Interp_British_Liter
.pdfIRINA S. SHEVCHENKO
A HISTORY OF
ENGLISH
LITERATURE for interpretors
ХАРКІВ
2008
ББК 83.3(4ВЕЛ)я7 Ш37
Рецензенти: докт. філол. наук, професор Л.І. Бєлєхова докт. філол. наук, професор С.О. Швачко канд. філол. наук, доцент Т.А. Биценко
Рекомендовано Вченою радою Харківського національного університету ім. В.Н. Каразіна, протокол № 5 від 22.05.2008
Шевченко І. С. A History of English Literature for interpretors = Історія англійської літератури для перекладачів (англійською мовою): Навчальний посібник: Для студ. філол. спец. — Х.: ХНУ, 2009. — 208 с.
Підручник з курсу «Література країни, мова якої вивчається (англійська)» для перекладачів знайомить студентів вищих навчальних закладів з найбільш важливими явищами літературного життя Англії, починаючи з виникнення англійської літератури та закінчуючи її теперішнім станом. Простежуються головні тенденціїї розвитку літературного процесу, аналізуються літературні напрямки та течії на різних історичних етапах, приділяється увага персоналіям окремих літературних діячів та визначним літературним творам. Посібник містить вправи з перекладу для відпрацювання навичок і вмінь англо-українського перекладу художніх текстів.
Для студентів перекладацьких відділень інститутів і університетів, бакалаврів і магістрів, за напрямком підготовки філогія із спеціальності переклад, англійська мова та література, для аспірантів-філологів та літературознавців.
ББК 83.3(4ВЕЛ)я7
©Шевченко І.С.
©Харківський національний університет ім. В.Н. Каразіна
2
Contents |
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Preface |
6 |
CHAPTER ONE. OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE |
8 |
Anglo-Saxon Literature |
9 |
Beowulf |
11 |
The Battle of Maldon |
12 |
CHAPTER TWO. MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE |
14 |
Geoffrey Chaucer |
18 |
The Canterbury Tales |
20 |
Arthurian Literature |
26 |
CHAPTER THREE. THE RENAISSANCE LITERATURE |
30 |
Edmund Spenser |
33 |
Christopher Marlowe |
34 |
William Shakespeare |
35 |
Romeo and Juliet |
42 |
King Henry IV |
43 |
As You Like It |
44 |
Hamlet. Prince of Denmark |
44 |
King Lear |
47 |
The Tempest |
47 |
Shakespeare’s Sonnets |
48 |
Ben Jonson |
50 |
Volpone |
51 |
CHAPTER FOUR. THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE |
52 |
John Donne |
54 |
John Milton |
55 |
Paradise Lost |
57 |
Restoration Drama |
59 |
CHAPTER FIVE. THE LITERATURE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT |
63 |
Daniel Defoe |
65 |
Robinson Crusoe |
67 |
Jonathan Swift |
69 |
Gulliver’s Travels |
72 |
Henry Fielding. |
73 |
Tom Jones |
74 |
Tobias Smollett. |
75 |
Samuel Richardson |
77 |
Pamela |
78 |
Clarissa |
79 |
Richard Brinsley Sheridan |
80 |
The Beggar’s Opera |
81 |
She Stoops to Conquer |
82 |
Laurence Sterne |
82 |
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Tristram Shandy |
84 |
Robert Burns |
85 |
My Heart’s in the Highlands |
86 |
CHAPTER SIX. THE ROMANTIC PERIOD |
88 |
George Gordon Byron |
90 |
Don Juan |
92 |
From Hebrew Melodies |
93 |
From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage |
94 |
Percy Bysshe Shelley |
94 |
Walter Scott |
96 |
Rob Roy |
99 |
CHAPTER SEVEN. VICTORIAN LITERATURE |
101 |
Jane Austen |
102 |
Charles Dickens |
104 |
Dombey and Son |
109 |
David Copperfield |
110 |
The Mystery of Erwin Drood |
110 |
William Makepeace Thackeray |
111 |
Vanity Fair |
114 |
The Brontës |
115 |
Jane Eyre |
118 |
Elizabeth Gaskell |
118 |
George Eliot |
120 |
Thomas Hardy |
121 |
Tess of the d’Urbervilles |
123 |
Robert Louis Stevenson. |
124 |
Oscar Wilde |
125 |
Rudyard Kipling |
127 |
CHAPTER EIGHT. EARLY-TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE 130 |
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George Bernard Shaw |
132 |
Heartbreak House |
134 |
John Galsworthy |
135 |
William Butler Yeats |
137 |
James Joyce |
138 |
Ulysses |
140 |
Virginia Woolf |
142 |
To the Lighthouse |
143 |
David Herbert Lawrence |
144 |
Sons and Lovers |
146 |
William Somerset Maugham |
147 |
Richard Aldington |
148 |
Agatha Christie |
149 |
CHAPTER NINE. MID -TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE |
151 |
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John Boynton Priestley |
153 |
Evelyn Waugh |
155 |
Decline and Fall |
156 |
P.G. Wodehouse |
157 |
Charles Percy Snow |
157 |
John Tolkien |
159 |
Iris Murdoch |
159 |
Graham Greene |
160 |
Angry Young Men |
162 |
Kingsley Amis |
163 |
John Wain |
163 |
William Golding |
164 |
Salman Rushdi |
165 |
Supplements |
167 |
TRANSLATION EXERCISES |
168 |
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Preface
The teaching and studying of British Literature is a challenge to all of us. This manual is designed to help everybody face this challenge. The course embraces the leading points of British literary process from its dawn to the present period. The manual provides updated information on literary trends, the plots and critique of famous books, brief biographies of the authors and their artistic views. Its contents correspond to the general line of development of British literature as viewed by the leading British scholars and sometimes deviate from the official scholarly tradition in this country; in such cases we thought it necessary to present both points of view.
Each chapter in this book is divided into sections. The opening section outlines the historic and cultural situation of the period discussed. The literary critique section focuses on the author’s biography, his literary, political, philosophic and ethic beliefs; his main literary works are being analysed. The text section provides the general outline of the plot and main ideas of the literary work under analysis. These sections are followed by a list of discussion questions. The chapters conclude with an index of authors’ works, a list of recommended literature and critique, on-line addresses that can be used to supplement the lectures, discussions, presentations and projects in the course.
Chapter Outlines. Every chapter in this manual begins with a brief outline
of the historic situation, leading cultural trends and philosophic ideas of the period under analysis. It can be used to refresh our memory of the knowledge drawn from other related courses, as a guide for teaching, or as a tool for student review sessions. They are not exhaustive; rather they present schematically the milestones of Britain’s historic development and summarize the viewpoints and ideas.
Literary Critique Section focuses on the author’s life, his views and ideas.
The leading literary works of the author or a group of authors are being discussed. General preference in evaluation the material is given to the traditional views generally accepted in the literary critique of the West though other viewpoints are mentioned if necessary.
Text Section suggests a rough outline of the literary work under study,
its plot and the personae. Other useful information on the origin of the book under analysis, its literary form, language, etc. is supplied.
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Discussion Questions. The main use of test questions is to measure
student learning. The questions in this manual are based directly on the text. They are also meant to be useful sources for review sessions and for building test works and examinations.
Additional Readings. Each section in this book concludes with a list of
suggested books and Internet sight sources related to the topic covered in that chapter of the manual. They may be used to supplement other materials in the course.
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CHAPTER 1.
OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE
Outlines
The first people of the British Isles were nomadic Stone Age hunters, often referred to as Picts or Scots. As the Isles lay on the crossroads from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, the first newcomers were the Iberians from Spain and Portugal (around 2,400 BC). In the period from the 8th—7th cc. BC to 1st c. BC Celtic tribes of warriors with their chiefs, women and children migrated from Germany and France to the Isles. The Celt-dominated mixture of Picts, Scots and other ingredients came to be called the Ancient Britons (Brythons), or Brits. In about 450 BC they occupied the whole of the British Isles living in clans (tribes), their basic activity was farming. It was a patriarchal clan society based on the common ownership of land. The Celts were good warriors, too. The Ancient Britons were heathens, the greatest monument of those days is Stonehenge.
British History
55 BC |
Invasion by Julius Caesar. Britain becomes a trading outpost of the |
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Roman Empire. |
410 |
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Roman forces withdrawn. |
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449 |
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Angles, Saxons and Jutes descend on Britain. |
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597 |
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St. Augustine brings Roman Christianity to Britain. |
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793 |
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Norwegian sea-raiders sack the monastery at Lindisfarne. |
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Saxon kings |
827 |
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1016 |
Ecgbert, Ethlwulf, Ethlbald, Ethelbert, Ethelred I, Edward the |
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Elder, Athelstan, Edmund I, Edred, Edwy, Edgar the Peaceful, |
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Edward the Martyr, Ethelred II, Edmund II the Ironside, Danish |
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raids. Reign of King Alfred the Great (871-899). |
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Danish kings |
1017 |
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1042 |
Canute the Dane, Harold I, Hardicanute |
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Saxon kings |
1042 |
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1066 |
Edward the Confessor, Harold II |
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1066 |
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Britain conquered by the Normans. |
In 55 BC the Isles were conquered by the troops of Julius Caesar and Britain became the province of the Roman Empire. In 59—61 AD the Celts’ resistance against the Roman invaders grew up into a rebellion with queen Boadicea at its head who used to fight with the enemy herself. The rebellion was defeated but
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the Romans never felt at home on the Isles and hardly mixed with the aboriginal population. The Roman civilisation gave the Britons Christianity, good roads, they erected Hadrian’s Wall, founded London (Londinium) turning it into a commercial centre and a port. In 407 the Roman legions left the British Isles and never returned.
The 5th century is known for the general migration of the peoples in Western Europe. The Anglo-Saxon hordes of Germanic origin (Angles, Saxons, Jutes) poured into Britain and split it into seven kingdoms: Kent, Sussex, Essex, Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria which were at the state of permanent war with one another.
ANGLO-SAXON
LITERATURE
Angles, Saxons and Jutes were pagans. The names of their gods gave the
names to the seven days of the week: Tu (Tuesco) — god of Darkness, Woden
— god of War, Thor — god of Thunder, Freida — goddess of Prosperity. The three principal dialects were: the Wessex dialect, the Mercian and Northumbrian dialects. Ireland and Scotland remained Celtic. The Anglo-Saxons had their alphabet of 24 letters called ‘runes’ carved on stone or wood. The Saxon poem which dates back to that period is Beowulf, its language reveals a mixture of dialects which can be tentatively explained by the fact that the poem originally composed in one of the dialects was re-written by an ancient Wessex writer.
Runes went out of use when the Celts accepted Christianity in the 7th c. as Christian missionaries introduced the Latin alphabet.
A new wave of sea-raiders flew over the Isles in the 8th—10th cc. The Northmen (who had conquered the north of France, Normandy, and were later called Normans) and the Danes (Vikings) from Scandinavia were sporadic invaders who mingled their blood and language with the Angles and Saxons. As the result of their invasion after the defeat in the battle of 876 the Saxon king Alfred the Great had to give a part of the north-east coast of England to Scandinavia. It was called Danelagh — the place where the Danes lived. In 1013 Scandinavia invaded the whole of the Isles and the Danish kings hold the English throne until 1042.
In the 7th—11th cc. the monasteries became the main centres of written culture and learning, Latin being the media of Christian culture all over Europe. In 731 the first Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (a church history of the English people) was written in Latin by a highly-educated monk from Northumbria Bede called the Venerable (born in 673—died in 735). It contained valuable information about British history, tales and legends. Scholar and historian, he also wrote many works of exegesis, scientific works largely concerning chronology and the calendar, lives of St. Cuthbert in verse and prose,
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and other historical treatises. Bede was also the author of the first linguistic works: De orphographia (about spelling) and De arte metrica (about the art of verse). Later it was translated into the Northumbrian dialect in the times of king Alfred the Great.
The Anglo-Saxon literature of the 7th—11th cc. was written in various dialects. Yorkshire dialect is presented by the poems of Caedmon (late 7th c.), a shepherd from Whitby, a famous abbey in Yorkshire. He was no longer young when he had a vision of an angel who persuaded him to compose songs and from that time he spent his life in composing religious poetry; hymns and verses. His famous poem is Paradise. It tells part of the Bible story in alliterated verse. Wessex dialect is known thanks to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the so-called
Parker’s Chronicle written by 891.
Alfred the Great (849—901) was not only a prominent statesman but a learned person, too. He built up the first English Navy and worked up a code of laws. He also was a Latin scholar famous for his attempts at enlightening his people. He travelled on the continent, visited France. He is famous as the first person to write prose in Old English (Anglo-Saxon). He translated Bede’s Church history of England from Latin into Old English, translated some parts of the Bible. He also started work on the first prose history of England, the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (c. 891) written in the Old English language. It presents an important series of national as opposed to local histories attempting a catalog of events from 1 AD In its later part the chronicle describes the sufferings of the native population under Norman rule. The chronicle was continued for 250 years after Alfred’s death till 1154.
In the Old English period the Celtic dialects were enriched by numerous borrowed words.
Borrowings from Latin: ‘castra’ (military camp) — Lancaster, Winchester, Chichester;
‘vallum’ (wall) — Hadrian’s Wall;
‘via strata’ (street) — Walting street, Ermine street;
From Danish: fellow, husband, law, wrong, to call, to take, skirt, they;
From Norman and French: words, connected with the court — courtier, servant, guard, prince;
words, connected with the army — regiment, battle, banner, victory, defeat, soldier;
words, connected with the church — religion, chapel, prayer, pardoner, to confess;
words, connected with the state power — liege, vassal, govern, serf, village, judge, verdict, sentence;
words, connected with city crafts — city, merchant, butcher, painter, mason, tailor, etc.
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