英美文学重要作家作品复习资料
American Literature
1.Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.
II. Hawthorne’s Puritanism and his black vision of man:
1. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puristans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the church of England.
2. his black vision of man—by the Calvinistic concept of original sin, he believed that human being are evil natured and sinful, and this sin is ever present in human heart and will pass one generation to another.
3. Young Goodman Brown—it shows that everyone has some evil secrets. The innocent and naïve Brown is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and then he becomes distrustful and doubtful. Brown stands for everyone ,who is born pure and has no contact with the real world ,and the prominent people of the village and church. They cover their secrets during daily lives, and under some circumstances such as the witch’s Sabbath, they become what they are. Even his closed wife, Faith, is no exception. So Brown is aged in that night.
III. The symbolism of Melville’s Mobby-Dick
1.The voyage to catch the white whale is the one of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of universe.
2. To Ahab, the whale is an evil creature or the agent of an evil force that control the universe. As to readers, the whale is a symbol of physical limits, or a symbol of nature. It also can stand for the ultimate mystery of the universe and the wall behind which unknown malicious things are hiding.
IV. Whitman and his Leaves of Grass :
1. Theme: sing of the “en-mass” and the self / pursuit of love, happiness, and ***ual love / sometimes about politics (Drum taps)
2. Whitman’s originality first in his use of the poetic form free verse (i.e. poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme),by means of which he becomes conversational and casual.
3.He uses the first person pronoun “I” to stress individualism, and oral language to acquire sympathy from the common reader.
Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Huck is a typical American boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”. He appears to be vulgar in language and in manner, but he is honest and decent in essence. His remarkable raft’s journey down on the Mississippi river can be regarded as his process of education and his way to grow up. At first, he stands by slavery, for he clings to the idea that if he lets go the slave, he will be damned to go to hell. And when the “King” sells Jim for money, Huck decides to inform Jim’s master. After he thinks of the past good time when Jim and he are on the raft where Jim shows great care and deep affection for him, he decide to rescue Jim. And Huck still thinks he is wrong while he is doing the right thing.
Huck is the son of nature and a symbol for freedom and earthly pragmatism. Through the eye of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed. Twain contrasts the life on the river and the life on the banks, the innocence and the experience, the nature and the culture, the wilderness and the civilization.
II. Daisy Miller by Henry James
1. Theme: The novel is a story about American innocence defeated by the stiff, traditional values of Europe. James condemns the American failure to adopt expressive manners intelligently and point out the false believing that a good heart is readily visible to all. The death of Daisy results
from the misunderstanding between people with different cultural backgrounds.
2. The character analysis of Daisy: She represents typical American girl, who is uninformed and without the mature guidance. Ignorance and parental indulgence combine to foster he assertive self-confidence and fierce willfulness. She behaves in the same daring naive way in Europe as she does at home. When someone is against her, she becomes more contrary. She knows that she means no harm and is amazed that anyone should think she does. She does not compromise to the European manners.
3. The character analysis of Winterbourne: He is a Europeanized American, who has live too long in foreign parts. He is very experience and has a problem understanding Daisy. He endeavors to put her in sort of formula, i.e. to classify her.
III. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser:
1. Theme: The author invented the success of Carrie and the downfall of Hurstwood out of an inevitable and natural judgment, because the fittest can survive in a competitive, amoral society according to the social Darwinism.
2. The character analysis of Carrie: She follows the right direction to a pursuit of the American dream, and the circumstances and her desire for a better life direct to the successful goal. But she is not contented, because with wealth and fame, she still finds herself lonely. She is a product of the society, a realization of the theory of the survival of the fittest.
3. The character analysis of Hurstwood: He is a negative evidence of the theory of the survival of the fittest. Because he is still conventional and can not throw away the social morals, he is not fitted to live in New York.
I. Ezra Pound and his theory of Imagism
Imagism is to present an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. An imagistic poem must present the object exactly the way the thing is seen. And the reader can form the image of the object through the process of reading the abstract and concrete words.
II. Frost and his poetry on nature:
Frost is deeply interested in nature and in men’s relationship to nature. Nature appears as an explicator and a mediator for man and serves as the center of reference of his behavior. Peace and order can be found in Frost’s poetical natural world. With surface simplicity of his poems, the thematic concerns are always presented in rich symbols. Therefore his work resists easy interpretation.
III. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his The Great Gatsby
1. Theme: Gatsby is American Everyman. His extraordinary energy and wealth make him pursue the dream. His death in the end points at the truth about the withering of the American Dream. The spiritual and moral sterility that has resulted from the withered American Dream is fully revealed in the article. However, although he is defeated, the dream has gave Gatsby a dignity and a set of qualities. His hope and belief in the promise of future makes him the embodiment of the values of the incorruptible American Dream .
2. The character analysis of Gatsby: Gatsby is great, because he is dignified and ennobled by his dream and his mythic vision of life. He has the desire to repeat the past, the desire for money, and the desire for incarnation of unutterable vision on this material earth. For Gatsby, Daisy is the soul of his dreams. He believe he can regain Daisy and romantically rebels of time. Although he has the wealth that can match with the leisured class, he does not have their manners. His tragedy lies in his possession of a naive sense and chivalry.
IV. Ernest Hemingway’s artistic features:
1. The Hemingway code heroes and grace under pressure:
They have seen the cold world ,and for one cause, they boldly and courageously face the reality. They has an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life. Whatever is the result is, the are ready to live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will never be defeated. Finally, they will be prevail because of their indestructible spirit and courage.
2.The iceberg technique:
Hemingway believe that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action. The one-eighth the is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimensions of the story. Thus, Hemingway’s language is symbolic and suggestive.
V. The character analysis of Emily in A Rose for Emily:
Emily is a symbol of old values, standing for tradition, duty and past glory. But she is also a victim to all those she cares and embrace. The source of Emily’s strangeness is from her born pride and self-esteem, the domineering behavior of her father and the betrayal of her lover. Barricaded in her house, she has frozen the past to protect her dreams. Her life is tragic because the defiance of the community, her refusal to accept the change and her extreme pride have pushed her to abnormality and insanity. English Literature
I. Shakespeare’s sonnets
1. With a few exceptions, Shakespeare writes his sonnets in the popular English form of three quatrains and a couplet. The couplet usually ties the sonnet to one of the general themes, leaving the quatrains free to develop the poetic intensity.
2. The sonnet’s most common themes concern the destructive effects of time, the quickness of physical decay, and the loss of beauty, vigor, and love. Although the poems celebrate life, they are always with a keen awareness of death.
3. His sonnet 18 expresses that beautiful things can rely on the force of literature to reach eternity. Literature is created by man, thus it declares man’s eternity. The poem shows the mighty self-confidence of the newly class. The vivid, variable and rich images reflect the lively and adventurous spirits of those who were opening new world.
II. Shakespeare’s A Merchant of Venice
1. Theme
(1) Justice vs. mercy: Shakespeare suggests that all men should be merciful. There is a further aspect of justice—the injustice revealed in the Christians’ treatment of the Jews.
(2) Appearance vs. reality: e.g. superficial or external beauty vs. moral or spiritual beauty or truth (in the case of three caskets); the letters of law vs. the spirit of the law.
(3) Commercial or material values vs. love: True love is much more worthwhile than money and material values. Antonio epitomizes true love in his friendship for Bassanio.
2. The character analysis of Shylock
Shylock is a Jewish usurer, and he is a tragic-comic character.
He is comic because he finally becomes the one punished by his own evil deed. He is avaricious. He accumulates as much wealth as he can and he even equates his lost daughter with his lost money. He is also cruel. In order to revenge, he would rather claim a pound of flesh from his enemy Antonio than get back his loan.
He is tragic, because he is the victim of the society. As a Jew, he is not treated equally by the society. The law is harsh to him. He has to make as much money as he can in order to protect him. He is abused by Antonio, so he wants to get revenge.
III. The character analysis of Hamlet
Hamlet is a scholar and a warrior. His father has been killed by his uncle, Claudius, who then takes the throne and marries his mother. Hamlet is informed by the ghost of his father to take revenge, but the weakness of indecisiveness or indetermination in his character always delay his action, and finally leads to his tragic fall of death. Hamlet is not a man of action, but a man of thinking at first. He hesitates at some crucial moments. At last when he is forced to take some actions, he does kill Claudius gloriously, but he also sacrifices his own life.
V. Milton’s Paradise Lost :
1.Structure: The story is taken from the Old Testament. It extends chronologically from the exaltation of Christ before the creature of universe to the second coming of Christ. Geographically, it ranges over the entire world.
2. The character analysis of Satan:
He has the strength, the courage and the capacity for leadership, but he devoted all those qualities to evil. His defiance of God shows his egoistic pride, his false conception of freedom, and his
alienation from all good. His own evil and damnation give him potentially tragic dimensions. Therefore, Satan is enveloped in dramatic irony because he fight in ignorance of the unshakable power of God and goodness.
3.Features: Parallel and contrast
The central conflict and contrast between good and evil are intensified by the contrast between heaven and hell, light and darkness, love and hate, reason and passion, etc.
II. The social satire of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
The account of Lilliputian life, especially the games for people at court, alludes to the similar ridiculous practices or tricks in the English government. The description of the competition in the games before the royal members leads to the fact that the success of those government officials such as the Prime Minister lies not in their being any wiser or better but in their being more dexterous in the game. This alludes to the practices in England. And the pompous words singing of the Lilliputian emperor ridicule the aristocratic arrogance and vanity.
V. Henry Fielding and his Tom Jones
It is a good example of “comic epic in prose”. Fielding describes the fight between Molly and the villagers and her fistfight with Goody Brown in the grand style of the Homeric epic. He first of all calls on the Muses to assist him in recounting the fight as if it were of great historical importance. Like Homer who would list names of gods involved in the battle, he lists the names of the villagers. He treats Molly as a great hero at battle, an “Amazonian heroine”. Besides, he uses a mock-epic tone and seems very solemn about what he is describing. He uses formal words and refined language. Finally, he makes use of different figures of speech, particularly, irony and hyperbole.
I. Wordsworth and his “I wandered lonely as a cloud”
The poem is crystal clear and lucid. Below the immediate surface, we find that all the realistic details of the flowers, the trees, the waves, the wind, and all the realistic details of the active joy, are absorbed into an over-all concrete metaphor, the recurrent image of the dance. The flowers, the stars, the waves are units in this dancing pattern of order in diversity, of linked eternal harmony and vitality. Through the revelation and recognition of his kinship with nature, the poet himself becomes as it were a part of the whole cosmic dance.
II. Shelley and his “Ode to the West Wind”
In the poem, Shelley eulogizes the west wind as a powerful phenomenon of nature that is both destroyer and preserver. The wind enjoys boundless freedom and has the power to spread messages far and wide. The keynote in the poem is Shelley’s ever-present wish for himself and his fellow men to share the freedom of the west wind, remembering meanwhile his own and common human miseries. And the dominant mood is that of hope rather than despair, as the poet is hoping for the realization of the freedom and joy. The optimism expressed in the last two lines show the poet’s critical attitude toward the ugly social reality and his faith in a bright future for humanity.
IV. The character analysis of Elizabeth in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Elizabeth is a beautiful young lady in the Bennets. She is intelligent, contrasting her empty-minded, snobbish and vulgar mother. She is a women of distinct character. She is not passive, but pursue her true love bravely. She turns down Mr. Collin’s marriage proposal and seeking her happiness with Darcy, the one she possesses true affection for her. She is also courageous. When Darcy’s aunt lady comes to force her into a promise of never consenting to marry Darcy, she boldly challenges her authority, contempt and arrogance. On the whole, Elizabeth is a typical image of the good, attractive lady in the 19th century.
I. The features of Charles Dickens
1. His critical realism: While sticking to the principle of faithful representation of the 18th-century realist novel, he carried the duty to the criticism of the society and the defense of the mass.
2. He is a master storyteller. With his first sentence, he engages the reader’s attention and holds it
to the end.
3. What he writes is mainly the middle and lower-middle class life in London.
4. He is a master of language with a large vocabulary and an adeptness with the vernacular.
5. He is a great humorist as well as a great painter of pathos. He always mingles the two to make his fictional world realistic.
6. His characters are not only true to life but also large than life. There are both individual characters and type characters.
II. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
1. Theme: The novel sharply criticizes the religious hypocrisy of charity institutions like Lowood School, where girls are trained to be humble slaves. It rebukes the social discrimination and false convention about love and marriage. Besides, the novel is a moral fable. It tells us that people have to go through all kinds of physical or moral tests to obtain their final happiness.
2. The character analysis of Jane Eyre: Jane Eyre is an orphan child with a fiery spirit and a longing to love and be loved. She is poor and plain, but she dares to love her master, a man superior to her in many ways, as a little governess. She is brave enough to declare to the man her love for him. She cuts a completely new women image. She represents those middle-class working women who are struggling for recognition of their basic rights and equality as a human being. I. The features of Shaw’s plays:
1. Problem plays: He took the modern social issues as his subject with the aim of directing social reforms. Most of his plays are concerned with political, economic, or religious problems.
2. In his characterization, he makes the tricks of showing up one character vividly at the expense of another. His characters are the representatives of ideas, which shift and alter during the play.
3. The strong sense of comedy in his play are achieved through his witty dialogues, sharp satires, and vivid portrayal of characters.
II. The theme of Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s profession
1. The play is not only moral, but also has a strong realistic theme. The guilt for prostitution lies more upon the social system than immoral woman. He shows all human sufferings are consequences of the economic exploitation.
2. The play is a spiritual triumph for Vivie who experiences a journey from illusion to reality. At first, she is ignorant of the evil, and through a series of temptations, she understands the capitalist world better.
IV. T. S. Eliot’s “The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Written in the form of monologue, the poem is the song of a being divided between passion and timidity. It is about the impotence and futility of a modern everyman and his existence. Prufrock is an interesting tragic figure. He is a man caught in a sense of defeated idealism and tortured by unsatisfied desire. He does not dare to seek love because even if he could find it, it would not satisfy his needs. He compares himself with Hamlet. As a result of his timidity he has become incapable of action of any sort.
V. D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers
1. Theme: Sociologically, it is a novel about modern civilization, the “sickness of a whole civilization”. Psychologically, it is a case study of the Oedipus complex theory, for it deals with a son who loves the mother too dearly and hates the father too despisingly. The psychic conflict (between dark self and white self) in human relationships is the central theme of the novel.
2. The character analysis of Paul Morel:
He is a light, quick, slender boy. From his childhood, he is especially sensitive, artistic and imaginative, and he becomes extraordinarily dependent on his mother. When he gets older, his distorted relationship with his mother prevents him from loving girls as fully as he feels he should. Besides, Paul is also an artist, and a likeable young man adored by many girls.
VI. The features of stream of consciousness
1. The unspoken thoughts and feelings of their characters are described without resorting to objective description or conventional dialogue.
2. The flux of a character’s thoughts, impressions, emotions are often shown without logical sequence or syntax.
Ⅲ、 文艺复兴时期 Renaissance
1． 时间界定： It refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries.
2． 文艺复兴的理论基础：人文主义兴起。
A． 核心：Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique authors.
B． 基础：It was based on such a conception that man is the measure of all things.
3． 文艺复兴的文化背景：
A． 场所：English schools and universities were established in place of the old monasteries.
B． 印刷术的引进：William Caxton introduced printing into England .
C． 翻译的时代的出现。With the introduction of printing, an age of translation came into being.
4． 文学形式：
A.诗歌：
A). 早期特点：The first period of the English Renaissance was one of imitation and assimilation.
B). 代表作家及作品:
a. Spenser's The Shepherd’s Calendar showed the pastoral convention
b. In
c. Poetry and poetic drama were the most outstanding literary forms and carried on by Shakespeare and Ben Johnson.
B.戏剧：
A). 特点: The Elizabethan drama is the real mainstream of the English Renaissance
B). 作家: The most famous dramatists are Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Johnson.
本章主要作家及作品
莎士比亚 William Shakespeare
A.创作生涯及作品
a. Apprenticeship period.
b. Highly individualized period.
c. Greatest tragedies and dark comedies period.
d. Romantic tragicomedies period.
B. 作品主题
a. Shakespeare's history plays are mainly written under the principle that national unity under a mighty and just sovereign is a necessity.
b. In his romantic comedies, Shakespeare takes an optimistic attitude toward love and youth, and the romantic elements are brought into full play .
c. The tragedies: The play, though a tragedy, is permeated with optimistic spirit.
C. 四大悲剧
A). The common features:
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 nation.
B). The realistic spirits:
Along with the portrayal of the weakness or bias of the 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.
D. 艺术成就
A). The characters:
a. Shakespeare's major characters are neither merely individual ones nor type ones.
b. By applying a psycho-analytical approach, Shakespeare succeeds in exploring the characters' inner mind.
c. Shakespeare also portrays his characters in pairs. Contrasts are frequently used to bring vividness to his characters.
B). Construction:
a. Shakespeare's plays are well-known for their adroit plot construction. He borrows them from
some old plays or storybooks, or from ancient Greek and Roman sources.
b. He would shorten the time and intensify the story. There are usually several threads running through the play.
C). Language and style:
a. Irony is a good means of dramatic presentation. Disguise is also an important device to create dramatic irony, usually with woman disguised as man.
b. He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary and idiom. His influence on later writers is immeasurable. Almost all English writers after him have been influenced by him either in artistic point of view, in literary form or in language.
弥尔顿 John Milton
A. 创作
Milton's literary achievements can be divided into three groups:
a. The early works:
Milton appears as the inheritor of all that was best in Elizabethan literature. Lycidas is a typical example.
b. The middle works:
His powerful pamphlets written during this period make him the greatest prose writer of his age. Areopagitica is probably his most memorable prose work.
c. The last great poems:
Milton wrote his three major poetical works: Paradise Lost, Paradise regained, and Samson Agonistes.
代表作:
Paradise Lost:
A). The theme and structure:
Paradise Lost is a long epic divided into 12 books. The theme is the
B). The humanistic spirits
a. Working through the tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote Paradise Lost, intending to expose the ways of Satan and to
b. At the center of the conflict between human love and spiritual duty lies Milton's fundamental concern with freedom and choice.
Ⅳ、新古典主义时期 The neoclassical period
1． 时间界定：
The neoclassical period is between the return of the Stuarts in 1660 and the full assertion of Romanticism which came with the publication of Lyrical Ballads （1798）
2. 启蒙运动
A. 概述
a.特点 The eighteenth-century England is also known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement.
起源 It flourished in France and swept through the whole Western Europe at the time.
性质 The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 目的 Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas.
B. 人文观与文学特点
a. The enlighteners advocated universal education. They believed that human beings were limited, dualistic, imperfect, and yet capable of rationality and perfection through education.
b. Literature at the time, heavily didactic and moralizing, became a very popular means of public education.
3. 文学形式
A. 伤感主义文学 In the last few decades of the 18th century, however, the neoclassical emphasis upon reason, intellect, wit and form was rebelled against or challenged by the sentimentalists, and was gradually by Romanticism.
B. 新古典主义诗歌 The neoclassical period witnessed the flourish of English poetry in the classical style climaxing with John Dryden, Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson.
C. 现实主义小说 The mid-century was, however, predominated by a newly rising literary form - the modern English novel, gives a realistic presentation of life of the common English people.
D. 哥特式小说及其它 Gothic novels - mostly stories of mystery and horror which take place in
some haunted or dilapidated Middle Age castles - were turned out profusely by both male and female writers.
本章主要作家及作品
笛福 Daniel Defoe
A. 主要作品
a. The first novel:
b. four other novels: Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack and Roxana.
c. The pseudo-factual account of Great Plague: A Journal the Plague Year.
B. 代表作
a. Robinson Crusoe, an adventure story very much in the spirit of the time, is universally considered his masterpiece.
b. Robinson is here a real hero, a typical eighteenth-century English middle-class man.
c. He is the very prototype of the empire builder, the pioneer colonist. In describing Robinson's life on the island, Defoe glorifies human labor and the Puritan fortitude.
斯威夫特 Jonathan Swift
A. 创作:
a. The works to establish his name:
A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books established his name as a satirist.
b. The Drapier's letters
He published, under the pseudonym of Drapier, a series of letters. Even today Swift is still respected as a national hero in Ireland.
c. The greatest satiric work:
He wrote and published his greatest satiric work, Gulliver's Travels.
B. 代表作
a., Jonathan's best fictional work. The book contains four parts: His experience in Lilliput, Alone in Brobdingnag, Visit to the Flying Island and Account of his discoveries in the Houyhnhnm land. In structure, the four parts make an organic whole.
b. Gulliver gives an account of some aspects of Lilliputian life and obviously alludes to the similar ridiculous practices or tricks of the English government.
费尔丁 Henry Fielding
A. 戏剧创作
The best known are The coffee-House Politician, The Tragedy of Tragedies, Pasquin, and The Historical Register for the Year1736.
B. 小说创作
a. The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his friend Mr. Abraham Adams, the book quickly turns into a great novel of the open road, a
b. The History of Jonathan Wild the Great, points out the Great Man is no better than a great gangster.
c. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling and The History of Amelia. The former is a masterpiece on the subject of human nature and the latter the story of the unfortunate life of an idealized woman.
C. 对文学的贡献 About novel:
A). The purpose of the novel was not just to amuse, but to instruct. The object of his novel was to present a faithful picture of life, to teach men to know themselves.
B). Fielding has been regarded by some as
a. He was the first to set out, to write specifically a
b. The first to give the modern novel its structure and style.
c. Fielding adopted
d. 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. A). Fielding's language is easy, unlaboured and familiar, but extremely vivid and vigorous.
B). His sentences are always distinguished by logic and rhythm, and his structure carefully planned towards an inevitable ending.
英美文学重要作家作品复习资料
American Literature
1.Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.
II. Hawthorne’s Puritanism and his black vision of man:
1. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puristans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the church of England.
2. his black vision of man—by the Calvinistic concept of original sin, he believed that human being are evil natured and sinful, and this sin is ever present in human heart and will pass one generation to another.
3. Young Goodman Brown—it shows that everyone has some evil secrets. The innocent and naïve Brown is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and then he becomes distrustful and doubtful. Brown stands for everyone ,who is born pure and has no contact with the real world ,and the prominent people of the village and church. They cover their secrets during daily lives, and under some circumstances such as the witch’s Sabbath, they become what they are. Even his closed wife, Faith, is no exception. So Brown is aged in that night.
III. The symbolism of Melville’s Mobby-Dick
1.The voyage to catch the white whale is the one of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of universe.
2. To Ahab, the whale is an evil creature or the agent of an evil force that control the universe. As to readers, the whale is a symbol of physical limits, or a symbol of nature. It also can stand for the ultimate mystery of the universe and the wall behind which unknown malicious things are hiding.
IV. Whitman and his Leaves of Grass :
1. Theme: sing of the “en-mass” and the self / pursuit of love, happiness, and ***ual love / sometimes about politics (Drum taps)
2. Whitman’s originality first in his use of the poetic form free verse (i.e. poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme),by means of which he becomes conversational and casual.
3.He uses the first person pronoun “I” to stress individualism, and oral language to acquire sympathy from the common reader.
Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Huck is a typical American boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”. He appears to be vulgar in language and in manner, but he is honest and decent in essence. His remarkable raft’s journey down on the Mississippi river can be regarded as his process of education and his way to grow up. At first, he stands by slavery, for he clings to the idea that if he lets go the slave, he will be damned to go to hell. And when the “King” sells Jim for money, Huck decides to inform Jim’s master. After he thinks of the past good time when Jim and he are on the raft where Jim shows great care and deep affection for him, he decide to rescue Jim. And Huck still thinks he is wrong while he is doing the right thing.
Huck is the son of nature and a symbol for freedom and earthly pragmatism. Through the eye of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed. Twain contrasts the life on the river and the life on the banks, the innocence and the experience, the nature and the culture, the wilderness and the civilization.
II. Daisy Miller by Henry James
1. Theme: The novel is a story about American innocence defeated by the stiff, traditional values of Europe. James condemns the American failure to adopt expressive manners intelligently and point out the false believing that a good heart is readily visible to all. The death of Daisy results
from the misunderstanding between people with different cultural backgrounds.
2. The character analysis of Daisy: She represents typical American girl, who is uninformed and without the mature guidance. Ignorance and parental indulgence combine to foster he assertive self-confidence and fierce willfulness. She behaves in the same daring naive way in Europe as she does at home. When someone is against her, she becomes more contrary. She knows that she means no harm and is amazed that anyone should think she does. She does not compromise to the European manners.
3. The character analysis of Winterbourne: He is a Europeanized American, who has live too long in foreign parts. He is very experience and has a problem understanding Daisy. He endeavors to put her in sort of formula, i.e. to classify her.
III. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser:
1. Theme: The author invented the success of Carrie and the downfall of Hurstwood out of an inevitable and natural judgment, because the fittest can survive in a competitive, amoral society according to the social Darwinism.
2. The character analysis of Carrie: She follows the right direction to a pursuit of the American dream, and the circumstances and her desire for a better life direct to the successful goal. But she is not contented, because with wealth and fame, she still finds herself lonely. She is a product of the society, a realization of the theory of the survival of the fittest.
3. The character analysis of Hurstwood: He is a negative evidence of the theory of the survival of the fittest. Because he is still conventional and can not throw away the social morals, he is not fitted to live in New York.
I. Ezra Pound and his theory of Imagism
Imagism is to present an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. An imagistic poem must present the object exactly the way the thing is seen. And the reader can form the image of the object through the process of reading the abstract and concrete words.
II. Frost and his poetry on nature:
Frost is deeply interested in nature and in men’s relationship to nature. Nature appears as an explicator and a mediator for man and serves as the center of reference of his behavior. Peace and order can be found in Frost’s poetical natural world. With surface simplicity of his poems, the thematic concerns are always presented in rich symbols. Therefore his work resists easy interpretation.
III. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his The Great Gatsby
1. Theme: Gatsby is American Everyman. His extraordinary energy and wealth make him pursue the dream. His death in the end points at the truth about the withering of the American Dream. The spiritual and moral sterility that has resulted from the withered American Dream is fully revealed in the article. However, although he is defeated, the dream has gave Gatsby a dignity and a set of qualities. His hope and belief in the promise of future makes him the embodiment of the values of the incorruptible American Dream .
2. The character analysis of Gatsby: Gatsby is great, because he is dignified and ennobled by his dream and his mythic vision of life. He has the desire to repeat the past, the desire for money, and the desire for incarnation of unutterable vision on this material earth. For Gatsby, Daisy is the soul of his dreams. He believe he can regain Daisy and romantically rebels of time. Although he has the wealth that can match with the leisured class, he does not have their manners. His tragedy lies in his possession of a naive sense and chivalry.
IV. Ernest Hemingway’s artistic features:
1. The Hemingway code heroes and grace under pressure:
They have seen the cold world ,and for one cause, they boldly and courageously face the reality. They has an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life. Whatever is the result is, the are ready to live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will never be defeated. Finally, they will be prevail because of their indestructible spirit and courage.
2.The iceberg technique:
Hemingway believe that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action. The one-eighth the is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimensions of the story. Thus, Hemingway’s language is symbolic and suggestive.
V. The character analysis of Emily in A Rose for Emily:
Emily is a symbol of old values, standing for tradition, duty and past glory. But she is also a victim to all those she cares and embrace. The source of Emily’s strangeness is from her born pride and self-esteem, the domineering behavior of her father and the betrayal of her lover. Barricaded in her house, she has frozen the past to protect her dreams. Her life is tragic because the defiance of the community, her refusal to accept the change and her extreme pride have pushed her to abnormality and insanity. English Literature
I. Shakespeare’s sonnets
1. With a few exceptions, Shakespeare writes his sonnets in the popular English form of three quatrains and a couplet. The couplet usually ties the sonnet to one of the general themes, leaving the quatrains free to develop the poetic intensity.
2. The sonnet’s most common themes concern the destructive effects of time, the quickness of physical decay, and the loss of beauty, vigor, and love. Although the poems celebrate life, they are always with a keen awareness of death.
3. His sonnet 18 expresses that beautiful things can rely on the force of literature to reach eternity. Literature is created by man, thus it declares man’s eternity. The poem shows the mighty self-confidence of the newly class. The vivid, variable and rich images reflect the lively and adventurous spirits of those who were opening new world.
II. Shakespeare’s A Merchant of Venice
1. Theme
(1) Justice vs. mercy: Shakespeare suggests that all men should be merciful. There is a further aspect of justice—the injustice revealed in the Christians’ treatment of the Jews.
(2) Appearance vs. reality: e.g. superficial or external beauty vs. moral or spiritual beauty or truth (in the case of three caskets); the letters of law vs. the spirit of the law.
(3) Commercial or material values vs. love: True love is much more worthwhile than money and material values. Antonio epitomizes true love in his friendship for Bassanio.
2. The character analysis of Shylock
Shylock is a Jewish usurer, and he is a tragic-comic character.
He is comic because he finally becomes the one punished by his own evil deed. He is avaricious. He accumulates as much wealth as he can and he even equates his lost daughter with his lost money. He is also cruel. In order to revenge, he would rather claim a pound of flesh from his enemy Antonio than get back his loan.
He is tragic, because he is the victim of the society. As a Jew, he is not treated equally by the society. The law is harsh to him. He has to make as much money as he can in order to protect him. He is abused by Antonio, so he wants to get revenge.
III. The character analysis of Hamlet
Hamlet is a scholar and a warrior. His father has been killed by his uncle, Claudius, who then takes the throne and marries his mother. Hamlet is informed by the ghost of his father to take revenge, but the weakness of indecisiveness or indetermination in his character always delay his action, and finally leads to his tragic fall of death. Hamlet is not a man of action, but a man of thinking at first. He hesitates at some crucial moments. At last when he is forced to take some actions, he does kill Claudius gloriously, but he also sacrifices his own life.
V. Milton’s Paradise Lost :
1.Structure: The story is taken from the Old Testament. It extends chronologically from the exaltation of Christ before the creature of universe to the second coming of Christ. Geographically, it ranges over the entire world.
2. The character analysis of Satan:
He has the strength, the courage and the capacity for leadership, but he devoted all those qualities to evil. His defiance of God shows his egoistic pride, his false conception of freedom, and his
alienation from all good. His own evil and damnation give him potentially tragic dimensions. Therefore, Satan is enveloped in dramatic irony because he fight in ignorance of the unshakable power of God and goodness.
3.Features: Parallel and contrast
The central conflict and contrast between good and evil are intensified by the contrast between heaven and hell, light and darkness, love and hate, reason and passion, etc.
II. The social satire of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
The account of Lilliputian life, especially the games for people at court, alludes to the similar ridiculous practices or tricks in the English government. The description of the competition in the games before the royal members leads to the fact that the success of those government officials such as the Prime Minister lies not in their being any wiser or better but in their being more dexterous in the game. This alludes to the practices in England. And the pompous words singing of the Lilliputian emperor ridicule the aristocratic arrogance and vanity.
V. Henry Fielding and his Tom Jones
It is a good example of “comic epic in prose”. Fielding describes the fight between Molly and the villagers and her fistfight with Goody Brown in the grand style of the Homeric epic. He first of all calls on the Muses to assist him in recounting the fight as if it were of great historical importance. Like Homer who would list names of gods involved in the battle, he lists the names of the villagers. He treats Molly as a great hero at battle, an “Amazonian heroine”. Besides, he uses a mock-epic tone and seems very solemn about what he is describing. He uses formal words and refined language. Finally, he makes use of different figures of speech, particularly, irony and hyperbole.
I. Wordsworth and his “I wandered lonely as a cloud”
The poem is crystal clear and lucid. Below the immediate surface, we find that all the realistic details of the flowers, the trees, the waves, the wind, and all the realistic details of the active joy, are absorbed into an over-all concrete metaphor, the recurrent image of the dance. The flowers, the stars, the waves are units in this dancing pattern of order in diversity, of linked eternal harmony and vitality. Through the revelation and recognition of his kinship with nature, the poet himself becomes as it were a part of the whole cosmic dance.
II. Shelley and his “Ode to the West Wind”
In the poem, Shelley eulogizes the west wind as a powerful phenomenon of nature that is both destroyer and preserver. The wind enjoys boundless freedom and has the power to spread messages far and wide. The keynote in the poem is Shelley’s ever-present wish for himself and his fellow men to share the freedom of the west wind, remembering meanwhile his own and common human miseries. And the dominant mood is that of hope rather than despair, as the poet is hoping for the realization of the freedom and joy. The optimism expressed in the last two lines show the poet’s critical attitude toward the ugly social reality and his faith in a bright future for humanity.
IV. The character analysis of Elizabeth in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Elizabeth is a beautiful young lady in the Bennets. She is intelligent, contrasting her empty-minded, snobbish and vulgar mother. She is a women of distinct character. She is not passive, but pursue her true love bravely. She turns down Mr. Collin’s marriage proposal and seeking her happiness with Darcy, the one she possesses true affection for her. She is also courageous. When Darcy’s aunt lady comes to force her into a promise of never consenting to marry Darcy, she boldly challenges her authority, contempt and arrogance. On the whole, Elizabeth is a typical image of the good, attractive lady in the 19th century.
I. The features of Charles Dickens
1. His critical realism: While sticking to the principle of faithful representation of the 18th-century realist novel, he carried the duty to the criticism of the society and the defense of the mass.
2. He is a master storyteller. With his first sentence, he engages the reader’s attention and holds it
to the end.
3. What he writes is mainly the middle and lower-middle class life in London.
4. He is a master of language with a large vocabulary and an adeptness with the vernacular.
5. He is a great humorist as well as a great painter of pathos. He always mingles the two to make his fictional world realistic.
6. His characters are not only true to life but also large than life. There are both individual characters and type characters.
II. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
1. Theme: The novel sharply criticizes the religious hypocrisy of charity institutions like Lowood School, where girls are trained to be humble slaves. It rebukes the social discrimination and false convention about love and marriage. Besides, the novel is a moral fable. It tells us that people have to go through all kinds of physical or moral tests to obtain their final happiness.
2. The character analysis of Jane Eyre: Jane Eyre is an orphan child with a fiery spirit and a longing to love and be loved. She is poor and plain, but she dares to love her master, a man superior to her in many ways, as a little governess. She is brave enough to declare to the man her love for him. She cuts a completely new women image. She represents those middle-class working women who are struggling for recognition of their basic rights and equality as a human being. I. The features of Shaw’s plays:
1. Problem plays: He took the modern social issues as his subject with the aim of directing social reforms. Most of his plays are concerned with political, economic, or religious problems.
2. In his characterization, he makes the tricks of showing up one character vividly at the expense of another. His characters are the representatives of ideas, which shift and alter during the play.
3. The strong sense of comedy in his play are achieved through his witty dialogues, sharp satires, and vivid portrayal of characters.
II. The theme of Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s profession
1. The play is not only moral, but also has a strong realistic theme. The guilt for prostitution lies more upon the social system than immoral woman. He shows all human sufferings are consequences of the economic exploitation.
2. The play is a spiritual triumph for Vivie who experiences a journey from illusion to reality. At first, she is ignorant of the evil, and through a series of temptations, she understands the capitalist world better.
IV. T. S. Eliot’s “The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Written in the form of monologue, the poem is the song of a being divided between passion and timidity. It is about the impotence and futility of a modern everyman and his existence. Prufrock is an interesting tragic figure. He is a man caught in a sense of defeated idealism and tortured by unsatisfied desire. He does not dare to seek love because even if he could find it, it would not satisfy his needs. He compares himself with Hamlet. As a result of his timidity he has become incapable of action of any sort.
V. D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers
1. Theme: Sociologically, it is a novel about modern civilization, the “sickness of a whole civilization”. Psychologically, it is a case study of the Oedipus complex theory, for it deals with a son who loves the mother too dearly and hates the father too despisingly. The psychic conflict (between dark self and white self) in human relationships is the central theme of the novel.
2. The character analysis of Paul Morel:
He is a light, quick, slender boy. From his childhood, he is especially sensitive, artistic and imaginative, and he becomes extraordinarily dependent on his mother. When he gets older, his distorted relationship with his mother prevents him from loving girls as fully as he feels he should. Besides, Paul is also an artist, and a likeable young man adored by many girls.
VI. The features of stream of consciousness
1. The unspoken thoughts and feelings of their characters are described without resorting to objective description or conventional dialogue.
2. The flux of a character’s thoughts, impressions, emotions are often shown without logical sequence or syntax.
Ⅲ、 文艺复兴时期 Renaissance
1． 时间界定： It refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries.
2． 文艺复兴的理论基础：人文主义兴起。
A． 核心：Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique authors.
B． 基础：It was based on such a conception that man is the measure of all things.
3． 文艺复兴的文化背景：
A． 场所：English schools and universities were established in place of the old monasteries.
B． 印刷术的引进：William Caxton introduced printing into England .
C． 翻译的时代的出现。With the introduction of printing, an age of translation came into being.
4． 文学形式：
A.诗歌：
A). 早期特点：The first period of the English Renaissance was one of imitation and assimilation.
B). 代表作家及作品:
a. Spenser's The Shepherd’s Calendar showed the pastoral convention
b. In
c. Poetry and poetic drama were the most outstanding literary forms and carried on by Shakespeare and Ben Johnson.
B.戏剧：
A). 特点: The Elizabethan drama is the real mainstream of the English Renaissance
B). 作家: The most famous dramatists are Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Johnson.
本章主要作家及作品
莎士比亚 William Shakespeare
A.创作生涯及作品
a. Apprenticeship period.
b. Highly individualized period.
c. Greatest tragedies and dark comedies period.
d. Romantic tragicomedies period.
B. 作品主题
a. Shakespeare's history plays are mainly written under the principle that national unity under a mighty and just sovereign is a necessity.
b. In his romantic comedies, Shakespeare takes an optimistic attitude toward love and youth, and the romantic elements are brought into full play .
c. The tragedies: The play, though a tragedy, is permeated with optimistic spirit.
C. 四大悲剧
A). The common features:
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 nation.
B). The realistic spirits:
Along with the portrayal of the weakness or bias of the 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.
D. 艺术成就
A). The characters:
a. Shakespeare's major characters are neither merely individual ones nor type ones.
b. By applying a psycho-analytical approach, Shakespeare succeeds in exploring the characters' inner mind.
c. Shakespeare also portrays his characters in pairs. Contrasts are frequently used to bring vividness to his characters.
B). Construction:
a. Shakespeare's plays are well-known for their adroit plot construction. He borrows them from
some old plays or storybooks, or from ancient Greek and Roman sources.
b. He would shorten the time and intensify the story. There are usually several threads running through the play.
C). Language and style:
a. Irony is a good means of dramatic presentation. Disguise is also an important device to create dramatic irony, usually with woman disguised as man.
b. He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary and idiom. His influence on later writers is immeasurable. Almost all English writers after him have been influenced by him either in artistic point of view, in literary form or in language.
弥尔顿 John Milton
A. 创作
Milton's literary achievements can be divided into three groups:
a. The early works:
Milton appears as the inheritor of all that was best in Elizabethan literature. Lycidas is a typical example.
b. The middle works:
His powerful pamphlets written during this period make him the greatest prose writer of his age. Areopagitica is probably his most memorable prose work.
c. The last great poems:
Milton wrote his three major poetical works: Paradise Lost, Paradise regained, and Samson Agonistes.
代表作:
Paradise Lost:
A). The theme and structure:
Paradise Lost is a long epic divided into 12 books. The theme is the
B). The humanistic spirits
a. Working through the tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote Paradise Lost, intending to expose the ways of Satan and to
b. At the center of the conflict between human love and spiritual duty lies Milton's fundamental concern with freedom and choice.
Ⅳ、新古典主义时期 The neoclassical period
1． 时间界定：
The neoclassical period is between the return of the Stuarts in 1660 and the full assertion of Romanticism which came with the publication of Lyrical Ballads （1798）
2. 启蒙运动
A. 概述
a.特点 The eighteenth-century England is also known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement.
起源 It flourished in France and swept through the whole Western Europe at the time.
性质 The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 目的 Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas.
B. 人文观与文学特点
a. The enlighteners advocated universal education. They believed that human beings were limited, dualistic, imperfect, and yet capable of rationality and perfection through education.
b. Literature at the time, heavily didactic and moralizing, became a very popular means of public education.
3. 文学形式
A. 伤感主义文学 In the last few decades of the 18th century, however, the neoclassical emphasis upon reason, intellect, wit and form was rebelled against or challenged by the sentimentalists, and was gradually by Romanticism.
B. 新古典主义诗歌 The neoclassical period witnessed the flourish of English poetry in the classical style climaxing with John Dryden, Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson.
C. 现实主义小说 The mid-century was, however, predominated by a newly rising literary form - the modern English novel, gives a realistic presentation of life of the common English people.
D. 哥特式小说及其它 Gothic novels - mostly stories of mystery and horror which take place in
some haunted or dilapidated Middle Age castles - were turned out profusely by both male and female writers.
本章主要作家及作品
笛福 Daniel Defoe
A. 主要作品
a. The first novel:
b. four other novels: Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack and Roxana.
c. The pseudo-factual account of Great Plague: A Journal the Plague Year.
B. 代表作
a. Robinson Crusoe, an adventure story very much in the spirit of the time, is universally considered his masterpiece.
b. Robinson is here a real hero, a typical eighteenth-century English middle-class man.
c. He is the very prototype of the empire builder, the pioneer colonist. In describing Robinson's life on the island, Defoe glorifies human labor and the Puritan fortitude.
斯威夫特 Jonathan Swift
A. 创作:
a. The works to establish his name:
A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books established his name as a satirist.
b. The Drapier's letters
He published, under the pseudonym of Drapier, a series of letters. Even today Swift is still respected as a national hero in Ireland.
c. The greatest satiric work:
He wrote and published his greatest satiric work, Gulliver's Travels.
B. 代表作
a., Jonathan's best fictional work. The book contains four parts: His experience in Lilliput, Alone in Brobdingnag, Visit to the Flying Island and Account of his discoveries in the Houyhnhnm land. In structure, the four parts make an organic whole.
b. Gulliver gives an account of some aspects of Lilliputian life and obviously alludes to the similar ridiculous practices or tricks of the English government.
费尔丁 Henry Fielding
A. 戏剧创作
The best known are The coffee-House Politician, The Tragedy of Tragedies, Pasquin, and The Historical Register for the Year1736.
B. 小说创作
a. The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his friend Mr. Abraham Adams, the book quickly turns into a great novel of the open road, a
b. The History of Jonathan Wild the Great, points out the Great Man is no better than a great gangster.
c. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling and The History of Amelia. The former is a masterpiece on the subject of human nature and the latter the story of the unfortunate life of an idealized woman.
C. 对文学的贡献 About novel:
A). The purpose of the novel was not just to amuse, but to instruct. The object of his novel was to present a faithful picture of life, to teach men to know themselves.
B). Fielding has been regarded by some as
a. He was the first to set out, to write specifically a
b. The first to give the modern novel its structure and style.
c. Fielding adopted
d. 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. A). Fielding's language is easy, unlaboured and familiar, but extremely vivid and vigorous.
B). His sentences are always distinguished by logic and rhythm, and his structure carefully planned towards an inevitable ending.