英国文学作品资料.docx

1、英国文学作品资料1 The Canterbury TalesReligionThe Tales reflect diverse religious worldviews in Chaucers time. After the Black Death, many Europeans began to question the authority of the Catholic Church. Some turned to lollardy, while others chose less extreme paths, starting new monastic orders or smaller

2、 movements exposing church corruption in the behavior of the clergy, false church relics or sale of indulgences.27 Several characters in the Tales are religious figures, and the very nature of the pilgrimage to Canterbury is deeply religious, making this a preeminent theme of the work.28Two characte

3、rs, the Pardoner and the Summoner, have roles directly tied to the churchs monetary power. Both of these characters are portrayed as deeply corrupt, greedy, and abusive. A pardoner in Chaucers day was a person to whom one paid indulgences in exchange for forgiveness of sins. Pardoners would exact a

4、fee for their services and in many cases were guilty of using these fees for their own gain. Chaucers Pardoner openly admits the corruption of his practice while hawking his wares.29 The Summoner is a clergyman whose job it was to bring sinners to the church court for possible excommunication. These

5、 courts also had power to seize property, inflict pain or humiliation, or impose the death penalty. Corrupt summoners would write false citations and frighten people into bribing them in order to protect their lives and property. Chaucers Summoner is portrayed as being guilty of the very kinds of si

6、ns he is threatening to bring others to court for, and he is hinted as having a corrupt relationship with the Pardoner to further his personal gain.30 In The Friars Tale, one of the characters is a summoner, and is shown to be working on the side of the devil, not God.31The murder of Thomas BecketMe

7、mbers of the regular clergy monks and nuns of various orders are represented by the Monk, the Prioress, the Nuns Priest, and the Second Nun. Monastic orders, which originated from the desire of many to follow an ascetic lifestyle and to separate themselves from the world, had by Chaucers time become

8、 increasingly entangled in worldly matters. Monasteries frequently controlled huge tracts of land on which they made significant sums of money, while peasants worked in their employ.32 The Second Nun is an example of what a Nun was expected to be. Her tale is about a woman whose chaste example bring

9、s people into the church. The Monk and the Prioress, on the other hand, while they are not as corrupt as the Summoner or Pardoner, fall short of ideal for their order. Both are dressed expensively and show signs of lives of luxury and flirtatiousness. Both also show a lack of spiritual depth.33 The

10、Prioresss Tale is an account of Jews murdering a deeply pious and innocent Christian boy. This blood libel against Jews became a part of English literary tradition.34 However, the story the Prioress tells did not originate in the works of Chaucer: it was well known in the 14th century.35The pilgrima

11、ge was a very prominent feature of medieval society. Pilgrims would frequently journey to cathedrals that preserved relics of saints. They believed that such relics had miraculous powers. Pilgrimages also represented the mortal journey to heaven through the struggles of mortal life. The ultimate pil

12、grimage destination was Jerusalem,36 but Canterbury was a popular destination within England. Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been killed in the Canterbury cathedral by knights who had misunderstood Henry IIs order during a disagreement between him and Becket. Miracle stories conn

13、ected to his remains began to spring up soon after his death, and the area became a popular pilgrimage destination.37 The pilgrimage is a major theme in the work which ties all of the stories together, and some scholars point out that it may be a representation of Christians striving for heaven, des

14、pite weaknesses, disagreement, and diversity of opinion.38edit Social class and conventionBors Dilemma - he chooses to save a maiden rather than his brother LionelThe upper class or nobility, represented chiefly by the Knight and his Squire, was in Chaucers time steeped in a culture of chivalry and

15、courtliness. Nobles were expected to be powerful warriors who could be ruthless on the battlefield, yet mannerly in the Kings Court and Christian in their actions.39 Knights were expected to form a strong social bond with the men who fought alongside them, but an even stronger bond with a woman whom

16、 they idealized in order to strengthen their fighting ability.40 Though the aim of chivalry was to noble action, often its conflicting values degenerated into violence. Church leaders often tried to place restrictions on jousts and tournaments, which at times ended in the death of the loser. The Kni

17、ghts Tale shows how the brotherly love of two fellow knights turns into a deadly feud at the sight of a woman whom both idealize, with both knights willing to fight the other to the death in order to win her. Chivalry was in Chaucers day on the decline, and it is possible that The Knights Tale was i

18、ntended to show its flaws, although this is disputed.41 Chaucer himself had fought in the Hundred Years War under Edward III, who heavily emphasized chivalry during his reign.42 Two tales, The Tale of Sir Topas and The Tale of Melibee are told by Chaucer himself, who is travelling with the pilgrims

19、in his own story. Both tales seem to focus on the ill-effects of chivalrythe first making fun of chivalric rules and the second warning against violence.43The Tales constantly reflect the conflict between classes. For example, the division of the three estates; the characters are all divided into th

20、ree distinct classes, the classes being those who pray (the clergy), those who fight (the nobility), and those who work (the commoners and peasantry).44 Most of the tales are interlinked by common themes, and some quit (reply to or retaliate against) other tales. Convention is followed when the Knig

21、ht begins the game with a tale, as he represents the highest social class in the group. But when he is followed by the Miller, who represents a lower class, it sets the stage for the Tales to reflect both a respect for and a disregard for upper class rules. Helen Cooper, as well as Mikhail Bakhtin a

22、nd Derek Brewer, call this opposition the ordered and the grotesque, Lent and Carnival, officially approved culture and its riotous, and high-spirited underside.45 Several works of the time contained the same opposition.45edit Relativism vs. realismChaucers characters each express differentsometimes

23、 vastly differentviews of reality, creating an atmosphere of relativism. As Helen Cooper says, Different genres give different readings of the world: the fabliau scarcely notices the operations of God, the saints life focuses on those at the expense of physical reality, tracts and sermons insist on

24、prudential or orthodox morality, romances privilege human emotion. The sheer number of varying persons and stories renders the Tales as a set unable to arrive at any definite truth or reality.46edit InfluenceIt is sometimes argued that the greatest contribution that this work made to English literat

25、ure was in popularizing the literary use of the vernacular, English, rather than French or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language for centuries before Chaucers life, and several of Chaucers contemporariesJohn Gower, William Langland, and the Pearl Poetalso wrote major literary

26、 works in English. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was responsible for starting a trend rather than simply being part of it.citation needed It is interesting to note that, although Chaucer had a powerful influence in poetic and artistic terms, which can be seen in the great number of forgeries

27、and mistaken attributions (such as The Flower and the Leaf which was translated by John Dryden), modern English spelling and orthography owes much more to the innovations made by the Court of Chancery in the decades during and after his lifetime.citation needed二Sir Gawain and the Green KnightSir Gaw

28、ain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance outlining an adventure of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthurs Round Table. In the tale, Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from a mysterious warrior who is completely green, from his clothes and hair to his beard and sk

29、in. The Green Knight offers to allow anyone to strike him with his axe if the challenger will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts, and beheads him in one blow, only to have the Green Knight stand up, pick up his head, and remind Gawain to meet him at the appointed time. The story

30、of Gawains struggle to meet the appointment and his adventures along the way demonstrate the spirit of chivalry and loyalty.Nature and chivalrySome argue that nature represents a chaotic, lawless order which is in direct confrontation with the civilisation of Camelot throughout Sir Gawain and the Gr

31、een Knight. The green horse and rider that first invade Arthurs peaceful halls are iconic representations of natures disturbance. Nature is presented throughout the poem as rough and indifferent, constantly threatening the order of men and courtly life. Nature invades and disrupts order in the major

32、 events of the narrative, both symbolically and through the inner nature of humanity. This element appears first with the disruption caused by the Green Knight, later when Gawain must fight off his natural lust for Bertilaks wife, and again when Gawain breaks his vow to Bertilak by choosing to keep the green girdle, valuing survival over virtue. Represented by the sin-stained girdle, nature is an underlying force, forever within man and keeping him imperfect (in a chivalric sense).22 In this view, Gawain is part of a wider conflict between natu