From 1940s to 1950s, the Charter Movement appeared in Britain. Charter activists often give speeches at mass gatherings, start newspapers, and write poems, novels, essays and literary criticism articles to encourage publicity. These constitute a wealth of charter documents. Although there are various forms of charter literature, poetry is its main component.
Charter Poetry-The Content of Charter Poetry
Charming poetry is rich in content and wide in subject matter, and its characteristics lie in its distinct political tendency first. It works closely with and serves the Charter Movement.
Service. Many of its authors are industrial workers or handicraft workers, and they are also active participants in the Charter Movement. They exposed the evils of capitalist exploitation with their own personal experiences, and reflected the sufferings of the working people, the struggle of the proletariat and the social morality of the times. Followed by strong combat effectiveness. Charter poetry is the product of political struggle, which is based on the reality of revolutionary struggle and quickly reflects the urgent problems and important events in the struggle at that time. Poetry is full of optimism and a call to fight. Third, it has a broad mass character. Most of its contents are issues that the masses are familiar with and concerned about. Songs and hymns popular with the masses are widely used in form, and the language is easy to understand. Fourth, it runs through the spirit of internationalism. Many works call on the people of European countries to unite, fight and win together, and express deep sympathy for the oppressed people in foreign countries.
Charter Poetry-Representative Writers and Works
Charming poetry has also reached a high level in artistic achievements. Many poems are lyrical, full of affection, rich in vocabulary and simple and vivid in rhythm. Although some of them imitate the works of Burns, Byron and Shelley, many of them still have their own unique style and novel artistic conception.
Among many chartist poets, ernest jones, william james Linton and Gerald Messi are prominent and famous.
Nestor Jones (18 19 ~ 1869) was born in a noble family and studied law. 1846 joined the Charter Movement and became one of the left-wing leaders of the Charter Movement. 1947 Met and had contacts with Marx and Engels. 1848 was arrested for engaging in revolutionary propaganda activities and sentenced to two years in prison. After he was released from prison, he joined the Charter Movement, published People's Communication magazine, and published Marx's articles and his own works. 1852 Join "Producer Alliance". From 1853 to 1854, he tried to revive the charter movement at low tide by means of workers' strike, but failed. Later, he broke away from the workers' movement and turned to the bourgeois radicals politically, so he was severely criticized by Marx and Engels.
Most of Jones's poems are published in Polaris, a chartered newspaper and Worker magazine. The most famous and popular works are Song of the Future (1852) and Song of the Lower Class (1852). These two poems exposed and attacked the capitalist system, accused the landlords and capitalists of exploiting and squeezing the workers and peasants, called on the workers to rise up for revolution, clearly expressed the resentment of the workers and peasants, and sang the hope for the future.
Besides poetry, Jones also wrote some novels. His novel The Story of a Nation (1847 ~ 1848) describes the heroic deeds of the Polish people in liberating Warsaw and expelling the czar's army. The unfinished novel Women's Suffering (1850 ~ 185 1) describes the poor life of a worker's family.
Jones has also published literary criticism articles. In these articles, he contacted the struggle task of the British proletariat, discussed literary problems, and put forward the aesthetic program of the Chartists. He believes that laborers should have their own literature, which must reflect people's lives and struggles, and calls on writers to "come among the people and write for them". Jones is known as the founder of British proletarian revolutionary literature because of the revolutionary content and profound ideological content of his works.
William james Linton (18 12 ~ 1897) is a printmaker. 1839 published a collection of poems, a hymn to the people who have not yet been liberated. In the 1940s, he edited various publications and wrote many poems praising the revolutionary events in Britain and Europe, mainly including Elegy for All Nationalities (1849) and Defending Rome (1849). Elegy for all nationalities was written in 1848. After the failure of the revolutionary struggle in European countries, it was put forward that the losers must continue to struggle, overthrow tyranny and strive for freedom and liberation. In Defending Rome, he warmly praised the anti-Olympic struggle led by Mazzini, and said, "Defending Rome means defending the whole world, and we are fighting the same struggle". The 1950s was the most prosperous period of Linton's creation. He wrote a long list of poems, Poems Against the Landlord System (185 1 ~ 1853) and People's Congress. The former exposes the oppression and exploitation of farmers by landlords and condemns the evil landlord system; At the people's congress, he called on the people to unite like snowflakes until the avalanche rolled like thunder and buried all reactionaries. After that, he moved to America. 187 1 year, he wrote a pamphlet to defend the Paris commune.
Gerald Messi (1828 ~ 1907) was born in a poor boatman's family. When I was eight years old, I worked in a textile factory. 1843 moved to London as a messenger. He engaged in literary creation in 1848, and published "Red * * * and the Song of party member" (1850) and the political lyric "People in" 48 "in the left-wing chartist journal. Song of the Red and the Party summarizes the awakening process of the British working class and expresses the revolutionary pride of the working class in its determination to fight the enemy to the end. The people in "48" warmly praised 1848 the warriors who fought for freedom in the European revolutionary movement. During the Charter Movement, all Messi's lyric poems were included in the book Lyrics of Freedom and Love (1850).
After the decline of the Charter Movement, Messi broke away from the workers' movement, sought spiritual support from religion and mysticism philosophy, and embarked on the road of decadent artists.
Charter Poetry —— The Significance of Charter Poetry
The British constitutional movement was the first proletarian revolutionary movement, which inevitably had some shortcomings. The influence of humanitarianism, reformism and religious superstition of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie is reflected in literary works, such as some poems expressing the fantasy of peace and reform of the capitalist system, or pinning their hopes on God's "grace". However, chartist literature is the bud of proletarian literature in history, the pioneer of Paris Commune literature and all future socialist literature, and occupies an important position in the history of English literature and world literature.