英语文学2 简单整理 英美文学考试整理的资料.docVIP

I Romanticism As a literary movement it came earliest in Germany in the late 18th century; it began in England a little later, with the romantic precursors in late 18th century and then the great romantic poets in the last years of the 18th century and the first two decades of the 19th century; and it arrived last in France, flowering in the early 19th century. It revolts against the Enlightenment of the 18th century as well as the Neoclassicism of the previous centuries. It is either defined as literature depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form or as liberalism in literature. Imagination, emotion, and freedom are certainly the focal points of romanticism. Origins of Romanticism The origin of Romanticism lies in the philosophy of Frenchman J. J. Rousseau and the writings of German J W von Goethe. Rousseau championed individualism and freedom of thought: “I felt before I thought.” Goethe advocated inspiration. Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) provide the basis for much of the later Romanticism. The Age of Romanticism (1798-1832) English Romanticism is generally defined to begin in 1798 with the publication of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge’s the Lyrical Ballads and end in 1832 with Sir Walter Scott’s death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in Parliament. Two Groups of Romanticists The Romanticists split into two groups because of the different attitudes toward the capitalist society. Some romanticists expressed the aspiration of the labouring classes. They held out an ideal of future society free from oppression and exploitation. They were the firm supporters of the French Revolution. They are represented by Lord G. G. Byron and P. B. Shelley and John Keats. These poets were all precocious and intense, and had tragically short lives.Their own aspiration and ideals are in sharp contrast to the common, sordid daily life under capitalism. Their writings are filled with strong-willed heroes or even titanic images, formidab