美国文学赏析整理

一I heard the merry grasshopper then sing,The black-clad cricket bear a second part,They kept one tune, and played on the same string, Seeming to glory in their little art.Shall creatures abject thus their voices raise?And in their kind resound their maker’s praise, Whilst I, as mute, can warble forth no higher lays?“Under the cooling shadow of a stately Elm, Close state I by a goodly River’s side,Where gliding streams the Rocks did overwhelm;A lonely place with pleasures dignifi’d.I once that lov’d the shady woods so well,Now thought the rivers did the trees excel,And if the sun would ever shine there would I dwell.“While musing thus with contemplation fed,And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain,The sweet tongu’d Philomel percht o’er my hea d, And chanted forth a most melodious strain, Which rapt me so with wonder and delight,I judg’d my hearing better than my sight.题目：the 9th of Contemplations作者：Anne Bradstreet赏析：1. Rhyme royal: sevenline iambicpetametre 七行五步抑扬格2. Rhyme: ababccc3. Theme: religion4. 象征：black-clad=death; abject=admittingdefeat; maker= god5. A genuine expression of poetic feeling inthe presence of nature.The poem offers the reader an insight into the mentality of the early Puritan pioneering in a new world. The poet heard the grasshopper and the cricket sing, and she searched for her own soul accordingly.6. She saw sth metaphysical inhering in thephysical, a mode of perception which was singularly Puritan二It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method.In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalog more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition, I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning.题目：Autobiography作者：Benjamin Franklin赏析：1. One of Ben jamin Franklin’s literary successes. 1771-1788, incomplete when he died.2. Purpose: to make the experience of his own career, the conduct and habit of life which had led to success in his own case, a source of help and inspiration to others.3. The story of his struggles, errors, experiments with himself, accomplishment.4. Wonderful frankness & extreme simplicity三“God knows, I’m not myself—I’m somebody else—… and I’m changed, and I can’t tell what’s my name, or who I am.”RipDame Van Winkle题目：Rip Van Winkle作者：Washington Irving赏析：1. Rip: self-centered, careless,anti-intellectual, imaginative, and holly as the overgrown child. He symbolizes the immature America.2. Dame Van Winkle (Rip’s wife):symbolizes the puritanical discipline and the work ethic of Franklin.3. Why sleep 20 years?Purpose: to show us clearly the conflicts and dreams of the nations—the conflict of innocence and experience, work and leisure, the old and the new, the head and the heart.It is also to tell us that a man who has looked toward the beginning of civilization in America can make a choice in his analysis of his own life.4. Inevitably changing America.四A subtle chain of countless rings, The next unto the farthest brings; The eye reads omens where it goes, And speaks all languages the rose; And, striving to be man, the worm, Mounts through all the spires of form. 题目：Nature作者：Ralph Waldo Emerson赏析：1. Transcendentalism2. Prose: casual style (derived from his journals or lectures);Characterized by a series of short, declarative sentences, which are quite logically connected but will flower out into illustrative statements of truth and thoughts.Comparisons and metaphors to make the general ideas of his works clearlyexpressed.Employ literary sources to make andenrich his own points but never let them take the full reins of his discussion.五Hester Prynne 女主角Roger Chillingworth 女主角的丈夫Arthur Dimmesdale 牧师。