第二篇：英国文学总结(很好的)

1. Chaucer(1340-1400): The founder of English Poetry, and the founder of English realism, and buried in Westminster Abbey, thus founding the “Poets’ Corner”. He was against Catholicism. Language: Middle English.

代表作: The Canterbury Tales(1387-1400),其中有故事：Wife of Bath， owner of a cloth factory, lighthearted, merry, somewhat vulgar, and exceedingly talkative。Married five times and expected to one or two more.

2. Thomas More(1478-1535)

代表作：Utopia, an ideal communist society, meaning “no place”. 全文分两部分，第一部分：a picture of contemporary England with forcible exposure of the poverty among the laboring classes, the greed and luxury among the rich, and an eagerness for war on the part of the rulers.

第二部分：we have a sketch of an ideal commonwealth in some unknown ocean, where property is held in common and there is no poverty.

3. Christopher Marlowe(1564-1593)

代表作： Tamburlaine(1587)-------帖木儿大帝

The Jew of Malta(1592)----马耳他岛的犹太人

Doctor Faustus(1588)-------浮士德

重点介绍：The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, the hero is a young and brilliant scholar. Feature: an insatiable thirst for knowledge.

影响力：1.show the spirit of the rising bourgeoisie;

2.the theme of his plays is the praise of individuality, the conviction of the boundless possibility of human efforts in conquering the universe, and soaring aspiration after power and knowledge and beauty in their ideal forms.

Marlowe：It is Marlowe who first made blank verse(rhymeless iambic pentameter) the principal instrument of English drama.

4.Shakespeare: he was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-on-Avon. And he died on April 23, 1616, buried in Stratford Church.

一. The great comedies: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It and Twelfth Night

剧情介绍： it is a beautiful fairy-tale combined with the story of the struggle for happiness of two pairs of lovers: Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius. 特色：the most lyrical of all his plays, in which elements of Greek mythology and fancifully combined with those of British folklore.

2. 威尼斯商人 It is a “grave comedy”. It takes its plot from an Italian story. 人物：Bassanio borrowed money from Shylock, and Antonio is Bassanio’s friend. Portia is one of Shakespeare’s ideal women---beautiful, cultured, courteous and capable of rising to an emergency.

3.As You Like It.人物：Frederick, Rosalind, Celia, Orlando, Oliver。

4. Twelfth Night. The scene is laid in Illria, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. ：Sebastian and Viola, Orsino, the young Duke of Illyria. Countess Olivia, Maria, Malvolio

二. The great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.

剧情介绍：

1. Othello: It is based on an Italian tale.

2. King Lear：the subject is taken from an old English legend.

3.Macveth: the plot of Macbeth is based on Holinshed’s Chronicle of Scottish History.

The play is a tragedy of ambition, which drives a brave soldier and national hero to degenerate into a bloody murderer and despot right to his doom.

4. Hamlet: the summit of Shakespeare’s art. The story comes from an old Danish legend.

人物性格：a. Hamlet is a humanist, a man who is free from medieval prejudices and superstitions. It shows the humanists of the Renaissance.

b. His democratic tendency is based on his humanist thought.

c. His intellectual genius is outstanding. d. His character is melancholy.

e. Hamlet is a hero of the Renaissance. His learning, wisdom, noble nature, limitation and tragedy are all representative of the humanists at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries.

莎士比亚：1.Shakespeare is one of the founders of realism in world literature.

2.Shakespeare’s dramatic creation often used the method of adoptation.

5. John Milton(1608)

代表作: Paradise Lost: it is a long epic in 12 books, written in blank verse. 主旨：a revolt against God’s authority. Adam and Eve embody Milton’s belief in the powers of man. Satan is the real hero.

弥尔顿：1. Milton was political in both his life and his art, the greatest English revolutionary poet.

2. Milton wrote the greatest epic in English literature. He and Shakespeare have always been regarded as two patterns of English verse.

3. Milton is a master of the blank verse，and he is a great stylist; he is famous for his grand style.

4.Milton has been admired for his sublimity of thought and majesty of expression.

6. Jonathan Swift(born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1667) 代表作：A Tale of a Tub(一只澡盆的故事) The Battle of the Books（书战） Bickerstaff Almanac(1708 历书)

Gulliver’s Travels(greatest work) The Drapier’s Letters(1724published)

A Modest Proposal(1729 climax)

剧情介绍：a. The first part Gulliver describes his shipwreck in Lilliput where the tallest people were six inches high. This part is full of references to current politics.

b. The second part, the voyage to Brobdingnag is described, men there were sixty feet in height.

c. The third part is a satire on philosophers and projectors, who were given to dwelling in the air, like the inhabitants of the Flying Island.

d. The last part Gulliver was now in a country where horses were possessed of reason, and were the governing class, while the Yahoos, though in the shape of men, were brute beasts with such vices as stealing and lying.

Swift总结：In simple, direct and precise prose, and he is a master satirist.

7.Daniel Defoe(1660-1731)

代表作：a. The Trueborn Englishman-A

Satire(1701), it is a best-known pamphlet, which contained a caustic exposure of the aristocracy and the tyranny of the church.

b. Robinson Crusoe(1719)----novel of adventure c. Captain Singleton(1720)---novel of adventure d. Moll Flanders(1722)—form of autobiography e. Colonel Jacque(1722)

剧情介绍：人物：Robinson, Friday.

Wherever there was a Bible, there was a copy of Robinson Crusoe.

The character of Robinson Crusoe is representative of the English bourgeoisie at the earlier stages of its development. He is most practical and exact, always religious and at the same time mindful of his own profit.

7. Samuel Richardson(1689-1761)

代表作：Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded. Clarissa Harlowe(1747-1748) Sir Charles Grandison(1753-1754)

剧情介绍: Pamela Andrews is a little waiting-maid of 15, whose mistress had just died when the story

opens. The lady’s son, Mr. B, takes a dishonorable advantage of her position. The novel is the first English psycho-analytical novel.

8. Henry Fielding(1707-8 October, 1754) 代表作: Joseph Andrews(1742); Jonathan Wild

Tom Jones(the greatest)

Amelia(last novel 1751)

Voyage to Lisbon

剧情介绍：Joseph Andrews: 因为Fielding鄙视Richardson的感伤主义文学，所以针对Richardson的Pamela, 写了这篇小说。小说主人公：Joseph and his friend Parson Adams(good man).

Jonathan Wild: parody the doings of contemporary politicians. 人物：Jonathan Wild, Mr. Snap, the virtuous Mr. Heartfree.

Tom Jones-----弃儿汤姆琼斯的历史

人物：Mr. Allworthy, Miss Bridget(a prudish spinster), Young Blifil(坏)；Sophia（女朋友, 绝

对的服从父亲，但是心地善良，同时也在择偶标准上坚持自己意见）；Squire Western（粗犷的老乡绅，暴君，野蛮人）；Partridge(Tom冒险途中的伙伴)；And Tom Jones is a foundling, and he is a handsome young man.

Fielding：1. He is one of the pioneers of English realistic literature, portrays the real life of men without disguise.

2. He is the founder of the English Realistic Novel, and he set up the theory of realism in literary creation.

3. He is a master of style. His style is easy, unlabored and familiar, but extremely vivid and vigorous.

8. Richard Brinsley Sheridan(1751-1816) 代表作：The Rivals

The School for Scandal(流言学校) 剧情介绍：The School for Scandal has been called a great comedy of manners. It gives a brilliant portrayal and a biting satire of English high society. 人物：Charles Surface and Joseph

Surface. Charles看似败家子，其实好的。Joseph伪君子。Maria是Charles恋人，是Sir Peter Teazle的被监护人。Joseph跟Lady Teazle有一腿。

9. Samuel Johnson(1709-1784)

代表作：London(1738)

The Vanity of Human Wishes(1749) Life of Richard Savage(1744) Irene(1749)

Rasselas(1759)

Periodicals: The Rambler and The Idler

The two most important of all his literary works are the Preface and comments of individual plays in his edition of Shakespeare(1765), and his <Lives of Poets(1779-1781)>

Johnson总结：a. Johnson was a clasicist.

b. In 1764, he founded the famous Literary Club, 成员有：Reynolds the painter, Adam Smith the political economist, Gibbon the historian, Garrick the actor, Sheridan the playwright, Percy the collector of ballads, Goldsmith the novelist

and poet, and Boswell, Johnson’s biographer.

10. Oliver Goldsmith(1730-1774)

代表作：poems：The Traveler, The Deserted Village

The Vicar of Wakefield(维克菲尔德牧师)（1761-1762）

Comedies: The Good-Natured Man(1768)

She stoops to conquer-屈身求爱(1773)

The Citizens of the World(1763)---使他成为greatest essayist.

Goldsmit总结：He was a poet, novelist, dramatist and essayist.

11. William Blake(born on 28 November 1757--1827)

代表作：Poetical Sketches----first collection Songs of Innocence(1789) and Songs of Experience(1794)

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell(1790) Blake：He was opposed to the classical tradition

of the 18th century, and he identifies classicism with formalism. His lyric poetry displays the characteristics of the romantic spirit, according to which

12. Robert Burns(1759-1796, 37岁)

代表作：Songs: The Scots Musical Museum

Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs.

具体：A Red Red Rose(love and friendship)

Bruce at Bannockburn(patriotism)

The Tree of Liberty and A revolutionary Lyric(support of the French Revolution)

The Slave’s Lament(sympathy for Negro) The Toadeater(bitter satire)

natural sentiment and individual originality are essential to literary creation.