The Renaissance

Burke begins with a critique of the myth of the individual, the "free man" of the Renaissance, as articulated by the nineteenth century. However, this Renaissance man was not only still embedded in guild and religion, but he was also simultaneously close to and distant from antiquity – close because he felt a connection to the ancients, and distant because in his struggle against the "barbarism of the Middle Ages," he experienced the distance between himself and antiquity, which did not exist for the Middle Ages itself, as it perceived itself as a direct continuation of the ancient world. By the end of the Renaissance, the ancients were revered because they were seen as role models for living – one followed them because they seemed to be reliable guides into an uncertain future. Between the revival of the "Other" and the trust in a "way of life" lie the three centuries of the Renaissance, without which Europe is unimaginable.