英美文学笔记0418Word文件下载.docx

1、-, is regarded as the national epic of the Anglo-Saxons. The theme: presents a vivid picture of how the primitive people wage heroic struggles against the hostile forces of the natural world under a wise and mighty leader. The poem is an example of the mingling of nature myths and heroic legends.-Ge

2、offrey Chaucer, who for the first time in English literature, presented to us a comprehensive realistic picture of the English society of his time and created a whole gallery o f vivid characters from all walks of life in his masterpiece .-Geoffrey Chaucer is the greatest writer of this period.-Chau

3、cer introduced from France the rhymed stanzas押尾韵 of various types to English poetry to replace the Old English alliterative verse. 押头韵. In The Romaunt of the Rose, octosyllabic couplet, The Legend of Good Women, rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter which is to be called later the heroic couplet. In C

4、anterbury Tales, heroic couplet. novel: the first modern novel.-The renaissance（14-mid-17th century） marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. It first started in Italy. move from feudalist ideas to the interest of rising bourgeoisie. recover from corruption of the Roman Catholic Chu

5、rch to the purity of the earthly church .England : the reign of Henry VIII -Englands Golden Age in literature -Bibles in English instead of Latin readable for common people -literary giants: Shakespeare ,Spenser ,Jonson Sidney, Marlowe ,Bacon ,and DonneThe time of Tudos - change monasteries修道院 into

6、schools and universities - the English Renaissance flourishing -Traits of humanistic poetry : meter, rhyme, scheme, imagery and argument should be combined to frame the emotional theme. Poetry was to be a concentrated exercise of the mind , if craftsmanship and of learning.-The first period of The E

7、nglish Renaissance was one of imitation and assimilation.-Humanism began to take hold in England when the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus came to teach the classical learning, first at Oxford and then at Cambridge.-Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are the best representative

8、s of the English humanists.-William Caxton, the first person introduced printing into England and translated books in English-Petrarch and his successors established the language of love and sharply distinguished the love poetry of the Renaissance from its counterparts in the ancient world.-In the e

9、arly stage of Renaissance, poetry and poetic drama were the most outstanding literary forms and they were carried on especially by Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.-The Elizabethan drama is the real mainstream of the English Renaissance.-The most famous dramatists in the Renaissance England are Christophe

10、r Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.-Francis Bacon, the first important English essayist, is best known for his essays which greatly influenced the development of this literary form. He was also the founder of modern science in England. His writings paved the way for the use of scientific

11、method.-The hero of Romance in medivel period is usually a knight.William Shakespeare-38 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long poems.-“an upstart crow “by Robert Greene（University Wits）-1593 to 1594, Shakespeare published two long narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, both of which were

12、 dedicated to the earl of Southampton.Four Periods:First Period （apprenticeship） FIVE history plays and FOUR comedies-5 History plays:Henty , Parts and, -4 comedies :, The Taming of The Shrew, and Second Period5 histories: King JohnHenry Partsand , and Six comedies:A midsummer Nights DreamThe Mercha

13、nt of VeniceMuch ado About NothingAs You like itTwelfth Night, And Two Tragedies:Romeo and JulietJulius CaesarBy constructing a complex pattern between different characters and between appearance and reality, Shakespeare made subtle comments on a variety of human foibles.Third PeriodIncludes his gre

14、atest tragedies and his so-called dark comedies.Tragedies:HamletOthelloKing LearMacbethAntony and CleopatraTroilus and CressidaCoriolanusTwo Comedies:Alls Well That Ends Well and .The Last PeriodIncludes his principal romantic tragicomedies:PericlesCymbelineThe Winters Tale and Final Plays:Henry The

15、 Two Noble Kinsmen-Shakespeares history plays are mainly written under the principle that national unity under a mighty and just sovereign is a necessity. the first of the greatest tragedies, most popular play on the stage. It has the qualities of a blood and thunder thriller and a philosophical exp

16、loration of life and death. Hamlet is a melancholic 优柔寡断prince, who is too sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of revenge. Shakespeare condemns the hypocrisy and treachery背叛 and general corruption at the royal court） （the old King Lear suffers form treachery背叛and infidelity不

17、忠）（Othellos inner weakness is made use of by the outside evil force）（Macbeth s lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to endless crimes.） Two dark comedies （）-The Merchant of Venice takes a step forward in its realistic presentation of human nature and human conflict.（An optimistic attit

18、ude toward love and youth, praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine., and Shylock as an evil figure）-Romeo and Juliet, which eulogizes the faithfulness of love and the spirit of pursuing happiness.Greatest tragedies:.The common: each portrays some noble her

19、o, 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 nation. （the best of his final romances,it is a typical example of Shakespeare s pessimistic view toward human life and society in his late years. He wishes

20、to solve the conflict by dreams and supernatural power）.-The three unities, formulated by Renaissance dramatists, are the unities of time, place and action. Sonnet 18 （Shakespeare has a faith in the permanence of poetry. A nice summers day is usually transient, but the beauty in poetry in poetry can

21、 last forever.John Milton the greatest prose writer of his age.- is the greatest epic in English literature since Samson Agonistes早期诗歌:Lycidas elegies挽歌 , for his best friend Edward King, who died of drown.The poem begins with grief and a feeling of immaturity. The emotion moves from sadness to acce

22、ptance in the end.中期散文：Areopagitica is probably his most memorable prose work,it is a great plea for freedom of press -smooth and carms.晚期史诗：选读 a long epic divided into 12 books. The story is taken from the Bible. Satan and other angels rebel against God. Satan succeeds in seduce Eve to eat the appl

23、e form the tree of knowledge. As a result,Adam and Eve are exiled by God from the paradise. In the fall of man, Adam discovered his full humanity. The theme is “Fall of Man”, intending to expose the ways of Satan and to “justify the ways of God to men” The picture of Israels mighty champion, blind,a

24、lone, afflicted折磨 by cruel enemies but preserving a noble ideal to the end. It is a fitting close to the life work of the poet himself, The whole poem strongly suggests Miltons himself could bring destruction down upon the enemy at the cost of his own life. The drama is the most perfect example of t

25、he verse drama after the Greek style in English. shows how mankind, in the person of Christ, withstands the tempter and is established once more 二The Neoclassical Period（1660-1798）-It starts from the return of the Stuarts to the English throne in 1660 to the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordswo

26、rth and Coleridge in 1798. -The 18th century England is also known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.-Thoughts: They believe in hard work, self-reliance自力更生, and self-restraint.自制 To work, to economize节俭and to accumulate wealth constituted the whole meaning of their life. They called

27、for order ,reason ,and rules, which can save people from superstition, injustice and oppression. They believe that if the masses were well educated, they may be capable of perfection, the equal human society may come into being.-The Enlightenment was a progressive intellectual movement in 18TH Europ

28、e which flourished in France and swept through the whole Western Europe at the time, the movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries, its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas.Literature ideas: The literature is heavily didactic教导and moralizing说教的.They believe that the artisti