浪漫主义时期的诗歌和散文

浪漫主义时期的诗歌和散文Poetry and Essays in the Romantic Age

The literary movement called Romanticism represented a renewal of progressive thought and emotion (liberal, free and open-handed), which had existed before the 1700s and which had never totally died out. While Romanticism in the1800s signaled a new mood (a feeling or emotion held by a large number of people at a time当时许多人的一种共同的情绪), the world had witnessed earlier cultural movements that also merit the name Romanticism. Specifically, the ancient Greek epics （古代希腊史诗）can be called Romantic, as can much literature of the Medieval Period and of the Renaissance, or Elizabethan Age. All these writings---and the writings of the English Romantic Age under study here---emphasize human adventure, passion, delight, love of splendor, of extravagance, and of the supernatural. The Romantic tradition in all these periods can be viewed in contrast to another main literary tradition---Classicism or neoclassicism. The pendulum of literary taste seems to swing between the two traditions.

Now let’s have a look and examine the following lists, which contrast elements, outlooks, and concerns associated with the neoclassicism of the 1700s and the Romanticism of the early

1800s. Keep in mind also that although earlier literary periods can indeed be seen as typically Romantic, the period discussed here (1798-1837) is considered the Romantic Age. Neoclassical Romantic

Tradition experiment

society Individual

Urban rural

Artificial Nature loving

Intellect, reason Imagination, emotion

Public Private, subjective

Logical, solid Mysterious, supernatural aristocratic common

Cultivated primitive

Conformist independent

constraint spontaneity

Formal diction Natural diction

Three notable poets of the 1700s---Thomas Gray, William Blake, and Robert Burns---were in many respects as “romantic”as any poets of the Romantic Age, but the work of these three was isolated. Why did English literature change its views and philosophies, its aims and subject matter, so decisively at just

the turn of the century?

Certainly, the historical issues and developments of the time played a major role in provoking and shaping the new literary movement of Romanticism（诱发并造就）: One critic has said, “The French Revolution and Napoleon made a clean sweep（大获全胜）; after them it was no longer possible to think, act, or write as if the old forms still had life.” Also, the Industrial Revolution, its urbanization of English life, and its abuses against the working class called for a change in literary concerns and style. The Romantic poets in England also owed much to the Swiss-born French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). In his philosophies Rousseau rebelled against the cold logic of the 1700s and championed freedom and experimentation. He believed that man was most perfect in a state of nature, free from artificial societal restrains.

The romantic Age in English literature begins in 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth enunciated his aims, among which was his belief that poetry should reflect spontaneity and emotion rather than the more sedate ordered tones of the previous generation（稳重严肃的，四平八稳的）. Wordsworth also stressed a desire to depict commonplace situations involving common people living in natural settings.