Part One
①Beowulf: The national heroic epic of the English people. It has over 3,000 lines. It describes the battles between the two monsters and Beowulf, who won the battle finally and dead for the fatal wound. The poem ends with the funeral of the hero. The most striking feature in its poetical form is the use if alliteration. Other features of it are the use of metaphors(暗喻) and of understatements(含蓄).
②Alliteration: In alliterative verse, certain accented(重音) words in a line begin with the same consonant sound(辅音). There are generally 4accents in a line, 3 of which show alliteration, as can be seen from the above quotation.
③Romance: The most prevailing(流行的) kind of literature in feudal England was the Romance. It was a long composition, sometimes in verse(诗篇), sometimes in prose(散文), describing the life and adventures of a noble hero, usually a knight, as riding forth to seek adventures, taking part in tournament(竞赛), or fighting for his lord in battle and the swearing of oaths.
④Epic: An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significantly to a culture or nation. The first epics are known as primacy, or original epics.
⑤Ballad: The most important department of English folk literature is the ballad which is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas(诗节), with the second and fourth lines rhymed. The subjects of ballads are various in kind, as the struggle of young lovers against their feudal-minded families, the conflict between love and wealth, the cruelty of jealousy, the criticism of the civil war, and the matters and class struggle. The paramount(卓越的) important ballad is Robin Hood(《绿林好汉》).
⑥Geoffrey Chaucer杰弗里.乔叟: He was an English author, poet, philosopher and diplomat. He is the founder of English poetry. He obtained a good knowledge of Latin, French and Italian. His best remembered narrative is the Canterbury Tales(《坎特伯雷故事集》), which the Prologue(序言) supplies a miniature(缩影) of the English society of Chaucer’s time. That is why Chaucer has been called “the founder of English realism”. Chaucer affirms men and women’s right to pursue their happiness on earth and opposes(反对) the dogma of asceticism(禁欲主义) preached(鼓吹) by the church. As a forerunner of humanism, he praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. Chaucer’s contribution to English poetry lies chiefly in the fact that he introduced from France the rhymed stanza of various types, especially the rhymed couplet of 5 accents in iambic(抑扬格) meter(the “heroic couplet”) to English poetry, instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.
⑦【William Langland威廉.朗兰: Piers the Plowman《农夫皮尔斯》】
Part Two
The English Bible: The first complete English Bible was translated by John Wycliffe(约翰?威克里夫). The Authorized Version is King James Bible made in 1611. The result is a monument of English language and English literature.
Renaissance: Renaissance or the birth of letters is an intellectual movement. Its two features are a thirsting curiosity for the classical literature and the keen interest in the activities of humanity. Humanism is the key-note of the Renaissance.
William Caxton威廉.卡克斯顿: He is the first English printer and invented in England the profession of publisher.
Thomas More托马斯.莫尔: The greatest of the English humanists was Thomas More, the author of Utopia《乌托邦》. He is also one of such “giants”(巨匠) of the Renaissance. He distinguished himself as a learned scholar, a master of Latin, a witty talker, a lover of music, an honest statesman , and a man of noble character, modest but steadfast(坚定的), to his convictions. He was a far-sighted thinker, aspired for a totally new society with happy, classless, and free from poverty and exploitation. He was one of the forerunners of modern socialist thought.
Utopia: It is More’s masterpiece, written in the form of a conservation between More and Hythloday, a returned voyager. It is divided into two books. The first book contains a long discussion on the social conditions of England. In the second book is described in detail an ideal communist society, Utopia. The name “Utopia” comes from Greek words meaning “no place” and was adopted by More as the name of his ideal commonwealth.
Philip Sidney菲利普.锡德尼: He is well-known as a poet and critic of poetry. His collection of love sonnets, Astrophel and Stella《爱星者与星》, was published in 1591.
Edmund Spenser埃德蒙.斯宾塞(莎翁之前最杰出的英国诗人)：The poet’s poet of the period was ES who was buried beside Chaucer in Westminster Abbey. ES has held his position as a model of poetical art among the Renaissance English poets, and his influence can be traced in the works of Milton, Shelley, and Keats. ES is the first master to make that language the natural music of his poetic effusions(感情的流露). His sonnets in Amoretti, together with Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella and Shakespeare’s sonnets ,are the most famous sonnet sequences of the Elizabeth Age. 【In 1579 he wrote The Shepherd’s Calendar《牧人日记》 which marked the budding(萌芽) of the Renaissance flower in the northern island of England. The faerie Queen 《仙后》 is his greatest work which was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.】
Francis Bacon: He is the founder of English materialist philosophy and the founder of modern science in England. His New Instrument is called the Inductive Method of reasoning. He is also the first English essayist. To give a few, “Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark..” “Studies serve for delight.” “Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
Drama: The Miracle Play圣迹剧 The Morality Play道德剧 寓意剧 The Interlude幕间节目
Christopher Marlowe克里斯托弗.马洛: The most gifted of the “university wits” was Christopher Marlowe. His best work include 3 of his plays, Tamburlaine《帖木儿大帝》(1587), The Jew of Malta《马耳岛的犹太人》(1592), and Doctor Faustus《浮士德博士》(1588). He was the greatest of the pioneers of English drama. His work paved the way for the plays of the greatest English dramatist——Shakespeare——whose achievements were the monument of the English Renaissance.
【His plays show the spirit of the rising bourgeoisie, its eager curiosity for knowledge, its towering pride, its insatiable(不知足的) appetite for power won by military, might, knowledge, or gold. The theme of his plays is the praise of individuality freed from the restraints of medieval dogmas and law, and the conviction of the boundless possibility of human efforts in conquering the universe. The heroes in his plays are merely individualists, their individualistic ambition often brings ruin to the world and sometimes to themselves.】
William Shakespeare: Shakespeare is one of the founders of realism in world literature. His dramatic creation often used the method of adaptation（改革）. Shakespeare long experience with the stage and his intimate knowledge of dramatic art thus acquired make him a master hand for playwriting. Shakespeare was skilled in many poetic forms: the song, the sonnet, the couplet, and the dramatic blank verse. He was especially at home with the blank verse. Shakespeare was a great master of the English language. Shakespeare has been universally acknowledged to be the summit of the English Renaissance, and one of the greatest writers over the world.
① The great comedies: A Midsummer Might’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night.
② The great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth.
The Merchant of Venice: 威尼斯富商安东尼奥Antonio为了成全好友巴萨尼奥Bassanio的婚事，向犹太人高利贷者夏洛克Shylock借债。由于安东尼奥贷款给人从不要利息，并帮夏洛克的女儿私奔，怀恨在心的夏洛克乘机报复，佯装也不要利息，但若逾期不还要从安东尼奥身上割下一磅肉。不巧传来安东尼奥的商船失事的消息，资金周转不灵，贷款无力偿还。夏洛克去法庭控告，根据法律条文要安东尼奥履行诺言。为救安东尼奥的性命，巴萨尼奥的未婚妻鲍西娅Portia假扮律师出庭，她答允夏洛克的要求，但要求所割的一磅肉必须正好是一磅肉，不能多也不能少，更不准流血。夏洛克因无法执行而败诉，害人不成反而失去了财产。剧本的主题是歌颂仁爱、友谊和爱情，同时也反映了资本主义早期商业资产阶级与高利贷者之间的矛盾，表现了作者对资产阶级社会中金钱、法律和宗教等问题的人文主义思想
Ben Jonson本.琼森: Of the many contemporaries and successors of Shakespeare, the most well-known was Ben Jonson. He wad a prolific(多产的) dramatist, writing dozens of plays, including tragedies, comedies, and ,masques(假面剧). Jonson’s comedies are “comedies of humours.” Every Man in His Humour《人各有癖》is one of his best comedies.
吴伟仁--英国文学史及选读--名词解释
