美国文学史-Romanticism.pptVIP

Lecture 3 Lecture 3 American Romanticism (1800—1860s) I. A Review on the Features of English Romanticism 1、The Spontaneous Overflow of Powerful Feelings Romantic poems take as their subject matter the experience, thoughts and feelings of the individual writer, or natural and human objects as modified by the writer’s feelings. In neoclassical theory, poetry was primarily an “Art”, which must be perfected by long study and practice; while Wordsworth and his followers laid emphasis on the emotion and untrammeled imagination. 2、? The Creation of a World of Imagination Turning away from the crisp “wit” of the 18th century, the Romantic poets found undiscovered countries in their own imaginations. By vivid imagination, the Romantic writers were capable of fantastic dream worlds, thus much of romantic literature has magical or miraculous effects. ? 3、? The Return to Nature for Material To an extraordinary degree, Romantic writers took the world of nature as a persistent subject of their poetry, and described it with an accuracy of observation unprecedented in earlier writers. The natural scene in Romantic poetry is not presented for its own sake, but serves as a stimulus to thought, therefore Romantic nature poems are meditative poems. In addition, Romantic poems often fill the natural scene with human life, passion, and expressiveness, or give them symbolic meanings. 4、 Sympathy with the Humble and Glorification of the Commonplace Romanticism was marked by intense human sympathy, and by a consequent understanding of the human heart. The romantic writers sympathized with the poor and cried against oppression and glorified the commonplace. Unlike the classicists before them, Romantic writers turned to describe humble people, everyday life, trivial things, and familiar matters. ?5、 Emphasis Upon the Expression of Individual Genius The Romantic period is also an age of radical individualism. Emphasis was not placed on what huma