英国文学史-小结,超级有用的复习资料哈

History and Anthology of English Literature

Part I: The Anglo-Saxon Period--- Key W ord: Beowulf

Beowulf is the first great literary work and the national epic of the Anglo-Saxons and the oldest surviving epic of any Germanic people，Alliteration（头韵）: the repetition of the initial consonant sounds. In Old English alliterative meter, alliteration is the principal organizing device of the verse line, such as in Beowulf.

Part II: The Anglo-Norman Period---The Norman Conquest

The Duke of Normandy William was an able general and statesman. In 1066, he led the Norman army to invade England. After the conquest, the English social life greatly changed. Feudal system was established in English society. The Anglo-Saxons sank to the position of slaves. The Norman Conquest brought a great change to the English language and literature.

The Romance

In Anglo-Norman period, the feudal system promoted the growth of the romance of chivalry.

Part III: The Medieval Period- Geoffrey Chaucer’s Age

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) lived in the 14th century. His writings brought about the first harvest in English Poetry. He towers above all the other writers of this century. So, the 14th century has been traditionally called Age of Chaucer. Geoffrey Chaucer

is often called the father of English poetry.

His Canterbury Tales: The Canterbury Tales total about 17000 lines --- about a half of Chaucer’s entire literary production, created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life

Part IV The Fifteenth Century

The 15th century was a period of general unrest. There were no great names in poetry except a group of Chaucerian (Chaucer’s followers). But it is a period in which folk literature flourished, especially ballads.

A ballad is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas, with the second and fourth lines rhymed. The most famous cycle of the English ballads deal with the stories of a legendary outlaw named Robin Hood.

Part V The Renaissance (the period of poetry and drama) (The Elizabethan Age)

The Renaissance had its origin in north Italy in the 14th century,and spread northward to other European countries to France, to Germany, to the Low Countries, and lastly to England. The Renaissance reached England in the 1500's

It revived the study of Roman and Greek classics, and marked the beginning of the bourgeois revolution. During Renaissance Period, England enjoyed stability and

prosperity. It was the strongest power in Europe. Reformation of the church was carried out in England. The Renaissance, therefore, in essence is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers & scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, & to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.

As a result, the English church broke with the church o Rome. Protestantism was established in England, and the English king became the supreme ruler of the state and the church. The most significant idea (keynote) of the Renaissance is humanism

Three periods:The Beginning, The Flowering ( also called Age of Elizabeth, furthermore, it was almost the same period that Shakespeare was living in ), and The Decline.

The great trio ( outstanding dramatists) and their works.

Christopher Marlowe( 1564 ~1593) It was Marlowe who made blank verse the principal vehicles of expression in drama.

He popularized blank verse in Tamburlaine the Great and The Tragic History of Doctor Faustus.

Edmund Spenser is known as "the poet's poet".

William Shakespeare (1564~1616)

Tragedies: Othello, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth (R R o o m m e e o o a a n n d d J J u u l l i i e e t t) tragic flaw Comedies: The Merchant of V enice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor).

History plays: King Henry VI; Richard II; King Richard III; Henry IV; Henry VIII . Shakespeare’s sonnets, apparently written over a long period at the beginning of his career and printed in 1609, were mainly dedicated to a “W.H.” and many others about “a dark lady” who is thought to be the poet’s ideal woman

Sonnet 18 “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day”

Meter and Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Theme: The message is that in this world no beauty (in Nature) can stay except poetry or art; and your beauty can only last if I write it down in my poetry, praises the power of artistic creation

Also notice the love play. Apparently the poet is addressing a man of his heart, the wooing sounds more like a game play than anything real and sincere. The love here is too conditional to be genuine.

Structure:

proposal(1-2)

argument (3-12)

conclusion(13-14)

Ben Jonson(1572 ~1637) “The Silent Woman”, “The Alchemist”…

Other…

Sonnet:The term sonnet normally designates a lyric of fourteen iambic pentameter lines rhyming in one of several ways. Two basic forms, distinguished by their rhyme schemes and by their logical development, are frequent in English. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet rhymes a b b a, a b b a, c d e, c d e. (The rhyming of the last six lines may vary; for example, c d, c d, c d is possible ) Such a sonnet tends to fall into two stages: the first eight lines form the octave, and the last six the sestet. This formal division is frequently reflected in the logical progress of the content. The octave will pose a problem, depict a situation, or offer an observation. The sestet will provide a resolution of this opening and bring the matter to a conclusion, somewhat in the manner of a responsive reading in a church service.

At the end of the century the great English scientist and philosopher Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) wrote his famous philosophical and literary works. He introduced essay form into English literature.

“Of Truth”

“Of Studies”

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight , is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business.

读书足以怡情，足以傅彩，足以长才。其怡情也，最见于独处幽居之时；其傅彩也，最见于高谈阔论之中；其长才也，最见于处世判事之际。

Part VI The17th Century

It covers two historical periods: the period of the English bourgeois Revolution and the period of the Restoration.

Poetry was the major literary form in the English literature of the 17th century. The most active poets of this period were “Four Johns”: John Donne, John Milton, John Bunyan, and John Dryden. John Milton was acknowledged as the greatest. Besides him, there were two groups of poets.

John Donne wrote deeply personal and religious poetry.Metaphysical School 玄学派.Metaphysical Poetry is commonly used to name the work of the 17th century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne. With a rebellious spirit, the metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. The diction is simple as compared with that of the Elizabethan or the Neoclassic periods, and echoes the words and cadences of common speech. The imagery in drawn from the actual life. The form is frequently that of an argument with the poet\'s beloved, with God, or with himself.

John Milton(1608-1647), the most learned poet, is the greatest writer of the seventeenth century and one of the giants of English literature as a whole. Milton

towers over his age as Shakespeare towers over the Elizabethan age, and as Chaucer towers over the medieval period.

Milton’s Paradise Lost: The stories of Paradise Lost were taken from the Old Testament : the creation; the rebellion in Heaven by Satan and his fellow-angel s; their defeat and expulsion from Heaven; the creation of the earth and of Ad am and Eve; the fallen angels in hell plotting against God; Satan’s temptation of Eve; and the departure of Adam and Eve from Eden.

Paradise Lost

1.It represents the author’s views in an allegorical religious form,

2.And the reader will easily discern its basic idea---the exposure of reactionary

forces of this time and passionate appeal for freedom.

3.It is based on the biblical legend of the imaginary progenitors of the human

race---Adam and Eve, and involves God and his eternal adversary, Satan in

plot.

“Paradise Regained”

John Bunyan(1628-1688) led the way toward the development of the novel in his religious allegory The Pilgrim's Progress.which describes The Vanity Fair in a satirical tone. (William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair)

In literature, the Restoration is also called the “Age of Dryden.”

John Dryden(1613-1700) won his greatest fame in poetry , popularized the heroic couplet , wrote brilliant satires, led the way toward establishing a clear, direct English prose style, and his Essay of Dramatic Poesy (poetry) served as a model for all later literary criticism.

Part VII: The 18th century : The Enlightenment in England

Neo-Classicism, Modern Realistic Novel, Pre-Romanticism, Sentimentalism

Neo-classicism: Alexander Pope (1688-1744): An Essay on Criticism

a. In the Enlightenment Movement, neoclassicism brought about a revival of interest in the old classical works.

b. It requires that all forms of literature are to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers and those of the contemporary French ones, artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy,

c. literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity. . Human beings are instructed and corrected primarily as social animals.

The Rise of Novel

1.The novel as we know it today had its real beginning in the 1700's.

2.Thomas Nash (1567-1601) wrote The Unfortunate Traveler, the first

3.English work that resembled a novel.

4.Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) made the greatest contribution to the development

of the novel. His realistic works:

o Robinson Crusoe

(Innovative and Exploring Spirit were well studied by lots of our history

experts, for it could well explain the colonial history in west capitalism’ countries, but there were still few study in the positive inspiration area of Robinson Crusoe behind our socialist market.

Therefore, it deserve the readers nowadays to study the novel Robinson Crusoe in terms of its creative spirit and development spirit, for they can help them to build up a n optimistic attitude towards life when they encounter something unexpected. And by doing this, we can learn how to overcome these difficulties and realize our dreams

through our own efforts.)

o Moll Flandere

5.Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) wrote Pamela, which is considered by most

scholars the first true English novel.

6.England's leading early novelists were

7.(a) Samuel Richardson Pamela

(b) Henry Fielding (1707-1754) Tom Jones

8.In the late 1700's, English writers began pouring out tales of horror called

Gothic novels. Horace Walpole (1717-1799) wrote the first famous Gothic

novel The Castle of Otranto.

The 18th century witnessed a new literary form-the modern English novel, which, contrary to the medieval romance, gives a realistic presentation of life of the common people.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was the literary master in prose. A Tale of a Tub; The Battle of the Books ; Gulliver's Travels-- a piece of satirical work

“Lilliput,” “Brobdingnag,” “Houyhnhnm,” and “Yahoo”

A Modest Proposal- a model satire

?the most devastating protest against the inhuman exploitation and oppression of the Irish people by the English ruling class

?the apparent eagerness, sincerity and detachment of the author adds to the bitter irony and biting sarcasm

1) The author proposed to feed the landlord with Irish children’s flesh. Thus it could also solve the problem of Irish famine. His real idea behind this is to strongly satire the merciless Irish landlord and the English government which is indifferent to miserable Irish people.

2) The apparent eagerness, sincerity and detachment of the author adds to the bitter irony and biting sarcasm. The tone is shown through his “modest” yet convincing tone & diction; through the metaphor of the Irish eating their own young in order to

improve the economy and solve the issue of poverty. Quotation is selective.

3) His proposal is to fatten up the undernourished children and feed them to Ireland's rich land-owners. Children of the poor could be sold into a meat market at the age of one thus combating overpopulation and unemployment, sparing families the expense of child-rearing while providing them with a little extra income, improving the culinary experience of the wealthy, and contributing to the overall economic well-being of the nation.

New literary trends—sentimentalism & pre-romanticism

Sentimentalism: Thomas Gray (poets)used a tone of sadness in his famous Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Pre-romanticism: William Blake: “The Tiger” ; Robert Burns: Auld Lang Syne

Part VIII : The 19th Century（Victorian Age）Novels

The Romanticism 浪漫主义(first emerged in the late 18th century to the early 19th century, expressing the pursuit of the ideal world )

Romanticism in Britain began in 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge.

Romanticism cannot be strictly defined; within it, authors differed tremendously in their interests and emphases, but Romanticism does have some prominent features, which distinguishes it from neoclassicism. It arose as a main literary trend, which prevailed in England during the period of 1789-1932, beginning with the publication of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads (1789), ending with Walter Scott’s death (1832) Romanticism emphasizes the special qualities of each individual’s mind and constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of human spirit.

Characteristics of Romanticism:

?Imagination

?Idealization of Nature

?Individualism

?Glorification of the commonplace

?The lure of the exotic

Poets of Romanticism in the Victorian Age

Pre-Romanticism:

William Blake—Songs of Innocence; Songs of Experience

Robert Burns—Auld Lang Syne; Red, Red Rose

George Gordon Byron 拜伦(1788-1824)Major works:

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage; Don Juan

She walks in beauty

John Keats)济慈(1795---1821) -----Isabella （伊莎贝拉）;To a Nightingale (夜莺颂);To Psyche (心灵); To Autumn (秋颂) “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”

Percy Bysshe Shelley雪莱(1792---1822) ----Queen Mab (麦白女王); Prometheus Unbound(解放了的普罗米修斯)；Ode to the West Wind (西风颂) ."If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

William Wordsworth华兹华斯( 1770---1850) ----- the Prelude (序曲) ; Lyrical Ballads (抒情歌谣集)；

Deep love for nature

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud; Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abb ey William Wordsworth advocated

-- the expression of the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings

-- the use of everyday language spoken by the common people

--the use of humble and rustic life as subject matter

Samuel Taylor Coleridge(1772-1834):The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Kubla Khan (1797); Christabel (1797-1800)

Robert Southey (1774-1843)

Lake poets especially refers to the fist generation poets of English Romanticism such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. They uphold the literary creation principles that nature is the great source of human happiness, try to use everyday language to write about ordinary lives which was thought to be the turning point of modern poetry.

Novelists of Romanticism

Jane Austen（1775---1817）----- Sense and Sensibility(alliteration)理智与情感Emma 爱玛Pride and Prejudice(alliteration)傲慢与偏见Persuasion(劝导) Northanger Abbey(诺桑觉寺) Mansfield Park (曼斯菲尔德花园)

W alter Scott(1771-1832) ---- the father of the historical novel

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

1) It briskly introduces the arrival of Mr. Bingley at Netherfield Park, the event that

sets the novel in motion;

2)This sentence also offers a miniature sketch of the entire plot, which concerns itself

with the pursuit of “single men in possession of a good fortune”by various female characters. The preoccupation with socially advantageous marriage in the 19th century England society manifests itself here, because in claiming that a

single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife, the narrator reveals that the reverse is also true: a single woman, whose socially prescribed options are quite limited, is in (perhaps desperate) want of a husband.

3) Rhetorically speaking, the sentence is an irony.There is an ironic difference

between the formal manner of the statement and the ultimate meaning of the sentence.

Critical Realism in The Victorian Age

The Bronte sisters:

Charlotte Bronte (1816---1855) ----- Jane Eyre

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? ... And if God had gifted me with some beauty, and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to l eave you.”

Emily Bronte(1818---1848) -----Wuthering Heights呼啸山庄

“I am Heathcliff! …He’s always always in my mind!”

Ann Bronte ----- Agnes Grey

Charles Dickens----- Oliver Twist; Bleak House; A Tale of Two Cities; David Copperfield; Hard Times; Great Expectations; Pickwick Papers

William Thackeray---- Vanity Fair (critical realism)

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) -----dramatist

Major Barbara , Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)---- novelist and poet

Tess of the D’ Urberville

Part IX The 20th Century Literature

Modernism----- The novelists ----

1.Joseph Conrad ----- the Heart of Darkness

2.Virginia Woolf ------ Mrs. Dalloway

3.Stream of consciousness

4. D.H. Lawrence ----- Rainbow; The Woman in Love

5. E.M. Forester ----- Howard’s End 霍华德庄园; A passage to India; A Room With

a View