英国文学系列3/4：十七世纪文学
2012-08-10 20:00阅读：
PART
THREE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
LITERATURE
[内容提要] 十七世纪的重大历史事件是英国革命，这个时期的作家或多或少地与革命相连。大诗人弥尔顿，寓言作家班扬自始至终支持革命，保皇派诗人则坚定地支持英国王室。玄学派诗人倾向于置身事外，其代表人物邓恩德诗歌以晦涩著称，深得二十世纪大诗人艾略特的赏识，所以能在二十世纪死而复生。
[学习要点]
弥尔顿的诗歌成就；《天路历程》的社会意义；《天路历程》与《西游
记》之比较研究；玄学派诗歌；保皇派诗歌。
The greatest historical events in the seventeenth
century are English Revolution and Restoration. Most English
writers are more or less related to the two historical events. The
greatest poet John Milton and the novelist John Bunyan stand up for
the Revolution while the Cavalier Poets are opposed to the
Revolution and support the royalty.
I. JOHN MILTON
(1608-1674)
1.2 Milton’s
major works
Milton’s best poems are Paradise Lost;
Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. He
has also produced some sonnets ( To Cyriack Skinner)
and pamphlets (Areopagitica)..
Paradise
Lost
Paradise
Lost' is
Milton’s masterpiece, and the greatest English epic. It is a
long epic in 12 books, written in blank verse. The stories were
taken from the Old Testament: the creation, the rebellion in Heaven
of Satan and his fellow-angels, their defeat and expulsion from
Heaven, the creation of the earth and of Adam and Eve, the fallen
angels in hell plotting against God, Satan’s temptation of Eve and
the departure of Adam and Eve from Eden.
Led by freedom-loving
Satan, the rebellious angels rise against God, but in the battle
with the hosts of angels that remain loyal to God they are finally
defeated Satan and his followers are banished from Heaven and
driven into hell. But Satan and his adherents are not discouraged.
The epic opens with the description of a meeting of the fallen
angels in hell. Satan's proud spirit is unyielding. He fearlessly
withstands all agonies and passionately strives for revenge and
victory.
Satan chooses for his
battlefield the most perfect of spots ever created by God the
Garden of Eden, where live the first man and woman, Adam and Eve,
who are allowed by God to enjoy the supreme beauties and bounties
of paradises provided that they do not eat
the fruit on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan
desires to tear them away from the influence of God and make them
tools in his struggle against God's authority.
God learns of his
intention, however, and sends the. Arch-angle Raphael to warn Adam
and Eve of Satan's plan. The Archangel reminds them
of their vow of obedience and gives a detailed account of Satan's
rebellion. Raphael goes on to relate God's creation of heaven and
earth, and all living creatures. But on Adam's request for an
explanation of the rotation of the celestial bodies ( an echo of
Galileo' s sermons), Raphael advises him not to inquire into
matters which are irrelevant to him and then leaves the
Garden.
No sooner is Raphael gone
than Satan assumes the shape of a serpent and appears before Eve.
He persuades her to break God's command, Eve eats an
apple from the forbidden tree and plucks another one for Adam. God
sees all this, and Adam and Eve, husband and wife, are both
deprived of immortality, exiled from Paradise and
doomed to an earthly life full of hardships and sufferings, to eat
bread by “the sweat of the brow' .
Samson
Agonistes
Samson
Agonistes is
a poetical drama modeled on the Greek tragedies. The story was
taken from the Old .Testament. Samson was an athlete of the
Israelites. He stood as their champion fighting for the freedom of
their country. But he was betrayed by his wife and blinded by his
enemies the Philistines. One day he was summoned to entertain his
enemies by feats of strength in a temple. There he wreaked his
vengeance upon his enemies by pulling down the temple upon them and
upon himself.
In this poetic drama,
Milton is telling us his own story. Like
Samson, he has been betrayed by his wife. He has suffered
from blindness and
been scorned by his enemies, and yet he has
been struggling against his enemies. Samson’s
miserable servitude among his enemies, his longing for sight and
freedom, and the last terrible triumph are all allusions to the
poet's own story. In a way, Samson is
Milton.
Comments on
Milton and His Poetry
1.
Milton is a great revolutionary poet of the 17th
century. He is also an outstanding political pamphleteer of
the Revolution period. He dedicated himself to the revolutionary
cause. He has exerted far-reaching influence on the later English
poetry. Many English poets have drawn inspiration from
him.
2.
Milton is
a great stylist. is poetry is of a grand style. He has made a
life-long study of classical and Biblical literature. His poetry is
noted for sublimity of thought and majesty of
expression.
3.
Milton is
a great master of blank verse. He is the forerunner
to introduce blank verse into non--dramatic poetry. His blank verse
is full of poetic imagination and never
monotonous.
METAPHYSICAL POETS AND CAVALIER
POETS
Metaphysical poets
About the beginning of the 17th century appeared
a school of poets called “Metaphysicals” by Samuel Johson, the 18th
century writer. The works of the Metaphysical poets ale
characterized, generally speaking, by mysticism in content and
fantasticality in form. The most representative poet is John
Donne.
Cavalier Poets
Another school of poetry prevailing in the
17th century was Cavalier Poetry. Cavalier poets
are, more often than not, knights and squires, who side with the
king against the parliament and the puritans in the English
revolution. They mostly deal in short songs on the flitting joys of
the day, but underneath their lightheartedness lies some foreboding
of impending doom.
The representative cavalier poets include John
Suckling, Richard Lovelace, Thomas Carew and Robert Herrick, the
author of “gather ye rose buds while you may”, of which we will
have a detailed study in our program.
JOHN BUNYAN (
1628-1688)
The Pilgrim’s
Progress
The Pilgrim’s
Progress is
an allegory, a narrative in which general concepts such as sin,
despair, and faith are represented as people or as aspects of the
natural world, In the book, the basis of the allegorical narrative
is the idea of a journey. The traveler’s name .is Christian, and he
represents every Christian. The figures and places Christian
encounters on his journey stand for the various experiences every
Christian must go through in the quest for
salvation.
The whole book falls into
two parts. The beginning tells us that the author has a dream. In
his dream, he notices a man called Christian carrying a bag of sins
on his back and reading the Bible. From the book Christian gets to
know that his home city will be destroyed someday by a big fire.
Then on the advice of the Evangelist, he flees away from his home
City---the city of Destruction. Part One mainly describes
his pilgrimage through the Slough of Despond, Vanity Fair,
Doubting Castle, the Valley of
Humiliation, and the Valley of the Shadow of Death. On the
way he overcomes many obstacles and encounters various allegorical
personages, such as, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, Faithful, Hopeful, Giant
Despair, the foul fiend Apollyon and some others. Finally he
accomplishes his journey by reaching the
Celestial City.
The best-known section of
Part One in this book is the Vanity Fair episode. Christian, the
hero, and his companion, Faithful, are passing through a town
called Vanity during the season of the local fair. On the Vanity
Fair, honors, titles, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures and lives can be
sold or bought, and cheating, roguery, murder and adultery are
normal phenomena.
This section gives the
bitterest satire, which is invariably directed at the ruling class.
In the descriptions of the Vanity Fair, Bunyan not only gives us a
symbolic picture of London at the time of the
Restoration but of all bourgeois society. .
Features of Bunyan's
Works
1.
Bunyan is known for his simple and lively
prose style, lie used everyday idiomatic expressions naturally His
prose, modeled on that of the king lames Bible, is clear enough to
be followed by any reader, and it is always full of specific and
plausible detail.
2.
His biblical language enabled him to
narrate his stories and reveal his ideas in a direct and
straightforward way.
QUESTIONS FOR
DISCUSSION
1.
Define “metaphysical poets” and “cavalier
poets”.
2.
Give a brief comment on John
Milton.
3.
On what account do we say that Samson is
Milton?
4.
Say something about John Bunyan’s position
in English literary history.
