6.2.1十九世纪末期的英国文学

English Literature at the End of the 19th Century
Literary Trends at the End of the 19th Century
Aestheticism and Oscar Wilde(1856-1900) Neo-Romanticism
Thomas Hardy(1840-1928)
Literary Trends at the end of the 19th Century
Naturalism: Naturalism was a literary movement taking place in Europe, especially in France, in the second half of the
19th century that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. Naturalistic writers were influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Naturalistic works often include uncouth or sordid subject matter”(Émile Zola's works had a frankness about sexuality along with a pervasive pessimism. )
According to the theory of naturalism, literature must be true to life and exactly reproduce real life, including all its details without any selection. Naturalistic writers usually write about the lives of the poor and oppressed, but giving all the details of life without discrimination, they can only represent the external appearance instead of the inner essence of real life. In reality, naturalism was an extension of realism.
Aestheticism: The basic theory of “art for art’s sake” was set forth by a French poet, Theophile Ga utier(1811-1872). The first Englishman who wrote about the theory of aestheticism was Walter Peter, the most important critical writer of the late Victorian period, whose most important works were studies in the History of Renaissance and Appreciations. Following him, Swinburne in English literature declared that art should serve no religious, moral or social ends, nor any end except itself. Aestheticism places art above life, and holds that life should imitate art, not art imitate life. According to aesthetes, all artistic creation is absolutely subjective as opposed to objective. Art should be free from any influence. Only when art is for ar t’s sake can it be immortal.
The chief representative of the movement in England was Oscar Wilde, with his The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Oscar Wilde(1856-1900)—born in Ireland and educated at Oxford.
He started his literary by writing poetry, stories and essays, then he achieved fame with his novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1891).
Wilde’s Main Works
The Pictures of Dorian Gray
《道林.格雷的画像》
Lady Windermere’s Fan
《温德米尔夫人的扇子》
A Woman of No Importance
《一个无足轻重的女人》
An Ideal Husband
《理想的丈夫》
The Importance of Being Earnest
《埃耐斯特的重要性》
The Happy Prince and Other Tales
《快乐王子故事集》
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
The hero Dorian was at first a handsome and innocent youth, and the painter Howard Basil drew a picture of him. Then Dorian met Lord Henry, an extremely immoral and degenerate hedonist, and fell under the latter’s vicious influence, and he became a hedonist and indulged in all sorts of depravity, frequented the opium dens, until he even killed Howard who tried to give him advice. Dorian continued to look as innocent and as handsome as before, but the picture painted by Howard now looked terrible. Then one night he stabbed at the picture which is a terrible record of his life, but the result was that he had stabbed himself and now he looked terrible but the picture appeared as handsome and innocent as before.
Neo-Romanticism
Another literary trend prevailing at the end of 19th century was neo-romanticism. Dissatisfied with the drab and ugly social reality and yet trying to avoid the positive solution of the acute social contradictions, some writers adopted this new trend which laid emphasis upon the invention of exciting adventures and fascinating stories to entertain the reading public.
Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish) was a representative of neo-romanticism in English literature. (Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde《化身博士》)
Thomas Hardy(1840-1928)
the last and one of the greatest Victorian novelists and poets
one of the representatives of English critical realism and naturalism at the turn of the 19th century
Famous for his description of the imaginary county “Wessex”. His principal works are the Wessex novels.
Hardy’s work reflected his stoical pessimism and sense of tragedy in human life.
The Hardy cottage in Higher Bockhampton, Dorchester多尔切斯特郡上博克汗普顿村
He was born in Dorset, a southern county of England, which he called Wessex in his books. His father, a stone mason砌石工, wanted him to follow in his steps. Therefore, from an early age he was bound apprentice to an architect. At the age of 22, Hardy went to London, where he studied architecture for five years but at the same time also became interested in literature and philosophy. On his return to his native countryside in 1867, he worked as an architect for several years. When he gained fame for his works, he made literature his profession.
Hardy was a prolific writer. His principal works are the Wessex novels, that is, the novels describing the characters and environment of his native countryside. These novels have for their setting the agricultural region of the southern countries of England. He truthfully depicts the impoverishment and decay of small farmers who became hired fieldhands and roamed the country in search of seasonal jobs.
The author was pained to see the deterioration of the patriarchal mode of life in rural England. This was one of the reasons accounting for the growing pessimistic vein which runs throughout his works. According to his pessimistic philosophy, mankind is subjected to the rule of some hostile mysterious fate, which brings misfortune into human life.
Hardy’s Major Works
Hardy himself divides his novels into three groups:
1) Romances and fantasies浪漫与幻想小说
A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)
The Trumpet Major (1880), etc.
2)Novels of Ingenuity爱情阴谋小说
Desperate Remedies (1871)《非常手段》
The Hand of Ethelberta (1876) 《埃塞尔伯塔的婚姻》.
3)Novels of character and Environment性格与环境小说
Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
The Return of the Native (1878)
The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
The Woodlanders (1887)
Wessex Tales (1888)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
Life's Little Ironies (1894)
Jude the Obscure (1895)
Among his famous novels, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure could be regarded as the summit of his realism. Both novels met with harsh criticism from the bourgeois public. The malicious criticism which they incurred discouraged the author to such an extent that he ceased writing novels altogether. At the end of the nineties, almost at the age of 60, Hardy turned to poetry.
遗言争执
哈代留下的遗言是死后葬在故乡的家墓里。

可是政府为了表示对当代有名作家的重视和敬意，坚持要举行国葬，把遗体安葬在威斯明斯特大教堂的诗人角。

为此，哈代亲属和政府发生争执。

最后双方妥协，达成协议。

取出哈代的心脏葬在家乡，遗体火化，骨灰葬在威斯明斯特教堂。

His Deterministic View
In Hardy’s works, man is shown inevitably bound by his inherent nature and hereditary traits which prompt him to go and search for some specific happiness or success and set him in conflict with the environment. The outside nature—the natural environment or Nature likes to play practical jokes upon human beings by producing a series of mistimed actions and unfortunate coincidences. Man proves impotent before Fate. No matter how much he tries, he seldom escapes his ordained destiny.
Critical Realism: Th ough Naturalism seems to have an important part in Hardy’s works, there is also bitter and sharp criticism and even open challenge of the irrational, hypercritical unfair Victorian institutions, conventions and morals which strangle the individual will and destroy natural human emotions and relationships.
TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES
(SUBTITLE: A PURE WOMEN FAITHFULLY PORTRAYED)
Plot overview
The poor peddler小贩John Durbeyfield is stunned to learn that he is the descendent of an ancient noble family, the
d'Urbervilles. Meanwhile, Tess, his eldest daughter, joins the other village girls in the May Day dance, where Tess briefly exchanges glances with a young man. Mr. Durbeyfield and his wife decide to send Tess to the d'Urberville mansion, where they hope Mrs. d'Urberville will make Tess's fortune. In reality, Mrs. d'Urberville is no relation to Tess at all: her husband, the merchant Simon Stokes, simply changed his name to d'Urberville after he retired.
But Tess does not know this fact, and when the lascivious 好色的Alec d'Urberville, Mrs. d'Urberville's son, procures Tess a job tending fowls on the d'Urberville estate, Tess has no choice but to accept, since she blames herself for an accident involving the family's horse, its only means of income.
Tess spends several months at this job, resisting Alec's attempts to seduce her. Finally, Alec takes advantage of her in the woods one night after a fair. Tess knows she does not love Alec. She returns home to her family to give birth to Alec's child, whom she christens Sorrow. Sorrow dies soon after birth, and Tess spends a miserable year at home before deciding to seek work elsewhere. She finally accepts a job as a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy.
At Talbothays, Tess enjoys a period of contentment and happiness. She befriends three of her fellow milkmaids—Izz, Retty, and Marian—and meets a man named Angel Clare, who turns out to be the man from the May Day dance at the beginning of the novel. Tess and Angel slowly fall in love. They grow closer throughout Tess's time at Talbothays, and she eventually accepts his proposal of marriage. Still, she is troubled by pangs of conscience and feels she should tell Angel about her past. She writes him a confessional note and slips it under his door, but it slides under the carpet and Angel never sees it. After their wedding, Angel and Tess both confess indiscretions: Angel tells Tess about an affair he had with an older woman in London, and Tess tells Angel about her history with Alec. Tess forgives Angel, but Angel cannot forgive Tess. He gives her some money and boards a ship bound for Brazil, where he thinks he might establish a farm. He tells Tess he will try to accept her past but warns her not to try to join him until he comes for her.
Tess struggles. She has a difficult time finding work and is forced to take a job at an unpleasant and unprosperous farm. She tries to visit Angel's family but overhears his brothers discussing Angel's poor marriage, so she leaves. She hears a wandering preacher speak and is stunned to discover that he is Alec d'Urberville, who has been converted to Christianity by Angel's father, the Reverend Clare. Alec and Tess are each shaken by their encounter, and Alec appallingly begs Tess never to tempt him again. Soon after, however, he again begs Tess to marry him, having turned his back on his religious ways.
Tess learns from her sister Liza-Lu that her mother is near death, and Tess is forced to return home to take care of her. Her mother recovers, but her father unexpectedly dies soon after. When the family is evicted from their home, Alec offers help. But Tess refuses to accept, knowing he only wants to obligate her to him again.
At last, Angel decides to forgive his wife. He leaves Brazil, desperate to find her. Instead, he finds her mother, who tells him Tess has gone to a village called Sandbourne. There, he finds Tess in an expensive boardinghouse called The Herons, where he tells her he has forgiven her and begs her to take him back. Tess tells him he has come too late. She was unable to resist and went back to Alec d'Urberville. Angel leaves in a daze, and, heartbroken to the point of madness, Tess goes upstairs and stabs her lover to death. When the landlady finds Alec's body, she raises an alarm, but Tess has already fled to find Angel.
Angel agrees to help Tess, though he cannot quite believe that she has actually murdered Alec. They hide out in an empty mansion for a few days, then travel farther. When they come to Stonehenge, Tess goes to sleep, but when morning breaks shortly thereafter, a search party discovers them. Tess is arrested and sent to jail. Angel watches as a black flag is raised over the prison, signaling Tess's execution.
Themes of this novel:
1. The double standard for men and women in sexual matters. According to the Victorian morality, a man could live a dissipating life while a woman could not. A woman once tainted, should be looked down upon and punished. The double standard for man and woman in sexual matters makes it impossible for Angel to forgive her, which also shows that Angel, who shows contempt at Orthodox Christianity and its ethics and feels disgusted at conventional morality and class prejudices, is still dominated by the conventional custom and bourgeois view of morality.
2. The Injustice of Existence
Unfairness dominates the lives of Tess and her family to such an extent that it begins to seem like a general aspect of human existence in Tess of the d'Urbervilles. The forces that rule human life are absolutely unpredictable and not necessarily well-disposed to us.
When the narrator concludes the novel with the statement that “Justice' was done, and the President of the Immortals (in the Aeschylean phrase) had ende d his sport with Tess,” we are reminded that justice must be put in ironic quotation marks,
since it is not really just at all. What passes for “Justice” is in fact one of the pagan gods enjoying a bit of “sport,” or a frivolous game.
What causes Tess’s tr agedy?
the final disintegration of English peasantry—the invasion of capitalist relations (the utter poverty of Tess’s family) (economic oppression)
the double moral standard for man and woman (social injustice) ( hypocritical morality)
Tess is a victim of economic oppression and social injustice, and the author’s sympathy for her is most striking and sustaining.
Features of Hardy’s Novels:
his defiance against religion
realistic writing (emphases on plot, not psychology)
being deft at describing nature (dull, gray, rainy, stormy)—symbol of pessimism
description of characters, not only their appearance, activity, but also their psychology。