英国文学史 个人整理.docx
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The Medieval English Literature
2.1 A Brief Survey
In the second half of the 14 th century, English literature starts to flourish In comparison with Old English literature, Middle
English literature deals with a wider range of subjects, is uttered by more voices and is presented in a greater diversity of styles,
tones and genres, including popular folk.The Middle English literature strongly reflects the principles of the medieval Christian
doctrines, mainly on the issue of personal salvation and the humanity of Christ and the imagery of human passion.The lack of
originality in Middle English literature is partly due to the Christian teaching.
2.2 Medieval Romance
Romance uses narrative verse or prose to sing knightly adventures or other heroic deeds.Characterization is standardized, while
the structure is loose and episodic, the language is simple and straightforwar
D.English romance mainly deals three major
subjects:
the “Matter of France,”the “Matter of Rome,”and the “Matter of Britain”
The “Matter of France”meant a collection of tales about Chalemagne, the mighty ruler of France and neighboring countries
around the year
A.
D.800, and his peers headed by Roland, and their wars against the Saracens.
The “Matter of Rome”covered everything that had come down from the ancient Romans, and from the Greeks also.This
included Roman history and poetry, also included Greek mythology.
The “Matter of Britain”meant the legendary history of Britain, where King Arthur came in.
Excerpts from The General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales
Author:
Geoffrey Chaucer.
Framework of The Canterbury Tales:
Chaucer used pilgrimage as a framework for stories in Canterbury Tales.The work consists of three parts:
The General
Prologue; 24 tales, two of which unfinished; and separate prologues to each tale.
General Prologue:
composed of a series of sketches differing widely in length and method, blending the individual and the
typical in varying degrees.The Purposes, 5 “To”, P65.The pilgrims are a microcosm of 14 th century English society.The tone
of the whole work is grateful acceptance of life.
In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer employed the heroic couplet with true ease and charm for the first time in the history of
English literature.
Renaissance P91
Renaissance , regarded as the result of a new emphasis upon the newly discovered Greek and Poman classics and the
combination or compromise of a newly interpreted Christian tradition and an ardently admired tradition of pagan classical
culture, is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of old feudalist
ideas in medieval Europe and introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, and to lift the restriction
in all areas placed by the Roman Catholic Church authorities.
In the medieval society, people as individuals were largely subordinated to the feudalist rule without any freedom and
independence; and in medieval theology, people’s relationships to the world about them were largely reduced to a problem of
adapting or avoiding the circumstanced of earthly life in and effort to prepare their souls for a future life in the next worl
D.By
emphasizing thee dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, humanists of the Renaissance voiced their
beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of this life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to prepare
himself and to perform wonders.
The Sixteenth-Century poetry
Following the main tradition of antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Renaissance poetry was addressed to Reason as a universal
moral guide; it was composed on the assumption that the function of poetry was to teach by delighting-to “interpret nature”and
to influence men’s actions.Generally, Renaissance poets would place epic at the pinnacle of their genre system, and pastoral
poems at the base.
Main categories:
pastoral poetry; poems in the satirical mode, poems in the lyric mode, including the sonnet and the songs of
Elizabeth’s reign; poems in tragic mode; poems in mythological-erotic mode; poems in heroic mode.A most important lyric
genre in the 16 th century was the sonnet, its conventions were established by Petrarch.Sonnet has come to identified by its
formal structure, a14-line poem in iambic pentameter, in three principal rhyming patterns, the so-called English sonnet is
divided structurally into three quatrains and a couplet.
Edmund Spenser:
“the poets’poet”
Recognized by his contemporaries as the foremost poet of his time, Spenser was not only a master of meter and language but a
profound moral poet as well.
The Shepheardes Calendar consists of 12 pastoral poems or eclogues, one for each moth of the year.The themes are generally
rural life, nature, love in the fields.
Amoretti is a series of 88 sonnets, describing the course of the poet’s wooing of Elizabeth Boyle, his wife.Spenser adopted his
own