第1单元 杰弗里·乔叟

1.1 复习笔记

Geoffrey Chaucer (杰弗里·乔叟)(1343-1400)

1. Life (生平)

Geoffrey Chaucer, born in 1343 in London, is the founder of English poetry. He was the son of a wine merchant who had connections with the Court. He later became a courtier and comptroller.

Chaucer’s learning was wide in scope. He obtained a good knowledge of Latin, French and Italian. He had broad and intimate acquaintance with persons high and low in all walks of life, and knew well the whole life of his time, which left great impressions upon his works and particularly upon his variegated depiction of the English society of his time.

He died in 1400 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, thus founding the Poets’ Corner.

杰弗里·乔叟于1343年出生于伦敦，他是英语诗歌之父。他是一个与宫廷有联系的酒商的儿子。他后来担任过侍臣和审计官。

乔叟知识渊博。他精通拉丁语、法语和意大利语。他结交广泛且易与人深交，无论是贵族还是贫民，因此他深谙所处世事。这尤其有益于他在作品中对英国社会的刻画。

他逝于1400年，被葬在威斯敏斯特教堂，由此“诗人角”开始出现。

2. Major Works (主要作品)

The Book of the Duchess (1368) 《公爵夫人之书》

The Parliament of Fowls (1380) 《百鸟议会》

The House of Fame (1374-1384) 《声誉之堂》

Troilus and Criseyde (1380-1385) 《特罗勒斯与克丽西德》

The Canterbury Tales (1386-1400) 《坎特伯雷故事集》

3. Chaucer’s Literary Career (文学生平)

Chaucer’s literary career can be divided into three periods, which is closely related to his life experiences. The first period consists of works translated from French literature; the second consists of works adapted from Italian literature, especially influenced by Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, such as Troilus and Criseyde. The third period includes The Canterbury Tales, which is purely English.

乔叟的文学生平可划分为三个阶段，均与其个人生活经历有关。第一阶段乔叟的作品主要是翻译法国文学，第二阶段则改编于意大利文学，深受但丁、彼特拉克和薄伽丘的影响，如《特罗勒斯与克丽西德》。第三阶段包括《坎特伯雷故事集》，这是纯英语创作阶段。

4. Selected Work (作品选读)

The Canterbury Tales 《坎特伯雷故事集》

(1) Plot (情节)

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English. The tales (mostly in verse) are told as part of a story-telling contest by twenty-nine pilgrims, together with the narrator, who travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. When they met at the Tabard Inn, they agreed that each tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back. The best storyteller will get a meal at the inn when they return, courtesy of the other pilgrims. But instead of 120 tales, the text ends after 24 tales, covering all the major types of medieval literature. The stories are well suited to their different characters, ranging from the knight, the monk and the pardoner etc.

《坎特伯雷故事集》是一部用中古英语写成的诗体短篇小说集。29名朝圣者和叙述者前往坎特伯雷去朝拜托马斯·贝克特朝圣。当他们在旅馆相遇，决定途中进行讲故事比赛，每个人去时和返回时各讲两个，讲得最好的人，回到旅馆后其他朝圣者请他吃饭。最终共有24个故事被写进故事集，故事涵盖了中世纪文学的各个方面。每个故事都与讲述者的身份相符，讲述者包罗各种阶层的人，有骑士、僧侣、赦罪僧等。

(2) Theme (主题)

It shows a true-to-life picture of Chaucer’s time. His tales expose and satirize the evils of his time, attack the   degeneration of the noble and the corruption of the Church. Standing for the rising bourgeoisie, Chaucer opposes the dogma of asceticism preached by the Church, and believes man’s right to earthly happiness. He praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life.

故事集展示了乔叟时代的真实生活画面。揭露并批判了他所处时代的罪恶，批判了贵族的堕落和教会的腐败。乔叟站在新兴小资产阶级的立场，反对教会宣扬的禁欲主义，并且相信人们追求世俗幸福的权利。他赞扬了人的力量、智慧和对生活的热爱。

(3) Language (语言)

Chaucer is the first poet to write in English vernacular, now called Middle English, which bear a close visual resemblance to the English written and spoken today. His language is vivid, exact and fluent. He introduced from France and Italy the rhymed stanza of various types, especially the heroic couplet to English poetry.

乔叟是第一位用中古英语写作的诗人，其看起来和今天使用的英语很相似。他的语言生动、准确、流畅。他采用了法国和意大利的诗歌形式，尤其是“英雄双韵体”的使用。

1.2 课后习题详解

1. How is the setting of the tales described? With such a setting, could you predict the general tone of the tales that are to follow?

Key: (1) Chaucer sets the tales in the spring, describing both the natural world and people—the natural world shows a kind of renewal and rebirth, and people begin to stir after the long sleep of winter. Chaucer’s description of the landscape is lively (欢快的)and fresh(清新的), since he speaks of budding flowers, growing crops and singing birds.

(2) According to such a setting, we can predict that the general tone of the tales will be light, sprightly(活泼、愉快的)and humorous.

2. In your own words, summarize the character of the Knight from the brief introduction in this excerpt.

Key: According to the excerpt, we can see that the Knight has followed chivalry—truth, honor, freedom and courtesy. He had fought many battles for the faith of people. He is a brave, wise, modest and “truly perfect gentle knight”.

3. Without comparison with the translated version, are there words still recognizable to you in the original Middle English version?

Key: Yes, there are many words that can be recognized. Because many words only contain few different letters compared with the modern words. What’s more, sometimes, we can recognize the words by guessing or by the sense-group.

第一部分 考研真题精选

一、填空题

1. Author _____ Title _____ [南京大学2007研]

At other times, the like battles have been fought between the Yahoos of several neighborhoods, without any visible cause: those of one district watching all opportunities to surprise the next, before they are prepared. But if they find their project has miscarried, they return home, and, for want of enemies, engage in what I call a civil war among themselves.

【答案】Author: Jonathan Swift；Title: Gulliver’s Travels查看答案

【解析】题中文段节选自乔纳森的《格列佛游记》。其通过幻想旅行中不可置信的奇遇和体验，及其尖锐地讽刺了英国统治者的腐败和愚行，无情地揭露了社会各领域的黑暗和罪恶。

2. Each literary movement can be seen as a strong reaction to the previous aesthetic principles. Romanticism in the history of English literature can be presented as a strong reaction to _____. [天津外国语2009研]

【答案】neoclassicism查看答案

【解析】浪漫主义重在打破新古典主义的桎梏，新古典主义强调理性，秩序和优雅的风趣，而浪漫主义则重在人的感情和自然美。

3. Of the four novels that Charlotte Brontë wrote, _____ has achieved lasting fame.[天津外国语2007研]

【答案】Jane Eyre查看答案

【解析】在夏洛特·勃朗特所写的四部小说中，《简·爱》获得了持久的名声。

4. “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! —I have as much soul as you, —and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for, you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.” This selection is taken from the novel _____. [天津外国语学院2011研]

【答案】Jane Eyre查看答案

【解析】文章出自Jane Eyre中女主人公Jane对男主人公Edward Rochester的一段话。

5. The English writer _____ set his major novels in the south and southwest of _____, which he called “Wessex”. [天津外国语学院2011研]

【答案】Thomas Hardy；England查看答案

【解析】韦塞克斯位于英国西南部，中古盎格鲁撒克逊人所建的王国，虽然在历史上确实存在这个地方，但在托马斯·哈代的小说中仍被赋予了虚拟的成分。

6. Among Hardy’s novels, the best-known are _____ and Jude the Obscure. [人大2006研]

【答案】Tess of the D’Urbervilles查看答案

【解析】托马斯·哈代的“性格和环境小说”有六部：《绿荫下》（Under the Greenwood Tree）、《远离尘嚣》（Far from the Madding Crowd）、《还乡》（The Return of the Native）、《卡斯特桥市长》（The Mayor of the Casterbridge）、《德伯家的苔丝》（Tess of the D’Urbervilles）、《无名的裘德》（Jude the Obscure）。其中最成功的是最后两部。）

7. The school of _____ in English literature and art in the last decades of the_____     century is mainly represented by Walter Paler and Oscar Wilde, with_____ as its chief authority and source of inspiration and_____ as its most popular spokesman. [国际关系学院2010研]

【答案】aestheticism；19th；Walter Pater；Oscar Wilde查看答案

【解析】唯美主义运动（Aesthetic movement）是于19世纪后期出现在英国艺术和文学领域中的一场运动。瓦尔特·佩特的一系列文章激发了当时的颓废主义者们的思想，这种思想继而在英国发展，其中最有名的代表则是奥斯卡·瓦尔德。

8. Lord Murchison tells of his love experience with a young woman who is mysterious in his actions.[武汉大学2010研]

Answer:“ _____” by _____.

【答案】“The Sphinx Without a Secret”；Oscar Wilde查看答案

9. Pygmalion is one of Bernard Shaw’s popular plays, one of whose themes is identified as the relationship between language and people’s_____.[天津外国语学院2011研]

【答案】class查看答案

【解析】《皮格马利翁》（改编后成为《窈窕淑女》搬上银幕）在一定意义上是关于爱情、英国等级社会和语言学习的人文喜剧，在剧中Eliza在语音学家Higgins的帮助下，通过改变下层社会的英语语音面貌成为一个具有上流社会风度的女性。

10. Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

These lines are taken from a poem entitled _____by_____. [天津外国语2013研]

【答案】The Second Coming；William Butler Yeats查看答案

【解析】这个选段节选于叶芝的《第二次圣临》。

11. Modernist writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf approached the internal world of characters in their novels by the technique of “stream of consciousness” which means _____.[天津外国语2010研]

【答案】a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions.查看答案

【解析】考查意识流的概念。意识流文学是现代主义文学的重要分支，主要成就局限在小说领域，在戏剧、诗歌中也有表现。乔伊斯和伍尔夫是意识流手法的代表作家。

12. The major theme of D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers is its exposition of the “_____”, an idea proposed by Sigmund Freud in his psychoanalysis. [天津外国语学院2011研]

【答案】Oedipus complex查看答案

【解析】恋母情结（Oedipus complex）在精神分析中指以本能冲动力为核心的一种欲望，指男性的一种服从和依恋母亲的心理倾向。

13. Author _____ Title _____[南京大学2008研]

Viciously, with full intention, he hurled his spear at Ralph. The point tore the skin and flesh over Ralph’s ribs, then sheared off and fell in the water. Ralph stumbled, feeling no pain but panic, and the tribe, screaming now like the Chief, began to advance.

【答案】Author: William Golding；Title: Lord of the Flies查看答案

【解析】题目节选自William Golding的 Lord of the Flies（《蝇王》）。《蝇王》是威廉·戈尔丁的代表作，是一本重要的哲理小说，借小孩的天真来探讨人性的恶这一严肃主题。

14. Author _____ Title _____ [南京大学2007研]

_____ Next day was cloudless, and they decided to finish the work in the basement. They felt excluded, shut in the grey cement basement fitting pipes, from the holiday atmosphere of London in a heat wave. At lunchtime they came up for some air, but while the married couples, and the men in shirt—sleeves or vests, were there, she was not there, either on her usual patch of roof or where she had been yesterday.

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