The Most Influential Novels and Books
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- greatest English-language novels from 1923 to 2005
The Novel 100:A Ranking of theGreatest Novels of All Time
The list below is from the book The Novel 100: A Ranking of Greatest Novels All Time (Checkmark Books/Facts On File, Inc.: New York, 2004), written by Daniel S. Burt.
Burt holds a Ph.D from New York University with a specialty in Victorian fiction and was for nine years a dean at Wesleyan University, where he has also taught literature courses since 1989. He is also the author of The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time.
Note that in compiling the list of novels that was the basis for this book, Burt had to impose a number of constraints about what should be considered a novel. Although some works recognized as classics of science fiction (or, more broadly, speculative fiction) are on the list (e.g., F D Nineteen Eighty-Four), Burt specifically excluded works that seemed to veer too much from primarily naturalistic and contemporary-oriented narratives, thus excluding from consideration most science fiction and fantasy. Books such as Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Card's Ender's Game, Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz and Frank Herbert's Dune were excluded from consideration as "novels." Burt's functional definition of "novel" used here (i.e., books belonging to the "novel genre" or, in most cases, the "literary novel genre") is thus narrower than how the word is used by the general public. From the book's introduction, pages ix-x:
What makes a listing of the greatest novels even more problematic is the lack of any consensus about which works rightfully constitute the genre... the novel is such a hybrid and adaptive genre, assimilating other prose and verse forms... A standard definition of the novel--an extended prose narrative--is so broad that it fails to limit the field usefully... I have been influenced in this regard, like many, by literary critic Ian Watt's groundbreaking 1957 study, The Rise of the Novel, which contends that the novel as a distinctive genre emerged in 18th-century England through the shifting of the emphasis of previous prose romances and their generalized and idealized characters, settings, and situations to a particularity of individual experience. In other words, the novel replaced the romance's interest in the general and the ideal with a concern for the particular. The here and now substituted for the romance's interest in the long ago and far away. As 18th-century novelist Clara Reece observed, "The Novel is a picture of real life and manners, and of the times in which it was written. The Romance, in lofty and elevated language, describes what has never happened nor is likely to." Novelists began to represent the actual world accurately, governed by the laws of probability.
...It would be far too reductive and misleading, however, to define the novel only by its realism or accurate representation of ordinary life... It would be far more accurate to say that the novel as a distinct genre attempts a synthesis between romance and realism, between a poetic, imaginative alternative to actuality and a more authentic representation. For purposes of my listing, I have narrowed the field by categorizing as novels works that engage in that synthesis. Some narrative works judged too far in the direction of fantasy--Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel, Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Carroll's Alice in Wonderland--have been excluded. I have also made judgment calls on the question of the required length of a novel and have ruled out of contention such important fictional works as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis as falling short of the amplitude expected when confronting a novel.
Rank Title of Great Novel Year Author Religious Affiliation of Author
1Don QuixoteMiguel de CervantesCatholic
2War and Peace1869Leo TolstoyRussian Orthodox
3Ulysses1922James JoyceCatholic (lapsed)
4In Search of Lost Time1913-27Marcel Proust
5The Brothers Karamazov1880Feodor DostoevskyRussian Orthodox
6Moby-Dick1851Herman MelvilleTranscendentalist
7Madame Bovary1857Gustave FlaubertCatholic
8Middlemarch1871-72George EliotA agnostic
9The Magic Mountain1924Thomas Mann
10The Tale of Genji11th CenturyMurasaki ShikibuBuddhist/Shinto culture
11Emma1816Jane AustenAnglican
12Bleak House1852-53Charles DickensAnglican
13Anna Karenina1877Leo TolstoyRussian Orthodox
14Adventures of Huckleberry Finn1884Mark Twain
15Tom Jones1749Henry Fielding&
16Great Expectations1860-61Charles DickensAnglican
17Absalom, Absalom!1936William Faulkner
18The Ambassadors1903Henry JamesAnglican
19One Hundred Years of Solitude1967Gabriel Garcia MarquezCatholic
20The Great Gatsby1925F. Scott FitzgeraldCatholic
21To The Lighthouse1927Virginia WoolfNeo-pagan
22Crime and Punishment1866Feodor DostoevskyRussian Orthodox
23The Sound and the Fury1929William Faulkner
24Vanity Fair1847-48William Makepeace Thackeray&
25Invisible Man1952Ralph Ellison&
26Finnegans Wake1939James JoyceCatholic (lapsed)
27The Man Without Qualities1930-43Robert MusilCatholic
28Gravity's Rainbow1973Thomas Pynchon
29The Portrait of a Lady1881Henry JamesAnglican
30Women in Love1920D. H. Lawrence&
31The Red and the Black1830StendhalCatholic
32Tristram Shandy1760-67Laurence Sterne
33Dead Souls1842Nikolai GogolRussian Orthodox
34Tess of the D'Urbervilles1891Thomas Hardy&
35Buddenbrooks1901Thomas Mann
36Le Pere Goriot1835Honore de BalzacCatholic
37A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man1916James JoyceCatholic (lapsed)
38Wuthering Heights1847Emily BronteAnglican
39The Tin Drum1959Gunter GrassCatholic
40M Malone D The Unnamable1951-53Samuel Beckett
41Pride and Prejudice1813Jane AustenAnglican
42The Scarlet Letter1850Nathaniel HawthorneTranscendentalist
43Fathers and Sons1862Ivan TurgenevRussian O agnostic
44Nostromo1904Joseph ConradC atheist
45Beloved1987Toni Morrison&
46An American Tragedy1925Theodore Dreiser
47Lolita1955Vladimir Nabokov
48The Golden Notebook1962Doris Lessing&
49Clarissa1747-48Samuel Richardson&
50Dream of the Red Chamber1791Cao Xueqin&
51The Trial1925Franz KafkaJewish
52Jane Eyre1847Charlotte BronteAnglican
53The Red Badge of Courage1895Stephen CraneMethodist
54The Grapes of Wrath1939John Steinbeck
55PetersburgAndrey BelyRussian O T Spiritualism
56Things Fall Apart1958Chinue Achebe&
57The Princess of Cleves1678Madame de Lafayette&
58The Stranger1942Albert CamusC Existentialism
59My Antonia1918Willa CatherEpiscopalian
60The Counterfeiters1926Andre Gide&
61The Age of Innocence1920Edith Wharton&
62The Good Soldier1915Ford Madox Ford
63The Awakening1899Kate ChopinCatholic
64A Passage to India1924E. M. Forster&
65Herzog1964Saul Bellow
66Germinal1855Emile ZolaCatholic
67Call It Sleep1934Henry RothJewish
68U.S.A. Trilogy1930-38John Dos PassosCatholic
69Hunger1890Knut Hamsun&
70Berlin Alexanderplatz1929Alfred DoblinCatholic
71Cities of Salt1984-89'Abd al-Rahman Munif&
72The Death of Artemio Cruz1962Carlos FuentesCatholic
73A Farewell to Arms1929Ernest HemingwayCatholic
74Brideshead Revisited1945Evelyn WaughCatholic
75The Last Chronicle of Barset1866-67Anthony TrollopeAnglican
76The Pickwick Papers1836-67Charles DickensAnglican
77Robinson Crusoe1719Daniel Defoe
78The Sorrows of Young Werther1774Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
79Candide1759Voltaire
80Native Son1940Richard Wright
81Under the Volcano1947Malcolm LowryM A agnostic
82Oblomov1859Ivan Goncharov&
83Their Eyes Were Watching God1937Zora Neale Hurston&
84Waverley1814Sir Walter ScottAnglican
85Snow CountryKawabata Yasunari&
86Nineteen Eighty-Four1949George OrwellAnglican
87The BetrothedAlessandro ManzoniCatholic
88The Last of the Mohicans1826James Fenimore CooperEpiscopalian
89Uncle Tom's Cabin1852Harriet Beecher StoweE Congregationalist
90Les Miserables1862Victor HugoCatholic
91On the Road1957Jack Kerouac
92Frankenstein1818Mary Shelley&
93The Leopard1958Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
94The Catcher in the Rye1951J.D. Salinger
95The Woman in White1860Wilkie Collins&
96The Good Soldier Svejk1921-23Jaroslav HasekCatholic
97Dracula1897Bram StokerChurch of Ireland (Anglican)
98The Three Musketeers1844Alexandre Dumas Catholic
99The Hound of Baskervilles1902Arthur Conan DoyleC Spiritualist
100Gone with the Wind1936Margaret MitchellCatholic
All-Time 100 Best Novels List
100 Best Novels, 1923 to present
Source: Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo, "TIME's Critics pick the 100 Best Novels, 1923 to present", published in Time Magazine, 2005 (/time/books/the_complete_list. viewed 31 October 2005):
TIME Critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo pick the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.
Listed alphabetically by title.
TitleAuthorReligious Affiliation
The Adventures of Augie MarchSaul Bellow
All the King's MenRobert Penn Warren&
American PastoralPhilip RothJewish
An American TragedyTheodore Dreiser
Animal FarmGeorge OrwellAnglican
Appointment in SamarraJohn O'Hara&
Are You There God? It's Me, MargaretJudy BlumeJewish
The AssistantBernard MalamudJewish
At Swim-Two-BirdsFlann O'Brien&
AtonementIan McEwan
BelovedToni Morrison&
The Berlin StoriesChristopher Isherwood
The Big SleepRaymond Chandler&
The Blind AssassinMargaret AtwoodHumanist
Blood MeridianCormac McCarthyCatholic
Brideshead RevisitedEvelyn WaughCatholic
The Bridge of San Luis ReyThornton WilderCongregationalist
Call It SleepHenry RothJewish
Catch-22Joseph HellerJewish
The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. Salinger
A Clockwork OrangeAnthony BurgessCatholic
The Confessions of Nat TurnerWilliam Styron&
The CorrectionsJonathan Franzen&
The Crying of Lot 49Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of TimeAnthony Powell&
The Day of the LocustNathanael WestJewish
Death Comes for the ArchbishopWilla CatherEpiscopalian
A Death in the FamilyJames Agee
The Death of the HeartElizabeth Bowen
DeliveranceJames Dickey&
Dog SoldiersRobert Stone&
FalconerJohn Cheever&
The French Lieutenant's WomanJohn FowlesAtheist
The Golden NotebookDoris Lessing&
Go Tell it on the MountainJames Baldwin&
Gone With the WindMargaret MitchellCatholic
The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck
Gravity's RainbowThomas Pynchon
The Great GatsbyF. Scott FitzgeraldCatholic
A Handful of DustEvelyn WaughCatholic
The Heart Is A Lonely HunterCarson McCullers&
The Heart of the MatterGraham Greene
HerzogSaul Bellow
HousekeepingMarilynne Robinson&
A House for Mr. BiswasV.S. NaipaulHindu
I, ClaudiusRobert Gravesoccult
Infinite JestDavid Foster Wallace&
Invisible ManRalph Ellison&
Light in AugustWilliam Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the WardrobeC.S. Lewis
LolitaVladimir Nabokov
Lord of the FliesWilliam Golding&
The Lord of the RingsJ.R.R. Tolkien
LovingHenry Green&
Lucky JimKingsley Amis&
The Man Who Loved ChildrenChristina Stead&
Midnight's ChildrenSalman RushdieIslam (lapsed); atheist)
MoneyMartin Amisagnostic
The MoviegoerWalker Percy
Mrs. DallowayVirginia WoolfNeo-pagan
Naked LunchWilliam Burroughs&
Native SonRichard Wright
NeuromancerWilliam Gibson&
Never Let Me GoKazuo Ishiguro&
1984George OrwellAnglican
On the RoadJack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestKen Kesey&
The Painted BirdJerzy KosinskiJewish
Pale FireVladimir Nabokov
A Passage to IndiaE.M. Forster&
Play It As It LaysJoan Didion&
Portnoy's ComplaintPhilip RothJewish
PossessionA.S. ByattQuaker (lapsed)
The Power and the GloryGraham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieMuriel SparkCatholic
Rabbit, RunJohn UpdikeLutheran
RagtimeE.L. DoctorowJewish
The RecognitionsWilliam Gaddis&
Red HarvestDashiell Hammett&
Revolutionary RoadRichard Yates&
The Sheltering SkyPaul Bowles&
Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut
Snow CrashNeal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed FactorJohn Barth&
The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner
The SportswriterRichard Ford&
The Spy Who Came in From the ColdJohn le Carre&
The Sun Also RisesErnest HemingwayCatholic
Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston
Things Fall ApartChinua Achebe&
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee&
To the LighthouseVirginia WoolfNeo-pagan
Tropic of CancerHenry Miller&
UbikPhilip K. Dick
Under the NetIris Murdoch&
Under the VolcanoMalcolm LowryM A agnostic
WatchmenAlan Moore and Dave Gibbons
White NoiseDon DeLilloCatholic
White TeethZadie Smith&
Wide Sargasso SeaJean Rhys&
Multiple Listings:
9 authors wrote two of the books listed on TIME Magazine's list of the best English-language novels published since 1923:
Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead R A Handful of Dust)
George Orwell (1984; Animal Farm)
Graham Greene (The Heart of the M The Power and the Glory)
Philip Roth (American P Portnoy's Complaint)
Saul Bellow (The Adventures of Augie M Herzog)
Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49; Gravity's Rainbow)
Virginia Woolf (Mrs. D To the Lighthouse)
Vladimir Nabokov (L Pale Fire)
William Faulkner (Light in A The Sound and the Fury)
Authors on Two Separate Lists
TIME Magazine's list of "100 Best Movies" released since 1923 is a companion to TIME Magazine's list of "100 Best Novels" (written in English) published since 1923. A total of 92 authors are represented on the "Best Novels" list. About 500 directors, writers and starring actors are noted in the "100 Best Movies" list. The names of 3 authors appear on both lists (the 100 Best Novels and 100 Best Movies):
J.R.R. Tolkien: author of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which was adapted to film)
Philip K. Dick: author of Ubik on the "100 Best Novels" author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, adapted as Blade Runner on "100 Best Movies" list
Raymond Chandler: author of Raymond Chandler on "100 Best Novels" screenwriter of Double Indemnity (adapted from James M. Cain's novel) on the "100 Best Movies" list
Notes about how the list was created
Excerpts from: Richard Lacayo, "How We Picked the List" (/time/books/0,24459,our_choices,00. viewed 31 October 2005):
...The parameters: English language novels published anywhere in the world since 1923, the year that TIME Magazine began, which, before you ask, means that Ulysses (1922) doesn't make the cut... This [list] is chosen by me, Richard Lacayo, and my colleague Lev Grossman... Grossman and I each began by drawing up inventories of our nominees. Once we traded notes, it turned out that more than 80 of our separately chosen titles matched. (Even some of the less well-known ones, like At-Swim Two Birds.) We decided then that we would more or less divide the remaining slots between us. That would allow each of us to include books that the other might not have chosen. Or might not even have read... And that would extend the list into places where mere agreement wouldn't take it.
...There were writers we had to admit we love more for their short stories than their novels -- Donald Barthelme, Annie Proulx, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty. We could agree that some of Gore Vidal's novels are an essential pleasure, but it's his non-fiction that's essential period. Then there was the intellectual massif of Norman Mailer, indisputably one of the great writers of our time, but his supreme achievements are his headlong reconfigurations of the whole idea of non-fiction, books like Armies of the N The Executioner's Song...
This project, which got underway in January, was not just a reading effort. It was a re-reading effort. It meant revisiting a lot of novels both of us had not looked into for some time. A few titles that seemed indispensable some years ago turned out on a second tasting to be, well, dispensable... Lists like this one have two purposes. One is to instruct. The other of course is to enrage. We're bracing ourselves for the e-mails that start out: "You moron! You pathetic bourgeoise insect! How could you have left off...(insert title here)."
100 Books That Shaped World History
The list below comes from the book 100 Books That Shaped World History, Bluewood Books (2002), written by Miriam Raftery.
The books in the list below are NOT ranked by their relative influence. They are listed chronologically.
Epic of Gilgamesh (C.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead (C.
Iliad (C. 800 B.C.)
Aesop's Fables (C. 600-560 B.C.)
Hippocratic Corpus (C. 5th Century B.C.)
The History of Herodotus (C. 440 B.C.)
The Analects of Confucius (429 B.C.)
Republic (C. 378 B.C.)
Nicomachean Ethics (C. 330 B.C.)
On the Republic (51 B.C.)
Koran (C. A.D. 652)
The Tale of Genji (C. 1010)
The Travels of Marco Polo (C. 1300)
The Divine Comedy (C. 1320)
Gutenberg Bible (1455)
The Prince (1513)
Utopia (1516)
Ninety-Five Theses (1517)
The Fabric of the Human Body (1543)
On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres (1543)
Romeo and Juliet (1594)
Don Quixote De La Mancha (1605)
Treatise on Painting (1651)
The Pilgrim's Progress ()
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1689)
Two Treatises of Government (1690)
Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Poor Richard's Almanack ()
The Social Contract (1762)
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
Common Sense (1776)
The Federalist Papers ()
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Cartagena Manifesto (1812)
Pride and Prejudice (1813)
The Last of the Mohicans (1826)
Nature (1836)
A Christmas Carol (1843)
Tales (1845)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)
Wuthering Heights (1847)
Civil Disobedience (1849)
David Copperfield ()
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Uncle Tom's Cabin ()
Moby Dick (1851)
On the Origin of Species (1859)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
Das Kapital (1867)
Little Women (1868)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)
The Brothers Karamazov ()
Treasure Island (1883)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
War and Peace (1886)
A Study in Scarlet (1887)
The Jewish State (1896)
The War of the Worlds (1898)
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
Up From Slavery (1901)
The Story of my Life (1902)
The Call of the Wild (1903)
The Jungle (1906)
Riders of the Purple Sage (1912)
O Pioneers! (1913)
Sons and Lovers (1913)
Relativity: The Special and General Theory (1916)
Siddhartha (1922)
Ulysses (1922)
The Great Gatsby (1925)
Mein Kampf ()
The Sun also Rises (1926)
The Oxford English Dictionary (1928)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
The Sound and the Fury (1929)
The Maltese Falcon (1930)
The Good Earth (1931)
Brave New World (1932)
Story of Civilization ()
Gone with the Wind (1936)
The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
Native Son (1940)
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946)
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (1947)
Cry, The Beloved Country (1948)
The Second World War ()
The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
Lord of the Flies (1954)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
Catch-22 (1961)
Silent Spring (1962)
The Feminine Mystique (1963)
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964)
Unsafe at any Speed (1965)
Quotations of Chairman Mao (1966)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee (1971)
The Gulag Archipelago ()
Beloved (1987)
A Brief History of Time, Updated and Expanded (1998)
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　　V. D. H. Lawrence （）
　　一。一般识记
　　His life and writing： David Herbert Lawrence was born at a mining village in Nottinghamshire. His father was a coal-miner with little education； but his mother， once a school teacher， was from a somewhat higher class， who came to think that she had married beneath her and desired to have her sons well educated so as to help them escape from the life of coal miners. The conflict between the earthy， coarse， energetic but often drunken father and the refined， strong-willed and up-climbing mother is vividly presented in his autobiographical novel， Sons and Lovers （1913）。
　　二。识记
　　1.Lawrence's major works： During his life-long literary career， he had written more than ten novels， several volumes of short stories and a large number of poems. Lawrence began his novel writing in his early twenties. His first novel， The White Peacock （1911）， is a remarkable work of a talented young man， acutely observant of nature and delighting in story. His second novel is The Trespasser （1912）， which is about the failure of human contact and the lack of warmth between people， which are to be further explored in his later novels. Lawrence was recognized as a prominent novelist only after Sons and Lovers was published. The Rainbow （1915） and Women in Love （1920） are generally regarded as his masterpieces in which symbolism and complex narrative are employed more richly.
　　2.The Rainbow
　　（1） The story： The Rainbow is a story about the three generations of the Brangwen family on the Marsh farm. The first part is about the marriage and life of Tom Brangwen and Lydia Lensky， a Polish widow. They have a deep and loving understanding of each other in spite of the utter foreignness between them. They can also communicate with the mysterious natural world. Their relationship is presented as the model one in the novel. The second part of the novel is about Anna Lensky， Lydia's daughter by her first husband， and Will， Tom's nephew. They have physical passion for each other； but， in Lawrence's words， "their souls remain separate." Their relationship is fraught with conflicts， and their marriage fails to achieve the final fulfillment of the older generation. The last part of the novel deals with Ursula， the eldest daughter of Will and Anna， who carries the story on into the third generation. This part of the novel traces Ursula's life from childhood through adolescence up to adulthood. At the end of the novel； Ursula is left with much experience behind her， but still "uncreated" in face of the unknown future.
　　（2） The social significance of The Rainbow： In this novel， Lawrence illustrates a terrible social corruption that accompanies the progress of human civilization. In Lawrence's opinion， the mechanical civilization is responsible for the unhealthy development of human personalities， the perversion of love and the failure of human fulfillment in marital relationships. In reading the novel， the reader often feels the threatening shadows of the disintegration and destructiveness of the whole civilized world which loom behind the emotional conflicts and psychological tensions of the characters. As a matter of fact， it is the first time for Lawrence to make a conscious attempt to combine social criticism with psychological exploration in his novel writing.
　　3.Women in Love：
　　（1） The story： As its title implies， Women in Love is a novel about two pairs of lovers， around whom a series of episodes are dramatically presented. The two heroines are Ursula Brangwen and her younger sister Gudrun； and the two chief male characters are Gerald Crich， a young coalmine owner， and Rupert Birkin， a school inspector. At the opening of the story， Ursula and Birkin strike an immediate kin ship with each other， while Gudrun is attracted by Gerald's physical energy. The rest of the novel is a working out of the relationships of these four through interrelating events and conflicts of personalities. After a series of ups and downs， Birkin and Ursula have reached a fruitful relationship by maintaining their integrity and independence as individuals and decided to get married in the end. But the passionate love between Gudrun and Gerald experiences a process of tension and deterioration. As both of them have let their "will-power" and "ideals" interfere with their proper relations， their love turns out to be a disastrous tragedy.
　　（2） The symbolic meanings in this novel： Women in Love is rich in its symbolic meanings. Gerald Crich， an efficient but ruthless coalmine owner， who makes the machine his god and establishes the inhuman mechanical system in his mining kingdom， is a symbolic figure of spiritual death， representing the whole set of bourgeois ethics. Whereas Birkin， a self-portrait of Lawrence， who fights against the cramping pressures of mechanized industrialism and the domination of any kind of dead formulas， is presented as a symbolic figure of human warmth， standing for the spontaneous Life Force. Women in Love is a remarkable novel in which the individual consciousness is subtly revealed and strands of themes are intricately wound up. The structural pattern of the book derives from the contrast between the destinies of the two pairs of lovers and the subordinate masculine relationship between Birkin and Gerald. The two sisters， the two male friends， and the two couples are closely paralleled in ideas， actions and relations so that each is corresponding to and contrasting with the other. Thus， Women in Love is regarded to be a more profoundly ordered novel than any other written by Lawrence.
　　4.His later novels， which deal more extensively with themes of power， dominance， and leadership； the relationships that men form with one another， are also under exploration. These works include Aaron's Rod （1922）， Kangaroo （1923）， The Plumed Serpent （1926）， and Lady Chatterley's Lover （1928）。 In Lady Chatterley's Lover， Lawrence has returned to his early subjects and background of Nottinghamshire. By presenting an old romantic story about a dissatisfied aristocratic lady who deserts her half-man， half-machine husband to find love with a man of nature， Lawrence not only condemns the civilized world of mechanism that distorts all natural relationships between men and women， but also advocates a return to nature.
　　5.The theme of his short stories： Lawrence also uses them to expose the bankruptcy of the mechanical civilization and to find an answer to it. Irony， humour and wit are the characteristic features of many of the stories. St. Mawr， The Daughter of the Vicar， The Horse Dealer's Daughter， The Captain's Doll， The Prussian Officer， and The Virgin and the Gypsy are generally considered to be Lawrence's best known stories.
　　6.Lawrence is also a proficient poet. He began his poetry writing very early and wrote quite a large number of poems in his whole career. His poems fall roughly into three categories - satirical and comic poems， poems about human relationships and emotions， and poems about nature. Lawrence does not care much about the conventional metrical rules； what he tries to do in poetry is to catch the instant life of the immediate present.
　　7.Lawrence's three influential plays are known as "the Lawrence trilogy"： A Collier's Friday Night （1909）， The Daughter-in-Law （1912） and The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyed （1914）， have in common the typical working-class environments set in Nottinghamshire. The main conflict is between the ignorant， drunken and brutish father or husband and the weary， frustrated mother or wife who tries to find emotional fulfillment in her children. What the plays focus on is the direct and violent emotions of the main characters in times of crisis in their married life. The plays are presented with a higher degree of objectivity and detachment than the novels by Lawrence.
　　三。领会
　　The creative features and the social significance of Lawrence's writing： Lawrence is one of the greatest English novelists of the 20th century. The major characteristics of his novel is that he combined social criticism with psychological exploration in his novel writing. He was not concerned with technical innovations； his interest lays in the tracing of psychological development of his character and in his enegetic criticism of the dehumanizing effect of the capitalist industrialization on human nature.
　　（1） The theme： In his writings， Lawrence has expressed a strong reaction against the mechanical civilization. In his opinion， the bourgeois industrialization or civilization， which made its realization at the cost of ravishing the land， started the catastrophic uprooting of man from nature and caused the distortion of personality， the corruption of the will， and the dominance of sterile intellect over the authentic inward passions of man. Under the mechanical control， human beings were turned into inanimated matter， while the inanimated matter should be animated to destroy both man and earth. It is this agonized concern about the dehumanizing effect of mechanical civilization on the sensual tenderness of human nature that haunts Lawrence's writing.
　　（2） Lawrence's influence to modern and contemporary English literature： He was one of the first novelists to introduce themes of psychology into his works. He made a bold psychological exploration of various human relations， especially those between men and women， with a great frankness. He believed that the healthy way of the individual's psychological development lay in the primacy of the life impulse， or in another term， the sexual impulse. Human sexuality was， to Lawrence， a symbol of Life Force. By presenting the psychological experience of individual human life and of human relationships， Lawrence has opened up a wide new territory to the novel. Lawrence declared that any repression of the sexual impulse based on social， religious， or moral values of the civilized world would cause severe damages to the harmony of human relationships and the psychic health of the individual's personality.
　　（3） Lawrence's artistic tendency is mainly realism， which combines dramatic scenes with an authoritative commentary. And the realistic feature is most obviously seen in its detailed portraiture. With the working-class simplicity and directness， Lawrence can summon up all the physical attributes associated with the common daily objects.
　　（4） In presenting the psychological aspects of his characters， Lawrence makes use of poetic imagination and symbolism in his writing. By using sets of natural images as poetic symbols to embody the emotional states of the characters and to illustrate human situations， Lawrence endows the traditional realism with a fresh psychological meaning. Through a combination of traditional realism and the innovating elements of symbolism and poetic imagination， Lawrence has managed to bring out the subtle ebb and flow of his characters' subconscious life.
　　四。应用：Sons and Lovers
　　（1） The brief outline of Lawrence's Sons and Lover： Sons and Lovers is largely an autobiographical novel told by means of straight-forward narrative and vivid episodes in chronological sequence. The story starts with the marriage of Paul's parents. Mrs. Morel， daughter of a middle-class family， is "a woman of character and refinement"， a strong-willed， intelligent and ambitious woman who is fascinated by a warm， vigorous and sensuous coal miner， Walter Morel， and married beneath her own class. After an initial stage of happiness in their marriage， the class difference between them starts to estrange them from each other. The disillusion in her husband makes her lavish all the affections upon her sons. She determines that her sons should never become miners； they will be educated to realize her ideals of success， happiness and social esteem. Thus， the sons gradually come under the strong influence of the mother in affections， aspirations and mental habits， and see their father with their mother's eyes， despising their father whose personality degenerates step by step as he feels his exclusion. Later Mrs. Morel stands in the way of her second son Paul's love affairs first with Miriam， a farmer's daughter， and then with Clara， a married woman who lives separated from her husband. In the near-end of the story， Mrs. Morel suffers from a terminal disease. Paul casts off his mistress and attends to his dying mother. It is only after his mother's death that he feels free. Resisting the urge to follow his mother into darkness， he walks towards life.
　　（2） The characterization of Paul in Sons and Lovers： In the second part of the novel， the closeness between Paul， the hero of the story， and his mother develops after the death of his elder brother， William， and his own illness. Paul's psychological development is traced with great subtlety， especially his emotional conflicts in the course of his early love affairs with Miriam and Clara. Paul depends heavily on his mother's love and help to make sense of the world around him； but in order to become an independent man and a true artist he has to make his own decisions about his life and work， and has to struggle to become free from his mother's influence. However， Paul is proved to be incapable of escaping the overpowering emotional bond imposed by his mother's love， so he fails to achieve a fulfilling relationship with either girl. Finally， his mother has died and he is left alone， in despair. There is no one now to love him or to help him. But the book ends with Paul's rejection of despair and his determination to face the unknown future.
　　Ⅵ。 James Joyce （）
　　一。一般识记：His life and writing：
　　James Joyce was born into a Catholic family Dublin， got his education at Catholic schools where he passed through a phase of religious enthusiasm but finally rejected the Catholic Church and started rebellion against the narrowness and bigotry of the bourgeois Philistines in Dublin. Influenced by Ibsen， Joyce finally decided to take the literary mission as his career. After his graduation， Joyce left Ireland to live and work in France， Italy and Switzerland for the rest of his life， for he regarded exile as the only way to preserve his integrity and to enable him to recreate the life in Dublin truthfully， completely and objectively in his writings.
　　二。识记和领会：
　　His main works： Joyce is not a commercial writer. In his lifetime， he wrote altogether three novels， a collection of short stories， two volumes of poetry， and one play. The novels and short stories are regarded as his great works， all of which have the same setting： Ireland， especially Dublin， and the same subject： the Irish people and their life.
　　1. The theme of Dubliners： Dubliners （1914）， a collection of 15 short stories， is the first important work of Joyce's lifelong preoccupation with Dublin life. The stories have an artistic unity given by Joyce who intended "to write a chapter of the moral history of my country . . . under four of its aspects： childhood， adolescence， maturity and public life." Each story presents an aspect of "dear dirty Dublin，" an aspect of the city's paralysis moral， political， or spiritual. Each story is an action， defining a frustration or defeat of the soul. And the whole sequence of the stories represents the entire course of moral deterioration in Dublin， ending in the death of the soul. Dubliners begins by presenting death as an inscrutable fact in a small boy's existence； it ends with a vision in which death is seen. To make the Irish see death and living dead in their life is perhaps the first step， in Joyce's opinion， to evoke the national spirit of the Irish people. The stories are also important as examples of Joyce's theory of epiphany in fiction； each is concerned with a sudden revelation of truth about life inspired by a seemingly trivial incident.
　　2. The main idea of A Portrait of Artist as a Young Man （1916）： This is Joyce's first novel. The title of the novel suggests a character study with strong autobiographical elements. The novel can be regarded as a naturalistic account of the hero's bitter experiences and his final artistic and spiritual liberation. The story develops around the life of a middle-class Irish boy， Stephen Dedalus， from his infancy to his departure from Ireland some twenty years later. Stephen has an unhappy boyhood. At school， he is unfairly treated by his schoolmates and his masters. During his adolescence the sensitive boy gradually becomes conscious of the oppressive pressures from the moral， political and spiritual environment. He starts to rebel against the oppressive pressures. But rebellion would only result in frustration. Thus， he turns to seek sensual pleasure as an outlet. Consequently he is tormented with his sense of moral sin and frightened by the terrors of the Last Judgment. To remove the restless agony from his mind， he devotes himself to religion； but finally he is repelled by the chilly church life and rejects the call to the priesthood. At a moment of revelation on the seashore， Stephen suddenly realizes that artistic vocation is his true mission. To fulfill this mission， Stephen decides to leave Ireland， to cast off all those that try to tie him down - "his family， his religion， his country and his fleshly desire."
　　3. The brief outline， artistic features and social significance of Ulysses：
　　（1） The brief outline： Broadly speaking， Ulysses gives an account of man's life during one day （16 June， 1904） in Dublin. The three major characters are： Leopold Bloom， an Irish Jew， his wife， Marion Tweedy Bloom， and Stephen Dedalus， the protagonist in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The whole novel is divided into 18 episodes in correspondence with the 18 hours of the day. The first three episodes are mainly concerned with Stephen Dedalus： he gets up at 8 o'clock on this specific day； he teaches a history class at a boy's school； and then he walks along the strand to town with random thoughts in mind. The next 14 episodes are largely about Leopold Bloom， who， after breakfast， goes about Dublin on his day's routine activities. In the morning， Bloom takes a Turkish bath， calls in at the National Library， attends the funeral of a friend， and shows up at the newspaper office where he sells advertising. After lunch， Bloom wanders about in the city， meeting people in streets， at pubs and in shops， worrying about his wife， his money， his daughter and his digestion， pursuing persistently his own ruminations over his past， the death of his father and his baby son， but at the same time cocking an alert ear for what is going on around him. Then he roams along a beach at twilight， sitting at a place to watch an unknown girl and having a daydream. In the evening he visits a maternity hospital to inquire about the birth of a friend's baby. During the course of the day， Stephen also wanders aimlessly in the town， propounding his theory on Shakespeare's Hamlet at the National Library， drinking at the students' common room of the hospital， visiting a brothel in the "Nighttown" where he is rescued in a drunken affray by Bloom. Subsequently Bloom invites Stephen back to his home for a late drink. Stephen leaves in the early hours of the morning and Bloom goes to bed. The novel ends with the famous monologue by Molly， who is musing in a half-awake state over her past experiences as a woman.
　　（2） The artistic features： Ulysses has become a prime example of modernism in literature. It is such an uncommon novel that there arises the question whether it can be termed as a "novel" all； for it seems to lack almost all the essential qualities of the novel in a traditional sense： there is virtually no story， no plot， almost no action， and little characterization in the usual sense. The events of the day seem to be trivial， insignificant， or even banal. But below the surface of the events， the natural flow of mental reflections， the shifting moods and impulses in the characters' inner world are richly presented in an unprecedentedly frank and penetrating way.
　　（3） The social significance of the novel： In Ulysses， Joyce intends to present a microcosm of the whole human life by providing an instance of how a single event contains all the events of its kind， and how history is recapitulated in the happenings of one day. With complete objectivity and minute details of man's everyday routines and his psychic processes， Joyce illustrates a symbolic picture of all human history， which is simultaneously tragic and comic， heroic and cowardly， magnificent and dreary. Like Eliot's masterpiece， The Waste Land， Joyce's Ulysses presents a realistic picture of the modern wasteland in which modern men are portrayed as vulgar and trivial creatures with splitting personalities， disillusioned ideals， sordid minds and broken families， who are searching in vain for harmonious human relationships and spiritual sustenance in a decaying world.
　　4. The characteristics of Finnegans Wake： Joyce spent 17 years working on his last important book， Finnegans Wake （1939）。 In this encyclopedic work， Joyce ambitiously attempted to pack the whole history of mankind into one night's dream. In the dream experience， there is no self-conscious logic， no orderly associations， no established values， no limits of time or space； all the past， present and future are mingled and float freely in the mind. Thus， Finnegans Wake is regarded as the most original experiment ever made in the novel form， and also the most difficult book to read.
　　5. The literary characteristics of Joyce's writing：
　　James Joyce is one of the most prominent literary figures of the first half of the 20th century.
　　（1） Joyce is regarded as the most prominent stream-of-consciousness novelist， concentrating on revealing in his novels the psychic being of the characters. In Joyce's opinion， the artist， who wants to reach the highest stage and to gain the insights necessary for the creation of dramatic art， should rise to the position of a god-like objectivity； he should have the complete conscious control over the creative process and depersonalize his own emotion in the artistic creation. He should appear as an omniscient author and present unspoken materials directly from the psyche of the characters， or make the characters tell their own inner thoughts in monologues.
　　（2） Another remarkable feature of Joyce's writings is his style. His own style is a straightforward one， lucid， logical and leisurely； subtlety， economy and exactness are his standards. But when he tries to render the so-called stream of consciousness， the style changes： incomplete， rapid， broken wording and fragmentary sentences are the typical features， which reflect the shifting， flirting， disorderly flow of thoughts in the major characters' mind. To create his modern Odyssey -Ulysses， Joyce adopts a kind of mock-heroic style. The essence of the mock-heroic lies in the application of apparently inappropriate styles. He achieves this mainly by elaborating his style into parody， pastiche， symbolic fantasy， and narration by question and answer from an omniscient narrator.
　　Many critics think that Joyce is a great master of innovation. His radical experimentation ranges from "stream of consciousness" to his fantastic engagements with rhetoric， sentimental romance， historical stylistics， counterpoint and expressionist drama. His mastery of the English language and style is always highly praised.
　　三。应用：Selected Reading：
　　"Araby" from Dubliners
　　The theme of "Araby"： It is the third of the fifteen stories in Dubliners. This tale of the frustrated quest for beauty in the midst of drabness is both meticulously realistic in its handling of details of Dublin life and the Dublin scene and highly symbolic in that almost every image and incident suggests some particular aspect of the theme. Joyce was drawing on his own childhood recollections， and the uncle in the story is a reminiscence of Joyce's father. But in all the stories in Dubliners dealing with childhood， the child lives not with his parents but with an uncle and aunt - a symbol of that isolation and lack of proper relation between "consubstantial" （" in the flesh"） parents and children which is a major theme in Joyce's work.
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