吴伟仁的英国文学史及选读.doc

History and Anthology of English Literature
Part One The Anglo-Saxon Period
Beowulf
Questions:
1. The earliest literature falls into two divisions ___________, and_______________.
2. Christianity brings England not only __________ and___________but also the wealth of a new language.
3. Who is Beowulf? And What is Beowulf?
4. How did Beowulf come into being?
5. Who is Grendel? And what is the result of Grendel’s fight with Beowulf?
6. How did the Jutes hold the funeral for him?

Key points of this part:
The most important work of old English literature is Beowulf------- the national epic of the English people. It is of Germanic heritage, perhaps the greatest Germanic epic and contains evidently pre-Christian elements existing at first in an oral tradition, the poem was passed from mouth to mouth for generations before it was written down. The manuscript preserved today was written in the Wessex tongue about 1000A.D., consisting altogether of 3183 lines.
There are three episodes related to the career of Beowulf:
1. the fight with the monster, Grendel.
2. The fight with Grendel’s mother, a still more frightful she-monster.
3. The moral combat with the fire Dragon.

The significance lies in the vivid portrayal of a great national hero, who is brave, courageous, selfless, and ever helpful to his people.

There are three important features::
1. Alliteration (words beginning with the same consonant sound). This is characteristic of all old English verse.
2. Metaphors and understatements. There are many compound words used in the poem to serve as indirect metaphors that are sometimes very picturesque. , e.g. “riging-giver” is used for King; “hearth-companions “for his attendant warriors; “Whale’s road” for the sea; “spear-fighter” for soldier etc. And as understatement we can see: “not troublesome” for welcome; “need not praise” for a right to condemn. This quality is often regarded as characteristic of the English people and their language.
3. Mixture of pagan and Christian elements: the observing of omen, cremation, blood-revenge, and the praise of worldly glory.
All these woven into the poem.

Part Two The Anglo-Norman Period (1066---1350)
Questions:
1. When and led by whom did England begin to receive French civilization and language?
2. What are the chief features of the literature in this period?
3. What are the three types of the stories in this period?
4. Who is the green knight? Why did he cut Gawain three times and why did Gawain feel shame?
5. Did Gawain win the game of exchanging blows?
6. Why did the green knight offer the green girdle as a free gift to Gawain finally?

Medieval Literature Anglo-Norman Period

There are a few occurrences of historic events that should be kept in mind:
1) The Establishment of the Feudal System
2) The 1381 peasant Uprising------Watt Tyler of Kent: 100000 people marched on London, destroyed manor-houses, burnt court paper--- records of their bondage and demanded the abolition of serf slavery and a general pardon.
3) The Launching of the Crusades: a series of wars between Christians and Muslims that lasted for 170 years.
4) The Signing of the Magna Carter in 1215 by which King John was forced to recognize the rights of the powerful barons.
5) The War with France or the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
One important story in the Arthurian legend has been refined in detail in a famous medieval poem. Little is know about its author except he was a contemporary of Chaucer and probably a Christian priest. The poem was composed towards the end of the 14th century (about 1375) as an evident effort to extol Sir Gawain and his knightly virtues of loyalty, valor, rectitude, and integrity. Sir Gawain is an upright knight, ever ready to uphold the ideals of King Arthur’s court. One Christmas, as the story goes, a knight all in green appears at court and challenges the king to cut off his head on the condition that he comes to meet him in one year’s time. Sir Gawain stands out for his lord and beheads the weird visitor. The Green Knight takes up his head and leaves. When the appointed time comes, Sir Gawain sets off to meet him. He comes to a castle and is well received by its lord and lady. The lord invites Sir Gawain to go hunting with him, but the knight prefers to stay at home. The two agree to share in the evening whatever they may have won during the day. This goes on for three days. On the first day the lord of the castle hunts for a deer, while Sir Gawain is under the lady’s siege to kiss her. The lord is happy to give half of his trophy in the evening to Sir Gawain in return for his brief kiss on his cheek. The second day ends with the lord giving half a boar for another brief kiss. When the third evening comes, the lord gets three kisses for half of his fox’s skin, Sir Gawain having withheld the girdle that the lady has forced on him for his safety. Then the day comes to meet the Green Knight, who turns out to be the lord of the castle. Sir Gawain shrinks a little but soon recovers his valor to face the blow. But the Green Knight only cuts a scratch on his neck, saying that he would not even have done that to him had he shared the girdle with him in honesty. They become good friends. Sir Gawain goes back to the king’s court.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a 4-part work of 2,530 lines in 101 sections. Part one(11.1-490) deals with the beheading; part two(11.491-1125)tells of the long and arduous trip Gawain makes to the castle; part three(11.1126-1996) relates the three days he spends in a bargain with the lord; and part four(11.1997-2530) wraps up his trip with his final encounter with the Green Knight and the anti-climatic revelation of the moral of the story. In structural terms the narrative is well conceived and neatly knit into an organic unity. The different parts and sections interlock and the threads are pulled together to offer a sense of finality. There is also a fine psychological element that enriches the plot and adds to the characterization. Sir Gawain is not presented as a rigid heroic type but as a human being with his worries and fears. The description of the change of seasons appears in a long portion of the second part of the poem, serves in fact as a means of externalizing the complex inner world of the man going to his death. In addition, Sir Gawain’s hiding of the girdle, which the lady says can protect him form harm, is a nice tour de force to throw the man’s fear into relief. There is then the three days’ bargaining, which reveals the nature of the temptations that put Sir Gawain’s integrity into a strenuous test—the lady’s progressive advances to him. To the intensity of the lady’s offensive, the hunting serves as an apt foil—deer (timidity). The boar (the wild and aggressive), and the fox (the cunning).
The characterization of Sir Gawain is very interesting to note. His portrait is vivid and fully rounded. There is in him a stranger medley of conflicting qualities that makes him perfectly human. Alongside the best of all human virtues, there is also an indication of traits not altogether admirable. He hesitates in face of possible danger as Roland in Chanson de Roland does not. He meditates as Roland does not. He is just a little short of an ideal hero. The effect of allowing readers to see all the aspects of his personality is achieved by a subtly imbedded irony, a good-natured satirical edge, against chivalry.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight shares quite a few basic features with Old English poems like Beowulf. In line structure and the use of devices such as alliteration, it is notably similar. As it was written in the north Midland dialect, it is less approachable than Chaucer’s London dialect. Usually, a modern translation is dispensable.

Part III
GeoffreyChaucer (1340----1400)

Warming-up activity for pre-reading
I. Fill in the blanks:
1. Geoffrey Chaucer, the “________” and one of the greatest narrative poets of England, was born in London in about 1340.
2. Chaucer’s masterpiece is ___, one of the most famous works in all literature.
3. The ________ provides a frame work for the tales in The Canterbury Tales , and it comprises group of vivid pictures of various medieval figures.
4. Chaucer created in The Canterbury Tales a strikingly brilliant and picturesque panorama of ______.
5. The Canterbury Tales opens with a general “Prologue” where we are told of a company of pilgrims that gathered at ____Inn in Southwark, a suburb of London.
6. Despite the enormous plan, The Canterbury Tales in fact contains a general “Prologue” and only ____ tales, of which two are left unfinished.
II. Choose the best answer:
1. Who is the “ father of English poetry” and one of the greatest narrative poets of England?
a) Christopher Marlow b) Geoffrey Chaucer c) W. Shakespeare
2. When he died, Chaucer was buried in ____the Poet’s Corner
a) Westminster Abbey b) Normandy c) Canterbury
III. Question for consideration:
1. What is the social significance of The Canterbury Tales?

The English which was used from about 1100---1500 is called Middle English, and the greatest poet of the time was Geoffrey Chaucer.
Geoffrey Chaucer is the greatest writer of the middle ages. Although he was born a commoner, a merchant family, he did not live as a commoner; and although he was accepted by the aristocracy, he must always have been conscious of the fact that he did not really belong to that society of which birth alone could make one a true member. Chaucer characteristically regarded life in terms of aristocratic ideals, but he never lost the ability of regarding life as a purely practical matter. The art of being at once involved in and detached from a given situation is peculiarly Chaucer’s.
The influence of Renaissance was already felt in the field of English literature when Chaucer was learning from the great Italian writers like Petrarch and Boccaccio in the last part of the 14th century. Chaucer affirmed man’s right to pursue earthly happiness and opposed asceticism; he praised man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life; he expose and satirized the social vices, including religious abuses. It thus can be said the though essentially still a medieval writer, Chaucer bore ；[
‘；marks of humanism and participated a new era to come.
From his birth to his death, Chaucer dealt continually with all sorts of people, the highest and the lowest, and his observant mind made the most of this ever-present opportunity. His wide range of reading gave him plots and ideas, but his experience gave him models of characters. In his works, Chaucer explores the theme of the individual’s relation to the society in which he lives; he portrays clashes of characters’ temperaments and their conflicts over material interests, he also shows the comic and ironic effects obtainable from the class distinctions felt by the newly emerged bourgeoisie as in the case of the Wife of Bath who is depicted as the new bourgeois wife asserting her independence. In short, Chaucer develops his characterization to a higher artistic level by presenting characters with both typical qualities and individual disposition.
Chaucer dominated the works of his 15th-century English followers and the so-called Scottish Chaucerians For the Renaissance, he was the English Homer. Edmund Spenser paid tribute to him as his master; many Shakespeare’s plays show thorough assimilation as Chaucer’s comic spirit. Today, Chaucer’ reputation has been securely established as one of the best English poets for his wisdom, humor, and humanity.
The Canterbury Tales total altogether about 17000 lines, about half of Chaucer’s literary production
Chaucer’s best-known work The Canterbury Tales was written in the last 14 years of the poet’s life. According to his original plan, the poem was to be a collection of something like a hundred and twenty tales, but it was not completed upon his death, and contains ,as we have it now, a general Prologue and only twenty-four tales, of which two are left unfinished. The poem as a whole gives a vivid and comprehensive picture of the social conditions of fourteenth-century England.
The general Prologue, serves as a general introduction to the collection of tales. It first tells how the poet, preparing to go on a pilgrimage shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, meets at the Tabard Inn in a London suburb twenty-nine other pilgrims bent on the same mission. Then he gives leisurely descriptions of the pilgrims one after another, revealing not only their outward appearances and professions but also their ways of life and their diverse tastes and humors. At the close of the Prologue, the host of the inn suggests to the pilgrims to entertain themselves on the journey to and from Canterbury by telling stories to one another, and the suggestion being accepted by all, the host offers to accompany them on their pilgrimage. Then the next day, after the drawing of lots the knight is the first of the pilgrims to tell a story. The twenty-nine pilgrims, representing almost all the classes and social groups of the poet’s day ( with the only exceptions of the royalty and top nobility and the poorest laboring folk), are portrayed very effectively by the poet with much humor and satire.

Part IV. The Renaissance of English literature

Supplemental material for the Renaissance
The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. Generally, it refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries. It first started in Italy, with the flowering of painting, sculpture and literature. From Italy the movement went to embrace the rest of Europe. The Renaissance, which means rebirth or revival, is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the recovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation and the economic expansion. The Renaissance, therefore, in essence, is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. English Renaissance is perhaps England’s Golden Age, especially in literature. Among the literary giants were Shakespeare, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlow, Bacon and John Donne.
Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique authors and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on such a conception that man is the measure of