英美文学考核完整笔记.doc

Chapter I The Renaissance PeriodI. 应用Definitions of the Literary Terms:1. The Renaissance: The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. Generally, it refers to the period between the 14th and 17th centuries. It first started in Italy, with the flowering of painting, sculpture and literature. From Italy the movement went to embrace the rest of Europe. The Renaissance, which means rebirth or revival, is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the re-discovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation and the economic expansion. The Renaissance, therefore, in essence is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and 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, and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.2. Humanism: Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the ancient authors and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on such a conception that man is the measure of all things. Through the new learning, humanists not only saw the arts of splendor and enlightenment, but the human values represented in the works. Renaissance humanists found in the classics a justification to exalt human nature and came to see that human beings were glorious creatures capable of individual development in the direction of perfections, and that the world they inhabited was theirs not to despise but to question, explore, and enjoy. Thus, by emphasizing the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, they voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of this life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders. Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are the best representatives of the English humanists.3. Spenserian stanza: Spenserian stanza was invented by Edmund Spenser. It is a stanza 节of nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter 五步抑扬格and the last line in iambic hexameter六步抑扬格, rhyming ababbcbcc.4. Metaphysical poetry: The term 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 poets beloved, with God, or with himself.5. The Renaissance hero: A Renaissance hero refers to one created by Christopher Marlowe in his drama. Such a hero is always individualistic and full of ambition, facing bravely the challenge from both gods and men. He embodies Marlowes humanistic ides of human dignity and capacity. Different from the tragic hero in medieval plays, who seeks the way to heaven through salvation and gods will, he is against conventional morality and contrives to obtain heaven on earth through his own efforts. With the endless aspiration for power, knowledge, and glory, the hero interprets the true Renaissance spirit. Both Tamburlaine and Faustus are typical in possessing such a spirit. William Shakespeare1. 一般识记Brief Introduction William Shakespeare was the greatest writer of plays who ever lived. His friend and fellow playwright Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare was not of an age but for all time. The 18th-century English essayist Samuel Johnson described his work as the mirror of life. The 19th-century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoke of myriad-minded Shakespeare. The 20th-century English dramatist George Bernard Shaw stressed his enormous power over language.2. 识记His Life and CareerThe exact date of Shakespeares birth is not known, but his baptism was recorded on April 26, 1564, in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-on-Avon. Since it was customary to baptize infants within two or three days of birth, April 23 is regarded as a reasonable birth date. It is also the date on which he died in 1616. Generally, his dramatic career is divided into 4 periods.The First Period (1590-1594)-five historical plays and four comedies: Henry , part (1590)Henry , part (1590)Henry , part (1591)Richard (1592)Titus Andronicus (1593)The Comedy of Errors (1592)The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594)The Taming of the Shrew (1593)Loves Labors Lost (1594)The Second Period (1595-1600)-five historical plays, six comedies and two tragedies:Richard (1595)King John (1596)Henry , Part and Part (1597)Henry V (1598)A Midsummer Nights Dream (1595)The Merchant of Venice (1596)Much Ado About Nothing (1598)As You Like It (1599)Twelfth Night (1600)The Merry Wives of Winsor (1598)Romeo and Juliet (1595)Julius Caesar (1599)The Third Period (1601-1609)-Seven tragedies and two dark comedies:Hamlet Othello King Lear MacbethAntony and Cleopatra Troilus and Cressida Coriolonus Alls Well That Ends WellMeasure for MeasureThe Fourth Period (1609-1612)-Romantic tragic-comedies and two plays:Pericles Cymbeline The Wintes Tale The TempestHenry The Two Noble KinsmenShakespeares authentic non-dramatic poetry consists of two long narrative poems: Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece and his sequence of 154 sonnets.3. 领会His Influence1) Contributions to language Many words and commonly used phrases have been added to everyday English vocabulary through their appearance in Shakespeares works.2) Effects on literature Shakespeares plays and poetry have had a pervasive无处不在的 influence on world literature. Most of the great literary figures of the world have been inspired and stimulated by his achievement.On the whole, however, Shakespeares contribution has been to the language and spirit of later writing rather than to its form. References and parallels to Shakespeares phraseology措词 have occurred in literature since the 16th century.Perhaps the greatest inspiration to subsequent随后的, 继之后的 authors has been Shakespeares capacity to depict life in all its complexity and to illuminate 说明, 阐明mans character and destiny.4. 领会 His Major Works1) DramaA. The Merchant of Venice Theme: to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable 无法满足的, 贪得无厌的greed and brutality残忍, 野蛮, 粗暴 of the Jew.Plot: The play has a double plot (P39)B. Hamlet Hamlet is generally regarded as Shakespeares most popular play on the stage, for it has the qualities of a blood-and-thunder凶杀情节 thriller紧张刺激的故事 and a philosophical 哲学的exploration of life and death. And the timeless永存的; 无日期的 appeal 吸引力of this mighty强有力的, 强大的 drama lies in its combination of intrigue阴谋, 诡计, emotional conflict and searching philosophic melancholy忧郁, 悲哀.The play opens with Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, appearing in a mood of world-weariness 厌世occasioned 惹起, 引起by his fathers recent 近来的death and by his mothers hasty 仓促完成的, 急忙的remarriage with Claudius, his fathers brother. While encountering突然遇到 his fathers ghost, Hamlet is informed that Claudius has murdered his father and then taken over both his fathers throne and widow寡妇, 遗孀. This, Hamlet, is urged by the ghost to seek revenge for his fathers foul and most unnatural murder. Trapped in a nightmare world of spying, testing and plotting, and apparently bearing the intolerable 不能忍受的; 无法容忍的burden of the duty to revenge his fathers death, Hamlet is obliged to inhabit a shadow world, to live suspended between fact and fiction, language and action. His life is one of constant role-playing, examining the nature of action only to deny its possibility, for he is too sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger. By characterizing Hamlet, Shakespeare successfully makes a philosophical exploration of life and death.C. The Tempest The Tempest, an elaborate and fantastic story, is known as the best of his final romances. The characters are rather allegorical and the subject full of suggestion. The humanly impossible events can be seen occurring everywhere, in the play. The playwright resorts to the supernatural atmosphere and to the dreams to solve the conflict. To Shakespeare, the whole life is no more than a dream. Thus, The Tempest is a typical example of his pessimistic view towards human life and society in his late years.2) PoemsA. SonnetsThe first 126 sonnets are apparently addressed to a handsome young nobleman, presumably the authors patron. The poems express the writers selfless but not entirely uncritical devotion to the young man.Twenty of the sonnets are about a young woman characterized as a dark lady, whom the poet distrust but cannot resist. The poems addressed directly to her are perhaps the most remarkable in the sequence because their unsentimental tone is unlike that of traditional love sonnets.A philosophical theme that appears in many of the sonnets is that of time as the destroyer of all mortal things. Also expressed in the poems is the authors disillusionment with the false ness of earthly life.The form of the poems is the English Variation of the traditional Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet, Shakespeares sonnets have three quatrains, or groups of four lines, and a final couplet. Their rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg. A theme is developed and elaborated in the quatrains, and a concluding thought is presented in the couplet. B. Other poemsVenus and Adonis, in which Shakespeare made his first bid for literary patronage and fame, is a conventional Elizabethan narrative poem. Its mythological story, taken from Ovids Metamorphoses, tells of the passionate love goddess who woos the reluctant youth Adonis.The Rape of Lucrece, another narrative of passion, is based on the semi historical story of the rape of a chaste Roman matron by Tarquin, son of the king of Rome.5. 领会His Major Theme1) Shakespeare is against religious persecution迫害 and racial discrimination种族歧视, against social inequality and the corrupting influence of gold and money.2) He was a humanist of the time and accepted the Renaissance views on literature.6. 领会His Literary Achievements1) CharacterizationHis major characters are neither merely individual ones nor type ones; they are individuals representing certain types. Each character has his or her own personalities; meanwhile, they may share features with others. The soliloquies 独白in his plays fully reveal the inner conflict of his characters. Shakespeare also portrays his characters in pairs. Contrasts are frequently used to bring vividness to his characters. The women in the plays are vivid creations, each differing from the others. Shakespeare was fond of portraying mocking wenches, such as Kate of the Taming of the Shrew, Rosaline of Loves Labors Lost, and Beatrice of Much Ado About Nothing, but he was equally adept at creating gentle and innocent women, such as Ophelia in Hamlet, Desdemona in Othello, and Cordelia in King Lear. His female characters also include the treacherous Goneril and Regan, the iron-willed Lady Macbeth, the witty and resourceful Portia, the tender and loyal Juliet, and the alluring Cleopatra.2) Plot Construction Shakespeares plays are well known for their adroit plot construction. He seldom invents his own plots; instead, he borrows them from some old plays or storybooks, or from ancient Greek and Roman sources. There are usually several threads running through the play, thus providing the story with suspense and apprehension.3) LanguageIn Shakespeares time, English grammar and spelling were not yet formalized, so Shakespeare could freely inter charge the various parts of speech, using nouns as adjectives or verbs, adjectives as adverbs, and pronouns as nouns. Such freedom gave his language an extraordinary flexibility, which enabled him to express his thoughts as easily in poetry as in prose. Most of Shakespeares dramatic poetry is in blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter. His bland verse is especially beautiful and mighty. He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary and idiom. His coinage of new words and distortion of the meaning of the old ones also create striking effects on the reader.7. 应用Selected Readings 1) Sonnet 18Theme: a profound meditation on the destructive power of time and the eternal beauty brought forth by poetry to the one he loves. Imagery: a summers day-youth he eye of heaven-the sun2) The Merchant of Venice Theme: To praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable greed and brutality of the Jew.3) Hamlet This is one part of Hamlets most famous monologue. Hamlet, facing the dilemma of action and mind, is hesitating whether he should revenge for his father, which may bring him death, or he should suffer and hide his hatred for his uncle in his deep heart, which may secure his life. . John Milton1.一般识记 Brief Introduction John Milton, English poet and prose writer, born in London, England, Dec. 9, 1608, and died in London, Nov 8, 1674. Milton was one of the greatest poets in the English language and one of the towering figures in all literature. His masterpiece, Paradise Lost, is considered the unsurpassed English epic poem. It is a powerfully imaginative and dramatic work, based in part on the Biblical story of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Milton, a deeply religious man, wrote the epic to justify the ways of God to men. He is also famous for his graceful lyric poems, such as Lycidas, LAllegro, and for his intensely moving sonnets.Milton was a great master of language, and his poetry, both epic and lyric, is admired for its sublime eloquence and rich musical quality. 2. 识记His literary achievements Miltons literary achievements can be divided into three groups: the early poetic works, the middle prose pamphlets and the last great poems.1) Education and Early PoetryMiltons education would ordinarily have led him to a post in the Church of England. He was a Puritan, however, and his religious vies conflicted with those of the Church. After his 7 years at Cambridge, therefore, he retired in 1632 to his fathers estate at Horton. His famous poems LAllegro and IL Penseroso were probably written in 1631, before his withdrawal from Cambridge. These are companion pieces that contrast the temperaments of the cheerful, active man and the melancholy, reflective man. In his early works, Milton appears as the inheritor of all that was best in Elizabethan literature. Lycidas (1637) is a typical example. All of Miltons early works reflect his interest in Greek and Latin poetry, which greatly influenced his style. His poems contain a wealth of classical references, figures of speech, and other poetic devices, all masterfully blended into his rich verse.2) Middle Period and Prose Pamphlets In 1638, Milton began a 15-month tour of the Continent, where he met the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei. Upon his return to England he became deeply involved in the political and religious struggle between Parliament, which was then dominated by the Presbyterians, and the followers of king Charles, who supported the Church of England. Milton sided with Parliament and began to write a series of pamphlets attacking the power of the bishops and the rituals of the Church. In 1652 he suffered great personal tragedy with the total loss of his eyesight and the death of his wife and infant son In spite of his blindness, Milton continued his official duties until 1655. During these tragic years of his life he wrote some of his most poignant and beautiful sonnets. They include On His Blindness, which reveals the consolation he found in religious faith, and Methought 1 Saw My Late Espoused Saint, written as a tribute to his second wife. Another of his greatest sonnets, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, commemorated the slaughter of a sect of religious martyrs in 1655. Areopagitica (1644) is probably his most memorable prose work. It is a great plea for freedom of the press. Its style is smooth and calm.3) Later Years and Major PoetryAfter the Restoration in 1660, Milton was imprisoned. His release was brought about mainly through the efforts of his friends, notably the poet Andrew Marwell, After that time he devoted himself to his 3 major poetical works: Paradise Lost (1667), Paradise Regained (1671), and Samson Agonistes (1671). Among the three, the first is the greatest, indeed the only generally acknowledged epic in English literature since Beowulf; and the last one is the most perfect example of the verse drama after the Greek style in English. 3.领会His Major Works1) LycidasIt is a collection of elegies dedicated to Edward king, a fellow undergraduate of Miltons at Cambridge, who was drowned in the Irish Sea. The poem begins with grief and a feeling of immaturity; then the grief is deepened by the sense of irrecoverable loss in the silencing of a young poet. With this bitter sense of loss, Milton asks why the just and good should suffer. These emotions swell to a passionate call for the consolation of art. The poem moves from a sad apprehension of death, through regret, to passionate questioning, rage,