英国文学史
Part one: Early and Medieval English Literature
Chapter 1 The Making of England
1. The early inhabitants in the island now we call England were Britons, a tribe of Gelts. 2. In 55 B.C., Britain was invaded by Julius Caesar. The Roman occupation lasted for about 400 years.
It was also during the Roman role that Christianity was introduced to Britain. And in 410 A.D., all the Roman troops went back to the continent and never returned. 3.The English Conquest
At the same time Britain was invaded by swarms of pirates(海盗). They were three tribes from Northern Europe: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
And by the 7th century these small kingdoms were combined into a United Kingdom called England, or, the land of Angles.
And the three dialects spoken by them naturally grew into a single language called Anglo-Saxon, or Old English.
4. The Social Condition of the Anglo-Saxon
Therefore, the Anglo-Saxon period witnessed a transition from tribal society to feudalism. 5. Anglo-Saxon Religious Belief and Its Influence
The Anglo-Saxons were Christianized in the seventh century. Chapter 2 Beowulf 1. Anglo-Saxon Poetry
But there is one long poem of over 3,000 lines. It is Beowulf, the national epic of the English people. Grendel is a monster described in Beowulf. 3. Analysis of Its Content
Beowulf is a folk lengend brought to England by Anglo-Saxons from their continental homes. It had been passed from mouth to mouth for hundreds of years before it was written down in the tenth century. 4. Features of Beowulf
The most striking feature in its poetical form is the use of alliteration, metaphors and understatements.
Chapter 3 Feudal England 1) The Norman Conquest 2. The Norman Conquest
The French-speaking Normans under Duke William came in 1066. After defeating the English at Hastings, William was crowned as King of England.
The Norman Conquest marks the establishment of feudalism in England. 3. The Influence of the Norman Conquest on the English Language
By the end of the fourteenth century, when Normans and English intermingled, English was
once more the dominant speech in the country. 3) The Romance
1. The Content of the Romance
The most prevailing kind of literature in feudal England was the romance. 4. Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur
The adventures of the Knights of the Round Table at Arthur’s court Chapter 5 The English Ballads 2. The Ballads
The most important department of English folk literature is the ballad. A ballad is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas, with the second and fourth lines rhymed. Of paramount importance are the ballads of Robin Hood. 3. The Robin Hood Ballads Chapter 6 Chaucer 1. Life
Geoffrey Chaucer, the founder/father of English poetry. 3.Troilus and Criseyde
Troilus and Criseyde is Chaucer’s longest complete poem and his greatest artistic achievement. But the poet shows some sympathy for her, hitting that her fault springs from weakness rather than baseness of character. 4. The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Talesis Chaucer’s masterpiece and one of the monumental works in English literature. 6. His Language
Chaucer’s language, now called Middle English, is vivid and exact.
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 meter(the “the heroic couplet”)to English poetry, instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.
The spoken English of the time consisted of several dialects, and Chaucer did much in making dialect of London the standard for the modern English speech.
Part Two: The English Renaissance
Chapter 1 Old England in Transition 1. The New Monarchy
The century and a half following the death of Chaucer was full of great changes.
And Henry 7, taking advantage of this situation, founded the Tudor dynasty, a centralized monarchy of a totally new type, which met the needs of the rising bourgeoisie and so won its support.
2. The Reformation Protestantism
The bloody religious persecution came to a stop after the church settlement of Queen Elizabeth.
3. The English Bible William Tyndall
Then appeared the Authorized Version, which was made in 1611 under the auspicesof James I and so was sometimes called the King James Bible.
The result is a monument of English language and English literature. The standard modern English has been fixed and confirmed. 4. The Enclosure Movement 5. The Commercial Expansion Chapter 2 More 1. Life Thomas More 2. Utopia
Utopia is More’s masterpiece, written in the form of a conversation between More and Hythlody, a returned voyager.
The name “Utopia” comes from two Greek words meaning “no place”. 3. Utopia, Book One
Book One of Utopia is a picture of contemporary England with forcible exposure of the poverty among the laboring classes. 4. Utopia, Book Two
In Book Two we have a sketch of an ideal commonwealth in some unknown ocean, where property is held in common and there is no poverty. Chapter 3 The Flowering of English Literature 3. Edmund Spenser 1) Life
The Poet’s Poet of the period was Edmund Spenser.
In 1579 he wrote The Shepher’s Calendar, a pastoral poem in twelve books, one for each month of the year.
2) The Faerie Queene(masterpiece)
Spenser’s greatest work, The Faerie Queene(published in 1589-1596), is a long poem planned in 12 books, of which he finished only 6. iambic feet Spenserian Stanza
4. Francis Bacon (father/founder of English essay) the founder of English English materialist philosophy
Bacon is also famous for his Essays. When it included 58 essays. Bacon is the first English essayist. Chapter 4 Drama 7. The Playwrights
There was a group of so-called “university wits” (Lyly, Peele, Marlowe, Greene, Lodge and Nash).
Chapter 5 Marlowe 1. Life
The most gifted of the “university wits” was Christopher Marlowe. 2. Work
Marlowe’s best includes three of his plays, Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus. 3. Doctor Faustus
Marlowe’s masterpiece is The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. 5. Marlowe’s Literary Achievement
Marlowe was the greatest of the pioneers of English drama.
It is Marlowe who first made blank verse (rhymeless iambic pentameter) the principal instrument of English drama. Chapter 6 Shakespeare 1. Life
William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-on-Avon.
After his death, two of his above-mentioned fellow-actors, Herminge and Condell, collected and published Shakespeare’s plays in 1623. To this edition, which has been known as the First Folio.
4. The Great Comedies
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,The Merchant of Venice,As You Like ItandTwelfth Night have been called Shakespeare’s “great comedies”. 6. The Great Tragedies
Shakespeare created his great tragedies, Hamlet,Othello, King Lear andMacbeth. 7. Hamlet
the son of the Renaissance 9. The Poems 1) Venus and Adonis 2)The Rape of Lucrece 3) Shakespeare’s Sonnets
10. Features of Shakespeare’s Drama
Shakespeare and the Authorized Version of the English Bible are the two greatest treasuries of the English language.
Shakespeare has been universally acknowledged to be the summit of the English Renaissance.
Part Three: The Period of the English Bourgeois Revolution
Chapter 1 The English Revolution and the Restoration 5. The Bourgeois Dictatorship and the Restoration in1688 Glorious Revolution
6. The Religious Cloak of the English Revolution
Puritanism was the religious doctrine of the revolutionary bourgeoisie during the English Revolution. It preached thrift, sobriety, hard work and unceasing labour in whatever calling one happened to be, but with no extravagant enjoyment of the fruits of labour.
Chapter 2 Milton 1.Life and Work
Paradise Lost,Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. 2. Paradise Lost 1) Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is Milton’s masterpiece. blank verse. Chapter 3 Bunyan 1. Life
The Pilgrim’s Progresswas published in 1678. 2. The Pilgrim’s Progress
1)The Pilgrim’s Progress is a religious allegory. Chapter 4 Metaphysical Poets and Cavalier Poets a school of poets called “Metaphysical” by Samuel Johnson. bymysticism in content and fantasticality in form
John Donne, the founder of the Metaphysical school of poetry. Chapter 6 Restoration Literature 2. John Dryden
The most distinguished literary figure of the Restoration Period was John Dryden. Dryden was the forerunner of the English classical school of literature in the next century.
Part Four: The Eighteenth Century
Chapter 1 The Enlightenment and Classicism in English Literature 1. The Enlightenment and 18th Century England 2) The Enlightenment in Europe
The 18th century marked the beginning of an intellectual movement in Europe, known as the Enlightenment, which was, on the whole, an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners fought against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. 3) The English Enlighterners
The representatives of the Enlightenment in English literature were Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, the essayists, and Alexander Pope, the poet. Chapter 2 Addison and Steele 1. Steele andThe Tatler Richard Sreele
In 1709, he started a paper, The Tatler, to enlighten, as well as to entertain, his fellow coffeehouse-goers.
His appeal was made to “coffeehouses,” that is to say, to the middle classes, for whose enlightenment he stood up. “Issac Bickerstaff”
2. Addison and TheSpectator
The general purpose is “to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality.” They ushered in the dawn of modern English novel. Chapter 3 Pope 1. Life
Alexander Pope, the most important English poet in the first half of the 18th century. 3. Workmanship and Limitation
Pope was an outstanding enlightener and the greatest English poet of the classical school in the first half of the 18th century.
Pope is the most important representative of the English classical poery. But he lacker the lyrical gift. Chapter 4 Swift
3. Bickersta f f Almanac (1708)
Swift wrote his greatest work Gulliver’s Travels in Ireland. Chapter 5 Defoe and the Rise of the English Novel 1. The Rise of the English Novel
the realistic novel: Defoe, Swift, Richardson and Fielding Swift’s world-famous novel Gulliver’s Travels
Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe(the forerunner of the English realistic novel) Richardson: Pamela,ClarissaandSir Charles Grandison Fielding was the real founder of the realistic novel in England.
The novel of this period … spoke the truth about life with an uncompromising courage.” The novelists of this period understood that “the job of a novelist was to tell the truth about life as he saw it.”(Ibid.) This explains the achievement of the English novel in the 18th century. 4. Robinson Crusoe
1) Today Defoe is chiefly remembered as the author of Robinson Crusoe, his masterpiece. Chapter 6 Richardson Samuel Richardson
Pamelawas, in fact, the first English psycho-analytical novel.
After Pamela, Richardson wrote two other novels: Clarissa Harlowe and Sir Charles Grandison.
Clarissa is the best of Richardson’s novel.
Chapter 7 Fielding (the father of English novel) 1. Life
His first novel Joseph Andrewswas published in 1742.
His Jonathan Wild appeared in 1743. It is a powerful political satire. In 1749, he finished his great novel Tom Jones.
Amelia was his last novel. It is inferior to Tom Jones, but has merits of its own. 3. Joseph Andrews
4. Tom Jones 1) The Story
Fielding’s greatest work is The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. 6. Summary
2) Fielding as the Founder of the English Realistic Novel
As a novelist, Fielding is very great. He is the founder of the English realistic novel and sets up the theory of realism in literary creation.
He has been rightly called the “father of the English novel.” Chapter 10 Johnson 1. Life
Samuel Johnson, lexicographer, critic and poet. 2. Johnson’s Dictionary
In 1755 his Dictionary was published.
His Dictionary also marked the end of English writers’ reliance on the patronage of noblemen for support.
Chapter 13 Sentimentalism and Pre-Romanticism in Poetry 1. Life Thomas Gray 2. Pre-Romanticism
In the latter half of the 18th century, a new literary movement arose in Europe, called the Romantic Revival.
Pre-Romanticism was ushered in by Percy, Macpherson and Chatterton, and represented by Blake and Burns. Chapter 14 Blake 1. Life William Blake
2. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience 4. Blake’s Position in English Literature
For these reasons, Blake is called a Pre-Romantic or a forerunner of the Romantic poetry of the 19th century.
Chapter 15 Burns 1. Life
His Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect were printed. (masterpiece) The Scots Musical Museum and Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs 2. The Poetry of Burns
1) Burns is remembered mainly for his songs written in the Scottish dialect on a variety of subjects.
3. Features of Burns’ Poetry
Burns is the national poet of Scotland.
Part Five: Romanticism in England
Chapter 1 The Romantic Period
the Industrial Revolution the French Revolution
Amid these social conflicts romanticism arose as a new literary trend. It prevailed in England during the period 1798-1832.
These were the elder generation of romanticists, sometimes called escapist romanticists, including Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, who have also been called the Lake Poets. Active romanticists represented by Byron, Shelley and Keats.
The general feature of the works of the romanticists is a dissatisfaction with the bourgeois society, which finds expression in a revolt against or an escape from the prosaic, sordid daily life, the “prison of the actual” under capitalism.
Poetry, of course, is the best medium to express all these sentiments. The only great novelist in this period was Walter Scott.
Scott marked the transition from romanticism to the period of realism which followed it. Chapter 2 Wordsworth Coleridge
In 1798they jointly published the Lyrical Ballads.
The publication of the Lyrical Ballads marked the break with the conventional poetical tradition of the 18th century, i.e., with classicism, and the beginning of Romantic revival in England. The Preface of the Lyrical Ballads served as the manifesto of the English Romantic Movement in poetry.
Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey have often been mentioned as the “Lake Poets” because they lived in the Lake District in the northwestern part of England.
His deep love for nature runs through such short lyrics as Lines Written in Early Spring,To the Cuckoo, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, My Heart Leaps Up, Intimations of Immortality and Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey. The last is called his “lyrical hymn of thanks to nature”.
Wordsworth’s poetry is distinguished by the simplicity and purity of his language. Chapter 3 Coleridge and Southey 1. Coleridge
Coleridge’s best poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Chapter 4 Byron 1. Life
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
He finished Childe Harold, wrote his masterpiece Don Juan. 2. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
This long poem contains four cantos. It is written in the Soenserian stanza. 3. Don Juan
Byron remains one of the most popular English poets both at home and abroad.
Chapter 5 Shelley
4. Promethus Unbound
Shelley’s masterpiece is Promethus Unbound, a lyrical drama in 4 acts. 6. Lyrics on Nature and Love Ode to the West Wind Chapter 6 Keats 2. Long Poems
Keats wrote five long poems: Endymion, Isabella, TheEveof St. Agnes, Lamia and Hyperion. 5) The unfinished long epic Hyperionhas been regarded as Keat’s greatest achievement in poetry. 3. Short Poems
1) His leading principle is: “Beauty in truth, truth in beauty.”
3) Ode to Autumn, Ode on Melancholy, Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale Chapter 10 Scott 2. His Historical Novels
Scott has been universally regarded as the founder and great master of the historical novel. According to the subjet-matter, the group on the history of Scotland, the group on English history and the group on the history of European countries.
In fact, Scott’s literary career marks the transition from romanticism to realism in English literature of the 19th century.
Part Six: English Critical Realism
Chapter 2 Dickens
Charles Dickens critical realism
Dickens:Pickwick Papers, American Notes,Martin Chuzzlewitand Oliver Twist
4) Dickens has often been compared Shakespeare for creative force and range of invention.“He and Shakespeare are the two unique popular classics that England has given to the world, and they are alike in being remembered not for one masterpiece but for creative world.” David Copperfield
Chapter 3 Thackeray
2. Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero
Vanity Fair is Thackeray’s masterpiece. characters: AmeliaSedley and Rebecca(Becky)Sharp Thackeray can be placed on the same level as Dickens, as one of the greatest critical realists of 19th-century Europe.
Chapter 4 Some Women Novelists 1. Jane Austen (1775-1817)
She herself compared her work to a fine engraving made upon a little piece of ivory only two inches square.
Jane Austen wrote 6 novels: Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. 2. The Bronte Sisters
Charlotte’s maiden attempt at prose writing, the novel Professor, was rejected by the publisher, but her next novel Jane Eyre, appearing in 1847, brought her fame and placed her in the ranks of the foremost English realistic writers. Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights appeared in 1847. Anne:Agnes Grey 4. George Eliot Mary Ann Evans
three remarkable novels: Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner
3) Silas Marner:Critical realism was the main current of English literature in the middle of the 19th century.
Part Seven: Prose-Writers and Poets of the Mid and Late 19th Century
Chapter 1 Carlyle theVictorian Age Chapter 3 Tennyson
the Victorian Age prose especially the novel 1. Tennyson’s Life and Career
Alfred Tennyson, the most important poet of the Victorian Age.
In the same year (1850) he was appointed poet laureate in succession to Wordsworth. Chapter 7 Literary Trends at the End of the Century 1. Naturalism
Naturalism is a literary trend prevailing in Europe, especially in France and Germany, in the second half of the 19th century. 2. Neo-Romanticism
Stevenson was a representative of neo-romanticism in English literature. Treasure Island (masterpiece) 3. Aestheticism
Aestheticism began to prevail in Europe at the middle of the 19th century. The theory of “art for art’s sake” was first put forward by the French poet Theophile Gautier.
The two most important representatives of aestheticists in English literature are Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. 2) Oscar Wilde dramatist
Lady Windermere’s Fan,1893; A Woman of No Importance,1894; An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest,1895
The Importance of Being Earnestis his masterpiece in drama.
Part Eight: Twentieth Century English Literature
(Modernism)
Chapter 2 English Novel of Early 20th Century 3. Henry James
Heis regarded as the forerunner of the “stream of consciousness” literature in the 20th century. Chapter 3 Hardy
1. Life and Work
Among his famous novels, Tess of the D’Urbervillies and Jude the Obscure. 2. Tess of the D’Urbervillies
characters: Tess, Alec D’Urbervillies and Angel Clare Chapter 6 Bernard Shaw
Chapter 8 Modernism in Poetry 1. Imagism Ezra Pound
The two most important English poets of the first half of 20th century are W.B.Yeats and T.S.Eliot. 2. W.B.Yeats
The Wild Swans at Coole, Michael Robartes and the Dancer, The Tower and The Winding Stair T.S.Eliot has referred to Yeats as “the greatest poet of our age-certainly the greatest in this (i.e. English) language.” 3. T.S.Eliot
The Waste Land (1922) is dignifying the emergence of Modernism.
T.S.Eliot was a leader of the modernist movement in English poetry and a great innovator of verse technique. He profoundly influenced 20th-century English poetry between World Wars 1 and 2. Chapter 9 The Psychological Fiction
Modernist fiction put emphasis on the description of the character’s psychological activities, sometimes has been called modern psychological fiction. One of its pioneers is D.H.Lawrence. 1. D.H.Lawrence
Sons and Lovers (1913), the first of Lawrence’s important novels, is largely autobiographical. This shows the influence of Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis,especially that of the “Oedipus complex.”
The Rainbow, Women in Love andLady Chatterley’s Lover 3. James Joyce Ulysses(1922) June 16, 1904
character: Leopold Bloom
James Joyce was one of the most original novelists of the 20th century. His masterpiece Ulysses has been called “a modern prose epic”.
His admirers have praised him as “second only to Shakespeare in his mastery of the English language.” 4. Virginia Woolf
“high-brows” the Bloomsbury Group
Virginia Wolf’s first two novels, The Voyage Out and Night and Day. Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse andOrlando
Part Nine: Poets and Novelists Who Wrote both before and after the Second
World War
Chapter 5 E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forsterthe Bloomsbury Group
four novels: Where Angels Fear to Tread, The Longest Journey, A Room with a View and Howards End
A Passage to India, published in 1924, is Forster’s masterpiece.
In 1927, Forster published a book on the theory of fiction, Aspects of the Novel. Chapter 10 William Golding William Gerald Golding His first novel Lord of the Flies Chapter 11 Doris Lessing Golden Notebook
英国文学史期末复习重点
