十八世纪启蒙文学

《世界文学》必修课电子教材第五章第五章十八世纪启蒙主义文学第一节启蒙运动与启蒙文学十八世纪的欧洲是启蒙的时代。

启蒙运动直接导致了1789年法国资产阶级革命，开辟了世界历史的新纪元。

启蒙运动是继文艺复兴之后欧洲资产阶级发动的一场新的思想解放运动。

其宗旨是以天赋人权反对封建主义，用无神论和自然神论反对宗教迷信，启发人们的心灵，建立起一个理想的平等、自由、博爱的社会。

启蒙文学就是启蒙思想家用来宣传其政治主张，教诲人民的武器。

主要有三个特点：1、鲜明的政治倾向性和宣传性。

启蒙作家大多是启蒙思想家，他们强调文艺的社会功能，文学创作目的明确，用文学艺术为武器宣传启蒙思想，启发教育人民，因此具有较强的哲理性和教诲特色。

2、自觉的民主性。

主张描写人们的日常生活，以资产阶级和平民为正面歌颂的主人公，改变了欧洲文学以上层贵族和帝王为主人公的传统。

3、文体的多样性。

创造了多种新的文体类型，如哲理小说，市民悲剧，及书信体、对话体小说，抒情小说、教育小说等等。

第一节流派、作家和作品一、法国启蒙作家法国是欧洲启蒙运动的中心。

共有两代启蒙作家——他们同时也是启蒙思想家。

第一代启蒙作家孟德斯鸠（1689— 1755）法国第一个启蒙作家、思想家、社会学家，西方国家学说和法学理论的奠基人。

出身于贵族，曾担任波尔多省法院院长。

著有《论法的精神》（1748），和《人权宣言》（1789）主张立法、行政和司法三权分立。

文学上的主要成就是书信体讽刺小说《波斯人信札》（1721），对路易十四时代的政治、经济、宗教和法律进行了大胆、全面的抨击。

是欧洲最早的哲理小说。

伏尔泰（1694—1778）法国启蒙主义运动的领袖。

倡导文艺为社会改良服务，开创新型的“哲理小说”形式，宣扬启蒙思想。

曾改编中国古代戏剧《赵氏孤儿》为《中国孤儿》，在法国上演后引起巨大反响。

哲理小说法国启蒙作家、思想家孟德斯鸠、伏尔泰等人创立的一种小说形式，继承了拉伯雷的讽刺幽默传统，吸收了英国18世纪小说家斯威夫特的手法，将辛辣的讽刺、轻松的诙谐与嬉笑怒骂结合在一起，具有犀利的批判性和战斗精神。

The Eighteenth Century English Literature(The Age of Enlightenment in England)I. Background InformationA. Historical Background1. The economic background (The Industrial Revolution)2. The political background (The founding of a constitutional monarchy)3. The Social background (Newspapers and journals, coffeehouses)4. The ideological background (The Enlightenment movement)The 18th-century England is known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France & swept through the whole Western Europe at the time. The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15th & 16th centuries. Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modem philosophical & artistic ideas. The enlighteners celebrated reason or rationality, equality & science. They called for a reference to order, reason & rules & advocated universal education.B. Literary Schools1. Neo-classicism in the early 18th centuryAddison, Steele and Pope belonged to this school. According to the neoclassicists, all forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek & Roman writers & those of the contemporary French ones. They believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion & accuracy, & that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity. This belief led them to seek proportion, unity, harmony & grace in literary expressions, in an effort to delight, instruct & correct human beings, primarily as social animals. Thus, a polite, urbane, witty, & intellectual art developed.2. Sentimentalism in poetry and prose in the middle of 18th centuryThomas Gray is the most outstanding of this school. Along with a new vision of love, sentimentalism presented a new view of human nature which prized feeling over thinking, passion over reason, and personal instincts of "pity, tenderness, and benevolence" over social duties. Literary work of the sentimentalism, marked by a sincere sympathy for the poverty-stricken, expropriated peasants, wrote the "simple annals of the poor”. Writers of sentimentalism justly criticized the cruelty of the capitalist relations and the gross social injustices brought about by the bourgeois revolutions. However, they attacked the progressive aspect of this great social change in order to eliminate it and sighed for the return of the patriarchal times which they idealized. Sentimentalism embraces a pessimistic outlook and blames reason and the Industrial Revolution for the miseries and injustices in the aristocratic-bourgeois society and indulges in sentiment, hence the definite signs of decadence in the literary works of the sentimental tradition.3. The beginning of modern novelThe mid-century was, however, predominated by a newly rising literary form, the modern English novel, which, contrary to the traditional romance of aristocrats, gives a realistic presentation of life of the common English people. This-the most significant phenomenon in the history of the development of English literature in the eighteenth century - is a natural product of the Industrial Revolution & a symbol of the growing importance & strength of the English of the growing importance & strength of the English middle class, Among the pioneers were Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding.4. Pre-Romanticism in English poetryII. Representatives and their worksA. Alexander Pope1. Major worksa.The Rape of the Lock: A delightful burlesque of epic poetry, it ridicules the manners of the English nobility. The poem is based on an actual incident in which a young nobleman stole a lock of a lady's hair.b. An Essay on Criticism: His first important work, An Essay on Criticism was a long didactic poem in heroic couplets. In this work, he reflected the neo-classical spirit of the times by advocating good taste, common sense & the adherence to classical rules in writing & criticism. The whole poem is written in a plain style, hardly containing any imagery or eloquence &therefore makes easy reading.2. Literary outlookAs a representative of the Enlightenment, Pope was one of the first to introduce rationalism to England. He was the greatest poet of his time. He strongly advocated neoclassicism, emphasizing that literary works should be judged by classical rules of order, reason, logic, restrained emotion, good taste & decorum. According to Pope, almost every genre of literature should have some fixed laws & rules. Prose should be precise, direct, smooth & flexible, Poetry should be lyrical, epical, didactic, satiric or dramatic, & drama should be written in the Heroic Couplets (iambic pentameter rhymed in two lines); the three unities of time, space & action should be strictly observed; regularity in construction should be adhered to, & type characters rather than individuals should be represented.3. StylePope's works are still enjoyed for their sparkling wit, good sense & charm of expression. After Shakespeare, he is the most widely quoted poet in English literature. He worked painstakingly on his poems, developed a satiric, concise, smooth, graceful &well-balanced style.B. Daniel Defoe1. Major worksDefoe is generally considered the first great realistic novelist in English fiction. He based his stories on current events & materials, such as the maps & logs of actual sea voyages, personal memoirs& historical or eyewitness reports. Perhaps his most popular novel is Robinson Crusoe(1719), an adventure story based partly on the actual experience of a man who had been trapped on a deserted island. A Journal of the Plague Year(1722), sometimes considered his best work, has such a colorful & detailed account of the London plague of 1664 & 1665 that it seems to have been written by an observer on the scene. Defoe's third masterpiece,Moll Flanders (1722), is a lively novel tracing the adventures of a female rogue. Told in the form of "confessions", the narrative includes vivid descriptions of the courts, prisons, & other social institutions of Defoe's era.2. Social outlookAs a member of the middle class, Defoe spoke for & to the members of his class & his novels enjoyed great popularity among the less cultivated readers. In most of his works, he gave his praise to the hard-working, sturdy middle class & showed his sympathy for the downtrodden, unfortunate poor.3. Characteristics of his worksDefoe was a very good story-teller. He had a gift for organizing minute details in such a vivid way that his stories could be both credible& fascinating. His sentences are sometimes short, crisp & plain, & sometimes long & rambling, which leave on the reader on impression of casual narration. His language is smooth, easy, colloquial & mostly vernacular. There is nothing artificial in his language: it is common English at its best.4. Robinson CrusoeRobinson Crouse, an adventure story very much in the spirit of the time, is universally considered hismasterpiece. In the novel, Defoe traces the growth of Robinson from a naive & simple youth into a mature & hardened man, tempered by numerous trials in his eventful life. The realistic presentation of the successful struggle of Robinson single-handedly against the hostile nature proves the best part of the novel. Robinson is here a real hero: a typical eighteenth-century English middle-class man with a great capacity for work, inexhaustible energy, courage, patience & persistence in overcoming obstacles, in struggling against the hostile natural environment. He is the very prototype of the empire builder, the pioneer colonist. In describing Robinson's life on the island, Defoe glorifies human labor &the puritan fortitude, which save Robinson from despair & are a source of pride &happiness .He toils for the sake of subsistence, & get his reward.C. Jonathan Swift1. Humanist reviewSwift was a man of great moral integrity & social charm. A man with bitter life experience, he had a deep hatred for all the rich oppressors & a deep sympathy for all the poor & oppressed. His understanding of human nature is profound. In his opinion, human nature is seriously & permanently flawed. To better human life, enlightenment is needed, but to redress it is very hard. So, in his writings, although he intends not to condemn but to reform & improve human nature &human institutions. There is often an Under-or over tone of helplessness & indignation.2. Writing styleSwift is a master satirist. His satire is usually masked by an out word gravity &an apparent earnestness which renders his satire all the more powerful. Swift is one of the greatest masters of English prose. He is almost unsurpassed in the writing of simple, direct, precise prose. He defined a good style as "proper words in proper places." Clear, simple, concrete diction, uncomplicated sentence structure, economy & conciseness of language mark all his writings-essays, poems & novels.3. Gulliver’s TravelsGulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift's best fictional work, contains four parts, each about one particular voyage during which Gulliver has extraordinary adventures on some remote island after he has met with shipwreck or piracy or some other misfortune. As a whole the book is one of the most effective & devastating criticisms & satires of all aspects in the then English & satires of all aspects in the then English & European life - socially, politically, religiously, philosophically, scientifically, & morally. Its social significance is great & its exploration into human nature profound.Gulliver's Travels is also an artistic masterpiece. Here we find its author at his best as a master of prose. In structure, the four parts make an organic whole, with each contrived upon an independent structure, & yet complementing the others & contributing to the central concern of study of human nature & life. The first two parts are generally considered smallness in Part I words just as effectively as the exaggerated largeness in Part 2. The similarities between human beings & the Lilliputians & the contrast between the Brobdingnagians & human beings both bear reference to the possibilities of human state. Part 3 furthers the criticism of the western civilization & deals with different malpractices & false illusions about science, philosophy, history & false illusions about science, philosophy, history & even immortality. The lost part, where comparison is made through both similarities &differences, leads the reader to a basic question: What on earth is a human being?D. Henry Fielding1. Achievements in English novelsFielding has been regarded by some as "Father of the English Novel," for his contribution to the establishment of the form of the modern novel. Of all the eighteenth-century novelists he was the first to set out, both in theory & practice, to write specifically a "comic epic in prose," the first to give the modern novel its structure & style. Before him, the relating of a story in a novel was either in the epistolary form (a series ofletters), as in Richardson's Pamela, or the picaresque form (adventurous wanderings) through the mouth of the principal character, as in Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, but Fielding adopted " the third-person narration," in which the author becomes the "all-knowing God." He "thinks the thought" of all his characters, so he is able-to present not only their external behaviors but also the internal workings of their minds. In planning his stories, he tries to retain the grand epical form of the classical works but at the same time keeps faithful to his realistic presentation of common life as it is.2. Language featuresHis language is easy, unlabored & familiar, but extremely vivid & vigorous. His sentences are always distinguished by logic & rhythm, & his structure carefully planned towards an inevitable ending. His works are also noted for lively, dramatic dialogues & other theatrical devices such as suspense, coincidence & unexpectedness.3. The History of Tom Jones, a FoundlingTom Jones, generally considered Fielding's masterpiece, brings its author the name of the "Pose Homer." The panoramic view it provides of the 18th century English country & city life with different places & about 40 characters is unsurpassed. The language is one of clarity & suppleness. And last of all, the plot construction is excellent. Its 18 books of epic form are divided into 3 sections, 6 books each, clearly marked out by the change of scenes: in the country, on the high way & in London. By this, Fielding has indeed achieved his goal of writing a "comic epic in prose."E. William BlakeThe Lamb The TygerLittle Lamb, who made thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning brightDost thou know who made thee? In the forest of the nightGave thee life, and bid thee feed, What immortal hand or eyeBy the stream and o'er the mead; Could frame thy fearful symmetry?Gave thee clothing of delight,Softest clothing, woolly, bright; In what distant deeps or skiesGave thee such a tender voice, Burnt the fire of thine eyes?Making all the vales rejoice? On what wings dare he aspire?Little Lamb, who made thee? What the hand dare seize the fire?Dost thou know who made thee?And what shoulder, and what art, Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Could twist the sinews of thy heart?Little Lamb, I'll tell thee. And when thy heart began to beat,He is called by thy name, What dread hand? and what dread feet?For He calls Himself a Lamb.He is meek, and He is mild; What the hammer? what the chain?He became a little child. In what furnace was thy brain?I a child, and thou a lamb, What the anvil? what dread graspWe are called by His name. Dare its deadly terrors clasp?Little Lamb, God bless thee!Little Lamb, God bless thee! When the stars threw down their spears,And watered heaven with their tears,Did he smile his work to see?Did he who made the lamb make thee?Tyger! Tyger! burning brightIn the forests of the night,What immortal hand or eyeDare frame thy fearful symmetry? F. Robert BurnsAuld Lang Syne1 Should auld acquaintance be forgot,2 And never brought to min’?3 Should auld acquaintance be forgot,4 And days o’ lang syne?5 For auld lang syne, my dear,6 For auld lang syne,7 we'll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,8 For auld lang syne.9 We twa hae run about the braes,10 And pu'd the gowans fine;11 But We've wander'd mony a weary foot,12 Sin' auld lang syne.13 We twa hae paidled i' the burn,14 From mornin' sun till dine,15 But seas between us braid hae roar'd16 Sin' auld lang syne.17 And here's a hand, my trusty fiere,18 And gie's a hand o' thine;19 We'll tak a right gude-willie waught,20 For auld lang syne.21 And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp,22 And sur ely I’ll be mine;23 And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,24 For auld lang syne.。

第五章 18世纪文学(启蒙主义文学)第一节概述启蒙运动：18世纪兴起于欧洲的资产阶级反封建、反教会的思想文化运动，是文艺复兴的继续和发展,为资产阶级革命作了舆论准备；它比文艺复兴具有更强的政治革命性质，直接为资产阶级夺取政权和巩固政权制造舆论；启蒙运动中形成的资产阶级的思想体系称为启蒙主义。

启蒙主义的矛头主要是对准宗教迷信和封建专制制度的。

启蒙主义的体系的核心是理性。

启蒙主义者把资产阶级的“理性”（合乎自然、合乎人性的原则）作为衡量一切的准则，最高理想是建立一个永恒完美的“理性王国”。

简述18世纪启蒙主义文学的基本特征：1 18古典主义仍占重要地位，但启蒙主义成就最高。

2有鲜明的倾性，要求文学为现实服务。

属于资产阶级性质文学思潮，反对国王，宣传启蒙思想。

孟德斯鸠《波斯人信札》，三分之二是抨击时政，揭露宗教，只有“后房故事”才具有一点文学色彩。

3把第三等级的资产阶级和平民作为主人公来正面歌颂。

过去文学作品的主人公都是帝王将相、才子佳人、王公贵族，18世纪以第三等级为正面主人公，王公贵族成了批评对象。

如鲁宾孙、苏珊（《修女》）、费加罗、露伊斯（《阴谋与爱情》）。

4创造性地运用了多种形式的文体：正剧、哲理小说等。

缺点：有时忽视文学的审美功能，把人物形象变成作者的代言人。

代表作家有：菲尔丁、伏尔泰、卢梭等。

主要成就：法国启蒙运动、英国现实主义长篇小说和德国民族文学。

18世纪文学状况：一英国文学笛福(英国实现主义小说的奠基人、英国小说之父、现代新闻主要作品：《鲁滨逊漂流记》标志着英国现实主义小说的诞生。

鲁滨逊是一个新兴资产阶级理想中的英雄形象。

鲁滨孙在荒岛依靠火药和文明的工具，用自己的双手建造了一个文明世界，他是西方商业英雄。

反映了资本原始积累时期资产阶级征服世界、占有世界的雄心。

在他身上有着创造者和劳动者的品格，精力充沛，百折不挠，富于实干精神和进取精神。

鲁滨逊又是资产阶级上升时期一个“真正的资产者”（恩格斯语）的典型。