英美文学课件复习资料

IV. The 17th Century
The earlier seventeenth century, and especially the period of the English Revolution (1640–60), was a time of intense ferment in all areas of life — religion, science, politics, domestic relations, culture.
V. The 18th Century
In the field of literature, enlightenmenters believed that the artistic should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy . seek proportion, unity, harmony and grace in literary expression, in an effort to delight, instruct and correct human beings. Neoclassicism. A revival in literature in the late 17th and 18th centuries, characterized by a regard for the classical ideals of reason, form, and restraint.
II. Middle English Period (1066-1485)
Extending from 1066 to 1485(ie.from the year of William the Conquer’s conquest to England to the year of initiating Religious Reformation), this period is noted for the extensive influence of French literature on native English forms and themes.
A: Poetry: William Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads 抒情歌谣集 Byron: Dan Juan 唐璜 Shelley: Ode to the West Wind 西风颂 John Keats: Ode to a Nightingale 夜莺颂
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A Modest Proposal
Swift is a master satirist.His satire is usually masked by an outward gravity and an apparent earnest which renders his satire all the more powerful.His ―A Modest Proposal‖is generally taken as a perfect model.By suggesting that poor Irish poor parents sell their one –year-old babies to the rich English lords and ladies as food, Swift is making the devastating protest against the inhuman exploration and oppression of the Irish People by the English ruling class.The appearent eagerness, sincerity and detachment of the author adds force to the bitter irony and biting sarcasm.
Features of the Victorian Literature: Realism Victorian literature, as a product of its age, naturally took on its quality of magnitude & diversity. It was manysided and complex, and reflected both romantically and realistically the great changes that were going on in people’s life and thought. Great writers and great works abounded.
Writers and Works:
Thomas More: Utopia 乌托邦 Edmund Spenser: Faerie Queene 仙后 Francis Bacon: Essays 论说文集
William Shakespeare
Works: 154 sonnets, 37 plays, 2 long poems Comedy: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Merchant of Venice Tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet History Plays: Henry IV
Literary Trends: Renaissance and Humanism The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. This period is characterized by the influence of the classics (in literature, language, and philosophy), as well as an optimistic forward-thinking approach to the potential of humans (known as Renaissance humanism).
Poetry: Alexander Pope: The Rape of the Rock 劫发
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Prose: Jonathan Swift: Guilliver’s Travels 格列佛游
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The Rise of the Realistic Novel Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe 鲁宾逊漂流
Achievements
Literary Trends:
Arthurian Legends and Tales of Chivalry and Adventure:
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
III. The Renaissance Period (1485-early 17th century)
I. Old English, or Anglo—Saxon, Era (450-1066) This period extended from about 4501066, the year of the Norman-French conquest of England. The Germanic tribes from Europe who overrun England in the 5th century, after the Roman withdraw, brought with the Old English, or Anglo-Saxon language, which is the basis of modern English. They bought also a specific poetic tradition, the formal character of which remained surprisingly constant until the termination of their rule by the NormanFrench invaders 6 century later.
VI. The Romantic Age (1789-1837)
The literary views:
Romanticism constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit. It tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and all experience. It also places the individual at the center of art.
English and American Literature
An Outline of English Literature
I. Old English, or Anglo—Saxon, Era (4501066) II. Middle English Period (1066-1485) III. The Renaissance Period (1485-early 17th century) IV. The 17th Century V. The 18th Century. VI. The Romantic Age(1789-1837) VII. English Literature of Victorian Age (1837-1901) VIII. 20th Century Literature
IV. The 17th Century
Writers and works: John Milton: Paradise Lost 失乐园 John Buyan: The Pilgrim’s Progress 天
路历程
(Metaphysical poet) John Donne: Songs and Sonnets 歌与十四行诗
V. The 18th Century
Literary Traits Enlightenment and Neoclassism , the early age of Romanticism The Enlightenment movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept the whole western Europe at the time . The enlightenmenters celebrated reason or rationality, equality and science. They called for a reference to order, reason and rule.
Achievements
Poetry Much of old English poetry was probably intended to be chanted, with harp (a kind of instrument, in Chinese it means 竖琴) accompaniment, by Anglo-Saxon scop (poet in Chinese means 吟游诗人), often bold and strong, but also mournful and elegiac (sad) in sprit. Major achievement: Beowulf (AngloSaxon national epic)
B. Drama: Byron: Manfred Shelley: Prometheus Unbound
C. Novel: Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma. Walter Scott: Ivanhoe
VII English Literature of Victorian Age