变焦比Introduction of英国文学史及选读

2021年1月20日发(作者：黄伞)
A General Introduction
Main content
：

A Brief Introduction to the History of British Literature

Time
：
the 1
st
and 2
nd
hours
Textbook
：
History and Anthology of English Literature
by Wu Weiren
Objective
：
Make students have a basic frame of the development of British literature so that they
may not feel difficult in understanding the main characteristics of the British literature at different
time of British history.

I.
Early and Medieval English Literature (449
—
1500)

1.
the Anglo-Saxon Period
In 55 B.C., Britain was invaded by Julius Ceaser, the Roman conqueror.
The roman occupation
lasted about 400 years. In 410 A.D., all the Roman troops went back to the continent and never
returned.
Thus
ended
the
Roman
occupation
in
Britain.
At
this
time,
Britain
was
invaded
by
swarms
of
pirates.
They
were
three
tribes
from
Northern
Europe:
the
Angles,
Saxons
and
Jutes.
They
landed
on
the
British
coast,
drove
the
Britons
west
and
north,
and
settled
down
themselves.
They established different kingdoms.
By the 7
th
century, these small kingdoms were
combined
into
a
united
kingdom
called
England,
or
the
land
of
Angles.
The
three
tribes
had
mixed into a whole people called English, the Angles being the most numerous of the three.
And
the three dialects spoken by them naturally grew into a single language called Anglo-Saxon, or old
English.
English
literature
began
with
the Anglo- Saxon
settlement
in England. Of
old English
literature,
five relics are still preserved.
All of them are poems, or songs by the Anglo-Saxon minstrels who
sang of the heroic deeds of old time to the chiefs and warriors in the feasting-hall.
Four are short
fragments
of
long
poems.
But
there
is
one
long
poem
of
over
3,000
lines.
It
is
Beowulf
,
the
national epic of the English people.
2.
Feudal England
The French-speaking Normans under Duke William came to Britain in 1066.
After defeating the
English at Hastings, William was crowned as King of England.
Revolts were cruelly suppressed
and the conquest was completed with violence.
It was called the Norman Conquest.
William the
Conqueror ruled England with a high hand.
He pushed England well on its way to feudalism, and
the Norman Conquest marks the establishment of feudalism in England.
In feudal England, the society was divided into two distinct classes
—
landlords and peasants. The
class conflict was fierce. In 1381, a rising took place.
The
most
prevailing
kind
of
literature
in
feudal
England
was
the
romance.
It
was
a
long
composition, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose.
It described the life and adventures of a
noble hero.
William Langland is an important poet.
His
Piers the Plowman
is a poem of over 7,000 lines.
Most
of
the
written
literature
in
feudal
England
was
intended
only
for
the
upper
class.
The
English people had a literature of their own, not written but oral.
English folk songs had existed
long
before
the
Norman
Conquest.
The
song
tradition
continued
after
it.
The
most
important
department of English folk literature is the ballad.
As to the poetry, Geoffrey Chaucer is the founder of English poetry.
His
The Canterbury Tales
is
his masterpiece and one of the monumental works in English literature.
II. The Renaissance Period (1500
—
1660)

The rise of the bourgeoisie soon showed its influence in the sphere of cultural life.
The result is
an
intellectual
movement
known
as
the
Renaissance,
or
the
rebirth
of
letters.
Originally,
“Renaissance”
means
the
“revival
of
learning”.

It
sprang
first
in
Italy
in
the
14
th

century
and
gradually spread all over Europe.
Two
features
are
striking
of
this
movement.
The
one
is
a
thirsting
curiosity
for
the
classical
literature.
Another
feature
of
the
Renaissance
is
the
keen
interest
in
the
activities
of
humanity.
Humanism is the key-note of the Renaissance.
In the days of Henry VIII (1509
—
1547), there were a group of scholars called Oxford Reformers,
who introduced the classical literature to England and strove to reform education on a humanistic
line.
The greatest of the English humanists was Thomas More, the author of Utopia, Christopher
Marlowe, and William Shakespeare.
The
highest
glory
of
the
English
Renaissance
was
its
drama.
Famous
dramatists
are
Marlowe,
Shakespeare and Ben Johnson.
As for poetry, sonnets become very popular.
Famous poets were Philip Sydney, Edmund Spenser,
etc.
Metaphysical poems appeared at this time, headed by John Donn.
Prose became popular as well.
Francis Bacon is famous for prose writing.

III.
Neoclassicism period (1660
—
1798)

The
beginning
of
this
period
is
the
Restoration
Period
(1660
—
1688)(restoration
of
Stuart
Monarchy).
It
was
a
period
of
reaction
and
degeneration.
As
soon
as
Charles
II
came
back
to
Britain in 1660, the theatres were reopened and drama, esp. Comedy, flourished.
But under the
patronage of the king, it became only an entertainment of the corrupt court.
At the same time,
English
literature
of
the
Restoration
period
was
modelled
on
the
literature
of
France
where
classicism was then prevailing. The classicists upheld reason, law and order in literature instead of
the
free
expression
of
man’s
in
dividuality
in
the
Renaissance.
According
to
classicism,
drama,
poetry and prose should all be controlled by some fixed rules.
The English poets and writers of
the
Restoration
wrote
under
this
influence.
John
Drydon
was
the
forerunner
of
the
English
classical school of literature.
The
“Glorious
Revolution”
of
1688
ended
in
a
compromise
between
the
aristocracy
and
bourgeoisie.
England became a constitutional monarchy and power passed from the king to the
Parliament
and
the
Cabinet
ministers.
In
the
18
th

century,
the
Industrial
Revolution
took
place.
Great
changes
also
took
place
in
rural
England.
The
Enclosure
Movement
and
expropriation
of
peasants
begun
in
the
15
th

century
was
completed
in
the
18
th

century.
The
landless peasants went to the cities and became workers who owned nothing but labour and had to
work
long
hours
for
low
wages.
The
people
in
towns
and
villages
protested
against
the
unbearable conditions of life.
Throughout the 18
th
century numerous uprisings broke out in the
country.
The
18
th

century
marked
the
beginning
of
an
intellectual
movement
in
Europe,
known
as
the
Enlightenment.
On the whole, it is an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism.
England had gone through its bourgeois revolution in the 17
th
century.
English enlighteners of the
18
th

century
stove
to
bring
it
to
an
end
by
clearing
away
the
feudal
ideas
with
the
bourgeois
ideology.
The
representatives
of
the
Enlightenment
in
English
literature
were
Joseph
Addison
and
Richard
Steele,
the
essayists,
and
Alexander
Pope,
the
poet.
In
their
works,
these
writers