The British Novels In 19^th Century Under The Influence Of Folk Culture

The British novels in 19th century has made remarkable achievements,the Scottish writer Walter Scott opened up a new frontier of the historical novels with his 27 novels.And in earlier Victorian Period,i.e.from 1840s to 1860s,headed by Charles Dickens,there appeared a series of internationally well-known novelists,such as Thackeray,Mrs.Gaskell,Trollope,Bronte Sisters and Eliot,etc.And then,from 1870s to the early 20th century,there appeared again another groups of important novelists such as Meredith,Morris,Stevenson,Oscar Wilde,Conrad,Conan Doyle and Kipling,etc.,who were led by Thomas Hardy.All of them had their own artistic individuality and exploring spirit,and thus their works covered every aspect of life and showed out representative characteristics of this period.These outstanding works in 19th century became recreative reading materials of the British people which they cannot put down,and the achievements made British novels entered into the center of European literature from the fringe in the past.And thus the academic world has never took back their enthusiasm about this brilliant history of literature.However,we cannot pay no attention to the atmosphere that the 19th-century literature turned out with typical characteristics which are the same with folk culture,no matter the earlier Romantic novels,the critical realistic novels in the middle of the Age,or the multiple genres in the end of the century.Therefore,the present thesis would probe into the history of literature in this period from the interdisciplinary angle of folk culture to study the close relationship between them.Further more,it would try to explore how the folk culture will enter into the novels in the future.The present thesis mainly included four sections,and specifically six chapters:The 1st section is an introduction.This section sorted out the previous research findings about the 19th-century literature and its relationship with folk.,in order to put forward the rationality and feasibility of the present research.Further more,it expounded the theoretical and practical significance,the contents and purpose,the emphases,the difficulties and the innovations of this study.The 2nd section was an general overview of the British folk culture and an review of the emergence and development of novel.It explored the continuous influence of folk culture in the process of the submergence and development of the literary form—novel,in order to give further evidence to prove the rationality and feasibility of this study.It could be easily found out that all the literary forms,including poetry,drama,prose,etc.could never keep away from folk culture.Looking back the evolution of literary history,the new literary form of novel was an inevitable consequence of the evolution of the past narrative literature.Before the presence of the modem European novel,the evolution trends of myth,epic and drama and other narrative forms were from unconscious narration(mythic narration)to conscious narration;from oral narration to written narration and then to more aesthetic narration;from collective narration to individual narration;from community-oriented to individual-oriented;and from poetic narration to prosaic narration.Although these forms of evolution were not in a straight line,and it always not the case that the latter must be completely replaced the former,but the inevitable definite trend was very obvious.The 3rd section of the present thesis was the central part of this study.After the sorting out of the historical influence of the folk culture on the formation and development of the literary form of novel,this section was a synchronic description and analysis,specifically from the macroscopical and internal research about the novel,and microcosmic and external research about the novelists,to make clear the manifestation of the influence of folk culture on the 19th-century novels in Britain.The study about the novel as a macroscopical generalization and analysis.It was divided into three chapters:i.e.the motif,the narration and the folk belief.These three chapters would specifically utilize the theories of motifs in folk literature,theories of linguistics,functionalism,folk narration and folk belief to analyze.The study found out that the novels in 19th-century was definitely influenced by folk culture,the novelists excavate the folk motif,used the tactics of folk narration and show out the folk belief,and thus a prospect of the 19th-cennury in Britain came to our view.The focus on the novelists was a microscopic study.This chapter made clear why the novelists in the 19th-century loved folk culture so much and how their works influenced the novelists in later times all over the world.This chapter focused on the classical novelists,specifically Walter Scott,Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy.The 4th section was the last and theoretical prediction part of the present thesis.This section attempted to explore the future forms of folk culture in the novels in the future.It has been easy to find out all over the world that there must be a literary prosperity if the elite literature was combined fine with folk culture.The literary prosperity in the 19th-century Britain was due to this combination.But in modern times,modern literature was far from folk culture,and thus the literary form of novel lost its glory,and even some sayings about "the death of novels" came into being.But now,we confront a new era of Intermet+,the traditional productive and accepted mode is completely changed,all of the interests of the common people would be as widely satisfied as possible,so the folk culture would definitely merge together in the future!...