欧洲文化 论文

吉林华桥外国语学院

期末论文

（2008 级）

The Influences of the Enlightenment upon English

Literature

启蒙运动对英国文学的影响

姓名：王维维

班级：翻译T0806

二〇一〇年十二月

Abstract

There were a lot of influential things happened in the 18th century. The most

influential movement is the Enlightenment. The thought that the world was an object of study and that people could understand and control the world by means of reason and empirical research. The bourgeoisie gradually won their power. Their need for the changes of cultural life increased. The special need of the bourgeoisie and the influences of the Enlightenment exerted great influences on the literature of many countries. In this article, we mainly talk about the influences on the English literature. Influenced by the Enlightenment, the English literature changed a lot. there are two aspects of the changes-changes on the literature forms and changes on the characteristics of the literature. On the aspects of the literature forms, new forms came into being, such as political writing, newspapers and journals. On the aspect of the characteristics, the English literature had undergone a lot of changes such as: neo-classicism became dominant feature of the English literature. the modern English novel, namely the realistic novel, rose and flourished. The Gothic novel flowered in the 18th century. And satire became a main feature in the writing in the period. We will talk about the influences in detail in the following passage.

Key Words:

Enlightenment, literature, neo-classicism, sentimentality, Gothic novels, satire.

The influences of the Enlightenment upon English

Literature

A lot of constant change of events happened in the 18th century. New thoughts and new awareness continuously sprung up. The most influential movement is the Enlightenment movement which have exerted great influences not only in the European countries, but also in other countries such as China.

The Enlightenment refers to a progressive intellectual movement throughout Western Europe that spans approximately on hundred years from the 1680s to 1789. It is originated in France. When we talk about why the Enlightenment could come into being at that time, we should date back to the origin of the word Enlighten. The leaders of the Enlightenment thought that they lived in a world of enlightenment. They regarded the previous times as a superstitious and unenlightened world and not until their period, human beings moved from darkness into light. Due to the Enlightenment, the condition of human beings would gradually become better and better so that the condition of a new generation would become better than the previous generation. But how could they maintain this kind of progress? The answer is very easy and convincing: through the rational powers of human beings. In other