英国文学史Lecture 10 English Critical Realism and others.pptVIP

I. Victorian Age 1.1 Introduction It refers to the period of the reign of Queen Victoria, from her accession in 1837 and her death in 1901, but the era of literature is from the passage of the first Reform Bill（改革法案） in 1832 to the end of the Boer War（布尔战争） in 1902. The summit of Victorian literature is realistic novel. The Victorian age also produced two great English poets: Browning Tennyson. 1.2 Definition of some terms 1). The chartist Movement The English workers got themselves organized in big cities and brought forth the People’s charter, in which they demanded basic rights and better living and working conditions. They, for three times, made appeals to the government, with hundreds of thousands of people’s signatures. The movement swept over most of the cities in the country. Although the movement declined to an end in 1848, it did bring some improvement to the welfare of the working class. This was the first mass movement of the English working class and the early sign of the awakening of the poor, oppressed people. 2). Utilitarianism Almost everything was put to the test by the criterion of utility, that is, the extent to which it could promote the material happiness. This theory held a special appeal to the middle-classed industrialists, whose greed drove them to exploiting workers to the utmost and brought greater suffering and poverty to the working mass. 3). Critical Realism ?The Victorian Age is an age of realism rather than of romanticism ---a realism which strives to tell the whole truth showing moral and physical diseases as they are. To be true to life becomes the first requirement for literary writing. As the mirror of truth, literature has come very close to daily life, reflecting its practical problems and interests and is used as a peaceful instrument of human progress. ?so far as the literary form is concerned, the major contribution made by the 19th century critical realists lies in their perfection of the novel. T