英国文学选读—selected readings in english literature.pptVIP

Selected Readings in English LiteratureBook II George Meredith（1828-1909) Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, was an English novelist and poet. One of the forerunners of the contemperay novels. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School (莫拉维亚教派，基督教的一种）in Germany, where he remained for two years. He read law and was articled as a solicitor, but abandoned that profession for journalism and poetry shortly after marrying Mary Ellen Nicolls, a widow in 1849. He was twenty-one years old; she was thirty. He collected his early writings into Poems, published to some acclaim（赞同; 称赞）in 1851. His wife ran off with a Painter in 1858; she died three years later. The collection of sonnets entitled Modern Love (1862) came of this experience as did The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, his first major novel. Modern Love is a collection of 50 sonnets about the failure of his first marriage. He reflects his own disillusionment after his wife Mary Ellen, left him for the painter. It is often thought of as one of the first psychological poems. He married Marie Vulliamy in 1864. He continued writing novels, and poetry, often inspired by nature. His writing was characterized by a fascination with imagery and indirect references. He had a keen understanding of comedy and his Essay on Comedy(1877) is still quoted in most discussions of the history of comic theory. In The Egoist, published in 1879, he applies some of his theories of comedy in one of his most enduring novels. During most of his career, he had difficulty achieving popular success. His first truly successful novel was Diana of the Crossways published in 1885. Diana of the Crossways is an account of an intelligent and forceful woman trapped in a miserable marriage. The heroine Diana Warwick says: “we women are the verbs passive of the alliance[??lai?ns], we have to learn, and if we take to activity, with the best intentions, we conjugate（meet） a frightful disturbance. We are to ru