2023年专八人文知识讲义.doc

Unit One English Literature and American Literature
Section One English Literature
1. The Renaissance is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the rediscovery of ancient Rome and Greek culture, new discovery in geography and astrology and the religious reformation and the economic expansion.
2. The Pilgrim’s Progress （天路历程）is regarded as the most successful religious allegory in the English language.
3. Among the representatives of the Enlightenment, Alexander Pope （蒲柏）was the first to introduce rationalism to England.
4. Generally speaking, the Renaissance refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries, its essence is humanism.
5. In “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”(Shakespeare, Sonnets 18), “this” refers to poetry.
6. About Renaissance, a) humanism is the essence; b) Attitudes and feelings which had been characteristic of the 14th and 15th centuries persisted well down into the era of Humanism and Reformation; c) The Elizabethan drama, in its totality, is the real stream of the English Renaissance.
7. It is Geoffrey Chaucer （杰弗里﹒乔叟）alone who, for the first time in English Literature, presented to us a comprehensive realistic picture of the English society of his time and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life.
8. The sentence “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” is the beginning line of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
9. The reasons for that Edmund Spenser （斯宾塞）is famous for “the poets’ poet” are Spenser’s idealism, his love of beauty and his exquisite melody.
10. Marlowe （马洛）gave new vigor to blank verse with his “mighty lines”.
11. In Shelly’s “To a Skylark”, （雪莱，《云雀颂》）the bird, suspended between reality and poetic image, pours forth an exultant song which suggests to the poet both celestial rapture and human limitation.
12. “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?… and if God had gifted me with some beauty, and much wealth, I should have made it As hard for you to leave, as it is now for me to leave you.” The above quoted passage is most probably taken from Jane Eyre.
13. The sentences “and now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish, they did not melt” are found in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
14. The most eminent dramatists in the Renaissance England are Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson（琼森）.
15. Descriptions about the Neoclassical Period: a) The Neoclassical Period is prior to the Romantic Period; b) Henry Fielding （菲尔丁）is one of the representatives of the Neoclassical period; c) The modern English novel came into being in the Neoclassical period.
16. “O prince, O chief of my throned powers, / That led th’ embattled separation to war / Under thy conduct, and in dreadful deeds / Fearless, endangered Heaven’s perpetual king’. In the third line of the above passage quoted from Milton’s Paradise Lost, the phrase “thy conduct’ refers to Satan’s conduct.
17. Comments on William Blake（布莱克）: a) Childhood is central to Blake’s concern in the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience; b) Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell marks his entry into maturity; c) Symbolism in wide range is a distinctive feature of his poetry.
18. It is generally regarded that Keat’s （济慈）most important and mature poems are in the form of ode.
19. Daniel Defoe’s （笛福《鲁宾逊漂流记》）novels mainly focus on the struggle of the shipwrecked persons for security.
20. In the Shepherds Calendar, Edmund Spenser tried to express his laments over the loss of Rosalind.
21. In Beowulf, （《贝尔武甫》）Beowulf fought against the monster Grendel and a five breathing dragon.
22. In Spenser’s masterpiece The Faerie Queen, （《仙后》）he speaks of 12 virtues of the private gentleman.
23. Francis Bacon is best known for his essays which greatly influenced the development of this literary form.
24. The literary form of The Faerie Queen is allegorical poem.
25. The characteristics of Spenser’s poetry are a perfect melody, a rare sense of beauty and a splendid imagination.
26. Most of Thomas Hardy’s novels are set in Wessex（威塞克斯）, a fictional primitive region.
27. We can perhaps describe the west wind in Shelly’s poem Ode to the West Wind as swift, proud and wild.
28. “Blindness”, “Partiality”, “Prejudice” and “Absurdity” in the novel Pride and Prejudice are most likely the characteristics of Elizabeth.
29. The modern English novel came into being in the middle of the 18th century.
30. In terms of Pride and Prejudice, a) it is the most popular of Jane Austen’s novel; b) it is originally drafted as “First Impressions’; c) In it, the author explores the relationship between great love and realistic benefits.
31. Chronologically the Victorian Period refers to 1836-1901.
32. Dickens’ first child hero is Oliver Twist.
33. R. B. Sheridanh （谢里丹）was the only important English dramatist of the 18th century. His plays especially The Rivals （《情敌》）and The School for Scandal are generally regarded as important links between the masterpieces of Shakespeare and those of Bernald Shaw.
34. Middlemarch （《弥德玛契》）is considered to the George Eliot’s （艾略特）greatest novel, owing to a) it vividly depicts English country life; b) it provides a panoramic view of life; c) it reveals women’s true feelings.
35. As the most gifted of the “University Wits”, Marlowe composed six plays within his short life, and among which there are Tamburlaine（《帖木儿大帝》）, Dr. Faustus （《浮士德》）and The Jew of Malta.
36. The Romantic Period is an age of poetry. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelly and Keats are the major poets. They started a rebellion against the neoclassical literature, which was later regarded as the poetic revolution.
37. The author of the writing The Return of the Native （《还乡》）is Thomas Hardy.
38. The Major figures of modernist movement are Eliot, Joyce and Dickens.
39. “At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar, she said; she would love to go.” The passage is taken from James Joyce’s Dubliners.
40. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, one of Thomas Hardy’s best known novels, portrays man as having no control over his own fate.
41. The author of the writing Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage （《恰尔德﹒哈罗德游记》）is Byron.
42. Pilgrimage（《游记》）, Ulysses and Mrs. Dalloway are stream-of-consciousness novels.
43. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling brings Henry Feilding the name of the “Prose Homer”. Of all the 18th century novelists, he was the first to set out, both in theory and practice, to write specifically a “comic epic in prose”, and the first to give the modern novel its structure and style.
44. In the Robert Browning’s works, The Ring and the Book established his position as one of the greatest English poets.
45. The major concern of D. H. Lawrence’s fiction lies in the tracing of the psychological development of his characters and in his energetic criticism of the dehumanizing effect of the capitalist industrialization on human nature.
46. George Bernard Shaw is considered to be the best-known English dramatist since Shakespeare.
47. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southy (骚塞)and William Wordsworth are regarded as “Lake Poets’.
48. Generally, English Romanticism refers to the period of 1836-1901.
49. The protagonist of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge （《卡斯特桥市长》）is a man of self-sufficience.
50. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan is often said to be concerned with the search for spiritual salvation.
51. The lines “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;” are found in John Donne’s （多恩、邓恩）writings.
52. Contrary to the traditional romance of aristocrats, the modern English novel gives a realistic presentation of life of the common English people.
53. In Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard（《墓园挽歌》）, Thomas Gray reveals his sympathy for the poor and the unknown, but mocks the great ones who despite them and bring havoc on them.
54. Although writing from different points of view and with different techniques, writers in the Victorian Period shared one thing in common, that is, they were all concerned about the fate of the common people.
55. Thomas Hardy not only continued to expose and criticize all sorts of social iniquities, but finally came to question and attack the Victorian conventions and morals.
56. The protagonist of the poem Love Song of T. Alfred Prufrock（《J﹒阿尔弗雷德﹒普鲁弗洛克旳情歌》艾略特） is a kind of figure caught in a sense of deafened idealism and tortured by satisfied desires. He is neurotic, self-important and illogical.
57. The sentence “Read not to contradict and confuse, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider” is from the essay Of Study by Francis Bacon.
58. Women in Love is considered to be a better-structured novel of D. H. Lawrence’s. It is regarded to be a more profoundly ordered novel than any other writing by him.
59. In the first part of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver told his experience in Lilliput.
60. In the theatrical world of the neoclassical period, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was the leading figure among the host of playwrights.
61. Francis Bacon lays the foundation for modern science with his insistence on scientific way of thinking and fresh observation rather than authority as a basis for obtaining knowledge.
62. Alexander Pope strongly advocated neoclassicism, emphasized that literary works should be judged by classical rules of order, reason, logic, restrained emotion, good taste and decorum.
63. Dickens’ works are characterized by a mingling of humor and pathos.
64. James Joyce is regarded as the most prominent stream-of-consciousness novel, and his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man （《一种青年艺术家旳肖像》）is a naturalistic account of the hero’s bitter experiences and his final artistic and spiritual liberation. Ulysses has become a prime example of modernism in literature and it could hardly be termed as a traditional novel, because there is no story, no plot and no action inside
65. Don Juan’s （《唐璜》拜伦）writings can be regarded as typically belonging to the school of Romantic literary.
66. Byronic hero can be described as proud, mysterious and progressive.
67. In Daniel Defoe’s novels, his sympathy for the downtrodden, unfortunate poor is shown. Robinson Crusoe is his first novel and is universally considered his masterpiece.
68. In the history of literature, Romanticism is generally regarded as the thought that designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and all experience.
69. After reading the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice, we may come to know that Mrs. Bennet is a woman of simple character and poor understanding.
70. According to D. H. Lawrence, George Eliot was the first novelist that “started putting all the actions inside”.
71. The poetic form which Browning attached to maturity and perfection is dramatic monologue.
72. The term “metaphysical poetry” is commonly used to name the work of the 17th century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne.
73. “The Vanity Fair”（名利场） is a well-known part in The Pilgrim’s Progress.
74. In The Songs and Sonnets（《歌与十四行诗》）, for which Donne is probably best known, love is the basic theme.
75. Bitter Satire is a typical feature of Swift’s （斯威夫特）writings.
76. The period of Old English literature refers to about the year 450-the year of 1066.
77. The middle of the 18th century was predominated by a newly literary form, that is the modern English novel, which gives a realistic presentation of life of the common English people.
78. The protagonist of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine is a man of cruelty and ambition.
79. In Oliver Twist（《雾都孤儿》）, Charles criticizes dehumanizing of workhouse system.
80. Henry IV by Shakespeare is history play.
81. William Wordsworth is regarded as a “worshipper of nature”.
82. Charles’ works include A Tale of Two Cities, Hard Times and Oliver Twist.
83. Richard Brinsley Sheridan was the only important English dramatist of the eighteenth century. In his plays, morality is the constant theme. The School for Scandal is his masterpiece.
84. The sentences, “This fair is no new-erected business, but a thing of ancient standing; I will show you the original of it”, are taken from The Vanity Fair.
85. Charles Dickens’ serious intention is to expose and criticize all the poverty, injustice, hypocrisy and corruptness he sees all around him. The later works such as A Tale of Two Cities, show his development towards a highly conscious artist of the modern type.
86. In his novel Robinson Crusoe, Defoe eulogizes the hero of the hard-working people.
87. The 18th century England is known as the Enlightenment in the history.
88. George Bernard Shaw’s career as a dramatist began in 1892, when his first play Widowers’ Houses （《鳏夫旳房产》）was put on by the Independent Theater Society. He began his literary career by writing novels soon after his settling down in London. His plays can be termed as problem plays.
89. In Hardy’s “Wessex” novels, there is an apparent nostalgic touch in his description of the simple and beautiful though primitive rural life.
90. In Leda and the Swan by William Butler Yeats we can find the allusion to Helen and the Trojan Way.
91. The Waste Land （《荒原》）by T. S. Eliot （艾略特）is hailed as a landmark and a model of the 20th century English poetry.

Section Two American Literature
1. In American literature, the eighteenth century was the age of the Enlightenment. Rationalism was the dominant spirit.
2. “God help them that help themselves” is found in Franklin’s work.
3. Franklin was a scientist and a master of diplomacy. He instructed his countrymen as a printer.
4. Declaration of Independence stirred the world and helped form the American republic.
5. Common Sense, The American Crisis and The Rights of Man are connected with Thomas Paine.
6. “These are the times that try men’s souls”, these words were once read to Washington’s troops and did much to spur excitement to further action with hope and confidence. Their author is Thomas Paine.
7. Philip Freneau （弗雷诺）was a satirist, a pamphleteer and a poet. He wrote The Wild Honey Suckle（《野金银花》）. He was considered as the “Poet of American Revolution”.
8. At the Reason and Revolution Period, Americans were influenced by the European movement called the Enlightenment Movement.
9. Hawthorne （霍桑）is a great allegorist and a master of symbolism. One source of evil that he is concerned most is over-reaching intellect.
10. In Walt Whitman’s There was a Child Went Forth（《有一种孩子向前走去》）, the child refers to the young Americ