1、vA representative of the Enlightenment.vThe greatest poet of his time.vIn many ways Drydens successor.vPope was born to a Catholic family in London.vIll health accompanied him from cradle to grave:physical deformity(hunchback,dwarfed,crippled),violent headaches.vIsolated from the society,read widely
2、.vWide association with literary men of his time.vFriends and enemies in the literary circle.vPope was one of the 1st to introduce rationalism to England.vPope wrote highly polished verse,often in a didactic or satirical vein.vFor Pope,the supreme value was order cosmic order,political order,social
3、order,aesthetic order,and this emphasis on order found expression in all of his works.vPope brought the heroic couplet to its ultimate perfection.vPope is a master satirist and splendid craftsman of the heroic couplet.vAn Essay on Criticism 1711vThe Rape of the Lock 1711vThe Dunciad 1728vAn Essay on
4、 Man 1733vEpistle to Dr.Arbuthnot 1735vIliad and Odyssey(trs.1720&1726)vThe Works of Shakespeare,in Six Volumes 1723-25v(see p.64)v一知半解害人不浅，v要么干脆不要问津，要么就深入钻研。v能带来美感的不是孤立的一片唇一只眼，v而是万物的统一和谐。v美好的东西必然唤起美好的感受，v犯错的是人，宽容的是神。vhttp:/poetry.eserver.org/essay-on-criticism.html vThe author of the 1st English di
5、ctionary by an Englishman-A Dictionary of the English Language 1755vBorn to a book-seller in 1709 in Richfield.vRichfield Grammar School for 8 years-a solid foundation in Latin.vOxford university on an off 1728-1731 without a degree.v1737-1755 difficulty for him to“write for a living”.v1755 publicat
6、ion of his dictionary.v1762 a special governmental pension freed him from the burden of writing.vEnergetic and versatile writer:trying his hand in all the different branches of literary activities.He was a poet,dramatist,prose romancer,biographer,essayist,critic,lexicographer and publicist.vChief wo
7、rks:vLondon (poem)vThe Vanity of Human Wishes (poem)vThe History of Rasselas,Prince of Abyssinia (romance)vIrene (tragedy)vHundreds essays in periodicals vLives of the Poets (literary criticism)vA Dictionary of the English Language vSamuel Johnson was the last great neoclassicist enlightener in the
8、later 18th century.He was very much concerned with the theme of the vanity of human wishes:almost all of his major writings bear this theme.He tried to awaken men to this folly and hoped to cure them of it through his writings.Like Pope,he was particularly fond of moralizing and didacticism.vJohnson
9、s style is typically neoclassical.His language is characteristically general.His sentences are long and well structured,interwoven with parallel words and phrases.His thought is always clearly expressed.vReading his works gives the reader the impression that he is talking with a very learned man bec
10、ause of Johnsons use of“learned words”.(文言词)vHe undertook the gigantic task single-handedly and finished in over 7 years.vHis dictionary met the neoclassical need for standards and helped to standardize vocabulary and usage.vJohnsons dictionary was somewhat large and very expensive.Its pages were 18
11、 inches(46 cm)tall and nearly 20 inches(50 cm)wide.The paper was of the finest quality available,the cost of which ran to nearly 1,600;more than Johnson had been paid(1,500)to write the book.Johnson himself pronounced the book Vasta mole superbus(Proud in its great bulk).No bookseller could possibly
12、 hope to print this book without help;outside a few special editions of the Bible no book of this heft and size had even been set to type.ADICTIONARYof theEnglish Language:in whichThe WORDS are deduced from their ORIGINALS,andILLUSTRATED in their DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONSbyEXAMPLES from the best WRIT
13、ERS.To which are prefixed,A HISTORY of the LANGUAGE,and AN ENGLISH GRAMMAR.By SAMUEL JOHNSON,A.M.In TWO VolumesVOL.IvAn important innovation of Johnsons was to illustrate the meanings of his words by literary quotation,of which there are around 114,000.The authors most frequently cited by Johnson in
14、clude Shakespeare,Milton and Dryden.For example:OPULENCE -Wealth;riches;affluence -There in full opulence a banker dwelt,Who all the joys and pangs of riches felt;His sideboard glitterd with imagind plate,And his proud fancy held a vast estate.-Jonathan Swift vUnlike most modern lexicographers,Johns
15、on introduced humour or prejudice into quite a number of his definitions.Among the best known are:v“Excise:a hateful tax levied upon commodities and adjudged not by the common judges of property but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid”(消费税）v“Lexicographer:a writer of dictionaries;a harmle
16、ss drudge（做苦工的人）that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the signification of words vOats:a grain which in England is generally given to horses,but in Scotland supports the people vA much less well-known example is:v“Monsieur:a term of reproach（责备）for a Frenchman”（先生）vIn spite of wh
17、atever shortcomings it might have had,the dictionary was far and away the best of its day,a milestone in English-language lexicography to which all modern dictionaries owe some gratitude.Johnsons dictionary was still considered authoritative until the appearance of the Oxford English Dictionary at the end of the nineteenth century.
