英国文学知识点梳理：
1. Renaissance: ( from 14th century to 17th century)
Definition: Renaissance is commonly applied to the movement or period in Western
civilization, which marks the transition from the medieval to the modern world. An age of
drama and poetry.
Reasons: the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture, the new discoveries in
geography and astronomy, the religious reformation and economic expansion
Significance: a reflection of the class struggle waged by the new rising bourgeoisie
against the feudal class and its ideology.
William Caxton—the first person who introduced printing into England.
Sonnet: originated in Italy, sonnet is a fourteen-line poem with a distinctive
rhyme scheme and metrical pattern. It was introduced to England by Sir Wyatt in the
early stage of English Renaissance and then further cultivated by Edmund Spenser and
William Shakespeare so as to produce respectively the Spenserian stanza and
Shakespearian stanza, both of which exerted great influence on the successing poets.
Shakespearian Stanza: Shakespearean Sonnet is made up of three quatrains(四行诗节)
with different rhymes, followed by a couplet. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.
Spenserian Stanza: invented by Edmund Spenser. It is a stanza of 9 lines, with the
first eight lines in iambic pentameter 抑扬格五音步& the last line in iambic
hexameter抑扬格六音步, rhyming ababbcbcc.
blank verse—is unrhymed poetry with each line written in iambic pentamet
Metaphysical Poetry:
Definition: The term is commonly used to name the work in the 17th century written by the writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne. Representatives: John Donne & George Herbert
Technique: Peculiar/Metaphysical conceits(奇喻)
General Features: a. The diction is simple and echoes the words and cadence of
common speech.The imagery is drawn from the actual life yet subtle, the extended
metaphors for such images are typically called “metaphysical/peculiar
conceits”. The form is frequently that of an argument with the poet’s loved, with
God, or with himself.
2. Neo-classic Period:
1)The Enlightenment Movement—The Age of Reason
Definition: The Enlightenment refers to a progressive intellectual movement
throughout Western Europe that spans approximately one hundred years from
1680s to 1789.
Purpose: to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and
artistic ideas.
2) Neoclassicism: (Main literary form—English Novels)
Definition: In literary criticism, this term refers to the revival of the attitudes and
styles of expression of classical literature. It is generally used to describe a period in
European history beginning in the late seventeenth century and lasting until about
1800.
Characteristics of Neoclassical Literature: fixed laws and rules for almost every
genre of literature. Prose: lyrical, epical, didactic, satiric or dramatic, each class
guided by its own principles. Drama: in Heroic Couplet; strictly observation of the 3
unity of time, space and action; regularity in construction; type characters
rather than individuals. Mainstream of literature: realism—writers described the
social realities.
3. Romantic Period: (an age of poetry)
1) Romanticism
English Romanticism is said to have begun in 1798 with the publication of
Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads and to have ended in 1832 with
Sir Walter Scott’s death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in the
Parliament.
2) Characteristics of the Age
The Romantic Age is emphatically an age of poetry. Women novelists appeared in this age. It was during this period that women assumed, for the first time, an important place in English literature. (Jane Austen) The greatest historical novelists Walter Scott belongs to this period. His
historical novels combines a romantic atmosphere with a realistic depiction of
historical background and common people’s life. Scott marked the transition
from romanticism to the period of realism that followed it.
4. The Victorian Period:
1) Victorian Literature
The novel became the most widely read and most vital and challenging
expression of progressive thought.
The Victorian age was also a great one for non-fictional prose. The poets of this period were mainly characterized by their experiment with
new styles and new ways of expression.
2) Critical Realism
English critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the 1840s and early 1850s. It found its expression mainly in the writing of novels and the greatest
English critical realist of the time was Charles Dickens—a humorist and
satirist, a great bourgoisie intellect who could not overstep the limits of
his class. The English critical realism of the 19th century not only gave a satirical
portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the ruling classes, but also showed
profound sympathy for the common people.
5. The Modern Period—marked by the publification of T. S. Eliot’s The Wast
Land: (Prevailing Genre: Fictions)
1) Cultural Background
Darwin’s Origin of Species and social Darwinism;Einstein’s theory of relativity; Freud’s
analytical psychology; irrational philosophers including Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and
Bergson.
2) The Differences Between Realism and Modernism:
Realism: Theoratical Base ---Rational Philosophy Function of Literature--- Educate
People and Criticize Social Evils Subject--- Public, Exterior World Conception of
Time &Space--- Clock Time, Geographic space Forms and Techniques--- Hero, Plot
Tone--- Optimistic
Modernism: Theoratical Base --- Irrational Philosophy Function of Literature---
Expression of "Self" Subject--- Private, Interior World
Conception of Time &Space--- Psychological Time &Space Forms and Techniques---
Anti-hero, Anti-plot
Tone--- Pessimistic
Modernism is , in many aspects, a reaction against rationalism, it rose out of
skepticism and disillusion of capitalism. The Major theme of Modernism:
distoreted, alienated and ill relationships between man and nature, man and society,
man and man, and man and himself.
Literary Trends: expressionism, surrealism(超现实主义), futurism, imagism and stream
of consciousness, existentialsm.
美国文学
1. Literature of Colonial Period
a. Indian tribes had a rich store of oral literature in the forms of songs, spells, charms,
omens ,riddles and stories.
b. Three stages: Traditional literature, Transitional Literature, Modern Literature c. The first permanent English settlement was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.
d. Puritanism :Origin of Puritan
Doctrines: based on Calvinism 1)predestination 2)original sin and total depravity
3)limited atonement 4)theocracy
Influence on American Literature 1)Its optimism has exerted a great influence on
American literature 2)Puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception changed
gradually into a literary symbolism
e. Literature of Colonial Settlement: Forms: histories, travel account, biographies,
diaries, letters, autobiographies, sermons and poems. Characteristics: 1) American
colonial literature is neither real literature nor American. 2) Their writings served either
God or colonial expansion
2. The Literature of the Revolutionary Period:
a. The Age of Reason: Definition: A rational society is that “reforms the mind,
sweetens the temper, cheers the spirits, and promotes health” (by Thomas
Jefferson).
b. The forms of literature: ballads, skits, broadsides, newspaper poems, editorials,
essays, private and public letters, satires, pamphlets
3. The Literature of the Romantic Period
1) American Romanticism: an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe
in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on
the individual’s expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and
forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions.
native factors: It is a period following American independence.(Political independence,
economic development and territorial expansion contributed much to literature.
foreign influence: Romanticism emerged from England and it added impetus to the
growth of Romanticism in America.
2) Distinct Features of American Romanticism
a. It was in essence the expression of a real new experience
b. American Puritanism served as a cultural heritage in American literature. c. American new ideals were strong enough to inspire Romantic spirit
d. both imitative & independent
4. The Literature of the Realistic Period:
a. Realism: is a term applied to literary composition that aims at an prejudice, idealism, or romantic color.
b. Time: Realism flourished from the Civil War to the turn of the century.
c. Features: (1) It stresses truthful treatment of material. (2) Characterization is the center of the story. (3) Open ending is a good example of the truthful treatment of material. (4) Realism focuses on common characters and everyday events. (5) Realism emphasizes objectivity. (6) Realism presents moral vision.
d. Two Literary Trends:
1)Local Color(or Local Corlorism/Regionalism etc.)
a. Local Color is a term applied to literature which, as that have escaped standardizing cultural influences
b. Features: Presenting a locale which is distinguished from the outside world; Describing the exotic and the picturesque; Nostalgia; Showing things as they are; The influence of setting on character（environmental determinism）
2) Naturalism:
a. Background: 1) Darwinism’s key points: the struggle for existence or evolution, the survival of the fittest, natural selection. 2) Social Darwinism: the weak and stupid would fall victim in the natural course of events to economic forces.
b. Definition: Naturalism is a critical term applied to the method of literary
composition
c. Features:Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment. The universe is cold, godless, indifferent, and hostile to human desires.
The literary naturalists have a major difference from the realists. (Violent, sensational, sordid, unpleasant and ugly vs. genteel)
5. The Literature of the Modernist Period:
1). Modernism:
Cultural Background: Darwin’s Origin of Species; Freud’s analytical psychology (libido, id, ego, superego); Irrational Philosophers: Schopenhauer & Nietzsche
Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th-century traditions.
2) Imagism: (Leaders: Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell)
Definition: Imagism is the doctrine and poetic practice of a small but influential group of American and British poets calling themselves imagists between 1912 and 1917. Aiming at a new clarity and exactness in the short lyric poem, the imagists cultivated concision and directness, building their short poems around single images; they also preferred looser cadences to traditional regular rhythms.
Features: Free choice of subject matter, Free verse, Image Without interpretation or comment
Influences: a. The imagist theories call for brief language, describing the precise picture in as few words as possible. This new way of poetry composition has a lasting influence in the 20th century poetry. b. The second lasting influence of Imagism is the form of free verse. There are no metrical rules. There are apparent indiscriminate line breaks, which reflects the discontinuity of life itself. That is art of the poem. (The poet uses the length of the lines and the strange groupings of words to show how life itself can be broken up into somehow meaningless clusters.)
2)The Lost Generation:
. first used by Gertrude Stein, an American woman writer, who was one of the leaders of the group,the term defines a sense of moral loss or aimlessness. The WWI destroyed the innocent ideas, many good young men went to the war and died, or
returned damaged, both physically and mentally; their moral faith were no longer valid--- they were “Lost.”
In the Narrow Sense: a group of American writers, including Hemingway,
F.S.Fitzgerald, J.Dos Passos, E.E.Cummings, Sherwood Anderson, and Hart Crane, etc.
In the Broad Sense: the entire post WWI American young generation
Main Characteristics: Suffering from the war, losing beliefs, being cut off from life, indulged in drinking and partying.