刘意青《简明英国文学史》课后习题详解（18世纪英国文学小说的兴起）【圣才出品】

刘意青《简明英国⽂学史》课后习题详解（18世纪英国⽂学⼩说的兴起）【圣才出品】
第9章⼩说的兴起
1.Discuss the social and historical elements that promoted the birth of the modern novel in England.
Key:There are several factors that promote the rise and the first flowering of the English novel.
First,as we’ve said in the previous section,in the18th century science and technology developed fast,and printing grew as one of the most prosperous trades.Therefore,books were quickly printed and in comparatively larger numbers.
Second,with the growth of capitalist economy,the middle class grew strong to become the dominant element in all the aspects of social,political and economic life of England.And with it an urban economy also came into being. Big cities like London increased in number in the country and farmers or the agricultural population swarmed into the city to gradually settle down as traders, servants,workers and apprentices.These new settlers in the cities formed a reading public that badly needed to improve themselves and they provided the necessity and possibility of the flourish of a book market.
Third,with the development of industry,women were deprived of their previous opportunities of spinning and weaving at home.Without a way to earn a living,women who failed to marry into a family with secure financial means to support them were forced to work as maids,or became thieves,prostitutes or
kept women in the cities.These women,no matter as an idle wife of a rich man,or as a servant girl,joined the public readers and some of them even became writers themselves who sold popular literary works to earn a living.Thus,by mid-18th century,a large book market had been established in England that sold reading stuff of all kinds,from journals and newspapers,political pamphlets,conduct books,travel guides,manuals for house decoration,ghost stories,romances,etc. to serious literature of poetry,drama and prose work written by classical masters like Swift and Johnson.
2.Discuss Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe as a typical middle-class novel.
Key:Readers of China are mostly familiar with this novel.In the past we emphasised Crusoe’s imperialist and capitalist side,because Marx says in his On the Capital that Crusoe is the typical representative of the rising capitalist class whose sole interest is to expand and exploit,and in Crusoe’s adventures we see how capital is accumulated at the early stage of capitalism.While what Marx says is correct,he only sees the story from a political and economic point of view.As a literary figure,Crusoe is more than just a money-grabbing capitalist and colonialist.He also shows many positive sides of the rising middle class,such as the love for labor,the industrious and thrifty life style,courage to explore strange lands,a curiosity to know the world,and the strong desire to test one’s own strength and establish one’s individual identity.
3.What kind of novel did Richardson write?And discuss his two major novels to
show your points.
Key:All Richardson’s novels and writings preach the Puritan ideology of hard work,honesty,thrift,industry,and,most of all,the importance of living a virtuous life.
For example,his Pamela,or Virtue Rewarded and Clarissa,or The History of a Young Lady.In Pamela,or Virtue Rewarded,Pamela grew up into a beautiful and virtuous young woman with good taste and refined manners,getting through many hardships and threats,and finally she is married to his young master Mr.B, which indicates that her virtue is rewarded. In Clarissa,or The History of a Young Lady,unlike Pamela in birth,Clarissa Harlowe was the daughter of a rich merchant.She was both beautiful and virtuous and had her own share of wealth given to her by her grandfather.But such a young lady could not choose to marry a man she liked and respected,for her father and brother forced her to marry a rich but disgusting and vulgar merchant,in order to merge the property and wealth of the two families.To escape the hated
marriage,Clarissa,inexperienced and innocent,fell into the hands of a rake Mr.Lovelace and was deceived and kidnapped to a brothel,and later drugged and raped.Although afterwards Lovelace realised his true feelings for Clarissa and proposed marriage,the virtuous girl could neither forgive him nor herself for harboring illusions toward a rake.Finally,she sought a slow suicidal death and wrote her own story as a warning to all the young women.
4.How did Fielding name his panoramic novels?What are the main features of his novels?
Key:Fielding named his panoramic novels“comic epic in prose”.
Epics are usually written in verse,and the subjects are always adventures and heroic deeds of the heroes of noble birth.But here Fielding tells us that he has written a prose work with the epic scope and power,but the main protagonists are common people and even people of the low social status.This is a real revolution in the Western literary history in which literary genres abide by a rather strict rule of levels of style.Although Parson Adams and Joseph are still comic roles,they are no longer minor characters,but the centre of the story.In this experiment of Fielding’s,the new novel has paved way to the more realistic representation of common people’s experiences in the19th century.
5.Why do we say that Tristram Shandy is a strange and difficult novel?In what way does this novel anticipate the postmodern novel tendencies?
Key:We have several reasons to call Tristram Shandy experimental and difficult. First,it is perhaps the first English novel that does not respect the plot’s time sequence.Second,the book is made difficult by Sterne with a lot of typographical oddities.And third,he has employed a lot of sexual jokes such as his own unfortunate accidents during his mother’s conception of him and later the doctor’s crushing of his nose.
Sterne is the first novelist who anticipates the postmodern violation of the temporal sequence of a narrative.。