英国文学史课件.ppt

Major Barbara (1905); Pygmalion (1921); Heartbreak House (1917); The Apple Cart (1930),etc.; c. features of his plays structurally and thematically, Shaw followed the great traditions of realism. His plays about political, economic, moral, or religious problems can be termed as “problem plays”. His plays have only one passion, that is, “indignation” which is against oppression, exploitation, hypocrisy, lying, slavery, prostitution, poverty, and disorder; he prefers to portray the characters with different opinions in sharp contrast; the theory of “Life Force”, which means the power that would create superior beings to be equal to God and to solve all the social, moral, and metaphysical problems of human society; the use of “inversion” to achieve ironic effect; his satire and witty language; Shaw is generally regarded as the best dramatist since Shakespeare in English literature. 4. William Butler Yeats(1865-1939) a. his life born into an Anglo-Irish Protestant family in Dublin; his childhood were spent between Dublin, London and Sligo, and these three places exerted great influence upon his literary career; met Lady Gregory, organized the Irish National Dramatic Society, and opened the Abby Theater; his mystical belief of cyclical history: he believed that history and life followed a circular, spiral pattern consisting of long cycles which repeated themselves over on different levels. Symbols like “winding stairs”, “spinning tops”, “gyres” and “spirals” etc. become the central core in his poems; the marriage of Maud Gonne in 1903 marked an important change in his life and career awarded the Noble Prize for literature in 1923; b. the three periods of his poetic creation began his poetic creation in romantic tradition: major themes: Celtic legends, local folktales, stories of t