英国浪漫主义时期

Chapter III The Romantic Period（一） 考核知识点1 浪漫主义时期概述 1） 浪漫主义时期英国社会的政治，经济，文化背景 2） 浪漫主义文学创作的基本主张 3） 英国浪漫主义文学的特色 4） 浪漫主义文学对同时代及后世英国文学的影响2 浪漫主义时期主要作家的文学创作思想及其代表作品的主题结构，人物塑造，语言风格，艺术手法及社会意义等。（二） 考核要求1 浪漫主义时期概述1）识记：a.浪漫主义时期的界定 b.历史文化背景2) 领会：a.浪漫主义思潮的意义与影响。 b.浪漫主义文学创作的基本主张及对后世文学的影响。3) 应用：a.名词解释：浪漫主义 b.浪漫主义时期文学特点的分析 2 该时期的重要作家2） 领会：重要作家的创作思想，艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构，人物塑造，语言风格，社会意义等。3） 应用：a.浪漫派诗歌（所选作品）的主题，意象分析b.小说傲慢与偏见的主题和主要人物的性格分析。1. 一般识记 English RomanticismEnglish Romanticism is generally said to have began in 1798 with the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridges Lyrical Ballads and to have ended in 1832 with Sir Walter Scotts death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in the Parliament.2. 识记 Historical and Cultural backgroundDuring this period, England had experienced profound economic and social change. The biggest social change in English history was the transfer of large number of the population from the countryside to the towns. As a result of the Enclosures（圈地运动） and the agricultural mechanization（农业机械化）, the peasants were driven of their land,it caused large-scale workers disturbances in England.3 领会（1） Influences of the Romantic Movement Romanticism constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit. In essence it designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the center of all life and all experience. It also places the individual at the center of art, making literature most valuable as an expression of mans unique feelings and particular attitudes and in describing the individuals experiences.(2) The Romantic views about literaturea. 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.b. The Romantic period is also a great age of prose. The two major novelists of the Romantic period are Jane Austen and Walter Scott.c. Besides poetry and prose, some writers have tried to write poetic dramas in this period.4 应用 (1) Literary Termsa. The Romantic Movement It expressed a more or less negative attitude towards the existing social and political conditions that came with industrialization and the growing importance of the bourgeoisie. The Romantics felt that the existing society denied people their essential human needs, so they get rid of the dominant modes of thinking of the 18th-century writers and philosophers.The Romantics saw man essentially as an free and independent individual and emphasized the special qualities of each individuals mind. Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to .(接上浪漫主义运动的影响)b. The Gothic novelIt is a type of romantic fiction that predominated in the late 18th century and was one phase of the Romantic movement, its principal elements are violence, horror and the supernatural, which strongly appeal to the readers emotion. With its descriptions of the dark, irrational side of human nature, the Gothic form has a great influence to the writer of the Romantic period. Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley are typical Gothic romance. (2) Characteristics of Romantic literature in English history. The Romantic period is an age of poetry. 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. They explored new theories and innovated new techniques in poetry writing. They saw poetry as a healing energy which could purify both individual souls and the society. The Romantics not only praise the imagination, but also stress the concept of spontaneity and inspiration, regarding them as something important for true poetry. Nature is not only the major source of poetic imagery, but also provides the dominant subject matter.Wordsworth is the closest to nature.To escape from a rational world that had became materialistic and ugly, the Romantics would turn to other times and places, where the qualities they valued could be convincingly depicted. Romantics also tend to be nationalistic, defending the great poets and dramatists of their own national against the advocates of classical rules who tended to glorify Rome,Italian and French neoclassical art. To the Romantics, poetry should be free from all rules. Romantic writers are always seeking for the absolute and ideal through the transcendence of the actual. They have also made bold experiments in poetic language, versification and design, and constructed a variety of forms on original principles of structure and style.I. William BlakeEnglish poet ,artist and philosopher, 1757-1827. Blake is the earliest major English Romantic poets. His poems range from lyrics of childlike simplicity to mystical or prophetic(预言的) works of great complexity. As an artist he is best known for his engravings(雕刻).2. 识记 His political, religious and literary viewsBlake never tried to fit into the world,he was a rebel innocently and completely all his life. He was politically of the permanent left, Blake strongly criticized the capitalists cruel exploitation, meanwhile he had great expectations and enthusiasm for the French Revolution. Literarily Blake was the first important Romantic poet, showing contempt for the rule of reason, opposing the classical tradition of the 18th century and treasuring the individuals imagination.3. 领会 His poems (1) Early worksThe Songs of Innocence His Songs of Experience Blakes Marriage of Heaven and Hell天堂与地狱的结合marks his entry into maturity. The poem was composed during the climax of the French Revolution and it plays the double role both as a satire and a revolutionary prophecy. In this poem, Blake explores the relationship of the contraries. Life is a continual conflict of give and take, of good and evil, of innocence and experience, of body and soul. “Without contraries,” Blake states, “there is no progression.” (2) Later worksIn his later period, Blake wrote quite a few prophetic books, which reveal him as the prophet of universal political and spiritual freedom and show the poet himself as the spokesman of revolt. The major ones are: The Book of Urizen(尤莱森之书),The Book of Los(洛斯之书). And Milton (弥尔顿).4.领会 Characteristics of Blakes poemsBlake declare that “ I know that this world is a world of imagination and Vision,” and that “The Nature of my work is visionary or imaginative.” As an imaginative poet, he presents his view in visual images instead of abstract terms. Blake 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 feature of his poetry.5. 应用 Select Readings: 1) The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Innocence)天真之歌Songs of Innocence is a lovely volume of poems, presenting a happy and innocent world, though not without its evils and sufferings. For example, “ Holy Thursday” with its vision of charity children lit “ with a radiance all their own” reminds us a world of loss and institutional cruelty. The poor child described in “ The Chimney Sweeper,” evokes unbearable poignancy when he finally puts his trust in the order of the universe as he knows it. In this volume, Blake, with his eager quest for new poetics forms and techniques, broke completely with the traditions of the 18th century. He experimented in meter(音步) and rhymes（尾韵）and introduced bold metrical innovations which could not be found in the poetry of his contemporaries.In the 18th century, small boys sometimes no more than 4 or 5 years old, were employed to climb up the narrow chimney flues and clean them, collecting the soot in bags. Such boys, sometimes sold to the master sweepers by their poor parents .This poem, in fact, is a protest against the harm that society does to its children by exploiting them for labor of this kind, The poem was written in the childs-eye point of view, and the dramatic irony (what the speaker says in the poem is different from what the poet means) arises from the poets knowing more or seeing more than the child does. 2) The Chimney Sweeper (from songs of Experience) His Songs of Experience paints a different world, a world of misery, poverty, disease, war and repression with a melancholy tone. England becomes the world of the dark wood and hopeless. In London, the city is no longer a paradise, but becomes the seat of poverty and despair. The poem selected here reveals the true nature of religion which helps bring misery to the poor children. The poem also reveals the relation between are economic circumstance, i.e. the exploitation of child labor and an ideological circumstance, i.e. the role played by religion in making people compliant to exploitation. 3) The Tyger ( included in Songs of Experience)The Tyger is one of Blakes best-known poems. It seemingly praises the great power of tiger, but what the tiger symbolizes remains disputable: the power of man? Or the revolutionary force? Or the evil? Or as it is usually interpreted, the Almighty Maker万能的上帝who created both the meek and gentle lamb and the terrible and awesome tiger? The poem is highly symbolic with a touch of mysticism and it is open to various interpretations. The poem contains six quatrains in rhyming couplets and its language Is brief and forceful with an anvil rhythm.II. William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (1770-1850) ,He developed a keen love of nature as a youth. Another important influence on his life was the French Revolution. In 1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge collaborated on a book of poems entitled Lyrical Ballads Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Colerdge and William Wordsworth are known as the Lake Poets. In 1842, Wordsworth received a government pension and in the following year he succeeded Southey(骚赛) as Poet Laureate（诗人桂冠）. The Prelude序曲 is ranked by many critics as his greatest work.2. 识记：His poetic outlook Wordsworth is regarded 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 great poem in English literature, and one that takes us to the core of Wordsworths poetic beliefs. To Wordsworth, nature embodies human beings in their diverse circumstances. It is nature that gives him strength and knowledge full of peace. Common life is Wordsworths only subject of literary interest. The joys and sorrows of the common people are his themes. His sympathy always goes to the suffering poor. 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. Wordsworths deliberate simplicity and refusal to decorate the truth of experience produced a kind of pure and profound poetry which no other poets has ever equaled. Poetry, he maintains that the scenes and events of everyday life and the speech of ordinary people are the raw material of which poetry can and should be made. 3. 领会His poetical works 1) Lyrics Lyrical Ballads different from his early poetry, simplicity of much of the language, the strong sympathy with the poor, dramatized examples of them, and the fusion of natural description with expressions of inward states of mind. The poems Wordsworth added to the 1800 edition of the Lyrical Ballads are among the best of his achievements. To Wordsworth, nature acts as a substitute for imaginative and intellectual engagement with the development of embodied human beings in their diverse circumstances. Its nature that gives him strength and knowledge full of peace. 2) The Prelude序曲Wordsworth is a poet in memory of the past. To him, life is a cyclical journey. The Prelude opens with a literal journey .This journey goes through the poets personal history, carrying the metaphorical meaning of his interior journey and questing for his lost early self and the proper spiritual home. The poem charts this growth from childhood to manhood. We are shown the development of human consciousness under the sway of an imagination united to the beauty of nature. Later books of The Prelude describe Wordsworths experiences in France. The ended description of the ascent of Snowdon becomes a symbol of the poets climb to the height of his inspired powers ,he dedicats致力，献身 himself to humanity and becomes one of the Prophets of Nature.4.领会 Characteristics of Wordsworth Poems and His Achievements. William Wordsworth is the leading figure of the English romantic poetry and a great representative of romantic period. He presents a beautiful world and 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 nature.5. 应用：Selected Readings 1) I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (我如行云独自游)Wordsworth is regarded 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 great poem in English literature, and one that takes us to the core of Wordsworths poetic beliefs. Wordsworth wrote this beautiful poem of nature after he came across a long belt of gold daffodils tossing and dancing along the waterside. There is a vivid picture of the daffodils here, mixed with the poets philosophical and somewhat mystical thoughts.The poem consists of four 6-lined stanzas of iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of ababcc in each stanza. The last stanza describes the poets recollection in serenity from which this poem arose. The poet thinks that it is a bliss to recollect the beauty of nature in his mind while he is in solitude. 2) Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 (威斯敏斯特桥即景) This sonnet, written on his way to France, was published in Poems in Two Volumes(双卷诗) .The poem presents the speakers view of London in the early morning. The speaker is not only profoundly touched by its beauty and serenity of the morning, but even surprised to realize that London is part of Nature just as much as his beloved Lake Country.Wordsworth is regarded as a worshipper of nature. Even in this poem, though he is looking at London, he is thinking of home where the sun steeps in his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill.The poem is written after the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The octave recreates the experience of London at morning, and the sestet enlarges on his reaction to the scene. The rhyme scheme of the poem is abbaabba, cdcdcd.(前八行和后六行有严格的划分) 3) She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways (独自幽居)This is one of the Lucy poems. The Lucy Poems describe with rare elusive beauty of simple lyricism and haunting rhythm a young country girl living a simple life in a remote village far from the civilized world. They are verses of love and loss which hold within their delicate simplicity a meditation on time and death which rises to universal stature. 4) The Solitary Reaper (孤独的收割女) Wordsworth 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 is an example of his literary views. It describes vividly a young peasant girl working alone in the fields and singing as she works. The plot of the little incident is told with its comparison of the girls song to the cuckoo and the nightingale ， the impression of the girls singing on the traveler is heightened through these comparisons. This poem use rural figures to suggest the timeless mystery of sorrowful humanity and radiant beauty.This poem is an iambic verse. Most of the lines in the poem are octosyllabics. The rhyme-scheme for each stanza is ababccdd.III Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), poet and critic. He received education at Cambridge but left without a degree. Inspired by the radical thinkers with their idealism, Coleridge joined in a utopian乌托邦 plan of establishing an ideal democratic community in America. In the spring of 1797, Coleridge met with William Wordsworth. The following year, they published Lyrical Ballads.2.识记 His Literary Outlook and Philosophy Philosophically and critically, Coleridge opposed the limitedly rationalistic trends of the 18th-century thought. He advocats a more spiritual and religious interpretation of life, based on what he had learnt from Kant and Schelling. He believed that art is the only permanent revelation of the nature of reality. A poet should realize the vague intimations 微妙的启示derived from his unconsciousness without sacrificing the vitality of the inspiration.3.识记 His Major Works(1)The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 古航海家之歌 It is an adventurous story of a sailor. By neglecting the law, the mariner cruelly shot an albatross which flew to the ship through thick fog. Then disaster fell onto the ship. The other sailors died of thirst one after another, while the mariner alone was alive, being mistreated all the time with