Part Ⅳ 十八世纪英国文学作品

Part ⅣThe Eighteenth Century(1688-1780)
Chapter 8 The Age of Classicism
1.The changes in political power: William and Mary →Queen Anne(Mary's sister ) →
George Hanover( representing the beginning of Hanoverian House )
2.Constitutional monarchy was further consolidated to guarantee the controlling power of the
bourgeoisie.
3.In 1769, James Watt invented the steam engine.
4.England became the world's NO.1 capitalist and imperialist country in the first half of the
18th century.
5.Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (《国富论》) ；
laissez faire et laissez passer (《自由经营许可证》).
6.The Enlightenment Movement: the most well-known figures in England were John Locke,
Shaftsbury, Newtown and Darwin.
7.The changes in religion: Trinity →Unitarianism(上帝一位论) →Deism(自然神论) →
God becoming identical to the Nature →Christian being able to contact with God through prayers, meditation and self-examination.
8.The Age of Classicism or Neoclassicism is also known as the Age of Reason, the Augustan
Age or the Age of Pope.
9.Alexander Pope: He is the greatest poet of the Augustan Age，who brought heroic couplet to
its perfection. His literary achievements:
a)An Essay on Criticism (《论批评》)
b)The Rape of the Lock (《夺发记》)——mock epic.
c)Translation of Homer (《史诗译本》)
d)An Essay on Man (《人论》)
e)The Dunciad (《愚人记》)
10.Jonathan Swift: He is the most outstanding prose writer and satirist of the age of classicism,
who is also the first English writer writing his own epitaph. He was also regarded as the national hero of Scotland. His literary achievements:
a)Gulliver's Travels (《格列佛游记》)——satirical allegory (Gulliver had traveled to four
countries: Lilliput小人国、Brobdingnag大人国、Flying Island飞岛国、Houyhnhnms
慧骃国)
b)Drapier's Letters (《布商的信》)
c) A Modest Proposal (《一个小小的请求》)——an political essay.
11.Joseph Addison: The Tatler (《闲谈者》)
Richard Steele: The Spectator (《旁观者》)
12.Samuel Johnson: He is regarded as the lion dominating the mid-century literary stage of
England whose death represented the end of the Age of Neoclassicism. His literary achievements:
a) A Dictionary of the English Language (《英语词典》)
b)Letter to Lord Chesterfield(《致切斯菲尔德伯爵书》)——marking the end of the
English patron system.
c)The Preface to the Plays of Shakespeare (《莎士比亚戏剧的序言》)
d)Lives of the English Poets(《英国作家传》)——in this book, he firstly combining
comments with a person's life story, his achievements and some meaningful anecdotes
when writing biography.
Chapter 9 The Rise of the Novel
1.The first flourishing of English novel happened in the second half of the 18th century.
2.In the 18th century, science and technology developed fast, and printing became the most
prosperous trade.
3.Pamela (《美德有报》) is regarded by some 20th-century critics as the first English modern
novel, whereas Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is categorised as a forerunner of the genre.
4.Daniel Defoe: "Father of the free trade" and "Father of modern journalism". He is a prolific
writer, a versatile person and a typical middle class man who is interested in the economic development of England. His literary achievements:
a) A Journal to the Plague Year(《大疫年记事》)
b)Robinson Crusoe(《鲁滨逊漂流记》)——Crusoe demonstrates imperialist, capitalist and
a strong sense of individualism.
c)Moll Flanders(《摩尔·弗兰德斯》), which is considered as the first English novel
depicting the life stories of women from the lower classes.
5.Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding are two fountain heads of the modern English novel.
6.Samuel Richardson: He is the greatest epistolary novelist in the world, who started the
psychological novel. His literary achievements:
a)Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded(《美德有报》)——an epistolary /letter novel.
b)Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady(《克拉丽莎》)——his masterpiece and also the
first tragic novel in the English literary history, which is also written in letter form.
c)The History of Sir Charles Grandison(《查尔斯·格兰迪森爵士的历史》).
7.Henry Fielding: He started the panoramic novel of social manners. Besides, he created a new
genre which he names "comic epic in prose"(散文体滑稽史诗). His literary achievements:
a)Shamela(《莎美拉》)——the parody of Richardson's Pamela.
b)Joseph Andrews(《约瑟夫·安德鲁斯》)——the first classic comic novel in English
literature.
c)The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling(《汤姆·琼斯:一个弃儿的故事》)——his
masterpiece, which is considered as one of the best constructed novels in English
literature.
d)The Life and Death of Jonathan Wilde, the Great(《大伟人乔纳森·菲尔德传》).
urence Sterne: He is one of the most experimental writers of literature. And he is also the
first novelist who anticipates the postmodern violation of the temporal sequence of a narrative. His literary achievements:
a)Tristram Shandy(《项狄传》)——one of the most strangest and most difficult novels in
the world, which doesn't respect the plot's time sequence.
b) A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy(《感伤之旅》)——giving name to the
sentimental movement.
9.Frances Burney: the most important female novelist before Jane Austen whose
representative work is the epistolary novel Evelina, or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the world(《埃维利娜》).
10.Charlotte Lennox published both poetry and prose fiction with The Female Quixote(《女堂吉
诃德》) as her representative novel.
11.Sarah Fielding, Henry Fielding's sister who translated Greek literary works, and wrote literary
criticism, drama and novels. The Adventure of David Simple(《大卫·辛普历险记》) is her most famous prose fiction.
Chapter10 Pre-romantic Literature
1.Neoclassicism that upheld reason and emphasised the ancient Greek and Roman classic
models reached its summit in the first half of the 18th century.
2.There emerged two new types of poetry: topographical poetry and graveyard elegy.
3.James Thomason: He is the most important English poet between Alexander Pope and
Thomas Gray. He was regarded as the leading topographical poet. His literary achievements:
a)The Seasons(《四季歌》)——written in blank verse.
b)The Castle of Indolence(《懒惰城堡》)——an allegory of two cantos written in
Spenserian stanzas.
4.Thomas Gray: He is the most representative and successful poet among the graveyard poets.
His literary achievements:
a)Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard(《墓园挽歌》)——his masterpiece written in
quatrains and it is partly responsible for the group to be named graveyard poets.
b)The Progress of Poetry(《诗歌的进展》)
c)The Bard(《吟游诗人》)
5.Robert Burns:"Ploughman Poet(农民诗人)" and "National Bard(苏格兰的民族诗人)". He is
regarded as a voice of the Scottish common people and an important poet of the period of pre-romantic literature. His literary achievements:
a)Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect(《苏格兰方言诗集》)
b) A Red, Red Rose(《一朵红红的玫瑰》)
c)My Heart's in the Highlands(《我的心在苏格兰高地上》)
6.William Blake: He is known today as a symbolic poet. His literary achievements:
a)Songs of Innocence (《天真之歌》)
b)Songs of Experience(《经验之歌》)
c)The Marriage of Heaven and Hell(《天堂与地狱的婚姻》)
7.At that time, the Gothic novel, as a new genre of novel, really born until Horace Walpole
published The Castle of Otranto(《奥特伦多城堡》).。