英国文学选读知识总结

something scary and different. Line 9: This metaphor calls Death a \kings, and desperate men.\ Line 10: Although it?s not as obvious as in other parts of the poem, we think “poison, war, and sickness” are personified as thugs(暴徒), and the friends of Death.Line 8.It?s a pun(双关语).To \from evil....\\into the world during birth.The comparison of death to rebirth is such a common metaphor that we rarely even think of it as a being a metaphor.

John Milton’s Life (1608-1674)Milton was born in London.He studied at Christ?s College, Cambridge and received his Master?s degree in 1632.From 1632 to 1638, he retired to his father?s country house at Horton, and devoted himself to private study.From 1638-1639, he traveled on the Continent.After his return, he first acted as a teacher.Then he began his first entry into political conflict and devoted himself to the Revolution for more than 20 years.He got married in 1624.In 1652, he became totally blind.In 1652, his first wife died, and several years later(1655), he got married again.He was put in prison in the Restoration period and then set free.He died of gout in 1674.

He is the greatest English poet after Shakespeare. His masterpiece, Paradise Lost, is considered unsurpassed among English epic poems. It is a powerfully imaginative and dramatic work, based in part on the biblical story of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Masterpieces :Areopagitica (1644) 《论出版自由》Paradise Lost (1667) 《失乐园》 Paradise Regained (1671) 《复乐园》Samson Agonistes (1671) 《力士参孙》 Paradise Lost” It is a long epic in 12 books, written in blank verse.

John Milton composed the entire work when he was completely blind, with the help of secretaries and friends. He claimed that a divine spirit inspired him during the night, leaving him with verses that he would recite in the morning.The poem concerns the Christian story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to “justify the ways of God to men and elucidate the conflict between God's eternal foresight and free will.”

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) Father of English novel

His masterpiece: “Robinson Crusoe” (1719) The novel is based upon a real story.

The character of Robinson Crusoe is representative of the English bourgeoisie at the earlier stages of its development.

English novelist and journalist, whose work reflects his diverse experiences in many countries and in many walks of life. Besides being a brilliant journalist, novelist, and social thinker, Defoe was a prolific author, producing more than 500 books, pamphlets, and tracts（尤指道德或宗教题材的小册子）.

Robinson Crusoe Captain Singleton Moll Flanders A Journal of the Plague Year Roxana Robinson Crusoe (1719)The first novel in English

The book, although based on the true story of a Scotsman, Alexander Selkirk, is a fictional autobiography of the title character, a castaway (被社会遗弃者) who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Venezuela, encountering Native Americans, captives, and mutineers (海事哗变者) before being rescued. The novel can be read in different ways: ①It is a story of sea adventures. ②It is an artistic projection of colonial expansion.③It implies the Western cultural values and sings a song of “the dignity of labor” . ④ It explores the theme of “back to nature”⑤It also shows the theme of “religious devotion”.

Politically, European colonialismSocially, western cultural values including industrialism & self-relianceReligiously, Protestantism

In the novel, the first person narrator tells the story and enables the strange events to be realistic.he description of Robinson Crusoe?s life and experience is in great detail.

The structure of the novel is clear and the language is plain and easy to be understood. Robinsonade is a literary genre that takes its name from the 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The success of this novel spawned（大量出现） enough imitations that its name was used to define a genre, which is sometimes described simply as a \

island story\

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Born in Dublin, Ireland.Educated at the the Trinity College.Worked in a relative?s house for many years.Appointed dean of Saint Patrick?s Cathedral in Dublin.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish satirist and political pamphleteer, considered one of the greatest masters of English prose and one of the most impassioned satirists of human folly and pretension.

A Tale of a Tub The Battle of the Books Bickerstaff Almanac

Gulliver?s Travels A Modest Proposal The Draper?s Letters

Swift is one of the greatest masters of English prose. His language is simple, clear and vigorous.

Swift is a master satirist, and his irony is deadly. But his satire is masked by an outward gravity, and an apparent calmness conceals his bitter irony.

William Blake(1757-1827最复杂最有个性诗人英国文学上)The son of a London hosier（零售商）.Never went to school and educated by his mother at home.poet, printer（印刷工人）, illustrator（插图画家） and engraver（版画家，雕刻家

Songs of Innocence (1789) Songs of Experience (1794) The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

Songs of Experience the song of Los Visions of the daugters of Albion

Little LambThe poem begins with the question, “Little Lamb, who made thee?” The speaker, a child, asks the lamb about its origins: how it came into being, how it acquired its particular manner of feeding, its “clothing” of wool, its “tender voice.”In the second stanza, the speaker attempts a riddling answer to his own question: the lamb was made by one who “calls himself a Lamb,” one who resembles in his gentleness both the child and the lamb. The poem ends with the child bestowing（给予，赠与） a blessing on the lamb. he poem is a child?s song, in the form of a question and answer. The first stanza is rural and descriptive, while the second focuses on abstract spiritual matters and contains explanation and analogy（类推）The child?s question is both naive and profound. The question is a simple one, and yet the child is also tapping into the deep and timeless questions that all human beings have, about their own origins and the nature of creation. This poem, like many of the Songs of Innocence, accepts what Blake saw as the more positive aspects of conventional Christian belief.

William WordsworthLife (1770-1850)Birthplace Cockermouth, Cumberland, in the Lake District. Orphanage at the age of 14.was educated at Cambridge University traveled in France and Switzerland.married Mary Hutchinson in 1802. became Poet Laureate in 1843.died of pneumonia.

“Lyrical Ballads “The Prelude” The ?Lucy Poems

Robert Burns(1759-1796) Nationality: ScottishFamily: His father was William Burns, a gardener and farmer.Education: Tutored at home.Career: poet, lyricist and farmer.

Burns is the national poet of Scotland. His songs are Scottish to the core. As a poet of the peasant, he was very good at presenting the rural theme. His peasant origin and environment especially aided him in mastering the happy simplicity, humor, directness and optimism, which are characteristics of old Scottish songs. He often revised old songs and improved them by a process of omission, condensation and addition, so that they become transformed into noble and finished masterpieces. 1794《My heart?s in the Highlands》《,A Red Red Rose》,1796《John Anderson,My Jo》,1788《Auld Lang Syne》,1794《The Tree of Liberty》