自考《英美文学选读》现代文学时期3

　　一。一般识记 His life：

　　John Galsworthy was born into an upper-middle class family. He was educated first at Harrow and then at Oxford. After practising the law for a short time， he turned to literature.

　　二。识记 His major works：

　　He published his first book， From the Four Winds （a volume of short stories）， in 1897 under the pseudonym of John Sinjohn. The experiences of his wife''s unhappy life of the first marriage were reflected in The Man of Property （1906）， which， together with his first p1ay， The Silver Box （1906）， established him as a prominent novelist and playwright in the public mind. After the First Wor1d War he completed The Forsyte Saga， his first trilogy： The Man of Property， In Chancery （1920） and To Let （1921）。 His second Forsyte trilogy， A Modern Comedy， appeared in 1929， and the third， End of the Chapter， posthumous1y in 1934.

　　三。 领会

　　1.John Galsworthy basic literary ideas： Galsworthy was essentially a bourgeois liberal， a reformist. Throughout his life， he was preoccupied with the social injustice in his time. He regarded human life as a struggle between the rich and the poor. And his sympathy always went out to the suffering poor. In his works， he criticizes a dull， parasitic and inhuman class of the rich， which is against any kind of change； and showed great sympathy to the oppressed， but rebellious and unyie1ding class of the poor， which is bent on reforming things. He battled for many liberal causes， from women''s suffrage to the abo1ition of censorship. He was also a moralist and a critic whose primary aim as a writer was not to create a new society but to criticize the existing one， though his final aim was to keep a balance between the rich and the poor. His works were designed to help improve the status quo； there was no suggestion in them that society shou1d be radical1y and painfully re

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