A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance With special reference to the influence of Italy in the formation and development of modern classicism

"A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance" by Joel Elias Spingarn is a study that looks at how literary criticism grew during the Renaissance period. Written in the late 1800s, the book focuses on how Italian ideas about criticism affected the rise of modern classicism, looking closely at critics from Dante to Tasso, Du Bellay to Boileau, and Ascham to Milton. The main idea is to explain how the Renaissance changed the way people valued imaginative writing, highlighting how important beauty and an awareness of art were to the way literary criticism changed and got better. The essay starts by saying its goal is to follow the path of literary criticism during the Renaissance, breaking it down into Italian, French, and English groups. It starts by exploring the suspicion of literature during the Middle Ages and how the Renaissance had to prove the value of imaginative works. Spingarn writes about the philosophical discussions about why poetry mattered, setting the stage for modern critical thinking by comparing it to old medieval views. He also points out how going back to ancient ideas and the part Italian humanism played were key to the classic spirit developing in today's literature.