John Keats expressed his love for eternal love and beauty in five long narrative poems: "Endymond", "Lamia", "Hibiran", "On the Eve of Saint-Anne" and "Isabella". Persistent pursuit represents the artistic achievement of Keats's poetry.

Creative Features

Work Thoughts

Love and beauty are John Keats’s lifelong spiritual pursuit. John Keats expressed his love for eternal love and beauty in five long narrative poems: "Endymond", "Lamia", "Hibiran", "On the Eve of Saint-Anne" and "Isabella". Persistent pursuit represents the artistic achievement of Keats's poetry. These five long poems not only play a vital role in Keats's entire poetry creation, but also display a unique artistic style compared with the romantic poets Byron and Shelley of the same period. Although Keats's short life was full of "fatigue, fever, and anxiety", he still constructed a world of love and beauty in his long poems.

1. Love in Keats’s writings: firstly, it is expressed as the description and pursuit of romantic love. The love in Keats's poems can also be understood as concern and reflection on the universal spiritual plight of mankind.

2. Regarding the essential meaning of "beauty", Keats did not make a clear and detailed explanation in his short life. Perhaps similar to Plato's understanding of beauty, the beauty in Keats's poem is a "highest idea that covers everything and governs everything." This concept of beauty includes both works of art and human behavior and thoughts; beauty is both concrete and abstract.

Summary: Keats constructed a world of love and beauty in his long poem, which enabled him to face difficult reality with an optimistic attitude. Keats lost his parents when he was young. When he grew up, his third brother died young. His sister lived elsewhere and was depressed. His second brother immigrated to America and struggled to survive. Keats himself contracted lung disease while taking care of his younger brother. After the collection of poems was published, he was viciously attacked by critics. , the series of hardships damaged Keats's physical and mental health, and he eventually died young due to poverty and illness. However, Keats did not give up his pursuit of love and beauty when faced with the suffering in reality. It was the suffering in reality that prompted him to pursue love and beauty through art. Therefore, it can be said that the suffering life was the catalyst for his poetic thinking. It prompted Keats to build an artistic world intertwined with love and beauty in the art of poetry.

Creative techniques

Keats's works directly express the conflicts in life. The author does not just talk about his own troubles, but expresses to the readers the world full of "fatigue, fever and anxiety" in which he lives. before. The author paints a desolate and sad picture with anger and resentment. The sadness of the world and the joy of the nightingale form a sharp contrast, which strongly sets off the author's theme of praising this eternal beauty and demonstrates his humanistic tendency and viewpoint. In his works, reality and ideals blend together, forming his unique creative style. Keats spent his whole life pursuing beauty. He allowed his imagination to pursue it in mystery, so he never forgot his responsibility to the entire society. Many of Keats's works deeply express the tragedies in life. He denounced society and tried to show the evil side of human nature and show the real tragedies of that period.

There are descriptions of reality in his early poems "To George Keats" and "Ode to Peace"; in his later works such as "Endymian" and "Lamia", this sense of reality is even more obvious . Especially in "Ode to a Nightingale", the conflicts and sorrows in reality are vividly expressed. In this work, Keats first describes the wonderful world filled with joy and laughter in which the protagonist lives. The nightingale sings happily in nature, expressing the beauty of life in euphemistic songs. Hearing the singing of birds, the protagonist was overjoyed at first, and then felt sad. He was tortured so much by the disease that he could not help but feel sad when he heard the happy singing of the nightingale.

In the early days of his creation, "Sleep and Poetry" was one of his successful works. With profound observation and profound thinking, he shows the conflicting yet related relationship between sleep and writing. Dreaming is an uncontrolled state of the human brain, while writing poetry is a higher-order mode of human consciousness; the two are completely different and seem to have no relationship with each other.But Keats regarded the two as interrelated and inseparable aspects of artistic creation from a unique perspective. In his opinion, imagination in sleep is extraordinary and can be read as poetry.

In his later works, especially the six outstanding "Ode Poems", Keats's philosophical views are vividly expressed, "Ode on Melancholy" is one of them. Keats used incisive and original comments and various literary rhetorical techniques to naturally integrate his own feelings into the poem, making the whole work unique, continuous and thought-provoking; at the end of the work, he left a unique message And the touching golden words: She coexists with "beauty" - the "beauty" that is destined to wither. The author uses personification to express the three personalities of "beauty", "joy" and "gratification" vividly, which makes people marvel; "joy" always looks like a farewell to people, coexisting with sadness. "Glad" and sorrow coexist, so "painful joy". The author further demonstrates the duality of life - depression and happiness are interdependent. Only by constantly striving to pursue happiness and having the courage and strength to fear hardships can one truly realize the true meaning of life. Although the ending of the work is pessimistic - those who have the courage to try "Happy Fruit" eventually become another type of "melancholy" person, readers can still feel the author's painstaking efforts: why human life is so precious , because happiness and sorrow exist at the same time and are inseparable from each other.

Work form

Keats's works are very philosophical. The author uses his own wisdom and profound observations and thoughts on life to gain insights. Keats worked hard throughout his life to experiment with innovation and improvement of poetic style, hoping that the form and content of poetry could be perfectly integrated to create beautiful works. Therefore, when he creates, he will definitely choose a creative form that matches the content, and strive to combine form and content to express his thoughts. Sonnets were a form he often used in the early stages of his creation. This style of poetry is divided into the first eight lines and the last six lines to express completely different views. "Bright Star" written by Keats adopts this poetic style. The realm of the poem is profound, the intention is profound, and the contrast between the two views is obvious. It can be called an outstanding work of sonnets.

Keats paid special attention to the form of poetry. He carefully improved it and adopted a form of poetry consistent with the content. For example, in "The Cold Enchantress", he adopted the form of a medieval ballad. He simplified the last line of each stanza to make the rhythm of the work faster, making the rhythm of the poem more beautiful, and the short sentences contained hidden meanings. The meaning of the twists and turns focuses on showing the cunning of the witch and the tragedy of the knight in the work, which is consistent with the gloomy and sad atmosphere of the poem. In "The Eve of Agnes", he added numbers to the last lines of each stanza, making the rhythm of the whole work slow and powerful. The narrative and description of the poem became deep and delicate, showing multiple perspectives. life scenes.

After continuous innovation, Keats developed the expression form of lyric poetry. In addition to expressing emotions through scenery, there are also lyrics about the situation and poetry about objects. The former is more common in his narrative poems. In "Isabella", there are many extemporaneous lyrical chapters. For example, Section 30 tells the story of the protagonist’s grief after his lover was killed. The author's description of these contents is extremely impactful, thereby expressing his deep hatred for the sins in the world and his deep sympathy for the poor people. Although he composed very few poems about objects, this type of poetry plays an important role in his works, including Ode on an Urn. This work not only describes the appearance characteristics of the ancient urn, but also focuses on expressing the paintings carved on it. Keats integrates chanting objects, describing scenes, and expressing emotions, making the entire work demonstrate its unique artistic charm.

Character influence

Keats put forward the proposition "Beauty is truth, truth is beauty" in "Ode on a Greek Urn", which had a great influence on the creation of later lyric poems.

Keats had an influence on British literature in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. He influenced many poets and artists in three aspects: rich sensory descriptions, comfortable and tranquil expressions of medieval ideals, and related art and ideas. , or the paradox of thought and worldliness. Poets and artists who were deeply influenced by Keats mainly include: Romantic poet Thomas Hood, British Victorian poet Alfred Tennyson, Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter D.G. Rossetti, Symbolist poet W.B. Yeats and the young poet Wilfred Owen who died in World War I, etc. Keats provided creative inspiration, poetic writing techniques, story content and theme style for their poems.

Character evaluation

British poet Percy Bysshe Shelley: He is originally a part of "beauty", and this "beauty" was once made more lovely by him.

Lebanese writer Jiha Gibran: Keats should have said that the name of the one who sleeps here is written in the sky with fire.

Chinese writer Tu An: It is difficult to predict what achievements he can achieve if God borrows years. However, it is recognized that when he stopped writing at the age of twenty-four, his contribution to poetry had greatly exceeded that of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton at the same age.

American writer Daniel S. Burt: Except for Milton, no other British poet has had such a profound influence on later generations as Keats.

Future generations memorial

Keats's former residence

Keats's former residence in London is located in the Hampstead district in the northwest. In Keats's time, it was still a remote suburban countryside, surrounded by jungles and grasslands. Keats lived here for a short period of time. In December 1818, Keats's brother Tom died of tuberculosis. His friend Brown took him to live with him in his home, which is now Keats's former residence. Keats left the house for a time and then lived there again until he went to Italy in September 1820. Here, he wrote his most important works, "On the Eve of Saint-Anne's Day" and "Haibilang".

Keats's letters, manuscripts and other works are mainly collected in the Hughton Library of Harvard University, and some are collected in the British Library and the Keats Memorial Hall in North London.

Literary Analysis

Eliot first published poetry near the end of the First World War. Those poems show his early influences: French Symbolist Poetry, especially Stéphany Mallarmé and Confucianism Laforgue's irony, and Charles Baudelaire's urban imagery. Eliot's lifelong concern with the plight of modern civilization and postwar disillusionment also begins to emerge here.
"Prufrock's Love Song" (published in "Poetic Journal" in 1915) is an early example of the above influence and concern. This is the inner monologue of a shy, repressed man. It shows that Eliot was already interested in the idea of ​​"fragmentation" as a technique at this time. Prufrock longs to interact with others, but he lives in isolation, is both sensitive and insensitive, and is always worried about the negative consequences of communicating and contacting others. By listing seemingly disconnected images throughout the poem, Eliot emphasizes what he sees as the fragmented nature of modern men and women.
"The Waste Land", which is a landmark work in the 1920s, also shows his concern for the plight of the 20th century. Its achievement is due to the enthusiastic help of Eliot's mentor and friend Ezra Pound. He suggested that Eliot revise the manuscript, delete some expository material, cut off seventy-two lines of rhymed dialogue, and delete some redundant words and tawdry poetic diction. The result was an unparalleled experimental poem, with its simplicity of language and extraordinary imagination, which formed a revolution in the history of literature. Eliot's skill and vision in his poems will, to some extent, have a profound impact on current and future generations.

In The Waste Land, he experimented with a technique he attributed to James Joyce: the use of myth. Reviewing Ulysses in 1922, Eliot explained this use of myth as providing "a kind of eternal contrast between reality and history."Eliot also experimented with this method in two poems, "Straight Sweeney" and "Sweeney in the Nightingale," which were included in the 1919 collection Poems. In "The Waste Land" he used mythology for the last time. He conceived his work around the myth of death and rebirth, which he believed to be the archetype of all the world's major religions. Eliot's concept came from two anthropological works, Miss Jesse Weston's "From Ritual to Myth" (1920) and Sir James Frazer's "The Golden Bough" which inspired him to describe it in the poem A mythical realm where a wounded (or dead) king waits for someone to save him and restore fertility to his land. Using symbols of desert, water, fertility, and regeneration, Eliot created a picture that he considered to be both modern and of any era.

Eliot's poems after "The Waste Land" continue to explore contemporary culture. He places great emphasis on the necessity of individuals to find a standard to determine their personality. This poetic question reflects Eliot's personal journey, as hinted at in the titles of poems about religious doubt and reconciliation: "The Journey of Three Saints," "Ash Wednesday" (1930), "The Four Quartet" (1943). The creation of "Four Quartets" began in 1934 and was completed in 1943. This is a work after his conversion to Christianity; he did not overly dramatize the refuge of religious belief as a smooth road to the truth. This is a collection of poems containing religious and philosophical meditations. As its title suggests, "Four Quartets" has a musical structure, consisting of four long lyrical poems titled after place names: "Burning Norton," the site of an English manor; A small village where Little's ancestors lived; "Dry Selviges", a group of rocks off Cape Ann, Massachusetts, USA; "Little Gidding", the seat of an Anglican community in the 17th century. Each quartet of the poem contains a flowing, changing rhythm, a meditative tone that accompanies its theme, themes, repetitions and multiple ingenious music. In short, this quartet shows Eliot's efforts to seek value affirmation in his personality development and literary process.

These explorations led Eliot to try his hand in other genres. He wrote five plays: "Murder in the Cathedral" (1935), "The Family Reunion" (1939), "The Cocktail Party" (1949), "Secretary" (1953), and "The Elder" (1958). Religious themes are reflected in every play, and all five plays were successfully performed on Broadway in London and New York. These plays are all written in verse, and they show Eliot trying to explore the same themes he had dealt with in poetry, only this time putting them on stage.

Eliot's concerns in his poetry are also demonstrated in his literary criticism. He has published works on Dante, George Hubbard, Elizabethan drama, and 17th-century poetry. He has also published various collections of essays on society and religion, and on various aesthetic issues. One of his most important books is The Sacred Grove (1920), which contains Eliot's famous essay "Tradition and Individual Talent." In this essay he spoke of the agency of tradition, emphasizing the importance of the poem itself rather than the personality of the poet. These ideas are also contained in Eliot's poetry, which constantly expresses the connection between the past and the present. This, he claimed, was a way in which artists could reconstruct tradition through their contribution to and reflection on it. In the process of this reconstruction, Eliot said, the artist must suppress individuality through "constant self-sacrifice." The most important thing in modern poetry should be the poem itself, not the personal style of the poet's creator. Not only did he promote this view, he also practiced it himself.

Although he made great achievements in literary criticism and poetry and drama creation, Eliot was always a poet. He was an American who later became a British citizen. Because of his unusual, almost split personality, readers have asked Eliot whether his poetry belongs to the American or British tradition.Responding to this question in the Paris Review in 1959, he said: "I would say that my poetry clearly has more in common with that of my famous American contemporaries, while the characteristics of my British contemporaries are in my work Shows less in ”html that’s for sure. 11 Just as he clearly understood his place in literary history, critics also clearly understood that Eliot, as one of the founders of modernist English poetry, had an impact on literature even before he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. has had an undoubted impact and will surely affect the future. Eliot's obscure and experimental poetry challenged, and continues to challenge, his readers. The criterion of obscurity was part of Eliot's aesthetic, and he believed that poetry, especially 20th-century poetry, could not be simple and clear. In The Uses of Poetry and the Uses of Criticism (1933), he explained this idea: "Difficulty [in reading certain poems is caused] by the author's omission of something that the reader is accustomed to look for, Therefore, readers are confused , searching everywhere for something omitted from the poem." What gives poetry this inherent difficulty is one of Eliot's experiments with technique: his listing of images with no obvious connections, his reliance on metaphor, his rough, incongruous Modified language, innovation in structure, etc. Eliot finally expressed his views on modern civilization, his feelings about the chaos and cultural impoverishment of the 20th century, and raised questions about how to respond appropriately to the disjointedness of modern civilization. Obscure, innovative, and prophetic, T.S. Eliot deservedly deserved the praise bestowed upon him by the Swedish Academy, who acknowledged that he had "the most extraordinary talent for finding, both in poetry and in the defense of certain views." Just the right words."

Later influence

Eliot's "Tradition and Personal Talent" was translated into Chinese by the famous poet Bian Zhilin as early as the 1930s. Regarding this far-reaching paper, Borges said that instead we create our ancestors and traditions, rather than tradition creating us. After the publication of "The Waste Land", various interpretations emerged one after another, and people often regarded it as a portrayal of the decline of Western civilization. There are also critics who focus on the salvation of the wasteland and believe that "The Wasteland" is essentially different from "Ulysses". Eliot describes a helpless individual facing the endless darkness and trembling, trying to solve various problems in contemporary society. The problem is beyond human control. We can only wait for the rain to fall amidst the rumbling thunder.

Yan Feng, associate professor of the Chinese Department of Fudan University, recalled that in the 1980s, domestic college students said that "if you don't talk about Eliot, reading all the poems will be in vain." This shows the impact of Eliot on the Chinese cultural world. big. Nowadays, poetry is in a marginalized state, and the publication of Eliot's collected works makes people feel that it is "20 years late." Zhang Xinyin, a well-known literary critic and professor of the Chinese Department of Fudan University, also said that looking at the history of modern and contemporary Chinese poetry, many famous poets have said that they were deeply influenced by Eliot. For example, Xu Zhimo once imitated Eliot's poetic style and wrote "Western Window". Bian Zhilin, Xia Jian, Mu Dan and others were also deeply influenced by it. "From Xu Zhimo and Sun Dayu to today's literary youth, generations of people have read Eliot's masterpieces "The Waste Land" and "Prufer". Locke's Love Song" constitutes an unforgettable memory of Chinese literature."

Eliot was also one of the most important critics in Britain in the 20th century. His ideal of "the common pursuit of correct judgment" once became a very inspiring slogan. Eliot's first collection of essays, "The Sacred Grove," allows readers to feel an authoritative voice that ushered in a new era. His "Selected Essays, 1917-1932" is a rare classic in the history of British criticism.

Achievements and Honors

Eliot was also quite successful in the field of poetic drama. He tried to create a modern mode of poetic drama. The play Murder in the Cathedral (1935), about the 12th-century Archbishop Becket, affirms religious devotion. His other scripts include "Family Reunion", "Cocktail Party", etc. Eliot was also an important literary critic. He wrote many famous literary essays such as "Tradition and Individual Talent" and "The Three Voices of Poetry".He put forward a series of important insights, such as writers must have a sense of history, writers cannot break away from literary tradition but can enrich and change the tradition with their own creations, poets should look for "objective counterparts", etc. He also proposed principles for poetry creation and evaluation in articles such as "Sacred Grove" and "On Poetry and Poets". These insights had a great influence on New Criticism. In 1948, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his poem "Four Quartets". Considered the most influential poet writing in English before World War II.

Character Works

Eliot began writing poetry in 1909 and published "Prufrock's Love Song" (1917), "Collected Poems" (1919), and "The Waste Land" ( 1922), "The Poems of Eliot" (1909-2925), "The Journey of the Sage in the East" (1927), "Grey Wednesday" (1930), "Selected Poems" (1909-1935), "Four Quartets" ( 1943) etc. Among them, "Prufrock's Love Song" is a representative work of early poetry; "The Waste Land" was produced in the middle period of creation and is an epoch-making work of 20th century Western literature and a milestone in modernist poetry; "Four Quartets" is a representative work of late poetry.

Eliot's poems are influenced by French Symbolist poetry, late Renaissance British playwrights and metaphysical poetry. The images are concrete and accurate, and the fusion of thoughts and feelings is connected by association and suggestion, reflecting the capitalist society of the 1920s. There was doubt and disillusionment about existence, and in the 1930s and 1940s, there was a desire to seek relief from religion.

The most important of Eliot's early poems are: "Prufrock's Love Song" (1915), which describes the ambivalence of a mediocre young man in upper class society in his courtship poem; "Portrait of a Lady" (1915), It writes about the emptiness of the lives of upper-class women; "The Little Old Man" (1919) depicts an illusory feeling through the monologue of an old man. These poems reflect the spiritual emptiness, poverty and despair of the upper-class British and American people before and after the First World War.

"The Waste Land" (1922) is an epoch-making work in 20th century Western literature, a milestone in modernist poetry, and Eliot's famous work. The whole poem is divided into 5 chapters. In the first chapter "Funeral of the Dead", the poet uses the wasteland to symbolize post-war European civilization, which needs moisture from water, spring, and life, but reality is full of vulgarity and base desires, neither life nor death. The second chapter, "Dui Yi," compares the lives of upper-class women with those of lower-class men and women in bars, showing that such lives are equally low-level and meaningless. The third chapter "Fire Commandment" describes the vulgarity and obscenity caused by the fire of lust, which is empty and without true love. Chapter 4, "Death in the Water," is the shortest, implying that death is inevitable and that the water of life that people long for cannot save mankind. Chapter 5, "Words of Thunder," returns to the theme of Europe as an arid wasteland, fearful of revolutionary waves, and preaching about religious "giving, compassion, and restraint." Eliot used anthropological research results on myths and legends, quoted or changed a large number of plots, allusions and nouns in European literature. He used six languages, vivid images, hints and associations, and a strict structure to form a novel. A complete poem with consistent thoughts and sentiments. The whole poem rarely uses rhyme, but is mostly in rhythmic free verse, and the language is varied. This poem was a major breakthrough in terms of technique. After it was published in the first two issues of the "Standard" quarterly magazine, it was widely discussed. Later, the author added annotations, and researchers made interpretations and comments, making it basically understandable.

Eliot's other important poems such as "The Hollow Man" (1925), the despair is more obvious: man is just an empty frame in the land of death, a man filled with straw, a shadow. "The world ends with a whimper." There are gradually more abstract nouns in this poem. "Ash Wednesday" (1930) refers to the first day of Lent, when ashes are sprinkled on the heads of penitents to promote the Christian doctrine of obedience to God's will and penitence.

"Four Quartets" was written between 1935 and 1941, borrowing four locations as its title: "Burn Norton" refers to the ruins of a rose garden in a British country house; "Le Cock" is the village where Erich's ancestors lived in the UK. Hecunda Trail; "Dry Salvage" refers to a group of rocks in Haida, Massachusetts, USA; "Little Gidding" refers to a small church in the Anglican settlement during the British Civil War in the 17th century. This is a set of philosophical and religious meditation poems. The central theme is consistent with "The Wasteland". Through personal experiences, historical deeds, etc., it expresses the emptiness of time (past, present and future) and the disillusionment of life, waiting for life and death. "Yew trees and roses live together" promotes the Christian spirit of humility. This poem is a poem that combines meditation and imagery. The language is rhythmic, without the artificiality of "The Waste Land". It reads naturally and smoothly, and is clear and clear. It is considered to be Eliot's pinnacle poem.

Eliot's plays are mostly written in verse. The early Sweeney the Fighter (1926) was unfinished. The Rock (1934) was staged to raise funds for a London parish, a period drama in which the chorus lines exaggerated the difficulties experienced by the Church, both past and present, and proclaimed its eventual triumph.

Eliot's most famous verse drama is "Murder in the Cathedral" (1935), written for the Sunday service of Canterbury Cathedral. The story originates from the conflict between Hamas Earl Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury and King Henry II in the 12th century. Beckett resisted all kinds of temptations and was finally killed by the knight sent by the king. Critics believe that this play praises the devotion to atone for the sins of the world, while others believe that it is against the sin of pride that is denied by the doctrine.

"Family Reunion" (1939) uses modern themes to write about the retribution of crime. Crime breaks up families and emphasizes the characters' atonement psychology. "Cocktail Party" (1950) and "Secretary" (1954) use realistic comedy to promote religious belief, which can bring light to self-understanding to sinful people. Only religious belief can keep people from going astray. The last play, "The Elder" (1959), turned to a celebration of love.

Eliot's earliest critical works were collected in "The Sacred Grove" (1920). Later, he published critical articles one after another. In 1932, he compiled another "Selected Essays" (revised in 1951), and in 1936 he compiled "Ancient and Modern Essays" .

His most important literary criticism articles include: "Tradition and Personal Talent" (1917), "The Function of Criticism" 1923, "The Use of Poetry in Poetry and the Use of Poetry in Criticism" (1930). In addition, there are also articles on poetic drama, Articles and speeches by individual playwrights and poets. Eliot did not admire Shakespeare; he believed that Milton had a bad influence on poetic techniques; he believed that Shelley was conceptual and Byron was only for the entertainment of the upper class. He highly admired Dante, English Renaissance (especially late) playwrights, and metaphysical poets. He praised Dryden's poetic skills for giving people the pleasure of surprise.

In the article "Tradition and Personal Talent", he proposed that a writer cannot break away from traditional creation, but can make changes in tradition like a catalyst. This is where the writer's personal talent lies. The function of literary criticism is to put facts that readers have not seen before the reader, so as to improve his ability to appreciate and feel.

Eliot also proposed two important concepts of poetry criticism: "differentiation of feelings" and "objective counterpart". He believed that British poetry after the 18th century tended to be idealistic and conceptual, with thoughts and feelings, thoughts and images out of touch, and the thoughts and feelings of poetry in the 19th century tended to be hazy and vague. Therefore, poets should look back to the early 17th century, that is, the late Renaissance and the Metaphysical poetry study. He believes that poets cannot express or express their thoughts and feelings directly like philosophers or unskilled poets, but must find "objective counterparts." Writers must use a calm mind like classical writers to combine "objective counterparts" such as various images, scenes, events, anecdotes, and quotations into a pattern to express a certain complex and immediately arouse the same emotion in the reader's mind. The emotions of the poem should be consistent with the style to correct the hazy and vague effect of 19th century poetry.

In addition to literary criticism, Eliot also published many famous works and articles on religion and culture, the main ones include "What is Christian Society" (1940), "Notes on the Definition of Culture" (1949), etc.

Eliot's creations and comments played a pioneering role in 20th century modernist literature and New Criticism criticism in Britain and the United States. Few people can compare with his influence on the entire Western literary world.

Writer of the same name

Eliot, George (1819～1880)

British writer. Born Mary Ann Evans. Born on November 22, 1819 in Warwickshire, England, and died in London on December 22, 1880. She has been familiar with the customs and customs of the British countryside since she was a child. She studied in a girls' boarding school as a girl. After her mother died, she helped her father with housework. She studied at home and was a language genius. She mastered German, French, Italian, Latin and Greek. At the age of 20, he moved to Coventry with his father, where he met young people with liberal ideas such as Charles Bray and Charles Hannell. After reading the latter's "An Investigation on the Origin of Christianity" and other skeptical treatises, he decided to He abandoned his religious beliefs and paid enthusiastic attention to various new trends in social reform. This was a turning point in her life. In 1846, she translated and published the atheistic work "The Life of Jesus" by the German thinker David Strauss. A few years later, she translated Feuerbach's "The Essence of Christianity". The publication of these two books had a considerable impact on the development of liberal thought in Britain in the 19th century. In 1851, she served as assistant editor of the "Westminster Review", getting closer to more liberal intellectuals, and her thoughts further matured.

During this period, she lived with the critic and married man George Henry Louis because of their ideological congeniality. Encouraged by the latter, he began to engage in creative writing and published his works under the pseudonym George Eliot. Initially, he published three novellas under the title "Scenes from the Priest's Life", which attracted the attention of critics. The next published "Adam Bede" is a novel that truly reflects the British rural scene at the end of the 18th century and shows the profound moral power of the protagonist of the same name. "Mill on the Floss" is a novel describing rural life in England in the early 19th century. It reflects the author's moral thinking through the story and fate of a brother and sister. "Manan the Weaver" is a psychological novel with high artistic achievements. She was exiled from the "respectable" society of Victorian England for living with a married man, and the two later traveled frequently across the European continent. Two trips to Italy led her to write the novel "Romula", which reflects the life of the Italian religious reformers. Her other important works include: "Felix Holt", "Middlemarch", "Daniel Deronda", etc.

"Middlemarch" is considered to be her most important novel. Through the complex and intertwined fate of many characters, she deeply thinks about people's free will and free choice, and the consequences of personal actions on herself and others. The author puts the author The idea of ​​"people must pay the price for their moral choices" is taken to the extreme. This is a novel about the disillusionment of life and contains a lot of psychological analysis. Eliot has profound powers of observation and thinking, and has created many vivid female characters in his novels.

Creative Features

Galsworthy's works are based on the British society in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, describing the social and family life of the British bourgeoisie, as well as the history of its prosperity and decline. His works have concise language, vivid images and pungent satire. The novel makes a sharp satire on the bourgeoisie and is a realist masterpiece that best embodies Galsworthy's progressive thoughts and artistic techniques. But it also reflects the author's ideological limitations: the described life circle is too narrow, limited to the family, marriage, and moral fields of the middle and upper bourgeoisie, and does not show the broad social scene of that era; while exposing and satirizing "Foreign" At the same time, he also made an idealized description of some important members of the Forsyte family, such as old Jolyon and others.

theme

Galsworthy was born in an era when modernist literature was at its peak, but he did not follow the trend.It is said that his friends Conrad and others once persuaded him to learn something fashionable, but he did not change his original intention and adhered to the traditional path of realism.

The characters in his works are roughly divided into three categories: first, the "property people" like himself, that is, the "Forsytes"; second, the lower class people; and the other are people in between these two categories. , that is, the intellectual class, or the "outsiders" who break into the "people with property". He usually lives among the first type of people, and some of them are his relatives and even himself. For example, the prototype of old Jolyon in "The Man of Estate" is the author's father. The prototype of Jolyon is, to some extent, the author himself. The prototype of Soles, a typical "Forsyte" full of gangster habits, is the author's cousin Arthur Galsworthy; the prototype of Soames's wife Irene is Arthur's original wife Ada. Like Irene, Ada also got divorced because she couldn't bear Arthur's abuse, and finally became the author's lifelong partner. The author's portrayal of these characters is naturally very skillful. As for the second type of people, although he did not live with them, he had gone to slums to collect rent and collect debts for his father's company when he was young. When he grew up, he traveled around the world and visited prisons and prisons. I witnessed their poverty in various places in the country, and deeply felt the injustice to them by society, so the descriptions of them were also vivid and realistic. As for the third type of people, he has not had much or deep contact with them, nor does he understand them thoroughly, so the images of such characters in his works are generally relatively pale.

As a writer with a sense of justice and a deep understanding of social life, Galsworthy showed criticism of society, satire of the upper class and sympathy for the poor people in every line of his works. However, his criticism is generally limited to the moral and spiritual aspects, and this critical attitude is not consistent. He himself said: "My early works were indeed more lyrical than critical. But in the nine years after 1901, generally speaking, they were mainly Criticism reigns supreme." This sentence indeed outlines the tendencies of his early works.

For example, Soames, the protagonist of "The Man of Property", is portrayed as a typical "Forsyte spirit" character. His view of property consciousness is extremely biased. In his eyes, everything is a must. Think about its value in advance and treat it as original capital to allow him to accumulate more wealth. For example, when he collects famous paintings and antiques, he considers not their own artistic value, but their ability to be fetched in auction houses. How much extra profit can he get; when he invests in real estate, he always puts interests at the forefront and considers how much return he can get after building a house here. "In his eyes, his wife is his private property, and he values ​​​​it. He used money to snatch Yilin's beauty from her stepmother. After that, he did not treat Yilin well. He did not even regard her as a person with thoughts and life, but just regarded her as an antique. collection, announcing to the people of London that he He was also proud of possessing the beautiful girl Yilin as a supreme honor. "So after marriage, he treated Yilin as an inviolable private property and closed Yilin in his personal world." What he did inspired He expressed Irene's disgust and hatred towards him, but Soames did not take it seriously. He also announced that Irene had violated the provisions of the law regarding property law. As punishment, he would imprison Irene in a villa in the country. Give her a chance to escape Therefore, when Soames discovered that his private property, Irene, fell in love with the architect Bosinney, his possessiveness was threatened, so he firmly refused to agree to divorce. Not only did he forcefully possess Irene, Moreover, he designed to frame Bosinney, causing him to end his life when he suffered career trauma." The novel details the intrigues and selfish "Forsyte spirit" of the Forsyte family, making " Forsyte's spirit was "more highlighted".

Although in his later works, the critical nature gradually faded.However, the two trilogies created by Galsworthy, "The Forsytes" and "Modern Comedy", artistically depict the spiritual outlook of the British bourgeoisie in the 40 years from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, and the decline of this class. The real picture created a typical image of the Forsytes that almost became the "common name".

method

novel

series novel

uses the family history novel series to reflect the historical changes of capitalist society from prosperity to decline, which can be said to be a major contribution of Galsworthy. Among all Galsworthy's creations, the two trilogies about the Forsyte family, "The Forsytes" and "Modern Comedy", are the most important. These two trilogies describe the family's rise to prosperity. Five generations of change to decline. However, they are different from Zola's "The Rougon-Macquart Family". What is written there is not a group of people only related by blood, but a whole. Galsworthy regarded it as a microcosm of society and a British asset. The epitome of class. The writer closely links this family with British society and British history. Through the internal conflicts of this family and the history of its rise and fall, he writes about the historical changes that took place in Britain from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. This is Britain. The historical changes of capitalism from free competition to monopoly concentration, from peak prosperity to decline, and the evolution of the British bourgeoisie from prosperity to decline. In other words, this series of novels reflects the changes of the times and class changes through a family history. Monologue

In Galsworthy, the author's description and monologue without quotation marks are interspersed together, and most of them describe the inner activities of the characters, which are very similar to the so-called "indirect inner monologue". However, we only say that the two are "similar", not that they are the same. There are still important differences between the two. For example, the "indirect inner monologue" of modernist literature is often in the form of a small discussion and is the entire literary genre, while Galsworthy's works only occasionally use this technique. Moreover, various monologues in modernist literature are often illogical and irrational. The author often deliberately adds some incoherent elements, deliberately makes the cause and meaning of the event appear vague, and deliberately does not explain it; there are often inconsistencies, and because he writes the stream of consciousness for the purpose of writing the stream of consciousness (sometimes of course also to express the consciousness Erratic), often drifting away from the theme. Galsworthy was not like this, but was rational and logical, and the context always had coherence and cause and effect. Of course, most of these monologues without quotation marks are the characters' casual flow of consciousness. Along with this, he sometimes uses inner monologues with quotation marks to express the characters' clear and conclusive thoughts after thinking.

Different from stream-of-consciousness literature, Galsworthy was never skilled for the sake of technique. When he used these indirect monologue techniques, it not only had the function of developing the plot, but also was a means of characterizing. Galsworthy mastered this technique skillfully and was able to apply it freely, making these "indirect monologues" integrated with the author's narrative, very harmonious, and leaving no trace of ax.

In addition, a large part of Galsworthy's short stories and short stories are based on the daily life of ordinary people, writing about ordinary events of ordinary people. The protagonists of these novels include a bootmaker (such as "Quality"), a literati who sells literature for a living ("Conscience"), a barber ("Courage"), etc. Because he has a relatively deep understanding of their lives and can conduct detailed observations with sympathy, he can often capture the extraordinary qualities of these ordinary people. Make the article more vivid and realistic and deeply rooted in people's hearts.

Drama

In Galsworthy's plays, although we can see his sympathetic tendency to suppress the rich and promote the poor, he adopted a symmetrical or parallel structure to create the characters, pointing out that both sides of the conflict have their own rationality for existence. and irrationality, thereby achieving a calm, objective and impartial attitude.

For example, the focus expressed by the author in the play "Struggle" is not the life-and-death struggle between labor and management, but the lashing of the extremism represented by strike leader Roberts and company chairman Anthony. But while denying them, Galsworthy did not describe them as villains. Instead, he portrays them as the best in their respective camps with sympathy, calmness, and even-handedness. Aside from their differences in political views and social status, Roberts and Anthony are strikingly similar. They both have the same advantages: they stick to their own principles, make great contributions to their respective classes or groups, and are full of sacrifice. At the same time, both of them also have the same shortcomings: they are unable to understand and unite their companions, they are stubborn and insist on their own opinions, completely ignoring the suffering and misfortune caused by the strike, and insist on fighting to the end. At the board meeting, Anthony ignored the advice of the directors and his sons and daughters, believing that striking workers must be treated with an "iron fist policy" and kept shouting "never give in." The perseverant, selfless and fearless Roberts also vowed to "never compromise." The arduous struggle, the misfortune of his family, and the poverty of his life could not shake his confidence.

Galsworthy's writing style is characterized by smooth writing, vivid, beautiful and contagious language. While inheriting the tradition of realism, Galsworthy also absorbed the techniques of naturalism, describing social tragedies one after another, recording the real social life in Britain at the beginning of this century, and achieving a high degree of unity between reality and objectivity. This makes him unique among new dramatists who focus on social issues. Although Galsworthy's writing style has been criticized by some critics as being too moderate and compromising, his approach undoubtedly opened up a new path for the development of social issue dramas. The alienated, objective, and impartial attitude he adopted in the play injected fresh vitality into the social issue plays that used discussion as the main method at that time, mobilized the enthusiasm of readers, stimulated their interest in reading, and made them participate Go to the works and give full play to your imagination. In this way, the script gains vitality through readers' reading, and its meaning is also generated and sublimated in the process.

Character evaluation

John Galsworthy describes the excellent art for him (Galsworthy) - this art reaches its peak in "The Forsytes". (Swedish Academy)

Galsworthy's creation has pushed the great national art forward on the historical road in terms of its origin, conception and ending. (Conrad)

Some of Galsworthy's early plays and novels did leave a flavor, an atmosphere, mixed with country scenes and high-society dinner parties in London. (George Orwell)

Creation characteristics

Layout characteristics

Agatha Christie's works are very distinctive in layout and plot. As soon as the book opens, there are a lot of doubts and strange things happening, which arouses confusion and curiosity in the readers. Reading Christie's works is full of climaxes that make readers unable to stop. Even when they stare at her closely, they can't guess what kind of medicine is sold in Christie's gourd. If the reader is not careful, she will surprise you. The author is familiar with history and geography. She worked in a hospital during the two world wars and is very knowledgeable about pharmaceuticals (especially poisons). This also provided the conditions for Christie to design the murderer to commit the crime.

In works with a famous detective as the protagonist, the ending is often that the detective summons all living people to reveal the truth. This model is widely adopted. However, there are also many repetitive themes in the author's many works, especially the murderous motive of seeking inheritance, which is repeated in almost all her works.

Psychological description

Each of Agatha Christie's detective novels is a clever use of psychology in literature. There are countless "grey cells" in the mind of Poirot in her novel, and the "gray cells" are the factors that enable this short detective to scientifically reason about everyone's psychology and actions.Poirot is good at comprehensively analyzing the other party's clothing, behavior, hobbies, experiences and outlook on life, and then making logical deductions. Poirot has almost never fought any criminals. He is always slow and leisurely, like an experienced old cat observing a group of playful mice, finding out which "mouse" is responsible for the crime, and bringing it to justice. Law. Miss Marple, another female detective in Christie's novel, appears to be a gossipy old girl, nicknamed "Old Cat". In fact, Miss Marple uses gossip to make deductions. She always mixes irrelevant gossip with The intentional murders are linked together, and some details and unusual behaviors of the criminals are used to peek into the inner secrets of the criminals. Like Poirot, she is a psychologist. In "Murder on the Orient Express", Poirot speculated on the psychological activities of 12 passengers and learned about each person's history. From this, he concluded that the murder of Ratchett was committed by 12 people. It turned out that they To avenge innocent children. In the book "The Mist", Dr. Sheppard performed extremely well, but Poirot was not fooled by the illusion. He was good at reasoning and finally brought Dr. Sheppard to justice. In "The Cat Who Stole the Jewel", Poirot conducted a detailed investigation into Meadowbank School and used rigorous reasoning to reveal the true identity of the real murderer Ann Shapland. Miss Marple gave amazing performances in the two cases of "Murder at the Vicarage" and "The Dead Body in the Study". With her wisdom and psychological knowledge, the real murderer in the fog came from behind the scenes to the front. It fully demonstrates the charm of psychological reasoning in detective novels. It is particularly worth pointing out that although Christie's detective novels contain murders and love between men and women, her writing attitude is serious, she does not exaggerate atrocities, let alone pornographic descriptions, and her writing style is quite clean.

Language Features

Although Agatha Christie did not go to a formal school, her writing is exquisite and beautiful, her language is fluent and natural, and she is obviously influenced by Dickens' novels. Her novels surpass Conan Doyle in structure. Conan Doyle was good at writing short stories, while Christie controlled many characters and complex plots and devoted himself to conceiving full-length detective novels. There are more foreshadowings and clues in her novels than Conan Doyle's. Christie is good at using multi-faceted expression techniques to reflect social reality, and inserts descriptions of the background of the times and customs and humanities behind each murder case. For example, in "Tragedy on the Nile", beautiful writing is used to describe the water customs and historical sites; and in "The Cat Who Stole Jewels", the geographical environment and local customs of the Middle East are described with a strong sense of life. Especially in the description of the psychological activities of everyone involved in the murder after the murder, it can be described as vividly. Christie's language style also has modernist connotations. Her language is rich in meaning and has broad room for interpretation. The reader cannot determine the true meaning of her linguistic symbols until the ending is reached. The ambiguity of this depiction is consistent with the narrative slogan of the detective novel genre, prompting readers to doubt the motives of each character and enhancing suspense.

Character influence

French President Charles de Gaulle calls himself an "Agatha Christie fan", and the British Queen Mother Mary also regards reading Agatha Christie's novels as one of the best enjoyments. On Queen Mary's 80th birthday, the British BBC radio station congratulated the Queen, and Queen Mary designated to broadcast the works of Agatha Christie.

Agatha Christie's works have been translated into one hundred and three languages. According to a 1961 UNESCO report, Agatha Christie was the best-selling author in the world at that time. Her books are sold in one hundred and two countries. The American magazine "The New Yorker" pointed out that the sales of Christie's works are second only to Shakespeare's works and the "Bible" in the history of book publishing. Her outstanding works such as "Murder on the Orient Express", "Tragedy on the Nile" and "Crime in the Sun" have been adapted into movies, translated into many languages, and widely screened around the world. They are very popular. Her play "The Mousetrap", adapted from the novel, has been running for many years and remains popular. The name Christie has been listed as the best-selling author in the United Kingdom and the United States for several consecutive years.In 1971, for her achievements in literature, the Queen of England awarded her the title of Lady Agatha of the British Empire. Many of her works have been translated and introduced to China.

Agatha Christie pioneered the "country house school" of detective novels, that is, the murder occurred in a specific closed environment, and the murderer was also one of several specifically related people. Many detective works in Europe, America and even Japan also use this model.

Character evaluation

Christie's works have eternal value. (Review of "On Detective Novels" by Detective Novelist Cheng Xiaoqing)

Christie's keen observation skills in social background, character description and dialogue are unparalleled. (Comments by historian C.V. Wechatwood)

Christie was the first person to gamify the plot of "murder", because before that, Conan Doyle's murder-themed novels were mostly full of blood and horror. The killings in Christie's novels are neither depressing nor bloody, and are truly game-like and entertaining. Christie's suspense novels are unparalleled. In fact, reading Christie's works, readers can find the pleasure of playing chess with the author. Unfortunately, in every round, readers will fall behind, and the best result is a tie. (writer Ma Yuanping)

The second marriage

Agatha Christie, who lost her financial source, had to devote herself to writing again. While recuperating in Spain's Canary Islands, she completed The Secret of the Blue Express. She loved life and finally plucked up the courage to return to England and signed a divorce agreement in 1928. During this low point in her life, Agatha Christie created the image of Miss Jane Marple, a lovely old lady who never married.

In 1929, at the suggestion of a friend, Agatha Christie boarded the Orient Express and traveled to the Middle East. The unique customs and customs opened a new page in her life. She visited archaeologist Leonard Woolley's excavation site in Ur (now in Iraq) and became good friends with the Woolleys.

In 1930, when Agatha Christie revisited this place, Woolley's assistant Max Mallowan was assigned to receive her and accompany her on her journey back to England. However, an unexpected telegram brought the news that her daughter Rosalind was suffering from pneumonia, which made her panic. The considerate Max escorts Agatha back to England. She was relieved to see that her daughter was gradually recovering under her sister's care. Life seems to be peaceful again. However, the sudden proposal of Max, who was 14 years younger than her, broke the calm and surprised and delighted her. After repeatedly weighing and consulting her family, she overcame her fear of love life and entered into marriage with her nephew's college classmate Max Mallowan on September 11, 1930.

After that, writing and annual visits to relatives became the main theme of Agatha Christie's life. With her love for life, she wrote every bit of her detailed observations into her detective novels.

World War II

The arrival of World War II disrupted everyone's life order. Max joins the Army and is sent to North Africa as a Middle East specialist. Daughter Rosalind got married and had children, but her husband was killed in action in 1944.

Agatha Christie participated in voluntary work in the local hospital during her busy schedule, and still dedicated her spare time to writing. "The Curtain" dedicated to Rosalind and "The Mysterious Villa" dedicated to Max were written under gunfire. These were the last cases of Poirot and Miss Marple respectively, and were not announced to the world until 30 years after they were completed. For insurance purposes, she also kept a copy of the manuscript in a safe.

In 1945, Max finally returned to England.

In her twilight years

In 1947, Agatha Christie was invited by the BBC to create the radio drama "Three Blind Mice" for Queen Mary's 80th birthday. Max then began excavations in Nimrud, Iraq - which would lead to him being knighted many years later.

In 1950, Agatha Christie's 50th detective novel "Murder Notice" was published; she met the theater producer Peter Sanders; she also had her special study at the Nimrud archaeological site Bet Agatha (ancient Arabic, meaning Agatha's House) began 15 years of autobiographic writing. In the same year, Agatha Christie became a member of the Royal Society of Literature. On November 25, 1952, Peter Sanders adapted the play "The Mousetrap" from "Three Blind Mice" to the stage. It was from that day that this work began to set an unprecedented record in the history of world drama that has been performed continuously for more than 50 years (only closed on Sundays) without interruption and remains popular to this day.

In addition to mystery novels and dramas, Agatha Christie also devoted her creative enthusiasm to the creation of other types of works, such as "Love in Syria", which truly records her life in the Middle East, children's literature "Star of Bethlehem", And poetry collections, etc. She also secretly published several emotional novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.

In 1958, Agatha Christie became the president of the Detective Club and was re-elected for life. In 1961, Agatha Christie was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Exeter.

In 1965, "The Autobiography of Agatha Christie" was completed. The following year, Max completed his book Nimrud and its Ruins.

In 1973, Agatha Christie stopped writing the story "The Gates of Destiny" about elderly Tommy and Tuppence.

In 1975, "Curtain" was published, and many Western newspapers and magazines, including the "New York Times", rushed to publish Poirot's obituary. In 1976, "The Mysterious Villa" was published, which was the curtain call for Miss Marple. The two books topped the bestseller lists in the United Kingdom and the United States that year.

died at his home in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England on January 12, 1976, and was buried in St. Mary's Church Cemetery in Oxfordshire. He was 85 years old.

Character Life

Fielding was born in Somerset, England in 1707, and came from a squire family. Henry Fielding's sister, Sarah Fielding, later became a famous children's writer. He attended Eton College at the age of 13. In 1728, he entered Leiden University in the Netherlands. After a year and a half, he dropped out of school due to his father's inability to provide financial support and returned to London to make a living on his own. Before going to the Netherlands, he staged his first play in London, Love at the Ballroom, an imitation of William Congreve's Comedy of Manners. After returning to London, his drama creation continued until 1737.

In 1734, he got married. In order to make ends meet, he rented a "small theater" and became the manager and wrote his own scripts. He wrote and adapted no less than 25 plays of different types, most of which were farces or comedies of manners and intrigue in the form of operettas. The most important ones were the satires "Basquin" (1736) and "Historical Records" (1737). "Basquin" has been performed for a long time. The first half satirizes bribery and fraud in elections, and the second half satirizes the corruption of priests, lawyers, doctors and other professions. "Historical Chronicles" borrows the name of the yearbook that recorded major events at home and abroad at that time, and writes about the social, political, and dramatic situations that occurred in 1736. In a political scene, five politicians are discussing taxation. They decide to tax ignorance because most wealthy people are ignorant. There is a scene in the play that alludes to Prime Minister Robert Walpole using looted money to bribe the opposition. This political satire greatly angered Robert Walpole. In May 1737, the government passed the "Theater Inspection Act" and closed a large number of theaters. Fielding had to end his drama creation.

Fielding changed to law for life, completed the 7-year course in 3 years, and was qualified as a lawyer in 1740. At the same time, he continued to write, and successively edited four publications including "The Fighter" and began to write novels.

In November 1740, Richardson's "Pamela" was published. At this time, Fielding accidentally saw Richardson's Pamela. Because he did not like the moral preaching in it, Fielding wrote a parody, "The Pamela". A Vindication of the Life of Lady Sharmila Andrew, considered an inheritance from Jonathan Swift and John Grey.

In 1742, he published the biography of Joseph Andrew, with Pamela's brother Joseph as the protagonist. In 1743, he published "The Biography of the Great Jiang Nathan Wilder" which he had written three years earlier. The book is considered a satire on Walpole, and its protagonists, Jonathan Wild and Walpole, develop a parallel relationship. Among them, Wilder, who had a bunch of thieves and was full of ambitions to become a "great man", was considered to be an allusion to the Whig Party led by Walpole.

In 1748, he was appointed as the Chief of Police of the Westminster District of London. He trained the earliest batch of detective police officers to detect criminal activities. He was exposed to all kinds of social life, which provided rich material for his novel creation. He expressed his sympathy for the poor in his pamphlet "Proposals for Effective Measures for the Poor" (1753). In 1754, he retired due to the worsening of gout. He followed the doctor's advice to recuperate in Lisbon, Portugal, and wrote "Lisbon Voyage Diary" (1755), but he died shortly after arriving.

In May 1921, Lin Shu and Chen Jialin jointly translated Fielding's novel "Journey from the Sun to the Underworld" and published it under the title "Dong Ming Ji" by the Shanghai Commercial Press. [1]

Character evaluation

Fielding was considered by Bernard Shaw to be the greatest British playwright from the Middle Ages to the 19th century besides Shakespeare.

Fielding's dramatic works mainly belong to comedies, imitations and satires. He once wrote scripts for the theater and once hosted a small theater. He has written 25 political satirical comedies including "Don Quixote in England" and "Historical Chronicles", all of which were banned.

Walter Scott called Fielding "the father of English fiction."

After the 1940s, Fielding devoted himself to writing the novel "The Biography of the Great Man Kenneth Wilder", which sharply satirized the social and political system of the time. His "The Biography of Joseph Andrews" exposed social inequality in a humorous tone. The representative work "Tom Jones" satirizes and criticizes the vulgarity, hypocrisy and moral corruption of the aristocratic bourgeois society at that time through the life experience of an outcast. Fielding also puts forward opinions on the creation of novels in the introductions to each volume, believing that writers should be familiar with Life. Fielding established the tradition of realism that fully reflected contemporary society and dominated British novels until the end of the 19th century. His works had a great influence on the development of European novels.

His main works

The Biography of Andrew

Fielding is an outstanding dramatist, but his greatest contribution to the history of literature is the creation of his novel

"The Biography of Joseph Andrew". In 1741, there appeared the novel "Shamila", which was a parody of Richardson's "Pamela" and was said to be the work of Fielding. A mockery of "Pamela" but certainly a work by Fielding is "The Life of Joseph Andrew" (1742).

This novel abandons the usual epistolary style and narrates it directly in the author's tone. Pamela's brother Joseph works as a servant in the house of Mr. B's relative Bubby in "Pamela" and is seduced by Mrs. Bubby. Joseph is as virtuous as his sister, but far less lucky than her sister. He was kicked out by Mrs. Bubby because he refused the temptation. Joseph went from London to the countryside to find his lover, maid Fanny. On the way, he met Adams, the village priest. The two of them walked together and met Fanny who was looking for Joseph. The novel no longer parodies after Chapter 10 of Volume 1, but instead writes about the experiences of the three people on the road, which constitutes the main part of the work. They meet various characters on the road: innkeepers, road robbers, good and evil priests, kind and selfish travelers, confused magistrates, squires who try to humiliate Fanny, landowners, housekeepers, hermits, poor people, etc. The descriptions of scenes and pictures on the road reflect the social conditions of the British countryside at that time. The author also creates a vivid idiosyncratic character - Pastor Adams. He is a Quixote-like character. He is kind-hearted and loves to fight against injustices, but has an eccentric temperament and lacks understanding of human nature. He believes that good intentions will be rewarded. The author uses this unusual character to describe his personality. Practical idealists contrast with social vices.

The Life of the Great Man

"The Life of Joseph Andrew" is Fielding's first published novel, and the first novel he wrote was "The Life of the Great Man Kenneth Wilder" (1743). Wilder was a notorious criminal leader in the 18th century, known as the "Great Man", and was eventually hanged. Ballads, fictional dialogues, biographies and pamphlets about him appeared in the early 18th century, including a biography written by Defoe. Opposition writers compared Wilder to Prime Minister Walpole and considered them both bandits. Fielding also used Wilder's deeds as a basis to satirize Walpole-type politicians, but his satire was the most pointed and artistic.

The novel uses Wilder's legend as the narrative framework. Wilder has been stealing since he was a child. As an adult, he organized a group of thieves and implemented strict discipline. Most of the stolen goods belonged to him. Anyone who disobeyed would be reported to the government. While in prison, he also competed with another gangster for the right to control and extort other prisoners. The center of the story is political satire. In the ironic definition, "greatness" is the opposite of kindness. Success in career is often irrelevant to virtue. "Greatness" means oppression, exploitation, and deception of ordinary people. Therefore, "conqueror, absolute monarch, prime minister" and Thieves are no different. Fielding attacks politicians who seek personal gain, and the chapter in which two groups of prisoners compete for "hats" in prison alludes to the ridiculousness of the competition between the two parties and their identical nature in plunder. The novel creates a positive image of the jewelry merchants Hartley and his wife. They suffered ruthless persecution from Wilder and finally came to an end. But their portrayal is not successful. Hartley is kind and affectionate, but lifeless. Mrs. Hartley's inability to escape from Wilder's hands is also unbelievable.

Tom Jones

The full name is "The History of Outcast Tom Jones" (1749), which is Fielding's masterpiece. "Tom Jones" is often regarded as the most outstanding masterpiece of British novels in the 18th century. The story first describes the protagonist's experience in the countryside. The rich and kind-hearted squire Allworthy adopted the abandoned baby Tom Jones and raised him with his sister Bridg's son Briffi. As the two children grow up, Tom is sincere, kind, chivalrous but rash and willful. To set up something wrong is to be hypocritical and scheming. Tom fell in love with Susuoya, the daughter of squire Weston, but Weston forced his daughter to marry Briffi, who could inherit a large inheritance. Buffi also wanted to marry Susuoya out of selfish intentions, and he tried his best to slander him. Tom finally made Allworthy drive Tom away in anger. After hearing the news, Sawyer also took his maid to London to visit her relatives in order to find Tom. The second part of the

novel is about Tom and Susoya's activities on the road. Tom, who wanted to go to sea, got lost and went to London. He and Susoya were close to each other many times, but they never met. He met a group of soldiers in the inn and was injured due to a quarrel. He met his former private school teacher Buttridge, and the two went together. On the way they met hermits, beggars, entertainers, lawyers, gypsies, robbers, tax collectors and others. This part occupies one-third of the novel and is the most interesting and meaningful part of the novel. It describes characters from all walks of life and expresses sympathy for the unfortunate.

The protagonist's experience in London constitutes the third part of the novel. Tom, who is looking for Susoa, meets Susoa's cousin Mrs. Bellaston and is tempted by her. Lady Bellaston also instigated Sir Phillamore to take possession of Susoya. Fortunately, Weston arrived in time to save his daughter. Tom went to jail for wounding someone in self-defense. In the end, the truth was revealed, and Tom was actually Bridg's illegitimate son and Briffi's half-brother. Briffi's various schemes were exposed, and Tom, who was acquitted, became the heir of Mr. Allworthy, and a couple who had gone through many hardships finally got married.

Fielding created an excellent character. Tom is not an ideal young man. He is impatient, impulsive and reckless. He is especially unable to curb his lust, cannot withstand temptation, and is not very discreet in his relationships with women. But he is kind-hearted, upright, compassionate, and willing to help others, and he never intentionally benefits himself at the expense of others. Tom is not the embodiment of morality, but he is full of vitality and embodies healthy and natural humanity.As the Romantic poet Coleridge said: "Reading Fielding's book after reading Richardson is like walking out of a ward where the oven is baking and walking into the open lawn with a gentle breeze in May." Tom seems to be at two extremes. On the outside, he appears to believe in God, abide by all the prescribed rules of conduct, and never forget responsibility and morality. In fact, he is deceitful, selfish and greedy in his heart. Piety and virtue are just masks for him to seek personal gain. The opposition between Briffi and Tom is the opposition between hypocritical Puritan morality and "natural morality".

Fielding condemned the hypocrisy and vulgarity of the civilized world and praised the kindness of simple people, which is similar to the idea of ​​"returning to nature" during the Enlightenment period. He used the mouth of a hermit in the mountains to describe the misfortunes experienced under urban civilization, but he did not agree with the hermit's method of solving problems and hoped to achieve social harmony through people's moral improvement.

"Tom Jones" has been praised for its excellent structure. The novel is grand in length, with three parts: the countryside, the road, and London. It depicts a panoramic view of rural and urban life, as well as various portraits of men and women, but the clues are clear and the story is continuous and fascinating. The mystery of Tom's life experience becomes a strong suspense that is not solved until the end. The ending is unexpected, but the foreshadowing before is convincing. The language of the novel is also clear, flexible and witty.

Amelia

"Amelia" (1751) is Fielding's fourth and last novel,

"Amelia" is his most beloved. After the work was published, the response was lukewarm, and Fielding stopped writing novels. Amelia, who comes from a wealthy family, marries the poor officer Captain Booth despite her mother's objections. They seem to be Tom and Sophia after marriage. Booth is kind-hearted but weak-willed. He is addicted to gambling and was imprisoned for gang fights. In prison, he met his old acquaintance Miss Matthew, and the two fell in love. Amelia has always been tolerant to her husband. She endured the poverty of life, resolutely resisted the temptation of powerful people, adhered to her moral character, and finally got happy rewards: Booth recognized his past mistakes, and they got Amelia. Mother's legacy, family life and beauty.

This novel is more melancholy than the author's other novels. It describes the dark side of society. It rarely has the humorous elements of the first two novels. The misfortune of the heroine has elements of sentimentality. The novel criticizes social inequality, where privileged people do whatever they want, virtue is trampled on at will, the law also helps the rich, and the poor are oppressed and humiliated everywhere. Amelia said sadly: "Oh my God! What are our great men made of? Do they really belong to another type and are different from others? Are they born without heart?" The novel is highly critical, but poorly organized in terms of plot structure. The novel has two clearly separate parts, namely Booth's account of his early life and Amelia's encounters and misfortunes. The narrative is lengthy and the long dialogues are rather boring. However, the psychology and emotions of the main characters are portrayed and described in detail.

Novel theory

Fielding also made great contributions to the theory of novels. He first determined the status of novels in literary forms. In the preface of "The Life of Joseph Andrew", he called his novel "a comic epic in prose". In the introduction to each chapter of "Tom Jones", he elaborated on his theory of the novel. He believes that novels are closest to epics. Except for the lack of rhythm, they have all the characteristics of epics: "story, plot, characters, feelings and style." His novels have the characteristics of being funny, but they are also different from comedy, "its plot involves It is wider, more inclusive, covers a wider range of events, and the characters it introduces are even more diverse. "In terms of character creation, he emphasized "typical". In terms of plot, he emphasized the combination of necessity and contingency. He paid special attention to the structure of the novel and believed that it should be detailed and appropriate. The story is compelling and has internal unity. He established an omniscient and omnipotent narrative form in the novel, distinguished the narrative language from the character language, and made the British novel no longer a simple narrative but an interesting style of writing.

From novel theory to practice, Fielding made outstanding contributions to the development of British novels.

List of works

"Historical Chronicle of 1736" (1737)

"The Biography of the Great Jonathan Field" (1743)

"Tom Jones" (1749)

"Emilia" (1751)

"Lisbon Voyage Diary" (1754)

Life

Samuel Richardson (Samuel Richardson, 1689-1761), British novelist. Born in the lower class of the petty bourgeoisie. His father was a furniture manufacturer and a Puritan who firmly believed that virtues such as honesty, loyalty, and thrift were the pillars of society. He highly praised these virtues in the novels he wrote later. At the age of 16, he went to work as an apprentice with the London publisher John Wilder. Use your leisure time to study on your own. In 1721, he opened his own printing factory. In the 1830s, his printing factory was one of the three best printing factories in London. He served as the chairman of the Book Industry Guild and the royal printer. In addition to running the publishing industry, he was also engaged in writing.

In 1739, two booksellers asked Richardson to write a "letter manual" to guide readers (especially women) on how to write letters. It not only provided people with simulated letter templates for reference, but also provided lecterns. The result was a book titled Letters to and for Good Friends, published in 1741. In the process of writing this book, Richardson recalled a story he had heard before about a maid who rejected the advances of her male master and ended up marrying him. He began to write it into a novel in November 1739, and in 1740 It was completed in January 1740, with the title of "Pamele, also known as Virtue Rewarded". The first two volumes were published in 1740, and the last two volumes were published the following year. This is an epistolary novel that is popular among readers and is called the first modern British novel in literary history. It combines the description of the social environment with the analysis of the characters' psychological activities, and educates readers on Puritan ethics through interesting stories. Richardson focused on describing the emotions of characters and introduced sentimentalism into Western European literature, leading to the rise of the Romanticism movement at the end of the 18th century. The French Enlightenment thinker Diderot placed Richardson alongside Moses, Homer and Sophocles in his book "In Praise of Richardson" (1761), praising him for his profound insight into the activities of the human mind. On the other hand, Richardson also inherited Defoe's tradition of realistic novels and combined sentimentalism with realism, thus giving rise to the new literary genre of modern novels.

Richardson's second novel "Clarissa, also known as the Story of a Young Woman" (1747~1748) is the longest British novel and one of the best tragic novels, with about 1 million words. . It tells the story of a young girl, Clarissa, who fell in love with a young man, Robert Loveras, despite family opposition. However, Lovelace only wanted to play with her and did not really want to marry her. Later Clarissa was raped by him and died of grief and anger. Her relative Colonel Morden dueled with Loveras and killed him, avenging Clarissa. This novel is also written in epistolary style. Richardson is good at using letters to narrate stories and analyze characters' psychological activities and behavioral motivations. "Clarissa" is very moving and has a profound influence on Western European literature. The epistolary novel "Julie, also known as the New Héloise" (1761), written by the French Enlightenment writer Rousseau, was written in strict imitation of Richardson's novel "Clarissa". German writer Goethe's early epistolary novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther" (1774) was also written in indirect imitation of Richardson's novel. Italian playwright Goldoni adapted Richardson's first novel "Pamele" into two plays.

Richardson's third novel "Sir Charles Grandison" (1753), also written in epistolary style, is a love novel that exhorts the world. Richardson's prose is vivid, natural and powerful, and contains a wealth of English idioms. This is one of the reasons why his novels were extremely popular at the time.

He, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and Henry Fielding are the four representative writers of the British realist novels in the 18th century. Defoe is known for his prose, Swift for his satires, Richardson for his epistolary novels, and Fielding for his romances.

Richardson is a conservative writer.He attempted to establish bourgeois puritanical moral norms in order to maintain the capitalist social order. His novels do not write about adventures and adventures, but about family daily life, paying attention to the psychological description of the characters. In terms of structure, they also break through the series method of picaresque novels and focus on describing a complete story. These have brought new factors to the development of the novel.

works

Pamela

His first epistolary novel "Pamela" (1740-1741), subtitled "Virtue is rewarded". The story of the novel is very simple. A young maid, Pamela Andrew, writes to her parents and two friends about her experience at her employer's house. The young master B tried to seduce her many times, but she resolutely refused and left, but B still persisted in his pursuit. Pamela's virtue finally made B feel true love and determined to marry her. The novel became very popular after it was published. Richardson regarded Pamela as the embodiment of virtue and justice. Her resistance to B stems from a kind of "female virtue" and also from the maintenance of her own dignity. She wrote in a letter to her father: "...You can see how the poor are despised by the proud countrymen! But we are equal. Many gentlemen boast about their disciples, but in fact they may not be as innocent as ours. - -These proud people must have never thought about how short life is. Regardless of wealth and splendor, one day they must be on an equal footing with us. The philosopher rightly said that the skeleton of a king is no different than the skeleton of a poor man. Besides, they do not know that in the end, the richest prince will be the poorest. All beggars will stand before the same great judge..." This concept of equality mixed with religious overtones was a typical mentality of the bourgeoisie in the 18th century. They demanded equality with the upper class, and their political demands were combined with Puritan concepts. The story of Pamela contains the Puritan moral concept of Christians abandoning selfish desires, enduring trials and then being saved, which is a common theme of resisting temptation. The bourgeois Puritan concept has both a progressive and sincere side and a hypocritical and utilitarian side. Pamela's virtue was rewarded with considerable income and high social status, and it seemed to have become a commodity, which was ridiculed and parodied by Fielding at that time. "Pamela" is the first novel centered on character portrayal. It changes from the traditional writing of "tramp novels" to writing about people, and depicts the psychology of the characters in detail. Pamela is innocent, simple, and sentimental. The letters resonate emotionally with readers.

Clarissa Harlow

Richardson's most successful novel "Clarissa Harlow" (1747-1748) is also in the form of an epistolary letter and is more than one million words long. Clarissa is the daughter of the middle class in the country. She is beautiful, intelligent and virtuous. She does not want to marry the rich but disgusting young man betrothed to her family, so she runs away with the help of the accomplished young man Robert Lovelace. Lovelace tempted Clarissa in every possible way, and finally insulted her in despicable ways. Clarissa was ashamed, angry and painful. She rejected Lovelace's proposal and died of sorrow and hatred. Richardson intended to warn of "the disasters that can arise from the wrong conduct of parents and children in marriage." Clarissa is a woman who pursues her ideals spiritually. She resists her family's arranged marriage and pursues a new life. Although she unfortunately falls into the wrong hands, she always fights. This is not only to defend her chastity, but also to maintain her dignity. . Although her virtues were not rewarded, her evil deeds were finally punished. This novel has delicate emotions and a strong sentimental atmosphere. As the famous critic Johnson said, "the story is only used as an occasion to express emotions." The book is full of descriptions of the heroine's spiritual feelings and discussions of various moral issues. This novel is more popular than "Pamela" and has influenced Europe. For example, French writer Rousseau's "New Heloise" was obviously affected.

Biography

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) British novelist. Born in Scotland. My grandfather was a judge, and my father had no inheritance rights because he was not the eldest son. Shortly after the author was born, his father died and he became an orphan. After growing up, he entered the University of Glasgow and worked as an apprentice to a doctor. In his youth, he created a poetic drama "The Regicide", which describes the deeds of King James I of Scotland and expresses the patriotic spirit.In 1739, he brought this work to London in the hope of having it staged, but failed. In 1741, he served as a naval medical assistant and participated in the war between Britain and France to seize Spanish colonies in the West Indies. He later quit the navy and lived in Jamaica. After getting married, he returned to England in 1744 and made a living by practicing medicine and writing. He went abroad to recuperate in 1763 and died in Italy in 1771.

Smollett wrote poetry and medical papers; he also ran magazines for the Tories ("Critical Review", "Britannia"), for which he was imprisoned; and wrote a four-volume history of Britain and "Law, Travels in Italy" (1766); translated "Gil Blas" and "Don Quixote".

Work Introduction

Influenced by the Spanish literary tradition, picaresque novels became popular in England in the 18th century. Smollett's debut novel "The Life of Landon" (1748) is a typical picaresque novel. It connects a series of interesting events together to show the protagonist's experience of searching for love and wealth. The novel is highly autobiographical and is the first British novel to expose the inside story of the navy. It extensively exposes all classes of British society from aristocrats to gamblers and prostitutes, as well as their adventures in France and Germany. The protagonist Langdon was born into a Scottish gentleman family. Unable to tolerate his grandfather's cruelty, Landon's father ran away from home when he was very young. After growing up without a father's love, Langdon took a squire to London to make a living. After hard work, he obtained medical qualifications and became an assistant naval doctor. He experienced various hardships at sea and was once reduced to a slave and fell in love with his master's niece. With no hope of love, he returned to London and was imprisoned for debt. Later, his uncle rescued him, and the two wandered around together. In Spain, he met his father, who ran away from home in his early years and is now a wealthy man. From then on, Langdon lived a life of a gentleman with no worries about food and clothing.

"The Biography of Landon" is the product of Smollett's transformation of the tradition of Spanish picaresque novels. It is "well suited to the realist tastes of modern British readers and describes a recognisably modern world". The biggest feature of the novel is that the plot is thrilling and tortuous, but the characters are too bland. In his masterpiece "Humphrey Klink", the situation is reversed.

The Life of Peregrine Pickle (1751), about an Englishman, contains some of Smollett's most witty and hilarious satires. "The Life of Pickle" (1751) is also a picaresque novel. It uses the protagonist's adventures in England, France, the Netherlands and other places as clues to depict a series of better characters, such as the intimidating but kind-hearted Captain Trenning. . "Count Ferdinand" (1753) describes the behavior of a villain who does all kinds of evil. This work is worse than "Sir Launcelot Grievous" (1760~1762, published in installments, about a Don Quixote-like character). In 1769, he published "Atomic Biography", pretending to be writing Japanese history, using Japan's war with China as a clue to satirize British politics.

The author's last novel "Humphrey Clink" (1771) uses the letter style to describe the social scene and characters through the letters sent by the Welsh gentleman Bramble family during their journey in England and Scotland. Delicate and humorous, with an eccentric and kind-hearted protagonist, it is close to a sentimental novel and is often regarded as Smollett's best novel. It mainly describes the experience of Matthew, a Welsh gentleman who was ill, who went to Bath to recuperate, and his sister Bisha and her maid and others went there together, and then passed through London, north to Edinburgh, and returned to Wales. The Clink of the book's title is the manservant they took in during their journey, and is later revealed to be Matthew's illegitimate son. The book is composed of 82 letters written by different characters, depicting the social life in England in the 18th century from different aspects, and creating unique characters, such as the intimidating but kind-hearted Captain Trenning. The combination of Richardson's artistic techniques and Fielding's novel themes shows that the author has got rid of the creative mode of imitating picaresque novels in his early years and has stronger artistic creativity.

Literary status

Smollett's novels have both a strong realistic component and a strong subjective color. Like Fielding and Richardson, Smollett played an extremely important role in the development of the British novel in the 18th century.Through the unremitting efforts and exploration of these novelists, the literary style of novels has reached maturity in Britain, thus laying a solid foundation for the prosperity of realist novels in the 19th century.

Biography

John Dryden (1631-1700), a British poet, playwright, and literary critic, is the originator of drama criticism in the history of British drama. From the Restoration (1660) to the end of the seventeenth century, he has been a leading figure in English literature, serving as poet laureate from 1668-88. He influenced Alexander Pope and other young writers, by whom he was known as "Glorious John".

was born in a Puritan family in Northamptonshire. He entered Westminster School around 1644 and received a good education in classical literature. He studied at Cambridge University in 1650 and graduated in 1654 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He began his literary creation before the end of the Puritan regency. He dedicated his first long poem, "In Memory of the Protector Oliver Cromwell" (1659), to Richard Cromwell, praising the Puritan leader. In 1660, the Stuart dynasty was restored, and he wrote the poem "The Returning Star" to praise the restoration and the restoration of Charles II. In 1663, Dryden married the sister of his friend and poet Sir Robert Howard. Although the marriage was unhappy, it helped Dryden enter the royal and aristocratic life circles. Early in the year, Dryden's first play, The Wild Gallant, was performed, but to a mediocre response. His early famous poem "The Strange Age" (1667) writes about major events such as the Great Fire of London in 1666, the plague, and the Dutch War.

In 1670, Dryden was named poet laureate and served in the court. After that, he wrote many political poems. For example, "Absalom and Archtophel" (1681), which attacks the Whigs who tried to establish the Duke of Monmouth as the heir to the throne, is considered to be his excellent satirical poem. The poem "The Medal" (1682) also attacked the Whigs, mocking them for demagoguery. In the same year, he wrote the satirical poem "Mark Fleckno" (1682). Dryden was originally a Puritan. In 1682, he wrote "The Religion of the Laity", a poem that denounced Catholicism, praised the Church of England, and opposed people who did not believe in the Church of England. In 1687, James II attempted to turn England into a Roman Catholic country. Dryden converted to Catholicism and wrote "The Stag and the Leopard" (1687), a poem praising the Roman Catholic Church and comparing it to a clean, immortal stag. Insulting the Church of England as a dirty and cruel leopard.

After the Glorious Revolution, in order to make a living, Dryden once again turned to drama and other types of creation. The most famous of Dryden's odes are his lyrical odes dedicated to the day of Saint Cecilia, the goddess of music: "Song of the Day of Saint Cecilia" (1687) and "The Banquet of Alexander, also known as the Power of Music" (1697), which praises music as a wonderful art (later set to music by Handel). Dryden's odes and satires marked the establishment of classicism in English poetry. "Ancient and Modern Fables" (Fables Ancient and Modern) (1700) recounted the works of Ovid, Chaucer and Boccaccio in verse. Despite his unrivaled literary reputation in London and his own efforts, as he said, He lived in "embarrassment and illness" in his later years. After his death, Dryden was buried in Westminster Abbey. "Poet's Corner".

Dryden was a prolific playwright. He wrote nearly 30 comedies, tragicomedies, tragedies and operas. He mainly imitated the French tragic poet Corneille and wrote many "heroic plays". Good plays include "Granada" The theme of these heroic tragedies is the conflict between love and honor. Dryden also wrote Shakespeare's tragedy "Antony and Cleopatra". It was rewritten as "All for Love" (1678). Although he still used blank verse, he was strict. Complying with the three-unity rule of classicism, he wrote a perfect classical tragedy.

Dryden is the founder of British literary criticism. His famous literary criticism works include "On Dramatic Poetry" (1668) and "Fables". "Preface to the Collection" (1700), etc.He first makes a correct evaluation of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher. Due to his outstanding contributions in many aspects of literature, literary historians usually refer to the era of his creation as "Dryden's era".

Literary Reviews

Dryden's literary reviews differed from the earlier traditional approach in that they included not only theory but also practical topics such as technique, discussing not only the poets and playwrights of the classical period but also recent works. His favorable reviews of Shakespeare were particularly influential.

In his satirical poems, Dryden usually made some religious or political point. Absalom and Achitophel (1681) denounced Shaftesbury's plot to make Monmouth the heir to the throne. "Mac Flecknoe" (1682) satirizes the poet Thomas Shadwell, who supported the Earl of Shaftesbury. The Hind and the Panther (1687) was written in defense of the Catholic Church.

Most of Dryden's poems adopt heroic couplet (two lines and one rhyme, each line has five steps, and each step is in iambic form). His prose is clear, concise, and powerful. His literary criticism demonstrates good judgment.

Dryden was a popularizer of heroic drama. Heroic drama is a type of tragedy. It is magnificent, uses heroic double rhyme, and takes love and honor as its themes. Among the heroic plays created by Dryden, "The Conquest of Granada" (1670) is the most popular. "All for Love" (1677), based on Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra," is probably his finest tragedy. Dryden's comedies were crude and obscene, reflecting the public taste of the era.