英国作家作品及特色

英国作家作品及特色

The Renaissance Period：1500-1660

1. William Shakespeare

作品：四大悲剧Four tragedies - Hamlet, Othello, King Lear & Macbeth. They have

some characteristics in common. Each portrays some 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 made use of by the outside evil force; the old king Lear

who is 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

incessant crimes.

作家特色：Shakespeare's major characters are neither merely individual ones nor type

ones; they are individuals representing certain types. Each character has his or her

own personalities; meanwhile, they may share features with others. By applying a

psycho-analytical approach, Shakespeare succeeds in exploring the characters' inner

mind. The soliloquies in his plays fully reveal the inner conflict of his characters.

Shakespeare also portrays his characters in pairs. Contrasts are frequently used to

bring vividness to his characters.

Shakespeare's plays are well-known for their adroit plot construction. Shakespeare

seldom invents his own plots; instead, he borrows them from some old plays or

storybooks, or from ancient Greek and Roman sources. There are usually several

threads running through the play, thus providing the story with suspense and

apprehension.

作品：In his romantic comedies, Shakespeare takes an optimistic attitude toward love

and youth, and the romantic elements are brought into full play《威尼斯商人》

Merchant of Venice> to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to

idealize Portia a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, to expose the insatiable

greed and brutality of the Jew. The Merchant of Venice takes a step forward in its

realistic presentation of human nature and human conflict.

作家特色：Irony is a good means of dramatic presentation.

作品：《哈姆雷特》 hesitate between fact and fiction, language and action,

too sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger (复仇者) To be, or not to be - to live on in this world or to die; to suffer or to take

action. 独白 Soliloquy is a natural medium for Hamlet to release his anguish

作家特色：His blank verse is especially beautiful and mighty. He has an amazing

wealth of vocabulary and idiom. He is known to have used 16,000 different words.

His coinage of new words and distortion of the meaning of the old ones also create striking effects on the reader. Shakespeare is above all writers in the past and in the

present time. His influence on later writers is immeasurable. Almost all English

writers after him have been influenced by him either in artistic point of view, in

literary form or in language.

作品：The Tempest, an elaborate and fantastic story, is known as the best of his final

romances. The characters are rather allegorical and the subject full of suggestion. The

humanly impossible events can be seen occurring everywhere in the play. The

Tempest is a typical example of his pessimistic view towards human life and society

in his late years.

作家特色：The successful romantic tragedy is Romeo and Juliet, which eulogizes the

faithfulness of love and the spirit of pursuing happiness. The play, though a tragedy, is

permeated with optimistic spirit.

作品：十四行诗第18首 are the only direct expression of the poets own

feelings, praise the power of artistic creation, is one of the most beautiful sonnets

written by Shakespeare, in which he has a profound meditation on the destructive

power of time and the eternal beauty brought forth by poetry to the one he loves. A

nice summer's day is usually transient, but the beauty in poetry can last for ever. Thus

Shakespeare has a faith in the permanence of poetry.

2. John Milton

作品：《失乐园》 the only generally acknowledged epic in English

literature since Beowulf. The conflict is between human love and spiritual duty. In

heaven, Satan led a rebellion against God with his unconquerable will by corrupting

man and woman created by god.

作家特色：Milton's literary achievements can be divided into three groups: the early

poetic works, the middle prose pamphlets and the last great poems..

作品：《复乐园》

作家特色：Milton 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