A History of British Literature

前四章整理，包括：Old English Period (about 450 - 1066)、Middle English Period (1066-14th century)、The Renaissance Period (15th century to mid-17th century)、The Neoclassical period (1660-1798)。

A History of British Literature

• Old English Period (about 450 - 1066)
  • Epic
    • Work
      • Beowulf
        • Positioning
          • the national epic of the Anglo-Saxons
        • Content
          • The fight against Grendel-Grendel's mother —the dragon
• Middle English Period (1066-14th century)
  • Medieval Romance
    • Works
      • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
  • Medieval Folk Ballads
    • Representative writer
      • Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400)
        • The Canterbury Tales
          • Selection-The General Prologue
            • Occasion
              • Shires of England, full of vitality
            • Time
              • April
            • Sketches of the Pilgrims
              • Excited, get ready to set off
            • Purpose
              • Pilgrimage-Canterbury
            • Motivation
              • Go out to enjoy the time
          • The Wife of Bath
            • A feminist, a cloth- maker, an experienced traveler, defiant, decisive, tough, confident
            • Marriage Status
              • Five husbands
            • Her view of marriage
              • the sovereignty of wife
        • Artistic Achievements
          • 1. Messenger of Humanism
            • Characterization of the Wife of Bath
          • 2. The first important realistic writer
          • 3."Father" of English poetry
• The Renaissance Period (15th century to mid-17th century）
  • the Elizabethan and Jacobean Age
    • The Elizabethan Poetry
      • Sonnet
        • 14 lines
        • a formal rhyme scheme
        • thought, mood, or feeling,
        • Iambic pentameter
        • Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet
          • 8-line stanza (an octave)
            • abbaabba
          • 6-line stanza(a set set)
            • cdecde, cdcedc, or ededed.
        • Representative poets
          • Edmund Spenser
            • Spenserian Sonnet
              • 3quatrains+1couplet
              • Linking, abab bcbc cdcd ee
          • Sir Philip Sidney
          • Sir Walter Raleigh
          • Shakespeare
            • English (Shakespearian) sonnet
              • 3quatrains+
              • 1independentcouplet-climax
                • a commentary-foregoing, an epigrammatic close
              • abab eded efef gg(rhyme scheme)
          • Marlowe
          • John Donne(1572-1632)
            • Metaphysical Poetry
              • the spoken quality, intellect irony
              • deep and profound subjects ex.spirituality and religion
              • new and original conceits&wits-striking imagery
              • psychological analysis,*-(
              • meter~
            • Poems
              • A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
    • Peak: Elizabethan drama
      • Representative dramatists
        • Christopher Marlowe
        • William Shakespeare
          • works
            • The Merchant of Venice
              • Blank verse, iambic pentameter
              • Themes
                • Relationship A&B
                  • companionship, homosexuality, A help B with his credit
                  • A gravity serves-B lightedness
                • Courtship B&P
                • Money
                  • A no interests& S usury
                • Justice
                  • the Venetian Law vs. mercy
                • Religion
                  • S an alien Jew vs. Authority of Christianity
                    • publicly scorned, requested to conversion
                  • Hate breeds hate
              • Characterization
                • A, respected, affectionate, lacking in common sense
                • S,cunning,cautious,crafty sympathetic, solitude
                • B, a prodigious life
        • Ben Jonson
  • 1649-Charles I executed ｜11 years of rule Parliament •Commonwealth•Cromwell
    • Representative poet
      • John Milton
        • Poems
          • Paradise Lost
            • Influenced
              • Biblical and Greek
                • Genesis of the Bible
                • U-shape
              • Homer’s epic
                • A short summary
                • Muse
            • Content
              • God, His son, Adam&Eve
              • The Biblical story
            • Structure
              • Book I-XII
              • 12Fallen life in Hell
                • 3Heaven/Satan
                  • 4Garden of Eden
                    • 56Raphael’s narration
              • 11 12Fallen life on Earth
                • 10Heaven/Satan
                  • 9Garden of Eden
                    • 78Raphael’s narration
            • Theme
              • the “Fall of Man”
                • Freedom&choice
                • Glory in heaven
                  • =Obedience&servitude
                • Liberty
                  • =the loss of Glory+the suffering in jell
              • the almighty God
                • Sin(temptation)
                • Redemption(Hell)
          • Paradise Regained
          • Samson Agonistes
            • closet dramav
            • verse form
• The Neoclassical period (1660-1798)
  • Age of Dryden (the restoration- the rest 17th century)
    • John Dryden
      • a poet, dramatist, literary critic
      • heroic couplet, popular
      • Work
        • An Essay of Dramatic Poesy
          • poetry&criticism-greatly influencing ~18th century
  • Age of Pope/ the Augustan(rationalism) Age (the first half of the 18th century)
    • Alexander Pope
      • Translation:Iliad&half Odyssey
      • Heroic couplet, perfection
      • Works
        • An Essay on Criticism (1711)
          • didactic,heroic couplets
        • The Rape of the Lock(1712-14)
          • Mock epic
            • feature,epic, a trivial subject
          • Homer’s grand epic style-the cutting of ~
          • Purpose:satirize the foolish, meaningless life of the lords and ladies
        • The Dunciad (1728)
          • satire the literary vice of the time
        • The Essay on Man (1733-34)
          • “Whatever is, is right”
  • Novel
    • Definition
      • fictitious
        • considerable length&complexity
        • characters
        • a sequential organization-action&scenes
    • <prose
      • Definition
        • not patterned into the lines of metric/free verse
      • Development &works
        • The Anglo Saxon Chronicle（beginning)
        • le Morte D'Arthur (1prose fiction)
          • Sir Thomas Malory:1 to express sensitive feelings
        • Arcadia (1577-80)
          • Sir Philip Sidney
        • ficitonal
          • Euphues (a prose romance, 1578-80)
            • John Lyly
        • Non-fictional
          • The King James Bible
          • Francis Bacon's Essays
        • The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
          • allegory, fictional
        • The 18th-century Prose
          • Non-fiction prose
            • Journals History books Biographies Letters
          • Fiction prose
    • The Early Novelists in 18th-Century
      • Representative writers
        • Daniel Defoe
          • Robinson Crusoe(1719)
            • Features
              • a high level of realism&authenticity-the great amount of details
              • the autobiographic form,journalistic, 1st person narration
              • language: plain, smooth, direct& almost colloquial but never coarse
        • Samuel Richardson
          • Pamela(1740)
        • Henry Fielding
          • Tom Jones(1749)
  • Age of Samuel Johnson (second half 18th century a decline, neoclassicism)
    • Sentimental novels
      • Intellectual concepts: sentiment, sentimentalism&sensibility
      • Emotional response-reader characters
      • Works
        • Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield (1766)
        • Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Sentimental Journey
    • Gothic novel&Origin
      • Work
        • Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764)
      • Place:distant,
        • Time: Medieval or Renaissance Europe
          • Plots: the fantastic exploits
            • a virtuous heroine
            • dark, tyrannical forces beyond control