-
British Literature
I
。
The Renaissance
Period
[the 14th & 17th
centuries]
：
Humanism is the
essence of the
Renaissance.
1.
The Old
English poetry
includes: the religious
group and the secular
one. Eg. The epic
Beowulf
2.
Epic
is an extended
narrative poem in elevated or dignified language,
like Homer
’
s
Iliad and Odyssey.
史诗指古代叙事诗中的长篇作品，
常反应重大意义的历史事件或以古代传说为内容，塑造著名英雄
人文。
3.
Chaucer :The father of English
poetry
:
He was
the first to introduce Octosyllabic
couplet
in The Romaunt
the
Rose
Heroic
couplet
: The Legend of Good Women; The
Canterbury Tales
He is the first great
poet who wrote in the current English language.
4.
Miracle play
: the
medieval
中世纪
dramatization
of a Biblical
story
(e.g. Cain and Abel ) or of a
saint
’
s life, was chiefly
popular from the
twelfth through the
fifteenth centuries.
5.
Morality
play
:
a
later
medieval
development,
which
remained
popular
well
into
the
sixteenth
century,
was
an
allegorical
寓言
dramatization
of
the
conflict
between
good
and
evil,
including
such
1
characters as Everyman, Gooddeeds, and
Avarice.
6.
Heroic
couplet
:
is
a
rhyming
韵律
couplet
of
iambic
pentameter
,
often
containing a complete thought. Commonly there is a
parallel or
an antithesis within a
line, or between the two lines. It is called
heroic
because in England, especially
in the eighteenth century, it was much
used for heroic (epic) poems.
双行诗，
由两个押韵的抑扬格五音步诗
行构成，常包含一个完
整的意思。
7.
Popular
Ballard
:
民谣
flourished
from
the
12
th
century
to
15
th
century,
reflecting
the
life
of
the
people
then.
Major
collections
of
these ballads did not
begin until the 18
th
century
and the most credible
among
them
are
Thomas
Percy
’
s
Relics
of
Ancient
English
Poetry,
Walter Scott
’
s
Minstrels of the Scottish Border
8.
Renaissance
:
it
refers
to
a
great
bourgeois
中<
/p>
产
阶
级
cultural
movement in Europe
which began in the 14
th
century and continued to
the
mid-17
th
century. It first
started from Italy and then spread all over
Europe. The term seems to be a rebirth
or revival of ancient Greek and
Roman
culture. The Renaissance, in essence, is a
historical period in
which the European
humanist thinkers and scholars tried to get rid of
those old
feudalistic
封建主义
ideas in Medieval Europe, to introduce
new
ideas
that
express the
interests
of the
rising bourgeoisie,
and
to
recover
the
purity
of
the
early
church
from
the
corruption
of
the
Roman Catholic church.
2
9.
Humanism
is a system of
beliefs
upheld
坚持
by writers and artists
of
the Renaissance period in their fighting against
medieval
asceticism
禁欲主义
.
It puts man at the center of their beliefs and
takes man to
be the measure of every
thing while the former asceticism puts God at
the center of their beliefs and takes
personal salvation to be the most
important thing on the earth for man. <
/p>
欧洲文艺复兴时期形成的一种资产阶级思想，也是一种再次肯定
人
的价值、智慧、尊严、人对现世幸福的追求的思想和学说。主
张以人为本，反对以神为本
。
10.
B
lank
verse
:
五
韵
体
< br>诗
was
first
introduced
into
England
by
Surrey[English
Poet].
It
is
used
to
name
the
unrhymed
iambic
pentameter line in poetry.
格
律诗的一种，
不押韵，
五音步，
抑扬格
。
11.
S
onnet
十四行诗
:
is
a
type
of
poem
consisting
of
one
single
fourteen-line
stanza
节段
.
It
was
perfected
by
the
Italian
poet
in
the
13
th
century and
introduced into England in the early
16
th
century. It
falls
into
two
classes:
the
Petrarchian
of
Italian
form
and
the
Shakespearian of English
form.
12.
T
he
poet
’
s poet
:
Edmund Spenser(1552-1599), Faerie Queene
13.
U
niversity
Wits
:
is
a
group
of
playwrights
and
pamphleteers
in
the
Elizabethan age. Nash,
Greene, and Marlowe
…
14.
S
h
ak
espeare’s
4
great
tragedies
:
Hamlet,
Othello,
King
Lear,
and
Macbeth
3
15.
M
etaphysical
Poetry
玄学派诗
:
refers
to
the
works
of
the
17
th
century
poets
who
wrote
under
the
influence
of
John
Donne(1575-1613) leading figures of the
school are Marvell, George
Herbert,
Richard
Crashaw,
and
Henry
Vaughan.
With
a
rebellious
spirit,
the
metaphysical
poets
tried
to
break
away
form
the
conventional fashion of
Elizabethan love poetry.
THE Leading
figure: John Donne; Conceit is a far-fetched
metaphor
or simile. It means a
striking parallel between tow highly
dissimilar things.
II.
The
Neoclassical
Period
(
1660-1798)
between
the
return
of
the
Stuards
to
the
English
throne
王位
and
the
full
assertion
主张
of
Romanticism which came
with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by
Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Neoclassicists had some fixed laws
&rules for almost every
genre
of
literature
，
prose
should
be
precise
，
direct
，
smooth
&
flexible. Poetry should be
lyrical
，
epical
，
didactic
，
satiric
or
dramatic
，
&
each
class
should
be
guided
by
its
own
principles. Drama should be written in
the Heroic Couplets
（
iambic
pentameter
rhymed
in
two
lines
）；
the three
unities
of
time
，
space & action should
be strictly observed
；
4
regularity in
construction should be adhered to & type
characters rather than individuals
should be represented.
1.
The
Enlightenment
Movement
:
was
a
furtherance
of
the
Renaissance
form
the
14
th
to
the
17
th
century.
Its
purpose
was
to
enlighten the whole world with the
light of modern philosophical and
artistic ideas. It celebrates reason,
equality and science.
2.
The
“
Three
Unities
”
三一律
:
formulated
by
Renaissance
dramatists,
are the unities of time, place and
action.
3.
Neoclassical
literature
:
In
the
field
of
literature,
the
Enlightenment
Movement
brought
about
a
revival
of
interest
in
the
old
classical
works.
This
tendency
is
known
as
neoclassicism,
and
the
typical
works are collected as neoclassical
literature.
Three stages
:
the reign
of so-called classicism; the
revival of romantic period; the beginnings
of the modern novel
4.
The main
writers
:
Daniel
Defoe: Robinson Crusoe;
Jonathan Swift:
Gulliver
’
s Travels
Samuel Richardson: Pamela; Clarissa
Harlowe
Henry Fielding: The History of
Tom Jones; A Foundling; The History
of
the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great
Tobias Smollett: Roderick Random
5
Laurence
Sterne: A Sentimental Journey
Robert
Burns: Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs
Thomas Gray: Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard
Oliver Goldsmith: The Vicar
of Wakefield
Richard B. Sheridan: The
School of Scandal
5.
Gothic Novel
: A long prose
narrative of horror, often involving
ee
rie
古
怪
可
怕
medieval
castles
with
secret
passageways.
Horace
Walpole
’
s Castle
of Otranto(1764) was the first one that has
stressed
horror. More: Ann Radcliffe:
The Adventure of Mysteries of Udopho;
Mathew Lewis: The Monk; Mary Shelley:
Frankenstein
…
6.
Graveyard
School
墓畔派诗人
: refers to the
18
th
century poets who
wrote
melancholy
忧郁
poems
on
death.
Representative:
Thomas
Gray
’
s Elegy
Written in a Country Churchyard.
Others: Thomas Parnell, Night Piece on
Death; Edward Yang, Night
Thoughts;
Robert Blair, The Grave
7.
Father of the English Novel
:
Henry Fielding, for his contribution to
the establishment of the
form of the English modern novel. He
was the first to write a
“
comic
epic
in
prose
”
戏剧性的散文体史诗
.
His
great
contribution
to
literature is his
realistic novels.
8.
The two famous essayists
:
Joseph Addison; Richard Steele
6