欧美文学：The Romantic Period.doc

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1、欧美文学：The Romantic Period一 本章的学习目的和要求通过本章的学习，了解浪漫主义文学的产生的历史，文化背景，认识该时期文学创作的基本特征，基本主张，及其对时代及后世英国文学用至文化的影响； 了解该时期重要作家的文学生涯，创作思想，艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构，人物刻画，语言风格，思想意义等； 同时结合注释，读懂所选作品，了解其思想内容和写作特色，培养理解和欣赏文学作品的能力。二 本章考核知识点及考核要求（一） 考核知识点1 浪漫主义时期概述1） 浪漫主义时期英国社会的政治，经济，文化背景2） 浪漫主义文学创作的基本主张 3） 英国浪漫主义文学的特色4） 浪漫主义文学对同时

2、代及后世英国文学的影响2 浪漫主义时期主要作家的文学创作思想及其代表作品的主题结构，人物塑造，语言风格，艺术手法及社会意义等。威廉布莱克；威廉华兹华斯；塞特科勒律治；乔治戈登拜伦；珀比雪莱；约翰济兹；简奥斯汀（二） 考核要求1 浪漫主义时期概述1）识记：a.浪漫主义时期的界定 b.历史文化背景2) 领会：a.浪漫主义思潮的意义与影响。 b.浪漫主义文学创作的基本主张及对后世文学的影响。、3) 应用：a.名词解释：浪漫主义 b.浪漫主义时期文学特点的分析 2 该时期的重要作家1） 识记：浪漫主义时期的重要作家，代表作品及其主要内容。2） 领会：重要作家的创作思想，艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构，

3、人物塑造，语言风格，社会意义等。3） 应用：a.浪漫派诗歌（所选作品）的主题，意象分析b.小说傲慢与偏见的主题和主要人物的性格分析。一 概述1. 一般识记 English RomanticismEnglish Romanticism, as a historical phase of literature, is generally said to have began in 1798 with the publication of Wordsworth & Coleridges Lyrical Ballads & to have ended in 1832 with Sir Walter S

4、cotts death & the passage of the first Reform Bill in the Parliament.2. 识记 Historical & Cultural backgroundDuring this period, England had experienced profound economic & social change. The biggest social change in English history was the transfer of large masses of the population from the countrysi

5、de to the towns. As a result of the Enclosures & the agricultural mechanization, the peasants were driven of their land; some emigrated to the colonies; some sank to the level of farm laborers & many others drifted to the industrial towns where there was a growing demand for labor. But the new indus

6、trial towns were no better than jungles, where the law was the survival of the fittest. The cruel economic exploitation caused large-scale workers disturbances in England.3 领会（1） Influences of the Romantic Movement Romanticism constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of so

7、cial civilization to the inner world of the human spirit. In essence it designates a literary & philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life & all experience. It also places the individual at the center of art, making literature most valuable as an expression

8、 of this or her unique feelings & particular attitudes & valuing its accuracy in portraying the individuals experiences.(2) The Romantic views about literaturea. The Romantic period is an age of poetry. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley & Keats are the major Romantic poets. They started a

9、 rebellion against the neoclassical literature, which was later regarded as the poetic revolution.b. The Romantic period is also a great age of prose. The two major novelists of the Romantic period are Jane Austen & Walter Scott.c. Besides poetry & prose, there are quite a number of writers who have

10、 fried their hand at poetic dramas in this period.4 应用(1) Literary Termsa. The Romantic Movement It expressed a more or less negative attitude towards the existing social & political conditions that came with industrialization & the growing importance of the bourgeoisie. The Romantics felt that the

11、existing society denied people their essential human needs, so they demonstrated a strong reaction against the dominant modes of thinking of the 18th-century writers & philosophers. Where their predecessors saw man as a social animal, the Romantics saw him essentially as an individual in the solitar

12、y state & emphasized the special qualities of each individuals mind. Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer.b. The Gothic novelIt is a type of romantic fiction that predominated in the late 18th century & was one phase of the Romantic movement, its princip

13、al elements are violence, horror & the supernatural, which strongly appeal to the readers emotion. With its descriptions of the dark, irrational side of human nature, the Gothic form has exerted a great influence over the writer of the Romantic period. Works like The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by A

14、nn Radcliffe & Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley are typical Gothic romance. (2) Characteristics of Romantic literature in English history.The Romantic period is an age of poetry Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley & Keats are the major Romantic poets. They started a rebellion against the

15、 neoclassical literature, which was later regarded as the poetic revolution. Wordsworth & Coleridge were the major representatives of this movement. They explored new theories & innovated new techniques in poetry writing. They saw poetry as a healing energy: they believed that poetry could purify bo

16、th individual souls & the society. The Romantics not only extol the faculty of imagination, but also stress the concept of spontaneity & 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

17、source of poetic imagery, but also provides the dominant subject matter. Wordsworth is the closest to nature.To escape from a world that had became excessively rational, as well as excessively materialistic & ugly, the Romantics would turn to other times & places, where the qualities they valued cou

18、ld be convincingly depicted. Romantics also tend to be nationalistic, defending the great poets & dramatists of their own national heritage against the advocates of classical rules who tended to glorify Rome & rational Italian & French neoclassical art as superior to the native traditions. To the Ro

19、mantics, poetry should be free from all rules. They would turn to the humble people & their everyday life for subjects, Romantic writers are always seeking for the Absolute, the Ideal through the transcendence of the actual. They have also made bold experiments in poetic language, versification & de

20、sign, & constructed a variety of forms on original principles of structure & style.二 该时期的重要作家I. William Blake1.一般识记： His life English poet, artist, & philosopher, born in London England, Nov 28, 1757, and died in London, Aug 12,1827. Blake made distinguished contributions to both Literature & art. H

21、e ranks with great poets in the English language & may be considered the earliest of the major English Romantic poets. His poems range from lyrics of childlike simplicity to mystical or prophetic works of great complexity. As an artist he is best known for his engravings, which are among the masterp

22、ieces of graphic art.2. 识记 His political, religious & literary viewsBlake never tried to fit into the world; he was a rebel innocently & completely all his life. He was politically of the permanent left & mixed a good deal with the radicals like Thomas Paine& William Godwin. Like Shelley, Blake stro

23、ngly criticized the capitalists cruel exploitation, saying that the dark satanic mills left men unemployed, killed children & forced prostitution. Meanwhile he cherished great expectations & enthusiasm for the French Revolution, & regarded it as a necessary stage leading to the millennium predicted

24、by the biblical prophets. Literarily Blake was the first important Romantic poet, showing contempt for the rule of reason, opposing the classical tradition of the 18th century & treasuring the individuals imagination.3. 领会 His poems (1) Early worksThe Songs of Innocence (1809) is a lovely volume of

25、poems, presenting a happy & innocent world, though not without its evils & sufferings. For instance, Holy Thursday with its vision of charity children lit with a radiance all their own reminds us terribly of a world of loss & institutional cruelty. The wretched child described in The Chimney Sweeper

26、, orphaned, exploited, yet touched by visionary rapture, evokes unbearable poignancy when he finally puts his trust in the order of the universe as he knows it. His Songs of Experience (1794) paints a different world, a world of misery, poverty, disease, war & repression with a melancholy tone. The

27、benighted England becomes the world of the dark wood & of the weeping prophet. The orphans of Holy Thursday are now fed with cold & usurious hand. The little chimneysweeper sings notes of woe while his parents go to church & praise God & his Priest & King-the very instruments of their repression. In

28、 London, the city is no longer a paradise, but becomes the seat of poverty & despair, of man alienated from his true self. Blakes Marriageof Heaven & Hell (1790) marks his entry into maturity. The poem was composed during the climax of the French Revolution & it plays the double role both as a satir

29、e & a revolutionary prophecy. In this poem, Blake explores the relationship of the contraries. Attraction & repulsion, reason & energy, love & hate, are necessary to human existence. Life is a continual conflict of give & take, a pairing of opposites, of good & evil, of innocence & experience, of bo

30、dy & soul. Without contraries, Blake states, there is no progression. The marriage, to Blake, means the reconciliation of the contraries, not the subordination of the one to the other. (2) Later worksIn his later period, Blake wrote quite a few prophetic books, which reveal him as the prophet of uni

31、versal political & spiritual freedom and show the poet himself as the spokesman of revolt. The major ones are: The Book of Urizen(1794),The Book of Los(1795).The Four Zoas (1796-1807) & Milton (1804-1920).4.领会 Characteristics of Blakes poemsBlake who lived in the blaze of revelation, felt bound to d

32、eclare that I know that This world is a world of IMAGINATION & Vision, & that The Nature of my work is visionary or imaginative. From childhood, Blake had a strongly visual mind; whatever he imagined, he also saw. As an imaginative poet, he presents his view in visual images instead of abstract term

33、s.Blake writes his poems in plain & direct language. His poems often carry the lyric beauty with immense compression of meaning. He distrusts the abstractness & tends to embody his views with visual images. Symbolism in wide range is also a distinctive feature of his poetry.5. 应用 Select Readings: 1)

34、 The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Innocence)Songs of Innocence is a lovely volume of poems, presenting a happy & innocent world, though not without its evils & sufferings. In this volume, Blake, with his eager quest for new poetics forms & techniques, broke completely with the traditions of the 18

35、th century. He experimented in meter & rhymes & introduced bold metrical innovations which could not be found in the poetry of his contemporaries.In the 18th century, small boys sometimes no more than 4 or 5 years old, were employed to climb up the narrow chimney flues & clean them, collecting the s

36、oot in bags. Such boys, sometimes sold to the master sweepers by their parents were miserably treated by their master & often suffered disease & physical deformity. This poem, in fact, is a protest against the harm that society does to its children by exploiting them for labor of this kind, The poem

37、 was written in the childs-eye point of view, & the dramatic irony (what the speaker says in the poem is different from what the poet means) arises from the poets knowing more or seeing more than the child does. 2) The Chimney Sweeper (from songs of Experience) Songs of Experience paints a different

38、 world, a world of misery, poverty, disease, war & repression with a melancholy tone, The benighted England becomes the world of dark wood & of the weeping prophet. The poem selected here reveals the true nature of religion which helps bring misery to the poor children. The poem also reveals the rel

39、ation between are economic circumstance, i.e. the exploitation of child labor & an ideological circumstance, i.e. the role played by religion in making people compliant to exploitation. 3) The TygerThe Tyger, included in Songs of Experience, is one of Blakes best-known poems. It seemingly praises th

40、e great power of tiger, but what the tiger symbolizes remains disputable: the power of man? Or the revolutionary force? Or the evil? Or as it is usually interpreted, the Almighty Maker who created both the meek & gentle lamb & the terrible & awesome tiger? The poem is highly symbolic with a touch of

41、 mysticism & it is open to various interpretations. The poem contains six quatrains in rhyming couplets & its language is terse & forceful with an anvil rhythm.II. William Wordsworth1.一般识记：His life & careerWilliam Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born at Cockermouth, Cambarland, in the family of an attorn

42、ey. He received education at St. Johns College, Cambridge. He developed a keen love of nature as a youth. Another important influence on his life was the French Revolution. In 1798 Wordsworth & Coleridge collaborated on a book of poems entitled Lyrical Ballads Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Colerdge

43、& William Wordsworth are known as the Lake Poets. In 1842, Wordsworth received a government pension & in the following year he succeeded Southey as Poet Laureate. Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, April 23, 1850. As a great Romantic poet, Wordsworth had a long poetic career. His Lyrical Ballads, writt

44、en together with Coleridge, is generally regarded as the symbol of the beginning of the Romantic period in England. The Prelude is ranked by many critics as his greatest work. In 1807 Poems in Two Volumes was published. The Excursion was published in 1814.2. 识记：His poetic outlook Wordsworth is regar

45、ded as a worshipper of nature. He can penetrate to the heart of things & give the reader the very life of nature. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud is perhaps the most anthologized poem in English literature, & one that takes us to the core of Wordsworths poetic beliefs. To Wordsworth, nature embodies, h

46、uman beings in their diverse circumstances. It is nature that gives him strength & knowledge full of peace.Common life is Wordsworths only subject of literary interest. The joys & sorrows of the common people are his themes. His sympathy always goes to the suffering poor.Wordsworth is a poet in memo

47、ry of the past. To him, life is a cyclical journey. Its beginning finally turns out to be its end. Wordsworths deliberate simplicity & refusal to decorate the truth of experience produced a kind of pure & profound poetry which no other poets has ever equaled. Poetry, he believes originates from emot

48、ion recollected in tranquility. Rejecting the contemporary emphasis on form & intellectual approach that drained poetic writing of strong emotion, he maintains that the scenes & events of everyday life & the speech of ordinary people are the raw material of which poetry can & should be made. 3. 领会His poetical works 1) LyricsLyrical Ballads differs in marked ways from his early poetry, notably the uncompromising simplicity of much of the language, the strong sympathy not merely with the poor in general but with particular, dramatized examples of them, & the fusion of natu