英国文学

Week2

The Middle Ages 43 to 1485

⏹Beowulf

⏹William Langland

⏹Geoffrey Chaucer

⏹Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The Sixteenth Century 1485-1603

⏹Drama

⏹Marlowe

⏹Shakespeare

⏹Ben Jonson

⏹Spencer

The Early Seventeenth Century 1603-1660

⏹John Milton

⏹John Bunyan

The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century 1660-1785

⏹Alexander Pope

⏹Jonathan Swift

⏹Defoe

⏹Richardson

⏹Fielding

⏹Dr. Johnson

⏹John Dryden

The Romantic Period 1785-1830

⏹William Blake

⏹Robert Burns

⏹William Wordsworth

⏹Coleridge and Southey

⏹Byron, Shelley, Keats

The Victorian Age 1830-1901

⏹Tennyson

⏹Robert Browning

⏹Charles Dickens

⏹Thackeray

⏹Thomas Hardy

⏹Jane Austen

⏹The Bronte Sisters

⏹George Eliot

The Twentieth Century

⏹Bernard Shaw

⏹Yeats

⏹T.S.Eliot

⏹Conrad

⏹Henry James

⏹ D.H. Lawrence

⏹James Joyce

⏹Virginia Woolf

The Middle Ages 43 to 1485

⏹ 1.The Old English Period

⏹ 1.1 Roman conquest

⏹ 1.2 The Anglo-Saxon occupation

⏹King Arthur

⏹ 1.3 The invasion of the Danes

⏹King Alfred of the West Saxons

⏹ 1.4 The Old English Poetry

⏹Form: oral-secular

⏹written-religious

⏹Subject matter: legendary or historical figures before the Anglo-Saxon conquest of

England

⏹Heroic code: king-kin lord-retainer

⏹Theme: the glory of God, the pain and sorrow of this world

⏹ 2.The Middle English Period

⏹ 2.1 The Norman Conquest 1066

⏹Duke William II of Normandy

⏹ 2.2 The Diversity of Literature

⏹ 2.3 Chaucer(1343-1400):

⏹The Father of English Poetry

⏹The Canterbury Tales

⏹English as a Literary Language

⏹Iambic Pentameter (五步抑扬格）

⏹凡是有两个以上音节的英文单词，都有重读音节与轻读音节之分，在一句话中，根

据语法、语调、语意的要求，有些词也要重读，有些要轻读。如he went to town to buy

a book.. I’m glad to hear the news.

⏹英文中有重读和轻读之分，重读的音节和轻读的音节，按一定模式配合起来，反复

再现，组成诗句，听起来起伏跌宕，抑扬顿挫，就形成了诗歌的节奏。多音节单词有重音和次重音，次重音根据节奏既可视为重读，也可视为轻读。读下面这两句诗

⏹Alone │she cuts │and binds│the grain,

And sings │a me│lancho│ly strain.

⏹这两行诗的重读与轻读的固定搭配模式是：轻——重。在每行中再现四次，这样就

形成了这两行诗的节奏。某种固定的轻重搭配叫“音步”（foot），相当与乐谱中的“小节”。一轻一重，就是这两行诗的音步。一行诗中轻重搭配出现的次数叫音步数，这两行诗的音步数都是四，所以就称其为四音步诗。

⏹如果一个音步中有两个音节，前者为轻，后者为重，则这种音步叫抑扬格音步，其

专业术语是（iamb, iambic.）。轻读是“抑”，重读是“扬”，一轻一重，故称抑扬格。

⏹英语中有大量的单词，其发音都是一轻一重，如adore, excite, above, around, appear,

besides, attack, supply, believe, return等，所以用英语写诗，用抑扬格就很便利。也就是说，抑扬格很符合英语的发音规律。因此，在英文诗歌中用得最多的便是抑扬格，百分之九十的英文诗都是用抑扬格写成的。前面的那两句诗就是抑扬格诗。

⏹An EMPTY HOUSE

Alexander Pope

⏹You beat│your pate, │and fan│cy wit │will come:

Knock as│you please, │there’s no│body│at home.

⏹此诗的基本音步类型是抑扬格，每行五音步。因此称此诗的格律是“抑扬格五音步”

（iambic pentameter）。一首诗的音步类型和诗行所含的音步数目构成此诗的格律（meter）。

⏹英雄双韵体（Heroic couplet，又称英雄双行体）是英语中的一种古典诗体，通常用

于史诗和叙事诗中。英雄双韵体由五步抑扬格的诗行构成，其押韵方式为阳韵（韵落在诗行末尾的重读音节上）。英雄双行体最早被英国诗人乔叟运用在他的诗歌《贤妇传说》与《坎特伯雷故事集》中

⏹Whan that April with his showres soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

⏹ 2.4 William Langland:

⏹Piers the Plowman: religious allegory

⏹ 2.5 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:

⏹The Best Romance in the Middle English Period

⏹As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic

prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures , often of a knight errand portrayed as having heroic qualities, who goes on a quest.

⏹Alliterative Verse 头韵诗

⏹alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal structuring

device to unify lines of poetry

⏹After the siege and the assault had ceased at Troy, the city been destroyed and burned to

brands and ashes, the warrior who wrought there the trains of treason was tried for his treachery, the truest on earth.

W e e k3

T h e S i x t e e n t h C e n t u r y1485-1603

1.T h e T u d o r D y n a s t y:

⏹H e n r y V I I---E l i z a b e t h I

2.H u m a n i s m a n d R e n a i s s a n c e:

⏹r e b i r t h