英美文学导论论文.docVIP

Survey of British Literature 材控1102班 付兰平 2011010883 Abstract: As we all know,literature is a kind of arts and reflect social reality.For British literature,we can devided it into seven different periods.From these periods,we can understand about all the British literature. Key words: Old and Medieval periods, Medieval periods, The Renaissance Period, The Neoclassical Period, The Romantic Period, The Victorian Period, Twentieth Century Literature 1.Old and Medieval periods (450---1066) After the fall of the Roman Empire and the withdrawal of Roman troops from Albion , the aboriginal Celtic population of the larger part of the island was soon conquered and almost totally exterminated by the Teutonic tribes of Angles , Saxons and Jutes who came from the continent and settled in the island , naming its central part Anglia , or England. For nearly four hundred years prior to the coming of the English , Britain had been a Roman province . In 410 A.D. the Romans withdrew their legions from Britain to protect Rome herself against swarms of Teutonic invaders . About 449 a band of Teutons , called Jutes , left Denmark , landed on the Isle of Thanet . Warriors from the tribes of the Angles and the Saxons soon followed , and drove westward the original inhabitants. The literature of this period falls naturally into two divisions , ---Religious and Secular . In reading the earliest poetry of England it is well to remember that all of it was copied by the monks , and seems to have been more or less altered to give it a religious coloring. The Song of Beowulf can be justly termed England’s national epic and its hero Beowulf ---one of the national heroes of the English people . The only existing manuscript of The Song of Beowulf was written by an unknown scribe at the beginning of the 10th century and was not discovered until 1750 . The Song was composed much earlier , and reflects events which took place on the Continent approximately at the be