3. Beowulf is the oldest poem in the English language, and also the oldest surviving epic in the English language.
4. Chaucer composed a long narrative poem named Troilus and Gressie based on Boccaccio’s poem Filostrato.
6. The Canterbury Tales contains the general prologue and 24 hours, two of which left unfinished.
7. Chaucer employed the heroic couplet in writing his greatest work The Canterbury Tales. 8. __Romance___ is the most prevailing literary form in the Middle Age. 1. What are the Chaucer’s contributions to English literature?
① Chaucer, for the first time in English literature, presents to the readers a comprehensive realistic picture of the English society of his time and describes a series of vivid characters from all walks of life in The Canterbury Tales.
② Chaucer introduces from France the rhymed stanzas of various types to English poetry to replace the old English alliterative verse. He is the first to use the rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter, which is to be called the heroic couplet.
③ Chaucer affirms men’s and women’s right to pursue earthly happiness and opposed asceticism ( avoiding physical pleasures and comforts). He praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life and he exposes and satirizes the social vices, including the corruption of the Church.
④ Chaucer is the first great poet who wrote in the current English. His production of so much excellent poetry is an important factor in establishing English as the literary language of the country. Chaucer uses London dialect in his writings and the contributes to making it the foundation for modern English speech.
2. What are the essential features of romance in the medieval English literature?
The romance was the prevailing form of literature in the Middle Ages. It was a long composition, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero, Its essential features are:
①. it lacks general resemblance to truth or reality.
② It exaggerates the vices of human nature and idealizes the virtues.
③. It contains perilous adventures more or less remote from ordinary life. ④. It lays emphasis on supreme devotion to a fair lady.
⑤. The central character of the romance is the knight, a man of noble birth skilled in the use of weapons. He is commonly described as riding forth to seek adventures, taking part in tournaments, or fighting for his lord in battle. He is devoted to the church and the king. 4. What is the significance of The Canterbury Tales?
① In his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer gives us a faithful picture of the society of his time, ② Taking the standard of the rising bourgeoisie, he affirms men and opposes the dogma of asceticism preached by the Church. ③ As a forerunner of humanism, he praise man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. His tales expose and satirize the evils of his time. They attack the degeneration of the noble, the heartlessness of the judge, and the corruption of the Church. The first to present a comprehensive and realistic picture of the English society of his time and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life.
4. Bacon’s style has three prominent qualities: __directness_, __terseness_ and __forcefulness. 5. Hamlet, Othello, King and __Macbeth___ are generally regarded as Shakespeare’s four great tragedies.
6.___Humanism_ is the essence of the Renaissance.
※1. Sonnet: A lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of fourteen iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate rhyme scheme. There are two major patterns of rhyme in sonnets written in the English language: (1) The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet falls into two main parts: an octave rhyming abbaabba followed by a sestet rhyming cdecde or some variant, such as cdccdc. (2) The Earl of Surrey and other English experimenters in the 16th century also developed a stanza form called the English sonnet, or else the Shakespearean sonnet. This sonnet falls into three quatrains and a concluding couplet: abab cdcd efef gg. There was one notable variant, the Spenserian sonnet, in which Edmund Spenser linked each quatrain to the next by a continuing rhyme: abab bcbc cdcd ee.
2. English Renaissance:The Renaissance refers to the transitional period from the medieval to the modern world. It first started in Italy in the14th century. The Renaissance means rebirth or revival. It was stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek classics, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation, and the economic expansion. Humanism is the essence of Renaissance. The English Renaissance did not begin until the reign of Henry VIII. It was regarded as England’s Golden Age, especially in literature. The real mainstream of the English Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama. This period produced such literary giants as Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe, Bacon, etc.
5. Give a brief analysis of Shylock, a character in Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice.
Shylock is a Jewish usurer, and he is a tragic-comic character in the play.
① He is comic because he finally becomes the one punished by his own evil deed. He is a typical merchant to be made fun of. He is avaricious. He accumulates as much wealth as he can and he even equates his lost daughter with his lost money. He is also cruel. In order to revenge, he would rather claim a pound of flesh from his enemy Antonio than get back his loan.
② On the other hand, Shylock is also a tragic figure. He is the victim of the society. He is a Jew. As a minor nationality, he is not treated equally by the society. The law is harsh to him. He has to make as much money as he can in order to protect himself. He is abused by Antonio, and therefore, he wants to get revenge.
3. In 1637 Milton wrote the finest pastoral elegy in English, ____Lycidas_, to memorize the tragic death of a Cambridge friend.
4. __John Bunyan_ wrote his masterpiece _Pilgrim’s Progress__ during his second imprisonment and it is the most successful __religious allegory__ in the English language. 5. John Donne is the founder of the school of _metaphysical poetry_. His works are characterized by mysticism in content and fantastically in form.
Passage 1
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die
A. Identify the poet and the poem _John Donne Death, Be Not Proud______ B. What does the phrase “one short sleep” mean? ______death__________________ C. What idea do these two lines express?
It reveals Donne’s belief in life after death. Here death is compared to rest or sleep. Death is but
momentarily while happiness after death is eternal.
Passage 2..
“ To wage by force or guile eternal war, Irreconcilable to our grand For.”
By what means were Satan and his followers to wage this war against God? ____D_____ A. by planting a tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. B. by turning into poisonous snakes to threaten man’s life. C. by removing God from his throne
D. by corrupting man and woman created by God
Passage 3.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee
A. Identify the poem and the poet. ______________________________
B. What does the word “this” refers to? ___the poetry_________________________ C. What idea does this stanza express?
A nice summer’s day is usually transient, but the beauty in poetry can last for ever. Shakespeare has a faith in the permanence of poetry
2. The _Enlightenment__ was a progressive intellectual movement throughout Western Europe in the 18th century.
4. Of all the 18th century novelists, __Henry Fielding_ was the first to set out in theory and practice, to write specially a “___comic epic in prose__,” and the first to give the modern novel its structure and style.
6. In writing plays the neo-classical writers used ___heroic couplet_____ instead of blank verse. They observed the three unities of time, place and action.
9. The Talter and __The Spectator_ were Richard Steele and Joseph Addison’s chief contribution to English literature.
10. Pamela is the first __epistolary_ novel in English literature. 15. The more notable of the Gothic novels are __The Castle of Otranto__(1765) by Horace Walpole and __The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliff. The mysterious element plays an enormous role in the Gothic novel; it is so replete with bloodcurdling scenes and unatural feelings that it is justly called ___a novel of horrors__ 16. ___Samuel Johnson___ is the author of the first English dictionary by an Englishman-----Dictionary of the English language, which had become the foundation of all subsequent English dictionaries.
Passage one