批判现实主义文学

批判现实主义文学 The Victorian Period (The Critical Realism) I. Introduction to the Victorian Period Chronologically the Victorian period roughly coincides with the reign of Queen Victoria who ruled over England from 1836 to 1901. The period has been generally regarded as one of the most glorious in the English history. In this period, the novel became the most widely read & the most vital & challenging expression of progressive thought. While sticking to the principle of faithful representation of the 18th-century realist novel, novelists in this period carried their duty forward to the criticism of the society & the defense of the mass. Although writing from different points of view & with different techniques, they shared one thing in common, that is, they were all concerned about the fate of the common people. They were angry at the inhuman social institutions, the decaying social morality as represented by the money-worship & Utilitarianism & the widespread misery, poverty & injustice. Their truthful depiction of people's life & bitter & strong criticism of the society had done much in awakening the public consciousness to the social problems & in the actual improvement of the society. Victorian literature, in general, truthfully represents the reality & spirit of the age. The high-spirited vitality, the down-to-earth earnestness, the good-natured humor & unbounded imagination are all unprecedented. In almost every genre it paved the way for the coming century, where its spirits, values & experiments are to witness their bumper harvest. II. Key literary terms (1) Critical Realism The Victorian Age is an age of realism rather than of romanticism-a realism which strives to tell the whole truth showing moral & physical diseases as they are. To be true to life becomes the first requirement for literary writing. As the mirror of truth, literature has come very close to daily life, reflecting its practical problems & interests & is used as a powerful instrument of human progress. (2) Dramatic Monologue By dramatic monologue, it is meant that a poet chooses a dramatic moment or a crisis, in which his characters are made to talk about their lives, & about their minds & hearts. In " listening" to those one-sided talks, readers can form their own opinions & judgments about the speaker's personality & about what has really happened. Robert Browning brought this poetic form to its maturity & perfection & his "My Last Duchess" is one of the best-known dramatic monologues. III. Victorian Writers 1. Charles Dickens (1) His Works Upon his death, Dickens left to the world a rich legacy of 15 novels & a number of short stories. They offer a most complete & realistic picture of English society of his age & remain the highest achievement in the 19th-century English novel. In nearly all his novels, behind the gloomy pictures of oppression & poverty, behind the loud humor & buffoonery, is his gentleness, his genial mirth, & his simple faith in mankind. (2) Distinct Features of His Novels 1 a. Character Sketches & Exaggeration In his novels are found about 19 hundred figures, some of whom are really such " typical characters under typical circumstances," that they become proverbial or representative of a whole group of similar persons. As a master of characterization, Dickens was skillful in drawing vivid caricatural sketches by exaggerating some peculiarities, & in giving them exactly the actions & words that fit them: that is, right words & right actions for the right person. b. Broad Humor & Penetrating Satire Dickens is well known as a humorist as well as a satirist. He sometimes employs humor to enliven a scene or lighten a character by making it (him or her) eccentric, whimsical, or laughable. Sometimes he uses satire to ridicule human follies or vices, with the purpose of laughing them out of existence or bring about reform. c. Complicated & Fascinating Plot Dickens seems to love complicated novel constructions with minor plots beside the major one, or two parallel major plots within one novel. He is also skillful at creating suspense & mystery to make the story fascinating. d. The Power of Exposure As the greatest representative of English critical realism, Dickens made his novel the instrument of morality & justice. Each of his novels reveals a specific social problem. (3) His Literary Creation & Literary Achievements Charles Dickens is one of the greatest critical realistic writers of the Victorian Age. It is his serious intention to expose & criticize in his works all the poverty, injustice, hypocrisy & corruptness he saw all around him. In his works, Dickens sets a full map & a large-scale criticism of the 19th-century England, particularly London. A combination of optimism about people & realism about society is obvious in these works. His representative works in the early period include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield & so on. His later works show a highly conscious modern artist. The settings are more complicated; the stories are better structured. Most novels of this period present a sharper criticism of social evils & morals of the Victorian England, for example, Bleak House, Hard Times, Great Expectations & so on. The early optimism could no more be found. Charles Dickens is a master story-teller. His language could, in a way, be compared with Shakespeare's. His humor & wit seem inexhaustible. Character-portrayal is the most outstanding feature of his works. His characterizations of child (Oliver Twist, etc.), some grotesque people (Fagin, etc.) & some comical people (Mr. Micawber, etc.) are superb. Dickens also employs exaggeration in his works. Dickens's works are also characterized by a mixture of humor & pathos. 2. The Bronte Sisters (1). Charlotte's Literary Creation Charlotte Bronte's works are all about the struggle of an individual towards self-realization, about some lonely & neglected young women with a fierce longing for love, & understanding & a full, happy life. All her heroines' highest joy comes from some sacrifice of self or some human weakness overcome. Besides, she is a writer of realism combined with romanticism. On the one hand, she presents a vivid realistic picture of the English society by exposing the cruelty, hypocrisy & other evils of the upper classes & by showing the misery & suffering of the poor. Her works are famous for the depiction of the life of the middle-class workingwomen, particularly governesses. On the other hand, her writings are marked throughout by intensity of vision & of passion. By writing from an individual point of view, by creating characters who are possessed of strong feelings, fiery passions & some extraordinary personalities, by using some elements of horror, mystery & prophesy, she is able to recreate life in a very romantic way. The vividness of her subjective narration, the intensely achieved characterization, especially those heroines who are totally contrary to the public expectations & the most truthful presentation of the 2 economical, moral, social life of the time -all this earns her works a never dying popularity. (2). Jane Eyre a. Jane Eyre as a successful novel? The work is one of the most popular & important novels of the Victorian age. It is noted for its sharp criticism of the existing society, e.g. the religious hypocrisy of charity institutions, the social discrimination & the false social convention as concerning love & marriage. At the same time, it is an intense moral fable. Jane, like Mr. Rochester, has to undergo a series of physical & moral tests to grow up & achieve her final happiness. The success of the novel is also due to its introduction to the English novel the first governess heroine. Jane Eyre is a completely new woman image. She represents those middle-class workingwomen who are struggling for recognition of their rights & equality as a human being. The vivid description of her intense feelings & her thought & inner conflicts brings her to the heart of the audience. b. Jane Eyre's character: Jane Eyre, an orphan child with a fiery spirit & a longing to love & be loved, a poor, plain, little governess who dares to love her master, a man superior to her in many ways, & even is brave enough to declare to the man her love for him, cuts a completely new woman image. In this novel Charlotte characterizes Jane Eyre as a naive, kind-hearted, noble-minded woman who pursues a genuine kind of love. Jane Eyre represents those middle-class working women who are struggling for recognition of their basic rights & equality as a human being. The vivid description of her intense feelings & her thought & inner conflicts brings her to the heart of the audience. (3). Emily's subject matter As far as Emily's literary creation is concerned, she is, first of all, a poet Her 193 poems, mostly devoted to the matter of nature with its mysterious workings & its unaccountable influence upon people's life, are works of strange sublimity & beauty. They are ample proof for the poetic genius of this young, reclusive woman. But, to the common readers, she is better known today as the author of that most fascinating novel, Wuthering Heights. (4). Wuthering Heights a. The theme of the novel The novel is a riddle which means different things to different people. From the social point of view, it is a story about a poor man abused, betrayed & distorted by his social betters because he is a poor nobody. As a love story, this is one of the most moving: the passion between Heathcliff & Catherine proves the most intense, the most beautiful & at the same time the most horrible passion ever to be found possible in human beings. b. The structure of the novel The novel has a unique structure: the story is told through independent narrators unidentical with the author, whose personality is therefore completely absent from the book. The story is told mainly by Nelly, Catherine's old nurse, to Mr. Lockwood, a temporary tenant at Grange. The latter too gives an account of what he sees at Wuthering Heights. And part of the story is told through Isabella's letters to Nelly. While the central interest is maintained, the sequence of its development is constantly disordered by flashbacks. This makes the story all the more enticing & genuine. The excerpt taken here is from ChapterXV, the death scene of Catherine, narrated by Nelly to Mr. Lockwood. When Edgar is away at church, Heathcliff seizes the chance to see the dying Catherine. The intense love between the two is fully shown in this agonizing scene. 3. George Eliot (1). Her life & Literary Career George Eliot (1819-1880), pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, was born on Nov. 22, 1819 into an estate agent's family in Warwickshire, England. Though brought up under strict religious influences, she early abandoned religious beliefs, adopted agnostic opinions about Christian doctrine, & showed a great interest in social & 3 philosophical problems. At the age of 39, she started he literary career. Being a woman of intelligence & versatility, she quickly found herself ranking high among the great writers. In 1857, she wrote her first three stories which were later published in book form under the title of Scenes of Clerical Life. Then there came successively her three most popular novels, Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860) & Silas Marner (1861), all drawn from her lifelong knowledge of English country life & notable for their realistic details, pungent characterization & high moral tone. In 1863, she published Romola, a full elaborately documented story of Florence in the time of Savornarola. Then followed Felix Holt, the Radical, her only novel on English politics. In 1872, Middlemarch, a panoramic book considered today by many to be George Eliot's greatest achievement, come out. In 1876, she published her last novel, Daniel Deronda. These novels, together with a number of poems & a collection of satirical essays, The Impressions of Theophrastus Such, constitute a formidable body of work from a woman frail in health & working constantly under the apprehension of failure or worthlessness. (2). Her Literary Achievements Writing at the latter half of the 19th century & closely following the critical realist writers, George Eliot was working at something new. By joining the worlds of inward propensity & outward circumstances & showing them in the lives of her characters, she starts a new type of realism & sets into motion a variety of developments, leading in the direction of both the naturalistic & psychological novel. In her works, she seeks to present the inner struggle of a person & to reveal the motives, impulses & hereditary influences which govern human action. She is interested in the development of a soul, the slow growth or decline of moral power of the character. Eliot holds the belief that a certain act in daily life will produce a definite moral effect on the individual. Most of her novels are characterized by two features: moral teaching & psychological realism. (3). The theme of her works As a woman of exceptional intelligence & life experience, George Eliot shows a particular concern for the destiny of women, especially those with great intelligence, potential & social aspirations. In her mind, the pathetic tragedy of women lies in their very birth. Their inferior education & limited social life determine that they must depend on men for sustenance & realization of their goals, & they have only to fulfill the domestic duties expected of them by the society. Their opportunities of success are not even increased by wealth. 4. Robert Browning (1). His artistic characteristics a. The name of Browning is often associated with the term "dramatic monologue." Although it is not his invention, it is in his hands that this poetic form reaches its maturity& perfection. b. Browning's poetry is not easy to read. His rhythms are often too fast, too rough & unmusical c. The syntax is usually clipped & highly compressed. The similes & illustrations appear too profusely. The allusions & implications are sometimes odd & far-fetched. All this makes up his obscurity. On the whole, Browning's style is very different from that of any other Victorian poets. He is like a weather-beaten pioneer, bravely & vigorously trying to beat a track through the jungle. His poetic style belongs to the 20th-century rather than to the Victorian age. (2). Selected reading My Last Duchess "My Last Duchess" is Browning's best-known dramatic monologue. The poem takes its sources from the life of Alfonso II, duke of Ferrara of the 16th-century Italy, whose young wife died suspiciously after three years of marriage. Not long after her death, the duke managed to arrange a marriage with the niece of another noble man. This dramatic monologue is the duke's speech addressed to the agent who comes to negotiate the marriage. In his talk about his "last duchess," the duke reveals himself as a self-conceited, cruel & tyrannical man. The poem is written in heroic couplets, but with no regular metrical system. In reading, it sounds like blank verse. 4