eals with heroic adventures and battles between good characters and
villains or monsters.
Originally, the term referred to a medieval
tale dealing
with the love and adventures of kings, queens, knights, and ladies,
and including supernatural happenings.
Form: long composition, in verse, in prose
Content: description of life and adventures of a noble hero
Character: a knight, a man of noble birth, skilled in the use of
weapons; often described as riding forth to seek adventures, taking
part in tournaments, or fighting for his lord in battles; devoted
to the church and the king
Romance lacks general resemblance to truth or reality.
It exaggerates the vices of human nature and idealizes the
virtues.
It contains perilous (dangerous) adventures more or less remote
from ordinary life.
It lays emphasis on supreme devotion to a fair lady.
①The Romance Cycles/Groups/Divisions
Three Groups
matters of Britain
Adventures of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table
matters of France
Emperor Charlemagne and
his peers
matters of Rome
Alexander the Great and the attacks of Troy
Le Morte D’Arthur
②Class Nature
of the Romance
Loyalty to king and lord was the theme of the romances, as loyalty
was the corner-stone（the most important part）of feudal
morality.
The romances were composed not for the common but for the noble, of
the noble, and by the poets patronized（supported
by the
noble.
3.
Alliteration: a repeated initial consonant to successive
words.
e.g. 1.To his kin the kindest, keenest for praise.
2.Sing a song of southern
singer
4.
Understatement（for
ironical
humor）
not troublesome: very welcome
need not praise: a right to condemn
5.
Chronicle（a monument of Old English prose）
6.
Ballads （The most important department of English folk
literature ）
①Definition:
A ballad is a narrative poem that tells a
story, and is usually meant to be sung or recited in musical
form.
An important stream of the Medieval folk literature
②Features of English Ballads
1. The ballads are in various English and Scottish dialects.
2. They were created collectively and revised when handed down from
mouth to mouth.
3. They are mainly the literature of the peasants, and give an
outlook of the English common people in feudal society.
③Stylistic Features of the Ballads
1. Composed in couplets
or in quatrains known as the ballad
stanza , rhyming abab or abcb, with the first and third lines
carrying 4 accented syllables
and the second and fourth
carrying 3.
2. Simple, plain language or dialect of the common people with
colloquial , vivid and, sometimes, idiomatic
expressions
3. Telling a good story with a vivid presentation around the
central plot.
4. Using a high proportion of dialogue with a romantic or tragic
dimension to achieve dramatic effect.
④Subjects of English Ballads
1. struggle of young lovers
2. conflict between love and wealth
3. cruelty of jealousy
4. criticism of the civil war
5. matters of class struggle
7.
Heroic couplet （introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer）
Definition: the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter; a verse form
in epic poetry, with lines of ten syllables and five stresses, in
rhyming pairs.
8. couplet: Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.A heroic
couplet is an iambic pentameter couplet. During the Restoration
period and the 18th C. it was a popular verse form.
9. iambic pentameter: A poetic line consisting of five Verse feet
(penta- is from a Greek word meaning “five”), with each foot an
iamb-- that is, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable.
10.
Rhyme: the repetition
of sounds in two or more
words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem. E .g .
river/shiver, song/long
11.
meter（Prosody）: A generally regular pattern of stressed
and unstressed syllables in poetry.
The meters with two-syllable feet are:
Iambic (x /): That time of year thou mayst in me behold
Trochaic (/ x): Tell me not in mournful numbers
Spondaic (/ /): Break, break, break/ On thy cold gray stones, O
Sea!
The meters with three-syllable feet are:
anapestic (x x /): And the sound of a voice that is still
dactylic (/ x x): This is the forest primeval, the murmuring
pines and the hemlock
(a trochee replaces the final dactyl)
12.
Rhythm（
Prosody ）： refers to the
regular recurrence of the accent or stress in poem or song.
e.g. the rhythm of day and night, the seasonal rhythm of the year,
the beat of our hearts, and the rise and fall of sea tides,
etc.
basic patterns of rhythms
a)
Iambic foot (iamb): an unstressed syllable followed by an
stressed one as in the word “prevent” or “about”
It’s time the children went to
bed.
We’ll learn a poem by Keats.
b)
Trochaic [trəu'keiik] foot (trochee): a stressed syllable
followed by an unstressed one as in “football”, “never”, “happy” or
“English”
William Morris taught him English.
Double, double, toil and trouble.
Fire burns and cauldron bubble.
c)
Anapestic foot (anapest）: two unstressed syllables
followed by a stressed one as in “comprehend” or “intervene”
I’ve been working in China for forty
years.
d)
Dactylic foot (dactyl): a stressed syllable followed by
two unstressed ones as in “dangerous”, “cheerfully”, “yesterday” or
“merrily”
13．Common line lengths:
number of feet per line
one foot
monometer
(rare)
two feet
dimeter
three feet
trimester
four feet
tetrameter
five feet
pentameter
six feet
hexameter
seven feet
heptameter (rare)
eight feet octameter
(rare)
14．Line patterns:
Couplet: 2 lines rhyming with each other
A heroic couplet is an iambic pentameter couplet.
Tercet : 3 lines, terza rima (aba, bcb, cdc, ded)
Quatrain
: 4 lines, ballad stanza (abcb)
Octave : 8 lines, ottava rima (abab abcc)
Spenserian stanza : 9 lines
(ababbcbcc)
（The Faerie Queen）
Sonnet : 14 lines (Shakespearean: ababcdcdefefgg)
Example:
She
walks in beauty, like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And
all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies
1. Foot and length:
Iambic tetrameter
2. Rhyme (scheme):
ababab
15．Humanism
1) Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. According to
humanists, human beings were glorious creatures capable of
individual development in the direction of perfection and the world
can be questioned, explored and enjoyed.
2) By emphasizing the dignity of human beings and the importance of
the present life, in contrast to the medieval emphasis on God and
contempt for the things of this world, they voiced their beliefs
that man did not only have the right to pursue happiness of this
life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform
wanders.
16. Drama
1. Definition
Drama is “a composition in prose or verse, adapted to be acted upon
a stage, in which a story is related by means of dialogue and
action, and is represented with accompanying gesture, costume, and
scenery, as in real life.”
2. The Development of Drama
1. Religious Period
1) Mystery plays presented stories from the Old and New Testament
of the Bible.
Creation of the World, the Fall, the Great Flood, Redemption, Final
Judgment, etc.
The birth of the Christ—child symbolized hope in the darkness of
winter; Christ’s resurrection accorded with the earth’s renewal in
spring, and the promise of harvest at midsummer.
2) Miracle
plays
Dramatizing the lives and miracles of saints, or divine
intervention
in human affairs, that is, stories from the
lives of saints.
Often focused on blessed virgin Mary
3) Morality plays
Presenting stories containing abstract virtues and vices as
characters.
They were plays which had a moral message: Good and Evil fight for
domination of the human soul.
Everyman, the best example, is the story of a character
representing mankind.
2. Artistic Period
The first Comedy,
Ralph Roister Doister written by the schoolmaster,
Nicholas Udall between 1550 and 1553
The first English tragedy, Gorboduc written in 1561 by Thomas
Sackville and Thomas Norton
3. Elements of drama
1. Plot
The structure of a play’s action, the order
of the incidents, their arrangement and form.
2. Character: the vital center of a play
How they look, what they say and in what
manners they say; what they do and how their actions reveal who
they are and what they represent
The human qualities are the most engaging
feature.
3. Dialogue
Drama is described as “persons moving about
on stage using words.”
Major functions of Dialogue: to advance the
plot, to establish setting, and to reveal character.
4. Staging
Things like positions of actors, nonverbal
gestures and movements, scenic background, props and costumes,
lighting and sound effects
5. Theme: the central idea of the play.
4. Dramatic Terms
1. Script: the written work from which a drama
isproduced. It contains stage directions and
Dialogue
2. Stage Directions notes provided by the playwright to describe
how something should be presented or performed on stage
3. Monologue: a long speech given by an actor
4. Soliloquy: a speech given by a character who is alone (or thinks
he is alone) on stage
5. Aside: a statement intended to be heard by the audience or by a
single other character but not by all the other characters on
stage
6. Act: a major division of a drama
7. Scene: a division of an act. A scene typically begins with the
entrance of one or more characters and ends with the exit of one or
more characters.
17. Comedy（Drama form）
A play written chiefly to amuse its audience by appealing to a
sense of superiority over the characters depicted. A comedy will
normally be closer to everyday life than a tragedy, and will
explore common human failings rather than tragedy’s disastrous
crimes. Its ending will usually be happy for the leading
characters.
E.g. Romantic Comedies（the overcoming the obstacle of love）: As You
Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Twelfth Night, & The
Merchant of Venice
18. Tragedy（Drama form）
A serious play or novel representing the disastrous downfall of a
central character, the protagonist. According to Aristotle, the
purpose is to achieve a catharsis through incidents arousing pity
and terror. The tragic effect usually depends on our awareness of
admirable qualities in he protagonist, which are wasted terribly in
the fated disaster.
E.g. Great Tragedies explores the faults/weaknesses of humans）:
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear& Macbeth
19. dramatic Romance (tragi-comedy)（Drama form）:
Romances focus on the separation and reunion of families rather
than love and marriage.
Endings were characterized by homecoming, recognition,
reconciliation, and forgiveness.
The romances are set in mythical worlds where supernatural and
magic and unlikely coincidences are commonplace.
E.g. Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest
20. Monologue An extended speech uttered by one speaker, either to
others or alone. Significant varieties include the dramatic
monologue (a kind of poem in which the speaker is imagined to be
addressing a silent audience), and the soliloquy (in which the
speaker is supposed to be “overheard” while alone).
21. Soliloquy
A dramatic speech delivered by one character speaking aloud while
under the impression of being alone. The soliloquist thus reveals
his or her inner thoughts and feelings to the audience, either in
supposed self-communion or in a consciously direct address. It is
also known as interior monologue.
22. The basic plot of the play ( Freytag’s pyramid )
1. Exposition : provides the background
information needed to properly understand the story, such as the
protagonist, the antagonist, the basic conflict, and the
setting.
2.
Rising action:
during rising action, the basic internal conflict is complicated by
the introduction of related secondary conflicts, including various
obstacles that frustrate the protagonist's attempt to reach his
goal.
3. Climax: the turning point, which marks a
change, for the better or the worse, in the protagonist’s affairs.
If the story is a comedy, things will have gone badly for the
protagonist up to this point; now, the tide, so to speak, will
turn, and things will begin to go well for him or her. If the story
is a tragedy, the opposite state of affairs will ensue, with things
going from good to bad for the protagonist.
4. Falling action: during the falling action, or resolution, which
is the moment of reversal（反向，倒转，转变，颠倒） after the climax, the
conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels, with
the protagonist winning or losing against the antagonist. The
falling action might contain a moment of final suspense, during
which the final outcome of the conflict is in doubt.
5. Dénouement, resolution, or catastrophe:
comprises events between the falling action and the actual end of
the drama or narrative and thus serves as the conclusion of the
story. Conflicts are resolved, creating normality for the
characters and a sense of catharsis, or release of tension and
anxiety, for the reader.
The comedy ends with a dénouement (a conclusion) in which the
protagonist is better off than at the story's outset. The tragedy
ends with a catastrophe in which the protagonist is worse off than
at the beginning of the narrative.
In Shakespeare's tragedies, the dénouement is usually the death of
one or more characters.
23. Dramatic irony
Dramatic irony: the words or acts of a
character may carry a meaning unperceived by the character but
under-stood by the audience.
Examples of dramatic irony
in Romeo and Juliet
Before Romeo drinks the poison, he observes that Juliet looks as
though she were alive.
Romeo is cheerful because of a dream, but his hopes are
quickly dashed by Balthasar’s news of Juliet’s death.
24. Blank Verse
Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. It is a very flexible English
verse form which can attain rhetorical grandeur while echoing the
natural rhythms of speech. It was first used by Henry Howard, Earl
of Surrey, and soon became a popular form for narrative and
dramatic poetry. Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth,
Tennyson, Stevens and Robert Frost are fond of this form.
25. Sonnet
A sonnet is a lyric poem comprising 14 rhyming lines of equal
length: iambic
pentameter in English,
hendecasyllables in Italian, and alexandrines in French.
1. The Italian/Petrarchan sonnet
It is named after Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), the
Italian poet. The 14 lines break into an octave (or octet) of 2
quatrains, rhymed abbaabba (rhymed sometimes abbacddc or even
abababab); and a sestet, usually rhymed cdecde or cdcdcd.
2. The English/Shakespearean sonnet
It
was introduced into English poetry in the early 16th century by Sir
Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542). It consists of 3 quatrains and a final
couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.
An important variant is the Spenserian sonnet,which links the 3
quatrains by rhyme, rhyming abab bcbc cdcd ee.
26. Allegory
A story with a double meaning: a primary or surface meaning, and a
secondary or under-the-surface meaning
A story that can be read, understood and interpreted at two
levels
Two levels of allegory
One level examines the moral, philosophical and religious values
and is represented by the Red Cross Knight, who stands for all
Christians.
The second level is the particular, which focuses on the political,
social, and religious conflicts in the then English society.
27. Types of poetry
1)
Narrative poetry
epic, romance, and ballad
The stress is on action,
e.g. to tell stories and describe actions;
2)
Lyric poetry
Elegies , odes, sonnets, epigraphs , etc.
To combine speech and song to express feelings in varying degrees
of verbal（口头的，言语的） music.
28. essay
As a form of literature, the essay is a composition of moderate
length, usually in prose, which deals in an easy way with the
external conditions of a subject, and, in strictness, with that
subject, only as it affects the writer.
1. Purpose:
Essays is intended for the
ambitious Elizabethan and Jacobean youth of upper class, to tell
them how to be efficient and make their way in public life.
Writing style:
four prominent qualities:
preciseness,
directness,
tenseness,
forcefulness
3.
Bacon’s essays
Bacon offers his views on a whole smorgasbord of topics
ranging from Truth, Death, Adversity, Marriage & the Single
Life, Love, Boldness, Superstition, Friendship, Health, Ambition,
Youth, Beauty to Anger & Fame.
4. Features of Bacon’s essays
Bacon’s essays are the first
example of that genre in English literature and have been
recognized as an important landmark in the development of English
prose. The essays are famous for the pithy aphoristic style, which
he had defended in principle in The Advancement of Learning as
proper for the expression of tentative opinions.
E.g. Essays
“Of Studies”
“Of Wisdom”
“Of Death”
“Of Friendship”
“Of Travel”, etc.
29. Metaphysical Poets
METAPHYSICAL POETS refer to a school of poets at the beginning of
the 17th century England who wrote under the influence of John
Donne. The works of the Metaphysical poets are characterized,
generally speaking, by mysticism in content and fantasticality in
form.
The most eminent poets are John Donne, George Herbert & Andrew
Marwell.
30. Metaphysical Poetry
Metaphysical poetry is concerned with the whole experience of man,
especially about love, romantic and sensual; about man's
relationship with God,
and about pleasure, learning and
art.
Metaphysical poems are lyric poems of brief but intense
meditations, characterized by the striking use of wit, irony and
wordplay. Beneath the formal structure (of rhyme, metre and stanza)
is the underlying structure of the poem’s argument. In “To His Coy
Mistress,” the explicit argument (Marvell's request that the coy
lady yield to his passion) is a stalking horse for the more serious
argument about the transitoriness of pleasure.
Rise & Fall of Metaphysical Poetry
Metaphysical poetry was rarely read in the 17th, 18th and early
19th century.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, there was a
renewed interest in metaphysical poetry.
The modernist poets T.S. Eliot, John Ransom and Allen Tate claimed
their influence by John Donne. So John Donne became a cult figure
in the early 20th century English-speaking countries.
31. Conceit
A conceit is a figure of speech which makes an unusual and
sometimes elaborately sustained comparison between two dissimilar
things.
Metaphysical conceit
This type of conceit draws upon a
wide range of knowledge, and its comparisons are elaborately
rationalized.
For instance, Donne’s “The Flea” compares a
flea bite to the act of love; and in “A Valediction: Forbidding
Mourning” separated lovers are likened to the legs of a compass,
the leg drawing the circle eventually returning home to 'the fixed
foot.'
32. Cavalier Poets
Cavalier poets are, more often than not, knights and squires, who
side with the king against the parliament and the puritans in the
English revolution. They mostly deal in short songs on the flitting
joys of the day, but underneath their lightheartedness lies some
foreboding of impending doom.
1. Writing on the courtly themes of loyalty, love, and beauty, the
cavalier poets produced finely finished verses.
2. The common factor that binds the cavaliers together is their use
of direct and colloquial language expressive of a highly individual
personality, and their enjoyment of the casual, the amateur, the
affectionate poem written by the way.
3. They are “cavalier” in the sense, not only of being Royalists,
but in the sense that they distrust the over-earnest, the too
intense.
4. The leading cavalier poets were Robert Herrick, Richard
Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, and Thomas Carew. Most were admirers
of Ben Jonson.
33. neoclassicism
It found its artistic models in the classical literature of the
ancient Greek and Roman writers like Homer, Virgil, Horace,
Ovid.
A partial reaction against the fires of passion blazed in the late
Renaissance, especially in the Metaphysical poetry.
--- Prose should be precise, direct, smooth andflexible.
--- Poetry should be lyrical, epical, didactic, satiric or
dramatic, and each class should be guided by its own
principles.
--- Neo-classical writers are: John Dryden, Alexander Pope,
Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding,
Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edward Gibbon, etc.
34. Bourgeoisie[,bʊəʒwɑ:'zi:] (the 18th Century
Age
of Bourgeoisie
35. Enlightenment Movement
Under the influence of scientific discoveries (Newton) and
flourishing of philosophies, French enlightenment started.
Enlightenment thinkers such
as Voltaire, Montesquieu， Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau believed that
the world was an object of study and that people could understand
and control the world by means of reason and empirical
research.
an intellectual movement beginning in France and then spread
throughout Europe
a continuation of Renaissance in belief in the possibility of human
perfection through education
the guiding principle or slogan is
Ration/Reason, natural right and equality (American
Independence War in 1776; French Revolution in 1789)
Ration became standard for measurement of everything.
In religion, it was against superstition, intolerance, and
dogmatism; in politics, it was against tyranny; and in society, it
was against prejudice, ignorance, inequality, and any obstacles to
the realization of an individual’s full intellectual and physical
well-being. At the same time, they advocated universal education.
In their opinion, human beings were limited, dualistic, imperfect,
and yet capable of rationality and perfection through
education.
The great enlighteners:
Alexander Pope,
Joseph Addison,
Jonathan Swift, and
Samuel Johnson
36. Prose
1) Biography: James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson
2) Journalism/Periodicals:
Steels and Addison’s literary
journals
3) Realist novel: bourgeois in essence
--- subject matter,
--- readership,
--- didactic purpose,
--- form (prose, comic
epic);
37. Gothic novel (from mid-18th century)
--- Devoted to tales of horror and the darker
supernatural forces
--- Derives its name from similarities to
Medieval Gothic architecture
--- Gothic Horror: A thriller designed not only to
terrify or frighten the
audience, but to convey a
sense of moral failure or
spiritual darkness.
--- The Gothic in England begins with The Castle of Otranto in
1760, by Horace Walpole, which emphasized the supernatural mixed
with the grotesque in a medieval setting.
--- Anne Radcliffe in Mysteries of Udolpho perfected the
sentimental gothic in the 1790s.
--- Frankenstein(1817) by Mary Shelley
---influenced the later generations: Coleridge, Keats, Dickens,
Bronte sisters, etc.
38. Sentimentality literature
--- It was a partial reaction against that cold, logic rationalism
which dominated people’s life since the last decades of the 17th
century.
--- A ready sympathy and an inward pain for the
misery of others became part of accepted social morality and
ethics.
--- started by Samuel Richardson’s Pamela
and Clarissa
--- represented in novel form by Laurence Sterne’s A
Sentimental Journey through France
and
Italy (1768)
--- represented in poetry by “The Graveyard School”:
Thomas Gray,
Edward
Young
--- emphasizing the emotion/heart instead of ration
---gradually merged into Romanticism
39. Satire: A literary manner which blends humor with criticism for
the purpose of instruction or the improvement of humanity.
The necessary ingredients
--- Humor
--- Criticism, either general criticism of humanity
or human
nature or
specific criticism of an individual or group.
--- Some kind of moral voice: simply mocking or
criticism
is not
“satire.”
The best and most representative works are found in those written
by Pope and Swift.
Alexander Pope
Mock epic: “The Rape of the Lock”
Literary Satire: “The Dunciad”
Jonathan Swift
“A Modest Proposal”
Gulliver’s Travels
40. The Realistic Novel
The English middle-class people were ready to cast away the
aristocratic romance and to create a new and realistic literature
of their own to express their ideas and serve their
interests.
The whole life in its ordinary aspects of the middle class became
the major source of interest in literature.
Major novelists: Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding,
Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith, Tobias George Smollett…
41. Elements of Fiction
1. Theme: the central idea or statement about life that unifies and
controls the total work
Identifying the theme
To avoid confusing a work’s theme with its subject or
situation.
The statement of theme does the work full justice.
It is fully and completely supported by the work’s other
elements.
The title of the work often suggests a particular focus or emphasis
for the reader’s attention.
2. Plot :The action in fiction, the arrangement of events that make
up a story.
•
Plots turn on a conflict, or struggle between opposing
forces, i.e. how one action leads into another.
• Structure is the design or form of the action, i.e. patterns and
the shape of content.
•The classic pattern: exposition, complication, crisis, falling
action, and resolution
3.
Character：Characters are
imaginary people that writers create.
•Concerned with being able to establish the personalities of the
characters and to identify their intellectual, emotional, and moral
qualities.
•Concerned with the techniques to create and develop
characters.
•Concerned with whether the characters are credible and
convincing.
The major, or central, character of the plot is the
protagonist
The opponent, the character against whom the protagonist struggles
or contends, is the antagonist .
Flat characters are those who embody or represent a single
characteristic, trait, or idea, or at most a
very
limited number of such qualities. (type characters, one-dimensional
characters)
Round characters are just the opposite. They embody a number of
qualities and traits, and are
complex
multi-dimensional characters of considerable intellectual and
emotional depth.
Most
importantly, they have the capacity to grow and change.
4. Setting
Setting is both the physical locale that frames the action
and
the time of day or year, the climatic conditions, and the
historical period during which the action takes place.
The functions of setting:
Setting as a background for action.
Setting as antagonist
Setting as means of creating appropriate atmosphere.
Setting as a means of revealing character.
Setting as a means of reinforcing theme.
5. Point of view
The method of narration that determines the position, or angle of
vision from which the story is told.
Commonly used points of view
Third-person point of view omniscient
Third-person point of view limited
First-person point of view
6. Language and style
Style consists of diction (the individual
words an
author chooses) and syntax (the arrangement of those
words) , as well as such writing devices as rhythm
and sound, allusion, ambiguity, irony, paradox, and
figurative language.
Each writer’s style is unique. It
constitutes his
“signature” in a way that sets his work apart.
42. Methods of Characterization
Characterization through the use of names.
Characterization through appearance.
Characterization by the author.
Characterization through dialogue.
Characterization through action.
43. Diction: the type and quality of the individual words that
comprise an author’s basic vocabulary.
The denotative meaning of words,
The connotative meaning;
The degree of concreteness or abstractness;
The degree of allusiveness;
the parts of speech they represent;
The length and construction;
The level of usage they reflect (standard or nonstandard; formal,
informal, or colloquial);
The imagery they contain;
The figurative devices (simile, metaphor, personification, etc)
they embody;
44. Syntax
The ways the author arranges words into phrases, clauses, and
finally whole sentences to achieve particular effects.
The length—whether they are short, spare, and
economical or long
and involved;
The form—whether they are simple, compound, or
complex;
45. Construction of sentence
Loose sentences that follow the normal subject-verb-object pattern,
stating their main idea near the beginning in the form of an
independent clause,
Periodic sentences that deliberately withhold or suspend the
completion of the main idea until the end of the sentence,
Balanced sentences in which two similar or antithetical ideas are
balanced.
46. Historical novel
A novel where fictional characters take part in actual historical
events and interact with real people from the past.
Examples:
Sir Walter Scott: Ivanhoe, Waverly
James Fennimore Cooper:
The Last of the Mohicans
47. Romanticism
politically: a reaction against industrial revolution and the
social system
literarily: a reaction against Neo-classicism; concerned with
imagination and personal feeling instead of the power of ration /
reason
philosophically: It stresses individualism instead of
social order.
①Artistic feature
verse form: lyrics,
odes（颂，赋）, sonnets, ballads
diction: fresh, simple, commonly used colloquial language
themes: the beauty and mysticism of nature; simple, common rural
life; facts and ideas of revolution
②Definition
Romanticism: a movement in art and literature in the 18th and 19th
centuries in revolt against Neoclassicism of the previous
centuries.
Friedrich Schlegel defined it as “literature depicting emotional
matter in an imaginative form.”
Victor Hugo’s phrase 'liberalism in literature' is also apt.
③Characteristics
Imagination, emotion, and freedom are the focal points of
romanticism. Any list of its particular characteristics includes
subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism; spontaneity; freedom
from rules; solitary life rather than social life; beliefs that
imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty; love of
and worship of nature; and fascination with the past, especially
the myths and mysticism of the middle ages.
④English romantic poets:
William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats
American romantic poets:
Ralph W. Emerson, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry D. Thoreau, Herman Melville, Walt
Whitman
⑤Romantic Literature
a
negative attitude toward the existing conditions of political,
economic, and social life under the firm rule of the bourgeoisie,
though such an attitude came from writers of quite different class
stands:
--- some speaking for the feudal aristocracy;
--- some for the patriarchal
peasantry;
--- some for the new industrial
proletariat.
Lakers/ Lake Poets (The Passive Romantic Poets): Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Southey
–criticized industrial capitalism by advocating the return to the
patriarchal society of the past
Active Romantic Poets: Byron, Shelley, Keats
--attacked the tyranny and exploitation of both feudalism and
capitalism and called on the oppressed people to rise against their
earthly tyrants
The conflict between the two camps was not simply one of personal
hatred, but in a way stood for the broad social struggle between
the landed aristocracy and the oppressed multitude of the English
people.
48. Differences between the 18th & the 19th century; between
Neoclassicism & Romanticism:
reason vs passion
reason vs imagination
commercial vs natural
industrial vs pastoral
present vs past
society vs individual
order and stability vs freedom
decorative expression vs simple and
spontaneous
expression
49. Lakers/Lake Poets:
(Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey) radical youth;
conservative old
age
--had radical inclinations in their youth but later turned
conservative and received favors from the great.
–criticized industrial capitalism
by advocating the return
to the patriarchal society of the past
--attacked by Byron
