英国文学复习要点刘炳善《英国文学简史》.docx

1、英国文学复习要点刘炳善英国文学简史英国文学复习要点教材X炳善英国文学简史Part One: Early and Medieval 1. Beowulf: national epic of the English people; Denmark story; alliteration, metaphors and understatements.*2. Romance 名词解释(1).The basic material of medieval romance is knightly activity and adventure; we might best define medieval ro

2、mance as a story of adventure-fictitious, frequently marvelous or supernatural-in verse or prose. (2).A long composition describing the life and adventures of a noble hero. The central character was the knight, a man of noble birth skilled in the use of weapons who was very devoted to the king or to

3、 the church. (3).One who wanted to be a knight should serve patiently until he was admitted to the knighthood with solemn ceremony and the swearing of oaths.The Nature of the Romance:(4).The Nature of the Romance:1）Themes: Loyalty to the king and the lord, which was the corner-stone of feudal morali

4、ty.2）The audience was of noble people from the court or the castle.3）The Romance had nothing to do with the common people. 4）The Romance were written for the noble, of the noble and in most cases by the poets patronized by the noble.*3. Piers the Plowman. Over 7000 lines, written by William Langland

5、.*4. Ballad民谣名词解释1.A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a refrain. The story,folklore popular legends. straightforward verse, s with graphic simplicity and force. suitable for singing generally written in ballad meter, with the last words of the second and fourth line

6、s rhyming. 2.the subjects of Ballad:(1) the struggle of young lovers who are fight against the feudalism(2) the conflict between love and wealth(3) the cruelty of jealousy(4) the criticism of the civil war(5) the matters of class struggles.5. Character of Robin Hood1.Robin Hood- A legendary English

7、hero of many ballads, who robbed the rich to give to the poor; a popular model of courage, generosity and justice.2. strong, brave, clever, tender-hearted, affectionate. Hatred to the cruel oppressors, love for the poor and the downtrodden*6. Geoffrey Chaucer桥搜: founder of English poetry; The Canter

8、bury Tales (main contents; 124 stories planned, only 24 finished; written in Middle English; significance; form: heroic couplet)7. Heroic couplet (名词解释)A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequen

9、ce of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines. Troditional form for english poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry, a sequence of rhyming paris of iambic pentameter.8. The Authorized Version of English Bible and its significance.*9. Renaissance名词解释1.a cultural and artistic movement in

10、England from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. The Renaissance is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts:(1)to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Eu

11、rope, (2)to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, (3)to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.*10.Thomas MoreUtopia*11. Sonnet名词解释The sonnet is a poem in 14lines with one or the other rhyme schme,a form much in v

12、ogue in Renaissance Europe, expecially in Italy ,France and England. In 1609 appeared Shakespeares sonnets.The Sonnets were written over a number of years, probably beginning in the early 1590s.12. Blank verse名词解释13. Edmund Spenser“The Faerie Queene; Amoretti (collection of his sonnets) Spenserian S

13、tanza名词解释Stanza form developed by Edmund Spenser and almost certainly influenced by rhyme royal and ottava rima. Spensers stanza has nine lines and is rhymed a-b-a-b-b-c-b-c-c. The first eight lines of the stanza are in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter. He used this form in hi

14、s epicpoem The Faerie Queene. JohnKeats, a great admirer of Spenser, used this stanza in his poem The Eve of St. Agnes.*14. Francis Bacon “essays esp. “Of Studies本文用词正式优雅，多排比句和长句，语言造诣非常高，里面很多话都可以引用做格言警句，非常值得一读*16.William Shakespeare可以说是英国文学史中最重要的作家。四大喜剧A Midsummer Nights Dream-The Merchant of Venice

15、-As You Like It-Twelfth Night，四大悲剧Macbeth-King Lear-Hamlet-Othello 比较重要，此外就是罗密欧与朱丽叶了，这些剧的主题，背景，情节，最重要的喜剧作品是Hamlet这是肯定的。他的sonnets，最重要属sonnet 18。其戏剧中著名对白和几首有名的十四行诗*18. John Milton 三大史诗(1667Paradise Lost1671Paradise Regained1671Samson Agonistes)非常重要，特别是Paradise Lost和Samson Agonistes。对于Paradise Lost需要知道

16、它是blank verse写成的，故事情节来自Old Testament，另外要知道此书theme和Satan的形象。对于Samson Agonistes要知道它是poetical drama，知道故事大概情节与其来源。课本中的brief summary中5条要看。Themea revolt against Gods authorityThe image of Satan: the spirit questioning the authority of GodSamso Agonistes-poetical dramaBrief summary1.Milton was political in

17、 both his life and his art. He was a militant pamphleteer of the English Revolution, and the greatest English revolutionary poet of the 17th century. 2.Milton wrote the greatest epic in English literature. His influence is omnipresent in almost all later English poetry. He and Shakespeare have alway

18、s been regarded as two patterns of English verse.3.Milton is a master of the blank verse. He first used blank verse in non-dramatic works. Here, his own genius for poetry and matchless daring in experiment introduced variety (variation of pause, connnection of lines, etc.) and achieved extraordinary

19、 freedom from monotony. In Paradise Lost, he acquires an absolute mastery of the blank verse.4.Milton is a great stylist. He is famous for his grand style, which is the result of his lifelong classical and biblical study. But his style is never exactly natural.It is art attained by definite and cons

20、cientious rhetorical devices. For example, he likes to use Latinisms and proper names of resonance and colour to create and elevated and dignified effect.5.Milton has always been admired for his sublimity of thought and majesty of expression. But, in order to appreciate Milton, it is necessary to kn

21、ow the English language thoroughly and with a close intimacy. As his works include some of the greatest poems of the world, it is worth the great effort to read them in the original.19. John BunyanThe Pilgrims Progress20. Founder of the Metaphysical schoolJohn Donne; features of the school: philosop

22、hical poems, complex rhythms and strange images*21. Restoration Literature (16601788):a period of reaction and degeneration. With the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, a white terror set in. Some of the revolutionary leaders were cruelly executed, and Puritans indiscriminately repressed.22. John D

23、ryden“All for Love (a tragedy); “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (Literary criticism); forerunner of the Classicism in Britain *23. Enlightenment (1650-1800)名词解释(Relativism/Rationalism/Individualism)Individualism-emphasized the importance of the individual and his inborn rightsRationalism-the conviction

24、that with the power of reason, humans could arrive at truth and improve the world.Relativism-was the concept that different cultures, beliefs, ideas, and value systems had equal merit. *24. Classicism名词解释1. In the arts, historical tradition or aesthetic attitudes based on the art of Greece and Rome

25、in antiquity. In the context of the tradition, Classicism refers either to the art produced in antiquity or to later art inspired by that of antiquity; Neoclassicism always refers to the art produced later but inspired by antiquity. 2. In music the great Classical period arose in the late 18th centu

26、ry and was dominated by composers of the German-speaking area of Europe: Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the young Ludwig van Beethoven. Their music is polished, refined, and melodic. In their era, instrumental music became more important than vocal music for the first time in history. In

27、tense interest in such music and in regularized “Classical form led to the standardization of symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, pianos, and various compositional forms. 3. Classicism in literature arose later than in France and reached its zenith in the 18th-century writings of John Dryden and

28、 Alexander Pope. The Classicists modelled themselves on Greek and Latin authors and tried to control literary creation by some fixed laws and rules drawn from Greek and Latin works.25. Richard Steele“The Tatler26. Joseph Addison“The Spectator注意这个报纸和我们今天的报纸不一样，它虚构了一系列的人物，以这些人物的口气来写报纸上刊登的散文。27. Steels

29、 and Addisons styles and their contributions 课本中有详细内容28. Alexander Pope:“Essay on Criticism, “Essay on Man, “The Rape of Lock, “The Dunciad; his workmanship (features) and limitations* 29. Jonathan Swift:“Gullivers Travels 要知道具体内容，就是Gulliver游历过的四个地方的英文名称，和每个部分具体的讽刺对象; “A Modest Proposal, 要注意作者用的iron

30、y也就是反讽手法。Part I: Shipwreck in Lilliput, tallest people were six inches high.Swift satirizes the Tories and the Whigs in England. Religious disputes were laughed at in an account of a problem which divided the Lilliputians.This part is full of references to current politics.The Lilliputians symbolize

31、 humankinds wildly excessive pride in its own puny existence. Part II: The voyage to Brobdingnag. Man sixty feet in height. Laugh at the strutting and bowing of English lords and ladies as much as the King did at him.The Brobdingnagians symbolize the private, personal, and physical side of humans wh

32、en examined up close and in great detail. Part III: in the Island of Sorcerors. Satire on philosophers and projectors.Part IV: Yahoo.* 30. The rise and growth of the realistic novel is the most prominent achievement of 18th century English literature.31. Daniel Defoe: “Robinson Crusoe, “Moll Flanders, 剧情要清楚，书中这一节最后一段，有Robinson Crusoe的形象和故事中蕴涵的早期黑奴的原形，以与殖XX义的萌芽。另外注意Defoe的style和feature，Defoe是forerunner of English realistic novel。32. Samuel Richardson