English Literature

English Literature 郧阳师专英语系英美文学精品课程

Part Ⅶ The Romantic Period Romanticism in England

Introduction At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries romanticism came to be the new trend in English literature. It rose and grew under the impetus of the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution.

1. Social Background 2. Radicalism a. Jea-Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher, was one of the leading thinkers in the second half of the 18th century. In 1762 he published two books that electrified Europe -, in which he explored new ideas about Nature, Society and education. These ideas of Rousseau's provided necessary guiding principles for the French revolution, for they inspired an implacable resentment against tyrannical rule in France and an immense hope for the future. In 1789 there broke out the epoch-making French revolution. b. The news of the Revolution and the storming of Bastille aroused great sympathy and enthusiasm in the English liberals and radicals. Thomas Paine published The Declaration of Rights of Man in 1774. Its motto is "liberty". c. William Godwin The controversies over the French revolution were finally raised to the height of philosophy by William Godwin . He wrote passionately against the injustices of the economic system and the oppression of the poor in his Inquiry Concerning Political Justice.

3. Romanticism a. Romantic Movement in European Literature Following the Enlightenment and its impact on literature, there was Romantic Movement. It came earliest in Germany, a little later in England. The literature of Romantic Movement expressed a more or less negative attitude of the different social strata of the time toward the existing social and political conditions that came with the industrial revolution and the growing importance of the bourgeoisie. The romantics saw man essentially as an individual in the solitary state, emphasized the special qualities of each individual's mind. In essence it designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and all experience. It also places the individual at the center of art, making literature most valuable as an expression of his or her unique feelings and particular attitudes, and valuing its accuracy in portraying the individual's experiences. It was in the very last years of the 18th century and the first two decades of the 19th that romanticism as a literary movement in England reached its full flowering, especially in the realm of poetry. Wordsworth and Coleridge were the major representatives of the movement.

I. William Blake(1757-1827) • 1. Life . • 2. Literary works • Songs of Innocence In this volume of poems, Blake declares he is writing "happy songs/Every child may joy to hear". Using a language which even little babies can learn by heart, Blake succeeds in depicting the happy condition of a child before it knows anything about the pains of existence. The poet expresses his delight in the sun, the hills, the streams, the insects and the flowers, in the innocence of the child and of the lamb. Blake, with his eager quest for new poetic forms and techniques, broke completely with the traditions of the 18th century. He experimented in meter and rhyme and introduced bold metrical innovations which could not be found in poetry of his contemporaries.

Songs of Experience paints a different world, a world of misery, poverty, disease, war and repression with a melancholy tone. A number of poems from the Songs of Innocence also find a counterpart in the Song of Experience. For instance, the "Infant Joy" is matched with the "Infant Sorrow" ; and the pure "lamb" is paired with the flaming "Tyger". The two books hold the similar subject-matter, but the tone, emphasis and conclusion differ. • Childhood is central to Blake's concern in these two volumes of poetry, and this concern gives the two books a strong social and historical reference.

Marriage of Heaven and Hell(1790) The book marks his entry into maturity. In this poem, Blake explores the relationship of the contraries. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence. Life is a continual conflict of give-and-take, a pairing of opposites, of good and evil, of innocence and experience, of body and soul. "Without contraries, there is no progression." The "marriage" to Blake, means the reconciliation of the contraries, not the subordination of the one to the other.

Blake writes his poems in plain and direct language. His poems often carry the lyric beauty with immense compression of meaning. He distrusts the abstractness and tends to embody his views with visual images. Symbolism in wide range is also a distinctive feature of his poetry.

Ⅱ. William Wordsworth • representative poet, chief spokesman of Romantic poetry • (1) Life: a. love nature;b. Cambridge; c. tour to France; d. French revolution; e. Dorathy; f. The Lake District; g. friend of Coleridge; h. conservative after revolution.

(2) works:a. the Lyrical Ballads (preface): significanceb. The Prelude: a biographical poem.c. the other poems

(3) Features of his poems.a. ThemeA constant theme of his poetry was the growth of the human spirit through the natural description with expressions of inward states of mind.b. Characteristics of style.His poems are characterized by a sympathy with the poor, simple peasants, and a passionate love of nature.

Example: • “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” • Theme: Through describing a scene of joyful daffodils recollected in memory, the poet hopes to put illustrate his theory of poetic inspiration ---“spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in emotion recollected in tranquility”

Image: dancing daffodils • “fluttering”, “dancing”, “tossing”, “dance”, “danced”, “dances” • “sprightly”, “glee”, “gay”, “jocund”, “pleasure” • Metrical pattern: a short lyric of 4 sestets (a quatrain-couplet) of iambic tetrameter lines rhyming ABABCC.

Ⅲ. Samuel Taylor Coleridge • poet and critic(1) Life: a. Cambridge; b. friend with Southey and Wordsworth; c. taking opium.(2) works.The fall of RobespierreThe Rime of the Ancient MarinerKubla KhanBiographia Literaria

(3) Biographia Literaria.(4) His criticismHe was one of the first critics to give close critical attention to language. In both poetry and criticism, his work is outstanding, but it is typical of him that his critical work is very scattered and disorganized.

Ⅳ. George Gordon Byron • (1) Life: a. Cambridge, published poems and reviews; b. a tour of Europe and the East; c. left England; d. friend with Shelley; e. worked in Greece: national hero; f. radical and sympathetic with French Revolution.

(2) Works.Don JuanWhen We Two PartedShe Walks in Beauty

(3) Byronic Hero.Byron introduced into English poetry a new style of character, which as often been referred to as “Byronic Hero” of “satanic spirit”. People imagined that they saw something of Byron himself in these strange figures of rebels, pirates, and desperate adventurers.(4) Poetic style: loose, fluent and vivid

Ⅴ. Percy Bysshe Shelley • poet and critic(1) Life: a. aristocratic family; b. rebellious heart; c. Oxford; d. Irish national liberation Movement; e. disciple of William Godwin; f. marriage with Harriet, and Marry; g. left England and wandered in EUrope, died in Italy; h. radical and sympathetic with the French revolution;i. Friend with Byron(2) works: two types – violent reformer and wanderer • Prometheus Unbound

(3) Characteristics of poems.a. pursuit of a better society; b. radian beauty; c. superb artistry: imagination.(4) Defense of Poetry

“Ode to the West Wind” • Theme: This is one of Shelley’s best known lyrics. The poet describes vividly the activities of the west wind on the earth, in the sky and on the sea and then expresses his envy for the boundless freedom of the west wind and his wish to be free like it and to scatter his words among mankind. The celebrated final line of the poem, “If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” has often been cited to illustrate Shelley’s optimistic belief in the future of mankind. • In the 1st stanza, Shelley uses the seasonal cycle in nature as a continuing process of universal death and regeneration

Ⅵ. John Keats. • (1) Life: a. from a poor family; b. Cockney School; c. friend with Byron and Shelley; d. attacked by the conservatives and died in Italy

(2) works. • “Ode to the Nightingale” • “Ode on a Grecian Urn” • “Ode to Psyche” • “Ode to Melancholy”

Ⅶ. Water Scott • (3) Characteristics of poemsa. loved beauty; b. seeking refuge in an idealistic world of illusions and dreams.

Novelist and poet(1) Life: a. Scotland;b. university of Edinburgh;c. poem to novel;d. unsuccessful publishing firm;e. great contribution: historical novel.(2) three groups of novels(3) Features of his novels.(4) his influence.

Ⅷ. Jane Austen • (1) Life: a. country clergyman; b. uneventful life, domestic duties; (2) works.

(3) features of her writings.Austen’s novels are britened by their witty conversation and omnipresent humour. Her stories are skillfully woven together; her plots never leave the path of realism, and have always been sensible. Her language shines with an exquisite touch of lively gracefulness, elegant and refined, but never showy. She herself compared her work to a fine engraving made up on a little piece of ivory only two inches square. The comparison is true. The ivory surface is small enough, but the lady who made the drawings of human life on it was a real artist.(4) rationalism, neoclassicism, romanticism and realism.

Ⅸ. Charles Lamb • essayist and critic(1) life: a. poor family;b. friend of Coleridge; c. sister Mary;d. worked in the East India House;e. a miserable life;f. a man of mild character. g. a Romanticist of the city.

(2) works: Essays of Elia. Three groups.(3) Features. a. The most striking feature of his essays is his humor. b. Lamb was especially fond of old writers. c. His essays are intensely personal. d. He was a romanticist.

English Literature