英国文学材料

Fill in the following blanks.

1. Caedmon is the first important religious poet in English literature. He was called

___. He wrote a poetic Paraphrase of the Bible.

2. The first important religious poet in English literature who was called the father of

English song is ___.

3.

Beowulf

is

an

epic

of

_____

lines,

and

it

tells

the

events

that

took

place

on

the

continent before they moved to the British Isles.

4. The epic,

Beowulf,

tells the events that took place on ______ before they moved to

the British Isles.

5.

After

the

Norman

Conquest,

politically,

a

_____

system

and

a

centralized

government was established in England.

6. In 1066, William, the energetic Duke of Normandy, defeated the Anglo- Saxons and

became the King of England. He is called King William I _____.

7. John Wyclif was a translator of ______.

8. Romance was written for the _____ class, so it had nothing to do with the common

people. It exaggerates the vices of human nature and idealized the virtues.

9. Henry

Ⅷ

broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and established _____.

10. _____ broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and established _____.

11. _____ was the first to introduce Italian sonnets into England.

12. John Lily was famous for his prose romance _____, in which he established a kind

of redundant, pompous and flowery style.

13.

_____

is

considered

an

outstanding

literary

critic

for

the

essay

A

Defence

of

Poesy.

14. In Elizabethan Period, _____ wrote more than 50 excellent essays,

which made

him one of the best essayists in English literature.

15. Christopher Marlowe used ____ to write his plays and 3 of his important plays are

Tamberlaine,

the

Great,

The

Jew

of

Malta

and

The

Tragical

History

of

Doctor

Faustus

.

16. Ben Johnson's comedies are a special kind, named _____, and he was made ____

in 1616.

17.

____

is

both

a

dramatist

and

a

good

critic.

His

most

successful

comedies

are

V

olpone and The Alchemist.

18. _____, ______, Macbeth

and Othello are

generally regarded as Shakespeare's

4

great tragedies.

19 The Shakespearean sonnet rhymes _____, and the last _____ lines are used as

a

conclusion to sum up the message of the poem.

20.

The

17th

century

was

one

of

the

most

tempestuous

periods

in

English

history.

Conflicts and clashes appeared between the ____ and the ____, which represented the

bourgeois class.

21. In 1642, a civil war broke out between

____ and the ____. At last the royalists

were defeated by the parliament army led by Oliver Cromwell.

22. The main literary stream of the 18th century was____. What the writers described

were mainly social realities.

23.

Pope

wrote

a

poem

about

literary

principles

in

the

form

of

_____,

which

is

1

entitled

An Essay on Criticism

.

24. Samuel Johnson took 7 years to compile _____.

25. The 2 well-known newspapers run by Steele and Addison are ____ and ____.

26.

____

is

undoubtedly

the

greatest

poet

Scotland

has

ever

produced.

His

Poems

Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect

is of great significance.

1

the

father

of

English

song

2

Caedmon

3

alliterative

4

the

continent

5

feudal

6 The Conqueror

7 Bible

8 noble

9 the church of England

10 Henry

Ⅷ

,

the church of England

11Thomas Wyatt

12 Euphues

13 Philip Sidney

14

Francis

Bacon

15

blank

verse

16

comedy

of

humors,

poet

laureate

17

Ben

Johnson

18. Hamlet, King Lear

19 abab cdcd efef gg, two

20 King, Parliament

21

Charles

Ⅰ

,

parliament

22.

realism

23

heroic

couplet

24

A

Dictionary

of

the

English Language

25

The Spectator, The Tatler

26 Robert Burns

Answer the following questions.

1.

What’s

the definition of epic in Old English Literature?

It

is

originally

an oral

narrative poem,

majestic both

in theme and style.

Epics deal

with

legendary

or

historical

events

of

national

or

universal

significance,

involving

actions of broad sweep and grandeur.

2. Introduce

the contribution of Geoffrey Chaucer briefly.

1) He is the forerunner of Humanism, and he

praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit

and love of life and he exposes and satirizes the social vices, including the corruption

of the Church.

2)

He

is

the

founder

of

English

Realism.

For

the

first

time

in

English

literature,

Chaucer presents to the readers comprehensive realistic picture of English society of

his time.

3) He is the father of English poetry. Chaucer is the 1st to use the heroic couplet to

replace

the

old

English

alliterative

verse.

He

lays

the

foundation

of

the

English

tonic-syllabic verse.

4)

He

is

the

master

of

the

English

language.

Chaucer

uses

London

dialects

in

his

writings and he contributes to making it the foundation for modern English speech.

3.

Please

introduce the different periods of Shakespeare’s l

iterary career.

Shakespeare’s

literary

career

may

be

divided

into

3

major

periods

which

represent

respectively his early, mature and late period.

In the first period

，

he created mainly history plays and comedies: such as Henry IV

,

The Merchant of Venice and The Twelfth Night. The second period (1601-1608) is the

one of great tragedies, namely Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear. In the

last

period(1609-1612), he wrote dramatic romances.

4.

As

a

playwright

how

different

is

Ben

Johnson

from

Shakespeare?

List

the

similarity and differences.

Johnson’s theory of “humours” reduces his characters to types, who represent greed,

vanity, falsehood, etc. They are flat, one-sided and have no development. Unlike him,

Shakespeare

digs

deep

into

human

nature

and

depicts

the

complexities

of

human

,

Ben

Johnson

advocates

classic

Roman

and

Greek

masters,

strictly

observes the three unities and disapproves of any mixture of the tragic with the comic,

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