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English Romanticism
English
Romanticism
begins
in
1798
with
the
publication
of
Wordsworth
and
Coleridge
’
s
The
Lyrical
Ballads
and ends in 1832 with Walter
Scott
’
s death. William
Blake and Robert Burns also belong to
this literary genre, though they live prior to the
Romantic period.
English Romanticism is a revolt of the
English imagination against
the
neoclassical
reason.
The
French
Revolution
of
1789-1794
and
the
English
Industrial
Revolution exert great influence on English
Romanticism. The romanticists
express
a
negative
attitude
towards
the
existing
social
or
political
conditions.
They
place the individual at
the center of art, as can be seen from Lord
Byron’s
Byronic
Hero.
The
key
words
of
English
Romanticism
are
nature
and
imagination.
English
Romantic tend to be
nationalistic, defending the greatest English
writers. They argue
that poetry should
be free from all rules.
Lake poets
Wordsworth,
Coleridge
and
Southey
were
known
as
Lake
Poets
because
they
lived
and
knew one another in the last few years of the 18th
century in the district of the
great
lakes in Northwestern England. The former two
published The Lyrical Ballads
together
in
1798,
while
all
three
of
them
had
radical
inclinations
in
their
youth
but
later
turned
conservative
and
received
pensions
and
poet
laureateships
from
the
aristocracy.
Karl Marx likes Byron and Shelley very
much. MU Dan
（穆旦
/
查
良铮）
，
a renowned
Chinese poet
and translator
, did
splendid work to popularize Byron
and
Shelley in
China.
Other greatest Romantic poets are: John
Keats, P.B. Shelley and G
.
G
. Byron.
Years
ago, Wordsworth and Coleridge were labeled
“
negative romantic
poets
”
while
Byron
and
Shelley
were
hailed
as
“
positive
(revolutionary)
Romantic
poets
”
.
Wordsworth
and
Coleridge
’
s
literary
achievements
were
underestimated
for
a
long
time.
Feminist
works
Mary Wollstonecraft
wrote
A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman
in 1792.
Gothic novel is a type of
romantic fiction that predominates in the late
18th century
and continues to show its
influence in
early 19th century. Its
principal elements are
violence, horror, and the supernatural.
Frankenstein
(1818) by Mary
Shelley and
The
Mysteries
of
Udolpho
(1794)
by
Ann
Radcliffe
are
masterpieces
of
English
gothic
novel.
English fiction
gropes its way amidst the overwhelming Romantic
poetry. It revives
its popularity in
the hands of Jane Austen & Walter Scott.
Walter Scott is noted for his
historical novel based on Scottish history and
legends. He
exerted great influence on
European literature of his time.
Jane
Austen
is
the
first
and
foremost
English
women
novelist.
Following
the
neoclassical
tradition,
she
is
unsurpassed
in
the
description
of
uneventful
everyday
life.
Essayists in English Romanticism
Essayists
William
Hazlitt
Charles Lamb
Coleridge
Representative works
Familiar essays
Essays of
Elia; Tales from Shakespeare
Biographia Literaria
William Wordsworth
Wordsworth is the most representative
poet of English Romanticism. He was labeled
as
“negative
Romantic
poet”
by
Karl
Marx
In
1795
he
，
his
sister
Dorothy
Wordsworth and
Coleridge became “three people with one
soul” in literary history.
In 1798, Wordsworth and Coleridge
published their
Lyrical
Ballads
.
His
major works
Wordsworth
’
s
fame
lies
chiefly
in
his
short
poems
.
His
short
poems
fall
into
2
categories: poems about nature and
poems about human life.
His
best
known
poems
of
nature
include:
The
Daffodils
(
I
Wandered
Lonely
as
a
Cloud), Tintern Abbey, To the Cuckoo,
My Heart Leaps up, To a Butterfly, An Evening
Walk, & The
Sparrow
’
s Nest.
His best
known poems about
human life include: Lucy Poems, The
Solitary Reaper
and The Old Cumberland
Beggar, Michael, & To a Highland Girl.
Wordsworth wrote many
sonnets
. His famous sonnets
are:
Earth Has Not Anything to
Show
More
Fair
(Written
Upon
Westminster
Bridge)
,
On
the
Extinction
of
the
Venetian Republic, &
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of
Switzerland.
His
best known
long poem
is
The Prelude.
Brief Comments
Wordsworth is the representative poet
of English romanticism
Wordsworth
’
s
poetry
is
distinguished
by
the
simplicity
and
purity
of
his
language.
Wordsworth
’
s
theory on versification has exerted profound
influence on later
poets.
(mimesis
模仿
--imaginative
recreation)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Major works
Demonic poems
?
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
?
Kubla Khan
?
Christabel
Conversational poems
?
Frost at Morning
?
Dejection: An
Ode (
沮丧）
Essays
?
Biographia Literaria
?
Lectures on
Shakespeare
George Gordon
Byron (1788-1824)
Major works
Long Poems or Collections
Hours of Idleness
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
Childe
Harold
’
s Pilgrimage
Don Juan
Best known single poems in China
When We Two Parted
She Walks in
Beauty
The Isles of Greece
(from Don Juan)
Sonnet on Chillon
Brief comments
Byron
’
s poetry is
based upon his own experience. His heroes are more
or less
pictures of himself. His hero
is known as
“
Byronic
Hero
”
, a proud, mysterious
rebel
figure
of
noble
origin.
For
such
a
hero,
the
conflict
is
usually
one
of
rebellious individual against outworn
social systems and conventions.
The figure is, to some
extent, modeled on the life and personality of
Byron.
Byron’s poetry
exerts great influence on the Romantic Movement.
He stands
with
Shakespeare
and
Scott
among
the
British
writers
who
exert
great
influence over the
mainland of Europe.
P. B.
SHELLEY (1792-1822)
Percy
Bysshe
Shelley
Shelley
is
one
of
the
greatest
English
lyrical
poets.
His
poems
abound with personification, metaphor and other
figures of speech.
Major works
Ode to the West
Wind
西风颂
To a
Skylark
云雀颂
The
Cloud
云
Prometheus
Unbound
解放了的普罗米修斯》
Queen Mab
麦布女王
The Masque of Anarchy
专治魔王的化装游行》
The
Necessity of
Atheism
《无神论的重要性》
A Defence of
Poetry
《诗辩》