BeowulfEnglish literature began with the Anglo-Saxon settlement in England.Beowulf is the national epic of the English people.Beowulf is a folk legend brought to England by Anglo-Saxons from their continental homes.Its main stories are evidently folk legends of primative Northern tribes.The most striking feature of Beowulf is the use of alliteration（头韵）.In alliterative verse,certain accented word in a line begin with the same consonant sound,there are generally 4 accents in a line,three of which show alliteration.Other features are the use of metaphors and of understatements(掩饰). ―Ring-giver‖ is used for king, ―sea-wood‖for ship.Ironical humour is often regarded as a permanentcharacteristic of English.Chaucer (About 1340-1400.)His literature career can be divided into three periods:French Period (The Romaunt of the Rose) ,Italian Period,England period.Troilus and Criseyde is his longest complete poem(8000 lines) and his greatest artistic achievement.The Canterbury Tales is Chaucer’s masterpiece and one of the monumental works in English literature.Taking the stand of the rising bourgeoisie,he affi rms men and women’s right to pursue their happiness on earth and opposes the dogma of asceticism(禁欲主义) preached by the church.As a forerunner of humanism,he praises man’s energy,intellect,quick wit and love of life.Chaucer’s language,called Middle English,is vivid and exact.Contribution to English poetry lies chiefly in the fact that he introduced from France the rhymed stanza of various types,especially the rhymed couplet(双韵诗体)of 5 accents in iambic(抑扬格) meter(the heroic couplet)to English poetry,instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.Marlowe(1564-1593)<Tamburlaine> <The Jew of Malta> <Doctor Faustus>1.these plays show the spirit of the rising bourgeoisie.2.the theme of the plays is the praise of individuality freed from the restraintsof medieval dogmas and law,and the conviction of the boundless possiblity of human efforts in conquering the universe.3.the heroes in his plays are merely individualists.He was the greatest of the pioneers of English drama.He is the father of drama and tragedy.Shakespeare(1564-1616)The first period(1590-1594) the apprenticeship partThe second period(1595-1600)the historical part. His sonnets written in this period. The sonnet is a poem in 14lines with one or the other rhyme scheme,a form much in vogue in Renaissance Europe,especially in Italy,France and England.In 1609 appeared.The third period(1601-1607)the tragedy part <Hamlet> <kinglear><Mecbeth><Othello>The forth peorid(1608-1612)the comedt and tragedy part<Venus and Adonis> narrative 1593 his first published poem.Feature:1.he is one of the founders of realism in world literature.2.his dramatic creation often used the method of adoptation.3.His long experience with the stage and his intimate knowledge of dramatic art thus acquired make him a master hand for playwriting.4.he is skilled in many poetic forms.5.he was a great master of the English language.Milton(1608-1674)Early poems:<On the morning of Christ’s Nativity><L’Allegro> and <II Penseroso>. His work as the spokesman of the revolution.<Pa radise Lost>is Milton’s masterpiece.12 books,written in blank verse.ton was political in both life and his art.2.He wrote the greatest epic in English literature.3.he is a master of blank verse.He first used blank verse in non-dramatic works.4.he is a great stylist.5.he has always been admired for his sublimity of thought and majesty of expression.The Enlightenment and classicism in English LiteratureEnlightenment The eighteenth-century England is also known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive movement which flourished in France and swept through the whole Western Europe at the time.The Enlightenment was an expression of struggle of the then progressive class of bourgeoisie against feudalism. The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas.The enlighteners fought against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. The enlighteners celebrated reason or rationality, equality and science. They heldthat rationality or reason should be the only, the final cause of any human thought and activities. They called for a reference to order, reason and rules.Famous among the great enlighteners in England were those great writers are:Alexander Pope Joseph Addison Sir Richard Steele Jonathan SwiftSamuel Richardson Daniel Defoe Henry Fielding Samuel JohnsonClassicism Addison,Steele and Pope belonged to the school of classism.Rimed couplet（偶句诗）instead of blank verse,the three unitiesof time,place and action,regularity in construction,and the presentation of types rather than individuals。