美国文学重点名词解释
美国文学名词解释
1 The Enlightenment（启蒙运动）: The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement originating in France, which attracted widespread support among the ruling and intellectual classes of Europ e and North America in the second half of the 18th century. It characterizes the efforts by certain European writers to use critical reason to free minds from prejudice, unexamined authority and oppression by Church or State. Therefore, the Enlightenment is sometimes called the Age of Reason2 American Dream(美国梦): It is the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth asmeasure of success or happiness3. Transcendentalism (超验主义、先验主义) : It was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the middle 19th century. It began as a protest against the general state of culture and society. Among transcendentalist’s core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that “transcends” the physical and empirical(以观察或实验为依据的) and is only realized through the individual’s intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson（爱默生）, Henry David Thoreau（梭罗）, Walt Whitman（惠特曼）, etc. It is a kind of philosophy that stresses belief in transcendental things and the importanceof spiritual rather than material existence. （相信超凡的事物，认为精神存在比物质存在更重要).4. American Puritanism: It is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Puritan Church. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them. They were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purity their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrine of predestination宿命论, original sin and total depravity性恶说, and limited atonement 有限的救赎 through a special infusion 浸渍 of grace from God. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did havea profound influence on the early American mind.5.Symbolism：It is the writing technique of using symbols. It’s a literary movement that arose in France in the last half of the 19th century and that greatly influenced many English writer, particularly poets, of the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. It’s one of the most powerful devices thatpoets employ in creation.7.Gothic novel is a type of romance very popular late in the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century.Gothic novel emphasizes things which are grotesque怪异的， violent， mysterious， supernatural，desolate 荒凉 and horrifying. Gothic， originally in the sense of“medic医学，not classical”，with its descriptions of the dark，irrational side of human nature，Gothic novel has exerted a great influence over the writers of the Romantic period.8 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艾米•洛威尔.8. Imagism: It came into being in Britain and U.S around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation. 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. Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles: direct treatment of subject matter; economy of expression; as regards rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome 节拍器. Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” is a well-known imagist poem.9. Stream of Consciousness(意识流): It is a style used in the presentation of the character’s inner working of mind. The assumption is that an individual’s psychological processes are a continuous flow like a shifting, uninterrupted stream, highly changeable and confusing, often appearing illogical and contrary to reason. In tracing the stream of consciousness of an individual the writer may present interior monologue(内心独白) by his character, hint with symbols, reverse(颠倒) the order of time, and alternate（轮流的／交替的） recollections（回忆） with the present or sometime illusions（幻想） with given facts.10. Point of view( 视角)：It is a term referring to the vantage point (能观察某事物的有利位置) or position from which a story is told. To identify（识别） the narrator of a story is to identify the story’s point of view. Basically there are two narrative ways: first-person point of view and the third-personpoint of view.12. The Harlem Renaissance: it was the first important movement in black American literature. Immediately after the First World War, as a result of a massive black migration to Northern cities, a group of young, talented black artists congregated in Harlem, a predominantly black section of New York City, and made it the cultural, and intellectual capital of black America. They carried forward the cultural traditions of their people and demonstrated their achievements to the white society that habitually ignored them.13. Expressionism 表现主义: it arouse in German theater after World War I. Delighting in bizarre (奇异的) stage design and exaggerated makeup and costuming(服装), expressionists sought to reflect intense states of emotion. Its mode is “the externalization(外表性) of t he inner.”14.Black humor: It is a combination of humor with resentment(怨恨), gloom, anger, and despair. Seeing all that is unreasonable, hypocritical,ugly, and even frenzied(狂乱的)，writers of black humor nurse a grievance(不平) against their society which, according to them, is full of institutionalized(制度化的) absurdity. Yet they are cynical. They laugh a morbid(病态的) laugh when facing the hideous（丑恶的）. In hopeless indignation（愤慨） they take up freezing irony and burning satire as their weapons. Their novels are often in the form of anti-novel（反传统小说）, devoid of(缺乏) completeness of plot and characterized by fragmentation （零碎的） and dislocation（混乱）.（专业文档资料素材和资料部分来自网络，供参考。
美国文学的名词解释_特点_流派
美国文学的名词解释_特点_流派美国文学的名词解释美国文学(American Literature 或Literature of the United States)指在美国产生的文学(也包括建国前殖民地时期的文学作品)。
用英语写成的美国文学可视为英语文学的一部分。
美国文学的历史不长，它几乎是和美国自由资本主义同时出现，较少受到封建贵族文化的束缚。
美国早期人口稀少，有大片未开发的土地，为个人理想的实现提供了很大的可能性。
美国人民富于民主自由精神，个人主义、个性解放的观念较为强烈，这在文学中有突出的反映。
美国又是一个多民族的国家，移民不断涌入，各自带来了本民族的文化，这决定了美国文学风格的多样性和庞杂性。
美国文学发展的过程就是不断吸取、融化各民族文学特点的过程。
美国文学的特点美国文学的历史不长，它几乎是和美国自由资本主义同时出现，较少受到封建贵族文化的束缚。
美国早期人口稀少，有大片未开发的土地，为个人理想的实现提供了很大的可能性。
美国人民富于民主自由精神，个人主义、个性解放的观念较为强烈，这在文学中有突出的反映。
美国又是一个多民族的国家，移民不断涌入，各自带来了本民族的文化，这决定了美国文学风格的多样性和庞杂性。
美国文学发展的过程就是不断吸取、融化各民族文学特点的过程。
许多美国作家来自社会下层，这使得美国文学生活气息和平民色彩都比较浓厚，总的特点是开朗、豪放。
内容庞杂与色彩鲜明是美国文学的另一特点。
个性自由与自我克制、清教主义与实用主义、激进与反动、反叛和顺从、高雅与庸俗、高级趣味与低级趣味、深刻与肤浅、积极进取与玩世不恭、明快与晦涩、犀利的讽刺与阴郁的幽默、精心雕琢与粗制滥造、对人类命运的思考和探索与对性爱的病态追求等倾向，不仅可以同时并存，而且形成强烈的对照。
从来没有一种潮流或倾向能够在一个时期内一统美国文学的天下。
美国作家敏感、好奇，往往是一个浪潮未落，另一浪潮又起。
作家们永远处在探索和试验的过程之中。
美国文学重点名词解释
2.6.Transcendentalism: is literature，philosophical and literary movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to1860. It originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reaching against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world instead. Transcendentalism derived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, and from such English authors as Carlyle，Coleridge, and Wordsworth. The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature and Self-Reliance and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden..Symbolism象征主义：It is the writing technique of using symbols. It’s a literary movement that arose in France in the last half of the 19th century and that greatly influenced many English writer, particularly poets, of the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. It’s one of the most powerful devices thatpoets employ in creation.8.American naturalism：this term was cr eated by Emile Zola. Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory played an important role in naturalism. In the works off naturalism，characters were conceived as complex combinations of inherited attributes and habits conditioned by social and economic forces. At the end of the 19th century，this pessimistic form of realism appeared in america. Naturalism attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness. Characters in the works of naturalism were dominated by their environment and heredity. Naturalism emphasized：the world was around；men had no free will；religious“truth”were illusory；the destiny of human beings was misery in life and oblivion in death. The dominant figures in naturalism were Stephen crane，Frank Norris, Jack London and Theodore Dreiser.3.The lost generation: included the young English and American expatriates as well as men and women caught in the war and cut from the old value and yet unable to come to terms with the new era when civilization had gone mad. These writers adopted unconventional style of writing and reacted against the tendencies of the older writers in the 1920s. The term came from Gertrude Stein who said in Hemingway's presence that“you are all a lost generation.”4.Local colorismAs a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s，it is defined by Hamlin Garland as having such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality of circumstantial(详细的) authenticity(确实性), as local colorists tried to immortalize(使不朽) the distinctive natural, social and linguistic features. It is characteristic of vernacular(本.国语) language and satirical(讽刺的) humor. The major local colorist is Mark Twain.5.Jazz age: the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the term"Jazz Age" retroactively to refer to the decade after World War I and before the stock market crash in 1929, during which Americans embarked upon what he called "the gaudiest spree in history". Jazz Age is inextricably associated with the wealthy white"flappers" and socialites immortalized in Fitzgerald's fiction.6.Free verse: is a poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure, instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech. While it alternates stressed and unstressed syllables as stricter verse forms do, free verse does so in a looser way. Whitman's poetry is an example of free verse at its most impressive. It has since been used by Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and other major American can poets of the 20th century.7.The iceberg analogy: The Iceberg Theory is a writing theory by American writer Ernest Hemingway, as follows：if a writer of a prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader，if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them.1.Poe's Poetic IdeasA.His conviction that the function of poetry is not to summarize and interpret earthly experience,but to create a mood in which the soul soars toward supernal beauty.B.He insists that poetry must be disembarrassed of that moral sense.C.Poe believes that the elevation of excitement of the soul should be “the poetic principle” thuspoe try must concern itself only with “supernal beauty”.D.Poe defines poetry as “the rhythmical creation of beauty” a definition giving unexampledemphasis upon the importance of the rhythmical or musical element in poetry.2．Whitman's style1) The sprawling lines of the poems are often extremely long.2) Parallelism: the parallel lines say the same thing but use different words.3) Envelope structure: the first line begins with the subject, and then more and more lines list modifiers till the verb appears in the last line of the stanza. This is like enclosing a whole list of ideas in an envelope.4) Catalogue technique: means listing. Typical poems by Whitman make long, long lists of images, ofsights, sounds, smells, taste, and touch.5) No regular pattern.6) The verse unit is usually an independent clause.3．Formal features of Dickinson's poetryA.Dickson's poems are usually based on her own experience, her sorrows and joys. Dickinson wasoriginal. She sounded idiosyncratic, sometimes.B.Love is another subject Dickinson dwells on.C.Many poems Dickinson wrote are about nature, in which her general skepticism about therelationship between man and nature is well-expressed. Dickinson sees nature as both gailybenevolent and cruel.D.Dickinson's poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no titles, henceare always quoted by their first lines.E.On the ethical level Dickinson emphasizes free will and human responsibility.All these characteristics of her poetry were to become popular through Stephen Crane with the Imagists such as Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell in the 20th century. She became, with Stephen Crane, the precursor of the Imagist moverment.4．The theme and techniques in Eliot's "The Waste Land"Theme：The theme is modern spiritual barrenness, the despair and depression that followed the WWI, the sterility and turbulence of the modern world, and the decline and break-down of western culture. It also shows the search for regeneration by people living in a chaotic world.Technique：The poem’s noti ceable characteristics are varied length and rhythm to harmonize with the changing subject matter, the unrhymed lines, lots of borrowings from some thirty-five different writers, the employment of materials such as the legends of the Holy Grail, Frazer’s a nthropological work The Golden Bough several popular songs, and passages in six foreign languages, including Sanskrit. The poem, therefore, is obscure and hard to understand, needless to say its absence of logical continuity. The poem The Wast Land by T. S. Eliot, nevertheless, is broadly acknowledged as one of the most recognizable landmarks of modernism.5．Analysis of "Richard Cory" by Edwin Arlington Robinson"Richard Cory" is a short dramatic poem about a man whose outward appearance belies his inner turmoil. The tragedy in the poem reflects in its spirit the tragedies in Edwin Arlington Robinson's own life: Both of his brothers died young, his family suffered financial failures, and Robinson himself endured hardship before his poetry gained recognition—thanks in part to praise from an influential reader of them, Theodore Roosevelt.Robinson published the poem himself in 1897 as part of a poetry collection called Children of the Night. The poem is a favorite of students and teachers because of the questions it poses about the the title character.6．Comment on"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert FrostA.It is a peaceful poem and makes man feel relaxed when we read the lines: "The only other sounds the sweep of easy wind and downy flake." Frost also uses alliteration and repetition in his poems. The rhyme scheme he uses is a-a-b-a.B.It is one of the most quietly moving of Frost’s lyrics. On the surface, it seems to be simple, descriptive verses, records of close observation, graphic and homely pictures.C.It uses the simplest terms and commonest words. But it is deeply meditative, adding far-reaching meanings to the homely music. It uses its superb craftsmanship to come to a climax of responsibility: the promises to be kept, the obligation to be fulfilled. Few poems have said so much in so little.7.Theme and technique in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald1. Themes of The Great Gatsby: It resents the decline of the American dream in1920s, the hollowness of the upper class and the falseness of ideals and moves toward disillusion.2. Now Gatsby’s life follow a clear pattern: there is, at first, a dream, then disenchantment, and finallya sense of failure and despair. Gatsby’s personal experience approximates the whole of the American experience up to the first few decades of the 20th century.3. The novel is the presentation of the 1920s, and of what has become known as American Dream. 8.ment on Hemingway's style and Farewell to Arms"1. Hemingway was a glamorous public hero of sorts whose style of writing and living was probably more imitated than any other writers in human memory.2. In one sense Hemingway wrote all his life about one theme, which is neatly summed up in the famous phrase, “grace under pressure”, and created one hero who acts that theme out.3. In the same way that Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age becomes a symbol for an age, Hemingway’s book paints the image of a whole generation, the Lost Ge neration.4. Lieutenant Henry in A Farewell to Arms stands the Hemingway hero, an average man of decidedly masculine taste sensitive and intelligent, a man of action; and with other people, somewhat an outsider, keeping emotion under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one cannot have happiness.5. Hemingway’s world is a world essentially chaotic and meaningless, in which man fights a solitary struggle against a force he does not even understand.6. The war dominates so that the love story represents a mere dream and the brutal and atrocious realities of life do not allow materializing it.10.Analyze "Dry September" by William Faulkner11.“Dry September” was written in 1931, and is a well-known story of Faulkner.This story touches upon the strange relationship between sex and violence, examines the psychological state of the main characters, and exposes the crime of racial discrimination which makes one bristle with anger.The tone of this story contributes much to its effectiveness, particularly to the imagery of infernal heat and dryness and to the setting itself.From the character Miss Minnie the reader could perceive the obvious impact of Freud’s ideas on William Faulkner.。
美国文学名词解释
名词解析1 American Romanticism 浪漫主义The Romantic Period stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It is a period of the great flowering of American literature.1. It started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book（1819）and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass（1855）;2. It was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions were more important than reason and common sense;3. The writers emphasized individualism, placing the individual against the group. They affirmed the inner life of the self, and cherished strong interest in the past, the wild, the remote, the mysterious and the strange.4. the writers stressed the element of “Amerianness”in their works;5. Being a period of the great flowering of American literature, it is also called the American Renaissance;2 American TranscendentalismAs a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalism (also known as “ American Renaissance”) flourished in New England from 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 against the materialism of American society.Transcendentalism 超验主义(+ H. D. Thoreau; Nathaniel Hawthorne; )The major features of Transcendentalism:①The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想超灵宇宙②The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual is the most important element of Society. 个体+社会③The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence. 自然+上帝3 Stream of Consciousness 意识流or “interior monologue”,内心独白is one of themodern literary techniques. It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them. It was first used in 1922 by the Irish novelist James Joyce.4 RealismAs a literary movement, the Age of Realism came into existence after Romanticism with the Civil War It was a reaction against “the lie” of Romanticism and sentimentalism, and paved the way to Modernism.This literary interest in the so-called “reality”of life started a new period in the American literary writing known as The Age of Realism.Psychological RealismIt is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters’thoughts andmotivations. And Henry James is considered the founder of psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in the impressions made by life on the spectator, and not in any facts of which the spectator is unaware. Such realism is therefore merely the obligation that the artist assumes to represent life as he sees it.The three dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells豪威尔斯, Mark Twain, and Henry James. Mark Twain and Howells seemed to have paid more attention to the “life” of the Americans, and Henry James had apparently laid greater emphasis on the “inner world”of man.5 Puritanismwas a religious reform movement that arose within the Church of England in the late sixteenth century. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World--a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England. Puritanism, however, was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincident with the founding of New England; it was also a way of being in the world--a style of response to lived experience--that has reverberated through American life ever since.6 American NaturalismAs a literary movement, naturalism grew out of the 19th century realism, the evolutionary theory in his “The Origin of Species”----“the fittest, the survival”in biological sphereThree major concepts of literary naturalism:1) Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment.2) The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires.3) The naturalists think that the true reality is not found in the smiling aspects of middle class life, but in the dominant forces of Nature in stopping human desires, in keeping humans from accomplishing their dreams.They offered vivid pictures of the lives of the down-trodden and the abnormal7 Code HeroGeneral Features:1.He has great physical potential and courage.2. The “code heroes ”have strong willpower.3. Thirdly , another important feature of the “code heroes" is their loyalty.4. Fourthly , the" code heroes ”maintain great dignity in all situations.5. Fifthly , the “code heroes ”are endowed with certain specialized skills , such as fishing , bull fighting , and hunting , etc6, the “code heroes ”are always put in some touch-and go situations, what the heroes must always face up to is their own personal fear of death and the threat of destruction, and it is this obstacle, death, that they have to overcome.8 Local colorismIn literature, local color fiction refers to fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features –including characters, dialects, customs, history, and landscape –of a particular region.Local colorism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early 1870s. It did notcease to be a dominant fashion until the turn of the 20th century. It formed an important part of the realistic movement.Local colorism founds its own position in national literature by its own localism; at the same time, national literature improves its own status by local colorism. It is with local colorism American literature comes to mature and can compete with European one，after that，American Literature becomes really American one．。
美国文学名词解释
American Puritanism清教主义:Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the protestant church who wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrines of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. American literature in the 17th century mostly consisted of Puritan literature. Puritanism had an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets. Transcendentalism 超验主义: Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. Transcendentalists spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. It placed emphasis on spirit, or the Over soul, as the most important thing in the world. It stressed the importance of individual and offered a fresh perception nature ad symbolic of the spirit of God. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thorough.American Naturalism美国自然主义文学: American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. The naturalists attempt to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by environment and heredity. It emphasized that the world was amoral, the men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by heredity and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. The pessimism and deterministic ideas naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.American Naturalism(美国自然主义文学)：The American naturalists accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.2) naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.3>Dreiser is a leading figure of his school.The Gilded Age镀金时代:the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.The Gilded Age is most famous for the creation of a modern industrial economy. The end of the Gilded Age coincided with the Panic of 1893, a deep depression. The depression lasted until 1897 and marked a major political realignment in the election of 1896. After that came the Progressive Era.The Lost Generation迷惘的一代:The Lost Generation is a group of expatriate American writers residing primarily in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. The group was given its name by the American writer Ger trude Stein, who used “a lost generation” to refer to expatriate Americans bitter about their World War I experiences and disillusioned with American society. Hemingway later used the phrase as an epigraph for his novel The Sun Also Rises. It consisted of many influential American writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams and Archibald MacLeish.The Lost Generation(迷惘的一代）：The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe the post-war I generation of American writers:men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the three best-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and John dos Passos. Tragedy:In general, a literary work in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous end. Unlike comedy, tragedy depicts the actions of a central character whois usually dignified or heroic. Through a series of events, this tragic hero is brought to a final downfall. The causes of the tragic hero’s downfall vary. In traditional dramas, the cause can be f ate, a flaw in character or an error in judgment. In modern dramas, where the tragic hero is often an ordinary individual, the causes range from moral or psychological weakness to the evils of society.Catch-22第22条军规:Catch-22 is a general critique of bureaucratic operation and reasoning. Resulting from its specific use in the book, the phrase "Catch-22" is common idiomatic usage meaning "a no-win situation" or "a double bind" of any type. The term was originally from Joseph Heller’s anti novel Catch-22.Beat Generation垮掉的一代:、Group of American writers of the 1950s whose writing expressed profound dissatisfaction with contemporary American society and endorsed an alternative set of values. The term sometimes is used to refer to those who embraced the ideas of these writers. The Beat Generation's best-known figures were writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.The Beat Generation(垮掉的一代):The members of The Beat Generation were new bohemian libertines. Who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity.2> The Beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non-conformity and for its non-conforming style.3> the major beat writings are Allen Ginsberg’s howl.Howl became the manifesto of The Beat Generation.Psychological Realism心理现实主义:It is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters’ thoughts and motivations. It places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization and on the motives, and internal action which springs from and develops external action. In Psychological Realism, character and characterization are more than usually important. Henry James is considered a great master of psychological realism.Free Verse自由诗体:Free verse is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure, instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech. While it alternates stressed and unstressed syllables as stricter verse form do, free verse dose so in a looser way. Walt Whitman’s poetry is an example of free verse.Confessional Poetry自白诗:It is a type of modern poetry in which poets speak with openness and frankness about their own lives, such as in poems about illness, sexuality and despondence. Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg and Theodore Roethke are the most important American poets.Imagism意象派:The 1920s saw a vigorous literary activity in America. In poetry there appeared a strong reaction against Victorian poetry. Imagists placed primary reliance on the use of precise, sharp images as a means of poetic expression and stressed precision in the choice of words, freedom in the choice of subject matter and form, and the use of colloquial language. Most of the imagist poets wrote in free verse, using such devices as assonance and alliteration rather than formal metrical schemes to give structure to their poetry.The movement which had these as its aims is known in literary history as Imagism. Its prime mover was Ezra Pound.Imagism(意象主义)：Imagism came into being in Britain and U.S 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:A.direct treatment of subject matter;B.economy of expression;C. as regards rhythm ,to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome. 4> pou nd’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known inagist poem. Black Humor:the use of morbid and the absurd for darkly comic purposes in modern fiction and drama. The term refers as much to the tone of anger and bitterness as it does to the grotesque and morbid situations, which often deal with suffering, anxiety, and death. Black humor is a substantial element in the Anti-novel and the Theatre of Absurd. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is an almost archetypal example.Irony:A contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens in drama and literature. There are types of irony: verbal irony, dramatic irony and irony of situation. Irony of situation typically takes the form of a discrepancy between appearance and reality, or between what a character expects and what actually happens. Both verbal and irony of situation share the suggestion of a concealed truth conflicting with surface appearances.A Jja zz age(爵士时代):Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between world war I and world war II. Particularly in north America. With the rise of the great depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term” Jazz Age”.Nathaniel Hawthorneworks(1)Two collections of short stories: Twice-toldTales, Mosses from and Old Manse(2)The Scarlet Letter(3)The House of the Seven Gables(4)The Marble Faun1.point of view(1)Evil is at the core of human life, “thatblackness in Hawthorne”(2)Whenever there is sin, there is punishment.Sin or evil can be passed from generation togeneration (causality).(3)He is of the opinion that evil educates.(4)He has disgust in science.2.aesthetic ideas(1)He took a great interest in history andantiquity. To him these furnish the soil onwhich his mind grows to fruition.(2)He was convinced that romance was thepredestined form of American narrative. Totell the truth and satirize and yet not tooffend: That was what Hawthorne had inmind to achieve.3.style – typical romantic writer(1)the use of symbols(2)revelation of characters’ psychology(3)the use of supernatural mixed with theactual(4)his stories are parable (parable inform) – toteach a lesson(5)use of ambiguity to keep the reader in theworld of uncertainty –multiple point ofviewEdgar Allen PoeWorks1.short stories(1)ratiocinative storiesa.Ms Found in a Bottleb.The Murders in the Rue Morguec.The Purloined Letter(2)Revenge, death and rebirtha.The Fall of the House of Usherb.Ligeiac.The Masque of the Red Death(3)Literary theorya.The Philosophy of Compositionb.The Poetic Principlec.Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told TalesI.Themes1.death –predominant theme in Poe’s writing“Poe is not interested in anything alive. Everythingin Poe’s writings is dead.”2.disintegration (separation) of life3.horror4.negative thoughts of scienceII.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 bebeauty, the tone melancholy. Poems should not beof moralizing. He calls for pure poetry and stressesrhythm.III.Style – traditional, but not easy to read Reputation: “the jingle man” (Emerson)I. F. Scott Fitzgerald1.life – participant in 1920s2.works(1)This Side of Paradise(2)Flappers and Philosophers(3)The Beautiful and the Damned(4)The Great Gatsby(5)Tender is the Night(6)All the Sad Young Man(7)(8)The Last Tycoon3.point of view(1)He expressed what the young peoplebelieved in the 1920s, the so-called“American Dream” is false in nature.(2)He had always been critical of the rich andtried to show the integrating effects ofmoney on the emotional make-up of hischaracter. He found that wealth alteredpeople’s characters, making them mean anddistrusted. He thinks money brought onlytragedy and remorse.(3)His novels follow a pattern: dream – lack ofattraction – failure and despair.4.His ideas of “American Dream”It is false to most young people. Only those whowere dishonest could become rich.5.StyleFitzgerald was one of the great stylists in Americanliterature. His prose is smooth, sensitive, andcompletely original in its diction and metaphors. Itssimplicity and gracefulness, its skill inmanipulating the relation between the general andthe specific reveal his consummate artistry.6.The Great GatsbyNarrative point of view – NickHe is related to everyone in the novel and is calmand detected observer who is never quick to makejudgements.Selected omniscient point of viewII.Ernest Hemingway1.life2.point of view (influenced by experience in war)(1)He felt that WWI had broken America’sculture and traditions, and separated from itsroots. He wrote about men and women whowere isolated from tradition, frightened,sometimes ridiculous, trying to find theirown way.(2)He condemned war as purposeless slaughter,but the attitude changed when he took partin Spanish Civil War when he found thatfascism was a cause worth fighting for.(3)He wrote about courage and cowardice inbattlefield. He defined courage as “aninstinctive movement towards or away fromthe centre of violence with self-preservationand self-respect, the mixed motive”. He alsotalked about the courage with which to facetragedies of life that can never be remedied.(4)Hemingway is essentially a negative writer.It is very difficult for him to say “yes”. Heholds a black, naturalistic view of the worldand sees it as “all a nothing” and “all nada”.3.works(1)In Our Time(2)Men Without Women(3)Winner Take Nothing(4)The Torrents of Spring(5)The Sun Also Rises(6) A Farewell to Arms(7)Death in the Afternoon(8)To Have and Have Not(9)Green Hills of Africa(10)The Fifth Column(11)For Whom the Bell Tolls(12)Across the River and into the Trees(13)The Old Man and the Sea4.themes –“grace under pressure”(1)war and influence of war on people, withscenes connected with hunting, bull fightingwhich demand stamina and courage, andwith the question “how to live with pain”,“how human being live gracefully underpressure”.(2)“code hero”The Hemingway hero is an average man ofdecidedly masculine tastes, sensitive andintelligent, a man of action, and one of fewwords. That is an individualist keepingemotions under control, stoic andself-disciplined in a dreadful place. Thesepeople are usually spiritual strong, people ofcertain skills, and most of them encounterdeath many times.5.style(1)simple and natural(2)direct, clear and fresh(3)lean and economical(4)simple, conversational, common found,fundamental words(5)simple sentences(6)Iceberg principle: understatement, impliedthings(7)SymbolismI.Mark Twain – Mississippi1.life2.works(1)The Gilded Age(2)“the two advantages”(3)Life on the Mississippi(4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’sCourt(5)The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug3.style(1)colloquial language, vernacular language,dialects(2)local colour(3)syntactic feature: sentences are simple, brief,sometimes ungrammatical(4)humour(5)tall tales (highly exaggerated)(6)social criticism (satire on the different uglythings in society)I.Emily Dickenson1.life2.works(1)My Life Closed Twice before Its Close(2)Because I Can’t Stop for Death(3)I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I died(4)Mine – by the Right of the White Election(5)Wild Nights – Wild Nights3.themes: based on her ownexperiences/joys/sorrows(1)religion –doubt and belief about religioussubjects(2)death and immortality(3)love –suffering and frustration caused bylove(4)physical aspect of desire(5)nature – kind and cruel(6)free will and human responsibility4.style(1)poems without titles(2)severe economy of expression(3)directness, brevity(4)musical device to create cadence (rhythm)(5)capital letters – emphasis(6)short poems, mainly two stanzasrhetoric techniques: personification –make some of abstract ideas vivid。
美国文学名词解释
美国文学名词解释美国文学，作为世界文学的重要组成部分，有着丰富多彩的文化背景和独特的创作风格。
在这篇文章中，我将为您解释几个与美国文学相关的重要名词。
1. 美国文学：美国文学是指在美国国土上创作的文学作品，包括小说、诗歌、戏剧和散文等各种文体。
美国文学自17世纪初殖民地时期开始出现，并逐渐形成独特的风格和主题，如自由、探索、个人价值观等。
该文学受到欧洲文学、非裔美国文学、拉丁美洲文学等多个文学传统的影响。
2. 讽刺文学：讽刺文学是通过调侃、嘲笑或批评等手法，通过善意或恶意地对社会、人物、社会习俗等进行揭示和描述的一种文学形式。
美国文学中讽刺常常用来表达对社会问题的关注以及对不公正现象的讽刺批评。
作家马克·吐温的小说《哈克贝里·费恩历险记》便是美国文学中著名的讽刺作品之一。
3. 大都市文学：大都市文学是指以城市为背景、以城市生活为题材的文学作品。
美国是大都市文学的发源地之一，纽约市成为该文学流派的中心。
大都市文学反映了城市的动态与繁华，同时也揭示了城市中的社会问题和人际关系。
美国作家F·斯科特·菲茨杰拉德的小说《了不起的盖茨比》，以及薇拉·刘易斯和李欧·斯坦巴克的作品都是著名的大都市文学作品。
4. 美国本土文学：美国本土文学是指探讨、描写和反映美国本土历史、文化、民族特色的文学作品。
该文学形式着重于展示美洲原住民、欧洲移民、非裔美国人和其他少数族裔的文化传统和经验。
美国作家奥兰多·费斯特的小说《渐近线》以及路易斯·埃里斯的小说《米南多洛之歌》都是美国本土文学的代表作品。
5. 后现代主义文学：后现代主义文学是指具有反传统、颠覆常规、模糊现实与虚幻界限的文学形式。
在晚20世纪以后的美国文学中，后现代主义作品开始兴起。
该文学形式常常使用非线性叙事、多重视角和流派的混合等技巧来表达个体性、主观性和相对主义等概念。
美国作家托马斯·品钦的小说《地下时光》以及大卫·福斯特·华莱士的小说《无人生还》都是后现代主义文学的代表作品。
美国文学术语解释
01. Humanism(人文主义)Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance.2> it emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life. Humanists voiced their beliefs that man was the center of the universe and man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of the present life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.02. Renaissance(文艺复兴)The word “Renaissance”means “rebirth”, it meant the reintroduction into westerm Europe of the full cultural heritage of Greece and Rome.2>the essence of the Renaissance is Humanism. Attitudes and feelings which had been characteristic of the 14th and 15th centuries persisted well down into the era of Humanism and reformation.3> the real mainstream of the english Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama with william shakespeare being the leading dramatist.03. Metaphysical poetry(玄学派诗歌)Metaphysical poetry is commonly used to name the work of the 17th century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne.2>with a rebellious spirit, the Metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry.3>the diction is simple as compared with that of the Elizabethan or the Neoclassical periods, and echoes the words and cadences of common speech.4>the imagery is drawn from actual life.04. Classcism(古典主义)Classcism refers to a movement or tendency in art, literature, or music that reflects the principles manifested in the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Classicism emphasizes the traditional and the universal, and places value on reason, clarity, balance, and order. Classicism, with its concern for reason and universal themes, is traditionally opposed to Romanticism, which is concerned with emotions and personal themes.05. Enlightenment(启蒙运动)Enlightenment movement was a progressive philosophical and artistic movement which flourished in france and swept through western Europe in the 18th century.2> the movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance from 14th century to the mid-17th century.3>its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas.4>it celebrated reason or rationality, equality and science. It advocated universal education.5>famous among the great enlighteners in england were those great writers like Alexander pope. Jonathan swift.etc.06.Neoclassicism(新古典主义)In the field of literature, the enlightenment movement brought about a revival of interest in the old classical works.2>this tendency is known as neoclassicism. The Neoclassicists held that forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers such as Homer and Virgil and those of the contemporary French ones.3> they believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity.07. The Graveyard School(墓地派诗歌)The Graveyard School refers to a school of poets of the 18th century whose poems are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentation or meditation on life. Past and present, with death and graveyard as themes.2>Thomas Gray is considered to be the leading figure of this school and his Elegy written in a country churchyard is its most representative work.08. Romanticism(浪漫主义)1>In the mid-18th century, a new literary movement called romanticism came to Europe and then to England.2>It was characterized by a strong protest against the bondage of neoclassicism, which emphasized reason, order and elegant wit. Instead, romanticism gave primary concern to passion, emotion, and natural beauty.3>In the history of literature. Romanticism is generally regarded as the thought that designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and experience. 4> The English romantic period is an age of poetry which prevailed in England from 1798 to 1837. The major romantic poets include Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley.09. Byronic Hero(拜伦式英雄)Byronic hero refers to a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin.2> with immense superiority in his passions and powers, this Byronic Hero would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt society. And would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies.3> Byron’s chief contr ibution to English literature is his creation of the “Byronic Hero”10. Critical Realism(批判现实主义)Critical Realism is a term applied to the realistic fiction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.2> It means the tendency of writers and intellectuals in the period between 1875 and 1920 to apply the methods of realistic fiction to the criticism of society and the examination of social issues.3> Realist writers were all concerned about the fate of the common people and described what was faithful to reality.4> Charles Dickens is the most important critical realist.11. Aestheticism（美学主义）The basic theory of the Aesthetic movement--- “art for art’s sake” was set forth by a French poet, Theophile Gautier, the first Englishman who wrote about the theory of aestheticism was Walter Pater.2> aestheticism places art above life, and holds that life should imitate art, not art imitate life.3> According to the aesthetes, all artistic creation is absolutely subjective as opposed to objective. Art should be free from any influence of egoism. Only when art is for art’s sake, can it be immortal. They believed that art should be unconcerned with controversial issues, such as politics and morality, and that it should be restricted to contributing beauty in a highly polished style.4> This is one of the reactions against the materialism and commercialism of the Victorian industrial era, as well as a reaction against the Victorian convention of art for morality’s sake, or art for money’s sake.美学运动的基本原则”为艺术而艺术”最初由法国诗人西奥费尔.高缔尔提出,英国运用该美学理论的第一人是沃尔特.佩特.美学主义崇尚艺术高于生活,认为生活应模仿艺术,而不是艺术模仿生活.在美学主义看来,所有的艺术创作都是绝对主观而非客观的产物.艺术不应受任何功利的影响,只有当艺术为艺术而创作时,艺术才能成为不朽之作.他们还认为艺术不应只关注一些热点话题如政治和道德问题,艺术应着力于以华丽的风格张扬美.这是对维多利亚工业发展时期物质崇拜的一种回应,也是向艺术为道德或为金钱而服务的维多利亚传统的挑战.12.The Victorian period(维多利亚时期)In this period, the novel became the most widely read and the most vital and challenging expression of progressive thought. While sticking to the principle of faithful representation of the 18th century realist novel, novelists in this period carried their duty forward to criticism of the society and the defense of the mass.2> although writing from different points of view and with different techniques, they shared one thing in common, that is, they were all concerned about the fate of the common people. They were angry with the inhuman social institutions, the decaying social morality as represented by the money-worship and Utilitarianism, and the widespread misery, poverty and injustice.3>their truthful picture of people’s life and bitter and strong criticism of the society had done much in awakening the public consciousness to the social problems and in the actual improvement of the society.4> Charles Dickens is the leading figure of the Victorian period.13. Modernism(现代主义)Modernism is comprehensive but vague term for a movement , which begin in the late 19th century and which has had a wide influence internationally during much of the 20th century.2> modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory ofpsycho-analysis as its theoretical case.3> the term pertains to all the creative arts. Especially poetry, fiction, drama, painting, music and architecture.4> in England from early in the 20th century and during the 1920s and 1930s, in America from shortly before the first world war and on during the inter-war period, modernist tendencies were at their most active and fruitful.5>as far as literature is concerned, Modernism reveals a breaking away from established rules, traditions and conventions. fresh ways of looking at man’s position and function in the universe and many experiments in form and style. It is particularly concerned with language and how to use it and with writing itself.14. Stream of consciousness(意识流)(or interior monologue)In literary criticism, Stream of consciousness denotes a literary technique which seeks to describe an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes. Stream of consciousness writing is strongly associated with the modernist movement. Its introduction in the literary context, transferred from psychology, is attributed to May Sinclair. Stream of consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow, tracing as they do a character’s fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings. Famous writers to employ this technique in the English language include James Joyce and William Faulkner.学术界认为意识流是一种通过直接描述人物思维过程来寻求个人视角的文学写作技巧。
美国文学史名词解释
1、Romanticism浪漫主义a movement of the 18th and 19th century that affected the whole of Europe and America.It is the predominance of imagination over reason and formal rules and over the sense of fact or the actual, a psychological desire to escape from unpleasant realities.Romanticism was a movement in literature, philosophy, music and art which developed in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.It emphasized individual values and aspirations above those of society as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution.It looked to the Middle Ages and to direct contact with nature for inspiration的特点：frequently shared certain general characteristics, moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that he natural world was a source of corruption.浪漫主义之间大多是相通的，都注重道德，强调个人主义价值观和直觉感受，并且认为自然是美的源头，人类社会是腐败之源。
美国文学名词解释复习
1.Imagism（意象派）: 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 P ound and Amy Lowell.2.Local colorism: as a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s，it is defined by Hamlin Garland as having such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality of circumstantial(详细的) authenticity(确实性), as local colorists tried to immortalize(使不朽) the distinctive natural, social and linguistic features. It is characteristic of vernacular(本国语) language and satirical(讽刺的) humor3.Psychological Realism: James’s realism is characterized by his psychological a pproach to his subject matter. His fictional world is concerned more with the inner l ife of human beings than with overt human actions. His best and most mature wor ks will render the drama of individual consciousness and convey the moment-to-mo ment sense of human experience as bewilderment and discovery. And we observe people and events filtering through the individual consciousness and participate in h is experience. This emphasis on psychology and on the human consciousness prov es to be a big breakthrough in novel writing and has great influence on the comin g generations. James is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century " stream-of-consciousness" novels and the founder of psychological realism.4.International theme:Henry James’s fame generally rests on his novels and stories with the international theme. These novels are always set against a large international background, usually between Europe and America, and centered on the confrontation of the two different cultures with two different groups of people representing two different value systems.The treatment of the international theme is characterized by the richness of syntax and characterization and the originality in point of view, symbolism, metaphoric texture, and organizing rhyme. James is now more mature as an artist, more at home in the craft of fiction.5. Modernism：It was a complex and diverse （复杂多样的）international movement in all the creative arts （创造性艺术），originating about the end of the 19th century. It provided （出现）the greatest creative renaissance of the 20th century. It was made up of many facets （方面），such as symbolism，surrealism （超现实主义），cubism （立体主义），expressionism，futurism （未来主义），ect6. American Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.7.Surrealism(超现实主义):An anti-rational movement of imaginative liberation in European in art and literature in the 1920s and 1930s, which launched by Andre Breton after his break from the Dada group in 1922. Surrealism seeks to break down the boundaries between rationality and irrationality, exploring the resources and revolutionary energies of dreams, hallucinations and sexual desire. Influenced both by the symbolists and by Sigmund Freud’s theories of the unconscious, the surrealists experimented with automatic writing and with the free association of random images brought in surprising juxtaposition.8. Naturalism: American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. American naturalism had been shaped by the war; by the social upheavals（剧变）that undermined the comforting faith of an earlier age. America’s literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by their environment and heredity. Although naturalist literature described the world with sometimes brutal realism, it sometimes also aimed at bettering the world through social reform.9. Hemingway Code Hero(海明威式英雄): Hemingway Code Hero ,also called code hero, is one who, wounded but strong more sentitive, enjoys the pleasures of life( sex, alcohol, sport) in face of ruin and death, and maintains, through some notion of a code, an ideal of himself.2> barnes in the sun also Rises, henry in a Farewell to arms and santiago in the old man and the sea are typical of Hemingway Code Hero10.Iceberg Theory :Ernest Hemingway’s “iceberg 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. If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement ofan iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action11.American Dream:American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. It usually implies a successful and satisfying life. It usually framed in terms of American capitalism（资本主义）, its associated purported meritocracy,（知识界精华）and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Bill of Rights.12. Jazz age(爵士时代):The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between world war I and world war II. Particularly in north America. With the rise of the great depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited wi th coining the term” Jazz Age”.（了解）13.Stream of consciousness（意识流）：It is one of the modern literary techniques. It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them. It was first used in 1922 by the Irish novelist James Joyce. Those novels broke through the bounds of time and space, and depicted vividly and skillfully the unconscious activity of the mind fast changing and flowing incessantly。
美国文学-名词解释
美国文学-名词解释美国文学重要名词解释American Romanticism(1)American Romanticism is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature.(2)It was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism．For romantics，the feelings，intuitions and emotions were more important than reason and common sense．They emphasized individualism，placing the individual against the group．They affirmed the inner life of the self, and cherished strong interest in the past，the wild，the remote，the mysterious and the strange．They stressed the element “Americanness” in their works．(3)It started with the publication of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass．(4)Being a period of the great flowering of American literature，it is also called “the Amer icanRenaissance．”(5)American Romanticists include such literary figures as Washington Irving，Ralph Waldo Emerson，Henry David Thoreau，William Cullen Bryant，Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne，Edgar Allen Poe，Herman Melville．Walt Whitman and some others．Transcendentalism(1) It refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the middle 1800’s，which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition，the Over-soul，and Nature．Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divineand，therefore，self-reliant．(2) New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism．3. Free Verse(1)Free verse means the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without paying attention to conventional rules of meter．(2)Free verse was originated by a group of French poets of the late 19th century．(3)Their purpose was to free themselves from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to recreate instead the free rhythms of natural speech．(4) Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Gra ss is，perhaps，the most notable example．4. Symbol(1)Symbol means an act，a person，a thing，or a spectacle that stands for something else，usually something less palpable than the named symbol．(2)The relationship between the symbol and its referent is not often one of simple equivalence．Allegorical symbols usually express a neater equivalence with what they stand for than the symbols found in modern realistic fiction．5. Theme(1) Theme means the unifying point or general idea Of a literary work．(2) It provides an answer to such question as “What is the work about?”(3) Each literary work carries its own theme or themes．For example，King Lear has many themes，among which areblindness and madness6. American Naturalism(1) The American naturalists accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces．2) American Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s ton e in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic．It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence．(3) Dreiser is a leading figure of his school．7. Darwinism(1) Darwinism is a term that comes from Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory．(2) Darwinists think that those who survive in the world are the fittest and those who fail toadapt themselves to the environment will perish．They believe that man has evolved from lower forms of life．Humans are special not because God created them in His image，but because they have successfully adapted to changing environmental conditions and have passed on their survival．making characteristics genetically．(3)Influenced by this theory，some American naturalist writers apply Darwinism as an explanation of human nature and social reality．8. Local Colorists(1) Generally speaking，the writings of local colorists are concerned with the life of a small，well-defined region orprovince．The characteristic setting is the isolated small town．(2) Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes．Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions．They worked from personal experience to record the facts of a local environment and suggested that the native life was shaped by the curious conditions of the Locale．(3) Major local colorists include Hamlin Garland，Mark Twain，Kate Chopin，etc.9. The Lost Generation(1) The Lost Generation is a term first used by Gertrude Stein to describe the post-World WarI generation of American writers：men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war．(2)Full of youthful idealism，these individuals sought the meaning of life，drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date．(3)The three best—known representatives of Lost Generation are F Scott Fitzgerald．Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos．(4)Others usually included among the list are Sherwood Anderson，Kay Boyle，Hart Crane，Ford Maddox Ford and Zelda Fitzgerald．10. Imagism(1) Imagism came into being in Britain and U．S．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 momentaryimpressions is through the use of one dominant image．(3)Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles：i1 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．(4)Ezra Pound's In a Station of the Metro is a well-known imagist poem．11. The Beat Generation(1)The members of the Beat Generation were new bohemian libertines，who engaged in a spontaneous，sometimes messy, creativity．(2)The beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non—conformity and for its non—conforming style．(3)The major beat writings are Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and AIlen Ginsberg’s Howl．Howl became the manifesto of the Beat Generation．12. American Dream(1)American Dream refers to the dream of material success，in which one，regard1ess of social status，acquires wealth and gains success by working hard and good luck．(2)In literature，the theme of American Dream recurs．In The Great Gatsby．Gatsby comes from the west to the east with the dream of material success．By bootlegging and other illegal means he fulfilled his dream but ended up being killed．The novel tells the shattering of American Dream rather than its Success．13. Expressionism(1)Expressionism refers to a movement in Germany early in the 20th century, in which a number of painters sought to avoidthe representation of external reality and，instead，to project a highly personal or subjective vision of the world．(2) Expressionism is a reaction against realism or naturalism，aiming at presenting a post—war world violently distorted．(3)Works noted for expressionism include：Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones，James Joy ce’s Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake，and T S．Eliot’s The Waste Land, etc．．(4)In a further sense，the term is sometimes applied to the belief that literary works are essentially expressions of their authors’moods and thoughts；this has been the dominant assumption about literature since the rise of Romanticism14. Feminism(1) Feminism incorporates both a doctrine of equal rights for women and an ideology of social transformation aiming to create a world for women beyond simple social equality．(2) In general，femin ism is the ideology of women’s liberation based on the belief that women suffer injustice because of their sex．Under this broad umbrella various feminisms offer differing analyses of the causes，or agents，of female oppression．(3) Definitions of feminism by feminists tend to be shaped by their training，ideology or race．So，for example，Marxist and Socialist feminists stress the interaction within feminism of class with gender and focus on social distinctions between men and women．Black feminists argue much more for an integrated analysis which can unlock the multiple systems of oppression．15. Hemingway Code Hero(1) Hemingway Hero，also called code hero，is one who，wounded but strong, more sensitive，enjoys the pleasures of life (sex，alcohol，sport) in face of ruin and death，and maintains，through some notion of a code，an ideal of himself．(2) Barnes in The Sun Also Rises，Henry in A Farewell to Arms and Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea are typical of Hemingway Hero.16. Harlem Renaissance(1) Harlem Renaissance refers to a period of outstanding literary vigor and creativity thatoccurred in the United States during the 1920s．(2)The, Harlem Renaissance changed the images of literature created by many black and white American writers．New black images were no longer obedient and docile，instead they showed a new confidence and racial pride．(3)The center of this movement was the vast black ghetto of Harlem，in New York City．(4)The leading figures are Langston Hughes，James Weldon Johnson，Wallace Thurman，etc．．17. Impressionism(1) Impressionism is a style of painting that gives the impression made by the subject on the artist without much attention to details．Writers accepted the same conviction that the personal attitudes and moods of the writer were legitimate elements in depicting character or setting or action．(2)Briefly, it is a style of literature characterized by the creation of general impressions and moods rather than realistic moods．18. Puritanism(1)Puritanism refers to the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. The Puritans are the people who wanted to purify the Church of England and was persecuted in England. The first settlers who became the founding father of the American nation were quite a few of them Puritans. They came to America out of various reasons, but because they were a group of serious andreligious people, they carried a code of values, a philosophy of life, a point of view which, in time took root in the New World, and became what is popularly known as American Puritanism.(2) The American Puritans, like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the Church should be restored to “purity” of the first century Church. To them religion was a matter of primary importance. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. It was this kind of religious belief that they brought with them into the wilderness. There they meant to prove that they were God’s chosen people enjoying His blessings on this earth as in heaven.(3) In the grim struggle for survival that followed immediately after their arrival in America, the character of the people underwent a significant change. They became more practical, as indeed they had to be. Gradually a set of Puritan values came into being. They believe in hard working, piety, and sobriety.(4) In a word, American Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American literature. It has become, to some extent, a state of mind, rather than a set of tenets, so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes. We can say that, without some understanding of Puritanism, there can be no real understanding of America and its literature.19. Gothic RomanceIt refers to the Romantic novels with the settings of the ancient castles or old houses and descriptions of supernatural elements like ghosts and specters, usually horror-provoking, like Poe’s “ The Fall of the House of Usher” and some of Irving’stales. 20. Psychological RealismIt is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters’ thoughts and motivations. Henry James’ novel The Ambassadors is considered to be a masterpiece of psychological realism. And Henry James is considered the founder of psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in the impressions made by life on the spectator, and not in any facts of which the spectator is unaware. Such realism is therefore merely the obligation that the artist assumes to represent life as he sees it, which may not be the same life as it “really” is.21. Waste Land Painters“Waste Land Painters” refers to such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. With their writings, all of them painted the postwar Western world as a waste land, lifeless and hopeless. Eliot’s The Waste Land paints a picture of modern social crisis. In this poem, modern civilized society turns into a waste deathly land due to ethical degradation and disillusi onment with dreams. His “The Hollow Men”exhibited a pessimism no less depressing than The Waste Land. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby wrote about the frustration and despair resulting from the failure of the American dream. Hemingway’s works, such as The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, portrayed the dilemma of modern man utterly thrown upon himself for survival in an indifferent world, revealing man’s impotence and his despairing courage to assert himself against overwhelming odds. Faulkner made the history of the Deep South the subject of the bulk of his work, and created a symbolic picture of the remote past. His fictional Yoknapatwpha represents a microcosm of the whole macrocosmic nature ofhuman experience.22. ConflictThe conflict in a work of fiction is the battle that the main character must wage against an opposing force. Usually the events of the story are all related to the conflict, and the conflict is resolved in some way by the story’s end.A battle with nature is a common conflict in literature, particularly Naturalist literature. Other common types are conflict between two characters; conflict between a character and the laws of society; conflict between a character and chance or fate; the inner conflict, in which a character struggles with personal weakness, illusions, or desires.23. StyleBroadly speaking, style is the way a literary work is created of a writer writes his literary works. In a narrow sense it refers to the typical linguistic feature and specific literary techniques and devices for a literary work or a writer.24. Point of viewThe angle from which a story or a novel is written is the point of view. Generally speaking, fiction is written in the omniscient point of view, the third person point of view or the first-person point of view.25. Black HumorOriginally it refers to a type of course humor in which tragic events like death and serious wounds are made fun of. In American literature it refers to the novels which employ this type of humor.26. The Jazz AgeTo many, World War I was a tragic failure of old values, of old politics, of old ideas. The social mood was often one of confusionand despair. Yet, on the surface the mood in American during the 1920s did not seem desperate. Instead, Americans entered a decade of prosperity and exhibitionism that prohibition, the legal ban against alcoholic beverages, ded more to encourage than to curb. Fashions were extravagant; More and more automobiles crowded the roads, advertising flourished; and nearly every American home had a radio in it. Fads swept the nation. People danced the Charleston, and they sat upon the flagpoles. This was the Jazz Age, when New Orleans musicians moved “up the river” to Chicago and the theater of New York’s Harlem pulsed with the music that had become a symbol of the times. These were the Roaring Twenties. The roaring of the decade served to mask a quiet pain, the sense of loss that Gertrude Stein had observed in Paris. F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the Jazz Age as a generation of “the beautiful and damned”, drowning in their pleasures.。
美国文学选读名词解释
1.Puritanism (清教主义)：Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.1.) simply speaking , American Puritanism just refers to the spirit and ideal of puritans,who settled in the North American continent in the early part of the seventeenth century because of religious persecutions.2.)In content it means scrupulous ,moral rigor ,eapecially hostility to social pleasure and religion .3.)with time passing it became a dominant factor in American life , one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and literature .to some extentit is a state of mind , a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes ,rather than a set of tenets.4.) Actually it is a code of values , a philosophy of life and a point of view in American minds , also a two-faceted tradition of religious idealism and level -headed in common sense .5) Major topic:American Puritanism IntroductionThere were no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian languages and tribal cultures, American writing began with the work of English adventurers and colonists in the New World chiefly for the benefit of readers in the mother country.Therefore the writing in this period was essentially two kinds:(1) practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people “at home” what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration;(2) highly theoretical, generally polemical^辩的)，discussions of religious questions.2.The American Romanticism(浪漫主义)I.What is Romanticism a literary movement flourished as a cultural force the early period and the late period.associated with imagination and boundlessness, as an historical movement it arose in the 18th and 19th centuries. The most clearly defined romantic literary movement in the U. S.A was Transcendentalism.Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, and those of the late periodcontain Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe.□.Features of A merican romanticism（1）It was the expression of “a real new experience（全新体验）”.（2）American Puritanism was a cultural heritage. Many American romantic writings intended to edify（启发）more than they entertained.⑶American Romanticism is full of “newness（新奇）”. Ideals：Individualism; political equality Dream：America: a new Garden of Eden （4）American romanticism was both imitative and independent.3..transcendentalism、（超验主义）transcendentalism: 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. It took nature as symbolic of spirit or God. All things in nature were symbols of the spiritual, of God’s presence. It emphasized the significance o f 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. Transcendentalists envisioned religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “Oversoul”.4.Naturalism: It views human beings as animals in the natural world responding to environmental forces and internal stresses and drives, over none of which they have control and none of which they fully understand. The literary naturalists have a major difference from the realists. They look at a different spot to find real life.5.Free verse: It is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech.6.International novel: IN brings together persons of various nationalities who represent certain characteristics of their own countries.7.the lost generation: reveals the huge destruction of the wars to the young generation. It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colonyof “expatriates”. They were lost in disillusionment.8.American Dream: American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. It usually implies a successful andsatisfying life. It usually framed in terms of American capitalism （资本主义），its associated purported meritocracy,（知识界精华）and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Bill of Rights9.American Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience .10.Black Humor:also called Black Comedy, writing that juxtaposes morbid or ghastly elements with comical ones. The term did not come into common use until the 1960s. Then it was applied to the works of the novelists Nathanael West, Vladimir Nabokov, and Joseph Heller. The latter's Catch-22 （1961） is a notable example, in which Captain Yossarian battles the horrors of air warfare over the Mediterranean during World War II with hilarious irrationalities matching the stupidities of the military system. The term black comedy has been applied to playwrights in the Theatre of the Absurd.11.Local colorism: as a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s, it is defined by Hamlin Garland as having such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality of circumstantial（详细的）authenticity（确实性）,as local colorists tried to immortalize（使不朽）the distinctive natural, social and linguistic features. It is characteristic of vernacular（本国语） language and satirical （讽刺的）humor12.Code HeroGeneral Features:1.He has great physical potential and courage.2.The “ code heroes ” have strong willpower.3.Thirdly , another important feature of the “code heroes" is their loyalty.4.Fourthly , the" code heroes "maintain great dignity in all situations.5.Fifthly , the “code heroes ” are endowed with certain specialized skills , such as fishing , bull fighting , and hunting , etc6.the “code heroes "are always put in some touch-and go situations, what the heroes must always face up to is their own personal fear of death and the threat of destruction, and it is this obstacle, death, that they have to overcome.13.iceberg theory:The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.2 American TranscendentalismAs a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalism （also known as “ American Renaissance"） flourished in New England from 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 against the materialism of American society.Transcendentalism 超验主义（+ H. D. Thoreau; NathanielHawthorne;)The major features of Transcendentalism:①The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想超灵宇宙②The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual is the most important element of Society.个体+社会③The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence.自然+上帝3 Stream of Consciousness 意识流or “interior monologue”,内心独白is one of the modern literary techniques. It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them. It was first used in 1922 by the Irish novelist James Joyce.。
美国文学名词解释
迷惘的一代(Lost Generation)，又称：迷失的一代。
西方现代派文学的一种。
第一次世界大战以后出现于美国的一个文学流派。
第一次世界大战以后，美国有一批青年作家陆续登上文坛。
他们不仅年龄相仿，而且经历相似，思想情绪相近，在创作中表现出许多共同点，逐渐形成一新的文学流派。
代表作家有海明威(1899—1961)、福克纳(1897—1962)、约·多斯·帕索斯(1896—1970)、菲兹杰拉德(1896—1940)，和诗人肯明斯(1894—1962)等。
他们曾怀着民主的理想奔赴欧洲战场，目睹人类空前的大屠杀，经历种种苦难，深受“民主”、“光荣”、“牺牲”口号的欺骗，对社会、人生大感失望，故通过创作小说描述战争对他们的残害，表现出一种迷惘、彷徨和失望的情绪。
这一流派也包括没有参加过战争但对前途感到迷惘和迟疑的20年代作家，如菲兹杰拉德、艾略特和沃尔夫(1900～1938)等。
特别是菲兹杰拉德，对战争所暴露的资产阶级精神危机深有感触，通过对他所熟悉的上层社会的描写，表明昔日的梦想成了泡影，“美国梦”根本不存在，他的人物历经了觉醒和破灭感中的坎坷与痛苦。
沃尔夫的作品以一个美国青年的经历贯穿始终，体现了在探索人生的过程中的激动和失望，是一种孤独者的迷惘。
迷惘的一代作家在艺术上各有特点，他们的主要成就闪烁于20年代，之后便分道扬镳了意象派诗歌意象派（Imagists）是1909年至1917年间一些英美诗人发起并付诸实践的文学运动，它是当时盛行于西方世界的象征主义文学运动的一个分支。
其宗旨是要求诗人以鲜明、准确、含蓄和高度凝炼的意象生动及形象地展现事物，并将诗人瞬息间的思想感情溶化在诗行中。
它反对发表议论及感叹。
意象派的产生最初是对当时诗坛文风的一种反拨，代表人物是埃兹拉·庞德。
由于意象派诗人大多经历了象征诗歌创作，所以理论界也有人将意象派看做象征主义的分支，实际上意象派和象征主义诗歌有极大的本质差异。
(完整word版)美国文学名词解释
American Dream: American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. It usually implies a successful and satisfying life。
It usually framed in terms of American capitalism（资本主义）, its associated purported meritocracy,(知识界精华) and the freedoms guaranteed by the U。
S. Bill of Rights.American Puritanism清教主义: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the protestant church who wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrines of predestination， original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God。
American literature in the 17th century mostly consisted of Puritan literature. Puritanism had an enduring influence on American literature. It had become， to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of national cultural atmosphere， rather than a set of tenets.Transcendentalism 超验主义： Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature， religion，culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century。
美国文学文学名词解释
1 Modernism(现代主义)Modernism is comprehensive but vague term for a movement , which begin in the late19th century and which has had a wide influence internationally during much of the 20th century、2> modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical case、3> the term pertains to all the creative arts、Especially poetry, fiction, drama, painting, music and architecture、现代主义就是全面但运动模糊的术语,在19世纪末期开始,在国际上有广泛影响的在20世纪的大部分时间。
2 >现代主义以非理性哲学与精神分析理论为其理论的情况。
3 >这个词属于所有的创造性艺术。
特别就是诗歌、小说、戏剧、绘画、音乐与建筑。
2 Transcendentalism(超验主义)Transcendentalism is literature, philosophical and literary movement that flourished in new England from about 1836 to 1860、it is the summit of American Romanticism、it originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, developing instead their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world、Transcendentalism derived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, and from such English authors as Coleridge and Wordsworth、Its mystical aspects were partly influenced by Indian and Chinese religious teachings、Although Transcendentalism was never a rigorously systematic philosophy, it had some basic tenets that were generally shared by its adherents、The beliefs that God is immanent in each person and in nature and that individual intuition is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of traditional authority、The ideas of Transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature, and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden、超验主义就是从1836至1860于新英格兰发起的一场文学,哲学以及艺术运动。
美国文学名词解释（★）
美国文学名词解释（★）第一篇：美国文学名词解释1.AmericanTranscendentalism:①transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “ the recognition in man of the capability of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses.②transcendentalists stress the importance of the Over-soul, the Individual and Nature.Other concepts that accompanied transcendentalism include the idea that nature is enabling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-reliant.New England transcendentalism is the product of a combination of Native American Puritanism and European romanticism.③some prominent representatives include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau.2.Free verse free verse means the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without paying attention to conversational rules of meter.Free verse was originated by a group of French poets of the late 19th century.Their purpose was to free themselves from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to recreate instead the free rhymes of nature period.Walt Whitman…s leaves of grass is perhaps the most notable example.3.American Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the puritans.The Puritans were originally members of a division of the protestant church who wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices.They accepted the doctrines of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God.American literature in the 17th century mostly consisted of Puritan literature.Puritanism had an enduring influence on American literature.It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of nationalcultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets.it comes from the American puritans, who were the first immigrants moved to American continent in the 17th century.Original sin, predestination（预言）and salvation（拯救）were the basic ideas of American Puritanism.And, hard-working, piousness（虔诚,尽职），thrift and sobriety（清醒）were praised.4.American Dream: American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough.It usually implies a successful and satisfying life.It usually framed in terms of American capitalism（资本主义）, its associated purported meritocracy,（知识界精华）and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S.Bill of Rights.5.Imagism: the 1920s saw a vigorous literary activity in America.In poetry there appeared a strong reaction against Victorian poetry.Imagists placed primary reliance on the use of precise, sharp images as a means of poetic expression and stressed precision in the choice of words, freedom in the choice of subject matter and form, andthe use of colloquial language.Most of the imagist poets wrote in free verse, using such devices as assonance and alliteration rather than formal metrical schemes to give structure to their poetry..The movement which had these as its aims is known in literary history as Imagism.Its prime mover was Ezra Pound.6.American romanticism①it is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature that stretches from the 18th century to the outbreak of the civil war.It started with the publication of Washington Irving‟s The Sketch Book and ended with Walt Whitman‟s Leaves of Grass.②being a period of the great flowering of American literature, it is also called “the American Renaissance ”.③American romantic works emphasize theimaginative and emotional qualities of nature literature.The strong tendency to eulogize the individual and common man was typical of this period.Most importantly, the writings of American Romanticism are typically American.Works concentrate on uniquecharacteristics of the American land.④New England Transcendentalism is the summit of American R omanticism.⑤Romanticists include such literary figures as Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and some others.第二篇：美国文学名词解释1.Naturalism:American naturalism was a new and harsher realism.America’s literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths.They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by their environment and heredity.Puritanism:Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace form God.3.Realism: Realism emphasizes on a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived.It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.4.Romanticism: romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and m an’s societies a source ofcorruption.Transcendentalism:They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and stressed the importance of the individual.They offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.Nature was, to them, alive, filled with Go d’s overwhelming presence.6.Imagism意象主义: 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.7.Local Colorism: fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features – including characters, dialects, customs, history, and landscape –of a particular region.8.Lost Generation: It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of “expatriates” or exiles.It describes the writers like Hemingway who lived in semi poverty.It describes the Americans who returned to their native land with an intense awareness of living in an unfamiliar changing world.9.Beat Generation: It was a group of American post-World War IIwho came to prominence in the 1950s.They rejected conventional social and moral values;expressed their alienation in their works from conventional “square” society by adopting a life style which featured sex, drugs, jazz and the freedom of the open road.10.Symbolism: Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols.It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word.It’s one of the most powerful devices that poets employ in creation.11.Modernism：is loosely a synonym of anything contemporary.Strictly, Modernism began in the late 19th century and regarded the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base.They pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one.12.A Jazz age(爵士时代):The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s.With the rise of the greatdepression, the values of this age saw much decline.Highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism.第三篇：文学名词解释文学名词解释提前注明：名词解释是有技巧性的，要交代年代，作者，代表作，文学特征，文学的历史作用等等，以及对后世的影响。
美国文学总复习名词解释
American Literature1.What is Transcendentalism?In New England, an intellectual movement known as transcendentalism developed as an American version of Romanticism. The movement began among an influential set of authors based in Concord, Massachusetts, and was led by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Like Romanticism, Transcendentalism rejected both 18th-century rationalism and established religion, which for the transcendentalists meant the Puritan tradition in particular. Instead, the transcendentalists celebrated the power of the human imagination to commune with the universe and transcend the limitations of the material world. The transcendentalists found their chief source of inspiration in nature. Emerson’s essay Nature(1836) was the first major document of the transcendental school and stated the ideas that were to remain central to it. His other key transcendentalist works include The American Scholar(1837), a volume in which he addressed the intellectual’s duty to culture, and Self-Reliance(1841), an essay in which he asserted the importance of being true to one’s nature.2.What is Puritanism?The word Puritanism is originally used to refer the theology advocated by a party within the Church of England. The term Puritanism is also used in a broader sense to refer to attitudes and values considered characteristic of the Puritans. It has been employed to denote a rigid moralism, or the condemnation谴责of innocent pleasure, or religious narrowness adhered by the early New England Puritans. The American Puritanism as cultural heritage exerted great influence over American moral values. And this Puritan influence over American Romanticism was conspicuously noticeable. The American Puritans accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God.3.What is Free verse ?Free Verse, is the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without attention to conventional rules of meter. Free verse is used to deliver poetry free from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to re-create instead the free rhythms of natural speech. Pointing to the American poet Walt Whitman as their precursor, they wrote lines of varying length and cadence节奏, usually not rhymed. The emotional content or meaning of the work was expressed through its rhythm. Free verse has been characteristic of the work of many modern American poets, including Ezra Pound, and Carl Sandburg.4.What is Local Colorism?Post-Civil War America was large and diverse(various enough to sense its own local difference. Regional voices had emerged from newly settled territories in the South and tothe west of the Appalachan. Local colorism is a unique variation of the American literary realism. Generally, the works by local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region. This kind of fiction depicts the characters from a specified setting or of an era, which are marked by its customs, dialects, landscape, or other peculiarities that have escaped standardizing cultural influence.What is naturalism?In literature, the term refers to the theory that literary composition should aim at a detached, scientific objectivity in the treatment of natural man. The movement is an outgrowth of 19th-century scientific thought, following in general the biological determinism of Darwin’s theory, or the economic determinism of Karl Marx. Artistically, naturalistic writings are usually unpolished in language, lacking in academic skills and unwieldy in structure. Philosophically, the naturalists believe that the real and true is always partially hidden from the individual, or beyond his control and that men are controlled and conditioned by heredity, instinct, chance and above all environment. Notable writers of naturalistic fiction were Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Sherwood Anderson and Theodore Dreiser.What is “stream-of-consciousness”?Stream of consciousness is a term coined by William James in his The Principles of Psychology to describe the flow of thoughts of the waking mind. Now it is widely used in a literary context to describe the unspoken thoughts and feelings of the characters, without resorting(jiezhu) to objective description or conventional dialogue. It was adapted and developed by Joyce, V. Woolf, and others. The ability to represent the flux of a character’s thought, impressions, emotions, or reminiscences, often without logical sequence or syntax, marked a revolution in the form of novel at that time.What is the Lost Generation?The Lost Generation refers to the disillusioned(awaken) intellectuals and artists of the years following the First World War, who rebelled against former ideals and values but could replace them only by despair of a cynical bedonism. The remark of Gertrude Stein, “You are a lost generation,” addressed to Hemingway, was used as a preface to the latter’s novel The Sun also Rises, which brilliantly describes those expatriates(yimin) who had cut themselves off from their past in America in order to create new types of writing.What is Black Humor?Black humor is a type of modern humor that is caused by anger. It often describes gruesome events, which are normally associated with pleasant occasions, thus producing the congruous effect for humor. Black humor attacks on social mores through shocking language and offensive imagery. Black humor is a kind of desperate humor. It is the laughter at tragic things. In this meaningless world, according to Black Humorists, man’s fate is decided by incomprehensive powers. We can’t do anything about it; therefore wemay as well laugh. Sardonic and imaginative 20th-century American writers often used the novel to ridicule society. Such novelists as Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, and Kurt V onnegut, came to be known as the black humorists, because of their darkly comic writings.What is the Beat Generation?Beat Generation is a group of American writers of the 1950s whose writing expressed profound dissatisfaction with contemporary American society and endorsed an alternative set of values. They rejected traditional forms and sought expression in the beatific illumination. The term sometimes is used to refer to those who embraced the ideas of these writers. The Beat Generation’s best-known figures were writers Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac.What are the thematic concerns and the artistic characteristics of Emily Dickinson’s poetry?Emily Dickinson is America’s best-known female poet. Her poetry covers the issues vital to humanity, which include religion, death, immortality, love, and nature. Her poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines. In her poetry, there isa particular stress pattern, in which dashes are used as a musical device to createcadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis. A master of imagery that makes the spiritual materialize in surprising ways, Dickinson managed manifold variations within her simple form. Due to her deliberate seclusion, her poems tend to be very personal and meditative. Dickinson’s poetry, despite its ostensibleobvious formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness; and her limited private world have never confined the limitless power of her creativity and imagination.Discuss the character of Huck in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And what is the social significance of the novel?The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered a masterpiece of Mark Twain. The book is the story of the title character, known as Huck, a boy who flees his father by rafting down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave, Jim. The climax arises with Huck’s inner struggle in the Mississippi, when Huck is polarized by the two opposing forces between his heart and his head, between for Jim and the laws of the society against those who help slaves escape. With the eventual victory of his moral conscience over his social awareness, Huck grows. Huckleberry Finn, which is almost entirely narrated from Huck’s point of view, is noted for its authentic language and for its deep commitment to freedom. Huck’s adventures also provide the reader with a panorama of American life along the Mississippi before the Civil War. The readers are impressed by Twain’s thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization.Briefly discuss the question from THREE of the following aspects: the setting, the language, the character（s）, the theme and the style.A.Setting: In the novel Mark Twain recreates a small-town world of America and presents the local color.nguage: He uses simple, direct language faithful to the colloquial speech, the vernacular (native)language of the local people.C.Character（s）: The author recreates two rebels and fugitives(taowangzhe) running away from civilization, especially Huckleberry Finn, an innocent boy who refuses to accept the conventional village morality.D.Theme: The novel is a criticism of social injustice, hypocrisy, conservativeness and narrow-mindedness of the American small town society.E.Style: The novel employs a humorous style of narration and is also highly symbolic with the central symbol.5.What is the feature of the main character in W. Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily?A Rose for Emily is Faulkner’s first short story published in 1930. Set in the town of Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha, the story focuses on Emily, an eccentric spinster who refused to accept the passage of time, or the inevitable change and loss that accompanies it. As a descendent of the Southern aristocracy, Emily is typical of those in Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha stories that are the symbols of the Old Deep South but the prisoners of the past. The deformed (disabled)personality and abnormality Emily demonstrates Faulkner’s point of view that by alienating oneself from reality, a person is bound to be a tragedy. Emily is regarded as the symbol of tradition and the old way of life. Thus her death parallels with the decline of the Old South.6.William Faulkner, a Nobel Prize winner, has an important position in Americanliterature. Do you know anything about "Yoknapatawpha County?" What are hisartistic achievements?a Yoknapatawpha County is an imagined place based on Faulkner's own hometown, a place that he took for the setting of 15 of his 19 novels and many short stories. This small region in the American South becomes in Faulkner's fiction an allegory or a parable of the Old Deep South.b. The Sound and the Fury, his masterpiece, is an account of the tragic downfall of the Compson family. The novel uses four different narrative voices to piece together the story and thus challenges the reader by presenting a fragmented plot told from multiple points of view. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1949. Faulkner especially was interested in multigenerational family chronicles, and many characters appear in more than one book; this gives the Yoknapatawpha County saga a sense of continuity that makes the area and its inhabitants seem real.7.What are the stylistic features of Hemingway’s novels?Hemingway’s novels are mainly concerned with “tough” people, known for the Hemingway hero of athletic prowess(weili) and masculinity(male) and unyielding(never give up) heroism, whose essential courage and honesty are implicitly (implied)contrasted with the brutality of civilized society. He deals with a limited range of chatacters in quite similar circumstance and measures them against an unvarying code, known as “grace under pressure”, which is actually an attitude towards life that Hemingway had been trying to demonstrate in his works. In the general situation of his novels, life is but a losing battle; however, it is also a struggle man can demonstrate in such a way that loss becomes dignity; man can be physically destroyed but never defeated spiritually.Hemingway once said, “The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eight of it being above water.” Typical of this “iceberg” analogy (leisi)is Hemingway’s style: Hemingway’s economical writing style often seems simple, but his method iscalculated(right qiadangde). In his writing, Hemingway provided detached descriptions of action, using simple nouns and verbs to capture scenes precisely. By doing so he avoided describing his character’s emotions and thoughts directly. Hemingway was deeply concerned with authenticity in writing. Besides, Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism initiatied by Mark Twain. The accents and mannerisms(special habit) of human speech are well presented, and the use of short, simple words and sentences has an effect of clearness, terseness and great care.8.What is the theme and the major character in F.S. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby? Considered as Fitzgerald’s finest work, The Great Gatsby, written in crisp, concise prose and told by Nick Carraway, a satiric yet sympathetic narrator, it is the story of Jay Gatsby, a young American from the Midwest. Gatsby becomes a bootlegger in order to attain the wealth and lavish way of life he feels are necessary to win the love of Daisy, a married, upper-class woman who had once rejected him. The story ends tragically with Gatsby’s destruction. The book deals with the bankruptcy of the protagonists’ personal dreams due to the clashes between their romantic vision of life and the sordid reality.The hero of the novel, Gatsby, is the last of romantic heroes, whose energy and sense of commitment takes him in search of his person grail. Gatsby’s failure magnifies to a great extent the end of the American dream. The protagonist’s pursuit of his dream only proves to be nothing but an illusion. Nevertheless, the affirmation of hope and expectation isself-asserted in the characters.9.What does the term Catch-22 refer to?Catch-22 is a darkly comic and wildly inventive novel by Joseph Heller about the insanity of war and the absurdity of military authority. The novel is a leading example of the black-humor movement in American fiction. Catch-22 features the airman Yossarian as the hero and moral center of a satirical depiction of life in the army. Yossarian is portrayed as one of the last rational people in an insane war. In the novel, the absurdities of military life are represented by the regulation “Catch-22”. The regulation, which prevents airmen from escaping service in bombing missions by pleading insanity, states that any airman rational enough to want to be grounded cannot possibly be insane and therefore is fit to fly. The term has now become part of English vocabulary, referring to a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule. What is Robert Frost’s nature poem?Robert Frost, American poet, known for his verse concerning New England life. He learned the familiar conventions of nature poetry from his predecessors, and made the colloquial New England speech into a poetic expression. A poem so conceived thus becomes a symbol or metaphor, a careful, loving exploration of reality. Images or symbols in his poems are drawn from the simple country life. However, profound ideas are delivered under the disguise of the plain language and the simple form, for what Frost did is to take symbols from the limited human world and the pastoral landscape to refer to the great world beyond the rustic scene. These thematic concerns include the terror and tragedy in nature, as well as its beauty, and the loneliness and poverty of the isolated human being. In short, the nature poems demonstrate Frost’s love of life and his belief in a serenity that comes from the common experience.27what are the characteristics of modern American literature?In general terms, much serious literature written from 20th century onwards attempted to convey a vision of social breakdown and moral decay and the writers’ task was to develop technique that could represent a break with the past. Thus the defining formal characteristics of the modernistic works are discontinuity and fragmentation. An awareness of the irrational and the workings of the unconscious mind are pervasive in much modernist writing. Technically, modernism was marked by a persistent experimentalism. It rejected the traditional framework of narrative, description, and rational exposition in poetry and prose, in favor of a stream-of –consciousness presentation of personality, a dependence on the poetic image as the essential vehicle of aesthetic communication, and upon myth as a characteristic structural principle. Compared with earlier writings, modern American writings are notable for what they omit: the explanations, interpretations, connections, and summaries. There are shifts in perspective, voice, and tone, but the biggest shift is from the external to the internal, from the public to the private, from the chronological to the psychic, from the objective description to the subjective projection.29 What is the Harlem Renaissance?The Harlem Renaissance was an African American cultural movement of the late 1920s and early 1930s that was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. It marked the first time that African American literature attracted significant attention. No comm.on style or ideology defined the Harlem Renaissance, but the poets, novelists, political essayists, and dramatists who participated in the endeavor shared a commitment to giving artistic expression to the African American experience. They also shared a strong sense of racial pride and a desire to better the social and economic situation of blacks. Major prose writers in the movement were historian and sociologist W.E .DuBois, and writer Langston Hughes.Hills Like White Elephants。
美国文学名词解释
美国文学名词解释美国文学是指美国国内所产生的文学作品，包括小说、诗歌、剧本等各种文学体裁。
它具有自己的特点和风格，反映了美国人的文化、价值观念和思想观念。
美国文学中有许多特殊的名词和术语，下面是其中一些常见的名词解释：1. Puritanism（清教主义）: 清教主义是美国文学发展的重要起点之一，它是在17世纪早期由清教徒带入美洲的思想和信仰体系。
清教徒强调个人责任和纯洁的生活方式，他们的文学作品通常传达着信仰、奋斗和自我批判的主题。
2. American Renaissance（美国文艺复兴）: 美国文艺复兴指的是19世纪中期到20世纪初期的一个时期，这个时期出现了一大批杰出的美国作家和作品。
其中包括威廉·福柯特、纳撒尼尔·霍桑、赫尔曼·梅尔维尔等人的文学作品。
这些作品在内容、风格上更加关注人性、自然和道德等问题。
3. Realism（现实主义）: 现实主义是19世纪末至20世纪初的一种文学流派，在美国文学发展史中具有重要的地位。
现实主义作家力求以客观、真实的方式描绘生活中的人和事，关注社会问题和个人命运。
马克·吐温和亨利·詹姆斯被认为是现实主义文学中最有影响力的作家。
4. Harlem Renaissance（哈莱姆文艺复兴）: 哈莱姆文艺复兴是20世纪20年代至30年代期间，在纽约哈莱姆区集中发展起来的一种文化和艺术运动。
这个运动推动了非洲裔美国人在文学、音乐、舞蹈和绘画等领域的发展。
其中包括作家朗斯顿·休斯、小说家托妮·莫里森等的作品被认为是哈莱姆文艺复兴的代表作。
5. Beat Generation（垮掉的一代）: 垮掉的一代是20世纪50年代和60年代期间在美国兴起的一种文学和文化运动。
这个运动反对传统社会规范和价值观，追求自由和个性的表达。
杰克·凯鲁亚克和艾伦·金斯堡是这个运动的代表作家，他们的作品通常以自由、追求和反叛为主题。
美国文学名词解释
美国文学名词解释1. Naturalism:American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. America’s literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by their environment and heredity.2 Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace form God.3. Realism: Realism emphasizes on a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.4. Romanticism:romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption.5 Transcendentalism:They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and stressed the importance of the individual. They offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was, to them, alive, f illed with God’s overwhelming presence.6. Imagism意象主义: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 ofwording.7. Local Colorism:fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features –including characters, dialects, customs, history, and landscape – of a particular region.8. Lost Generation:It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of “expatriates” or exiles. It describes the writers like Hem ingway who lived in semi poverty. It describes the Americans who returned to their native land with an intense awareness of living in an unfamiliar changing world.9. Beat Generation: It was a group of American post-World War II writers who came to prominence in the 1950s .They rejected conventional social and moral values; expressed their alienation in their works from c onventional “square” society by adopting a life style which featured sex, drugs, jazz and the freedom of the open road.10. Symbolism: Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. It’s one of the most powerful devices tha t poets employ in creation.11.Modernism：is loosely a synonym of anything contemporary. Strictly, Modernism began in the late 19th century and regarded the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. They pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one.12.A Jazz age(爵士时代):The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s.With the rise of the great depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism.。
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学习资料收集于网络，仅供参考1.2.6.Transcendentalism: is literature，philosophical and literary movement that flourished in NewEngland from about 1836 to1860. It originated among a small group of intellectuals who werereaching against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, their ownfaith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world instead. Transcendentalism derivedsome of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, and from such English authorsas Carlyle，Coleridge, and Wordsworth. The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquentlyexpressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature and Self-Reliance and by Henry DavidThoreau in his book Walden..Symbolism象征主义：It is the writing technique of using symbols. It's a literary movement that arosein France in the last half of the 19th century and that greatly influenced many English writer,particularly poets, of the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideasinto one image or even one word. It's one of the most powerful devices thatpoets employ in creation.8.American naturalism：this term was created by Emile Zola. Charles Darwin's evolutionary theoryplayed an important role in naturalism. In the works off naturalism，characters were conceived ascomplex combinations of inherited attributes and habits conditioned by social and economic forces. Atth century，the end of the 19this pessimistic form of realism appeared in america. Naturalism attemptedto achieve extreme objectivity and frankness. Characters in the works of naturalism were dominated bytheir environment and heredity. Naturalism emphasized：the world was around；men had no free will；religious“truth”were illusory；the destiny of human beings was misery in life and oblivion in death.The dominant figures in naturalism were Stephen crane，Frank Norris, Jack London and TheodoreDreiser.3.The lost generation: included the young English and American expatriates as wellas men andwomen caught in the war and cut from the old value and yet unable to come to terms with the new erawhen civilization had gone mad. These writers adopted unconventional style of writing and reactedagainst the tendencies of the older writers in the 1920s. The term came from Gertrude Stein who saidin Hemingway's presence that“you are all a lost generation.”4.Local colorismAs a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s，it is defined byHamlin Garland as having such quality of texture and background that it could not have been writtenin any other place or by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality ofcircumstantial(详细的) authenticity(确实性), as local colorists tried toimmortalize(使不朽) thedistinctive natural, social and linguistic features. It is characteristic of vernacular(本.国语) languageand satirical(讽刺的) humor. The major local colorist is Mark Twain.学习资料．学习资料收集于网络，仅供参考5.Jazz age: the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the termJazz Age retroactively to refer to thedecade after World War I and before the stock market crash in 1929, during which Americansembarked upon what he called he gaudiest spree in history. Jazz Age is inextricably associated withthe wealthy whitelappers and socialites immortalized in Fitzgerald's fiction.6.Free verse: is a poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid anypredetermined verse structure, instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech. While it alternatesstressed and unstressed syllables as stricter verse forms do, free verse does so in a looser way.Whitman's poetry is an example of free verse at its most impressive. It has since been used by Ezrath century. Pound, T.S. Eliot and other major American can poets of the 207.The iceberg analogy: The Iceberg Theory is a writing theory by American writer Ernest Hemingway,as follows：if a writer of a prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things thathe knows and the reader，if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things asstrongly as though the writer had stated them.1.Poe's Poetic IdeasA.His conviction that the function of poetry is not to summarize and interpret earthly experience,but to create a mood in which the soul soars toward supernal beauty.B.He insists that poetry must be disembarrassed of that moral sense.C.Poe believes that the elevation of excitement of the soul should be “the poetic principle”thuspoetry must concern itself only with “supernal beauty”.D.Poe defines poetry as “the rhythmical creation of beauty”a definition giving unexampledemphasis upon the importance of the rhythmical or musical element in poetry. 2．Whitman's style1) The sprawling lines of the poems are often extremely long.2) Parallelism: the parallel lines say the same thing but use different words.3) Envelope structure: the first line begins with the subject, and then more and more lines list modifierstill the verb appears in the last line of the stanza. This is like enclosing a whole list of ideas in anenvelope.4) Catalogue technique: means listing. Typical poems by Whitman make long, long lists of images, of学习资料．学习资料收集于网络，仅供参考sights, sounds, smells, taste, and touch.5) No regular pattern.6) The verse unit is usually an independent clause.3．Formal features of Dickinson's poetryA.Dickson's poems are usually based on her own experience, her sorrows and joys. Dickinson wasoriginal. She sounded idiosyncratic, sometimes.B.Love is another subject Dickinson dwells on.C.Many poems Dickinson wrote are about nature, in which her general skepticism about therelationship between man and nature is well-expressed. Dickinson sees nature as both gailybenevolent and cruel.D.Dickinson's poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no titles, henceare always quoted by their first lines.E.On the ethical level Dickinson emphasizes free will and human responsibility.All these characteristics of her poetry were to become popular through Stephen Crane with theth century. She became, with Stephen Crane, the Imagists such as Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell in the 20precursor of the Imagist moverment.4．The theme and techniques in Eliot's The Waste LandTheme：The theme is modern spiritual barrenness, the despair and depression that followed the WWI,the sterility and turbulence of the modern world, and the decline and break-down of western culture. Italso shows the search for regeneration by people living in a chaotic world. Technique：The poem's noticeable characteristics are varied length and rhythm to harmonize with thechanging subject matter, the unrhymed lines, lots of borrowings from some thirty-five different writers,the employment of materials such as the legends of the Holy Grail, Frazer's anthropological work TheGolden Bough several popular songs, and passages in six foreign languages, including Sanskrit. Thepoem, therefore, is obscure and hard to understand, needless to say its absence of logical continuity.The poem The Wast Land by T. S. Eliot, nevertheless, is broadly acknowledged as one of the mostrecognizable landmarks of modernism.学习资料．学习资料收集于网络，仅供参考5．Analysis of Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington RobinsonRichard Cory is a short dramatic poem about a man whose outward appearance belies his innerturmoil. The tragedy in the poem reflects in its spirit the tragedies in Edwin Arlington Robinson's ownlife: Both of his brothers died young, his family suffered financial failures, and Robinson himselfendured hardship before his poetry gained recognition—thanks in part to praise from an influentialreader of them, Theodore Roosevelt.Robinson published the poem himself in 1897 as part of a poetry collection called Children of theNight. The poem is a favorite of students and teachers because of the questions it poses about the thetitle character.6．Comment onStopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert FrostA.It is a peaceful poem and makes man feel relaxed when we read the lines: The only other soundsthe sweep of easy wind and downy flake. Frost also uses alliteration and repetition in his poems. Therhyme scheme he uses is a-a-b-a.B.It is one of the most quietly moving of Frost's lyrics. On the surface, it seems to be simple,descriptive verses, records of close observation, graphic and homely pictures.C.It uses the simplest terms and commonest words. But it is deeply meditative, adding far-reachingmeanings to the homely music. It uses its superb craftsmanship to come to a climax of responsibility:the promises to be kept, the obligation to be fulfilled. Few poems have said so much in so little.7.Theme and technique in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald1. Themes of The Great Gatsby: It resents the decline of the American dream in1920s, thehollowness of the upper class and the falseness of ideals and moves toward disillusion.2. Now Gatsby's life follow a clear pattern: there is, at first, a dream, then disenchantment, and finallya sense of failure and despair. Gatsby's personal experience approximates the whole of the Americanexperience up to the first few decades of the 20th century.3. The novel is the presentation of the 1920s, and of what has become known as American Dream.8.学习资料．学习资料收集于网络，仅供参考ment on Hemingway's style and Farewell to Arms1. Hemingway was a glamorous public hero of sorts whose style of writing and living was probablymore imitated than any other writers in human memory.2. In one sense Hemingway wrote all his life about one theme, which is neatly summed up in thefamous phrase, “grace under pressure”, and created one hero who acts that theme out.3. In the same way that Fitzgerald's Tales of the Jazz Age becomes a symbol for an age,Hemingway's book paints the image of a whole generation, the Lost Generation.4. Lieutenant Henry in A Farewell to Arms stands the Hemingway hero, an average man of decidedlymasculine taste sensitive and intelligent, a man of action; and with other people, somewhat an outsider,keeping emotion under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one cannot havehappiness.5. Hemingway's world is a world essentially chaotic and meaningless, in which man fights a solitarystruggle against a force he does not even understand.6. The war dominates so that the love story represents a mere dream and the brutal and atrociousrealities of life do not allow materializing it.10.Analyze Dry September by William Faulkner11.“Dry September”was written in 1931, and is a well-known story of Faulkner. This story touches upon the strange relationship between sex and violence, examines the psychologicalstate of the main characters, and exposes the crime of racial discrimination which makes one bristlewith anger.The tone of this story contributes much to its effectiveness, particularly to the imagery of infernal heatand dryness and to the setting itself.From the character Miss Minnie the reader could perceive the obvious impact of Freud's ideas onWilliam Faulkner. 学习资料．。