key points

I.Terms required to remember 1.Ode: A long, stately lyric poem in stanzas of varied metrical pattern, written in a dignified formal style on some lofty or serious subject. Odes are often written for a special occasion, to honor a person or a season or commem orate an event. Two famous odes are Percy Bysshe Shelley?s “ Ode to the West wind” and John Keats?s Ode on a Grecian Urn.” The English odes fall into 3 categories: Pindaric ode; Cowleyan ode and Horatian ode. Shelley’s ode is of Horatian type. 2.Lake poets: The Lake Poets all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. As a group, they belonged to the first generation of the Romantic poets, represented by William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. 3.Byronic hero: As a leading Romanticist, Byron’s chief contribution is his creation of the “Byronic hero”, a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin and. This idealized but flawed character pervades much of Byron’s work and appears first in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. With immense superiority in his passions and powers, this Byronic hero would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt world, and would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies. 4. Utilitarianism In the Victorian age, almost everything was put to the test by the criterion of utility, that is, the extent to which it could promote the material happiness. This theory held a special appeal to the middle-classed industrialists, whose greed drove them to exploiting workers to the utmost and brought greater suffering and poverty to the working mass. 5. dramatic monologue: a poem in which a single speaker who is not the poet utters the entire poem to a silent …audience? of one or more persons at a critical moment. The speaker has a listener within the poem, but we too are his/her listeners, and we learn about the speaker's character from what the speaker says. In fact, the speaker may reveal unintentionally certain aspects of his/her character. 6. Aestheticism: Aestheticism is a Victorian literary movement that was begun in the late 19th century. Followers of the movement believed that art should not be mixed with social, political, or moral teaching. Walter Pater?s statement “the love of art for its own sake” is a good summary of aestheticism. The movement had its roots in France, but it gained widespread importance in England in the last half of the nineteenth century, where it helped change the Victorian practice of including moral lessons in literature. 7. Stream of Consciousness: The continuous flow of sense-perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories in the human mind; or a literary method of representing such a blending of mental processes in fictional characters, usually in an unpunctuated or disjoined form of interior monologue. II.Key facts 1.Age of Romanticism (1) Time: 1798 (publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge) to 1832 (death of Sir Walter Scott) (2) Essence: shift from reason to emotion (3) Historical Background French Revolution (1789 Bastille) and English Industrial Revolution (end of the 18th century)". (4)Feature: An age of poetry. (5)*lake poets: three poets including William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge and Robert Southey 2.William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) (1) Two categories according to theme He is mainly famous for his poems on nature, such as "I wandered lonely as a cloud". He also wrote lots of poems on common people's life, such as "The solitary reaper", "She dwelt among the untrodden way" 3.John Keats (1795 - 1821) Keats wrote some nice long poems, but he was mainly famous for his short poems, and he is known as a sensuous poet. 4.George Gordon Byron Selected poem: She Walks in Beauty A. Background: Byron's most famous lyrical poem; wrote for his beautiful cousin Mrs Wilmot Horton; taken from Hebrew Melodies B. (Discussion) In the first stanza, the author used a simile to describe the woman's beauty. "night of cloudless climes and starry skies"; because the woman wore a black mourning gown brightened with spangles. 5.Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792--1822)雪莱 (1)terza rima: iambic pentameter lines arranged in tercets in which line 2 of each tercet rhymes with 1 and 3 of the next, thus: aba bcb cdc ded ee with a final couplet ee. (2)What does the west wind in the poem signify (Answer) the great revolution force which can destroy all existing vices in human world 6. Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) the first famous English female writer. She lived in the Romantic Age but her novels were anti-romantic. A Romantic novelist but is impressed with neo-classic strains. The major themes of her works are love and marriage. 7.. Critical Realism (1) Time: the middle of the 19th century, coincides with the reign of Queen Victoria, thus called Victorian Age (2) Representatives: Charles Dickens ,William Thackeray and George Eliot etc. (3) Features ·introduction of a new set of characters from the working class ·strong hatred for vices existing in the society ·an illusion of bringing about social justice and harmony by reforms An age of novels. 8. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) (1) He is the greatest representative of English critical realism and he was called “the expression of the conscience of his age”. (2) Features of Charles Dickens? novels a. A tendency to depict the grotesque characters (His characters always have peculiar habits, manners or behaviors) (such as Micawber) b. Believing in social reforms to change the world, thus sometimes created unnatural happy ending for his novels c. Delicate structure and plot (well-designed and attractive) d. Good at depicting pathetic scenes to arouse sympathy e. Good at using rhetorical devices to make his language vivid and humorous Three stages of his literary life A. 1836—1841, the first period, Period of youthful optimist: fun, high spirit, naive optimism B. 1842-1850, the second period-- Period of excitement, irritation and frustration C. The third period, a Period of steadily intensifying pessimism, showing underlying tone of bitterness, loss of hope for English bourgeois society 9.The Bronte Sisters (1)The Bronte Sisters Charlotte Bronte (39 years), Emily Bronte (30 years) and Anne Bronte (29 years) (2)Charlotte wrote 4 novels; Emily 1 novel (Wuthering Heights) and Anne 2 novels. (3)The success of the novel Jane Eyre also due to its introduction to the English novel the first governess heroine Jane Eyre. (4)Jane Eyre is a work of critical realism as well as the first and one of the most popular works of the working middle- class women. It is the first governess novel in the history of English literature. 10. Alfred Tennyson (1) The second half of the 19th century in England produced a number of outstanding poets such as Alfred Tennyson, Robeert Browning, Charles Swinburn and others. The two greatest English poets: Browning & Tennyson. Their poetry was characterized by experiments with new styles and new ways of expression. (2) Alfred Tennyson, English poet often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry. Tennyson succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850. (3) His short lyric Break, Break, Break is written in memory of Tennyson's best friend, Arthur Hallam, whose death has a lifelong influence on the poet. 11. Robert Browning noted for his mastery of dramatic monologue. His poetry belongs to the 20th-century rather than to the Victorian age. It is in Browning’s hands that “dramatic monologue”reaches its maturity and perfection. “My Last Duchess”is Browning’s best-known dramatic monologue. 12.Thomas Hardy (1) Thomas Hardy is one of the most important novelists in the Victorian Era and the first important poet in the 20th century. Hardy is a transitional figure between the Victorian Age and the 20th century. In many ways, he belonged more to the 20th century than to the 19th century. (2) Hardy’s novels are all Victorian in date. Most of them are set in Wessex, the fictional primitive and crude rural region which is really the home place he both loves and hates. They are known for the vivid description of the vicissitudes of people who live in an agricultural setting menaced by the forces of invading capitalism. (3) Unlike Dickens, most of Hardy’s novels are tragic. The cause of tragedy is not man’s own behavior or his own fault but the supernatural forces that rule his fate. (4) Hardy himself divided his novels into three groups: 1). Romances and Fantasies 2). Novels of Ingenuity 3). Novels of Character and Environment 13. Oscar Wilde He was a spokesman for the late 19th-century Aesthetic movement in England, which advocated art for art's sake; and he was the object of celebrated civil and criminal suits involving homosexuality and ending in his imprisonment. Aestheticism is a Victorian literary movement that was begun in the late 19th century. The movement had its roots in France, but it gained widespread importance in England in the last half of the nineteenth century, where it helped change the Victorian practice of including moral lessons in literature. Wilde's greatest successes were his society comedies. Within the conventions of the French “well-made play”(with its social intrigues and artificial devices to resolve conflict), he employed his paradoxical, epigrammatic wit to create a form of comedy new to the 19th-century English theatre. 14. George Bernard Shaw the greatest critical realistic playwright in the 20th century England. 15.Modernist Novelists 1) James Joyce, Virginia Woolf , and D.H. Lawrence are the three best known among the modernist novelists. 2) D.H. Lawrence is one of the very original and controversial writers of the early 20th century. He is traditional in form, but “avant-garde”in exploration of the sexual relationships. 3) Lawrence‘s novels are known for Oedipal anxieties and sometimes explicit descriptions of sexual relationships, a rarity in literature at the time and shocking to his contemporaries. 4) Lawrence was one of the first novelists to introduce themes of psychology into his works. 5) James Joyce is one of the most innovative novelists of the 20th century and one of the great masters of “the stream of consciousness” 6)Woolf and Joyce are the most gifted and innovative of the stream of consciousness novelists I、Blank Filling (10 points, 1 for each) Directions: Fill in each blank with the corresponding writer of the following works. II、Multiple Choice(30 points, 2 for each) III、Term Explanation (20 points, 5 for each) IV、Comment on the following selected passage. (12 points) V、Poem Appreciation (28 points,14 for each)