英美文学选读The Victorian Period (维多利亚时期一)
2009-12-11 13:54阅读：
The Victorian Period
(维多利亚时期)
本章概述
一. 维多利亚时代英国的政治/经济/历史/文化背景.
二.诗歌/散文/小说在创作思想上的进步和创作技巧上的改革.
三.主要作家与作品.
文学史分析
一. The time period :
chronologically the Victorian period roughly coincides with the
reign of Queen Victoria who ruled over England from 1836 to 1901
.
二. The thoughts
:
1.The influence of science and
technology :
A.Ideologically , the Victorians
experienced fundamental changes . The rapid development of science
and technology shook people's religious convictions .The religious
collision continued and was intensified .
B.Danwin's Th
e Origin of Species and The Descent of Man shook the theoretical
basis of the traditional faith .
2. The utilitarianism
:
A.Utilitarianism was widely accepted
and practiced . Almost everything was put to the test by the
criterion o futility .
B. This theory held a special appeal
to the middle-class industrialists.
三. The literary forms
:
1. The novels :
A. The critical realistic novelists
:
a. Among the famous novelists of the
time were the critical realists like Charles Dickens , Thackeray ,
Charlotte Bronte , Emily Bronte , Mrs. Gaskell and Anthony Trollope
, etc .
b. They carried their duty forward to
the criticism of the society and the defence of the mass . They
shared one thing in common ,that is, they were all concerned about
the fate of the common people . in the last few decades there were
also George Eliot , the pioneering woman who , according to D.H.
Lawrence , was the first novelist that 'started putting all the
actions inside '
B. The modern novelists :
a. George Eliot , according to D.H. Lawrence , was the first
novelist that :started putting all the actions inside .
'
b. Thomas Hardy , that Wessex man who
not only continued to expose and criticize all sorts of social
iniquities , but finally came to question and attack the Victorian
conventions and morals .
2. The prose :
A. The features :
The Victorian age also produced a host of great prose writers ,
many of them joined forces with the critical realist novelists in
exposing and criticizing the social reality , and some became very
influential in the ideological field . At the same time , they
brought English prose to a very high point in both prose art and
literary criticism .
B. The works :
Among the most influential prose works of the time are Carlyle's
Sartor Resartus , The French Revolution ,Macaulay 's History of
England , Ruskin's five-volumed Modern Painters and Huxley's
lecture essays .
3. The poetry :
A. features :
The poetry of this period was mianly characterized by experiments
with new styles and new ways of expression_r_r
.
B. The poets :
Robert Browning created the verse novel by adopting the novelistic
presentation of characters . Other poets like Alfred Tennyson ,
Matthew Arnold , Edward Fitzgerald all made their respective
attempts at poetic innovations and helped open up new ways for the
twentieth-century mordern poetry .
主要作家作品
A. 查尔斯*狄更斯
B. 布朗蒂姐妹
C. 阿尔弗雷德*丁尼生
D. 罗伯特* 布朗宁
E. 乔治*艾略特
F. 托马斯*哈代
查尔斯*狄更斯
一. The literary thoughts
:
1. It is his serious intention to
expose and criticize in his works all the poverty , injustice
,hypocrisy and corruptness he sees all around him
.
2. But his social attitudes are very
complicated . He hates the state apparatus , but as a bourgeois
writer , he can in no way supply any fundamental solution to the
social plights .
3. At the same time , he hopes to
call people's attention to the existing social problems , thus
effecting some reform or amelioration .
二. The works :
Most of his works are deeply rooted
in his knowledge of that petty-bourgeois urban world . A
combination of optimism about people and realism about the society
is present from the very beginning .
1. The earlier works
:
In his early novels , he attacks one
or more specific social evils .
A. Papers of the Pickwick lifted him
into a position of fame and fortune .
B. others include : Oliver Twist ,Nicholas Nickleby , David
Copperfield ,Martin Chuzzlewit and Dombey and Son
.
2. The later works :
The later works show the development of Dickens towards a highly
conscious artist of the modern type . The physical settings here
are sometimes a mixture of the contemporary and the recollected
past .
A. All of the works , with the
exception of A Tale of Two Cities , Present a criticism of the more
complicated and yet most fundamental social institutions and morals
of the Victorian England .
B. Others include : Bleak House ,
Little Dorrit , Hard Times , Great Expectations and Our Mutual
Friend .
三. The artistic features
:
1. In language :
A. With his first sentence , he engages the reader's attention and
holds it to the end . The settings of his stories have an
extraordinary vividness , a result of years' intimacy and rich
imagination .
B. In languge , he is often compared
with Shakespeare for his adeptness with the vernacular and large
vocabulary . His humor and wit seem inexhaustible
.
2. In Character-portrayal
:
A. Character-portrayal is the most
distinguishing feature of his works .
B. His best-depicted characters are those innocent , virtuous ,
persecuted , helpless child characters .
C. And he is also famous for the depiction of those horrible and
grotesque Characters like Fagin .
D. These charcters are impressive not only because they are true to
life , but also because they are often larger than life
.
3. The mingling of humor and pathos
:
A. Dicken's works are also
characterized by a mingling of humor and pathos . He seems to
believe that life is itself a mixture of joy and grief . Life is
delightful because it is at once comic and tragic . He is a
humorist .
B. To match his humorous genius ,
Dickens is also noted for his pictures of pathos
.
