Part Five : Romanticism in England

Chapter 1 the Romantic period

The romantic period began in 1798 the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s <Lyrical Ballads>, and end in 1832 with Sir Walter Scott’s death.

Romanticism:It emphasize the specialqualitie of each individual’s mind.(人应该是独立自由的个体)

In it, emotion over reason, spontaneous emotion, a change from the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit, poetry should be free from all rules, imagination, nature, commonplace.

    Two major novelists of the Romantic period are Jane Austen (realistic) and Walter Scott (romantic).

  “The Lake Poets”湖畔诗人，who lived in the lake district.

   William Wordsworth;  Samuel Taylor Coleridge;  Robert Southey

Important event:

The French Revolution

Peterloo Masscare

Amid these social conflicts romanticism arose as a new literary trend. It prevailed in england during the period 1798-1832. Generally speaking, the romanticists expressed the ideology and sentiment of those classes and social strata who were discontent with, and opposed to, the development of capitalism.

 The works of romanticists is a dissatisfaction with the bourgeois society, they paid great attention to the spritual  and emotional life of man.

Walter scott marked the transition

 

Chapter 2  William Wordsworth威廉•华兹华斯1770~1850

（与柯尔律治、骚塞同被称为“湖畔派”诗人。 The Lake Poets）

① <Lyrical Ballads>抒情歌谣集(with Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Marked the break with the conventional poetical tradition of the 18^th century.

② <I Wondered Lonely As A Cloud> 我好似一朵流云独自漫游

Theme:

    1.Nature embodies human beings in their diverse circumstance. It is nature that give him “strength and knowledge fullof peace”

        2.It is bliss to recolled the beauty of nature in poet mind while he is in solitude.

Comment:

   The poet is very cheerful with recalling the beautiful sights. In the poem on the beauty of nature, the reader is presented a vivid picture of lively and lovely daffodils(水仙) and poet’s philosophical ideas and mystical thoughts.

③ Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey丁登寺赋

④ The Solitary Reaper孤独的割麦女

⑤ <The Prelude>序曲 autobiographical poem

 

Chapter 3  Coleridge and Southey

The Lake Poets:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge塞缪尔•泰勒•科尔律治1772~1834

① <The Rime of the Ancient Mariner>古舟子颂

② <Christabel>柯里斯塔贝尔 unfinished

③ <Kubla Khan>忽必烈汗 a dream-poem

   Artistic features: mysticism, demonism with strong imagination,  a strange territory

④ <Frost at Night>半夜冰霜

⑤ <Dejection, an Ode>忧郁颂

⑥ <Lyrical Ballads>抒情歌谣集(with William Wordsworth)

 

Robert Southey

<The Fall of Robespierre> with Coleridge

 

Chapter  4  George Gordon Byron乔治•戈登•拜伦1788~1824

（拜伦式英雄Byronic heroes孤傲、狂热、浪漫，却充满了反抗精神。内心充满了孤独与苦闷，却又蔑视群小。恰尔德·哈罗德是拜伦诗歌中第一个“拜伦式英雄”。）

“Byronic hero” is a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin, against tyrannical rules or moral principles.

① <Don Juan>唐•璜

   Written in ottava rima, each stanza containing 8 iambic pentameter lines rhymed abababcc

   <Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage>恰尔德•哈罗德尔游记

Written in spenserian stanza, ababbcbbc

   <Cain>该隐  

② <When We Two Parted>当初我们俩分别

   <She Walks In Beauty> 

 

Chapter 5    Persy Bysshe Shelley波西•比希•雪莱1792~1822

 Poetic Drama：<Prometheus Unbound>解放了的普罗米修斯

   Theme: the drama celebraies man’s victory over tyranny and oppression

long poem:

 <Queen Mab>麦布女王

Condemning tyranny and exploitatuon and the unjust war waged by the rich to plunder wealth. Looking forward to a happy future for mankind but rejecting the path of revolution by voilence.

<Revolt of Islam>伊斯兰的反叛

<The Cenci>钦契一家

<A Defence of Poetry>诗辩

<The Necessity of Atheism>无神论的必要性 anti-religious pamphlet

Lyrics:

<Ode to the West Wind>西风颂

Theme:

    The author express his eagerness to enjoy the boundless freedom from the reality. Compare the west wind to destroyer of the old who drives the last signs of life from the trees, and preserver of the new who scatter the seads shich sill come to life in the spring. This is a poem about renewal, about the wind blowing life back into dead things, implying not just an arc of life (which would end at death) but a cycle, which only starts again when something dies.

 Comment:

    Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" is written in iambic pentameter. It contains five sonnet length stanzas, each with a closing couplet. The rhyming scheme form is aba bcb cdc ded ee. The tone is poignant. Many will agree that this poem is an invocation for an unseen force to take control and revive life.

Artistic features:

       Using rerza rima(三行诗aba bcb cdc ded efe …)

<To a Skylark>致云雀

 

Chapter 6          John Keats约翰•济慈1795~1821

(“美即是真，真即是美”是他的著名诗句。)

① Four great odes:

<Ode on a Grecian Urn>希腊古瓮颂

<Ode to a Nightingale>夜莺颂

<Ode to Psyche>心灵颂

<Ode On Melancholy> 忧郁颂

② <To Autumn>秋颂

Theme:

    The theme of John Keats' poem, "To Autumn", is that change is both natural and beautiful. The poem praises the glories of the fall season by using almost every type of imagery to both charm and appeal to the reader.

Comment:

The speaker in the poem acknowledges that time passes by, but also asserts that this change usually yields something new and better than what came before. Each of the poem's three stanzas represents the evolving of two different types of change. One type of change shown in the poem is the change of periods in a day.

 

Chapter 7  Charles Lamb

The Essays of Elia

 

Chapter 8 Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt

William Hazlitt:

Essay: my first acquaintance with poets

Leigh Hunt:

Eaasyist , critic, poet

He developed the light miscellaneous eaasy.

 

Chapter 9  De Quincey

The confessions of an English Opium-Eater

 

Chapter 10  Walter Scott沃尔特•斯科特1771~1832

        (历史小说之父”)Father of history novels

       ① <Rob Roy>  罗伯•罗伊

       ② <Ivanhoe>    艾凡赫

Features of  Walter Scott's historical novels:

1  he has an outstanding gift of vivifying the past.

   He combined historical fact with romantic imagination

2  historical events are closely interwoven with the fates of individuals

3  he is concerned not only with the lives and deeds of kings, statements and other hitorical figures, but is always mindful of the fate of the ordinary people.

4  he is a romantic.

5  he is a troy

 

 

Part 6  English Critical Realism

Chapter 1  the rise of  English Critical Realism in England

1  social background

   From the thirties of 19^th century, the fundamental contradiction is the struggle between the workers and capitalist.

   Strengthen the policy of colonial expansion.

   1837, the workers formulated their political demands in The People's Chapter.

2  Chartist Movement and Chartist Literature

   During the Chartist Movement numerous Chartist organization published newspaper and magazines which, besides articles on political and economical issues, contained poems, short stories and essays on literature. The Chartist writers introduced a new theme into literature--the struggle of the proletariat for its rights.

Ernest Jones

Long poem:The greatest of the Chartist poets.

The Revolt of Hindostan, or the New World

He followed the tradition of the revolutionary romanticism of Byron and Shelley. 

Lycics: the song of the Lower Classes

      The song of the Wage-Slave

Thomas Cooper

The last of the chartists

William James Linton

A well-known “agitator”

Lyric: Blade Time Will Come

3  English Critical Realism

The critical realists described with much vividness and great artistic skill the chief traits of the English society and critized the capitalist system from a democratic viewpoint.

The english critical realists not only gave a satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the ruling classes, but also showed profound sympathy for the common people.

They use a humour and satire.

They were unable to find a good solution to the social contradictions.

Their works is not of revolution but rather of reformism.

 

Chapter 2  Charles Dickens查尔斯•狄更斯1812~1870

       （批判现实主义小说家）critical realist writer

       ① <The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club>匹克威克外传

       ② <Oliver Twist>奥利弗•特维斯特（雾都孤儿）

       ③ <The Old Curiosity Shop>老古玩店

       ④  <A Christmas Carol>圣诞颂歌

       ⑤ <Dombey and Son>董贝父子

       ⑥ <David Copperfield>大卫•科波菲尔

       ⑦ <Bleak House>荒凉山庄

       <Hard Times>艰难时世

       ⑧ <A Tale of Two Cities>双城记(London & Paris)

       ⑨ <Great Expectations>远大前程

       ⑩ <Our Mutual Friend>我们共同的朋友 

 

Chapter 3  William Makepeace Thackeray威廉•麦克匹斯•萨克雷1811~1863

       ①<Vanity Fair> or a Novel without a Hero名利场(the name is an excerpt from <The Pilgrim’s Progress>by John Bunyan)

       ②<The Book Of Snobs>

After 1848 Thackeray lost all hope of improvement in social life, and his scepticism turned into pessimism. That's why his works after Vanity Fair show a sign of weakening in ideological depth and artistic power.

 

Chapter  4  some women writers

1 Jane Austen简•奥斯丁1775~1817

       She compared her works to a fine engraving upon a literary piece of ivory only inches squire.

       ① <Sense and Sensibility>理智与感情

       <Pride and Prejudic> 傲慢与偏见(chapter I)

           【Elizabeth Bennet & Darcy】in the end false pride is humbled and prejudice dissolved

       【Collins & Charlotte Lucas】see the reality of marriage as a necessary step if a woman is to avoid the wretchedness of aging spinsterhood

       【Lydia & Wickham】shown the dangers of feckless relationships unsupported by money.

       【Mr.&Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine de Burgh】comic characters

       <Mansfield Park>曼斯菲尔德庄园

       <Emma>爱玛

       <Northanger Abbey>诺桑觉寺

       <Persuasion>劝导

2 the Bronte sisters

Charlotte Bronte夏洛蒂•勃朗特1816~1855

① <Jane Eyre>简•爱

Jane Eyre, a plain little orphan, was sent to Lowood, a charity school. There she suffer a lot and 8 years later she left school and became a boverness at Thornfield Hall. There she falls in love with the master,Mr. Rochester.

It is noted for its sharp criticism of the existing society, e.g. charity institution such as Lowood School

It is a successful introduction to the first governess heoine in the English novel, whom represents those middle-class working women struggling for recognition of their basic rights and equality as a human being.

② <Shirley>雪莉

③ <Professor>教师

   

 Emily Bronte艾米莉•勃朗特1818~1854

① < Wuthering Heights>呼啸山庄

A story about two familie and an intruding stranger.

【TheEarnshaw Family】Mr. Earnshaw, his wife, the son Hindley, the daughter Catherine, Heathcliff

【The Linton Family】Mr.Linton, his wife, son Edgar, daughter Isabella

② < Old Stoic>

 

George Eliot乔治•艾略特1819~1880

① <The Mill on the Floss>弗洛斯河上的磨坊

② < Adam Bede>亚当•比德

③ < Silas Marner>织工马南

④ < Middlemarch>米德尔马契