Anglo-saxon peotry 的特点
Story is based on partly historical and partly legendary materials. It contains paganism and Christian elements,
There is special technical structure. They are three alteration per line, two
in the first half line and one on. 4) They are seafaring people and brave in their action. The old Saxon word “angul”
means a hook, from which we can surmise that they lived by the sea and their
lives were related to fishing. The name Saxon is from “seax”, that is, a short sword, and from that name we can judge that they were hardy fighters.
2. Beowulf
Like Homer’s poetry, Beowulf sings of the exciting adventure of a great legendary hero whose physical strength demonstrates his high spiritual qualities, his resolution to serve his country and kinsfolk, his time courage, excretes cireluet and his love of honor.
Chapter two
3. Middle English
3 centuries after Norman conquest. Two languages were used side by side in England, Latin and French were the languages of the upper classes, spoken at courts and used in churches and schools, official edicts and documents and literary works were written in Latin. Old English was weakened and a huge number of French and Latin words absorbed. What’s more, inflectional forms of the words were dropped and formal grammar simplified.
4. religious literature 定义 教堂文学
The church had a virtual monopoly of literature during much of the Middle Ages. The church nor only had this direct claim upon the majority of literate men but also was itself a larger producer of books in the physical sense as well as a maintainer of libraries.
Chapter three
5. Geoffrey chaucer 其伟大在何处
1) Chaucer’s work gives a comprehensive picture of Chaucer’s time. The pilgrims
cover a wide range of characters in the England of the time, from noblemen to
peasants
2) As a commoner he had a sympathy with and an understanding of the lower classes
as is shown in his attitude towards the ploughman and the poor person. 3) Chaucer wrote in the London dialect of his day, which he handled dexterously.
He was at one moment serious and another light-hearted and full of fun and
sometimes he could be very poetical. He proved that English language is a beautiful language and can be easily handled to express different moods. In so doing Chaucer greatly increased the prestige of the English language.
4) Created a tradition of realism in English literature
5) His work made great impact on many later writers, like Shakespeare and Dickens
Chapter four
6. 15世纪重大历史事迹（时间地点原因人物） 1) The hundred years’ war
The war continued and in 1415 at the Battle of Agincourt King Henry V defeated the French army and claimed himself the heir to French throne. In 1453 all English territory in France and the English king had only a small port, Calais, left to him.
2) The war of the roses/ the thirty years’ war
In England
A series of civil wars fight between two great families, both of which claimed the right to the English throne. It last 30 years until King Henry Ⅶ defeated Richard Ⅲ. Henry Tudor married Elizabeth of the House of York, brought compromise between the two families, and established a highly consolidated rule.
The House of Lancaster ----Red Rose as its emblem ; the House of York –White Rose Reason: Henry Ⅵ belonged to the House of Lancaster but members of the House of York believed that they were more entitled to the crown than Henry Ⅵ. Civil war broke out between the two families and almost all noble families were involved in it.
3) The discovery of America and new sea routes
1492, Christopher Columbus landed in America with the support of the Spanish sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella.
Reason: He believed he could reach India by sailing west,
4) Reformation of the church Person: Henry Ⅷ Time:1534
During his reign, Henry Ⅷ took decisive measures to break away from the Church of Rome. He passed through Parliament the Act of Supremacy which regarded him as the supreme head on earth, thus negating the claim of the Pope in Rome who regarded himself as the supreme power on earth. The church Henry Ⅷ founded is the Anglican Church.
7. early english plays
Drama was one of the most popular forms of entertainment. It was not until 9th and 10 centuries that the Catholic Church allowed some of dramatic performances to be used as part of religious services.
By 14 century the liturgy had developed into mystery plays and miracle plays, there are no sharp distinctions between these two kind of plays, though the former are chiefly based on stories from the Bible, while the latter on the lives of Christian saints.
The play was staged on a two decked cart, or pageant. The pageant consisted of an
thth
enclosed room which served both Hell and as retiring room, and a second storey open to the sky on which the action was performed. In the 14 and the 15 centuries mystery or miracle plays were performed in about 40 different places in England. Chapter five
8. 1,2,3, 考小题，概念，年代 作品 贡献
9. Edmund Spenser 作品
1) The Shephearde’s Calender _______his first important work
A pastoral poem in 12 parts, one for each month of the year. The poet’s intention is to give different descriptions of the English countryside The Shephearde’s Calender at each particular time of the year. The main themes embodied in the poem are love, poetry, and religion.
2) The Faerie Queene 《仙后》______his major achievement
It is an unfinished allegorical romance, Spencer’s original plan---there should be 12 books, each telling the adventures of one of the 12 knights dispatched by the Faerie Queene, Gloria, who represents Glory and Queen Elizabeth in particular,
10. the flourishing of drama 其主要原因
The flourishing of drama was explained by the follow reasons:
1) cities and towns grew rapidly in the 16th century and since there was no other
means of entertainment than watching bear-baiting, visiting lunatics imprisoned in Bedlam, and watching executions and hangings at Newgate, drama naturally became the only form of amusement to city dwellers and noblemen. 2) The only means of entertainment was theatre.
3) It was only place where people could socialize and know what was going on, it
is a place where both the rich and the poor went. 11. Christopher Marlowe
The most prominent of the University Wits was no doubt Christopher Marlowe. All his plays were written in the five years from 1587 to 1592 and they are all tragedies. His first play Tamburlaine the Great (1587) is about the story of Timur the Tartar. The central figure Tamburlaine represents the Renaissance desire for infinite power and authority.
The Tragic History of Doctor Faustus (1592), adapted from a popular old German legend, is a sort of companion to Tamburlaine in reflecting the Renaissance desire for infinite knowledge, though the tragic ending suggests that the writer conforms with the orthodox teachings of the church, the towering figure of Faustus is eloquent evidence that the author has a will power as fierce as Faustus’, a will to search the infinite knowledge of life and to express his atheism and patriotism.
As a dramatist Marlowe has limitations. His plot construction is loose and his characters are merely embodiments of ideas. But Marlowe is the only dramatist of
th
th
the time who is ever compared with Shakespeare. His works are remarkable for their imagination, burning passion, sensuous richness, variety of pace, and response to varying emotions. His verse is known for its stateliness and its poetic beauty.
Thomas Malory____the death of king Arthur The death of king Arthur tells the whole life of king Arthur, but the finest part in the book is about the death of king Arthur. It happens that one of the knights, Sir Launcelot, has an illicit love affair with Queen Guinevere. At the insistence of his nephew, Arthur goes to punish Launcelot. He besieges the castle in which Sir Launcelot stays. But king Arthur does only for the sake of Sir Gawain, and his attempt to capture Sir Launcelot fails. Word comes to ht king that his bastard son Mordred has seized the kingdom during his absence, and king Arthur leads his forces back to England. More=dred attacks them upon their landing, and both Mordred and Arthur die at the battle.
12. William shakespeare
was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the \"Bard of Avon\". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
莎翁的伟大之处？P93-9
1) Shakespeare represented the trend of history in giving voice to the desires and aspirations of the people.
2) Shakespeare’s humanism: more important than his historical sense of his time, Shakespeare in his plays reflects the spirit of his age.
3) Shakespeare’s characterization: Shakespeare was most successful in his
characterization. In his plays he described a great number of characters. 4) Shakespeare’s originality: Shakespeare drew most of his materials from sources
that were known to his audience; some from Roman dramas, some from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and some from other writer’s play.
5) Shakespeare as a great poet: Shakespeare was not only a great dramatist, but also a great poet. Apart from his sonnets and long poems, his dramas are poetry. 6) Shakespeare as master of the English language: Shakespeare was the master of
the English language. It is estimated that he had a command of about 15,000 words. Many of his quotations and phrases have been absorbed into English language.
其创作时期分为几个阶段？每个时期2-3个作品？
1) From 1592 to 1593, during this period, he wrote his early history plays or histories and a group of comedies. King Henry Ⅵ in three parts, Richard Ⅲ, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labour Lost.
2) The second period is a period of rapid growth and development, dating from 1595
to 1600. Midsummer Nighr’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, the two parts of Henry Ⅳ, As You Like It, Julius Caesar.
3) The third period is a period of gloom and depression, dating from 1602 to 1608.
It is a period of tragedies, such as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth. 4) The fourth period is a period of restored serenity, from 1608 to 1612. It is
a period of calm after storm, with such plays as The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.
对于悲剧哈姆雷特 的理解P149， p152-p153 注解1和20
Hamlet is a representative of humanist thinker with disillusionment with the corrupt and degenerated society in which he lived. What troubles him most is the injustice, conspiracy, and betrayal in the society. He is a man with a sense of justice, pessimistic and gloomy view about life, cynical attitude towards society. Wide range of knowledge, belief in the Christian doctrine about heaven and hell.
Hamlet’s revenge is not only a personal matter. What troubles him most is the injustice, conspiracy, and betrayal in the society. His father is murdered by his uncle and his mother is married to his uncle right after his father’s death. The marriage of his mother is the first blow to him as he had regarded her as a virtuous woman. Then his former friends Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are dispatched by the king to spy on him. This is a second blow, for as a humanist he sets great store by friendship. Then his girl friend Ophelia is sent as a tool to find out whether or not he is really mad. This is something he can no longer endure. One incident after another seems to reveal to him that the time is “out of joint” and man is not so good as he had imagined. Hamlet would have been a tragedy of “blood and thunder” if Shakespeare had not imbued the play with this sort of philosophical thinking, this humanistic search for the value of man and the disappointment of such ideas. The greatest of the play lies in the fact that in it Shakespeare expressed his praise of the noble quality of Prince Hamlet as a representative of humanist thinkers and disillusionment with the corrupt and degenerated society in which he lived.
13. What’s sonnet? P98
Shakespeare, besides his two long poems and plays, also wrote sonnets, 154 all together in number.
A sonnet is a short song in the original meaning of the word. Later it became a poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter with various rhyming schemes. It was first written by the Italian poet Petrarch who wrote sonnets to a lady named Laura. Shakespeare wrote his sonnets in about 1589 and they were published in 1609. The writing of sonnets, either to one’s love, or to one’s patron, or to one’s friend, was a fashion in his time.
Beginning with sonnet 18, Shakespeare is concerned about the effect of passing time on the young man. He says that though his friend may grow old and lose his beauty, he will be immortalized in the sonnets that Shakespeare wrote for him. In the third
part of the group, Shakespeare no longer treats his friend’s beauty as subject of decay, but as perfect model of beauty, and many other beauties on earth are its expressions.
The metrical form of Shakespeare’s sonnets is different from that of Petrarach’s. Shakespeare’s sonnet consists of three quatrains with a rhyming scheme “abab caca efef” and ends with a couplet rhyming “gg”. In the three quatrains the theme is put forward and developed, and in the couplet the sonnet ends with a surprise conclusion or a shift of ideas.
The speaker opens the poem with a question addressed to the beloved: \"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?\" The next eleven lines are devoted to such a comparison. In line 2, the speaker stipulates what mainly differentiates the young man from the summer's day: he is \"more lovely and more temperate.\" Summer's days tend toward extremes: they are shaken by \"rough winds\"; in them, the sun (\"the eye of heaven\") often shines \"too hot,\" or too dim. And summer is fleeting: its date is too short, and it leads to the withering of autumn, as \"every fair from fair sometime declines.\" The final quatrain of the sonnet tells how the beloved differs from the summer in that respect: his beauty will last forever (\"Thy eternal summer shall not fade...\") and never die. In the couplet, the speaker explains how the beloved's beauty will accomplish this feat, and not perish because it is preserved in the poem, which will last forever; it will live \"as long as men can breathe or eyes can see.\"
Shall I compare thee to a summer`s day?
(this is a rhetorical question that does not expect an answer)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
(art: are, temperate: moderate)
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
And summer`s lease that hath all too short a date.
(summer’s leaser: a lease is a written agreement, made according to law, by which the use of a building or piece of land is given by its owner to somebody for a certain time in the return for rent. Here summer is personified as a tenant holding a “lease ” for short term and time is holding that “lease” like some kind eternal landlord.)
(hath all too short a date: has too brief a duration. Notice the second effect of the clipped syllables)
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines.
(Sometime: sometimes the eye of heaven: the sun)
And often is his gold complexion dimmed.
(his: its)
And every fair from fair sometime declines.
(And every fair from fair sometime declines.: and the beauty of every beautiful thing will fade at some future time)
But chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.
(untrimmed: stripped of beauty)
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st.
(ow’st: own)
Nor shall death brag thou wander`st in his shade.
(Nor shall death brag thou wander`st in his shade: and the beauty of every beautiful thing will fade at some future time.)
When in enternal lines to time thou grow’st
(When in enternal lines to time thou grow’st: when you and the eternal time are one and the same.)
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this give life to thee.
Shall I│compare│ thee to │a sum│mer’s day? ( a)
Thou art │more love│ly and │more tem│perate -: ( b) Rough winds │do shake │the dar│ling buds │of May, (a) And sum│mer’s lease│ hath all │too short│ a date: (b) Sometimes │too hot│ the eye │of hea│ven shines, (c) And of│ten is │his gold │comple│xion dimmed; (d) And eve│ry fair │from fair │sometimes │declines, (c) By chance, │or na│ture’s chan│ging course, │ untrimm’d; (d) But thy │eter│nal sum│mer shall │not fade, (e)
Nor lose│ posses│sion of │that fair│ thou ow’st; (f)
Nor shall│ Death brag │thou wan│der’st in│ his shade, (e) When in │eter│nal lines │to time│ thou grow’st. (f) So long│ as men │can breathe │or eyes │can see, (g)
So long │lives this, │ and this │gives life│ to thee. (g)
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