English Literature

What is literature? What is the nature of literature?

What is the value of literature?Why do we study literature?How do we study literature?

Part I Course Description

Definition of English Literature Literature mainly produced in English by the

people living in the UK (American citizens.. Methodology

Historical approach Thematic approach Analytical approach

Requirements Reading before class Note-taking, participation and presentation

in class

Course book: History and anthology of English Literaturegood and authoritative one; Easy to understand; prepare a notebook and copy the outline I provideespecially important to your graduate entrance examination

Suggestions: 刘炳善《英国文学简史》河南人民出版社（条理较好，简单易懂， 很多学校考研的指定书目）；张定铨《新编简明英国文学史》（以各时代兴盛的文学形式为主 导）；侯维瑞《英国文学通史》（中文写成，内容庞大）

History of English Literature

Old English Literature

Medieval English Literature

Renaissance English Literature

17th century English Literature

18th century English Literature

Romantic English Literature

19th century English Literature

20th century English Literature

Old English Literature

449A.D.---1066 Formation of England Formation of Old English Poetic tradition The Song of Beowulf---the national epic Anglo-Saxon period: from tribal society

to feudalism

Medieval English Literature

About five centuries Feudal system, Roman Catholic church Literary forms: romance, popular

ballad Representatives:Geoffrey Chaucer,

William Langland

Renaissance English Literature

Late 15th century---early 17th century The rise of bourgeois class Renaissance: the rebirth of letters the key: humanism Thomas More: the greatest humanist Representatives: --William Shakespeare: drama --Edmund Spencer: poetry --Francis Bacon: essay

17th century English Literature

English Revolution, Restoration, the “Glorious Revolution”--constitutional monarchy

Literature of the Revolution: --Poetry: John Milton Metaphysical poetry --Prose: John Bunyan Literature of the Restoration: --comedies (comedy of manners) --John Dryden

18th century English Literature

The industrial revolution, the rise of bourgeois middle class

The Enlightenment—the struggle of bourgeoisie against feudalism

Neoclassicism: Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele

Realistic novel: Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding

Sentimentalism: Laurence Stern, Thomas Gray

Pre-Romanticism: William Blake, Robert Burns

Romantic English Literature

The French Revolution & the industrial revolution

Poetry William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge Robert Southey; Byron, Shelley, Keats Prose: Charles Lamb Novel: Walter Scott, Jane Austen

19th century English Literature

The Victorian period The struggle between the working class

and the capitalists Critical realism: novel (the 40s and early 50s) Charles Dickens, W. M. Thackeray, Bronte

sisters, George Eliot etc. Prose & poetry: the mid and late 19th

century Chartist literature

Literary trends at the end of the 19th century

--Naturalism: George Gissing --Neo-romanticism: Robert Louis

Stevenson --Aestheticism: Oscar Wilde, Walter

Pater

20th century English Literature

The two world wars New ideas and new theories Realistic writing: early 20th century --poetry: Thomas Hardy, war poets --novel: John Galsworthy, H. G. Wells,

Arnold Bennett --drama: George Bernard Shaw Modernism: the 20s and 30s --a movement of experiments in

techniques

-- poetry: W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot. -- novel: D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Foster, James

Joyce and Virginia Woolf --drama: J.M. Synge English literature since 1945 --postmodernism --drama: Samuel Becket, John Osborne,Harold

Pinter --novel: William Golding, John Fowles, Kingsley

Amis (the Angry Yong man), Martin Amis etc. --poetry: Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, Ted

Hughes and Seamus Heaney

Part One The Anglo-Saxon Period

The History

The Literature: The Song of Beowulf: consists of 3182 lines and to be divided into two parts.

The Subject Matter: The whole song is pagan in spirit and matter.Appreciation

Part Two The Anglo-Norman Period

The History

The Literature: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: master the general idea; appreciate the first part

Part Three Geoffrey Chaucer

Introduction of life and work of Chaucer:

the “father of English poetry” and one of the greatest narrative poets of England.

Translation work: Romance of the Rose

Masterpiece: The Canterbury Tales

One of the most famous works in all literature.

The Prologue is a splendid masterpiece of realistic portrayal, the first of its kind in the history of English literature.

In this work, Chaucer created a strikingly brilliant and picturesque panorama of his time and his country.

In this poem, Chaucer’s realism, trenchant irony and freedom of views reached such a high level of power that it had no equal in all the English literature up to the 16th century.

Appreciation:

The Canterbury Tales

Popular Ballads:

Destination: Ballads are anonymous narrative

that have been preserved by oral transmission.

Appreciation: Robin Hood; Allin-a-Dale;

Get up and Bar the Door;

Sir Patrick Spens

Part Four The Renaissance

The History: the 16th century in England was a period of the breaking up of feudal relations and establishing of the foundations of capitalism.

The works:

At the beginning of the 16th century: Utopia by Thomas More

In the first half of the 16th century: lyrical poems(appeared) by Thomas Wyatt

In the second half of the 16th century:

lyrical poetry became widespread in England: Outstanding poets : Philip Sidney. Thomas Campion. Edmund Spenser( The Fairy Queen)

At the end of the century: Francis Bacon wrote his famous philosophical and literary works.

William Shakespeare:

Life:

Works: During the twenty-two years of his

literary work he produced 37 plays,

literary work he produced 37 plays, two narrative poems and 154 sonnets.

Appreciation: Hamlet ;The Merchant of Venice and

Sonnet 18,29,106.

Francis Bacon:

Life:

Works: may be divided into three classes:

the philosophical, the literary, and the

professional works.

Appreciation: Of Truth, Of Studies.

Part Five The 17th Century

The Period of Revolution and Restoration

Historical Background:

Literary Characteristics:

John Donne: A more thoroughly characteristic

figure of the early seventeenth century.

Works: Songs and Sonnets; The Relic

Appreciation: Song, A Valediction: Forbidding

Mourning and Sonnet

John Milton: English poet

Life:

Works: L’Allegro;Il Penseroso;Comus;Areopagitica,

Eikonoklastes; Defense for the English

People.

The famous is: Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained.

Appreciation: Paradise Lost; sonnet

John Bunyan:

Life:

Works: The Pilgrim’s Progress

Appreciation: The Pilgrim’s Progress

Part Six The 18th Century

The Age of Enlightenment in England

Daniel Defoe:

Life:

Masterpiece: Robinson Crusoe

Appreciation : Robinson Crusoe

Jonathan Swift: the supreme master in the

first part of the century.

Works: Tale of a Tub; Gulliver’s Travels;

The Battle of the Books

Appreciation: Gulliver’s Travels

Henry Fielding: the greatest novelist of the

eighteenth century.

Works: Joseph Andrews; Jonathan Wild; The

History of Tom Jones; Amelia

William Blake: the most independent and the

most original of all the romantic

poets of the 18th century.

Works: Poetical Sketches; Song of Innocence;

The Book of Thel; Tiriel;The Marriage

of Heaven and Hell, The French Revolution, The Visions of the Daughters of Albion, The Songs of

Experience

Appreciation: London; The Tiger; The Chimney

Sweeper

Robert Burns: the greatest of Scottish poets

Works: Kilmarnock Burns( Poems Chiefly in

Scottish Dialect; To a Mouse; To a Mountain

Daisy; Man was Made to Mourn; The Two

Dogs; Address to the Devil.

Appreciation: My Heart’s in the Highlands ;John

Anderson, My Jo; A Red, Red Rose;

To a Mouse; Auld Lang Syne.

( Try to get the main content of these

works.)

Part Seven The Romantic Period

Romanticism in England

Background:

William Wordsworth:

Works: the Lyrical Ballads;

the principal poems: Lines Composed

a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey;

The Prelude; The Excursion.

Appreciation: Lines; sonnet

Shelley:

Life:

Works: Queen Mab; Alastor or The Spirit of

Solitude; Lane and Cythna;Prometheus

Unbound; The Cenci; Ode to the West

Wind; To a Sky-Lark

Appreciation: Ozymandias; A Song: Men of

England; Ode to the West

Wind; To a Sky-Lark

Jane Austen:

Works: Pride and Prejudice; Northanger Abbey;

Sense and Sensibility; Emma; Walter Scott;

Persuasion; Mansfield Park

Appreciation: Pride and Prejudice

(Try to get the main content)

Part eight The Victorian Age

Critical Realism in England

Historical Background:

Charles Dickens:

Life:

Works: Pickwick Papers; Oliver Twist (first true

novel);Nicholas Nickleby; Master

Humphrey’s Clock; The Old Curiosity Shop;

Barnaby Rudge; Martin Chuzzlewit;A

Christmas Carol; Dombey and Son;

Household Words; Bleak House; Little Dorrit; A

Tale of Two Cities; Great Expectation; Our

Mutual Friend; Edwin Drood.

Appreciation: Oliver Twist

Charlotte Bronte And Emily Bronte:

Life Story:

Works: The Professor; Jane Eyre; Wuthering

Heights; Shirley; Villette

Appreciation: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights

Robert Browning:

Life story:

Style: individual

Works: Pauline; “history of a soul”; Sordello;

Pippa Passes; In a Balcony; Colombe’s

Birthday; A Blot in the Scutcheon; The

Return of the Druses

Appreciation: My Last Duchess; Home-Thoughts,

from Abroad

Part nine:Twentieth Century Literature

The Transition From 19TH to 20th Century in

English literature

George Bernard Shaw:

works: Widowes’ Houses; The Philanderer; Mrs.

Warren’s Profession; Arms and the Man;

Candida; The Man of Destiny; a mock

heroic skit on Napoleon; You Never Can

Tell; Caesar and Cleopatra; Man and

Superman; Getting Married.

Appreciation: Mrs. Warren’s Profession

D.H.Lawrence:

Life:

Works: Sons and Lovers; The White Peacock; The

Rainbow;

Appreciation: Sons and Lovers

James Joyce:

Works: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man;

The Day of the Rabblement

Appreciation: Araby