英国文学4部分.doc

Part Four: The Eighteenth Century Chapter 1 The Enlightenment and Classicism in English Literature The Enlightenment and the 18th Century England (1) 18th Century England ①After the tempestuous event of the 17th C., England entered a period of the comparatively peaceful development. ②18th C. England witnessed unprecedented technical innovations.→The Industrial Revolution ③Great changes also took place in rural England.→Peasants poor→numerous uprisings (2) The Enlightenment in Europe Enlightenment: ① a progressive intellectual movement throughout Western Europe in the 18th century. ② an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners fought against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. ③ The enlighteners were bourgeois democratic thinkers. They thought the chief means for bettering the society was enlightenment or education for the people. (3) The English Enlightenment ① The English enlighteners set no revolutionary aim. ② What they strove for was to carry the revolution through to an end. ③ Most of the English writers were enlighteners. They fell into two groups-the moderate group and the radical group. The more moderate enlighteners supported the principles of the existing social order and considered that partial reforms would be sufficient. In this group may be included chiefly Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson. The more radical enlighteners struggled for more resolute democratization in the management of the government, and defended the interests of the exploited masses, the peasants and the working people in the cities. The representative writers of this group are Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Tobias George Smollett, Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Comparison: Most of the writers of the moderate group acknowledged that the existing social system of the day was essentially fair and just. On this basis they tried t