专八英美文学辅导课件

1、 English LiteratureForTEM8 by Liu Fuli (刘富丽)Syllabus for TEM8(2004)III. General Knowledge (10%, 10 min.)a. A general knowledge of the history, geography, culture (traditional & current)b. Rudiments of English & American Literature (TEM8 2014-1998)c. Rudiments of Linguistics The General Characteristi

2、cs English literature has a long history, rich legacy and great influence on the literature of the world. Its origin can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon Period with the production of the famous Beowulf and covers a history of around 1500 years. The Development of English Literature From the academ

3、ic angle, English literature can be divided into seven periods: 1.Early and Medieval English literature; 2.The English Renaissance; 3.The 17th Century The Period of Revolution and Restoration; 4.The 18th Century The Age of Enlightenment 5. The Romantic Period; 6. The Victorian Age; 7. The 20th Centu

4、ry Literature Modernism and Post-Modernism. 1. Early and Medieval English literature (5th C.-1485) 1) Anglo-Saxon Period (449-1066) The main literary contribution of this period is the Epic, and its masterpiece is the national epic The Song of Beowulf, which is a long poem of 3182 lines about the de

5、eds of the Teutonic (条顿)hero Beowulf in the 6th century. It is the oldest poem on the English language and the oldest surviving epic in Anglo-Saxon literature. Epic: A long narrative poem on the adventures and great deeds of heroes. 2.The English Renaissance The 16th century in England was a period

6、of the breaking up of feudal relations and the establishing of the foundations of capitalism. The result is an intellectual movement(思想运动) known as the Renaissance. It originated in the 14th c. in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe in the 15th c., later it culminated to the height in the 16th c.

7、 The key-note of Renaissance is humanism and the greatest humanist is Thomas More, the author of Utopia. The representatives in literature are Shakespeare and Bacon. The former has the greatest contribution in drama and sonnets while the latters essays are condensed and witty. Note: Geoffrey Chaucer

8、 (the father of English poetry, Canterbury Tales) （刘炳善，1990：32）3.The 17th CenturyThe Period of Revolution and Restoration The 17th-century literature was greatly influenced by the bourgeoisie revolution against monarchy. The politically tempestuous period made the literature one of confusion in the

9、Puritan Age. The greatest representatives of this period are the “Three Johns”: John Milton, John Donne , the representative of the Metaphysical School and John Bunyan, a great prose writer. 5. The Romantic Period (17981832) Romanticism in England came into being in the latter half of the 18th centu

10、ry with William Blake and Robert Burns representing the spirit of what is usually called Pre-Romanticism. With the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798, Romanticism began to bloom in the history of English literature. The trend ended at the death of Scott in 1832. This

11、is an age of poetry. 6. The Victorian Age Realism in England (1830s1918) Literary Current: The (Critical) Realism of the 19th century flourished in the forties and fifties. The task of the realists is criticizing capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint. In the fifties and sixties the realisti

12、c novel enters a stage of decline. The 2nd half of the 19th century in England produced a number of outstanding poets such as Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning etc. The greatest of them was Browning. 7.The 20th C. Literature Modernism(1918-45) and Post-Modernism(1945- ) The reaction against the value

13、s of Victorian society and the theme of its literature that began in the 1890s, was manifested in the early decades of the 20th century by drastic changes in form, vocabulary and image. The movement has come to be called Modernism. The most important period for Modernism was between 1910 and 1925. A

14、fter WWII , it faded into what has been termed Post-Modernism (Contemporary Literature ). Angelina Jolie 当代英国最重要的作家之一，被誉为继伍尔夫之后最伟大的女性作家。1962年，她推出金色笔记奠定她在西方文坛的地位。后几次获得诺贝尔文学奖提名以及多个世界级文学奖项，其风格独特多变，思想深邃，观点犀利，见解新颖，极具挑战性。 瑞典皇家科学院诺贝尔奖委员会宣布将2007年度诺贝尔文学奖授予这位伟大的英国女小说家。多丽丝莱辛(Doris Lessing, 1919- ),Classicism A

15、 movement or tendency in art, literature, or music that reflects the principles manifested in the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Classicism emphasizes the traditional and the universal, and places value on reason, clarity, balance and order. Classicism, with its concern for reason and universal the

16、mes, is traditionally opposed to Romanticism, which is concerned with emotions and personal themes.Neoclassicism A revival in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of classical standards of reason, order, balance and harmony in literature. John Dryden and Alexander Pope were major exponents of th

17、e Neoclassical school. In the 1st part of the century, Jonathan Swift was the supreme master of the current. Sentimentalism The middle of the 18th century in England sees the inception of a new literary current sentimentalism, which came into being as a bitter discontent in social reality on the par

18、t of certain enlighteners who found the power of reason to be insufficient in dealing with social injustices, and therefore, appealed to sentiment as a means of achieving happiness and justice. The term is used in two senses in the study of literature. The first is overindulgence in emotion, especia

19、lly the conscious effort to induce emotion in order to analyze or enjoy it and the failure to restrain or evaluate emotion; the second is the optimistic overemphasis of the goodness of humanity. Sentimentalism is concerned with the development of primitivism (尚古主义,原始风格). In the first sense given abo

20、ve, sentimentalism is found in the melancholy verse of the Graveyard School. The Graveyard School(墓园派): A group of 18th-century poets, and among them are Thomas Gray, Robert Blair, Thomas Parnell, and Edward Young, who wrote on funeral subjects. William BlakeOne of the forerunners of the modern nove

21、lDaniel DefoeGeneral Knowledge (2004)35. Of all the 18th century novelists, _ was the first to set out, both in theory and practice , to write specifically a “comic epic in prose”, and the first to give the modern novel its structure and style. A. Daniel Defoe B. Samuel Johnson C. Oliver Goldsmith D

22、. Henry Fielding American LiteratureII. The Age of Reason and Revolution In the 18th century, although Puritan thoughts were held strong, the emphasis began to shift from religion to politics. The Americans wanted to seek for independence from Britain. Writers: The War of Independence(17761783)1. Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography(13 virtues) Poor Richards Almanac2. Thomas Paine: Common Sense The American Crisis Rights of Man The Age of Reason The Civil War (18611865) divided the 19th century American