-
Geoffrey Chaucer
(1343-1400)
乔
叟
He was born in
1343 in London.
He
died
in
1400
and
was
buried
in
Westminster
Abbey,
thus
founding
the
“Poets
Corner”.
The
father
of
English
Poetry
and
one
of
the
greatest
narrative
poets
of
England.
“The
Canterbury Tales” (1387
-1400)
It is Chaucer’s masterpiece and one of
the
monumental works in English
literature.
Chaucer’s Contribution to
English
Literature
Chaucer is
regarded as the founder of
English
poetry and has been called “the founder of English
realism.” He is the firs
t great
poet who wrote in the English language.
He introduced from France the rhymed stanza of
various
types,
especially
the
“heroic
couplet”
(
英
雄
双
韵<
/p>
体
)
to
English
masterpiece “The Canterbury Tales” is
one of the monumental works in English
literat
ure
公爵夫人之书，百鸟议会，声誉之堂，特罗勒思和克里西德
Structure of a poem:
A poem
can be broken down into three parts:
(1) Stanza (
节
) :
a group of lines set off from the other lines in a
poem. It is the poetic
equivalent of a
paragraph in prose. In traditional poems, the
stanza usually contains a unit
of
thought.(2) The line (
行
) : a
single line of poetry
(3) The foot
(
音步
) : a syllable or a group
of 2 or 3 syllables. To scan a line of poetry one
counts the number of feet in a line.
For a beginner, the easiest thing to do is to
count the
number of stresses. Typically
a foot will contain a stressed and an unstressed
syllable.
William Shakespeare
(1564-1616)
playwright, poet, actor.
Shakespeare and Aeschylus
are
the
two
greatest
dramatic
geniuses
the
world
has
ever
known.
—
Carl
Marks.
The
Great Tragedies:
《哈姆雷特》
(Hamlet,1601 )
《
奥赛罗
》
(Othello
, 1604)
《李尔王》
(King
Lear, 1605)
《
麦
克白》
(Macbeth, 1606)
The Great
Comedies
威尼斯商人》
(The Merchant
of Venice, 1596)
《仲夏夜之
梦
》
(A Midsummer Night's
Dream,1596)
《第十二夜》
(Twelfth
Night, 1600)
《皆大
欢
喜》
(As You Like It, 1601)
Shakespeare’s career as a
dramatist may be divided into four major
phases
.: The
First
Period(1590-1594)
This period is the
period of his apprenticeship in play-writing.
Works: Henry VI
The Comedy of Errors
《
错误
的喜
剧
》
/
《
连环错
》
Love’s Labor’s Lost
《迷失的
爱
》
/
《空<
/p>
爱
一
场
》
/
《
爱
的徒
劳
》
Romeo and Juliet, etc.
The Second Period (1595-1600)
This period is his mature period,
mainly a period of “great comedies” and mature
historical
plays. It includes 6
comedies, 5 historical plays and 1 Roman tragedy.
His sonnets are
also thought to be
written in this period.
The Third
Period (1601-1607)
The third period of
Shakespeare’s dramatic career is mainly the period
of “great tragedies”
and “dark
comedies”. It includes 5 tragedies, 3 comedies and
2 Roman
works written in this
period:Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony
and Cleopatra
The Fourth Period
(1608-1612)
The fourth period of
Shakespeare’s work is the period of romantic
drama. It includes 4
romances or “recon
ciliation
（和解，
复
合）<
/p>
plays”.
Shakespeare’s
Literary
Posi
tion
:Shakespeare
and
the
Authorized
Version
of
the
English
Bible are the two greatest treasuries of the
English language. Shakespeare has
been
universally acknowledged to be the summit of the
English Renaissance, and one of
the
greatest writers in world literature.
Hamlet
:Hamlet is considered
the summit of Shakespeare’s art. It is one of
Shakespeare’s
canon, and it is
universally included in the list of the world’s
greatest ’s written in
the form of
blank verse.
blank verse
:
poetry in rhymeless iambic pentameter.
（
素体
诗剧
）
The
story,
coming
from
an
old
Danish
legend,
is
a
tragedy
of
the
“revenge”
genre.
Shakespeare
incorporates
into
the
medieval
story
other
major
humanistic
themes,
including love, justice, good and evil,
and most notably, madness, and the spirit of the
time
Injustice,
conspiracy,
and
betrayal
in
the
society
。
1.
first
blow:
father
’
s
murder
and
mother
’
s blow:
betrayal of his two former friends Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern3. third blow: betrayal of
his girl friend OpheliaThe greatness of the play:
in
praise of the noble quality of
Prince Hamlet as a representative of humanist
thinkers and
his disillusionment with
the corrupt and degenerated society in which he
lived.
Hamlet
is a humanist,
a man who is free from medieval prejudices and
superstitions. He
has an unbounded love
for the world instead of the heaven. Starting from
his humanist
love of
man, he returned to those around him
with the same eagerness. He loves good
and
hates
evil.
A king
and
a
beggar
are
all
the
same
to
him.
His intellectual
genius
is
outstanding. He is a close observer of
men and manners. He easily sees through people.
His image reflects the versatility of
the men of the key-
note of Hamlet’s
character is melancholy. But his
melancholy is not the negative kind.
Reasons
:
1)His
mental
world
has
gone
through
the
shock
of
a
personal
wrong
to
an
awakening of his great
responsibility in reforming the world as a whole.
But to realize his
ideal in his time
was beyond him. This is the cause of
Ha
mlet’s profound melancholy2)He
has the opportunity of killing the
king, yet he refuses to do so. Because when the
king is
praying, if he kills him, he
will send him to the heaven. the villain has
become the king, if
he is killed
abruptly, it will cause panic to the people and
danger to the state.
Life and death
Life is full of hardship Death is also very
mysterious (undiscovered country
from
which no traveler returns)
Hamlet:
character analysis Philosophical
Contemplative
Melancholic
Beowulf
:
the
national epic of Anglo-Saxons contains at least
3182 lines (alliteration
头韵
,
the repetition of the first consonant
or vowel)
The Canterbury
Tales
:
a narrative poem
written in rhymed iambic pentameter,
heroic couplet
(
英雄双韵体
)
Shakespeare
’
s plays
and Sonnets:
unrhymed iambic
pentameter (
无韵式抑扬格五音步
),
blank verse (
素体诗
Basic Knowledge of Poetry
Tersa rima: three-lined stanza
三行
诗节
Quatrain:
four-lined
stanza
四行
诗节
Octave:
律
诗
Sonnet:
十四行
诗
Couplet:
双
韵体
Rhythm:
格律
Poetic
license:
诗
的
破
格
Poetic
diction:
诗
语
（
诗
歌
用
词
）
：
e.g.
thou/thee
—
you;
thy/thine
—
your;
thyself
—
yourself;
art
—are;
ow’st—
own
单
音步：
monometer
两
音步：
dimeter
三音步：
trimeter
四音步：
tetrameter
五音步：
pentameter
六音步：
hexame
ter
七音步：
heptameter
八音步：
octameter
Rhythm
格
律
1.
iambic
抑
扬
格
:
weak+strong2.
trochaic
扬
抑
格
:
strong+weak3.
anapaestic
抑抑
扬
格
:
weak+weak+strong4.
dactylic
扬
抑抑格
:
strong+weak+weak5.
spondaic
(n.) (
扬扬
格
):
strong+strong6. pyrrhic
(
抑抑格
): weak+weak
How
1)
诗节
：
This
poem
consists
of
___
stanza
(s).2)
诗
行：
Each
stanza
has
____
lines.3)
音步：
Each
line has ____ feet.4)
格律：
The
meter in each line is generally __ with
the exception of __ feet in __ line,
which is __.5)
押韵：
The rhyme
scheme of each stanza
is ___.6)
标
出
来
：
Demonstratione.g. This poem consists of two quatrains, and each line is
of iambic
pentameter. The rhyme scheme is a b a b.
Caesura (
行
内
停
顿
): the pause in the
middle of a line is called caesura.
End-stopped
line
(
结
句行
):
when
a
line
ends
in
a
full
pause,
marked
by
some
kind
of
punctuation, it is called an end-
stopped line.
一行正好
构
成一
个
完整的意思
Run-on line
(
跨行句
): when a line does not
end in punctuation, and the sentence carries
on into the next line, then it is
called run-on line.
几行加起
来
表
达
一
个
意思
e.g. I shot an
arrow
into
the
air,
It
fell
to
earth,
I
knew
not
where;
For,
so
swiftly
it
flew,
the
sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
前
两
行是
end-stopped line
，
后
两
行是
run-on line.
Rhyme
(
押韵
)
: the
repetition of sound within and across lines
1. alliteration
(
头
韵
)
2. assonance (
尾韵
)
3. rhyme
(
韵脚
Sonnet
：
a
fourteen-line poem usually in iambic pentameter
with a specific rhyme scheme.
3
）
the English
sonnet (the Shakespearean sonnet)rhyme scheme: a b
a b, c d c d, e f e f,
g g
Sonnet 18
Shakespearean
Sonnet
is
also
called
the
English
Sonnet,
with
three
four-
line
stanzas
(quatrains)
and a two-line unit called
a couplet
（
对
子）
.
The rhyme scheme
is
：
a b a b, c d
c d, e f e f, g g
Metrical pattern:
iambic pentameter
The
first
stanza/quatrain
：
b
eginning
起
The
second
stanza/quatrain
：
development
承
The
third stanza/quatrain
：
turn
转
The couplet: conclusion
含
Rhythm &
Meter:Iambic pentameter (
五音步抑
扬
格
)
1.
Rhetorical question / apostrophe
(
顿
呼法）
The 1st
line, used to create a tone of respect,
and to engage the audience./ Speaking
to thee directly.
2. Personification
Lines 5,6 & 11, used to
elevate the sun and death.
3.
Parallelism / hyperbole
The
final couplet, used to emphasize the message: the
beauty
of the subject will be
immortalized by the power of his art.
Theme: eternal life of art
Time, beauty and poetry
1.
Time and nature are forever transient.
大自然反
复
无常
2. Beauty
is always fading.
美人
驻颜
无
术
；
3. Only
art /poetry can be eternal.
为艺术
可以不朽。
The conventional theme of Elizabethan
sonnets
Comment on Sonnet 18
Sonnet
18
is
Shakespeare’s
best known
poem
in
all
of
his
154
sonnets.
It
is
a
typical
Shakespearean sonnet which consists of
three four-lined stanzas followed by a couplet,
and has the characteristic rhyme
scheme: a b a b, c d c d, e f e f, g g. This
sonnet aims at
praising the eternal
power of man by describing the instability of
nature.
First the poet
compares his friend as “a summer’s day”, and then
he says his friend is
“more lovely and
more temperate” than the summer. He lists a lot of
negative images to
show the instability
of the summer. It is short
—“summer’s
lease hath all too short a date,”
and
sometimes the sun is too hot
—“sometime
too hot the eye of heaven shines.” The poet
also uses
internal rhythm
tospeed up the rhythm of the poem, such as in line
7, “And every
fair
from
fair
sometime
declines.”
Here,
“fair”
means
beauty.
It
means
the
beauty
of
summer
is
fading
very
soon.
While
his
friend’s
beauty
“shall
not
fade”
nor
“lose
possessio
n
of
that
fair
thou
ow’st.”
Even
Death
can
not
take
him
away.
In
the
poet’s
opinion, the summer which refers to
nature is always changing, but his friend’s
personality
will last forever.
In
conclusion,
the
poet
compares
his
friend
to
summer,
and
then
by
describing
the
instability
of
summer
to
show
his
friend’s
immortality.
His
purpose
is
to
tell
us
that
the
power of beauty comes
from man. Connecting the background, the poet is
praising the
spirit of
Renaissance
—
Humanism.
Francis Bacon
(
1561-1626)Born in a family that had
connections with the court. Went to
Cambridge
at
12.
The
founder
of
English
materialist
founder
of
modern
science.
The first English essayist.
essayist
and
a
humanist,
English
philosopher
and
statesman,
one
of
the
pioneers
of
modern scientific thought
Essays
(1597)
《
散文集》
Advancement of
Learning (1605)
《
学术
的
进
步》
Novum
Organum
(New Instrument) (1620)
《新工具》
De Augmentis (1623)
《
辩论
之
论
》
NewAtlanti(1624)
《新大西
岛
》
(a utopian
novel)
Comments on “Essays”
First, Bacon borrowed the title from
the French philosopher Montaigne. But different
from
Montaigne’s personal and informal
style, Bacon’s style
is more formal and
more
tightly
organized.
Second,
these
essays
cover
a
variety
of
subjects,
such
as
“the
meaning
of
truth,”
“the
composition
of
beauty,”
“friendship,”
“marriage,”
and
“parents
and
children.”
Third,
these essays, though short, are sinewy
（
强
壮
的）
, full of
wisdom, and elegantly
phrased.
They
offer
people
useful
and
practical
advice,
and
encourage
people
to
play
more active roles in their social life.
Bacon’s Style:
Brevity
（
简
短）
Compactn
ess(
紧
密，
简洁
< br>)
Powerfulness
Metaphysical Poets
refer to a school of poets that
appeared at the beginning of the 17th
century.
The
works
of
are
characterized
by
mysticism
in
content
and
fantasticality
in
main themes of the metaphysical poets
are love, death and religion
John
Donne
(1572-1631)
Lived
and
wrote
during
the
succeeding
reigns
of
Elizabeth
I,James I and
Charles I. Donne was educated at Hart‘s Hall,
Oxford, and Lincoln’s Inn; he
became
prodigiously
(=very
much)
learned,
speaking
several
languages
and
writing
poems in both
English and Latin
The founder of the
Metaphysical school of poetry.
Features Wit
诙谐
Subtle argumentation
论辩细
致
Muscular
rhythms
强
劲
的韵律
Conceit (metaphor)
夸
< br>张
的比
喻
Metaphysic
al poetry uses conceits to express ideas.
A conceit can also be
called far-fetched comparisons. A comparison
becomes a conceit
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