The Special Topics in Foreign Literature course consists of seven major parts:
Ancient Greek Literature: Ancient Greece was the source of European literature. Major literary achievements of ancient Greek literature include Greek mythology, Homeric epics, and Greek drama. The outstanding representatives of Greek drama are the three great tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the comedian Aristophanes. Medieval Literature: In the fifth century AD, the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Europe entered the Middle Ages, and ecclesiastical theology dominated. The main literary achievements of the Middle Ages were church literature, chivalric literature, heroic epics, and urban literature. The Italian poet Dante's Divine Comedy represents the highest literary achievement of the period.
Renaissance Literature: After the end of the 14th century, Europe entered the modern period, and the Renaissance movement swept most of Europe. The literary achievements of the Renaissance were rich and colorful, and the great dramatist Shakespeare appeared in England, and his four major tragedies "Hamlet", "Othello", "King Lear" and "Macbeth" are classics in the history of European literature. The Spanish writer Cervantes' novel Don Quixote laid the foundation for the development of the European novel.
Literature of the 17th Century: During this period, the Industrial Revolution occurred in England and bourgeois power was established, while France was in the heyday of feudal rule. In the above context, the important literary phenomena in Europe in the 17th century are: First, Baroque literature, artistic pursuit of gorgeous carved style, with a strong religious dream color; Second, British capital: proletarian literature, represented by the poet Milton, whose representative work is Paradise Lost; Third, French classical literature, represented by the tragicists Gowère and Racine, and the comedian Molière. Molière's masterpiece is The Hypocrite.
V. Literature of the 18th Century: The main literary achievement of this period was the literature of the Enlightenment. France was the center of the Enlightenment, represented by Voltaire and Rousseau. The main achievements of English literature are novels, and important writers' works include Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. In Germany, the "Wild Rush" movement took place, represented by Goethe and Schiller in their youth. Goethe's representative work is the poetic play Faust.
Vi. 19th Century Literature: In the history of European and American literature in the 19th century, two important literary trends of romantic literature and realist literature appeared successively. Romantic literature flourished in the early 19th century, and the representative great poets and writers were Byron, Hugo, Pushkin and so on. Byron was an English Romantic poet whose masterpieces are the long poem "Child: Harold's Travels" and the satirical narrative poem "Don Juan". Hugo was a French leader in Romantic literature, and his notable novels include Notre Dame de Paris and Les Misérables. Pushkin was the "father of Russian literature", and in his poetic novel Yevgenynnekin succeeded in shaping the first "superfluous" figure in the history of Russian literature, Onegin.
After the mid-19th century, European and American literature turned to realist literature. France is the birthplace of realist literature, and Stendhal's The Red and the Black is the founding work of French realist literature. Balzac was an outstanding representative of French literature of this period, and his "Comedy of Man" was magnificent in scale, such as "The Tall Old Man", "Eugenie. Grande is one of the famous passages. An important French writer of this period was Flaubert, whose masterpiece was Madame Bovary. Representative writers and works of English realist literature include Dickens and A Tale of Two Cities, Hardy and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Representative writers of Russian realist literature include: Lev. Tolstoy's Anna. Karenina" and "Resurrection".
Literature of the 20th Century: The three main currents of European and American literature in the 20th century were realist literature, modernist literature and postmodernist literature. While inheriting the tradition of critical realism in the 19th century, realist literature has made breakthroughs in excavating the depth and breadth of real life, and the art form has also been constantly innovated, and the works of writers we have talked about include: Lawrence and "Son and Lover" in Britain, Hemingway and "The Old Man and the Sea" in the United States. Modernist literature includes post-symbolism, stream of consciousness, expressionism and other genres, and the works of writers we have talked about include: Eliot and The Wasteland, Joyce and Ulysses, Kafka and Metamorphosis, etc. Postmodernist literature includes existentialist literature, absurdist drama, black humor literature, magic realism literature and other literary genres, and the works of writers we have introduced include Beckett and his absurd drama "Waiting for Godot".
Foreign literature includes the history of the development and evolution of literary ideas in various countries and periods of the world and the works of classic writers, which have been going up and down for thousands of years and across dozens of countries, rich and colorful, and all-encompassing. With its historical and cultural background, literary spirit and aesthetic concepts that are very different from Chinese literature, foreign literature has opened up another world for us, showing another world, and interpreting another kind of life. Therefore, students who are new to foreign literature often feel that it is fresh and strange and interesting. In view of the cross-cultural nature of foreign literature, for Chinese students, studying foreign literature has a role and effect that cannot be replaced by other Chinese language and literature professional courses.
It is mainly reflected in the following three aspects:
1. It is conducive to the expansion of cultural vision. Studying foreign literature requires students to break through the boundaries of nations and countries and look at literature with a world-oriented mindset.
2. Contribute to a more in-depth study of national literature. To understand Chinese literature, it is necessary to understand its characteristics that are different from other ethnic literatures. When studying Chinese literature, we use foreign literature as a reference system to re-understand and evaluate ourselves. Through the comparative study of the connection between domestic literature and foreign literature, the similarities and differences, we can have a referential judgment on the artistic value of domestic literature and foreign literature, grasp the position of these works in the world literary circles in comparison, and effectively avoid the tendency of blind exclusivity and blind admiration. Only by comparing works such as "Leaving the Troubles", "Dream of the Red Chamber", "Journey to the West", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and "Liaozhai Zhiyi" with the first-stream works in world literature can we show their great aesthetic value to the world. At the same time, through the eyes of others, we can better understand and grasp the characteristics of our own literature.
3. It is conducive to promoting the exchange of literature in various countries and the development of mainland literature. Strengthening cultural and literary exchanges among countries is the historical mission of foreign literary disciplines. Judging from the current trend of literary development, whether it is literary creation, or literary theory and criticism, it can be widely disseminated through various media, so that a literary trend or literary criticism genre will soon become a "world phenomenon" once it is produced. Therefore, studying foreign literature is conducive to constructing the discourse system of Chinese literature in the collision and intersection of Chinese and Western literature and culture, and promoting mainland literature to the world.