Literature Review

Romantic literature in the 18th century, in the first half of the 19th century to achieve the boom, modern Western literature is one of the most important thoughts. In the longitudinal direction, Romantic literature is the concept of Renaissance humanism inherit and carry forward, but also the rigid French neoclassical strong backwash; in the transverse direction, and the subsequent emergence of the Romantic literary realism together constitute the modern Western two systems literature, creating a tremendously popular 19th-century Western literature prosperity of the later modernist and post-modernist literature had a profound impact.

Britain is one of the earliest Romantic Literature. British Romantic writers dissatisfied with the development of capitalist urban civilization, with cynical, Hermitage natural tendencies. In the late 18th century poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) and William Blake (1757-1827) is a pioneer in Romanticism, they made the style and language of English poetry a lot of valuable attempt. Burns draw nourishment from the Scottish folk songs, the "Scottish dialect poems" good lyricism and irony, language popular; Blake's "Songs of Innocence," "Songs of Experience" is a symbolic meaning and mystery, in the 20th century shine affecting the whole of modern English poetry.

However, the first true English Romantic master is called "Lake Poets," the three poets. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was the highest achievements Lake Poets, he and the "Lake Poets" Another poet Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834) jointly published "Lyrical Songbook "as the Foundation of the British Romantic literature. Most of the poetry anthology included as Wordsworth did, and Coleridge's famous poem "Ode to the Ancient Mariner" and "Kublai Han" also income which is full of illusion and Fantastic imagery.

George Byron (1788-1824) and Shelley (1792-1822) two poets British Romantic literature to new heights. Differences between them and the Lake Poets in that it works more awareness and political tendencies fighting. Shelley's masterpiece "Prometheus Unbound" by myth describing the inevitable fate of oppressed people suffering and tyrants, predicted the revolution will come. His short poem "Ode to the West", "Skylark" and Deafening, more "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" And other famous masterpieces. Byron is half of the 19th century's most famous romantic poet, his life traveling the world, his poems full of exotic. Masterpiece "Don Juan" is the capitalist system a thorough review of bone marrow, thought-provoking. In Europe, Byron became a cultural phenomenon. People put lonely, tragic, individualistic style revolt romantic image called "Byronic hero."

American Romanticism influenced by Western European Romanticism. Half of the 19th century, the rapid development of American capitalism, national consciousness and patriotic enthusiasm, to get rid of the shackles of British literature, attention to the human spirit to create and Transcendentalism pursuit of freedom splendid sight, bringing American Romanticism began to flourish.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Thoreau (1817-1862) was a transcendent theorists, first proposed the idea of romanticism. They emphasized the role of the

human spirit and intuitive sense that nature is full of spirituality, people should return to nature. Thoreau's "Walden" is the Foundation of the American Romantic Literature.

US pre-Romantic writers of representatives including Washington Irving (1783-1859), James Cooper (1789-1851) and Edgar Allan Poe. Owen is known as the father of American literature, in his novel, "American Literature" concept first surfaced, no longer bound by the English literature. Cooper was one of the founders of the United States national literature, he created a "Leather stocking Tales" as the representative of the frontier legendary novel, and the most important one is the "last of the Mohicans." Poe advocate art to make the reader get stimulated to reach the soul of sublimation, most of his novels to death, murder, revenge as a theme, revealing the illusion of status and abnormal psychology of people, and he and the French poet Baudelaire collectively revered as a symbol of literary pioneer.

US late Romanticism to Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), the Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and Herman Melville (1819 -1891) for on behalf of. Hawthorne in the works on the "hidden evil" excavation, "The Scarlet Letter" reflects the darkness of colonial rule and the Puritan church hypocrisy and injustice, skillful use of symbolism. Whitman's experience of a lifetime consumption of codification, the expansion of poems "Leaves of Grass", sing the national consciousness of the United States, becoming the originator of modern American literature. Melville is the highest achievements of American romantic novelist who is good at describing seafaring adventure and exotic, representative of "Moby Dick" is one of the most distinguished American literary history novel, the "Moby Dick" has become a transcendent , hostile to humans but difficult to conquer the mysterious substance totem.

参考文献

Meyer H. Abrams, 1971. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (Oxford University press)

Scott Masson, 2007. 'Romanticism', Ch.7 in the Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology (Oxford University Press)

Walter Friedlander, 1952. David to Delacroix, (Originally published in German; reprinted 1980) Fritz Novotny, 1971. Painting and Sculpture in Europe, 1780-1880, (2nd edition; reissued 1980) Marcel Brion, 1966. Art of the Romantic Era: Romanticism, Classicism, Realism (Originally published in French)

Cwisfa Lim, 2002.“Romanticism - The dawn of a new era”(reprinted 2006)

 

第二篇：Literature Review model 2

河北科技师范学院

毕业论文文献综述

题目 ：A Preliminary Exploration on the

Constitutional Principles and Formative Methods of Euphemism 委婉语的构造原则和构成方式初探

学生姓名 ：

指导教师 ：

院系 ：外国语学院

专业、班级 ：英本07级**班

学号 ：

完成时间 ：20xx年12月

河北科技师范学院教务处制

Literature Review

As a popular rhetorical device, euphemism is widely employed in kinds of discourse and it is deeply rooted in people?s social life. That is why Rawson (1981) affirms “Euphemisms are embedded so deeply in our language that few of us, even those who pride themselves on being plain-spoken, ever get through a day without using them” (p.3). The study of euphemisms is of great importance as it can …..

The research of euphemisms has a long history ……………..And there have accumulated a large literature. Many scholars have attempted to define its nature or addressed its characteristics, functions, etc. from different perspectives. This paper is to give a general overview of the previous studies.

1 The definition of euphemism

The word euphemism comes from Greek; the prefix “eu-“ means good and the stem “phemism” means speech; the whole word? s literal meaning is word of good omen. In the early 1580s, the British writer George Blunt first created the word euphemism and defined it as ?a good or favorable interpretation of a bad word? (Shu, 1995：17).

Concerning the definition of euphemisms, there are a lot of versions. In Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1973) the definition reads “substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant.” In The New Edition of the Oxford Concise Dictionary (1976) the definition reads “substitution of mild or vague or round-about expression for harsh or direct one; expression thus substituted.”

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The definitions above illustrate the general characteristic of euphemism---the use of a pleasant, polite, or harmless sounding words or expressions to mask harsh, rude, or infamous truths. It reflects people?s desire for better things.

2 Researches abroad

Euphemism appeals the attention of language scholars from long time ago. It is a kind of social rules, so people have to know and grasp it, and put it into daily practice. Meanwhile it is a language phenomenon, so the scholars have to study it as science, in order to help people understand it well.

2.1. Researches from sociolinguistic perspective

After the British writer George Blunt first created the word euphemism, the American linguist Menken (1936) in his book The American Language discussed the reasons for the generation and popularity of hundreds of English euphemism on the basis of American society and historical cultural backgrounds. In his Sociolinguistics (2nd edition), R. A. Hudson (2000) stresses that for showing power-politeness there are different ?address? words (for example, sir, please), and the function of all the euphemisms is to protect the other person from being offended (for example, spend a penny, pass away). …………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

2.2 Researches from semantic perspective

In 1981, the British linguist Hugh Rawson published his A Dictionary of euphemisms and Other Doubletalk, which is a collective manifestation of the evolutions of years? research of euphemism done by both British and American linguists. In this dictionary, Rawson traced the history of euphemism?s studies; he made a deep research on the definition, classification, characteristics and domains of euphemisms. The dictionary is considered as one of the most important works on the study of euphemism and it is of great value to the further studies. In 1983 American linguists J. Neaman and

C. Silver published their book Kind Words, a Thesaurus of Euphemism. In the book the authors introduced the history of euphemism, the formation of euphemism, the motivations of euphemism, also collected a great many of examples of euphemism in nearly all the areas.

2.3 Researches from pragmatic perspective

The tradition of pragmatic study of euphemism has gradually got established. The usage of euphemism in nature is saving face for both speakers and listeners and

establishing good relationship between them. Allan and Burridge (1991) published a book Euphemism and Dysphemism, which is a valuable book of English euphemism from the pragmatic and psychological perspective. They affirm that euphemism is a protective shield against the anger or disapproval of natural or supernatural beings.

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3 Researches in China

English as a foreign language in China boomed in the later 1970s and since then the researches on English attracted the attention of experts and scholars greatly. Euphemism is one of the fields that they pay great attention to. Some of them study euphemism as a rhetorical device; others study euphemism on the basis of sociolinguistics or pragmatics.

3.1 Studies of euphemism from sociolinguistic perspective

Chen Yuan is the earliest scholar who begins to study euphemism. In his Sociolinguistics (1983), he studied euphemism in a special separate chapter. He investigated the deep historical and socio-psychological background of the generation of euphemism and revealed the nature of this social phenomenon; he analyzed the characteristics of its formation and usage by giving lots of examples of euphemism. This book is of great value for the researches of euphemisms for its all-around.

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3.2 Studies of euphemism from pragmatic perspective

Xu Haiming (1996), from the perspective of pragmatics, discussed how to choose

and understand euphemisms in communication and the principles of using them. Liang Hongmei (2000) analyzed euphemism with the pragmatics theories of Cooperative principle and Politeness principle, showing the relationship between euphemism and pragmatics: though it violates the Cooperative principle, euphemism basically observes the Politeness principle, indirect act theory and face-saving theory (Bi, 2003) ……………………………………………………………………………

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3.3 Other influential studies about euphemism

Shu Dingfang (1989) extended the scope of euphemism by dividing them into euphemism in narrow sense and euphemism in broad sense. In 1995, Shu Dingfang and Xu Jinyuan developed the concept of euphemism in narrow sense and euphemism in broad sense. They defined euphemism in narrow sense as words or phrases established by popular usage. And euphemisms expressed through phonetic techniques, grammatical techniques or textual techniques in language system are called euphemism in broad sense.

Mao Xingeng (2001) and Lixinghua (2000) explored euphemism from an aesthetical linguistic perspective and they thought the reason why euphemism can reach so excellent and popular effect in the communication lies in that euphemism can inspire the sense of beauty in the mind of speech receiver, also can show the beauty and elegance of the speaker (Huang, 2004).

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4 Conclusion

In a word, the research of euphemism both in abroad and home has made great progress. And with the introduction of some original foreign linguistic books, the domestic research scope of euphemism will become deeper and broader. Among the several trends of euphemism study, the investigation from pragmatic perspective has

attracted more and more researchers, and appears to be a most prospecting one. The present study is to explore the constitutional principles and formative methods of euphemism following the direction of pragmatic view. The present author wishes it could be helpful to the learners of euphemism.

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