英国文学浪漫主义文学Romanticism.doc

浪漫主义文学Romanticism历史背景Historical backgroundRomanticism (or the Romantic era/Period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe and strengthened in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. 浪漫主义是开始于18世纪西欧的艺术、文学、和文化运动，大约就发生在1790年工业革命开始的前后。The Romantic period, began in 1798, the year of the first edition of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge and of the composition of Hymns to the Night by Novalis, and ended in 1832, the year which marked the deaths of both Sir Walter Scott and Goethe. Historical background The early Romantic period coincides with what is often called the “age of revolutions”-including, of course, the American (1776) and the French (1789) revolutions-an age of upheavals(动荡) in political, economic, and social traditions, the age which witnessed the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary energy was at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry (and all art), but the very way we perceive the world. Attention to the outer world of social civilization is altered to the inner world of the human spirit. It also places the individual at the center of art, making literature most valuable as an expression of this or her unique feelings & particular attitudes . The Romantics felt that the existing society denied people their essential human needs, so they demonstrated a strong reaction against the dominant modes of thinking of the 18th-century writers & philosophers. Where their predecessors saw man as a social animal, the Romantics saw him essentially as an individual in the solitary state & emphasized the special qualities of each individuals mind. Characteristics of Romanticism Imagination Worship of nature Symbolism and myth Simplicity and humanity Spontaneity Intensity Overview of Romantic literatureThe romantic period is an age of poetry. Wordsworth and Coleridge are the most representative writers. They explore new theories and innovate new techniques in versification. They believe that poetry could purify individual souls and society. For further study of their literary theory, please refer to Wordsworths Preface to The Lyrical Ballads & Coleridges Biographia Literaria. 流派n Pre-romantic poetsn William Blake: mysterious, philosophical, visionary Songs of Innocence Songs of Experience Marriage of Heaven and Helln Robert Burns: Scottish dialect, balladsn Lake poets湖畔派-Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, 2 Poet Laureate: radical youth; conservative old age; long life定义：The Lake Poets are a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century.Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey were known as Lake Poets because they lived and knew one another in the last few years of the 18th century in the district of the great lakes in Northwestern England. The former two published The Lyrical Ballads together in 1798, while all three of them had radical inclinations in their youth but later turned conservative and received pensions and poet laureateships from the aristocracy. n Satanic Poets英国浪漫主义批评的术语-恶魔诗人-rebellious, revolutionary, romantic, short lifeOther greatest Romantic poets are: John Keats, P.B. Shelley and G. G. Byron. They are referred to as Satanic Poets by Robert Southey for their violent imagination and rebellious spirit.New poetic featuresn language: simple, everyday life speech, common voc