Outline of British literature

O u t l i n e o f B r i t i s h l i t e r a t u r e
Pre-Chaucerian period 500-1340 AD (Anglo-Saxon Period)
T h e a g e o f C h a u c e r1340-1400A D(M i d d l e P l a n t a g e n e t P e r i o d)
F r o m C h a u c e r t o T o t t l e’s M i s c e l l a n y1400-1557A D(L a t e r P l a n t a g e n e t P e r i o d)
T h e a g e o f S h a k e s p e a r e1555-1625A D(t h e E l i z a b e t h a n A g e)
T h e a g e o f M i l t o n1625-1660A D(T h e C a r o l i n e A g e)
T h e a g e o f D r y d e n1660-1700A D(t h e a g e o f r e s t o r a t i o n)
T h e a g e o f P o p e1770-1745A D(t h e a g e o f N e o-C l a s s i c i s m)
T h e a g e o f S w i f t1745-1798A D(m i d d l e G e o r g i a n A g e)
T h e a g e o f W o r d s w o r t h1798-1832A D(t h e a g e o f R o m a n c i s m)
T h e a g e o f T e n n y s o n1832-1887A D(t h e V i c t o r i a n a g e)
T h e a g e o f H a r d y1887-1928A D(t r a n s i t i o n)
T h e p r e s e n t a g e1930-t i l l n o w(m o d e r n a g e)
T h e A n g l o-S a x o n P e r i o d
(449-1066)
●Historical background
●the Anglo-Saxon Conquest in 449 AD
●Anglo-Saxon old English
●The literature
●Pagan (poetry, oral sagas)
●Christian (monks, English tongue, Latin,)
T h e S o n g o f B e o w u l f
●Based on folk legend
●England’s national epic;
●3182 lines, completely preserved
Subject matter
●Fight with Grendel
●Fight with Grendel’s mother
●Fight with firedrake
●Death and funeral
Themes and Important Aspects
●Good vs. Evil
●Religion: Christian and Pagan influences
●The importance of wealth and treasure
●The importance of the sea and sailing
●The sanctity of the home
●Fate
●Loyalty and allegiance
●Heroism and heroic deeds
The Anglo-Norman Period
(1066-1350)
●Historical background
●Norman Conquest of Anglo-Saxon England in 1066 accelerated the
development of feudalism in England.
Romance
● a long composition, in verse or prose, describing the life and adventures of a
noble hero
●central character: knight
●Code of manner/ moral: chivalry
Why romance?
●the theme of loyalty to king and lord
●the intended audience: of the court or castle
●nothing to do with common people
Historical Background
●There was actually no more serfdom in England by the end of the 14th century as a
result of the peasants’risings and popular discontent on the enforced services on the land as well as other laws of medieval serfdom.
●The clergy was the chief butt of satire in the literary works of the time (churches were
corrupted)
●The citizen of London who began to play an important role in national politics and to
be feared by the king.
●Chivalry was losing its glamour though romances were still written in the latter part of
the 14th century to celebrate the knightly deeds of the past.
●The second half of the 14th century marked the deterioration and decline of feudalism
in England and the big economic and political changes had their impact upon
literature.
●Medievalism was a dominant influence in peoples' lives but a renaissance mentality
began to have an effect on Londoners as England stood on the threshold of the
modern world.
The Age of Chaucer
●“the father of English poetry”
●The 14th century is called “the Age of Chaucer”
Geoffrey Chaucer
(1340?-1400)
●His father was a prosperous wine merchant.
●In his lifetime Chaucer served in a great variety of occupations: courtier, office-holder,
soldier, ambassador, legislator, burgher of London.
●This varied career had its impact upon the wide range of his writings and particularly
upon the variegated pictures of the English society of his time.
The Canterbury Tales
●The Canterbury Tales was a set of stories told by a group of people while on a
pilgrimage from London to Canterbury. These pilgrims, while on their long journey, take turns amusing each other by telling stories that vary from humorous to serious, from light to dark, etc.
●- contains a general prologue and 24 tales, and some “prologues”and “links”
accompanying some of the tales.
Summary
●In April, with the beginning of spring, people of varying social classes come from all over
England to gather at the Tabard Inn in preparation for a pilgrimage to Canterbury to
receive the blessings of St. Thomas a Becket, the English martyr. Chaucer himself is one of the pilgrims. That evening, the Host of the Tabard Inn suggests that each
member of the group tell tales on the way to and from Canterbury in order to make the time pass more pleasantly. The person who tells the best story will be awarded an
elegant dinner at the end of the trip. The Host decides to accompany the party on its pilgrimage and appoints himself as the judge of the best tale.
The Tale of the
Wife of Bath
The Miller’s Tale
The Knight’s Tale
The knight
●The first pilgrim Chaucer describes in the General Prologue, and the teller of the first
tale. The Knight represents the ideal of a medieval Christian man-at-arms. He has participated in no less than fifteen of the great crusades of his era. Brave,
experienced, and prudent, the narrator greatly admires him.
The Wife of Bath
●Rich and tasteful, the Wife’s clothes veer a bit toward extravagance: her face is
wreathed in heavy cloth, her stockings are a fine scarlet color, and the leather on her shoes is soft, fresh, and brand new—all of which demonstrate how wealthy she has become. Scarlet was a particularly costly dye, since it was made from individual red beetles found only in some parts of the world.
●The fact that she hails from Bath, a major English cloth-making town in the Middle
Ages, is reflected in both her talent as a seamstress and her stylish garments. Bath at this time was fighting for a place among the great European exporters of cloth, which were mostly in the Netherlands and Belgium. So the fact that the Wife’s sewing surpasses that of the cloth makers of “Ipres and of Gaunt”(Ypres and Ghent)
speaks well of Bath’s (and England’s) attempt to outdo its overseas competitors.
●Bath is an English town on the Avon River, not the name of this woman’s husband.
Though she is a seamstress by occupation, she seems to be a professional wife. She has been married five times and had many other affairs in her youth, making her well practiced in the art of love. She presents herself as someone who loves marriage and sex, but, from what we see of her, she also takes pleasure in rich attire, talking, and arguing. She is deaf in one ear and has a gap between her front teeth, which was considered attractive in Chaucer’s time. She has traveled on pilgrimages to
Jerusalem three times and elsewhere in Europe as well.
The Wife of Bath
Ellesmere Manuscript
Huntington Library
●What does woman want most? Do you agree with the Wife of Bath?
Chaucer Society woodcut
of The Wife of Bath,
Based on MS Cambridge
Gg.4.27
The Wife of Bath,
MS Cambridge GG.4.27
The Miller
●Stout and brawny, the Miller has a wart on his nose and a big mouth, both literally and
figuratively. He threatens the Host’s notion of propriety when he drunkenly insists on telling the second tale. Indeed, the Miller seems to enjoy overturning all conventions: he ruins the Host’s carefully planned storytelling order; he rips doors off hinges; and he tells a tale that is somewhat blasphemous, ridiculing religious clerks, scholarly
clerks, carpenters, and women.
Contributions
1. Forerunner of Humanism
2. The founder of English Realism
3. Father of English poetry (called by John Dryden)
4. Master of the English language
●Social Significance
●Realistic writing: It gives a comprehensive picture of the social reality of
the poet’s day
●As a forerunner of humanism, he praises man’s energy, quick wit and love of
life.
●Critical writing: He attack the degeneration of the noble, the heartlessness
of the judge, the corruption of the Church and so on.
●Heroic Couplet:
●lines of iambic pentameter in riming couplets.
●
●the rhymed couplet of 5 accents in iambic meter.
Chaucer’s
contribution
●Heroic couplet;
●London dialect: modern English speech
●Realism
●humanism
quotation
●结了婚的人永远是烦恼愁苦的，任何人试一试就会知道。

●其他的任何生活方式都不值一提，惟有结婚的生活是自然而纯洁的，是人世间的天
堂。

Understanding rhyme and meter!
1st you must know what the symbols mean!!
U = unstressed
/ = stressed
●2nd – Find the pattern
●U / = iambic
●/ U = trochaic
●U U / = anapestic
●/ U U = dactylic
●/ / U = spondaic
●3rd – You need to know that each pattern is a foot!
●How many feet do you have?
●ONE FOOT - monometer
●TWO FEET - dimeter
●THREE FEET - trimeter
●FOUR FEET - tetrameter
●FIVE FEET - pentameter
●Now all you need to do is put the two together!!
●Ex. //U //U //U = spondaic trimeter
The Renaissance period
William Shakespeare
Francis Bacon
Background
●Transformation from Feudal society to the establishment of capitalism
●Renaissance (humanism)
2 origins of European culture
●Judeo-Christian
●Soul
●Group
●Next life
●Godly man
Greco-Roman
●Flesh
●Individual
●Secular life
●Manly god
―man‖ is the core and object of
Greek and Roman culture
幻灯片4
Humanistic spirit
●Exalt human nature
●Human beings as gracious creatures capable of individual development in the direction of
perfection
●Emphasis of the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life
●Man has the right to enjoy his life and has the ability to perfect himself and to perform
wonders.
●drama: Christopher Marlow,
●William Shakespeare,
●Ben Jonson
●Poetry: sonnet Edmund Spenser
●William Shakespeare
●Essay: Francis Bacon
f o u r
g r e a t t r a g e d i e s
●H a m l e t（哈姆雷特）
●O t h e l l o（奥瑟罗）
●K i n g L e a r（李尔王）
●M a c b e t h（麦克白）
H a m l e t
●H a m l e t i s a b o u t a n e m o t i o n a l l y s c a r r e d y o u n g m a n t r y i n g t o a v e n g e t h e m u r d e r o f h i s
f a t h e r,t h e k i n g.
●C l a u d i u s,t h e n e w k i n g.
G e r t r u d e,t h e o l d k i n g's w i d o w a n d H a m l e t's m o t h e r,r e m a r r i e d t o C l a u d i u s
Hamlet to Ophelia
●Doubt thou, the Starres are fire,
Doubt, that the Sunne doth moue:
Doubt Truth to be a Lier,
But neuer Doubt, I loue.
●What a piece of work is a man,
●how noble in reason,
●how infinite in facilities,
●in form and moving,
●how express and admirable,
●in action how like an angel,
●in apprehension how like a god -
●the beauty of the world,
●the paragon of animals
●人类是一件多么了不得的杰作！
●多么高贵的理性！
●多么伟大的能力！
●多么优美的仪表！
●多么文雅的举动！
●在行为上多么像一个天使，
●在智慧上多么像一个天神！
●宇宙的精华！
●万物的灵长！
Macbeth Quote (Act V, Scene V).
●To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
●Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
●To the last syllable of recorded time,
●And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
●The way to dusty death.
●明天，明天，再一个明天，
●一天接着一天地蹑步前进，
●直到最后一秒钟的时间；
●我们所有的昨天，
●不过替傻子们照亮了到死亡的土壤中去的路。

Macbeth Quote (Act V, Scene V).
●"Out, out, brief candle!
● Life's but a walking shadow,
● a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage ●and then is heard no more:
●it is a tale told by an idiot,
● full of sound and fury,
●signifying nothing."
●人生不过是一个行走的影子，
●一个在舞台上指手画脚的拙劣的伶人，
●登场片刻，就在无声无息中悄然退下。

●人生如痴人说梦，
●充满着喧哗与骚动，
●没有任何意义。

Hamlet
●生存还是死亡，这是一个值得考虑的问题；
●默然忍受命运的暴虐的毒箭，
●或是挺身反抗人世的无涯的苦难，
●通过斗争把它们扫清，这两种行为，哪一种更高贵？
●死了；睡着了；什么都完了；
●要是在这一种睡眠之中，我们心头的创痛，
●以及其他无数血肉之躯所不能避免的打击，都可以从此消失，
●那正是我们求之不得的结局。

●死了；睡着了；睡着了也许还会做梦；
●嗯，阻碍就在这儿：
●因为当我们摆脱了这一具朽腐的皮囊以后，在那死的睡眠里，
●究竟将要做些什么梦，那不能不使我们踌躇顾虑。

●人们甘心久困于患难之中，也就是为了这个缘故；
●谁愿意忍受人世的鞭挞和讥讽、压迫者的凌辱、傲慢者的冷眼、
●被轻蔑的爱情的惨痛、法律的迁延、
●官吏的横暴和费尽辛勤所换来的小人的逼视，
要是他只要用一柄小小的刀子，
就可以清算他自己的一生？
谁愿意负着这样的重担，
在烦劳的生命的压迫下呻吟流汗，
倘不是因为惧怕不可知的死后，
惧怕那不曾有一个旅人回来过的神秘之国，
是它迷惑了我们的意志，
使我们宁愿忍受目前的磨折，
不敢向我们所不知道的痛苦飞去？
这样，重重的顾虑使我们全变成了懦夫，
决心的赤热的光彩，被审慎的思维盖上了一层灰色，
伟大的事业在这一种考虑之下，
也会逆流而退，失去了行动的意义。

●Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
●Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
●Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
●And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
●Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
●And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
●And every fair from fair sometime declines,
●By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
●But thy eternal summer shall not fade
●Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
●Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
●When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
●So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
●So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
●能不能让我把你比作夏日？
●你可是更加可爱，更加温婉；
●狂风会吹落五月里开的好花儿，
●夏季租出的日子又未免太短暂：
●有时候苍天的巨眼照得太灼热，
●他那金彩的脸色也会被遮暗；
●每一样美呀，总会离开美而凋落，
●被时机或者自然的代谢所催残；
●但是你永久的夏天决不会凋枯，
●你永远不会失去你美的形象；
●死神夸不着你在他影子里踯躅，
●你将在不朽的诗中与时间同长；
●只要人类在呼吸，眼睛看的见，
我这诗就活着，使你的生命绵延。

屠岸译
Shakespeare Sonnets
William Shakespeare
Iambic Pentameter
●Iambic Pentameter is the rhythm and metre in which poets and playwrights popularly wrote in
Elizabethan England. It is a metre that Shakespeare uses.
Sonnet 116
●Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments. Love is not love (b)
Which alters when it alteration finds,(a)
Or bends with the remover to remove:(b)
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,(c)
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;(d)
●It is the star to every wandering bark,(c)
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.(d)
●Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks(e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come;(f)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,(e)
●But bears it out even to the edge of doom.(f)
If this be error and upon me proved,(g)
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.(g)
●
FRANCIS BACON
(1561-1626)
●In 1561,Francis Bacon was born at London, he was the son of Nicholas Bacon, lord
keeper of the Seal.
●He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of twelve, studied law and became
a barrister in 1582.
●Two years later he took a seat in the house of commons.
●In 1584, his opposition to Queen Elizabeth’s tax program retarded his political
advancement.
●With the accession of James I and thereafter, a number of honors were bestowed
on Bacon: he was knighted in 1603, made Solicitor General in 1604, Attorney
General in 1613,and Lord Chancellor in 1618.
●In the course of rising he had made enemies who charge him with bribery. He was
convicted deprived of his office, fined and banished from London in 1621.
●Five years later, he died in disgrace.
3 classes of works
●Philosophical
●Literary
●professional
Bacon’s philosophy
●Francis Bacon’s major contribution to philosophy was his application of
induction ,the approach used by modern science, rather than the a priori method of medieval scholasticism.
His philosophical works
●The advancement of Learning
●The De Augmentis
●《广学篇》
humanism
● A world view: reject anything supernatural as an explanation for existing phenomena;
●What we can observe with our senses can be explained by human investigation and
thought.
●This view forms the basis of the concept of “science”.
Essays by Bacon
●His essay style exemplifies his whole approach to life and learning :it is direct rather
than ornate, enquiring rather than expository.
●Bacon’s aim was to make his essay above all functional , but this does not mean that
it was without grace, balanced, concise, illuminating.
His famous Essays
●Of friendship
●Of beauty
●Of love
●Of envy
●Of revenge
●Of marriage and single life
●Of study
His famous essays
●“Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set”．
●＜of beauty＞
●“美德好比宝石，在朴素背景的衬托下反而更华丽”．＜论美＞
●In beauty, that of favor, is more than that of color; and that of decent and gracious
motion, more than that of favor
●形体之美要胜于颜色之美，而优雅行为之美又胜于形体之美
●
●“Revenge is a kind of wild justice ,which the more man’s nature runs to ,
the ought law to weed it out”<of revenge>
●“复仇乃一种原始的公道，人之天性越是爱讨这种公道，法律就越是应该将其铲除．”
＜论复仇＞
● A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fullness
and swellings of the heart.<of friendship>
●友谊的主要效用之一就在使人心中的愤懑之气得以宣泄释放．＜论友谊＞
Mottos by Bacon
●It is impossible to love and be wise
●要恋爱而又要理智是不可能的。

●This passion hath his floods, in very times of weakness; which are great prosperity,
and great adversity; though this latter hath been less observed: both which times
kindle love, and make it more fervent, and therefore show it to be the child of folly ●当人心最软弱的时候，爱情最容易入侵，那就是当人得意春风，忘乎所以和处境窘困孤
独凄零的时候，虽然后者未必能得到爱情。

人在这样的时候最急于跳入爱情的火焰中由此可见，“爱情”实在是“愚蠢”的儿子。

●“Studies serve for delight, for ornament , and for ability”. 读书足以适情，
足以博彩，足以长才．
●Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament,
is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business.
其怡情也，最见于独处幽居之时；其傅彩也，最见于高谈阔论之中；其长才也，最见于处世判事之际。

●有一技之长者鄙读书，无知者慕读书，唯明智之士用读书，然书并不以用处告人，用书
之智不在书中，而在书外，全凭观察得之。

●Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor
to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
●读书时不可存心诘难作者，不可尽信书上所言，亦不可只为寻章摘句，而应推敲细思。

●Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed
and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
书有可浅尝者，有可吞食者，少数则须咀嚼消化。

换言之，有只须读其部分者，有只须大体涉猎者，少数则须全读，读时须全神贯注，孜孜不倦。

●Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.
读书使人充实，讨论使人机智，笔记使人准确。

因此不常作笔记者须记忆特强，不常讨论者须天生聪颖，不常读书者须欺世有术，始能无知而显有知。

●Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtitle; natural philosophy
deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend
●读史使人明智，读诗使人灵秀，数学使人周密，科学使人深刻，伦理学使人庄重，逻辑
修辞之学使人善辩
The 17th Century
The Period of Revolution and Restoration
Historical background
●Absolute monarchy impeded the further development of capitalism in England
●The contradictions between the feudal system and the bourgeoisie had reached its
peak and resulted in a revolutionary ourburst.
●The effects of the revolution p130
Literary characteristics
●The puritan influence
●Chivary, romance perished;
●The Bible, the only book
The 17th Century English Literature
●John Donne Metaphysical School 玄学派
●Bourgeois Revolution:
●John Milton (poetry) “Paradise Lost”
●John Bunyan (Prose) “The Pilgri m’s Progress”
●The Restoration:
●John Dryden (literary critic)
John Donne Metaphysical School
●Characteristics of Metaphysical poets are mysticism in content and fantasticality in
form
●Two collections:
●Songs and Sonnets
●Devotion Upon Emergent Occasions
By Samual Johnson
●Metaphysical poets were men of learning,
●and show learning was their whole endeavor.
Metaphysical poetry
●the metaphysical conceit
●Mysticism in content
●Fantisticality in form
●Unique way of reasoning and comparison
●Use of ordinary speech
partly in reaction to the conventions of Elizabethan love poetry
●smooth, elegant verse
●Cliché: bleeding heart, cheeks like roses, cupid shooting arrows
Elizabethan era
●like the Tang Danesty
●the golden age in English history
●English Renaissance
For Whom the Bell Tolls
“no one an island, each is a piece of a continent.”
●No man is an island,
●Entire of itself.
●Each is a piece of the continent,
● A part of the main.
●If a clod be washed away by the sea,
●Europe is the less.
●As well as if a promontory were.
●As well as if a manner of thine own
●Or of thine friend's were.
●Each man's death diminishes me,
●For I am involved in mankind.
●Therefore, send not to know
●For whom the bell tolls,
●It tolls for thee.
幻灯片12
没有谁能像一座孤岛
在大海里独踞
每个人都像一块小小的泥土
连接成整个陆地
如果有一块泥土被海水冲去
欧洲就会失去一角
这如同一座山岬
也如同你的朋友和你自己
无论谁死了
都得是自己的一部分在死去
因为我包含在人类这个概念里
因此我从不问丧钟为谁而鸣
它为我也为你
the features of his poems
●abrupt openings
●various paradoxes
●ironies
●dislocations
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
●Style:
●Rhyme scheme for each stanza is an alternating abab
●Nine 4-line stanza, quatrains; with 4 beat, iambic tetrameter in each line;
3 conceits
● 1. compare their departure to the virtuous men’s death;
● 2. Associate their love to a heavenly yet silent act.
● 3. compare the relationship of husband and wife to two feet of compasses
Theme: holy love
●Shedding tears over their parting would profane the sanctity of their love;
●Public display would be vulgar and inappropriate
●Absence makes the heart grow fonder
John Milton
●Paradise Lost
●Great Epic since Beowulf
●Paradise Regained
●Samson Agonistes
●Milton towers his age
●Shakespeare: the Elizabethan age
●Chaucer:the medieval age
Literary Career:
1.In his first period (1625---1641)
he wrote a considerable quantity of verse in Latin and English:
2.In the second period (1641—1655),
he wrote little verse but produced a large quantity of prose, treaties and pamphlets: During this period he sacrificed his poetic ambition to the call of the liberty for which Puritans were Fighting.
3.The third period (1655—1671)
is the greatest in his literary life, in which he wrote Paradise Lost (1655), Paradise Regained(1667)and Samson Agonistes
(1671)
These three long poems are the fruit of the contest within Milton of Renaissance tradition and his Puritan faith. They form the greatest accomplishments of any English poet except Shakespeare.
•In Milton alone it would seem Puritanism could not extinguish the love of beauty. In these works we find humanism and Puritanism merged in magnificence, and can hear the mighty organ tone of exquisite music.
paradise Lost:
written in bank verse. The stories were from the Old Testament.
1. ―Paradise Lost‖ is Milton’s masterpiece. Before its composition, he had had the subject before his mind for a quarter of a century, and made some drafts about the Characters and plot.
2. It is a long epic in 12 books, written in blank verse. The stories were taken from the Old Testament: the creation; the rebellion in Heaven of Satan and his fellow-angels; their defeat and expulsion from Heaven; the creation of the earth and of Adam and Eve; the fallen angels in hell plotting against God; Satan’s temptation of Eve; and the departure of Adam and Eve from Eden. Though the purpose of the poem is, in Milton’s own words, to ―justify the ways of God to men ‖, yet as Satan tries to justify himself by posing as a rebel against tyranny, Milton unconsciously makes Satan serves as his own mouthpiece.
Theme of Paradise Lost:
The poem was to justify the ways of God to man, i.e., to advocate submission to the Almighty. But after reading it one gets the impression that the main idea of the poem is a revolt against God’s authority. It has been noticed by many critics that the picture of God surrounded by his angels, who never think of expressing any opinions of their own, resembles the court of an absolute monarch, while Satan and his followers, who freely discuss all issues in council, bear close resemblance to a republican Parliament. This alone is sufficient to prove that Milton’s revolutionary felling made him forsake religious orthodoxy.
Throughout the epic, Milton shows a Puritan’s revolt against the established doctrine of the Catholics and the Anglican Church by interpreting the story in the Bible freely for himself.
The Image of Satan:
Satan is the real hero of the poem.
Like a conquered and banished giant, he remains obeyed and admired by those who follow him down to hell. He is firmer than the rest of the angels. Though defeated, he prevails, since he has won from God the third part of his angels, and almost all the sons of Adam. Though wounded, he triumphs for the thunder which hit upon his head left his heart invincible.
Though feebler in force, he remains superior in nobility, since he prefers independence to happy servility, and welcomes his defeat and his torments as a glory, a liberty, and a joy.
Satan is the spirit questioning the authority of God
•The features of the poem:
1.The two most essential things: Puritanism and his republicanism.
2. Milton has always been admired for his sublimity of thought and majesty of expression.
3. His poignant thought and fiery ideas are usually expressed with powerful language and vivid images.
4. Nevertheless, his Puritanism frequently constitutes his chief limitation, giving his poems and prose works a religious and sometimes even a superstition character Long sentences usually in inverted word order
6. Full of classical and biblical allusion
•Milton is the master of blank verse, the first to use blank verse in non-dramatic works.
•Milton was political in both his life and his art.
•Milton wrote the greatest epic in English literature.
•Milton is a master of the blank verse.
•Milton is a great stylist.
•Milton has always been admired for his sublimity of thought and majesty of expression
John Bunyan
● a poor, uneducated tinker
● A Puritan poet
●The Pilgrim’s Progress
●《天路历程》
●great allegory
Historical background
●the Revolution Period was one of confusion in literature. English literature of this period
witnessed a conflict between the two antagonistic camps.
●We can see it is different from the literature of Elizabethan period in 3 aspects:
●Elizabethan literature had a marked unity and the feeling of patriotism and devotion to the
Queen, but in the Revolution period, all this was changed, the King became the open enemy of the people, and the country was divided by the struggle for political and religious liberty.
So literature was as divided in spirit as were the struggling parties.
●Elizabethan literature was generally inspiring. It throbbed with youth and hope and vitality.
●Literature in the Puritan Age expressed age and sadness. Even its brightest hours were
followed by gloom and pessimism.
●Elizabethan literature was intensely romantic. The romantic spirit sprang from the heart of
youth. People believe all things, even the impossible.
●But the literature in the Puritan Age left us little romantic ardor.
tions
●Does the author/ narrator tell a story of his own or of somebody else?
●The story takes a form of a dream of the author/ narrator, in which he sees a man so much
distressed and painful. (p152)
●John Bunyan in Bedford jail.
●"As I slept, I dreamed a dream."
●The man seen in the author’s dream was so much tortured by spiritual anguish. Who
came to give him the spiritual guide and urged him to leave his hometown?
● A spiritual guide named Evangelist.
●What was the leading character’s name?
●Where did he live?
●Where was he going?
●Did his family go with him?
●What did his neighbors do when they saw his departure?
幻灯片9
summary
●It begins with a dream. A man called Christian carrying a bag of sins on his back and reading
the Bible.
●Christian tells his wife and children of his distress.
●"At length he brake his mind to his wife and children."
●Christian before the Cross.
●"His burden fell off his back, and began to tumble."
Vanity Fair
●Christian enters the town of Vanity Fair.
●"At the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair."
●“Vanity Fair”is a remarkable passage.
●It is an epitome of the English society after the Restoration.
●Everything can be sold or bought in this fair and the persecution of Christian and Faithful is
impressive.
●Allegory : a story with 2 meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning
● A prolonged metaphor
●It is a religious allegory, a narrative in which general concepts such as sin, despair, and faith
are represented as people or as aspects of the natural world.
●In an allegory, its characters impress the reader like real persons, but they stand for
something more general, more universal.
●The traveler’s name is Christian, and he represents every Christian in human world.
●The figures and places Christian encounters on his journey stand for various experiences
every Christian must go through in the quest for salvation.
●Faithful Truth Judge Hate-good 恨善法官
●Envy Superstition Pickthank 马屁精
●Badman 恶人 Malice 怨恨
●the City of Destruction 毁灭城
●the Slough of Despond 绝望泥潭
●the Vanity Fair。