英美文学期末复习

2021年1月25日发(作者：剖面图英文)
第一课

1.
这段时间的历史背景：

（
1
）
The early inhabitants on the island we now called England were
Britons
(a tribe of
Celts
).

（
2
）三次主要的侵略：

a.
The Roman Conquest
.(In 55 B. C., Britain was invaded by the Roman general Julius Caesar. In
410,
the
Romans
abandoned
the
island,
which
marks
the
end
of
“
Roman
Conquest
”
(55
B.
C.
—
410 A. D.)
b.
the English (Anglo-Saxons) Conquest

around 449. (England was invaded by three Germanic
(
Teutonic)
tribes:
the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes
, who came from the Northeast of Europe.
The Anglo-Saxon invaders established some small kingdoms in Britain which by the 7th century
were combined into a United Kingdom called England (the land of Angles). Its people were called
the
English.
The
three
dialects
spoken
by
them
naturally
grew
into
a
single
language
called
Anglo-Saxon
, or
Old English.
古英语到
Norman Conquest
结束，
it is the ancestor of the Modern
English)


c.
the Norman Conquest
in 1066
(3) The Anglo- Saxon period witnessed a transition from a tribal society to feudalism.
2.
术语：

（
1
）
epic
：
It’s a long
narrative poem celebrating the great deeds of one or more legendary heroes,
majestic in theme and style.

（史诗的例子：
Homer’s Epics:

Iliad and Odyssey
）

（
2
）
Alliteration (
头韵
)

The repetition of similar sounds, usually consonant or consonant clusters, in a group
of words.
Sometimes the term is limited to the repetition of initial consonant sounds.
(When alliteration
occurs at the beginning of words, it is called
initial alliteration
; when it occurs within words, it is
called
internal
or
hidden alliteration
. It usually occurs on stressed syllables.)


3.
这一时期的文学：

（
1
）
The literature of this period falls naturally into two divisions---
pagan and Christian
.
Two major genres:
poetry and prose

（
2
）
the
pagan
represented by
Beowulf

and the Christian poetry represented by the works of
Caedmon and Cynewulf
（
Caedmon is the first known religious poet of England. He is known as
the father of English wrote a poetic
Paraphrase
of the Bible
）

（
3
）
Anglo-Saxon literature, or the Old English literature is almost exclusively a
verse literature in
oral form
. It could be passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation.
4.
关于
Beowulf

的一些信息：

（
1
）
The Song of Beowulf
is the oldest poem in the English language, and also the oldest surviving
epic in the English language. The poem consists of 3182 lines. It is
considered as the highest
achievement
of
Old
English
literature
and
the
earliest
European
vernacular
(using
the
native
language
of
a
region,
especially
as
distinct
from
the
literary
language)
epic.
It
has
achieved
national epic status
in Britain.
(2).
It
tells
the
story
of
the
Scandinavian

hero
Beowulf,
,
who
gains
fame
as
a
young
man
by
vanquishing the monster
Grendel
and Grendel's mother; later, as an aging king, he kills a dragon
but dies soon after, honored and lamented.
(3). The whole epic is to be divide into two parts with an interpolation (
添写
;
插补
) between the
two.
The
whole
song
is
pagan
in
spirit
and
matter
,
while
the
interpolation
is
obviously
an

addition made by the Christian who copied the song.(
因此带有一点基督教的特点
)
（
4
）
.
The Song of Beowulf
的一些
重要的特点
：

a. The use of
alliteration
is one of its most striking features.
b. The use of compound-words (kennings
隐喻表达法
) to serve as
metaphors
.
c. The use of
understatements
.
(5).
The Song of Beowulf
的主题或意义：



Thematically,
the
poem
presents
a
vivid
picture
of
how
the
primitive
people
wage
struggles
against the hostile forces of the natural world under a wise and mighty leader.

第二课

1.
历史背景：

（
1
）
Norman Conquest
的定义

：
The French-speaking Normans under
Duke William
came in
1066.
After
defeating
the
English
at
Hastings
,
William was
crowned
as
King
of
England.
It
was
called the Norman Conquest.
（
Duke William
也被称作
William the Conqueror
征服者威廉
）

（
2
）
The Norman Conquest marks the
establishment of feudalism
in England.
（
3
）
Norman Conquest
的影响：

The three chief effects of the conquest
were
：

(a) the bringing of Roman civilization to England;
(b) the growth of nationality, i.e. a strong centralized government, instead of the loose union of
Saxon tribes;

(c) the new language and literature, which were proclaimed in Chaucer.
注：语言方面的变化
----Great
changes
took
place
in
languages:
after
the
conquest,
three
languages co-existed in England. The Normans spoke
French
, the lower class spoke
English
, and
the scholars and clergymen used
Latin
.
（
There almost no written literature in English for a time.
Romances
,
the
prominent
kind
of
literature
in
the
Anglo-Norman
Period,
were
at
first
all
in
French.
）

（
4
）在这一段历史时期内的重要事件：
Important historical events


a.
the Hundred Years’ War (1337
-1453)

b. the Black Death (1348-49/
50)

c. the Rising of 1381
2.
术语
:
(1).Romance: it is the literature for the upper class, which is a long composition in the narrative
verse
or
prose
form,
describing
the
life
and
adventures
of
a
noble
hero.
It
generally
concerns
knights and involves a large amount of fighting as well as a number of miscellaneous (
各种各样
的
)adventures.
Features of a Romance

a. in the narrative verse or prose form;
b. central character: knight
c. subjects: knightly adventures; chivalry

loyalty; faith; courtesy; …
courtly love;
d. Romances had a lot to do with the noble, but nothing with the common folks;
(2).

Legend

(
民间传说
):
A
song
or
narrative
handed
down
from
the
past.
Legends
differ
from
myths on the basis of the elements of historical truth they contain.

3. The prevailing form of literature in the feudal England was the Romance.
Romance (
罗曼司
;
骑士传奇
)
was a type of literature that was very popular in the Middle Ages. From France it was