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英国文学复习笔记整理

英国文学复习笔记整理
英国文学复习笔记整理

1 Although Geoffrey Chaucer was essentially a medieval writer, he bore

marks of humanism and anticipated a new era of literature to come.

2 Romance, which uses narrative verse or prose to tell stories of Knightly

adventures or other heroic deeds, is a popular literary form in the

medieval period.

The Renaissance Period

Edmund Spencer / Christopher Marlowe / William

Shakespeare

Francis Bacon / John Donne / John Milton

1. Renaissance: between 14th and mid-17th century.

2. Renaissance means rebirth or revival is actually a movement

stimulated by a series of historical events, such as:

The rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture,

The new discoveries in geography and astrology,

The religious reformation and the economic expansion.

3. The Renaissance, therefore in essence is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and Scholars made attempt to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in Medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed the purity of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.

The religious reformation in the early 16th-century England was a reflection of the class struggles waged by the rising bourgeoisie against

the feudal class and its ideology

4. Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance

The essence of humanism is to emphasize human qualities

(1) Capable of individual development in the direction of perfection.

(2) They inhabited was theirs not to despise by to question, explore and

enjoy.

(3) Tomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are the

best representative of the English humanist.

5 Metaphysical poetry: Metaphysical is characterized by passionate thought succession of concentrated image, exercise of elaborate ingenuity and “wit”, John Donne was the famous of the Metaphysical poet. The Metaphysical Poets were men of learning and to show their learning was

their endeavor.

Edmund Spenser

Masterpiece: The Faerie Queene (allegory)

Christopher Marlowe (University wits)

1 Important plays: Tambulaine, Dr.Faustus, The Jew of Malta

2 Marlowe voiced the supreme desire of the man of the Renaissance of

infinite powers and authority

(1) Perfected the blank verse.

(2) Creation of the Renaissance hero to English drama, it embodies

Marlowe’s ideal of human dignity and capacity.

3Dr.Faustus: aspiring for knowledge, the play’s dominant moral is

human rather than religious, it celebrates the human passion for knowledge, power and happiness, it also reveals man’s frus tration in realizing the high aspiration in a hostile moral order and the confinement to time is the cruelest fact of man’s condition.

4 The statement that a man gained the whole world but lost his own soul makes a good summary of the main plot of The Tragic History of Doctor

Faustus

William Shakespeare

1.Works: 154 sonnets, 38 plays, 2 long poems

Comedy: Merchant of Venice.

2 4 great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth

Each portrays some noble hero, who face the injustice of human fate is closely connected with the fate of the whole nation; each hero has his

weakness 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;

old King Lear who is unwilling to totally give up his power makes himself suffer from treachery(背叛) and infidelity(失真) Macbeth’s lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to incessant

crime.

3 statements best illustrates the theme of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 :The

)

2 Novum Organum: most impressive display of Beacon’s intellect. The argument is for the use of inductiveness of reason in scientific study.

3 Beacon suggests the inductive reasoning, i.e. proceeding from the

particular to the general, in place of the Aristotelian method, the deductive reasoning, i.e. proceeding from the general to the particular.

4 Beacon’s essays are famous for their brevity, compact ness and

powerfulness.

John Donne

Metaphysical poetry

The most striking feature of Donne’s poetry is precisely its tang of reality, in the sense that it seems to reflect life in a real rather than a poetical

world.

Donne frequently applies conceits.

John Milton

Three major poetical works:

Paradise lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonists

The freedom of the will is the key tone of Milton’s creed.

Paradise Lost

The epic is the masterpiece of John Milton

The story is drawn from the Old Testament of the Bible, which tells how Satan, after being defeated in his rebel against God, tempts Adam and Eve to eat the apples for the Forbidden Tree, and causes the Fall of Man.

The Neoclassic Period

John Bunyan / Alexander Pope / Daniel Defoe / Jonathan Swift

Henry Fielding / Samuel Johnson / Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Tomas Gray

1 Between the return of the Stuarts to the English throne in 1660 and the full assertion of Romanticism which came with the publication of lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798

2 Enlightenment or the Age of reason

The Enlightenment movement was a progressive intellectual movement, which flourished in France and swept the whole Western Europe at the

time

Its propose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. The enlightenment celebrated reason or rationality, equality and science. They called for a reference to order, reason and rule, yield place to “eternal truth” “eternal justice” and

“natural equality”

They believed that human beings were limited, dualistic and imperfect literature at the time, heavily didactic and moralizing.

They believed in self-restraint, self-reliance and hard work. To work, to economize and to accumulate wealth constitutes the whole meaning of their life. This aspect of social life is best-formed in the realistic novels of

the 18th century.

3 In the field of literature, they believed that the artistic should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy. Seek proportion, unity, harmony and grace in literary expression, in an effort to delight, instruct and

correct human beings.

4 Neoclassicism. In English literature and, the stylistic trend between the Restoration and the advent of romanticism at the beginning of the 19th

century is referred to as Neoclassicism.

5 Heroic: It is a pair of rhymed lines of iambic pentameter. The form was

introduced into English by Chaucer and widely used subsequently.

John Bunyan

1. Masterpiece: The pilgrim’s progress

2.The “vanity fair” symbolizes human world; for all th at comth is

vanity everything and anything in this world is vanity, having no value

and no meaning.

3.In The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Banyan describes The Vanity Fair in

a satirical tone.

The phrase "to urge people to abide by Christian

doctrines and to seek salvation through constant struggles with their own weaknesses and all kinds of social evils" may well sum up the implied meaning of

The Pilgrim’s Progress

Alexander Pope

1 Pope, a very sensitive man, would strike back hard, and in the constant

verbal battles he developed a style of biting satire.

2 He was one of the first to introduce rationalism to England, but was not

entirely blind to the rapid moral, political and cultural deterioration.

3 For him the supreme values were order-cosmic order, political order, social order, aesthetic order, and this emphasis an order expression in all of his works. Pope made his name as a great poet with the publication of

an Essay on Criticism in 1711.

4 Pope strongly advocated Neoclassicism, emphasizing that literary

works should be judged by classical rule of order, reason, logic,

restrained emotion, good taste and decorum.

Daniel Defoe

Masterpiece: Robinson Crusoe

His language is smooth, easy, colloquial (口语的)and most vernacular.

Defoe glorifies human labor and the puritan fortitude. It refers the

enterprising sprit of the middle class.

Jonathan Swift

1. Chief works:

A Tale of a Tub, The battle of the books, The Drapier’s letters, Gulliver’s

Travel and a modest proposal.

2. Swift is almost unsurpassed in the writing of simple, direct, precise prose. He defined a good style as “proper words in proper places” clear, simple, concrete, diction, uncomplicated sentence structure and economy and concise use of language mark all his writing-essay, poems and

novels.

3. As a whole, the book is one have the most effective and devastating criticism and satires of all aspects in the then English and European life socially, politically, religiously, philosophically, scientifically and morally.

Henry Fielding

1. Masterpiece: A History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

2. Fielding has been regarded by some as “Father of the English Novel” for his contribution to the establishment of the form of the modern novel.

3. Fielding’s la nguage is easy, unlabored and familiar but extremely vivid

and vigorous.

4. Of all the 18th century novelist, he was the first to set out both in theory and practice. To write specially a “comic epic in poem” the first to give the modern novels its structure and story; he use epistolary form and

“the third-person narration”.

5. In planning his stories, he tries to retain the grand, epical of the

classical works but at the same time keeps faithful to his realistic

presentation of common life as it is.

Samuel Johnson

1. Lexicographer: the author of the first English dictionary by an English

man---A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

2. To the Right Honorable the Earl of----Chesterfield

3. He was particularly fond of moralizing, and didacticism. His language in characteristically general, often Latinate and frequently polysyllabic.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

1 Masterpiece: The school for scandal.

2 Sheridan has the only important English dramatist of the 18th century;

important link between Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw.

3 In his play, morality is the constant theme.

He is much concerned with the current moral issue and harshly at the social life of the day.

Tomas Gray

1. His masterpiece, “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” was published in 1751; the poem once and for all established his fame as the leader of the sentimental poetry of the day especially”the Graveyard School”

2. In his poem, Gray reflects on death, the sorrow of life and the

mysteries of hum a touch of his Personal Melancholy.

3. His poems, as a whole are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentation or mediation on life, past and present. His poems are characterized by an exquisite

sense of form. His style is sophisticated and allusive. His poems are often marked with the trait of a highly

artificial diction and a distorted word order.

Romantic Period

William Blake / William Wordsworth / Samuel Taylor Coleridge George Gordon/ ByronPercy/ Bysshe Shelley /

John Keats / Jane Austen

1. Major Romantic Points

(1) A rebellion against neo-classicism

(2) Express on imagination

(3) Priorities been given to passion, emotion and feeling

(4) Being close to nature for its purity while the society is corrupting

5) Tremendous interest in something remote in term of

space and time

(6) Favor of modernism

(7) Supremacy of freedom

2 Romantic Period began in 1798 with the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s lyrical Ballads and have ended in 1852 with Sir Walter Scott’s death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in the Parliament.

3. It was in effect a revolt of the English imagination against the neoclassical reason, which prevailed from the days of Pope to those of

Johnson

1. Jean-Roseau: exploration new idea about Nature, society, Education. 4The Romantic Movement expressed a more or less

negative attitude the existing social and political conditions that came with industrial lization and the growing importance of the bourgeoisie.

5 Thus, we can say that Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner

world of the human spirit

6 Nature to Wordsworth is a source of mental cleanliness and spiritual

understanding.

7 Poetry has been traditionally regarded as an art governed by rules; but

for Romantics, Poetry should be free from all rules.

8 Gothic novels: its principal elements are violence, horror and

supernatural, which strongly appeal to the reader’s emotion.

9 How is Romanticism different from Neoclassicism? Provide brief

evidence from the literary works you know best.

a. Neoclassicists upheld that artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity, and thus, literary expressions should be of proportion, unity, harmony and grace. Pope’s An Essay on Criticism

advocates grace, wit ( usually though satire/ humor ), and simplicity in

language (and the poem itself is a demonstration of those ideals, too); Fielding’s Tom Jones helped established the form of novel; Gray’s Elegry

Written in a cou ntry Churchyard” displays elegance in style, unified structure, serious tone and moral instructions.

b. Romanticism tended to see the individual as the very center of all experience, including art, and thus, literary work should be “spontaneous

overflow of strong of feeling” and no matter how fragmentary those experience were ( Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” or “The Solitary Reaper,) 0r Coleridge’s “ Keble Khan”), the value of the

work link lied in the accuracy of presenting those unique feelings and

particular altitude.

c. In a word, Neoclassicism emphasized rationality and form but

Romanticism attached great importance to the individual’s mind

( emotion, imagination, temporary experience.)

William Blake

1 (1) The songs of Innocence is a lovely volume poems, presenting a happy and innocent world, though not without its evil and sufferings. (2) The songs of Experience paints a different world, a world of misery,

poverty, disease, war and repress with melancholy tone

(3) The two books hold the similar subject-matter, but the tone,

emphasis and conclusion differs.

2 Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) marks his entry into

maturity.

Blake explains the relationship of the contraries.

“without contraries, there is no progression. The marriage to Blake means the reconciliation of the contraries, not the subordination of the

one to the other.

3 Blake writes his poem in plain and direct language, his poem often

carries the lyric beauty with immense compressing of meaning. He

distrusts the abstractness and tends to embody his views with visual images; symbolism in wide range is also a distinctive feature of his

poetry.

William Wordsworth

The poetic view of William Wordsworth can be best understood from his

remark about poetry, that is, "all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow

of powerful feelings."

William Wordsworth, a romantic poet, advocated all the following

A.the use of everyday language spoken by the common people

B. the expression of the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling

C. the use of humble and rustic life as subject matter

1 William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey,

the three man known as the “Lake Poets”

2 Wordsworth is regarded as a “worshiper of nature”

3 Wordsworth thinks that common life is the only subject of literary

interest.

4 Wordsworth see the word freshly, sympathetically and naturally.

5 The most important contribution Wordsworth has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry of the growing inner self, but also changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a reform to nature.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1 Coleridge’s portion (work) was to deal with super nature thing for he

was more interested in something remote strange on foreign.

2 Two divers group: the demonic and the conversational

(1) The demonic group: beyond the control of reason. The Rime of the

Ancient Mariner “Christabel” “Kubla Khan”

(2) The conversational group: “Frost at Midnight”

3 Coleridge is one of the first critics to give close critical affection to

language, maintaining that the true end of poetry is to give pleasure

“through the medium of beauty”

4 He was recognized as a lyrical poet and literary critic of the first rank.

His poetic themes range from the super nature to the domestic.His treatises, lectures, and compelling conversational powers made him one of the most influential English literary critics and philosophers of the 19th

century.

George Gordon Byron

1 Masterpiece: Don Juan, Childe Harold’s Pilgrim age

“I awake one morning and found myself famous.”

2 Byron invests in Juan the moral positives like courage, generosity and

frankness

The unifying principal in Don Juan is the basic ironic theme of appearance and reality.

3 Byron has enriched European poetry with an abundance of ideas,

images, artistic forms and innovation.

4 Byronic hero

The creation of the Byronic hero is Byron’s chief contribution to English Poetry, such a hero is a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. Passionate and powerful, he is to right all the wrongs in a corrupt society and he would fight single-handedly against all the misdoings, political, religious moral. Thus this figure is a rebellious individual social systems

and customs. Because Byron’s poetry is one of the exp eriences on the whole, such a hero is more or less a surrogate of himself; He appears first in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and then further develops in later works such as the “Oriented Tale” “Manfred” and “Don Juan”.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1 In 1813 he published his first long serious work. Queen Mab: A

Philosophical Poem.

2 Masterpiece “The Cenci” “Prometheus unbounded”

Lyrics: “The Cloud” “To a Skylark” “Adonais”

3 He held a life-long aversion to cruelty, injustice, authority, institutional religion and the formal shames of respectable society, condemning war,

tyranny and exploitation.

4 Shelley expressed his love for freedom and his hatred toward tyranny in several of his lyrics such as: Ode to Liberty,” “Ode to Naples,” “Sonnet: England in 1819”

and so on.

5 Best of all the well-known lyric pieces is his “Ode to the west wind” it

is rhapsodic and declamatory.

6 Shelley’s style abounds in personification and metaphor and other figure of speech, which describe vividly what we see and feel, or express

what passionately moves us.

John Keats

1. Work: Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.Agnes

2. The Odes are generally regarded as Keats’s most important and mature

works.

Ode on Melancholy, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to

Psyche

3. Keats’s poetry is always sensuous, colorful and rich in imagery, which

expresses the acuteness of his senses, sights, sound, scent, taste and felling are all taken in to give an entire understanding of an experience of

others either human or animal.

4. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty."is taken from John Keats’ Ode on a

Grecian Urn

5 Ode on a Grecian Urn" shows the contrast between the (permanence. )

of art and the (transience ) of human passion.

Jane Austen

1 Works: Pride and Prejudice. Sense and Sensibility. Northanger Abbey

2 And in style, she is a neoclassicism advocator, upholding those traditional ideals of order, reason, proportion and gracefulness in novel

writing.

The Victorian Period

Charles Dickens / Charlotte Bronte / Emily Bronte/

Alfred Tennyson / Robert Browning

1. The Victorian Period roughly coincides with the reign of Queen Victorian from 1836 to 1901, the most glorious in the English history. (In this period, the novel became the most widely read and the most vital and challenging expression of progressive thought, criticism of the society and the defense of the mass. ----they are all concerned about the fate of

common people.)

2 Towards the mid-19th century, England had reached it’s highly point of

development as a world power.

3 Darwin’s The origin o f species and The Descent of Man shook theoretical basic of traditional faith. Utilitarianism was widely accepted

and practiced.

4 Famous novelists like Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackery, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Mrs. Gaskell and Anthony Trollope.

5 typical feature of the English Victorian literature is that writers became

of the Victorian

Age

2 In language, he is often compared with Shakespeare for his adeptness with the vernacular and large vocabulary with which he brings out many a wonderful verbal

picture of man and scene.

3 His humor and wit seem inexhaustible; character portrayal is the most

distinguished feature of his work.

4 His best-depicted characters are those innocent, virtuous, persecuted

helpless child characters.

5 Dickens work are also characterized by a mingling of humor and pathos.

He seems to believe that life is itself a mixture of joy and grief.

The Victorian Age was largely and age of (epic prose), eminently

represented by Dickens and Thackeray.

The Bronte sisters

Charlotte Bronte

1 Masterpiece: Jane Eyre

2 The success of the novel is also due to its introduction to the English novel the first governess heroine, Jane Eyre, description of her intense feeling and her thought and inner conflicts brings her to the heart of the

audience.

Emily Bronte

1 Masterpiece: Wuthering Heights

2 As a love story, this is one of the most misery: the passion between Heathcliff and Cathrine proves the most intense, the most beautiful and at the same time, the most horrible passion are to be found in human being.

Alfred Tennyson

1. His poetry voices the doubt and the faith, the grief and the joy of

English people in an age of fast social change.

2. In 1850, Tennyson was appointed the poet laureate.

3. Tennyson is a real artist. He has the natural power of linking visual

picture with musical expression, and these two with the feelings.

Robert Browning

1 Dramatic Monologue

A kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose reply is not given in the poem. The occasion is usually a crucial one in the speaker’s life, and the dramatic monologue reads the speaker’s personality as well as the incident that is the subject of the poem; an experience of a dramatic monologue is “My Last Duchess” by

Robert Browning.

2“My Last Duchess”: this dramatic monologue is the duke’s speech addressed to the agent who comes to negotiate the marriage. In this talk about “Last Duchess” the duke reveals himself as a self-conceited, cruel and tyrannical man. The poem is written is heroic couplet, but with no regular metrical system. In reading, it sounds like bland verse.

George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans)

1 her popular novels, Adam Bede, The Mill on the floss ,Silas

Marner, all drawn from her lifelong knowledge of English country life and notable for their realistic details , pungent

characterization and high moral tone.

大三_英国文学史(绝对标准中文版)

英国文学源远流长,经历了长期、复杂的发展演变过程。在这个过程中,文学本体以外的各种现实的、历史的、政治的、文化的力量对文学发生着影响,文学内部遵循自身规律,历经盎格鲁-撒克逊、文艺复兴、新古典主义、浪漫主义、现实主义、现代主义等不同历史阶段。下面对英国文学的发展过程作一概述。 一、中世纪文学(约5世纪-1485) 英国最初的文学同其他国家最初的文学一样,不是书面的,而是口头的。故事与传说口头流传,并在讲述中不断得到加工、扩展,最后才有写本。公元5世纪中叶,盎格鲁、撒克逊、朱特三个日耳曼部落开始从丹麦以及现在的荷兰一带地区迁入不列颠。盎格鲁-撒克逊时代给我们留下的古英语文学作品中,最重要的一部是《贝奥武甫》(Beowulf),它被认为是英国的民族史诗。《贝奥武甫》讲述主人公贝尔武甫斩妖除魔、与火龙搏斗的故事,具有神话传奇色彩。这部作品取材于日耳曼民间传说,随盎格鲁-撒克逊人入侵传入今天的英国,现在我们所看到的诗是8世纪初由英格兰诗人写定的,当时,不列颠正处于从中世纪异教社会向以基督教文化为主导的新型社会过渡的时期。因此,《贝奥武甫》也反映了7、8世纪不列颠的生活风貌,呈现出新旧生活方式的混合,兼有氏族时期的英雄主义和封建时期的理想,体现了非基督教日耳曼文化和基督教文化两种不同的传统。 公元1066年,居住在法国北部的诺曼底人在威廉公爵率领下越过英吉利海峡,征服英格兰。诺曼底人占领英格兰后,封建等级制度得以加强和完备,法国文化占据主导地位,法语成为宫廷和上层贵族社会的语言。这一时期风行一时的文学形式是浪漫传奇,流传最广的是关于亚瑟王和圆桌骑士的故事。《高文爵士和绿衣骑士》(Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,1375-1400)以亚瑟王和他的骑士为题材,歌颂勇敢、忠贞、美德,是中古英语传奇最精美的作品之一。传奇文学专门描写高贵的骑士所经历的冒险生活和浪漫爱情,是英国封建社会发展到成熟阶段一种社会理想的体现。 14世纪以后,英国资本主义工商业发展较快,市民阶级兴起,英语逐渐恢复了它的声誉,社会各阶层普遍使用英语,为优秀英语文学作品的产生提供了条件。杰弗利·乔叟(Geoffrey Chaucer, 1343-1400)的出现标志着以本土文学为主流的英国书面文学历史的开始。《坎特伯雷故事》(The Canterbury Tales)以一群香客从伦敦出发去坎特伯雷朝圣为线索,通过对香客的生动描绘和他们沿途讲述的故事,勾勒出一幅中世纪英国社会千姿百态生活风貌的图画。乔叟首创英雄诗行,即五步抑扬格双韵体,对英诗韵律作出了很大贡献,被誉为"英国诗歌之父".乔叟的文笔精练优美,流畅自然,他的创作实践将英语提升到一个较高的文学水平,推动了英语作为英国统一的民族语言的进程。 二、文艺复兴时期文学(15世纪后期-17世纪初) 相对于欧洲其他国家来说,英国的文艺复兴起始较晚,通常认为是在15世纪末。文艺复兴时期形成的思想体系被称为人文主义,它主张以人为本,反对中世纪以神为中心的世界观,提倡积极进取、享受现世欢乐的生活理想。托马斯·莫尔(Thomas More, 1478-1535)是英国最主要的早期人文主义者,他的《乌托邦》(Utopia)批评了当时的英国和欧洲社会,设计了一个社会平等、财产公有、人们和谐相处的理想国。Utopia现已成为空想主义的代名词,但乌托邦是作者对当时社会状况进行严肃思考的结果。《乌托邦》开创了英国哲理幻想小说传统的先河,这一传统从培根的《新大西岛》(The New Atlantis)、斯威夫特的《格列佛游记》(Gulliver's Travels)、勃特勒的《埃瑞璜》(Erewhon)一直延续到20世纪

刘炳善《英国文学简史》完整版笔记(免费)

英国文学简史完全版 A Concise History of British Literature Chapter 1 English Literature of Anglo-Saxon Period I. Introduction 1. The historical background (1)Before the Germanic invasion (2)During the Germanic invasion a. immigration; b. Christianity; c. heptarchy. d. social classes structure: hide-hundred; eoldermen (lord)– thane - middle class (freemen)- lower class (slave or bondmen: theow); e. social organization: clan or tribes. f. military Organization; g. Church function: spirit, civil service, education; h. economy: coins, trade, slavery; i. feasts and festival: Halloween, Easter; j. legal system. 2. The Overview of the culture (1)The mixture of pagan and Christian spirit. (2)Literature: a. Poetry: two types; b. prose: two figures. II. Beowulf.

英国文学史及选读 复习要点总结概要

《英国文学史及选读》第一册复习要点 1. Beowulf: national epic of the English people; Denmark story; alliteration, metaphors and understatements (此处可能会有填空,选择等小题 2. Romance (名词解释 3. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”: a famous roman about King Arthur’ s story 4. Ballad(名词解释 5. Character of Robin Hood 6. Geoffrey Chaucer: founder of English poetry; The Canterbury Tales (main contents; 124 stories planned, only 24 finished; written in Middle English; significance; form: heroic couplet 7. Heroic couplet (名词解释 8. Renaissance(名词解释 9.Thomas More—— Utopia 10. Sonnet(名词解释 11. Blank verse(名词解释12. Edmund Spenser “The Faerie Queene” 13. Francis Bacon “essays” esp. “Of Studies” (推荐阅读,学习写正式语体的英文文章的好参照,本文用词正式优雅,多排比句和长句,语言造诣非常高,里面很多话都可以引用做格言警句,非常值得一读 14. William Shakespeare四大悲剧比较重要,此外就是罗密欧与朱立叶了,这些剧的主题,背景,情节,人物形象都要熟悉,当然他最重要的是 Hamlet 这是肯定的。他的sonnet 也很重要,最重要属 sonnet18。 (其戏剧中著名对白和几首有名的十四行诗可能会出选读 15. John Milton 三大史诗非常重要,特别是 Paradise Lost 和 Samson Agonistes。对于 Paradise Lost 需要知道它是 blank verse写成的,故事情节来自 Old Testament,另外要知道此书 theme 和 Satan 的形象。

2020年1月浙江自学考试试题及答案解析英国文学选读试卷及答案解析

浙江省2018年1月高等教育自学考试 英国文学选读试题 课程代码:10054 Part I. Choose the relevant match from Column B for each item in Column A. (10%) Section A A B (1)Jonathan Swift() A. The Rainbow (2)D.H. Lawrence () B. Adam Bede (3)Emily Brontё() C. Gulliver’s Travels (4)Thomas Hardy () D. Wuthering Heights (5)George Eliot() E. Far From the Madding Crowd Section B A B (1) Middlemarch() A. Shylock (2) Jane Eyre() B. Sir Peter Teazle (3) The Merchant of Venice() C. Mr. Rochester (4) Mrs. Warren’s Profession() D. Will Ladislas (5) The School for Scandal() E. Vivie Part II. Complete each of the following statements with a proper word or a phrase according to the textbook. (5%) 1. In Paradise Lost, the author intended to expose the ways of Satan and to “justify the ways of _________ to men.” 2. As the greatest novelist of the Victorian period, Charles Dickens set out a full map, and a large -scale criticism of the _________century. 3. In Jane Austen’s novels, stories of _________ and marriage provide the major themes. 4. In the novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the two men Alec and _________ are both agents of the destructive force of the society. 1

罗经国《新编英国文学选读》(第4版)教材【复习笔记+考研真题典型题详解】-第1~6章【圣才出品】

第1章盎格鲁-撒克逊时期(450~1066) 1.1 复习笔记 Ⅰ. Historical Background(历史背景) (1) The earliest settlers of the British Isles were the Celts, who migrated to the British Isles about 600 B.C. 不列颠群岛最早的定居者是凯尔特人,他们大约在公元前600年移民到不列颠群岛。 (2) From 55 B.C. to 407 A.D. the British Isles were under the rule of the Roman Empire. 从公元前55年到公元407年,不列颠群岛处于罗马帝国的统治之下。 (3) About 450 A.D., waves of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invaded the British Isles. They settled in England, and drove the Celts into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. 公元450年左右,盎格鲁人、撒克逊人和朱特人占领了不列颠群岛。他们在英格兰定居,将凯尔特人驱逐到威尔士、苏格兰和爱尔兰。 (4) It was around 500 A.D., in the struggle against Cerdic, the founder of the kingdom of Wessex, that the Celtic King Arthur, a legendary figure, is said to have acquired his fame. 大约在公元500年,在与威塞克斯王国创始人塞迪奇的斗争中,传说中的凯尔特王亚瑟获得了他的名声。 (5) Beginning from the later part of the 8th century, the Danes, or the Vikings, came to invade England, at first, along the eastern coast, but later they threatened

英国文学笔记

Middle English Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century.For three centuries after Norman conquest , two languages were were used side by side in England , Latin and French were the languages of the upper classes, used in official and formal conditions.however the inflectional system of old English was weakened and a large number of French words had been absorbed.and many inflectional forms of the words were dropped and formal grammar simplified. Romance Romance is a type of literature that was very popular in the Middle Ages.Romance , in the original sense of the word , means the native language,as opposed to Latin,and later it means a tale in verse, embodying the life and adventures of knights. John wycliff He was one of the first man who demand to reform the church in order to do away with the corruption and rottenness, he was the one who translate the bible into standard english. His translation for bible is a great contribution to english literature ,as well as english lanuage. For he fixed a national standard for englsih prose to replace various dialects. His work owned him the title of father of english prose. William langland He is the author of Piers Plowman 《农夫皮尔斯》or the vision of piers plowman.The story takes the form of an allegory, but it gives a realsitic picture of 14th century England, (an allegory is a story or description in which the characters and events symbolize some deeper underlying meaning,and serve to spread moral teaching)in his work , within the scope of allegorical characters, the lives of the religious people and the laymen are vividly portrayed.the corruption and the rottenness of the church people are truthfully exposed. Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales) Geoffrey Chaucer, the founder of English poetry, father of English literature.was born, about 1340, in London. Chaucer's contribution to English poetry lies chiefly in the fact that he introduced the "heroic couplet"into English poetry, instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. Though drawing influences from French, Italian and Latin models, he is the first great poet who wrote in the current English language. His production of so much excellent poetry was an important factor in establishing English as the literary language of the country. The spoken English of the time consisted of several dialects, and Chaucer did much in making the dialect of London the foundation for modern English speech.

吴伟仁《英国文学史及选读》(重排版)笔记和考研真题详解-盎格鲁-诺曼底时期【圣才出品】

第2章盎格鲁-诺曼底时期 2.1复习笔记 I.Background Knowledge(1066-1350)(背景知识) 1.The Norman Conquest(诺曼征服) A.Brief Introduction(简介) The French-speaking Normans began their conquest of Anglo-Saxon England under William, Duke of Normandy,with the battle of Hastings in1066. 说法语的诺曼底人在威廉公爵的带领下,在1066年的黑斯廷斯战役中打败了英国人,开始了对英国的统治。 B.Chief Influences(主要影响) (1)The bringing of Roman civilization to England; (2)The growth of nationality,i.e.a strong centralized government,instead of the loose union of Saxon tribes; (3)The birth of new English language and literature due to the integration with French vocabulary. (1)将罗曼文化带到英格兰; (2)促进了国家的发展,强大的中央集权政府代替了散乱的撒克逊部落联盟;(3)和法国语言的融合产生了新的英语语言和文学。 II.Features of the New Literature(新文学特征) (1)The new literature is a combination of French and Anglo-Saxon elements. (2)There are three classes of new literature: ①Matter of France(tales about Charlemagne and his peers); ②Matter of Greece and Rome(tales about Alexander and the fall of Troy); ③Matter of Britain(tales about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table).

英国文学选读一考试大题必备 重点题目分析(人物分析 诗歌分析 三大主义)

Hamlet is the first work of literature to look squarely at the stupidity, falsity and sham of everyday life, without laughing and without easy answers. In a world where things are not as they seem, Hamlet…s genuineness, thoughtfulness, and sincerity make him special. Hamlet is no saint. But unlike most of the other characters (and most people today), Hamlet chooses not to compromise with evil. Dying, Hamlet reaffirms the tragic dignity of a basically decent person in a bad world Hamlet is the first work of literature to show an ordinary person looking at the futility and wrongs in life, asking the toughest questions and coming up with honest semi-answers like most people do today. Unlike so much of popular culture today, "Hamlet" leaves us with the message that life is indeed worth living, even by imperfect people in an imperfect world. 犹豫scholars have debated for centuries about Hamlet's hesitation in killing his uncle. Some see it as a plot device to prolong the action, and others see it as the result of pressure exerted by the complex philosophical and ethical issues that surround cold-blooded murder, calculated revenge and thwarted desire. More recently, psychoanalytic critics have examined Hamlet's unconscious desires (Freud concludes that Hamlet has an "Oedipal desire for his mother and the subsequent guilt [is] preventing him from murdering the man [Claudius] who has done what he unconsciously wanted to do". Robinson Crusoe is a grand hero in westerners? eyes. He survived in the deserted island and lived a meaningful life. He almost has everything needed for becoming a successful man, such as his excellent creativity, great working capacity, courage, and persistence in overcoming obstacles. But he has shortcomings, too. Sometimes he was irresolute; he was not confident; he was fetishistic, although his belief had done him much good. He serves somehow as a lighthouse for the ambitious people. It?s also instructive for average people. Robinson was the representative of the bourgeois of the 18th C. It was the time when bourgeois grew stronger and stronger. The author Defoe paid a tribute to bourgeois by creating such a rational, powerful, clever, and successful man. 【Themes of Robinson Crusoe】 1. The ambivalence of mastery In short, while Crusoe seems praiseworthy in mastering his fate by overcoming his obstacles, and controlling his environment, the praiseworthiness of his mastery over his fellow human Friday is more doubtful. Defoe explores the link between the two in his depiction of the colonial mind. 2. The necessity of Repentance Crusoe?s experiences constitute not simply an adventure story in which thrilling things happen, but also a moral tale illustrating the right and wrong ways to live one?s life. Crusoe?s story instruct s others in God?s wisdom, and one vital part of this wisdom is the importance of repenting one?s sins. 3. The Importance of Self-Awareness Crusoe?s arrival on the island does not make him revert to a brute existence and he remains conscious of himself at all times. His island existence actually deepens his self-awareness as he withdraws from the external society and turns inward. The idea that the individual must keep a careful reckoning of the state of his own soul is a key point in the Presbyterian doctrine that the aothor took seriously all his life. ·Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte The protagonist and title character, orphaned as a baby. She is a plain-featured, small and reserved but talented, sympathetic, hard-working, honest and passionate girl. Skilled at studying, drawing, and teaching, she works as a governess at Thornfield Hall and falls in love with her wealthy employer, Edward Rochester. But her strong sense of conscience does not permit her to become his mistress, and she does not return to him until his insane wife is dead and she herself has come into an inheritance. 【Themes of Jane Eyre】 1. Gender relations A particularly important theme in the novel is patriarchalism and Jane…s efforts to assert her own identity within male-dominated society. Among the three of the main male characters,

英国文学选读知识总结

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) 乔叟He was born in 1343 in London. He died in 1400 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, thus founding the “Poets Corner”.The father of English Poetry and one of the greatest narrative poets of England.“The Canterbury Tales” (1387-1400) It is Chaucer?s masterpiece and one of the monumental works in English literature. Chaucer’s Contribution to English Literature Chaucer is regarded as the founder of English poetry and has been called “the founder of English realism.” He is the firs t great poet who wrote in the English language. He introduced from France the rhymed stanza of various types, especially the “heroic couplet” (英雄双韵体) to English poetry.His masterpiece “The Canterbury T ales” is one of the monumental works in English literature 公爵夫人之书,百鸟议会,声誉之堂,特罗勒思和克里西德 Structure of a poem: A poem can be broken down into three parts: (1) Stanza (节) : a group of lines set off from the other lines in a poem. It is the poetic equivalent of a paragraph in prose. In traditional poems, the stanza usually contains a unit of thought.(2) The line (行) : a single line of poetry (3) The foot (音步) : a syllable or a group of 2 or 3 syllables. T o scan a line of poetry one counts the number of feet in a line. For a beginner, the easiest thing to do is to count the number of stresses. Typically a foot will contain a stressed and an unstressed syllable. William Shakespeare (1564-1616)playwright, poet, actor.Shakespeare and Aeschylus are the two greatest dramatic geniuses the world has ever known.—Carl Marks.The Great Tragedies: 《哈姆雷特》(Hamlet,1601 ) 《奥赛罗》(Othello, 1604) 《李尔王》(King Lear, 1605) 《麦克白》(Macbeth, 1606) The Great Comedies威尼斯商人》(The Merchant of Venice, 1596) 《仲夏夜之梦》(A Midsummer Night's Dream,1596) 《第十二夜》(Twelfth Night, 1600) 《皆大欢喜》(As You Like It, 1601) Shakespeare’s car eer as a dramatist may be divided into four major phases.: The First Period(1590-1594) This period is the period of his apprenticeship in play-writing. Works: Henry VI The Comedy of Errors《错误的喜剧》/《连环错》Love?s Labor?s Lost 《迷失的爱》/《空爱一场》/《爱的徒劳》Romeo and Juliet, etc. The Second Period (1595-1600) This period is his mature period, mainly a period of “great comedies” and mature historical plays. It includes 6 comedies, 5 historical plays and 1 Roman tragedy. His sonnets are also thought to be written in this period. The Third Period (1601-1607) The third period of Shakespeare?s dramatic career is mainly the period of “great tragedies” and “dark comedies”. It includes 5 tragedies, 3 comedies and 2 Roman tragedies.Major works written in this period:Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra The Fourth Period (1608-1612) The fourth period of Shakespeare?s work is the period of romantic drama. It includes 4 romances or “reconciliation(和解,复合)plays”. Shakespeare’s Literary Position:Shakespeare and the Authorized Version of the English Bible are the two greatest treasuries of the English language. Shakespeare has been universally acknowledged to be the summit of the English Renaissance, and one of the greatest writers in world literature. Hamlet:Hamle t is considered the summit of Shakespeare?s art. It is one of Shakespeare?s canon, and it is universally included in the list of the world?s greatest works.It?s written in the form of blank verse.blank verse : poetry in rhymeless iambic pentameter.(素体诗剧)The story, coming from an old Danish legend, is a tragedy of the “revenge” genre. Shakespeare incorporates into the medieval story other major humanistic themes, including love, justice, good and evil, and most notably, madness, and the spirit of the time Injustice, conspiracy, and betrayal in the society。1. first blow: father?s murder and mother?s re-marriage2.second blow: betrayal of his two former friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern3. third blow: betrayal of his girl friend OpheliaThe greatness o f the play: in praise of the noble quality of Prince Hamlet as a representative of humanist thinkers and his disillusionment with the corrupt and degenerated society in which he lived.

英国文学史笔记

Index The Sixteenth Century

The works of William Shakespeare are a great landmark in the history of world literature for he was one of the first founders of realism, a master hand at realistic portrayal of human characters and relations. Works First period: Romeo and Juliet Second Period: 1. Hamlet, Prince of Demark 2. Othello, the Moor of Venice 3. King Lear 4. The Tragedy of Macbeth The Seventeenth Century Puritan Age Burrton?s Anatomy of Melancholy. The spiritual gloom sooner or later fastens upon all the writers of this age. This so called gloomy age produced some minor poems of exquisites workmanship, and one of great master of verse whose work would glorify any age or people---John Milton, in whom the indomitable Puritan spirit finds its noblest expression. Restoration Age As a critic, poet and playwright was the most distinguished literary figure of the restoration age. The most popular genre was that of comedy whose chief aim as to entertain the licentious aristocrats. John Donne 1. Poetry Form

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