英国文学教案Lecture11

1、英国文学史及作品选读 课程教案（第11讲）授课时间2017-2018学年第二学期05.07-05.12授课对象15-17级各专业选修生授课主题Chapter 8 Female Novelists in 19th-century England教学目的 与要求Help the students have a good understanding of Jane Austen and her Pride and Prejudice.Help the students know some information about The Bronte Sisters, especially Charlot

2、te Bronte.Help the students know some information about Gorge Eliot.教学重、难 点Jane AustenPride and PrejudiceCharlotte Bronte主要教学方 法Lecture; Discussion; Multi-media教学内容 的组织与 设计Detailed Teaching Points & Procedure1 Jane Austen (1775 1817)Bibliographical introductionJane Austen was born in 1775 at Stevent

3、on, Hampshire. She was the younger daugh and the seventh child of a family of eight children. Austen briefly attended boarding school in Oxford, Southampton and Reading.From the age of ten, her education was taken by her elder brothers and her father. Austen lived at uneventful life, passing the gre

4、at part of it at her birth place and at Kent.Her development as a novelist was slow and painstaking. She started writing novels a about twenty, but each of them underwent revision and none was published at once.Of her eight novels, only four appeared in her lifetime: Sense and Sensibility(1811), Pri

5、de and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815). Northanger Abbey and Persuasion came out after her death. And the other two novels were left unfinished. On 18 July, 1817, at the age of forty- two, she died in her sisterWinchester.Comments on Austen Jane Austen isa writer of the eight

6、eenth century; though she lives in the nineteenth century England. She holds the ideal of the landlord class in politics, religion and moral principles; and her works show clearly her firm belief in the predominance of reason over passion the sense of responsibility, good manners and clear-sightedte

7、rts arms1=,1=J, DDjudgment. And in style, she is a neoclassicism advocator, upholding those traditional ideas of order, reason, proportion and gracefulnesin novel writing. Austen s work has a very narrow literary field.The subject matter, the character range, the social setting, and plots are all re

8、stricted to the provincial life of the late 18th century England, concerning three or four landed gentry families with their routine life.With trenchant observation and in meticulous detail, she presents the quiet, day-to-day life of the upper-middle-class English. She is particularly preoccupied wi

9、th the relationship between men and women in love.Stories of love and marriage provide the major themes in all her novels, in which all characters are always playing an active part. In their pursuit of a marriage, they are usually categorized into three types according to their different attitudes:

10、those who would marry for material wealth and social position, those who would marry just for beauty and passion, and those who would marry for true love with a consideration of the partner shis economical and social status. In another word, Austen tries to say that it is wrong to marry just for mon

11、ey or for beauty, but it is also wrong to marry without it.Her novels showa wealth of humor, wit and delicate satire as can be seen from hercharacterization of Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.Her style is easy and effortless, a perfect example of what De Quincey (English essayist and critic, best-

12、known for his autobiography Confessions of an English Opium Eater一个英国鸦片服用者的自白)meant when he said that weshould have to turn to the prose of the cultivated gentlewoman for English uncorrupted by slang and cant of the world.Her novels are mostly concerned with young women s social growth and self-disc

13、overy. Nearly all of them explore a consistent theme that maturity is achieved through the loss of 川usions. To some extent, her novels belong to the tradition of Bildungsroman.1.3 Selected Reading: Pride and Prejudice(Discuss the questions in the Selected Readings.)There is little action in this nov

14、el. It is famous for its detailed study of everyday life and its wonderful characterization.Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are the two best-depicted characters in the novel. Mrs. Bennet isbeautiful, ignorant, and snobbish. Her only business is to marry her daughters to wealthy young men. Mr. Bennet is kind-hea

15、rted, humorous, but a bit pedantic. His sense of humor can be seen from the following excerpt from Chapter 20.In this book, three kinds of motivations of or attitudes towards marriage are presented for manifestation. First, there is marriage merely for fortune , money and social rank. This is to be

16、found in Miss Bingley s pursuit of Darcyady de Bourgh intention to arrange a marriage between her daughter and Darcy, and irChar10tte Lucasmerit aMr.Collins. The snobbery and vanity of the rich and the practicality of the poor gentry women are fully accounted for.The second is the tendency tonarry f

17、or beauty, attraction and passionregardless ofeconomic conditions ormerits. Thisaslove at firstsight” . Typical exampS are found in the marriages of the skepticaMr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet who has a beautiful face but an empty head and of their youngest daughter Lydia to the handsome, charming but mo

18、rally weak and penniless Wickham. The terrible aftermath of such marriage is only too obvious in the marriages of the two generations of the Bennets. Lastly comes the ideal marriage, which is a love match with considerations of the lover s personal merits and economic conditionsuch perfect happiness

19、 is to be found in the marriage of Darcy and Elizabeth and that of Mr. Bingley and Jane although the satisfaction of both the personal and economic conditions like this is really a bit too idealistic. What Jane Austen tries to say is that it is wrong to marry just for money or for beauty, but it is

20、also wrong to marry without consideration of economic conditions. Of the three types, she prefers the last one. And in the last type, she seems to give her particular preference to the marriage of Darcy and Elizabeth.2 The Bronte SistersLife and achievements(Refer to Textbook A New Concise History o

21、f English Literature P209-215.)Charlotte BronteCharlotte Brontes works include Professor; Jane Eyre, Villette, and the unfinished Emma.Her works are all about the struggle of an individual consciousness towards self-realization, about some lonely and neglected young woman with a fierce longing for l

22、ove, understanding and a full happy life. Brought up with strict orthodoxy, Charlotte would usually stick to the Puritanical code. She loves beauty of nature but despises worldly ambition and success. In her mind, mans life is composed of perpetual battle between sin and virtue, good and evil.Beside

23、s, she is a writer of realism combined with romanticism. On the one hand, shepresents a vivid realistic picture of the English society by exposing the cruelty, hypocrisy and other evils of the upper classes, and by showing the misery and suffering of the poor. On the other hand, her writings are mar

24、ked throughout by an intensity of vision and of passion. By writing from an individual point of view, by creating characters who are possessedof strong feelings, fiery passions and some extraordinary personalities, by restoring to some elements of horror, mystery and prophesy, she is able to recreat

25、e life in a wondrously romantic way.Jane Eyre is one of the most popular and important novels of the Victorian age. It isnoted for its sharp criticism of the existing society. At the same time, it is an intense moral fable. Jane, like, Mr. Rochester, has to undergo a series of physical and moral tests to grow up and achieve her final happiness. The success of the novel is also du to its introduction to the English novel the first governess heroine.8.3 Gorge Eliot(Refer to Textbook A New C