英国文学史框架

Part I: The Anglo-Saxon Period (449-1066)


这一时期的文学主要分为两个部分：


(1)异教文学（Pagan）: Anglo-saxon人带来的口头萨迦（saga），即北欧海盗传说。


 The Song of Beowulf: 写于公元10世纪，并于1705被发现的六世纪初的故事。全诗共3182行。


 Widsith or The Traveller’s Song


 The Seafarer


(2) 基督教文学（Christian）：包括圣经解释和宗教诗歌。

Part II: The Anglo-Norman Period (1066-1350)


这一时期的文学主要分为三个类别：


 Matter of France: Chanson de Roland


 Matter of Greece and Rome: 亚历山大的故事和the fall of Troy


 Matter of Britain: 亚瑟王及圆桌骑士的故事。Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Part III: Geoffery Chaucer (1340?-1400)


（1）Geoffery Chaucer: “the father of English poetry”。主要采用tonico-syllabic verse。对英语文学语言的形成做出了很大贡献。


 The Canterbury Tales (24 tales): 作品中渗透了文艺复兴时期的自由思想。信仰人的俗世快乐，倡导人们走出迷信与对命运的盲从。同时也夸赞了人的精力、机敏、智慧和对生活的热爱。


 长诗：Troilus and Cressie, based upon Baccaccio’s poem – Filostrato。

（2）Popular Ballads


Ballads are anonymous narrative songs that have been preserved by oral transmission. 多为叙事诗，讲述各种各样的故事。最常见的形式为：4行一节（quatrain），1、2和3、4行各成一组，2、4行入尾韵。1、3行有4个重音，2、4行有3个重音。
 Robin Hood and Allin-a-Dale


 Sir Patrick Spens


 Lord Randal


 The Wife of Usher’s Well


 The Three Ravens


 Get up and Bar the Door

Part IV: The Renaissance


 英国文艺复兴的三个阶段：（1）初期：1516-1578；（2）鼎盛期（the Elizabethan Period）：1578-1625；（3）后期：1625-1660。


文艺复兴的两大特点：


 A thirsting curiosity for the classical literature;


 The keen interest in the acitivities of humanity ( Admiration for human beauty and human achievement, a feeling in sharp contrast with theology.)

I. Playwrights


(1) William Shakespeare (1564-1616)


莎士比亚文学生涯的四个阶段：


I) Period of Early Experimentation


Marked by youthfulness and exuberance of imagination; by extravagance of language; and by the frequent use of rimed couplets with his blanc verse.


Plays:
 Love’s Labour’s Lost


 Two Gentlemen of Verona


 Richard III


Poetry:


 Venus and Adonic


 The Rape of Lucrece

II) Period of Rapid Growth and Development(1595-1600)


Historical plays and romantic comedies:


 A Midsummer Night’s Dream


 The Merchant of Venice


 As You Like It


 Richard II


 Henry IV


 Henry V


 Romeo and Juliet


 The Life and Death of Julius Caesar

III) Period of Gloom and Depression (1600-1607)


Devoted largely to tragedies and sonnets.


The four great tragedies:


 Hamlet, Prince of Denmark


 Othello, the Moore of Venice


 King Lear


 The Tragedy of Mecbeth

IV) Period of Calm After Storm (1608-1613)


With a spirit of serenity and optimism. Turned to comedies again.


 The Winter’s Tale


 The Tempest

(2) Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): One of the “University Wits” . Made blank verse the principal vehicle of expression in drama.


 Tamburlaine the Great


 The Jew of Malta


 The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

(3) Ben Jonson (1572-1637) : Generally regarded as first Poet Laureate.


 Every Man in His Humour


 Volpone


 The Alchemist


 The Silent Woman


(4) Robert Greene (1560-1592)：One of the “University Wits”

II. Poets

(1) Edmund Spenser(1552-1599) 被称为“the poet of poets”。主要作品：

长诗：(1)The Faerie Queene; (2) The Shepherd’s Calender; (3) Epithalamion

十四行诗集：Amoretti, 由89首十四行诗组成。献给其第二任妻子伊丽莎白。

“Spenserian Stanza”: 共九行，前八行为抑扬格五音步（iambic pentameter），最后一行为抑扬格6音步（iambic hexameter）。

(2) Thomas Wyatt(1503?-1542). 第一位将十四行诗（sonnet）介绍到英国的诗人。

(3) John Lyly (1554?-1606). The Prose romance Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit (1578). Euphues is Greek for "graceful."  Euphuism, as the elaborate prose style modelled on Lyly came to be called, was at the height of popularity in the 1580s. Euphuistic style has two features:

an especially elaborate sentence structure based on parallel figures from the ancient rhetorics and a wealth of ornament including proverbs, incidents from history and poetry, proverbs, and similes drawn from pseudoscience, from Pliny, from textbooks, or from the author's imagination.

III. Essayist

(1) Francis Bacon(1561-1626). 著名的散文有：Of Studies; Of Truth; Of Beauty等。哲学著作：(1) The Advancement of Learning (English, 1605); (2) Novum Organum,(Latin, 1620); (3) De Augmentis(Latin, 1623).

(2) Thomas More(1478-1535). Utopia (1516).