英国文学复习要点刘炳善《英国文学简史》.doc

英国文学复习要点（教材刘炳善英国文学简史） Part One: Early and Medieval 1. Beowulf: national epic of the English people; Denmark story; alliteration, metaphors and understatements. *2. Romance （名词解释）(1).The basic material of medieval romance is knightly activity and adventure; we might best define medieval romance as a story of adventure-fictitious, frequently marvelous or supernatural-in verse or prose. (2).A long composition describing the life and adventures of a noble hero. The central character was the knight, a man of noble birth skilled in the use of weapons who was very devoted to the king or to the church. (3).One who wanted to be a knight should serve patiently until he was admitted to the knighthood with solemn ceremony and the swearing of oaths.The Nature of the Romance:(4). The Nature of the Romance:1） Themes: Loyalty to the king and the lord, which was the corner-stone of feudal morality.2） The audience was of noble people from the court or the castle.3） The Romance had nothing to do with the common people. 4） The Romance were written for the noble, of the noble and in most cases by the poets patronized by the noble.*3. Piers the Plowman. Over 7000 lines, written by William Langland.*4. Ballad民谣（名词解释）1.A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a refrain. The story, folklore popular legends. straightforward verse, s with graphic simplicity and force. suitable for singing generally written in ballad meter, with the last words of the second and fourth lines rhyming. 2.the subjects of Ballad:(1) the struggle of young lovers who are fight against the feudalism (2) the conflict between love and wealth(3) the cruelty of jealousy(4) the criticism of the civil war(5) the matters of class struggles. 5. Character of Robin Hood1.Robin Hood- A legendary English hero of many ballads, who robbed the rich to give to the poor; a popular model of courage, generosity and justice. 2. strong, brave, clever, tender-hearted, affectionate. Hatred to the cruel oppressors, love for the poor and the downtrodden*6. Geoffrey Chaucer桥搜: 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)A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines. Troditional form for english poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry, a sequence of rhyming paris of iambic pentameter.8. The Authorized Version of English Bible and its significance.*9. Renaissance（名词解释）1. a cultural and artistic movement in England from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. The Renaissance is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts:(1) to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, (2) to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, (3) to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.*10.Thomas MoreUtopia*11. Sonnet（名词解释）The sonnet is a poem in 14 lines with one or the other rhyme schme,a form much in vogue in Renaissance Europe, expecially in Italy ,France and England. In 1609 appeared Shakespeares sonnets.The Sonnets were written over a number of years, probably beginning in the early 1590s.12. Blank verse（名词解释）13. Edmund Spenser “The Faerie Queene”; Amoretti (collection of his sonnets) Spenserian Stanza（名词解释）Stanza form developed by Edmund Spenser and almost certainly influenced by rhyme royal and ottava rima. Spensers stanza has nine lines and is rhymed a-b-a-b-b-c-b-c-c. The first eight lines of the stanza are in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter. He used this form in his epic poem The Faerie Queene. John Keats, a great admirer of Spenser, used this stanza in his poem The Eve of St. Agnes.*14. Francis Bacon “essays” esp. “Of Studies”（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）*16. William Shakespeare可以说是英国文学史中最重要的作家。四大喜剧（A Midsummer Nights Dream-The Merchant of Venice-As You Like It-Twelfth Night），四大悲剧（Macbeth-King Lear-Hamlet-Othello） 比较重要，此外就是罗密欧与朱丽叶了，这些剧的主题，背景，情节，最重要的喜剧作品是Hamlet这是肯定的。他的sonnets，最重要属sonnet 18。（其戏剧中著名对白和几首有名的十四行诗）*18. John Milton 三大史诗(1667 Paradise Lost 1671 Paradise Regained 1671 Samson Agonistes )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。对于Samson Agonistes要知道它是poetical drama，知道故事大概情节及其来源。课本中的brief summary中5条要看。Themea revolt against Gods authorityThe image of Satan: the spirit questioning the authority of GodSamso Agonistes-poetical dramaBrief summary1. Milton was political in both his life and his art. He was a militant pamphleteer of the English Revolution, and the greatest English revolutionary poet of the 17th century. 2. Milton wrote the greatest epic in English literature. His influence is omnipresent in almost all later English poetry. He and Shakespeare have always been regarded as two patterns of English verse.3. Milton is a master of the blank verse. He first used blank verse in non-dramatic works. Here, his own genius for poetry and matchless daring in experiment introduced variety (variation of pause, connnection of lines, etc.) and achieved extraordinary freedom from monotony. In Paradise Lost, he acquires an absolute mastery of the blank verse.4. Milton is a great stylist. He is famous for his grand style, which is the result of his lifelong classical and biblical study. But his style is never exactly natural. It is art attained by definite and conscientious rhetorical devices. For example, he likes to use Latinisms and proper names of resonance and colour to create and elevated and dignified effect.5. Milton has always been admired for his sublimity of thought and majesty of expression. But, in order to appreciate Milton, it is necessary to know the English language thoroughly and with a close intimacy. As his works include some of the greatest poems of the world, it is worth the great effort to read them in the original.19. John BunyanThe Pilgrims Progress20. Founder of the Metaphysical schoolJohn Donne; features of the school: philosophical poems, complex rhythms and strange images*21. Restoration Literature (16601788): a period of reaction and degeneration. With the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, a white terror set in. Some of the revolutionary leaders were cruelly executed, and Puritans indiscriminately repressed.22. John Dryden“All for Love” (a tragedy); “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy” (Literary criticism); forerunner of the Classicism in Britain *23. Enlightenment (1650-1800)（名词解释）(Relativism/Rationalism/Individualism)Individualism-emphasized the importance of the individual and his inborn rightsRationalism- the conviction that with the power of reason, humans could arrive at truth and improve the world.Relativism- was the concept that different cultures, beliefs, ideas, and value systems had equal merit. *24. Classicism（名词解释）1. In the arts, historical tradition or aesthetic attitudes based on the art of Greece and Rome in antiquity. In the context of the tradition, Classicism refers either to the art produced in antiquity or to later art inspired by that of antiquity; Neoclassicism always refers to the art produced later but inspired by antiquity. 2. In music the great Classical period arose in the late 18th century and was dominated by composers of the German-speaking area of Europe: Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the young Ludwig van Beethoven. Their music is polished, refined, and melodic. In their era, instrumental music became more important than vocal music for the first time in history. Intense interest in such music and in regularized “Classical” form led to the standardization of symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, pianos, and various compositional forms. 3. Classicism in literature arose later than in France and reached its zenith in the 18th-century writings of John Dryden and Alexander Pope. The Classicists modelled themselves on Greek and Latin authors and tried to control literary creation by some fixed laws and rules drawn from Greek and Latin works.25. Richard Steele“The Tatler”26. Joseph Addison“The Spectator” 注意这个报纸和我们今天的报纸不一样，它虚构了一系列的人物，以这些人物的口气来写报纸上刊登的散文。27. Steels and Addisons styles and their contributions （课本中有详细内容）28. Alexander Pope: “Essay on Criticism”, “Essay on Man”, “The Rape of Lock”, “The Dunciad”; his workmanship (features) and limitations* 29. Jonathan Swift: “Gullivers Travels” 要知道具体内容，就是Gulliver游历过的四个地方的英文名称，和每个部分具体的讽刺对象; “A Modest Proposal”, 要注意作者用的irony也就是反讽手法。Part I: Shipwreck in Lilliput, tallest people were six inches high.Swift satirizes the Tories and the Whigs in England. Religious disputes were laughed at in an account of a problem which divided the Lilliputians.This part is full of references to current politics.The Lilliputians symbolize humankinds wildly excessive pride in its own puny existence. Part II: The voyage to Brobdingnag. Man sixty feet in height. Laugh at the strutting and bowing of English lords and ladies as much as the King did at him.The Brobdingnagians symbolize the private, personal, and physical side of humans when examined up close and in great detail. Part III: in the Island of Sorcerors. Satire on philosophers and projectors.Part IV: Yahoo.* 30. The rise and growth of the realistic novel is the most prominent achievement of 18th century English literature.31. Daniel Defoe: “Robinson Crusoe”, “Moll Flanders”, 剧情要清楚，书中这一节最后一段，有Robinson Crusoe的形象和故事中蕴涵的早期黑奴的原形，以及殖民主义的萌芽。另外注意Defoe的style和feature，Defoe是forerunner of English realistic novel。32. Samuel Richardson“Pamela” (first epistolary novel)；* 33. Henry Fielding: “Joseph Andrews”, “Jonathan Wild”, “Tom Jones”他是一个比较重要的作家，founder of the English Realistic novel，课本中features，另外Fielding也被称为father of the English novel.34. Laurence Sterne“Tristram Shandy”35. Richard Sheridan“The School for Scandal”36. Samuel Johnson“Dictionary”, “Letter to Lord Chesterfield” (the writers declaration of independence)37. Oliver Goldsmith“The Traveller” (poem), “The Deserted Village” (poem) (both two poems were written by heroic couplet), “The Vicar of Wakefield” (novel), “The Good-Natured Man” (comedy), “She stoops to Conquer” (comedy), “The Citizen of the World” (collection of essays)38. Edward Gibbon，“The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”* 40. Sentimentalism（名词解释）The term sentimentalism is used in two senses: (1) An overindulgence in emotion, especially the conscious effort to induce emotion in order to enjoy it. (2) An optimistic overemphasis of the goodness of humanity (sensibility), representing in part a reaction against Calvinism, which regarded human nature as depraved. The novel of sensibility was developed from this 18th century notion, manifested in the Sentimental novel.European sentimentalism arose during the Age of Enlightenment, at the same time as sentimentalism in philosophy. It lasted from around 1720 until the time of the French Revolution, arising in France and England as early as 1700.* 41. Thomas Gray“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”（英国诗歌里非常著名的一首，曾经被誉为“有史以来英国诗歌里最好的一首”）(a representative of sentimentalism and graveyard school of poets墓园派诗人) Graveyard School / Poets: A term applied to eighteenth-century poets who wrote meditative poems, usually set in a graveyard, on the theme of human mortality, in moods which range from elegiac pensiveness to profound gloom. The vogue resulted in one of the most widely known English poems, Thomas Grays “Elegy written in a country churchyard”. The writing of graveyard poems spread from England to Continental literature in the second part of the century and also influenced some American poets.* 42. In the latter half of the 18th century, Pre-Romanticism; representative: William Blake (Song of Innocence and Songs of Experience) and Robert Burns (A Red Red Rose, Auld Lang Syne). 43. Thomas Percy“Reliques of Ancient English poetry”许多中古的民谣都是在这个时期重新收集和整理起来的，这个集子是那个时代比较有名的一个民谣集。* 44. William Blake比较重要，需要对主要作品有所了解，特别是Songs of Innocence 和 Songs of Experience, 这两本集子的contrast，另外Blake的写作特点，比如语言的简单明了，神秘主义氛围等。The contrast:It marks a progress in the poets outlook on life. In the earlier collection there seem to be no shadows. To the poets eyes, the first glimpse of the world was a picture of light, harmony, peace and love. But in the later years, experience had brought a fuller sense of the power of evil, and of the great misery and pain of the peoples life.In the introduction to Songs of Innocence, the poet compares himself to a laughing child upon a cloud, but in that to Songs of Experience the poet becomes “the lapsed Soul weeping in the evening dew.”Concise in the use of language. Mysterious.* 45. Robert Burns伟大的苏格兰民族诗人, 代表作A Red Red Rose, Scots Wha Hae, Auld Lang Syne等名诗，写作特点: 1.Scottish dialect; 2.a poet of peasant and Scottish people; 3.plain language; 4.influence from Scottish folk songs and ballads; 5.musical quality of his poems.Part Five: Romanticism in England* 46. Romanticism（名词解释）要对浪漫主义兴起的时间，根源，主要特点，主要代表作家。（见图）* 47.William Wordsworth要知道他的 “Lyrical Ballads”是英国浪漫主义时期开始的标志，也是宣言。Lake Poets（名词解释）The Lake Poets all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single school of thought or literary practice then known, although their works were uniformly disparaged by the Edinburgh Review. They are considered part of the Romantic Movement.他诗歌的主要两类题材：nature and common peoples lives。著名作品：I wandered lonely as a cloud; To the cuckoo; Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey; The solitary reaper; We are seven 等等。 The 5 “I”s in Romanticism;Imagination-Intuition-Idealism-Inspiration-Individuality48. Samuel Taylor Coleridge两首名诗：The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Kubla Khan主要写作supernatural题材。* 49. George Gordon Byron，Byronic Heroes (名词解释);著名作品：Child Harolds Pilgrimage，另外此诗用Spenserian Stanza写成；Don Juan，及其诗体attava rima。George Gordon ByronByron is a leading Romanticist. His verse was easy, fluent, and natural beauty. Byrons diction, though unequal and frequently faulty, has on the whole a freedom, copiousness and vigor. His descriptions are simple and fresh, and often bring vivid objects before the reader. Byrons poetry employed the Ottva Rima from Italian mock-heroic poetry.Byronic Heroes1.The “Byronic hero”, was a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin.2. The Byronic Hero has the following features:1) Having great talent;2) Exhibiting great passion;3) Having a distaste for society and social institutions;4) Expressing a lack of respect for rank and privilege;5) Thwarted in love by social constraint or death;6) Rebelling;7) Suffering exile;8) Hiding an unsavory past;9) Ultimately acting in a self-destructive manner. * 50. Percy Bysshe Shelley著名作品：Queen Mab; The Revolt of Islam; Prometheus Unbound（lyrical drama，大致内容及此剧与古希腊的“被束缚的普罗米修斯”不同之处及其意义。）其它名作: Ode to the West Wind; To a skylark等等。51. John Keats著名作品：Ode to Autumn; Ode to a Nightingale; Ode on a Grecian Urn”。注意Keats与Byron和Shelley的不同，Keats的诗歌没有两人那么强的革命性，他的诗歌主要是为了缔造一个唯美的世界，为了追求美而写作的。52. Charles Lamb：The Essays of Elia (humorous, archaisms, quotations from other writers)53. Walter Scott: founder and great master of the historical novel; his death marks the ending of Romantic Period in English literature; famous novels: Rob Roy, Ivanhoe; features of his novels (课本中的有关部分)Part Six: English Critical Realism* 54. Critical Realism (1832- 1901) 批判现实主义，要知道它兴起的时间，历史背景，主要代表人物及主要特点。1. Social Background1) the Victorian Age (1836- 1901) is also one of the most glorious in the history of English Literature. This time was characterized by economic and social prosperity resulting from the Industrial Revolution. 2) However, living conditions in the mushrooming industrial centers were very bad3) In 1833, the Chartist Movement broke out. The birth of the British proletarian movement. In the summer of 1867, the working men in the towns of England had the voice in the management of national affairs. In 1870, the famous Educational Act which guaranteed a universal system of education was passed by the Parliament. 4) The Victorian era was remarkable not only in economic prosperity but also in the development of sciences.5) Utilitarianism and positivism were flourishing.2. The Definition of Critical Realism1) According to Marx, Realism was called “the present brilliant school of English novelists whose graphic and eloquent descriptions have revealed more political and social truths to the world.” 2) Realists criticized, exposed and attacked the social wrongs, at the same time showed their sympathy with the common people by passionately protesting against unbearable living conditions under which the poorer classes were groaning. Writers belonging to “the brilliant school of English novelists” were called critical realists, and their trend was labeled “Critical Realism”. 3. Features of English Critical Realism They are found in the leading writers of the time, chiefly Dickens, Austen, Thackeray, Gaskel, Bronte and others. 1) The introduction of a new set of characters from the working class as a new force in society.2) A deep sense of the dramatic contrast between the rich and the poor.3) An irresistable hatred for every species of social oppression and injustice. 4) An illusion of bringing about social justice and harmony by reforms. 5) An interest in the