A Brief RevisionGeoffrey ChaucerGeoffrey Chaucer is the “father of English poetry” and one of the greatest narrative poets of England. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer’s language, now called Middle English, is vivid and exact. Geoffrey Chaucer is the first great poet who wrote in the English language. Chaucer must be ranked among the most learned and accomplished of English poets.The Canterbury Tales is his masterpiece and one of the monumental works in English literature. The Book of the Duchess was composed by Chaucer probably as a memorial poem for the Duchess of Lancaster, who died of the plague.The Canterbury TalesThe Canterbury Tales should be an immense work of 124 stories but only 24 were written. Incomplete as they are, The Canterbury Tales covers practically all the major types of medieval literature. The Canterbury Tales was written in heroic couplet.General tone: happy, easy, lively, humorous.Terms:Rhyme: the repetition of sounds at the ends of words is called rhyme. When words rhyme at the end of lines of poetry it is called end rhyme.Heroic couplet: Iambic pentameter lines rhymed in pairs. It is called heroic because in England, especially in the 18th century, it was much used for heroic (epic) poems.Iambic pentameter is a meter in poetry, consisting of an unrhymed line with five iambs or feet, felt by many to be the most powerful of all metrical forms in English poetry.RenaissanceGenerally, it refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries. The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. It first started in Italy, with the flowering of painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature. The Renaissance, therefore, in essence, is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church from the Roman Catholic Church.Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. By emphasizing the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, The Renaissance humanist thinkers voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of this life, but had the ability to perfect himself and perform wonders.Renaissance in EnglandThe 16th century in England was a period of the breaking up of feudal relations and the establishment of the foundations of capitalism. Because of the War of Roses within the country and its weak and unimportant position in world trade, Renaissance came later in England than other European countries. But when it did come, it was to produce some towering figures in the English, and — world literary heritage — William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Sir Thomas More, Francis Bacon and a number of humanist scholars.William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare is one of the most remarkable playwrights and poets the world has ever known. He was man of the late Renaissance who gave the fullest expression to humanist ideals. With his 37/38/39 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long poems, he has established his giant position in world literature. His works have been translated into every major language in the world. He has been given the highest praises by various scholars and critics in the world over. His contemporary poet and dramatist Ben Jonson dedicated a poem in praise of him: “… he was not of an age, but for all tim e!” That is definitely true.Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, a small town to the northwest of London. Shakespeare’s achievements1. Shakespeare represented the trend of history in giving voice to the desires and aspirations of the people.2. Shakespeare’s humanism: More important than his historical sense of his time, Shakespeare in his plays reflects the spirit of his age.3. Shakespeare’s characters are “round”, in the sense that they have many aspects or dimensions.4. Shakespeare’s originality: Shakespeare drew most of his materials from sources that were known to his audience; some from Roman dramas, some from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and some from other writers’ plays. But his plays are original because he instilled into the old materials a new spirit that gives new life to his plays.5. Shakespeare as a great poet: Shakespeare was not only a great dramatist, but also a great poet.6. Shakespeare as master of the English language: Shakespeare was the master of the English language.HamletHamlet is considered to be the summit of Shakespeare’s art. It is the profoundest expre ssion of Shakespeare’s humanism and his criticism of contemporary life.Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet It is Shakespeare’s first romantic tragedy.Sonnet: a 14-line poem, predominantly in iambic pentameter. The English (or Shakespearean) sonnet is usually arranged into 3 quatrains and a couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. The couplet is usually the conclusion.Some important works of Shakespeare:1) Comedies: The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing无事生非, As You Like It皆大欢喜, Twelfth Night, The Merry Wives of Windsor, All’s well That Ends Well终成眷属, Measure for Measure一报还一报.2) Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Troilus and Cressida.3) Tragi-comedies: Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest.4) Histories: Henry IV, Henry VI.ThemeThe theme of Hamlet is revengeThe theme of King Lear is vanity.The theme of Othello is jealousy.The theme of Macbeth is desire.Francis BaconBacon is the founder of modern science in England. He, a philosopher, scientist and essayist, lays the foundation for modern science with his insistence on scientific way of thinking and fresh observation rather than authority as a basis for obtaining knowledge.Essays58 essays were included in Bacon’s Essays. They are famous for their brevity, compactness, and powerfulness. These essays cover a wide variety of subjects concerning various aspects of life, such as love, truth, friendship, parents and children, beauty, studies, riches, youth and age, garden, death, and many others. They have won popularity for their precision, clearness, brevity and force. The 17th century was one of the most turbulent periods in English history. It was a period when absolute monarchy impeded the further development of capitalism in England and the bourgeoisie could no longer bear the control of the landed nobility. The contradictions between the feudal system and the bourgeoisie had reached its peak and resulted in a revolutionary outburst.The English revolution took place in the middle of 17th century. Among the causes of this revolution was the growth of capitalism, the break-up of serfdom and Puritan movement.In 1642, the Civil War broke out between the king and the Parliament. With the support of the people and the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, the English bourgeoisie won the victory. In 1649 Charles I was captured and beheaded. England became a commonwealth under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell. After his death, monarchy was again restored by King Charles II in 1660. It was called a period of the RestorationThere were two leaders in the English Revolution. Cromwell was the man of action and Milton the man of thought.John MiltonIn English literature John Milton ranks with Shakespeare and Chaucer. During his retirement from public life, he produced his masterpieces: the epic Paradise Lost, its sequel, Paradise Regained; and the poetic tragedy Samson Agonistes.Paradise LostParadise Lost is long epic poem divided into 12 books. The theme is the fall of men: man’s disobedience and the loss thereupon of Paradise. In this epic poem Satan is the most successfully portrayed character. He was evil, rebellious, courageous, heroic and tragic.Milton’s styleMilton is difficult to read, because of his involved style with frequent inversion (probably owing to the influence of Latin syntax) and very complicated sentence structures. His sentences are often long, sometimes running into a dozen, or even more lines. To express his sublimity of thought, he wrote in a style that is unsurpassed in its sonority, eloquence, majesty and grandeur. Daniel DefoeDaniel Defoe is considered one of the greatest fiction writers of 18th-century England. Defoe was a very good story-teller. His sentences are sometimes short, crisp and plain, and sometimes long and rambling, while leave on the reader an impression of casual narration. His language is smooth, easy, colloquial and mostly vernacular. There is nothing artificial in his language: it is common English at its best.Robinson CrusoeThe story of Robinson Crusoe is well-known throughout the world. It tells of how Robinson Crusoe, an English mariner, having shipwrecked on an island, managed to struggle for live for 28 years there and rescued a black man, whom he named Friday, from the cannibals (person who eats human flesh). Later, Robinson got hold of a ship and sailed home. The book’s “realistic” touch and ingenuity (originality) aroused great interest from the readers both in England and abroad.Robinson is here a real hero: a typical eighteenth-century English middle-class man, with a great capacity for work, inexhaustible energy, courage, patience and persistence in overcoming obstacles, in struggling against the hostile natural environment. He is the very prototype of the empire builder, the pioneer colonist.Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift is a master satirist.Gulliver’s TravelsGulliver’s Travels is his best work, a social and political prose satire, in the form of a book of travels. It is partly burlesque of travelers’ tales, and partly realistic wonder-book with a very different satirical aim. As a whole, the book is one of the most effective and devastating criticism and satires of all aspects in the then English and European life—socially, politically, religiously, philosophically, scientifically, and morally. Its social significance is great and its exploration into human nature profound. The book is also an artistic masterpiece.Jonathan Swift himself is one of the greatest masters of English prose. His language is simple, clear, and vigorous. There are no ornaments in his writing, but it becomes homes to the reader. RomanticismRomanticism was a movement in literature, philosophy, music and art which developed in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Starting from the ideas of Rousseau in France and fromthe Storm and Stress Movement in Germany, it held that classicism, dominant since the 16th century, failed to express man’s emotional nature and overlooked his profound inner forces. Romanticism emphasized individual values and aspirations above those of society. As a reaction to the industrial revolution, it looked to the Middle Ages and to direct contact with nature for inspiration. It gave impetus to the national liberation movement in 19th-century Europe.The features of Romanticism were:1) The romantics were against the modes of thinking in the 18th century which saw man as a social animal.2) They emphasize the special qualities of each individual3) So Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of human spirit.4) In essence it tends to see the individual as the very center of life and all experience. They also place the individual at the center of art and make literature most valuable as an express of his or her unique feelings and particular attitudes, and value its accuracy in portraying the individual’s experiences.Attitudes towards Individualism:Middle ages: emphasize on God; man lived chiefly for the future worldRenaissance period: man is the center of all concern; emphasized on the dignity of man and the importance of the present lifeEnlightenment: saw man as social man; the general or universal characteristics of human behavior were more suitable subject matterRomanticism: Saw man as an individual in the solitary state; Emphasized the special qualities of each individual’s mind; Value the exploration and evaluation of the inner self; A prominence of first-person lyric poem “I” – the direct person of the poet; A change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit William BlakeLiterarily William Blake was the first important romantic poet, showing contempt for the rule of reason, opposing the classical tradition of the 18th century, and treasuring the individual’s imagination. He is considered to be a forerunner of the Romantic poetry of the 19th century. William WordsworthWordsworth is the most representative poet of English Romanticism. Wordsworth’s poetry is distinguished by the simplicity and purity of his language. He was a worshipper of nature from his childhood. In 1842, he received the government pension and in the following year, he succeeded Southey as Poet Laureate. In 1798, Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly published the Lyrical Ballads. The publication of this book marked the break with the conventional poetical tradition of the 18th century, i.e., with classicism, and the beginning of the Romantic revival in England.Definition of a poet and poetryHe (poet) is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind. Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling;Samuel Taylor ColeridgePoets are born and not made. A poem should not be judged as a mirror of truth—as we judge science--but as a thing in itself, almost as a living organism. Poems should be judged only according to their own lights and not according to any established precept or precedent.Lake PoetsWordsworth, Coleridge and Southey ha ve often been mentioned as the “Lake Poets” because they lived in the Lake District in the northwestern part of England. The three traversed the same path in politics and in poetry, beginning as radicals and ends as conservatives.Jane AustenThe major theme of her novel is love and marriage toward which she holds on a practical idealism—love should be justified by reason and disciplined by self-control.Generally speaking, Jane Austen was a writer of the 18th–century, though she lived mainly in the 19th century.Her works show clearly her firm belief in the predominance of reason over passion, the sense of responsibility, good manners and clear-sighted judgment over the Romantic tendencies of emotion and individuality. She shows contemptuous feelings towards snobbery, stupidity, worldliness and vulgarity through subtle satire and irony. Austen’s main literary concern is about human beings in their personal relationships. In her works, she characterizes a human being not at moments of crisis, but in the most trivial incidents of everyday life. Her characteristic theme is that maturity is achieved through the loss of illusions. Faults of character are corrected when through tribulation, lessons are learned.Because of her sensitivity to universal patterns of human behavior, Jane Austen has brought the English novel, as an art of form, to its maturity, and she has been regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists.George Gordon ByronHe is well known in China.Don Juan, the long satirical epic, is generally considered his masterpiece. As a leading Romanticist, Byron’s chief contribution is his creation of the “Byronic hero”, a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. With immense superiority in his passions and powers, this Byronic hero would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt society, and would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies. The conflict is usually one of rebellious individuals against outworn social systems and conventions. The Byronic hero became an idol of the young.Percy Bysshe ShelleyOne of the leading Romantic poets, an intense and original lyrical poet in the English language He is known to Chinese readers mainly for his Ode to the West Wind(1820), whose ending “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” has given courage to many revolutionaries faced with reverses, even death.John Keats (1795-1821)The one artistic aim in Keats’ poetry was to create a beautiful world of imagination as opposed to the sordid reality of his day.His leading principle is “beauty is truth, truth is beauty.” That is, “What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth, whether it existed before or not said by the poet”.George G. Byron,Percy B. Shelley and John Keats were called positive romantic poets Victorian novelistsThe Victorian period roughly coincides with the reign of Queen Victoria who ruled over England from 1836 to 1901. The period has generally regarded as one of the most glorious in the English history. Victorian literature, as a product of its age, naturally took on its quality of magnitude and diversity. It was many-sided and complex, and reflected both romantically and realistically the great changes that were going on in people’s life and thought. Charlotte Bronte, William Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy were representatives of Victorian novelists.Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855)Jane Eyre is one of the most popular and important novels of the Victorian Age.It is noted for its sharp criticism of the existing society, that is, the religious hypocrisy of charity institutions. The social discrimination Jane experiences first as a dependent at her aunt’s house and later as a governess at Thornfield, and the false social conversation as concerning love and marriage.At the same time, 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.Jane Eyre, taking the form of autobiographies written by authoritative and reliable narrators tellsa story of a child’s development and maturation.➢Helen Burns’ death recalls the death of Charlotte’s sisters at Cowan Bridge.➢It is a work of critical realism as well as the first and one of the most popular works of the working middle- class women.➢Jane’s experience originates from Charlotte’s own experience. It is the first governess novel in the history of English literature.➢Jane is an orphan who grows up lonely without anybody caring for her.➢Jane is a small, plain and poor governess of Victorian era instead of the rich, gentle, frail, beauties of the conventional heroine.➢Jane only has an intense feeling, a ready sympathy and a strong sense of equality and independence.Critical Realism1. Time: the middle of the 19th century2. Representatives: Charles Dickens and William Thackeray etc.3. Background: Industrial Revolution (1760 –1840) (employment of machines; extremely wealthy and extremely poor; unemployment); Chartist movement (1838 –1848) (宪章运动; workers’ unions to require for political rights; The People’s Charter; several petitions to Parliament but failed; great influence to the society)4. Features➢introduction of a new set of characters from the working class➢strong hatred for vices existing in the society➢an illusion of bringing about social justice and harmony by reforms➢an interest in the theme of woman emancipation (mainly Charlotte Bronte)Charles Dickens (1812-1870)He is one of the greatest critical realist writers of the Victorian Age, “the expression of the conscience of his age”. In 1837, the publication of The Posthumous Papers of Pickwick Club lifted him into a position of fame and fortune.Dickens is one of the greatest critical realist writers of the Victorian Age. It is his serious intention to expose and criticize in his works all the property, injustice, hypocrisy and corruptness he sees all around him. Dickens is a humorist. To match his humorous genius, Dickens is also noted for his picture of pathos. Dickens’ works are also characterized by a mingling of humor and pathos. He seems to believe that life is itself a mixture of joy and grief. Life is delightful because it is at once comic and tragic.The first child hero Dickens created was Oliver Twist.Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)Thomas Hardy is one of the greatest literary figures of the 19th century, “Shakespeare of British novels”, “the greatest tra gedy master of British fictions”.His literary genius is apparent in his poems and novels. His novels had an indelible impact during his time and also till date many of his novels inspire theatre productions as well as films. His novels, which reflect the Victorian society with all its idiosyncrasies, were perceived as irreligious. Nevertheless, current scholars believe Hardy to be one of the greatest tragic novelists of English literature.The theme of Tess of the D’Urbervilles➢ A fierce attack on the hypocritical morality of the bourgeois society➢The capitalist invasion into the country and destruction of the English peasantry➢Tess as a pure woman is a bused and destroyed by both Alec and Angel, agents of the destructive force of the societyModernismModernism is an omnibus term for a number of tendencies in the arts which were prominent in the first half of the 20th century; in English literature, it is particularly associated with the writings of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, W. B. Yeats and F. M. Ford. Broadly,Modernism reflects the impact upon literature of the psychology of Freud and the anthropology of Sir J. Frazer. A sense of cultural relativism is pervasive in much modernist writing, as is an awareness of the irrational and the workings of the unconscious mind. Technically, it was marked by a persistent experimentalism. It rejected the traditional framework of narrative, description, and rational exposition in poetry and prose, in favor of stream-of-consciousness presentation of personality, a dependence on the poetic image as the essential vehicle of aesthetic communication, and upon myth as a characteristic structural principle.➢It takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base.➢Concentrate more the private than the public, more on subjective than the objective➢More concerned with the inner being of an individualMain writers of ModernismOscar Wilde (1854-1900); George Bernard Shaw (1854-1900); T. S. Eliot(1888-1965); James Joyce(1882-1941); D.H. Lawrence (1879-1970); Virginia Woolf(1882-1930)Robert BrowningRobert Browning is famous for his Dramatic Monologue.Oscar WildeKnown for his barbed and clever wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day.Art for Art’s SakeArt for Art’s Sake is the theory that the fine arts are independent of social-historical reality and have nothing to do with moral or religious purposes. A work of art is free to seek beauty and its values are aesthetic. Oscar Wilde is a most famous writer practicing this theory.George Bernard ShawA brilliant dramatistHe regarded the establishment of socialism by the emancipation of land and industrial capital from individual and class ownership as the final goal. He was against the means of violent revolution or armed struggle in achieving the goal of socialism; he also had a distrust of the uneducated working class in fighting against capitalists. He held that only those superior intellects could have the ability to shoulder this task. And it was his ideal to bring about evolutionary socialism by legal and democratic means, by revealing the evil capitalists and by educating the common people.This reformist view caused him a painful, conscious, inner conflict between his sincere desire for the new world and his inability to break out of the snobbish intellectual isolation throughout his life and work.On literature, he was against “art for art’s sake” and thought that a rt should serve social purposes by reflecting human life, revealing social contradictions and educating the common people. Shaw followed the great traditions of realism. As a realistic dramatist, he took the modern social issues as his subjects with the aim of directing social reforms. Most of his plays are concerned with political, economic, moral, or religious problems, thus can be termed as problem plays.One feature of Shaw’s characterization is that he makes the trick of showing up one character vividly at the expense of another. His plays have plots but they do not work by plots, the plot is usually the disregarded backbone to one long, unbroken conversation. It is the vitality of the talk that takes primacy over mere story.Problem play: a play that explores a controversial social issue of its day.T. S. EliotAchievementT. S. Eliot was the most dominant literary figure between the two world wars. Poet William Carlos Williams describes the effect of The Waste Land as that of an atom bomb. He conceives a poem as an object, an organic thing in itself, demanding a fusion and concentration of intellect, feeling, and experience. He suggests that, through cultural memory, a poet unconsciously continues the tradition of his culture. His poetry presents difficulties of numerous allusions, use offoreign language, use of metaphysical conceit, and an absence of obvious narrative structure. The Waste Land, considered being a remarkable and extraordinary achievement, deals with the failure of Western civilization as shown by World War I.styleEliot’s style in the Waste Land was delibe rately impersonal, concrete, fragmentary, and discontinuous. (1) Impersonality means that an author does not express his own experience and emotion. At least, he does not voice it as his own, but describes things, invents, characters, or creates dramatic scenes, and thus embodies emotion objectively in the particulars he renders. (2) These particulars are concrete in the sense that they render sensations and actions as opposed to general ideas. (3) But in the Waste Land such concrete particulars are only fragments. The poem does not give complete descriptions, quotations, conversations, or actions, but only bits and pieces of them. (4)Such fragments are juxtaposed in unpredictable ways, and since each presents a different voice, action, emotion, and style, their sequence is at first disorienting (confusing). Gradually one finds interrelations within this discontinuity, but the interrelation is by leitmotifs (主旋律）.。
