英国文学(上)复习纲要

The Anglo-Saxon Period

449-1066

Events & Terms

?Celts

?Roman Conquest

?Anglo-Saxons

?Myth

Celts

?500 B.C and 100 B.C.

?Coming from central Europe

?Tribal society

?Clan as unit

?Celtic warriors enjoying fighting

?Lack of unity

Roman Conquest

?55BC - 407AD

?Roman general Julius Caesar

?Roman emperor Claudius

?Britannia: British Isles as a province of Roman empire

?Roman governors

?Christianity

The Anglo-Saxons (449-1066)

?Angles, Saxons, Jutes, tribes from the places now northern Germany and southern Scandinavia

?Creation of the English nation

?Old English or Anglo-Saxon

?Anglo-Saxon myth: The Lord of the Rings; The Song of Beowulf

Myth(ology)

The story, handed down from olden times, especially concepts or beliefs about the early history of a race or a nation usually with supernatural episodes.

Questions for Anglo-Saxon Period

?What is your impression of Beowulf as a hero and king?

?What do you think is the most important theme of Beowulf?

?In what way is the movie different from original myth and why?

The Anglo-Norman Period

1066-1350

Events & Terms

●Norman Conquest

●King Arthur

●Romance

●Narrative Poetry

Norman Conquest (1066)

●End of the Anglo-Saxon Period

●Start of Medieval Period

●Norman-French culture: Romance

King Arthur

●Legendary British hero

●leading the defense of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th

century

Romance

● A style of heroic prose or verse narrative;

●Fantastic stories about adventures of a knight , who goes on a quest;

●Aristocratic circles of medieval and early modern Europe;

●Out of fashion by the 17th century.

Narrative poetry

●Narrative poetry refers to the poems that have a story plot. It includes epics,

ballads, idylls, and lays/lyric poems.

Question for Anglo-Norman Period

What is the moral lesson about the Arthurian romance Gawain?

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400)

Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453):

?Between Kings of England and Kings of France for the control of French throne;

?The English kings claiming they were legal successors to the French crown;

?The result: an awakening of national consciousness in England.

The Peasants’ Revolt (1831):

?As a mark of end of serfdom in medieval England;

?The revolt itself, a failure;

?Awareness in the upper classes of the need for the reform of feudalism in England;

?The misery felt by the lower classes as a result of their enforced near-slavery.

The Catholic Church:

?On the wane partly because of its abuse of power and its corruption;

?John Wycliff: attacking the corruption and rottenness of the Church;

demanding for a Church reform.

Geoffrey Chaucer:

?Father of English poetry;

?Forerunner of English Renaissance;

?Influenced by Italian Renaissance;

?Belief in human’s right of earthly happiness; praising man’s energy, adroitness, intellect, quick wit and the love for life;

?Writing in Middle English.

Some Canterbury Tales:

?The Knight’s Tale: the fight of two knights for the same women they both fall in love;

?The Friar’s Tale: a summoner’s greed for money and his collecting money by blackmailing those misbehaviors;

?The Miller’s Tale: love affair outside marriage.

?The Wife of Bath’s Tale: a story about women who want to control over their husbands and their own lives.

The Work’s Major Themes:

1. Courtly Love:

?True love may be idealized and spiritual;

? A man becomes the servant of the lady he loves;

?True love only exists outside of marriage.

2. The Corruption of the Catholic Church:

?Power over England, Ireland, and the entire continent of Europe; extremely wealthy; cathedrals incredibly expensive to build;

?Church’s greed, corruption, and hypocrisy; lack in sympat hy for the poor;

? A burden to common people.

Major Terms

?Popular Ballads:

Ballads are anonymous narrative songs that have been reserved by oral transmission. ―Popular‖ is used to indicate that ballads were widespread among the populace of England and Scotland.

?Robin Hood:

Robin Hood is a partly historical and partly

legendary character.

Questions:

1) What views of Chaucer’s are expressed in his poem?

2) Make a comment on the Nun, the Prioress.

3) Make a comment on Robin Hood.

The Renaissance

(Part IV)

14th-17th Centuries

Renaissance

●The removal of the old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe;

●The introduction of new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising

bourgeoisie and the recovery of the purity of the early church from the

corruption of the Roman Catholic Church;

●The revival of classical (Greek and Roman) arts and sciences;

●Humanism as the essence of the renaissance.

The Absolute monarchy

●Monarchical form of government;

●Ultimate governing authority;

●Wielding political power over the sovereign state and its subject peoples. Sonnet

● A form of a poem that originated in Europe;

● A Shakespearean/English sonnet consists of 14 lines, each line containing ten

syllables and written in iambic pentameter, in which a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, repeated five times;

●The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet: a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g. Hamlet, the Character

●Enigmatic, philosophical, contemplative;

●Melancholy, discontented with the state of affairs in Denmark and in his own

family; contemplating his own death; being afraid of spiritual aftermath of death;

●Indecisive, inactive, passive;

●Compulsive talker.

Shylock, the Character

●Antagonist, villain, cruel, stingy/miserly;

●Victim of Christians’ discriminat ion.

Other Major Writers

1) Poets:

●Thomas Wyatt (1503?-1542)

●Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

2) Novelists:

●John Lyly (1553?-1606)

●Thomas Nashe (1567-1602)

3) Playwright:

●Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

4) Prose Writer:

●Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Bacon’s “Of Studies”

●Function, importance, and tips concerning studies;

●Importance of knowledge and reason for human development;

●Parallels as major rhetorical devise.

Questions for Part IV:

1.What is the significance of Renaissance?

2.What is Hamlet’s personality?

3.Why does Hamlet hesitate in seeking revenge?

4.What do you think of the critical interpretation of Hamlet’s hesitation

from the perspective of the Oedipus complex?

5.What do you think of Shylock’s revenge?

6.What are expressed of Bacon’s views in ―Of Studies‖?

Part V The 17th Century

The Period of Revolution and Restoration

Commonwealth

?In 1649 (Charles I beheaded)

?Commonwealth under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell (1599 – 1658)

?Commonwealth: political community founded for the common good, historically,

synonymous with ―republic‖.

Restoration (1660)

?After the death of Cromwell;

?Bourgeoisie inviting the son of Charles I to be the king of England;

?Monarchy restored.

Glorious Revolution (1688)

?Overthrow of King James II of England (James VII of Scotland and James II

of Ireland) by a union of English Parliamentarians with William of Orange, a Dutch;

?English throne as William III of England jointly with his wife Mary II of

England.

John Milton (1608-1674):

?Milton believed Power corrupts human beings, and rulers should have to prove

their right to lead other people.

?Milton was an activist fighting for human rights.

?Milton believed in a strict social and political hierarchy; he objected to the

hierarchy that existed in his day.

?Milton was a Puritan. Puritans called for the abolishment of bishops. Milton

despised the corruption he saw in the Catholic Church.

John Bunyan (1628-1688):

?Received into Baptist Church (浸礼会) in 1653;

?Strong sensitivity to sin, self-imposed, self-enforced, severe, self-critical. The Pilgrim’s P rogress (1678)

?Religious allegory;

?Search for salvation;

?Christian, the central character, search for religious truth and salvation in

Celestial City;

?Definite goal in life, to reach the Celestial City, little time or energy for other

matters.

Questions for Part V:

1.What is the major theme of Paradise Lost? How are Milton’s views

expressed in the poem?

2.What is Bunyan’s religious belief? How is his belief expressed in

―Vanity Fair‖ of The Pilgrim’s Progress?

Part VI The 18th Century

The Age of Enlightenment in England

Historical Background:

●Peaceful social environment and development;

●Two parties—the liberal Whigs and conservative Tories.

Enlightenment:

●Struggle of the then progressive bourgeoisie against feudalism;

●Against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of

feudalism;

●Against false religious doctrines about the viciousness of human nature;

proving man born kind and honest;

●Importance of sciences for the development of human beings.

Robinson Crusoe (1719):

Robinson Crusoe as representative of bourgeoisie, rising class in 18th century with following traits:

Perseverance;

Resourcefulness, do-it-yourself independence;

Emotional self-control;

Industry;

Courage;

Individualism;

Interest in possessions, power, and prestige.

Questions

1.How do you analyze the character of Robinson Crusoe?

2.Some critics take this novel as a book of colonialism and why is that?

3.Illustrate Western culture expressed in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

1.bitter satire on politics, religion, Enlightenment, English people, humans;

2.Satiric devices:

1)Visual contrast: Lilliputians; Brobdingnagians;

2)Allegories:

High-Heels vs. Low-Heels（struggles between the Whigs and the Tories);

Big-Endians vs. Little-Endians(fight between Catholics and Protestants);

Laputans (folly of theoretical knowledge);

Flying Islands(English government’s domination over Ireland).

Questions

Why is Gulliver’s Travels considered a book of satire?

What satiric devices are used and what theme is expressed in the novel Gulliver’s Travels?

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749)

―Comic epic‖;

Wide range of social types of the age rather than unique individuals;

No interior lives of characters;

Morality vs. honesty, kindness;

Criticism on hypocrisy, coldness, selfishness.

Sentimentalism:

●Overindulgence in emotion and overemphasis of the goodness of humanity;

●Over-shown feeling not a weakness showing morality;

●Challenging principles of Enlightenment;

●As result of discontent on sciences and reason;

●Novelist: Oliver Goldsmith (The Vicar of Wakefield, 1766)

Poet: Thomas Gray (Elegy, Written in a Country Churchyard, 1751).

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1750)

Sentimental poetry: nature as background for display of emotion, gloom as general atmosphere;

about death, sorrows, mysteries, melancholy; about common people, conscience;

Elegy: poem setting forth poet’s meditations upon death or solemn theme;

expression of solemn mood.

Gothic Novel:

● A branch of sentimentalism;

●Specializing in ruins, haunted castles, and frightening landscapes, magic;

●Horror, mystery, supernatural, misfortune, death, haunted houses, family

curses;

●Horace Walpole and his The Castle of Otranto (1765).

The School for Scandal (1777)

Comedy of manners (which satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class represented by stock characters);

Criticism on artificial nature of appearances;

Satire on the moral degeneracy of the English idle wealthy class.

Pre-romanticism:

●Foretelling coming of Romanticism in English literature at the end the 18th

century;

●William Blake and Robert Burns.