美国文学史复习资料

i.The Colonial Period1.关键词: America Puritanism2.Calvinism特点: total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement,Irresistible grace, Perseverance of the saints3.Anne Bradstreet( P17 ): a Puritan poet be known as “The Muse”4.Thomas Paine: one of continual, unswerving fight for the rights of man.works: “Common Sense”“American Crisis”“The Rights of Man”“The Age ofReason”理性时代5.Phillip Freneau(P22): 美国文学史上的重要人物dawning nationalism 代表人物Poems: The Wild Honeysuckle野生的金银花first modern American & the last medieval man6.Jonathan Edwards( Calvinism )a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakeningworks: “The Freedom of the Will”《自由意志论》“The Great Doctrine ofOriginal Sin Defended”《伟哉原罪论辩》“The Nature of True Virtue”“American Dream”“Self-made”7.Benjamin Franklin(puritanism)“Poor Richard’s Almance”“autobiography”新文学形式“18th century enlightenment”ii.Romanticism1.Washington Irving（1783-1859）①titles: “the father of American literature”“the American Goldsmith”②works: The Sketch Book (marked the beginning of AmericanRomanticism and the beginning of short stories as a genre in Americanliterature)Rip Van Winkle (P47—P48)The Legend of Sleepy Hollow2.James Fenimore Cooper（1789-1851）①One of the first writer to write American Westward movement②“The Leatherstocking Tales” (novel)first is “The Pioneers”---Plot:---theme conflict between Natty Bumppo and Judge Temple----character:Natty Bumppo---innocent, simple, honest and generous, for freedom,against civilization, wilderness is goodJudge Temple---just, reasonable, for civilization and law③Writing style:intriguing plotmajestic landscape descriptionsrich imaginationwooden characterizationnot authentic dialectiii.New England Transcendentalism---the culmination of American Romanticism Beginning of the Transcendentalism---1836, Nature, Emerson (1830s –the Civil War)Features：a:emphasizing on spirit or the Over-soul；b:stressing the importance of the individual；c:offering a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.1.Ralph Waldo Emerson：The founder of the Transcendentalist club and theeditor for a time of the journal the DialWorks:Nature --- “the Manifesto of American Transcen den talism” “the Bible ofNew England”:The Poet (from Nature)The American Scholar --- “Intellectual Declaration of Independence”2.Henry David ThoreauMasterpiece: Walden (Failure first, success in the 20th century)Content---a faithful record of his reflection in communicating with nature3.Nathaniel Hawthorne“The Scarlet Letter”Plot(P74)Theme:---(general theme) evil and sin exist in human heart and will be punishedone daymoral, emotional and psychological effect of the sin on the people in general---(specific theme) a hymn on the moral growth of the woman Hester whensinned againstsymbolism象征主义: “A”—Adultery—able—angel“pearl”—treasure4.Herman Melvilleworks: Moby Dick (1851)---little response, famous until the 20th centuryContent:---(general content) an encyclopedia of everything---(specific content) a tragedy of man fighting against overwhelmingpower in an indifferent even hostile world5.Edgar Allan PoeTheme: The death of beautySense of lossWorks:Poem--- “The Raven” “To Helen” “Annabel Lee”Writing style:MusicalRepetition of wordsParalleled structureMelancholy atmosphere(tone)Short story---The Fall of the House of UsherPlot: (P112)Theme: the fall of the house---the annihilation (disintegration) and of person6.Emily DickinsonSubject and theme:①(almost one third) Death and immortality“My life closed twice before its close”“Because I could not stop for death”theme: Everyone can’t live forever. Only after death can we getimmortality (immortality of soul)“ I heard a Fly Buzz- When I died”theme: skeptical & ambivalent about deathreluctance to death②Love“Wild Nights-Wild nights” (P99)③nature (both benevolent and cruel)“I’ll tell you how the sun rose”④emphasis of free will and human responsibility“To fight aloud”“A triumph may be”⑤soul ( conviction of her sovereignty)“I know that He exists”“The Brain is wider than the sky”Theme:influence of TranscendentalismHuman being’s mind (soul) is as divine as God⑥beauty, truth and goodness are ultimately one“I died for beauty-but was scare”“Tell all the truth but tell it slant” (P102)Writing style: emotional, original, against traditionChoice of words, verbal construction (capitalized and dash), spelling, fullof fresh images, brief, direct, plain words but not easy to readInfluence: precursor to the Imagist movement7.Walt WhitmanWorks: “Leaves of Grass”草叶集(9 editions from 1855 to 1892, Famous untilthe 5th edition)Poems in Leaves of Grass:“Song of Myself”(most famous one)“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” (1859)“When Lilacs紫丁香La st in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (1865)“O Captain My Captain!”Writing style: free verse( no regular rhyme, but musical)iv.过渡时期Harriet Beecher Stowework: Uncle Tom’s Cabin---The greatest manifesto of American anti-slavery (最有名的反奴隶制作品)Content: a faithful record of American black people's miserable life.v.Realism 镀金时代Gilded Age1.William Dean Howells豪厄尔斯①title: “champion of literary realism in US”“first president of AmericanAcademy of Arts and Letters”②works:essay--- Criticism and Fictionnovel---The Rise of Silas LaphamPlot: P120-121Character: Silas Lapham---common Bostonian of the late 19th century,average America happy with his family and proud of his success in the worldTheme:house---symbol of Lapham’s success (in material) an d aspiration for the polite societythe burning of the house---financial fall and moral rise2.Henry James①themes:exchanges between Americans and Europeans美国和欧洲文化的冲突②写作手法：a. eliminates the author and gives the reader the illusion ofbeing present at the scene of action让读者置身于情境中b. without comments or explanations: Dramatize, only dramatize, is hislesson作者只设定情境③Three distinctive periods:a. 1865-1882 novelsThe American (1877) 美国人The Europeans (1878) 欧洲人The Portrait of a Lady (1881) 淑女本色贵妇的肖像Daisy Miller(1878) 短篇小说b.1882-1895 playsc.1895-1990 novelsThe Turn of the Screw(1898)短篇小说碧庐冤孽（螺丝在旋紧）The Wings of the Dove (1902) 鸽之翼The Ambassadors (1903) 大使（奉使记）The Golden Bowl (1904) 金碗3.Mark Twain(Local Colorism)①Works: The Adventure of Tom SawyerThe Adventure of Huckleberry Finn 汤姆索亚历险记的续集，海明威称赞“all modern American literature comes”②theme: racism& slaveryintellectual& moral educationThe hypocrisy of civilized” society③real name: Samuel Langhorne Clemens④背景: Mississippi Rivervi.Naturalism(是现实主义的高级阶段)Time: at the end of the 19th centurySubject of naturalist: detailed description of lives of the low and the abnormal, frank description of human passion and sexuality, and portrayal of men overwhelmed by natureTheme of naturalists: pessimistic, deterministic自然主义的起源：Emile Zola “surrounding and heredity遗传can decide one’s destiny”写作手法：ironic讽刺, less sympathy, more serious than realism, deterministic决定论1.Stephen Crane①Works: (novels) Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) and The Red Badge ofCourage (1895) (short stories) “The Open Boat”②Writing style: psychological description, visual beauty with symbols2.Frank Norris①works: (Novel) McTeague麦克提格(1899)首部全面展示自然主义的作品the Octopus章鱼(best work) (1901) railwayWriting style:rich materialfresh imagerypoetic mode of fictionprecise and exact word(Essay of literary criticism) The Responsibilities of the Novelists (1903)3.O. Henry(a prolific American short-story writer)多产短篇小说家①Real name: William Porter②The Gift of the Magi③Writing style: short, interesting and clever plot, good-natured humor,surprising end, keen observation of details, slang and colloquialexpressions4.Theodore Dreiser西奥多·德莱塞works:Sister Carrie(1990)《嘉丽妹妹》Jennie Gerhardt (1911)《珍妮姑娘》（姐妹篇）The Financier (1912) 《金融家》“Trilogy of Desire” (欲望三部曲) The Titan (1914)《巨头》The Stoic(1947)《斯多葛》The "Genius" (1915) 《天才》--autobiographical novelAn American Tragedy--greatest and most successful Political commentary set5.Jack LondonWorks:---Reflection of his Involvement in the socialist movement:The Iron Heel, The People of the Abyss---Reflection of his belief in Darwinism:The Call of the Wild (1903)适者生存, The Sea Wolf (1904)---Reflection of the conflicting view :autobiographical novel Martin Eden (1909)vii.ModernismTwo literary periods•1920s --- The First World War (a decade of great joy and happenings )•1930s--- The Great Depression1.Ezra Pound--- the founder of Imagist movement(深受中国文化的影响)works: translations of Lipo’s poems “The River- Merchant’s Wife”翻译李白的《长干行》In a Station of the MetroThe apparition of these faces in the crowd ;Petals on a wet, black bough.—Ezra Pound2.T. S. EliotPoemsThe Waste Land (1922)---spiritual crisis of postwar Europe, like a manifestoof the “Lost generation”The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock (1917)--- a poem with a notable modernemotional color，意识流，现代主义情感色彩3.Wallace StevensBasic theme: interrelationship between reality and art, power of imaginationWorks: “Anecdote of the Jar”古坛轶事4.William Carlos WilliamsWorks: Famous poem: Paterson 帕特森(1946–58).Subject: everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people.Writing style: unusual meters and styles, easy and enjoyable to read5.Carl Sandburg---One of The greatest poets in the “Chicago Renaissance”---Chicago Poems6.Robert FrostSubject: the people and landscape of New England.(Misconception of him as a lyric poet or as an authentic painter of locallandscape)Theme: (universal and abstract) the complexity of human existenceWorks:poem collection：A Boy’s Will (1913), North of Boston(1914)New Hamphshire(1923),Collected Poems(1930),A Further Range(1936),A Witness Tree(1942)Some famous poems:“After Apple Picking”“Mending Wall”“Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening”“The Road not Taken”“Design”“The Wood-Pile”Writing style:---formto retain traditional forms of poetry---themedeceptively simple (trivial subjects)---languagelucid, easy, fluent7.William Faulkner: one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers---one of the southern writers (fictional Yoknapatawpha County)---the Nobel Prize-winning novelist(1949)---a famous short story writerWorks: 19 novels, 3volumes of short stories•poem collection: The Marble Faun, 1924)•Novel:The Sound and the Fury, 1929喧哗与躁动As I Lay Dying, 1930Light in August, 1932Absalom, Absalom!, 1936Go Down, Moses, 1942•short story: “A Rose For Emily”Theme: general human situationWriting style: difficult and experimental•Vivid characterization( character with great independence)•Multiple narrators•Story-novel (emphasis on narrative)•Modern stream of consciousness (fragmentary and obscure)• A variety of English8. F. Scott Fitzgeraldwork: The Great Gatsby(1925)Themes: The decline衰落of American Dream in the 1920sThe Hollowness空虚of the upper classSymbols: The green light9.Ernest Hemingway①Nick Adams, a Hemingway hero, first appears in the novel In Our Time(1925)②The Sun Also Rises (1926)Jake BarnesA Farewell to Arms (1929)Frederick Henry & Catherine BarkleyDeath in the Afternoon (1932 )Green Hills of Africa (1935)For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)The Old Man and the Sea (1952)Manolin & Santiagoviii.American drama1.Eugene O’Neil(1888 – 1953)father of American dramaWorks:first published play, Beyond the Horizon (1920) on BroadwayThe Iceman Cometh (1946)Long Days Journey into Night (1956)：an autobiographical play and releasedafter O'Neill's death.2.John Steinbeckthe Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962Famous for The Grapes of Wrath (1939), a novel widely considered to be a20th-century classic.。

美国⽂学史期末复习资料全美国⽂学（本科）试题5I. Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases andput your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 1 point for each)1. The first permanent English settlement in North America was established atJamestown, Virginia in 1607 .2. became the first American writer.3. Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the values that dominated much of the early American writing.4. In American literature, the 18th century was an age of and Revolution.5. Franklin’s best writing is found in his masterpiece.6. On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet appeared.7. The signing of symbolized the birth of an independent American nation.8. The most outstanding poet in America of the 18th century was .9. Washington Irving’s became the first work by an American writer to win international fame.10. is the summit of American Romanticism.11. With the publication of Emerson’s in 1836,American Romanticism reached its summit.12. Hester Prynne is the heroine in Hawthorne’s novel.13.Henry James’ major fictional theme is.14. brought the Romantic period to an end. So the age of Realism came into existence.15. The Poetic style invented by Whitman is now called .16. “Because I could not stop for Death---” is written by.17. The term The Gilded Age is given by to describe the post-civil war years.18. Theodore Dreiser’s first novel is.19. The leader of the literary movement Imagism is .20. is the spokesman for Lost Generation.II. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answersor completions. Choose the one that is the best in each case and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 1 point for each)1. The first American writer of local color to achieve wide popularity was .A. Bret HarteB. Mark TwainC. Henry JamesD. William Dean Howells2. Which of the following is the masterpiece of Mark Twain?A. The Gilded AgeB. The Adventures of Tom SawyerC. The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnD. Jumping Frog3. Which writer has no naturalist tendency?A. Mark TwainB. Jack LondonC. Theodore DreiserD. Frank Norris4. Transcendentalist doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in andThoreau.A. JeffersonB. EmersonC. FreneauD. Oversoul5. Which of the following doesn’t belong to Dreiser’s “Trilogy of Desire”?A. The FinancierB. The TitanC. The StoicD. An American Tragedy6. Which is the character who appears in the novel Moby Dick?A. Hester PrynneB. Mr. HooperC. AhabD. PearlC. transcendentalismD. veritism9. Jack London was at his height of his powers when he wrote , which is deeply influenced by Darwinism.A. The Sea WolfB. To Build a FireC. The Call of the WildD. Martin Eden10. The Cop and the Anthem is written by .A. O. HenryB. Henry JamesC. Jack LondonD. Mark Twain11. “Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.” is a line in the poem The River-Merchant’s Wife:A Letter written by .A. T. S. EliotB.Robert FrostC.Ezra PoundD. Carl Sandburg12. The imagist poets followed three principles, they are , direct treatment and economy of expression.A. blank verseB. rhythmC. free verseD. common speech13. Of the following American writers, who has NOT been an expatriate in Paris?A. Ernest HemingwayB. Ezra PoundC. F. S. FitzgeraldD. Emily Dickinson14. Who was the foremost novelist of the American Depression of the 1930s?A. Ernest HemingwayB. Ezra PoundC. John SteinbeckD. F. S. Fitzgerald15. The first writings that we call American were the narratives and of the early settlements.A. journalsB. poetryC. dramaD. folklores16. An American Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1828 by .A. Samuel JohnsonB. Noah WebsterC. Daniel WebsterD. Daniel Defoe17. Walden is written by .A. EmersonB. ThoreauC. PoeD. Hawthorne18. is famous for psychological realism.A. Mark TwainB. William Dean HowellsC. Henry JamesD. Walt Whitman19. Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism?A. NatureB. WaldenC. On BeautyD. Self-Reliance20. Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?A.The American ScholarB. English TraitsC. The Conduct of LifeD. Nature21. Santiago is the character in Hemingway’s novel.A. In Our TimeB. The Old Man and the SeaC. For Whom the Bell TollsD. The Sun Also Rises22. Which of the following is a much harsher realism?A. local colorismB. naturalismC. romanticismD. imagism23. Who is the arbiter of 19th century literary realism in America?A. Mark TwainB. Bret HarteC. William Dean HowellsD. Henry James24. F. S. Fitzgerald is NOT the author of .A. The Great GatsbyB. Tender is the NightC. A Farewell to the ArmsD. This Side of Paradise25. The pessimism and deterministic ideas of naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as .A. Mark TwainB. F. S. FitzgeraldC. Walt WhitmanD. Stephen Crane26. Charles Drouet is a character in the novel of______.A. The AmericanB. The Portrait of a LadyC.Sister CarrieD. The Gift of the Magi27. American literature produced only one female poet during the 19th century. She was .A. Anne BradstreetB. Jane AustenC. Emily DickinsonD. Harriet Beecher28. read his poetry at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.A. Robert FrostB. T. S. EliotC. Carl SandburgD. Ezra Pound29. With Howells, James and Mark Twain active on the scene, became the major trend in the 70s and 80s of the 19th century.A. sentimentalismB. romanticismC. realismD. naturalism30. “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough”. This is the shortest poem written by .A. T. S. EliotB. Robert FrostC.Ezra PoundD. Wallace StevensIII. Comment on the following poems. Put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 10 points for each) 1.Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Eveningby: Robert FrostWhose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound’s the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark and deep.But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.1. I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died—by: Emily DickinsonI heard a Fly buzz — when I died —The Stillness in the RoomWas like the Stillness in the Air —Between the Heaves of Storm —The Eyes around — had wrung them dry —And Breaths were gathering firmFor that last Onset — when the KingBe witnessed — in the Room —I willed my Keepsakes — Signed awayWhat portion of me beAssignable — and then it wasThere interposed a Fly —With Blue — uncertain stumbling Buzz —Between the light — and me —And then the Windows failed — and thenI could not see to see —IV. Give brief answers to the following and write your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 15 points for each)1. Being a period of the great flowering of American literature, the Romantic Period is called “the American Renaissance”. Briefly discuss what the features of American literature in this period are.2. How does Sister Carrie embody Dreiser’2008-2009学年度第⼆期《美国⽂学史及作品选读》（2006级本科）期末考试A卷参考答案命题⼈：王琪、丁华良、祝⼩丁I. Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases andput your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 1 point for each)1. 16072. John Smith3. Puritan4. Reason5. The Autobiography6. Common Sense7. The Declaration of Independence8. Philip Freneau 9. Sketch Book 10. Transcendentalism11. Nature 12. The Scarlet Letter 13. international theme 14. The civil war15. free verse 16. Emily Dickinson 17. Mark Twain18. Sister Carrie 19. Ezra Pound 20. Ernest HemingwayII. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers or completions. Choose the one that is the best in each case and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 1 point for each)1 --- 5: A C A B D 6 --- 10: C D B C A11 ---15:C B D C A 16 --- 20: B B C A A21 ---25: B B C C D 26 --- 30: C C A C CIII. Comment on the following poems. Put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 10 points for each)1. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was Frost's favorite of his own poems and Frost in a letter to Louis Untermeyer called it "my best bid for remembrance."This poem illustrates many of the qualities most characteristic of Frost, including the attention to natural detail, the relationship between humans and nature, and the strong theme suggested by individual lines. The speaker in the poem, a traveler by horse on the darkest night of the year, stops to watch a woods filling up with snow. He thinks the owner of the woods is someone who lives in the village and will not see him stopping there. While he is attracted by the beauty of thewoods and nature, he is reminded by his little horse and realizes that he has obligations which pull him away from the lure of nature. The speaker describes the beauty and temptation of the woods as “lovely, dark and deep,” but reminds himself that he must not remain there, because he has “promises to keep,” and a long journey ahead of him. He has to complete his obligations and then make his aspirations to be realized. Through the symbolic woods and horse, we also get to know that the speaker has strong self-awareness and self-discipline.In another way, the poem can be analyzed from the perspective of aspiration and realization. Aspiration is something to be worked at. We enjoy the fruit of our realization only when we reach our destination. But from the spiritual point of view, we notice something else that is the transformation of aspiration and realization. Today's aspiration transforms itself into tomorrow's realization. Again, tomorrow's realization is the pathfinder of a higher and deeper goal. There is no end to our realization, and there is no end of our aspiration as long as you are alive. Our journey is eternal, and the road that we are taking on is also eternal. All aspirations become realization till the end of one’s life.The poem is written in iambic tetrameter in the Rubaiyat stanza created by Edward Fitzgerald. Each verse (save the last) follows an a-a-b-a rhyming scheme, with the following verse's a's rhyming with that verse's b, which is a chain rhyme. Overall, the rhyme scheme is AABA-BBCB-CCDC-DDDD.2. The poetess is watching her own death and recording the process. Instead of seeing God and hearing the songs of angels yearned for by Puritans upon death she heard a fly buzz, which is really ironic. Fly: sets off the stillness in the room;blocks off the light (from heaven);suggests a coming decadence→ the speaker loses the opportunity of gaining immortality after deathThe fly plays an important role in the speaker’s experience of death. The poem is, in part, about “the conflict between preconception and perception.” The person on his or her deathbed shifts perspective from “the ritual of dying” to “the fact of death.” The fly, by interrupting the dying speaker with its “Blue —uncertain stumbling Buzz —” obliterates his or her false notions of death. The sound of the fly represents “the last conscious link with reality.” The poem lacks any hint of a life after death.IV. Give brief answers to the following and write your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 15 points for each)1.(1) The whole nation had a strong sense of optimism and the mood of “feeling good”, giving birth tothe spectacular outburst of romantic feeling.(2) The English counterpart exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the young nation.(3) Taking foreign influence in consideration, the great works of American writers still carriedtypically American romantic color.(4) The young nation had brought forth its own philosophy. Transcendentalism stresses man’scapacity of knowing truth intuitively, and of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses.2.(1) In this novel, Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of lifeand attacking the conventional moral standards.(2) The novel best embodies his naturalistic belief that while men are controlled by heredity, instinctand chance, a few extraordinary and unsophisticated human beings refuse to accept their fate wordlessly and instead strive, unsuccessfully, to find meaning and purpose for their existence.(3) To Sister Carrie, the world is cold and harsh. Alone, helpless, she moves along like a mechanismdriven by desire and catches blindly at any opportunities for a better existence, opportunities first offered by Drouet, and then by Hurstwood. A feather in the wind, she was totally at the mercy of forces she cannot comprehend, still less to say control. The famous picture of Carrie sitting in a rocking chair in her room in the evening, rocking back and forth, is a picture of Carrie’s drifting with the tide. She has no control, no freedom of will.美国⽂学（本科）试题6I. Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases: (20%, 1 point for each)1. In 1817, the stately poem called “Thanatopsis” introduced the best poet, ______, to appear in America up to that time.2. James Fennimore Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure and______.3. Ralph Emerson was recognized throughout his life as the leader of ______ movement, yet henever applied the term to himself or to his beliefs and ideas.4. Herman Melville’s novel ______ is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of aseemingly supernatural white whale.5. In the early 19th century, Washington Irving wrote ______ which became the first work by anAmerican writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic.6. In 1845, Henry David Thoreau began a two-year residence at ______ Pond.7. After his death, ______ became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Cornerof Westminster Abbey.8. The American Romantic period stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outburst ofthe ______.9. The arbiter of 19th century literary realism in America was ______.10. The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called ______, which is poetry without a fixed beator regular rhyme scheme.11. ______ is considered the founder of psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in theimpressions made by life on the spectator.12. ______ is the novel into which Jack London put most of himself.13. O. Henry’s ______ is a very moving story of a young couple who sell their best possessions inorder to get money for a Christmas present for each other.14. ______ was the leader of a new movement in poetry which he called the “Imagist” movement.15. In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald completed his best novel ______. It is the story of an idealist who wasdestroyed by the influence of the wealthy, pleasure-seeking people around him.16. Ernest Hemingway’s stature as a writer was confir med with the publication of his novel ______ in1929. The novel portrayed a farewell both to war and to love.17. ______ was the foremost novelist of the American Depression of the 1930s.18. William Faulkner considered __________ to be “the first truly American writer”.19. As a genre, naturalism emphasized heredity and ______ as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters that were presented in special and detailed circumstances.20. A series of sixteen pamphlets by Thomas Paine was entitled ______.II. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers or completions.Choose the one that is the best in each case: (30%, 1 point for each) 1. Moby Dick was dedicated to ____.。

美国文学史复习1（c o l o n i a l i s m) 第一部分? 殖民主义时期的文学一、时期综述1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记 b、journals 游记2、清教徒在美国的写作内容：1）their voyage to the new land2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops3) About dealing with Indians4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit3、清教徒的思想：1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式2) Wish?to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who challenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步 5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。

作家作品Naturalism1、Stephen Crane斯蒂芬·克莱恩1871-1900 战争小说之父Maggie: A Girl of the Streets《街头女郎麦琪》（美国文学史上首次站在同情立场上描写受辱妇女的悲惨命运）, a pioneering work of sociological naturalism；关于南北战争的The Red Badge of Courage《红色英勇勋章》，奠定了他在美国文坛上不可动摇的地位；优秀短篇小说集The Open Boat《海上扁舟》和blue hotel 《蓝色旅馆》; wounds in the rain 《雨中的伤痕》The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky《新娘来到黄天镇》2、Theodore Dreiser西奥多·德莱塞1871-1945美国文学史上最杰出的现实主义小说家，一位以探索充满磨难的现实生活着称的美国自然主义作家.Sister Carrie《嘉莉妹妹》，真实再现了当时美国社会;Jennie Gerhardt《珍妮姑娘》，被称为《嘉莉妹妹》的姐妹篇;Trilogy of Desire欲望三部曲（Financer金融家,The Titan巨人,The Stoic斯多噶）;An American Tragedy《美国悲剧》是德莱赛成就最高的作品，是人们清晰地看到了美国社会的真实情况，“至今依然具有巨大的现实意义”在《美国悲剧》中，Dreiser intended to tell us that it is the social pressure that makes Clyde's downfall inevitable. Clyde's tragedy is a tragedy that depends upon the American social system which encouraged people to pursue the "dream of success" at all costs.1、Naturalism emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters who were presented in special and detailed circumstances.2. The effect of Darwinist idea of "survival of the fittest" was shattering. It is not surprising to find in Dreiser's fiction a world of jungle, where “kill or to be killed” was the law.Dreiser's Writing Features:✓As a naturalist writer, Dreiser stressed determinism in his novels which deals with everyday life, often with its sordid side.✓As a naturalist, he developed the capacity for photographic and relentless (无情的) observation, thereby truthfully reflecting the society and people of his time.✓His narrative method is natural and free from artifice.Modern Poetry3、Robert Frost罗伯特·弗罗斯特1874-196320世纪最受欢迎的美国诗人, 美国文学中的桂冠诗人田园诗；自然诗☐He used symbols from everyday country life to express his deep ideas. His graceful and traditional poetic style is highly appreciated in the country.A Boy's Will少年心愿and North of Boston波士顿之北were published and highly acclaimed in England. Mending Wall修墙,After Apple-picking摘苹果之后;Mountain Interval山间The Road Not taken没有选择的道路;New Hampshire 《新罕布什尔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a masque of reason《理智的假面具》a masque of mercy慈悲的假面具complete poems诗歌全集a steeple bush尖塔丛林The Analysis of “The Road Not Taken”1.when confronted with important decisions which one must make in life, one must accept theconsequences, for he will not have a chance to go back.2.He encourages people to try things new and choose the road less traveled by. At the same time,he expresses the regrets that one can not choose two at the same time.3.The poem is written in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ABAAB4.Symbolism is used as a very effective writing technique.4、Ezra Pound艾兹拉·庞德1885-1972Imagism1) With a spirit of revolt against conventions, imagism was anti-romantic and anti-Victorian.2) Imagism produced free verse without imposing a rhythmical pattern.3) Imagism tried to record objective observations of an object or a situation without interpretation or comment by the poet (creating an image). It calls for brief language, and pinpoints the precise picture in as few words as possible.美国著名诗人，意象派的代表人物。

Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. < A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.>II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of two kinds:1> Practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people "at home" what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration2> Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony <1608>A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country <1612>General History of Virgini a <1624>: the Indian princess Pocahontas Captain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII <At that time, the Catholics were not allowedto divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he> broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church of England. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism<1> predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived a very frugal life. This is their ethics.<2> Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.<3> Limited atonement <the salvation of a selected few><4> theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment3. Influence on American Literature<1> Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.<2> Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not want colonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. They prevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependence by ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years <1776-1783> and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America. II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision of their writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.III．Benjamin Franklin <1706-1790>The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym "Silence Do good〞.At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the PennsylvaniaHospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called "the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.〞Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of the Puritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence of ornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine <1737-1809>Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson <1743-1826>The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau <1752-1832>"Poet of the American Revolution〞"Father of American Poetry〞"Pioneer of the New Romanticism〞"A gifted and versatile lyric poet〞Works"The Wild Honey Suckle〞"The Indian Burying Ground〞"To a Caty-Did〞Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life Experience►He was born in New York.►At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey <now PrincetonUniversity>. He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his friends <H. H. Brackenridge> a poem entitled "The Rising Glory of America〞.►Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.►After being released, he published "The British Prison Ship〞in 1781.►In the same year, he published "To the Memory of the Brave Americans〞.►After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.►But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works►"The Rising Glory of America〞<1772> 《美洲光辉的兴起》►"The House of Night〞<1779,1786> 《夜之屋》►"The British Prison Ship〞<1781> 《英国囚船》►"To the Memory of the Brave Americans〞<1781> 《纪念美国勇士》►"〞The Wild Honey Suckle〞<1786> 《野忍冬花》►"The Indian Burying Ground〞<1788> 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花〔黄杲炘译〕►美好的花呀,你长得：这么秀丽, 却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵,招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎,没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪.►大自然把你打扮得一身洁白,她叫你避开庸俗粗鄙的目光,她布置下树荫把你护卫起来,又让潺潺的柔波淌过你身旁；你的夏天就这样静静地消逝,这时候你日见萎蔫终将安息. ►那些难免消逝的美使我销魂, 想起你未来的结局我就心疼,别的那些花儿也不比你幸运——虽开放在伊甸园中也已凋零, 无情的寒霜再加秋风的威力,会叫这花朵消失得一无踪迹. ►##和晚露当初曾把你养育,让你这小小的生命来到世上,原来若乌有,就没什么可失去,因为你的死让你同先前一样；这来去之间不过是一个钟点——这就是脆弱的花享有的天年.►This poem is divided into four stanzas. Each stanza consists of six lines, rhyming "ababcc〞, and sounds just like music.►In the first two stanzas, Freneau devoted more attention to the environment of the flower in which he found it than to the appearance of the flower. He conmented on the secluded nature of the place where the honey suckle grew, drawing a conclusion that it was due to nature's protectiveness that the flower was able to lead a peaceful life free from men’s disturbance and destruction.►But the next stanza immediately changed the tone from silent admiration and appreciation to outright lamentation over the "future’s doom〞of the flower – even nature was unable to save the flower from its death.►And then, Freneau said, "if nothing once, you nothing lose.〞It is true in people’s existence. There is fate for the life and death. After one’s death, the only thing he can take away is what he brought when he gave birth to this world.Part III The Literature of RomanticismI．Historical Introductionfrom early 19th century through the outbreak of the Civil War1. native factorsIt is a period following American Independence. In this period, democracy and political equality became the ideals of the new nation. America was in an economic boom. There is a tremendous sense of optimism and hope among the people. The spirit of the time is, in some measure, responsible for the outburst of romantic feeling.2. foreign influenceRomanticism emerged in England from 1798 to 1832. It added impetus to the growth of Romanticism in America. In England the general features of the works of the romantics is a dissatisfaction with the bourgeois society. British Romanticism inspired the American imagination. Thus American Romanticism was in a way derivative. II．American Romanticism: American RenaissanceRomanticism <appeared in England in the last years of the 18th century and spread to continental Europe and then> came to America early in the 19th century. It was pluralistic; its manifestations were as varied, as individualistic, and as conflicting as the cultures and the intellects from which it sprang. Yet romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: 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.It exalted the individual, which suited the nation's revolutionary heritage and its frontier egalitarianism. It revolted against traditional art forms, which gratified those cramped by the strict limits of neoclassic literature, painting, and architecture. It rejected rationalism, which gladdened those who were opposed to cool, intellectual religious wrapped with the remnants of Calvinism.Romantic writers placed increasing value on the free expression of emotion and display increasing attention to the spiritual states of their characters. Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitivity and excitement. The novel of terror became the profitable literary staple that it remains today. Writers of gothic novels sought to arouse in their readers a turbulent sense of the remote, the supernatural, and the terrifying by describing castles and landscapes illuminated by moonlight and haunted by ghosts. A preoccupation with the demonic and the mystery of evil marked by the works of Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and a host of lesser writers.Early American romanticism was best represented by New England poets William Cullen Bryant <1794-1878> and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow <1807-1882> inpoetry, and James Fenimore Cooper <1789-1851> and Washington Irving<1783-1859> in fiction.The later/peak period is represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson <1803-1882> and Henry David Thoreau <1817-1862>.III．WashingtonIrving1. Rip Van WinkleThe story, written while Irving was staying with his sister Sarah and her husband Henry van Wart in Birmingham, England, is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. A villager of Dutch descent escapes his nagging wife by wandering up Kaaterskill Clove near his home town of Palenville, New York in the Catskill Mountains. After various adventures <in one version of the tale, he encounters the spirits of Henry Hudson and his crew playing ninepins at the top of KaaterskillFalls>, he settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes up 20 years later and returns to his village. He finds out that his wife is dead and his close friends have died in a war or gone somewhere else. He immediately gets into trouble when he hails himself a loyal subject of George III, not knowing that in the meantime the American Revolution has taken place and he is not supposed to be a loyal subject of any Hanoverian any longer.The story has become a part of cultural mythology: even for those who have never read the original story, "Rip Van Winkle" means either a person who sleeps for a long period of time, or one who is inexplicably <perhaps even blissfully> unaware of current events.Rip Van Winkle has been seen as a symbol of several aspects of America. Rip, like America, is immature, self-centered, careless, anti-intellectual, imaginative, and jolly as the overgrown child. The town itself symbolizes America – forever and rapidly changing. Washington Irving has Rip sleep through his own country’s history, through what we might call the birth pangs of America, and return to the "busy, bustling, disputatious〞self-consciously adult United States of America. His conflicts and dreams are those of the nation – the conflict of innocence and experience, work and leisure, the old and the new, the head and the heart.2. The Legend of Sleepy HollowThe story is set circa 1790 in the Dutch settlement of TarryTown, in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. It tells the story of Ichabod Crane, a sycophantic, lean, lanky, and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer, Baltus Van Tassel. As Crane leaves a party he attended at the Van Tassel home on an autumn night, he is pursued by the Headless Horseman, who is supposedly the ghost of a Hessian trooper who had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during "some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War, and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head". Ichabod mysteriously disappears from town, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones, who was "to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related". Although the nature of the HeadlessHorseman is left open to interpretation, the story implies that the Horseman was really Brom Bones in disguise.The creation of archetypes is a p articularly subtle feat of Irving’s consummate craftsmanship. We may see in Ichabod Crane a precocious, effect New Englander, shrewd, commercial, a city-slicker, who is rather an interloper, a somewhat destructive force, and who comes along to swindle the villagers. His book learning turns on him, and he is driven away from where he does not belong, so that the serene village remains permanently good and happy.Brom Bones, on the other hand, is of a Huck Finn-type of country bumpkin, rough, vigorous, boisterous but inwardly very good, a frontier type put out there to shift for himself.Thus, the rivalry in love between Ichabod and Brom, viewed in this way, suddenly assumes the dimensions of two ethical groups locked in a kind of historic contest. As to the style of the piece, it represents Irving at his best. The association between a certain local and the inward movement of a character, the emotional loading of almost every line of the story, their effect on the five sense of the reader whose attention is so fully engaged and who feels so much involved in what is happening – all these have placed this and other Irving stories among the best of American short stories.3. Irving’s Style<1> Irving avoids moralizing as much as possible. He writes simply to entertain rather to enlighten.<2> He is good at setting his stories in a magic and fantastic atmosphere. The richness of the atmosphere compensates for the slimness of his plot.<3> His characters are vivid and true to life. They tend to linger in the mind of the reader.<4> His writing is full of humor and satire.<5> two important themes, i.e. the themes of change and search for identify. These themes capture the spirit of Irving’s times and reflect his philosophical thinking on contemporary American social life.IV. James Fenimore Cooper 詹姆斯费尼莫尔库珀<1789--1851> -- launched two kinds of immensely popular stories → the sea adventure tale and the frontier sagaThe Leatherstocking Tales《皮袜子故事集》,regard as "the nearest approach yet to an American epic.〞〔开创了美国文学的一个重要主题—文明的发展对大自然和它代表的崇高品德的摧残与破坏〕Its central figure in the novels, Natty Bumppo <美国文学的一个重要的原型人物—独立不羁、逃避社会、在大自然中需求完美精神世界的班波>. Cooper’s 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, The Prairie Cooper’s 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 authenticLiterary AchievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the historyof the United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring and pushing the American frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectively 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 western tradition to American literature.V. William Cullen Bryant 威廉卡伦布赖恩特<1794-1878>-- the first American to gain the stature of a major poet.To a Waterfowl《致水鸟》The Yellow Violet 《黄色的堇香花》VI. Edgar Allen Poe <1809-1849>American writer, known as a poet and critic but most famous as the first master of the short-story form, especially tales of the mysterious and macabre. The literary meritsof Poe's writings have been debated since his death, but his works have remained popular and many major American and European writers have professed their artistic debt to him.For a long time after his death Poe remained probably the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature.Emerson dismissed him in three words, "the jingle man.〞Mark Twain declared his prose to be unreadable.Henry James made the ruthless statement that "an enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive state of development.〞Whitman, who was the only famous literary figure present at the Poe Memorial Ceremony in Baltimore in 1875, had mixed feelings about him: he did admit Poe’s genius, but it was "its narrow range and unhealthy, lurid quality〞that most impressed him.T. S. Eliot proclaimed him a critic of the first rank, but charged him with "slipshod writing.〞Poe’s WorksPoetry: The Raven《乌鸦》Horror Fiction: The Fall of the House of Usher《厄舍大厦的倒塌》Whodunit: Murders in the Rue Morgue《莫格街谋杀案》致海伦海伦,你的美在我的眼里, 有如往日尼西亚的三桅船船行在飘香的海上,悠悠地把已倦于漂泊的困乏船员送回他故乡的海岸.早已习惯于在怒海上飘荡, 你典雅的脸庞,你的鬈发, 你水神般的风姿带我返航, 返回那往时的希腊和罗马, 返回那往时的壮丽和辉煌. 看哪！壁龛似的明亮窗户里, 我看见你站着,多像尊雕像, 一盏玛瑙的灯你拿在手上！塞姬女神哪,神圣的土地才是你家乡！In the first stanza, Helen’s beauty is soothing. It provides security and safety. Perhaps the reader is expected to associate Marlowe’s famous line: "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships〞to Helen’s beauty, for her beauty is as hypnotic for the speaker as were the ships that transported another wanderer – Ulysses - home from Troy.Throughout the poem, Poe uses allusions to classical names and places, as well as certain kinds of images to create the impression of a far-off idealized, unreal woman, like a Greek statue. Words that support the image of an ideal woman are "hyacinth〞and "classic〞<line 7>, "Naiad airs〞<line 8>, and "statue-like〞<line 12>. Helen stands, not like a real woman, but like a saint in a "window-niche〞<line 11>. She becomes a symbol both of beauty and of frustration, a romantically idealized, yet inaccessible image of the heart’s desire.乌鸦从前一个阴郁的子夜,我独自沉思,慵懒疲竭,沉思许多古怪而离奇、早已被人遗忘的传闻——当我开始打盹,几乎入睡,突然传来一阵轻擂,仿佛有人在轻轻叩击,轻轻叩击我的房门."有人来了,〞我轻声嘟喃,"正在叩击我的房门——唯此而已,别无他般.〞哦,我清楚地记得那是在萧瑟的十二月；每一团奄奄一息的余烬都形成阴影伏在地板.我当时真盼望翌日；——因为我已经枉费心机想用书来消除悲哀——消除因失去丽诺尔的悲叹——因那被天使叫作丽诺尔的少女,她美丽娇艳——在这儿却默默无闻,直至永远.那柔软、暗淡、飒飒飘动的每一块紫色窗布使我心中充满前所未有的恐怖——我毛骨惊然；为平息我心儿停跳．我站起身反复叨念"这是有人想进屋,在叩我的房门——.更深夜半有人想进屋,在叩我的房门；——唯此而已,别无他般.〞很快我的心变得坚强；不再犹疑,不再彷徨,"先生,〞我说,"或夫人,我求你多多包涵；刚才我正睡意昏昏,而你来敲门又那么轻,你来敲门又那么轻,轻轻叩击我的房门,我差点以为没听见你〞——说着我拉开门扇；——唯有黑夜,别无他般.凝视着夜色幽幽,我站在门边惊惧良久,疑惑中似乎梦见从前没人敢梦见的梦幻；可那未被打破的寂静,没显示任何迹象."丽诺尔？〞便是我嗫嚅念叨的唯一字眼,我念叨"丽诺尔！〞,回声把这名字轻轻送还,唯此而已,别无他般.我转身回到房中,我的整个心烧灼般疼痛,很快我又听到叩击声,比刚才听起来明显."肯定,〞我说,"肯定有什么在我的窗棂；让我瞧瞧是什么在那里,去把那秘密发现——让我的心先镇静一会儿,去把那秘密发现；——那不过是风,别无他般！〞我猛然推开窗户,.心儿扑扑直跳就像打鼓,一只神圣往昔的健壮乌鸦慢慢走进我房间；它既没向我致意问候；也没有片刻的停留；而以绅士淑女的风度,栖在我房门的上面——栖在我房门上方一尊帕拉斯半身雕像上面——栖坐在那儿,仅如此这般.于是这只黑鸟把我悲伤的幻觉哄骗成微笑,以它那老成持重一本正经温文尔雅的容颜,"虽然冠毛被剪除,〞我说,"但你肯定不是懦夫, 你这幽灵般可怕的古鸦,漂泊夜的彼岸——请告诉我你尊姓大名,在黑沉沉的冥府阴间！〞乌鸦答日"永不复述.〞听见如此直率的回答,我惊叹这丑陋的乌鸦,虽说它的回答不着边际——与提问几乎无关；因为我们不得不承认,从来没有活着的世人曾如此有幸地看见一只鸟栖在他房门的面——鸟或兽栖在他房间门上方的半身雕像上面,有这种名字"永不复还.〞但那只独栖于肃穆的半身雕像上的乌鸦只说了这一句话,仿佛它倾泻灵魂就用那一个字眼.然后它便一声不吭——也不把它的羽毛拍动——直到我几乎是哺哺自语"其他朋友早已消散——明晨它也将离我而去——如同我的希望已消散.〞这时那鸟说"永不复还.〞惊异于那死寂漠漠被如此恰当的回话打破,"肯定,〞我说,"这句话是它唯一的本钱,从它不幸动主人那儿学未.一连串无情飞灾曾接踵而至,直到它主人的歌中有了这字眼——直到他希望的挽歌中有了这个忧伤的字眼‘永不复还,永不复还.’〞但那只乌鸦仍然把我悲伤的幻觉哄骗成微笑,我即刻拖了X软椅到门旁雕像下那只鸟跟前；然后坐在天鹅绒椅垫上,我开始冥思苦想,浮想连着浮想,猜度这不祥的古鸟何出此言——这只狰狞丑陋可怕不吉不祥的古鸟何出此言,为何聒噪‘永不复还.〞我坐着猜想那意见但没对那鸟说片语只言.此时,它炯炯发光的眼睛已燃烧进我的心坎；我依然坐在那儿猜度,把我的头靠得很舒服,舒舒服服地靠在那被灯光凝视的天鹅绒衬垫,但被灯光爱慕地凝视着的紫色的天鹅绒衬垫,她将显出,啊,永不复还！接着我想,空气变得稠密,被无形香炉熏香,提香炉的撒拉弗的脚步声响在有簇饰的地板."可怜的人,〞我呼叫,"是上帝派天使为你送药,这忘忧药能中止你对失去的丽诺尔的思念；喝吧如吧,忘掉对失去的丽诺尔的思念！〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞"先知！〞我说"凶兆！——仍是先知,不管是鸟还是魔！是不是魔鬼送你,或是暴风雨抛你来到此岸,孤独但毫不气馁,在这片妖惑鬼崇的荒原——在这恐怖萦绕之家——告诉我真话,求你可怜——基列有香膏吗？——告诉我——告诉我,求你可怜！〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞"先知！〞我说,"凶兆！——仍是先知、不管是鸟是魔！凭我们头顶的苍天起誓——凭我们都崇拜的上帝起誓——告诉这充满悲伤的灵魂.它能否在遥远的仙境拥抱被天使叫作丽诺尔的少女,她纤尘不染——拥抱被天使叫作丽诺尔的少女,她美丽娇艳.〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞"让这话做我们的道别之辞,鸟或魔！〞我突然叫道——"回你的暴风雨中去吧,回你黑沉沉的冥府阴间！别留下黑色羽毛作为你的灵魂谎言的象征！留给我完整的孤独！——快从我门上的雕像滚蛋！从我心中带走你的嘴；从我房门带走你的外观！〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞那乌鸦并没飞去,它仍然栖息,仍然栖息在房门上方那苍白的帕拉斯半身雕像上面；而它的眼光与正在做梦的魔鬼眼光一模一样,照在它身上的灯光把它的阴影投射在地板；而我的灵魂,会从那团在地板上漂浮的阴暗被擢升么——永不复还！The Raven is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. It is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow descent into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. The raven seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore". The poem makes use of a number of folk and classical references.安娜贝尔.李很久很久以前,在一个滨海的国度里,住着一位少女你或许认得,她的芳名叫安娜贝尔.李；这少女活着没有别的愿望,只为和我俩情相许.那会儿我还是个孩子,她也未脱稚气, 在这个滨海的国度里；可我们的爱超越一切,无人能与——我和我的安娜贝尔.李；我们爱得那样深,连天上的六翼天使也把我和她妒嫉.这就是那不幸的根源,很久以前在这个滨海的国度里,夜里一阵寒风从白云端吹起,冻僵了我的安娜贝尔.李；于是她那些高贵的亲戚来到凡间把她从我的身边夺去,将她关进一座坟墓在这个滨海的国度里.这些天使们在天上,不与我们一半快活, 于是他们把我和她妒嫉——对——就是这个缘故〔谁不晓得呢,在这个滨海的国度里〕云端刮起了寒风,冻僵并带走了我的安娜贝尔.李.可我们的爱情远远地胜利那些年纪长于我们的人——那些智慧胜于我们的人——无论是天上的天使,还是海底的恶魔,都不能将我们的灵魂分离,我和我美丽的安娜贝尔.李.因为月亮的每一丝清辉都勾起我的回忆梦里那美丽的安娜贝尔.李群星的每一次升空都令我觉得秋波在闪动那是我美丽的安娜贝尔.李就这样,伴着潮水,我整夜躺在她身旁。

美国文学史复习资料大全--最全必考考点集结本页仅作为文档页封面，使用时可以删除This document is for reference only-rar21year.MarchL e c t u r eⅠA B r i e f I n t r o d u c t i o n t o A m e r i c a nL i t e r a t u r efeatures of American writersIndependent, Individualistic, Critical, Innovative, HumorousI The Literature of Colonial and American PuritanismThe first American writer: Capitan John Smith.Philip Freneau:( Father of American Poetry)I I T h e L i t e r a t u r e o f R e a s o n a n d R e v o l u t i o n,E n l i g h t e n m e n t Jonathan Edwards: First modern American and the country’s last medieval manBenjamin Franklin: The AutobiographyThomas Paine :The American CrisisThomas Jefferson (“The Declaration of Independence” first established the identity of American people)John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, and JeffersonI I I T h e L i t e r a t u r e o f R o m a n t i c i s mWashing Irving欧文: His first book was “A History of New York ”.“The Sketch Book 美国信札” made him international famousJames Fenimore Cooper: 库伯“Leatherstocking Tales”, 皮袜子故事集a series of five novels about the frontier life of American settlers.Deerslayer (1843), Pathfinder (1841), Last of the Mohicans (1825), The Pioneer (1823),The Prairie ( 1827),Edgar Allan Poe艾伦·坡: Poe was sensitive enough to feel the pressure of a world where science and reason reign supreme, and one where there is neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor peace, nor help from God.“The Raven”, “Israfel”, “Sonnet—to Science” and “To Hellen”.His short stories: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, “The Purloined Letter”, “The Gold Bug” and “The Mystery of Marie Roget”o f T r a n s c e n d e n t a l i s m先验主义A. Emphasis on Spirit (Oversoul)B. Emphasis on individualsC. Taking nature as the symbol of the Spirit (Oversoul)D. Brotherhood of man (equal and liberty)Ralph Waldo Emerson爱默生: Emerson created the school of transcendentalism. His famous essay “American Scholar” established the independence of A merican intellectual.“Nature”Henry David Thoreau梭罗: Walden瓦尔登湖Nathaniel Hawthorne 藿桑Twice-Told Tales ; Moses from an Old Manse, Scarlet Letter红字; The House of Seven Gables; The Blithedale Romance; The Marble FaunHerman Melville麦尔维尔:Moby Dick大白鲸Walt Whitman惠特曼: leaves of grass草叶集, song of myselfEmily Dickinson狄金森I V T h e L i t e r a t u r e o f R e a l i s mBeecher Stowe斯托夫人: “Uncle Tom’s Cabin汤姆叔叔的小屋”Henry James 詹姆斯and international theme: The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl,5: American NaturalismStephen Crane克兰: Maggie: A Girl of the StreetsTheodore Dreiser德莱塞: Sister CarrieJack London杰克·伦敦: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, The Sea Wolf Martin Eden O. Henry欧·亨利 The Gift of the Magi, The Cop and the Athem6T w e n t i e t h-C e n t u r y L i t e r a t u r eEzra Pound庞德: In a Station of the MetroRobert Frost弗罗斯特: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningScott Fitzgerald菲茨杰拉德 and The American Dream: The Great GatsbyErnest Hemingway海明威 and Iceberg Principle: The Sun Also Rises. A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the SeaSteinbeck斯坦贝克: The Grape of WrathWilliam Faulkner福克纳: The Sound and the Fury ,Light in AugustSherwood Anderson安德森: Winesburg, OhioSinclair Lewis路易斯: Main StreetP u r i t a n i s m（清教主义）Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. Puritans wanted to purity their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. predestination（命运天定）, original sin（原罪）, total depravity（人类是完全堕落的，所以人要处处小心自己的行为，要尽可能做到最好以取悦上帝）,limited atonement（有限救赎，只有被上帝选中的人才能得到上帝的拯救）（启蒙运动）an intellectual movement in the seventeenth century and eighteenth. The common element was a trust in human reason as adequate to solve the crucial problems and to establish the essential norms in life, together with the belief that the application of reason was rapidly dissipating the remaining feudal traditions.（意象派）1912 and 1917. The typical Imagist poetry is written in free verse and undertakes to be as precisely and tersely as possible. Meanwhile, the Imagist poetry likes toexpress the writers’ momentary impression of a visual object or scene and often the impression is rendered by means of metaphor without indicating a relation.C o l o r i s m地方色彩文学a literary trend belonging to Realism. It refers to the detailed representation in prose fiction of the setting, dialect, customs, dress and ways of thinking and feeling which are distinctive of a particular region.the literature and art after WWII. Postmodernism involves not only a continuation, sometimes carried to an extreme, of the countertraditional experiments of modernism, but also diverse attempts to break away from modernist forms which had, inevitably, become in their turn conventional, as well as to overthrow the elitism of modernist “high art” by recourse to the models of “mass art”.（超验主义）in 1830s in US；emphasis on spirit or oversoul and stressing importance of the individual；regarding nature as symbols of the spirit or God and emphasis on brotherhood of man；representatives: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David ThoreauG e n e r a t i o n（迷惘的一代）American writers of the decade following the end of WWI, disillusioned by their war experience and alienated by what they perceived as the crassness of American culture are often tagged as Lost Generation. Their representatives are F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.（自然主义）Naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by their environment and heredity. Inpresenting the extremes of life, the naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that 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.Lecture 2 Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)1.The theme in the scarlet letterThe sin of Puritanism on human nature(1)Sin: Hawthorne is haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life. Evil seems to be man’s birthmark. Sin will be punished. Hawthorne was predominantly concerned with the moral, emotional, and psychological effect of the sin on people in general. The story of Adam and Eve; Dimmesdale’s "Fall" is a descent from apparent grace to his own damnation; Chillingworth's misshapen body reflects the anger in his soul Pearl embodies the poison of her parents' guilt(2)Puritan legalism: Another theme is the extreme legalism of the Puritans and how Hester chooses not to conform to their rules and beliefs Because they rejected Hester, she spent her life mostly in solitude, and wouldn't go to church. As a result, She still sees her sin, but begins to believe that a person's earthly sins don't necessarily condemn them. She even thinks that their sin has been paid for by their daily penance and that their sin won't keep them from getting to heaven, however, the Puritans believed that such a sin surely condemns.When Dimmesdale dies, she knows she has to move on because she can no longer conform to the Puritan's strictness.Her thinking is free from religious bounds and she has established her own, different moral standards and beliefs(3)Past and present: Sins of Hawthorne’s ancestors. The wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones.2.The symbolism in scarlet letter“A”-----adultery, able, angelPearl-----the unique pure person in the puritan communityChillingworth----a bad guyDimmesdale---someone who should be condemned for his evil and sinsLecture 3 Herman Melville 1819-18911. Themes in Moby-Dick:The world is Godless and purposelessThe loss of faith and the sense of futility and meaninglessnessAlienation between man and man, man and society, man and natureDeath-spiritual, emotional and physicalThis work also reveals the basic pattern of nineteenth century American life: loneliness and suicidal individualism in a self-styled democracy.2. Symbolism in Moby DickAhab（圣经中的异教徒国王，昏庸暴虐，在小说中过分自信，在船上如同一个独裁的暴君）and Ishmael （圣经中被抛弃的人，是一个流浪者，在小说里他也是一个被社会所抛弃的人）the voyage: the search for the ultimate truth of experienceMoby Dick: evil or goodness; corruption, purity, innocence, youth, the final mystery of the universePequod: the American soulLecture 4 Walt Whitman (The father of Free Verse) (1819-1892) 1. The definition of Free Verse:Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme,or any other musical pattern What is the difference between free verse and blank verse(blank verse has no rhyme, but it should be iambic pentameter)2. The theme of Leaves of GrassIn spite of the unconventionality of his poetic form and ideas, Whitman is related to the past in many ways. Whitman embraces idealism. Whitman extols the ideals of equality and democracy and celebrates the dignity, the self-reliant spirit and the joy of the common man. Parallelism.3. The features of Leaves of GrassA. He extols the ideals of equality and democracy and celebrates the dignity, the self-reliant spirit and the joy of the common man.B. employing “free verse” as the form of his poems with two characteristics: parallelism; phonetic recurrenceC. frankness of the commonplace and the ugly sides in human lifeD. direct, plain and even vulgar languageE. “untold latencies” (his poetry suggests rather than tell)F. great influence on the 20th century American poetsEmily Dickinson (1830-1886)4. The themes in Emily DickinsonFlowers and gardensThe Master , Jesus or Godillness, dying and death, immortalitythe mind and spiritA religious certainty, God’s help and good lifeNature, both kind and cruelIndividuality, free will, human responsibilitySympathy for the poor and the weakBeauty, truth and goodnessLecture5 Edgar Allan Poe (1819-1849)1. IntroductionThe father of detective fiction. He is the first professional writer.Poems:“The Raven”, “Annabel Lee”, “To Helen”Lecture 6 American realism (the late 19th century, esp. 1870s, 1880s)1. Features of American RealismA. reaction aga inst “the lie” of Romanticism (considering Romanticism made people escape from the social realities)B. theme: the world of experience of the commonplace and the familiar and the lowC. style: genteel, graceful prose by Howells and Henry James; plain and rough by Mark TwainD. vivid description of details from observation of actual lifeE. a reliance on the representative characterF. trying to hold an objective view of human nature and society2. Father of American realism:William Dean Howells (1837 – 1920)3. Features of Henry James’s workThe international theme:“the international theme”: the meeting of America and Europe, American innocence in contact and contrast with European decadence, and its moral and psychological complications.Special point of view: internal monologue (illumination of the situation and characters through one or several minds)Lecture 7 Local Colorism1. Mark Twain’s real nameSamuel Langhorne Clemens2. 4 classical novels:The Adventures of Tom SawyerThe Adventures of Huckleberry FinnThe Man that Corrupted HadleyburgRoughing It3. Trilogy of MississippiLife on the mississippiThe Adventures of Tom SawyerThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn4. The features of Mark Twain’s languageAnglo-Saxon in origin, short, concrete and direct in effect;sentence structure is mostly simple or compound;repetition of words;ungrammatical elementsMark Twain made the colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of America.Lecture 8 Ernest Hemingway1. 4 novels of Ernest Hemingway:The Sun Also RisesFor Whom the Bell TollsThe Old Man and the SeaA Farewell to Arms2. The symbolism of The old man and the sea:Santiago – mankind;sea – nature and environment;marlin – purpose of life;shark – the evil force which control human’s fate3. The features in Ernest Hemingway:Hemingway situation: characterized by chaos and brutality and violence, by crime and death, by sports and sexHemingway theme: “grace under pressure”Lecture 9 American Naturalism1. Major feature of Naturalism godlessDeterminismThe universe is cold, indifferent, godless and hostile to human desires; life becomes a struggle for survivalThemes: social systems that destroy and dehumanize; individual experience of loss and failure3.differences between Realism and Naturalism4. The trilogy of fate:The FinancierThe TitanThe Stoic5. Masterpiece of Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie6. The real name of Jack London:John Ariffith London7. The masterpiece ofThe Gift of the MagiLecture 10 The southern renaissance1. 4 novels of William Faulkner:The Sound and the FuryLight in AugustAbsalom! Absalom!Go Down, MosesAs I lay Dyingthe Marble Faun2. The features of his novels:Theme: in praise of eternal virtues in human history, love, pity, honor and self-sacrifice (despair and destruction)multiple points of viewdislocation of timethe modern stream of consciousnesswords are often run together, with no capitalization and no proper punctuation interior monologuescolloquial and regional dialectsone fragment runs into another without proper noticeLecture 11 American Drama1. 4 novels of E ugene O’Neill:Beyond the HorizonLong Day’s Journey into NightThe Emperor JonesThe Hairy Ape2. Themes of The Hairy Ape:The industrial environment is presented as toxic and dehumanizing; the world of the rich, superficial and dehumanized. Yank has also been interpreted as representative of the human condition, alienated from nature by his isolated consciousness, unable to find belonging in any social group or environment.3. Major themes in A Streetcar Named Desire:Fantasy/IllusionBlanche dwells in illusion; fantasy is her primary means of self-defense.Fantasy has a liberating magic that protects her from the tragedies she has had to endure.Blanche's dependence on illusion is contrasted with Stanley's steadfast realism, and in the end it is Stanley and his worldview that win.To survive, Stella must also resort to a kind of illusion, forcing herself to believe that Blanche's accusations against Stanley are false so that she can continue living with her husband.4. Themes in Death of a Salesman:The American DreamAbandonmentBetrayalLecture 12 Postwar American Literature1. The definition of black humor:Black humor is a way to criticize the army, the bureaucracy and government. Humor—deep, strong, melancholy, self-mocking; to express the most helpless feeling by using seemingly light-hearted treatment;2. Features of the beat generation:free from all formalitiesanti-reasonbreaking down the limitations between poetry and proseThey shock their listeners by reading their works aloud in coffee houses and bars. They lived in a wild way, anti-traditional and rebellious.They cherished a rebellious attitude toward sex, living in groups and engaging themselves in homosexual activities.3. Definition of postmodernism:In general, the postmodern view is cool, ironic, and accepting of the fragmentation of contemporary existence. It tends to concentrate on surfaces rather than depths, to blur the distinctions between high and low culture, and as a whole to challenge a wide variety of traditional cultural values.4. Features of the confessional school:They wrote about themselves, cultivating the inner world of each private individual and challenging the traditional values.They describe personal experience and family problems.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.5. Postwar novels;Saul Bellow : Henderson the Rain King, More Die of Heartbreak;. Salinger : The Catcher in the Rye;John Updike: Rabbit pentalogy,Flannery O'Connor.Joseph Heller: Catch-22Alice Walker 艾丽斯.沃克 :The Color Purple 《紫色》Martin Luther King :I Have a DreamAmy Tan :The Joy Luck Club (1989) 《欣幸俱乐部》。

美国文学史复习要点手动1.早期美国文学（17世纪-18世纪）-早期美国文学的发展受到清教徒移民和殖民地环境的影响。

-早期作品主题包括宗教信仰、苦难和恐惧。

-著名作家有威廉·布拉德福和乔纳森·爱德华兹。

2.启蒙时期文学（18世纪）-美国启蒙时期的文学受到欧洲启蒙思想的影响。

-作品主题包括理性、自由和平等。

-著名作家有本杰明·富兰克林和汤玛斯·潘恩。

3.罗曼主义时期文学（19世纪早期）-罗曼主义时期美国文学反对启蒙时期的理性主义。

-作品主题包括个人感情、自然和超自然。

-著名作家有华盛顿·欧文和爱默生。

4.特拉华文学（19世纪中期）-特拉华文学是19世纪中期美国文学的重要流派。

-作品主题包括农民和工人的生活以及美国西部探险精神。

-著名作家有赫尔曼·梅尔维尔和华尔特·惠特曼。

5.现实主义和自然主义时期文学（19世纪末-20世纪初）-现实主义和自然主义时期的文学关注社会问题和个人命运。

-作品主题包括工业化、城市化和阶级冲突。

-著名作家有马克·吐温和斯蒂芬·克莱恩。

6.现代主义时期文学（20世纪初-中期）-现代主义时期的文学反对传统形式和价值观。

-作品表现迷失、不安和心理困惑。

-著名作家有欧内斯特·海明威和F·斯科特·菲茨杰拉德。

7.后现代主义时期文学（20世纪中期-现在）-后现代主义时期的文学拒绝一切形式的正统和稳定性。

-作品表现多样化的语言和视觉实验。

-著名作家有托尼·莫里森和大卫·福斯特·华莱士。

美国文学复习资料整理打印美国文学复习资料1.The literature of colonial American at the beginning of the seventeeth century.美国文学史的开始17世纪初2.The first American writer Captain John Smith第一个美国作家约翰。

史密斯船长3.early new England literature, puritan values---hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety.清教徒价值观——努力工作、节俭、虔诚和节制。

4.John Smith 约翰-史密斯；作品A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony. 真正的关系等值得注意的事件和事故所以来发生在弗吉尼亚殖民地第一种植。

A Map Of V irginia with a Description of the Country维吉尼亚州的地图描述5. William Bradford; ---------of Plymouth plantation威廉·布拉德福德;- - - - - - -普利茅斯种植园John Winthrop----------the history of new England约翰·温思罗普- - - - - - - - - - -新英格兰的历史6.Anne Dudley Bradstreet------the tenth muse lately sprung up in America安妮布莱德思特-------第十缪斯最近在美国兴起7.Edward T aylo r----the best of the puritan poets爱德华·泰勒——最好的清教徒诗人8.the war for independence lasted for eight years (1775-1783) 独立战争持续了八年(1775 -1783)9.Noah Webster declared;?? American must be as independent in literature as she is in politics,as famous for the arts as for arms. 。

美国⽂学史期末考试复习资料Multiple choice. Please choose the best answer among the four items. (10 x 1’= 10’)1.In American literature, the 18th century was the age of Enlightenment. ______ was the dominant.2.The short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is taken from Irving’s work named______.3.Which of the following is not the characteristic of American Romanticism?4.The short story “Rip Van Winkle” reveals the ____ attitude of its author.5.Stylistically, Henry James’ fiction is characterized by _____.6.Transcendentalist doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in _____ and Thoreau.7.Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?8.____ is considered Mark Twain’s greatest achievement.9._____ is not among those greatest figures in “Lost Generation”.10.Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing b ecomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more ____.1-5，BBACD 6-10 BADCDI.Multiple choice. Please choose the best answer among the four items. (10 x 1’=10’)11.______ is the father of American Literature.life.13._____ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.14.Which of following is NOT a typical feature of Mark Twain’s language?15.From Thoreau’s jail experience, came his famous essay, _____ which states his belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.A. WaldenB. NatureC. Civil DisobedienceD. Common Sense16.Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?17.Most of the poems in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-mass” and the ____ as well.18.What did Fitzgerald call the 1920s?19.Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more ____.20.For Melville, as well as for the reader and ____, the narrator, Moby Dick is still a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe.1-5 D A B C C 6-10 A C C D CII. Identify Works as Described Below (1’×15 =15’):1.The novel has a sole black protagonist who tells his own story but whose name in unknown to us.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on theMountains2.The main conflict of the play is the protagonist’s false value of fine appearance and popularity with people and the cruel reality of the society in which money is everything.a.A Street Car Named Desireb. The Hairy Apec.Long Day’s Journey into Nightd. Death of Salesman3.It is an autobiographical play and Edmund in the play is based on the playwright himself.a. Long Day’s Journey into Nightb. Henderson the Rain Kingc. The Hairy Aped. The Glass Menageries4.The novel tells of how a black man kills a white woman by accident and how the society is responsible for the murder.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on theMountains5._________ is one of the best works in American literature about the Second World War.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Catcher in the Ryec.The Red Badge of Couraged. The Naked and the Dead6. The novel by Hemingway is the best of its kind about World War I.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Sun Also Risesc.The Old Man and the Sead. The Naked and the Dead7.The novel is about how a family of farmers cannot survive in Oklahoma and travel to California to seek a living and how they suffer hunger in California.a.The Grapes of Wrathb. U.S. A.c.Babbittd. The Adventures of Augie March8.It is a trilogy including The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money, with such techniques as biographies, newsreels and camera eye.a.Babbittb. Light in Augustc. U.S.A.d. The Grapes of Wrath9.It is a novel which uses the stream of consciousness technique and whose title is taken from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.a. Absolom, Absolom!b. The Sound and the Furyc.A Farewell to Armsd. The Great Gatsby10. It is a naturalistic work about how a country girl is seduced and how she becomes a famous actress and how her lover falls into a beggar and finally commits suicide.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec. McTeagued.Maggie, A Girl of the Streets11. The novel is set on the Mississippi with the protagonist telling us the story in the local dialect. It is a representative work of local colorism.a.Sister Carrieb.The Adventures of Tom Sawyerc. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnd.The Portrait of a Lady12.The novel is a psychological study of a soldier (Henry Fleming)’s reactions in the Civil War.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec.The Red Badge of Couraged. McTeague13. The poem is written in free verse in 52 cantos with the theme of the universality and equality in value of all people and all things.a.Cantosb. The Ravenc. Song of Myselfd.Chicago14. The novel is about how a group of people on a whaling ship kill a great whale butthemselves are killed by the whale, with the conflict between man and his fate.a.The Octopusb. Moby-Dickc. The Rise of Silas Laphamd. Leaves of Grass15. It is a philosophical essay in 8 chapters plus an introduction mainly concerned with thefour uses of nature.a. Waldenb. Naturec. The Scarlet Letterd. The American Scholar1-5.cdaad 6-10.aacbb /doc/2ac563ad77a20029bd64783e0912a21614797f92.html cbbI.Choose the Best Answer for Each of the Following (1’×15=15’):1.An English ship brought 102 people from Plymouth, England on September 16, 1620 andarrived in the present Provincetown harbor on November 21 in the same year. This ship was named ____________.a. The Pilgrimsb. Mayflowerc. Americad. Titanic2._________ is father of American drama and in his dramatic career he wrote 49 plays.a. Tennessee Williamsb. Eugene O’Neillc. Arthur Millerd. Elmer Rice3._________ was the first American writer to write entirely American literature.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Washington Irvingc. Mark Twaind. Ernest Hemingway4. _______ was the leader of American transcendentalism.a. Benjamin Franklinb. Washington Irvingc. Ralph Waldo Emersond. Henry David Thoreau5._______was the greatest woman poet in American literature and she wrote about 1,700 shortlyric poems in her life time.a. Pearl S. Buckb.Harriet Bicher Stowec. Emily Dickensond. Walter Whitman6._________ is father of the detective story and of psychoanalytic criticism.a. Washington Irvingb. Ralph Waldo Emersonc. Walt Whitmand. Edgar Allan Poe7.William Dean Howells is concerned with the middle class life; ______ writes about the upper class society, and Mark Twain deals with the lower class reality.a. Stephen Craneb. Frank Norrisc. Theodore Dreiserd. Henry James8. Which of the following is a naturalistic writer?a. William Dean Howellsb. Mark Twainc. Ernest Hemingwayd.Theodore Dreiser9. His writings are characterized by simple, colloquial language and deep thoughts. He is______.a. Ernest Hemingwayb. William Faulknerc. F. Scott Fitzgeraldd. Mark Twain10. He wrote 18 novels all set in Jefferson Town, Yoknapatwapha County in the deep south.He is ______.a. William Faulknerb. John Steinbeckc. Ernest Hemingwayd. Mark Twain11. ________is Jewish in origin and in many of his novels the American Jews are majora. Sinclair Lewisb. Saul Bellowc. Norman Mailerd. Jerome David Salinger12._________ is often regarded as the greatest American woman poet and she wrote over 1,700 short lyric poems in her life time.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Robert Frostc. H.D.d. Emily Dickinson13.________ is father of American drama and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936.a. John Steinbeckb. William Faulknerc. Euge ne O’Neilld. Arthur Miller14. He was the first black American to write a book about black life with great impact on theconsciousness of the nation and his masterpiece is one of the three classics about black Americans. Who is he?a.Richard Wrightb. Harriet Beecher Stowec. Langston Hughesd. Ralph Ellison15. Hemingway wrote about American compatriots in Europe whereas ________ wrote aboutthe Jazz age, life in American society.a.William Carlos Williamsb. William Faulknerc. John Steinbeckd. F. Scott Fitzgerald 1-5 bbccc 6-10.dddaa 11-15.bdcadI.Choose the Best Answer for Each of the Following (1×15 %):2.The American Civil War broke out in 1861 between the Northern states and the Southstates, which are known respectively as the ______and the______.a. N, Sb. Revolutionaries, Reactionariesc. Union, Confederacyd. Slavery, Anti-Slavery2._____________was praised by the British as the “Tenth Muse in America”.b. Edward Taylorc. Thomas Pained. Philip Freneau3.Mark Twain was a representative of ________ in American literature.a. transcendentalismb. naturalismc. local colorismd. imagism4. _______ was the leader of American transcendentalism.a. Benjamin Franklinb. Washington Irvingc. Ralph Waldo Emersond. Henry David Thoreau5.The greatest American poet and the first writer of free verse is ____________.a. Washington Irvingb.Ezra Poundc. Walt Whitmand. Emily Dickinson6._________ is father of the detective story and of psychoanalytic criticism.a. Washington Irvingb. Ralph Waldo Emersonc. Walt Whitmand. Edgar Allan Poe7.Henry James is concerned with the upper class life; ______ writes about the middle class society, and Mark Twain deals with the lower class reality.a. Stephen Craneb. Frank Norrisc. Theodore Dreiserd. William Dean Howells8. Which of the following is a naturalistic writer?a. William Dean Howellsb. Mark Twainc. Ernest Hemingwayd.Theodore Dreiser9. ________’s writings are characterized by simple, colloquial language and deep thoughts.b. William Faulknerc. F. Scott Fitzgeraldd. Mark Twain10. ______ wrote 18 novels all set in Jefferson Town, Yoknapatwapha County in the deepsouth. .a. William Faulknerb. John Steinbeckc. Ernest Hemingwayd. Mark Twain11. ________is Jewish in origin and in many of his novels the American Jews are majorcharacters.a. Sinclair Lewisb. Saul Bellowc. Norman Mailerd. Jerome David Salinger12._________ is often regarded as the greatest American woman poet and she wrote over 1,700 short lyric poems in her life time.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Robert Frostc. H.D.d. Emily Dickinson13.________ is father of American drama and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936.a. John Steinbeckb. William Faulknerc. Eugene O’Neilld. Arthur Miller14. _______ was the first black American to write a book about black life with great impact onthe consciousness of the nation and his masterpiece is one of the three classics about black Americans.b.Richard Wright b. Harriet Beecher Stowec. Langston Hughesd. Ralph Ellison15. ________ first used the “Jazz age” as the title of a collection of short storiesa. F. Scott Fitzgeraldb. William Faulknerc. John Steinbeck1-5.caccc 6-10.dddaa 11-15.bdcbaII. Identify Works as Described Below (1×15 %):6.The play is about a stoker whose identity as a human being is not recognized by his fellow human beings and who tries to find affinity with a monkey in the zoo and is finally killed by the animal.a. The Hairy Apeb. Henderson the Rain Kingc. Long Day’s Journey into Nightd. The Glass Menageries7.The protagonist in this play is a crippled girl named Amanda.a.A Street Car Named Desireb. The Hairy Apec.Long Day’s Journey into Nightd.The Glass Menageries8.The hero of this novel tells about his own story to us but his name is unknown.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on the Mountains4. It is an autobiographical play and Edmund in the play is based on the playwright himself.a. Long Day’s Journey into Nightb. Henderson the Rain Kingc. The Hairy Aped. The Glass Menageries5.The novel tells of how a black man kills a white woman by accident and how he is finally arrested and tried and sentenced to death.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on theMountains6._________ is one of the best works in American literature about the Second World War.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Catcher in the Ryec.The Red Badge of Couraged. The Naked and the Dead6. The novel by Hemingway is the best of its kind about World War I.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Sun Also Risesc.The Old Man and the Sead. The Naked and the Dead10.The novel is about how a family of farmers cannot survive in Oklahoma and travel toCalifornia to seek a living and how they suffer hunger in California.b.T he Grapes of Wrath b. U.S. A.c.Babbittd. The Adventures of Augie March11.It is a trilogy including The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money, with suchtechniques as biographies, newsreels and camera eye.b.B abbitt b. Light in Augustc. U.S.A.d. The Grapes of Wrath12.It is a novel which uses the stream of consciousness technique and whose title is takenfrom Shakespeare’s Macbeth.a. Absolom, Absolom!b. The Sound and the Furyc.A Farewell to Armsd. The Great Gatsby10. It is a naturalistic work about how a country girl is seduced and elopes with Hurstwoodand how she becomes a famous actress and how her lover falls into beggary and finally commits suicide.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec. McTeagued.Maggie, A Girl of the Streets11. It is a novel with 135 chapters plus an epilog; in it a group of people on a whaling ship killa great whale but they themselves are killed by the whale in the end, except Ishmael thenarrator who survives by adhering to a coffin.b.Sister Carrie b.The Adventures of Tom Sawyerc. Moby Dickd. The Portrait of a Lady12.The novel is a psychological study of a soldier (Henry Fleming)’s reactions in the Civil War,in which wound is called the red badge which symbolizes courage.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec.The Red Badge of Couraged. McTeague13. The poem is written in free verse in 52 cantos with the theme of the universality andequality in value of all people and all things.a.Cantosb. The Ravenc. Song of Myselfd.Chicago14. The novel is about how a man falls economically and socially but who rises morallybecause he gives up the opportunity to sell his factory to an English Syndicate, which would otherwise mean a ruin to that syndicate.a.The Octopusb. The Rise of Silas Laphamc. Moby-Dickd. Leaves of Grass15. It is a speech delivered at Harvard University. It is often hailed as the “declaration ofintellectual independence” in America.a. The American Scholarb. Naturec. The Scarlet Letterd. Walden1-5.adcad 6-10.aacbb /doc/2ac563ad77a20029bd64783e0912a21614797f92.html cbaII. Match the following (1×20%)A. Match Works with Their Authors1.Hugh Selwyn Mauberly2.Walden3. Autobiography4. The Scarlet Letter5.Leaves of Grass6.The Raven7. The Rise of Silas Lapham8. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer9. Long Day’s Journey into Night10. The Old Man and the Seaa.Mark Twain b . Ernest Hemingwayc. Eugene O’Neilld. William Dean Howellse. Edgar Allan Poef. Walt Whitmang. Nathaniel Hawthorne h. Benjamin Franklini.Henry David Thoreau j. Ezra Poundk.Thomas Jefferson l. T.S. EliotB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear.1.Hester Prynne2.Mrs. Touchett3.Frederick Henry4.Benjy Compson5.the Joads6.General Edward Cummings7.Holden Caulfield 7.Bigger Thomas8.Yank 9.Happya.The Portrait of a Ladyb. The Scarlet Letterc. The Hairy Aped. A Farewell to Armse.The Sound and the Furyf. The Grapes of Wrathg. The Naked and the Deadh. The Catcher in the Ryei. Native Sonj. Death of a Salesmank.Invisible Manl.Catch-22A. Match Works with Their Authors1-5.jihgf 6-10.edccbB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear. 1-5.badef 6-10.ghicj III. Match the following (1’×20=20’)A. Match works with their authors1.Nature2.Rip Van Winkle3. Nature4. The Scarlet Letter5.Leaves of Grass6.The Raven7. The Rise of Silas Lapham8. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn9. Cantos10. The Old Man and the Seaa.Ezra Poundb. Ernest Hemingwayc. Mark Twaind. William Dean Howellse. Edgar Allan Poef. Walt Whitmang. Nathaniel Hawthorne h. Ralph Waldo Emersoni.Washington Irving j. Waldo Emersonk.T.S. Eliot l. Robert FrostB. Match characters with the works in which they appear.2.Captain Ahab and Starbuck 2.Isabel Archer3.Frederic Henry and Catherine4.Benjy Compson5.the Joads6.General Edward Cummings7.Holden Caulfield 8.Bigger Thomas9.The Tyrones 10.Willy Lomana.The Portrait of a Ladyb. Moby-Dickc. Death of a Salesmand. A Farewell to Armse.The Sound and the Furyf. The Grapes of Wrathg. The Naked and the Dead h. The Catcher in the Rye i. Native Son j. Long Day’s Journey into Nightk.Absalom, Absalom l. The Old Man and the SeaA. Match Works with Their Authors1-5.jihgf 6-10.edcabB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear.1-5.badef 6-10.edcabV. Essay Questions (30%; c hoose only ONE of the following three topics and write a short essay of at least 200 words. Note: [1]Your essay should have at least 2 paragraphs; you are not simply to make a list of facts.[2] You may give a title to your essay, but you are required to indicate which of the 3 topics it belongs to. [3]You are not to write on a topic of your own.1.To the best of your knowledge, analyze and make comments on Emerson’s Nature/doc/2ac563ad77a20029bd64783e0912a21614797f92.html ment on any American poet you like.3.Analyze and/or comment on any one of the American novels or plays you have read.V. Essay Questions (30%; c hoose only ONE of the following three topics and write a shortessay of at least 200 words. Note: [1]Your essay should have at least 2 paragraphs; you arenot simply to make a list of facts.[2] You may give a title to your essay, but you are requiredto indicate which of the 3 topics it belongs to. [3]You are not to write on a topic of yourown.)4.Make comments on an American novel we have discussed in this course./doc/2ac563ad77a20029bd64783e0912a21614797f92.html ment on an American poet.6.Describe how your knowledge of American literature is improved after taking thiscourse..IV. Please answer the following questions briefly. (2 x 10’ = 20’)1.Why do people think Franklin is the embodiment of American dream?2.What is “Lost Generation”?V. Discussion. (1 x 20’ = 20’)State your own interpretations of Hemingway’s iceberg theory of writing?IV. Please answer the following questions briefly. (2 x 10’ = 20’)3.Wha t is Hawthorne’s style? Explain the style with examples.4.At the end of the 19th century, there were three fighters for Realism. Who are they?What are their differences?________True or False. (10 x 2’= 20’)1. American literature is the oldest of all national literature.2. Thomas Jefferson was the only American to sign the 4 documents that created the US.3. All his literary life, Hawthorne seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil.4. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass are about human psychology.5. Hurstwood is a character in Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.6. Faulkner’s region was the Deep North, with its bitter history of slavery, civil war and destruction.7. Placed in historical perspective, Howells is found lacking in qualities and depth. But anyhow he is a literaryfigure worthy of notice.8. Faulkner’s works have been termed the Yoknapatawpha Saga, “one connected story”.9. As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematical.10. Emily Dickinson expr esses her deep love in the poem “Annabel Lee”.1-5 F F T F F 6-10 F F T F FII. Decide whether the statements are True or False. (10 x 2’= 20’)1. Early in the 17th century, the English settlements in Virginia and began the main stream of what we recognizeas the American national history.2. American Romantic writers avoided writing about nature, medieval legends and with supernatural elements.3. As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematical.4. “Young Goodman Brown” wants to prove everyone possesses kindness in heart.5. Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Twain or Howells.6. The American realists sought to describe the wide range of American experience and to present the subtletiesof human personality.7. Frost’s concern with nature reflected his deep moral uncertainties.8. Faulkner’s works have been termed the Yoknapatawpha Saga, “one connected story”.9. Roger Chillingworth is a character in Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.10. After the Civil War, the Frontier was closing. Disillusionment and frustration were widely felt. What had been expected to be a “Golden Age” turned to be a “Gilded” one.1-5 T F T F T 6-10 F T T F TIII. Please explain the follo wing terms. (5 x 6’ = 30’)1. Puritanism2. Free verse3. International novel: 4．Romanticism 5. Naturalism 6. American Realism 7.American Naturalism Modernism Imagism1.Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.2.Free verse: It is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts toavoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech.3.International novel: IN brings together persons of various nationalities who representcertain characteristics of their own countries.4.Naturalism: It views human beings as animals in the natural world responding toenvironmental forces and internal stresses and drives, over none of which they havecontrol and none of which they fully understand. The literary naturalists have a majordifference from the realists. They look at a different spot to find real life.III. Please explain the following terms. (5 x 6’ = 30’)1. Puritanism2. international novel3. the lost generation4. free verse5.American transcendentalism Hemingway heroes1.Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.2.international novel: IN brings together persons of various nationalities who represent certain characteristics of their own countries.3.the lost generation: reveals the huge destruction of the wars to the young generation. It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of “expatriates”. They were lost in disillusionment.4.free verse: It 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.5.transcendentalism: It stressed the power of intuition, believing that people could learn things both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner world by intuition. It took nature as symbolic of spirit or God. All things in nature were symbols of the spiritual, of God’s presence. It emphasized the significance of the individual and believed that the individual was the most important element in society and that the ideal kind of individual was self-reliant and unselfish. Transcendentalists envisioned religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “Oversoul”.。

PartITheLiteratureofColonialAmericaI．HistoricalIntroductionThecolonialperiodstretchedroughlyfromthesettlementofAmericaintheearly17thcenturyt hroughtheendofthe18th.ThefirstpermanentsettlementinAmericawasestablishedbyEnglishin16 07.(AgroupofpeoplewassentbytheEnglishKingJamesItohuntforgold.TheyarrivedatVirginiain1 607.TheynamedtheJames RiverandbuildtheJamestown.)II．Thepre-revolutionarywritinginthecolonieswasessentiallyoftwokinds:1)Practicalmatter-of-factaccountsoffarming,hunting,travel,etc.designedtoinformpeo ple"athome"whatlifewaslikeinthenewworld,and,often,toinducetheirimmigrationIII．TheFirstAmericanWriter.irstPlantingofThatColony(1608)GeneralHistoryofVirginiIV．V．e'spermission.HenryVIIIwantedtodivorcehiswifebecauseshecouldn'tbearhimason.ButthePope didn'tallowhimtodivorce,sohe)brokeawayfromtheRomanCatholicChurch&establishedtheChurch ofEngland.ButtherewasnoradicaldifferencebetweenthedoctrinesoftheChurchofEnglandandthe CatholicChurch.AgroupofpeoplethoughttheChurchofEnglandwastooCatholicandwantedtopurify thechurch.ThencamethenamePuritans.2.Puritanism--basedonCalvinism(1)predestination:God'selectPuritansbelievedtheyarepredestinedbeforetheywereborn.Nothingornogoodworkcanchangetheirfate.Theybelievedthesuccessofone'sbusinessisthesigntoshowheistheGod'select.SothePurita nsworksveryhard,spendverylittleandinvestmoreforthefuturebusiness.Theylivedaveryfrugal life.Thisistheirethics.(2)OrigianlsinandtotaldepravityManisbornsinful.Thisdeterminessomepuritanspessimisticattitudetowardslife.(3)Limitedatonement(thesalvationofaselectedfew)(4)theocracyTheycombinedstatewithreligion.Theirgovernmentisatleastnotaliberalone.ThePuritansestablishedAmericantradition--intolerantmoralism.Theystrictlypunishedd runks,adultery&heretics.Puritanschangedgraduallyduetotheseverityoffrontierenvironment3.InfluenceonAmericanLiterature(1)ItsoptimismI．HistoricalIntroductionII．AmericanEnlightenmentItwassupportedbyallprogressiveforcesofthecountrywhichopposedthemselvestotheoldcol onialorderandreligiousobscurantism.Itdealtadecisiveblowuponthepuritantraditionsandbroughttolifeseculareducationandli terature.Thespirituallifeduringthatperiodwastoagreatdegreemouldedbyit.Therepresentativessetthemselvesthetaskofdisseminatingknowledgeamongthepeopleandad vocatingrevolutionaryideas.ThewritersinjectedaninvigoratingveinintotheEnglishlanguageinAmericaastheyaimedatc larityandprecisionoftheirwritings.AttheinitialperiodthespreadoftheideasoftheEnlightenmentwaslargelyduetojournalism. WritingsofEuropewerewidelyreadinAmerica.ThesecularidealsoftheAmericanEnlightenmentwer eexemplifiedinthelifeandcareerofBenjaminFranklin.III．BenjaminFranklin(1706-1790)TheAutobiographyPoorRichard’sAlmanacLifeBenjaminFranklincamefromaCalvinistbackground.Hewasbornintoapoorcandle-maker’sfamily.Hehadverylittleeducation.Helearnedinschoo lonlyfortwoyears,buthewasavoraciousreader.At12,hewasapprenticedtohiselderhalf-brother,aprinter.At16,hebegantopublishessaysunderthepseudonym“SilenceDogood”.At17,heranawaytoPhiladelphiatomakehisownfortune.Multipleidentities:aprinteraleadingauthorapoliticianascientistainventoradiplomatacivicactivistFranTheConstitutionTheAutobiographyTheAutobiographyofBenjaminFranklin wasprobablythefirstofitskindinliterature.Itisth esimpleyetimmenselyfascinatingrecordofamanrisingtowealthandfamefromastateofpovertyand obscurityintowhichhewasborn,thefaithfulaccountofthecolorfulcareerofAmerica’sfirstsel f-mademan.TheAutobiography is,firstofall,aPuritandocument.ItisPuritanbecauseitisarecordofsel f-examinationandself-improvement.Themeticulouschartof13virtueshesetforhimselftocultiv atetocombatthetemptingvices,thestupendousefforthemadetoimprovehisownperson,thebelieft hatGodhelpsthosewhohelpsthemselvesandthateverycallingisaservicetoGod–alltheseindicatethatFranklinwasintenselyPuritan.Then,thebookisalsoaconvincingillustrationofthePurita nethicthat,inordertogetonintheworld,onehastobeindustrious,frugal,andprudent.TheAutobiography isalsoaneloquentelucidationofthefactthatFranklinwasspokesmanforth eneworderofeighteenth-centuryenlightenment,andthatherepresentedinAmericaallitsideas,t hatmanisbasicallygoodandfreebynature,endowedbyGodwithcertaininalienablerightsoflibert yandthepursuitofhappiness.Alookatthestyleof TheAutobiography willreadilyrevealthatitisthepatternofPuritansimp licity,directnessandconcision.Theplainnessofitsstyle,thehomelinessofimagery,thesimpli cityofdiction,syntaxandexpressionaresomeofthesalientfeatureswecannotmistake.Thelucidi tyofthenarrative,theabsenceofornamentsinwordingandofcomplex,involvedstructuresinsynta x,andthePuritanabhorrenceofparadoxareallgraphicallydemonstratedinthewholeofthebook.Taing.IV．ThomasPaine(1737-1809)CommonSenseAmericanCrisisV．ThomasJefferson(1743-1826)TheDeclarationofIndependenceVI．PhilipFreneau(1752-1832)“PoetoftheAmericanRevolution”“FatherofAmericanPoetry”“PioneeroftheNewRomanticism”►►►LaterheattendedtheWarofIndependence,andhewascapturedbyBritisharmyin1780.►Afterbeingreleased,hepublished“TheBritishPrisonShip”in1781.►Inthesameyear,hepublished“TotheMemoryoftheBraveAmericans”.►Afterwar,hesupportedJefferson,andcontributedgreatlytoAmericangovernment.►Butafter50yearsold,helivedinpoverty.Andatlasthediedinablizzard.MainWorks►“TheRisingGloryofAmerica”(1772)《美洲光辉的兴起》►“TheHouseofNight”(1779,1786)《夜之屋》►“TheBritishPrisonShip”(1781)《英国囚船》►“TotheMemoryoftheBraveAmericans”(1781)《纪念美国勇士》►“”TheWildHoneySuckle”(1786)《野忍冬花》►“TheIndianBuryingGround”(1788)《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花（黄杲炘译）►美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。

• He was critical of modern civilization and materialistic life. Modern life has dehumanized man.
• Simple life and spiritual richness are real wealth.
• 3. nature as the symbol of the Spirit or God
New England Transcendentalism
• In 1836, Nature impacted on the intellectual life.
• Nature pushed American Romanticism to a new phrase, New England Transcendentalism—the summit.
“Rip Van Winkle”
• Origin: German source • Character: a good-natured, hen-pecked man • Content: He sleeps for 20 years and finds
everything changing. • Historic setting: from the War of Independence
Washington Irving (1783-1859)father of American literature
Irving’s works
• The Sketch Book (1819) won international fame for Irving.
• “Rip Van Winkle” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

美国文学史复习提纲I. Explain the following literary terms.1. RomanticismThe most profound and comprehensive idea of romanticism is the vision of a greater personal freedom for the individual. Appeals to imagination; Stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, geniality. Subjectivity: in form and meaning.2 American transcendentalismAmerican transcendentalism was an important movement in philosophy and literature that flourished during the early to middle years of the nineteenth century (about 1836-1860). For the transcendentalists, the soul of each individual is identical with the soul of the world and contains what the world contains.3 Realism: ―nothing more and nothing less than the tru thful treatment of material.‖ theCivil wara. verisimilitude of details derived from observationb. representative in plot, setting and characterc. an objective rather than an idealized view of human experience4. Modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. The general term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States starting at theturn of the 20th century with its core period between World War I and World War II and continuing into the 21st century.II. Questions and Answers. Give brief answers to each of the following questions in English.1. What is local color？an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things immediately observable: the dialects, customs, sights, and sounds of regional America‖2. What is American Puritanism1). Total Depravity - the concept of Original Si2). Unconditional Election - the concept of predestination3). 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.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.3. Analyze Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography.themes in autobiography: Self- Improvement Mind: Self-education Body: Physical ActivityBehavior: Moral Perfection Religion: The best service to God is to be good to man Benjamin Franklin and aspects of The American DreamRags to Riches: Impotence to Importance: A Philosophy of Individualism:Freewill vs. Determinism: Hope and Optimism:The Autobiography is a record of self-examination and self-improvement.Benjamin Franklin was a spokesman for the new order of the 18th century enlightenment The Autobiography is a how-to-do-it book, a book on the art of self-improvement. (for example, Franklin’s 13 virtues)Through telling a success story of self-reliance, the book celebrates, in fact, the fulfillment of the American dream.The Autobiography is in the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision4. What is Imagism?It is a movement of English and American poets in revolt from Romanticism, which flourish 1910-1917. The characteristic products of the movement are more easily recognized than its theories defined: they tend to be short ,composed of short lines of musical cadence rather than metrical regularity, to avoid abstraction, and to treat the image with a hard, clear precision rather than with overt symbolic intent.As part of the modernist movement, away from the sentimentality and moralizing tone of nineteenth-century Victorian poetry, imagist poets looked to many sources to help them create a new poetic expression, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images. III. Topic discussion.1. Discuss Allen Poe’s literar y achievements with his works.famous American poet, short-story writer and critic father of detective storymaster of gothic novel forerunner of symbolisma father of detective storyPoe introduced of a new form of short fiction--- the detective story.Th e word ―detective‖ did not exist in English at the time thatPoe was writing, but the genre has become a fundamental mode of twentieth-century literature and film.b) master of gothic novelGothic novel, a genre that rose with Romanticism in Britain in the late eighteenth century, explores the dark side of human experience—death, alienation, nightmares, ghosts, and haunted landscapes. Poe brought the Gothic to America.Gothic novels originated from The Castle of Otranto, written by Horace Walpole in Britain at the end of the 18th century, which created the early classical Gothic novel mode.It leads habitually with darkness and horror. Gothic elements include horror, mystery, supernatural phenomenon, misfortune, death, haunted houses, and family curses.C Literary criticPoe is one of the few American writers who not only wrote poetry, but also wrote about how to write poetry. His critical essays on poetry include The Poetic Principle, and The Philosophy of Composition.Poe remained the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature.2. Analyze Freneau’s The Wild Honeysuckle.野金银花Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, 美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，Hid in this silent, dull retreat, 却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——Untouched thy honey'd blossoms blow, 甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，Unseen thy little branches greet; 招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；No roving foot shall crush thee here, 没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，No busy hand provoke a tear. 没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。

美国文学复习整理（分时期）reasoning and revolution代表作家：1、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明·富兰克林1706-17901）"Poor Richard's Almanac" 穷人查理德的年鉴annual collection of proverbs 流行谚语集It soon became the most popular book of its kind, largely because of Franklin's shr ewd humor, and first spread his reputation2) Founded the Junto, a club for informal discussion of scientific, economic and poli tical ideas. 建立了一个秘密俱乐部，讨论的主题是政治、经济和科学等时事方面的问题3）established America's first circulating library, founded the college--University of Pe nnsylvania. 建立了美国第一个可租借的图书馆，还创办了一所大学——就是现在的宾夕法尼亚大学。

4）first applied the terms "positive" and "negative" to electrical charges.5)As a representative of the Colonies, he tried in vain to counsel the British toward policies that would let America grow and flourish in association with England. He c onducted the difficulty negotiations with France that brought financial and military s upport for America in the war. 作为殖民地的代表，他不断建议英国改变政策，使美国可以和英国一起发展、繁荣。

Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. < A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.>II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of two kinds:1> Practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people "at home" what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration2> Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony <1608>A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country <1612>General History of Virgini a <1624>: the Indian princess Pocahontas Captain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII <At that time, the Catholics were not allowedto divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he> broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church of England. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism<1> predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived a very frugal life. This is their ethics.<2> Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.<3> Limited atonement <the salvation of a selected few><4> theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment3. Influence on American Literature<1> Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.<2> Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not want colonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. They prevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependence by ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years <1776-1783> and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America. II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision of their writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.III．Benjamin Franklin <1706-1790>The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym "Silence Do good〞.At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the PennsylvaniaHospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called "the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.〞Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of the Puritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence of ornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine <1737-1809>Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson <1743-1826>The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau <1752-1832>"Poet of the American Revolution〞"Father of American Poetry〞"Pioneer of the New Romanticism〞"A gifted and versatile lyric poet〞Works"The Wild Honey Suckle〞"The Indian Burying Ground〞"To a Caty-Did〞Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life Experience►He was born in New York.►At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey <now PrincetonUniversity>. He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his friends <H. H. Brackenridge> a poem entitled "The Rising Glory of America〞.►Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.►After being released, he published "The British Prison Ship〞in 1781.►In the same year, he published "To the Memory of the Brave Americans〞.►After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.►But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works►"The Rising Glory of America〞<1772> 《美洲光辉的兴起》►"The House of Night〞<1779,1786> 《夜之屋》►"The British Prison Ship〞<1781> 《英国囚船》►"To the Memory of the Brave Americans〞<1781> 《纪念美国勇士》►"〞The Wild Honey Suckle〞<1786> 《野忍冬花》►"The Indian Burying Ground〞<1788> 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花〔黄杲炘译〕►美好的花呀,你长得：这么秀丽, 却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵,招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎,没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪.►大自然把你打扮得一身洁白,她叫你避开庸俗粗鄙的目光,她布置下树荫把你护卫起来,又让潺潺的柔波淌过你身旁；你的夏天就这样静静地消逝,这时候你日见萎蔫终将安息. ►那些难免消逝的美使我销魂, 想起你未来的结局我就心疼,别的那些花儿也不比你幸运——虽开放在伊甸园中也已凋零, 无情的寒霜再加秋风的威力,会叫这花朵消失得一无踪迹. ►##和晚露当初曾把你养育,让你这小小的生命来到世上,原来若乌有,就没什么可失去,因为你的死让你同先前一样；这来去之间不过是一个钟点——这就是脆弱的花享有的天年.►This poem is divided into four stanzas. Each stanza consists of six lines, rhyming "ababcc〞, and sounds just like music.►In the first two stanzas, Freneau devoted more attention to the environment of the flower in which he found it than to the appearance of the flower. He conmented on the secluded nature of the place where the honey suckle grew, drawing a conclusion that it was due to nature's protectiveness that the flower was able to lead a peaceful life free from men’s disturbance and destruction.►But the next stanza immediately changed the tone from silent admiration and appreciation to outright lamentation over the "future’s doom〞of the flower – even nature was unable to save the flower from its death.►And then, Freneau said, "if nothing once, you nothing lose.〞It is true in people’s existence. There is fate for the life and death. After one’s death, the only thing he can take away is what he brought when he gave birth to this world.Part III The Literature of RomanticismI．Historical Introductionfrom early 19th century through the outbreak of the Civil War1. native factorsIt is a period following American Independence. In this period, democracy and political equality became the ideals of the new nation. America was in an economic boom. There is a tremendous sense of optimism and hope among the people. The spirit of the time is, in some measure, responsible for the outburst of romantic feeling.2. foreign influenceRomanticism emerged in England from 1798 to 1832. It added impetus to the growth of Romanticism in America. In England the general features of the works of the romantics is a dissatisfaction with the bourgeois society. British Romanticism inspired the American imagination. Thus American Romanticism was in a way derivative. II．American Romanticism: American RenaissanceRomanticism <appeared in England in the last years of the 18th century and spread to continental Europe and then> came to America early in the 19th century. It was pluralistic; its manifestations were as varied, as individualistic, and as conflicting as the cultures and the intellects from which it sprang. Yet romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: 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.It exalted the individual, which suited the nation's revolutionary heritage and its frontier egalitarianism. It revolted against traditional art forms, which gratified those cramped by the strict limits of neoclassic literature, painting, and architecture. It rejected rationalism, which gladdened those who were opposed to cool, intellectual religious wrapped with the remnants of Calvinism.Romantic writers placed increasing value on the free expression of emotion and display increasing attention to the spiritual states of their characters. Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitivity and excitement. The novel of terror became the profitable literary staple that it remains today. Writers of gothic novels sought to arouse in their readers a turbulent sense of the remote, the supernatural, and the terrifying by describing castles and landscapes illuminated by moonlight and haunted by ghosts. A preoccupation with the demonic and the mystery of evil marked by the works of Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and a host of lesser writers.Early American romanticism was best represented by New England poets William Cullen Bryant <1794-1878> and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow <1807-1882> inpoetry, and James Fenimore Cooper <1789-1851> and Washington Irving<1783-1859> in fiction.The later/peak period is represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson <1803-1882> and Henry David Thoreau <1817-1862>.III．WashingtonIrving1. Rip Van WinkleThe story, written while Irving was staying with his sister Sarah and her husband Henry van Wart in Birmingham, England, is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. A villager of Dutch descent escapes his nagging wife by wandering up Kaaterskill Clove near his home town of Palenville, New York in the Catskill Mountains. After various adventures <in one version of the tale, he encounters the spirits of Henry Hudson and his crew playing ninepins at the top of KaaterskillFalls>, he settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes up 20 years later and returns to his village. He finds out that his wife is dead and his close friends have died in a war or gone somewhere else. He immediately gets into trouble when he hails himself a loyal subject of George III, not knowing that in the meantime the American Revolution has taken place and he is not supposed to be a loyal subject of any Hanoverian any longer.The story has become a part of cultural mythology: even for those who have never read the original story, "Rip Van Winkle" means either a person who sleeps for a long period of time, or one who is inexplicably <perhaps even blissfully> unaware of current events.Rip Van Winkle has been seen as a symbol of several aspects of America. Rip, like America, is immature, self-centered, careless, anti-intellectual, imaginative, and jolly as the overgrown child. The town itself symbolizes America – forever and rapidly changing. Washington Irving has Rip sleep through his own country’s history, through what we might call the birth pangs of America, and return to the "busy, bustling, disputatious〞self-consciously adult United States of America. His conflicts and dreams are those of the nation – the conflict of innocence and experience, work and leisure, the old and the new, the head and the heart.2. The Legend of Sleepy HollowThe story is set circa 1790 in the Dutch settlement of TarryTown, in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. It tells the story of Ichabod Crane, a sycophantic, lean, lanky, and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer, Baltus Van Tassel. As Crane leaves a party he attended at the Van Tassel home on an autumn night, he is pursued by the Headless Horseman, who is supposedly the ghost of a Hessian trooper who had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during "some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War, and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head". Ichabod mysteriously disappears from town, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones, who was "to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related". Although the nature of the HeadlessHorseman is left open to interpretation, the story implies that the Horseman was really Brom Bones in disguise.The creation of archetypes is a p articularly subtle feat of Irving’s consummate craftsmanship. We may see in Ichabod Crane a precocious, effect New Englander, shrewd, commercial, a city-slicker, who is rather an interloper, a somewhat destructive force, and who comes along to swindle the villagers. His book learning turns on him, and he is driven away from where he does not belong, so that the serene village remains permanently good and happy.Brom Bones, on the other hand, is of a Huck Finn-type of country bumpkin, rough, vigorous, boisterous but inwardly very good, a frontier type put out there to shift for himself.Thus, the rivalry in love between Ichabod and Brom, viewed in this way, suddenly assumes the dimensions of two ethical groups locked in a kind of historic contest. As to the style of the piece, it represents Irving at his best. The association between a certain local and the inward movement of a character, the emotional loading of almost every line of the story, their effect on the five sense of the reader whose attention is so fully engaged and who feels so much involved in what is happening – all these have placed this and other Irving stories among the best of American short stories.3. Irving’s Style<1> Irving avoids moralizing as much as possible. He writes simply to entertain rather to enlighten.<2> He is good at setting his stories in a magic and fantastic atmosphere. The richness of the atmosphere compensates for the slimness of his plot.<3> His characters are vivid and true to life. They tend to linger in the mind of the reader.<4> His writing is full of humor and satire.<5> two important themes, i.e. the themes of change and search for identify. These themes capture the spirit of Irving’s times and reflect his philosophical thinking on contemporary American social life.IV. James Fenimore Cooper 詹姆斯费尼莫尔库珀<1789--1851> -- launched two kinds of immensely popular stories → the sea adventure tale and the frontier sagaThe Leatherstocking Tales《皮袜子故事集》,regard as "the nearest approach yet to an American epic.〞〔开创了美国文学的一个重要主题—文明的发展对大自然和它代表的崇高品德的摧残与破坏〕Its central figure in the novels, Natty Bumppo <美国文学的一个重要的原型人物—独立不羁、逃避社会、在大自然中需求完美精神世界的班波>. Cooper’s 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, The Prairie Cooper’s 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 authenticLiterary AchievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the historyof the United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring and pushing the American frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectively 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 western tradition to American literature.V. William Cullen Bryant 威廉卡伦布赖恩特<1794-1878>-- the first American to gain the stature of a major poet.To a Waterfowl《致水鸟》The Yellow Violet 《黄色的堇香花》VI. Edgar Allen Poe <1809-1849>American writer, known as a poet and critic but most famous as the first master of the short-story form, especially tales of the mysterious and macabre. The literary meritsof Poe's writings have been debated since his death, but his works have remained popular and many major American and European writers have professed their artistic debt to him.For a long time after his death Poe remained probably the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature.Emerson dismissed him in three words, "the jingle man.〞Mark Twain declared his prose to be unreadable.Henry James made the ruthless statement that "an enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive state of development.〞Whitman, who was the only famous literary figure present at the Poe Memorial Ceremony in Baltimore in 1875, had mixed feelings about him: he did admit Poe’s genius, but it was "its narrow range and unhealthy, lurid quality〞that most impressed him.T. S. Eliot proclaimed him a critic of the first rank, but charged him with "slipshod writing.〞Poe’s WorksPoetry: The Raven《乌鸦》Horror Fiction: The Fall of the House of Usher《厄舍大厦的倒塌》Whodunit: Murders in the Rue Morgue《莫格街谋杀案》致海伦海伦,你的美在我的眼里, 有如往日尼西亚的三桅船船行在飘香的海上,悠悠地把已倦于漂泊的困乏船员送回他故乡的海岸.早已习惯于在怒海上飘荡, 你典雅的脸庞,你的鬈发, 你水神般的风姿带我返航, 返回那往时的希腊和罗马, 返回那往时的壮丽和辉煌. 看哪！壁龛似的明亮窗户里, 我看见你站着,多像尊雕像, 一盏玛瑙的灯你拿在手上！塞姬女神哪,神圣的土地才是你家乡！In the first stanza, Helen’s beauty is soothing. It provides security and safety. Perhaps the reader is expected to associate Marlowe’s famous line: "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships〞to Helen’s beauty, for her beauty is as hypnotic for the speaker as were the ships that transported another wanderer – Ulysses - home from Troy.Throughout the poem, Poe uses allusions to classical names and places, as well as certain kinds of images to create the impression of a far-off idealized, unreal woman, like a Greek statue. Words that support the image of an ideal woman are "hyacinth〞and "classic〞<line 7>, "Naiad airs〞<line 8>, and "statue-like〞<line 12>. Helen stands, not like a real woman, but like a saint in a "window-niche〞<line 11>. She becomes a symbol both of beauty and of frustration, a romantically idealized, yet inaccessible image of the heart’s desire.乌鸦从前一个阴郁的子夜,我独自沉思,慵懒疲竭,沉思许多古怪而离奇、早已被人遗忘的传闻——当我开始打盹,几乎入睡,突然传来一阵轻擂,仿佛有人在轻轻叩击,轻轻叩击我的房门."有人来了,〞我轻声嘟喃,"正在叩击我的房门——唯此而已,别无他般.〞哦,我清楚地记得那是在萧瑟的十二月；每一团奄奄一息的余烬都形成阴影伏在地板.我当时真盼望翌日；——因为我已经枉费心机想用书来消除悲哀——消除因失去丽诺尔的悲叹——因那被天使叫作丽诺尔的少女,她美丽娇艳——在这儿却默默无闻,直至永远.那柔软、暗淡、飒飒飘动的每一块紫色窗布使我心中充满前所未有的恐怖——我毛骨惊然；为平息我心儿停跳．我站起身反复叨念"这是有人想进屋,在叩我的房门——.更深夜半有人想进屋,在叩我的房门；——唯此而已,别无他般.〞很快我的心变得坚强；不再犹疑,不再彷徨,"先生,〞我说,"或夫人,我求你多多包涵；刚才我正睡意昏昏,而你来敲门又那么轻,你来敲门又那么轻,轻轻叩击我的房门,我差点以为没听见你〞——说着我拉开门扇；——唯有黑夜,别无他般.凝视着夜色幽幽,我站在门边惊惧良久,疑惑中似乎梦见从前没人敢梦见的梦幻；可那未被打破的寂静,没显示任何迹象."丽诺尔？〞便是我嗫嚅念叨的唯一字眼,我念叨"丽诺尔！〞,回声把这名字轻轻送还,唯此而已,别无他般.我转身回到房中,我的整个心烧灼般疼痛,很快我又听到叩击声,比刚才听起来明显."肯定,〞我说,"肯定有什么在我的窗棂；让我瞧瞧是什么在那里,去把那秘密发现——让我的心先镇静一会儿,去把那秘密发现；——那不过是风,别无他般！〞我猛然推开窗户,.心儿扑扑直跳就像打鼓,一只神圣往昔的健壮乌鸦慢慢走进我房间；它既没向我致意问候；也没有片刻的停留；而以绅士淑女的风度,栖在我房门的上面——栖在我房门上方一尊帕拉斯半身雕像上面——栖坐在那儿,仅如此这般.于是这只黑鸟把我悲伤的幻觉哄骗成微笑,以它那老成持重一本正经温文尔雅的容颜,"虽然冠毛被剪除,〞我说,"但你肯定不是懦夫, 你这幽灵般可怕的古鸦,漂泊夜的彼岸——请告诉我你尊姓大名,在黑沉沉的冥府阴间！〞乌鸦答日"永不复述.〞听见如此直率的回答,我惊叹这丑陋的乌鸦,虽说它的回答不着边际——与提问几乎无关；因为我们不得不承认,从来没有活着的世人曾如此有幸地看见一只鸟栖在他房门的面——鸟或兽栖在他房间门上方的半身雕像上面,有这种名字"永不复还.〞但那只独栖于肃穆的半身雕像上的乌鸦只说了这一句话,仿佛它倾泻灵魂就用那一个字眼.然后它便一声不吭——也不把它的羽毛拍动——直到我几乎是哺哺自语"其他朋友早已消散——明晨它也将离我而去——如同我的希望已消散.〞这时那鸟说"永不复还.〞惊异于那死寂漠漠被如此恰当的回话打破,"肯定,〞我说,"这句话是它唯一的本钱,从它不幸动主人那儿学未.一连串无情飞灾曾接踵而至,直到它主人的歌中有了这字眼——直到他希望的挽歌中有了这个忧伤的字眼‘永不复还,永不复还.’〞但那只乌鸦仍然把我悲伤的幻觉哄骗成微笑,我即刻拖了X软椅到门旁雕像下那只鸟跟前；然后坐在天鹅绒椅垫上,我开始冥思苦想,浮想连着浮想,猜度这不祥的古鸟何出此言——这只狰狞丑陋可怕不吉不祥的古鸟何出此言,为何聒噪‘永不复还.〞我坐着猜想那意见但没对那鸟说片语只言.此时,它炯炯发光的眼睛已燃烧进我的心坎；我依然坐在那儿猜度,把我的头靠得很舒服,舒舒服服地靠在那被灯光凝视的天鹅绒衬垫,但被灯光爱慕地凝视着的紫色的天鹅绒衬垫,她将显出,啊,永不复还！接着我想,空气变得稠密,被无形香炉熏香,提香炉的撒拉弗的脚步声响在有簇饰的地板."可怜的人,〞我呼叫,"是上帝派天使为你送药,这忘忧药能中止你对失去的丽诺尔的思念；喝吧如吧,忘掉对失去的丽诺尔的思念！〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞"先知！〞我说"凶兆！——仍是先知,不管是鸟还是魔！是不是魔鬼送你,或是暴风雨抛你来到此岸,孤独但毫不气馁,在这片妖惑鬼崇的荒原——在这恐怖萦绕之家——告诉我真话,求你可怜——基列有香膏吗？——告诉我——告诉我,求你可怜！〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞"先知！〞我说,"凶兆！——仍是先知、不管是鸟是魔！凭我们头顶的苍天起誓——凭我们都崇拜的上帝起誓——告诉这充满悲伤的灵魂.它能否在遥远的仙境拥抱被天使叫作丽诺尔的少女,她纤尘不染——拥抱被天使叫作丽诺尔的少女,她美丽娇艳.〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞"让这话做我们的道别之辞,鸟或魔！〞我突然叫道——"回你的暴风雨中去吧,回你黑沉沉的冥府阴间！别留下黑色羽毛作为你的灵魂谎言的象征！留给我完整的孤独！——快从我门上的雕像滚蛋！从我心中带走你的嘴；从我房门带走你的外观！〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞那乌鸦并没飞去,它仍然栖息,仍然栖息在房门上方那苍白的帕拉斯半身雕像上面；而它的眼光与正在做梦的魔鬼眼光一模一样,照在它身上的灯光把它的阴影投射在地板；而我的灵魂,会从那团在地板上漂浮的阴暗被擢升么——永不复还！The Raven is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. It is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow descent into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. The raven seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore". The poem makes use of a number of folk and classical references.安娜贝尔.李很久很久以前,在一个滨海的国度里,住着一位少女你或许认得,她的芳名叫安娜贝尔.李；这少女活着没有别的愿望,只为和我俩情相许.那会儿我还是个孩子,她也未脱稚气, 在这个滨海的国度里；可我们的爱超越一切,无人能与——我和我的安娜贝尔.李；我们爱得那样深,连天上的六翼天使也把我和她妒嫉.这就是那不幸的根源,很久以前在这个滨海的国度里,夜里一阵寒风从白云端吹起,冻僵了我的安娜贝尔.李；于是她那些高贵的亲戚来到凡间把她从我的身边夺去,将她关进一座坟墓在这个滨海的国度里.这些天使们在天上,不与我们一半快活, 于是他们把我和她妒嫉——对——就是这个缘故〔谁不晓得呢,在这个滨海的国度里〕云端刮起了寒风,冻僵并带走了我的安娜贝尔.李.可我们的爱情远远地胜利那些年纪长于我们的人——那些智慧胜于我们的人——无论是天上的天使,还是海底的恶魔,都不能将我们的灵魂分离,我和我美丽的安娜贝尔.李.因为月亮的每一丝清辉都勾起我的回忆梦里那美丽的安娜贝尔.李群星的每一次升空都令我觉得秋波在闪动那是我美丽的安娜贝尔.李就这样,伴着潮水,我整夜躺在她身旁。

Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. （A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town。

)II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of two kinds: 1）Practical matter—of—fact accounts of farming，hunting, travel，etc。

designed to inform people ”at home” what life was like in the new world，and，often, to induce their immigration2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical，discussions of religious questions.III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements。

一卷I. Choose the best answer to each of the following questions.1.The first American writer is ___________.a. John Cottonb. John Winthropc. John Smithd. Anne Bradstreet2.In the direct line of Metaphysical Poets, _________ is considered the best ofPuritan poets and his works were hailed as the finest 17th century American verse.a. Henry Wadsworth Longfellowb. Edgar Allen Poec. William Cullen Bryantd. Edward Taylor3.“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are cr eated equal, …” is aquotation from __________ drafted by ______________.a. The American Crisis, Thomas Jeffersonb. The American Crisis, Thomas Painec. The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Pained. The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson4.______________ was called the “Father of American Poetry”.a. Edward Taylorb. William Cullen Bryantc. Edgar Allen Poed. Philip Freneau5.____________ was the first great prose stylist of American romanticism.a. Nathaniel Hawthorneb. Edgar Allen Poec. Washington Irvingd. James Fennimore Cooper6.In the five novels that comprise the Leatherstocking Tales, the central figure,________, goes the various names of Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, Pathfinder, and Hawkeye.a. Chingakgookb. David Gamutc. Natty Bumppod. Uncas7.The publication of ___________ written by _________introduced the mosteloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism to American literature.a. Nature, Henry David Thoreaub. Nature, Ralph Waldo Emersonc. Walden, Henry David Thoreaud. Walden, Ralph Waldo Emerson8._____________ was written to show that the consequences of a sin cannot beescaped and that many different lives are influenced by one wrong deed.a. Nathaniel Hawthorneb. Herman Mellvillec. James Fennimore Cooperd. Washington Irving9.__________ was the first American writer to have a bust to be placed in the Poets’Corner at Westminster Abbey.a. William Wordsworthb. Edgar Allen Poec. William Cullen Bryantd. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow10.In a sense, we can say that Romanticism designates a literary and philosophicaltheory, which tends to see the ___________ as the very center of all life and all experience.a. societyb. individualc. familyd. country life11.“He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs,hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together.” The description is about __________.a. Brom Van Bruntb. Rip Van Winklec. Ichabod Craned. Katrina Van Tassel12.Herman Melville was very much influenced by _________, who he called “thelargest brain with the largest heart” in America Litera ture.a. Nathaniel Hawthorneb. Edgar Allen Poec. Washington Irvingd. James Fennimore Cooper13.In The Last of the Mohicans, the last of the Mohicans refers to _____________.a. David Gamutb. Chigachgookc. Maguad. Uncas14. ___________ consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.a. Iambb. Trocheec. Dactyld. Spondee15.Among the following short stories, which one is NOT written by NathanielHawthorne?a. Ethan Brandb. The Great Stone Facec. Rapaccini's Daughterd. Bartleby the ScrivenerII. Explain the following terms briefly in English.1.Refrain2.American Puritanism3.New England Transcendentalism4.Familiar essay5.AllegoryIII. Arrange in pairs.Directions: Column A consists of ten writers, please find their corresponding works in Column B and write the answer on the Anwer Sheet.IV. Try to decide whether the following statements are true or false. Please write “T” for “true” and “F” for “false ”.1.The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a story about a man who falls into a sleep of 20years while out hunting during which the Revolutionary War takes place.2.Bartleby the Scrivener is one of Herman Melville’s short stories.3.The Song of Hiawatha is the first American epic about the American Indians.4.The Birthmark uses the background of witchcraft to explore uncertainties of beliefthat trouble a man’s heart and mind.5.Edgar Allen Poe has often been regarded as the father of modern short story.V. Read the following passages and complete the tasks according to the specific requirements1.Standing on the bareground, - my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted intoinfinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.a.Identify the author and the work from which the quotation is selected.b.What does “the Universal Being” refer to? What is the relation between theindividual and the Universal Being? Explain with regard to the author’s philosophical ideas.2.Another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new eye. When strangers lookedcuriously at the scarlet letter, - and none ever failed to do so, - they branded it afresh into Hester’s soul; so that, oftentimes, she could scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand.a.Identify the author and the work from which the quotation is selected.b.What is the character’s full name? What does “the symbol” refer to? Does itchange its meaning for him/ her through out the whole story?3.Let us then be up and doing,With a heart for any fate;Still achieving, still pursuing,Learn to labor and to wait.a.Identify the author and the work from which the quotation is selected.b.Analyze the poem from at least three of the following aspects: structure,rhyme scheme, tone, theme and figures of speech used with regard to thestanza selected.VI. Answer the following questions1.Discuss the symbolism in Moby Dick.2.What are Edgar Allen Poe’s criteria for writing short stories?一卷答案I.Choose the best answer to each of the following questions.1-5：cdddc 6-10：cbadb 11-15：cadadII.Explain the following terms briefly in English.1.Refrain: one or more words repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at theend of a stanza. The most regular is the use of the same line at the close of each stanza.2.American Puritanism stressed predestination, original sin, total depravity,and limited atonement from God’s grace. It was influenced heavily by Calvinism. With such doctrines in their mind Puritans left Europe for America in order to prove that they were God’s chosen people who would enjoy God’s blessings on earth and in Heaven. Over the years in the new homeland, they built a way of life that stressed hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety.3.New England Transcendentalism was the first American intellectualmovement. Transcendental club became the movement’s center with its magazine The Dial. It was a system of thought that originated from manysources, mainly Idealistic philosophy. It stressed the power of intuition, spirit and the individual. It envisioned religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “oversoul”. It was represented by two major writers of the country, Emerson and Thoreau whose writings had great impact in the country.4.Familiar essay is the more personal, intimate type of informal essay. It dealslightly, often humorously, with personal experiences, opinions, and prejudices, stressing especially the unusual or novel, and having to do with the varied aspects of everyday life.5. Allegory is a story or image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning.III.Arrange in pairs.1-5：C J H G I 6-10：F D A E BIV.Try to decide whether the following statements are true or false. Please write “T” for “true” and “F” for “false ”1-5: F T T F TV.Read the following passages and complete the tasks according to the specific requirements1. a. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Relianceb. One of Emerson’s philosophy is the importance of the individual. In the passage, he is affirmative about man’s intuitive knowledge, with which a man can trust himself to decide what is right and to act accordingly. There is an emotional communication between an individual and the all-pervading power from which all things come from and of which all are a part. He means to convince people that the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself are infinite.2. a. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letterb. Hester Prynne; The symbol refers to the scarlet letter A which refers to hersin of adultery; at the very beginning of the romance, the letter “A” symbolizes the act of adultery to Dimmesdale , but towards the end of the story, it symbolizes Angel to the other people in the community.3. a. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Lifeb. The poem is written in quatrains, with a rhyme scheme of abab and each line in iambic tetrameter. The tone is optimistic. Figures of speech used are alliteration, parallel structure and repetition. It stresses the importance of a full and sincere activity in making the most of life’s brief span, rather than succumbing to moods of vain regret or dejection.VI.Answer the following questions1.①Herman Melville is a master of symbols, that is, objects or persons whorepresent something else.②Different people on board the ship are representations of different ideas anddifferent social and ethnic groups; facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings.③Ishmael , the narrator of the story, is symbolic of a wanderer or displacedperson who is wandering in the world and fails to find out the real meaning of the world.④Ahab, symbolic of the Jewish king who started worship of Pagan gods,suffers both psychological and physical damage inflicted by life in a harsh world that eventually destroys him.⑤The Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes asearch for truth.⑥Queequeg’s Coffin alternately symbolizes life and death. Queequeg has itbuilt when he is seriously ill, but when he recovers, it becomes a chest to hold his belongings and an emblem of his will to live. The coffin furthercomes to symbolize life, in a morbid way, when it replaces the Pequod’s li fe buoy. When the Pequod sinks, the coffin becomes Ishmael’s buoy, saving not only his life but the life of the narrative that he will pass on.⑦The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolizes nature for Melville, for it iscomplex, unfathomable, malignant, and beautiful as well. For the character Ahab, however, the whale represents only evil. Moby Dick is like a wall, hiding some unknown, mysterious things behind. Ahab wills the whole crew on the Pequod to join him in the pursuit of the big whale so as to pierce the wall, to root out the evil, but only to be destroyed by evil, in this case, by his consuming desire, his madness. For the author, as well as for the reader and Ishmael, Moby Dick is still a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, inscrutable and ambivalent, and the voyage of the mind will forever remaina search not a discovery of the truth.2.① A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashionedhis thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents,--he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design."②Although beauty is the aim of poems, truth is the aim of tales.③Tales can deal with terror, passion, horror, humor, sarcasm, wit, andratiocination.④The merit of a work of art should be judged by its psychological effect uponthe reader.二卷I. Choose the best answer to each of the following questions.1.Written by William Cullen Bryant, __________, is called by the eminent Englishcritic and poet, Mathew Arnold, the “most perfect brief poem in the language”.a. To a Waterfowlb. To Helenc. Thanatopsisd. The Wild Honey Suckle2.The first American writer is ___________.a. John Cottonb. John Winthropc. John Smithd. Anne Bradstreet3.According to ______________, the most poetical topic is the death of a beautifulwoman.a. Henry Wadsworth Longfellowb. Edgar Allen Poec. William Cullen Bryantd. Edward Taylor4.“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, …” is aquotation from __________ drafted by ___________.a. The American Crisis, Thomas Jeffersonb. The American Crisis, Thomas Painec. The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Pained. The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson5.The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle are the two most famous shortstories from Washington Irving’s ____________.a. Bracebridge Hallb. The Sketch Bookc. A History of New Yorkd. Twice-Told Tales6.______________ was called the “Father of American Poetry”.a. Edward Taylorb. William Cullen Bryantc. Edgar Allen Poed. Philip Freneau7._____________ is called by Oliver Wendell Holmes “our intellectual Declarationof Independence”.a. The American Scholarb. Self-Reliancec. The Divinity School Addressd. Nature8._______, New England’s Utopia, is the record of ____________’s experiment inendeavoring to live an ideal life in the forest.a. Nature, Henry David Thoreaub. Nature, Ralph Waldo Emersonc. Walden, Henry David Thoreaud. Walden, Ralph Waldo Emerson9.____________ is a movement supported by all progressive forces of the countrywhich opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.a. American Romanticismb. New England Transcendentalismc. American Puritanismd. American Enlightenment10.Among the writers in the Literature of Reason and Revolution, ________ shapedhis writing after the Spectator Papers of the English essayists Joseph Addison and Richard Steele.a. Thomas Jeffersonb. Benjamin Franklinc. Joel Barlowd. William Bartram11.“He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs,hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together.” The description is about __________.a. Brom Van Bruntb. Rip Van Winklec. Ichabod Craned. Katrina Van Tassel12.Herman Melville was very much influenced by _________, who he called "thelargest brain with the largest heart" in America Literature.a. Nathaniel Hawthorneb. Edgar Allen Poec. Washington Irvingd. James Fennimore Cooper13.In The Last of the Mohicans, the last of the Mohicans refers to _____________.a. David Gamutb. Chigachgookc. Maguad. Uncas14.___________ consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.a. Iambb. Trocheec. Dactyld. Spondee15.Among the following short stories, which one is NOT written by NathanielHawthorne?a. Ethan Brandb. The Great Stone Facec. Rapaccini's Daughterd. Bartleby the ScrivenerII. Explain the following terms briefly in English.1.Refrain2.American Puritanism3.New England Transcendentalism4.Iambic pentameter5.Familiar essayIII. Arrange in pairs.Directions: Column A consists of ten writers, please find their corresponding works inIV. Try to decide whether the following statements are true or false. Please write “T” for “true” and “F” for “false ”1.The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a story about a man who falls into a sleep of 20years while out hunting during which the Revolutionary War takes place.2.Bartleby the Scrivener is one of Herman M elville’s short stories.3.The Song of Hiawatha is the first American epic about the American Indians.4.The Birthmark uses the background of witchcraft to explore uncertainties ofbelief that trouble a man’s heart and mind.5.Edgar Allen Poe has often been regarded as the father of modern short story.V. Read the following passages and complete the tasks according to the specific requirements1.I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleerin the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.a.Identify the author and the work from which the quotation is selected.b.Explain the purpose(s ) of the author with regard to the passage.2.Another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new eye. When strangers lookedcuriously at the scarlet letter, - and none ever failed to do so, - they branded it afresh into Hester’s soul; so that, oftentimes, she could scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand.a.Identify the author and the work from which the quotation is selected.b.What is the character’s full name? What does “the symbol” refer to? Does itchange its meaning for him/ her through out the whole story?3.Let us then be up and doing,With a heart for any fate;Still achieving, still pursuing,Learn to labor and to wait.a.Identify the author and the work from which the quotation is selected.b.Analyze the poem from at least three of the following aspects: structure,rhyme scheme, tone, theme and figures of speech used with regard to thestanza selected.VI. Answer the following questions1. Analyze the symbolism appeared in The Scarlet Letter.2. Analyze the character Ahab in Moby Dick.二卷答案I. Choose the best answer to each of the following questions.1-5 acbdb 6-10 dacdb 11-15 cadadII. Explain the following terms briefly in English.1. Refrain: one or more words repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza. The most regular is the use of the same line at the close of each stanza. A variety is the use of language that, by its mere repetition at the close of each stanza presenting different ideas and moods, seems to take on a different significance on each appearance.2. American Puritanism stressed predestination, original sin, total depravity, and li mited atonement from God’s grace. It was influenced heavily by Calvinism. With such doctrines in their mind they left Europe for America in order to prove that they were God’s chosen people who would enjoy God’s blessings on earth and in Heaven. They felt that they were exiles under the special grace of God to establish a theocracy in the New England. Over the years in the new homeland, they built a way of life that stressed hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety.3. New England Transcendentalism was the first American intellectual movement which exerted a tremendous influence on the consciousness of American people. Transcendental club became the movement’s center with its magazine The Dial. It was a system of thought that originated from four sources: Unitarianism, Neoplatonism, Idealistic philosophy and Oriental mysticism. It stressed the power of intuition, spirit and the individual. It envisioned religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “oversoul”. It was represented by two major writers of the country, Emerson and Thoreau whose writings had great impact in the country and a new group of writers of the period under the influence began to apply transcendental ideas in their works, e.g.Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, and Whitman.4. Iambic pentameter a metrical verse line having five feet, with each one having one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.5. Familiar essay the more personal, intimate type of informal essay. It deals lightly, often humorously, with personal experiences, opinions, and prejudices, stressing especially the unusual or novel, and having to do with the varied aspects of everyday life.III.Arrange in pairs.1-5：C J H G I 6-10：F D A E BIV.Try to decide whether the following statements are true or false. Please write “T” for “true” and “F” for “false ”.FTTFTV. Read the following passages and complete the tasks according to the specific requirements1. a. Henry David Thoreau, Waldenb. He had three purposes in writing the book: To make the readers evaluate the way he lived and thought, to reveal the hidden spiritual possibilities in everyone’s life, and to condemn the weaknesses and errors of society, such as the pursuit of materialism.2. a. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letterb. Hester Prynne; The Scarlet Letter A which refers to her sin of adultery; at the very beginning of the romance, the letter “A” symbolizes the act of adultery to Dimmesdale , but towards the end of the story, it symbolizes Angel to the other people in the community.3. a. Henry Walworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Lifeb. The poem is written in quatrains, with a rhyme scheme of abab and each line in iambic tetrameter. The tone is optimistic. Figures of speech used are alliteration,parallel structure and repetition. It stresses the importance of a full and sincere activity in making the most of life’s brief span, rather than succumbing to moods of vain regret or dejection.VI. Answer the following questions1. ①Hawthorn is a master of symbolism.②For example, in The Scarlet Letter, the prison door at the beginning may well symbolize the restrictive laws and forces that are typical of the puritan society, as well as a remainder of the presence of evil or sin.③The wild rosebush, on the other hand, will surely associate themselves with the freedom of natural spirit or sympathy of nature for the human beings.④Forest is usually used to refer to moral wilderness where witches wander about and human beings tend to get morally lost.⑤The letter “A” symbolizes the act of adultery to Dimmesdale , but Angel to the other people in the community.2. ①Ahab is basically a noble and intelligent man whose balance has been disturbed by the blind and purposeless fury of the whale that eventually destroys him. As Ishmael wants to understand the meaning of life, he wants to remake the world to his own way. Ishmael avoids the “woe that is madness”, but Ahab is entrapped in that woe.②Ahab represents both an ancient and a modern type of hero. Like the heroes of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, Ahab suffers from a single fatal flaw, one he shares with such legendary characters as Oedipus and Faust. His tremendous overconfidence leads him to defy common sense and believe that, like a god, he can enact his will and remain immune to the forces of nature.③He considers Moby Dick the embodiment of evil in the world, and he pursues the White Whale monomaniacally because he believes it his inescapable fate to destroy this evil.④According to the critic M. H. Abrams, such a tragic hero “moves us to pit y because, since he is not an evil man, his misfortune is greater than he deserves; but he moves us also to fear, because we recognize similar possibilities of error in our own lesser and fallible selves.”⑤Unlike the heroes of older tragic works, however, Ahab suffers from a fatal flaw that is not necessarily inborn but instead stems from damage, in his case both psychological and physical, inflicted by life in a harsh world. He is as much a victim as he is an aggressor, and the symbolic opposition that he constructs between himself and Moby Dick propels him toward what he considers a destined end.三卷I. Choose the best answer to each of the following questions.1. In Shakespeare＇s Merchant of Venice, Antonio could not pay back the money he borrowed from Shylock, because ________________.A. his money was all invested in the newly-emerging textile industryB. his enterprise went bankruptC. Bassanio was able to pay his own debtD. his ships had all been lost2. Which of the following is not written by Robert Frost?A. To AutumnB. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningC. Mending WallD. A Boy＇s Will3. "The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks."(Samuel Johnson, "To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield")The speaker here is ( ).A. cheerfulB. ironicC. mysteriousD. nonchalant4. Charles Dicken＇s early years were________A. happyB. difficultC. richD. sunny5. Robert Frost described ________________as “a book of people,”which shows a brilliant insight into New England character and the background that formed it.A. North of BostonB. A Boy’s WillC. A Witness TreeD. A Further Range6. The lines, "Two roads diverged in a wood. and l/l took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference. " are found in _________________________.A. Robert Frost’s The Road Not taken"B. William Wordsworth’s "Lines Written in Early Spring"C. John Keats’s "Ode to Autumn"D. Percy Bysshe Shelly’s "ode to the West Wind"7. Robert Frost combined traditional verse forms - the sonnet, rhyming couplets, blank verse - with a clear American local speech rhythm, the speech of _________________ farmers with its idiosyncratic diction and syntax.A. SouthernB. WesternC. New HampshireD. New England8. Mark Twain created ，in ________________________________ ，a masterpiece of American realism that is also one of the great books of world literature.A. Huckleberry FinnB. Tom SowyerC. The Gilded AgeD. The Mysterious Stranger9. "So much the worse for me, that I an strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you-oh, God! /Would you like to live with your soul in the grave?"/In the above passage quoted from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, the word "soul" apparently refers to _________________ .A. HeathcliffB. CatherineC. ghostD. one's spiritual lift10. American writers of the first postwar era who were devoid of faith and alienated from the civilization were commonly called "________________."A. sons of libertyB. fatherless childrenC. a beat generationD. a lost generation11. All the following poets belong to lake poets EXCEPTA. WordsworthB. ColeridgeC. Robert SoutheyD. Shelley12. Here are some lines from a literary work:I shall be telling this with asigh,/Somewhere ages and ages hence:/Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—/I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference.The work is ________.A. Robert Frost'sThe Road Not TakenB. John Milton's Paradise LostC. Alexander Pope's Essay on CriticismD. Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream13. What＇s the name of Hester and Dimmesdale ＇s daughter?A. AmyB. PearlC. NinaD. Berry14. Which of the following is NOT written by Jane Austen?A. Sense and SensibilityB. Pride and PrejudiceC. Jane EyreD. Emma15. The literary characters of the American type in early 19th century are generally characterized by all the following features EXCEPT that theyA. speak local dialectsB. are polite and elegant gentlemenC. are simple and crude farmersD. are noble savages(red and white) untainted by societyI. Choose the best answer to each of the following questions. II. Choose the best answers(at least 2 answers) to each of the following questions.1. What are the things that Robinson Crusoe brings with him when he decidesto travel on the other side of the island?Robinson Crusoe brings withhimA. gunB. hatchetC. dogD. raisins2. All of the following works are written by Jane Austen?A. Northanger AbbeyB. Mansfield ParkC. PersuasionD. Emma3. The works Shakespeare wrote in 1594 are________________.A. Timon of AthensB. The Two Gentlemen of VeronaC. Love’s Labour’s LostD. Romeo and Juliet4. The features of style of Robinson Crusoe includeA. the first person singularB. short and plain sentencesC. nothing artificial in his languageD. smooth,easy,colloquial5. What are the insults of this world mentioned by HamletA. the tyrant's crueltiesB. the proud man's attempts to humiliate thosebeneath himC. the heartbreak of being in loveD. the slowness of the law's working6. The works Shakespeare wrote in his second period (1601-1608)are________________.A. HamletB. King LearC. OthelloD. Cymbline。

American Nobel Prize for Literature Winners:1. Sinclair Lewis 1930 Main Street Babbit2.Eugene O‘neil 1936 Beyond the Horizon3. Pearl S.Buck 1938 The Good Earth4. W. Faulkner 1949 The Sound and the Fury5. E. Hemingway 1954 The Old Man and the Sea6. John Steinbeck 1962 The Wrath of Grape7. Saul Bellow 1976 Herzog8. Isaac Bashevis Singer 1980 The King of the Fields9. Czeslaw Milosz (Poland/USA) 1980 Poetry10. Toni Morrison 1993 The Song of SolomanOutline of American Literature:I Colonial Period (1607—1765)II Revolutionary Period (1765--1800)III The Age of Romanticism (1800—1865)IV The Age of Realism (1865—1918)V American Modernism (1918—1945)VI Contemporary Literature (1945-- )Part I Colonial Period (1607—1765)•⑴Christopher Columbus discovered the American continent in 1451.•⑵The earliest settlers included Spanish (they built the first town on the new continent);Dutch (they built New York city at the beginning stage); French (today still lots of people‘s mother tongue is French in North America) ; Swedes, Germans, Italians, and Portuguese.•⑶The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.•(Imagine: transportation not convenient, why many immigrants left their hometown and came to such a remote place as America? Economic reasons; Religious reasons) •(Reformation and religious conflicts in Europe; persecution of ProtestantsFeatures of Literature of this Period:1.Religious matters: Praise God for a New Israel (a promised land)2.Puritan thoughts*3.Narrative and journals of these settlementEarly American Writers and Poets•South, Jamestown, Virginia:•Captain John Smith ---first American writer (p.3 )•Contributions: his description of America were filled with themes, myths, images, scenes, characters and events that were a foundation for the nation‘s literature. He lured the Pilgrims into fleeing here and creating a New land(p.2).•North, New England, Puritan Writers•William Bradford: first governor of Plymouth, The History of Plymouth Plantation, simplicity, earnestness, direct reporting, readable, moving.•John Winthrop: first governor of Boston, The History of New England, candid simplicity, honesty•Two Poets: Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylorbackground:•By the time of Elizabeth‘s reign, the Church of England was clearly Protestant in respect to its separation from Rome.•However, the puritans want to ―purify the church‖, because they thought the church was corrupted and had too many rituals.•Eventually, these ―reformers‖ were so repressed that they sought escape. Therefore, the theocracy created in the New World was such that their point of view would be held supreme.Their Religious Doctrines:•They regarded themselves as chosen people of God….p.8•To be a Puritan: taking religion as the most important thing; living for glorifying God;believing predestination（命运天定）,•original sin（原罪，人生下来就是有罪的，因为人类的祖先亚当和夏娃是有罪的•total depravity [making anything bad;corruption]- through Adam's fall, every human is born sinful - concept of Original Sin.（人类是完全堕落的，所以人要处处小心自己的行为，要尽可能做到最好以取悦上帝）limited atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only, not for everyone. （有限救赎，只有被上帝选中的人才能得到上帝的拯救）•predestination, original sin, total depravity and limited atonement.Life Style of Puritans:•Pious（虔诚）, diligence（勤奋）and thrift（节俭）, rigid sense of morality, self-reliance.•They favored a disciplined, hard, somber, and harsh life.•They opposed arts and pleasure. They suspect joy and laughter as symptoms of sin. American Puritan•On the one hand, American Puritans were all idealist as their European brothers. They came to the new continent with the dream that they would built the new land to an Eden on earth.•On the other hand, American Puritans were more practical maybe because of the severe conditions they faced.Puritanism’s influence on American literature1. Purpose: pragmatic• 2. Contents: serving either God or colonial expansion or both.•practical matter-of-fact accounts of life in the new world; highly theoretical discussions of religious questions.• 3. Form: imitating English literary traditions (diary, autobiography, sermon, letter)• 4. Style: simple, fresh and direct (just as the style of the Authorized Version of Holy Bible);••tight and logic structure, precise and compact expression, avoidance of rhetorical decoration, adoption of homely imagery, simplicity of diction.••Symbolism（象征主义）: lots of American writers liked to employ symbolism in their works. (typical way of Puritans who thought that all the simple objects existing in the world connoted deep meaning.)•Symbolism means using symbols in literary works. The symbol means something represents or stands for abstract deep meaning.•• 6. Optimism: Garden of Eden and American Dream (Basis of American literature). The puritans dreamed of building a new Garden of Eden in the New World, and regarded America as their Promised Land. This kind of optimism developed into Emerson‘s Transcendentalism and later on into American Dream, a promise that any man can fully actualize oneself through hard work.writers of colonial period(1) Anne Bradstreet(2) Edward Taylor(3) Roger Williams(4) John Woolman(5) Thomas Paine(6) Thomas Jefferson(7) Philip FreneauThomas Painea pamphleteer, a fighter for independence and human rightsThe CrisisCommon SenseThe Rights of ManAge of ReasonThomas Jefferson"Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia."Philip Freneau the earliest of American poets, who inspired American imaginationmajor works:The Wild Honey Suckle《野金银花》The Rising Glory of America《美洲光辉的兴起》The British Prisonship《英国囚船》The Indian Burying Ground《印第安人墓地》Part II Revolutionary Period (1765--1800)Edwards and FranklinRevolutionary Period (1775-1783)―The Age of Reason‖―American Enlightenment‖. Historical Background :⑴American Revolution⑵EnlightenmentEnlightenmentOriginated in Europe in the 17th centuryResources: Newton‘s theory; deism（自然神教派，宗教与启蒙精神相结合的产物）;French philosophy (Rousseau, V oltaireDEISM is a religious philosophy. It believes that religious truth is shown by reason applied to empirical events.Deists believe that God's greatest gift to humanity is not religion, but the ability to reason.Rejection of reports of miracles, prophecies, and religious "mysteriesBasic principles of ―American Enlightenmentstressing educationstressing Reason (Order) (The age has been called Age of Reason)employing Reason to reconsider the traditions and social realitiesconcerns for civil rights, such as equality and social justiceThe 18th-century American Enlightenment was a movement marked by an emphasis on rationality rather than tradition, scientific inquiry instead of unquestioning religious dogma, and representative government in place of monarchy.Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality as the natural rights of man.The colonists who would form a new nation were firm believers in the power of reason;they were ambitious, inquisitive, optimistic, practical, politically astute, and self-reliant Significancefreeing people from the limitations set by prevailing Puritanismmaking spiritual preparation for American Revolutionaccelerating social progress2. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)---- last important figure in Puritan traditionGreat Awakening is a series of religious revivals that swept over the American colonies about the middle of the 18th century. It resulted in doctrinal changes and influenced social political thought. In New England it was started (1734)by the rousing 使觉醒的preaching of Jonathon Edwards.3. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)----Jack of all tradesHe helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital.Franklin’s Contributions:1.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.2.He was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, theFranklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices..And for his lightning-rod, he was called ―the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.‖3.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionLiterary works(1) Poor Richard’s Almanac(2) AutobiographyPoor Richard‘s Almanac《穷查理年历》Modeled on farmers’annual calendarkept publishing for many yearsincludes many classical sayings, such as “A penny saved is a penny earned.”Features:•practical and useful•interesting by creating the character ―Poor Richard‖•continuation of simple but realistic story about Richard, his wife and family•including many ―sayings‖ about saving money and working hardAutobiographySimple, plainness, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expressionclear in orderdirect and conciseIII The Age of Romanticism (1800—1865)As a literary trend or movement, Romanticism , occurred and developed in Europe & America at the turn of the 18th & 19th centuries under the historical background of the Industrial Revolution around 1760 & the French Revolution(1772-1829).•Characteristics of Romanticism• 1. subjectivity•(1) feeling and emotions, finding truth•(2) emphasis on imagination•(3) emphasis on individualism –personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodness of human beings• 2. back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature•(1) unrestrained by classical rules•(2) freedom of imagination•(3) colloquial language•(4) genuine in feelings• 3. back to nature•nature is “breathing living thing”(Rousseau: French Philosopher•Background•(1) Political background• a. economic boom• b. calling for culture independence• c. eagerness in literary expression•(2) Romantic movement in European countries•(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‖ was radically new and alien.•(2) There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained.•(3) The “newness‖ of Americans as a nation is in connection with American Romanticism.•(4) As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent.Washington IrvingIrving’s contributionfather of American literature1the first American to win international fame2the messenger sent from the new world to the old world3the 1st one to write the short story--The Sketch Book , which marked the beginning of American RomanticismIrving’s Styleproviding a model for the narrative of the future•avoided moralizing; wrote to amuse and entertain,•was good at enveloping his stories in an atmosphere,•his characters are vivid and true•filled with humor•musical languageThe theme of ―Rip Van Winkle‖①it reveals conservative attitude of Irving.②it might be an illustration of Irving’s argument that revolution upset the natural order of things. paralleled juxtapositions(不同文化的对比) of two worldspeaceful natural world in the mountainsa; noisy world with his wife on the farma pre-Revolution village ;Washington eraIrving was unwilling to accept a modern democratic America.both Winkle and Irving prefer the past and a dream-like worldJ.F. Cooperfather of American noveliststhe creation of the west frontier and its heroesCooper‘s Major Literary Works:The Leatherstocking Tales, 《皮袜子故事集》1) The Deerslayer《杀鹿者》( 1841(2) The Last of the Mohicans ( 1826 )《最后的莫西干人》(3) The Pathfinder《探路人》( 1840(4) The Pioneers《拓荒者》( 1823(5) The Prairie《大草原》( 1827The Theme of The Pioneerswilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law, order vs. change, aristocrat vs. democrat, natural rights vs. legal rightsWriting Style▪(1) highly imaginative, a mythic writer▪(2) good at inventing tales and landscape description▪he had never been to the frontier and among the Indians and yet could write five huge epic books about them▪(3) powerful but clumsy writer: characterization wooden and lacking in probability;language and use of dialect not authenticLiterary Achievements1)He created a myth about the formative period of the American nation.▪history of the USA -- the process of the settlers exploring and pushing the American frontier westward, Leatherstocking Tales is the same of the American national experience.2)He turned the west and frontier as a useable past3) He helped to introduce western tradition to American literatureTranscendentalism●Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the history of Americanliterature in the 19th century.●Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as ―the recognition in man of thecapacity of knowing truth intuitively‖.●Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Over-soul, the individual andNature.●The most important representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau Features:1.Spirit / Oversoul is the most important thing in the universe.①It is omnipresent (present everywhere) and omnipotent (able to do anything)②It exists in nature and man alike and constituted the universe.a new way of looking at the world2.The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of individualism•The individual soul communed with the Oversoul and was therefore divine.•The regeneration of society could only come about through the regeneration of the individual.•His perfection should be the first concern of his life.•The ideal type of man was the self-reliant individuala new way of looking at man3.nature is the symbol of spirit/the garment of the Oversoul•Nature was alive, filled with God‘s overwhelming presence. The physical world was a symbol of the spiritual.•Nature could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on the human mind.a new way of looking at natureRalph Waldo Emerson: major works①Nature 自然(1836) ：―the manifesto of American transcendentalism‖ and ―the Bible ofNew England Transcendentalism.‖①The American Scholar美国学者(1837)："America's Declaration of IntellectualIndependence"①Self-Reliance 论自助: the importance of cultivating oneself②"Self-Reliance" is widely considered to be the definitive statement of Ralph WaldoEmerson's philosophy of individualism and the finest example of his prose.③Emerson was known for his repeated use of the phrase ‗‗trust thyself." "Self-Reliance" ishis explanation—both systematic and passionate—of what he meant by this and of why he was moved to make it his catch-phrase.Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)⏹Schoolteacher, essayist, poet⏹One leader of Transcendentalism⏹Most famous for Walden and Civil Disobedience1. Walden, or Life in the Woods 18542. Civil Disobedience 18493. Life Without Principle 18634. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers 18495. The Maine Woods 18646. Cape Cod 18657. Slavery in Massachusetts 1854Comment on Walden:Between the end of March 1845 and July4, Thoreau constructed a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond, near Concord. There he lived alone until September 1847, supplying his needs by his own labor and developing and testing his transcendental philosophy of individualism, self-reliance and material economy for the sake of spiritual wealth.He sought to reduce his physical needs to a minimum, in order to free himself for study, thought, and observation of nature, himself. Therefore his cabin was a simple room and he wore the cheapest essential clothing and restricted his diet to what he found.Walden can be many things and can be read on more than one level. But it is, first and foremost, a book about man, what he is, and what he should be and must be.Thoreau has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man. He holds that the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self-sufficient and strive to achieve person spiritual perfection. Thoreau was very critical of modern civilization. ―Civilized man is the sl ave of matter,‖ he said on one occasion.Considered one of the all-time great books, Walden is a record of Thoreau's two year experiment of living at Walden Pond. The writer's chief emphasis is on the simplifications and enjoyment of life now. It is regarded as1. a nature book.2. a do-it-yourself guide to simple life.3. a satirical criticism of modern life and living.4. a belletristic achievement.5. a spiritual book.Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804~1864)Major Literary Works:Hawthorn‘s literary theoryTheory of Romance Herman Melville•Hawthorne favors romance as a suitable form of writing:•He thinks that a romance should be able to present the truth with the writer's own creative imagination. He should be able to combine reality with his own imagination, to make real look unreal, or the unreal real. That‘s why Hawthorne took great interest in history, which he believed enabled him to dream strange things and make them look like truth.••Symbolism – Hawtho rn’s artistic feature•Hawthorn is a master of symbolism. His symbols are mostly loaded with moral implicationsThe theme of the novel is about the effect of a sin on the people involved and the society as a whole. The theme is that it is useless to hide guilt in order to avoid punishment. The novel asks thequestion of whether the act of Hester and her lover was really sinful. The author gives no clear answer.style – typical romantic writer•(1) the use of symbols•(2) revelation of characters‘ psycholog y•(3) the use of supernatural mixed with the actual•(4) his stories are parable (parable in form) – to teach a lesson•(5) use of ambiguity to keep the reader in the world of uncertainty –multiple point of view•The scarlet letter is meant to be a symbol of shame, but instead it becomes a powerful symbol of identity to Hester. The letter’s meaning shifts as time passes.•Pearl’s primary function within the novel is as a symbol. Pearl is a sort of living version of her mother’s scarlet letter.The meaning development of ASymbolic of Hester’s moral development is the gradual, imperceptible change which the scarle tletter A undergoes in meaning: at first it is a token of shame, punishment and guilt “Adultery”; but then the genuine sympathy and help Hester offered to her fellow villagers changes it to “Able”, which represents intelligence and hard working; at the end of the story, the letter A appears in the sky, signifying “Angel”, which represents the high virtues of Hester PrynnePearl—more of a symbol than a character. She was the innocent daughter of Hester and the minister. To hester, she was the fruit of human love and physical passion; to Dimmesdale, she was a reminder of his sin and to Chillingworth an unforgettable shame and the motivation to take his revenge.Character AnalysisHester Prynne—the heroine of the novel. She was found guilty of adultery at the beginning of the story and was completely cut off from the community.However, Hester’s response to the scarlet letter A is a positive one.Though living on the fringe of the community, she does her best to reestablish her fellowship with her neighbors on a new, honest basis. She helps her fellow creatures as a sister of mercy of sorts or as a skilled embroideress in an inobtrusive and undemanding manner, and finally wins their love and admiration.To the self-rightious community which outlaws her, she manages to move ever closer. She does her best to keep herhold on the magic chain of humanity. Her life eventually acquires a real significance when she reestablishes a meaningful relationship with her fellowmen.She didn’t accept her fate and gradually won back acceptance and respect from the villagers of various background through honest and hard working. An industrious, brave, and unbending woman, she was once a sinner and later turned to a figure of high virtue.Dimmesdale—the unrevealed and hidden adulterer.In a sharp contrast, Dimmesdale banishes himself from society. Deeply preoccupied with himself, he lives a stranger among his admirers. The result is that, whereas Hester is able to reconstruct her life and win a moral victory, Dimmesdale undergoes the tragic experience of physical and spiritual disintegration becaust he have not the enough courage to confess his sin as an all-admired minister. He dies an honest man, it is true, but in part of his own hand. Only at the end of his life was he delivered from his sin and sense of guilt.From the final different fates of Hester and Dimmesdale, we can see that the best policy for man is to be true, honest, and ever ready to show one’s worst to the outside world.Hester does it all her life; Dimmesdale does it finally.Roger Chilingworth—husband of Hester Prynne, and the real villain of the story. He is a doctor and scholar, the embodiment of pure intellect, who commits “the unpardonable sin”—the violation of the human heart.A cuckolded husband, he was the victim of the adultery at the beginning of the story andliable to pity and sympathy. As a cold-natured physician, however, he designed an inhuman scheme of cold revenge by constantly tormenting the sinning soul of the minister until his death. So at last, he became the most hardened sinner, an embodiment of merciless revenge, vicious schemes and cold-blooded hatred.The end of Chilingworth is also tragic.Herman Melville (1819-1891)1. Redburn 18492. Typee 18463. Omoo 18744. Moby Dick 18515. Mardi 18496. White Jacket 18507. Pierre 18528. Billy Budd 1924Moby DickThemes of Moby Dick⏹ 1. Search for truthThe story deals with the human pursuit of truth and the meaning of existence.2. Conflict between Good and Evil.3. Conflict between Man and Nature.4. Isolation between man and man; man and nature; man and society.5. Solipsism.Symbols⏹ 1. The PequodThe Pequod is a symbol of doom. It is painted a gloomy black and covered in whale teethand bones, literally bristling with the mementos of violent death. It is, in fact, marked for death. Adorned like a primitive coffin, the Pequod becomes one.4) AhabSymbol of solipsism, revenge and then evil.5) StarbuckSymbol of good and noble.6) the DoubloonSymbol of the lure of evil and enticements to greed.7) SeaSymbol of vastness, loneliness, and isolation.Evaluation⏹Moby Dick is, critics have agreed, one of the world‘s greatest masterpieces. To get toknow the 19th century American mind and America itself, one has to read this book.⏹One of the classics of American Literature and even world literature.⏹Moby Dick is an encyclopedia of everything, history, philosophy, religion, etc. in additionto a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.Romantic Poets1.2.Types of poetry▪ 1.2.1. Narrative poetry▪ a. Epic: long narrative poems that record the adventures of a hero whose exploits [brave or adventurous deeds or action] are important to the history of a nation. As Homeric epics (a blind bard): The Iliad and The Odyssey▪ b. Ballad: a simple poem(less ambitious than epics) that tells a story.▪ c. Romance: another type of narrative poem, in which adventure is a central feature.1.2.2. Lyric poetry▪ a. Epigram[诙谐诗]: short poem expressing an idea in clear and amusing way▪ b. Elegy: a lament for the dead.▪ c. Ode: a long stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form.▪ d. Sonnet: 14 lines, the Italian (or Petrarchan: 8-line octave + 6-line sestet; typical rhyming: abbaabba+cdcdcd/cdecde) and the English (or Shakespearean: three 4-line quatrains + a concluding 2-line couplet aabb+ccdd+eeff+gg)1.3. Elements of poetry▪ 1.3.1. Voice: speaker and tone▪ 1.3.2. Diction: the best words in the best order (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)▪ 1.3.3. Imagery: a concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea.▪Images: visual, aural, tactile, ol f actory (something smelled), g ustatory (sth tasted)▪ 1.3.4. Figures of speech: simile and metaphor▪ 1.3.5. Symbolism: a symbol is any object or action that means more than itself, any object or action that represents sth beyond itself.▪ 1.3.6. Syntax: the grammatical structure of words in sentences and the development of sentences in longer units throughout the poem.1.3.7. SoundRhyme:two or more words or phrases contain an identical or similar vowel-sound, usually stressed, and the consonant sounds that follow the vowel-sound are identical and preceded by different consonants.eg. bright and night heaven and seven see and theeExact rhyme: repeat end sounds preciselyeg. day — waySlant rhyme斜韵: provide an approximate sound eg.sun — boneIdentical rhyme全同韵: repeating the entire sound, including the initial consonant, sometimes by repeating the same word in a rhyme position and sometimes by repeating the sound with two senseseg. two — tooMasculine rhyme阳韵: the recurrence of sound is restricted to the final stressed syllable eg. cold — boldFeminine rhyme: the stressed rhyming syllables are followed by identical unstressed syllables eg. spiteful— delightfulTriple rhyme三压韵: the rhyming stressed syllable is followed by two identical unstressed syllableseg. tenderly —slenderlyInternal rhyme中间韵: occurs at the beginning, sometimes combined with end rhymeeg. the grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother.End rhyme: occurs at the end of a lineeg. Three poets, in three distant ages born,Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.Alliteration is the repetition of consonants, especially at the beginning of words or stressed syllables.Eg. The willows waved violently in the wind.Assonance叠韵is the repetition of similar vowel sounds within a noticeable range.Eg. All day the wind breathes low with mellower toneThro‘ every holl ow cave and alley lone.Consonance is the repetition of identical consonant sounds before and after different vowels.Eg. tit and tatcreak and crack▪ 1.3.8. Rhythm and meter▪ a. rhythm: beat we feel in a phrase of music or a line of poetry, the regular recurrence of the accent or stress in poem.▪ b. foot[音步]: unit of rhythm in a line of poetry containing one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables, as in the four division of “four m an/may c ome/and m en /may g o‖▪ c. meter[格律]: poetic metre with a given number of feet, or fixed arrangement of accented and unaccented syllables.▪Rising feet/meter: iamb (iambic), anapest (anapestic)抑抑扬格▪Falling feet/meter: trochee (trochaic), dactyl (dactylic) [dæktil ]扬抑抑格▪Number of feet per line▪Mo n ometer▪D imeter[dimitə]▪Tr imeter[trimitə]▪Te tr ameter[tetræmitə ]▪Pentameter▪Hexameter▪Hep t ameter▪Oc t ameter1.4. Some features of poetry▪ 1.4.1. emotional, passionate,▪Expressing and arousing strong feeling such as love, pity, fear, sadness, joy, etc from the author or from the reader▪ 1.4.2. Symbolic▪ A symbol is something that stands for something else. In literature, it refers to any word, object, action, or character that embodies and evokes a range of additional meaning and significance.▪Imagery is the use of figurative language to produce a picture in the minds of readers or hearers.▪ 1.4.3. Condensed and vivid language▪Language is the most important thing in poetry. Poetic language is the most vivid and condensed language in literature.Walt Whitman▪One of the greatest innovators in American literatureHe created a new form of poem: free verse▪---- the verse that does not follow a fixed metrical pattern, the verse without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.Major works of Whitman▪Leaves of Grass▪Drum-Taps▪Song of Myself。