往屆英語專業畢業論文范文(編輯修改稿)

　

【文章內容簡介】 ted in the late nineteenth century and continued into the next” (Kumar 2003: 269). And Jeremy Paxman defines the English as a people “marching backwards into the future.” It ensues from this that the English look for permanence through change and this is perhaps one of the main paradoxes of Englishness: it is both permanent and everchanging, continuous and transient, fixed and flexible. As paradoxical as it may appear, the fact is that traditions look both backwards and forwards. Q. D. Leavis’ assumption that “a live tradition must obviously contain both continuity and innovation” (Leavis 1983:303) has been taken up again more recently by Eric Hobsbawm who refers to traditions that were invented specifically— in fact for political reasons—to fit modern times.And the cross fertilization between historiography, political, social, cultural and literary studies allows for the emergence of a posite image of Englishness as both a reality and an imagined representation. Echoes and correspondences between the different articles show not only that “the art of any country is an exact exponent of its ethical life” (Ruskin 1870: 39) but also that landscape and literature have much to say to each other or politics to music and vice versa. Clearly, Human Geography, Cultural and Literary studies and the new Cultural History have gone interdisciplinary. If geography looks at literature, spatial practices are part of cultural studies. Recently years have brought excellent detailed studies of issues of landscape and Englishness in relation to painting, literature, photography and the country house, which arise a debate on the cultural effects of ruralism, nostalgia, and a concern for heritage. For some these are symptoms of cultural health, denoting a continuing concern for nature, for place, for roots。 for others they signal only cultural decline, a country unable to face up to the modern world. Such arguments tend to assume that the rural, the natural and the historical are at odds with the modern. This thesis will research the construction of Englishness in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House mainly through the landscape, the rural and the modern city.II. The Country House and Englishness The Vigorous Perseveration of the English Country HouseThe English country house has an elitist power, though it has been weakening in face of the devastation of the rural economy and the growing hostility toward the aristocracy. The new industrial revolution brings the . the prosperity of the industrial economy, while the agriculture begins to lose his dominance. The unprecedented heritage appeals led a large of formerly fertile fields to be changed into the stretches of barren land and a large of once wonderful acmodations look bleak. All of above are presented in the novel Bleak House. The strong desire of Charles Dickens to preserve the past as the foundation of individual and collective identity is implied in the country house.……此處刪除多段The similar vigorous perseveration can be seen in Richard Carstone, who is deeply involved in the Jarndyce suit. His insistence and crazy about the heritage reflect the importance of the heritage from the family including the houses to him from a side, as “the houses are considered as the symbol of estate and prestige and are the achievement of several generations’ care” (陳景行 2011：327). Involved in the case, Richard changed much that he is no longer energetic and healthy but spiritless and tallowfaced. Mr. Woodcourt “found him in a dull room, fadedly furnished。 much as I had found him in his barrackroom but a little while before, except that he was not writing, but was sitting with a book before him, from which his eyes and thoughts were far astray” (Dickens 1993: 586). In order to inherit property, Richard pays dearly as he not only spends all his money, sells his military rank and even uses Ada Clare’s property, but also his health and life. However, Richard never gives up his pursuit to the heritage. Even on his deathbed, Richard is asking “when shall I go from this place, to that pleasant country where the old times are ……when shall I go?”(Dickens 1993: 734) The pursuit of Richard to the case of Jarndyce . Jarndyce is precisely the pursuit of the English, which is the process of identifying themselves in the new industrial era.The tragic result of Richard reveals the frustration and helpless of Dickens. Dickens struggled to inherit and keep the tradition or old culture and style, however, all of his striving seems unavailing just like Richard – the heritage has been spent up in the judicial proceedings. So Dickens has to promise to the reality to accept and adapt himself to the modern life and mindset with nostalgia for the past. Englishness and the English countryside In the speech delivered on May 6, 1924 on the meanings of Englishness, Stanley Baldwin, the former British prime minister, mentioned the honorable nature o