Colonial and Post-Colonial Attitudes to Renaissance

Discovery of the new world was the marvelous idea of the Renaissance/early modern period as the period was marked by the age of discovery. The new post-modernist scholars are interpreting the attitudes of Europe to enlighten “darkest Africa” or American attitudes towards South America in the name of enlightenment or education, are nothing more than the quest of power, resources and active participation in every field i.e. their colonial attitudes.

Though, Renaissance/ early modern period shows interest in landscape but both are not interested in the same geographical locations. Renaissance approaches are more near with Mediterranean centered cultures of Greece and Rome. The Renaissance approaches are oriented towards the voyages of discovery, and they have tended to emphasize their positive impact on the colonizing countries.

Early modern approaches are more oriented towards the Atlantic and the Pacific; they are more interested in analyzing the ‘Age of Discovery’ from the viewpoint of colonized than from that of the colonizers. In early modern bents of writing critiques of colonialism are paying attentions towards the domination created by westerners to non-western societies.

Hence there is a regular contradictions between these two groups of scholars as early modern involves in analyzing from “post-colonial” mode of interpretations whereas Renaissance scholars are still lingering on “colonizing” tropes and attitudes on the name of glory of the Renaissance.