《英美文学选读》串讲讲义

《英美文学选读》应考指导

一、教材说明

《英美文学选读》是全国高等教育自学考试英语专业本科段的必修课程，也是广大考生比较头疼的课程。教材大体可以分为两个大的部分，文学发展史和作家介绍及作品选读。让考生头疼的事情是课本信息量太大，考纲要求的内容较多，学习的时候理不出头绪，也不便记忆。事实上，文学课有着相当强的逻辑性和系统性，只要我们把握住这一点，这门课程并不难学，也不难考过。

二、考情分析

2009年，本门课程的考试大纲做了一些调整，这种调整在某种程度上减轻和考生的复习负担，但也同时考察的内容更细，更全。 （一）关于考核要求的调整

考核要求中每章概述内容不作调整；―该时期的重要作家‖只包含对考核知识点中保留的重要作家的相关内容的考核。 （二）大纲调整后的特点

（1）新大纲更加突出了英美各个文学时期的时代特点。如：文艺复兴时期的戏剧和诗史，浪漫主义时期的诗歌等。从这个意义上讲，命题的重点突出了。

（2）新大纲中考核的作家，都是每一个文学时期文学潮流的最具代表性的作家，都是对该时期文学的发展起到决定作用的作家。从这个意义上讲，命题的焦点集中了。

（3）新大纲中所保留的作家的作品大多是广大考生耳熟能详的作品，从这个意义上讲，考试的难度降低了。

三、复习方法 （一）概述：

考试大纲调整以后，可命题的作家的数量减少了，但命题的深度会增加；同时，由于作家数量的减少，这也意味着在每一章的概述部分和作品选读部分的命题点会增多。

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（二）每章概述部分的复习重点

在对这部分的复习中，重点关注每一个文学时期的界定以及其标志性事件；另外每一个文学时期的时代特点和突出文学成就也是考查的重点，还有本时期同时存在的文学流派的特点也是重点内容。

（三）每章重点作家的复习重点

作家的文学史上的地位和贡献；作家的代表作以及代表作的中心大意和所反映的社会现实；作家的写作风格和写作特点也是命题的重点。 （四）每章作品选读的复习重点

作品选读前面的斜体字部分的简介和概括；作品中的名句；作品选读中的注释部分，小说作品中的人物关系。

四、结束语

考纲的实施，从总体上讲，命题的重点突出了，密度增加了，深度也拓展了，但是，整体难度不会有太大的变化。对于考生而言，复习的内容删减了，压力减轻了，考试也就容易了。

在对新考纲解读完了之后，剩下的事情就是大家去听后面的串讲，认真学习，通过考试！

Part One: English Literature

Old and Medieval English Literature上古世纪和中世纪英国文学

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England‘s inhabitants are Celts. 岛上最早的居民是凯尔特人。And it is conquered征服by

Romans古罗马人 Anglo Saxons and Normans盎格鲁一撒克逊人及法国诺曼底公爵。 The Anglo-Saxons brought the Germanic language and culture to England, 盎格鲁一撒克逊人将日尔曼族语言及文化根植在岛上while Normans brought the Mediterranean civilization诺曼底人则带来了地中海文明的清新浪潮including Greek culture, Rome law and the Christian religion. ,所谓地中海文明包括希腊文化,罗马的法律,以及基督教It is the cultural influence of these two conquests that provided the source for the rise and growth of English literature. 正是这两次外族入侵所附带的文化影响为日后英国文学的兴起与发展提供了富足的源泉。

上古时期：450-1066年 这一时期定盎格鲁一萨克森文明兴盛的时期。

1. The old English literature extends from about 450 to 1066, the year of the Norman conquest of England. 英国文学史的上古时期起于大约公元450年,止于1066年,即诺曼征服英国的那一年。

2. The old English poetry that has survived can be divided into two groups: The religious group and the secular one. 英国上古诗歌可分为两大类:宗教诗和世俗诗。

3. Beowulf: a typical example of Old English poetry is regarded as the national epic民族史诗 of the Anglo-Saxons. 《贝尔武夫》, 被誉为盎格鲁一撒克逊的民族史诗，是英国上古诗歌的典型。

It is an example of the mingling结合of nature myths and heroic legends. 这部史诗是将自然界神话与英雄传奇相结合的典型例子。 The theme of Beowulf:

The poem presents a vivid picture of how the primitive people wage heroic struggles against the hostile forces of the natural world under a wise and mighty leader. The poem is an example of the mingling of the nature myths and heroic legends. 这部史诗的主题是为读者展现一幅原始部族的人民在英明而强大(智勇双全)的领袖指挥下战天斗地不向艰苦的自然环境低头的画卷。这部史诗是将自然界神话与英雄传奇相结合的典型例子。

中世纪时期：1066-14世纪

1、After the Norman‘s conquest, three languages co-existed in England. 诺曼征服过后,英国出现了三种语言鼎立并存的局面。French is the official language that is used by king and the Norman

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lords. 法语成为官方语言为国王与贵族们所使用。Latin is the principal tongue of church affairs and

in universities. 拉丁语成为教会与学校的主要语言。Old English was spoken only by the common English people. 原来的古英语只成为平民百姓的语言。

2、在诺曼征服(1066年)之后,英国文学进入了中世纪时期,这个时期持续了大约四个世纪。中世纪早期的文学,即从1066年到14世纪中叶,没有什么卓越的成就,这段时间可谓是文学荒漠。

3、 In the second half of 14th century, English literature started to flourish with the appearance of writers like Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, John Gower, and others

到了14世纪下半叶,英国文学开始兴盛起来,涌现出一批像吉奥弗雷·乔叟,威廉·兰格伦及约翰·高厄这样的诗人。

4、Geoffrey Chaucer 吉奥弗雷·乔叟

乔叟，在英国文学史上第一次向我们展示了表现当时英国社会的一幅综合性、现实主义的画卷,在他的代表作《坎特伯雷故事集》中塑造了一系列来自社会各阶层的生动形象的人物。 Geoffrey Chaucer‘s The Canterbury Tales first time in English literature, a comprehensive realistic picture of the medieval English society and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life

1）、The Wife of Bath in the Canterbury Tales:

The Wife of Bath is depicted as the new bourgeois wife asserting her independence. Chaucer develops his characterization to a higher artistic level by presenting characters with both typical qualities and individual dispositions.

2）、Chaucer‘s achievement:

①He presented a comprehensive realistic picture of his age and created a whole gallery of vivid characters in his works, especially in The Canterbury Tales.

②He anticipated a new ear, the Renaissance, to come under the influence of the Italian writers. ③He developed his characterization to a higher level by presenting characters with both typical qualities and individual dispositions.

④He greatly contributed to the maturing of English poetry. Today, Chaucer‘s reputation has been securely established as one of the best English poets for his wisdom, humor and humanity.

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4）、―The Father of English poetry‖:

①Chaucer introduced from France the rhymed stanzas of various types to English poetry to replace it.

乔叟从法国文学中引进了各种各样的押尾韵诗章,取代了古英诗中的押头韵。

②In The Romaunt of the Rose (玫瑰传奇), he first introduced to the English the octosyllabic couplet (八音节对偶句).

在翻译法国著名骑士诗《玫瑰传奇》中,他首次将八音节对偶句引人英语。

③Heroic couplet is a rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter. It is Chaucer who used it for the first time in English in his work The Legend of Good Woman.

《好女人的故事》中,他又首次使用了五音步抑扬格的押韵对偶句,也就是后来的英雄偶句诗体。

④And in his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, he employed heroic couplet with true ease and charm for the first time in the history of English literature.

在《坎特伯雷故事集》中他也轻松自如地使用了英雄偶句诗体,这在整个英国文学史上都是首创。

⑤His art made him one of the greatest poets in English; John Dryden called him ―the father of English poetry‖.

他的艺术成就早已使他超越了时代,使他成为公认的英国历史上最伟大的诗人之一。 约翰·德莱顿(英国十七世纪著名桂冠诗人、评论家)曾将《坎特伯雷故事集》译成现代英语,他称乔叟为英诗之父。

4、骑士抒情诗也是中世纪盛行的文学形式,这种诗歌以叙述性的韵文或散文歌颂了骑士的冒险以及其它的英雄事迹。这种文学形式发展了富有中世纪特点的主题一一寻找并遭遇巨妖魔怪,并救出心爱的美人。

7、Romance:

①It uses narrative verse or prose to sing knightly adventures or other heroic deeds is a popular literary form in the medieval period.

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②It has developed the characteristic medieval motifs of the quest, the test, the meeting with the

evil giant and the encounter with the beautiful beloved.

③The hero is usually the knight, who sets out on a journey to accomplish some missions. There are often mysteries and fantasies in romance.

④Romantic love is an important part of the plot in romance.

Characterization is standardized, While the structure is loose and episodic, the language is simple and straightforward.

⑤The importance of the romance itself can be seen as a means of showing medieval aristocratic men and women in relation to their idealized view of the world.

【例题】The work that presented, for the first time in English literature, a comprehensive realistic picture of the medieval English society and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life is most likely ______________. (0704)

A. William Langland’s Piers Plowman B. Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales C. John Gower’s Confession Amantis D. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 【答案】B

【解析】(P4.para.2)

本题考查的是中世纪时期几位诗人作品的创作主题和创作范围。A答案是《农夫皮尔斯》及其作者威廉·兰格伦他在其作品中描述了他那个时期的宗教与社会问题。 C《爱人的告白》，D《高文爵士和他的绿衣骑士》都是约翰·高厄的作品，属于时最精美的骑士文学作品;然而只有乔叟，在英国文学史上第一次向我们展示了表现当时英国社会的一幅综合性、现实主义的画卷,在他的代表作《坎特伯雷故事集》中塑造了一系列来自社会各阶层的生动形象的人物。

本 章 小 结

本章重点：

Chaucer and his achievement 本章提示：

本部分内容以选择题考查，所以，复习时以识记为主。

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Chapter 1: The Renaissance Period

General Introduction 考核要求:

1. 识记：

（1）文艺复兴时期的界定 （2）历史文化背景 2. 领会:

（1）文艺复兴运动的意义与影响 （2）文艺复兴时期的文学特点 （3）人文主义的主张及对文学的影响

3. 应用：文艺复兴，人文主义及玄学诗等名词的解释

考点串讲:

1. The Renaissance: 14世纪到17世纪中叶

The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. Generally, it refers to the period between the 14th & 17th centuries. It first started in Italy, 从意大利兴起with the flowering of painting, sculpture & literature. From Italy the movement went to embrace the rest of Europe. 伴随着绘画、雕塑和文学领域的百花齐放,而后文艺复兴浪潮席卷了整个欧洲。The Renaissance, which means \ or \ is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, 文艺复兴,顾名思义即重生、复苏,是由一系列历史事件激发推动的.

文艺复兴是欧洲中世纪和现代社会的分水岭，它的发生有着深刻的社会历史根源，当时的社会发展刺激了文艺复兴的发生，如地理天文大发现，席卷欧洲的宗教改革以及对古希腊，古罗马文化的发掘等。

The Renaissance is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events such as ①The re-discovery of ancient Roman & Greek culture 对古希腊罗马文化的重新发现 ②The new discoveries in geography & astrology, 地理天文领域的新发现, ③the religious reformation & the economic expansion.宗教改革及经济发展

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The Renaissance, therefore, in essence is a historical period in which the European humanist

thinkers & scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas封建主义 in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie新兴资产阶级, & to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption腐败 of the Roman Catholic Church. 因此,文艺复兴从本质上是欧洲人文主义者竭力摒弃中世纪欧洲的封建主义,推行代表新兴城市资产阶级利益的新思想,并恢复早期宗教的纯洁性,远离腐败的罗马天主教廷的一场运动。

【例题】The Renaissance is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events EXCEPT_________.(0804)

A. the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture B. the vast expansion of British colonies in North America C. the new discoveries in geography and astrology D. the religious reformation and the economic expansion 【答案】B

【解析】(P7. para1)

文艺复兴是欧洲中世纪和现代社会的分水岭，它的发生有着深刻的社会历史根源，当时的社会发展刺激了文艺复兴的发生，如地理天文大发现，席卷欧洲的宗教改革以及对古希腊，古罗马文化的发掘等。

2. Humanism:

Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. 人文主义是文艺复兴的核心。It sprang from 起源于the endeavor 努力to restore a medieval reverence尊崇 for the ancient authors and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on such a conception that man is the measure of all things. 它源于努力恢复中世纪产生的对古希腊罗马文化的尊崇。人文主义作为文艺复兴的起源是因为古希腊罗马文明的基础是以\人\为中心,人是万物之灵。Through the new learning, humanists not only saw the arts of splendor and enlightenment, but the human values represented in the works. 通过这些对古代文化崭新的研究,人文主义者不仅看到了光彩夺目的艺术启明星,还在那古典作品中寻求到了人的价值。Renaissance humanists found in the classics a justification to exalt赞扬human nature and came to see that human beings were glorious creatures capable of individual development in the direction of

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perfections, and that the world they inhabited was theirs not to despise but to question, explore, and

enjoy. 人文主义者们却从古代文化遗产中找到了充足的论据,来赞美人性,并开始注意到人类是光荣的生命,人自己可以不断发展,至善至美,而且人们生存的世界是属于他们的,供他们怀疑、探索以及享受。Thus, by emphasizing the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, they voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of this life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders. 由此,人文主义者通过强调人类的尊严、强调今生今世的重要性,喊出了他们的信仰,即人类不仅有权利在今生今世美好生活,而且还有能力完善自我,创造奇迹。

标志是荷兰学者伊拉斯谟先后到牛津大学与剑桥大学讲授古典文化研究。

Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are the best representatives of the English humanists. 托马斯·摩尔、克利斯朵夫·马洛和威廉·莎士比亚是英国人文主义的代表。

3. The Renaissance in England:

①The first-- the beginning (1485-1558) --- imitation and assimilation

英国文艺复兴初期只是一个学习模仿与同化的阶段。

Poetry: Wyatt & Surrey 托马斯·怀亚特与萨里伯爵

Wyatt introduced the Petrarchan sonnet into England, while Surrey brought in blank verse. 怀亚特将彼特拉克的十四行诗引进英国(十四行诗分三个诗节,每行都是抑扬格五音步,韵式为abba,abba,cdeede.),而萨里则引进了无韵体诗,也就是不押韵的五音步抑扬格诗行,同时开创了英国式的十四行诗,后来被莎士比亚广泛使用,其韵式为abab,cdcd,efef,gg。

②The second -- (the peak) the Elizabeth Age (1558-1603) ---The Elizabethan drama

Poetry: Spenser & Marlowe马洛

Spenserian stanza: Spenserian stanza was invented by Edmund Spenser. It is a stanza of nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter & the last line in iambic hexameter, rhyming ababbcbcc.

Drama: Marlowe & Shakespeare

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The Renaissance hero: A Renaissance hero refers to one created by Christopher Marlowe in his

drama. Such a hero is always individualistic and full of ambition, facing bravely the challenge from both gods and men. He embodies Marlowe's humanistic ides of human dignity and capacity. Different from the tragic hero in medieval plays, who seeks the way to heaven through salvation and god's will, he is against conventional morality and contrives to obtain heaven on earth through his own efforts. With the endless aspiration for power, knowledge, and glory, the hero interprets the true Renaissance spirit. Both Tamburlaine and Faustus are typical in possessing such a spirit.

The Elizabethan drama:

It is the real mainstream of English Renaissance. 总体上讲,伊丽莎白时期的戏剧是英国文艺复兴的文学主流。

It could be dated back to the Middle Ages. 英国戏剧的渊源还要追溯到中世纪。 English material was put into the regular form of the Latin comedies of Plautus and Terence. Tragedies were in the style of Seneca生动活泼的英国本土的故事题材穿上了古罗马喜剧家普劳图斯与泰伦斯的拉丁语喜剧形式的外衣，而悲剧则追随古罗马悲剧大师塞内加的艺术形式。

The most famous dramatists in the Renaissance England are: Marlowe, Shakespeare & Ben Jackson 文艺复兴时期英国最著名的戏剧家有克里斯朵夫·马洛、威廉·莎士比亚与本·约翰逊。

③The third– further development (1603---1660)

Poetry: John Donne & John Milton

Metaphysical poetry: The term \17th century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne. With a rebellious spirit, the metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. The diction is simple as compared with that of the Elizabethan or the Neoclassic periods, and echoes the words and cadences of common speech. The imagery is drawn from the actual life. The form is frequently that of an argument with the poet's beloved, with God, or with himself.

Drama: Ben Jackson Essay: Francis Bacon

He is the first important English essayist, is known for his essays which greatly influenced the development of this literary form.

He is also the founder of modern science in England. His writings paved the way for the use of scientific method

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The typical authors during this period 考核要求:

1.一般识记：重要作家的文学生涯 2.识记：重要作品及主要内容

3.领会：重要作家的创作思想，艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构，人物塑造，语言风格，艺术手法，社会意义等。 4.应用：

（1）莎士比亚诗歌的主题，意象

（2）喜剧《威尼斯商人》的主题和主要人物性格分析 （3）哈姆雷特的性格分析

（4）史诗《失乐园》的结构，人物性格，语言特点等的分析

考点串讲:

Ⅰ. William Shakespeare

1. The bibliography

William Shakespeare is one of the most remarkable playwrights and poets the world has ever known.

2. Viewpoints

Viewpoints on politics: In his play, he does not hesitate to describe the cruelty and anti-natural character of the civil wars, but he did not go all the way against the feudal rule.

在政治方面：在他的作品中，他毫不犹豫地对内战的残酷及违反人伦天性进行了鞭笞，但他丝毫不反对封建统治。

Viewpoints on religion: He is against the religious persecution迫害 and racial discrimination种族歧视, against the social inequality社会不平等 and the corrupting influence of the gold and money金钱带来的腐化堕落---anti-Catholicism反对天主教。

在宗教方面：莎士比亚反对宗教迫害及种族歧视，憎恨社会不平等及金钱带来的腐化堕落。

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Viewpoint on literature: literature should be a combination of beauty, kindness and truth, and should reflect nature and reality---humanism人文主义

在文学方面：他认为文学应该是真善美的结合，应该反映天性和现实。

2. The major contributions

①38 plays (historical plays, tragedies and comedies) 38个剧本 ②2 narrative poems: Venus and Adonis 《维纳斯与安东尼斯》 The Rape of Lucrece 《鲁克丽丝受辱记》 ③154 sonnets 154首十四行诗 4. four stages for his play-creation 创作的4个阶段

①The first stage: his dramatic career is one of the apprenticeships 第一个阶段是学徒期 Five historical plays 五部历史剧 Four Comedies 四部喜剧

②The second stage, his style and approach became highly individualized 第二个阶段，莎士比亚的风格和手法都高度人文主义化了 Five historical plays 五部历史剧 Richard II 《理查二世》 King John 《约翰王》 Henry IV , part I, II 《亨利四世》（上、下） Henry V 《亨利五世》 Six comedies 六部喜剧 A Midsummer Night’s Dream 《仲夏夜之梦》 The Merchant of Venice 《威尼斯商人》浪漫喜剧romantic comedies 第 - 13 - - 13 - 页 共 128 页

Henry IV , part I, II, and III 《亨利六世》（上、中、下） Richard III 《理查三世》 Titus Andronicus （泰托斯·安东尼） The Comedy of Errors 《错误的喜剧》 The Two Gentlemen of Verona 《维洛那二绅士》 The Taming of the Shrew 《驯悍记》（泼妇的驯服） Love’s Labor’s Lost 《爱的徒劳》 Much Ado About Nothing 《无事生非》 As You like 《皆大欢喜》 Twelfth Night 《第十二夜》 The Merry Wives of Windsor 《温莎的风流娘们》 Two tragedies 两部悲剧

③The Third stage is the peak of his creation, included his greatest tragedies and his so-called dark comedies 第三阶段是创作顶峰，包括莎士比亚最伟大的悲剧和他自称的黑色喜剧 Seven tragedies 七部悲剧 greatest tragedies 四大悲剧 Hamlet 《哈姆雷特》 Othello 《奥赛罗》 King Lear 《李尔王》 Macbeth 《麦克白》 Antony and Cleopatra 《克利奥佩特拉》 Troilus and Cressida 《特洛伊罗斯和克利西达》 Coriolanus 《科里奥拉那斯》 Two comedies 两部喜剧

④The last period of Shakespeare‘s includes his principal romantic tragicomedies 最后一个阶段： Pericles 《伯利克利》 Cymbeline 《辛白林》 The Winter’s Tale 《冬天的故事》 The Tempest 《暴风雨》 Henry III 《亨利八世》 The Two Noble Kinsmen 《两位贵族亲戚》 第 - 14 - - 14 - 页 共 128 页

Romeo and Juliet 《罗密欧与朱丽叶》 Julius Caesar 《裘利斯·凯撒》 All’s Well That Ends Well 《终成眷属》 Measure for Measure 《一报还一报》 romantic tragicomedies 浪漫悲喜剧

5. About his dramas

①historical plays

Shakespeare‘s history plays are mainly written under the principle that national unity under a mighty强大的and just公正的 sovereign君主 is a necessity.

莎士比亚的历史剧都有这样一个主题：在一个强大英明的君主统领下的国家，统一是非常必要的。

The three history plays in the reign of Henry VI are the beginning of Shakespeare‘s epic treatment of English history.

《亨利六世》上中下三部便是莎士比亚对英国历史史诗性描绘的开端。 ②Romantic Comedies

In his romantic comedies, Shakespeare takes an optimistic attitude toward love and youth, and the romantic elements are brought into full play.

在他的浪漫喜剧中，莎士比亚以乐观的态度对待爱情和青春，并将浪漫色彩渲染到极致。

They are The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You like, Twelfth Night, but the most important one is The Merchant of Venice. 最重要的喜剧是《威尼斯商人》

③Tragedies

The successful romantic tragedy is Romeo and Juliet, which eulogizes the faithfulness of love and the spirit of pursuing happiness.

莎士比亚在《罗密欧与朱丽叶》中颂扬了对爱的忠贞及对幸福的追求。

Shakespeare’s four greatest tragedies are Hamlet,--the first of greatest tragedies, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth

莎士比亚的四大悲剧是《哈姆雷特》《奥赛罗》《李尔王》《麦克白》

They have some characteristics in common. Each portrays some noble hero, who faces the injustice of human life and is caught in a difficult situation and whose fate is closely connected with the fate of the whole nation.

它们有着共同的特点，每部剧都塑造了一位贵族英雄，他们直面人生的不公正，并陷入了艰难困境，他们的命运又都与国家命运息息相关。

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Each hero has his weakness of nature: Hamlet哈姆雷特, the melancholic忧郁的scholar prince

王子, faces the dilemma 困境between action行动 and mind; Othello's inner内心的weakness 弱点is made use of by the outside evil邪恶的force; the old king Lear who is unwilling to totally give up his power makes himself suffer from treachery 背叛and infidelity不忠; and Macbeth's lust 渴望for power stirs up 激起 his ambition leads him to incessant 不断的crimes.

每个英雄都有性格上的弱点：哈姆雷特，一个忧郁的学者型王子，在采取行动和深思熟虑之间进退两难。奥赛罗内心的弱点则被外界的邪恶力量所利用。李尔王不愿将王位拱手想让，却使自己陷入亲人的背叛与不忠。而麦克白的不尽权欲扩张着他的野心，将他引向接连不断的罪恶行为。

④Romantic tragicomedies 浪漫悲喜剧

The Tempest is a typical example of his pessimistic悲观的view towards human life and society in his late year. 《暴风雨》 是莎士比亚创作后期的代表作，反映了他晚年对人生、对社会持的悲观态度。

6. About his sonnets

①Lyric: A poem, usually a short one, which expresses a speaker‘s personal thoughts or feelings. The elegy挽歌, ode颂歌, and sonnet十四行诗 are all forms of the lyric抒情诗

②The theme: most of the sonnets concerns with the flying of the time, and the youth, beauty, belief and the love are also gone.

7. Shakespeare‘s writing characteristics

The progressive significance of the theme—humanism 人文主义 The successful character portrayal描绘—women‘s characters 妇女的特征 The masterhand in constructing the plot The ingenuity of his poetry 诗歌的创造力 The mastery of his language

8. About selected reading 选读部分

①about sonnet 18 十四行诗第18首

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Sonnet 18 is one of the most beautiful sonnets written by Shakespeare, in which he has a

profound 深邃的meditation深思on the destructive 毁灭的power of time and the eternal永恒的 beauty brought forth by poetry 诗歌带给…to the one he loves.

A nice summer‘s day is usually transient, but the beauty in poetry can last for ever. Shakespeare has a faith in the permanence of poetry.

十四行诗第18首是莎士比亚最出色的十四行诗。诗中，作者对时间的毁灭力量及将诗歌献给情人带来的永恒之美做了深邃的思考。

Typical lines:

Shall I compare thee （意思是you, thee 是 thou 的宾格形式）to a summer‘s day? Thou （意思是you） art more lovely and more temperate（温和的）: The theme: Immortality（不朽）, Beauty and love

②about The Merchant of Venice 《威尼斯商人》 Major characters:

Bassanio 巴塞尼奥: -- a young Venetian court Portia, accepted

Antonio 安东尼奥: --a merchant of Venice, all money invented in ships, at sea, return not on time

Shylock夏洛克:--the Jewish usurer (放高利贷者)

Portia: 鲍西亚-- standing for the great beauty, wit and loyalty

Main plot:

Bassanio, a young Venetian, would like to travel to Belmont 贝尔蒙 to woo 追求 the beautiful and wealthy heiress女继承人 Portia鲍西亚. He approaches his friend Antonio, a merchant, for three thousand ducats（硬币 达克特） needed to subsidize资助 his traveling expenditures 费用、花费as a suitor求婚者 for three months. As all of Antonio's ships and merchandise are busy at sea, Antonio approaches the Jewish moneylender 犹太人放债者Shylock for a loan借款, and the reward of breaking the returning oath誓约 is a pound of fresh from Antonio‘s body.

Court happening: unsuccessful persuading, no more and no less than one pound of flesh, spilling no drop of blood

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The analysis to the personalities: Antonio: --faithful to friend, Shylock:--greedy, brutal and inhuman Portia: -- beautiful, witty and loyal

Theme: traditional theme of the play is to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of the great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the greed and brutality of the Jew.

Typical lines:

\\

\’d livery of the burnish’d sun.\\\

③about Hamlet The Major characters:

Hamlet: the title character, is the son of the late king, for whom he was named. He has returned to Elsinore Castle from Wittenberg, where he was a university student.

Claudius克劳迪斯: is the King of Denmark, elected to the throne after the death of his brother, King Hamlet. Claudius has married Gertrude, his brother's widow.

Gertrude: is the Queen of Denmark, and King Hamlet's widow, now married to Claudius. the Ghost: appears in the exact image of Hamlet's father, the late King Hamlet.

Major plot:

Hamlet feels a responsibility to avenge his father‘s murder by his uncle Claudius, but Claudius is now the king and thus well protected. Moreover, Hamlet struggles with his doubts about whether he can trust the ghost and whether killing Claudius is the appropriate thing to do.

The personality of Hamlet: Brave, justified and clever but indecisive犹豫不决的

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Views of Hamlet

Perhaps the most straightforward简单的 view sees Hamlet as seeking truth in order to be certain that he is justified in carrying out the revenge 报仇called for by a ghost that claims to be the spirit of his father. The most standard view is that Hamlet is highly indecisive,

Others see Hamlet as a person charged with a duty that he knows and feels is right, yet is unwilling to carry out. In this view, all of his efforts to satisfy himself of King Claudius' guilt犯罪, or his failure to act when he can, are evidence of this unwillingness, and Hamlet berates 严责 himself for his inability to carry out his task.

Theme: The impossibility of certainty; the complexity of action; the mystery of death; the nation as a diseased body

?

Motifs动机: Incest 乱伦；近亲通婚 and incestuous乱伦的desire; ears and hearing; death and

suicide自杀; darkness and the supernatural超自然现象; misogyny

Symbols: The ghost (the spiritual consequences of death); Yorick‘s skull (the physical consequences of death)

Typical Lines:

―To be or not to be, that is a question‖ What are the questions:

Whether believe the ghost‘s words or not Whether kill his uncle or not What should he do, die or live

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Ⅱ. John Milton

1. Personal introduction

① Milton‘s life

Born in puritan 清教徒的family in London, Mother interested in religion and local charity慈善,

Father a well-to-do小康的；富裕的scrivener放债人 and musician

② Educated at Cambridge

Graduated: study and writing of poetry

Began traveling abroad in 1638, returned London to write pamphlets and tracts to support the revolution

③In 1649 Latin secretary corresponding foreign government

④In 1652 went blind completely and incurably at 43 due to hard work day and night

⑤King Charles II restoration: Keeping writing against kingship Arrested and fined and released Left in peace to produce his poetic works In 1674 died peacefully in a small house

The greatest English poet after Shakespeare, polemicist (辩论家)

2. Literature achievements

Milton‘s literary achievements can be divided into three groups: the early poetic works早期诗作, the middle prose pamphlets 中期的散文小册子& the last great poems后期的伟大诗作.

① Early Poetry 早期的作品中，弥尔顿继承了伊丽莎白时代文学传统的精华。

Lycidas（利西达斯）is a collection of elegies一组挽歌集dedicated to Edward King, a fellow undergraduate of Milton's at Cambridge, who was drowned in the Irish Sea.

《利西达斯》是个典型的例子，是献给他在剑桥读书时的同学爱德华·金的一组挽歌，爱德华在一次海难中遇难。

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The poem begins with grief & a feeling of immaturity; then the grief is deepened by the sense of

irrecoverable不可挽回的 loss in the silencing of a young poet. 诗歌开始表达了哀痛与不成熟的感觉；而后哀痛由于不可避免的痛失密友而加深。

With this bitter sense of loss, Milton asks why the just & good should suffer. 带着这种痛，弥尔顿质问苍天，为什么要让正直的好人遭受苦难？

These emotions swell 膨胀to a passionate热烈的 call for the consolation安慰 of art. The poem moves from a sad apprehension of death, through regret, to passionate questioning, rage, sorrow & acceptance. The feelings begin in a low key but move on to the large questions of divine justice & human accountability.

The climax高潮 of the poem is the blistering 愤怒的attack on the clergy 牧师, i.e. the \牧人\腐败的 by self-interest自私的.

② Middle Period & Prose Pamphlets

③ Later Years & Major Poetry 后期

After the Restoration in 1660, Milton was imprisoned. His release was brought about mainly through the efforts of his friends, notably the poet Andrew Marwell, after that time he devoted himself to his 3 major poetical works: Paradise Lost (1667)失乐园 Paradise Regained (1671)复乐园 & Samson Agonistes 力士参孙(1671). Among the three, Paradise Lost (1667)失乐园is the greatest, indeed the only generally acknowledged epic in English literature since Beowulf;

《失乐园》是继《贝尔武夫》之后唯一的一部公认的英国文学中的史诗。

Samson Agonistes is the most perfect example of the verse drama诗句体 after the Greek style in English. 《力士参孙》是古希腊诗句体在英文中的完美体现。

Paradise Regained

Main plot: show how mankind, in the person of Christ, withstands the tempter and is established once more in the divine favor.

Theme: Christ‘s temptation in the wilderness 耶稣在荒地被诱惑的故事

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Samson Agonistes 悲诗句

Milton's last important work was the magnificent poetic drama Samson Agonistes, which presents the Biblical story of Samson in the form of a Greek tragedy. The blind & suffering Samson is strongly reminiscent of Milton himself.

The theme of Samson Agonistes is a more vital & personal one. The picture of Israel's mighty champion, blind, alone, afflicted by thoughtless enemies but preserving a noble ideal to the end, is a fitting close to the life work of the poet himself. The poet's aim was to present in English a pure tragedy, with all the passion & restraint which marked the old Greek dramas. The whole poem strongly suggests Milton's passionate longing that he too could bring destruction down upon the enemy at the cost of his own life. In this sense, Samson is Milton.

3. About selected reading

The greatest work of Milton, Milton‘s masterpiece.

Paradise Lost (1667)失乐园is the greatest, indeed the only generally acknowledged epic in English literature since Beowulf.

《失乐园》是继《贝尔武夫》之后唯一的一部公认的英国文学中的史诗。 A long epic divided into 12 books.

The story is taken from the Old Testament 《旧约》 of the Bible 《圣经》

The theme is the ―Fall of Man‖，i.e. man‘s disobedience 反抗 and the loss of Paradise, with its prime cause—Satan.

主题是人类的沉沦，即由于原始罪恶——撒旦的引诱，人类违背了上帝的旨意，而失去了天堂乐园。

主要内容Main plot:

In heaven, Satan led a rebellion against God. Defeated, he and his rebel angels were cast into Hell. However, Satan refused to accept his failure, vowing that ―all was not lost‖. The poem goes on to tell how Satan took revenge by tempting Adam and Eve, the first human beings created by God, to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge against God‘s instructions. For their disobedience, Adam and Eve were driven out of Paradise. They were sorry for what they had done and prayed to God. In the last book they were given the hope for redemption. The poem ended with Adam and Eve walking away from Paradise, hand in hand, and the gates of Eden were closed behind them.

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Working through the tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote Paradise Lost, intending to

expose the ways of Satan and to ―justify the ways of God to men‖.

弥尔顿在《失乐园》的创作中贯穿了基督教人文主义的传统，意欲揭露撒旦的行为，并为上帝对人类的惩罚辩护。

Keystone of Milton‘s creed : the freedom of the will 弥尔顿作品的主旨：意志上的自由

【例题】Paradise Lost is actually a story taken from ______________. (0704) A. the Renaissance B. the Old Testament C. Greek Mythology D. the New Testament 【答案】B

【解析】(P73.Selected reading)

本题考查的是《失乐园》的取材问题。如果对《圣经》略有了解，就会知道，《圣经》分为新约和旧约，弥尔顿的《失乐园》就是取材于旧约中的《创世记》

本 章 小 结

本章重点：

1.文艺复兴时期的历史文化背景 2. 莎士比亚和弥尔顿的作品和写作特点 本章提示：

本章中有关莎士比亚的文学成就可以以论述题的形式来考察，值得注意。

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Chapter 2: The Neoclassical Period

General Introduction 考核要求: 1. 识记：

（1）新古典主义时期的界定 （2）政治经济背景

（3）启蒙运动的意义与影响

2. 领会：

（1）启蒙运动的主张与文学的特点 （2）新古典主义时期文学的艺术特点

3. 应用：启蒙运动，新古典主义，英雄双行诗，英国现实主义小说等名词的解释

考点串讲: 1. Duration:

Neoclassical period is the one in English literature between the return of Stuarts to the English throne in 1660 and the full assertion of Romanticism which came with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1978. It‘s in fact a turbulent period. 2. Political Background:

The marking events:

The restoration of Charles II in 1660 The Glorious Revolution in 1689

Constant strife between the monarch and the parliament Constant strife between big parties—the Tories and Whigs Constant strife between ruling class and the laboring poor

Constant strife between religious sects, such as the Roman Catholicism and protestants (church of England)

The eighteenth century saw the fast development of England as a nation

3. Social Background:

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The eighteenth century saw the fast development of England as a nation. Abroad, a vast

expansion of British colonies in North America, India, the West Indies, and a continuous increase of colonial wealth and trade provided England with a market for which the small-scale hand production methods of the home industry were hardly adequate, towards the middle of the eighteenth century; England had become the first powerful capitalist country in the world. The British bourgeois or middle class also grew rapidly. It was the major force of the Revolution and was mainly composed of city people. The British bourgeois or middle class believed in self – reliance, self – restraint and hard work. The marking events: Industrial revolution

A vast expansion of British colonies A continuous increase of colonial wealth

4. Cultural Background::(Enlightenment) The 18th-century England is known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.

Definition: The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France & swept through the whole Western Europe at the time.

The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15th & 16th centuries. (Function) Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modem philosophical & artistic ideas.

The enlighteners celebrated reason or rationality, equality & science. They called for a reference to order, reason & rules & advocated universal education.

Famous among the great enlighteners in England were those great writers like John Dryden, Alexander pope & so on. In the field of literature, the Enlightenment Movement brought about a revival of interest in the old classical works. This tendency is known as neoclassicism.

5. Viewpoints on literature:

According to the neoclassicists:

①All forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers (Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, etc.)

②They believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, ③Literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity. This belief led them to seek proportion, unity, harmony and grace in literary expressions,

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④In an effort to delight, instruct and correct human beings, primarily as social animals. Thus a

polite urbane, witty, and intellectual art developed.

6. Fixed laws and rule on literature:

Neoclassicists had some fixed laws and rules for almost every genre of literature. ①?? Prose should be precise, direct, smooth and flexible.

②Poetry should be lyrical, epical, didactic, satiric or dramatic, and each class should be guided by its own principles.

③Drama should be written in the Heroic Couplets.

7. The literature forms and streams during this period:

essay: Alexander Pope

John Bunyan Daniel Defoe Realism novel Jonathan Swift Henry Fielding Samuel Johnson poetry: Thomas Gray

drama: Richard Brinsley Sheridan Horace Walpole

Neoclassicism: Ann Radcliffe

novel gothic story Clara Reeve Sentimentalism M.G. Lewis James Thomason

poetry William Collins graveyard school William Cowper Romanticism

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In the last few decades of the 18 century however, the neoclassical emphasis upon reason,

thintellect, wit and form was rebelled against or challenged by Sentimentalists, and was, in due time, gradually replaced by Romanticism.

The neoclassical period witnessed the flourishing of English poetry in the classical style from Restoration to about the second half of the century, climaxing with John Dryden, Alexander Pope and the last bearer of the school, Samuel Johnson.

The middle of 18th century was, however, predominated by a newly rising literary form ---- the modern English novel, which, contrary to the traditional romance, gives a realistic presentation of life of common English people. 8. Gothic novels:

Gothic novels are mostly stories of mystery and horror which take place in some haunted or dilapidated Middle Class castles. They appeared from the middle part of the 18th century and were turned out profusely by male and female writers.

During this period, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was the leading figure among a host of playwrights.

And of the witty and satiric prose, those written by Jonathan Swift are worth studying, and his A Modest Proposal is generally regarded as the best model of the satire.

【例题】The British bourgeois or middle class believed in the following notions EXCEPT ______. (0904)

A. self - esteem B. self - reliance C. self - restraint D. hard work 【答案】A (P80.para.2)

【解析】十八世纪晚期到十九世纪早期，英国的工业革命正在进行中，而工业革命的主角—— 英国次产阶级自信，自强，自制的特点为其积累财富奠定了基础，也为英国文学发展的现实主义奠定了基础。

The typical authors during this period 考核要求:

1，一般识记：笛福，斯威夫特和菲尔丁的创作生涯 2，识记：笛福，斯威夫特和菲尔丁重要作品及主要内容

3，领会：笛福，斯威夫特和菲尔丁的创作思想，艺术特色其代表作的主题结构，人物刻画，语言风格，艺术特色，社会意义等。

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4，应用：

（1）《鲁滨逊漂流记》中\鲁滨逊\的人物原型。 （2）《格列佛游记》的社会讽刺。 （3）菲尔丁的\散文体史诗\。

考点串讲: Ⅰ. Daniel Defoe

1. Daniel Defoe‘s major works:

(Daniel Defoe‘s) His works are the first literary works devoted to the study of problems of the lower-class people.

The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. The True-born Englishman The Review

Robinson Crusoe (most famous of his work, his masterpiece) Captain Singleton《辛格尔顿船长》 Moll Flanders《摩根.佛兰德斯》 Colonel Jack《杰克上校》 Roxana《罗克珊娜》

A Journal of the Plague Year. 《大疫年日记》

2. Characteristics of his works:

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& fascinating.

His sentences are sometimes short, crisp & plain, & sometimes long & rambling, which leave on the reader on impression of casual narration.

His language is smooth, easy, colloquial & mostly vernacular. There is nothing artificial in his language: it is common English at its best.

3. About selected reading:

Theme

(1) his marvelous capacity for work,

(2) his boundless energy and persistence in overcoming obstacles

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(3) his hard struggle against nature and making all bend to his will The personality of Robinson

The protagonist of Defoe's fictional autobiography, Crusoe is an adventurous man who rejects the expectations of his family and the constraints of the English middle class for a life on the high seas. After a devastating wreck at sea — of which he is the only survivor — he is forced to live confront his fear about being alone in order to survive the harsh demands of his lonely and solitary existence. Crusoe is not by nature a brave man. In time, his reason grows sharper and he conquers his fears. In fact, for a time he wanders the island without any weaponry. He learns how to do many diverse tasks, such as making an ax, baking bread, and building an elaborate shelter. When faced with marauding cannibals, he attacks them and rescues their captives. Finally, when he returns to London, he is able to readjust to English life and even gets married and has a family.

The symbolic meaning of Robinson

He was the real hero here, the typical 18th English middle class man, with a great capacity for work.

He was also the very prototype(原型) of the empire builder

He was also the representative of the human labor and puritan fortitude which save him from despair and are a source of pride and happiness

Ⅱ. Jonathan Swift 1. Introduction

①He was poor himself all his life; that is why he was very sympathetic toward the poor and political corruption in his writings.

②He had a deep hatred for all the rich oppressors and a deep sympathy for all the poor and oppressed.

③His understanding of human nature is profound.

④He is making the most devastating protest against the inhuman exploitation and oppression of the Irish people by the English ruling class.

⑤The apparent eagerness, sincerity and detachment of the author adds force to the bitter irony and biting sarcasm.

2. Masterpieces

A Tale of a Tub (satirist) 《木桶的故事》

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The Battle of the Books 《书籍之战》 The Examiner 《主考》

Gulliver‘s Travels (his greatest satiric work) 《格列佛游记》 A Modest Proposal (more powerful) 《一个温和的建议》 The Drapier‘s Letters《专培儿之信》

3. Writing styles:

①Swift is a master satirist. His satire is usually masked by an out word gravity &an apparent earnestness which renders his satire all the more powerful.

②Swift is one of the greatest masters of English prose. He is almost unsurpassed in the writing of simple, direct, precise prose. He defined a good style as \proper places.\simple, concrete diction, uncomplicated sentence structure, economy & conciseness of language mark all his writings-essays, poems & novels.

4. About selected reading:

The theme: exploration into human nature and satire to English and European life

①Main plot—part one:

His experiences in Lilliput where the inhabitants are only 12 times smaller than normal human being

Author satire the weakness of human being and the absurd actions of the English government before the nature

②Main plot—part two:

His experiences in Brobdingnag where are 10 times taller and larger than normal human being and superior in wisdom

Here, the author gives a vivid description to the crankiness and arrogance(狂妄自大) of the authority in England

③Main plot—part three:

The experiences in Flying Island where the philosophers and projectors devote all their time and energy to the study of some absurd problems

Here is the criticism of the western civilization and false illustration about science, philosophy, history and even immortality

④Main plot—part four:

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The experience in Houyhnhnm where horses are endowed with reason and all good and

admirable qualities, and are the governing class

Here, the author compared the differences and similarities between horses and human being, lead readers to think about a problem: what on earth are human beings?

⑤Social achievement:

The book is one of the most effective and devastating criticisms and satires of all aspects in the then English and European life—socially, politically, religiously, philosophically, scientifically and morally.

⑥Artistic achievement:

In structure, the four parts make an organic whole, with each contrived upon an independent structure, and yet complementing the others and contributing to the central concern of study of human nature and life

Ⅲ. Henry Fielding 1. Introduction:

①He first tried his luck in play writing ②During 9 years, he produces 26 plays

③He was poor himself all his life; That is why he was very sympathetic toward the poor and political corruption in his writings; he adopted ―the third-person narration‖

2. Contributions:

①Father of the English Novel—because of his contribution and establishment of the form of the modern novel

②Of all the eighteenth-century novelists he was the first to set out, both in theory and practice: First: give the modern novel both its structure and its style

Second: adopted the ―third-person narration‖ in which the author became the all-knowing God

3. Main works:

The earlier essays:

The True Patriot and the Liberty of Our Own Times The Jacobite‘s Journal The Convent-garden Journal

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Plays:

The Coffee-House Politician The Tragedy of Tragedies Pasquin

The Historical Register for the Year Novels:

The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his friend Mr. Abraham Adams The History of Jonathan Wild the Great

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling –masterpiece on subject of human nature

The history of Amelia- a story of the unfortunate life of an idealized woman, a maudlin picture of the social life

4. Writing style:

The writing Tropism（取向）of his plays:

①witty comedies of manners or intrigues(诡计) in Restoration tradition ②farces(滑稽剧) or ballad operas with political implications(政治影射)

③burlesques(闹剧) and satires that bear heavily upon the status-quo(现状) of England

The writing Tropism of his novels:

the ordinary and usually ridiculous (absurd） life of the common people, from the middle class to the underworld

The orientation(定位) of his novels:

Try to retain the grand epical form of the classical works but keep faithful to his realistic presentation of common life as it is

The object of his novels:

Not just to amuse but to instruct, and to present a faithful picture of life,‖the just copy of human manners‖

The writing characteristics:

①His language is easy, unlabored and familiar, but extremely vivid and vigorous. ②His sentences are always distinguished by logic and rhythm, ③His structure carefully planned towards and inevitable ending.

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④His works are also noted for lively, dramatic dialogues and other theatrical devices such as

suspense(悬念), coincidence(偶合) and unexpectedness(始料不及).

5. About selected reading:

①Generally regarded as Fielding‘s masterpiece ②Include 18 books, each with an essay before it

③Plot: Tom, a foundling, was drove from the house of the Mr. Allworthy and took a series of adventure in London, and at last, Tom married Sophia after some misunderstanding between them.

④The personality of Tom: a national hero, honest, kind-hearted, high-spirited, loyal, and brave, but impulsive(冲动)

⑤It was Tom Jones that brought his author the name of the ―prose Homer‖ ⑥Writing characteristics: The panoramic view is superb(辉煌全景) The language is clarity and suppleness The plot construction is excellent

本 章 小 结

本章重点：

1. 新古典主义文学流派形成的政治，社会和文化背景 2. 启蒙运动的特点 本章提示：

新古典主义和浪漫主义的区别可以作为跨章节的论述题来考察；另外，笛福和菲尔丁的代表作也是值得关注的。

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Chapter 3: The Romantic Period

General Introduction

考核要求:

1.识记：浪漫主义时期的界定和历史文化背景

2.领会：浪漫主义思潮的意义与影响以及浪漫主义文学创作的基本主张及对后世文学的影响。 3.应用：名词解释浪漫主义以及浪漫主义时期文学特点的分析

考点串讲:

1. Historical background:

Internationally,

①The French Revolutions: --the great event, arouse great sympathy and enthusiasm in the English liberals and Conservatives, they all declared Liberty, Equality and Fraternity

②Rousseau--the great French Philosopher. Influence by Rousseau, the writers began to explore the new ideas about Nature, Society and Education

These paved the way for the development of Romanticism in the literature internationally

Nationally,

①Industrial revolution (Industrialization, Further capitalization and Urbanization) ②The survival of fittest (the sharper contradiction between capitalists and the labors) These are the national basis of the production of Romanticism

2. Literature background:

The early works with Romantic tendency are following:

Thomas Paine‘s The Declaration of Rights of Man claiming Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France.

William Godwin‘s Inquiry Concerning Political Justice. Against the injustice, economic system and the oppression of the poor.

Mary Wollstonecraft urged the equal rights for women in her A Vindication(辩护) of the Right of Woman.

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3. The definition, duration and characteristics of the Romanticism:

①The definition:

The Romantic Movement, which associated with vitality, powerful emotion and dreamlike ideas, is simply the expression of life as seen by the imagination rather than by prosaic common sense.

The contrast between Romanticism and Neoclassicism:

Romanticism: associated with vitality, powerful emotion and dreamlike ideas Neoclassicism: associated with order, common sense and controlled reason

②Duration:

Beginning time: 1798 marked by the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge Ending time: 1832 marked by the death of Scott and the passage of the first Reform Bill 【例题】Which of the following poems is a landmark in English poetry? (0704) A. Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge B. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth C. “Remorse”by Samuel Taylor Coleridge D. Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 【答案】A

【解析】(P157. para.1)

所谓landmark，是指在英国文学史上具有划时代意义的作品。 Lyrical Ballads 的出版标志着英国文学的浪漫主义时期的开始，所以答案是A

③Characteristics:

The spontaneous overflow(自然流露的) of powerful feeling The creation of a world of imagination The return to nature for materials

Sympathy with the humble and glorification of the common place Emphasis upon the expression of individual genius A sense of melancholy and loneliness of the character The rebellious spirits of the author The major achievements are poetry

4. The viewpoints of Romanticists on society and literature:

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①Socially:

Romanticist saw man essentially as an individual in the solitary state The Romanticist emphasized the special qualities of each individual‘s mind

The Romanticists changed the direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirits

②On Literature:

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

It also place individual at the center of the art

Make the literature most valuable as an expression of his or her unique feeling and particular attitudes

Value its accuracy in portraying the individual‘s experiences 5. The development of Romanticism and its principles:

①The development

In this period, we note a new interest in literatures and legends other than those of Greece and Rome. It was in effect a revolt of the English imagination against the neoclassical reason

They started a rebellion against the neoclassical literature, which was later regarded as the poetic revolution.

Major Representatives of this movement: Wordsworth and Coleridge

②The principles General principles:

They saw poetry as a healing energy

They believe that poetry could purify both individual soul and society They explored the new theories and innovated new techniques in poetry: a. Poetry should be free from all rules in forms

b. Humble people and the common everyday life should be describe in subject c. Employ the commonplace, the natural and the simple as the poetic materials d. Seek for the Absolute

e. Bold experiments in poetic language, versification and design Wordsworth: Call for simple themes drawn from humble life

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The poet as a ―man speaking to men‖,

Poetry as ―the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings‖

Coleridge:

Imagination is the vital faculty that creates new wholes out of disparate elements. Regard the concepts of spontaneity and inspiration as something crucial for true poetry Nature is the major source of poetic imagery and nature is a dominant subject

6. Main representatives:

①Main representatives—poets: Pre-Romanticism: (Blake and Burns)

The first generation: (Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey) The younger generation: (Byron, Shelley and Keats)

②Main representatives—novelists Jane Austen --- love and marriage

Walter Scott --- main works (book) human nature

③Gothic novelists

Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley Gothic novel:

It is a type of romantic fiction that predominated in the late 18th century & was one phase of the Romantic Movement

Its principal elements are violence, horror & the supernatural, which strongly appeal to the reader's emotion.

With its descriptions of the dark, irrational side of human nature, the Gothic form has exerted a great influence over the writer of the Romantic period.

Works like The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe & Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley are typical Gothic romance

The typical authors during this period 考核要求:

1. 识记：浪漫主义时期的重要作家，代表作品及其主要内容。

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2. 领会：重要作家的创作思想，艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构，人物塑造，语言风格，社

会意义等。 3.应用：

a.浪漫派诗歌（所选作品）的主题，意象分析

b.小说《傲慢与偏见》的主题和主要人物的性格分析。

考点串讲: Ⅰ.William Blake 1．Introduction:

English poet, artist, & philosopher, born in London England, Nov 28, 1757, and died in London, Aug 12,1827.

Blake made distinguished contributions to both Literature & art.

He ranks with great poets in the English language & may be considered the earliest of the major English Romantic poets. His poems range from lyrics of childlike simplicity to mystical or prophetic works of great complexity.

As an artist he is best known for his engravings, which are among the masterpieces of graphic art.

2. Viewpoints on politics and religion:

Blake never tried to fit into the world; he was a rebel innocently & completely all his life. He was politically of the permanent left & mixed a good deal with the radicals.

Blake strongly criticized the capitalists' cruel exploitation, saying that the \men unemployed, killed children & forced prostitution.\

Meanwhile he cherished great expectations & enthusiasm for the French Revolution, & regarded it as a necessary stage leading to the millennium predicted by the biblical prophets(圣经)

3. Viewpoint on literature:

The first important Romantic poet, Showing contempt for the rule of reason

Opposing the classical tradition of the 18th century Treasuring the individual's imagination.

4. Main works:

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Early works: Poetical Sketches《诗学札记》 -- A collection of youthful verse. Joy, laughter, love

and harmony are the prevailing note and hint his later innovative style and theme Masterpieces

Songs of Innocence《天真之歌》 Songs of Experience《经验之歌》

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell《天堂与地狱的婚姻》 The similarities and differences between two volumes: Generally:

Hold the similar subject-matter

The childhood is the central to his concern The tone, emphasis and conclusion differ

Specifically:

Infant Joy against Infant Sorrow Lamb against Tyger

Chimney SweeperⅠagainst Chimney SweeperⅡ

Similarity: to reveal the relation between an economic circumstance and an ideological circumstance socially.

Difference: the former indicates the condition which makes religion a consolation, a prospect of illusory happiness

The later reveals the true nature of religion which helps bring misery to the poor children

Later works -- reveal him as the prophet of universal political & spiritual freedom and show the poet himself as the spokesman of revolt(反抗).

The Book of Urizen The Book of Los The Four Zoas Milton

【例题】William Blake’s central concern in the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experiences_______, which gives the two books a strong social and historical reference. (0804) A. youth hood B. childhood C. happiness D. Sorrow 【答案】B

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【解析】(P169. para2)

布莱克的两部诗集中的作品，大多涉及儿童的生活和经历，如《扫烟囱的小男孩》，《小羊羔》等。

5. Language styles:

he write his poems in plain and direct language.

His poems often carry the lyric beauty with immense compression of meaning. He distrusts the abstractness and tends to embody his views with visual images. Symbolism in wide range is also a distinctive feature of his poetry.

6. Selected reading: ①Selected reading I

―The Chimney Sweeper‖ from Songs of Innocence

In the 18th century, small boys sometimes no more than 4 or 5 years old were employed to climb up the narrow chimney flues & clean them, collecting the soot in bags. Such boys, sometimes sold to the master sweepers by their parents were miserably treated by their master & often suffered disease & physical deformity.

This poem, in fact, is a protest against the harm that society does to its children by exploiting them for labor of this kind, The poem was written in the child's-eye point of view, & the dramatic irony (what the speaker says in the poem is different from what the poet means) arises from the poet's knowing more or seeing more than the child does.

②Selected reading II

―The Chimney Sweeper‖ from Songs of Experience

Songs of Experience paints a different world, a world of misery, poverty, disease, war & repression with a melancholy tone,

The benighted England becomes the world of dark wood & of the weeping prophet. The poem selected here reveals the true nature of religion which helps bring misery to the poor children.

The poem also reveals the relation between economic circumstance, i.e. the exploitation of child labor & an ideological circumstance, i.e. the role played by religion in making people compliant to exploitation. ③Selected reading III

―Tyger‖ from Songs of Experience

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The Tyger, included in Songs of Experience, is one of Blake's best-known poems.

It seemingly praises the great power of tiger, but what the tiger symbolizes remains disputable: the power of man? Or the revolutionary force? Or the evil? Or as it is usually interpreted, the Almighty Maker who created both the meek & gentle lamb & the terrible & awesome tiger?

The poem is highly symbolic with a touch of mysticism & it is open to various interpretations. The poem contains six quatrains in rhyming couplets & its language is terse & forceful with an anvil rhythm.

Ⅱ. William Wordsworth 1. Introduction:

William Wordsworth, known as ―the Lake Poets‖ together with Coleridge and Southey, is the leading figure of the English Romantic poetry, the focal poetic voice of the period

He is the voice of searchingly comprehensive humanity and one that inspires his audience to see the world freshly, sympathetically and naturally

The most important contribution he has made is that he has not only started modern poetry, the poetry of growing inner self, but also changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a return to nature

2. Types of his poem according to his poetic outlook:

According to the subjects, Wordsworth‘s short poems can be classified into two groups: poems about nature and poems about human life. ①Poems about nature:

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud is perhaps the most anthologized poem in English literature, & one that takes us to the core of Wordsworth's poetic beliefs

An Evening Walk My Heart Leaps up

Tintern Abbey -- remains a profoundly original & imaginative achievement; the valley of the Wye itself, the quiet center of the returning wanderer's thoughts, is described with a detail that conveys a sense of natural order at once vivid & eternal

Nature outlook:

Wordsworth is regarded as a ―worshipper of nature.\give the reader the very life of nature.

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To Wordsworth, nature act as a substitute for imaginative and intellectual engagement with the

development of embodied human beings in their diverse circumstances

It is nature that gives him \

②Poems about human life:

The Thorn The Sailor‘s Mother The Affliction of Margaret The Old Cumberland Beggar

The old man in the poem, is seen as precious for his unique self and the benevolence he evoke s in the small rural community

Michael

Suggests the grave and tender dignity of the author‘s meditation on man, the heart of man, and human life

Lucy Poem

Is the verse of love and loss which hold within its delicate simplicity a meditation on time and death which rises to universal stature

The Idiot Boy

The irrational mind sees more deeply into the nature of life than the commonsensical The Solitary Reaper To a Highland Girl

Use rural figure to suggest the timeless mystery of sorrowful humanity and its radiant beauty The Ruined Cottage

Rouse the tender, quiet compassion of those who are at one with the timeless truth of existence

In his daring use of subject matter and sense of the authenticity of the experience of the poorest, ―resolution and independence‖ is the triumphant conclusion of ideas first developed in the Lyrical Ballads

Human life outlook:

Common life is Wordsworth's only subject of literary interest. The joys & sorrows of the common people are his themes. His sympathy always goes to the suffering poor.

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3. Creative principles:

Wordsworth's deliberate simplicity & refusal to decorate the truth of experience produced a kind of pure & profound poetry which no other poets has ever equaled poetry.

His premise was that the source of poetic truth is the direct experience of the sense He asserts poetry originates from \

Rejecting the contemporary emphasis on form & intellectual approach that drained poetic writing of strong emotion,

He maintains that the scenes & events of everyday life & the speech of ordinary people are the raw material of which poetry can & should be made.

4. Selected reading:

①I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

\one that takes us to the core of Wordsworth's poetic beliefs.

Wordsworth wrote this beautiful poem of nature after he came across a long belt of gold daffodils(水仙花) tossing & reeling & dancing along the waterside. There is a vivid picture of the daffodils here, mixed with the poet?s philosophical & somewhat mystical thoughts.

The poem consists of four 6-lined stanzas of iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of ababcc in each stanza.

The last stanza describes the poet's recollection in tranquility from which this poem arose. The poet thinks that it is bliss to recollect the beauty of nature in his mind while he is in solitude

②Composed upon Westminster Bridge

This sonnet, written on the roof of a coach as Wordsworth was on his way to France, was published in Poems in Two Volumes, 1807.

The poem presents the speaker's view of London in the early morning. The speaker is not only profoundly touched by its beauty & tranquility of the morning, but even surprised to realize that London is part of Nature just as much as is his own beloved Lake Country.

Wordsworth is regarded as a \London, he is thinking of home where the sun steeps in his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill.\

The poem is written after the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The octave recreates the experience of London at morning, and the sestet enlarges on his reaction to the scene. The rhyme scheme of the poem is abbaabba, cdcdcd.

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③She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

This is one of the \

The \Poems\describe with rare elusive beauty of simple lyricism & haunting rhythm a young country girl living a simple life in a remote village far from the civilized world.

They are verses of love & loss which hold within their delicate simplicity a meditation on time & death which rises to universal stature.

④The Solitary Reaper

Wordsworth thinks that common life is the only subject of literary interest. The joys & sorrows of the common people are his themes.

\girl working alone in the fields & singing as she works.

The plot of the little incident is told straightforwardly in stanzas 1, 3, & 4. Stanza 2, with its comparison of the girl's song to the cuckoo & the nightingale cannot be dismissed as vaguely ornamental comparisons.

They are much more than that, & the impression of the girl's singing on the traveler is heightened through these comparisons.

This poem is an iambic verse. Most of the lines in the poem are octosyllabics(八音节诗). The rhyme-scheme for each stanza is

Ⅲ. Percy Bysshe Shelley 1. Introduction:

Shelley is one of the leading Romantic poets, an intense & original lyrical poet in the English language.

Though gentle by nature, his rebellious qualities were cultivated in his early years.

2. His Literary and political Outlook:

Shelley grew up with violent revolutionary ideas under the influence of the free thinkers like Hume & Godwin, so he held a life-long aversion to cruelty, injustice, authority, institutional religion & the formal shams of respectable society, condemning war, tyranny & exploitation

However, under the influence of Christian humanism, Shelley took interest in social reforms. He realized that the evil was also in man's mind.

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So he predicted that only through gradual & suitable reforms of the existing institutions could

benevolence be universally established & none of the evils would survive in this \where people could live together happily, freely & peacefully.

3. His major works: Early works: Necessity of Atheism

Queen Mab: A philosophical Poem: emphasizes how the “Spirit of Nature” pulses in all people and makes an absurdity of selfishness and pride

Alastor or The Spirit of Solitude: is a record of author‘s intense consciousness of his own loneliness in life and a passionate contemplation of the mystery of death

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty Mont Blanc Lyric:

Julian and Maddalo The Revolt of Islam The Cenci Hellas

The Cloud: Shelley created a Platonic symbol of the spirit of man, a force of beauty and regeneration

To a Skylark:the bird, suspended between reality & poetic image, pours forth an exultant song which suggests to the poet both celestial rapture & human limitation. :

Adonais: is an elegy for John Keats. In it, these men become the embodiments of philistinism and reaction, the enemies of truth

Ode to the west Wind: Best of all the well-known lyric pieces

Here Shelley's rhapsodic & declamatory tendencies find a subject perfectly suited to them. The autumn wind, burying the dead year, preparing for a new spring, becomes an image of Shelley himself, as he would want to be, in its freedom, its destructive-constructive potential, its universality.

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\

humdrum realities of everyday! The whole poem has a logic of feeling, a not easily analyzable progression that leads to the triumphant, hopeful & convincing conclusion: \winter comes, can Spring before behind?\

The poem is written in the terza rima form Shelley derived from his reading of Dante. The nervous thrill of Shelley's response to nature however is here transformed through the power of art & imagination into a longing to be united with a force at once physical & prophetic.

Here is no conservative reassurance, no comfortable mysticism, but the primal amorality of nature itself, with its mad fury & its pagan ruthlessness. Shelley's ode is an invocation to a primitive deity, a plea to exalt him in its fury & to trumpet the radical prophecy of hope & rebirth.

Ode to Liberty Ode to Naples Sonnet: England in 1819

Shelley expressed his love for freedom and his hatred toward tyranny in several of his poem, such as, Ode to Liberty, Ode to Naples, Sonnet: England in 1819

Men of England: One of the greatest political lyrics. Not only a war cry calling upon all working people to rise up against their political oppressors but also an address to them pointing out the intolerable injustice of economic exploitation. The poem was later became a rallying song of British Communist Party

Major prose essay: Defense of Poetry

Poetic drama: Prometheus Unbound

Shelley's greatest achievement is his four-act poetic drama, Prometheus Unbound.

According to the Greek mythology, Prometheus, the champion of humanity, who has stolen the fire from Heaven, is punished by Zeus to be chained on Mount Caucasus & suffers the vulture's feeding on his liver.

Shelley based his drama on Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, in which Prometheus reconciles with the tyrant Zeus. Radical & revolutionary as Shelley, he wrote in the preface: \truth, I was

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averse from a catastrophe so feeble as that reconciling the Champion with the oppressor of Mankind.\

So he gave a totally different interpretation, transforming the compromise into liberation. With the strong support of Earth, his mother; Asia, his bride & the help from Demogorgon & Hercules, Zeus is driven from the throne; Prometheus is unbound.

The play is an exultant work in praise of humankind's potential, & Shelley himself recognized it as ―the most perfect of my products.\

4. Characteristics of his Poetry:

Shelley is one of the lending Romantic poets, an intense & original lyrical poet in the English language.

Like Blake, he has a reputation as a difficult poet: erudite, imagistically complex, full of classical & mythological allusions.

His style abounds in personification & metaphor & other figures of speech which describe vividly what we see & feel, or express what passionately moves us.

5. Selected Readings: ①A Song: Men of England

This poem was written in 1819, the year of the Peterloo Massacre. It is unquestionably one of Shelley's greatest political lyrics.

It is not only a war cry calling upon all working people of England to rise up against their political oppressors, but also an address to point out to them the intolerable injustice of economic exploitation.

In the poem Shelley pictured the capitalist society as divided into two hostile classes: the parasitic class (\

②Ode to the West Wind

The poem Ode to the West Wind was the best known of Shelley's shorter poems.

In the poem the poet describes vividly the activities of the West Wind on the earth, in the sky & on the sea, & then expresses his envy for the boundless freedom of the West Wind & his wish to be free like the wind & scatter his words among mankind.

He gathered in this poem a wealth of symbolism, employed a structural art & his powers of metrical orchestration at their mightiest. The autumn wind, burying the dead year, preparing for a new

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Spring, becomes an image of Shelley himself, as he would want to be, in its freedom, its

destructive-constructive power, its universality, \fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!\calls the Shelley that could not bear being fettered to the humdrum realities of everyday!

Ⅳ.Jane Austen 1. Introduction:

It was Jane Austen who brought the English novels, as an art of form, to its maturity and she had been regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists.

Although she lived in 19th century (Romantic period), she was a realistic writer. She upheld the traditional ideas of order, reason, proportion and gracefulness in novel writing

Austen is universally regarded as the founder of the novel which deal with unimportant middle-class people.

2. Major works:

In her lifelong career, Jane Austen wrote altogether six complete novels, which can be divided into two distinct periods.

Sense and Sensibility 理智与情感Her first novel

Pride and Prejudice傲慢与偏见The most popular of her novels dealing with the five Bennet sisters & their search for suitable husbands

Northanger Abbey 诺桑觉寺satirizes those popular Gothic romances of the late 18th century Mansfield Park曼斯菲尔德庄园presents the antithesis of worldliness & unworldliness Emma 爱玛gives the thought over self-deceptive vanity

Persuasion 劝导contrasts the true love with the prudential calculations

3. Writing styles:

Austen's main literary concern is about human beings in their personal relationships. Because of this, her novels have a universal significance. She is particularly preoccupied with the relationship between men & women in love. Stories of love & marriage provide the major themes in all her novels.

The works of Jane Austen, delightful &profound are part of the supreme achievements of English literature. With trenchant observation & in meticulous detail, she presents the quiet, day-to-day life of the upper-middle-class English. Her characteristic theme is that maturity is achieved through the loss of illusions. Faults of character displayed by the people of her novels are corrected when, through tribulation, lessons are learned. Even the most minor characters are vividly particularized in Austen's lucid style. All these show a mind of the shrewdest intelligence adapting the available traditions &

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deepening the resources of art with consummate craftsmanship. Because of her sensitivity to universal

patterns of human behavior, Jane Austen has brought the English novels, as an art form, to its maturity, & she has been regarded by many critics as one of the greatest of all novelists.

4. Characteristics of her works:

Austen?s novels describe a narrow range of society & events: a quiet, prosperous, middle class circle in provincial surroundings, which she knew well from her own experience

Her subject matter is also limited, for most of her novels deal with the subject of getting married, which was in fact the central problem for the young leisure-class lady of that age, who had no other choice in her life but to find a good husband.

Austen?s interest was in human nature; in her depiction of human nature, instead of being fascinated by great waves of elevated emotion, by passion or heroic experience, she focused on the trivial & petty details of everyday living, which became very interesting through her truthful & lively description.

Austen's novels are brightened by their witty conversation & omnipresent humor. Her language shines with an exquisite touch of lively gracefulness, elegant & refined, but never showy.

5. Selected reading:

Pride & Prejudice, originally drafted as \Impressions\the most delightful of Jane Austen's works. The title tells of a major concern of the novel pride & prejudice. If to form good relationships is our main task in life, we must first have good judgment. Our first impressions, according to Jane Austen, are usually wrong, as is shown here by those of Elizabeth. In the process of judging others, Elizabeth finds out something about herself: her blindness, partiality, prejudice & absurdity. In time she discovered her own shortcomings. On the other hand, Darcy too learns about other people & himself. In the end false pride is humbled & prejudice dissolved.

【例题】“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” The quoted part is taken from ______. （0804） A. Jane Eyre B. Wuthering Heights C. Pride and Prejudice D. Sense and Sensibility 【答案】C

【解析】(P229. Selected reading)

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这段文字选自《傲慢与偏见》这部小说的第一章第一段开头，是作者为展开小说情节所作

的铺垫。译文如下：每一个有钱的单身汉必定想娶一房妻室，这是一个举世公认的真理。

本 章 小 结

本章重点：

1. 烂漫主义时期的文学特点和成就

2. 布莱克，华兹华斯和雪莱的诗歌以及奥斯丁的《傲慢与偏见》 本章提示：

华兹华斯和奥斯丁是本章的重中之重。

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