【英美文学】武大老师的课件英国文学浪漫主义时期TheRomanticPeriod

Poems on nature

“To a Butterfly” “To a Skylark” “To the Cuckoo” “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” “Tintern Abbey”

Poems on simple rustic life in the countryside

subject: nature

the rural/pastoral the past/historical the alien/exotic, oriental the supernatural/ mysterious (dreams or dream-like) the personal the common/low class the revolutionary the patriotic

Economically: the great Industrial Revolution


Continued fast changes took place both in the country and in the cities; Many farmhands driven out of land rushed into the city;
Schools of Romantic Poets

Pre-romantic poets
William Blake: mysterious, philosophical, visionary Songs of Innocence Songs of Experience Marriage of Heaven and Hell Robert Burns: Scottish dialect, ballads
英美文学武大老师的课件英国文学浪漫主义时期theromanticperiod
The Romantic Period (1798-1832)
Historical Background

Politically: the French Revolution



"Declaration of Rights of Man" (1791-2), Thomas Paine "Inquiry concerning Political Justice" (1793), William Godwin "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft
Characteristic attitudes



a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature; a general exaltation of emotion over reason a turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities;
Major Works



Lyrical Ballads in 1798 with Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Prelude - Long autobiographical poem written between 1798-1805 523 sonnets
Subjects

Satanic school: rebellious, revolutionary, romantic, short life



George Gordon Byron: romantic, revolutionary, satiric, proud and angry e.g. Don Duan, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Manfred Percy Bysshe Shelley: revolutionary, prophetic, optimistic e.g. Prometheus Unbound and "Ode to the West Wind" John Keats: melancholy, a genius propounding on truth and beauty e.g. "Ode to the Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian


Lake Poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, 2 Poet Laureate: radical youth; conservative old age; long life


William Wordsworth: nature, country, poor people, anti-industrialization e.g. Lyrical Ballads (Prelude); Nature and country poems Samuel Coleridge: mysterious/demonic, dreamy, oriental, visionary e.g. The Rime of Ancient Mariner and "Kubla Khan"

Early experience:




Attended Hawkshead Grammar School in 1778 Attended Cambridge from 1787-1791 but failed to graduate Visited France in 1790 and influenced by the turmoil of the French Revolution Left college in 1791 in order to return to France and support the Revolution


creative spirit over strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures; an emphasis upon imagination an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; and a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious
New poetic features




language: simple, everyday life speech, common vocabulary and accent dialect e.g. Blake, Wordsworth form: lyrics(sonnet, ode), narrative (ballad) purpose: emotional, confessional and visionary/prophetic principles: imagination
Literature
Poetry: the Age of Poetry

Differences between 18 th-century and 19 th-century ( between Neoclassicism and Romanticism)



reason vs passion reason vs imagination commercial vs natural industrial vs pastoral present vs past society vs individual order and stability vs freedom decorative expression vs simple and spontaneous expression

Ideologically
The principle of Ration was giving way to an individualized, free, liberal, imaginative attitude towards life; a tendency to turn or escape from the tumultuous and confusing Here and Now
Romanticism / the Romantic Movement




an attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many works of arts in Western civilization over a period from the late 18th to the mid19th century. a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18thcentury rationalism and physical materialism in general. emphasizing the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the




Women and children were employed as cheap labor; New machines were set up, rendering many out of work; Disparity was growing between the rich and the poor; Expansion abroad continued: ( America), Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, the West Indies and other nations.

Residence in the Lake District


Dove Cottage in Grasmere: Lyrical Ballads and the “Lake Poets” Rydal Mount: spent his later years; turned to be conservative;
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Life

Family:



Mother died when he was eight and Father died when he was 13 Separated from his sister, Dorothy, in 1778 and did not see her again until 1787 Greatly affected by his brother's death in 1805
Prose



familiar essays of journals and newspapers e.g. Charles Lamb, Lee Hunt, de Quincey literary criticism/reviews as authority Charles Lamb, Lee Hunt, de Quincey novelists e.g. Jane Austen, the realist and Walter Scott, the 1 st historical novelist/romantic poet