英美诗歌欣赏（教案）

英美诗歌教程 课程：英美诗歌欣赏 教材：英美诗歌教程 A Course of English and American Poetry 开课院系：外国语学院 任课教师：李正栓教授 开课学期： 学分： 周学时：2 总学时：36 课程性质：学士学位专业课 适用专业：非英语专业选修 本课程的教学目的： 本课程旨在通过英美诗歌的具体文本阅读，让选课的学生比较系统地了解并掌握英美诗歌的发展，了解英诗在各个历史时期的形式、风格、技巧和与之相关的时代背景、文学思潮等，掌握诗歌分析和欣赏的基本方法。 教学内容及基本要求： 比较系统和全面地介绍英美诗歌的发展历史，分析各个时期英美诗歌的经典佳作，阐述这些诗作的格式、韵律、风格和诗歌创作理论。重点将放在具体诗歌的分析上。通过比较详尽的分析，让学生掌握英诗的特点，提高他们欣赏英语的能力以及分析水平，熟悉英国诗歌的创作理论。本课程将涉及32位诗人的65首诗歌。除了认真研读这些诗歌以外，学生们应扩大自己的阅读范围，广泛地阅读相关的翻译和赏析材料以及其它优秀的英美诗作，提高自身对英美诗歌的理解和欣赏水平。 考核方式及要求： 随堂讨论与期末考试相结合。 English Poetry Session One Part One Edmund Spenser I. Background Information The Renaissance in England: Renaissance is the ‘rebirth’ of literature, art and learning that progressively transformed European culture from the mid-14th century in Italy to the mid-17th century in England, strongly influenced by the rediscovery of classical Greek and Latin literature, and accelerated by the development of printing. The Renaissance is commonly held to mark the close of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern Western world. In literary terms, the Renaissance may be seen as a new tradition running from Petrarch and Boccaccio in Italy to Jonson and Milton in England, embracing the work of Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare; it is marked by a new self-confidence in vernacular literatures, a flourishing of lyric poetry, and a revival of such classical forms as epic and pastoral literature. Humanism became the key note of the English Renaissance. The Humanists emphasized the capability of the human mind and the achievements of human culture, in contrast to the medieval emphasis on God and contempt for the things of this world. English poetry in the Renaissance period has one of its highlights. It achieved original beauty and exuberance, especially in the Age of Elizabeth. Elizabethan poetry is notable for its variety, its freshness, its freshness, its youthfulness, and its romantic ardor. A group of excellent poets appeared (including Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson in this book), and a large number of noble poetic works were produced. In the Age of Elizabeth, writing poetry became a fashion. Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), the greatest nondramatic poet of the English Renaissance, is regarded as “the poet’s poet” because of his great influence on later poets. Spenser was born and educated in London. Then Spenser studied at Cambridge, where he read the classics and Italian poets and wrote poems. The Shepheards Calendar was Spenser’s first major work, a series of pastoral poems arranged according to the months of the year. His masterpiece The Faerie Queene, the great romantic epic, was published in 1590, consisting of six books. One of his major work Amoretti, the sonnet sequence in 1595, together with Shakespeare’s sonnets and Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella were regarded as the most famous sonnet sequences of the Elizabethan Age. Spenser’s contribution to English literature lies not only in what he wrote, but also in how he wrote it. He created new poetic forms. The 9-line stanza form, called Spenserian stanza, rhymed abab bcbc c is one of his inventions. The first eight are iambic pentameter lines, and the last line is an iambic hexameter line. The sonnet form he invented, called Spenserian sonnet, which comprises three quatrains and a final couplet as others’, contains such an intricate pattern of interlocking rhymes as abab bcbc cdcd ee. He tried his hand on different forms and meters. He has great influence on later poets. II. Selected poems Sonnet 34 A. Pre-reading questions for classroom discussion Identify the three images in the poem. What’s their function? What does the author compare his love to? B. Teaching Points except the notes in the book This poem is written in Spenserian sonnet, that is, three quatrains plus a couplet of iambic pentameter rhyming abab bcbc cdcd ee. Archaic words: lyke-like, wyde-wide, doth-does, whenas-when, guyde-guide, doe-do, cloudes-clouds, darknesse-darkness, storme-storm, lyfe-life, looke-look, cleare-clear, comfortlesse-confortless, pensivenesse-pensiveness. Theme: This poem shows the author’s deep love for his beloved and the importance of his beloved to him. Analogy: The poet compared his love journey to the journey of a ship by using three images: ocean, ship and bright star. B. Questions for study and discussion. What’s the rhyme scheme of this poem? Compare with the rhyme scheme of other sonneteers. Sonnet 75 A. Teaching Points except the notes in the book 1. This poem is also written in Spenserian sonnet. 2. Archaic words: agayne-again, tyde-tide, pray-prey, paynes-pains, vayne-vain, sayd-said, doest-does, vaine-vain, mortall-mortal, my selve-myself, lyke-like, bee-be, whenas-whereas, lykewize-likewise, quod-quoth, dy- die, vertues-virtues, subdew-subdue. 3. Theme: Thanks to his poetry, their love will live forever, so does the fame of his lover. This poem follows the traditional theme for poetry in the Elizabethan period, that is, poetry can bring eternity to the one he loves. For example Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 ( “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”)and Sonnet 55 (“Not marble, nor the guilded monument, / Of Princes shall outlive this powerfull rime”). B. Questions for study and discussion 1. Identify the metrical pattern and rhyme scheme in this poem. 2.After a brief narration for a quatrain, the poem is going on in dialogue. What do you think of this writing style? Part Two Christopher Marlowe I. Background Information Pastoral, a highly conventional mode of writing that celebrates the innocent life of shepherds and shepherdesses in poems, plays, and prose romances. Pastoral literature describes the loves and sorrows of musical shepherds, usually in an idealized Golden Age of rustic innocence and idleness; paradoxically, it is an elaborately artificial cult of simplicity and virtuous frugality. In the Renaissance the traditional pastoral was also adapted to diverse satirical and allegorical uses, Edmund Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar (1579), which popularized the mode in English poetry, included most of the varieties of pastoral poems current in that period. English pastorals were written in several forms, from the pastoral romance of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, the eclogues of Edmund Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar and the comedy of Shakespeare’s As You Like It to lyrics like Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”. Christopher Marlowe(1564-1593), though short lived, is regarded as the greatest of the pioneers in English drama, first making blank verse the principal instrument of English drama. Apart from his plays, Marlowe also wrote some lyrics. Among them “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is the most quoted one. II. Selected poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love A. Pre-reading questions for classroom discussion 1. Identify the rhyme scheme in this poem. 2. How does the speaker pay court to his lover in the poem? B. Teaching Points except the notes in the book 1. This pastoral lyric of invitation is one of the most famous of Elizabethan songs. Many poets have written replies to it. The finest reply is “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” by the great Elizabethan romantic Sir Walter Ralegh. Another of the many replies was Donne’s “The Bait”. 2. The poem is written in 7 quatrains rhyming aabb. 3. Theme: this poem describes a shepherd’s invitation to his lover by promising to give her all the pleasures nature can give. B. Questions for study and discussion 1. Do you think the shepherd could succeed in courtship by the way described in the poem? Part Three Assignments I. Recite “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” II. Questions for preview A. Compare the Spenserian sonnet with that of Shakespeare. Identify the similarity and difference of them. B. Compare different Chinese versions of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Point out the strong points and weak points of each version. Session Two William Shakespeare I. Background Information William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was the greatest figure of English literature. In his lifetime, he wrote 37 plays, two long narrative poems Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece(1594) and 154 sonnets. Though he was always taken as the greatest dramatist of his day, his genius for poetic creation was also shinning bright in his sonnets. His sonnets were mainly dedicated to “W.H.”, a young man―maybe his friend or patron. Sonnets 1-126 mainly discuss his friendship with a handsome young man and Sonnets 127-152 are about a mysterious “dark lady”, who is thought to be the poet’s ideal woman. The last two sonnets have no relationship with the others. The main theme of his sonnets is love and friendship. Sonnet is a lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of 14 iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate rhyme scheme. There are two major patterns of rhyme in sonnets written in English. The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet (named after the 14th century Italian poet Petrarch) comprises an octave (8 lines) rhyming abbaabba and a sestet (6 lines) rhyming cdecde or cdccdc. The transition from octave to sestet usually coincides with a ‘turn’ in the argument or mood of the poem. The English or Shakespearean sonnet (named after its greatest practitioner) comprises three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. The ‘turn’ comes with the final couplet, which may sometimes achieve an epigram. There was one notable variant, the Spenserian sonnet, in which Spenser linked each quatrain to the next by a continuing rhyme: abab bcbc cdcd ee. There are three famous sonnet sequences in the Elizabethan Age----Spenser’s Amoretti, Shakespeare’s sonnets and Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella. II. Selected poems Under the Greenwood Tree A. Teaching points except that in the book 1. This poem is chosen from Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It (1599-1600) (Scene V. Act II). It vividly describes the happy life of the banished Duke and his followers in the Forest of Arden. 2. This poem is written in two eight-line stanzas rhyming aabbcddc. Turn his merry note / Unto the sweet bird’s throat: make his joyful song in harmony with the bird’s. B. Questions for study and discussion Whom does the poet call to come “hither” in the first stanza? What’s the effect of the shorter lines of the poem? What’s the theme of the poem? Sonnet 18 A. Pre-reading questions for classroom discussion Taking this poem as a sample, carefully explain the structure, turning point, conclusion and rhyme scheme of Shakespearean sonnet. Why does the poet compare his love to a summer’s day? B. Teaching points except that in the book This poem is Shakespeare’s most frequently quoted sonnet. Theme: The poet sings praise of his friend, and thinks that his poetry will bring eternity to the one he loves. The poem follows the traditional theme for poetry in the Elizabethan period, that is, poetry can bring eternity to the one he loves and eulogizes. From the poem we can see that the poet has confidence in his poetry and he thinks that his poems will be everlasting in human world. He also shows love for and celebration of his friend, the young man. It is written in Shakespearean sonnet rhyming abab, cdcd, efef, gg C. Questions for study and discussion Explain the function of variation in metrical pattern of this poem, such as the trochee “Shall I” or the spondee “Rough wind” for stress. What’s the theme of the poem? Can you name some poems with the same idea? Analyze the development of thought in this sonnet. Sonnet 29 A. Teaching points except that in the book This is also a Shakespearean sonnet. Theme: the poet sings praise of the power of friendship and his admiration toward the young man in the poem. B. Questions for study and discussion 1. Explain the meaning of the word “state” in Line 2, 10 and 14. 2. There are two moods contrasted in this sonnet. What are they? 3. What causes his change of mood in the last few lines of the poem? 4. How do you understand the image of a lark in the sonnet? Sonnet 55 A. Pre-reading questions for classroom discussion Find out the theme of this sonnet. Name the poems you learnt in this book with the same idea. B. Teaching points except that in the book This is another Shakespearean sonnet. Theme: same as Sonnet 18, 65 and Spenser’s Sonnet 75 in Amoretti. C. Questions for study and discussion 1. What comparisons are displayed in this sonnet? 2. What’s the function of comparison here? Part Three Assignments I. Recite “Sonnet 18” II. Questions for preview 1. Translate Jonson’s “Song: To Celia” into Chinese. 2. What attitudes toward women are shown in “That Women Are But Men’s Shadow” and “Song”? 3. What does the image “the flea” signify? Session Three Ben Jonson I. Background Information Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was one of the most outstanding figures in the literary world of the early 17th century. He was a man of versatility, a soldier, actor, playwright, poet and poet laureate, scholar, critic, translator, man of letter, and head of a literary “school”, the so-called “sons of Ben”(the later Cavalier school of English poets like Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling called themselves “sons of Ben” or the “Tribe of Ben” to show their worship toward Ben Jonson). In short, he was a giant. Jonson’s main dramatic works include Every Man in His Humor (1598), a comedy of humors, Sejanus (1603) a classical tragedy, Volpone (1606) and The Alchemist (1610), two supreme satiric comedies of the English stage. Besides being a dramatist, Ben Jonson was also a poet, though his poetry was certainly not his chief contribution to literature as his drama is. His poetry can be divided into five groups: poems of festive ceremony, poems in imitation of Horace with English tonality, elegies and epitaphs, compliments and tributes, and epigrams. Three books of his non-dramatic poetry were published. Among them, The Epigram and The Forest were published in his lifetime, while the third one The Underwood was collected and published posthumously. Ben Jonson was also very important as a critic. He advocated classicism, modeling on the old Greek and Roman masters, taking a firm stand for the three unities in play writing. Ballad stanza or Ballad metre, the usual form of the folk ballad and its literary imitations, consisting of a quatrain in which the first and third lines have four stresses while the second and fourth have three stresses. Usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme. The rhythm is basically iambic. II. Selected poems Song: To Celia A. Pre-reading questions for classroom discussion 1. Translate this poem into Chinese. 2. Identify the poetic form of the poem. B. Teaching points except that in the book This poem, which is chosen from The Forest, a small collection of 15 poems, has been set to music and considered one of the treasured love lyrics in the English language. This classic lyric is written in two 8-line stanzas in the ballad meter (alternate 8-syllable and 6-syllable lines of iambic meter and with alternate rhymes). Theme: To sing praise of Platonic love. drink to me: wishes to me by drinking a toast thine: your pledge: drink a toast but: only doth:does The thirst that from the soul doth rise, / Doth ask a drink divine=the thirst from the soul rises and asks a divine drink. drink divine: divine drink might I of Jove’s nectar sup=might I sup of Jove’s nectar. Might I: if I might. Sup: sip. Of: some of. Jove: Jupiter. Nectar: the drink of gods. I would not change for thine: I would not change Jove’s Nectar for your wine. late: lately rosy wreath: wreath of roses Not so much honoring thee, / As giving it a hope: not honoring thee, but rather giving it a hope. Honoring: in order to honor. It: rosy wreath that there / It could not withered be: that it could not be withered there. that-clause is the appositive of hope. there: with you. But thou there on did’st only breathe: but if you only breathe on it. did’st breathe: did breathe. Thereon: on it. sent’st: sent Since when: after which time / then Not of itself, but thee=not of itself, but of thee. Not of itself: by itself. But thee: but because of you. C. Imagery appreciation This poem is famous for its fresh imagery of “eyes”, “kiss” and “wreath”. Changing of eyes represents exchanging of love between lovers. Lover’s kiss is considered as a divine drink while a wreath of roses as the messenger of love. D. Questions for study and discussion What kind of love, do you think, was described in the poem? Point out the rhyme scheme of this poem. That Women Are But Men’s Shadow A. Pre-reading questions for classroom discussion 1. What relationship of man and woman is shown in this poem? 2. Identify the rhyme scheme of the poem. B. Teaching points It is a minor poem of Ben Jonson, in which he discusses the relationship of men and women. flies: flees pursue: follow; be after court: woo let her alone: not try to pursue her morn: morning at weakest: mentally or physically weak Part Two John Donne I. Background Information The Metaphysical Poets: John Dryden said in his Discourse Concerning Satire (1693) that John Donne in his poetry “affects the metaphysics,” meaning that Donne employs the terminology and abstruse arguments of the medieval Scholastic philosophers. In 1779 Samuel Johnson extended the term “metaphysical” from Donne to a school of poets in his “Life of Cowley.” The name is now applied to a diverse group of 17th-century English poets whose work is notable for its ingenious use of intellectual and theological concepts in surprising conceits, strange paradoxes and far-fetched imagery. The leading metaphysical poet was John Donne, whose colloquial, argumentative abruptness of rhythm and tone distinguishes his style from the conventions of Elizabethan love lyrics. Other poets to whom the label is applied include Andrew Marvell, Abraham Cowley, John Cleveland and the predominantly religious poets George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and Richard Crashaw. The features of the metaphysical poetry in the 17th century were arresting and original images and conceits, wit, ingenuity, clever use of colloquial speech, considerable flexibility of rhythm and meter, complex themes, a liking for paradox and dialectical argument, a direct manner, a caustic humor, a keenly felt awareness of mortality, and a distinguished capacity for elliptical thought and tersely compact expression. But for all their intellectual robustness the metaphysical poets were also capable of refined delicacy, gracefulness and deep feeling, passion as well as wit. In the 20th century, T. S. Eliot and others revived their reputation, stressing their quality of wit, in the sense of intellectual strenuousness and flexibility rather than smart humour. The term metaphysical poetry usually refers to the works of these poets. Metaphysical poetry gained revival after H. J. C. Grierson published Donne’s complete poems (1912). T. S. Eliot and many other critics helped a lot to make Donne an acknowledged master. The metaphysical poets have made a profound influence on the course of English poetry in the 20th century. Conceit: an unusually far-fetched or elaborate metaphor or simile presenting a surprisingly apt parallel between two apparently dissimilar things or feelings. Poetic conceits are prominent in Elizabethan love sonnets, in metaphysical poetry. Conceits often employ the devices of hyperbole, paradox and oxymoron. Originally meaning a concept or image, conceit came to be the term for figures of speech which establish a striking parallel, usually ingeniously elaborate, between two very dissimilar things or situations. The metaphysical conceit is a characteristic figure in John Donne and other metaphysical poets of the 17th century. It was described by Samuel Johnson, in his “Life of Cowley,”(1779-81), as “wit” which is A kind of discordia concors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike….The most heterogeneous ideas are yoke by vio