Old English 450-1066 <Beowulf>
Medieval English 1066 - middle 14th
century
* Geoffrey Chaucer - the father of
English poetry
<The Canterbury Tales> first time to use
’heroic couplet’
The Renaissance - rebirth or revival
Humanism - the essence of the Renaissance, the
dignity of human being & the importance of the present life
*Edmund Spenser - the poets’ poet
<The Faerie Queene>
*Christopher Marlowe - University Wits,
the pioneer of English drama
Blank verse, hyperbole夸张
<Dr. Faustus> the human passion for
knowledge, power and happiness
<The Passionate Shepherd to His Love>
pastoral life
*William Shakespeare - above all
writers in the past and in the present time
Four tragedies - Hamlet, Othello, King Lear
& Macbeth
<Sonnet 18> eternal or immortal
beauty
<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
greed and brutality <Hamlet> hesitate between fact and
fiction, language and action, too sophisticated to degrade his
nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger To be, or not
to be - to live on in this world or to die; to suffer or to take
action Soliloquy or monologue - fully reveal the inner conflict of
the characters Francis Bacon - brevity, compactness &
powerfulness, his essays is an important landmark in the
development of English proseInductive method 归纳法 in place of
deductive method 演绎法<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 - break away from love
poetry, a seemingly unfocused diversity of experiences and
attitudes, and a free range of feelings and moodsConceits,
syllogism 三段论
<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
<Paradise Lost> the only generally
acknowledged epic in English literature since Beowulf. The conflict
is between human love and spiritual duty. In heaven, Satan led a
rebellion against God with his unconquerable will.
<Paradise Regained>
<Samson Agonistes> the most perfect
example of the verse drama after the Greek style in English.
Neoclassicism - a revival of interest in the
old classical works, order, logic, restrained emotion抑制情感 &
accuracyEnlightenment - a progressive intellectual movement, reason
(rationality), equality & science
Gothic novel - mystery, horror &
castles
*John Bunyan
<The Vanity Fair> from <The
Pilgrim’s Progress>, a religious allegory, pursue the truth
*Alexander Pope
<An Essay on Criticism> a poem written
in heroic couplets, criticize the present poem lack of true taste
& call on people to turn to the old Greek and Roman writers for
guidance, ’true wit’ is best set in a plain (simple & clear)
style.
* Daniel Defoe - the first writer study
of the lower-class people<Robinson Crusoe>, praise the human
labor and the Puritan fortitude 清教徒坚韧
*Jonathan Swift - a master satirist In
his opinion, human nature is seriously and permanently flawed
Proper words in proper places
<A Modest Proposal>
<Gulliver’s Travels>, four parts -
Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Flying Island & Houyhnhnm
*Henry Fielding - Father of English
novel, Prose Homer Comic epic in prose
<The History of Tom Jones, a
Foundling>
*Samuel Johnson - first combine an
English dictionary, last neoclassicist enlightener
<A Dictionary of the English
Language>
<To the Right Honorable the Earl of
Chesterfield>
*Richard Brinkley 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.
*Samuel Johnson
<To the Right Honorable the Earl of
Chesterfield>
*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.
*Thomas Gray
The Graveyard School <Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard>
Romantic - emotion over reason, spontaneous
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, and commonplace
The romantic period began with the publication
of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s <Lyrical Ballads>
*William Blake -engraver雕刻家
<The Chimney Sweeper> from <Songs of
Innocence> a happy and innocence world from children’s eye
<The Chimney Sweeper> from <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
<The Tyger>
*William Wordsworth - the leading
figure of the English romantic poetry, simple, spontaneous,
worshipper of nature’Lake Poets’ - William Wordsworth, Samuel
Taylor Coleridge & Robert SoutheyHe 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’.
<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.
<Composed upon Westminster Bridge,
September 3, 1802> the sonnet describes a vivid picture of a
beautiful morning in London, silent, bright, glittering, smokeless
& mildly. It is so touching a sight that the poet expressed his
religion piety 虔诚for nature.
<She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways>
<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,
remotePoet can be divided into two groups - the demonic
(supernatural) & the conversational
The demonic group includes 3 masterpieces -
<The Rime of the Ancient Mariner>, <Chrisabel>,
<Kubla Khan> George Gordon Byron ’Byronic hero’ is a proud,
mysterious rebel figure of noble origin, against tyrannical rules
or moral principles. Such a hero appears first in <Childe
Harold’s Pilgrimage>.
<Song for the Luddites> ’will die fighting, or live
free’ the Luddites 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.
<The Isles of Greece> from <Don
Juan> (the masterpiece of Byron, a long satirical poem), song by
a Greek singer at the wedding of Don Juan and Haidee. ’Fill high
the bowl with Samian wine’?
*Percy Bysshe Shelley
<Men of England>
<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?’
*John Keats
4 great odes - <Ode on Melancholy>,
<Ode on a Grecian Urn>, <Ode to a Nightingale>, <Ode
to Psyche>
<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
<Pride and Prejudice>The Victorian
Period
Darwin’s <The Origin of Species> and
<The Descent of Man> shook the traditional faith, everything
is created by GodUtilitarianism 功利主义 was widely accepted and
practiced Critical realists were all concerned about the fate of
the common people
*Charles Dickens - one of the greatest
critical realist writers of the Victorian Age
Character-portrayal is the most distinguishing
feature of his worksA mingling of humor and pathos 悲伤
<A Tale of Two Cities>
<Oliver Twist>
*The Bronte Sisters - Charlotte, Emily
& Anne .Emily, a rather reserved and simple girl, was very much
a child of nature.
<Jane Eyre>
<Wuthering Heights>
*Alfred Tennyson - invents dramatic
monologue, Poet Laureate 桂冠诗人, a real artist
<Break, Break, Break> 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> 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> 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
<The Ring and the Book> his
masterpiece
<My Last Duchess> 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 man
<Meeting at Night>
<Parting at Morning>
*George Eliot: As a woman of
exceptional 特有的intelligence and life experience, she shows a
particular concern for the destiny of women
<Middlemarch> a sharp contrast is set
between the cold, lifeless, dull house and Dorothea who is full of
youthful life and vigor
*Thomas Hardy - both a naturalistic and
a critical realist writerLocal-colored, Wessex, ’novels of
character and environment’
<Tess of the D’Urbervilles> experience
is as to intensity, and not as to duration
American Romantic Period
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
*Washington Irving - father of
the American short stories, the American Goldsmith
Perfected the best classic style that American
literature ever produced
First novel <A History of New York>
<The Sketch Book> contains German folk
tales <Rip Van >, <The Legend of Sleepy Hollow>
*Ralph Waldo Emerson - the spokesman of
New England Transcendentalism movement
<The American Scholar>, <Self -
Reliance>, <The Over-Soul>
<The Poet> a reflection upon the
aesthetic problems in terms of the present state of literature in
America
<Experience> a discussion about the
conflict between idealism and ordinary lifeAmerican Puritanism,
European Romanticism, intuitive knowledge, over-soul, individual,
nature
<Nature> is regarded as the Bible of New
England Transcendentalism
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Interior 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
<The Scarlet Letter>
<Young Goodman Brown>
*Walt Whitman
Openness, freedom, individualism
I - me, my nation (society), Free verse,
Envelope structure, Catalogue (Listing)
A new ideal, a new world, a new life-style
<There Was a Child Went Forth> how a
child is greatly influenced by his growing environments
<Cavalry Crossing a Ford> a scene of the
American Civil War, all the movements described in this picture is
frozen.
<Song of Myself> Whitman is a man
bubbling with energy and laden with ideas, spontaneous expression
of his original ideas
*Herman Melville - a master of allegory
and symbolism, like Hawthorne<Moby-Dick> the first American
prose epic, Ishmael both as a character and a narrator, the
captain, Ahab is a monomaniac
Realistic period - the Gilded 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
*Mark Twain - the true father of
American literature
Local colorist, vernacular, simple sentence,
’the damned human race’ The Gilded Age
3 boyhood books <Life on the
Mississippi>, <The Adventures of Tom Sawyer>,
<Adventures of Huckleberry Finn>
<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 - international theme,
psychological realist Stream of consciousness, interior monologue,
free association
<Daisy Miller> the narrator is an
American expatriate, named Winterbourne. Daisy is the most innocent
girl. The clash is between two different cultures.
*Emily Dickinson
Based on her own experiences, her sorrows and
joys
<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.
<Because I could not stop for Death - >
personify death and immortality so as to make her message strongly
felt
*Theodore Dreiser - America’s literary
naturalists Case history including everything Determinism (heredity
biological & environment), survival of the fittest, the jungle
law Trilogy of Desire - <The Financier>, <The Titan>,
<The Stoic> <Sister Carrie> ’who shall cast the first
stone?’
The modern period - the second American
Renaissance, the expatriate movement, the Lost Generation, a
transformation from order to disorder
Seize the day, enjoy the present, spiritual
wasteland, collective unconscious, psychoanalysis
Imagist movement, Jazz Age
* Ezra Pound - a leading spokesman of
the ’Imagist Movement’
<The Cantos>
<In a Station of the Metro> 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>
<A Pact> agreement with Whitman’s free
verse
*Robert Lee Frost - four times awarded
Pulitzer Prize, pastoral life and scene
<After Apple-Picking>
<The Road Not Taken>
<Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening>
*Eugene O’Neill - founder of
the American drama, won the Pulitzer Prize four times
<The Hairy Ape>
*F. Scott Fitzgerald - spokesman of the Jazz Age, Dollar
Decade, 1920s
A double vision of the Jazz Age, both an
insider and an outsiderAmerican Dream
<The Great Gatsby>
*Ernest Hemingway - awarded the Nobel
Prize
Iceberg style, Code hero, the lost generation,
grace under pressure
<Indian Camp> from <In Our Time>
birth and death coexist
*William Faulkner - awarded a Nobel
Prize
South, imprisonment in the past
Stream of consciousness, multiple points of
view
Yoknapatawpha Country
<A Rose for Emily> Emily 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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