英国文学选读要点(修改).docVIP

?《英国文学选读》要点（2） -- 诗人及其作品解读 ?1. Introduction of William Shakespeare Significance 1. the greatest English poet and dramatist 2. certainly the most important playwright of the English Renaissance 3．Likely the most influential writer in all of English literature Theme of Sonnet 18 His sonnet 18 expresses that beautiful things can rely on the force of literature to reach eternity. Analysis of the poem The first two quatrains focus on the fair lords beauty: the poet attempts to compare it to a summers day, but shows that there can be no such comparison, since the fair lords timeless beauty far surpasses that of the fleeting, inconstant season. Summer -- summer as a metaphor for youth, or perhaps beauty, or perhaps the beauty of youth. What does “eternal lines” mean in the last but one stanza? What’s the rhyme of Shakespearean Sonnet? Questions 1 in page 14： The speaker opens the poem with a question addressed to the beloved: Shall I compare thee to a summers day? The next eleven lines are devoted to such a comparison. In line 2, the speaker stipulates what mainly differentiates the young man from the summers day: he is more lovely and more temperate. The poet describes summer as a season of extremes and disappointments. Summers days tend toward extremes: they are shaken by rough winds; In them, the sun (the eye of heaven) often shines too hot, or too dim. And summer is fleeting: its date is too short, and it leads to the withering of autumn, as every fair from fair sometime declines. The final quatrain of the sonnet tells how the beloved differs from the summer in that respect: his beauty will last forever (Thy eternal summer shall not fade...) and never die. In the couplet, the speaker explains how the beloveds beauty will accomplish this feat, and not perish because it is preserved in the poem, which will last forever; it will live as long as men can breathe or eyes can see. 2. Geoffrey Chaucer （1340 -- 1400） Significance 1. “the father of English poetry” (by