Transcript Unit 5 Defoe and Swift

Unit 5 Defoe and Swift
Aims of Teachings:
1.The novel as a genre in English literature
2. Robinson Crusoe
3. Gulliver’s Travels
4. A Modest Proposal
Major Teaching Points:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Sentimental novel
Realistic novel
Authenticity of Robinson Crusoe
Swift’s humor and satire
Irony in A Modest Proposal
I.Introduction to the Rise of the Modern
English Novel
 Daniel Defoe (adventure story)
 HenryFielding（1707—54）:Tom Jones (1749)
 Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
 Tobias Smollett (1721—71)
 Roderick Random (1748)
 (first English sea novel)
 Samuel Richardson (1689-1761): Damela (1740)
 Lawrence Sterne (1713-68): Tristram Shandy(1759),
A sentimental Journey(1768)
 (Oliver Goldsmith (1730-74): The Vicar of Wakefield
 (the Enlightenment)
II. Daniel Defoe (1661—1731） —One
of the forerunners of the English realistic
novel. 丹尼尔笛福——英国现实主义小说先驱
1. His life: Born toward the of the summer
of 1660, died on April 24, 1731- original
surname Foe, Defoe altered it in 1703
2. His Works
Robinson Grusoe (1719)
1) the story
 from 1704-1709, Alexander Selkirk spent 5
years on an uninhabited island of Juan
Fernandez in South Pacific Ocean, later
rescued
2） general comment
The hero
——an embodiment of the Spirit of individual
enterprise and colonial expansion
——an empire-builder, colonizer, a foreign
trader
——a man against nature and living through
different stages of human civilization in a
seemingly primitive environment
——when Friday came, he became an exploiter,
colonizer
The book
—— a glorification of bourgeois qualities of
individualism, private enterprise, and even
labor.
——an illusion that the existence of the
individual and not that of the collective mass,
was the starting point of human history.
3) the stylistic features of the novel
simple language, attention to details,
seemingly authentic descriptions
III.Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
1.
His tragic life
Jonathan Swift aimed his witty,
imaginative, and often bitter satire at
such subjects as politics, literature, and
human society.
Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
1) the story
Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Swift’s
masterpiece, is commonly considered a
children’s story but was originally
intended as a satire on humankind.
2) comment: interesting stories + satire
 3. A question:
Why is the story of Lilliput more interesting to
the reading public than that of Brobdingnag or
that of the Houyhnhms? probably out of
human nature: man tends to think highly of
himself, not to belittle himself, thus to satisfy
his sense of self-importance
 4.Compare the style of Swift’s with that of
Defoe’s
Discussion Questions
 1.What is satire? What makes it an
effective form of criticism?
 2.In Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift
examines the essence of human nature;
are humans basically rational and good
beings or impulsive and cruel beasts?
What does Gulliver discover about
human
nature?
Draw
your
own
conclusion to this question and support
it with examples from personal or
current events.
3.What, if anything, should be
free from attack by satire?
4.Discuss what is accomplished in
the story by changing the size of
Gulliver and the people he interacts
with. How does this change of scale
affect Gulliver’s experiences and
his relationships?
A modest proposal
1) elaboration of a metaphor: the
English are devouring the Irish irony +
parody
 2) parody: the mimicking of a literary
work or of the style of a well-known
artist for the purpose of ridicule
