美国文学简史笔记常耀信

第18章波特•韦尔蒂•麦卡勒斯•韦斯特•新批评18.1 复习笔记I. Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980)（凯瑟琳·安·波特）1. Life（生平）Katherine Anne Porter was born in Indian Greek, Texas. She began her life as a news reporter and sometimes as an actress and ballad singer. Later she stayed in Europe and Mexico which proved very valuable for her writing. She was basically a short-story writer. Her Collected Stories won her both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. She lectured at various universities and received honorary doctorates from various institutions. She was vice president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters from 1950 to 1952.凯瑟琳·安·波特出生于德克萨斯州印第安河市。

她曾做过报社记者，演员和民谣歌手。

后来她到过欧洲和墨西哥。

这段经历对她日后的写作很有帮助。

她主要是短篇小说家。

她的《短篇小说集》获得了普利策奖和全国图书奖。

她曾到许多大学做讲座，收到了许多机构授予的荣誉博士学位。

从1950年到1952年她担任美国国家艺术与文学协会副主席。

2. Major works（主要作品）Flowering Judas《开花的犹大树》“The Flowering Judas”《开花的犹大树》“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”《风霜老奶奶的婚变》Pale Horse, Pale Rider《灰色骑士灰色马》Leaning Tower and Other Stories《斜塔及其他》Ships Of Fools《愚人船》3. Analysis of major work（主要作品分析）◆Ships Of Fools《愚人船》This novel was based on her first voyage from Mexico to Europe in 1931. She declared that her novel was concerned with the downhill drag of western civilization. The novel consists of three parts, “Embarkation,”“High Sea,” and “The Harours.” The ship is a metaphor for the macrocosmic human world. The novel is supposed to tell the truth about man and his life. And the truth revealed here is disconcertingly depressing. Man is portrayed with his foibles and failings that make him out as an arrant fool. Their behavior is generally so disgusting. Life is so bad and lonely and sickening that it is not quite worth living. They voyage toward a place waiting dark and cold for them. One reads the book and comes away with the impression that misanthropy is justifiable.该小说是作者根据1931年从墨西哥到欧洲的航行经历写成的。

第3章美国浪漫主义欧文库柏3.1 复习笔记I. Overview of American Romanticism（美国浪漫主义简介）In the history of American literature, the Romantic period is one of the most important periods. It stretched from the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the civil war.美国文学中的浪漫主义时期开始于18世纪末，到南北战争爆发为止，是美国文学史上的重要阶段。

1. Background（背景）(1) A nation bursting into new life cried for literary expression. The buoyant mood of the nation and the spirit of the times seemed in some measure responsible for the spectacular outburst of romantic feeling. The literary milieu proved fertile and conductive to the imagination. Magazine appeared in ever-increasing numbers. They played an important role in facilitating literary expansion.(2) Foreign influences added incentive to the growth of romanticism. The Romantic Movement, which had flourished earlier in the century both in Englandand Europe, proved to be a decisive influence on the upsurge of American romanticism.(3) There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider.(1) 生机勃勃、开创新生活的美国渴望有新的文学表达形式。

第22章纽约派诗人•沉思型诗歌•黑山派诗人22.1 复习笔记I. The New York School（纽约派诗人）1. Features of the New York School（纽约派诗歌的特点）The so-called New York School became well known with the publication of Donald Allen’s 1960 anthology. The poets of the New York School were different in their separate pursuits, but their poetry reveals something they shared in common.(1) For one thing, they were all vehemently up against the dominant New Critical values such as the impersonal presentation of images, and tried to assert their individual poetic voice.(2) They also introduced the popular and the low features of life into their writings like popular songs, comic strip figures, and Hollywood movies.(3) Thirdly, they exhibited a huge sense of humor, offering room as their poems did for elements like the vulgar and the sentimental.(4) Finally, they experimented with Surrealism, for a while.所谓的纽约派是随着唐纳德·艾伦1960年发表的文集而出名的。

A Concise History of American LiteratureWhat is literature?Literature is language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages.Chapter 1 Colonial PeriodI.Background: Puritanism1.features of Puritanism(1)Predestination: God decided everythingbefore things occurred.(2)Original sin: Human beings were born to beevil, and this original sin can be passeddown from generation to generation.(3)Total depravity(4)Limited atonement: Only the “elect” canbe saved.2.Influence(1) A group of good qualities –hard work,thrift, piety, sobriety (serious andthoughtful) influenced American literature.(2)It led to the everlasting myth. Allliterature is based on a myth – garden ofEden.(3)Symbolism: the American puri tan’smetaphorical mode of perception was chieflyinstrumental in calling into being aliterary symbolism which is distinctlyAmerican.(4)With regard to their writing, the style isfresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric isplain and honest, not without a touch ofnobility often traceable to the directinfluence of the Bible.II.Overview of the literature1.types of writingdiaries, histories, journals, letters, travelbooks, autobiographies/biographies, sermons2.writers of colonial period(1)Anne Bradstreet(2)Edward Taylor(3)Roger Williams(4)John Woolman(5)Thomas Paine(6)Philip FreneauIII.Jonathan Edwards1.life2.works(1)The Freedom of the Will(2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended(3)The Nature of True Virtue3.ideas – pioneer of transcendentalism(1)The spirit of revivalism(2)Regeneration of man(3)God’s presence(4)Puritan idealismIV.Benjamin Franklin1.life2.works(1)Poor Richard’s Almanac(2)Autobiography3.contribution(1)He helped found the PennsylvaniaHospitaland the American Philosophical Society.(2)He was called “the new Prometheus who hadstolen fire (electricity in this case) fromheaven”.(3)Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melvillethus described him “master of each andmastered by none”.Chapter 2 American RomanticismSection 1 Early Romantic PeriodWhat is Romanticism?●An approach from ancient Greek: Plato● A literary trend: 18c in Britain (1798~1832)●Schlegel Bros.I.Preview: Characteristics of romanticism1.subjectivity(1)feeling and emotions, finding truth(2)emphasis on imagination(3)emphasis on individualism –personalfreedom, no hero worship, natural goodnessof human beings2.back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature(1)unrestrained by classical rules(2)full of imagination(3)colloquial language(4)freedom of imagination(5)genuine in feelings: answer their call forclassics3.back to naturenature is “breathing living thing” (Rousseau) II.American Romanticism1.Background(1)Political background and economicdevelopment(2)Romantic movement in European countriesDerivative – foreign influence2.features(1)American romanticism was in essence theex pression of “a real new experience andcontained “an alien quality” for thesimple reason that “the spirit of theplace” was radically new and alien.(2)There is American Puritanism as a culturalheritage to consider. American romanticauthors tended more to moralize. ManyAmerican romantic writings intended toedify more than they entertained.(3)The “newness” of Americans as a nation isin connection with American Romanticism.(4)As a logical result of the foreign andnative factors at work, Americanromanticism was both imitative andindependent.III.WashingtonIrving1.several names attached to Irving(1)first American writer(2)the messenger sent from the new world tothe old world(3)father of American literature2.life3.works(1) A History of New York from the Beginning ofthe World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty(2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.(He won a measure of internationalrecognition with the publication of this.)(3)The History of the Life and Voyages ofChristopher Columbus(4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada(5)The Alhambra4.Literary career: two parts(1)1809~1832a.Subjects are either English or Europeanb.Conservative love for the antique(2)1832~1859: back to US5.style – beautiful(1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness(2)avoiding moralizing –amusing andentertaining(3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere(4)vivid and true characters(5)humour – smiling while reading(6)musical languageIV.James Fenimore Cooper1.life2.works(1)Precaution (1820, his first novel,imitating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice)(2)The Spy (his second novel and great success)(3)Leatherstocking Tales (his masterpiece, aseries of five novels)The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans,The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, The Prairie3.point of viewthe theme of wilderness vs. civilization,freedom vs. law, order vs. change, aristocratvs. democrat, natural rights vs. legal rights4.style(1)highly imaginative(2)good at inventing tales(3)good at landscape description(4)conservative(5)characterization wooden and lacking inprobability(6)language and use of dialect not authentic5.literary achievementsHe created a myth about the formative periodof the American nation. If the history of theUnited States is, in a sense, the process ofthe American settlers exploring and pushingthe American frontier forever westward, thenCooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectivelyapproximates the American national experienceof adventure into the West. He turned the westand frontier as a useable past and he helpedto introduce western tradition to Americanliterature.Section 2 Summit of Romanticism –American TranscendentalismI.Background: four sources1.Unitarianism(1)Fatherhood of God(2)Brotherhood of men(3)Leadership of Jesus(4)Salvation by character (perfection ofone’s character)(5)Continued progress of mankind(6)Divinity of mankind(7)Depravity of mankind2.Romantic IdealismCenter of the world is spirit, absolute spirit(Kant)3.Oriental mysticismCenter of the world is “oversoul”4.PuritanismEloquent expression in transcendentalismII.Appearance1836, “Nature” by EmersonIII.Features1.spirit/oversoul2.importance of individualism3.nature – symbol of spirit/Godgarment of the oversoul4.focus in intuition (irrationalism andsubconsciousness)IV.Influence1.It served as an ethical guide to life for ayoung nation and brought about the idea thathuman can be perfected by nature. It stressedreligious tolerance, called to throw offshackles of customs and traditions and goforward to the development of a new anddistinctly American culture.2.It advocated idealism that was great needed ina rapidly expanded economy where opportunityoften became opportunism, and the desire to“get on” obscured the moral necessity forrising to spiritual height.3.It helped to create the first Americanrenaissance – one of the most prolific periodin American literature.V.Ralph Waldo Emerson1.life2.works(1)Nature(2)Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet3.point of view(1)One major element of his philosophy is hisfirm belief in the transcendence of the“oversoul”.(2)He regards nature as the purest, and themost sanctifying moral influence on man,and advocated a direct intuition of aspiritual and immanent God in nature.(3)If man depends upon himself, cultivateshimself and brings out the divine inhimself, he can hope to become better andeven perfect. This is what Emerson means by“the infinitude of man”.(4)Everyone should understand that he makeshimself by making his world, and that hemakes the world by making himself.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He is a complete man, an eternal man.(2)True poetry and true art should ennoble.(3)The poet should express his thought insymbols.(4)As to theme, Emerson called upon Americanauthors to celebrate America which was tohim a lone poem in itself.5.his influenceVI.Henry David Thoreau1.life2.works(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River(2)Walden(3) A Plea for John Brown (an essay)3.point of view(1)He did not like the way a materialisticAmerica was developing and was vehementlyoutspoken on the point.(2)He hated the human injustice as representedby the slavery system.(3)Like Emerson, but more than him, Thoreausaw nature as a genuine restorative,healthy influence on man’s spiritual well-being.(4)He has faith in the inner virtue and inward,spiritual grace of man.(5)He was very critical of modern civilization.(6)“Simplicity…simplify!”(7)He was sorely disgusted with “theinundations of the dirty institutions ofmen’s odd-fellow society”.(8)He has calm trust in the future and hisardent belief in a new generation of men. Section 3 Late RomanticismI.Nathaniel Hawthorne1.life2.works(1)Two collections of short stories: Twice-told Tales, Mosses from and Old Manse(2)The Scarlet Letter(3)The House of the Seven Gables(4)The Marble Faun3.point of view(1)Evil is at the core of human life, “thatblackness in Hawthorne”(2)Whenever there is sin, there is punishment.Sin or evil can be passed from generationto generation (causality).(3)He is of the opinion that evil educates.(4)He has disgust in science.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He took a great interest in history andantiquity. To him these furnish the soil onwhich his mind grows to fruition.(2)He was convinced that romance was thepredestined form of American narrative. Totell the truth and satirize and yet not tooffend: That was what Hawthorne had in mindto achieve.5.style – typical romantic writer(1)the use of symbols(2)revelation of characters’ psychology(3)the use of supernatural mixed with theactual(4)his stories are parable (parable inform) –to teach a lesson(5)use of ambiguity to keep the reader in theworld of uncertainty –multiple point ofviewII.Herman Melville1.life2.works(1)Typee(2)Omio(3)Mardi(4)Redburn(5)White Jacket(6)Moby Dick(7)Pierre(8)Billy Budd3.point of view(1)He never seems able to say an affirmativeyes to life: His is the attitude of“Everlasting Nay” (negative attitudetowards life).(2)One of the major themes of his isalienation (far away from each other).Other themes: loneliness, suicidalindividualism (individualism causingdisaster and death), rejection and quest,confrontation of innocence and evil, doubtsover the comforting 19c idea of progress4.style(1)Like Hawthorne, Melville manages to achievethe effect of ambiguity through employingthe technique of multiple view of hisnarratives.(2)He tends to write periodic chapters.(3)His rich rhythmical prose and his poeticpower have been profusely commented uponand praised.(4)His works are symbolic and metaphorical.(5)He includes many non-narrative chapters offactual background or description of whatgoes on board the ship or on the route(Moby Dick)Romantic PoetsI.Walt Whitman1.life2.work: Leaves of Grass (9 editions)(1)Song of Myself(2)There Was a Child Went Forth(3)Crossing Brooklyn Ferry(4)Democratic Vistas(5)Passage to India(6)Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking3.themes –“Catalogue of American and Europeanthought”He had been influenced by many American andEuropean thoughts: enlightenment, idealism,transcendentalism, science, evolution ideas,western frontier spirits, Jefferson’sindividualism, Civil War Unionism, Orientalism.Major themes in his poems (almost everything):●equality of things and beings●divinity of everything●immanence of God●democracy●evolution of cosmos●multiplicity of nature●self-reliant spirit●death, beauty of death●expansion of America●brotherhood and social solidarity (unity ofnations in the world)●pursuit of love and happiness4.style: “free verse”(1)no fixed rhyme or scheme(2)parallelism, a rhythm of thought(3)phonetic recurrence(4)the habit of using snapshots(5)the use of a certain pronoun “I”(6) a looser and more open-ended syntacticstructure(7)use of conventional image(8)strong tendency to use oral English(9)vocabulary –powerful, colourful, rarelyused words of foreign origins, some evenwrong(10)sentences – catalogue technique: long listof names, long poem lines5.influence(1)His best work has become part of the commonproperty of Western culture.(2)He took over Whitman’s vision of the poet-prophet and poet-teacher and recast it in amore sophisticated and Europeanized mood.(3)He has been compared to a mountain inAmerican literary history.(4)Contemporary American poetry, whateverschool or form, bears witness to his greatinfluence.II.Emily Dickenson1.life2.works(1)My Life Closed Twice before Its Close(2)Because I Can’t Stop for Death(3)I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I died(4)Mine – by the Right of the White Election(5)Wild Nights – Wild Nights3.themes: based on her ownexperiences/joys/sorrows(1)religion –doubt and belief aboutreligious subjects(2)death and immortality(3)love – suffering and frustration caused bylove(4)physical aspect of desire(5)nature – kind and cruel(6)free will and human responsibility4.style(1)poems without titles(2)severe economy of expression(3)directness, brevity(4)musical device to create cadence (rhythm)(5)capital letters – emphasis(6)short poems, mainly two stanzas(7)rhetoric techniques: personification –make some of abstract ideas vividparison: Whitman vs. Dickinson1.Similarities:(1)Thematically, they both extolled, in theirdifferent ways, an emergent America, itsexpansion, its individualism and itsAmericanness, their poetry being part of“American Renaissance”.(2)Technically, they both added to theliterary independence of the new nation bybreaking free of the convention of theiambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedomin form unknown before: they were pioneersin American poetry.2.differences:(1)Whitman seems to keep his eye on society atlarge; Dickinson explores the inner life ofthe individual.(2)Whereas Whitman is “national” in hisoutlook, Dickinson is “regional”.(3)Dickinson has the “catalogue technique”(direct, simple style) which Whitmandoesn’t ha ve.Edgar Allen PoeI.LifeII.Works1.short stories(1)ratiocinative storiesa.Ms Found in a Bottleb.The Murders in the Rue Morguec.The Purloined Letter(2)Revenge, death and rebirtha.The Fall of the House of Usherb.Ligeiac.The Masque of the Red Death(3)Literary theorya.The Philosophy of Compositionb.The Poetic Principlec.Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told TalesIII.Themes1.death –predominant theme in Poe’s writing“Poe is not interested in anything alive.Everything in Poe’s writings is dead.”2.disintegration (separation) of life3.horror4.negative thoughts of scienceIV.Aesthetic ideas1.The short stories should be of brevity,totality, single effect, compression andfinality.2.The poems should be short, and the aim shouldbe beauty, the tone melancholy. Poems shouldnot be of moralizing. He calls for pure poetryand stresses rhythm.V.Style – traditional, but not easy to readVI.Reputation: “the jingle man” (Emerson)VII.His influencesChapter 3 The Age of RealismI.Background: From Romanticism to Realism1.the three conflicts that reached breakingpoint in this period(1)industrialism vs. agrarian(2)culturely-measured east vs. newly-developedwest(3)plantation gentility vs. commercialgentility2.1880’s urbanization: from free competition tomonopoly capitalism3.the closing of American frontierII.Characteristics1.truthful description of life2.typical character under typical circumstance3.objective rather than idealized, closeobservation and investigation of life“Realistic writers are like scientists.”4.open-ending:Life is complex and cannot be fully understood.It leaves much room for readers to think by themselves.5.concerned with social and psychologicalproblems, revealing the frustrations ofcharacters in an environment of sordidness anddepravityIII.Three Giants in Realistic Period1.William Dean Howells –“Dean of AmericanRealism”(1)Realistic principlesa.Realism is “fidelity to experience andprobability of motive”.b.The aim is “talk of some ordinary traits ofAmerican life”.c.Man in his natural and unaffected dullnesswas the object of Howells’s fictionalrepresentation.d.Realism is by no means mere photographicpictures of externals but includes a centralconcern with “motives” and psychologicalconflicts.e.He condemns novels of sentimentality andmorbid self-sacrifice, and avoids suchthemes as illicit love.f.Authors should minimize plot and theartificial ordering of the sense ofsomething “desultory, unfinished,imperfect”.g.Characters should have solidity ofspecification and be real.h.Interpreting sympathetically the “commonfeelings of commonplace people” was bestsuited as a technique to express the spiritof America.i.He urged writers to winnow tradition andwrite in keeping with current humanitarianideals.j.Truth is the highest beauty, but it includes the view that morality penetrates all things.k.With regard to literary criticism, Howells felt that the literary critic should not tryto impose arbitrary or subjectiveevaluations on books but should follow thedetached scientist in accurate description,interpretation, and classification.(2)Worksa.The Rise of Silas Laphamb. A Chance Acquaintancec. A Modern Instance(3)Features of His Worksa.Optimistic toneb.Moral development/ethicscking of psychological depth2.Henry James(1)Life(2)Literary career: three stagesa.1865~1882: international theme●The American●Daisy Miller●The Portrait of a Ladyb.1882~1895: inter-personal relationships andsome plays●Daisy Miller (play)c.1895~1900: novellas and tales dealing withchildhood and adolescence, then back tointernational theme●The Turn of the Screw●When Maisie Knew●The Ambassadors●The Wings of the Dove●The Golden Bowl(3)Aesthetic ideasa.The aim of novel: represent lifemon, even ugly side of lifec.Social function of artd.Avoiding omniscient point of view(4)Point of viewa.Psychological analysis, forefather of streamof consciousnessb.Psychological realismc.Highly-refined language(5)Style –“stylist”nguage: highly-refined, polished,insightful, accurateb.Vocabulary: largec.Construction: complicated, intricate3.Mark Twain (see next section)Local Colorism1860s, 1870s~1890sI.Appearance1.uneven development in economy in America2.culture: flourishing of frontier literature,humourists3.magazines appeared to let writer publish theirworksII.What is “Local Colour”?Tasks of local colourists: to write or present local characters of their regions in truthful depiction distinguished from others, usually a very small part of the world.Regional literature (similar, but larger in world)●Garland, Harte – the west●Eggleston – Indiana●Mrs Stowe●Jewett – Maine●Chopin – LouisianaIII.Mark Twain – Mississippi1.life2.works(1)The Gilded Age(2)“the two advantages”(3)Life on the Mississippi(4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’sCourt(5)The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug3.style(1)colloquial language, vernacular language,dialects(2)local colour(3)syntactic feature: sentences are simple,brief, sometimes ungrammatical(4)humour(5)tall tales (highly exaggerated)(6)social criticism (satire on the differentugly things in society)parison of the three “giants” of American Realism1.ThemeHowells – middle classJames – upper classTwain – lower class2.TechniqueHowells – smiling/genteel realismJames – psychological realismTwain – local colourism and colloquialism Chapter 4 American NaturalismI.Background1.Darwin’s theory: “natural selection”2.Spenser’s idea: “social Darwinism”3.French Naturalism: ZoraII.Features1.environment and heredity2.scientific accuracy and a lot of details3.general tone: hopelessness, despair, gloom,ugly side of the societyIII.significanceIt prepares the way for the writing of 1920s’ “lost generation” and T. S. Eliot.IV.Theodore Dreiser1.life2.works(1)Sister Carrie(2)The trilogy: Financier, The Titan, TheStoic(3)Jennie Gerhardt(4)American Tragedy(5)The Genius3.point of view(1)He embraced social Darwinism – survival ofthe fittest. He learned to regard man asmerely an animal driven by greed and lustin a struggle for existence in which onlythe “fittest”, the most ruthless, survive.(2)Life is predatory, a “game” of thelecherous and heartless, a jungle strugglein which man, being “a waif and aninterloper in Nature”, a “wisp in thewind of social forces”, is a mere pawn inthe general scheme of things, with no powerwhatever to assert his will.(3)No one is ethically free; everything isdetermined by a complex of internalchemisms and by the forces of socialpressure.4.Sister Carrie(1)Plot(2)Analysis5.Style(1)Without good structure(2)Deficient characterization(3)Lack in imagination(4)Journalistic method(5)Techniques in paintingChapter 5 The Modern PeriodSection 1 The 1920sI.IntroductionThe 1920s is a flowering period of American literature. It is considered “the second renaissance” of American literature.The nicknames for this period:(1)Roaring 20s – comfort(2)Dollar Decade – rich(3)Jazz Age – Jazz musicII.Backgrounda)First World War –“a war to end all wars”(1)Economically: became rich from WWI.Economic boom: new inventions. Highly-consuming society.(2)Spiritually: dislocation, fragmentation.b)wide-spread contempt for law (looking downupon law)1.Freud’s theoryIII.Features of the literatureWriters: three groups(1)Participants(2)Expatriates(3)Bohemian (unconventional way of life) –on-lookersTwo areas:(1)Failure of communication of Americans(2)Failure of the American societyImagismI. BackgroundImagism was influenced by French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japanese literature “haiku”II. Development: three stages1.1908~1909: London, Hulme2.1912~1914: England -> America, Pound3.1914~1917: Amy LowellIII. What is an “image”?An image is defined by Pound as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas” “endowed with energy”. The exact word must bring the effect of the object before the reader as it had presented itself to the poet’s mind at the time of writing.IV. Principles1.Direct treatment of the “thing”, whethersubjective or objective;2.To use absolutely no word that does notcontribute to the presentation;3.As regarding rhythm, to compose in thesequence of the musical phrase, not in thesequence of a metronome.V. Significance1.It was a rebellion against the traditionalpoetics which failed to reflect the new lifeof the new century.2.It offered a new way of writing which wasvalid not only for the Imagist poets but formodern poetry as a whole.3.The movement was a training school in whichmany great poets learned their first lessonsin the poetic art.4.It is this movement that helped to open thefirst pages of modern English and Americanpoetry.VI. Ezra Pound1.life2.literary career3.works(1)Cathay(2)。

第21章自白派•垮掉的一代21.1复习笔记I.The Confessional School（自白派）The term is usually used to certain poets of the United States from the late1950s to the late 1960s.In a broad way,the poetry of this group of poets share common features such as a ruthless, excruciating self-analysis of one’s own background and heritage,one’s own most private desires and fantasies etc.,and the urgent“I’ll-tell-it-all-to-you”impulse.In a sense,it is Lowell who gave the Confessional poetry a new life and a new level of popularity with his ruthless self-dissection. Representatives of the Confessional are School Robert Lowell,Anne Sexton,Sylvia Plath.这一术语用来指20世界50年代末到60年代末的一些美国诗人。

广义上讲，这些诗人的诗歌具有以下共同特点，如对自己的背景和传统，自己的隐私、欲望和幻想等进行无情的、令人痛苦的自我分析，以及一种急切的“我将告诉你一切”的冲动。

从某种程度上讲，洛威尔用他无情的自我剖析使自白诗获得新生也使其成为新时尚。

自白派代表人物是罗伯特·洛威尔、安妮·塞克斯顿、西尔维娅·普拉斯。

A Concise History of American LiteratureWhat is literature?Literature is language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages.Chapter 1 Colonial PeriodI.Background: Puritanism1.features of Puritanism(1)Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred.(2)Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can bepassed down from generation to generation.(3)Total depravity(4)Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.2.Influence(1) A group of good qualities –hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious andthoughtful) influenced American literature.(2)It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden.(3)Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chieflyinstrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctlyAmerican.(4)With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric isplain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the directinfluence of the Bible.II.Overview of the literature1.types of writingdiaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons2.writers of colonial period(1)Anne Bradstreet(2)Edward Taylor(3)Roger Williams(4)John Woolman(5)Thomas Paine(6)Philip FreneauIII.Jonathan Edwards1.life2.works(1)The Freedom of the Will(2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended(3)The Nature of True Virtue3.ideas – pioneer of transcendentalism(1)The spirit of revivalism(2)Regeneration of man(3)God’s presence(4)Puritan idealismIV.Benjamin Franklin1.life2.works(1)Poor Richard’s Almanac(2)Autobiography3.contribution(1)He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American PhilosophicalSociety.(2)He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this cas e)from heaven”.(3)Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melvillethus described him “master of each and mastered by none”.Chapter 2 American RomanticismSection 1 Early Romantic PeriodWhat is Romanticism?●An approach from ancient Greek: Plato● A literary trend: 18c in Britain (1798~1832)●Schlegel Bros.I.Preview: Characteristics of romanticism1.subjectivity(1)feeling and emotions, finding truth(2)emphasis on imagination(3)emphasis on individualism – personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodnessof human beings2.back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature(1)unrestrained by classical rules(2)full of imagination(3)colloquial language(4)freedom of imagination(5)genuine in feelings: answer their call for classics3.back to naturenature is “breathing living thing” (Rousseau)II.American Romanticism1.Background(1)Political background and economic development(2)Romantic movement in European countriesDerivative – foreign influence2.features(1)American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real ne w experienceand contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place”was radically new and alien.(2)There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romanticauthors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended toedify more than they entertained.(3)The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with AmericanRomanticism.(4)As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticismwas both imitative and independent.III.Washington Irving1.several names attached to Irving(1)first American writer(2)the messenger sent from the new world to the old world(3)father of American literature2.life3.works(1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the DutchDynasty(2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of internationalrecognition with the publication of this.)(3)The History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus(4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada(5)The Alhambra4.Literary career: two parts(1)1809~1832a.Subjects are either English or Europeanb.Conservative love for the antique(2)1832~1859: back to US5.style – beautiful(1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness(2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining(3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere(4)vivid and true characters(5)humour – smiling while reading(6)musical languageIV.James Fenimore Cooper1.life2.works(1)Precaution (1820, his first novel, imitating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice)(2)The Spy (his second novel and great success)(3)Leatherstocking Tales (his masterpiece, a series of five novels)The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, ThePrairie3.point of viewthe theme of wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law, order vs. change, aristocrat vs.democrat, natural rights vs. legal rights4.style(1)highly imaginative(2)good at inventing tales(3)good at landscape description(4)conservative(5)characterization wooden and lacking in probability(6)language and use of dialect not authentic5.literary achievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the history ofthe United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring andpushing the American frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leatherstocking Taleseffectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West.He turned the west and frontier as a useable past and he helped to introduce westerntradition to American literature.Section 2 Summit of Romanticism – American TranscendentalismI.Background: four sources1.Unitarianism(1)Fatherhood of God(2)Brotherhood of men(3)Leadership of Jesus(4)Salvation by character (perfection of one’s character)(5)Continued progress of mankind(6)Divinity of mankind(7)Depravity of mankind2.Romantic IdealismCenter of the world is spirit, absolute spirit (Kant)3.Oriental mysticismCenter of the world is “oversoul”4.PuritanismEloquent expression in transcendentalismII.Appearance1836, “Nature” by EmersonIII.Features1.spirit/oversoul2.importance of individualism3.nature – symbol of spirit/Godgarment of the oversoul4.focus in intuition (irrationalism and subconsciousness)IV.Influence1.It served as an ethical guide to life for a young nation and brought about the idea thathuman can be perfected by nature. It stressed religious tolerance, called to throw offshackles of customs and traditions and go forward to the development of a new anddistinctly American culture.2.It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidly expanded economy whereopportunity often became opportunism, and the desire to “get on” obscured the moralnecessity for rising to spiritual height.3.It helped to create the first American renaissance – one of the most prolific period inAmerican literature.V.Ralph Waldo Emerson1.life2.works(1)Nature(2)Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet3.point of view(1)One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in the transcendence of the“oversoul”.(2)He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man,and advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.(3)If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself and brings out the divine inhimself, he can hope to become better and even perfect. This is what Emersonmeans by “the infinitude of man”.(4)Everyone should understand that he makes himself by making his world, and thathe makes the world by making himself.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He is a complete man, an eternal man.(2)True poetry and true art should ennoble.(3)The poet should express his thought in symbols.(4)As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America whichwas to him a lone poem in itself.5.his influenceVI.Henry David Thoreau1.life2.works(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River(2)Walden(3) A Plea for John Brown (an essay)3.point of view(1)He did not like the way a materialistic America was developing and wasvehemently outspoken on the point.(2)He hated the human injustice as represented by the slavery system.(3)Like Emerson, but more than him, Thoreau saw nature as a genuine restorative,healthy influence on man’s spiritual well-being.(4)He has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man.(5)He was very critical of modern civilization.(6)“Simplicity…simplify!”(7)He was sorely disgusted with “the inundations of the dirty institutions of men’sodd-fellow society”.(8)He has calm trust in the future and his ardent belief in a new generation of men. Section 3 Late RomanticismI.Nathaniel Hawthorne1.life2.works(1)Two collections of short stories: Twice-told Tales, Mosses from and Old Manse(2)The Scarlet Letter(3)The House of the Seven Gables(4)The Marble Faun3.point of view(1)Evil i s at the core of human life, “that blackness in Hawthorne”(2)Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed fromgeneration to generation (causality).(3)He is of the opinion that evil educates.(4)He has disgust in science.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He took a great interest in history and antiquity. To him these furnish the soil onwhich his mind grows to fruition.(2)He was convinced that romance was the predestined form of American narrative.To tell the truth and satirize and yet not to offend: That was what Hawthorne had inmind to achieve.5.style – typical romantic writer(1)the use of symbols(2)revelation of characters’ psychology(3)the use of supernatural mixed with the actual(4)his stories are parable (parable inform) – to teach a lesson(5)use of ambiguity to keep the reader in the world of uncertainty – multiple point ofviewII.Herman Melville1.life2.works(1)Typee(2)Omio(3)Mardi(4)Redburn(5)White Jacket(6)Moby Dick(7)Pierre(8)Billy Budd3.point of view(1)He never seems able to say an affirmative yes to life: His is the attitude of“Everlasting Nay” (negative attitude towards life).(2)One of the major themes of his is alienation (far away from each other).Other themes: loneliness, suicidal individualism (individualism causing disasterand death), rejection and quest, confrontation of innocence and evil, doubts overthe comforting 19c idea of progress4.style(1)Like Hawthorne, Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity throughemploying the technique of multiple view of his narratives.(2)He tends to write periodic chapters.(3)His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commentedupon and praised.(4)His works are symbolic and metaphorical.(5)He includes many non-narrative chapters of factual background or description ofwhat goes on board the ship or on the route (Moby Dick)Romantic PoetsI.Walt Whitman1.life2.work: Leaves of Grass (9 editions)(1)Song of Myself(2)There Was a Child Went Forth(3)Crossing Brooklyn Ferry(4)Democratic Vistas(5)Passage to India(6)Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking3.themes –“Catalogue of American and European thought”He had been influenced by many American and European thoughts: enlightenment,idealism, transcendentalism, science, evolution ideas, western frontier spirits,Jefferson’s individualism, Civil War Unionism, Orientalism.Major themes in his poems (almost everything):●equality of things and beings●divinity of everything●immanence of God●democracy●evolution of cosmos●multiplicity of nature●self-reliant spirit●death, beauty of death●expansion of America●brotherhood and social solidarity (unity of nations in the world)●pursuit of love and happiness4.style: “free verse”(1)no fixed rhyme or scheme(2)parallelism, a rhythm of thought(3)phonetic recurrence(4)the habit of using snapshots(5)the use of a certain pronoun “I”(6) a looser and more open-ended syntactic structure(7)use of conventional image(8)strong tendency to use oral English(9)vocabulary – powerful, colourful, rarely used words of foreign origins, some evenwrong(10)sentences – catalogue technique: long list of names, long poem lines5.influence(1)His best work has become part of the common property of Western culture.(2)He took over Whitman’s vision of the poet-prophet and poet-teacher and recast itin a more sophisticated and Europeanized mood.(3)He has been compared to a mountain in American literary history.(4)Contemporary American poetry, whatever school or form, bears witness to hisgreat influence.II.Emily Dickenson1.life2.works(1)My Life Closed Twice before Its Close(2)Because I Can’t Stop for Death(3)I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I died(4)Mine – by the Right of the White Election(5)Wild Nights – Wild Nights3.themes: based on her own experiences/joys/sorrows(1)religion – doubt and belief about religious subjects(2)death and immortality(3)love – suffering and frustration caused by love(4)physical aspect of desire(5)nature – kind and cruel(6)free will and human responsibility4.style(1)poems without titles(2)severe economy of expression(3)directness, brevity(4)musical device to create cadence (rhythm)(5)capital letters – emphasis(6)short poems, mainly two stanzas(7)rhetoric techniques: personification – make some of abstract ideas vividparison: Whitman vs. Dickinson1.Similarities:(1)Thematically, they both extolled, in their different ways, an emergent America, itsexpansion, its individualism and its Americanness, their poetry being part of“American Renaissance”.(2)Technically, they both added to the literary independence of the new nation bybreaking free of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedomin form unknown before: they were pioneers in American poetry.2.differences:(1)Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large; Dickinson explores the innerlife of the individual.(2)Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is “regional”.(3)Dickinson has the “catalogue technique” (direct, simple style) which Whitmandoesn’t have.Edgar Allen PoeI.LifeII.Works1.short stories(1)ratiocinative storiesa.Ms Found in a Bottleb.The Murders in the Rue Morguec.The Purloined Letter(2)Revenge, death and rebirtha.The Fall of the House of Usherb.Ligeiac.The Masque of the Red Death(3)Literary theorya.The Philosophy of Compositionb.The Poetic Principlec.Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told TalesIII.Themes1.death –predominant theme in Poe’s writing“Poe is not interested in anything alive. Everything in Poe’s writings is dead.”2.disintegration (separation) of life3.horror4.negative thoughts of scienceIV.Aesthetic ideas1.The short stories should be of brevity, totality, single effect, compression and finality.2.The poems should be short, and the aim should be beauty, the tone melancholy. Poemsshould not be of moralizing. He calls for pure poetry and stresses rhythm.V.Style – traditional, but not easy to readVI.Reputation: “the jingle man” (Emerson)VII.His influencesChapter 3 The Age of RealismI.Background: From Romanticism to Realism1.the three conflicts that reached breaking point in this period(1)industrialism vs. agrarian(2)culturely-measured east vs. newly-developed west(3)plantation gentility vs. commercial gentility2.1880’s urbanization: from free competition to monopoly capitalism3.the closing of American frontierII.Characteristics1.truthful description of life2.typical character under typical circumstance3.objective rather than idealized, close observation and investigation of life“Realistic writers are like scientists.”4.open-ending:Life is complex and cannot be fully understood. It leaves much room for readers to think by themselves.5.concerned with social and psychological problems, revealing the frustrations ofcharacters in an environment of sordidness and depravityIII.Three Giants in Realistic Period1.William Dean Howells –“Dean of American Realism”(1)Realistic principlesa.Realism is “fidelity to experience and probability of motive”.b.The aim is “talk of some ordinary traits of American life”.c.Man in his natural and unaffected dullness was the object of Howells’s fictionalrepresentation.d.Realism is by no means mere photographic pictures of externals but includes acentral concern with “motives” and psychological conflicts.e.He condemns novels of sentimentality and morbid self-sacrifice, and avoids suchthemes as illicit love.f.Authors should minimize plot and the artificial ordering of the sense of something“desultory, unfinished, imperfect”.g.Characters should have solidity of specification and be real.h.Interpreting sympathetically the “common feelings of commonplace people” wasbest suited as a technique to express the spirit of America.i.He urged writers to winnow tradition and write in keeping with currenthumanitarian ideals.j.Truth is the highest beauty, but it includes the view that morality penetrates all things.k.With regard to literary criticism, Howells felt that the literary critic should not try to impose arbitrary or subjective evaluations on books but should follow the detachedscientist in accurate description, interpretation, and classification.(2)Worksa.The Rise of Silas Laphamb. A Chance Acquaintancec. A Modern Instance(3)Features of His Worksa.Optimistic toneb.Moral development/ethicscking of psychological depth2.Henry James(1)Life(2)Literary career: three stagesa.1865~1882: international theme●The American●Daisy Miller●The Portrait of a Ladyb.1882~1895: inter-personal relationships and some plays●Daisy Miller (play)c.1895~1900: novellas and tales dealing with childhood and adolescence, then backto international theme●The Turn of the Screw●When Maisie Knew●The Ambassadors●The Wings of the Dove●The Golden Bowl(3)Aesthetic ideasa.The aim of novel: represent lifemon, even ugly side of lifec.Social function of artd.Avoiding omniscient point of view(4)Point of viewa.Psychological analysis, forefather of stream of consciousnessb.Psychological realismc.Highly-refined language(5)Style –“stylist”nguage: highly-refined, polished, insightful, accurateb.V ocabulary: largec.Construction: complicated, intricate3.Mark Twain (see next section)Local Colorism1860s, 1870s~1890sI.Appearance1.uneven development in economy in America2.culture: flourishing of frontier literature, humourists3.magazines appeared to let writer publish their worksII.What is “Local Colour”?Tasks of local colourists: to write or present local characters of their regions in truthful depiction distinguished from others, usually a very small part of the world.Regional literature (similar, but larger in world)●Garland, Harte – the west●Eggleston – Indiana●Mrs Stowe●Jewett – Maine●Chopin – LouisianaIII.Mark Twain – Mississippi1.life2.works(1)The Gilded Age(2)“the two advantages”(3)Life on the Mississippi(4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court(5)The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug3.style(1)colloquial language, vernacular language, dialects(2)local colour(3)syntactic feature: sentences are simple, brief, sometimes ungrammatical(4)humour(5)tall tales (highly exaggerated)(6)social criticism (satire on the different ugly things in society)parison of the three “giants” of American Realism1.ThemeHowells – middle classJames – upper classTwain – lower class2.TechniqueHowells – smiling/genteel realismJames – psychological realismTwain – local colourism and colloquialismChapter 4 American NaturalismI.Background1.Darwin’s theory: “natural selection”2.Spenser’s idea: “social Darwinism”3.French Naturalism: ZoraII.Features1.environment and heredity2.scientific accuracy and a lot of details3.general tone: hopelessness, despair, gloom, ugly side of the societyIII.significanceIt prepares the way for the writing of 1920s’ “lost generation” and T. S. Eliot.IV.Theodore Dreiser1.life2.works(1)Sister Carrie(2)The trilogy: Financier, The Titan, The Stoic(3)Jennie Gerhardt(4)American Tragedy(5)The Genius3.point of view(1)He embraced social Darwinism – survival of the fittest. He learned to regard manas merely an animal driven by greed and lust in a struggle for existence in whichonly the “fittest”, the most ruthless, survive.(2)Life is predatory, a “game” of the lecherous and heartless, a jungle struggle inwhich man, being “a waif and an interloper in Nature”, a “wisp in the wind ofsocial forces”, is a mere pawn in the general scheme of things, with no p owerwhatever to assert his will.(3)No one is ethically free; everything is determined by a complex of internalchemisms and by the forces of social pressure.4.Sister Carrie(1)Plot(2)Analysis5.Style(1)Without good structure(2)Deficient characterization(3)Lack in imagination(4)Journalistic method(5)Techniques in paintingChapter 5 The Modern PeriodSection 1 The 1920sI.IntroductionThe 1920s is a flowering period of American literature. It is considered “the second renaissance” of American literature.The nicknames for this period:(1)Roaring 20s – comfort(2)Dollar Decade – rich(3)Jazz Age – Jazz musicII.Backgrounda)First World War –“a war to end all wars”(1)Economically: became rich from WWI. Economic boom: new inventions.Highly-consuming society.(2)Spiritually: dislocation, fragmentation.b)wide-spread contempt for law (looking down upon law)1.Freud’s theoryIII.Features of the literatureWriters: three groups(1)Participants(2)Expatriates(3)Bohemian (unconventional way of life) – on-lookersTwo areas:(1)Failure of communication of Americans(2)Failure of the American societyImagismI. BackgroundImagism was influenced by French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japanese literature “haiku”II. Development: three stages1.1908~1909: London, Hulme2.1912~1914: England -> America, Pound3.1914~1917: Amy LowellIII. W hat is an “image”?An image is defined by Pound as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas” “endowed with energy”. The exact word must bring the effect of the object b efore the reader as it had presented itself to the poet’s mind at the time of writing.IV. Principles1.Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective;2.To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation;3.As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in thesequence of a metronome.V. Significance1.It was a rebellion against the traditional poetics which failed to reflect the new life ofthe new century.2.It offered a new way of writing which was valid not only for the Imagist poets but formodern poetry as a whole.3.The movement was a training school in which many great poets learned their firstlessons in the poetic art.4.It is this movement that helped to open the first pages of modern English and Americanpoetry.VI. Ezra Pound1.life2.literary career3.works(1)Cathay(2)Cantos(3)Hugh Selwyn Mauberley4.point of view(1)Confident in Pound’s belief that the artist was morally and culturally the arbiterand the “saviour” of the race, he took it upon himself to purify the arts and becamethe prime mover of a few experimental movements, the aim of which was to dumpthe old into the dustbin and bring forth something new.(2)To him life was sordid personal crushing oppression, and culture produced nothingbut “intangible bondage”.(3)Pound sees in Chinese history and the doctrine of Confucius a source of strengthand wisdom with which to counterpoint Western gloom and confusion.(4)He saw a chaotic world that wanted setting to rights, and a humanity, sufferingfrom spiritual death and cosmic injustice, that needed saving. He was for the mostpart of his life trying to offer Confucian philosophy as the one faith which couldhelp to save the West.5.style: very difficult to readPound’s early poems are fresh and lyrical. The Cantos can be notoriously difficult insome sections, but delightfully beautiful in others. Few have made serious study of thelong poem; fewer, if anyone at all, have had the courage to declare that they haveconquered Pound; and many seem to agree that the Cantos is a monumental failure.6.ContributionHe has helped, through theory and practice, to chart out the course of modern poetry.7.The Cantos –“the intellectual diary since 1915”Features:(1)Language: intricate and obscure(2)Theme: complex subject matters(3)Form: no fixed framework, no central theme, no attention to poetic rulesVII. T. S. Eliot1.life2.works(1)poems●The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock●The Waste Land (epic)●Hollow Man●Ash Wednesday●Four Quarters(2)Plays●Murder in the Cathedral●Sweeney Agonistes●The Cocktail Party●The Confidential Clerk(3)Critical essays●The Sacred Wood●Essays on Style and Order●Elizabethan Essays●The Use of Poetry and The Use of Criticisms●After Strange Gods3.point of view(1)The modern society is futile and chaotic.(2)Only poets can create some order out of chaos.(3)The method to use is to compare the past and the present.4.Style(1)Fresh visual imagery, flexible tone and highly expressive rhythm(2)Difficult and disconnected images and symbols, quotations and allusions(3)Elliptical structures, strange juxtapositions, an absence of bridges5.The Waste Land: five parts(1)The Burial of the Dead(2) A Game of Chess(3)The Fire Sermon(4)Death by Water(5)What the Thunder SaidVIII. Robert Frost1.life2.point of view(1)All his life, Frost was concerned with constructions through p oetry. “a momentarystay against confusion”.(2)He understands the terror and tragedy in nature, but also its beauty.(3)Unlike the English romantic poets of 19th century, he didn’t believe that man couldfind harmony with nature. He believed that serenity came from working, usuallyamid natural forces, which couldn’t be understood. He regarded work as“significant toil”.3.works – poemsthe first: A Boy’s Willcollections: North of Boston, Mountain Interval (mature), New Hampshire4.style/features of his poems(1)Most of his poems took New England as setting, and the subjects were chosenfrom daily life of ordinary people, such as “mending wall”, “picking apples”.(2)He writes most often about landscape and people – the loneliness and poverty ofisolated farmers, beauty, terror and tragedy in nature. He also describes someabnormal people, . “deceptively simple”, “philosophical poet”.(3)Although he was popular during 1920s, he didn’t experiment like other modernpoets. He used conventional forms, plain language, traditional metre, and wrote ina pastured tradition.IX. e. e. cummings“a juggler with syntax, grammar and diction” –individualism, “painter poet”Novels in the 1920sI. F. Scott Fitzgerald1.life – participant in 1920s2.works(1)This Side of Paradise(2)Flappers and Philosophers(3)The Beautiful and the Damned(4)The Great Gatsby(5)Tender is the Night(6)All the Sad Young Man(7)The Last Tycoon。

《美国文学简史》考研常耀信版考研复习笔记和考研真题第1章殖民地时期的美国1.1 复习笔记I. American Puritanism（美国清教主义）The settlement of North American continent by the English began in the early part of the seventeenth century. The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. In 1620, the ship Mayflower carried about one hundred Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The first settlers in America were quite a few of them Puritans. They came to America out of various reasons. They carried with them American Puritanism which took root in the New World and became the most enduring shaping influence in American thought and American literature.英国向北美的移民活动开始于17世纪上半叶。

英国于1607年在北美建立了第一个永久性海外殖民区：弗吉尼亚州的詹姆斯敦。

1620年“五月花”号载运100余名移民抵达马萨诸塞州的普利茅斯。

很多美国早期的移民是清教徒，他们出于多种原因来到美国。

他们信奉的清教主义后来在新大陆生根发芽，并对美国思想和美国文学产生了根深蒂固的影响。

第5章霍桑•麦尔维尔5.1复习笔记I.Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864)（纳撒尼尔·霍桑）1.Life（生平）Hawthorne was born in Salem,Massachusetts.Some of his ancestors were men of prominence in the Puritan theocracy.One of his ancestors was a colonial magistrate,notorious for his part in the persecution of the Quakers,and another was a judge at the Salem Witchcraft Trial in1692.Gradually,the family fortune declined.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.霍桑出生于马萨诸塞州的萨勒姆镇，他的一些祖先是17世纪新英格兰清教神权统治中的显赫人物。

他的一位祖先是殖民地行政官，因参与迫害贵格党人而臭名昭著。

另一位祖先则是1692年萨勒姆审巫案的法官。

家族渐渐走向没落。

霍桑强烈地意识到他祖先的恶性，这也让他明白了邪恶存在于人生命的核心部分，因此他的一生心中的罪恶感都挥之不去。

2.Ideas（思想）(1)He was haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life,therefore we see“black vision”in his works—the power of blackness.Evil seems to be man’s birthmark.In almost every book he wrote, Hawthorne discussed sin and evil.(2)He rejected the Transcendentalists'transparent optimism about the potentialities of human nature.(3)Whenever there is sin,there is punishment.Sin or evil can be passed from generation to generation.In his opinion,evil educates.(4)He believed that romance was the predestined form of American narrative.He took a great interest in history and antiquity.To him these furnished the soil on which his mind grew to fruition.(5)Hawthorne had a negative attitude toward science.(1)霍桑一生心中都萦绕着罪恶感，因此我们可以在他的作品中感受到“黑色视觉”——邪恶的力量。

常耀信美国文学简史重点笔记美国文学Part One Colonial America(17世纪早期到18世纪末）Part Two The Literature of Romanticism(19世纪上半叶）The frontier hero Andrew Jackson as the 7th President of the United States had brought an effective end to the “Virginia Dynasty” of American Presidents.The United States had begun to change into an industrial cause society, technology would bring vast material benefits and cause overwhelming social disorders.Romantics shared certain general characteristics: （选择题常考）moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption.Washington Irving华盛顿·欧文1783-1859He was the first great prose stylist of American romanticism familiar style.His “Sketch Book” appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature to write good history and biography as literary entertainment. He introduced the familiar essay to America “Jonathan Old style”, satires of New York. His major works include: The Author’s Account of Himself The Legend of Sleepy HollowJames Fenimore Cooper詹姆斯·芬尼莫·库珀1789-1851The first important American novelist began his literary career on a dare.“The Spy” was successful, it was a rousing tale about espionage against the British during the Revolutionary War.Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure tale, and the frontier saga.The Pilot” th e best of his many sea romances.His frontier stories “Leather Stocking Tales” including five novels: “The Deerslayer”; The Last of the Mohicans”, “The Pathfinder”, “The Pioneers”, “The Prairie”. Allan Nevins calls these five novels “the nearest approach y et to an American epic”.The Last of The MohicansHenry Wadsworth Longfellow亨利·沃兹沃思·朗费罗1807-1882In his prose romance “Outre-Mer”, he uses Finish folk meter in his celebration of American Indian Legends in “Hiawatha”. His greatest virtue is that he made po etry seem worth reading and worth writing. His works include:A Psalm of Life My Lost Youth Song of Hiawatha Voices of the Night William Cullen Bryant威廉·卡伦·布莱恩特1794-1878The stately poem called ” Thanatopsis” (Greek, meaning “view of death”) introduced the best poet to appear in American up to that time.“To a Waterfowl” is perhaps the peak of his work, “Most perfect brief poem in the language”.His most important later works are his translations of the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” into English blank verse.As Irving had shown that American prose had come of age, so Bryant demonstrated to European readers that American poetry was ready to demand serious attention. He was the first American to gain the stature of a major poet.Part Three New England Transcendentalism（2015年川师大真题）New England Transcendentalism isregarded as the summit of American Romanticism. What do you know about Transcendentalism?Transcendentalism is a literature, philosophical and artistic movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to 1860. It originated from a small group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodox of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian church, developing their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world. The major features of New England Transcendentalism can be summarized as follows: First, the Transcendentalism placed emphasis on spirit, or the over soul, as the most important thing in the universe. Second, the Transcendentalism stressed the importance of the individual. Thirdly, the Transcendentalism offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the spirit or god. New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism. The ideas of Transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Emerson in such essays asNature, and Self-Reliance and by Thoreau in his book Walden.Ralph Waldo Emerson 拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生1803-1882He was responsible for bringing Transcendentalism to New England and was recognized throughout his life as the leader of the movement, and he believed above all in individualism, independence of mind and self-reliance. He admired courage, he was not afraid of changing or clashing ideas. His works include:Nature The American Scholar The Divinity School Address Self-RelianceMany of his lectures were later distilled into his famous “Essays”. Among his most important works are “Representative Men” and “English Traits” .His “Poems”appeared in 1847.In his day, Emerson’s poems were criticized for the ir lack of form and polish. In recent years, however, his poetry has received high praise. His harsh rhythms and striking images appeal to many modern readers as artful techniques.His prose style is sometimes as highly individual as his poetry. Many of his essays were put together from his journal entries, speeches, and random notes, and they are often somewhat disorganized. Yet his skill in polishing each sentence into a striking thought makes his writing memorable.The American Scholar is called “our int ellectual Declaration of Independence”(选择题常考）Henry David Thoreau亨利·戴维·梭罗1817-1862He was Emerson’s truest disciple, who put into practice many of Emerson’s theories.The superb novel Walden is written by Thoreau,and was published in 1854.it came out of his two-year experiment lived at Walden.Thoreau explained many of the beliefs that led him to try this kind of life.He thought it better for a man to work one day a week and rest six,so that people could devote more time to thought.Thoreau maintained that this was purpose ,not a program for society .and in his book ,he think ,self-reliance and independence of mind ranked above all . From his experience in jail came his famous essay Civil Disobedience, which stated Thoreau’s belief that no man should violate h is conscience at the command of a government.Nathaniel Hawthorne纳撒尼尔·霍桑1804-1864“The House of the Seven Gables”deals with the effects of a curse, and though the tale itself is fiction, the germ of the story sprang from the author’s family history.Hawthorne gathered his material by observing and listening to others whose talk was filled with New England Lore, legend, and superstition. His works include:The Custom House The Blithedale Romance Mosses from an Old Manse The Marble Faun Young Goodman Brown The Scarlet LetterHawthorne’s unique gift was for the creation of strongly symbolic stories which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature. The finest example is the recreation of Puritan Boston, “The Scarlet Letter”. In this novel each word, image, and event works toward a single effect. It is a complex story of guilt, its effects upon various persons, and how deliverance is obtained for some of them.Hawthorne shares with Edgar Allan Poe the distinction of advancing the art of the short story, giving to the form qualities that are uniquely American. To Hawthorne and Melville, however, the telling of a tale was a way of inquiring into the meaning of life.（2014年川师大真题）What's symbolism? Please illustrate it with Nathaniel Hawthorne's works?In literature, symbolism was an aesthetic movement that encouraged writers to express their ideas, feelings and values by means of symbols or suggestions rather than by direct statements. It enables writers to compress a very complex idea or sets of ideas into image or even one word. Hawthorne is a master of symbolism. The symbol can be found everywhere in his writing. His masterpieces The Scarlet Letter and Young Good Man Brown provided the most convincing proof.In the Scarlet Letter, A is the biggest symbol of all. As a key to the whole novel, the letter takes on different layers of symbolic meaning as the plot develops. At first, it is a token of shame"Adultery", then it has been changed into "Able", and finally it signifies "Angel". People come up with different interpretations and they don't know which one is definite. The Scarlet Letter A is ambiguous and the ambiguity is one of the prominent characteristics of Hawthorne's art.In Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorne masterfully uses symbolism in presenting the theme. For example, the names of protagonists carry strong symbolic meanings. Brown is an extremely common name, which stands for everyone. That means the problem that Brown met is a universal one. His wife is Faith, who should be the most faithful one to him. However, the fact proves that even she possess some evil secrets that he doesn't know.Herman Melville赫尔曼·麦尔维尔1819-1891Moby Dick, a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. The book is steeped in symbolism, another strong appeal to readers of his century. Melville had the rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming ,mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome ,sometimes merciless force （选择题常考）The fitting symbol for his the“gliding gre at demon of the seas of life,”the white whale .Ahab’s ship,the Requod ,was like a world in miniature ,with characters ranging from the observer and narrator Ishmael to the savage harpooners and the motley crew.Melville said this book had been“broiled in he ll-fire, referring to the turbulence of his own spirit from which the book sprang.Typee, became known as the “man who lived among cannibals”His works include:Omoo Mardi Billy Budd Moby DickBilly Budd a nd Moby Dick use a ship as symbol of society and searchingly examines the problems of good and evil.Aha b’s ship was like a world in miniature with characters from all walks of life.Walt Whitman沃尔特·惠特曼1819-1892O ne of the great innovators in American literature. In the cluster of poems he called “Leaves of Grass” he gave America its first genuine epic poem. The poetic style he devised is now called free verse-that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. Whitman thought that the voice of democracy should not be haltered by traditional forms of verse. Most of the poems in “Leaves of Grass” are about man and nature. However, a small number of very good poems deal with New York, the city that fascinated Whitman, and with the Civil War. In his poetry, Whitman combined the ideal of the democratic common man and that of the rugged individual. In his poetry, Whitman combined the ideal of the democratic common man and that of the rugged individual. He envisioned the poet as a hero, a savior and a prophet, one who leads the community by his expressions of the truth. His works include:Song of Myself I sit and Look Out Drum-Taps Beat! Beat! DrumsEmily Dickinson爱米丽·狄金森1830-1886She wrote her whimsical, darting verse with sublime indifference to any notion of being a democratic or popular poet. Her work illustrated the fact that one could take a single household and an inactive life, and make enchanting poetry out of it. She and her sister remained at home and did not marry. After 1862 she became a total recluse, not leaving her house nor seeing even close friends. Her later retirement from the world, though perhaps affected by an unhappy love affair, seems mainlyto have resulted from her own personality, from a desire to separate herself from the world. The range of her poetry suggests not her limited experiences but the power of her creativity and imagination.Emily, however, refused to revise her poems to fit the standards of others and took no interest in having them published; in fact she had only seven poems published during her lifetime.Emily Dick inson’s poetry c omes out in bursts. The poems are short, many of them being based on a single image or symbol. But within her little lyrics Miss Dickinson writes about some of the most important things in life. His works include:I taste a liquor never brewed Because I Could not Stop for Death A Bird Came Down the Walk-Edgar Allan Poe埃德加·阿伦·坡1809-1849He won a contest with his story “Ms. Found in a Bottle” .Then he got a job as editor with the “Southern Literary Messenger”. His first collection of short stories “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque”.In Europe, he was hailed as a pioneer in poetic and fictional techniques. His influence was especially strong on many French writers. His works include:The Fall of the House of Usher To Helen The RavenPart Four The Age of Realism（19世纪下半叶）In the Civil War 1861-1865，they sought to portray American life as it really was,, insisting that the ordinary and local were as suitable for artistic portrayal as the magnificent and the remote.Realism had originated in France as real isme, a literary doctrine that called for “reality and truth” in the depiction of ordinary life. William Dean Howells defined realism as “nothingmore and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material”.（选择题常考）He spoke out against the writing of a bleak fiction of failure and despair. He called for the treatment of the “Smiling aspects of life” as being the more “American”, insisting that American was truly a land of hope and of possibility that should be reflected in its literature.The bu lk of Ameri ca’s literary realism was limited to optimistic treatment of the surface of life. Yet the greatest of America’s realists, Henry James and Mark Twain, moved well beyond a superficial portrayal of nineteenth-century America. James probed deeply into the individual psychology of his characters, writing in a rich and intricate style that supported his intense scrutiny of complex human experience. Mark Twain, breaking out of the narrow limits of local color fiction, described the breadth of American experience as no one had ever done before, or since.(预测问答题）Naturalism, a new and harsher realism. America’s literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classed who were dominated by their environment and heredity, the naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment, that religious “truths” were illusory, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death.Harriet Beecher Stowe哈丽雅特·比彻·斯托1811-1896She was born into a respectable family that was to become famous, her father Lyman was a renowned clergyman. The family was dominated by the father who ruled with the kind of wrathfulseverity that he imagined were the chief characteristics of the God he worshiped and feared. The boys were expected to become preachers, the girls to marry preachers. She is an anti-slavery writer. Her works include:Uncle Tom’s Cabin(问答题重点）Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the masterpiece of Harriet Beecher Stowe(an American realism novelist).The novel began serially in the National Era. When the novel did appear,however,it was an overnight success.It sold 350,000 copies during the first year,and since then has been published in some forty languages and has been read by millions of people around the world.The power of the novel unquestionably comes from the investment of the author’s sense of h er own suffering and oppression(as well as her determination to be free) in characters of Tom and his fellow slave Eliza,the protagonists of the book’s two main plots.Uncle Tom’s Cabin traces the trials, sufferings and human dignity of Uncle Tom, an old black slave. The novel helped tremendously Americans know more about the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery and hurried on a great war.HowellsHis major works include: A Modern Instance and The Rise of Silas Lapham.He writes about the rising middle class and the way they lived.Henry James亨利·詹姆斯1843-1916H e received the major part of his education at home, his family’s travels in Europe were another source of education for Henry. The American with its “international” theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity of European life. D aisy Miller, which one American critic described as “an outrage to American girlhood” but which brought James his firstinternational fame. The Portrait of a Lady the finest example of James’s early work.Unli ke Howells James’s greatest influence was exerted not on his own age but on the one that followed. He had been attacked for criticizing his native land and for the narrow emotional and social range of his characters. And he had been ridiculed for the obscure and costive style of his final period, a style that was able to express the subtlest meanings but was based on the assumption that the reader was as well educated, as exquisitely attuned, and in as little hurry as the author. He helps to transform the novel from its alliances with journalism and romantic story-telling into an art form of penetrating analysis of individuals confronting society, chronicles of the psychological perceptions that James himself defined as the highest form of experience.Local Colorism(预测问答题）Generally speaking, the writings of local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region or province. The characteristic setting is the isolated small town. 2) Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions, they worked from personal experience to record the facts of a local environment and suggested that the native life was shaped by the curious conditions of the local. 3) major local colorists is Mark Twain.Mark Twain 马克·吐温1835-1910H is formal education ended soon after his father’s death in 1847, when he bec ame a printer’s apprentice. From 1853, hetraveled widely, as a journeyman printer, in the eastern states and in the west, he met Horace Bixby, the captain of the boat, and turned to a career on the river. He left the Mississippi at the outbreak of the Civil War, and became, in swift succession, and army volunteer, a gold-prospector in Nevada, a timber speculator and a journalist.W hile working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, he adopted the pseudonym “Mark Twain”, the way of a boatman taking soundings, and meaning two fathoms, i.e. twelve feet. His works include: Jumping Frog Innocents Abroad The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Adventures of Huckleberry FinnHe pointed towards his uneasy acceptance of the values of nineteenth-century American society, he wrote three works expressing his acute pessimism. From that time until his death, he maintained a bitter skepticism, relieved at times by outraged commentary on world affairs. His last years were saddened by personal bereavement.（2010年川师大真题）Give a brief description to the American realists of the later part of the 19th century?In the later part of the 19th century, famous American realists include: Mark Twain, Henry James, Jack London and Theodorn Dreiser.Mark Twain was the first literary giant in that he broke the narrow limits of local color and described the breadth of American as no one had ever done before. He was acclaimed as "the true father of our national literature". He first created the American boy in his book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It has always been regarded as one of the greatest books of western literature and western civilization. Hemingway described it as the book from which" all modern American literaturecomes." Other famous books of Mark Twain include: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi River and The Gilded Age.Henry James is considered as the founder of psychological realism. He stresses the "psychology" of human being and his realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter. He was the first American writer to conceive his artistic work in international themes. His novels describe the life of the upper class, and they are marked by highly refined language. His famous works include: Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady.Jack London is one of the most articulate and militant spokesman of the working class at the turn of century. He is a leading figure of naturalism. His famous works include: Martin Eden, The call of the Wild and The Law of Life. The Call of the Wild is London's best-known story in which the protagonist is a sled-dog who under the pressure of the environment reverts to savagery.Theodore Dreiser is generally acknowledged as one of American's literary naturalist. His famous work include Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy. Sister Carrie tells about a poor country girl who goes to Chicago to pursue the American dream. The novel shows Dresser's naturalistic view about life by illustrating the purposelessness of life. The dominant symbol of the novel is the rocking chair that is indicative of the uncertainty of life.O. Henry 欧·亨利H e wrote stories for different magazines, and when there came a big demand for his stories, the publishers of “Ainslee’s Magazing” invited him to come to New York.Many of his stories tell about the lives of poor people in New York, as well as in other places, his works abound in good-natured humor. His stories are usually short, the plots are exceedingly clever and interesting; humor abounds, and the end is always surprising. Many of his stories contain a great deal of slang and colloquial expressions that make them hard to be understood by people outside of America. Such forms of speech are used to give what is called local, to make the stories fit in with the characters and scenes described.His works include:The Gift of the Magi A Municipal Report The Cop and the AnthemJack London杰克·伦敦1876-1916He grew up in extreme poverty: from earliest youth he supported himself with menial and dangerous jobs, experiencing profoundly the struggle for survival. His works include:The Call of the Wild The Son of the Wolf The Sea Wolf Martin Eden The Law of LifeThe most enduringly popular of his stories involved the primitive (and melodramatic) struggle of strong and weak individuals in the context of irresistible natural forces such as the wild sea or the arctic wastes.London’s stories of man in and against nature continue to be popular all over the world. In them, London strips everything down to the symbolic starkness of dream, to a primordial simplicity that has the strange and compelling power of ancient myth.Theodore Dreiser西奥多·德莱塞1871-1945From his mother he seems to have absorbed a quality of compassionate wonder, from his father he seems to have inherited moral earnestness and the capacity to persist in the faceof failure, disappointment, and despair.Dreiser’s childhood was decidedly unhappy. The large family moved from house to house in Indiana dogged by poverty, insecurity, and internal division. Dreiser as a youth was as ungainly, confused, shy, and full of vague yearnings as most of his fictional protagonists, male and female, his education was to come from experience and from independent reading and thinking.Sister Carrie, which traces the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G·W·Hurstwood. It depicted social transgressions by characters who felt no remorse and largely escaped punishment, and it used “strong” language and used names of living persons.H is best short fictions “Nigger Jeff” and “Butcher Rogaum’s Daughter””Trilogy of Desire”: “The Financier”; “The Titan”; “The Stoic”, Dreiser shifted from the pathos of helpless protagonists to the power of those unusual individuals who assume dominant roles in business and society.The identification of potency with money i s at the heart of Dreiser’s greatest and most successful novel, “An American Tragedy”. The Center of this immense novel’s thick texture of biographical circumstance, social fact, and industrial detail is a young man who acts as if the only way he can be truly fulfilled is by acquiring wealth-through marriage if necessary. Part Five American Literature in the 1920sImagism came into being in Britain and U.S around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation. The imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to expressthese momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image. Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles: A.direct treatment of subject matter;B.economy of expression;C. as regards rhythm ,to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome. Pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known imagist poem.Ezra Pound埃兹拉·庞德1885-1972He had a distinct poetic personality, he combined a command of the older tradition with impressive and often daring originality. He was a prolific essayist for the little magazines of New York, London, Paris, which then constituted a large and exciting literary world. He unselfishly and persistently championed the experimental and often unpopular artists. Most important of all, perhaps, was the advice and encouragement which he gave to T·S· Eliot.Both Pound and Eliot required of their readers a familiarity with the classics, the productions of Italian and English Renaissance,, and specialized areas of Continental literature, including the works of the French symbolists. Pound’s continued to draw fundamentally upon his formidably recondite culture. His works include：The Cantos In a Station of the Metro A VirginalThomas Stearns Eliot托马斯·斯特恩斯·爱略特1888-1965He won the Nobel Prize in 1948.His first book of poems “Prufrock and Other Observations”, which concerns various aspects of the frustration and enfeeblement of individual character as seen in perspective with the decay of states, peoples, and religious faith.The Waste Land, one of the major works of modern literature. Its subject, the apparent failure of western civilization whichWorld War I seemed to demonstrate, suggested the spiritual debility of the modern individual and his culture while in satirical counterpoint his Sweeney poems had symbolized the rising tide of anticultural infidelity and human baseness. It used abundant of literary reference. It also introduced a form-the orchestration of related themes in successive movements. His works include:The Hollow Men Ash-Wednesday Four Quartets The Love Song of J·Alfred Prufrock Robert Frost罗伯特·弗洛斯特1874-1963 By the end of his life he had become a national bard; he won four Pulitzer Prizes; the United States Senate passed resolutions honoring his birthdays, and when he was eighty-seven he read his poetry at the inauguration of President JohnF·Kennedy. Frost had rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporanes,(选择题常考）choosing instead “the old-fashioned way to be new”. He employed the plain speech of rural New Englanders and preferred the short, traditional forms of lyric and narrative, As a poet of nature he had obvious affinities with romantic writers. He saw nature as a storehouse of analogy and symbol, but he had little faith in religious dogma or speculative thought. His poetry, for all its apparent simplicity, often probes mysteries of darkness and irrationality in the bleak and chaotic landscapes of an indifferent universe where men stand alone, unaided and perplexed.Carl Sandburg卡尔·桑德堡1878-1967He lived to enjoy enormous popular acclaim, by the end of his life he had become a familiar figure to national television audiences who listened to him read his poems, sing folk ballads and relate anecdotes about Lincoln.His works include:Chicago Poems Cornhuskers Flash Crimson Chicago Cool Tombs。

第15章南方文艺复兴•威廉姆•福克纳15.1复习笔记I.The Southern Renaissance（南方文艺复兴）1.Historical background（历史背景）The American south has been a unique region all along.There was the historically significant conflict between the Hamiltonian north and the Jeffersonian south.For a long time after the Civil War,the agricultural south remained subordinate to industrial north,and there existed a glaring gap in culture and way of thinking between the two parts of the country.Measures were taken to develop the south;economic improvements slowly came about.Although the south remained conservative,but there appeared a visible sign of change in literature,and there are efforts to reassess the past and the present and do self-searching.美国南方一直是一个独特的地区。

哈米尔顿式南方与杰斐逊式北方之间存在具有重大历史意义的冲突。

美国内战后相当长的时间内，农业式的南方仍然从属于工业化的北方。

美国这两个地区之间在文化和思维方式上存在显著的差距。

第4章新英格兰超验主义•爱默生•梭罗4.1 复习笔记In 1836 Emerson’s Nature came out which made a tremendous impact on the intellectual life of America. Nature’s voice pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism, the summit of American Romanticism.1936年爱默生的《论自然》问世，它如平地惊雷，震撼了美国文化思想界。

《论自然》把美国浪漫主义推向了一个新的阶段，即它的高潮阶段——英格兰超验主义阶段。

I. New England Transcendentalism（新英格兰超验主义）In the 1830s and 1840s some New Englanders , not quite happy about the materialistic-oriented life of their time, formed themselves into an informal club, the Transcendentalist Club, and met to discuss matters of interest to the life of the nation as a whole. They expressed their views, published their journal, the Dial, and made their voice heard. The club with a membership of some thirty men and a couple of women included Emerson, Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, and Margaret Fuller. Most of them were teachers or clergymen, radicals who reacted against the faith of Boston businessmen and the cold, rigid rationalism of Unitarianism. The word“Transcendental” was not native to America; it was a Kantian term denoting, as Emerson put it, “Whatever belongs to the class of intuitive thought.”19世纪三、四十年代一些新英格兰人对当时盛行的物质主义极其不满，他们聚集在一起组成非正式的“超验主义俱乐部”，讨论文学、哲学及国家生活的形势趋向。

A Concise History of American LiteratureWhat is literature?Literature is language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages.Chapter 1 Colonial PeriodI.Background: Puritanism1.features of Puritanism(1)Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred.(2)Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can bepassed down from generation to generation.(3)Total depravity(4)Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.2.Influence(1) A group of good qualities –hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious andthoughtful) influenced American literature.(2)It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden.(3)Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chieflyinstrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctlyAmerican.(4)With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric isplain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the directinfluence of the Bible.II.Overview of the literature1.types of writingdiaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons2.writers of colonial period(1)Anne Bradstreet(2)Edward Taylor(3)Roger Williams(4)John Woolman(5)Thomas Paine(6)Philip FreneauIII.Jonathan Edwards1.life2.works(1)The Freedom of the Will(2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended(3)The Nature of True Virtue3.ideas – pioneer of transcendentalism(1)The spirit of revivalism(2)Regeneration of man(3)God’s presence(4)Puritan idealismIV.Benjamin Franklin1.life2.works(1)Poor Richard’s Almanac(2)Autobiography3.contribution(1)He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American PhilosophicalSociety.(2)He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this case)from heaven”.(3)Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melvillethus described him “master of each and mastered by none”.Chapter 2 American RomanticismSection 1 Early Romantic PeriodWhat is Romanticism?●An approach from ancient Greek: Plato● A literary trend: 18c in Britain (1798~1832)●Schlegel Bros.I.Preview: Characteristics of romanticism1.subjectivity(1)feeling and emotions, finding truth(2)emphasis on imagination(3)emphasis on individualism – personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodnessof human beings2.back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature(1)unrestrained by classical rules(2)full of imagination(3)colloquial language(4)freedom of imagination(5)genuine in feelings: answer their call for classics3.back to naturenature is “breathing living thing” (Rousseau)II.American Romanticism1.Background(1)Political background and economic development(2)Romantic movement in European countriesDerivative – foreign influence2.features(1)American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real new experienceand contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place”was radically new and alien.(2)There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romanticauthors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended toedify more than they entertained.(3)The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with AmericanRomanticism.(4)As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticismwas both imitative and independent.III.Washington Irving1.several names attached to Irving(1)first American writer(2)the messenger sent from the new world to the old world(3)father of American literature2.life3.works(1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the DutchDynasty(2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of internationalrecognition with the publication of this.)(3)The History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus(4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada(5)The Alhambra4.Literary career: two parts(1)1809~1832a.Subjects are either English or Europeanb.Conservative love for the antique(2)1832~1859: back to US5.style – beautiful(1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness(2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining(3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere(4)vivid and true characters(5)humour – smiling while reading(6)musical languageIV.James Fenimore Cooper1.life2.works(1)Precaution (1820, his first novel, imitating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice)(2)The Spy (his second novel and great success)(3)Leatherstocking Tales (his masterpiece, a series of five novels)The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, ThePrairie3.point of viewthe theme of wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law, order vs. change, aristocrat vs.democrat, natural rights vs. legal rights4.style(1)highly imaginative(2)good at inventing tales(3)good at landscape description(4)conservative(5)characterization wooden and lacking in probability(6)language and use of dialect not authentic5.literary achievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the history ofthe United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring andpushing the American frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leatherstocking Taleseffectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West.He turned the west and frontier as a useable past and he helped to introduce westerntradition to American literature.Section 2 Summit of Romanticism – American TranscendentalismI.Background: four sources1.Unitarianism(1)Fatherhood of God(2)Brotherhood of men(3)Leadership of Jesus(4)Salvation by character (perfection of one’s character)(5)Continued progress of mankind(6)Divinity of mankind(7)Depravity of mankind2.Romantic IdealismCenter of the world is spirit, absolute spirit (Kant)3.Oriental mysticismCenter of the world is “oversoul”4.PuritanismEloquent expression in transcendentalismII.Appearance1836, “Nature” by EmersonIII.Features1.spirit/oversoul2.importance of individualism3.nature – symbol of spirit/Godgarment of the oversoul4.focus in intuition (irrationalism and subconsciousness)IV.Influence1.It served as an ethical guide to life for a young nation and brought about the idea thathuman can be perfected by nature. It stressed religious tolerance, called to throw offshackles of customs and traditions and go forward to the development of a new anddistinctly American culture.2.It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidly expanded economy whereopportunity often became opportunism, and the desire to “get on” obscured the moralnecessity for rising to spiritual height.3.It helped to create the first American renaissance – one of the most prolific period inAmerican literature.V.Ralph Waldo Emerson1.life2.works(1)Nature(2)Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet3.point of view(1)One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in the transcendence of the“oversoul”.(2)He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man,and advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.(3)If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself and brings out the divine inhimself, he can hope to become better and even perfect. This is what Emersonmeans by “the infinitude of man”.(4)Everyone should understand that he makes himself by making his world, and thathe makes the world by making himself.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He is a complete man, an eternal man.(2)True poetry and true art should ennoble.(3)The poet should express his thought in symbols.(4)As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America whichwas to him a lone poem in itself.5.his influenceVI.Henry David Thoreau1.life2.works(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River(2)Walden(3) A Plea for John Brown (an essay)3.point of view(1)He did not like the way a materialistic America was developing and wasvehemently outspoken on the point.(2)He hated the human injustice as represented by the slavery system.(3)Like Emerson, but more than him, Thoreau saw nature as a genuine restorative,healthy influence on man’s spiritual well-being.(4)He has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man.(5)He was very critical of modern civilization.(6)“Simplicity…simplify!”(7)He was sorely disgusted with “the inundations of the dirty institutions of men’sodd-fellow society”.(8)He has calm trust in the future and his ardent belief in a new generation of men. Section 3 Late RomanticismI.Nathaniel Hawthorne1.life2.works(1)Two collections of short stories: Twice-told Tales, Mosses from and Old Manse(2)The Scarlet Letter(3)The House of the Seven Gables(4)The Marble Faun3.point of view(1)Evil is at the core of human life, “that blackness in Hawthorne”(2)Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed fromgeneration to generation (causality).(3)He is of the opinion that evil educates.(4)He has disgust in science.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He took a great interest in history and antiquity. To him these furnish the soil onwhich his mind grows to fruition.(2)He was convinced that romance was the predestined form of American narrative.To tell the truth and satirize and yet not to offend: That was what Hawthorne had inmind to achieve.5.style – typical romantic writer(1)the use of symbols(2)revelation of characters’ psychology(3)the use of supernatural mixed with the actual(4)his stories are parable (parable inform) – to teach a lesson(5)use of ambiguity to keep the reader in the world of uncertainty – multiple point ofviewII.Herman Melville1.life2.works(1)Typee(2)Omio(3)Mardi(4)Redburn(5)White Jacket(6)Moby Dick(7)Pierre(8)Billy Budd3.point of view(1)He never seems able to say an affirmative yes to life: His is the attitude of“Everlasting Nay” (negative attitude towards life).(2)One of the major themes of his is alienation (far away from each other).Other themes: loneliness, suicidal individualism (individualism causing disasterand death), rejection and quest, confrontation of innocence and evil, doubts overthe comforting 19c idea of progress4.style(1)Like Hawthorne, Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity throughemploying the technique of multiple view of his narratives.(2)He tends to write periodic chapters.(3)His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commentedupon and praised.(4)His works are symbolic and metaphorical.(5)He includes many non-narrative chapters of factual background or description ofwhat goes on board the ship or on the route (Moby Dick)Romantic PoetsI.Walt Whitman1.life2.work: Leaves of Grass (9 editions)(1)Song of Myself(2)There Was a Child Went Forth(3)Crossing Brooklyn Ferry(4)Democratic Vistas(5)Passage to India(6)Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking3.themes –“Catalogue of American and European thought”He had been influenced by many American and European thoughts: enlightenment,idealism, transcendentalism, science, evolution ideas, western frontier spirits,Jefferson’s individualism, Civil War Unionism, Orientalism.Major themes in his poems (almost everything):●equality of things and beings●divinity of everything●immanence of God●democracy●evolution of cosmos●multiplicity of nature●self-reliant spirit●death, beauty of death●expansion of America●brotherhood and social solidarity (unity of nations in the world)●pursuit of love and happiness4.style: “free verse”(1)no fixed rhyme or scheme(2)parallelism, a rhythm of thought(3)phonetic recurrence(4)the habit of using snapshots(5)the use of a certain pronoun “I”(6) a looser and more open-ended syntactic structure(7)use of conventional image(8)strong tendency to use oral English(9)vocabulary – powerful, colourful, rarely used words of foreign origins, some evenwrong(10)sentences – catalogue technique: long list of names, long poem lines5.influence(1)His best work has become part of the common property of Western culture.(2)He took over Whitman’s vision of the poet-prophet and poet-teacher and recast itin a more sophisticated and Europeanized mood.(3)He has been compared to a mountain in American literary history.(4)Contemporary American poetry, whatever school or form, bears witness to hisgreat influence.II.Emily Dickenson1.life2.works(1)My Life Closed Twice before Its Close(2)Because I Can’t Stop for Death(3)I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I died(4)Mine – by the Right of the White Election(5)Wild Nights – Wild Nights3.themes: based on her own experiences/joys/sorrows(1)religion – doubt and belief about religious subjects(2)death and immortality(3)love – suffering and frustration caused by love(4)physical aspect of desire(5)nature – kind and cruel(6)free will and human responsibility4.style(1)poems without titles(2)severe economy of expression(3)directness, brevity(4)musical device to create cadence (rhythm)(5)capital letters – emphasis(6)short poems, mainly two stanzas(7)rhetoric techniques: personification – make some of abstract ideas vividparison: Whitman vs. Dickinson1.Similarities:(1)Thematically, they both extolled, in their different ways, an emergent America, itsexpansion, its individualism and its Americanness, their poetry being part of“American Renaissance”.(2)Technically, they both added to the literary independence of the new nation bybreaking free of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedomin form unknown before: they were pioneers in American poetry.2.differences:(1)Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large; Dickinson explores the innerlife of the individual.(2)Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is “regional”.(3)Dickinson has the “catalogue technique” (direct, simple style) which Whitmandoesn’t have.Edgar Allen PoeI.LifeII.Works1.short stories(1)ratiocinative storiesa.Ms Found in a Bottleb.The Murders in the Rue Morguec.The Purloined Letter(2)Revenge, death and rebirtha.The Fall of the House of Usherb.Ligeiac.The Masque of the Red Death(3)Literary theorya.The Philosophy of Compositionb.The Poetic Principlec.Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told TalesIII.Themes1.death –predominant theme in Poe’s writing“Poe is not interested in anything alive. Everything in Poe’s writings is dead.”2.disintegration (separation) of life3.horror4.negative thoughts of scienceIV.Aesthetic ideas1.The short stories should be of brevity, totality, single effect, compression and finality.2.The poems should be short, and the aim should be beauty, the tone melancholy. Poemsshould not be of moralizing. He calls for pure poetry and stresses rhythm.V.Style – traditional, but not easy to readVI.Reputation: “the jingle man” (Emerson)VII.His influencesChapter 3 The Age of RealismI.Background: From Romanticism to Realism1.the three conflicts that reached breaking point in this period(1)industrialism vs. agrarian(2)culturely-measured east vs. newly-developed west(3)plantation gentility vs. commercial gentility2.1880’s urbanization: from free competition to monopoly capitalism3.the closing of American frontierII.Characteristics1.truthful description of life2.typical character under typical circumstance3.objective rather than idealized, close observation and investigation of life“Realistic writers are like scientists.”4.open-ending:Life is complex and cannot be fully understood. It leaves much room for readers to think by themselves.5.concerned with social and psychological problems, revealing the frustrations ofcharacters in an environment of sordidness and depravityIII.Three Giants in Realistic Period1.William Dean Howells –“Dean of American Realism”(1)Realistic principlesa.Realism is “fidelity to experience and probability of motive”.b.The aim is “talk of some ordinary traits of American life”.c.Man in his natural and unaffected dullness was the object of Howells’s fictionalrepresentation.d.Realism is by no means mere photographic pictures of externals but includes acentral concern with “motives” and psychological conflicts.e.He condemns novels of sentimentality and morbid self-sacrifice, and avoids suchthemes as illicit love.f.Authors should minimize plot and the artificial ordering of the sense of something“desultory, unfinished, imperfect”.g.Characters should have solidity of specification and be real.h.Interpreting sympathetically the “common feelings of commonplace people” wasbest suited as a technique to express the spirit of America.i.He urged writers to winnow tradition and write in keeping with currenthumanitarian ideals.j.Truth is the highest beauty, but it includes the view that morality penetrates all things.k.With regard to literary criticism, Howells felt that the literary critic should not try to impose arbitrary or subjective evaluations on books but should follow the detachedscientist in accurate description, interpretation, and classification.(2)Worksa.The Rise of Silas Laphamb. A Chance Acquaintancec. A Modern Instance(3)Features of His Worksa.Optimistic toneb.Moral development/ethicscking of psychological depth2.Henry James(1)Life(2)Literary career: three stagesa.1865~1882: international theme●The American●Daisy Miller●The Portrait of a Ladyb.1882~1895: inter-personal relationships and some plays●Daisy Miller (play)c.1895~1900: novellas and tales dealing with childhood and adolescence, then backto international theme●The Turn of the Screw●When Maisie Knew●The Ambassadors●The Wings of the Dove●The Golden Bowl(3)Aesthetic ideasa.The aim of novel: represent lifemon, even ugly side of lifec.Social function of artd.Avoiding omniscient point of view(4)Point of viewa.Psychological analysis, forefather of stream of consciousnessb.Psychological realismc.Highly-refined language(5)Style –“stylist”nguage: highly-refined, polished, insightful, accurateb.V ocabulary: largec.Construction: complicated, intricate3.Mark Twain (see next section)Local Colorism1860s, 1870s~1890sI.Appearance1.uneven development in economy in America2.culture: flourishing of frontier literature, humourists3.magazines appeared to let writer publish their worksII.What is “Local Colour”?Tasks of local colourists: to write or present local characters of their regions in truthful depiction distinguished from others, usually a very small part of the world.Regional literature (similar, but larger in world)●Garland, Harte – the west●Eggleston – Indiana●Mrs Stowe●Jewett – Maine●Chopin – LouisianaIII.Mark Twain – Mississippi1.life2.works(1)The Gilded Age(2)“the two advantages”(3)Life on the Mississippi(4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court(5)The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug3.style(1)colloquial language, vernacular language, dialects(2)local colour(3)syntactic feature: sentences are simple, brief, sometimes ungrammatical(4)humour(5)tall tales (highly exaggerated)(6)social criticism (satire on the different ugly things in society)parison of the three “giants” of American Realism1.ThemeHowells – middle classJames – upper classTwain – lower class2.TechniqueHowells – smiling/genteel realismJames – psychological realismTwain – local colourism and colloquialismChapter 4 American NaturalismI.Background1.Darwin’s theory: “natural selection”2.Spenser’s idea: “social Darwinism”3.French Naturalism: ZoraII.Features1.environment and heredity2.scientific accuracy and a lot of details3.general tone: hopelessness, despair, gloom, ugly side of the societyIII.significanceIt prepares the way for the writing of 1920s’ “lost generation” and T. S. Eliot.IV.Theodore Dreiser1.life2.works(1)Sister Carrie(2)The trilogy: Financier, The Titan, The Stoic(3)Jennie Gerhardt(4)American Tragedy(5)The Genius3.point of view(1)He embraced social Darwinism – survival of the fittest. He learned to regard manas merely an animal driven by greed and lust in a struggle for existence in whichonly the “fittest”, the m ost ruthless, survive.(2)Life is predatory, a “game” of the lecherous and heartless, a jungle struggle inwhich man, being “a waif and an interloper in Nature”, a “wisp in the wind ofsocial forces”, is a mere pawn in the general scheme of things, with no po werwhatever to assert his will.(3)No one is ethically free; everything is determined by a complex of internalchemisms and by the forces of social pressure.4.Sister Carrie(1)Plot(2)Analysis5.Style(1)Without good structure(2)Deficient characterization(3)Lack in imagination(4)Journalistic method(5)Techniques in paintingChapter 5 The Modern PeriodSection 1 The 1920sI.IntroductionThe 1920s is a flowering period of American literature. It is considered “the second renaissance” of American literature.The nicknames for this period:(1)Roaring 20s – comfort(2)Dollar Decade – rich(3)Jazz Age – Jazz musicII.Backgrounda)First World War –“a war to end all wars”(1)Economically: became rich from WWI. Economic boom: new inventions.Highly-consuming society.(2)Spiritually: dislocation, fragmentation.b)wide-spread contempt for law (looking down upon law)1.Freud’s theoryIII.Features of the literatureWriters: three groups(1)Participants(2)Expatriates(3)Bohemian (unconventional way of life) – on-lookersTwo areas:(1)Failure of communication of Americans(2)Failure of the American societyImagismI. BackgroundImagism was influenced by French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japanese literature “haiku”II. Development: three stages1.1908~1909: London, Hulme2.1912~1914: England -> America, Pound3.1914~1917: Amy LowellIII. W hat is an “image”?An image is defined by Pound as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas” “endowed with energy”. The exact word must bring the effect of the object be fore the reader as it had presented itself to the poet’s mind at the time of writing.IV. Principles1.Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective;2.To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation;3.As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in thesequence of a metronome.V. Significance1.It was a rebellion against the traditional poetics which failed to reflect the new life ofthe new century.2.It offered a new way of writing which was valid not only for the Imagist poets but formodern poetry as a whole.3.The movement was a training school in which many great poets learned their firstlessons in the poetic art.4.It is this movement that helped to open the first pages of modern English and Americanpoetry.VI. Ezra Pound1.life2.literary career3.works(1)Cathay(2)Cantos(3)Hugh Selwyn Mauberley4.point of view(1)Confident in Pound’s belief that the artist was morally and culturally the arbiterand the “saviour” of the race, he took it upon himself to purify the arts and becamethe prime mover of a few experimental movements, the aim of which was to dumpthe old into the dustbin and bring forth something new.(2)To him life was sordid personal crushing oppression, and culture produced nothingbut “intangible bondage”.(3)Pound sees in Chinese history and the doctrine of Confucius a source of strengthand wisdom with which to counterpoint Western gloom and confusion.(4)He saw a chaotic world that wanted setting to rights, and a humanity, sufferingfrom spiritual death and cosmic injustice, that needed saving. He was for the mostpart of his life trying to offer Confucian philosophy as the one faith which couldhelp to save the West.5.style: very difficult to readPound’s early poems are fresh and lyrical. The Cantos can be notoriously difficult insome sections, but delightfully beautiful in others. Few have made serious study of thelong poem; fewer, if anyone at all, have had the courage to declare that they haveconquered Pound; and many seem to agree that the Cantos is a monumental failure.6.ContributionHe has helped, through theory and practice, to chart out the course of modern poetry.7.The Cantos –“the intellectual diary since 1915”Features:(1)Language: intricate and obscure(2)Theme: complex subject matters(3)Form: no fixed framework, no central theme, no attention to poetic rulesVII. T. S. Eliot1.life2.works(1)poems●The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock●The Waste Land (epic)●Hollow Man●Ash Wednesday●Four Quarters(2)Plays●Murder in the Cathedral●Sweeney Agonistes●The Cocktail Party●The Confidential Clerk(3)Critical essays●The Sacred Wood●Essays on Style and Order●Elizabethan Essays●The Use of Poetry and The Use of Criticisms●After Strange Gods3.point of view(1)The modern society is futile and chaotic.(2)Only poets can create some order out of chaos.(3)The method to use is to compare the past and the present.4.Style(1)Fresh visual imagery, flexible tone and highly expressive rhythm(2)Difficult and disconnected images and symbols, quotations and allusions(3)Elliptical structures, strange juxtapositions, an absence of bridges5.The Waste Land: five parts(1)The Burial of the Dead(2) A Game of Chess(3)The Fire Sermon(4)Death by Water(5)What the Thunder SaidVIII. Robert Frost1.life2.point of view(1)All his life, Frost was concerned with constructions through po etry. “a momentarystay against confusion”.(2)He understands the terror and tragedy in nature, but also its beauty.(3)Unlike the English romantic poets of 19th century, he didn’t believe that man couldfind harmony with nature. He believed that serenity came from working, usuallyamid natural forces, which couldn’t be understood. He regarded work as“significant toil”.3.works – poemsthe first: A Boy’s Willcollections: North of Boston, Mountain Interval (mature), New Hampshire4.style/features of his poems(1)Most of his poems took New England as setting, and the subjects were chosenfrom daily life of ordinary people, such as “mending wall”, “picking apples”.(2)He writes most often about landscape and people – the loneliness and poverty ofisolated farmers, beauty, terror and tragedy in nature. He also describes someabnormal people, e.g. “deceptively simple”, “philosophical poet”.(3)Although he was popular during 1920s, he didn’t experiment like other modernpoets. He used conventional forms, plain language, traditional metre, and wrote ina pastured tradition.IX. e. e. cummings“a juggler with syntax, grammar and diction” –individualism, “painter poet”Novels in the 1920sI. F. Scott Fitzgerald1.life – participant in 1920s2.works(1)This Side of Paradise(2)Flappers and Philosophers(3)The Beautiful and the Damned(4)The Great Gatsby(5)Tender is the Night(6)All the Sad Young Man(7)The Last Tycoon。

常耀信《美国⽂学简史》笔记和考研真题详解（弗罗斯特桑德堡卡明斯哈特克兰穆尔）【圣才出品】第13章弗罗斯特?桑德堡?卡明斯?哈特?克兰?穆尔13.1 复习笔记I. Robert Frost (1874-1963)（罗伯特·弗罗斯特）1. Life（⽣平）Robert Frost was born in San Francisco and spent his early childhood in the Far West. At the death of his father, when Frost was eleven, the family moved to New Hampshire. After graduating from high school, he entered Dartmouth College. In 1913 his first book A boy’s Will came out in London. His second volume North of Boston came out in 1914. The next year, Frost came back to the United States which recognized him as its bard. He won the Pulitzer Prize four times and received commendations by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Poetry Society of America respectively in 1938 and 1941. He received honors from forty-four institutions, and became the nation’s unofficial Poet Laureate when invited to read his poe m at President Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961.罗伯特·弗罗斯特出⽣于旧⾦⼭，在美国西部度过了童年。

第26章多种族文学（2）26.1 复习笔记I. Native American Literature（美国本土印第安文学）1. Brief Introduction（简介）For a long time the image of the American Indian in American literature has been a distorted one. Whatever portrayal of them there is in mainstream literature has been once or twice removed from the truth. As the Native American writer N. Scott Momaday puts it, “There was at one time a real danger of the Indian simply being frozen as an image in the American mind.” For a long time now, the Native Americans have been telling their own stories from their own perspectives, and they have succeeded in dislodging that image so that it has become something vital and real. In 1968 N. Scott Momaday published his House Made of Dawn and won the Pulitzer Prize. This led to what has become known as “The Native American Renaissance”around the end of the 1960s. Today books by Native American writers fill the bookstores, and their literature has become a distinct ingredient of American literature.很长一段时期内，美国文学中的印第安人一直是一种被歪曲的形象。

美国文学作者作品Edwards: 爱德华兹The Freedom of the Will 《论意志自由》Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended 《论原罪》The Nature of True Virtue 《论真实德行的本原》名篇：Personal Narrative 《自述》Sinners in the hands of an Angry God 《愤怒上帝手中之罪》Benjamin Franklin:本杰明·富兰克林Poor Richard’s Almanac《穷理查德年历》Autobiography 《自传》Washington Irving:华盛顿·欧文A History of New York《纽约外传》The Sketch Book 《见文札记》名篇：Rip Van Winkle《瑞普·温·凡克尔》The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 《睡谷传奇》James Fenimore Cooper:詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库柏Leatherstocking Tales 《皮袜子故事集》The Pioneer 《拓荒者》The Prairie 《大草原》The Last of Mohicans《最后的莫希干人》The Pathfinder《探路人》The Deerslayer 《猎鹿者》Ralph Waldo Emerson:拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生Nature 《论自然》Self-Reliance 《论自立》Essays 《随笔集》名篇：The American Scholar 《美国学者》（has been regarded as “American Declaration of Intellectual Independence”被誉为美国思想的独立宣言）The PoetHenry David Thoreau:亨利·戴维·梭罗Walden 《瓦尔登湖》Nathaniel Hawthorne:纳撒尼尔·霍桑The Scarlet Letter《红字》The House of the Seven Gables 《七个尖角阁的房子》Mosses from an Old Manse《古厦青苔》The Blithedale Romance《福谷传奇》The Marble Faun 《玉石神像》Ethan Brand 《伊桑布兰德》Young Goodman Brown 《好小伙子布朗》Dr. Heidggeger’s Experiment 《海德格博士的体验》The Ambitions Guest 《野心勃勃的客人》The Greast Stone Face 《巨石脸》Herman Melville:赫尔曼·梅尔维尔Moby Dick《白鲸》Omoo《欧穆》Mardi《玛地》Typee 《泰比》Redburn 《雷德本》White Jacket 《白外衣》Pierre《皮埃尔》Billy Budd《比利伯德》Benito Gereno《班纳托西兰尼》Walt Whitman:沃尔特·惠特曼Leaves of Grass《草叶集》Songs of Myself《自我之歌》There was a Child Went Forth《有个小孩走过来》I Sing the Body Electric《我歌唱带电的肉体》Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking《走出永不休止地摇动着的摇篮》Emily Dickenson:艾米莉·狄金森My Life Closed Twice before Its Close《我的生命已结束过两次》Because I Can’t Stop for Death《因为我不能等待死亡》I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I died《我死时听到了苍蝇的嗡嗡声》Mine—by the Right of the White Election《我的丈夫—选择如意情人的权利》Wild Nights—Wild Nights《暴风雨夜》William Dean Howells:豪威尔斯The Rise of Silas Lapham《塞拉斯·拉帕姆的发迹》Henry James:亨利·詹姆斯The American《美国人》Daisy Miller《黛西·米勒》The Portrait of a Lady《贵妇的画像》The Ambassadors《专使》The Wings of Dove《鸽翼》The Golden Bowl《金碗》Harriet Beecher Stowe:哈丽叶特·比切·斯托Oldtown Folks《老城的人们》Uncle Tom’s Cabin《汤姆叔叔的小屋》Bret Harte:布勒特·哈特The Luck of Roaring Camp《咆哮营的幸运儿》Hamlin Garland:哈姆林·加兰Main-Traveled Roads《大路条条》Sarah Orne Jewett:萨拉·奥恩·朱亚特Deephaven《深深拥有》Kate Chopin:凯特·肖邦Bayou Folk《路易斯安娜移民》A Night in Acadie《爱克迪之夜》The Awakening《觉醒》Mark Twain:马克吐温The Gilded Age《镀金时代》The Adventures of Tom Sawyer《汤姆索亚历险记》The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn《哈克贝利·芬历险记》Mysterious Stranger《神秘的陌生人》The Innocents Abroad《傻子出国记》Mark Twain Autobiography《马克吐温自传》Stephen Crane:斯蒂芬·克莱恩A Girl of the Streets《街头女郎麦琪》The Open Boat《海上扁舟》The Red Badge of Courage《红色英勇勋章》The Black Riders《黑骑手》Frank Norris:弗兰克·诺里斯McTeague《麦克提格》The Octopus《章鱼》The Pit《深渊》The Responsibilities of the Novelist《小说家的责任》Theodore Dreiser:西奥多·德莱塞Sister Carrie《嘉莉妹妹》Jennie Gerhardt《珍妮姑娘》The Financier《金融家》The Titan《巨人》The Stoic《斯多葛》The Genius《天才》An American Tragedy《美国悲剧》Jack London:杰克·伦敦The Call of the Wild《野性的呼唤》White Fang《白牙》The Sea Wolf《海狼》Martin Eden《马丁·伊登》The People of the Abyss《深渊中的人们》The Iron Heel《铁蹄》O·Henry:欧·亨利The Gift of the Magi《麦琪的礼物》After Twenty Years《二十年后》The Furnished Room《带家具出租的房间》Cope and the Anthem《警察与赞美诗》The Last Piece of Ivy Leaves《最后一片常春藤叶》Upton Sinclair: 厄普顿·辛克莱The Jungle《丛林》Ezra Pound:埃兹拉·庞德Cathay《华夏集》The Cantos《诗章》Hugh Selwyn Mauberley《休·塞尔温·毛伯利》T·S·Eliot:艾略特The Waste Land《荒原》Four Quartets《四个四重奏》Ash Wednesday《圣灰星期三》Hollow Man《空心人》The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock 《杰·阿尔弗雷德·普鲁弗洛克的情歌》Wallace Stevens华莱士·史蒂文斯Harmoniun《风琴》Collected Poems《诗集》Best-known poems: The Emperor of Ice-Cream《冰激凌皇帝》Anecdote of the Jar《坛子的故事》Sunday Morning《星期天早晨》The Idea of Order at Key West《基维斯特的秩序观念》William Carlos William威廉·卡洛斯·威廉斯Paterson《帕特森》Robert Frost罗伯特·弗罗斯特Poetry Anthology:A Boy’s Will《少年意志》North of Boston《波士顿以北》Mountain Interval《山间》New Hampshire《新罕普什尔》West-Running Brook《西流的溪涧》A Further Range《又一片牧场》A Witness Tree《一株作证的树》Well-known poem: The Road Not Taken《未选择的路》Carl Sandburg卡尔桑德堡Chicago Poems《芝加哥诗抄》Cornhuskers《剥玉米的人》The American Songbag《美国民歌集成》The Prairie Years《草原年代》The War Years《战争年代》The People, Yes《人民，是的》Complete Poems《诗歌全集》E·E·Cummings肯明斯The Enormous Room《巨大的房子》Hart Crane哈特·克兰The Bridge《桥》Marianne Moore玛丽安·穆尔Collected Poems《诗集》F·Scott Fitzgerald费茨杰拉德This Side of Paradise《人间天堂》The Great Gatsby《了不起的盖茨比》Tender is the Night《夜色温柔》Tales of the Jazz《爵士乐时代的故事》The Beautiful and the Damned《漂亮冤家》The Last Tycoon《最后的大亨》Flappers and Philosophers《轻佻女郎与哲学家》Ernest Hemingway海明威The Sun Also Rises《太阳照常升起》Death in the Afternoon《午后之死》The Old Man and the sea《老人与海》Green Hills of Africa《非洲青山》A Farewell to Arms《永别了武器》For Whom the Bell tolls《丧钟为谁而鸣》。

第25章多种族文学（1）25.1 复习笔记I. Overview of African American Literature（非裔美国文学发展概貌）1. African American literature has undergone a long process of evolution. Oral tradition came first in the form of songs, ballads, and spirituals, in short, folk literature in its various manifestations.2. The abolitionist movement and the Civil War brought a new impetus to African American literature. After the Emancipation, the Great Migration occurred in full swing in the years between 1890 and 1920. Large numbers of sharecroppers were driven out of the country, moved from the south to the north and poured into the cities. Of all the places where African Americans gathered was Harlem, New York City. Here large numbers of African Americans from all places and all walks of life made Harlem the hub of black life that drew all their artists and intellectuals over.3. Shortly after WWI, a new black intelligentsia appeared on the scene. They rebelled against the values of their fathers and their way of life. They took an enormous interest in their own lives and values. They tried to solicit the attention of their African American people as well as the whites. And they began a search for adistinct tradition of their own. All these characterized a great movement in the cultural and intellectual history of the African Americans. This new upsurge of African American literature in the 1920s has come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance.4. The 1960s proved to be a turbulent period for the United States when the African Americans awoke to the need for power, Black power, and it also proved to be a period of spectacular growth in African American literature.5. Contemporary writers such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker adds their significant contributions to the growth of African American literature.1. 非裔美国文学经历了一段漫长的发展过程。

第9章地方色彩小说•马克•吐温9.1 复习笔记I. Local Colorism（地方色彩主义）The vogue of local color fiction was the outgrowth of historical and aesthetic forces that had been gathering energy since early 19th century. Local colorism as a literary trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early seventies. It is a variation of American literary realism.Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes. They concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. Major local colorists are Bret Harte, Hanlin Garland, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Kate Chopin and Mark Twain.地方色彩小说的流行是自19世纪早期以来历史和艺术力量凝聚的产物。

欧阳家百创编A Concise History of American Literature欧阳家百（2021.03.07）What is literature?Literature is language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages.Chapter 1 Colonial PeriodI.Background: Puritanism1.features of Puritanism(1)Predestination: God decided everything before thingsoccurred.(2)Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and thisoriginal sin can be passed down from generation togeneration.(3)Total depravity(4)Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.2.Influence(1) A group of good qualities – hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety(serious and thoughtful) influenced American literature.(2)It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on amyth – garden of Eden.(3)Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode ofperception was chiefly instrumental in calling into being aliterary symbolism which is distinctly American.(4)With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple anddirect; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch ofnobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible. II.Overview of the literature1.types of writingdiaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books,autobiographies/biographies, sermons2.writers of colonial period(1)Anne Bradstreet(2)Edward Taylor(3)Roger Williams(4)John Woolman(5)Thomas Paine(6)Philip FreneauIII.Jonathan Edwards1.life2.works(1)The Freedom of the Will(2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended(3)The Nature of True Virtue3.ideas – pioneer of transcendentalism(1)The spirit of revivalism(2)Regeneration of man(3)God’s presence(4)Puritan idealismIV.Benjamin Franklin1.life2.works(1)Poor Richard’s Almanac(2)Autobiography3.contribution(1)He helped found the PennsylvaniaHospital and the AmericanPhilosophical Society.(2)He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire(electri city in this case) from heaven”.(3)Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of alltrades”. Herman Melville thus described him “master of eachand mastered by none”.Chapter 2 American RomanticismSection 1 Early Romantic PeriodWhat is Romanticism?●An approach from ancient Greek: Plato● A literary trend: 18c in Britain (1798~1832)●Schlegel Bros.I.Preview: Characteristics of romanticism1.subjectivity(1)feeling and emotions, finding truth(2)emphasis on imagination(3)emphasis on individualism –personal freedom, no heroworship, natural goodness of human beings2.back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature(1)unrestrained by classical rules(2)full of imagination(3)colloquial language(4)freedom of imagination(5)genuine in feelings: answer their call for classics3.back to naturenature is “breathing living thing” (Rousseau)II.American Romanticism1.Background(1)Political background and economic development(2)Romantic movement in European countriesDerivative – foreign influence2.features(1)American romanticism was in essence the expressi on of “areal new experience and contained “an alien quality” for thesimple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically newand alien.(2)There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage toconsider. American romantic authors tended more tomoralize. Many American romantic writings intended toedify more than they entertained.(3)The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connectionwith American Romanticism.(4)As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work,American romanticism was both imitative and independent. III.WashingtonIrving1.several names attached to Irving(1)first American writer(2)the messenger sent from the new world to the old world(3)father of American literature2.life3.works(1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World tothe End of the Dutch Dynasty(2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won ameasure of international recognition with the publication ofthis.)(3)The History of the Life and Voyages of ChristopherColumbus(4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada(5)The Alhambra4.Literary career: two parts(1)1809~1832a.Subjects are either English or Europeanb.Conservative love for the antique(2)1832~1859: back to US5.style – beautiful(1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness(2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining(3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere(4)vivid and true characters(5)humour – smiling while reading(6)musical languageIV.James Fenimore Cooper1.life2.works(1)Precaution (1820, his first novel, imitating Austen’s Prideand Prejudice)(2)The Spy (his second novel and great success)(3)Leatherstocking Tales (his masterpiece, a series of fivenovels)The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder,The Pioneer, The Prairie3.point of viewthe theme of wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law, ordervs. change, aristocrat vs. democrat, natural rights vs. legal rights4.style(1)highly imaginative(2)good at inventing tales(3)good at landscape description(4)conservative(5)characterization wooden and lacking in probability(6)language and use of dialect not authentic5.literary achievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the history of the United States is, in a sense, theprocess of the American settlers exploring and pushing theAmerican frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West. He turned thewest and frontier as a useable past and he helped to introducewestern tradition to American literature.Section 2 Summit of Romanticism – American TranscendentalismI.Background: four sources1.Unitarianism(1)Fatherhood of God(2)Brotherhood of men(3)Leadership of Jesus(4)Salvation by character (perfection of one’s character)(5)Continued progress of mankind(6)Divinity of mankind(7)Depravity of mankind2.Romantic IdealismCenter of the world is spirit, absolute spirit (Kant)3.Oriental mysticismCenter of the world is “oversoul”4.PuritanismEloquent expression in transcendentalismII.Appearance1836, “Nature” by EmersonIII.Features1.spirit/oversoul2.importance of individualism3.nature – symbol of spirit/Godgarment of the oversoul4.focus in intuition (irrationalism and subconsciousness)IV.Influence1.It served as an ethical guide to life for a young nation andbrought about the idea that human can be perfected by nature. Itstressed religious tolerance, called to throw off shackles of customs and traditions and go forward to the development of anew and distinctly American culture.2.It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidlyexpanded economy where opportunity often became opportunism, and the desire to “get on” obscured the moral necessity for rising to spiritual height.3.It helped to create the first American renaissance –one of themost prolific period in American literature.V.Ralph Waldo Emerson1.life2.works(1)Nature(2)Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet3.point of view(1)One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in thetranscendence of the “oversoul”.(2)He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifyingmoral influence on man, and advocated a direct intuition of aspiritual and immanent God in nature.(3)If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself and bringsout the divine in himself, he can hope to become better andeven perfect. This is what Emerson means by “the infinitudeof man”.(4)Everyone should understand that he makes himself bymaking his world, and that he makes the world by makinghimself.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He is a complete man, an eternal man.(2)True poetry and true art should ennoble.(3)The poet should express his thought in symbols.(4)As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors tocelebrate America which was to him a lone poem in itself.5.his influenceVI.Henry David Thoreau1.life2.works(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River(2)Walden(3) A Plea for John Brown (an essay)3.point of view(1)He did not like the way a materialistic America wasdeveloping and was vehemently outspoken on the point.(2)He hated the human injustice as represented by the slaverysystem.(3)Like Emerson, but more than him, Thoreau saw nature as agenuine restorative, healthy influence on man’s spiritualwell-being.(4)He has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace ofman.(5)He was very critical of modern civilization.(6)“Simplicity…simplify!”(7)He was sorely disgusted with “the inundations of the dirtyinstitutions of men’s odd-fellow society”.(8)He has calm trust in the future and his ardent belief in a newgeneration of men.Section 3 Late RomanticismI.Nathaniel Hawthorne1.life2.works(1)Two collections of short stories: Twice-told Tales, Mossesfrom and Old Manse(2)The Scarlet Letter(3)The House of the Seven Gables(4)The Marble Faun3.point of view(1)Evil is at the core of human life, “that blackness inHawthorne”(2)Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can bepassed from generation to generation (causality).(3)He is of the opinion that evil educates.(4)He has disgust in science.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He took a great interest in history and antiquity. To himthese furnish the soil on which his mind grows to fruition.(2)He was convinced that romance was the predestined form ofAmerican narrative. To tell the truth and satirize and yet notto offend: That was what Hawthorne had in mind to achieve.5.style – typical romantic writer(1)the use of symbols(2)revelation of characters’ psychology(3)the use of supernatural mixed with the actual(4)his stories are parable (parable inform) – to teach a lesson(5)use of ambiguity to keep the reader in the world ofuncertainty – multiple point of viewII.Herman Melville1.life2.works(1)Typee(2)Omio(3)Mardi(4)Redburn(5)White Jacket(6)Moby Dick(7)Pierre(8)Billy Budd3.point of view(1)He never seems able to say an affirmative yes to life: His isth e attitude of “Everlasting Nay” (negative attitude towardslife).(2)One of the major themes of his is alienation (far away fromeach other).Other themes: loneliness, suicidal individualism(individualism causing disaster and death), rejection andquest, confrontation of innocence and evil, doubts over thecomforting 19c idea of progress4.style(1)Like Hawthorne, Melville manages to achieve the effect ofambiguity through employing the technique of multiple viewof his narratives.(2)He tends to write periodic chapters.(3)His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have beenprofusely commented upon and praised.(4)His works are symbolic and metaphorical.(5)He includes many non-narrative chapters of factualbackground or description of what goes on board the ship oron the route (Moby Dick)Romantic PoetsI.Walt Whitman1.life2.work: Leaves of Grass (9 editions)(1)Song of Myself(2)There Was a Child Went Forth(3)Crossing Brooklyn Ferry(4)Democratic Vistas(5)Passage to India(6)Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking3.themes –“Catalogue of American and European thought”He had been influenced by many American and European thoughts: enlightenment, idealism, transcendentalism, science, evolution ideas, western frontier spirits, Jefferson’s individualism, Civil War Unionism, Orientalism.Major themes in his poems (almost everything):●equality of things and beings●divinity of everything●immanence of God●democracy●evolution of cosmos●multiplicity of nature●self-reliant spirit●death, beauty of death●expansion of America●brotherhood and social solidarity (unity of nations in theworld)●pursuit of love and happiness4.style: “free verse”(1)no fixed rhyme or scheme(2)parallelism, a rhythm of thought(3)phonetic recurrence(4)the habit of using snapshots(5)the use of a certain pronoun “I”(6) a looser and more open-ended syntactic structure(7)use of conventional image(8)strong tendency to use oral English(9)vocabulary –powerful, colourful, rarely used words offoreign origins, some even wrong(10)sentences –catalogue technique: long list of names, longpoem lines5.influence(1)His best work has become part of the common property ofWestern culture.(2)He took over Whitman’s vision of the poet-prophet and poet-teacher and recast it in a more sophisticated andEuropeanized mood.(3)He has been compared to a mountain in American literaryhistory.(4)Contemporary American poetry, whatever school or form,bears witness to his great influence.II.Emily Dickenson1.life2.works(1)My Life Closed Twice before Its Close(2)Because I Can’t Stop for Death(3)I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I died(4)Mine – by the Right of the White Election(5)Wild Nights – Wild Nights3.themes: based on her own experiences/joys/sorrows(1)religion – doubt and belief about religious subjects(2)death and immortality(3)love – suffering and frustration caused by love(4)physical aspect of desire(5)nature – kind and cruel(6)free will and human responsibility4.style(1)poems without titles(2)severe economy of expression(3)directness, brevity(4)musical device to create cadence (rhythm)(5)capital letters – emphasis(6)short poems, mainly two stanzas(7)rhetoric techniques: personification – make some of abstractideas vividparison: Whitman vs. Dickinson1.Similarities:(1)Thematically, they both extolled, in their different ways, anemergent America, its expansion, its individualism and itsAmericanness, their poetry being part of “AmericanRenaiss ance”.(2)Technically, they both added to the literary independence ofthe new nation by breaking free of the convention of theiambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in formunknown before: they were pioneers in American poetry.2.differences:(1)Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large;Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual.(2)Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is“regional”.(3)Dickinson has the “catalogue technique” (direct, simple style)which Whitman doesn’t have.Edgar Allen PoeI.LifeII.Works1.short stories(1)ratiocinative storiesa.Ms Found in a Bottleb.The Murders in the Rue Morguec.The Purloined Letter(2)Revenge, death and rebirtha.The Fall of the House of Usherb.Ligeiac.The Masque of the Red Death(3)Literary theorya.The Philosophy of Compositionb.The Poetic Principlec.Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told TalesIII.Themes1.death –predominant theme in Poe’s writing“Poe is not interested in anything alive. Everything in Poe’swritings is dead.”2.disintegration (separation) of life3.horror4.negative thoughts of scienceIV.Aesthetic ideas1.The short stories should be of brevity, totality, single effect,compression and finality.2.The poems should be short, and the aim should be beauty, thetone melancholy. Poems should not be of moralizing. He callsfor pure poetry and stresses rhythm.V.Style – traditional, but not easy to readVI.Reputation: “the jingle man” (Emerson)VII.His influencesChapter 3 The Age of RealismI.Background: From Romanticism to Realism1.the three conflicts that reached breaking point in this period(1)industrialism vs. agrarian(2)culturely-measured east vs. newly-developed west(3)plantation gentility vs. commercial gentility2.1880’s urbanization: from free competition to monopolycapitalism3.the closing of American frontierII.Characteristics1.truthful description of life2.typical character under typical circumstance3.objective rather than idealized, close observation andinvestigation of life“Realistic writers are like scientists.”4.open-ending:Life is complex and cannot be fully understood. It leaves much room for readers to think by themselves.5.concerned with social and psychological problems, revealing thefrustrations of characters in an environment of sordidness anddepravityIII.Three Giants in Realistic Period1.William Dean Howells –“Dean of American Realism”(1)Realistic principlesa.Realism is “fidelity to experience and probability of motive”.b.The aim is “talk of some ordinary traits of American life”.c.Man in his natural and unaffected dullness was the object ofHowells’s fictional representation.d.Realism is by no means mere photographic pictures ofexternals but includes a central concern with “motives” andpsychological conflicts.e.He condemns novels of sentimentality and morbid self-sacrifice, and avoids such themes as illicit love.f.Authors should minimize plot and the artificial ordering ofthe sense of something “desultory, unfinished, imperfect”.g.Characters should have solidity of specification and be real.h.Interpreting sympathetically the “common feelings ofcommonplace people” was best suited as a techniq ue toexpress the spirit of America.i.He urged writers to winnow tradition and write in keepingwith current humanitarian ideals.j.Truth is the highest beauty, but it includes the view that morality penetrates all things.k.With regard to literary criticism, Howells felt that the literary critic should not try to impose arbitrary or subjectiveevaluations on books but should follow the detached scientistin accurate description, interpretation, and classification.(2)Worksa.The Rise of Silas Laphamb. A Chance Acquaintancec. A Modern Instance(3)Features of His Worksa.Optimistic toneb.Moral development/ethicscking of psychological depth2.Henry James(1)Life(2)Literary career: three stagesa.1865~1882: international theme●The American●Daisy Miller●The Portrait of a Ladyb.1882~1895: inter-personal relationships and some plays●Daisy Miller (play)c.1895~1900: novellas and tales dealing with childhood andadolescence, then back to international theme●The Turn of the Screw●When Maisie Knew●The Ambassadors●The Wings of the Dove●The Golden Bowl(3)Aesthetic ideasa.The aim of novel: represent lifemon, even ugly side of lifec.Social function of artd.Avoiding omniscient point of view(4)Point of viewa.Psychological analysis, forefather of stream of consciousnessb.Psychological realismc.Highly-refined language(5)Style –“stylist”nguage: highly-refined, polished, insightful, accurateb.Vocabulary: largec.Construction: complicated, intricate3.Mark Twain (see next section)Local Colorism1860s, 1870s~1890sI.Appearance1.uneven development in economy in America2.culture: flourishing of frontier literature, humourists3.magazines appeared to let writer publish their worksII.What is “Local Colour”?Tasks of local colourists: to write or present local characters of their regions in truthful depiction distinguished from others, usually a very small part of the world.Regional literature (similar, but larger in world)●Garland, Harte – the west●Eggleston – Indiana●Mrs Stowe●Jewett – Maine●Chopin – LouisianaIII.Mark Twain – Mississippi1.life2.works(1)The Gilded Age(2)“the two advantages”(3)Life on the Mississippi(4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court(5)The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug3.style(1)colloquial language, vernacular language, dialects(2)local colour(3)syntactic feature: sentences are simple, brief, sometimesungrammatical(4)humour(5)tall tales (highly exaggerated)(6)social criticism (satire on the different ugly things in society) parison of the three “giants” of American Realism1.ThemeHowells – middle classJames – upper classTwain – lower class2.TechniqueHowells – smiling/genteel realismJames – psychological realismTwain – local colourism and colloquialismChapter 4 American NaturalismI.Background1.Darwin’s theory: “natural selection”2.Spenser’s idea: “social Darwinism”3.French Naturalism: ZoraII.Features1.environment and heredity2.scientific accuracy and a lot of details3.general tone: hopelessness, despair, gloom, ugly side of thesocietyIII.significanceIt prepares the way for the writing of 1920s’ “lost generation” and T.S. Eliot.IV.Theodore Dreiser1.life2.works(1)Sister Carrie(2)The trilogy: Financier, The Titan, The Stoic(3)Jennie Gerhardt(4)American Tragedy(5)The Genius3.point of view(1)He embraced social Darwinism – survival of the fittest. Helearned to regard man as merely an animal driven by greedand lust in a struggle for existence in which only the “fittest”,the most ruthless, survive.(2)Life is predatory, a “game” of the lecherous and heartless, ajungle struggle in which man, being “a waif and an interloperin Nature”, a “wisp in the wind of social forces”, is a merepawn in the general scheme of things, with no powerwhatever to assert his will.(3)No one is ethically free; everything is determined by acomplex of internal chemisms and by the forces of socialpressure.4.Sister Carrie(1)Plot(2)Analysis5.Style(1)Without good structure(2)Deficient characterization(3)Lack in imagination(4)Journalistic method(5)Techniques in paintingChapter 5 The Modern PeriodSection 1 The 1920sI.IntroductionThe 1920s is a flowering period of American literature. It is欧阳家百创编欧阳家百创编 considered “the second renaissance” of American literature. The nicknames for this period:(1) Roaring 20s – comfort(2) Dollar Decade – rich(3) Jazz Age – Jazz musicII. Backgrounda) First World War – “a war to end all wars”(1) Economically: became rich from WWI. Economic boom: new inventions. Highly-consuming society.(2) Spiritually: dislocation, fragmentation.b) wide-spread contempt for law (looking down upon law)1. Freud’s theoryIII. Features of the literature Writers: three groups(1) Participants(2) Expatriates(3) Bohemian (unconventional way of life) – on-lookers Two areas:(1) Failure of communication of Americans(2) Failure of the American society Imagism I. Background Imagism was influenced by French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japanese literature “haiku” II. Development: three stages1. 1908~1909: London, Hulme2. 1912~1914: England -> America, Pound3. 1914~1917: Amy Lowell III. What is an “image”? An image is defined by Pound as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas” “endowed with energy”. The exact word must bring the effect of the object before the reader as it had presented itself to the poet’s mind at the time of writing. IV. Principles1. Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective;2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation;3. As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome. V. Significance1. It was a rebellion against the traditional poetics which failed to reflect the new life of the new century.2. It offered a new way of writing which was valid not only for the Imagist poets but for modern poetry as a whole.3. The movement was a training school in which many great poets learned their first lessons in the poetic art.4. It is this movement that helped to open the first pages of modern English and American poetry. VI. Ezra Pound1. life2. literary career3. works(1) Cathay(2) Cantos。

A Concise History of American LiteratureWhat is literature?Literature is language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages.Chapter 1 Colonial PeriodI.Background: Puritanism1.features of Puritanism(1)Predestination: God decided everything before thingsoccurred.(2)Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and thisoriginal sin can be passed down from generation togeneration.(3)Total depravity(4)Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.2.Influence(1) A group of good qualities –hard work, thrift, piety,sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced Americanliterature.(2)It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on amyth – garden of Eden.(3)Symbolism: the American puri tan’s metaphorical mode ofperception was chiefly instrumental in calling into being aliterary symbolism which is distinctly American.(4)With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple anddirect; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touchof nobility often traceable to the direct influence of theBible.II.Overview of the literature1.types of writingdiaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books,autobiographies/biographies, sermons2.writers of colonial period(1)Anne Bradstreet(2)Edward Taylor(3)Roger Williams(4)John Woolman(5)Thomas Paine(6)Philip FreneauIII.Jonathan Edwards1.life2.works(1)The Freedom of the Will(2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended(3)The Nature of True Virtue3.ideas – pioneer of transcendentalism(1)The spirit of revivalism(2)Regeneration of man(3)God’s presence(4)Puritan idealismIV.Benjamin Franklin1.life2.works(1)Poor Richard’s Almanac(2)Autobiography3.contribution(1)He helped found the PennsylvaniaHospital and theAmerican Philosophical Society.(2)He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire(e lectricity in this case) from heaven”.(3)Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of alltrades”. Herman Melville thus described him “master ofeach and mastered by none”.Chapter 2 American RomanticismSection 1 Early Romantic PeriodWhat is Romanticism?●An approach from ancient Greek: Plato● A literary trend: 18c in Britain (1798~1832)●Schlegel Bros.I.Preview: Characteristics of romanticism1.subjectivity(1)feeling and emotions, finding truth(2)emphasis on imagination(3)emphasis on individualism –personal freedom, no heroworship, natural goodness of human beings2.back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature(1)unrestrained by classical rules(2)full of imagination(3)colloquial language(4)freedom of imagination(5)genuine in feelings: answer their call for classics3.back to naturenature is “breathing living thing” (Rousseau)II.American Romanticism1.Background(1)Political background and economic development(2)Romantic movement in European countriesDerivative – foreign influence2.features(1)American romanticism was in essence the expression of“a real new experience and contained “an alien quality”for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” wasradically new and alien.(2)There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage toconsider. American romantic authors tended more tomoralize. Many American romantic writings intended toedify more than they entertained.(3)The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connectionwith American Romanticism.(4)As a logical result of the foreign and native factors atwork, American romanticism was both imitative andindependent.III.WashingtonIrving1.several names attached to Irving(1)first American writer(2)the messenger sent from the new world to the old world(3)father of American literature2.life3.works(1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the Worldto the End of the Dutch Dynasty(2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won ameasure of international recognition with the publicationof this.)(3)The History of the Life and Voyages of ChristopherColumbus(4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada(5)The Alhambra4.Literary career: two parts(1)1809~1832a.Subjects are either English or Europeanb.Conservative love for the antique(2)1832~1859: back to US5.style – beautiful(1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness(2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining(3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere(4)vivid and true characters(5)humour – smiling while reading(6)musical languageIV.James Fenimore Cooper1.life2.works(1)Precaution (1820, his first novel, imitating Austen’s Prideand Prejudice)(2)The Spy (his second novel and great success)(3)Leatherstocking Tales (his masterpiece, a series of fivenovels)The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder,The Pioneer, The Prairie3.point of viewthe theme of wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law,order vs. change, aristocrat vs. democrat, natural rights vs.legal rights4.style(1)highly imaginative(2)good at inventing tales(3)good at landscape description(4)conservative(5)characterization wooden and lacking in probability(6)language and use of dialect not authentic5.literary achievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of theAmerican nation. If the history of the United States is, in asense, the process of the American settlers exploring andpushing the American frontier forever westward, thenCooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectively approximates theAmerican national experience of adventure into the West. Heturned the west and frontier as a useable past and he helped tointroduce western tradition to American literature.Section 2 Summit of Romanticism –American TranscendentalismI.Background: four sources1.Unitarianism(1)Fatherhood of God(2)Brotherhood of men(3)Leadership of Jesus(4)Salvation by character (perfection of one’s character)(5)Continued progress of mankind(6)Divinity of mankind(7)Depravity of mankind2.Romantic IdealismCenter of the world is spirit, absolute spirit (Kant)3.Oriental mysticismCenter of the world is “oversoul”4.PuritanismEloquent expression in transcendentalismII.Appearance1836, “Nature” by EmersonIII.Features1.spirit/oversoul2.importance of individualism3.nature – symbol of spirit/Godgarment of the oversoul4.focus in intuition (irrationalism and subconsciousness)IV.Influence1.It served as an ethical guide to life for a young nation andbrought about the idea that human can be perfected by nature.It stressed religious tolerance, called to throw off shackles ofcustoms and traditions and go forward to the development ofa new and distinctly American culture.2.It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidlyexpanded economy where opportunity often becameopportunism, and the desire to “get on” obscured the moralnecessity for rising to spiritual height.3.It helped to create the first American renaissance – one of themost prolific period in American literature.V.Ralph Waldo Emerson1.life2.works(1)Nature(2)Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet3.point of view(1)One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief inthe transcendence of the “oversoul”.(2)He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifyingmoral influence on man, and advocated a direct intuitionof a spiritual and immanent God in nature.(3)If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself andbrings out the divine in himself, he can hope to becomebetter and even perfect. This is what Emerson means by“the infinitude of man”.(4)Everyone should understand that he makes himself bymaking his world, and that he makes the world by makinghimself.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He is a complete man, an eternal man.(2)True poetry and true art should ennoble.(3)The poet should express his thought in symbols.(4)As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors tocelebrate America which was to him a lone poem in itself.5.his influenceVI.Henry David Thoreau1.life2.works(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River(2)Walden(3) A Plea for John Brown (an essay)3.point of view(1)He did not like the way a materialistic America wasdeveloping and was vehemently outspoken on the point.(2)He hated the human injustice as represented by the slaverysystem.(3)Like Emerson, but more than him, Thoreau saw nature asa genuine restorative, healthy influence on man’s spiritualwell-being.(4)He has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual graceof man.(5)He was very critical of modern civilization.(6)“Simplicity…simplify!”(7)He was sorely disgusted with “the inundations of the dirtyinstitutions of men’s odd-fellow society”.(8)He has calm trust in the future and his ardent belief in anew generation of men.Section 3 Late RomanticismI.Nathaniel Hawthorne1.life2.works(1)Two collections of short stories: Twice-told Tales, Mossesfrom and Old Manse(2)The Scarlet Letter(3)The House of the Seven Gables(4)The Marble Faun3.point of view(1)Evil is at the core of human life, “that blackness inHawthorne”(2)Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil canbe passed from generation to generation (causality).(3)He is of the opinion that evil educates.(4)He has disgust in science.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He took a great interest in history and antiquity. To himthese furnish the soil on which his mind grows to fruition.(2)He was convinced that romance was the predestined formof American narrative. To tell the truth and satirize andyet not to offend: That was what Hawthorne had in mindto achieve.5.style – typical romantic writer(1)the use of symbols(2)revelation of characters’ psychology(3)the use of supernatural mixed with the actual(4)his stories are parable (parable inform) – to teach a lesson(5)use of ambiguity to keep the reader in the world ofuncertainty – multiple point of viewII.Herman Melville1.life2.works(1)Typee(2)Omio(3)Mardi(4)Redburn(5)White Jacket(6)Moby Dick(7)Pierre(8)Billy Budd3.point of view(1)He never seems able to say an affirmative yes to life: Hisis the attitude of “Everlasting Nay” (negative attitudetowards life).(2)One of the major themes of his is alienation (far awayfrom each other).Other themes: loneliness, suicidal individualism(individualism causing disaster and death), rejection andquest, confrontation of innocence and evil, doubts over thecomforting 19c idea of progress4.style(1)Like Hawthorne, Melville manages to achieve the effectof ambiguity through employing the technique of multipleview of his narratives.(2)He tends to write periodic chapters.(3)His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have beenprofusely commented upon and praised.(4)His works are symbolic and metaphorical.(5)He includes many non-narrative chapters of factualbackground or description of what goes on board the shipor on the route (Moby Dick)Romantic PoetsI.Walt Whitman1.life2.work: Leaves of Grass (9 editions)(1)Song of Myself(2)There Was a Child Went Forth(3)Crossing Brooklyn Ferry(4)Democratic Vistas(5)Passage to India(6)Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking3.themes –“Catalogue of American and European thought”He had been influenced by many American and Europeanthoughts: enlightenment, idealism, transcendentalism, science, evolution ideas, western frontier spirits, Jefferson’sindividualism, Civil War Unionism, Orientalism.Major themes in his poems (almost everything):●equality of things and beings●divinity of everything●immanence of God●democracy●evolution of cosmos●multiplicity of nature●self-reliant spirit●death, beauty of death●expansion of America●brotherhood and social solidarity (unity of nations in theworld)●pursuit of love and happiness4.style: “free verse”(1)no fixed rhyme or scheme(2)parallelism, a rhythm of thought(3)phonetic recurrence(4)the habit of using snapshots(5)the use of a certain pronoun “I”(6) a looser and more open-ended syntactic structure(7)use of conventional image(8)strong tendency to use oral English(9)vocabulary –powerful, colourful, rarely used words offoreign origins, some even wrong(10)sentences – catalogue technique: long list of names, longpoem lines5.influence(1)His best work has become part of the common property ofWestern culture.(2)He took over Whitman’s vision of the poet-prophet andpoet-teacher and recast it in a more sophisticated andEuropeanized mood.(3)He has been compared to a mountain in American literaryhistory.(4)Contemporary American poetry, whatever school or form,bears witness to his great influence.II.Emily Dickenson1.life2.works(1)My Life Closed Twice before Its Close(2)Because I Can’t Stop for Death(3)I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I died(4)Mine – by the Right of the White Election(5)Wild Nights – Wild Nights3.themes: based on her own experiences/joys/sorrows(1)religion – doubt and belief about religious subjects(2)death and immortality(3)love – suffering and frustration caused by love(4)physical aspect of desire(5)nature – kind and cruel(6)free will and human responsibility4.style(1)poems without titles(2)severe economy of expression(3)directness, brevity(4)musical device to create cadence (rhythm)(5)capital letters – emphasis(6)short poems, mainly two stanzas(7)rhetoric techniques: personification –make some ofabstract ideas vividparison: Whitman vs. Dickinson1.Similarities:(1)Thematically, they both extolled, in their different ways,an emergent America, its expansion, its individualism andits Americanness, their poetry being part of “AmericanR enaissance”.(2)Technically, they both added to the literary independenceof the new nation by breaking free of the convention ofthe iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in formunknown before: they were pioneers in American poetry.2.differences:(1)Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large;Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual.(2)Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinsonis “regional”.(3)Dickinson has the “catalogue technique” (direct, simplestyle) which Whitman doesn’t ha ve.Edgar Allen PoeI.LifeII.Works1.short stories(1)ratiocinative storiesa.Ms Found in a Bottleb.The Murders in the Rue Morguec.The Purloined Letter(2)Revenge, death and rebirtha.The Fall of the House of Usherb.Ligeiac.The Masque of the Red Death(3)Literary theorya.The Philosophy of Compositionb.The Poetic Principlec.Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told TalesIII.Themes1.death –predominant theme in Poe’s writing“Poe is not interested in anything alive. Everything in Poe’swritings is dead.”2.disintegration (separation) of life3.horror4.negative thoughts of scienceIV.Aesthetic ideas1.The short stories should be of brevity, totality, single effect,compression and finality.2.The poems should be short, and the aim should be beauty, thetone melancholy. Poems should not be of moralizing. He callsfor pure poetry and stresses rhythm.V.Style – traditional, but not easy to readVI.Reputation: “the jingle man” (Emerson)VII.His influencesChapter 3 The Age of RealismI.Background: From Romanticism to Realism1.the three conflicts that reached breaking point in this period(1)industrialism vs. agrarian(2)culturely-measured east vs. newly-developed west(3)plantation gentility vs. commercial gentility2.1880’s urbanization: from free competition to monopolycapitalism3.the closing of American frontierII.Characteristics1.truthful description of life2.typical character under typical circumstance3.objective rather than idealized, close observation andinvestigation of life“Realistic writers are like scientists.”4.open-ending:Life is complex and cannot be fully understood. It leaves much room for readers to think by themselves.5.concerned with social and psychological problems, revealingthe frustrations of characters in an environment of sordidnessand depravityIII.Three Giants in Realistic Period1.William Dean Howells –“Dean of American Realism”(1)Realistic principlesa.Realism is “fidelity to experience and probability ofmotive”.b.The aim is “talk of some ordinary traits of American life”.c.Man in his natural and unaffected dullness was the objectof Howells’s fictional representation.d.Realism is by no means mere photographic pictures ofexternals but includes a central concern with “motives”and psychological conflicts.e.He condemns novels of sentimentality and morbid self-sacrifice, and avoids such themes as illicit love.f.Authors should minimize plot and the artificial ordering ofthe sense of something “desultory, unfinished, imperfect”.g.Characters should have solidity of specification and be real.h.Interpreting sympathetically the “common feelings ofcommonplace people” was best suited as a t echnique to express the spirit of America.i.He urged writers to winnow tradition and write in keepingwith current humanitarian ideals.j.Truth is the highest beauty, but it includes the view that morality penetrates all things.k.With regard to literary criticism, Howells felt that the literary critic should not try to impose arbitrary or subjective evaluations on books but should follow the detached scientist in accurate description, interpretation, and classification.(2)Worksa.The Rise of Silas Laphamb. A Chance Acquaintancec. A Modern Instance(3)Features of His Worksa.Optimistic toneb.Moral development/ethicscking of psychological depth2.Henry James(1)Life(2)Literary career: three stagesa.1865~1882: international theme●The American●Daisy Miller●The Portrait of a Ladyb.1882~1895: inter-personal relationships and some plays●Daisy Miller (play)c.1895~1900: novellas and tales dealing with childhood andadolescence, then back to international theme●The Turn of the Screw●When Maisie Knew●The Ambassadors●The Wings of the Dove●The Golden Bowl(3)Aesthetic ideasa.The aim of novel: represent lifemon, even ugly side of lifec.Social function of artd.Avoiding omniscient point of view(4)Point of viewa.Psychological analysis, forefather of stream ofconsciousnessb.Psychological realismc.Highly-refined language(5)Style –“stylist”nguage: highly-refined, polished, insightful, accurateb.Vocabulary: largec.Construction: complicated, intricate3.Mark Twain (see next section)Local Colorism1860s, 1870s~1890sI.Appearance1.uneven development in economy in America2.culture: flourishing of frontier literature, humourists3.magazines appeared to let writer publish their worksII.What is “Local Colour”?Tasks of local colourists: to write or present local characters of their regions in truthful depiction distinguished from others, usually a very small part of the world.Regional literature (similar, but larger in world)●Garland, Harte – the west●Eggleston – Indiana●Mrs Stowe●Jewett – Maine●Chopin – LouisianaIII.Mark Twain – Mississippi1.life2.works(1)The Gilded Age(2)“the two advantages”(3)Life on the Mississippi(4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court(5)The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug3.style(1)colloquial language, vernacular language, dialects(2)local colour(3)syntactic feature: sentences are simple, brief, sometimesungrammatical(4)humour(5)tall tales (highly exaggerated)(6)social criticism (satire on the different ugly things insociety)parison of the three “giants” of American Realism1.ThemeHowells – middle classJames – upper classTwain – lower class2.TechniqueHowells – smiling/genteel realismJames – psychological realismTwain – local colourism and colloquialismChapter 4 American NaturalismI.Background1.Darwin’s theory: “natural selection”2.Spenser’s idea: “social Darwinism”3.French Naturalism: ZoraII.Features1.environment and heredity2.scientific accuracy and a lot of details3.general tone: hopelessness, despair, gloom, ugly side of thesocietyIII.significanceIt prepares the way for the writing of 1920s’ “lost generation”and T. S. Eliot.IV.Theodore Dreiser1.life2.works(1)Sister Carrie(2)The trilogy: Financier, The Titan, The Stoic(3)Jennie Gerhardt(4)American Tragedy(5)The Genius3.point of view(1)He embraced social Darwinism –survival of the fittest.He learned to regard man as merely an animal driven bygreed and lust in a struggle for existence in which only the“fittest”, the most ruthless, survive.(2)Life is predatory, a “game” of the lecherous and heartless,a jungle struggle in which man, being “a waif and aninterloper in Nature”, a “wisp in the wind of social forces”,is a mere pawn in the general scheme of things, with nopower whatever to assert his will.(3)No one is ethically free; everything is determined by acomplex of internal chemisms and by the forces of socialpressure.4.Sister Carrie(1)Plot(2)Analysis5.Style(1)Without good structure(2)Deficient characterization(3)Lack in imagination(4)Journalistic method(5)Techniques in paintingChapter 5 The Modern PeriodSection 1 The 1920sI.IntroductionThe 1920s is a flowering period of American literature. It is considered “the second renaissance” of American literature.The nicknames for this period:(1)Roaring 20s – comfort(2)Dollar Decade – rich(3)Jazz Age – Jazz musicII.Backgrounda)First World War –“a war to end all wars”(1)Economically: became rich from WWI. Economic boom:new inventions. Highly-consuming society.(2)Spiritually: dislocation, fragmentation.b)wide-spread contempt for law (looking down upon law)1.Freud’s theoryIII.Features of the literatureWriters: three groups(1)Participants(2)Expatriates(3)Bohemian (unconventional way of life) – on-lookersTwo areas:(1)Failure of communication of Americans(2)Failure of the American societyImagismI. BackgroundImagism was influenced by French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japanese literature “haiku”II. Development: three stages1.1908~1909: London, Hulme2.1912~1914: England -> America, Pound3.1914~1917: Amy LowellIII. What is an “image”?An image is defined by Pound as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas” “endowed with energy”. The exact word must bring the effect of the object before the reader as it had presented itself to the poet’s mind at the time of writing.IV. Principles1.Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective orobjective;2.To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to thepresentation;3.As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of themusical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome.V. Significance1.It was a rebellion against the traditional poetics which failedto reflect the new life of the new century.2.It offered a new way of writing which was valid not only forthe Imagist poets but for modern poetry as a whole.3.The movement was a training school in which many greatpoets learned their first lessons in the poetic art.4.It is this movement that helped to open the first pages ofmodern English and American poetry.VI. Ezra Pound1.life2.literary career3.works(1)Cathay。