英国文学史第五讲18thCliteratureandJohnDryden

John Dryden’s work signaled the beginning of a new and great age, whose chief characteristic was a preference for reason, order, moderation, good taste, and for “easy, natural wit”.
Heroic Drama
The heroic plays restored some of the lost confidence of the English nation. Moral behaviors were once again emphasized and praised. Three virtues: valor, beauty, and love were highly admired.
Abroad, a vast expansion of British colonies. At home, Acts of Enclosure British bourgeois grew rapidly
Enlightenment Movement
The 18th century is also known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.
18th Century literature
Enlightenment Neoclassicism
Neoclassical Period (1660-1798)
The English society of the neoclassical period was a turbulent one.
From the mid to the end of the century there was also an apparent shift of interest from the classic literary tradition to originality and imagination, from society to individual, and from the didactic to the confessional, inspirational and prophetic.
The Year of Wonders 1667 Absalom and Achitophel 1681 The Hind and the Panther 1687 A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day 1687 Alexander’s Feast 1697
John Dryden’s major dramas:
Characteristics of Neoclassical Literature
All forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers (Homeபைடு நூலகம், Virgil, Horace, Ovid, etc.).
The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept through the whole Western Europe at the time. The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries. Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas.
Prose should be precise, direct, smooth and flexible.
Poetry should be lyrical, epical, didactic, satiric or dramatic.
Drama should be written in the Heroic Couplets (iambic pentameter rhymed in two lines); the three unities of time, space and action should be strictly observed; regularity in construction should be adhered to, and type characters rather than individuals should be represented.
The Restoration in 1660 the Great Plague in 1665 The Great London Fire in 1666 The Glorious Revolution in 1688
The 18th century saw the fast development of England as a nation.
The artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy.
Literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity.
Fixed laws and rules for every genre of literature
The enlighteners celebrated reason or rationality, equality and science.
△ They held that rationality or reason should be the only, the final cause of any human thought and activities. They called for a reference to order, reason and rules. They believed that when reason served as the yardstick for the measurement of all human activities and relations, every superstition, injustice and oppression was to yield place to “eternal truth”, “eternal justice” and “natural equality.”
The Rival Ladies 1664 The Conquest of Grenada 1670
(finest heroic play) Marriage la Mode 1672 (best comedy) All for Love 1678 (best tragedy)
John Dryden’s best work, the criticism ---An Essay of Dramatic Poesy 1668
The neoclassical period witnessed the flourish of English poetry in the classical
style from Restoration to the 2nd half of the century.
The mid-century was predominated by a newly rising literary form- the modern English novel.
Restoration Drama and John Dryden (1631-1700)
John Dryden was the leading literary figure in the Restoration period.
In the Restoration period, heroic play and the new comedy of manners flourished.
What Dryden achieved in his poetry was not the emotional excitement (in the Romantic poets), nor The intellectual complexities (of the metaphysical poets). His subject-matter was often factual, and he aimed at expressing his thoughts in the most precise and most concentrated way possible. Although he uses formal poetic structures such as heroic stanzas and heroic Couplets, he tried to achieve the rhythms of speech. However, he knew that different subjects need different kinds of verse, he wrote: “...the expressions of a poem designed purely for instruction ought to be plain and natural, yet majestic… The florid, elevated and figurative way is for the passions…A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.”