文艺复兴时期英国文学练习题-问答题参考答案

文艺复兴时期英国文学练习题-问答题参考答案

1. What is the influence of the Authorized Version of Bible on the English language and literature?

Apart from its religious influence, the Authorized V ersion has a great influence on the English language and literature. The translators of the Authorized Version held fast to pure, old English speech. About 93 percent of the 6000 words used in it are the main words of native English. So, with the widespread influence of the English Bible, the standard modern English has been fixed and confirmed. A great number of Bible coinages and phrases have passed into daily English speech as household words, and are often used with no knowledge of their origin. For instance, “help-mate”, “peacemaker”, “tender mercy”, “living kindness”, “long suffering”, “clear as crystal”, “arose as one man”, “a thorn in the flesh”, “root of evil”, “to cast pearls before swine”, “a labor of love”, “the shadow of death”, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth”, and many more. Thus the simple and dignified language of the Authorized Version has colored the style of the English prose for the last 300 years and more, and the English Bible has woven its phrases and expressions into the texture of the English language, English literature and English life.

2. What are the main features of European Renaissance?

Two features are striking of the Renaissance Movement. One is a thirsting curiosity for the classical literature. Old manuscripts were dug out. There arose a current for the study of Greek and Latin authors. While people learned to admire the Greek and Latin works as models of literary form, they caught something in spirit very different from the medieval Catholic dogma. So the love of classic was but an expression of the general dissatisfaction with the Catholic and feudal ideas.

The other feature of the Renaissance is the keen interest in the activities of humanity. People ceased to look upon themselves as living only for God and a future world. Thinkers, artists and poets arose, who gave expression, sometimes in an old guise, though, to the new feeling of admiration for human beauty and human achievement, a feeling in sharp contrast with theology. Hence arose the thought of Humanism. Humanism is the key-note of the Renaissance. Humanism reflected the new outlook of the rising bourgeoisie, which saw the world opening before it. According to the humanists, both man and world are hindered only by external checks from infinite improvement. Man could mould the world according to his desires, and attain happiness by removing all external checks by the exercise of reason.

3. What the characteristics of Edmund Spenser’s poetry?

Spenser’s poetry possesses the following main qualities:

(1) a perfect melody;

(2) a rare sense of beauty;

(3) a splendid imagination;

(4) a lofty moral purity and seriousness;

(5) a delicate realism. It is his idealism, his love of beauty and his exquisite melody that make him known as “the Poet’s Poet”.