英国文学史课程论文分解

英国文学史课程论文

Lake Poets in the history of English

literature

英国文学史上的湖畔诗人

院（系）名称外国语学院

专业名称英语

学生姓名程路佳

学生学号1201200127

课程教师刘鹏飞

2015年12 月23日

Lake Poets in the history of English literature

Auther:Cheng Lujia

Tutor:Liu Pengfei

Abstract

The Lake Poets or Lake School was a group of English poets: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and William Wordsworth. They lived in the “lake district” in northwestern England. This group was part of the romantic movement of the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. They were inspired by the French revolution and the English Industrial Revolution. They made bold experiments on poetry writing, no matter no poetry language seeking or subjects. Wordsworth was regarded as “worshipper of nature”. Coleridge was not only a poet but also a critic. While Southey pay more his attention to his democratic community in America known as “Pant isocracy”.

Key words: The Romantic Period, Nature, Super nature, Imagination, Innovation, Simple language, Inner world, Spirit, Common life, Democratic, Pant isocracy

英国文学史上的湖畔诗人

摘要

湖畔诗人就是一组英国诗人，Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and William words worth.他们居住在英格兰东北的“湖区”是18世纪至19世纪时期浪漫主义运动的一部分。受到法国大革命和英国工业革命的影响，他们在诗歌创作方面做了大胆的改革，无论是在诗语言还是主题的选择上都有独到的见解。William words worth被人誉为自然的膜拜者。Samuel Taylor Coleridge不但是著名的诗人，也是一流的文学批评家。然而,Robert Southey却更为将精力注意到人人平等的大同社会上来。

关键词：浪漫主义时期，自然，超自然，想象，改革，简化语言，内在世界，精神实质，平民生活，民主，大同社会

Lake Poets in the history of English

literature

The English romanticism as a historical phrase of literature is generally said to have began in 1798 and ended in1832.however, at this great period, there are three great poets who cannot be ignored, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and William Words worth.

These three poets are known as the “Lake Poets”, because they once settled at Dove Cottage in Cashmere, Westmoreland, and the loveliest spot in the English Lake District.

The Lake Poets play a transitional role between old and new styles in the poetry development in literature history especially in the English history. In their works we see the influence from both the past and the modern.

⑴

During the romantic period, there have been great changes in both European society and economy, which were actually provoked by two important revolutions, the French revolution and the English industrial revolution. And as a result, some of the great imaginative writings in the romantic period sprang from the confrontation of radicals and conservatives at the close of the 18th century. While “the lake poets “choose nature, imagination as their poetic subjects, other great poets, such as George garden Byron, showed a lasting contempt for what he considered the commonplace and vulgarity of the “lake poets”. Because they think the “lake poets”, to some extent, are too conservation in their period.

The other key element for the exiting of the “lake poets” is the cruel economic exploitation. As a consequence of the English industrial revolution, the European society emerged a new labor class. Though the social wealth had been increased by several times, it was only the rich who owned this wealth. The majority of the people were still poor, or even poorer. The romantics with the “lake poets” as a leader saw both the corruption of the feudal societies and the exploitation in modern capitalist society. Under such condition, the “lake poets”emphasized the special qualities of

each individual’s mind. Wordsworth the solitary reaper, Coleridge frost at night, Southey winter are all such poems.

So we can see they pay more attention to portray the individual’s experience. It’s a typical character of the “Lake Poets” to place the individual at the center of art in order to express his or her unique feelings and particular attitudes.

⑵

With the coming of the French Revolution in 1978, and the primarily agricultural society replaced by a modern industrialized one, these three poets inspired an entire new poetic revolution.

At first, they started a rebellion against the neoclassic literature. They explored new theories and innovated new techniques in poetry writing. As we all know, the neoclassicists had some fixed rules and laws for almost every genre of literature. Poetry should be lyrical, didactic satiric or dramatic and be strictly duded by principles. The neoclassicists also emphasized upon reason and intellect. However, the romantics started a poetic revolution .Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robot Southey, and William Wordsworth, with the publication of Lyrical Ballads, were the major representatives of this movement. We can get such ideas from the following examples: the ancient mariner written by Coleridge; the prelude-⑴written by Wordsworth. In these famous poems, we can see they have made bold experiments in poetic language, versification and design.

Second, they believe that poetry could purify both individual and the society. At one hand, they chose to live by the lakeside so as to escape from the rational and ugly society. At other hand, they also want to achieve their wishful society in the imagination.

1.imagination and inspiration, defined by Coleridge, is regarded as something crucial for true poetry.

Kublai Khan, as we all know, was composed in a dream after Coleridge took opium.

“So twice five miles of fertile ground, with walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, where blossomed many an

incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills, enfolding sunny spots of greenery.”-⑵When we read these great lines, we are deeply impressed by the image of the river, the magnificent palace and other marvelous. We can hardly believe they were worked out in his unconsciousness. Similar examples can also be found from works of robot Southey, which contained a lot of vaguely hind tales.

2. The nature world is the first thing coming into “poets “imagination.

“I wandered lonely as a cloud,

The floats on high over vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Besides the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”-⑶

Wordsworth wrote this beautiful poem of nature after he came across a long belt of gold daffodils along the waterside. In this poem, nature is not only his source of imagination but also his poetic subject. But when we read it second time, maybe we can realize that the writer wants to recollect the beauty of nature in his mind while he is in the solitude.

⑶

Since the Lake Poets refers to three great English poets, let’s appreciate them respectively.

1.William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth is a leading figure of the English romantic poetry. The most important contribution he has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry but also changed the course of English poetry by using coordinator speech of the language and by advocating a return to nature.

William Wordsworth was born in an attorney family. As young boy, he developed a keen love of nature, which influenced all his rest life. After the French Revolution, his heart was stirred and his imagination fired. However William

Wordsworth was conservative in politics, which perky by Shelley and George Gordon Byron were strongly against.

William Wordsworth had a long poetic career. Though his life, he finished many poem volumes. But maybe the most famous one is lyrical ballads. That is because this volumes different from his early poetry, with an uncompromising simple language and fusion of nature description. The prelude is also among his best works and is regarded as one of William W ordsworth’s greatest works by many critics. Because he expressed his philosophy ideas in it. To him, life is a cyclical journey, in which the beginning finally turns out to be its end.

According to the subjects, William W ordsworth’s short poems can be classified into two groups: poems about nature and poems about human life.

William Wordsworth emphasized the picturesque scenes and gave the reader the very life of nature. He is regarded as the worshipper of nature. But we can also find a deeper moral awareness in his poems. To him, nature acts as a bridge between human and certain circumstance.

“We stood together; and that I, so long

A worshipper of nature hither came

Unwearied in that service: rather say

With warmer love-oh! With far deeper zeal

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

That after many wanderings, many years

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake”

B.the joys and sorrows of the common people are also his usual subject. His sympathy always goes to the suffering poor. The “Lucy poems”describes a young country girl living a simple life in a remote village. In theist poem, William words worth used simple language to give the reader the scenes and events of everyday life. In his opinion, the speech of ordinary people was the raw material of poetry writing. By using limited language, William words worth worked out an eternal theme, love

and loiss, time and death.” the solitary reaper””to a highland girl”are all his masterpieces about human life.

2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a son of a clergyman. When he was young, he was a lonely sad boy, full of dreams in his mind. However after having met Robot southy, he was inspired by the radical thinkers with their idealism. He even joined the Robot Southey in plotting a democratic community in America, named ‘pantisocracy’.but generally speaking, he was a conservative poet. He opposed the rationalistic trends of 18th century thought. In his opinion,” a poet should realize the vague intimation derived from his unconsciousness without sacrificing the vitality of the inspiration.”-⑷

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is also a good critic in his period. His lectures on Shakespeare proved to be very successful. As a poet, he maintained that ‘the true end of poetry is to give pleasure through the medium of beauty’. This conception is same with Wordsworth’s.however the two great poets also have something different with each other. For example, Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that there was essential difference between the language of poetry and the language spoken by common people, while William Wordsworth thought the speech of ordinary people were the raw material of poetry writing.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s achievement as poet can be divided into two groups: the demonic and the conversational.

A.the demonic group includes his three masterpieces, the rime of the ancient mariner, Charitable and Kuala Khan. Mysticism and demonism with strong imagination are the distinctive features of this group.”

The rime of the ancient mariner told a story of a sailor, who met a strange bird during his adventure trip. The mariner shot it and then disaster fell onto the ship. Finally only when the mariner blessed for the water snake the ship then can get back home. In this story, we can find out Coleridge a more spiritual and religious interpretation of life. While his predecessors emphasized ‘reason’, Coleridge’s

demonic works is a great improvement of poetry writing.

B. Among the conversational group, frost at midnight is the most important. This poem is a record of his personal thought about his infant son Harley in a midnight. Generally speaking, the conversational groups deal with the themes, such as, the desire to go home and wish someone he loves success or experience joy. But in order to get that he must fail or suffer.

3. Robert Southey

As a young student, Robert Southey was expelled from school for criticizing the practice of flogging in the school magaziner.this incident helped to fire his youthful revolutionary ideals, which found expression a few years later in his first long poem join of arc (1796). His attention was taken up by a new friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his ideas about ‘pant isocracy’, a scheme to set up a democratic community in America, came out.southey and Coleridge married two sisters, Edith and Sara Flicker. Though there were some ill-feelings over the abandonment of pant isocracy, the two men remained friends.

Like Wordsworth and Coleridge, he became disillusioned by the progress of the French R evolution’s would like to suggest that this volume of poems 1799 is some ways an answer to Lyrical Ballads and to describe the contents of that volume. And he was cited as a political turncoat by the younger generation of romantic writers, notably in Byron’s Don Juan.

About his revolutionary ideals we can see clearly from his poem winter

“Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire,

Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night,

Pausing at times to rouse the moldering fire,

Or taste the old October brown and bright ”-⑸

But also Southey writes a lot of poems concerning the slave trade. Look at the following lines

“Hold your mad hands! For ever on your plain

Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood?

For ever must your niger’stainted flood,

Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain?

Hold your mad hands! And learn at length to know,

And turn your vengeance on the common foe…”-⑹

In his famous works we can see Southey did a lot of metrical experiment in his poetry writing.southy’s modes of expression and poetical subjects are equally wide-ranging. He employs sensibility, horror, the picturesque or political debate; he writes about slavery, injustice, and historical events.

After all, Southey exploited story and event in many of his smaller poems, but often produced work of a high standard and full of imagines.

The “Lake Po ets” marks the beginning of the romantic period. They improved the poetry writing with an entire new conception. While their predecessors wrote type characters by fixed laws and rules, they turned their attention to the inner world of the individual or the super nature in their imagination.

In a word, the “lake poets” were esteemed by some of their contemporaries and is generally recognized today as lyrical poets of the first rank.

Note

[1] The prelude began in the 1790s, completed in the 1800s, in Lyrical Ballad 1800 edition.

[2]“Kublai Khan”written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

[3] I wandered lonely as a cloud written by William Wordsworth.

[4] Selected reading in the English literature P187, foreign language teaching and research press.

[5] Winter, a poem written by Robert Southey.

[6] Hold your hands!，poem written by Robert Southey.

Bibliography

[1] selected reading in English and American literature“1999.12 edition II.

[2] M.H. Abrams,” the Norton anthology of English literature”2001.