英国文学各时期文学的特点
Chapter 1 The Renaissance Period
Time: Generally, it refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries.
The Renaissance （文艺复兴）: The Renaissance is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.
Humanism (人文主义): Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. “Man is the measure of all things.” Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are the best representatives of the English humanists.
Mainstream of Literary Forms: In the early stage of the Renaissance, poetry and poetic drama were the most outstanding literary forms and they were carried on especially by Sh
akespeare and Ben Jonson. The Elizabethan drama, in its totality, is the real mainstream of the English Renaissance.
Chapter 2 The Neoclassical Period
Time: Between the return of the Stuarts to the English throne in 1660 and the full assertion of Romanticism which came with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798.
steeleSocial Events: Glorious Revolution （光荣革命）; British colonies (Abroad); Acts of Enclosure （圈地运动）(At home); The Enlightenment Movement （启蒙运动）. The Enlightenment Movement: The 18th century England is known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement which purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. The enlighteners celebrated reason or rationality, equality and science. They held that rationality or reason should be the only, the final cause of any human thought and activities. They called for a reference to order, reason a
nd rules. They believed that when reason served as the yardstick for the measurement of all human activities and relations, every superstition, injustice and oppression was to yield place to “eternal truth,” “eternal justice” and “natural equality”. Great writers like John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele, the two pioneers of familiar essays, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Henry Fielding and Samuel Johnson.
Neoclassicism: In the field of literature, the Enlightenment Movement brought about a revival of interest in the old classical works. This tendency is known as neoclassicism. According to the neoclassicists, all forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers. They believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity.
This belief led them to seek proportion, unity, harmony and grace in literary expression, in an effort to delight, instruct and correct human beings, primarily as social animals. Thus a
polite, urbane, witty, and intellectual art developed. Neoclassicists had some fixed laws and rules for almost every genre of literature. Prose should be precise, direct, smooth and flexible. Poetry should be lyrical, epical, didactic, satiric or dramatic; Drama should be written in the Heroic Couplets (英雄双韵体诗).
In the last few decades of the 18th century, the neoclassical emphasis upon reason, intellect, wit and form was rebelled against or challenged by the sentimentalists, and was gradually replaced by Romanticism.
Novel: The mid-century was predominated by a newly rising literary form---the modern English novel. Gothic novels---mostly stories of mystery and horror which take place in some haunted or dilapidated Middle Age castles.
Chapter 3 The Romantic Period
Time: From 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads to 1832 with Sir Walter Scott’s death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in the Parliament.
Social Events: French Revolution; English Industrial Revolution.
Romantic Movement: The Romantics saw man essentially as an individual in the solitary state and emphasized the special qualities of each individual’s mind. Thus we can say that Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit. In essence, it designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and all experience.
Major Figures: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelly and Keats. Theme: Imagination and Nature
Major Literary Forms: Poetry (best), prose, novel (Jane Austen and Walter Scott). Drama is less successful.
Chapter 4 The Victorian Period
Time: Queen Victoria who ruled over England from 1836 to 1901. The period has been ge
nerally regarded as one of the most glorious in the English history.
Social Events: Reform Bill （改革法案）；Chartist Movement (宪章运动)；Theme: Common sense and moral propriety, which were ignored by the Romanticists, again became the predominant preoccupation in literary works. Theory of “art for art’s sake”: Osca r Wilde and Walter Pater
Utilitarianism(功利主义): Utilitarianism was widely accepted and practiced. Almost everything was put to the test by the criterion of utility, that is, the extent to which it could promote the material happiness. Dickens, Carlyle, Ruskin and many other socially conscious writers severely criticized the Utilitarian creed, especially its depreciation of cultural values and its cold indifference towards human feelings and imagination

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