英美文学赏析.doc

Renaissance Means rebirth or revival， re-discovery of ancient Roman & Greek culture religious reformation & the economic expansion. A historical period the European humanist thinkers & scholars to get rid of old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe and express the interests of the rising bourgeoisie to recover the purity of church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. A transition from the medieval to the modern world. The period between the 14th & 17th centuries First started in Italy, with the flowering of painting sculpture & literature Renaissance Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. Emphasizes that humankind is its center concerns. Believes that reason is more important than religious beliefs. Emphasizes that the basic nature of human beings is good. English Renaissance Stability and prosperity Reformation of church: Henry VIII Enclosure movement Humanist: human mind and human culture-God Elizabethan period Historical Background English Reformation: England just went through Reformation. Protestantism was the Church of England. Initially prompted by a dispute over the annulment of the marriage ofHenry VIIItoCatherine of Aragon, the Church of Englandseparated from the Roman Catholic Church. Under the reign of Elizabeth I, England became the empire on which the sun never sets.BaconPhilosopher, statesman , scientist , lawyer, jurist ,orator , essayist, author and master of English. Bacon has been called the creator of empiricism(经验主义). His works established and popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method (培根法) , or the scientific method. (Of reasoning; proceeding from particular facts to a general conclusion 归纳法 ) Mottos by Bacon1.Knowledge is power . 2.To choose time is to save time .3. Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set. ( 美德好比宝石,在朴素背景的衬托下反而更华丽。) Of study 谈读书 Reading make a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. 读书使人充实，讨论使人机智，笔记使人准确。因此不常作笔记者须记忆特强，不常讨论者须天生聪颖，不常读书者须欺世有术，始能无知而显有知。读史使人明智，读诗使人灵秀，数学使人周密，科学使人深刻，伦理学使人庄重，逻辑修辞之学使人善辩。 William Shakespeare (1564 1616), an English poet and playwright The greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. Structure Sonnet: 14 lines 3Quatrian四行诗=12 lines 1 Couplet 对句=2 lines Metrical pattern韵律 What is a syllable(音节)? A syllable depends on the number ofvowelsounds (A,E,I,O,U ) What is a foot (音步) ? A foot: 2 syllables- a stressed syllable and an unstressed syllable 英诗中重读与非重读音节的组合叫做音步，音步是衡量一行诗的韵律的单位。 音步格式 例子 抑扬格(iambic) a/way an unstressed syllable+ a stressed syllable 音步名称 五音步pentameter-5 feet Iambic pentameter 五步抑扬格Metaphor and Simile Metaphor Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines Simile Shall I compare thee to a summers dayEnglish Romantic LiteratureI wandered lonely as a cloudStructure 4 sestets六行诗节(a quatrain四行诗-couplet对句) Metrical（格律的） pattern 音步名称四音步 tetrameter -4 feetIambic tetrameter 四步抑扬格Figurative Language and Sound DevicesFigurative LanguageSimile 明喻a direct comparison between two explicit terms, usually introduced by “like” or “as:”Eg: O, my luves like a red, red rose, (A Red, Red Rose)Personification 拟人the attribution of human qualities to animals, ideas, or inanimate things:Eg: He gives his harness bell a shake To ask if there is some mistake (Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)Hyperbole 夸张the deliberate use of overstatement or exaggeration to achieve emphasis. Eg: He almost died laughing.Sound Devices: Assonance, Alliteration, and RhymeAlliteration: The repetition of initial consonant sounds, as in “tried and true,” “safe and sound.” （头韵）Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds, as in “mad as a hatter,” “time out of mind,” “free and easy,” “slapdash”. (类韵）Rhyme: The repetition of the accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds. 押韵：重读元音和所有随后的声音重复。English Realistic Literature Victorian literature, during the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1836-1901 Criticize capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint Expose the evils of the government, the law, the education and the church with their injustice and corruption Sympathetic to miseries and sufferings Major Novelists Charles Dickens Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855) A feminist workv Gender inequality The mad woman in the attic Theme：Love versus Autonomy（爱与自由）Jane searches, not just for romantic love, but also for a sense of being valued, of belonging. Jane must learn how to gain love without sacrificing and harming herself in the process. Her fear of losing her autonomy motivates her refusal of Rochesters marriage proposal. Social Class Victorian Englands strict social hierarchy. Jane is only able to marry Rochester as his equal because she has almost magically come into her own inheritance from her uncle. Gender relationsJane struggles continually to achieve equality and to overcome oppression. fight against patriarchal dominationagainst those who believe women to be inferior to men. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) The greatest representative of English Critical Realism Theme THE FAILURE OF CHARITY Residents of those workhouses were essentially inmates囚犯. Labor was required, families were almost always separated, and rations of food and clothing were meager. As Dickens puts it, the poor choose between “being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it. PURITY IN A CORRUPT CITY Characters like Sikes and Fagin seem to have sustained permanent damage to their moral sensibilities. Oliver is above any corruption, the purity in such a corrupted city.Symbols CHARACTERS NAMES Oliver Twist The name “Twist,” alludes to the outrageous reversals of fortune that he will experience. Rose Maylies name echoes her association with flowers and springtime, youth and beauty.American Literature Because I could not stop death Analyze the poem The journey to the grave begins in Stanza 1, when Death comes calling in a carriage in which Immortality is also a passenger. As the trip continues in Stanza 2, thecarriage trundles along at an easy, unhurried pace, perhaps suggesting that death has arrived in the form of a disease or debility that takes its time to kill. In Stanza 3, the author appears to review the stages of her life: childhood (the recess scene), maturity (the ripe, hence, “gazing” grain), and the descent into death (the setting sun)as she passes to the other side. In Stanza 4, she experiences a chill because she is not warmly dressed. In fact, her garments are more appropriate for a wedding, representing a new beginning, than for a funeral, representing an end. In Stanza 5, her description of the grave as her “house” indicates how comfortable she feels about death. In Stanza 6, after centuries pass, so pleasant is her new life that time seems to stand still, feeling “shorter than a Day.” Characters Speaker: A woman who speaks from the grave. She says she calmly accepted death. In fact, she seemed to welcome death as a suitor whom she planned to marry. Death: Suitor who called for the narrator to escort her to eternity. Immortality: A passenger in the carriage. Children: Boys and girls at play in a schoolyard. They symbolize childhood as a stage of life. Theme Emily Dickinsons calm acceptance of death. She presents the experience as being no more frightening than receiving a gentleman callerher fianc (Death personified). Death is not to be feared since it is a natural part of the endless cycle of nature. Her view of death may also reflect her personality and religious beliefs. As a spinster, she was somewhat reclusive隐居and introspective, tending to dwell on loneliness and death. As a Christian, she was optimistic about her ultimate fate and appeared to see death as a friend. Meter The meter alternates between iambic tetrameter 四步抑扬格(lines with eight syllables, or four feet) and iambic trimeter 三步抑扬格(lines with six syllables, or three feet). In iambic meter, the feet (pairs of syllables) contain an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Figures of speech 修辞手法 Alliteration: the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables (such as wild and woolly) head rhyme, initial rhyme头韵 Paradox: an argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises 自相矛盾 Anaphora: repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses especially for rhetorical or poetic effect （Lincolns “we cannot dedicatewe cannot consecratewe cannot hallow”） 首语重复法 Personification: attribution of personal qualities; especially representation of a thing or abstraction as a person or by the human form拟人法Mark Twain An American author and humorist A journalist who satirized the hypocrisy of man and societyHuckleberry Finn Theme RACISM AND SLAVERY Although Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn two decades after the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War, Americaand especially the Southwas still struggling with racism and the aftereffects of slavery. INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION Huck distrusts the morals and precepts of the society that treats him as an outcast and fails to protect him from abuse. This apprehension about society, and his growing relationship with Jim, lead Huck to question many of the teachings that he has received, especially regarding race and slavery. American Modern Literature IITHE RO