1、英國文學縱覽一英國文學大事記1. The Medieval period : 450-1485Anglo-saxon or Old English Period (450-1066): poetry in oral formAnglo-Norman Period (1066-1340): romanceThe 14th Century (1340-1400):Age of ChaucerThe 15th Century£12. The Renaissance Period (the late 15th century-1750s): Drama and poetryThe Renai

2、ssanceHumanismThe Elizabethan Age (1558-1603): the golden age of English poetry3. The 17th CenturyThe Jacobean Age (1603-1625): the Metaphysical poetryThe Caroline Period (1625-1649): the Cavalier poetryThe Revolutionary period or The Puritan Age (1640-1660): MiltonThe Period of Restoration (1660-16

3、88): Age of Dryden4. The 18th century: Age of ProseThe Enlightenment MovementNew-classicism( 1700-1745)：The Augustan AgeRealismSentimentalismPreromanticism二文學術語集萃Alliteration or Head Rhyme or Initial Rhymerefers to the repetition of the samesoundsusually initial consonants of words or of stressed sy

4、llablesin any sequence of neighboring words.A Ballad is a story told in song, usually in four-line stanzas, with the second and fourth lines rhymed.Romance is the prevailing literary form of literature in the Middle Ages(1000-1453).It was a long composition, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, d

5、escribing the life and adventures of a noble hero.Heroic Couplet is a rhymed pair of iambic pentameter lines. It was established by Chaucer as a major English verse-form for narrative and other kinds of non-dramaticthpoetry; it dominated English poetry of the 18th century notably in the poetry of Po

6、pe, before declining in importance in the early 19th century.The Ecologue was a classical form, practiced by Virgil and others; it represents usually in dialogue between shepherds,the moods and feeling and attitudes of the simple life.Essay is a literary form which can be defined as a short piece of

7、 expository prose. The purpose is to inform or explain rather than to dramatize or amuse. Its feature is brevity.New-classicism is a revival of classical standards of order, balance and harmony in literature in the 17th and 18th centuries in England.Realism is a mode of writing that gives the impres

8、sion of recording life as it really is without sentimentalizing or idealizing it. It may be found as an element in the works of Chaucer or Defoe prior to the 19th century, but as a dominant trend in the novels of the middle- or lower class life in the 19th centuryThe Renaissance in England : Renaiss

9、anceis the rebirth'of literature, art and learning that progressively transformed European culture from the mid-14th century in Italy to the mid-17th century in England, strongly influenced by the rediscovery of classical Greek and Latin literature, and accelerated by the development of printing

10、. The Renaissanceis commonly held to mark the close of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern Western world. In literary terms, the Renaissancemay be seen as a new tradition running from Petrarch and Boccaccio in Italy to Jonson and Milton in England, embracing the work of Sidney, Spenser,a

11、nd Shakespeare;it is marked by a new self-confidence in vernacular literatures, a flourishing of lyric poetry, and a revival of such classical forms as epic and pastoral literature.The Enlightenment was a progressive intellectual movement throughout the Western Europe in the 18th century. It greatly

12、 influenced the English social life and literature. Generally speaking, the Enlightenment movement was an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners fought against class in equality, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. They thought the chief means for impr

13、oving society was “enlightenment”or “education”for the people. The English enlighteners fell into two groups: the moderate and the radical. The moderate includes: Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Dr. Johnson. The Radical includes such writers as

14、Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Tobias George Smollet, Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan.Spenserian stanza is a 9-line stanza form with the rhyme scheme of abab bcbc c, invented by Edmund Spenser. The first eight are iambic pentameter lines, and the last line is an iambic hexameter line

15、.Pastoral, a highly conventional mode of writing that celebrates the innocent life of shepherds and shepherdesses in poems, plays, and prose romances. Pastoral literature describes the loves and sorrows of musical shepherds, usually in an idealized Golden Age of rustic innocence and idleness; parado

16、xically, it is an elaborately artificial cult of simplicity and virtuous frugality.Sonnet is a lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of 14 iambic pentameterlines linked by an intricate rhyme scheme. There are two major patterns of rhyme in sonnets written in English. The Italian or Petrarchan son

17、net (named after the 14th century Italian poet Petrarch) comprises an octave (8 lines) rhyming abbaabba and a sestet (6 lines) rhyming cdecde or cdccdc. The transition from octave to sestet usually coincides with a turn in'the argument or mood of the poem. The English or Shakespearean sonnet (na

18、med after its greatest practitioner) comprises three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. The turnco'mes with the final couplet, which may sometimes achieve an epigram. There was one notable variant, the Spenserian sonnet , in which Spenser linked each quatrain to the next by a

19、 continuing rhyme: abab bcbc cdcd ee. There are three famous sonnet sequences in the Elizabethan AgeSpenser 'sAmoretti, Shakespeare 'sosnnets and Sidney 'sAstrophel and Stella.Ballad stanza or Ballad metre, the usual form of the folk ballad and its literary imitations, consisting of a qu

20、atrain in which the first and third lines have four stresses while the second and fourth have three stresses. Usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme. The rhythm is basically iambic.The Metaphysical Poets: John Dryden said in his Discourse Concerning Satire (1693) that John Donne in his poetr

21、y “affects the metaphysics”, meaning that Donne employs the terminology and abstruse arguments of the medieval Scholastic philosophers. In 1779 Samuel Johnson extended the term“metaphysical”from Donne to a school of poets in his “Life of Cowley. ”The name is now applied to a diverse group of 17th-ce

22、ntury English poets whose work is notable for its ingenious use of intellectual and theological concepts in surprising conceits, strange paradoxes and far-fetched imagery. The leading metaphysical poet was John Donne, whose colloquial, argumentative abruptness of rhythm and tone distinguishes his st

23、yle from the conventions of Elizabethan love lyrics. Other poets to whom the label is applied include Andrew Marvell, Abraham Cowley, John Cleveland and the predominantly religious poets George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and Richard Crashaw.Conceit: an unusually far-fetched or elaborate metaphor or simi

24、le presenting a surprisingly apt parallel between two apparently dissimilar things or feelings. Poetic conceits are prominent in Elizabethan love sonnets, in metaphysical poetry. Conceits often employ the devices of hyperbole, paradox and oxymoron. Originally meaning a concept or image, conceit came

25、 to be the term for figures of speech which establish a striking parallel, usually ingeniously elaborate, between two very dissimilar things or situations.The Cavalier poets are a group of English lyric poets who were active, approximately, during the reign of Charles I (1625-1640). This group inclu

26、des Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, and Waller. These poets virtually abandoned the sonnet form which had been the favoured medium for love poems for a century. They were considerably influenced by Ben Jonson. Their lyrics are light, witty, elegant and, for the mos

27、t part, concerned with love. They show much technical virtuosity.Carpe Diem : a tradition theme dating back to classical Greek and Latin poetry and particularly popular among the English Cavalier poets. Carpe Diem means, literally, “seize the day”, that is, “live for today.”The Carpe Diem theme is e

28、pitomized in a line from Robert Herrick 's “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time ”: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”Blank verse is the verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It is the verse form used in some of the greatest English poetry, including that of William Shakespeare and John M

29、ilton.Elegy: a poem of mourning, usually over the passing of life and beauty or a meditation on the nature of death. An elegy is a type of lyric poem, usually formal in language and structure, and solemn or even melancholy in tone.Epitaph : an inscription on a gravestone or a short poem written in m

30、emory of someone who has died. Many epitaphs are actually epigrams, or short witty sayings, and are not intended for serious use as monument inscriptions.Pre-romanticism: a general term applied by modern literary historians to a number of developments in late 18th century culture that are thought to

31、 have prepared the ground of Romanticism in its full sense. In various ways, these are all departures from the orderly framework of neoclassicism and its authorized genres.A Song is a short lyric poem with distinct musical qualities, normally written to be set to music. It expresses a simple but int

32、ense emotion. Byro'ns “She Walks in Beauty”is a song.Romanticism: a movement that flourished in literature, philosophy, music and art in Western culture during most of the 19th century, beginning as a revote against classicism. There have been many varieties of Romanticism in many different time

33、s and places.Many of the ideas of English Romanticism were first expressed by WilliamWordsworth and Samuel Talor Coleridge. It prevailed in England during the period 1798-1832. Romanticists expressed the ideology and sentiment of those classes and social strata that were discontent with and opposed

34、to the development of capitalism. They split into two groups becauseof the different attitudes toward the capitalist society.The Passive Romantic poets or the Lake poets are represented by Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey. The Active or Revolutionary Romantic poets are represented by Byron, Shelley and Keats.Ode: a complex lyric poem of some length, dealing with a noble theme in a dignified manner and originally intended to be sung. Odes are often written for a special occasion, to honor a person or a season or to commemorate an event.Terza Rima: it is an Italian ve