英国文学简史重点笔记(1-4章)
（南开大学出版社 常耀信版）
Chapter 1 The old English period
Beowulf
作品特点及历史意义：1. The only organic whole poem to come out of the Anglo-Saxon period. 2. epic(史诗). 3. The story takes place in Scandinavia, there is no mention of England.
作品概述：two part narrative-Beowulf’s fight with the sea-monsters Grendel and his mother; his killing a fiery dragon and his death. 写作特点：1. Pagan story has an Christian overlay.
2. using of kenning(一种描写手法)。e.g.: sea is often “swan’s way” or “whale-path”
3.conspicious occurrence of alliteration(头韵). 4. story’s disgressive manner of narration. 5. elevated tone.
Chapter 2 Chaucer. The pre-Elizabethan Period. More
Geoffrey Chaucer
代表作：The Canterbury Tales
作家：1. first preeminent English poet. 2. Chaucer was the first most significant poet in English literary history to write in Middle English. 3. a master of realism. 作品：Canterbury Tales:主要内容：a collection of 20-odd stories, 4 fragments.
作品特点：1. substance is from others, the telling is Chaucer’s own. 2. enormous sense of humor. 3.loyalty to reality. Offers such a panorama (全景)of social life. 4. infinite (无限的)sense if humanity.
Thomas More
代表作：Utopia
作家：a humanist. He witnessed the evils of the future of the world and sought to help mend things.
作品：Utopia:主要内容：1. consist of two book with emphasis on book two in which the Utopian weal republic is described in detail. 2. book two has 9 sections: section 1: geographic contours. Section 2: city life. Section 3: administration of the country. Section4: lifestyle. Section5: family structure. Section6: utopia travel. Section 7: bondmen. Section 8: attitude towards war. Section 9: religion.
作品特点：1. nothing private in Utopia, no one has anything, yet every
is rich. Offers best ideal social system possible. 2. some problems: strict adherence to conformity; slave system; super power politics; male-dominated.
Chapter 3 The Elizabethan Age. Spenser. Sidney. Marlowe
Edmund Spenser
代表作：The Faerie Queene; The Shepheardes Calendar.
作家：a non-dramatic poet; of Queen Elizabeth’s period; read and loved Chaucer and
saw him as his pattern in literary creation.
作品：The Shepheardes Calendar: 主要内容：1. consists of 12 pastoral eclogues(田
园牧歌)，one for each month of the year. 2. Dialogues between shepherds or of soliloquies, the everyday life of country people, their feelings and attitudes, and their simple life of harmony with nature. 3. around with such observations on the religious strife and political turbulence of his day.
作品特点：1. full of archaic(古代的) or
“Chaucerian” words, bring into relief a rustic（乡村的，纯朴的） effect.
2. The eclogues in the Calendar
fall into three groups-plaintive, recreative, and moral.
The Faerie Queene: 主要内容：1. praise of ElizabethⅠ’s England in itself.
2. Consistent of six books and a fragment of the seventh book. 3. tell respectively about the Red Cross Knight of Holiness, the Knight of Temperance, the legend of chastity, that of friendship, the Knight of Justice, and the Knight of Courtesy.
作品特点：1. Courageous experimentation with the
meters. Special rhyme scheme of the Spenserian sonnets , and in the Spenserian stanza.
Marlowe
代表作：The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus; The Jew of Malta 作家：The most preeminent figure among the University wits. 作品：The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus: 主要内容：1. first part of the play tells
of Faustus’s dissatisfactionwith earthly knowledge and of his part with the devil.2. second part about his satisfaction with his newly acquired knowledge and power. 3.The third part soul being dragged down to hell, tries to pray to God’s save.
作品特点：1. famous both for its
thematic and formal features. 2. Thematically, Faustus represents the archetypal Renaissance humanist of 16th century, and a supreme specimen of Everyman for all time.3.
Formally, uses some dramatic devices like the choruses.
Chapter4
Shakespeare
主要作品：sonnets, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant
of Venice, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
作品：sonnets: 154 in total
Theme: 1. love, passion, and sparks of wisdom. 2.clear vision of life
and people. 3. Renaissance paean of man. 4. a faithful record of the mood and tenor of the times.
Style: grace in form, depth in thought, and vivacity in tone.
Plays: first period: generally happy and cheerful. All dramas this period end
happily.
Second period: frustration, tragic period. All his major tragedies were
written within the space of a few years.
Last period: acceptance of the inevitability of life.
特点：1. highly moral. Evil be punished and good rewarded. 2. wisdom and profound philosophy. 3. tolerant of human foibles and faults
4. avoids the use of just one color-pure black or white 5. comic element alongside the serious. 6. sense of individual worth.
7. borrows from existing works but revises and makes them
substantially and superior.
Bacon
代表作品：Essays
作品特点：wisdom and his unique style.
Intimate knowledge of human nature
(完整版)常耀信英国文学简史笔记1-4章
