ĐỀ CƯƠNG ÔN TẬP MÔN VĂN HỌC ANH MỸ EHOU ĐẦY ĐỦ ĐÁP ÁN TẤT CẢ CÂU HỎI. What were the three periods of English Enlightenement in literature? Who were representatives of each period? Câu hỏi 1 Những điểm đặc biệt, tiêu biểu của nên văn họ. Câu 2: Điểm nổi bật của văn học Anh thế kỷ 20 Twentieth Century English Literature O’ Henry – The Great American short story writer American Literature 19 TH CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE Câu 3: Tìm hiểu thông tin về nhà văn William Shakespeare William Shakespeare (15641616) THE NEW LITERARY TREND AND ITS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES
Trang 1ĐỀ CƯƠNG ÔN TẬP MÔN VĂN HỌC ANH- MỸ.
What were the three periods of English Enlightenement in literature? Who were representatives of each period?
Câu hỏi 1: Những điểm đặc biệt, tiêu biểu của nên văn học Mỹ
History of American Literature OVERVIEW
1 During its early history, America was a series of British colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States Therefore, its literary tradition begins as linked to the broader tradition of English literature However, unique American characteristics and the breadth of its production usually now cause it to
be considered a separate path and tradition
2 Colonial Literature Some of the earliest forms of American literature were pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonist audience John Smith Captain John Smith could be considered the first American author with his works: A True Relation of Virginia (1608) The revolutionary period also contained Samuel Adams political writings, including those by colonist Samuel Adams Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac and The Benjamin Franklin Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works with their wit and influence toward the formation of a budding American identity Thomas Paine
3. Early U.S Literature In the post-war period, The Federalist essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay represented a historical Alexander Hamilton discussion of government organization and republican values Thomas Jefferson's United States Declaration of Independence, his influence on the James Madison Constitution, and the mass of his letters have led to him being considered one of the most talented early American writers John Jay The first American novel is sometimes considered to be William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy (1789) Much of the early literature of the new nation struggled Thomas Jefferson to find a uniquely American voice European forms and styles were often transferred to new locales and critics often saw them as inferior W.H Brown
4. Unique American Style With the War of 1812 and an increasing desire to produce uniquely American work, a number of key new literary figures appeared, perhaps most prominently Washington Irving Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe Irving, often considered the first writer to develop a unique American style (although James Fenimore this is debated) wrote humorous works Cooper in Salmagundi and the well-known satire A History of New York,
by Diedrich Edgar Allan Poe Knickerbocker (1809) Anti-transcendental works from Melville (Moby-Dick), Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter), and Poe (The Fall of the House of Usher) all comprise the Dark Romanticism subgenre of Hawthorne literature popular during this time
Trang 25. American 19th Century Poetry America's two greatest 19th-century poets could hardly have been more different in temperament and style Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was a working man, a traveler, a selfappointed nurse during the American Civil War (18611865), and a poetic innovator His magnum opus was Leaves of Grass, in which he uses a free-flowing verse and lines of irregular length
to depict the all-inclusiveness of American democracy Taking that motif one step further, the poet equates the vast range of American experience with himself without being egotistical Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), on the other hand, lived the sheltered life of a genteel unmarried woman in small-town Amherst, Massachusetts Within its formal structure, her poetry is ingenious, witty, exquisitely wrought, and psychologically penetrating Her work was unconventional for its day, and little of it was published during her lifetime Many
of her poems dwell on death, often with a mischievous twist Walt Whitman Emily Dickinson
6. Realism Mark Twain (the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835
writer to be born away from the East Coast - in the
border state of Missouri His regional masterpieces were the memoir Life on the Mississippi and the novel Adventures of HuckleberryFinn Twain's style changed the way Americans write their language
His characters speak like real people and sound
distinctively American, using local dialects, newly
invented words, and regional accents.HenryJames (18431916) confronted the Old WorldNew World dilemma by writing directly about it
Among his more accessible works are the novellas Daisy Miller, about an enchanting American girl in Europe, and The Turn of the Screw,
an enigmatic ghost story Mark Twain Henry James
At the beginning of the 20th century, American novelists
were expanding fiction's social spectrum to encompass
both high and low life and sometimes connected to the
naturalist school of realism
More directly political writings discussed social issues and
power of corporations Some like Edward Bellamy in Looking Backward outlined other possible political and social frameworks Upton Sinclair, most famous for his meat-packing novel The Jungle, advocated socialism Henry Adams' literate autobiography, The Education of HenryAdams also depicted a stinging description of the education system and modern life Experimentation in style and form soon joined the new freedom in subject matter Edward Bellamy Upton Sinclair Henry Adams
Trang 38. Turn of the Century American writers also expressed the disillusionment following upon the war The stories and novels of F Scott Fitzgerald
pleasure-hungry, defiant mood of the 1920s Fitzgerald's
characteristic theme, expressed poignantly in The Great Gatsby, is the tendency of youth's golden dreams to
dissolve in failure and disappointment
Depression era literature was blunt and direct in its social criticism John Steinbeck (1902-1968) His style was
simple and evocative, winning him the favor of the
readers but not of the critics The Grapes of Wrath, considered his masterpiece, is a strong, socially-oriented
novel that tells the story of the Joads, a poor family from
Oklahoma and their journey to California in search of a better life Scott Fritzgerald John Steinbeck
9. Post-World War II The period in time from the end of World War II up until, roughly, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw to the publication of some of the most popular works in American history The poetry and fiction of the "Beat Generation," largely born of a circle of intellects formed in New York City around Columbia University and established more officially some time later in San Francisco, came of age The term, Beat, referred, all at the same time, to the countercultural rhythm of the Jazz scene, to a sense of rebellion regarding the conservative stress of post-war society, and to an interest in new forms of spiritual experience through drugs, alcohol, philosophy, and religion, and specifically through Zen Buddhism Regarding the war novel specifically, there was a literary explosion in America during the post-World War II era Some of the most well known of the works produced included Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead (1948) Norman Mailer
Câu 2: Điểm nổi bật của văn học Anh thế kỷ 20
Twentieth Century English Literature
In the seventies of the 19th century most writers on social problems believed that science and science alone would finally sweep away all human misery and bring civilization to all Men of science were greatly admired They were invited to speak in public halls and express their opinions on all kinds of subjects Many of these scientists believed in positivism, and spread their demagogic ideas among the people
But during the last decades of the 19th century doubts began to arise as to the faultless nature of European civilization People had awakened to the fact that scientific progress was increasing the wealth of the upper classes only They began
Trang 4to see that some human beings were born to riches for which they had not worked, while the majority was born to poverty from which there was no escape
Philanthropy, never having been able to prevent poverty, now became a laughing stock Disillusionment led to pessimism and found its expression in a very pessimistic literature, the literature of the Decadence So the phrase “the End
of the Century” meant not only the turn of the century: It also meant that a certain change had occurred in the more clearly-thinking minds
It was the End of the Century that created writers who were interested in human society as a whole (Shaw, Galsworthy), and a new type of writer who was preoccupied with the future of mankind (Wells) The spirit of the time lasted till the First World War of 1914-1918
Some historical facts
It was in the last decades of the century that new trade-unions sprang up, which workers, regardless of their qualifications, could join; even unskilled factory-hands were accepted It was now easier for the workers to help one another during strikes The trade-union officials were no longer representatives of the bourgeois liberal party: the leaders were real workers, such as Tom Mann, who later founded the British Communist Party
The growing class-consciousness of the workers threw the upper class into a panic of fear In 1883 a group of independent socialists organized the Fabian Society These Socialists came from the middle class, but they wanted to improve the economic situation of the common people Many progressive-minded writers, such as Bernard Shaw, Herbert Wells and some Marxists, belonged at various times to the Fabian Society
The Fabians thought that the fut~ depended on a careful scientific organization
of society, which they hoped would lead the country to state capitalism They refused to recognize the ,class struggle as necessary for social progress English Fabian Socialism never became part of the actual workers' movement
The activities of these Socialists are interesting, howeyer, from a 'historical point of view They investigated different systems of labour and made a thorough examination of the housing conditions in working-class districts, particularly in the East End of London with its factories and docks, which was the poorest part of the city
Among the social investigators who began to walk the slums were young women from cultured families The diaries they left give a complete picture of how the workers lived Here are some of the notes
The houses looked ready to fall, many of them out of the perpendicular Entire families were crowded into one room Most of the doors stood open all day as well
as all night, and the passages and stairs sheltered many who were altogether homeless Here a mother would stand with her baby of'sit with it on the stairs, or
Trang 5companions would huddle together in cold weather Everywhere there was drunk-enness, dirt and bad language Gambling was the chief amusement of the young men, and fights in the streets were common, ending at times even in murder
Only a small number of dock workers had permanent work; the majority were casuals employed for one job only The casuals would walk to the docks early in the morning and wait at the entrances to the various wharves hoping for the chance that a foreman might need someone Whenever it happened that an extra man was wanted for some work on the wharf, there would be brutal fighting and struggle at
the gates
The houses looked ready to fall, many of them out of the perpendicular Entire
families were crowded into one room Most of the doors stood open all day as well
as all night, and the passages and stairs sheltered many who were altogether
homeless Here a mother would stand with her baby of'sit with it on the stairs, or
companions would huddle together in cold weather Everywhere there was drunk-enness, dirt and bad language Gambling was the chief amusement of the young
men, and fights in the streets were common, ending at times even in murder.
The workers who had permanent work stood on a higher social level On Sundays they would crowd into the parks and listen to various speakers Here an atheist would stand on a soap-box and explain that if there be a God he must be a
monster to permit such misery as unemployment' Back to back with the atheist, facing another crowd, would be a man from a Christian association who would explain unemployment as God's punishment of unbelievers
In the summer of 1889 a great dock strike broke out in London led by Tom
Mann and other workers' leaders
Meanwhile the British imperialists were fighting for colonial expansion and preparing for the Boer War in South Africa The name of Joseph Chamberlain appeared in the newspapers With a view to getting the support of the nation for his colonial policy, he said in his speeches that he was against individualism, he was for a united British Empire working collectively together Collectivism was a nice word to draw the attention of the masses away from class struggle He appealed to their 'pride of country', boasting that Britain was the richest country in the world and that every man would be sure of a good living if he and his fellow workers
fought for the good of the Empire The idea that the British race was superior to all others was flattering, especially to the bourgeoisie It meant that they were supermen The imperialists came to power in 1895 Four Fars later the Boer War broke out
Câu 3: Tìm hiểu thông tin về nhà văn William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
The great English playwright and poet William Shakespeare was William
Trang 6born on April 23, 1564 in the small town of Stratford-upon-Avon, about
seventy-five miles from London Ile was the son of a tradesman When a
boy he went to Stratford Grammar School where Latin and Greek were
almost the only subjects Life itself, contact with people and his
acquaintance with the rich English folklore gave him more than the
scholastic methods used at school In those days Stratford-upon-Avon was
often visited by traveling groups of actors It is quite possible that
Shakespeare saw some plays performed by such actors and was impressed
by them
Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Shakespeare lived in Stratford-upon-Avon until he was twenty-one By that
time he was married and had three children At twenty-one he left
Stratford-upon-Avon for London where he joined a theatrical company and worked as an actor and
a playwright
In the late 90s a new theatre called The Globe was built on the bank of the
Thames Shakespeare became one of its owners The people of the London liked it
better than any other theatre It was in The Globe that most of Shakespeare's plays
were staged at that time
In 1613, Shakespeare left London and returned to his native town of
Stratford-upon-Avon Three years later, on April 23, 1616, he died and was buried
there Shakespeare is the author of 2 poems, 37 plays and 154 sonnets His creative
work is usually divided into three periods
The first period that lasted from 1590 to 1600 was marked by the optimism so
characteristic of all humanist literature It is best reflected in his brilliant
comedies: The Comedies of Errors (1592), The Taming of the Shrew (1593),
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594), Love’s Labor’s Lost (1594), A Midsummer
Night’s Dream (1595), Much Ado About Nothing (1598), The Merry Wives of
Windsor (1599), As You Like It (1599), Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will (1600).
The comedies describe the adventures of young men and women, their
friendship and love, their search for happiness The scene is usually laid in some
southern countries But one cannot help feeling that the comedies show the “Merry
England” of Shakespeare’s time
The comedies are usually based on some misunderstanding that creates comic
situations They are full of fun But the laughter is not a mockery directed against
the people and their vices Shakespeare never moralizes in his comedies He laughs
with people, but not at them His comedies are filled with humanist love for people
and the belief in the nobleness and kindness of human nature
The historical chronicles form another group of plays written by Shakespeare
in the first period They are: King Henry VI (part II) (1590), King Henry VI (part
III) (1590), King Henry VI (part I) (1591), The Tragedy of King Richard
Trang 7II (1592), The Tragedy of King Richard II (1595), The Life and Death of King John (1596), King Henry IV (part I) (1597), King Henry IV (part II) (1597), The Life of King Henry V (1598).
Historical Chronicles are plays written on subjects from national history Shakespeare’s chronicles cover a period of more than three hundred years of English history (from the rule of King John in the 12th century up to the
16th century) However, the main subjects of the chronicles are not the lives and fates of Kings but history itself and the development of the country Like all humanists of his time Shakespeare believed a centralized monarchy to be an ideal form of state power He thought it would put an end to the struggle of feudal and would create conditions for the progress of the country One of the great achievements of Shakespeare was that in his chronicles he showed not only the kings, feudal, and churchmen, but the lower classes too
The drama The Merchant of Venice and the two early tragedies Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar, also written in the 90s, show a
change in the playwright's understanding of life, whose approach to reality becomes more pessimistic The main works written by Shakespeare during the
second period (1601-1608) are his four great tragedies: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1601), Othello, the Moor of Venice (1604), King Lear (1605), Macbeth (1605) The tragedies reflect the deep, unsolvable contradictions of life,
the falsehood, injustice and tyranny existing in society They show people whoperish in the struggle against Evil
The tragedies, like the chronicles, are also based on real events but there is a considerable difference between the two genres The playwright raised great problems of Good and Evil in both But in the chronicles they are mostly linked with political themes-the question of the state and public life of the period described In the tragedies which are centered round the life of one man Shakespeare touched on the moral problems of universal significance - honesty, cruelty, kindness, love, vanity and others That is why his tragedies are of great interest to every new generation
The plays of the third period (1609 - 1612) differ from everything written by Shakespeare before The playwright still touches upon important social and moral problems But now he suggests utopian solution to them He introduces romantic and fantastic elements, which have a decisive role in his plays Due to these
peculiarities the works of this period - Cymbeline (1609), The Winter's Tale (1610) and The Tempest (1612) are called romantic dramas.
Geoffrey Chaucer - The founder of English realism
Geoffrey Chaucer was the greatest writer of the 14th century He was born in London in the family of a wine merchant From the age of 18 he was connected with the Court of the King of England During his life he visited France and Italy
Trang 8several times In Italy he got with the works of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio.
What they wrote was full of new, optimistic ideas and love of life and had a great
influence on his future works, the most important of which was the Canterbury
Tales
The Canterbury Tales
Canterbury Tales - 2003
The Canterbury Tales is collection of stories in verse told by people
of different social standing Chaucer had planned 120 stories but wrote only 24, because death broke off his work The stories are described Short prologues to each story connect them into one work
The Prologue tells about a group of pilgrims, who were on their way to pray at the Cathedral of Canterbury One fine April evening these pilgrims met at London inn called the Tabard; the innkeeper was a jolly man, whose name was Harry Bailey There were twenty-eight pilgrims, men and women, and Chaucer himself there were thirty in all at the Inn
O’ Henry – The Great American short story writer
G Henry (1862 -1910) was born William Sydney Porter Before his name was
changed he had been a bank office worker, cowboy, reporter, tramp, trying to find
means of existence O Henry had a broad knowledge of the life of common
people They are the main characters or his stories and their rates comprise those
unusual and unexpected plots which never fail to surprise the reader O Henry was
the master or surprise ending
he literary heritage or O Henry contains two hundred and seventy-three short
stories Most or them are filled with the writer's warm human sympathy for
common American people: The Gift of the Magi, A Service of Love, The Cop and
the Anthem An Unfinished Story, The Romance of a Busy Broker, The Last
Leaf, While the Auto Waits, The Third Ingredient and many others.
The works of O' Henry reflected a specific period in the history or American
literature: the turn of the 20th century O' Henry occupied all immediate position
between the critical and the romantic tradition in American literature, which means
that in his stories, realism and romanticism mingled
O' Henry was both a realist and a romantic O' Henry was also an outstanding
humorist who enriched American literature with a series of story-types: anecdote,
the monologue, the dialogue, the grotesque, satirical and paradoxical; the
Trang 9adventure story, the psychological story, the parody, poems in prose, tales and sketches O' Henry was, however, most famous as a writer of city-life stories
But O' Henry’s stories are not mere realistic sketches O Henry had both the craftsmanship of a writer and the compassion of a man As a writer he constructs a clever plot with an unforeseen and an unexpected climax suddenly released so that the reader is kept guessing till the last moment what the outcome is to be As a man
he saw the drab surrounding and narrow circumstances which he described, but he lit them with sympathy and humor, and though in most of his stories humor seems
to be predominant, yet the sympathy is always there, so the humor is warmed and enriched by its humanity The stories that follows, however, are examples of the reverse process There are more tears in it than laughter Yet laughter is implied, and one might say that because of it the tears are touched with a more tender compassion
American Literature 19 TH CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE
Historical background
1 The colonization of the American Continent
The discovery of the American Continents was made during the Renaissance times, and the first European colony in America was established in 1492 by Christopher Columbus who mistook the new continent for India This misunderstanding was a few years later cleared by the Florentine named Amerigo Vespucci who found that Christopher had made a mistake; the new continent was not India As a result, the new continent came to be called America after the name
of its undoubted discoverer, America Within only a few decades after the discovery of America, European colonialists competed one another in laying claims to the new territories We are told that the native Americans met the first Europeans with hospitality and they were eager to trade' with the "palefaces" as they called the white men But this friendship did not last long Soon after their arrival as colonialists, the white men began either to plunder or to enslave the Indians, turning them into their worst victims The way the Indians were annihilated by the white men constitutes one of the darkest pages in the history of mankind
2 The American War of Independence
One of the most famous slogan of the age of global colonization was "The sun never sets on the British Empire" As recently as 1940, the British Empire was still great, covering much of Africa, India, Malaya, Hongkong, and other scattered territories in Asia and the Americas
The Free West
Trang 10In the first half of the 19th century, the young American Republic strengthened its newly-won independence by expanding its territory westward and southward Nine new states were set up on the western lands, including Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia In 1803, the large territory of Louisiana was purchased by e American Government from Napoleon I and within the next decade, ten more states were formed, of which were Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma Later, after the Mexican War (1846-1848), the Southwestern part running from Texas to California was annexed to the territory of the United States
The United States Government applied in the New world the Monroe Doctrine (raised by James Monroe, the fifth US president (1817-1825), The ideas of the Monroe Doctrine may be roughly summarized as "America for the Americans" is
slogan meant that (1) foreign intervention into the internal affairs of the former
colonies would be from then on not permitted since they had become part of the
United States and that (2) future colonization of any part of North American
continent would from then on be prohibited Anyone who wanted to settle in America was obliged to become American citizens
The newly acquired lands in the West were an immense wilderness often referred
to as the frontier lands or the free west, attracting more and more people to migrate
to it Many planters from the South also went westward
4 Slavery
The institution of slavery throughout the world was often accompanied by the argument that the enslaved person was a member of an inferior race or tribe But the background of slavery lies elsewhere, in the greed of the slave-dealers and slave-users It goes without saying that slave-trade was once an enormously profitable business
The Spanish used both Indian and African slaves in America, beginning in the 1500s In 1619, a Spanish ship carried a cargo of Africans to colonial Jamestown They were the first Africans that arrived in the region that became the United States Within several decades, slave-trade became widespread on a worldwide scale New laws adopted in Virginia by 1650 established that blacks arriving in new cargoes would be servants for life as would their children and their children's children
During the 18th century a few voices in the Western world were raised against slavery England abolished the institution in 1773 During the American Revolution, many Americans came to oppose slavery because it was inconsistent with heir democratic ideals And during the 19th century, slavery was abolished