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1、Romanticism简介Romanticism I. Introduction Romanticism (the Romantic Movement), a literary movement, and profound shift in sensibility, which took place in Britain and throughout Europe 1770-1848. Intellectually it marked a violent reaction to the Enlightenment. Politically it was inspired by the revo
2、lutions in America and France and popular wars of independence in Poland, Spain, Greece, and elsewhere. Emotionally it expressed an extreme assertion of the self and the value of individual experience (the egotistical sublime), together with the sense of the infinite and transcendental. Socially it
3、championed progressive causes, though when these were frustrated it often produced a bitter, gloomy, and despairing outlook. As an age of romantic enthusiasm, The Romantic Age began in 1798 when William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor published Lyrical Ballads, in the Preface of the 2nd and 3rd edition
4、s of which Wordsworth laid down the principles of poetry composition, and ended in 1832 when Walter Scott (1771-1832) died. At the beginning the literature reflected the political turmoil of the age stirred by French Revolution. The glory of the age is notably seen in the Poetry of Wordsworth, Coler
5、idge, Byron, Shelley and Keats, who were grouped into two generations: Passive Romantic poets represented by the Lakers / Lake Poets Wordsworth, Coleridge, Burns, and Blake though introspective 18th-cent. poets such as Thomas Gray (1716-71) and William Cowper (1731-1800) show pre-Romantic tendencies
6、, as well as Gothic novelists such as Horace Walpole (1717-97) and Monk Lewis (1775-1818, Matthew Gregory Lewis), who reflected those classes which had been ruined by the bourgeoisie, but later grew conservative and turned to the feudal past and idealized the life of the Middle Ages to protest again
7、st capitalist development; and Active / Revolutionary Romantic poets represented by those younger poets Byron, Shelley and Keats, firm supporters of French Revolution, who expressed the aspiration of the labouring classes and set themselves against the bourgeois society and the ruling class, as they
8、 bore a deep hatred for the wicked exploiters and oppressors and had an intensive love for liberty. Women novelists appeared in this period and assumed for the first time an important place in English literature. Mrs Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) was one of the most successful writers of the school of e
9、xaggerated romance. Jane Austen offered us her charming descriptions of everyday life in her enduring work. The greatest historical novelist Sir Walter Scott also appeared in this period. He praised Janes in the Quarterly Review in 1815, and later wrote of that exquisite touch which renders ordinary
10、 commonplace things and characters interesting. Charles Lamb (1775-1834), William Hazlitt (1778-1830), Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) and David Hume (1711-76) represented romantic prose of the period. II. Features of Romantic writing 1) The Romanticists own aspiration and ideals are in sharp contrast
11、 to the common sordid daily life under capitalism. Their writings are filled with strong-willed heroes or even titanic images, formidable events and tragic situations, powerful conflicting passions and exotic pictures. Sometimes they resorted to symbolic methods, with the active romanticists, symbol
12、ic pictures represent a vague ideal of some future society; while with the passive romanticists, these pictures often take on a mystic colour. 2). The romanticists paid great attention to the spiritual and emotional life of man. Personified nature plays an important role in the pages of their works.
13、 Terror, passion, and the Sublime (an idea associated with religious awe, vastness, natural magnificence, and strong emotion which fascinated 18th-cent. literary critics and aestheticians) are essential concepts in early Romanticism; as is the sense of primitive mystery rediscovered in the Celtic ba
14、rdic verse of *Macphersons Ossian, the folk ballads collected by *Percy, and the medieval poetry forged by *Chatterton (whom *Southey edited). Foreign sources were also vital: *Goethes The Sorrows of Young Werther 1774); the ghostly ballads of Burger (*Lenore, 1773); the verse dramas of *Schiller (T
15、he Robbers, 1781); and the philosophical criticism of A. W. *Schlegel. 3) The tone of Romanticism was shaped by the naked emotionalism of *Rousseaus Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise (1761), and the exotic legends and mythology found in Oriental and Homeric literatures and 17th-cent. travel writers. The
16、 stylistic keynote of Romanticism is intensity, and its watchword is Imagination. Remembered childhood, unrequited love, and the exiled hero were constant themes. 4) Romanticism expressed an unending revolt against classical form, conservative morality, authoritarian government, personal insincerity
17、, and human moderation. The Romantics saw and felt things brilliantly afresh. They virtually invented certain landscapes the Lakes, the Alps, the bays of Italy. They were strenuous walkers, hill-climbers, sea-bathers, or river-lovers. They had a new intuition for the primal power of the wild landsca
18、pe, the spiritual correspondence between Man and Nature, and the aesthetic principle of organic form (seen at their noblest in Wordsworths *Prelude or J. M. W. *Turner, paintings). In their critical writings and lectures they described poetry and drama with new psychological appreciation (the charac
19、ter of Hamlet, for example); they discussed dreams, dramatic illusion, Romantic sensibility, the process of creativity, the limits of Classicism and Reason, and the dynamic nature of the Imagination. 5) The second generation of Romanticists absorbed these tumultuous influences, wrote swiftly, travel
20、led widely (Greece, Switzerland, Italy), and died prematurely: their life-stories and letters became almost as important for Romanticism as their poetry. They in turn inspired autobiographical prose-writers such as *Hazlitt, *De Quincey, and *Lamb; while the historical imagination found a champion i
21、n Sir W. *Scott. Romanticism in British literature developed in a different form slightly later, mostly associated with the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose co-authored book Lyrical Ballads (1798) sought to reject Augustan poetry in favour of more direct speech derived fro
22、m folk traditions. Both poets were also involved in utopian social thought in the wake of the French Revolution. The poet and painter William Blake is the most extreme example of the Romantic sensibility in Britain, epitomised by his claim “I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans.” Bla
23、kes artistic work is also strongly influenced by Medieval illuminated books. The painters J. M. W. Turner and John Constable are also generally associated with Romanticism. Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and John Keats constitute another phase of Romanticism in Britain. Historical Ba
24、ckground of the Romantic Movement in England Romanticism is a response to neo-Classicism (or the Age of Reason) and in England it lasted from 1789 to 1832. Historians often see the rise of Romanticism connected with the Industrial Revolution, or with the American War of Independence and the French R
25、evolution. The Industrial Revolution: The term Industrial Revolution was first popularised by Arnold Toynbee (1852-83) to describe Englands economic development from 1760 to 1840, but it is not possible to fix this period of time exactly. The term generally means the development of improved spinning
26、 and weaving machines, James Watts steam engine, the railway locomotive and the factory system. But there was a long series of fundamental, technological, economic, social and cultural changes which, taken together, constitute the Industrial Revolution. It must be seen more as a process than as a pe
27、riod of time (not revolution, but evolution). The Industrial Revolution brought two kinds of changes, technological- and socio-economic-cultural changes. The technological changes included the use of new raw materials (iron, steel), new energy sources coal, the steam engine, electricity, petroleum a
28、nd the internal combustion engine), the invention of new machines (spinning jenny, power loom), new organisation of work (factory system), important developments in transportation and communication (steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, radio).These technological changes made
29、 possible a tremendously increased use of natural resources and the mass production of manufactured goods. The non-industrial changes included agricultural improvements, economic changes (wider distribution of wealth), political changes (new polical innovations corresponding to the needs of an indus
30、trialized society), sweeping social changes (growth of cities, development of working-class movements, the emergence of new patterns of authority, cultural transformations of a broad range. =The worker aquired new skills, his relationship to his work changed. He became a machine operator, subject to factory discipline. Finally there was a psychological change: mans confidence in his ability to use resources and to master nature was heightened.
