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British literature
Lecture 1
About the authors ?Social background ?Life experience
?Point of view (political/ literary)
?Poet / novelist / dramatist (playwright) / essayist (prose writer) ?Achievement/ contribution ?Social status (position) ?Representative works
About the works
?Synopsis (the plots/ stories) ?Theme
?Characters (heroes/ protagonist/ antagonist) ?Social significance/ importance ?Artistic features: techniques
? figures of speech (修辞) ?Simile, metaphor, personification, symbol, irony, paradox, metonymy, synecdoche,
overstatement/ understatement , alliteration and so on ?Find the definition of the above terms
The period of English Literature
?I. Early and Medieval English Literature ?II. The English Renaissance (14th-16th century) ?III. The Period of Bourgeois Revolution and Restoration (17th C.)
?IV. Neoclassical Period--- The Age of Reason and Enlightenment (18th C.)
?V. Romantic period( early 19th--- wwII)
?VI. Critical Realism ( Victoria Period/ the second half of the 19th C. ) ?VII. Modern Period (20 th C.)
2. Early and Medieval Literature Questions:
1.The literature forms of Anglo-Saxon period? 2.what’s the “England national epic”? 3. The story of “Beowulf”
4. What are the three battles of Beowulf ? 5. The definition of “epic”
6. The literature forms of Anglo-Norman period?
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7. What is “romance”?
8.The class feature of the Romance
Epic (Heroic Poetry) : This term is applied to great and lengthy narrative poems describing some important national enterprise or the adventures of distinguished heroes. (史诗) eg：
Homer Odyssey 《奥德赛》
Dante’s Divine Comedy 《十日谈》 Milton Paradise Lost 《失乐园》
Romance: it was a long composition, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero.
Class Feature of the Romance: the theme of loyalty to king and lord was repeatedly emphasized in romances, as loyalty was the corner-stone of feudal morality, without which the whole structure of feudalism would collapse. Sir Gawain and Green Knight 《高文爵士和緑衣骑士》
3. Chaucer Life:
?Born in a middle-class family in London ?Is said to have studied at Oxford and Cambridge
?Became a man of affaires, undertaking various diplomatic missions to the Continent as courtier, diplomat and civil servant
?Died in 1400,buried in Westminster Abbey, there established the poets’ corner Westminster Abbey (西敏寺)
?An Abbey of monk on the bank of the Thames. The state church in England. ?It was destroyed and rebuilt several times.
?Chaucer was first buried in the Abbey, then established “Poets’ corner”. ?It is an honor for a poet or his monument to be buried there. Literary Career:
?His experience gave him chance to obtain a good knowledge of Latin, French and Italian.
?Three periods:
The first period consists of works translated from French, as “The Romaunt of the Rose” The second consists of works adapted from the Italian, as “Troilus and Criseyde.”(based on Boccacio’s poem Filostrato)
The third includes “The Canterbury Tales”, which is purely English.
?Translator
?“The father (founder) of English poetry” -- John Dryden ?“Founder of English realism” -- Gorky
The first short-story teller and first morden poet in E.L. Forerunner of humanism The City Canterbury
?Canterbury is a city and metropolitan district in Kent England, and an important Roman
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town.
?The capital of the Saxon Kingdom of Kent.
The Canterbury Tales 《坎特伯雷故事集》 ?A collection of stories ?Pilgrim, pilgrimage
?The Tabard Inn, a tavern in Southwark, near London. ?A gigantic plan of 124 stories, but only 24 were written. ?The verse models Boccaccio’s Decameron in form The Prologue （楔子）
?A prologue is an introduction or preface, often in verse, to a literary work, esp. a play ?The prologue provides a framework for the tales. There is an intimate connection between the tale and the prologue, both complementing each other. The Gneral Prologue (the original version) Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne, And smale foweles maken melodye.
Heroic Couplet (Iambic pentameter英雄双韵体
?A pair of rhymed lines of verse of equal length, in the form of ten syllables and five stresses in each line. It was first used by Chaucer. Its master is Alexander Pope. ?Alliteration（头韵）
An alliterative verse, certain accented words in a line begin the same consonants sound. Alliteration is the opposite of rhyme by which the similar sounds occur at the end of the syllables. Contribution
?He presents a panoramic picture of English life in the Middle Ages.
?He brought a realistic tone to English literary creation. All his characters are true to life ?He introduced Rhymed stanzas, instead of the old Anglo-Saxon (alliterative verse)
?He first wrote in the current English form of the time. His poetry is acknowledged as the literary language of the country, which is usually called middle English. The language of Chaucer
?Middle English --- is closer to Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons, and Norman French, the language of William the Conqueror Features in Chaucer’s writing ?Rhymed stanzas of various type ?Simplicity in characterization ?Satirical and humorous tone ?narrative
About the prioress
?Higher orders of the religious group
?Speaks French-- the aristocratic language
英国文学史与选读课件1
