自考英美文学选读00604.docx

1、自考英美文学选读00604 自考英美文学选读1（00604）汉语言文学专业应用必背单元Chapter 1 The Renaissance Period1. 文艺复兴的主要作家及其作品1) Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queene2) Christopher Marlowe: Dr Faustus Tamburlaine3) William Shakespeare: Henry IV; The Merchant of Venice; Hamlet; Othello; King Lear; Macbeth; Romeo and Juliet.4) John Donne:

2、The Songs and Sonnets; The Sun Rising; Death, Be Not Proud5) John Milton: Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained; Samson Agonisttes2. 文艺复兴The Renaissance is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to

3、 introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church form the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.3. 人文主义Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique a

4、uthors and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on such a conception that man is the measure of all things. Thus, by emphasizing the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life,

5、they 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 perform wonders.4. 玄学诗The term “metaphysical poetry” is commonly used to name the work of the 17th-century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donn

6、e. With a rebellious spirit the metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. The diction is simple as compared with that of the Elizabethan or the Neoclassic periods, and echoes the words and cadences of common speech. The imagery is drawn from

7、 the actual life. The form is frequently that of an argument with the poets beloved, with God, or with himself.5. 莎士比亚的诗歌的主题、意向Shakespeare, as a humanist of the time, is against religious persecution and racial discrimination, against social inequality and the corrupting influence of gold and money.

8、 In his plays, he does not hesitate to describe the cruelty and anti-natural character of the civil wars, but he did not go all the way against the feudal rule. Shakespeare is against religious persecution and racial discrimination, against social inequality and the corrupting influence of gold and

9、money.Shakespeare has accepted the Renaissance views on literature. He holds that literature should be a combination of beauty, kindness and truth, and should reflect nature and reality.A. Shakespeares views on literature:Shakespeare has accepted the Renaissance views on literature. He holds that li

10、terature should be a combination of beauty, kindness and truth, and should reflect nature and reality. Shakespeare also states that literary works which have truly reflected nature and reality can reach immortality.B. The characteristics of Shakespeares characters:Shakespeares major characters are n

11、either merely individual ones nor type ones; they are individuals representing certain types. Each character has his or her own personalities; meanwhile, they may share features with others.C. The characteristics of Shakespeares plot:Shakespeares plays are well-known for their adroit plot constructi

12、on. Shakespeare seldom invents his own plots; instead, he borrows them from some old plays or storybooks, or from ancient Greek and Roman sources.D. The characteristics of Shakespeares language:It is necessary to study the subtlest of his instruments the language. Shakespeare can write skillfully in

13、 different poetic form, like the sonnet, the blank verse, and the rhymed couplet. He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary and idiom. His coinage of new words and distortion of the meaning of the old ones also create striking effects on the reader.3. 莎士比亚的四大悲剧：Shakespeares greatest tragedies are: Haml

14、et, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. They have some characteristics in common. Each portrays some noble hero, who faces the injustice of human life and is caught in a difficult situation and whose fate is closely connected with the fate of the whole action. Each hero has his weakness of nature. With

15、 the concentration on the tragic hero, we see the sharp conflicts between the individual and the evil force in the society, which shows that Shakespeare is a great realist in the true sense. Hamlet the melancholic scholar; Othellos inner weakness is made use of by the outside evil force; the old Kin

16、g Lear who is unwilling to totally give up his power; and Macbeths lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to incessant crimes.4. 邓恩诗歌的主题、意向. Love is the basic theme. Donne holds that the nature of love is the union of soul and body. The perfection of human lovers will not be made with so

17、uls alone. This thought is quite contrary to the medieval love idea which merely put stress on spiritual love. Donnes interest lies in dramatizing and illustrating the state of being in love.5.戏剧威尼斯商人的主题和主要人物的性格分析In his romantic comedies, Shakespeare takes an optimistic attitude toward love and yout

18、h, and the romantic elements are brought into full play. The most important play among the comedies is The Merchant of Venice. The sophistication derives in part from the play between high, outgoing romance and dark forces of negativity and hate. The traditional theme of this play is to praise the f

19、riendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable greed and brutality of the Jew.Compared with the idealism of other plays, The Merchant of Venice takes a step forward in its realistic presentation of human nature a

20、nd human conflict. Though there is a ridiculous touch on the part of the characters restrained by their limitations, Shakespeares youthful Renaissance spirit of jollity can be fully seen in contrast to the medieval emphasis on future life in the next world.6. 哈姆雷特的性格分析Hamlet has none of the single-m

21、inded blood lust of the earlier revenger. It is not because he is incapable of action, but because the cast of his mind is so speculative, so questioning, and so contemplative that action, when it finally comes, seems almost like defeat, diminishing rather than adding to the stature of the here. Tra

22、pped in a night mare world of spying, testing and plotting, and apparently bearing the intolerable burden of the duty to revenge his fathers death, Hamlet is obliged to inhabit a shadow world, to live suspended between fact and fiction, language and action. His life is one of constant role-playing,

23、examining the nature of action only to deny its possibility, for he is too sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger.The hero Hamlet in Shakespeares play Hamlet is noted for his hesitation to take his revenge, his melancholy nature of action only to deny possib

24、ilities to do anything. He came to know that his father was murdered by his uncle who became king. He hated him so deeply that he wanted to kill him. But he loved his widowed mother who later married his uncle, and he was afraid to hurt his mother. And also, when everything was ready for him to kill

25、 his uncle, he forgave him for his uncle was praying to God for his crime. Thus he lost the good chance. Hamlet represented humanism of his time.7. 诗歌失乐园的结构、人物性格、语言特点的分析Working through the tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote Paradise Lost, intending to expose the ways of Satan and to “ju

26、stify the ways of God to men.” At the center of the conflict between human love and spiritual duty lies Miltons fundamental concern with freedom and choice; the freedom to submit to Gods prohibition on eating the apple and the choice of disobedience made for love.Eve, seduced by Satans rhetoric and

27、her own confused ambition-as well as the mere prompting of hunger- falls into sin through innocent credulity. Adam falls by consciously choosing human love rather than obeying God. In the fall of man Adam discovered his full humanity. But mans fall is the sequel to another and more stupendous traged

28、y, the fall of the angels. The freedom of the will is the keystone of Miltons creed. His poem attempts to convince us that the unquestionable truth of Biblical revelation means that an all-knowing God was just in allowing Adam and Eve to be tempted and, of their free will, to choose sin and its inev

29、itable punishment. And, thereby, it opens the way for the voluntary sacrifice of Christ which showed the mercy of God in bringing good out of evil.Chapter 2 The Neoclassical Period1. 新古典时期的作家及其作品1) John Bunyan ：2) Alexander Pope： 3) Daniel Defoe：4) Jonathan Swift： 5) Henry Fielding： 6) Samuel Johnso

30、n：7) Richard Brinsley Sheridan：8) Thomas Gray ：2. 启蒙运动The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept through the whole Western Europe at the time. The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its

31、purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. They believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity. They seek proportion, unity, harmony and grace in literary expressions, in an effort to delight, instruct and corre