英美文学作者风格与特点

I. The features of Charles Dickens
1. His critical realism: While sticking to the principle of faithful representation of the 18th-century realist novel, he carried the duty to the criticism of the society and the defense of the mass.
2. He is a master s toryteller. With his first sentence, he engages the reader’s attention and holds it to the end.
3. What he writes is mainly the middle and lower-middle class life in London.
4. He is a master of language with a large vocabulary and an adeptness with the vernacular.
5. He is a great humorist as well as a great painter of pathos. He always mingles the two to make his fictional world realistic.
6. His characters are not only true to life but also large than life. There are both individual characters and type characters.
2. The features of Shaw’s plays:
1. Problem plays: He took the modern social issues as his subject with the aim of directing social reforms. Most of his plays are concerned with political, economic, or religious problems.
2. In his characterization, he makes the tricks of showing up one character vividly at the expense of another. His characters are the representatives of ideas, which shift and alter during the play.
3. The strong sense of comedy in his play are achieved through his witty dialogues, sharp satires, and vivid portrayal of characters.
3. The features of stream of consciousness
1. The unspoken thoughts and feelings of their characters are described without resorting to objective description or conventional dialogue.
2. The flux of a character’s thoughts, impressions, emotions are often shown without logical sequence or syntax.
4. Emerson’s transcendentalism and his attitude toward nature
1.Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.
2. Emerson’s transcendentalism:
The over-soul—it is an all-pervading power goodness, from which all things come and of which all are a part. It is a supreme reality of mind, a spiritual unity of all beings and a religion. It is a communication between an individual soul and the universal over-soul. And he strongly believe in the divinity and infinity of man as an individual, so man can totally rely on himself.
3.His toward nature:
Emerson loves nature. His nature is the garment of the over-soul, symbolic and moral bound. Nature is not something purely of the matter, but alive with God’s p resence. It exercise a healthy and restorative influence on human beings. Children can see nature better than adult.
5. Hawthorne’s Puritanism and his black vision of man
1. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puristans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the church of England.
2. his black vision of man—by the Calvinistic concept of original sin, he believed that human
being are evil natured and sinful, and this sin is ever present in human heart and will pass one generation to another.
3. Young Goodman Brown—it shows that everyone has some evil secrets. The innocent and naïve Brown is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and then he becomes distrustful and doubtful. Brown stands for everyone ,who is born pure and has no contact with the real world ,and the prominent people of the village and church. They cover their secrets during daily lives, and under some circumstances such as the witch’s Sabbath, they become what they are. Even his closed wife, Faith, is no exception. So Brown is aged in that night.
6. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his The Great Gatsby
1. Theme: Gatsby is American Everyman. His extraordinary energy and wealth make him pursue the dream. His death in the end points at the truth about the withering of the American Dream. The spiritual and moral sterility that has resulted from the withered American Dream is fully revealed in the article. However, although he is defeated, the dream has gave Gatsby a dignity and a set of qualities. His hope and belief in the promise of future makes him the embodiment of the values of the incorruptible American Dream .
2. The character analysis of Gatsby: Gatsby is great, because he is dignified and ennobled by his dream and his mythic vision of life. He has the desire to repeat the past, the desire for money, and the desire for incarnation of unutterable vision on this material earth. For Gatsby, Daisy is the soul of his dreams. He believe he can regain Daisy and romantically rebels of time. Although he has the wealth that can match with the leisured class, he does not have their manners. His tragedy lies in his possession of a naive sense and chivalry.
7. Ernest Hemingway’s artistic features:
1. The Hemingway code heroes and grace under pressure:
They have seen the cold world ,and for one cause, they boldly and courageously face the reality. They has an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life. Whatever is the result is, the are ready to live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will never be defeated. Finally, they will be prevail because of their indestructible spirit and courage.
2.The iceberg technique:
Hemingway believe that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action. The one-eighth the is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimensions of the story. Thus, Hemingway’s language is symbolic and suggestive.。