英国文学——盎格鲁撒克逊时代PPT课件

人文知识盎格鲁—萨克逊时代5世纪中叶，三支日尔曼部落（Teutonic tribes）朱特人（Jutes）、撒克逊人（Saxons）和盎格鲁人（Angles）不断侵入不列颠。

自此，盎格鲁—萨克逊时代（the Anglo-Saxons）开始了。

住在朱特兰岛（现丹麦南部）上从事打渔农耕的朱特人先抵不列颠，在东南部建立了肯特王国（Kent）。

后来从德国北部来的使用短剑的撒克逊人在埃撒克斯（Essex）、苏塞克斯（Sussex）和威塞克斯（Wessex）建立了王国，统治期从五世纪末至六世纪初。

六世纪后半叶，同样来自德国北部的盎格鲁人，在东盎格利亚（East Anglia）、麦西亚（Mercia）以及诺森伯利来（Northumbria）定居，也分别建立了王国。

朱特人、撒克逊人和盎格鲁人建立的7个王国并称为七王国，在英文中是Heptarchy。

考古学家发现早在3500年前，在不列颠岛上就有人类居住，此后地中海伊比利亚人，比克人，凯尔特人，先后来到不列颠。

1-5世纪英格兰东南部为罗马帝国统治。

罗马人撤走后，欧洲北部的盎格鲁人、萨克逊人、朱特人相继入侵，他们由农夫、渔民、商人、战士和航海者组成，装备精良作战勇猛最终将凯尔特人击败并在此定居，一部分凯尔特人则逃往苏格兰和威尔士的山区，一部分逃往爱尔兰，他们是今天苏格兰人、威尔士人和爱尔兰人的祖先。

７世纪开始形成封建制度，许多小国并成七个王国，争雄达200年之久，称"盎格鲁-撒克逊时代"。

在此之前居住在不列颠岛上的人并不说英语，今天的英国人称他们是盎格鲁-撒克逊人的后代，这些来自欧洲北部的人说的就是最早的古英语。

829年威塞克斯国王爱格伯特统一了英格兰。

8世纪末遭到来自挪威和丹麦的维京海盗（Viking）的入侵（今天的英格兰人和苏格兰人有一部分维京人的血统），1016-1042年为丹麦海盗帝国的一部分。

其后经英王短期统治，1066年诺曼底公爵渡海征服英格兰。

第一部分盎格鲁——撒克逊时期III. 名词解释1. Epic (or Heroic Poetry)It is, originally, an oral narrative poem, majestic both in theme and style. Epics deal with legendary or historical of events of national or universal significance, involving action of broad sweep and grandeur. Most epics deal with the exploits of a single individual, thereby giving unity to the composition. Typically, an epic includes several features: the introduction of supernatural forces that shape the action; conflict in the form of battles or other physical combat; and stylistic conventions such as an invocation to the Muse, a formal statement of the theme, long lists of the protagonists involved, and set speeches couched in elevated language. Commonplace details of everyday life may appear, but they serve as background for the story and are described in the same lofty style as the rest of the poem. Epic poems are not merely entertaining stories of legendary or historical heroes; they summarize and express the nature or ideals of an entire nation at a significant or crucial period of its history. Examples include the ancient Greek epics by the poet Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The characteristics of the hero of an epic are national rather than individual, and the exercise of those traits in heroic deeds serves to gratify a sense of national pride. At other times epics may synthesize the ideals of a great religious or cultural movement. The Divine Comedy by the Italian poet Dante expresses the faith of medieval Christianity. The Faerie Queene by the English poet Edmund Spenser represents the spirit of the Renaissance in English and like Paradise Lost by the English poet John Milton, represents the ideals of Christian humanism.2. AlliterationA repeated initial consonant to successive words. In Old English verse, any vowel alliterates with any others, and alliteration is not an unusual or expressive phenomenon but a regularly recurring structural feature of the verse, occurring on the first and third, and often on the first, second, and third, primary-stressed syllables of the four-stressed line. Thus, from The Seafarer:hreran mid hondum hrincaelde sae(“to stir with his hand the rime-cold sea”)In later English verse tradition, alliteration becomes expressive in a variety of ways. Spenser uses it decoratively, or to link adjective and noun, verb and object, as in the line: “much daunted with that dint, her sense was dased.” In the 18th and 19th centuries it becomes even less systematic and more "musical".IV .1.What is the theme of Beowulf?Beowulf, which centers on the narration of the exploits of the heroic figure Beowulf, is mainly about his three major adventures. It reflects a life of fights and feasting, of ceremony, of brilliant gold and sudden darkness. Here is a world of sacred obligations, feud and vengeance with heroic figures who are proud of their birth and their physical strength. But beyond this, the forces of wyrd (fate) seem to control man's destiny with mysterious omnipotence, while evil itself is both primordial and powerful. However, thematically the poem presents a vivid picture of how the primitive people wage heroic struggles against the hostile forces of the natural world under a wise and mighty leader. The poem is an example of the mingling of nature myths and heroic legends. For those interested in symbols, thesimplest interpretation of the myths in the poem is to regard Beowulf’s successive fights against the three monsters as the overcoming of the hostile forces of nature by man’s indomitable will and perseverance. For instance, the battle between Beowulf and the Dragon symbolically represents that phase of Winter and Summer myth in which the Summer God, here embodied by Beowulf, fights his last battle against the Winter Dragon in order to rescue the treasures of earth, that is, the golden corn and ruddy fruits. Having given them back to men, Beowulf himself dies of the Winter’s breath.2.What is the heroic ideal of Beowulf?Beowulf is essentially an aristocratic poem concerned with the heroic ideal of kings and kingship in North Europe. The social patterns ascribed in the poem are rigidly feudal, highly violent. Battle is a way of life. Strength and courage are basic virtues for both kings and his warriors. The hero-king strove to do better than any one else the things that are vitally important to the happy life of his people. The king should protect his people and show gentleness and generosity to his warriors. And in return, his warriors should show absolute obedience and loyalty to the king. By praising Beowulf's wisdom, strength and courage, and by glorifying his death for his people, the poem presents the heroic ideal of a king and his good relations to his warriors and people.3.What is the structure of Beowulf?According to the contents of the story, the poem can be divided into three parts:Part I: the fight against GrendelPart II: the fight against Grendel’s motherPart III: the fight against DragonBeowulf is an oral poem and for centuries the bards sing it to the people. As it is quite long, the bard could only sing a part of the story each night. Usually he would sing one adventure on the first night about the battle with Grendel. Then on the second night, he would continue and sing about Beowulf's fight against Grendel’s mother. However, there might be some new listeners. So before he came to the second adventure, he would give a short summary about what he sang the night before. And on the third night, he would give a longer summary about what happened on the first two night. There is also a prelude to invent an allusion to the real story. The poem begins with the funeral of a king and rounds up with that of another.4.Give a description of style in Beowulf.“Beowulf”towers above all other literary works written in Anglo-Saxon, chiefly because it is a powerful poem about a people’s hero written in true epic style, and not so much because the other extent writings of the period are mediocre or fragmentary. Beowulf is not simply a man of great military prowess but he is forever eager to help others in distress and in his last adventure with the dragon he shows himself a worthy leader ready to sacrifice his own life for the welfare of his people. Setting aside the supernatural elements pervading the poem as an inevitable limitation of the tribal-feudal age, “Beowulf” deserves to be ranked among the great heroic poems of northern Europe through it has not been as well known as the “Nibelungenlied”. In artistic form the epic tells the tale in a leisurely way, full of elaborations in legendary details, and the verse rises at places to heights of poetic grandeur, particularly in the descriptions of the hero’s nobility ofcharacter and in the narrations of his courageous battlings with malevolent foes.尼伯龙根之歌（Nibelungenlied）是著名的中世纪中古高地德语叙事诗。