英国文学史常耀信重点知识

1、A Survey of British LiteratureI. Early and Medieval Literature (Unit 21. three conquests2. the medieval period: 476 A. Dthe 15th century3. Anglo-Saxon Period (449-1066:-oral traditions;-“Beowulf”: the national epic-Caedmon: the first known English religious poet4. Anglo-Norman Period (1066-15th cent

2、ury:-Popularity of romancens;-Chaucer: the father of English poetry;-Ballads developed;5. “Beowulf”-longest; an epic; features (Pagan and Christian coloring; kenning; metaphor6. Romance-Definition: It is a narrative verse of prose singing knightly adventures or other heroic deeds. Romances are popul

3、ar in the medieval period.-“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”7. Geoffrey Chaucer-the father of English literature/poetry;-The Canterbury Tales: a double fiction; the Wife of Baths prologue; The Wife of Baths Tale; heroic couplet8. Ballad:-Definition:A story told in song, usually in four line stanzas,

4、 with the 2nd and the 4th lines rhymed.-Robin Hood Ballads.9. Appreciation:-from “Beowulf”-from “The Canterbury Tales”II. The Renaissance (Unit 3, Unit 4, Unit 5,Unit 61.three discoveries2.Renaissance-a thristing curiosity for classical literature;-a keen interest in life and human activities.3.Huma

5、nism-individualism; the joy of the present life; reason; the affirmation of self-worth-Humanism emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life. Humanists voiced their beliefs that man was the center of the universe and man did not only have the right to enjoy the beaut

6、y of the present life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.4.Sonnet:-Definition: It is a poem of 14 lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure; it expresses a single idea or theme. (Thomas Wyatt first introduced it to England5.Shakespearean sonnet:-Defi

7、nition: A Shakespearean sonnet consists of three four-line stanzas (called quatrains and a final couplet composed in iambic pentameterwith the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.6.Blank verse: having a regular meter, but no rhyme. (Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey7.Spenserian stanza:-Definition: Each stanza

8、 contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single 'Alexandrine' line in iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme of these lines is "ababbcbcc."8.Appreciation:-Edmund Spenser and “The Faerie Queene”(written in blank verse-Thomas More and “Utopia”-Christo

9、pher Marlowes Dr. Faustus (Appreication; Tamburlaine;The Jew of Malta;The Passionate Shepherd to His Love;-Sonnet 18by Shakespeare (“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day”: time, mortality, immortality9.The first English essayist: Francis Bacon (“Of Studies”10.Elizabethan theatrethe golden age of En

10、glish drama;11.Shakespearean comedies: As You Like It; The Merchant of Venice; A MidsummerNights Dream; Much Ado About Nothing; Twelfth Night12.Shakespearean tragedies: Macbeth; King Lear; Hamlet; Othello13.Shakespearean comedies:-Features: clowns, servants, jesters, fools; dramatic irony; mistaken

11、identity, cross-dressing;-Patterns: The Green World Pattern (Sample: A Mid-summer Nights Dream19. Shakespearean tragedies:-Features: characters; structure; soliloquy; traveling; the role of fate/chance20. Appreciation:-“To be, or not to be” (from Hamlet (Hamlets dilemma-“Tommorrow, tomorrow,”(from M

12、acbeth (Mabeth is tired of the world; bored with life; metaphors:III. The Period of Revolution and Restoration (the 17th century (Unit 71.17th: the beginning of modern England;2.Cavalier poets:-Reflected the royalist values;-Themes: beauty, love, loyalty, morality;-Style: Direct, short, frankly erot

13、ic-Motto:“Carpe Diem”“Seize the Day”-Robert Herrick, Ben Johnson, Rochard Lovelace, etc;-Appreciation: “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” (Herrick; “to seize the day”3.Metaphysical school:-the founder of the Metaphysical school: John Donne-conceit: an extended metahpor involving dramatic contras

14、ts or far-fetched comparisons;-John Donnes love poems: “The Flea”;“Valediction: Forbidden Mourning”(Appreciation-Andrew Marvell: “To His Coy Mistress”4.Puritan writers:-John Bunyanh: “The Pilgrims Progress” (a religious allegory-John Milton: “Paradise Lost” (based on The Old Testament (Paradise Rega

15、ined”;“Samson Agonistes” (AppreciationIV. The 18th Century LiteratureThe Age of Enlightenment (Unit 8 and Unit 91.18th century: the golden age of English novels2.Enlightenment-an intellectual movement in Europe in the 18th century;-Reason as the guiding principle for thinking and action;-the belief

16、in eternal truth, eternal justice, natural equality ;-a continuation of Renaissance;(Belief in the possibility of human perfection through education.3.Neo-classicism:-A revival of classical standards of order, harmony, balance, simplicity and restrained emotion in literature in the 18th century.-Ale

17、xander Pope4.“Essay on Criticism” by Alexander Pope-a manifesto of neoclassicism;-Appreciation: “A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing”(learning as mountain climbing; inadequate learning may impair a balanced apprecation of a poem.5.Realistic novels:-Jonathan Swift; Gullivers Travels; A Modest Prop

18、osal; A Tale of a Tub; The Battle of the Books;-Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe;(Appreciation-Henry Fielding: Tom Jones; Joseph Andrews; Jonathan Wilde the Great;6. Sentimentalism-the middle and later decades of the 18th c.;-definition: passion over reason, personal instincts over social duties; the r

19、eturn of the patriarchal times; lamenting over the destructive effects of industrialization-Oliver Goldsmith, Thomas Gray, etc.7. The Graveyard School-subjects, style;-Thomas Grays “Elegy written in a country churchyard”: structure; theme; (Appreciation8. Pre-romanticism:-the latter half ot the 18th

20、 century;-Robert Burns: “Auld Lyne Syne”; “A Red, Red Rose”-William Blake: “Songs of Innocence” “Songs of Experience”; “The Lamb”, “The Tyger”;9. Richard Bringsley Sheridan: The School for Scandal; The Rivals;10. Oliver Goldsmith: The Vicar of Wakefield; She Stoops to ConquerV. The Romantic Period (

21、1789-1832 (Unit 10 , Unit 11 and Unit 121.The Romantic period: an age of poetry2.Romanticism:-Manifesto of British Romanticism: Lyrical Ballads: co-published by Wordsworth and Coleridge-Features: individual as the center of all life and experience; from the outer world to the inner world; Passion; i

22、magination ; Nature; pastoral; past ; Individual freedom;simple and spontaneous expression; symbolic presentations; fantastic elements;3.English Romantic Poets-Lake Poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey-The Satanic Poets: Byron; Shelley; Keats-Lyrical Ballads: the manifesto of the English Movement;4

23、.William Wordsworth-“a worshipper of nature”;-nature and country poems: “I Wanderered Lonely as a Cloud”; “The World is Too Much with us”; “Tintern Abbey”; “To a Butterfly” “The Solitary Reaper”; “Lucy Poems”;-theories on poetry; “Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its o

24、rgin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”-W ordsworths view of nature: critique of materialism; a source of mental cleanliness;the guardian of the heart; the beneficial influence of nature;-Appreciation: “I Wanderered Lonely as a Cloud”; “Tintern Abbey”;5.Samuel Taylor Coleridge:“The Rime of th

25、e Ancient Mariner”6. George Gordon Byron:-Byronic Hero: an idealised but flawed anti-hero created by Byron; love of freedom, hatred of tyranny, passionate, rebellious, chivalrous, arrogant, cynical, individualistic, isolated, single-handedly, melancholy-major poems by Byron: “Childe Harolds Pilgrima

26、ge” (Byronic Hero; “Don Juan”;“She Walks in Beauty”; “The Isles of Greece” (Appreciation7. Percy Bysshe Shelley:-Platos influence; pantheism-“Prometheus Unbound”; “Ode to the West Wind”“Prometheus Unbound”; “Ode toa Skylark”; “Queen Mab”; “A Defense of Poetry”;- Appreciation : “Ode to the West Wind”

27、: themes of death and rebirth; destruction and regeneration;8. John Keats- “Ode on a Grecian Urn”; “Ode to a Nightingale”; “Ode to Autumn”; “Endymion”; “Isabella”-Appreciation: “Ode on a Greican Urn”: the powers and limitations of artVI The Victorian Literature (1832-1901 (Unit 13 and Unit 141. Auth

28、ors and Works-William Makepeace Thackray: Vanity Fair-George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss; Silas Marner; Middlemarch; Adam Bede-Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice: Emma; Sense and Sensibility; Mansfield Park-Thomas Hardy: Far from the Madding Crowd; Tess of the DUrbervilles; Jude the Obscure; The Retu

29、rn of the Native; The Mayor of Casterbridge-Charlotte Bronte:Jane Eyre; Shirley;-Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights-Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest; A Woman of No Importance-Walter Scott: Ivanhoe;1.Bronte Sisters and the Female Gothic Tradition:-Female Gothic refers to the tradition of Got

30、hic writing by women . . . that represents the female experience within domesticity as one of imprisonment, claustrophobia and terror.2.Appreciation:-Jane Eyre by Charolotte Bronte;-Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte;3.Naturalism-Definition:Heredity and social environment as the sha ping forces of on

31、es character;to determine "scientifically" the underlying forces influencing the actions of the characters. pessimism; fatalism; detached perspective;-Appreciation: “Tess of DUrbervilles” by Thomas Hardy4.Aestheticism-Oscar Wilde4. Charles Dickens:-Oliver Twist; David Copperfield; A Tale o

32、f Two Cities; Hard Times; Great Expectations; The Pickwick Papers; Little Dorrit5. Poets-Alfred Tennyson: “Break, Break, Break”-Robert Browning: “My Last Duchess” (dramatic monologue-Mathew Arnold: “Dover Beach” (Appreciation6.Thomas Hardy-“Shakespeare of the English novel.”-novels of character and

33、environment: Far from the Madding Crowd; Tess of the DUrbervilles; Jude the Obscure-fatalism;-naturalistic tendencies;7. George Bernard Shaw-the greatest Irish dramatist in the 20th c.-a member of the Fabian society; reformist ideas-Plays: Mrs. Warrens Profession; Major Barbara8. John Galsworthy-The

34、 Forsyte Saga: The Man of Property, In Chancery, and To Let.-Analysis: The Man of PropertyVII. The Modern Period (Unit 151. Modernism:-theorectical basis;-innovative forms;-thematic concerns;3. Steam of consciousness novel:-Bergsons theory of ps ychological time;-Definition:The style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a characters thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them.-Virginia Woolf and James Joyce4. Virginia Woolf-“Modern Fiction” (attacked th