英美文学作品选读
Selected Readings of British and American Literature
This subject is about the historical development of British and American literature, it describes the lives and careers of the great and major writers, especially their reprentative works.
英国
1. 中古英国文学（8世纪-14世纪）
2. 文艺复兴时期（14世纪-17世纪中）
3. 新古典主义时期（17世纪中-18世纪）
4. 浪漫主义时期（18世纪中-19世纪中）
5. 维多利亚时期（1836- 1901）
6. 现代主义时期（19世纪末少年轻狂-）
文艺复兴时期文学
The renaissance was a European phenomenon, which originated in Italy. The English renaissance encouraged the reformation of the church. In Elizabethan period, English literat
ure developed with a great speed. The most distinctive achievement of Elizabethan literature is drama. Next to drama is the lyrical poetry, remarkable for its variety and freshness and romantic feeling. In the renaissance period, scholars began to emphasize the capacities of human mind and the achievement of human culture. So humanism became the keynote of English renaissance.
1. William Shakespeare is one of the most remarkable playwrights and poets in the world. He has also been given the highest prais by various scholars and critics the world over. His greatest tragedies are: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. His greatest comedies are: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Merchant of Venice, as you like it and Twelfth Night. In them, he portrayed young people just freed from feudal fetters. He sang of their youth, love and ideal of happiness. They trust in themlves and their efforts are crowned with success. The general spirit is optimism.
The Merchant of Venice: A moneyless young man Bassanio loves a rich beauty Portia. He wants to marry to her, so he appeals to his friend Antonio for help. To aid Bassanio in his courtship, he borrows money from Shylock the Jewish usurer. Shylock agrees to lend
the money on the condition that if the loan is not paid in three months, he may cut a pound of flesh from Antonia’s body. Unfortunately, Antonio can’t pay the money becau his ship doesn’t return on time. Shylock demands his pound of flesh and Antonio is in danger now. At the critical moment, a young doctor of law comes to help him. He asks Shylock to take no more or no less than one pound of flesh and spilling no drop of blood. Shylock can’t do this, so Antonia is saved. The man who saves the life of Antonio is no other than Portia in disgui! Portia: she is one of Shakespeare’s ideal women--- beautiful, cultured, courteous（谦恭） and capable of rising to an emergency. Shylock: he is an avaricious money-lender and a Jew of pride and deep religious instincts. He has suffered much in the hands of the Christians. His revolting bond is counterbalanced by Antonio’s arrogant treatment of him. We can e his loud protest against racial discrimination.
Hamlet is considered the summit of Shakespeare’s art. The whole story shows how hamlet, who reprents good and justice, fights against his uncle in whom all the evil things can be en. The famous line in the play “to be or not to be” by hamlet is often quo
ted by people. He is a hero of the renaissance. He loves good and hates evil. He is a scholar, soldier and statesman. His learning, wisdom, noble nature, limitation and tragedy are all reprentative of the humanists at the turn of the 16th and the 17th century.
Othello is a splendid Moorish general in Venice. He marries to a beautiful girl and they live happily together. Iago is a very bad man and he envies his happiness. He tells Othello that his wife betrayed him. He believes him and kills his wife. But at last he knows the truth and regrets very much, so he killed himlf. It is a tragedy of humanism and a tragedy of the colored people in a society of racial prejudice. Othello is a great warrior and too noble-minded to suspect tho whom he loves. Though his kin is dark, he has great moral beauty. He loves Desdemona dearly becau he finds her to be the embodiment of integrity, sincerity and loftiness of mind. Their tragedy shows that noble-minded people maybe led astray by evil forces in an evil society and commit mistakes if they can not distinguish falhood from truth, and evil from good.
King Lear: Lear is the king of Britain and he is a lf-wild old man, intends to divide his realm among his three daughters by asking them how much they love him. The two elder
daughters win his trust by fine words. But his little daughter Cordelia says she loves him according to her duty, not more or less. Her father is angry and decides to give her nothing.
Sonnet: the sonnet is a poem in 14 lines with one or the other rhyme scheme.
17世纪文学
1. John Milton is the greatest writer of the 17th century. He is often considered the greatest English poet after Shakespeare. In his life and literary career the two dominant historical movements of renaissance and Reformation combine and receive their most inten and intelligent expression. His works include paradi lost, paradi regained and Samson Agonistes. Milton has noble thought and splendid imagery. He is a great stylist. His poetry has a grand style. His poetry is noted for sublimity of thought and majesty of expression. Milton is a great master of blank ver. He is the glorious pioneer to introduce blank ver into non-dramatic poetry. He has ud it as the main tool in his masterpiece Paradi Lost. His blank ver is rich in every poetic quality and never monotonous. His works are marked by cosmic themes and lofty religious idealism. Paradi
lost is his masterpiece and the greatest English epic. In the poem, god is no better than a lfish despot, who is cruel and unjust in punishing Satan, the rebel. Adam and Eve embody his belief in the powers of man. Satan is the real hero of the poem.
18世纪文学
Realism. The eighteenth century was the golden age of the English novel. The novel of this period spoke the truth about life with an uncompromising courage. What the writers described in their works were social realities and the main characters were usually common men. The writers and philosophers of the Enlightenment held that man is good and noble by nature but many succumb to an evil environment.
Enlightenment: it was an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. They thought the chief means for bettering the society is enlightenment or education for the people.
1. Daniel Defoe has been regarded as the discoverer of the modern novel. Defoe was a very good story-teller. He had a gift for organizing minute details in such a vivid way that his stories could be both credible and fascination. His ntences are sometimes short, cri
sp and plain, and sometimes long and rambling, which leave on the reader an impression of casual narration. His language is smooth, easy, colloquial and mostly vernacular.
Robinson Crusoe was one of the forerunners of the English realistic novel. Crusoe was a sailor, a merchant and a slave-owner. On the voyage to Africa, he met a shipwreck and found himlf cast by the a waves upon the shore of an uninhabited island. He managed the livelihood there by himlf. Finally, he was saved and got married in England. At last, he sailed back to the island and established a colony there.
2. Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s travels
3. Henry Fielding Tom Jones
4. William Blake songs of innocence, songs of experience- the chimney-sweeper, London and the tiger. It shows the poet’s eyes are open to the evils and vices of the world.
5. Robert burns a red, red ro. He wrote poems to express his hatred for the oppression of the ruling class and his love for freedom.
浪漫主义时期
1. William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet. His major poets include I Wa
ndered Lonely as a Cloud and The solitary reaper. His poetry is distinguished by the simplicity and purity of its language.
2. George Gordon Byron is one of the most excellent reprentatives of English romanticism. His literary career was cloly associated with the struggle and progressive movement of his age. She walks in beauty and Don Juan. Don Juan is a Spanish youth of aristocratic birth. The long poem describes Don Juan’s adventures in many countries.
3. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Prometheus unbound is his masterpiece. The story is taken from greek mythology. According to greek myth, Prometheus steals fire from heaven and is punished by zeus, who chains him to a rock. Finally, zeus is overthrown and Hercules ts Prometheus free.
His short poems on nature and love form an important part of his literary output. His best love lyrics are Ode to the west wind and to a skylark. “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” is a famous line in ode to the west wind.
4. John Keats
His famous works are ode to a nightingale, ode on a Grecian Urn and ode to autumn. Od
e is his main form of poetry. He sought to express beauty in all his poems. His leading principle is beauty in truth, truth beauty. His poetry is distinguished by nsuousness and the perfection of form.
5. Walter Scott
Waverley, Rob Roy and Ivanhoe. He is the first novelist to recreate the past. In his novels, historical events are cloly interwoven with the fates of individuals. He is always mindful of the role and fates of the ordinary people. In a n, his literary career marks the transition from romanticism to realism in English literature of the 19th century.
6. Jane Austen
Her major works are Pride and prejudice, Emma, n and nsibility. She was popular all through the 19th century. Pride and prejudice is his masterpiece. The central character is Elizabeth Bennet, one of the daughters in the Bennets. Elizabeth meets a young man Darcy and has prejudice against him becau she thinks he has nothing but pride. After many twists and turns, misunderstandings disappear and they are happily united. The plot is simple, but Austen has woven vivid pictures of everyday life of English country soci
ety. Her novels show a wealth of humor, wit and delicate satire. Her dialogues are admirably true to life.
维多利亚时期文学
Critical realism appeared during this period. Dickens is the reprentative writer. With striking force and truthfulness, he pictured bourgeois civilization, showing the miry of common people. The 19th century critical realists made u of the form of novel for full and detailed reprentation of social and political events, and one of the fate of individuals and of whole social class.
1. Charles Dickens is the greatest reprentative of English critical realism. He wrote lots of famous works, such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Hard times and a tale of two cities.
Oliver Twist is one of the best works of Dickens. Oliver Twist is an orphan boy. He is born in a workhou and brought up under cruel conditions. Then he runs to London and meets a gang of thieves. They try to convert Oliver into a thief. He is rescued by a rich man, but the thieves kidnap him, make him join them again. At last, he is saved and adop
ted by the kind man. His vivid description of the thieves’ den and the underworld of London shows the sympathy for the lower class. Among the characters of the lower strata, Oliver is the only one who emerges happy and successful in the end. This happy issue shows his optimistic belief in the inevitable triumph of good over evil.
2. William Makepeace Thackeray is a reprentative of critical realism in 19th century. He is a realist, a satirist and a moralist. Vanity fair: the title was taken from Bunyan’s pilgrim’s Progress. The main characters are Amelia and Becky. Amelia is a simple but kind girl and Becky is a craft and resourceful girl. Becky is an orphan and tries to make her way into the upper society. She is a classic example of tho who grub money by all means.
3. Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre is a story about an orphan girl called Jane Eyre. Maltreated by her aunt, she goes to a charity school. Later she becomes a governess of Mr. Rochester. He loves her. Before their wedding, she learns that he has got a mad wife. Shocked by the news, she left him. When she heard that his hou is destroyed in a fire and he becomes blind, she returned to him and became his wife. In the novel, Jane Eyre maintains that women should have equal rights with men. Charlotte also aims to criticize t
he bourgeoisie educational system.
4. Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights it deals with the story of the hero Heathcliff who is a gipsy. He is picked up by Me. Earnshaw and brought up together with his children. Healthcliff and the daughter Miss Catherine have loved each other since childhood. When he grows up, he joins the army and three years later he becomes a rich man. When he comes back, he finds his lover has been married to another man. Later, he becomes the master of the family and takes revenge upon the next generation. It’s a powerful attack on the bourgeoisie marriage system.
5. George Eliot has three remarkable novels: Adam Bede, The mill on the floss, silas marner. The hero of Adam Bede is a village carpenter, an honest young man. He falls in love with a girl, but the girl gives her heart to a lfish squire. Later the girl is put into prison for derting her own child. Adam and a woman preacher get married.
6. Thomas hardy: His masterpieces are Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the major of Casterbridge, far from the madding crowed and Jude the obscure. Tess is a poor dairymaid who has been duced by Alec D’Urbervilles, a wealthy villain, and gives birth t
o a child. Later she falls in love with a man called Clare. On their wedding night, she confess to her husband that she has been duced and given birth to a child. He husband can not accept the fact and goes abroad. Some years later, he comes back and wants Tess to come back to him. Tess murders her ducer and is arrested and hanged. The tragedy of Tess is an exposure of the wicket oppressors reprented by Alec.
7. Alfred Tennyson was recognized as the greatest poet of Victorian England. His main poetical works include the princess, Maud and short poem break, break, break. He has a total mastery of the sounds and rhythms of the English language. He has genius for evoking moods and states of mind in his poems. No poet could surpass him at linking descriptions of nature to the state of the mind.
8. Robert Browning is realistic, optimistic and believes in the progress of mankind. His contribution to poetry is his dramatic monologues.
现代作家
They turned increasingly to lower middle class and working-class life and liked to describe what was happening in the mind of their characters. Under the influence of impr
essionism, writers focud on individual moments of experience. They insisted that fiction should explore the depth and recess of personality, an unending stream of impression, feelings and thoughts.
1. John Galsworthy is one of the greatest novelists in the early 20th century. He was born in a wealthy family. After graduation from Oxford, he began to devote himlf to literary work. His style is noted for its strength and elasticity. His language is simple, clear and straightforward.
The forsyte saga has been regarded as his masterpiece. It includes three novels and two interludes. And the man of property marks the peak of critical realism in all Galsworthy’s works. Forsyte is the central figure of the story, who is the man of property. He has married a girl, but pays no attention to her thoughts and feelings, regarding her as a piece of his property. Then his wife loves another who is killed by a car.
2. Bernard Shaw was a greatest dramatist in the 20th century. He ud stage to criticize the evils of capitalism. He is a critical realist writer and a humorist. His play deals with contemporary social problems. His major plays include widowers’ hous, the apple cart,
Major Barbara, Mrs. Warren’s profession and heartbreak hou. Widowers’ hous satirizes bourgeois businessmen who ill-gotten money is squeezed out of poor, suffering people. An English businessman Mr. Sartorius and his daughter meet a young doctor Harry Trench while traveling in Germany. The two youth fall in love with each other and plan to get married. Then Trench finds that his future father-in-law makes his money by renting slum housing to the poor, so he refus to marry her daughter. Later, Sartorius reveals that Trench's income is as dirty as the money made by Sartorius. At last, Harry and Blanche reunite.
One should love animals. They are so tasty. / Behind every successful man, there is a woman and behind every unsuccessful man, there are two.
3. David Herbert Lawrence was an English author, poet, playwright and literary critic. In his works, he confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human xuality and instinct. He is best known for his novels Sons and Lovers, the Rainbow, Women in Love and Lady Chatterley's Lover. Within the Lawrence explores the possibilities for life and living within an Industrial tting. In particular Lawrence is con
cerned with the nature of relationships that can be had within such ttings. Though often clasd as a realist, Lawrence's u of his characters can be better understood with reference to his philosophy. His u of xual activity, though shocking at the time, has its roots in this highly personal way of thinking and being. It is worth noting that Lawrence was very interested in human touch behavior and that his interest in physical intimacy has its roots in a desire to restore our emphasis on the body, and re-balance it with what he perceived to be western civilization's slow process of over-emphasis on the mind.
Sons and Lovers is Lawrence’s mi-autobiographical novel. It tells the story of a coal miner’s family with the son Paul as the central character. The thread of the story evolved around Paul’s love for the two girls Miriam and Clara as well as his love for his mother Mrs. Morel.
4. James Joyce was born in Dublin. His major novels include: a portrait of the artist as a young man, Ulyss and Dubliners. James Joyce is the founder of stream of consciousness. He tried not merely to describe how a character might think, but also to prent a record of the character’s thoughts.
5. William Golding was a great novelist and received Nobel Prize for Literature. In many novels he has revealed the dark places of human heart, when isolated individuals or small groups are pushed into extreme situations. His work is characterized by exploration of 'the darkness of man's heart', deep spiritual and ethical questions. Lord of the flies is His masterpiece. It’s an allegorical story t in the near future during wartime. The story describes a group of children, who are evacuated from Britain becau of a nuclear war. Their airplane crashes on an uninhabited island, and all the adults are killed. The boys create their own society, which gradually degenerates from democratic, rational, and moral community to tyrannical and cruel. The older boys take control, a boy called Piggy, who is asthmatic and nearsighted, becomes a target of teasing and torment. Leaders emerge, two of the older boys get killed, and they begin to hunt another, just as a ship arrives. Golding's view is pessimistic: human nature is inherently corruptible and wicked. Although the boys have been taught social skills, their desire to kill is unleashed when there are no strict rules of the English public-school system to control their behavior.
6. Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot is his masterpiece. There are two characters, Vladi
mir and Estragon, wait for someone named Godot. Godot's abnce has led to many different interpretations. It follows two days in the lives of a pair of men who divert themlves while they wait expectantly and unsuccessfully for someone named Godot to arrive. They claim him as an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recogni him were they to e him. To occupy themlves, they eat, sleep, conver, argue, sing, play games, exerci, swap hats, and contemplate suicide — anything "to hold the terrible silence at bay".
美国文学
1. 独立革命前（17世纪中期前）
番石榴季节2. 独立革命时（17世纪中期-18世纪末）
3. 浪漫主义时期（18世纪末-19世纪中后期）
4. 现实主义时期（19世纪中-20世纪初）
5. 现代主义时期（20世纪初-）
美国浪漫主义时期
American romantic literature advocated individualism and encouraged people to fight for i
ndividual right and human happiness bravely. They attached importance to individual dignity and value, and believed that human nature was good. Their works mostly reflected the fantastic and thrilling stories taking place long ago as an escape from the civilized society and were rich in mystic color.
Transcendentalism marked the maturity of American romanticism and the first renaissance in the American literary history. It laid emphasis on spirit, individual and nature.
Free Ver has no regular rhythm or line length and depends on natural speech rhythms and the counterpoint of stresd and unstresd syllables.
1. Washington Irving is the first American author to achieve international distinction and has a significant position in the history of American literature. He is famous for his works such as the sketch book, rip van winkle and the legend of sleep hollow. His works are characterized by a strong n of humor and his humor is always mild and prone to be accepted.
Rip van winkle is a story inspired by German legend. Rip is a good-natured and hen-peck
ed man. He always goes to the mountain to escape his wife’s bad treatment. One day, when he escapes from his wife, he happens to e some odd-looking people play at nine-pines and join them. After drinking their wine, he falls asleep. When he wakes up, twenty years has pasd. He comes back to his home and finds everything has changed. The style of his works is simplicity, poi and ea flow. The significance of him lies in his literary innovation and transitional role in the development of American literature.
2. Walt Whitman is a great democratic poet. He is the first great American poet to u free ver in poetry. His masterpiece is leaves of grass. It’s the lifelong work of Whitman and its themes are multiple. The ideas Whitman express in his work are democratic ones besides his singing of science, labor and nature and can be summarized as the realization of liberty, equality and fraternity. Song of mylf is the most famous poem in the collection.
3. Nathaniel Hawthorne has been regarded as the first great American writer of fiction. His concern with moral or ethical problems and his talent in dealing with them attain him success as a novelist. The central subject of his major works was human soul. He reveal
ed his criticism of life in his exploration of human soul. His style is soft, flowing and feminine. His masterpieces are the scarlet letter and the hou of the ven gables.
4. Edgar Allan Poe has been held among the greatest poets and the most popular of American authors due to his great literary success. He is the first American professional writer and the first writer of detective story in the world. He had a short life of poverty, anxiety and fantastic tragedy. To Helen, the raven, Annabel lee and the black cat.篮球计分
现实主义文学
It’s the product of the changes in American politics and economic development. American industrialization was the first important factor of the development of American realistic literature. It’s called “The gilded age”. Industrialization created new themes for American writers. The development of the Far West was the cond important factor to promote the literary development. Goldmines were found in California, many people were attracted to the western part to look new wealth in this “gold rush” which was vividly depicted in Mark Twain novels.
naturalism: it was created by French novelist emile zola. The naturalistic writers were phil
osophical pessimists. They explained that man was the product of social progress and social evolution. They believe that opinions and morality were controlled by social, economic and psychological caus.
1. Mark twain is a humorist and humorist. He always wrote his own experiences and things he knew about from firsthand experience. Most of his works are filled with humor. A droll sarcasm is often directed against worldly sham and preten of any kind. The most popular of his books are the adventures of tom sawyer, the Prince and the Pauper and the adventures of huckleberry Finn. It is a veritable recreation of living models. All the characters have prototypes in real life. It touches upon the human situation in a general, indeed universal way: humanitarianism ultimately triumphs. The style of the book is simple. The book is written in the colloquial style, in the general speech of uneducated Americans.
2. Theodore Dreir is a great naturalist writer. His great works include An American tragedy, the financier and Sister Carrie. It’s a story about a poor country girl Carrie who comes to the city to ek whatever she can find. Her goals are clothes, money and fame
and the means by which she achieves them are relatively unimportant. More important is that she is a eker and a lover. In the end of the story, she succeeded while her lover killed himlf. His real theme in the novel is the purpolessness of life. While looking at individuals with warm, human sympathy, he also es the disorder and cruelty of wealth and social position. His tragedy is just as accidental as Carrie’s success.
现代主义文学
一战长大用英语怎么说 made people’s mind more active than ever before. They freed themlves from the traditional concepts of culture and morality and created the literary art of modernism. Some of them ud their wartime experience as the basis for their works. They were cut off from old values and yet unable to come to terms with the new era. They wondered pointlessly and restlessly, while at the same time were aware that the world was crazy and meaningless. They were called the Lost Generation. The writers of the Lost Generation were totally frustrated by the war. The American literature of the 1920s was characterized by disillusionment with ideas and civilization. The decade of the 1920s was also frequently referred to as the “Jazz Age”, a period marked by an exciting acceleration
in the tempo of American life. The characters of Jazz Age novels live in restless pursuit of stimulus and pleasure and wallow in heavy drinking, fast driving and casual x.
Modernism: it’s ud to show the literary art posssing outstanding characteristics in conception, feeling, form and style after the first world war. It means cutting off history and a n of despair and loss. It refud to accept the traditional concept of value and all traditional ideological influences.
1. Earnest Hemingway
The sun also Ris, A farewell to arms, for whom the bell tolls, the old man and the a. Hemingway hero is usually a nsitive and intelligent man. He is man of action and of a few words. The Hemingway hero stands for a whole generation, who posss a kind of despairing courage. This courage enables a man to behave like a man, to asrt his dignity in face of dignity. His writing style is striking, characterized by short and ter ntences, simple diction often filled with emotion, vivid colloquialism and the simplicity of statements.
玉精神A farewell to arms: Henry was a young American attached to an Italian ambulance unit on
the Italian front. He was introduced to Catherine Barkley. He liked her, but not in love with her. At the front, he was wounded and was taken to a field hospital. They stayed together and Catherine was pregnant. He returned to the front. Later he escaped and made his farewell to arms. Unfortunately Catherine died when giving birth to the child. Henry left the hospital helplessly and hopelessly.萌发的近义词
2. Francis Scott Fitzgerald
He was the leader of the Jazz age and one of the greatest writers in the 20th century. The great Gatsby and tender is the night. Nick is a quiet young Midwesterner. He leaves home to do business in New York City. He meets his new neighbor Mr. Gatsby, a rich man. Then he knows Daisy and her husband tom. Daisy and Gatsby were in love before. Tom later finds his wife is in love with Gatsby and makes a conspiracy to have Gatsby killed. Gatsby is shot to death by a man and Nick finds no one wants to attend his funeral except his father and rvants. He realized that the rich are careless and destructive.
3. Robert Frost North of Boston, mending wall, stopping by the woods on a snowy evening. He is a New England writer by temperament and subject matter. His poems ofte
n sound like talk. His central theme might be summarized as the way dependence.
4. William Faulkner
The sound and the fury is his favorite and his most difficult one among his novels. As I lay dying is an original stream of consciousness short novel compod of 59 subjective monologues. Light in august is a powerful realistic novel. Absalom, Absalom is a fable about the south characterized by complex structure, interesting and novel language. The central theme of his novels is the human heart in conflict with itlf and the creative method is capricious. He adopted symbolic and modernistic techniques but had his own development.
待人接物是什么意思5. Sinclair Lewis: Main Street and Babbitt.
1945年后文学
Beat, black humor, southern fiction, Jewish fiction, psychological fiction and science fiction.
1. Ralph Ellison invisible man
2. john updike rabbit run, rabbit redux, rabbit is rich and rabbit at rest.
雨后春笋是成语吗
3. Arthur miller: death of a saleman
4. J.D. Salinger: the catcher in the Rye
