4 十八世纪英国文学：理性的时代

1、18thCentury English Literature,Major contents:,Politcal and social background of British 18th-century: early fragile stability; later turbulence Ideological and intellectual background of 18th century: an age of reason Three stages of literary creations in poetry, prose fiction and drama,18th-century British poetry from Neoclassicism to Sentimentalism and Pro-Romanticism * 18th-century British prose fiction, social realistic and psychological expressive* 18th-century drama: realistic tradition,P

2、olitical and social: Glorious Revolution in 1688: the establishment of constitutional monarchy and political dualism and capitalism Extensive land enclosure: intensified misery of agricultural proletarians and popular uprisings Industrial Revolution in the second half of 18th century: the first powerful capitalist country and a world factory Colonial and commercial expansion: continued wars with France in North America and in India Wide spreading influence of American Revolution(1775-81) and Fre

3、nch Revolution in 1789: liberty, fraternity and equality,(I) Political and social background of 18th century:,(II) Ideological and intellectual background of 18th century:,Enlightened British 18th Century: An Age of Reason 18th Enlightenment movement: a progressive bourgeois intellectual movement doubting all traditional concepts and believing in the power of reason for the establishment of an idealized reign of the bourgeoisie with eternal truth, eternal justice, natural equality and inalienabl

4、e right of man,Renaissance Britain: An age of humanism,Medieval Britain: An age of God and church,“Nature and Natures Laws lay hid in Night. God said, let Newton be! and all was Light.” Intended for Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster-Abbey 牛顿墓志铭by Alexander Pope,A new view of universe: mechanical,Concerning Human Understanding Two Treatises of Government,A new religion: Deism,A new literary dominance in the first half of the century: neoclassicism and its dictator Alexander Pope,“Sentimentalism, I

5、suppose, means, roughly speaking, indulgence in emotion for its own sake. The sentimentalist does not weep because painful thought are forced upon him but because he finds weeping pleasant in itself. He appreciates the luxury of grief But the general sense that something is not in order in the general state of things, without as yet any definite aim for the vague discontent was shared by the true sentimentalist.” -By Leslie Stephen,Sentimentalism : one literary trend in the middle and later deca

6、des of 18th century,Due to the radical social and ideological changes (misery for the laboring masses, cruelty of the capitalist relations; the gross social injustices) and the growing disillusionment of the rosy promises of the bourgeois society A mild protest against the unsatisfactory society Indulgence in sentiment as a reaction against anything rational Advocating the cult of sentiment to take the place of that of reason, which the bourgeois society was supposed to built upon Limitation: fa

7、il to realize the inevitability of the Industrial revolution and the progressive aspect of the great social changes; indulge in sentiment for its own sake; vainly sign for the return of patriarchal times which is erroneously idealized,The background for Deism: The nature of the universe became a kind of mechanical universe as it was likened to a clock which God made but left ticking away on its own laws. People learn through their experience of feeling, seeing, touching, measuring and weighing,

8、and reason is of the primary importance in learning to understand the whole concept of God and Trinity and inspire people to believe that they can deduce the nature of God by looking around his creation, that religion is based on reason, not revelation, and that God works through general laws and not the tablets He gave to Moses.,The doctrine of Deism: Deism believe in the existence of God without any reliance on revealed religion, religious authority or holy books, typically rejecting supernatu

9、ral events such as prophecy and miracles, tending to assert that God (or “The Supreme Architect“) has a plan for the universe that is not to be altered by intervention in the affairs of human life. The world owed its existence to God and the best way to worship God was to worship His creation man, nature, and the world as a whole Formal religion disappeared, which became private and personal, not intermingled with public affairs God did not object to people not believing in Him, and that the best way to serve God was to do good to man.,On Deism,To understand Neoclassicism through Alexander Pope,“Some to Conceit alone their Taste confine, And glittering Thoughts struck out at every Line; Pleased with a Work where nothings just or fit; One glaring Chaos and wild Heap of Wit; Poets like Painters, thus, unskilled to trace The naked Nature and the living Grace, With Gold and Jewels cover every Part, And hide with Ornaments their Want of Art. True Wit is Nature to Advantag

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