English Literature

English Literature

1.It is Beowulf,the oldiest national epic of the English people.

2.epic: It’s a long narrative story telling about the hero and

describing the values of the society.

3.Romance: It was a long composition, sometimes in verse,

sometimes in prose, describing the the life and adventures of a hero. The central character of romances was the knight.

4.Piers the Plowman----by William Langland is written in a form of

a dream vision.

5.the Ballads(歌谣)：A ballad is a story told in song, usually in 4-line

stanzas, with the second and fourth lines rhymed. The ballsds are in various English and Scottish dialects. It’s the most important department of English folk literature.

6.the sonnet: an exact form of poetry in 14 lines of iambic

pentameter intricately rhymed, was introduced to England from italy by Sir Thomas Wyatt. And it was one of the most popular forms of England verse.

7.Geoffrey Chaucer ---the founder of English poetry (英国文学历史

上首位向世人展示英国社会全景的人). Works: ①the Canterbury Tales(his masterpiece) ②the Prologue ( It contains a group of vivid sketches of typical figures.) Looking at his word-pictures, we know at once how people lived in that era. That is why Chaucer

has been called “the founder of English realism”.

8.Chaucer’s contribution to English potry lies chiefly in the fact that

he introduced from France the rhymed stanza of various types, especially the rhymed couplet of 5 accents in iambic meter---the heroic couplet.

9.the Renaissance’s two features:(14—17century 核心:humanity)

① a thirsting curiosity for the classical literature. Old

manuscripts were dug out. There arose a current for the study of Greek and Latin authors. The love of classics was but an expression of the general dissatisfaction at the Catholic and feudal ideas. ②the keen interest in the activities of humanity. People ceased to look upon themselves as living only for God and a future world. Thinkers, artists and poets arose, who gave expression, sometimes in an old guise, though, to the new feeling of admiration for human beauty and human achievement, a feeling in sharp contrast with theology. Hence arose the thought of humanism.

10.T homas More---Utopia : the first book contains a long discussion

on the social conditions of England. In the second book is described in detail an ideal communist society, Utopia.

11.Edmund Spenser---the Poet’s Poet . greatest work: the Faerie

Queene

12.Francis Bacon---famous for his Essays. 英史第一个散文家.

13.the Morality Play: A morality presented the conflict of good and

evil, with allegorical personages.

14.John Milton---Paradise Lost(Satan 引诱Adam and Eva)is a

master of bland verse. First one used it in non-dramatic works,the greatest poet after william shakespeare.

15.Christopher Marlowe---The most gifted of the “university wits”

was Christopher Marlowe. (John Lily, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, Christopher Marlowe) works: Tamburlaine, The jew of Malta, Doctor Faustus(who sells his soul to the evil) the first person who made the blank verse(rhymeless iambic pentameter) the principal instrument of English drama.

16.William Shakespeare---4 comedies: A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

The Merchant of V enice, As You Like It, Twelfth Nihght

4 tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth.

17. John Bunyan---The Pilgrim’s Progress

18. Metaphysical Poet: 玄学派诗歌,奇思妙想John Donne---代表人

物

19. Alexander Pope---Essay on Criticism(For fools rush in where

angels fear to tread. To err is human, to forgive, divine. A little learning is a dangerous thing.) The Rape of the lock ,The Dunciad,

Essay on Man.

20.JonathanSwift---Gulliver’sTravels:Lilliput—Brobdingnag---Flyin g

Island—Houyhnhnms

21. The rise of the English novel: the novel is the most important gift

of bourgeois, or capitalist, civilization.

The rise and growth of the realistic novel is the most prominent achievement of 18th century English literature.

22. Daniel Defoe---Robinson Crusoe…Friday

23. Samuel Richardson---Pamela

24.Henry Fielding----father of English novel …works: Joseph

Andrews, Jonthan Wild, Tom Jones, Amelia

25.william Blake---songs of innocence, songs of experience

Same style,using a period of life to express the feelings of that time. Songs of innocence use a language which even little babies can learn by heart. Everything seems to be in harmony. Songs of experience, a much maturer work, the poet drew pictures of neediness and distress and showed the suffering of the miserable.

26.Robert Burns---Auld Lang Syne被改编为歌曲:欢乐颂Red Red Rose

27. the Romantic features:

1）they emphasis the special qualities of each individual’s mind.

2)…..the imagination.

3)….the nature.

4)the peotry should be free from all kinds of rules, and those poets should turn to the humble people and the common everyday life for subjects.

https://www.360docs.net/doc/6911814706.html,ke poets: william Wordsworth,Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey

Wordsworth----Lyrical Bllads published in 1798 with Coleridge “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling.”29. Bysshe Shelley---Ode to the West Wind….If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?...

30.Critical Realism’s features ，局限性:

The english critical realists of the 19th century not only gave a satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the rulig classes,but also showed profound sympathy for the common people.

The critical realists did not find a way to eradicate social evils. They did not realize the necessity of changing the bourgeois society. They were unable to find a good solution to the social contradictions.

31.Charlse Dickens---David Copperfield(半自传体小说)Great Expectations

32.William Makepeace Thackeray---V anity Fair: a novel without a hero

33.Jane Austen---Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion.

The Bronte Sisters Charlotte,Emily,Anne---Jane Eyre (第一次讲述女教师) wuthering Heights

34.Alfred Tennyson----继Wordsworth 获poet laureate. In Memoriam, a collection of elegies, waspublished in 1805. In the same year he was appointed poet laureate. Break,Break,Break

35. Thomas Hardy----Tess of the D’Urbervilles 1891

36. English renaissance is an age of poetry and dramas.

37.fictional art’s feature is humour and satire.