英美文学：部分作家介绍与评论—Enlightenment

　　Enlightenment ------Age of Reason, Age of Neoclassicism,

　　The Enlightenment movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept the whole western Europe in the 18th century.

　　Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. The enlighteners celebrated reason, equality and science. They advocated universal education, believing that the best way to improve human society is to educate the people, to free them of false beliefs, prejudice, superstitions, misunderstandings--.

　　Literature of the age

　　The prevailing literary trend between the Restoration and the advent of romanticism at the beginning of the 19th century is referred to as Neoclassicism.

　　The neoclassicists admired the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers, particularly those of Augustus Age( Horace, Virgil and Ovid). They believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity. What they sought were proportion, unity, harmony and grace in literary expressions in an effort to delight , instruct and correct human beings.

　　So in England arose a polite, urbane, art.

　　Some features of neoclassical literature

　　1. witty, intellectual and restrained

　　2. polished form

　　3. didactic and satirical; writer had the duty to educate as well as entertain people, satire being an effective means of correcting people’s folly and weaknesses.

　　4. city life and man-made object preferred; city life gives a sense of order while rural wild life, natural landscape were coarse, chaotic and disorderly.

　　The major representative of neoclassical poetry is Alexander Pope.

　　Pope strongly advocated Neoclassicism, emphasizing that literary works should be judged by classical rule of order, reason, logic, restrained emotion, good taste and decorum.

　　Pope made his name as a great poet with the publication of an Essay on Criticism in 1711.

　　“A little learning is a dangerous thing”

　　“True wit is Nature to advantage drest,

　　What oft was Thought, but ne’er so well expressed.”

　　“To err is human, to forgive, divine.”

　　Modern English novel:

　　In strict sense, a novel is a long prose narrative telling the story of ordinary people in ordinary and probable situations. It gives a realistic representation of life of the common people. The most important pioneers were Defoe, Richardson and Fielding.

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