Chapter I The Renaissance Period
一、学习目的和要求
　　通过本章学习，了解文艺复兴运动和人文主义思潮产生的历史，文化背景，认识该时期文学创作的基本特征和基本主张，及其对同时代及后世英国文学乃至文化的影响；了解该时期重要作家的文学生涯，创作思想，艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构，人物刻画，语言风格，思想意义等；同时结合注释，读懂所选作品，了解其思想内容和写作特色，培养理解和欣赏文学作品的能力。

二、考核要求
　(一) 文艺复兴时期概述
　　1. 识记：（1）文艺复兴时期的界定
　　　　　　 （2）历史文化背景
　　2. 领会: （1）文艺复兴运动的意义与影响
　　　　　　 （2）文艺复兴时期的文学特点
　　　　　　 （3）人文主义的主张及对文学的影响
　　3. 应用：文艺复兴，人文主义及玄学诗等名词的解释
　Brief Introduction to the Renaissance Period
　I. 应用
　Definitions of the Literary Terms:
　1. The Renaissance: The Renaissance marks a transition from the
medieval to the modern world. Generally, it refers to the period
between the 14th & 17th centuries. It first started in Italy, with the
flowering of painting, sculpture & literature. From Italy the movement
went to embrace the rest of Europe. The Renaissance, which means
"rebirth" or "revival," is actually a movement stimulated by a series
of historical events, such as the re-discovery of ancient Roman &
Greek culture, the new discoveries in geography & astrology, the
religious reformation & the economic expansion. The Renaissance,
therefore, in essence is a historical period in which the European
humanist thinkers & scholars made attempts to get rid of those old
feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that
expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, & to recover the
purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic
Church.

　2. Humanism: Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang
from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the ancient
authors and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on
its conscious, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization
was based on such a conception that man is the measure of all things.
Through the new learning, humanists not only saw the arts of splendor
and enlightenment, but the human values represented in the works.
Renaissance humanists found in the classics a justification to exalt
human nature and came to see that human beings were glorious creatures
capable of individual development in the direction of perfections, and
that the world they inhabited was theirs not to despise but to
question, explore, and enjoy. Thus, by emphasizing the dignity of
human beings and the importance of the present life, they voiced their
beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of
this life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform
wonders. Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are
the best representatives of the English humanists.

　3. Spenserian stanza:
Spenserian stanza was invented by Edmund Spenser. It is a stanza of
nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter & the last
line in iambic hexameter, rhyming ababbcbcc.

　4. Metaphysical poetry: The term "metaphysical poetry" is commonly
used to name the work of the 17th century writers who wrote under the
influence of John Donne. With a rebellious spirit, the metaphysical
poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the
Elizabethan love poetry. The diction is simple as compared with that
of the Elizabethan or the Neoclassic periods, and echoes the words and
cadences of common speech. The imagery in drawn from the actual life.
The form is frequently that of an argument with the poet's beloved,
with God, or with himself.
　5. The Renaissance hero: A Renaissance hero refers to one created by
Christopher Marlowe in his drama. Such a hero is always
individualistic and full of ambition, facing bravely the challenge
from both gods and men. He embodies Marlowe's humanistic ides of human
dignity and capacity. Different from the tragic hero in medieval
plays, who seeks the way to heaven through salvation and god's will,
he is against conventional morality and contrives to obtain heaven on
earth through his own efforts. With the endless aspiration for power,
knowledge, and glory, the hero interprets the true Renaissance spirit.
Both Tamburlaine and Faustus are typical in possessing such a spirit.

（二） 该时期的重要作家
　1.一般识记：重要作家的文学生涯
　2.识记：重要作品及主要内容
　3.领会：重要作家的创作思想，艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构，人物塑造，语言风格，艺术手法，社会意义等。
　4.应用：（1）莎士比亚和邓恩诗歌的主题，意象
　　　　　（2）喜剧《威尼斯商人》的主题和主要人物性格分析
　　　　　（3）哈姆雷特的性格分析
　　　　　（4）史诗《失乐园》的结构，人物性格，语言特点等的分析
I. Edmund Spenser
1. 一般识记
　Brief Introduction to the Author
English poet，born in London, England, about 1552,and died in London,
Jan 13, 1599.

　2. 识记His Major Works
Spenser's most important work & masterpiece is The Faerie Queene, a
great poem of its age. A complex moral, religious, & political
allegory, it is also an epic that exalts Queen Elizabeth Ⅰ& the
English nation. According to Spenser's own explanation, his principal
intention is to present through a "historical poem" the example of a
perfect gentleman: "to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous
& gentle discipline." Its principal hero is the Arthur of medieval
legend. The six books of the poem illustrate the nature of particular
virtues, such as, temperance & justice. Other major works of Spenser
are The Shepheardes Calender(1579), a poem consisting of 12
eclogues-corresponding to the 12 months of the year; Epithalamion
(1595), a poem expressing the deep personal feelings occasioned by the
poets second marriage; Amoretti (1595), a series of sonnets.
　3. 领会His Influence
　1) Main qualities of Spenser's poetry
　　①a perfect melody
　　②a rare sense of beauty
　　③a splendid imagination
　　④a lofty moral purity & seriousness
　　⑤a dedicated idealism
　2) In his writing, Spenser drew on the conventions & thought of
Classical, medieval, & Renaissance literature. However, he added to
his fusion of these diverse elements much that was original, & his
works inspired many later English poets. He created a new stanza,
called the Spenserian stanza, which is well suited to narrative verse.
His skills in writing melodious English verse & his combination of
emotion, erudition, & spiritual vision have won him the admiration of
generations of English poets. It is his idealism, his love of beauty,
&his exquisite melody that make him known as "the poets' poet."
　4. 应用
　The Faerie Queene:
　1) It is a long, allegorical poem. In the poem, Spenser dramatized
political, religious, & moral themes by personifying them, or making
them characters.
　2)Plot: The story, which is set against a background of Arthur &
medieval legend, deals with the adventures of six knights of the court
of the fairy queen named Gloriana, who represents Queen Elizabeth Ⅰ of
English.
　 The faerie Queen was left unfinished at Spenser's death. It was
originally planned as a 12-book poem. But only 6 books were completed.
The poem is particularly admired for the melodic beauty of its
language & for its rich content of philosophical & mythological
material presented in the form of vivid narratives.
　　　II. Christopher Marlowe
1. 一般识记
　Brief Introduction
　English dramatist & poet,born in Canterbury, England, Feb, 6,1567,
died in Deptford, England, May 30, 1593. Marlowe was the first great
English Dramatist. He brought to the English stage a new concept of
tragedy, one in which the drama centers around the struggles of a man
overwhelmed by his passions & ambitions.

　2. 识记
　His Major Works
　His most famous tragedies are Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta,
Tamburlaine & Edward Ⅱ. In his plays, Marlowe used blank verse, which
he molded into a superb instrument for expressing intense emotions.
After his development of blank verse it became the standard medium for
English dramatic & epic poetry. His non-dramatic poetry includes Hero
& Leander, "the Passionate shepherd to His love," & a verse
translation of Ovid's Amores.
Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (about 1589), generally considered his best
play, was based on a real Dr. Faustus, who was later associated with a
medieval legend of a man selling his soul to the devil. The play's
dominant moral is human rather than religious. It celebrates the human
passion for knowledge, power & happiness; it also reveals man's
frustration in realizing the high aspirations in a hostile moral
order. The last scene, in which Faustus confronts his doom,
brilliantly renders the fear & agony of a condemned man.
　The Jew of Malta (about 1589) illustrates Marlowe's outstanding
portrayal of character. Its hero, Barabas the Jew, served as the model
for Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. In about 1592.
Marlowe wrote one of the first successful English historical dramas,
Edward Ⅱ。 It is his most dramatically mature play & exhibits his
mastery of characterization, stage craft & rhetoric.
　Tamburlaine is a play about an ambitious & pitiless Tartar conqueror
in the fourteenth century who rose from a shepherd to an overpowering
King. By depicting a great hero with high ambition & sheer brutal
force in conquering one enemy after another, Marlowe voiced the
supreme desire of the man of the Renaissance for infinite power &
authority.

　3. 领会His Achievements & Influence
　Achievements: Marlowe's greatest achievement lies in that he
perfected the blank verse & made it the principal medium of English
drama.
　His second achievement is his creation of the Renaissance hero for
English drama.
The theme of his works is the praise of the Renaissance spirit.
　His influence: A man of wide learning, Marlowe was one of the extra
ordinary poets & playwrights of his time. "Marlowe's mighty line," as
Ben Jonson called his blank verse, was one of the most important
contributions to the art of English literature.

　4. 应用Dr. Faustus
　The selection of ActⅠfrom Dr. Faustus is mainly about Faustus is
showing his great ambition, that is, if he had many souls, he would
give them all to the Devil so that he could control the world. In
portraying Faustus, a more introspective & philosophical figure than
Tamburlaine, Marlowe praises his soaring aspiration for knowledge
while warning against the sin of pride since Faustus's downfall was
caused by his despair in God & trust in Devil.

Ⅲ. William Shakespeare
1. 一般识记Brief Introduction
　　William Shakespeare was the greatest writer of plays who ever lived.
His friend & fellow playwright Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare was
"not of an age but for all time." The 18th-century English essayist
Samuel Johnson described his work as "the mirror of life." The
19th-century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoke of
"myriad-minded Shakespeare." The 20th-century English dramatist George
Bernard Shaw stressed his "enormous power over language."

　　2. 识记His Life & Career
　　The exact date of Shakespeare's birth is not known, but his baptism
was recorded on April 26, 1564, in the parish register of Holy Trinity
Church at Stratford-on-Avon. Since it was customary to baptize infants
within two or three days of birth, April 23 is regarded as a
reasonable birth date. It is also the date on which he died in 1616.
Generally, his dramatic career is divided into 4 periods.
　　The First Period (1590-1594)-five historical plays & four comedies:
　　　Henry Ⅵ, part Ⅰ (1590)
　　　Henry Ⅵ, part Ⅱ (1590)
　　　Henry Ⅵ, part Ⅲ (1591)
　　　Richard Ⅲ (1592)
　　　Titus Andronicus (1593)
　　　The Comedy of Errors (1592)
　　　The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594)
　　　The Taming of the Shrew (1593)
　　　Love's Labor's Lost (1594)
　　The Second Period (1595-1600)-five historical plays, six comedies &
two tragedies:
　　　Richard Ⅱ (1595)
　　　King John (1596)
　　　Henry Ⅳ, Part Ⅰ & Part Ⅱ(1597)
　　　Henry V (1598)
　　　A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)
　　　The Merchant of Venice (1596)
　　　Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
　　　As You Like It (1599)
　　　Twelfth Night (1600)
　　　The Merry Wives of Winsor (1598)
　　　Romeo & Juliet (1595)
　　　Julius Caesar (1599)
　　The Third Period (1601-1609)-Seven tragedies & two dark comedies:
　　　Hamlet
　　　Othello
　　　King Lear
　　　Macbeth
　　　Antony & Cleopatra
　　　Troilus & Cressida
　　　Coriolonus
　　　All's Well That Ends Well
　　　Measure for Measure
　　The Fourth Period (1609-1612)-Romantic tragic-comedies & two plays:
　　　Pericles
　　　Cymbeline
　　　The Winte's Tale
　　　The Tempest
　　　Henry Ⅷ
　　　The Two Noble Kinsmen
　　Shakespeare's authentic non-dramatic poetry consists of two long
narrative poems: Venus & Adonis & The Rape of Lucrece & his sequence
of 154 sonnets.
　3. 领会His Influence
　1) Contributions to language
Many words and commonly used phrases have been added to everyday
English vocabulary through their appearance in Shakespeare's works.

　2) Effects on literature
Shakespeare's plays & poetry have had a pervasive influence on world
literature. Most of the great literary figures of the world have been
inspired & stimulated by his achievement.
On the whole, however, Shakespeare's contribution has been to the
language & spirit of later writing rather than to its form. References
& parallels to Shakespeare's phraseology have occurred in literature
since the 16th century.
Perhaps the greatest inspiration to subsequent authors has been
Shakespeare's capacity to depict life in all its complexity & to
illuminate man's character & destiny.
4. 领会 His Major Works
1) Drama
　　　A. The Merchant of Venice
Theme: to praise the friendship between Antonio & Bassanio, to
idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit & loyalty, & to
expose the insatiable greed & brutality of the Jew.
Plot: The play has a double plot (P39)
　　　B. Hamlet
Hamlet is generally regarded as Shakespeare's most popular play on the
stage, for it has the qualities of a "blood-and-thunder" thriller & a
philosophical exploration of life & death. And the timeless appeal of
this mighty drama lies in its combination of intrigue, emotional
conflict & searching philosophic melancholy.
　　The play opens with Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, appearing in a mood
of world-weariness occasioned by his father's recent death & by his
mother's hasty remarriage with Claudius, his father's brother. While
encountering his father's ghost, Hamlet is informed that Claudius has
murdered his father & then taken over both his father's throne &
widow. This, Hamlet, is urged by the ghost to seek revenge for his
father's "foul & most unnatural murder." Trapped in a nightmare world
of spying, testing & plotting, & apparently bearing the intolerable
burden of the duty to revenge his father's death, Hamlet is obliged to
inhabit a shadow world, to live suspended between fact & fiction,
language & action. His life is one of constant role-playing, examining
the nature of action only to deny its possibility, for he is too
sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a
stage revenger. By characterizing Hamlet, Shakespeare successfully
makes a philosophical exploration of life & death.
　　　C. The Tempest
The Tempest, an elaborate & fantastic story, is known as the best of
his final romances. The characters are rather allegorical & the
subject full of suggestion. The humanly impossible events can be seen
occurring everywhere, in the play. The playwright resorts to the
supernatural atmosphere & to the dreams to solve the conflict. To
Shakespeare, the whole life is no more than a dream. Thus, The Tempest
is a typical example of his pessimistic view towards human life &
society in his late years.

　　2) Poems
　　　A. Sonnets
　　The first 126 sonnets are apparently addressed to a handsome young
nobleman, presumably the author's patron. The poems express the
writer's selfless but not entirely uncritical devotion to the young
man.
　　Twenty of the sonnets are about a young woman characterized as a "
dark lady," whom the poet distrust but cannot resist. The poems
addressed directly to her are perhaps the most remarkable in the
sequence because their unsentimental tone is unlike that of
traditional love sonnets.
　　A philosophical theme that appears in many of the sonnets is that of
time as the destroyer of all mortal things. Also expressed in the
poems is the author's disillusionment with the false ness of earthly
life.
　　The form of the poems is the English Variation of the traditional
Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet, Shakespeare's sonnets have three
quatrains, or groups of four lines, & a final couplet. Their rhyme
scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg. A theme is developed & elaborated in
the quatrains, & a concluding thought is presented in the couplet.
　　　B. Other poems
　　Venus & Adonis, in which Shakespeare made his first bid for literary
patronage & fame, is a conventional Elizabethan narrative poem. Its
mythological story, taken from Ovids Metamorphoses, tells of the
passionate love goddess who woos the reluctant youth Adonis.
The Rape of Lucrece, another narrative of passion, is based on the
semi historical story of the rape of a chaste Roman matron by Tarquin,
son of the king of Rome.

　5. 领会His Major Theme
　1) Shakespeare is against religious persecution & racial
discrimination, against social inequality & the corrupting influence
of gold & money.
　2) He was a humanist of the time & accepted the Renaissance views on
literature.

　6. 领会His Literary Achievements
　　1) Characterization
　　His major characters are neither merely individual ones nor type
ones; they are individuals representing certain types. Each character
has his or her own personalities; meanwhile, they may share features
with others. The soliloquies in his plays fully reveal the inner
conflict of his characters. Shakespeare also portrays his characters
in pairs. Contrasts are frequently used to bring vividness to his
characters.
　　The women in the plays are vivid creations, each differing from the
others. Shakespeare was fond of portraying "mocking wenches," such as
Kate of the Taming of the Shrew, Rosaline of Love's Labor's Lost, &
Beatrice of Much Ado About Nothing, but he was equally adept at
creating gentle & innocent women, such as Ophelia in Hamlet, Desdemona
in Othello, & Cordelia in King Lear. His female characters also
include the treacherous Goneril & Regan, the iron-willed Lady Macbeth,
the witty & resourceful Portia, the tender & loyal Juliet, & the
alluring Cleopatra.
　　2) Plot Construction
　　Shakespeare's plays are well known for their adroit plot
construction. He seldom invents his own plots; instead, he borrows
them from some old plays or storybooks, or from ancient Greek & Roman
sources. There are usually several threads running through the play,
thus providing the story with suspense & apprehension.
　　3) Language
　　In Shakespeare's time, English grammar & spelling were not yet
formalized, so Shakespeare could freely inter charge the various parts
of speech, using nouns as adjectives or verbs, adjectives as adverbs,
& pronouns as nouns. Such freedom gave his language an extraordinary
flexibility, which enabled him to express his thoughts as easily in
poetry as in prose.
　　Most of Shakespeare's dramatic poetry is in blank verse, or unrhymed
iambic pentameter. His bland verse is especially beautiful & mighty.
He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary & idiom. His coinage of new
words & distortion of the meaning of the old ones also create striking
effects on the reader.

　　7. 应用Selected Readings
　　　1) Sonnet 18
　　Theme: a profound meditation on the destructive power of time & the
eternal beauty brought forth by poetry to the one he loves.
　　Imagery: a summer's day-youth
　　　　　　 the eye of heaven-the sun
　　　2) The Merchant of Venice
　　Theme: To praise the friendship between Antonio & Bassanio, to
idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit & loyalty, & to
expose the insatiable greed and brutality of the Jew.
　　　3) Hamlet
　　This is one part of Hamlet's most famous monologue. Hamlet, facing
the dilemma of action & mind, is hesitating whether he should revenge
for his father, which may bring him death, or he should suffer & hide
his hatred for his uncle in his deep heart, which may secure his life.
IV. Francis Bacon
1. 一般识记Brief Introduction
　　English Renaissance philosopher, essayist, statesman, born in
London, England, Jan 22,1561 and died in London, April 9 1626.
One of the outstanding figures of the Renaissance, Bacon made
important contributions to several fields. His chief interest were
science philosophy, but he was also a distinguished man of letters &
held several high governmental positions during the reign of king
JamesⅠ. He was one of the earliest & most eloquent spokesmen for
experimental science. He lays the foundation for modern science with
his insistence on scientific way of thinking & fresh observation
rather than authority as a basis for obtaining knowledge.

　　2. 识记His works
　　As an author, Bacon is most famous for his Essays, which deal with
such subjects as honor, friendship, love, & riches. Written in a
terse, polished style, with many learned allusions & metaphors, the
essays rank with the finest in English literature.
　　Bacon's other important literary works include The New Atlantis, an
account of an ideal society & an imaginary voyage, & The History of
the Reign of King Henry Ⅶ, a perceptive psychological study of Henry's
mind & characters.
　　His works can be divided into three groups：
　　First group: The Advancement of Learning (1605)
　　　　　　　　 Novum Organum (1620) (Latin version)
　　Second group: Essays
　　　　　　　　 Apophthagmes New & Old (1605)
　　　　　　　　 The History of the Reign of Henry Ⅶ (1622)
　　　　　　　　 The New Atlantis (unfinished)
　　Third group: Maxims of Law
　　　　　　　　 The Learned Reading upon the
　　　　　　　　 Stature of Uses (1642)

　　3. 领会 His Major Works
　　Essays
　　The term "essay" was borrowed from Montaigne's Essais, which
appeared from 1580 to 1588. Bacon learned from Montaigne, the first
great modern essayist, the economic & flexible way of writing.
However, as a practical & prudential man, he intends to write for the
ambitious Elizabethan & Jacobean youth of his class & tell them how to
be efficient & make their way in public life.
Bacon's essays are famous for their brevity, compactness &
powerfulness. The essays are well arranged & enriched by Biblical
allusions, Metaphors & cadence.
　　4. 领会His achievements
As a literary man, Bacon is the first English essayist, whose Essays
won him a high place in the history of English literature.
As a philosopher, he is the founder of English materialistic
philosophy. He advocates the inductive method of reasoning. In his
famous plea for progress, Bacon demands three things: 1) the free
investigation of nature, 2) the discovery of facts instead of the
blind belief in theories 3) the verification of results by experiment
rather than by argument. In our day, these are the ABC of science, but
in Bacon's time they were revolutionary, Marx called him "the real
father of English materialism & experimental science of modern times
in general."
5. 应用 Of Studies
　　Of Studies is the most popular of Bacon's 58 essays. It analyzes
what studies chiefly serve for, the different ways adopted by
different people to pursue studies, & how studies exert influence over
human character. Forceful & persuasive, compact & precise, Of Studies
reveals to us Bacon's mature attitude towards learning. Bacon's
language is neat, priest, & weighty. It is some what affected, like
the water in the reservoir, restricted & confined.
V. John Donne
1.一般识记 Donne & the Metaphysical Poetry
　　John Donne: English poet & Clergyman, born in London, England, 1572,
and died in London, Mar. 31 1631. Donne is the leading figure of the
17th-century "metaphysical school." His poems give a more inherently
theatrical impression by exhibiting a seemingly unfocused diversity of
experiences & attitudes, & a free range of feelings & attitudes, & a
free range of feelings & moods. The mode is dynamic rather than
static, with ingenuity of speech, vividness of imagery & vitality of
rhythms, which show a notable contrast to the other Elizabethan lyric
poems, which are pure, serene, tuneful, & smooth running. The most
striking feature of Donne's poetry is precisely its tang of reality,
in the sense that it seems to reflect life in a real rather than a
poetical world. "Metaphysical Poetry" is commonly used to name the
work of the 17th-century writers who wrote under the influence of John
Donne. With a rebellions spirit, the metaphysical poets tried to break
away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan Love poetry. The
diction is simple as compared with echoes the words & cadences of
common speech. The imagery is drawn from the actual life. The form is
frequently that of an argument with the poet's beloved, with God, or
with himself. George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Richard Crashaw, Henry
Vaughan, Abraham Cowley, & Thomas Traherne are also considered to be
metaphysical poets. They wrote on a variety of religious & secular
themes, & to express their ideas, they used startling, highly
imaginative comparisons known as conceits. A conceit is a combination
of thoughts or images that are not usually associated with one
another.
　　The finest works of the metaphysical poets combine intellectual
subtlety with great emotional power. The poems reflect a broad
knowledge of science, art, & other branches of learning. At the same
time, metaphysical poems express an intense awareness of common human
feelings & experiences, such as jealousy, the loss of religious faith,
the complexities of love & the fear of death. Although the imagery of
metaphysical poetry is frequently strained, the language is often as
natural & direct as ordinary speech.
　　2识记His major works
　　In his life, Donne wrote a large number of poems & prose works, His
poems are especially admired for their unique combination of
passionate feeling & intellectual wit. Many of his poems rank with the
finest in the English language. Among his most famous works are the
poems Death Be Not Proud, "Go & Catch a Falling Star," The Ecstacy, &
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.
　　Most of The Elegies & Satires & a good many of The Songs & Sonnets
were written in the early period. He wrote prose works mainly in the
later period. His sermons, which are very famous, reveal his spiritual
devotion to God as a passionate preacher.
His works are classified as songs & sonnets, epistles, elegies, &
satires. When read in chronological order, the poems reveal his
development from "Gay Jack Donne," a reckless & cynical youth, to Dean
John Donne, a man devoted to God.
　　Donne's great prose works are his sermons, which are both rich &
imaginative, exhibiting the same kind of physical vigor & scholastic
complexity as his poetry. For example, the well-known Devotions Upon
Emergent Occasions (1623-1624). Written when he was seriously ill,
they contain the famous passage: "No Man is an island entire of
itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main… Any
man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, &
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee."

　　3. 领会 Characteristics of His Poems
　　Donne's poetry is subtle, complex, & often startling. He made expert
use of such poetic techniques as the paradox, a statement that seems
contradictory but actually contains truth, & the conceit, a pertinent
comparison between 2 apparently dissimilar things.
　　His early Lyrics most exist in The Songs & Sonnets. Love is the
basic theme. Donne holds that the nature of love is the union of soul
& body. The operations of the soul depend on the body. Idealism &
cynicism about love coexist in Donne's love poetry.
　　As a religious poet, his chief power is shown in the Holy Sonnets &
the last hymns.
　　In his poems, Donne frequently applies conceits, i.e. extended
metaphors involving dramatic contrasts. His poetry involves a certain
kind of argument, sometimes in rigid syllogistic form. With the brief,
simple language, the argument is continuous throughout the poem.
4. 应用Selected Readings
　　1) Death Be Not Proud, one of Donne's Holy Sonnets, is an almost
Startling put-down of poor death. Staunchly Christian in its pare
expectation of the resurrection, Donne's poem personifies death as an
adversary swollen with false pride & unworthy of being called "mighty
& dreadful." Donne gives various reasons in accusing death of being
little more than a slave bossed about by fate, chance, kings &
desperate men-a craven thing that keeps bad company, such as poison,
was & sickness. Finally, Donne taunts death with a paradox: "death,
thou shalt die."
　　The sonnet is written in the strict Petrarchan pattern. It reveals
the poet's belief in life after death: death is eternal.
　　2) The Sun Rising
　　The persona apostrophizes the sun as " unruly" because the sun
enters the lovers' secret room without their approval. The speaker
criticizes the sun pays too much attention to such things as sex &
that he should not be behaving so tediously as to stick to his rule &
enter without thinking twice into such a place as lovers dwell.

Ⅵ. John Milton

1.一般识记 Brief Introduction
　　John Milton, English poet & prose writer, born in London, England,
Dec. 9, 1608, and died in London, Nov 8, 1674.
　　Milton was one of the greatest poets in the English language & one
of the towering figures in all literature. His masterpiece, Paradise
Lost, is considered the unsurpassed English epic poem. It is a
powerfully imaginative & dramatic work, based in part on the Biblical
story of the temptation & fall of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Milton, a deeply religious man, wrote the epic " to justify the ways
of God to men." He is also famous for his graceful lyric poems, such
as Lycidas, L'Allegro, & for his intensely moving sonnets.
　　Milton was a great master of language, & his poetry, both epic &
lyric, is admired for its sublime eloquence & rich musical quality.

　　2. 识记His literary achievements
　　Milton's literary achievements can be divided into three groups: the
early poetic works, the middle prose pamphlets & the last great poems.
　　1) Education & Early Poetry
　　Milton's education would ordinarily have led him to a post in the
Church of England. He was a Puritan, however, & his religious vies
conflicted with those of the Church. After his 7 years at Cambridge,
therefore, he retired in 1632 to his father's estate at Horton. His
famous poems L'Allegro & IL Penseroso were probably written in 1631,
before his withdrawal from Cambridge. These are companion pieces that
contrast the temperaments of the cheerful, active man & the
melancholy, reflective man. In his early works, Milton appears as the
inheritor of all that was best in Elizabethan literature. Lycidas
(1637) is a typical example. All of Milton's early works reflect his
interest in Greek & Latin poetry, which greatly influenced his style.
His poems contain a wealth of classical references, figures of speech,
& other poetic devices, all masterfully blended into his rich verse.
　　2) Middle Period & Prose Pamphlets
　　In 1638, Milton began a 15-month tour of the Continent, where he met
the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei. Upon his return to England he
became deeply involved in the political & religious struggle between
Parliament, which was then dominated by the Presbyterians, & the
followers of king CharlesⅠ, who supported the Church of England.
Milton sided with Parliament & began to write a series of pamphlets
attacking the power of the bishops & the rituals of the Church. In
1652 he suffered great personal tragedy with the total loss of his
eyesight & the death of his wife & infant son In spite of his
blindness, Milton continued his official duties until 1655. During
these tragic years of his life he wrote some of his most poignant &
beautiful sonnets. They include On His Blindness, which reveals the
consolation he found in religious faith, & Methought 1 Saw My Late
Espoused Saint, written as a tribute to his second wife. Another of
his greatest sonnets, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, commemorated
the slaughter of a sect of religious martyrs in 1655. Areopagitica
(1644) is probably his most memorable prose work. It is a great plea
for freedom of the press. Its style is smooth & calm.
　　3) Later Years & Major Poetry
　　After the Restoration in 1660, Milton was imprisoned. His release
was brought about mainly through the efforts of his friends, notably
the poet Andrew Marwell, After that time he devoted himself to his 3
major poetical works: Paradise Lost (1667), Paradise Regained (1671),
& Samson Agonistes (1671). Among the three, the first is the greatest,
indeed the only generally acknowledged epic in English literature
since Beowulf; & the last one is the most perfect example of the verse
drama after the Greek style in English.

　　3.领会His Major Works
　　 1) Lycidas
　　It is a collection of elegies dedicated to Edward king, a fellow
undergraduate of Milton's at Cambridge, who was drowned in the Irish
Sea. The poem begins with grief & a feeling of immaturity; then the
grief is deepened by the sense of irrecoverable loss in the silencing
of a young poet. With this bitter sense of loss, Milton asks why the
just & good should suffer. These emotions swell to a passionate call
for the consolation of art. The poem moves from a sad apprehension of
death, through regret, to passionate questioning, rage, sorrow &
acceptance. The feelings begin in a low key but move on to the large
questions of divine justice & human accountability. The climax of the
poem is the blistering attack on the clergy, i.e. the "Shepherds," who
are corrupted by self-interest.
　　2) Paradise Lost
　　Paradise Lost, an epic poem in 12 books, written in blank verse,
represents the fullest expression of Milton's genius. The poem vividly
portrays the story of Satan's rebellion against God & his tempting of
Adam & Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. The
theme is the "Fall of Man," i.e. man's disobedience & the loss of
Paradise, with its prime cause-Satan. Although Adam is the central
figure in Paradise Lost, it is the villain, Satan, who emerges for
many readers as the most interesting character in the poem, In
Paradise Lost, Milton used the conventions of ancient Greek & Latin
epics & enriched his poem with reference to classical mythology &
literature.
　　Working through the tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote
Paradise Lost, intending to expose the ways of Satan & to "justify the
ways of God to men." At the center of the conflict between human love
& spiritual duty lies Milton's primary concern with freedom & choice;
the freedom to obey God's prohibition on eating the apple & the choice
of disobedience made for love. In the fall of man Adam discovered his
full humanity. But man's fall is the sequel to another & more
stupendous tragedy, the fall of the angels. By lifting his argument to
that degree, Milton raises the problem of evil in a more intractable
form. Milton holds that God created all things out of Himself,
including evil. There was evil in Heaven before Satan rebelled: Pride,
Lust, Wrath, & Avarice were there. At the glorification of the son
these forces erupted & were cast forth. But God suffered them to
escape from Hell & infect the Earth. And then the tragedy was
re-enacted, but with a difference-"Man shall find grace." But he must
lay hold of it by an act of free will. The freedom of the will is the
keystone of Milton's creed. His poem attempts to convince us that the
unquestionable truth of Biblical revelation means that an all-knowing
God just allows Adam & Eve to be tempted &, of their free will, to
choose sin & its inevitable punishment. And, thereby, it paves the way
for the voluntary sacrifice of Christ which showed the mercy of God in
bringing good out of evil.
　　3) Paradise Regained
　　Milton followed Paradise Lost with a shorter & less brilliant
religious religious epic, Paradise Regained, which describes the New
Testament story of Christ's victory over Satan in the wilderness.
　　4) Samson Agonistes
　　Milton's last important work was the magnificent poetic drama Samson
Agonistes, which presents the Biblical story of Samson in the form of
a Greek tragedy. The blind & suffering Samson is strongly reminiscent
of Milton himself.
　　The theme of Samson Agonistes is a more vital & personal one. The
picture of Israel's mighty champion, blind, alone, afflicted by
thoughtless enemies but preserving a noble ideal to the end, is a
fitting close to the life work of the poet himself. The poet's aim was
to present in English a pure tragedy, with all the passion & restraint
which marked the old Greek dramas. The whole poem strongly suggests
Milton's passionate longing that he too could bring destruction down
upon the enemy at the cost of his own life. In this sense, Samson is
Milton.

　　6. 应用Selected Reading
　　Analyze Satan, the hero in John Milton's Paradise Lost.
　　Milton's Paradise Lost is a long epic of which the theme is the
"Fall of Man" with its prime cause-Satan. In Heaven, Satan led a
rebellion against God. Defeated, he & his angels were cast into Hell,
However, Satan refused to accept his failure, vowing that "all was not
lost" & that he would seek revenge for his down fall. In order to
achieve his ambition, Satan managed to tempt Adam & Eve, the first
human beings created by God, to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge
against God's instruction. Satan is the real hero of the poem. Like a
conquered & banished giant, he remains obeyed & admired by those who
follow him down to hell. He is firmer than the rest of the fallen
angels. It is he, who, passing through the guarded gates of hell &
boundless chaos, amid so many dangers, & overcoming so many obstacles,
makes man revolt against God. Though defeated, he prevails, since he
was won from God the third part of his angels, & almost all the sons
of Adam. Though wounded, he triumphs, for the thunder which
overwhelmed him left heart still unvanquished.