英国文学史大题

William Wordsworth’s Principles of Poetry

All good poetry is the true voice of impulse and feelings, and arefree from all rules and artful means. He applied this principle to individual sensations as the foundation in the creation and appreciation of poetry.Poetry ‘takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.’

In terms of theme, poetry was to choose incidents and situations fromcommon life, especially the humble and rustic life. In his view, the rustic possessed ‘the elementary feelings’ of man, and lived in harmony with nature. Instead of involving the upper-class people, Wordsworth revealed his true compassion for the sufferings of the poor.

He believed what was natural was beautiful and durable. The greatness of nature is the motivation for Wordsworth to write good poetry. It was mostly because that he lived near the lake where there are beautiful sceneries.

As for language, he was to bring language near to the real language of man. He used simple, colloquial language in poetry.Deliberatesimplicity, refusal to decorate and the truth of expression, produced a kind of pure and profound poetry with no other then poet has ever equaled.

His poem ‘I wander lonely as a cloud’ carries everywhere the evidence of his love for life, for the natural world around him. It is excellent example of Wordsworth’s theory in poetry writing. He changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a return to nature.

The image of Robinson Crusoe

●Adventurer:

spirit of a fighter against nature,

knowledgeable(managing his life, keeping track of time, signal for help) courage(courageous to overcome all kinds of obstacles), live in an uninhabited island; hostile environment(no shelter, with natural disasters)

●Enterprising bourgeoisie: intelligent (searching for food and taking

advantage of his possessions), practical spirit; colonizing character , dealt with slave trade, master of primitive people-Friday, take charge of the island

●All in all, he is a new man sure of himself and has the determination to

preserve himself and improve his life. With the desire to live, he proved individual power in the face of social and natural challenges. From an individual laborer to a master and colonizer, Crusoe seems to have gone through various stages of human civilization.

typical of the rising English bourgeois class, practical, diligent, a restless curiosity to know more about the world and a desire to prove individual power in the face of social and natural challenges.

He is a colonist, the empire builder.

Defoe depicts him as a hero struggling against nature and human fate with his indomitable will and hands, and eulogizes creative labor, physical andmental, an allusion to the glorification of the bourgeois creativity when it was a rising and energetic class in the initial stage of its historical development.