英国文学选读复习重点

英国文学选读复习June, 2010 Part I 复习重点章节1.William Shakespeare;2.Francis Bacon;3.John Donne;4.William Blake;5.Jane Austen;6.Charles Dickens;7.Thomas Hardy;8.Oscar Wilde;9.William Butler Yeats;10.James Joyce;11.D.H. Lawrence;Part II 考试题型1.In this part you are going to explain the following literary terms brieflyand to give examples from the stories you have learned from the courseto illustrate the terms. (about 15 points)Examplescharacter and characterization; symbol and allegory, theme, point of view,etc.)2.Analysis of short stories and novels (about 40 points)Example 1Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserveand caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had beeninsufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was lessdifficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, littleinformation, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fanciedherself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; itssolace was visiting and news.QuestionsWhat can we learn from this short passage about Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet?What was the tone of the passage? Does this passage illustrate the style ofJane Austen?Example 2One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died.It was a dark rainy evening and here was no sound in the house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water paying in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little.All my senses seemed to veil themselves and feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: O Love! O Love! many times.QuestionsWhat can we learn about “I” from this short passage? What was the meaning of the sentence “I was thankful that I could see so little.” ? What rhetorical device was used in this passage?Example 3“Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals (in Aeschylean phrase) had ended his spot with Tess. And the d’Urbervilles knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they rose, joined hands again, and went on.QuestionsWhat is your understanding of the sentence “And the d’Urbervilles knight and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing”? Was justice really done?What is your understanding of the very end of the novel “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy?3.Analysis of the poems (about 30 points)Example 1Little Lamb I’ll tell thee,Little Lamb I’ll tell thee!He is called by thy name,For he called himself a Lamb;He is meek & he is mild,He became a little child;I a child & thou a lamb,We are called by his name.Little Lamb God bless thee.Little Lamb God bless thee.QuestionsWho is “he” in the third line of this stanza? What is the dominant feeling in this stanza? What are you understanding of the last two lines?Example 2Oh stay, three lies in one flea spare,Where we almost, nay more than married are.The flea is you and I, and thisOur marriage bed and marriage temple is;Though parents grudge, and you, we are met,And cloistered in these living walls of jet.Though use make you apt to kill me,Let not do that, self-murder added be,And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.QuestionsWhat extraordinary metaphors (conceits) do you find in this stanza? Give an example and explain it. What is the central idea in this stanza?4.Paraphrasing (about 15 points)Example 1Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, they e many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust, yet on the other side, they are more cruel and hard-heated (good to makesevere inquisitors), because their tenderness is not so oft called upon.Example 2Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,Who is already sick and pale with griefThat thou her maid art far more fair than she.Be not her maid, since she is envious.Her vestal livery is but sick and green,And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.Example 3Thus conscious does make coward of us all,And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pitch and momentWith this regard their currents turn awryAnd lost the name of action.More ExamplesAllusion: A reference to an object, an event, a place, or a person, etc, outside of a text itself. E.g. the title of W.B. Yeats’s Second Coming”has a biblical allusion, which refers to the second coming of Jesus Christ.Symbol:In a literary work, it refers to an object, , action or animal, that stands for something more than its literary meaning. E.g. the “Lam b” in William Blake’s poem “Lamb” is a symbol of innocent and humility.ExampleHer image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.Question A: According to the passage, what places are the most hostile to romance? Answer: From the description in the extract, it is evident that the narrator considers that the noisy and dirty market and the church is the most hostile to his romance.Question B: What does the passage suggest about the social reality described?Answer: The market and the church symbolize respectively the secular/material life and the spiritual life of the people described in the story. Since both places are most hostile to the romance from the perspective of the narrator, we may infer that the social reality concerned must be depressing and repulsive to genuine human emotion. ExampleAnd even as he lay dead, his mother heard her brother’s voice saying to her: “My God, Hester, you’re eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, he’s best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking horse to find a winner.”Question: In what way does Uncle Oscar’s comment reveal the theme of the story? Answer: Uncle Oscar’s comment reveals a major theme of “A Rocking Horse Winner” by D. H. Lawrence, that is, a paradox in human life. On the one hand, most of us want to win or succeed in life, and no one wants to be a loser. On the hand, “the devil has “best gone out of life where he rides his rocking horse to find a winner,”which means that a winner is most likely to be the target of devil is after. This symbolically suggests that the winner will eventually end up with destruction.ExampleHe is called by thy name,For he calls himself a Lamb:He is meek & he is mildHe became a little child:I a childe & thou a LambWe are called by his name.Question: What is suggested by the unity reached among “I”, “Lamb” and “He”?Answer: The Lamb, He (Jesus) and I (the symbol of human beings) are all creation of God because the three share the same feature of mildness, meekness (humility) and obedience, which God requires of his creations. This the unity upon which we three have reached,ExampleTo sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause. There’s the respectThat makes calamity of so long life.Answer: The consideration that we don’t know what would happen after our death makes us rather endure the long suffering in life than to commit suicide.。