英美文选重要知识点集锦.docVIP

Old English 450-1066 Beowulf Medieval English 1066 - middle 14th century Geoffrey Chaucer - the father of English poetry The Canterbury Tales first time to use heroic couplet The Renaissance - rebirth or revival The essence: Humanism Best representatives of the English humanists:Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare The real mainstream:The Elizabethan drama The most famous dramatists: Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare,Ben Jonson Edmund Spenser - the poets poet The Faerie Queene Arthur The Spenserian stanza:9-line verse stanza Christopher Marlowe Tamburlaine Dr.Faustus:based on German legend of a magician aspring for knowledge and finally meeting his tragic end as a result of selling his soul to the Devil. The Passionate Shepherd to His Love pastoral life William Shakespeare 38 plays,154 sonnets and 2 long poems “Four tragedies”: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear ,Macbeth In the second period:his style and approach became highly individualized. Two long poems:Venus and Adonis,The Rape of Lucrece Sonnet 18 eternal or immortal beauty; eulogizes the power of Nature The Merchant of Venice to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, to expose the insatiable greed and brutality Hamlet hesitate between fact and fiction, language and action, too sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger “To be, or not to be” Soliloquy or monologue - fully reveal the inner conflict of the characters The Tempest:a typical example of his pessimistic view towards human life and society in his late years. Francis Bacon - brevity, compactness and powerfulness. Of Studies uses and benefits of study - studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. How studies exert influence over human character: reading makes a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. John Donne metalphysical poetry In his poetry,he frequently applies conceits,extend