英国文学第21讲.doc

 英国文学第二十一讲 ※
Basic Objectives
1. John Keats’ life, literary contribution and features
2. Charles Lamb’s life, literary contribution and features
Knowledge Enlargement
1. Appreciation of “On the Grasshopper and Cricket” by Keats
2. Brief introduction of Gothic novel and its influence
3. Charles Lamb’s peculiarities and his position in development of English essay
Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Textbook: A Short History of English Literature by Liu Bingshan
Students: English Majors, Grade Three
Procedures
Part 6 English Critical Realism
III. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 – 1863)
1. Life
① He was born in India and his father was an English official there, who died when he was four and left a large sum of money to him.
② He was educated in the public school and Cambridge, but he left university without taking a degree.
③ Because of the bankrupt of the bank where he deposited his money, he had to make a living by writing articles for newspapers and magazines.
④ His first literary success came from a series of satirical sketches named “The Snobs of England”. This book is a prelude to his later works because it contains all the important ideas expressed in his later novels.
⑤ His masterpiece “Vanity Fair” was published in 1847 – 1848.
⑥ He also wrote some other novels including “Pendennis”, “The Newcomes”, “Henry Esmond” and “The Virginians”. However, these novels can’t match with “Vanity Fair”. You may read the introduction about these novels by yourself.
2. “Vanity Fair”（《名利场》）
① Background
·The title of the novel comes from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.
·The subtitle of the book is “A novel without a hero”. Originally, Thackeray wanted to use this as the title of the novel because his intention was not to portray individuals, but the bourgeois and aristocratic society as a whole. And it also means there are no positive characters in the novel according to the author.
② Story
Read the story from P368 to P369 by yourself.
③ Theme: attacking the social relationship of the bourgeois world. Obtaining wealth and social position is most important thing in everybody’s minds in such an evil society.
④ Characterization
·Becky Sharp: example of money-grubbing instinct, employing all kinds of possible ways to obtain money and social position, gifted and shrewd
·Amelia Sedley: tame, sentimental, shallow and useless
* Thackeray’s cynical attitude made his clever characters rogues and virtuous characters fools.
⑤ Conclusion
This one is a classical novel in English literature.
3. Comparison between Thackeray and Dickens
They were contemporaries and representatives of critical realism. They were both novelists, humorists and criticized the Victorian society satirically.
Their differences:
① The world described by Thackeray was a different one from that of Dickens. Thackeray mainly described the lives of aristocrats and rich people, whereas Dickens’ chief contribution was his description of the common people, like Olive Twist.
② Dickens was a sentimentalist. He liked to seize every opportunity to arouse the emotions of his readers. He was noted for his pathetic scenes. Thackeray was a cynic who saw no good in anything and doubted the goodness of human nature. Even in pathetic scenes, he was like a spectator.
③ Unlike Dickens, who advocated social reforms, Thackeray was not a crusader for good causes.
④ Whereas Dickens was a romanticist in many aspects, Thackeray was against all romantic conventions. He once said “I have no brains above my eyes; and I describe what I see.” His satire is never personal like Pope’s or brutal like Swift’s and is tempered by humor. He presented his characters as they are real in life. He recorded their shortcomings with their capacities. Some critics thought that his characterization is more subtle that Dickens’. The former’s creations are “round, entire, and quite alive and convincing.”
VI. Female writers in the Victorian Age
1. Jane Austen (1775 – 1817)
She didn’t belong to the Victorian Age. She lived in the Romantic Age but her novels were anti-romantic.
①Life
·She was born in a countryside clergyman’s family.
·She was educated at home and never married in all her life.
·She only lived 42 years and only lived in her hometown with occasional visits to London.
·She passed all her life in doing small domestic duties and lived a comfortable and peaceful life.
②Works
·She wrote 6 novels: “Northanger Abbey”（《诺桑觉寺》），“Sense and Sensibility”（《理智与情感》）, “Pride and Prejudice”（《傲慢与偏见》）, “Mansfield Park”（《曼斯菲尔德庄园》）, “Emma”（《艾玛》） and “Persuasion”（《劝导》）。
·Austen’s novels were not so popular in her days. But they turned out to be more and more popular and especially in the 20th century. Now Austen’s novels were regarded as classical novels in English literature.
· “Pride and Prejudice” is most widely read among all Austen’s novels. It tells a story about love and marriage between two young people, Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy. It is a very thin plot but the author made a vivid description on the daily life of simple country society.
The first chapter of the novel is always included in those anthologies. The first sentence of the novel is famous now, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
The story opens with a direct reference to money marriages. But you may feel confusing about Austen’s attitude towards money marriages. Of course, it seems to be the author’s intention to create two vivid pictures out of the hero and heroine, with the former typifying “pride” and the latter “prejudice”, but the fact remains that Darcy’s huge estate and high social position are not only most satisfied to Elizabeth’s parents and to herself. The youngest daughter Lydia married with a poor officer, which was considered as a much less fortunate marriage in the novel. How to understand the author’s attitude towards the money marriage? It is closely related with the values Austen held. We’ll analyze it in the following part.
③ Features
·Austen was a traditional and conservative person in certain degree, who held the moral values proposed in Christianity. She thought people should have self-control and self-knowledge. And at the same time people should be practical and responsible. Maybe this is the reason why Austen didn’t like the radical romantic passion popular in her age. Her novels were similar with the novels produced in the critical realism trend.
·She never included any contents related with those political and social upheavals in her age. Her novels only centered on the small world around her. She especially liked to write novels concerning with love and marriage between young ladies and gentlemen from well-to-do families. And she was good at create young women characters.
·Her novels includes keen observation and penetrating analysis of human nature and human relations though she only portrayed those characters from middle and high classes.
·Her novels are humorous and with numerous witty dialogues and some modest satire.
·She herself once compared her work to a fine engraving made upon a little piece of ivory only two inches square. This is an excellent comment.
Homework
·Preview the contents related with the Bronte sisters, Mrs Gaskell and George Eliot.