英美文学导论课程辅导（1）[Spenser, Shakespear, Bacon]
EDMUND SPENSEER (1552?---1509)
Spenser was born in a rather poor family, his father being a journeyman cloth maker, but later he claimed to be related to the aristocratic Spenser family of Althorpl. However, the Merchant Taylor’s school he attended was one of the greatest Humanistic schools of the English Renaissance, where he received a solid education and learned classic languages and literary masterpieces. It was at this school that Spenser came to know Edmund Frindal, an examiner at the school and later Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom Spenser paid tribute in The Shepherd’s Calendar in 1579. He carried on his education in Pembroke College, Cambridge as a sizar, a student who offered services in exchange for a scholarship. In this college, he was instructed by Dr. Joseph Young, who later became Bishop of Rochester, and Spenser worked for a short time for him as a secretary. These church authorities represented the religious views with which Spenser identified himself. Spenser took a B. A at Cambridge in 1573 and an M.A in 1576. After a brief service in the household of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whom Spenser deeply respected and Portrayed in the person of Arthur in The Faerie Queene, he became secretary in 1580 to Lord Grey of Wilton, who was at the time Lord Deputy of Ireland and who later appeared in the person of Artegall in The Faerie Queene. Except for an interruption of two years (1590---1591) and short visits to England, Spenser spent the rest of his life in Ireland for as long as 18 years, during which period he held a succession pf posts, such as Clerk of the Chancery for Faculties and Clerk of the Council of Munster. After he became prebendary of Limerick Cathedral, he was assigned in 1586 by the government Kilcolman Castle near Cork with 3028 acres of land, which was part of the forfeited estate property form the Earl of Desmond after the failure of his insurrection. It was at this time that Sir Walter Raleigh visited Ireland and listened to Spenser recite the completed sections of The Faerie Queene. In the autumn of 1589, Spenser sailed back to England with Sir Walter Raleigh and visited the court of Queen Elizabeth. He was granted a pension for life in 1591 of 50 pounds in recognition of the presentation of the first 3 books of The Faerie queene to Queen Elizabeth. He had also a yearly salary and a considerable dowry brought to him by marrying Elizabeth Boyle in 1594. In Ireland Spenser continued to lead the life of a landed gentleman and was made the Sheriff of Cork. But the historical, social and economic situation in Ereland was deplorable. The military suppression of the Desmond insurrection was very cruel. However, Spenser supported Lord Grey in taking severe methods. In A View of the Present State of Ireland, he approved of using sword and famine as instruments to change Ireland in the way England wanted. Yet the Irish people never ceased their fight. In 1598 the long dangerous rebellion of Tyrone O’ Neill broke out. Kilcoman Castle was burned down and Spenser was driven from his home. He arrived in London on Christmas Eve of 1598, and in less than a month, he died in poverty.
Spenser’s first important work is The Shepherd’s Calendar, a pastoral poem in 12 parts, one for each month of the year. It is written in the tradition of Virgil’s verse dialogues in a rural setting with shepherds and shepherdesses who adopt classical, French, or English peasant names. The poet’s intention is to give different description of the English countryside at each particular time of the year, but the main themes embodied in the poem are love, poetry, and religion. The Shepherd’s Calendar set the pastoral fashion in English literature, and inaugurated the great lyrical poetry of the last two decades of the 16th century.
His major achievement, The Faerie Queene, is an unfinished allegorical romance. According to Spenser’s original plan there should be 12 books, each telling the adventures of one of the 12 knights dispatched by the Faerie Wueene, Gloria, who represents Glory and Queen Elizabeth in particular. In the introductory letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, Spenser explicitly states his intentions. He says that the book is to be “ a continued allegory” and the theme is to “fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline.” Spenser’s historical period, that of the Renaissance, was greatly concerned with the idea of “gentleman”, which is a kind of humanistic parallel to the medieval idea of the “saint”. According to the thought of the day, the virtuous man is one who knows how to govern him, and thus is qualified to govern others. In The Faerie Queene, Spenser makes a distinction between “ethical” virutes and “political” virtues. Although Aristotle once said that “the good citizen may not be a good man” the good citizen is one who does good service to his state, and the state may be had in principle” (politics), he still identifies the good ruler with the good man. Spenser follows the idea of Aristotle’s and tries to demonstrate it in The Faerie Queene in the education of the young future rulers. The central character, Arthur before he was king, is presented as such a good man, not only wise politically but also perfected in the 12 moral values as devised by Aristotle. However, Spenser only completed six of the books, in which the six virtues of Truth, Temperance, Friendship, Justice, Chastity, and Courtesy are presented.
Spenser regards the poet as an inspired teacher, who teaches through giving pleasure. He takes up the epic form, and unites the classical and Christian traditions with the Renaissance ideas. In The Faerie Queene he paints one picture after another in the emblems of the baroque style and employs images and similes like those we see in Homeric epic poetry. Spenser also contributes greatly to the form and technique of poetry composition. His verse lines are very melodious, but he seldom allows lyricism to outrun the narrative structure. Moreover, his nine-line Spenserian stanza creates a special musical effect, and is very suitable to the subject matter he deals with.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564---1616)
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, a small town to the northwest of London. His father was a burgher, a well-to-do glove maker and later became an alderman of the town. Shakespeare may have attended the grammar school of the town where he may have learned “little Latin and less Creek”, as noted by his contemporary Ben Johnson. From various records it is clear that his father John Shakespeare, having enjoyed prosperity in business for some time, became less prosperous and Shakespeare might have helped him in his butcher’s shop. A bond dated Nov. 26, 1582, affords clear evidence that Shakespeare married with Anna Hathaway of Stratford. At this time Shakespeare was only eighteen, and the bride was eight years older. It was very probable that it was a hurried marriage because their first child Susanna was christened on May 26, 1583. The fact that the child was born only six months after the marriage suggests that it was a forced marriage and an ill-matched one.
In 1584 Shakespeare left his native town. Why he did so remains a mystery. The most popular explanation was that he was prosecuted by a big landlord for poaching on his estate. Then until 1592 when he reappeared as a rising actor, Shakespeare disappeared from view. During the period he is said to have wandered through the country, finally coming to London, where he performed various mean jobs, including holding horses at a theater. The most recent attempt to bridge the gap in his life is a suggestion that he may have spent much of the time in the Low Countries in service in the armies of the Earl of Leicester.
The earliest record of Shakespeare’s career is a reference in Robert Greene’s essay in which Shakespeare is mentioned as “an upstart crow…in his own conceit the only shakescene in a country.” In 1594 his name appeared on the payroll of Lord Chamberlain’s company of actors, or Lord Chamberlain’s men at the Globe Theatre.
Shakespeare probably began to write plays around 1590, at first in collaboration with other playwrights or engaged in revising old plays. Then his two narrative poems were published. Venus and Adonis (1593), a poem about the love between a handsome young man, Adonis, and the goddess of love and how the youth was killed by a wild boar. The Rape of Lucrece (1594) is about a Roman lady who was raped and committed suicide and how she was avenged. They were dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. It was the custom of the time to write poems to the noblemen and get their patronage.
Shakespeare’s career as an actor and playwright stretched for more than twenty years. Many of his plays were popular and quite a number of them were published in his lifetime without his knowledge. After his death a collection of his plays, 37 in all, were published in folio form by two of his friends in 1623. In the early years of his career Shakespeare was a shareholder in the playhouse. In 1611 or 1612, he retired or partly retired from London and went back to live in his native town. His rising pretension during the years of his success may be indicated by the fact that he bought a coat of arms for his father in 1596. He died in Stratford in 1616.
Shakespeare’s writing career may be roughly divided into four stages:
The early years were years of his apprenticeship, dating from 1592 to 1594. During this period he wrote his early history plays or histories and a group of comedies. They are King Henry VI in three parts (1590-1592), Richard III (1593), Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594), and Love’s Labour Lost (1594). This is a period of experimentation. It is marked by imitation of existing plays, by the spirit of youthfulness and rich imagination, by exaggerated language and by the frequent use of rhymed couplets.
The second period is a period of rapid growth and development, dating from 1595 to 1600. Such plays as Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), Romeo and Juliet (1596), The Merchant of Venice (1597), the two parts of Henry IV (1597-1598), As You Like it (1598), Julius Caesar (1599), and Henry V (1599), were all written in this period. They show more careful and artistic work, better plot, and a marked increase in the knowledge of human nature.
The third period is a period of gloom and depression, dating from 1601 to 161608. It is a period of his tragedies, such as Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604), King Lear (1605), and Macbeth (1605).
The fourth period is a period of restored serenity, from 1608 to 1612. It is a period of calm after storm, with such plays as The Winter’s Tale 91610) and The Tempest (1611).
Any summing up of Shakespeare’s achievements will be inadequate. However, the following points may be of some help to readers:
1. Shakespeare represented the trend of history in giving voice to the desires and aspirations of the people. After long years of domestic and foreigh wars, both the people and the newly risen bourgeoisie were longing for peace under a strong monarch who would unite the whole country. In the first two periods, Shakespeare wrote a number of plays of England as their background. The whold length of the historical period from Richard II, who was the last medieval king and was displaced by Henry IV, to the defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth by Henry VII,, was covered by Shakespeare in his plays. So his plays include the whole transitional period of England from medieval time to modern time. The Elizabethans saw in these plays the deposition of Richard II, the military birtues of Henry V, the War of the Roses and the rising of the tudor family, i.e., a whole period of historical transition. It is also true that in the gallery of kings Shakespeare directly or indirectly indicates his view of an ideal king in Henry V who in his youth mixed among the common people and who in a crucial moment won fame by defeating the French army. In the victory of Henry V we see the victory of the new age over the feudal age. The education of Prince Hal, his acquaintance with all strata of life, and his refusal of the extremes of riot (Falstaff) and vain glory (Percy) shows the growth of an ideal king. Shakespeare’s history plays, therefore, are permeated with patriotism and a feeling of national grandeur.
2. Shakespeare’s humanism: More important than his historical sense of his time, Shakespeare in his plays reflects the spirit of his age. The sudden awakening of national glory was inseparable with the sudden discovery of the glory that man found in himself. This humanist outlook prevails in his comedies as well as in his late gragedies. And we can trace the change in his humanism. In his early stage,, his plays were permeated with optimistic spirit, no matter whether in comedies or tragedies. He had firm belief in the nobility of human nature and in the power of love. People were innocent and were looking at the world with a wonderful eye as if their eyes were newly open to the wonder of the world. Man, who had been debased in the Medieval Age, was now master of himself, and could overtcome evils and wickedness in this world. Even in the tragedy this is clear in the dialogue between Romeo and Juliet in the garden when Romeo compares Juliet to the Sun and her eyes to the two “fairest stars in all the heaven”. But as the years went on Shakespeare became more mature and his knowledge of human nature grew in depth. The more he knew about human nature, the more he was depressed at the ugliness and baseness of human nature. This pessimistic outlook appears in his tragedies. However, the human dramatist at last overcome spiritual crisis and recovered his faith in human nature and wrote the beautiful romances which ended his career.
3. Shakespeare’s characters are “round”, in the sense that they have many aspects or dimensions. In his characters, vice and virtue commingle and that is true of the common sense of humanity. They are different from the wooden puppets that the stock-in-trade of the inferior dramatists. For example, Richard III is, in a way, a hero as well as a villain, his psychology being far from simple. Shylock in The merchant of Venice, is not simply a villain, an alien devil, who is bad because he does not accept the religious and social standard of the gentiles, but also a figure of power and dignity whose speech and behavior, for all his conventional villainy, almost redeems him as a tragic hero.
4. Shakespeare’s originality: Shakespeare drew most of his materials from sources that were known to his audience; some from Roman dramas, some from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and some from other writer’s plays. But his plays are original because he instilled into the old materials a new spirit that gives new life to his plays. The best example is Hamlet, which bears many resemblances to Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.
5. Shakespeare as a great poet:: Shakespeare was not only a great dramatist, but also a great poet. Apart from his sonnets and long poems, his dramas are poetry. They are rich in images, conceit, metaphors and symbols. He was well versed in writing lyrical verse as well as poetry of great passion and agony. His style varies with the different moods he expressed. It can be lyrical, poetical, ecstatic, pathetic, cynical, sarcastic, and ironic.
6. Shakespeare as master of the English language: Shakespeare was the master of the English language. It is estimated that he had a command of about 15,000 words. Many of his quotations and phrases have been absorbed into the English language. He was especially successful in handling the different meanings of the same word, or words having the same sound but different meanings.
FRANCISS BACON (1561 ---1626)
Though Bacon was Shakespeare’s contemporary, he is generally regarded as the chief figure in English prose in the first half of the 17th century and his essays began the long tradition of the English essay in the history of English literature.
Becon was born in London. His father was Lord Keeper of the Seal during Queen Elizabeth’s reign. He studied at Cambridge and was brought up with an aversion to medieval scholasticism. He left Cambridge after he had been there for two years. Then he pursued the study of law, gaining admission to the bar in 1582. He was a good friend of the Earl of Essex, who had been the Queen’s favorite. But he betrayed him when the Earl was found guilty of treason. During the reignog James I he was appointed Lord Chancellor. But he was charged with bribery and corruption by Parliament when the popular dissatisfaction against the king and his agents was mounting. Bacon admitted himself guilty of “corruption and neglect”, but he also admitted there was much political corruption in the country. He was punished, dismissed from his office, fined 40,000 Pounds and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was released a few days later and spent the last five years of his life in the pursuit of literary and scientific works. The way he died is a well-known anecdote in the literary history of England. Bacon thought that snow might be used as a preservative instead of salt. He bought a fowl and began his experiment but died of the cold he caught during the experiment.
As a philosopher, Bacon is praised by Marx as “the progenitor of English materialism” because he stressed the importance of experience, or experiment, which is in direct opposition to the superstitution and scholasticism of the Middle Ages.
Bacon’s 58 essays were published in 1625. They are the author’s reflections and comments, mostly on rather abstract subjects, such as “Of Truth”, “Of Friendship”, and “Of Riches”. They are known for their conciseness, brevity, simplicity, and forcefulness.
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688)
As Milton was the chief Puritan poet, so Bunyan was the chief Puritan writer of prose. Bunyan was born in a tinker’s family, and he himself was a tinker. He did not have much education and at sixteen he joined the parliamentary army and then became a preacher. Like Milton he was put into prison in the period of the Restoration, but remained there much longer. He might have written his work The Pilgrim’s Progress in prison although it was published in 1678 after his release.
The Pilgrim’s Progress is written in the old fashioned medieval form of allegory and drama. The book opens with the author’s dream in which he sees a man “with a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back”. The man is Christian the Pilgrim, the book is the Bible, and the burden on his back is the weight of worldly cares and concerns. It tells how Christian starts his pilgrimage from his home to the Kingdom of Heaven, and of his experiences and adventures on his journey.
In the western world the book has usually been read and appreciated as religious allegory, though critics have noted that the many allegorical figures and places Christian meets on the way are such as might have been seen in Bunyan’s day on any English market road and that the landscape and houses in the story seem to be no other than those of Restoration England. It gives a real picture of how life was during the 17th century. It is a faithful panoramic reflection of Bunyan’s age. The book’s most significant aspect is its satire, which without doubt is directed at the ruling classes. Especially well known is the description of the Vanity Fair. Here Bunyan gives a symbolic picture of London at the time. In bourgeois society, all things are bought and sold, including honor, title, kingdom, lusts; there cheating, roguery, murder, and adultery prevail. The punishment of Christian and Faithful for disdaining things in the Vanity Fair may have its significance in alluding to Bunyan’s repeated arrests and imprisonment for preaching.
After all, like Milton, Bunyan in his book is preaching his religious views. He satirizes his society which is full of vices that violate the teaching of the Christian religion. However, his Puritanism weakens the effect of his social satire by exhorting his readers to endure poverty with patience in order to seek the “Celestial City”. Besides, the use of allegory in most of his works makes his satirical pictures less direct and more difficult to see. His books are more often read as religious books than as piercing exposures of social evils.
Bunyan is known for his simple and lively prose style. Everyday idiomatic expressions and biblical language enables him to narrate his story and reveal his ideas directly and in a straightforward way. The influence of his prose in the development of the English language is great, on account of the great popularity of the book.
DANIEL DEFOE (1661-1731)
Daniel Defoe is known as a pioneer novelist of England, and also a prolific writer of books and pamphlets on a great variety of subjects. He was born in London 31 years after Bunyan on the very eve of the Restoration. His father, a poor but hard-working Presbyterian butcher, wanted his son to become a clergyman. Because his father was a Dissenter, Daniel was deprived of the right of a normal education. He attended a Dissenting academy where he was prepared for future service as a Presbyterian minister. However, recognizing his own independent and ambitious nature, he soon decided against the ministry and chose the business world instead. After a short apprenticeship, Daniel started on his own. In a few years he became quite prosperous, dealing in haberdashery, i.e., men’s wears, and even running a kiln to make bricks. Consequently, he changed his surname from Foe to Defoe, a name that suggested a genteel birth, and got married happily. Yet, not long afterwards, poor speculations and investments led to heavy losses in business. He went bankrupt and got into a debt amounting to 17,000 pounds. He then turned to writing for a living, and his interest was so broad that his writings ranged from political pamphlets and conduct books, to articles and books about trade, about the development of London as a big metropolis, etc.
Restoration England was ruled by the re-established Stuart House. The restoration monarchy was strongly anti-Protestant. Defoe, though rather questionable as a political character --- once serving both the Tory and the Whig parties and working secretly as a government spy, was all his life a staunch believer in religious freedom. He wrote pamphlets protesting against religious persecutions enforced by the king’s policies. “The Shortest Way with the Dissenters” mockingly adopted the tone of an intolerant Tory and argued that the best way to solve religious disputes was to kill the people of the Dissenting sections. Because of this pamphlet, Defoe was sentenced to three months in Newgate prison and, in addition, standing in pillory for three days. He faced the humiliation of public exposure bravely and wrote “Hymn to the Pillory”. The poem was quickly spread all over London and Defoe became a public hero. While an jail in 1704, Defoe started a periodical, The Review, which he later made into an organ of ecclesiastical and political moderation and of broad commercial interests.
When Defoe was released, he was in great financial straits with all his money gone and a family wrecked by poverty. It was at this time that he compromised his principles and pledged to support Queen Anne and the Tory party, but he could not silence his true religious feelings. So several years later his writings landed him twice more in prison. However, he never stopped his creative activities until at the age of 60, with the publication of Robinson Crusoe, a long imaginative literary masterpiece, he was finally recognized as a major English novelist. In the ensuing years from 1719, the year when Robinson Crusoe first came out, to 1731 when he died, Defoe wrote and published a number of other fictitious or semi-fictitious works, such as Captain Singleton (1720). Moll Flanders (1722), A Journal of the Plagure Year (1722), Colonel Jack (1722), and Roxana (1724).
Defoe was a self-made man. During his early years as a business man he traveled widely on the Continent and learned half a dozen European languages. He had an active mind and showed extraordinary energy, taking interests in a great many things. Besides fiction, Defoe is also known for his contribution to the beginning of English journalism and trade. He is called by some people father of modern journalism, because he not only ran The Review himself, but also wrote articles on various subjects, amounting to more than 250 in number, for about 26 magazines and periodicals. His early involvement in trade led to his life-long devotion to regulating English trade methods and principles, and effort seen in his books such as A General History of Trade and The Complete English Tradesman. His versatility as a merchant, economist, politician, journalist, pamphleteer, and novelist is rarely equaled in English history.
Two of his novels are worth special mentioning here. One is Robinson Crusoe, the complete title being The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe and the other is Moll Flanders, or in its full title The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders.
Robinson Crusoe is based on a real incident. In 1704, Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor, was thrown onto a desolate island by the mutinous crew of his ship. He lived there alone for 5 years. Defoe read about his adventures in a newspaper and went to interview him to get first-hand information. He then embellished the sailor’s tale with many incidents out of his own imagination. Robinson Crusoe has the appearance of a picaresque novel, showing a lowly person’s wanderings over the world. However, there are some fundamental changes in Defoe’s book. A picaro (Spanish for a rogue) is somebody with a doubtful moral character who does not have a fixed goal in life. Nor does he care much about accumulating money. Robinson Crusoe is in fact a new species of writing, which inhabits the picaresque frame with a story in the shape of a journal and has a strong flavor of journalistic truth. The hero is typical of the rising English bourgeois class, practical and diligent, with a restless curiosity to know more about the world and a desire to prove individual power in the face of social and natural challenges. Defoe attaches great importance to the growth of Crusoe and tries to teach a moral message through his story. Crusoe starts an inexperienced, naïve and tactless youth, who through years of tough sea travels, develops into a clever and hardened man. He is tempered and tried by numerous dangers and hardships, but he always emerges victorious. He is a real hero, not in the sense of the knight or the epic hero in the old literary genres, but a hero of the common stock, an individualist who shows marvelous capacity for work, boundless courage and energy in overcoming obstacles and a shrewdness in accumulating wealth and gaining profits. In Robinson Crusoe Defoe sings the praises of labor, presenting it as the source of human pride and happiness as well as a means to change man’s living conditions from desperation to prosperity. But at the same time, through relationship with Friday and his activities of setting up colonies overseas, Defoe also beautifies colonialism and Negro slavery. His attitude toward women, though not much concerning women is said in the novel, is also open to criticisms. For he lets Crusoe treat women as articles of property and as a means to breed and establish a lineage. But on the whole, this novel is significant as the first English novel, which glorifies the individual experience of ordinary people in plain and simple language, and also as a vivid and positive portrayal of the English bourgeoisie at its early stage of development.
Moll Flanders is artistically a more mature piece than Robinson Crusoe. It is written in an autobiographical form called memoir. Moll was the daughter of a woman who had committed theft and was later transported to Virginia. She gave birth to Moll in Newgate Prison. Moll is brought up in the house of a stranger and becomes a maid soon after she enters her youth. She is very pretty and is seduced by the elder of the two brothers of the family for which she works, though she marries the younger one instead. When the younger son dies, Moll is left to the toil of her destiny. She starts her sad long life of sins, during which she marries many a time, becomes a kept mistress between marriages, and once even blindly unites herself in matrimony with her half brother. When she grows old, she has to turn to stealing and cheating to support herself. Finally she is caught and thrown into the Newgate like her mother, where she meets James, the husband whom she once really cared for. They are both transported to Virginia. There she meets her mother, who leaves Moll a plantation. With this plantation and the money Moll has carefully saved, the couple finally settles in the new country and starts a decent life.
In Moll Flanders, Defoe introduces, for the first time, a lowly woman as the subject of literature. And it anticipates many later novels that take women as the center of attention in order to expose how the social system victimized those like Moll. At Defoe’s time there were many popular novels and stories about the lives of villains or rogues. However, Moll’s life story is a departure from those, because those novels indulge in dramatizing the tricks and immoral schemes the anti-hero or heroine adopts in order to achieve his or her purposes. Therefore, those works remain at the level of mere entertainment literature. Moll Flanders, on the other hand, has entered serious literature with a grave social theme and a character of some weight who, though not yet a round character in the modern sense, has a development through her personal ups and downs and gives us a glimpse into her conflicting inner world. Moreover, in structure, Moll Flanders shows a progress over Robinson Crusoe. Whereas in the seaman’s story, the narrative slides along the hero’s route of adventures, in Moll’s story Defoe makes an effort to achieve a structure that begins with the mother’s Newgate experience and ends with the daughter’s similar experience in the same prison. And in the middle of the novel, through Moll’s encounter with her half brother, the beginning threads of her origin are picked up and the prospect of an ending in which the mother is once more united with Moll is anticipated.
THOMAS GRAY (1716 –1771)
Although neo-classicism dominated the literary scene in the 18th century, there were poets whose poetry had some elements that deviated from the rules and regulations set down by new-classicist poets. These poets had grown weary of the arificiality and controlling ideals of neo-classicism. They craved for something more natural and spontaneous in thought and language. In their poetry, emotions and sentiments, which had been repressed, began to play a leading role again. Another factor marking this deviation is the reawakening of an interest in nature and in the natural relations between man and man. Among these poets, one of the representatives was Thomas Gray.
Gray was born in London and educated at Eton and Cambridge, where he, after a grand tour on the Continent, spent the rest of his life. He was first a Fellow and in 1768 was appointed professor of history and modern languages. On his return form the Continent, he stayed for a short time at Stoke Poges in Bucks, where he first sketched “The Elegy Written in a County Churchyard”, though it was finished eight years later in 1750. Gray was buried at Stoke Roges.
Shelley was born of noble blood. His ancestors had been Sussex aristocrats since early in the 17th century. At eighteen he entered Oxford University after he had graduated from Eton. But he was expelled from the university for the publication of a pamphlet On the Necessity of Atheism (1811). His father forbade him to return home. He eloped with a young girl, Harriet Westbrook. In 1813 he published his first important poem Queen Mab, an allegorical poem in which through the mouth of Queen Mab, the fairy queen, he attacks “kings, priests, and statesmen”, and human institutions such as marriage, commerce, and religion. The fairy queen finally predicts the future state of regenerated world when “all things are recreated, and the flame of consentaneous love inspires all life.” For the atheist idea in the poem, he was indebted to William Godwin (1765-1836), a radical who published The Inquiry concerning Political Justice (1793). In 1814, Shelley met Godwin and fell in love with his daughter Mary Godwin. Her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), a champion for women’s rights and the authoress of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Although Godwin was an atheist and believed in free love, he did not allow his daughter to be Shelley’s lover and the two eloped. In 1816 Harriet committed suicide and this caused a scandal. Shelley’s enemies launched attacks on him and Shelley had to leave England for good in 1818, and spent the rest of his life in Italy with his wife Mary Shelley. In Italy Shelley met Byron again, and the two poets became close friends. On July 8, 1822, Shelley was drowned in a tempest while sailing in a boat along the coast of Italy. His ashes were buried in Rome
Besides Queen Mab Shelley wrote a number of other allegorical poems. They are Alastor (1816), The Revolt of Islam (1818), The Mask of Anarchy (1819). He also wrote some lyrical dramas among which are Prometheus Unbound (1820), Hellas (1822), and The Cenci (1819), a tragedy in verse form. On the death of Keats he wrote an elegiac poem Adonais (1821). His lyrics are best known among the English poets. The most well known is Ode to the West Wind (1819). Besides poetry Shelley also wrote prose. The Defence of Poetry was written in 1821 and published in 1840 after the poet’s death.
JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)
Unlike Shelley, Keats was born in London, of lowly origin. His father was a hostler and stable keeper and then married his employer’s daughter. When he was eight, his father died, and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was fourteen. His guardian forced him to leave school at fifteen and apprenticed him to a surgeon. For five years he served his apprenticeship and then worked as the surgeon’s helper for two years. In 1817 he abandoned his profession and published his first collection of poems. In 1818 he published his long allegorical poem Endymion, which was about the love between a Greek shepherd and the moon goddess. Both collections were severely attacked by conservative critics. It is said that the attacks were the cause of his illness that took away his life. He went on writing, however, and most of his best poems were written in the short three years from 1817 to the time of his death.
JANE AUSTEN (1775---1818)
Jane Austen is one of the greatest and best loved novelists in English literature, and one of the most important pioneers in the English realistic novel. She bought the English novels, as an art form, to its maturity. In her novels, one can find the rationalism of newclassicism, the viatlity of romanticism, and the truthfully detailed description of realism.
As the daughter of a country clergyman, her life was uneventful. She was wholly engaged in doing small domestic duties in the countryside and writing novels. She wrote six novels all together: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion, among which Price and Prejudice is considered her masterpiece
Austen’s novels describe a narrow range of society and events: a quiet, prosperous, middle class circle in provincial surroundings which she knew well from her own experience. Her subject matter is also limited, for most of her novels deal with the subject of getting married, which was in fact the central problem for the young leisure-class lady of that age, who had no other choice in her life but to find a good husbandd. Austen chose this subject also because it could best reveal her characters’ personalities. Moreober, Austen was the first to bring to light what was to be one of the principal themes of the later 19th century nove, the predicament of the individual, particularly of the woman, who requires personal fulfilment in society and finds that the society makes it difficult to realize the desire.
Although writing about country life, Austen’s interest was not in natural scenery, but in human nature; in her depiction of human nature, instead of being fascinated by great waves of elevated emotion, by passion or heroic experience, she focused on the trivial and petty details of everyday living, which became very interesting through her truthful and lively description. Austen is much gifted in character portrayal, especially in drawing young girls whom she understands well.
Austen’s novels are brightened by their witty conversation and omnipresent humour. Her stories are skillfully woven together; her plots never leave the path of realism, and have always been sensible. Her language shines with an exquisite touch of lively gracefulness, elegant and refined, but never showy.
She herself compared her work to a fine engraving mad up on a little piece of ivory only two inches square. The comparison is true. The ivory surface is small enough, but the lady who made the drawings of human life on it was a real artist.
CHARLES Dickens (1812-1870)
Dickens was born at Portsmouth in 1812. His father was a clerk in a Navy Pay Office. His grandparents were servants in an aristocrat’s house. John Dickens, his father, though a kind-hearted man, did not know how to take care of his financial situation and always ran into pecuniary troubles. He was put into the debtors’ prison when Dickens was only eleven years old, and while the family was living in the prison, Dickens was living by himself and working in the underground cell of a shoe blacking factory. Although he was there only for half a year, this experience of his childhood left such a deep impression on his mind that it became a recurring subject in his novels. When he was fifteen years old, he worked as a clerk in a lawyer’s office, where he met all kinds of people, and his experience there provided him with an inexhaustible source for his creative work. While working there, he spent his spare time in learning shorthand and later became a parliamentary reporter, noting down in shorthand the speeches made by the members of Parliament and hurriedly sending his notes to the printing house to be published. These years as a reporter further enriched his knowledge of various classes in society. In 1836 he published his first book Sketches by Boz (1836). In the same year The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836-1837) began to appear in a fortnightly magazine in installments, which rapidly brought him fame and wealth. This book was followed by Oliver Twist (1847-1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), and Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844). In the years 1843-1845 appeared his Christmas stories, which include A Christmas Carol, the Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth. In these stories Dickens showed his profound sympathy for the poor and described how the rich were converted after undergoing severe tests. These stories are permeated with the spirit of brotherhood and are regarded as representatives of the spirit of Christmas.
After 1844, Dickens, being a wealthy man, spent most of his time on the Continent of Europe. The revolutionary fervor of the forties both in England and on the Continent inspired him to write novels of bitter social criticism, such as Dombey and Son (1848), Bleak House (1853), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1857), and Our Mutual Friend (1865). In 1858 Dickens began to give public readings which continued until his death.
Dickens’ artistic technique can be summarized as below:
1. Dickens has a tendency to depict the grotesque (very odd or unusual, fantastically ugly or absurd) characters of events. This is true in his characterization and in his description of scenes. Most of Dickens’s characters have a peculiar habit, manner, behavior, dress, and catch phrase of his or her own. Evidently in this respect, Dickens was under the influence of Ben Johnson’s comedies of humours, in which each character has his or her own peculiar humour.
2. Dickens loves to instill life into inanimate things and to compare animate beings to inanimate things. For example, in Hard Times he compares the up and down movement of engines in a factory to the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness, and the smoke in the air above to snakes trailing themselves for ever and ever. In Martin Chuzzlewit he compares the hypocritical Pecksniff to a direction post, which always points out the direction for other people to go but it never moves an inch towards the direction it is pointing.
3. Dickens is noted for his description of pathetic scenes that aims to arouse people’s sympathy. Pathos is a distinctive quality in Dickens’s writings. Though we may feel it affected, the readers of Dickens’ time had great love of pathetic scenes as they were fond of melodramas which were very popular in their time and which are a kind of naively sensational entertainment with the main character either excessively virtuous or excessively evil. Dickens knew what his readers liked, and he loved to avail himself of every opportunity to appeal to the emotions of his readers.
THE BRONTE SISTERS
When G.K. Chesterton said, “The novel of the 19th century was female”, he must have been referring to the emergence of a number of brilliant woman writers whose works gave voice to the feelings and aspirations of the educated women of their age.
By “the Bronte sisters” we are referring to Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), the authoress of Jane Eyre (1847), Emily Bronte (1818-1848), the authoress of Wuthering Heights (1847), and Anne Bronte (1820-1849), the authoress of Agnes Grey (1847)
How the Bronte sisters became writers is a mystery to western scholars. Except for short visits to Brussel by Charlotte and Emily and their brief stay at a boarding school for clergymen’s daughters (the likeness of which was described by Charlotte in Jane Eyre) where two of their elder sisters contracted tuberculosis and died like Helen Burns in the novel, the sisters were practically living in isolation, in a distant village of Haworth, a lonely village set in the wild moors of Yorkshire. A moor is a wild open, often raised area, covered with heather, rough grass, or how bushes and is not farmed because of its bad soil.
Some critics said that the Brontes inherited their strong emotion from their parents. For their father was an Irishman who was born into a peasant family and by working hard managed to enter Cambridge and became a clergyman. Their mother was born in Cornwall, a place where most of the population are of Celtic origin. The Celtic blood explains their strong emotions and their audacity in the search for spiritual integrity.
Another factor was the moorland, which was not yet corrupted by the evils of society. Surrounded by moorland and innumerable steep hills, the place was cut off in the thirties from inroading industrialism. The only communication with the outside world was by walking or by cart. Lacking amusements, the children could play only in wild nature, roaming on the moors; the moors nurtured their imagination, for from their childhood they would imagine fairy kingdoms and invented stories about them.
The third factor that explains their writing career was the fact that they were greatly influenced by the Romantic poets. They read works by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley. Charlotte and her brother Patrick Branwell Bronte (1817—1848) in their early twenties even wrote to Wordsworth and Southey, begging opinions on their writings.
The works of Charlotte and Emily Bronte are different from those of other Victorian writers in the aspects below:
1. Their works are marked by strong romantic elements. While the majority of novelists were writing about moral problems and relations between man and man in consequence of the growth of industrial capitalism, the Bronte sisters turned to fiction to express their private passions and personal emotions. Take Jane Eyre for example. It is infused with romantic spirit: the emphasis on the sensitiveness of the mind and the intense sensibility to changing nature (as in Wordsworth’s poetry); the longing for adventure and the insistence on liberty, independence, and the right of the individual soul and self fulfillment (as in Byron’s and Shelley’s poetry); and the love of the mysterious (as in Coleridge’s poetry). Other incidents and characters also point to the influences of romantic poetry. For example, Rochester was an incarnation of the spirit of Byronic hero; the mad woman story and the mysterious call that brought Jane back to Thornfield are also romantic elements.
2. The role of nature is especially important in the works of the Bronte sisters. In nature one finds comfort and peace. Worthworth’s philosophy that nature never did betray the heart that loved her was taken over by the Bronte sister. The most evident proof of the influence of Wordsworth is Chapter 28 in Jane Eyre when Jane, after he wedding has been interrupted by a stranger, reaches a cross road near a village. Exhausted and penniless, she finds comfort in nature, when she spends the night resting on the heath. She thinks of nature as the “universal mother”. Also, the readers are familiar with the violent storm and the lightning that rent the great horse-chestnut tree the night Rochester told Jane that he loved her.
3. Their works are also marked by a new conception of women as heroines of vital strength and passionate feelings. In Victorian times women did not have any status. The Bronte sisters were long before Nora Helmer in Ibsen’s The Doll House (1879) and Bella Rokesmith in Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865); the latter told her husband, “I want to be much worthier than the doll in the doll’s house.” Although women’s colleges were established at Cambridge in 1869 and at Oxford in 1879, women could not take degrees at the universities until 1920-1921. Until the last decade of the 19th century, almost the only occupation open to women of good families but reduced circumstances was teaching as schoolmistress or more likely serving as governess in a private family. The Victorian moral code for women was that they should remain ignorant and uneducated. It was regarded as preposterous that women should aspire to be writers. So when the Brontes had their books published, they had to use pseudonyms, pretending they were male writers, Currer Bell for Charlotte, Ellis Bell for Emily, and Acton Bell for Ann.
In Jane Eyre, it is Jane’s rebelliousness, her dislike for servility, and her insistence on equality that make the book unique. The whole book is about Jane’s struggle for spiritual liberty. What Jane claims is the triumph of spiritual values over material ones. Jane Eyre is the first English novel, even the most powerful and popular novel, which represents the modern view of women’s position in society.
拉尔夫.瓦尔多.爱默生
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