1、Pre-Romanticism Pre-Romanticism & & RomanticismRomanticismSchool of Foreign StudiesPre-RomanticismA conspicuous trend in the English literature of the latter half of the 18th century was the so-called pre-romanticism.It originated among the conservative groups of men of letters as a reaction against
2、 Enlightenment and found its most manifest expression in the “Gothic novel,” the term arising from the fact that the greater part of such romances were devoted to the medieval times. The more notable of the Gothic Novels is The Castle of Otranto (1765) by Horace Walpole (1727-1797).But the more impo
3、rtant pre-romanticist writers are the two famous poets, William Blake (1757-1821) and Robert Burns (1759-1796). Thomas Gray (1716-1771)Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 30 July 1771) was a poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University.It is believed that Gray began writing
4、 his masterpiece, the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, in the graveyard of the church in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, in 1742, completing it, after several years lying unfinished, in 1750.The Graveyard SchoolRobert Burns (1759-1796)Robert Burns is an excellent native poet of Scotland.He is re
5、membered mainly for his poems written in the Scottish dialect. He also created many lyrics praising nature, love, and friendship. Many of them have entered deeply into peoples hearts. These works are “A Red, Red Rose,” “My hearts in the Highland,” etc.Speaking of Burns, we can not forget his “Auld L
6、ang Syne” (Old Long Ago) which have been sung as a parting song in many places of the world in different languages. William Blake (1757-1821)Of all the romantic poets of the 18th century, Blake is the most independent and the most original. His best poems are collected in Songs of Innocence (1789) a
7、nd Songs of Experience (1794). The Songs of Innocence is a lively volume of poems which represent a happy and innocent world although there are evil and suffering existing, while the Songs of Experience paints quite a different world, a world full of misery, poverty, war, and repression. The poems i
8、n Songs of Experience are gray, gloomy and pessimistic. Romanticism The democratization of poetryA literary revolution against restrictions, rules and artificial conventionsHistorical BackgroundFrench Revolution-Bastille in 1789.Industrialization-Invention of Steam Engine.Urbanization and shift from
9、 agricultural to industrial economy.Development of industrial capitalism.Origins of RomanticismOrigins of RomanticismThe origin of Romanticism lies in the philosophy of Frenchman Jean Jacques Rousseau and the writings of German Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.Rousseau championed individualism and freedom
10、 of thought: “I felt before I thought.”Goethe advocated inspiration from Shakespeares works, Gothic architecture and German folk tales.Goethes novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) provide the basis for much of the later Romanticism.The Age of Romanticism (1798-1832)English Romanticism is genera
11、lly defined to begin in 1798 with the publication of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridges the Lyrical Ballads and end in 1832 with Sir Walter Scotts death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in Parliament. Three schoolsThe Lake School: Wordsworth, Coleridge and SoutheyThe Cockney School: Le
12、igh Hunt, Hazlitt, and associated writers, including Keats.The Satanic School: Byron, Shelly and their followers.Two Groups of RomanticistsThe Romanticists split into two groups because of the different attitudes toward the capitalist society. Some romanticists reflected the thinking of those classe
13、s which had been ruined by the bourgeoisie. They returned to the feudal past and idealized the life of the Middle Ages to protest against capitalist development. Therefore, they stood on the side of the feudal forces and even combined themselves with those forces. They are represented by Wordsworth,
14、 Coleridge and Robert Southey. (the Passive Romantic School)Two Groups of RomanticistsOthers expressed the aspiration of the labouring classes. They held out an ideal of future society free from oppression and exploitation. They were the firm supporters of the French Revolution. They are represented
15、 by Lord G. G. Byron and P. B. Shelley and John Keats. (the Active Romantic School)These poets were all precocious and intense, and had tragically short lives.Characteristic FeaturesTheir own aspiration and ideals are in sharp contrast to the common, sordid daily life under capitalism. Their writing
16、s are filled with strong-willed heroes or even titanic images, formidable events and tragic situations, powerful conflicting passions and exotic pictures.They paid great attention to the spiritual & emotional life of man. Personified nature plays an important role in the pages of their works. Romant
17、icism is characterized by the 5 “I”s: a) Imagination; b) Intuition; c) Idealism; d) Inspiration; e) Individuality.ImaginationvA revolt of the English imagination against the neoclassical reason, a rebellion against the rationalism characterized by the “Age of Reason.” vCreative powers of the imagina
18、tion over the “rules” in art.vImagination was considered necessary for creating all art. vSamuel Coleridge called it “intellectual intuition.”IntuitionvRomantics placed value on “intuition,” or feeling and instincts, over reason. Emphasis on feeling over reason - Cult of Sensibility.vEmotions were i
19、mportant in Romantic art.vWilliam Wordsworth described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”IdealismvIdealism is the concept that we can make the world a better place.vIdealism refers to any theory that emphasizes the spirit, the mind, or language over matter thought has a cruci
20、al role in making the world the way it is.vImmanuel Kant held that the mind forces the world we perceive to take the shape of space-and-time. InspirationvThe Romantic artist, musician, or writer, is an “inspired creator” rather than a “technical master.”vWhat this means is “going with the moment” or
21、 being spontaneous, rather than “getting it precise.”IndividualityvRomantics celebrated the individual.vDuring this time period, Womens Rights and Abolitionism were taking root as major movements.vWalt Whitman, a later Romantic writer, would write a poem entitled “Song of Myself”: it begins, “I cele
22、brate myself”Characteristics of the Romantic Period1.Love of Nature: acceptance of natures benevolence;Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a partOf me and my soul, as I of them? - Byron2.Pantheism - Nature has a conscious soul;3.Nature is a living organism which shares the feelings of the obser
23、ver;4.The poet is typically seen as a solitary figure, non-conformist, outcast, rebel;5.The poet often identifies with outlaws of myth, legend: Cain, Satan, the Wandering JewCasper Friedrich: The Wanderer above the Mists (1817-18)Nature in the raw, wild state.Awe-inspiring. Sublime. Divine.Nature an
24、d ChildrenNature and ChildrenDelight in unspoiled scenery and the innocent rural dwellers was central to RomanticismWordsworths poetry conveys the Platonic notion that humans forget all their knowledge at birth and spend the remainder of their lives recollecting, rather than learning. Wordsworth cel
25、ebrates the child, who enjoys an ecstatic communion with nature, and hopes that in adulthood people can eventually recover this ecstasy by heeding intuition.The reverence of nature later developed as a central focus for American Transcendentalism (Emerson and Thoreau).Characteristics of the Romantic
26、 Period1. Emphasis on Freedom and Individualism;2. Spontaneity, intuition, feeling, imagination;“All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling recollected in tranquility”;“To give the charm and novelty to things of everyday”;“If poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree
27、 it had better not come at all.”Characteristics of the Romantic Period1. liberalization of poetic style;2. blank verse;3. medieval revival: imitations of the folk ballad;4. the distant past;5. faraway, exotic places.Faith in human nature-belief in the “common man.” Primitivism. Study of “the folk.”-
28、folk myth and folklore. Nature/art dichotomy.Radical political sensibilities born from the French Revolution. Individualism, democracy.Characteristics of the Romantic PeriodThe poetic manifesto of RomanticismThe 2nd preface to Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge served to affirm the importan
29、ce of feeling and imagination.Wordsworth stated, Poetry originates from “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Wordsworth and Coleridge also disclaimed conventional forms popular during the Neoclassic Period.Blank verse superseded the rhyming couplet.Effects of RomanticismEffects of RomanticismThe Ro
30、mantics engendered many of the libertarian movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.Influenced by the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, P. B. Shelley championed liberal thought and rebelled against the restrictions of English politics and religion.Lord Byron and Percy B. Shelley,
31、who most typify the romantic poet (in their personal lives as well as in their work), wrote resoundingly in protest against social and political wrongs and in defense of the struggles for liberty in Italy and Greece.Effects of RomanticismEffects of RomanticismRousseau had written that people were bo
32、rn free but that everywhere civilization put them in chains. An example is expressed in the work of English visionary William Blake, writing in the poem “Milton” (about 1804-1808) of the “dark Satanic mills” that were beginning to deface the English countrysideAnother example is in Wordsworths long
33、poem The Prelude (1850), which speaks of “. the close and overcrowded haunts/Of cities, where the human heart is sick.”Romantics see the Industrial Revolution as in direct opposition to nature and innocence.The Melancholy StrainThe Melancholy StrainIn the mid 18th century, many poets incorporated a
34、melancholy tone to their poems in response to changing lives and times. Keats “Ode to Melancholy” (1820) This strain developed into a separate theme that was prevalent in many American writers works (Hawthorne, Poe and Melville).The Exotic and the SupernaturalRomantic poets often turned to the Gothi
35、c past and exotic locations;Coleridges “Kubla Khan”;Recurring motifs: graveyards, ruins and the supernatural;Keats “Eve of St. Agnes”The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole & The Lay of the Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott;The supernatural was inspired by the collecting of folk tales (Grimm brothers, Andersen and Shelley)p 经常不断地学习,你就什么都知道。你知道得越多,你就越有力量p Study Constantly, And You Will Know Everything. The More You Know, The More Powerful You Will Be学习总结结束语当你尽了自己的最大努力时，失败也是伟大的，所以不要放弃，坚持就是正确的。When You Do Your Best, Failure Is Great, So DonT Give Up, Stick To The End演讲人：XXXXXX 时 间：XX年XX月XX日
