英美文学

5）The major novelists of the English Romantic Period are Jane Austen and Walter Scott.

VII. The Victorian Period(这一章着重于小说，注意小说的主题是什么，主角是谁，主角的人物分析) 1.Characteristics of this age: 1) an age of prose

Since the wide spread of education, the number of readers has increased and it is the age of newspapers, magazines, and modern novels.

Newspapers, magazines are about the world’s daily life, and novels are the most pleasant form of literature entertainment, as well as the most successful method of presenting modern problems and modern ideals.

2) an age emphasized the moral purpose

The prose seems to depart from the purely artistic standard of art for art’s sake and to be actuated by a definite moral purpose, and the novel seems to sweep away error and to reveal the underlying truth of human life. So Victorian Age is emphatically an age of realism rather than of romance, which strives to tell the whole truth, showing moral and physical diseases as they are, and holding up health and hope as the normal conditions of humanity.

3) an age of doubt and pessimism

Because the scientific discovery and especially the Evolution give people a new conception of man and of the universe, it is customary to speak of this age as an age of doubt and pessimism.

Charles Dickens: He is one of the greatest critical realist writers of the Victorian Age.

The theme of his novels

He has a serious intention to expose and criticize all the poverty, injustice, hypocrisy and corruptness he sees all around him. In his work, he attempts to call people’s attention to the existing social problem and thus bring about some reform

or amelioration.P293

Oliver Twist: In this noval,Dickens gives a truthful presentation of the sufferance of the poor,and makes a complete exposure of the terrible conditions in the English workhouse of the time and the brutality and corruption of the oppressors under the mask of philanthropy.

1) The Brontes

Charlotte wrote The Professor and Jane Eyre, Anne wrote Agnes Grey., and Emily wrote Wuthering Heights.

The analysis of Eyre:

Eyre herself is Charlotte, little, long-suffering, shy, repressed, a smouldering volcano of passion beneath. This heroin represent the middle-class working woman who are struggling for recognition of their basic rights and equality as a human being, moreover, Jane maintains that woman should have equal rights with woman. The novel severely criticized the limited options open to educated but impoverished women, and the idea that women \and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.\Jane's passionate desire for a wider life, her need to be loved, and her rebellious questioning of conventions, also reflected Charlotte's own dreams. Jane is an \Duckling\who fulfills all the teenage romantic dreams of passion that breaks all obstacles.

VII．The 20th Century Literature

1. The major changes in attitude and technique in the modern novel:

1）The public values of the Victorian novel gave way to more personally conceived notions of value, dependent on the novelist own intuitions and sensibilities rather than on public agreement.

2）Time was no longer a series of chronological moments to be presented by continuous flow in the consciousness of the individual, with a retrospect merging into anticipation.

3）“Stream-of-consciousness” became a important new technique of the English novel.

4）The theme of modern novels

The theme of modern fiction is the possibility of love, the establishment of a emotional communication in a community of private consciousness. 2．Thomas Hardy

Living at the turn of the century, Hardy is often regarded as a transitional writer. In him we see the influence from both the past and the modern. As some people put it, he is intellectually advanced and emotionally tradition. Novels

Under the Greenwood Tree (<<绿林荫下>>) 1872 Far from the Madding Crowd (远离尘嚣>>) 1874 The Return of the Native (<<还乡>>) 1878 The Mayor of Casterbridge (<<卡斯特桥市长>>) 1886 Tess of the D’Urbervilles (<<德伯家的苔丝>>) 1891 Jude the Obscure (<<无名的裘德>>) 1895 1. D.H.Lawrence 1) .Main Works Sons and Lovers Rainbow Women in Love Lady Chatterlay’s Lover

2) Sons and LoversSons and Lovers ( an autobiographical novel) 例题：Make an analyse of the theme of D.H.Lawrence’s work, and an analyse of Paul, the hero of “Sons and Lovers”.

The theme of Hardy’s novels:

He believes that life impulse is the primacy of man’s instinct, and that any

conscious repression of such an impulse will cause distortion or perversion of the individual’s personality. In his novels, he traces the psychological development of his characters and criticizes the dehumanizing effect of the capitalist industrialization on human nature. He claims in his novel that the alienation of the human relationships and the perversion of human nature in the modern society were caused by the whole capitalist mechanical civilization, which turned men into inhuman machines.

An analyse of Paul

Paul is always under the strong influence of his mother in affections, aspiration and mental habits, and sees his father with his mother’s eyes. He depends heavily on his mother’s love which help to make sense of the world around him. In order to becomes an independent man and a true artist he has to make his own decisions about his life and work, and has to struggle to become free from his mother’s influence. However, he is incapable of escaping the overpowering emotional bond imposed by his mother’s love, so he fails to achieve a fulfilling relationship with girls. Finally, Paul determined to face the unknown future.

第二部分 美国文学

一、课程简介：

《美国文学》是英语专业在高年级开设的一门课程，包括美国文学简史与作家，作品介绍。史的部分在课程中做了简要的概述，作家作品部分有：作家的详细介绍；作品的内容提要；重点文选；注释。在教学中以讲授作品，作家介绍为主。

本课程的目的在与要学生掌握美国文学的基本主流，主要的文学流派，文学作品，以及各时期的代表人物及作品。

二、课程重点章节简介：