英国文学简单整理

Chapter One Old English Literature (5-11th )

literature: Beowulf

Major plot: two major events; Beowulf slays the monster Grendel and its mother, becomes king of the Geat

Feature

National epic alliteration

Theme

a folk legend brought to England by Anglo-saxons from their continental homes.Reflect the feature of tribal society in ancient times.

Chapter Two Medieval English Literature(11-15th )

Works:

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The Romaunt of the rose

“The Canterbury Tales

Writters:

Geoffrey Chaucer

Feature：

innovations in poetic vocabulary

humor

language

vivid and exact

Chapter Three Literature of Renaissance and Reformaiton

Writer and works

1.Edmund Spenser

The Shepherd’s Calendar

The Faerie Queene

Style: allegory written in Spenserian

2. Francis Bacon

Famous for his EssaysOf Studies

Writing Features: His essays which were an introduction to Bacon’s worldly-wise philosophy, have won popularity for their clearness, brevity and force of expression.

3. William Shakespeare

Works:

Romeo and Juliet

The Merchant of Venice

Hamlet

Chapter Four Literature of Revolution and Restoration(17th )

Writters and works

John Milton’s Paradise Lost

John Bunyan Pilgrim’s Progress

Feature:

language is chiefly plain and colloquial and quite modern in comparison with that of the writers of the Renaissance. His language is clear, vivid, natural, homely (朴实的), fluent, musical and powerful.

Chapter Five Literature of Enlightenment(18th ) and classicism

Daniel Defoe’s masterpiece is Adventures of Robinson Crouse

Jonathan Swift’s masterpiece is Gulliver's Travels.

Thomas Gray Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Chapter Six Literature of Romanticism in England (the first half of 19th )

Robert Burns A Red, Red Rose《一红的玫瑰》Auld Lang Syne《友谊地久

William Wordsworth I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 古舟子咏

George G. Byron (1788-1824)

Don Juan 唐璜

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Prometheus Unbound 《解放了的普罗米修斯》

Ode to the West Wind 《西风颂》

John Keats (1795-1821)

“ Ode on a Grecian Urn” 1819 希腊古瓮颂

“To Autumn” 秋颂

“ Ode to a Nightingale” 1819

Chapter Seven Literature of Critical Realism (1837-1901) the Victorian Age

Charles Dickens (1812-70)

David Copperfield 1848 masterpiece

Oliver Twist雾都孤儿1838

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855)

Jane Eyre:

Chapter Twentieth Century Literature The Transition from 19th to the 20th Century

in English Literature(1900-1945)

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) Under the Greenwood Tree 《绿荫下》(1872);

Oscar Wilde Wilde(1854 ---1900)The Picture of Dorian Gray 《道林•格雷的画像》

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

作品

一Jonathan Swift’s masterpiece is Gulliver's Travels.

Gulliver shipwrecks in Lilliput where the tallest people were six inches high. In his account of the two parties in the country, distinguished by the use of high and low heels, Swift satirizes the Tories and the Whigs in England.（Jonathan Swift RadicalDemocrats Gulliver's Travels irony exaggeration, contrast, irony）

二Oliver Twist

The standard pattern in his novels is the basic conflict between money on the one hand, and love on the othe

reflect the nature of Victorian urban society with all its conflicts and disharmonies

His novels are multifarious ([mʌltiˈfeəriəs]多种的，各式各样的), digressive（枝节的离题的）, humorous and fluid. His novels are urban ficiton of a new era, of which the plots are rarely

tight-knit.

1.Dickens took a popular art form, the comic novel, and gave it a distinctive wit, energy and

variety. Comedy in his novels consists of laughing at characters trapped in difficult situations.