简明英国文学史.doc

简明英国文学史
A Brief History of English Literature

Part I Old and Middle English Periods (450-1066)

Chapter 1
Old English Period and Beowulf
n Historical situation
Britons, a branch of Celts, came to the Isles in BC400 to BC300, at the early stage of the Iron Age
Julius Caesar of the Roman Empire defeated the Celts and ruled there from BC55 to AD 407
The Roman Empire declined, the Teutonic or Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes moved to live in the British Isles in about AD450
They drove the Celts to Wales, Scotland and Ireland, the English language has gradually changed, Old Anglo-Saxon.
8 to 11 Century, Danes from Scandinavia came to the Isles
Norman Conquest 1066, it influenced the evolution of the English language, life style and culture.

Religion
Christianity

Part II English Renaissance and Shakespeare (1485-1616)

Chapter 3
The English Renaissance Literature

n Historical situation
from feudal society to capitalism;
industry and commerce; “sheep devouring men”

Tudor Reign: Religious Reformation,
King Henry VIII (1509-1547), Protestantism

Queen Elizabeh (1558-1603)
moderate policies to keep balance between the rising middle class and the feudal lords, the Protestants and the Catholics.
a powerful country, set up English colonies overseas.

n Humanism and the Renaissance in England
Renaissance: revival of arts and sciences of ancient Greece and Rome after the long years of neglect in the medieval time
In England
a strong interest in ancient Greek and Rome art and science;
Humanism: concerned about the welfare of human beings and believed that human happiness in this life was more important that what people were supposed to.

religious reformation of the church ;

praised man and man’s pursuit of happiness.

n Chief Literary Achievement of the Period
1. translating classical Italian and French works;
2. poetry
“ a nest of singing birds;”
sonnet became the most popular poetic form;
Thomas Wyatt
3 Drama and Theatre Performance
Marlowe; Ben Jonson and Shakespeare
London , the centre of drama performance
II. Ten Renaissance Writers
n Thomas More：Utopia
n Edmund Spenser：The Faerie Queene
n Philip Sidney
n University Wits:
John Lyly: Euphues -- Euphuism
Thomas Nashe, Robert Greene

n Francis Bacon
essays
n Christopher Marlowe
blank verse: the major vehicle of expression in drama
n Ben Jonson
drama; prose work
Chapter 4
William Shakespeare
n The life
Stratford-on-Avon, 1564
n Literary career and productions
37 plays
154 sonnets

Shakespeare’s major works
n History plays
get material from the English history and from the history of ancient Rome
Julius Caesar
Henry IV, Part I and Part II
Richard II
Henry V
Henry VI, Part I , Part II , Part III

n Comedies
A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream;
As You Like It;
The Twelfth Night;
The Merchant of Venice

n Tragedies
Hamlet;
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello

n Tragic-comedies
The Winter’s Tale
The Tempest
Sonnets
n Sonnet 73
n Sonnet 18
n Sonnet 130
My Mistress’ Eyes
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts arte dun,
If hairs be wires, black wires grow upon her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress’ reeks.

I love to hear her speak: yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound,
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

Part III
The Seventeenth Century (1616-1688)
Chapter 5
The Bourgeois Revolution and Milton
1. History of the 17th century:
a.King Charles I--Long Parliament
b.the civil war (1642-1649):
army of the Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell;
Bourgeois Revolution of England (Puritan Revolution);
Puritans;
King Charles II—James II—
“glorious Revolution”（光荣革命）
constitutional monarchy(君主立宪制）

2. Chief Literary Achievements
n The Bible ( The Old Testament and the New Testament)
fountain heads of the Western Civilisation: The bible, Greek and Roman mythology and philosophy;
Hebrew—Greek—Latin
English version: “The King James Bible” (47 scholars, 7 years)

n Poetry
a.“Metaphysical Poets”（玄学派）—John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert

b.Cavalier Poets (骑士诗人）

c. Epics（史诗） by John Milton

n Prose
political pamphlets and essays;
non-political matters

n Drama(Restoration period)
comedies combined with the French taste with witty language;
light, often coarse themes;
emphasis on the wit of the characters
they are criticised as decadent.

n Dryden and Bunyan
Dryden: man of letters
Bunyan: The Pilgrim’s Progress
II. John Milton
n Paradise Lost （失乐园）
n Paradise Regained （复乐园）
n Samson Agonistes (力士生孙）
Chapter 6
The Metaphysical Poets and the Restoration Drama
n Metaphysical Poets (John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert)

“Death Be not Proud”
“ The Flea”
“ A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
(理解诗歌：240）
John Donne
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
　　Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
　　For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
　　Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me；
　　From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
　　Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
　　And soonest our best men with thee do go,
　　Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
　　Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
　　And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
　　And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
　　And better than thy stroak； why swell'st thou then？
　　One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
　　And death shall be no more； Death, thou shalt die.
Chapter 7
Dryden and Bunyan
n John Bunyan
The Pilgrim’s Progress

Part IV
The Eighteenth Century
(1688-1780)
Chapter 8
The Age of Classicism
n Historical Situation
science and technology:
Steam engine—Industrial Revolution;
political economics;
Enlightenment Movement;
religion: Deism, more individual,

n Literary Achievements (In the first half of the 18th century):
The Age of Classicism (or Neoclassicism)
- Alexander Pope ( heroic couplet)
- Swift ( master of satire)
they admire and follow the styles of ancient poets in Roman Empire of Augustus in a metaphorical manner.; they worshipped reasons, so also called the Age of Reason
II. Chief Representatives
n Alexander Pope
An Essay on Criticism
The Rape of the Lock

n Jonathan Swift
“A Modest Proposal”
Gulliver’s Travels
Lilliput;
Brobdingnag;
Laputa(flying island)
Houyhnhnms (horsese), yahoo.

n Joseph Addison
n Richard Steele

The Spectator

n Samuel Johnson (a journalist, a biographer, a literary critic)
The Dictionary
Chapter 9
The Rise of the Novel
n Background About the Rise of the Novel
science and technology developed;
printing;
reading makes the flourish of a book market;
women’s reading even writing
II. Major Novelists
n 1. Daniel Defoe
Robinson Crusoe
( a sailor, 28 years in an isolated island)
Moll Flanders
Roxana

n 2. Samuel Richardson
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (letter novel)

Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady

n 3. Henry Fielding
Joseph Andrews
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

n 4. Laurence Sterne

Tristram Shandy

A Sentimental Journey
Chaoter 10
The Pre-Romantic Literature
n Background
growth of cities, the bourgeois class, the book market
From reason to passion;
literature in the second half century shifted from paying attention to human fates and social problems to searching the meaning of life and death, from exploring human nature, philosophy of human congnition to experiencing and praising nature.

Pre-Romantic Poetry
n Graveyard Poets
Thomas Parnell, Edward Young, Robert Blair
Thomas Gray (Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard)

wrote melancholy poems, often with the poet meditating on human mortality problems at night or in a graveyard.

n Robert Burns, the Sctottish Bard
n William Blake
Songs of Innocence
Songs of Experience

n The Gothic Novelists
The Castle of Otranto –Horace Walpole
The Monk –Matthew Gregory Lewis
The Mysteries of Udolpho —Ann Radcliffe

Part V
The Romantic Period (1780-1830)
Chapter 11
Wordsworth and Coleridge
n Historical background
Industrial Revolution, working class,
the Luddites’ movement – frame-breakers, breaking looms and machines, ignorant of the real cause for their sufferings;
relationship with Ireland, Scotland and her colonies in North American became critical.
American Revolution and the French Revolution; democracy, equality and freedom, social reform

n Literary Achievements
1) Poetry
Wordsworh, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats
Lake Poets: Wordswoth Coleridge, Southey
2) Novel
Walter Scott, Jane Austen

n Romanticism or Romantic Movement is a literary movement in Britain and the European Continent between 1770 and 1848.
its keynote is “intensity(strong emotion)”, its watchword is “imagination”

n The English Romantic Movement was marked by the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798.
n Features of English Romanticism:
simplicity (content and language);
love of nature( respect nature’s force, feelings with nature);
subjectivity (individual emotion recollected in tranquility);
spontaneity (“the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”)
subject: supernatural, mysterious, stange and splendid, remote time and place;
tone:melancholy

II. The Romantic Sage
William Wordsworh
n Lyrical Ballads, a joint work of Wordsworth and Coleridge
n Poems in search for self-definition in relation with nature
“I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud”; “My Heart Leaps up When I Behold”; “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abby”
n Poems of Solitary
“The Solitary Reaper”

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
by Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of Golden daffodils:
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay;
In such a jocund company;
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
The Solitary Reaper
by Wordsworth
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain, 
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travelers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;——
I listen'd, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
Composed upon Westminster Bridge
by Wordsworh
P.181
III. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poet and Critic
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
( a strange, supernatural sea tale in the form of a ballad)
“ Kubla Khan”
Chapter 12
Byron, Shelley and Keats
n Byron and the Byronic Hero
major works:
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Don Juan

What is a Byronic Hero?(P.189)

n Shelley
major works:
Queen Mab ( first long poem)
“Song to the Men of England”
“Ode to the West Wind”
“To a Skylark”
Prometheus Unbound (lyrical drama)

n John Keats, the Poet of Beauty
“Ode to a Nightingale”
“Ode on a Grecian Urn”
“To Autumn”
“ Ode to Psyche”
“ On Melancholy”
Chapter 13
Walter Scott and Jane Austen
n Walter Scott, Romantic Writer of Historical Themes
major works:
Ivanhoe (historical romance)
Rob Roy ( a legendary hero of the Scottish people)
features:
combine historical facts with romantic adventures;
characters: type, superficial, lacking development and psychological depth;
colorful and exotic settings;
out-of-date mode of language

n Jane Austen, Novelist of Social Manners
major works:
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
Mansfield Park
Emma
Northanger Abby
Persuasion

Part VI
The Victorian Literature
(1830-1880)
Chapter 14
The Victorian Age

n What is Victorian? Why do we say that the Victorian Age was one of great changes?

Queen Victoria (1837-1901)
great development in industry, trade, science and technology, overseas expansion;
social contradictions, national problems;
diversity intellectual; disputes and changes in religion

Major Literary Achievements
n Prose: Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold

n Poets: Tennyson, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold,
Raphaelite poets(combine Italian art with poetry):
Rossetti, William Morris, Swinburne

novelists: Charles Dickens, Thackeray,
George Eliot, the Bronte sister, Mrs Gaskell
Chapter 15
Victorian Novelists
n Charles Dickens
major works:
David Copperfield
Ble