童明《美国文学史》课后习题详解(主要小说家：1945年至60年代)【圣才出品】

童明《美国文学史》章节题库-第4部分美国现代主义时期：1914-1945【圣才出品】第4部分美国现代主义时期：1914-1945填空题1. “Impersonal theory” of poetry was developed by _____,a famous poet as well as a distinguished literary critic.（天津外国语学院2011研）【答案】T. S. Eliot【解析】“非个性化”理论是艾略特诗歌理论的核心内容，包括艺术情感、传统、客观对应物三个相互影响、相互制约的核心概念，“诗不是表现情感，而是逃避情感；不是表现个性，而是逃避个性。

”2. In his _____, Ezra Pound expresses his fascination with Chinese history and the doctrine of Confucius.（天津外国语大学2011研）【答案】Cantos【解析】Ezra Pound在长诗《诗章》中阐述孔子学说，他的另一诗集Cathay《华夏》收集并翻译了十几首中国古诗。

3. Author _____ Title _____.（南京大学2009研）The two waiters inside the cafe knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him.【答案】Author: Ernest Hemingway; Title: A Clean, Well-lighted Place【解析】题目节选自海明威的A Clean, Well-lighted Place （《一个干净明亮的地方》）。

我国各大院校一般都把国内外通用的权威教科书作为本科生和研究生学习专业课程的参考教材，这些教材甚至被很多考试（特别是硕士和博士入学考试）和培训项目作为指定参考书。

为了帮助读者更好地学习专业课，我们有针对性地编著了一套与国内外教材配套的复习资料，并提供配套的名师讲堂、电子书和题库。

《美国文学史》（增订版）（童明主编）一直被用作高等院校英语专业英美文学教材，被很多院校指定为英语专业考研必读书和学术研究参考书。

为了帮助读者更好地使用该教材，我们精心编著了它的配套辅导用书。

作为该教材的学习辅导书，全书遵循该教材的章目编排，共分27章，每章由三部分组成：第一部分为复习笔记（中英文对照），总结本章的重点难点；第二部分是课后习题详解，对该书的课后思考题进行了详细解答；第三部分是考研真题与典型题详解，精选名校经典考研真题及相关习题，并提供了详细的参考答案。

本书具有以下几个方面的特点：1．梳理章节脉络，归纳核心考点。

每章的复习笔记以该教材为主并结合其他教材对本章的重难点知识进行了整理，并参考了国内名校名师讲授该教材的课堂笔记，对核心考点进行了归纳总结。

2．中英双语对照，凸显难点要点。

本书章节笔记采用了中英文对照的形式，强化对重要难点知识的理解和运用。

3．解析课后习题，提供详尽答案。

本书对童明主编的《美国文学史》（增订版）每章的课后思考题均进行了详细的分析和解答，并对相关重要知识点进行了延伸和归纳。

4．精选考研真题，补充难点习题。

本书精选名校近年考研真题及相关习题，并提供答案和详解。

所选真题和习题基本体现了各个章节的考点和难点，但又不完全局限于教材内容，是对教材内容极好的补充。

第1部分　早期美国文学：殖民时期至1815年第1章　“新世界”的文学1.1　复习笔记1.2　课后习题详解1.3　考研真题和典型题详解第2章　殖民地时期的美国文学：1620—1763 2.1　复习笔记2.2　课后习题详解2.3　考研真题和典型题详解第3章　文学与美国革命：1764—18153.1　复习笔记3.2　课后习题详解3.3　考研真题和典型题详解第2部分　美国浪漫主义时期：1815—1865第4章　美国浪漫主义时期4.1　复习笔记4.2　课后习题详解4.3　考研真题和典型题详解第5章　早期浪漫主义5.1　复习笔记5.2　课后习题详解5.3　考研真题和典型题详解第6章　超验主义和符号表征6.1　复习笔记6.2　课后习题详解6.3　考研真题和典型题详解第7章　霍桑、麦尔维尔和坡7.1　复习笔记7.2　课后习题详解7.3　考研真题和典型题详解第8章　惠特曼和狄金森8.1　复习笔记8.2　课后习题详解8.3　考研真题和典型题详解第9章　文学分支：反对奴隶制的写作9.1　复习笔记9.2　课后习题详解9.3　考研真题和典型题详解第3部分　美国现实主义时期：1865—1914第10章　现实主义时期10.1　复习笔记10.2　课后习题详解10.3　考研真题和典型题详解第11章　地区和地方色彩写作11.1　复习笔记11.2　课后习题详解11.3　考研真题和典型题详解第12章　亨利·詹姆斯和威廉·迪恩·豪威尔斯12.1　复习笔记12.2　课后习题详解12.3　考研真题和典型题详解第13章　自然主义文学13.1　复习笔记13.2　课后习题详解13.3　考研真题和典型题详解第14章　女性作家书写“女性问题”14.1　复习笔记14.2　课后习题详解14.3　考研真题和典型题详解第4部分　美国现代主义时期：1914—1945第15章　美国现代主义15.1　复习笔记15.1　复习笔记15.2　课后习题详解15.3　考研真题和典型题详解第16章　现代主义的演变16.1　复习笔记16.2　课后习题详解16.3　考研真题和典型题详解第17章　欧洲的美国现代主义17.1　复习笔记17.2　课后习题详解17.3　考研真题和典型题详解第18章　两次世界大战间的现代小说18.1　复习笔记18.2　课后习题详解18.3　考研真题和典型题详解第19章　现代美国诗歌19.1　复习笔记19.2　课后习题详解19.3　考研真题和典型题详解第20章　非裔美国小说和现代主义20.1　复习笔记20.2　课后习题详解20.3　考研真题和典型题详解第5部分　多元化的美国文学：1945年至新千年第21章　新形势下的多元化文学21.1　复习笔记21.2　课后习题详解21.3　考研真题和典型题解析第22章　美国戏剧：三大剧作家22.1　复习笔记22.2　课后习题详解22.3　考研真题和典型题详解第23章　主要小说家：1945年至60年代23.1　复习笔记23.2　课后习题详解23.3　考研真题和典型题详解第24章　1945年以来的诗学倾向24.1　复习笔记24.2　课后习题详解24.3　考研真题和典型题详解第25章　20世纪60年代以来的小说发展状况25.1　复习笔记25.2　课后习题详解25.3　考研真题和典型题详解第26章　当代多民族文学和小说26.1　复习笔记26.2　课后习题详解26.3　考研真题和典型题详解第27章　美国文学的全球化：流散作家27.1　复习笔记27.2　课后习题详解27.3　考研真题和典型题详解第1部分　早期美国文学：殖民时期至1815年第1章　“新世界”的文学1.1　复习笔记Ⅰ. Discoveries of America（发现美洲大陆）Who discovered America?谁发现了美洲？1 The credit is often attributed to Christopher Columbus. Yet this argument is controversial.一种说法是哥伦布发现了美洲大陆。

第21章新形势下的多元化文学Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. In the first half of the period (1945-1960s), what role did the United States play in the world? What does the “age of anxiety” mean? What are t he various anxieties?Key: The United States assumed leadership of the Western capitalist world and assumed the role of world policemen.As the United States began to play an imperialist role in the world, the age of the new American empire came. This is sometimes known, quite appropriately, as the age of anxiety.Anxiety was variously manifested. The Cold War mentality not only shaped US foreign policy but was also translated into fear-based domestic politics. McCarthism, also known as the Red Scare, was the modern version of witch-hunt, persecuting artists and writers in the name of fighting communism and of questioning “un-American” activities. Other things contributed to a disquieting society. One hundred years after the Civil War, racism still continued, even taking legal forms—racial segregation remained legal until the t 960s.2. What movements indicate the presence of an active civil society in the United States?Key: This civil society consists of many social forces which must not be confused with the corporate interests and governmental apparatus. Since the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement, the continuing feminist movement, and the many social protests and anti-war protests gained momentum in the straggle against the imperialist and racist ideologies. These social activities produced new energies, new ideas, and new conditions.3. What kinds of stylistic and intellectual forms emerged in the first half of the period?Key: A wider variety of intellectual and stylistic forms emerged.(1) Personal confessionals, in poetry, extended the energies and limits of previous models in literature and made the private-poetic a public intuition.(2) Poets in the “beat generation,” absorbing from multiple sources of cultural nourishments such as ancient Asian philosophy, created the image of the wandering pilgrims who sought beauty and beatitude at the fringe of conventional society.(3)In fiction and in drama, new prototypes such as the invisible man, the dangling man, the alienated salesman Willy, the barely sane but beautiful Blanche DuBois and so on emerged, making a certain type of American—a black man, a Jew, or someone else—the symbol of the human condition in the modern world.4. What were the major changes that have taken place since the late 1960s? In whatsense are we living in a postcolonial world? What are the major convicts in today’s world?Key: Since the late 1960s, the world has undergone some dramatic changes. With former colonies of European power declaring independence one after another, colonialism in the old forms has come to an end. The Berlin Wall fell in the 1990s, and the Cold War is supposed to have ended, too. Yet, in the process towards a new world order, the Cold War mentality continues, and legacies of colonialism persist. The event of 9/11 in 2001 has pushed the United States and the rest of world into new chaos. The war against terrorism has become so complex in that we often cannot determine where the frontlines are or even how many different acts are to be considered “terrorism.”Although colonies gained their independence, the influence of colonial powers are still profound and far-reaching.Perhaps the most significant change is the on-going information revolution, which is profoundly transforming the ways in which man perceives the world.5. Why is multi-ethnic literature an inevitable phenomenon today?Key: With the new changes in the world, large numbers of immigrants from different parts of the world have been arriving in the United States since the1960s, changing demographic patterns and increasing the political weight of minority groups. With African American literature being the precursor and leader, ethnic literature—including Native American literature, Asian American literature, LatinoAmerican literature, and others—has finally been recognized as significant components of American literature.6. What is new in literary production and literary studies in the United States? Key: In fiction and in drama, new prototypes such as the invisible man, the dangling man, the alienated salesman Willy, the barely sane but beautiful Blanche DuBois and so on emerged, making a certain type of American—a black man, a Jew, or someone else—the symbol of the human condition in the modern world. New forces of influence such as existentialist philosophy were partly responsible for these new prototypes.7. What are the basic principles in existentialism?Key: (1) Existence precedes essence—this is the first and most important principle of existentialism. With this principle, existentialists reverse the main tradition in Western philosophy and the moral tradition of Christianity.(2) The idea of absurdity is thus central to existentialism and the feeling of absurdity is a negative feeling.8. What is the idea of the absurd which is central to existentialism?Key: Since absurdity means being devoid of purpose, a modern man often feels the absurdity of the world, not so much as a result of his atheistic position, but as the effects of alienation due to capitalist modernization. The feeling of absurdityis a negative feeling. But it may—and in many cases, may not—lead to meaningful action. Many in the “beat generation” turned to drugs, believing that the world cannot be changed. In that case, there is only compounded absurdity. Of course, this is not something that Sartre himself, the spokesman of existentialism, would have liked to see.9. What is postmodernism in the three contexts? In what ways do these postmodernisms overlap in meaning?Key: First, “postmodernity” is a mode of thinking (or a set of thinking strategies) which is suspicious and profoundly critical of the systemized modernity as launched by the Enlightenment. “Postmodernity” is in this sense another kind of modernity (or, fashionably called “contrapuntal modernity”) and it is closely associated with critical theories that have been called poststructuralism.Second, “postmodernity” is a term used in the context of Western Marxism and it stands for the cultural logic in post-industrialist society or the late stage of capitalism.Third, “postmodemism” is discussed in its literary and aesthetic function. Literary postmodernism is not such a “rupture” in literary history as some would still insist. If anything, it is a continuation of literary modernism, with, perhaps, a stronger emphasis on the flexibility and playfulness of literature as “text”. If we can identify one specific literary or aesthetic feature that is postmodern, it is then the stylistic emphasis on metafiction.Postmodernism in the three contexts are related to modernism, with which it is against, so these postmodernisms overlap in meaning.10. What kind of postmodern literature emerged in the 1960s and on what beliefs was this literature based?Key: In the 1960s the idea that the novel was dead became contagious. For some, this meant the abandonment of the traditional functions of the novel such as: that the novel should represent social reality, that it should represent how the psychological experience is related to the social experience, and that it should address those cultur al terms governing our “lived” reality. Some critics and writers, who called themselves literary “postmodernists,” claimed that they favored “fiction” over “reality.” Their emphasis on “fiction” was very different from that of the modernists. These “postmodernists” decided that they would go further to abandon reality-related functions of literature. They claimed that for them, literature itself had become “exhausted.” Such was the argument in John Barth’s 1967 essay “The Literature of Exhaustion.”11. What is postmodernism as it is perceived now in the 21st century?Key: Postmodernism, as it is perceived at the beginning of the 21st century, retains connotations of all three contexts.(1) In general, the distinction between postmodernism and modernism isperhaps less a matter of stylistic differences than a matter of attitude towards。

童明《美国⽂学史》课后习题详解（⼥性作家书写“⼥性问题”）【圣才出品】第14章⼥性作家书写“⼥性问题”Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. Describe how the cultural and legal codes were against women in the late 19th century and early 20th century in America. Key: In the late 19th century and early 20th century was not free of Victorianism.(1)Under cultural and legal codes with Victorianist connotations in America, a woman was dependent upon a man to the extent that all her creativity was either channeled into making utilitarian goods or raising children. (2)She had little chance to receive education or to become a poet, or painter, or doctor, or lawyer, or take up any self-fulfilling career. Society allowed only the man to make major public and private decisions. (3)In those days, a woman had very few legal rights. She could not vote for national or local politics. Only in half of the states were women allowed to vote in school elections. Legally a woman could not contract just by herself.2. What are Amendments 13, 15, 19 in the American Constitution about? How was Amendment 19 won?Key: Amendment 13 abolished slavery. Amendment 15 in effect made racial discrimination illegal. Amendment 19 in effect affirms that women have the rights to vote.During that time, the women suffrage movement—a movement based on the basic assumption that women should have the same rights to vote as men—fought long and hard. And it was not until 1918—after some women suffrage leaders were imprisoned and then released—that women finally got their voting rights.3. What is the conflict Kate Chopin often depicts in her fiction? How is this theme manifested in the plotline of The Awakening?Key: Her main theme is the conflict between a woman’s need for her personhood and the conventionalized expectation that a wife should revolve around her husband. Stated differentl y, the conflict reflects Chopin’s belief that it is very difficult for men and women to reconcile two different needs they have: the need for them to live as discrete individuals (especially for the woman) on one hand and their need to live in a close relationship on the other.The Awakening focuses on this main theme. It presents the story of Edna Pontellier’s doomed attempt to find her own fulfillment through passion. From the perspective of the Victorianist society at the time, Edna should be happy considering that she is a young married woman, with an indulgent husband and attractive children. But she suffers from a lack of opportunity to achieve self-fulfillment. Neither her father nor her husband has encouraged her individuality.4. What does Edna Pontellier in The Awakening really want?Key: She desires what the Emersonian tradition encourages any American man to aspire. She desires to explore her self-potentials in connection with the world. She aspires for the Over-soul. During a summer vacation, sh e “begins to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her.”Edna’s discontent leads to her adultery and then to suicide.5. Compare the husbands in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Chopin’s The Awakening. How are the cultural codes against women manifested in each case?Key: In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the husband, John, is a doctor who administers the “rest cure” by renting “a colonial mansion” (which she describes as “a hereditary estate” and “a haunted house”) for their stay in the summer. She is confined to the nursery upstairs and is forbidden to be with her child. Under the supervising eye of John’s sister, she cannot write nor do anything creative.In The Awakening, the husband, Leonce does not encourage his wife Edna’s individuality. He indulges but sees her “as a valuable piece of property” and thus mocks her artistic pursuit. He will not allow Edna to be free of the patriarchal restraints for a woman.6. How are the repressive gender codes manifested in the “treatment” of the wife(“I”) in “The Yellow Wallpaper?” To what extent is she a victim of the repressive gender codes and to what extent is she even an accomplice at the beginning?Key: “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a powerful feminist indictment of the norms in a patriarchal culture. It is based on the real experiences of Gilman. ‘T’, the protagonist of the story is a married middle-class woman who has just given birth to a child and is suffering from depression. Her husband, John, is a doctor who administers the “rest cure” by renting “a colonial mansion” for their stay in the summer. She is confined to the nursery upstairs and is forbidden to be with her child. Under the supervising eye of John’s sister, she cannot write nor do anything creative.To a great extent, she is a victim of the repressive gender codes, because that she is confined by her husband and has no freedom to do what she wants to do. However, to some extent, she herself is even an accomplice at the beginning, because that at the beginning she is perfectly sane although depressed, she should try her best to choose the way of her treatment and rebel against the ridiculous confinement by her husband.7. What are the ironies on which “The Yellow Wallpaper” turns?Key: “The Yellow Wallpaper” turns on ironies because that at the beginning the woman is perfectly sane although depressed.A sign of her sanity is that she realizes, as she writes in the diary, that she is not getting well because John is aphysician. As her confinement in the upstairs nursery prolongs for weeks, she gets worse and eventually becomes insane or, to use the right words, becomes a “mad woman.”8. What is the social world in which Edith Wharton lived and about which she wrote?Key: The world in which Edith Wharton was born and got married was the world of plutocratic aristocracy, the wealthy and secure society in New York and its affiliated capitals of American social life.She wrote as an insider of this world and of characters whose lives are modeled after those of “four hundred” prominent families in New York. Thematically, her novels reflect the struggles of the individual members of elite societies (particularly the female members) in their attempts to actualize themselves within the rigid behavioral mores of their class. While she exposes the hypocrisy behind the moral rigidity of “society,” she shows that the life in “society” is the richest to be experienced.9. Who is Mrs. Teddy Wharton? Why is she the formidable rival for Edith Wharton? Key: As a “society lady,” Edith Wharton was Mrs. Teddy Wharton.Because that when she writes, she names herself Edith Wharton, however, as a woman writer, she just cannot write what she wants to write freely. That is to say, she can think freely as Mrs. Teddy Wharton, but she cannot write freely as EdithWharton.10. What are the differences in the love situations depicted in the three majornovels by Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence?Key: The House of Mirth is the story of the lovely Lily Bart who is wellborn but has no money. Being poor spells helplessness in a society where money is the only guarantee of security. Lily Bart’s lover is unable to help her because he is also poor. Lily is then tempted to use her beauty to gain the support of a very rich man.Ethan Frome is a powerful story of illicit love. When Ethan Frome survives the accident that kills his young lover, he is physically and psychologically crippled. What makes the novel a fitting example of Wharton’s fictive skills is that the novel achieves intensity not only in the portrayal of Ethan or his unhappy lover or his unfortunate wife, but in the horror as observed by an outsider who comes from a world where the spiritual effects of such crude poverty are not known.The Age of Innocence pairs the enchanting but unhappily married Countess Olenska with Newland Archer. Olenska would seem to have the means of escape that Lily Bart does not. But Archer proves to be too weak a lover. Even when Olenska and Archer are both free, the latter is too timid to leave the security of New York high society and to take a step toward emotional reality.。

第11章地区和地方色彩写作Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. What is the subtle distinction between regionalism and local colorism?Key: There was often a romantic flavor in local color writings as they continued to receive influences from Washington Irving and the frontier tradition of tall tales. But, regionalism had no such romantic flavor.2. How important is Mark Twain to American literature and American culture, according to Bernard Shaw and Ernest Hemingway?Key: Bernard Shaw once wrote to Mark Twain: “I am persuaded that the future historian of America will find your works as indispensable to him as a French historian finds the political tracts of Voltaire.” Not every writer who once enjoyed fame is indispensable to literary history, but Mark Twain is “indispensable.” Without him, American literature an d its history would be, shall we say, less delightful.Ernest Hemingway once remarked: “All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” Apart from the fact he was one of the pioneers in stories that captured the “local color” of the West, he shows to the world that one’s childhood experiences can be transformed into classic novels.3. For what serious social purposes does Mark Twain use humor?Key: If Mark Twain did not directly make social criticism as a theorist in economics and philosophy would, he was in fact more effective in that he showed a genuine hatred for social hypocrisy and pretentiousness through his use of humor. He was relentless with his humor in exposing the impotence of religious teaching in the face of temptation and the iniquity of slavery.4. Explain the complex ways in which Mark Twain employs child-like innocence in his writing.Key: (1) Where the image of innocence is projected in Mark Twain, it is always coupled with irony.(2) As an ironist, Mark Twain allows us to see the adult through the eyes of a child, and to see the child through an adult’s perspective.(3) His greatest gift is therefore his multi- dimensional understanding of innocence. This understanding of innocence in Mark Twain is further extended to Americans encountering Europe. In such encounters, the irony of “innocence” mocks both the American naivety and the European pretentiousness. America and Europe take on the same ironic dynamisms that involve a child and an adult.5. Why is i t too simplistic to see Tom Sawyer as a “bad boy?”Key: Because that the “bad boy” image really shows the complexity of MarkTwain’s ironic genius. Some characteristics of the “bad boy” are prankish child-innocence. Some are tactics used by children to deal with a world of adult tyranny and hypocrisy.6. Huck’s feelings for Jim, the run-away slave, seem simple but they are not really simple. Explain how Mark Twain is able to convey complex meanings about this relationship.Key: (1) The plotline of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn follows from a run- away motif. The time the boy and the run-away slave spend together has nurtured such love between them that in a moment of crisis Huck renounces his upbringing in the South in order to continue to help Jim escape. But his discovery of conscience, apart from being heroic, is also material for irony, for he thinks that he can avoid his own damnation by assisting Jim. More ironically, Mark Twain lets us know at the very end of the novel that the boy who is so fond of Jim is nonetheless not free of the socially prevalent racial prejudices.(2) Mark Twain’s choice of Huck Finn as the narrative voice can effectively express Huck’s complex feeling towards Jim and his own actions.(3) A hard life has taught Huck to keep a firm grasp on reality and to think with common sense. But he is not cynical. He is friendly to all underdogs and antagonistic towards all shapes of overmastering and bullying power. As a result, Huck wouldn’t ignore other’s hardships and difficulties, as well as Jim’s.7. Describe Huck as a narrative voice and perspective in the novel.Key: Mark Twain’s choice of Huck Finn as the narrative voice is one of the reasons why this novel has become a masterpiece.Compared to Tom, Huck’s speech is saltier and he is freer of the hogwash of romance. When Tom and Huck are together, we identify more with Huck because he has none of the unimportant virtues that Tom holds onto. Huck is a homeless boy cheerful in his rags and he is suspicious of any attempt to civilize him. This suspicion becomes Mark Twain’s vehicle of exposing the fakeness in certain social mores.8. What are the four types of fictional works by Mark Twain?Key: Twain’s fictional works can be divided into four types:(1) The first type may be te rmed the “personalized fiction” which refer to works that fictionalize people and events that Mark Twain were familiar with.(2) The second type may be called “travel fiction”.(3) The third type may be described as “historical romances” which show Mark Tw ain’s familiarity with the romance tradition and his ability to subvert its conventionalized implications.(4) Then fourthly, there are the short stories and those “tall tales” suggesting Mark Twain’s connection with the frontier spirit and his fondness of local color.9. Name other regionalists and local colorists mentioned in the chapter and the regions they represent?Key: There were many other regionalists and local colorists. Some of the prominent ones include Sarah Orne Jewett in New England, George Washington Cable and Kate Chopin in the Deep South, and Brett Harte who wrote of the far West mining camps.。

童明《美国文学史》模拟试题及详解（二）I. Fill in the blanks1. On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet _____ appeared.【答案】Common Sense【解析】1776年美国独立的风潮开始，托马斯·潘恩支持美国独立，反对英国的殖民专政，撰写了他的成名小册子《常识》，为美国从英国殖民中独立出来辩论，批评英国国王残暴无能，认为独立后的美国应该建立共和国。

2. The great work _____ not only demonstrates Emersonian ideas of self-reliance but also develops and tests Thoreau’s own transcendental philosophy.【答案】Self-Reliance【解析】富兰克林的《论自立》不仅表现了爱默生关于自立的思想，同时也表达了他的超验主义思想。

3. Ernest Hemingway once noted that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain”. The book Hemingway gave credit to is _____.【答案】The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn【解析】海明威曾经说“所有现代美国文学都来自马克·吐温的一本书”。

这本书是《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》。

4. “In a Station of the Metro” has only the following two lines:The _____ of these faces in the crowd;_____ on a wet, black bough.【答案】apparition ; Petals【解析】这是著名意象派诗人庞德的一首短诗：众中梦幻身影，黝黑枝头疏花。

童明《美国⽂学史》课后习题详解（美国浪漫主义时期）【圣才出品】第4章美国浪漫主义时期Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. What were the feelings of the new nationhood? What are the connections between nationalism and romanticism?Key: The new nationhood was proud of itself, but as a young country it could not be quite free of a sense of inferiority or “colonial complex” in the face of Europe.Nationalism often goes hand in hand with romanticism. The special psychological make-up of nationalism gives romanticism its own particular characteristics.2. Who are the most accomplished writers in this time period? How differently do they define Americanness?Key: Literary giants such as Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville are the most accomplished writers in this time period. Soon, their achievements would be matched by those from Whitman and Dickinson, among others.3. What are the five characteristics of Romanticism as listed in this chapter? Please discuss each by offering examples from authors you have read in this period. Key: First, romanticism celebrates the triumph of feeling and intuition over reason.And it is suspicious of the rationalist explanations of the universe and human nature by the Enlightenment writers. Since romantic writers placed a higher value on the free expression of emotion and on the power of imagination, they showed greater interests in the psychic states. As a result, characters in romantic stories sometimes showed extremes of sensitivity, such as fear of the dark and the unknown. For example, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” depicts the character’s extremes of sensitivity in a very vivid a nd horrifying way, which arouses the reader feelings of fear.Second, if the Enlightenment had annulled the Middle Ages, romanticism looked back to the Middle Ages with a nostalgic fascination. Also, the “Orient”-especially its “glorious” past-was a source of fascination. Gothic styles, “oriental” styles and other exotic styles were favored by romanticists. For example, Melville wrote several famous works following the exotic styles, such as Typee and Mardi.Third, romanticism exalted the individual over society, thus showing a strong disliking for the bondage of convention and customs. As it is sometimes the contradiction, nostalgia for the past traditions is also a romantic strain. For example, Thoreau left society and went to the Walden Pond to live, there, he wrote his famous work Walden.Fourth, nature is believed to be the source of goodness and the antithesis of society as society is inclined to be corrupt. A related manifestation is the moral enthusiasm exhibited in some romantic writers. For example, Emerson turned hisattention to nature, and thought that nature had the function of healing. He left his Nature for the later generations.Fifth, cultural nationalism-or the proud belief in one’s own cultural genius and heritage-is also a striking characteristic of romanticism. For example, Whitman was devoted himself to express the national spirit of America as a young man. His famous poet “There was a Child Went Forth” is a typical instance.。

第9章文学分支：反对奴隶制的写作Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. Up till the Civil War, the United States was “a house divided” on the question of slavery. What were the realities that indicated that house was divided? What were the arguments on both sides?Key: Over the question of slavery, the house called the United States was filled with high emotions and fierce debates. The Founding Fathers had hoped that slavery would shrivel away in the course of time. Their thinking was that the Constitution prohibited importing additional slaves so that slaveholders would eventually turn to free sources of labor. But the invention of the cotton gin and the expanding cotton markets in Britain and in New England increased the demand for cotton grown in much of America’s South. Slaves were a cheap source labor for a profitable cotton industry. When slaves could not be imported, they were bred. Slave-breeding became a profitable business.The arguments made by defenders of slavery were various and they changed over time. Some argued that slavery was an institution as old as human history and it was sanctified by the Bible. Some others claimed that slavery helped Christianize people who were less than civilized. Still others suggested that slavery was more humane than the “wage slavery” in the industrialized North, The most racist of the arguments would hold that African Americans wereless than human and were not capable of developing into free beings.2. Was abolishing slavery a primary concern for President Lincoln at first? What changes in the nation that finally encouraged him to draft the Emancipation Declaration?Key: When the southern states claimed the rights of secession, President Lincoln’s primary concern was to keep the Union and the issue of abolishing slavery was secondary to him.But, in the North abolitionist sentiment was rising. There was an even more vigorous protest against the possibility of slavery spreading into the West. Abolitionism then became a noble cause. By1862 Lincoln had drafted the Emancipation Declaration that would free the slaves and change once again the United States.3. Earlier on, the question of slavery was not a central issue for writers such as Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Emerson. What changed their minds and the minds of many others in the 1850s?Key: The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 enraged many writers, as the law imposed upon the northerners the legal obligation to help slave owners protect their “property.”After the 1857 decision that said African Americans were not considered citizens by law, it was increasingly difficult for public personalities to avoid thequestion. It is in this context that we should understand the intents and implications of anti- slavery writing by writers of different backgrounds.4. What was the reception of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly in the United States and internationally? What did President Lincoln say to Stowe once? Why did Stowe publish A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853)? Key: In one year it sold more than 300,000 copies in the United States and 1,500,000 internationally. It. became the best-known American novel. George Eliot, George Sand, Tolstoy, Henry James all praised it for its moral power if not its artistic merits. The book was also turned into drama and was staged.Lincoln once met Ha rriet Beecher Stowe and said to her: “So this is the little lady who made this big war!”To respond to hostile accusations that the sensational accidents in Uncle Tom’s Cabin lacked authenticity, Stowe published A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853) to show how she had drawn extensively from abolitionist materials and slave narratives.5. What was the main appeal of Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Stowe is known as a religious abolitionist. How is that manifested in the book?Key: The main appeal of Uncle Tom’s Cabin comes from the extreme sentimentality that derives from the deaths of little Eva St. Clare and Uncle Tom as well as from melodramatic events such as Eliza’s escape across the ice of theOhio River. With these stories and emotions, Stowe expresses, sometimes in her direct voice to the reader, her outrage at the iniquities of slavery.She claimed that Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a Christian book, written by God Himself, with her pen as His medium. Thus, the old Puritan theme of God’s intentions for America recurred in a different form. The driving force of the novel is God’s wrath directed at the slavery’s destruction of the fundamental laws of love, family and true feeling. The moral indignation is expressed in terms of the two poles of the conflict. On the one hand, the re is Haley, the slave trader, “a man alive to nothing but trade and profit.” On the other hand, there is Rachel Halliday who represented the religious home reuniting the families torn apart by the greed of Haley.6. What are Stowe’s limitations in this b ook?Key: Stowe’s limitations in this book probably are that she had difficulties depicting lives of black slaves, because she had never been close to black life. Stowe’s direct contact with slavery was limited to her visit to a plantation and her observation of how slaves were sold. Her writing may be sentimental and her understanding of the slaves may be limited, but she has used her sentimentality for very serious purposes.7. In what sense is Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave more than an autobiography?Key: Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is an example of “slave narratives” which appeared in the 19th century as materials for the abolitionist movement. In general, Douglass’s autobiographical writings fall into two parts: the “before” and the “after.” The “before” recounts the horrors of being a slave and the “after” narrates the opportunities discovered in freedom. In this sense, Douglass’s book is also an example of the American tale of the self-made man.8. What is the structure of this book and what kind of details are included? Key: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass tells the story of his life from childhood until his escape to freedom at the age of 20. It includes many details of him, for example, he says in it that in order to avoid being retaken, he changed his name from Bailey to Douglass.The publication of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845 revealed so much detail of his life that Douglass was at risk of being re- enslaved. So he stopped his lectures with the antislavery circuit and fled to England.9. What inspired Douglass to write his book?Key: Douglass was deeply impressed by sufferings that he went through when he was young, so when he grew up, he became an active abolitionist. He wanted to write down his own horrible story so as to evoke people’s dissatisfaction and fight against slavery.10. How did the writing and publication of the book impact Douglass’s personal life?Key: The publication of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845 revealed so much detail of his life that Douglass was at risk of being re- enslaved.So he stopped his lectures with the antislavery circuit and fled to England.Between 1845 and 1847 he lectured in England to promote the antislavery cause in the British Isles. His English friends raised money with which he purchased his freedom. Later in 1847, he moved to Rochester, New York.11. Harriet Ann Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the only slavenarrative written by a woman. What details in her account set this book apart from the slave narrative written by a male? Compare Jacobs’s Incidents with Douglass’s Narrative and also with Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.Key: Jacobs’ own experiences as a slave and her perspective are quite different from those of slave narratives written by males. There are some striking features in her narrative. (1)First of all, she spoke directly to white women in the North, with the intention of recruiting them to the abolitionist cause. For that purpose, she exposed any falsely romantic notions Northern white women might have had about Southern genteel life. (2)Since white women in pre-Civil War America were expected to be chaste, pious, attractive, domestic and gracefully obedient to their husbands, she had to convince them that she was not a “fallen woman”。

童明《美国文学史》（增订版）笔记和课后习题（含考研真题）详解完整版>精研学习网>无偿试用20％资料全国547所院校视频及题库资料考研全套>视频资料>课后答案>往年真题>职称考试目录隐藏第1部分早期美国文学：殖民时期至1815年第1章“新世界”的文学1.1复习笔记1.2课后习题答案1.3考研真题和典型题详解第2章殖民地时期的美国文学：1620-17632.1复习笔记2.2课后习题答案2.3考研真题和典型题详解第3章文学与美国革命：1764-18153.1复习笔记3.2课后习题答案3.3考研真题和典型题详解第2部分美国浪漫主义时期：1815-1865第4章美国浪漫主义时期4.1复习笔记4.2课后习题答案4.3考研真题和典型题详解第5章早期浪漫主义5.1复习笔记5.2课后习题答案5.3考研真题和典型题详解第6章超验主义和符号表征6.1复习笔记6.2课后习题答案6.3考研真题和典型题详解第7章霍桑、麦尔维尔和坡7.1复习笔记7.2课后习题答案7.3考研真题和典型题详解第8章惠特曼和狄金森8.1复习笔记8.2课后习题答案8.3考研真题和典型题详解第9章文学分支：反对奴隶制的写作9.1复习笔记9.2课后习题答案9.3考研真题和典型题详解第3部分美国现实主义时期：1865-1914第10章现实主义时期10.1复习笔记10.2课后习题答案10.3考研真题和典型题详解第11章地区和地方色彩写作11.1复习笔记11.2课后习题答案11.3考研真题和典型题详解第12章亨利詹姆斯和威廉迪恩豪威尔斯12.1复习笔记12.2课后习题答案12.3考研真题和典型题详解第13章自然主义文学13.1复习笔记13.2课后习题答案13.3考研真题和典型题详解第14章女性作家书写“女性问题”14.1复习笔记14.2课后习题答案14.3考研真题和典型题详解第4部分美国现代主义时期：1914-1945第15章美国现代主义15.1复习笔记15.2课后习题答案15.3考研真题和典型题详解第16章现代主义的演变16.1复习笔记16.2课后习题答案16.3考研真题和典型题详解第17章欧洲的美国现代主义17.1复习笔记17.2课后习题答案17.3考研真题和典型题详解第18章两次世界大战间的现代小说18.1复习笔记18.2课后习题答案18.3考研真题和典型题详解第19章现代美国诗歌19.1复习笔记19.2课后习题答案19.3考研真题和典型题详解第20章非裔美国小说和现代主义20.1复习笔记20.2课后习题答案20.3考研真题和典型题详解第5部分多元化的美国文学：1945年至新千年第21章新形势下的多元化文学21.1复习笔记21.2课后习题答案21.3考研真题和典型题解析第22章美国戏剧：三大剧作家22.1复习笔记22.2课后习题答案22.3考研真题和典型题详解第23章主要小说家：1945年至60年代23.1复习笔记23.2课后习题答案23.3考研真题和典型题详解第24章1945年以来的诗学倾向24.1复习笔记24.2课后习题答案24.3考研真题和典型题详解第25章20世纪60年代以来的小说发展状况25.1复习笔记25.2课后习题答案25.3考研真题和典型题详解第26章当代多民族文学和小说26.1复习笔记26.2课后习题答案26.3考研真题和典型题详解第27章美国文学的全球化：流散作家27.1复习笔记27.2课后习题答案27.3考研真题和典型题详解内容简介隐藏作为该教材的学习辅导书，全书完全遵循该教材的章目编排，共分27章，每章由三部分组成：第一部分为复习笔记（中英文对照），总结本章的重点难点；第二部分是课后习题详解，对该书的课后思考题进行了详细解答；第三部分是考研真题与典型题详解，精选名校经典考研真题及相关习题，并提供了详细的参考答案。

第13章自然主义文学Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. Explain how the Darwinian belief in naturalism is opposed to the Christian creationist view.Key: The Darwinist belief that humans are highly evolved animals is opposed to the Christian creationist view that humans exists below angels and above animals.2. What is the determinist view of existence that informs naturalism? What are the implications of this view on ethics?Key: The existence of a human person is limited by where and when he or she is born and restricted by the socioeconomic forces he or she has to wrestle with. Only the fittest survives in the life struggle.Because freedom of will does not exist, ethical choices are illusory. Naturalism thus eliminates the ethical problem that lies at the heart of the realist novel. Since human behavior is determined, it cannot be judged in terms of right or wrong, good or bad.3. Hamlin Garland’s announcement of a naturalist break from realism in Crumbling Idols offered a new theory called “veritism.” This announcement ornew theory shows that Garland stands opposed to Howells’ theory of realism. Explain their differences.Key: Howells was concerned with a faithful representation of reality as he saw it, but in doing so he limited the range of pessimistic material by conventional standards of taste and ethics. He was also restrained in matters of sexuality.While, Hamlin Garland raised issues that Howells avoided. He proposed that American fiction should explore truth for its underlying meaning and that it should deal with the unpleasant as well as pleasant aspects of life. The veritist, Garland suggested, should picture the ugly and warfare and, at the same time, conjure up the picture of beauty and peace.4. What is Stephen Crane’s fictional world like in general? In what sense is it naturalistic?Key: Crane’s fictional world is governed by a God who is either indifferent to humanity or is unable to intervene in human affairs. The characters subsist in the struggles of life and in the midst of violence. The author observes them with pessimistic detachment but offers psychological insights about them; in the latter respect, Crane was a decade or so ahead of his time.A distinct character trait in Crane’s fiction is how he, through the effect of fear, reveals the horror of war, depicts irrational human responses to the condition of life, exposes poverty, as well as the associated vices and unprovoked cruelty. In short, his depiction of fear compels the reader to look at themeaninglessness of life. Therefore, it reflects the naturalistic feature of his works.5. How did Crane’s career as a journalist help him as a fiction writer?Key: Crane’s career as a fiction writer paralleled his career as a newspaper reporter, which explains why his narration is objective, his observation and his time-sequence accurate. Also reflecting his experience as a journalist are the swift impressions he uses to introduce events and characters.6. Give an example to illustrate that the “reality effects” in Crane’s fiction are often included to enhance the allegorical.Key: “The Open Boat” is an allegorical tale. It tells of four survivors from a sunken gun-runner—the captain, an oiler, a cook and a correspondent—who are in the same boat rowing towards the Florida coast. This open boat is metaphorical for the humanity in the same boat. The sea, which stands for nature, is indifferent but not hostile. Everyone in the boat is aware of the possibility of death. But a sense of brotherhood grows among them. Just when they are about to land, the boat capsizes. The young and able oiler shows a quiet heroism that is ironically rewarded with death.7. What are the common elements in Red Badge of Courage and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets? And what is being mocked in each of the two?Key: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and The Red Badge of Courage have a greatdeal in common.(1) Both are impressionistic studies of elemental fear, one associated with shame, the other with the failure of courage in military combat.(2) Each portrays a young person facing a crisis in life.(3) Each presents the color and movement of circumstances from without and the psychological and emotional forces from within.(4) Not insignificantly, Maggie Johnson and Henry Fleming are both portrayed in their first encounter with death.In Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, the point of the story, through the ironies, is its mockery of the theory that possessing moral qualities superior to one’s environmental situation can enhance one’s survival. The irony of The Red Badge of Courage turns on the fact that Fleming’s fear first leads to his “cowardly” flight and then ends with his “heroic” attack.8. What is Frank Norfis’s own explanation of his fiction? Why then would critics link him with Crane as naturalists? What is naturalistic about McTeague and The Octopus?Key: What is striking about Norris’s explanation of his fiction is that he denied any kinship with realism and defined himself in the tradition of “romance.”Because that his “romance” clearly shows the naturalist characteristics: pessimism of human existence in the short run; genetic determinism; Darwinist view of nature which is inclusive of sex, growth, hunger, environment; the naturallaws of economic forces. In 1899, three years after Maggie was published, Norris’s McTeague appeared. It was then that critics linked Crane and Norris as naturalists.McTeague tells of how an unschooled and crude San Francisco dentist, due to envious rivalry, fate and greed, bludgeoned his young wife to death. The story ends with the lurid double death of McTeague and his rival Marcus. The Octopus is an epic of the far West, although flawed by inconsistencies. Through several intertwined narratives, it tells the struggle between speculative California wheat farmers and the railroad. The greed on both sides and relentless economic forces result in tragic endings.9. In what sense is Jack London a writer of romance? And in what sense is he a naturalist?Key: London used the romantic fiction to preach the radicalism of his day—a combination of evolutionist theory and the vision of a classless society. His form—romantic fiction—was a main reason for his popularity. With the form, he personified to his magazine readers the romantic impulse of the new century which was naive yet vigorous.There is a general determinist overtone in his themes, namely, men and women are more evolved animals whose behavior is determined by laws of nature. In life, the fittest thrive and individual claims on life must be subjected to the survival of the human species. For the purpose of survival, animals, inclusiveof humans, can regress from the level of their current evolution to more primitive levels. Humans can act like beasts. These naturalist themes came from Jack London’s reading of Darwin, Marx, Herbert Spencer and Nietzsche. He was a declared Spencerian evolutionist and Marxist-socialist.10. Describe brie y the three “animals” in The Call of the Wild, White Fang and The Sea Wolf.Key: (1) The animal in The Call of the Wild is a dog named Buck. Buck is taken to the Alaskan Klondike where, in the wilderness, he must retrieve ancient instincts in order to survive. Buck answers and becomes the call of the wild. Through his fights he comes to be the head of a pack of wolves.(2) The animal in White Fang is a little puppy from Alaska, half wolf and halfdog. He is taken to be domesticated and has to bear the pains of being “civilized.”(3)The Sea Wolf is about the human wolf, so to speak. Captain Wolf Larsonwants to force Humphrey Van Weyden to discover his “manhood” and subjects him to a brutal but vitalizing education. Larson is killed by Weyden when the latter discovers his manhood.11. What is the main naturalist theme in Dreiser’s fiction? How does the pursuit ofsexual gratification acquire a naturalist undertone?Key: A major theme in Dreiser’s fiction is that men and women will, according。

童明《美国文学史》模拟试题及详解（一）I. Fill in the blanks1. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was written by _____.【答案】Washington Irving【解析】华盛顿·欧文，美国著名作家，被称为“美国文学之父”。

《睡谷传奇》是欧文的著名短篇小说，收在他的著名散文集《见闻札记》中。

2. The most enduring shaping influence in American thought and American literature was _____.【答案】American Puritanism【解析】美国文化源于清教文化，由清教徒移民时传入北美。

美国主流价值观都可以追溯到殖民地时期一统天下的清教主义，并且清教思想对美国文学有着根深蒂固的影响。

3. Mark Twain once described the theme of a book as the struggle between a healthy heart and a deformed conscience, and he attributed this description to the character _____ in that book.【答案】Huckleberry Finn【解析】马克吐温曾说《哈克贝利·费恩》这部小说的主题是健康的心灵与扭曲的良心之间的斗争，他这段描述是针对小说主人公哈克贝利·费恩而言的。

4. “Dr oning a drowsy syncopated tune,Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,I heard a Negro play,”The figure of speech used in the first line of the poem is _____.【答案】alliteration【解析】在第一句中，droning和drowsy押头韵。

第19章现代美国诗歌Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. Why was T.S. Eliot such an influential figure in modern poetry and fiction, particularly in the period between the two world wars?Key: A main reason is that Eliot’s portrayal of the post-war era as a despiritualized desert in his long poem “The Waste Land” echoed a sense of loss and despair that many felt in that time period. Eliot’s “waste land” vision, together with the related forms, images and metaphors, became so influential that many writers in the post-war era emulated the “waste land” or used it for mocking or other purposes.2. What is the “waste land” a metaphor for? What is the general theme of “The Waste Land?”Key: The “waste land” is a metaphor for disillusion of desire in old days.The general theme of the poem is the salvation of the waste land or redemption of the human soul. (It is notable that Eliot’s general vision is Christian.) The salvation or redemption is not presented as a certainty but as a possibility. Possibly, salvation could be achieved if the reader could learn to piece together the fragments of the poem to regain the emotional, spiritual and intellectual values that the Western world used to enjoy.3. Who helped Eliot edit the poem and create the style of fragmentation? Describe, in some detail, how the fragmented style is set in place and how it works? Key: Ezra Pound helped Eliot edit the poem and create the style of fragmentation.(1) Fragmentation is due, first, to the different voices adopted.(2) Another reason is that there are bits and pieces from various languages other than English.(3) The poem also mixes descriptions of contemporary life (e.g., gossipy conversations in a London pub, the nagging voice of a housewife in an upper middle class family and so on) with excerpts from an opera, Christian mysticism, classical literature, and even fragments in Sanskrit from Brihadaranyaka Upabishad.Although these allusions and fragments make the reading rather difficult, the poem, through design and art, implies its intended unity.4. With one or two specific passages from “The Waste Land,” explain how the “past-in-present” method works and how it enriches or complexities meaning. Key: For the example, in the final stanza in “The Burial of the Dead,” the description of the businessmen flowing into Williams Street (the financial district in London) is, simultaneously, Dante’s description of the lost souls in hell. This “past-in-the-present” method is not only a matter of form but also a matter of theme: Eliot seems to say that we are living a fragmented (meaning incoherent)world because we have forgotten the values of our past.5. How many different levels of mythology are merged in “The Waste Land?” Is there a thematic concern in these types of myths? Identify each type of mythology in certain parts of the poem.Key: Eliot proves to be truly transnational in his use of mythological sources. The poem combines several sources that focus on related patterns in nature, myth, religion, legend: (1) the cycle of seasons and the fundamental rhythms of nature;(2) the ancient vegetation fertility myths of Egypt, India and Greece (in which the god must die to be reborn, to bring fertility and potency to life and people) borrowed by Eliot from The Golden Bough; (3) The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; (4) the mythical story of the Fisher King and his kingdom called the Waste Land as is borrowed from Jessie Weston’s From Ritual to Romance, and (5) the quest for the Holy Grail.Yes, there is a thematic concern in these types of myths.(To identify each type of mythology in certain parts by reading the poem carefully).6. Locate two moments in “The Waste Land” that indicate the failure of the quester.Key: There are two specific episodes of his failure. One is his meeting with the Hyacinths Girl (whose bearing a bouquet of hyacinths flowers makes her,symbolically, the bearer of the Holy Grail). But the quester could not speak during their meeting (see Section I, “The Burial of the Dead”). The other failure is includ ed in the final section “What the Thunder Said” and there we find the quester standing on the hill looking, with fear, at the empty Chapel Perilous.7. Tell the story of Tiresias in the myth. Why is he an appropriate observer in “The Waste Land?” How does he function as the consciousness? Give examples from the poem.Key: Tiresias, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was someone who had been both a man and a woman due to his involvement in the argument between Jove and Juno. He was condemned to be eternally blind by Juno but was blessed by Jove to be able to know the future despite his blindness.In Eliot’s poem, Tiresias, now an old man with inert longing and lost fulfillment observes and reflects. Although he seems just as depressed, his words still resonate with insights that we have forgotten. To reflect on the conditions of the Waste Land through his eyes is, therefore, another challenge and opportunity for the reader.8. Explain the beginning of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”Key: “Let us go then, you an d I/When the evening is spread out against the sky/Like a patient etherized upon a table.” A mood of self-imprisoned helplessness is established from the very beginning. The beginning also raises aquestion: Who is the “you” that Prufrock invites? Answer: nobody except his imaginary companion or his alter ego.9. What are the characteristics of Prufrock? What are some of the sources from which Eliot borrowed to create this character and this poem?Key: Prufrock is a typical bourgeois and a modern man not capable of heroic actions. Prufrock has a heightened awareness of things and he has imagination, but he cannot or will not act. He is so excruciatingly self-conscious, and so devoid of confidence.The verbal mannerism of Prufrock suggests that this character type comes from Henry James’s “Crapy Correlia”. James’s story is about White-Mason, a middle-aged bachelor of nostalgic temperament who visits a young Mrs. Worthingham to propose marriage but has to stop to re-consider.10. What, in general, is Wallace Stevens’s affinity with the Hellenic spirit of life affirmation?Key: As in the Hellenic culture characterized by the Olympian gods and great tragedies, Stevens affirms, first and foremost, the cyclical and inexhaustible forces of life in the universe. Thi s “life” is superior to the life of an individual in that this life is inclusive of the endless processes of births and deaths. For Stevens, thinking or judging begins from this perspective of life, not from moral laws as it is the case with Christianity. Of the two main cultural forces in theWestern world, the Hellenic and Hebraic (or the Greek tradition versus the Judeo-Christian tradition), Wallace Stevens leans towards the Hellenic like many other modern writers.11. “A High-Toned Old Christian Woman” is a short poem in which Stevens makesa distinction between the Hellenic vision and the Christian moral vision. With aclose reading of this poem, make a contrasting study of Wallace Stevens and T. S.Eliot.Key: In “A High-Toned Old Christian Woman,” St evens, in a comic tone, makesa brilliant analysis of the Christian moralist imagination (embodied by thehigh-toned old Christian woman) in sharp contrast to the imagination represented by the Greek mythology.The speaker of the poem suggests that the “nave” in a Christian church is an apt symbol of how the moral law is turned into “haunted heaven.” When the “moral law” rules, punishment is the norm of life. The speaker invites us to imagine the pitiable scenes of people being whipped. On the other hand, the Greeks, representing the “opposing law,” built not the “nave” but the “peristyle” from which a drama beyond the planets could be staged. The position Stevens takes in the poem also distinguishes him from Eliot in that he, like Nietzsche, goes back to ancient Greece for inspiration in order to combat the Christian moral tradition.。

第20章非裔美国文学和现代主义Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. What was the Harlem Renaissance or New Negro Renaissance?Key: In the early 1920s, many African American writers, painters, photographers, musicians congregated in New York City, started magazines, published anthologies, and promoted the creativity of the “New Negro.” They came from farms and plantations, villages, towns and cities across the United States. Their work transformed Harlem, an African American neighborhood in New York, into an intellectual and cultural center for African Americans. This movement was the Harlem Renaissance or New Negro Renaissance.2. Give a brief account of Jean Toomer’s life, his self-identity and his position on the question of race in America.Key: Toomer was born in 1894 in Washington, D.C. His life was complicated by his father’s desertion when he was only one year old. And it was further complicated by what Toomer later called “racial composition and position” since his life took him back and forth between the “white” world and the “black” world.As he grew up and learned about racial politics in the United States, he declared himself a member of the American race rather than belonging to anyparticular ethnic group. Some people accused him of denying his African American heritage. Toomer responded that he was the conscious representative of a people with a heritage of multiple bloodlines and in time people would understand him.3. What kind of book is Cane? What are the different sections about?Key: Cane was Jean T oomer’s most important work. It grew out of his trip to the South in 1921 when his encounter with the African American folk culture inspired him.The first section consists of six vignettes of southern women and 12 poems, written in lyrical, mystical and sensuous language; this section portrays the conflicts, pressures, racial oppression and economic hardships of black southern life. The second section is a series of impressions of the death of black spirituality in a waste land of urban materialism and industrialization. The third section is a drama presenting how a black northerner discovers his identity in the South of his ancestors.4. Who is Jess B. Simple or “Simple” for short?Key: A Harlem folk character Langston Hughes created in newspaper columns—Jess B. Simple, better known as “Simple”—has gained immortality.5. Discuss to what extent Langston Hughes’s composition of poetry is connectedwith the African American heritage.Key: Langston Hughes is remembered for his poetry, especially the two dozens of his very best. The African American heritage became the basis of his style and his vision. In his poetry, he used a hybrid free verse with interspersed rhymes, dialect and prose. He frequently used jazz rhythms—blues, bebop, and rap, although he also used conventional stanzas and rhymes.6. Who is the ‘T’ in Hughes’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers?” What are the rivers mentioned in the poem? What do they signify?Key: “I” in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is the voice of the collective soul of the Negro.Euphrates, Congo, Nile, and Mississippi are mentioned in the poem. They signify the richness of black culture.7. How is the social protest expressed in “Harlem?”Key: The social and cultural connotations of the title “Harlem” make it to be a poem protesting against a system that excludes African Americans from the American dream. However, it is the poetic expression that makes the protest so effective.8. What themes do you see in the plot of Their Eyes Were Watching God?Key: (1) Black women have no rights to choose her satisfying husband, and theyhave to accept the man her family choose for her.(2) Black women are oppressed by her husbands and the whole society.(3) Some black women were awakened at that time, and they had tried their best to gain independence.9. Who is Bigger Thomas in Native Son? What logic is represented in the tripartite structure?Key: Bigger Thomas is a character whom Wright synthesized from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and from the urban nihilism and urban poverty with which Wright was familiar.In a tripartite structure of “Fear,” “Flight,” and “Fate,” the novel depicts a fear starting with a giant black rat stealing into the family’s one-room flat and culminating in the “accidental” murder o f the white girl Mary Dalton who happens to like blacks very much. The novel then follows how Bigger, in increased fear, compounds his crime by killing Bessie, until he is captured. In the third part of the novel’s movement, Bigger’s attorney Max places th is complicated story in the social context to give Bigger the appropriate defense in the court. But Bigger cannot in the end avoid a death penalty. By being honest to the complex factors, Wright’s novel achieves a status of art that defies ideological doctrines.10. What is the plot of The Man Who Lived Underground? In what sense is this storyan African American version of Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground? For a research project, write an essay establishing the connection between this short story a nd Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (see Chapter 23).Key: The Man Who Lived Underground is the story of a black man, Fred Daniel, who is forced to hide in the sewers of a city because he is accused of a murder he did not commit. From his home in the underground world, he is able to peek into the social and family life aboveground. Thus, being underground is not just a constrained condition; it becomes a perspective from which he studies social injustices and learns that he, too, is anonymous to an unfeeling society. Daniel comes to a philosophical realization: man is guilty by nature. The realization lends him the strength to leave the subterranean refuge to turn himself in to the police only to learn that the real murderer has been apprehended. As he is convinced of his guilt as a man, he insists that the police follow him to his underground dwelling. But one of the policemen calmly shoots him, as he is halfway down a manhole.The novella is clearly modeled on Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. Like Dostoevs ky’s underground man, Wright’s protagonist is a highly intelligent man who has come to a understanding of the larger situation of society but is rendered incapable of action.The Man Who Lived Underground inspired Ralph Ellison to write his monumental novel Invisible Man.。

第5章早期浪漫主义Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. In what sense is a fictionalized vision of American history, such as “Rip Van Winkle,” just as true as a historian’s narrative? Could “Rip” be more revealing and more powerful about American history at the turn of the 19th century than a historian’s story? Make a case in a well-written essay that includes textual analysis.Key: It seems inevitable that we will at some point or another wonder whether a literary text—always a made-up story—can tell us anything true, especially when the subject matter being fictionalized is history. Any reader who has learned how to read literature after some rewarding experience already knows the answer: Poets “lie” not to deceive but to enlighten. It is precisely the fictional nature of literature that enables the poet and us to see more clearly what is true to history, to our humanity and to life. The fictionalization in a literary text can be said as the conceptualization of human events formalized in such a way so that we can experience the conceptualization in its details and design.An excellent case in point is Washington Irving’s famous tale “Rip Van Winkle”, which is a narrative of “the other American dream” that tells the more complex truth. Rip could be more revealing and more powerful about American history at the turn of the 19th century than a historian’s story, becausethat Rip is the protagonist in this story but he does not get to tell it and his story is told by a third person omniscient narrator who impresses us as a humorous and effective storyteller who can distance himself to offer some mildly satirical comments on Rip. That will be more objective and realistic, at the same time, the narrator tells much more details of life, society, environment, personal relationship and so on at that time, which depict a panorama of the age.2. Discuss the style—including the narrative system in “Rip Van Winkle.”Key: The short story “Rip Van Winkle” is humorous and romantic. Rip is the protagonist in this story but he does not get to tell it. His story is told by a third person omniscient narrator who impresses us as a humorous and effective storyteller who can distance himself to offer some mildly satirical comments on Rip. This narrator is further placed in yet another narrative frame: “Rip Van Winkle,” so the story goes, was supposedly a tale found in the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker (one of Irving’s invented personas).3. What, according to the textual evidence, are Rip’s connections with Dutch cultural heritage or ancestry (please note that there is more than one connection)? What does that tell us about New York as a cultural region?Key: Mr. Knickerbocker (one of Irving’s invented personas) was possibly the author of the tale. With this fictive frame put in place, Irving connects Rip not only with a fictional Dutch writer but also with the Dutch history in the Hudsonregion.It tells us that Dutch settlers in New York is one part of the culture of New York and exerts great influence to Americans.4. Rip falls into a deep slumber that lasts 20 years. Upon waking, everything has changed. Identify all the changes that have occurred. What do these changes say to us about that period of American history after the Revolution?Key: Upon waking, Rip found that everything related to him had changed. His dog Wolf had disappeared. When he came to the village, nobody, not even dogs could recognize him. His own house went to decay and it was empty, empty especially of his feared wife, Dame Van Winkle. He also found remarkable changes in the village inn. The sign in front of the inn used to be the portrait of King George in his red coat. Now it had changed, slightly but significantly, into the image of George Washington in his blue uniform. In front of the inn, a crowd gathered. But they were an entirely different crowd.It tells us that the 13 colonies in America had won their independence and built the United States of America. British power had been removed from this land. Everything had changed after the Revolution.5. Give several reasons why “Rip” is another American dream. Discuss it as an American dream in the literary sense. Comment on the impact of this tale on other American writers.Key: Because that the main metaphor for the emerging American nation in “Rip Van Winkle” is a dream, t he tale tells of an American dream, albeit a dream very different from the common version of American dream, which is the myth that one’s hard work is a sufficient guarantee of one’s acquisition of wealth and success in America. For that reason, we should call Irving’s story a narrative of “the other American dream” that tells the more complex truth.Rip Van Winkle and Washington Irving’s dream recurred almost like a template in literature. Hawthorne created similar tales of dreams. “Young Goodman Brown” is such a tale. The protagonist, Young Goodman Brown walks into the woods in a dream and there he finds his newly-wed wife, Faith, in the middle of devil worship with other Puritan neighbors. Brown wakes up from his unsettling dream and he can no longer view the Puritan community with the same innocence. So Hawthorne, like Irving, tells us another aspect of American history with a dream tale. We find traces of Rip’s dream in stories by James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Melville, Mark Twain, Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, and John Updike ad so on.6. Is Washington Irving a Puritan writer? Explain with some details.Key: No, Washington Irving is not a Puritan writer, because that his writing style is humorous and romantic, and his works lack spirits of prudence and diligence. For example, in his “Rip Van Winkle”, the protagonist Rip was a mild man, who was well liked by the “good wives of the village,” but he simply had no skill in any“profitable labor.” His farm was the worst farm in the area. His children “were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody.” To some extent, we can say that Rip’s living doctrines are contrary to those of Puritan.7. What is James Fenimore Cooper’s several-fold contribution to American literature? What is America like through the literary lens of Cooper? What do Cooper’s critics (such as Mark Twain) say about him?Key: He created an enduring American mythic hero in his Leather-stocking novels; writing on such subjects as the Revolution, the frontier, the sea, and the wilderness; he helped develop an appreciation for things American; in prefaces, articles and other non-fictional works, he proved an important social critic.In Cooper’s writing s we see an America in its early stage of self-evaluation, an America still trying to put its origins, its development and its vision into narratives. His novels also show the emergence of class divisions and class-consciousness, the beginnings of imperialist expansion, the roughness of life of the frontier and the optimism. In his vision of the new country, Cooper tried to achieve a balance of his belief in democracy and his inclination towards the elite. Resisting what he considered the vulgar and excessive version of frontier democracy under President Jackson, Cooper argued for a return to an American life led by an elite minority, namely, the Christian agrarian gentlemen of youth.Mark Twain, in an essay titled “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses”(1895), ridiculed Cooper’s use of syntax, dialogue, plot, narrativepace, and characterization. “Cooper’s eye was splendidly inaccurate,” wrote Mark Twain, “Cooper seldom saw anything correctly. He saw nearly all things as through a glass eye, darkly. Of course a man who cannot see the commonest little every-day matters accurately is working at a disadvantage when he is constructing a ‘situation.’ In the ‘Deerslayer’ tale Cooper has a stream which is 50 feet wide where it flows out of a lake; it presently narrows to 20 as it meanders along for no given reason, and yet when a stream acts like that it ought to be required to explain itself. Fourteen pages later the width of the brook’s outlet from the lake has suddenly shrunk 30 feet, and become ‘the narrowest part of the stream. This shrinkage is not accounted for.”8. Give a precise overview of the leather-stocking series. What is the American dilemma that Natty Bumppo embodies?Key: The Leather-stocking series consists of five novels which, in the order of publication, are: The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder(1840), and The Deerslayer (1841). In relation to the plotline, the sequence should be: The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers and The Prairie. “Leather- stocking” is the nickname for Natty Bumppo who is in the habit of wearing long deerskin leggings. Natty is also nicknamed Deerslayer, Hawkeye, Long Rifle, Pathfinder, and the Trapper. As a type of mythic hero, Natty Bumppo is based on the legend of Daniel Boone (a folk hero), the idea of the natural man in Rousseau’s primitivism, the idealized。

第7章霍桑、麦尔维尔和坡Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. What are the commonalities of the three writers that allow us to group them in this chapter despite their idiosyncrasies? How do they differ from the main doctrines of Transcendentalism?Key: They all belonged to the group of romanticist writers and their literary achievements marked a new level of maturity in 19th century American literature. The three are strikingly similar in one aspect, namely: they are all masters of negative capability. The negative capability, by immersing us in ambiguities, doubts and other negative emotions, in fact strengthens us and improves our judgment by complicating our existing system of judgment. It is therefore a sign of the kind of aesthetic sophistication found only in good poets. Poe, Hawthorne and Melville were all healthy skeptics. Their ability in doubts, irony and detachment enabled them to interrogate the innocence of the age.Of the three, Poe was not associated with Transcendentalism or any other noticeable -isms of his age. Hawthorne and Melville were marginally associated with the ideas of Transcendentalism, but they would often take a critical distance from that movement. Hawthorne was quite suspicious of the Transcendentalists’ sunny optimism. He also disapproved of their experimental community called Brook Farm. Melville’s skepticism about Transcendentalism is evident in what hesays in Moby Dick: “He who hath more of joy than sorrow in him … cannot be true—not true, or undeveloped.” Poe is unique in that his interest in the complex dynamism of the human psyche made him a precursor to the 20th century phenomenon of psychoanalysis.2. What i s “negative capability?” Briefly discuss how “negative capability” is manifested in Hawthorne, Melville and Poe.Key: The phrase, “negative capability,” was first used by the British romantic poet John Keats. In a letter written in December 1817, Keats defined it as the capability in good poets of including uncertainties and other negative emotions without stretching for reason and without losing reason. Keats wrote: “... that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” The negative capability, by immersing us in ambiguities, doubts and other negative emotions, in fact strengthens us and improves our judgment by complicating our existing system of judgment. It is therefore a sign of the kind of aesthetic sophistication found only in good poets.Hawthorne was good at using ambiguities in his works. Melville created many mysteries in his works, such as in Moby Dick, the ship, the whale, the sea… are all mysterious images. Poe was good at setting up special conditions to create mysteries, thus arousing negative emotions of characters as well as readers.3. How is Hawthorne connected with Salem witch-hunt trials?Key: Hawthorne was a native of Salem, Massachusetts. One of Hawthorne’s ancestors was William Hawthorne who came from Cheshire to Massachusetts in 1630 among the earliest settlers and who, according to Hawthorne, had “all the Puritan traits, both good and evil.” William had a son who served as a judge in the Salem witchcraft t rial and, in Hawthorne’s thinking, was stained by Puritanism’s own sins. Hawthorn was intensely conscious of the wrongdoing of his ancestors, and this awareness led to his understanding of evil being at the core of human life, so he seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil in his life. A theme evident in Hawthorne’s writings is the guilty stains of human nature.4. What is Hawthorne’s own moral vision as compared to the Puritan tradition? Which story is a good illustration of your point?Key: Hawthorne is not only connected with the Puritan heritage but is ambivalent towards it. The Scarlet Letter is a very typical example to illustrate my opinion. When examined more closely, this work is not so much a retrospective look at the Puritan past, to be more exact, it is Hawthorne measuring how distanced the Puritan “past” is from the Transcendentalist “present” in terms of the emotional, literary and religious patterns. The gray iron-bound law of Puritan society, one which meted out its law to Hester and her daughter Pearl, is shown to be sharply contrasted to the world of nature allowing the “freedom ofspeculation,” one which is the space for Hester and Pearl. The “Boston” depicted in the novel is thus inclusive of these two worlds. Beside the scaffold, Hawthorne juxtaposes the prison—“the black flower of civilized society”—with the wild rosebush, a “sweet moral blossom” symbolizing” the deep heart of Nature.” The Hester who comes out of prison, bearing the letter “A” in her bosom and holding Pearl in her arms is an image of life. With her strong will and honest way of living, Hester transforms the mean ing of “A” so that it signifies, to her community and to the reader, not Adultery but Able or Angel. Pearl is even freer from this world and its “moral” laws. She is a child of natural innocence roaming in a forest that seems to promise a transcendental release from the fallen social world of guilt and sin. It is in Pearl, more than in the other characters, that the Emersonian idealism sneaks into Hawthorne’s moral vision.5. How do irony and allegory work in Hawthorne’s stories to convey his moral vision? Discuss with two or three of his stories.Key: The combination of allegory and irony is characteristically Hawthornian. For example, “Young Goodman Brown” is the dream experience of Goodman Brown who is young, innocent and, as his name suggests, an average man. Brown is newlywed and one night, he leaves his wife “Faith” behind to go on a journey in the forest. The forest, in Hawthorne’s allegorical tale, is the abode of sin and evil. There in the forest Brown discovers the Puritan community in its entirety, engaged in a collective confession of their association with evil and sin. But thegreatest shock is that he finds hi s “Faith” to be among them, at the devil worship. Just as he calls up his “Faith” to refuse the baptism of evil, Goodman Brown wakes up. Thereafter, whenever he sees his Salem Puritan neighbors, he sees them not as what they claim to be, but as secret and hypocritical sinners. Allegorically, the tale reveals that the Puritan community has an inclination towards evil in that they secretly harbor sin and the attendant guilt. What is interesting is that Hawthorne both confirms the Calvinist/Puritan tenet of original sin and exposes the hypocrisy in how the Puritan community, in their practices, tried to hide their sins. Another tale is “The Minister’s Black Veil”. Reverend Hooper wears a thin black veil for life because he feels a sense of personal guilt not confessed. The veil is a symbol of universal guilt concealed by hypocrisy. By wearing it and thus by drawing attention to the existence of the hypocrisy, the black veil enhances the ministerial power of Reverend Hooper.6. With appropriate stories, discuss the kinds of internal conflicts in Hawthorne’s characters.Key: The internal conflict in Hawthorne’s characters is often moral in nature and should be read in the Puritan context, as we have discussed. That’s why Hawthorne’s characters—such as Goodman Brown, Reverend Hooper, Ethan Brand, and John Endicott—are obsessed with sins. Some of the characters suffer because of unconfessed sins (e.g., Dimmesdale). Some others—such as Beatrice in “Rappcinni’s Daughter”) —suffer for their ancestors and fathers.Hawth orne depicts “sin” not for its own sake. He allows us to study the effects of the sin on the sinners and on people related to them. However, doctrinarian morality is not the substance of Hawthorne’s moral vision. At least for his characters, the moral vision is acquired through an inner struggle or exploration which first places them in unfamiliar territories. The journey ends with the loss of innocence, and typically does not conclude with a life lived happily ever after. Some of the characters do not know what to do with their new selves or newly gained knowledge. Goodman Brown is a case in point.7. Discuss the allegorical roles of Hester Prynne, Pearl and Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter.Key: In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, being the one penalized by the community for her adultery and thus the one bearing the scarlet “A” openly, gains a sympathetic knowledge of the existence of sin in other hearts. In that sense, Hester embodies this Hawthornian moral tenet: “if the truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth from many another bosom.” In contrast to Hester Prynne who finds salvation by willingly acknowledging her guilt, Arthur Dimmesdale conceals his sin so deeply that he is eventually destroyed when Roger Chillingworth coldly probes into his heart. But Dimmesdale’s weakness is in a sense also his healing power. Pearl is even freer from this world and its “moral” laws. She is a child of natural innocence roaming in a forest that seems to promise a transcendental release from the。

第12章亨利•詹姆斯和威廉•迪恩•豪威尔斯Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. Read the excerpt from Henry James’s essay “Hawthorne” closely and expla in what James is hoping that the new American sensibility should be.Key: James hopes that people with new American sensibility should more critical than his complacent and confident grandfather. He will not be a skeptic, and still less, of course, a cynic; he will be, without discredit to his well-known capacity for action, an observer.2. What are some of the defining features of Henry James’s style?Key: James has created fictional and dramatic situations rich in shades of meaning. In the later works by Henry James, we find that information and meaning are conveyed in multiple, dependent clauses in elaborate sentences. The sentences then become long blocks of narration. Even when the narration is interrupted by a dialogue, the dialogue carries the story forward in a logical fashion. This style, quite challenging to the reader, is also a sing that James trusts his reader to be able to appreciate his fictional order and be delighted by his fictional architecture in which all parts are well balanced.James shows sophisticated skills in manipulating the narrative point of view. To avoid direct authorial intervention and thus to maintain objectivity in fiction,he uses the consciousness of a single character as the filter of observations and information. Technically, this often entails two situations. One, the first person point of view is used, as in The Turn of the Screw. Two, he uses the omniscient (third person) narrator as the narrative voice, but this omniscience is limited to the consciousness of a s ingle character. This “limited omniscience” is also a special attribute of his novels.3. How, in general, is the “international theme” manifested in James’s novels? How are America and Europe correlated?Key: Henry James does not contemplate the American consciousness within the national boundaries of the United States but does so in relation to Europe. He observes American culture by observing it in the contact zone of the two cultures. His American characters come to Europe, whether they are pilgrims or victims or both, and they meet European culture either in the form of European conventions or in the form of Europeanized American.In Henry James’s texts, Europe and America are two different societies and cultural forces brought into contact. Europe is the kind of society where the vital impulse has run out and all its meanings are expressed through its conventions and refinements. America, on the other hand, is the kind of society where the original driving forces have not yet matured into conventions. Juxtaposing the two societies in various dramatic situations, James’s point is not to favor one over the other. Rather, his writings allow the contrasts to manifest themselves sothat Europe and America offer critical perspectives for each other. American innocence or inexperience becomes magnified in its confrontation with the European social sophistication, sense of culture and tradition, and moral relativism. The lack of vitality as found in certain European conventions is also relentlessly exposed.4. What is the “emotion of life” theme and how is it generally manifested in James’s works?Key: Henry James had a moral conviction that life is indestructible and, accordingly, he was outraged at society or people who were decaying and sterile while living on conventions without any force of conviction. To express his moral vision and his outrage, he brought such people and society under his fictive microscope and showed us how the emotion underlining the conventions is about to explode. The moment before the explosion, if not the explosion itself, constitutes Henry James’s drama. Where he located the emotion, he realized his art to represent the real.5. What is the “art and artist” theme manifested in James’s works?Key: Henry James’s fidelity to life sustains his view of art and artist is. In his eyes, the artist, embodying the creative process and force of life, inevitably conflicts with the false values and limited imagination of society, particularly its lack of aesthetic awareness. His short story “The Real Thing” is an illustration of thistheme.6. Study the plot summaries of James’s novels and suggest what the shared themes are.Key: By study the plot summaries of James’s novels, we can see that there are three major themes: the international theme, the emotion-of-life theme, and the artist theme.Of the lesser themes in James we are able to identify the following: the psychological complexity and realism in James’s characters; the past’s influenc e on the present; the theme of “the privation of religious experience”.7. In what sense was William Dean Howells a leader of realism in his lifetime? Key: Howells abhorred the prevalence of romanticism. His main concerns were with the sociological problems of industrial conflict and class struggle. He strove to illustrate how competitive capitalism affects virile people in various sectors of society.8. What is Howells’s argument regarding fiction and realism in his long essay Criticism and Fiction?Key: In Howells’s long essay of criticism, he argues in favor of fiction as a literary means by which problems in social reality can be better revealed. He argues that fiction should find its materials in the commonplace, average, and everydayevents of American middle- class life.9. What is The Rise of Silas Lapham about?Key: The Rise of Silas Lapham is a rise-and-fall story about Silas Lapham. Lapham is a sturdy country-bred man who becomes successful as a paint manufacturer and has an opportunity to rise in Boston society. Because of his over-commitment to resources and because of steep business competition, Lapham is tempted to take legal but unethical advantage in a deal. As he falls in his fortunes, he rises morally. Cutting his losses in an honest transaction, he retires and returns to his Vermont farm.10. What are the groups depicted in A Hazard of New Fortune?Key: A Hazard of New Fortun e uses New York as the canvas of the panoramic dimensions for several groups included in the class struggle: the established aristocracy, the new wealthy elbowing their way in, the business and professional classes, the poor of the lower East side.。

第14章女性作家书写“女性问题”Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments1. Describe how the cultural and legal codes were against women in the late 19th century and early 20th century in America.Key: In the late 19th century and early 20th century was not free of Victorianism.(1)Under cultural and legal codes with Victorianist connotations in America, a woman was dependent upon a man to the extent that all her creativity was either channeled into making utilitarian goods or raising children. (2)She had little chance to receive education or to become a poet, or painter, or doctor, or lawyer, or take up any self-fulfilling career. Society allowed only the man to make major public and private decisions. (3)In those days, a woman had very few legal rights. She could not vote for national or local politics. Only in half of the states were women allowed to vote in school elections. Legally a woman could not contract just by herself.2. What are Amendments 13, 15, 19 in the American Constitution about? How was Amendment 19 won?Key: Amendment 13 abolished slavery. Amendment 15 in effect made racial discrimination illegal. Amendment 19 in effect affirms that women have the rights to vote.During that time, the women suffrage movement—a movement based on the basic assumption that women should have the same rights to vote as men—fought long and hard. And it was not until 1918—after some women suffrage leaders were imprisoned and then released—that women finally got their voting rights.3. What is the conflict Kate Chopin often depicts in her fiction? How is this theme manifested in the plotline of The Awakening?Key: Her main theme is the conflict between a woman’s need for her personhood and the conventionalized expectation that a wife should revolve around her husband. Stated differentl y, the conflict reflects Chopin’s belief that it is very difficult for men and women to reconcile two different needs they have: the need for them to live as discrete individuals (especially for the woman) on one hand and their need to live in a close relationship on the other.The Awakening focuses on this main theme. It presents the story of Edna Pontellier’s doomed attempt to find her own fulfillment through passion. From the perspective of the Victorianist society at the time, Edna should be happy considering that she is a young married woman, with an indulgent husband and attractive children. But she suffers from a lack of opportunity to achieve self-fulfillment. Neither her father nor her husband has encouraged her individuality.4. What does Edna Pontellier in The Awakening really want?Key: She desires what the Emersonian tradition encourages any American man to aspire. She desires to explore her self-potentials in connection with the world. She aspires for the Over-soul. During a summer vacation, sh e “begins to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her.” Edna’s discontent leads to her adultery and then to suicide.5. Compare the husbands in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Chopin’s The Awakening. How are the cultural codes against women manifested in each case?Key: In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the husband, John, is a doctor who administers the “rest cure” by renting “a colonial mansion” (which she describes as “a hereditary estate” and “a haunted house”) for their stay in the summer. She is confined to the nursery upstairs and is forbidden to be with her child. Under the supervising eye of John’s sister, she cannot write nor do anything creative.In The Awakening, the husband, Leonce does not encourage his wife Edna’s individuality. He indulges but sees her “as a valuable piece of property” and thus mocks her artistic pursuit. He will not allow Edna to be free of the patriarchal restraints for a woman.6. How are the repressive gender codes manifested in the “treatment” of the wife(“I”) in “The Yellow Wallpaper?” To what extent is she a victim of the repressive gender codes and to what extent is she even an accomplice at the beginning?Key: “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a powerful feminist indictment of the norms in a patriarchal culture. It is based on the real experiences of Gilman. ‘T’, the protagonist of the story is a married middle-class woman who has just given birth to a child and is suffering from depression. Her husband, John, is a doctor who administers the “rest cure” by renting “a colonial mansion” for their stay in the summer. She is confined to the nursery upstairs and is forbidden to be with her child. Under the supervising eye of John’s sister, she cannot write nor do anything creative.To a great extent, she is a victim of the repressive gender codes, because that she is confined by her husband and has no freedom to do what she wants to do. However, to some extent, she herself is even an accomplice at the beginning, because that at the beginning she is perfectly sane although depressed, she should try her best to choose the way of her treatment and rebel against the ridiculous confinement by her husband.7. What are the ironies on which “The Yellow Wallpaper” turns?Key: “The Yellow Wallpaper” turns on ironies because that at the beginning the woman is perfectly sane although depressed. A sign of her sanity is that she realizes, as she writes in the diary, that she is not getting well because John is aphysician. As her confinement in the upstairs nursery prolongs for weeks, she gets worse and eventually becomes insane or, to use the right words, becomes a “mad woman.”8. What is the social world in which Edith Wharton lived and about which she wrote?Key: The world in which Edith Wharton was born and got married was the world of plutocratic aristocracy, the wealthy and secure society in New York and its affiliated capitals of American social life.She wrote as an insider of this world and of characters whose lives are modeled after those of “four hundred” prominent families in New York. Thematically, her novels reflect the struggles of the individual members of elite societies (particularly the female members) in their attempts to actualize themselves within the rigid behavioral mores of their class. While she exposes the hypocrisy behind the moral rigidity of “society,” she shows that the life in “society” is the richest to be experienced.9. Who is Mrs. Teddy Wharton? Why is she the formidable rival for Edith Wharton? Key: As a “society lady,” Edith Wharton was Mrs. Teddy Wharton.Because that when she writes, she names herself Edith Wharton, however, as a woman writer, she just cannot write what she wants to write freely. That is to say, she can think freely as Mrs. Teddy Wharton, but she cannot write freely as EdithWharton.10. What are the differences in the love situations depicted in the three majornovels by Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence?Key: The House of Mirth is the story of the lovely Lily Bart who is wellborn but has no money. Being poor spells helplessness in a society where money is the only guarantee of security. Lily Bart’s lover is unable to help her because he is also poor. Lily is then tempted to use her beauty to gain the support of a very rich man.Ethan Frome is a powerful story of illicit love. When Ethan Frome survives the accident that kills his young lover, he is physically and psychologically crippled. What makes the novel a fitting example of Wharton’s fictive skills is that the novel achieves intensity not only in the portrayal of Ethan or his unhappy lover or his unfortunate wife, but in the horror as observed by an outsider who comes from a world where the spiritual effects of such crude poverty are not known.The Age of Innocence pairs the enchanting but unhappily married Countess Olenska with Newland Archer. Olenska would seem to have the means of escape that Lily Bart does not. But Archer proves to be too weak a lover. Even when Olenska and Archer are both free, the latter is too timid to leave the security of New York high society and to take a step toward emotional reality.。