such as the image of a successful universal man, the importance of knowledge through education, the gift of dignity and so on, are first brought into question during the Renaissance. Historians even note that this is the first time that man is introduced upon the subject of humanism. This social constituent focuses on the definition of a ‘universal man’, and implements itself into the nature of human beings, focused in Europe, towards the end of a medieval period of justification. With that being said, qualities of humanism are brought up in classical literature, law, education, poetry, and anywhere else that men of this era expressed themselves as challenging the lifestyles they had been forced to live upon since birth. Humanism brought out a change in the way people act, not only in feudal Europe, but eventually the rest of the world to shape the way humans live life in the modern era.

In order to understand and respect how the philosophy of humanism has shaped the lives of citizens in the world today, man (both men and women in the modern era), must become accustomed to the concept of obtaining the status of universal man. All humanists of the Renaissance claimed to share the qualities of a universal man, and through this justification, humanism developed a horizontal approach on how to live a better life. Achieving universal manhood meant a lot of different things. For instance, this...