Characteristics of Romantic Literature
First of all, emphasize subjective feelings and pay attention to expressing yourself. This is the most prominent and essential feature of romantic literature.
Second, respect imagination.
Third, love and praise nature.
Fourth, pay attention to the medieval folk literature and put forward the slogan of "returning to the Middle Ages"
Fifth, the technique is exaggerated, the contrast is strong and the plot is bizarre. This is the most distinctive feature of romantic literature in artistic form and expression.
Romantic literature in Europe and America
German literature
Germany is the theoretical source of romantic literary thought, and German romantic literature has formed three centers in its development:
Jena school, the main characters are schlegel brothers, and the representative poets are Novalis and Tick. They demand creative freedom, attach importance to emotion and seek mystery.
B, Heidelberg School, whose contribution lies in collecting and sorting out German folk literature; The central figures are Arnim and brentano, who jointly published a collection of folk songs "Children's Strange Horn"; Ya Bu Green and william green made great contributions to the collection of fairy tales, and the two brothers also compiled fairy tales for children and families.
C, Berlin school, the central figures are Hoffman and Chamick.
Heine is a representative of German romanticism, and later turned to realistic literature.
His masterpiece "Song of Silesia Textile Workers" was called by Engels as a political poem of "promoting socialism". Germany-A Fairy Tale in Winter is his masterpiece. Long poems mercilessly exposed and criticized the censorship, feudalism and church in Germany and predicted the social revolution. The works have the style of combining romanticism with realism, and combine the tradition of folk literature to describe and express emotions by exaggeration, satire, imagination and metaphor.
English literature
In Britain, there are two groups of representatives of romantic literature.
A, "lake poets", three poets, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, hated the capitalist civilization and the cold money relationship, lived in seclusion in Cumberland Lake District in northwest England, and wrote many poems to remember the Middle Ages and praise the rural life under the patriarchal clan system and the scenery of the Lake District, including Lyric Ballads.
Wordsworth is the most accomplished poet among the lake poets and was awarded the title of Poet Laureate. He believes that "poetry is the expression of strong feelings" and chooses the events and plots in daily life as the theme, especially "choosing humble pastoral life"; In terms of language, we should adopt the daily language of people who live a humble pastoral life; Poets should highlight their imagination. His thoughts strongly promoted the creation of English poetry and the development of romantic literature.
B, "Satan school" or "devil school", represented by Byron, Keats and Shelley.
Shelley is called "the prophet of genius", and his works such as ode to the west wind and Prometheus Liberated all show the poet's optimism.
Keats' works, such as Isabella and Ode to a Nightingale, show the poet's love for freedom and his pursuit of nature and beautiful things.
Apart from poetry, there are also historical novels in English romantic literature, with Walter Scott as the representative and Ivanhoe as the work.
French literature
Hugo is the standard-bearer of French romantic literature.
Chateaubriand, the protagonist in Rene, is the first melancholy "disease of the century" image in the history of literature.
Madame de Starr, whose works include Literature and On Germany, and her masterpieces are Delphini Na and Corinna.
George sand is a woman writer, and her novels are divided into three categories: love and marriage novels, social novels and pastoral novels.
Miao Sai, known as "Shakespeare" in France, created an image of "the patient of the century"-Akdaf in the novel Confessions of a Century.
Dumas is famous for his plays and popular historical novels. His works include three musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.
Russian and Eastern European Literature
The first lyric poet in the history of Russian literature was Zhukovsky, and other figures were Pushkin and lermontov. Lermontov's "Contemporary Heroes" created the image of the second aristocratic "superfluous man" Bi Qiao Lin in the history of Russian literature.
Petofi is an outstanding Hungarian revolutionary democratic poet, whose masterpiece is Freedom and Love.
American literature
Irving, known as "the father of American literature"
Cooper, who is known as "Scott of America", opened up a historical theme.
Poe is a poet and novelist with aesthetic inclination, a pioneer of detective novels, horror novels and symbolism, and is known as the originator of western modernist literature.
Hawthorne's masterpiece The Scarlet Letter
Moby Dick Melville
Whitman is the most important American democratic poet in the19th century. His Leaves of Grass is the pinnacle of American romantic literature.
Grass is a symbol of democracy, freedom, vitality and development. The theme of Leaves of Grass throughout the whole poetry collection is self-singing, democracy and freedom. Poetry uses a new form of free verse, which has a great influence on the later "beat generation"