英美文学重点English & American Literature

 

Old & Medieval English Literature

Old English: 450-1066

<Beowulf> the national epic of the Anglo-Saons
Medieval English： 1066 - middle 14th century
Geoffrey Chaucer - the father of English poetry  (wisdom, humor, humanity)
<The Canterbury Tales> first time to use 'heroic couplet'

 

The Renaissance Period : 14th –mid 17th     started in Italy

A series of historical events:

1.    rediscovery of ancient Roman & Greek culture

2.    new discoveries in geography & astrology(占星学)

3.    the religious reformation & economic expansion

The Renaissance - rebirth or revival
Humanism - the essence of the Renaissance, the dignity of human being & the importance of the present life

Best representatives: Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare

The Elizabethan drama: the real mainstream of English Renaissance

Most famous dramatists: Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson

Edmund Spenser - the poets' poet

5 quality: 1) a perfect melody     2)a rare sense of beauty   3)a splendid imagination

4)a lofty(高尚的) moral purity and seriousness    5)a dedicated idealism

<The Shepherdes Calender> lament(哀悼) over the loss of Rosalind

<The Faerie Queene>  

主角：Arthur - who possess 12 virtues

      Gloriana – the Fairy Queen

The theme is not “Arms and the man,” but something more romantic – “Fierce warres and faithful loves”

READING: excerpt from The Faerie Queene 仙后

Content: Redcrosse Knight set out on his adventures.

Christopher Marlowe – “University Wits”, the pioneer of English drama

Hyperbole(夸张)

Marlowe’s achievement: 1) blank verse无韵诗歌

It is Marlowe who brought vitality(活力) and grandeur(伟大) into the blank verse with his “mighty lines,” which carry strong emotions.

2) his creation of the Renaissance hero for English drama.(not strong in dramatic construction.)

  → the pioneer of English drama

3 tragedies:  <Dr. Faustus> the human passion for knowledge, power and fortune

<Tamburlaine> 帖木耳大帝  a play about an ambitious and pitiless overpowering king.

<The Jew of Malta> 马尔他的犹太人
non-drama <The Passionate Shepherd to His Love> pastoral(田园的) life ，the most beautiful lyrics(抒情诗)

READING: 1. excerpt from Dr. Faustus 浮士德博士的悲剧

A play based on the German legend

Content: Faustus is a scholar who has a strong desire to acquire knowledge. By conjuration(念咒文召唤) he call up Mephistophilis, the Devil’s servant. He make a bond(契约) to sell his soul to the Devil in return for 24 years of life in which Mephistophilis to give him everything he desires. Devil’s name is Lucifer.

Dominant moral is human rather than religious

2. The Passionate(热情的) Shepherd to His Love

this short poem is considered to be one of the most beautiful lyrics(抒情诗) in English literature.

The shepherd(牧羊人) enjoy an ideal country life, cherishing(珍爱) a pastoral(田园的) and pure affection for his love. Strong emotion is conveyed through the beauty of nature.

William Shakespeare – playwright & poet (above all writers in the past and in the present time)

1.    <Henry Ⅵ>, <Richard Ⅲ> …

2.    <Richard Ⅱ>, <Henry Ⅳ>, <Henry Ⅴ>, <King John> …

Comedies: <A Midsummer Night’s Dream>, <The Merchant of Venice>, <Twelfth Night> …

Tragedy: <Romeo and Juliet> romantic tragedy. To praise the faithfulness of love and the spirit of pursuing happiness.

3.    Four tragedies - <Hamlet>, <Othello>, <King Lear> & <Macbeth>

4.    tragicomedies：<The Tempest>

Achievement:

A. exploring the characters’s inner mind.

soliloquy(独白) or monologue - fully reveal the inner conflict of the characters

contrasts – bring vividness to the characters

B. adroit（精巧的） plot construction

C. Irony is a good means of dramatic presentation. Disguise is an important device to create dramatic irony.

D. the language.

READING： 1. Sonnet 18 (14 line)

<Sonnet 18> eternal or immortal（不朽的） beauty, have a faith in the permanence of poetry.

A nice summer’s day is usually transient(短暂的), but the beauty in poetry can last for ever.

2.excerpt from The Merchant of Venice

<The Merchant of Venice> to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, to expose the insatiable（不知足的） greed and brutality of the Jew.

Double plot:(1) Bassanio ask Antonio for a loan so that he might marriage with Portia

(2) Antonio borrow money from Shylock, the Jewish usurer. Shylock make a strange bond that requires Antonio to surrender a pound of his flesh if he fail to repay him within a certain period of time. Portia disguised as a young lawyer instructed to judge the case: Shylock can take his pound of flesh, but there is no mention of blood in the bond. Otherwise, his lands and goods will be confiscated(充公) according to he law of Venice.

3．Excerpt from Hamlet

<Hamlet> hesitate between fact and fiction, language and action, too sophisticated（复杂的） to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger

content: Hamlet, the prince, appearing in a mood of world-weariness（厌世） occasioned by his father’s death and his mother’s hasty remarriage with Claudius, his father’s brother. Hamlet is informed that Claudius has murdered his father and then taken over both his father’s throne and widow. Thus Hamlet is urged to seek revenge.
Note: To be, or not to be - to live on in this world or to die; to suffer or to take action

Francis Bacon –philosopher, scientist, essayist, lay the foundation for modern science

His Essays is the first example of that genre in English literature.

Bacon’s essays are famous for their brevity, compactness & powerfulness, well-arranging and enriching by Biblical allusions（典故）, metaphors（隐喻） and cadence（韵律）.

<The Advancement of Learning> man’s understanding consists of three parts: history to man’s memory, poetry to man’s imagination and creation, and philosophy to man’s reason.

<Novum Organum> written in Latin on methodology方法论

Bacon suggests the inductive reasoning 归纳法 ( i.e. proceeding from the particular to the general)

in place of Aristotelian method, the deductive reasoning 演绎法 ( i.e. proceeding from the general to the particular)

READING: Of Studies

<Of Studies> uses and benefits of study –studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Studies perfect nature, and are perfected by experience. Different ways adopted by different people to pursue studies - studies and experience are complementary (互补) to each other. The correct attitude to reading books - to weigh and consider. How studies exert influence over human character - reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.

John Donne
〝Metaphysical poetry〞（玄学诗）- break away from love poetry, the diction(用语) is simple, the imagery is from the actual, the form is frequently an argument with the poet’s beloved, with God, or with himself.

A)conceits   B)syllogism (三段论)

Poetry 早期:<The Songs and Sonnets> holds that the nature of love is the union of soul and body.

晚期:<Holy Sonnets> <A Hymn to God the Father> religious poem

Prose: his sermons, which are both rich and imaginative

READING:  1. The Sun Rising     2. Death, Be Not Proud ( a sonnet,14 lines)
<The Sun Rising> the busy sun is always ready to interfere with other things and everywhere
<Death, Be Not Proud> whatever you are, you can not escape from death. When you are living, you are always in the shadow of death. Death only lasts a moment, our life after death is eternal. The more pleasure the death gives people, not only the pleasure of the rest & the sleep, because 'whom the gods love die young'. Though death is usually considered powerful, it actually provides a rest for a man's body and a birth for his soul.

John Milton
Achievement: 1)the early poetic works  2) the middle prose(散文)  3)the last great poems

Elegy(挽歌) -<lycidas>利西达斯   (his early work)

Epic(史诗) - <Paradise Lost>  <Paradise Regained>

Dramatic poem(诗剧) - <Samson Agonistes>力士参孙 the most perfect example of the verse drama after the Greek style in English.

READING: excerpt from Paradise Lost

<Paradise Lost> the only generally acknowledged epic in English literature since Beowulf. The conflict is between human love and spiritual duty. The freedom of the will is the keystone of Milton’s creed(纲领).

Take from the Old Testament, the theme is the “Fall of Man”: Satan rebel against God and are driven from Heaven. He determined to revenge by seduce(引诱) Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge against God’s instructions. So, Adam and Eve are exiled by God from the paradise.

 

The Neoclassical Period : 1660-1798 with the publication of Lyrical ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge

1        a revival of interest in the old classical works, order, logic, restrained emotion(抑制情感) & accuracy

the Age of Enlightenment/Reason – the movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15^th and 16^th centries,a progressive intellectual movement, reason (rationality), equality & science (the 18^th century)

modern English novel –newly rising literary form现实主义小说诞生（the mid-century）

Gothic novel(哥特式小说) - mystery, horror & castles (from middle part to the end of century)

John Bunyan
REAING: The Vanity Fair名利场 an excerpt form The Pilgrim’s Progress (天路历程)

<The Pilgrim's Progress>, a religious allegory(寓言), its purpose is to urge people to abide by Christian doctrines and seek salvation(拯救) through constant struggles with their own weaknesses and all kinds of social evils. Its predominant metaphor –life as a journey

Alexander Pope
one of the first to introduce rationalism to England, for him the supreme value was order.

READING: excerpt from An Essay on Criticism(论批评)

<An Essay on Criticism> a poem written in heroic couplets(对句), criticize the present poem lack of true taste & call on people to turn to the old Greek and Roman writers for guidance, true wit which is best set in a plain (simple & clear) style.

Daniel Defoe - the first writer study of the lower-class people, his language is smooth, easy, colloquial and mostly vernacular(方言).

READING: excerpt from Robinson crusoe

<Robinson Crusoe> praise the human labor and the Puritan fortitude (清教徒坚韧).

→ an adventure story, Robinson, narrates how he goes to sea, gets shipwrecked and marooned(放逐) on a lonely island, struggles to live for 24-years there and finally gets relieved and returns to England.

→ Robinson grew from a nave and artless youth into a shrewd and hardened man, tempered by numerous trials in his eventful life.

Jonathan Swift

In his opinion, human nature is seriously and permanently flawed (缺点)

Achievement: 1)a master satirist. <A Modest Proposal> <Gulliver's Travels>
2) one of the greatest of English prose, he defined a good style as “Proper words in proper places”
READING: excerpt from Gulliver’s Travels (格列佛游记)

<Gulliver's Travels> fictional work, four parts – Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Flying Island & Houyhnhnm

(小人国)  (大人国)       (飞岛)      (有人类理性的马)

→ the book is one of the most effective and devastating criticisms and satires of all aspects in the then English and European life.

 

Henry Fielding - Father of English novel, he was the first to write a “Comic epic in prose” (散文体史诗), the first to give the modern novel its structure and style. He adopted “the third-person narration”.

<The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews…> (约瑟夫·安德鲁)

<The History of Jonathan Wild the Great> (伟大的乔纳森·怀尔德)
<The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling> a masterpiece on the subject of human nature

<The History of Amelia> the unfortunate life of an idealized woman, a maudlin(伤感的) picture of the social life at the time.

READING: excerpt from Tom Jones

Brings the author the name of the “Prose Homer”

In a way, Tom and Sophia, stands for a wayfaring(旅行的) Everyman, who is expelled from the paradise and has to go through hard experience to gain a knowledge of himself and finally to approach perfectness.

Samuel Johnson – the author of the first English dictionary by an Englishman, the last neoclassicist enlightener.
<A Dictionary of the English Language> 英语大词典

READING: To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield
<To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield> the letter is written in a refined and very polite language, with a bitter undertone of defiance and anger. The seemingly peaceful retrospection, reasoning and questioning express, to the best satiric effect, the author’s strong indignation at the lord’s fame-fishing.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan - the only important English dramatist of the 18th century

<The Rivals> and <The School for Scandal> are regarded as important links between the masterpieces of Shakespeare and those of Bernard Shaw.

READING: excerpt from The School for Scandal

A story about two brothers: Joseph Surface and Charles Surface. Charles in love with Maria, Sir Peter Teazle is loved by Lady Sneerwell. The lady instigates(教唆) Joseph to pursue Maria For her Money. Joseph secretly seduce(引诱) Lady Teazle, Sir Peter’s young wife. The play ends with great disgrace for Joseph and Charles wins his loves and the inheritance of his rich uncle.

It is a sharp satire on the moral degeneracy(堕落) of the aristocratic-bourgeois society in the 18^th England.

Thomas Gray
the leader of the sentimental(悲情的) poetry of the day ,especially “The Graveyard School”

READING: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

<Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard> reflects on death, the sorrows of life, and the mysteries of human life with a touch of his personal melancholy. He sympathized for the poor and the unknown, but mocks the great ones who despise the poor and bring havoc(破坏) on them.

 

The Romantic Period

△ Romantic - emotion over reason, spontaneous (自发)emotion, a change from the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit, poetry should be free from all rules, imagination, nature, commonplace

△ The romantic emphasized the special qualities of each individual’s mind.
△ The romantic period began with： in 1798 the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge's <Lyrical Ballads>

end in 1832 with Sir Walter Scott’s death

△ two major novelists of the Romantic period are Jane Austen (realistic) and Walter Scott (romantic).

William Blake  - poet & engraver(雕刻家)
<Songs of Innocence> : a happy and innocent world from children's eye
<Songs of Experience> : a world of misery, poverty, disease, war and repression with a melancholy (忧郁的)tone from men eyes.  Childhood, paradoxes, a pairing of opposites

<Marriage of Heaven and Hell> marks his entry into maturity.

<The book of Urizen>(先知书)  prophetic(预言的) book in his later period

He presents his view in visual images. Symbolism is also a distinctive feature of his poetry.

READING: 1. The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Innocence)

2. The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Experience)
3. The Tyger (from Songs of Experience)

William Wordsworth

-  the leading figure of the English romantic poetry, simple, spontaneous(自发的), “worshipper of nature”

-  He defines the poet as a 'man speaking to men', and poetry as 'the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in 'emotion recollected in tranquillity'.

“Lake Poets”: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge & Robert Southey

<The Prelude>(序曲) his masterpiece

<To a Skylark> <Tintern Abbey>

READING: 1. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
<I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud> the poet is very cheerful with recalling the beautiful sights. In the poem on the beauty of nature, the reader is presented a vivid picture of lively and lovely daffodils (水仙) and poet's philosophical ideas and mystical thoughts.

2. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
<Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802> the sonnet describes a vivid picture of a beautiful morning in London, silent, bright, glittering（闪烁的）, smokeless & mildly（柔和的）. It is so touching a sight that the poet expressed his religion piety （虔诚）for nature.

3. She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

4. The Solitary Reaper
<The Solitary Reaper> thanks to poet's rich imagination, the mass of associations, this commonplace happening becomes a striking event, the poet succeeds in making the reader's share his emotion. The poem also shows the poet's passionate love of nature.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - supernatural, remote

William Wordsworth and Coleridge: <Lyrical Ballads>

Poet can be divided into two groups - the demonic 恶魔的(supernatural) & the conversational
- The demonic group includes 3 masterpieces: <The Rime of the Ancient Mariner>, <Christabel>, <Kubla Khan>

                                                   老水手之行                   克丽斯塔贝尔   忽必烈汗

Feature: mysticism, demonism with strong imagination, a strange territory

- Conversational poem: <Frost at Midnight> <The Nightingale>

READING: Kubla Khan

George Gordon Byron
'Byronic hero': is a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin, against tyrannical（暴君的） rules or moral principles. Such a hero appears first in <Childe Harold's Pilgrimage> 怀尔德·哈罗德游记

<Don Juan> （唐璜）(the masterpiece of Byron, a long satirical poem, comic epic) by make use of Juan’s adventures, to present a panoramic（全面） view of different types of society.

READING: 1. Song for the Luddites

<Song for the Luddites> 'will die fighting, or live free' Byron show his support of the Luddites who destroyed the machines in their protest against unemployment. The poet's great sympathy of the workers in their struggle against the capitalists is clearly shown.

2. The Isles of Greece (from Don Juan)
<The Isles of Greece> song by a Greek singer at the wedding of Don Juan and Haidee. 'Fill high the bowl with Samian wine'? By contrasting the freedom of ancient Greece and the present enslavement, the poet appealed to people to struggle for liberty.

Percy Bysshe Shelley
1) Lyrics（抒情诗）

<The Cloud> <Ode to the West Wind> <To a Skylark>云雀颂 the bird, suspended between reality and poetic image

2) poetic drama （诗剧）

<Prometheus Unbound> 解放了的米罗普修斯

READING: 1. A Song: Men of England

<Men of England> It is not only a war cry calling upon all working people of England to rise up against their political oppressors, but also an address to point out to them the intolerable injustice of economic exploitation.

2. Ode to the West Wind
<Ode to the West Wind> terza rima, destructive-constructive potential, hopeful, 'I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!', 'If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?' The author express his eagerness to enjoy the boundless freedom from the reality.

John Keats
4 great odes : <Ode on Melancholy>, <Ode on a Grecian Urn>, <Ode to a Nightingale>, <Ode to Psyche>

                                         希腊古瓮颂              夜莺颂

READING: Ode on a Grecian Urn
<Ode on a Grecian Urn> the contrast between the permanence of art and the transience (短暂)of human passion, 'Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter', 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty'

 

Jane Austen

6 novels: <Sense and Sensibility> <Pride and Prejudice> <Northanger Abbey> <Mansfield Park> <Emma> <Persuasion>

                                                         诺桑觉寺         蔓斯菲尔德公园

→ Story of love and marriage provide the major themes in all her novels.

→ 3 types of attitudes in pursuit of marriage:

A)    who would marry for material wealth and social position

B)    who would marry just for beauty and passion

C)    who would marry for true love with a consideration of the partner’s personal merit and his economical and social status.

→ concerning 3 or 4 landed gentry families with their daily routine life: relationships with members of their own family and with their friends, dancing parties, tea parties, picnics, and gossips.

READING: excerpt from Pride and prejudice

1.    Elizabeth Bennet & Darcy : in the end false pride is humbled and prejudice dissolved.

2.    Collins & Charlotte Lucas: see the reality of marriage as a necessary step if a woman is to avoid the wretchedness(不幸) of aging spinsterhood（未婚妇女身份）.

3.    Lydia & Wickham: shown the dangers of feckless（不负责任的） relationships unsupported by money.

4.    Mr. & Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine de Burgh: comic characters

 

The Victorian Period: 1836-1901

＊ Common sense and moral propriety（规矩）, again became the predominant preoccupation. Critical realists were all concerned about the fate of the common people.

＊ Darwin's <The Origin of Species> and <The Descent of Man> shook the traditional faith, everything is created by God

＊ George Eliot, the pioneering woman, was the first novelist that “started putting all the actions inside”

＊ Thomas Hardy, that Wessex man who not only expose and criticize all sorts of social iniquities, but finally came to question and attack the Victorian conventions and morals.

＊ Robert Browning, created the verse novel, revel and study characters’ inner world (psycho-analytical)

Charles Dickens   - one of the greatest critical realist writers of the Victorian Age
- Character-portrayal is the most distinguishing feature of his works

  1) child characters 2) horrible and grotesque（可笑的） characters 3) broadly humorous or comical characters

- characterized by a mingling(混合) of humor and pathos (悲伤)

Pathos: little Nell <The Old Curiosity Shop> , little Paul <Dombey and Son>
<A Tale of Two Cities>

READING: excerpt from Oliver Twist雾都孤儿
<Oliver Twist> is a boy brought up in the workhouse. One day, as Oliver asked for more food, he was sent to work as an apprentice and then ran away …  The novel is famous for its vivid descriptions of the workhouse and life of the underworld（下层社会） in 19th London.

 

The Bronte Sisters
The Bronte Sisters - Charlotte, Emily & Anne

Emily, a rather reserved and simple girl, was very much a child of nature.

Charlotte, is a writer of realism combined with romanticism. Her works are famous for the depiction of the life of the middle-class working women, particularly governesses（家庭女教师）.

READING: 1. excerpt from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
<Jane Eyre> 简·爱 Jane Eyre, a plain little orphan, was sent to Lowood, a charity school. There she suffer a lot and 8 years later she left school and became a governess at Thornfield Hall. There she falls in love with the master, Mr. Rochester.

- It is noted for its sharp criticism of the existing society, e.g. charity institution such as Lowood School

- successful introduction to the English novel the first governess heroine, whom represents those middle-class working women struggling for recognition of their basic rights and equality as a human being.

2. excerpt from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

<Wuthering Heights> 呼啸山庄  a story about 2 families and an intruding(闯入的) stranger.

The Earnshaw family (Mr. Earnshaw, his wife, the son Hindley, the daughter Catherine) - Heathcliff

The Linton family ( Mr. Linton, his wife son Edgar, daughter Isabella

Alfred Tennyson - invents dramatic monologue(独脚戏), Poet Laureate 桂冠诗人, a real artist

He has the natural power of linking visual pictures with musical expressions, and with the feelings.

<In Memoriam> 悼念

<Ldylls of the King> 国王叙事诗 represent a cyclic history of western civilization, which, in Tennyson’s mind, is going on a spiritual decline and will end in destruction.

READING: 1. Break, Break, Break   2. Crossing the Bar   3.ULysses
<Break, Break, Break> in memory of the death of his best friend, his sadness feeling are contrasted with the carefree, innocent joys of the children and the unfeeling movement of the ship and the sea waves
<Crossing the Bar>过沙洲 we can feel his fearlessness towards death, his faith in God and an afterlife. 'Crossing the bar' means leaving this world and entering the next world
<Ulysses> 尤利西斯 not endure the peaceful commonplace everyday life, old as he is, he persuades his old followers to go with him and to set sail again to pursue a new world and new knowledge, dramatic monologue, 'Myself not least, but honour'd of them all' means I am not the least important, but
honoured by all of them

Robert Browning - the most original poet, who improve and mature the dramatic monologue （戏剧独白）
<The Ring and the Book> 指环与书 his masterpiece. Its symbolic meaning, the “ring ”– the goldsmith’s（金匠的） technique of alloying gold（合金） in making rings. The “book” – the hard truth

READING: 1. My Last Duchess  2. Meeting at Night   3. Parting at Morning
<My Last Duchess> 我逝去的公爵夫人this dramatic monologue is the duke's speech addressed to the agent who comes to negotiate the marriage, the duke is a self-conceited, cruel and tyrannical（残暴的） man
<Meeting at Night> 黑夜相会 the man, a lover, describes the whereabouts of their meeting place.
<Parting at Morning> 晨别 here describe the sun-rise, the poet unconsciously expresses his helplessness in having to face up his duty as a man.

George Eliot: As a woman of exceptional （特有的）intelligence and life experience, she shows a particular concern for the destiny of women. She shows that the need of the individual for expansion and growth has to be brought into harmony with a sense of social responsibility.（人与社会的关系） 

Naturalistic and psychological novel 心理分析

READING: excerpt from Middlemarch
<Middlemarch>米德尔马契 a sharp contrast is set between the cold, lifeless, dull house and Dorothea who is full of youthful life and vigor

Dorothea Brooke (a beautiful, intelligent young lady) and Lydgate( a proud, ambitious young doctor), both fail in achieving their goals owing to the social environment as well as their own vulnerabilities.（易受伤）

Thomas Hardy - both a naturalistic and a critical realist writer

Local-colored, Wessex, 'novels of character and environment' :the fictional（虚构的） primitive and crude rural region which is really the home place he both loves and hates.
<Tess of the D'Urbervilles> 德伯家的苔丝 experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration（持续）

Tess, as a pure woman brought up with the traditional idea of womanly virtues, is abused and destroyed by both Alec and Angel, agents of the destructive force of the society.

 

The Modern Period

1        The writer concentrated on the private than on the public, more on the subjective than on the objective. They are mainly concerned with the inner being of an individual.

2        The three trilogies（三部曲） of Galsworthy’s Forsyte novels are masterpieces of critical realism in the early 20^th century.

3        “the Angry Young Men” with lower-middle-class or working class background. Kingsley Amis, John Wain, John Braine and Alan Sillitoe were the major novelists in this group.     Osborne, the first “Angry Young Man”

4        James Joyce is the most outstanding stream-of-consciousness novelist; <Ulysses>

5        Shaw, is considered to be the best-known English dramatist since Shakespeare.

6        Yeats, the leader of the Irish National Theater Movement.

 

George Bernard shaw  -dramatist (leading playwright)

早期 <Widowers’ Houses> 鳏夫的房产 <Candida> 康蒂坦 <Mrs. Warren’s Profession>华伦夫人的职业

<Caesar and Cleopatra>凯撒和克莉奥佩特拉

中期  <Man and Superman>人与超人 

晚期  <Back to Methuselah>回到麦修色拉  <The Apple Cart>苹果车 

Feature: 1.he makes the trick of showing up one character vividly at the expense of another.

 2. Shaw’s characters are the representatives of ideas, points of view, that shift and alter, for he is interested in doctrines.

3        he inversion（倒装）, a device found in Shaw form beginning to end.

4.    Action is reduced to a minimum, while the dialogue and the interplay of the minds maintain the interest of the audience.

READING: excerpt from Mrs. Warren’s Profession   about the economic oppression of women

 

John Galsworthy

A conventional writer, having inherited the traditions of Victorian novelists of the critical realism

Play: <The Silver Box> 银盒

Novels: <The Forsyte Saga>福赛特世家(trilogy三部曲:<The Man of Property>有产业的人<In Chancery>骑虎<To Let>出租) <A Modern Comedy>现代喜剧

READING: excerpt from The Man of Property

<The Man of Property> Soames Forsyte, wealth is the sole aim of life. Irene, his wife, loves art and cherishes. Soames asks Bosinney, a young architect, to build a country house for them. Later, Irene and Bosinney fall in love with each other.

The novel show the human relationships of the contemporary English society are merely an extension of property relationships.

 

William Butler Yeats  - poet

<The Lake Isle of Innisfree>茵尼斯弗利岛 <The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland>梦见仙境的人

<Sailing to Byzantium>驶向拜古廷  explored the problems of death, love, old age and art.

READING: 1. The Lake Isle of Innisfree   2. Down by the Salley Gardens

<The Lake Isle of Innisfree> Tired of life of his day, Yeats sought to escape into an ideal “fairyland” where he could love calmly as a hermit(隐士) and enjoy the beauty of nature. Here Innisfree is referring to a place for hermitage.

<Down by the Salley Gardens> reconstruct an old song from 3 lines imperfectly(不完整地) remembered by an old peasant woman

 

T.S.Eliot  one of the important verse dramatists

<The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock> 普鲁弗洛克的情歌

<The Waste Land> 荒原the most famous poem，is a poem concerned with the spiritual breakup of a modern civilization in which human life has lost its meaning, significance and purpose.

<Ash Wednesday>灰星期三   <Four Quartets>四个四重奏

READING: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

<The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock>    dramatic monologue, an ironic contrast

Prufrock, is neurotic, self-important, illogical and incapable of action. The setting in which a tea party is a significant event and a game of cards is the only way to stave off boredom.

 

D. H. Lawrence

Autobiographical(自传的) novel <Sons and Lovers> 儿子与情人

Masterpieces: <The Rainbow> 虹 <Women in Love> 恋爱中的女人  rich symbolism and complex narrative

<The Rainbow> the mechanical civilization is responsible for the unhealthy development of human personalities（诽谤）, the perversion(歪曲) of love and the failure of human fulfillment in marital（婚姻） relationships.

<Women in Love>  about two lovers. Birkin and Ursula, Gudrun and Gerald, rich symbolic, Gerald is a symbolic figure of spiritual death, representing the whole set of bourgeois ethics. Birkin, as a symbolic figure of human warmth.

READING: excerpt from Sons and Lovers

Mrs. Morel, daughter of a middle-class family, is a strong-willed, intelligent and ambitious woman who is fascinated by a coal miner, Walter Morel. After marriage, she determines that her sons should never become miners. Paul depends heavily on his mother’s love and help to make sense of the world around him. He struggle to free from his mother’s influence, but he failed. After his mother has died and he is left alone, in despair.

 

James Joyce

All have the same setting: Ireland, especially Dublin, and the same subject: the Irish people and their life.

<Dubliners> 都柏林人: childhood, adolescence（青春期）, maturity and public life

<A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man>青年艺术家的肖像 a middle-class Irish boy, Stephen Dedalus’s bitter experiences and his final artistic and spiritual liberation(解放).

<Ulysses> 尤利西斯his masterpiece, below the surface of the events, the natural flow of mental reflections, the shifting moods and impulses in the characters’ inner world are richly presented in an unprecedented frank and penetrating(尖锐的) way.

“stream of consciousness” literary approach to the presentation of psychological aspects of characters

READING: “Araby” from Dubliners

The child lives not with his parents but with an uncle and aunt – a symbol of that isolation and lack of proper relation between “consubstantial”（同质的） parents and children which is a major theme in Joyce’s work.

 

 

美国文学重点

The Romantic Period

From the end of the 18^th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. Started with Washington Irving's <The Sketch Book> and ended with Whitman's <Leaves of Grass>, also called 'the American Renaissance' .Free expression of emotion, escapes from society, and return to nature New England Transcendentalism 新英格兰超验主义

- Walt Whitman, whose <Leaves of Grass> established him as the most popular American poet of the 19^th century.

Washington Irving

- one of the first American writers to earn an international reputation, an early Romantic writer, and Father of the American short stories, “the American Goldsmith”
regarded as a writer who “perfected the best classic style that American literature ever produced.”
First novel <A History of New York> 纽约外史won him wide popularity
<The Sketch Book> 见闻札记  won international fame

→contains German folk tales <Rip Van Winkle>, <The Legend of Sleepy Hollow>

READING: excerpt from “Rip Van Winkle”瑞普·凡·温可尔

It is not only well-known for Rip’s 20-year sleep but also considered a model of perfect English in American literature and in the English language as well.

Ralph Waldo Emerson - the spokesman of New England Transcendentalism（超验主义） movement
<The American Scholar>论美国学者, <Self - Reliance>论自助, <The Over-Soul>
<The Poet> a reflection upon the aesthetic(美学的) problems in terms of the present state of literature in America
<Experience> a discussion about the conflict between idealism and ordinary life. American Puritanism, European Romanticism, intuitive(直觉的) knowledge, over-soul, individual, nature
Henry David Thoreau梭罗 -<Walden>沃乐登

READING: excerpt from Nature

<Nature> 论自然 is regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism， Emerson’s first little book, which discuss the love of nature, the uses of nature…  “a transparent eyeball”

Nathaniel Hawthorne
Interior(内部) of the heart, ‘there is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life, but circumstances may rouse it to activity’, so in almost every book, Hawthorne discuss sin and evil.
<The Scarlet Letter> the scarlet letter A is ambiguous(不明确的). And the ambiguity is one of the salient(显著的) characteristics of Hawthorne’s art.  

READING: Young Goodman Brown 小伙子布朗
<Young Goodman Brown> Goodman Brown, a Puritan(清教徒), who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful.

Walt Whitman
Openness, freedom, individualism
I - me, my nation (society), Free verse（自由体诗）, Envelope structure（信件结构）, Catalogue (Listing)
A new ideal, a new world, a new life-style

<Leaves of Grass> 草叶集written in the founding documents of both the Revolutionary War in the United States and the Civil War.

READING; 1. There Was a Child Went Forth    2. Cavalry Crossing a Ford    3. Song of Myself
<There Was a Child Went Forth>一个孩子的成长 how a child is greatly influenced by his growing environments, be identified with the childhood of a young, growing America.
<Cavalry Crossing a Ford> 涉水的骑兵a scene of the American Civil War, all the movements described in this picture are frozen.
<Song of Myself> 自己之歌 Whitman is a man bubbling with energy and laden(装满) with ideas, spontaneous(自发的) expression of his original ideas

Herman Melville - a master of allegory and symbolism, like Hawthorne

<Mardi>玛地  <Redburn>雷得本  <White Jacket>白外衣  <Pierre>皮埃尔   <Billy Budd>比利·伯德

READING: excerpt from Moby-Dick

<Moby-Dick>白鲸 is one of the world’s greatest masterpieces, the first American prose epic, It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology.

Ishmael both as a character and a narrator； the captain, Ahab is a monomaniac(狂热者) whose single purpose is to capture the fierce, cunning(狡猾的) white whale, Moby Dick, which had torn away his leg.

 

The Realistic Period : 1865-1914

Realistic period – “the Gilded(富有的) Age”, the poor poorer and the rich richer, people's attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existence
Local colorism, social Darwinism, bestiality, beyond man's control

3 dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells(美国现实文学先驱), Mark Twain and Henry James.

1          Henry James –“inner world” of man

2          Howells –focused on rising middle class

3          Mark Twain – his own region and people, particular “local colorism”

4          Local colorists – Sarah Orne Jewett, Joseph Kirkland and Hamlin Garland.

Mark Twain - the true father of American literature
Local colorist, vernacular（方言）, simple sentence, wide-ranging humor, both realistically and symbolically,  'the damned human race' <The Gilded Age>
<Life on the Mississippi>, <A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court> 亚瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美国人

<The Adventures of Tom Sawyer>汤姆·索亚历险记 (for boys),<Adventures of Huckleberry Finn>哈克贝里·费恩历险记(for adults) prove themselves to be the milestone in American literature

<Adventures of Huckleberry Finn> his masterpiece, -“all modern American literature comes”.

“Huck”, a typical American Boy with “a sound heart and a deformed(畸形的) conscience”, and remarkable for the raft’s journey down the Mississippi river, through the eyes of Huck, we see the pre-Civil War American society.

READING; excerpt from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn READING; excerpt from

<Adventures of Huckleberry Finn> Huck's inner conflict about whether or not he should write a letter to tell Miss Watson where Jim is.

Henry James – the first American writer to conceive his career in international theme

- the forerunner of the 20th-century “stream of consciousness” novel and the founder of psychological realism, interior monologue, free association, his language is not so easy to understand

早期<The American>一个美国人 <Daisy Miller>黛西·米勒 bring him international fame for the first time

<The Europeans> <The Portrait of A Lady>贵妇人的画像 his masterpiece

中期<The Bostonians>波士顿人short fiction:<The Turn of the Screw>螺丝在拧紧<The Beast in the Jungle>丛林猛兽

晚期<The Wings of the Dove>鸽巢 <The Ambassadors>专使 <The Golden Bowl>金碗

READING; excerpt from Daisy Miller
<Daisy Miller> the narrator is an American expatriate(侨民), named Winterbourne. Daisy is the most innocent girl. Her defiance(违抗) of social taboos(禁忌) in the Old World brings her to a disaster in the clash(冲击) between two different cultures.

Emily Dickinson
Based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys, “letter to the world”, about religious and immortality（永生）, love, nature
1) her poems have no titles

2) dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence（节奏） and capital letters as a means of emphasis.

READING;

<This is my letter to the World> express Dickinson's anxiety about her communication with the outside world.
<I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - > description of a moment of death
<I like to see it lap the Miles> Dickinson makes the train part of nature by animalizing it, like a horse.

我爱看它舔食一哩又一哩
<Because I could not stop for Death - > personify death and immortality so as to make her message strongly felt

因为我不能停步等候死神

Theodore Dreiser - America's literary naturalists

Case history including everything Determinism（决定论） (heredity遗传 biological & environment), Darwinist idea（达尔文主义）of ‘survival of the fittest’, ‘the jungle law’（弱肉强食原则）

<Jennie Gerhardt> 珍妮姑娘 <An American Tragedy> 美国的悲剧

Trilogy of Desire欲望三部曲 - <The Financier>金融家, <The Titan>巨头, <The Stoic>斯多葛

READING; excerpt from Sister Carrie

<Sister Carrie>嘉丽妹妹 'who shall cast the first stone?'

After Carrie deserts Hurstwood, he is in great despair. He turns the gas on in a cheap lodging-house and ends his life, while at the same time Carrie is rocking comfortably in her luxuriant hotel room.

 

The Modern Period

1        The modern period - the second American Renaissance, the expatriate(侨民) movement, “the Lost Generation”, a transformation from order to disorder

2        Seize the day, enjoy the present, spiritual wasteland, collective unconscious, psychoanalysis(心理分析)
Imagist movement, Jazz Age

3        “the Lost Generation” – Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost

4        Two thinkers of this period: German Karl Marx(马克思) and the Austrian Sigmund Freud（弗洛伊德）

5        William James – famous for his theory of “stream of consciousness”

6        E.E.Cummings, always used “i” instead of “I”, protest against self-importance

Ezra Pound - a leading spokesman of the 'Imagist Movement' (意象主义)

- 3 main principles: 1)direct treatment of poetic subjects, 2)elimination of ornamental words, 3)rhythmical(韵律) composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome(节拍器).

- He translate some ancient Greek and Chinese works
<The Cantos> 诗章

READING; 1. In a Station of the Metro  2. The River - Merchant's Wife: A Letter  3. A Pact
<In a Station of the Metro> 地铁站一瞥Pound attempts to produce the emotion he felt when he walked down into a Paris subway station and suddenly saw a number of faces in the dim light. To capture the emotions, Pound uses the image of petals on wet, black boughs.
<The River - Merchant's Wife: A Letter> 河商的妻子 This is a verse “letter” in which the speaker communicates indirectly, by means of vivid images and shifting tone, the history of her feelings for her absent husband.

<A Pact>盟约agreement with Whitman's free verse

Robert Lee Frost - four times awarded Pulitzer Prize, pastoral life and scene.

Frost is liked by the Americans because the subject and the landscape of his poems are forever New England and his simplicity never fails to reveal some profound truth.

READING; 1.After Apple-Picking  2.The Road Not Taken  3. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
<After Apple-Picking> 摘苹果后 a memory of experience in which the end of labor leaves the speaker with a sense of completion and fulfillment yet finds him blocked from success by winter’s approach(接近) and physical weariness(疲倦).
<The Road Not Taken> 未选择的路 tells us how the course of his life was determined when he came upon two roads that diverged in a wood. He ‘took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.’
<Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening> 雪夜停马在林边 the speaker literally stops his horse in the winter twilight(日出前) to observe the beauty of the forest scene, and then is moved to continue his journey.

Eugene O'Neill – America’s greatest playwright, ‘founder of the American drama’, won the Pulitzer Prize four times and was the only dramatist ever to win a Nobel Prize.
<Beyond the Horizon>天外边  <The Emperor Jones>琼斯皇帝 <The Great God Brown>伟大之神布朗

<Long Day’s Journey Into Night> 直到夜晚的漫长一天autobiographical(自传体戏剧), gained its status as a world classic and marks the climax of O’Neill’s literary career and the coming of age of American drama.

READING; excerpt from The Hairy Ape

<The Hairy Ape> 毛猿 concerns the problem of modern man’s identity. Yank’s sense of belonging nowhere, hence homelessness and rootlessness, is typical of the mood of isolation and alienation in the early 20^th century.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - spokesman of the Jazz Age, ‘Dollar Decade’, 1920s
A double vision of the Jazz Age, both an insider and an outsider American Dream

He shows a particular interest in the upper-class society, especially young people.

<This Side of Paradise>人间天堂 his first novel

<Tender is the Night>夜色温柔  <The Last Tycoon>最后一个巨头

READING; excerpt from The Great Gatsby了不起的盖茨比
<The Great Gatsby> his masterpiece, ‘incorruptible dream’ is ‘smashed into pieces by the relentless reality.’

Gatsby is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies America itself; he is the last of the romantic heroes

Ernest Hemingway - awarded the Nobel Prize
’Iceberg style’, ‘Code hero’, ‘grace under pressure’ 重压下的风度,

The use of short, simple and conventional word

<In our Time> 在我们的时代里the first book to present a Hemingway hero –Nick Adams

<The Sun Also Rises> 太阳照样升起‘The Lost Generation’: a group of young Americans who left their native land and fought in the war and later engaged themselves in writing in a new way about their own experiences.

<A Farewell to Arms> 永别了,武器about the tragic love affair of a wounded American soldier with a British nurse.

<For Whom the Bell Tolls>丧钟为谁而鸣  <The Old Man and the Sea>老人与海

READING; Indian Camp

<Indian Camp> from <In Our Time> Nick watches his father deliver an Indian woman of a baby by Caesarian(剖腹术) section, with a jack-knife and without anesthesia(麻醉). birth and death coexist(共存)

William Faulkner - awarded a Nobel Prize
American South, Yoknapatawpha Country ,imprisonment in the past
Stream of consciousness, multiple points of view, 内心独白, 时序颠倒

<The Sound and the Fury>喧嚣与骚动  <As I Lay Dying>我弥留之际  <Absalom, Absalom>押沙龙, 押沙龙

<Light in August>八月之光   <The Bear>熊

READING; excerpt from A Rose for Emily
<A Rose for Emily> Emily, an eccentric(古怪的) spinster(老处女) who refuses to accept the passage of time, or the inevitable(不可避免的) change and loss that accompanies it. She is regarded as the symbol of tradition and the old way of life. Thus her death is like the falling of a monument.

 

 

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