本科美国文学The Literary History of the United States of America.docVIP

I. English Literature 英国文学部分 English literature began with the Anglo-Saxon settlement in England. “Beowulf” is the national epic of the Anglo-Saxon and English people. The Norman Conquest: The French speaking Normans under Duke William came in 1066 and defeated the English , thus William was crowned as King of England. The Romance: The most prevalent kind of literature in feudal England. The central character of romances was the knight, a man of noble birth, who was known for his chivalry. The ballads(民谣，民歌): the most important department of English folk literature is the ballad. A ballad is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas, with the second and the fourth lines rhymed. For example, the Robin Hood Ballads. Geoffrey Chaucer , the founder of English poetry, was born in 1340, and died in 1400. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, thus founding the “Poet’s Corner”. “ The Canterbury tales”(1387—1400)is Chaucer’s masterpiece and one of the monumental works in English literature. The English Renaissance: Thomas More (1478—1535) and his “Utopia”; the “poet’s poet of the English Renaissance was Edmund Spenser (1552-90)whose masterpiece is “The faerie Queene”. If the imaginative powers of literary creation of English renaissance found their expression in the poetry of Spenser and the drama of Shakespeare , the intellectual energy of this age showed itself in the achievement of Francis bacon(1561-1626). William Shakespeare(1564-1616): the literary giant of the English Renaissance. His famous comedies: A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream The merchant of Venice Twelfth Night All’s Well that Ends Well. His famous tragedies: Romeo and Juliet Hamlet King Lear Macbeth Shakespeare also wrote 154 sonnets. The 17th Century Literature ---- John Milton (1608—1674): “Paradise Lost” The 18th Century Literature The Enlightenment in Europe: The 18th century marked the beginning of an intellectual movement in Europe known as the Enlightenment. It was, on the whole, an expression