A Study On Victorian City And Country Of England

Raymond Williams the prestigious Western Marxist whose literary criticism from his point of view is cultural materialism, as a guide to reveal the social change. The academic community of China has already gained some achievements about Williams'thoughts which are mainly in cultural studies and literary criticism theory which is a entry point to study Culture Materialism which is created by Williams himself. It is worthy to pay close attention to Space criticism which is not only in literary criticism as a part of literary criticism to Williams, but also an integral part of cultural materialism. In The Country and the City and so on, starting from literary texts, Williams analyses the culture space of country and city and metropolis, then proclaims the relationship between urban and rural areas and the changes and internal relations of ideas of the country and the city. And then, he draws the outline of the changes of society and history through the changes of country and city, highlighting the close relations between culture and society. In discussion of country and city, Williams aims at the changes of relations between country and city of England. When he investigates the changes of images of country and city mainly in Victorian era, he also dates back to classical times and the beginning of 20th century, revealing a relatively complete culture picture of the changing relation between country and city of England since the industrial revolution. In The Country and the City, Williams discusses deeply into the image of country and city and symbols and language from the perspective of literature and history, and thinks about the relationship between rural area and urban, tradition and modern, nature and civilization. Williams puts country and city at an equal position rather than at an opposite angle to think. First of all, he extrudes the reading of images of country. In idyllic tradition, he finds that country is an idea which has been continuous changed. In some senses, this change is given by city people. At this point, country is controlled by city. Second, he profoundly criticizes the reason why people shapes the binary opposition stereotypes which is city representing progress and civilization, country representing stagnation and backwardness. Third, Williams also pay attention to the great change in country and city of England during industrial revolution, by mainly analyzing the works of British Victorian writers such as Dickens in 19th Century which in another word means analyzes the country and the city in Victorian era. Last, he expands his horizons to include the whole world and analyzes some works of England and the colony's writers in the beginning of 20th century. He argues that metropolis is the new style of the relation between country and city in which the city starts to control country completely. In worldwide, the formation of country and city is shown as colonies-protectorates. Victorian era is not only the key period of British industrial urbanization, but also an important changing period about the idea of urban and rural areas. By hundreds of years of accumulation of urban and rural idea, people cant treat relationship between urban and rural areas correctly. But Williams, starting from critical literature text, cleans up the idea of the city and the country, and shows Victorian city development from one side. We may get reference from Williams'analyses that how to correctly handle the rapid urbanization period, urban and rural conception and the analysis of the relationship between urban and rural areas.