A study of domestic crama of the Renaissance as the origin of the English novel

丹尼尔·笛福和塞缪尔·理查森在18世纪上半叶创作的英国小说被认为起源于17世纪后期的散文浪漫小说和犯罪传记。然而，它的实际开始可以追溯到英国文艺复兴时期，当时现代商业资本主义开始出现。在此期间，人类从土壤中被连根拔起，变成了生活在城墙内的现代公民。这种转变在农村人口涌入伦敦以及随后城市社区及其系统的扩张和发展中最为典型。压抑欲望、遵守公民规则是现代公民的基本要求。为了在现代世界取得成功，必须遵守日益严格的行为和公民规则。然而，被压抑的能量，因为它们是人类不可或缺的品质，有时会不可避免地爆发，造成与文明的冲突。文艺复兴时期的家庭剧中所表现的罪行，是现代社会往往非人化的制度与深深扎根于人类心灵中的原始激情之间冲突的表现。本研究以文艺复兴时期的一些具有代表性的家庭剧为研究对象，如《病人格里西尔》、《法弗舍姆的雅顿》和《两个可悲的悲剧》，试图说明英国小说的基本文化框架和主题是如何在世纪前的这些戏剧中呈现出来的。通过对小说中冲突的探讨，可以看出英国小说作为一种体裁的最深层次的关怀是现代人基本困境的文化表达。

The English novel as produced by Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson in the first half of the eighteenth century has been considered to have its origin in the prose romances and criminal biographies of the late seventeenth century. Its actual beginning, however, can be traced far back into the English Renaissance when modern commercial capitalism begins to emerge. During this period human beings, uprooted from the soil, are transformed into modern citizens living inside a walled city. This transformation is most typically observable in the influx of rural population into London and the subsequent expansion and development of the urban communities and their systems. Repression of desires and conformity to civic rules are the fundamental requirements for the modern citizen. In order to succeed in the modern world, it is imperative to conform to the increasingly rigid rules of conduct and citizenship. However, the repressed energies, as they are indispensably human qualities, sometimes have its inevitable eruptions causing clashes with civilization. The crimes represented in the Domestic plays of the Renaissance are expressions of this clash between the often dehumanizing system of modern society and the primordial passions deeply rooted in the human psyche. This study takes up as its subject some of the representative examples of the Renaissance domestic plays such as Patient Grissil, Arden of Faversham, and Two Lamentable Tragedies and tries to show how the fundamental cultural framework and themes of the English novel has already been present in these plays produced a century ago. By probing into the conflicts depicted in them, the deepest concern of the English novel as a genre can be described as a cultural expression of primary dilemma of the modern man.