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英国⽂学史及作品选读习题集（5）5 English Literature in the Romantic PeriodⅠ. Essay questions.1. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen explored three kinds of motivations of marriage the middle-class people had in the second half of the 18th century. Try to make a brief discussion about them with specific examples from the novel. Make comments on Austen’s attitude towards these motivations.2. What are the general features of English Romanticism3. Tell the story of Pride and Prejudice and make a comment on it.4. Make a comment on Wordsworth concerning his contribution to poetry.5. Irony abounds in Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice. Please illustrate it with reference to some examples.6. Make a general comment on Walter Scott.’Ⅱ. Define the following terms.1. Romanticism2. Ode3. Byronic hero4. Ottava rima5. Terza rima6. Irony7. Lyric8. Motif9. Theme10. Symbol11. Imagery12. Foil13. Synaesthesia14. Character15. Flat character16. Round character17. Negative capacityⅢ Fill in the blanks.1. As an age of romantic enthusiasm, the Romantic Age began in 1798 when ______and ______published _______ and ended in 1832 when ______died.2. In the Preface of the 2nd and 3rd editions of __________, Wordsworth laid down the principles of poetry composition.3. The English Romantic Age produced two major novelists, _________ and ______.4. _____, ________, and_________ are referred to as the “Lake Poets” because they lived in the Lake District in the northwestern part of England.5. In 1805, Wordsworth completed his long autobiographical poem entitled__________.6. Scott’s historical novels depicted Scotland, England, and the Continent covering a period ranging from _______ up to, and including, _______.7. _______ mourned for _______’s premature death in an elegy “Adonais”, w riting “He is made one with Nature.”8. “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” is a long poem created by contains four cantos in the_______ stanza, namely a 9-line stanza rhymed ababbcbcc, in which the first eight lines are in iambic pentameter while the ninth in iambic hexameter,9. _______ is Byron’s masterpiece, written in the prime of his creativepower. He called it an “epic satire”, “a satire on abuses of the present state of society.”10. The great novelist in the Romantic period_______ marked the transition from Romanticism to the period of Realism which followed it.11. The plot of Shelley’s lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound is borrowed from _______, a play of the Greek tragedian Aeschylus.12. In “To Autumn”, Keats writes,” Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, / Clise bosom-friend of the maturing sun; / Conspiring with him how to load and bless / With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; / …” The figure of speech used in the lines is _______.13. “Ode to a Nightingale” expresses the contrast be tween _______ and _______.14. The unifying principle in Don Juan is the basic ironic theme of _______, ., what things seem to be and what they actually are.15. Byron employed _______ from Italian mock-heroic poetry. His first experiment was made in Beppo. It was perfected in Don Juan in which the convention flows with ease and naturalness.was memorized and honored as “the heart of all hearts” after his death. 17. Many critics regard Shelley as one of the greatest of all English poets. They point especially to his_______.18. Romanticism was in effect a revolt of the English _______against the neoclassical _______, which prevailed from the days of pope to those of Johnson.19. _______ are generally regarded as Keats’s most important and mature works.20. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” shows the contrast between _______and21. Among the Romantic figures, _______has a fundamental conviction of the health of the social system, of its ability to reform itself, and of the assurance of social well-being and the likelihood of a reasonable personal happiness.22. Scott is considered “the father of _______” which open(s) up to fiction the rich and lively realm of history.23. Two prevailing themes of Pride and Prejudice are _______ and _______.24. _______ was composed in a dream after the poet Coleridge took the opium.25. All such works of Coleridge as “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, “Christable” and “Kubla Khan” revealed his keen interest in_______,26. _______ is regarded as a “worshipper of nature”.27. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, “An Evening Walk”, “My Heart Leaps up” and “Tintern Abbey” are all masterpieces on _______.28. The main idea running through the dramatic poem Prometheus Unboundis that of _______.29. _______, with a triumphant praise of the imagination, highly exalts the role of poetry, thinking that poetry alone could free man and offer the mind a wider view of its powers. He holds that poetry “is a more direct representation of the actions and passions of our internal being”.30. The Romantic period is an age of poetry. The major Romantic poets such as Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron,Shelley and Keats started a rebellion against the neoclassical literature, which was later regarded as _______.31. _______ and _______ gave great impetus to the rise of the Romantic32. _______ is a great critic of the romantic period on Shakespeare, Elizabethan drama, and English poetry. He is also a maser of the familiar essays.33. With _______, the essay is no longer chiefly a mode of intellectual inquiry and moral address. Rather, the essay becomes a medium for a delightful literary treatment of life’s small pleasures and reassurances.Ⅳ. Choose the best answer1. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” is an epigrammatic line by _______.A. Kohn KeatsB. William BlakeC. William WordsworthD. Percy Bysshe Shelley2. William Wordsworth, a romantic poet, advocated all of the following EXCEPT _______.A. Normal contemporary speech patternsB. Humble and rustic life as subject matterC. Elegant wording and inflated figures of speechD. Intensely subjective feeling toward individual experience3. In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”, “A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice “_______.A. Refers to the palace where Kubla Khan once livedB. Vividly describes a building of poor qualityC. Is the gift given to a beautiful girl called AbyssinianD. Symbolizes the reconciliation of the conscious and the unconscious4. _______is one of the first generation of English Romantic poets.A. KeatsB. ShelleyD. Wordsworth5. “If winter comes, can spring be far behind” is taken from _______.A. The Solitary ReaperB. Ode to the West WindC. To AutumnD. Song to the Man of England6. _______is NOT among the representative essayists in the romantic times.A. Charles LambB. William HazlittC. Thomas De QuinceyD. Walter Scott7. In_______, _______set forth his principles of poetry, “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling”.A. The Preface to Lyrical Ballads; WordsworthB. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; ColeridgeC. “A Defence of Poetry”; ShelleyD. “Lectures on the English Poets”; Hazlitt8. _______is NOT a lyric written by Wordsworth.A. My Heart Leaps UpB. Intimations of ImmortalityC. Love’s PhilosophyD. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud9. All the poems were written by Byron EXCEPT_______.A. Childe Harold’s PilgrimageB. Don Juan。
英国文学史及选读（第二册）The Romantic Period----IndividualismRomanticism: A movement that flourished in literature, philosophy, music and art in western culture during most of the nineteenth century, beginning as a revolt against classicism. It emphasize the special qualities of each individual`s mind. Many of the ideas of English Romanticism were first expressed by the poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Lake Poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge and SoutheyPoet laureate：William Wordsworth, Southey, TennysonRepresentatives：William Wordsworth，George Gordon, Lord Byron, Shelley, John Keats, Walter Scott, Jane AustenThe beginning and the end of Romanticism:The English Romanticism is 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.Features of Romanticism:1. Romanticists expressed the ideology and sentiment of those classes and social stratum that were discontent with and opposed to the development of capitalism.2. Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-century Neoclassicism in particular.3. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental.William WordsworthI Wandered Lonely as a Cloud / The DaffodilsWilliam Wordsworth in his poem I wandered Lonely as a Cloud is possibly making an attempt to show the reader the essence of life in nature, and what kind of a role a memory from childhood can play on us as adults. In his poem William Wordsworth is using daffodils as a metaphor for living, perhaps even eternal life, or life after death.The theme of this poem is harmony between humanity and nature.The Solitary ReaperIt is an iambic verse. Most of the lines in the poem are octosyllabics. The rhyme-scheme for each stanza is ababccdd.The Solitary Reaper use rural figures to suggest the timeless mystery of sorrowful humanity and its radiant beauty.It describes a nameless listener's delight in a young woman's melancholy song in an unknown language as, working by herself in a Scottish valley, she swings a sickle, reaping grain.Wordsworth may deliberately impoverish(使贫穷) his speaker's language so as to contrast it with the reaper's song.The Solitary Reaper‟s “song”, like a found poem, springs directly from nature, without literary context. Her "music" runs like water ("overflowing" the valley) and surpasses the beauty of two celebrated English song-birds, the nightingale and the cuckoo.The Solitary Reaper relates an ecstatic moment in which a passer-by transcends the limitations of mortality. Both the song and he go on together.George Gordon, Lord ByronByronic heroes: In his works appear the “Byronic heroes”, Who are men of noble origin with fiery pas sions and unbending will and express the poet‟s own ideal of freedom. These heroes rise against tyranny and injustice, but they are merely lone fighters striving for personal freedom and some individualistic ends.When We Two PartedIt is a poem speaking about unity and separation within the couple.She Walks in BeautyThe first couple of lines can be confusing if not read properly. Too often readers stop at the end of the first line where there is no punctuation. This is an enjambed line, meaning that it continues without pause onto the second line.That “she walks in beauty like the night”may not make sense as night represents darkness. However, as the line continues, the night is a cloudless one with bright stars to create a beautiful mellow(圆润的,柔美的) glow.The first two lines bring together the opposing qualities of darkness and light that are at play throughout the three verses.The remaining lines of the first verse employ another set of enjambed lines that tell us that her face and eyes combine all best of dark and bright.No mention is made here or elsewhere in the poem of any other physical features of the lady.The focus of the vision is upon the details of the lady’s face and eyes which reflect the mellowed and tender light. She has a remarkable quality of being able to contain the opposites of dark and bright.The third and fourth lines are not only enjambed, but the fourth line begins with an irregularity in the meter called a metrical（韵律）substitution. The fourth line starts with an accented syllable followed by an unaccented one, rather than the iambic meter of the other lines, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. The result is that the word “Meet”receives attention, an emphasis. The lady’s unique feature is that opposites “meet”in her in a wonderful way.The second stanza tells us that the glow of the lady’s face is nearly perfect. The shades and rays are in just the right proportion, and because they are, the lady possesses a nameless grace. This conveys the romantic idea that her inner beauty is mirrored by her outer beauty. Her thoughts are serene and sweet. She is pure and dear.The last verse is split between three lines of physical description and three lines that describe the lady’s moral character. Her soft, calm glow reflects a life of peace and goodness. This is a repetition, an emphasis, of the theme that the lady’s physical beauty is a reflection of her innerbeauty.Byron wrote the lines the morning after he had met his beautiful young cousin by marriage, Mrs. Robert John Wilmot, who wore a black mourning gown brightened with spangles. (亮晶晶的小东西)The poem was written shortly before Lord Byron’s marriage to Anna Milbanke and published shortly after the marriage.Percy Bysshe ShelleyOde:Ode is a dignified and elaborately structured lyric poem praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally. Odes originally were songs performed to the accompaniment of a musical instrument.Ode to the West WindOde to the West Wind is Shelley‟s most famous short poem. It is an invocation（符咒）for an unseen force to take control and revive life. It was first composed on October 19, 1819, inspired by a walk in woodland near Florence, and it was first published in August, 1920 with Prometheus Unbound.The personal conflicts explain the imagery of death and decay in the first stanza of the poem. The poem calls for a mythical power to inspire and induce change or "a new Birth". It is about the regenerative powers of Nature to bring forth not only new life but also poetic inspiration. The call for inspiration comes in the form like a prayer, not to a Christian God, but to an unseen spiritual force which has the same omnipresence and power as a god.John KeatsOde to a NightingaleOde to a Nightingale expresses the contrast between the happy world of natural loveliness and human world of agony.In this poem, by singing of the nightingale and its plaintive songs, describing the beautiful and embalmed natural world, and expressing his wish to fly away with the bird, Keats makes a contrasts between the happy world of natural loveliness and human world of agony in order to show his resentment against the social wrongs and his desire for a world of eternal happiness.Walter ScottWalter Scott `s historical novel paved the path for the development of the realistic novel of the 19th century.Jane AustenSense and SensibilityPride and PrejudiceNorthanger AbbeyMansfield ParkEmmaPersuasionJane Austen is one of the realistic writers/novelists. She drew vivid and realistic pictures of everyday life of the country society in her novels.Pride and PrejudicePride and Prejudice was first titled First Impressions, and these titles embody the themes of the novel. The narrative describes how the prejudices and first impressions (especially those dealing with pride) of the main characters change throughout the novel, focusing on those of Elizabeth.Elizabeth's judgments about other characters' dispositions are accurate about half of the time. While she is correct about Mr. Collins and how absurdly self-serving he is and about Lady Catherine de Bourgh and how proud and snobbish she is, her first impressions of Wickham and Darcy steer her incorrectly. Wickham is first thought to be a gentleman by all. His good looks and his easy manner fool almost everyone, and Elizabeth believes without question all that he tells her of Darcy. Elizabeth's first impressions of him are contradicted when she realizes that he has lied about Darcy.The Victorian Age---Critical Realism in EnglandChartism(宪章主义):The year between 1832 and the early 50‟s saw an important series of events known as the Chartist Movement. Chartism arose out of the increasing strength and a greater confidence of the working class as well as their increasing miseries in life. The Chartist Movement sprang from “the social degradation produced by the unregulated growth of industry and by the subordination of human to commercial interests.The Chartist movement writers introduced a new theme into English literature---the struggle of the proletariat(无产阶级)for its right.Realism: In art and literature, an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures and objects exactly as they act or appear in life. Attempts at realism have been made periodically(周期的) throughout history in all the arts; the term is, however, generally restricted to a movement that began in the mid-19th century, in reaction to the highly subjective approach of romanticism.Charles Dickens (critical realist writer批判现实主义小说家)The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwich club 1836-1837Oliver Twist 1838The Ode Curiosity Shop 1841David Copperfield 1850Bleak House 1852A Tale of Two Cities 1859Great Expectations 1861Our Mutual Friend 1865Hard Times 1854Oliver TwistOne of Dickens‟ most enduringly popular stories is Oliver Twist.Like many of his later novels, its central theme is the hardship faced by the dispossessed and those of the outside of…polite‟ society. Oliver himself is born in a workhouse and treated cruelly there as was the norm at the time for pauper children. The story follows Oliver as he escapes the workhouse and runs away to London. Here he receives an education in villainy from the criminal gang of Fagin that includes the brutal thief Bill Sikes, the famous …Artful Dodger‟ and Nancy, Bill‟s whore. Oliver is rescued by the intervention of a benefactor - Mr Brownlow - but the mysterious Monks gets the gang to kidnap the boy again. Nancy intervenes but is murdered viciously by Sikes after she has showed some redeeming qualities and has discovered Monk‟s sinister intention. The story closes happily and with justice for Bumble and the cruel Monks who has hidden the truth of Oliver‟s parentag e out of malice(怨恨). His achievement was in fact in presenting the underworld and problems of poverty to the well-off in a way rarely attempted previously.William M. ThackerayVanity Fair（1847-1848）The Book of Snobs（1846-1847）V anity FairThemesAs the title suggests, this is a book about Vanity Fair. The term“Vanity Fair”is apparently taken from John Bunyan‟s famous allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress,which Christian and his friend faith have to pass on their way to the celestial city.From the subtitle, Novel without a Hero, we are enlightened about the world it depicts. As a novel with out heroes, it can only mean:1)In this novel there is no exactly positive characters, that is to say, this is a world full of bad or faulty people. No one here is really good enough to be a hero. The world or society here is corrupted.2)his is a novel not about some particular person but a bout a society—the upper middle class society. The social manners, made up of individual behaviors, become the predominant concern, and the general impression is that of noisy, whirling commotion, and3)It can be a book about women instead of men. Evidence is found in the absolute domination of the stage by the major characters: Becky sharp and her foil Amelia. They, particularly Becky, are the heroines at the center of life while all the male characters are but means and tools in their climb or search for position and money.A comparison between Thackeray’s and DickensThe main features of Thackeray‟s work can best be found in co mparison with those of his contemporary, Charles Dickens. Though writing about the same time, Thackeray differs from the latter in some aspects. First, his criticism of the society is seldom directed at the inhuman social institution and corrupted government which bring great misery and suffering to the poor working class, as is shown in Dickens‟ works. What Thackeray criticizes is the social moral that makes up the society, not the political structure and organizations that run the society. To him, the society is diseased because it is morally corrupted, because most people are money-oriented. To obtain money and the comfort and luxury it brings, they take every means to fight and to cheat each other. Besides, unlike Dickens who has a firm belief in the honesty and respectability of the working class, Thackeray criticism embraces people of all social strata. Though the world he depicts ispredominantly that of the upper-middle class in the early 19th century-with its whirling ballrooms, noisy parties, heavily curtained bedrooms. Elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen at card-tables and billiard rooms, flirting or gambling, where money is made or last, marriages are contracted, the ambitious are thwarted and the stupid favored—his social—climbers and snobs and money-grabbers can be found in any class.Thackeray also differs from Dickens in the way of writing. Though both are noted for the realistic depiction of life and people, we feel we would like to meet Dickens‟ interesting. Langer-than-life characters b ut we are sure we‟ve seen too many and know too well those of Thackeray‟s. We are fascinated by the former and smile at the easy identification of the later moreover, Dickens strikes us as always“in”the play while Thackeray is constantly“out”. Dickens always imagines himself one of the characters, he sees, thinks and does things their way, he laughs and cries with them, and constantly he pleas for them when he sees them suffer from maltreatment and injustice. But Thackeray always speaks in an ironical, sarcastic and cynical tone of an on-looker. He is a puppet-player who monitors his puppets at backstage, with a sureness and familiarity of master craftsmanship, although now and then he is willing to give a piece of his mind. And finally Thackeray, as the better educated of the two, proves a more conscious artist, his works are known for their fine language, careful overall planning, mastering of detail, vast scope of view and faithfulness to the history.Charlotte Bronte and Emily BronteCharlotte Bronte`s Jane EyreThemesEver since its publication, Jane Eyre has appealed to the general reading public. It is known as a work of critical realism as well as the first and one of the most popular works of the working middle-class women. Its social criticism is found in its vivid description of life of a poor orphan left dependent on some selfish, cold-hearted people and her hard struggle to retain her dignity as a human being. The ill-treatment of and despise for the unfortunate lower class by the rich and the privileged are clearly shown. What is more, the brutality and hypocrisy of the English educational system are laid bare here in the example of Lowood School where children are exposed to unbearably harsh conditions and unreasonably rigid disciplines and are trained to be humble slaves only. On the other hand, the idle and vian life of the corrupted rich is also vividly depicted and sharply criticized.Another factor for the popularity of the novel lies in the fact that it is the first governess novel in the history of English literature. Upon its first publication, the contemporary readers were fascinated as well as shocked by its titular heroine. Instead of the rich, gentle, frail, modest and virtuous beauties of the conventional heroine, here we have a small, plain, poor governess who begins her life all alone, with no body caring for her and nothing attractive. What she has is an intense feeling, a ready sympathy and a strong sense of equality and independence. And she, in defiance of the social convention, dares to love her master, declares it openly, and finally marries him when he is in the most wretched situation. Alt this should certainly disqualify her as a heroine due to the then social prejudices. However, the young lady, for all her obscurity and inferiority, stands out as one of the most remarkable fictional heroines of the time. Her very unconventionality marks her as an entirely new woman.Besides Jane‟s exceptional personalities, the book is also hailed as a representative work offeminist writings, i.e., works reflecting the experience and defending the interest of the weaker sex. In a way, it speaks not only for those unfortunate governesses like Jane, but all the middle-class women and women of all classes. Jane‟s declaration to Mr. Rochester of her equality with him is really a declaration of the women of middle class and all classes. Such an independent and equal attitude was an astonishment and wonder to people of the day, but it is the first manifestation of the awakening of the exploited and maltreated women. Jane, smell and weak as she is , becomes an amazon fighting for the emancipation of women.Emily Bronte’s Wuthering HeightsThemesWuthering Heights is a riddle which has meant so many things to so many people. Even today it is still hard for people to come to a universally accepted understanding of the book. It is small wonder Clement shorter would call its author“the sphinx of our modern literature.”One way of reading is to treat it as a romantic story, as a tale of love and revenge. As such, it is superb.From the social point of view, the story is a tragedy of social inequality.At some deeper level, however, the story is more than a mere copy of real life. To many people it is an illustration of the workings of the universe, a book about the cosmic harmony of the universe and the destruction and re-establishment of this harmony.It is obvious that whereas charlotte‟s and Anne‟s stories —the stories of governess and machines and trains— belong basically to the nineteenth century, Emily‟s novel, though belonging to the time of the eighteenth century England with its horse transport, rough tracks remote houses, characters unsoftened by urban contacts which lingered in her day in the Haworth uplands, is in essence timeless. It is a tale not of the society or people but of elemental, universal passions.Alfred, Lord TennysonBreak, Break, BreakThis short lyric is written in memory of Tennyson‟s best friend, Arthur Hallam, whose death has a life-long influence on the poet. Here, the poet‟s own feelings of sadness are contrasted with the carefree, innocent joys of the children and the unfeeling movement of the ship and the sea waves. The beauty of the lyric is to be found in the musical language and in the association of sound and images with feelings and emotions. The poem contains four quatrains, with combined iambic and anapestic feet. Most lines have three feet and some four. The rhyme scheme is abcb.(The anapest is a foot that consists of two unaccented syllables followed by one accented syllable.) The poem contains four quatrains, with combined iambic and anapestic feet.The rhythm of this poem is rich in its variety. Most of the lines are anapestic feet with three stressed syllables. Some of the lines are iambic.Generally speaking, an apestic feet read fast. But the reader can‟t read this poem this way for there are many long vowels in this poem, which shows the poet‟s grief.Crossing the BarThis poem was written in the later years of Tennyson‟s life. We can feel his fearlessness towards death, his faith in God and an afterlife.Bar, a bank of sand or stones under the water as in a river, parallel to the shore, at the entrance to harbor.“Crossing the bar” means leaving this world and entering the next world.Sunset, evening star, twilight, evening bell: all images of the end of life.Sea, tide, deep, flood: all symbols of life.Bourne: boundary.Pilot: Here it refers to God.Robert BrowningDramatic monologue: is a lyric poem which reveals“a soul in action”through the conversation of one character in a dramatic situation. The character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic moment in the speaker’s life.My Last DuchessMy Last Duchess is Browning‟s best-know dramatic monologue. The poem takes its sources from the life of Alfonso II, duke of Ferrara of the 16th century Italy, whose young wife died suspiciously after three years of marriage. Not long after her death, the duke managed to arrange a marriage with the niece of another noble man. This dramatic monologue is the duke‟s remarks addressed to the agent who comes to negotiate the marriage. In his talk about his“Last duchess”,the duke reveals himself as a self-conceited, cruel and tyrannical man. The poem is written in heroic couplets, but with no regular metrical system. In reading, it sounds like blank verse.dramatic monologue; the heroic couplet (rhymed every two lines and most of the lines have 10 syllables); colloquial language; insertion; comment and description is interwoven.Twentieth Century Literature---Realistic VS Anti-realisticRealistic:George Meredith, Samuel Butler, T. Hardy, G. B. Shaw‟, H. G. Wells, and John GalsworthyAnti-realistic: Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar WildeImportant events:ImperialismSocial reformFirst world warSecond world warThis is an age of dramaPoets of the Victorian age leave a general impression of beauty, of faith,and therefore of cheerfulness.The end of the 19th century is a period of struggle between realistic and anti-realistic trends in art and literature.Stream of consciousness: is the narrative method of capturing and representing the inner workings of a character‟s mind. (Or it is literary technique, first used in the late 19th century, employed to evince(表示)subjective as well as objective reality. It reveals the character's feelings,thoughts, and actions, often following an associative rather than a logical sequence, without commentary by the author.) In English Literature, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are the two best-known novelists of the“stream of consciousness”school.Modernism: is loosely a synonym of anything contemporary strictly. Modernism was an international movement in literature and arts. Especially in literary criticism, which began in the late 19th century and flourished until 1950s. Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as it‟s the theoretical base. The modernist writers concentrate more on the private and subjective than on the public and objective, mainly concerned with the inner being of an individual. Therefore they pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one. The major themes of the modernist literature are the distorted, alienated and ill relationships between man and nature, man and society, man and man, and man and himself. In the United States, modernism refers to the 20th century American literature, which can also be called the second American Renaissance.Thomas Hardy Tess of the D’urbervillesJohn Galsworthy The Forsyte SagaOscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian GrayGeorge Bernard Shaw Mrs.Warren`s Profession 掀起莎士比亚后第二次戏剧浪潮D.H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers 现代派先驱之一，谴责工业革命Virginia Woolf Mrs. Dalloway 意识流作家James Joyce Araby 意识流作家名词解释1. Romanticism: A movement that flourished in literature, philosophy, music and art in western culture during most of the nineteenth century, beginning as a revolt against classicism. It emphasize the special qualities of each individual`s mind. Many of the ideas of English Romanticism were first expressed by the poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.2. Ode:Ode is a dignified and elaborately structured lyric poem praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally. Odes originally were songs performed to the accompaniment of a musical instrument.3.Realism: In art and literature, an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures and objects exactly as they act or appear in life. Attempts at realism have been made periodically(周期的) throughout history in all the arts; the term is, however, generally restricted to a movement that began in the mid-19th century, in reaction to the highly subjective approach of romanticism.4. Dramatic monologue: is a lyric poem which reveals“a soul in action”through the conversation of one character in a dramatic situation. The character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic moment in the speaker’s life.5. Stream of consciousness: is the narrative method of capturing and representing the inner workings of a character‟s mind. (Or it is literary technique, first used in the late 19th century, employed to evince(表示)subjective as well as objective reality. It reveals the character's feelings, thoughts, and actions, often following an associative rather than a logical sequence, without commentary by the author.) In English Literature, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are the two best-known novelists of the“stream of consciousness”school.6. Modernism: is loosely a synonym of anything contemporary strictly. Modernism was an international movement in literature and arts. Especially in literary criticism, which began in the late 19th century and flourished until 1950s. Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as it‟s the theoretical base. The modernist writers concentrate more on the private and subjective than on the public and objective, mainly concerned with the inner being of an individual. Therefore they pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one. The major themes of the modernist literature are the distorted, alienated and ill relationships between man and nature, man and society, man and man, and man and himself. In the United States, modernism refers to the 20th century American literature, which can also be called the second American Renaissance.。
Lecture 8The Romantic Period (II)ⅠTeaching ContentGeorge Gordon Byron; Percy Bysshe Shelley; John KeatsⅡTime Allotment2 periodsⅢTeaching Objectives and Requirements1 Help the students understand George Gordon Byron.@2 Help the students have a good understanding of Percy Bysshe Shelley.3 Help the students have a good understanding of John Keats.ⅣKey Points and Difficult Points in Teaching1Percy Bysshe Shelley2 John KeatsⅤTeaching Methods and MeansLecture; Discussion; Multi-mediaⅥTeaching Process"1 George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) (For Self-Study)IntroductionByron’s best poems are Don Juan and Childe Harold. His other works include Hours of Idleness and English Bards and Scottish Reviewers… (See Wang Shouren,76 and Chang Yaoxin, 197-198).Comments on Byron●Byron’s poetry is one of experience. His heroes are more or less pictures of himself.His hero is known as “Byronic Hero”, a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. With immense superiority in his passions and powers, he would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt society. He would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies. For such a hero, the conflict is usually one of rebellious individual against out-worn social systems and conventions. The figure is, to some extent, modeled on the life and personality of Byron.● Byron insisted on authentic—and moral —nature of his work.●Byron’s poetry exerts great influence on the Romantic Movement. He stands withShakespeare and Scott among the British writers who exert great influence overthe mainland of Europe.(See Chang Yaoxin, 197)]Discussion of She Walks in Beauty(See the Textbook Selected Readings, 74-75)● It is a lyrical poem written in 1814 and published in 1815.●In June, 1814, several months before he met and married his first wife, AnnaMilbanke, Lord Byron attended a party at Lady Sitwell’s. While at the party, Lord Byron was inspired by the sight of his cousin, the beautiful Mrs. Wilmot, who was wearing a black spangled mourning dress. Lord Byron was struck by his cousin’s dark hair and fair face, the mingling of various lights and shades. This became the essence of his poem about her.(Discuss the questions in the Selected Readings.)● The first two lines bring together the opposing qualities of darkness and light thatare at play throughout the three verses. The remaining lines of the first verse tell us that her face and eyes combine all that’s best of dark and bright. No mention is made here or elsewhere in the poem of any other physical features of the lady.The focus of the vision is upon the details of the lady’s face and eyes which reflect the mellowed and tender light. She has a remarkable quality of being able to contain the opposites of dark and bright. The fourth line starts with an accented syllable followed by an unaccented one, rather than the iambic meter of the other lines, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. The result is that the word “Meet” receives attention, an emphasis. The lady’s unique feature is that opposites “meet” in her in a wonderful way.●The second verse tells us that the glow of the lady’s fa ce is nearly perfect. Theshades and rays are in just the right proportion, and because they are, the lady possesses a nameless grace. This conveys the romantic idea that her inner beauty is mirrored by her outer beauty. Her thoughts are serene and sweet. She is pure and dear.● The last verse is split between three lines of physical description and three linesthat describe the lady’s moral character. Her soft, calm glow reflects a life of peace and goodness. This is a repetition, an emphasis, of the theme that the lady’s physical beauty is a reflection of her inner beauty.、2 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)Life and achievements(See Chang Yaoxin, 202-204)● Shelley is an idealistic and prophetic Romantic.● He sees life on the horizon and gives the vision a tangible form in his poetry.● He refuses to accept life as it is and tries to envision life as devoid of oppression,injustice, tyranny, and corruption current in the social life of his day.● He visualizes the birth of an ideal social order based on the regeneration of manand virtue of love. He made himself a kind of precursor to the socialist movement soon to sweep across Europe and England.Shelley’s Works<●Prometheus Unbound: a lyrical drama, Shelley’s masterpiece, most famous (SeeChang Yaoxin, 206-207)● His short lyrical poems◆ As for his lyrics on nature, the two best known ones are Ode to the West Wind(1819) and To a Skylark (1820). His other lyrics on nature are mainly Hymn of Apollo, The Cloud and To the Moon.◆Shelley’s love l yrics, numerous and widely known, including mainly L ove’sPhilosophy, I Fear Thy Kisses, Gentle Maiden, One Word Is Too Often Profaned and When the Lamp Is Shattered. In his love lyrics, Shelley regards love as the noblest thing in the universe, as the thing of extreme purity and as a feeling of devotion and worship. He believes that the noblest love in the human world may lead mankind to a state of harmony, happiness, peace and perfection. He advocates that love should be elevated high above the vulgar, practical attitude toward it.Comments on Shelley●Byron said of Shelley that he “was, without exception, the best and least selfishman I ever knew. I never knew one who was not a beast in comparison”.Matthew Arnold thought that Shelley’s character was t oo sensitive for a really great writer and called him a “beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain”. But Shelley was not ineffectual, and he was not so cut off from the realities of life as Arnold suggests.● Shelley has a shrewd and informed comprehension of the complexities of earthlylife. And his generous, unselfish personality also contained elements of sophisticated playfulness and good humor---he was not beyond laughing at himself.● Intellectually, he was an immensely learned and well-read man capable of morerefined and original philosophical thinking than any other English Romantic, including Coleridge. And as a poet, as Wordsworth said, “Shelley is one of the best artists of us all! Mean in workmanship of st yle.”~Discussion of Ode to the West Wind(Discuss the questions in the Selected Readings)● Motif of the poem: his desire for freedom and his resolution to sacrifice for thestruggle for freedom. To the poet, the west wind, powerful as it is, is not merelya natural phenomenon. It is a “spirit”, the “breath of Autumn’s being” that canspread messages of freedom far and wide that both destroys and preserves the revival in the spring. The west wind symbolizes rebirth and creative power. To some extent, the west wind is the symbol of revolutionary spirit.◆ Stanza I---The west wind has swept the foliages off the tree and carried seedsto the earth. She is both destroyer and preserver.◆ Stanza II---The west wind has awakened the sky. In this stanza, the west windis compared to the rainstorm that bursts out of the dark clouds.◆ Stanza III---The west wind has awakened the Mediterranean. The poet thinksthat the billow results from the trembling of the sea-blooms (trees) for fear of the coming west wind.◆ Stanza IV---I would have the same strength and free spirit as the west wind if Iwere brought up like him. Unfortunately, I was chained and bowed by the vicissitudes of life.◆ Stanza V---I wish we could unite to fight for a bright future. I want to spreadm y words among mankind. I’m optimistic about the future. If winter comes, can spring be far behind/● Images◆ Life images: seeds, spring, clarion, buds;◆ Death images: dead leaves, ghosts, hectic, pestilence, dark wintry bed, corps,grave.◆These life and death images on the one hand are associated with the twofunctions of the West Wind: destroyer and preserver, and on the other hand, remind us of resurrection and a cycle of life and death.3 John Keats (1795-1821)Life and achievements(See Chang Yaoxin, 207-210)●Keats was a person of singular determination. His imagination was sensual. Hewould like to be an Apollo, the god of poetry. He loved “the principle of beauty in all things” and was singularly adamant in his belief that there existed a world of eternal beauty somewhere more real than the life being lived here and it was his job to search for and create it.—● He had a sharp eye for colors and a keen ear for rhythms and a rare capacity tobring out the magic of words. He has been well known for the exquisite texture of his poetry, with its beautiful imagery, sound, and diction. His sole object in life was to look for beauty, and he was a pure poet. He was serious about life and never strove for art only for art’s sake.●He is also an influential literary theorist. His major ideas on poetry include hisnotions of “negative capability,” poetic identity and emphasis on the oneness of truth and beauty (Truth is beauty, beauty is truth).Keats’s major works● A short and miserable life as he has, Keats has produced voluminous literary works.He has written five long poems: Endymion, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, Lamia, and Hyperion.◆Endymion (1818) is a poem of 4000 lines. The story is taken from Greekmythology, telling the romantic love story of between Endymion (a handsome shepherd of Mount Latmos) and the moon goddess Cynthia. It is often interpreted as an allegory representing the poet’s quest for an ideal feminine counterpart and flawless beauty.◆Isabella is based on a story in Decameron by Boccaccio. The poet retold thetragic love story between Lorenzo and Isabella. The poem expresses sympathy for the oppressed and indignation at human cruelty.◆Lamia takes its story from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. Lamia is a serpentmaiden. She loves a young man named Lycius. They get married and hold their wedding banquet. Among their guests comes the sophist Apollonius who sees through Lamia’s disguise. Lamia asks Apollonius to keep it a secret, but Apollonius refuses. He reveals Lamia’s identity to the public. Then Lamia vanishes. It is obvious that this story is parallel to The Tale of the White Serpent in China. The emphasis is on the appreciation of sensuous beauty.◆The Eve of St Agnes is a young people’s poetic version of Romeo and Juliet,written in Spenserian stanzas, telling the story between the young maiden Madeline and her lover Porphyro). St Agnes is the patron saint of virgins. The poem is full of beautiful imaginary, rich colour and word music. Keat s’fondness for sensuous beauty and his ability to paint exquisite world-pictures find their best expression in his poem.`◆Hyperion is an unfinished long epic, regarded as Keats’ greatest achievementin poetry. It includes two fragments, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. The poem describes a struggle for power in heaven. Keats wanted to convey in this poem that the victory of life and youth over the forces of decadence and retrogression is inevitable. The old order must give way to the new system—this is the eternal law of nature.● Keats has written many short lyrical poems, of which the odes and the sonnets arebest known. The odes are generally regarded as Keats’s most important and mature works. His odes include: Ode to Autumn, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on Melancholy, and Ode on a Grecian Urn. His best known sonnets include: Bright Star, When I Have Fear, and The Grasshopper and the Cricket.Discussion of Ode to a Nightingale●In this poem, Keats not only expresses his raptures upon hearing the beautifulsongs of the nightingale and his desire to go to the ethereal world of beauty together with the bird, but also shows his deep sympathy for and his keen understanding of human miseries in the society in which he lived.● This poem expresses the contrast between the happy world of natural lovelinessand human world of agony.◆ At first, opiates and wine seems to be a way to transcend the human misery.◆At last poetry itself is seen the most effective way to release misery and toreach paradise. The bird’s song roused in the poet’s heart a form of spiritual homesickness, a longing to be at one with beauty.◆Keats manages to keep a precarious balance between mirth and despair,rapture and grief. Through the power of language, a world of beauty is visualized. But the excitement created through words is also subtly destroyed by them. The ultimate imaginative view evaporates in its extremity as the full associations of the last word “toll”the poet back from his near loss ofselfhood to the real and human world of sorrow and death. The title of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night derives itself from this poem.(▼Stanza I—I was falling asleep after taking opiates when I heard a nightingale singing in the beechen forest.▼Stanza II—I’d like a cup of red wine to soothe my trouble.▼Stanza III—The nightingale was singing in ecstasy while I am suffering on earth.▼Stanza IV—I wish I could fly to the moon together with the nightingale.▼Stanza V—I realize that I was in a beautiful garden full of fragrant flowers.▼Stanza VI—The nightingale, regardless of my imminent death, kept singing in an ecstasy. Her melody was floating over the grassland aimlessly sinceher bosom friend cannot hear it any longer.▼Stanza VII—The nightingale’s melody has magical power to arouse the nostalgia of Ruth, a female in the Bible.▼Stanza VIII—The nightingale’s melody faded away, but I was still absorbed in it. I was half awake and half asleep.~ⅦReflection Questions and AssignmentsReflection questions1 In what way are nature and imagination related in Ode to the West Wind2 In Ode to a Nightingale, what images of sound, sight, smell, taste, or touchhave led you on a journey of the imagination back to some remembered past occurrence3 Comment on the epigram “beauty is truth, truth is beauty” in the Ode on aGrecian Urn.Assignments1 Read Ode on a Grecian Urn.2 Pre-read Jane-Austen.~3 Pre-read Pride and Prejudice in the Selected Readings.ⅧMajor References1 Abrams, M. H. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, (6th edition),Norton: 1993.2 Baugh, Albert C. A Literary History of England. 1967.3 Drabble, Margaret.The Oxford Companion to English Literature. OxfordUniversity Press and Foreign language and Research Press, 1998.4 陈嘉.《英国文学史》. 北京：商务印书馆，1986.5 陈嘉.《英国文学作品选读》. 北京：商务印书馆，1982.6 侯维瑞. 《英国文学通史》. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，1999.·7 刘炳善. 《英国文学简史》. 郑州：河南人民出版社，1993.8 刘守兰. 《英美名诗解读》. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，2003.9 罗经国. 《新编英国文学选读》. 北京：北京大学出版社，1997.10 蒋洪新. 《英美诗歌选读》.长沙：湖南师范大学出版社，2004.11 隋刚.《英美诗歌意境漫游》.北京：外文出版社，1998.12 孙汉云. 《英国文学教程》. 南京：河海大学出版社，2005.13 王佩兰等. 《英国文学史及作品选读》. 长春：东北师范大学，2006.14 王松年. 《英国文学作品选读》. 上海：上海交通大学出版社，2002.15 王佐良. 《英国诗选》. 上海：上海译文出版社，1993.16 吴伟仁. 《英国文学史及选读》（第二册）. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1990.17 杨岂深，孙铢.《英国文学选读》. 上海：上海译文出版社，1981.18 张伯香.《英美文学选读》. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1998.19 张定铨. 《新编简明英国文学史》. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002.。
