2. Features of Beowulf: a. the most striking feature is the use of alliteration. b. the use of metaphor and understatement.
3. The influences of the Norman Conquest: 1)Bringing great social and political changes to England, linking the country more closely with western Europe and replacing the old English aristocracy with a Norman aristocracy. 2) Marking the establishment of feudalism in England. The conquest also greatly influenced the English
language. English was greatly enriched by French vocabulary and expressions. 二．Geoffrey Chaucer(乔叟)
1. the position: a. the founder of English poetry. b. the founder of English realism. c. the forerunner of humanism.
2. Social significance:a. as a forerunner of humanism, he praises man's energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. b. the equal right of man and woman to pursue their happiness on earth and the opposition of the dogma of asceticism.
Part two: The English Renaissance 一：More (莫尔)
1.More's position：More was one of such “giants” of the Renaissance. He distinguished himself as a learned scholar, as a master of Latin, a lover of music, an honest statesman, and a man of noble character, modest but steadfast, to his convictions. He was above all, a far-sighted thinker, who, living on the eve of the bourgeois revolution, aspired for a totally new society, happy, classless and free from poverty and exploitation. He was one of the forerunners of modern socialist thought.
2. His limitations: a. though a great thinker, he was no revolutionary in the sense of wishing to arouse the people or to start any revolutionary movement among the exploited. b. living in a world based on handicraft production, he was faced with the very real problem of social productivity. c. living in the Middle Ages, he could see what was wrong and what was needed, but he could never find at that time the means by which socialism could be realized.
二. Edmund Spenser (斯宾塞)→The Poet's Poet 1. The most famous sonnets sequenced of the Elizabethan: Sidney's Astrophel and Stella and Spenser's Amoretti and Shakespeare's Sonnets. 三.Francis Bacon (培根)
1. Position: a. the founder of English materialist philosophy. b. the founder of modern science in England c. the first English essayist. 四.Marlowe （马洛）
1. Position: a. the most gifted of the “university wits”. b. the greatest of the pioneers of English drama. c. he first made blank verse the principle of English drama.
3. social significance of his plays: a. these plays show, in various ways, the spirit of the rising bourgeoisie. b. the theme of his plays is the praise of individuality freed from the restraints of medieval dogma and law, and the conviction of the boundless possibility of human efforts in conquering the universe. c. the heroes in his plays are merely individualists. 五. William Shakespeare（莎士比亚）
1.Features of his drama: a. A realist and one of the founders of realism in English literature. b.
Employing the method of adoption in his dramatic creation c. Elastic drama, free developing actions without being hindered by the classical rules. d. Skilled in many poetic forms and his plays are poetical dramas. e. A great master of English language.
2. The image of Hamlet : humanist; He is an
intellectual genius; He is, at the same time, fearless and sometime impetuous; His tragic flaw; His melancholy: the keynote of Hamlet’s character Part three: The Period of Revolution and Restoration
一. John Milton(弥尔顿)
1. Position: 1) He was the greatest English revolutionary poet of the 17th century. 2) He wrote the greatest epic in English literature, with Shakespeare—regarded as two patterns of English verse. 3) He was a master of the blank verse, first used blank verse in non-dramatic works. 4) He was a great stylist, and famous for his grand style. Part Four: The 18th century 一． Steel and Addison
1.Steele and Addison’s contribution to English literature:1) Affording a new code of social morality demanded by the rising bourgeoisie: moderation, reason, self-control, civility, refinement and good
taste. 2) Depicting a true picture of the social life
thof England in the 18 century.
3) Contributing to the establishment of English essay as a literary genre. 4) Ushering in the appearance of modern English novel by practicing character sketching and story-telling. 二.Pope (蒲柏)
1. Features of his works: 1) he has a talent for saying brilliant and true things in a sparling way. Many of his poems has become maxims and entered into daily life. 2) He is a great satirist. Almost all his works are satires. 3) Heroic couplet is the form for nearly all his writings. 4) His works are usually the products of hard labor and masterly craftsmanship. 2. His position: 1) a great poet. 2) He was one of the early representatives of the enlightenment who introduced into English culture the spirit of
rationalism and greater interest in the human world. 3) the early period of the 18th century has often been named after him as the Age of Pope. 三.Samuel Richardson(帕米拉分析)
1. Features of “Pamela”: 1)It is written in the form of letters. 2)It pictured the life and love of ordinary people. 3)It intended to afford
entertainment and moral instruction as well. 4)It was the first English psycho-analytical novel, exploring the secret thoughts and feelings of the acharacters, and thus influencing later novelists as Henry James, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. 四.Defoe(笛福)
1.Position: (1) One of the originators/forerunners of English realistic novel. (2) A jack-at-all-trades: journalist, pamphleteer, poet, and above all these, a novelist.
2. The argument of Robinson: 1) he is the most practical and exact, always religious and at the same time mindful of his own profits. 2) his every
voyage is related to some commercial enterprises. 3) he own a plantation where has a lot of black slaves.
五.Henry Fielding (菲尔丁)
1. Position：Father of English novel；he is the founder of English realistic novel and he sets up the theory of realism in literary creation.
2.Features of his novels: 1) Method of story-telling: Told directly by the author.This enables the author to develop the story in the fullest, freest, clearest and most straightforward manner. 2) Satire in Fielding’s novels: Two kinds of satire:a. humorous satire: the lighter kind of satire
b. grim satire3)he believed in the educational
function of the novel. The purpose ofthe novel is to amuse and to instruct as well.4) he is a master of style. His style is easy, unlabored and familiar, vivid and vigorous, distinguished by logic and musical rhythm.
六.Burns(彭斯)
1. Features of his poems：1) Written in the Scottish dialect, revealing the common feelings of the working people; 2)Numerous songs of love and friendship, carrying with the spirit of romanticism. 3)Patriotism 4). he is an outspoken supporter for the French Revolution. 5).he has sympathy for the slaves. 6) he also achieves success in the field of satire.
七.Thomas Bray(感伤主义诗歌：墓畔挽歌分析) 1. Its main ideas: 1) It established his fame as the leader of the Sentimentalist poets and “the
Graveyard School”. 2) It meditates on the humble fate of those lying under the tombstones who might have been as great in virtue and accomplishments as the heroes known to the world, should they have just had the chance. 3) It reveals his sympathy for the poor and the unknown, with a touch of melancholy.
八. William Blake(布莱克)
1. His position: a poet, engraver and printer;the most spiritual poet; the major prophet of the
Romantic Movement; a man full of revolutionary spirit
Part Five Romanticism 一． Wordsworth(华兹华斯) 1．I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud（我如行云独自游） Tips: the return image of dance; the emptiness of his spirit is transformed into a fullness of feeling as he remembers the daffodils.
2. Positions and contributions: he is the leading figure of the English romantic poetry, the focal
poetic voice of the period. He is a voice of searching comprehensive humanity and one that inspires his audience to see the world freshly, sympathetically and naturally. The most important contribution he has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry, the poetry of the growing inner itself, but also changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language ang by advocating a return to nature. 三．Byron(拜伦)
1.“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” （恰尔德罗尔德游记） Features of hero: （one of Byronic Heroes）1) In rebellion against society, lonely, proud and willful with revolutionary spirit against government or society;2) Disillusioned with society and longing for a better life;3) Passionate and unbending in will and expression of the poet’s own ideal of freedom 2. The theme of Don Juan(唐璜): Byron invests in Juan the moral positive like courage, are virtues neglected by the modern society. By making use of Juan's adventures, Byron presents a panoramic view
of different types of society. Don Juan presents brilliant pictures of life in its various stages of love, joy, hatred and fear. With Don Juan, Byron launches satire on the hypocritical English society. He reveals the difference between life's appearance and its actuality. Byron always referred to Don Juan as being a “satire abuse of the present state of society.”
3. Byronic hero: As leading romanticist, Byron's chief contribution is his creation of the “Byronic hero”, a proud and mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. With immense superiority in his passions and powers, the Byronic hero would carry on his
shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in evil society, and would fight single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies. The conflict is
usually one of rebellious individuals against outworn social systems and conventions. Such a hero appears first in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. The figure is, to some extent, modeled on the life and personality of Byron himself, and makes Byron famous both at home and abroad. 三．Shelly(雪莱)
1. Ode the West Wind(西风颂) （1）The symbolic meaning of the “West Wind”: 1）the autumn wind is the Destroyer and the Preserver, for it buries the dead year and prepared for a new spring. 2）It has become an image of Shelley himself as he cannot bear being fettered to the monotonous realities of daily life. 3）The poem has a logic and analyzable progression that leads to the triumphant, hopeful and convincing conclusion, “If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
（2）Figures: Metaphor, simile, personification (3) Theme: it express Shelly's optimistic belief that the old world must go, a new world must come with the spring, laden with fresh sweet promises for suffering humanity. It anticipates the political triumph.
四．Keats(济慈)
1．Ode to a Nightingale（夜莺颂）
Tips: the sensuous beauty is embodied in the
following senses of human beings: vision, hearing, smell, taste
1) Theme: melancholy is linked with joy.(1) The poet persuades people to search beauty within unhappy things, for melancholy “dwells with Beauty that must die” (2) The joy of living beauty is a companied by the sad knowledge that it must die.(3) No one can know true joy who has not known true melancholy.
2) Imagery analysis: “Nightingale”: a symbol of external joy with a color of melancholy.
2．Why is Keats among the active romantic poets? : Although Keats did not attack openly the political and social evils the day as did Byron and Shelly, yet his connections with the group of radicals in Leigh Hunt's circle, his uncompromising attitude toward reactionary criticism, his sympathy for the poor and miserable, and his belief in the lofty mission of the poet to work for the welfare of the people have earned for him a place among the great active romantic poets of his time. 六．Scott(司各特)
1.features of his novels: 1) He created the historical novel by weaving pleasing story about historical characters into his novels.2) His historical novels
give a vivid but grand panorama of the feudal society covering a period ranging from the Middle Ages up to the 18th untruly.
2. Positions and contributions: 1) The creator and a great master of the historical novel. 2) His
historical novel paved the path for the development of the realistic novel of the 19th century.3) It
marked the transition from Romanticism to Realism in English literature of the 19th century. Part Six the Critical Realism 一. Dickens(狄更斯)
1.The Pickwick Papers（匹克维克外传） (1) It has been called “the supreme epic of English life”（2）It gives a rather comprehensive picture of early 19th century English and affords the rending a whole gallery of vivid portraits of the petty-bourgeois.
2. A Tale of Two Cities(双城记) Theme of the novel:It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going the other way.
3. David Copperfield (大卫科波菲尔) 1) His favorite novel: “Of all my books, I like this best”;
2) Told in the first person, through the mouth of the hero, David Copperfield;3)His most autobiographical novel, written at his creative height;4)It gives the book a combination of verisimilitude (逼真）, sense of familiarity and artistic maturity.
4. Artistic features：1) Character Sketches and Exaggeration：As a master of characterization, Dickens was skillful in drawing vivid caricature sketches by exaggerating some peculiarities.2)
Broad Humor and Penetrating Satire: Dickens is well known as a humorist as well as a satirist. 3) Complicated and Fascinating Plot: Dickens loved complicated novel constructions with minor plots beside the major one or two parallel major plots within one novel. He is also skillful at creating
suspense and mystery to make the story fascinating. A plot formula in his novel is the happy ending.4) The Power of Exposure: As the greatest
representative of English critical realism, Dickens made his novel the instrument of morality and justice. Each of his novels reveals a specific social problem.
5. Position: 1) he the man is as interesting as he the writer. 2) Politically and ideologically, he was a radical. 3) as a novelist, he is remembered first of all his character-portrayal. 二．Thackeray(萨克雷)
1. Vanity Fair's purpose: (名利场)in this novel he describes the life of the ruling classes of England in the early decades of the 19th century, and attacks the social relationship of the bourgeois world by satirizing the individuals in the different strata of the upper society.
三.Jane Austen(简奥斯汀)
1.Features of her novels：1) Plot: simple, clear2)Characterization: precise expression in the words of the characters. 3)Tone: a mild touch of humor and satire 4)Style: easy, effortless and graceful 5) Ideology: She holds the ideals of the
landlord class in politics, religion and moral principles; 6)Mental tendency: Her works shows clearly her belief in reason over passion, the sense of responsibility, good manners and clear-sighted judgment over the Romantic tendencies of emotion and individuality. 7)Social quality: She shows her contempt towards snobbery, solidity, worldliness and vulgarity through subtle satire and irony. 四.The Bronte Sisters(勃朗特姐妹) 1.Analysis of Jane Eyre(简爱) (1)Features:1)It 1is classified as “bildungsroman”.2)It’s half autobiographical of Charlotte’s charity school experience during her childhood and her Brussels experience.
(2)Themes:1)Woman’s striving for freedom and equal social status with man.2)Exposure and attack on the educational system.
(3)Background for Themes:1)Women strictly abode by the Victorian moral values set upon them: women took on the domestic responsibilities of raising the children and handling household work. They were confined to the home and did not share the same social status with men. 2)The authority set up charity schools for the oppressed and regarded it as the instrument of ideological and spiritual control so as to bring up a tame and obedient generation.
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