英国文学史及选读-Part VII The Romantic Period 2PPT课件
【英美文学】武大老师的课件英国文学浪漫主义时期TheRomanticPeriod
Poems on nature
“To a Butterfly” “To a Skylark” “To the Cuckoo” “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” “Tintern Abbey”
Poems on simple rustic life in the countryside
subject: nature
the rural/pastoral the past/historical the alien/exotic, oriental the supernatural/ mysterious (dreams or dream-like) the personal the common/low class the revolutionary the patriotic
Economically: the great Industrial Revolution
Continued fast changes took place both in the country and in the cities; Many farmhands driven out of land rushed into the city;
Schools of Romantic Poets
Pre-romantic poets
William Blake: mysterious, philosophical, visionary Songs of Innocence Songs of Experience Marriage of Heaven and Hell Robert Burns: Scottish dialect, ballads
Part VII The Romantic Period
I. English Romanticism II. English Romanticists
historical background
Politically The most important event is the French Revolution (1789), which at first gave British people great hope for a better future with rights and independence for all men but later brought them despair and nightmare.
Ideologically the principle of Rationality was giving way to an individualized, free, liberal, imaginative attitude towards life; a tendency to turn or escape from the tumultuous and confusing Here and Now
•
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. (1804) • i wandered lonely.mp3
Economically the great Industrial Revolution: • continued fast changes both in the country and in the cities; • many farmhands driven out of land into the city; • women and children employed as cheap labor;
英国文学史及选读复习资料整理
Old English Period— Anglo-Saxon Period(450-1066)1.The History•From 55 BC to 410 AD, the Romans conquered the land and transplanted its civilization.2.The LiteratureTwo divisions:Pagan & ChristianPaganThe Seafarer水手; The Fight at Finnisburg芬尼斯郡之战; The Wanderer流浪者; Waldhere瓦登希尔;The Battle of Maldom马尔登战役Widsith(威德西斯); The complaint of Deor迪奥的抱怨•The wife’s Lament妻子的哀歌; Ruin毁灭are good examples.Beowulf, England’s national epic.Writing featuresnot a Christian but a pagan poem of all advanced pagan civilization,The use of the strong stress and the predominance of consonants are very notable in this poem. Each line is divided into two halves, and each half has two heavy stressesThe use of alliteration is another notable feature and makes the stresses more emphatic. There are a lot of metaphors and understatements in this poemAnglo-Norman Period(1066-1350)The literature•The Growth of the Arthurian Legends•The legends of King Arthur and his knights had existed as an oral tradition since the time of the Celts.The 17th CenturyA Brief Introduction of the 17th century⏹The contradictions between the feudal system and bourgeoisie⏹James I：1603-1625 political and religious tyranny⏹Charles I: 1625-1649⏹Oliver Cromwell : commonwealth protector: 1653-1658⏹Charles II: 1660-1688 the Restoration⏹James II：1685-1688⏹William of Oranges: 1688-1702 “Glorious Revolution”⏹The Bill of Rights 权利法案：1689John Donne代表作：The FleaMetaphysical PoetryHoly Sonnet 10SongA Valediction:Forbidding Mourning 别离辞：节哀John Milton⏹the early phase of reading and lyric writing⏹the middle phase of service in the Puritan Revolution and the pamphleteering for it⏹the last --- the greatest --- phase of epic writingParadise Lost--- the great epicParadise Regained；Samson AgonistesJohn BunyanThe Pilgrim’s Progress（essay）The 18th-century LiteratureThe Rise of English NovelsThe historical backgroundComparing with the 17th century, the 18th century is a period for peaceful development.The constitutional monarchy has been set up by parliament in 1688.England grew from a second rate country to a powerful naval country in this century.With the ascent of the bourgeoisie cultural life had undergone remarkable changes.The rise of the English novel.代表作：Daniel Defoe Robinson CrusoeJonathan SwiftThe Battle of the Books; 《书籍之战》The Tale of a Tub; 《一只桶的故事》The Drapier’s Letter; 《布商来信》A Modest Proposal; 《一个温和的建议》Journal to Stella; 《给斯黛拉的日记》Gulliver’s Travel. 《格列夫游记》Satirical features⏹Swift offered an opportunity of self-scrutiny.（自我审视）⏹The Lilliputians （小人国居民）and their institutions were all about people and theirinstitutions of England.⏹The Brobdingnagians were incredible Utopians.⏹The scientists and philosophers represented the extremes of futile theorizing andspeculations in all areas of activity such as science, politics, and economics with their instinct-killing tendencies.⏹The picture of the Yahoos made a clear statement about man and his nature.Henry FieldingTom JohnsonSocial significanceThe writer shows his strong hatred for all the hypocrisy and treachery in the society of his age and his sympathy for the courageous young rebels in their righteous struggleThe 18th-century Literature (II)The Age of Enlightenment in EnglandThe rapid development of social life•On the economic scene, the country became increasingly affluent.•On the political scene, a fragile of balance between the monarch and the middle class existed.•On the religious scene, deism came into existence代表Thomas GrayElegy Written in a Country Churchyard● a masterpiece of lyric●Theme: a sentimental meditation upon life and death, esp. of the common rural people,whose life, though simple and crude, has been full of real happiness and meaning●Poetic pattern: quatrains of iambic pentameter lines rhyming ABAB●Mood: melancholy, calm, meditative●Style: neoclassic---vivid visual painting,---musical/rhythmic,---controlled and restrained,---polished languageSection 1 It sets the scene for the poet’s visit to the churchyard. It is enveloped in gloom and grief, which is archetypal of graveyard, poets’fascination with night, graves, and death. The tone is echoed by the last part of the poem●Section 2 It tells about the people entombed there and recalls their life experiences. Whenthe “rude forefathers of the hamlet”lived. They got up early at the twittering of swallows, or a rooster’s wake-up call or a hunter’s horn, enjoyed family bliss with wife and kids in the evening, or were happily busy with farm work in the fields, but now that they lie in their “narrow cells”, their “useful toil”and “homely joys”happen no more. The tone is one of melancholy and regret for the dead.●Section 3 It warns the rich and powerful not to despise the poor since all are equal in faceof death and the grave levels off all distinction. All nobility, power, and wealth “await alike”the inevitable end and “the paths of glory lead but to the grave”. Nothing could●ever bring anything back to life.Section 4●It expresses, on the one hand, the poet’s regret that their life had not been congenial tothe growth and full play of the poor farmers’native gifts and talents and, on the other, his feeling of “a blessing in disguise”for them in the sense that, because they did not commit any crimes to humankind nor have to play the obsequious social climber against one’s integrity.Section 5●It asserts the notion that, even though they lived a less eventful life, there is no reason toforget these farmers.Section 6●It portrays the scenario that the poet envisions would happen after his own death. Avillager would say of him: he got up early to go uphill to the lawn and lay there meditating under the tree until noon. He would wander in the wood, smiling at one moment, muttering to himself at the next, sad and pale, like one “in hopeless love”. Then for a couple of days he did not show up, and on the third day he was buried in the churchyard.Section 7●As he shows sympathy for the poor, he gains the friendship of man and God. He asks thepassers-by not to get to know any more about his merits and weaknesses as he waits in his grave for God’s judgment.●The poem touches the readers to the quick with its notable sadnessOliver Goldsmith’s《The Vicar of Wakefield》•Pre-Romantic Poems (I)William BlakeThe Songs of Experience；THE LAMB；The Tyger；The Sick RoseRobert Burns⏹1) Political poems --- The Tree of Liberty;⏹2) Satirical poems --- Holy Willie’s Prayer, Two Dogs⏹3) Lyrics --- My Heart’s in the Highlands, A Red, Red Rose, Auld Lang SyneBurns’s position and his features⏹ A great Scottish peasant poet; a national poet of Scotland⏹Numerous are Burns’s songs of love and friendship.⏹His great success was largely due to his comprehensive knowledge and excellent masteryof the old song traditions.⏹His poetry have a musical quality that helps to perpetuate the sentimentBurns ushered a tendency that prevailed during the high time of RomanticismThe Romantic Period (I)⏹“The Lakers”：湖畔诗人William WordsworthSamuel ColeridgeRobert Southey•William Wordsworth•Lyrical Ballads；Lines Written in Early Spring；To the Cuckoo ；The Daffodils I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud；My Heart Leaps Up；Intimations of Immortality 不朽颂Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern AbbeyComments on WordsworthWordsworth’s poetry is distinguished by simplicity and purity of his language which was spoken by the peasants who convey their feelings and emotions in simple and unelaborated expressions.•George Gordon Byron•Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage；Don Juan•What is Byronic hero?•Byron’s chief contribution to English poetry.•Such a hero is a proud, rebellious figure of noble origin. Passionate and powerful, he is right to all the wrongs in a corrupted society, and he would fight single--handedly against all the misdoings.•Thus this figure is a rebellious individual against outworn social systems and conventions •Byronic heroes•heroic of noble birth•passionate•rebellious•individual•Summery•This is a love poem about a beautiful woman and all of her features. Throughout the poem, Byron explains the depth of this woman’s beauty. Even in the darkness of death and mourning, her beauty shines through. Her innocence shows her pureness in heart and in love. The two forces involved in Byron’s poems are darkness and light --- at work in the woman’s beauty and also the two areas of her beauty --- the internal and the external •The theme•This poem shows that mourning does not necessarily imply melancholy or extreme sadness.•Rhetorics•Byron uses many antonyms to describe this woman --- face, eye, hair, cheek, brow, etc. to portray a perfect balance within her.•He often uses opposites like darkness and light to create this balance.• A simile was shown in line one which stated: “She walks in beauty, like the night”, which is also the basis of the poem.•Rhyme and meter•The poem follows a basic iambic tetrameter, with an “ababab cdcdcd efefef” rhyme. •Percy Bysshe Shelley•Comments on Shelley• 1. Shelley is one of the first poets in Europe who sang for the working people. His political lyrics are among the best of their kind in the whole sphere of European romantic poetry. And he is also one of the leading Romantic poets, an intense and original lyrical poet in the English language.• 2. Shelley loved the people and hated their oppressors and exploiters. He called on the people to overthrow the rule of tyranny and injustice and prophesied a happy and free life for mankind.• 3. One of the first poets in Europe who sang for the working people. His political lyrics are among the best of their kind in the whole sphere of European romantic poetry.❖ 4. He stood for this social and political ideal all his life.❖ 5. He and Byron are justifiably (justly, rightly) regarded as the two great poets of the revolutionary romanticism in England.❖ 6. Byron, his best friend, said of Shelley “the best and least selfish man I ever knew”.❖7. Wordsworth said, “Shelley is one of the best artists of us all”.❖Ode to the West Wind❖Stanza 1❖It describes the power of the west wind and its double role as both destroyer(ll.2-5) and preserver(ll.6-12).❖Line 14 sums up the wind’s two basic characteristics, which also constitute the thematic focus of the poem❖Stanza 2❖I t focuses on the adumbration of the wind’s power driving clouds before it and bringing storms with it (ll.15-23) with lightning, rain, fire and hail (ll. 23-28).❖It also describes its destructive aspect of “closing night” enveloping all under its dome ofa vast tomb (ll. 24-25).❖Stanza 3❖It talks about the wind’s impact upon the sea, its first touching on the calm of the Mediterranean (ll. 29-36), and then on the turbulence of the Atlantic (ll.36-42).❖The Mediterranean sleeps in serenity in the summer but is waken up by the wind to see the quivering of the shadows of ancient palaces and towers (ll. 29-35) and the Atlantic cleaving asunder into gigantic chasms (ll. 35-38).❖Even the vegetation at the bottom of the sea “grow gray with fear./tremble and despo il themselves”.❖Stanza 4❖It expresses the poet’s emotional response to the west wind.❖The poet says to the wind (ll.43-47) that he wishes to be spirited away like the leaves, to dance like the clouds, to breathe like the waves, and enjoy a share of the win d’s strength like the storm though with a lesser degree of freedom of movement.❖The poet takes a nostalgic backward glance at his free, uncontrollable boyhood when he could fly like a swift could like the wind, and even outstrip it in speed (ll.47-51), and wishes for the wind to lift him up like a leaf or wave or a cloud (l. 54). But it is only a figment of his imagination.❖He has to face “the horns of life” that he has fallen upon, chained and weighed down, and no longer “tameless, swift, and proud” like the wind (ll.54-56).❖Stanza 5⏹It expresses both the poet’s request for the wind to help spread the words of his poem“among mankind” and wake it up from its deep stupor (ll. 66-69) and his prophecy that spring will come in the wake of winter (ll.69-70).⏹The poem ends upon a note of confidence and hope.⏹John Keats one of the greatest English poets and a major figure in the Romanticmovement⏹Ode on a Grecian Urn The Eve of St. Agnes To a NightingaleWalter Scott He is the creator and a great master of the historical novelJane AustenPride and Prejudice；Sense and Sensibility；Mansfield Park；Emma；Northanger Abbey；PersuasionCritical Realism Victorian PeriodFeatures of Dickens’s novels♦Charles Dickens’s novels offer a most complete and realistic picture of the English bourgeois society of his age. They reflect the protest of the people against capitalist exploitation; criticize the vices of capitalist society.Charles Dickens is a petty bourgeois intellectual. He could not overstep the limits of his class. He believed in the moral self-perfection of the wicked propertied classes. He failed to see the necessity of a bitter struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors. There is a definite tendency for a reconciliation of the contradictions of capitalist society♦Charles Dickens is a great humorist. His novels are full of humor and laughter and tell much of the experiences of his childhood. Almost all his novels have happy endings.The story of some major novels♦Oliver Twist♦David Copperfield♦Great Expectation♦ A Tale of Two CitiesWilliam Makepeace ThackerayVanity Fair•The Brontë sisters•Charlotte•Jane eyre (1847)•Shirley (1849)•Villette (1853)•The professor (1857)•Emily•Wuthering Heights (1847)•Anne•Agnes Grey (1847)•The tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) 《怀德菲尔庄园的房客》Alfred Lord Tennyson•the poet laureate after the death of Wordsworth in 1850•The Princes (1847),•In Memoriam (1850),•Maud (1855),•Enoch Arden (1864),•The Idylls of the King (1869-1872) Break, Break, Break ；Ulysses；Crossing the Bar Robert BrowningMy Last Duchess a dramatic monologueThe transition from 19th to 20th century in English literatureThomas Hardy◆Under the Greenwood Tree◆Far from the Madding Crowd◆The Return of the Native◆The Mayor of Casterbridge◆Tess of the D’Urbervilles◆Jude the ObscureOscar Wilde♦The Picture of Dorian Gray♦Lady Windermere’s Fan♦ A Woman of No Importance♦An Ideal Husband♦The Importance of Being Earnest♦Salome♦The Happy Prince and Other TalesGeorge Bernard Shaw♦ a prolific writer;♦winning Nobel Prize in 1925Mrs. Warren’s professionD. H. Lawrence•Novels•Sons and Lovers•The Rainbow•Women in Love•Lady Chatterley's Lover•Novellas•St Mawr•The Virgin and the Gypsy•The Escaped Cock“stream of consciousness”意识流代表人物：1)、Virginia Woolf 《Mrs. Dalloway》《A Room of One’s Own》 Woolf was much concerned with the position of women. 非常重视妇女的地位 2)、James Joyce Araby附读书足以怡情，足以博彩，足以长才。
英国文学史及选读 The Romantic Period
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Ideologically思想体系上;意识形态上 a.The principle of Reason was giving
way to an individualized, free, liberal, imaginative attitude towards life; b.A tendency to turn or escape from the confusing Here and Now.
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b. Writers got m the French Revolution and wrote beautiful poems and prose散文 .
(William Blake, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Lamb, etc.)
watchwords口号;标语: “liberty, equality and fraternity友爱 ”
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Economically
Britain - the “workshop车间,工场,作坊 of the world” after the Industrial Revolution
3. To be familiar with Jane Austen’s writing styles and major contribution to English literature
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Contents
➢Background
➢William Wordsworth:
英美文学选读（英国）浪漫主义时期笔记
Chapter 3 The Romantic Period1. The Romantic Period: The Romantic period is the period generally said to have begun in 1798 with the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads and to have ended in 1832 with Sir Walter Scott’s death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in the Parliament. It is emphasized the special qualities of each individual’s mind.2.Social background:a. during this period, England itself had experienced profound economic and social changes. The primarily agricultural society had been replaced by a modern industrialized one.b. With the British Industrial Revolution coming into its full swing, the capitalist class came to dominate not only the means of production, but also trade and world market.3.The Romantic Movement:it expressed a more or less negative attitude toward the existing social and political conditions that came with industrialization and the growing importance of the bourgeoise. The romantics demontrated a a strong reaction against the dominant modes of thinking of the 18th-century writers and philosophers. They saw man as an individual in the solitary state. Thus, the Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit.The Romantic period is an age of poetry. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats are the major Romantic poets. They started a rebellion against the neoclassical literature, which was later regarded as the poetic revolution. Wordsworth and Coleridge were the major representatives of this movement. Wordsworth defines the poet as a “man speaking to men”, and poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Imagination, defined by Coleridge, is the vital faculty that creates new wholes out of disparate elements. The Romantics not only extol the faculty of imamgination, but also elevate the concepts of spontaneity and inspiration, regarding them as something crucial for true poetry. The natural world comes to the forefront of the poetic imagination. Nature is not only the major source of the poetic imagery, but also provides the dominant subject mattre. It is in solitude, in communion with the natural universe, that man can exercise this most valuable of faculties.Romantics also tend to be nationalistic, defending the great poets and dramatists of their own national heritage against the advocates of classical rules.Poetry: to the Romantics, poetry should be free from all rules.they would turn to the humble people and the common everyday life for subjects.Prose: It’s also a great age of prose. With education greatly developed for the middle-class people, there was a rapid growth in the reading public and an increasing demand for reading materials.Romantics made literary comments on the writers with high standards, which paved the way for the development of a new and valuable type of critical writings. Colerige, Hazlitt, Lamb, and De Quincey were the leading figures in this new development.Novel: the 2 major novelists of the period are Jane Austen and Walter Scott.Gothic novel: a tyoe of romantic fiction that predominated in the late 18th century, was one of the Romantic movement. Its principal elements are violence, horror, and the supernatural, which strongly appeal to the reader’s emotion. With is description of the dark, irritional side of human nature, the Gothic form exerted a great influence over the writers of the Romantic period.3. Ballads: the most important form of popular literature; flourished during the 15th century; Most written down in 18th century; mostly written in quatrains; Most important is the Robin Hood ballads.4. Romanticism: it is romanticism is a literary trend. It prevailed in England during the period of 1798-1832. Romanticists were discontent with and opposed to the development of capitalism. They split into two groups.Some Romantic writers reflected the thinking of those classes which had been ruined by the bourgeoisie called Passive Romantic poets represented by Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey.Others expressed the aspiration of the labouring classes called Active or Revolutionary Romantic poets represented by Byron and Shelley and Keats.5. Lake Poets:Wordsworth, Coleridge and Robert Southey have often been mentioned as the “Lake Poets” because they lived in the Lake District in the northwestern part of England6. Byronic Hero a proud, mysterious rebelling figure of noble origin rights all the wrongs in a corrupt society, and is against any kind of tyrannical rules; It appeared first in Childe H arold’s Pilgrimage and then further developed in later works as the Oriental Tales, Manfred and Don Juan; the figure is somewhat modeled on the life and personality of Byron himself, and makes Byron famous both at home and abroad.7. Main Writers:A. William Blake(1757-1827):1. Literarily, Blake was the first important Romantic poet, showing a comtempt for the rule of reason, opposing the calssical tradition of the 18th century,and treasuring the individual’s imagination.2. His first printed work, Poetic Skelches, is a collection of youthful verse. Joy, laughter, love and harmony are the prevailing notes.3. The Songs of Innocence is a lovely volume of of poems, presenting a happy and innocent world, though not without its evils and sufferings. The wretched child described in “The Chimney Sweeper,”orphaned, exploited, yet touched by visionary rapture, evokes unbearable poignancy when he finally puts his trust in the order of the universe as he knows it. Blake experimented in meter and rhyme and introduced bold metrical innovations which could not be found in the poetry of his contemporaries.4. The Songs of Experience paints a different world, a world of misery, poverty, disease, war and repression with a malancholy tone. The little chinmney sweeper sings “notes of woe”while his parents go to the church and praise “God & his Priest & King”—the very intrument of their repression. A number of poems in the Songs of Experience also find a counterpart in the Songs of Experience. The 2 books hold the similar subject-matter, but the tone, emphasis and conclusion differ.5. Childhood is central to Blake’s concern in the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience, and this concern gives the 2 books a strong social and historical reference. The two “Chimney Sweeper”poems are good examples to reveal the relation between an economic ciecumstance, i.e. the exploitation of child labor, and an ideological circumstance, i.e. the role played by religion in making people compliant to exploitation. The poem from the Songs of Innocence indicates the conditions which make religion a consolation, a prospect “illusionary happiness;”the poem from the Songs of Experience reveals the nature of religion which helps bring misery to the poor children.6. Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell marks his entry into maturity. The poem plays the double role both as a satire and a revolutionary prophecy. Blake explores the relationship of the contrries. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence. The “Marriage”means the reconciliation of the contraries, not the subordination of the one to the other.Main works: Poetical SketchesSongs of Innocence is a lovely volume of poemsHoly Thursday reminds us terribly of a world of loss and institutional cruelty.Songs of Experience paints a different world, a world of misery, poverty, disease, war and repression with a melancholy tone.Marriage of Heaven and HellThe book of UrizenThe Book of LosThe Four ZoasMilton7. Language Character: he writes his poems in plain and direct language. His poems often carry the lyric beauty with immense compression of meaning. He distrusts the abstractness and tends to embody his views with visual images. Symbolism in wide range is also a distinctive feature of his poetry.B. William Wordsworth(1770-1850) In 1842 he received a government pension, and in the following year he succeeded Southey as Poet Laureate.Lyrical Ballads:But the Lyrical Ballads differs in marked ways from his early poetry, notably the uncompromising simplicity of much of the language, the strong sympathy not merely with the poor in general but with particular, dramatized examples of them, and the fusion of natural description with expressions of inward states of mind.Short poems:According to the subjects, Wordsworth’s short poems can be calssified into two groups: poems about nature and poems about human life.Wordsworth is regarde as a “worshipper of nature.”He can penetrate to the heart of things and give the reader the very life of nature. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”is perhaps the most anthologized poem in english literature, and one that takes us to the core of Wordsworth’s poetic beliefs. It’s nature that gives him “strength and knowledge full of peace.”Wordswoth thinks that common life is the only subject of literary interest. The joys and sorrows of the common people are his themes. “The Solitary Reaper” and “To a Highland Girl” use rural figures to suggest the timeless mystery of sorrowful humanity and its radiant beauty. In its daring use of subject matter and sense of the authenticity of the experience of the poorest, “Resolution and Independence ”is the triumphant conclusion of ideas first developed in the Lyrical Ballads.Wordsworth is a poet in memory of the past. To him, life is a cyclical journey. Its beginning finally turns out to be its end. His philosophy of life is presented in his masterpiece The Prelude.Wordsworth deliberate simplicity and refusal to decorate the truth of experience produced a kind of pure and profoud poetry which no othr poet has ever equaled. He maintained that the scenes and events of everyday life and the speech of ordinary people were the raw material of which poetry could and should be made.Main Works:Descriptive Sketches, and Evening WalkLyrical Ballads.The PreludePoems in Two VolumesOde: Intimations of ImmortalityResolution and Independence.The ExcursionPoets: The Sparrow’s Nest, To a Skylark, To the Cuckoo, To a Butterfly, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud( is perhaps the most anthologized poem in English literature.), An Evening Walk, My Heart Leaps up, Tintern AbbeyThe ThornThe sailor’s motherMichael,The Affliction of MargaretThe Old Cumberland BeggarLucy PoemsThe Idiot BoyMan, the heart of man, and human life.The Solitary ReaperTo a Highland GirlThe Ruined CottageThe PreludeLanguage character: he can penetrate to the heart of things and give the reader the very life of nature. And he thinks that common life is the only subject of literary interest. The joys and sorrows of the common people are his themes. His sympathy always goes to the suffering poor.He is the leading figure of the English romantic poetry, the focal poetic voice of the period. His is a voice of searchingly comprehensive humanity and one that inspires his audience to see the world freshly, sympathetically and naturally. The most important contribution he has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry, the poetry of the growing inner self, but also changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a return to natureC. Percy Bysshe Shelley(1792-1822)he grew up with violent revolutionary ideas, so he held a lifelong aversion to crulty, injusticce, authority, institutional religion and the formal shams of respectable society, condemming war, tyranny and exploitation. He realized that the evil was also in man’s mind. Even after a revolution, that is after the restoration of human morality and creativity, the evil deep in man’s heart might again be loosed. So he predicated that only through gradual and suitable reforms of the existing institutions couls benevolence be universally established and none of the evils would survive in this “genuin society,”where people could live together happily, freely and peacefully.Shelley expressed his love of freedom and his hatredtoward tyranny in several of his lyrics. One of the greatest political lyrics is “Men of England.” It is not only a war cry calling upon all working people to risse up against their political oppressors, but an address to them pointing out the intolerable injustice of economic exploitation. The poem was later to become a rallying song of the British Comuunist Party.Best of all the well-known lyric pieces is Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”here Shelley’s rhapsodic and declamatory tendencies find a subject perfectly suited to them. The autumn wind, burying the dead year, preparing for a new spring, becoms an image of Shelley himself, as he would want to be, in its freedom, its destructive-constructive potential, its universality. The whole poem had a logic of feeling,a not easily analyzable progression that leads to the triumphant, hopeful and convincing conclusion: if winter comes, can spring be far behind?Shelley’s greatest achievement is his four-act poetic drama, Prometheus Unbound. The play is an exultant work in praise of humankind’s potential, and Shelley himself recognized it as “the most perfect of my products.”Main works:The Necessity of Atheism, Queen Mab: a Philosophical Poem, Alastor, or The Spirit of SolitudePoem: Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, Mont BlancJulian and Maddalo, The Revolt of Islam, the Cenci, Prometheus Unbound, Adonais, Hellas,Prose: Defence of PoetryLyrics:genuine society,“Ode to Liberty”,“Old to Naples”“Sonnet: England in 1819”, The Cloud, To a Shylark, Ode to the West WindPolitical lyrics: Men of EnglandElegy: Adonais is a elegy for John Keats’s early deathTerza rimaPersonal Characters: he grew up with violent revolutionary ideas under the influence of the free thinkers like Hume and Godwin, so he held a life long aversion to cruelty, injustice, authority, institutional religion andthe formal shams of respectable society, condemning war, tyranny and exploitation. He expressed his lo ve for freedom and his hatred toward tyranny in several of his lyrics such as “Ode to Liberty”,“Old to Naples”“Sonnet: England in 1819”Shelley is one of the leading Romantic poets, and intense and original lyrical poet in the English language. Like Blake, he has a reputation as a difficult poet: erudite, imagistically complex, full of classical and mythological allusions. His style abounds in personification and metaphor and other figures of speech which describe vividly what we see and feel. Or express what passionately moves us.D: Jane Austen(1755-1817): born in a country clergyman’s family:Main Works:Novel: Sense and SensibilityPride and Prejudice(the most popular)Northanger AbbeyMansfield ParkEmmaPersuasionThe WatsonsFragment of a NovelPlan of a NovelPersonal Characters: she holds the ideals of the landlord class in politics, religion and moral principles; and her works show clearly her firm belief in the predominance of reason over passion, the sense of responsibility, good manners and clear—sighted judgment over the Romantic tendencies of emotion and individuality.Her Works’ Characters: his works’s concern is about human beings in their personal relationships. Because of this, her novels have a universal significance. It is her c onviction that a man’s relationship to his wife and children is at least as important a part of his life as his concerns about his belief and career. Her thought is that if one wants to know about a man’s talents, one should see him at work, but if one wan ts to know about his nature and temper, one should see him at home. Austen shows a human being not at moments of crisis, but in the most trivial incidents of everyday life. She write within a very narrow sphere. The subject matter, the character range, the social setting, and plots are all restricted to the provincial life of the late 18th century England. Concerning three or four landed gentry families with their daily routine life.Her novels’ structure is exquisitely deft, the characterization in the hig hest degree memorable, while the irony has a radiant shrewdness unmatched elsewhere. Her works’ at one delightful and profound, are among the supreme achievements of English literature. With trenchant observation and in meticulous details, she presents the quiet, day-to-day country life of the upper-middle-class English.G: Questions and answers:1. what are the characteristics of the Romantic literature? Please discuss the above question in relation to one or two examples.a. in poetry writing, the romanticists employed new theories and innovated new techniques, for example, the preface to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads acts as a manifesto for the new school.b. the romanticists not only extol the faculty of imagination, but also elevate the concepts of spontaneity and inspiration.c. they regarded nature as the major source of poetic imagery and the dominant subject.d. romantics also tend to be nationalistic.2.Make a contrast between the two generations of Romantic poets during the Romantic AgeThe poetic ideals announced by Wordsworth and Coleridge provided a major inspiration for the brilliant young writers who made up the second generation of English Romantic poets. Wordsworth and Coleridge both became more conservative politically after the democratic idealism. The second generation of Romantic poets are revolutionary in thinking. They set themselves against the bourgeois society and the ruling class.3.what are Austen’s writing features?Jane Austen is one of the realistic novelists. Aust en’s work has a very narrow literary field. Her novels showa wealth of humor, wit and delicate satire.4. what is the historical and cultural background of English Romanticism?a. Historically, it was provoked by the French Revolution and the English Industrial Revolution.b. Culturally, the publication of French philosopher Rousseau’s two books provided necessary guiding principles for the French Revolution which aroused great sympathy and enthusiasm in England;c. England experienced profound economic and social changes: the enclosure movement and the agricultural mechanization; the capitalist class grasped the political power and came to dominate the English society.H. topic discussion:1. Discuss the artistic features of Shelley’s poems.A. Percy Bysshe Shelly is an intense and original lyrical poet in the English language.B. His poems are full of classical and mythological allusions.C. His style abounds in personification and metaphor and other figures of speechD. He describes vividly what we see and feel, or expresses what passionately moves us.2. What does Wordsworth mean when he said “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility”?This sentence is considered as the principle of Wordsworth’s poetry c reation which was set forth in the preface to the Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth appealed directly on individual sensations, as the foundation in the creation and appreciation of poetry.3. How do you describe the writing style of Jane Austen? What is the significance of her works?Jane Austen is a writer of the 18th century through she lived mainly in the 19th century. She holds the ideals of the landlord class in politics, religion, and moral principles. Austen’s main literary concern is about human beings in their personal relationships. Austen defined her stories within a very narrow sphere.。
英国文学史及选读2复习大纲2
《英国文学史及选读》第二册复习提纲Part VII. THE ROMANTIC PERIODIntroduction●Historical BackgroundThe political & social factors that gave rise to the Romantic Movement were the three revolutions –the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.●Intellectual backgroundThe shift in literature from emphasis on reason to instinct & emotion was intellectually prepared for by a number of thinkers in the later half of the 18th century. Representative thinkers are Rousseau, Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine.●Term – Romanticism（1）Romanticism is a literary trend fighting against the idea of Enlightenment. It prevailed in England during the period of 1798—1832. It begins with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and ends with Sir Walter Scott’s death.（2）Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit.（3）In essence, it designates a literary & philosophical theory, which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life & all experience.（4）It also places the individual at the center of art, making literature most valuable as an expression of his or her unique feelings & particular attitudes, & valuing its a ccuracy in portraying the individual’s experiences.●Term – Lake Poets or The LakersIn English literature it refers to such romantic poets as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey who lived in the Lake District.●Term—Gothic NovelIt is a type of romance very popular in the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century. It emphasizes things which are grotesque, violent, mysterious, supernatural, desolate and horrifying. It was applied by Horace Walpole to his novel The Castle of Otranto. It has exerted a great influence over the writers of the Romantic period with its description of the dark, irrational side of human nature. Gothic novel has exerted a great influence over the writers of the Romantic period. Works like The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley are typical Gothic romance.●Romantic Authors in England（1）The glory of the age is in the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats and Southy. （2）Of its prose works, those of Scott alone have attained very wide reading（3）The essays of Charles Lamb（4）The novels of Jane Austen and historical novels of Walter ScottWilliam Wordsworth (1770-1850)“. . . poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility…” (“Preface”) 所有的好诗都是炽烈情感的自然涌流，而这种情感又是经过在宁静中追忆的.——quotation from William Wordsworth.●Major works from William WordsworthLyrical Ballads抒情歌谣集（I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud我好似一朵孤独的流云；Composed upon Westminster Bridge写于威斯敏斯特桥上）Lucy Poems露西组诗(She Dwett Among the Untrodden Ways她走在人迹罕至的路边；To the Cuckoo杜鹃颂;The Solitary Reape r孤寂的割麦女);The Excursio n远足The Prelude序曲●Analysis of William Wordsworth’s works（1）She Dwett Among the Untrodden Ways is one of his famous Lucy Poems, in which the lover tells that she lived unknown and died unknown.（2）Composed upon Westminster Bridge describes a vivid picture of a beautiful morning in London. （3）The Solitary Reaper describes vividly and sympathetically a young peasant girl working in the fields and singing as she works and shows that the gir l’s singing deeply moved the traveler and kept lingering in his heart.（4）I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud is perhaps the most anthologized poem in English literature, and one that takes us to the core of Wordsworth’s poetic belief.●FormThis poem contains four six-lined stanzas of iambic tetrametre(四步抑扬格), with a rhyme scheme of ababcc in each stanza.●ThemeThe theme of this poem is the serene beauty of nature through vivid description of daffodils and the poet’s respect for nature.●ContentFirst Stanza–It shows a harmonious picture. The image of “cloud” gives us the impression of the poet’s pride and loftiness. But on seeing numerous daffodils, the poet descends from above to below.Second Stanza– In this stanza, the poet draws an analogy between stars and daffodils to emphasize the great number. “Star” in this stanza echoes with “cloud” in the previous stanza.Third Stanza–The poet draws an analogy between waves of water and waves of daffodils. The description of the scenery ends in the second line. Following that, the poet shifts his emphasis from scenery to emotion. Fourth Stanza –The glee of daffodils turns into happiness of the poet. As a result, the beauty of nature becomes the beauty of mind. The last two lines explain why daffodils had brought great wealth to me, because they had brought fresh inspiration, greater creativity and new capacity for imagination. New life has been brought to him by the memory.●Brief comment on William Wordsworth（1）He is the leading figure of English Romantic poetry, and he is regarded as a “worshipper of nature”. （2）His Lyrical Ballads, written with Coleridge, marked the beginning of Romanticism in English poetry.（3）He defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”（4）He was one of the “Lake Poets”.George Gordon Byron (1788-1824)Introduction●George Gordon Byron was as famous in his lifetime for his personality cult as for his poetry. He created the concept of the “Byronic hero”—a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. Byron’s influence on European poetry, music, novel, opera, and painting has been immense. He was the most renowned English language poet of his day.●Term – Byronic HeroThis is a concept created by George Gordon Byron. It refers to a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. With immense superiority in his passions and powers, this figure would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupted society, and would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies.●Term – LyricLyric is a short poem wherein the poet expresses an emotion or illustrates some life principle. Lyric often concerns love. “My love is like a red, red rose” is Robert Burn’s well-known lyric.●Major worksHours of Idliness1807English Bords and Scottish Reviewers1809Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage1812The Giaour 1813The Corsair1814Lara1814Manfred1817Cain 1821Don Juan (1819-1824)●Famous selected poems in our textbook:When We Two Parted;She Walks in Beauty;The Isles of Greece taken from Don Juan●Analysis of Byron’s works（1）Don Juan, Byron’s masterpiece, is regarded as the great poem of the Romantic Age. It is a poem based on a traditional Spanish legend of a great lover and seducer of women.（2）When We Two Parted is a lyric poem of usual love between man and woman. The poem is alternately rhymed to show the poet’s mental pain of love mingled with hate. The metrical movement of this poem is basically a combination of iambic and anapaestic (抑抑扬格) feet, with a rhyme scheme ababcdcd.（3）She Walks in Beauty is one of B’s early love lyrics.●Background knowledge – On June 11, 1814, B attended a party where he for the first time net hisyoung cousin, Lady Wilmot Horton, who was dressed in a black mourning gown. B was so struck by her beauty that, on returning home, he wrote this poem in a single night.●Theme – This lyric poem is a compliment to a lady and to celebrate the beauty of the woman.●Form – The poem contains three stanzas of iambic tetrameter, with a rhyme scheme ababab.（4）The Isles of Greece is taken from Don Juan, Canto III, which is sung by a Greek singer at the wedding of Don Juan and Haidee. In the early 19th century, Greece was under the rule of Turk. Bycontrasting the freedom of ancient Greece and the present enslavement, the poet appealed to people to struggle for liberty.●Comments on Byron（1）Byron is the most excellent representative of English Romanticism. He was one of the most influential poets of his time.（2）He created the concept of the “Byronic hero”—a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. （3）His poems are favorites of the British workers & the laboring people of other countries. He opposed oppression & slavery, & had an ardent love for liberty. He praised the people’s revolutionary struggles in his works.（4）He was the most renowned English language poet of his day.Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1827)Introduction●Shelley is one of the leading Romantic poets, an intense and original lyrical poet in the English language. Shelley drew no essential distinction between poetry and politics, and his work reflected the radical ideas and revolutionary optimism of the era.●Term – OdeIt is a dignified and elaborately structured lyric poem of some length, praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally. Originally they were songs performed to the accompaniment of a music instrument. John Keats wrote great odes. His Ode on a Grecian Urn is a case in point.●Term -- Terza RimaIt is an Italian verse that consists of a series of three-line stanzas in which the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza with the rhyming scheme aba, bcb, cdc, ded, etc.. It appeared first in Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Besides, Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind is a case in point.●Major WorksThe Necessity of Atheism《无神论的必要性》Adonais《阿多尼斯》Queen Mab 1813《麦布女王》The Revolt of Islam 1818《伊斯兰的反叛》Prometheus Unbound 1820《解放了的普罗米修斯》A Defence of Poetry《诗辩》●Famous selected poems in our textbook:A Song: Men of EnglandOde to the West WindOzymandiasTo a SkylarkThe Cloud●Analysis of Shelley’s works（1） A Song: Men of England is one of Shelley’s greatest political lyrics. It is not only a war cry callingupon all working people to rise up against their political oppressors, but an address to them pointing out the intolerable injustice of economic exploitation. The poet warns the working people that if they should give up their struggle, they would be digging graves for themselves with their own hands.（2）Ode to the West Wind is one of the most popular and best-known of Shelley's lyrics. Main Idea–Shelley eulogized the powerful west wind & expressed his eagerness to enjoy the boundless freedom from the reality. “West Wind”— in the poem symbolizes both destroyer of the old and preserver of the new. It destroys leaves/things/thoughts/ideas that are dead; it preserves new life or seeds that represent new life or new birth. Form—This ode consists of five stanzas, each a stanza formed of four units of terza rima (三行诗节) completed by a couplet. Famous lines—”Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;/ Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!” and “I fall upon the thorns of life!” and “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”（3）Prometheus Unbound is Shelley’s greatest poetic drama. The drama celebrates man’s victory over tyranny and oppression.（4）Queen Mab is a revolutionary poem condemning tyranny and exploitation and the unjust war waged by the rich to plunder wealth.John Keats (1795-1821)●Romantic poets comparedWordsworth: beauty in simplicityColeridge: beauty in the extraordinary and supernaturalByron: beauty in power and satireShelley: exquisite beautyKeats: sensuous beauty(给人以美的享受的).On John Keats’ tomb are carved, according to his own request, the words: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” (此地长眠者，声名水上书)●John Keats is one of the major English Romantists in the 19th century. He wrote best odes in Englishliterature. He sought to express beauty in all of his poems. His leading principle is “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”. His poetry is distinguished by sensuousness and the perfection of the form. His ability to appeal to the senses through language is virtually unrivaled.●Major Works“““““●Analysis of Keats’ works（1）Ode on an Grecian Urn shows the contrast between the permanence of art and the transience of human passion. Form—Each stanza is 10 lines long, metered in a relatively precise iambic pentameter,and divided into a two part rhyme scheme: the first 7 lines of each stanza follow an ABABCDE rhyme and the last 3 lines of which are variable. The famous line from this ode is “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” and “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/ Are sweeter”.（2）On First Looking into Chapman’s Hom er is a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet with a rhyme scheme of abba abba cdc dcd. The octet (eight lines) describes Keats's reading experience before reading Chapman's translation and the sestet (six lines) contrasts his experience of reading it.（3）Ode to a Nightingale expresses the contrast between the happy world of natural loveliness and human world of agony.Walter Scott (1771—1832)●Walter Scott, a Scottish novelist and poet, is the father of the historical novel. His historical novel ishis chief contribution to English literature. His historical novels concern the history of Scotland, English history and the history of European countries. His language is difficult with Scottish dialect.●Major Works of Walter ScottPoems1802, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,《苏格兰边区歌谣集》1805, The Lay of the Last Minstrel,《最末一个行吟诗人》1808, Marmion《玛密恩》1810, The Lady of the Lake《湖上夫人》NovelsOf Scottish historyWaverley 《威弗利》1814Guy Mannering 《盖曼纳合》1815Old Morality 《清教徒》1816Rob Roy 1817 《罗布·罗伊》, the best of the groupThe Heart of Midlothian 1818《弥德洛西恩的心》Of the English historyIvanhoe《艾凡赫》1820, is Scott’s masterpiece. It is a novel of English subject covering the days after the Norman Conquest.Kenilworth, 《肯纳尔沃思堡》1821The Fortunes of Nigel, 《尼格尔的家产》1822Woodstock 《皇家猎宫》Peveril of the Peak 《贝弗利尔·皮克》1823Of the European countriesQuentin Durward 《昆丁·达沃德》1823Talisman 《惊军英雄记》1825Count Robert of Paris《巴黎的罗伯特伯爵》1832St. Ronan’s Wells《圣·罗南之泉》, the only one, dealing with his contemporary life●Features of Scott’s Novels（1）Scott has an outstanding gift of vivifying the past.（2）In his novels, historical events are closely interwoven with the fates of individuals.（3）In his historical novels, he concerns both the lives and deeds of the higher class and that of the ordinary people.（4）He is a romantic while a Tory, a conservative in politics.Jane Austen (1775-1817)Introduction●She was a woman novelist of the 18th century, thought she lived mainly in the 19th century for herworks show clearly her firm belief in the predominance of reason over passion, the sense of responsibility, good manners and clear-sighted judgment over the Romantic tendencies of emotion and individuality.●Six NovelsEmma《爱玛》Persuasion《劝导》Mansfield Park《曼斯菲尔德庄园》Northanger Abbey《诺桑觉寺》Pride and Prejudice《傲慢与偏见》Sense and Sensibility《理智与情感》●Analysis of Pride and PrejudicePride & Prejudice which was originally drafted as First Impressions, mainly tells of the love story between a rich, proud young man Darcy and the beautiful and intelligent Elizabeth Bennet. In this novel, Darcy stands for Pride and Elizabeth represents Prejudice. In the end false pride is humbled and prejudice dissolved.Main Characters—Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet with their daughters of Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine and Lydia, besides there are Charles Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy.Major Themes— Pride and prejudiceLove and marriageFamilyFamous quotations from Chapter 1①“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”. ——Opening sentence from Pride and PrejudiceExplanations of the opening sentence—P & P begins with one of her most famous uses of irony. The first sentence takes a local attitude, to be exemplified in Mrs. Bennet, about the need of well-to-do men to marry, and transforms it, tongue-in-cheek, into a self-evident fact “universally acknowledged.”②“What is his name?”“Bingley.”“Is he married or single?”“Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!”“How so? how can it affect them?”“My dear Mr. Bennet,” replied his wife, “how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.”——Conversations between Mr. and Mrs BennetExplanations of this conversation—The conversation tells us that Mrs. Bennet is eager to marry one of his daughters to the mentioned young man, but her husband does not care much.●Jane Austen’s contribution to English literature（1）Jane Austen is one of the most important Romantic novelists in English literature. She creates six influential novels such as Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Pride and Prejudice.（2）Her main literary concern is about human beings in their personal relationships. She makes trivial daily life as important as the concerns about human belief and career and salient social events. This is what make her important in English literature.(3%)（3）Jane Austen has brought the English novel, as an art of form, to its maturity because of her sensitivity to universal patterns of human behavior and her accurate portrayal of human individuals. （4）She describes the world from a woman’s point of view, and depicts a group of authentic and common women.Charles Lamb (1775-1834)●Romantic prose writers（1）The early 19th century is remarkable for the development of a new and valuable type of critical prose writing.（2）The leaders in this new and important development are William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, De Quincy and Charles Lamb.（3）These prose writers were much influenced by the French Revolution in politics and by the Romantic Movement in literature.（4）They freely expressed their own personality in their writings.（5）The best representative of these writers is Charles Lamb.●Major literary worksFirst PeriodJohn Woodvil《约翰·伍德维尔》1802Mr. H 《H君》1806Second PeriodTales from Shakespeare 《莎士比亚故事集》1807 cooperated with his sisterSpecimens of English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with Shakespeare《莎士比亚同时代英国戏剧诗人之范作》1808Third Perid—series of essaysEssays of Elia 《伊利亚随笔集》1823Last Essays of Elia《后随笔集》1833Part VIII. The Victorian Age●Age DivisionThe Victorian Age can be roughly divided into 3 periods:The Early Period (1832-1848): a time of social unrest.The Middle Period (1848-1870): a period of economic prosperity & religious controversy.The Last Period (1870-1901): a period of decay of Victorian values.●Features of Victorian novels（1）The plot is unfolded against a social background, which is broader than what it had been in previous novels.（2）The cause-effect sequence is much more striking than in previous novels.（3）Most of the Victorian novels first published in serial form, that is, by installment, before they were fully published in a single book.（4）The Victorian novels were tainted by the spirit of Puritanism of the Victorian age.（5）The Victorian novels were characterized by their moral purpose. Many writers wrote novels with a purpose to edify readers & to bring about reforms.●Victorian PoetsAlthough the novel was the predominating genre of literature in the Victorian age, it does not follow that there were no prominent poets after the deaths of major Romantic poets.In fact, poets like Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), Robert Browning (1812-1889), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), & Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)were important in the sense not only that they wrote highly lyrical poems as the Romaticists did, but also that they in their poetry reflected the spiritual search which was characteristic of the age.●Terms—Critical RealismCritical Realism is a term applied to the realistic fiction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It means the tendency of writers and intellectuals in the period between 1875 and 1920 to apply the method of realistic fiction to the criticism of society and the examination of social issues. Charles Dickens is the most important critical realist who applies this method.●Terms—Dramatic MonologueDramatic Monologue, in literature, refers to the occurrence of a single speaker saying something to a silent audience. Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess is a typical example in which the duke, speaking to a non-responding audience, reveals not only the reasons for his disapproval of the behavior of his former duchess, but some tyrannical and merciless aspects of his own personality as well.Charles Dickens (1812-1870)“He was a sympathizer to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world.”——The Epitaph of Charles Dickens●Charles Dickens is one of the greatest critical realist writers of the Victorian Age. His works areintended to expose and criticize all the poverty, injustice, hypocrisy and corruptness of the 19th century England, particularly London. All his works are characterized by a mingling of humor and pathos.●Major worksThe First Period1836 Sketches by Boz 《博兹随笔》1837 The Pickwick Papers 《匹克威克外传》1837-1838 Oliver Twist 《雾都孤儿》criticizes the dehumanizing workhouse system and the dark, criminal underworld life.1838-1839 Nicholas Nickleby 《尼古拉斯.尼科尔贝》1840 The Old Curiosity Shop 《老古玩店》The Second Period1842 American Notes 《美国札记》1843 Martin Chuzzlewit 《马丁.瞿述传》1843 A Christmas Carol 《圣诞欢歌》（圣诞故事集）1844 The Chimes 《钟声》（圣诞故事集）1846 Dombey and Son 《董贝父子》1849 David Copperfield 《大卫.科波菲尔》is about the debtor’s prison.The Third Period1852 Bleak House 《荒凉山庄》attacks the legal system and practices that aim at devouring every penny of the clients.1853 Hard Times 《艰难时世》lashes the Utilitarian principle that rules over the English education system and destroys young hearts and minds.1854 Little Dorrit 《小杜丽》1859 A Tale of Two Cities 《双城记》1860 Great Expectations 《远大前程》expose the overwhelming social environment which brings moral degeneration and destruction to people.1864 Our Mutual Friend 《我们共同的朋友》●The characteristics of Charles Dickens’ works（1）As a novelist, Charles Dickens was first remembered for his sketches of characters and exaggeration. As a master of characterization, Dickens was skillful in drawing vivid caricatural sketches by exaggerating some peculiarities.（2）Dickens is well known as a humorist as well as a satirist. He sometimes employs humor to enlivena scene or lighten a character by making it (him or her) eccentric or laughable.（3）Dickens loved complicated and fascinating plot in his novels. He is also skillful at creating suspense and mystery to make the story fascinating. A plot formula in his novel is the happy ending. （4）As the greatest representative of English critical realism, Dickens made his novel the instrument of morality and justice. Each of his novels reveals a specific social problem.William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)●William Makepeace Thackeray is one of the most important writers of the English critical realism.Through his masterpiece Vanity Fair, Thackeray sharply exposes the vices of his society: hypocrisy, money-worship, and moral degradation.●Major worksThe Book of Snobs1846-47《势利人脸谱》《势利者集》Vanity Fair1847-48《名利场》The History of Pendennis1849-50《彭登尼斯》The Newcomes 1853-55《纽克姆一家》The History of Henny Esmond 《亨利•埃斯蒙德》1852The Virginians《弗吉尼亚人》1859●The Analysis of V anity FairGeneral Introduction—Vanity Fair is Thackeray's masterpiece. It was published in 1847-48 in monthly installments.The title— was taken from Bunyan's “Pilgrim's Progress”.The sub-title —of the book, “A Novel Without a Hero”, suggests the fact that writer ' s intention was not to portray individuals, but the bourgeois and aristocratic society as a whole.Main idea—In this novel Thackeray describes the life of the ruling classes of England in the early decades of the 19th century, and attacks the social relationship of the bourgeois world by satirizing the individuals in the different strata of the upper society. It is a world where money grubbing is the main motive for all members of the ruling classes.The heroin—is Rebecca Sharp who is a perfect embodiment of the spirit of Vanity Fair as her only aspiration in life is to gain wealth and position by any means fair or foul. Sharp is charming and pretty, but she is ambitious. Driven by her ambition, she has become a merciless social climber. As her name suggests, Becky Sharp is determined to carve out a place for herself in Vanity Fair. She succeeds in establishing herself in Vanity Fair at the cost of lives of two men and the alienation of all her friends and family. But she enjoys the battle.●The characteristics of Thackeray’s novels（1）Thackeray is one of the greatest critical realists of the 19th-century Europe .（2）Thackeray is a satirist. He is noted for realistic depiction, the ironic and sarcastic tone and constant comment and criticism.（3）Thackeray is a moralist. His aim is to produce a moral impression in all his novels.（4）He is good at describing the life of the upper class, which he is familiar with.●The theme of Vanity Fair.（1）Vanity Fair describes the life of the upper society of England in the early 19th century, and exposes the craftiness, snobbishness and vanity of the ruling classes.（2）Life is portrayed in this novel as a vanity fair where everything can be sold and bought, and money-grubbing was the main motive for the members of the upper classes.（3）Becky Sharp is a perfect example of this money-grubbing instinct. She is a subtle embodiment of duplicity, ambition and selfishness.（4）When we discuss the theme of the novel, disillusionment is the key word. At the end of the novel, nobody is happy.George Eliot (1819-1880) — Mary Ann Evans“It was really George Eliot who started it all. It was she started putting action inside.”-- D.H. Lawrence’ evaluation on George Eliot●Eliot’s Major WorksNovelsRemarkable ones：Adam Bede, 1859 《亚当.比德》---rural lifeThe Mill on the Floss, 1860《弗洛斯河上的磨房》--moral problemsSilas Marner, 1861《织工马南》 - psychological studies of charactersOthers:Romola, 1863 《罗慕拉》 --problems of religion &moralityFelix Holt, the Radical, 1866《费力可斯.霍尔特》Middlemarch, 1871–72《米德尔马契》Daniel Deronda, 1876《丹尼尔.德龙达》●The characteristics of Eliot’s literary worksShe wrote about rural life influenced by the industrial revolution.She shows a particular concern for the destiny of women.She leads in the direction of both the naturalistic and psychological novel.She shows the interest in the interior life of human beings, moral problems and strains.Religion is concerned in her novels.Bronte Sisters●The story of the three Bronte sisters, Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848), Anne (1820-1849),all literary, all talented and all dying young, is one of the saddest pages in the history of English literature.They were the daughters of a poor clergyman in the little village of Haworth, Yorkshire, in northern England.Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855)●She is one of the three Bronte sisters. Her works are all about the struggle of an individual consciousnesstowards self-realization, about some lonely and neglected young women with a fierce longing for love, understanding and a full, happy life. Al her heroines’ highest joy arises from some sacrifice of self or some human weakness overcome.●Major works“The Professor” (1846, 1857) 《教师》“Jane Eyre” (1847) 《简·爱》“Shirley” (1849)《雪莉》“Villette”(1853) 《维莱特》●The Analysis of Jane Eyre（1）Jane Eyre is Charlotte’s masterpiece, and also one of the most popular and important novels of the Victorian Age.（2）It is noted for its sharp criticism of the existing society, e.g. the religious hypocrisy of charity institutions such as Lowood School.（3）It traces the passionate love between Jane Eyre and Rochester.（4）The success of the novel is also due to its introduction to the English novel the first governess heroine, Jane Eyre.（5）Jane Eyre is an orphan child with a fiery spirit and a longing to love and be loved, a poor, plain,。
吴伟仁《英国文学史及选读》笔记和考研真题详解-第7章浪漫主义时期【圣才出品】
吴伟仁《英国⽂学史及选读》笔记和考研真题详解-第7章浪漫主义时期【圣才出品】第7章浪漫主义时期7.1 复习笔记I. Background Knowledge（背景知识）At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, romanticism appeared in England as a new trend in literature. It rose and grew under the impetus of the Industrial Revolution and French Revolution.Romanticism prevailed in England during the period 1798-1832. The co-authored book Lyrical Ballads published in 1798 by the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge marked the beginning of romanticism, while the death of Walter Scott in 1832 declared the ending of it.18世纪末19世纪初，在英国⼯业⾰命和法国⼤⾰命的影响下，浪漫主义成为⼀种新的⽂学思潮应运⽽⽣。
1798年华兹华斯和柯勒律治共同编写的《抒情歌谣集》标志浪漫主义时期的开始，1832年沃尔特·司各特的去世则宣告浪漫主义时期的结束。
II. Literary Features of the Eighteenth Century（⼗⼋世纪⽂学特征）1. The Romantic Period is one of poetical revival. It is a period of poetry. Emotion, imagination and intuition of humankind are what the romanticists emphasize in their works. The general feature of the works of the romanticists is the dissatisfaction with the bourgeois society. They pay more attention to thespiritual and emotional life of man. Nature plays an important role in their works.2. Romantic poets are generally divided into two groups: the elder generation, or the escapist romanticists (Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, who also known as Lake Poets), and the younger generation, or the active romanticists (Byran, Shelley and Keats). The elder generation reflected the merry of old England. Frightened by the coming of industrialism and the nightmare towns, they were turning to nature for protection. The younger generation expressed the aspirations of the classes created by capitalism and held out an ideal of a future society free from oppression and exploitation.3. Romantic prose of the time was represented by Lamb, Hazlitt, De Quincey andHunt.4. The only great novelist in this period was Walter Scott, whose historical novelscombined a romance atmosphere with a realistic depiction of historical background and common people’s life. Scott marked the transition from romanticism to the period of realism.1. 浪漫主义时期是诗歌复兴时期。
[英语学习]英国文学史及选读part vii the romantic period 2
![[英语学习]英国文学史及选读part vii the romantic period 2](https://img.taocdn.com/s3/m/884eec8cf705cc1754270917.png)
England in 1819;
The Masque of Anarchy 专制魔王的化装游行;
Ode to the West Wind 西风颂; To a Skylark 致云雀; A Defense of Poetry 诗辩
who wrote ‘Ode to the West Wind’
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley--- A young radical
A radical young fellow, Percy Shelley was expelled from Oxford University in 1811 when he published The Necessity of Atheism. His early poems advocated social reform, reflecting the influence of the philosophical writings of William Godwin. He fell in love with Godwin's daughter Mary, who later gained fame as the author of Frankenstein. After Shelley's first wife committed suicide in 1816, Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin were married. Shelley was lost at sea in 1822, while sailing off the coast of Italy.
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Percy Bysshe Shelley--- A young radical
❖ A radical young fellow, Percy Shelley was expelled from Oxford University in 1811 when he published The Necessity of Atheism. His early poems advocated social reform, reflecting the influence of the philosophical writings of William Godwin. He fell in love with Godwin's daughter Mary, who later gained fame as the author of Frankenstein. After Shelley's first wife committed suicide in 1816, Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin were married. Shelley was lost at sea in 1822, while sailing off the coast of Italy.
Ode to the West Wind
→Introduction
❖ “Ode to the West Wind” was first published in 1820 in Shelley’s collection Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems. In his prefatory note to the poem, Shelley wrote: “This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, [Italy] and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapors which pour down the autumnal rains.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley
❖ ‘Ode to the West Wind’ (1819) best represents his impetuous (猛烈的，奔腾的) idealism, foreshadowing Prometheus Unbound (1820), which imagines a bloodless revolution where ‘mankind had only to will that there should be no evil and there would be none’. His life was abruptly ended by an accident at sea. Shelley's body washed ashore, and later, in keeping with strict quarantine (检疫, 隔离) regulations, was cremated on the beach near Viareggio.
Ode to the West Wind
→Introduction
❖ His description gives the location of the poem, but says nothing of the strained emotional circumstances in which it was composed. Four months before Shelley began writing “Ode to the West Wind” in October 1819, his son William had died; the year before, he had lost his daughter Clara. His wife Mary had consequently suffered a nervous breakdown, and he himself was plagued by ill health, creditors, rumors of illegitimate children, and the failure of his political hopes. To top it off, the public had been largely indifferent to or critical of his writings.
Percy Bysshe Shelley---cremated
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
❖ II. Major works
❖ Queen Mab 麦布女王;
❖ Revolt of Islam ❖ 伊斯兰的反叛;
❖ Prometheus Unbound ❖ 解放了的普罗米修斯; ❖ Adonais 阿东尼斯; ❖ The Cenci 钦契;
Part VII The Romantic Period
2
Shelley, Keats, Coleridge
Percy Bysshe Shelley 珀西·比希·雪莱
❖ I. Life and career ❖ Born: 4 August 1792 ❖ Birthplace: Near Sussex, England ❖ Died: 8 July 1822 (drowning) ❖ Best Known As: 19th century romantic poet
❖ Song to the Men of England 致英国人民;
❖ England in 1819;
❖ The Masque of Anarchy ❖ 专制魔王的化装游行;
❖ Ode to the West Wind ❖ 西风颂; ❖ To a Skylark 致云雀; ❖ A Defense of Poetry 诗辩