刘炳善英国文学简史复习要点

1、刘炳善英国文学简史复习要点Part One: Early and Medieval English Literature1. Beowulf: national epic of the English people; Denmark（丹麦） story; alliteration, metaphors and understatements （此处可能会有填空，选择等小题）2. Romance （名词解释）3. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”: a famous roman about King Arthurs story4. Ballad（名词解释）5.

2、Character of Robin Hood6. Geoffrey Chaucer: 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)Part Two: The English Renaissance8. The Authorized Version of Engli

3、sh Bible and its significance（填空选择）9. Renaissance（名词解释）10.Thomas MoreUtopia11. Sonnet（名词解释）12. Blank verse（名词解释）13. Edmund Spenser “The Faerie Queene”; Amoretti (collection of his sonnets) Spenserian Stanza（名词解释）14. Francis Bacon “essays” esp. “Of Studies”（推荐阅读，学习写正式语体的英文文章的好参照，本文用词正式优雅，多排比句和长句，语言造诣

4、非常高，里面很多话都可以引用做格言警句，非常值得一读）15. Christopher Marlowe (“Doctor Faustus” and his achievements)16. William Shakespeare可以说是英国文学史中最重要的作家，一定要看熟了。四大喜剧，四大悲剧比较重要，此外就是罗密欧与朱立叶了，这些剧的主题，背景，情节，人物形象都要熟悉，当然他最重要的喜剧作品是Hamlet这是肯定的。他的sonnet也很重要，最重要属sonnet18。（其戏剧中著名对白和几首有名的十四行诗可能会出选读）17. Ben Jonson个别戏剧的名字要能和人对上号，如Every Ma

5、n in His Humor, 二外好像在这里出过一道匹配题，但是不用看太具体。Part Three: The Period of the English Bourgeois Revolution18. John Milton 三大史诗非常重要，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，具体情节在课本124页，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。另外

6、129页到130页brief summary中5条要看。19. John BunyanThe Pilgrims Progress20. Founder of the Metaphysical schoolJohn Donne; features of the school: philosophical poems, complex rhythms and strange images21. Andrew Marvell 此人不重要，但他有一首名诗To His Coy Mistress22. John Dryden“All for Love”(a tragedy); “An Essay of D

7、ramatic Poesy”(Literary criticism); forerunner of the Classicism in Britain Part Four: The Eighteen Century23. Enlightenment（名词解释）24. Classicism（名词解释）25. Richard Steele“The Tatler”26. Joseph Addison“The Spectator”这个比上面那个要重要，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，这一部分要仔细读。27. Steels and Addi

8、sons styles and their contributions28. Alexander Pope: “Essay on Criticism”, “Essay on Man”, “The Rape of Lock”, “The Dunciad”; his workmanship (features) and limitations29. Jonathan Swift: “Gullivers Travels”此书非常重要，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; “The Drapiers Letters” and “A Modest P

9、roposal”, 后一篇比较重要，要注意后一篇作者用的irony也就是反讽手法。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”, 当然是Robinson Crusoe比较重要，剧情要清楚，179页这一节最后一段，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

10、Defoe的style和feature，另外Defoe是forerunner of English realistic novel。32. Samuel Richardson“Pamela” (first epistolary novel), “Clarissa Harlowe”, “Sir Charles Grandison”33. Henry Fielding: “Joseph Andrews”, “Jonathan Wild”, “Tom Jones”第一个和第三个比较重要，需要仔细看。他是一个比较重要的作家，200页founder of the English Realistic no

11、vel部分要看，201页第3点features也要看，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

12、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. Sentimentalis

13、m（名词解释）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 t

14、he 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 se

15、cond part of the century and also influenced some American poets.42. In the latter half of the 18th century, Pre-Romanticism; representative: William Blake and Robert Burns.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

16、所了解，特别是Songs of Innocence 和 Songs of Experience, 这两本集子的contrast一定要注意，另外Blake的写作特点也要注意，比如语言的简单明了，神秘主义氛围等。45. Robert Burns伟大的苏格兰民族诗人, A Red Red Rose, Scots Wha Hae, Auld Lang Syne等名诗，写作特点: Scottish dialect; a poet of peasant and Scottish people; plain language; influence from Scottish folk songs and b

17、allads; musical quality of his poems.Part Five: Romanticism in England46. Romanticism（名词解释）要对浪漫主义兴起的时间，根源，主要特点，主要代表作家都有所了解。47.William Wordsworth要知道他的 “Lyrical Ballads”前言是英国浪漫主义时期开始的标志，也是宣言。Lake Poets（名词解释）。他诗歌的主要两类题材：nature and common peoples lives。写过的著名作品：I wandered lonely as a cloud; To the cuckoo

18、; Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey; The solitary reaper; We are seven 等等。48. 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要知道大致内容，另外此诗用Spenserian Stanza写成；Don Juan要知

19、道大致内容，及其诗体attava rima。50. Percy Bysshe Shelley著名作品：Queen Mab; The Revolt of Islam; Prometheus Unbound（lyrical drama，要知道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; One word is too often profaned等等。51. John Keats著名作品：Ode to Autumn; Ode to a Nightingale; Ode on a Grecian

20、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 literatu

21、re; famous novels: Rob Roy, Ivanhoe; features of his novels (P322)Part Six: English Critical Realism54. Critical Realism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。55. Charles Dickens主要作品: The Pickwick Papers (first novel); Oliver Twist; Dombey and Son; David Copperfield; A Tales of Two Cities等等，对这些主要作品除了第一部以

22、外剩下的要对情节，主要人物形象，主题及其意义有所了解，另外要知道狄更斯的小说的特色（P362-P363）。 56. William Makepeace Thackeray主要作品即Vanity Fair要知道这个题目出自John Bunyan的The Pilgrims Progress，另外小说的副标题 “A novel without a hero”的意思，小说的情节，主题，人物形象都要了解。57. Jane Austen主要作品：Pride and Prejudice其它5部小说在书上372页，知道名字即可，对于傲慢与偏见课本上介绍的不详细，可以找其它文学史书籍来简单看一下它的情节和主要人

23、物。Austen的写作特点：thin plot, mostly everyday life of simle country society; good at writing young girls; modest satire; witty dialogues。58. Charlotte Bronte主要作品Jane Eyre，要知道其情节和意义，另外简爱的人物形象也比较重要。59. Emily Bronte主要作品Wuthering Heights，情节，人物形象及意义。勃朗特姐妹的小说虽然写作在批判现实主义时期，但其作品有明显的浪漫主义特色，比如包含的一些supernatural ele

24、ments，特别体现在呼啸山庄中。60. Mrs. Gaskell, one of the first English writers to describe the class struggle in a novel, famous novel: “Mary Barton”.不需要看太详细。61. George Eliot主要作品: Adam Bede, The Mill on Floss, Silas Marner简单了解即可。61. George Eliot主要作品: Adam Bede, The Mill on Floss, Silas Marner简单了解即可。Part Seven:

25、 Prose-writers and poets of the mid and later 19th century62. Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold简单了解即可。63. Alfred Tennyson主要作品: In Memoriam, The Idylls of the Kings；有名的短诗Break, Break, Break; Crossing the bar等，此人政治态度保守，作品追求形式上的完美，富于音乐性和色彩。具体写作特色参看P410-P411。64. Robert Browning introduced dram

26、atic monologue to poetry. (P416) His famous poems: “Home-thoughts from abroad” etc. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Sonnets from the Portuguese”.65. 简单了解William Morris主要作品，写作特点，及其意义等。66. Aestheticism唯美主义（名词解释）Oscar Wilde主要作品，写作特点及其意义简要了解。Part Eight: Twentieth Century English Literature68. John Galswort

27、hy: 主要作品 “The Forsyte Saga”注意这是两个trilogy构成的，可不是一本小说，其中比较重要的是 “The Man of Property”就是书上介绍的那一部，要知道此部小说主人公的名字，以及这个主人公的性格，和小说主题。书上介绍这个作家的部分的最后一段算是这个作家的写作特点。这位作家在20世纪声名是逐渐下降的，但是还是有些学校会考到他。 69. The Irish Dramatic Movement（名词解释） Irish Renaissance（名词解释）70. George Bernard Shaw主要作品Mrs Warrens Profession和Major

28、 Babara，如果看的是其它版本的英国文学史，可能会选其它的作品，对他作品的主要人物，情节，主题和意义要了解，他是比较重要的一个作家。71. William Butler Yeats几首有名的诗歌如 “Sailing to Byzantium” , “The Second Coming”, “The Wild Swan at Coole”要知道，另外他诗歌的特点如symbolism, mysticism, modernists influence等等。72. T. S. Eliot比较重要，特别是他的The Waste Land要知道包括哪几个部分，大概是什么情节，有什么象征意义，主题是什么

29、，有什么写作特点。另外他的其它作品也有某些学校考到过，也要知道，比如他的诗剧Murder in the Cathedral等等，要知道大概的情节。另外他著名的文章Tradition and the Individual Talent被认为是manifesto of modernist poetry.73. Modernist fiction put emphasis on the description of the characters psychological activities under the influence of Austrian doctor Sigmund Freuds

30、 theories.74. D. H. Lawrence重点作品Sons and Lovers这个作品明显受到弗洛伊德影响，特别是其中体现的Oedipus complex，对其人物，主题要有了解；The Rainbow及其续篇Women in Love要有简单了解，特别是对其主题。Lady Chatterleys Lover简单了解即可。492页第三段对Lawrence的思想做了个简单总结，这一段中指出的劳伦斯的思想特点以及局限性要了解。75. Stream-of-consciousness（名词解释）76. James Joyce其它作品简单了解，但Ulysses非常重要，需要知道题目来源，

31、题目的含义，小说的主人公和情节，以及主题。77. Virginia Woolf重要的意识流作家，主要作品要知道在496页第二段，书上主要介绍的是To the Lighthouse，其实她的其它几部作品特别是Mrs. Dalloway也比较出名，需要了解一下。1、Epic（叙事诗） :An epic is a long narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Cl

32、assical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form. Nonetheless, epics have been written down at last since Homer. Epics have nine characteristics: opens in media res; vast setting covering many nations, the world or the universe; begins with an invocation to a muse; starts with a statement of the

33、 theme; the use of epithets; includes long lists; features long and formal speeches; shows divine intervention on human affairs; “star” heroes that embody the values of the civilization. Beowulf, the only organic whole poem of the old English period, is an epic of well over 3000 lines.2、Blank verse:

34、 Blank verse was first introduced by the Earl of Surrey in his translations of Books 2 and 4 of Virgils The Aeneid. It consists of lines of iambic(抑扬格) pentameter (five-stress iambic verse) which are unrhymedhence the term “blank”. Of all English metrical（韵律的） forms it is closest to the natural rhyt

35、hms of English speech, and at the same time flexible and adaptive to diverse levels of discourse; as a result it has been more frequently and variously used than any other type of versification（诗律）. It became the standard meter for Elizabethan and later poetic drama; a free form of blank verse is st

36、ill the medium in twentieth-century verse plays.3、Modernism: A general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in literature of the early 20th century, including Symbolism, Futurism, Expressionism, Imagism, Vorticism, Dada, and Surrealism, along with the

37、 innovations of the unaffiliated（独立的） writers. Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. It is a reaction against realism. It rejects rationalism（理性主义） which is the theoretical base of realism; it excludes from its major concern the external

38、, objective, material world, which is the only creative source of realism; by advocating a free experimentation on new forms and new techniques in literary creation, it casts away almost all the traditional elements in literature such as story, plot, character, chronological narration, etc., which a

39、re essential to realism. As a result, the works created by the modernist writers can often be labeled as anti-novel, anti-poetry or anti-drama. 4、Byronic hero: A stereotyped character created by Byron. This kind of hero is usually a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. With immense superi

40、ority in his passions and powers, he would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt（腐败） society. He would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible en

41、ergies. The conflict is usually one of rebellious individuals against outworn social systems and conventions.5、Gothic novel: An alternative term is Gothic romance. It is a story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery（修道院）. Following the appearance of Horace Walpoles

42、The Castle of Otranto (1764), the Gothic novel flourished in Britain from the 1790s to the 1820s, dominated by Ann Radcliffe, whose The Mysteries of Udolpho had many imitators.6、Utilitarianism（实用主义）: this was a hedonistic kind of philosophy, embracing Utility, or “the greatest happiness for the grea

43、test number” as the sanction of morality, and spreading the belief that everyone was the best judge of his own interest. Jeremy Bentham and James Mill set the tone, and John Stuart Mill humanized it sufficiently to ensure its dissemination in the country. As a practical movement of philosophy, it ad

44、vocated a few things which met the need of the age. One of these was its emphasis on the importance of representative government, universal education, trade unions, and philanthropy. It encouraged individual growth and social reform, and supported democratic politics and material progress. Utilitari

45、anism was on the whole the reflection of the spirit of Victorian middle class liberalism（自由主义）, or philistinism（实利主义） as Matthew Arnold called it. And it provoked a reaction from the major authors of the period such Tennyson and Dickens.7、Humanism: Broadly, this term suggests any attitude, which ten

46、ds to exalt the human element or stress the importance of human interests, as opposed to the supernatural, divine elementsor as opposed to the grosser, animal elements. In a more specific sense, humanism suggests a devotion to those studies supposed to promote human culture most effectivelyin partic

47、ular, those dealing with the life, thought, language and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. In literary history the most important use of the term is to designate the revival of classical culture that accompanied the Renaissance.8、Bildungsroman: This is a term more or less synonymous with Erzieh

48、ungsromanliterally an “upbringing” or “education” novel. Widely used by German critics, it refers to a novel which is an account of the youthful development of a hero or heroine (usually the former). It describes the processes by which maturity is achieved through the various ups and downs of life.9

49、、Postmodernism: A term referring to certain radically experimental works of literature and art produced after World War II. Post-modernism is distinguished from modernism, which generally refers to the revolution in art and literature that occurred during the period 1910-1930, particularly following

50、 the disillusioning experience of World War I. Much of post-modernist writing reveals and highlights the alienation of individuals and the meaninglessness of human existence. Postmodernists break away from traditions through experimentation with new literary devices, forms, and styles.10、Neoclassici

51、sm: A style of western literature that flourished from the mid-seventeenth century until the end of the eighteenth century and the rise of Romanticism. The neoclassicists looked to the great classical writers for inspiration and guidance, considering them to have mastered the noblest literary forms,

52、 tragic epic and the epic. Neoclassical writers shared several beliefs. They believed that literature should both instruct and delight, and the proper subject of art was humanity. Neoclassicism stressed rules, reason, harmony, balance, restraint, politeness, order, peace, realism, and form-above all

53、, an appeal to the intellect rather than emotion. The Restoration in 1660 marked the beginning of the neoclassical period in England, whose writers included John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, ect.2.      Alliteration: repetition of the initial letter or first sound

54、 of several words, marking the stressed syllables in a line of poetry or prose. A simple example is the phrase “through thick and thin “. The device is used to emphasize meaning and thus can be effectively employed in oratory. Alliteration is a characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry, notably by the ep

55、ic Beowulf; it is still used, with modifications, by modern poets.3.      Ballad: A ballad is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas, with the second and forth lines rhymed, which are known as the ballad stanza, rhyming abcb. When it was chanted by ballad-singers, t

56、he audience joined in a refrain which usually followed each stanza.4.      Sonnet: A sonnet is a 14-line poem in iambic pentameter with a carefully patterned rhyme scheme.5.      Metaphysical poetry: is characterized by verbal wit and excess, ingenio

57、us structure, irregular meter, colloquial language, elaborate imagery, and a drawing together of dissimilar.6.      Romance: it was a long composition, sometimes sin verse, sometimes in prose, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero. The central character of roman

58、ce was knight and the reasons for their adventures could be love, religious faith, or the mere desire for excitement.7.      Renaissance: in essence, was a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of conservatism in feudalist Europe a