英国文学课件 新古典主义——浪漫主义

Chapter 12 John Milton

Paradise Lost（completed in 1667. In 1674, he published the final version of the epic. 12 books）Type of Work：Paradise Lost is an epic poem which —like the epic poems of Homer, Dante, Vergil, and Goethe—tells a story about momentous events while incorporating grand themes that are timeless and universal. Sources：Milton used the Bible, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Vergil's Aeneid, and the stories in Greco-Roman mythology as sources of information and as writing models. The Bible's Book of Genesis is the main source for his retelling of the story of creation and the first humans, Adam and Eve.

Settings：The settings are heaven, hell, the firmament (苍穹) (Chaos), and earth.

Characters：

? God the Father, God the Son: (trinity)Two of the three divine persons making up the all-powerful Godhead, the single deity（神性）that created and ruled all that exists outside of itself. The third divine person, the Holy Spirit, does not play a role in Paradise Lost. God the Father is portrayed as just but merciful, condemning (批判) the defiant （目中无人）and unrepentant (不后悔的) rebel angels but permitting redemption of the repentant Adam and Eve. God the Son volunteers to redeem them by becoming human and enduring suffering and death.

? Satan (Lucifer, Archfiend): Powerful and prideful angel who, with legions (众多的) of supporters, leads an unsuccessful rebellion against God and suffers eternal damnation. T o gain revenge, he devises a plan to corrupt God's newly created beings, Adam and Eve, through deceit. Modern readers often admire him for his steely defiance (藐视). He would rather rule in hell, he says, than serve in heaven. It was not Milton's intent, however, to create an admirable character; rather his intent was to create a character of colossal (巨大的) hatred — loathsome (令人讨厌的), execrable (恶劣的), incurably remorseless (冷酷无情的).

? Adam and Eve: The first human beings, created by God to fill the void（真空）that resulted when God cast Satan and his supporters out of the celestial realm. Adam and Eve live on the planet earth in utter happiness in a special garden where spring is the only season and love and godly living prevail. Though they have all that they want and need, cunning Satan tells them they can have knowledge and status beyond their reach if only they eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Eve can become a goddess, he says. Vanity overtakes her. She eats. Adam reluctantly does the same.

? Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, Uriel: Powerful and fearless angels on the side of God.

? Beelzebub, Mammon, Belial, Moloch: Powerful leaders in Satan's army. In a great council in hell, each of them speaks his mind on what policy devil-kind should follow after losing paradise. Should they make a new war? Should they make peace?

? Ithuriel, Zephron: Angels who expel Satan from the Garden of Eden with the help of a sign from God. Satan returns to the garden later to complete his devious enterprise.

? Mulciber: Fallen angel who designs hell's capital city and seat of government, Pandemonium. In ancient Roman mythology, Mulciber is another name for Vulcan (Greek: Hephaestus), god of fire and the forge. As a blacksmith, he kept shop in burning mountains (volcanoes).

? Sin: Daughter of Satan. She was born from his head in the manner of Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom and war, who sprang from the forehead of Zeus, king of the gods.

天动说的design rather than the Copernican design (哥白尼式设计). The former placed earth at the center of the solar system, with the sun and other celestial bodies orbiting it. Copernicus and other scientists later proved that the earth orbits the sun. Milton was aware of the Copernican theory, but he used the Ptolemaic design—either because he believed it was the more credible theory or because he believed it would better serve his literary purpose. In Paradise Lost, Adam inquires about the movements of celestial bodies—in particular, whether earth orbits the sun or vice versa—in his conversation with the archangel天使Raphael, but Raphael gives no definite answer. Raphael may have been speaking for Milton.

Style and Verse Format

Milton wrote Paradise Lost in dignified, lofty, melodic English free of any colloquialisms and slangs that would have limited the work's timeliness and universality. The format, Milton says in an introductory note, is "English heroic verse without rhyme"—in other words, blank verse, the same verse form used by Shakespeare in his plays. Milton's strong religious faith infuses the poem with sincerity and moral purpose, but he does not allow his enthusiasm for his subject to overtake control of his writing. Though Milton frequently uses obscure allusions to mythology and history, as well as occasional difficult words and phrases, his language is never deliberately affected or ostentatious炫耀的. What is more, it does not preach and does not take the reader on circumlocutory迂回的expeditions. Like a symphony composer—mighty Beethoven, for example —Milton is always in control, tempering his creative genius with his technical discipline.

With a good dictionary and an annotated有注解的text, a first-time reader of Milton can easily follow and understand the story while developing an appreciation for the exquisite writing.

Epic Conventions

In Paradise Lost, Milton used the classical epic conventions—literary practices, rules, or devices established by Homer that became commonplace in epic poetry. Some of these practices were also used in other genres of

literature. Among the classical conventions Milton used are the following:

(1) The invocation 祈祷of the muse, in which a writer requests divine help in composing his work.

(2) Telling a story with which readers or listeners are already familiar; they know the characters, the plot, and the outcome. Most of the great writers of the ancient world—as well as many great writers in later times, including Shakespeare—frequently told stories already known to the public. Thus, in such stories, there were no unexpected plot twists, no surprise endings. If this sounds strange to you, the modern reader and theatergoer, consider that many of the most popular motion pictures today are about stories already known to the public.

(3) Beginning the story in the middle, a literary convention known by its Latin term in media res资源(in the middle of things). Such a convention allows a writer to begin his story at an exciting part, then flash back to fill the reader in on details leading up to that exciting part.

(4) Announcing or introducing a list of characters who play a major role in the story. They may speak at some length about how to resolve a problem (as the followers of Satan do early in Paradise Lost).

(5) Conflict in the celestial realm. Divine beings fight and scheme against one another in the epics of Homer and Vergil, and they do so in Paradise Lost on a grand scale, with Satan and his forces opposing God and his forces. (6) Use of dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is a literary device in which a character in a story fails to see or understand what is obvious to the audience or readers. Dramatic irony appears frequently in the plays of the ancient Greeks. Imagery

?Milton's imagery is at times graceful and elegant, as in this memorable personification in Book 6 [Waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand Unbarred the gates of light. (lines 2-4)]

?At other times, the imagery is imposing and awe-inspiring, as in this description in Book 7

?In Book 8, Milton describes the commission of the first sin in simple, straightforward language, followed by a succinct personification summing up the terrible effects of the iniquity

?Milton also uses personification in Book 4 in this beautiful passage about a quiet night, the starry sky, and the ascendancy of the moon

Enjambment跨行连续

Milton uses frequently uses enjambment (also spelled enjambement) in the poem. It is a literary device in which a poet does not complete his sentence or phrase at the end of one line but allows it to carry over to the next line. Milton's use of enjambment helps the poem flow from one line to the next.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Brought death into the world. . .(Book 1, lines 1-3)

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Main Theme

In Book 1 of Paradise Lost, Milton reveals the central theme of the work: to justify the ways of God to man. Justify here means to explain and defend, and ultimately to vindicate澄清, God’s course of action in dealing with Adam and Eve after they succumbed to the temptation of Satan and ate forbidden fruit.

Other Themes

Inordinate 过度的pride: It leads to Satan's downfall and his continuing defiance of God.

Envy: Arising from Satan's pride, it makes him jealous of God the Son, who is the favorite of God the Father. Revenge: It motivates Satan to corrupt Adam and Eve and thereby subvert God's plans.

Vanity: It leads Eve to believe—under the temptation of Satan—that she can become godlike.

Deceit: Satan appears in many disguises and tells many lies during his mission to trick Adam and Eve.

Infidelity: Adam betrays God by siding with Eve and eating the forbidden fruit.

Unbridled 不受约束的pursuit of knowledge: It leads Adam and Eve to seek knowledge beyond their ken, knowledge that will make them godlike.

Volition意志: Angels and humans alike possess free will, enabling them to make decisions. Satan freely chooses to rebel against God, and Adam and Eve freely choose to eat forbidden fruit. The consequences of their actions are their own fault, not God's. Milton uses this theme to help support the central theme, "to justify the ways of God to man."

Disobedience违抗: All sins are acts of disobedience against God, impairing or cutting off the sinner's relationship with God. Adam and Eve and all of the devils disobey God through their sins.

Loyalty: Loyalty to God and his ways are necessary for eternal salvation. Loyalty requires obedience. All of the good angels exhibit loyalty.

Repentance悔悟: Even though Adam and Eve have disobeyed God, their repentance makes them eligible for eventual salvation.

Hope: At the end of Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve enter the imperfect world with hope; they can yet attain eternal salvation.

Redemption赎回: Through the suffering and death of the Son of God, sinful man can reconcile himself with God if he is sincerely sorry for his sins.

Climax

The climax, or turning point, of Paradise Lost occurs when Adam and Eve succumb to Satan's temptations and eat the forbidden fruit. This act of disobedience results in their downfall and eviction from Paradise.

What Is an Angel?

An angel is a supernatural being that serves God by praising and adoring Him and by carrying out special missions that assist humans. Angels have the additional task of opposing and punishing devils. Devils are angels

cast out of heaven because they rebelled against God. The word angel derives from the Greek word angelos, meaning messenger. The major western religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—all accept the existence of angels. The rank of angels from highest to lowest is as follows:

1. Seraphim (Seraph)

2. Cherubim (Cherub)

3. Thrones

4. Dominations

5. Virtues

6. Powers

7. Principalities

8. Archangels

9. Angels

Chapter 13 The Seventeenth-Century Prose2007-11-12 13:53I. Bible

1. The Bible is the name given to the revelation of God to man contained in sixty-six books or pamphlets, bound together and forming one book.

2. The Books of the Bible：Old Testament（39 Books, written in the Hebrew language between 1400 and 400

B.C. ）About the creation of the world, the origin of the Jewish people, its history, religion, law, and poetry. New Testament（27 Books, written in the Greek language between 40 and 100 A.D.）About Jesus Christ’s life, his deeds and teachings

Son of an important official / Studied law, became a barrister and entered House of Commons, legal advisor to Elizabeth I / Attorney General and Lord Chancellor under James I; forced out of office in 1621 / Retired to his estate to write and study / Tried to convince Elizabeth I and James I to embrace natural philosophy as statecraft

2. Major Works

Essays (1594)

The Advancement of Learning (1605) Great Instauration and Novum Organum (1620) New Atlantis (posthumous)

3. Important Baconian ideas

●Reliance on the evidence of the senses and instruments

●Progress through technology

●Technological transformation of nature to make it useful to humanity

●State Institutions of science: institutes, centralization, technocratic expertise

4. Bacon’s Essays

●Essay as a form of literature, the essay is a composition of moderate length, usually in prose, which deals in an

easy, cursory way with the external conditions of a subject, and, in strictness, with that subject, only as it affects the writer.

The essay was invented by Montaigne.

●Bacon’s essays

Bacon offers his views on a whole smorgasbord of topics ranging from Truth, Death,' Adversitie', Marriage & the single life, Love, Boldness, Superstition, Friendship, Health, Ambition, Youth, Beauty to Anger & Fame.

Features of Bacon’s essays

●Bacon’s essays are the first example of that genre in English lit erature and have been recognized as an

important landmark in the development of English prose. The essays are famous for the pithy aphoristic style, which he had defended in principle in The Advancement of Learning as proper for the expression of tentative opinions.

●There is an obvious stylistic change in the Essays. The sentences in the first edition are charged and crowded

with symmetries. They are composed in a rather affected way. However, the final edition not only enlarges the range of theme, but also brings forth the looser and more persuasive style.

●The essays are well arranged and enriched by Biblical allusions, metaphors and cadences. In general, Bacon’s

literary style is noted for three prominent qualities: directness, terseness, and forcefulness.

II. John Bunyan (1628-1688)

1. Life and Career

Had very little schooling, but abnormally active imagination with dreams and fears of devils and hell-fire / Worked in the tinker's trade / Served in the parliamentary army / Married in 1649 / Joined a non-sectarian church / Was arrested and imprisoned for making illegal preaching in the surrounding villages / Wrote Pilgrim’s Progress in Prison

2. Points of View

●Religiously, a devout Christian, and a firm non-conformist of the Anglican Church, he believed that man’s final

salvation could be achieved only by one’s own spiritual struggle.

●Politically, with a deep hatred for the corrupted, hypocritical rich, he condemned oppression, falsehood,

indulgence in pleasure seeking and many other vices of the money-corrupted upper class, but eulogized the truth-seeking Christian.

3. The Pilgrim's Progress

(1) Story : A tale of adventure on a perilous path, encountering giants, wild beasts, hobgoblins, etc. The tale based on human experience: e.g. the moving account of his death with Hopeful

(2) Major characters

Christian Faithful Hopeful Giant Despair Ignorance Christiana

(3) Major theme:

●Spiritual salvation for mankind

●The cost of salvation

●The road to salvation is difficult and lonely ●Salvation is attainable by all who seek it. ●To grow in holiness is a daily battle, in which there

will be setbacks and encouragements, but which is

a battle worth fighting

(4) The basic metaphor: Life is a journey.

●"Everyone sojourning in the flesh is passing through this earth to a mysterious state of future bliss .... the

Pilgrim's progress is toward no earthly destination.―

●The journey is from this world to the next world.

●Pilgrim, one who strives to obtain salvation of their soul through a physical journey in which love for God, and not

love for material things, drives them.

●Pilgrimage: the journey to a distant sacred goal; it is found in all the great religions of the world. It is a journey

both outwards to hallowed places and inwards to spiritual improvement; it can express penance for past evils, or the search for future good; the pilgrim may pursue spiritual ecstasy in the sacred sites of a particular faith, or seek a miracle through the medium of God or a saint.

●Johnson praised John Bunyan highly. "His Pilgrim's Progress has great merit, both for invention, imagination,

and the conduct of the story; and it has had the best evidence of its merit, the general and continued approbation of mankind. Few books, I believe, have had a more extensive sale. It is remarkable, that it begins very much like the poem of Dante; yet there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. There is reason to think that he had read Spenser."

(5) Special features

●The most successful religious allegory in English language

●Vivid characterization: Travelers who represent states of the soul, or moral attitudes

●Style: Modeled on the prose style of the English Bible; Simple diction; colloquial expressions; and

straightforward sentence structures

III. John Dryden (1631-1700)

1. Life and Career

Born in a country g entry’s family / Received his education at Cambridge / Shifted to the royalist side after Restoration / Became a prominent poet, dramatist, and critic in his time

2. Major Works

Absalom and Achitophel

Antony and Cleopatra: All for Love

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy

3. Influence on Literature

●Dryden is the ―lock by which the waters of English poetry were let down from the mountains of Shakespeare and

Milton to the plain of Pope.‖

●His satire exerted a fruitful influence on the most brilliant verse satirists of the next century.

●As a prose writer, Dryden had a very marked influence on English literature in shortening his sentences, and

especially in writing naturally, without depending on literary ornamentation to give effect to what he is saying.

Primarily focusing on drama, the poetry of plays, he creates a dialogue between poet/critics of He chooses to review the existing, generally accepted conventions and decide in what respects they are being followed, or whether they should be followed by English writers.

Chapter 14 Introduction to the 18th century

I. Introductory Remarks:

The period (1660-1798) began with the Restoration of Charles II, during whose reign the leading literary figure was John Dryden, with whom the neoclassical literature came into being, and concluded with the death of Samuel Johnson in 1784, the last important advocate of neoclassicism. By Johnson’s death, neoclassic

ism came to a decline the 18th century. Complacency (self-satisfaction) marked the beginning of the 18th century. The upper classes, in complete control now, wanted no religious enthusiasts and revolutionaries. They believed in reason. This rational approach to social and literary problems have given it the title of ―The Age of Reason‖, while the desire for perfect form which resulted in adaptations of Greek and Latin models has caused it to be called ―The Neoclassic Age.‖

1. The Glorious Revolution (1688)

1) James II (reactionary rule and ruthless suppression of the Protestant rebellion) / discontent from the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy / Mary and her husband, William were invited to be joint sovereigns of the English throne / James II was forced to abdicate and fled to France in 1688. / This was called the Glorious or Bloodless Revolution in England

2) After that England gradually became a constitutional monarchy, and power passed from the king to the parliament and the cabinet.

2. Religious Conflicts

With the triumph of the Glorious Revolution, the conflicts were very intense between the Anglican Church and its two adversaries – Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholics. Finally England was firmly established as a dominantly Protestant nation. In the late 17th century, Deism自然神教admitted their belief in a Supreme Being or the God as the creator of the world, but they glorified reason and so rejected the so-called “revealed”religious truth.(reason underlying the so-called “revealed”religious truth)

3. The Rapid Expanding of the British Empire

the defeat of the Holland navy; a series of victories over France / the Act of Union of 1707 – Great Britain / from Canada in the west to India in the east / Swift, Burke, Sheridan and Goldsmith (from Ireland); Thomson, Boswell, Hume and Burns (from Scotland).

4. The Industrial Revolution

the discovery of the Laws of Gravitation by Newton; steam engine (James Watt); te xtile machines… / the Enclosure 5. Two-Party Politics (The Tory and the Whig)

the Tory (conservative) defended the kingship, the old traditions and the noble country families / the Whig (liberal) sought to increase the powers of the Parliament and to advance commerce and education.

6. Connection between Politics and Literature

political pamphlets / literary men were eager to offer their services in shaping the government

7. The American War of Independence and the French Revolution (1789-1794)

The century closed, however, with revolutions, exploding in the American colonies and in France. Though these outbursts of revolutionar y movements did not change England’s position as a big industrial and capitalist power, they had the most far-reaching influences upon men’s thoughts and were left most deeply in literature, esp in the literature of the Age of Romanticism which followed.

III. Enlightenment启蒙运动and its effects on English literature

1. It was a progressive intellectual movement throughout Western Europe in the 18th and Russia in the 19th centuries. The movement was, on the whole, an expression of the struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners fought against class inequality, stagnation停滞, prejudices and other feudal survivals.

2. The enlightenment was so called because it considered the chief means for the betterment of the society was the ―enlightenment‖ or ―education‖ of the people. In other words they believed in the power of reason and their watchword was ―common sense‖. That is why the 18th century in England has often been called ―the Age of Reason‖. Most of the enlightenment thinkers believed that social problems could not be solved by church doctrines or by the power of God but should be solved with human intelligence.

3. Most of the important writers of the 18th century belonged to the enlightenment. In their works these writers criticized different aspects of contemporary England, discussed social problems and the management of the government, and some even partly defended the interests of the exploited laboring masses, the peasants, and the working people in the cities. The literature of the Enlightenment in England mainly appealed to the middle class readers.

IV. Neo-Classicism

1. Neoclassicism was a reaction against the intricacy 复杂and occasional obscurity晦涩, boldness and the extravagance of European literature of the late Renaissance, and in favor of simplicity, clarity, restraint, regularity and good sense. In England, neoclassicism was initiated by Dryden, culminated in Pope and continued by Johnson.

2. The writers were considered neoclassic because they modeled themselves on classical Greek or Latin authors in order to achieve perfect form in literature. The general tendency of neoclassical literature was to look at social and political life critically, to emphasize intellect rather than imagination, the form rather than the content of a sentence.

3. Chief characteristics of Neoclassic literature

1) The neoclassic writers manifested a strong traditionalism, which was clearly shown in their immense respect for classical writers.

2) The neoclassic believed that literature was primarily an ―art‖, which must be perfected by long study and practice. They laid much emphasis on the correct, the appropriate, on restraint and discipline, paid much attention to their style, and respected the established rules of their art.

3) The neoclassic regarded poetry as imitation of human life –a mirror up to nature. Emphasis was placed on what human beings possess in common （共性）–representative characteristics, and widely shared experiences, thoughts, feelings and tastes.

4) The neoclassic believed that the poet is the maker – the maker of the representative images of human actions and of the world, and the purpose for which he makes this image of life is to teach. In order to teach effectively, he must please the reader by his fictions, and by all the ornaments of language, metrics and rhetoric that belong to his craft. This concept of the nature of the poet inevitably determines the didactic, satirical, artificial and orderly qualities of neoclassicism.

5) The neoclassic deduced 演绎rules from the practice of early masters and invented new rules of their own.

?In drama, they adhered to the three unities of time, place and action, regularity in construction, and the presentation of types rather than individuals.

?In di ction, they highly regarded ―witty‖ expressions. They preferred the use of artificial and stock diction. ?In poetry, they demanded it to follow the ancient divisions: lyric, epic, didactic, satiric or dramatic, and each class should be guided by its own principles.

?In versification诗律, the age was famous for its ―closed heroic couplet‖, that is, two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter which contains within itself a complete statement and so is closed by a semicolon, period, question mark, or exclamation point.

?The neoclassic poetry differs from that of the Elizabethan Age in three ways. First, it is more formal, with its demand to follow exact rules, while the Elizabethans wrote in a more natural style sometimes without regard to rules; second, it is more artificial, polished, prosaic单调的, and dull and lacks the creative vigor of the Elizabethans; third, the chief poetic form of neoclassicism is heroic couplet which replaced the variety of forms in the Elizabethan Age.

4. The literature of the Neoclassic Age (1660-1784)

1) the first, extending to the death of Dryden in 1700, may be thought of as the period in which English ―neoclassical‖ literature came into being and its critical principles were formulated; the second, ending with the death of Pope in 1744 and of Swift in 1745, brought to its culmination the literary movement; the third, concluding with the death of Johnson in 1784 and the publication of William Cowper’s The Task in 1785, was a period in which neoclassical principles gradually petered out 耗尽and were replaced by the Romantic Movement.

Chapter 15 The 18th Century Poetry

I. Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

1. Life Story

Born in London of a successful merchant’s family, of Roman Catholic faith / weak and crippled from childhood / did not have regular schooling but was taught at home by a priest / his only amusement was reading and writing. He taught himself by reading and translating Latin, French, Italian, and Greek poets, with the help of dictionaries and grammar books. Pope began to write poems when he was only 12.

2. His Poems

1) the first group

didactic and philosophical poems, including Essay on Criticism (1711); Moral Essays (1731); An Essay on Man (1734);

2) The second group contains his poems of social satires, such as the Rape of the Lock (1714); An Heroic-Comical Poem and The Dunciad

3) The third group is composed of his translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

3. His Influences

1) He had a brilliant wit, a sharp critical sense, and a deadly pen. He brought the neoclassicism in England to its climax.

2) In his hands, the heroic couplet achieved all the finish, elegance, wit and pointedness which the form invited.

3) As a technician in English verse 韵文he has never been excelled, and he occupied such a prominent place in the literary world of his time that not infrequently the literary epoch of early 18th century has been named after him as “The Age of Pope”.

After his time, esp since the 19th century, Pope has been much criticized and some critics have called him a versifier and not a poet, meaning that he wrote clever and standardized but very mechanical sort of verse which had not flights of poetic imagination. Bla ke summarized him as ―elegant formalism‖. Byron, however, thought highly of him, defended him, and was much under his influence. Nowadays he is rated by some critics as second only to Shakespeare and Milton, and the equal of Wordsworth.

II. Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

The most scholarly and well-balanced of all the early romantic poets and the most outstanding of the minor poets of the mid-18th century.

1. Life Story

Born in London / educated first at Eton and then at Cambridge / spend 2 years on a grand tour of the European Continent / after graduation he continued to live at Cambridge and was appointed professor at Cambridge.

2. His Works

On Spring;

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College; On Adversity不幸(1742); Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard墓畔哀歌

Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat (an elegy on Walpole)

3. His Features

1) Gray was familiar with all the intellectual interest of his age, and his works had much of the precision and polish of the classical school.

2) His early poems belonged to the literary tradition of neoclassicism. But he also shared the reawakened interest in nature, in common men, and in medieval culture, so his later works were generally romantic both in style and in spirit.

3) He also fell under the influence of sentimentalism感伤主义. His poetry reveals two suggestive things.

●the appearance of that melancholy忧郁which characterizes the poetry of Romanticism;

●the study of nature, not for its own beauty or truth, but rather as a suitable background for the play of human

emotions

4. His Influences

Gray’s poetic output was small（around 10）, but his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard was given high praise by literary historians and critics almost unanimously. The Elegy was regarded as the acme 顶点of graveyard

.墓畔派诗人

"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is—as the title indicates—an elegy. Such a poem centers on the death of a person or persons and is, therefore, somber in tone. An elegy is lyrical rather than narrative—that is, its primary purpose is to express feelings and insights about its subject rather than to tell a story. Typically, an elegy expresses feelings of loss and sorrow while also praising the deceased and commenting on the meaning of the deceased's time on earth. Gray's poem reflects on the lives of humble and unheralded未为人所知的people buried in the cemetery 墓地of a church.

2. Setting （time and place）

The time is the mid 1700s, about a decade before the Industrial Revolution began in England. The place is the cemetery of a church. Evidence indicates that the church is St. Giles, in the small town of Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, in southern England. Gray himself is buried in that cemetery. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, once maintained a manor 领地house at Stoge Poges.

3. Years of Composition and Publication

Gray began writing the elegy in 1742, put it aside for a while, and finished it in 1750. Robert Dodsley published the poem in London in 1751. Revised or altered versions of the poem appeared in 1753, 1758, 1768, and 1775. Copies of the various versions are on file in the Thomas Gray Archive at Oxford University.

4. Meter 节拍and Rhyme 韵律Scheme

Gray wrote the poem in four-line stanzas (quatrains). Each line is in iambic pentameter, meaning the following: ●Each line has five pairs of syllables for a total of ten syllables.

●In each pair, the first syllable is unstressed (or unaccented), and the second is stressed (or accented), as in the

two lines that open the poem:

The CUR few TOLLS the KNELL of PART ing DAY

The LOW ing HERD wind SLOW ly O'ER the LEA

In each stanza, the first line rhymes with the third and the second line rhymes with the fourth (abab), as follows:

a..The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

b..The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, a..The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

晚钟响起来一阵阵给白昼报丧，牛群在草原上迂回，吼声起落，耕地人累了，回家走，脚步踉跄，把整个世界给了黄昏与我。

A stanza with the above-mentioned characteristics — four lines, iambic pentameter, and an abab rhyme scheme — is often referred to as a heroic quatrain. (Quatrain is derived from the Latin word quattuor, meaning four.) William Shakespeare and John Dryden had earlier used this stanza form. After Gray's poem became famous, writers and critics also began referring to the heroic quatrain as an elegiac stanza.

6. Themes

1) Death: the Great Equalizer均衡，平等

Even the proud and the mighty must one day lie beneath the earth, like the humble men and women now buried in the churchyard, as line 36 notes: The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Lines 41-44 further point out that no grandiose宏伟的memorials and no flattering words about the deceased can bring him or her back from death.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death? 栩栩的半身像，铭刻了事略的瓮碑，难道能恢复断气，促使还魂？

“荣誉”的声音能激发沉默的死灰？“陷媚”能叫死神听软了耳根？

2）Missed Opportunities

Because of poverty or other handicaps, many talented people never receive the opportunities they deserve. The following lines elucidate 阐明this theme through metaphors:

Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 世界上多少晶莹皎洁的珠宝

埋在幽暗而深不可测的海底；世界上多少花吐艳而无人知晓，把芬芳白白散发给荒凉的空气。

Here, the gem宝石at the bottom of the ocean may represent an undiscovered musician, poet, scientist or philosopher. The flower may likewise stand for a person of great and noble qualities that are "wasted on the desert air." Of course, on another level, the gem and the flower can stand for anything in life that goes unappreciated.

3）Virtue

In their rural setting, far from the temptations of the cities and the courts of kings, the villagers led virtuous lives, as lines 73-76 point out:

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 远离了纷纭人世的勾心斗角，

他们有清醒的愿望，从不学糊涂，顺着生活的清凉的山坳，

他们坚持了不声不响的正路。

7. Inversion 反向

For poetic effect, Gray frequently uses inversion (reversal of the normal word order). Following are examples:

Line 6: And all the air a solemn stillness holds (all the air holds a solemn stillness)

Line 14: Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap (Where the turf heaves)

Line 24: Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. (Or climb his knees to share the envied kiss)

Line 79: With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd (deck'd with uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture)

8．Syncope字中音省略

Gray also frequently uses a commonplace poetic device known as syncope, the omission of letters or sounds within a word. The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea (line 2). Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight (line 5) Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r (line 9) The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed (line 18) 9．Figures of Speech

1）Alliteration

●Repetition of a Consonant Sound

The plowman homeward plods his weary way (line 3) The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn (line 19) Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind? (line 88) Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn (line 107) Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. (line 108)

2）Anaphora 首语重复法

●Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of word groups occurring one after the other

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave (line 34) Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse (line 81) Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,

Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. (lines 91-92)

3）Metaphor

●Comparison between unlike things without using like, as, or than

Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air. (lines 53-56)

●Comparison of the dead village people to unappreciated gems and flowers

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. (lines 71-72) ●Comparison of flattering words to incense

4）Metonymy 转喻

●Use of a word or phrase to suggest a related word or phrase

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land Land stands for people.

5）Personification

● A form of metaphor that compares a thing to a person

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

The short and simple annals of the poor. (lines 29-32)

●Ambition and Grandeur take on human characteristics.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll (line 49-50) ●Notice that Knowledge becomes a person, a female.

Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. (lines 119-120)

●Science and Melancholy become persons.

10. Assessment of the Poem

Scholars regard "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" as one of the greatest poems in the English language. It weaves structure, rhyme scheme, imagery and message into a brilliant tapestry织锦画that confers on Gray everlasting fame. The quality of its poetry and insights reach Shakespearean and Miltonian heights.

11. Biographical Information

Thomas Gray was born in London on December 26, 1716. He was the only one of twelve children who survived into adulthood. His father, Philip, a scrivener (a person who copies text) was a cruel, violent man, but his mother, Dorothy, believed in her son and operated a millinery business to educate him at Eton school in his childhood and Peterhouse College, Cambridge, as a young man.

He left the college in 1738 without a degree to tour Europe with his friend, Horace Walpole, the son of the first prime minister of England, Robert Walpole (1676-1745). However, Gray did earn a degree in law although he never practiced in that profession. After achieving recognition as a poet, he refused to give public lectures because he was extremely shy. Nevertheless, he gained such widespread acclaim and respect that England offered him the post of poet laureate, which would make him official poet of the realm. However, he rejected the honor. Gray was that rare kind of person who cared little for fame and adulation.

Chapter 16 The 18th Century Prose

I. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

1. Life Story

Born in Dublin / studied at Trinity College, Dublin / after graduation he was admitted into the household of a disrelative and worked as a secretary for ten years / from 1710-1714, he was the chief editor of The Examiner, a newspaper of the Tories. / He left London in 1714 and became the Dean of St.Patrick’s in Dublin.

2 His Works

Most of his works are satires.

●The Battle of Books and A Tale of a Tub (1704), satirizing the corruptions in religion and learning.

●He deeply sympathized the Irish people under English rule, and took an active part in their struggle for liberty

and national independence.

●

●

3. allegorical(讽喻的) novel Gulliver’s Travels, which gives an unparalelled satirical depiction of the vices of the age.

III.A Modest Proposal

1. Type of Work

"A Modest Proposal" is an essay that uses satire to make its point. 【A satire is a literary work that attacks or pokes fun at vices, abuses, stupidity, and / or any other fault or imperfection. Satire may make the reader laugh at, or feel disgust for, the person or thing satirized. Impishly (心地不善地) or sardonically(讽刺地), it criticizes someone or something, using wit and clever wording—and sometimes makes outrageous assertions or claims. The main purpose of a satire is to spur readers to remedy the problem under discussion. The main weapon of the satirist is verbal irony, a figure of speech in which words are used to ridicule a person or thing by conveying a meaning that is the opposite of what the words say.】

The essay was originally printed in the form of a pamphlet. At the time of its publication, 1729, a pamphlet was a short work that took a stand on a political, religious, or social issue—or any other issue of public interest. A typical pamphlet had no binding, although it sometimes had a paper cover. Writers of pamphlets, called pamphleteers, played a significant role in inflaming or resolving many of the great controversies in Europe in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, as well as in the political debate leading up to the American Revolution.

In addition to ―A Modest Proposal,‖ Jonathan Swift wrote many political pamphlets supporting th e causes of the Tory political party after he renounced his allegiance to the Whig party.

2. Purpose

Jonathan Swift wrote ―A Modest Proposal‖ to call attention to abuses inflicted on Irish Catholics by well-to-do English Protestants. Swift himself was a Protestant, but he was also a native of Ireland, having been born in Dublin of English parents. He believed England was exploiting and oppressing Ireland.

Many Irishmen worked farms owned by Englishmen who charged high rents—so high that the Irish were frequently unable to pay them. Consequently, many Irish farming families continually lived on the edge of starvation.

In ―A Modest Proposal,‖ Swift satirizes the English landlords with outrageous humor, proposing that Irish infants be sold as food at age one, when they are plump and healthy, to give the Irish a new source of income and the English a new food product to bolster their economy and eliminate a social problem. He says his proposal, if adopted, would also result in a reduction in the number of Catholics in Ireland, since most Irish infants—almost all of whom were baptized Catholic—would end up in stews and other dishes instead of growing up to go to Catholic churches. Here, he is satirizing the prejudice of Protestants toward Catholics.

Swift also satirizes the Irish themselves in his essay, for too many of them had accepted abuses stoically rather than taking action on their own behalf.

3. Historical Background

Over the centuries, England gradually gained a foothold in Ireland. In 1541, the parliament in Dublin recognized England’s Henry VIII, a Protestant, as King of Ireland. In spite of repeated uprisings by Irish Catholics, English Protestants acquired more and more estates in Ireland. By 1703, they owned all but ten percent of the land. Meanwhile, legislation was enacted that severely limited the rights of the Irish to hold government office, purchase real estate, get an education, and advance themselves in other ways. As a result, many Irish fled to foreign lands, including America. Most of those who remained in Ireland lived in poverty, facing disease, starvation, and prejudice. It was this Ireland—an Ireland of the tyrannized and the downtrodden—that Jonathan Swift attempted to focus attention on in ―A Modest Proposal‖ in 1720.

4. Essay Format

In "A Modest Proposal," Swift uses a standard essay format: an opening that presents the topic and thesis (the "modest proposal"), a body that develops the thesis with details, and a conclusion. In the opening, the author states the problem: the deplorable economic and social conditions that impoverish the Irish and prevent them from providing adequate care for their children. Before presenting the thesis, he inserts the following transitional sentence: "I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection." He follows this sentence with the thesis, then presents the details in the body of the essay. In the conclusion, he states the benefits that would accrue积累from his proposal. He begins with the following two sentences: "I have too long digressed岔题的, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance." He next lists the advantages, using transitional words such as secondly and thirdly to move from one point to the next." He ends the conclusion by explaining why his proposal is superior to other remedies. Keep in mind that throughout the body and conclusion Swift makes his argument with irony, stating the opposite of what he really means.

5. Irony

The dominant figure of speech in "A Modest Proposal" is verbal irony, in which a writer or speaker says the opposite of what he means. Swift's masterly use of this device makes his main argument—that the Irish deserve better treatment from the English—powerful and dreadfully amusing. For example, to point out that the Irish should not be treated like animals, Swift compares them to animals, as in this example: "I rather recommend buying the

children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs." Also, to point out that disease, famine, and substandard living conditions threaten to kill great numbers of Irish, Swift cheers their predicament 困境as a positive development:

Some persons of a desponding沮丧的spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed, and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance累赘. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin寄生虫, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition; they cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labor, they have not strength to perform it; and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.

6. Themes

●Exploitation of the Downtrodden受压迫的

Beneath Swift’s audacious大胆的satire is a serious theme: that English overlords are shamelessly exploiting and oppressing the impoverished people of Ireland through unfair laws, high rents charged by absentee landlords, and other injustices.

●Prejudice

At the time of the publication of "A Modest Proposal," many British Protestants disdained蔑视Roman Catholics -- especially Irish Catholics -- and enacted laws limiting their ability to thrive and prosper.

●Irish Inaction 无为

Swift's satirical language also chides 指责the Irish themselves for not acting with firm resolve to improve their lot.

7. Essay Topics

●The language of "A Modest Proposal" is specific and succinct. It is also playfully shocking, as demonstrated in

the following paragraph in which Swift uses carcasses (remains of dead animals dressed by butchers) to refer to the remains of children prepared as meat: "Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be constant customers for Infant's Flesh, besides others who might have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about twenty thousand carcasses, and the rest of the Kingdom (where probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty thousand."

Chapter 17 The 18th Century Novel

I. Novel

It is a work of narrative fiction of some length, nearly always in prose, bearing a close resemblance to daily life in psychology, environment and time scale. (Gille)

II. The Origin of the English Novel

Modern Europea n novel can be said to begin in the late Renaissance with Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1605-1616). The rise and growth of the realistic novel is the most significant development of 18th century literature, which has given the world such forerunners of modern novelists as Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the novel has become the most popular of all literary forms. But its history before the 18th century is fragmentary. The origin of the novel can be traced back to the romances of the ancient world and early Renaissance.

The man who made the most important advances toward the novel is Danial Defoe. His masterpiece is Robinson Crusoe, as well as his other prose narratives (Moll Flanders, Roxana) lack nothing required of the novel but a centual plot. They present merely a series of loosely connected episodes, much in the manner of so-called picaresque romances of Spain, which related the adventures and intrigues of a rogue or picaro. But in point of characterization, Defoe’s stories ar e excellent, and in their air of realism they are actually in advance of the earliest novels.

Moreover, Robinson Crusoe achieves an enforced unity of action by focusing on the problem of surviving on a uninhabited island. It presents so convincing a central character, sets in so solid and factually realized world that Defoe is often credited with writing the first true ―novel of incident‖.

The credit for having written the first English novel is given to Samuel Richardson for his Pamela, which took the world by storm.

Tom Jones

I. Type of Work

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, is a novel that centers on a likable hero who romps through a series of adventures while growing up and pursuing the girl he idolizes. The novel falls into the general category of comedy because of its humor and its happy ending. It contains elements of the following genres:

●Bildungsroman教育小说: Novel about the coming of age, or maturation, of the main character. In Tom Jones, the

title character undergoes character development while growing up in the country, experiencing adventures while

●and adventures while traveling from one

place to another. Tom Jones is a long narrative about the struggles and adventures of a traveling protagonist. ●Mock Epic: Literary work that uses the elevated style of a classical epic (such as Homer's Odyssey or Virgil's

Aeneid) to describe a trivial or insignificant event. The result is a comic or satirical passage.

●Romance: (1) Narrative about the adventures of a chivalric骑士的hero who often is in love with a noble lady; (2)

narrative that emphasizes love. Tom Jones battles villains, rescues a damsel少女in distress, and is in love with

a noble lady.

●Picaresque以流浪汉为题材的novel: Novel about the episodic adventures of a vagabond 流浪汉hero. Tom

Jones experiences many episodic adventures while traveling from one place to another.

II. Structure and Setting

Henry Fielding presented the novel in three main sections with action taking place in the first half of the eighteenth century. The first section centers on life in the country at the estates of Squire Allworthy and Squire Western in Somersetshire (Somerset County) in southwestern England. In this section, the protagonist, Tom Jones, grows from infant foundling into a teenager who falls in love with the beautiful daughter of Squire Western.

The second part of the novel takes place along roads, a inns, and in other locales between Somersetshire and London in the middle t and late 1740s, when the Jacobite rebellion was under way and English soldiers were bracing for battles with their enemies (Jacobites), who were seeking to restore the House of Stuart to the English throne. In this section, the protagonist experiences many episodic adventures involving a diverse cast of characters that include a woman in distress, soldiers on the march, gypsies, untrustworthy靠不住的lawyers, puppeteers拉线木偶表演者, women admirers of the title character, and an impoverished robber.

The action in the third part takes place mainly in London, where the title character searches for his beloved, fights a duel, has encounters with a possessive seductress, goes to jail, gains his freedom, and reunites with his beloved. This section ends when the principal characters return to Somersetshire.

III. Tone :The tone is playful and light-hearted.

IV. Point of View视角，角度

When telling the story, the narrator generally uses third-person omniscient 无所不知的point of view, enabling him to reveal the thoughts of the characters. When commenting on the story, the narrator uses first-person point of view, sometimes in the singular and sometimes in the plural.

On occasion, the narrator uses first-person point of view while telling the story, as in theBook 9, Chapter 3.

V. Characters

Tom Jones: The main character. The story follows his development from infancy to young manhood. Born out of wedlock, he becomes the adopted child of Squire Allworthy and the rival of the devious 不正直的Blifil, the son of Allworthy's sister, Bridget, and her husband, Captain Blifil. Tom is honest, courageous, and generous but at times imprudent轻率的and downright reckless鲁莽的.

Sophia Western: Beautiful daughter of Squire Western. She and Tom fall in love, but circumstances keep them apart until the end of the novel.

Squire Allworthy: Wealthy landowner who adopts and rears T om Jones. As his name suggests, he is "all worthy"—that is, kindly, generous, and morally upright. However, he sometimes makes unwise decisions.

Bridget Allworthy / Bridget Blifil: Sister of Squire Allworthy. She gives birth to Tom when she is unmarried and hires another woman to pose as his mother. After Bridget marries Captain Blifil, she gives birth to a son who becomes Tom's rival.

Blifil: Devious son of Bridget. He tries to manipulate处理events to assure his inheritance of Allworthy's estate.

Lady Bellaston: London relative of Sophia Western with whom Sophia lodges. Lady Bellaston has liaisons with many men and seduces T om Jones. When she discovers that Tom's true love is Sophia, she becomes jealous and angry and schemes to get revenge against both of them.

Jenny Jones / Mrs. Waters: Servant girl who poses as the mother of Tom Jones when he is an infant. Although she is not married, she adopts the name Mrs. Waters after she begins to live with Captain Waters. She has a sexual encounter with Tom at an inn at Upton. She later plays a key role in helping to extricate Tom from difficulties. Partridge: Schoolteacher wrongly accused of fathering Tom Jones. After Tom grows up, he and Partridge become traveling companions. Partridge's relationship with Jones resembles that of a page to a knight. It is also not unlike the comic relationship between Sancho Panza and Don Quixote in the Cervantes novel Don Quixote de La Mancha. VI. Main Conflict

The main conflict is T om Jones vs the forces he must overcome to reunite with Sophia and become a responsible young adult. These forces include the people attempting to match Sophia with Blifil or Fellamar. They also include the forces inside Tom himself—such as his reckless and lustful behavior—that he must master to win Sophia and become an upstanding young man.

VII. Foreshadowings 铺垫

"Like father, like son," an old saying proclaims. The narrator notes that Captain Blifil married Bridget for the Allworthy money. This observation foreshadows young Blifil's preoccupation总想着with inheriting the Allworthy estate.

Also, the birth of Blifil after eight months of marriage hints at the promiscuous随便的nature of Bridget, preparing the reader for the eventual revelation that she bore Tom out of wedlock.

VIII. Climax

.......A series of important developments occurs in chapters 17 and 18 that testify to Tom's parentage and character and reconcile调和him with Squire Allworthy. Taken together, these developments resemble a climax. However, the true climax appears to occur in Chapter 12 of Book 18 when T om and Sophia are left alone in a room to confront each other. In this scene, Sophia still has reservations about marrying Tom because of his history of wanton荡妇的

behavior. Tom implores her again and again to accept him, pledging his love for her and vowing to remain ever faithful and morally upright. If she rejects him, all of his efforts on her behalf will be for naught无用的, and the novel will end unhappily. But she says she will accept him on condition that he undergo a trial period of perhaps twelve months to prove his worth. Squire Western, who has been eavesdropping偷听on their conversation, then steps in and says such a long wait is folly. They should marry the next day. Sophia says she will obey her father. Her decision prepares the way for further disclosures and a look at the first few years of Tom and Sophia's marriage, which gives them two children.

IX. Tom Jones as a Mock Epic

.......An epic such as The Iliad or The Aeneid uses a serious tone and a dignified, elevated writing style to describe heroic events. A mock epic borrows the style of such an epic to describe trivial events as if they were heroic. Many passages in Tom Jones are written in the mock-heroic style for comic effect. The following two passages are mock-heroic battles, the first occurring outside a church and the second at the inn at Upton.

●The Church Battle

●The Free-for-All at the Upton Inn (Book 9, Chapter 3)

X. Main Themes

1. Epic Journey Toward Manhood

The central theme of the novel is the amusing epic journey of Tom Jones toward maturation, self-realization, and union with his beloved. Jones begins his journey as a mischievous调皮的adolescent, continues it as an adventurous and reckless teenager, and concludes it as a mature and morally upright adult who settles down as a husband and father.

The hero confronts perils and undergoes trials before completing his journey. In this respect, Fielding's hero is like the hero of Homer's Odyssey, the great epic poem recounting the adventures of Odysseus on his way home after the Trojan War. In The Odyssey, for example, the hero, Odysseus, encounters alluring women who steer him away from his ultimate goal, which is to reunite with his beloved Penelope. In Tom Jones, the hero, Tom, likewise meets seductive women, who divert his attention from Sophia. In Homer's work, Odysseus battles monsters, such as the twin terrors Scylla and Charybdis, and becomes a prisoner on Calypso's island; in Fielding's work, T om also battles monsters, such the twin terrors Thwackum and Square, and becomes a prisoner in a London jail. Ultimately, Odysseus returns home to Penelope and vanquishes the suitors seeking the hand of Penelope. Tom, too, returns home after vanquishing Sophia's suitors and marrying her.

There is an important difference, however, between the recounting of T om's journey and the recounting of the journey of Odysseus: The former is comical and playful; the latter is deadly serious, with an elevated tone.

2.Importance of Character vs Family Origin

In spite of the faults that Tom exhibits during his adolescent and teenage escapades, he is always trustworthy, and charitable. He is also resourceful and courageous. Nevertheless, Thwackum, Square, and many other adults in his life look down on him because he was born out of wedlock and is thought to be the bastard son of a servant girl. Many of those with a pedigree血统, on the other hand, lack the integrity of Tom.

XI. Other Themes

Love: Tom Jones's love for Sophia, thwarted反对at first by his own behavior and the actions of others, continues to burn within him after Squire Allworthy banishes him. After Tom determines to win her back, his love for her becomes the primary motive in everything he does, even when he becomes the plaything of Lady Bellaston.

Hypocrisy: Examples: Blifil pretends to be honest, loyal, and fair-minded but is a hateful schemer behind the backs of others. Thwackum and Square pretend to be morally upright. But Thwackum abuses Tom; Square visits the morally loose teenager Molly Seagrim.

Deceit: Examples: Bridget, the mother of Tom, hires Jenny Jones to pretend to be his mother. Blifil learns after the death of his mother that she was also the mother of Tom Jones. But he pretends to know nothing of the matter while continuing demean his half-brother.

Coincidence: Many of life's turning points result from coincidences. In Tom Jones, coincidences occur frequently (perhaps too frequently), and often they are indeed turning points. One of the most memorable coincidences in the book occurs when Tom happens to be out riding when Sophia loses control of her horse. When it throws her, he catches her but breaks his arm. The accident leads to his confinement to a bed in the Western home. While recuperating, he falls in love with Sophia.

Lack of Self-Control: Many of the characters act out of the emotion or desire of the moment without regard for the morality or consequences of their action. Tom, Bridget Allworthy, Molly Seagrim, Lady Bellaston, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Ensign Northerton, and Black George are among the characters who lack self-mastery.

XII. Figures of Speech

.......Tom Jones is rich in metaphors, alliterations, and other figures of speech that set the mood, describe a character or his or her actions, narrate an event, and so on. Following are examples of figures of speech in the novel.

1. Alliteration Repetition of a Consonant Sound

M oreover, we m ay re m ark that at this s eason love is of a more s erious and s teady nature than what s ometimes shows it s elf in the younger part s of life. (Book 1 , Chapter 11)

2. Anaphora首语重复法Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of word groups occurring one after the other

Example 2 : Thus, not all the charms of the incomparable Sophia; not all the dazzling brightness, and languishing

softness of her eyes; the harmony of her voice, and of her person; not all her wit, good-humour, greatness of mind, or sweetness of disposition, had been able so absolutely to conquer and enslave the heart of poor Jones, as this little incident of the muff. (Book 5, Chapter 4)

3. Apostrophe Addressing an abstraction or thing, present or absent, or addressing an absent person or entity. Example: O, Shakespear! had I thy pen! O, Hogarth! had I thy pencil! then would I draw the picture of the poor serving-man. . . . (Book 10, Chapter 8)

4. Irony outcome that is the opposite of what one expects

Example 2 .......Allworthy fights injustice but, ironically, becomes its agent when he finds Partridge guilty of fathering Tom Jones.

5. Dramatic Irony a form of irony in which a reader or an audience is aware of something of which the speaker is not

In the following passage, Mrs. Western (who is speaking to Squire Western) is unaware, or refuses to believe, that she is also an oppressive influence.(Book 10, Chapter 8)

6. Metaphor Comparison of unlike things without using like, as, or than

Example 2

Comparison of Sophia's complexion to attire worn by death and love

[T]he pale livery of death succeeds the red regimentals in which Love had before drest her cheeks. . . . (Book 6, Chapter 9)

7. Personification Comparison of things or ideas to persons

Envy, the sister of Satan, and his constant companion, rushed among the crowd, and blew up the fury of the women; who no sooner came up to Molly than they pelted her with dirt and rubbish. (Book 4, Chapter 8)

Chapter 18 The 18th Century Drama

I. Brief survey

1. the flourishment of the drama, esp the comedy – the understanding of the audience and the desire to entertain them with bright, gay and witty work

2. The drama of the period focused on the analysis of social manners – satire.

3. the development of the stages

●the first half of the century-------occasional pseudo-classical tragedy

●the second half of the century------political farces and burlesques 滑稽讽刺剧(The Beggar’s Opera by Henry

Fielding)

●after 1760------sentimental comedy – a certain amount of tears, a contrasting amount of laughter and a happy

ending. (The Conscious Lovers (1772) by Sir Richard Steele)

Richard Brinsley Sheridan （1751--1816）

I. Life Story

Born in Dublin / to England after the death of his mother / married Elizabeth A. Linley in 1773 / to secure the shares in the famous Drury Lane Theatre / a stage manager / went into parliament / was arrested for debt in 1813 and suffered from brain disease

II. His Career

1. He wrote a brilliant series of comedies in the Restoration manner of witty dialogue and high spirits.

2. His works：The Rivals; The Duenna, The Critic; The School for Scandal;

The School for Scandal By Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)

I. Type of Work and First Performance

customs of upper classes through witty dialogue and an intricate plot with comic situations that expose characters' shortcomings. Characters generally consist of stock types—such as the bore, the flirt调情的人, the gossip, the wastrel败家子, the rich uncle, etc.—rather than individuals with unique qualities. Comedies of manners in Sheridan's time typically avoided the romantic sentimentality that characterized many other stage dramas of the eighteenth century. In The School for Scandal, the author mainly satirizes malicious gossip and hypocrisy in the fashionable society of London in the 1770s. The play was first performed in London on May 8, 1777, in Drury Lane Theatre.

II. Setting: The action takes place in London in the 1770s.

III. Characters

Protagonist: Charles Surface Antagonists: Joseph Surface, Lady Sneerwell

Charles Surface: Young bachelor notorious for his extravagance and dissipation挥霍. However, his dissolute放荡的behavior may only be a passing phase. At heart, he is a good and generous person. He and Maria are in love. Joseph Surface: Young bachelor who pretends to be an honorable gentlemen but is really a double-dealing口是心非的scoundrel无赖. He is the older brother of Charles Surface. Joseph is in love with the fortune （Maria is to receive）. He plots with Lady Sneerwell to break up Charles and Maria. Meanwhile, he attempts to seduce the wife of Sir Peter Teazle.

Maria: Desirable and wealthy young ward of Sir Peter Teazle. She is a woman of principle who refuses to gossip. Lady Sneerwell: Young widow of a knight. She is attracted to Charles Surface and plots with Joseph Surface to break up Charles and Maria.

Snake: Cat's paw of Lady Sneerwell. He spreads false rumors designed to help Lady Sneerwell achieve her goals.

Rowley: Helpful servant and friend of Sir Peter Teazle and a former servant of the father of the Surface brothers. He is an upright fellow who sees through Joseph's hypocrisy. Aware of Snake's nefarious behavior, he pays him to reveal that the stories he has been spreading for Lady Sneerwell and Joseph are lies.

Sir Oliver Surface: Wealthy uncle of Charles and Joseph Surface. After returning to England from the East Indies, he disguises himself to find out the truth about his nephews.

IV. Prologue开场白

Following the tribute to Mrs. Crewe is a prologue written by David Garrick (1717-1779), a prominent actor and co-manager of Drury Lane Theatre, where the play opened on May 8, 1777. The prologue discusses the difficulty of preventing people f rom spreading scandal via tongue or written word. The prologue says, ―Cut scandal's head off, still the tongue is wagging.‖

V. Climax

The climax occurs near the end of Act 5 after Rowley brings in Snake. He and Lady Teazle then testify作证against Lady Sneerwell (and, by implication暗示, against Joseph).

VI. Epilogue 收场

In the epilogue—written by George Colman, a playwright who managed the Haymarket Theatre—Lady Teazel resigns herself to adapting to a life with her middle-aged husband, saying:

I, who was late so volatile反复无常的and gay, Bend all my cares, my studies, and my vows,

Like a trade wind must now blow all one way, To one dull rusty weathercock 随风倒的人my spouse! VII. Themes

1. Defamation 诽谤、诋毁of Character

Underlying the comedy is a serious theme: condemnation of the odious令人讨厌的practice of slander and, in the case of the written letters, libel诽谤文字. Spreading scandal was commonplace in London's high society of the 1770s, when conversation—in drawing rooms, at balls, in spas, and across card tables—was a form of entertainment.

2. Deceptive Appearances

Charles Surface has a reputation as a scoundrel. But beneath his flawed veneer外表, he is a decent fellow. Joseph Surface has a reputation as an upright man. But beneath his flawless veneer, he is a villain. Hence, this

模范操行端正while attempting to sabotage蓄意破坏his brother and marry into a fortune. Mrs. Candour and others of her ilk pretend to oppose gossip but delight in spreading it.

4. Steadfast Integrity 坚定不移的正直感

Amid all the wrongdoings in the play, it is easy to overlook the moral resolve of Maria—and to a lesser extent, Charles. Maria refuses to gossip and repeatedly denounces谴责the practice. For example, in Act 1, when Lady Sneerwell asks her what Sir Benjamin Backbite has done to make her run from him, she replies, "Oh, he has done nothing—but 'tis what he said: his conversation is a perpetual永远的libel on all his acquaintance." Later, in the same act, she tells Mrs. Candour, "'This strangely impertinent莽撞for people to busy themselves so [with gossip]."

5. Pitfalls易犯错误of Idleness

An implied theme in the play is that idleness breeds mischief损害. Most of the characters live on inherited money and property, allowing them to devote a good portion of their time to leisure activities. Telling or listening to scandalous stories, as well as reading about them, is apparently one of their favorite pastimes. Favored activities of the young include gambling and drinking.

VIII. Anti-Semitic Overtones犹太的弦外之音

In England and other European countries in the late Middle Ages, laws required Jews to wear identifying patches not unlike the yellow stars in Hitler's Germany centuries later. During outbreaks of plague, Christians blamed Jews for spreading the disease. England decided to solve the "Jewish problem" once and for all by expelling Jews in 1290. Beginning in 1655, England under Oliver Cromwell readmitted重新接纳Jews. In 1753, Parliament approved legislation granting the naturalization of Jewish immigrants. However, anti-Semitism remained strong in the country. The School for Scandal, which debuted in 1777, contains passages that reflect the attitude of many Englishmen toward Jews. Several of these passages describe the Jewish moneylender Moses as "the honest Israelite," "honest Moses," and "very honest fellow," implying that his honesty is rare among Jews. In the first scene of Act 3, Rowley refers to Moses as a "friendly Jew," implying that most other Jews are unfriendly. Later in the same scene, Sir Oliver—in preparing for his role as Mr. Premium—tells Moses that he will ask eight to ten percent in interest if Charles asks him for a loan. Here is the the dialogue in that scene, clearly implying that Jewish moneylenders are avaricious businessmen.

Sir Oliver. I'll ask him 8 or 10 per cent on the loan, at least.

Moses. If you ask him no more than that, you'll be discovered immediately.

Sir Oliver. Hey! what the plague! how much then?

Moses. That depends upon the circumstances. If he appears not very anxious for the supply, you should require only 40 or 50 per cent; but if you find him in great distress, and want the moneys very bad, you may ask double.

Sir Peter. A good honest trade you're learning, Sir Oliver!

Chapter 1 Introduction to Romanticism (1798--1832) As a historical period in English literature, the age of Romanticism extends from 1798, when Wordsworth and Coleridge published their Lyrical Ballads, to the 1832, when all the major Romantic writers were either dead or no longer productive. Romanticism, the predominant literary mode of the first third of the 19th century, was expressed

●To begin with the storming of Bastille on July 14, 1789 / King Louis XVI beheaded / the monarchy abolished in

France

●The French Revolution evoked enthusiastic support from English liberals and intellectuals and stimulated two

influential books: Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, which justifies the revolution; the other is William Godwin’s Inquiry Concerning Political Justice, which was more important for its influence on Wordsworth, Shelley and other poets.

●During the Romantic period, almost all the leading writers were in sympathy with and were inspired by the

French Revolution. William Hazlitt described the French Revolution as ―the dawn of a new era,‖ maintaining that the new poetry of the Romantic poets had its origins in the French Revolution. Its ideals – liberty, equality, and fraternity – had a very strong influence on the writers over the period.

2. The Industrial Revolution

●Began in the mid-18th century, from a primarily agricultural society(the old aristocracy) to a modern industrial

nation (the bourgeoisie).

●Farmers forced to the city by the enclosures –The Deserted Village by Goldsmith

The hard life of the workers – Isabella by Keats

●In the early 19th century, the workers’ struggles brok e out. –the Luddites, who destroyed the masters’ machines

to show their hatred. – Song for the Luddites by Byron;

“Peterloo Massacre‖ –England in 1819; Song to the Men of England; The Masque of Anarchy by Shelley

II. The Meaning of Romanticism

1. The Romantic Movement, which Victor Hugo calls ―liberalism in literature‖, is simply the expression of life as seen by the imagination rather than by prosaic ―common sense‖, which was the central doctrine of English philosophy in the 18th century.

As a way of thinking and as an approach to literature, Romanticism is associated with vitality, powerful emotion, limitless and dreamlike ideas; Classicism; by contrast, is associated with order, common sense and controlled reason.

Shelley explained this literary spirit as the accompaniment of political and social revolution and other writers agreed. The imagination of the Romantic writers was, indeed, preoccupied with the fact and ideas of revolution.

2. Three schools

●the Lake School (the Passive Romantic School) – Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey

●the Cockney 伦敦派School – Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt and associated writers, including Keats

●the Satanic School (the Active Romantic School) – Byron, Shelley

III. The Special Qualities of Romanticism

Romanticism favored innovation over traditionalism in the materials, forms and style of literature.

1. The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings (Wordsworth)

Romanticism –

1) the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;

2) Much of romantic poetry represented the poets themselves or the things around them.

3) lay emphasis on the emotion and untrammelled imagination; the immediate act of composition, if a poem is to be genuine, must be spontaneous that is arising from impulse and free from all the rules and conventions of his neoclassical predecessors.

Cf: Neoclassicm --

1) Poetry was primarily an imitation of human life, a mirror held up to nature.

2) Neoclassical literature was about other people.

3) In neoclassical theory, poetry was primarily an ―Art‖, which must be perfected by long study and practice.

Keats wrote, ―If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.‖ Blake insisted that he wrote from ―inspiration and vision.‖ Shelley maintained that it is ―an error to assert that the finest passages of poetry are produced by labor and study‖, and suggested that they are the products of an unconscious creativity.

2. The creation of a world of imaginaiton

The Romantic poets found undiscovered countries in their own imaginations. Shelley and Blake described a poem as the poet’s imaginati ons. Coleridge also introduced into English criticism an organic theory of the imaginative process, describing a great work of literature as a self-originating and self-organizing process which begins with a seedlike idea in the poet’s imagination. By vivi d imagination, the Romatic writers were capable of fantastic dream worlds, thus much of romantic literature has magical or miraculous effects.

3. The return to nature for material

To an extraordinary degree, Romantic writers took the world of nature as a persistent subject of their poetry, and described it with an accuracy of observation unprecedented in earlier writers. This was in marked contrast to Neoclassical writers, who confined themselves largely to the clubs and drawing rooms and to the social and political

life of London.

The natural scene in Romantic poetry is not presented for its own sake, but serves as a stimulus to thought, therefore Romantic nature poems are meditative poems. In addition, Romantic poems often fill the natural scene with human life, passion, and expressiveness or give them symbolic meanings. The following lines are written by William Blake:

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand And Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in a hour.”

4. Sympathy with the humble and glorification of the commonplace

Romanticism was marked by intense human sympathy, and by a consequent understanding of the human heart, which neoclassicism had lacked. The Romantic writers sympathized with the poor and cried against oppression.

The serious treatment of lovely subjects in common language violated the basic neoclassical rule, which asserted that serious genres should deal with high subjects in an appropriately elevated style and polished language. Unlike the classicists before them, Romantic writers turned to describe humble people, everyday life, trivial things and familiar matters. For example, Wordsworth’s poems were crowded with convicts罪犯，female vagrants流浪汉, gypsies, idiot boys and mad mothers, as well as peasants, peddlers and village barbers.

5. Emphasis on the expression of individual genius

Emphasis was not placed on what human beings possessed in common but on the individual. Man is regarded as having infinite potentialities and creative power.

The Romantic Movement was the expression of individual genius, which was marked by strong reaction and protest against the bondage of rules. In consequence, the literature of Romanticism was as varied as the character and moods of the different writers. When we read Pope, we have a general impression of sameness, as if all his polished and refined poems were made in the same machine; but in the works of the best Romantics, there is endless variety.

6. The return to Milton and the Elizabethans for literary models

Romantic writers looked back to the Renaissance poets as their masters, instead of Dryden, Pope or Johnson. Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton were the inspiration of the romantic revival; and we can hardly read a poem of the early Romantics without finding a suggestion of the influence of one of these great poets.

7. The interest in old stories and medieval romances

Although many of the romantic writers dealt with the everyday things of their contemporary world, they also took great interests in the supernatural. They drew materials from the old legends, myths, folktales, esp the chivalry and high adventures of the Middle Ages, and restored them into vivid and beautiful passions of new ideas and feelings. The example is Walter Scott, with his historical novels, and his popular long narrative poems. The romantic writers turned from the actual world to the past or imaginary worlds, because there were no boundaries to confine them.

8. A sense of melancholy and loneliness

In the works of the romantics, we can often sense a gloomy mood of melancholy and loneliness, resulting from the frustration of their efforts in revolting against the established code and convention.

To most romantics, poetry was the hope of the world. Shelley wrote that poets were the prophets of future, and the unacknowledged legislators of mankind. Keats sought steadily for perfect beauty and perfect truth, expressed in perfect poetry.

Such high hopes of ideal attainment, however, could hardly be realized. The consequent disappointment led to a kind of mela ncholy that underlies much Romantic poetry. Shelley said, ―Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts.‖ Keats also learned that melancholy sprang from knowing that beauty ―must die,‖ and that ―the fancy cannot cheat so well as she is famed to do.‖ Because they aimed so high, the romantics were often in anguish at falling short of their aims.

9. The rebellious spirit

Most of the romantic writers were rebels against society or social conventions. The first generation of Romantics –Wordsworth and Coleridge –deliberately isolated themselves from society to live near nature, and wrote poems about nature, about common people, and about supernatural dreams, trying to find a substitute for the ugly industrial life that worked such hardships on working people.

The second generation – Byron, Shelley and Keats – were more radical. They openly sang for revolutions, spoke for the working people, and wished for a better world. Byron and Shelley themselves were revolutionaries in their desire for liberty for the individual. Because the two generations faced the society in different ways, Gorky divided them into the ―passive‖ and the ―active‖ romantic school.

Chapter 2Romantic Poetry (1)

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)：The represenatative poet of the first generation of Romantics and the chief spokesman of Romantic poetry.

I. Life

Born in 1770 in the lake district of Cumberland / lost parents when he was young and was brought up by relatives / to study at Hawksherd in the beautiful lake region in Northwestern England, where he had time to lead a life of delighted freedom in the surrounding hills. / to enter Cambridge in 1787 / in 1790 he took a continental tour to France, Alps, and Italy. / He returned to France in 1791 and spent a year there. The French Revolution was then at its height and exercised a strong influence on his mind. / in 1797, he made friends with Coleridge, a personal influence of at least equal importance, and they lived together in the Lake District. / In 1798, they jointly published a memorable volume the Lyrical Ballads. / it marked the opening of an epoch in the history of English poetry – the break with the

conventional poeticle tradition of the 18th century neoclassicism, and the beginning of the Romantic Movement in England. / Wordworth’s attitude towards revolution changed into conservative, and he was criticized by the younger romantics like Byron and Shelley. / on the death of Southey (1843), he was made Poet Laureate. For nearly 50 years he lived a secluded life close to nature and died in 1850.

II. His Works

●His best poems are descriptions of nature – of mountains, rivers, flowers, birds, children and peasants.

●His works include: We are Seven; Lines Written in Early Spring; To the Cuckoo, I wandered Lonely as a Cloud;

the Lucy Poems; The Solitary Reaper and the Prelude.

●1)He pointed out the situations of poetry should be related in ―language really used by men,‖ and the poet should

use a diction as natural and direct as that of the most natural speech.

2)All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. The language of the poet should not be

abstract.

3)It is the figure of speech which makes poetry, not the elegance of vocabulary.

● A constant theme of Wordsworth’s poetry was the growth of the human spirit through the natural environment,

and he skillfully combined natural description with expressions of inward states of mind. His poems are characterized by a sympathy with the poor, simple peasants, and a passionate love of nature. They have been

.......William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud‖ is

beauty of nature. (A lyric poem presents the deep feelings and emotions of the poet rather than telling a story or presenting a witty observation.) The final version of the poem was first published in Collected Poems in 1815. An earlier version was published in Poems in Two Volumes in 1807 as a three-stanza poem. The final version has four stanzas. Wordsworth wrote the earlier version in 1804, two years after seeing the lakeside daffodils that inspired the poem.

II. Setting and Background Information

.......The poem recaptures a moment on April 15, 1802, when Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, were walking near a lake at Grasmere, Cumbria County, England, and came upon a shore lined with daffodils. Grasmere is in northwestern England's Lake District, between Morecambe Bay on the south and Solway Firth on the north. The Lake District extends twenty-five miles east to west and thirty miles north to south. Among its attractions are England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike (3,210 feet), and Esthwaite Lake and other picturesque meres radiating outward, like the points of a star, from the town of Grasmere. Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, moved to a cottage at Grasmere in 1799. After Wordsworth married in 1802, his wife resided there also. The family continued to live there until 1813. The Lake District was the haunt of not only Wordsworth but also poets Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas De Quincey. Dorothy, who kept a diary, described what she and her brother saw on that April day in 1802:

When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore & that the little colony had so sprung up— But as we went along there were more & yet more & at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road . . . Some rested their heads on [mossy] stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here & there a little knot & a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity & unity & life of that one busy highway... —Rain came on, we were wet.

这首诗充分利用了拟人、比喻等手法将大自然的美妙表现得生动逼真，似乎将读者置身于湖畔上连绵的水仙花随风舞动的风景当中。而最后两段诗人的沉吟和思考，表现了诗人享受于回味自然美景带来的精神愉悦，这也符合华兹华斯推崇的诗歌体现主观感受的理念。

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)：Poet and critic

I. His life story

to publish Lyrical Ballads with Wordsworth / The principle of the collaboration was that while Wordsworth was to reveal the poetical significance of the commonplace of life, Coleridge was to dramatize human emotions aroused by extraordinary events. / Like Wordsworth, Coleridge also turned from radical to conservative in political ideas. /

II. His works

1. the supernatural poems

Kubla Khan忽必列汗

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner古舟子咏

Christabel克丽斯德蓓

2. the conversation poems

Frost at Night The Nightingale This Lime-Tree Bower

3. Style

●His poetry shares with Wordsworth’s new simplicity of diction and fluency of movement, but his best poems are

characterized by a sense of mystery and demonism 对鬼怪之崇拜.

●His poems are especially noted for their supernatural and fantastic atmosphere, their peculiar and mystic

imagery, and their haunting music.

The romanticism of both Wordsworth and Coleridge comes out in their reverence信奉for the spontaneity自发and inherent dignity of the feelings, and their cultivation of truthful and profound expression of them.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner古舟子咏/老水手

1.Type of Work ：The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a narrative poem in which a seaman tells another man a strange and terrifying tale.

2.Date of Publication

The poem was published in 1798 in Lyrical Ballads, then revised and published in 1817 in the version that is popular today. Coleridge received help from the poet William Wordsworth. The editors of Major British Writers, a literature anthology, explain Wordsworth's contribution:

Originally, Coleridge and Wordsworth intended to write this poem in collaboration. Wordsworth’s manner proved unsuited for the purpose, however, and after contributing half a dozen lines [Part II, Lines 13-16 and Lines 226-227] and suggesting the shooting of the albatross and “the reanimation鼓励of the dead bodies to work the ship,”Wordsworth withdrew, and Coleridge proceeded alone.—G.B. Harrison, general ed. Major British Writers. Shorter edition. New York: Harcourt, 1967, Page 592.

3.Sources

When Coleridge wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, accounts of the daring sea voyages of the British explorer Captain James Cook (1728-1779) had caught the public's fancy. Cook had made three exploratory voyages in the Pacific between 1768 and 1779, traveling as far north as the Bering Strait (between Alaska and Russia) and as far south as the ice fields of Antarctica. One of his crewmen, astronomer William Wales, later taught mathematics to Coleridge at Christ's Hospital School in London after Coleridge enrolled upon the death of his father in 1781. Australian Bernard Smith maintains that Coleridge likely used a journal kept by Wales as a source of information for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, according to Bill Whelen, author of Captain Cook's Navigator and Coleridge's Poem: William Wales, Samuel T aylor Coleridge and 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' (Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago Press, 2009). Other sources used by Coleridge include superstitions and folk tales.

4.Setting

The action takes place in the following locales several hundred years ago: (1) a street or byway in a locale with a hall in which a wedding reception is being held; (2) a sailing ship with 201 crew members, including the ancient mariner; (3) the Atlantic Ocean; (4) the South Pole; (4) the Pacific Ocean; (5) the mariner’s native country (undisclosed). The atmosphere is ghostly, preternatural, and mysterious.

5.Characters

Ancient Mariner: Old sailor who roams from country to country to tell a strange tale.

Wedding Guest: Man on the way to a wedding reception with two other men. The mariner singles out the wedding guest to hear his tale.

Two Hundred Crewmen: Ill-fated members of the ship carrying the mariner.

Pilot: Boatman who rescues the mariner. (A pilot is an official who guides ships into and out of a harbor.)

Pilot’s Boy: Pilot’s assistant.

Hermit: Holy man who absolves the mariner and hears his story.

Albatross: Large, web-footed sea bird with a hooked bill. Most species of albatrosses wander the southern seas, from tropical regions down to Antarctica, drinking sea water and feeding on squid, cuttlefish, and other small sea creatures. Sometimes, they follow ships to feed on their garbage. Albatrosses have an astonishing ability to glide in the wind, sometimes for hours, but have difficulty staying aloft without a wind. In the latter case, they sit on the water to rest or sleep. When it is time to breed, they go ashore. An old superstition says killing an albatross brings bad luck, although sailors have been known to kill and eat them. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has helped make this superstition common knowledge throughout the world among landlubbers as well as sailors. In modern parlance, a person or an event that brings bad luck is often referred to as an albatross.

6.Narration: Poem as a Frame Tale

A narrator begins the poem by telling the reader about an ancient mariner who stops a man on the street to recite a stor y. After getting the man’s attention, the mariner then tells his tale. Thus, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is like a framed painting. The frame represents one narrator telling about the mariner; the painting represents the mariner narrating his story. The mariner sometimes quotes another person, such as the Pilot. However, the Pilot is not a narrator, since he is merely speaking dialogue and not telling a story.

7.Structure, Rhyme

Coleridge divides the poem into seven parts. Most of the stanzas in the poem have four lines; several have five or six lines. In the four-line stanzas, the second and fourth lines usually rhyme. In the five- and six-line stanzas, the second or third line usually rhymes with the final line.

8.Meter

The meter alternates between iambic tetrameter (with four feet per line) and iambic trimeter (with three feet per line). Following is an example (the first four lines of Part II) of a stanza with this pattern:

.......1.................2...............3 (4)

"The SUN..|..now ROSE..|..up ON..|..the RIGHT:....(tetrameter) .....1..............2 (3)

Out OF..|..the SEA..|..came HE,................................(trimeter) ......1..............2...............3 (4)

Still HID..|..in MIST,..|..and ON..|..the LEFT.............(tetrameter) .........1................2. (3)

Went DOWN..|..in TO..|..the SEA...............................(trimeter)

9.Themes

●Sin and Redemption

Man is a sinful creature, but redemption awaits him if he repents his wrongdoing and performs penance. This theme manifests itself as follows: After the ancient mariner commits a sin by killing the albatross, guilt hounds him in the form of strange natural and supernatural phenomena. During one terrifying experience, he has a change of heart and repents his wrongdoing. After confessing to the Hermit, he carries out a penance, which is to travel the world to tell his tale to strangers.

●Respect for Nature

Human beings should respect all of God’s creation and all of His creatures, including the albatross and even sea snakes. In doing so, people indicate their respect for the Creator Himself. In his parting words to the wedding guest, the narrator says,

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast. (lines 611-614)

●Terror

The mariner undergoes terrifying experiences as he confronts supernatural wonders, in particular the female figure known as Life-in-Death. When the mariner sees her rolling dice with death, he says,

We listen'd and look'd sideways up!

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,

My life-blood seem'd to sip! (lines 204-206)

The mariner even frightens the wedding guest when he tells him that all the crewmen fell dead one by one. The wedding guest says,

"I fear thee, ancient Mariner!

I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand. (lines 225-228)

Coleridge plainly makes the point that beyond the boundaries of the known world are many strange and fearful sights that explorers will encounter.

10.Main Symbols

●The Ancient Mariner

The Ancient Mariner as Adam: Adam committed the original sin that brought woe upon mankind. The original sin in this context is the killing of the albatross. The crewmen ar e inheritors of the mariner’s original sin, just as Christians are inheritors of Adam’s original sin. As the mariner says, "And I had done an hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe."

●The Ancient Mariner

The Ancient Mariner as Christian Sinner: When the ancient mariner kills the albatross (described in the poem as

a holy thing ―hailed in God’s name"), he is like the Christian who commits sins for which Christ died on the cross.

●Ghost Ship

Ghost Ship as Wages of Sin: The ghostly skeleton ship carries Death and Life-in-Death. Death, of course, is a consequence of original sin. Life-in-Death is the loneliness, the separation from God, that a sinner encounters before dying.

●pilot

The boat Pilot rescues the mariner after the ship sinks, representing the saving grace of a merciful God.

●Hermit

The Hermit represents redemption. He hears the mariner's confession and pronounces a penance, requiring the mariner to tell his tale the world over to warn others of the consequences of sin.

●Wedding Celebration

Everyday life that continues merrily without its participants' full knowledge and respect of the higher rules of the universe. As part of his penance, the mariner educates one of the wedding guests about the importance of abiding by the laws of God. The scene of a wedding celebration is, of course, an excellent place for the mariner to tell his story. After all, a marriage is a beginning, and new life will come from it. Will the newlyweds and their children abide by God's laws? Or will they thoughtlessly shoot albatrosses? Perhaps the wedding guest who walks on at the end of the poem will pass on his new insights to the bride, the groom, and others at the wedding feast.

11.Climax

The climax of the poem occurs when the mariner has a change of heart and the albatross falls from his neck. 12.Internal Rhyme 中间韵

Besides end rhyme, Coleridge also frequently uses internal rhyme. Following are examples.

The guests are met, the feast is set (line 7)

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast(line 49) And through the drifts the snowy clifts (line 54) The ice did split with a thunder-fit (line 69)

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud (line 75)

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew (line 103)

13.Inversion

For poetic effect, Coleridge inverts the word order from time to time, as the following lines demonstrate. Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung. (lines 141-142) ----The normal word order would be "was hung about my neck."

Through utter drought all dumb we stood! (line 159) ----The normal word order would be "we stood all dumb."

The naked hulk alongside came (line 195) ----The normal word order would be "came alongside."

14.Enjambment (诗句之)跨行连续

Coleridge occasionally uses enjambment, the practice of carrying the sense of one line of verse over to the next line without a pause. Here are examples:

And now the storm-blast came, and he Was tyrannous and strong (lines 41-42) We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot. (lines 137-138) Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung . (lines 141-142)

'There passed a weary time. Each throat

Was parch'd , and glazed each eye. (lines 143-144)15.Figures of Speech ： The poem is rich in figures of speech. Here are examples:

● Alliteration

B y thy long g rey b eard and g littering eye (line 3) He h olds h im with h is skinny h and (line 9) The Wedding-Guest h ere b eat h is b reast, For h e h eard the loud b assoon. (lines 31-32)

The m erry m instrelsy (line 36)

The f urrow f ollowed f ree (line 104)

● Anaphora 首语重复

The ice

was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around. (line 59-60) Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold:

Her skin was as white as leprosy (lines 190-192)● Irony

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink ; Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink. (lines 119-122)

And cursed me with his eye. (lines 215-216)

Comparison of the appearance of the eye to a curse They coil'd and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire. (lines 281-282)

Comparison of the wake left by the sea snakes to fire

● Onomatopoeia 拟声 It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd (line 61)

● Personification

The Sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he ! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea. (lines 25-28)

Like the whizz of my crossbow! (lines 223-224)

Comparison of the passing of a soul to the sound of a shot arrow

[T]he sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky Lay like a load on my weary eye (lines 251-252)

Comparison of the sky and sea to a weight on the eye

Her beams bemocked the sultry main, Like April hoar-frost spread (lines 268-269)Comparison of reflected sunbeams to frost

The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she (lines 33-34)

Comparison of the bride to a rose

The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green, and blue and white. (lines 129-130)Comparison of water to witch's oils Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean. (lines 115-118)

The western wave was all a-flame (line 171) Wave refers to the ocean.

Chapter 3 Romantic Poetry (2)

George Gordon Byron （1788-1824）

George Gordon Byron is one of the greatest Romantic poets. Together with Shelley and Keats, he belongs to the second generation of the Romantic Movement. He and Shelley were called ―satanic‖ by Robert Southey because of their revolutionary and their rebellion against society.

I. Life

Son of a captain of the guards / succeeded to the title of his grand-uncle and became Lord Byron at 11 / educated at Harrow and Cambridge / Hour of Idleness 《闲暇的时刻》at 19, which was criticized by the conservative Edinburgh Review / a sharp satire called English Bards and Scottish Reviewers 《英国诗人和苏格兰评论家》at 21, which caused great shock in the upper class and was compared to the roar of a young lion. / in 1809 he started a tour of Portugal, Spain, the mediteranean, Turkey, Albania, Asian Minor. The result was his Childe Harolds Pilgrimage 《恰尔德?哈罗尔德游记》(1812) / in 1815 he married a young woman of noble family, who left him one year later, saying that no honest woman could live with a monster. The upper class all believed his wife and turned agaisnt him. So he left England and never returned. For the rest of his life, he struck back at all the conventions, hypocrisies and all the moral commonplaces of English society. / unfortunately, he did not content himself with attacking social shams in his poetry, but set an example of reckless living which appeared to justify all the bad things about him. Byron said, ―You said I was immoral when I tried to live decently. Now I shall be immoral; you can do as you please about it .‖ There were two Byrons: one was naturally reckless, selfish and dissolute; the other was generous, heroic and truly noble. / During his wandering life on the Continent, he made acquaintance with Shelley whose high-minded

浅谈浪漫主义时期的建筑与音乐

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英美文学选读(英国)浪漫主义时期笔记

Chapter 3 The Romantic Period 1. 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.

英国浪漫主义诗人

英国浪漫主义诗人 威廉·布莱克（William Blake，1757---1827），英国第一位重要的浪漫主义诗人、版画家。主要诗作有诗集《天真之歌》、《经验之歌》等。早期作品简洁明快，中后期作品趋向玄妙晦涩，充满神秘色彩。 威廉·华兹华斯（William Wordsworth,1770-1850）与柯尔律治（Samuel Taylor Coleridge）、骚塞（Robert Southey）同被称为“湖畔派”诗人（Lake Poets）。他们也是英国文学中最早出现的浪漫主义作家。他们喜爱大自然，描写宗法制农村生活，厌恶资本主义的城市文明和冷酷的金钱关系，他们远离城市，隐居在昆布兰湖区和格拉斯米尔湖区，由此得名“湖畔派”。华兹华斯的主要作品有《抒情歌谣集》《丁登寺旁》《序曲》《革命与独立》《不朽颂》《远足》。 塞缪尔·泰勒·柯勒律治（1772年10月21日－1834年7月25日），英国诗人、文评家，英国浪漫主义文学的奠基人之一。以〈古舟子咏〉(亦可称作〈古舟子之歌〉)(The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)一诗成为名家，其文评集《文学传记》(Biographia Literaria)以博大精深见称，书中对想像(imagination)与幻想(fancy)的区别尤其著名。一生作诗不缀，但中年时自称弃诗从哲，精研以康德、谢林为首的德国唯心论。 罗伯特·骚塞（1774—1843）是“湖畔派”三诗人中才气较差的一位。年青时代思想激进，饱读伏尔泰、卢梭的著作，在威斯敏斯特学校学习时曾因撰文反对校方体罚学生而被开除学籍。进牛津大学后，他更醉心法国大革命，写史诗《圣女贞德》歌颂革命，后来还与柯尔律治计划在美洲的森林里建立乌托邦社会。但中年后骚塞的政治态度却变得十分保守，还热衷于趋附权贵，成了统治者的御用文人，并因此获得“桂冠诗人”的称号。1821年他以桂冠诗人身份作颂诗《审判的幻景》颂扬去世不久的英王乔治三世，攻击拜伦、雪莱等进步诗人，称他们是“恶魔派”（撒旦派）。拜伦作同名讽刺长诗一首，对乔治三世和骚塞作了尽情的揶揄奚落。 乔治·戈登·拜伦（1788—1824），是英国19世纪初期伟大的浪漫主义诗人。其代表作品有《恰尔德·哈罗德游记》、《唐璜》等。在他的诗歌里塑造了一批“拜伦式英雄”。拜伦不仅是一位伟大的诗人，还是一个为理想战斗一生的勇士；他积极而勇敢地投身革命，参加了希腊民族解放运动，并成为领导人之一。拜伦是多产诗人。拜伦著名的诗还有《当初我们两分别》《给一位淑女》《雅典的女郎》《希腊战歌》《她走在美丽的光彩里》《我见过你哭》《我给你的项链》《写给奥古斯塔》《普罗米修斯》《锡雍的囚徒》《给托马斯·穆尔》

英国文学浪漫主义时期作家.

William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 –23 April 1850 was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semi autobiographical poem of his early years which the poet revised and expanded a number of times. The work was posthumously titled and published, prior to which it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850. The poet Robert Southey as well as Coleridge lived nearby, and the three maen bec ame known as“Lake Poets”.骚塞,柯勒律治也居住在同一地城,三人并称为“湖畔诗人”。 Wordsworth was a defining member of the English Romantic Movement. 华兹华斯是英国浪漫主义诗歌的代表人物之一。 Like other Romantics, Wordsworth’s personality and poetry were deeply influenced by his love of nature, especially by the sights and scenes of the Lake Country, in which he spent most of his mature life. 对自然的热爱以及他大部分人生所度过的地方--湖区--的风光景色都对他的性格和作品有着深远的影响。 A profoundly earnest and sincere thinker, he displayed a high seriousness tempered with tenderness and a love of simplicity. 他是一位真挚深刻的思想者,作品在严谨中充满纯真质朴与敏感。 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 我孤独地漫游,像一朵云 William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud 我孤独地漫游,像一朵云

英美文学浪漫主义

英美文学浪漫主义 【篇一：英美文学浪漫主义】 一、英美文学浪漫情怀的相同之处 中国论文网 /7/view-3799669.htm （一）文学作品的时间及其历史背景 “romanticim”（浪漫主义）这一形式的文学作品最早出现在英国。（frequently shared certain general characteristics； moral enthusiasm，faith in the value of inp>（二）浪漫主义情怀的定义与主题 从某种程度上看，英国浪漫主义文学在该形式的文学作品中是开山 鼻祖，而美国等其他国家则是在其基础上取其精华，再根据本国的 社会现状以及基本国情做出相应的创新发展，以激起国民对于革命 的爆发和对新生活的追求。所以从美国浪漫主义文学作品中很容易 看出英国浪漫主义文学的影子。英国木可勒律治的浪漫主义的超自 然主义，华兹华斯的英国国教的正统主义以及雪莱的无神论的精神 主义，司各特的对以往时代的缅怀，都充分表露出浪漫主义的主色 调就是反对现实社会的黑暗肮脏以及统治者的不满，而追求大自然、追求正义讲究实际的道德观与人生观。与此同时，看看美国的作家：欧文（irving）、库柏（cooper）、坡（poe）、布雷思特（bryant），则反对传统的文化思想，反对旧的封建殖民主义的思想，追求浪漫主义情怀，在这点上看来，英美文学在浪漫主义的情 怀上有着异曲同工之妙。 （三）浪漫主义情怀相同的特色 对美国的文学做深入的了解，就会很容易发现，英国的文学对于美 国的浪漫主义文学有着至关重要的影响。很多美国作家跟英国作家 都处于相同的历史文化背景下，所以有着很多相似的优秀文化传统 道德。毋庸置疑，在文学创作方面也有很多相似之处。美国浪漫主 义文学运动起源于新英格兰的（transcendentalism）超验主义，表 露的是不讲逻辑，不讲系统，只强调超越理性的感受，超越法律和 世俗束缚的个人表达；呼吁文化复兴，反对美国社会的拜金主义； 相信精神上的超越，相信无所不能的善的力量，强调善为万物之源。这个超验主义文学的主要代表是爱默生（emeroson）的人性本善（believed that man was a part of absolute good）和梭罗

美国文学浪漫主义时期

美国文学浪漫主义时期

美国文学浪漫主义时期 浪漫主义时期开始于十八世纪末,到内战爆发为止,是美国文学史上最重要的时期。华盛顿·欧文出版的《见闻札记》标志着美国文学的开端,惠特曼的《草叶集》是浪漫主义时期文学的压卷之作。浪漫主义时期的文学是美国文学的繁荣时期,所以也称为"美国的文艺复兴。" 美国社会的发展哺育了"一个伟大民族的文学"。年轻的美国没有历史的沉重包袱,很快在政治、经济和文化方面成长为一个独立的国家。这一时期也是美国历史上西部扩张时期,到1860年领土已开拓到太平洋西岸。到十九世纪中叶,美国已由原来的十三个州扩大到二十一个州,人口从1790年的四百万增至1860年的三千万。在经济上,年轻的美国经历向工业的转化,影响所及不仅仅是城市,而且也包括农村。蒸汽动力在工、农业生产上的运用、工厂的建立、劳动力的大量需求以及科技上的发明创造使经济生活得到了重组。另外,大量移民促进了工业更加蓬勃的发展。政治上,民主与平等成为这个年轻国家的理想,产生了两党制。值得一提的是这个国家的文学和文化生活。随着独立的美国政府的成立,美国人民已感到需要有美国文学,表达美国人民所特有的经历:早期清教徒的殖民,与印第安人的遭遇,边疆开发者的生活以及西部荒原等。这个年轻国家的文学富有想象,已产生了一种文学环境。报刊杂志如雨后春笋,出现了一大批文学读者,形成了十九世纪上半叶蓬勃的浪漫主义的文学思潮。 外国的,尤其是英国的文学大师对美国作家产生了重大影响。美国作家由于秉承了与英国一样的文化传统,形成了同英国一样的浪漫主义风格。欧文(Irving)、库柏(Cooper),坡(Poe),弗伦诺(Freneau)和布雷恩特(Bryant)一一反古典主义时期的文学样式和文学思潮,开创了较新的小说和诗歌形式。这一时期大多数美国文学作品中,普遍强调文学的想象力和情感因素,注重生动的描写、异国情调的表达、感官的体会和对超自然力的描述。美国作家特别注意感情的自由表达和人物的心理描写。作品中的主人公富有敏感激动的特质。注重表现个人和普通人是这一时期作品的强烈倾向,几乎成了美国的信仰。富雷诺、布雷思特和库柏等人的作品对客观自然的描写有强烈的兴趣。富雷诺在"帝国的废墟"主题中对过去情景的描写绘声绘色,布雷恩特对北美五大湖区的史前印第安人描述引人入胜,欧文对哈德逊河传说的巧加利用炉火纯青,库柏的长篇历史小说深入细致。总的来说,美国浪漫主义时期的文学上接英国文学传统,下开美国文学之风。 虽然美国文学受到外国文学的影响,但这一时期著名的文学作品表现的却是富有美国色彩的浪漫主义思想。"西部开拓"就是一个说明美国作家表现自己国家的恰好的例子。他们大量描述了美国本土的自然风光:原始的森林、广袤的平原、无际的草原、沧茫的大海、不一而足。这些自然景物成为人们品格的象征,形成了美国文学中离开尘世,心向自然的传统。这些传统在库柏的《皮袜子的故事》(Leather Stocking Tales〉、梭罗的《沃尔顿》(Walden)以及后来马克·吐温的《哈克贝里·芬历险记》(Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn)中都得到了明显的表现。随着美国民族意识的增长,在小说、诗歌中美国人物都越来越明显地操本地方言,作品多表现农民、穷人、儿童以及没有文化的人,还有那些虽然没文化但心地高尚的红种人和白种人。美国清教作为一种文化遗产,对美国人的道德观念产生了很大影响,在美国文学中也留下了明显的印迹。一个明显的表现就是,比起欧洲文学,美国文学的道德倾向十分浓厚。在霍桑(Hawthorne)、梅尔维尔(Melville)以及其他一些小作家的作品中加尔文主义的原罪思想和罪恶的神秘性都得到了充分的表现。 美国浪漫主义文学运动足能标炳的是新英格兰的超验主义运动。该运动开始于19世纪30年代的新英格兰的先验主义俱乐部。本来,这个超验主义只是对新英格兰人提出来的。它是针对波士顿的唯一神教派的冷淡古板的理性主义而提的。而后来逐渐影响到全国,特别是在高级知识分子和文学界人士当中影响颇大。超验主义文学的主要代表是爱默生(Emerson)和梭罗(Henry Davd Thoreau),他们的作品对美国文学产生了很大影响。超验主义"承认人类具有本能了解或认识真理的能力,能够超过感官获取知识"。爱默生曾说:"只有人心灵的尊严才是最神圣的。"超验主义还认为自然是高尚的,个人是神圣的,因此人必须自助。 这一时期涌现了许多作家,著名的有富雷诺(Philip Freneau〉、布雷恩特(William Cullen Bryant)、郎费罗(Henry Words worth longfellow)、娄威尔(James Rassel Lowell)、惠特(John Greenleaf whitter〉、爱伦·坡(Edgar Ellen Poe)、以及惠特曼(Walt Whitman)。惠特曼的《草叶集》(Leaves of Grass)是美国十九世纪最有影响的诗歌。美国浪漫主义时期的小说富有独创性、多样性,有华盛顿·欧文的喜剧性寓言体小说,有爱

英国浪漫主义时期的主要诗人和他们的代表作

On Major Poets and Masterpieces of English Romantic Period ChapterI:the background of the rise of English Romantic Period The French Revolution of 1789 (French Revolution) brought hope to the future of human,and it impacted on British Society ,too. The British Industrial Revolution not only created wealth, but also intensifyied the contradiction between labor and capital. The transformation of the social structure and changes in the relationship between people and the traditions, man and nature promoted intellectual differentiation. Then, a group of better educated people felt confused about the society and they were at a loss what to do .In this context, the British Romantic literature rose.It originated in the end of the eighteenth century and became prosperous in the first half of the nineteenth century. ChapterII:the classification of poet in English romantic period 2.1 the pioneer of English romantic literature The pioneer of romantic literature is poet Robert Burns who lived in late eighteenth century and William Blake. Burns draw nourishment from the folk songs in Scotland, ("Poems, chiefly in Scottish dialcet") is his masterpiece, specializing in Lyric and satire ; Blake's "songs of innocence" and "songs of experience" ,which describe the ideal society order,are creative and fresh,full of originality. 2.2 the two schools of British Romantic literature Two opposing schools were formed in the formation of the romanticism.They are active romanticism and passive romanticism. Active romanticism is a positive trend of progress.Active romantic poets dare to face up to reality, criticize the social darkness and lead people to look ahead.Passive r omanticism is a reactionary countercurrent negative trend, it takes a negative attitude to escape, against the status quo, cling to the past and leads people to look back. 2.2.1 the representatives of Active Romanticism The emerged poets put forward the British Romantic literature to a climax.The representative poets are Byron, Shelley and Keats,they are active romanticist.Unlike the lake poets, they put more fighting consciousness and politic trends in his works. Shelley (1792 - 1822) is the most concentrated romantic poet and a British Utopian.In

英国浪漫主义文学.ppt.Convertor

第三节 英国浪漫主义文学 一、19世纪初期的英国 工业革命、海上霸权和殖民扩张 资产阶级民主运动高涨 二、英国浪漫主义文学概况 19世纪中期前，英国人一直用Romantic 来指中世纪的骑士故事，没有人自称是“浪漫派”的。 1813年，斯塔尔夫人的《论德国》在伦敦出版后，施莱格尔关于“古典的”和“浪漫的”的划分才为英国人所知。 19世纪末，“浪漫的”才为大家所悉用，运用到许多著名诗人的研究上。 直到现代，艾略特还指出“古典的”与“浪漫的”区别就是“完整和片断的，已成熟和未成熟的，有秩序和混乱的之间的区别”。 20世纪80年代出版的《英国文学史》，谈到19世纪初的诗歌派别，只指出具体的“湖畔派”、“恶魔派”，没有用“浪漫主义”一词。 主要成就是诗歌;表现为对18世纪理性主义的反动;与法国大革命同步，崇尚自然，推崇想象 （一）先驱作家 1、彭斯苏格兰民族诗人《一朵红红的玫瑰》 2、布莱克 英国浪漫主义文学先驱，他最早用浪漫主义手法写诗 《天真之歌》《经验之歌》 英国画家Thomas Phillips于1807年所绘的布莱克肖像 The Ancient of Days (aka God as an Architect) Jacob's Ladder William Blake, Pietà, 1795 天真的预示 一颗沙里看出一个世界， 一朵野花里一座天堂， 把无限放在你的手掌上， 永恒在一刹那里收藏。(梁宗岱译) Auguries of Innocence To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. The Tige r Tiger! Tiger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand and what dread feet? What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see?

浪漫主义文学

浪漫主义文学产生于18世纪末，在19世纪上半叶达到繁荣时期，是西方近代文学最重要的思潮之一。在纵向上，浪漫主义文学是对文艺复兴时期人本主义理念的继承和发扬，也是对僵化的法国古典主义的有力反驳；在横向上，浪漫主义文学和随后出现的现实主义共同构成西方近代文学的两大体系，造就19世纪西方文学盛极一时的繁荣局面，对后来的现代主义和后现代主义文学产生了深远的影响。 定义 以现实为基础，用热情奔放的语言、绚丽多彩的想象和直白夸张的表现手法，抒发对理想世界的追求。 简析 以现实为基础——现实为文学创作的土壤，浪漫主义的创作源泉和灵感都来自于现实，并非脱离现实。 热情奔放的语言——浪漫主义抒发感情的文字特点。浪漫主义文学的字句极其考究，力求完美，因为此特点，浪漫主义文学许多作品成为“唯美主义”的代表作。 绚丽多彩的想象——在形象塑造上，浪漫主义文学常用比喻、象征等手法。 直白夸张的表现手法——浪漫主义文学通篇看似脱离现实，因为其塑造的形象极其夸张，但仔细品读，会发现自己身边就存在相似的人或事。 抒发对理想世界的追求——浪漫主义文学创作目的。“对理想世界的追求”其实就是希望社会更美好，所以浪漫主义文学的创作目的和其他文学创作的目的是相同的。 浪漫主义作为一种文学创作方法，与其他文学创作方法相比，并无优劣之分，只是表现手法不同而已。 分类 传统政治分类

浪漫主义文学在传统分类中带有浓重的政治色彩： 积极浪漫主义——具有强烈的革命精神的浪漫主义文学作品。 消极浪漫主义——不具有革命精神的浪漫主义文学作品。 随着社会的发展和进步，以上分发明显不科学，但从作品的感情抒发的方式不同，积极和消极的概念仍可保留，不过需要重做定义： 积极浪漫主义——以直白宏大的语言表达感情的浪漫主义文学作品。如雪莱、屈原、普希金消极浪漫主义——以含蓄内敛的语言表达感情的浪漫主义文学作品。如英国湖畔派、中国新月派 以作品表现形式 浪漫主义以作品表现形式分类可以分为两类：有神浪漫主义与无神浪漫主义。 有神浪漫主义——以传说或自创的“神”的形象为载体的浪漫主义文学作品。如泰戈尔、屈原、但丁 无神浪漫主义——以自然或社会现象为载体的浪漫主义文学作品。如应该湖畔派、中国新月派 文学作品各类本身并无优劣之分，只不过表现形式不同。积极浪漫主义文学并不比消极浪漫主义文学更优越，无神浪漫主义文学也不比有神浪漫主义文学更先进。之所以对文学作品分类，只是为了更好的学习与品读，除此之外并无实际意义。 介绍 浪漫主义与现实主义一样，作为一种文学观念和一种文学的表现方式，在世界各民族文学发展的初期，就已经出现了。但是作为一种文学思潮，一种文学表现类型，以及作为一个明确的文学理论概念，却是后来逐渐形成的；浪漫主义文学的发展也经历了一个漫长的历史过程。如果说浪漫主义文学最基本的特点是以充满激情的夸张方式来表现理想与愿望的话，那么，可以说，在世界各民族最初的文学活动中，就已经存在这种形态的文学了。例如各个民族都有的远古神话、中国先秦文学中的《楚辞》，都有这样的特点。表现理想和幻想本是促成文学发生的重要原因之一，也是文学构成的基本要素之一，从这个意义上说，浪漫精神是文学的一个重要源头，文学从一开始就和浪漫主义有着极其密切的关系。 不过，明确地把浪漫主义作为一种文学精神来倡导、来鼓吹，以至于形成了一个波澜壮阔文

英美文学史之英国文学 浪漫主义

英美文学史5 浪漫主义俩个时期的代表人物：第一代：布莱克、彭斯、华兹华斯第二代：拜伦、雪莱、济慈 The Romantic Period(1798-1832)浪漫主义----Romantic writing emphasizes emotions and feelings instead of reason and logic . 浪漫主义强调的是情感和感觉而不是理性和逻辑。 The time begins with the publication of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads(1798),ending with Walter Scott’s death(1832)浪漫主义开始的标志是华兹华斯的《抒情诗集》（他和S.T Coleridge联合发表的）发表，结束于斯科特的去世。 一．俩大派别：Lake poets湖畔派诗人（又称：Escapist poets逃避诗人Negative poets消极诗人）: Wordsworth华兹华斯、Southey骚赛、Coleridge柯勒律治Satanic poets魔鬼派(又称：Active poets积极诗人) ：Lord Byron拜伦、Shelley雪莱、Keats济慈 二．William Wordsworth威廉.华兹华斯-----poet-laureate桂冠诗人Lake poets 湖畔派诗人（又称：Escapist poets逃避诗人Negative poets消极诗人）:Wordsworth 华兹华斯、Southey骚赛、Coleridge柯勒律治作品：I wandered Lonely as a Cloud 我孤独的漫游，像云朵一样（选自The Daffodils《黄水仙》）She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways她居住在人迹罕至的地方（mourning悲伤的、Dwelt居住） 补充了解：1.其他作品Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey丁登寺、The Prelude序曲（自传性诗歌Autobiographical poetry）、The Excursion、the Lucy poems《露西诗》 2.Symbols are objects used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.符号是用来代表抽象事物 的概念 His style：simplicity and purity of the language,love of nature,fighting against the conventional forms of the 18th century poetry.简单而纯洁的语言，反传统形式的18世纪诗歌。 他给诗歌的定义：poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling:it takes its origin from emotions recollected in tranquility诗歌是自发溢出的强烈的感觉:它源于情感中集聚的宁静 书上：P17-P18 She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways她居住在人迹罕至的地方She dwelt among the untrodden ways 她住在人迹罕至的地方, Beside the springs of Dove, 圣洁的小溪在身边流淌, Maid whom there were none to praise 没有谁把这少女赞颂, And very few to love: 少有人为她挂肚牵肠。 A violet by a mossy tone 她是紫罗兰身影半露 Half hidden from the eye! 生苔的墓碑将她遮挡; –Fair as a star, when only one 美丽如一颗孤星, Is shining in the sky. 在夜空里闪闪发亮。 She lived unknown, and few could know 没有谁了解她曾活在世上, When Lucy ceased to be; 少有人知道她何时夭亡; But she is in her grave, and, oh, 躺在墓中的露西啊, 躺在墓中的露西啊, The difference to me! 唯有我与别人都不一样。

专八英美文学习题-浪漫主义时期

Ⅰ. Multiple Choices: 1.Romanticism fights against the ideas of ______. A. realism B. Renaissance C. Enlightenment D. feudalism 2.The main literary stream is ____. A. poetry B. novels C. prose D. periodicals 3.____ has a another name called “The Daffodils”. A. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” B. “Tintern Abbey” C. “Revolution” D. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” 4.Coleridge’s _____ is a “conversation” poem. A. Frost at Midnight B. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” C. Christabel D. Biographia Literaria 5.Byron’s ____ is regarded as the great poem of the Romantic Age. A. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage B. Hours of Idleness C. Lara D. Don Juan 6.Prometheus Unbound is ____ masterpiece. A. Wordsworth’s B. Byron’s C. Shelley’s D. Keats’ 7.____ lived the longest life. A. Wordsworth B. Byron C. Shelley D. Keats 8.Keats’ first poem is ____. A. O Solitude B. On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer C. Poems D. Endymion 9.Keats’ best ode is ____. A. “On a Grecian Urn” B. “To Autumn” C. “To Psyche” D. “To a Nightingale” 10.The best works of William Hazlitt is ____. A. The Spirit of the Age B. Table Talk C. The Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays D. On the English Poets 11.The publication of ______ marks the beginning of the Romantic Movement in England. A. “Tintern Abbey” B. Lyrical Ballads C. Frost at Night D. “The Daffodils” 12.The Prelude has also been called _____. A. The Last Brazil B. The First Impression C. Growth of a Poet’s Mind D. The Spirit of the Age 13.Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” has also been called _______. A. “The Solitary Reaper” B. “The Daffodils” C. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” D. “O Solitude” 14._____ is considered Wordsworth’s masterpiece. A. The Prelude B. Endymion C. Don Juan D. Biographia Literaria 15.The prose writers in the English Romantic Age developed a kind of _______. A. models of classicism B. familiar essay C. rules of neo-romanticism D. ways of modernism 16.The best essayist in the English Romantic Age is _____.