自考英美文学选读要点总结第一章

Chapter I The Renaissance Period

Definitions of the Literary Terms: 文艺复兴时期的界定

1. The Renaissance: The Renaissance marks a transition from the medie val to the modern world. Generally, it refers to the period between the 14 th & 17th centuries. 历史文化背景It first started in Italy, with the flowering of painting, sculpture & literature. From Italy the movement went to emb race the rest of Europe. The Renaissance, which means "rebirth" or "reviva l," is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the re-discovery of ancient Roman & Greek culture, the new discoverie s in geography & astrology, the religious reformation & the economic expa nsion. The Renaissance, therefore, in essence is a historical period in whic h the European humanist thinkers & scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that e xpressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, & to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.

2. 文艺复兴到英国比较晚的原因The Renaissance was slow in reaching Englan

d not only becaus

e o

f England?s separation from the Continent but also be cause of its domestic unrest. It was not until the reign of Henry VIII that the Renaissance really began to show its effect in England. With Henry VII I?s encouragement the Oxford reformers, scholars and humanists introduc ed classical literature to England. 15th century, began the English Renaissa nce, which was perhaps England?s Golden Age, especially in literature.

人文主义H umanism: Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the ancient author s and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its consci ous, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on s uch a conception that man is the measure of all things. Through the new l earning, humanists not only saw the arts of splendor and enlightenment, b ut the human values represented in the works. Renaissance humanists fou nd in the classics a justification to exalt human nature and came to see th at human beings were glorious creatures capable of individual development in the direction of perfections, and that the world they inhabited was thei rs not to despise but to question, explore, and enjoy. Thus, by emphasizin g the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, they voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the bea uty of this life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wond ers. Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are the b est representatives of the English humanists.

The first period of the English Renaissance was one of imitation and assimi lation.

Petrarch was regarded as the fountainhead of literature by the English writ ers. For it was Petrarch and his successors who established the language o f love and sharply distinguished the love poetry of the Renaissance from it s counterparts in the ancient world . Wyatt and Surrey began engraving th e forms and graces of Italian poetry upon the native stock. While the form er introduced the Petrarchan sonnet into England , the latter bought in bla nk verse. And Marlowe gave new vigor to the blank verse with his …mighty lines?. In the early stage of the Renaissance, poetry and poetic drama we re the most outstanding literary forms and they were carried on especially by Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. The Elizabethan drama is the real main stream of the English Renaissance. The most famous dramatists in the Ren aissance England are Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben J onson.

Please state Shakespeare?s views on the Renaissance literature. Shakespeare has accepted the Renaissance view on literature. He holds th at literature should be a combination of beauty, kindness and truth, and s hould reflect nature and reality. Based on this consideration, he has claime

d trough th

e mouth o

f Hamlet that the …end?of dramatic creation is to giv

e faithful reflection o

f the social realities of the time. Shakespeare also sta tes that literary works which have truly reflected nature and reality can re ach immortality. From his sonnets, we can find quite a few examples in w hich Shakespeare sings the immortality of poetry.

Ⅲ. William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was the greatest writer of plays who ever lived. His f riend & fellow playwright Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare was "not of a n age but for all time." The 18th-century English essayist Samuel Johnson described his work as "the mirror of life." The 19th-century English poet S amuel Taylor Coleridge spoke of "myriad-minded Shakespeare." The 20th-c entury English dramatist George Bernard Shaw stressed his "enormous po wer over language."

He has 38 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long poems.

领会His Influence

1) Contributions to language

Many words and commonly used phrases have been added to everyday En glish vocabulary through their appearance in Shakespeare's works.

2) Effects on literature

Shakespeare's plays & poetry have had a pervasive influence on world liter ature. Most of the great literary figures of the world have been inspired &

stimulated by his achievement.

On the whole, however, Shakespeare's contribution has been to the langua ge & spirit of later writing rather than to its form. References & parallels t o Shakespeare's phraseology have occurred in literature since the 16th cen tury.

Perhaps the greatest inspiration to subsequent authors has been Shakespe are's capacity to depict life in all its complexity & to illuminate man's char acter & destiny.

What did Shakespeare criticize in his plays?

The conscientious playwright criticized various kinds of human vices and si ns , like greed, betrayal, pride, prejudice and deception, including acts of social inequality, sexual and racial discriminations in plays such as The Mer chant of Venice and The Tempest. In his tragedies, he condemned the hyp ocrisy, treachery and general corruption at the royal court. He does not he sitate to describe the cruelty and anti-natural character of the wars , agai nst religious persecution and the corrupting influence of money and gold. In King Lear , he criticized the bourgeois egoism while he feared anarchy, hated rebellion and despised democracy.

Why is Hamlet so impressive in Shakespeare?s Hamlet?

The hero Hamlet in Shakespeare?s plays noted for his hesitation to take hi s revenge, his melancholy nature of action only to deny possibilities to do anything. He came to know that his father was murdered by his uncle wh o became king. He hated his so deeply that he wanted to kill him. But he loved his widowed mother who later married his uncle. This made him de ep in trouble. When he planned to kill his uncle, and he was afraid to hurt his mother. And also, when everything was ready for him to kill his uncle, he forgave him for his uncle was praying to God for his crime. Thus he l ost the good chance. Hamlet represented humanism of his time.

What are the main themes of Shakespeare’s plays?

参考答案：Shakespeare’s plays are divided into 3 types: comedies, trage dies and historical plays.

1) His historical plays are with the theme-----national unity under a might and just sovereign/ruler is necessary.

2) In his romantic comedies, he takes an optimistic attitude toward love fr iendship and youth.

3) In his tragedies, Shakespeare always portrays some noble heroes, who faces the injustice of life and is caught in a difficult situation and whose fa te is closely connected with the fate of his nation. Each hero has his weak ness of nature. We also see the conflict between the individual and the evi l force in the society. And his major characters are always individuals repr esenting certain types.

Four periods of his dramatic career:

1. The first period was one of apprenticeship. He wrote five history plays: Henry VI, Parts I, II and III, Richard III, and Titus Andronicus泰托斯*安东尼; four comedies: The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentleman of Verona, 维罗纳二绅士The Taming of the Shrew, and Love?s Labour?s Lost.

2. In the second period, his style and approach became highly individualiz ed. He made subtle comments on a variety of human foibles. He wrote fiv e histories: Richard II, King John, Henry IV, Part I and II, and Henry V; si x comedies: A Midsummer Night?s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much A do About Nothing,无事生非As You Like It皆大欢喜, Twelfth Night, and The Merry Wives of Windsor; two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesa r.

3. His third period includes his greatest tragedies and his so-called dark c omedies: tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleo patra,安东尼与克里奥佩特拉Troilus and Cressida特洛伊勒斯与克里希达, and Cori olanus科里奥拉那斯. two comedies: All?s Well That Ends Well终成眷属and M easure for Measure.一报还一报

4. The last period includes his principal romantic tragicomedies: Pericles, 伯利克利Cymbeline,辛白林The Winter?s Tale and The Tempest; and his two final plays: Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen.两位贵族亲戚His authen tic non-dramatic poetry consists of two long narrative poems: Venus and A donis and The Rape of Lucrece, and his sequence of 154 sonnets.

Try to analyze the character Hamlet?

Hamlet is neither a frail and weak minded youth nor a thoughtsick dreame r. He has none of the single minded blood lust of the earlier revengers. 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 i t finally comes, seems almost like defeat. Trapped in a nightmare world of spying, testing and plotting , and apparently bearing the intolerable burde n of the duty to revenge his father?s death, Hamlet is obliged to inhabit a

shadow world ,to live suspended between fact and fiction, language and ac tion. His life is one of constant role playing, examining the nature of actio n only to deny its possibility, for he is too sophisticated to degrade his n ature to conventional role of a stage revenger. By characterizing Hamlet, S hakespear successfully makes a philosophical exploration of life and death. Hamlet is also a humanist, a man who is free from medieval prejudices a nd superstitions. He has an unbounded love for the world rather than hea ven. He cherishes a profound reverence for man and a firm belief in man?s power over destiny.

Discuss his art of creations.

(1)His major characters are neither 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.

(2) By applying a psycho-analytical approach, Shakespeare succeeds in ex ploring the character?s inner mind.

(3) Shakespeare seldom invents his own plots; instead, he borrows them f rom some old plays or storybooks.

(4) In his writings, disguise is also an important device to create dramatic irony, usually with woman disguised as man.

(5) He often wrote skillfully in different poetic forms , like the sonnet, the blank verse, and the rhymed couplet.

4. 领会His Major Works

1) Drama

A. The Merchant of Venice

Theme: to praise the friendship between Antonio & Bassanio, to idealize P ortia as a heroine of great beauty, wit & loyalty, & to expose the insatiabl e greed & brutality of the Jew.

Plot: The play has a double plot (P39)

B. Hamlet

Hamlet is generally regarded as Shakespeare's most popular play on the st age, for it has the qualities of a "blood-and-thunder" thriller & a philosophi cal exploration of life & death. And the timeless appeal of this mighty dra ma lies in its combination of intrigue, emotional conflict & searching philos ophic melancholy.

C. The Tempest

The Tempest, an elaborate & fantastic story, is known as the best of his fi nal romances. The characters are rather allegorical & the subject full of su

ggestion. The humanly impossible events can be seen occurring everywher e, in the play. The playwright resorts to the supernatural atmosphere & to the dreams to solve the conflict. To Shakespeare, the whole life is no mo re than a dream. Thus, The Tempest is a typical example of his pessimisti

c view towards human life & society in his late years.

2) Poems

A. Sonnets

The first 126 sonnets are apparently addressed to a handsome young nobleman, presumably the author's patron. The poems express the writer's selfless but not entirely uncritical devotion to the young man.

Twenty of the sonnets are about a young woman characterized as a " dark lady," whom the poet distrust but cannot resist. The poems addresse

d directly to her ar

e perhaps the most remarkable in the sequence becaus

e their unsentimental tone is unlike that o

f traditional love sonnets.

A philosophical theme that appears in many of the sonnets is that of ti me as the destroyer of all mortal things. Also expressed in the poems is t he author's disillusionment with the false ness of earthly life.

The form of the poems is the English Variation of the traditional Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet, Shakespeare's sonnets have three quatrains, or gr oups of four lines, & a final couplet. Their rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, ef ef, gg. A theme is developed & elaborated in the quatrains, & a concludin

g thought is presented in the couplet.

7. 应用Selected Readings

1) Sonnet 18

Theme: a profound meditation on the destructive power of time & the eternal beauty brought forth by poetry to the one he loves.

Imagery: a summer's day-youth

the eye of heaven-the sun

2) The Merchant of Venice

Theme: To praise the friendship between Antonio & Bassanio, to idealiz e Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit & loyalty, & to expose the insati able greed and brutality of the Jew.

3) Hamlet

This is one part of Hamlet's most famous monologue. Hamlet, facing t he dilemma of action & mind, is hesitating whether he should revenge for his father, which may bring him death, or he should suffer & hide his hatr ed for his uncle in his deep heart, which may secure his life.

Ⅵ. John Milton

According to the setting of the poem Paradise Lost , discuss the theme, th e author?s intention to create it and the implication that the poem express es.

(1)The theme of the poem Paradise Lost is the …Fall of Man?, i.e. man?s dis obedience and the loss of Paradise, with its prime cause-----Satan.

(2)The author?s intention to write this poem is to expose the ways of Sata n and to …justify th ways of God to men?.

(3)In this poem, the author implicitly expresses his fundamental concern w ith freedom and choice and his belief that the unquestionable truth of Bibli cal revelation means that an all knowing God was just in allowing Adam a nd Eve to be tempted and of their free will choose sin and its inevitable p unishment.

1.一般识记Brief Introduction

John Milton, English poet & prose writer, born in London, England, Dec. 9, 1608, and died in London, Nov 8, 1674.

Milton was one of the greatest poets in the English language & one of the towering figures in all literature. His masterpiece, Paradise Lost, is con sidered the unsurpassed English epic poem. It is a powerfully imaginative & dramatic work, based in part on the Biblical story of the temptation & fa ll of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. Milton, a deeply religious man, w rote the epic " to justify the ways of God to men." He is also famous for his graceful lyric poems, such as Lycidas, L'Allegro, & for his intensely mo ving sonnets.

Milton was a great master of language, & his poetry, both epic & lyric, is admired for its sublime eloquence & rich musical quality.

2. 识记His literary achievements

Milton's literary achievements can be divided into three groups: the ea rly poetic works, the middle prose pamphlets & the last great poems.

In his early works, Milton appears as the inheritor of all that was best in Elizabethan literature. Lycidas (1637) is a typical example, dedicated to Edward King, a fellow undergradu ate of Milton?s at Cambridge. The poem moves from a sad apprehension of death, through regret, to passionate qu estioning, rage, sorrow & acceptance. The feelings begin in a low key but move on to the large questions of divine justice & human accountability. T he climax of the poem is the blistering attack on the clergy, i.e. the "Shep herds," who are corrupted by self-interest.

All of Milton's early works reflect his interest in Greek & Latin poetry, whi ch greatly influenced his style. His poems contain a wealth of classical refe rences, figures of speech, & other poetic devices, all masterfully blended in to his rich verse.

Areopagitica is probably his most memorable prose work. It is a great plea for freedom of the press.

After the Restoration in 1660, Milton was imprisoned. His release was brought about mainly through the efforts of his friends, notably the poet Andrew Marwell, After that time he devoted himself to his 3 major poetical works: Paradise Lost (1667), Paradise Regained (1671), & Samson Agonis tes (1671).

(1)Paradise Lost

It is the greatest , indeed the only generally acknowledged epic in Eng lish literature since Beowulf, and the last one is the most perfect example of the verse drama after the Greek style in English. It is a lone epic divid ed in 12 books.

“man shall find grace.”But he must lay hold of it by an act of free wil l. The freedom of the will is the keystone of Milton?s creed.

(2)Paradise Regained

(3)Samson Agonistes

Milton again borrows his story from the Bible. But this time he turns t o a more vital and personal theme.