The Romantic Period ： An Overview

1. The Historical Background 1.1 Domestic Turmoil

1.2 Global Revolutionary Atmosphere

2. Literary Trend

1.1 Domestic Turmoil The capitalists (the bourgeois class) The proletarian class Class conflicts aggravated to an

unprecedented degree. (Luddites’ movement of 1811-1816)

The Industrial revolution brought with it modern machinery, and modern industry, industrial capitalism and the proletariat. All the working people lived in dire poverty, mercilessly exploited by the bourgeoisie. The first workers’ struggle broke out, finding expression in the spontaneous movement of the Luddites (Luddite, any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed labor-saving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment), who broke machines to show their hatred of the capitalists and capitalist exploitation. Economic exploitation and political struggle between the industrial Capitalists and the proletariat for the first-time in English history became the major social conflict in that country.

1.2 Global Revolutionary Atmosphere England’s relationships in the last phase of the 18th

century with Ireland, Scotland, and her colonies in North America has become critical. (the uprising in Ireland, the American War of Independence)

The French Revolution

Ideas of democracy, equality, and freedom were disseminated among the populace.

On July 14, 1789, the Parisian people stormed the Bastille. This marked the outbreak of the French Revolution. Not only laboring people but even some feudal aristocrats and part of the bourgeoisie in England showed their sympathy toward the French revolution (The slogan is to realize liberty, equality and fraternity.) of 1789 when it first overthrew France’s age-old monarchical and aristocratic tyranny, but as the radical Jacobins came into power, the ruling classes in England became frightened. Under the banner of fighting Jacobinism, the British Government carried on a policy of supporting the “Holy Alliance”, i.e., the union of kings, or the union of reactionary Europe, to suppress the French Revolution and the democratic movements in England.

After the battle of Waterloo in 1815, the reactionary measures of the British ruling class became even more frantic, resulting in the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, when hundreds of workers were killed and wounded by the troops during a mass rally demanding political reform for which the working people had been fighting for years.

The industrial bourgeoisie who had emerged as a political force since the industrial revolution began to fight for supremacy in political power with the landed aristocrats and commercial bourgeoisie. Finally came the so-call parliamentary reform of 1832,which brought the industrial capitalists into political power, but the poor people who support them in the fight of reform got nothing from it, except great poverty and intensified exploitation in the 1830s and 1840s.

2. Literary Trend

Following the Enlightenment and its impact on literature, there was a period of literature in Western Europe generally known as the Romantic Movement (in Germany, England and France) Taken as a whole, the literature of the Romantic Movement, whether in England, Germany or France, expressed a more or less negative attitude of the different social strata of the time toward the existing social and political condition that came with the industrial revolution and the growing importance of the bourgeoisie.

In England, amid social conflicts romanticism arose as a new literary trend.

Romanticism is a broad movement that affected the whole of Europe (and America). English Romanticism, as a historical phase of literature, is generally said to begin in 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads 抒情歌谣集 by Wordsworth and Coleridge, and ended in 1832 with Sir Walter Scott’s death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in the Parliament.

Generally speaking, the romanticists expressed the ideology and sentiment of those classes and social strata who were discontented with, and opposed to, the development of capitalism. But owing to difference in political attitudes, they split into two schools: passive or active romanticists:

To quote Gorky’s words, “Two sharply contrasting tendencies should be

distinguished in romanticism, the passive and the active. Passive romanticism endeavors to reconcile man with his life by embellishing that life, or to distract him from the things around him by means of a barren introspection into his inner world, into thoughts of life’s insoluble problems, such as love, death and other imponderables…Active romanticism strives to strengthen man’s will to live and raise him up against the life around him, against any yoke it would impose. ”

Passive romanticists ， by way of protest against capitalist development ， turned to the feudal past, the “merry old England” as their ideal, or “frightened by the coming of industrialism and the nightmare towns of industry, they were turning to nature for protection.” The representatives are Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey. (They follow the same path in politics and poetry, beginning as radicals and closing as conservatives. They have often been mentioned as the “Lake Poets” because they lived in the Lake District in the northwestern part of England. ).湖畔 ( 派 ) 诗人 (18 世纪末到 19 世纪初英国消极浪漫主义诗歌流派 )

Passive romanticists endeavors to reconcile man with his life by beautifying that life, or to distract him from the things around him by means of a barren introspection into his inner world, into thoughts of life’s insoluble problems 不能解决的问题 , such as love, death and other imponderables 无法精确估量的事物 .

Active romanticists: They expressed the aspirations of the class

(proletariat) created by capitalism and held out an ideal, though a vague one, of a future society free from oppression and exploitation. The representatives are: Byron, Shelley, and Keats. They are revolutionary romanticists.

In contrast to the rationalism of the enlighteners and neoclassicists in the 18th c, the romanticists paid great attention to the spiritual and emotional life of man. Nature also plays an important role in their life. Poetry, of course, is the best medium to express all these sentiments. The Romantic Period was one of poetical revival.

It was in effect a revolt of the English imagination against the neoclassical reason which prevailed among enlighteners.

Wordsworth and Coleridge were major representatives. Wordsworth called for simple themes drawn from simple life expressed in the language of ordinary people. Lyrical Ballads defines poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”.

Characteristics of Romanticism

An increased appreciation of the beauty and power of nature.

A celebration of emotion and the senses (feeling, intuition) rather than of reason and intellect. Enlighteners regard poetry as an art governed by rules. Romanticists think that art should be free from all rules.

An emphasis on imagination as a means to attain spiritual truth. Imagination is the vital faculty. The Romantics extol 赞美 the faculty of imagination, but also evaluate the concepts of spontaneity and inspiration, regarding them crucial for true poetry.

Glorification of the commonplace (ordinary) An interest in the past, the unusual, the

unfamiliar, the bizarre or the picturesque. Individual introspection and self-examination

(belief in individuality and freedom) as opposed to a search for a universal truth.

Representative Poets

William Wordsworth 威廉 · 华兹华斯1770~1850

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 塞缪尔 · 泰勒 · 科尔律治 1772~1834

George Gordon Byron 乔治 · 戈登 · 拜伦1788~1824

Persy Bysshe Shelley 波西 · 比希 · 雪莱1792~1822

John Keats 约翰 · 济慈 1795~1821

I wandered lonely as a cloud

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

He is the representative poet of passive Romanticism.

He emphasized the liberating aesthetic.Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey have o

ften been mentioned as the “Lake Poets” because they lived in the Lake District in the northwestern part of England.

Lyrical Ballads

Writting style2) Theme: broke with tradition, seeking h

is subjects in the small happenings of country life and the talk of countrymen, children, and doings and feelings of humble people, and emotion from his inner heart.

1) Influenced from the spirit of the French Revolution.

3) Language: He stuck to emphasizing the purest by simplest words.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

------William Wordsworth

我好似一朵孤独的云 华兹华斯

I wondered lonely as a cloud I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance Tossing their heads in sprightly dance

The waves beside them danced, but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: - A poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company: I gazed -and gazed -but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills And dances with the daffodils.

我好似一朵孤独的云 华兹华斯（顾子欣）

我好似一朵孤独的流云， 高高地飘游在山谷之上， 突然我看到一大片鲜花， 是金色的水仙遍地开放。 它们开在湖畔，开在树下 它们随风嬉舞，随风飘荡。

它们密集如银河的星星， 像群星在闪烁一片晶莹； 它们沿着海湾向前伸展， 通往远方仿佛无穷无尽； 一眼看去就有千朵万朵， 万花摇首舞得多么高兴。

粼粼湖波也在近旁欢跳， 却不如这水仙舞得轻俏； 诗人遇见这快乐的旅伴， 又怎能不感到欢欣雀跃进； 我久久凝视 -- 却未领悟 这景象所给的精神至宝。

后来多少次我郁郁独卧， 感到百无聊赖心灵空漠； 这景象便在脑海中闪现， 多少次安慰过我的寂寞； 我的心又随水仙跳起舞来， 我的心又重新充满了欢乐。

Writing skills 写作技巧

Music language: Edgar Allan Poe onced described poetry as “music…combined with a pleasure idea”

Masculine rhyme （阳刚之韵） in “a b a b c c”

Alliteration & simile (figurative language) Assonance & consonance &personification Alteration between iambic tetrameter and ia

mbic trimeter ( 在抑扬四步格和三步抑扬格之间转换

Appreciation of the poem 诗歌赏析

This is the poem about nature and describing the great power of nature which may influence our life deeply as revealed in the poem

There are pictures and poetry in pictures------“ 诗中有画画中有诗”苏轼赞誉王维 not only the visual effect but also the emotional response

The word “lonely” rather than carefree leisure or jolly

The shift of the poem’s mood from sadness to happiness manifests the theme---the great influence of nature upon human being

Themes

1. Nature’s beauty uplifts the human spirit(line 15, 23,24 specially refer to this theme)

2. People sometimes fail to appreciate nature’s wonders as they go about their routines(17 &18)

3. Nature thrives unattended. The daffodils proliferate in splendor along the shore of the lake without the need of the human attention

主题思想分析这是华兹华斯抒情诗的代表作之一，写于 1804 。

此诗符合他关于诗歌应描写“平静中回忆起来的情感”这一诗学主张

全诗分为俩个部分：写景和抒情诗人力图在一种迷离恍惚和模糊的瞬间感受中去领

悟人生的真谛。在诗人的笔下大自然的美景具有治愈人们心灵创伤

的能力。华兹华斯真是凭着这样一种艺术的直觉将自然美与人类之间的联系解释得淋漓尽致！