mountaineer英国文学考试总结

2021年1月20日发(作者：讨打)
问答

1
Why
is Jane
Eyre
a
successful
novel?
1
，
The
work
is
one
of
the
most popular
and
important
novels
of
the
V
ictorian age. It is noted for its sharp criticism of the existing society
。
2. it is an intense moral fable. Jane, like Mr.
Rochester, has to undergo a series of physical and moral tests to grow up and achieve her final happiness
。
3
，
The
success of the novel is also due to its introduction to the English novel the first governess heroine.
middle-class
working women
。
struggling for
，
right, equality as a human being. The vivid description of her intense feelings, and
her thought and inner conflicts brings her to the heart of the audience.


2
“ And, moreover, at this fair there is at all times to be seen jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves,
and rogues, and that of every kind, here are to be seen , too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, adulteries, false
wearers, and that of a blood-
red color.”

A. Identify the author and the title of the novel from which this passage is taken.
From John Bun
yan’s The
Pilgrim’s Progress.

B. Identify the name of the fair.
The Vanity fair.

C. Summarize the meaning of the passage.
All of kinds of evils are being sold and bought at the fair


4

Be through my lips to unawakened Earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”


From Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”. This part illustrates Shelley’s optimistic belief in the future
of mankind.

5
Briefly comment on Geoffrey Chaucer’s works and his literary achievements.

Geoffrey Chaucer is the greatest writer of the Middle Age in English history. His major works include The
Canterbury Tales, The Legend of Good Women and so on. For the first time in English literature, he presented to
us a comprehensive realistic picture of the English society of his time and created vivid characters from all walks
of life in his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales. In his works, Chaucer explores the theme of the individual's
relation to the society in which he lives. He develops his characterization to a higher artistic level. Chaucer
introduced various rhymed stanzas to English poetry to replace the Old English alliterative verse. He first
introduced into English octosyllabic couplet and the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter which is to be called
later the heroic couplet. And in The Canterbury Tales, he employed the heroic couplet with true ease and charm for
the first time in the history of English literature. Chaucer also developed the art of literature itself beyond anything
to be found m any other medieval literature. In The Canterbury Tales, he developed his art of poetry still further
towards drama and the art of the novel.

Though entirely rooted in the soil of the Middle Ages, Chaucer's art is so fully
realized as to carry him beyond his
time and make him one of the greatest poets in English. John Dryden called Chaucer the father of English poetry.
Many later writers, including Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare, are indebted to him.

6
What is the theme of The Pilgrim’s Progress?

The pilgrim’s Progress is the most successful religious allegory in the English language. Its purpose is to urge
people to comply with Christian Doctrines and seek salvation through constant struggles with their own weakness
and all kinds of social evils. It is not only about something spiritual but also bears much relevance to the time. Its
predominant metaphor--life as a journey
—
is simple and familiar.


1
7. A little black thing among the snow

Crying “weep! Weep!

In notes of woe!”

“Where are thy father
&
mother? Say?

They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Questions:

This is the first stanza of a poem entitled taken from ____. The Chimney Sweeper (from Sons of Experience)

William Blake wrote the poem


“A little black thing” refers to the poor lit
tle child who has been made black because of chimney-sweeping.

What is the theme of the poem? By describing the poor little chimney sweeper, the poet reveals the true nature of
religion which helps bring misery to the poor children.

8 Briefly analyze She
lley’s Ode to the West Wind

In Ode to the West Wind, Shelley eulogized
陈松赞扬

the powerful west wind and expressed his eagerness
to enjoy the boundless freedom from the reality. The autumn wind, burying the dead year, preparing for a new
spring, becomes an image of Shelley himself, as he would want to be, in its freedom, its destructive-constructive
potential, its universality
普遍的
.

The whole poem has a logic of feeling, a not easily analyzable
可被分析的

progression
连续
that leads
to the triumphant
胜利
, hopeful and convi
ncing conclusion: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” The
poem is written in the terza rima form Shelley derived from his reading of Dante
但丁
. The nervous thrill of
Shelley's response to nature however is here transformed through the power of art and imagination into a longing
to be united with a force at once physical and prophetic
预言，先知的
. Shelley's ode is an invocation
祈求

to a
primitive
早期，原始的

deity
女神
, a plea
请求

to exalt him in its fury
狂躁

and to trumpet
鼓吹
the radical
激
进的
prophecy
预言能力

of hope and rebirth.

9


—
that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? ...


This is one part of Hairnet's most famous monologue from Shakespeare's
Hamlet.
Hamlet, facing the dilemma of
action and mind, is hesitating whether he should revenge for his fa?ther, which may bring him death, or he should
suffer and hide his hatred for his uncle in his deep heart, which may se?cure his life.

10 Briefly comment on the main tragic heroes in Shakespeare's four greatest tragedies.

Shakespeare's greatest tragedies
are-.Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.
They have some characteristics in
common. Each portrays a noble hero, who faces the injustice of human life and is caught in a difficult situation and
whose fate is closely connected with the fate of the whole nation. Each hero has his weakness of nature
:
Hamlet,
the
melancholic
scholar-prince,
faces
the
dilemma
between
action
and
mind;
Othello's
inner
weakness
is
taken
advantage of by the outside evil force; the old king Lear ,unwilling to totally give up his power , makes himself
suffer from treachery and infidelity; and Macbeth's lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to crimes.
With the concentration on the tragic hero, Shakespeare dramatizes the whole world around the hero. A-long with
the portrayal of the weakness of the hero, we see the sharp conflicts between the individual and the evil force in
the society.

11 Give a brief analysis of Hamlet's characterization.
Hamlet
is
the
hero
in
Shakespeare's
great
tragedy
Hamlet.
The
play
begins
with
Hamlet,
Prince
of
Denmark,
appearing in
a mood of world- weariness caused by his father's recent death and by his mother's hasty remarriage
with
Claudius,
his
father's
brother.
While
encountering
his
father's
ghost,
Hamlet
is
told
that
Claudius
has
murdered his father and then taken over both his father's throne and widow. Thus, Hamlet is urged by the ghost to

2
seek revenge for his father's
none of the single-minded blood
lust of the earlier revengers. It is not because he
is incapable of
action, but because the
cast of his
minds is so
speculative,
so
questioning,
and
so
contemplative
that
action,
when
it
finally
comes,
seems
almost
like
defeat,
diminishing
rather
than
adding
to
the
stature
of
the
hero. Trapped
in
a
nightmare
world
of
spying,
testing
and
plotting, and apparently bearing the unbearable burden of the duty to revenge his father's death, Hamlet is obliged
to
inhabit
a
shadow world,
to
live
suspended
between
fact
and
fiction,
language
and
action.
His
life
is
one
of
constant
role-playing,
examining
the
nature
of
action
only to
deny
its possibility,
for
he
is
too
sophisticated
to
degrade
his
nature
to
the
conventional
role
of
a
revenger.
By
characterizing
Hamlet,
Shakespeare
successfully
makes a philosophical exploration of life and death.

3.

Please analyze Satan, the hero in John Milton's
Paradise Lost.
Milton's
Paradise Lost
is a long epic of which the theme is the
—
Satan. In
Heaven, Satan led a rebellion against God. Defeated, he and his angels were cast into Hell. However, Satan refused
to accept his failure, vowing that
achieve his ambition, Satan managed to tempt Adam and Eve, the first human beings created by God, to eat fruit
from the tree of knowledge against God's instruction. For their disobedience, Adam and Eve were driven out of
Paradise. The finest thing in
Paradise Lost
is the description of hell, and Satan is the real hero of the poem. Like a
conquered and banished giant, he remains obeyed and admired by those who follow him down to hell. He is firmer
than the rest of the fallen angels. It is always from him that deep counsels, unlooked-for resources and courageous
deeds proceed. It is he who, passing through the guarded gates of hell and boundless chaos, amid so many dangers,
and overcoming so many obstacles, makes man revolt against God. Though defeated, he prevails, since he has won
from God the third part of his angels, and almost all the sons of Adam. Though wounded, he triumphs, for the
thunder which overwhelmed him left heart still unvanquished.

14
—
that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? ...


This is one part of Hairnet's most famous monologue from Shakespeare's
Hamlet.
Hamlet, facing the dilemma of
action and mind, is hesitating whether he should revenge for his father, which may bring him death, or he should
suffer and hide his hatred for his uncle in his deep heart, which may secure his life.

15

This is taken from Francis Bacon's
influence over human character.

16 Though changed in outward luster, that fixed mind And high disdain, from sense of injured merit, That with the
Mightiest raised me to contend, And to the fierce contention brought along Innumerable force of spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring, His utmost power with adverse power opposed In dubious battle on
the plains of Heaven, And shook his throne.


...
This is taken from John Milton's
Paradise Lost.
By saying so Satan means that though he and his followers are
driven out of heaven, he is not going to admit failure. After all, they have built up strength to fight again against
God, the symbol of tyranny, and shaken God's ruling position.


3
16 Briefly comment on Geoffrey Chaucer's works and his literary achievements.
Geoffrey Chaucer is the greatest writer of the Middle Age in English history. His major works include
The
Canterbury Tales, The Legend of Good Women
and so on. For the first time in English literature, he presented to
us a comprehensive realistic picture of the English society of his time and created vivid characters from all walks
of life in his masterpiece
The Canterbury Tales.
In his works, Chaucer explores the theme of the individual's
relation to the society in which he lives. He develops his characterization to a higher artistic level. Chaucer
introduced various rhymed stanzas to English poetry to replace the Old English alliterative verse. He first
introduced into English octosyllabic couplet and the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter which is to be called
later the heroic couplet. And in
The Canterbury Tales,
he employed the heroic couplet with true ease and charm
for the first time in the history of English literature. Chaucer also developed the art of literature itself beyond
anything to be found in any other medieval literature. In
The Canterbury Tales,
he developed his art of poetry still
further towards drama and the art of the novel.

Though entirely rooted in the soil of the Middle Ages, Chaucer's art is so fully realized as to carry him beyond his
time and make him one of the greatest poets in English. John Dryden, called Chaucer the father of English poetry.
Many later writers, including Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare, are indebted to him.

17

Please describe Christopher Marlowe's Renaissance heroes.
One of Marlowe's literary achievement is his creation of the Renaissance hero for the English drama. Such a hero
is always individualistic and full of ambition, facing bravely the challenge from both gods and men. He embodies
Marlowe's humanistic idea of human dignity and capacity. Different from the tragic hero in medieval plays, who
seeks the way to heaven through salvation and God's will, he is against conventional morality and tries to obtain
heaven on earth through his own efforts. The hero shows the true Renaissance spirit. Both Tamburlaine and
Faustus are typical in possessing such a spirit. They seek power and knowledge respectively.

18 Why is John Milton the greatest writer of his time?
Milton's literary achievements can be divided into three groups
:
the early poetic works, the middle prose
pamphlets and the last great poems.

In his early works, Milton appears as the inheritor of Elizabethan literature.

Lycidas (1637) is a typical example.
His powerful pamphlets make him the greatest prose writer of his age.
Areopagitica
(1644) is probably his most
memorable prose work. After the Restoration in 1660, when he was blind and suffering, and when he was poor and
lonely, Mil?ton wrote his three major poetical works
:

Paradise Lost
(1667),
Paradise Regained
(1671), and
Samson Agonistes
(1671). Among the three, the first is the greatest, indeed the only generally acknowledged epic
in English literature since
Beowulf;
and the last one is the most perfect example of the verse drama after the Greek
style in English. Working through the tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote
Paradise Lost,
intending to
expose the ways of Satan and to ''justify the ways of God to men.
love and spiritual duty is Milton's fundamental concern with freedom and choice.
Paradise Regained
shows how
mankind, in the person of Christ, withstands the tempter and is established once more in the divine favor. In
Samson Agonistes
, Milton again borrows his story from the Bible. The whole poem strongly suggests Milton'
s

passionate longing that he could bring destruction down upon the enemy at the cost of his own life. In this sense,
Samson is Milton.


4
In his life, Milton shows himself a revolutionary, a master poet and a great prose writer. He fought for freedom in
all aspects as a Christian humanist, while his achievements in literature make him tower over all the other English
writers of his time and exert a great influence over later ones.

7



Paradise Lost
is the only generally acknowledged epic in English literature since
Beowulf.
Working through the
tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote
Paradise Lost,
intending to expose the ways of Satan and to

s

primary concern with freedom and choice; the freedom to obey God's prohibition on eating the apple and the
choice of disobedience made for love. In the fall of man Adam discovered his full humanity. But man's fall is the
sequel to another and more stupendous tragedy, the fall of the angels. By lifting his argument to that degree,
Milton raises the problem of evil in a more intractable form. Milton holds that God created all things out of
Himself, including evil. There was evil in Heaven before Satan rebelled: Pride, Lust, Wrath, and Avarice were
there. At the glorification of the Son these forces erupted and were cast forth. But God suffered them to escape
from Hell and infect the Earth. And then the tragedy was re-enacted, but with a difference
—


poem attempts to convince us that the unquestionable truth of Biblical revelation means that an all-knowing God
just allows Adam and Eve to be tempted and, of their free will, to choose sin and its inevitable punishment. And,
thereby, it paves the way for the voluntary sacrifice of Christ which showed the mercy of God in bringing good out
of evil.

18

Write an essay on D. H. Lawrence.

Lawrence is one of the greatest English novelists of the 20th century, and, perhaps, the greatest from a
working-class family.
The Rainbow and Women in Love
are generally regarded as his masterpieces. Lawrence also
wrote short stories. Irony, humor and wit are the characteristic features of many of the stories.
The Daughter of the
Vicar and The Horse Dealer's Daughter
are generally considered to be Lawrence's best known stories. Lawrence
is also a proficient poet. His poems can be divided into three categories
—
satirical and comic poems, poems about
human relationships and emotions , and poems about nature. Lawrence does not care much about the conventional
metrical rules; what he tries to do in poetry is to catch the instant life of the immediate present. Lawrence was
discovered to be an important playwright of the three plays
:

A Collier's Friday Night
(1909),
The Daughter-in-Law
(1912) and
The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyed
(1914). What the plays focus on is the direct and violent emotions of
the main characters in times of crisis in their marriage.

In his writings, Lawrence has expressed a strong protest against the mechanical civilization. It is this agonized
concern about the dehumanizing effect of mechanical civilization on the sensual tenderness of human nature that
haunts Lawrence's writing. Lawrence was one of the first novelists to introduce themes of psychology into his
works. By presenting the psychological experience of individual human life and of human relationships, Lawrence
has opened up a wide new territory to the novel. Lawrence's artistic tendency is mainly realism, which combines
dramatic scenes with an authoritative commentary. Through a combination of traditional realism and the
innovating elements of symbolism and poetic imagination, Lawrence has managed to depict the subtle ebb and
flow of his characters' subconscious life.

What does Milton intend to tell the reader by writing Paradise Lost?

5