英国文学简答题

Make a brief comment on the Renaissance (3)

What are the features of Shakespeare’s drama?Give some examples (3)

Why is the18th century called the Age of Enlightenment? (3)

Give a brief comment on the work Pride and Prejudice (4)

Make a brief comment on Critical Realism (4)

Make a comment on Charles Dickens’novels (4)

Give a brief analysis on the character Jane Eyre in Charlotte Bronte’s work (5)

Make a comment on Modernism,including the historical background and the characteristics (5)

Metaphysical Poetry (6)

English Romanticism (6)

Give a brief analysis on the character Hamlet (6)

The Writing Style of Francis Bacon’s Essays (7)

Lake Poets (7)

Make a brief comment on the Renaissance.

Renaissance marks the transition from the medieval to the modern world.It first started in Italy in the14th century and gradually spread all over Europe.The word “Renaissance”means rebirth or revival.In essence,it is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe and introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie,and to lift the restriction in all areas placed by the Roman Catholic Church authorities.Two features of renaissance:It is a thirsting curiosity for the classical literature.People learned to admire the Greek and Latin works as models of literary form.It is the keen interest in the activities of humanity.

What are the features of Shakespeare’s drama?Give some examples.

1)He is one of the founders of realism in world literature.

2)His dramatic creation often used the method of adoption.

3)His long experience with the stage and his intimate knowledge of dramatic art

thus acquired make him a master hand for playwriting.

4)He was skilled in many poetic forms:the song,the sonnet,the couplet,and the

dramatic blank verse.He is at home with blank verse.

5)He was a great master of the English language.Shakespeare and the authorized

bible are the two great treasuries of the English language.

6)Shakespeare has been universally acknowledged to be the summit of the English

renaissance,and one of the greatest writers of the world over.

Why is the18th century called the Age of Enlightenment?

The18th-century England is known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.

1)The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement which

flourished in France&swept through the whole Western Europe at the time.

2)The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the15th&16th centuries.

3)Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modem

philosophical&artistic ideas.

4)English enlighteners believed in the power of reason.They considered that

social problems could be solved by human intelligence.

5)The Enlighteners criticized different aspects of contemporary England,discussed

social life according to a more reasonable principle.

6)The Enlightener celebrated reason or ration,equality,science and human beings’

ability to perfect themselves and their society.They called for a reference to order, reason&rules&advocated universal education.

7)Famous among the great enlighteners in England were those great writers like

John Dryden,Alexander pope&so on.

Give a brief comment on the work Pride and Prejudice.

Pride and Prejudice,similar to other Jane Austen's novels,is written in gentle or Horacian satire.

Misunderstandings and bitterness are the natural consequence of both pride and prejudice.So never easily form prejudice of others before you really know the truth Both money and love are important for a happy marriage,but that doesn’t mean that you have to be mercenary（唯利是图的)and marry the man just for money. Marry the man,who really love you and can give you happiness and that is the most important thing for marriage.

Make a brief comment on Critical Realism.

The English critical realists of the19th century not only gave a satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the ruling classes,but also showed profound sympathy for the common people.In their best works,the greed and hypocrisy of the upper classes are contrasted with the honesty and good-heartedness of the obscure“simple people”of the lower classes.Hence humor and satire abound in the English realistic novels of the19th century.Humorous scenes set off the actions of the positive characters,and the humor is often tinged with a lyricism which serves to stress the fine qualities of such characters.At the same time,bitter satire and grotesque is used to expose the seamy side of the bourgeois society.

Critical realism reveals the corrupting influence of the rule of crash upon human nature.Here lies the essentially democratic and humanistic character of critical realism.But the critical realists did not find a way to eradicate the social evils they knew so well.They did not realize the necessity of changing the bourgeois society through conscious human effort.They were unable to find a good solution to the social contradictions.Their works do not point toward revolution but rather evolution or reformism.They often start with a powerful exposure of the ugliness of the bourgeois world in their works,but their novels usually have happy endings or an impotent compromise at the end.Here we see the strength and weakness of critical realism.

Make a comment on Charles Dickens’novels.

Dickens’novels offer a most complete and realistic picture of the English bourgeois society of his age.They reflect the protest of the people against capitalist exploitation,criticize the vices of capitalist society.

Dickens is a petty bourgeois intellectual.He could not overstep the limits of his class.He believed in the moral self-perfection of the wicked propertied classes.He failed to see the necessity of a bitter struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors. There is a definite tendency for a reconciliation of the contradictions of capitalists society.

Almost all his novels have happy endings.

His novels tell much of the experience of his childhood.

Dickens is a great humorist.His novels are full of humor and laughter.

Give a brief analysis on the character Jane Eyre in Charlotte Bronte’s work.

The development of Jane Eyre’s character is central to the novel.From the beginning,Jane possesses a sense of her self-worth and dignity,a commitment to justice and principle,a trust in God,and a passionate disposition.Her integrity is continually tested over the course of the novel,and Jane must learn to balance the frequently conflicting aspects of herself so as to find contentment.

An orphan since early childhood,Jane feels exiled and ostracized at the beginning of the novel,and the cruel treatment she receives from her Aunt Reed and her cousins only exacerbates her feeling of alienation.Afraid that she will never find a true sense of home or community,Jane feels the need to belong somewhere,to find “kin,”or at least“kindred spirits.”This desire tempers her equally intense need for autonomy and freedom.

In her search for freedom,Jane also struggles with the question of what type of freedom she wants.While Rochester initially offers Jane a chance to liberate her passions,Jane comes to realize that such freedom could also mean enslavement—by living as Rochester’s mistress,she would be sacrificing her dignity and integrity for the sake of her feelings.St.John Rivers offers Jane another kind of freedom:the freedom to act unreservedly on her principles.He opens to Jane the possibility of exercising her talents fully by working and living with him in India.Jane eventually realizes,though,that this freedom would also constitute a form of imprisonment, because she would be forced to keep her true feelings and her true passions always in check.

Make a comment on Modernism,including the historical background and the characteristics

Around the two world wars,many writers and artists began to suspect and be discontent with the capitalism.They tried to find new ways to express their understanding of the world.It was a movement of experiments in techniques in writing.It flourished in the20s and30s in English literature.They turned their interest to describing what was happening in the minds of their characters.Because of their emphasis on the psychological activities of the characters,their writings are also called psychological novels.The Representatives are W.B.Yeats and T.S.Eliot,D.H. Lawrence,E.M.Foster,James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

The Rise of Modernism

1)the rapid social change and the arrival of the“modern age”

2)Sigmund Freud and the psychoanalysis:consciousness,subconsciousness;id,ego

and superego;Oedipus Complex and Electra Complex

3)the search for new ways of expression

Features of Modernism

1)is marked by a strong and conscious break with the traditional form and

techniques of expression,being richly experimental

2)employs a distinctive kind of imagination,one that insists on having its general

frame of reference within itself

3)implies a historical discontinuity,a sense of alienation,loss and despair

4)rejects traditional values,assumptions as well as rhetoric

5)elevates the individual and the inner being over the social being

6)prefers the subconscious,unconscious to the self-conscious

Metaphysical Poetry

The poetry of John Donne and other seventeenth-century poets who wrote in a similar style.Metaphysical poetry is characterized by verbal wit and excess,ingenious structure,irregular meter,colloquial language,elaborates imagery,and a drawing together of dissimilar ideas.

English Romanticism

A movement that flourished in literature,philosophy,music,and in Western culture during most of the nineteenth century,beginning as a revolt against classicism.There have been many varieties of Romanticism in many different times and places.Many of the ideas of English Romanticism were first expressed by the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.The Romantic Movement expressed a more or less negative attitude towards the existing social and political conditions that came with industrialization and the growing importance of the bourgeoisie. Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit.In essence it designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and all experience.

Give a brief analysis on the character Hamlet

A thousand reader will have a thousand hamlet.Hamlet is neither a frail and weak-minded youth nor a thought-sick bookworm.

1)Hamlet is a humanist,a man who is free from medieval prejudices and

superstitions.

2)He loves the good and hates the evil.He adores his father,loves Ophelia and

greets his school-fellows with hearty welcome,while he is disgusted with his uncle’s drunkenness and shocked by his mother’s shallowness.A king and a beggar are all one to him.His democratic tendency is based on his humanist thought.

3)His intellectual genius is outstanding.He is a close observer of men and manners.

4)Hamlet is not a mere scholar,and his nature is by no means simply meditative.

On the contrary,Hamlet is a man of genius,highly accomplished and educated,a man of far-reaching perception and sparking wit.He is a scholar,soldier and statesman.His image reflects the versatility of the men of the Renaissance.

Hamlet is made a hero of the Renaissance period and the representative of humanism.Through him William Shakespeare expressed his own humanist ideas.

The Writing Style of Francis Bacon’s Essays

Bacon’s essays have a literary style peculiar to their own.They are noted for their clearness,brevity and force of expression.Bacon’s chief concern is to express his thought with clearness and in as few words as possible.His sentences are short, pointed,incisive,and often of balanced structure.Many of them have become wise old sayings.Generally speaking,Bacon’s literary style has three prominent qualities: directness,terseness,and forcefulness.

Lake Poets

Wordsworth,Coleridge and Southey have often been mentioned as the"Lake Poets" because they lived in the lake district in the northwestern part of England.The three traversed the same path in politics and in poetry,beginning as radicals and closing as conservatives.