英国文学选读一考试大题必备 重点题目分析(人物分析 诗歌分析 三大主义)

Hamlet is the first work of literature to look squarely at the stupidity, falsity and sham of everyday life, without laughing and without easy answers. In a world where things are not as they seem, Hamlet…s genuineness, thoughtfulness, and sincerity make him special.Hamlet is no saint. But unlike most of the other characters (and most people today), Hamlet chooses not to compromise with evil. Dying, Hamlet reaffirms the tragic dignity of a basically decent person in a bad world Hamlet is the first work of literature to show an ordinary person looking at the futility and wrongs in life, asking the toughest questions and coming up with honest semi-answers like most people do today.Unlike so much of popular culture today, "Hamlet" leaves us with the message that life is indeed worth living, even by imperfect people in an imperfect world.犹豫scholars have debated for centuries about Hamlet's hesitation in killing his uncle. Some see it as a plot device to prolong the action, and others see it as the result of pressure exerted by the complex philosophical and ethical issues that surround cold-blooded murder, calculated revenge and thwarted desire.More recently, psychoanalytic critics have examined Hamlet's unconscious desires (Freud concludes that Hamlet has an "Oedipal desire for his mother and the subsequent guilt [is] preventing him from murdering the man [Claudius] who has done what he unconsciously wanted to do".Robinson Crusoe is a grand hero in westerners‟ eyes. He survived in the deserted island and lived a meaningful life. He almost has everything needed for becoming a successful man, such as his excellent creativity, great working capacity, courage, and persistence in overcoming obstacles.But he has shortcomings, too. Sometimes he was irresolute; he was not confident; he was fetishistic, although his belief had done him much good.He serves somehow as a lighthouse for the ambitious people. It‟s also instructive for average people. Robinson was the representative of the bourgeois of the 18th C. It was the time when bourgeois grew stronger and stronger. The author Defoe paid a tribute to bourgeois by creating such a rational, powerful, clever, and successful man. 【Themes of Robinson Crusoe】1. The ambivalence of masteryIn short, while Crusoe seems praiseworthy in mastering his fate by overcoming his obstacles, and controlling his environment, the praiseworthiness of his mastery over his fellow human Friday is more doubtful. Defoe explores the link between the two in his depiction of the colonial mind.2. The necessity of Repentance Crusoe‟s experiences constitute not simply an adventure story in which thrilling things happen, but also a moral tale illustrating the right and wrong ways to live one‟s life. Crusoe‟s story instruct s others in God‟s wisdom, and one vital part of this wisdom is the importance of repenting one‟s sins.3. The Importance of Self-Awareness Crusoe‟s arrival on the island does not make him revert to a brute existence and he remains conscious of himself at all times. His island existence actually deepens his self-awareness as he withdraws from the external society and turns inward. The idea that the individual must keep a careful reckoning of the state of his own soul is a key point in the Presbyterian doctrine that the aothor took seriously all his life.·Jane Eyre Charlotte BronteThe protagonist and title character, orphaned as a baby. She is a plain-featured, small and reserved but talented, sympathetic, hard-working, honest and passionate girl. Skilled at studying, drawing, and teaching, she works as a governess at Thornfield Hall and falls in love with her wealthy employer, Edward Rochester. But her strong sense of conscience does not permit her to become his mistress, and she does not return to him until his insane wife is dead and she herself has come into an inheritance.【Themes of Jane Eyre】1. Gender relations A particularly important theme in the novel is patriarchalism and Jane…s efforts to assert her own identity within male-dominated society. Among the three of the main male characters,Brocklehurst, Rochester and St. John, Jane escapes Brocklehurst and rejects St. John, and she only marries Rochester once she is sure that theirs is a marriage between equals.2. Morality Jane refuses to become Rochester…s paramour because of her “impassioned self-respect and moral conviction.” She rejects St. John Rivers‟ Puritanism(清教主义）as much as Rochester…s libertinism（放荡）. Instead, she works out a morality expressed in love, independence, and forgiveness.Specifically, she forgives her cruel aunt and loves Rochester, but never surrenders her independence to him. He is blind, and thus more dependent on her than she on him.3.Religion Throughout the novel, Jane tries to attain an balance between moral duty and earthly happiness. She despises the hypocritical puritanism of Mr. Brocklehurst, and rejects St. John Rivers' cold devotion to his Christian duty, but neither can she bring herself to follow Helen Burns' turning the other cheek, although she admires Helen for it. Ultimately, she rejects these three extremes and finds a middle ground in which religion serves to curb her excessive passions but does not repress her true self.4.Social class Jane…s ambiguous(不明确）social position—a penniless yet learned orphan from a good family—leads her to criticize discrimination based on class. Although she is educated, well-mannered, and relatively sophisticated, she is still a governess, a paid servant of low social standing, and therefore powerless.诗歌分析·The Eagle Afred TennysonThe poem, consisting of two stanzas, is one of pure imagery. The first description is of an eagle sitting at the side of a mountain, while digging its talons into the rock. The eagle, a bird of prey, of strength, size, gracefulness, keen vision and power of flight, is pictured as lonely. The bird, also known for his power and strength seems rather small against its surroundings. Although the eagle is alone and small against nature, its majestic stereotype is maintained by the placement of the bird at great height or as the poem states, "Close to the sun." The second depiction is a comparison of the eagle to a thunderbolt falling from the mountain.The eagle, at its great height, is a representation of a man at the peak of his life, clinging on desperately. The mountain smallness as compared to the mountain, is man's as compared to the universe. The man is lonely in that he must enter and leave the world alone. Just as the eagle is a part or fragment of the mountain, the man is a part of the universe and they both leave when they "fall off." Both are encircled by their "worlds" and must stand or endure. The sea delineates life and the return to it after death because of the theory that states such. The thunderbolt characterizes death in that both are sudden, effective, and momentary.A thunderbolt is loud and it disappears just as quickly as it appears. Man was supposedly born water, and returns to his origins after death. Thus the water below the cliff maintains that idea as the eagle presumably falls in. The last words of each stanza, "stands" and "falls," are opposite to each other in definition. "Falls" is often used to convey death, while "stands" is used to convey endurance. Thus, falls and the suddenness of the thunderbolt, together convey death.Break, Break, BreakBreak, Break, Break" is a lyric poem that was believed to have completed in 1834. It centers on Tennyson's grief over the death of his best friend, Arthur Hallam, a promising poet and essayist who had been engaged to Tennyson's sister. The author wants to express this feeling: Nature, of course, does not stop to mourn the loss of anyone. Cold and indifferent, it carries on, the waves of the ocean breaking against rocks along the seashore without pausing even for a moment. The rest of the world carries on as well: the fisherman's boy happily playing with his sister, the sailor merrily singing, the ship busily plying the waters of commerce.The poet‟s own feelings of sadness are contrasted with the carefree, innocent joys of the children and the unfeeling movement of the ship and the sea waves. Downcast(沮丧）, isolated by his grief, the narrator yearns to touch the hand of his friend once more, tohear the sound of his voice. But, Hallam is gone forever; his "tender grace" will never again return.【Themes of Break, Break, Break 】1. Grief: The main theme is bereavement（亲人丧亡）, heartache, emptiness. In the narrator's dark hour of grief, the sun rises, children laugh, business goes on as usual. How could the world be so cruel and unfeeling?2. Preciousness of Youth: Arthur Hallam was only 22 when he died. The shock of Hallam's death impressed upon Tennyson how priceless youth is. To underscore this idea, and to express the agony he suffers at the loss of young Hallam, Tennyson presents images of youthful joy: the fisherman's son playing with his sister and the "sailor lad" singing in the bay.3. Indifference of Nature:Nature continues to function according to its rhythms and cycles regardless of what happens, good or bad, to human beings. The temperature may drop just when a poor family runs out of fuel. The sun may shine and the birds may sing in the middle of the bloodiest of battles. And the sea will rise and fall in a disobedient, merciless rhythm that refuses to acknowledge tragedy in the everyday life of average men. Tennyson laments this cold indifference in "Break, Break, Break."文学流派分析·English Romanticism begins in 1798 with the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge‟s The Lyrical Ballads and ends in 1832 with Walter Scott‟s death. William Blake and Robert Burns also belong to this literary genre, though they lived prior to the Romantic period.·English Romanticism is a revolt of the English imagination against the neoclassical reason. The French Revolution of 1784-1794 and the English Industrial Revolution exert great influence on English Romanticism. ·The romanticists express a negative attitude towards the existing social or political conditions. They place the individual at the center of art, as can be seen from Lord Byron‟s Byronic Here. The key words of English Romanticism are nature and imagination. They argue that poetry should be free from all rules.·The romantic period is an age of poetry. Wordsworth and Coleridge are the most representative writers. They explore new theories and innovate new techniques in versification. They believe that poetry could purify individual souls and society.Other greatest Romantic poets are: John Keats, P.B. Shelley and G. G. Byron.·Classicism,Classicism is an attitude that is guided by admiration of the qualities of formal balance, proportion, decorum and restraint attributed to the major works of ancient Greek and Roman literatureClassicism is a force which is often present in post-medieval European and European influenced traditions, however, some periods felt themselves more connected to the classical ideals than others, particularly the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment and some movements in Modernism. NeoclassicismIt is the codified form of Classicism, in a more general sense, often employed in contrast with Romanticism.In literary critics, this term refers to the revival of the attitudes and styles of expression of classical literature. It is generally used to describe a period in European history beginning in the late 17th C and lasting until about 1800. In its purest form, it remarked a return to order, proportion, restraint, logical, accuracy, and decorum. Though its origins were much earlier, Neoclassicism dominated English literature from the Restoration in 1660 until the end of the eighteenth century, when the publication of Lyrical Ballads (1798) by Wordsworth and Coleridge marked the full emergence of Romanticism.Neoclassical theorists, by contrast, saw man as an imperfect being, inherently sinful, whose potential was limited. They replaced the Renaissance emphasis on the imagination.。