Unit 1 A Brief Introduction to the United Kingdom I
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Unit 1 A Brief Introduction
to the United Kingdom I
(英国简介I)
一、本单元重点内容
1. A complicated country
with a complicated name
(复杂的名称，复杂的国家)
2. The effects of
its imperial past (帝国主义历史的影响)
3. A multiracial society
(多种族的社会)
4. Remarkable class,
regional and economic differences
(显著的阶级、地域和经济差异)
5.
The
significant
role
of
London
(
伦敦的重要地位)
6. Cultural and economic
dominance of England
(英格兰的在文化和经济上的统治地位)
7. The conquest of
Britain （对不列颠的征服）
8. Parliament’s dominance
over the throne (议会成为凌驾于王室权力之上的统治机构)
9. Physical features of
Scotland (苏格兰的地理特征)
10. Cultural division between
highland and lowland
(苏格兰高地和低地之间的文化区分)
11. The Battle of Bannockburn
(班诺克本战役)
12. Union with England in
1707 {1707年(苏格兰)与英格兰合并}
13. Strong Scottish identity
(仍具有很浓的苏格兰特色)
14. Brief introduction of Wales
(对威尔士的简要介绍)
15. Campaigns
for independence of UK
(威尔士的独立运动)
二、本单元重、难点辅导
1. Names
1. British Empire (100 years
ago)
About 100 years ago, as a
result of its imperialist
expansion, Britain ruled an
empire that had 1/4 of
the world’s people and 1/4 of
the world’s land area. It had
colonies in North America, Asia,
Africa and Australia.
2. Commonwealth (1931)
The commonwealth (of Nations) is
a free association of
independent countries that were
once colo nies of Britain.
Member nations are joined
together economically and have
certain trading arrangements. The
Commonwealth has no special
powers. The decision to become
a member of the Commonwealth
is left to each
nation.
3. Reason for Britain Empire
changed into a Commonwealth: the
two world wars greatly weakened
Britain.
2. The effects of its
imperial past
1) 1)
The days of empire ended
after World War II. But
there are close relationships
which exist with the 50
or more colonies of that
empire, and which maintain links
through Commonwealth of
Nations(二战后，帝国主义时代过去了。但是大英帝国的50多个殖民地之间仍然有着紧密的联系，这种联系主要通过英联邦这个组织来维系).
2)It has great effects on
the makeup of the British
population: 对英国的人口构成有着很大的影响
Because of the immigration from
India, Pakistan, or Caribbean
countries in the 1950s and1960s,
1 in 20 are non-European
ethnicity (由于在20世纪50、60年代，来自印度、巴基斯坦或位于西印度群岛与中南美洲海域的加勒比国家大量涌入英国，现在1/20的英国人是非欧洲血统的人).
3. Racial, gender, class,
regional and economic differences
in the society
1) a multi-racial society: most
are Christians and because of
immigration, many are Muslims;
2) gender difference: male and
female live different
lives
3) class difference: the class
structure of UK society is
relatively obvious (A white-collar
worker’s lives are very
different from a blue-collar
worker’s.)
*Economic and regional difference
within each of the 4
countries:
1) difference between highland
and lowland Scots
2) difference between north and
south England (South is on
average more wealthy than the
north)
4. A significant role of
London
1) capital city
2) in the south; largest
city in the country; 1/7
of the nation’s population
3) culture center
4) business center
5) financial center, one of
the 3 major international
financial centers in the world
(another two are New York
and Hong Kong )
6) long-standing historical role
in the UK
5. General features
a. Tilting: ① Rising
in North-West cause highlands
there; ②
Sinking in
South-East cause lowlands.
b. Ice Age: responsible
for Britain’s spectacular mountain
scenery.
3. England (more than
130,000 square kilo metres which
takes up nearly 60% of
the whole island)
a. Pennines, principal
mountain chain.
b. Scafell (978 m), the
highest peak of England.
c. Capital: London.
4. Scotland (78,760 square
kilometres)
a. Three zone:
① Highlands
in the north:
plateau;
② Central
Lowlands: most important area
in Scotland which contain most
of the industry and
population;
③ Southern
Uplands: moorland.
b. Ben Nevis (1,343 m),
the highest mountain in
Britain.
c. Capital: Edinburgh.
5. Wales (20,761 square
kilometres which takes up less
than 9% of the whole
island)
a. Most of Wales
is Mountainous;
b. 12% of the land
is arable;
c. Massif 断层;
d. Snowdonia (1,085 m),
highest mountain in Wales;
e. Capital: Cardiff.
6. Northern Ireland (14,147
square kilometres which takes up
1/5 of Ireland)
a. It has a rocky
and wild northern coastline
;
b. Capital: Belfast.
6. Rivers and
Lakes
1) Rivers
a. Importance:
① Great
ports (through river) to
sea;
② Rivers
to both European Continent and
fishing grounds;
③ Rivers
(carry raw materials) to
inland.
b. Rivers:
① Severn
River (338 km): longest
river;
② Thames
River (336 km): second largest
and most important (water
transportation, Oxford
site);
③ River
Clyde: most important river in
Scotland.
2)
Lakes
a. Lough Neagh: largest
lake in Britain (located in
Northern Ireland).
b. Lake District:
① One of
the popular tourist attractions
in Britain;
② 15
lakes, the largest ones are
Windermere, Ullswater, Derwentwater and
Coniston Water;
③ The home
of the lake poets of 19t
h century: Wordsworth, Coleridge
and Southey.
7 Climate
1) Maritime
a. Favorable one,
winters are mild not too
cold and summers are cool
not too hot;
b. Steady reliable rainfall
throughout the whole year;
c. Small range of
temperature.
2) Factors
a. The surrounding
waters tend to balance the
seasonal differences by heating
up the land in winter and
cooling it off in
summer;
b. The Westerlies blow
over the country all the
year round bringing warm and
wet air in winter and
keeping the temperatures
moderate;
c. The North Atlantic
Drift, which is a warm
current, passes the wester n
coast of the British Isles
and warms them.
3) Rainfall
a. General: Britain has
a steady reliable rainfall
throughout the whole year. The
average annual rainfall in
Britain is over 1,000 mm;
b. Character: ①
Water
surplus in north and west;
②
Water deficit
in south and east.
c. Reservoirs have to be
built in highland areas such
as Central Wales, the Lake
District and the Scottish
Highlands.
4.) Natural calamities
a. In 1952 the
sulphur dioxide in the four
-day London smog, an unhealthy
atmosphere formed by mixing
smoke and dirt with fog,
left 4,000 people dead or
dying. So most cities in
Britain have introduce “Clean air
zones” whereby factories and
households are only allow to
burn smokeless fuel.
b. Many areas are
subjected to severe gales, which
cause flooding, shipwrecks and
loss of life, especially in
winter.
8 People
(Britain has a population
of 57,411,000 in 1990)
1) General features:
a. Densely populated
with an average of 237
people per square
kilometer;
b. Unevenly distributed: 90%
in urban, 10% in
rural;
c. Concentration: most in
England (most in London and
south-eastern England);
d. Composition: English 81.5%,
Scottish 9.6%, Welsh 1.9%, Irish
2.4%, Northern Irish 1.8%,
Immigrants 2.8%.
2) English
a. Origin:
Anglo-Saxons.
b. Language: ①
Southern:
BBC (except Cockney);
② Northern: broader.
c. Cockney: A Cockney is
a Londoner who is born
within the sound of Bo w
Bells –
the bells
of the church of St
Mary-Le-Bow Bells in east
London.
d. It was from the
union of Norman conquerors and
the defeated Anglo -Saxons that
the English people and the
English language were
born.
3) Welsh
a. Origin: Celts.
b. Language:
① Welsh,
an ancient Celtic language: 1%
people only speak Welsh, it
was given equality with English
for all official use in
Wales in 1965, names beginning
with “Ll”;
② English.
c. Character: emotional,
cheerful.
d. Culture: Eisteddfodau
(威尔斯诗人音乐家大会) / National Eisteddfod,
with an purpose to keep
the welsh language and culture
alive.
4) Scots
a. Origin: Celts.
b. Scots are proud that
the English never conquered
them.
c. Language:
① Gaelic,
old Celtic language of the
Scots: it is still heard
in the Highlands and the
Western Isles and their names
beginning with M’, Mac, Mc,
which means “son
of” in Gaelic;
② English;
d. Character: ①
said to
be serious, cautious, thrifty;
② in fact they are
hospitable, generous,
friendly.
5.) Irish
a. Origin: Scots and
English Protestants.
b. Problem: there has
been bitter fighting between the
Protestants who are dominant
group, and the Roman Catholics,
who are seeking more social,
political and economic
opportunities.
c. Language（爱尔兰共和国）:
① Irish or
Erse, a form of Gaelic:
official first language of the
Republic of Ireland;
② English:
second.
d. Character: charm, vivacity,
beauty girls.
6. Immigrants
a. Origin: West Indies,
India and Pakistan.
b. Discrimination: Usually the
colored immigrants have to take
the lo west paid jobs,
and when there is unemployment
they are usually the first
to be sacked.
Great Britain
England
1. A cultural and economic
dominance of England
1) London dominant in the
UK in government, finance and
culture
2) England’s dominance in size
--- largest of the 4
nations with largest population
is reflected in a cultural
and economic dominance
* result: people in foreign
countries and English people
sometimes mistake England for
U.K in their talks.
2. The conquest of Britain
(Before AD. 1st C., made
up of many tribal kingdoms
of Celtic people)
Ⅰ).Settlers (5000
BC –55 BC)
1. Iberians (the first
known settlers)
① At about
3000 BC, these short, dark
and long-headed people came to
Britain, probably from the
Iberian Peninsula, now Spain.
② Long
barrows in Wiltshire and Dorset
were their communal burial
mounds.
③ Stonehenge
in Wiltshire is more dramatic
monuments, which may have
religious and political means.
2. Beaker Folk
① At about
2000 BC they come from
the areas now known as
Holland and the Rhineland.
② They
took the name from their
bell- shaped drinking vessels
with which they were buried
in crouching positions in
individual graves.
③ They
built hill forts, with the
finest examples of Maiden
Castle.
3. Celts
① A taller
and fairer race began to
arrive about 700
BC.
② They may
originally come from eastern and
central Europe, now France,
Belgium and southern
Germany.
③ They came
in three main waves: a.
Gaels at 600 BC (Gaelic);
b. Brythons at 400 BC; c.
Belgae at 150 BC (industrious
and vigorous).
④ The Celtic
bribes are ancestors of Highland
Scots, the Ir ish and the
Welsh, and their languages are
the basis of both Welsh
and Gaelic.
⑤ The
Celts’ religion was Druidism (human
sacrifices). The Druids were the
wise men, astrologers and
soothsayers.
Ⅱ).Roman Britain
(55BC-410AD)
1. Roman Conquest
British recorded history begins
with the Roman invasion. Julius
Caesar, invaded Britain for the
first time in 55BC. He
returned the following year, but
he
didn’t
succeed. The successful invasion
was take place in AD43,
headed by the Emperor
Claudius.
2.
Reasons for untotal occupation:
a. some parts of the
country resist; b. Roman troops
were often withdraw from Britain
to fight in other parts
of Roman Empire.
3. Ways to keep Picts:
They built two great walls
to keep the Picts, so
called because of their
“painted
faces”, out of the area
they had conquered. These were
Hadrian’s Wall and Antonine
Wall.
4. Three problems
a. Picts still attacked
them periodically;
b. Saxon pirates attacked
them in the southeast;
c. Control was only
effective in the south-eastern
part of the country.
5. Achievement
a. Network of towns
and roads.
① Caster
and Chester means
camp.
② Capital:
London (Londinium).
③ Two
cities: York had been created
as a northern stronghold; Bath
rapidly developed because of its
waters.
b. Make use of
Britain’s natural resources, mining
lead, iron and tin and
manufacturing pottery.
6. Religion: Christianity.
7. Reasons for withdraw
in AD 410: a. barbarians
from Eastern Europe at the
gates of Rome; b. repeated
attacks from Picts and Scots;
c. needing to set up a
new military front on the
east coast to hold off th
e Germanic Saxon tribes invading
from Europe.
8. Why was the Roman
influence on Britain so
limited?
The Romans always treated the
Britons as a subject people
of slave class. Never during
the 4 centuries did the
Romans
and Britons intermarry. The
Romans had no impact on
the language or culture of
ordinary Britons.
Ⅲ).Anglo -Saxons
(446-871)
1. Anglo-Saxons and the
found of Heptarchy
The Anglo-Saxons were three
tribes of the Germanic people
who originally lived in the
northwest of modern Germany.
In the mid-5thcentury a ne
w wave of invaders, Jutes,
Saxons, and Angles came to
Britain. They were three
Teutonic tribes. The leader of
Jutes, Hengist, became the King
of Kent in 449. Then the
Saxons established their kingdoms
in Essex, Sussex and Wessex
from the end of 5thcentury
to the beginning of the
6thcentury. The Angles settled
in East Anglia, Mercia and
Northumbria. These seven principal
kingdoms of Kent, Essex, Sussex,
Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia and
Northumbria have been given the
name of Heptarchy.
2. Wars among
Heptarchy
a. Offa, King of
Mercia, built the great
earthwork kno wn as
Offa’s
Dyke, control for a long
time virtually all central,
eastern and south-eastern
England.
b. In 829, Egbert, King
of Wessex, became an overlord
of all the English.
3. Religion
a. Teutonic religion
(The names Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday and Friday derive from
their gods)
b. Christianity
① Columba,
563, convert north
commoner.
② In 597,
Pope GregoryⅠsent St.
Augustine, the Prior of St.
Andrew’s Monastery in Rome,
to England to convert the
heathen English to Christianity.
In 597, St. Augustine became
the first Archbishop of
Canterbury.
Augustine was remarkably successful
in converting the king and
the nobility, but the
conversion of the common people
was largely due to the
missionary activities of the
monks in the north.
c. Disagreement: The Roman
missionaries held that the
Pope’s
authority was supreme, and the
Celtic missionaries held that
Christian belief did not require
a final earthly arbiter. They
held a conference at Whitby
in 664. Finally, the Roman
missionaries gained the upper
hand.
4. Achievements
The Anglo-Saxons laid the
foundations of the English
state. They divided the country
into shires. They de
vised the narrow -strip,
three-field farming system. They
also established the manorial
system. And they created the
Witan.
5.
Questions
Ⅳ).Viking and
Danish
1. The Norwegian Vikings
and the Danes from Denmark
attacked various parts of
England from the end of t
he 8t h century.
They became a serious problem
in the 9thcentury, especially
between 835 and 878. The
Vikings and the Danes were
posing a threat to the
Saxon kingdom.
2. Alfred, king of Wessex
was strong enough to defeat
the Danes and came to a
relatively friendly agreement with
them in 879.
a. Danes gained control
of north and east of
England, i.e. “the
Danelaw”.
b. Alfred, king of
Wessex, rule the rest.
3. Alfred’s achievements.
Alfred, king of Wessex, is
known as “the father of the
British navy”
as he
founded a strong fleet which
first beat the Danes at
sea, then protected the coasts
and encouraged trade. He also
reorganized the fyrd (the
Saxon army), making it more
efficient. Alfred, who is said
to have taught himself Latin
at the age of 40,
translated into English
Bede’s
Ecclesiastical history of
the English People . A
learned man himself, he
encouraged learning in others,
established schools and formulated
a legal system. This, as
well as his admirable work
with the army and the
navy, makes him worthy of
his title “Alfred the Great”.
4. Successors.
a. King Ethelred the
Unready tried paying the
invaders, who renewed invasions
because the successors reconquered
the Danelaw, to stay away
by imposing a tax, called
the danegeld, on his
people.
b. Canute, the Danish
leader, was chosen by Witan
as king. He made England
part of Scandinavian empire
which included Norway as well
as Denmark.
Ⅴ).The Norman
Conquest (1066)
1. Background: King is
also said to have promised
the English throne to William,
Duke of Normandy. But, when
Edward was on his deathbed,
four men laid claim to
the English throne. Finally, the
Witan chose Harold as king.
Four men :
King of Norway / Tostig
Ⅼ→ Harold (king)
→ Duke of Normandy( join
together ) ( fight ) (
fight )
2. Process: ①
1066.10.14,
the battle on Senlac Field
(near Hastings), where Harold
was killed; ②
1066
Christmas,
William crowned King of England
by the Archbishop of
York.
3. Measure to face Saxon
risings in the north:
“harrying of the
north”.
4. Significance: The Norman
Conquest of 1066 is perhaps
the best-known event in English
history. William the Conqueror
confiscated almost all the
land and gave it to his
Norman followers. He replaced
the weak Saxon rule with
a strong Norman government. So
the feudal system was completely
established in England. Relations
with the Continent were opened,
and civilization and commerce
were ext ended. Norman-French
culture, language, manners, and
architecture were introduced. The
Church was brought into closer
connection with Rome, and the
church courts were separated
from the civil courts.
When
|
Who
|
Where from
|
Which part
conquered
|
43 AD—
AD.5th C
|
Latin-speaking
Roman
|
Mediterranean
countries
|
England and Wales
(not Scotland or
Ireland)
|
AD.5th C
—1066
|
Angles and
Saxons
(the forefathers of the English;
the founders of
England)
|
Germany
|
Eastern and
Southern Britain (not Wales and
most of Scotland )
mainly England
|
Late AD.8thC –
AD 10th C.
|
the ferocious
Vikings
|
Scandinavia (北欧：瑞典、挪威一带。丹麦、芬兰、冰岛等)
|
Northern and
Eastern England, Scotland
|
AD 11th
C
(1066)
|
Norman French
(William the Conqueror defeated
King Harold at the Battle
of Hastings, and built the
Tower of London)
|
Normandy
(northern France)
|
The next few
hundred years, joining various
parts of the British Isles
under English rule (England,
Wales, Scotland, Ireland)
|
3. Legends
1). King Arthur and his
Round Table, giving knights
equal precedence and showing
knights’ demand for a more
democratic system (During Anglo-Saxon’s
invasion)
2). Robin Hood hid in the
forest, rebelled against Normans
and robbed from the rich
to give to the poor
(During the period of Norman
rule)
--a clue to the English
Character: a richly unconventional
interior life hidden by an
external conformity (体现英国人个性的迹象:表面上似乎一致,但实际上保持着一种强烈的独特的生活方式)
4. Parliament’s dominance over
the throne
1) The next few hundred
years following the Norman
invasion: join together the
various parts of the British
Isle under English Rule, unite
the kingdom internally and
externally
2) Power gradually transferred
from the monarch to the
parliament
①1649, Charles the First
was executed. Then England was
ruled by parliament’s leader,
Oliver Cromwell for 11
years.
②In 1660, the son of
Charles I restored the monarchy
and was called Charles II
(ruled 1660-1685)
③Further conflicts between
parliament and the king led
to removal of the Scottish
house of Stuart and the
final establishment of parliament’s
dominance over the throne in
1689.
* James II (1685-1689) was
the younger brother of Charles
II. After James II was
overthrown, his daughter and
daughter’s husband Mary and
William were imported from
Holland to take the throne.
This is the “Glorious
Revolution.”
Scotland
1. Physical features of
Scotland
1) the 2nd largest of the
4 nations
2) most rugged part of UK,
the most confident of its
own identity
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3) in the north ----
the Highlands
mountains
and lakes
in the south ---- the
Southern Uplands
in the middle --- the
lowland zone with 3/4 of
the population
4) capital: Edinburgh--- east
coast, famous for its beauty,
dominated by its great castle
on a high rock largest
city: Glasgow --- in the
west of Lowland zone
*Both cities
have ancient and internationally
respected universities dating from
15th century
2. Cultural division between
highland and lowland
1) Scotland was neither conquered
by the Romans nor by the
Anglo-Saxons
2) Around the AD 6th C,
people from Northern Ireland
invaded the South-west --- the
lowland zone. 3) They
were called Scots and gave
the modern country of Scotland
its name
4) The original Scottish Celts,
called the Picts (皮克特人) were
left with the non-productive
highland zone, where in addition
to English, some people speak
the old Celtic
language—Gaelic.
* The division between highland
and lowland Scotland remains a
cultural divide today, in much
the same way as north and
south England see themselves as
different from each other.
3. the Battle of Bannockburn
(班诺克本战役)
Time: 24th June, 1314
Who: Scots under the leadership
of Robert Bruce and English
army
Result: Scots were victorious,
leading to 300 years of
full independence
4. Union with England in
1707
1). In 1603, Queen Elizabeth
I of England died. James
the 6th of Scotland took
the throne, called James the
First of England; uniting the
two thrones
2). Scotland maintained its
separate political identity.
3). In 1707, Scotland joined
the Union by agreement of
the English and Scottish
Parliaments
4). Scotland sends 72
representatives to the London
Parliament. In 1922, only 3
were from the Scottish
Nationalist Party, wanting an
independent Scotland; 49 was
from the Labour Party, wanting
to set up a regional
parliament for Scotland to
manage its own internal affairs
within the UK.
5. Strong Scottish identity
Scotland has a
great tradition of innovation in
the arts, philosophy and
science.
*Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous
novel Dr Jekyll and Mr
Hyde 《吉基尔医生与海德先生》shows that: Scotland was
superficially fully integrated into
the UK, but concealed beneath
this is a still-strong Scottish
identity.
Wales
1. A brief introduction of
Wales
1) capital: Cardiff, on the
south coast
2) rich coal deposits attract
foreign investment from Japan
and U.S, etc.
---new industries to replace coal
and steel
3) smallest on the British
mainland; close to central
England; hilly and rugged
4) retains a powerful sense
of difference from England
5) retains its own language;
19% population speaking
Gaelic
2. Campaigns for independence of
UK --- resist the
English
1) 1267, Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd(卢埃林·阿普·格鲁菲德), forced the English
to acknowledge him as Prince
of Wales by a military
campaign, and unified Wales as
an independent nation.
2) 1282, he was killed.
The English King Edward I
named his son the Prince
of Wales, trying to bring
Wales into the British
nation.
3) 1400, Owain Glyndwr(欧文·格林道瓦尔) led
an unsuccessful rising against
the English.
4) 1536, Wales was brought
legally into the UK by an
act of the British
Parliament.
5) Wales sends 38 representatives
to the London Parliament. 4
are from the Nationalist
Party.
