美国文学第七讲

The Plot of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
• After having failed to secure Katrina's hand, Ichabod rides home "heavy-hearted and crestfallen" through the spook-infested woods between Van Tassel's farmstead and the Sleepy Hollow settlement. As he passes several purportedly haunted spots, his active imagination is engorged by the ghost stories told at Baltus' harvest party.
The Plot of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
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Although the nature of the Headless Horseman is left open to interpretation, the story implies that the ghost was really Brom (an agile stunt rider) in disguise. Irving's narrator concludes, however, by stating that the old Dutch wives continue to promote the belief that Ichabod was "spirited away by supernatural means," and a legend develops around his disappearance and sightings of his melancholy spirit.

American Naturalism: a new and harsher realism
Under the influence of European writers such as Emile Zola, Thomas Hardy and George Eliot, American literary naturalism emerged in the 1890s as an outgrowth of American realism.
American Naturalism
Chang Yaoxin： To some young writers just emerging, Howellsian realism was now too restrained and genteel in tone to tell the truth of the harsher realities of American life. …In the 1890s, French naturalism, with its new technique and new way of writing, appealed to the imagination of the younger generation like Stephen Crane, Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser.
American Naturalism
Historical Background
man is not a creature of God but just a kind of animal which is not too different from “The world of jungle”; “the law of other animals; man’s fate is wholly the jungle,” the determined by survival of the fittest; environment and American Naturalism heredity inside himself

英美文学欣赏（第四版）
作品简介
《麦琪的礼物》选自他的短篇小说集《四百万》（1906），是各种欧 ·亨利 短篇小说集的必选作品，被称为“或许是文学里最佳的通俗故事”。
小说描写一对贫苦青年夫妻互赠圣诞礼物的故事。两人生活窘迫，但相亲相 爱。妻子黛拉的长长秀发，是她一直引以为豪的、唯一珍贵的东西。丈 夫吉姆有一件家传的怀表， 非常值得夸耀，但是由于表带陈旧，吉姆不 愿意在人前展示。圣诞前夜，黛拉发现自己千方百计节省的积蓄只有1美 元87美分，伤心之后，她来到理发店，将秀发卖了20美元， 为吉姆精心 挑选了一条“设计简洁，质量上乘”的铂金表链，好让吉姆可以“每天 看上金表一百遍”。吉姆准时回家。当她把表链送到吉姆面前时，丈夫 紧紧拥抱了她，送给她一套玳瑁做成的、镶有珠宝的梳子。这套梳子恰 恰是她梦寐以求的，好用它来梳理自己的秀发。两人发现，吉姆卖力自 己的金表为妻子的秀发买了梳子，而黛拉卖掉了自己的秀发为丈夫买了 表带。
英美文学欣赏（第四版）
properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation 只以货色论长短，不以装潢来炫耀
（注解：proclaim 意思是“表明，显示”；meretricious 意思是“浮华的， 耀眼的”）
他的小说一般都是短篇故事，有近300 篇，大多构思奇妙，情节机智 有趣，充满幽默，结尾往往出人意料。他善于捕捉和把握生活中的典型场 面，在一个生活片段里集中刻画人物心理，在很短的篇幅里达到一种思想 和艺术的完美结合。与他所描写的人物和场景相配， 他常在小说中使用普 通人的口语和俚语，使他的作品带有地方特色。
触描写严冬的到来。）
英美文学欣赏（第四版）

Poe’s short stories
Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque, a collection
• • • • • • •
Ligeia The Tell-Tale Heart （暴露实情）明白的心 暴露实情） William Wilson The Fall of the House of Usher √ √ Black Cat The Imp of the Perverse, 反常的小鬼 The Cask of Amontillado √
Edgar Allen Poe 1809-49
• The most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature. • critic, poet, short story writer, editor of a number of magazines • At 27, he married his 13-year-old cousin, whose death in 1847 left him inconsolable and bitterer with life than ever. p105
Poe’s poems
• Poe’s poems are heavily tinted in a dreamy, hallucinatory color, such as • The Raven √ p107 • Annabel Lee • A Dream Within a Dream p108
Poe’s other poems
Poe’s theories for short story