英国文学史笔记

1. Childe Harold’s Pilipimage
the poem tells of Childe Harold’s (A youth of noble birth) travels in Europe. Harold is young aristocrat whose “world-weariness” be speaks his loathing for English high society ,He leaves him country to escape from the society he hears and hates being solitary and melancholy he seek the company ship of mountains and seas .But beneath this melancholia(精神忧郁症) is a sad earnest a suffering young man of ardent feelings with a keen understanding and a strong love of freedom .Besides Harold’s impressions of the countries he visits. The poem in interspersed with a lyrical out bursts representing Byron’s own philosophical and political views .At First the views are express through the mouth of Hreold ,but by and by the creator and the creation become one the poet steps from the backstage to the fore and speaks directory to the audience himself.

2. The cricissitudes of his life and his adventures in many countries are described against caries social backgrounds and he is seen to take part in different historical events this giving amid panorama of contemporary life (ababcc )

3. Don Juan
Don Juan is Byron’s masterpiece writer in the prime of his creative power .His aim was to remove the choak which the manners and max of high society throw over their secret signs and show that to the world as they are .He called this poem an epic satire .A satire on abuse of the present state of society almost all Don Juan is real life .Either my own of from people I know. In Don Juan Byron displayed his genius as romanticist and a realist simultaneously

4. Ozymandias
The author shows his strong love behavior and his consistent hatred for tyranny. In this poem he also expresses his long for the nevenage of a once tyrannical King.

5. Ode to the West Wind
The west wind is considered a “destroyer” because it drive the last sign of life from trees, it’s is also considered the “preserver” because it scatters the seas which was come to life in spring.

6. To a Sky-Lark
The author portrays the softy flight of the sky-lark, the west wind and the sky-lark are symbols of freedom spiritual vitality that the poet want to possess desperate his bitter criticism of the harsh society. The poet fuses in both poems a note of optimism of promising for humanity.

7. John Keats
About poem: To Keats poetry exist for it’s own sake if preoccupy with philosophy or politic or any course at all, it will lose it’s own identity or quality
Aim: Keats was not only the last but the most perfect of Romanticist the only artistic aim in this poetry was to create a beautiful world imagination as apposed to the Sophie realistic of his days
创作原则: beauty is truth, truth beauty at the bottom of his poem lies his this satisfaction with the society in which he lied and experienced great miseries and sufferings

8. On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer
韵律韵脚：ABBA，ABBA，CDCD，CD（意大利）

9. Ode to a Nightingale
In this poem the author express his wishes to free himself form the burden of human cares and anxieties and to moaners himself in a world of beauty together with the bird

10. What is the genre of English literature in the 19th century
So far as the literary form for genre is concerned, the main contribution made by the 19th century critical realists lies in their perfection of the novel. Like the realists of 18th century, the 19th century critical realists made use of the broad canvas of novel for full and detailed representations of social and political events, and of the fate of individuals and of hole social classes. However, the realistic novels of 19th century went further than those of 18th century in fact they not only pictured the conflicts between separate individuals who stood for definite social strata(circle), but also showed the broad social conflicts over and above the fate of the mere individual

11. The 19th century realists’ strength.
The English realists of the 19th century not only give a satiric portal of a bourgeois and all the classes, but also showed the profound sympathy for the common people classes, but also showed the profound sympathy for the common people. In their best works the greed and hypocrisy of upper classes are contrasted with the onshest and good heartedness of the sympathy men of the lower classes. Hence humor and satire are used; humor is tinged with lyricism and servers to stress the human qualities of positive characters. However, bitter satire is used to expose the seamy side of rural society, through the stretches of various negative characters given birth to by the capitalist system, critical realism reveals the corrupting influence of rule of cosy upon human nature. Here lies in the democratic and humanistic character of critical realism and … in the 19th century

12. The 19th century realists’ weakness
The critical realists of the 19th century did not, and, due to their world outlook, could, not, find a way to eradicate social evils. They did not realize the massive of changing bourgeoisie society, they were unable to find a good solution to the social contradictions, the chief tendency in their works is not a revolution but rather a reformism: they often start with a powerful exposure of the ugliness of the bourgeoisie world, merely to close in a much too co-incidental happy ending or an impotent compromise(So we can see at once the …)

13. Characteristics of critical realism
In general the critical realists described with much vivid and great artistic skill. The chief traits of the English society and criticized the capitalized system. from a democratic view point:
1Critical realism is reflection of the reality with objectivity specificity and facility
2It is an intense exposure and criticism of greed and hypocrisy of ruling class
3The representative characters depicted within the prevented surrounding unfair both to the summit

14. Analysis of Oliver twist



Oliver Twist tells the story of an orphan boy, whose adventures provide a description of the lower depths of London.

† In the preface to the novel, Dickens proclaims himself a realist:

He makes his readers aware of the inhumanity of city life under capitalism. The first eleven chapters provide a most bitter and thoroughgoing exposure of the terrible conditions in the English workhouse of the time and the cruel treatment of a poor orphan by all sorts of “philanthropists” 慈善家.



The famous scene in Chapter II, in which Oliver was beaten up and punished merely because he ventured to ask for an extra portion of gruel to alleviate his intolerable hunger, is only one of the many details to show the extreme brutality and corruption of the oppressors and their agents.

It is in scenes like this we see the great critical realist voicing the helpless sufferings of the poor and the oppressed.



† Dickens succeeds in calling forth the reader’s sympathy for the lower classes:

In the vivid description of the thieves’ den and of the under-world of London, Dickens succeeds in calling forth the reader’s sympathy for the down-trodden people of the lower classes, who, degraded and corrupted by the social environment of the time, either climb up to be parasites 寄生虫 of oppressors or fall to be victims of society or even criminals. Among the characters of the lower strata, Oliver is the only one who emerges happy and successful in the end.

This happy issue/ending which Dickens’ novels usually end in comes about as a result of his optimistic belief in the inevitable triumph of good over evil.



Defects of the novel:

1. The improbability of the plot:

Toward the end of the novel, the plot gets to be very intricate and the reader is simply mystified, and when the mystery is finally revealed to him, he is faced with impossible coincidences which lead to the happy ending.

At critical moments Oliver has been once and again saved by “kindly” gentlefolk, who happen to be his parents’ kith and kin. 亲属



2. The unconvincingness of some characters.

Oliver himself is a pale figure who seems to be the helpless victim of fate. Fagin and Bill Sikes are too inhuman to be true, while the rich Mr. Brownlow and Miss Maylie are vaguely pictured as benevolent and good.

Here we may see that—

Dickens, while sympathizing with the miseries of the people, did not know what or who was responsible for such miseries and even cherished some illusion about rich and idle people like Mr. Brownlow and Miss Maylie. The whole social question, in Dickens’ opinion, would be settled if only every employer followed the example set by “good gentlemen” like Brownlow.



15. Women’s novelists in 19th century
Women novelists began to appear in England during the second half of the 18th century, but some gifted women of the 19th century made such contributions to the English novel that they have justifiably won their places in the front ranks of the brilliant realists headed by Dickens and Thackeray. These remarkable women novelists are Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Bronte sisters.

I .Jane Austen

Founder of the novel which deals with unimportant middle class people.

Her works:

Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Persuasion

II. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

Novels:

Adam Bede (first)《亚当贝德 》

The Mill on the Floss 《弗洛斯河上的磨坊 》

Silas Marner 《织工马南 》

Adam Bede is a novel of moral conflicts, showing the contest of personal desires, passions, temperament, human weakness and the claims of moral duty. In the novel, the two pairs of lovers, Arthur and Hetty, and Adam and Dinah are described in contrast to each other. The former are shown to be always thinking of their own interests without any consideration of others, while the latter pair are endowed with high moral principles which guide their conduct for the good of others and themselves.

According to Eliot, the moral principles of man are closely connected with the “religion of heart”. This shows the influence of the bourgeois positive philosophy which seeks to reconcile science with religion and to prove the possibility of social harmony and concord in the capitalist society.

Analysis to George Eliot and her works: the novels of George Eliot mark the beginning of a new stage in the development of English critical realism following that of Dickens and Thackeray. Her characters were not grotesque types, but real, common men and women, but in other aspects her work marks retrogression. She shifted the centre of gravity in the novel from the social problems to the problems of religion and morality. While being aware of the evils of bourgeois society, she did not attack the social system. She believed in the sentimental “religion of humanity”, and cherished the illusion that humanity and love could do away with the evils

of capitalism.



III The Bronte Sisters

I. Charlotte Bronte

a. The Lowood school is the embodiment of the bourgeois principles of education, the aim of which is to bring up obedient slaves for the rich.

b. Another problem raised in the novel is the position of women in society. Jane Eyre maintains that women should have equal rights with men.

c. Charlotte Bronte attacked the greed, petty tyranny and lack of cul-ture among the bourgeoisie and sympathized with the sufferings of the poor people. Her realism was colored by petty-bourgeois philanthropy. Like Dickens, she believed that education was the key to all social problems, and that by the improvement of the school system and teaching, most of the evils of capitalism could be removed.



16. A brief review of historical backgrounds of 20th century
In the period of the transition between the 19th and 20th century the British Empire in the reign of Queen Victoria fell into a decline from the summit of its worldwide supremacy.

In the mean time, capitalistic Europe was divided into hostile camps for the colonial division of the world.

In 1917 the October Revolution broke out in Russia and a socialist state emerged.

1929 a great economic crisis in the capitalist world caused an unprecedented economic depression in Britain.



17. The definition of Stream of Consciousness

Stream of Consciousness is a narrative technique that presents as if they were coming directly from a character’s mind. Lacking chronological order, the events in a stream of consciousness narrative are presented from the character’s point of view, mixed in with the characters’ ongoing feelings and memories.

Developed by writers as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, stream-of-consciousness writing is used to reveal a character’s complex psychology and to present it in realist detail. The novelists demonstrated an awareness of the inner workings of the mind. One’s present was believed to be the sum of his past. Time was no longer a series of chronological moments to be presented by the novelists in sequence, but as a continuous flow in the consciousness of the individual



18. Thomas Hardy

1). representative works.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles, far from the Madding Crowd, under the Greenwood, the Reture of the Native, the Mayor of Casterbridge, Jude the Obscure.

2). Hardy’s position in English literature.

The last and one of the greatest Victorian novelists.

3). theme.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles tells the tragic life story of a beautiful country girl. It is a fierce attack on the hypocritical morality of the society and the political status quo in England. The misery and tragedy of Tess rise to a bitter cry of protest and denunciation of the society.

Hardy became more and more convinced that mankind is subjected to the rule of some hostile mysterious fate, which brings misfortune to human life. So, there is a strong naturalistic tendency in the novel.

“Justice was done, and the Precedence of the Immortals had ended his sport with Tess.”



I. Consolidation and practice

Compare the two main figures: Tess and Angel

Tess: pure, simple

Angel: hypocritical and selfish

Angel is no angel at all, but an ordinary man. Tess has forgiven him, but he cannot forgive Tess.