英国文学第一章Lecture 1(Revised).pdfVIP

Lecture 1 Old and Medieval Literature (约5世纪—1485) Teaching Aim of This Course: 1. Have an outline understanding of British literature, including different literary periods, different schools of literature, representative writers and their major works, build a framework of British literature (Base); 2. Grasp some methods of literary criticism and learn how to analyze and appreciate literary works (Focus); 3. Improve our humane accomplishments (Ultimate Target). Questions for discussion: 1. What is your opinion of literature? 2. What are the three major genres of literature? 3. What are the functions of literature? 4. Why we study foreign literature? Teaching Objectives: 1. Let the students know something about literature; 2. Let the students know something about British Literature; 3. Tell the students something about literature learning and research methods. 4. Brief Introduction to Old and Medieval Periods; 5. Features of Old English Literature Beowulf ; 6. Features of Medieval English Literature King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table . Part 1: General Introduction I. Literature: is a subject of man, for man, and by man. Man is a product of social relations, in which we can see the relations between man and man, man and nature, man and society, and finally man and God. All these relations can be found in literary works. Literary works, however, are different from works of history and philosophy. Literary works represent the relations by employing language tools. History records facts which actually occurred, and philosophy does its exploitation in abstract terms.  Literature is the art of language, whose major genres are poetry, fiction, and drama.  Literature is closely connected with history. If we know nothing of history, it is impossible for us really