英国文学史选读总结1

I. Early and Medieval Literature 1. England’s inhabitants are Celts. And it is conquered by Romans, the Teutonic tribes of Angle, Saxons and Jutes. In 1066, at the battle of Hastings(黑斯延斯), the Normans headed by William, Duke of Normandy, defeated the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons brought the Germanic language and culture to England, while Normans brought the Mediterranean civilization(地中海文明), including Greek culture, Rome law and the Christian religion. It is the cultural influence of these two conquests that provided the source for the rise and growth of English literature. 2. Jutes lived and maintained close relations with kindred(相似) tribes. 3. The old English literature extends from about 449 to 1066, the year of the Norman conquest of England. 4. Three kinds of languages in the Anglo-Norman period: Norman---French, English---English, Religious---Latin. Two kinds of literature: Romans and Ballads. “Romans” is about upper class, and nothing to do with Romans. 5. The old English poetry that has survived can be divided into two groups: The religious group and the secular one. 6. The literature of this period falls naturally into two divisions――pagan and Christian. 7. The national epic of the English people, which belongs to the primitive(原始，早期) literature; Romance cycles, which belong to the feudalist(封建) literature; Folk literature whose subjects are from

the lower class 8. Caedom is the first known religious poet of England, he is known as the father of English song. 9. The didactic poem The Christ was produced by Cynewulf. 10. The Song of Beowulf It describes the most heroic man of the Anglo-Saxon times. It is a Denmark(丹麦) story which used alliteration , metaphors(隐喻) and understatements(轻描淡写). • It is the first literature, England’s national epic; it was written by an unknown scribe at the beginning of the 10th century and was not discovered until 1750 • It consists of 3182 lines • Telling a story about an ancient hero Beowulf’s fight against a lake monster, Grendel, and his mother, a monster, too; Beowulf’s battle against a fire dragon. • The poem is an example of the mingling of the nature myths and heroic legends. 12. The literature which they brought to England is remarkable for its bright, romantic tales of love and adventure, in marked contrast with the strength and somberness(严峻) of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The great majority of Romances mainly fall into 3 cycles.

A. The matters of Britain: About King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table B. The matters of France: About Charlemagne and his peers C. The matters of Greece and Rome: About Alexander, and about the fall of Troy (特洛伊城的陷落) Of these three cycles, the matters of Britain is the most important one. There were many cycles of Arthurian romances, Chief of which are those of Gawain, Launcelot(朗斯洛特), Merlin(默林), the Quest of the Holy Grail(寻找圣杯), and the Death of Arthur Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 13. Geoffrey Chaucer • He is the father of English poetry in that he introduces rhymed verse, especially couplet, into Britain to replace alliterative verse formerly prevailing in British poetry and making English the literary language. • He is also the founder of English realism because The Canterbury Tales, his masterpiece, provides a panorama of the life in the medieval England. • He is the forerunner of humanism for in his masterpiece the keynote is humanism. He praises human intellect, human beauty, human passion and human living environment, and affirms human rights to pursue earthly happiness. • 写作的三个时期：Translate from French; French; Write in his own words: English

• The Canterbury Tales Three features: Plot; Prologue; Language (iambic pentameter) The Prologue is a splendid masterpiece of realistic portrayal, the first of its kind in the history of English literature. The Prologue is a splendid masterpiece of realistic portrayal, the first of its kind in the history of English literature. Heroic couplet is a rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter(五音步抑扬格). It is Chaucer who used it for the first time in English in his work The Legend of Good Woman. 14. Popular Ballads • Literature of the lower class in the feudalist society includes written folk literature and oral folk literature. • As for the written folk literature, the most important writer is William Langland, whose masterpiece is The Vision of Piers, the Plowman. • Among the ballads published, the Robin Hood ballads are of special significance. • The best known of the earliest collections was given by Bishop Thomas Percy, named Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. II. Literature of the Renaissance Period

1. Renaissance: general spirit---humanism 2. Absolute monarchy in England reached its summit during the reign of Queen Elisabeth. 3. Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe(克里斯托弗 马洛) and William Shakespeare are the best representatives of the English humanists. 4. Thomas More----Utopia; John Lyly----Eupheus(艳词); Marlowe----The Jew of Malta; Robert Greene----Gorge Green 5. Edmund Spenser was the poet’s poet. The greatest epic poem of the time is The Fairy Queen. 6. William Shakespeare produced 37 plays, 2 narrative poems and 154 sonnets. A basic form of poetry consists of 14 lines of iambic pentameter, intricately rhymed (abab, cdcd, efef, gg). His plays can be divided into four types: historical plays, comedies, tragedies and romantic tragic-comedies. His four writing period: Apprenticeship; Mature period; Great tragedies; Romantic drama Sonnet 18: Theme---Art survives time Hamlet It praises humanists as represented by Hamlet. He is the scholar, a soldier and a statesman(政治家); it shows the inevitable problems faced by the humanists; Hamlet’s delay of action is due to his awareness

of the possible national disaster which will be brought about by his personal revenge and his sense of responsibility to put the interests of his nation and his people before his own. 7. Francis Bacon ○ Essayist, Scientist, Philosopher. ○ His major works are The Advancement of Learning and New Instrument. ○ He is also the first great English essayist. ○ His works may be divided into three classes: the philosophical, the literary and the professional works ○ In 1597 Francis Bacon published his first collection of essays, the Essays III.

Literature of the Revolution and Restoration Period 1. The government of James 1was based upon the theory of divine right of kings, but the Puritans offered another theory of divine right—the individual conscience. 2. In 1649 Charles I was beheaded. England became a commonwealth under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell. He imposed a military dictatorship(军事独裁). In 1653 Oliver Cromwell imposed a military dictatorship on the country. It was called the period of the Restoration which was objectionable(讨厌的) in monarchy. After Cromwell’s death, monarchy was

again restored in 1660. 3. Revolution of 1688(Glorious Revolution) means three things: The supremacy of Parliament(议会至上), the beginning of the modern England(现代英国的开端), the final triumph of the principle of political liberty for which the Puritan had fought and suffered hardship for a hundred years. 4. Literary Characteristics In the literature also the Puritan Age was one of confusion, due to the breaking up of old ideals. The Puritan influence in general tended to suppress literary art. 5. John Donne • He was the founder of the Metaphysical school of poetry. • Donne is best known by his The Songs and Sonnets. It contains most of his early lyrics. Love is the basic theme. • Sometimes the “conceits(奇遇)”, as these extravagant figures are called, are so odd that we lose sight of the thing to be illustrated, in the startling nature of the illustration. • Song(“Go and Catch a Falling Star”), the theme is “No where lives a woman true, and fair” 6. John Milton Paradise Lost consists of 12 books, containing about ten thousand lines in blank verse (unrhymed

iambic pentameter). Based on the biblical legend of the imaginary progenitors of the human race---- Adam and Eve, and tells God and his eternal adversary, Satan in its plot. Major poetical works: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonisters. 7. John Bunyan He gives us the only great religious allegory(宗教寓言) Pilgrim’s Progress, Vanity Fair IV. Literature of the 18th Century 1. The age of reason 2. Two parties: the liberal Whigs and the conservative Tories came into being. However another party also existed, the Jacobites, who aimed to bring the Stuarts back to the throne. 3. Characteristics of literature: Realism; Common people; Prose rapid development 3. Daniel Defoe His works are the first literary works devoted to the study of problems of the lower-class people. Robinson Crusoe, colonial spirit

(1) His marvelous(非凡的) capacity(才能) for work (2) His boundless(无穷的) energy and persistence in overcoming obstacles(障碍) (3) His hard struggle against nature and making all bend to his will 3. Jonathan Swift A Tale of a Tub (satirist) 《木桶的故事》 Gulliver’ Travels (satire) Four places: Lilliput(厘厘普特), Brobdingnag(布罗卜丁奈格), the flying Island, Houyhnhnm(慧駰国). ▪ The first part tells about his experience in Lilliput, where the inhabitants are only six inches tall), twelve times smaller than the normal human beings. The emperor believed himself to be the delight and terror of the universe, but it appeared quite absurd to Gulliver who was twelve times as tall as he. In his account of the two parties in the country, distinguished by the use of high and low heels, Swift satirizes the Tories and the Whigs in England. ▪ Religious disputes were laughed at in an account of a problem which divided the Lilliputians: “ Should eggs be broken at the big end or the little end?” About selected reading: The theme: exploration into human nature and satire to English and European life

①Main plot—part one: His experiences in Lilliput where the inhabitants are only 12 times smaller than normal human being Author satire the weakness of human being and the absurd actions of the English government before the nature ②Main plot—part two: His experiences in Brobdingnag where are 10 times taller and larger than normal human being and superior in wisdom Here, the author gives a vivid description to the crankiness and arrogance(狂妄自大) of the authority in England ③Main plot—part three: The experiences in Flying Island where the philosophers and projectors devote all their time and energy to the study of some absurd problems Here is the criticism of the western civilization and false illustration about science, philosophy, history and even immortality ④Main plot—part four: The experience in Houyhnhnm where horses are endowed with reason and all good and admirable

qualities, and are the governing class Here, the author compared the differences and similarities between horses and human being, lead readers to think about a problem: what on earth are human beings? ⑤Social achievement: The book is one of the most effective and devastating criticisms and satires of all aspects in the then English and European life—socially, politically, religiously, philosophically, scientifically and morally. ⑥Artistic achievement: In structure, the four parts make an organic whole, with each contrived upon an independent structure, and yet complementing the others and contributing to the central concern of study of human nature and life Summary of a Modest Proposal ▪ With bitter irony, that the poverty of the Irish people should be relieved by the sale of their children, “at a year old”, as food for the rich, the narrator put forward his so-called perfect proposal . ▪ With the utmost gravity, he set out statistics to show the revenue that would come if this idea were adopted. ▪ The remedy, Swift took care to point out, was only for the kingdom of Ireland, not for the whole England.

▪ The last proposal is a most heartbreaking piece of sarcasm that fiery indignation has given birth to and a most powerful blow at the English government’s policy of exploitation and oppression in Ireland. Masterpieces 4. Joseph Addison Sir Roger at Church乡村礼拜日 5. Henry Fielding, the Father of the English Novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling 6. Thomas Gray, Graveyard School, sentimentalist Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard The poem contains some of the best-remembered lines in English poetry and uses a graveyard at twilight to meditate on the lives of the ordinary people interred there. Gray laments not one particular death, but the obscurity into which death will plunge us all. There is nobility in all people, but that difficult circumstances prevent those talents from being manifested. Gray contrasts the simplicity and virtue of the English farmers of the past with the vain, boastful present. He speculates about the potential leaders, poets, and musicians who may have died in obscurity and been buried there. All life’s endeavors, positive or negative, are rendered useless by the shadow of the tomb. The poem ends with an epitaph which sums up the poet’s own life and beliefs.

7. William Blake The first important Romantic poet Major Works:  Songs of Innocence《天真之歌》  Songs of Experience  The Chimney Sweeper《扫烟囱的孩子》 The Tiger  The tiger means the power of destroy. The poet repeats the central question of the poem, stated in Stanza 1. However, he changes could (Line 4) to dare (Line 24). This is a significant change, for the poet is no longer asking who had the capability of creating the tiger but who dared to create so frightful a creature. 8. Robert Burns He wrote some ballads on the basis of old Scottish legends. He expressed his love for freedom and sang of the heroic spirit of the Scottish people. Burns is the only greatest English poet who writes outside the standard/London dialect. A Red, Red Rose, Auld Lang Syne, John Anderson, My Jo and A Fond Kiss

V. Literature of the Romantic Period 1. The Romantic period is the period is generally said to have begun in 1798 with the publication of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads(抒情歌谣集) and to have ended in 1832 with Sir Walter Scott’s death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in the Parliament. It is emphasized the special qualities of each individual’s mind. 2. Lake Poets and Passive romantic poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey; Positive romantic poets: Byron, Shelley, Keats 3. William Wordsworth I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 4. Gorge Gordon, Lord Byron Main works:  Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage 《恰尔德.哈罗德游记》  She Walks in Beauty  Don Juan《唐。璜》

From Canto II (The Isles of Greece) Set a sharp contrast between the past and the present of Greece Freedom protects independence, allusion(用典) 5. Percy Bysshe Shelley Ode to the West Wind What are the features of the stanza form in the poem? 1) run-on line (跨行/跨节的诗行)to imitate the unrestrained and free wind 2) a combination of Terze Rima (tercets 三行诗) and Shakespearian sonnet rhymed aba, bcb; cdc; ded; ee 3) one sentence forms a stanza: west wind as the breath of Autumn’s being, wild spirit, destroyer and preserver, thou hear! 6. John Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn希腊古瓮 Ode to a Nightingale夜莺颂

❖ Written in ten-line stanzas; ❖ The first seven and last two lines of each stanza are written in iambic pentameter; the eighth line of each stanza is written in trimeter. ❖ Its rhyme scheme is the same in every stanza: abab cdecde. Main Idea ❖ Throughout the narrator's journey, he used the nightingale to figure out what he did and did not want with his life. ❖ He convinced himself to reject suicide as a way out of his problems. If he had not, he would not be able to enjoy everything life has to offer. ❖ He realized he should be able to enjoy the niceties in life without the use of wine, drugs or even dreaming, which is why he stopped using the synesthetic imagery toward the end of his journey. Theme ❖ Fullest and deepest exploration of the themes of creative expression: ❖ The poet’s first thought is to reach the bird's state through alcohol but then he chooses instead \"the viewless wings of Poesy.\" ❖ The rapture of poetic inspiration matches the endless creative rapture of the nightingale's music

and lets the speaker imagine himself with the bird in the darkened forest. 7. Walter Scott Ivanhoe Rob Roy 8. Jane Austen completed six novels： Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma. “Pride and Prejudice” It is the story of a young girl who rejects an offer of marriage because the young nobleman who makes it has been rude to her family. It is a very plot but around it the authoress has woven vivid pictures or the everyday life of simple country society. VI. Literature of the Victorian Age 1. since 1870s, critical realism 2. Victorian literature roughly coincides with the reign of Queen Victoria from 1836 to 1901. The period has been regarded as one of the most glorious in English History. 3. The years between 1832 and the early 50’s saw an important series of events known as the Chartist Movement.

4. Charles Dickens Oliver Twist, David Copperfield 5. William Makepeace Thackeray His novels mainly contain a satirical portrayal of the upper strata(社会阶层) of society. Vanity Fair (Novel without a Hero) 6. George Eliot, Mary Ann Evans  Adam Bede《亚当-比德》 Its characteristics of writing: Provincial life(乡村生活); Psychological description; Moral sense；Concern of women 7. Charlotte Bronte and Emily Bronte Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights 8. Alfred, Lord Tennyson Ulysses Break, Break, Break

Crossing the Bar Break, Break, Break is written in memory of Hallam. In this poem, the poet’s own feelings of grief stands in sharp contrast with the carefree, innocent joys of the children and the apathetic motion of the ship and the waves. 9. Robert Browning Browning’s greatest contribution to English poetry is his “dramatic dialogue”. Home-Thoughts, from Abroad VII. Literature of the 20th century 1. Tomas Hardy Tess of the D’Urbervilles《苔丝》 Far From the Madding Crowd《远离尘嚣》 Comment on Tess  It is a fierce attack on the hypocritical morality of the bourgeois society and the capitalist invasion into the countryside and destruction of the English peasantry at the end of the nineteenth century.

 Naturalistic tendency is strong in the novel. 2. George Bernard Shaw Mrs. Warren’s Profession 3. D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers, Oedipus Complex(恋母情结) 4. Virginia Woolf Jacob’s Room (雅各布的房间) Mrs. Dalloway (达洛维夫人) To the Lighthouse The Waves 5. James Joyce Stream-of-consciousness 尤利西斯