美国文学复习资料
Lecture 1 Washington Irving
1. Background Questions:
1) What is the duration of American Romanticism?
From the end of the 18th century to the Civil War (1861-1865)
2) What are the main features of American Romanticism?
Irrationalism: opposing rationalism/neo-classicism; focusing on feelings,
intuitions and emotions; worshipping ideals, imagination
Individualism: placing the individual and the common man against the group, against authority
Being close to nature: the world as a living, breathing being; the close relationship
between man and nature
Simplicity in style
(Other distinctive features of American Romanticism besides the above common features of Romanticism)
Objection to puritan morality
The ―newness‖ of the Americans as a nation independent from the European yoke: newness of America as a nation, their ideals of individualism and political equality, and their dream of America as a new Garden of Eden for man, their national experience of ―pioneering into the west‖
2. Selected Reading:
Pre-Reading questions:
1) What are the artistic features of Irving‘s writing?
a. The use of humor
b. Graceful, refined, fluent, dignified and standard language. His essays are models of English.
c. Romantic imagination and fantasies
d. Vivid and picturesque description of the setting
2) What are the different types of humor? Try to find some humorous expressions in the excerpt?
a. Different types of humor:
Jocular humor—Irving (for fun, for amusement)
Satirical humor—Mark Twain (to satire, to criticize)
Tearful humor—O‘ Henry (a rouse sympathy on the poor)
Black humor—Joseph Heller (humor in facing death)
b. There are a lot of examples:
When depicting how Rip‘s close friend, his dog Wolf reacts to Rip‘s wife, Dame Van Winkle‘s any movement when it is at home.
When introducing the so called celebrities at the small inn where Rip frequents in order to console himself when he is driven from home by his wife, and how Rip‘s wife behaves when she gets to the small inn.
Topics for after-reading discussion:
1) What kind of people do you think Rip Van Winkle and his wife Dame Van Winkle are? If your future husband/wife is Rip/Dame, what will you do to him/her?
Rip Van Winkle: lazy, good-tempered, warm-hearted, hen-pecked, well-oiled,
care-free, obedient, irresponsible, etc.
His wife: nagging, termagant, sharp-tongued, hard-working country woman
2) What are the possible themes of the short story?
a. A story of man who has difficulty in facing his advancing age or the author‘s conservative attitude towards the American Revolution and the young Republic, and his dissatisfaction with American development
b. Puritan teachings (Unceasing labor, no play, all kinds of pleasures are condemned, greedy for wealth) as opposed to the American desire for leisure, for the freedom of the individuals as part of American Romantic ideals.
c. Escape from one‘s responsibility and even one‘s history
d. The loss of identity
4) For what reasons is Irving considered ―father of American literature‖?
Possible reasons:
He is the first American author who explores native themes.
He is the first American writer to win international recognition, extremely popular in Europe.
His popularity comes from his humor (using dignified words to for unimportant things/ exaggerate the seriousness of the situation)
―Rip Van Winkle‖ is often considered as the first American short story.
Lecture 2 Edgar Allan Poe
1. Background questions:
1) What is Gothic writing in the 18th century?
An 18th-century style of literature which describes romantic adventures in mysterious or frightening settings, like ancient castle, ruins or wilderness. The subject matter is always about murder, violence, rape, incest together with ghostly or supernatural horror sometimes.
2) What is romantic in Gothic writing?
Gothic style is usually called ―dark romanticism‖. Not like romanticism which tends to convey positively human‘s social, political and moral ideals, Gothic writing is full of violence and horror with the involvement of mysterious and supernatural forces to reveal the dark side of human nature, especially of human morality. Like general romanticism, it is irrational paying much attention to the release of human emotion, imagination, intuition and ideals which are suppressed or neglected by the rationalists.
2. Selected Reading :
1) What are the elements of poetry?
Elements of poetry
1. Voice: speaker and tone
2. Diction: the best words in the best order (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
3. Imagery: a concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea.
Images: visual, aural, tactile, olfactory (something smelled), gustatory (sth tasted)
4. Figures of speech: simile and metaphor
5. Symbolism: a symbol is any object or action that means more than itself, any object or
action that represents sth beyond itself.
6. Syntax: the grammatical structure of words in sentences and the development of
sentences in longer units throughout the poem.
7. Sound:
a. rhyme: matching of final vowel and consonant sounds in two or more words
1. end rhyme (at the ends of lines)
2. internal rhyme (within lines)
b. alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds, esp. at the beginning of words
c. assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds
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 man/may come/and men
/may go‖
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)
Falling feet/meter: trochee (trochaic), dactyl (dactylic)
Number of feet per line
Monometer Dimeter Trimeter
Tetrameter
Pentameter
Hexameter
Heptameter
Octameter
2) What roles do sound and rhythm play in a poem?
Sound and rhythm can make the writing musical and melodious. They contribute a lot to the mood and the theme of the writing at the same time.
Topics for after-reading discussion:
2) What effect does the raven’s word have on the persona?
a. The raven‘s only one word answer to the speaker‘s questions which seems as irrelevant fits the scene quit e well. Each time the raven‘s answer is a sting on the broken heart of the speaker. Therefore, it adds to the sad and melancholic mood of the speaker.
b. The repetition of the word ―Nevermore‖ also probes into the value of human being‘s existence philosop hically: as answered by the raven to the speaker, one‘s beloved can never be regained if bereaved.
3) What types of techniques has the poet employed in the poem in terms of sound?
End rhyme (abcbbb)
Alliteration (flirt, flutter; stately, sain tly…)
Assonance (dreary, weary; napping, tapping, rapping; morrow, borrow, sorrow, with the sound ―o‖ to show one‘s sad, sorrow and grief mood; burning, turning; peering, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming…)
Lecture 3 Nathanial Hawthorne
1. Background questions:
1) What is New England Transcendentalism?
Transcendentalism refers to a kind of attitude that believes in the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses. In another word, transcendentalists believe that man learns things not only through reasoning based on his five senses, or by his own sensual experiences, and that he also learns truth spontaneously, out of his soul or instincts. In a literal sense, it means the belief that knowledge and principles of reality can be obtained by studying thought, not necessarily by practical experiences.
In this sense the term is almost synonymous with the word mysticism. It was first applied to the German philosophical systems of Hegel, Kant, and Fichte. Later the word came to be used more loosely to apply to a movement that began in New England around 1830, the spokesman of which was Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The three key features of New England Transcendentalism are: First, the Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. Secondly, the transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. Thirdly, they take nature as symbolic of Spirit or God.
New England Transcendentalism is important to American literature. It is the summit of American Romanticism. It inspires a whole new generation of famous authors such as Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman and Dickinson. Without its impetus America might have been deprived of one of its most prolific literary periods in its history.
3) How does Hawthorne‘s life experience exert great influence on Hawthorne‘s later literary creation?
Hawthorne‘s life experience exerts great influence on his literary career. Obsessed by the Calvinistic concept of the original sin, Hawthorne believes human beings are evil-natured and sinful and this sin and evil is ever present in human heart and will pass on from one generation to another. His writings are to show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one another.
1) What is a literary allegory?
A literary mode involving extended narratives that produce secondary meanings regarding the story that exists on the surface, or a literary form of indirect representation. Characters in allegorical works frequently serve as metaphors for abstract ideas.
3) What is Hawthorne’s writing style?
His style is soft, flowing and almost feminine.
His language is smooth, clear, beautiful in sound and meaning
He also frequently uses symbols and settings to reveal the psychology of the characters.
2) What is the structure of the whole story?
At sunset, Goodman Brown leaves his wife Faith, spends the night in the forest, and at dawn returns a changed man. Within this basic structure, the story further divides into four separate scenes, the first and last of which, that is, the departure from and the return to Salem, are balanced. The night in the forest falls naturally into two parts: the temptation by the Devil and the meeting of the witch. The two scenes, particularly the former, make full and careful use of the dramatic devices of suspense and climatic arrangement. The climax of the story comes when Brown calls upon his wife to look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one, which is cut off abruptly by anticlimax as the meeting vanishes in a roaring wind, and Brown leaning against the rock finds it chill and damp to his touch.
4) What are the allegorical meanings of Young Goodman, his journey to the dark forest, and his encounter with the devil?
The story is often read as a conventional allegory in the sense that Young Goodman is everyman, and his journey to the dark forest and his encounter with the devil are symbolic of man‘s life journey from innocence to knowledge, from good to evil.
5) Can you find some symbols in the story? Try to interpret their symbolic meanings.
day and the town: human convention and society
night and forest: symbols of doubt and wandering
red: Sin or Evil
black: doubt of the reality of either Evil or Good that tortures Brown
Lecture 4 Walt Whitman
1. Background questions:
1) What is free verse?
Poetry without fixed beat or regular rhyme. The rhythmical lines vary in length, and there is no fixed metrical pattern. It usually seems formless, but it does have a form or pattern based on repetition and parallel structure. Whitman is the first great American poet to use this form of poetry. He also used it more skillfully than any other poet.
2) What do you know about Whitman’s Leaves of Grass?
Leaves of Grass is Whitman‘s lifelong achievement. Walt Whitman is a poet with a strong sense of mission, having devoted all his life to the creation of the single poem Leaves of Grass. It goes through several editions altogether and contained many excellent poems in the collection. Generally speaking we can divide the whole period into three parts. They respectively are before and during the civil war and the last one is after war.
From the poems which he writes before the civil war, such as ―Song of myself‖, ―There was a child went forth‖, we can easily find the trace of romanticism. He advocates democracy and encourages people to fight for individual rights, and helps them to understand their new status and to define themselves in the new world. Hence, the abundance of themes in his poetry voices freshness. He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and burgeoning life of cities. In celebrating the self, Whitman gives emphasis to the physical dimension of the self and openly and joyously celebrates sexuality.
During the civil war, Whitman stood firmly on the side of the North and wrote a series of poems which expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battle field and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory, all of these poems were gathered as a collection under the title of ―Drum Tapes‖. Besides, he wrote down a g reat many poems to air his sorrow to the death of Lincoln, and one of the famous is ―When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom‘d‖
This ground-breaking book breaks with the poetic convention, and its sexuality and exotic and vulgar language bring harsh criticisms on it at the very beginning.
One of the major principles of Whitman‘s technique is parallelism or a rhythm of thought in which the line is the rhythmical unit, as in the poetry of the Bible.
Another principle of Whitman‘s versification i s phonetic recurrence, i.e. the systematic repetition of words and phrases at the head of the line, in the middle or at the end.
Unity, unreality of time and space, evil as only an appearance emerging into good, the equal potential divinity of everything from grass to mankind, the immanence of God in all creation, plentitude, continuity and gradation, the multiplicity of nature, and the need for a poetry commensurate with it—all these find adequate expression in this whole poem.
2) Discuss the structure of the poem “There Was a Child Went Forth”.
The structure of the poem is a circular one. The first stanza is an introduction to the child. In the second stanza, it turns out to be a beautiful idyllic landscape where the child came to know nature. However, he went from the idyllic peaceful Eden to the noisy human city in the next stanza, and then came to know the conception of himself in the fourth stanza. In the last stanza, he
saw his parents and other people in the crowding world. But the poem changes here into another idyllic episode: the beautiful scene on the sea. It is just like a circle. The child came in peace, grew in the crowded society, but went back to peace at the sea. The return to peace is just the beginning of another one. The child will mature day in and day out.
3) What‘s the theme of “Song of Myself”?
―Song of myself‖ is the longest poem in Leaves of Grass. ―Myself‖ is the central and principal image in this poem. It refers not only to the poet himself but also to a group of people who had the American national characteristics and the democratic ideals like Whitman. They were pioneers on the American continent: the ironsmiths, the carpenters, the butcher, and the waiters, etc., as listed in the poem. These people were optimistic in spirit and strong physically. They live harmoniously with other people in this world as well as with nature. In this song, Whitman sings of nationalism and of the nature of the self in relation to the cosmos and the meaning and purpose of birth and death. Individualism, nationalism, and internationalism or cosmopolitanism, the three contradicting beliefs are reasonably united.
Lecture 5 Emily Dickinson
3) In what ways does Dickinson differ from Whitman?
Whitman mostly keeps his eye on society, but Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual; Whitman embraces a national outlook, but Dickinson holds a regional one; Whitman‘s language is musical, oral but powerful, on the other hand, Dickinson‘s language is usually concise, direct and simple.
2. Pre-Reading questions:
1) How does Dickinson view love?
She herself had lived a lonely life of a spinster. She had once or twice fallen in love with someone. But each time she was frustrated. Some of her love poems reflect the unhappy experiences of hers, such as ―I never lost as much but twice‖. There are also poems about the longing of physical love, the union of the bodies, as in ―Wild nights! Wild nights!‖. For her, love is unhappiness, and love is passion at the same time.
3) Wha t‘s Dickinson‘s attitude toward nature?
Dickinson was also a nature poet. To her, nature is both simple and harmonious. She writes about nature to reveal its simplicity and profundity on one hand, and tries to establish a connection between nature and man on the other, like the transcendentalists. Her poems are full of insights into nature and human life.
1) How does the poet interpret love in “Wild nights! Wild nights!”?
Although Dickinson lives a spinster‘s life, she is good at convey the passi onate love between lovers through her poetry. In ―Wild nights! Wild nights!‖, she compares the boat and the sea to two lovers. The passion of love is deeply buried in the heart, like the stormy night. Love can only be released in such adverse circumstances. It is the wild consummated love, as wild as the stormy night, as perfect as the relationship of boat and sea. Therefore, love is something passionate, something a little tragic.
3) What aesthetic principle can you see from her poem ―I died for Beauty, but was Scarce”?
Beauty and truth are the same, a reflection of John Keats‘s aesthetic idea. In the poem, Dickinson presents 2 personas: one died for Beauty and one for truth. According to Dickinson, the sacrifice for beauty and the sacrifice for truth are both the glories ends in life.
4) How do you understand the image ―fly‖ in the poem ―I heard a Fly buzz when I died‖?
In the poem, Dickinson employs a strange image of a fly which is normally disgusting to symbolize the lingering of the dead a mong the human world, and also it‘s perspective of a decaying corpse. The fly is an envoy to the two worlds of life and death. The fly is an insect that has the freedom to fly between death and life. It flies to the dying before the death. It also lead the dead to fly to the next world far away.
5) What is the theme of the poem “Because I could not stop for Death”?
Death and immortality. Death was immortality. This is what Dickinson considers the mystical relationship between death and immortality.
Lecture 6 Mark Twain
1.Background questions:
1) What do you know about America in the Mid- to Late-Nineteenth Century?
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was first published in 1865, when Mark Twain was living in the American Southwest, which was still in the process of being settled. The Industrial Revolution had brought machinery and factories to the eastern United States, but most of the country, particularly areas west of the Mississippi River, still relied on the land for economic development. Much of the land in the West was devoted to cattle, and the U.S. government was involved in battles and embroilments with various ways.
2) What are the main characteristics of American Realism?
Realistic Techniques
? 1. Settings thoroughly familiar to the writer
? 2. Plots emphasizing the norm of daily experience
? 3. Ordinary characters, studied in depth
? 4. Complete authorial objectivity
? 5. Responsible morality; a world truly reported
Principles of Realism
? 1. Insistence upon and defense of "the experienced commonplace".
? 2. Character more important than plot.
? 3. Attack upon romanticism and romantic writers.
? 4. Emphasis upon morality often self-realized and upon an examination of idealism.
? 5. Concept of realism as a realization of democracy.
Characteristics of Realistic Writing
? 1. The philosophy of Realism is known as "descendental" or non-transcendental. The purpose of writing is to instruct and to entertain. Realists were pragmatic, relativistic, democratic, and experimental.
? 2. The subject matter of Realism is drawn from "our experience," - it treated the common, the average, the non-extreme, the representative, the probable.
? 3. The morality of Realism is intrinsic, integral, relativistic - relations between people and society are explored.
? 4. The style of Realism is the vehicle which carries realistic philosophy, subject matter, and morality. Emphasis is placed upon scenic presentation, de-emphasizing authorial comment and evaluation. There is an objection towards the omniscient point of view.
2) Examine the structure of the story.
The frame tale structure of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is one of its most important parts. In a frame tale, one story appears in—that is, it is framed by—another story.
Twain has devised a story-within-a-story framing structure also known as a frame or 'envelope' narrative) by making his narrator the reluctant audience for his storyteller, Simon Wheeler, and by distinguishing his storyteller from his protagonist, Jim Smiley.
3) From what aspects in the story can you define Mark Twain as a realist?
Twain uses local customs of the time, dialect, and examples of social status in his story to create a realistic view of the region in which the story takes place. The way that the characters behave is very distinctive. Dialect is also used to give the reader a convincing impression of the setting in ―The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County‖. The social status of the main characters in this story also was something that Twain took into account in writing this story. Mark Twain is a realist who concentrates on the customs, dialect, and social status of specific regions of the country.
1)Humorists generally have a target; they make jokes at someone's expense. Who is the target in the "Jumping Frog" story?
Jim Smiley is the primary target. He is a trickster who turns out to be too clever for his own good. The narrator is also a target in Twain's story, a victim of the anonymous trickster who sent him to the garrulous Simon Wheeler. In fact, the narrator's eagerness to escape Wheeler at the end of the story suggests that he may be Wheeler's victim as well.
3) What do you think is the possible theme of this story?
Culture Clash
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," highlights various aspects of late nineteenth-century American society and culture through the retelling of a tall tale. Central to the story is the idea of conflicting cultures, particularly the clash between the settled, eastern portion of the United States and the still-developing West. At the time Twain wrote the story, the East and its inhabitants had a reputation for being civilized, cultured, and advanced. The West, on the other hand, was still being settled and was considered to be populated by less-educated.
4) What kind of humor can you find in this brief masterpiece?
Twain combines the vibrant, loquacious storytelling tradition rooted in folk tale, fable, and gossip with the more calculated literary tradition of satire, irony, and wit.
Lecture 7 Theodore Dreiser
Possible Answers to the topics for after-reading discussion:
2) Whereas before she looked at department stores and then factories, she now looks at theaters and then department stores. This really marks the transition away from manufacturing that Dreiser upholds throughout the novel. Much the way we see her move from her miller father to the salesman Drouet to the manager Hurstwood, her own job search progresses from manufacturing to selling to acting. For Dreiser, perhaps, the complete abandonment of manufacturing is the highest social achievement, one that Carrie is striving towards.
Lcture 8 Francis Scott Fitzgerald
He believes that Daisy may come to a party some night. He thinks his wealth shown in those parties may gain his lover back. This is a sign of a corrupt way of 'winning' love through money and wealth. The American Dream- It rose in the 19th century and was based on the theory that each person, no matter what his background was, could succeed in life as long as he had skill and effort. It was the idea of the self-made man. The Great Gatsby is a novel about what happened to the American dream in the 1920s, a period when the old values that gave substance to the dream had been corrupted by the pursuit of wealth. What Fitzgerald seems to be criticizing in The Great
Gatsby is not the American Dream itself but the corruption of the American Dream. Fitzgerald has delayed the introduction of the novel‘s most important figure—Gatsby himself—until the beginning of Chapter III. The reader has seen Gatsby from a distance, heard other characters talk about him, and listened to Nick‘s thoughts about him, but has not actually met him (nor has Nick).
Chapter III is devoted to the introduction of Gatsby and the lavish, showy world he inhabits. Fitzgerald gives Gatsby a suitably grand entrance as the aloof host of a spectacularly decadent party. Despite this introduction, this chapter continues to heighten the sense of mystery and enigma that surrounds Gatsby, as the low profile he maintains seems curiously out of place with his lavish expenditures. Just as he stood alone on his lawn in Chapter I, he now stands outside the throng of pleasure-seekers. The delay shows he is different from others and Daisy. His difference determines partially his dream is to fail.
In his first direct contact with Gatsby, Nick notices his extraordinary smile—―one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it.‖ Nick‘s impression of Gatsby emphasizes his optimism and vitality—something about him seems remarkably hopeful, and this belief in the brilliance of the future impresses Nick, even before he knows what future Gatsby envisions. The romantic dream and future are actually illusions and the mysterious atmosphere highlights the romance and illusions.
throwing parties --- standing as an outsider
a good library --- real books with uncut literature
a grand mansion --- the host‘s living in a small bedroom
various rumours ---truth
the gap between perception and reality.
At the party, as he looks through Ga tsby‘s books, Owl Eyes states that Gatsby has captured the effect of theater, a kind of mingling of honesty and dishonesty that characterizes Gatsby‘s approach to this dimension of his life. The party itself is a kind of elaborate theatrical presentation, and Owl Eyes suggests that Gatsby‘s whole life is merely a show, believing that even his books might not be real. The novel‘s title itself—The Great Gatsby—is suggestive of the sort of vaudeville billing for a performer or magician , subtly emphasizing the theatrical and perhaps illusory quality of Gatsby‘s life.
Themes
The Great Gatsby is an examination of American myth in the 20th century. Fitzgerald deliberately depicts Gatsby as a mysterious person so as to achieve the effect that Gatsby is American Everybody. The death, or rather the murdering, of Gatsby poignantly points at the truth about the withering of the American Dream and the ironic effect it has produced upon the whole American myth.
Character portrayal
Jay Gatsby: Gatsby in the novel represents the newly rich upstart, vulgar in his ostentatious [showy] wealth. However, he becomes a kind of new American Adam. He is ―great‖, because he is dignified and ennobled by his dream and his mythic vision of life.
Nick Carraway: Nick is both a narrator and a character in this novel. He leads us to the dignity and depth of Gatsby‘s character, and suggests the relation of his tragedy to the American situation. But as a character, Carraway has his own likes and dislikes. Since Carraway himself is
disillusioned, cynical, and somewhat pessimistic, Gatsby, with all his freshness, his optimism, and his vitality, has naturally turned out to be something Nick finds appealing. As it goes in the novel, Nick increasingly distances himself from the eastern Buchanans and finally returns to the west. Tom Buchanan
Like Gatsby and Carraway, Tom also represents something of the American character. He is vulgar, hypocritical racist and bigot [person who holds sth strongly]. He is practical and non-idealistic, shallow and mistrustful of emotion. He never cares or takes responsibility.
Daisy Buchanan
Like Tom, she also has an inner emptiness, marked by her boredom and cynicism and moral irresponsibility. She is afraid of being alone, as though she has no inner self. But she has the power to charm. Daisy represents material wealth to Gatsby, but it also connects with physical attraction. However, Daisy is unworthy of Gatsby‘s love. She is incapable of living the fully imagined life that Gatsby has visualized. She is cowardly and selfish.
Symbols in The Great Gatsby
Green Light- at the end of Daisy‘s dock and visible from Gatsby‘s mansion.Represents Gatsby's hopes and dreams about Daisy.
The Valley of Ashes- the area between West Egg and New York City. It is a desolate area filled with industrial waste. It represents the social and moral decay of society during the 1920‘s.It also shows the negative effects of greed.
The Eyes of Dr. T. J. Ekleburg-A decaying billboard in the Valley of Ashes with eyes advertising an optometrist. There are multiple proposed meanings, including the representation of God‘s moral judgment on society.
l美国文学史复习（colonialism)
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 land
2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops
3) About dealing with Indians
4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit
3、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。
4、典型的清教徒：John Cotton & Roger William
他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy; William begins the history of religious toleration in America.
5、William的宗教观点：Toleration did not stem from a lack of religious convictions. Instead, it sprang from the idea that simply to be virtuous in conduct and devout in belief did not give anyone the right to force belief on others. He also felt that no political order or church system could identify itself directly with God. 行为上的德，信仰上的诚，并没有给任何人强迫别人该如何行事的权利。没有任何政治秩序和教会体制能够直接体现神本身的意旨。
6、英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet
7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of Puritan poets is Edward Tayor.
1、Could you give a description of American Puritans? 关于美国清教徒的描绘
Like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to the "purity" of the first-century church as established by Jesus Christ himself. To them religion was a matter of primary importance. They made it their chief business to see that man lived and thought and acted in a way which tended to the glory of God. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God, all that John Calvin, the great French theologian who lived in Geneva had preached. It was this kind of religious belief that they brought with them into the wildness. There they meaant to prove that were God's chosen people enjoying his blessings on this earth as in Heaven.
2、Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing.
3、The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet & Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry.
4、The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards Italian, and
一、美国的性质：
The war for Independence ended in the formation of a Federative bourgeois democratic republic - the United States of America. 联邦的资产阶级民主共和国--美利坚合众国。
二、代表作家：
1、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明·富兰克林1706-1790
1）"Poor Richard's Almanac" 穷人查理德的年鉴
3）established America's first circulating library, founded the college--University of Pennsylvania. 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。
2、Thomas Paine 托马斯·佩因 1737-1809 "Great Common of Mankind" 最平凡的人
1）famous pamphlet "Common Sense" 著名的政治小册子《常识》
3、Thomas Jefferson 托马斯·杰弗逊
1）drafted the Declaration of Independence. 起草了独立宣言
美国文学史复习3（Romanticisms)
一、文学特征：
1、Environment:
1)shaped by their New World environment 美洲大陆新环境
2）array of ideas inherited from the romantic traditons of Europe 欧洲早期浪漫主义思潮
2、美国文学特点：
pluralistic多元化manifestations varied 表现形式多样Individualistic个人主义conflicting 矛盾
3、Romanticism的特点：frequently shared certain general characteristics, moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that he natural world was a source of corruption.浪漫主义之间大多是相通的，都注重道德，强调个人主义价值观和直觉感受，并且认为自然是美的源头，人类社会是腐败之源。
4、Transcendentalism 超验主义
1）as a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematized. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom.不讲逻辑，不讲系统，只强调超越理性的感受，超越法律和世俗束缚的个人表达。
2)they spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.呼吁文化复兴，反对美国社会的拜金主义。
3）they believe in the transcendence of "over soul", an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part. 相信精神上的超越，相信无所不能的善的力量，强调善为万物之源。
4）it could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on the human mind. ―Go back to nature, sink yourself back into its influence and you‘ll become spiritually whole again.‖ The natural implication of all this was, of course, that things in nature tended to become symbolic, and the physical world was a symbol of the spiritual. This in turn added to the tradition of literary symbolism in American literature.
5）代表人物：Emerson爱默生，believed that man was a part of absolute good。人性本善Thoreau 梭罗，beheld divinity in the ―unspotted innocence‖ of nature. 自然才是神圣的―洁白无瑕‖
5、Literary forms文学形式：Novels, short stories, and poems replaced sermons and manifestos as America‘s principal literary forms.长篇小说、短篇故事和诗歌取代说教类及宣言类作品成为美国主要的文学形式。
6、Imaginative literature想象类文学
7、the wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that illustrated moral law.戏剧化特色的野性讽喻了时代的道德准则。
8、The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. 逃离社会，回到自然成为了美国文学永恒的创作习惯。
9、Nationalism stimulated a greater literary interest in America‘s language. In 1828 Noah Webster published ―An American Dictionary of the English Language‖. American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. 受民族主义影响，作家的目光转向了美国本土的语言，具有美国特征的本土方言开始在诗歌和小说中大量涌现。
10、At mid-century a cultural reawakening brought a ―flowering of New England.‖ Led by Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau. New England → Transcendentalism, 从新英格兰文学到超验主义。
二、代表作家：
1、Washington Irving华盛顿.欧文the first great belletrist 第一个纯文学作家，划线部分为三个主要contribution
①the first great prose stylist of American romanticism. 美国第一位浪漫主义散文文体作家
②―Sketch Book‖《见闻札记》,
④―Legends of the Conquest of Spain‖《西班牙征服记》
2、James Fenimore Cooper 詹姆斯.芬尼莫.库珀
①contribution: launched two kinds of immensely popular stories → the sea adventure tale and the frontier saga 开创了两种流传极广的小说体裁，边疆传奇小说和海上传奇小说。
②―Leatherstocking Tales‖《皮袜子故事集》，包括―The Deerslayer‖《杀鹿者》、―The Last of the Mohicans‖《最后的莫希干人》、―The Pathfinder‖《探路人》、―The Pioneers‖《拓荒者》、―The Prairie‖《大草原》, regard as ―the nearest approach yet to an American epic.‖ 被认为是迄今为止美国最接近史诗的作品。
③the central figure in the novels, Natty Bumppo. 小说的中心人物，纳蒂.班波JudgeTemple: man remain savage without law and order
The Spy间谍The Pilot领航者The Littlepage Manuscripts利特佩奇的手稿
4、Edgar Allan Poe 埃德加.阿伦.坡
①show his true talents as an editor, poet, literary critic. 编辑、诗人、文学评论家。
②Graham‘s Magazine 格雷厄姆杂志（坡的工作场所）
③―The Fall of the House of Usher‖《鄂谢府崩溃记》、―The Raven‖《乌鸦》the title poem of
a collection,
―Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque‖《述异集》first collection of short stories. 第一部短篇小说集。
④often use grotesque or fantastic events.擅长描写哥特式和幻想类的小说。
★7、Nathaniel Hawthorne 纳萨尼尔.霍桑
①background: one of his ancestors was Judge Hawthorne, who harm a person.曾经有个做法官的祖辈害人。
②―The House of the Seven Gables‖七尖角阁房，是霍桑著名神秘小说中的一个房屋名称。
③he reveals the depth of his concern with the dark side of Puritanism, the harshness and the persecutions.对清教徒阴暗面的深切关注，认为清教徒的戒行过于森严，对不同信仰人的迫害过于残酷。
④―Mosses from an Old Manse‖《古厦青苔》、―The Marble Faun‖《玉石神像》
⑤特点⑴unique gift was for the creation of strongly symbolic stories which touch the deepest roots of man‘s moral nature. 独特才能主要表现在他能够通过一些极具象征意义的故事来触摸人类灵魂深处的道德品质。
⑵his ability to create vivid and symbolic images that embody great moral questions appears strongly in his short stories. 短篇小说里，通过活生生、极具有象征意义的想象来体现人类社会的一些重大道德问题。
⑶to make a story exist in its own right but at the same time appear as a moral symbol.杰出之处在于他能把一个故事安放在自己设置的正义标准之中来讲述，他书中的正义标准成为当时人们的道德参考。
⑥（课堂笔记提及的）―The Scarlet Letter‖《红字》
⑴女主角honest, calmly face fault 诚实，坦然的面对罪过。
⑵弗洛伊德人格理论：Id 本我→ 欲望，只要快乐→Roger 女主角的丈夫
Ego 自我→ 分辨对错，受约束，符合现实→Hester 女主角
Superego 超我→ →Dim 女主角的情人，牧师
⑶女主角的自我成长和自我救赎的过程。Ego growth and redeem by her own of process
⑦―The Scarlet Letter‖ analysis分析：it not a praise of a Hester sinning, but a hymn on the moral growth of the woman when sinned against. Young Hester borders on being licentious. Her drive is sexual. She does her best to keep her hold on the magic chain humanity. Her life eventually acquires a real significance when she reestablishes a meaningful relationship with her fellowmen
Symbolic of her moral development is the gradual imperceptible change with the scarlet letter
undergoes in meaning. At first it is a token of shame, ―Adultery‖ but then the genuine sympathy
and help Hester offered to her fellow villagers‘ changes it to ―Able‖. Later in the story, the letter A
appears in the sky, signifying ―Angel‖. There is reason to agree with the critical observation that A
may represent Adamic, o r prehistoric, an archetypal vice suggestive of ―original sin,‖ Dimmesdale,
on the other hand, banishes himself form 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. Between him and Hester they point to a moral as Hawthorne may intend them to do,
that the best policy for man is to be true, honest, and ever ready to show one‘s worst to the outside
world.
★8、Herman Melville 赫尔曼.麦尔维尔
①―Moby Dick‖《白鲸》，a tremendous chronicle of whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.主要讲述了一个为追捕一只想象中的神秘白鲸的漫长海上故事。②The book is steeped in symbolism. 本书达到了象征主义手法的创作高峰。③主人公：Ishmael，取自圣经。④在书中说：to write a mighty book you must have a mighty theme. 写一部宏大的著作，必须有一个宏大的主题。⑤故事人物：Captain Ahab.船长阿哈比；Queequeg，捕鲸人奎因奎格，was a friendly person；⑥the rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome, sometimes merciless forces. The fitting symbol for his theme was the ―gliding great demon of the seas of life.‖阿哈比舰长和各种危险之间的激烈斗争，他同那些强大的、神秘的自然展开斗争，他们令人毛骨悚然，有时还冷酷无情。他把那只大白鲸贴切的比喻为―生命海洋中滑行的恶魔‖。
⑦―Moby Dick‖：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. The voyage itself is a metaph or for ―search
and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.‖ He had Ahab topmost in his mind.
In a sense Ahab embodies all of the evil he once consigned to Moby Dick.
9、Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 亨利.沃兹沃思.朗费罗poet 诗人
①it would be hard, al so, to overestimate the importance of his anthology ―The Poets and Poetry
of Europe‖. His own poetry became a means of teaching readers of his day something of the
possible range of poetic subject matter and techniques, ancient, medieval, and modern. 《欧洲诗
人及诗》不能把这部作品估计过高。他自己的诗歌成为了他教学的材料，在书中他讲述了诗
的主题和一些写作技巧。从古代的，中世纪的一直到现代的诗歌，他都一一作了阐述。
②殊荣：he became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet‘s corner of
Westminster Abbey.朗费罗被安葬在威斯敏斯特教堂的诗人之角，他也是美国惟一获此殊荣
的诗人。
③The gentleness, sweetness, and purity for his poetry was popular during his lifetime. 他的诗歌
因高雅宜人、纯正有韵味而大受欢迎。
④he was consistently high-minded but conventional, and untouched by the religious and social
struggles that disturbed his contemporaries. 他接受正统的思想，但并不保守。他的思想没有受
到当时社会、宗教和各种政治斗争的影响。
⑤特点：exercised a great influence in bringing European culture to the U.S., and likewise did
much to popularize American folk themes abroad where his work was immensely popular and
widely translated.在引进欧洲文化上起巨大推动作用，也把美国民间文化传播到国外，他的
作品还被翻译成多种文字，在海外受到高度评
美国文学史复习4（Realism）
一、Background
1）Mechanization 机器化
2）Urbanization 城市化
3）Industrialization 工业化
4）Federal government(race种族平等进入宪法）标志着马克·吐温的《镀金时代》开始5）Railway system工业化的一大标志，电力和石油的应用
二、文化特征：
1）女性发挥作用明显，女性的作者和读者明显增多
2）开始关注Mid class
3）现实主义（realism）-->New York replaced Boston as the nation's literary center. 纽约成为新的文化中心。
一、时期综述：
1、镀金时代：The Gilded Age, an age of excess and extremes, of decline and progress, of poverty and dazzling wealth, of gloom and buoyant hope. 无节制、走极端，倒退和进步、贫困和富有并存，既令人沮丧又让人有希望的时代。
2、Although Americans continued to read the works of Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Poe, the great age of American romanticism had ended. By the 1870s the New England Renaissance had waned. 新英格兰的文艺复兴已开始接近尾声。
3、现实主义和自然主义作家的人物刻画方法：
19世纪末,the literary naturalists who followed them, rejected the portrayal of idealized characters and events. Instead, they sought to describe the wide range of American experience and to present the subtleties of human personality, to portray characters who were less simply all good or all bed. 反对在作品中描绘理想化了的人物和事件，关注人性中的微妙之处。
4、Realism：（现实主义）appeared in the United States in the literature of local color, an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things was immediately observable. the dialects, customs, sights.现实主义有浓厚的美国本土特色，是浪漫主义故事情节和现实主义描写相结合的产物：美国风味的方言、风俗、各种观点
5、Naturalism：自然主义a new and harsher realism, 新型的更为冷峻的现实主义，产生悲观的流派，产生于the end of the century 十九世纪末，因为Perception of society‘s disorders 对社会无序的感知。Presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were dominated by their environment and heredity. 设法尽力客观真实地展现出受环境与出身局限的下层人民和各种经济阶层人物的真正生活。
The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment, the religious ―truths‖ were illusory, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. 强调世界的非道德性，人们没有意志的自由，宗教上的真理是虚幻的，现实生活是痛苦的。Deterministic 决定论，宿命的，
代表作家：Stephen Crane 史蒂芬.克莱恩, Frank Norris 弗朗克.诺里斯,
Jack London 杰克.伦敦, Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞.
6、Darwinism:达尔文主义:an evident influence on naturalism, stress the animality of man, to suggest that be was dominated by the irresistible forces of evolution. 对自然主义影响极大，强调人的动物性，意味着人的命运受进化的不可抗力来决定的。
7、William Dean Howells 威廉.迪安.豪厄斯，
①The arbiter of 19th century literary realism in America。十九世纪美国现实主义文学泰斗，提拔许多年轻作家
②His defined realism: nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.
不加一分，不减一分，百分之百描写现实。
③中央视角：an objective point of view
二、代表作家：
1、Walt Whitman 沃尔特.惠特曼
①★free verse (自由诗体) without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. 无固定节奏，无有
规律的韵脚
②―Leaves of Grass‖草叶集1870 the first genuine epic poem. 美国历史上第一部真正的史诗
Poem‘s 特点：most of the poems in ―LeavesofGr6ass‖are about man and nature.
③关注点：In his poetry, he combined the ideal of democratic common man and that of the rugged individual
④诗人职责：he envisioned the poet as a hero, a savior and a prophet, one who leads the community by his
expressions of the truth.表达真理的前提下，引导社会发展。
2、Emily Dickinson 爱米丽.狄金森
①作品：―I died for Beauty‖ 我为美而死（诗歌）
Beauty / Truth / Goodness are ultimate(终极) the same
―Because I could not stop for Death‖我不能等候死神
Theme：死亡是实现永恒Immortality的途径
②特点：her poetry in unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines.
3、Harriet Beecher Stowe 哈丽雅特.比彻.斯托小说家only one female prose writer(散文作家) in 19th century
代表作：―Uncle Tom’s Cabin‖汤姆叔叔的小屋关注农奴制度Pay attention to serf's system
4、Mark Twain 马克.吐温
①美国现实主义文学的代表作―Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn‖哈克贝里.费恩历险记(马克最有名的作品)
②特点：local colorist地方特色:a unique variation of American literary realism, it refers to the particular concern about the local character of a region.
③contribution贡献：colloquial speech accepted as literary medium口语化被文学界接受
④代表作：―The Gilded Age‖70-90年代，镀金时代，贫富分化，财富积累。
―The Adventures of Tom Sawyer‖用词简单、幽默、使用当地语言编写
―Life on the Mississippi‖
5、O. Henry 欧.亨利short story 短篇小说
①特点：tell about the lives of poor people in New York关注下层人; usually short简单; plots are exceedingly clever and interesting，humor abounds情节极度聪明有趣并富于幽默; the end is always surprising结尾意外; contain a great deal of slang and colloquial expressions使用大量的俚语和口语.
②代表作：―The Four Million‖《四百万》小说集、―The Gift of the Magi‖《麦琪的礼物》
单部小说
★6、Henry James 亨利.詹姆斯novelist小说家；Literature theoretician 文学理论家，从小
受欧洲教育
①心理现实主义的开创者：the founder of psychological realism. The literary career of him is generally divided into three periods, in the first periods, James took great interest in international theme; exemplify the mature and formidable style of a third literary period, which critics have come to praise as ―The Major Phase‖.
②特点：(1)deeply into the individual psychology of his characters, writing in a rich and intricate style that supported his intense scrutiny of complex human experience.深刻探讨人物人性心理，用深厚、复杂的写作方式对复杂的个人经历进行揣摩
(2)1st person and 3rd person narration，第一和第三人称的叙述
(3)omniscient 全视角是不真实的;
③家庭背景：father: philosopher哲学家,富有；brother: psychologist, philosopher心理学家,哲学家；
④创作原则：The art of Fiction小说的艺术;art vs. life, brings the meaning of life;
⑤贡献contribution：in his critical commentaries, he made major contributions to the art of fiction itself, helping to transform the novel from its alliance with journalism and romantic story-telling into an art from of penetrating analysis of individuals confronting society, chronicles of the psychological perceptions that James himself defined as the highest from of experience. 詹姆斯把小说从新闻形式和浪漫故事转变成为了对个人在社会大环境中面对种种冲突，进行深刻剖析的文学形式；对人们心理感受进行反映的一种文学形式，他定义这位感受的最高形式。
⑥代表作：―The American‖、―Daisy Miller‖、― in the Portrait of a Lady‖(早期最好的作品)
Last full-length novel ==―The Wings of the Dove‖、―The Ambassadors‖、―The Golden Bowl‖
⑦The name of the heroine ―in the Portrait of a Lady”is Isabel Acher. The novel is representative of the best of James‘ mature work. The plot concerns the courtship, marriage, and development of the character of Isabel Archer, a young American girl who has been left penniless by the death of her father. The intricate novel of psychological and moral interrelationships is in one sense another treatment of the Jamesian theme of the American in conflict with European culture and in another sense the most personal of his novels, an intimate picture of a woman‘s soul presented with masterly psychological finesse.
8、Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞
①代表作：―Sister Carrie‖《嘉莉妹妹》the first novel, which traces the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G. W. Hurstwood.
―The Financier‖、―The Titan‖、―The Stoic‖Trilogy of Desire 欲望三部曲
②―An American Tragedy‖《美国悲剧》，The identification of potency with money is at the heart of Dreiser‘s greatest and most successful novel,德莱塞最恢宏、最成功的小说，表达了金钱万能的主题。
美国文学史复习5（the 20th century）
一、Background:
①World War I 第一次世界大战，America have great profit.
②Jump in technology (automobile / radio) 科技方面的跳跃（汽车/收音机）
③old moral code breaks 旧道德体系破碎
1、Imagism意象派：is a poetic movement of England and the United States, flourished from 1909-1917. Its credo, expressed in Some Imagist Poets, included the use of the language of common speech, project matter, the evocation of images in hard, clear poetry, and concentration.
2、Lost Generation：迷惘的一代，Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a ―Lost Generation,‖ devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization. It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of ―expatriates‖ or exiles. It describes the writers like Hemingway who lived in semipoverty. It describes the Americans who returned to their native land with an intense awareness of living in an unfamiliar changing world.
3、Modernism现代主义：is loosely a synonym of anything contemporary. Strictly, especially in literary criticism, which began in the late 19th century and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. They pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one.
4、现代主义的标志：T. S. Eliot‘s ―The Waste Land‖, the most significant American poem of the twentieth century, helped to establish a modern tradition of literature rich with learning and allusive thought.
5、典型的迷惘一代：
F. Scott Fitzgerald, ―The Great Gatsby‖ 《了不起的盖茨比》novel
Ernest Hemingway ―The Sun Also Rises‖《太阳照样升起》―A Farwell to Arms‖《告别了，武器》
William Faulkner ―The Sound and the Fury‖ 《喧嚣与骚动》
6、Playwrights戏剧、剧作家：Eugene O‘Neill ―The Emperor Jones‖《琼斯国王》、―Anna Christie‖《安娜.克里斯蒂》、―The Hairy Ape‖《毛猿》
7、The Jazz Age(享乐时代)：whenNew Orleans musicians moved ―up the river‖ to Chicago, and the theatre of New York‘s Harlem pulsed with the music that had become a symbol of the times. Fitzgerald portrays the Jazz Age as a generation of ―the beautiful and damned‖, drowning in their pleasures.
二、代表作家：
1、Ezra Pound 埃兹拉.庞德诗人
①Imagism 意象派的代表人物。Pound and Eliot became the early leaders in restoring to poetry the use of literary reference as an imaginative instrument. 庞德和爱略特都是运用意象主义作为文学表现手法的早期诗人。
②major work of poetry is the long poem called ―The Cantos‖
2、Robert Frost 罗伯特.弗洛斯特自然主义诗人poet
①诗歌特点和内容：(1)rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporaries, choosing instead ―the old-fashioned way to be new.‖ He employed the plain speech of rural New Englanders and preferred the short, traditional forms of lyric and narrative.
(2)He saw nature as a storehouse of analogy and symbol.
(3)His concern with nature reflected deep moral uncertainties, and his poetry, for all its apparent simplicity, often probes mysteries of darkness and irrationality in the bleak and chaotic landscapes of an indifferent universe where men stand alone, unaided and perplexed.
②he become a national bard美国民族诗人的翘首, win four Pulitzer Prizes获得了四次普利兹奖.
③―The Road Not Taken‖、―Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening‖向往大自然，想逃避社会；死亡、迷惑
3、Wallace Stevens 华莱士.斯蒂文斯诗人
①His work is primarily motivated by the belief that ―ideas of order,‖ that is ,true ideas, correspond with an innate order in nature and universe, and that it is the high privilege of individuals and mankind to discover this correspondence. 作品动机起源于秩序理念，他的秩序就是真理，就是自然与宇宙天然一致的次序，是人类与个体发现这种一致性的特权。
②代表作：―The Man with the Blue Guitar‖《带蓝吉他的人》；
―Necessary Angel‖《必要的天使》，collection of his occasional lectures on poetry诗歌的评论.
―Anecdote of the Jar‖《坛子的轶事》jar – man made – art, wildness – nature, jar bring order/meaning to the nature, 艺术到自然的秩序，integrated 统一体
③特点：(1)he adopted a variety of experimental styles, created poetic surfaces of Frenchified elegance, exotic imagery, odd sounds, curious analogies, and inscrutable titles.尝试过多种实验性的写作风格。
(2)he confronted the contemporary abandonment of traditional values and sought to come to terms with the confusions of his time. The problem of the interrelation between the ideal and the real became a constant theme in his later poetry.理想和现实中所交叉的矛盾。
(3)a series of oppositions between inner and outer worlds –between subject and object, perceiver and perceived, fiction and fact, ―imagination and reality‖(想象与现实)
★4、Thomas Stearns Eliot托马斯.斯特恩斯.爱略特现代主义代言人
①多重身份：poet诗人, critic评论家, playwright剧作家
②代表作：
―The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock‖poems，holds its place in the development of Eliot‘s poetry as a whole.
―Tradition and the Individual Talent‖essay,随笔《传统和个人天才》, the earliest statement of his aesthetics第一次阐释了自己的审美观点. provided a useful instrument for modern criticism.成为现代评论极为有效的评判标准。
―The Waste Land‖《荒原》one of the major works of modern literature. Use a new form — the orchestration of related themes in successive movement. 新的文学形式即相关的主题在连续运动中构成交响效果。
―Four Quartets‖《四个四重奏》poem
―Murder in the Cathedral‖，poetic tragedy, 诗歌悲诗, a drama(戏剧) of impressive spiritual power.极富感染力的戏剧
③作品特点：
(1) concerns various aspects of the frustration and enfeeblement of individual character as seen in perspective with the decay of states, peoples, and religious faith.触及人性中的软弱沮丧的弱点，正确思索了国家、人民、宗教信仰等的丧失。
(2)poem conceived as a made object, an organic thing in itself, whose concrete elements are true correlatives of the artist‘s imagination and experience with respect to that poem.诗歌是客观成型的东西，诗歌的具体元素与艺术家的想象和经历密切相关，也与诗歌相一致。
(3)The degree to which fusion and concentration of intellect, feeling, and experience were achieved was Eliot‘s criterion for judging the poem.知识、情感、体验的融合与集中程度是爱略特判定诗歌好坏的标准。
5novelist 小说家
①作品：―This Side of Paradise‖《人间天堂》，the first novel.
―The Great Gatsby‖《了不起的盖茨比》novel
―Tender Is the Night‖ 《夜色温柔》novel
②第二本小说的开展过程：dream梦想→ Daisy self-centered 理想化的淑女，自我为中心→ disenchantment, disillusion魔法消失，(因阶级差异)梦想破灭→ sense of failure and despair (light)失败和绝望
Ash 灰(象征) → forest树木，西部开发，树木变成灰了
③limited point of view有限视角→ suspense悬念+ mystery神秘真实性→reliable可信的，不偏，不评价
6、Ernest Hemingway 厄恩斯特.海明威novelist 小说家
①写作特点：(1)he developed a spare, tight, reportorial prose based on simply sentence structure and using a restricted vocabulary, precise imagery, and an impersonal, dramatic tone.推动了报告文学的发展，认为报告文学句子结构要简单，用语要节制，想象要简练，要采用不受感情影响的、戏剧化的语调。
(2) His primary concern was an individual‘s ―moment of truth,‖ and his fascination with the threat of physical, emotional, of psychic death is reflected in his lifelong preoccupation with stories of war.主题强调换个体―真理的瞬时性‖，痴迷于描写肉体情感方面面临的威胁和心灵死亡等主题。
(3) man‘s greatest achievement is to show grace under pressure作品主题, or purity of line through the maximum of exposure最大限度地挖掘自己使自己成为一个纯粹的人.
②代表作：―The Sun Also Rises‖ Hemingway became the spokesman for ―a lost generation‖
―A Farewell to Arms‖、―For Whom the Bell Tolls‖、―The Old Man and the Sea‖
7、John Steinbeck 约翰.斯坦贝克
①the foremost novelist of the American Depression.美国大萧条时期最杰出的小说家。
②代表作：
―Of Mice and Men‖《人鼠之间》portrayed the tragic friendship between two migrant workers ―The Grapes of Wrath‖《愤怒的葡萄》regarded as masterpiece 视为杰作。
2．When we say that a poor young man from the West tried to make his fortune in the East but was disillusioned in the quest of an idealized dream, we are probably discussing about __ B ____‘s thematic concern in his fiction writing.
A.Henry James
B.Scott Fitzgerald
C.Hemingway
D.William Faulkne
5．___ D ____ does not belong to the school of naturalism in history.
A.Stephen Crane
B.Frank Norris
C.Jack London
D.Walt Whitman
6．William Sidney Porter was the real name of ____ B ____.B.O‘ Henry 7．There is a good reason to state that New England Transcendentalism was actually _A__ on the Puritan soil.
A.Romanticism
B.Puritanism
C.mysticism
D.Unitarianism
12．Puritan values do not include _ D ___.
A.hard work
B.thrift
C.sobriety
D.debauchery
13．The first great American juvenile literature was __A ___.
A.Sketch Book
B.The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
C.Walden
D.Mardi
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A Concise History of American Literature Chapter 1 Colonial Period I.Jonathan Edwards 1.life 2.works (1)The Freedom of the Will (2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended (3)The Nature of True Virtue 3.ideas – pioneer of transcendentalism (1)The spirit of revivalism (2)Regeneration of man (3)God’s presence (4)Puritan idealism II.Benjamin Franklin 1.works (1)Poor Richard’s Almanac (2)Autobiography 2.contribution (1)He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society. (2)He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this case) from heaven”. (3)Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melville thus described him “master of each and mastered by none”. Chapter 2 American Romanticism Section 1 Early Romantic Period I.Washington Irving 1.several names attached to Irving (1)first American writer (2)the messenger sent from the new world to the old world (3)father of American literature 2.works (1)A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this.) (3)The History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus (4)A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (5)The Alhambra 3.Literary career: two parts (1)1809~1832 a.Subjects are either English or European b.Conservative love for the antique (2)1832~1859: back to US 4.style – beautiful (1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness (2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining (3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere
美国文学选读复习材料
一 1.―He was silent with conceit of his son. Mrs. Morel sniffed, as if it were nothing.‖(Sons and Lovers by https://www.wendangku.net/doc/dc16612193.html,wrence)From the above quotation, we can see that Mrs. Morel’s attitude to her husband is ______ . A. sincerely warm B. genuinely kind C. seemingly angry D. merely contemptuous 2. A boy makes a quest of his idealized childish love through painful experience up to the point of losing his innocence and coming to see the drabness and harshness of the adult world. The above sentence may well sum up the major theme of ______. A. Eliot’s poem The love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock B. Bernard Shaw’s play Mrs. Warren’s Profession C. Joyce’s story Araby D. Lawrence’s story The Horse Dealer’s Daughter 3. Linguistically, compared with the writing s of Mark Twain, Henry James’s fiction is noted for his ______. A. frontier vernacular B. rich colloquialism C. vulgarly descriptive words D. refined elegant language 4. Which of the following statements about Washington Irving is NOT true? A. Literary imagination should breed in a land rich in the past culture. B. He is preoccupied with the Calvinistic view of original sin and the mystery of evil. C. His stories are among the best of the American literature. D. Some of his works are based on the materials of the European legendary tales. 5. Which of the following is NOT one of the main ideas advocated by Emerson, the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism? A. As an individual, man is divine and can develop and improve himself infinitely. B. Nature exercises a healthy and restorative influence on human beings. C. There exists an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal ―Oversoul.‖ D. Evil and sin are ever present in human heart and will pass on from one generation to another.‖ 6. Whitman’s poems are characterized by all the following features EXCEPT ______ . A. the strict poetic form B. the free and natural rhythm C. the easy flow of feelings D. the simple and conversational language 7. ―Then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.‖ In the quoted sentence, the author might imply that ______. A. nothing changes in the 5000 years of human history B. man’s desire to conquer nature can only end in his own de struction C. nature is evil as it was 5000 years ago D. nature has the ultimate creative power