Coleridge
Samuel taylor coleridge (1772 ——1834) is not only the main representative of British romanticism, but also an important theorist and critic. He emphasizes thinking in images and imagination, and thinks that imagination is the highest quality of a poet, and poetry has a soul only with imagination. A real poet has imagination, but a mediocre man has only fantasy. However, he disagreed with Wordsworth's view that pastoral life could not produce a good language.
Coleridge's masterpiece is Ode to an Ancient Ship, which describes an old sailor's strange sailing experience. His boat was caught in snow and fog at sea, and an albatross flew to guide it to safety, but the old sailor shot it for no reason. Since then, new bad luck has come again. The ship sailed into the sea of tranquility, where there was no wind or waves; The sun is shining. Sea water and green land are full of rot. The ship stopped, and the old sailor was regarded as the cause of this bad luck. The sailors were dying of thirst, as if a ship had come to save them and then disappeared. It was a magical ship, and the sailors died on the deck one by one. Every dead man's eyes are for old sailors. Of all the people on board, only he is not dead. Later, the old sailor felt remorse for his crimes and repented devoutly. When he saw the sea snake, his heart was full of love for everything. So the angels sympathized with him, let the body stand up and continue to perform the duties of a sailor. The ship moved gradually until it reached the old sailor's hometown. But the ship suddenly sank before landing, and the old sailor was finally rescued by the navigator who came to meet him. The whole poem is a voyage story full of fantastic beauty. It discusses the crime and punishment in life. The poet combined the pantheism thought of loving the universe with Christian thought, and preached benevolence and Christian atonement thought. But the real value of this poem lies not in the story itself, nor in the philosophy it contains, but in the fact that it creates a series of magical ocean pictures for readers with the accuracy of plastic arts and the sense of flow of music: sometimes calm, quiet and peaceful; Sometimes the storm suddenly rises and is very noisy. When writing this poem, Coleridge was not familiar with the sea, but he could interweave the real scene with the imaginary scene by imagination, and integrate ordinary details with poetic symbols, which fully showed his magnificent and peculiar imagination. In addition, long poems combine the freedom of English folk songs with the rigor of classical literati poems, and extract a lively and natural poetic style suitable for expressing romantic feelings. The beauty of rhyme and rhythm of long poems also shows the poet's ability to sing words.
Coleridge's poems are novel in conception, rich in emotion, strange in imagination, magnificent in language and beautiful in melody, which shows the mysterious and fantastic side of romanticism and explores the musical beauty of poetry in technique. His creative practice and theoretical construction not only influenced his contemporaries, but also influenced Byron, Shelley and Keats who were at odds with his political attitude. But also has important reference value for today's poetic art explorers.
Southey
Robert southey (1774- 1843) is another Hunan poet who won the title of Poet Laureate. He is a man who is good at dealing with people. However, as far as his literary and political reputation is concerned, he is suspicious. He is a royal scholar and writes a poem for the British royal family at every special ceremony. He wrote many lyric narrative poems in his life, which were drawn from the Middle Ages and foreign lands and were full of mystery. They were not as good as Wordsworth and Coleridge in thought and art. His long poem Phantom of the Trial praised George III, pleased the British royal family and was ridiculed by Byron. Emerging poets pushed English romantic literature to a climax, with Byron, Shelley and Keats as the representative poets. They are active romantics. Different from Huxiang poets, their works have more fighting consciousness and political inclination. Shelley (1792- 1822) is a romantic poet with the strongest color of utopian socialism in Britain. His long poem Queen Mabu reflects the author's condemnation of religion and private ownership and his desire to change society in the form of dreams and fables. The long poem "Islamic Uprising" attacked the oppression and bloody slaughter of the people by tyranny and praised the revolutionaries' anti-feudal struggle. He also wrote a lot of poems and plays, such as The Chyi Chin Family, ode to the west wind, Ode to a Lark, Ode to Freedom and a famous paper, Poetry Debate. Prometheus, a poetic drama, is Shelley's masterpiece, which is based on ancient Greek and Roman mythology. It describes the sufferings of the oppressed people and the inevitable outcome of tyrants through myths, and predicts that the revolution will surely come. In his poems, Shelley expressed his political ideal against tyranny, praised the struggle against tyranny and looked forward to a free and happy society. Byron (1788- 1824) was the most famous romantic poet in the first half of the 9th century. He has traveled around the world all his life, and his poems are full of exotic feelings. The representative work Don Juan is an in-depth review of the capitalist system, which is thought-provoking. Keats (1795- 182 1) is a talented romantic poet. Influenced by Wordsworth and others, Keats wrote the famous lyric poems Ode to a Nightingale and Ode to an Ancient Greek Urn, indulging in the beautiful rural scenery of the ancient world.
1. percy bysshe shelley (1792- 1822) is a poet and politician as famous as Byron in English romantic literature. Engels called him a "genius prophet" and Marx called him a "real revolutionary" and a "socialist depth bomb". Shelley/Kloc-wrote The Necessity of Atheism at the age of 0/9 and wrote a letter to the Irish people at the age of 20, which caused quite a stir in Britain at that time.
Shelley's masterpiece is the poetic drama Prometheus Liberated, which makes a new fiction of the story of Prometheus in Greek mythology, adds some symbolic images, turns the compromise between Prometheus and Zeus into Hercules liberating Prometheus and overthrowing Zeus' tyranny. Prometheus was portrayed as an indomitable warrior. With the help of myths, the works describe the sufferings of the oppressed people and the inevitable outcome of tyrants, and predict that the revolution will definitely come and finally win; At the same time, it also describes in detail the beautiful scene after the victory of the revolution. The whole poetic drama is magnificent and infectious.
Shelley's long poems with strong political color include Queen Mabu and Islamic Uprising. In these poems, Shelley exposed and condemned the feudal tyranny and the sins of the church, denied all forms of oppression and exploitation, publicized the idea of freedom and equality, and called on the people to fight. These poems show surging passion, majestic momentum and penetrating power of metal texture in art.
Shelley is also famous for his lyric short poems. His masterpieces include ode to the west wind, Clouds and Ode to a Lark. These poems develop the tradition of describing nature initiated by Wordsworth, and often reflect the poet's careful observation of nature, sincere feelings, shining with the brilliance of profound thoughts, unrestrained and melodious style, musical and symbolic language, rich and appropriate metaphors and easy to understand.
2. Keats
John keats (1795- 182 1) was called "the man who wrote his name on the water", and Shelley called him "the most active and youngest poet" and "the flower cultivated by dew". His masterpieces include Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to an Ancient Greek Weng, Ode to Autumn, Stallion and Cricket and Bright Stars, which show his love for eternal natural beauty and his denial of vulgar reality, and are permeated with the spirit of freedom. Keats' poems have the beauty of painting (color sense) and sculpture (three-dimensional sense) in art, showing the tendency of aestheticism. His short five-year creative career has made English poetry shine artistically.
3. Scott
Walter Scott (177 1- 1832) is the founder of European historical novels, as well as a romantic poet and novelist. What established his position in the history of literature was his series of historical novels called "Scottish flavor", among which Ivanhoe was his masterpiece. This work is based on Britain at the end of 12 century. Through the adventures of Ivanhoe, the descendant of the hero Saxony aristocracy, this paper describes the life scenes of gun battles, castle attacks, knight love and outlaws, reflects the contradiction between the conquered Saxony aristocracy and the conquered Norman aristocracy, and reproduces the national contradictions, national customs and life of all walks of life in Britain in the 12 century.
Scott's historical novels combine romanticism and realism, and made three pioneering contributions to later historical novels: first, the description of ethnic customs was integrated into historical novels; Second, ordinary people are the main characters in historical novels; Third, historical novels have integrated into the distinctive atmosphere of the times. These factors greatly influenced many European and American novelists in his time and later.
4. Jane Austen (1775— 18 17) is an important writer who represents the transition from English romantic literature to realistic literature. Her masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice, vividly reflects the conservative and closed rural life and social conditions in England from the end of 18 to the beginning of 19 through the love and marriage stories of four middle-class lovers, and shows the author's own view on marriage: it is wrong to marry for property, money and status; It is also foolish to get married without considering the above factors. So she is not only against getting married for money, but also against taking marriage as a joke. She emphasizes the importance of an ideal marriage and regards the feelings of both men and women as the cornerstone of an ideal marriage. Elizabeth, the heroine in the book, is intelligent, resourceful, brave, far-sighted, self-respecting and good at thinking. This image actually reflects women's pursuit of personality independence and equal rights. This work is based on daily life, which contradicts the content of sentimental novels and artificial writing techniques popular in society at that time, but it is good at shaping distinctive characters in ordinary things. At the same time, the language is tempered, humor and satire are emphasized in the art of dialogue, and humorous language is often used to set off the personality characteristics of characters. This artistic innovation makes Austin's works have their own distinctive features.