Terms Definition
01.Romanticism(P211)
English Romanticism is generally defined to begin in 1798 with the publication of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads and end in 1832 with Walter Scott’s death. Romanticists place the individual at the center of art and make literature most valuable as an expression of his or her unique feelings and particular attitudes and make its accuracy a portraying the individual’s experiences.
02.Aestheticism(P367)
Aestheticism 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(1811-1872). Aestheticism, a cultural phenomenon of “fin de siele”in Europe, was a kind of escapism in essence. The two most important representatives of aestheticists in English literature are Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde.
03.Neo-Romanticism(P365)
Neo-Romanticism, as a literary trend, prevailed at the end of the 19th century. Dissatisfied with the drab and ugly social reality and yet trying to avoid the positive solution of the acute social contradictions, some writers adopted this new trend which laid emphasis upon the invention of exciting adventures and fascinating stories to entertain the reading public. Stevenson was a representative of neo-romanticism in English literature.
04.Naturalism(P364)
Naturalism is a literary trend prevailing in Europe, especially in France and Germany, in the second half of the 19th century. According to the theory of naturalism, literature must be “true to life” and exactly reproduce real life, including all its details without any selection. 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.
05.Spenserian stanza(P226 P43)
Spenserian stanza, a 9-line stanza rhymed ɑbɑbbcbcc, in which the first eight lines are in iambic pentameter while the ninth line in iambic hexameter that is also called an alexandrine. It can be shown in Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and Robert Burns’s The Cotter's Saturday Night.
06.Byronic heroes(P224)
Byronic heroes are men who have fiery passions and unbending will and express the poet’s own ideal of freedom.These heroes rise against tyranny and injustice, but they are merely lone fighters striving for personal freedom and some individualistic ends.
07.Critical Realism(P276)
English critical realism flourished in the forties and in the early fifties of the 19th century. 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. They not only gave a satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the ruling classes, but also showed profound sympathy for the common people. But they didn’t find a way to eradicate social evils and didn’t realize the necessity of changing the bourgeois society.
08.The Chartist Movement(P272)
The Chartist Movement appeared first in London and then spread to the industrial North during the late thirties of the 19th century. The workers decided to start great demonstrations,even a general strike after the Petition was rejected by English government, after that ,who sent troops to force the strikers to work. Though it failed, Chartism signified the first great political movement of the proletariat in English history. The Chartist poetry, heroic and revolutionary, played an important role in the development of English progressive literature in connection with the working class movement.。