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第7章自然主义7.1 复习笔记Ⅰ. Overview1. Background2. Emergence3. Major Features4. American NaturalistsⅡ. Stephen Crane (1871-1900)1. Life2. Literary Career3. Major FeaturesⅢ. Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)1. Life2. Literary Career3. Major FeaturesⅣ. Frank Norris (1870-1902)1. Life2. Literary CareerⅤ. Jack London (1876-1916)1. Life2. Literary CareerⅥ. SummaryⅠ. Overview1. BackgroundSince people were interested in Darwinian thought, the writers found a way to explain human behavior according to Darwin’s natural selection.Ⅰ. 概述1. 背景人们对达尔文思想感兴趣，作家们用达尔文的自然选择论来解释人类的行为。
2. EmergenceUnder the French influence, some writers ushered in a literary movement called Naturalism in America.2. 出现受法国的影响，一些作家在美国开始发起一场自然主义的文学运动。
3. Major Features(1) Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment.(2) The universe is godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires.3. 主要特征(1) 人类受遗传法则和环境的控制。
第6章地方色彩小说Ⅰ.Fill in the blanks.1.The literary school of_____can be defined as having“such quality of texture andbackground that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native.”（天津外国语2009研）【答案】Local Colorism【解析】哈姆林·加兰（Hamlin Garland）在其《摇摇欲坠的偶像》（Crumbling Idols）一文中指出，乡土文学是一种具有特殊质地和背景特点、除本地人外其他任何地方或任何人都不可能创作出来的文学。
2.At the heart of Mark Twain’s achievement is his creation of two characters:______and______.【答案】Tom Sawyer,Huckleberry Finn【解析】马克·吐温最著名的作品《汤姆·索亚历险记》和《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》的主角分别是Tom Sawyer和Huckleberry Finn。
Ⅱ.Multiple ChoiceIn his later novels,Mark Twain seems less hopeful about democracy,which is reflected in his work,______.A.The Man That Corrupted HadleyburgB.The Mysterious StrangerC.The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras CountryD.A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court【答案】D【解析】《亚瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美国佬》反映出马克·吐温对民主信心渐失。
吴定柏《美国文学大纲》笔记和考研真题详解（9-16章）【圣才出品】第9章1945年之前的现代小说9.1复习笔记Ⅰ.Overview1.Background2.Lost Generation3.Modern FictionⅡ.Ernest Hemingway(1899-1961)1.Life2.Literary Career/doc/0f18413888.html,mentⅢ.Francis Scott Fitzgerald(1896-1940)1.Life2.Literary Career/doc/0f18413888.html,mentⅣ.Sinclair Lewis(1885-1951)1.Life2.Literary Career/doc/0f18413888.html,mentⅤ.John Steinbeck(1902-1968)1.Life2.Literary Career3.The Grapes of WrathⅠ.Overview1.Background①After the war,the voices of new groups of Americans were heard.They were poor,or immigrants,or Jews,or blacks.②During this period there occurred in America areexamination of the structure of literature and of the nature of the critical activity itself.Ⅰ.概述1.背景①战后，很多美国的新作家来自穷人，移民，犹太人或黑人。
②这一时期，美国重新审视了文学结构和评论活动本身。
Lost Generation were cut off from their past.Without a meaningful future to fall on,they were lost in disillusionment and existential voids.2.迷惘的一代迷惘的一代与过去分割。
第12章美国的女性作家Ⅰ.Fill in the blanks.1.Author:_____Title:_____（南京大学2007研）Well,and what if she was?She still had ears.It was like Cornelia to whisper around doors.She always kept things secret in such a public way.She was always being tactful and kind.Cornelia was dutiful;that was the trouble with her.Dutiful and good:“So good and dutiful.”said Granny,“that I’d like to spank her.”【答案】Katherine Anne Porter;The Jilting of Granny Weatherall【解析】题目节选自凯瑟琳的《被遗弃的老祖母》。
2.The Southern Renaissance was the reinvigoration of American Southern literature that began in the1920s and1930s with the appearance of,among others, novelist_____,playwright_____,and short-story writer Katherine Anne Porter.（天津外国语2010研）【答案】journalist,essayist【解析】南方文艺复兴开始于20世纪20年代，代表作家包括福克纳，凯瑟琳·安·波特，尤多拉·韦尔蒂，卡森·麦卡勒斯等。
3.The New Criticism first emerged in1920s as a reaction against the prevailing time-honored critical tendency to focus on the theme often in disregard of the form of the work.The name is given by John Crowe Ransom’s collection ofcritical essays_____.【答案】The New Criticism【解析】“新批评”一词，源于美国文艺批评家约翰·克劳·兰塞姆（John Crowe Ransom）1941年出版的《新批评》（The New Criticism）一书。
第3章超验主义3.1 复习笔记Ⅰ. Overview1. Growth and Development2. Major Concepts3. Significance4. WeaknessesⅡ. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)1. Life2. Literary Achievements3. “The American Scholar”Ⅲ. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)1. Life2. Relations with Emerson3. Walden4. General commentⅠ. Overview1. Growth and Development①New England Transcendentalism was in essence, romantic idealism on Puritan soil.②The Transcendental Club, was formed in 1836 and published their journal The Dial.Ⅰ. 概述1. 产生和发展①新英格兰超验主义从本质上说是清教徒基础上的浪漫唯心主义。
②超验主义俱乐部成立于1836年，并发表了他们的期刊《日晷》。
2. Major Concepts①It stressed the power of intuition. As romantic idealism, it placed spirit first and matter second.②It took nature as symbolic of spirit or God. It emphasized the significance of the individual.2. 主要概念①它强调直觉的力量。
作为浪漫唯心主义，它认为精神第一，物质第二。
②它把自然当作精神或上帝的象征，强调个人的重要性。
第16章后现代小说Ⅰ.Explain the following terms1.Postmodernism（北航2010研）Key:Postmodernism is a disputed term that has occupied much recent debate about contemporary culture since the early1980s.It is said to be a culture of fragmentary sensations,eclectic nostalgia,disposable simulacra,and promiscuous superficiality,in which the traditionally valued qualities of depth, coherence,meaning,originality,and authenticity are evacuated or dissolved amid the random swirl of empty signals.It seems to have no relevance to modern poetry,and little to drama,but is used widely in reference to fiction,notably to the novels(or anti-novels)and stories of Thomas Pynchon,Kurt Vonnegut,Italo Calvino,Vfadimir Nabokov,William S.Burroughs,and Angela Carter.2.MetafictionKey:Metafiction is a literary term popularized by Robert Scholes to describe novels that specifically and self-consciously examine the nature and status of fiction itself and that often contain experiments to test fiction as a form in one way or another.Postmodernist writers tend to apply metafiction in their works,for instance,John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse and John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman.3.Postcolonial literatureKey:①Literature of the settler colony and invade colony.②We use the term post-colonial to cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day.③What each of these literatures has in common beyond their special and distinctive regional characteristics is that they emerged in their present form out of the experience of colonization and asserted themselves by foregrounding the tension with the imperial power.4.OrientalismKey:①Orientalism is“a manner of regularized(or orientalized)writing,vision, and study,dominated by imperatives,perspectives,and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient.”②It is the image of the“Orient”expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship.Ⅱ.Short answer questionsWhat is“hybrid”in postcolonialism?Key:①The term“hybrid”used above refers to the concept of hybridity,an important concept in post-colonial theory,referring to the integration(or,mingling) of cultural signs and practices from the colonizing and the colonized cultures (“integration”may be too orderly a word to represent the variety of stratagems, desperate or cunning or good-willed,by which people adapt themselves to the necessities and the opportunities of more or less oppressive or invasive culturalimpositions,live into alien cultural patterns through their own structures of understanding,thus producing something familiar but new).②The assimilation and adaptation of cultural practices,the cross-fertilization of cultures,can be seen as positive,enriching,and dynamic,as well as oppressive.③“Hybridity”is also a useful concept for helping to break down the false sense that colonized cultures—or colonizing cultures for that matter—are monolithic,or have essential,unchanging features.Ⅲ.Essay questionsHow is the poetry of Postmodernism different from that of Modernism?Key:In terms of the idea of art,in the1890s and the first years of the20th century art and poetry were regarded as the finished products of the creative process, closed in form,with rhymes and stanzas,coherent images and figures,and completed in plot enacted.While art and poetry of Postmodernism are seen as open,on-going,not as the end of thought,but as the process of the mind thinking, stressing motion,created on the impulse of the moment,and not previously well-planned.And there is not much of the finely metered Modernist poem in the new verse that,instead of aiming at an elite readership,endeavors to the common people as much as possible.Thematically,the new poetry normally portrays everyday experiences,events, and emotions.It envisions man as vulnerable and helpless and at the mercy of overwhelming odds.It accepts life for what it is,feeling resigned,painfully aware ofits inability to control and contain life.Instead of trying to“give shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy that is contemporaneous history”(as Eliot puts it),the new verse tries to represent life as it is with its strengths and weaknesses,as something inconsistent,ever changing, and never wholly knowable.The poets’job is,seen by some people,to seize the moment and make the best of it for themselves as well as for the world at large.As regards formal considerations,the new verse embraces open form,“the perfect,easy discipline of the swallow’s dip and swoop,without east to west”(as Gary Snyder puts it).It repudiates the Eliotic,New Critical values of impersonality and objectivity as distancing art from life.It refuses to use“persona”as they feel it separates the writers from their readers.In the new verse,there is very often autobiographical;the tone is personal and emotional;the emotions are often intense though qualifies:there is ambivalence and humor amid remorse,disgust of anguish.The diction of the new verse is mostly from daily speech,its style is conversational,colloquial,discursive and meditative,and its mood generally casual and relaxed.It is necessary to note here that contemporary American poetry is not always easy to read.In fact,much of this poetry is very hard to understand.Possible reasons for this may include the private nature of the poet’s thinking and expression,and their self-indulgence encouraged by the postmodern tendency of extreme individualization.。
吴定柏《美国⽂学⼤纲》笔记和典型题（含考研真题）详解（现代诗歌）【圣才出品】第8章现代诗歌8.1 复习笔记Ⅰ. Overview1. Background2. Modernism3. Imagism(1) Emergence(2) Major features(3) CommentⅡ. Ezra Loomis Pound (1885-1972)1. Life2. Literary CareerⅢ. Thomas Stearns Elliot (1888-1968)1. Life2. Literary CareerⅣ. Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)1. Life2. Literary Career3. Views of Poetry4. Major FeaturesⅤ. E. A. Robinson (1869-1935)1. Life2. Literary Career3. CharacteristicsⅥ. Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963)1. Life2. Literary Career3. CommentⅦ. Contemporary American PoetryⅠ. Overview1. BackgroundIn the 20th century, two characteristic strains in American poetry are introspection and social criticism. But they were often combined together.Ⅰ. 概述1. 背景20世纪，美国诗歌有两⼤类型，即内省和社会批判。
但是两种类型经常结合在⼀起。
2. Modernism(1) Modernism dramatized severance from the past while using the past, its valuesand artistic forms in new literary production.(2) Modernists had a sense of fragmentation in social communities and the individual himself.(3) The distinctive feature of literary modernism was its strong break withtraditional forms and techniques of expression.2. 现代主义(1) 现代主义与过去相隔离，但同时也在新的⽂学作品中使⽤过去的观点和艺术形式。
第8章现代诗歌Ⅰ.Fill in the blanks.1.The most significant American poem of the twentieth century was_____.【答案】The Waste Land【解析】《荒原》（The Waste Land）是现代英美诗歌的里程碑，是象征主义文学中最有代表性的作品，是艾略特的成名作和影响最深远的作品。
2.Edwin Arlington Robinson produced a large body of works and was honored with the_____Prize in1922,1925and1928.【答案】Pulitzer【解析】美国诗人埃德温·阿林顿·罗宾逊(Edwin Arlington Robinson)一生创作了很多作品，他于1922年、1925年和1928年三次赢得普利策奖。
3.Robert Frost’s second volume of poems was_____.【答案】North of Boston【解析】罗伯特·弗罗斯特（Robert Frost）是20世纪最受欢迎的美国诗人，1914年他出版了他个人的第二部诗集《波士顿以北》（North of Boston）这本诗集获得很高的评价。
4.In1915,_____published his Prufrock and Other Observations.【答案】Thomas Stearns Eliot【解析】1917年T·S·艾略特（Thomas Stearns Eliot）出版了他的第一本诗集《普鲁弗洛克及其他观感》（Prufrock and Other Observations）。
Ⅱ.Multiple Choice1.The following excerpt is taken from a poem by_______.（大连外国语2007研）A.Carl SandburgB.Wallace StevensonC.T.S.EliotD.Ezra PoundWhile my hair was still cut straight across my foreheadI played about the front gate,pulling flowers.You came by on bamboo stilts,playing horse,You walked about my seat,playing with blue plums.And we went on living in the village of Chokan:Two small people,without dislike or suspicion.At fourteen I married My Lord you.I never laughed,being bashful.Lowering my head,I looked at the wall.Called to,a thousand times,I never looked back.【答案】D【解析】题中诗句选自美国著名诗人Ezra Pound的诗歌The River-Merchant’s Wife:ALetter。
四、作品分析Passage1（北二外2017研）Read the following poem and write an essay based on your analysis of the poem. Remember to start your essay with a statement,then support your ideas with-supporting details,and finally come to a conclusion.NatureKey:(1)It is the opening verse of Nature published in1849.This opening verse revealsEmerson’s approach,in both philosophy and his writing,of starring from one point and moving outward.It also introduces many of the themes and images to follow in Nature and throughout his other writings,such as the circle of“chain of countless rings”and“the eye”to represent continuity and vision,the interconnectedness of all things in nature,and humanity as nature’s highest “form.”Nature is,according to biographer Richardson,“a modern version of Plato,and American version of Kant.”(2)As an exhibition of Emerson’s philosophical tenets,Emerson’s sense ofmankind’s destined arrival in the evolutionary process and the affinity of man’s still emerging mind with the laws of universe.The principal motif of thispoem,as previously mentioned,harkens all the way through Nature,which provides the evidence that Emerson’s endorsement of the theory of evolution.Along with other poems,such as“Wealth”,and“Fate”,Emerson expressed his trust in entire universe.As the following text of“nature”has ascribed to the notions mentioned in this poem,such as“an original relation to the universe”,“transparent eye-ball”and a person who striving to be a“great man”.(3)However,the idea of Emerson’s Nature,was criticized as the epitome ofTranscendentalist individualism and self-absorption.Despite such criticisms, both the message of ones with nature and the first-person stream of consciousness style defined a new literary genre as well as a new philosophy and would later be echoed in the works of other writers of the era,such as Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman.Passage2（南开大学2012研）Questions1to4are based on the several stanzas from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem The Raven.Questions:1.In stanzaⅠ,what is the speaker doing when he first hear the tapping?What does he seek to borrow,’in stanza2?2.What does the speaker say“to still the beating”of his heart?What does the speaker see when he open the door?3.What does the speaker whisper?4.Paraphrase the first five stanzas of the poem.Key:1.He is thinking deeply about some“quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore”weakly and wearily,nodding and nearly napping.He seeks to borrow sorrow from his books,because that his lover dies and he is very sad and painful.2.Because that he is extremely frightened by the knocking,he decides to have a look at the door.He holds his breath and goes to the door.When he opens the door,he sees nothing except the darkness.3.The speaker whispers“Lenore”,which is the name of his deceased lover.4.When I was in deep thought at night,nodding and napping,I heard the knocking at my chamber door.I was frightened by such sound,so I decided to see who it was.And when I opened the door,there was nothing but darkness.In the darkness,I whispered my lover’s name“Lenore”.Passage3（北航2011研）It made me shiver.And I about made up my mind to pray,and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better.So I kneeled down.But the words wouldn’t come.Why wouldn’t they?It warn’t no use to try and hide it from Him.Nor from ME,neither.I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come.It was because my heart warn’t right;it was because I warn’t square;it was because I was playing double.I was letting ON to give up sin,but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all.I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right thing and the clean thing,and go and write to that nigger’s owner and tell where he was;but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie,and He knowed it.You can’t pray a lie—I found that out.So I was full of trouble,full as I could be;and didn’t know what to do.At last I had an idea;and I says,I’ll go and write the letter—and then see if I can pray.Why, it was astonishing,the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off,and my troubles all gone.So I got a piece of paper and a pencil,all glad and excited,and set down and wrote：Miss Watson,your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.HUCK FINN.I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life.and I knowed I could pray now.But I didn’t do it straight off,but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was all this happened so,and how near I come to being lost and going to hell.And went on thinking.And got to thinking over our trip down the river;and I see Jim before me all the time:in the day and in the night-time,sometimes moonlight,sometimes storms,and we a-floating along,talking and singing and laughing.But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him,but only the other kind.I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n,stead of calling me,so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog;and when I come to him again in the swamp,up there where the feud was;and such-like times;and would always call me honey,and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was;and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard,and he was so grateful,and said I was the bestfriend old Jim ever had in the world,and the ONLY one he’s got now;and then I happened to look around and see that paper.It was a close place.I took it up,and held it in my hand.I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide,forever,betwixt two things,and I knowed it.I studied a minute,sort of holding my breath,and then says to myself:“All right,then,I’ll GO to hell”—and tore it up.Questions:a.Identify the author of the work from which the passage is selected.b.Define the literary school/trend to which the author belongs?ment on the selection.Key:a.This passage is selected from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.b.Mark Twain belongs to the American Realism and local colorism.By definition, realism is broadly defined as“the faithful representation of reality”or “verisimilitude which is a literary technique practiced by many schools of writing. In American,the term“realism”encompasses the period of time from the Civil War to the turn of the century.Writers like Mark Twain wrote fiction devoted to accurate representation and an exploration of American lives in various contexts. In his works,the detailed representation in prose fiction of the setting,dialect, customs,dress any ways of thinking and feeling which are distinctive of a particular region.。
三、术语解释1.“grace under pressure”（武大2015研）Key:Hemingway writes all his life about one theme,“grace under pressure”.His world is essentially chaotic and meaningless,in which man fights solitarily against a force he does not even understand.The awareness that it must end in defeat, no matter how hard he struggles,engenders a sense of despair.But the Hemingway hero possesses courage to assert his dignity in face of adversity.This is the essence of a code of honor in which all of Hemingway’s heroes believed.2.Calvinism（北二外2017研）Key:Calvinism is the doctrine of John Calvin,the great French theologian who lived in Geneva.It’s doctrine of predestination,original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement(or the salvation of a selected few)through a special infusion of grace from god.3.The Beat Generation（厦门大学2013研）Key:The Beat Generation is a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era.The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the1950s.Central elements of Beat culture are rejection of standard narrative values,spiritual quest,exploration of American and Eastern religions, rejection of materialism,explicit portrayals of the human condition,experimentation with psychedelic drugs,and sexual liberation and exploration.4.Transcendentalism（南开大学2011研）Key:Transcendentalism is a New England movement,which flourished from about1835to1860.It had its roots in romanticism and in post-Kantian idealism by which Coleridge was influenced.It had a considerable influence on American art and literature.Basically religious,it emphasized the role and importance of the individual conscience,and the value of intuition in matters of moral guidance and inspiration.The actual term was coined by opponents of the movement,but accepted by its members.The group of people was also social reformers.Some of the members,besides Emerson,were famous,including Bronson Alcott,Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne.5.Point of view（北外2011研）Key:Point of view refers to the position or vantage-point from which the events of a story seem to be observed and presented to us.The chief distinction usually made between points of view between third-person narratives and first-person narratives.A third-person narrator may be omniscient,and therefore shows an unrestricted knowledge of the story’s events from outside or‘above’them; but another kind of third-person narrator may confine our knowledge of events to whatever is observed by a single character or small group of characters,this method being known as‘limited point of view’.A first-person narrator’spoint of view will normally be restricted to his or her partial knowledge and experience,and therefore will not give us access to other characters’hidden thoughts.Many modern authors have also used‘multiple point of view’,in which we are shown the events from the positions of two or more different characters.6.Symbol（北航2012研）Key:A symbol is a sign which suggests more than its literal meaning.In other words,a symbol is both literal and figurative.In literary usage,a symbol is an especially evocative kind of image,that is,a word or phrase referring to a concrete object,scene,or action which also has some further significance associated with it.Roses,mountains,birds,and voyages have all been used as common literary symbols.7.Narrator（西安交大2008研）Key:One who narrates,or tells,a story.A story may be told by a first-person narrator,someone who is either a major or minor character in the story.Or a story may be told by a third-person narrator,someone who is not in the story at all. The word narrator can also refer to a character in a drama who guides the audience through the play,often commenting on the action and sometimes participating in it.8.Imagism（北二外2015研）Key:An influential literary movement that took place in Europe and America from 1910to1920.The imagist poet creates a simple,clear,and vivid image which in itself is the expression of art and meaning to evoke an emotional response in the reader.Imagism was in part a reaction to the“bad habits”of19th century poets who were too explicit in their commentary and too repetitious in their subjects,patterns,and meters.One of the representatives of Imagism is Ezra Pound,whose major works include In a Station of the Metro,and Cathay.9.Antagonist（北航2011研）Key:In literary works,antagonist is a person or force opposing the protagonist in a narrative,a rival of the hero or central character who is often hindered by some opposing force either human or animal.The antagonist may not be a human being.Sometimes the antagonist may not be a living creature at all,but the hostile social or natural environment.10.Oversoul（北二外2014研）Key:Oversoul,is a concept by Ralph Waldo Emerson introduced in his1841 essay by the same name,meaning“over abiding presence”.It refers to an impersonal force that is eternal moral,harmonious,and beneficent in tendency.Emerson believed that there should be an emotional communication between an individual soul and tee universal“oversoul”,since the over-soul is anall-pervading power from which all things come from and of which all is a part.One of the tendencies of the“over-soul”is to express itself in form hence the world of nature as an emanation of the world of spirit.11.Aesthetic distance（北航2012研）Key:Aesthetic distance refers to the gap between a viewer’s conscious reality and the fictional reality presented in a work of art.William Faulkner tends to invoke a close aesthetic distance by using the first person narrative and stream of consciousness,while Earnest Hemingway tends to invoke a greater aesthetic distance from readers by using the third person narrative.12.Black humor（北二外2014研）Key:In contemporary literary criticism,black humor is a term applied to a large group of American novels beginning in the1950s.Although the writers of black humor did not intentionally form a school of literary’movement,there is in their novels a common core of satire which is directed against hypocrisy, materialism,racial prejudice,and above all,the dehumanization of the individual by a modem society.In their opinion,their society is full of institutionalized absurdity.Therefore,all of them hold a cynical attitude toward society and the conventional moral values which support that society.This despondency is reflected in their novels,not by angry protest,but by the use of exaggeration asa vehicle for satire.The satire is based on the exposition and exaggeration of theabnormal and the seamy side of both people and society to the point of ridiculousness and absurdity.It is humor out of despair and laughter out of tears.13.Harlem renaissance（北航2011研）Key:Harlem renaissance originally called the New Negro Movement,was a literary and intellectual flowering that fostered a new black cultural identity in the1920s and1930s.It was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City.The Harlem Renaissance changed the images of literature created by many black and white American writers.New black images were no longer obedient and docile.Instead they showed a new confidence and racial pride.The representative writers include Langston Hughes,Claude Mckay,Jean Toomer and Countee Cullen.14.Darwinism（北二外2015研）Key:Darwinism refers to the evolutionary theories raised by Charles Darwin.The naturalists applied these theories to human society,stressing the animality of man and suggesting that he was dominated by the irresistible forces.One of the representatives of Social Darwinism is Herbert Spencer,whose major works include On the Proper Sphere of Government,The Philosophy of Style,Principles of Psychology,and A Theory of Population.。
第7章自然主义Ⅰ. Fill in the blanks.1. Jack London’s masterwork _____ is somewhat autobiographical.【答案】Martin Eden【解析】杰克·伦敦名作《马丁·伊登》（Martin Eden）是一部带有自传色彩的长篇小说中，在该书中杰克·伦敦倾注了他的全部心血，写下了自己如何在平庸的资产阶级鄙夷下含辛茹苦地读书和写作的经历。
2. Theodore Dreiser visited the Soviet Union in 1927 and published _____ thefollowing year.【答案】Dreiser Looks at Russia【解析】1927年访苏后，德莱塞发表了一些作品，其中重要的有1928年发表的《德莱塞访苏印象记》（Dreiser Looks at Russia）。
Ⅱ. Explain the following term s1. American Naturalism（北二外2007研；南开大学2008研）Key: American Naturalism appeared in the late 19th to early 20th century. The movement was inspired by the principles and methods of natural science, especially Darwinism, which were adapted to literature and art. In literature, naturalism extended the tradition of realism, aiming at an even more faithful, pseudoscientific representation of reality, presented without moral judgment.Characters in naturalistic literature typically illustrate the deterministic role of heredity and environment on human life. Typical American Naturalism is represented by Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, Frank Norris’s McTeague and Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrier.2. “Trilogy of Desire”（中国人民大学2006研）Key: It refers to Theodore Dreiser’s three novels: The Financier，The Titan and The Stoic. The trilogy is based on the life of Charles T．Yerkes，an American transportation magnate. In his trilogy Dreiser’s focus shifted from the pathos of the helpless protagonists at the bottom of the society to the power of the American financial tycoons in the late 19th century.3. Determinism（国际关系学院2007研）Key: Determinism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. With numerous historical debates, many varieties and philosophical positions on the subject of determinism exist from traditions throughout the world.4. The Octopus（四川大学2008研）Key: The Octopus is a novel by Frank Norris. It describes the raising of wheat in California, and conflict between the wheat growers and a railway company.Inspired by role of the Southern Pacific Railroad, it depicts the tension between the corrupt railroad and the ranchers and the ranchers’ League. The book emphasized the control of “forces” such as wheat and railroads over individuals.5. Henry Fleming（北航2009研）Key: Henry Fleming is the protagonist of The Red Badge of Courage, written by American novelist Stephen Crane. Henry Fleming is a young farm boy whose dreams of glorious battle lead him to join in the American Civil War. Upon entering battle, his initial confrontation with true war perplexes him and he flees into the woods and feels like a coward. A fter he receives his “red badge of courage,” a head wound, this shame begins to disappear, and however, he feels guilty. He managed to return to battlefield. In the following battles, Henry becomes one of the best fighters in his battalion as well as the flag bearer, finally proving his courage as a man.Ⅲ. Read the following quotation and answer the questions.The advance of the enemy had seemed to the youth like a ruthless hunting. He began to fume with rage and exasperation. He beat his foot upon the ground, and scowled with hate at the swirling smoke that was approaching like a phantom flood. There was a maddening quality in this seeming resolution of the foe to give him no rest, to give him no time to sit down and think. Yesterday he had fought and hadfled rapidly. There had been adventures. For today he felt that he had earned opportunities for contemplative repose. He could have enjoyed portraying to uninitiated listeners various scenes at which he had been a witness or ably discussing the processes of war with other proved men. Too it was important that he should have time for physical recuperation. He was sore and stiff from his experiences. He had received his fill of all exertions, and he wished to rest. Questions:1. From which novel is this paragraph taken?2. Who is the author of this novel?3. How does the author succeed in giving the reader the feeling of war?Key:1. The Red Badge of Courage2. Stephen Crane3. The author compares war to a hunting process. The ruthlessness of war hasturned men into animals. They have to flee or to hunt others or to be hunted.The hero’s psychological anger and restlessness reflected in the passage is a reflection of war’s cruelty.Ⅳ. Short answer questionsHow 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 histime-sequence accurate. Also reflecting his experience as a journalist are the swift impressions he uses to introduce events and characters.Ⅴ. Essay questions1. 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 the meaninglessness of life. Therefore, it reflects the naturalistic feature of his works.2. 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 great deal 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 e nvironmental 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.3. What is Frank Norris’s own explanation of his fi ction? 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 natural laws 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。
