自考英语本科《英美文学选读》英美文学复习笔记整理.docx

1、自考英语本科英美文学选读英美文学复习笔记整理英国部分 The Renaissance Period 1. Renaissance :between 14th and mid-17th century. 2. Renaissance means rebirth or revival, is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture, the new discoveries in geograp

2、hy and astrology, the religious reformation and the economic expansion. 3. the Renaissance, therefore in essence is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and Scholars made attempt to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in Medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed

3、the purity of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic church. 4. Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance (1) Capable of individual development in the direction of perfection. (2) They inhabited was theirs not to despise by to

4、 question, explore and enjoy. (3) By emphasizing the dignity of human being and the Importance of the present life, they voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of this life (4) Tomas More, Christopher Marlow and William Shakespeare are the best representative o

5、f the English humanist. 5 Metaphysical poetry: Metaphysical is characterized by passionate thought succession of concentrated image, exercise of elaborate ingenuity and “wit”, John Done was the famous of the Metaphysical poet. The Metaphysical Poets were men of learning and to show their learning wa

6、s their endeavour. Edmund Spencer Masterpiece: The Faerie Queene (allegory) Christopher Marlowe University wits Important plays: Tambulaine, Dr.Faustus, The Jewof Meta Edmund II Marlowe voiced the supreme desire of the man of the Renaissance of infinite powers and authority (1) Perfected the blank v

7、erse. (2) Creation of the Renaissance hero to English drama ,it embodies Marlowes ideal of human dignity and capacity. Dr.Faustus: aspiring for knowledge, the plays dominant moral is human rather than religious, it celebrates the human passion for knowledge, power and happiness , it also reveals man

8、s frustration in realizing the high aspiration in a hostile moral order and the confinement to time is the cruelest fact of mans condition. William Shakespeare 1. Works: 154 sonnets, 38 plays, 2 long poems Comedy :Merchant of Venice. 2 4 great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth Each port

9、rays some noble hero, who face the injustice of human fate is closely connected with the fate of the whole nation, each hero has his weakness of nature. Hamlet, the melancholic scholar-prince, faces the dilemma between action and mind: Othellos inner weakness is made use of by the outside evil force

10、; the old King Lear who is unwilling to totally give up his power makes himself suffer, from treachery and infidelity; Macbeths lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to incessant crime. 3 Merchant of Venice In this play, Shakespeare has created tension: ambiguity, a self conscious and s

11、elf-delighting artifice that is at once intellectually existing and emotionally engaging . The sophistication derives in part from the play between high, outstanding romance and dark faces of negating and hate the traditional theme of the play is to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio

12、, to idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty , wit and loyalty, and to explore insuitable greed and brutality of the Jew. 4 Hamlet. The play has the qualities of a “blood-and-thunder” thriller and a philosophical exploration of life of life and death, the timeless appeal of his mighty drama lie

13、s in its combination of injustice, emotional conflict and searching philosophic melancholy. Hamlet is obliged to inhabit a shadow world , to live suspended between fact and fiction, language and action. His life is one of the constant role-playing examining the nature of acting only to deny its poss

14、ibility. For such a figure, soliloquy is a natural medium, a necessary release of his anguish; and some of his questioning monologue posses surpassing power and insight. By revealing the power-seeking, the jostling for place , the hidden motives, the courteous superficialities that veil lust and gui

15、lty, Shakespeare condemns the hypocrisy and treachery and general religious corrupting at the royal count. Francis Bacon 1 Masterpiece: Essay; Novum Organum. 2 Novum Organum: most impressive display of Beacons intellect. The argument is for the use of inductiveness of reason in scientific study. 3 B

16、eacon suggests the inductive reasoning, i.e, proceeding from the particular to the general , in place of the Aristotelian method , the deductive reasoning ,i.e. proceeding from the general to the particular. 4 Beacons essay are famous for their brevity, compactness and powerfulness. John Done Metaph

17、ysical poetry The most striking feature of Dones poetry is precisely its tang of reality, in the sense that it seems to reflect life in a real rather than a poetical world. Done frequently applies conceits. John Milton Three major poetical works: Paradise lost , Paradise Regained, Samson Agonists Th

18、e freedom of the will is the keytone of Milton.s creed. Paradise Lost The epic is the masterpiece of John Milton The story is drawn from the Old Testament of the Bible, which tells how Satan, after being defeated in his rebel against God, temps Adam and Eve to eat the apples for the Forbidden Tree,

19、and causes the Fall of Man. Satan, in the image of a rebel , still determines to fight back against God when he and his followers are cast into the Hell. The features of the character include his boldness, unbending ambition and his unconquerable will. The poem, as in other writing, is full of bibli

20、cal and classical allusion, and is in a Latinized style with one sentence running perhaps across several lines. But, the majesty of expression suits well the sublimity of the poets thought.The Neoclassic Period 1 Between the return of the Stuarts to the English throne in 1660 and the full assertion

21、of Romanticism which came with the publication of lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 17981.Enlightenment or the Age of reason The Enlightenment movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept the whole western Europe at the time Its propose was to en

22、lighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. The enlightenmenters celebrated reason or rationally, equality and science. They called for a reference to order, reason and rule , yield place to “eternal truth” “eternal justice” and “natural equality” They believed

23、 that human beings were limited , dualistic and imperfect literature at the time , heavily didactic and moralizing. They believed in self-restraint, self-reliance and hard work. To work , to economize and to accumulate wealth constitute the whole meaning of their life. This aspect of social life is

24、best-formed in the realistic novels of the 18th century. 3 In the field of literature , they believed that the artistic should be order,logic, restrained emotion and accuracy . seek proportion, unity, harmony and grace in literary expression, in an effort to delight, instruct and correct human being

25、s. 4 Neoclassicism. In English literature and, the stylistic trend between the Restoration and the advent of romanticism at the beginning of the 19th century is referred to as Neoclassicism. 5 Heroic: It is a pair of rhymed lines of iambic pentameter. The form was introduced into English by Chaucer

26、and widely used subsequently.John Bunyan1.Masterpiece: The pilgrims progress 2.The “vanity fair” symbolizes human word, for all that comth is vanity Everything and anything in this world is vanity, having no value and no meaning. The vanity fair, a “market selling nothingness” of all sorts, is a dir

27、ty place originally built up by details, but, this town “lay” in the way to the Celestial City, meaning pilgrims had to resist the temptations there when they made their way through. So, the depiction of the “Fair” in selling things worldly and in attracting people bad, represents John Bunyans rejec

28、tion of the worldly seekings and pious longing for the pure and charming “Celestial city”, his Christian ideal. Alexander PopePope, a very sensitive man, would strike back hard, and in the constant verbal battles he developed a style of biting satire. He was one of the first to introduce rationalism

29、 to England, but was not entirely blind to the rapid moral, political and cultural deterioration. For him the supreme values was order-cosmic order, political order , social order, aesthetic order, and this emphasis an order expression in all of his works. Pope made his name as a great poet with the

30、 publication of an Essay on Criticism in 1711. Pope strongly advocated Neoclassicism, emphasizing that literary works should be judged by classical rule of order, reason, logic, restrained emotion, good taste and decorum. Daniel DefoeMasterpiece: Robinson Crusoe His language is smooth , easy, colloq

31、uial and most vernacular. Defoe glorifies human labor and the puritan fortitude. It refers the enterprising sprit of the middle class. Jonathan Swift1. Chief works: A Tale of a Tub, The battle of the books, The Drapiers letters, Guillivers Travel and a Modest proposal. 2.Swift is almost unsurpassed

32、in the writing of simple, direct, precise prose. He defined a good style as “proper words in proper places” clear, simple, concrete, diction, uncomplicated sentence structure and economy and concise use of language mark all his writing-essay, poems and novels. 3.As a whole , the book is one of the most effective and devastating criticism and satires of all aspects in the then English and European life- socially, politically, religiously,