Part I The Middle AgeChapter 1 the Anglo-Saxon period (449-1066)1. Beowulf（贝奥武甫）: England’s national epic.（第一部民族史诗）2. artistic feature: ① using alliteration② using metaphor and understatementChapter 3 Geoffrey Chaucer (ca1343-1400)1.Geoffrey Chaucer is the father of English poetry and one of the most greatest narrative（叙事）poets of England.2.首创双韵体. tonico-syllabic verse. 运用London dialect.3. writing style: wisdom, humor, humanity.4.代表作：The Canterbury Tales-----In this book, Chaucer created a strikingly brilliant and picturesque panorama of his time and his country. In this poem Chaucer’s realism, trenchant irony and freedom of views reached such a high level of power that it had no equal in all the English literature up to the 16th century. But Chaucer was not entirely devoid of medieval prejudices. [乔叟为他那个时代和国家勾勒出一幅生机勃勃而又充满诗情画意的社会百态图。

在他的这部现实主义诗歌中，他将自己的讽刺艺术和宽广视野展现的淋漓尽致，使该作品在16世纪前的英国独树一帜。

但是没能脱离中世纪的偏见。

Part II The Renaissance（文艺复兴）1.时期：during the 16th century（1550---1642）2.国家：Greek and Roman. Also England in drama.3.定义：The term Renaissance originally indicated a revival of classical arts and science after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism.4.类型：drama and canto（诗章）.5.key work: ① humanism --- admire human beauty and human achievement.②Thomas More--- Utopia in 1516.③Francis Bacon--- the great English scientist and philosopher.④ Christopher Marlowe--- the greatest of the pioneers of English drama⑤ Edmund Spenser(埃德蒙·斯宾塞)----The Faerie Queene（仙后）Chapter 5 William Shakespeare (1564-1616)1. He is the greatest of English authors, the world’s pre-eminent dramatist.2. One of the first founder s of realism.3. A master hand at realistic portrayal of human characters and relations.4.四大悲剧: ①Hamlet②Othello③King Lear④The Tragedy of Macbeth.5.创作阶段: ①comedy:1590-1600②tragedy:1601-1608③tragicomedies:1609-161222年写了37plays,2 narrative poems,154sonnets.6. Hamlet: It is the profoundest expression of Shakespeare’s humanism and criticism of contemporary world.The character of Hamlet. 1. A humanist, free from prejudices and superstitions. Loving the world instead of the heaven. 2. Treat people with love. Disgusted w ith uncle’s drunkenness. Shocked by mother’s shallowness. 3. Intellectual genius. Close observer. “ Denmark is a prison”. 4. The melancholy of Hamlet—the key note of Hamlet’s character. He is too sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger.Contrast is an important structural principle in Hamlet. Shakespeare’s plays are generallywell-organized, with harmony and order disbalanced at the beginning, social conflicts sharpened in the middle and harmony and order restored at the end. Themes: Hypocrisy, treachery of the royal court and of the society as a whole. Revenge theme (Justice by violence) Lack of faith v. love The doom of ambition The tragedy of Hamlet: An individual v. mighty evil force of the whole society7. The merchant of Venice is not tragedy.8. sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee(你) to a summer’s day?①1-4起，5-8承，9-12转，13-14合.②simile, rhetoric question, alliteration, personification, couplet(对偶).③The message is that in this world no beauty (in Nature) can stay except poetry or art; and your beauty can only last if I write it down in my poetry. Also notice the love play. Apparently the poe t is addressing a man of his heart, the wooing sounds more like a game play than anything real and sincere. The love here is too conditional to be genuine.④Structure: Proposal (line1-2) Argument (line3-12) Conclusion (line13-14)Chapter 6 Francis Bacon---essayist1. Bacon’s works may be divided into three classes. The most important are the Essays.①the philosophical---the advancement of learning②the literary---essays③the professional works---maxims of the law and reading on the statute of uses.2. The essays of Bacon are so highly esteemed.3. ”Great Place”is the Bacon’s worldly—wise philosophy.4. Of Studies’ main idea: ①the text is that of 1;.652 editions.②uses and benefits of study and different ways adopted by differentpeople to pursue studies.5. writing style: brevity, compactness, powerfulness, well-arranged.Part III The period of Revolution and Restoration（资产阶级革命与王政复辟）1.The 17th century was one of the most tempestuous(动荡)periods in England.2.文学特点：①The Puritan Age was one of confusion, due to breaking up of old ideas.② In the absence of any fixed standard of literary criticism there was nothing toprevent the exaggeration of the “metaphysical” poets(玄学派)。