what is the Enlightenment Movement.docx

1. what is the Enlightenment Movement?The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive Movement, which flourished in France and swept the whole Western Europe at the time. It was a furtherance of the Renaissance from the 14th to the 17th century. Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. The eighteenth century marked the beginning of an intellectual movement in Europe known as the Enlightenment Movement.10. Who are the main writers during the neoclassical period?The representatives of the Enlightenment in English literature were: Daniel Defoe:Robinson CrusoeCaptain SingletonMoll FlandersJournal of the Plague YearJonathan SwiftGullivers TravelsSamuel RichardsonPamela Clarissa HarloweHenry FieldingThe History of Tom Jones, a FoundlingThe History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the GreatTobias SmollettRoderick RandomLaurence SterneA Sentimental JourneyRobert BurnsSelect Collection of Original Scottish AirsOliver GoldsmithThe Vicar of WakefieldRichard B. SheridanThe School for ScandalThe RivalsSt. Patricks DayThe CriticPizarroThomas GrayElegy Written in a Country ChurchyardPopeAn Essay on CriticismThe Rape of the LockThe DunciadAn Essay on ManApart from those, he also translated Homers Iliad and Odyssey, and edited some of Shakespeares plays.14. What is Sentimentalism? By the middle of the century, sentimentalism came into being as the result of a bitter discontent with social reality among the enlightened people. The sentimentalists continued to struggle against feudalism. But they sensed at the same time the contradictions in the process of capitalist development. Dissatisfied with reason, they appealed to sentiment. Sentimentalism turned to the countryside for its material, and so is in striking contrast to classicism. The appearance and development of sentimental poetry marks the midway in the transition from classicism to its opposite, romanticism in English poetry.38. How to understand the art of satire in The School for Scandal? Sheridans famous comedy The School for Scandal is considered his masterpiece. In the play, the author contrasts two brothers-Joseph Surface and Charles Surface. Joseph is a hypocrite, always declaring noble feelings and uttering moral speeches, while Charles is a reckless prodigal and a gambler, but he is frank, honest and good-natured. Whats more, many names in it are very meaningful. As soon as one reads the name, he will see the people. For example, the person who is good at sneering at others are called Sneerwell; the person who likes talking is named Tattle; the cunning one is Snake, etc. These names vividly describe the main features of the corresponding person, and help the reader to understand the theme of Sheridans work. This play represents a brilliant portrayal of Englands high society and a biting satire on the morals and manners of the aristocratic-bourgeois society in the 18th century.3. What is the feature of the Romantic literary works? The Romantics were strongly against the modes of thinking in the 18th century which saw man as a social animal. They emphasized the special qualities of each individual. So Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit. They place the individual at the center of art and make literature most valuable as an expression of his or her unique feelings and particular attitudes, and value its accuracy in portraying the individuals experiences.5. Whats the difference between Blakes Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience? Is there any significance? The Songs of Innocence is a lively volume of poems which represent a happy and innocent world although there are evil and suffering existing. While the Songs of Experience paints quite a different world, a world full of misery, poverty, war, and repression. Take The Chimney Sweeper for example: in Songs of innocence, although the wretched child is orphaned, exploited, when he dreamed that he had been released out of the black coffin, he couldnt help running, leaping and laughing. Although he had to get up early in the dark and cold winter morning, he felt happy and warm because he is told that if hed be a good boy, hed have God for his father and never want joy. As a whole, the poem is active, optimistic and passionate. While the little chimney sweeper in Songs of Experience is depressed. He was wrapped in the clothes of death and sangnotes of woe in a snowy day while his parents went to praise God & his Priest & King which is the very instruments of their repression and who make up a heaven of our misery. Quite different from the Songs of Innocence, the poems in Songs of Experience are gray, gloomy and pessimistic.20. What are the major works of Shelley? Romantic poet Shelleys distinguished lyrics are：Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, and The Cloud. And the immortal four-act poetic drama Prometheus Unbound23. What are Keats representative works? John Keats is an outstanding poet in the English romantic literature who pursuits a kind of romantic beauty in his poetic creation. His major works are- Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on an Grecian Urn, To Autumn, Isabella and Endymion.24. What is the main idea of Keats beauty principle? The one artistic aim in Keats poetry was to create a beautiful world of imagination as opposed to the sordid reality of his day. His exquisite sensibility as a poet enabled him to perceive readily the beauty of the world at large and his brilliant fancy turned the impressions into palpable images of end firing beauty which he described through verbal music and word-painting. His-leading principle is:Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is, What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth, whether it existed before or not. said by the poet.26. What is the theme of Pride and Prejudice? The title of the novel Pride and Prejudice reveals the novelists concern: if making good relationship is our main task in life, we must first have good judgment. Our first impressions, ccording to Jane Austen, are usually wrong, as is shown here by that of Elizabeth. In the process of judging others, Elizabeth finds out absurd about herself: her blindness, partiality, prejudice and absurdity. At the same time, Darcy too learns about other people and himself. In the end, false prejudice is humbled and prejudice dissolved.27. How to describe the writing style of Jane Austen? What is the significance of her works? Generally speaking, Jane Austen is a writer of the 18th century though she lived mainly in the 19th century. She holds the ideals of the landlord class in politics, religion, and moral principles. Her works show clearly her firm belief in the predominance of reason over passion, the sense of responsibility, good manners and clear judgment over the romantic tendencies of emotion and individuality. She shows her contempt towards snobbery, stupidity, worldliness and vulgarity through subtle satire and irony. Austens main literary concern is about human beings in their personal relationships, in her works, she characterizes a human being not at moments of crisis, but in the most trivial incidents of everyday life. Compared with other writers, Austen defined her stories, within a very narrow sphere. The subject matter, the character range, the social setting and plots are all restricted to the late 18th century England. Everything in her novel reminds us of a quiet, uneventful and contented life of the English country. Her characteristic theme is that maturity is achieved through the loss of illusions. Faults of character displayed by the people of her novel are corrected when, through tribulation, lessons are learned. All these show a mind of the shrewdest intelligence adapting the available traditions and deepening the resources of art with consummate craftsmanship. Because of her sensitivity to universal patterns of human behavior, Jane Austen has brought the English novel, as an art of form, to its maturity, and she has been regarded by many critics as one of the greatest of all novelists.3. What is the Chartist Movement? Workers movements From 1836 to 1848, the English workers got themselves organized in big cities and brought forth the Peoples Charter, in which they demanded basic rights and better living and working conditions. The Peoples Parliament gathered in1837 and on the Peoples Charter there were over a million signatures of workers. The movement swept over most of the bit cities in the country. This was the first mass movement of the English working class and the early sign of the awakening of the poor, oppressed people.6. What is Critical Realism? Critical Realism is the main trend of the literary thoughts in the 19th century. It reveals the corrupting influence of the rule of cash upon human nature. Critical realists first and foremost set themselves the task of criticizing capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint of bourgeoisie reality. As far as the literary form or genre is concerned, the major contribution made by the 19th century critical realists lies in their perfection of the novels. Like the realists of the 18th century, the19th century critical realists made use of the form of novel for full and detailed representations of social and political events, and of the fate of individuals and of whole social classes.12. What are the main figures created by Dickens in his works? Character-portrayal is the most distinguishing features of Dickens works, his best-depicted characters are. (1) Characters who are innocent, virtuous, persecuted, helpless child characters suchas Oliver Twist, Little Nell, David Copperfield and Little Dorrit. (2) Characters who are horrible and grotesque like Fagin, Bill Sikes and Quilp. (3) Characters who are humorous and comical such as Mr. Micawber, Sam Weller and Mrs. Gamp.16. What is the main theme of Wuthering Heights? Wuthering Heights is a riddle that means different things to different people. From the social point of view, it is a story about a poor man abused, betrayed and distorted by his social betters because he is a poor nobody. As a love story, this is the most moving the passion between Heathcliff and Catherine proves the most intense, the most beautiful and at the same the most horrible passion ever to be found possible in human beings.18. What are the main works of Tennyson?The main works of Tennyson are: The Princess; In Memoriam; Idylls of the King and etc.27. What is Aestheticism? Who are the representative writers of this school in Britain? Fairly early in the nineteenth century there developed in France a devotion to beauty not because beauty reflected a Divine Mind, but because it was a good in itself in a materialistic world which otherwise seemed chaotic and depressing. The aesthetic movement thus rejected theories which held that the value of literature is somehow related to morality or to some of usefulness, and instead advocated the independence of art from any moral or didactic end. The Implication of its slogan is Art for arts sake. In England Oscar Wilde is the representative writer, his main works are- the Picture of Dorian Gray, Ballad of Reading Goal and etc.2、Two groups of romantic poetsRomanticists expressed the ideology and sentiment of those classes and social strata（社会阶层）who were discontent with and opposed to the development of capitalism. They split into 2groups because of attitudes towards the capitalist society. Passive Romantic poets: they stood on the side of the feudal forces and combined themselves with those forces. (Wordsworth, Coleridge& Southey) Active or Revolutionary Romantic poets: they express the aspiration of the laboring classes. They held out an idea of future society free from oppression and exploitation. (Bryon, Shelley, Keats)William WordsworthOde: Intimations of Immortality 不朽颂 The Solitary Reaper 孤独的收割女Lucy Poem 露茜Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey 丁登寺She Dwelt Among the Untrodden WaysThe Solitary ReaperThe Prelude 序曲The Excursion 漫游I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 我好似一朵流云独自漫游Miscellaneous Sonnets 各种十四行诗George Gordon ByronCain and other poems like She Walks in Beauty(poetic drama:)Hours of IdlenessEnglish Bards and Scotch ReviewersChilde Herolds PilgrimageThe GiaourThe Bride of AbydosThe Siege of Corinth, 1816ManfredCainDon Juan, (his masterpiece)Percy Bysshe ShelleyQueen MabThe Revolt of Islam Prometheus Unbound,The CenciAdonaisThe Masque of AnarchyHis short lyrics on nature and love: Ode to the West Wind to a skylarkThe cloud love philosophyOne word is too often profanedJohn KeatsEndymionIsabellaThe Eve of Saint AgnesHyperionShorter poems: Ode on a Grecian UrnOde to a Nightingale Bright star when I have fear on the grasshopper and cricket Ode to autumn ode on melancholyWilliam Wordsworth:Life: 1770-1787 his childhood and youth in the Cumberland Hills. 1787-1797 a period of storm and stress 1797-1799 a short but significant period if finding himself and his works A long period of retirement in the northern lake regionComments on Wordsworth He is the representative of the first generation of Romantic poets, who expressed the deepest the deepest aspiration of English romanticism. He saw nature and man with new eyes. His whole work is an attempt to communicate that new vision.He is regarded as a Worshipper of Nature because he can penetrate to the core of things and give the readers the very life of nature. His poetry is distinguished by the simplicity and purity of his language.George Gordon Byron Works: He is chiefly knpwn for his 2 long poems, Childe Herolds Pilgrimage & Don Juan Short lyrics : She Walks in Beauty When we Two parted Hebrew Melodies Sonnet on ChillonComments He is one of the most excellent representatives of English Romanticism. His literary career was closely linked with the struggle and progressive movements of his age. He opposed oppression and slavery, and had an ardent love for liberty. He praised the people revolutionary struggles in his words. His poems show energy and vigour, romantic daring and powerful passion. He was a great admirer of Dryden and Pope. Some of his poems show Byrons individual heroism and pessimism. Percy Bysshe Shelley Comments: 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 free life foe mankind. He stood for this social and political ideal all his life. He and Byron are justifiably regarded as the 2 great poets of revolutionary romanticism in England. Shelley died at 29, because he was essentially a revolutionist and he would always have belonged to the vanguard of socialism.John KeatsJohn Keats poems revealed mastery of form and depth of feeling. But the democratic views in his poetry had offended the aristocratic bourgeois literary circles.Comments: he learned the art of poetry mainly from the poets of the English Renaissance. The artistic aim in his poetry is to create a beautiful world of imagination as opposed to the sordid reality of his day. He is part of nature. Some of his poems touch upon the burning political problems of his day. He showed his dissatisfaction with the society and described the sufferings of the poor people.William Makepeace Thackeray 1811-18931 a series of satirical sketches The Snobs of England which collected in The Books of Snobs2 1847 masterpiece Vanity Fair (subtitleA Novel without a Hero)Jane Austen 1775-18171 Northanger Abbey 2 Sense and Sensibility 3 Pride and Prejudice 4 Mansfield Park 5 Emma 6 PersuasionVirginia Woolf 1882-19411 novel- Mrs. Dalloway 2 To the Lighthouse 3 The Waves 4 Orlandoa fantastic saga 5 Flush-the “biography” of E.G. Browning spaniel 6 The Yearslongest novel 7 Between the Actslast novel 8 A Room of Ones Own & Three G