美国文学期末考试重点
美国文学期末考试复习必备(精)
美国文学期末考试复习必备（精）1. What’s Puritanism?A religious and political movement which appeals to the right of the individual to political & religious independence. It includes three parts: a code of values, a point of view & a philosophy of life2. What are the basic Puritan beliefs?1). Total Depravity 2). Unconditional Election 3). Limited Atonement 4). Irresistible Grace 5). Perseverance of the "saints"3. What are American Puritan values?Sobriety thrift, Self-reliance Diligence, Struggle, simple tastes4. What are the features of American literature in the Colonial Period?A. Humble origins: diaries, journals, histories, letters. Its various forms, occupy a major position in the literature of the early colonial period.B. in content: serving either god or colonial expansion or bothC. in form: imitating English literary traditions.D. in style: tight and logic structure, precise and compact expression, avoidance of rhetorical decoration, adoption of homely imagery and simplicity of diction.E. Symbolism formed in this period ------To the pious Puritan, the physical, phenomenal world was nothing but a symbol of God.F. Simple, fresh and direct styleG. the Puritanism formed in this period was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American literature.5.What are the features of Washington Irving’s works?(1) Gentility, urbanity, pleasantness (2) Avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining (3) Enveloping stories in an atmosphere (4) Vivid and true characters (5) Humor – smiling while reading (6) Musical language6. What is theme of “Rip Van Winkle”?①it reveals conservative attitude of Irving. ②it might be an illustration of Irving’s argument that revolution upset the natural order of things.A. The story of man who has difficulties facing his advancing age;B.The contradictory impulses in America toward work-the puritan attitude as opposed to America desire for leisure;C .The theme of escape from one's responsibilities and even one's history;D .The loss of identity.7. What are the author’s attitude changes?It reveals conservative attitude of Irving and he is Unwilling to accept a modern democratic America and prefers the past & a dream-like world 8. What’s New England Transcendentalism?Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the history of American literature in the 19th century. Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “the recognition（认知）in man of thecapacity of knowing truth intuitively（直觉地）”. Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Over-soul, the individual and Nature.9. What are its basic assumptions?The intuitive faculty, instead of the rational or sensical, became the means for a conscious union of the individual psyche with the world psyche also known as the Over soul, life-force, prime mover and God 10. What are Allan Poe’s poetics theories?The poetry should appeal only to the sense of beauty, not truth, and sets himself against realistic details in poetry. He makes good use of a number of poetic devices to create a mood appropriate to the theme of his poems.11. Why was Nathaniel Hawthorne a master of symbolism?He uses concrete objects as well as characters to serve as his symbols. He likes to uses masks, veils, shadows to give dramatic forms to the universal dilemmas of humanity12. What is the theme of Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter?It Condemned the Puritan philosophy of life.Sin, knowledge and human condition; the nature of evil; identity and society4. What is the symbolic me aning of the Scarlet Letter “A”?A.” Adultery", a token of shameB. a sign of Hester's "ability“C. "Angel" appearing in the skyD.”Adamic", since the sin is prehistoric and human E .the rising “America"13. What story is told in Moby-Dick?It is a thrilling adventure story which is the realistic about a whaling voyage within which is set a symbolic account of the conflict between man and his fate.14. What is the symbolic meaning of Moby-Dick?1) Mystery of the universe, 2) power of grant nature, 3) evil of the world 4) Its whiteness-paradoxical color: death and corruption, purity, innocence and youth.15. What are the popular themes of Emily Dickinson’s poetry? Death, love, friendship, nature, immortality.ment on the image of Huckleberry Finn?He is loyal, cheerful, fair-minded boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience, with the eventual victory of his moral conscience over his social awareness, Huck grows. Huck is not only a lovely boy in the novel, but also a portrait standing for the young America. Huck is not only a lovely boy in the novel, but also a portrait standing for the young America.17. What’s the social significance of him?Huck develops a different view of blacks through the story. It is not an instant change, but a gradual process. Huck himself undergoes a change; he stops accepting the social norms and instead follows his own beliefs. He acquires these beliefs after many adventures with the slave Jim. In thisway, Twain encourages people to be like Huck and not to accept the racism just because society accepts it.18. Why are naturalists inevitably pessimistic in their view?A. Naturalism was greatly influenced by Darwin's evolutionary theory and French literatureB. Naturalists accepted the more negative implications of Darwin's theory and used it to count for the behavior of those characters in literary works who are conceived as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.C. Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic.19.What are the features of Frost’s poetry?1. Frost’s poetry mainly reflects life in rural New England2. His poems often shift dramatically from humorous tones to tragic ones3. Much of his poetry is concerned with how people interact with their environment4. Frost disliked free verse; He often wrote in the standard meter of blank verse20. What is the theme of “The Road Not taken” Individualism, Caution, Commitment, Accepting a ChallengeAnd “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”?The poem isprimarily oriented towards the pleasures of the scene and the responsibility of life.21.What are the features of modernist literature?A. Its strong and conscious break with traditional forms, perceptions and techniques of expression.B. Its great concern with language and aspects of its medium.22. What is “Lost generation”?Literally, it is the generation of people born between 1883 and 1900.They were disillusioned by World War I and displeased with American social values, sexual and aesthetic conventions, and established morality. They first fled to cities such as Chicago & San Francisco; then to Paris, London, Madrid, Barcelona, and Rome. They were full of youthful idealism and pioneered new ways of writing; they were devoid of faith and alienated from civilization.23. What is a typical Hemingway Code Hero?The Code Hero believes in “Nada,” meaning nothing. There is also no after life.•The Code Hero is an individualist and free-willed. He believes in courage and honor and has his own set of morals and principles based on his beliefs in honor, courage and endurance.• A code hero never shows emotions.• A code hero does not commit to women.• A code hero shows qualities such as bravery, adventure, and love of travel.• A code hero dislikes darkness. It symbolizes death and is a source of fear. The rite of manhood for the code hero is facing death.24.What is the theme of the short story “A Clean Well-LightedPlace”?Nothing (or nada) through the old man's unsuccessful suicide and the middle-aged man's soliloquy.25.What is the theme of The Great Gatsby?A sensitive and symbolic treatment of the themes of contemporary life related with irony and pathos to the legend of the "America dream" What kind of person is Gatsby?He is a poor youth from the Midwest and at last became a self-made wealthy man. Gatsby is the last romantic heroes and he is a mysterious figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a mind that embodies America itself.26.What are Faulkner’s famous novels? What are the features of his novels? "The sound and the Fury", "As I Lay Dying", "Light in the August", "Absalom, Absalom!" 2) On history and the problem of race; on folk human of the south; on horror, violence and abnormal to arouse moral outrage.1.Discuss Twain’s art of fiction2.A. Mark Twain uses the Mississippi alley as his fictional kingdom,writing about the landscape and people, the customs and the dialects of one particular region, and is therefore known as a local colorist. B. He creates life-like characters, especially the unconventional Huckleberry Finn, who runs away from civilization and stands opposite to conventional village morality. C. He uses a simple, direct vernacular language, totally different from any precious literary language. It is the kind of colloquial belonging to the lower class, the living local American English.D. He has created a special humor to satirize and the decayed convention.2 1). The story takes place along the Mississippi River before the Civil War in the United States, around 1850. Along the river floats a small raft, with two people on it: One is an ignorant, uneducated black slave named Jim and the other is little uneducated outcast white boy, Huck Finn. The novel relates the story of the escape of Jim from slavery and, more important, how Huck Finn, floating along with Jim and helping him as best as he could, changes his mind, his prejudice, about Black people, and comes to accept Jim as a man and as a close friend as well.2.) (theme)1) The Theme of the novel may be best summed in a word “freedom”: Huck wants to escape from the bond of civilization and Jim wants to escape from the yoke of slavery. 2) The novel is a criticism of social injustice, hypocrisy, conservativeness and narrow-mindedness of the American small town society.3.Make a brief comment on Mark Twain’s achievements in this novel in 200-250 words.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, first published in 1876, is a child’s adventure story; it is also, however, the story of a young boy’s transition into a young man. In some ways, it is a bildungsroman, a novel whose principle subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a youthful main character. It is not a true bildungsroman, however, because Twain did not take Tom into full1. The hero of the novel through adventures with lively style to satirize the American hypocrisy of social custom, vulgar hypocrisy of religious rituals and inflexible stale school education2. "Tom Sawyer--with its strong deep local characteristics of humor and keen observation of the character, had become the greatest of the children's literature works, is a United States rural " golden era "4. 1)The Pequod-a symbol of doom（death);named after a Native American tribe in Massachusetts, did not survive the arrival of white men (extincted), is painted gloomy black and covered in whale teeth and bones 2) Moby Dick-unknown and unknowable truths, inscrutable, mysterious, mirrors its environment, only the surface of the ocean is available for human observation and interpretation, the depths conceal unknown truths--A metaphor for the human relationship with the Christian God: God is unknown and cannot be pinned down (defined). to the pequod’screw, Moby Dick is a concept onto which they can display their anxiety about dangerous and frightening jobs, to Ahab Moby Dick is a manifestation of all that is wrong with the world, It is his destiny to get rid of this symbolic evil 3)Queequeg’s Coffin sy mbolizes life and death.5. Try to discuss the theme of “The Minister’s Black Veil”.A. Sin and EvilB. History and AntiquityC. Alienation - a character is in a state of isolation because of self-cause, or societal cause, or a combination of both.D. Puritan New England - used as a background and setting in many tales.E. Other themes include individual vs. society, self-fulfillment vs. frustration, hypocrisy vs. integrity, love vs. hate, and fate vs. free will, etc.。
美国文学史期末考试资料
一.殖民时期的美国：Colonial America 17c 早 --------- 18c 末1. 从英国探险者和殖民者在新大陆的作品开始，描述他们在新大陆真实而精力充沛的冒险。
2. 另一类为淸教作品Philip Freneau 菲利普•费瑞诺：第•位美国抒情诗人兼记者^Father of American Poe^X 美国 诗歌之父）Puritanism:淸教主义American Puritanism influences on American literature:1. Idealism and optimism 理想主义和乐观主义2. Symbolism 象征主义3. Simplicity.简洁1. Ed wards 爱徳兹：die first modern American can the country's last medieval man.v tlie current of Transcendentalism, originating in tlie piety of the Puritans, vecoimng a philosophy in Jonathan Edwards, passing through Emerson.''超验论由清教徒的虔诚演变而来在乔纳森•爱徳华兹的哲理得到发展继而传给爱默生2 Franklin 富兰克林Edwards & Franklin:Edwards represents the upper levels of the American mind ・1•不同点Franklin represents the lower levers. Tradition of religious idealism 理想主义的宗教信仰 2 the American Puritanism is a two facetedthe levelheaded common sense —明智冷静的判断力 F3. The one was as a good Puritan as the other*.两人均是虔诚的宗教徒American Romanticism:浪漫主义1. Irving 欧文：美国第一个获得国际声誉的浪漫主义作家①The first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame. ② The father of American litcraturc.Rip Van WinkleThe Skatch Book 见闻札记The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 睡觉的传说The Sketch Book 见闻札记1） . The short story as a genre in American literature 开创美国短片小说先河2） . The Sketch Book also marked the beginning of American Romanticism 标志着浪漫主义的开 始 “ zIrving stories are among the best of American short stories 美国短篇小说之最Irving's charecters:a.Irving's style can be described as beautifiil.lt is imitative,but he was a hightly skillful writerb.He avoids moralizing as much as possible 尽量避免说教 c. He is good at enveloping his stories in an atmosphere •擅长将故事在一个内涵丰富的环 境下A rare genius in human historyJack of all trades （杂家） 1） He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the U.S.: ①TheDeclaration of Independence ②The Treaty of Alliance with France 美法 同盟条约 ① The Treaty of Peace with Englan 英美和平条约 ©Constitution "2） His claim to a place in literature rests chiefly on his Poor Richard'sAlmanac （P34几句需言看）Lightning-rod fire department-street and AiHobio^whv. lighting-bifocal w as the first of its kind in litcraUirc •（文学史上该类作品开山之classes接.明朗） 作）reveal the pattern of Puritan: simplicity, directness, concision.（简单、展开d.His characters are vivid and true 生动，貞实e.Humorf.The finished and musical language 音乐般优美的语言2. Cooper 库珀1). He was one of the first authors to write about the American Westward movement.2). "LeutherstockinQ Tales、'《皮袜子故事集》主人公NaMy BunppoThe Pioneers《拓荒者》The Last of the Mohicans《最后的莫西丁人》The prairie《大章原》The Pathfinder《探鹿者》The Deerslayer《猎鹿者》3)He was a mythic writer. And he was good at inventing plots・神话作家，编造故事的能力The greatness of cooperI ・ He created a myth about the formative period of American nation 创造美国格式时代的神话2.He wrote with increasing awareness of the importance to fiction of the Western Frontier.3.He was at once devoted to principles of social order and responsive to the idea of nature and freedom in the eildemess他马上接受了新的社会规则，对自然和子偶的理念做出了回应4.He is a mythic writer and good at inventing plots・New England Transcendentalism:超验主义DefinitionAuthors: Emerson & Thoreau; Hawthorne & Melville; Whiteman & Dickenson; Allen Poe1 ・ Emerson：强调"oversouL (超灵) 作品：1 ・NaWe 2・The人〃?幺川口〃2 Schohw 3・Self・“liunceNature regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism 新英格兰超验主义的圣经The A〃疋Scholar regarded as American s Declaration of Intellecnial Independence Emerson s 文艺观点optimistic1)True poetry and true art should ennoble .It should serve as a moral purification and a passage toward organic unity and higher reality真正的诗歌和艺术是髙贵•的，是为净化灵魂使之达到有机统一儿通向更髙的现实而服务的、、2)Emerson places emphasis on ideas, symbols, and imaginative words.他注重信念,象征和有想象力的词语3)As to theme, emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America which was to him a long poem in itself, to celebrate the life of today.他号召美国作家为美国和今天的生活写作，对他来说，豹本身就是一首长诗Emerson's写作特点He placed emphasis on spirit or the oversoul. which is the most important thing in the university He stressed the importance of the individual.He regarded Nature as the symbol of spirit・Emerson's importance in the intellectual history of America lies in the fact that he make the nation have its own feature.标志着美国文化有了自己的地位，特色2.Thoreau 梭罗强调^nature''His masterpiece,瞅〃伽.is the first and foremost, is the book on self-culture and human perfectibility.最董要的，这是一本关于自我修养与完善的书。
美国文学期末必考点总结
20151120美国文学必考点总结By Wang HX.说明：1，名词解释可参考我以前发的资料或者自己的资料，也可在网上搜美国文学名词解释。
2，作家作品一定要正确搭配，还要会写下面我列出的作家和作品。
作者是什么时代的代表，有什么称号要记住。
1,英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet，作品<The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up In America>first woman poet.2,Edward Taylor超验主义的先驱。
3，Hard work,thrift,piety and sobriety。
清教徒强调的四点，会写，可能填空。
4，Benjamin Franklin，作品"Poor Richard's Almanac"包括很多collection of proverbs流行谚语集。
The Autobiography自传。
5，Thomas Paine托马斯·佩因1737-1809"Great Common of Mankind"最平凡的人。
作品"American Crisis"《美国危机》，Common Sense常识。
6，Thomas Jefferson托马斯·杰弗逊，drafted the Declaration of Independence.起草了独立宣言。
All Men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life,Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.人人生而平等，他们都从“造物主”那边被赋予了某些不可转让的权利，其中包括生命权、自由权和追求幸福的权利。
美国文学考试重点
美国文学考试重点美国文学考试的重点可以分为以下几个方面：1. 早期美国文学：- 殖民时期文学：包括早期殖民地的日记、信件和宗教作品等，如《普利茅斯纪事》和《普罗维登斯计划》。
- 紧随其后的大量宗教文学作品，如《新英格兰的校训》。
- 托马斯·佩恩的《常识》：这本书在美国独立运动中起到了重要的作用。
2. 美国文学的形成与发展：- 19世纪初的浪漫主义文学：如华盛顿·欧文的《睡美人和其他故事》和詹姆斯·菲尼莫尔·库珀的《最后的莫西干人》。
- 华尔特·惠特曼的《草叶集》：这本诗集在美国文学史上具有重要地位。
- 女性作家：如哈丽特·比彻·斯托的《汤姆叔叔的小屋》和艾米莉·迪金森的诗歌作品。
3. 20世纪的美国文学：- 现代主义文学：如欧内斯特·海明威的《老人与海》和威廉·福克纳的《喧哗与骚动》。
- 战争文学：如约翰·史坦贝克的《愤怒的葡萄》和约瑟夫·海勒的《23个故事和一个司令》。
- 迈尔斯·杰克逊的《杀死一只知更鸟》：这是美国文学中一本重要的反种族主义作品。
4. 当代美国文学：- 现实主义：如托尼·莫里森的《亲爱的》和唐·德里罗的《百年孤独》。
- 同性恋与性别研究：如杰夫·艾斯特里奇的《中性国度》和艾美丽·P. 亨德森的《一个男小地方》。
此外，还需要了解美国文学的主要流派和文学理论，如现实主义、象征主义、后现代主义等，以及相关的文学批评方法。
最好的准备方式是广泛阅读美国经典文学作品并理解其背后的文化、历史和社会背景。
美国文学-文学诗歌期末考试复习大纲
英美文学（2）复习大纲1. Multiple Choices （30 points）基本的文学史实，包括不同时期文学的特点，主要作家的作品以及写作特点等。
2. Gap Filling (10 points)主要作家的代表作3. Definition of Terms (20 points)ImageryWords or phrases that create pictures, or images, in the reader’s mind.American TranscendentalismAme rican Transcendentalism or “New England Transcendentalism” or “American Renaissance” is more of a tendency, an attitude, than the philosophy of Transcendentalists. To “transcend” something is to rise above it, to pass beyond its limits. The major features of New England Transcendentalism can be summarized as the follows:Firstly, the Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirits, or the Over soul, as the most import thing in the Universe.Secondly, they stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual was the most important element of society.Thirdly, they offered a fresh perception of nature as symbol of the Spirit or God. Nature was, to them, alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence. Transcendentalism is based on the belie f that the most fundamental truths about life and death can be reached only by going beyond the world of senses.As a philosophical and literary movement, Transcendentalism flourished in New England from 1830s to the Civil War. Its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau.Free VerseFree Verse is a verse that has either no metrical pattern or an irregular pattern. Although most free verse belongs to the 19th and 20th centuries, it can be found in earlier literature, particularly in the Psalms of the Bible.NaturalismAn extreme form of realism. Naturalistic writers usually depict the sordid side of life and show characters who are severely, if not hopelessly, limited by their environment or heredity.ImagismIt is an influential literary movement that took place in Europe and America from about 1910 to 1920. The imagist poet creates a single sharp image that evokes an emotional response in the reader. Imagism was in a reaction to the “bad habits” of the 19th century poets who were too explicit in their commentary and too repetitious in their subjects, patterns, and meters.Local ColoristsA group of writers who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of specific regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, the other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. The major local colorists are Hamlin Garland, Mark Twain.Lost GenerationThis term has been used again and again to describe the people of the postwar years. When the First World War broke out, many young men volunteered to take part in “the war to end all wars” only to find that modern warfare was not as glorious or heroic as they thought it to be. Disillusioned and disgusted by the frivolous, greedy, and heedless way of life in America, they began to write and they wrote from their own experience in the war. Among these young writers were the most prominent figures in American literature, especially in modern American literature, for example, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, etc. They were basically expatriates who left America and formed a community of writers and artists in Paris, involved with other European novelists and poets in their experimentation on new modes of thought and expression. They were later called by an American writer, Gertrude Stein, also expatriates, “The Lost Generation”.Hemingway HeroesThose protagonists in Hemingway’s fiction, who survive in the process if seeking to master the code known as “grace under pressure” with honesty, the discipline, and the restraint.American Puritanism1. The beliefs and practices characteristic of Puritans (most of whom were Calvinists who wished to purify the Church of England of its Catholic aspects)2. Strictness and austerity in conduct and religionAmerican Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American literature. It has become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, rather than a set of tenets, so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the Americans breathe. Without some understanding of Puritanism, there can be no real understanding of American culture and literature.The Jazz Agethe era that immediately followed World War I and lasted until the beginning of the Depression, during which jazz increased in popularity. It was a reaction to the austerity and hardship of the war and was characterized by extravagance and hedonism.4. Questions (22 points)Because I could not stop for DeathSong of MyselfThe Road Not TakenPactIn a Station of the Metro5. Topic Discussion(18 points)Summarize the story of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and comment on the theme of the novel。
美国文学期末复习知识点-绪论
绪论1.一般认为，美国文学史大致可分为七个时期，分别是殖民地时期、独立战争前后时期、南北战争时期、南北战争后至第一次大战前时期、两次大战之间时期、第二次大战后至越南战争前时期、越南战争后至新世纪初时期。
2.殖民地时期的美国文学主要有三类，它们是原住民印第安人口头文学和民间故事、欧洲探险者到北美的探险日记和航海记录、早期到北美殖民地的英国官员和牧师的散文和游记。
3.在殖民地英国官员和牧师作家们中大致可分为两类，即清教主义作家和反清教主义作家。
4.独立战争前后的美国文学中，发展成果最为突出的文学类型是散文。
5.第一位获得国际声誉的美国小说家是华盛顿·欧文，他的短篇小说代表作是《瑞普·凡·温克尔》、《睡谷传奇》。
6.詹姆斯·范·库柏创作了“皮袜子五部曲”：《开拓者》、《最后一个莫希干人》、《草原》、《探路人》、《逐鹿者》；他是第一位描写美洲殖民地历史的历史小说家、第一位刻画印第安人形象的小说家。
7.爱默生的散文《论自然》是美国超验主义运动的宣言，在该文中，爱默生提出新大陆需要精神独立。
超验主义是民主思想在哲学上的表现。
8.美国诗人瓦尔特·惠特曼的诗集《草叶集》的问世标志着美国浪漫主义运动达到高潮，爱默生欢呼的伟大的美国诗人诞生了。
9.惠特曼去世标志着浪漫主义文学时代的结束，美国文学迅速走进一个现实主义和自然主义文学发展新时代。
10.马克·吐温的小说《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》开创了美国文学的一代新风；威廉·豪威尔斯被认为是美国现实主义文学的奠基人，他最先指出“金钱成了时代的史诗”，“当个百万富翁成了美国人的理想”；而亨利·詹姆斯则开创了20世纪美国心理小说的新方向。
11.欧·亨利被誉为“美国短篇小说之父”，与法国作家莫泊桑和俄国作家契诃夫并列为世界三大短篇小说家。
12.弗兰克·诺里斯是第一个名副其实的美国自然主义作家，西奥多·德莱赛被称为第一次世界大战前最优秀的自然主义作家，其代表作品有《嘉莉妹妹》、《美国的悲剧》。
美国文学期末复习资料
美国文学期末复习资料美国文学期末复习资料美国文学是一门广泛而深入的学科，涵盖了从殖民地时期到现代的众多作品和作家。
为了帮助大家复习期末考试，本文将以不同的主题和时期为线索，介绍一些重要的美国文学作品和相关知识。
一、殖民地时期的文学在殖民地时期，美国文学主要以宗教为主题，反映了早期殖民者的信仰和生活。
《普利茅斯纪事》是美国文学史上的里程碑之一，它记录了普利茅斯殖民地的建立和早期的困难。
另外，约翰·史密斯的《弗吉尼亚史诗》和威廉·布拉德福的《普利茅斯植民地纪事》也是重要的作品。
二、启蒙时代的文学启蒙时代是美国文学的重要时期，这一时期的作品反映了人们对自由、理性和独立思考的追求。
本杰明·富兰克林是启蒙时代的代表人物，他的《贫穷理性者的儿子》和《自传》都是重要的作品。
此外，托马斯·潘恩的《常识》和托马斯·杰斐逊的《独立宣言》也是这一时期的重要文献。
三、浪漫主义时期的文学浪漫主义时期是19世纪美国文学的高峰期，作家们开始关注个人情感和内心体验。
华盛顿·欧文的《睡谷传奇》和爱德加·爱伦·坡的《乌鸦》是这一时期的代表作品。
此外，纳撒尼尔·霍桑的《红字》和赫尔曼·梅尔维尔的《白鲸》也是不可忽视的作品。
四、现实主义时期的文学现实主义时期是19世纪末到20世纪初的文学运动，作家们开始关注社会问题和人类命运。
马克·吐温的《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》和斯蒂芬·克莱恩的《红字》是这一时期的代表作品。
此外，亨利·詹姆斯的《国际象棋之家》和埃德蒙·威尔逊的《了不起的盖茨比》也是重要的作品。
五、现代主义和后现代主义时期的文学现代主义和后现代主义时期是20世纪美国文学的重要阶段，作家们开始挑战传统的叙事方式和观念。
欧内斯特·海明威的《老人与海》和威廉·福克纳的《喧哗与骚动》是现代主义时期的代表作品。
美国文学复习提纲(呕心沥血完全版)
美国文学复习提纲平时35。
期末65。
1．Match the literary work in column B with the author in the column A. (20 points)2. Decide the following statements true or false. (10 points)3. Define the following literary terms (20 points)一、时间（1分）；二、代表人物（1分）；三；主要特征（2分）；四、文学文化意义（1分）Hemingway’s “iceberg theory” and “the code hero”Iceberg theory:It was firstly proposed by Ernest Hemingway, the representative writer of the Lost Generation, in Death In the Afternoon (1932) which has such a description “The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.”The theory suggests that the writer include in the text only a small portion of what he knows, leaving about ninety percent of the content a mystery that grows beneath the surface of the writing. It‟s influence as a stylist was nearly expressed in the praise of the Nobel Prize Committee about “his powerful style-forming mastery of the art” of writing modern fiction.The code hero: Term Coined by Philip Young in 1952 to refer to Hemingway characters that have learned to control the chaos in their lives, chaos in the form of physical or mental stress, sometimes both. As Bertrand Russell comments, Hemingway‟s heroes have such kind of courage that enables a man to behave like a man, to assert this dignity in face of diversity. A code hero could be destroyed but not defeated.Modernism:Modernism is an omnibus term for a number of tendencies in the arts which were prominent in the first half of the 20th c.; In English literature it includes symbolism, futurism, expressionism, imagism, dada, and surrealism. It is particularly associated with the writings of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce etc. Broadly, Modernism reflects the impact upon literature of the psychology of Freud and the anthropology of Sir J. Frazer, as expressed in The Golden Bough (1890-1915). A sense of cultural relativism is pervasive in much modernist writing, as is an awareness of the irrational and the workings of the unconscious mind. Modernist literature is a literature of discontinuity, both historically, being based upon a sharp rejection of the procedures and values of the immediate past, to which it adopts an adversary stance; and aesthetically.The Lost Generation:The "Lost Generation" is a term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway in his novel, "The Sun Also Rises" used to refer to his generation; those who experienced alienation and the loss of ideals yet unable to come to terms with the new era when civilization had gone mad resulting from World War I .This generation included distinguished artists such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. EliotThe beat generation:The Beat Generation is a term for a group of American writers who came into prominence during the 1950s and offered a radical critique of middle class American values. The beats celebrated individual freedom, Zen Buddhism, and the free use of drugs;they attacked the conformity, complacency, and commercialism of the “tranquilized fifties.” The most prominent members of the group were the poet Allen Ginsberg and the novelist Jack Kerouac.New Criticism:The New Criticism is a movement in American literary criticism from the 1930s to the 1960s, which name comes from John Crowe Ransom‟s book The New Criticism (1941).The basic principle of New Criticism was to locate the meaning of a literary work not in the intention of the author nor in the experience of the reader, but in “the text itself,”the internal relations of language that constitute a “poem.”Also to be avoided, or at least subordinated to close reading, were “extrinsic” (that is, not dealing exclusively with the language of the text) approaches to the study of literature: social, psychological, economic, political, or historical.When it was at its peak, New Criticism greatly influenced both literary critics in their evaluation of literary works and poets in their writing of poems.Postmodernism:In literature, Postmodernism is a term used to describe characteristics of some contemporary literature that distinguish it from the literature of modernism. Where modernist literature was characterized by its commitment to the value of a unified, coherent work of art employing symbol and myth, exhibiting alienation from ordinary life, postmodernism celebrates incoherence, discontinuity, parody, popular culture, and the principle of metafiction. Postmodernism has combined formal experimentalism with powerful social and cultural criticism.Stream of Consciousness:The term was originally a psychological term to refer to the continuous flow of sense-perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories in the human mind. In literature it refers to a literary method of representing such a blending of mental processes in fictional characters, usually in an unpunctuated or disjointed form of interior monologue. As an important device of modernist fiction and its later imitators, the technique was pioneered by Dorothy Richardson in Pilgrimage (1915-35) and by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922), and further developed by Virginia Woolf in Mrs Dalloway (1925) and William Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury (1928).4. text analysis: 6选3 (30 points)In a Station of the Metro:1. Why does the poet call the faces of pedestrians “apparition”?Pound contrasts the factual, mundane image that he actually witnessed with a metaphor from nature and thus infuses this “apparition” with visual beauty. There is a quick transition from the statement of the first line to the second line‟s vivid metaphor; this …super-pository‟ technique exemplifies the Japanese haiku style. The word “apparition” is considered crucial as it evokes a mystical and supernatural sense of imprecision which is then reinforced by the metaphor of the second line.2. What do “petals” and “bough” stand for?The plosive word …Petals‟ conjures ideas of delicate, feminine beauty which contrasts with the bleakness of the …wet, black bough‟.The Red Wheelbarrow:1. How does the first two lines differ from the other pairs of lines?There is no exact thing presented in the 1st two lines. But, by adding those first four words the meanings of the poem just explode into a million different possible meanings.2. What is the meaning of “depends upon” in the 1st pair of lines?“Hardness and aesthetics of life.”One’s-self I singThe 1855 "Song of Myself" had announced that the "word of the modern" was "a word en masse," and eventually Whitman would revise this 1867 Inscription to affirm that "En-Masse" was also "the word Democratic." In a modern, democratic society, as Tocqueville had said, no intermediate allegiances stand between the individual citizen and the entire body politic. The Self is indeed separate, isolated; it has renounced party and creed and local custom, all mediating bodies that provide a system of preference or exclusion."One‟s-Self I sing, a simple separate person," run the opening lines of Leaves of Grass from 1871 on, "Yet utter the word Democratic." A poetic universe of productive tension is hinted by that "Yet"; the tense equipoise between individualism and democracy, this poem suggests, is the foundational theme of Whitman‟s book. The poem then goes on to introduce the site and symbol for this reconciliation of individual to mass: the body, "physiology from top to toe." We receive individual identity through our body, . . . yet at the same time, physicality, and especially physical affection, are universal, binding us together in common humanity. Much of the boldly progressive politics of Whitman‟s poetry will follow from this emphasis on the body; thus his introduction of the theme of "physiology" is followed by his (then quite radical) insistence on the political equality of male and female.The poet he imagines in the 1855 preface is, like his ideal republic, balanced between self and other: "The soul has that measureless pride which consists in never acknowledging any lessons but its own. But it has sympathy as measureless as its pride and the one balances the other and neither can stretch too far while it stretches in company with the other. The inmost secrets of art sleep with the twain. The greatest poet has lain close betwixt both and they are vital to his style and thoughts."This vision of a poet stretching within a universe bounded by pride and sympathy had as its political analogue the paradox of an American republic poised between self-interest and public virtue, liberty and union, the interests of the many and the good of the one. The secretof Whitman's art and the American Union, the paradox of many in one, eventually became the opening inscription and balancing frame of Leaves of Grass:One's-Self I sing, a simple separate person,Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.Balanced between the separate person and the en masse, the politics of Leaves of Grass is neither liberal nor bourgeois in the classical sense of the terms; rather, the poems represent the republican ideals of early-nineteenth-century artisan radicalism, emphasizing the interlinked values of independence and community, personal wealth and commonwealth.The open boatNature’s Indifference to ManDespite the narrator‟s profusion of animistic (animal-like), humanistic (manlike), and deistic (godlike) characterizations of nature, Crane makes clear that nature is ultimately indifferent to the plight of man, possessing no consciousness that we can understand. As the stranded men progress through the story, the reality of nature‟s lack of concern for them becomes increasingly clear. The narrator highlights this development by changing the way he describes the sea. Early in the story, the sea snarls, hisses, and bucks like a bronco; later, it merely “paces to and fro,” no longer an actor in the men‟s drama. In reality, the sea does not change at all; onl y the men‟s perception of the sea changes. The unaltered activity of the gulls, clouds, and tides illustrates that nature does not behave any differently in light of the men‟s struggle to survive.Crane strengthens the idea that nature is indifferent to man by showing that it is as randomly helpful as it is hurtful. For every malevolent whim that the men suffer, they experience an unexpected good turn in the form of a favorable wind or calm night. The fact that the men almost seem to get assistance from nature destroys the notion of nature as an entirely hostile force. Nothing highlights this point so much as the correspondent‟s final rescue. Plowed to shore and saved by a freak wave, the correspondent must embrace the fact that the very thing that has put him in harm‟s way has saved him. This freak wave, however, may also be responsible for killing the much hardier oiler, a turn of events that demonstrates two ideas: nature is as much a harsh punisher as it is a benefactor, and nature does not act out of any motivation that can be understood in human terms.Man’s Insignificance in the Universe“The Open Boat” conveys a feeling of loneliness that comes from man‟s understanding that he is alone in the universe and insignificant in its workings. Underneath the men‟s and narrator‟s collective rants at fate and the universe is the fear of nothingness. They have an egotistical belief that they should have a role in the universe, that their existence should mean something. When the correspondent realizes by section VI that fate will not answer his pleas, he settles into despair. His subsequent recollection of the poem about the soldier who lies dying in Algiers reflects his feelings of alienation at being displaced from his position in the universe. Like the soldier who dies in alien territory, the correspondent fears that he too will perish without a connection to whatever gives him his sense of self.Throughout “The Open Boat,” the correspondent understands pain to be the necessary byproduct of his efforts to overcome nature, the willful enemy. He comes to value hissuffering because it is nobly derived; in the earlier sections, the correspondent, whom the narrator says is cynical, is often cheerful and talkative in his descriptions of the physical pain he experien ces. By the end of the story, however, the correspondent‟s new awareness that the universe is unconcerned with the situation‟s outcome makes him physically and spiritually weary. He decides that there is no higher purpose to surviving other than prolonging a life that is meaningless. His comment in section VII that the coldness of the water is simply “sad” underscores this despair. At this point, all sensations of pain and pleasure are merely physical and have no spiritual meaning.A clean well-lighted placeLife as NothingnessIn “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” Hemingway suggests that life has no meaning and that man is an insignificant speck in a great sea of nothingness. The older waiter makes this idea as clear as he can when he says, “It was all a nothing and man was a no thing too.” When he substitutes the Spanish word nada (nothing) into the prayers he recites, he indicates that religion, to which many people turn to find meaning and purpose, is also just nothingness. Rather than pray with the actual words, “Our Father wh o art in heaven,” the older waiter says, “Our nada who art in nada”—effectively wiping out both God and the idea of heaven in one breath. Not everyone is aware of the nothingness, however. For example, the younger waiter hurtles through his life hastily and happily, unaware of any reason why he should lament. For the old man, the older waiter, and the other people who need late-night cafés, however, the idea of nothingness is overwhelming and leads to despair.The Struggle to Deal with DespairThe old man and older waiter in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” struggle to find a way to deal with their despair, but even their best method simply subdues the despair rather than cures it. The old man has tried to stave off despair in several unsuccessful ways. We learn that he has money, but money has not helped. We learn that he was once married, but he no longer has a wife. We also learn that he has unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide in a desperate attempt to quell the despair for good. The only way the old man can deal with his despair now is to sit for hours in a clean, well-lit café. Deaf, he can feel the quietness of the nighttime and the café, and although he is essentially in his own private world, sitting by himself in the café is not the same as being alone.The older waiter, in his mocking prayers filled with the word nada, shows that religion is not a viable method of dealing with despair, and his solution is the same as the old man‟s: he waits out the nighttime in cafés. He is particular about the type of café he likes: the café must be well lit and clean. Bars and bodegas, although many are open all night, do not lessen despair because they are not clean, and patrons often must stand at the bar rather than sit at a table. The old man and the older waiter also glean solace from routine. The ritualistic café-sitting and drinking help them deal with despair because it makes life predictable. Routine is something they can control and manage, unlike the vast nothingness that surrounds them.A rose for EmilyTradition versus ChangeThrough the mysterious figure of Emily Grierson, Faulkner conveys the struggle that comes from trying to maintain tradition in the face of widespread, radical change. Jefferson is at a crossroads, embracing a modern, more commercial future while still perched on the edge of the past, from the faded glory of the Grierson home to the town cemetery where anonymous Civil War soldiers have been laid to rest. Emily herself is a tradition, steadfastly staying the same over the years despite many changes in her community. She is in many ways a mixed blessing. As a living monument to the past, she represents the traditions that people wish to respect and honor; however, she is also a burden and entirely cut off from the outside world, nursing eccentricities that others cannot understand.Emily lives in a timeless vacuum and world of her own making. Refusing to have metallic numbers affixed to the side of her house when the town receives modern mail service, she is out of touch with the reality that constantly threatens to break through her carefully sealed perimeters. Garages and cotton gins have replaced the grand antebellum homes. The aldermen try to break with the unofficial agreement about taxes once forged between Colonel Sartoris and Emily. This new and younger generation of leaders brings in Homer‟s company to pave the sidewalks. Although Jefferson still highly regards traditional notions of honor and reputation, the narrator is critical of the old men in their Confederate uniforms who ga ther for Emily‟s funeral. For them as for her, time is relative. The past is not a faint glimmer but an ever-present, idealized realm. Emily‟s macabre bridal chamber is an extreme attempt to stop time and prevent change, although doing so comes at the expense of human life.The Power of DeathDeath hangs over “A Rose for Emily,” from the narrator‟s mention of Emily‟s death at the beginning of the story through the description of Emily‟s death-haunted life to the foundering of tradition in the face of modern changes. In every case, death prevails over every attempt to master it. Emily, a fixture in the community, gives in to death slowly. The narrator compares her to a drowned woman, a bloated and pale figure left too long in the water. In the same description, he refers to her small, spare skeleton—she is practically dead on her feet. Emily stands as an emblem of the Old South, a grand lady whose respectability and charm rapidly decline through the years, much like the outdated sensibilities the Griersons represent. The death of the old social order will prevail, despite many townspeople‟s attempts to stay true to the old ways.Emily attempts to exert power over death by denying the fact of death itself. Her bizarre relationship to the dead bodies of the men she has loved—her necrophilia—is revealed first when her father dies. Unable to admit that he has died, Emily clings to the controlling paternal figure whose denial and control became the only—yet extreme—form of love she knew. She gives up his body only reluctantly. When Homer dies, Emily refuses to acknowledge it once again—although this time, she herself was responsible for bringing about the death. In killing Homer, she was able to keep him near her. However, Homer‟s lifelessness rendered him permanently distant. Emily and Homer‟s grotesque marriage reveals Emily‟s disturbing attempt to fuse life and death. However, death ultimately triumphs.5. Writing: focus on the main characters in the following texts. 5选2。
美国文学史期末考试复习资料
一、作者-作品1.Eugene O’Neill 尤金·奥尼尔Desire under the Elms榆树下的欲望2.Washington Irving华盛顿.欧文The Sketch Book见闻札记The Legend of Sleepy Hollow睡谷的传说3.Nathaniel Hawthorne霍桑The Scarlet Letter红字4.Herman Melville麦尔维尔Moby Dick白鲸5.Edgar Allan Poe艾伦.坡The Raven乌鸦6.Walt Whitman惠特曼Leaves of Grass草叶集7. Harriet Beecher Stowe 哈丽雅特.比彻.斯托Uncle Tom’s Cabin汤姆叔叔的小屋8. Henry James 亨利.詹姆斯in the Portrait of a Lady一位女士的肖像9.Mark Twain 马克.吐温TheAdventures ofHuckleberry Finn哈克贝里.费恩历险The Gilded Age镀金时代10. O. Henry 欧.亨利The Gift of the Magi麦琪的礼物11. Stephen Crane：史蒂芬.克莱恩The Red Badge of Courage红色英勇勋章12.Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞Sister Carrie嘉莉妹妹13.Jack London 杰克.伦敦The Call of the Wild野性的呼唤14. John Steinbeck 约翰.斯坦贝克The Grapes of Wrath愤怒的葡萄15.F. Scott Fitzgerald弗斯.菲茨杰拉德The Great Gatsby了不起的盖茨比16.Ernest Hemingway 海明威The Sun Also Rises太阳照样升起17.Katherine Anne Porter 凯瑟琳.安.波特Flowing Judas and other Stories犹大之花18. Ezra Pound 埃兹拉.庞德 Imagism 意象派The Cantos 诗章19.William Carlos Williams: 威廉.威廉姆斯The Red Wheelbarrow红色手推车20. Joseph Heller约瑟夫海勒：Catch-22 第22条军规21.Thomas Stearns Eliot爱略特The Waste Land荒原22.Zora Neal Hurston 佐拉.赫斯顿Their eyes were watching God 他们眼望上苍二、名词解释1.Transcendentalism超验主义:(1)As a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalis m (also known as “ American Renaissance”) flourshed in New England fr om the 1830s to the Civil War. It is the high tide of American romanticism and its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau. Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and agai nst the materialism of American society.(2)The major features of Transcendentalism:① The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想超灵宇宙② The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To t hem, the individual is the most important element of Society. 个体+社会③ The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbol ic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled w ith God’s overwhelming presence. 自然+上帝代表人物：Emerson, Thoreau2.The Gilded Age镀金时代：an age of excess and extremes, of decline and progress, of poverty and dazzling wealth, of gloom and buoyant hope. 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. 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。
美国文学期末重点复习资料
美国文学一．术语解释1，Transcendentalism(超验主义):简略版：It started in 1830s in US; which emphasis on spirit or oversoul and stressing importance of the individual; regarding nature as symbols of the spirit or God. It took idea from the romantic literatures of Europe, from Neo-Platonism and so on. Emerson was its representative.深层次版：American Transcendentalism: the emergence of the Transcendentalists as an identifiable movement took place during the late 1820s and 1830s, but the roots of their religious philosophy extended much farther back into American religious history. Transcendentalism and evangelical Protestantism followed separate evolutionary branches from American Puritanism, taking as their common ancestor the Calvinism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the Universe. They stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual was the most important element of society. They offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was, to them, alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence. Transcendentalism is based on the belief that the most fundamental truths about life and death can be reached only by going beyond the world of the senses. Emerson’s Nature has been called the “Manifesto of American Transcendentalism” and his The American Scholar has been rightly regarded as America’s “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”.美国超验主义：美国超验主义出现的19世纪20年代末期到三十年代，但是它的根源在宗教史上要远得多。
美国文学史及选读期末复习
美国文学史及选读期末复习.美国文学史复习1（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容：1）their voyage to the new land2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops3) About dealing with Indians4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit3、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 whochallenged 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。
美国文学期末复习知识点-第三部分
第三部分1.美国南北战争以北方的彻底胜利告终，蓄奴制瓦解了，为工业资本主义的大发展开辟了道路，标志着旧时代的结束和新时代的开始。
2.美国与欧洲的交往增多，英国查尔斯·达尔文的《物种的起源》和哲学家赫伯特·斯宾塞的“适者生存”理论传入美国，影响深远。
3.马克·吐温与查尔斯·华纳合著的《镀金时代》成了19世纪最后二十五年的简称。
4.宗教界的神学理论也出现了相应的变化。
神学家们指出财富是神圣的标志，根据上帝的旨意，政府的职责是保护私人财富。
哲学家和神学家顺应时势，力图证明自由竞争是合法的，政府应给予大力支持，让民众享受内战后重建时期带来的好处。
5.内战后的十年最突出的变化是商业成了全国实力和尊严的主要象征。
6.1899年，美国文学艺术院成立；1904年又建立美国文学艺术科学院，进一步从体制上巩固了严肃文学的地位。
7.来自欧洲的现实主义和自然主义思潮进一步推动了美国文学的发展。
8.批评家泰纳将孔德的实证主义理论引入文艺批评，提出文学本质上来说是观察和分析人的主要方法，小说是社会的科学实验室，可以观察各种复杂的社会因素。
他强调种族、环境和时代是文学创作的三要素，他的观点成了美国现实主义的理论基础。
9.法国的自然主义也受到美国作家重视，法国作家左拉认为社会像个生物的有机体，小说家应该收集事实，做个“人与人的情欲的审问官”。
10.20世纪初，法国巴黎出现了现代主义文学思潮，影响了不少英美青年作家。
斯坦因是美国现代主义小说的奠基人。
诗歌方面，诗人庞德等在欧洲倡导意象派诗歌运动，后来由艾米·洛厄尔引入美国诗坛，揭开了美国现代片诗歌的序幕。
11.马克·吐温是美国伟大的批判现实主义文学大师，其代表作是长篇小说《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》。
海明威曾评价该书：全部现代美国文学作品来自马克·吐温写的《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》这本书。
12.威廉·迪恩·豪威尔斯的代表著作是《塞拉斯·拉法姆发家记》。
美国文学选读期末考试重点
1、The Colonial Period（1607-1765）American Puritanism ( in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th)北美第一位女诗人Anne Bradstreet(宗教气息，夫妻恩爱)Edward Taylor 都受英国玄学派影响（metaphysical）2、The Enlightenment and Revolution PeriodBenjamin Franklin:Poor Richard's Almanac The Autobiography---“美国梦”的根源3、American Romanticism（end of 18th to the civil war）American writers emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature.早期浪漫主义Washington Irving father of American Literature <The Sketch Book>短篇小说James Fenimore Cooper 历史，冒险，边疆小说《The Leather-stocking Tales>文明发展对大自然的摧残与破坏William Cullen Bryant 美国第一个浪漫主义诗人《To a Waterfowl><The Yellow Violet>美国山水，讴歌大自然，歌颂美国生活现实Edgar Allan Poe ---(48 poems,70 short stories)He greatly influenced the devotees of “Art for art’s sake.”He was father of psychoanalytic criticism , and the detective story.Ralph Waldo Emerson---The chief spokesman of New England TranscendentalismAmerican Transcendentalism (also known as “American Renaissance”) It is the high tide of American romanticism Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. 《Nature》---the Bible of Transcendentalism by Emerson 《Self-Reliance》表达他的超验主义观点Henry David Thoreau------ Waldenhe regarded nature as a symbol of spirit.Thoreau was very critical of modern civilization.小说家：Hawthorne-赞成超验He is a master of symbolism The Scarlet Letter《红字》Melville 怀疑，悲观，sailing experiences Moby Dick百科全书式性质/海洋作品/动物史诗诗人Longfellow《I Shot an Arrow...》《A Psalm of Life》第一首被完整地介绍到中国的美国诗歌Whitman （Free Verse---without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme ）《Leaves of Grass》《One's Self I Sing》《O Captain! My Captain!》songDickinson inner life of the individual ---died for beauty4、The Age of RealismJames upper reaches of American society. <一位女士的肖像》inner world of manHowells, concerned himself chiefly with middle class life.<The Rise of Silas Lapman>Twain the lower strata of society. humor and local colorism<Life on the Mississippi> <The Adventures of Tom Sawyer> <The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn >American Naturalism 自然主义（新型现实）Stephen Crane；《Maggie: A Girl of the Streets》《The Red Badge of Courage》pessimisticTheodore Dreiser；Sister Carrie；Jennie Gerhardt；An American Tragedy(Trilogy of Desire)O.Henry (William Sydney Porter)：The Gift of the Magi；The Cop and the anthemJack London：The Call of the Wild；Martin Eden5、The Modern Period The 1920s-1930s ( the second renaissance of American literature)The Roaring Twenties ，The Jazz Age ，“lost”(Gertrude Stein) and “waste land”(T.S.Eliot)现代主义小说家F. Scott Fitzgerald：《The Great Gatsby》被视为美国文学“爵士时代”的象征，以美国梦American Dream为主线。
(完整版)美国文学期末复习资料(完美版)
（美国文学期末复习资料(完美版）Imagism （意向主义）(1)Imagism came into being in Britain and US around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation。
（2）The Imagists， with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image。
（3) Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles： i） direct treatment of subject matter； ii） economy of expression; iii） as regards rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome; iv) Ezra Pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well—known imagist poem。
Ezra Pound (爱兹拉·庞德）Cathay （1915）《中国》a volume of Chinese translation.He blue—penciled The Waste Land《荒原》 the most significant American poem of the twentieth century.Cantos 《诗章》，a modern epic Pound’s major work of poetry。
美国文学考试期末知识点
1. features of Puritanism 请教主义(1)Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred.(2)Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can be passed down from generation to generation. (3)Total depravity(4)Limited atoneme nt: Only the “elect” can be saved.2, American Puritanism 美国请教主义的Basic Puritan Beliefs(1)Total Depravity - through Adam and Eve's fall, every person is born sinful - concept of Original Sin.(2)Unconditional Election - God "saves" those he wishes - only a few are selected for salvation - concept of predestination. (3)Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only, not for everyone. (4)Irresistible Grace - God's grace is freely given, it cannot be earned or denied. Grace is defined as the saving and transfiguring power of God.(5)Perseverance of the "saints" - those elected by God have full power to interpret the will of God, and to live uprightly. If anyone rejects grace after feeling its power in his life, he will be going against the will of God - something impossible in Puritanism.(6)Puritan values (creeds): Hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety, simple tastes. Puritans are more practical, tougher, to be ever ready for any misfortune and tragic failure and optimistic..3.Influence on American Literature对美国文学影响定义:America literature is in good measure a literary expression of the pious idealism of the American Puritanism bequest. All literature is based on a myth of garden of Eden.Symbolism象征the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chie fly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American. Symbolism as a technique has become a common practice in American literature.With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible.4. The literary Scene in colonial America 殖民地的美国Humble origins: diaries, histories, journals, letters,travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons各种作家Writers: (1)John Smith: the first American writer(2)Anne Bradstreet: a Puritan poet ,The Complete Work: Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up In America(3)Edward Taylor: a variety of verse: funeral elegies, lyrics, a medieval "debate," and a 500-page Metrical History of Christianity (mainly a history of martyrs). His best works, according to modern critics, are the series of short Preparatory Meditations.5;Features of Colonial Poets殖民地诗人的特征American literature grew out of humble origins. Diaries, histories, journals, letters, commonplace books, travel books, sermons, in short, personal literature in its various forms, occupy a major position in the literature of the early colonial period.They faithfully imitated and transplanted English literary traditions.---In English styleThey were servants of God.---Puritan poetsThey served either God or colonial expansion or both.6,Anne Bradstreet’s Works1,“Some vers es on the Burning of Our House”2,“The Spirit and the Flesh”3,The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America(the first collection published by English colonists living in America)7.several points in this period:(1)William Hill Brown published the first American novel The Power of Sympathy in 1789.(2)Charles Brockden Brown) was the first American author to attempt to live from his writing. He developed the genre of American Gothic. He employed new narrative techniques. Another significance was his description of his characters’ in ner world, so his works can be read as psychological novel.(3)Roger Williams (1603-1683)Preach for civil and religious liberty and against the puritan oligarchy of Boston.Call for democratic government and oppose to the eviction of the Indians.Works: The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience(4)CJohn Woolman1:From a pious Quaker family 2:Transcendentalism humanitarianism3:Plea for the rights of all men and the abolition of the slavery system.Works: Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes; A Plea for the Poor.(5)Thomas Paine :A great influence in the American RevolutionWorks: The Rights of Man; The Age of Reason(6)Philip Freneau:“Poet of the American Revolution”“Father of American Poetry”,the most significant poet of 18th century in America. Some off his themes and images anticipated theworks of such 19th century American Romantic writers as Cooper, Emerson, Poe and Melville.His works:(1) The Rising Glory of America1772 《美洲光辉的兴起》(2) The Wild Honey Suckle 1786 《野地里德忍冬》(3) The Indian Burying Ground1788 《印第安人墓地》(4The Dying Indian: Tomo Chequi《奄奄一息的印第安人：托姆·柴吉》关于他的评价：He was the most significant poet of 18th century America.Some of his themes and images anticipated the works of such 19th century American Romantic writers as Cooper, Emerson, Poe and Melville.Poet of American Independence: Freneau provides incentive and inspiration to the revolution by writing such poems as "The Rising Glory of America" and "Pictures of Columbus."Journalist: Freneau was editor and contributor of The Freeman's Journal (Philadelphia) from 1781-1784. In his writings, he advocated the essence of what is known as Jeffersonian democracy - decentralization of government, equality for the masses, etc.Freneau's Religion: Freneau is described as a deist - a believer in nature and humanity but not a pantheist. In deism, religion becomes an attitude of intellectual belief, not a matter of emotional of spiritual ecstasy. Freneau shows interest and sympathy for the humble and the oppressedFreneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.All the while.in romanticizing the wonders of nature in his writings...he searched for an American idiom in verse.8：The American Enlightenment 美国启蒙运动(1)It was a part of a larger intellectual movement known as the Age of Enlightenment. Influenced by the scientific revolution of the 17th century, the Enlightenment took scientific reasoning and applied it to human nature and society.(2)Reason was advocated as the primary source and basis of authority.There was a shift from God-centered thinking to human being centered. Instead of going through life unhappy and thinking they had to suffer so they could enjoy the afterlife - people began to think about what they could accomplish on earth.(3)Equality The American Enlightenment inflenced Benjamin Franklin dramatically.Great Awening影响(1)It is a serires of religious revivals that swept over the American colonies about the middle of the 18th century.(2)It results in doctrinal changes and influnce social and political thought.In New England it was started by the rousing preaching of Jonathan Edwards9:Jonathan Edwards Works: (1)The Freedom of the Will《论意志自由》(2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended《论原罪》(3)The Nature of True Virtue《论真实德行的本原》AssessmentJonathan Edwards was a good deal of a transcendentalistbecause of his ideas:a, The spirit of revivalism b. Regeneration of man c. God’s presence d. Puritan idealism10:Benjamin Franklin Works:1：The Autobiography《自传》（1）The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is a record of self-examination and self-improvement.（2）The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Benjamin Franklin was spokesman for the new order of 18th century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free, by nature endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.（3）Through telling a success story of self-reliance, the book celebrates, in fact, the fulfillment of the American dream.Now a look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concisionThe Autobiography《自传》:It is perhaps the first real post-revolutionary American writing as well as the first real autobiography in English.It gives us the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man:2：Poo r Richard’s Almanac《穷理查德格言历书》Poor Richard’s Almanac is full of adages and common-sense witticism which became ,very quickly, household words.Benjamin Franklin Borrowed from such writers as Defoe, Swift, and Pope , and used his own wit to simplify and enrich their axioms11：General Introduction to Romanticism 浪漫主义介绍a. Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution.b. It was partly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature.The movement stressed运动强调a. strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories.b. It elevated folk art and custom to something noble.c. It argued for a "natural" epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the formof language, custom and usage.12：Characteristics of Romanticism:浪漫主义特征（1）an innate and intuitive perception of man, nature and society—reliance on the subconscious, the inner life, the abnormal psychology（2）an emphasis on freedom, individualism and imagination—rebellion against neoclassicism which stressed formality, order and authority（3）a profound love for nature—nature as a source of knowledge, nature as a refuge from the present, nature as a revelation of the holy spirit the quest for beauty—pure beautythe use of antique and fanciful subject matters—sense of terror, Gothic, grotesque, odd and queer13，Romanticism Historical Background历史背景1，Political: After American Revolution, American developed into a political, economic and cultural independence. Democracy and equality became the ideals of the new nation. Complete changes came about in the political life of the country.2. Economic: Industrialism spread widely and fast. A large number of immigrants arrived. All these produced an economic boom.3. Both the change in political and the economic development brought about a sense of optimism and hope.4. Culturally: Magazines appeared in ever-increasing numbers and they played an important role in facilitating literary expansion.5. Foreign influence added incentive to the growth of romanticism in America.14Features of American Romanticism美国浪漫主义特征a. Imitative: Some of the American Romantic writings were modeled on English and European works. The Romantic Movement proved to be a decisive influence. Without it, the rise of Romanticism would have been impossible. Romanticism writers such as Scott, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron all made a stimulating impact on American literature.b. Independent: From the very beginning, American Romanticism exhibited distinct features of its own. It originated from a mixture of factors which were altogether American rather than anything else.c. Puritan influence over American Romanticism was clearly noticeable. E.g., the author tended more to moralize than writers in England.15：Uniqueness of Am. Romanticism:美国浪漫主义独特性Unique subject matter：The western movement ：the American national experience of pioneering into the west proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated American’s landsc ape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, stream, and vast oceans. The wildness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral law.Uniqueness of Am. Romanticism:：the newness as a nation美国浪漫主义独特性的具体体现（1）The ideals of individualism and political equality, and their dream that America was to be a new Garden of Eden for man were distinctly American. This feeling of newness was strong enough to inspire the romantic imagination and channel it into different vein of writing.Puritan moral values（2）Puritan influence over American Romanticism was clearly noticeable. E.g., the author tended more to moralize than writers in England.（3）Mixture of different races：The immigrants coming from different cultural and social background bring with them different cultures16. Two phases:两个时期a. 1770s to 1830s Early period Representatives: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooperb.1830s to 1860s Late period summit of American literature Representatives: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson, Poe etc.；Washington Irving “Father of the American short storyHis Worksa. A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty1809 《纽约外史》b. The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent1819-1820 《见闻札记》c. Bracebridge Hall 1822 《布雷斯布里奇庄园》d. Oliver Goldsmith 1840 《哥尔德斯密斯》e. Life of George Washington1855-1859 《华盛顿传》The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent1819-1820 《见闻札记》评价：（1）The Sketch Book is a collection of essays, sketches, and tales.（2）In The Sketch Book, the most famous and frequently anthologized（选编）are “Rip Van Winkle” 《瑞普·凡·温克》“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” 《睡谷的传说》(3）The short story as a genre in American literature began with The Sketch Book.(4)The book touched the American imagination and foreshadowed the coming of Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe. (5)It also marked the beginning of American Romanticisms.The evaluation of Irving：a:Father of American literatureb：The beginning of short story as a genre-“Father of the American short story”c The first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international famed The Sketch Book also marked the beginning of American RomanticismThe theme of the storyThe story of man who has difficulties facing his advancing ageThe contradictory impulses in America toward work- the puritan attitude as opposed to the American desire for leisureThe theme of escape from one’s responsibilities and even one’s historyThe loss of identity19：James Fenimore Cooper(1789-1851)Major Works：Precaution戒备(1820, his first novel, imitating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice) The Spy间谍(his second novel and great success)皮袜子故事集：“Leatherstocking Tales” (his masterpiece, a series of five novels): The Pioneers开拓者, The Last of the Mohicans最后的莫西干人, The Prairie草原, The Pathfinder探路者, The Deerslayer 杀鹿者point of view：the theme of wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law, order vs. change, aristocrat vs. democrat, natural rights vs. legal rightsTheme：a. America was made conscious of his past, particularly the contribution from the Mohicans.b. The antithesis between nature and civilization, at the cost of the life and labor, will be dissolved to push the development of frontiers.c. The battle between the colonists caused the trage dy of Indians in American continentThe features of Cooper ：He is a mythic writer Good at inventing plots (Cooper had never been to the frontier area personally.)Style: powerful, yet clumsy and dreadfulWooden Characters ：Use of dialect, but not authentic (criticized by Mark Twain)19：超验主义：Transcendentalism （1）定义Emerson’s Definition：In his essay "The Transcendentalist," Emerson explained transcendentalism is “idealism; i dealism as it appears in 1842".The factors that influenced New England Transcendentalism：New England Transcendentalism was the Product of a combination of foreign influences and the American Puritan traditiona. Foreign influences: the introduction of idealism (唯心主义)from Germany and France and Oriental mysticismb. American PuritanismMajor Features超验主义特征：emphasis on spirit or the Oversoul as the most important thing in the universe. 1 The Oversoul was an all-pervading power for goodness, omnipresent and omnipotent, from which all things came and of which all were a part. It exists in nature and man alike and constituted the chief elements of the universe2 It emphasized the significance of the individual and believed that the individual was the most important element in society and that the ideal kind of individual was self-reliant and unselfish.It took nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God3 All things in nature were symbols of the spiritual, of God’s presence. Nature was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence. Everything in the universe was viewed as an expression of the divine spirit.4 It stressed the power of intuition. It stressed the power of intuition, believing that people could learn things both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner world by intuition. But the things they learned from within were truer than the things they learned from without, and transcended them. It held that everyone had access to a source of knowledge that transcended the everyday experiences of sensation and reflection. Intuition was inner light within.Influence超验主义的影响：1 It served as an ethical guide to life for a young nation and brought about the idea that human can be perfected by nature. It stressed religious tolerance, called to throw off shackles of customs and traditions and go forward to the development of a new and distinctly American culture.2 It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidly expanded economy where opportunity often became opportunism, and the desire to “get on” obscured the moral necessity for rising to spiritual height.It helped to create the first American renaissance –one of the most prolific period in American literatureSignificance: New England Transcendentalism is the summit of American Romanticism. Representatives: Emerson, Thoreau20：Ralph Waldo Emerson拉尔夫·瓦尔多·爱默生His Works：a. Essays《散文集》b. Nature《论自然》(a book which declared the birth of Transcendentalism)c. The American Scholar《论美国学者》(American’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence)d. Divinity, The Oversoul《论超灵》e. Self-reliance《论自立》f. The Transcendentalist《超验主义者》His point of view a. One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in the transcendence of the “oversoul”.b. He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying(圣洁的神圣化的) moral influence on man, and advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent(内在的固有的) God in nature.c. If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself and brings out the divine in himself, he can hope to become better and even perfect. This is what Emerson means by “the infinitude of man”.d. Everyone should understand that he makes himself by making his world, and that he makes the world by making himself.His aesthetics a. poets should function as preachers who gave directions to the mass.b. True poetry and true art should ennoble and serve as a moral purification and a passage toward organic unity(有机统一) and higher reality.c. Emerson places emphasis on ideas, symbols and imaginative words.d. As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America and the life today.e. Emerson’s aesthetics brought about a revolution in American li terature in general and in American poetry in particular. It marked the birth of true American poetry and true America poets such as Whitman and DickinsonNature （论自然）：Emerson’s first published work was Nature(1836). This work has the clearest statement of Transcendentalist ideas. Nature is considered the “gospel” (真理信条)of American Transcendentalism. It has an Introduction and eight chapters:1.Nature2. Commodity3. Beauty4. Language5. Discipline6. Idealism7. Spirit8. Prospects.The major thesis of the essay, in Emerson‘s words, is that we should now “enjoy an original relation to the universe,” and not become dependent on past experiences of others or on holy books, creeds ,dogma(教条教理).主要内容：In it Emerson stated that man should not see nature merely as something to be used; that man’s relationship with nature transcends the idea of usefulness. Nature is a kind of discipline to man. Once you are in nature, totally in solitude, you feel you’re nothing, but you see all. Nature makes people feel transparent(透明的) and humble. Meanwhile, He saw an important difference between understanding (judging things only according to the senses) and reasonThe American Scholar论美国学者These two works made him famous.As “Man Thinking”, the Scholar should know how to think when confronted with Nature, the Past (in the form of books) and Action (life).Emerson particularly warns that the past should be used to inspire and not to enslave the scholar. Emerson argued in the speech that the age called to the Scholar for active participation and leadership.It is American’s Declaration of Intellectual IndependenceSelf-Reliance(论自助)Self-Reliance is one of the most famous of these lecture essays, and is widely read in American high schools today. Emerson believed above all in individualism, independence of mind, and self-reliance; He admired courage and was not afraid of changing or clashing ideas.Equally important is Emerson’s essay The Over-Soul (1841).The Major Themes in Emerson’s Works：the emphasis on the independence and separateness of the individual, and the right (and duty) of man rise to his full potential, asserting the inalienable worth of every man.“Another sign of our times…is the new importance given to the single personEmerson’s Influences on A.La He called on American Writers to write about America in a peculiarly American way.b His perception of humanity and nature as symbols of universal truth encouraged the development of the symbolist movement in A. art and literature.c He embodied a new nation’s desire and struggle to assert（维护主张）its own identity in its formative period.Henry David Thoreau a. A week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers(1849)《康科德和梅里马克河上的一周》b. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and Walden / Walden《瓦尔登湖》c. Civil Disobedience《论公民之不服从》It influenced people such as Mahatma Gandhi.point of viewHe did not like the way a materialistic America was developing and was vehemently(激烈的) outspoken on the point.He hated the human injustice as represented by the slavery system.Like Emerson, but more tha n him, Thoreau saw nature as a healthy influence on man’s spiritual well-being.He has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man.He was very critical of modern civilization.“Simplicity…simplify!”He has trust in the future and has belief in a new generation of men.Civil DisobedienceThe essay makes it clear that this stance(立场姿态) is not a matter of whim（一时的兴趣奇想）but a demanding moral principle.The appeal of civil disobedience in the North grew in the wake of the Compromise of 1850, whichincluded the hated Fugitive Slave Law, requiring all citizens to aid in the return of escaped slaves to their owners. Though civil disobedience is usually associated with passive resistance, Thoreau brought out the more direct action of John Brown.Thoreau's essay had a profound influence on reformers worldwide, from Gandhi in South Africa and India; to Martin Luther King, and the opposition to the Vietnam War in the United States.Walden (1854In 1854, Thoreau published the book by which he will always be best known, Walden, or Life in the Woods. It is by far the deepest, richest, and most closely jointed of his books. It shows Thoreau at his best, and contains all that he had to say to the world. In fact, he is a man of one book, and that book is Walden. Thoreau's Walden is mythic, poetic, fictitious, fabulous, and metaphoric in the best senses of these terms. In it the artistically recreated real-life experience (itself an experiment in "artistic" living) becomes a symbolic model or paradigm for an embodied spiritual quest for the disembodied, for a journey from the "gross" to the divine "necessaries of life." The thesis of Walden is clearly indicated in the first chapter of the book. True economy has nothing to do with the ways and means of increasing wealth, with methods for multiplying the superfluities, the "gross necessaries of life." True economy is that which simply provides the flesh with what belongs to the flesh so that the spirit may go about its own business.The book described the author’s extremely simple life and regeneration he experienced when he lived near the Walden pond.This is a book on self-culture and human perfectibilityThoreau has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man. He holds that the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self-sufficient and strive to achieve personal spiritual perfection.In the book Thoreau criticized the modern civilization and told people to leave the life of hurry and bustle and to sink themselves in nature.It is a book full of ideas expressed to jostle his neighbors out of their smug(自鸣得意的) complacency(自满满足For the fatal modern craze for monetary success he prescribes a panacea(灵丹妙药) “Simplicity…simplify!” Spiritual richness is real wealth.One’s soul might not help one up in the world, but it will help make real progress in self-improvementRegeneration is a major thematic concern of wardenRegeneration is a major thematic concern of warden and thus decide the structural framework of the book. The whole book is within the frame of a single year, and progresses through spring, summer and autumn to winter.EvaluationComparing with Emerson who was a great thinker, Thoreau was a great experimentalist who put Emerson's Transcendental doctrines into practice in the actual life.Herman Melville (1819 ---- 1891):Master of philosophical allegory寓言1:His point of view : a. negative attitude towards life. b. One of the major themes of his is alienation孤立（far away from each other）. c. Other themes: loneliness, suicidal individualism（individualism causing disaster and death）, rejection and quest, confrontation of innocence and evil, doubts over the comforting 19th-century idea of progress2:His Writing Stylea. Like Hawthorne, Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique of multiple view of his narratives.b. He tends to write periodic chapters.c. His rich rhythmical富有节奏感的prose and his poetic power have been profusely丰富地commentedupon and praised. d. His works are symbolic and metaphorical.e. He includes many non-narrative chapters of factual background or description of what goes on board the ship or on the route (Moby Dick)His Worksa.Typee1846《泰比》b. Omoo1874《奥穆》c. Moby Dick 1851《莫比·迪克》d. Mardi1849《玛地》 f. White Jacket1850《白外衣》g. Pierre1852《皮尔埃》h. Billy Budd (posthumously) 《比利·巴德》Moby Dick(1)Ishmael, feeling depressed, seeks escape by going out to sea on the whaling ship, Pequod. The captain is Ahab, the man with one leg. Moby Dick, the white whale, had sheared off his leg on a previous voyage, and Ahab resolves to hunt him to kill him. He hangs a doubloon on the mast as a reward for anyone who sight the whale first. The Pequod makes a good catch of whales but Ahab refuses to turn back until he has killed his enemy. Eventually the white whale appears, and the Pequod begins its doomed fight with it. On the first day the whale overturns a boat; on the second it swamps another. When the third day comes, Ahab and his crew manage to plunge a harpoon into it, but the whale carries the Pequod along with it to its doom. All on board the whaler get drowned, except one, Ishmael, who survive to tell the tale.Moby Dick represents the sum total of Melville’s bleak view of the world in which he lived. It is at once Godless and purposeless. Man in this universe lives a meaningless and futile life, meaningless because futile.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. Nature has overwhelming power. Man can’t conquer nature. Man, living in this world, is a tragedyIt is a negative reflection of self-reliance, and individualism. Ahab may have been Melville’s portrait of an Emersonian self-reliant individual. Melville lost no opportunity in his criticism of New England Transcendentalism. Constantly under his attack is its emphasis on individualism and Oversoul. The idea that man make the world for himself is nothing but a Transcendentalist folly.Symbolismthe voyage: the search for the ultimate truth of experienceMoby Dick: the final mystery of the universe which man will do well to desist from pursuing Ambiguity (You can understand his Moby Dick differently.)First, it can be understand as a tragedy of man fighting against overwhelming odds in an indifferent and even hostile universe. Thus, Captain Ahab is a hero who dares to fight though he failed at last.Then, it can be understood as a bitter satire on Transcendentalism’s emphasis on self-reliance. Captain Ahab believed in his own power (a human being’s power) too much and thus he doomed to fail, because human’s power is limited and there is a mysterious thing existed in the universe which controlled man’s life and cannot be understood by human being.Nowadays some new research indicated that the story means man should protect the nature otherwise man will be punished as those whalers in the story were punished by the whale.Melville spoke ahead of his time. He knew that he was doomed to write a book like Moby Dick in his day, but he just could not help himself because he was a dedicated literary artist. There was, to be sure, a good deal of Ahab in him. “I have written a wicked book,” he said after finishing Moby Dick, and the public felt outraged. Thus born in the 19th century, Melville did not receive recognition until the twentieth century. Scarlet Letter1:The beauty shows:Free in the jail in her mind.。
重点参考美国文学史期末复习
H i s t o r y A n d A n t h o l o g y o f A m e r i c a n L i t e r a t u r e(V o l u m eⅠⅡ)美国文学史及选读1、2PartⅠThe Literature of Colonial America殖民主义时期的文学1.17世纪早期English and European explorers开始登陆美洲。
在他们之前100多年Caribbean Islands, Mexicoand other Parts of South America已被the Spanish占领。
2.17th早期English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts(弗吉尼亚和马萨诸塞)开始了美国历史3.美国最早殖民者(earliest settlers)included Dutch ,Swedes ,Germans ,French ,Spaniards ,Italians and Portuguese(荷兰人，瑞典人，德国人，法国人，西班牙人，意大利人及葡萄牙人等)。
4.美国早期文学主要为the narratives and journals of these settlements采用in diaries and in journals(日记和日志)，他们写关于the land with dense forests and deep-blue lakes and rich soil.5.第一批美国永久居民：the first permanent English settlement in North America was established atJamestown,Virginia in 1607(北美弗吉尼亚詹姆斯顿)。
6.船长约翰·史密斯Captain John Smith他的作品(reports of exploration)17th早期出版，被认为是美国第一部真正意义上的文学作品in the early 1600s,have been described as the first distinctly American literature written in English.他讲述了filled with themes, myths, images, scenes, character and events,吸引了朝圣者和清教徒前往lure the Pilgrims and the Puritans.7.美国第一位作家：1608年Captain John Smith写了封信《自殖民地第一次在弗吉尼亚垦荒以来发生的各种事件的真实介绍》“A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony”.8.他的第二本书1612年《弗吉尼亚地图，附：一个乡村的描述》“A Map of Virginia: with a Description of theCountry”.9.他一共出版了八本书，其中有关于新英格兰的历史及描述。
美国文学期末考试复习
Ⅲ. 重要作家及作品Nathanial Hawthorne (纳撒尼尔·霍桑)1.life2.works(1)Two collections of short stories: Twice-told Tales, Mosses from an Old Manse(2)The Scarlet Letter(3)The House of the Seven Gables(4)The Marble Faun(5)The Blithedale Romance(6)―Rappaccini’s Daughter‖(7)―The Birth-ma rk‖(8)―Young Goodman Brown‖3.point of view(1)Evil is at the core of human life, ―that blackness in Hawthorne‖(2)Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed from generation to generation (causality).(3)He is of the opinion that evil educates.(4)He has disgust in science.4.aesthetic美学的ideas(1)He took a great interest in history and antiquity.To him these furnish the soil on which his mind grows tofruition.(2)He was convinced that romance was thepredestined form of American narrative. To tell the truth and satirize and yet not to offend: That was whatHawthorne had in mind to achieve.5.style – typical romantic writer(1)the use of symbols(2)revelation of characters’ psychology(3)the use of supernatural mixed with the actual(4)his stories are parable (parable inform) – to teacha lesson(5)use of ambiguity to keep the reader in the worldof uncertainty – multiple point of view6.Hawthorne’s Literary View:(1)He repeatedly complains about ―the poverty of materials‖ in America.(2)He believes that romance is the predestined form of American narrative. He makes a distinction between novel and r omance in his Preface to ―The House of the Seven Gables‖.(3)He is haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life, therefore we see ―black vision‖ in his works.7.―The Minister’s Black Veil‖:Parable: allegoryMr. Hooper: a Christ figure; moral ambiguitythe veil: a symbol of sin, separationthemes: isolation of the individual from society; guilt of sinThe Scarlet Letter, （adultery）1.About the story:(1)The story of Hester Prynne Set: the 17th century(2)What is situated immediately outside the door ofthe prison in which Hester is kept: A rosebush(3)How does Hester support herself financially: as aseamstress(4)She always wears: black(5)―A‖ represents: adultery2.Major characters in the story:(1)Hester Prynne: wears ―A‖; ―A‖ defines her identity(2)Arthur Dimmesdale: wears ―A‖ in his heart; hissoul never in peace (invisible wearer)(3)Roger Chillingworth: the maker of scarlet letter(4)Pearl: the p roduct/result of ―A‖3.Symbolism: (special movement in literature; the use of symbols)In ―The Scarlet Letter‖:(1)The rosebush: passion(2)The forest: an ungovernable place(3)The scarlet letter: adultery; sin(4)Pearl: wildness; passion(5)The meteor: community4.Refuse to take off ―A‖:(1)For Hester, to remove scarlet letter would be toacknowledge the power it has in determining who she is(2)She is determined to transform its meaning andher identity(3)She wants to be the one who controls its meaning(4)She stands as a self-appointed reminder of theevils society can commitYoung Goodman Brown1. Psychological interpretation——Sigmund Freud (the founder of psychology):(1)superego——consciousness——the principle ofmorality 超我(2)ego——subconsciousness——the principle ofreality 自我(3)id——unconsciousness——the principle of pleasure本我Brown’s journey is psychological as well as physical:Village, a place of light and order——Forest, a place of darkness and wildnessconsciousness——unconsciousnessvillage——superego——FaithBrown——egoforest——id——SatanHawthorne saw the dangers of an overactive suppression of libido and the consequent development of tyrannous superego.2. Men, Women, and the loss of Faith:Despite the literary sexism of his day, Hawthorne portrays women as powerful moral agents.Although Faith is not a three-dimensional character, the story centers on her husband’s rejection of her. Women are victimized.Women——angle in the house——do not have desires, rights and needsFallen women——prostitutes, witches, and mad womenFaith to Brown is female sexuality; Satan to Brown is patriarchal authority3. Female images:Innocents vs. Temptresses:(1)Governor’s wife, Goody Cloyse, prostitutes,maidens, witches, Quaker women, Faith(2)Sex is seen as alluring and dangerous(3)Brown is an empty and failed husband and fatherHerman Melville (赫尔曼·麦尔维尔)1.life2.works(1)Typee 《泰皮》(2)Omio 《殴穆》(3)Mardi 《玛地》(4)Redburn 《雷德本》(5)White Jacket 《白外衣》(6)Moby Dick 《白鲸》(7)Pierre 《皮埃尔》(8)Billy Budd 《比利·巴德》3.point of view(1)He never seems able to say an affirmative yes to life: His is the attitude of ―Everlasting Nay‖ (negative attitude towards life).(2)One of the major themes of his is alienation (far away from each other).Other themes: loneliness, suicidal individualism (individualism causing disaster and death), rejection and quest, confrontation of innocence and evil, doubts over the comforting 19c idea of progress4.style(1)Like Hawthorne, Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique ofmultiple view of his narratives.(2)He tends to write periodic chapters.(3)His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic powerhave been profusely commented upon and praised.(4)His works are symbolic and metaphorical.(5)He includes many non-narrative chapters offactual background or description of what goes on board the ship or on the route (Moby Dick)Moby Dick《白鲸》：Moby-Dick, often considered the greatest American novel, is a masterpiece with many layers. It is a sea adventure, an exciting chase after a destructive and mysterious creature. The enormous white whale Moby-Dick torments Captain Ahab, who is obsessed with finding and killing Moby-Dick, having lost a leg in a previous encounter with the whale, and Ahab’s burning desire for revenge really is the center of the story. At the novel’s end, Ahab finds and attacks Moby-Dick, but the terrible whale takes Ahab, his ship Pequod, and nearly all its crew down to a watery grave with him.1. An encyclopedia of everythingA Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting against fates (extreme individualism)2. Image of ship: ship on the sea is the human soul search the meaning in the universe.3. Purpose——noble: he think Moby Dick as an evilHero: he is a hero but not a traditional hero (he does not stand for goodness); a villain hero4. Byronic hero (create by Byron): mad, bad, dangerous to know, obsessive——rebellions: challenge the authority; unconventional; right the wrongSatanic: revengeful; rebellious; the fight between God & Satan5. The Pequod——a symbol of doom(named after a native American tribe in Massachusetts; did not long survived of white men(extincted); is painted gloomy black and covered in whale teeth and bones)The sailors are of different ethics——all people in American (individual)Queequeg’s Coffin——life boat; life6. Theme of Moby Dick:(1)Melville’s bleak view (negative attitude) the senseof futility and meaninglessness of the world. His attitude to life is ―Everlasting Nay‖. Man in this universe lives ameaningless and futility.The adventure of killing Moby Dick is meaningless. Ahab tries to control it, which leads to his doom.Modern life——the loss of faith, the sense of futility——well expressed in Moby Dick(2)Alienation (far away from each other): exists between man & man, man & society, and man & nature.(3)Loneliness and suicidal individualism——the basic pattern of 19th century American life(individualism causing disaster and death)——Moby Dick isa negative reflection upon Transcendentalism.(4)Rejection and quest:Voyaging for Ishmael has become a journey in quest of knowledge and valuesHenry David Thoreau （亨利·戴维·梭罗）1.life2.works(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River康《科德河和梅里麦克河上的一个星期》(2)Walden《瓦尔登湖》(3)Civil Disobedience 《论公民的不服从权利，又译作消极反抗》(4)Life Without Principle3.point of view(1)He did not like the way a materialistic America was developing and was vehemently outspoken on the point.(2)He hated the human injustice as represented by the slavery system.(3)Like Emerson, but more than him, Thoreau saw nature as a genuine restorative, healthy influence on man’s spiritual well-being.(4)He has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man.(5)He was very critical of modern civilization.(6)―Simplicity…simplify!‖(7)He was sorely disgusted with ―the inundations of the dirty institutions of men’s odd-fellow society‖.(8)He has calm trust in the future and his ardent belief in a new generation of men.WaldenEdgar Allen Poe (埃德加·爱伦·坡)I.Life诗人、小说家和文学评论家II.Works(1)Ms Found in a BottleThe Purloined LetterThe Fall of the House of UsherThe Masque of the Red DeathAnnabel LeeTo HelenSonnet—To ScienceThe Raven(2)Literary theorya.The Philosophy of Compositionb.The Poetic Principlec.Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told TalesIII.Themes1.death –predominant theme in Poe’s writing―Poe is not interested in anything alive. Everything in Poe’s writings is dead.‖2.disintegration (separation) of life3.horror4.negative thoughts of scienceIV.Aesthetic ideas1.The short stories should be of brevity, totality, single effect, compression and finality.2.The poems should be short, and the aim should be beauty, the tone melancholy. Poems should not be of moralizing. He calls for pure poetry and stresses rhythm.V.Style – traditional, but not easy to readVI.Reputation: ―the jingle man‖ (Emerson)VII.His influencesWalt Whitman(沃尔特·惠特曼)1.life诗人、人文主义者2.work: Leaves of Grass 草叶集(9 editions)(1)Song of Myself(2)There Was a Child Went Forth(3)Crossing Brooklyn Ferry(4)Democratic Vistas(5)Passage to India(6)Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking3.themes –―Catalogue of American and European thought‖He had been influenced by many American and European thoughts: enlightenment, idealism, transcendentalism, science, evolution ideas, western frontier spirits, Jefferson’s individualism, Civil War Unionism, Orientalism.Major themes in his poems (almost everything):●equality of things and beings●divinity of everything●immanence of God●democracy●evolution of cosmos●multiplicity of nature●self-reliant spirit●death, beauty of death●expansion of America●brotherhood and social solidarity (unity of nations inthe world)pursuit of love and happiness4.style: ―free verse‖(1)no fixed rhyme or scheme(2)parallelism, a rhythm of thought(3)phonetic recurrence(4)the habit of using snapshots(5)the use of a certain pronoun ―I‖(6) a looser and more open-ended syntactic structure(7)use of conventional image(8)strong tendency to use oral English(9)vocabulary – powerful, colourful, rarely used words of foreign origins, some even wrong(10)sentences – catalogue technique: long list of names, long poem lines5.influence(1)His best work has become part of the common property of Western culture.(2)He took over Whitman’s vision of the poet-prophet and poet-teacher and recast it in a more sophisticated and Europeanized mood.(3)He has been compared to a mountain in American literary history.(4)Contemporary American poetry, whatever schoolor form, bears witness to his great influence.Ralph Waldo Emerson (拉尔夫·华尔多·爱默生)1.life (American philosopher, poet and essayist; the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism)2.works(1)Nature——his first book expressing the main principle of Transcendentalism. It is regarded as―American’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence‖(2)Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet(3)Self-Reliance(4)Each and All(5)Rhodora3.point of view(1)One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in the transcendence of the ―oversoul‖.(2)He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man, and advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.(3)If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself and brings out the divine in himself, he can hope to become better and even perfect. This is what Emerson means by ―the infinitude of man‖.(4)Everyone should understand that he makes himselfby making his world, and that he makes the world by making himself.老尹：(1)the transcendence of the Oversoul. His Nature records his ―moment of ecstasy‖, the moment of losing one’s individuality.(2)the infinitude of man and human perfectibility. Emerson believes that the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself are infinite.(3)nature as symbolic of God. In the eyes of Emerson,―nature is the vehicle of thought,‖ and ―particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts‖.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He is a complete man, an eternal man.(2)True poetry and true art should ennoble.(3)The poet should express his thought in symbols.(4)As to theme, Emerson called upon Americanauthors to celebrate America which was to him a lone poem in itself.5.How important is Emerson in history?He embodied a new nation’s desire and struggle to assert its own identity in its formative period.His aesthetics marked the birth of true American poetry.He called for an independent culture, which representedthe desire of the whole nation to develop a culture of its own.His reputation declined somewhat in recent years because of his cheerful optimism.Washington Irving（华盛顿·欧文）1.several names attached to Irving(1)first American writer(2)the messenger sent from the new world to the oldworld(3)father of American literature2.life作家3.works(1) A History of New York 《纽约外史》(2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. 《见闻札记》）(He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this.)(3)The History of the Life and Voyages ofChristopher Columbus《哥伦布传》(4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada《攻克格拉纳达》(5)The Alhambra《阿尔罕伯拉》4.Literary career: two parts(1)1809~1832a.Subjects are either English or Europeanb.Conservative love for the antique(2)1832~1859: back to US5.style – beautiful(1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness(2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining(3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere(4)vivid and true characters(5)humour – smiling while reading(6)musical languageJames Fenimore Cooper（詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库柏）1.life (―father of American novelists‖; the creation of the west frontier and its heroes)2.works(1)The Precaution (《戒备》（1820, his first novel,imitating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice)(2)The Spy 《间谍》(his second novel and greatsuccess)(3)Leather stocking Tales 皮袜子故事集(hismasterpiece, a series of five novels)The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, The Prairie3.point of viewThe theme of wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law,order vs. change, aristocrat vs. democrat, natural rights vs. legal rights4.style(1)highly imaginative(2)good at inventing tales(3)good at landscape description(4)conservative(5)characterization wooden and lacking in probability(6)language and use of dialect not authentic5.literary achievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the history of the United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring and pushing the American frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West. He turned the west and frontier as a useable past and he helped to introduce western tradition to American literature.Benjamin Franklin1.life (printer, enlightener, inventor, scientist, statesman, diplomat)2.works(1)Poor Richard’s Almanac(2)Autobiography——form: the first autobiography of Americanmeaning: American dream & individualismself-improvement; business (contents); prototype of American success (significance); Puritanism and enlightenment spirits3.contribution(3)He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society.(4)He was called ―the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this case) from heaven‖.(5)Everything seems to meet in this one man –―Jack of all trades‖. Herman Melville thus described him ―master of each and mastered by none‖.(6)Aid Jefferson in writing The Declaration of IndependenceThomas Paine托马斯·潘恩1.father of the American Revolution2.propagandist, pamphleteer, a master of persuasion who understands the power of language to move a man to action3.main works:(1)The American Crisis(2)Common Sense(3)The Right of Man(4)The Age of ReasonPoetry:1.Genre:Narrative Poetry 叙事诗Epic Poetry 史诗Dramatic Poetry 戏剧诗Satirical Poetry 讽刺诗Lyric Poetry 抒情诗2.Basic Elements of Poetry:(1)R hythm: the beat created by the sounds of the poem(2)Meter: a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllablesa)Foot: unit of meter 有几个重音就有几个footb)Types of Feet: Iambic——unstressed, stressed抑扬格（最常见）Trochaic——扬抑格Anapestic——抑抑扬格Dactylic——扬抑抑格Kinds of Metrical lines: monometer (1 foot on a line), dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter, octameter(3)Rhyme3.Free Verse Poetry:(1)D oes not have repeating patterns of stressed & unstressed syllables(2)Very conversational: sounds like someone talking with you(3) A modern type of poetry: does not have rhyme4.Blank Verse Poetry:Written in lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter but does not use end rhymeUnrhymed iambic pentameter5.End Rhyme尾韵: a word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line6.Alliteration头韵: consonant sounds repeated at the beginnings of words7.Consonance一致: similar to alliteration except the repeated consonant sounds can be anywhere in the words8.Internal Rhyme: in the same line9.Figures of speech修辞: simile明喻, metaphor暗喻，隐喻, personification拟人, onomatopoeia拟声, parallelism排比, allusion引喻。
文学考试复习提纲
美国文学期末复习提纲一、考试题型1.作家作品名称匹配2.名词解释3.根据作品内容写出作家、作品及作品简短评价4.诗歌赏析（两首诗歌，选择一首进行作答）二、作家与作品总结1）.需要记住作家和作品名字，并能准确书写出来的十六位作家，同时要求记得这些作品的评价，一两句话即可。
Washington Irving 《Rip Van Winkle》Henry David Thoreau 《Walden》Nathaniel Hawthorne 《The Scarlet Letter》Walt Whitman 《Song of Myself》Emily Dickinson《I’m Nobody! Who Are You?》、《Success Is Counted Sweetest》、《This Is My Letter to The World》、《Because I Could Not Stop for Death》(她的诗歌标题一般是诗歌的第一句话)Mark Twain 《Adventures of Huckleberry Finn》O’Henry 《The Cop and the Anthem》Robert Frost 《Nothing Gold Can Stay》、《The Road Not Taken》、《Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening》、《Mending Wall》Sherwood Anderson 《The Triumph of the Egg》Katherine Anne Porter 《The Jilting of Granny Weatherall》Ezra Pound 《In a Station of the Metro》、《A Pact》Langston Hughes 《Cross》、《Dream》Ernest Hemingway 《Indian Camp》Arthur Miller 《The Death of a Salesman》Allen Ginsberg 《Howl》2）.下列作家只需要记得作品和作者能够配对即可，不需要知道具体书写。
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名词解释：Imagism: It’s a poetic movement of England and the U.S. flourished from 1909 to 1917.The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. The leaders of this movement were Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell.Beat generation: The term was coined by Jack Kerouac in 1948 to refer to a group of disillusioned writers following World War Two. Later, this literary and cultural movement continued into the 1960s. The Beat Generation must not be confused with the Lost Generation of writers. Spokesmen and representatives of the Beat Generation were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and others. They revolted against an America that was materialistic, belligerent and frustrating. Social, intellectual and sexual freedom was advocated. Traditional culture and normal social behavior were attacked and violated. Many of them were drug addicts wearing long hair and dirty clothes. They were fond of slangs and jazz. Masterpieces created by writers of this g roup include Kerouac’s On the Road and Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, which were regarded as pocket Bibles of that generation. Other prominent Beats include William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, and Neal Cassady. The Beat Generation, had greatly influenced the countercultural movements of the 1960s and the adolescents and adults in other countries. In England, the “angry young men” made an echo and imitated the American “beatnik.”二、1. Ralph Waldo Emerson:Nature: it is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism.The American Scholar:it has been regarded as “America’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence”.2. Henry David Thoreau: Walden3. Nathaniel Hawthorne:The Scarlet Letter:主题：Hawthorne focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular, so as to show us the tension between society and individuals. To Hawthorne, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature.4. Herman Melville: Moby DickA. 作品分析：（1）Moby Dick represents the sum total of Melville’s bleak view of the world in which he lived. It is at once godless and purposeless. The loss of faith and the sense of futility and meaningless which characterize modern life of the West were expresse d in Melville’s work so well that the twentieth century has found it both fascinating and great.(2) One of the major themes of this novel is alienation, which exists in the life of Melville on different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Melville also criticizes New England Transcendentalism of its emphasis on individualism and Oversoul. Another theme of this novel is “rejection and quest.”(3) The novel is highly symbolic. The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” Moby Dick is the most conspicuous symbol in the book and it is capable of many interpretations. It is a symbol of evil to some, one of goodness to others, and both to still others. Its whiteness is a paradoxical color, signifying as it does death and corruption as well as purity, innocence, and youth. It represents the final mystery of the universe which man will do well to desist from pursuing.(4) Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique of multiple views of his narratives. He tends to write periodic sentences. His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commented upon and praised.B. what does the white whale in Moby Dick symbolize? Why do you think so?For Captain Ahab, the white whale represents evil. After the loss of his leg in his encounter with the white whale, Ahab begins to hate Moby Dick and tries his best to kill the whale. It seems that he embodies all of the evil he once consigned to the white whale. For other members on the whaling ship, the white whale symbolizes the unknown, mysterious natural force of the universe. For the readers, the white whale is capable of many interpretations, for it is “paradoxically benign an d malevolent, nourishing and destructive,” “massive, brutal, monolithic, but at the same time protean, erotically beautiful, infinitely variable.”C. Major themes: obsession, religion, and idealism versus pragmatism, revenge, racism, sanity, hierarchical relationships, and politics.D. the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. Moby Dick is a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search, not a discovery, of the truth.The whole story turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology.5. Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass.It has been praised as “Democ ratic Bible”, and as American Epic.主题：(1)he shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. (2) realization of the individual value. (3) pursuit of love and happiness. (4) Before and during the Civil War, Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory.写作风格：(1) Whitman wrote “free verse”, that is,poetry without a fixed beat or regularrhyme scheme.(2) There is a strong sense of the poemsbeing rhythmical. Parallelism and phoneticrecurrence at the beginning of the linescontribute to the musicality of his poems.(3) Most of the pictures he painted withwords are honest, undistorted images ofdifferent aspects of America of the day.(4) Whitman’s language is relatively simpleand even rather crude. Anothercharacteristic in Whitman’s language is hisstrong tendency to use oral English.Whitman’s vocabulary is amazing. Hewould use powerful, colorful, as well asrarely-used words.Leaves of Grass的分析：(1). Grass, the most common thing with thegreatest vitality, is an image of the poethimself, a symbol of the then risingAmerican nation and an embodiment of hisideals about democracy and freedom.(2). In this giant work, openness, freedom,and above all, individualism are all thatconcerned him.(3). In this book he also praises nature,democracy, labor and creation, and sings ofman’s dignity and equality, and of th ebrightest future of mankind. Most of thepoems in Leaves of Grass sing of the“en-masse” and self as well.6. Emily Dickinson:诗歌的主要内容：love, nature, death andimmortality.7. Edgar Allen Poe: 短篇小说家和诗人。