The neoclassical history of British neoclassicism

Neoclassicism (English: neoclassicism) is a new retro movement. Art movement rose in Rome in the18th century, and quickly spread to Europe and America, affecting many fields such as decorative arts, architecture, painting, literature, drama, music and so on. Neoclassicism, on the one hand, stems from the reaction to baroque and rococo art, on the other hand, it hopes to revive the art of ancient Greece and Rome (that is, to oppose gorgeous decoration and try to focus on frugal style). Neoclassical artists deliberately imitate ancient art in style and theme, and know what they are imitating.

From 65438 to the beginning of the 8th century, neoclassicism became fashionable in England. Neo-classicism advocates rationality, emphasizes clarity, symmetry, moderation and elegance, and pursues perfection and harmony of artistic forms. Alexander pope (1688- 1744) is a representative of neoclassical poetry. He imitates Roman poets, and his poetry style is exquisite and elegant. His content is mainly preaching and satire, and his forms are mostly heroic couplets, but he lacks deep feelings.

English prose flourished in the18th century, and its style is basically based on neoclassical aesthetic principles. Richard Steele (1672- 1729) and joseph addison (1672- 17 19) founded Tatler and Observer, and published them. Jonathan swift (1667- 1745) is the greatest satirist in the history of English literature. His style is simple, simple and powerful. Swift's masterpiece Gulliver's Travels is a fascinating children's story, and it also contains profound ideological content. The author satirizes and attacks the darkness and evil in all fields of British society by describing fictional countries such as lilliputian country, adult country, flying island country and Ma Huiguo.

John dryden (163 1- 1700) is known as the father of English criticism and the first person to popularize neoclassicism in English literature. He was the most important tragic writer during the Restoration (1660- 1700), but he was only in a critical position. While basically believing in French neoclassicism, we are open to British empiricism and literary tradition, which shows the possible tension of neoclassicism. Dryden inherited Shakespeare's great tradition, Pope inherited his empiricism and Johnson inherited his common sense. They didn't formulate norms as clearly and forcefully as boileau did.

Dryden's main theoretical work, On Poetic Drama (1668), was written in the form of dialogue, and he told all the views at that time. Among them, Neanderthals represented themselves, Eugene thought that the previous generation of drama was not better than the contemporary, Clake was in favor of ancient drama, and Ricky Diez said that French drama was better than English drama. The whole article is divided into three parts: the dispute between ancient and modern times, the dispute between France and Britain, and the dispute between poetry and rhyme. None of the three questions came to a conclusion in the end, not because some people thought Dryden was flattering on all sides, but because although he tried to introduce French neoclassicism to Britain, he didn't want to deny the parts of English tradition that he thought were still valuable.