A Study Of The Renaissance Education Ideas In Shakespeare's Comedies

For more than 400 years,Shakespeare's comedies have always been favored by the audience.In literary criticism,however,Shakespeare's comedies receive much less attention compared with his historical plays and tragedies.It is generally acknowledged that Shakespeare's comedies are mainly about love stories with lovers finally getting married.Their major function is to entertain the audience,being superficial and containing no profound educational connotations.Even Edward Dowden who disagrees with Johnson's accusation of the lack of moral education in Shakespeare's plays comments that Shakespeare's comedies tend to be shallow while his historical plays probe deep into reality and his tragedies are the struggles between good and evil,revealing the roots of things.Affirming the secular life,Renaissance humanistic education opposes asceticism and encourages the life outlook of seeking such secular achievements as reputation and wealth,calling for the cultivation of erudite,intelligent and healthy men who are willing to participate in real life.With the Renaissance education ideas as the theoretical basis,this thesis probes into the profound educational connotations in Shakespeare's comedies in terms of the encouragement in the pursuit of earthly happiness,the cultivation of a complete citizen and the ultimate goal of the maintenance of social stability.The main body of this thesis consists of three chapters.The first chapter mainly probes into the educational idea about the pursuit of worldly happiness.In this chapter,“happiness” is mainly divided into two aspects,namely,the secular spiritual happiness as represented by love and the material happiness as demonstrated by wealth and reputation.In Shakespeare's comedies,the glorification of the secular love between lovers is definitely an affirmation of the worldly happiness that has nothing to do with religious beliefs,embodying therebellion against asceticism.Meantime,while encouraging people to pursue love,based on reality,Shakespeare also pays much attention to material gains,conforming to the life outlook of achieving success.The second chapter is concentrated on the Renaissance educational goal of the cultivation of a complete citizen.On the one hand,with the development of the early capitalist economy,humanistic educators began to be aware of the importance of middle-class education,becoming devoted to the cultivation of new gentlemen with a comprehensive development in morality,intelligence,aesthetics,and physical fitness,encouraging citizens to get into the gentry circle through their own endeavors.The embodiment of this educational aim in Shakespeare's comedies is manifested in the demands for a gentleman to be an erudite and self-restrained man with the capacity to defend his country and with certain economic strength.On the other hand,different from the gentleman education which highlights a man's social responsibilities,in respect of female education,humanistic educators proposed the gentlewoman education aimed at the upper-class women from the perspective of a woman's familial responsibilities as a daughter,a wife and a mother.Under the influence of this educational idea,the importance of modesty,virginity and good manners for a lady is always emphasized in nearly all Shakespeare's comedies.As for the third chapter,from the perspective of the ultimate educational goal of the maintenance of social stability,this part delves into the significance of family education and the education of an ideal monarch for social development.On the family level,the country is the union of all families.Thus,education inside a family is often far more influential than any other forms of education.During the Renaissance,the quality of family education was closely related to the absolute authority of the paternity right of the father or the husband in a family as well as the character of the master of the house.In Shakespeare's comedies,the loss of the absolute authority of the father would usually give rise to a series of crises in a family while the low character of the master would result in the disintegration of a family.With regard to the monarch education,as the supreme ruler of a state,during the Renaissance,an ideal monarch was usually required to possess extraordinary abilities as well as an excellent character.In his comedies,Shakespeare usually compares irresponsible rulers to idealmonarchs in terms of the legitimacy of the succession to the throne,the possession of a noble and tolerant character and the mastery in a wide range of learning.Simply put,Shakespeare's comedies seem to be full of gags,with no other purpose but to entertain the audience.In effect,it contains Shakespeare's humanistic educational ideas.The educational function of literature is neither the sheer moralization nor the overly exaggerated social effect.In Shakespeare's comedies,there is no paternalistic moralization.Weaving humanistic educational ideas into the intriguing plots in his comedies is Shakespeare's wise move in carving out a winding path leading to the education hidden in entertainment.