英国文学

the thousand-year period which began with the fall of Roman Empire in the 5th century and ended with the Renaissance.

The Middle Ages

• The Anglo-Saxon（449-1066）
  • Background
    • Fall of the Roman Empire
    • Teutonic tribes(Anglo. Saxon. Jutes)conquest
    • The language is old Engliah
  • Literature
    • Pagan Poetry
      • 代表作：Beowulf
        • Written by old English
        • The oldest poem in oral form
        • The oldest surviving national epic
          • A long narritive poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflected the values of the society form which is originated
        • Feacture
          • Metaphor
          • Alliteration
            • The repetion of the initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or stressed syllables
    • Religious Poetry
      • 代表作：A poetic paraphrase of the Bible
• The Anglo-Norman（1066-1350）
  • Literature
    • The matter of France
    • The matter of Greece and Roman
    • The matter of Britian tales
      • 代表 King Arthur and his knights and Round Table
  • Romance
    • Any imaginary literature that is set in idealized world that deals with a heroiv adventures and battles between good characters and villians or monsters
• Geoffery Chaucer(1343-1400)
  • buried in Westminister Abbey Poet's Corner
  • His language
    • humor,satire,exact, smooth,a master of word pictures
    • the first to use Heroic Couplet(英雄双韵体）
      • a verse form in epic poetry ,with lines of ten syllables and five stresses in rhyming pairs
  • 代表作： The Canterbury Tales
    • 24 stories 32pilgrims from all walks of life
    • written in years between 1387 and 1400
    • contains keen social criticism尖锐的社会批判 and explores the moral degradation道德堕落 of the members of religious profession and consuming passion for money in the feudal-bourgeois 追求物质的人 society
    • 运用 Heroic Couplet
    • 运用Iambic Pentameter五步抑扬格
      • Iambs: one word with a single unstressed syllable followed by another word with a stressed syllable 一个有重音节的单词+无重音节的单词（也可以是一个单词中 重音音节+无重音音节）pentameter : pent means 5,meter refers to the recurrence of a rhythmic unit ——5个音节的重复
    • The General Prologue(序言）
      • 内容： supplies a miniature of the English society of the time
      • Significance:
        • • the most important part of the whole poem
        • a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life
    • the father of English poetry 英诗歌之父 the founder of English realism 现实主义奠定人
• Popular Ballads（大众民谣）
  • Ballads:stories told in verse and usually meant to be sung
  • Types
    • Historical
    • Legendary
    • 代表：Robin Hood 劫富济贫
    • Fantastic
    • lyrical
    • Humorous
      • 代表：Get up and Bar the Door 起来，栓门
  • Features
    • simple language
    • intensely dramatic,involving an explosive situation易怒的情形 ,highly volatile characters多变的角色 and a short time span时间跨度短
    • a story told in song
    • usually in 4-line stanzas 4行诗节 with the 2nd and 4th lines rhymed
• songs and ballads which were widspread among the populace of England and Scotland and created and preserved by the people
• the thousand-year period which began with the fall of Roman Empire in the 5th century and ended with the Renaissance