American Literature---A General review
A general thread of American literature
?I. American Literature of Colonial Period
?(1607—1765)
?II. American Literature of Revolutionary Period (1765—1800)
?III. The Age of Romanticism (1800—1865)
?IV. The Age of Realism (1865—1918)
?V. American Modernism (1918—1945)
?VI. Contemporary Literature (1945-- )
Ⅰ.Literature of colonial period (1607-1765)
? 1.Terms:
?Puritanism: origin, doctrines, relationship with American literature
Origin: grow out of religious controversy, out of an urge for religious freedom and
determination, out of fleeing from religious and political oppression and persecution, out of human thirst for great economic opportunity, for land, and for adventure.
Doctrines: stress predestination, original sin, total depravity, and limited atonement
from God?s grace
Way of life: stress hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety
Relationship with American literature: expression of the puritan idealism, puritan
optimism impact on American literature, a literature of discovery.
? 2. writers:
?Anne Bradstreet:安妮. 布拉德斯特里特
the first American woman writer; Puritanism
Works：The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in American
《最近在美国出现的第十位缪斯》
II Revolutionary Period (1765—1800)
?Terms:
?Enlightenment
They assumed that people were naturally good and that a harmonious universe
proclaimed the beneficence of God. They are not interested in theology but in man?s own nature.
?Important figures:
Jonathan Edwards: 乔纳森. 爱德华兹
神学家，leader of the Great Awakening, 美国哲学思想的开拓者
The Personal Narrative
Benjamin Franklin:
self-made, reflection of American dream, epitome of the Enlightment
Founding father of the United States of America
The Autobiography
III. The Age of Romanticism (1800—1865)
?Terms:
?Romanticism
Time: turn of the 18th and 19th
History background: Industrial Revolution, French Revolution
Romantics stress individual and creative function of imagination. It place individual at the very centre of all life and all experience and at the centre of art.
Characteristics:
(1) A rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism,
(2) The feelings, intuitions, and emotions are more important than reason
and common sense.
(3) Stress the relationship between man and nature.
(4) Emphasize individualism, placing the individual against the group, against
authority, the very centre of all life and all experience and at the centre of art.
(5) Affirm the inner life of the self, and want each person to be free to develop and
express his own inner thoughts.
(6) Cherish strong interest in the past, especially the medieval
(7) Attracted by the wild, the irregular, the indefinite, the remote, the mysterious,
and the strange.
(8) Interested in variety
?Transcendentalism
Time: appear after 1830, mid-19th
Meaning: marked the maturity of American Romanticism and the American
Renaissance and the first American intellectual movement. It laid emphasis on spirit and individual nature.
(Whatever belongs to the class of intuitive thought, idealism as it appears )
---by Emerson Major concepts:
(1)Stress the power of intuition
(2)Place spirit first and matter second
(3)Take nature as symbolic of spirit or God
(4)Emphasize the significance of the individual and believe that individual is the
most important element in the society and that the ideal kind of individual is
self-reliant and unselfish.
(5)Envision religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul
and the universal Oversoul.
(6)Commerce is degrading and a life spent in business is a wasted of life.
Early period
Fireside poets (炉边诗人): William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell. First put American poetry on an equal footing with British poetry
Poets:
William Cullen Bryant 威廉.柯伦.布莱恩特
The first distinctive lyric poet. 第一位享有盛誉的抒情诗人
The American Wordsworth
Works：To a waterfowl 《致水鸟》
Thanatopsis 《死亡观》
Song of Marion’s Men《马里恩的人类之歌》
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 亨利.沃兹沃斯.朗费罗
He was among the first of American writers to use native theme. Longfellow?s works are highly spiritual. He emphasizes the mysteries of birth, death and love. His poems are filled with melody and charm of meter.
Works: A Psalm of Life 《人生赞礼》：most famous work
The Song of Hiawatha 《海华沙之歌》
fiction writers:
Washington Irving 华盛顿.欧文
Irving has called the father of American literature(美国文学之父). He is the f irst American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame. (美国第一位享誉国际的作家) .
Irving?s works are characterized by a strong sense of humor, which gives an impetus to the growth and popularity of American indigenous humor.
Works: A History of New Y ork from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty《纽约外传》a great success and win him reputation
The Sketch Book《见闻札记》Win him an international fame
Mark the beginning of American Romanticism
It?s a collection of essays, including:
Rip V an winkle《瑞普. 凡. 温克尔》, most famous
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow《睡谷的传说》
James Fennimore Cooper 詹姆斯.费尼莫尔.库珀
He was the first author to write about western, of sea novel, border novel, and series novels, romantic writer with rationalism.
美国民族文学奠基人之一，第一位描述西进运动的作家，开创边疆传奇小说
Works：Leatherstocking Tales《皮袜子故事集》about the frontier life of American settlers
Including:
The Pioneers 《拓荒者》
The Last of the Mohicans 《最后的莫希干人》, most excellent
The Prairie 《草原》
The Pathfinder 《探路者》
The Deerslayer 《杀鹿者》
?Transcendentalists:
?Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803--1882) 拉尔夫.沃尔多.爱默生
Nature《论自然》: It …s regarded as “the manifesto of American
Transcendentalism”. In this work, Emerson put forward that behind every
phenomenon of the nature there was the spirit of the nature.
?Henry David Thoreau (1817--1862) P45 亨利.大卫. 梭罗
Walden《瓦尔登湖》, a great transcendentalism work
Civil Disobedience《论公民之不服从》
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers《在康科德河和梅里麦克河上的一周》
?High romantics:
?Emily Dickinson 埃米莉.迪金森女诗人P63
Her poems are characterized by the abundant use of dashes(破折号) and other
punctuations and capitalization and original imagery, precise diction and
fragmentary pattern.
Theme: love, nature, friendship, death, and immortality
Works: I’m Nobody《我是无名之辈》
To Make a prairie《要描绘一片草原》
Success Is Counted Sweetest《最美妙的胜利感觉》
?Edgar Allan Poe 埃德加.爱伦. 坡P10
He has been held among the greatest poets;
The first American professional writer;
The first writer of detective story.
Works: The Raven《乌鸦》
The Fall of the House of Usher《厄舍古厦的倒塌》
The Cask of Amontillado《阿芒提拉多的酒桶》
Annabel Lee《安娜贝尔. 李》
The Poetic Principle《诗歌原理》
Sonnet--- To Science《致科学》
To Helen《致海伦》诗歌：美丽女子的死亡
?Walt Whitman 沃尔特.惠特曼P60
A great democratic poet; father of free verse
Thoughts: equality& democracy; dignity; the joy of common man; openness, freedom, individualism.
Works: Leave of Grass《草叶集》, mark the birth of truly American poetry Praised as “democratic Bible”(共和圣经)；“American Epic”(美国史诗)
Including：One’s Self I Sing《我歌唱自我》
Song of Myself《自我之歌》
O Captain! My Captain! 《噢，船长! 我的船长！》
?Nathaniel Hawthorne 纳撒尼尔.霍桑P26 First great American writer of fiction; a master of symbolism
Central subject: human soul
Works:The Scarlet Letter《红字》, establish him as the leading American native
novelist of 19th century.
The House of the Seven Gables《带七个尖角阁的房子》
Twice- Told Tales《路人皆知的故事》
Mosses from an Old Manse 《古宅青苔》
The Blithedale Romance《福谷传奇》
?Herman Melville 赫尔曼.梅尔维尔
美国浪漫主义时期成就最高的小说家，擅长描写航海奇遇和异域风情
Works: Moby Dick 《白鲸》, a Shakespeare tragedy of man fighting against
overwhelming odds in an indifferent and even hostile universe.
IV. The Age of Realism (1865—1918)
?Terms:
?Realism
Time: the approach of realist fiction occurring at the latter part of 19th century
Realism came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. It
turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary,
a slice of life as it is really lived. It?s based on the accurate, unromanticized
observation of human experiences. It insists on precise description, authentic action and dialogue, moral honesty, and a democratic openness in subject and style.
Major features:
(1)familiar aspects of contemporary life and everyday scenes are represented in a
straightforward or matter-of-fact manner
(2)in realist fiction characters from all society levels are examined in depth
(3)open ending
(4)focus on commonness of the lives of the common peole
(5)emphasize objective and offer an objective view of human nature and human
experience
(6)presents moral vision
?Local colorism
Time: popular after civil war
Local colorism, namely, regionalism stresses fidelity to a particular geographical section and a faithful representation of its habits, speech, manners, history, folklore, or belief.
Basic features:
(1)Presents locale which is distinguished from the outside world
(2)Describes the exotic and the pictureseque
(3)Glorifies the past
(4)Attempts to show things as they are
(5)Stresses the influence of setting on character
?Naturalism
Time: in the late 19th
American Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author?s tone on writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic.
It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.
Major features:
(1)Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment
(2)The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires
(3)They look at the violent, sensational, sordid, unpleasant, and ugly aspects of life
?writers:
?William Dean Howell 威廉.迪恩. 霍威尔斯
The champion of realism，描写美国中产阶级生活
Centre and circumference of realism in America
Works: Criticism and Fiction《批评与小说》
V enetian life《威尼斯生活》
The Rise of Silas Lapham《塞拉斯.拉帕姆的发迹》
?Henry James 亨利.詹姆斯
?美国与欧洲文化的比较，新与旧、逝去年代与即将来临的新时代的连贯性。讲述美国社会上层阶级，以心理活动描写闻名。
Works：
The Art of Fiction《小说的艺术》, the aim of novel is to represent life
First stage：Daisy Miller《黛西. 米勒》
The American《美国人》
The Portrait of a Lady《贵妇人的画像》
Second stage: The Turn of the Screw《步步加紧》
Third stage: The Ambassadors《大使们》, comedy of American and European manners
The Wings of the Dove《鸽翼》
The Golden Bowl 《金碗》
?O. Henry 欧.亨利
The father of modern short story, “美国生活的幽默百科全书”
Works：The Cop and the Anthem《警察与赞美诗》
The Last Leaf《最后一篇叶子》
The Gift of Magi《麦琪的礼物》
?Mark Twain 马克.吐温P67 The Lincoln of our literature, 以口语化的风格（colloquial style）和地方主义色彩
（localism）闻名
Works：The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County《跳蛙》
The Gilded Age《镀金时代》
The Adventure of Tom Sawyer《汤姆. 索亚历险记》
The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn《哈克贝里. 费恩历险记》, one of
greatest books of western literature and western civilization, colloquial
style口语化风格, humanitarianism ultimately triumphs 人性战胜邪恶
Life on the Mississippi《在密西西比河上》
?Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱赛
美国最伟大的写实主义和自然主义作家之一。
小说角色，没有能力摆脱命运安排，善于恶的混合体
Works：Sister Carrie《嘉莉妹妹》
Jennie Gerhardt《珍妮姑娘》
Trilogy of Desire《欲望三部曲》：The Titan《巨头》，The Stoic《斯
多葛》and The Financier《金融家》
An American Tragedy《美国悲剧》
Jack London 杰克.伦敦
心理现实文学（Psychological Realism）的创始人
The Call of the Wild《野性的呼唤》
V. American Modernism (1918—1945)
?Terms:
?Imagism
It began with Thomas Ernest Hulme in 1908. He Called on poets to express their momentary impressions through the use of a dominant image.
Time: started in American in 1912
A Magazine of Verse: marked a poetic renaissance in the USA and the beginning of
Modern American poetry in rebellion against Victorian poetry and against the
conventional technique of the time.
Main feature:
(1) Against conventions, anti-romantic and anti-Victorian
(2) Free verse without imposing rhythmical pattern
(3) Equivalent to naturalism in fiction
(4) Record objective observation of an object or situation without interpretation or
comment
?Modernism
Time：During the first decade of 20th century
Essence: break with the past
Including: symbolism, impressionism, post-impressionism, futurism, constructivism, imagism, vorticism, expressionism, dada, and surrealism.
Definition: It is used to show that the literary art possessing outstanding characteristics in conception, feeling, form and style after the WW I. It means cutting off history and a sense of despair and loss. It refused to accept the traditional concept of value and all ideological influences.
?Poets:
Ezra Pound (1885- 1972) 艾兹拉.庞德P187
The father of modern American poetry, the father of imagist poetry
Poetry was based on images rather than ideas
Works : In a Station of Metro《在地铁站里》
T.S.Eliot (1888 - 1965): The Waste Land
Robert Frost (1874 - 1963) P193
New England setting, subjects from daily ordinary people
Works：Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening《学业林边驻脚》
The Road of Not Taken《未选之路》
Fire and Ice《火与冰》
Modern fiction writers:
Ernest Hemingway P181 Spokesman of the Lost Generation
Works: A Farewell to Arms 《永别了，武器》
The Sun Also Rises 《太阳照常升起》
For Whom the Bell Tolls 《丧钟为谁而鸣》，depicts the Spanish Civil War
The Old Man and the Sea 《老人与海》
F. Scott Fitzgerald 弗朗西斯. 司各特. 菲茨杰拉尔德P152
Tender Is the night 《夜色温柔》
The Great Gatsby 《了不起的盖茨比》，disillusionment of the American dream John Steinbeck 约翰.斯坦贝克，诺贝尔奖得主
The Grapes of Wrath《愤怒的葡萄》
Tortilla Flat 《煎饼坪》
Of Mice and Men《人与鼠》
Ezra Pound (埃兹拉?庞德) In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd;人群中这些面孔幽灵般闪现Petals on a wet,black bough.湿漉漉的黑色枝条上的众多花瓣 1. Why does the poet call the faces of pedestrians "apparition"? These pedestrians are all walking in a hurry amidst the drizzling rain. 2.What do "petals" and "bough" stand for? Petals refer to the faces while the bough stands for the floating crowd. Robert Frost (1)Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire,有人说世界将终结于火, Some say in ice.有人说是冰。 From what I’ve tasted of desire，从我尝过的欲望之果 I hold with those who favor fire.我赞同倾向于火之说。 But if it had to perish twice,但若它非得两度沉沦 I think I know enough of hate.我想我对仇恨了解也够多 To know that for destruction ice可以说要是去毁灭,
一．The Literature of Colonial America(Puritanism) 1.The first English colony: Jamestown in Virginia in 1607 2.The first American writer: John Smith 3.Anne Bradstreet: first American woman poet; a Puritan poet; once called “Tenth Muse”; 二．Literature of Reason and Revolution War of Independence (1775-1783);The French and Indian War / the Seven Y ears’War(1756-1763) 1..Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography; Richard’s Almanac Maxims from Poor Richard’s Almanac (proverbs that give practical wisdom) 2..Thomas Paine (1737-1809): Common Sense: a strong push for the Revolution W ar; four parts (British enslavement of the colonies; praising democratic election; America’s economic and military potential to protect the rights of people) 3..Philip Freneau (1752-1832) The first American-born poet;“Poet of the American Revolution”, “Father of American Poetry”, the most significant poet of 18th century America W orks:The Wild Honey Suckle《野忍冬花》on mortality, The Indian Burying Ground 《印第安人殡葬地》on the imagined afterlife, The British Prison Ship《英国囚船》about his imprisoned experience. 三．Romanticism The American Romantic period is considered one of the most important periods, the first literary Renaissance, in the history of American literature. It stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil W ar. It started with the publication of W ashington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. 1.Washington Irving (1783-1859) Literary status: the first American to earn an international reputation; Father of the American short stories The Sketch Book: winning him international popularity，the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature. Major works: A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty under the name of “Diedrich Knickerbocker
美国文学史常耀信版 很有用的哦！ 2008-08-10 22:02 阅读206 评论0 字号：大中小 美国文学史常耀信版 美国文学 Part 1. Colonial America浪漫主义American Romanticism(1815-1865) 早期浪漫主义early romanticism——Irving欧文, Cooper库柏, Bryant布莱恩特 先验主义transcendentalism and symbolic representation——Emerson 爱默森，Margaret Fuller玛格丽特福勒，Thoreau 梭罗 三位重要的小说家——Hawthorne 霍桑，Melville 梅尔维尔，Poe 坡 二位重要的诗人——Whitman 惠特曼，Dickinson 狄更生 现实主义American Realism（1865-1914） 带有地方色彩的写作local color writing——Mark Twain马克吐温 现实主义literary realism——James 詹姆士，Howells 豪斯尔斯 自然主义literary naturalism——Garland 加兰特，Grane 格雷恩，Frank Norris 弗兰克诺里斯，Jack London 杰克伦敦，Theodore Dreiser 西奥多德莱塞 现代主义American Modernism(1914-1945) 现代主义在欧洲American modernism in Europe——Gerturde Stein 格特鲁德斯坦因，Ezra Pound 艾兹拉庞德，Amy Lowell 艾米洛威尔，H.D.(Hilda Doolittle) 杜丽埃尔 战时的现代派小说modern fiction between the wars——William Faulkner 威廉福克纳，Hemingway 海明威，Fitzgerald 费兹杰罗，Passos 帕索斯，Steinbeck 斯坦贝克 现代派诗歌modern American poetry——T.S. Eliot 艾略特，Wallace Stevens 史蒂文斯，William Carols Williams 威廉姆斯，卡明斯 Thomas Paine托马斯?潘恩1737-1809 The Case of the Officers of Excise税务员问题；Common Sense常识；American Crisis美国危机；Rights of Man人的权利：Downfall of Despotism专制体制的崩溃；The Age of Reason理性时代 Philip Freneau菲利普?弗伦诺1752-1832 The Rising Glory of America蒸蒸日上的美洲；The British Prison Ship英国囚船；To the Memory of the Brave Americans 纪念美国勇士-----同类诗中最佳；The Wild Honeysuckle野生的金银花；The Indian Burying Ground印第安人殡葬地 Jonathan Edwards The Freedom of the Will The Great Doctrine of Original Sin defended The Nature of True Virtue Benjamin Franklin本杰明?富兰克林1706-1790 A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Moneyoor Richard’s Almanack穷查理历书；The Way to Wealth致富之道；The Autobiography自传 Part 2. American Romanticism Washington Irving华盛顿?欧文1783-1859 A History of New York纽约的历史-----美国人写的第一部诙谐文学杰作；The Sketch Book见闻札记The Legend of Sleepy Hollow睡谷的传说-----使之成为美国第一个获得国际声誉的作家；
一 I heard the merry grasshopper then sing, The black-clad cricket bear a second part, They kept one tune, and played on the same string, Seeming to glory in their little art. Shall creatures abject thus their voices raise? And in their kind resound their maker’s praise, Whilst I, as mute, can warble forth no higher lays? “Under the cooling shadow of a stately Elm, Close state I by a goodly River’s side, Where gliding streams the Rocks did overwhelm; A lonely place with pleasures dignifi’d. I once that lov’d the shady woods so well, Now thought the rivers did the trees excel, And if the sun would ever shine there would I dwell. “While musing thus with contemplation fed, And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain, The sweet tongu’d Philomel percht o’er my head, And chanted forth a most melodious strain, Which rapt me so with wonder and delight, I judg’d my hearing better than my sight. 题目：the 9th of Contemplations 作者：Anne Bradstreet 赏析： 1. Rhyme royal: sevenline iambic petametre 七行五步抑扬格 2. Rhyme: ababccc 3. Theme: religion 4. 象征：black-clad=death; abject=admitting defeat; maker= god 5. A genuine expression of poetic feeling in the presence of nature. The poem offers the reader an insight into the mentality of the early Puritan pioneering in a new world. The poet heard the grasshopper and the cricket sing, and she searched for her own soul accordingly. 6. She saw sth metaphysical inhering in the physical, a mode of perception which was singularly Puritan 二 It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method. In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalog more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or
美国文学期末考试复习必备（精） 1. What’s Puritanism? A religious and political movement which appeals to the right of the individual to political & religious independence. It includes three parts: a code of values, a point of view & a philosophy of life 2. What are the basic Puritan beliefs? 1). Total Depravity 2). Unconditional Election 3). Limited Atonement 4). Irresistible Grace 5). Perseverance of the "saints" 3. What are American Puritan values? Sobriety thrift, Self-reliance Diligence, Struggle, simple tastes 4. What are the features of American literature in the Colonial Period? A. Humble origins: diaries, journals, histories, letters. Its various forms, occupy a major position in the literature of the early colonial period. B. in content: serving either god or colonial expansion or both C. in form: imitating English literary traditions. D. in style: tight and logic structure, precise and compact expression, avoidance of rhetorical decoration, adoption of homely imagery and simplicity of diction. E. Symbolism formed in this period ------To the pious Puritan, the physical, phenomenal world was nothing but a symbol of God. F. Simple, fresh and direct style
仅作参考，最主要还是要自己消化，整理 Chapter 1 Colonial Period 1. Puritanism: American puritans accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. 2. Influence (1) A group of good qualities – hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced American literature. (2) It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden. (3) Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chi efly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American. (4) With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible. II. Overview of the literature 1. types of writing diaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons 2. writers of colonial period (1) Anne Bradstreet (2) Edward Taylor III. Benjamin Franklin 1. life 2. works (1) Poor Richard’s Almanac (2) Autobiography 3. contribution (1) He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society. (2) He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this case) from heaven”. (3) Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melville thus described him “master of each and mastered by none”. Chapter 2 American Romanticism Section 1 Early Romantic Period I. American Romanticism 1. Background (1) Political background and economic development (2) Romantic movement in European countries Derivative – foreign influence 2. features (1) American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real new experience and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien. (2) There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained. (3) The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with Am erican Romanticism. (4) As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent. II. Washington Irving: Father of American Literature 1. several names attached to Irving (1) first American writer (2) the messenger sent from the new world to the old world (3) father of American literature 2. life 3. works (1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (2) The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this.) (3) The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (5) The Alhambra 4. Literary career: two parts (1) 1809~1832
名词解释： Imagism: It’s a poetic movement of England and the U.S. flourished from 1909 to 1917.The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. The leaders of this movement were Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell. Beat generation: The term was coined by Jack Kerouac in 1948 to refer to a group of disillusioned writers following World War Two. Later, this literary and cultural movement continued into the 1960s. The Beat Generation must not be confused with the Lost Generation of writers. Spokesmen and representatives of the Beat Generation were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and others. They revolted against an America that was materialistic, belligerent and frustrating. Social, intellectual and sexual freedom was advocated. Traditional culture and normal social behavior were attacked and violated. Many of them were drug addicts wearing long hair and dirty clothes. They were fond of slangs and jazz. Masterpieces created by writers of this g roup include Kerouac’s On the Road and Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, which were regarded as pocket Bibles of that generation. Other prominent Beats include William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, and Neal Cassady. The Beat Generation, had greatly influenced the countercultural movements of the 1960s and the adolescents and adults in other countries. In England, the “angry young men” made an echo and imitated the American “beatnik.” 二、1. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature: it is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism. The American Scholar:it has been regarded as “America’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence”. 2. Henry David Thoreau: Walden 3. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter: 主题：Hawthorne focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular, so as to show us the tension between society and individuals. To Hawthorne, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature. 4. Herman Melville: Moby Dick A. 作品分析： （1）Moby Dick represents the sum total of Melville’s bleak view of the world in which he lived. It is at once godless and purposeless. The loss of faith and the sense of futility and meaningless which characterize modern life of the West were expresse d in Melville’s work so well that the twentieth century has found it both fascinating and great. (2) One of the major themes of this novel is alienation, which exists in the life of Melville on different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Melville also criticizes New England Transcendentalism of its emphasis on individualism and Oversoul. Another theme of this novel is “rejection and quest.” (3) The novel is highly symbolic. The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” Moby Dick is the most conspicuous symbol in the book and it is capable of many interpretations. It is a symbol of evil to some, one of goodness to others, and both to still others. Its whiteness is a paradoxical color, signifying as it does death and corruption as well as purity, innocence, and youth. It represents the final mystery of the universe which man will do well to desist from pursuing. (4) Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique of multiple views of his narratives. He tends to write periodic sentences. His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commented upon and praised. B. what does the white whale in Moby Dick symbolize? Why do you think so? For Captain Ahab, the white whale represents evil. After the loss of his leg in his encounter with the white whale, Ahab begins to hate Moby Dick and tries his best to kill the whale. It seems that he embodies all of the evil he once consigned to the white whale. For other members on the whaling ship, the white whale symbolizes the unknown, mysterious natural force of the universe. For the readers, the white whale is capable of many interpretations, for it is “paradoxically benign an d malevolent, nourishing and destructive,” “massive, brutal, monolithic, but at the same time protean, erotically beautiful, infinitely variable.” C. Major themes: obsession, religion, and idealism versus pragmatism, revenge, racism, sanity, hierarchical relationships, and politics. D. the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. Moby Dick is a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search, not a discovery, of the truth. The whole story turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology. 5. Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass.It has been praised as “Democ ratic Bible”, and as American Epic. 主题：(1)he shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. (2) realization of the individual value. (3) pursuit of love and happiness. (4) Before and during the Civil War, Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory. 写作风格：(1) Whitman wrote “free verse”, that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. (2) There is a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines contribute to the musicality of his poems. (3) Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest, undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day. (4) Whitman’s language is relatively simple and even rather crude. Another characteristic in Whitman’s language is his strong tendency to use oral English. Whitman’s vocabulary is amazing. He would use powerful, colorful, as well as rarely-used words. Leaves of Grass的分析： (1). Grass, the most common thing with the greatest vitality, is an image of the poet himself, a symbol of the then rising American nation and an embodiment of his ideals about democracy and freedom. (2). In this giant work, openness, freedom, and above all, individualism are all that concerned him. (3). In this book he also praises nature, democracy, labor and creation, and sings of man’s dignity and equality, and of th e brightest future of mankind. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-masse” and self as well. 6. Emily Dickinson: 诗歌的主要内容：love, nature, death and immortality. 7. Edgar Allen Poe: 短篇小说家和诗人。 Poe is the father of psychoanalytic criticism and the father of detective story. 主题：death of one’s beloved lover of great intelligence and beauty. He also writes about horror (Gothic) stories, murder, and insanity. 8. Henry James: The turn of the screw The founder of psychological realism. He was the first American writer to conceive his artistic work in international themes. 9. Mark Twain:The adventures of Huckleberry Finn Hemingway described it as the book from which “all modern American literature comes”. The style of this book is quite simple. The book is written in the colloquial style. Though a local book, it touches upon the human situation in a general, indeed universal way: humanitarianism ultimately triumphs. It tells a story about the United States before the Civil War, around 1850, when the great Mississippi Valley was still being settled. Here lies an America, wit its great national faults, full of violence and even cruelty, yet still retaining the virtues of “some simplicity, some innocence, some peace.” 10. Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser: 自然主义的代表人物。 11. F. Scott Fitzgerald:The Great Gatsby 迷惘一代的代表人物 12. Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms; For Whom the Bell Tolls; The Old Man and the Sea The title of For Whom the Bell Tolls comes from John Donne’s Meditation. 13. William Faulkner: stream of consciousness的写作手法 14. Ezra Pound: 意象派代表人物。 意象派基本主张： (1) Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective. (2) To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation (3) As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome. 15. Robert Frost: natural poet. 16. Eugene Glastone O’Neill: Desire Under the Elms Long Days Journey into Night: Mark Twain H. L. Mencken considered "the true father of our national literatu re” Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1884) and Life on the Mississippi(1883) Twain shaped the world's view of American and made a more extensive combination of American folk humor and serious literature than previous writers had ever done. Mark Twain’s sty le 1) Twain is also known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions 2) Another fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of vernacular. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language 3) Mark Twain's humor is remarkable, too. Most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks. 4) Paid more attention to the "life" of the Americans, Concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region and the lower-class people 5) Nostalgic in a vanishing way of life and recorders of a present that faded before their eyes Adventures of Huckleberry Fin The character analysis and social meaning of Huck Finn Huck is a typical American boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”. He appears to be vulgar in language and in manner, but he is honest and decent in es sence. His remarkable raft’s journey down on the Mississippi river can be regarded as his process of education and his way to grow up. Huck is the son of nature and a symbol for freedom and earthly pragmatism. Through the eye of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed. Twain contrasts the life on the river and the life on the banks, the innocence and the experience, the nature and the culture, the wilderness and the civilization. Ernest Hemingway A Nobel Prize winner for literature His style, the particular type of hero in his novels, and his life attitudes have been widely recognized, not only in English-speaking countries but all over the world Hemingway shot himself with a hunting gun In Our Time (1925)is the first book to present a Hemingway hero--Nick Adams The Sun Also Rises(1926) is Hemingway's first true novel. A vivid portrait of "The Lost Generation," -- a group of young Americans who left their native land and fought in the war and later engaged themselves in writing in a new way about their own experiences. Hemingway's second big success is A Farewell to Arms, telling us a story about the tragic love affair of a wounded American soldier with a British nurse -- emphasizes his belief that man is trapped both physically and mentally, but goes to some lengths to refute the idea of nature, man is doomed to be entrapped For Whom the Bell Tolls clearly represents a new beginning in Hemingway's career as a writer, which concerns a volunteer American guerrilla Robert Jordan fighting in the Spanish Civil War, this work Caps his career and leads to his receipt of the Nobel Prize The Old Man and the Sea, Men Without Women(1927), Death in the Afternoon(1932), The Snows of Kilimanjaro, To Have and Have Not (1937) Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twain Hemingway was highly praised by the Nobel Prize Committee for "his powerful style-forming mastery of the art" of creating modern fiction. Indian Camp The title indicates that the material is contemporary and to some extent, representative of the early twentieth-century experience A reference to the well-know phrase from the Book of Common Prayer:" Give us peace in our time, O Lord," the title is very ironic because there is no peace at all in the stories In a chronological order, introduces Nick Adams to readers from his childhood to adolescence and manhood Nick watches his father deliver an Indian woman of a baby by Caesarian section, with a Jack-knife and without anesthesia. This incident brings the boy into contact with something that is perplexing and unpleasant, and is actually Nick's initiation into the pain and violence of birth and death. Most of Hemingway's later works are merely variations of the Nick Adams stories in In Our Time The Hemingway code heroes and grace under pressure They have seen the cold world, and for one cause, they boldly and courageously face the reality. They have an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life. Whatever the result is, they are ready to live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will never be defeated. Finally, they will be prevailing because of their indestructible spirit and courage. The iceberg technique Hemingway believes that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action. The one-eighth is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimensions of the story. Thus, Hemingway’s language is symbolic and suggestive.