自考英语本科《英美文学选读》英国文艺复兴时期一天全掌握

English Literature

The Renaissance Period

1. age: 1500-1660

2. background: stimulated by the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek classic; England's Golden Age, especially in literature; the Church of England broke away from the Catholic Church

3. features:

(1)New poetical forms introduced, e.g. blank verse and sonnet;

(2) the English drama based itself on the models of Roman and Greek classics and the precedents from Italy and Spain

(3)the universal tend of humanism in emphasizing man's dignity and his worldly happiness

Edmund Spenser

埃德蒙.斯賓賽

1. The poet's poet;

2. Perfect melody; a rare sense of beauty; a splendid imagination; a lofty moral purity and seriousness; a dedicated idealism

The Faerie Queen

仙后

(The Shepheades Calender牧人日记;Epithalamion新婚喜歌)

An allegory; "a historical poem" to present the example of a perfect gentleman; a hero represent one of the 12 virtues; fierce warres and faithful loves

Christopher Marlowe

克里斯扥夫.馬洛

（Blank verse

University wit）

1. perfected blank verse and turned it into the principal medium of English drama

2. created a series of images of the Renaissance hero for English drama

Dr Fauctus

浮士德博士

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love多情的牧羊人致情人

1. symbolic of a humanist in the Renaissance; based on the German legend of a magician aspiring for knowledge and finally meeting his tragic end as a result of selling his soul to the Devil

William Shakespeare

威廉.莎士比亞

The greatest playwright and the most popular sonnet writer; a creation of characters; skillful plot construction; irony; a good use of a language; skilled in various poetic forms; of three quatrains and a couplet(三节四行诗加一节偶句); national unity under a mighty and just sovereign is a necessity—“The King’s government must be carried on” (在一个强大英明的君主统治下的国家，统一是非常必要的)

(Each hero has his weekness of nature: Hamlet, the melancholic scholar-prince, faces the dilemma between action and mind; Othello’s inner weakness is made use of by the outside evil force; the old king Lear who is unwilling to totally give up his power makes himself suffer from treachery and infidelity; and Macbeth’s lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to incessant crimes.)

literature should be a combination of beauty, kindness and truth, and should reflect nature and reality

Sonnets

十四行詩

The Merchant of Venice

威尼斯商人

Hamlet

哈姆雷特

(Venus and Adonis维纳斯和安东尼斯; The Rape of Lucrece鲁克丽斯受辱记;romantic tragicomedies浪漫悲喜剧;Romeo and Juliet;

Shakespeare's greatest tragedies are : Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth

1. 154 poems; English form

2. The traditional theme of the play is to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable greed and brutality of the Jew. Many people today tend to regard the play as a satire of the Christians' hypocrisy and their false standards of friendship and love, their cunning ways of pursuing worldliness and their unreasoning prejudice against Jews (Shylock).

3. A man of contemplation rather than action; has th e qualities of a “blood-and-thunder” thriller and a philosophical exploration of life and death

Francis Bacon

弗蘭西斯.培根