内容

I. Edmund Spenser

1.Introduction of Edmund Spenser

2.Spenser's works:

II. Francis Bacon

1. Introduction of Francis Bacon

2. Bacon's works

Module 3-unit 2 Edmund Spenser and Francis Bacon PPT 图片来源

1. 埃德 蒙· 斯宾塞

http://www.chinavalue.net/wiki/%E5%9F%83%E5%BE%B7%E8%92%99_%E6%96%AF%E5%AE%BE%E5%A1%9E_c_277389.aspx

2. 《小爱神》

http://book.kongfz.com/16409/214224894/

3. 《仙后》

www.fantasycomments.org

4. 弗朗西·斯培根

www.zwbk.org

5. 《论说文集》

http://www.yeedou.com/yingyuduwu-c1569/product-picture-6848433.html

讲义

Edmund Spenser and Francis Bacon

Spenser

I. Position

•  And Edmund Spenser is the most outstanding poet after Geoffrey Chaucer.

•  He bridges the medieval period and Elizabethan period.

•  His genius in writing poetry impresses many readers and he is usually considered as “ the Poets' Poet ”.

II. Works

In Spenser's life, he wrote many beautiful poems. His major works are The Shepheardes Calendar , Amoretti and The Faerie Queene.

1. The Shepheardes Calendar

•  The Shepheardes Calendar is his first major poem that he dedicated to another famous English poet Sir Philip Sidney .

•  It is a pastoral poem consisting of 12 eclogues ( 牧歌 ), one for each month of the year.

•  The poem depicts the quiet and simple country life and praises the harmony between human being and nature.

•  This work demonstrates the great poetic flexibility of the English language.

•  Amoretti

•  Amoretti is a sonnet sequence of 89 love poems.

•  The word Amoretti means “little loves” or “little love poems” in Italian.

•  It is generally believed that these sonnets were written to celebrate his love and marriage to his wife Elizabeth Boyle .

•  The Faerie Queene

•  The Faerie Queene has been regarded as Spenser's masterpiece. It is one of the great poems in the English language.

•  The poem is a literary epic, and the original plan was to include 12 books but only six books and two cantos of the 7th were completed.

•  Largely symbolic, the poem follows several knights in their adventures to test their virtues: Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy.

•  What's worth mentioning is that The Faerie Queene was written in a special verse form called Spenserian stanza ( 斯宾塞诗节 ).

•  Spenserian stanza is a 9-line stanzaic form with the rhyming scheme of abab bcbc c.

•  The first 8 lines are in iambic pentameter ( 五步抑扬格 ) and the 9th line is in iambic hexameter ( 六步抑扬格 ). As is shown in the following excerpt from The Faerie Queene .

A Gen / tle Knight/was prick/ ing on/ the plaine,/

Ycladd / in/ might/ tie armes /and sil / ver shielde,/

Wherein / old dints / of deepe / wounds did / remaine, /

The curell / markes of/ many / a bloud / y fielde; /

Yet armes / till that /time did / he nev / er wield:/

His an / gry steede / did chide / his fo/ ming bitt, /

As much / disday / ning to / the curbe / to yield :/

Full jol / ly knight / he seemd, / and faire / did sitt, /

As one / for knight / ly giusts / and fierce / encoun / ters fitt. /

•  This form has been the model for many later poets in Romantic period.

•  For example, Byron used this form in his Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ; Keats used this form in his Eve of St. Agnes; and Shelley used this form in his Revolt of Islam and Adonais . (All the three poets mentioned just now belong to the Romantic period. We'll talk about them later.)

III. Features

•  Spenser's poems are a perfect melody with rare sense of beauty.

•  They fuse splendid imagination with moral purity and seriousness.    

IV. Social influence

•  Spencer was one of the greatest poets in the Renaissance period and the master of English verse.

•  When reading Spencer's poetry, readers will surely be impressed.

•  His expansive imagination and vigorous approach to structure made him a powerful influence on the following poets:   Shakespeare, Byron, Keats, Shelley and Tennyson.

•  A nd they are all followers of Spenser to some degree.

Francis Bacon

I. Position       

•  Francis Bacon is an important scientist , philosopher and essayist .

•  As the first important English essayist, Bacon is best known for his essays , which greatly influence the development of this literary form.

•  He is also the founder of modern science in England . His writing paves the way for the use of scientific method in research.

•  Thus, he was one of the most outstanding figures in the English Renaissance.

•  Marx called him the “ real founder of English materialism and experimental science of modern times in general ”.

II. Life

•  Education and career: Bacon attended Trinity College , Cambridge at the age of 12, but he left without a degree. After several years of study of law , at the age of 23, he entered the Parliament and began his political career. Bacon enjoyed several high positions in the court.

•  Bribery: But in 1621, he was accused of bribery and banished from court. In the following years, Bacon devoted all his energy to writing works of immense literary and philosophical interests.

•  Death: In 1626, Bacon decided to experiment with the effect of cold on the decay of meat. But unfortunately, he caught a cold and then pneumonia , and died on April 9 th .   

III. Two major contributions

•  First , about his contribution to modern science.

•  Scientific ideas: Bacon valued experience and observation and placed emphasis on facts. He thought conclusions must be based on facts. He was determined to search for truth. His thought system represented the beginnings of materialism in English philosophy.

•  Inductive method of learning: In his writings, Bacon introduced an inductive method of reasoning and learning. It means drawing conclusion from the natural world through experimentation, observation, and testing of hypotheses.

•  Significance: By putting forward this theory, Bacon shows the new empirical attitudes toward truth about nature and bravely challenges the medieval ideas .

•  Works: His well-known philosophical works include: New Instrument , The New Atlantis and Advancement of Learning.

•  Second , about his achievements in prose writing . The representative work is Bacon's Essays .

•  After several revisions, he finally published 58 Essays .

•  Subject : With vigorous, fresh and powerful style, these essays touch upon a wide variety of subjects of universal interest, such as truth, love, envy, ambition, learning, philosophy, politics and so on.

•  Style : Bacon's prose style is compact, concise yet polished. He set up a new method of prose writing, which was easy, simple, graceful, rhetorical, musical and condensed.

•  Significance : They are essentially Bacon's reflection on man and life and reveal Bacon's intimate knowledge of human nature. Bacon's essays exert an important influence on the development of English prose. They were the first “essays” in English.

IV. Appreciation of Of Studies

Of Studies is the most popular of Bacon's 58 essays and is considered as a classic by the readers. It is forceful and persuasive, compact and precise. It reveals Bacon's mature attitude towards learning. As to the contents, it deals with study mainly from five aspects, and they are:

1. Purpose of reading

2. Attitudes towards study

3. Principles of study

4. Study method

5. And the effect of study on human character   

•  Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business.

读书足以怡情，足以傅彩，足以长才。其怡情也，最见于独处幽居之时；其傅彩也，最见于高谈阔论之中；其长才也，最见于处 世判事之际。

•  Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them.  

有一技之长者鄙读书，无知者羡读书，唯明智之士用读书。

•  Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. 

读书使人充实，讨论使人机智，笔记使人准确。

•  Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

书有可浅尝者，有可吞食者，少数则须咀嚼消化。换言之，有只须读其部分者，有只须大体涉猎者，少数则须全读，读时须全神贯注，孜孜不倦。

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扩展学习

1. The Jacobean Poetry

The Spenserians were poets who continued and imitated the poetry of the preceding age. Phineas and Giles Fletcher were the two chief Spenserians of the 17th century.

They wrote religious allegories, following Spenser in the writing of epics in allegory and in the use of very rich, ornate language.

2. The metaphysical school

The metaphysical school denotes a succession of poets—John Donne and his followers George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan and Abraham Cowley.

Their subject was the relationship of spirit to matter or the ultimate nature of reality.

Their distinctive way of expression is the so-called metaphysical conceit—i.e. paradoxical metaphor causing a shock to the mind by the unlikeliness of association.

3. John Donne (1572-1631), English poet, prose writer, and clergyman.

Donne was born in London.

At the age of 11 he entered the University of Oxford, where he studied for three years.

He began the study of law in 1592, and about two years later he joined the Anglican church.

His first book of poems, Satires, is considered one of Donne's most important works.

John Donne wrote love poetry, satires, divine poetry and sermons.

His poems are characterized by cynicism, morbidity, striving for the novelty, and the use of “conceit” -- all these are signs of decadence.

An extreme example of this decadence may be seen in a poem entitled The Flea.