【正文】 The postwar economic dislocation and spiritual disllusion produced a profound impact upon the British people. 2 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles put forward a guiding principle for the working people, but also inspired them to make dauntless fights for their own emancipation. Darwinism: “survival of fittest” Arthur Schopenhauer, a pessimistic philosopher. Started a rebellion against rationalism Henry Bergson established his irrational philosophy 3 Rise of the irrational philosophy and new science greatly incited writers to make new explorations on human natures and human relationships 4 The French symbolism, appearing in the late 19th century, herald modernism: expressionism, surrealism. Kafka, Picasso, Pound, Webern, Eliot, Joyce and Virginia Woolf. 5 Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and theory of psychoanalysis as its theoretical base. The major themes of the modernist literature are the distorted, alienated and ill relationships between man and man, and man and himself . The modernist writers concentrate more on the private than on the public, more on the subjective than on the objective, they are mainly concerned with the inner being of an individual. In their writings, the past, the present and the future are mingled together and exist at the same time in the consciousness of an individual. Modernism rejects rationalism, major concern the external, objective, material world. 6. The 1930s witnessed great economic depression, mass unemployment, and the rise of the Nazis. The red thirties. the mid1950s and early 1960s, there appeared a group of young novelists and playwrights with lowermiddleclass or workingclass background, who were known as “the Angry Young Men.” 8 Streamof consciousness novels: Pilgrimage by Richardson, Ulysses by Joyce, Mrs Dalloway by Woolf. George Benard Shaw 1 Shaw joined the Fabian Society 2 His criticism was witty, biting, and often brilliant 3 He was strongly against the credo of “ art for art’s sake” 4 Shaw wrote more than 50 plays, touching up variety of subjects. Widow’s House is a grotesquely realistic exposure of slum landlordism” Mrs Warren’s Professor is a play about the economic oppression of women. 5 Structurally and thematically, Shaw followed the great traditions of realism. 6 Most of his plays are concerned with political , economic, moral, or religious, problems, and, thus, can be termed as problem plays. And his plays have one passion, and only one, . indigna。 it applies to any one, any age. And finally, all the works of Hardy are noted for the rustic dialect and a poetic flavor which fits well into their perfectly designed architectural structures. They are the product of a conscientious artist. The Modern Period1 The catastrophic First World War tremendously weakened the British Empire and brought about great suffering to its people as well. Fielding’s Tom Jones helped established the form of novel。JeanRoseau: exploration new idea about Nature, society, Education. Tomas Paine’s Declaration of Rights of Man. 5 The Romantic Movement expressed a more or less negative attitude the existing social and political conditions that came with industria lization and the growing importance of the bourgeoisie. Thus, we can say that Romanticism actually constitute a change of direction attention to the outerworld of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit 6 Nature: for the most influential 18thcentury writers, was more something to be seen than something to be known. But for the Romantics, it is just the opposite. Nature to Wordsworth is a source of mental cleanliness and spiritual understanding. 7 Poetry has been traditionally regarded as an art governed by rules。 supremacy of freedom 2 Romantic period began in 1798 with the publication of wordsworth and Coleridge’s lyrical Ballads and have ended in 1852 with Sir Walter Scott’s death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in the Parliament. 3. It was in effect a revolt of the English imagination against the neoclassical reason which prevailed from the days of Pope to those of Johnson 1. favor of modernism (7) tremendous interest in something remote in term of space and time (6) being close to nature for its purity while the society is corrupting (5) priorities been given to passion, emotion and feeling (4) express on imagination (3) a rebellion against neoclassicism (2)Major Romantic Points (1)His poem, as a whole are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentation or mediation on life, past and present. His poems are characterized by an exquisite sense of form. His style is sophisticated and allusive. His poem are often marked with the trait of a highly artificial diction and a distorted word order.Romantic Period1.In his poem, Gray reflects on death, the sorrow of life and the mysteries of human life with a touch of his Personal Melancholy. 3.His masterpiece, “ Elegy in a Country Churchyard” was published in 1751, the poem once and for all established his fame as the leader of the sentimental poetry of the day especially” the Graveyard School” 2. important link between Shakespeare and Benard Shaw. 3 In his play, morality is the constant theme. He is much concerned with the current moral issue and harshly at the social life of the day. Tomas Gray1.Of all the 18th century novelist, he was the first to set out. Both in theory and practice. To write specially a “ic epic in poem” the first to give the modern novels its structure and story。Fielding’s language is easy, unlaboured and familiar but etremly vivid and vigorous. 4.Fielding has been regarded by some as “Father of the English Novel” for his contribution to the establishment of the form of the modern novel. 3.Masterpiece : A History of Tom Jones, a Foundling 2.As a whole , the book is one of the most effective and devastating criticism and satires of all aspects in the then English a