下载文档原格式
美国文学术语解释(全面且简练)美国文学是指具有美国独特文化地域色彩的文学作品。
包括小说、戏剧、诗歌、散文以及加拿大和多明尼加等国家的文学作品。
其短篇小说及戏剧都有着浓厚的美国文化特色，其龙头主流的文学派别是在17世纪后期形成的新约克郡派，主要有约翰•德拉谢尔（John Dryden）、Jonathan Swift 等人，他们为美国文学写下了精彩绝伦的篇章。
新约克郡派把文章写成了装满宗教特质、歌颂胜利、崇高赞美的模式，也就是赞美诗，发掘探索细节、夸张搭配修辞，准确表达真实情境，是后期美国文学的重要基础；而在早期的美国文学发展史上，更多的是宗教文学。
随着美国政治的发展，社会文化的不断进步，宗教文学慢慢地被实用的文学文本所取代。
美国的文学活动开始贴近人文主义的文学脉络，表现出散文风格，致力于针对现状的批判性反思以及自我叙述性自觉。
然而，到了18世纪末，受英国文学传统影响，美国文学正式步入正轨，并开始向两群导向，即诗歌与小说。
第一类作品赞美自然风景、积极的立场或事实内容，通过句法、修辞手法和宋体表达，以“说服力”为特征；而小说，基本上描写人物及其情感，作者给予考量和评析，以构建一个小说世界。
有关美国文学习派别方面，它指的是具有某种特殊特性的作品、作者或趋势，这些特性可以汇聚成学派，如经典主义派、象征主义派、古典注重艺术形式翻新派、现代主义派、问题类型派、客观散文派等等。
美国文学家们也是新的运动的团体来提倡这些派别，如1820年墨西哥战争、当时的托马斯汉密尔顿著名的圣教徒笃信运动引起的“波厄特派”，其中的小说作家和写报人表达了一种激进的、反殖民主义的文学潮流。
波厄特派的影响很大，它声称小说应该坚持自然、客观原则，实证严谨，保持超验主义，而不是神话传说，也不是把文学作品改写成像诗歌一样的形式。
自19世纪初美国文学思想开始发展至今，美国文学进入了一个更加多样化、开放空间愈加广阔的阶段，无论是宗教、哲学还是政治新思想都将重新回归到文学之中，美国文学也变得更加丰富多彩了。
美国文学文学名词解释1 Modernism(现代主义)Modernism is comprehensive but vague term for a movement , which begin in the late19th century and which has had a wide influence internationally during much of the 20th century、2> modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical case、3> the term pertains to all the creative arts、Especially poetry, fiction, drama, painting, music and architecture、现代主义就是全面但运动模糊的术语,在19世纪末期开始,在国际上有广泛影响的在20世纪的大部分时间。
2 >现代主义以非理性哲学与精神分析理论为其理论的情况。
3 >这个词属于所有的创造性艺术。
特别就是诗歌、小说、戏剧、绘画、音乐与建筑。
2 Transcendentalism(超验主义)Transcendentalism is literature, philosophical and literary movement that flourished in new England from about 1836 to 1860、it is the summit of American Romanticism、it originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, developing instead their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world、Transcendentalism derived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, and from such English authors as Coleridge and Wordsworth、Its mystical aspects were partly influenced by Indian and Chinese religious teachings、Although Transcendentalism was never a rigorously systematic philosophy, it had some basic tenets that were generally shared by its adherents、The beliefs that God is immanent in each person andin nature and that individual intuition is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of traditional authority、The ideas of Transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature, and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden、超验主义就是从1836至1860于新英格兰发起的一场文学,哲学以及艺术运动。
American Dream: American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. It usually implies a successful and satisfying life. It usually framed in terms of American capitalism（资本主义）, its associated purported meritocracy,（知识界精华） and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Bill of Rights.American Puritanism清教主义: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the protestant church who wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrines of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. American literature in the 17th century mostly consisted of Puritan literature. Puritanism had an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets. Transcendentalism 超验主义: Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. Transcendentalists spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. It placed emphasis on spirit, or the Over soul, as the most important thing in the world. It stressed the importance of individual and offered a fresh perception nature ad symbolic of the spirit of God. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thorough. American Naturalism自然主义: American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. The naturalists attempt to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by environment and heredity. It emphasized that the world was amoral, the men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by heredity and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. The pessimism and deterministic ideas naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.American Naturalism(美国自然主义文学)：The American naturalists accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.2) naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.3>Dreiser is a leading figure of his school.The Gilded Age镀金时代: the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.The Gilded Age is most famous for the creation of a modern industrial economy. The end of the Gilded Age coincided with the Panic of 1893, a deep depression. The depression lasted until 1897 and marked a major political realignment in the election of 1896. After that came the Progressive Era.The Lost Generation: The Lost Generation is a group of expatriate American writers residing primarily in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. The group was given its nameby the American writer Gertrude Stein, who used “a lost generation” to refer to expatriate Americans bitter about their World War I experiences and disillusioned with American society. Hemingway later used the phrase as an epigraph for his novel The Sun Also Rises. It consisted of many influential American writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams and Archibald MacLeish.The Lost Generation(迷惘的一代）：The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe the post-war I generation of American writers:men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the three best-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and John dos Passos.Tragedy: in general, a literary work in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous end. Unlike comedy, tragedy depicts the actions of a central character who is usually dignified or heroic. Through a series of events, this tragic hero is brought to a final downfall. The causes of the tragic hero’s downfall vary. In traditional dramas, the cause can be fate, a flaw in character or an error in judgment. In modern dramas, where the tragic hero is often an ordinary individual, the causes range from moral or psychological weakness to the evils of society.Catch-22第22条军规: Catch-22 is a general critique of bureaucratic operation and reasoning. Resulting from its specific use in the book, the phrase "Catch-22" is common idiomatic usage meaning "a no-win situation" or "a double bind" of any type. The term was originally from Joseph Heller’s anti novel Catch-22.Beat Generation垮掉的一代: group of American writers of the 1950s whose writing expressed profound dissatisfaction with contemporary American society and endorsed an alternative set of values. The term sometimes is used to refer to those who embraced the ideas of these writers. The Beat Generation's best-known figures were writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.The Beat Generation(垮掉的一代):The members of The Beat Generation were new bohemian libertines. Who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity.2> The Beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non-conformity and for its non-conforming style.3> the major beat writings are Allen Ginsberg’s howl.Howl became the manifesto of The Beat Generation. Psychological Realism心理现实主义: it is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters’ thoughts and motivations. It places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization and on the motives, and internal action which springs from and develops external action. In Psychological Realism, character and characterization are more than usually important. Henry James is considered a great master of psychological realism.Free Verse自由诗体: free verse is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure, instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech. While it alternates stressed and unstressed syllables as stricter verse form do, free verse dose so in a looser way. Walt Whitman’s poetry is an example of free verse.Confessional Poetry自白诗:it is a type of modern poetry in which poets speak withopenness and frankness about their own lives, such as in poems about illness, sexuality and despondence. Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg and Theodore Roethke are the most important American poets.Imagism意象派: The 1920s saw a vigorous literary activity in America. In poetry there appeared a strong reaction against Victorian poetry. Imagists placed primary reliance on the use of precise, sharp images as a means of poetic expression and stressed precision in the choice of words, freedom in the choice of subject matter and form, and the use of colloquial language. Most of the imagist poets wrote in free verse, using such devices as assonance and alliteration rather than formal metrical schemes to give structure to their poetry.The movement which had these as its aims is known in literary history as Imagism. Its prime mover was Ezra Pound. Imagism(意象主义)：Imagism 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.2>the imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.3>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. 4> pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known inagist poem. Black Humor: the use of morbid and the absurd for darkly comic purposes in modern fiction and drama. The term refers as much to the tone of anger and bitterness as it does to the grotesque and morbid situations, which often deal with suffering, anxiety, and death. Black humor is a substantial element in the Anti-novel and the Theatre of Absurd. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is an almost archetypal example. Irony: a contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens in drama and literature. There are types of irony: verbal irony, dramatic irony and irony of situation. Irony of situation typically takes the form of a discrepancy between appearance and reality, or between what a character expects and what actually happens. Both verbal and irony of situation share the suggestion of a concealed truth conflicting with surface appearances.Allusion: A reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects the reader to recognize and respond to. An allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion.Satire讽刺: A kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weaknesses and wrongdoings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general. The aim of satirists is to set a moral standard for society, and they attempt to persuade the reader to see their point of view through the force of laughter.Symbol: A symbol is a sign which suggests more than its literal meaning. In other words, a symbol is both literal and figurative. A symbol is a way of telling a story and a way of conveying meaning. The best symbols are those that are believable in the lives of the characters and also convincing as they convey a meaning beyond the literal level of the story. If the symbol is obscure or ambiguous, then the very obscurity and the ambiguity may also be part of the meaning of the story. Symbolism: Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols. It’s a literary movement that arose in France in the last half of the 19th century and that greatlyinfluenced many English writers, particularly poets, of the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. It’s one of the most powerful devices that poets employ in creation. Stream of consciousness(意识流)(or interior monologue);In literary criticism, Stream of consciousness denotes a literary technique which seeks to describe an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes. Stream of consciousness writing is strongly associated with the modernist movement. Its introduction in the literary context, transferred from psychology, is attributed to May Sinclair. Stream of consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow,tracing as they do a character’s fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings.famous writers to employ this technique in the english language include James Joyce and William Faulkner.American realism ：（美国现实主义）Realism was a reaction against Romanticism and paved the way to Modernism; 2).During this period a new generation of writers, dissatisfied with the Romantic ideas in the older generation, came up with a new inspiration. This new attitude was characterized by a great interest in the realities of life. It aimed at the interpretation of the realities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic color. Instead of thinking about the mysteries of life and death and heroic individualism, people’s attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existence, to what was brutal or sordid, and to the open portayal of class struggle;3) so writers began to describe the integrity of human characters reacting under various circumstances and picture the pioneers of the far west, the new immigrants and the struggles of the working class; 4) Mark Twain Howells and Henry James are three leading figures of the American Realism.Local Colorism(乡土文学)：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.A J azz age(爵士时代):The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between world war I and world war II. Particularly in north America. With the rise of the great depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term” Jazz Age”. Feminism(女权主义): Feminisim incorporates both a doctrine of equal rights for women and an ideology of social transformation aiming to create a world for women beyond simple social equality.2>in general, feminism is ideology of women’s liberation based on the belief that women suffer injustice because of their sex. Under this broad umbrella various feminisms offer differing analyses of the causes, or agents, of female oppression.3> definitions of feminism by feminists tend to be shaped by their training, ideology or race. So, for example, Marxist and socialist feminists stress the interactionwithin feminism of class with gender and focus on social distinctions between men and women. Black feminists argue much more for an integrated analysis which can unlock the multiple systems of oppression.Hemingway Code Hero(海明威式英雄): Hemingway Code Hero ,also called code hero, is one who, wounded but strong more sentitive, enjoys the pleasures of life( sex, alcohol, sport) in face of ruin and death, and maintains, through some notion of a code, an ideal of himself.2> barnes in the sun also Rises, henry in a Farewell to arms and santiago in the old man and the sea are typical of Hemingway Code HeroImpressionism(印象主义):Impressionism is a style of painting that gives the impression made by the subject on the artist without much attention to details. Writers accepted the same conviction that the personal attitudes and moods of the writer were legitimate elements in depicting character or setting or action.2>briefly, it is a style of literature characterized by the creation of general impressions and moods rather that realistic mood.Modernism(现代主义)：Modernism is comprehensive but vague term for a movement , which begin in the late 19th century and which has had a wide influence internationally during much of the 20th century.2> modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical case.3> the term pertains to all the creative arts. Especially poetry, fiction, drama, painting,music and architecture.4> in england from early in the 20th century and during the 1920s and 1930s, in America from shortly before the first world war and on during the inter-war period, modernist tendencies were at their most active and fruitful.5>as far as literature is concerned, Modernism reveals a breaking away from established rules, traditions and conventions.fresh ways of looking at man’s position and function in the universe and many experiments in form and style.it is particularly concerned with language and how to use it and with writing itself. the gilded age: Plains Indians were pushed in a series of Indian wars onto restricted reservations.This period also witnessed the creation of a modern industrial economy.A national transportation and communication network was created, the corporation became the dominant form of business organization, and a managerial revolution transformed business operations. By the beginning of the twentieth century, per capita income and industrial production in the United States exceeded that of any other country except Britain. Long hours and hazardous working conditions, led many workers to attempt to form labor unions despite strong opposition from industrialists and the courts.An era of intense political partisanship, the Gilded Age was also an era of reform. The Civil Service Act sought to curb government corruption by requiring applicants for certain governmental jobs to take a competitive examination. The Interstate Commerce Act sought to end discrimination by railroads against small shippers and the Sherman Antitrust Act outlawed business monopolies. These years also saw the rise of the Populist crusade. Burdened by heavy debts and falling farm prices, many farmers joined the Populist party, which called for an increase in the amount of money in circulation, government assistance to help farmers repay loans, tariff reductions, and a graduated income tax.Mark Twain called the late nineteenth century the "Gilded Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath. In the popular view, the late nineteenth century was a period of greed and guile: of rapacious Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display. It is easy to caricature the Gilded Ageas an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. But it is more useful to think of this as modern America’s formative period, when an agrarian society of small producers was transformed into an urban society dominated by industrial corporations.Regionalism(地区主义)：In literature, regionalism or local color fiction refers to fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features – including characters, dialects, customs, history, and topography – of a particular region. Since the region may be a recreation or reflection of the author's own, there is often nostalgia and sentimentality in the writing.Although the terms regionalism and local color are sometimes used interchangeably, regionalism generally has broader connotations. Whereas local color is often applied to a specific literary mode that flourished in the late 19th century, regionalism implies a recognition from the colonial period to the present of differences among specific areas of the country. Additionally, regionalism refers to an intellectual movement encompassing regional consciousness beginning in the 1930s. Even though there is evidence of regional awareness in early southern writing—William Byrd's History of the Dividing Line, for example, points out southern characteristics—not until well into the 19th century did regional considerations begin to overshadow national ones. In the South the regional concern became more and more evident in essays and fiction exploring and often defending the southern way of life. John Pendleton Kennedy's fictional sketches in Swallow Barn, for example, examined southern plantation life at length.multiple points of view（多视角）：Multiple Point of View: It is one of the literary techniques William Faulkner used, which shows within the same story how the characters reacted differently to the same person or the same situation. The use of this technique gave the story a circular form wherein one event was the center, with various points of view radiating from it. The multiple points of view technique makes the reader recognize the difficulty of arriving at a true judgment.Confessional poetry ：Confessional poetry emphasizes the intimate, and sometimes unflattering, information about details of the poet's personal life, such as in poems about illness, sexuality, and despondence. The confessionalist label was applied to a number of poets of the 1950s and 1960s. John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Anne Sexton, and William De Witt Snodgrass have all been called 'Confessional Poets'. As fresh and different as the work of these poets appeared at the time, it is also true that several poets prominent in the canon of Western literature, perhaps most notably Sextus Propertius and Petrarch, could easily share the label of "confessional" with the confessional poets of the fifties and sixties. Ecocriticism：Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation. Ecocriticism was officially heralded by the publication of two seminal works, both published in the mid-1990s: The Ecocriticism Reader, edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, and The Environmental Imagination, by Lawrence Buell.In the United States, Ecocriticism is often associated with the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), which hosts biennial meetings for scholars who deal with environmental matters in literature. ASLE has an official journal —Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE)—in which much of the most current American scholarship in the rapidly evolving field of ecocriticism can befound.Ecocriticism is an intentionally broad approach that is known by a number of other designations, including "green (cultural) studies", "ecopoetics", and "environmental literary criticism".Dramatic Conflict：At least not the special kind of conflict that drives plays, the gas that fuels the dramatic engine. Arguments in real life are usually circular -- nobody gets anywhere, except a little steam's been blown off. And they're boring for everyone except the folks doing the yelling.Dramatic Conflict draws from a much deeper vein, rooted in the Subtext of your central characters. It's driven by fundamentally opposing desires.Conflict is a necessary element of fictional literature. It is defined as the problem in any piece of literature and is often classified according to the nature of the protagonist or antagonist。
【优质】美国文学名词解释（一）About Puritanism清教主义1.“would-be purifier”They wanted to purify the English Church and to restore church worship to the “pure and unspotted”condition of its earlier days.They opposed the elaborate rituals of the English Church. They believed that the Bible was the revealed word of God, therefore, people should guide their daily behavior with the Bible.2.Basic Puritan Beliefs（1）T otal Depravity - through Adam's fall, every human is born sinful - concept of Original Sin.（2）Unconditional Election - God "saves" those he wishes - only a few are selected for salvation - concept of predestination（3）Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only, not for everyone.（4）Irresistible Grace - God's grace is freely given, it cannot be earned or denied. Grace is defined as the saving and transfiguring power of God.（5）Perseverance of the "saints" - those elected by God have full power to interpret the will of God, and to live uprightly. If anyone rejects grace after feeling its power in his life, he will be going against the will of God - something impossible in Puritanism.2.The impact of Puritanism (1)High standards of moral excellence and conscience ;(2) Emphasis on education(3)Hard working, thrifty, independent spirit;(4)“Chosen people”consciousness .(诺斯替教）（二）Enlightenment(启蒙运动)Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity.Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.@A term used to describe the trends in thought and letters in Europe and the American colonies duringthe 18th century prior to the French Revolution. The precursors of the Enlightenment can be traced to the 17th century and earlier.@The phrase was frequently employed by writers of the period itself, convinced that they were emerging from centuries of darkness and ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science, and a respect for humanity.（三）Romanticism （浪漫主义）As an approach in literary creation, romanticism is ever present in literature of all times. But as a literary trend or movement, it occurred and developed in Europe and America at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries under the historical background of the Industrial Revolution around 1760 and the French Revolution (1789-1799). @ A movement in the literature of virtually every country of Europe, the United States, and Latin America that lasted from about 1750 to about 1870,@It was characterized by reliance on the imagination and subjectivity, freedom of thought and expression, and an idealization of nature.（四）Transcendentalism（超验主义）Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in theU.S. in the first half of the 19th century. It asserts the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition .Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Over-soul, the individual and Nature. It was, in essence, romantic idealism on Puritan soil.（五）Free versepoetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.(六）Blank verse“Blank verse” is poetry written in regular metrical butunrhymed lines, almost always iambic pentameters.（七）American Realism (1865—1918)（现实主义）American Realism came in the latter half of the nineteenth century as a reaction against Romanticism. It stresses truthful treatment of material. It focuses on commonness of the lives of the common people, and emphasizes objectivity and offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience. The three dominant figures of the period are William Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James.（八）Definition of Local Color（乡土特色）1.Literature that focuses on the characters, dialect, customs, topography（地形）, and other features particular to a specific region that exploits the speech, dress, mannerisms, and habits of thatspecific region .2.Twain’s Local colorismTwain preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. So the rich material of his boyhood experience on the Mississippi became endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississippi valley and the west became his major theme.（九）American Naturalism (1890s-1910s) （自然主义）1.Historical Background:—The spread of industrialization created extremes of wealth and poverty. —Farmers were still going westward, but frontiers were about the close. They had to depend on the transcontinental railway to transport their products.—The spread of Darwin’s theory of evolution changed people’s ideology.2. Thematically, naturalistic writers：-- wrote detailed descriptions of the lives of the downtrodden and of the abnormal-- had frank treatment of human passion and sexualit-- were concerned about how men and women were overwhelmed by the forces of environment and by the forces of heredity-- made detailed documentation of life: nothing but the truth, more naked and wicked than realism-- created gloomy and pessimistic atmosphere3. Here are the major features of naturalism.Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment.The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires. @Naturalistic writers are pessimistic. They choose their subjects from the lower.(10)Modernism（现代主义）(1)appeared after World War I(2)cutting off history and a sense of despair and loss(3)refusing to accept the traditional concept of value and all traditional ideological influences.1. BackgroundIn the first world war, America got considerable benefits with animal cost, but many artist and thinkers with suffering consciousness felt the terribleness of modern wars.Their heroism in mind gradually disappeared. Some of them going into battle suffered the sight of blood and all kinds of disasters. After back to America, they found that the social reality had experienced great change.2.Features or changes of the period(1)Increasing industrialization (2)Deepening urbanization(3)High speed development of technology and science(4 )Trauma of the first world war(5)1930s economic depression(6)Collapse of social value system(7)Dropping moral standards(8)Commondepression , fear ,sense of loss3. Features of the worksFreud’s psychoanalysis ,William James stream of consciousnesstheory and archetypal symbol had great impact on the writers of modern American writers. They pay special attention to the inner world of the people, during this period ,the most compelling literature movement is the writer’s self exile, also known as the second American renaissance .(十一）Novelists ——the Lost Generation“迷惘的一代”(1920s) The novelists who produced a literature of disillusionment in the aftermath of World War I, and some of them lived abroad:(1)Used their wartime experience as the basis for their works (2)were cut off from old values yet unable to come to terms with the new era(3)wondered pointlessly and restlessly(4)were frustrated by the war(5)spokesman ——Hemingway(十二）The Jazz AgeThe Jazz Age is the nickname in America of the decade of the 1920’s, beginning from 1919 to the Crash at the end of 1929.These ten years were, for Americans, a time of carefree prosperity, isolated from the world’s problem, bewildering great social change, and a feverish pursuit of pleasure.These were the ten years when the First World War was just over, when new inventions and manufacturing techniques greatly changed the way people lived; when people moved from the countryside in great numbers; when women won the right to vote and many started to earn their own money; when cars,washing machines,radios and vacuum cleaners became commonplace; and when millions of people lived beyond theirmeans and went into debt in order to obtain such things while the middle class frantically pursued individual “success”and personal enjoyment. They lived a rich, extravagant, frivolous moneymaking life, and it was this style of living gave the decade of the 1920’s such nickname as the “Jazz Age”, the “Dollar Decade”, and the “Roaring Twenties.”（十三）Imagism(1900S-1910S)(意象派)The Imagist movement included English and American poets in the early twentieth century who wrote free verse and were devoted to "clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images." The Imagist Movement began in London and later spread to the US. It underwent three major phases in its development.（十四）IronyA contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature.- 高氯酸对阿胶进行湿法消化后, 用导数火焰原子吸收光谱技术测定阿胶中的铜、“中药三大宝, 人参、鹿茸和阿胶。
美国文学简史名词解释Puritanism:the settlement of North American continent by English started in the early 17th century. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World—a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England. Puritanism, however was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincident with the founding of New Zealand; it was also a way of being in the world—a style of response to lived experience—that has reverberated through American life ever since. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind. American Puritanism also had a enduring influence on American literature.Romanticism ：The Romantic Period stretches from the end of the 18th \century through the outbreak of the Civil War.Romanticism was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. (subjectivity)For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions were more important than reason and common sense.They emphasized individualism, placing the individual against the group, against authority.They affirmed the inner life of the self, and wanted to be free to develop and express his own inner thoughts.Transcendentalism:In the realm of art and literature it meant the shattering of pseudo-classic rules and forms in favor of a spirit of freedom, the creation of works filled with the new passion for nature and common humanity and incarnating a fresh sense of the wonder, promise, and romance of life.Transcendentalism①The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the oversoul , as the most important thing in the universe.②The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual is the most important element of Society.③The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence.RealismAs a literary movement, the Age of Realism came into existence after Romanticism with the Civil War It was a reaction against “the lie” of Romanticism and sentimentalism, and paved the way to Modernism. This literary interest in the so-called “reality” of life started a new period in the American literary writing known as The Age of Realism.Psychological RealismIt is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities o f characters’ thoughts and motivations. And Henry James is considered the founder of psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in the impressions made by life on the spectator, and not in any facts of which the spectator is unaware. Such realism is therefore merely the obligation that the artist assumes to represent life as he sees it.Local colorism: local colorism is a type of writing that was popular in the late 19th(1860s—1870s). The feature of local colorism are: (1) presenting a locale distinguished from the outside world; (2)describing the exotic of the picturesque;(3)glorifying the past; (4) showing things as they are; (5) influence of setting on characters.Black humor: the term black humor was created in 1920s, but it was not noticed until 1960s. it was particularly a literary phenomenon in America after WWⅡ. Black humor, in literature, is drama, novel, and film, grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. Black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic face. Josegh Heller and Kury V onnegut are famous for their novels of black humor. Especially Heller’s Catch—22.The novels of such writers as Kurt V onnegut, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth contain elements of black humor.Naturalism: The American naturalists accepted the more negative interpre tation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to accout for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.2) naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.3>Dreiser with his Sister Carrie is a leading figure of his school.Imagism: A poetic movement of England and the U.S. that flourished from 1909 to 1917. The movement insists on the creat ion of images in poetry by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. “poetic techniques to record exactly the momentary impressions”Three main principles of the Imagist Movement (1912) :[1] direct treatment of poetic subjects [2] elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words, to use no word that does not contribute to the presentation.[3] rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome. 4> pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known poem.Harlem Renaissance：Harlem Renaissance refers to a period of outstanding literary vigor and creativity that occurred in the United states during the 1920s.2> the Harlem Renaissance changed the images of literature created by many black and white American writers. New black images were no longer obedient and docile. Instead they showed a new confidence and racial pride. 3> the center of this movement was the vast black ghetto of Harlem. In New York City.4> the leading figures are langston Hughes, James W.Johnson.etc主要作品：The Weary Blues, The Dream keeper and Other Poems, Fine Clothes to the JewThe Modern PeriodPart I The 1920s-1930s ( the second renaissance of American literature)l The Roaring Twenties (economically)l The Jazz Age (socially)l “lost” and “waste land” (spiritually)There had been a big flush of new theories and new ideas in both social and natural sciences.Darwinism(Darwin), Socialism (Karl Marx), Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud)Lost generation:The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe the post-war I generation of American writers:men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the three best-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and John dos Passos.The Beat Generation:The Beat Generation is a group of American young writers and artists popular in the 1950s and early 1960s. the member of the beat generation were new bohemian libertines, who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity. The beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non conformity and for its non conforming style. The major writing are jack Kerouac’s on the road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.American DreamThe is the idea held by many in the United States that through hard work, courage and determination one could achieve prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations.The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America. Allegory is a narrative that serves as an extended metaphor. Allegories are written in the form of fables, parables, poems, stories, and almost any other style or genre. The main purpose of an allegory is to tell a story that has characters, a setting, as well as other types of symbols, that have both literal and figurative meanings. One well-known example of an allegory is Dante’s The Divine Comedy.In Inferno, Dante is on a pilgrimage to try to understand his own life, but his characteralso represents every man who is in search of his purpose in the world.Alliteration is a pattern of sound that includes the repetition of consonant sounds. The repetition can be located at the beginning of successive words or inside the words. Poets often use alliteration to audibly represent the action that is taking place.Aside is an actor’s speech, directed to the au dience, that is not supposed to be heard by other actors on stage. An aside is usually used to let the audience know what a character is about to do or what he or she is thinking. Asides are important because they increase an audience's involvement in a play by giving them vital information pertaining what is happening, both inside of a character's mind and in the plot of the play.Gothic is a literary style popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. This style usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other “dark” subjects. Gothic literature was named for the apparent influence of the dark gothic architecture of the period on the genre. Also, many of these Gothic tales took places in suc h “gothic” surroundings. Other times, this story of darkness may occur in a more everyday setting, such as the quaint house where the man goes mad from the "beating" of his guilt in Edgar Allan Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart.”In essence, these stories were romances, largely due to their love of the imaginary over the logical, and were told from many different points of view.Catharsis is an emotional discharge that brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety. According to Aristotle, catharsis is the marking feature and ultimate end of any tragic artistic work.imagery: A common term of variable meaning, imageryincludes the "mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of literature. It signifies all the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem, whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor. Surrealism is an artistic movement doing away with the restrictions of realism and verisimilitude that might be imposed on an artist. In this movement, the artist sought to do away with conscious control and instead respond to the irrational urges of the subconscious mind. From this results the hallucinatory, bizarre, often nightmarish quality of surrealistic paintings and writings. Sample surrealist writers include Frank O'Hara, John Ashberry, and Franz Kafka.PuritanismAmerican Puritanism was practice and belief of Puritans. Puritans were the people who wanted to purify the Church of England and then were persecuted in England. They came to America for various reasons. But because they were a group of serious and religious people, they carried a code of value and a philosophy of life. T o them, religion was the most important thing. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin, total depravi ty and limited atonement for God’s grace. They also believed in hard working, piety and sobriety. In a word, American Puritanism exerted great influences upon American thought and literature.。
History And Anthology of American Literature (VolumeⅠ)美国文学史及选读1PartⅠThe Literature of Colonial America殖民主义时期的文学1.17世纪早期English and European explorers开始登陆美洲。
在他们之前100多年Caribbean Islands, Mexico andother Parts of South America已被the Spanish占领。
2.17th早期English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts(弗吉尼亚和马萨诸塞)开始了美国历史3.美国最早殖民者(earliest settlers)included Dutch ,Swedes ,Germans ,Freunch ,Spaniards ,Italians and Portugueses(荷兰人，瑞典人，德国人，法国人，西班牙人，意大利人及葡萄牙人等)。
4.美国早期文学主要为the narratives and journals of these settlements采用in diaries and in journals(日记和日志)，他们写关于the land with dense forests and deep-blue lakes and rich soil.5.第一批美国永久居民：the first permanent English settlement in North America was established atJamestown,Virginia in 1607(北美弗吉尼亚詹姆斯顿)。
6.船长约翰·史密斯Captain John Smith他的作品(reports of exploration)17th早期出版，被认为是美国第一部真正意义上的文学作品in the early 1600s,have been described as the first distinctly American literature written in English.他讲述了filled with themes, myths, images, scenes, character and events,吸引了朝圣者和清教徒前往lure the Pilgrims and the Puritans.7.美国第一位作家：1608年Captain John Smith写了封信《自殖民地第一次在弗吉尼亚垦荒以来发生的各种事件的真实介绍》“A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony”.8.他的第二本书1612年《弗吉尼亚地图，附：一个乡村的描述》“A Map of Virginia: with a Description of theCountry”.9.他一共出版了八本书，其中有关于新英格兰的历史及描述。
Puritanism:is the religious belief of the Puritans, who had intended to “purify” or simplify the reli gious rituals of the Church of England. They believed in the original sin and the harsh Day ofDoom, although some good people --- the chosen people or “the Elect” --- may be sav ed.Their way of life was based on their somber religion and stressed hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety. Puritans are more practical, tougher, and to be ever ready for any m isfortune and tragic failure. They areoptimistic.American Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in A merican thought and American literature.Transcendentalism:Following the rise of romanticism, Transcendentalism, which appeared after 1830, ma rked the maturity of American romanticism and the first renaissance in the American l iterary history. the term transcendentalism was derived from the Latin verb transcende re, meaning to rise above, or to pass beyond the limits. In a general sense it may be us ed in English to refer to any philosophy which teaches the transcendent nature of ulti mate reality. Transcendentalism was a romantic idealism, or philosophical romanticis m. It may also be regarded as a considerable-scale ideological and cultural revolution after American people struggled to get free from the English colonial rule. American Naturalism:American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. The naturalists attempt to achiev e extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by environment and heredity. It emphasized that the wo rld was amoral, the men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by her edity and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. The pessimism and deterministic ideas naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.The Gilded Age:the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the Unite d States during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th centur y. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in t heir 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.The Gilded Age is most famous for the creation of a modern industrial economy. The end of the Gilded Age coincided wit h the Panic of 1893, a deep depression. The depression lasted until 1897 and marked a major political realignment in the election of 1896. After that came the Progressive E ra.The Lost Generation:The Lost Generation is a group of expatriate American writers residing primarily in P aris during the 1920s and 1930s. The group was given its name by the American write r Gertrude Stein, who used a lost generation to refer to expatriate Americans bitter abo ut their World War I experiences and disillusioned with American society. Hemingwa y later used the phrase as an epigraph for his novel The Sun Also Rises. It consisted of many influential American writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams and Archibald MacLeish.Harlem Renaissance:The Harlem Renaissance was a flowering of the arts in the 1920‟s and 30s.African A mericans used writing, music, and art to demonstrate strong beliefs.Many of these beliefs were mphasized the necessity of black liberation, retaining blac k cultural pride, and not giving into white standards.Especially the awareness of the bl ack‟s identity.//Harlem became the biggest hot spot in America for any aspiring Afric an American artist. The city came alive at night as bars and clubs burst with music an d dancing.//Responding to the heady intellectual atmosphere of the time and place, wr iters and artists, many of whom lived in Harlem, began to produce a wide variety of fi ne and highly original works dealing with African-American life.//These works attract ed many black readers.//HR was more than just a literary movement: it included racial consciousness, …the back to Africa‟ movement led by Marcus Garvey, racial integrat ion, the exploring of music particularly jazz, spirituals and blues, painting, dramatic re vues, and others. It was a huge leap for black liberation and culture.Catch-22:Catch-22 is a general critique of bureaucratic operation and reasoning. Resulting from its specific use in the book, the phrase "Catch-22" is common idiomatic usage meani ng "a no-win situation" or "a double bind" of any type. The term was originally from J oseph Heller…s anti novel Catch-22.The Beat Generation:group of American writers of the 1950s whose writing expressed profound dissatisfact ion with contemporary American society and endorsed an alternative set of values. Th e term sometimes is used to refer to those who embraced the ideas of these writers. Th e Beat Generation's best-known figures were writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Keroua c.Psychological Realism:it is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters‘ thoughts and motivations. It places more than the usual amount of emphasis on int erior characterization and on the motives, and internal action which springs from and develops external action. In Psychological Realism, character and characterization are more than usually important. Henry James is considered a great master of psychologi cal realism.Free V erse:free verse is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to a void any predetermined verse structure, instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech . While it alternates stressed and unstressed syllables as stricter verse form do, free ver se dose so in a looser way. Walt Whitman…s poetry is an example of free verse. Confessional Poetry:it is a type of modern poetry in which poets speak with openness and frankness about their own lives, such as in poems about illness, sexuality and despondence. Robert Lo well, Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg and Theodore Roethke are the most important American poets.Imagism:It‟s a poetic movement of England and the U.S. flourished from 1909 to 1917.Themovement insists on the creation of images in poetry by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. The leaders of this movement were Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell.The Jazz age:The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between world w ar I and world war II. Particularly in north America. With the rise of the great depressi on, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby. Highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonis m, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining t he term‖ Jazz Age‖.Black Humor:the use of morbid and the absurd for darkly comic purposes in modern fiction and dra ma. The term refers as much to the tone of anger and bitterness as it does to the grotes que and morbid situations, which often deal with suffering, anxiety, and death. Black humor is a substantial element in the Anti-novel and the Theatre of Absurd. Joseph He ller's Catch-22 is an almost archetypal example.Local Color:Local Color or Regionalism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early seventies in America. It may be defined as the careful attegogoms in speech, dress or behavior peculiar to a geographical locality. The ultimate aim of the local colorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside. The social and intellectual climate of the country provided a stimulating milieu for the growth of local color fiction in America. Local colorists 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. They formed an important part of the realistic movement. Although it lost its momentum toward the end of the 19th century, the local spirit continued to inspire and fertilize the imagination of author.Y oknapatawpha saga:Most of Faulkner‟s works are set in the American South, with his emphasis on the Southern subjects and consciousness. They are about people from a sma1l region in Northern Mississippi, Y oknapatawpha County, which is actually an imaginary place based on Faulkner‟s childhood memory about the town of Oxford in his native Lafayette County. With his rich imagination, Faulkner turned the land, the people and the history of the region into a literary creation and a mythical kingdom. The Y oknapatawpha stories deal, generally, with the historical period from the Civil War up to the 1920s when the First World War broke out, and people of a stratified society, the aristocrats, the new rich, the poor whites, and the blacks. As a result, Y oknapatawpha County has become an allegory or a parable of the Old South, with which Faulkner has managed successfully to show a panorama of the experience and consciousness of the whole Southern society. The Y oknapatawpha saga is Faulkner‟s real achievement.。
名词解释Terms1. TranscendentalismTranscendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the middle 1800 ' s, which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Oversoul, and Nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-reliant. New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism.特点：1) as a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematized. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. 不讲逻辑，不讲系统，只强调超越理性的感受，超越法律和世俗束缚的个人表达。
2)they spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. 呼吁文化复兴，反对美国社会的拜金主义。
American Dream: American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. It usually implies a successful and satisfying life。
It usually framed in terms of American capitalism（资本主义）, its associated purported meritocracy,(知识界精华) and the freedoms guaranteed by the U。
S. Bill of Rights.American Puritanism清教主义: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the protestant church who wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrines of predestination， original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God。
American literature in the 17th century mostly consisted of Puritan literature. Puritanism had an enduring influence on American literature. It had become， to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of national cultural atmosphere， rather than a set of tenets.Transcendentalism 超验主义： Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature， religion，culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century。
美国文学名词解释《美国文学》名词解释1. American PuritanismAmerican Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American literature. It has become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, rather than a set of tenets, so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the Americans breathe. It stresses predestination, original sin, total depravity, and limited atonement (or the salvation of a selected fe w) from God’s grac e. With such doctrines in their minds, Puritans left Europe for America in order to establish a theocracy in the New World. Over the years in the new homeland they built a way of life that stressed hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety.2. The American DreamThe American Dream is the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth as a measure of success and/or happiness.3. American RomanticismAmerican Romanticism stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War. It was America’s first great creative period. Although foreign influences were strong, American romanticism exhibited distinct features of its own. First, American romanticism was in essence the expressionof “a real new experience” and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien. Second, Puritan influence over American romanticism was conspicuously noticeable. Famous writers, such as the novelists Hawthorne and Melville; the poets Dickinson and Whitman; the essayists Thoreau and Emerson, had made a great literary period by capturing on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream.4. American TranscendentalismAmerican Transcendentalism is literature, philosophical and literary movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to 1860. It originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, developing instead their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world. The beliefs that God is imminent in each person and in nature and that individual intuition is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of traditional authority. The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature(1836), and Self-Reliance and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden (1854).5. American NaturalismAmerican Naturalism is a literary movement that became popular in America in the late 19th century and is often associated with literary realism. Viewed as a combination of realism and romanticism, critics contend that the American form is heavily influenced by the concept of determinism—the theory that heredity and environment influence and determine human behavior. Although naturalism is often associated with realism,which also seeks to accurately represent human existence, the two movements are differentiated by the fact that naturalism is connected to the doctrine of biological, economic and social determinism. Representative writers are, among others, Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.6. International ThemeThe International theme was one of Henry James’s main subjects, which dealt with the relationship between American and European culture. He explored the attractions and conflicts between new and old, innocence and experience, candor and complexity, the puritanical and the aesthetic.7. Local ColorismLocal Colorism is a type of writing that was popular in the late 19th century, particularly among authors in the South of the United States. This style relied heavily on using words, phrases, and slang that were native to the particular region in which the story took place. The term has come to mean any device which implies a specific focus, whether it is geographical or temporal.A well-known local colorism author was Mark Twain with his books Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.8. ImagismImagism was a literary movement which 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 express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image. Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles: i) direct treatment of subject matter; ii) economy of expression; iii) as regard rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musicalphrase, not in the sequence of metronome. Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” is a well-known imagist poem.9. Harlem RenaissanceHarlem Renaissance is a notable phase of black American writing centered in Harlem (a predominantly black area of New York City) in the 1920s. It brought a new self-awareness and critical respect to black literature in the US. Langston Hughes and Richard Wright are representatives of the movement with their works Weary Blues and Native Son respectively.10. The Lost GenerationThe term Lost Generation was coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to a group of American literary notables who lived in Paris from the time period which saw the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Significant members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, T. S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein herself. Hemingway likely popularized the term, quoting Stein ( “You are all a lost generation” ) as epigraph to his novel, The Sun Also Rises. More generally, the term is being used for the young adults of Europe and America during World War I. They were “lost” because after the war many of them were disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to move into a settled life.11. The Jazz AgeThe Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between World War I and World War II, particularly in North America; with the rise of the Great Depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer F. Sco tt Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, highlighting what some describes as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism.Fi tzgerald is largely credited with coining the term “The Jazz Age”.12. Hemingway (Code) HeroesThe works of Ernest Hemingway generally center on the concept of heroism. Each of his novels contains a “Hemingway hero”— a man of honor and integrity who expresses himself not with words, but with actions. The Hemingway hero is a noble but tragic hero fighting with the overwhelming force; though he knows that he will be defeated at last, he decides to act like a hero. He is not a Godlike figure, but an ordinary, often flawed mortal who must look to himself for strength. The Hemingway hero is actually a mirror image of the author himself. Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea is a typical Hemingway hero.13. The Beat GenerationIn the 1950s, there was a widespread discontent among the postwar generation, whose voice was one of protest against all the mainstream culture that America had come to represent. This has come to be known as the Beat Generation. The word “beat” represented a non-conformist, rebellious attitude toward conventional values concerning sex, religion, the arts, and the American way of life. It was an attitude that resulted from the feeling of depression and exhaustion and the need to escape into an unconvention al, sometimes communal, mode of living. Central elements of “Beat” culture included experimentation with drugs, alternative forms of sexuality, an interest in Eastern religion, a rejection of materialism, and the idealizing of exuberant, unexpurgated means of expression and being.Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch (1959) and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.14. Black HumorBlack humor, in literature, drama, and film, grotesque or morbid humor, used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. Black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic farce. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is one of the kind.15. The Southern RenaissanceThe Southern Renaissance is the revival of American Southern literature that began in the 1920s and 1930s until the 1950s. Much of the writings in this unit featured the struggle between those who embraced social changes and those who were more skeptical or challenged social change outright. The writers and intellectuals of the South after the late 1920s were engaged in an attempt to come to terms not only with the inherited values of the Southern tradition, but also with a certain way of perceiving and dealing with the past. In the works of William Faulkner, Katherine Ann Porter, Allen Tate, and Tennessee Williams, among others, the diverse wealth of voices in the early 20th-century South came alive.。
1/11美国文学史重点名词解释-英文版The romantic periodIt started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass.Historical Background:1.American Puritanism 2.New England Transcendental Movement 3.American westward Expansion.I.Washington Irving1.Works: Rip Van Winkle2.Father of the American short stories.II. Ralph Waldo EmersonWorks:Essays NatureI. Emerson’s transcendentalism and his attitude toward nature:1.Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourishes in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.2. Emerson’s transcendentalism:The over-soul—it is all-pervading power goodness, from which all things come and of which all are a part. It is a supreme reality of mind, a spiritual unity of all beings and a religion. It is a communication between an individual soul and the universal over-soul. And he strongly believes in the divinity and infinity of man as an individual, so man can totally rely on himself.3. His toward nature:Emerson loves nature. His nature is the garment of the over-soul, symbolic and moral bound. Nature is not something purely of the matter, but alive with God’s presence. It exercises a healthy and restorative influence on human beings. Children can see nature better than adult.III. Nathaniel HawthorneHawthorne’s Puritanism and his black vision of man:1. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puritans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the church of England.2. his black vision of man—by the Calvinistic concept of original sin, he believed that human being are evil natured and sinful, and this sin is ever present in human heart and will pass one generation to another.3. Young Goodman Brown—it shows that everyone has some evil secrets. The innocent and naïve Brown is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and then he becomes distrustful and doubtful. Brown stands for everyone, who is born pure and has no contact with the real world, and the prominent people of the village and church. They cover their secrets during daily lives, and under some circumstances such as the witch’s Sabbath, they become what they are. Even his closed wife, Faith, is no exception. So Brown is aged in that night.IV. Walt WhitmanWorks: Leaves of Grass:1. Theme: sing of the “en-mass”and the self / pursuit of love, happiness, and love / sometimes about politics (Drum taps)3/112. Whitman’s originality first in his use of the poetic form free verse (i.e. poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme), by means of which he becomes conversational and casual.3. He uses the first person pronoun “I” to stress individualism, and oral language to acquire sympathy from the common reader.Ⅴ Herman MelvilleThe symbolism of Mobby-Dick1.The voyage to catch the white whale is the one of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of universe.2. To Ahab, the whale is an evil creature or the agent of an evil force that control the universe. As to readers, the whale is a symbol of physical limits, or a symbol of nature. It also can stand for the ultimate mystery of the universe and the wall behind which unknown malicious things are hiding.The realistic period (1865-1914)1.background:the Civil War affected both the social and the value system(1)transformed from an agricultural one to an industrialized and commercialized one (2)stimulated technological development(3)The burgeoning economy and industry stepped up urbanization(4)people became dubious about the human nature and the charity of GodThe Gilded Age2.American Realistic Period and English Realistic Period(Victorian Period) common ground(1)a great interest in the realities of life, aim at the interpretation of the actualities of any aspect of life(2)what was brutal or filthy, the open portrayal of class struggle(3)common people mostly depicteddifferences(America)(1)native trends in the realistic portrayal of the landscape and social surfaces(2)perfect the dialect style(3)concern about "local colorism" ,a unique variation of American literary realism 3.American Naturalism: influenced by Darwin’s evolutionary theory(1)accept the more negative implications of it and use it to explain the behavior of those characters in literary works(2)inherited qualities, and habits confined by social forces are depicted(3)theme: human "bestiality”, especially the sexual desire(4)unpolished language(5)philosophically, the truth is always partially hidden from the eyes of the individual, or beyond his control(6)material source from the lower ranks of society portray misery and poverty(7)naturalism is evolved from realism. Author’s tone in writing is less serious and sympathetic, more ironic and pessimisticI.Mark Twain1.works: Life on the Mississippi; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(trilogy of Mississippi)2.features:(1) paid more attention to the "life" of the Americans(2) preferred to have his own region and people in his stories, i.e. "local colorism"5/11(3) concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region and the lower-class people(4) nostalgic in a vanishing way of life and recorders of a present that faded before their eyes(5) Skillfully used the colloquialism, the language is simple, direct, and faithful. protagonists spoke in vernacular, both realistically and symbolically(6)his humor is remarkable, his humor is not only funny elements making people laugh, but a kind of artistic style to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism3.The character analysis and social meaning of Huck Finn in Adventure of Huckleberry FinnHuck is a typical American boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”. He appears to be vulgar in language and in manner, but he is honest and decent in essence. His remarkable raft’s journey down on the Mississippi river can be regarded as his process of education and his way to grow up. At first, he stands by slavery, for he clings to the idea that if he lets go the slave, he will be damned to go to hell. And when the “King”sells Jim for money, Huck decides to inform Jim’s master. After he thinks of the past good time when Jim and he are on the raft where Jim shows great care and deep affection for him, he decides to rescue Jim. And Huck still thinks he is wrong while he is doing the right thing.Huck is the son of nature and a symbol for freedom and earthly pragmatism. Through the eye of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed. Twain contrasts the life on the river and the life on the banks, the innocence and the experience, the nature and the culture, the wilderness and the civilization.II. Henry James1.evaluation: influenced by Freud, pioneer of "stream-of-consciousness”, founder of psychological realism2.works: The Portrait of A Lady (masterpiece): international themes3.Daisy Miller1. Theme: The novel is a story about American innocence defeated by the stiff, traditional values of Europe. James condemns the American failure to adopt expressive manners intelligently and point out the false believing that a good heart is readily visible to all. The death of Daisy results from the misunderstanding between people with different cultural backgrounds.2. The character analysis of Daisy: She represents typical American girl, who is uninformed and without the mature guidance. Ignorance and parental indulgence combine to foster he assertive self-confidence and fierce willfulness. She behaves in the same daring naive way in Europe as she does at home. When someone is against her, she becomes more contrary. She knows that she means no harm and is amazed that anyone should think she does. She does not compromise to the European manners.3. The character analysis of Winterbourne: He is a Europeanized American, who has live too long in foreign parts. He is very experience and has a problem understanding Daisy. He endeavors to put her in sort of formula, i.e. to classify her.Ⅲ. Emily Dickinson1.works features:(1)she uses a particular rhyme pattern, dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis(2)laconic brevity, simplicity and plainness7/11(3)focus on a single image or symbol and centered on one subject matter.(4)poems are personal and meditative(5)personification to vivify some abstract ideas.2. Idea:Skeptical about the relationship between man and nature, concerns religion, death, immortality, love, nature3.Works: This is my letter to the World; I heard a Fly buzz-when I died; becauseI could not stop for DeathⅣ. Theodore DreiserNaturalism(1)heredity and environment are the forces determining man’s destiny, under what life was ironic, even tragic(2)human beings’ life was trapped into ‘a welter of inscrutable forces’(3)Darwin’s idea of "survival of the fittest" is embodied as "kill or to be killed" in Dreiser’s works(4)explain the insignificance of life and attack the conventional moral standards(5)materialism is the core. man has a meaningless, endless search for satisfaction of his desires, desires for money(6)sex is another human desire. Sexual beauty symbolizes the social status Sister Carrie1. Theme: The author invented the success of Carrie and the downfall of Hurstwood out of an inevitable and natural judgment, because the fittest can survive in a competitive, amoral society according to the social Darwinism.2. The character analysis of Carrie: She follows the right direction to a pursuit of the American dream, and the circumstances and her desire for a better life direct to the successful goal. But she is not contented, because with wealth and fame, she still finds herself lonely. She is a product of the society, a realization of the theory of the survival of the fittest.3. The character analysis of Hurstwood: He is a negative evidence of the theory of the survival of the fittest. Because he is still conventional and can not throw away the social morals, he is not fitted to live in New York.The Modern Period1.background:second half of the 19th century to early of the 20th decades(1)natural and social sciences enormously advanced(2)capitalism came into its monopoly stage(3)the gap between the rich and the poor was further deepened(4)World War 1 2 broke2.what ideas influence this period: all kinds of philosophical ideas(1)Karl Marx: scientific socialism(2)Darwin’s theory of evolution,” survival of the fittest"(3)Freud’s analytical psychology(4)The irrationalist philosophers give immense influence3.ideas:Modernism originated from skepticism and disillusion of capitalism(2)The French symbolism announced modernism(3)takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. The major themes are the distorted, alienated and ill relationships4.difference between Modernism and Realism9/11Modernism is a reaction against realism in many aspects(1)Modernism rejects rationalism, which is the theoretical base of Realism(2)Modernism reflects the source of Realism ,i.e. the external, objective, material world(3)Modernism rejects almost all the traditional elements in literatureI. Ezra PoundWorks: In a Station of the Metro, The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter, A PactA leading spokesman of the Imagist MovementEzra Pound and his theory of Imagism1. The principles: direct treatment of poetic subjects, elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words, and rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome.2. Imagism is to present an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. An imagistic poem must present the object exactly the way the thing is seen. And the reader can form the image of the object through the process of reading the abstract and concrete words.II. Robert Lee FrostWorks: After Apple Picking, The Road Not TakenFrost and his poetry on nature:Frost is deeply interested in nature and in men’s relationship to nature. Nature appears as an explicator and a mediator for man and serves as the center of reference of his behavior. Peace and order can be found in Frost’s poetical natural world.With surface simplicity of his poems, the thematic concerns are always presented in rich symbols. Therefore his work resists easy interpretation.III. Eugene O’NeillWorks:The Hairy ApeFounder of the American dramaⅣ F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald and hisThe Great Gatsby1. Theme: Gatsby is American Everyman. His extraordinary energy and wealth make him pursue the dream. His death in the end points at the truth about the withering of the American Dream. The spiritual and moral sterility that has resulted from the withered American Dream is fully revealed in the article. However, although he is defeated, the dream has given Gatsby a dignity and a set of qualities. His hope and belief in the promise of future makes him the embodiment of the values of the incorruptible American Dream.2. The character analysis of Gatsby: Gatsby is great, because he is dignified and ennobled by his dream and his mythic vision of life. He has the desire to repeat the past, the desire for money, and the desire for incarnation of unutterable vision on this material earth. For Gatsby, Daisy is the soul of his dreams. He believes he can regain Daisy and romantically rebels of time. Although he has the wealth that can match with the leisured class, he does not have their manners. His tragedy lies in his possession of a naive sense and chivalry.V. Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway’s artistic features:They have seen the cold world, and for one cause, they boldly and courageously face the reality. They have an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life. Whatever is the result is, they are ready to live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will never be defeated. Finally, they will be prevailing because of their indestructible spirit and courage.2. The iceberg technique:Hemingway believes that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action. The one-eighth the is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimensions of the story. Thus, Hemingway’s language is symbolic and suggestive.Ⅵ.William FaulknerThe character analysis of Emily in A Rose for Emily:Emily is a symbol of old values, standing for tradition, duty and past glory. But she is also a victim to all those she cares and embrace. The source of Emily’s strangeness is from her born pride and self-esteem, the domineering behavior of her father and the betrayal of her lover. Barricaded in her house, she has frozen the past to protect her dreams. Her life is tragic because the defiance of the community, her refusal to accept the change and her extreme pride have pushed her to abnormality and insanity。
◆sonneta poem of 14 lines following a set rhyme scheme and logical structure◆stanza 诗节a unit within a larger poem, consisting a grouping of lines2 lines = couplet3 lines = tercet4 lines = quatrain14 lines = sonnet◆coupletheroic couplet: a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry aa bb cc◆rhymea repetition of a similar sounds in two or more words◆meter 格律the number of the feet and typeiambic pentameter 抑扬格五音步trochaic tertrameter 扬抑格四音步◆foot音步the basic unit of a poem, the character and number of syllables it containsiamb 抑扬格trochee 扬抑格tetrameter 四音步pentameter 五音步◆alliteration头韵the use of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words that are close together◆anaphora首语重叠法the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses◆Romanticisma style of art, music, and literature, popular in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, thatdeals with the beauty of nature and human emotions◆Classicisma style in painting, sculpture, and building, based on particular standards in Greek and Roman artfavored rationality and restraint and strict forms◆anastrophe 倒装法inversion of the usual order of words◆assonance元韵/半谐韵the effect created when two syllables in words that are close together have the same vowel sound, but different consonants, or the same consonants but different vowelseg. sonnet and porridge or cold and killed◆ a periodic sentence 周期性句子/圆周句one in which the most important part is withheld until the very end◆ a loose sentence松散句a sentence in which the principal clause comes first and subordinate modifiers or trailing elementsfollow◆trochee扬抑格/长短格a unit of sound in poetry consisting of one strong or long syllable followed by one weak or shortsyllable◆dactyl扬抑抑格/长短短格a unit of sound in poetry consisting of one strong or long syllable followed by two weak or shortsyllables◆anapest 抑抑扬格a metrical unit with unstressed-unstressed-stressed syllables。
美国文学史及选读名词解释1.Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.2. The Lost Generation Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “lost Generation”, devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization.3. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puritans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the Church of England.4. Imagism is to present an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. An imagistic poem must present the object exactly the way the thing is seen. And the reader can form the image of the object through the process of reading the abstract and concrete words.Imagism 意象派：is a poetic movement of England and the United States, flourished from 1909-1917. Its credo, expressed in Some Imagist Poets, included the use of the language of common speech, project matter, the evocation of images in hard, clear poetry, and concentration.5、Realism：（现实主义）appeared in the United States in the literature of local color, an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things was immediately observable. the dialects, customs, sights.现实主义有浓厚的美国本土特色，是浪漫主义故事情节和现实主义描写相结合的产物：美国风味的方言、风俗、各种观点6.Naturalism：自然主义 a new and harsher realism, 新型的更为冷峻的现实主义，产生悲观的流派，产生于the end of the century 十九世纪末，因为Perception of society’s disorders 对社会无序的感知。
Presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were dominated by their environment and heredity. 设法尽力客观真实地展现出受环境与出身局限的下层人民和各种经济阶层人物的真正生活。
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, the religious “truths” were illusory, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. 强调世界的非道德性，人们没有意志的自由，宗教上的真理是虚幻的，现实生活是痛苦的。
Deterministic 决定论，宿命的，代表作家：Stephen Crane 史蒂芬.克莱恩, Frank Norris 弗朗克.诺里斯,Jack London 杰克.伦敦, Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞.7.Darwinism: 达尔文主义:an evident influence on naturalism, stress the animality of man, to suggest that be was dominated by the irresistible forces of evolution. 对自然主义影响极大，强调人的动物性，意味着人的命运受进化的不可抗力来决定的。
Lost Generation：迷惘的一代，Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “Lost Generation,” devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization. It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of “expatriates” or exiles. It describes the writers like Hemingway who lived in semipoverty. It describes the Americans who returned to their native land with an intense awareness of living in an unfamiliar changing world.3、Modernism现代主义：is loosely a synonym of anything contemporary. Strictly, especially in literary criticism, which began in the late 19th century and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. They pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one.local colorist 地方特色:a unique variation of American literary realism,it refers to the particular concern about the local character of a region.The symbolism of Melville’s Mob y Dick: A very philosophical and metaphysical novel; a story of revenge; a Shakespearean tragedy.1. The voyage to catch the white whale is the one of the m ind in quest of the truth and knowledge of universe.2. To Ahab, the whale is an evil creature or the agent of an evil force that control the universe. As to readers, the whale is a symbol of physical limits, or a sym bol of nature. It also can stand for the ultimate m ystery of the universe and the wall behind which unknown m alicious things are hiding.Whitman and his Leaves of Grass:1. Them e: sing of the “en-m ass” and the self / pursuit of love, happiness, and sexual love / som etimes about politics (Drum taps)2. Whit man’s originality first in his use of the poetic form free verse (i.e. poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme schem e),by m eans of which he becom es conversational and casual.3.He uses the first person pronoun “I” to s tress individualism, and oral language to acquire sympathy from the common reader.Harriet Beecher Stowe 哈丽雅特.比彻.斯托小说家 only one female prose writer(散文作家) in 19th century代表作：“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”汤姆叔叔的小屋关注农奴制度 Pay attention to serf's systemJohn Steinbeck 约翰.斯坦贝克①the foremost novelist of the American Depression.美国大萧条时期最杰出的小说家。
