-
Chapter 1 The
Renaissance Period
Time: Generally, it
refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th
centuries.
The Renaissance
（文艺复兴）
: The Renaissance is a
historical period in which the
European
humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to
get rid of those old
feudalist ideas in
medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that
expressed the interests
of the rising
bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the
early church from the
corruption of the
Roman Catholic Church.
Humanism
(
人文主义
): Humanism is
the essence of the Renaissance. “Man is
the
measure of all things.” Thomas
More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare
are the best representatives of the
English humanists.
Mainstream of
Literary Forms: In the early stage of the
Renaissance, poetry and
poetic drama
were the most outstanding literary forms and they
were carried on
especially by
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. The Elizabethan drama,
in its totality, is
the real mainstream
of the English Renaissance.
Chapter 2 The Neoclassical Period
Time: Between the return of the Stuarts
to the English throne in 1660 and the full
assertion of Romanticism which came
with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by
Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798.
Social Events: Glorious Revolution
（光荣革命）
; British colonies
(Abroad); Acts of
Enclosure
（圈地运动）
(At home);
The Enlightenment Movement
（启蒙运动）
.
The
Enlightenment Movement: The 18th century England
is known as the Age of
Enlightenment or
the Age of Reason. The Enlightenment Movement was
a
progressive intellectual movement
which purpose was to enlighten the whole world
with the light of modern philosophical
and artistic ideas. The enlighteners celebrated
reason or rationality, equality and
science. They held that rationality or reason
should be the only, the final cause of
any human thought and activities. They called
for a reference to order, reason and
rules. They believed that when reason served as
the yardstick for the measurement of
all human activities and relations, every
superstition, injustice and oppression
was to
yield place to “eternal truth,”
“eternal
justice” and “natural
equality”. Great writers like John Dryden,
Alexander Pope,
Joseph Addison and Sir
Richard Steele, the two pioneers of familiar
essays, Jonathan
Swift, Daniel Defoe,
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Henry Fielding and
Samuel
Johnson.
Neoclassicism: In the field of
literature, the Enlightenment Movement brought
about
a revival of interest in the old
classical works. This tendency is known as
neoclassicism. According to the
neoclassicists, all forms of literature were to be
modeled after the classical works of
the ancient Greek and Roman writers. They
believed that the artistic ideals
should be order, logic restrained emotion and
accuracy, and that literature should be
judged in terms of its service to humanity.
This belief led them to seek
proportion, unity, harmony and grace in literary
expression, in an effort to delight,
instruct and correct human beings, primarily as
social animals. Thus a polite, urbane,
witty, and intellectual art developed.
Neoclassicists had some fixed laws and
rules for almost every genre of literature.
Prose should be precise, direct, smooth
and flexible. Poetry should be lyrical, epical,
didactic, satiric or dramatic; Drama
should be written in the Heroic Couplets
(
英雄
双韵体诗
).
In the last few decades of the 18th
century, the neoclassical emphasis upon reason,
intellect, wit and form was rebelled
against or challenged by the sentimentalists, and
was gradually replaced by Romanticism.
Novel: The mid-century was predominated
by a newly rising literary form---the
modern English novel. Gothic novels---
mostly stories of mystery and horror which
take place in some haunted or
dilapidated Middle Age castles.
Chapter
3 The Romantic Period
Time:
From 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads
to 1832 with Sir Walter
Scott’s death
and the passage of the first Reform Bill in the
Parliament.
Social Events:
French Revolution; English Industrial Revolution.
Romantic Movement: The Romantics saw
man essentially as an individual in the
solitary
state and
emphasized the special qualities of each
individual’s mind. Thus
we can say that
Romanticism actually constitutes a change of
direction from
attention to the outer
world of social civilization to the inner world of
the human
spirit. In essence, it
designates a literary and philosophical theory
which tends to
see the individual as
the very center of all life and all experience.
Major Figures: Blake, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Byron, Shelly and Keats.
Theme: Imagination and Nature
Major Literary Forms: Poetry (best),
prose, novel (Jane Austen and Walter Scott).
Drama is less successful.
Chapter 4 The Victorian Period
Time: Queen Victoria who ruled over
England from 1836 to 1901. The period has
been generally regarded as one of the
most glorious in the English history.
Social Events: Reform Bill
（改革法案）；
Chartist Movement (
宪章运动
)
；
Theme: Common sense and moral
propriety, which were ignored by the
Romanticists, again became the
predominant preoccupation in literary works.
Theory of “art for art’s sake”:
Osca
r Wilde and Walter Pater
Utilitarianism(
功利主义
):
Utilitarianism was widely accepted and practiced.
Almost everything was put to the test
by the criterion of utility, that is, the extent
to
which it could promote the material
happiness. Dickens, Carlyle, Ruskin and many
other socially conscious writers
severely criticized the Utilitarian creed,
especially
its depreciation of cultural
values and its cold indifference towards human
feelings
and imagination
Major Literary Forms:
1.
Novel (best): In this period, the novel became the
most widely read and the most