英国文学简史Chapter-10-2-Percy-Bysshe-Shelley课件

1、 Presented by WEI JianhuaBritish LiteraturePercy Bysshe Shelley1. Introduction:Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the leading Romantic poets, an intense & original lyrical(热情奔放的) poet in the English language.Though gentle by nature, his rebellious qualities were cultivated in his early years. 2. His Lit

2、erary and political outlook: Shelley grew up with violent revolutionary ideas under the influence of the free thinkers like Hume & Godwin, so he held a life-long aversion(厌恶) to cruelty, injustice, authority, institutional religion & the formal shams (欺骗) of respectable society, condemning war, tyra

3、nny & exploitation.However, under the influence of Christian humanism, Shelley took interest in social reforms. He realized that the evil was also in mans mind. So he predicted that only through gradual & suitable reforms of the existing institutions could benevolence (善行) be universally established

4、 & none of the evils would survive in this “genuine society”(真实的社会), where people could live together happily, freely and peacefully.3. His major works: Early works: Necessity of Atheism (无神论的必要性) Queen Mab: A philosophical Poem, emphasizing how the “Spirit of Nature” pulses in all people and makes

5、an absurdity(荒谬的行为) of selfishness and prideAlastor or The Spirit of Solitude: -A record of authors intense consciousness of his own loneliness in life and a passionate contemplation (沉思) of the mystery of deathTo a Skylark-The bird, suspended between reality & poetic image, pours forth an exultant(

6、狂喜的) or joyful song which suggests to the poet both celestial rapture (delight) & human limitation. Adonais (上帝,希伯来语) -An elegy (挽歌) for John Keats. In it, these men become the embodiments of philistinism(平庸) and reaction(保守), the enemies of truth. Ode to the West Wind (西风颂): Best of all the well-kn

7、own lyric pieces (抒情诗)Here Shelleys rhapsodic (狂热的) and declamatory (雄辩的) tendencies find a subject perfectly suited to them. The autumn wind, burying the dead year, preparing for a new spring, becomes an image of Shelley himself, as he would want to be, in its freedom, its destructive-constructive

8、potential, its universality. I fall upon the thorns of Life! I bleed!: Shelley could not bear being fettered(束缚) to the humdrum (non-excitement) realities of everyday! The whole poem has a logic of feeling, a not easily analyzable progression that leads to the triumphant, hopeful & convincing conclu

9、sion: If winter comes, can spring be far behind? The poem is written in the terza rima (三行体) form Shelley derived from his reading of Dante (但丁).The nervous thrill of Shelleys response to nature however is here transformed through the power of art & imagination into a longing to be united with a for

10、ce at once physical and prophetic (预言的). 三行为一节: 每节的第二行与下一节的第一、三行押韵；如：aba Here is no conservative reassurance, no comfortable mysticism, but the primal amorality(超道德,非道德) of nature itself, with its mad fury (愤怒) and its pagan(异教的) ruthlessness(冷酷）. Shelleys ode(颂诗) is an invocation(祈祷) to a primitive

11、 deity(神), a plea to exalt(提升) him in its fury and to trumpet the radical prophecy of hope & rebirth.Men of England: One of the greatest political lyrics. Not only a war cry calling upon all working people to rise up against their political oppressors but also an address to them pointing out the int

12、olerable injustice of economic exploitation. The poem later became a rallying song of British Communist Party.Shelleys greatest achievement is his four-act poetic drama, Prometheus Unbound. According to the Greek mythology, Prometheus, the champion of humanity, who has stolen the fire from Heaven, i

13、s punished by Zeus to be chained on Mount Caucasus & suffers the vultures feeding on his liver. Shelley based his drama on Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, in which Prometheus reconciles（和解）with the tyrant Zeus. Radical & revolutionary as Shelley, he wrote in the preface: “In truth, I was averse from

14、a catastrophe （灾变 ）so feeble as that reconciling the Champion with the oppressor of Mankind.So he gave a totally different interpretation, transforming the compromise into liberation. With the strong support of Earth, his mother; Asia, his bride & the help from Demogorgon & Hercules, Zeus is driven

15、from the throne; Prometheus is unbound. The play is an exultant work in praise of humankinds potential, and Shelley himself recognized it as “the most perfect of my products.4. Characteristics of his Poetry:Shelley is one of the lending Romantic poets, an intense & original lyrical poet in the Engli

16、sh language. Like Blake, he has a reputation as a difficult poet: erudite or learned, imagistically complex, full of classical & mythological allusions (典故). His style abounds in personification & metaphor & other figures of speech which describe vividly what we see & feel, or express what passionat

17、ely moves us.5. Selected Readings: A Song: Men of England This poem was written in 1819, the year of the Peterloo Massacre. It is unquestionably one of Shelleys greatest political lyrics. It is not only a war cry calling upon all working people of England to rise up against their political oppressor

18、s, but also an address to point out to them the intolerable injustice of economic exploitation. In the poem Shelley pictured the capitalist society as divided into two hostile classes: the parasitic class (drones) & the working class (bees).Ode to the West WindThe poem Ode to the West Wind was the best known of Shelleys shorter poems. In the poem the poet describes vividly the activities of the West Wind on the earth, in the sky &