美国文学题 1

第一部分殖民地时期的美国文学

What are the characteristics of Colonial America?

All of the works written during this period are utilitarian , polemical , or didactic .The purpose of literature for these Puritans was first of all usefulness . It should teach some kond of lesson . In content , the literature of the colonial settlement served either God or colonial expansion or both . The literary style of the earliest American writers , in fact seems to have been determined by a practical consideration of the sort of impression each writer wanted to make upon a selected group of readers . Puritans’metaphorical mode of perception helped to develop literary symbolism as they saw the physical world a symbol of God . Hence symbolism as a technique was a common practice in writing . The Piritans placed unusual stress upon plainness in writing because they were unusually interested in influencing the simp;e-minded people . Bearing the direct influence fo the Christian Biblical poetics , the Puritan writings are fresh , simp;e ,direct , and with a touch of nobility . As it faithfully imitated and transplanted European forms to the new experience , early American literature was as much a product of continuities as an indigenous creation.

第二部分理性文学和革命文学

1 As we have seen , theology dominated the Puritan phase of American writing . Politics was the next great subject to command the attention of the best minds.

2 From 1732 to 1758 , Franklin wrote and published his famous Poor Richard’s Alman ac , an annual collection of proverbs .

3 Enlightement

The eighteenth –century England is also , and better , known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age fo Reason . The Enlightenment was a progressive intellectual movement going on throughout Europe at the time , with France in the vanguard . The Enlightenment celebrated reason (rationality) , equality , science and human beings’ ability to perfect themselves and their society . The movement was based on the basic theories provided by the philosophers of the age , which ranged from John Locke’s materialism , Lord Shaftsbury’s deism , and George Berkeley’s immaterialism to David Hume’s skepticism . Whatever philosophical beliefs they might have , they held the eommom faith in human rationality and the possibility of human perfection through education . They believed that when reason served as the yardstick for the measurement of all human activities and social relations , superstition , injustice , privilege and oppression were to yield place to ―eternal truth‖ ,‖eternal justice‖ , and ―natural equality‖ or inalienable rights of men . Everything was put under scrutiny , to be measured by reason . No authorities , political or religious or otherwise , were acepted unchallenged while almost all

the old societies and governments and all the traditional concepts , including Christianity , were examined and criticized . The belief provided theory for the French Revolution in 1789 and the American War of Independence in 1776 .

Alexander Pope (1688~1744) , Joseph Addison (1672~1719) , Richard Steele (1672~1792) , Jonathan Swift (1667~1745) , Daniel Defoe (1660~1731) , Henry Fielding (1707~1754) , Richard B. Sheridan (1751~1816) , Oliver Goldsmith (1730~1774) , Edward Gibbon (1737~1794) , and Samuel Johnson (1709~1784) were among the famous enlighteners in England . As England had already gone through its bourgeois revolution , what the English enlighteners were lege to do was to strive the bring the revolution to and end by clearing away the feudal remnants and rep;ace them with bourgeois ideology .

第三部分美国的浪漫主义文学

1 In 1828 the election of the frontier hero Andrew Jackson as the seventh President of the United States had brought an effective end to the ―Virginia Dynasty‖ of American Presidents .

2 Wsahington Irvi ng’s Skwtch Book bacame the first work by an American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic .

3 Washington Irving was the first great prose stylist of American romanticism , and his familiar style was destined to outlive the formal prose of such eontemporaries as Acott and Cooper ,and to provide a model for the prevailing prose narrative fo the future .

4 What are the unique features of American Romanticism? Although foreign influnences wre strong,American romanticism exhibited from the very outset distinct features of its own.It was different from its English and European counterpart because it originated from an amalgam of factors which were altogether American rather than anything else.American romanticism was in essence the e xpression of‖a real new experience‖and contained‖an alien quality‖for the simple reason that ―the spirit of the place‖was radically new and alen.Foe instance ,the American national experience of ―pioneering ― into the west proved to be a rich fund of material for Ameican writers to draw upon.The wilderness with its virgin forests ,the sound of the axe cutting its way westward, the exotic landscape with its different sights, smells,and sounds(the robin rather than the nightingale is Emily Dicckinson’s ―criterion of tone,‖for example), and the quaint,picturesque civilization of a primitive race—all these constituted an incomparably superior source of inspiration for native authors.A rude Natty Bumppo in buckskin, dweling in a fromtier blockhouse, treading a solitary bridle path through virgin forests was ,perhaps , matter enough for any romantic genius.And indeed, American authors were quite responsive to the

stimulus which American life offered.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s tentive treatment of the frontier and the Indians in his works such as Hudson valley, William Cullen Bryant’s sketches of the wild west prairie where no human being had ever set foot and James Fenimore Cooper’s five Leatherstocking tales with‖their majestic descriptions of American’s limitles s forests and broad blue inland lake‖—these are but aafew instances whereby the new American sensibility began to make itself felt.And ,of course , we should not forget to mention Emerson,Thoreau,Hawthorne,Melville and Whitman, all people who were instrumental ,in one way or another ,in creating an indigenous American literature.

Then there is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider.American moral values were essentially Puritan.Public opinion was overwhelmingly Puritan;social life and cultural taste were predominantly conditioned by the Puritan and cultural taste were predominantly conditioned by the Puritan atmosphere of the nation.Nothing has left a deeper imprint on the character of the people as a whole than did Puritanism;no one has been so successful in imposing his way of thinking on the continent as the American Puritan.puritanical influence over Ameican romanticism w3as conspicuously noticeable.One of its palpable manifestations is the fact that American romantic authors tended more to moralize than their English and European brothers.It is true that Edgar Allan poe fought vehemently against ―the heresy of the didactic‖,and writers like John Greenleaf Whittier tried to advocate both beauty and goodness.But the fact remains, nonetheless ,that many American romantic writings intended to edify more than theyentertained.There seemed to be areas of life which it was better for them to leave alone, taboos of a kind that most of the literary world agreed,however tacit it may have been, on not breaking.Sex and love werem for instance, subjects American authors were particularly careful in approaching.Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter talks eloquently about the sin itself ,and Whitman was for a long time misunderstood by his own countrymen because Leaves of Grass contains lines and passages not at all palatable to their ―genteel‖ taste.

练习二

1.Emerson was recognized throughout his life as the leader

of_________ movement, yet he never applied the term to himself or to his beliefs and ideas.

2.Emerson’s truest disciple, the man who put into practice many of

Emerson’s theories, was_________.

Define the literary terms listed below

American Transcendentalism

Keys: 1. Transcendentalist, 2, H.D Thoreau

Term: American Transcendentalism or ―New English Transcendentalism‖ or ―American Renaissance‖ is more of a tendency, an attitude, than the philosophy of Transcendentalists.

To ―transcend‖ something is to rise above it, to pass beyond its limits. Transcendentalists took their ideas from the romantic literature of Europe, from new-Platoism, from German idealistic philosophy, and from the revelations of Oriental-mysticism. They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. The major features of New England Transcendentalism can be summarized as the follows.

Firstly, the Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the Universe. Secondly, they stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual was the most important element of society. Thirdly, they offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spi rit or God. Nature was , to them, alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence. Transcendentalism is based on the belief that the most fundamental truths about life and death can be reached only by going beyond the world of the senses.

As a philosophical and literary movement, Transcendentalism flourished in New England from 1830s to the Civil War. Its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau. Emerson’s Nature has been called the ―Manifesto of American Transcendentalism‖ an d his The American Scholar has been rightly regarded as America’s ―Declaration of Intellectual Independence.‖ Thoreau built and went to live in a small cottage on Walden Pond for a little over two years, and then came back to write about his experience there in his famous book Walden. To later generations, scarred by the horrors of the Civil War, the transcendentalist persuation that humanity was godlike and that evil was non-existent appeared to be an optimistic folly. As a philosophy, Transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematical. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. Yet Transcendentalism was

a powerful expression of the intellectual mood of the age, and the

ideas it represented have remained a strong influence on great American writers from the days of Hawthorne and Whitman to the present.

练习3

1．_________deals with the effects of a curse, and though the tale itself is fiction, the germ of the story sprang from the author’s family history.

2. Hawthorne’s unique gift was for the creation of strongly

_________stories which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature. The finest example is the recreation of Puritan Boston, _________.

3. _________ is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in

pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.

Define the literary terms listed below

Symbolism

Keys:

1.The House of the Seven Gables 2, symbolic The scarlet letter

3. Moby-Dick.

Symbolism: Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols. A symbol is something that conveys two kinds of meaning; it is simply itself, and it stands for something other than itself. In other words, a symbol is both literal and figurative. People, places, things and even events can be used symbolically. A symbol is a way of telling a story and a way of conveying meaning. The best symbols are those that are believable in the lives of the characters and also convincing as they convey a meaning beyond the literal level of the story. Hawthorn and Melville were the two masters of symbolism. For example, the scarlet letter ―A‖ on Hester’s breast can give you symbolic meanin gs. If the symbol is obscure or ambiguous, then the very obscurity and the ambiguity may also be part of the meaning of the story.

Answer the following questions.

1.Give a brief analysis of the main characters in The scarlet Letter

2.Give a brief analysis of the character Ahab in Moby-Dick.

3.What is the theme in Moby-Dick?

4.What is Hawthorn’s style?

Keys:

2, The way in which Hawthorn wrote The Scarlet Letter suggests that American Romanticism adapted itself to American Puritan moralism. The load of didacticism is nowhere heavier and the desire to elevate nowhere stronger than it is, perhaps, in this 19th American classic. Reading it, one wonders whether it is a story of love. The answer is yes, but then no, because the love part of the story is long over before the book begins. One wonders whether it is a story if sin. The answer is yes, but then no, for the sinning part is long over before the book opens Modern and contemporary authors would have written pages

where Hawthorn uttered not a word, What he was predominantly concerned was the moral, emotional, and psychological effect of the sin on the people in general and those complicated in it in particular. In the strong character of Hester Psynne we see the tension between society and solitude which, as Marius Bewley put it, lies near the center of all Hawthorn’s art, The Scarlet Letter is not a praise of a Hester Prynne sinning, but a hymn on the moral growth of the woman when sinned against. Hawthorn’s female characters tend to fall into two broad categories. (答案未完)

4．Ahab may have been Melville’s portrait of an Emersonian self-reliant individual. Melville lost no opportunity in his criticism of New England Transcendentalism. Constantly under his attack is its emphasis on individualism and Oversoul. To say that the whole of Moby-Dick is a negative reflection upon Transcendentalism is not in fact an exaggeration. Take Emerson’s self-reliance for instance. Ahab is too much of a self-reliant individual to be a good human being. He stands alone on his own one leg among the millions of the peopled earth, For him the only law is his own will. To him the world exists for his sake. His selfhood must be asserted at the expense of all else: lives may be sacrificed, and nature may have to be vanquished in order that he may do what he will. He never stops to think---and he never bothers about it---that, in asserting his private personality, he denies ruthlessly the humanity and individuality of his fellowmen. Ahab is no Odysseus, and this crew seems to be a ship of fools too much under the captain’s evil spell to exercise their discretion. Between them, they encompass their own undoing. Richard Chase is right when he says that the idea Melville conveys in Moby-Dick is ―Death-spiritual, emotional, physical,‖ which is the p rice of self-reliance when it is pushed to the point of solipsism. Ahab is, to be more exact, a victim of solipsism, his tragedy stemming in the main from extreme individualism, selfish will, a spirit too much withdrawn to itself to warrant salvation, Moby-Dick thus reveals the basic pattern of 19th century American life: loneliness and suicidal individualism in a self-styled democracy,

5. One of the major themes in Melville is alienation, which he sensed existing in the life of his time on different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Captain Ahab seems to be the best illustration of it all. He cuts himself off from his wife and kid, and stays away most of the time from his crew, and he hates Moby---Dick which is am embodiment of nature. He is angry because his pride is wounded. After the loss of his leg in his encounter with the white whale, he seems to hold God responsible for the presence of evil in the universe. Thus his anger assumes the proportions of a cosmic

nature. He is bent on avenging himself. He hears of no objection. In his egocentric obsession within ―the masoned, walled town of a captain’s exclusiveness,‖ he loses his sanity and humanity and becomes a devilish creature rushing headlong toward his doom. And he know s it most clearly of all. When D.H Lawrence remarks,‖

―he {Melville}records also, almost beyond pain or pleasure, the extreme transitions of the isolated, far-driven soul, the soul which is now alone, without any real human contact‖ he had Ahad topmost in his mind. In a sense Ahab embodies all of the evil he once consigned to Moby-Dick

9. A. Hawthorne wrote romance because he thought it the predestined form of American narrative. He presented material on the alienation between fact and fancy. The purpose of a novel, as it developed in 18th century Europe, was to record the actual events of life, to stick to what actually happened, but Hawthorn explained that the purpose of romance was to present the truth of the human heart by the writer’s own choice or cre ation. He wanted to reveal reality and satirize it but not to offend the Puritan conventions, For Hawthorne, romance, unlike the novel, was not tied to conventional reality. Romance had the freedom to depart from novelistic realism. Hawthorne felt that the literary artist was justified in changing events around if that could better get to the truth of the individual psychology. Psychological truth was more important than actual truth. Hawthorne used atmosphere to help reach the truth of the heart. Often he would use shadow to create effect. He used this because the world of light and shadow was the world of imagination. Therefore, for Hawthorne romance was the meeting place of the actual and the imaginary. In this stories, there is a strong fairytale element, He would use his imagination to change the actual events, but the purpose was to reach psychological truth. Hawthorne mingled the supernatural with the actual and developed analytic, psychological romanticism.

B, Hawthorne used symbols and setting to reveal the psychology of the characters. It is characteristic of Hawthorne. He used masks, veils, shadows, emblems to give dramatic forms to the universal dilemmas of humanity. A black veil stands for the wickedness of man; a marble heart symbolizes an indivi dual’s unpardonable sin; and a garden of poisonous flowers represents hell.

C. He wrote stories with narrative interest, ease in transition, coherence, and complexity, One of the means he adopted is making stories parable in form and symbolic in style.

D. His style is soft, flowing, and almost feminine. His touch is light, but his observation is somber.

E. He used ambiguity to keep the reader in a world of uncertainty. Important questions are never fully resolved. The simple word ―or‖

enjoys high frequency in his stories. Hawthorne gave the reader many ways to interpret the story and then he stopped without telling the reader which one he wanted the reader to choose. To create ambiguity, the author often employed the technique of multiple views.

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one another:he was a very successful businessman and a very remarkable contemporary poet at the same time.（人大2006研） 【答案】Wallace Stevens 【解析】华莱士·史蒂文斯(Wallace Stevens)是美国20世纪的著名诗人。他集企业家和诗人于一身。 5.Winner of the National Book Award in1950and the Pulitzer Prize in1963,______ is the author of the five-volume epic Paterson which is a lucid statement of the author’s aesthetics. 【答案】William Carlos Williams 【解析】威廉·卡洛斯·威廉斯的代表作是《佩特森》，它清晰地表达了诗人的美学观点。 6.At the age of44,Wallace Stevens was finally persuaded to publish a book of poems,entitled_____. 【答案】Harmonium 【解析】1923年，44岁的华莱士-史蒂文斯出版了他的第一部诗集《风琴》（Harmonium）。 7.After his death,Wallace Stevens’s previously uncollected works appeared under the title_____. 【答案】Opus Posthumous 【解析】华莱士·史蒂文斯死后，其之前未收集的诗作集合成册于1957年发表，名为《遗作》(Opus Posthumous)。

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美国文学期末复习题 -

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