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1、英国文学期末一.The contributions of Geoffrey Chaucer.1.The first to present a comprehensive and realistic picture of the English society of his time and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all works of life in his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales.2.Introduced from France the rhymed stanzas of
2、various types to replace the Old English alliterative verse the first to use heroic couplet.3.Contributed to the establishment of English as the literary language of England, based on London dialect. He raised the language to the higher literary level by writing with a polish and ease.二.The feature
3、of humanism.1.It believed that man is the measure of all things, it stands for devotion to the humane values represented in classical literature.2.Against the medieval feudal value and blind faith in after-life, the humanists believed in mans capability of self perfection and emphasized the importan
4、ce of personal worth and the joy of the present life.三.The character of Shylock.1.Shylocks demand for a pound of flesh has made him one of literatures most memorable villains, but many readers and play gores have found him a powerful and sympathetic figure.Shakespeare makes him seem more human by sh
5、owing that his hatred is born of the mistreatment he has suffered in a christian society.2.At the same time, when the Merchant of Venice was created, anti-semitism prevailed in England.Traits of the stereotyped Jews:greedy, miserly, cruel, full of hatred and revenge, devoid of gentility and interest
6、s in music and poetry.3.In a word,he is a Jews usurer,mean, greedy,cunning,cruel,vengeful,merciless,a,sophist,but also a victim of racial discrimination and religious persecution.四.Metaphysical conceit.A conceit is a figure of speech which makes an unusual and sometimes elaborately sustained compari
7、son between two dissimilar things.五.Features of Neoclassicism.1.Reason emphasized: it is inartistic to show unrestrained emotion in lit,reason,order,regularity are admired rather than fancy and imagination.2.Form is stressed rather than content: craftsmanship, balance,proportion,harmony,grace,poetic
8、 diction; what oft was thought, but never so well expressed.(pope)3.Didactic and satirical: writer had the duty to educate as well as entertain people, satire being an effective means of correcting peoples folly and weakness.4.City life and man-made object preferred: city life gives a sense of order
9、 while rural wild life, natural landscape were coarse, chaotic and disorderly.六.The character of Robinson Crusoe.A real hero, a typical 18th century English middle class man, with a great capacity for work, inexhaustible energy, courage, patience and persistence in overcoming obstacles, in strugglin
10、g against hostile natural environment and also against human fate.七.Gullivers Travels.1.Four travels: a. Lilliput (6-inch high people):An allegory of English politics in the early 18th century when the Whigs and Tories were fighting bitterly for the control of the country.Exposure of the corruption,
11、political and religious strife and social vices.b.Brobdingnag,a mock utopia. The inhabitants of the country are gentle and peace,loving and ruled by a fair and merciful king; Gulliver,in contrast,seems petty,vindictive and cruel;The giants are superior the human beings both in wisdom and in humanity
12、.c.The kingdom of Laputa, a flying island and its colonies;the so called philosophers and scientists engrossed in abstract speculation and useless experiments;containing criticism of the malpractices and false illusions about science,philosophy,history and immortality in early 18th C.d.The land of t
13、he Houyhnms,the horse are governed totally by reason and created a society perfectly ordered and peaceful the Yahoos are greedy,envious,cruel and disgusting bruts.The Yahoos represent the worst traits in human nature,and the lowest level to which man might sink.2.The significance of this book.Gulliv
14、ers Travel is a biting satire,both humorous and critical,attacking British and European society through its description of imaginary countries.As a whole,the book is one of the most effective and devastating satires of all aspects in the English and European life.socially,politically,religiously, ph
15、ilosophical scientifically and morally.Caused critical controversy,often mistaken for a misanthropist.八.The significance of Tom Jones.The novel is admirable for the panoramic view of the 18th C English society;about 40 characters are portrayed from nearly all classes of society;the setting is wide-r
16、anging and varied, shifting from the country to the city.The superb plot contruction; 18 books equally divided into 3 sections,clearly marked out by the change of scenes; classical effect of balance.九.The features of Romanticism.1.A strong reaction and protest against the bondage of rules and conventions;favored innovations in subject and form.2.Turned the nature,particularly the rural,wild landscape, for its poetic imagery and subject matter.3.Admired passion and im
