应用必背单元Chapter 1 The Renaissance Period (2)Chapter 2 The Neoclassical Period (6)Chapter3 The Romantic Period (9)Chapter 4 The Victorian Period (14)Chapter 5 The Modern Period (18)Chapter 1 The Renaissance Period1.文艺复兴的主要作家及其作品1)Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queene2)Christopher Marlowe: Dr Faustus Tamburlaine3)William Shakespeare: Henry IV; The Merchant of Venice; Hamlet; Othello;King Lear; Macbeth; Romeo and Juliet.4)John Donne: The Songs and Sonnets; The Sun Rising; Death, Be Not Proud5)John Milton: Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained; Samson Agonisttes2.文艺复兴The Renaissance 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 form the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.3.人文主义Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique authors and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on such a conception that man is the measure of all things. Thus, by emphasizing the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, they 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 to perform wonders.4.玄学诗The term “metaphysical poetry” is commonly used to name the work of the 17th-century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne. With a rebellious spirit the metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. The diction is simple as compared with that of the Elizabethan or the Neoclassic periods, and echoes the words and cadences of common speech. The imagery is drawn from the actual life. The form is frequently that of an argument with the poet’s beloved, with God, or with himself.5.莎士比亚的诗歌的主题、意向Shakespeare, as a humanist of the time, is against religious persecution and racial discrimination, against social inequality and the corrupting influence of gold and money. In his plays, he does not hesitate to describe the cruelty and anti-natural character of the civil wars, but he did not go all the way against the feudal rule. Shakespeare is against religious persecution and racial discrimination, against social inequality and the corrupting influence of gold and money.Shakespeare has accepted the Renaissance views on literature. He holds that literature should be a combination of beauty, kindness and truth, and should reflect nature and reality.A.Shakespeare’s views on literature:Shakespeare has accepted the Renaissance views on literature. He holds that literature should be a combination of beauty, kindness and truth, and should reflect nature and reality. Shakespeare also states that literary works which have truly reflected nature and reality can reach immortality.B.The characteristics of Shakespeare’s characters: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.C.The characteristics of Shakespeare’s plot: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.D.The characteristics of Shakespeare’s language:It is necessary to study the subtlest of his instruments—the language. Shakespeare can write skillfully in different poetic form, like the sonnet, the blank verse, and the rhymed couplet. He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary and idiom. His coinage of new words and distortion of the meaning of the old ones also create striking effects on the reader.3. 莎士比亚的四大悲剧：Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies are: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and 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 action. Each hero has his weakness of nature. With the concentration on the tragic hero, we see the sharp conflicts between the individual and the evil force in the society, which shows that Shakespeare is a great realist in the true sense. Hamlet the melancholic scholar; 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; and Macbeth’s lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to incessant crimes.4. 邓恩诗歌的主题、意向<The Songs and Sonnets>. Love is the basic theme. Donne holds that the nature of love is the union of soul and body. The perfection of human lovers will not be made with souls alone. This thought is quite contrary to the medieval love idea which merely put stress on spiritual love. Donne’s interest lies in dramatizing and illustrating the state of being in love.5.戏剧《威尼斯商人》的主题和主要人物的性格分析In his romantic comedies, Shakespeare takes an optimistic attitude toward love and youth, and the romantic elements are brought into full play. The most important play among the comedies is The Merchant of Venice. The sophistication derives in part from the play between high, outgoing romance and dark forces of negativity and hate. The traditional theme of this play is to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable greed and brutality of the Jew.Compared with the idealism of other plays, The Merchant of Venice takes a step forward in its realistic presentation of human nature and human conflict. Though there is a ridiculous touch on the part of the characters restrained by their limitations, Shakespeare’s youthful Renaissance spirit of jollity can be fully seen in contrast to the medieval emphasis on future life in the next world.6.哈姆雷特的性格分析Hamlet has none of the single-minded blood lust of the earlier revenger. It is not because he is incapable of action, but because the cast of his mind is so speculative, so questioning, and so contemplative that action, when it finally comes, seems almost like defeat, diminishing rather than adding to the stature of the here. Trapped in a night mare world of spying, testing and plotting, and apparently bearing the intolerable burden of the duty to revenge his father’s death, Hamlet is obliged to inhabit a shadow world, to live suspended between fact and fiction, language and action. His life is one of constant role-playing, examining the nature of action only to deny its possibility, for he is too sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger.The hero Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is noted for his hesitation to take his revenge, his melancholy nature of action only to deny possibilities to do anything. He came to know that his father was murdered by his uncle who became king. He hated him so deeply that he wanted to kill him. But he loved his widowed mother who later married his uncle, and he was afraid to hurt his mother. And also, when everything was ready for him to kill his uncle, he forgave him for his uncle was praying to God for his crime. Thus he lost the good chance. Hamlet represented humanism of his time.7.诗歌《失乐园》的结构、人物性格、语言特点的分析Working through the tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote Paradise Lost, intending to expose the ways of Satan and to “justify the ways of God to men.”At the center of the conflict between human love and spiritual duty lies Milton’s fundamental concern with freedom and choice; the freedom to submit to God’s prohibition on eating the apple and the choice of disobedience made for love.Eve, seduced by Satan’s rhetoric and her own confused ambition-as well as the mere prompting of hunger- falls into sin through innocent credulity. Adam falls by consciously choosing human love rather than obeying God. In the fall of man Adam discovered his full humanity. But man’s fall is the sequel to another and more stupendous tragedy, the fall of the angels.The freedom of the will is the keystone of Milton’s creed. His poem attempts to convince us that the unquestionable truth of Biblical revelation means that an all-knowing God was just in allowing Adam and Eve to be tempted and, of their free will, to choose sin and its inevitable punishment. And, thereby, it opens the way for the voluntary sacrifice of Christ which showed the mercy of God in bringing good out of evil.Chapter 2 The Neoclassical Period1.新古典时期的作家及其作品1)John Bunyan ：<The Pilgrim's Progress>2)Alexander Pope：<An Essay on Criticism> <The Dunciad> <TheRape of the Lock> <An Essay on Man>3)Daniel Defoe：<Robinson Crusoe>4)Jonathan Swift：<A Tale of a Tub> <The Battle of the Books> <TheDrapier's Letters> <Gulliver's Travels> <A Modest Proposal>5)Henry Fielding：<The History of Jonathan Wild the Great> <The History ofTom Jones a Foundling> <The History of Amelia>6)Samuel Johnson：<To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chester field>7)Richard Brinsley Sheridan：<The School for Scandal>8)Thomas Gray ：<Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard>2.启蒙运动The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept through the whole Western Europe at the time. The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. They believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity. They seek proportion, unity, harmony and grace in literary expressions, in an effort to delight, instruct and correct human beings. Thus a polite, elegant, witty, and intellectual art developed.3.新古典主义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. According to neoclassical period, all forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers(Homer etc) and those of the contemporary French ones. They believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity.4.英雄双行诗Prose should be precise, direct, smooth and flexible; Poetry should be lyrical(抒情的), epical（叙事诗的, 英雄的, 有重大历史意义的）,didactic, satiric or dramatic, and 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 and action should be strictly observed; regularity in construction should be adhered to, and type characters rather than individuals should be represented.5.英国现实主义小说The modern English novel, which, contrary to the traditional romance of aristocrats, gives a realistic presentation of life of the common English people. Thus —the most significant phenomenon in the history of the development of English literature in the eighteenth century —is a natural product of the Industrial Revolution and a symbol of the growing importance and strength of the English middle class.6.《天国历程》中“名利场”的寓意The Pilgrim's Progress is the most successful religious allegory in the English language. Its purpose is to urge people to abide(v.遵守，坚持) by Christian doctrines and seek salvation through constant struggles with their own weaknesses and all kinds of social evils. It is not only about something spiritual but also bears much relevance to the time. Its predominant metaphor(n寓意，隐喻)—life as a journey—is simple and familiar.7.蒲伯的文学(诗歌)批评观点及其诗歌特色An Essay on Criticism, the poem, as a comprehensive study of the theories of literary criticism, exert great influence upon Pope's contemporary writers in advocating the classical rules and popularizing the neoclassicist tradition in England. The whole poem is written in a plain style, hardly containing any imagery or eloquence and therefore makes easy reading. Pope satirized all sorts of false learning and pedantry in literature, philosophy, science and other branches of knowledge.8.鲁滨逊漂流记的特点The all-powerful influence of material circumstances or social environment upon the thoughts and actions of the hero or the heroine is highlighted. The struggle of the poor unfortunate for mere existence, mixed with their desire for great wealth, comes into conflict with the social environment which prevents them from obtaining the goal under normal circumstances and thus forces them into criminal actions or bold adventures.In most of his works, he gave his praise to the hard-working, sturdy middle class and showed his sympathy for the downtrodden, unfortunate poor.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(n雏形，范例，原型)of the empire builder, the pioneer colonist. In describing Robinson's life on the island, Defoe glorifies(v赞美，美化) human labor and the Puritan(n清教徒) fortitude(n刚/坚毅，不屈不挠), which save Robinson from despair and are a source of pride and happiness9.《格列佛游记》的社会讽刺As a whole, the book is one of the most effective and devastating criticisms 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 exaggerated smallness in Part1 works just as effectively as the exaggerated largeness in Part 2. the similarities between human beings and the Lilliputians and the contrast between the Brobdingnagians and human beings both bear reference to the possibilities of human state. Part 3, though seemingly a bit random, furthers the criticism of the western civilization and deals with different malpractices and false illusions about science philosophy, history and even immortality. The last part, where comparison is made through both similarities and differences, leads the reader to fundamental question: What on earth is a human being、10.菲尔丁“散文体史诗Fielding was the first to set out, both in theory and practice, to write specifically a "comic epic in prose". He adopted" the third—person narration," in which the author becomes the "all—knowing God." He "thinks the thought " of all his characters, so he is able to present not only their external behaviours but also the internal workings of their minds. In planning his stories, he tries to retain the grand epical form of the classical works but at the same time keeps faithful to his realistic presentation of common life as it is.11.格雷诗歌的主题与意象It is more or less(或多或少) connected with the melancholy event of death of Richard West, Gray's intimate friend. In this poem, Gray reflects on death, the sorrows of life, and the mysteries of human life with a touch of his personal melancholy. The poet compares the common folk with the great ones, wondering what the commons could have achieved if they had had the chance. Here he reveals his sympathy for the poor and the unknown, but mocks the great ones who despise the poor and bring havoc(n/v破坏，混乱) on them.His poems, as a whole, are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentation or meditation on life, past and present. His poems are characterized by an exquisite sense of form. His style is sophisticated and allusive. His poems are often marked with the trait (n特征，特点)of a highly artificial diction and a distorted word order.Chapter3 The Romantic Period1.浪漫主义时期的作家及其作品1)William Blake: Songs of Experience Songs of Innocence2)Marriage of Heaven and Hell3)William Wordsworth: The Prelude Composed upon Westminster Bridge4)Lyrical Ballads I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud5)The Solitary Reaper6)Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Kubla Khan The Rime of the Ancient Mariner7)George Gordon Byron: Don Juan Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage8)Song for the Ludites9)Percy Bysshe Shelley: To a Skylark Men of England10)Ode to the West Wind11)John Keats: Ode to a Nightingale Ode on a Grecian Urn12)Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice2.浪漫主义Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit. In essence it designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and all experience. It also places the individual at center of art, making literature most valuable as an expression of his or her unique feelings and particular attitudes, and valuing its accuracy in portraying the individual’s experiences.3.浪漫主义时期文学特点的分析A.In poetry writing, the romanticists employed new theories and innovated newtechniques, for example, the preface to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads acts as a manifesto for the new school.B.The romanticists not only extol the faculty off imagination, but also elevate theconcepts of spontaneity and inspiration.C.They regarded nature as the major source of poetic imagery and the dominantsubject.D.Romantics also tend to be nationalistic.4.浪漫主义（所选作品）的主题、意象分析A. To Wordsworth, nature acts as a substitute for imaginative and intellectual engagement with the development of embodied human beings in their diverse circumstances. It’s nature that gives him “strength and knowledge full of peace.Wordsworth thinks that common life is the only subject of literary interest. The joys and sorrows of the common people are his themes. His sympathy always goes to the suffering poor.B. Byron puts into Don Juan his rich knowledge of the world and the wisdom gained from experience. It presents brilliant pictures of life in its various stages of love, joy, suffering, hatred and fear. The unifying principle in Don Juan is the basic ironic theme of appearance and reality, ie. what things seem to be and what they actually are. Byron’s satire on the English society in the later part of the poem can be compared with Pope’s; and his satire is much less personal than that of Pope’s, for Byron is here attacking not a personal enemy but the whole hypocritical society. And the diverse materials and the clash of emotions gathered in the poem are harmonized by Byron’s insight into the difference between life’s appearance and its actuality.5. a. The Romantic MovementIt expressed a more or less negative attitude towards the existing social & political conditions that came with industrialization & the growing importance of the bourgeoisie. The Romantics felt that the existing society denied people their essential human needs, so they demonstrated a strong reaction against the dominant modes of thinking of the 18th-century writers & philosophers. Where their predecessors saw man as a social animal, the Romantics saw him essentially as an individual in the solitary state & emphasized the special qualities of each individual's mind. Romanticism actually constitutes a change of direction from attention to the outer.b. The Gothic novelIt is a type of romantic fiction that predominated in the late 18th century & was one phase of the Romantic movement, its principal elements are violence, horror & the supernatural, which strongly appeal to the reader's emotion. With its descriptions of the dark, irrational side of human nature, the Gothic form has exerted a great influence over the writer of the Romantic period. Works like The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe & Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley are typical Gothic romance.(2) Characteristics of Romantic literature in English history.The Romantic period is an age of poetry Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley & Keats are the major Romantic poets. They started a rebellion against the neoclassical literature, which was later regarded as the poetic revolution. Wordsworth & Coleridge were the major representatives of this movement. They explored new theories & innovated new techniques in poetry writing. They saw poetry as a healing energy: they believed that poetry could purify both individual souls & the society. The Romantics not only extol the faculty of imagination, but also stress the concept of spontaneity & inspiration, regarding them as something crucial for true poetry. The natural world comes to the forefront of the poetic imagination. Nature is not only the major source of poetic imagery, but also provides the dominant subject matter.Wordsworth is the closest to nature.To escape from a world that had became excessively rational, as well as excessively materialistic & ugly, the Romantics would turn to other times & places, where the qualities they valued could be convincingly depicted. Romantics also tend to be nationalistic, defending the great poets & dramatists of their own national heritage against the advocates of classical rules who tended to glorify Rome & rational Italian & French neoclassical art as superior to the native traditions. To the Romantics, poetry should be free from all rules. They would turn to the humble people & their everyday life for subjects, Romantic writers are always seeking for the Absolute, the Ideal through the transcendence of the actual. They have also made bold experiments in poetic language, versification & design, & constructed a variety of forms on original principles of structure & style.6.小说《傲慢与偏见》的主题和主要人物的性格分析Austen's main literary concern is about human beings in their personal relationships. Because of this, her novels have a universal significance. She is particularly preoccupied with the relationship between men & women in love. Stories of love & marriage provide the major themes in all her novels.1) Structure, characterization & language styleThe structure of the novel is exquisitely deft, the characterization in the highest degree memorable, while the irony has a radiant shrewdness unmatched elsewhere. At the heart of the novelist's exploration of the marriage, property & intrigue lies the exhilarating suspense of the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet & Darcy, & Jane Austen's delicate probing of the values of the gentry. The moments of high comedy in the novel are always related to deeper issues. Elizabeth's rejection of the odious Mr. Collins suggests her independence & self-esteem, but when Collins is accepted by her friend Charlotte Lucas, we see the reality of marriage as a necessary step if a woman is to a void the wretchedness of aging spinsterhood. Conversely, in the elopement of Lydia & Wickham, we are shown the dangers of feckless relationships unsupported by money. The comic characters in Pride & Prejudice are: Mr. & Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins & that monstrous snob Lady Catherine de Burgh, who make us laugh even as they parody erroneous views of marriage & class.5. 应用Characteristics of Jane Austen's novels1) Austen's novels describe a narrow range of society & events: a quiet, prosperous, middle class circle in provincial surroundings, which she knew well from her own experience2) Her subject matter is also limited, for most of her novels deal with the subject of getting married, which was in fact the central problem for the young leisure-class lady of that age, who had no other choice in her life but to find a good husband.3) Austen's interest was in human nature; in her depiction of human nature, instead of being fascinated by great waves of elevated emotion, by passion or heroic experience, she focused on the trivial & petty details of everyday living, which became very interesting through her truthful & lively description.4) Austen's novels are brightened by their witty conversation & omnipresent humor. Her language shines with an exquisite touch of lively gracefulness, elegant & refined, but never showy.6. 简奥斯丁对英国文学的伟大贡献：A．J ane Austen is one of the most important Romantic novelists in English literature. She creates six influential novels.B．H er main literary concern is about human beings in their personal relationships. She makes trivial daily life as important as the concerns abouthuman belief career and salient social events. This is what makes herimportant in English literature.C．J ane Austen has brought the English novel, as an art of for, to its maturity because of her sensitivity to universal patterns of human behavior and heraccurate portrayal of human individuals.D．S he describes the world from a woman’s point of view, and depicts a group of authentic and common women.7.Wordsworth的写作风格1)The Lyrical Ballads differs in marked ways from his early poetry,notably the uncompromising simplicity of much of the language, thestrong sympathy not merely with the poor in general but with particular,dramatized examples of them, and the fusion of natural description withexpressions of inward states of mind.2)According to subjects, Wordsworth’s short poems can be classified intotwo groups: poems about nature and poems about human life.3)To Wordsworth, nature acts as a substitute for imaginative andintellectual engagement with the development of embodied humanbeings in their diverse circumstances. It’s nature that gives him “strengthand knowledge full of peace.4)Wordsworth thinks that common life is the only subject of literaryinterest. The joys and sorrows of the common people are his themes. Hissympathy always goes to the suffering poor.5)Wordsworth’s deliberate simplicity ad refusal to decorate the truth ofexperience produced a kind of pure and profound poetry which no otherpoet has ever equaled.8.Romantic poets 与Romantic Age 的不同处：The poetic ideals announced by Words worth and Coleridge provided a major inspiration for the brilliant young writers who made p the second generation of English Romantic poets. Wordsworth and Coleridge both became more conservative politically after the democratic idealism. The second generation of Romantic poets are revolutionary in thinking. They set themselves against the bourgeois society and the ruling class.9.Songs of innocence 与Songs of ExperienceA.Songs of Innocence is a lovely volume of poems, presenting a happy andinnocent world, though not without its evils.B.Songs of Experience paints a different world, a world of misery, disease, warand repression with melancholy tone.C.The two books hold the similar subject-matter, but the tone, emphasis andconclusion differ.Chapter 4 The Victorian Period1．维多利亚时期的主要作家与作品1）Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist; The Pickwick Paper; David Copper field.;Dombey and Son; A Tale of Two Cities; Bleak House; Hard Times;Great Expectation; Our Mutual Friend.2）Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights.Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre3）Alfred Tennyson: Ulysses; In Memoriam; Break, Break, Break;Dora; Crossing the Bar; Morte d’Arthur; The Gardener’s Daughter; The Princess4）Robert Browning: The Ring and the Book; My Last Duchess5）George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss: Middlemarch: Daniel Deronda;Romola6）Thomas Hardy: Under the Greenwood Tree; Far From the Madding Crowd: The Return of the Native; The Mayor of Casterbridge: Tess of the D’Urbervilles1.宪章运动The worsening living and working conditions, the mass unemployment finally gave rise to the Chartist Movement. The English workers got themselves organized in big cities and brought forth the People's charter, in which they demanded basic rights and better living and working conditions. They, for three times, made appeals to the government, with hundreds of thousands of people's signatures. The movement swept over most of the cities in the country. Although the movement declined to an end in 1848, it did bring some improvement to the welfare of the working class. This was the first mass movement of the English working class & the early sign of the awakening of the poor, oppressed people.2.功利主义Almost everything was put to the test by the criterion of utility, that is, the extent to which it could promote the material happiness. This theory held a special appeal to the middle-class industrialists, whose greed drove them to exploiting workers to the utmost and brought greater suffering and poverty to the working mass.。
