大学《英美文学概论》小组发言稿(英文版)

《英美文学基础》小组讨论发言稿

一、班级：07级英语教育四班第三组：510宿舍二、主讲：张烈红

三、讨论成员：王莉刘妍罗晓晴郭婷婷刘臻张莉娄枫琴陈金霞

四、主题：The Victorian Period--Charles Dickens & William Makepeace Thanckeray

Victorian literature

A.Background

Chronologically the Victorian period roughly coincides with the region of Queen Victoria who ruled over England from 1836 to 1901.The period has been generally regarded as one of the most glorious in the English history.As a result of the Industrial revolution .England reached the highest point as a world power and the struggle between the working class and the capitalists became the basic contradiction in English social and political life. At the same time,the working conditions under which workers toiled were unimaginably brutal, especially in texible factories and coal mines where women and children were widely employed.The worsening living and working conditions, the mass unemployment and the new Poor Law of 1834 with its workhouse system finally gave rise to Chartist Movement (1836-1848).Amid such a class-struggle period, many writers turned to social criticism.So appeared a new literary trend:critical realism.These realists are mainly concerned with the society, the social system and the people in the society.

B.Features of Victorian Literature

Victorian literature,as a product of its age,naturally took on its quality of magnitude and diversity.It was many-sided and complex, and reflected both romantically realistically the great changes that were going on in people's life and thought .Besides, it truthfully respresented the reality and spirit of the age. The high-spirit vitality, the down-to-earth earnesteness,the good-natured humor and unbounded imagination are all unprecedented .In almost every genre it paved the way for coming century ,where its spirits,values and experiments are to witness their bumper harvest. Great writers and great works abounded.

I.Charles Dickens

1.Life of Dickens

Charles Dickens(1812-1870) was born in Portsmouth ,a poor British family,in 1812.He was a son of a petty navy office clerk.Because his father had been taken into prison for debts,he was forced to leave school to work at a blacking factory.In the factory,as a child he always felt hungry,lonely and ignored.The hardship and suffering inflicted upon the sensitive ,young Charles had left an ever-lasting bitter remembrance in his later life.In 1827,Charles entered a lawyer's office,and two years later he became a parliamentary reporter for newspapers.The journalistic experience not only enabled him to get acquainted with some inside knowledge of the British legal and political system,and gave him a chance to meet people of all kinds,but also laid a good foundation for his coming literary career.From 1833, Dickens began to write,occasional sketches of lond life,which were later collected and published under the tittle Sketches by Boz (1836),soon the Posthumous Paper of the Pick-wick Club(1836-1837) appeared in monthly installments.It made him the most popular English author of his time.Dickens was not only an editor but also an ower of several newspapers and magazines.He was also an enthusiastic participant or organizer of some charity activities.

Dickens is one of the greatest critical realist writers of the Victorian age and also is known as an outstanding master of the Language.During his 34 years' creating,Dichens wrote 14 novels[The myster of Edwin Drood (《艾