英国文学重点作品赏析

1、精选优质文档-倾情为你奉上Hamlet is the first work of literature to look squarely at the stupidity, falsity and sham of everyday life, without laughing and without easy answers. In a world where things are not as they seem, Hamlets genuineness, thoughtfulness, and sincerity make him special. Hamlet is no saint.

2、But unlike most of the other characters (and most people today), Hamlet chooses not to compromise with evil. Dying, Hamlet reaffirms the tragic dignity of a basically decent person in a bad world Hamlet is the first work of literature to show an ordinary person looking at the futility and wrongs in

3、life, asking the toughest questions and coming up with honest semi-answers like most people do today. Unlike so much of popular culture today, Hamlet leaves us with the message that life is indeed worth living, even by imperfect people in an imperfect world. 犹豫scholars have debated for centuries abo

4、ut Hamlets hesitation in killing his uncle. Some see it as a plot device to prolong the action, and others see it as the result of pressure exerted by the complex philosophical and ethical issues that surround cold-blooded murder, calculated revenge and thwarted desire. More recently, psychoanalytic

5、 critics have examined Hamlets unconscious desires (Freud concludes that Hamlet has an Oedipal desire for his mother and the subsequent guilt is preventing him from murdering the man Claudius who has done what he unconsciously wanted to do.Analysis of “To be, or not to be”The main idea The speech co

6、nveys a sense of world-weariness as well as the authors incisive comments on the social reality of his time.Unlike the earlier single-minded avengers, Hamlet lives between action and resolution. He is so contemplative that he examines the nature of the action only to deny its possibility. He conside

7、rs it better for people to die, but then says nobody knows what happens in the afterlife.One of the clearest summaries of this soliloquy was provided by Schopenhauer :The essential purport of the world-famous monologue in Hamlet is, in condensed form, that our state is so wretched that complete non-

8、existence would be decidedly preferable to it. Now if suicide actually offered us this, so that the alternative to be or not to be lay before us in the full sense of the words, it could be chosen unconditionally as a highly desirable termination (a consummation devoutly to be wishd Act III, Sc. I.).

9、 There is something in us, however, which tells us that this is not so, that this is not the end of things, that death is not an absolute annihilation. .Sonnet 18This sonnet is certainly the most famous in the sequence of Shakespeares sonnets; it may be the most famous lyric poem in English. Among S

10、hakespeares works, only lines such as To be or not to be and Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? are better-known. This is not to say that it is at all the best or most interesting or most beautiful of the sonnets; but the simplicity and loveliness of its praise of the beloved has guaranteed its

11、 place.Meterical Pattern abab cdcd efef ggThemeThe message is that in this world no beauty (in Nature) can stay except poetry or art; and your beauty can only last if I write it down in my poetry. Also notice the love play. Apparently the poet is addressing a man of his heart, the wooing sounds more

12、 like a game play than anything real and sincere. The love here is too conditional to be genuine. StructureProposal (line1-2) Argument (line3-12) Conclusion (line13-14) Sonnet 29Sonnet 29 shows us the poet at his most insecure and troubled. He feels himself unlucky, disgraced, and jealous of those a

13、round him. What is causing the poets anguish one can only guess, but an examination of the circumstances surrounding his life at the time he wrote sonnet 29 could help us to understand his depression. In 1592, the London theatres closed due to a severe outbreak of the plague. Although it is possible

14、 that Shakespeare toured the outlying areas of London with acting companies like Pembrokes Men or Lord Stranges Men, it seems more likely that he left the theatre entirely during this time, possibly to work on his non-dramatic poetry. The closing of the playhouses made it hard for Shakespeare and ot

15、her actors of the day to earn a living. With plague and poverty threatening his life, it is only natural that he felt in disgrace with fortune. Moreover, in 1592 there came a scathing attack on Shakespeare by dramatist Robert Greene, who wrote in a deathbed diary: There is an upstart crow, beautifie

16、d with our feathers, that with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. Shakespeare was deeply disturbed by this assault, fe

17、eling disgraced in mens eyes as well as fortunes. The poet is so forlorn that even the passion for his profession as an actor seems to have died (8). But the sonnet ends with a positive affirmation that all is not lost - that the poets dear friend can compensate for the grief he feels. Paradise Lost

18、John Milton1. Introduction Long epic in 12 booksWritten in blank verse Based on Genesis创世纪in the Old Testament Dramatizes the Biblical account of humanitys banishment.2. ThemeMiltons aimed purpose: “justify the ways of God to man”（昭示天道对人的公正）Real purpose: challenge the restored monarch God tyrannical

19、, represents the kingSatan rebelling against monarchLove between Adam and Eve human pursuit for happiness, the spirit of Renaissance3. Writing featuresMilton style: Sonority洪亮, Eloquence雄辩, Majesty尊严, Grandeur壮美The blank verseLong and involved sentencesLatinate styleInversionAllusionWilliam BlakeThe

20、 LameThe poem is written in rhyming couplets with alternating iambic and anapestic feet. its one of the poems that collected in Songs of Innocence which express the poets delight in life, even in the face of sorrow and suffering.The poem is a child song, in the form of a question and answer. The fir

21、st stanza is rural and descriptive, while the second focuses on abstract spiritual matters and contains explanation and analogy. The childs question is both na?ve and profound. “who made thee” is a simple question, but the child is also tapping into the deep and timeless questions that all human bei

22、ngs have, about their own origins and the nature of creation. The situation of a child talking to an animal is a believable one. Yet by answering his own question the child coverts it into a rhetorical one, thus counteraction the initial spontaneous sense of the poem, and also reveals his confidence

23、 in his simple Christian faith and his innocent acceptance of its teachings.The lamb symbolizes Jesus, as Jesus has a traditional image as a lamb. The image of the child is also associated with Jesus: in the Gospel, Jesus displays a special concern for children. This poem, like many of the poems in

24、Songs of Innocence, accepts that Blake saw as the most positive aspects of conventional Christian belief. Robinson CrusoeDaniel Defoe1. Theme: to sing the praises of human laborto celebrate the strength of human rational will to conquer the natural environmentto beautify colonialism & Negro slavery2

25、. Plot: run away from home become a sailor a planter in Brazil to an uninhabited island because of shipwreck made a living there all by himself save a negro named Friday who became his servant back to England visit the remote island again and Friday was killed3. Robinson Crusoes characterization: ty

26、pical of the rising English bourgeois class, practical, diligent, a restless curiosity to know more about the world and a desire to prove individual power in the face of social and natural challenges; shrewd, care about money and good at managing; courageous and intelligent to overcome all kinds of

27、obstacles4. Style: journalistic truth with many vivid details, simple and plain sentence structure and language, first person point of view, natural order in narration, making the story intimate to the readers and become popular among lower classesRobinson is a grand hero in westerners eyes. He surv

28、ived in the deserted island and led a meaningful life. Robinson is a colonist, as can be seen from his selling the boy who helped save his life at the beginning of the novel.Robinson is a capitalist, as can be seen from his disposal of the gold coins he happens to find on the wrecked ship. Robinson is a man chauvinist, as can be seen from his comment on women.Robinson Crusoe is the first important English novel in the picaresque tradition. It is also the fundamental work in English island literature.Robert BurnsA Red,