英国文学史及选读
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
English Literature
College of Foreign Languages
China Three Gorges University
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Lecture One
 1 About this course
 (beginners/rudimentary knowledge/planning
/useful and easily accessible/teaching
purpose)
 2 About your final grade
 3 About some rules and regulations
 4 The brief introduction to English Literature
study
 5 How to study English poetry
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
About this course
 (1) Textbook: History and Anthology of
English Literature (Volume I & II)
 (2) Reading masterpieces of the major English
writers
 a. Poetry: Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Browning,
Yeats, and Eliot
 b. Drama: Marlowe, Shakespeare, Shaw, and
Beckett
 c. Fiction: Defoe, Swift, Fielding, Austen,
Dickens, Thackeray, Bronte sisters, Eliot,
Hardy, Forster, Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf, and
Golding
 Back
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Three Parts of Your Final Grade
 Final exam 60%.
 Quiz;Presentation;Attendence:20%
assignment (preview and review)
in-class activities (extra points for the volunteers)
 Workshop on Language Center: 20%
Back
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
About Some Rules and Regulations
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3.1.Some rules:
About Class Participation/Attendance
About your mobile phone
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3.2.Ways of teaching:
a. Lectures: providing essential background knowledge
b. Seminars: discussing on given topics
C. Assignments
Learn how to do research work:
*Find reference materials
*Make notes while reading critical works
*Prepare for discussions
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College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
4 The Brief Introduction to English Literature Study
 4.1 What is literature?
 4.2 How do we learn English Literature
efficiently?
4.2.1 Literary periods
4.2.2 A Brief Introduction to English Literature
4.3 Literary terms
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
What is literature?
 It is an art that uses language as a medium. This art is
something imaginative, fictional and created to reflect
life or record human dreams or human ideas .
 To express the truth of life:e.g. Shakespeare says: “The
whole world is a stage, we are all actors.”
 To study human nature :Angel—man—animal
 To preserve the human values
 Such as: love, faith, duty, friendship, and freedom
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College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Literary periods
449-1485 The Old (Anglo-Saxon) and Medieval
(Middle) English Literature
1485-1603 English Literature in the Renaissance
Period
1603-1660 English Literature in the Seventeenth
Century
1660-1798 English Literature in the Eighteenth
Century
1798-1832 English Literature in the Romantic Period
1832-1901 English Literature in the Victorian Age
1901English Literature of the Twentieth
Century
more
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
4.2.2 A Brief Introduction to English Literature
 1. Old English Literature（449A.D. ~ 1066）
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1）History background：
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2) Main literature: poetry
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3) Main writers: Caedmon, Cynewulf, Venerable Bede and
Alfred the Great.
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4) Main work: The Song of Beowulf <<贝奥武甫>>
 2. Medieval English Literature (1066-15th century)
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1）History background：
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2) Main literature: poetry, Romance, Popular ballad
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3) Main writers and their works:
Back
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Literary terms
 Example :
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genre---a type or class of literature
 In English literature, the main generic division
today is into poetry, drama and the novel, but in
earlier times the major genres were recognized as
epic, tragedy, lyric, comedy and satire.
(Literary Terms and Criticism by John Peck and
Martin Coyle)
 mode---a recognized type or kind of work within a
genre, such as the sonnet or the realistic novel.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Literary terms
 Another popular division.
 1 Fiction: it is referred to as creative or
figurative expression of life.
four genres ---novels, short stories, plays and
poems.
 2 non-fiction (essay): it is referred to a literal
expression of life or discursive writing.
description, narration, exposition , and
argumentation.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
5 Three kinds of literature: fiction, poetry, and drama.
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I. Fiction
 Definition: fiction created from the imagination, not
presented as fact, though it may base on a true story or
situation.
 Elements
 1.Plot: a sequence of interrelated actions and events.
 Five stages of plot: exposition, complication, crisis, falling
action and resolution.
 2.Characters: the people in fiction
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Types of characters: protagonist vs. antagonist
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Flat vs. round characters
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Dynamic vs. static characters
 3.Setting: place and objects in fiction
 Types: natural, manufactured
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
 4.Point of view: the angle or perspective from which
the author observes and tells the story.
 5.Theme: what the author is to say in his story.
 6.Style: the author’s particular way of telling his story.
 7.Tone: the author’s attitude toward his subject or
audience.
 8.Symbolism: a key to extended meaning
 9.Allegory: the author’s attempt to reinforce his theme
by making his characters represent some specific
abstract ideas or qualities.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Poetry
Definition: classified as narrative or lyric.
Elements
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Imagery
An image is a concrete representation of a sense
impression, a feeling, or an idea.
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Symbolism
A symbol is any object or action that means more than
itself, any object or objection that represents
something beyond itself.
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Sound: Rhyme, alliteration and assonance
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College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Drama
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Definition: a dialogue performed by actors on a
stage before an audience.
Elements
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Dialogue
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Staging
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Genres: comedy, tragedy and tragic-comedy.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
6 How to study English poetry
 6.1 What is poetry?
 Poetry is a kind of writing that formulates a
concentrated imaginative awareness of
experience in language chosen and
arranged to create a specific emotional
response through its meaning, sound, and
rhythm.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
6.2 Types of Poetry
 6.2.1 lyric poetry
It expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet
elegies, odes, and sonnets
 6.2.2 Narrative Poetry
It tells a story or presents a narrative
 6.2.3 Dramatic Poetry
It is written in the form of a speech of an
individual character to an imaginary audience
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
6.3 How do we read a poem?
 6.3.1 The process of reading a poem
 read the poem once straight through, with no
particular expectations.
 read for the exact sense of all the words.
read the poem aloud--discover meanings you didn’t
perceive in it before .
 try to paraphrase the poem as a whole .
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
6.3 How do we read a poem?
 6.3.2Two main ways of thinking about poetry.
 The first approach:
concentrate on the poet
shortcomings of the first approach:
can’t see what the feeling are /more concerned
with the mind and personality behind the poem
than with the text itself
 The second approach:
concentrates on discussing the poem itself .
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Reading List for This Course
 1《英国文学简史》刘炳善 郑州：河南人民出版社
 2《现代英国文学简介》，Booz,E 上海：上海外语教育出
版社
 3《英国文学教程》 (上下册)，张伯香 武汉：武汉大学出
版社，2004
4《英国文学选读》，王守仁，北京：高等教育出版社，
2001。
 5 The Norton Anthology of English Literature,
M.H. Abrams, London: W.W. Norton &
Company Ltd.
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Collection
Questions?
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Questions?
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU
HISTORY AND ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
More Questions?
College of Foreign Languages, CTGU