英国文学-各时期知识点梳理提纲

英国文学
1.中古时期的英国文学
Ballad(民谣):
(1) Ballad is a story in poetic form to be sung or recited. (2) Ballads were passed down from generation to generation. (3) Robin Hood is a famous ballad singing the goods of Robin Hood. Coleridge’s The Rime of Ancient Marine is a 19th century English ballad.
Epic（史诗）:
(1) Epic, in poetry, refers to a long work dealing with the actions of gods and heroes. (2) Beowulf is the greatest national epic of the Anglo-Saxons. John Milton wrote three great epics：Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonists.
Romance（罗曼文学/骑士文学）:
(1) Romance is a popular literary form in the medieval England. (2) It sings knightly adventures or other heroic deeds. (3) Chivalry (such as bravery, honor, generosity, loyalty and kindness to the weak and poor) is the spirit of romance.
Alliteration（押头韵）:
(1) Alliteration means a repetition of initial sounds of several words in a
line or group. (2) Alliteration is a traditional poetic device in English literature. (3) Robert Frost’s poem Acquainted with the Night is a case in point: “ I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet”.
Beowulf《贝奥武甫》:
(1)Beowulf , a typical example of Old English poetry, is regarded as the greatest national epic of the Anglo-Saxons. (2) The epic describes the heroic deeds of Scandinavian hero, Beowulf, in fighting against the monster Grendel, his revengeful mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. (3) The poem conveys a hope that the righteous will triumph over the evil.
Geoffrey Chaucer（乔叟）:
(1) He is regarded as the father of English poetry. (2) The Canterbury Tales is his masterpiece. (3) He presents, for the first time in English literature, a comprehensive realistic picture of medieval English society and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life. (4) Chaucer introduced from France rhymed stanzas of various types (heroic couplet) into English poetry to replace the Old English alliterative verse.
(5) It was Chaucer who made London dialect the foundation for modern English speech. (6) His characterization is vivid.
His major works: The Canterbury Tales 《坎特伯雷故事集》, Troilus and Criseyde《特罗勒斯和科丽西德》, The Romaunt of the Rose 《玫
瑰罗曼史》, The House of Fame《声誉之堂》.
Brief description of The Canterbury Tales: (1) The Canterbury Tales is Chaucer’s monumental success. (2) It is a collection of stories told b y a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. (3) It was influenced by Boccaccio(薄伽丘)’s Decameron（《十日谈》）. (4) In the poem Chaucer presents, for the first time in English literature, a comprehensive realistic picture of the medieval society and creates a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life. (5) The poem shows Chaucer’s humanism and anticipates a new era to come.
William Langland (威廉•兰格伦):
(1) Piers Plowman（《农夫皮尔斯》）is a poem that gives a picture of the life in feudal England. (2) It is a protest against the then social injustice.
2.文艺复兴时期的英国文学Renaissance(文艺复兴):
(1) the word “Renaissance” means “rebirth”. It meant the reintroduction into Western Europe of the full cultural heritage of Greece and Rome. (2) The essence of Renaissance is humanism. Attitudes and feelings which had been characteristic of the 14th and 15th centuries persisted well down into the era of Humanism and Reformation. (3) The real mainstream of
the English Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama with William Shakespeare being the leading dramatist.
Humanism(人文主义):
(1)Humanismis the essence of Renaissance. (2) It emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of present life. Humanists voiced their beliefs that man was the center of universe and man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of the present life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.
Spenserian stanza(斯宾塞诗节):
（1）Spenserian stanza is the creation of Edmund Spenser .(2) It refers to a stanza of nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter(六步音)，rhyming ababbcbcc. (3) Spenser’s The Faerie Queene was written in this kind of stanza.
Conceit(奇特的比喻):
(1) Conceit is a far-fetched simile or metaphor, a literary conceit occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things. (2) Conceit is extensively employed in John Donne’s poetry.
Metaphysical poetry(玄学派诗歌):
(1) Metaphysical Poetry is commonly used to name the name of the work of the 17th-century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne.
(2) With a rebellious spirit, the metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. (3)The diction is simple as compared with that of the Elizabethan or the neoclassical periods, and echoes the words and cadences of common speech. (4) The imagery is drawn from actual life.
Sonnet(十四行诗):
（1）Sonnet is one of the most conventional and influential forms of poetry in Europe. (2) A sonnet is a lyric consisting of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme. (3) Shakespeare’s sonnets are well-known.
Blank verse (无韵体诗):
（1）Blank verse is verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. (2) It is the verse form used in some of the greatest English poetry, including that of William Shakespeare and John Milton.
Meter（格律）:
(1) The word “meter” is derived from the Greek word “metron”, meaning
“measure”. (2) In English when applied to poetry, it refers to the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. (3) The analysis of meter is called scansion (格律分析).
Allegory(寓言) :
（1）Allegory is a story told to explain or teach something, especially a long and complicated story with an underlying meaning different from the surface meaning of the story itself. (2) Allegorical novels use extended metaphors to convey moral meanings or attack certain social evils. Characters in these novels often stand for different values such as virtue and vice. (3) Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress,Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Melville’s Moby Dick are three examples of this kind.
Stanza(诗节):
（1）Stanza is a group of lines of poetry, usually four or more, arranged according to a fixed plan. (2) The stanza is the unit of structure in a poem and poets do not vary the unit within a poem.
University Wits（大学才子）:
（1）University Wits refer to a group of scholars during the Elizabeth Age who graduated from either Oxford or Cambridge. They came to
London with the ambition to become professional writers. Some of them later became famous poets and playwrights. They were called “university wits”. (2) Thomas Greene, Thomas Kyd, John Lily and Christopher Marlow were among them. (3) They paved the ways, to some degree, for the coming of Shakespeare.
Foreshadowing（预兆）:
(1) Foreshadowing, in drama, means a method used to build suspense by providing hints of what is to come. (2) In Shakespeare’s Romeo andJuliet, Romeo’s expression of fear in Act 1, scene 4 foreshadows the catastrophe to come:
I fear too early; for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars…
Soliloquy(独白):
(1) Soliloquy, in drama, means a moment when a character is alone and speaks his or her thoughts aloud. (2) In the lines “To be, or not to be, that is the question”, which begins the famous soliloquy from Act 3, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In this soliloquy Hamlet questions whether or not life is worth living, and speaks of the reasons why he does not end his life.
Narrative Poem(叙述诗):
（1）A Narrative Poem refers to a poem that tells a story.(2) It may consist of a series of incidents, as in Homer’s The Iliad and The Odysseus, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
3.启蒙主义时期的英国文学
Literary Terms
The Enlightenment Movement（启蒙运动）
(1)Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept through Western Europe in the 18th century. (2) The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance from 14th century to the mid-17th century.(3) Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. (4) It celebrated reason or rationality, equally and science. It advocated universal education. Literature at the time became a very popular means of public education. (5) Famous among the great enlighteners in England were those great writers like John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele, the two pioneers of familiar essays, Johnathan Swift, Richard Bringsley Sheridan, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding and Samuel Johnson,etc.
Neoclassicism（新古典主义）
(1)In the field of literature, the Enlightenment Movement brought about
a revival of interest in the old classical works. (2) This tendency is known as neoclassicism. The neoclassicists held that forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers such as Homer and Vigil and those of the contemporary French ones. (3) They believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity.
The Graveyard School（墓地派诗歌）
(1)The Graveyard School refers to a school of poets of the 18th century whose poems are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentation or meditation on life, past and present, with death and graveyard as themes.
(2) Thomas Gray is considered to be the leading figure of this school and his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is its most representative work. The Heroic Couplet（英雄对偶句）
The Heroic Couplet means a pair of lines of a type once in English poetry, in other words, it means iambic pentameter rhymed in two lines.
Elegy（挽歌）
(1)Elegy has typically been used to refer to reflective poems that lament the loss of something or someone. (2) In Memoriam by Alfred Tennyson is a famous elegy.
Satire（讽刺）
(1)Satire means a kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weakness and wrongdoings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general. (2) The aim of satirists is to set a moral standard for society , and they attempt to persuade the reader to see their point of view through the force of laughter. (3) Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is a great satire of the then English society from different aspects.
Sentimentalism（感伤主义）
(1)Sentimentalism is a pejorative term to describe false or superficial emotion, assumed feeling, self-regarding postures of grief and pain. (2) In literature it denotes overmuch use of pathetic effects and attempts to arouse feeling by “pathetic” indulgence. (3) The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith is a case in point.
Didactic( 说教的）
(1)Didactic literature is said to be didactic if it is deliberately teaches some moral lesson. The use of literature for such teaching is one of its traditional justifications. (2) Most modern literary works during the Enlightenment period tended to be didactic.
Farce（闹剧/滑稽剧）
Farce refers to a play full of ridiculous happenings, absurd actions, and unreal situations, meant to be very funny.
Aside（旁白）
(1)Aside refers to words spoken by an actor which the other actors are supposed not to hear. (2) An actor’s asides are usually spoken to the audience. (3) Hamlet’s very first line is an aside.
Denouement（戏剧结局）
Denouement, pronounced Dee-noo-ma, is that part of a drama which follows the climax and leads to the resolution.
Name of the Writer
Alexander Pope（亚历山大.蒲柏）
(1)He is a representative of the Enlightenment and the greatest poet of the Neoclassical period.
(2)He is the first to introduce rationalism to England. He strongly advocated neoclassicism, emphasizing that literary works should be judged by classical rules of order , reason, logic, restrained emotion, good taste and decorum.
Works An Essay on Criticism 《论批评》
(1) An Essay on Criticism is his masterpiece. It is a didactic poem
written in heroic couples.
(2) It consists of 744 lines and is divided into three parts.
(3) It sums up the art of poetry as upheld and practiced by theancients
likeAristotle, and the 18th century European classicists.
(4) Pope first laments the dearth of true taste in poetic criticism of his
dayand calls on people to turn to the old Greek and Roman
writers for guidance.
(5) It helped spread neoclassicist tradition in England.
The Rage of the Lock 《夺发记》
The Dunciad《群愚史诗》
John Dryden（约翰.德莱顿）
(1)He is called “the father of English Criticism”.
(2)An Essay of Dramatic Poesy is his masterpiece.
Works An Essay of Dramatic Poesy 《论戏剧诗歌》
(1) An Essay of Dramatic Poesy is John Dryden’s best work.
(2) In it he discusses the works of the great playwrights of Greece and Rome, the English Renaissance, and contemporary France.
(3) He was call ed “the father of English Criticism”.
All for Love 《一切为了爱》
Alexander’s Feast 《亚历山大的宴会》
Thomas Gray （托马斯.格雷）
He is the leading figure of the Graveyard School.
Works Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 《墓畔哀歌》(1) Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is the most representative workof the Graveyard School.
(2)In this poem, Gray reflects on death, the sorrows of life, and themysteries of human life with a touch of his personal melancholy.
(3) The poet compares the common folk with the great ones, wondering
what the commons could have achieved if they had had the chance.Here
he reveals his sympathy for the poor and the unknown, but mocksthe
great ones who despise the poor and bring havoc on them.
4.浪漫主义时期的英国文学
Romanticism（浪漫主义）
(1)In the middle 18th century, a new literary movement called Romanticism came to Europe and then to England. (2) It is characterized
by a strong protest against the bondage of neoclassicism, which emphasized reason, order and elegant wit. Instead , romanticism gave
primary concern to passion, emotion, and natural beauty. (3) In the
history of literature, romanticism is generally regarded as the thought that
designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the
individual as the very center of all life and all experience. (4) The English
Romantic Period is an age of poetry. Major romantic poets include Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelly and Keats. Romanticism prevailed
in England from 1798 to 1837.
Lyric( 抒情诗 )
(1)Lyric is a short poem wherein the poet expresses an emotion or
illustrates some life principle. (2) Lyric often concerns love. “My love is like a red, red rose” is Robert Burns well-known lyric.
Byronic Hero( 拜伦式英雄 )
(1)Byronic Hero refers to a profound, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. (2) With immense superiority in his passions and powers, this Byronic hero would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt society, and would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies.(3) Byron’s chief contribution to the English literature is the creation of “Byronic hero”.
Terza Rima( 三行诗 )
(1)Terza Rima is an Italian verse that consists of a series of three line stanzas in which the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza with the rhyming scheme a b a, b c b, c d c, d e d, etc.(2) Shelly’s Ode to the West Wind is a case in point.
Ottava Rima( 八行诗 )
(1)Ottava Rima is a form of eight-line iambic stanza rhyming a b a b a b
c c.(2) Byron’s Don Juan an
d William Butlter’s Sailing to Byzantium ar
e outstanding examples.
Canto( 诗章 )
(1)Canto is a section of division of a long poem.(2) The most famous cantos in literature are those that make up Dante’s Division Comedy, a 14th century epic. In English poetry Alexander Pope’s The Rage of the Lock and Byron’s Don Juan are divided into cantos.
Gothic Novel( 哥特式小说 )
(1)Gothic Novel is a type of romance very popular late in the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century.(2) Gothic novel empathizes things which are grotesque, violent, mysterious, supernatural, desolate and horrifying.(3) Gothic originally means in the sense of “medieval, not classical” was applied by Horac e Walpole to his novel The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic story, published in 1765.(4) With its description of the dark and irrational side of human nature, Gothic novel has exerted a great influence over the writers of the Romantic period. Works like The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and Frankenstein by Mary Shelly are typical Gothic romance.
High Comedy(正统喜剧 )
High Comedy is a comedy that deals with a polite society and depends more on witty dialogue and well-drawn characters than on comic situations.
Ode (颂歌)
(1)Ode is a dignified and elaborately structured lyric of some length,
praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally.
(2)John Keats wrote great odes. His Ode on a Grecian Urn is a case in
point.
Lake Poets(湖畔派诗人)
In English literature Lake Poets refer to such romantic poets as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey who lived in the Lake District. They came to be known as the Lake School or “Lakes”.
William Blake (威廉布莱克)
(1)He is one of major English Romantic poets in the 19th century.
(2)The distinctive feature of his poetry is the symbolism in wide range.
(3)He is famous for his two volumes of poems: Songs of Innocence and
Songs of Experience.
(4)Chil dhood is central to Blake’s concern in these two volumes of poems. Works: Songs of Innocence《天真之歌》
Songs of Innocence is a lovely volume of poems, presenting a happy and innocent world, though not without its evils and sufferings.
Songs of Experience 《经验之歌》
Songs of Experience presents a different world, a world of
misery,poverty, disease, war and repression with a
melancholy tone.
The Tiger《老虎》
The Tiger is also a famous poem by Blake. Lamb in the poem is a symbol of peace and purity whereas tiger a symbol of dread
and violence.
Poetical Sketches《素描诗集》
Robert Burns （罗伯特彭斯）
（1）H e is the greatest Scottish poet in the late 18th century.
（2）I n his poetry he glorifies a natural man—a healthy, joyous and clever Scotch peasant.
（3）H e wrote in Scottish dialect, drawing his inspiration from the treasury of Scottish folklore.
（4）H is poetry is rich in such qualities as love, humor, pathos and love of nature. All these qualities suggest the coming of English
Romanticism.
Works：
A Red , Red Rose《一朵红红的玫瑰》
My Heart’s in the Highland《我的心在高原》
Auld Lang Syne《友谊地久天长》
Mary Shelly (玛丽雪莱)
She was the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Work: Frankenstein《弗兰克肯斯坦》
Frankenstein is a Gothic novel.
Walter Scott(沃尔特司各特)
（1）H e is the creator and a master of the historical novel. His historical novel is his chief contribution to English literature.
（2）H is historical novels concern the history of Scotland, English history and the history of European countries.
Works: Waverley《威弗利》
The Black Dwarf《黑侏儒》
Rob Roy《罗伯罗伊》
Old Mortality《清教徒》
Ivanhoe 《艾凡赫》
(1)Ivanhoe is Scott’s masterpiece.(2)It is a novel of English subject
covering the days after the Norman Conquest.
5.维多利亚时期的英国文学
Critical Realism(批判现实主义)
（1）C ritical Realism is a term applied to the realistic fiction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
（2）I t means the tendency of writers and intellectuals in the period between 1875 and 1920 to apply the methods of realistic fiction to
the criticism of society and the examination of social issues. （3）R ealist writers were all concerned about the fate of the common people and described what was faithful to reality.
（4）C harles Dickens is the most important critical realist.
Dramatic Monologue(戏剧独白)
（1）D ramatic Monologue，in literature, refers to the occurrence of a single speaker saying something to a silent audience.
（2）R obert Browning’s My Last Duchess is a typical example in which the duke, speaking to a non-responding audience, reveals
not only the reasons for his disapproval of the behavior of his
former duchess, but some tyrannical and merciless aspects of his
own personality as well.
Psychological novel（心理小说）
（1）P sychological novel refers to a kind of novel that dwells on a
complex psychological development and presents much of the
narration through the inner workings of the character’s mind.
（2）T hackeray’s characterization of Rebecca Sharp is very much psychological.
Point of View（叙述角度）
（1）P oint of View can be divided by the narrator’s relationship with the character, represented by the grammatical person: the first-
person narrative, the third-person narrative, and omniscient
narrator.
（2）I n the first-person narrative, the narrator appears in the novel as “I”
or “me”. In the third-person narrative, the narrator does not
actually appear and all the characters are referred to as “he” or
“they”. If the speaker knows everything including the actions,
motives and thoughts of all the characters, the speaker is referred
to as omniscient.
Plot（情节）
(1)Plot refersto the structure of a story.
(2)The plot of a literary work includes the rising action, the climax, the
falling action and the resolution. It has a protagonist who is opposed by an antagonist, creating what is called conflict.
Flashback (倒叙)
（1）F lashback refers to an event which took place prior to the beginning of a story or play.
（2）F lashback is used in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. In Hemingway’s The Snow of Kilamanjaro the protagonist, Harry Street, has been injured on a hunt in Africa. Dying, his mind becomes preoccupied with incidents in his past. In a flashback Street remember one of his wartime comrades dying painfully on barded wire on a battlefield in Spain.
Allusion(典故/暗指)
（1）A llusion means a reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects the reader to recognize and
respond to.
（2）A n allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion.
（3）T hacker’s Vanity Fair serves as a literary example. The name of the novel is borrowed from the famous scene in John Bunyan’ The
Pilgrim’s Progress.
Protagonist and Antagonist(正面人物与反面人物)
（1）I n a literary work Protagonist refers to the hero or central character who is often hindered by some opposing force either human or animal (Antagonist)in accomplishing his or her objective.
（2）F or example, Captain Ahab is the protagonist in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick whereas the white whale (Moby-Dick) is the antagonist.
Charles Dickens(查尔斯狄更斯)
（1）H e is one of the greatest critical realist writers of the Victorian Age. （2）H is works are intended to expose and criticize all the poverty, injustice, hypocrisy and corruptness of the 19th-century England, particularly London.
（3）A ll his works are characterized by a mingling of humor and pathos Works:
Oliver Twist《雾都孤儿》
Oliver Twist criticizes the dehumanizing workhouse system and the dark, criminal underworld life.
David Copperfield《大卫科波菲尔》
David Copperfield is about the debtor’s prison.
Dombey and son《董贝父子》
Dombey and son exposes the money-worship that dominates people’s life, corrupts the young and brings tragedy to Mr.
Domby’s family.
Bleak House《荒凉山庄》
Bleak House attacks the legal system and practices that aim at devouring every penny of the clients.
Hard Times《艰难时世》
Hard Times lashes the Utilitarian principle that rules over the English education system and destroys young hearts and minds.
Great Expectations《远大前程》
Our Mutual Friends 《我们共同的朋友》
Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friends expose the overwhelming social environment which brings moral degeneration and destruction to people.
A Tale of Two City 《双城记》
The Old Curiosity Shop 《老古玩店》
Little Dorrit《小杜丽》
The Pickwick Papers Great Expectations
Our Mutual Friends
Robert Stevenson Treasure Island《金银岛》
（罗伯特﹒史蒂文森） Kidnapped 《诱拐》
6.现代时期的英国文学
Modernism （现代主义）
(1)Modernism is an international movement in literature and arts, especially in literary criticism, which began in the late 19 century and flourished until 1950s.
(2)Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as theoretical case.（3）The modernist writers concentrate more on the private and subjunctive than on the public and objective, mainly concerned with the inner of an individual.(4)James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Virgina Woolf and William Faulkner are prominent modernist writers.
Dadaism（达达主义）
Dadaism refers to a western European artistic and literary movement (1916---1923) that sought the discovery of authentic reality through the abolition of traditional, cultural and aesthetic forms by a technique of comic derision in which irrationality, chance, and intuition were the guiding principles.
Stream of Consciousness（意识流）
(1)Stream of Consciousness has something to do with a method of storytelling in which the author tells the story through the freely flowing thoughts and associations of one of the characters. It is used to depict the mental and emotional reactions of characters to external events, rather than the events themselves.(2) Among English writers, James Joyce and Virgina Woolf are two major advocates of this technique.
The Theater of Absurd（荒诞派戏剧）
(1)The Theater of Absurd is a kind of drama that explains an existential ideology and presents a view of absurdity of the human condition by the abandoning of usual or rational devices and the use of nonrealistic form.(2)The most original playwright of the Theater of Absurd is Samuel Beckett, who wrote about human beings living a meaningless life in an alien, decaying world. His play, Waiting for Godot, is regarded as the most famous and influential play of the Theater of Absurd.。