美国文学重点
From the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. Started with Washington Irving's
- Walt Whitman, whose
an early Romantic writer, regarded as a writer who “perfected the best classic style that American literature ever produced.”
First novel 纽约外史won him wide popularity
→contains German folk tales
READING: excerpt from “Rip Van Winkle”瑞普·凡·温可尔
It is not only well-known for Rip’s 20-year sleep but also considered a model of perfect English in American literature and in the English language as well.
- the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism（超验主义） movement
>论美国学者,
READING: excerpt from Nature
heart, ‘there is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps,
the salient(显著的) characteristics of Hawthorne’s art.
READING: Young Goodman Brown小伙子布朗
Openness, freedom, individualism
I- me, my nation (society), Free verse（自由体诗）, Envelope structure（信件结构）, Catalogue (Listing)
A new ideal, a new world, a new life-style
READING; 1. There Was a Child Went Forth 2. Cavalry Crossing a Ford 3. Song of Myself
allegory and symbolism, like Hawthorne
Ishmael both as a character and a narrator； the captain, Ahab is a monomaniac(狂热者) whose single purpose is to capture the fierce, cunning(狡猾的) white whale, Moby Dick, which had torn away his leg.
Realistic period –“the Gilded(富有的) Age”, the poor poorer and the rich richer, people's attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existence
Local colorism, social Darwinism, bestiality, beyond man's control
3 dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells(美国现实文学先驱), Mark Twain and Henry James.
?Henry James –“inner world” of man
?Howells –focused on rising middle class
?Mark Twain –his own region and people, particular “local colorism”
?Local colorists – Sarah Orne Jewett, Joseph Kirkland and Hamlin Garland.
- the true father of American literature
vernacular（方言）, simple sentence, wide-ranging humor, both realistically and symbolically, 'the damned human race'
哈克贝里·费恩历险记
READING; excerpt from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn READING; excerpt from
– the first American writer to conceive his career in international theme
- the forerunner of the 20th-century “stream of consciousness” novel and the founder of psychological realism, interior monologue, free association, his language is not so easy to understand
早期
中期
晚期
READING; excerpt from Daisy Miller
Based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys, “letter to the world”, about religious and immortality（永生）, love, nature
1) her poems have no titles
2) dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence（节奏） and capital letters as a means of emphasis.
READING;
description of a moment of death
Dickinson makes the train part of nature by animalizing it, like a horse.
我爱看它舔食一哩又一哩
因为我不能停步等候死神
- America's literary naturalists
everything Determinism（决定论） (heredity遗传 biological & environment), Darwinist idea（达尔文主义）of ‘survival of the fittest’, ‘the jungle law’（弱肉强食原则）
Trilogy of Desire欲望三部曲 -
After Carrie deserts Hurstwood, he is in great despair. He turns the gas on in a cheap lodging-house and ends his life, while at the same time Carrie is rocking comfortably in her luxuriant hotel room.
The modern period - the second American Renaissance, the expatriate(侨民) movement, “the Lost Generation”, a transformation from order to disorder
Seize the day, enjoy the present, spiritual wasteland, collective unconscious, psychoanalysis(心理分析)
Imagist movement, Jazz Age
“the Lost Generation”– Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost
Two thinkers of this period: German Karl Marx(马克思) and the Austrian Sigmund Freud（弗洛伊德）
William James–famous for his theory of “stream of consciousness”
E.E.Cummings, always used “i” instead of “I”, protest against self-importance
- a leading spokesman of the 'Imagist Movement' (意象主义)
- 3 main principles: 1)direct treatment of poetic subjects, 2)elimination of ornamental words, 3)rhythmical(韵律) composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome(节拍器).
- He translate some ancient Greek and Chinese works
READING; 1. In a Station of the Metro 2. The River - Merchant's Wife: A Letter 3. A Pact
盟约agreement with Whitman's free verse
- four times awarded Pulitzer Prize, pastoral life and scene.
New England and his simplicity never fails to reveal some profound truth.
READING; 1.After Apple-Picking 2.The Road Not Taken 3. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
the winter twilight(日出前) to observe the beauty of the forest scene, and then is moved to continue his journey.
–America’s greatest playwright, ‘founder of the American drama’, won the Pulitzer Prize four times and was the only dramatist ever to win a Nobel Prize.
READING; excerpt from The Hairy Ape
spokesman of the Jazz Age, ‘Dollar Decade’, 1920s
He shows a particular interest in the upper-class society, especially young people.
READING; excerpt from The Great Gatsby了不起的盖茨比
Gatsby is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies America itself; he is the last of the romantic heroes
- awarded the Nobel Prize
,
The use of short, simple and conventional word
永别了,武器about the tragic love affair of a wounded American soldier with a British nurse.
READING; Indian Camp
Nobel Prize
American South, Yoknapatawpha Country ,imprisonment in the past
Stream of consciousness, multiple points of view, 内心独白, 时序颠倒
READING; excerpt from A Rose for Emily
New England Transcendentalism: Philosophically, Transcendentalism means the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses. New England Transcendentalism stress the importance of the Over-soul, the Individual and Nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is enabling and the individual is divine and therefore, self-reliant. The leading figure of New England Transcendentalism is Emerson and Thoreau. American Romanticism: It is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature that stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. Being a period of the great flowering of American literat ure, it is also called “the American Renaissance.” American romantic works emphasize the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature. Romanticists include such literary figures as Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and some others. Free Verse: Poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme American Puritanism: The first settlers who came to America wer e called “Puritans”, so named after because they wished to “purify” the religious practice in the church. They established their own religious and moral principles as American Puritanism, which stressed predestination, original sin, total depravity, and li mited atonement from God’s grace. American Puritanism is one of the enduring influences in American thought and American literature. American Puritanism was greatly influenced by Calvinism. Symbolism: Symbolism is the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships. American Literature: Literature refers to body of work which for whatever reason deserves to be preserved as part of the reproduction of meaning within a given culture. It mainly includes novel, drama, poetry, short stories, biography and some other forms. American Literature refers to literature written by Americans in English. Epic A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. Many epics were drawn from an oral tradition and were transmitted by song and recitation before they were written down. Analysis "To a Waterfowl" is written in iambic trimeter and iambic pentameter, consisting of eight stanzas of four lines. The poem represents early stages of American Romanticism through celebration of Nature and God's presence within Nature. Bryant is acknowledged as skillful at depicting American scenery but his natural details are often combined with a universal moral, as in "To a Waterfowl" Figures of speech alliteration metaphor anaphora personification:
1.Puritanism（清教主义）: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. 1.) simply speaking , American Puritanism just refers to the spirit and ideal of puritans,who settled in the North American continent in the early part of the seventeenth century because of religious persecutions. 2.)In content it means scrupulous ,moral rigor ,eapecially hostility to social pleasure and religion . 3.)with time passing it became a dominant factor in American life , one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and literature .to some extentit is a state of mind , a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes ,rather than a set of tenets. 4.）Actually it is a code of values , a philosophy of life and a point of view in American minds , also a two-faceted tradition of religious idealism and level -headed in common sense . 5）Major topic:American Puritanism Introduction There were no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian languages and tribal cultures，American writing began with the work of English adventurers and colonists in the New World chiefly for the benefit of readers in the mother country. Therefore the writing in this period was essentially two kinds: （1）practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people “at home” what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration; (2) highly theoretical, generally polemical(好辩的）, discussions of religious questions. 2.The American Romanticism(浪漫主义) I. What is Romanticism a literary movement flourished as a cultural force the early period and the late period.
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
Introduction 1. The Youngest National Literature 1781 (Independence War) --- 2012= about 200 years 2. Great achievement: 1930-1980, nine American writers won the Nobel Prize The Periods of American Literature 1.The colonial period (约1607 - 1765) 2. The period of enlightenment and Independence War (1765-1800) 3. The romantic period (1800 - 1865) 4. The realistic period (1865 - 1914) 5. The period of modernism (1914 - 1945) 6. The Contemporary Literature (1945 -) Chapter I Colonial America American Puritanism 1. The beliefs and practices characteristic of Puritans(most of whom were Calvinists who wished to purify the Church of England of its Catholic aspects) 2. Strictness and austerity in conduct and religion Puritans‘ religio us belief: Calvinism ◆John Calvin, the great French theologian. The principal concepts: 1) Original sin and total depravity. 2) Predestination 3) Salvation of selected few ◆ The Puritans carried with them to America a code of values, a philosophy of life, and a point of view, which, in time, took root in the New world and became what is known as American Puritanism. (p11) The Influence of Puritanism on American Literature 1) Idealism（optimism） 2) Symbolism 3) Simplicity in writing Significance of Puritanism With time passing it became a dominant factor in American life, one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American Literature. To some extent it is a state of mind, a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes, rather than a set of tenets. Time: From the arrival of the first settlers in the early 17th century to the end of the 18th century Literary Features 1. Forms Personal literature in various forms --- diaries, histories, common books (札记)，journals, letters, travel books, sermons etc. 2. Content 1) practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people ―at home‖ what life was like in the new world 2) highly theoretical discussions of religious questions. 3. Style In Style, English literary traditions were imitated and transplanted. Early writers in the colonial period John Smith, a captain, one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia; the writer of A Description of New England. William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth Plantation, his writing: Of Plymouth Plantation (P16) John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, In his famous speech A Model of Christian Charity ,he states that there was a agreement between God and his people of building a new Garden of Eden in the new world. (P17) Therefore let us choose life, 所以，让我们选择生活， that we and our seed 这样，我们和我们的后代， may live by obeying His 可以听从上帝的声音， voice and cleaving to Him, 须臾不离上帝， for He is our life and 因为，上帝是我们的生命， our prosperity. 我们的兴旺 1
美国文学选择题及答案 1. William Faulkner is the author of ______. a. Far From the Madding Crowd b. Sound and Fury c. For Whom the Bell Tolls d. Scarlet Letter 2. Robert Frost is a famous_______. a. novelist b. playwright c. poet d. literary critic 3. The Old Man and the Sea is one of the great works by ________. a. Jack London b. Charles Dickens c. Samuel Coleridge d. Earnest Hemingway 4. _______refers to some contrast or discrepancy between appearance and reality. a. Allegory b. Conflict c. Irony d. Flashback 5. The great transcendental work by Henry David Thoreau is______. a. Nature b. Walden c. Experience d. Essays 6. Mark Twain shaped the world’s view of America and made a combination of _____and serious literature. a. American folk humor b. funny jokes c. English folklore d. American values 7. Who was the first American to achieve an international literary reputation after the Revolutionary War? a. Fennimore Cooper. b. Nathaniel Hawthorn. c. Walt Whitman. d. Washington Irving. 8. I Have a Dream is addressed by _____. a. Abraham Lincoln b. John F. Kennedy c. Martin Luther King d. Ralph Waldo Emerson 9. Which of the following is NOT a poem by Emily Dickinson? a. This is my letter to the world b. I heard a Fly buzz—when I died c. This is just to say d. Because I could not stop for death 10. Eugene O’Neil is an American ______. a. novelist b. playwright c. poet d. essayist 11. The period from 1865—1914 has been referred to as the _______in the literary history of the United States. a. Age of Realism b. Age of Classicalism c. Age of Romanticism d. Age of Renaissance 12. With “Collected Poems”, ______won the second Pulitzer Prize. a. Ezra Pond b. e. e. cummings c. Robert Frost d. William Cullen Bryant 13. Grass is a poem written by _______.
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（本科）试题5 I. Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 1 point for each) 1. The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in . 2. became the first American writer. 3. Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the values that dominated much of the early American writing. 4. In American literature, the 18th century was an age of and Revolution. 5. Franklin’s best writing is found in his masterpiece . 6. On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet appeared. 7. The signing of symbolized the birth of an independent American nation. 8. The most outstanding poet in America of the 18th century was . 9. Washington Irving’s became the first work by an American writer to win international fame. 10. is the summit of American Romanticism. 11. With the publication of Emerson’s in 1836,American Romanticism reached its summit. 12. Hester Prynne is the heroine in Hawthorne’s novel . 13.Henry James’ major fictional theme is . 14. brought the Romantic period to an end. So the age of Realism came into existence. 15. The Poetic style invented by Whitman is now called . 16. “Because I could not stop for Death---” is written by . 17. The term The Gilded Age is given by to describe the post-civil war years. 18. Theodore Dreiser’s first novel is . 19. The leader of the literary movement Imagism is . 20. is the spokesman for Lost Generation. II. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers or completions. Choose the one that is the best in each case and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 1 point for each) 1. The first American writer of local color to achieve wide popularity was . A. Bret Harte B. Mark Twain C. Henry James D. William Dean Howells 2. Which of the following is the masterpiece of Mark Twain? A. The Gilded Age B. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer C. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn D. Jumping Frog 3. Which writer has no naturalist tendency? A. Mark Twain B. Jack London C. Theodore Dreiser D. Frank Norris 4. Transcendentalist doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in and Thoreau. A. Jefferson B. Emerson C. Freneau D. Oversoul 5. Which of the following doesn’t belong to Dreiser’s “Trilogy of Desire”? A. The Financier B. The Titan C. The Stoic D. An American Tragedy
学习资料收集于网络，仅供参考 1. 2. 6.Transcendentalism: is literature，philosophical and literary movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to1860. It originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reaching against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world instead. Transcendentalism derived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, and from such English authors as Carlyle，Coleridge, and Wordsworth. The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature and Self-Reliance and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden. .Symbolism象征主义：It is the writing technique of using symbols. It's a literary movement that arose in France in the last half of the 19th century and that greatly influenced many English writer, particularly poets, of the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. It's one of the most powerful devices that poets employ in creation. 8.American naturalism：this term was created by Emile Zola. Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory played an important role in naturalism. In the works off naturalism，characters were conceived as complex combinations of inherited attributes and habits conditioned by social and economic forces. At th century，the end of the 19this pessimistic form of realism appeared in america. Naturalism attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness. Characters in the works of naturalism were dominated by their environment and heredity. Naturalism emphasized：the world was around；men had no free will；religious“truth”were illusory；the destiny of human beings was misery in life and oblivion in death. The dominant figures in naturalism were Stephen crane，Frank Norris, Jack London and Theodore Dreiser. 3.The lost generation: included the young English and American expatriates as well