美国文学 诗人及作家主题与写作风格分析以及文学术语

3个重要作家

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) is an American novelist, journalist and war correspondent. He is the leading spokesman of the “Lost Generation”, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.

(Thematic patterns)

(1)The Lost Generation: described in “The Sun also Rises”(1926). The generation was “lost” in the sense that they were disillusioned with the war-wrecked world and spiritually alienated from a civilization and replaced by despair or a cynical hedonism.

(2)The Hemingway Code Hero: described in “The Old Man and The Sea”(1952). A man can be physically destroyed but never defeated spiritually. (Life is full of tension and battles, the world is in chaos and man is always fighting desperately a losing battle. Those who survive and perhaps emerge victorious in the process of seeking to master the code with a set of principles such as honor, courage, endurance, wisdom are known as "the Hemingway code".)

(3)Ice theory: The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. Typical of this "iceberg" analogy is Hemingway's style. It means “Less is more”. (e.g: His novel “Indian Camp” has four “Icebergs” as the shadow.)

Application: Hemingway’s Code Hero is embodied in “Indian Camp". It relates the story of young Nick watching his father deliver an Indian woman of a baby by caesarian section with a jack-knife and without anesthesia to relieve the pain. In this novel, Hemingway's concern about violence and death by revealing Nick's feeling of perplexity, anxiety and terror over the misery of life and death. Hemingway introduced us five medical knowledge in the novel through the father’s teaching.

(Writing style)

(1)Hemingway's novel are based on using short, simple and conventional words and sentences, precise imagery, and an impersonal, dramatic tone. No detail is wasted.("Less is more").

(2) He is good at using “Iceberg Theory”, and colloquial style.

(3) Hemingway develops the style of co1loquialism, understatement and symbolism.

(4) The accents and mannerisms of human speech are well presented, so the characters are full of flesh and blood.

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is an American essayist, poet and philosopher. He is the representative of the philosophical and literary school of American Transcendentalism. In 1845 he built a cabin beside the Walden Pond and lived there in a very simple manner for over two years, which gave birth to a great transcendentalist

work —Walden (1854).

(Writing style)

His literary style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and "Yankee" love of practical detail. Use precise language, long and complex paragraphs and sentences and vivid, detailed descriptions, made it lucid, simply wrought and unpretentious.

(Theme)

(1)For Thoreau, nature is not merely symbolic but divine in itself and human beings can receive precise communication from the natural world by way of pure senses. (2) He believed in self-culture and was eager to identify himself with the Transcendental image of the self-reliant man. he thinks, the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self- sufficient.

(3)He emphasized individual conscience and even considered the society fetters of the freedom of individuals.

Walden is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, it emphasizes the importance of self-reliance, solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature in transcending the "desperate" existence. Mainly expresses a critique of consumerism and capitalism. He does not perceive nature as a dead and passive object of conquest and exploitation.

Walt Whitman

Whitman (1819-1892) is an American poet, essayist, journalist and humanist. He was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, and was also called “the father of verse”.

(Writing style)

(1) Whitman's poetic style is marked by the use of the poetic "I".

(2) Whitman is also radically innovative in terms of the form of his poetry, such as adopted "free verse".

(3)Whitman is conversational and casual, in the fluid, expansive, and unstructured style of talking. Using Parallelism and phonetic at the beginning of the lines.

(4) His vocabulary is amazing, he is good at using powerful, colorful words and oral English.

(Theme)

His poetry is filled with optimistic expectation and enthusiasm about new things and new epoch.

(1) He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities.