英美文学史(作家及作品)

English Literature

Geoffrey Chaucer: the Father of English Poetry

the Founder of English Realism

the Master of modern English language

The pioneer of the English Renaissance

Beowulf: National epic of the Anglo-Saxons

The story of Beowulf is a folk legend which reflects the feature of the tribal

world.

John Milton: Blank verse 双韵体、革命诗人

John Donne: peculiar conceits奇喻metaphysical school形而上学派

John Bunyan: The pilgrim’s progress 天路历程

Daniel Defoe: Father of English novels 英国现代小说之父

Jonathan Swift: Father of English stylistics

Henry Fielding: The founder of English realistic novel 小说艺术之父Alexander Pope: 英语诗歌艺术之父

Robert Burns: The poet of peasants 农民作家

Lyrical Ballads:The beginning of romantic revival

Walter Scott: The father of historical novel 历史小说之父

Old English Literature(mid 5th-mid 11th)

Background: Roman conquest A.D 78 Anglo-Saxon settled in English

Old English

From tribal to feudalism

Medieval English Literature (1066-14th末）

Background: Norman conquest in 1066

French and Latin prevail

Division into class

conflicts

Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

--the rising the bourgeoisie of Britain

--praise man’s energy, intellect, wit and love of life

--satirize the evil of and degeneration of the noble and

corruption of the church

--French rhymed stanza: heroic couplet<英雄双韵体>

两行一韵:a-a-b-b-c-c-d-d-e-e-f-f-g-g

--create the famous terza rima 三行诗run on line跳行

--show a true life picture, the first smooth English

--the foreshadow of the coming the English Renaissance

Troilus and Criseyde1383 <8000lines>

William Langland:Piers the Plowman

The English Renaissance(14th-17th)

Background: politically--Henry VIII--Tudor dynasty

--break with Rome

--new religious dogma protestantism

--Queen Mary--反新教，互相妥协

Economically--the closure movement <生产和土地需求，农民被剥削>

--Commercial expansion

--exploration and travel

--colony

Culturally--Renaissance

Military--with Spain William Caxton: the first English printer

< translate Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde>

Thomas More:Utopia

William Shakespeare:----Comedy: A mid summer Night’s Dream

The Merchant of Venice

As you like it

Twelfth Night

----Tragedy: Hamlet、Othello、King Lear、Macbeth

<早期>Romeo and Juliet

Main features: realistic writing

Imitation and adaptation

Language master

Diversified writing skills and methods:song, sonnet, couplet, blank verse Sonnets 十四行诗a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f-g-g

^-^-^-^-^- five feet

One foot 一个重音和一个或一个以上的非重音

Iambic Pentameter抑扬格

Edmund Spenser: The Shepherd Calendar

The Faerie Queene

Achievement: the Spenserian stanza

9-line stanza--a b a b b c b c c

Iambic pentameter五步格, iambic hexameter六步格Christopher Marlowe: Tamburlaine、The Jews of Malta、Doctor Faustus

Ben Jonson(the successor of Shakespeare)---comedy: Every man in His Humour

Volpone

Bartholomew Fair

Fox

The Alchemist

---tragedy: Sejanus

Catiline

Francis Bacon: Advancement of Learning

New instrument

The essays “knowledge is power”