Local Colorism

Local Colorism(乡土文学)Generally speaking, the writings of local colorists are concerned with the life of a small,
well-defined region or province. The characteristic setting is the isolated small town.2) Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions, they worked from personal experience to record the facts of a local environment and suggested that the native life was shaped by the curious conditions of the local.3) major local colorists is Mark Twain.
Renaissance(文艺复兴)The word Renaissance means rebirth , it meant the reintroduction into westerm Europe of the full cultural heritage of Greece and Rome.2>the essence of the Renaissance is Humanism. Attitudes and feelings which had been characteristic of the 14th and 15th centuries persisted well down into the era of Humanism and reformation.3>the real mainstream of the english Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama with william shakespeare being the leading dramatist.
Romanticism(浪漫主义)1>In the mid-18th century, a new literary movement called romanticism came to Europe and then to England.2>It was characterized by a strong protest against the bondage of neoclassicism, which emphasized reason, order and elegant wit. Instead, romanticism gave primary concern to passion, emotion, and natural beauty.3>In the history of literature. Romanticism is generally regarded as the thought that designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and experience. 4>The English romantic period is an age of poetry which prevailed in England from 1798 to 1837. The major romantic poets include Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley.
Critical Realism(批判现实主义)Critical Realism is a term applied to the realistic fiction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.2>It means the tendency of writers and intellectuals in the period between 1875 and 1920 to apply the methods of realistic fiction to the criticism of society and the examination of social issues.3>Realist writers were all concerned about the fate of the common people and described what was faithful to reality.4>Charles Dickens is the most important critical realist.
The Lost Generation(迷惘的一代)The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe the post-war I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the three best-known representatives of lost generation are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and John dos Passos.
1.Jane Eyre is the greatest governess image in the literature history; can you analyze the character of her?
Jane Eyre was a little plain governess with quick wit, honesty, frankness, loving heart and the spirit of independence and self-dignity.
In literature, she is an individual conscious to self-realization. She was lonely and neglected young woman with a fierce longing for love, understanding and a full, happy life.
In author s mind, man s life is composed of perpetual struggle between sin and virtue, good and evil. The heroines joy, comes from the sacrifice of self and the overcome of some weakness.
By Jane s experience, we can see the cruelty, hypocrisy, and other evils of the upper classes and the misery and the suffering of the poor, and the false social convention on love and marriage.
2.What s the theme of Wuthering Heights?
(1)a story of revenge;(2)From the social point of view, it is a story about a poor man abused;(3) it is also a love story,it shows beautiful and horrible passion in human beings
3.Please comment on the code hero theme in The Old Man and the Sea.It refers to some protagonists in Hemingway s works. In the general situation of Hemingway s novels, life is full of tension and battles; the world is in chaos and man is always fighting desperately a losing battle. Those who survive in the process of seeking to master the code with the honesty, the discipline, and the restraint are Hemingway code heroes.
The importance of life lies in the process of searching and resistance;
The honor in struggle, defeat, and death
pride as the source of greatness and determination.
9，The subtitle of the novel is A Pure Woman Faithfully Portrayed. All things considered, was Tess a pure woman? Why or Why not?
Pure = virginity？
Tess was a pure woman.
a.pure here not refers to the physical meaning but the spiritual one. Throughout the novel, Tess was loyal to her true feelings. She remained her loyalty to Angel. Alec only claimed her body. She was spiritually with Angel all the time.
b. She is responsible and does her best for the family.
c. She is honest, tender.
d. She could face her tragedy with great dignity.
2. Why do we say Tess s tragedy is a personal as well as a social one?
（1）Tess s fate is personal:
She happens to be so beautiful, so pure, so innocent, and so poor, and she happens to get involved with 2 men who, though apparent rivals, actually joint their forces in bringing about her destruction.
（2）Her fate is a social one:
It can be the fate of any country girl like her. It can be the fate of all the peasants who are driven out of their land and home and forced to seek somewhere else for sustenance.
3.How do you understand the last sentence Justice is done, and the president of Immortals (in Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess. ?
As an insecure and inferior being, Tess can never love in a genuine and generous way. Tess s fate is to be tragic as soon as she appears in the novel. She is not the master of her own life, and she can only be the object to be preyed upon, then humiliated and abandoned. When she rebels she acts against the law of a society whose power is in the hands of rich men. These last words highlight Hardy s critical attitudes towards the unjust treatment of women and his denunciation of the hypocrisy of the social structures and moral codes of Victorian England.。