1、1英美文学选读重点笔记The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. Generally, it refers to the period between the 14th they are individuals representing certain types. Each character has his or her own personalities; meanwhile, they may share features with others. The soliloquies i
2、n his plays fully reveal the inner conflict of his characters. Shakespeare also portrays his characters in pairs. Contrasts are frequently used to bring vividness to his characters. The women in the plays are vivid creations, each differing from the others. Shakespeare was fond of portraying “mockin
3、g wenches,“ such as Kate of the Taming of the Shrew, Rosaline of Loves Labors Lost, instead, he borrows them from some old plays or storybooks, or from ancient Greek then the grief is deepened by the sense of irrecoverable loss in the silencing of a young poet. With this bitter sense of loss, Milton
4、 asks why the just the three unities of time, space regularity in construction should be adhered to the three unities of time, space regularity in construction should be adhered to, he must please, but he must also instruct; he must not offend against religion or promote immorality; he was a rebel i
5、nnocently whatever he imagined, he also saw. As an imaginative poet, he presents his view in visual images instead of abstract terms.Blake writes his poems in plain the “pleasure-dome,“ the product of human imaginative vision is the device (poetry) which will reconcile the opposites; lines 12 throug
6、h 30 are iambic pentameter which is poly-rhythmic in its diversity; lines 31 through 34 are in a lilting iambic tetrameter shifting to a couplet of iambic pentameter in lines 35 while on the Continent, he was hailed as the champion of liberty, poet of the people. Byrons poetry has great influence on
7、 the literature of the whole world. Across Europe, patriots generally each line contains 4 accented syllables. The rhyme scheme for each stanza is uniformly aabb. The last two stanzas of the poem are ironically addressed to those workers who submit passively to capitalist exploitation. They serve as
8、 a warning to the working people, that if the latter should give up their struggle they would be digging graves for themselves with their own hands compared to the preceding stanzas, these lines appear weak Pride Northanger Abbey; Mansfield Park; Emma the stories are better structured. Most novels o
9、f this period present a sharper criticism of social evils and showed great sympathy to the oppressed, but rebellious and unyie1ding class of the poor, which is bent on reforming things. He battled for many liberal causes, from womens suffrage to the abo1ition of censorship. He was also a moralist an
10、d a critic whose primary aim as a writer was not to create a new society but to criticize the existing one, though his final aim was to keep a balance between the rich and the poor. His works were designed to help improve the status quo; there was no suggestion in them that society shou1d be radical
11、1y and painfully reconstructed if socia1 enemies were to be reconciled and social i11s remedied. 2. The characteristics of Galsworthys critical realism and its social effect:Ga1sworthy was a conventional writer, having inherited the fine traditions of the great Victorian nove1ists of the critical re
12、alism such as Dickens and Thackeray. He learned from Maupassant for the vigor, economy and clarity of writing, Turgenev for the wisdom and naturalness, and Tostoy for the depth of insight and the breadth of character drawing. Technically, he was more traditional than adventurous, focusing on plot de
13、velopment and character portrayal. With an objective observation and a naturalistic description, Galsworthy had tried his best to make an impartial presentation of the social 1ife in a documentary precision. By emphasizing the critical element in his writing, he daunt1essly laid bare the true featur
14、es of the good and the evi1 of the bourgeois society. He was also successful in his attempt to present satire and humor in his writing. He wrote in a clear and unpretentious sty1e with a c1ear and straightforward language.3. Selected An Excerpt from Chapter l3 of The Man of Property 1. The outline o
15、f the story: The Man of Property is the first novel of the Forsyte trilogies which tell the ups and downs of the Forsyte family from 1886 to 1926. This novel centers itself on the Soames-Irene-Bosinney triangle. Soames Forsyte, a typical Forsyte, represents the essence of the principle that the accu
16、mulation of wealth is the sole aim of life, for he considers everything in terms of ones property. Irene, his young and beautiful wife, on the contrary, loves art and cherishes noble ideals of life. But Soames never pay any attention to her thoughts and feeling; he takes her merely as part of his ow
17、n property. Thus, Irene is not happy about her marriage. In order to please his wife, Soames asks Bosinney, a young architect, to build a country house for them. Like Irene, Bosinney is also interested in art and not in practical things in life. During the designing and building 19of the house, the
18、two come to enjoy a great deal of each others company and finally fall in love with each other. Rumors arise and Soames wants his revenge. He sues Bosinney at the court for spending more money than stipulated. The conflict of the triangle ends tragically with Bosinneys death in a car accident and Ir
19、enes leaving Soames for good. 2. The theme of this novel: It is that of the predominant possessive instinct of the Forsytes and its effects upon the personal relationships of the family with the underlying assumption that human relationships of the contemporary English society are merely an extensio
20、n of property relationships. The harsh satire on this inhuman sense of property is brought out very effectively in the early chapters of the novel. But in the later part of the novel, the harsh tone gradually changes into a more tolerant one, and finally it becomes a distinctly sentimental one, thus
21、 weakening the effect of the novel. .William Butler Yeats Yeatss literary ideas: Not content with any dogma in any of the established religious institutions, Yeats built up for himself a mystical system of beliefs. In choosing the mystical belief of cyclical history over the modern conception of pro
22、gress, Yeats owed a great deal to the Italian philosopher Vico, and the German philosopher Nietzsche. He believed that history, and life, followed a circular, spiral pattern consisting of long cycles which repeated themselves over and over on different levels. And symbols 1ike “ winding stairs,“ “sp
23、inning tops,“ “gyres“ and “spirals“ were part of his elaborate theory of history, which had obviously become the central core of order in his great poems. Yeats later disagreed with the idea of “art for arts sake.“ He came to see that literature should not be an end in itself but the expression of c
24、onviction and the garment of noble emotion. To write about Ire1and for an Irish audience and to recreate a specifically Irish literature - these were the aims that Yeats was fighting for as a poet and a playwright. Yeats as a dramatist and his contribution to modern theater: He wrote verse plays in
25、most of the cases. He wrote more than 20 plays in a stretch of 48 years. The stories of his early plays all came from the Irish myth or legends. His sucessful plays include The Countess Cathleen (1892), Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902) The Land of Hearts Desire (1894), The Shadowy Waters (1900) and Purga
26、tory (1935). In his later phase of dramatic career, in order to reflect “the deeps of the mind,“ Yeats began experimenting with techniques such as the use of masks, of ritualized actions, and of symbolic languages together with the combination of music and dance. In a certain way, his experiments an
27、ticipated the abstract movement of modern theater. However, even in his plays Yeats has remained a lyrical poet. His plays are enjoyed more for the beauty of their language than for dramatic situations. Selected 1. The Lake Isle of Innisfree The poem is written in 1893. Tired of the life of his day,
28、 Yeats sought to escape into an ideal “fairyland“ where he could live calmly as a hermit and enjoy the beauty of nature. The poem consists of three quatrains of iambic pentameter, with each stanza rhymed abab. Innisfree is an inlet in the lake in Irish legends. Here the author is referring to a plac
29、e for hermitage.This poem is just a popular representative of the poems in which Yeats has achieved suggestive patterns of meaning by a careful counterpointing of contrasting ideas or images like human and fairy, natura1 and artificial, domestic and wild, and ephemeral and permanent. Around a “fairy
30、land“ background, the poem is c1osely woven, easy, subtle and musical; the c1arity and control of the imagery give the poem a haunting quality.2. Down by the Salley Gardens Originally entitled “An Old Song Resung,“ with Yeatss footnote: “This is an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines
31、 imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of Ballysodare, Sligo, who often sings them to herself.“The theme of the poem is very simple: a boy has fallen in love with a beautiful girl who is carefree and advises the boy not to be so serious about love and life. But he does not ag
32、ree with her and suffers a lot.T. S. Eliot T. S. Eliots major achievement in drama writing: He was one of the important verse dramatists in the first half of the 20th century. Besides some fragmentary pieces, Eliot had written in his lifetime five full-length plays: Murder in the Cathedral (1935), T
33、he Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party (1950), The Confidential Clerk (1954), and The-Elder Statesman (1959). All the plays have something to do with Christian themes. His three later plays are also concerned with the subject of spiritual self-discovery but in the form of a sophisticated moder
34、n social comedy. 20Eliots major achievement in play writing has been the creation of a verse drama in the 20th century to express the ideas and actions of modern society with new accents of the contemporary speech.Selected 1. The Waste Land The literary significance of The Waste Land(1) The theme: T
35、he Waste Land, Eliots most important single poem, has been hailed as a landmark and a model of the 20th-century English poetry, comparable to Wordsworths Lyrical Ballads. With bold technical innovations in versification and style, the poem not only presents a panorama of physical disorder and spirit
36、ual desolation in the modern Western world, but also reflects the prevalent mood of disillusionment and despair of a whole post-war generation.(2) The poems social significance: The Waste Land is a poem concerned with the spiritual breakup of a modem civilization in which human life has lost its mea
37、ning, significance and purpose. The poem has developed a whole set of historical, cultural and religious themes; but it is often regarded as being primarily a reflection of the 20th-century peoples disillusionment and frustration in a sterile and futile society. The horror and menace, the anguish an
38、d dereliction, and the futility and sterility expressed in his poetry had been afflicting all sensitive members of the postwar generation.2The characteristics of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock“: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock“ is Eliots most striking early achievement. It presents the me
39、ditation of an aging young man over the business of proposing marriage. The poem is in a form of dramatic monologue, suggesting an ironic contrast between a pretended “love song“ and a confession of the speakers incapability of facing up to love and to life in a sterile upper-class world. Prufrock,
40、the protagonist of the poem, is neurotic, self-important, illogical and incapable of action. He is a kind of tragic figure caught in a sense of defeated idealism and tortured by unsatisfied desires. The setting of the poem resembles the “polite society“ of Popes “ The Rape of the Lock,“ in which a t
41、ea party is a significant event and a game of cards is the only way to stave off boredom. The poem is intensely anti-romantic with visual images of hard, gritty objects and evasive hellish atmosphere. V. D. H. Lawrence The creative features and the social significance of Lawrences writing: Lawrence
42、is one of the greatest English novelists of the 20th century. The major characteristics of his novel is that he combined social criticism with psychological exploration in his novel writing. He was not concerned with technical innovations; his interest lays in the tracing of psychological developmen
43、t of his character and in his enegetic criticism of the dehumanizing effect of the capitalist industrialization on human nature. In his writings, Lawrence has expressed a strong reaction against the mechanical civilization. He was one of the first novelists to introduce themes of psychology into his
44、 works. He made a bold psychological exploration of various human relations, especially those between men and women, with a great frankness. He believed that the healthy way of the individuals psychological development lay in the primacy of the life impulse, or in another term, the sexual impulse. S
45、ons and Lovers is largely an autobiographical novel told by means of straight-forward narrative and vivid episodes in chronological sequence. . James Joyce The literary characteristics of Joyces writing: James Joyce is one of the most prominent literary figures of the first half of the 20th century.
46、 (1) Joyce is regarded as the most prominent stream-of-consciousness novelist, concentrating on revealing in his novels the psychic being of the characters. In Joyces opinion, the artist, who wants to reach the highest stage and to gain the insights necessary for the creation of dramatic art, should
47、 rise to the position of a god-like objectivity; he should have the complete conscious control over the creative process and depersonalize his own emotion in the artistic creation. He should appear as an omniscient author and present unspoken materials directly from the psyche of the characters, or
48、make the characters tell their own inner thoughts in monologues. 21(2) Another remarkable feature of Joyces writings is his style. His own style is a straightforward one, lucid, logical and leisurely; subtlety, economy and exactness are his standards. But when he tries to render the so-called stream
49、 of consciousness, the style changes: incomplete, rapid, broken wording and fragmentary sentences are the typical features, which reflect the shifting, flirting, disorderly flow of thoughts in the major characters mind. To create his modern Odyssey -Ulysses, Joyce adopts a kind of mock-heroic style. The essence of the mock-heroic lies in the application of apparently inappropriate styles. He achieves this mainly by elaborating his style into parody, pastiche, symbolic fantasy, and narration by question and answer from an omniscient narrator. Many criti
