Chapter Three The Age of EnlightenmentI. An Outline of the literature of this period Literary TermsBrief description The Enlightenment Movement （启蒙运动） Neoclassicism （新古典主义） The Graveyard School （墓地派诗歌） The Heroic Couplet （英雄对偶句） Elegy （挽歌） Satire （讽刺） Sentimentalism （感伤主义文学） Didactic （说教的） Farce （闹剧／滑稽剧） Aside （旁白） Denouement （戏剧）结局 (1) Enlightenment Movement was a progressiveintellectual movement that flourished in France and sweptthrough Western Europe in the 18th century. (2) Themovement was a furtherance of the Renaissance from 14thcentury to the mid-17th century. (3) Its purpose was toenlighten the whole world with the light of modernphilosophical and artistic ideas. (4) It celebrated reason orrationality, equality and science. It advocated universaleducation. Literature at the time became a very popularmeans of public education. (5) Famous among the greatenlighteners in England were those great writers like JohnDryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison and Sir RichardSteele, the two pioneers of familiar essays, JonathanSwift ， Richard Bringsley Sheridan, Daniel Defoe, HenryFielding and Samuel Johnson.(1) In the field of literature, the Enlightenment Movementbrought about a revival of interest in the old classicalworks. (2) This tendency is known as Neoclassicism . Theneoclassicists held that forms of literature were to bemodeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek andRoman writers such as Homer and Virgil and those of thecontemporary French ones. (3) They believed that theartistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotionand accuracy, and that literature should be judged in termsof its service to humanity.(1) The Graveyard School refers to a school of poets ofthe 18th century whose poems are mostly devoted to asentimental lamentation or meditation on life, past andpresent, with death and graveyard as themes. (2) ThomasGray is considered to be the leading figure of this schooland his “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is itsmost representative work.The Heroic Couplet means a pair of lines of a type oncecommon in English poetry, in other words, it meansiambic pentameter rhymed in two lines.(1) Elegy has typically been used to refer to reflectivepoems that lament the loss of something or someone. (2)In Memoriam by Alfred Tennyson is a famous elegy.(1) Satire means a kind of writing that holds up to ridiculeor contempt the weakness and wrongdoings of individuals,groups, institutions, or humanity in general. (2) The aim ofsatirists is to set a moral standard for society, and theyattempt to persuade the reader to see their point of viewthrough the force of laughter. (3) Swift’s “Gulliver’sTravels” is a great satire of the then English society fromdifferent aspects.(1) Sentimentalism is a pejorative term to describe falseor superficial emotion, assumed feeling, self-regardingpostures of grief and pain. (2) In literature it denotesovermuch use of pathetic effects and attempts to arousefeeling by “pathetic” indulgence. (3) The Vicar ofWakefield by Oliver Goldsmith is a case in point.(1) Didactic literature is said to be didactic if itdeliberately teachessome moral lesson. The use of literature for such teachingis one of its traditional justifications. (2) Most modernliterary works during the Enlightenment period tended tobe didactic.Farce refers to a play full of ridiculous happenings, absurdactions, and unreal situations, meant to be very funny.(1) Aside refers to words spoken by an actor which theother actors are supposed not to hear. (2) An actor’s asidesare usually spoken to the audience. (3) Hamlet’s very firstline is an aside.Denouement, pronounced Dee-noo-ma, is that part of adrama which follows the climax and leads to theresolution.Name of the Writer Works Brief descriptionAlexander Pope (1688-1744)（亚历山大·蒲柏） (1) He is a representative of the Enlightenment and the greatest poet of theNeoclassical period.(2) He is the first tointroduce rationalismto England. Hestrongly advocatedeoclassicism,emphasizing thatliterary works shouldbe judged by classicalrules of order, reason,logic, restrainedemotion, good tasteand decorum. An Essay on Criticism《论批评》The Rape of the Lock《夺发记》The Dunciad《群愚史诗》(1) An Essay on Criticism is his masterpiece. It is a didactic poem written in heroic couplets. (2) It consists of 744 lines and is divided into three parts. (3) It sums up the art of poetry as upheld and practiced by the ancients like Aristotle, and the 18th-century European classicists. (4) Pope first laments the dearth of true taste in poetic criticism of his day and calls on people to turn to the old Greek and Roman writers for guidance. (5) It helped spread the neoclassicist tradition in England. In The Dunciad Pope writes a scathing exposé of the bad writers and pseudo-intellectualsof his day.John Dryden (1631-1700)（约翰·德莱顿） He is called “the father of English Criticism”. (2) An Essay of Dramatic Poesy is his masterpiece.An Essay of Dramatic Poesy 《论戏剧诗歌》 All for Love 《一切为了爱》 Alexander’s Feast 《亚历山大的宴会》 (1) An Essay of Dramatic Poesyis John Dryden’s best work. (2)In it he discusses the works ofthe great playwrights of Greeceand Rome, the EnglishRenaissance, and contemporary France. (3) Hewas called “the father of EnglishCriticism”.Thomas Gray Thomas Gray (1716-1771)（托马斯·格雷） He was the leading figure of the Graveyard School. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 《写在乡村教堂墓地的挽歌》 (1) Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is the most representative work. of the Graveyard School. (2) In this poem, Gray reflects on death, the sorrows of life, and themysteries of human life with atouch of his personalmelancholy. (3) The poetcompares the common folk withthe great ones, wondering whatthe commons could haveachieved if they had had thechance. Here he reveals hissympathy for the poor and theunknown, but mocks the greatones who despise the poor andbring havoc on them.Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)（丹尼尔·笛福） Robinson Crusoe 《鲁滨逊漂流记》 Moll Flanders 《摩尔·弗兰德斯》 A Journal of the Plague Year 《大疫年的回忆》 (1) Robinson Crusoe is Defoe’s masterpiece. (2) In the novel, Defoe traces the growth of Robinson from a naïve andartless youth into a shrewd andhardened man, tempered bynumerous trials in his eventfullife. (3) He is portrayed as thevery prototype of the empirebuilder and the pioneer colonist.(4) The novel eulogizes the heroof the hard-working class, andshows his sympathy for the poorand the unfortunate in hissociety.(1) Moll Flanders is consideredone of the great English novels.The book follows Moll Flandersas she struggles to avoid thedeadly poverty of 17th-centuryEngland. From a prison-birth tofinal prosperity, Moll reckonslove, theft and prostitution interms of profit and loss andemerges as an extraordinarycharacter. (3) This vivid saga ofan irresistible and notorious heroine --- her high misdemeanors and delinquencies, her varied careersas a prostitute, a charming andfaithful wife, a thief, and aconvict --- endures today as oneof the liveliest, most candidrecords of a woman's progressthrough the hypercriticallabyrinth of society everrecorded.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) （乔纳森·斯威夫特） (1) He is a master satirist. (2) He is almost unsurpassed in the writing of simple, direct, precise prose. He defined a good style as “proper words in proper places.” Gulliver's Travels 《格列佛游记》 A Modest Proposal 《一个温和的建议》 A Tale of a Tub 《一个桶子的故事》 The Battle of the Books 《书籍的战斗》 The Drapier’s Letters 《德莱皮尔的信》 (1) Gulliver’s Travels is Swift’s masterpiece. (2) It contains four parts, each about one particularvoyage during which Gulliver has extraordinary adventures on some remote island after he has met with shipwreck or piracy or some other misfortune. The four places Gulliver visits are: Lilliput, Brobdingnag, the Flying Land and the Houyhnhnm land,where he meets the Yahoos,hairy, wild, low and despicablebrutes, who resemble humanbeings not only in appearancebut also in almost every otherway. (3) As a whole, the novelis a bitter satire and harshcriticism of all aspects in thethen English and European lifephilosophically, socially,politically, scientifically,religiously, and morally.Henry Fielding (1707-1754)（亨利·菲尔丁） (1) Of all the 18th-century novelists he was the first to set out, both in theory and practice, to write a “comic epic in prose”. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling 《汤姆·琼斯》 Joseph Andrews 《约瑟夫·安德鲁斯》The History of Jonathan Wild the Great 《伟大的乔纳森·王(1) Tom Jones is Henry Fielding’s masterpiece. It brings him the name of the “ProseHomer.” (2) The novel presents apanoramic view of the 18th-century English country and city life. (3) In the novel Tom Jones stands for a drifting Everyman who is expelled from(2) He was the first to give the modern novel its structure and style. He, therefore, has been regarded as “Father of the English Novel”. 尔德》 the paradise and has to undergo hard experiences to gain some knowledge of himself to approach perfection.Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) （塞缪尔·约翰逊） He was the last great neoclassicist enlightener in the late eighteenth century. He was England 's greatest literary figures: a poet, essayist, biographer, and often considered the finest critic of English literature. He was also a great wit and prose stylist whose bon mots are still frequently quoted in print today. "To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield" 《致切斯菲尔德伯爵的一封信》 A Dictionary of the English Language 《英语大辞典》 (1) To the Right Honorable The Earl of Chesterfield is Samuel Johnson’s famous letter to the fame-fishing Chesterfield who offered Johnson nothing while he compiled A Dictionary of the English Language. (2) The letter is written in a refined and very polite language, with a bitter undertone of defiance and anger. (3) The letter reveals Johnson’s indignation at the lord’s fame-fishing and his firm resolution not to be reconciled to the hypocritical lord. (4) It expresses explicitly the author’s assertion of his independence, signifying the opening of a newera in the development ofliterature.He compiled the first Englishdictionary by an Englishman ---A Dictionary of the EnglishLanguage.Richard Bringsley Sheridan (1751-1816) （理查德·比·谢立丹） (1) He is the only important English dramatist of the eighteenth century. (2) His plays, especially The Rivals and The School for Scandal, are generally considered asimportant linksThe School for Scandal 《造谣学校》 The Rivals 《情敌》 (1) The School for Scandal is Sheridan’s masterpiece. It mainly tells about two brothers, the hypocritical Joseph Surfaceand the good-natured, imprudent, spendthrift Charles Surface. (2) It bitterly satires the moral degeneracy, vanity, greed and hypocrisy of the upper-class society in the eighteenth-century England.between themasterpieces of Shakespeare and thoseof Bernard Shaw.Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)（塞谬尔·理查森） He is often regarded as the founder of theEnglish domesticnovel.Pamela《帕米拉》Clarissa《克拉丽莎》(1) Pamela or Virtue Rewarded is Richardson’s masterpiece. (2) It is a series of letters written by a beautiful young damsel Pamela to her parents. (3) Pamela suffers with dignity, but is rewarded at last. Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774)（奥利弗·格尔斯密） He is the outstanding representative of theEnglish sentimentalistschool.The Vicar of Wakefield《威克菲尔德牧师》She Stoops to Conquer《屈身求爱》(1) The Vicar of Wakefield is Goldsmith’s masterpiece. (2) It is about the ups and downs of Dr. Primerose, the vicar, and his family. (3) It is a typical novel of sentimentalist school.。
