1、Name/CN Name Writer's Features Writings / CN Writings Writing's Features English Literature The Renaissance Period 1. age: 1500-1660 2. background: stimulated by the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek classic; England's Golden Age, especially in literature; the Church of England broke aw
2、ay from the Catholic Church 3. features: (1)New poetical forms introduced, e.g. blank verse and sonnet; (2) the English drama based itself on the models of Roman and Greek classics and the precedents from Italy and Spain (3)the universal tend of humanism in emphasizing man's dignity and his wor
3、ldly happiness Edmund Spenser 埃德蒙.斯賓賽 1. The poet's poet; 2. Perfect melody; a rare sense of beauty; a splendid imagination; a lofty moral purity and seriousness; a dedicated idealism The Faerie Queen 仙后 (The Shepheades Calender牧人日记;Epithalamion新婚喜歌) An allegory; "a historical poem" to pres
4、ent the example of a perfect gentleman; a hero represent one of the 12 virtues; fierce warres and faithful loves Christopher Marlowe 克里斯扥夫.馬洛 (Blank verse University wit) 1. perfected blank verse and turned it into the principal medium of English drama 2. created a series of images of the Ren
5、aissance hero for English drama Dr Fauctus 浮士德博士 The Passionate Shepherd to His Love多情的牧羊人致情人 1. symbolic of a humanist in the Renaissance; based on the German legend of a magician aspiring for knowledge and finally meeting his tragic end as a result of selling his soul to the Devil William Sha
6、kespeare 威廉.莎士比亞 The greatest playwright and the most popular sonnet writer; a creation of characters; skillful plot construction; irony; a good use of a language; skilled in various poetic forms; of three quatrains and a couplet(三节四行诗加一节偶句); national unity under a mighty and just sovereign is a n
7、ecessity—“The King’s government must be carried on” (在一个强大英明的君主统治下的国家,统一是非常必要的) (Each hero has his weekness of nature: Hamlet, the melancholic scholar-prince, faces the dilemma between action and mind; Othello’s inner weakness is made use of by the outside evil force; the old king Lear who is unw
8、illing to totally give up his power makes himself suffer from treachery and infidelity; and Macbeth’s lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to incessant crimes.) literature should be a combination of beauty, kindness and truth, and should reflect nature and reality Sonnets 十四行詩 Th
9、e Merchant of Venice 威尼斯商人 Hamlet 哈姆雷特 (Venus and Adonis维纳斯和安东尼斯; The Rape of Lucrece鲁克丽斯受辱记;romantic tragicomedies浪漫悲喜剧;Romeo and Juliet; Shakespeare's greatest tragedies are : Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth) 1. 154 poems; English form 2. The traditional theme of the play is to prai
10、se the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable greed and brutality of the Jew. Many people today tend to regard the play as a satire of the Christians' hypocrisy and their false standards of friendship an
11、d love, their cunning ways of pursuing worldliness and their unreasoning prejudice against Jews (Shylock). 3. A man of contemplation rather than action; has the qualities of a “blood-and-thunder” thriller and a philosophical exploration of life and death Francis Bacon 弗蘭西斯.培根 a well known philo
12、sopher scientist and essayist; lays the foundation of modern science; his "Essays" is an important landmark in the development of English prose brevity\compactness\powerfulness Of Studies 论学习 It analyzes what studies chiefly serve for, the different ways adopted by different people to pursue stu
13、dies, and how studies exert influence over human charater John Donne 約翰.鄧恩 the leading figure(代表人物) of the "metaphysical school(玄学派); his poems can be divided into two groups: the secular and the religious; sermons; The songs and Sonnets a seemingly unfocused diversity of experiences and attitud
14、es and a free range of feelings and moods; dynamic rather than static The Sun Rising 太阳升起 Death, Be Not Proud 死神,莫骄横(Holy Sonnets) 1. dramatizing and illustrating the state of being in love 2. a bold challenge to the proud Death John Milton 約翰.彌爾頓 A versatile writer; fight for freedom in al
15、l aspects as a Christian humanist Paradise Lost 失樂園 Satan, after being defeated in his rebel against God, tempts Adam and Eve to eat the apples from the Forbidden Tree, and causes the Fall of Man The Neoclassical Period 1. age: 1660-1798 2. background: The English society of the neoclassical
16、 period was a turbulent one. Fast development of England as a nation; the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason 3. features: (1)a furtherance of the Renaissance – the Enlightenment Movement, advocated universal education (2)reason, "eternal truth", "eternal justice", "eternal equality" was w
17、hat human society should seek for; advocated universal education (3)reviving the interest in old classical works (neoclassicism) (4)keep to order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy (5)had specific rules for almost every genre of literature John Bunyan 約翰.班楊 As a stout Puritan, he had made
18、 a conscientious study of the Bible and firmly believed in salvation through spiritual struggle Concrete and living language\carefully observed and vividly presented detail The Pilgrim’s Progress 天路历程 (Symbolizes human world, for "All the cometh is vanity"; everything and anything in this world
19、is "vanity", have no value and no meaning; but this town "lay" in the way to the Celestial City, meaning pilgrims had to resist the temptations there when they made their way through) Is the most successful religious allegory in the English language; its purpose is to urge people to abide by Christ
20、ian doctrines and seek salvation through constant struggles with their own weakness and all kinds of social evils Alexander Pope 亞歷山大.蒲伯 Strongly advocated neoclassicism, emphasizing that literary works should be judged by classical rules of order, reason, logic, restrained emotion, good taste an
21、d decorum Satiric\concise\smooth\graceful\well-balanced style On Criticism 論批評 a comprehensive study of the theories of literary criticism; a typical didactic one; written in the form of heroic couplets, it's plain in style and it is easy to read. Daniel Defoe 丹尼爾.笛弗 A very good story-teller
22、 his sentences are sometimes short, crisp and plain, and sometimes long and rambling, which leave on the reader an impression of casual narration Smooth\easy\colloquial\mostly vernacular Robinson Crusoe 鲁宾逊漂流记 Adventure on a deserted island; depicts a hero grows from an inexperienced youth onto
23、 a shrewd and hardened man; a song of courage, wisdom, struggle against the hostile natural environment Jonathan Swift 喬納森.斯威特 Is almost unsurpassed in the writing of simple, direct, precise prose; “proper words in proper places” Clear\simple\concrete diction\uncomplicated sentence structure\eco
24、nomy and conciseness of language Gulliver’s Travels 格列佛遊記 Four places: Lilliput, Brobdingnag, the flying island; Houyhnhnm Henry Fielding 亨利.菲爾丁 First of all the 18th century English novelist to write the "comic epic in prose"; the first to give the modern novel its structure and style; use th
25、e third-person narration; “Father of the English Novel ”; “the just copies of human manners” Easy\unlaboured\familiar\extremely vivid and vigorous\ logic and rhythm Tom Jones 湯姆.琼斯 Samuel Johnson 賽繆爾.約翰遜 Very much concerned with the theme of the vanity of human wishes; no matter how complex
26、his sentences are, the thought is always clearly expressed To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield 致可敬的吉士菲尔伯爵书 A strong indignation at the Earl's fame-fishing; implying writers independence in economy and writing; open a new era in the development of literature Richard Brinsley Sheridan
27、 理查德.比.謝立丹 The only important English dramatist of the eighteenth century; in his plays, morality is the constant theme The School of Scandal 造谣学校 A story about two brothers Thomas Gray 扥馬斯.格雷 The leader of the sentimental poetry of the day, especially “the Graveyard School” Elegy Written i
28、n a Country Churchyard墓园挽歌 Reflects on death, the sorrow of life, and the mysteries of human life with a touch of his personal melancholy The Romantic Period 1. age: 1798-1870 2. background: coming along with the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution 3. features: (1)contrary with t
29、he neoclassicism: emphasize that man have in common, focuses on the special qualities of individual mind (2)tend to probe into the inner world of the human spirit rather narrate daily happenings of the human world (3)employ rural scenery, legendary and mythological, stories of ancient times, figur
30、es from country and Orientals (4)produce a number of great poets, the Romantic period is an age of poetry (5)the focus of the everyday life of human beings in the Age brought about the flourishing of familiar essays William Blake 威廉.布萊克 The first important Romantic poet; the spokesman of vevolt
31、 took “This World” as “a World of Imagination and Vision”, declaring that “The Nature of my work is visionary and imaginative” Plain\direct\lyric beauty\symbolism The Chimney Sweeper/Songs of Innocence 扫烟囱的孩子/天真之歌 The Chimney Sweeper/Songs of Experience 扫烟囱的孩子/經驗之歌 The Tyger老虎 1. indicates t
32、he conditions of the exploitation of child labor, which make religion a consolation; 2. reveals the true nature of religion which helps bring misery to the poor children William Wordsworth 威廉.華茲華斯 A “worshipper of nature”; a poet in memory of the past, to him, life is a cyclical journey, its beg
33、inning finally turns out to be its end; Advocate the writing of the common people in ordinary language; the joys and sorrows of the common people are his themes; natural scenery with its beauty and mystery acts also as one of his favorite themes, the poor in rural places; reveal the inner workings o
34、f individual’s mind; the seeming simplicity of the poet both in diction and description is immersed in a profound and sympathetic longing for a better world; poetry originates from “emotion recollected in tranquillity” Lyrical Ballads 抒情歌謠集 Tintern Abbey 丁登寺旁 ((I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud我孤独地漂
35、泊犹如一片浮云 Composed upon Westminster Bridge作于西敏寺桥上 She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways她居住在人迹罕至的地方 The Solitary Reaper孤独的割麦女) A vivid picture of a beautiful morning I n London; Italian form Samuel Taylor Coleridge 塞繆爾.特勒.科勒律治 Can be divided into two groups: the demonic and conversation
36、al; Kubla Khan 忽必烈漢 Describes the pleasure dome of the Khan; George Gordon Byron 喬治.戈登.拜倫 G.G.Byron’s chief contribution: “Byronic hero”: Such a hero is a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. Passionate and powerful, he is right all the wrongs in a corrupt society, and he would fig
37、ht single – handedly against all the misdoings, political, religious and moral. Thus his figure is a rebellious individual against outworn social systems and conventions. Song for the Luddites 为卢得派歌唱 Don Juan (The Isles of Greece) 唐璜(哀希腊) Percy Bysshe Shelley 鉑.比.雪萊 Greatest achievemen
38、t is his four-act poetic drama, Prometheus Unbound A Song : Men of England 英国人民之歌 Ode to the West Wind 西風頌 1. a war cry calling upon all working people of England to rise up against their political oppressors and an address to point out to them the intolerable injustice of economic exploitation
39、 2. The autumn wind, burying the dead year, preparing for a new Spring; “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” expressed eagerness to enjoy the boundless freedom from the reality John Keats 約翰.濟慈 Sensuous, colorful and rich in imagery; exact and closely knit construction, sensual descript
40、ion Ode to an Grecian Urn 希腊古瓮頌 Show the contrast between the permanence of art and the transience of human passion Jane Austen 簡.奧斯汀 Main literary concern is about human beings in their personal relationships; her characteristic theme is that maturity is achieved through the loss of illusions
41、 Delightful and profound Pride and Prejudice 傲慢與偏見 Wave vivid pictures of everyday life of simple country society The Victorian Period 1. age:1836-1901 2. background: (1)early years: rapid economic development as well as serious social problems (2)the next twenty years: prosperity and rela
42、tive stability. a national spirit of earnestness, respectability, modesty domesticity (3)the last three decades: the decline of the British empire and the decay of the Victorian values 3. idea: (1)Darwin’s The Origin of Species; The Descent of Man shook the theoretical basis of the traditional fa
43、ith (2)Utilitarianism: whether it could promote the material happiness (3)socially conscious writers criticized(2)‘s depreciation of cultural values, cold indifference towards human feeling (4)literature: magnitude and diversity, romantically and realistically 4.critical realist writers: critici
44、zed the society, concerned about the fate of common people Charles Dickens 查尔斯.狄更斯 1. theme: critical realist writers, criticize: poverty, injustice, hypocrisy, corruptness 2. characteristics: (1)he is skillful in the dialect and have a large vocabulary (2)character portrayal (3)ch
45、aracters are mostly innocent ,helpless, persecuted child characters (4)a mixture of humor and sympathism (pathos) (5)bizarre figure, horrible Oliver Twist雾都孤兒 (The Pickwick Paper; David Copperfield; Domeby and Son; A Tale of Two Cities; Bleak House; Little Dorrit; Hard Times; Great Expectations
46、) the cruelty and hypocrisy of the workhouse system and the dark criminal underworld life The Bronte Sisters 夏治特.布郎帝 1.scene: vast, rough, untouched moorland wilderness 2. Charlotte’s works are all about the struggle of an individual consciousness towards self-realization, about some lonely and
47、 neglected young women with a fierce longing for love, understanding and a full, happylife. In her mind, man’s life is composed of perpetual battle between sin and virtue, good and evil Jane Eyre /Charlotte Bronte 簡愛 Wuthering Heights/Emily Bronte 呼嘯山莊 1.Mr.Rochester and Jane Eyre. Rocheste
48、r: a grim-looking, energetic, quick-tempered, but an understanding middle-aged man; has a burning spirit and a longing to love and be loved; struggles for recognition of her basic rights and equality as a woman. It‘s an individual conscious struggle towards self-realization. She gets joy through the
49、 sacrifice of herself or her weakness overcome 3. (uses flashbacks) Nelly: Catherine’s old nurse, narrator, told Mr. Lockwood, a temporary tenant the story Alfred Tennyson 阿爾弗雷德.丁尼生 Poet Laureate(Wordsworth, Southey) a powerful expression of the poet‘s philosophical and religious thoughts, his
50、 doubts about life, soul; has the natural power of linking visual pictures with musical expression, and these two with the feelings Break Break Break 冲激,冲激,冲激 Crossing The Bar過沙洲 Ulysses尤利西斯 1. the feeling of sadness are contrasted with the carefree, innocent joys of the children and the unfee






