Highlights in English Literature英国文学复习资料

Highlights in English Literature The earliest literature of the English people, like that of many other peoples, originated from the collective efforts of the people, usually when they were working or resting from their labors. Stories based on history or legend or contemporary events were narrated orally and often sung during festivities and other occasions, chiefly for entertainment. Some of the more interesting of these narratives were passed from mouth to mouth and from generation to generation, and as they were told and sung by different singers at different times, additions were made to them or deletions were taken from them. The most monumental literary work in English literature in the Old English or Anglo-Saxon period (from the 5th century to 1066) is Beowulf. It is the only important single poem handed down in the written form and is preserved intact. Probably existing in oral form in the 6th century, it is believed to have been written in the 7th or 8th century although its manuscript extant now can be dated back to the 10th century. Composed of 3183 lines of alliterative verse (Alliteration, also known as “head rhyme” or “initial rhyme,” is a verse form which means the repetition of the same sounds, usu. initial consonants of words or of stressed syllables in any sequence of neighboring words, e.g. “lord of language.” Alliterative verse is a verse in which the chief principle of repetition is alliteration rather than rhyme), it is the longest of the early English poems preserved today. Beowulf is an epic, telling the story of Beowulf, a national hero, who went to fight against the enemies in defense of his country. An epic is a long narrative poem celebrating the great deeds of one or more legendary heroes in a grand ceremonious style, who was usu. protected or descended from gods, performed supernatural exploits in battle or in marvelous voyages in saving or founding a nation. A romance is a verse narrative that sings of knightly adventures or other heroic deeds, and usu. emphasizes the chivalric love of the Middle Ages Europe. Although romances were still written in the second half of the 14th century to celebrate the knightly deeds of the past, chivalry was rapidly losing its glamour. The early flowering of the Renaissance, which began first in Italy in the 14th century, soon spread to France and by the end of the 14th century the writings of (Francesco Petrarca) Petrarch (1304-74, poet and scholar) and (Giovanni) Boccaccio (1313-75, writer) already started to exert their influence on many English writers. Superstition prevalent through the Middle Ages was beginning to lose ground in the minds of the people with the gradual dawning of science in Europe. The second half of the 14th century marked the deterioration and decline of feudalism in England and the great economic and political changes had their impact on literature, and English literature flourished after three centuries of comparative lull. William Langland is well remembered for his work, Piers the Plouman, (which he began probably in 1362 and was preoccupied in his last twenty years) which can be divided into two parts: the vision of Piers the Plouman and the vision of Do-wel, Do-bet, and Do-best. “Piers the Plouman” contains two themes: the exposure of the corruption of the Court and the Church (the ruling class) and the expression of the misery of the exploited and oppressed (the ruled class), and thus holds up a mirror to England in Langland’s time. Geoffrey Chaucer was the greatest writer in the second half the 14th century. Born of a wine-merchant’s family, he served as a court page in 1357. He was in the English army fighting in France in 1359, and after being taken prisoner, he was released and returned to England in 1360. He took education at the Inner Temple where he received training for a career at the court from 1361 to 1367. He entered the service of King Edward III and went to the European Continent nine times on some diplomatic errands from 1367 to 1377. He journeyed to Genoa and Florence in Italy from December to May 1373 and was made Controller of Customs and Subsidy of Wools, Skins and Hides in the port of London in 1374. He was appointed Controller of the Petty Customs on Wines and other merchandise in 1382 and became one of the justices of the peace for Kent in 1385 and was elected M. P. for Kent in 1386. He died in 1400 and was buried in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey. Chaucer served in his lifetime in a great variety of occupations, working as courtier, office-holder, soldier, ambassador and legislator. He had broad and intimate acquaintance with people high and low in all walks of life and knew well the whole social life of his time. His varied career had its impact on his writing, which is quite evident in his masterwork The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s greatest contribution to English literature lies in the fact that he introduced the heroic couplet (two rhymed lines of iambic pentameter) into English literature. Terms Concerning the Poem Heroic couplet: Heroic couplet is a rhymed pair of iambic pentameter lines such as “Let Observation with extensive View / Survey Mankind, from China to Peru.” It is named from its use by John Dryden and others in the heroic drama of the 17th century, the heroic couplet had been established much earlier by Geoffrey Chaucer as a major English verse-form for narrative and other kinds of non-dramatic poetry: it dominated English poetry of the 18th century before declining in importance in the early 19th century. Meter: Meter refers to the pattern of measured sound-units recurring more or less regularly in lines of verse. Poetry may be composed according to one of four principal metrical systems: Quantitative meter (used in Greek and Latin): the pattern is a sequence of long and short syllables counted in groups known as feet; Syllabic meter (as in French and Japanese): the pattern comprises a fixed number of syllables in the line; Accentual meter (or “strong-stress meter”), found in Old English and in later English popular verse, the pattern is a regular number of stressed syllables in the line or group of lines, regardless of the number of unstressed syllables; and Accentual-syllabic meter: the pattern consists of a regular number of stressed syllables appropriately arranged within a fixed total number of syllables in the lines (with permissible variations including feminine endings), both stressed and unstressed syllables being counted. The fourth system----accentual-syllabic meter----is the one found in most English verse in the literary tradition since Chaucer; some flexible uses of it incline toward the accentual system. However, the descriptive terms most commonly used to analyse it have, confusingly, been inherited from the vocabulary of the very different Greek and Latin quantitative system. Thus the various English meters are named after the classical feet that their groupings of stressed and unstressed syllables resemble, and the length of a metrical line still often expressed in terms of the number of feet it contains: a dimeter has two feet, a trimester three, a tetrameter four, a pentameter five, a hexameter six, and a heptameter seven. A simpler and often more accurate method of description is to refer to lines either accentual or accentual-syllabic meter according to the number of syllables: thus an English tetrameter is a four-stress line, and a pentameter a five-stress line. English accentual-syllabic meters fall into two groups, according to the way in which stressed (/) and unstressed (×)syllables alternate: in duple meters, stressed syllables alternate more or less regularly with single unstressed syllables, and so the line is traditionally described as a sequence of disyllabic (2-syllable) feet; while in triple meters, stressed syllables alternate with pairs of unstressed syllables, and the line is seen as a sequence of trisyllabic (3-syllable) feet. Of the two duple meters, by far the more common in English is the iambic meter, in which the stressed syllables are for the most part perceived as following the unstressed syllables with which they alternate (×/×/×/ etc.) although some variations on this pattern are accepted. The other duple meter, used in English less frequently than the iambic, is the trochaic meter, in which the iambic pattern is reversed so that the stressed syllables are felt to be preceding the unstressed syllables with which they alternate (/×/×/×, etc.). It is common, though, for poets using trochaic meter to begin and end the line on a stressed syllable, as in Blake’s line “Tiger, tiger, burning bright.” The triple meters are far less common in English, although sometimes found. In the dactylic meter, named after the dactyl (/××), the stressed syllables are felt to precede the intervening pairs of unstressed syllables “Cannon in front of them.” In the anapaestic meter, named after the anapaest (××/), the pattern is reversed: “Of your painting, dispirited race.” Dactylic and anapaestic verse is not usually composed purely of dactyls and anapaests: other feet or additional syllables are frequently combined with or substituted for them. Rhyme: Rhyme means the identity of sound between syllables or paired groups of syllables, usually at the ends of verse lines. Normally the last stressed vowel in the line and all sounds following it make up the rhyming element: this may be a monosyllable (love / above ---- known as “masculine rhyme”), or two syllables (whether / together ---- known as “feminine rhyme” or double rhyme), or even three syllables (glamorous / amorous, known as “triple rhyme”). These rhymes are all examples of “full rhyme” (or “true rhyme”). Departures from this norm take three forms: (i) rime rhyme, in which the consonants preceding the rhyming elements are also identical even if the spellings and meanings of the words differ (made / maid); (ii) eye rhyme, in which the spellings of the rhyming elements match, but the sounds do not (love / prove); and (iii) half-rhyme or “slant rhyme,” where the vowel sounds do not match ( love / have, or with rich consonance, love / leave). Half-rhyme is known by several other names: imperfect rhyme, near rhyme, etc. Although rhyme is most often used at the ends of verse lines, internal rhyme between syllables within the same line is also found. In English rhyme finally replaced alliteration as the usual patterning device of verse only in the late 14th century. Rhyme scheme: Rhyme scheme refers to the pattern in which the rhymed line-endings are arranged in a poem or stanza. This may be expressed as a sequence of recurrences in which each line ending on the same rhyme is given the same alphabetical symbol, such as aabb ccdd, etc. Rhyme schemes may follow a fixed pattern, as in the sonnet and several other forms, or they may be arranged freely according to the poet’s requirements. In the fifteenth century, the English and Scottish popular ballads greatly flourished and they became one of the main streams of English literature in this period when there were no great poets comparable to Chaucer of the 14th century or Shakespeare and Marlowe and Spenser and Sidney of the late 16th century. Among the ballads of this period the most significant are The Robin Hood Ballads, a series of 37 ballads of different lengths dealing with the famous outlaw Robin Hood and his followers and their exploits. These ballads actually reflected the hopes and fears and loves and hates and the illusions of the common English people of the time. English literature in the period from the Late 15th Century to the early 16th Century saw its achievement first of all in the writings of “the Oxford Reformers” and Thomas More, all of whom devoted themselves to the revival of the culture or the humanities of ancient Greece and Rome that took place in England in the last years of the 15th century and the early decades of the 16th. “The Oxford Reformers” include chiefly William Grocyn (1446-1519), Thomas Linacre (1460-1524) and John Colet (1467-1519), all of whom were students and then teachers at Oxford University, traveled and studied in Italy and introduced the study of ancient Greek as well as the new science and philosophy of the time in opposition to the rigid church dogmas of medieval scholasticism. In the early 16th century Oxford University became the first important centre of ancient classical culture in England, and these “Oxford Reformers” helped to spread the light of new science and new world outlook and combat medieval scholasticism and thus laid the foundation for the rise of a new literature in England in the later decades of the 16th century. Together with Thomas More (1478-1535), they made great contributions to English literature. Thomas More is well remembered for his great work Utopia, which was first published in Latin and then translated into English and other languages. Utopia offers the best ideal social system possible that could be offered at the time. According to Hythlody, there is nothing private in Utopia, no one has anything, but everyone is rich. It outlines the ideal set of basics governing human institutions and regulating human life. On the other hand, it also has some problems. For example, it allows slave system to exist. Despite this, Utopia is unique in more than one way and forms a direct, positive contrast to England and Europe of the time. In the Pre-Elizabethan period, there appeared early English drama which mainly includes folk drama, church drama (mystery plays: religious play based on biblical stories; miracle plays; and miracle plays: religious play representing nonscriptural legends of saints or Virgin Mary), morality plays, and interludes (short plays believed to have been performed by small companies of professional actors in the intervals of banquets and other entertainments). Folk drama mainly reflected the folk life of the time. Church drama was concerned with the religious things. The morality plays and interludes of David Lyndsay (1486-1555) and John Heywood (1497-1580) and the miracle plays lead true drama to appear in England. Court poetry in the second half of the 16th century saw its further development in the writings of Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, both of whom are well-remembered writers in the history of English literature. Besides a writer, Sir Philip Sidney was also a courtier, diplomat, and soldier. He is known and remembered for three works which established him respectively as a poet, romancer, and critic: “Astrophel and Stella” (1591, “Astrophel”is a Greek word meaning “a lover of stars” and “stella” meaning “star.”) written in sonnet sequence; “Arcadia” (1590, 1593, a prose romance); and “Defence of Poesie” or “Apology for Poetry” (1595, a critical essay published posthumously in 1595). Edmund Spenser exerted a profound influence on the later writers such as George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, and Alfred Tennyson. Among his works the important ones include: The Shepherd’s Calendar (1579) and The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596). He died in 1599 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Spenser made a great contribution to English literature by creating what is now called “the Spenserian stanza,” a stanza which consists of 9 lines with the rhyme scheme of ababbcbcc and the first eight lines being in iambic pentameter and the last line being in iambic hexameter (an Alexandrine, a form of a verse line which consists of twelve syllables, beginning with one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable, as in “She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint” by John Keats). The form was imitated in the eighteenth century, but was modified to make it easier to write and, to eighteenth-century readers, at least, easier to read. Among the writers who wrote plays before Shakespeare, the most important are “the University Wits,” who include 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). Among them, Christopher Marlowe was the most prominent and the greatest of the English dramatists before Shakespeare because he represented the spirit of the Renaissance and expressed it skillfully in the artistic medium of drama in black verse (a verse form which consists of unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter). His works include: Tambur the Great (1587, 1590), The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1587, 1604), The Jew of Malta (1588, 1633), and Edward the Second (1590). William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in Straford-on-Avon on April 23, 1564. He was educated at the grammar school at Straford and learned Latin and a little Greek. In 1585 or 1586, he left Straford for London and began writing plays in 1588-1590 and by 1592 he had achieved some success in playwriting. In 1611 0r 1612, he retired from London and went back to Straford to live. He died on April 23, 1616. In the first period (from around 1588 or 1590 to 1600 or 1601), Shakespeare wrote nine of his ten historical plays, three of his early tragedies, and all of his important romantic comedies: Nine historical plays: Henry VI (Parts II & III) (1594, 1595), Henry VI (Part I) (1596), Richard III (1597), Richard II (1597), Henry IV (Parts I & II) (1598, 1600), Henry V (1600), and King John (1590?) Three tragedies: Titus Andronicus (1594), Romeo and Juliet (1595 or 1596), and Julius Caesar (1599) Three experimental comedies: Love’s Labour Lost (1598), The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594), and The Comedy of Errors (1594) Seven “romance” comedies: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1600), The Taming of the Shrew (1594), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602), The Merchant of Venice (1600), Much Ado about Nothing (1600), As You Like It (1600), and Twelfth Night, or What You Will (1600, or 1601) In the second (most important) period (from 1601 to 1608), he wrote all of his great tragedies and some of his early tragic-comedies: Seven tragedies: Hamlet (1602), Othello (1604), King Lear (1605), Macbeth (1606), Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7), Coriolanus (1607-9), and Timon of Athens (1607-8) Three tragicomedies: Measure for Measure (1604), All’s Well That Ends Well (1604?), and Troilus and Cressida (1609) In the third period (from 1609 to 1612 or 1613), his works manly include his last four tragic-comedies and one historical play: Four tragicomedies: Cymbeline (1611), The Winter’s Tale (1611), The Tempest (1611), and Pericles (1609) One historical play: Henry VIII (1613) Two rediscovered plays: The Two Noble Kinsmen (1611), Cardenio (1612) (missing) Shakespeare in his lifetime wrote five long narrative poems: Venus and Adonis (1593), The Rape of Lucrece (1594), The Passionate Pilgrim (1599), The Lover’s Complaint (1609), and The Phoenix and the Turtle (1609), and 154 sonnets. All of his sonnets were written before 1600, most of them between 1593 and 1596. Shakespeare’s sonnets first appeared in a collection in 1609. Among the best-known sonnets of Shakespeare’s is sonnet 18, in which, the poet writes beautifully on the conventional theme that his poetry will bring eternity to the one he loves and eulogizes. The sonnet is a kind of poem which consists of 14 lines of iambic pentameter with a rigid rhyme scheme. It was first employed by the Italian poets in the early period of the Renaissance and came to perfection in the hands of (Alighieri) Dante and especially of (Francesco) Petrarch. It was introduced into England by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the sixteenth century, and adopted by many English poets, with chiefly two variants: the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet form and the English or Shakespearean sonnet form. The chief difference between the two forms lies in their different rhyme schemes: abba, abba, cdcdcd or abba, abba, cdecde for the Italian or Petrarcan sonnet form and abab, cdcd, efef, gg for the English or Shakespearean s