英国文学纵览
一．英国文学大事记
1. The Medieval period : 450---1485
Anglo-saxon or Old English Period (450---1066): poetry in oral form
Anglo-Norman Period (1066---1340): romance
The 14th Century (1340---1400):Age of Chaucer
The 15th Century
2. The Renaissance Period (the late 15th century---1750s): Drama and poetry The Renaissance
Humanism
The Elizabethan Age (1558-1603): the golden age of English poetry
3. The 17th Century
The Jacobean Age (1603-1625): the Metaphysical poetry
The Caroline Period (1625-1649): the Cavalier poetry
The Revolutionary period or The Puritan Age (1640---1660): Milton
The Period of Restoration (1660---1688): Age of Dryden
4. The 18th century: Age of Pro
The Enlightenment Movement
New-classicism（1700-1745）：The Augustan Age
Realism
Sentimentalism
Preromanticism
二．文学术语集萃
Alliteration or Head Rhyme or Initial Rhyme refers to the repetition of the same sounds—usually initial consonants of words or of stresd syllables—in any quence of neighboring words.
A Ballad i s a story told in song, usually in four-line stanzas, with the cond and fourth lines rhymed.
Romance is the prevailing literary form of literature in the Middle Ages(1000-1453). It was a long composition, sometimes in ver, sometimes in pro, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero.
Heroic Couplet is a rhymed pair of iambic pentameter lines. It was established by Chaucer as a major English ver-form for narrative and other kinds of non-dramatic
poetry; it dominated English poetry of the 18th century notably in the poetry of Pope, before declining in importance in the early 19th century.
The Ecologue was a classical form, practiced by Virgil and others; it reprents usually in dialogue between shepherds, the moods and feeling and attitudes of the simple life.
Essay is a literary form which can be defined as a short piece of expository pro. The purpo is to inform or explain rather than to dramatize or amu. Its feature is brevity.
New-classicism is a revival of classical standards of order, balance and harmony in literature in the 17th and 18th centuries in England.
Realism is a mode of writing that gives the impression of recording life as it really is without ntimentalizing or idealizing it. It may be found as an element in the works of Chaucer or Defoe prior to the 19th century, but as a dominant trend in the novels of the middle- or lower class life in the 19th century
The Renaissance in England: Renaissance is the ‘rebirth’of literature, art and learning that progressively transformed European culture from the mid-14th century in Italy to the mid-17th century in England, strongly influenced by the rediscovery of classical Greek and Latin literature, and accelerated by the development of printing. The Renaissance is commonly held to mark the clo of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern Western world. In literary terms, the Renaissance may be en as a new tradition running from Petrarch and Boccaccio in Italy to Jonson and Milton in England, embracing the work of Sidney, Spenr, and Shakespeare; it is marked by a new lf-confidence in vernacular literatures, a flourishing of lyric poetry, and a revival of such classical forms as epic and pastoral literature.
The Enlightenment was a progressive intellectual movement throughout the Western Europe in the 18th century. It greatly influenced the English social life and literature. Generally speaking, the Enlightenment movement was an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners fought against class in equality, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. They thought the chief means for improving society was “enlightenment”or “education”for the people. The English enlighteners fell into two groups: the moderate and the radical. The moderate includes: Alexander Pope, Joph Addison and Richard Steele, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Dr. Johnson. The Radical includes such writers as Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Tobias George Smollet, Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
Spenrian stanza is a 9-line stanza form with the rhyme scheme of abab bcbc c, invented by Edmund Spenr. The first eight are iambic pentameter lines, and the last
line is an iambic hexameter line.
Pastoral, a highly conventional mode of writing that celebrates the innocent life of shepherds and shepherdess in poems, plays, and pro romances. Pastoral literature describes the loves and sorrows of musical shepherds, usually in an idealized Golden Age of rustic innocence and idleness; paradoxically, it is an elaborately artificial cult of simplicity and virtuous frugality.
Sonnet is a lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of 14 iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate rhyme scheme. There are two major patterns of rhyme in sonnets written in English. The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet (named after the 14th century Italian poet Petrarch) compris an octave (8 lines) rhyming abbaabba and a stet (6 lines) rhyming cdecde or cdccdc. The transition from octave to stet usually coincides with a ‘turn’ in the argument or mood of the poem. The English or Shakespearean sonnet (named after its greatest practitioner) compris three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. The ‘turn’ comes with the final couplet, which may sometimes achieve an epigram. There was one notable variant, the Spenrian sonnet, in which Spenr linked each quatrain to the next by a continuing rhyme: abab bcbc cdcd ee. There are three famous sonnet quences in the Elizabethan Age----Spen r’s Amoretti, Shakespeare’s sonnets and Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella.
Ballad stanza or Ballad metre, the usual form of the folk ballad and its literary imitations, consisting of a quatrain in which the first and third lines have four stress while the cond and fourth have three stress. Usually only the cond and fourth lines rhyme. The rhythm is basically iambic.
The Metaphysical Poets: John Dryden said in his Discour Concerning Satire (1693) that John Donne in his poetry “affects the metaphysics,” meaning that Donne employs the terminology and abs
tru arguments of the medieval Scholastic philosophers. In 1779 Samuel Johnson extended the term “metaphysical” from Donne to a school of poets in his “Life of Cowley.” The name is now applied to a diver group of 17th-century English poets who work is notable for its ingenious u of intellectual and theological concepts in surprising conceits, strange paradoxes and far-fetched imagery. The leading metaphysical poet was John Donne, who colloquial, argumentative abruptness of rhythm and tone distinguishes his style from the conventions of Elizabethan love lyrics. Other poets to whom the label is applied include Andrew Marvell, Abraham Cowley, John Cleveland and the predominantly religious poets George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and Richard Crashaw.
Conceit: an unusually far-fetched or elaborate metaphor or simile prenting a surprisingly apt parallel between two apparently dissimilar things or feelings. Poetic conceits are prominent in Elizabethan love sonnets, in metaphysical poetry. Conceits often employ the devices of hyperbole, paradox and oxymoron. Originally meaning a
concept or image, conceit came to be the term for figures of speech which establish a striking parallel, usually ingeniously elaborate, between two very dissimilar things or situations.
The Cavalier poets are a group of English lyric poets who were active, approximately, during the reign of Charles I (1625-1640). This group includes Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, and Waller. The poets virtually abandoned the sonnet form which had been the favoured medium for love poems for a century. They were considerably influenced by Ben Jonson. Their lyrics are light, witty, elegant and, for the most part, concerned with love. They show much technical virtuosity.
Carpe Diem: a tradition theme dating back to classical Greek and Latin poetry and particularly popular among the English Cavalier poets. Carpe Diem means, literally, “ize the day”, that is, “live for today.” The Carpe Diem theme is epitomized in a line from Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”: “Gather ye robuds while ye may.”
Blank ver is the ver written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It is the ver form ud in some of the greatest English poetry, including that of William Shakespeare and John Milton.
Elegy: a poem of mourning, usually over the passing of life and beauty or a meditation on the nature of death. An elegy is a type of lyric poem, usually formal in language and structure, and solemn or even melancholy in tone.
Epitaph: an inscription on a gravestone or a short poem written in memory of someone who has died. Many epitaphs are actually epigrams, or short witty sayings, and are not intended for rious u as monument inscriptions.
Pre-romanticism: a general term applied by modern literary historians to a number of developments in late 18th century culture that are thought to have prepared the ground of Romanticism in its full n. In various ways, the are all departures from the orderly framework of neoclassicism and its authorized genres.
A Song is a short lyric poem with distinct musical qualities, normally written to be t to music. It express a simple but inten emotion. Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty” is a song.
Romanticism: a movement that flourished in literature, philosophy, music and art in Western culture during most of the 19th century, beginning as a revote against classicism. There have been many varieties of Romanticism in many different times and places.
Many of the ideas of English Romanticism were first expresd by William
Wordsworth and Samuel Talor Coleridge. It prevailed in England during the period 1798-1832. Roma
nticists expresd the ideology and ntiment of tho class and social strata that were discontent with and oppod to the development of capitalism. They split into two groups becau of the different attitudes toward the capitalist society.
The Passive Romantic poets or the Lake poets are reprented by Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey. The Active or Revolutionary Romantic poets are reprented by Byron, Shelley and Keats.
Ode: a complex lyric poem of some length, dealing with a noble theme in a dignified manner and originally intended to be sung. Odes are often written for a special occasion, to honor a person or a ason or to commemorate an event.
Terza Rima: it is an Italian ver form consisting of a ries of three-line stanzas in which the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza as follows aba bcb cdc etc. Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”is partly written in terza rima.
Dramatic Monologue: a kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners who replies are not given in the poem. The occasion is usually a crucial one in the speaker’s life, and the dramatic monologue reveals the speaker’s personality as well as the incident that is the subject of the poem.
The Victorian Period: the beginning of the Victorian Period is frequently dated from 1837 to 1901 (the reign of Queen Victoria). Much writing of the period dealt with or reflected the pressing social, economic, religious and intellectual issues and problems of that era.
Among the notable poets were Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rostti, Matthew Arnold and Gerard Manley Hopkins. The chief characteristics of the Victorian poetry are its moralizing tendencies, its overpadding of extra-poetic matter, and its traditional iambic pentameter.
