32. ―Merry England‖ is a term used by the first generation of Romanticism.
33. With the establishment of the Jacobin dictatorship in France, Wordsworth’s
attitude toward revolution changed into conservative.
34. Austen was the first woman writer to touch the theme of the predicament of the
women.
35. The themes of Austen’s novels are marriage, love, domestic duty.
36. Scott was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and became the founder of historical
novels.
37. Scott marked the transition from romanticism to the period of realism which
followed it.
38. Wordsworth’s best poems are of nature.
39. The Preface to Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge served as the
manifesto of Romanticism.
40. In 1843 Wordsworth was made Poet Laureate.
41. Thomas Gray, Robert Southey, and William Wordsworth were all Poet Laureate. 42. As an essayist and critic, Lamb’s best-known work is his two volumes of the
Essays of Elia together with his sister, Mary Ann Lamb. He also adapted Shakespeare’s plays into stories for children.
43. The style of Lamb’s essays is characterized by its humor, familiarity and
archaism.
44. Mr. Bennet’s favorite daughter is Elizabeth.
45. The significance of Preface to Lyrical Ballads: In the Preface to the Lyrical
Ballads, Wordsworth set forth his principles of poetry. He based his own poetical theory on the premise that good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. He appealed directly to individual sensation as the foundation in the creation and appreciation of poetry. Ordinary peasants and children may be used as subjects in the poetic creation. As to the language used in poetry, Wordsworth endeavored to bring language near to the real language of men.
46. Lake poets refer to the first generation of romanticism including Wordsworth
Coleridge and Southey. They once lived around the lake districts and traversed
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the similar attitude toward literature, politics and society, beginning as radicals and ending in conservatives.
47. The significance of the sentence ―It was a truth universally acknowledged that a
single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife‖: It tells the theme of the novel— marriage. It implies the plot— the process of finding a marriage partner. It implies the characters— young men and women. It tells the reader the convention of the society. It implies the style of the novel— irony. 48. Features of Scott’s historical novels: He has a gift of vivifying the past. In his
novels, historical events are closely interwoven with the fates of individuals. When Scott describes historical events, he is concerned not only with the lives and deeds of kings, statesmen and other historical figures, but is always mindful of the fates of the ordinary people such as peasants. Scott is a romantic. Scott is a Tory, i.e. a conservative in politics.
49. Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice: Mrs. Bennet is a woman of mean
understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. The business of her life is to get her daughters married. Her daily life is occupied with gossips.
50. Pre-romanticism: In the latter half of the 18th century, a new literary movement
arose in Europe, called the Romantic Revival. It was marked by a strong protest against the bondage of Classicism, by a recognition of the claims of passion and emotion, and by a renewed interest in medieval literature. In England, this movement showed itself in the trend of Pre-Romanticism in poetry, which was ushered in by Percy, Macpherson and Chatterton, and represented by Blake and Burns.
51. Romanticism is a movement that flourished in literature, philosophy, music and
art in Western culture during most of the nineteenth century, beginning as a revolt against classicism. There have been many varieties of Romanticism in many different times and places. Many of the ideas of English romanticism were first expressed by the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 52. The beauty of nature in ―I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud‖: It is represented by
setting. Hills, vales, lakes, bays and the daffodils are parts of nature. Daffodils
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symbolize the beauty of nature.
53. Austen’s writing features: Jane Austen is one of the realistic novelists. She drew
vivid and realistic pictures of everyday life of the country society in her novels. Austen’s work has a very narrow literary field. She confines herself to small country parishes, whose simple country people became the characters of her novels, but within her own field, she is unrivaled. Her novels show a wealth of humor, wit and delicate satire. Her pots are straight-forward; there is little action. Her characters are like real living creatures, with faults and virtues mixed as they are in real life. Her prose flows easily and naturally. Her dialogue is admirably true to life.
54. The Qualities of Romanticism.
1) the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. 2) the creation of a world of imagination. 3) the return to nature for material.
4) sympathy with the jumble and glorification of the common place. 5) emphasis upon the expression of individual genius. 6) the return to Milton and the Elizabethans for literary models. 7) the interest in old stories and medieval Romances. 8) a sense of melancholy and loneliness. 9) the rebellious spirit.
Chapter Six
English Literature of the Victorian Age
主要内容： 1. Critical Realism
2. Charles Dickens: (写作阶段，作品，贡献)：Oliver Twist, David Copperfield,
Great Expectations
3. William Makepeace Thackeray: The Vanity Fair 4. Charlotte Bront?: Jane Eyre
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5. Emily Bront?: Wuthering Heights 6. George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss
7. Thomas Hardy (novelist) : Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, The
Mayor of Casterbridge
8. Alfred Tennyson: In Memoriam, The Idylls of the King 9. Robert Browning: ―My Last Duchess‖, The Ring and the Book 10. Dramatic Monologue
11. Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism
12. Thomas Carlyle: The French Revolution, A History, Hero and Hero Worship 13. John Ruskin: Modern Painters 14. Aestheticism 15. Walter Pater
16. Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray, An Ideal Husband 重点掌握:
1. The Charitst Movement appeared in the thirties of the 19th century. It showed
the English workers were able to appear as an independent political force and were already realizing the fact that the industrial bourgeoisie was their principal enemy.
2. Dickens is a novelist, clerk and reporter.
3. The first period of Dickens’ writing is marked by youthful optimism. 4. The second period of Dickens writing is marked by irritation.
5. In the novel A Tale of Two Cities, Dr. Manette is a typical bourgeois
intellectual. He sympathizes with the poor and defends the oppressed people, but feels terrified before the fire of revolution.
6. A Tale of Two Cities belongs to the first writing phase of Dickens’s career,
and the two cities are London and Paris.
7. Mary Ann Evans was the original name of George Eliot.
8. The central characters of The Mill on Floss are Tom and his sister Maggie. 9. The Great Three of the Victorian age are Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot. 10. The ―Big Three‖ in Victorian poetry are Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold.
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11. The Idylls of the King is written by Tennyson.
12. In Memoriam is written by Tennyson in memory of his friend Hallam. 13. Dramatic monologue was created by Browning. 14. ―My Last Duchess‖ is a dramatic monologue.
15. ―The history of the world is the biography of the great men‖ can sum up the
book Heroes and Hero-worship.
16. Hardy started as a poet and ended as a poet.
17. Both Hardy’ s poems and novels are transition from Realism to Modernism. 18. Wuthering Heights deals with a story of love and violence.
19. Thomas Hardy believes that man’s fate is predeterminedly tragic, driven by a
combined force of ―nature‖, both inside and outside.
20. Stevenson is the representative of Neo-romanticism in the novel writing at
the end of the 19th century.
21. The Picture of Dorian Gray was written by Oscar Wilde.
22. The subtitle of Vanity Fair---A Novel without a Hero emphasizes the fact that
the writer’s intention was not to portray individuals but the society as a whole. 23. The title of the novel Vanity Fair is suggestive of that Vanity Fair in
Bunyan’s masterpiece Pilgrim’s Progress, where all sorts of vanities are on sale.
24. Monks tried hard to trap Oliver Twist.
25. From 1833 to 1850, Tennyson wrote a series of elegies related to the death of
his friend. In Memoriam comprising 131 lyrics with a prologue and epilogue was written in octosyllabic quatrains all rhyming abba. The poem was clearly divided into four parts by three Christmas sections (Sections 28, 78 and 104). Prior to the first Christmas (Sections 1-27), the poet showed his early intense responses and feelings to Hallam’s death.
26. Dramatic monologue is a type of poem in which a character, at some specific
and critical moment, addresses an identifiable but silent audience, thereby unintentionally revealing his or her essential temperament and personality. 27. Women novelists in 18th and 19th centuries focused on 1) Love and marriage;
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