英美文学主要内容

英美文学作品选读

Selected Readings of British Literature

This subject is about the historical development of British literature, it describes the lives and careers of the great and major writers, especially their representative works.

英国

1. 中古英国文学（8世纪-14世纪）

2. 文艺复兴时期（14世纪-17世纪中）

3. 新古典主义时期（17世纪中-18世纪）

4. 浪漫主义时期（18世纪中-19世纪中）

5. 维多利亚时期（1836- 1901）

6. 现代主义时期（19世纪末-20世纪）

Mediaeval times (the 8th ~ 14th century)

1)The Anglo-saxon period:

About Teutons: before the invasion of Britain, the Teutons inhabited the central part of Europe as far as the Rhine, a tract which in a large measured coincides with the modern Germany. The Jutes, Angles and Saxons were different tribes of Teutons. These ancestors of the English dwelt in Danmark and in the lands extending southward along the North Sea.

The literature form of this period falls into two divisions –pagan and Christian. The former represents the poetry which the Anglo-Saxons probably brought with them in the form of oral saga. The latter represents the writings developed under the teaching of the monks. Two important poets in this period are Caedmon and Cynewulf.

The Song of Beowulf: the poem can be justly termed England’s national epic, its hero Beowulf is one of the national heroes of the English people. Thematically, the poem presents a vivid picture of how the primitive people wage heroic struggles again the hostile forces of the natural world under a wise and mighty leader.

2)The Anglo-Norman period: the literature of this period is remarkable for its bright, romantic tales of

love and adventure, in contrast with the strength and somberness of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the representative. Its theme is a series of the tests on faith, courage, purity and human weakness for self-preservation. The story presents a profoundly Christian view of man’s character and his destiny. By placing self-protection before honour, and deceit before his trust in the love of God, Gawain has sinned and fallen and become an image of Adam. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is undoubtedly a romance told with the purpose of portraying ideal character in action.

3)Geoffrey Chaucer,the ‘father of English poetry”and one of the greatest narrative poets of England.

Chaucer greatly contributed to the founding of the English literary language, the basis of which was formed by the London dialect, so profusely used by the poet. Chaucer’s masterpiece is the Canterbury Tales, one of the most famous works in all literature, which has given us a picture of contemporary English life, its work and play, its deeds and dreams, its fun and sympathy and hearty joy of living such as no other single work of literature has ever equaled. These people include young squire, yeoman, forester, Prioress, miller, ploughman, etc.

文艺复兴时期文学The Renaissance

the 16th century in England was a period of breaking up of feudal relations and the establishing of the foundations of capitalism. New social and economic conditions brought about great changes in the development of science and art, this period is marked by a flourishing of national culture known as the Renaissance, which originally indicated a revival of classical (Greek and Roman) arts and sciences after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism (vagueness).

In Elizabethan period, English literature developed with a great speed. The most distinctive achievement of Elizabethan literature is drama. Next to drama is the lyrical poetry, remarkable for its variety and freshness and romantic feeling. In the renaissance period, scholars began to emphasize the capacities of human mind and the achievement of human culture. So humanism became the keynote of English renaissance.

1. William Shakespeare is one of the most remarkable playwrights and poets in the world. He has also been given the highest praises by various scholars and critics the world over. His greatest tragedies are: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. His greatest comedies are: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Merchant of Venice, as you like it and Twelfth Night. In them, he portrayed young people just freed from feudal fetters. He sang of their youth, love and ideal of happiness. They trust in themselves and their efforts are crowned with success. The general spirit is optimism.

The Merchant of Venice: A moneyless young man Bassanio loves a rich beauty Portia. He wants to marry to her, so he appeals to his friend Antonio for help. To aid Bassanio in his courtship, he borrows money from Shylock the Jewish usurer. Shylock agrees to lend the money on the condition that if the loan is not paid in three months, he may cut a pound of flesh from Antonia’s body. Unfortunately, Antonio can’t pay the money because his ship doesn’t return on time. Shylock demands his pound of flesh and Antonio is in danger now. At the critical moment, a young doctor of law comes to help him. He asks Shylock to take no more or no less than one pound of flesh and spilling no drop of blood. Shylock can’t do this, so Antonia is saved. The man who saves the life of Antonio is no other than Portia in disguise! Portia: she is one of S hakespeare’s ideal women--- beautiful, cultured, courteous（谦恭）and capable of rising to an emergency. Shylock: he is an avaricious money-lender and a Jew of pride and deep religious instincts. He has suffered much in the hands of the Christians. His revolting bond is counterbalanced by Antonio’s arrogant treatmen t of him. We can see his loud protest against racial discrimination.

Hamlet is considered the summit of Shakespeare’s art. The whole story shows how hamlet, who represents good and justice, fights against his uncle in whom all the evil things can be seen. The famous line in the play “to be or not to be” by hamlet is often quoted by people. He is a hero of the renaissance. He loves good and hates evil. He is a scholar, soldier and statesman. His learning, wisdom, noble nature, limitation and tragedy are all representative of the humanists at the turn of the 16th and the 17th century.

Othello is a splendid Moorish general in Venice. He marries to a beautiful girl and they live happily together. Iago is a very bad man and he envies his happiness. He tells Othello that his wife betrayed him. He believes him and kills his wife. But at last he knows the truth and regrets very much, so he killed himself. It is a tragedy of humanism and a tragedy of the colored people in a society of racial prejudice. Othello is a great warrior and too noble-minded to suspect those whom he loves. Though his kin is dark, he has great moral beauty. He loves Desdemona dearly because he finds her to be the embodiment of integrity, sincerity and loftiness of mind. Their tragedy shows that noble-minded people maybe led astray by evil forces in an evil society and commit mistakes if they can not distinguish falsehood from truth, and evil from good.

King Lear: Lear is the king of Britain and he is a self-wild old man, intends to divide his realm among his three daughters by asking them how much they love him. The two elder daughters win his trust by fine words. But his little daughter Cordelia says she loves him according to her duty, not more or less. Her father is angry and decides to give her nothing.

Sonnet: the sonnet is a poem in 14 lines with one or the other rhyme scheme.

Francis Bacon:an outstanding prose writer in time. His works may be divided into three classes, the philosophical (the Advancement of Learning), the literary (Essays - Of Truth, Of Death, Of Friendship), and the professional (Reading on the Status of Uses) works.

17世纪文学(The Period of Revolution and Restoration)

The 17th century was one of the most tempestuous periods in English history. It was a period when absolute monarchy impeded the further development of capitalism in England and the bourgeoisie could no longer bear the sway of landed nobility. The contradictions between the feudal system and the bourgeoisie had reached its peak and resulted in a revolutionary outburst.

1. John Milton is the greatest writer of the 17th century. He is often considered the greatest English poet after Shakespeare. In his life and literary career the two dominant historical movements of renaissance and Reformation combine and receive their most intense and intelligent expression. His works include paradise lost, paradise regained and Samson Agonistes. Milton has noble thought and splendid imagery. He is a great stylist. His poetry has a grand style. His poetry is noted for sublimity of thought and majesty of expression. Milton is a great master of blank verse. He is the glorious pioneer to introduce blank verse into non-dramatic poetry. He has used it as the main tool in his masterpiece Paradise Lost. His blank verse is rich in every poetic quality and never monotonous. His works are marked by cosmic themes and lofty religious idealism. Paradise lost is his masterpiece and the greatest English epic. In the poem, god is no better than a selfish despot, who is cruel and unjust in punishing Satan, the rebel. Adam and Eve embody his belief in the powers of man. Satan is the real hero of the poem.

2. John Bunyan. The Pilgrim’s Progress.

The story starts with a dream in which the author sees Christian the Pilgrim, with a heavy burden on his back, reading the Bibble, from which he learns that the city in which he and his family live shall be burnt down in a fire. He tries to convince his family and his neighbours of the on coming disaster and asks them to go with him i search of salvation, but most of them simply ignore him. so he starts off with a friend Pliable. Pliable turns back after they stumble into a pit, the Slough of despond. Christian struggles on by himself. Then he is misled by Mr. Worldly Wiseman and is brought back onto the right road by Mr. Evangelist. There he joins Faithful, a neighbor who has set out later but has made better progress. The two go on together through many adventures, including the great struggle with Apollyon, who claims them to be his subjects and refuses to accept their allegiance to God. After many other adventures, they come to the Vanity Fair where both are arrested as alien agitators. They are tried and Faithful is condemned to death. Christian, however, manages to escape and goes on his way, assisted by a new friend, Hopeful. Tired of the hard journey, they are attempted to take a pleasant path and are thn captured by Gelestial City at last. There they enjoy eternal life in the followship of the blessed.

The Pilgrim’s Progress is the most successful religious allegory in English language. Its predominant metaphor –life as a journey –is simple and familiar. The objects that Christian meets are homely and commonplace, and the scenes presented are typical English scenes, but throughout details. Here the strange is combined with familiar and trivial joined to the divine, and at the same time, everything is based on universal experiences. Besides, a rich imagination and a natural talent for story-telling also contribute to the success of the work which is at once entertaining and morally instructive.

Th secret of its success is probably simple. It is, first of all, not a procession of shadows repeating the

author’s declamations, but a real story, the first extended story in English. The Puritans may have read it because they found in it true personal experience told with strength, interest humour, in a word, with all qualities that cuch a story should possess. Young people have read it, first, for its intrinsic worth, because the dramatic interest of the story lured them on to the very end; and second, because it was their introduction to true allegory. It was the only book having an story interest in the great majority of English and American home for a full century.

18世纪文学(the age of Enlightenment in England)

After the tempestuous events of the 17th century, England entered a period of a comparatively peaceful development.

Enlightenment: it was an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. They thought the chief means for bettering the society is enlightenment or education for the people.

Realism. The eighteenth century was the golden age of the English novel. The novel of this period spoke the truth about life with an uncompromising courage. What the writers described in their works were social realities and the main characters were usually common men. The writers and philosophers of the Enlightenment held that man is good and noble by nature but many succumb to an evil environment.

1. Daniel Defoe has been regarded as the discoverer of the modern novel. Defoe was a very good story-teller. He had a gift for organizing minute details in such a vivid way that his stories could be both credible and fascination. His sentences are sometimes short, crisp and plain, and sometimes long and rambling, which leave on the reader an impression of casual narration. His language is smooth, easy, colloquial and mostly vernacular.

Robinson Crusoe was one of the forerunners of the English realistic novel. Crusoe was a sailor, a merchant and a slave-owner. On the voyage to Africa, he met a shipwreck and found himself cast by the sea waves upon the shore of an uninhabited island. He managed the livelihood there by himself. Finally, he was saved and got married in England. At last, he sailed back to the island and established a colony there.

2. Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s travels ; A Modest Proposal

3. Joseph Addison. Sir Roger at Church; Sir Roger at the Assizes.

3. Henry Fielding The History of Tom Jones

4. William Blake songs of innocence, songs of experience- the chimney-sweeper, London and the tiger. It shows the poet’s eyes are open to the evils and vices of the world.

5. Robert burns a red, red rose. He wrote poems to express his hatred for the oppression of the ruling class and his love for freedom.

浪漫主义时期The Romantic Period

1. William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet. His major poets include I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and The solitary reaper. His poetry is distinguished by the simplicity and purity of its language.

2. George Gordon Byron is one of the most excellent representatives of English romanticism. His literary career was closely associated with the struggle and progressive movement of his age. She walks in beauty and Don Juan. Don Juan is a Spanish youth of aristocratic birth. T he long poem describes Don Juan’s adventures in many countries.

3. Percy Bysshe Shelley

His short poems on nature and love form an important part of his literary output. His best love lyrics are Ode to the west wind and to a skylark. “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” is a famous line in ode to

the west wind.

4. John Keats

His famous works are ode to a nightingale, ode on a Grecian Urn and ode to autumn. Ode is his main form of poetry. He sought to express beauty in all his poems. His leading principle is beauty in truth, truth beauty. His poetry is distinguished by sensuousness and the perfection of form.

5. Walter Scott

Waverley, Rob Roy and Ivanhoe. He is the first novelist to recreate the past. In his novels, historical events are closely interwoven with the fates of individuals. He is always mindful of the role and fates of the ordinary people.In a sense, his literary career marks the transition from romanticism to realism in English literature of the 19th century.

6. Jane Austen

Her major works are Pride and prejudice, Emma, sense and sensibility. She was popular all through the 19th century. Pride and prejudice is his masterpiece. The central character is Elizabeth Bennet, one of the daughters in the Bennets. Elizabeth meets a young man Darcy and has prejudice against him because she thinks he has nothing but pride. After many twists and turns, misunderstandings disappear and they are happily united. The plot is simple, but Austen has woven vivid pictures of everyday life of English country society. Her novels show a wealth of humor, wit and delicate satire. Her dialogues are admirably true to life. 维多利亚时期文学The Victorian Age

Critical realism appeared during this period. Dickens is the representative writer. With striking force and truthfulness, he pictured bourgeois civilization, showing the misery of common people. The 19th century critical realists made use of the form of novel for full and detailed representation of social and political events, and one of the fate of individuals and of whole social class.

1. Charles Dickens is the greatest representative of English critical realism. He wrote lots of famous works, such as a tale of two cities. David Copperfield, Hard times and.Oliver Twist,

Oliver Twist is one of the best works of Dickens. Oliver Twist is an orphan boy. He is born in a workhouse and brought up under cruel conditions. Then he runs to London and meets a gang of thieves. They try to convert Oliver into a thief. He is rescued by a rich man, but the thieves kidnap him, make him join them again. At last, he is saved and adopted by the kind man. His vivid description of the thieves’ den and the underworld of London shows the sympathy for the lower classes. Among the characters of the lower strata, Oliver is the only one who emerges happy and successful in the end. This happy issue shows his optimistic belief in the inevitable triumph of good over evil.

2. William Makepeace Thackeray is a representative of critical realism in 19th century. He is a realist, a satirist and a moralist.Vanity fair: the title was taken from Bunyan’s pilgrim’s Progress. The main characters are Amelia and Becky. Amelia is a simple but kind girl and Becky is a craft and resourceful girl. Becky is an orphan and tries to make her way into the upper society. She is a classic example of those who grub money by all means.

3. Charlotte Bronte:Jane Eyre is a story about an orphan girl called Jane Eyre. Maltreated by her aunt, she goes to a charity school. Later she becomes a governess of Mr. Rochester. He loves her. Before their wedding, she learns that he has got a mad wife. Shocked by the news, she left him. When she heard that his house is destroyed in a fire and he becomes blind, she returned to him and became his wife. In the novel, Jane Eyre maintains that women should have equal rights with men. Charlotte also aims to criticize the bourgeoisie educational system.

4. Emily Bronte:Wuthering Heights it deals with the story of the hero Heathcliff who is a gipsy. He is

picked up by Me. Earnshaw and brought up together with his children. Healthcliff and the daughter Miss Catherine have loved each other since childhood. When he grows up, he joins the army and three years later he becomes a rich man. When he comes back, he finds his lover has been married to another man. Later, he becomes the master of the family and takes revenge upon the next generation. It’s a powerful attack on the bourgeoisie marriage system.

5. George Eliot: has three remarkable novels: Adam Bede, The mill on the floss, silas marner. The hero of Adam Bede is a village carpenter, an honest young man. He falls in love with a girl, but the girl gives her heart to a selfish squire. Later the girl is put into prison for deserting her own child. Adam and a woman preacher get married.

7. Alfred Tennyson was recognized as the greatest poet of Victorian England. His main poetical works include Ulysses; break, break, break; Crossing the Bar. He has a total mastery of the sounds and rhythms of the English language. He has genius for evoking moods and states of mind in his poems. No poet could surpass him at linking descriptions of nature to the state of the mind.

8. Robert Browning is realistic, optimistic and believes in the progress of mankind. His contribution to poetry is his dramatic monologues.

现代作家—twentieth century literature.

In modernist writers concentrate more on the private and subjunctive than on the public and the objective, mainly concerned with the inner being of an individual. The major themes of the modernist literature are the distorted, and ill relationships between man and nature, man and society, man and man, man and himself. 1. John Galsworthy is one of the greatest novelists in the early 20th century. He was born in a wealthy family. After graduation from Oxford, he began to devote himself to literary work. His style is noted for its strength and elasticity. His language is simple, clear and straightforward.

The forsyte saga has been regarded as his masterpiece. It includes three novels and two interludes. And the man of propert y marks the peak of critical realism in all Galsworthy’s works. Forsyte is the central figure of the story, who is the man of property. He has married a girl, but pays no attention to her thoughts and feelings, regarding her as a piece of his property. Then his wife loves another who is killed by a car.

2. Bernard Shaw was a greatest dramatist in the 20th century. He used stage to criticize the evils of capitalism. He is a critical realist writer and a humorist. His play deals with contemporary social problems. His major plays include widowers’ houses, the apple cart, Major Barbara, Mrs. Warren’s profession and heartbreak house. Widowers’ houses satirizes bourgeois businessmen whose ill-gotten money is squeezed out of poor, suffering people. An English businessman Mr. Sartorius and his daughter meet a young doctor Harry Trench while traveling in Germany. The two youth fall in love with each other and plan to get married. Then Trench finds that his future father-in-law makes his money by renting slum housing to the poor, so he refuses to marry her daughter. Later, Sartorius reveals that Trench's income is as dirty as the money made by Sartorius. At last, Harry and Blanche reunite.

3. David Herbert Lawrence was an English author, poet, playwright and literary critic. In his works, he confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct. He is best known for his novels Sons and Lovers, the Rainbow, Women in Love and Lady Chatterley's Lover. Within these Lawrence explores the possibilities for life and living within an Industrial setting. In particular Lawrence is concerned with the nature of relationships that can be had within such settings. Though often classed as a realist, Lawrence's use of his characters can be better understood with reference to his philosophy. His use of sexual activity, though shocking at the time, has its roots in this highly personal way

of thinking and being. It is worth noting that Lawrence was very interested in human touch behavior and that his interest in physical intimacy has its roots in a desire to restore our emphasis on the body, and re-balance it with what he perceived to be western civilization's slow process of over-emphasis on the mind.

Sons and Lovers is Lawrence’s semi-autob iographical novel. It tells the story of a coal miner’s family with the son Paul as the central character. The thread of the story evolved around Paul’s love for the two girls Miriam and Clara as well as his love for his mother Mrs. Morel.

4. James Joyce was born in Dublin. His major novels include: a portrait of the artist as a young man, Ulysses and Dubliners. James Joyce is the founder of stream of consciousness.He tried not merely to describe how a character might think, but also to present a record of the character’s thoughts.

5. Thomas Hardy

1)The underlying theme of Hardy’s writing is the struggle of man against the mysterious force which rules

the world, brings misfortune into his life and predetermines his fate. 2) fatalism is strongly reflected in his writings. 3) Hardy has a strong sense of humor and often describes nature with charm and impressiveness.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, His masterpieces are Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the major of Casterbridge, far from the madding crowed and Jude the obscure. Tess is a poor dairymaid who has been seduced by Alec D’Urbervilles, a wealthy villain, and gives birth to a child. Later she falls in love with a man called Clare. On their wedding night, she confesses to her husband that she has been seduced and given birth to a child. He husband can not accept the fact and goes abroad. Some years later, he comes back and wants Tess to come back to him. Tess murders her seducer and is arrested and hanged. The tragedy of Tess is an exposure of the wicket oppressors represented by Alec.

The son’s veto