文学史

Terms required to remember1.Ode:颂歌A long, stately lyric poem in stanzas of varied metrical pattern, written in a dignified formal style on some lofty or serious subject. Odes are often written for a special occasion, to honor a person or a season or commemorate an event. Two famous odes are Percy Bysshe Shelley‟s “ Ode to the West wind” and John Keats‟s Ode on a Grecian Urn.” The English odes fall into 3 categories: Pindaric ode; Cowleyan ode and Horatian ode. Shelley‟s ode is of Horatian type.ke poets:湖畔诗人The Lake Poets all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. As a group, they belonged to the first generation of the Romantic poets, represented by William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridgeand Robert Southey.3.Byronic hero:拜伦式英雄As a leading Romanticist, Byron’s chief contribution is his creation of the “Byronic hero”, a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin and. This idealized but flawed character pervades much of Byron’s work and appears first in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. 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 world, 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.4. Utilitarianism功利主义In the Victorian age, 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-classed industrialists, whose greed drove them to exploiting workers to the utmost and brought greater suffering and poverty to the working mass.5. dramatic monologue:戏剧独白a poem in which a single speaker who is not the poet utters the entire poem to a silent …audience‟ of one or more persons at a critical moment. The speaker has a listener within the poem, but wetoo are his/her listeners, and we learn about the speaker's character from what the speaker says. In fact, the speaker may reveal unintentionally certain aspects of his/her character.6. Aestheticism:唯美主义Aestheticism is a Victorian literary movement that was begun in the late 19th century. Followers of the movement believed that art should not be mixed with social, political, or moral teaching. Walter Pater‟s statement “the love of art for its own sake” is a good summary of aestheticism. The movement had its roots in France, but it gained widespread importance in England in the last half of the nineteenth century, where it helped change the Victorian practice of including moral lessons in literature.7. Stream of Consciousness:意识流The continuous flow of sense-perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories in the human mind; or a literary method of representing such a blending of mental processes in fictional characters, usually in an unpunctuated or disjoined form of interior monologue.II. Key facts1.Age of Romanticism(1) Time: 1798 (publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge) to 1832 (death of Sir Walter Scott)时间：1798年出版了由华兹华斯和柯勒律治合著的《抒情歌谣集》1832年瓦尔特斯科特爵士之死(2) Essence: shift from reason to emotion本质：理性到感性(3) Historical BackgroundFrench Revolution (1789 Bastille) and English Industrial Revolution (end of the 18th century)".历史背景：法国革命（1798巴士底狱）和英国工业革命（18世纪末）(4)Feature: An age of poetry.特征：诗歌的时代(5)*lake poets: three poets including William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge and Robert Southey湖畔诗人：威廉华兹华斯，塞缪尔柯勒律治，罗伯特骚塞2.William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)(1) Two categories according to themeHe is mainly famous for his poems on nature, such as "I wandered lonely as a cloud".He also wrote lots of poems on common people's life, such as "The solitary reaper", "She dwelt among the untrodden way"3.John Keats (1795 - 1821)Keats wrote some nice long poems, but he was mainly famous for his short poems, and he is known as a sensuous poet.感性4.George Gordon ByronSelected poem: She Walks in BeautyA. Background: Byron's most famous lyrical poem抒情诗; wrote for his beautiful cousin Mrs1 Wilmot Horton威利霍顿; taken from Hebrew MelodiesB. (Discussion) In the first stanza, the author used a simile明喻to describe the woman's beauty. "night of cloudless climes and starry skies"; because the woman wore a black mourning gown brightened with spangles闪光的饰片.5.Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792--1822)雪莱(1)terzarima三行体: iambic pentameter lines arranged in tercets in which line 2 of each tercet rhymes with 1 and 3 of the next, thus: aba bcbcdcdedee with a final couplet ee.(2)What does the west wind in the poem signify意味(Answer) the great revolution force which can destroy all existing vices缺陷in human world6. Jane Austen (1775 – 1817)The first famous English female writer. She lived in the Romantic Age but her novels were anti-romantic. A Romantic novelist but is impressed with neo-classic strains新古典. The major themes of her works are love and marriage.作品：Sense and Sensibility理智与情感Pride and Prejudice傲慢与偏见Mansfield Park曼斯菲尔德花园Emma爱玛Persuasion《劝告》Mansfield park presents the antithesis of worldliness and unworldliness; emma gives the thought over s elf-deceptivevanity; and persuasion contrasts the true love with the prudential calculations.《曼斯菲尔德花园》表现了世俗与非世俗的并存;《爱玛》对自欺欺人的虚荣心给予了反思;《劝告》将真挚爱情与精打细算进行了对照.7.. Critical Realism(1) Time: the middle of the 19th century, coincides with the reign of Queen Victoria, thus called Victorian Age(2) Representatives: Charles Dickens ,William Thackeray威廉·萨克雷and George Eliot乔治艾略特etc.(3) 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 reformsAn age of novels.8. Charles Dickens (1812-1870)(1) He is the greatest representative of English critical realism a nd he was called “the expression of the conscience of his age”.(2) Features of Charles Dickens‟ novelsa. A tendency to depict the grotesque怪诞的characters (His characters always have peculiar habits, manners or behaviors) (such as Micawber)b. Believing in social reforms to change the world, thus sometimes created unnatural happy ending for his novelsc. Delicate structure and plot (well-designed and attractive)d. Good at depicting pathetic scenes to arouse sympathye. Good at using rhetorical devices修辞手法to make his language vivid and humorous(3)Three stages of his literary lifeA. 1836—1841, the first period, Period of youthful optimist: fun, high spirit, naive optimismB. 1842-1850, the second period-- Period of excitement, irritation and frustrationC. The third period, a Period of steadily intensifying pessimism, showing underlying tone of bitterness, loss of hope for English bourgeois society9.The Bronte Sisters勃朗特姐妹(1)The Bronte Sisters Charlotte Bronte (39 years), Emily Bronte (30 years) and Anne Bronte (29 years)(2)Charlotte wrote 4 novels; Emily 1 novel (Wuthering Heights) and Anne 2 novels.(3)The success of the novel Jane Eyre also due to its introduction to the English novel the first governess heroine Jane Eyre.(4)Jane Eyre is a work of critical realism as well as the first and one of the most popular works of the working middle- class women. It is the first governess novel in the history of English literature.10. Alfred Tennyson艾尔弗雷德丁尼生(1) The second half of the 19th century in England produced a number of outstanding poets such as Alfred Tennyson, Robeert Browning罗伯特·布朗宁, Charles Swinburn and others. The two greatest English poets: Browning & Tennyson. Their poetry was characterized by experiments with new styles and new ways of expression.(2) Alfred Tennyson, English poet often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry. Tennyson succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850.(3) His short lyric抒情诗体Break, Break, Break is written in memory of Tennyson's best friend, Arthur Hallam, whose death has a lifelong influence on the poet.11. Robert Browningnoted for his mastery of dramatic monologue（戏剧）独白. His poetry belongs to the 20th-century rather than to the Victorian age. It is in Browning‟s hands that “dramatic monologue”reaches its maturity and perfection. “My Last Duchess”我已故的公爵夫人is Browning‟s best-known dramatic monologue.12.Thomas Hardy 托马斯胡德(1) Thomas Hardy is one of the most important novelists in the Victorian Era and the first important poet in the 20th century. Hardy is a transitional figure between the Victorian Age and the 20th century. In many ways, he belonged more to the 20th century than to the 19th century. (2) Hardy’s novels are all Victorian in date. Most of them are set in Wessex威塞克斯, the fictional primitive and crude rural region which is really the home place he both loves and hates. They are known for the vivid description of the vicissitudes变迁of people who live in an agricultural setting menaced威胁by the forces of invading capitalism.(3) Unlike Dickens, most of Hardy‟s novels are tragic. The cause of tragedy is not man‟s own behavior or his own fault but the supernatural forces that rule his fate.(4) Hardy himself divided his novels into three groups:1). Romances and Fantasies2). Novels of Ingenuity独创性3). Novels of Character and Environment13. Oscar Wilde奥斯卡王尔德He was a spokesman for the late 19th-century Aesthetic美学movement in England, which advocated art for art's sake; and he was the object of celebrated civil and criminal suits involving homosexuality and ending in his imprisonment关押.Aestheticism唯美主义is a Victorian literary movement that was begun in the late 19th century. The movement had its roots in France, but it gained widespread importance in England in the last half of the nineteenth century, where it helped change the Victorian practice of including moral lessons in literature.Wilde's greatest successes were his society comedies. Within the conventions of the French “well-made play”(with its social intrigues and artificial devices to resolve conflict), he employed his paradoxical矛盾的, epigrammatic警句式wit to create a form of comedy new to the 19th-century English theatre.14. George Bernard Shaw乔治萧伯纳the greatest critical realistic playwright in the 20th century England.15.Modernist Novelists1) James Joyce詹姆斯乔伊斯, Virginia Woolf 弗吉尼亚沃尔夫, and D.H. Lawrence D.H劳伦斯are the three best known among the modernist novelists.2) D.H. Lawrence is one of the very original and controversial writers of the early 20th century. He is traditional in form, but “avant-garde”先锋派的in exploration of the sexual relationships.3) Lawrence‟s novels are known for Oedipal恋母情结的anxieties and sometimes explicit明确的descriptions of sexual relationships, a rarity稀有in literature at the time and shocking to his contemporaries同代人.4) Lawrence was one of the first novelists to introduce themes of psychology into his works.5) James Joyce is one of the most innovative novelists of the 20th century and one of the great masters of “the stream of consciousness”6)Woolf and Joyce are the most gifted and innovative of the stream of consciousness 意识流novelistsThe pride and Prejudice傲慢与偏见I wondered lonely as a cloud 我好似一朵孤独的流云The solitary Reaper 孤独的割麦女She walks in Beauty 她走在美的光彩中Ode to the west wind 西风颂Ode on a Grecian Urn 夜莺颂My Last Duchess 我已故的公爵夫人。