A survey of the development of romantic literature
Like realism, romanticism, as a literary concept and literary expression, has appeared in the early stage of the development of literature of all nationalities in the world. However, as a literary trend of thought, a literary expression and a clear concept of literary theory, it was gradually formed later; The development of romantic literature has also gone through a long historical process.
If the most basic feature of romantic literature is to express ideals and wishes in a passionate and exaggerated way, then it can be said that this literary form has existed in the initial literary activities of all nationalities in the world. For example, the ancient myths of various ethnic groups and the Songs of the South in China's pre-Qin literature all have such characteristics. The expression of ideals and fantasies is one of the important reasons for the emergence of literature and one of the basic elements of literature. In this sense, the romantic spirit is an important source of literature, and literature has a very close relationship with romanticism from the beginning.
However, romanticism, as a literary spirit, was clearly advocated, thus forming a magnificent literary movement and literary trend of thought, which began in the west from the end of 18 to 19 in the thirties and forties. It was first formed in Germany and then spread to Britain, France and Russia. In a short period of more than ten years, it has rapidly developed into a literary movement sweeping across Europe, producing many influential writers and works. Romanticism in literary theory mainly refers to romanticism in this period, and romanticism, as a literary type, was also formed in this period.
The heyday of romantic literature is the French bourgeois revolution, that is, from the 1990s of 18 to the 1930s of 19. Due to the needs of the bourgeois revolution, romanticism prevailed in this period. From 65438 to 0798, the French bourgeoisie overthrew the feudal autocratic regime and established bourgeois rule. This major historical event shocked the whole world and set off one bourgeois democratic revolutionary movement and national liberation movement after another in Europe. Therefore, romantic literature that expresses ideals, worships heroes and is full of passion will inevitably become the mainstream of literature in this era.
Judging from the development of literature itself, the prevalence of romantic literary thoughts is the product of opposing classical literature. Therefore, in the history of western literary criticism, people often describe the relationship between them in the mode of classical/romantic opposition, so as to explain the reasons for the emergence of romantic literary thoughts and movements. Wellek pointed out that "Romanticism simply includes all poems that are not written according to the classical tradition." It is pointed out that this is a "genre theory based on the opposition between' classical' and' romantic'." The specific meaning of this opposition or difference is "refers to the kind of poetry that is opposite to neoclassical poetry, inspired by the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and takes it as an example".
From this, we can see the basic characteristics of romantic literature types: compared with "neoclassicism", it means that romanticism focuses on expressing individuality and sensibility, unlike classical literature, which emphasizes rationality and obedience to society and the whole country; "Enlightened in the Middle Ages and Renaissance" means that romanticism is legendary and peculiar in theme and expression. All these characteristics make romantic literature have a completely different look from western traditional literature.
However, even in the west, romantic literature has different characteristics in different times and different nationalities. Romanticism in Germany, France and Britain is not consistent, and there are differences between early romanticism and late romanticism. However, the particularity of these nationalities and times does not mean that romantic literature has no unified characteristics and nature. As Wellek said:
"If we look at the characteristics of the specific literature that calls itself' romanticism' on the whole continent, we will find that the whole of Europe has the same views on the role and nature of poetry and poetic imagination, the same views on nature and its relationship with people, and basically the same style of poetry, which is completely different from the neoclassicism in the18th century in the use of images, symbols and myths."
Regarding these similarities, Wellek concluded: "In terms of poetic view, it is imagination, in terms of world outlook, it is nature, and in terms of poetic style, it is symbol and myth." In other words, the purpose of romantic literature is to express ideals and hopes by emphasizing imagination, to express personal subjective feelings and emotions by emphasizing nature, and to highlight the metaphor, expressiveness, exaggeration and peculiar artistic expression of literature by emphasizing symbols and myths. These characteristics are the characteristics of romantic literature.
Wellek pointed out that the romantic world view is a kind of natural view, which needs further explanation, that is, what is the significance of the natural world view. The essence of romanticism is against classicism. They believe that classicism's emphasis on rationality is essentially an emphasis on order and law, which violates human nature. Romanticism regards all primitive, unadorned and innocent things as "nature". This leads to a series of opposites between romanticism and classicism, such as romanticism emphasizing sensibility and classicism emphasizing rationality; Romanticism emphasizes the expression of nature, while classicism emphasizes the expression of human creation; Romanticism emphasizes the unity of man and nature, while classicism emphasizes the separation of man and nature. Romanticism emphasizes freedom, individuality and individuality, while classicism emphasizes obedience, individuality and wholeness. Wait a minute. And all this, from the world view, reflects the world's view of nature. Due to the influence of modern natural science, rationalism believes that the world and nature are like a delicate machine and a perfect geometric model, and their operation is dominated by knowable laws. Romanticism regards nature as an unknown world, mysterious, awesome and constantly evolving.
Different from creating artistic images, Romantic literature, with a literary spirit beyond reality, insists on expressing life ideals and even fantasies and tries to show an ideal life scene to mankind with literature. In the words of Schiller, a German writer, romanticism "tries to replace the real lack with beautiful ideals". Therefore, romanticism does not pay attention to the true description of life objects like realistic literature, emphasizing the authenticity and objectivity of literature, but tries to express ideals, subjective wishes and passion for ideals. Therefore, in literary creation, romanticism follows the ideal principle. As long as it can express an ideal and hopeful life, it doesn't matter that the image created by literature violates the inherent logic of life itself. The artistic images created by romantic literature often change the original form of life, and under the strong influence of feelings and ideals, they boldly and artificially create fictional and even deformed images, characters or environments. Romanticism is to imagine and create the artistic world according to the style of ideal life and the writer's subjective emotional logic. It can be said that the artistic world created by romantic literature is not a "mirror world" that simulates reality, but an imaginary, surreal and subjective world. By shaping this ideal world that is impossible in real life, we can express our feelings and express our subjective wishes.
Although expressing subjective feelings is the characteristic of various literary types, it should be noted that romanticism also has its own characteristics in expressing emotions. If compared with realism, it can be said that there is such a difference in dealing with the relationship between feelings and life. Romanticism is created by perceptual creatures, and the expression of life is mainly subjective feelings, so the artistic image created by romanticism is often different from the image of life; Realism, on the other hand, is based on things and melts feelings into things. The expression of subjective feelings is restricted by the described life content, and subjective feelings are integrated into the image of life. For example, Bai Juyi also expressed his feelings in Embroidery of cymbals, saying that "Embroidery of cymbals costs a lot, which is incomparable with silk", and that "the singers and dancers in Zhaoyang Temple should cherish their weaving". Expressing sympathy for the Weaver Girl, but the expression of this emotion is based on stating facts and comparison. The scenery description in Li Bai's "Climbing Mount Tianmu in a Dream" is the imagination in passion: "My heart and dream are in Wu and Yue, crossing the mirror lake on a moonlit night", "The sun shines and the cock crows empty". In order to express hope and passion, romantic literature pays special attention to the shaping of ideal heroes, and often strengthens and expresses the tendency of subjective feelings with strong contrast.
Under the control of idealism, romantic literature takes myths, legends and anecdotes far away from real life as its own objects of expression, and creates an imaginary and fictional artistic world by imagination. George, a famous French romantic writer? Sang once said: Romantic art "is not a study of the real world, but a true pursuit of ideals". Therefore, the life described in romantic works often has the characteristics of fantasy. In the fictional special environment, some images with peculiar superhuman character, behavior and ability are described. For example, Du Liniang in Peony Pavilion can come back from the dead for pure and free love; The Monkey King in The Journey to the West has extraordinary ability; Jean Valjean in Hugo's Les Miserables, with his personality and morality, can touch everyone, can do anything, and can make nuns who never lie violate the canon. All these images are obviously impossible in real life, but fully embody the writer's hope and are full of ideal characters or heroes. As the famous Russian literary critic belinsky said, "In the narrowest and most essential sense, romanticism is the inner world of human soul and the secret life of his soul. In people's chests and hearts, it is the secret source of infiltration romanticism. " In order to express ideals and passions, romanticism often uses strong contrasting colors to strengthen and highlight subjective tendencies. For example, Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris shows the writer's clear feelings of love and hate with the contrast between beauty and ugliness and the great contrast between appearance and heart.
Romantic literature has the characteristics of advocating nature, emphasizing nature as the object and expressing the natural essence of human nature. As mentioned above, romantic literature pays special attention to nature. This "nature" not only refers to the nature completely different from social life, but also refers to the nature that highlights human nature. Romantic literature pays attention to nature and puts forward the slogan of "returning to nature" because it is disappointed with the inhuman urban civilization and industrial culture brought about by the development of capitalism. Romanticism believes that due to the development of modern industry and the spread of material desires, the original simplicity and nature of human nature, the harmony between man and nature gradually lost. Therefore, the yearning for nature and the praise of natural humanity have become the theme and object of romantic literature, thus opening up a new field for European literature. As the aesthetician Li said, "It was not until the Romantic Movement in the 9th century/KLOC that people explored nature comprehensively and meticulously. Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth and Goethe, that was the first time they brought the sea, rivers and mountains into their works. " On the other hand, romantic literature often shows people's independent ability and spirit of struggle in the natural environment. In order to create an ideal hero.
Romantic literature has the characteristics of bold fantasy, strange conception and exaggerated technique in expression. Romanticism does not seek "likeness" in artistic expression, and does not pursue the truth of details like realism. Instead, according to the logic of subjective feelings and the need to express ideals, we give full play to non-recurring artistic means such as imagination, exaggeration, fiction, deformation, metaphor and symbol, and strive to create an ideal artistic world, thus embodying the characteristics of romantic literature in artistic form and expression. Romantic literature often uses exaggerated artistic expression techniques, combines historical legends, fairy tales, natural wonders and exotic customs with legendary story plots and gorgeous language forms to express the ideal world and life, showing a magnificent romantic momentum. The calm description and the truth of details in realistic creation are rare in romantic works. Even in the real scene, romanticism is to express novelty with pen and ink, and try to express subjective feelings and thoughts and feelings.
Paying attention to subjective feelings and ideal expression is the fundamental feature of romanticism. Therefore, because of the different nature and orientation of ideals, romanticism can be divided into so-called "positive" and "negative". The so-called positive romanticism refers to literature that shows ideals and feelings in line with the social and historical development trend; This romanticism is characterized by being active and enterprising, and its ideal is full of longing for the future, and criticizes all ugly realities with this ideal. The so-called negative romanticism refers to literature that regards dead or dying life as an ideal. This romanticism looks up to the past because of its dissatisfaction with reality, and the life abandoned by history has become its ideal destination. Therefore, negative romanticism often reveals sentimental emotions, and its artistic interest also reveals gloomy and even morbid atmosphere. However, it should be noted that this does not mean that negative romanticism is necessarily bad or even reactionary. Because the lifestyle and ethics abandoned by historical development are not all undesirable, and historical development sometimes comes at the expense of the loss of good things.