VĂN HỌC ANH – MỸ

Q1: What was Oscar Wilde’s Literary work?

- Oscar Wilde’s work reflect the emotional protest of an artist against social conditions in
England at the end of the 19th century. Wilde understood that art cannot flourish under
capitalism, and he came to the false conclusion that art is isolated from life, that art is the
only thing that really exists and is worth living for. Life only mirrors art, he declared. Beauty
is the measure of all thingss, hence his desire to escape from all the horrors of reality into the
realm of beauty.
- Of all the evils of society he despired bourgeois morality most of all. His opinion on the
subject is expressed in the theory of “immoral aestheticism”, in which he glorifies beauty and
conveys the idea that it is not at all necessary that books should be realistic and teach
morality. Beauty is the only requirement they must satisfy.
- Like most writers and poets, Wilde glorifies natural beauty, but at the same time he is an
admirer of artificial colours.
- Wilde could not help seeing the evils of contemporary life. He understood that the social
order was bad and had to be replaced by another system.
- Though Wilde proclaimed the theory of extreme individualism, he often contradicts himself.
In his works, in his tales in particular, he glorifies beauty, and not only the beauty of nature
and artificial beauty but the beauty of devoted love.
- In his plays Wilde gives realistic pictures of contemporary society and exposes the vices of
the bourgeois world.
Q2: What are the main things about Robert Burns?
- At the close of the 18th century a young Scotsman became the national poet of both Scotland
and England. He was considered one of the greatest poets in English literature, his songs and
poems are known and loved far beyond the limitss of his country.
- The years of Burn’s creative work belong to the period known in English literature as Pre-
Romanticism. Burb’s poetry has features nature, his singing of liberty, his rebellious spirit
have much in common with such revolutionary romanticism as Geogre Byron and Percy
Shelley.
- Robert Burns was born on January 25th, 1759, in a clay-built cottage near the river Doon in
Alloway, Ayshire (Scotland). The life of the family was full of privations.
- When Robert was seven, their father decided to give his children the best education he could
afford and engaged a teacher to educate them.
- Burns wrote his first verses when he was fifteen.
- In 1786 he published his first book under the title of Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect
Q3: Contribution of the critical realists to world literature
- Present brilliant school of English novelists to world literature is enormous.
 - They created a broad panorama of social life, exposed and attacked the vices of aristocratic
and bourgeois society, sided with the common people in their passionate protest against
unbearable exploitation, and expressed their hopes for a better future.
- Some of them wanted to reconcilde the antagonistic classes – the bourgeoisie and the
ploletariat, to make the rich share their wealth with the poor, but being great artists they
showed social injustices in capitalists England in such a way that the reader cannot help
thinking that changes in the existing social system as a whole were necessary.
Q4: Within 200 words, write about William Makespeace Thackeray?
- “Thackeray possesses great talent of all the European writers of the present time Dickens
alone can be placed on a level with the author of Vanity Fair” Chernyshevsky.
- William Makespeace Thackeray and Charles Dickens were the greatest representatives of
Critical Realism in English literature of the 19th century.
- Was born in a prosperous middle – class famlily. His father was a well – to – do English
offical in Calcutta, India when the boy was six years old, he was taken from Calcutta, where
he was born, to England to be educated. From Charterhouse school he passed on to
Cambridge University.
- While a student, William spent much of his time drawing cartoón 1 and writing verses,
chiefly parodies. He did not stay long at the University, for he could not bear the scholastic
atmosphere of the place.
- Intending to complete his education, Thackeray returned to London and began a low courses
in 1833. Meanwhile, the India bank, in which the money left to William by his father wá
invested, went bankrupt, and Thackeray was left penniless. Therefore he had to drop his
studies to earn a living. For a long time he hesitated whether to take up art or literature as a
profession. Finally he decided to try his hand as a journalist. His humorous articles, essays
reviews and short stories found a ready market. He himself illustrated many of these pieces
with amusing drawings, which added to the humorous effect.
- Thackeray’s married life was unhappy as his wife became ill after giving birth to the third
child.
- His first notable works was “The Book of Snobs” (1846-1847) which deals with the upper
classes and their followers in the middle classes, whose vices the author criticizes with the
sharp pen of satire. The book may be regarded as a prelude to the author’s masterpiece
“Vanity Fair”, which can be called the peak of Critical Realism. Vanity Fair brought great
fame to the noverlist and remains his most – read work up to the present day.
Q5: What do you know about the novel “Vanity Fair”?
- The subtitle of the book shows the author’s intention not to describe separate individuals, but
English bourgeois – aristocratic society as a whole.
- The title of the book os borrowed from “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, an allegorical novel written
by John Bunyan, one of the greatest writers of the second half of the 17th century.
 - - “Vanity Fair” is a social novel which shows not only the bourgeois aristocratic society as a
ưhưole, but the very laws which govern it. Describing the events which took place at the
beginning of the 19th century, the author presents abroad satirical picture of contemporary
England.
- The social background of the novel which influences all the characters in their thoughts and
actions, is high society at large. Thackeray attacks the vanity, pretensions, prejudices and
corruption of the aristocracy (the Crawleys, Lord Steyne), the narrow – mindedness and
greed of the bourgeoisie (the Osbornes, the Sedleys). He mercilessly exposes the
snobbishness, hypocrisy, money – workship and parasitism of all those who from the
bulwark of society.
- The interest of the novel centres on the characters rather than on the plot. The author shows
various people, and their thoughts and actión, in diffierent situations, there is no definite hero
in the book. In Thackeray’s opinion there can be no hero in a society where the cult of money
rules the world.
Q6: Within 200 words, write about the life of Charles Dickens.
- Charles Dickens began to write at a time when the labour movement.
- Though he did not believe in revolutionary action, he was on the side of the people with all
his darkest corners of the large cities and there found the victims of capitalism.
- Charles Dickens was born on 1812 near Portsmouth on the southern coast of England.
- They belonged to the lower middle class.
- Charles was very young when the family moved to the naval port of Chatham.
Q7: What was Dickén’ contribution to world literature?
- Dickens has given a full picture of 19th century English life. He revealed all that was
irrational and monstrous and through his wit and humour people began to see their own time
and environment in a new light.
- Dickens portrays people of all the types seen in the streets of great cities in his time Dickens
lived for the people. It was said of him that he, Dickens, “never talked down to the people, he
talked up to the people.”
- To many European critics Dickens ranked only among the moralists and reformers of the 19th
century. His works were not considered works of art, because in his writing he was not
inspired by beauty but by human suffering.
- The works of Dickens, they said, were emotions of a humane mind. The novelist condemned
the hypocrisy and greed of the bourgeoisie.
- And Maxim Gorky said that Dickens had achieved one of the most diffiult thingss in
literature and art: he developed in his readers a love for man.
Q8: New literary trend and its feature?
- The ideas of Chartism attracted the attention of many progressive – minded people of the
time. Many prominent writers became aware of the social injustices around them and tried to
 picture them in their works. Thus this period of fierce class struggle was mirrored in
literature by the appearance of a new trend, that of Critical Realism. The greatest novelist of
the age are Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth
Gaskell.
- Đặc trưng:
+ These writers used the novel as a means to protest against the evils in contemporary social
and ecônmic life and to picture the world in a realistic way. Engels said that in his opinion
realism should depict typical characters in typical circumstances.
+ The critical realists introduced new social force in modern history – the working class.
+ They expressed deep sympathy for the working people, voiced a passionate protest against
exploitation and described their persident struggle for their rights.
+ The greatness of these novelists lies not only in their truthful description of contemporary
life, but also in their profound humanism.
Q9: What were exposed in the novel “Oliver Twist”?
- In 1838, Dickens created this story of powerful emotional appeal and social criticism perhaps
at the inspiration of the poor law passed in 1834. The law stopped goverment aid to the poor
unless they entered workhouses where more miseries of the poor and the description of the
thieves’den and of the underworld in London. With his realistic art, Dickens started the
public into a new conscioussness of the poor and the oppressed and the criminal level of
society, and shows how the social system and the institutions were held responsible for the
miseries and crimes.
- The first two chapters of the book deal with the young hero Oliver Twists’ birth and
adventures in the workhouse.
- It is in scenes like this that we see the great critical realist voicing the helplessness of the
poor and the oppressed.
Q10: What were the living conditions of the workers in the twentieth century?
- The house looked ready to fall, many of them out of the perhendicular. Entire families were
crowed into one room. Most of the doors stood opne 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 he stairs, or companions would huddle together in cold
weather. Everywwhere there was drunkeness, 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 mojority were casuals
employed for one job only. The casuals would talk to the docks early in the monring 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 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 Goc’s punishment of unbelievers
Q11: What was Thackeray’s contribution to world literature?
- Thackeray’s contribution to world litertature is enormous. Though the class struggle found
no reflection in his works, the novelist truthfully reproduced the political atmosphere of the
century. This period witnessed the growth of the revolutionary movement of the English
proletariant.
- Thackeray developed the realistic traditions of his predecessors, the enlighteners, Jonathan
Swift and Henry Fielding in paticular, and became one of the most prominent realist and
satirists of his age.
- Thackeray loathed snobbishness, and in his works he used satire to expose the pretensions of
the snobs and social climbers whom he depicts in his novels.
Q12: What do you know about the Life of Oscar Wilde?
- Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin on October 16th, 1854. His father was a famous Irish
surgeon. His mother was well known in Dublin as a graceful writer of verse and prose.
- At school, and later at Oxford, Oscar displayed a considered gift for art and the humanities.
- Under the influence of his teacher, the writer John Ruskin, Wilde joined the then young
Aesthetic Moyement, which came into being as a protest against bourgeois hypocrisy and
bigotry, but later turned idealistic and reactionary.
- After graduating from the University, Wilde turned his attention to writing, travelling and
lecturing.
- In 1882 he went to America to lecture on the Aesthetic Movement in England. His lecture
tours were triumphantly successful.
Q.13: Why was the twentieth century English literature called the literature of the
Decadence?
- In the 70s 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 geatly admired.
- Many of these scientists believed in positivism, and spread their demagonic 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 to see that some human being
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 pessimisim and found its expression in a very pessimistic literature,
the literature of the Decadence.
Q14: What are the differences and simillarities between Thackeray’s and Dicken’s writing
styles?
- Thackeray’s realism is different from that of Dickens, it is less combined with fantasy and
lyricism, it is more exact and objective. While Dickens idealizes his positive characters
(sometimes they are too good to be true and the author’s attitude towards them is somewwhat
sentimental), Thackeray potrays his characters more realistically. They are not static, his
women characters, in particular, develop as the story progresses. Thackeray tries to describe
things and human beings as existing outside his mind, they are shown as natural result of
their environment and the society which bred them . he depicts his characters as if viewing
the from afar. This was a new feature in literature which was followed by many other writers,
and was later called objective realism in literature.
- Dickens was more optimistic than Thackeray. He tried to reform people and thought that was
the way to make them happy. In Thackeray’s opinion the existing state of thingss could not
be changed, though he saw that bourgeois morals had fallen into decay, and he subjected
these morals to severe criticism, which is the chief merit of his in the futureworks.
- Thackeray is unable to see man reformed Chernyshesky blamed him for this failure in his
article on “The Newcomers”.
- Thackeray’s pessimism marks the beginning of the crisis of bourgeois humanism.
- The novels of Dickens and Thackeray give us a remarkably realistic picture of all classes of
English up to the middle of the 19th century.
Q15: What are the two trends of the twentieth century English literature?
- The crisis of bourgeois culture was reflected in literature by the appearance of two trends, the
one progressive, the other regressive.
- The representative of the first trend continued the realistic traditious of their predecessors –
“the brilliant school of novelists in England”. It was represented by such writers as George
Eliot, George Merecdih, Samuel Butter, Thomas Hardy. These novelists gave a truthful
picture of contemporary society. Though their criticism is not so sharp as that of their
predecessors, and the social panorama of life in their works is somewwhat narrowed, the
greatest merit of the novelists of the progressive trend is a deep psychological analysis of the
characters in their works, a detailed description of their inner world.
- The writers of the regressive trend by way of protest against severe reality tried to lead the
reader away from life into the world of dreams and fantasy, into the realm one of beauty.
They idealized the patriarchal way of life and criticized capitalism chief for its expression in
decadent literature and art.
- Decadent art, beautiful as it is , is reactionary in its very essence, since it rejects Realism in
art and appreciates the outer form of art more than the content. No matter how sharply the
 representatives of his trend criticized bourgeois society for its anti-aestheticism and lack of
spiritual culture, their own art came into being because of the crisis in bourgeois ideology.
- Though the decadent writers saw the vices of the bourgeois world, and in some of theor
works we find a truthful and critical description of contemporary life, on the whole their
inner world lacks depth. They were firm in their opinion that it was impossible to better the
world and, influenced by hedonism, conveyed the idea that everyone must strive for his own
private hapiness, avoid suffering and enjoy life at all costs. The decadent writers created their
own cult of beauty and proclaimed the theory of “pure art”, their motto was for art’s sake.
Q16: What are some of the historical facts of the twentieth century English lierature?
- 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.
- In 1883 a group of independent socialists organized 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 recognized the
class struggle as necessary for social progress. English Fabian Socialism never became part
of the actual worker’s movement.
- In the summer of 1889 a great dock strike broke out in London led by Tom Mann and other
worker’s leaders.
- Meanwhile the British imperialists were fighting for colonal expansion and preparing for the
Boer War in South Africa.
- The imperialists came to power in 1895 Four Fairs later the Boer War broke out.
Q17: What are the contents of the story: Pride and Prejudice?
Pride and Prejudice tells a story which centres around a series of misunderstandings between
Elizabeth and Darcy. Elizabeth is a lively young middle-class woman who has a satirical
temperament whereas Darcy, born in a wealthy upper-class family, is an unconsciously arrogant
young man. He first offends Elizabeth with his haughty contempt for the “inferiority of her
connections” and the “want of propriety” apparently “displayed by her son-in-law hunting mother,
officer-chasing younger sisters and kind but indolent and cynical father”. On account of this,
Elizabeth makes up her mind not to care about Darcy at all. However, Darcy reluctantly finds
himself a suitor of Elizabeth. As he proposes to Elizabeth, he can’t help showing his pride for his
own status. What is more, he thinks that he is lowering himself and this he communicates to
Elizabeth. Elizabeth, in turn, develops a strong dislike for and prejudice against Darcy and rejects
Darcy’s proposal. Then the two part each other.
Q18: What were Oscar Wilde’s major works and his writing genres?
Major works:
- The most popular of than are The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888), The picture of
Dorian Gray (1891) and his comedies Lady Windermer’s Fan (1892). A woman of No
Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). The
 wit and brilliance of these plays helped to keep them on the stage and they are still
occasionally revived.
- Wilde also wrote poems. Essays, review, political tracts, letters and occasional pieces on
every subject he considered worthy of attention – history, drama, painting, ... Some of these
piêcs were serious, some satirical, the variety of themes reflected a personality that could
never remain inactive. At home and abroad Wilde attracted the attention of his audiences by
the brilliance of his conversation, the scope of his knowledge, and the sheer force of his
personality.
Writing genres:
- Oscar Wilde’s works reflect the emotional protest of an artist against social conditions in
English at the end of the 19th century.
- Of all the evils of society he despired bourgeois morality most of all.
- Wilde glorifies natural beauty, but at the same time he is an admire of artifical colour.
Q19: What are the main points about William Shakespeare?
- Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, in 1564.
- In 1592 he was in London working as an actor and a dramatist.
- Between about 1590 and 1613, Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays and collaborated on
several more. Many of these plays were very successful both at court and in the public
playhouses.
- In 1613, Shakespeare retired from the theatre and returned to Stratford-upon-Avon.
- He died and was buried there in 1616.
Q20: What do you know about Daniel Defoe?
- Daniel Defoe is rightly considered the father of the English and the European novel, for ot
was due to him that the genres became once and for ever established in European literature.
- Daniel Defoe life was complicated and adventurous. He was the son of a London butcher
whose name was Foe, to which Daniel later added the prefix De.
- His father being a purian, wanted his son to become a priest. Daniel was educated at a
theological school. However, he never became a priest, for he looked for other business to
apply his abilities to.
- He became a merchant, first in wine, then in hosiery
- Defoe’s business was not very successful and he went bankrupt more than once.
- He took an active part in the political life of Britain. After years of political ups and downs,
including imprisonment for his attacks against the Church. He died at the age of 71, having
written numerous works.
Q21: What do you know about the novel The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of
Robinson Crusoe?
The novel opens with a narration of Crusoe’s youth in England, his escape from home. Then comes
an account of his numerous sea voyages and adventures including a periods of slavery among the
corsairs and his four years as a planter in Brazil. After this he goes on a slave – trading expedition to
Africa.
After a shipwreck Robinson Crusoe finds himself on an uninhabited island and spends 28 years
there. With a few tools rescued from the ship he builds a hut, makes a boat. He tames and breeds
animals, cultivates plot of land, hunts and fishes. He is never idle. He is a man of labour, untiring,
indistrious and op timiaatic. Though he sometimes has to spend a lot of tome on making simplest
thing he never loses heart. His lust for life and his inventiveness help him overcome the hardships
while his powers of đeuction and observation lead him to important discovers. He is a trulyheroic
character, âmn dominating nature. But his emotional life is poor. He is unable to admire the beauty
of nature, he never feels any love or sorrow for those whom he left in England. The dairy, which he
keeps on the island carries a detailed account of his deeds, but never of his thoughts.
Q22: Show your understandings about Jonathan
- The greatest satirist in the history of English literature Jonathan Swift was the contemporary
of Steele, Addison, Defoe and other English enlightens of the early period. However, he
stood âprrt from them, for while they supported the bourgeois order. Swift, by criticizing
differrent aspects.
- The greatest satirist in the history of English of the bourgeois society. Lunacharsky called
Swift one of the first critics of bourgeois system and capitalist reality.
- Jonathan Swift was born on November 30th, 1667 in Dublin in an English family.
- There he studied theology and later became a clergyman. His favourtite subjects, however,
were not theology but literature, history and languages.
- During the two years at Moor Park Swift read and sudied much and in 1692 he took his
Master of Arts Degree at Oxford University
- In 1701 Swift went to the small town of Laracor (Ireland) as a clergyman.
- Swift’s enemies as well as his friends were afraid of him, for they knew his honesty and his
critical attitude to all the party intrigues.
- The satire is written in the form of a story about three brothers symbolizing.
Q23: What were the characteristic features of Romanticism?
- They dedicated much of what they wrote to Nature, especially Wordsworth.
- They disclosed the life of the common people of the English countryside that was overlooked
by their younger revolutionary contemporaries.
- The Lake poets resorted to the popular forms of verse that were known and could be
understood by all.
- The English poet were full of deep feelings. These feelings, he said, were expressed in the
language of the honest common man.
- The romanticists paid a good deal of attention to the spiritual life of man
- This was reflected in an abundance of lyrical verse. The so-called exotic theme came into
being and great attention was dedicated to nature and its elemets.
Q24: What are the contents of the novel Vanity Fair?
- It is a social novel which shows not only the bourgeois aristocratic society as a whole, but the
very laws which govern it. Describing the events which took place at the beginning of the
19th century, the author presents a broad satirical picture of contemporary England.
- The social background of the novel which influences all the characters in their thoughts and
actions, is high society at large. Thackeray attacks the vanity pretensions, prejudices and
corruptión of the aristocracy (the Crawleys, Lord Steyne). He mercilessly expose
snobbishness, hypocrisy, money-worship and paraitishm of all those who form the bulwark
of society.
- The interest of the novel centres on the characters rather than on the plot. The author shows
various people, and their thoughts and actions, in different situations. There is no define hero
in the book. In Thackeray’s opinion there can be no hero in a society where the cult of money
rules the world.