英美文学鉴赏复习资料

英美文学复习材料

Jeffery Chaucer

•Father/founder of English Poetry

•Major works:

•The Romaunt of the Rose 《玫瑰传奇》

•The Parliament of Fowls《百鸟议会》

•Troilus and Criseyde 《特鲁伊罗斯和克里塞德》

•The Legend of Good Women《好女人传》

•The Canterbury Tales 《坎特伯雷故事集》

The Canterbury Tales

•The story of a group of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury.

•A rich, tapestry (织锦)of medieval social life combining elements of all classes, from nobles to workers, from priests and nuns to drunkards and thieves.

•London dialect

•The General Prologue consists of character sketches of each member of the group that is going to Canterbury.

The Canterbury Tales

•Some of the characters

•The Knight :the first story teller

•The Prioress 女修道院副院长

•The Merchant

•The Wife of Bath 巴斯妇: the first female figure in British literature

•Poor Priest

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

•Renaissance

•Meaning: rebirth or revival

•Time: began in the 14th century, end in the 17th century.

•Place: began in Italy, later spread to France, Spain and England.

•A keen interest in the Greek and Latin culture; the art and science of ancient Greece and Rome were being born again after long years of neglect.

•Essence: humanism

William Shakespeare

•Works

•37 plays

•2 long narrative poems

•154 sonnets

William Shakespeare

•Drama:

•Tragedies- Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet

•Comedies-As You Like It, The Merchants of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream,The Taming of the Shrew,Twelfth Night

•Histories-Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VIII, Richard III,

•Romances/tragicomedie s: Cymbeline, The Tempest

Romeo and Juliet

•Characters: The Montagues / The Capulets

•Plot

•Theme

•Act II, Scene II

•The balcony scene

•One of the romantic peaks of the play.

•In this scene, Romeo has employed three comparisons to express his admiration for Juliet: the sun, twinkling stars, a bright angel.

William Shakespeare :Sonnet

•A sonnet is a lyric invariably of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter五音步抑扬格, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme韵律.

•Three types of sonnet

1) Petrarchan sonnet (彼特拉克体/意大利十四行诗)

2) Spenserian Sonnet（斯宾塞体十四行诗）

3) Shakespearian Sonnet（莎士比亚/英国体十四行诗

Shakespearian Sonnet

•3 quatrains + a couplet

•abab cdcd efef gg

•Sonnet 18

•―Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?‖

•Theme: A nice summer day is usually transient, but the beauty in poetry can last forever. Thus Shakespeare expresses his faith in the permanence of poetry, of art and love. •Sonnet 29

•Theme: The power of love can overcome all the difficulties and obstacles in one’s lifetime.

Romanticism

•Begins with the publication of Lyrical Ballads (1798) and ends with the death of Sir Walter Scott(1832).

•Pre-romantic poets: William Blake, Robert Burns

•Active romantic poets: George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats •Passive romantic poets / Lake Poets: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey.

Robert Burns