Study On British Aristocracy’s Social Status Change And Its Literary Image Transformation From The Medieval Age To The Early Modern Times

The doctorate dissertation takes the social historic theories and the literature theory of neo-historical criticism into the study on the inner relationship between the social status change of British aristocracy and the transformation of the aristocratic images in English literature from the medieval age to the early Modern Times. The dissertation attempts to explain the interaction between literature and social history reasonably.The aristocracy refers to the estate stratum entitled the social, polictical, economic, culture and law previledges in the medieval and modern societies. The address of the British aristocracy have evolved from gesith, thegn to eorl, and eventually to form the five rank estates. The nobility ranks and previledges are the striking identities of being the aristocracy. The British aristocracy in the medieval age have played the role of being the restricter to the king’s power, and they dominated the country’s economy and social value through their seigneurial rights of land management.The aristocratic iamges in the medieval English literature wear the expression of superiority, and their images, from the Queen Elizabeath I to the Earl Warren, have attracted social appreciations. Lord Sidney, with his noble personality and well-conducted behaviours, was portrayed to be the "Flower of the Age" in the literature. At the early stage, knights and aristocracy in England have the interwoveness connection. Chivalric spirit was the source of aristocratic spirit, and the chivalric literature was the earliest genre of portraying aristocracy in the works. The chivalry and chivalric literature have imprinted striking influence upon British education, customs, literature, arts and dictions in language. Knights in the chivalric literature have been mostly portrayed to be brave,loyal, martial and brilliant. Knights in the literature have been expected to undertake the social justic value system and maintain the social peaceful surroundings for people.During the Tudors, the British society began to transform from the traditional agricultural society to the modern capitalized commercial society. The social wealth structure, especially the land possessions, had taken dramatic place. The newly-uprising classes, such as gentry, yeoman, indusrial and commericial bourgeoisie began to claim the political and economic rights from the governing group. As the contrasting situation, the feudal aristocracy began to decline on the political previleges, economic dominant status and rank estate, but they still clung to the corruption traits, moral ruits, tyrannized behaviours and selling official posts and titles. Those performances like arthritis on the aristocratic body, which would relapse when it came to the situation. During the social transformation, the newly-uprising classes clustered together to rebuke the aristocracy’s arthritis, while the aristocracy couldn’t face and bear the rebuke and their social image would surely be denounced by the newly-uprising classes. As the result, the literary images of the aristocracy fell down from the superiority figures in the medieval age to the trouble making figures.British literature during the transformation period took on the critique view upon the aristocracy in the works. The criticism on the aristicracy combined the direct rebuke upon the individuals and the rational analyses on the whole aristocratic system. Some figures born in the aristocracy group also critisized the group in the literature after they suffered the fate change. Drama was one of the most important genres to play the role of critisize the aristocracy in literature, and dama creation was the most floushing art performances during the Elizabeath period. Besides for the drama, poetry, essay, novel and political essay divergently depicted the images of aristocracy in the creations.In terms of the essence, the falldown of the aristocracy images in the literature arose from the backward workforce represented by the aristocracy, which intensified the contracdiction between land management and the commericial industrial development. The image transformation of the aristocracy in literature was the outside expression for the historic decline of the aristocracy’s economic, political and social status. But the criticism from the literature prompted the aristicracy to reflect themselves and reform their economic system, political privilege, culture and education, and the social spirits. Some feudal aristocrats changed their land management and jointed into the capital class, while some newly-uprising figures who owned large sum of fortunes, such as gentry and yoemen, were eager for the aristocratic titles, and they promoted themselves to be among the aristocracy by buying the rank titles. Eventually, the two different classes began to merge interactually, which not only helped to improve the aristocratic economic status but also helped the aristocracy in Britain successfully avoid to be the revolutionary target and maintain their political control after the "Glory Revolution" in England. In the18th century, the British aristicracy reappeared as the pride graceful demeanor in the literature, regaining the appreciation from the society."British gentlemen" have become the admirable symbol of British aristocracy in the18th century literature.In the end, the thesis proposes the conclusion from two perspectives:firstly, the historical experience of the British aristocracy change and the social transformation from the medieval feudalism to the modern capitalism, which embodies in the followings:the fusion of aristicracy and bourgeoisie and the increasingly integration of their intersts brings compromise into the social change and political reform in England. Another experience comes to the aristocracy’s strong constitutional sense and the influence of the aristocracy spirits in the social reform. Secondly, the internection between social history and literature. The existence of the society is the material base for literature, and literature can reflect the social history. Literature owns the trait of historical truth, but it just discovers the typical social truth, the essence of the social history and the capsule of the history. On the other hand, history also has the literature narrative characteristics. Literature and history, under the philosophy thought of discovering the truth, have interlinked complementarily to be the two methods to find the truth. Although the two methods are not completely the same, they can coherence each other that literature is endowed with historic truth while history posesses literature mind.