英国文学选读10页版.docVIP

英国文学选读 T. S. Eliot, John Osborne, Samuel Beckett, William Golding, V. S. Naipaul。 What are the symbolic meanings of pilgrimage in April? Ram implies the coming of spring, closely related to birth and new life. April is a season for rebirth or new life. All this has a clear reference to the purpose of pilgrims who are doing their homage to a holy place. The pilgrims do their journey to holy places, which implies an act of purifying soul and consequently getting a rebirth.So, the time setting in the poem has a symbolic meaning. To Chaucer, to praise noble deeds and expose evil deeds are the two effective means of purifying human soul. So, the stories in The Canterbury Tales mainly aim for praise and for condemnation. In terms of religious themes, Chaucer is connected with the Medieval Ages. How to understand the statement of “giving help to them when they were sick”? (p.31) According to Christianity, man’s first fall in the Garden of Eden caused death to man, which means that man’s body is exposed to sickness. In another way, original sin (breaking the covenant with God) caused man to deteriorate into a patient, waiting for God’s curing. This motif can be found in many western literary works. The significance of The Canterbury Tales Chaucer is the father of English literature, and started a great tradition for English literature: he initiated the realistic tradition in English literature; he initiated the tradition of irony and satire in English literature; though he used London dialect to write The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer contributed a lot to prosody in English poetry, and was the first English poet to write with heroic couplet (two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter). University Wits: a name given to a group of Elizabethan playwrights and pamphleteers from the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The University Wits include John Lyly (?1554-1606), George Peele (1558-1598), Thomas Lodge (1558-1625), Robert Greene (1558-1592), Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), Thomas