1、1A Survey of British LiteratureI. Early and Medieval Literature (Unit 2) 1. three conquests2. the medieval period: 476 A. Dthe 15th century3. Anglo-Saxon Period (449-1066): -oral traditions;-“Beowulf”: the national epic-Caedmon: the first known English religious poet4. Anglo-Norman Period (1066-15th
2、 century):-Popularity of romancens;-Chaucer: the father of English poetry;-Ballads developed;5. “Beowulf”-longest; an epic; features (Pagan and Christian coloring; kenning; metaphor)6. Romance-Definition: It is a narrative verse of prose singing knightly adventures or other heroic deeds. Romances ar
3、e popular in the medieval period.-“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”7. Geoffrey Chaucer -the father of English literature/poetry;-The Canterbury Tales: a double fiction; the Wife of Baths prologue; The Wife of Baths Tale; heroic couplet)8. Ballad: -Definition:A story told in song, usually in four lin
4、e stanzas, with the 2nd and the 4th lines rhymed.-Robin Hood Ballads. 9. Appreciation:-from “Beowulf”-from “The Canterbury Tales”II. The Renaissance (Unit 3, Unit 4, Unit 5,Unit 6)1. three discoveries2. Renaissance-a thristing curiosity for classical literature;-a keen interest in life and human act
5、ivities.3. Humanism-individualism; the joy of the present life; reason; the affirmation of self-worth-Humanism emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life. Humanists voiced their beliefs that man was the center of the universe and man did not only have the right to
6、enjoy the beauty of the present life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.4. Sonnet: -Definition: It is a poem of 14 lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure; it expresses a single idea or theme. (Thomas Wyatt first introduced it to England)5. Shakesp
7、earean sonnet: -Definition: A Shakespearean sonnet consists of three four-line stanzas (called quatrains) and a final couplet composed in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.6. Blank verse: having a regular meter, but no rhyme. (Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey)7. Spenserian stanza
8、: -Definition: Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single Alexandrine line in iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme of these lines is “ababbcbcc.“ 8. Appreciation:-Edmund Spenser and “The Faerie Queene”(written in blank verse)-Thomas More and “Utopia
9、”-Christopher Marlowes Dr. Faustus (Appreication); Tamburlaine;The Jew of Malta; The Passionate Shepherd to His Love;-Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare (“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day”): time, mortality, immortality9. The first English essayist: Francis Bacon (“Of Studies”)10. Elizabethan theatrethe
10、golden age of English drama;11. Shakespearean comedies: As You Like It; The Merchant of Venice; A Midsummer Nights Dream; Much Ado About Nothing; Twelfth Night12. Shakespearean tragedies: Macbeth; King Lear; Hamlet; Othello13. Shakespearean comedies:-Features: clowns, servants, jesters, fools; drama
11、tic irony; mistaken identity, cross-dressing;-Patterns: The Green World Pattern (Sample: A Mid-summer Nights Dream)19. Shakespearean tragedies: -Features: characters; structure; soliloquy; traveling; the role of fate/chance20. Appreciation: -“To be, or not to be” (from Hamlet) (Hamlets dilemma)-“Tom
12、morrow, tomorrow,” (from Macbeth) (Mabeth is tired of the world; bored with life; metaphors:)2III. The Period of Revolution and Restoration (the 17th century) (Unit 7)1. 17th: the beginning of modern England;2. Cavalier poets: -Reflected the royalist values;-Themes: beauty, love, loyalty, morality;-
13、Style: Direct, short, frankly erotic-Motto: “Carpe Diem” “Seize the Day” -Robert Herrick, Ben Johnson, Rochard Lovelace, etc;-Appreciation: “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” (Herrick; “to seize the day”) 3. Metaphysical school:-the founder of the Metaphysical school: John Donne-conceit: an exte
14、nded metahpor involving dramatic contrasts or far-fetched comparisons;-John Donnes love poems: “The Flea”; “Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” (Appreciation)-Andrew Marvell: “To His Coy Mistress”4. Puritan writers:-John Bunyanh: “The Pilgrims Progress” (a religious allegory)-John Milton: “Paradise Los
15、t” (based on The Old Testament) (Paradise Regained”; “Samson Agonistes”) (Appreciation)IV. The 18th Century LiteratureThe Age of Enlightenment (Unit 8 and Unit 9)1. 18th century: the golden age of English novels2. Enlightenment-an intellectual movement in Europe in the 18th century;-Reason as the gu
16、iding principle for thinking and action;-the belief in eternal truth, eternal justice, natural equality ;-a continuation of Renaissance;(Belief in the possibility of human perfection through education).3. Neo-classicism: -A revival of classical standards of order, harmony, balance, simplicity and re
17、strainedemotion in literature in the 18th century.-Alexander Pope4. “Essay on Criticism” by Alexander Pope-a manifesto of neoclassicism;-Appreciation: “A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing” (learning as mountain climbing; inadequate learning may impair a balanced apprecation of a poem).5. Realisti
18、c novels: -Jonathan Swift; Gullivers Travels; A Modest Proposal; A Tale of a Tub; The Battle of the Books;-Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe;(Appreciation)-Henry Fielding: Tom Jones; Joseph Andrews; Jonathan Wilde the Great;6. Sentimentalism-the middle and later decades of the 18th c.;-definition: passi
19、on over reason, personal instincts over social duties; the return of the patriarchal times; lamenting over the destructive effects of industrialization-Oliver Goldsmith, Thomas Gray, etc.7. The Graveyard School-subjects, style;-Thomas Grays “Elegy written in a country churchyard”: structure; theme;
20、(Appreciation)8. Pre-romanticism:-the latter half ot the 18th century;-Robert Burns: “Auld Lyne Syne”; “A Red, Red Rose”-William Blake: “Songs of Innocence” “Songs of Experience”; “The Lamb”, “The Tyger”; 9. Richard Bringsley Sheridan: The School for Scandal; The Rivals;10. Oliver Goldsmith: The Vic
21、ar of Wakefield; She Stoops to ConquerV. The Romantic Period (1789-1832) (Unit 10 , Unit 11 and Unit 12)1. The Romantic period: an age of poetry2. Romanticism:-Manifesto of British Romanticism: Lyrical Ballads: co-published by Wordsworth and Coleridge-Features: individual as the center of all life a
22、nd experience; from the outer world to the inner world; Passion; imagination ; Nature; pastoral; past ; Individual freedom; simple and spontaneous expression; symbolic presentations; fantastic elements;3. English Romantic Poets-Lake Poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey-The Satanic Poets: Byron; She
23、lley; Keats-Lyrical Ballads: the manifesto of the English Movement;4. William Wordsworth-“a worshipper of nature”;-nature and country poems: “I Wanderered Lonely as a Cloud”; “The World is Too Much with us”; “Tintern Abbey”; “To a Butterfly” “The Solitary Reaper”; “Lucy Poems”;-theories on poetry; “
24、Poetry is a spontaneous overflow 3of powerful feelings; it takes its orgin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”-Wordsworths view of nature: critique of materialism; a source of mental cleanliness; the guardian of the heart; the beneficial influence of nature;-Appreciation: “I Wanderered Lonely
25、as a Cloud”; “Tintern Abbey”; 5. Samuel Taylor Coleridge:“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”6. George Gordon Byron: -Byronic Hero: an idealised but flawed anti-hero created by Byron; love of freedom, hatred of tyranny, passionate, rebellious, chivalrous, arrogant, cynical, individualistic, isolated, s
26、ingle-handedly, melancholy-major poems by Byron: “Childe Harolds Pilgrimage” (Byronic Hero); “Don Juan”; “She Walks in Beauty”; “The Isles of Greece” (Appreciation)7. Percy Bysshe Shelley:-Platos influence; pantheism-“Prometheus Unbound”; “Ode to the West Wind” “Prometheus Unbound”; “Ode to a Skylar
27、k”; “Queen Mab”; “A Defense of Poetry”;- Appreciation : “Ode to the West Wind”: themes of death and rebirth; destruction and regeneration;8. John Keats- “Ode on a Grecian Urn”; “Ode to a Nightingale”; “Ode to Autumn”; “Endymion”; “Isabella”-Appreciation: “Ode on a Greican Urn”: the powers and limita
28、tions of art VI The Victorian Literature (1832-1901) (Unit 13 and Unit 14)1. Authors and Works-William Makepeace Thackray: Vanity Fair-George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss; Silas Marner; Middlemarch; Adam Bede -Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice: Emma; Sense and Sensibility; Mansfield Park-Thomas Hardy
29、: Far from the Madding Crowd; Tess of the DUrbervilles; Jude the Obscure; The Return of the Native; The Mayor of Casterbridge-Charlotte Bronte:Jane Eyre; Shirley;-Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights-Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest; A Woman of No Importance-Walter Scott: Ivanhoe; 1. Bronte S
30、isters and the Female Gothic Tradition: -Female Gothic refers to the tradition of Gothic writing by women . . . that represents the female experience within domesticity as one of imprisonment, claustrophobia and terror.2. Appreciation:-Jane Eyre by Charolotte Bronte;-Wuthering Heights by Emily Bront
31、e;3. Naturalism-Definition: Heredity and social environment as the shaping forces of ones character; to determine “scientifically“ the underlying forces influencing the actions of the characters. pessimism; fatalism; detached perspective;-Appreciation: “Tess of DUrbervilles” by Thomas Hardy4. Aesthe
32、ticism-Oscar Wilde4. Charles Dickens: -Oliver Twist; David Copperfield; A Tale of Two Cities; Hard Times; Great Expectations; The Pickwick Papers; Little Dorrit5. Poets-Alfred Tennyson: “Break, Break, Break”-Robert Browning: “My Last Duchess” (dramatic monologue)-Mathew Arnold: “Dover Beach” (Apprec
33、iation)6. Thomas Hardy-“Shakespeare of the English novel.”-novels of character and environment: Far from the Madding Crowd; Tess of the DUrbervilles; Jude the Obscure-fatalism;-naturalistic tendencies;7. George Bernard Shaw-the greatest Irish dramatist in the 20th c.-a member of the Fabian society;
34、reformist ideas -Plays: Mrs. Warrens Profession; Major Barbara8. John Galsworthy-The Forsyte Saga: The Man of Property, In Chancery, and To Let. -Analysis: The Man of PropertyVII. The Modern Period (Unit 15) 1. Modernism:-theorectical basis;-innovative forms;-thematic concerns;43. Steam of conscious
35、ness novel:-Bergsons theory of psychological time;-Definition:The style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a characters thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them.-Virginia Woolf and James Joyce4. Virginia Woolf-“Modern Fiction
36、” (attacked the traditional way of novel-writing)-Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse; The Waves-Mrs. Dalloway: appreciation5. James Joyce-an Irish writer;-Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses-Ulysses (Theme, techniques)6. Psychological Fiction-Freudians theories; -D. H. Lawrence
37、: Sons and Lovers; The Rainbow; Women in Love; Lady Chatterleys Lover-Sons and Lovers: appreciation7. Other important writers:-E. M. Forster: A Passage to India; A Room with a View; Where Angels Fear to Tread; Howards End;-William Golding: Lord of the Flies;-Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness; Lord Ji
38、m;VIII. Postwar Literature (Unit 16)1. Existentialism-“Existence precedes essence”-Theme;2. Theatre of the Absurd-Samuel Beckett: Nobel prize-Harold Pinter: Nobel Prize-Definition-Waiting for Godot (Beckett): 3. Angry Young Man:-mid-1950s;-John Osborne: Look Back in Anger4. Metafiction:-definition: -John Fowles: The French Lieutenants Woman5. Symbolism:-definiton;-T. S. Eliot: “The Waste Land” (spiritiual empitness and emotional impoverishment)-William Butler Yeats: “Sailing to Byzantium”;（Appreciation ） “The Second Coming”; “Leda and the Swan”;
