英美文学中英文讲义

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

文艺复兴时期简介 /Renaissance period introduction

1. Renaissance :between 14th and mid-17th century.

2. Renaissance means rebirth or revival, is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation and the economic expansion.

3. the Renaissance, therefore in essence is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and Scholars made attempt to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in Medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed the purity of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic church.

4. Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance

(1) Capable of individual development in the direction of perfection.

(2) They inhabited was theirs not to despise by to question, explore and enjoy.

(3) By emphasizing the dignity of human being and the Importance of the present life, they voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of this life

(4) Tomas More, Christopher Marlow and William Shakespeare are the best representative of the English humanist.

5 Metaphysical poetry: Metaphysical is characterized by passionate thought succession of concentrated image, exercise of elaborate ingenuity and “wit”, John Done was the famous of the Metaphysical poet. The Metaphysical Poets were men of learning and to show their learning was their endeavour.

中英文双语讲解:

1． 时间界定：

It refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries.

2． 文艺复兴的理论基础：人文主义兴起。

A． 核心：Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique authors.

B． 基础：It was based on such a conception that man is the measure of all things.

3． 文艺复兴的文化背景：

A． 场所：English schools and universities were established in place of the old monasteries.

B． 印刷术的引进：William Caxton introduced printing into England .

C． 翻译的时代的出现。With the introduction of printing, an age of translation came into being.

4． 文学形式：

A.诗歌：A). 早期特点：The first period of the English Renaissance was one of imitation and assimilation.

B). 代表作家及作品:

a. Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calender showed the pastoral convention

b. In “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” Marlowe spoke that it would be very difficult for us to connect it with the voice in his tragedies.

c. Poetry and poetic drama were the most outstanding literary forms and carried on by Shakespeare and Ben Johnson.

B.戏剧: A). 特点: The Elizabethan drama is the real mainstream of the English Renaissance

B). 作家: The most famous dramatists are Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Johnson.

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

Geoffrey Chaucer/杰弗里 乔叟 作者简介

（Geoffrey Chaucer, 1343 - 1400），诗人，生于富商之家，与王室关系密切.

曾数度出使法国和意大利等欧洲大陆国家，还担任过海关官员和法官等公职。乔叟的文学创作深受法国文学、特别是文艺复兴时期的意大利文学的影响，其主要作品有《公爵夫人之书》（The Book of the Dutchess）、《声誉之堂》（The House of Fame）、《百鸟议会》（The Parliament of Fowls）以及他的代表作 《坎特伯雷故事集》（The Canterbury Tales）等。

在英国文学和语言史上，乔叟有着重要的地位，他是第一位用中古英语写作的大诗人，他的诗歌运用、提纯、净化了的英国伦敦方言，奠定了近代英语文学语言的基础，又引进了意大利和法国诗歌的形式，丰富和提高了英国诗歌的表现力，因此他有“英国诗歌之父”的美誉。乔叟去世后安葬在威斯敏斯特教堂（Westminster Abbey），从此威斯敏斯特教堂的一角便成为文学大师们的安息地。

Christopher Marlowe

University wits

Important plays: Tambulaine, Dr.Faustus, The Jewof Meta Edmund II

Marlowe voiced the supreme desire of the man of the Renaissance of infinite powers and authority

(1) Perfected the blank verse.

(2) Creation of the Renaissance hero to English drama, it embodies Marlowe’s ideal of human dignity and capacity.

Dr.Faustus: aspiring for knowledge, the play’s dominant moral is human rather than religious, it celebrates the human passion for knowledge, power and happiness , it also reveals man’s frustration in realizing the high aspiration in a hostile moral order and the confinement to time is the cruelest fact of man’s condition.

文学艺术成就:

a.文体与风格Marlowe perfected the blank verse and brought vitality and grandeur into the blank verse with his “mighty lines.” Hyperbole is his major figure of speech

b.人物塑造 Marlowe’s second achievement is his creation of the Renaissance hero for English drama. Such a hero is always individualistic and full of ambition,

The selection of ActⅠfrom Dr. Faustus is mainly about Faustus is showing his great ambition, that is, if he had many souls, he would give them all to the Devil so that he could control the world. In portraying Faustus, a more introspective & philosophical figure than Tamburlaine, Marlowe praises his soaring aspiration for knowledge while warning against the sin of pride since Faustus's downfall was caused by his despair in God & trust in Devil.

Achievements: Marlowe's greatest achievement lies in that he perfected the blank verse & made it the principal medium of English drama.

His second achievement is his creation of the Renaissance hero for English drama.

The theme of his works is the praise of the Renaissance spirit.

His influence: A man of wide learning, Marlowe was one of the extra ordinary poets & playwrights of his time. "Marlowe's mighty line," as Ben Jonson called his blank verse, was one of the most important contributions to the art of English literature.

William Shakespeare

1. 一般识记Brief Introduction

William Shakespeare was the greatest writer of plays who ever lived. His friend & fellow playwright Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare was "not of an age but for all time." The

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

18th-century English essayist Samuel Johnson described his work as "the mirror of life." The 19th-century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoke of "myriad-minded Shakespeare." The 20th-century English dramatist George Bernard Shaw stressed his "enormous power over language."

2. 识记His Life & Career

The exact date of Shakespeare's birth is not known, but his baptism was recorded on April 26, 1564, in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-on-Avon. Since it was customary to baptize infants within two or three days of birth, April 23 is regarded as a reasonable birth date. It is also the date on which he died in 1616. Generally, his dramatic career is divided into 4 periods.

The First Period (1590-1594)-five historical plays & four comedies:

Henry Ⅵ Richard Ⅲ (1592) Titus Andronicus (1593)

The Comedy of Errors (1592) The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594)

The Taming of the Shrew (1593) Love's Labor's Lost (1594)

The Second Period (1595-1600)-five historical plays, six comedies & two tragedies: Richard Ⅱ (1595) King John (1596)

Henry Ⅳ, Part Ⅰ & Part Ⅱ(1597) Henry V (1598)

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595) The Merchant of Venice (1596)

Much Ado About Nothing (1598) As You Like It (1599)

Twelfth Night (1600) The Merry Wives of Winsor (1598)

Romeo & Juliet (1595) Julius Caesar (1599)

The Third Period (1601-1609)-Seven tragedies & two dark comedies:

Hamlet Othello King Lear Macbeth

Antony & Cleopatra Troilus & Cressida Coriolonus

All's Well That Ends Well Measure for Measure

The Fourth Period (1609-1612)-Romantic tragic-comedies & two plays:

Pericles Cymbeline The Winte's Tale The Tempest

Henry Ⅷ The Two Noble Kinsmen

Shakespeare's authentic non-dramatic poetry consists of two long narrative poems: Venus & Adonis & The Rape of Lucrece & his sequence of 154 sonnets.

3. 领会His Influence

1) Contributions to language

Many words and commonly used phrases have been added to everyday English vocabulary through their appearance in Shakespeare's works.

2) Effects on literature

Shakespeare's plays & poetry have had a pervasive influence on world literature. Most of the great literary figures of the world have been inspired & stimulated by his achievement.

On the whole, however, Shakespeare's contribution has been to the language & spirit of later writing rather than to its form. References & parallels to Shakespeare's phraseology have occurred in literature since the 16th century.

Perhaps the greatest inspiration to subsequent authors has been Shakespeare's capacity to depict life in all its complexity & to illuminate man's character & destiny.

4. 领会 His Major Works

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

1) Drama

Hamlet

Hamlet is generally regarded as Shakespeare's most popular play on the stage, for it has the qualities of a "blood-and-thunder" thriller & a philosophical exploration of life & death. And the timeless appeal of this mighty drama lies in its combination of intrigue, emotional conflict & searching philosophic melancholy.

The play opens with Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, appearing in a mood of world-weariness occasioned by his father's recent death & by his mother's hasty remarriage with Claudius, his father's brother. While encountering his father's ghost, Hamlet is informed that Claudius has murdered his father & then taken over both his father's throne & widow. This, Hamlet, is urged by the ghost to seek revenge for his father's "foul & most unnatural murder." Trapped in a nightmare world of spying, testing & plotting, & apparently bearing the intolerable burden of the duty to revenge his father's death, Hamlet is obliged to inhabit a shadow world, to live suspended between fact & fiction, language & action. His life is one of constant role-playing, examining the nature of action only to deny its possibility, for he is too sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger. By characterizing Hamlet, Shakespeare successfully makes a philosophical exploration of life & death.

2) Poems Sonnets

The first 126 sonnets are apparently addressed to a handsome young nobleman, presumably the author's patron. The poems express the writer's selfless but not entirely uncritical devotion to the young man.

Twenty of the sonnets are about a young woman characterized as a " dark lady," whom the poet distrust but cannot resist. The poems addressed directly to her are perhaps the most remarkable in the sequence because their unsentimental tone is unlike that of traditional love sonnets.

A philosophical theme that appears in many of the sonnets is that of time as the destroyer of all mortal things. Also expressed in the poems is the author's disillusionment with the false ness of earthly life.

The form of the poems is the English Variation of the traditional Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet, Shakespeare's sonnets have three quatrains, or groups of four lines, & a final couplet. Their rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg. A theme is developed & elaborated in the quatrains, & a concluding thought is presented in the couplet.

5. 领会His Major Theme

1) Shakespeare is against religious persecution & racial discrimination, against social inequality & the corrupting influence of gold & money.

2) He was a humanist of the time & accepted the Renaissance views on literature.

6. 领会His Literary Achievements

1) Characterization

His major characters are neither merely individual ones nor type ones; They are individuals representing certain types. Each character has his or her own personalities; meanwhile, they may share features with others. The soliloquies in his plays fully reveal the inner conflict of his characters. Shakespeare also portrays his characters in pairs. Contrasts are frequently used to bring vividness to his characters.

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

The women in the plays are vivid creations, each differing from the others. Shakespeare was fond of portraying "mocking wenches," such as Kate of the Taming of the Shrew, Rosaline of Love's Labor's Lost, & Beatrice of Much Ado About Nothing, but he was equally adept at creating gentle & innocent women, such as Ophelia in Hamlet, Desdemona in Othello, & Cordelia in King Lear. His female characters also include the treacherous Goneril & Regan, the iron-willed Lady Macbeth, the witty & resourceful Portia, the tender & loyal Juliet, & the alluring Cleopatra.

2) Plot Construction

Shakespeare's plays are well known for their adroit plot construction. He seldom invents his own plots; instead, he borrows them from some old plays or storybooks, or from ancient Greek & Roman sources. There are usually several threads running through the play, thus providing the story with suspense & apprehension.

3) Language

In Shakespeare's time, English grammar & spelling were not yet formalized, so Shakespeare could freely inter charge the various parts of speech, using nouns as adjectives or verbs, adjectives as adverbs, & pronouns as nouns. Such freedom gave his language an extraordinary flexibility, which enabled him to express his thoughts as easily in poetry as in prose.

Most of Shakespeare's dramatic poetry is in blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter. His bland verse is especially beautiful & mighty. He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary & idiom. His coinage of new words & distortion of the meaning of the old ones also create striking effects on the reader.

7. 应用Selected Readings

Hamlet

This is one part of Hamlet's most famous monologue. Hamlet, facing the dilemma of action & mind, is hesitating whether he should revenge for his father, which may bring him death, or he should suffer & hide his hatred for his uncle in his deep heart, which may secure his life.

John Donne/约翰 邓恩作者简介

约翰 邓恩（John Donne，1572-1631），17世纪玄学派诗人。出生于一个罗马天主教家庭。他曾先后在牛津和剑桥大学学习神学、医学、法律和古典文学，但均未获得学位。1598年，邓恩被任命为伊格顿爵士的私人秘书。1601年，他秘密同伊格顿夫人17岁的侄女结婚。尽管婚姻愉快，邓恩却因此获罪，失去了职位，并遭监禁。出狱后十数年间，生活艰苦。后因撰文攻击天主教、维护国王权威而得赏识，于1615年成为王室牧师，1621年出任伦敦圣保罗大教堂教长。邓恩的作品主要包括诗歌、书简和布道文等。邓恩的诗歌以爱情、讽刺、宗教等为题材，在语言、描述、情景、想象等方面独具特色。他的诗歌语言接近口语，描述富于故事性和戏剧性，诗歌中许多“别出心裁的比喻”（conceit）十分奇特，让人初读觉得不可思议，掩卷细想又觉得颇有道理。诗集《歌与十四行诗》（Songs and Sonnets）中的《早安》（The Good-Morrow）、《破晓》（Break of Day）、《挽歌集》（Elegy）中的第16、19首、《圣十四行诗》(Holy

Sonnets)中的第7（描写不知如何忏悔时的心情）和第10首（“死亡，你不要骄傲”）等，都是邓恩诗中较为优秀的作品。在文学史上，邓恩被认为是“玄学派诗人”（Metaphysical poets）的重要代表。

《跳蚤》赏析 /The Flea

这是邓恩被收录最多的诗篇之一。诗作以诗人向情人求爱的说话体写成，语气富有调侃，比附出乎通常想象，推理和结论也超乎意料，典型反映了邓恩式的奇想。

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

诗的语气和结构富有典型的邓恩式戏剧性：第一段中，诗人看见了那只先后叮过两人的跳蚤，便指着它向情人证明两人的鲜血已通过一只先后叮咬了双方的跳蚤融为一体，而血的交融则意味着生命的交融，诗人因此推断，两人的生命已经在事实上结合在一起了；第二段，诗人发现情人正抬手欲向跳蚤打去，便急忙劝阻，说这样一来，被害的就是三条性命（你、我、跳蚤）；第三段时，对方显然已经下手，掐死了跳蚤，所以诗人戏谑地称对方为“残忍”、“用无辜者的鲜血把自己的指甲染得红紫”。这时，对方回答说，虽然“我”的血也在它（跳蚤）体内，可我并没有因为它的死而有半分虚弱，诗人话锋一转，直接切入主题：既然如此，你答应我的求爱对你的名誉也不会有分毫的损失。更有意思的是，这样的结尾，恰好使读者恍然大悟，在诗篇开始之前，诗人正绞尽脑汁想说服情人接受他的求爱呢。

1.一般识记 Donne & the Metaphysical Poetry

John Donne: English poet & Clergyman, born in London, England, 1572, and died in London, Mar. 31 1631. Donne is the leading figure of the 17th-century "metaphysical school." His poems give a more inherently theatrical impression by exhibiting a seemingly unfocused diversity of experiences & attitudes, & a free range of feelings & attitudes, & a free range of feelings & moods. The mode is dynamic rather than static, with ingenuity of speech, vividness of imagery & vitality of rhythms, which show a notable contrast to the other Elizabethan lyric poems, which are pure, serene, tuneful, & smooth running. The most striking feature of Donne's poetry is precisely its tang of reality, in the sense that it seems to reflect life in a real rather than a poetical world.

"Metaphysical Poetry" is commonly used to name the work of the 17th-century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne. With a rebellions spirit, the metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan Love poetry. The diction is simple as compared with echoes the words & cadences of common speech. The imagery is drawn from the actual life. The form is frequently that of an argument with the poet's beloved, with God, or with himself.

The finest works of the metaphysical poets combine intellectual subtlety with great emotional power. The poems reflect a broad knowledge of science, art, & other branches of learning. At the same time, metaphysical poems express an intense awareness of common human feelings & experiences, such as jealousy, the loss of religious faith, the complexities of love & the fear of death. Although the imagery of metaphysical poetry is frequently strained, the language is often as natural & direct as ordinary speech.

2识记His major works

In his life, Donne wrote a large number of poems & prose works, His poems are especially admired for their unique combination of passionate feeling & intellectual wit. Many of his poems rank with the finest in the English language. Among his most famous works are the poems Death Be Not Proud, "Go & Catch a Falling Star," The Ecstacy, & A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.

Most of The Elegies & Satires & a good many of The Songs & Sonnets were written in the early period. He wrote prose works mainly in the later period. His sermons, which are very famous, reveal his spiritual devotion to God as a passionate preacher.

His works are classified as songs & sonnets, epistles, elegies, & satires. When read in chronological order, the poems reveal his development from "Gay Jack Donne," a reckless & cynical youth, to Dean John Donne, a man devoted to God.

Donne's great prose works are his sermons, which are both rich & imaginative, exhibiting

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

the same kind of physical vigor & scholastic complexity as his poetry. For example, the well-known Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1623-1624). Written when he was seriously ill, they contain the famous passage: "No Man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main… Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, & therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

3. 领会 Characteristics of His Poems

Donne's poetry is subtle, complex, & often startling. He made expert use of such poetic techniques as the paradox, a statement that seems contradictory but actually contains truth, & the conceit, a pertinent comparison between 2 apparently dissimilar things.

His early Lyrics most exist in The Songs & Sonnets. Love is the basic theme. Donne holds that the nature of love is the union of soul & body. The operations of the soul depend on the body. Idealism & cynicism about love coexist in Donne's love poetry.

As a religious poet, his chief power is shown in the Holy Sonnets & the last hymns.

In his poems, Donne frequently applies conceits, i.e. extended metaphors involving dramatic contrasts. His poetry involves a certain kind of argument, sometimes in rigid syllogistic form. With the brief, simple language, the argument is continuous throughout the poem.

4. 应用Selected Readings

The Sun Rising

The persona apostrophizes the sun as " unruly" because the sun enters the lovers' secret room without their approval. The speaker criticizes the sun pays too much attention to such things as sex & that he should not be behaving so tediously as to stick to his rule & enter without thinking twice into such a place as lovers dwell.

John Milton

1.一般识记 Brief Introduction

John Milton, English poet & prose writer, born in London, England, Dec. 9, 1608, and died in London, Nov 8, 1674.

Milton was one of the greatest poets in the English language & one of the towering figures in all literature. His masterpiece, Paradise Lost, is considered the unsurpassed English epic poem. It is a powerfully imaginative & dramatic work, based in part on the Biblical story of the temptation & fall of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. Milton, a deeply religious man, wrote the epic “to justify the ways of God to men." He is also famous for his graceful lyric poems, such as Lycidas, L'Allegro, & for his intensely moving sonnets.

Milton was a great master of language, & his poetry, both epic & lyric, is admired for its sublime eloquence & rich musical quality.

2. 识记His literary achievements

Milton's literary achievements can be divided into three groups: the early poetic works, the middle prose pamphlets & the last great poems.

1) Education & Early Poetry

Milton's education would ordinarily have led him to a post in the Church of England. He was a Puritan, however, & his religious vies conflicted with those of the Church. After his 7 years at Cambridge, therefore, he retired in 1632 to his father's estate at Horton. His famous poems L'Allegro & IL Penseroso were probably written in 1631, before his withdrawal from Cambridge. These are companion pieces that contrast the temperaments of the cheerful, active man & the melancholy, reflective man. In his early works, Milton appears as the inheritor of all that was best

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

in Elizabethan literature. Lycidas (1637) is a typical example. All of Milton's early works reflect his interest in Greek & Latin poetry, which greatly influenced his style. His poems contain a wealth of classical references, figures of speech, & other poetic devices, all masterfully blended into his rich verse.

2) Middle Period & Prose Pamphlets

In 1638, Milton began a 15-month tour of the Continent, where he met the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei. Upon his return to England he became deeply involved in the political & religious struggle between Parliament, which was then dominated by the Presbyterians, & the followers of king CharlesⅠ, who supported the Church of England. Milton sided with Parliament & began to write a series of pamphlets attacking the power of the bishops & the rituals of the Church. In 1652 he suffered great personal tragedy with the total loss of his eyesight & the death of his wife & infant son In spite of his blindness, Milton continued his official duties until 1655. During these tragic years of his life he wrote some of his most poignant & beautiful sonnets. They include On His Blindness, which reveals the consolation he found in religious faith, & Methought 1 Saw My Late Espoused Saint, written as a tribute to his second wife. Another of his greatest sonnets, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, commemorated the slaughter of a sect of religious martyrs in 1655. Areopagitica (1644) is probably his most memorable prose work. It is a great plea for freedom of the press. Its style is smooth & calm.

3) Later Years & Major Poetry

After the Restoration in 1660, Milton was imprisoned. His release was brought about mainly through the efforts of his friends, notably the poet Andrew Marwell, After that time he devoted himself to his 3 major poetical works: Paradise Lost (1667), Paradise Regained (1671), & Samson Agonistes (1671). Among the three, the first is the greatest, indeed the only generally acknowledged epic in English literature since Beowulf; & the last one is the most perfect example of the verse drama after the Greek style in English.

3.领会His Major Works

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost, an epic poem in 12 books, written in blank verse, represents the fullest expression of Milton's genius. The poem vividly portrays the story of Satan's rebellion against God & his tempting of Adam & Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. The theme is the "Fall of Man," i.e. man's disobedience & the loss of Paradise, with its prime cause-Satan. Although Adam is the central figure in Paradise Lost, it is the villain, Satan, who emerges for many readers as the most interesting character in the poem, In Paradise Lost, Milton used the conventions of ancient Greek & Latin epics & enriched his poem with reference to classical mythology & literature.

Working through the tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote Paradise Lost, intending to expose the ways of Satan & to "justify the ways of God to men." At the center of the conflict between human love & spiritual duty lies Milton's primary concern with freedom & choice; the freedom to obey God's prohibition on eating the apple & the choice of disobedience made for love. In the fall of man Adam discovered his full humanity. But man's fall is the sequel to another & more stupendous tragedy, the fall of the angels. By lifting his argument to that degree, Milton raises the problem of evil in a more intractable form. Milton holds that God created all things out of Himself, including evil. There was evil in Heaven before Satan rebelled: Pride, Lust, Wrath, & Avarice were there. At the glorification of the son these forces erupted & were cast

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

forth. But God suffered them to escape from Hell & infect the Earth. And then the tragedy was re-enacted, but with a difference-"Man shall find grace." But he must lay hold of it by an act of free will. The freedom of the will is the keystone of Milton's creed. His poem attempts to convince us that the unquestionable truth of Biblical revelation means that an all-knowing God just allows Adam & Eve to be tempted &, of their free will, to choose sin & its inevitable punishment. And, thereby, it paves the way for the voluntary sacrifice of Christ which showed the mercy of God in bringing good out of evil.

6. 应用Selected Reading

Analyze Satan, the hero in John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Milton's Paradise Lost is a long epic of which the theme is the "Fall of Man" with its prime cause-Satan. In Heaven, Satan led a rebellion against God. Defeated, he & his angels were cast into Hell, However, Satan refused to accept his failure, vowing that "all was not lost" & that he would seek revenge for his down fall. In order to achieve his ambition, Satan managed to tempt Adam & Eve, the first human beings created by God, to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge against God's instruction. Satan is the real hero of the poem. Like a conquered & banished giant, he remains obeyed & admired by those who follow him down to hell. He is firmer than the rest of the fallen angels. It is he, who, passing through the guarded gates of hell & boundless chaos, amid so many dangers, & overcoming so many obstacles, makes man revolt against God. Though defeated, he prevails, since he was won from God the third part of his angels, & almost all the sons of Adam. Though wounded, he triumphs, for the thunder which overwhelmed him left heart still unvanquished.

John Milton/约翰 弥尔顿作者简介

约翰 弥尔顿（John Milton，1608-1674），诗人。弥尔顿的一生和创作大约可分为三个时期：他16岁时入剑桥大学，并开始用拉丁文和英文写诗；1638-39年间，他前往欧洲旅行，并同当时被囚禁的伽利略见过面。这一时期的主要作品是一些短诗，比较优秀的有《利西达斯》（Lycidas, 1637）等。1639年，英国革命即将爆发，他返回英国。随后的20多年中，他积极投身英国革命，发表了大量的散文和政论文，为英国革命和共和政府奔走呼吁，其中比较著名的有《为英国人民声辩》（Areopagitica, 1650）等。1652年时他双目逐渐失明。1660年王政复辟，弥尔顿被捕入狱，但很快被释放，从此开始了他第三时期的创作，先后完成了最著名的以圣经故事为题材的三部长篇诗作《失乐园》（Paradise Lost, 1667）、《复乐园》（Paradise Regained, 1671）和《力士参孙》（Samson Agonistes, 1671）。评论家认为，弥尔顿的作品同时体现了欧洲两股最重要的文学传统：以荷马和维吉尔史诗为代表的古希腊罗马文学和文艺复兴文学，特别是他的最后一部作品《力士参孙》，描写了主人公在失明后思想、精神上的升华，则在一定程度上映照了弥尔顿自己的一生。

Three major poetical works:

Paradise lost , Paradise Regained, Samson Agonists

The freedom of the will is the keytone of Milton.s creed.

Paradise Lost

The epic is the masterpiece of John Milton

The story is drawn from the Old Testament of the Bible, which tells how Satan, after being defeated in his rebel against God, temps Adam and Eve to eat the apples for the Forbidden Tree, and causes the Fall of Man.

Satan, in the image of a rebel , still determines to fight back against God when he and his followers are cast into the Hell. The features of the character include his boldness, unbending

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

ambition and his unconquerable will. The poem, as in other writing, is full of biblical and classical allusion, and is in a Latinized style with one sentence running perhaps across several lines. But, the majesty of expression suits well the sublimity of the poet’s thought.

A. 创作

Milton’s literary achievements can be divided into three groups:

a. The early works:

Milton appears as the inheritor of all that was best in Elizabethan literature. Lycidas is a typical example.

b. The middle works:

His powerful pamphlets written during this period make him the greatest prose writer of his age. Areopagitica is probably his most memorable prose work.

c. The last great poems:

Milton wrote his three major poetical works: Paradise Lost, Paradise regained, and Samson Agonistes.

B. 代表作:

Paradise Lost:

A). The theme and structure:

Paradise Lost is a long epic divided into 12 books. The theme is the “Fall of Man”.

B). The humanistic spirits

a. Working through the tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote Paradise Lost, intending to expose the ways of Satan and to “justify the ways of God to man.”

b. At the center of the conflict between human love and spiritual duty lies Milton’s fundamental concern with freedom and choice.

c. The freedom of the will is the keystone of Milton’s creed.

Jonathan Swift/乔纳森 斯威夫特作者简介

乔纳森 斯威夫特(1667-1745)出生于都柏林，是个遗腹子，在其伯父的抚养下长大。1682年入都柏林的三一学院求学，获得学士学位；1692年获牛津大学硕士学位，1701年在三一学院获神学博士学位。离开三一学院后，斯威夫特曾给贵族当私人秘书，后来回到故乡做牧师，介入政治，为托利党的《考察报》(The Examiner)撰稿，写下了大量的政论文和小册子。斯威夫特的文笔以讽刺见长，是讽刺文学的一代宗师。斯威夫特的讽刺性散文很多，较为著名的有《一只桶的故事》(“A Tale of a Tub”, 1697)、《书籍之战》(“The Battle of the Books”, 1698)以及《布商来信》(“The Drapier’s Letter”,1724)和《一个温和的建议》(“A Modest Proposal”,1729)等。斯威夫特一生不得志，他的社会经历使他看透了一切，于是他写下了不朽名著《格列佛游记》(Gulliver’s Travels,1726)。此外，后人根据斯威夫特给其女友写的信编成的《给斯黛拉的日记》(Journal to Stella, 1766)也是英语日记文学中很重要的一部作品。

格列佛游记》内容欣赏分析

《格列佛游记》向来被当作世界儿童文学的经典，但当初斯威夫特创作这部小说的目的并不是为了儿童。作者自己说，他的创作目的“不是为了提供娱乐而是为了激怒这个世界。”也许是作品中的讽刺过于辛辣，这部小说的初版是匿名发表的。在这部小说中，斯威夫特通过丰富的想象，含沙射影地对英国的政治和社会大加撘伐，对人性的弱点进行无情的嘲讽。在慧马国中，马的理智与高贵和野胡的贪欲与鄙陋形成反差极大的对比，高下立判；再通过马的视角观察人类--野胡的同类，或者说就是野胡--使人性中的贪婪、堕落和无知等诸多缺点暴露无疑。斯威夫特的冷嘲热讽不可谓不辛辣尖刻，但文字上不温不火，绵里藏针，精彩

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

之处令人拍案叫绝。斯威夫特的语言具体明晰，简略中透出优雅；他曾把文字风格定义成“恰到好处的词语用在恰到好处的地方”，这也许是对他自己的语言风格的最好评注。

《格列佛游记》中的故事是幻想性的、超现实的，但他暗中讽刺的现实即使在今天也并不鲜见，而且他的描写细致入微，给人以强烈的现实感。幻想和现实的统一使这部小说超越了时空限制，成为世界范围内老幼咸宜的不朽名篇。

Simple introduction to Daniel Defoe/丹尼尔 笛福简介

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) English novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist, is most famous as the author of Robinson Crusoe (1719), a story of a man shipwrecked alone on an island. Along with Samuel Richardson, Defoe is considered the founder of the English novel.

Defoe was one of the first to write stories about believable characters in realistic situations using simple prose. He achieved literary immortality when in April 1719 he published Robinson Crusoe, which was based partly on the memoirs of voyagers and castaways, such as Alexander Selkirk.

《鲁宾逊漂流记》内容赏析

《鲁宾逊漂流记》一经发表即深受各阶层读者的广泛欢迎，究其原因，其中很重要的一点是鲁宾逊的形象契合了18世纪英国社会的精神。鲁宾逊渴望冒险，不甘平庸的生活，是资产阶级上升时期的代表人物。他沦落荒岛后，遇到了诸多似乎难以克服的困难，但他以坚强的毅力和百折不回的决心，逐一解决了居住、食物、工具等方面的问题，过上了舒适的生活。他十分乐观，充满了斗志，体现了自我奋斗的精神，他的创造性劳动及成果也体现了人类智慧的无穷魅力。鲁宾逊是富有开拓和进取精神的资产阶级英雄，也是充满征服欲和开疆拓土野心的殖民代表。他在岛上一站稳脚跟便在海边竖起了登岸标记，在后文叙述的他与星期五的关系中，鲁宾逊的殖民主义者形象更加明显。所以，《鲁宾逊漂流记》是资本主义奋斗精神的颂歌，也是企图使殖民主义合法化的叙事。

这部作品语言平实，叙事精确。本章节选部分叙述了鲁宾逊凭借一己之力在荒岛上安家的经过，看似十分困难，甚至不可能，但作者把鲁宾逊选址造屋的过程以精确具体的细节呈现在我们的眼前，具有强烈的真实感，十分可信，使我们觉得，如果我们处在鲁宾逊的位置似乎也会这样做，难怪后人把笛福称为“英国小说之父”，把《鲁宾逊漂流记》看作现实主义小说的奠基之作。

Motifs of Robinson Crusoe/鲁宾逊漂流记的中心思想

Counting and Measuring

Crusoe is a careful note-taker whenever numbers and quantities are involved. He does not simply tell us that his hedge encloses a large space, but informs us with a surveyor’s precision that the space is “150 yards in length, and 100 yards in breadth.” He tells us not simply that he spends a long time making his canoe in Chapter XVI, but that it takes precisely twenty days to fell the tree and fourteen to remove the branches. It is not just an immense tree, but is “five foot ten inches in diameter at the lower part . . . and four foot eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-two foot.” Furthermore, time is measured with similar exactitude, as Crusoe’s journal shows. We may often wonder why Crusoe feels it useful to record that it did not rain on December 26, but for him the necessity of counting out each day is never questioned. All these examples of counting and measuring underscore Crusoe’s practical, businesslike character and his hands-on approach to life. But Defoe sometimes hints at the futility of Crusoe’s measuring—as when the carefully measured canoe cannot reach water or when his obsessively kept calendar is thrown off by a day

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

of oversleeping. Defoe may be subtly poking fun at the urge to quantify, showing us that, in the end; everything Crusoe counts never really adds up to much and does not save him from isolation.

Eating

One of Crusoe’s first concerns after his shipwreck is his food supply. Even while he is still wet from the sea in Chapter V, he frets about not having “anything to eat or drink to comfort me.” He soon provides himself with food, and indeed each new edible item marks a new stage in his mastery of the island, so that his food supply becomes a symbol of his survival. His securing of goat meat staves off immediate starvation, and his discovery of grain is viewed as a miracle, like manna from heaven. His cultivation of raisins, almost a luxury food for Crusoe, marks a new comfortable period in his island existence. In a way, these images of eating convey Crusoe’s ability to integrate the island into his life, just as food is integrated into the body to let the organism grow and prosper. But no sooner does Crusoe master the art of eating than he begins to fear being eaten himself. The cannibals transform Crusoe from the consumer into a potential object to be consumed. Life for Crusoe always illustrates this “eat or be eaten” philosophy, since even back in Europe he is threatened by man-eating wolves. Eating is an image of existence itself, just as being eaten signifies death for Crusoe.

Ordeals at Sea

Crusoe’s encounters with water in the novel are often associated not simply with hardship, but with a kind of symbolic ordeal, or test of character. First, the storm off the coast of Yarmouth frightens Crusoe’s friend away from a life at sea, but does not deter Crusoe. Then, in his first trading voyage, he proves himself a capable merchant, and in his second one, he shows he is able to survive enslavement. His escape from his Moorish master and his successful encounter with the Africans both occur at sea. Most significantly, Crusoe survives his shipwreck after a lengthy immersion in water. But the sea remains a source of danger and fear even later, when the cannibals arrive in canoes. The Spanish shipwreck reminds Crusoe of the destructive power of water and of his own good fortune in surviving it. All the life-testing water imagery in the novel has subtle associations with the rite of baptism, by which Christians prove their faith and enter a new life saved by Christ.

Symbols of Robinson Crusoe/鲁宾逊漂流记的人物象征意义

The Footprint

Crusoe’s shocking discovery of a single footprint on the sand in Chapter XVIII is one of the most famous moments in the novel, and it symbolizes our hero’s conflicted feelings about human companionship. Crusoe has earlier confessed how much he misses companionship, yet the evidence of a man on his island sends him into a panic. Immediately he interprets the footprint negatively, as the print of the devil or of an aggressor. He never for a moment entertains hope that it could belong to an angel or another European who could rescue or befriend him. This instinctively negative and fearful attitude toward others makes us consider the possibility that Crusoe may not want to return to human society after all, and that the isolation he is experiencing may actually be his ideal state.

Themes of Robinson Crusoe/鲁宾逊漂流记的主题风格

The Ambivalence of Mastery

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

Crusoe’s success in mastering his situation, overcoming his obstacles, and controlling his environment shows the condition of mastery in a positive light, at least at the beginning of the novel. Crusoe lands in an inhospitable environment and makes it his home. His taming and domestication of wild goats and parrots with Crusoe as their master illustrates his newfound control. Moreover, Crusoe’s mastery over nature makes him a master of his fate and of himself. Early in the novel, he frequently blames himself for disobeying his father’s advice or blames the destiny that drove him to sea. But in the later part of the novel, Crusoe stops viewing himself as a passive victim and strikes a new note of self-determination. In building a home for himself on the island, he finds that he is master of his life—he suffers a hard fate and still finds prosperity.

But this theme of mastery becomes more complex and less positive after Friday’s arrival, when the idea of mastery comes to apply more to unfair relationships between humans. In Chapter XXIII, Crusoe teaches Friday the word “*m+aster” even before teaching him “yes” and “no,” and indeed he lets him “know that was to be *Crusoe’s+ name.” Crusoe never entertains the idea of considering Friday a friend or equal—for some reason, superiority comes instinctively to him. We further question Crusoe’s right to be called “*m+aster” when he later refers to himself as “king” over the natives and Europeans, who are his “subjects.” In short, while Crusoe seems praiseworthy in mastering his fate, the praiseworthiness of his mastery over his fellow humans is more doubtful. Defoe explores the link between the two in his depiction of the colonial mind. The Necessity of Repentance

Crusoe’s experiences constitute not simply an adventure story in which thrilling things happen, but also a moral tale illustrating the right and wrong ways to live one’s life. This moral and religious dimension of the tale is indicated in the Preface, which states that Crusoe’s story is being published to instruct others in God’s wisdom, and one vital part of this wisdom is the importance of repenting one’s sins. While it is important to be grateful for God’s miracles, as Crusoe is when his grain sprouts, it is not enough simply to express gratitude or even to pray to God, as Crusoe does several times with few results. Crusoe needs repentance most, as he learns from the fiery angelic figure that comes to him during a feverish hallucination and says, “Seeing all these things have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die.” Crusoe believes that his major sin is his rebellious behavior toward his father, which he refers to as his “original sin,” akin to Adam and Eve’s first disobedience of God. This biblical reference also suggests that Crusoe’s exile from civilization represents Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden.

For Crusoe, repentance consists of acknowledging his wretchedness and his absolute dependence on the Lord. This admission marks a turning point in Crusoe’s spiritual consciousness, and is almost a born-again experience for him. After repentance, he complains much less about his sad fate and views the island more positively. Later, when Crusoe is rescued and his fortune restored, he compares himself to Job, who also regained divine favor. Ironically, this view of the necessity of repentance ends up justifying sin: Crusoe may never have learned to repent if he had never sinfully disobeyed his father in the first place. Thus, as powerful as the theme of repentance is in the novel, it is nevertheless complex and ambiguous.

The Importance of Self-Awareness

Crusoe’s arrival on the island does not make him revert to a brute existence controlled by animal instincts, and, unlike animals, he remains conscious of himself at all times. Indeed, his island existence actually deepens his self-awareness as he withdraws from the external social world and turns inward. The idea that the individual must keep a careful reckoning of the state of his own

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

soul is a key point in the Presbyterian doctrine that Defoe took seriously all his life. We see that in his normal day-to-day activities, Crusoe keeps accounts of himself enthusiastically and in various ways. For example, it is significant that Crusoe’s makeshift calendar does not simply mark the passing of days, but instead more egocentrically marks the days he has spent on the island: it is about him, a sort of self-conscious or autobiographical calendar with him at its center. Similarly, Crusoe obsessively keeps a journal to record his daily activities, even when they amount to nothing more than finding a few pieces of wood on the beach or waiting inside while it rains. Crusoe feels the importance of staying aware of his situation at all times. We can also sense Crusoe’s impulse toward self-awareness in the fact that he teaches his parrot to say the words, “Poor Robin Crusoe. . . . Where have you been?” This sort of self-examining thought is natural for anyone alone on a desert island, but it is given a strange intensity when we recall that Crusoe has spent months teaching the bird to say it back to him. Crusoe teaches nature itself to voice his own self-awareness.

Introduction of Alexander Pope/亚历山大 蒲柏简介

English essayist, critic, satirist, and one of the greatest poets of Enlightenment.

His breakthrough work, AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM (1711), appeared when he was twenty-three. It included the famous line "a little learning is a dangerous thing." Pope's physical defects made him an easy target for heartless mockery, but he was also considered a leading literary critic and the epitome of English Neoclassicism.

"Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be."

(from An Essay on Criticism)

After moving to London, Pope published his first major work, An Essay on Criticism. This discussion was based on neoclassical doctrines and derived standards of taste from the order of nature: "Good nature and good sense must ever join; / To err is human, to forgive divine."

In ESSAY ON MAN (1733-34) Pope examined the human condition against Miltonic, cosmic background. Although Pope's perspective is well above our everyday life, and he do not hide his wide knowledge, the dramatic work suggest than humankind is a part of nature and the diversity of living forms: "Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: / Is Heaven unkind to Man, and Man alone?"

关于亚历山大 蒲柏代表作: of An Essay on Criticism(论批评)

Pope's "Essay on Criticism" is a didactic poem in heroic couplets, begun, perhaps, as early as 1705, and published, anonymously, in 1711. The poetic essay was a relatively new genre, and the "Essay" itself was Pope's most ambitious work to that time. It was in part an attempt on Pope's part to identify and refine his own positions as poet and critic, and his response to an ongoing critical debate which centered on the question of whether poetry should be "natural" or written according to predetermined "artificial" rules inherited from the classical past.

The poem commences with a discussion of the rules of taste which ought to govern poetry, and which enable a critic to make sound critical judgments. In it Pope comments, too, upon the authority which ought properly to be accorded to the classical authors who dealt with the subject; and concludes (in an apparent attempt to reconcile the opinions of the advocates and opponents of rules) that the rules of the ancients are in fact identical with the rules of Nature: poetry and painting, that is, like religion and morality, actually reflect natural law. The "Essay on Criticism,"

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

then, is deliberately ambiguous: Pope seems, on the one hand, to admit that rules are necessary for the production of and criticism of poetry, but he also notes the existence of mysterious, apparently irrational qualities--"Nameless Graces," identified by terms such as "Happiness" and "Lucky Licence"--with which Nature is endowed, and which permit the true poetic genius, possessed of adequate "taste," to appear to transcend those same rules. The critic, of course, if he is to appreciate that genius, must possess similar gifts. True Art, in other words, imitates Nature, and Nature tolerates and indeed encourages felicitous irregularities which are in reality (because Nature and the physical universe are creations of God) aspects of the divine order of things which is eternally beyond human comprehension. Only God, the infinite intellect, the purely rational being, can appreciate the harmony of the universe, but the intelligent and educated critic can appreciate poetic harmonies which echo those in nature. Because his intellect and his reason are limited, however, and because his opinions are inevitably subjective, he finds it helpful or necessary to employ rules which are interpretations of the ancient principles of nature to guide him--though he should never be totally dependent upon them.

Pope then proceeds to discuss the laws by which a critic should be guided--insisting, as any good poet would, that critics exist to serve poets, not to attack them. He then provides, by way of example, instances of critics who had erred in one fashion or another. What, in Pope's opinion (here as elsewhere in his work) is the deadliest critical sin--a sin which is itself a reflection of a greater sin? All of his erring critics, each in their own way, betray the same fatal flaw.

The final section of the poem discusses the moral qualities and virtues inherent in the ideal critic, who is also the ideal man--and who, Pope laments, no longer exists in the degenerate world of the early eighteenth century.

Introduction of William Wordsworth/威廉 华兹华斯生平简介

William Wordsworth was born on April 7th, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England. Young William's parents, John and Ann, died during his boyhood. Raised amid the mountains of Cumberland alongside the River Derwent, Wordworth grew up in a rustic society, and spent a great deal of his time playing outdoors, in what he would later remember as a pure communion with nature. In the early 1790s William lived for a time in France, then in the grip of the violent Revolution; Wordsworth's philosophical sympathies lay with the revolutionaries, but his loyalties lay with England, whose monarchy he was not prepared to see overthrown.

The chaos and bloodshed of the Reign of Terror in Paris drove William to philosophy books; he was deeply troubled by the rationalism he found in the works of thinkers such as William Godwin, which clashed with his own softer, more emotional understanding of the world. In despair, he gave up his pursuit of moral questions. In the mid-1790s, however, Wordsworth's increasing sense of anguish forced him to formulate his own understanding of the world and of the human mind in more concrete terms. The theory he produced, and the poetics he invented to embody it, caused a revolution in English literature.

Freed from financial worries by a legacy left to him in 1795, Wordsworth moved with his sister Dorothy to Racedown, and then to Alfoxden in Grasmere, where Wordsworth could be closer to his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Together, Wordsworth and Coleridge began work on a book called Lyrical Ballads, first published in 1798 and reissued with Wordsworth's monumental preface in 1802.

The publication of Lyrical Ballads represents a landmark moment for English poetry; it was unlike

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

anything that had come before, and paved the way for everything that has come after. According to the theory that poetry resulted from the "spontaneous overflow" of emotions, as Wordsworth wrote in the preface, Wordsworth and Coleridge made it their task to write in the simple language of common people, telling concrete stories of their lives. According to this theory, poetry originated in "emotion recollected in a state of tranquility"; the poet then surrendered to the emotion, so that the tranquility dissolved, and the emotion remained in the poem. This explicit emphasis on feeling, simplicity, and the pleasure of beauty over rhetoric, ornament, and formality changed the course of English poetry, replacing the elaborate classical forms of Pope and Dryden with a new Romantic sensibility. Wordsworth's most important legacy, besides his lovely, timeless poems, is his launching of the Romantic era, opening the gates for later writers such as John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron in England, and Emerson and Thoreau in America.

Following the success of Lyrical Ballads and his subsequent poem The Prelude, a massive autobiography in verse form, Wordsworth moved to the stately house at Rydal Mount where he lived, with Dorothy, his wife Mary, and his children, until his death in 1850. Wordsworth became the dominant force in English poetry while still quite a young man, and he lived to be quite old; his later years were marked by an increasing aristocratic temperament and a general alienation from the younger Romantics whose work he had inspired. Byron--the only important poet more popular than Wordsworth during Wordsworth's lifetime--in particular saw him as a kind of sell-out, writing in his sardonic preface to Don Juan that the once-liberal Wordsworth had "turned out a Tory" at last. The last decades of Wordsworth's life, however, were spent as Poet Laureate of England, and until his death he was widely considered the most important author in England.

The writing style & Contributions of William Wordsworth/华兹华斯的写作风格和贡献 Writing style:

1) Influenced from the spirit of the French Revolution.

2) Theme: broke with tradition, seeking his subjects in the small happenings of country life and the talk of countrymen, children, and doings and feelings of humble people, and emotion from his inner heart.

3) Language: He stuck to emphasizing the purest by simplest words.

Contributions:

1) He is the representative poet of passive Romanticism.

2) He emphasized the liberating aesthetic.

Wordsworth is the leading figure of the English romantic poetry. To Wordsworth, nature acts as a substitute for imaginative and intellectual engagement with the development of embodied human beings in their diverse circumstances. It's nature that gives him strength and knowledge full of peace. The joys and sorrows of the common people are his themes. He is a voice of searchingly comprehensive humanity and on that inspires his audience to see the world freshly, sympathetically and naturally. The most important contribution he has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry, the poetry of the growing inner self, but also changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a return to nature.

William Wordsworth and lake poets/威廉 华兹华斯和湖畔诗人的作品及风格

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

William Wordsworth

1 William Wordsworth, Samuel TAYLOR Coleridge and Robert Southey, the three man known as the “ Lake Poets”

2 Wordsworth is regarded as a “worshiper of nature”

3 Wordsworth thinks that common life is the only subject of literary interest.

4 Wordsworth see the word freshly, sympathetically and naturally.

5 The most important contribution Wordsworth has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry of the growing inner self, but also changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a reform to nature.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud《我好似一朵流云独自漫游》主题思想分析

《我好似一朵流云独自漫游》是华兹华斯抒情诗的代表作之一，写于1804年。据说此诗是根据诗人兄妹俩一起外出游玩时深深地被大自然的妩媚所吸引这一经历写成的，体现了诗人关于诗歌应描写“平静中回忆起来的情感”(emotion recollected in

tranquility)这一诗学主张。全诗可以分成两大部分：写景和抒情。诗的开篇以第一人称叙述，格调显得低沉忧郁。诗人一方面竭力捕捉回忆的渺茫信息，另一方面又觉得独自飘游，可以自由自在地欣赏大自然所赋予的美景。他把自己比作一朵流云，随意飘荡，富有想象的诗句暗示诗人有一种排遣孤独、向往自由的心情。在他的回忆中，水仙花缤纷茂密，如繁星点点在微风中轻盈飘舞。诗中的“舞”意象鲜明，几乎贯穿了整个诗篇：第一节出现了水仙花翩翩起舞的情景；第二节写出了水仙花的繁多；第三节中粼粼波光与水仙齐舞，交相辉映，共同绘制成一幅赏心悦目的情景。诗人力图在一种迷离、恍惚和模糊的瞬间感受中去领悟人生的真谛。记忆中那一望无际的、连绵不断的金黄色水仙花在湖边迎风舞蹈的姿态仿佛有一种精神力量令人振奋，给他孤独的心灵带来了欢乐：“水仙花在我的心灵闪现，使我在幽独中感到欣然”。在诗人的笔下，大自然的美景具有治愈人们心灵创伤的能力。华兹华斯正是凭着这样一种艺术的直觉，将自然美与人类之间的联系揭示得淋漓尽致。

Samuel Taylor Coleridge /塞缪尔 泰勒 柯勒律治作者简介

塞缪尔 泰勒 柯勒律治（Samuel Taylor Coleridge，1772-1834）生于一个牧师家庭，早年就读于剑桥大学。与同时代其他热血青年一样，他也曾受到法国大革命的影响，向往自由。但他很快就对法国革命中的流血事件感到失望而主张一种空想社会主义思想。柯勒律治秉性忧郁，常独自兀坐静观自然，但他善于言谈，思想活跃，把想象力看作文学的主导功能和灵魂，主张用想象来给世界注入活力。他一生创作不很多，但在文学史上却占有重要地位。主要诗作有《古舟子咏》（The Rime of the Ancient Mariner，1798）、《克丽斯塔贝尔》（Christabel, 1816）和《忽必烈汗》（Kubla Khan,1816）。这些作品融平凡的细节和富于诗意的象征于一体，其中也不乏超自然的神秘主义倾向。他的诗歌不仅体现了19世纪浪漫主义文学的特征，而且也反映了他个人的独特风格和高超的诗艺。作为文学评论家，柯勒律治享有很高的声誉。他的文学评论著作《文学传记》（Biographia Literaria,1817）全面总结了他与华兹华斯的文学实践和创作思想。他还作过一系列关于莎士比亚的讲演，并在讲演中充分发挥自己的批评观点，因而受到莎士比亚研究界的重视。作为“湖畔派”三诗人之一，柯勒律治是19世纪英国浪漫主义诗歌的杰出代表。

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's writing, themes and archivement

1 Coledrige’s portion(work) was to deal with supernatural thing for he want more interested in something remote strange on foreign.

2 Coledrige is one of the first critics to give close critical affection to language, maintaining that

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

the true end of poetry is to give pleasure “through the medium of beauty”

3 He was recognized as a lyrical poet and literary critic of the first rank.

His poetic themes range from the supernatural to the domestic. His treatises, lectures, and compelling conversational powers made him one of the most influential English literary critics and philosophers of the 19th century.

Kubla Khan《忽必烈汗》主题思想分析

《忽必烈汗》是柯勒律治的一首梦幻诗，据说有一天晚上，他在抽鸦片之后昏昏欲睡，在半清醒状态下写的。据诗人自己说，全诗约有二、三百行，但写出来的只有所选这一段。他所以未能写成，是因为他写到目前片段的最后一行时，有人把他叫走。他去了约一个小时，回来之后其余的诗句都消失在记忆中。虽然这首诗只是一个片段，但诗人奇特的想象、神秘的感觉、富于音乐性的文字却赋予她经久不衰的魅力，达到了诗人刻意追求的令人“情愿暂时信以为真”（willing suspension of disbelief for the moment）的忘我境界。诗中富于节奏的音乐美，尤为西方文学评论家所称道。

这是一首非理性的诗，其意义在于逻辑或理性之外的某种韵味。全诗分三节，起首突如其来，随后不断涌进恍惚离奇的幻象。诗中既无故事情节，也没有明确的题旨，而只是传达了一种幻觉或印象。作品虽然以忽必烈汗为题，但并没有刻意描写或赞颂这位中国帝王的伟业，而是将这位传奇人物当作寄情表意的媒介充分发挥诗人的想象力。这里，诗人的情感与豪华的宫殿，仙姝玉女的情爱，东方处子的琴声，还有中国的忽必烈汗交织在一起，创造了一种优美的旋律和超凡的意境。初看起来，全诗的确缺乏一种逻辑统一性，但读起来并不感到杂乱无章。倒是诗中所迸发的那种神秘的异国情调常常让读者遐思不已。另外，这首诗在叙述方面的确具有独创性，开拓了西方诗歌的新视野。诗人在叙述过程中不断出现语义断裂和不连贯现象可以使读者更加关注诗歌的形式，充分领略其神奇而优美的韵律。今天，该诗与《古舟子咏》一样已成为英国文学中的瑰宝。

William Blake

1 (1) The songs of Innocence is a lovely volume poems, presenting a happy and innocent world, though not without its evil and sufferings.

(2) The songs of Experience paints a different world, a world of misery, poverty, disease, war and repress with melancholy tone

(1) The two books hold the similar subject-matter, but the tone, emphasis and conclusion differs. 2 Blake writes his poem in plain and direct language ,his poem often carries the lyric beauty with immense compressing of meaning. He distrusts the abstractness and tends to embody his views with visual images, symbolism in wide range is also a distinctive feature of his poetry. George Gordon Byron /乔治 戈登 拜伦作者简介

乔治 戈登 拜伦（George Gordon Byron，1788-1824）生于伦敦一个破落贵族家庭，自幼有残疾，生性敏感，10岁时继承爵位，曾就读于剑桥大学三一学院，成年后为上议院的议员。拜伦在学生时代开始写诗，读书期间出版了诗集《闲散的时刻》（Hours of Idleness，1807），遭到《爱丁堡评论》（Edinburgh Review）杂志的攻击，他以《英国诗人与英格兰评论家》（English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 1809）一诗进行回击，引起轰动。1809年，他取得上议院议员资格，随后到欧洲进行了为期两年的游历，遍访西班牙、希腊等国。1812年，拜伦发表了欧洲游历期间创作的《恰尔德 哈罗德游记》（Childe Herold’s Pilgrimage）的前两章，一举成名。随后他又相继写出叙事诗《异教徒》（The Giaour, 1813）、《阿比多斯的新娘》（The Bride of Abydos, 1813）、《柯林斯之围》（The Siege of Corinth, 1816）等。1816年，拜伦因其离婚事件不为伦敦社会所容，愤然出走，离开了英国，再也没有回来。他先在瑞士逗留，结识了雪

华中师范大学英语专业英美文学课中英文课堂讲义

莱，后到意大利定居，此间创作了一系列剧作，如《曼弗雷德》（Manfred, 1817）和《该隐》（Cain, 1821）等，并开始创作其代表作《唐璜》（Don Juan, 1818-1823）。1823年7月，拜伦前往希腊，支援希腊人民反抗土耳其统治的斗争，次年病逝于营地。

Percy Bysshe Shelley/波西 比希 雪莱作者简介

波西 比希 雪莱（1792-1822）出身于贵族家庭，1810年10月进入牛津大学，半年后，因印发《无神论的必然性》（The Necessity of Atheism）小册子而被开除。离开学校后，雪莱来到伦敦，结识了哈丽特（Harriat Westbrook）并与之结婚。1812年，雪莱到爱尔兰，为激励爱尔兰人民争取自由而活动和写作。1814 年 7月雪莱与妻子哈丽雅特分手，不久与玛丽 戈德温（Marry Goldwin , 即著名女作家Marry Shelley）结合。1818年，雪莱被迫离开英国，到意大利定居。1822年，雪莱在海上遇难，时年30岁。雪莱一生创作勤奋，在去意大利前创作的重要诗作有长诗《麦布女王》（Queen Mab, 1813）和《伊斯兰的反叛》（The Revolt of Islam, 1817）。在意大利生活的最后几年是他创作最旺盛的时期，他先后完成了诗剧《解放了的普罗米修斯》（Prometheus Unbound, 1819）和《钦契》（The Cenci, 1819），以及悼念济慈的《阿多尼》（Adonais, 1821）等。此外雪莱还创作了大量充满激情的政治诗歌和脍炙人口的抒情诗，如《1819年的英国》（“England in 1819”, 1819）和《西风颂》（“Ode to the West Wind”, 1819）等。雪莱的文论著作有《诗辩》（A Defence of Poetry, 1821）。

Ode to the West Wind /《西风颂》主题思想分析讲解

《西风颂》是雪莱最著名的抒情诗歌，共分五节。在第一节中，西风在陆地上以摧枯拉朽之势横扫落叶，同时又把种子吹入泥土，点出了西风既是毁灭者又是保护者的主题。第二节描写西风在空中扫荡残云，带出了暴雨雷霆。在第三节中，西风在海上劈波斩浪，大显神威，搅醒了沉睡的海洋。以上三节咏风，把西风在陆、空、海上的凛凛威风写得酣畅淋漓。接着诗人笔锋一转，由咏物而抒怀，在第四节中表达了自己愿随西风而舞的心愿，进而在第五节中发出了愿与西风合而为一的澎湃激情。

在这首颂歌中，雪莱愿借西风之力，荡涤自己心中的沉暮之气，激发自己的灵感，并将自己的诗名传播四方，唤醒昏昏然的芸芸众生。多少年来，《西风颂》的影响超越了文学、超越了国界，被一代又一代的革命者当作自由与革命的颂歌。既是毁灭者又是保护者的西风无疑是破坏旧世界、创造新世界的革命的极好象征，所向披靡、势不可挡的西风则成了革命精神的化身，尤其是诗歌末尾的“风啊，冬天来了，春天还会远吗？”，一直是革命乐观主义者的口号。

这首诗的结构安排精巧，值得品味。诗歌每节有14行五音步诗行，每节可独立成为一首十四行诗，前三节的末尾均以“oh，hear!”结尾，既在形式上把不同诗节贯串起来，又在语气上也使诗节之间相互照应。在每节内部，前12行利用三行诗(terza rima)的形式，最后两行为一个偶句(couplet)，押韵格式为aba bcb cdc ded ee，使诗行前后衔接，最后两行冲破格式，模仿了西风飞旋、不可阻挡的气势，既传神又达意。

John Keats /约翰 济慈作者简介

约翰 济慈(John Keats, 1795-1821)生于伦敦，出身寒微，9 岁丧父 。1815年，济慈入伦敦一家医院学医，但却对诗歌发生了兴趣。1817年，济慈出版了自己的第一本诗集。同年，他虽已取得医生执照，却决定弃医从文。1818年，济慈的长诗《恩底弥翁》(Endymion)问世，遭到当时批评家的非难。这是济慈生活最为困难的时期，经济拮据，身体状况每况愈下，染上了肺结核，但他并不气馁，继续以旺盛的精力投入创作。从1820年2 月起济慈病情加重，遵医嘱到意大利养病 ，1821年客死罗马，年仅25岁。墓碑上刻着自拟铭文 ：“ 这里安息着一个姓名写在水里的人。”济慈以其短暂的一生写下了很多名篇佳作，其主要作品有长诗《恩底弥翁》、《伊莎贝拉》(Isabella，1820)、《圣阿格尼斯之夜》(The Eve of Saint Agnes，1820)、《赫披里昂》(Hyperion)等。此外，他写有著名的《希腊古瓮颂》(“Ode on a Grecian Urn”,