天津大学英语系本科 英国文学复习内容 补充材料

英国文学复习内容Beowulf: an English EpicThough traces of Christian values can be clearly seen in Beowulf, it is pervaded with paganism. In the noble figure of Beowulf, pagan heroism and fatalism are mingled with Christian qualities. The non-Christian story of monsters and mighty sea beasts is blended with some serious thoughts on the power of a wise God. In the poem, the poet expresses a hope that the evil should be punished, and the righteous will be rewarded.Structurally speaking, Beowulf is built around three fights. The first part deals with the fight between Beowulf and the monster Grendel that has been attacking the great hall of the Heorot, built by Hrothgar, the Danish King. The second part involves a battle between Beowulf and Grendels mother, a water-monster, who takes revenge by carrying off one of the kings noblemen. The last part is about the fight between Beowulf and a firedrake that ravages Beowulfs kingdom. The long poem ends with praises of Beowulfs noble deeds and his acts of courage.Beowulf is a pagan poem concerned with the heroic ideal of kings and kingship in North Europe. Battle is a way of life at that time. Strength and courage are basic virtues for both kings and his warriors. The king should protect his people and show gentleness and generosity to his warriors. And in return, his warriors should show absolute obedience and loyalty to the king. By praising Beowulfs wisdom, strength and courage, and by glorifying his death for his people, the poem presents the heroic ideal of a king and his good relations to his warriors and people. Two Early Anglo-Saxon Lyrics: The Seafarer and The WandererThe Seafarer and The Wanderer are two early Anglo-Saxon lyrics found in the famous Exeter Book - one of the four important collections of the surviving poetry of the Anglo-Saxon period.The Seafarer is a monologue, describing an old sailor who is torn between the attractions of the sea and the perils it might bring. Some critics read it as a dialogue between an old sailor and a young boy, expressing the troubles and joys of life at sea.The Wanderer is a monologue by a man telling the joyful days of comradeship in the hall of his lord and his sorrow over the harshness of the world in which he lives after the death of his dear “good-friend.”Geoffrey ChaucerThe Function of the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales The General Prologue is usually regarded as the greatest portrait gallery in English literature. It is largely composed of a series of sketches differing widely in length and method, and blending the individual and the typical in varying degrees. The purpose of the General Prologue is not only to present a vivid collection of character sketches, but also to reveal the authors intention in bringing together a great variety of people and narrative materials to unite the diversity of the tales by allotting them to a diversity of tellers engaged in a common endeavor, to set the tone for the story-telling - one of jollity which accords with the tone of the whole work; that of grateful acceptance of life, to make clear the plan for the tales, to motivate the telling of tales and to introduce the pilgrims and the time and occasion of the pilgrimage. The pilgrims are people from various parts of England. They serve as the representatives of various sides of life and social groups. Each of the pilgrims or narrators is presented vividly in the Prologue. Ranging in status from a knight to a humble plowman, the pilgrims are a microcosm of 14th century English society. On the other hand, there is also an intimate connection between the tales and the Prologue, both complementing each other. The Prologue provides a framework for the tales.The Significance of The Canterbury TalesThe significance of The Canterbury Tales is as follows:(1) It gives a comprehensive picture of Chaucers time. The pilgrims cover a wide range of characters in England of the time, from noblemen to peasants. They represent the whole range of 14th century society except the very top and the very bottom. The gentle class is represented by the knight, the squire, the monk, the prioress, and the Franklin; the burgher class is represented by the merchant, the haberdasher, the carpenter, the weaver, the tapestry-maker, and the wife of Bath. Among the professionals there are a lawyer and a physician who use their knowledge to make money. All persons connected with the church, with the exception of the poor parson, are drawn with touches of irony or satire.It should be noted that each character is not only a typical representative of the class to which he or she belongs, but also has an individual character of his or her own. With his own wide experience and close observation of life, his characters are so vivid and particular that there can be no substitution for the very person described.(2) The dramatic structure of the poem has been highly commended by critics. This kind of a collection of tales put together was not rare in history. For example, Boccacios The Decameran is a collection of one hundred stories told by ten people of the gentry class who have retired to the countryside to escape the plague in Florence. But in The Decameran stories are loosely connected and there is no relation between the story and the storyteller. In The Canterbury Tales, stories are cleverly woven together by links between the stories. Most of the stories are related to the personalities of the tellers. The personality of each character, his private life and habits, his mood and social status are revealed in the prologue and in the story he tells, as well as by his behavior along the road and his remarks on the way.The links between the tales are of great interest. Most important is the part played by the host Harry Bailey, who is a hearty, boisterous man with his frankness, his rough manner, his unconscious improper use of words about God, and his good sense. He draws the shy ones out, smoothes over the differences, and keeps the company generally in good spirits.(3) Chaucers humor. Humor is a characteristic feature of the circle in which he lived and his major readers were people at court. There are many humorists in the history of English literature, such as Charles Dickens and Bernard Shaw.It should be noticed that Chaucer wrote for the people of the circle in which he lived and his major readers were people at court. As a commoner he had sympathy with and an understanding of the lower classes as is shown in his attitude towards the ploughman and the poor parson. But he could not offend the upper classes. For, although he was a commoner, he did not live like a commoner and he had to please the people at court. Although he was associated with proud and important personages at court he must always have been conscious of the fact that he did not belong to that society. This explains his gentle satire and mild irony. But his satire can be the bitterest in the portrayal of the pardoner and the summoner.(4) Chaucers contribution to the English language. Ever since the Norman Conquest the French language was the language of the court and the upper classes, and Latin was the language of the learned and the church. Chaucer was taught in French when he was at school, not in English. But, like Dante, who chose Italian in preference to Latin for The Divine Comedy, Chaucer had enough pride and confidence in his native language to use it in his work. Chaucer wrote in London dialect of his day, which he handled dexterously. He was at one moment serious and another light-hearted and full of fun and sometimes he could be very poetical. He proved that the English language is a beautiful language and can be easily handled to express different moods. In so doing Chaucer greatly increased the prestige of the English language.The Vision of Piers PlowmanPiers the Plowman remains a classic in popular literature. It was very popular throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The poem is a rich and realistic representation of the unhappy side of the life in feudal England at the second half of the 14th century: social injustices, the corruption of the church, the meaningless power struggle in the court, and the sufferings of the poor peasants. It praises the poor peasants, and condemns and exposes the sins of the oppressors. It played an important part in arousing the revolutionary sentiment on the eve of the Rising of 1381 headed by Wat Tyler and John Ball. But Piers is not a representative of the poor peasants. He is one of the well-to-do peasants. He has no intention of upsetting the feudal order of the society, and he accepts the existing social relations. This is the limitation of the poem.The allegory of Lady Meed renders a sharp criticism on the corrupt morals of the court. Lady Meed (Lady Bribery) wants to get the Kings permission to be married to a man named False, which is in fact an insult to the court. The King arrests her. Lady Meed soon uses money to bribe the royal court. The King proposes that she marry one of his knights, Conscience. Lady Meed is glad to accept the man, but Conscience denounces her and refuses to have her as his wife. Conscience lists all her immoral deeds: she bribes the judges, pampers the guilty, hangs the innocent, and lives a loose life. Conscience believes that Lady Meed must be condemned. The moral of the allegory is clearly voiced: bribery and corruption cannot be reconciled with conscience and virtue. The poem is both allegorical and satirical. In the poem, the poet has several dream visions in which different religious and moral issues are brought into discussion. The poet suggests that honest work and devotion to religion is the way to lead one to heaven. The common people, through their hard work and religious observance, can become better individuals than those corrupt lords and rich people. With vivid imagination, the poet divides the way to Truth into three stages - Do Well, Do bet(ter), and Do Best. As the poem continues, Piers becomes in effect the incarnation of Jesus Christ, seeking to help those people who are led astray by worldly concerns and to guide them along the correct path to heaven.The Tudors before Queen ElizabethThe years between the birth of Spencer in 1552 and the death of Milton in 1674 were remarkably productive of English poems. Within the period England nurtured several great poets: Shakespeare, Spencer, Sidney, Donne, and Milton. The beginning point of this golden period is the Elizabethan Age, an age of expansion, economic development and cultural prosperity. The period bears the name of Queen Elizabeth because she ruled longer than any of the other Tudors and also because she was certainly the greatest of the Tudor monarchs. Of course her father and grandfather paved the way for her success. The tremendous political, religious, economic and intellectual changes that had been in the making from the previous two Tudor monarchs finally came to a climax during her reign.The Tudors had three generations. Henry (1485-1509), Henry (1509-1547) and his three children - Edward (1547-1553), Mary (1553-1558), and Elizabeth (1558-1603). Before the first Tudor monarch Henry became the King of England, the country suffered from wars between the Duke of York and the Duke of Lancaster. They were sons of Edward (1372-1377). The crowning of Henry ended the domestic unrest. He immediately set about unifying the country and strengthening the crown. Under the reign of his son, Henry , England witnessed some rapid social changes. Feudalism was on the decline, population increased fast, printing machines became popular, and intellectual knowledge was spreading rapidly. Henry was a strong King and he always had a will of his own. One thing he did during his reign sowed the seed of trouble for England for many years to come. He wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon, who had borne only one daughter, Mary. When the Pope in Rome refused to end the marriage, he rebelled by marrying Anne Boleyn without permission. He soon declared himself head of the English Church. So England was separated from Rome. During his reign Henry took decisive measures to break away from the Church of Rome. In 1534 he passed through Parliament the Act of Supremacy which regarded him as the supreme head on earth, thus negating the claim of the Pope in Rome who regarded himself as the supreme power on earth. The church Henry founded is the Anglican Church. During the reign of his successor, the child King Edward , the Protestant movement developed rapidly. But he died young and the next monarch, Queen Mary, was a devout Catholic. Her attempts to restore Catholicism to England resulted in internal conflicts and much bloodshed.The Reign of Queen ElizabethEnglish Renaissance was at its height during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who was on the throne at the age of twenty-five. Her political wisdom let her choose a middle ground when dealing with sensitive religious issues. She managed to keep a balance between the influences of Protestantism and Catholicism. She made wise choices of her councilors and established a strong central government that received the support of her subjects. During her reign, England grew powerful. To gain supremacy on the seas, Queen Elizabeth had wars with the King of Spain, and defeated the Spanish Armada, a fleet believed to be invincible.The Elizabethan Age was the age of courtiers. The once strict and serious court life became lighter and more relaxed. The Queen, who never married, loved music and dancing, and her court entertainment was a big social occasion. Queen Elizabeth herself loved poetry and wrote some good poems. Some men surrounding her at the court were excellent courtier poets, the most famous of whom were Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Philip Sidney. English literature thrived. Sonnets or sonnet sequences, owing to Italian influence, became a popular form to express emotion, to glorify love or to tell romantic stories. Drama flourished. Going to the theater became a popular form of entertainment.The Elizabethan Age was filled with national confidence. The English people for the first time felt certain that they could be masters of the world and masters of themselves. Life was no longer regarded as a “journey through a vale of tears” to a better world after death. The idea that people were wonderful creatures that could reason and create was the essence of the Renaissance spirit.Sir Phillip Sidney (1554-1586)Life and AchievementsSir Philip Sidney best represented the spirit of the Elizabethan Age. In many ways he stood for the Renaissance ideal of “the complete man”. He was adventurous, scholarly, humane, noble, and public. His life was rich and his career was varied. He was a courtier, diplomat, soldier, scholar, poet, friend, patron, and literary critic. Sidney was “born to the purple”. His father Sir Henry Sidney was Lord Deputy of Ireland. His education was solid at a young age. He entered Oxford, but he left without taking a degree. From 1572-1575 he made a grand tour in France, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, and Italy. This extended travel on the Continent enriched his knowledge of human life and broadened his vision as a poet. When he was traveling, he met some of the most influential men of his day.Sidney held a strong Protestant conviction, even at the cost of irritating the Queen. For this reason, he was dismissed from court for a time. But in 1583 he was restored to favor and knighted. In 1585 he was appointed governor of Flushing in the Netherlands, and in 1586 he was sent with a group of soldiers to aid the Netherlands against Spain. He died of wounds received in a war. His sense of humor and philosophy of life were best reflected in the last episode of his life. When dying, Sidney handed to another wounded soldier the cup of water offered to him and uttered the famous words: “Thy need is greater than mine”.When Sidney was out of favor with the Queen, he stayed in the estate of his beloved sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke. There, at the request of his sister, Sidney wrote Arcadia, a prose romance filled with lyrics. (Arcadia is also considered a forerunner of the modern novel.) It was later used by William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Francis Beaumont, and John Fletcher as source material for plays and poems. It was originally written in 1580 (the old Arcadia) and was then revised and enlarged by Sidney into a more complex version (the new Arcadia). The new composition was so ambitious that Sidney left it half done. Arcadia, very much in the form of a tragicomedy, contains some serious thoughts on ethics, politics and religion. It also discusses the possible consequence of passions and vices on individuals.Astrophel and Stella (1591), a sequence of 108 sonnets, was Sidneys major achievement as a poet. It took inspiration from the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch. Its publication made sonnet sequence a popular literary form in England. Though Italian sonnets were first introduced into England buy Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Henry Howard (1517-1547), it was after Sidneys Astrophel and Stella that the sonnet sequence became popular in England. It inspired other Elizabethan poets, including Shakespeare, to write similar sequences.Sidneys Defense of Poetry (1579-1580; published in 1895) is a prose essay that descries the nature of poetry and defends it against Puritan objections to imaginative literature. He extended the definition of poetry beyond mere “rhyming and versing”. He also emphasized that poetry should lead men to act virtuously. The poet, Sidney argued, taught more effectively than the philosopher. The philosopher “teaches, but he teaches obscurely, he teaches them that are already taught.” But the poet is “the right popular philosopher”