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1 知识内容
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2 作业
内容
Revolution and Restoration Period
I. Historical background
A. The English Bourgeois Revolution
B. The establishment of a Commonwealth
C. The Restoration
D. The Glorious Revolution
II. Literature of the Revolution period
A. Features
B. Metaphysical poets
C. Cavalier poets
III. John Milton
A. Life and contributions
B. Literary career
1. Early period (before 1639)
2. Middle period (1639-60)
3. Last period (after 1660)
C. Appreciation of Paradise Lost
1. Plot
2. Theme
3. Significance
D. Miltonic style
Module 4 The English Revolution and Restoration Period PPT 图片来源
1. 历史背景
http://www.chopinmusic.net/works/waltzes/?print
2. 文学特点
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/packwood-house/
3. 班扬
http://pilgrimpassing.com/2012/09/12/preachers-today-vs-preachers-of-old/
4. 康格里夫
http://blog.seniorennet.be/romenu/archief.php?ID=1079153
5. 弥尔顿 1
http://milton.christs.cam.ac.uk/
6. 弥尔顿 2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton
7. 《论出版自由》
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/staritems/415areopagiticapic.html
8. 《失乐园 & 复乐园》
https://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/paradise-lost-paradise-regained/id337708584?mt=8
9. 《失乐园》
http://www.teachingcollegeenglish.com/2011/11/01/scmla-borrowings-from-the-past-reception-studies/
讲义
Revolution and Restoration Period
I. Historical background
A. The English Bourgeois Revolution (1642-1649)
Charles I (1600-1649), king of England , Scotland , and Ireland (1625-1649), believed in the absolute power of the king. He dissolved the Parliament which represented the interests of the burgher class and ruled the country without a parliament for 11 years. As the burgher class became increasingly influential in economic and political life, it came into the conflict with the power of the monarch. The clashes between the royalists and the parliamentarians escalated and resulted in the English bourgeois revolution in 1642. The royal army was defeated by the parliamentary army led by Oliver Cromwell. Charles was tried for treason and beheaded in 1649.
B. The establishment of a Commonwealth
After Cromwell achieved his triumph, he established the Commonwealth which made England a republic.
C. The Restoration
The re-establishment of monarchy in England with the return of Charles II in 1660, two years after Cromwell's death is known as the Restoration.
D. The Glorious Revolution (1688)
For fear of expansion of the king's power, the bourgeoisie drove James II, the successor of Charles II out of England and made Mary and William of Orange the joint rulers of England. This is known as the “Glorious Revolution” because it was bloodless. In 1688, William signed “The Bill of Rights”, which restricted the power of the king and made England a country of constitutional monarchy. It marked the end of the medieval period, the period of feudalism and the beginning of the modern period, the period of capitalism.
II. Literature of the Revolution period
Features
1) The prose of this period was largely concerned with politics.
2) The influence was also shown in the realm of religion. Most of the bourgeoisie were Puritans. They believed in simple life. Worldly pleasure was forbidden after the revolution. So the literature of the period was overwhelmed by gloom and pessimism.
3) The main literary form of this period was poetry. John Milton was the greatest Puritan poet. He defended the revolution with his pen. Besides him, there also appeared the Metaphysical poets and the Cavalier poets.
4 ） The Metaphysical poets were represented by John Donne and George Herbert. Their works were characterized by mysticism in content and fantasticality in form. The Cavalier poets were represented by Ben Jonson , Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace and Thomas Carew . Their poetry dealt with earthly and sensual love and expressed the spirit of hedonism （享乐主义） .
5) John Bunyan was another important writer in this period. His masterpiece was The Pilgrim's Progress.
Besides, the literary criticism of John Dryden also contributed a lot to the literature in this period.
III. John Milton
A. Life and contributions
Milton was born in London and received a Master's degree from Cambridge .
After leaving Cambridge , he spent 6 years at leisure in his father's home. He devoted himself to studying and writing poetry.
From 1638 to 1639 he toured France and Italy , and on his return to England , he settled in London and began writing a series of social, religious, and political tracts.
Milton supported the parliamentary cause in the Civil War, and in 1649 he was appointed foreign secretary by the government of the Commonwealth.
He became totally blind in about 1652 and thereafter he still carried on his literary and government work under the help of assistants.
After the Restoration in 1660, Milton suffered persecution for his support of parliament. He spent his rest life in writing poetry and died in 1674.
Milton was considered as the greatest English poet after William Shakespeare.
He was also a prominent political pamphleteer. His prose was devoted to the defense of civil and religious liberty.
He was a master of blank verse. He first introduced blank verse in non-dramatic works.
He was a great stylist. His style was called Miltonic style.
His powerful prose and eloquent poetry had an immense influence on the 18th-century verse.
B. Literary career
1. Early period (before 1639)
In this period, Milton was the inheritor of the Elizabethan literature. Among his early writing, the most famous was the elegy Lycidas . Elegy is a poem of morning for one's death. Lycidas was written to commemorate the death of his friend in Cambridge .
2. Middle period (1639 - 1660)
In his middle period, he wrote a series of pamphlets dedicated to people's liberties.
His religious pamphlets called for greater freedom in religious worship.
His divorce pamphlets argued that incompatibility should be considered an effective reason for divorce.
His political pamphlets justified the execution of the King; the popular concept of bourgeois democracy.
In 1644, John Milton wrote Areopagitica to argue against a proposal that would require licenses to print books. He was writing both for his own intellectual freedom and for the ideal of free speech.
3. Last period (after 1660)
The last period is the greatest in his literary life. In this period Milton produced his three long poems, Paradise Lost , Paradise Regained , and Samson Agonistes . All of the three poems employed subjects from the Christian Bible.
C. Appreciation of Paradise Lost
It was the greatest epic after Beowulf .
It consists of 12 books in blank verse.
This is the first several lines of Paradise Lost .
• Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
• Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
• Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
• With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
• Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
What comes to your mind when you read the lines? Yes, it reminds us of the story about Adam and Eve.
Plot
Paradise Lost truly involves them. The poem started when the rebellion of Satan and his followers against God was defeated. They were expelled from Heaven to hell. But after Adam and Eve were created, Satan escaped from the hell to take revenge on God. In the shape of a serpent, he seduced Adam and Eve to steal the forbidden fruit and disobey God. And finally they were driven out of paradise as punishment. And Satan and his followers were turned into serpents.
Theme
The poem seems to tell a Biblical story. But in fact, it is quite a different one. In the Bibl e, God is all-powerful, but in this poem, he is cruel and unjust in the struggle against Satan. On the contrary, Satan, an evil image in the Bible , becomes a rebellious hero.
The theme of the poem is Satan's heroic revolt against God's authority.
God in this poem represents the authority and tyranny.
Satan is the revolting spirit.
Adam and Eve embody the knowledge craving.
Significance
In this poem, Milton took the side of Satan, the rebels, as he did in the revolution. John Milton was a firm supporter of the revolution. His revolutionary enthusiasm was best shown in the poem.
He represented his strong hatred for the tyranny.
He showed his support and enthusiasm in the Revolution.
He called on the people to fight for their rights.
D. Miltonic style
The poem has long and involved and sometimes interminable sentence constructions.
Inversion and allusions are frequently used in the poem.
Besides, a variety of pauses spot the poem.
The combination of the above characteristics helps achieve an elaborately logical effect.
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John Bunyan and his contribution
Besides Milton , John Bunyan (1628-1688) was the chief Puritan writer after Restoration. While Milton voiced the Puritan ideals for the educated class, John Bunyan spoke for the common people. John Bunyan has been named “the Immortal Tinker”. He was one of the world's most well-known Christian writers.
He wrote many books, but his most famous one, Pilgrim's Progress has become a world classic. Bunyan, a poorly educated tinker's son who became an eloquent Puritan preacher, wrote the book while imprisoned in 1675 for his Nonconformist religious practices.
In terms of theme and content, his main literary concerns are his search for religious freedom and his attack satirically on social evils, the social system, and the ruling class.
Bunyan wrote in a simple but lively prose style. His prose exerted great influence on the English language because of the great popularity of his books, especially of Pilgrim's Progress through the centuries.
John Dryden was the most prominent poet, dramatist, translator and literary critic of Restoration England; and in each of these capacities he distinguished himself not only with great artistic merits but also with great volume of his output.
He is the greatest neo-classicist of the Restoration period.
His main contribution to the dramatic tradition in England is his introduction of a new type of drama, known as the “heroic play”— drama in epic mode, grand, rhetorical and declamatory, its themes being love and honor. The best-known heroic play is The Conquest of Grenada .
His best-known piece of literary criticism is An Essay of Dramatic Poesy , written in the form of a dialogue.
