英国文学与美国文学的重点.doc

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英美文学重点English & American Literature

Old & Medieval English Literature
Old English: 450-1066
the national epic of the Anglo-Saons
Medieval English： 1066 - middle 14th century
Geoffrey Chaucer - the father of English poetry (wisdom, humor, humanity)
first time to use 'heroic couplet'

The Renaissance Period : 14th –mid 17th started in Italy
A series of historical events:
1. rediscovery of ancient Roman & Greek culture
2. new discoveries in geography & astrology(占星学)
3. the religious reformation & economic expansion
The Renaissance - rebirth or revival
Humanism - the essence of the Renaissance, the dignity of human being & the importance of the present life
Best representatives: Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare
The Elizabethan drama: the real mainstream of English Renaissance
Most famous dramatists: Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson

Edmund Spenser - the poets' poet
5 quality: 1) a perfect melody 2)a rare sense of beauty 3)a splendid imagination
4)a lofty(高尚的) moral purity and seriousness 5)a dedicated idealism
lament(哀悼) over the loss of Rosalind

主角：Arthur - who possess 12 virtues
Gloriana – the Fairy Queen
The theme is not “Arms and the man,” but something more romantic – “Fierce warres and faithfull loves”
READING: excerpt from The Faerie Queene 仙后
Content: Redcrosse Knight set out on his adventures.

Christopher Marlowe – “University Wits”, the pioneer of English drama
Hyperbole(夸张)
Marlowe’s achievement: 1) blank verse无韵诗歌
It is Marlowe who brought vitality(活力) and grandeur(伟大) into the blank verse with his “mighty lines,” which carry strong emotions.
2) his creation of the Renaissance hero for English drama.(not strong in dramatic construction.)
→ the pioneer of English drama
3 tragedies: the human passion for knowledge, power and happiness
帖木耳大帝 a play about an ambitious and pitiless overpowering king.
马尔他的犹太人
non-drama pastoral(田园的) life ，the most beautiful lyrics(抒情诗)
READING: 1. excerpt from Dr. Faustus 浮士德博士的悲剧
A play based on the German legend
Content: Faustus is a scholar who has a strong desire to acquire knowledge. By conjuration(念咒文召唤) he call up Mephistophilis, the Devil’s servant. He make a bond(契约) to sell his soul to the Devil in return for 24 years of life in which Mephistophilis to give him everything he desires. Devil’s name is Lucifer.
Dominant moral is human rather than religious
2. The Passionate(热情的) Shepherd to His Love
this short poem is considered to be one of the most beautiful lyrics(抒情诗) in English literature.
The shepherd(牧羊人) enjoy an ideal country life, cherishing(珍爱) a pastoral(田园的) and pure affection for his love. Strong emotion is conveyed through the beauty of nature.

William Shakespeare – playwright & poet (above all writers in the past and in the present time)
1. , …
2. , , , …
Comedies: , , …
Tragedy: romantic tragedy. To praise the faithfulness of love and the spirit of pursuing happiness.
3. Four tragedies - , , &
4. tragicomedies：
Achievement:
A. exploring the characters’s inner mind.
soliloquy(独白) or monologue - fully reveal the inner conflict of the characters
contrasts – bring vividness to the characters
B. adroit（精巧的） plot construction
C. Irony is a good means of dramatic presentation. Disguise is an important device to create dramatic irony.
D. the language.
READING： 1. Sonnet 18 (14 line)
eternal or immortal（不朽的） beauty, have a faith in the permanence of poetry.
A nice summer’s day is usually transient(短暂的), but the beauty in poetry can last for ever.
2.excerpt from The Merchant of Venice
to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, to expose the insatiable不知足的） greed and brutality of the Jew.
Double plot:(1) Bassanio ask Antonio for a loan so that he might marriage with Portia
(2) Antonio borrow money from Shylock, the Jewish usurer. Shylock make a strange bond that requires Antonio to surrender a pound of his flesh if he fail to repay him within a certain period of time. Portia disguised as a young lawyer instructed to judge the case: Shylock can take his pound of flesh, but there is no mention of blood in the bond. Otherwise, his lands and goods will be confiscated(充公) according to he law of Venice.
3．Excerpt from Hamlet
hesitate between fact and fiction, language and action, too sophisticated（复杂的） to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger
content: Hamlet, the prince, appearing in a mood of world-weariness（厌世） occasioned by his father’s death and his mother’s hasty remarriage with Claudius, his father’s brother. Hamlet is informed that Claudius has murdered his father and then taken over both his father’s throne and widow. Thus Hamlet is urged to seek revenge.
Note: To be, or not to be - to live on in this world or to die; to suffer or to take action

Francis Bacon –philosopher, scientist, essayist, lay the foundation for modern science
His Essays is the first example of that genre in English literature.
Bacon’s essays are famous for their brevity, compactness & powerfulness, well-arranging and enriching by Biblical allusions（典故）, metaphors（隐喻） and cadence（韵律）.
of Learning> man’s understanding consists of three parts: history to man’s memory, poetry to man’s imagination and creation, and philosophy to man’s reason.
written in Latin on methodology方法论
Bacon suggests the inductive reasoning 归纳法 ( i.e. proceeding from the particular to the general)
in place of Aristotelian method, the deductive reasoning 演绎法 ( i.e. proceeding from the general to the particular)
READING: Of Studies
uses and benefits of study –studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Studies perfect nature, and are perfected by experience. Different ways adopted by different people to pursue studies - studies and experience are complementary (互补) to each other. The correct attitude to reading books - to weigh and consider. How studies exert influence over human character - reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.

John Donne
〝Metaphysical poetry〞（玄学诗）- break away from love poetry, the diction(用语) is simple, the imagery is from the actual, the form is frequently an argument with the poet’s beloved, with God, or with himself.
A)conceits B)syllogism (三段论)
Poetry 早期:nnets> holds that the nature of love is the union of soul and body.
晚期: religious poem
Prose: his sermons, which are both rich and imaginative
READING: 1. The Sun Rising 2. Death, Be Not Proud ( a sonnet,14 lines)
the busy sun is always ready to interfere with other things and everywhere
whatever you are, you can not escape from death. When you are living, you are always in the shadow of death. Death only lasts a moment, our life after death is eternal. The more pleasure the death gives people, not only the pleasure of the rest & the sleep, because 'whom the gods love die young'. Though death is usually considered powerful, it actually provides a rest for a man's body and a birth for his soul.

John Milton
Achievement: 1)the early poetic works 2) the middle prose(散文) 3)the last great poems
Elegy(挽歌) -利西达斯 (his early work)
Epic(史诗) -
Dramatic poem(诗剧) - 力士参孙 the most perfect example of the verse drama after the Greek style in English.
READING: excerpt from Paradise Lost
the only generally acknowledged epic in English literature since Beowulf. The conflict is between human love and spiritual duty. The freedom of the will is the keystone of Milton’s creed(纲领).
Take from the Old Testament, the theme is the “Fall of Man”: Satan rebel against God and are driven from Heaven. He determined to revenge by seduce(引诱) Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge against God’s instructions. So, Adam and Eve are exiled by God from the paradise.

The Neoclassical Period : 1660-1798 with the publication of Lyrical ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge
- a revival of interest in the old classical works, order, logic, restrained emotion(抑制情感) & accuracy
the Age of Enlightenment/Reason – the movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centries,a progressive intellectual movement, reason (rationality), equality & science (the 18th century)
modern English novel –newly rising literary form现实主义小说诞生（the mid-century）
Gothic novel(哥特式小说) - mystery, horror & castles (from middle part to the end of century)

John Bunyan
REAING: The Vanity Fair名利场 an excerpt form The Pilgrim’s Progress (天路历程)
, a religious allegory(寓言), its purpose is to urge people to abide by Christian doctrines and seek salvation(拯救) through constant struggles with their own weaknesses and all kinds of social evils. Its predominant metaphor –life as a journey

Alexander Pope
one of the first to introduce rationalism to England, for him the supreme value was order.
READING: excerpt from An Essay on Criticism(论批评)
a poem written in heroic couplets(对句), criticize the present poem lack of true taste & call on people to turn to the old Greek and Roman writers for guidance, true wit which is best set in a plain (simple & clear) style.

Daniel Defoe - the first writer study of the lower-class people, his language is smooth, easy, colloquial and mostly vernacular(方言).
READING: excerpt from Robinson crusoe
praise the human labor and the Puritan fortitude (清教徒坚韧).
→ an adventure story, Robinson, narrates how he goes to sea, gets shipwrecked and marooned(放逐) on a lonely island, struggles to live for 24-years there and finally gets relieved and returns to England.
→ Robinson grew from a naïve and artless youth into a shrewd and hardened man, tempered by numerous trials in his eventful life.

Jonathan Swift
In his opinion, human nature is seriously and permanently flawed (缺点)
Achievement: 1)a master satirist.
2) one of the greatest of English prose, he defined a good style as “Proper words in proper places”
READING: excerpt from Gulliver’s Travels (格列佛游记)
fictional work, four parts – Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Flying Island & Houyhnhnm
(小人国) (大人国) (飞岛) (有人类理性的马)
→ the book is one of the most effective and devastating criticisms and satires of all aspects in the then English and European life.

Henry Fielding - Father of English novel, he was the first to write a “Comic epic in prose” (散文体史诗), the first to give the modern novel its structure and style. He adopted “the third-person narration”.
(约瑟夫·安德鲁)
(伟大的乔纳森·怀尔德)
a masterpiece on the subject of human nature
the unfortunate life of an idealized woman, a maudlin(伤感的) picture of the social life at the time.
READING: excerpt from Tom Jones
Brings the author the name of the “Prose Homer”
In a way, Tom and Sophia, stands for a wayfaring(旅行的) Everyman, who is expelled from the paradise and has to go through hard experience to gain a knowledge of himself and finally to approach perfectness.

Samuel Johnson – the author of the first English dictionary by an Englishman, the last neoclassicist enlightener.
英语大词典
READING: To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield
the letter is written in a refined and very polite language, with a bitter undertone of defiance and anger. The seemingly peaceful retrospection, reasoning and questioning express, to the best satiric effect, the author’s strong indignation at the lord’s fame-fishing.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan - the only important English dramatist of the 18th century
and are regarded as important links between the masterpieces of Shakespeare and those of Bernard Shaw.
READING: excerpt from The School for Scandal
A story about two brothers: Joseph Surface and Charles Surface. Charles in love with Maria, Sir Peter Teazle is loved by Lady Sneerwell. The lady instigates(教唆) Joseph to pursue Maria For her Money. Joseph secretly seduce(引诱) Lady Teazle, Sir Peter’s young wife. The play ends with great disgrace for Joseph and Charles wins his loves and the inheritance of his rich uncle.
It is a sharp satire on the moral degeneracy(堕落) of the aristocratic-bourgeois society in the 18th England.

Thomas Gray
the leader of the sentimental(悲情的) poetry of the day ,especially “The Graveyard School”
READING: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
reflects on death, the sorrows of life, and the mysteries of human life with a touch of his personal melancholy. He sympathized for the poor and the unknown, but mocks the great ones who despise the poor and bring havoc(破坏) on them.

The Romantic Period
△ Romantic - emotion over reason, spontaneous (自发)emotion, a change from the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit, poetry should be free from all rules, imagination, nature, commonplace
△ The romantic emphasized the special qualities of each individual’s mind.
△ The romantic period began with： in 1798 the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge's
end in 1832 with Sir Walter Scott’s death
△ two major novelists of the Romantic period are Jane Austen (realistic) and Walter Scott (romantic).

William Blake - poet & engraver(雕刻家)
: a happy and innocent world from children's eye
: a world of misery, poverty, disease, war and repression with a melancholy (忧郁的)tone from men eyes. Childhood, paradoxes, a pairing of opposites
marks his entry into maturity.
(先知书) prophetic(预言的) book in his later period
He presents his view in visual images. Symbolism is also a distinctive feature of his poetry.
READING: 1. The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Innocence)
2. The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Experience)
3. The Tyger (from Songs of Experience)

William Wordsworth
- the leading figure of the English romantic poetry, simple, spontaneous(自发的), “worshipper o