Abstract：During the 19th century, England has experienced several revolutions on the area of politics, economics, culture, and social life. Through the Industrial Revolution, England has become the most powerful empire in the world; it settled its colonies all over the earth. When England defeated France in 1801, after 14 year’s war, it established its position as a worldwide hegemony. The foreign trade developed quite rapidly, and all the new colonies became the origin for raw materials and markets, with London being the world's economic and trade centre. The empire was extremely prosperous. However, when the productivity was improving as well as the fast processing urbanization, the common people lived a poor and tiring life which earned them little money. The whole society was cruel and cold, where money and use talked. Oscar Wilde who lived in this time criticized and satirized all these phenomena and thoughts with his unique beautiful style, through all his works. This paper will focus on his famous fairy tales such as The Happy Prince, to analyze Wilde's criticism towards 19th century's English society.
Key Words: Oscar Wilde, fairy tales, 19th century, English society criticism
摘要:在19世纪中，英国在政治、经济、文化、社会生活等各个方面都经历了众多的变革，通过工业革命，成为了世界上首屈一指的大帝国，殖民地遍布全球。1801年，英国在长达14年的战争中战胜了法国，奠定了其全球霸主的地位，对外贸易大增，新的殖民地成为了大英帝国的原料来源地和市场。而经过工业革命，英国的工业化水平居于世界首位，伦敦成为了全球的经济、贸易中心，不列颠帝国空前繁荣。但与此同时，伴随着生产力的大幅提高和快速的城市化进程的是广大百姓长时间的劳动、微薄的收入、雇佣童工盛行等等问题。整个社会冷漠无情而功利，实用主义盛行。生活于这一时代的王尔德在其各类作品中都以其特有的优美笔触，对这些社会现象和风潮都进行了嘲讽和批判。本文将着重分析王尔德《快乐王子》等一系列著名的童话作品，就王尔德童话中对19世纪英国社会的批判进行研究。
关键词：王尔德，童话，19世纪，英国社会批评
In the 19th century, science and medicine had made great progress, human anatomy and disease prevention had been accept by more and more people. The population growth accelerated rapidly in Western Europe. Since 19th century, the population had doubled from nearly 200 million to over 400 million. The appearance of railroad changed the major form of land transportation which people had used for centuries. New energy started the progress of urbanization and globalization. Numerous cities with great population appeared during the 19th century. London had become the largest city in the world, and the capital of the British Empire. On the other hand, as we know, in 19th century poverty was serious than in any previous ages. For the first time, surveys and detailed descriptions about living standard were done, and gave us an opportunity to know how the poor people lived in that time. Meanwhile, people took a callous attitude towards poverty, and the whole society was very cold and cruel.
Wilde criticized the “practical”, cruel world in his works. Though his fairy tales which were filled with prince, princess, witch, giant, and other fantastic elements, we can still see the metaphors and models which refer and satirize the real world of 19th century society, or just the world you and I live in.
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