英美文学期末Summary 2 of English Literature

Summary Two: The Romantic Period浪漫主义时期

Background Information:

English Romanticism, as a historical phase of literature, is generally said to have begun in 1798 with the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads and to have ended in 1832 wi th Sir Walter Scott’s death.

It was in effect a revolt of the English imagination against the neoclassical reason which prevailed from the days of Pope to those of Johnson.

In the history of literature, Romanticism is generally regarded as the thought that designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and all experience.

The Romantic period is an age of poetry. Blake, Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats are the major Romantic poets. They started a rebellion against the neoclassical literature, which was later regarded as the poetic revolution.

Wordsworth and Coleridge were the major representatives of this movement. They explored new theories and innovated new techniques in poetry writing.

The preface to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads acts as a manifesto for the new school. Wordsworth, Coleridge and Robert Southey have often been mentioned as the ―Lake Poets‖.

The two major novelists of the Romantic period are Jane Austen and Walter Scott.

Gothic novel, a type of romantic fiction that predominated in the late 18th century, was one phase of the Romantic Movement.

Its principal elements are violence, horror, and the supernatural. Representative works are a Gothic Story by Clara Reeve, and Frankenstein《弗兰肯斯坦》by Mary Shelley（玛丽·雪莱）.

William Blake 威廉·布莱克（1757~1872）

a representative Romantic poet, engraver, painter and mystic

As a poet, he is famous for his mysticism and complex symbolism.

His visionary world is extremely important to his work. He is also fond of using allusions to the Bible.

Blake’s representative works:

Poetical Sketches《素描诗集》

Songs of Experience《经验之歌》

Songs of Innocence《天真之歌》

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell《天堂与地狱的联姻》

His most popular poems are ―The Chimney Sweeper‖ and ―The Tyger.‖

Robert Burns(1759~1796)

the national poet of Scotland

a poet of the peasants, a poet of the people

best in his rural themes

chiefly remembered for his songs written in the Scottish dialect

Style:

happy simplicity, humor, directness and optimism

Analysis of ―A Red Red Rose‖:

The first and third lines of each stanza are in iambic tetrameter, Iambic tetrameter is an eight-syllable line with alternating pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables. Each pair makes up a foot so that each tetrameter line has four feet, as in line 1 of the first stanza: ..........1......................2.................3.................4......

O MY | Luve's LIKE | a RED, | red ROSE

the second and fourth lines are in iambic trimeter.

Iambic trimeter is a six syllable line with alternating pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables. Each pair makes up a foot so that each trimeter line has three feet, as in line 2 of the first stanza: .........1..........................2.. (3)

That's NEW.| ly SPRUNG.| in JUNE

Theme of ―A Red Red Rose‖:

The speaker loves the young lady beyond measure. The only way he can express his love for her is through vivid similes and hyperbolic comparisons.

The poem expresses love, but it does not try to stir up deep feelings of passion—instead, it reminds readers of obstacles of love, making the speaker's feelings sound more personal.

William Wordsworth威廉·华兹华斯(1770~1850)

the leading figure of the English romantic poetry, the focal poetic voice of the period

Regarded as a ―worshipper of nature,‖ he was the closest to nature among the ―Lake Poets.‖ Wordsworth’s theory of poetry is calling for simple themes drawn from humble life expressed in the language of ordinary people.

His representative poems like ―I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud‖, ―To a Skylark‖ and ―To the Cuckoo‖ inspire his audience to see the world freshly, sympathetically and naturally. Representative works:

Tintern Abbey《丁登寺旁》

Lucy Poems《露茜组诗》

Lyrical Ballads《抒情歌谣集》

My Heart Leaps Up《我心荡漾》

The Prelude《序曲》

Analysis of “I Wandered Lonely as A Cloud‖:

In stanza 1, the poet just mentions that the daffodils ―dancing in the breeze.‖

In stanza 2, the dance becomes more concrete and vivid: “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”Here the word is used as a noun.

In the 3rd stanza the poet gradually shifts his attention from the outer world to the inner world.

In the final stanza, the poet says his heart “dances with the daffodils.”This suggests the harmony of the outer and inner worlds, revealing the power of imagination.

The imagination is therefore “A motion and a spirit, that impels / All thinking things, all objects of all thought, / And rolls through all things.”

Although the “outer eye”brings “sensations sweet,”but the “inward eye”can “see into