While the Renaissance is often characterized as a return to Classical (i.e. Ancient) intellectual and artistic (including literary) values, themes, and genres, its beginnings in Europe are traced to the 14th Century, an era that might be described as Medieval in other parts of the West (e.g. Britain). For example, while Petrarch and Boccaccio were writing works that would become known as works of the Italian Renaissance, Chaucer (some of whose Canterbury Tales we will read next week) cites their influence in much of what he writes, which we categorize as Medieval, a bit later in the 14th Century.
So, what is it about the earliest works of European Renaissance Literature that distinguishes them from those works that we describe as Medieval?