alanduan-English-literature

ALANDUAN 朗读灵格风英语最后一课第50课《英国文学简介》

A few words about English literature

The great wealth of English literature makes it impossible to deal with the subject in any detail within the scope of one short lesson. We must therefore confine ourselves to only a few of the outstanding writers, who has not heard, for instance, of William Shakespeare, one of the greatest dramatists of all time. He is famous for his comedies, such as Twelfth Night, As You Like It and The Taming of the Shrew, and equally famous for his magnificent tragedies, such as Macbeth, Hamlet and Othello. Shakespeare lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which was a great age for English literature.

Of later plays, there’s She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith, and The School for Scandal by Richard Sheridan. Then coming to the present day, we have the brilliant dramas of the Irish author Bernard Shaw. Possibly his best-known plays are Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, Back to Methuselah and Saint Joan.

The works of English novelists have been translated into so many languages that millions of people who know no English are nevertheless familiar with English writings. Yet it's only those who are able to read these novels in the original who can really appreciate such masterpieces as Waverley and Ivanhoe by Walter Scott, or Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens.

English poetry covers such a wide field that we can do little more than enumerate a few names. Chaucer is well known for his Canterbury Tales, Milton for his two famous epics, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Pope for his mastery of the classical style, while the romantic school recalls such famous names as Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson and Browning.

You are now to hear a poem by Wordsworth that’ll not only inspire you with its beauty, butalso encourage you to delve more deeply into the rich heritage of our literature, whether it be prose or verse.

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge 

by Wordsworth

Earth has not anything to show more fair: 
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 
A sight so touching in its majesty: 
This City now doth like a garment wear 

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare, 
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie 
Open unto the fields, and to the sky, 
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 

Never did sun more beautifully steep 
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; 
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! 

The river glideth at his own sweet will: 
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; 
And all that mighty heart is lying still!