浪漫主义时期的诗歌

浪漫主义时期的诗歌

Lecture 1 William Wordsworth

1）How, according to the speaker of “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,”

has his memory of these "beauteous forms" worked upon him in his absence from them?

答案要点：“Tintern Abbey” purports to record a momen t of revelation, when Wordsworth suddenly realized that nature and acts of memory had given him insight into the life of things. The poet says, when he was alone, or in crowded towns and cities, the “beauteous forms”provided him with “sensations sweet,” these sensations are “Felt in the blood,” that is, felt through the body; they are also “felt along the heart.” Finally, the memory of the woods and cottages offered "tranquil restoration" to his mind. The speaker then goes on to say that these powerful feelings recollected in tranquility even affected him when he was not aware of the memory, influencing his deeds of kindness and love. He then further credits the memory of the scene with offering him access to that mental and spiritual state in which the burden of the world is lightened, in which he becomes a "living soul" with a view into "the life of things." He lies on the ground, his “corporeal frame” seems asleep --- sensations being suspended, then the soul becomes living; he feels another kind of perception comes to him and begins a mysterious communication with the universe, and “sees into the life of things.”

2）What are the three stages in the development of a relationship with nature that the speaker of “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” has undergone?

答案要点：Stage 1: he roamed as freely as an animal, enjoying “coarser pleasures” and “glad animal movements,” and nature to him at that time was “all in all.”Stage 2: as he grew, he bounded “like a roe /…more like a man / Flying from something that he dreads.”At this stage, he was involved with human concerns. He has become more thoughtful and sees nature in the light of those thoughts. Stage 3: he “Learned / To look on nature, … hearing oftentimes / The still, sad music of humanity.” That is, his mind not only receives sensations from the outside world, but it also half-creates, by its own operations of memory, imagination, and perception, the scene before the eyes. In this stage complex thoughts are developed and the poet now believes that the nature, including human beings, is an organic whole and will ultimately become a divine being.

Now the great nature is no longer the opposite of man but includes the human being. But man’s life should be close to the nature and obey the rule of the nature.

3）The poem “I wandered lonely as a cloud” has provided a series of images of dancing daffodils. Please explain these images and their implication.

答案要点：In stanza 1, the poet just mentions that the daffodils “dancing in the breeze.”

In stanza 2, the dance becomes more concrete and vivid: “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.” Here the word is used as a noun. When it comes to the first line of the third stanza, it is the waves that dance, but the poet immediately adds that the daffodils “outdid the sparkling waves.” Anyway the word “dance” connects the waves and the daffodils, and it also connects the first two stanzas with the third.In the 3rd the poet gradually shifts his attention from the outer world to the inner world. In the final stanza, the poet says his heart “dances with the daffodils.” This suggests the harmony of the outer and inner worlds, revealing the power of imagination. The imagination is therefore “A motion and a spirit, that impels / All thinking things, all objects of all thought, / And

rolls through all things.” Here, a lthough the “outer eye” brings “sensations sweet,” but the “inward eye” can “see into the life of things” and th us offers greater spiritual pleasures.

Lecture 2 Lord Byron

1）What’s the relation between Lord Byron and neoclassicism?

答案要点：Byron was unique among Romantic poets in that he respected the neoclassical poets and sought, to some degree, to emulate them. Byron saw the poets of his day as being vastly inferior to the neoclassical poets (like Pope and Dryden) who had allied "sense and wit" with poetry. Although Byron used diverse verse structures, he, like Pope and Dryden, wrote satires about society and other poets. Byron even claimed that Don Juan was "a satire on abuses of the present states of Society, and not an eulogy of vice." In a sense, Byron straddled two worlds, as you can see in the following outline of his poetry.

2）How do you understand the first lines “She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies” in Lord Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”?

答案要点：This opening couplet is among the most memorable and most quoted lines in romantic poetry. The first line is an enjambed line. That “she walks in beauty like the night” may not make sense, as night represents darkness. However, as the line continues, the night is a cloudless one with bright stars to create a beautiful mellow glow. In this way, they bring together the opposing qualities of darkness and light that are at play throughout the three verses. These two lines are effortless, graceful and beautiful, a fitting match for Lord Byron’s poem about a woman who possesses effortless grace and beauty.

3）How do you understand Byron’s “When We Two Parted”?

答案要点：Subject: looking back with regret at a broken relationship. It is aroused by the remembrance of their parting. Form: 4 octaves. All have very short lines, producing an effect of separation. Each two lines meant to be one – a severing. Punctuation gives even more expression of the lines being broken, and his heart being broken. Tone: doleful, slow and sad, melancholy, grieving, depressing. Obviously he hasn’t yet got over the loss of his love. The Poet’s intention is to unbottle his feelings: to portray his grief, lingering sorrow, as well as anger at being treated so.

Lecture 3 Percy Bysshe Shelley

1）How do you understand of the image of the West Wind in Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”?

答案要点：The "West Wind" represents liberty, the untamedness of nature and power for Shelley. The wind is the changing part in nature, which also controls heaven and the sea.

It can stand for death, but at the same time it means life. On the one hand, the wind that Shelley describes is simple in its function ("Destroyer and preserver"), but on the other, it is a mystical thing. Its power and its position in nature can only be compared with the function of a god. The wind decides on life and death. Shelley sees the wind as a chance to get a new inspiration and to transmit his ideas and "prophecy".

2）How do you understand the ending of Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”?

答案要点：The poem ends it with a question - “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”, which might appear rhetorical, but is more probably intended to indicate Shelley's own uncertainty. It is important to note that Shelley did not advocate the willing application of force and revolution. Clearly the poet hoped that radical social change, or a rebirth of personal inspiration, could be accomplished without violence. His comments in his notebook are useful to

help us to read this final line: "the spring rebels not against winter but it succeeds it - the dawn rebels not against night but it disperses it." The unanswered question in this poem is whether or not the same cyclical inevitability will apply to social and political change as it does to the changes within Nature.