英国文学重点

英国文学重点Jane AustenShe restricted her subject matter to a narrow range of society and events.However, she treated this material with subtlety of observation, depth of psychological penetration, and delicacy of touch that she is ranked among the best of English novelists. Her works show a wealth of character studies, and abound in wit, humor and charm.She knew how to sketch figures with so pure and suggestive a pen that they stand out in a strong and unforgettable relief.She is credited with having brought English novel to its maturity.Pride and Prejudice描写人物的方法·By showing the character acting and speaking·By revealing a physical description of the character·By revealing the character’s thoughts·By revealing what other characters think about the character·By the author’s direct comment on the character·By the relation and contrast between characters·By the character’s development (change)ByronRomantic poetDon Juan (poem)Byron tries to remove the cloak of high society and show its sins. As a sociopolitical satiric poem, the work has tremendous force of the exposure and high artistic quality.Percy Bysshe Shelley✓Song to the Men of England (分析内容、形式)It is a powerful political lyrical. He calls upon the working people to rise againstOde to the West WindThe old world must go, a new world must come with the Spring, laden with fresh sweet promises for suffering humanity.West Wind symbolizes:1) change of seasons2) power, energy, strength3) the poet’s poetic inspiration4) the poet’s rebellious character5) destroyer and preserver6) hopeJohn Keats --- English romanticsTo the grasshopper and cricket --- Italian sonnetTo Autumn 秋色、秋人、秋声（见书本笔记）Charles Dickens --- English critical realismDavid Copperfield --- autobiography novelMr. Micawber 的语言1) Like to use long sentences, complex structures, words;2) Sum up in plain English after lengthy words;3) Certain favorite expressions like “in short”.Mr. Micawber 的外貌（P121）William Makepeace ThackerayVanity Fair (第三人称全知叙述；人物、情节P137)Subtitle: “A novel without a hero”和Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress”（天路历程）的关系?--- “Vanity Fair”took its title from the fair described in Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, where all sorts of cheats are displayed for sale, and Thackeray makes his novel a moralizing explosion of the shams of society.Emily BronteWuthering Heights叙述者Dual narration --- told by Mr. Lockwood, Heathcliff’s tenant, and Nelly Dean, the housekeeper.Mr. Lockwood: begin and end of the narration; Nelly: most of the narration.发生地: Wuthering Heights, the Earnshaws; Thrushcross Grange, the Lincolns他人对她的评价:Kettle ---“WH”is an expression in the imaginative terms of art of the stresses and tensions and conflicts, personal and spiritual, of 19th century capitalist society.Ralph Fox --- “WH” is the novel become poetry, it’s one of the most extraordinary books human genius has produced… Catherine and Heathcliff are the revenge of love against the 19th century.Thomas HardyTess of the D’UrbervillesSubtitle: “A pure woman faithfully portrayed”Oscar WilderIrishA spokesman for aestheticism and “Art for art’s sake”.His works contain some elements of social protest and criticism; his very brilliant and successful plays brought an end to the almost unrelieved mediocrity of English theatrical production for a whole century.The Importance of Being Earnest ---Punning (双关)Act I --- commentGwendolen: aggressive, dominant, confident, idealistic, formalistic, artificialLady Bracknell: arrogance, snobbish, of an iron will, mercenary about marriage.John Galsworthy --- one of the most prominent 20th century English realistic writers Nobel Prize winnerThe Forsyte Sage: The Man of Property, In Chancery, To Let （三部曲）+ 2 InterludesDavid Herbert LawrenceOne of the great English novelists of the 20th centurySon and LoversHe wrote chiefly about the relationship between parents and children, the passion between men and women, the ugliness, mammonism, and sham morality of modern industrialized society.*His well-known short poem “How Beastly the Bourgeois Is” shows his disgust with the bourgeois society of his time.Bernard Shaw --- an outstanding realistic dramatistPygmalion is a poignant satire on the middle-class morality.A parody(戏仿) --- there is a parallel relationship between this play and the original Greek mythological story.Features of language:1) Different levels of English (educated and uneducated, colloquial, vulgar, slangy) are brought into sharp contrast on the stage, in an amusing and vivid manner.2) The humorous and witty dialogues, the paradoxical statements, and Doolittle’s seemingly absurd polemics(争论).3) It has an underlying social satire.James JoyceUlysses, Finnegans WakeThe two works revolutionized the form and structure of the novel in the development ofthe stream of conscious(意识流) technique.Virginia WoolfStream-of-consciousness novelsWorks: Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, A Room of One’s Own, The Waves, The Years, Between the Acts.She is a distinguished literary critic and a feminist writer who defended women’s rights in England.Thomas Stearns Eliot (T.S. Eliot)Nobel Prize winnerThe Egoist – a magazine advocating the theory of poetry called ImagismMurder in the Cathedral is perhaps the most noteworthyThe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Importance) has been called the first masterpiece of modernism in English. In the form of a dramatic monologue it presents with irony and pathos the musings of an aging young man, uncertain, unable to commit himself to the love he desires or to life at all, a figure representative of the frustrations in the modern life and of a sterile up-class culture.The Waste Land is a long poem on the theme of the sterility and chaos of the contemporary world, an expression of the despair of the post-war era.Morning at the Window (见书本笔记)Definition:●Paradox is a figure of speech in which a statement appears to be logicallyself-contradictory, but which on further thinking and study may prove to be true, well-founded, and even to contain a succinct point.e.g. “the importance of being earnest” --- (P185) Mrs. Bracknell thinks it’s important to“know nothing”. Nothing should damage the natural innocence, which is like delicate exotic fruit. She criticizes that modern education is unsound and can produce no effect. It can even be a danger to the upper classes if it works. It seems absurd, yet considering the reality of that time, it reveals some truth.● A parody is an imitative work created to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke someaffectionate fun at the original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation of the style & techniques. It deflates the original by applying the imitation to a lowly or comically inappropriate subject.E.g. there’s a parallel relation between “Pygmalion” and the original Greek mythology.Professor Higgins transforms Liza Doolittle, a flower girl, into a lady, while Pygmalion created Galatea, the ivory statue, who finally has life. Professor Higgins it to Liza what Pygmalion is to Galatea, yet Liza doesn’t become Higgins’s wife like the original ending.●The pun is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploitingmultiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.e.g. “the importance of being earnest”--- “earnest”has two-folded meanings, thename Earnest and the word means “seriousness”. Both Jack and Algernon hope very much to be named as “Earnest”and tell some lies in this process. Actually it’s important for them to be honest and win the girls’ love.●Critical realism is the theory to argue for the material presence of the social an naturalworld outside of our knowledge of it, to show the deeper structures and relations that are not directly observable but lie behind the surface of social reality.e.g. “David Copperfield”, Charles Dickens, exposes the social injustice and child laborof the capitalist world through the story of the boy named David Copperfield. We can see from it the brutal treatment of the poor in a society sharply divided by wealth.。