(2) Works:
   a. Romances and fantasies b. novels of ingenuityc. novels of characters and environment
(3) Ideas of Fate.
Unlike Dickens, most of Hardy’s novels are tragic. The cause of tragedy is man’s own behaviour or his own fault but the supernatural forces that rule his fate. According to Hardy, man is not the master of his destiny; he is at the mercy of indifferent forces which manipulate his behaviour and his relations with others.
III.         English Poets of the Age
1. Alfred Tennyson
(1) life:a. Cambridge;b. friend with Hallem;c. poet laureate.
(2) Works: In Memoriam; Idylls of the King.
2. Robert Browning.
(1) Life: married Elizabeth Barret, a poetess.
(2) Works
(3) the Dramatic Monologue
The dramatic monologue is a soliloquy in drama in which the voice speaking is not the poet himself, but a character invented by the poet, so that it reflects life objectively. It was imitated by many poets after Browning and brought to its most sophisticated form by T. S. Eliot in his The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
IV.   English Prose of the age
1. Thomas Carlyle (1) life  (2) works
2. John Ruskin(1) life (2) works(3) social and aesthetic ideas
V.                 Aestheticism唯美主义运动
1. Aestheticism
the basic theory of the aesthetic – “art for art’s sake” – was set forth by a French poet, Theophile Gautier. The first Englishman who wrote about the theory of aestheticism was Walter Peter, the most important critical writer of the late Victorian period, whose most important works were studies in the History of Renaissance and Appreciations. The chief representative of the movement in England was Oscar Wilde, with his The Picture of Dorian Gray. Aestheticism places art above life, and holds that life should imitate art, not art imitate life. According to aesthetes, all artistic creation is absolutely subjective as opposed to objective. Art should be free from any influence of egoism. Only when art is for art’s sake can it be immortal. It should be restricted to contributing beauty in a highly polished style.
2.  Oscar Wilde
(1) Life: dramatist, poet, novelist and essayist, spokesman for the school of “Art for art’s sake”, the leader of the Aesthetic movement
(2) works
l        The Happy Prince and Other Tales
l        The Picture of Dorian Gray
l        The Importance of Being Earnest
Chapter 8 English Literature of the first half of the 20th Century现代主义时期
I.        Historical Background
1.        rational changes on old traditions, in social standards and in people’s thoughts
2.        the high tide of anti-Victorianism
3.        the First World War
4.        the success of women’s struggle for social and civil rights
II.        Overview of the Literature – the Modernism
1.        What is modernism?
The reaction against the value of Victorian society and the theme of its literature that began in the 1890s, particularly with the so-called dissident writers, was manifested in the early decades of the 20th century by drastic changes in form, vocabulary, and image. These changes were not limited to England. The movement, which has come to be called modernism, was international in scope and drew heavily on the French Symbolist poets as well as on the new psychological teachings of Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, and their followers in Vienna and Switzerland.
2.        Features of modernism
(1)        Complexity
(2)        Radical and deliberate break with traditional aesthetic principles
(3)        Back to Aristotle
3.        Development of modernism after WWII
Section 1 Poetry
I.        A General Survey
1.        The century has produced a large number of both major and minor poets, many of whom have received general acclaim.
2.        Many writers of significant works of fiction also write distinguished poetry.
3.        The poets of the 20th century have tended to group themselves into schools whose poetry has particular distinguishing characteristics.