19世纪英国文学总结

19世纪末迎来英国戏剧的复兴
◆奥斯卡·王尔德Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
《道林·格雷的画像》（The Picture of Dorian Gray，1891年）
《莎乐美》（Salomé，1893年）
乔治·萧伯纳G eorge Bernard Shaw （1856-1950）
•《皮格马利翁》（Pygmalion）
•《圣女贞德》（Saint Joan）
The Victorian Age—English Critical Realism
Victorian literature:
Novel became the most widely read and the most vital and challenging expression of progressive thought.
Writers like Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy showed their primary concern is about the people in the society with sympathy for the poor and the unfortunate and became the major voice of the literary world by presenting a faithful picture of the horrible capitalist England.
The big output by the Victorian poets, especially Alfred Tennyson, the most representative poet of the time, and Robert Browning, the most original and experimental poet, paved the way for the 20th-century modern poetry, both in subject matters and technique.
Dickens
Points of view:
He hates the social evils and intends social reform by exposing and critic izing in his works all the poverty, injustice, hypocrisy and corruption in the 19th –century England.
He thinks that the state should intervene to control the rapacity of landlords and capitalists.
He wants improvement in the life of the poor, but is afraid of a real revolution.
Dickens is a humanitarian who pours all his love and sympathy for those poor, weak, innocent, injured and neglected good people.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)---The greatest representative of English critical realism
Major Works
There is abundant variety in Dickens’s invention of character and situation. Dickens has often been compared to Shakespeare for creative force and range of invention.
1836—1841, first period, Period of youthful optimist: fun, high spirit, naive optimism
1) Sketches by Boz (1836) «博兹特写集», the first book
2) The Pickwick Papers (1837) «匹克威克外传»
3). Oliver Twist(1837-1838)«奥克佛·特维斯特»，《雾都孤儿》
4). Nichols Nickleby (1838-1839)«尼古拉斯·尼克尔贝»
5). The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841)«老古玩店»
6). Barnaby Rudge (1841) «巴纳比·拉奇»
1842-1850, The second period-- Period of excitement, irritation and frustration: exposing the corrupting influence of wealth and power, optimism turned into dissatisfaction and irritation
1) American Notes (1842) «美国札记»
2) Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844)«马丁·朱述尔维特»
3) A Christmas Carol(1843)《圣诞颂歌》
4) The Chimes《教堂钟声》
5) The Cricket on the Hearth《灶上蟋蟀》(以圣诞为题材, 具有浓郁宗教色彩。

6) Dombey and Son(1847-1848)«董贝父子»
7) David Copperfield(1849-1850)«大卫·科波菲尔», the most autobiographical, one of the greatest English novels
The third period, a Period of steadily intensifying pessimism, showing underlying tone of bitterness, loss of hope for English bourgeois society
In his novels of this period, Dickens, consciously and subconsciously, shows himself more and more at odds with bourgeois society .
1) Bleak House(1852-1853) «荒凉山庄»2) Hard Times(1854) «艰难时世»
3) Little Dorrit (1855-1857)«小杜丽»4) A Tale of Two Cities(1859) «双城记»
5) Great Expectations(1860-1861) «远大前程»
6) Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865) «我们的共同朋友»
7) Edwin Drood (unfinished)(1869)«艾德温·德鲁德之迷».
Characteristics o f Dickens’ Life
⏹A man of action and business in the world, a student and writer of books
⏹The best shorthand reporter on the London press
⏹The best amateur actor on the stage
⏹A successful periodical editor
⏹Radical in politics and ideology
⏹Concerned about social problems
⏹Faithful to the people, pessimistic to capitalist society, the expression of the conscience of
his age
His Literary Creation & Literary Achievements
His later works show a highly conscious modern artist. The settings are more complicated; the stories are better structured. Most novels of this period present a sharper criticism of social evils & morals of the Victorian England, for example, Bleak House, Hard Times, Great Expectations & so on. The early optimism could no more be found.
Charles Dickens is one of the greatest critical realistic writers of the Victorian Age. It is his serious intention to expose & criticize in his works all the poverty, injustice, hypocrisy(伪善）& corruptness（腐败）he saw all around him. In his works, Dickens sets a full map & a large-scale criticism of the 19th-century England, particularly London. A combination of optimism about people & realism about society is obvious in these works. His representative works in the early period include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield & so on.
Charles Dickens is a master story-teller. His language could, in a way, be compared with Shakespeare's. His humor & wit seem inexhaustible. Character-portrayal is the most outstanding feature of his works. His characterizations of child(Oliver Twist, etc.), some grotesque people (Fagin, etc.) & some comical people(Mr. Macabre, etc.) are superb. Dickens also employs exaggeration in his works. Dickens's works are also characterized by a mixture of humor& pathos.
Social Attitudes
●hates the state apparatus, especially the Parliament
●believes in the state’s positive role in raising the living standards of the working class
●social reform should work in the direction of reducing aristocratic privilege
●wants improvement in the life of the poor, but is afraid of a real revolution
●As a bourgeois writer, he can in no way supply any fundamental solution to the social
plights.
Selected Reading: Oliver Twist
● a novel set in London and in rural England in the 1830s
●presents Oliver Twist as Dickens's first child hero & Fagin the first grotesque figure.
●bettering the conditions in the English workhouses
Main Plot
●A young orphan, Oliver Twist, escapes a harsh apprenticeship in a rural town and travels
to London, where he becomes involved with a gang of thieves.
●Fortunately for Oliver, he is befriended by a wealthy family whose members protect him
from the robbers, investigate his mysterious past, and discover his parentage.
Analysis of Major Characters
Oliver Twist
On many levels, Oliver is not a believable character, because although he is raised in corrupt surroundings, his purity and virtue are absolute.
Throughout the novel, Dickens uses Oliver’s character to challenge the Victorian idea that paupers and criminals are already evil at birth, arguing instead that a corrupt environment is the source of vice.
Oliver does not present a complex picture of a person torn between good and evil—instead, he is goodness incarnation.
Themes In Oliver Twist, Dickens mixes grim realism and merciless satire as a way to describe the effects of industrialism on 19th-century England and to criticize the harsh new Poor Laws. The powerlessness of children Good’s ability to triumph over evil
Man’s humanity to man The inhumanity of city life under capitalism
The outcast’s search for status and identity The heinous nature of crime and criminals Dickens wrote, “I wished to show in little Oliver, the principle of Good surviving through every adverse circumstance and triumphing at last.”
Distinct Features of Dickens’Novels
1) Character Sketches & Exaggeration
In his novels are found about 19 hundred figures, some of whom are really such " typical characters under typical circumstances," that they become proverbial or representative of a whole group of similar persons.
As a master of characterization, Dickens was skillful in drawing vivid caricatural sketches by exaggerating some peculiarities, & in giving them exactly the actions & words that fit them: that is, right words & right actions for the right person.
2) Broad Humor & Penetrating Satire
Dickens is well known as a humorist as well as a satirist. He sometimes employs humor to enliven a scene or lighten a character by making it (him or her) eccentric, whimsical, or laughable. Sometimes he uses satire to ridicule human follies or vices, with the purpose of laughing them out of existence or bring about reform.
3) Complicated & Fascinating Plot
Dickens seems to love complicated novel constructions with minor plots beside the major one, or two parallel major plots within one novel. He is also skillful at creating suspense & mystery to make the story fascinating.
4) The Power of Exposure
As the greatest representative of English critical realism, Dickens made his novel the instrument of morality & justice. Each of his novels reveals a specific social problem.
2. Points of View
A spokesmen of the poor people
It is his serious intention to expose and criticize all the poverty, injustice, hypocrisy and corruptness.
He hates the state apparatus, especially the Parliament, and yet he is convinced that the state should intervene to control the rapacity of landlords and capitalists and to raise the living standards of the working class.
He is interested in social reform. He is certain that reform should work in the direction of reducing aristocratic privilege.
He wants improvement in the life of the poor, but is afraid of a real revolution.
A humanitarian who pours all his love and sympathy for the poor, weak, innocent, injured and neglected good people
3. Special Features
A master story-teller
Characterization
both types and individuals
mostly larger than life
best at child character portrayal
horrible and grotesque figures and
the broadly humorous or comical characters.
Writing from a child's point of view
Humor and pathos
Dickens is a great humorist.
He believes that life is itself a mixture of joy and grief.
He gives readers bright merriments and dark gloom at the same time, mingling tears and laughter as in real life.
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811—1863) 威廉•梅克皮斯•萨克雷
主要作品：1) The Book of Snobs《势利人脸谱》《势利者集》
It gives a satirical description of the different strata of the ruling classes of England and is regarded as a prelude to Thackeray’s major literary career.
2) V anity Fair《名利场》
3) The History of Pendennis《彭登尼斯》
4) The Newcomes 《纽克姆一家》
5) The History of Henny Esmond《亨利•埃斯蒙德》
6) The Virginians《弗吉尼亚人》
Analysis of V anity Fair
Vanity Fair is Thackeray's masterpiece. It was published in 1847-48 in monthly installments. The sub-title of the book, “A Novel Without a Hero”, suggests the fact that writer ' s intention was not to portray individuals, but the bourgeois and aristocratic society as a whole. The title was taken from Bunyan's “Pilgrim's
Progress”.
In this novel Thackeray describes the life of the ruling classes of England in the early decades of the 19th century, and attacks the social relationship of the bourgeois world by satirizing the individuals in the different strata of the upper society. It is a world where money grubbing is the main motive for all members of the ruling classes.
Amelia Sedley ；simple, sentimental, weak, but good at heart
Rebecca Sharp；cunning, immoral and quick-witted 随机应变的shrewd, unscrupulous, sophisticated世故的
In the novel, Becky Sharp is a classic example of this money-grubbing instinct(本能).
Everyone wishes to gain something in Vanity Fair and acts almost in the same manner as Becky. The Characteristics of V anity Fair
(1) Vanity Fair has a sub-title, A Novel Without a Hero, which intends to portray the bourgeois and aristocratic society as a whole.
(2) Vanity Fair is work of social criticism, and is noted for the author’s realistic depiction, the ironic and sarcastic tone and constant comment and criticism.
(3) In Vanity Fair, Thackeray gives block characters(人物群体).
4) Thackeray uses symbolism in Vanity Fair.
(5) Thackeray employs an omniscient/ɔm΄nisiənt/ (无所不知的) narrator to tell the story. Comments on Thackeray’s Novels
1) Thackeray is one of the greatest critical realists of the 19th century Europe. He paints life as he has seen it. With his precise and thorough observation, rich knowledge of social life and of the human heart, the pictures in his novels are accurate and true to life.
2) Thackeray is a satirist. His satire is caustic(刻薄的，尖锐的) and his humor subtle(精妙的).
3) Thackeray is a moralist. His aim is to produce a moral impression in all his novels. Thackeray's writing style；Criticism Realistic Satire
The pessimism in his novel（悲观主义色彩）
It represents in four aspects:
*sentimentality in his subjective consciousness
*the tragic characters in the novel
*the tragic traits of the characters
*women's rights could't be got
Charlotte Bronte夏洛蒂·勃朗特1816-1855)-- a British authoress
Her writing style
concise,expressive, simple and vivid, combined with the first-person narrative language
It made her novels more close to the reality and the readers.
Meanwhile, her novels also reflected the characteristics of European Romantic literary tradition, showing the author's rich imagination and temperament of the poet.
In her narration, she used dreams, hallucinations, feeling and symbolism, metaphor and other techniques naturally ,which make her novels more attraction.
Works；
1) The Professor,《教授》(based on her Brussels experience; not published until her death)
2) Jane Eyre,《简爱》(masterpiece) p.295
(1) the criticism of the bourgeois system of education; the Lowood school;
(2) the description of the English country squire;
(3) position of woman in society: equality
3) Shirley,《舍丽》(p. 294. Para. 2.) dealing with the life of workers at the time of the Luddites’movement (卢德运动, 17 c. machines, deprived, work, destroy)
4) Villette,《维莱特》, (p. 294. Para. 2.) a realistic description of her sad experiences at a boarding school in Brussels.
Emily: Wuthering Heights,《呼啸山庄》
Anne: Agnes Grey,《安格尼斯·格雷》
The Tenant of the Wildfell Hall 《王尔德费尔庄园的佃户》
Jane Eyre,taking the form of autobiographies written by authoritative and reliable narrators tells a story of a child’s development and maturation. Its popularity and success owns much to its exceptional emotional power. Deep inside Jane we discover Charlotte’s soul.
It is a work of critical realism as well as the first and one of the most popular works of the working middle- class women.
It is the first governess novel in the history of English literature.
Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative of the title character. Partly autobiographical, the novel abounds with social criticim ,gothicism and romanticism to create a distinctive Victorian novel. Point of view in Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is written in the first person (“I”) which functions as follows:
1. indicates the characteristic of autobiography.
2. be favorable to reveal intense, fierce and sharp feelings directly and powerfully.
3. provides a full and complete thoughts of the whole event and the other characters from the angle of vision of the narrator.
4. makes the work consistent and tends to give authority and credibility to the narrative.
The use of verb, adjective and adverb reinforces the strength of emotions. It makes the sentence more intense and reflects the sharp anguish and inner struggles of the characters. While reading, we can’t help temporarily identifying ourselves with the characters. It proves especially in Jane’s declaration.
The following are two examples selected from chapter 23, Jane Eyre:
Themes Morality God and Religion Social class Gender relations Love and Passion Independence Atonement and Forgiveness Search for home and family
The writing style of Jane Eyre
1. the rich nature images which help establish the characters’ lives and build their personalities.
2. the framework of fair tale such as Cinderella (a heroine who is ill- treated by her stepmother but gets married to a prince later).
3. various rhetorical devices and writing skills such as hint, simile, metaphor, metonymy, symbol and so on.
Thornfield: thorn（荆棘，使人生气或苦恼的事物）＋field. It is a image in Bible which alludes to Jane’s suffering from the unfair life and resisting the temptation from the outside world.
Love is a religion in Jane Eyre.
Jane Eyre’s development
There are five distinct stages of developm ent, each linked to a particular place: Jane’s childhood at Gateshead, her education at the Lowood School, her time as Adele’s governess at Thornfield, her time with the Rivers family at Moor House, and her reunion with and marriage to Rochester at
Ferndean.
Analyze the work
The work is one of the most popular and important novels of the V ictorian age. It is noted for its sharp criticism of the existing society, especially the bourgeois system of education. At the same time , it is an intense moral fable. Rochester, has to undergo a series of physical and moral tests to grow up and achieve his final happiness.
. Jane Eyre's character：
Jane Eyre，an orphan child with a fiery spirit and a longing to love and be loved，a poor，plain，little governess who dares to love her master，a man superior to her in many ways，and even is brave enough to declare to the man her love for him，cuts a completely new woman image. In this novel Charlotte characterizes Jane Eyre as a naive，kind-hearted，noble-minded woman who pursues a genuine kind of love.
Jane Eyre represents those middle-class workingwomen who are struggling for recognition of their basic rights and equality as a human being. The vivid description of her intense feelings and her thought and inner conflicts brings her to the heart of the audience.
Charlotte Bronte is a writer of Realism combined with Romanticism. Why is Jane Eyre by her a successful novel?
The story opens with the titular heroine, Jane Eyre, a plain little orphan.
This novel sharply criticizes the existing society, e.g. the religious hypocrisy of charity institutions such as Lowood School where poor girls are trained, the social discrimination Jane experiences and the false social convention as concerning love and marriage
3. The success of the novel is also due to its introduction to the English novel the first governess heroine Jane Eyre.
4 It is an intense moral fable at the same time. Jane, like Mr. Rochester, has to undergo a series of physical and moral tests to grow up and achieve her final happiness.
Jane Eyre: A Ground Breaking Novel
The heroine is small, plain, & poor
The heroine is the first female character to claim the right to feel strongly about her emotions and act on her convictions
This romantic ground had previously been reserved for males
Such a psychologically complex heroine had never been created before
Based on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, discuss the theme of her works and the image of women protagonists.
1. Charlotte’s works are all about the struggle of an individua l consciousness towards self-realization, about some lonely and neglected young women with a fierce longing for love, understanding and a full happy life.
2. All her heroines’ highest joy arises from some sacrifice of self of some human weakness overcome.
3. The image of women protagonists in her works mostly reflect the life of the middle-class working women, particularly governesses.
4. Her works present a vivid realistic picture of the English society by exposing the cruelty, hypocrisy and other evils of the upper classes, and by showing the misery and suffering of the poor. Especially in Jane Eyre, she sharply criticizes the existing society, e.g. religious hypocrisy of charity institutions.
Charlotte’s features of her novels
1. presents a vivid realistic picture of the English society.
2. shows as intense love for the beauty of nature.
3. Greatly influenced by Byron and Scott, her novels are all about lonely and neglected young women with a fierce longing for life and love.
4. Charlotte is exceptionally good at landscape painting and presentation of atmospheres of mystery, horror and prophesy.
5. Charlotte is known as a great impressionistic verbal painter.
Wuthering Heights
It is one of the most intense novels written in the English language.
It is a story of doomed love and revenge.
The protagonists are characterized as figures of violent emotions and typical Y orkshire characters. The Gothic tradition and transcending including its sophisticated observation and artistic subtlety. Features of this novel
1. There is the combination of extremely simple language with the most mighty and intensified effects.
2. Its confusing narrative forms and narrators. The first person and the third person.
3. The apparent absence of social mortality.
Emily Bronte is perhaps the greatest writer of the three Bronte sisters - Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Emily Bronte published only one novel, Wuthering Heights . But that single work has its place among the masterpieces of English literature. Some of her best lyrics are also rated with the best in English poetry.
As far as Emily’s literary creation is concerned, she is, first of all, a poet. Her 193 poems, mostly devoted to the matter of nature with its mysterious working and its unaccountable influence upon people’s life, are works of strange sublimity beauty. They are ample proof for the poetic genius of this young, reclusive woman. But , to the common readers, she is better known today as the author of that most fascinating novel, Wuthering Heights.
2. The novel is a riddle which means different things to different people. From the social point of view, it is a story about a poor man abused, betrayed and distorted by his social betters because he is a poor nobody. As a love story, this is one of the most moving: the passion between Heathcliff and Catherine proves the most intense, the most beautiful and at the same time the most horrible passion ever to be found possible in human beings.
One way of reading is to treat it as a romantic story, as a tale of love and revenge. As such, it is superb. Every character in the novel is in one way or another connected with the triangular love between Heathcliff and Catherine and Edgar. Such love affair will usually end in tragedy. And yet, it is a most terrible yet wonderful tale of love with the mutual possession and torment, with the mutual belonging in life and death.
From the social point of view, the story is a tragedy of social inequality. Heathcliff, a waif, of the lowest order in society, is eager for love and friendship, but is forever looked down upon and rejected by the two families. He loves Catherine dearly but he cannot have her just because of the disparity between their social status.
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. Finally the harmony is
reestablished when Heathcliff unites with Catherine in death and the ghosts of both stay to occupy Wuthering Heights, having young Cathy and Hareton to start their young, hopeful life at Thrushcross Grange.
2. The theme of the novel
The novel is a riddle which means different things to different people. From the social point of view，it is a story about a poor man abused，betrayed & distorted by his social betters because he is a poor nobody. As a love story，this is one of the most moving：the passion between Heathcliff and Catherine proves the most intense，the most beautiful & at the same time the most horrible passion ever to be found possible in human beings.
3. The structure of the novel
The novel has a unique structure：the story is told through independent narrators unidentical with the author，whose personality is therefore completely absent from the book. The story is told mainly by Nelly，Catherine's old nurse，to Mr. Lockwood，a temporary tenant at Grange. The latter too gives an account of what he sees at Wuthering Heights. And part of the story is told through Isabella's letters to Nelly. While the central interest is maintained，the sequence of its development is constantly disordered by flashbacks. This makes the story all the more enticing and genuine.
Emily’s Wuthering Heights
Heathcliff is a rebel against the bourgeois matrimonial system (婚姻制度).
The theme of the novel: a full human life (完美人生) in a capitalist society was impossible of attainment (达到).
What is the difference between Charlotte and Emily in expressing love?
Charlotte: thwarted(挫败的), lonely, sublimated (升华的)love
Emily:triumph, revenge of love against the 19th century
Writing Features
Both Charlotte and Emily write about their familiar things around them.
A: Charlotte’s Writing Features:
1) Charlotte’s novels are all about lonely and neglected young women with a fierce longing for life and love.
Charlotte’s Writing Features
2) Her novels are more or less based on her own experience and feelings and the life as she sees around.
3) Although her objective descriptions are detailed and exact, she is a subjective writer.
4) Her works are marked with an intensity of a volcanic(暴烈的) imagination and fiery passions and feelings, such as extreme fear, despair, and love, which can only be understood as her own. Emily’s Writing Features
1) She expresses the feelings of the hero in terms of spiritual suppress, tension and conflicts and the result to which such a feeling would lead.
2) Her novel is unique in its structure and its vision.
3) In her novel, there is the combination of extremely simple, austere (简朴的) and an adorned (修饰的) language with the most mighty and intensified effects (强大而有力的作用).。