英国概况电子教案6.7

Chapter 6 British Literature Time Allocation: 4 periods Focal Points: early British literature concerned with Christianity, characteristics of the 19th century literature. I. Introduction 1) Anglo-Saxon Period A. Beowulf B. Chaucer 2) The Renaissance A. Christopher Marlow A. Shakespeare B. Milton C. Banyan D. Bacon 3) The Enlightenment Movement A. Swift B. Defoe C. Alexandra Pope D. Henry Fielding E. William Blake F. Sheriden G. Robert Burns 4) Romanticism A. Thomas Grey B. William Wordsworth C. Cole ridge D. Byron E. Shelley F. Jane Austen 5) The Critical Realism A. Charles Dickens B. Thacheray C. Charlotte Bronte D. Emily Bronte E. Alfred Tennyson F. Robert Browning G. Thomas Hardy H. Bernard Shaw 6) The Modern Literature A. D. H. Lawrence B. James Joyce C. Virginia Woolf D. E. M. Forester 1. What is Literature? In English we use the word in at least two different ways: 1) In its broad sense, literature means anything that is written: timetable, catalogues, textbooks, travel brochures and so on. In this broad sense an account of yesterday’s football match or an advertisement for soap powder is as much literature as the Dialogues of Plato or the novels of Graham Greene. 2) In its narrow sense, literature means something more serious. Literature, we may now agree, is writing which expresses and communicates thoughts, feelings and attitudes towards life. It interests, entertains, stimulates, broadens, or ennobles the reader. 2. Types of Literature In practice, works of literature fall into four categories or genres: 1) narrative fiction 2) drama 3) poetry and 4) non-fiction prose All these four forms have many common characteristics. While the major purpose of non-fiction prose, for example, is to inform, the other genres also provide information (although informing is incidental to the others). All the genres (category of artistic works) are art forms, each with its own internal requirements of structure and style. In varying degrees, all the forms are dramatic and imaginative. Even a work of non-fiction prose designed to instruct will be unsuccessful unless it makes at least some appeal to the imagination. Narrative Fiction A narrative is an account of a series of events, usually fictional, although sometimes fictional events may be tied to events that are genuinely historical. The two kinds of narrative fiction you will read most often are short stories and novels. Myths, parables (寓言), romances, and epics are also part of the genre. 1) A short story is usually about one or two characters undergoing some sort of difficulty or facing some sort of problem. The characters may go uphill or downhill, but they almost never remain the same, for even staying the same way usually be interpreted as either downhill or uphill. Although the characters will interact with other characters and with the circumstances surrounding them, usually these relationships are described fairly briefly, for the shortened form of the story does not permit a great deal of development about how human character changes in response to human beings and environment. 2) The novel, on the other hand, permits a full development of these interactions, and its length is caused by this fullness of development. Like the short story, the novel usually focuses on a small number of characters, although the cast of secondary characters is often large and the number of incidents is multiplied. Drama A drama or play is designed to be performed on a stage by live actors. It therefore consists of dialogue together with direction for action. Like narrative fiction, it focuses on a single character or a small number of characters. Drama does not rely on narration, however, but presents you with speech and action which actually render ( 表 关于同志近三年现实表现材料材料类招标技术评分表图表与交易pdf视力表打印pdf用图表说话 pdf 现) the interactions that cause change in the characters and that resolve the conflicts with which the characters are engaged. The drama types are tragedy, comedy and farce (滑稽剧). In the face of human disasters, tragedy attempts to elevate human values. Comedy treats people as they are, laughing at them or sympathizing with them, but showing them to be successful nevertheless. Farce exaggerates human foolishness, gets the characters into improbable and lunatic (愚蠢的) situation and laughs at everyone in sight. Poetry Poetry is a broad term that includes many subtypes, such as sonnet (十四行诗), lyric, pastoral (田园诗), ballad (歌谣), song, ode (颂诗), drama (which may be in either prose or poetry) epic, mock epic and dramatic monologue. Essentially, poetry is a compressed and often highly emotional form of expression. It relies more heavily than prose on imagery (比喻), that is, on a comparative, allusive (暗指的), suggestive form of expression that is applicable to a wide number of human situation. It is this compactness of expression, combined with the broadness of application that makes poetry unique. Because poetry is so compact, the rhythms of poetic speech become as vital as the emotions and ideas. Sometimes these rhythms are called the music of poetry. The topic material of poetry can be just about anything. Love, personal meditations, psychological studies, reviews of folklore, attacks on co celebrations of the seasons, observations on life in the streets or in the home—these are just a few of the topics found. While writers of narrative and drama confine themselves exclusively to their respective forms, the poet is free to select any form he or she wishes, thus some of the best poetry is dramatic (for example, Shakespeare’s plays) and narrative (Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost). Nonfiction Prose This is a broad term referring to short forms like essays and articles and to longer non-fictional and non-dramatic works. The essay or article is a form designed primarily to express ideas, interpretations, and descriptions. The topics of essays are unlimited; they may be on social, political, artistic, scientific and other subjects. In an essay an author focuses on one topic such as the influence of diet on health or the contrast between envy and ambition. The writer usually develops a single topic fully but not exhaustively. When exhaustiveness is the aim, the writer expands the essay into the form of an entire book, which retains the same centralized focus as the essay but permits a wide examination and application of the entire subject. The article is a form closely related to the essay. It is designed to explore and draw conclusion from facts and sometimes is exclusively factual. Therefore the article is used in all scholarly areas, such as economics, chemistry, physics, geology, anthropology and history. When an article is used exclusively for the reporting of research findings, it is distant from the essay in style, but when a writer combines factual material with conclusion and interpretations, the article comes close to the essay. When the scope of the article is enlarged, it grows into a complete book. II. Early Writing 1. Beowulf This is the first piece of English literary work. It is regarded as the national epic of the Anglo-Saxons. The story consists of three fights made by Beowulf, the hero in the story. 1) The fight with the monster Grendel 2) The fight with Grendel’s mother 3) The fight with a fire Dragon 2. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) Chaucer is one of the greatest English poets. His masterpiece The Canterbury Tales was one of the most important influences on the development of English literature. His life is known primarily through records pertaining (涉及) to his career as a courtier (侍臣) and civil servant under the English kings Edward III and Richard II. Chaucer was the son of a prosperous London wine merchant. Chaucer may have attended the Latin grammar school of Saint Paul's Cathedral and may have studied law at the Inns of Court. About 1366, he married Philippa Roet, a lady-in-waiting to the queen and afterward in the service of John of Gaunt, who was duke of Lancaster and Edward's fourth son. Chaucer served as controller of customs for London from 1374 to 1386 and clerk of the king's works from 1389 to 1391, in which post he was responsible for maintenance of royal buildings and parks. About 1386 Chaucer moved from London to a country residence, where in 1386 he was justice of the peace and representative to Parliament. He traveled on several diplomatic missions to France, one to Spain in 1366, and two to Italy from 1372 to 1373 and in 1378. In the last year of his life, Chaucer leased (租) a house within the district of Westminster Abbey. After his death, he was buried in the Abbey (an honor for a commoner), in what has since become the Poets' Corner. Chaucer’s masterpiece is The Canterbury Tales. It is made up of a series of stories told by pilgrims to entertain each other on their way to the important Christian Church at Canterbury in southeast England. One of the contributions Chaucer made to the English literature is the introduction of the couplet from France into England. Heroic couplet a rhyming pair of iambic-pentameter lines, first used extensively in English by Chaucer and later developed as a syntactically complete unit, esp. by Dryden and Pope III. Elizabethan Drama 1. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) Christopher Marlowe was born in 1564, the year of William Shakespeare's birth. He is the eldest son of a shoemaker. At 23, he went to London and became one of the most important dramatist before William Shakespeare. Marlowe worked on tragedy and he wrote four important plays developing tragedy as a dramatic form. Being an atheist (无神论者), he was arrested for an unknown offense. Marlowe was killed in 1593 in a tavern (酒馆) fight. He and his friend argued over the bill and then he was killed by his friend with a knife. Some say that it may be an assassination. Marlowe died at the age of 29, and it is interesting that at this time Shakespeare was just beginning his dramatic career. Marlowe was the first one to use blank verse that encourage Shakespeare to try it. Marlowe was also the first to write a tragedy in English, again paving the way for Shakespeare. 1) The greatest writer in “University Wits”: Marlow is the immediate predecessors (先辈) of Shakespeare. They are a group of men from the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge, who were generally known as the University Wits, including John Lyly, George Peele (1558-1598), Thomas lodge (1558-1625), Robert Greene (1558-1592), Thomas Nashe, Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), and Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), Lyly and Peele and Lodge being from Oxford and Greene and Nashe and Marlowe from Cambridge while Kyd also likely to have received a university education. 2) Marlowe’s major plays: A. Tamburlaine B. The Jew of Malta C. Dr. Faustus 3) Marlowe’s two contributions to the English Literature A. blank verse B. Renaissance hero for drama. 4) A brief introduction to “Dr. Faustus” Dr. Faustus is the greatest of Marlowe’s plays, in which the old German legend is freely reshaped. Faustus is a great scholar who has a strong desire to acquire all kinds of knowledge. He is bored of his present study on the academic curriculum and turns to black magic. By conjuration (念咒文召唤), he calls up Mephistophilis, the Devil’s servant. Faustus makes a bond to sell his soul to the Devil in return for 24 years of life in which he may have the services of Mephistophilis to give him everything he desires. With the help of the Devil, Faustus brings his magical art into full play and sees the Pope, Alexander the Great and even the beautiful Helen of Greece. Meanwhile Faustus has experienced much internal conflict, symbolized in the appearances of both Good Angel and Bad Angel. In the final scene, there remains only the terrifying soliloquy (自言自语) in which the anguish (剧痛) of the hero’s mind is poignantly (尖锐地) expressed. 2. William Shakespeare Shakespeare, William (1564-1616), English playwright and poet, recognized in much of the world as the greatest of all dramatists. Hundreds of editions of his plays have been published, including translations in all major languages. Scholars have written thousands of books and articles about his plots, characters, themes, and language. He is the most widely quoted author in history, and his plays have probably been performed more times than those of any other dramatist. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in Stratford, a small but important market town, during the week of April 23, 1564. He was the third of a family of eight children. His father, John Shakespeare, was a well-to-do merchant and leading citizen in the town who had repeatedly served as a member of the town council and had held almost all the important town offices at one time or another. Shakespeare’s Birthplace English playwright William Shakespeare was born in this house on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564. Shakespeare’s father, John, purchased the building in two stages, in 1556 and 1572. Today, Shakespeare’s birthplace is a museum, furnished as it might have been in Shakespeare’s time. It also houses an exhibit on Shakespeare’s life. Shakespeare was educated in an excellent grammar school, taught by university graduates. In November, 1582 when he was 18, he married the twenty-six year old daughter of a yeoman, Ann Hathaway. The first child, Susanna, was born less than five months later it is likely that the marriage was one of necessity. On April 18, 1593, Shakespeare published his first known poem, the long narrative Venus and Adonis, which was dedicated to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, a friend and follower of Lord Essex. In May, 1594, Shakespeare’s second nondramatic poem, The Rape of Lucrece, was published and dedicated to the same patron. Apart from the long poems, Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets which were published. At the end of 1611 he retired to Stratford and died there on April 23, 1616. Shakespeare’s wife, Anne, died on August 6, 1623. She lived long enough to see a monument to her husband erected in Holy Trinity Church. Elizabethan Theatre First built in 1935, then rebuilt in 1959, Ashland’s Elizabethan Theatre is one of several venues for plays in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Globe Theatre in London The Globe Theatre, where dramatist William Shakespeare saw his plays performed 400 years ago, has been rebuilt near its original location on the south bank of the Thames River in London, England. The rebuilt theater opened in 1997 and offers performances of Shakespeare’s plays during the summer. Traditional materials were used in the rebuilding. A thatched (用草盖的屋顶) roof covers the galleries where the audience sits, and the outer walls are made of lime plaster (石膏). Shakespeare’s Burial Site William Shakespeare was buried in the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, shown here. His epitaph reads: Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased heare: Blese be ye man yt spares thes stones And curst be he yt moves my bones. His Works 1) His Poems A. His Tow Long Poems a. Venus and Adonis (1592) b. The Rape of Lucrece (1593) B. His Sonnets 2) His Plays Shakespeare’s plays can be divided into three categories: A. comedies, B. histories, C. tragedies. According to the date of publication, Shakespeare’s plays can be divided into four periods: A. The First Period (1590-1594) 1. The second Part of King Henry VI (1590) 2. The Third Part of King Henry VI 3. The First Part of King Henry VI (1591) 4. The Life and Death of King Richard III (1592) 5. The Comedy of Errors 6. Titus Andronicus (1593) 7. The Taming of the Shrew 8. The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594) 9. Love’s Labour Lost 10. Romeo and Juliet B. The Second Period (1595-1600) 1. The Life and Death of Richard II (1595) 2. A Midsummer Nights’ Dream 3. The Life and Death of King John (1596) 4. The Merchant of Venice 5. The First Part of King Henry IV (1597) 6. The Second Part of King Henry IV 7. Much Ado about Nothing (1598) 8. The Merry Wives of Windsor 9. The Life of King Henry V 10. The Life and Death of Julius Caesar (1599) 11. As You like It 12. Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (1600) C. The Third Period (1601-1608) 1. Hamlet, Prince of Demark (1601) 2. Troilus and Cressida (1602) 3. All’s Well That Ends Will 4. Measure for Measure (1604) 5. Othello, the Moore of Venice 6. King Lear (1605) 7. The Tragedy of Macbeth 8. Antony and Cleopatra (1606) 9. The Tragedy of Coriolanus (1607) 10. Timon of Athens 11. Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608) D. The Fourth Period (1609-1612) 1. Cymbeline, King of Britain (1609) 2. The Winter’s Tale (1610) 3. The Tempest (1612) 4. The Life of King Henry VIII IV. The Nineteenth Century Novel 1. Keats Keats, John (1795-1821) is a major English poet, despite his early death from tuberculosis at the age of 25. Keats’s poetry describes the beauty of the natural world and art as the vehicle for his poetic imagination. His skill with poetic imagery and sound reproduces this sensuous experience for his reader. Keats’s poetry evolves over his brief career from this love of nature and art into a deep compassion for humanity. He gave voice to the spirit of Romanticism in literature when he wrote, “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections, and the truth of imagination.” Twentieth-century poet T. S. Eliot judged Keats's letters to be "the most notable and the most important ever written by any English Poet,” for their acute reflections on poetry, poets, and the imagination. Keats was born in north London, England. He was the eldest son of Thomas Keats, who worked at a livery stable, and Frances (Jennings) Keats. The couple had three other sons, one of whom died in infancy, and a daughter. Thomas Keats died in 1804, as a result of a riding accident. Frances Keats died in 1810 of tuberculosis, the disease that also took the lives of her three sons. John Keats Although his life ended at age 25, only four years after the 1817 publication of his first book, English poet John Keats is remembered for his melodious, rich verse, and is considered one of the greatest English poets. From 1803 to 1811 Keats attended school. Toward the end of his schooling, he began to read widely and even undertook a prose translation of the Aeneid from the Latin. After he left school at the age of 16, Keats was apprenticed to a surgeon for four years. During this time his interest in poetry grew. He wrote his first poems in 1814 and passed his medical and druggist examinations in 1816. In May 1816 Keats published his first poem, the sonnet "O Solitude," marking the beginning of his poetic career. In writing a sonnet, a 14-line poem with a strict rhyme scheme, Keats sought to take his place in the tradition established by great classical, European, and British epic poets. GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE "The Eve of St. Agnes" John Keats’s “The Eve of St. Agnes” (1820) is one of the most famous love poems of the 19th century and of the Romantic Movement in literature. According to legend, if a virgin goes to bed without supper on the night of the feast of Saint Agnes, she will see her future husband in a dream. As the poem opens, the young maiden Madeline leaves a festival early to carry out the ritual of St. Agnes’s Eve. Porphyro, a youth in love with Madeline despite the enmity (敌意) of Madeline’s family, enlists (谋取) the help of an aging servant to steal into Madeline’s room while she is asleep. The servant reluctantly agrees, and Porphyro, following an elaborate plan to woo Madeline, wins her heart. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” The poem is written in uniform stanzas, each consisting of ten lines of iambic pentameter. The rime scheme is abab, adedce, with variations in the sester. The word “Grecian” means Greek (rarely used except to refer to architecture, pottery, culture and features of the human face). 2. Shelley Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822), an English poet, is considered by many to be among the greatest, and one of the most influential leaders of the Romantic Movement. Throughout his life, Shelley lived by a radically nonconformist moral code. His beliefs concerning love, marriage, revolution, and politics caused him to be considered a dangerous immoralist (不道德的人) by some. Shelley was born on August 4, 1792, at Field Place, Sussex. He was educated at Eton College and the University of Oxford. When he was in the University of Oxford, he wrote and circulated, with another student, a pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism (无神论) (1811), of which the university authorities disapproved. He also published a pamphlet of burlesque (讽刺性的诙谐) verse, Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson (1810). Thus, he was expelled from the University. Shortly after his expulsion, the 19-year-old Shelley married his first wife, Harriet Westbrook, and moved to the Lake District of England to study and write. Many critics regard Shelley as one of the greatest of all English poets. They point especially to his lyrics, including the familiar short odes “To a Skylark” (1820), “To the West Wind” (1819), and “The Cloud” (1820). Other critics, particularly antiromanticists who object to the prettiness and sentimentality of much of his work, maintain that Shelley was not as influential as the other British romantic poets Byron, Keats, or William Wordsworth. Ode to the West Wind “Ode to the West Wind” is one of shelley’s best known lyrics. The poet describes vividly the activities of the West Wind on the earth, in the sky and on the sea and then expresses his envy for the boundless freedom of the west wind and his wish to be free like the wind and to scatter his words among mankind. The celebrated final line of the poem, “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” has often been cited to illustrate Shelley’s optimistic belief in the future of mankind. 3. Wordsworth Wordsworth, William (1770-1850), an English poet, is one of the most accomplished and influential of England's romantic poets, whose theories and style created a new tradition in poetry. Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cumberland, and educated at Saint John's College and University of Cambridge. He developed a keen love of nature as a youth, and during school vacation periods, he frequently visited places noted for their scenic beauty. In the summer of 1790, he took a walking tour through France and Switzerland. After receiving his degree in 1791, he returned to France, where he became an enthusiastic con’vert (皈依者) to the ideals of the French Revolution (1789-1799). His lover Annette Vallon of Orleans bore him a daughter in December 1792, shortly before his return to England. Disheartened by the outbreak of hostilities between France and Great Britain in 1793, Wordsworth nevertheless remained sympathetic to the French cause. Although Wordsworth had begun to write poetry while still a schoolboy, none of his poems was published until 1793, when An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches appeared. These works, although fresh and original in content, reflect the influence of the formal style of 18th-century English poetry. The poems received little notice, and few copies were sold. In 1798, Wordsworth’s book of poems entitled Lyrical Ballads was first published. Actually, this book was collaborated together by Wordsworth and Coleridge. And it is generally taken to mark the beginning of the Romantic Movement in English poetry. Wordsworth wrote almost all the poems in the volume, including the memorable “Tintern Abbey”; Coleridge contributed the famous “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Representing a revolt against the artificial classicism of contemporary English verse, Lyrical Ballads was greeted with hostility by most leading critics of the day. In defense of his unconventional theory of poetry, Wordsworth wrote a “Preface” to the second edition of Ballads, which appeared in 1800 (actual date of publication, 1801). His premise was that the source of poetic truth is the direct experience of the senses. Poetry, he asserted, originates from “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Rejecting the contemporary emphasis on form and an intellectual approach that drained poetic writing of strong emotion, he maintained that the scenes and events of everyday life and the speech of ordinary people were the raw material of which poetry could and should be made. Far from conciliating the critics, the “Preface” served only to increase their hostility. Wordsworth, however, was not discouraged. He continued to write poetry that graphically (生动地) illustrated his principles. Before the publication of the “Preface,” Wordsworth and his sister had accompanied Coleridge to Germany in 1798 and 1799. There, Wordsworth wrote several of his finest lyrical verses, the “Lucy” poems, and began The Prelude. This introspective account of his own development was completed in 1805 and, after substantial revision, published posthumously in 1850. Many critics rank it as Wordsworth's greatest work. The poets Robert Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth lived nearby and became known as the Lake Poets. Much of Wordsworth's easy flow of conversational blank verse has true lyrical power and grace, and his finest work is permeated by a sense of the human relationship to external nature that is religious in its scope and intensity. To Wordsworth, God was everywhere manifest in the harmony of nature, and he felt deeply the kinship between nature and the soul of humankind. The tide of critical opinion turned in his favor after 1820, and Wordsworth lived to see his work universally praised. In 1842 he was awarded a government pension, and in the following year he succeeded Southey as poet ’laureate (戴桂冠的). Wordsworth died on April 23, 1850, and was buried in the Grasmere churchyard. 4. Jane Austen Austen, Jane (1775-1817), English novelist, is noted for her witty studies of early-19th-century English society. With detail, Austen portrayed the quiet, day-to-day life of members of the upper middle class. Her works combine romantic comedy with social satire and psychological insight. Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in Hampshire, England. She was the seventh child of eight, and her family was close, affectionate, and lively. She lived most of her life among the same kind of people about whom she wrote. Her lifelong companion and confidant was her older and only sister, Cassandra. Neither woman ever married, but dozens of relatives and friends widened Austen’s social experiences beyond her immediate family. Jane had almost no formal education, but she read extensively and critically. At age 13, she was already writing amusing and instructive parodies (打油诗文) and variations on 18th-century literature—from sentimental novels to serious histories. By the time she was 23 years old, Austen had written three novels: Elinor and Marianne, First Impressions, and Susan, which were early versions of, respectively, Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Northanger Abbey (1818). All of Austen’s novels were originally published anonymously. Several of them went through two editions in her lifetime. Pride and Prejudice was particularly praised, and Emma (1816) received a favorable review from English writer Sir Walter Scott, who was a prominent literary figure of the time. The main theme of Austen’s first full novel, Sense and Sensibility, is that sensibility—responsiveness, openness, enthusiasm—is highly desirable, but that it must be tempered by good sense and prudence. In other words, a person needs both sense and sensibility for fulfillment and survival. In 1817, this bright, attractive little woman died, quietly as she had lived, at Winchester and was buried in the cathedral. Sense and Sensibility, 1811 Pride and Prejudice 1813 Northanger Abbey 1814 Mansfield Park 1814 Emma 1815 Her point of view: Generally speaking she holds the ideals of the landlord class in politics, religion and moral principles. Her works show an apparently preference for the kindness, honesty, frankness, responsibility, good manners and sound sense, which are typical of the country gentry class. Although Jane lived mainly in the nineteenth century, and her works were all published when British literature was dominated by Gothicism (哥特风格), Sentimentalism and Romanticism. She was really a writer of the earlier realist school. Her works show clearly her firm belief in the predominance of reason over passion, the value of ration and sense over that of sentimental, gothic and romantic tendencies. Characteristics of Her works: Jane Austen’s main concern is about human beings in their personal relations, human beings with their families and neighbors. It is her conviction (信服) that a man’s relation to his wife and children is at least as important a part of his life as his relations to his belief and career, and reveals him fundamentally. If one wants to know about a man’s talent, one should see him at work, but if one wants to know about his nature and temper, one should see him at home. As for her interest in the study of human beings in their relations with other people on daily life, Jane Austen is particularly preoccupied with the relationship between men and women in love. Stories of love and marriage provide the framework for all her novels and in them women are always taken as the major characters. In their pursuit of a happy marriage, they are usually categorized into three types: 1. Those who marry for money, position and property, 2. Those who marry just for passion, 3. Those who marry for love which is based on consideration of the person’s personal merit as well as his economical and social status. 5. The Bronte Sisters Brontë is the name of three English novelists, also sisters, whose works, transcending Victorian conventions, have become beloved classics. The Brontes were a big family with six children, five daughters and a son. The sisters Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), Emily (Jane) Brontë (1818-1848), and Anne Brontë (1820-1849), and their brother (Patrick) Branwell Brontë (1817-1848), were born in Thornton, Yorkshire: Charlotte on April 21, 1816, Emily on July 30, 1818, and Anne on March 17, 1820. Their father, Patrick Brontë, who had been born in Ireland, was appointed rector (教区长) of Haworth, a village on the Yorkshire moors; it was with Haworth that the family was thenceforth connected. The Bronte girls all attended for various periods a reputable little boarding school kept by a Miss Wooler, where the eldest two, Maria and Elizabeth, died. Each sister embarked on a novel. Charlotte's Jane Eyre was published first, in 1847; Anne's Agnes Grey and Emily's Wuthering Heights appeared a little later that year. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte in 1847 Wuthering Height by Emily Bronte in 1847 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte a few months later The Tenant of the Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte in 1849 Shirley by Charlotte Bronte 1849 Villette by Charlotte Bronte 1853. The Professor by Charlotte Bronte 1857 A Brief Analysis of “Jane Eyre” Jane Eyre is generally considered Charlotte’s most representative work. It has as its central theme the struggle of an individual consciousness towards self-fulfillment which is the same theme in her other novels. The story is masterly plotted and constructed with five geographical sections corresponding to five major periods of time in the heroine’s life. 1) The first period describes how Jane, a 10-year-old orphan, lived at her aunt’s house at Gateshead Hall. 2) The second period describes her life, first as a pupil (6 years) and then a teacher (2 more years) in Lowood School. 3) The third period is the most important part and which occupies over 43 percent of the novel, tells the heroine’s life at Lowood as a governess, where, in spite of herself, she hopelessly fell in love with her master, Mr. Rochester, a middle-aged man with a bruised heart and a bitter memory of the past, a man rather quick-tempered but very sharp-eyed and understanding. The latter, too, is attracted to the little, plain governess, who stands in very way contrary to those vain, empty-headed, money-worshipping beautiful upper-class ladies with her strong sense of self-dignity and equality, her wide embracing sympathy and high intelligence. But their wedding is held up because Mr. Rochester is found to have a wife who, though mad, is still living in the attic of his house. Forced to make a choice whether to stay near her beloved as his mistress or to leave him as dignified, virtuous, independent woman, Jane decides to obey God’s will and runs away into the vast moorland, penniless. 4) The fourth period describes that when desperate of her union with her beloved, she was about to agree to the proposal of Cousin John, a very handsome young clergyman. Just at this time, she hears mysteriously Mr. Rochester’s calling for her. 5) In the fifth period, she goes back to Thornfield and learns that the house had been set on fire by Mr. Rochester’s mad wife, and Mr. Rochester, in order to save her, is seriously injured and blinded. Jane finds him in the secluded country house, a miserable and lonely man. She readily stays, and the two are happily married and lead a contented life ever after. Theme Three problems are treated in Jane Eyre 1. The woman’s position in the society, 2. The English country squire (乡绅): The ill treatment of the unfortunate lower class by the rich and the privileged are clearly shown. 3. The bourgeois system of education: Children are exposed to unbearably harsh conditions and unreasonably rigid disciplines and are trained to be humble slaves only. Another factor for the popularity of the novel lies in the fact that it is the first governess novel in the history of English literature. Instead of the rich, gentle, frail, modest and virtuous beauties of the conventional heroine, she portraits a small, plain, poor governess who beings her life all alone, with no body caring for her and nothing attractive. What she has is an intense feeling, a ready sympathy and a strong sense of equality and independence. And she, in defiance of the social convention, dares to love her master, declares it openly, and finally marries him when he is in the most wretched situation. Her very unconventionality marks her as an entirely new woman. A Brief Analysis of “Wuthering Height” Theme 1. One way of reading is to treat it as a romantic story, as a tale of love and revenge. 2. From the social point of view, the story is a tragedy of social inequality. 3. At some deeper level, however, the story is more than a mere copy of real life. To many people it is an illustration of the working of the universe, a book about the cosmic harmony of the universe and the destruction and re-establishment of this harmony. 6. Elizabeth Gaskell Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, (1810-1865), English novelist, is known for her thorough research, compassion toward her subjects, and skillful narrative style. She was born Elizabeth Stevenson in London. Her first novel was Mary Barton, a Tale of Manchester Life (pub. anonymously in 1848), an attack on the behavior of factory employers during the 1840s, a time of depression and hardship for the British working class. The book won her the friendship of Charles Dickens, who requested a contribution to his new magazine, Household Words. Gaskell's other works include a biography (1857) of her friend, the novelist Charlotte Brontë; and the novels and stories The Moorland Cottage (1850); Ruth (1853); North and South (1855), another compassionate study of conditions in Manchester; and the posthumously published Wives and Daughters (1866). 7. Charles Dickens Dickens, Charles John Huffam (1812-1870), probably the best-known and, to many people, the greatest English novelist of the 19th century. A moralist, satirist, and social reformer, Dickens crafted complex plots and striking characters that capture the panorama of English society. Dickens’s novels criticize the injustices of his time, especially the brutal treatment of the poor in a society sharply divided by differences of wealth. But he presents this criticism through the lives of characters that seem to live and breathe. The 20th-century poet and critic T. S. Eliot wrote, “Dickens’s characters are real because there is no one like them.” Dickens’s novels rank among the funniest and most gripping ever written, among the most passionate and persuasive on the topic of social justice, and among the most psychologically telling and insightful works of fiction. They are also some of the most masterful works in terms of artistic form, including narrative structure, repeated motifs (主题), consistent imagery, juxtaposition (并列) of symbols, stylization of characters and settings, and command of language. Dickens was born in Portsmouth, on England’s southern coast. His father was a clerk in the British Navy pay office—a respectable position, but with little social status. Charles Dickens’ literary life can be divided into three periods: The first period 1836 Sketches by Boz 1836-1837 The Pickwick Papers 1837-1838 Oliver Twist 1838-1839 Nicholas Nickleby 1840-1841 The Old Curiosity Shop 1841 Barnaby Rudge The second period 1842 American Notes 1843-1845 Martin Chuzzlewit 1843 A Christmas Carol (a Christmas book) 1844 The Chines (a Christmas book) 1845 The Cricket on the Hearth (a Christmas book) 1846-1848 Dombey and Son 1849-1850 David Copperfield The third period 1852-1853 Bleak House 1854 Hard Times 1855-1857 Little Dorrit 1859 A Tale of Two Cities 1860-1861 Great Expectations 1864-1865 Our Mutual Friend 1870 Edwin Drood (unfinished) Main features of Dickens’s Novels 1. A Master of story-teller 2. A Master of character-portrayal a. He is best at child character portrayal b. He is good at description of horrible and grotesque (奇怪的) figures. 3. a Master of Humour and Pathos(悲怅) Points of View Dickens is a typical middle-class man. As the representative of the middle-class, he draws strength from his middle-class audience; he adores them, delights to please them, and accepts the validity of their judgment. So Dickens’s social attitudes are very complex. He wants improvement in the life of the poor, but is afraid of a real revolution. 8. Sir Walter Scott Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832) is the Scottish novelist and poet. His work as a translator, editor, biographer, and critic, together with his novels and poems, made him one of the most prominent figures in English romanticism. He was born in Edinburgh, August 15, 1771. Trained as a lawyer, he became a legal official, an occupation that allowed him to write. Walter Scott is considered the first major European historical novelist. His first novel, Waverley (1814), was a great success and revealed his clear understanding of human nature. Although Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott studied law and various Romance languages as a young man, it was his interest in history that influenced much of his poetry and prose. As with many of Scott’s narrative poems, his novel Ivanhoe (1819) captured Saxon and Norman life during the medieval Age of Chivalry, a period associated with gallantry, knighthood, romance, and combat in the cause of honor. Scott is the first major historical novelist. In his portraits of Scotland, England, and the Continent from medieval times to the 18th century, he showed a keen sense of political and traditional forces and of their influence on the individual. 9. Robert Louis Stevenson Stevenson, Robert Louis Balfour (1850-1894), is the Scottish novelist, essayist, and poet, who contributed several classic works to children's literature. Born in Edinburgh, Stevenson studied engineering and then law at the University of Edinburgh. Since childhood, however, Stevenson's natural inclination had been toward literature, and he eventually started writing seriously. Robert Louis Stevenson based many of his children’s novels on his travel experiences. His Treasure Island, from 1883, is perhaps his most famous work, but he is also noted for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, from 1886, and Kidnapped, from the same year. Stevenson suffered from tuberculosis and often traveled in search of warm climates to ease his illness. His earliest works are descriptions of his journeys. Stevenson's popularity is based primarily on the exciting subject matter of his adventure novels and fantasy stories. V. Twentieth Century Literature 1. Joseph Conrad Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924), is a Polish-born English novelist. He is considered to be among the great modern English writers, whose work explores the vulnerability and moral instability at the heart of human lives. Conrad was the son of a Polish noble. From his father, the boy acquired a love of literature, including romantic tales of the sea. In his lifetime, Conrad produced 13 novels, two volumes of memoirs, and 28 short stories, although writing was not easy or painless for him. Joseph Conrad lived an adventurous life that manifested itself in his novels. One of his best-known works is Lord Jim (1900), the story of a man who spends his life reconciling his cowardly actions during a shipwreck. Conrad also received critical acclaim for Heart of Darkness (1902), which exposes the weaknesses in human character. Among his other works are The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897), focused on a black sailor; The Secret Agent (1907), concerning anarchists in London; Under Western Eyes (1911), set in repressive 19th-century Russia; Victory (1915), set in the South Seas; and the novella Heart of Darkness (1902). Heart of Darkness is one of Conrad's best-known stories and reveals the terrifying depths of human corruptibility. In most of Conrad's writings, his outlook is bleak. He writes in a rich, vivid prose style with a narrative technique that makes skillful use of breaks in linear chronology. His character development is powerful and compelling. Conrad died at Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, in 1924. 2. Virginia Woolf Woolf, Virginia (1882-1941), is a British novelist, essayist, and critic, who helped create the modern novel. Her writing often explores the concepts of time, memory, and people’s inner consciousness, and is remarkable for its humanity and depth of perception. Woolf was the daughter of biographer and critic Leslie Stephen (later Sir Leslie) and Julia Jackson Duckworth. She was born in London and was educated at home by her father. Virginia Woolf contributed a great deal to modern literature during the early and mid-20th century by abandoning traditional narrative style and pioneering the use of stream of consciousness. She is also a fervent supporter of women’s rights. Before the early 1900s, fiction emphasized plot as well as detailed descriptions of characters and settings. Events in the external world, such as a marriage, murder, or deception, were the most important aspects of a story. Characters' interior, or mental, lives served mainly to prepare for or motivate such meaningful external occurrences. Woolf's novels, however, emphasized patterns of consciousness rather than sequences of events in the external world. Her novels do not limit themselves to a single consciousness, but move from character to character, using interior monologues to present each person's differing responses, often to the same event. In Woolf’s best fiction, plot is generated by the inner lives of the characters. Psychological effects are achieved through the use of imagery, symbol, and metaphor. Thus, the inner lives of human beings and the ordinary events in their lives are made to seem extraordinary. Woolf's fiction was drawn largely from her own experience, and her characters are almost all members of her own affluent, intellectual, upper-middle class. Woolf was also interested in defining qualities specific to the female mind. Her major works include The Voyage Out (1915), Night and Day (1919), Jacob's Room (1922), Mrs. Dalloway (1925), Orlando (1928), To the Lighthouse (1927), The Waves (1931). Stream of Consciousness: Literary technique, first used in the late 19th century, employed to evince subjective as well as objective reality. It reveals the character's feelings, thoughts, and actions, often following an associative rather than a logical sequence, without commentary by the author. Stream of consciousness is often confused with interior monologue, but the latter technique works the sensations of the mind into a more formal pattern: a flow of thoughts inwardly expressed, similar to a soliloquy. The technique of stream of consciousness, however, attempts to portray the remote, preconscious state that exists before the mind organizes sensations. Consequently, the re-creation of a stream of consciousness frequently lacks the unity, explicit cohesion, and selectivity of direct thought. 3. D. H. Lawrence Lawrence, D(avid) H(erbert) (1885-1930), is an English novelist and poet. He ranked among the most influential and controversial literary figures of the 20th century. In his more than 40 books, he celebrated his vision of the natural, whole human being, opposing the artificiality of modern industrial society with its dehumanization of life and love. His novels were misunderstood, however, and attacked and even suppressed because of their frank treatment of sexual matters. Lawrence was born September 11, 1885, in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, the son of a coal miner. His mother had been a schoolteacher. The disparity in social status between his parents was a recurrent motif (主题) in Lawrence's fiction. A graduate (1908) of University College, Nottingham, Lawrence published his first poems in the English Review in 1909 and his first novel, The White Peacock, in 1911. The most significant of his early fiction, Sons and Lovers (1913), which was in large part autobiographical, deals with life in a mining town. Lawrence’s literary works also include The Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1921) and also two books of verse, Love Poems and Others (1913) and Look! We Have Come Through (1917). From 1926 on Lawrence lived chiefly in Italy, where he wrote and rewrote his most notorious novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), which deals with the sexually fulfilling love affair between a member of the nobility and her husband's gamekeeper. Lawrence died March 2, 1930, in France. 4. E. M. Forster Forster, E(dward) M(organ) (1879-1970), is an English novelist and essayist. His novels, written in a style notable for its conciseness and fluidity (流状), explore the attitudes that create barriers between people. Forster was born in London on January 1, 1879, and educated at King's College, University of Cambridge. After a short residence in Italy, he turned to writing full time. His first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), appeared when Forster was 26 years old and displays remarkably mature style. This was followed by The Longest Journey (1907) and A Room with a View (1908). The construction of these three novels was a reaction to lengthy, formally plotted Victorian fiction. Somewhat autobiographical, they also sounded a theme prevalent in Forster's essays: the need to temper middle-class materialism with due consideration of things of the mind and imagination, in order to achieve harmony and understanding. This theme is treated more fully in Forster's masterpieces, Howards End (1910), with its message “Only connect,” and A Passage to India (1924). The latter, the last novel Forster wrote, deals with the conflict of cultures in terms of the ambiguous personal relationship between an English visitor and an Indian during British rule. Two volumes of short stories were published by Forster during his lifetime, The Celestial Omnibus (1914) and The Eternal Moment (1924). Maurice (1971; written 1913-1914), a novel, and The Life to Come (1972; written throughout his life), a collection of short stories, both primarily on homosexual themes, were not published until after Forster's death. Forster's critical reputation has remained high, and popular interest in his novels has been fueled by the recent films made from his works: A Passage to India (1984); A Room with a View (1985); Maurice (1987); Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991); and Howards End (1992). PAGE 24