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823补充名词解释

1. Knights of the Round Table （了解）

The founder of the kingdom of Wessex, that the Celtic King Arthur, a legendary figure, is said to have acquired his fame. At Camelot in Somersetshire, which was his capital, he gathered around him the bravest of his followers, who were known as the Knights of the Round Table and for twenty-four years he fought bravely for his kingdom against the Anglo-Saxon invaders, and about whom many English romances were composed.

2. Norman Conquest（了解）

The military conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy, primarily effected by his decisive victory at the Battle of Hastings (October 14, 1066) and resulting ultimately in profound political, administrative, and social changes in the British Isles.

3. Alliteration

It is the repetition of the same sound or sounds at the beginning of

two or more words that are next to or close to each other.

4. kenning：in order to add beauty to ordinary objects; it is a metaphor Romance (传奇故事) was a type of literature that was very popular in the Middle Ages.

5. Romance

In the original sense of the word, means the vernacular (native) language, as opposed to Latin, and later it means a tale in verse, embodying the life and adventures of knights. Romance is characteristic of the early feudal age, as it reflects the spirit of chivalry, i. e. , the quality and ideal of knightly conduct.

The content of romance is usually about love, chivalry, and religion.

In subject matters, romance naturally falls under three categories:

(1）The matter of France (2）The matter of Rome (3）The matter of Britain 6. Allegory: 寓言

It is a story or description in which the characters and events symbolize some deeper underlying meaning, and serve to spread moral teaching. An allegory has a double meaning. It has a primary meaning, or surface meaning, and a secondary meaning, or underlying meaning.

In an allegory, abstract qualities or ideas, such as patience, purity, or

truth, are personified as characters in the story.

7. The Hundred Year’s War

The Hundred Years' War continued and in 1415 at the Battle of Agincourt King Henry V (1413-1422) defeated the French army and claimed himself the heir to the French throne.

8. The War of the Roses

The War of the Roses, or the Thirty Years* War, was a series of civil wars fought between the two great families, both of which claimed the right to the English throne. It lasted for thirty years until King Henry VII defeated Richard TIII (1483一1485) at the Battle of Bosworth and ended the civil war.Henry Tudor, or Henry VII married Elizabeth of the House of York, brought compromise between the two families.

9. Reformation of the church

During his reign Henry VIII (1509一1547) took decisive measures to break away from the Church of Rome. In 1534 he passed through Parliament the Act of Supremacy which regarded him as the supreme head on earth.

10. ballad

Folk literature, especially ballads, became an important feature in the 15th century.

A ballad is a narrative poem that tells a story.

11. The enclosure movement

As the demand for wool increased, some of the nobles and the burghers turned vast arable land into pastures and large numbers of peasants were deprived of their land. Many peasants who were compelled to leave their land came to settle down in towns and cities and earned their living as labourers. Thus, two opposite classes came into being, the capitalist class and the labouring class.

12. University Wits:

They were predecessors to Shakespeare and were later called the University Wits.

Among them were Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd, and Christopher Marlowe.

他们都是莎士比亚的前辈，被后人称为“大学才子派”。作家有罗伯特•格 林、托马斯•基德和克里斯托夫•马洛等等。

13. Blood and thunder 充满凶杀情节

The Spanish Tragedy by Kyd has been considered as the earliest specimen of revenge plays of “blood and thunder” drama in England and anticipated Shakespeare's Hamlet.

14. Blank verse

Free verse

Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter. It was the chief verse form by Shakespeare.

Free verse is poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. A looser and more open-ended syntactical structure is frequently favored. It attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure. Walt Whitman’s poetry is an example of free verse.

15. Sonnets

A sonnet(十四行诗)is a short song in the original meaning of the word. Later it became a poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter with various rhyming schemes.

16.

In 1640 Charles I summoned Parliament, which had been closed for eleven years, to collect money to raise a army to suppress the Scots. In 1641the bourgeoisie and a number of aristocrats drew up the “Grand Remonstrance” by which they bitterly accused the king of tyrannical rule and demanded the rights of free trade and commerce. The king rejected the Remonstrance. Then Civil war broke out in1642.

17. Civil war

Civil war broke out between the king and Parliament in 1642. After years of civil war the parliamentary army led by Oliver Cromwell(1599一1658) defeated the royal army. Charles I was beheaded in 1649 and England became a commonwealth.

18. The Glorious Revolution / The Bill of Rights

It was one of the most important events in British history in that it ended the long conflict of political power between bourgeoisie and Crown. In 1688 William signed

“The Bill of Rights” presented to him by Parliament, which greatly restricted the power of the English king and henceforth England has become a country of constitutional monarchy.

19. Metaphysical poets

The main themes of the metaphysical poets are love, death, and religion.

According to them, all things in the universe, no matter how dissimilar they are to each other, are closely unified in God. The chief representative of this school was John Donne.

20. Cavalier Poets

The cavaliers were royalists, whose poetry was marked by courtliness, urbanity, and polish. They were lyrical poets, and dealt chiefly with the theme of love and the theme of “carpe diem”. Their poetry flourished in the early and middle periods of the 17th century at the court and reflected the extravangance and moral looseness of court life. The chief representative of the cavaliers was Ben Jonson.

21. Puritanism:

● It was the religious doctrine of the revolutionary bourgeoisie during the English Revolution.

● It advocated purifying the Church of England.

● It preached thrift, sobriety, hardwork and unceasing labour, worldly pleasures were condemned as harmful.

22. Puritan

The puritan were originally devout of members of of church of England who advocated highly religious and moral principle. They wished to purify their religious belief ----to clean up the remains of Catholicism in church of England by breaking free from it.

23. Coffeehouses

In the later half of the 17th century and throughout the 18th century, the coffeehouses in London served as informal meeting houses for men of all classes, where they could exchange their opinions and do business.

This tradition was passed down into the 19^th century when we have Dicken’s Pickwick Club.

24. Neo-classicim

Its meaning is to revive the virtues of the Greek and Roman classic.

Neo-classicist believe that artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity.

25. English Enlightenment

With the advent of the 18th century in England, there sprang into life a progressive intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.

The enlighteners held the common faith in human rationality, eternal justice and natural equality. The great enlighteners in Britain were those great writers like Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, Jonathan Swift and Samuel Johnson.

26. Epistolary novel 书信体小说

A novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used.

27. Lake Poets

“Lake Poets” are William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey. They all live in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. They are considered part of the Romantic Movement.

They were not interested in the national events, did not care about national democratic movements and national liberation movements in England and on the Continent,nor the miserable conditions of the people.

They were indulged in contemplation and imagination, looking backward to the past and took literature as an expression of their own subjective world that has nothing to do with the real one. In short, to them, literature is a mean to escape from the turbulence and revolution of the real world, a shelter where they can find their spiritual and consolation.

28. Byronic Hero

Byronic Hero was created by Byron in the romantic period of English literature and it refers to a proud mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. The Byronic Hero is characterized by bravery and hard working spirit, such as Don Juan as the best representative of this kind. Byron’s chief contribution to English literature is his creation of the Byronic Hero.

29. Familiar Essay

Lamb was important in English literature for his contribution to the Familiar Essay, a type of essay which dates back to those of the French essayist Montaigne and was later developed by Addison and Steel.

30. The Chartist Movement: 1839-1848, the working class in Britain had a movement to realize the “people’s charter”, in fact , they wanted to have the universal suffrage. The chartist had two groups : moral force and physical force. At last, the Chartist Movement failed, but the working class entered the history stage for the first as an independent political force.

31. Art for art’s sake: (Aesthetic movement)

A concept that emphasizes the autonomous value of art and regards preoccupations with morality, realism and didacticism as or irrelevant or inimical to artistic quality, which was represented by Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde.

32. Dramatic monologue

Dramatic monologue is a kind of poem in which there is one imaginary speaker addressing an imaginary audience. Such poems reveal not the poet’s own thoughts but the mind of the impersonated character, whose personality is revealed while the implied presence of an auditor distinguishes it from a soliloquy, have also been called Dramatic monologue. But to avoid confusion it is preferable to refer to these simply as monologues. Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess is a typical dramatic monologue.

33. Stream of Consciousness

In modern literature, quite many new trends appeared. Among them “stream of consciousness” is very prominent. Stream of consciousness is a way of writing which depicts the thoughts, perception and feeling of character in a free form.

34. Bloomsbury Group （21M）

It’s a loose coterie(小团体） of writers and artists linked by friendship to the homes of Virginia Woolf in Bloomsbury in London from about 1906 to the late 1930s.

It had no doctrine or aim but the group had some importance as a centre of modernizing liberal opinion in the 1920s

35. Carpe diem

It is a quotation meaning “seizing the day.” A common theme in European lyric poetry in which the speaker of a poem argues that since life is short, pleasure should be enjoyed while there is still time.

36. Graveyard poetry

The term applied to a minor but influential 18th-century tradition of meditative poems on mortality and immortality, often set in graveyards. The culmination of this tradition in English is Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

37. Aestheticism

Aestheticism the doctrine or disposition that regards beauty as an end in itself, and attempts to preserve the arts from subordination to moral, didactic or political purposes. The term is often used synonymously with the Aesthetic Movement, a literary and artistic tendency of the late 19th century, elaborated in England by Pater and Wilde under the slogan “art for art’s sake”. Wilde and other devotees of pure beauty were sometimes known as aesthetes

38. Burlesque

It’s a kind of parody that ridicules some serious literary work either by treating its solemn subject in an undignified style, or by applying its elevated style to a trivial subject, as in Pope’s mock-epic The Rape of the Lock.

39. Utilitarianism

In a theory formulated in England in the 18th century by Jeremy Bentham, who believed that the test of ethical concerns was their usefulness to society, he defined utility as “the greatest happiness for the greatest number”. In the 19th century his theory was advanced, modified and became popular. Almost everything was put to test by the criterion of utility, i.e. by the extent to which it could promote the industrialists who used it as an excuse for their exploitation of the vast working class men, women, and children. It received bitter attacks from the major novelists of the Victorian Age.

40. Laissez faire

Laissez faire is a policy based on the Utilitarian philosophy which asserted that the function of the government was to preserve order and protect ownership of private property and not to interfere with the economic operation of the country. The capitalists did not feel they were responsible for the poverty of the working people.

41. Gothic novel

Gothic novel（哥特式小说）, a type of romantic fiction that predominated in the late eighteenth century, was one phase of the Romantic movement. Its principal elements are violence, horror, and the supernatural.

42. The Harlem Renaissance

It refers to the flowering of African American literature, art, and drama during the 1920s and 1930s.

Black novelists, poets, painters, and playwrights began creating works rooted in their own culture instead of imitating the styles of Europeans and white Americans .

Though centered in Harlem, New York, the movement impacted urban centers throughout the United States.

43.

American Dream

American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/ she works hard enough. It usually implies a successful and satisfying life. It usually framed in terms of American capitalism, its associated purported meritocracy, and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Bill of Rights.

44. Nonfiction非小说文学/非虚构小说:

It refers to any prose narrative that tells about things as the actually happened or that presents factual information about something. The purpose of this kind of writing is to give a presumably accurate accounting of а person ' s life . Writers of nonfiction use the major forms of discourse :description ( an impression of the subject ) ; narration ( the telling of the story ); exposition( explanatory information ) ; persuasion ( an argument to influence people' s thinking). Forms: autobiography, biography, essay, story, editorial,letters to the editor found in newspaper , diary ,journal, travel literature.

45. Satire

A literary manner which blends humor with criticism for the purpose of instruction or the improvement of humanity. For example, Jonathan Swift “A Modest Proposal” and “Gulliver’s Travels”.

46. Epic

It’s narrative of heroic action, often with a principal hero, usually mythical in it’s content, grand in it’s style, offering inspiration and ennoblement within a particular culture or national tradition.

47. Drama

Drama is “a composition in prose or verse, adapted to be acted upon a stage, in which a story is related by means of dialogue and action, and is represented with accompanying gesture, costume, and scenery, as in real life.

48. Historical novel

A novel where fictional characters take part in actual historical events and interact with real people from the past. Example: Sir Walter Scott: Ivanhoe.

49. Essay

As a form of literature, the essay is a composition of moderate length, usually in prose, which deals in an easy way with the external conditions of a subject, and, in strictness, with that subject, only as it affects the writer.

50. Heroic couplet

The rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter, a verse form in epic poetry, with lines of ten syllables and five stresses, in rhyming pairs.

Some famous people and festival

● King Arthur

King Arthur was a legendary leader who led the defense of British against Saxon invaders in the late 5th century and early 6th centuries.A.D. The details of Arthur's story and many composed of folklore and literary invention. King Arthur was also a character of The Death of King Arthur. It was written by Marlory, who organized scattered French romance is to write down the Death of King Arthur.

● Robin Hood

Robin Hood is the archetypal English folk hero, who is a courteous, pious and outlaw. In modern version of the legend, he is famous for robbing the rich to feed the poor and fighting against injustice and tyranny.

● Martin Luther King Jr.

He was an American Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs.

● Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a holiday dedicated to romantic love and friendship. It is also called St. Valentine's Day or the Feast of St. Valentine. The holiday, which falls on February 14 every year, originated as a Christian feast day honoring St. Valentine. the boys and girls in love will come out to have a date,send red roses or chocolate. The symbol of St. Valentine's Day is a picture of a Heart and Cupid, Cupid has a bow and arrow. In contemporary times, however, people exchange cards, gifts, and flowers with friends and lovers to celebrate their affection for one another. In many schools, children exchange small"valentines" with each of their classmates. Although some decry the holiday as too commodified, well over 100 million Valentine's Day cards and gifts are exchanged in the

● Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks to the conclusion of the harvest season. The united states celebrate thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. Although thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has celebrated as a secular holiday as well.

Thanksgiving Day is the most truly American national Holidays in the United States and is most closely connected with the earliest history of the country. In 1620, the settlers, or Pilgrims, they sailed to America on the May flower, seeking a place where they could have freedom of worship.After a tempestuous two-month voyage they landed at in icy November, what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts.

During their first winter, over half of the settlers died of starvation or epidemics.

Those who survived began sowing in the first spring.

All summer long they waited for the harvests with great anxiety, knowing that their lives and the future existence of the colony depended on the coming harvest. Finally the fields produced a yield rich beyond expectations. And therefore it was decided that a day of thanksgiving to the Lord be fixed.Years later, President of the United States proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day every year. The celebration of Thanksgiving Day has been observed on that date until today.

The pattern of the Thanksgiving celebration has never changed through the years.The big family dinner is planned months ahead. On the dinner table, people will find apples, oranges, chestnuts, walnuts and grapes.There will be plum pudding,mince pie, other varieties of food and cranberry juice and squash. The best and most attractive among them are roast turkey and pumpkin pie. They have been the most traditional and favorite food on Thanksgiving Day through out the years.

Everyone agrees the dinner must be built around roast turkey stuffed with a bread dressing to absorb the tasty juices as it roasts. But as cooking varies with families and with the regions where one lives, it is not easy to get a consensus on the precise kind of stuffing for the royal bird. Thanksgiving today is, in every sense, a national annual holiday on which Americans of all faiths and backgrounds join in to express their thanks for the year' s bounty

● Christmas day

Christmas day is a festival that celebrated the birth of Christ. December 25th is Christmas day. In Christmas day, people have a big dinner and visit friends.The Christmas tree is an important part of the Christmas day.

【Christmas is also known as Christmas, translated as "Christ mass", western traditional festival, every year in December 25th. Mass is a kind of church service.

Christmas is a religious festival, because regard it as to celebrate the birth of Jesus, named "Christmas".

Most of the Catholic Church will be first in the 24, Christmas Eve, i.e., the early morning of December 25 at midnight mass, and some Christian will be held caroling and on December 25 to celebrate Christmas; Christian another branch of Orthodox Christmas celebration in the annual January 7.

Christmas is a public holiday in the western world and in many other regions, such as Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, and Singapore in Asia. The Bible actually did not record the date of birth of Jesus, Christmas is a public. 】

● Easter

Easter is a chief Christian festival which celebrates the resurrection of Christ on the first Sunday after the full moon that coincidence with, or comes after the spring equinox. The main symbol of Easter is the Easter eggs.

【 Easter is a Christian holiday. Also the most important festival in western country, just behind the Christmas Day. Jesus died on Friday, after three days, he became alive again. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter day. It is on the first Sunday after the full moon, in March. Long time ago, the egg means spring and a new life. And now, the egg means Jesus' reborn. Easter eggs can bring happiness to people.

Children and their parents of ten colored eggs. These eggs represent the people's good wishes. 】

● Halloween

On 31st October the English celebrate Halloween, which means holy evening. It is one of the oldest celebrations of the world. It is connected with witches and ghosts.

People dress up in strange costumes. Children knock on doors and ask for a treat.

Pumpkin lantern is one of the famous traditions of this festival.

● Boxing Day

Boxing Day is a holiday traditionally celebrated the day following Christmas Day, namely, December 26th, when servants and tradesmen would receive gifts, known as "Christmas box", from their bosses or employers as thanks for good service throughout the year.

Boxing Day is a holiday observed on December 26, or the first weekday after Christmas.And it is a festival only for those service persons such as postmen, newspaper boys, milkmen, etc. On that day, families traditionally give Christmas boxes to those service workers. It is a custom, but nobody is certain how it was originated.

A popular legend tells the story. There was once a rich lady called Chatter in England.

One morning many, many years ago, it snowed very heavily. Chatter was waiting anxiously for a very important letter from her boyfriend.Then a post boy came and gave her the letter.

She was so pleased that she gave him a box with presents. Later on, more and more people followed her example. As time went by, giving boxes with presents to service persons became a custom in Great Britain. Later the custom spread to the British Commonwealth and America.

Halloween is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31. It is a night-time festival, which is held by children. On the Halloween Day children will wear a mask to frighten the parents and ask money from their parents. In 1950s, child sent the money to the poor countries' children. The Halloween Day got Noble Peace Prize in 1965. The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. Over time, Halloween evolved into a day of activities like festive gatherings, donning costumes and eating treats.

823 补充复习资料

英国文学问答题

1. Beowulf

Beowulf, a hero of the Geats in Scandinavia, comes to the help of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendle’s mother attacks the hall and is then also defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland in Swedan and later becomes king of the Geats. After fifty years, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is fatally wounded in the battle.

The poem ends with the people lamenting Beowulf’s death and praising him as a great and good King.

2. The Canterbury Tales (20个完整故事，另有四个有残缺。)

It has a general prologue and twenty four tales that are connected by “links”.

Two of the story written in prose and the others are written in verse. It is one of the first to be written in the English Language. The work is incomplete.

The book is about a group of travelers who are going from London to Canterbury. As they travel along, each person tells a tale. The teller of the best story would be given a free dinner by the cheerful host of the Tabard. There are 29 pilgrims and they are from all walk’s of life. The pilgrims do not even reach Canterbury.

3. Humanism / Renaissance

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth many writers appeared on the literary scene. There had never been an age in English history which saw so many brilliant writers working at the same time. Their efforts were part of an intellectual as well as a literary movement that began in the 14th century in Italy and later spread to France, Spain, the Netherlands, and England.

It was called Renaissance and its ideal was Humanism.

Renaissance is a French word which means "rebirth" in English. In the 15th and 16th centuries, scholars in western European countries had a keen interest in the Greek and Latin culture.

With the spreading of the Greek and Roman culture there appeared a number of humanist scholars who took great interest in the welfare of human beings.

According to them it was against human nature to sacrifice the happiness of this life for an after life. They argued that man should be given full freedom to enrich their intellectual and emotional life. In religion they demanded the reformation of the church. In art and literature, instead of singing praise to God, they sang in praise of man and of the pursuit of happiness in this life.

Humanism shattered the shackles of spiritual bondage of man's mind by the Roman Catholic Church and opened his eyes to “a brave new world” in front of him.

4. The Tragic History of Doctor Faustus

Dr. Faustus undergoes endless spiritual struggle with a Good and a Bad Angel.

The play ends with Faustus9 forced surrender of his soul to the devil after a lapse of 24 years. Though the tragic ending suggests that the writer conforms with the orthodox teachings of the church, the towering figure of Faustus is eloquent evidence that the author has a will power as fierce as Faustus', a will to search the infinite knowledge of life and to express his atheism and patriotism.

5. (2014 年川师大真题) Give a brief introduction to sonnets with illustration.

As one of the most popular of traditional poetic forms, the sonnet is a lyric poem of 14 lines written in iambic pentameter. Sonnet may vary in structure and rhyme scheme, but they usually express a single theme or idea.

Shakespeare's sonnets is very famous, which includes 154 altogether in number.

The 154 sonnets fall into two groups, divided at sonnet 126.

The first group was addressed to Mr. W.H. People have been making guesses as to who this Mr.W.H. was. It is very likely that he was a noble man. The second group was addressed to a Dark Lady.

Shakespeare's sonnet 18 expresses a very bold idea: that beautiful things can rely on the force of literature to reach their eternity; and literature is created by man, thus it declares the eternity.

The poem carries the spark or European Renaissance movement. It is obvious that Shakespeare wrote his sonnets partly in conformity with the popular vogue, but we must admit also that in some of them he revealed his innermost thoughts and feelings, made topical allusions to certain contemporary events and to his own life.

6. The Merchant of Venice

The story of the play is combination of two stories: One about the marriage of Portia, and the other about the Jewish usurer Shylock.

The Merchant of Venice talks about the affairs between Bassanio, Portia, Shylock and Antonio. Bassanio needed money to go propose to Portia, and decided to borrow from Antonio, who is his friend. Antonio, to satisfy his friend, borrowed the money from a Jewish merchant Shylock, and thought he would be able to pay it back as soon as his next ship arrives in port. With this believe, he made a deal with Shylock that if the money wasn’t returned, Shylock would be allowed to cut a pound of flesh from his body.

Bassanio successfully won the love of Portia by making the right choice of boxes between the gold, silver and lead, but soon realized his friend could not pay the money back to Shylock on time. Bassanio returned to Venice as fast as he could and attended a trial. The reason why Antonio isn’t able to pay is because his ships were caught in storm.

Portia, pretending to be a young lawyer, claimed that the proposition said “one pound of flesh” not “1 pound of flesh and blood” and said that Shylock is only allowed to remove flesh, but not any blood, which is impossible. Thus, the play ends

with the return of Antonio’s ships and everyone lived happily ever after.

7. Hamlet

Hamlet is the popular and the most discussed of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The greatness of the play lies in the fact that in it Shakespeare express his praise of the noble quality of Prince Hamlet as a representative of humanist thinkers and his disillusionment with the corrupt and degenerated society in which he lives.

Hamlet’s revenge is not only a personal matter. What troubles him most is the injustice, conspiracy, and betrayal in the society. His father is murdered by his uncle and his mother is married to his uncle right after his father’s death. This marriage of his mother is the first blow to him. Then his former friends are despatched by the king to spy on him. This is a second blow. Then his girl friend is made a tool to find out whether or not he is really mad. This is something he can no longer endure.

Hamlet is a man with contradictory, he had many chances to kill his uncle, but he hesitated, which reflects the religious thought poisons.

8. Paradise Lost

The story of the epic is based on Genesis.

Evidently the poet intended to write it as an epic and imitated the style of Homer’s epic.

The central theme of the poem deals with the Christian story of “the fall of man”.

The epic tells how the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, are tempted by Satan (the serpent) to disobey God by eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and how they are consequently punished by God and driven out of the garden of Eden (the paradise) with the prospect of redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ, the son of God. To this main thread of the story is added the narration of Satan (before the fall, Satan was Lucifer, the highest angel in heaven), his rebellion against God and his defeat and fail into Hell, based upon the medieval tradition of the Christian church.

Milton’s purpose for writing Paradise Lost, as he puts it very clearly at the beginning of the poem, is to “assert eternal Providence and justify the ways of God to

man. 维护永恒的上帝，证明上帝对人类的方式是正当的。

9. The Pilgrim’s Progress

① Main idea

The Pilgrim ’s Progress (1678) is written in the old fashioned medieval form of allegory and drama. It tells how Christian starts his pilgrimage from his home to the Kingdom of Heaven, and of his experiences and adventures on his journey.

In the western world the book has usually been read and appreciated as religious allegory. It gives a real picture of how life was during the 17th century. It is a faithful panoramic reflection of Bunyan's age.

② Artistic features

The book's most significant aspect is its satire, which without doubt is directed at the ruling classes. Especially well known is the description of the Vanity Fair.

After all, like Milton, Bunyan in his book is preaching his religious views. He satirizes bis society which is full of vices that violate the teachings of the Christian religion. His books are more often read as religious books than piercing exposures of social evils.

Bunyan is known for his simple and lively prose style. Everyday idiomatic expressions and biblical language enables him to narrate his story and reveal his ideas directly.

10. Why is England called as “the age of reason”

The men of the 18th century, while enjoying peace and prosperity at home, were against the fanaticism of the Puritans who in the 17th century had taken a hostile attitude towards both entertainment and the immorality of court life.

The balance of power, in spite of the fact that the Whigs held sway for forty years, was so even that it was an age of moderation, tolerance, and common sense.

This was to a great extent due to the development of science and philosophy of the time.

It was an age in which reason, rather than emotion, played an important role.

Hence, it was also calledan age of reason.

Reason is the analytical and critical faculty of the human kind.

In England, reason was used by stating that the status quo was the most reasonable and just system of mankind. So reason in England was a toll for the bourgeoisie to consolidate its rule.

11.

Robinson Crusoe, son of a well-off family, chose to go overseas to seek fortune, instead of staying at home to inherit his father's wealth and property. During his many dangerous adventures abroad, he gradually accumulated money and owned a plantation in Brazil. But, he still would not stop seeking new adventures and more wealth. And finally, on one of his journeys of the slave trade a shipwreck landed him on a desolate island where he stayed for 28 years 2 months and 19 days. Using the ammunition and provisions he found on the wrecked ship, Crusoe fished and hunted, made clothes out of animal furs, built a house like a stronghold, learned to raise goats and grow crops, and even saved a savage, named him Friday and trained him to be his servant. At the time of his return to England, he had built on this island a new colony.

12. Moll Flanders

Moll Flanders is artistically a more mature piece than Robinson Crusoe. It is written in an autobiographical form called memoirs. In Moll Flanders, Defoe introduces, for the first time, a lowly woman as the subject of literature. And it anticipates many later novels that take women as the center of attention in order to expose how the social system has victimized those like Moll.

13. Gulliver’s Travels

The book contains four parts that deal with the four voyages of its hero to strange places.

When Gulliver sets off from London on a sea voyage, little does he know the many incredible and unbelievable misadventures awaiting him. Shipwrecked at sea and nearly drowned, he washes ashore upon an exotic island called Lilliput—where the people are only six inches tall! Next he visits a land of incredible giants called Brobdingnagians.They are more than sixty feet tall! He travels to Laputa, a city that floats in the sky, and to Glubbdubdrib, the lsland of Sorcerers. His final voyage brings him into contact with theYahoos — a brutish race of subhumans-and an intelligent and virtuous race of horse, the Houyhnhnms.

It reflects all kinds of contradictions in the British society in the first half of the 18th century, exposes and criticizes the corruption and evil of the British ruling class, as well as the crazy plunder and cruel exploitation of the British bourgeoisie in the period of primitive accumulation of capitalism. At the same time, it also extolled the heroic struggle of the colonial people against their rulers to some extent.

14. The Rape of the Lock

It is a brilliant satire written in the form of a mock-heroic poem.

It embodies the 18^th-century concepts of the universe and man’s place in it.

The Rape of the Lock is Pope's famous mock epic. Among the mock epics The Rape of the Lock is commonly acknowledged as a masterpiece which successfully applies epic tropes to present the very trivial incident of a war between two families over a lock of hair. It is full of bright poetic wit and its verses are brilliantly polished.

15. An Essays on Man

It embodies the 18^th-century concepts of the universe and man’s place in.

An Essay on Man has long been considered a noble specimen of philosophical poetry in English literature. Upon its publication, it made the poet famous abroad and won him the esteem of men such as Voltaire. Pope himself took a great pride in this composition. But, later generations found it less significant because the imagery is by no means the most brilliant and there is a great confusion and want of connection in the system of reasoning. The poem is Pope’s response to the spirit of the age he lived in, an age of reason that saw the study of man, not the God, a significant human pursuit. Its optimistic world outlook and many eloquent and impressive parts still make it a favorite poem of lovers of literature.

16. The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews 《约瑟夫·安德鲁斯的冒险 史》

The novel became Fielding’s first great success and made him see how he could make the best use of his literary talent.

The novel turned from a novel of seduction into one of the first exemplars of the great English panoramic tradition, which was to reach new heights later in Thackeray and Dickens.

17. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

The best constructed novel in English literature.

There are 18 books divided neatly into 3 parts with 6 in each. The first part describes Ton’s childhood in Mr. Allworthy’s country home; the middle one contains adventures on the road to London; and the last tells what happens in London to Tom and Sophia.

Tom Jones was a foundling raised and educated by Squire Allworthy. He grew up to be an honest and handsome young man, warm and sympathetic toward the poor and the weak, but very imprudent, especially in his sexual behaviour. He loved Sophia, daughter of a neighboring squire Mr. Western and his love was returned by the girl.

But with his low birth, he had no hope of ever being united with her. Allworthy had a nephew Blifil, a little younger than Tom, who was a schemer and always reported to his uncle against Tom. What is more, Blifil was seeking Sophia’s hand in marriage with the approval of the girl’s father. They both arrived in London, where Tom’s many misadventures finally landed him in jail and he narrowly escaped hanging. He was Blifil’s half-brother and Allworthy’s nephew and the story closed with Tom happily married to Sophia.

18. A Red, Red Rose （开英国浪漫主义先河）

In the song the singer expresses his deep love for the girl or woman he loves in strong and melodious lines like the refrains in a song. He first praises his lover, comparing her to a red rose and a sweet melody, and then swears to her that nothing can separate them, for his love for her is as eternal as the seas and the rocks. He swears that he will certainly come back to her after the inevitable short leave.

It is one of Burns’ most popular love songs in Scottish dialect. Its charm mainly lies in its rhythmic simplicity, its vehement sentiment and the wisdom revealed in it.

19. Songs of Innocence

The poems collected in Songs of Innocence expresses the poet’s delight in life, even in the face of sorrow and suffering. The world is seen through the eyes of a child’s imagination. Blake’s vision of innocence is not that of a child’ s only. It is a world that can be attained by the adults if they cast away the follies and deceits of the hostile world and seek a visionary world through their imagination. In this collection we can have the first glimpse of Blake’s mysticism.

20. Songs of Experience

Songs of Experience is a collection of poems and songs in which the atmosphere is no longer sunny but sad and gloomy. Evil is found everywhere in this world.

Through the loss of imagination. Man has become a slave to the falsehood and hypocrisy of religion and society and thus has lost the Heaven of Innocence and gained the Hell of Experience.

21. Characteristic features of the romantic movement

(1) Subjectivism

Instead of regarding poetry as “a mirror to nature”, romantic poets describe poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings which expresses the poet’s mind. The interest of the romantic poets is not in the objective world or in the action of men but in the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of the poets themselves. Even the description of natural and human objects is modified by the poets’ feelings. In short, romanticism is related to subjectivism, whereas neo-classicism is related to

objectivism. The poetry of the Romantic Age in England is distinctive for its high degree of imagination.

(2) Spontaneity

Wordsworth defines poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of feelings”. This emphasis on spontaneity is opposed to the “rules” and “regulations” imposed on the poets by neo-classic writers. Romanticism is an assertion of independence, a departure from the neo-classis rules. A work of art must be original. The role of instinct, intuition, and the feelings of “the heart” is stressed instead of neo-classicists emphasis on “the head”, on regularity, uniformity, decorum, and imitation of the classical writers.

(3) Singularity

Romantic poets have a strong love for the remote, the unusual, the strange, the supernatural, the mysterious, the splendid, the picturesque, and the illogical. All these qualities are those that the neo-classic writers tried to avoid.

(4) Worship of nature

The romantic poets are worshipers of nature, especially the sublime aspect of a natural scene. Romantic poets read in nature some mysterious force. Some treat nature as a living entity that shares the poet’s feelings. Some even regard nature as the revelation of God.

(5) Simplicity

Romantic poets take to using everyday language spoken by the rustic people as opposed to the poetic diction used by neo-classic writers. Under the influence of the

American and French revolutions, there was a growth of democratic feelings, and an increasing belief that every human being is worth being praised. Hence there was a revival of folk literature, a real awakening of interest in the life of the common people, a sense of universal brotherhoods and a growing sympathy for the suffering of the people. The romantic movement is characterized by a humanitarian idealism. Many poets had a vision of the brotherhood of mankind, universal sharing, and the ultimate freedom of human spirits.

(6) Melancholy

There is a dominating note of melancholy in the poems of the romantic poets.

The theme of exile, isolation, and a longing for the infinite, for an indefinable and inaccessible goal is commonly found in their works.

(7) Free verse

It was an age of poetry which the poets outpoured their feelings and emotions.

Romantic poets loved to use a freer verse form, not the standard form of “heroic couplets” preferred by neo-classic writers.

22. The Solitary Reap

The poet saw a young girl reaping in the land, singing a melancholy strain and he compared the girl with the nightingale and the cuckoo bird. The poetry shows the deep sympathy of the author to the rural people.

23. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud is one of Wordsworth's masterpieces. In this poem Wordsworth sings of the harmony between things in nature and the harmony between nature and the poet himself. The poet compared the golden daffodils to stars shining in the sky. They flash upon the inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude.

When alone, Wordsworth recalls the beautiful scene, which gives him great happiness.

24. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 《古舟子咏》

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s representative work is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The long poem is written in ballad form. He deliberately uses this form to tell a simple story. But when reading, we discover many subtle places, and the musical effect is wonderful. The theme is about sin and its expiation. The language is irresistible. A guest is detained by the mariner to listen to his tale. Coleridge is very good at making supernatural things appear real and true to life. He uses his own words by saying he has the ability to secure from the reader that willing suspension of disbelief which constitutes poetic faith.”

25. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage 《恰尔德 ● 哈罗尔德游记》

He published the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. The book made him famous overnight, as he himself said, “I awoke one morning and found myself famous”.

Childe Harold, a young man waiting to be knighted, disillusioned with and disgusted at a life of pleasure and revelry, sets out for the European Continent for diversion. In Europe he visited many countries dominated by foreign powers. The long poem records what Harold sees and feels on his journey, but it actually expresses Byron’s feelings and his views on the political situations in these countries. In the fourth canto Byron gives up the imaginary Harold and speaks in the first person.

In the image of Childe Harold, the poet’s life and characteristics are well expressed: proud, indifferent, and uninhabited. It shows the poet’s concern and sympathy towards the struggle of the people.

26. Don Juan

①Brief Introduction of Plot

Don Juan, a satirical epic, is Byron’s masterpiece. It consists of 16 cantos and remains unfinished. It is about the romantic adventures of a legendary Spanish youth

who has many love affairs with various women.

②Main Theme

Although the poem is about the adventures of a Spanish libertine, the real significance of the poem lies in the vivid descriptions of the lives and manners of many lands, Byron’s fiery passions for the liberation of the Greek people, and his bitter satire on the sham and hypocrisy in love, religion, and the social relations of his time.

27. Say to the Men of England

The poem is about the clash between two classes of society, the poor working class and the rich nobles. The major theme of this poem is exploitation, how the workers are doing for the benefits of the ungrateful nobles. Shelley urges the workers to rise up to overthrow the rule of the idle class.

28. Ode to the West Wind

This poem is most representative of Shelley’s feelings and thoughts at the time.

It is a mixture of death and rebirth. In the first three stanzas, the dynamic force of the west wind is manifested in its power on the land, in the air, and in the sea in different seasons. It is the destroyer and preserver. It will destroy the old world and herald in a new one. In the fourth stanza Shelley wishes that he were a leaf, a cloud, and a wave, so that he could feel the power of the west wind; but he is aware of his age and his sufferings in life which have bent him down. Finally, he appeals to the wind, the wind of aspiration and change, to reinvigorate him and to give force and persuasiveness to his poetry.

29. John Keats

Unlike Byron and Shelley, Keats was born in London, of lowly origin. His father was a hostler and stable keeper and then married his employer’s daughter. When he

was eight, his father died, and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was fourteen.

His guardian forced him to leave school at fifteen and apprenticed him to a surgeon. For five years he served his apprenticeship and then worked as the surgeon’s helper for two more years. He later abandoned his profession and published his first collection of poems. His long allegorical poem Endymion, which was about the love between a Greek shepherd and the moon goddess. His collections were severely attacked by conservative critics. It is said that the attacks were the cause of his illness that took away his life. His other poems include Ode to a Nightingale and To Autumn.

● Ode to a Nightingale

In the poem Keats identifies the nightingale with his Ideal Beauty and hopes that the song of the nightingale will help him to escape from the world of actuality, where

“to think is to be full of sorrow”, into the world of Ideal Beauty, a place of eternal happiness.

● To Autumn

Like Ode to a Nightingale, this poem is also representative of Keats’s poetic creation. Through a series of images he presents to the reader a picture of golden autumn, which, according to Keats, is no less beautiful than spring.

30. Ivanhoe

The first of Scott’s historical novels that deals with a purely English subject.

Ivanhoe, written in 1819, is one of the best-known historical fictions of Walter Scott. The plot of Ivanhoe is set in the late 12th century, when the English people, or Anglo-Saxons, led a hard life under the rule of their Norman conquerors. Richard was portrayed like a knight, brave and lofty. John, Richard’s brother, planned to seize the throne from Richard. Ivanhoe helped Richard to defeat John and restore Richard’s kingship.

In Ivanhoe, there are descriptions of various strata of people. Ivanhoe is a great

work of art and its strength lies chiefly in the novelist’s realistic description of the life of feudal England. The plot of Ivanhoe is well constructed and the language used always fits the occasion. Though the story is fictionalized, the general political events depicted in the novel are accurate.

31. Victorian novels are characterized by the common features below:

① The plot is unfolded against a social background which is broader than what it had been in previous novels. The plot draws materials from society and relates them in such a way that the Victorian novels reflect the complexity of human relations in a capitalist society and reveal the writer’s attitudes towards the society.

② The cause-effect sequence is much more striking than in previous novels.

Generally speaking, a motive or a set of circumstances gives rise to an event which produces an effect on a character, and through the mechanics of internal causation, it gives rise to another event which in turns becomes another cause. And all this is centered around the central character. This kind of development of plot is called

“linear causation” , which makes the Victorian novels better constructed than previous ones.

③ Most of the Victorian novels were first published in serial form, that is, by installment, before they were fully published on a single book. The first appeared in pamphlets, periodicals, or newspapers. This was true of Charles Dickens’ works and

William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Like an actor or a public speaker, the Victorian writers had a sense, during the process of their writing, of how their readers would respond to their works. They had to meet the challenge that was put to the writers to hold the interest of the readers in every issue and had to provide them delight and entertainment.

④ The Victorian novels were tainted by the spirits of Puritanism of the Victorian age.

For whenever sexual matter was touched, Victorian writers would try every means to keep away from it. It was especially so since novels were commonly read in family gatherings and it was necessary not to include the novel what might cause embarrassment to the ladies.

⑤ The Victorian novels were characterized by their moral purpose.

Many writers wrote novels with a purpose toedify readers and to bring about reforms. Of course, this was no new thing in English literature. But the Victorian writers, living in an age when there was striking differences between the rich and the poor and when the evils of the capitalist society were so conspicuous, invariably criticized certain aspects of the society and advocated their remedy. Some Chinese scholars called them critical realists novelists, an epithet or label too vague to be applied to such a variety of writer.

32. Dombey and Son

Dombey and Son, published in serial form in 1847-1848, is one of the representative works of Dicken’s mature period. Dombey, the owner of a shipping

house, is a rich, proud, and heartless man, He neglects his daughter and lays all his hopes on his son, Paul, who could carry on his business. But Paul dies in childhood because of poor health and the strict discipline in the boarding school. Dombey remarries, but his wife, a cold and disillusioned lady who cannot stand Dombey’s arrogant treatment, runs away with the wicked manager of Dombey’s company.

Having lost both his pride and wealth, Dombey lives in desolate solitude and finally is taken care of by his forgiving daughter.

33. Bleak House

Bleak House is one of Dicken’ s longest and most complex novels. It contains many different and divergent storylines that intertwine as characters meet by chance or fate. In that sense it is impossible to summarise, though key themes run through it:

the foremost of these being the absurdity of legal proceedings that seem to have no purpose but to line the pockets of lawyers.

The book contains a vigorous attack on the abuses of the High Court of Chancery, the delays and costs of which have brought misery and ruin on its suitors. The tale centers around the law case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce over the inheritance of a family fortune.

34. Oliver Twist

The story tells us the tragic experience of an orphan, Oliver, born into a life of poverty and misfortune in a workhouse. He spends the first eight years of his life at a farm. Along with other orphans, Oliver is brought up with little food. One day, he receives the cruel treatment by Mr. Bumble just because of asking for more porridge.

Hunger and humiliation force him to escape and incidentally arrives London.

Unluckily, when he gets to London, he is cheated by a gang of thieves including Fagin and Sikes. Fagin tries every means to make Oliver a burglar. But he refuses.

By one incident, he is taken to Mr. Brownlow who is Oliver’s father’s good friend and enjoyed a short period of real happy life. However, he was caught by Fagin and Sikes, going through endless hardships again. In the end, With the assistance of Rose who is the aunt of Oliver, Mr. Brownlow and other kind people, Oliver eventually inherits the half of the remaining money his father left for him, leading a life that is truly blessed.

35. David Copperfield

David Copperfield was written by Dickens and it is a long piece of fiction. The story is told almost entirely from the point of view of the first person narrator, David Copperfield himself.

The main character, David Copperfield was a diligent person who was good at observing. His father passed away in his early time, and his mother departed later, which made him make a living independently. At first, he was sent to do the child laborer. Latter, because he cannot bear the maltreatment, he ran away to his aunt’s home. His aunt sent him to school, after graduate, he become a lawyer and marry his teacher’s daughter Dora. But soon, Dora died of disease and David leave for Australia with deep sorrow. After returning to homeland, he had become a writer and married Agnes, and from this time he starts the happy content life.

36. Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair is Thackeray’s masterpiece. The title Vanity Fair is taken from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’ s Progress. The subtitle “A novel without a hero” is significant. It not only shows Thackeray’s cynical view toward life but also declares

that the epoch in which capitalists, or aristocrats, poses themselves as heroes is over.

The central character, Becky Sharp, who is a perfect embodiment of the spirit of vanity fair as her only aspiration in life is to gain wealth and position by any means fair or foul. Sharp is charming and pretty, but she is ambitious. Driven by her ambition, she has become a merciless social climber. As her name suggests, Becky Sharp is determined to carve out a place for herself in vanity fair. Finally, she succeeds in establishing herself in vanity fair at the cost of the lives of two men and alienation of all her friends and family. But she enjoys the battle. Through his masterpiece Vanity Fair, Thackeray sharply exposes the vices of his society:

hypocrisy, money-worshiping and moral degradation.

37. Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is written by Charlotte Bronte. In Jane Eyre, it is Jane’s rebelliousness, her dislike for servility, and her insistence on equality that make the book unique. The whole book is about Jane’s struggle for spiritual liberty.

Jane Eyre is the orphaned protagonist of the story.When the novel begins, she is an isolated, powerless ten-year-old living with an aunt and cousins who dislike her.

As the novel progresses, she grows in strength. She distinguishes herself at Lowood School because of her hard work and strong intellectual abilities. As a governess at Thornfield, she learns of the pleasures and pains of love through her relationship with Edward Rochester. After being deceived by him, she goes to Marsh End, where she regains her spiritual focus and discovers her own strength when she rejects St. John River's marriage proposal. By novel’s end she has become a powerful, independent woman, blissfully married to the man she loves, Rochester.

What Jane claim is the triumph of spiritual values over material ones. Jane Eyre is the first English novel, even the most powerful and popular novel, which represents the modern view of woman’s positions in society.

38. Wuthering Heights George Eliot

The story of Wuthering Heights is concerned with two symmetrical families and an intruding stranger. It is a morbid love story between Catherine and Heathcliff, who is adopted by Catherine’s father, Mr. Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them. It is generally considered one of the most original works. In many aspects, it is unique and has no counterparts in mode as well as in manner of writing.

Catherine loves Heathcliff, while Hindley, Catherine’s brother, hates him, being jealous of his father’s fondness for the stranger. After the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley degrades Heathcliff in every way he can. Heathcliff grows brutal and sullen, and Catherine turns from him to the mild Edgar Linton, who is rich and genteel.

Heathcliff runs away and returns when Catherine has become Edgar’s wife. She gives birth to Edgar’s daughter，the young Catherine, and dies. Heathcliff is now rich. And losing his best love, he is determined to take revenge on Hndley and the Lintons.

【 Heathcliff turns Hindley into a drunkard and gambler and wins all his possessions so that Hindley’s son Hareton becomes a pauper in his house. Moreover, he contrives to marry Edgar Linton’s vain and silly sister Isabella, and marry Linton’s daughter, the young Catherine, to his own peevish ailing son, Linton Heathcliff.】(可 要可不要）

But all his revenge is foiled by young Catherine and Hareton, Hindley’s son, who love each other. Heathcliff dies a defeated man. After his death people see the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw roam on the moor.

39. Tess of the D’Urbervilles

The novel is about the tragic life of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of a poor

foolish peasant, who believes that he is the descendant of an ancient aristocratic family, and who sends his daughter to work as a maid for a neighboring family by the name of D’Urberville. Tess is seduced by Alec, the son of the family and gives birth to a child, which dies in infancy. Then Tess goes to work on a dairy farm, where she is engaged to Angel Clare, a man of liberal mind, and the son of a clergyman. On the wedding night, Tess confesses to Angel her seduction by Alec. On hearing her wife's tale, Angel's old-fashioned prejudices overcomes him and he abandons Tess. Then misfortunes fall upon Tess; finally, after a period of hard work on the Flintcomb Ash farm, she meets Alec again. When Angel repents and comes back to find Tess, it is too late. Tess murders Alec, and after hiding for a short period of time with Angel, is arrested, tried, and hanged. The book ends with the sentence: Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals had ended his sport with Tess.

Theme:

Tess of the D’Urbervilles is a naturalistic novel, showing Hardy’s view of naturalism. The major theme of the novel is fatalism. Hardy presents a world in which the circumstances beyond the control of Tess determine her destiny. He believes that heredity and environment are the major forces that shape human beings. Human beings have no free will, or very little of it. Because heredity and environment are so powerful in determining the course of human action. Human being are like lower animals, have no soul. Religion and morality are irrelevant.

40. Heart of Darkness

①Introduction of the Plot

The adventurer, Marlow, tells his story to a group of friends as they wait on a boat for the tide to turn in the Thames Estuary in England. He tells of his recruitment by the company in Brussels, and of his voyage up the Congo River in search of a strange and enigmatic character called Kurtz. In the course of his voyage, Marlow

exposed to the corruption, cruelty, greed and waste of the colonial system, which he carefully documents. The aura of mystery and admiration in which Kurtz is held fascinates Marlow. Eventually, he finds Kurtz, who is dying, and has long talks with him. It becomes clear that Kurtz has somehow become corrupted by the place and the system in which he finds himself, so that he has committed awful crimes against the local people.

②Theme

This novel features in racism. According to the background of the publication of the work, through careful reading and thinking, it is not difficult to find that Conrad exactly and mercilessly exposes and criticizes the colonialism of the Europe. When he came to Africa, he had thought that he could find something dark in the Africa or the Africans, but only to find that in themselves.

41. My Last Duchess

The poem “My Last Duchess” is one of the most representative of his dramatic monologues. The speaker is Duke of Ferrara (a city in Italy) who is negotiating with the envoy sent by a count for the marriage of the count’s daughter. He is showing the portrait of his late naive and beautiful wife whom he has killed. The nonchalance in his tone fully reveals the arrogance and cruelty of an Italian tyrant in the age of the Renaissance.

42. Major Barbara

Major Barbara is a play about two conflicting ideas. Major Barbara is the daughter of a millionaire named Andrew Undershaft, who was a foundling and a poor boy when young but has become a munition magnate. Barbara wants to save the souls of the poor, and she has joined the Salvation Army. Her father is unashamed of his business and he boasts that with his money the workers in his munition factory are

living contentedly. He tells his daughter that with his money he can buy anything in the world, including the Salvation Army. Later it is found out that it is indeed the merchant of death who financially supports the Salvation Army. So the girl who tries to save people’s souls is defeated by the merchant of death. At last she capitulates and withdraws from the Salvation Army. She thinks that the only thing for her to do is to let her future husband, who is also a foundling and is a professor of Greek inherit the munition factory, and in this way she will convert the souls of the rich.

The theme of Major Barbara attacks the phenomenon of the huge gap of the rich and the poor in the then society, and exposes the motive of the industrial bourgeois who cruelly exploit the workers.

43. Sense and Sensibility

Sense and sensibility is the first novel Jane Austen published. The story is about the encounter which was met while the two sisters, Elinor and Marianne, were looking for their sincere true love. The former is a wise and rational person, her sister is crazy romantic - this character, it gives plenty of opportunities for Austin irony and pity. It is clearly Elinor that Austen most admire.

Women of that time in England, always took the marriage as the economic security or the tool to improve the social class, all these were not based on love or the rights as a woman, which was the ugly fashion of that time. Elinor and Marianne were different, they would like to choose the men they love, they would like to have the equal place with the men, share the love with each other, which were against the trend.

A truly happy marriage, Austen told us, only reason and sensibility meet and there is mixed in an appropriate manner.

44.

Jane Austen is one of the very few famous female writers in the world She is a domestic novelist and novelist of manners She is mentioned in the same status with Shakespeare.

The story shows the British society’s life in that time by describing the marriage problem. It is mainly describe the love story of Bennet’s several daughters.

Mr.Bingley is newly from London and fall in love with the big daughter, Jan, who is beautiful, his friend Darcy is sweet upon the second daughter Elizabeth. For some reasons prejudiced Elizabeth against Darcy, their marriage moves slowly. After a range of interesting troubles, the misunderstanding is finally removed. With Darcy overcomes his pride, and Elizabeth her prejudice, they get together with each other finally. Through the describing of different marriage, Austen expresses her opinions of the marriage which is we should insist on the understanding to each other. To a certain extent, this novel also reflects the wish and ideal on the marriage independently for women in that time.

45. Modernism

Modernism is a rather vague term which is used to apply to the works of a group of poets, novelists, painters, and musicians between 1910 and the early years after the World War. The term includes various trends or schools, such as imagism, expressionism, dadaism, stream of consciousness, and existentialism. It means a departure from the conventional criteria or established values of the Victorian age.

This departure from the conventions was prepared for by the aesthetic movement during the later decades of the 19th century, affected by the sickness of fin de siecle, and sped up by the World War I.

Alienation and loneliness are the basic themes of modernism. In the eyes of modernist writers, the modern world is a chaotic one and is incomprehensible. It is a land of spiritual and emotional sterility. Human beings are helpless before an incomprehensible world and no longer able to do things that their forefathers once

did.

46. Characteristics of modernist writings (1) Complexity and obscurity

The works of the modernist writers are complex and obscure because they express the subjective world of individual writers. As the consciousness and subconsciousness of a particular writer shifts from time to time, usually there is no time sequence in their writings.

The past, present, and future are mixed together. The past is juxtaposed with the present and with the future. In addition, there is no limitation of space in their works.

It is difficult for a reader to follow the time and space shifts in their writings.

(2) The use of symbols

A symbol is something that represents or stands for something else. Like metaphors and similes, symbols are another kind of figurative language. But a symbol has a larger meaning than a metaphor or simile-a meaning which can often be multiple or ambiguous.

It is more suggestive, more complex and often hard to interpret. The modern poets and writers find in symbol a means to express their inexpressible selves. As a symbol is subject to different interpretations, the reader is often bewildered to find the real meaning.

(3) Allusion

Allusion is an indirect reference to another work of literature, art, history, or religion. By means of allusion, the modernist writer tries to unite the past, present, and future.

He assumes the reader has the same knowledge as he has. Allusion enriches the meaning of the work, gives it depth, and makes the work understandable to the elite.

The use of allusion also helps to achieve effects of irony, for allusions set the past