英国文学重点评述

英国文学重点评述

British literature

The period of Old English literature extends from about 450 to 1066, the year of the Norman Conquest of England.

Norman Conquest greatly changed English, the language, and England entered the feudal period. The most

prevailing kind of literature in feudal England was the romance. It was a long composition, sometimes in verse,

sometimes in prose, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero. The central character of romances was the

knight, a man of noble birth skilled in the use of weapons. The theme of loyalty to king and lord was repeatedly

emphasized in romances, as loyalty was the cornerstone of feudal morality, without which the whole structure of

feudalism would collapse. Among all these kinds of romances, Beowulf was the most famous one. It is a folk

legend brought to England by Anglo-Saxons from their continental homes. Besides Beowulf, Piers the Plowman is

another famous poem. The poem sets forth a series of wonderful dreams, through which we can see a picture of

feudal England. The author of Piers the Plowman, William Langland, is a more realistic writer who dealt with the

religious and social issues of his day. However, it is Chaucer who, for the first time in English literature, presented

to us a comprehensive realistic picture of the English society of his time and created a whole gallery of vivid

characters from all walks of his life in his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer is the greatest writer of this

period.

The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. Generally, it refers to the period

between the 14th and mid-17th centuries. It first started in Italy, with the flowering of painting, sculpture and

literature. From Italy the movement spread through the rest of Europe. The Renaissance, which means rebirth or

revival, is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the rediscovery of ancient

Roman and Greek culture, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation and the

economic expansion. 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

corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.

The English Renaissance was perhaps England’s Golden Age, especially in literature. Among the literary giants

were Shakespeare, Spenser, Jonson, Sidney, Marlowe, Bacon and Donne. The English Renaissance had no sharp

break with the past. Attitudes and feelings which had been characteristic of the 14th and 15th centuries persisted

well down into the era of Humanism and Reformation. Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. Human

values are greatly emphasized in this period. Thomas More was one of the greatest humanists. His masterpiece is

Utopia. It is divided into two books. The first book contains a long discussion on the social conditions of England.

In the second book, an ideal communist society is described in detail.

From the first half of the 16th century, the English Renaissance began to develop into a flowering of literature and

then England became “a nest of singing birds.” Transition occupied an important place in the English Renaissance.

Another kind of literature prevailing at the time was the large amount of books describing discoveries and

adventures. However, the vigor of the age found better expression in the sphere of poetry and plays. Thousands of

exquisite poems and songs were written by known and unknown poets. The sonnet, an exact form of poetry in 14

lines of iambic pentameter intricately rhymed, was introduced to England from Italy. Sir Philip Sydney is a well-known poet. However, Edmund Spenser was the “poet’s poet” of this period. His masterpiece is The Faerie

Queene. The Faerie Queene is written in a special verse form that consists of eight iambic pentameter lines

followed by a ninth line of six iambic feet, with the rhyme scheme ababbcbcc. This for has since been called the

Spanserian Stanza. Another famous poet is John Milton, whose masterpiece is Paradise Lost.

The highest glory of the English Renaissance was unquestionably its drama. It could be dated back to the Middle

Ages. Interludes and morality plays thriving in the medieval period continued to be popular down to Shakespeare’s

time. But the development of the drama into a sophisticated art form required another influence – the Greek and

Roman classics. The most famous dramatists in the Renaissance England are Christopher Marlowe, William