美国文学简史_期末复习资料
i.The Colonial Period
1.关键词: America Puritanism
2.Calvinism特点: total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement,
Irresistible grace, Perseverance of the saints
3.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 of
Reason”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 man
6.Jonathan Edwards( Calvinism )
a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening
works: “The Freedom of the Will”《自由意志论》“The Great Doctrine of
Original 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.Romanticism
1.Washington Irving（1783-1859）
①titles: “the father of American literature”
“the American Goldsmith”
②works: The Sketch Book (marked the beginning of American
Romanticism and the beginning of short stories as a genre in American
literature)
Rip Van Winkle (P47—P48)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
2.James Fenimore Cooper（1789-1851）
①One of the first writer to write American Westward movement
②“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 good
Judge Temple---just, reasonable, for civilization and law
③Writing style:
intriguing plot
majestic landscape descriptions
rich imagination
wooden characterization
not authentic dialect
iii.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 the
editor for a time of the journal the Dial
Works:
Nature ---“the Manifesto of American Transcendentalism” “the Bible of
New England”:
The Poet (from Nature)
The American Scholar --- “Intellectual Declaration of Independence”
2.Henry David Thoreau
Masterpiece: Walden (Failure first, success in the 20th century)
Content---a faithful record of his reflection in communicating with nature
3.Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Scarlet Letter”
Plot(P74)
Theme:
---(general theme) evil and sin exist in human heart and will be punished
one day
moral, emotional and psychological effect of the sin on the people in general
---(specific theme) a hymn on the moral growth of the woman Hester when
sinned against
symbolism象征主义: “A”—Adultery—able—angel
“pearl”—treasure
4.Herman Melville
works: Moby Dick (1851)---little response, famous until the 20th century
Content:
---(general content) an encyclopedia of everything
---(specific content) a tragedy of man fighting against overwhelming
power in an indifferent even hostile world
5.Edgar Allan Poe
Theme: The death of beauty
Sense of loss
Works:
Poem--- “The Raven” “To Helen” “Annabel Lee”
Writing style:
Musical
Repetition of words
Paralleled structure
Melancholy atmosphere(tone)
Short story---The Fall of the House of Usher
Plot: (P112)
Theme: the fall of the house---the annihilation (disintegration) and of person
6.Emily Dickinson
Subject 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 get
immortality (immortality of soul)
“ I heard a Fly Buzz- When I died”
theme: skeptical & ambivalent about death
reluctance to death
②Love
“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 Transcendentalism
Human being’s mind (soul) is as divine as God
⑥beauty, 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 tradition
Choice of words, verbal construction (capitalized and dash), spelling, full
of fresh images, brief, direct, plain words but not easy to read
Influence: precursor to the Imagist movement
7.Walt Whitman
Works: “Leaves of Grass”草叶集(9 editions from 1855 to 1892, Famous until
the 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Last 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 Stowe
work: 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 Age
1.William Dean Howells豪厄尔斯
①title: “champion of literary realism in US” “first president of American
Academy of Arts and Letters”
②works:
essay---Criticism and Fiction
novel---The Rise of Silas Lapham
Plot: P120-121
Character: Silas Lapham---common Bostonian of the late 19th century,
average America happy with his family and proud of his success in the world
Theme:
house---symbol of Lapham’s success (in material) and aspiration for the polite society
the burning of the house---financial fall and moral rise
2.Henry James
①themes: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 of
being present at the scene of action让读者置身于情境中
b. without comments or explanations: Dramatize, only dramatize, is his
lesson作者只设定情境
③Three distinctive periods:
a. 1865-1882 novels
The 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 plays
c.1895-1990 novels
The 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 Sawyer
The 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& slavery
intellectual& moral education
The hypocrisy of civilized” society
③real name: Samuel Langhorne Clemens
④背景: Mississippi River
vi.Naturalism(是现实主义的高级阶段)
Time: at the end of the 19th century
Subject 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 nature
Theme 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 Crane
①Works: (novels) Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) and The Red Badge of
Courage (1895) (short stories) “The Open Boat”
②Writing style: psychological description, visual beauty with symbols
2.Frank Norris
①works: (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) railway
Writing style:
rich material
fresh imagery
poetic mode of fiction
precise 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 Porter
②The Gift of the Magi
③Writing style: short, interesting and clever plot, good-natured humor,
surprising end, keen observation of details, slang and colloquial
expressions
4.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 novel
An American Tragedy--greatest and most successful Political commentary set
5.Jack London
Works:
---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.Modernism
Two literary periods
?1920s ---The First World War (a decade of great joy and happenings )
?1930s--- The Great Depression
1.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 Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd ;
Petals on a wet, black bough.—Ezra Pound
2.T. S. Eliot
Poems
The Waste Land (1922)---spiritual crisis of postwar Europe, like a manifesto
of the “Lost generation”
The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock (1917)--- a poem with a notable modern
emotional color，意识流，现代主义情感色彩
3.Wallace Stevens
Basic theme: interrelationship between reality and art, power of imagination
Works: “Anecdote of the Jar”古坛轶事
4.William Carlos Williams
Works: 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 read
5.Carl Sandburg---One of The greatest poets in the “Chicago Renaissance”
---Chicago Poems
6.Robert Frost
Subject: the people and landscape of New England.
(Misconception of him as a lyric poet or as an authentic painter of local
landscape)
Theme: (universal and abstract) the complexity of human existence
Works:
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:
---form
to retain traditional forms of poetry
---theme
deceptively simple (trivial subjects)
---language
lucid, easy, fluent
7.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 writer
Works: 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, 1930
Light in August, 1932
Absalom, Absalom!, 1936
Go Down, Moses, 1942
?short story: “A Rose For Emily”
Theme: general human situation
Writing 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 English
8. F. Scott Fitzgerald
work: The Great Gatsby(1925)
Themes: The decline衰落of American Dream in the 1920s
The Hollowness空虚of the upper class
Symbols: The green light
9.Ernest Hemingway
①Nick Adams, a Hemingway hero, first appears in the novel In Our Time
(1925)
②The Sun Also Rises (1926)
Jake Barnes
A Farewell to Arms (1929)
Frederick Henry & Catherine Barkley
Death in the Afternoon (1932 )
Green Hills of Africa (1935)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
Manolin & Santiago
viii.American drama
1.Eugene O’Neil(1888 – 1953)
father of American drama
Works:
first published play, Beyond the Horizon (1920) on Broadway
The Iceman Cometh (1946)
Long Days Journey into Night (1956)：an autobiographical play and released
after O'Neill's death.
2.John Steinbeck
the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962
Famous for The Grapes of Wrath (1939), a novel widely considered to be a
20th-century classic.