1、Alexander Pope (1688-1744),A representative of the Enlightenment. The greatest poet of his time.In many ways Drydens successor.,Pope was born to a Catholic family in London. Ill health accompanied him from cradle to grave: physical deformity (hunchback, dwarfed, crippled), violent headaches. Isolate
2、d from the society, read widely. Wide association with literary men of his time. Friends and enemies in the literary circle.,Pope was one of the 1st to introduce rationalism to England. Pope wrote highly polished verse, often in a didactic or satirical vein. For Pope, the supreme value was order cos
3、mic order, political order, social order, aesthetic order, and this emphasis on order found expression in all of his works. Pope brought the heroic couplet to its ultimate perfection. Pope is a master satirist and splendid craftsman of the heroic couplet.,Popes chief works,An Essay on Criticism 1711
4、 The Rape of the Lock 1711 The Dunciad 1728 An Essay on Man 1733 Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot 1735 Iliad and Odyssey (trs. 1720 & 1726) The Works of Shakespeare, in Six Volumes 1723-25,Famous quotes from Popes Essay,(see p.64) 一知半解害人不浅， 要么干脆不要问津，要么就深入钻研。能带来美感的不是孤立的一片唇一只眼， 而是万物的统一和谐。美好的东西必然唤起美好的感受， 犯错的是人
5、，宽容的是神。,http:/poetry.eserver.org/essay-on-criticism.html,Samuel Johnson (1709-1784),The author of the 1st English dictionary by an Englishman - A Dictionary of the English Language 1755,Born to a book-seller in 1709 in Richfield. Richfield Grammar School for 8 years - a solid foundation in Latin. Ox
6、ford university on an off 1728-1731 without a degree. 1737-1755 difficulty for him to “write for a living”. 1755 publication of his dictionary. 1762 a special governmental pension freed him from the burden of writing.,Energetic and versatile writer: trying his hand in all the different branches of l
7、iterary activities. He was a poet, dramatist, prose romancer, biographer, essayist, critic, lexicographer and publicist.,Chief works: London (poem) The Vanity of Human Wishes (poem) The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia ( romance) Irene (tragedy) Hundreds essays in periodicals Lives of the Po
8、ets (literary criticism) A Dictionary of the English Language,Summary,Samuel Johnson was the last great neoclassicist enlightener in the later 18th century. He was very much concerned with the theme of the vanity of human wishes: almost all of his major writings bear this theme. He tried to awaken m
9、en to this folly and hoped to cure them of it through his writings. Like Pope, he was particularly fond of moralizing and didacticism.,Johnsons style is typically neoclassical. His language is characteristically general. His sentences are long and well structured, interwoven with parallel words and
10、phrases. His thought is always clearly expressed. Reading his works gives the reader the impression that he is talking with a very learned man because of Johnsons use of “learned words”.( 文言词 ),Johnsons dictionary,He undertook the gigantic task single-handedly and finished in over 7 years. His dicti
11、onary met the neoclassical need for standards and helped to standardize vocabulary and usage. Johnsons dictionary was somewhat large and very expensive. Its pages were 18 inches (46 cm) tall and nearly 20 inches (50 cm) wide. The paper was of the finest quality available, the cost of which ran to ne
12、arly 1,600; more than Johnson had been paid(1,500) to write the book. Johnson himself pronounced the book “Vasta mole superbus“ (“Proud in its great bulk“). No bookseller could possibly hope to print this book without help; outside a few special editions of the Bible no book of this heft and size ha
13、d even been set to type.,A DICTIONARY of the English Language: in which The WORDS are deduced from their ORIGINALS, and ILLUSTRATED in their DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONS by EXAMPLES from the best WRITERS. To which are prefixed, A HISTORY of the LANGUAGE, and AN ENGLISH GRAMMAR. By SAMUEL JOHNSON, A.M. I
14、n TWO Volumes VOL. I,An important innovation of Johnsons was to illustrate the meanings of his words by literary quotation, of which there are around 114,000. The authors most frequently cited by Johnson include Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden. For example:OPULENCE-Wealth; riches; affluence-“There in
15、 full opulence a banker dwelt, Who all the joys and pangs of riches felt; His sideboard glitterd with imagind plate, And his proud fancy held a vast estate.“ - Jonathan Swift,Unlike most modern lexicographers, Johnson introduced humour or prejudice into quite a number of his definitions. Among the b
16、est known are: “Excise: a hateful tax levied upon commodities and adjudged not by the common judges of property but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid” (消费税） “Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge（做苦工的人） that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the s
17、ignification of words“ “Oats: a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people“ A much less well-known example is: “Monsieur: a term of reproach（责备） for a Frenchman” （先生）,In spite of whatever shortcomings it might have had, the dictionary was far and away the best of its day, a milestone in English-language lexicography to which all modern dictionaries owe some gratitude. Johnsons dictionary was still considered authoritative until the appearance of the Oxford English Dictionary at the end of the nineteenth century.,
