2019-2020年高中英语 Module 3 Literature-Section 1 Background readings素材 外研版选修7.doc

2019-2020年高中英语 Module 3 Literature-Section 1 Background readings素材 外研版选修7I. Charles DickensDickenss novels bine brutality with fairy-tale fantasy; sharp, realistic, concrete detail with romance, farce, and melodrama.; the ordinary with the strange. They range through the ic, tender, dramatic, sentimental, grotesque, melodramatic, horrible, eccentric, mysterious, violent, romantic, and morally earnest. Though Dickens was aware of what his readers wanted and was determined to make as much money as he could with his writing, he believed novels had a moral purposeto arouse innate moral sentiments and to encourage virtuous behavior in readers. It was his moral purpose that led the London Times to call Dickens the greatest instructor of the Nineteenth Century in his obituary.Always concerned to make money with his writings, Dickens took seriouslythe negative response many readers had to his darker novels. He deliberately addressed their discontent (不满) when he wrote Great Expectations, which he affirmed was written in a most singular and ic manner.During his lifetime, Charles Dickens was the most famous writer in Europe and America. When he visited America to give a series of lectures, his admirers followed him, waited outside his hotel, peered in windows at him, and harassed him in railway cars. In their enthusiasm, Dickenss admirers behaved very much like the fans of a superstar today.II. Dickens assessment of human affairs (from A Tale of Two Cities)It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of parison only. 那是最美好的时代，那是最糟糕的时代；那是智慧的年头，那是愚昧的年头；那是信仰的时期，那是怀疑的时期；那是光明的季节，那是黑暗的季节；那是希望的春天，那是失望的冬天；我们全都在直奔天堂，我们全都在直奔相反的方向-简而言之，那时跟现在非常相象，某些最喧嚣的权威坚持要用形容词的最高级来形容它。说它好，是最高级的；说它不好，也是最高级的。III. About English LiteratureEnglish literature is produced in England, from the introduction of old English by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century to the present. The works of those Irish and Scottish authors who are closely identified with English life and letters are also considered part of English literature.1. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon Era This period extends from about 450 to 1066, the year of the Norman conquest of England. The Germanic tribes from Europe who overran (蔓延) England in the 5th century, after the Roman withdrawal, brought with them the Old English, or Anglo-Saxon language, which is the basis of Modern English. They brought also a specific poetic tradition, the formal character of which remained surprisingly constant until the termination of their rule by the Norman-French invaders six centuries later.2. Middle English Period Extending from 1066 to 1485, this period is noted for the extensive influence of French literature on native English forms and themes. From the Norman conquest of England in 1066 until the 14th century, French largely replaced English in ordinary literary position, and Latin maintained its role as the language of learned works. By the 14th century, when English again became the chosen language of the ruling classes, it had lost much of the Old English inflectional system, had undergone certain sound changes, and had acquired the characteristic it still possesses of freely taking into the native stock numbers of foreign words, in this case French and Latin ones. Thus, the various dialects of Middle English spoken in the 14th century were similar to Modern English and can be read without great difficulty today.3. The Renaissance (文艺复兴时期)A golden age of English literature menced (开始) in 1485 and lasted until 1660. Malorys Le morted Arthur was among the first works to be printed by William Caxton, who introduced the printing press to England in 1476. From that time on, readership was vastly multiplied. The growth of the middle class, the continuing development of trade, the new character and thoroughness (完全) of education for laypeople (非神职人员) and not only clergy (神职人员), the centralization of power and of much intellectual life in the court of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs, and the widening horizons of exploration gave a fundamental new impetus (促进) and direction to literature. The new literature nevertheless did not fully flourish until the last 20 years of the 1500s, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Literary development in the earlier part of the 16th century was weakened by the diversion of intellectual energies to the polemics (辩论法) of the religious struggle between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, a product of the Reformation.4. The Restoration Period and the 18th CenturyThis period extends from 1660, the year Charles II was restored to the throne, until about 1789. The prevailing characteristic of the literature of the Renaissance had been its reliance (依靠) on poetic inspiration or what today might be called imagination. The inspired conceptions of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton, the true originality of Spenser, and the daring poetic style of Donne all support this generalization. Furthermore, although nearly all these poets had been far more bound (限制) by formal and stylistic conventions than modern poets are, they had developed a large variety of forms and of rich or exuberant (丰富的) styles into which individual poetic expression might fit. 5. The Romantic Age Extending from about 1789 until 1837, the Romantic age stressed emotion over reason. One objective of the French Revolution was to destroy an older tradition that had e to seem artificial, and to assert the liberty, spirit, and heartfelt unity of the human race. To many writers of the Romantic age this objective seemed equally appropriate in the field of English letters. In addition, the Romantic age in English literature was characterized by the subordination of reason to intuition (直觉) and passion, the cult of nature much as the word is now understood and not as Pope understood it, the primacy (首位) of the individual will over social norms of behavior, the preference for the illusion of immediate experience as opposed to generalized and typical experience, and the interest in what is distant in time and place.6. The Victorian Era The Victorian era, from the coronation (加冕礼) of Queen Victoria in 1837 until her death in 1901, was an era of several unsettling social developments that forced writers more than ever before to take positions on the immediate issues animating the rest of society. Thus, although romantic forms of expression in poetry and prose (散文) continued to dominate English literature throughout much of the century, the attention of many writers was directed, sometimes passionately, to such issues as the growth of English democracy (民主主义), the education of the masses, the progress of industrial enterprise and the consequent rise of a materialistic (唯物主义的) philosophy, and the plight (困境) of the newly industrialized worker. In addition, the unsettling of religious belief by new advances in science, particularly the theory of evolution and the historical study of the Bible, drew other writers away from the immemorial subjects of literature into considerations of problems of faith and truth.7.20thCentury Literature Two world wars, an intervening (干涉) economic depression of great severity, and the austerity (节俭) of life in Great Britain following the second of these wars help to explain the quality and direction of English literature in the 20th century. The traditional values of Western civilization, which the Victorians had only begun to question, came to be questioned seriously be a number of new writers, who saw society breaking down around them. Traditional literary forms were often discarded, and new ones succeeded one another with bewildering rapidity, as writers sought fresher ways of expressing what they took to be new kinds of experience, or experience seen in new ways.