英美文学复习资料(打印节省版).doc

英美文学复习资料 English Literary History 1. Beowulf is regarded as the national epic of the Anglo-Saxons. 2. Romance is a popular literary form in the medieval period. 3. Geoffrey Chaucer has been called the father of English poetry. His masterpiece is The Canterbury Tales. 4. Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. 5. Edmund Spenser is known as “the poets’ poet”. Masterpiece the Faerie Queene is a great poem of its age. 6. Christopher Marlowe is the most gifted of the “University Wits”. His masterpieces are Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus, the Jew of Malta and Edward II. Marlowe’s greatest achievement lies in that he perfected the blank verse and made it the principal medium of English drama and the creation of the Renaissance hero for English drama. 7. William Shakespeare is one of the most remarkable playwrights and poets. His greatest tragedies are Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. The Merchant of Venice is the most important play among the comedies. 8. Francis Bacon is a well-known Renaissance philosopher, scientist and essayist. 9. John Donne is the leading figure of the “Metaphysical school.” 10. The neoclassical period, that is the eighteenth-century England is also known as the Age of enlightenment or the Age of Reason. Enlightenment Movement brought about in reviving the interest in old classical works is known as neoclassicism. 11. The mid-century was predominated by a newly rising literary form – the modern English novel. 12. John Bunyan was a devout Christian, and a firm non-conformist of the Anglican Church. His masterpiece is the Pilgrim’s Progress. (最成功的宗教寓言诗) 13. Alexander Pope’s best satiric work is The Dunciad (愚人志). 14. Daniel Defoe’s works are the first literary writings devoted to the study of problems of the lower-class people. 15. Jonathan Swift was a master satirist. His “A Modest Proposal” is generally taken as a perfect model. 16. Henry Fielding is regarded as “father of the English Novel”. He was the first to set out, both in