名词解释第二次作业10商英1班曹婉10020103 1.RomanticismAt the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries romanticism appeared in England as a new trend in literature. It rose and under the impetus of the Industrial Revolution and French Revolution.Romanticism prevailed in england during the period 1798---1832.generally speaking,the romanticists expressed the ideology and sentiment of these classes and social strata who were discontent with,and opposed to,the development of capitalism.but owing to difference in social and political attitudes ,they split into two schools. Some romantic writers reflected the thinking of classes ruined by the bourgeoisie, and by way of protest against capitalist development turned to the feudal past. These were the elder generation of romanticists, sometimes called escapist romanticists, including Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey. Others expressed the aspirations of the classes created by capitalism and held out an ideal, though a vague one, of a future society free from oppression and exploitation. These were the younger generation of romanticists and sometimes called active romanticists represented by Byron, Shelley and Keats. So the general feature of the works of the romanticists is dissatisfaction with the bourgeois society. Their writings are filled with strong-willed heroes, formidable events, tragic situations, powerful conflicting passions, and exotic pictures. Sometimes they resort to symbolic methods. With the active romanticists, symbolic pictures represent a vague idea of some future society, while with the escapist romanticists; these often take on a mystic color. Romantic prose of the time was represented by Lamb, Hazlitt, De Q uincey and Hunt. The only great novelist in this period was Walter Scott.2 English Critical RealismIn the period of tense class struggle appeared a new literary trend-critical realism. English critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the forties and in the early fifties. The critical realists described with much vividness and great artistic skill the chief traits of the English society and criticized the capitalist system from a democratic viewpoint. The English critical realists of the 19th century not only gave a satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the ruling classes, but also showed profound sympathy for the common people. The major contribution made by the 19th century critical realists lies in their perfection of the novel.Humour and satire were used in the English realistic novels of the 19th century. Through the sketches of various negative characters given birth to by the capitalist system, critical realism reveals the corrupting influence of the rule of cash o upon human nature. Here lies the root of the democratic and humanistic character of the critical realism of the 19th century Charles Dickens was the greatest representative of English critical realism. With striking force and truthfulness, he creates pictures of bourgeois civilization, describing the misery and sufferings of the common people.David Copperfield was his favourite among all his books. Thackeray, like Dickens, was a representative of critical realism in 19th century England. One of his masterpieces is Vanity Fair.3.Naturalism:Naturalism is a literary trend prevailing in Europe, especially in France and Germany, in the second half of the 19th century. Naturalist writers usually write about the lives of the poor and oppressed, or the “slum life”, but by giving all the details of life without discrimination, they can only represent the external appearance instead of the inner essence of real life. However, some of the best naturalistic novels may approach or even become forceful realistic literature because naturalism, in reality, was a development of realism. George Gissing is one of the English novelists who wrote under the influence of naturalism. His most outstanding novel is New Grub Street.4.AestheticismAestheticism began to prevail in Europe at the middle of the 19th century. The theory of “art for art’s sake” was first put forward by the French poet Theophile Gautier. Following him, Swinburne in English literature declared that art should serve no religious, moral or social end, nor any end except itself. Aestheticism in England also owed a great deal to Ruskin, whose social and art criticism prepared the way for its appearance, though its flowers and its fruit were not what Ruskin would have desired, because he insisted upon moral value in art while the later aestheticists, trying to separate art from real life, paid little attention to its social and moral obligations. The two most important representatives of aestheticists in English literature are Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. The masterpiece of Walter Pater was The Renaissance.5.ImagismImagism was an Anglo-American poetic movement flourishing in the 1910s. Its program was formulated about 1912 by the American poet, Ezra Pound, who wrote: “An Image is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.” The principle o f the movement was: To use the language of common speech; to employ always the exact word; to create new rhythms; to present an image; poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities; to produce poetry that is hard and clear; concentration is of the very essence of poetry. The Imagist poetry is a kind of free verse shaking off the conventional meters and emphasizing on the use of common speech, new rhythms and clear images. It owed something to Walt Whitman, the American poet of Leaves of Grass, and was influenced by the French Symbolist movement. Leading Imagist poets, besides Pound and Aldington, were “H.D.” and Amy Lowell of America, and T.E. Hulme and F.S. Flint of England.6.ModernismModernism fostered a period of experimentation in the arts from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, particularly in the years following World War I. In an era characterized by industrialization, rapid social change, advances in science and the social sciences, Modernists felt a growing alienation incompatible with Victorian morality, optimism, and conventionOn the one hand, the WWI caused great destruction and staggering casualties. On the other hand, the fragmentation of belief that occurred as the result of the works of scientists and philosophers. Besides, the wholesale urbanization and industrialization. The Modernism began to prevail. It applied to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends from the late 19th to the early 20th century, including Symbolism, Futurism, Expressionism, Impressionism,Imagism, Surrealism, etc. Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th century traditions. The writers sought to liberate themselves from the constraints and conventions associated with Victorianism.7.Stream of ConsciousnessThe “stream of consciousness” is a psychological term indicating “the flux of conscious and subconscious thoughts and impressions moving in the mind at any given time independently of the person’s will.” In the 20th century, under the influence of Freud’s theory of psychological analysis, a number of writers adopted the “stream of consciousness” method of novel writing. The striking feature of these novelists is their giving precedence to the depiction of the characters’ mental and emotional reactions to external events, rather than the events themselves. In English literature, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are the two best-known novelists of the “stream of consciousness” school. Stream of consciousness technique is an important device of modernist fiction. It is a literary technique that presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as they occur. It is a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue or in connection to his or her action.。