The Romantic Period

Introduction
 Romantic Poets
– William
Wordsworth
– S.T. Coleridge
– G.G. Byron
– P.B. Shelley
– John Keats
Introduction to the Backgrounds
Economically: the great Industrial Revolution
 Continued fast changes took place both in the
country and in the cities;
 Many farmhands driven out of land rushed into the
city;
 Women and children were employed as cheap labor;
 New machines were set up, rendering many out of
work;
 Disparity(两极分化) was growing between the rich
and the poor;
 Expansion abroad continued: ( America), Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, India, the West Indies and
other nations.
Politically & Ideologically

Politically： The most important event is the
French Revolution (1789), which at first gave
British people great hope for a better future with
rights and independence for all men but later
brought them despair and nightmare. The workers,
peasants and the lower classes hope to realize
“liberty, equality, and fraternity (自由，平等，博爱）

Ideologically： The principle of Ration was giving
way to an individualized, free, liberal, imaginative
attitude towards life; a tendency to turn or escape
from the tumultuous and confusing Here and Now
Introduction to English Romanticism

Romanticism as a literary movement came
into being in England early in the latter half of
the 18th century.
 English Romanticism begins in 1798 with the
publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s
The Lyrical Ballads and ends in 1832 with
Walter Scott’s death.
 The eighteenth century was distinctively an
age of prose. The Age of Wordsworth was
decidedly an age of poetry.
English
Romanticism is a revolt of the English
imagination against the neoclassical reason. The
French Revolution of 1789-1794 and the English
Industrial Revolution exert great influence on
English Romanticism. The romanticists express a
negative attitude towards the existing social or
political conditions.
They place the individual at the center of art, as
can be seen from Lord Byron’s Byronic Hero. The
key words of English Romanticism are nature and
imagination.
English Romanticism tends to be nationalistic,
defending the greatest English writers. They argue
that poetry should be free from all rules.
Literature


Literature
Prose
– familiar essays of journals and newspapers
e.g. Charles Lamb, Lee Hunt, de Quincey
– literary criticism/reviews as authority
Charles Lamb, Lee Hunt, de Quincey
– novelists
e.g. Jane Austen, the realist and Walter Scott, the
1 st historical novelist/romantic poet


Poetry: the Age of (Romantic) Poetry
Differences between 18 th-century and 19
th-century ( between Neoclassicism and
Romanticism)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
reason vs passion
reason vs imagination
commercial vs natural
industrial vs pastoral
present vs past
society vs individual
order and stability vs freedom
decorative expression vs simple and spontaneous
expression
New poetic features

language: simple, everyday life speech, common
vocabulary and accent dialect
e.g. Wordsworth, Blake
 form: lyrics(sonnet, ode), narrative (ballad)
 subject: nature :the pastoral /the alien/exotic,
the supernatural/ mysterious the personal/the
patriotic
 purpose: emotional, confessional and
visionary/prophetic
 principles: imagination
Schools of Romantic Poets

Pre-Romantic Poets
– Robert Burns: Scottish dialect, ballads
– William Blake: mysterious, philosophical, visionary

Lake Poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey,
radical youth, conservative old age
– William Wordsworth
e.g. Lyrical Ballads, Nature and country poems
– Samuel Coleridge
e.g. The Rime of Ancient Mariner and "Kubla
Khan"




Satanic school: rebellious, revolutionary, romantic,
short life
George Gordon Byron: romantic, revolutionary, satiric,
proud and angry
e.g. Don Juan, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and
Manfred
Percy Bysshe Shelley: revolutionary, prophetic,
optimistic
e.g. Prometheus Unbound and "Ode to the West
Wind"
John Keats: melancholy, a genius propounding on
truth and beauty
e.g. "Ode to the Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn",
"Ode to Psyche" and "Ode to Melancholy"
William Wordsworth(1770-1850)
All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
---William Wordsworth
Biographical Introduction

William Wordsworth, the representative poet of the
early romanticism, was born on 7 April 1770 in a
lawyer’s family in Cockermouth.
 His father John was estate agent to Sir James ,who
owned the house.
 The garden at the back, with the River Derwent
flowing past, was a place of magic and adventure for
the young William.
 William has an elder brother Richard, a younger
sister Dorothy and two younger brothers John and
Christopher.
Cockermouth on the River Derwent,
in the heart of the Lake District


His childhood was spent largely in Cockermouth and
Penrith, his mother's hometown. William and Dorothy
and his future wife Mary attended infant school in
Penrith between 1776 and 1777.
William's mother died when he was 8. At the age of
13 his father died, The orphan was taken in charge
by relatives who sent him to school at Hawkshead in
the beautiful lake district in Northwestern
England .Here, the unroofed school of nature
attracted him more than the classroom, and he
learned more eagerly from flowers and hills and stars
than from his books. So the child early cherished a
love of nature, which he later expressed in his poetry.


He then went to St John's College of Cambridge,
where he was not a notable student, but inevitably
matured in thought and sophistication.
From 1779 until 1787 William attended the Grammar
school in Hawkshead with his brothers. At
Hawkshead William thrived - receiving
encouragement from the headmaster to read and
write poetry. During these years he made many
visits to the countryside, gaining inspiration as the
powers of nature exercised their influence.



In 1795 he received a bequest and stayed in a
cottage in Dorset, where they met Coleridge and
Southey. In the years ahead a close relationship
developed between William, Dorothy and Coleridge.
Then William and Coleridge undertook a tour to the
Lake District, devoting their time to writing poetry. By
1830,he was widely recognized for his poetry talent.
He became a Tory and upheld the reactionary policy
of the British government. In 1843,he was made
Poet Laureate.
In 1850 William caught a cold on a country walk, and
he died on 23 April, 80 years after his birth. He and
Mary who died 9 years later have a simple
tombstone in the churchyard in Grasmere, now one
of the most visited literary shrines 圣地 in the world.
William Wordsworth wrote some 70,000 lines of
verse, 40,000 lines more than any other poet.
Wordsworth is buried with his family in Grasmere 格拉斯米尔churchyard.
Wordsworth House and the Wordsworth Memorial
Major Works

An Evening Walk
(1793)
 Lyrical Ballads
(1798)
 Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern
Abbey 《丁登寺杂咏》（1798）
 Lucy Poems 组诗《露茜》（1799）
 The Solitary Reaper 《孤独的收割女》（1805）
 Ode: Intimations of Immortality《不朽颂》（1807）
 I Wandered Loney as a Cloud （1807）
To Daffodils
 The Prelude,自传体长诗《序曲》(1850)等
Wordsworth’s greatest contribution to
English literature is his poems and his
Preface to The Lyrical Ballads.
Though The Lyrical Ballads is known as the
collaborated work of Wordsworth and
Coleridge, all the poems but one (The Rime
of The Ancient Mariner) are written by
Wordsworth. Most of his most quoted poem
are taken from this collection.
Preface to Lyrical Ballads
Wordsworth’s Preface (1800) to Lyrical Ballads is
the manifesto of English Romanticism. It is “one
of the revolutionary works of criticism, helping
usher in the Romantic Age in literature” (Dutton,
1984:50).
 He is primarily concerned to justify the kinds of
his poems which he had contributed to Lyrical
Ballads.

What Wordsworth says in the Preface to
the “Lyrical Ballads”
All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feeling.
 Poetry takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquility.平静中回忆起来的情感
 The function of poetry lies in its power to
give an unexpected splendour to “incidents
and situations from common life”.
 Wordsworth “endeavoured to bring (his)
language near to the real language of men”,
“by fitting to metrical arrangement a
selection of the real language of men”.

Wordsworth’s Poetic Theory

“所有的好诗都是强烈情感的自然流露”，主
张诗人“选用人们真正用的语言”来写“普通
生活里的事件和情境”，而反对以18世纪格雷
为代表的“诗歌词藻”

“诗是一切知识的开始和终结,它同人心一样不
朽”，而诗人则是“人性的最坚强的保护者，
是支持者和维护者。他所到之处都播下人的情
谊和爱”。
I WANDERED lonely as a cloud

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Dicussion questions




Identify the poetic form
What is the dominant image? How does the
speaker feel like about this image?Is the
speaker’s mood changed at the sight of this
image?
What kind of figures of speech are used here?
What is the feature of the language?
How do you interpret “spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings, which originates in emotion
recollected in tranquility” ?(use some of the
poetic lines)

Metrical Pattern
a short lyric of 4 sestets (a quatrain-couplet)
of iambic tetrameter lines rhyming ABABCC

Structure
1st stanza occasion
2-3rd stanza happy sensation at the sight of
the dancing flowers
4th stanza happy sensation experienced
again at the memory of the scene
Stanza Summary

1st stanza: The speaker was wandering like a lonely
cloud when he encountered a field of dancing
daffodils beside a lake.
 2nd stanza: Stretching endlessly along the shore the
flowers danced happily.
 3rd stanza: The waves of the lake danced merrily ,
but the daffodils outdid them in glee , and the poet
could only be happy in such a joyful company.
 4th stanza: Since then, the memory of the happy
scene would often come back to refill him with
pleasure.
Main idea

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is a poem about
nature. With his pure and poetic language,
Wordsworth brings us into a beautiful world where
there are daffodils, trees and breeze. We follow the
poet at every turn of his feelings. We share his
melancholy when he “wandered lonely as a cloud”
and his delight the moment his heart “with pleasure
fills ”. We come to realize the great power of nature
that may influence our life deeply as revealed in the
poem.
Theme

Through describing a scene of joyful daffodils
recollected in memory, the poet hopes to put
illustrate his theory of poetic inspiration --“spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,
which originates in emotion recollected in
tranquility”
徐志摩《再别康桥》

轻轻的我走了，正如我轻轻的来；
我轻轻的招手，作别西天的云彩。
那河畔的金柳，是夕阳中的新娘；
波光里的艳影，在我的心头荡漾。
软泥上的青荇，油油的在水底招摇；
在康河的柔波里，我甘心做一条水草！
那榆荫下的一潭，不是清泉，
是天上虹揉碎在浮藻间，沉淀着彩虹似的梦。

寻梦？撑一支长篙，向青草更青处漫溯，
满载一船星辉，在星辉斑斓里放歌。
但我不能放歌，悄悄是别离的笙箫；
夏虫也为我沉默，沉默是今晚的康桥。
《再别康桥》是一首优美的抒情诗，宛如一曲
优雅动听的轻音乐。1928年秋，作者再次到英
国访问，旧地重游，勃发了诗兴，将自己的生
活体验化作缕缕情思，融汇在所抒写的康桥美
丽的景色里，也驰骋在诗人的想象之中。
全诗以“轻轻的”“走”“来”“招
手”“作别云彩”起笔，接着用虚实相间的手
法，描绘了一幅幅流动的画面，构成了一处处
美妙的意境，细致入微地将诗人对康桥的爱恋，
对往昔生活的憧憬，对眼前的无可奈何的离愁，
表现得真挚、浓郁、隽永。
 诗人闻一多20年代曾提倡现代诗歌的“音乐的
美”“绘画的美”“建筑的美”，《再别康桥》
一诗，可以说是“三美”具备，堪称徐志摩诗
作中的绝唱。

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
by William Wordsworth
Listen



Wordsworth wrote a number of poems about
someone called Lucy. It seems likely that Lucy is an
entirely imaginative creation and is not based on a
real person,.
The story-line is strikingly simple. Lucy lives an
isolated life, her beauty largely unnoticed. She dies.
Her death is seen through the eyes of the one person
who appears to have loved her, although who she is
remains a mystery.
Lucy has more in common with nature than with
human life. She is represented in terms of flowers 'roses‘ and 'violet' . Like a wild flower, which blooms
where no-one can see it, her life is obscure and
fleeting.Typical of many characters in Wordsworth's
poetry, Lucy has a solitary existence, with little
human contact.
She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love.
A Violet by a mossy stone
Half-hidden from the Eye!
---Fair, as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky!
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her Grave, and, Oh!
The difference to me!
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
never be stepped on
live
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
她住在人迹罕至的地方，
泉 water
Beside the springs of Dove,
就在多佛小溪旁，
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
A Maid whom there were none to praise
无人曾将这少女称赞，
And very few to love;
也没几人把她放在心上。
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
A violet by a mossy stone
青苔石旁紫罗兰，
Half hidden from the eye!
怀抱苔石半遮面！

A violet can be a symbol of
innocence, modesty or mourning. It
has stood for modesty and humility in
that it grows so close to the ground
and its blooms can be found under
the leaves. Like those "blooms" of
Lucy, the blooms of the violet cannot
be seen easily. One must look
closely to discover the true beauty.

In the Middle Ages, it became a symbol of
faithfulness and crowns of violet were made
for the winners of courtly poetry contests.
And still it is said that violets were white until
Mary watched her only son suffer on the
cross, then they turned purple in mourning.
The poem is also one of mourning and
demonstration of Lucy's faithfulness and
modesty. A violet is sometimes used in
Chinese lore to signify harmony of the
universe. That could certainly be
Wordsworth's intention here as well.
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
—Fair as a star, when only one
—她美丽的像一棵孤星
Is shining in the sky.
独自个儿在夜空中闪现。
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
She lived unknown, and few could know
她活着，无人知晓，
When Lucy ceased to be;
died
她死了，没几人知道；
She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
但她现在孤坟之中，
The difference to me!
对我，就不同了!
（李正栓译）
她住在人迹罕至的地方---威廉•华兹华斯 吕志鲁译
她住在人迹罕至的地方,
圣洁的小溪在身边流淌,
没有谁把这少女赞颂,
少有人为她挂肚牵肠。
她是紫罗兰身影半露,
生苔的墓碑将她遮挡;
美丽如一颗孤星,
在夜空里闪闪发亮。
没有谁了解她曾活在世上,
少有人知道她何时夭亡;
躺在墓中的露西啊,
唯有我与别人都不一样。
abab, cdcd, efef
The rhyme scheme is ________________.
There are 2 images in the poem.
half-hidden violet
One is the __________________,
the
other ______________________
one star shining in the sky ___.
unknown
 Lucy’s beauty is ________
to the
world.
 Lucy’s personality is cherished by
____.
 A. many
B. few

Theme

In these short stanzas, the poet tells of his
admiration and singular devotion to Lucy and
his utter despair over her death.
Rhetoric Devices
Simile
Metaphor
Personification
Euphemism
Repetition
Major Features of Wordsworth’s Poetry

A constant theme of Wordsworth's poetry
was the growth of the human spirit through
the natural environment;
 He skillfully combined natural description
with expressions of inward states of mind.
 His poems are characterized by sympathy
with the poor, simple peasants, and a
passionate love of nature.
Comments
Wordsworth’s poetry is distinguished by the
simplicity and purity of his language.
 Wordsworth’s theory on versification has
exerted profound influence on later poets.
(imaginative recreation)
 The most important contribution he has made is
that he has not only started the modern poetry,
the poetry of the growing inner self, but also
changed the course of English poetry by using
ordinary speech of the language and by
advocating a return to nature.
Further Question

Compare William Wordsworth and Tao
Yuanming. What are their similarities
and dissimilarities?
Exercises

English Romanticism begins in 1798 with the
publication
of
Wordsworth
and
Coleridge’s
__________ and ends in 1832 with_______.
 The interest of the romantic poets is not in the
objective world or in the action of the men, but in the
____, ____ and _____ of the poets themselves.
 The key words of English Romanticism are _____
and ____
 According to William Wordsworth, all good poetry is
_______________.
 Poetry takes its origin from ____recollected in ____.
Reviewing work

what are the features of Romanticism?
P. B. SHELLEY (1792-1822)
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest
and best minds.
---Percy Bysshe Shelley
Life story
Shelley was born into an affluent family
at Sussex. He got a very good school
education, first at Eton and then at
Oxford.
 In 1811, while he was still a student at
Oxford, he wrote a pamphlet The
Necessity of Atheism, repudiating the
existence of God.

He was expelled from Oxford for his
seditious pamphlet. Then he eloped with
Harriet Westbrook to Edinburgh.
When he returned to London, he became a
disciple of William Godwin, a radical social
philosopher. He fell in love with Godwin’s
daughter, Mary. Harriet’s drowning enabled
him to marry Godwin’s daughter, but left him
a bad reputation as an immoralist.
He left England and went to the Continent.
He made friends with Byron while they
were in Geneva, Switzerland. He wrote his
best poems during this period.
On July 8, 1822, while he was sailing in a
small boat along the coast of Italy, a
tempest struck his boat and he was
drowned. He was buried in Rome. The
inscription on his tombstone reads: “Percy
Bysshe Shelley, COR CORDIUM”.
( meaning heart of hearts)
Upon his untimely death, one of his
opponents writes, “Shelley, the writer of some
infidel poetry, has been drowned; now he
knows whether there is a God or not.”
Engels thinks highly of Shelley and Byron,
He writes, “Shelley, the genius, the prophet,
Shelley, and Byron, with his glowing
sensuality and his bitter satire upon our
existing society, find most of their readers in
the proletariat.”
Major Works

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Ode to the West Wind 《西风颂》
To a Skylark 《云雀颂》
The Cloud 《云》
Prometheus Unbound 《解放了的普罗米修斯》
Queen Mab 《麦布女王》
The Masque of Anarchy 《专治魔王的化装游
行》
The Necessity of Atheism《无神论的重要性》
A Defense of Poetry《诗辩》
To a Skylark
Ode

A complex and often lengthy lyric poem,
written in a dignified formal style on some
lofty or serious subject. Odes are often written
for a special occasion, to honor a person or a
season or to commemorate an event.
 Two famous odes are Percy Bysshe Shelly’s
“Ode to the West Wind” and John Keats’s
“Ode on a Grecian Urn.”
Ode To A Skylark
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
致云雀

你好啊，欢乐的精灵！
你似乎从不是飞禽，
从天堂或天堂的邻近，
以酣畅淋漓的乐音，
不事雕琢的艺术，倾吐你的衷心。
向上，再向高处飞翔，
从地面你一跃而上，
象一片烈火的轻云，
掠过蔚蓝的天心，
永远歌唱着飞翔，飞翔着歌唱。

In the golden lightning
 Of the sunken sun,
 O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
 Thou dost float and run;
 Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
 Melts around thy flight;
 Like a star of Heaven,
 In the broad daylight
 Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

地平线下的太阳，
放射出金色的电光，
晴空里霞蔚云蒸，
你沐浴着阳光飞行，
似不具形体的喜悦刚开始迅疾的远征。
淡淡的紫色黎明
在你航程周围消融，
象昼空里的星星，
虽然不见形影，
却可以听得清你那欢乐的强音——

Keen as are the arrows
 Of that silver sphere,
 Whose intense lamp narrows
 In the white dawn clear
 Until we hardly see- we feel that it is there. 

All the earth and air
 With thy voice is loud,
 As, when night is bare,
 From one lonely cloud
 The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is
overflowed.

那犀利无比的乐音，
似银色星光的利箭，
它那强烈的明灯，
在晨曦中暗淡，
直到难以分辨，却能感觉到就在空间。
整个大地和大气，
响彻你婉转的歌喉，
仿佛在荒凉的黑夜，
从一片孤云背后，
明月射出光芒，清辉洋溢宇宙。





What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

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Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
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我们不知，你是什么，
什么和你最为相似？
从霓虹似的彩霞
也降不下这样美的雨，
能和当你出现时降下的乐曲甘霖相比。
象一位诗人，隐身
在思想的明辉之中，
吟诵着即兴的诗韵，
直到普天下的同情
都被未曾留意过的希望和忧虑唤醒。
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Like a high-born maiden
 In a palace-tower,
 Soothing her love-laden
 Soul in secret hour
 With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
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Like a glow-worm golden
 In a dell of dew,
 Scattering unbeholden
 Its aereal hue
 Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from
the view!

象一位高贵的少女，
居住在深宫的楼台，
在寂寞难言的时刻，
排遣她为爱所苦的情怀，
甜美有如爱情的歌曲，溢出闺阁之外；
象一只金色的萤火虫，
在凝露的深山幽谷，
不显露它的行踪，
把晶莹的流光传播，
在遮断我们视线的芳草鲜花丛中；
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Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged
thieves:
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
 Rain-awakened flowers,
 All that ever was
 Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass:

象一朵让自己的绿叶
阴蔽着的玫瑰，
遭受到热风的摧残，
直到它的芳菲
以过浓的香甜使鲁莽的飞贼沉醉；
晶莹闪烁的草地，
春霖洒落的声息，
雨后苏醒的花瓣，
称得上明朗，欢悦，
清新的一切，都不及你的音乐。
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Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. -
Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
 Matched with thine would be all
 But an empty vaunt,
 A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 
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飞禽或是精灵，有什么
甜美的思绪在你心头？
我从没有听到过
爱情或是淳酒的颂歌
能够迸涌出这样神圣的极乐音流。
赞婚的合唱也罢，
凯旋的欢歌也罢，
和你的乐曲相比，
不过是空调的浮夸，
人们可以觉察，其中总有着贫乏。
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What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
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With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
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Thou lovest- but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
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什么样的物象或事件，
是你欢乐乐曲的源泉？
什么田野、波涛、山峦？
什么空中陆上的形态？
是你对同类的爱，还是对痛苦的绝缘？
有你明澈强烈的欢快。
倦怠永不会出现，
烦恼的阴影从来
近不得你的身边，
你爱，却从不知晓过分充满爱的悲哀。
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Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest
thought.
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是醒来或是睡去，
你对死的理解一定比
我们凡人梦想到的
更加深刻真切，否则
你的乐曲音流，怎能象液态的水晶涌泻？
我们瞻前顾后，为了
不存在的事物自扰，
我们最真挚的笑，
也交织着某种苦恼，
我们最美的音乐是最能倾诉哀思的曲调。
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Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
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可是，即使我们能摈弃
憎恨、傲慢和恐惧，
即使我们生来不会
抛洒一滴眼泪，
我也不知，怎能接近于你的欢愉。
比一切欢乐的音律
更加甜蜜美妙，
比一切书中的宝库
更加丰盛富饶，
这就是鄙弃尘土的你啊，你的艺术技巧。
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Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now!
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教给我一半，你的心
必定熟知的欢欣，
和谐、炽热的激情
就会流出我的双唇，
全世界就会象此刻的我——侧耳倾听。
（江枫 译）
《致云雀》赏析

作于1820年，是雪莱抒情诗中的灿烂诗篇。此诗赞美
云雀美妙的歌声，反映诗人向往美好未来的欢乐心情，
表达他渴望自己也能用同样空灵的曲调宣扬革命的理
想，获得世人的倾听。它不仅能准确生动把握一个时
代的脉搏，及时捕捉政治风云的扑朔迷离，变幻莫测，
而且又能把理想世界中微妙的景象通过眼前具体可感
知的实物生动有力地展现出来。因此，这首诗是真正
能够体现一个时代的精神，真正能够体现诗人追求理
想主义的光辉诗篇。这也是一曲生命之欢乐的赞歌，
文情并茂，每节五行，四短一长，音节颇似云雀节节
往上飞。全诗给予云雀以最高的赞颂。其想像之丰富，
意境之超绝，音韵之嘹亮，构成一副飘逸的画面，一
首优美的乐曲，不禁令人想到唐人诗句：“此曲只应
天上有，人间能得几回闻！”
Brief Comments
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Shelley grew up with revolutionary ideas under the
influence of Hume and Godwin. He held a life long
aversion to cruelty, injustice, authority and
institutional religion.
Shelley is one of the greatest English lyrical poets.
He expresses his love for freedom and his hatred
towards tyranny.
His poems abound with personification, metaphor
and other figures of speech.
Shelley is one of the most important dramatists of
English Romanticism. His greatest achievement in
theater lies in his poetic drama Prometheus Unbound.
John Keats(1795-1821)
Keats’ life story

Keats was born into a stable keeper’s family. He got
little school education. He was apprenticed to a
surgeon though his interest was in poetry.
 With the aid of Shelley, Keats’ first collection of
poems was published in 1817.
 He was severely criticized by leading literary
magazines such as Blackwood’s Magazine and
Quarterly Review.
 Keats contracted consumption (pneumonia) while he
was taking care of his brother. He died in 1821 in
Rome, Italy. His grave in Rome bears the epitaph:
“Here lies one whose name is writ in water.”
 Shelley and Byron wrote elegies for his premature
death.
Major Works

Long poems
– Endymion
– Isabella
– The Eve of St.
Agnes
– Lamia
– Hyperion
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Odes and sonnets
– Ode to Autumn
– Ode to a Nightingale
– Ode on Melancholy
– Ode on a Grecian
Urn
– Bright Star
– When I Have Fear
– The Grasshopper and
The Cricket.
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Stanza 1
THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Analysis
Stanza 1:
The opening invocation is followed by a string of
questions which flash their own answer upon us
out of the darkness of antiquity - interrogatories
which are at the same time pictures.
这是一只上下边缘刻印着绿叶花纹，其间雕有神话和田园风情图案的古
瓮。这本是千百年前雕刻艺人留下的“死”物，但在诗人眼里，却出现
了一幅活生生的社会风俗画的画面。(诗人用提问的方式，告诉读者他
所看到的图案，为诗歌的进一步发展提供了引子。这时，尽管读者还不
知道图案的具体内容，但至少已经明了，这是一幅充满生气的图画.诗
人通过描写宁静的古瓮本体和充满动感的表面，在读者脑海中勾勒出了
古瓮的形象，并由此让读者不知不觉地跟着他一起走入他那想象中的天
地。瓮上的图案幻化成一幅活生生的田园景色。绿荫丛中，诗人仿佛看
见一对在热恋中的男女青年在纵情嬉闹，随着悠扬的鼓乐和风笛声在翩
翩起舞.)
Stanza 2
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Stanza 3
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Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowfuland cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Analysis
Stanzas 2&3:
Express with perfect poetic felicity and
insight the vital differences between life,
which pays for its unique prerogative of
reality by satiety and decay, and art, which
in forfeiting reality gains in exchange
permanence of beauty, and the power to
charm by imagined experiences even
richer than the real.
第二节：诗人用实实在在的描绘和合乎情理的判断，揭示出了永恒的美。
正因为两个热恋的青年是雕刻在瓮上的，所以他们永远也无法实现自己
所渴望的热吻。这看来是桩憾事，但诗人并不因此而悲伤，反而寻到了
欢悦。道理很简单：他看到了永恒。古瓮上的树叶永远常青，不会枯黄，
不会飘落；姑娘永远年轻，不会衰老；而爱情永存。千百年来，他们一
直保持着当初古希腊艺人雕刻时的模样，千百年后，他们还将这么年轻，
这么漂亮，永远这么热恋着。
第三节：从内容上说，这节诗是上节诗的延伸，没有多大多大的区别，但
这节诗的每字每行更富有感情色彩，强化了上一节诗中所阐明的观点—
—艺术的美是一种永恒的美。为了强调这种永恒，诗人又一口气用了六
个“永远”，给人留下了深刻的印象。值得注意的是，诗人用“火热”
来形容古瓮上这对情人的爱情，这样，就把读者的心从冷冰冰的雕刻艺
术中牵了出来，带进活生生的世界，使人仿佛触摸到了年轻恋人们怦怦
跳动着的心房。
Stanza 4
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Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.
Analysis
Stanza 4:
By questioning:who are these coming to the
sacrifice?the poet led the readers again to a
position of observer.Here,the poet focused on a
social activity of the villagers,reflecting the
relation between art and reality
对小镇的描写是非常富有现实意义的。小镇是这队祭祀行列的出
发点，又是这些村民们劳动生活的中心，通过对它们的联想，一
幅幅社会风俗画就会展现在我们面前。古瓮的图案不可能描绘小
镇的荒芜和静寂，但诗人的想象力却看到了这一点。村镇被遗弃
了，这不单是因为出走的人个个被禁锢在瓮上，也是因为那镇上
的人早在很久以前就消失了，唯有这古瓮上雕刻着的还栩栩如生。
这样，诗人又一次表明了他的信念：艺术是不朽的。
Stanza 5
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
«Beauty is truth, truth beauty,»- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Analysis
Stanza 5:
came back to the urn as a whole,reflecting the
well-organized structure of the ode.Finally,the
poet point out the relation between art and
reality:Beauty is truth,truth beauty.
What should be emphasized here is that :the
poet felt the beauty by heart,and imagination
plays an important role in this process.
Summary
Generally speaking:
The sight, or the imagination, of a piece of
ancient sculpture had set the poet's mind at
work. Conjuring up the scenes of ancient life
and worship which lay behind and suggested
the sculptured images on one hand; on the
other, speculating on the abstract relations of
plastic art to life.
Theme:The beauty of art is long-lasting.It has
gone beyond time and space ,and will never
disappear.
Comments

Keats’s poetry is always sensuous, colorful and rich in
imagery, which expresses the acuteness of his senses.
 He draws diction, style and imagery from works of
Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton and Dante. With vivid and
rich images, he paints poetic pictures full of wonderful
color.
 Keats produced a variety of works, including epic, lyric
and narrative poems. The mythic world of the ancient
Greece and the English poetry of Renaissance period
provide Keats with the most imaginative resources.
 Keats’ poems present us with an everlasting poetic beauty.
His motto is “ Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”
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提供济慈的生平、年谱、诗选、书信选、图象、诗人同时代人和文学批评家对诗人的评
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