Part One
Old and Middle English Literature
I. Define the terms
1. Old English period(Anglo-Saxon period):From the invasion of Celtic England by German tribes(the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes)in the first half of the 5制作手抄报th century to the conquest of England in 1066 by Norman French.
2. Alliteration: The repetition of a speech sound (consonants) in a quence of nearby words.
3. Couplet: A pair of rhymed lines that are equal in length and the same in rhythm and rhyme.
4. Meter: The recurrence of a prominent feature in the quence of speech-sounds of a language.
5. Foot: The combination of a strong stress and the associated weak stress or stress which make up the recurrent metric unit of a line. There are four standards feet:
Iambic—an unstresd syllable followed by a stresd syllable.
Anapestic—two unstresd syllables followed by a stresd syllable.
Trochaic—a stresd syllable followed by an unstresd syllable.
Dactylic—a stresd syllable followed by two unstresd syllables.
6. Ballad: The narrative folk song that tells a story, which originates and is communicated orally mainly among illiterates.
7. Middle English Period: Between the Norman conquest in 1066 and about 1500, when the standard literary language had become “modern English”.
II. Fill in the blanks
1. Choo the best answer Critics tend to divide Chaucer’s literary career into three periods: the French period, the Italian period and the English period.
2. Chaucer employed the heroic couplet in writing his greatest work The Canterbury tales.
3. The framework in The Canterbury Tales is a pilgrimage.
4. When Chaucer died on the 25th of October 1400, he was the first to be buried in Westminster Abbey.
5. The 15th century has traditionally been described as the barren age in English literature.
6. Poetry can be classified as narrative or lyric. Narrative poems stress actions, and lyrics stress songs.
III. Multiple choice
1. Beowulf is a ___ poem, describing an all-round picture of the tribal society.
A. pagan B. Christain C. romantic D. lyric
2. Chaucer was once influenced by Italian literature. His major work during this period is__.
A. Troilus and Criyde B.The Romaunt of the Ro
C. The Legend of Good Women C. The Canterbury Tales
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3. Chaucer’s active career provides him not only with knowledge but also experiences, which accounted for the wide range of his writings. The followings are all his career EXCEPT__.
A. legislator and ambassador B. soldier and office-holder
C. businessman and churchman D. justice and knight
4. Chaucer’s narrative poem ___ is bad on Boccaccio’s poem “Filostrato”.
A. The legend of Good Women B. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
C. The Book of the Duchess D. Troilus and Criyde
5. 子成语接龙The work that prented, for the first time in English literature, a comprehensive realistic picture of the medieval English society and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life is most likely___.
A. William Langland’s Piers the Plowman
最大的蜥蜴B. Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales
C. John Gower’s Confessio Amantis
D. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
IV. 红烧肉焖饭Summarize Chaucer’s literary career and the reprentative works of each period.
His literary career is usually divided into three periods: the French period, the Italian period and the English period.
The French period refers to the period of French influence (1359-1372). During the period Chaucer wrote his earliest works: The Romaunt of the Ro, a free translation of a French poem and his first important original work: The Book of the Duchess.工业制氧气的方法
The Italian period refers to the period of Italian Influence(1372-1386), especially of Dante and Bocaacio. During this period, he mainly wrote three longer poems using the heroic stanza of ven lines: The Hou of Fame, Troilus and Crisyede, The Legend of Good Women.
The English period is his mature period, during which time his masterpiece The Canterbury was produced in which the heroic couplet was ud.
V. Answer the question according to the following passage
When April with its sweet-smelling showers
Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
四朝元老And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid
By which power the flower is created;
When the West Wind also with its sweet breath,
In every wood and field has breathed life into
The tender new leaves, and the young sun
Has run half its cour in Aries,
And small fowls make melody,
白起为什么被赐死Tho that sleep all the night with open eyes
(So Nature incites them in their hearts),
Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,
And professional pilgrims to ek foreign shores,
To distant shrines, known in various lands;
And specially from every shire's end
Of England to Canterbury they travel,
To ek the holy blesd martyr,
Who helped them when they were sick.
