美国文学考试资料整理

一．The Literature of Colonial America(Puritanism)1.The first English colony: Jamestown in Virginia in 16072.The first American writer: John Smith3.Anne Bradstreet:first American woman poet; a Puritan poet; once called “Tenth Muse”;二．Literature of Reason and RevolutionWar of Independence (1775-1783);The French and Indian War / the Seven Y ears’War(1756-1763)1..Benjamin Franklin:Autobiography; Richard’s AlmanacMaxims from Poor Richard’s Almanac(proverbs that give practical wisdom)2..Thomas Paine (1737-1809):Common Sense: a strong push for the Revolution W ar; four parts (British enslavement of the colonies; praising democratic election; America’s economic and military potential to protect the rights of people)3..Philip Freneau (1752-1832)The first American-born poet;“Poet of the American Revolution”, “Father of American Poetry”, the most significant poet of 18th century AmericaW orks:The Wild Honey Suckle《野忍冬花》on mortality, The Indian Burying Ground 《印第安人殡葬地》on the imagined afterlife, The British Prison Ship《英国囚船》about his imprisoned experience.三．RomanticismThe American Romantic period is considered one of the most important periods, the first literary Renaissance, in the history of American literature. It stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil W ar. It started with the publication of W ashington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.1.Washington Irving (1783-1859)Literary status: the first American to earn an international reputation; Father of the American short storiesThe Sketch Book: winning him international popularity，the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.Major works: A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty under the name of “Diedrich Knickerbocker2.James Fenimore Cooper:Leatherstocking T alesIncluding: The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer Natty Bumppo (an ideal romantically; various names: Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, Pathfinder, Hawkeye; with two noble red men: Mohican Chief Chingachgook and his son, Uncas)3.Edgar Allen PoeWorks: Raven ;To Henlen;The Fall of the House of Usher:"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story of Gothic horror written in first-person point of view, which proves Poe to be the father of American psychoanalytic novels4.Ralph Waldo EmersonEmersonian T ranscendentalismLiterary status: the chief spokesman of New England T ranscendentalism, which is the summit of American RomanticismEssays: Nature:“Over-soul”“Universal Mind.”Essays (The American Scholar, The Divinity School Address, Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul), Essays: Second Series (The Poet, Experience)5.Henry David Thoreau:Walden6.Nathaniel Hawthorne:⑴An appalling fictional version of Hawthorne’s belief that “wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones,” and that evil will come out of evil though it may take many generations to happen.⑵Power of blacknessTwice-Told Tales;The House of the Seven Gables⑶The Scarlet Letter 《红字》(the changes of the symbolic meaning of the scarlet letter “A”?Adultery: a token of shameAlone and AlienationAbleAdmirable →Angel7.Herman MelvilleSea adventure:Typee Omoo Mardi；The Confidence-Man(没有)Literary achievements: Moby Dick：Symbolism:8.William Cullen Bryant:Literary status: one of America’s earliest naturalist poets; “the American Wordsworth;Literary achievements:Works:⑴Poetry: The Fountain, The White-Footed Deer, A Forest Hymn, and The Flood of Years (small output, but high skills)⑵Translation: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey into English blank verse (无韵体)⑶Most famous poems:“Thanatopsis”;“To a Waterfowl”:Bryant parallels the bird's instinct to a "Power."Reading comprehension“God knows,” exclaimed he, at his wit’s end; “I’m not myself----I’m somebody else----that’s me yonder----no----that’s somebody else, got in my shoes,----I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they’ve changed my gun, and every thing’s changed, and I’m changed, and I can’t tell what’s my name, or who I am!”A: Identify the work and the authorB: The speaker says he is changed. Do you think he is changed?C: What idea does the quoted sentences express?A: Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Wrinkle”B: It’s the social environment that is changedC: When Rip is back home after a period of 20 years, he find that everything has changed. All those old values are gone, and he can hardly feel at home in a changed society. One of the functions that Rip serves in the story is to provide a measuring stick for change. It is through him that Irving expresses the theme that a desire for change, improvement, and progress subvert a stable society.四．Realism1.Father of American Poetry---Walt Whitman(1)Leaves of Grass ----- truly American Poetry（2）Artistic features : the poetic “I”:“free verse 自由体诗”Musical and rhythmical（3）Reading comprehension:“I loaf and invite my soul,I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.”Questions:A. Identify the author of the above two linesB. From which poem and which collection of the poet are these lines taken?C. What does the underlined part mean?A. Walt WhitmanB. “Song of Myself” in which Whitman’s masterpiece Leaves of GrassC. “A spear of summer grass” is an image that runs through the whole poem. A spear ofgrass just means a leaf of grass, because a grass leaf looks like a spear. The author emphasizes summer grass, because grass grows well in summer. So it stands for life and power2.Emily Dickinson(1)I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died:This poem is a skeptical poem. It contains a kind of Anti-Christian idea of death.This poem is a description of the moment of death. She sings her own death. It implies Dickinson’s denial of any supernatural power.(2)Reading comprehension:We passed the school, where children stroveAt recess----in the ring----We passed the fields of gazing grain----We passed the setting sun----Questions:A. Who is the author of this stanza taken from the poem “Because I could not stop for Death----”?B. What do the underlined parts symbolize?C. Where were “we”heading toward?A. These lines are taken from a poem written by Emily Dickinson.B. The School, t he Fields of Gazing Grain, the Setting Sun symbolize three stages of one’s life: youth, manhood, and old age.C. “We” were riding in a hearse (or a carriage), heading toward Eternity.3.Mark T wain(meaning “twelve feet”; the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens);“the true father of our national literature;Mark Twain’s life is a mirror of AmericaLocal colorism : a trend dominant in American literature in the late 1860s and early 1870s (Westward expansion)The Gilded Age 《镀金时代》: written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner, exploring the individualism in a world of unstable values, naming the get-rich-quick years of the post-Civil War era.Masterpieces: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(the climax of Twain’s literary c reativity)4.Henry James(1)Literary status: the first American writer to conceive his career in international terms(2)The Portrait of A Lady:The Portrait of a Lady explores the conflict between the individual independence and the British society’s con vention(3)Major works:Daisy Miller (a young American girl who gets “killed”by the winter in Rome); The Europeans (some Europeans hard to adapt to the American life); The Portrait of A Lady (the life journey of an American girl in a European cultural environment)The Bostonians (women liberation); The Princess Casamassima (naturalistic mode); The Turn of the Screw (oppressed children); The Beast in the Jungle (imaginative obsessionThe Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors (the most “perfect”), and The Golden Bowl (his most mature and his best, all dealing with his grand theme of freedom through perception)(4)Psychological approach to his subject matter: the inner life of human beings; the emphasis on psychology and on the human consciousness; the forerunner of the 20th century “stream-of-consciousness”novels and the founder of psychological realism5.Theodore Dreiser(1)Literary status: “the wheelhorse of American naturalism”, “the chief spokesman for the realistic novels”, “a profound and prescient critic of debased American values”(2)Literary achievementsSister Carrie(tracing the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G. W. Hurstwood); “T rilogy of Desire”: The Financier金融家, The Titan巨头, and The Stoic斯多葛(dealing with powerful business)；(3)An American Tragedy美国悲剧(Dreiser’s greatest work, a story of a young man who wants to be wealthy and acts as if the only way he can be truly fulfilled is by acquiring wealth, through marriage if necessary)五．ModernismBrief definition: the experimentation and fragmentation of the human experience, characterized by deviations from the norms of society; the essence is a break with the past; including symbolism, impressionism, imagism, expressionism, dada, etc.1.Jazz music of the American Negro---the most influential are form to originate in the United States----spread throughout the world. And with the slow disintegration of old prejudices came the“Harlem Renaissance”, prepared the way for the emergence of numerous black writers after mid-century.2.John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath3.Ezra Pound(1)a forerunner or founder of American modern poetry, one of the most controversial figures in 20th century American literature.a leading spokesman of the “Imagist Movement”。