美国文学选读复习提纲.pptx

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美国文学选读复习资料

[ 美国⽂文学选读 ]!Ⅰ. Authors and their worksAlice Walker The Color PurpleAllen Ginsberg HowlA Supermarket in CaliforniaArthur Miller All My Sons!Death of a Salesman!A View from the Bridge!The Misﬁts!The Archbishop’s Ceiling!The Crucible!After the Fall!The Price!Situation Normal!The Man Who Had All the Luck!A memory of Two Mondays!The American Clock!Archibald MacLeish The Happy MarriageThe Poet of EarthConquistadorArs PoeticaTowers of IvoryStreets in the MoonNew Found LandThe Fall of The CityAirraidAmbrose Bierce The Fiend’s DelightNuggests and Dust Panned out in California Cobwebs from an Empty SkullTales of Soldiers and CiviliansIn the Midst of LifeCan Such Things Be?The Devil’s DictionaryThe ApplicantBenjamin Franklin Poor Richard’s Almanac !The Autobiography!The Way to Wealth!Bret Harte The Luck of Roaring CampBernard Malamud The FixerThe AssistantThe TenantThe Magic BarrelA New LifeGod’s GraceCarl Sandburg Chicago PoemsThe People, YesAlways the Young StrangerIn Reckless EcstasyThe Prairie YearsThe War YearsThe American SongbagHoney and SaltCorn-HuskerFogSmoke and SteelCharles Waddell Chesnutt The Conjure WomanThe Wife of His Youth and Other Story of the Color Line The Sheriff’s ChildrenThe Pioneer of the Color LineThe Marrow of TraditionClifford Odets Waiting for LeftyAwake and SingTill the Day I DieParadise LostGolden Boy’Clash by NightThe Big KnifeThe Country GirlThe Flowering PeachDu Bois E. B. White Stuart LittleCharlotte’s WebQuo Vadimus or the Case for the BicycleOne Man’s MeatThe Points of My CompassOnce More to the LakeE Cumings Tulips and ChimneysThe Enormous RoomVivaNo, ThanksEimiEdgar Allan Poe The Raven and Other Poems!Tamerlane and Other Poems!Al Araaf!Poems!Ligeia!Annabel Lee!The Fall of the House of Usher !The Masque of the Red Death!The Black Cat!The Cask of Amontillado!Murders in the Rue Morgue!The Purloined Letter!The Gold Bug!William Wilson!The Philosophy of Composition!The Poetic Principle!Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque!Sonnet — To Science!To Hellen !The City in the Sea!Israfel !Edgar Lee Masters A Book of VerseMaximilianSpoon River AnthologyEdward Arlington Robinson The Children of the NightCaptain CraigThe Town Down the RiverThe Man Against the SkyAvon’s HarvestEdward Albee The Zoo StoryThe American DreamWho’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?The sandboxEdward Bellamy Looking Backward 2000-1887EqualityThe Duck of Stockbridge :A Romance of Shay’s Rebellion The Blindman’s World and Other StoriesEdwin Charles Markham The Man With the HoeEdmund Wilson Travel in Two DemocraciesTo the Finland StationA Piece of My Mind: Reﬂection at SixtyAxel’s CastleThe Triple ThinkersThe Wound and the BowThe Shores of LightThe Fruits of the MLAEdith Wharton The House of MirthThe Age of InnocenceEthan FromeBunner SisterThe Customs of the CountryA Backward GlanceEzra Pound Hugh Selwyn Mauberley !The Cantos!Exultations!Personae!Cathy!The Spirit of Romance!The Anthology Des Imagistes!Literary Essays!A Few Don’ts by Imagiste!Polite Essays!In a Station of the Metro!Emily Dickinson To Make a Prairie!Success Is Counted Sweetest!I’m Nobody!!Because I could not Stop for Death!I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died!This is My Letter to the World!My Life Closed Twice Before its Close! Mine-by the Bight of the White Election! Wild Nights — Wild Nights!A narrow Fellow in the Grass!Apparently with no Surprise!I Died for Beauty — but was Scarce!Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant!I Like to See it Lap the Miles!The Brain is Wider than the Sky !As Imperceptibly as Grief!Elmer Rice The Adding MachineElizabeth Bishop North and SouthGeography ⅢIn the Waiting RoomEllen Glasgow The Barren GroundEugene O’Neill Beyond the Horizon!Emperor Jones!The Hairy Ape !Bound East for Cardiff!In the Zone!The Long Voyage Home!The Moon of the Carribeans!The Great God Brown!Strange Interlude!Desire Under the Elm!Morning Becomes Electra!A Touch of the Poet!Anna Christie!The Emperor Jones!All the God’s Children Got Wings!Long Day’s Journey Into Night!The Moon for the Misbegotten!Hughie!More Stately Mansions!The Iceman Cometh!Eudora Welty The Golden ApplesThe Bride of Innisfallen•Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises!A Farewell to Arms!For Whom the Bell Tolls!The Old Man and the Sea!The Torrents of Spring!Men Without Woman!The Winters Take Nothing!To Have and Have Not!A Movable Feast!In Our Time!A Clean Well-Lighted Place!In Another Country!F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby !Tender In the Night!The Side of Paradise!The Beautiful and the Damned !Flappers and Philosophers!Tales of the Jazz Age!The Last Tycoon!Taps at Reveille !The Ice Palace!May Days!The Diamond as Big as the Ritz! Winter Dreams!The Rich Boy!Babylon Revisited!The Crack-Up!Flannery O’Connor A Good Man Is Hard to FindWise BloodThe ViolentBear it AwayFrancis Bret Harte The Luck of Roaring CampTennessee’s PartnerFrank Norris Moran of the Lady LettyMc-TeagueThe Epic of the WheatThe OctopusThe PitA Deal in Wheat and Other stories of the Old and New West Frederick Douglass My Bondage and My FreedomGeorge Santayana Skepticism and Animal FaithThe Realms BeingThree Philosophical PoetsThe Last PuritanGertrude Stein Tender ButtonThe Autobiography of Alice B ToklasHart Crane The BridgeMy Grandfather’s Love LettersWhite BuildingsPraise for an UrnFor the Marriage of Faustus and HellenVoyageHamlin Garland Crumbling IdolMan Travelled Roads/The Return of a PrivateRose of Ducher’s CoolyA Son of the Middle BorderHenry David Thoreau Walden / Life in the Woods!On the Duty of Civil Disobedience!A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River! Civil Disobedience!Life Without Principle!Henry Louis Mencken Bernard Shaw: His PlaysThe Philosophy of NietzscheThe American LanguageHappy DaysNewspaper DaysHeathe DaysHerman Melville Moby Dick / The White Whale!Typee !Omoo!Mardi!Redburn!White Jacket!The Conﬁdence Man !Battle pieces!Clarel!Piazza!Pierre!John Marr and Other Sailors!Timoleon!Billy Budd!Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin!A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp!The Minister’s Wooing!The Pearl of Orr’s Island!Oldtown Folks!Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Song of Hiawatha!Voices of the Night !Ballads and Other Poems!Evangeline!I Shot an Arrow!A Psalm of Life!The Hymn of the Night!The Secret of the Sea!Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems!Tales of a Wayside Inn!An April Day!Paul Revere’s Ride!The Courtship of Miles Standish! Poems on Slavery!The Slave’s Dream!The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls! Henry James The Portrait of a Lady!The Wings of the Dove!The Ambassadors !The Golden Bowl!A Passionate Pilgrim !Roderick Hudson!The American!Daisy Miller!The BostoniansThe Princess of Casamassima!The Spoils of Poynton!The Turn of the Screw!The Awkward Age!The American Scene!The Jolly Corner !The Real Thing and other Tales!French Poets and Novelists !Hawthorne!Partial Portrait!Notes and Reviews!Art of Fiction and other Essays!Hilda Doolittle Sea GardenPear TreeOrchardThe Walls Do Not FallTribute to the AngelsThe Flowering of the RodTribute to FreudHellen in EgyptIrwin Shaw The Young LionsThe Naked and the DeadBury the DeadSailor Off the BremenThe Troubled AirLucy CrownTwo Weeks in Another TownVoices of A Summer DayRich ManPoor ManBeggarmanNightworkBread upon the WatersJack London The Call of the Wild!White Fang!The Law of Life!Love of Life!The Heathen!To Build a Fire!The Pearls of Parlay!The Son of the Wolf!The Sea-Wolf!The People of the Abyss!The Iron Heel!Marti Eden !How I Become a Socialist!The War of the Classes!What Life Means to Me!Revolution!The Mexican !Under the Deck Awings!Jack Kerouac On the RoadThe Town and the CityThe SubterraneansThe Dharma BumsVisions of Cody Doctor SaxMaggie CassidyMexico City BluesLonesome TravellerJean Toomer CaneJohn Greenleaf Whittier Snow-boundVoice of FreedomThe Tent on the Beach and Other Poems IchabodA Winter IdylJohn Dos Passos The Three SoldiersManhattan TransferU. S. A.(The 42 Parallel;1919;The Big Money) District of ColumbiaThe Adventures of a Young ManNumber OneThe Grand DesignOrient ExpressJohn Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath!In Dubious Battle!Cup of Gold!Tortilla Flat!The Moon is Down!Of Mice and Men!Cannery Row!The Pearl!The Red Pony(The Leader of the People;!The Gift;The Great Mountains;The Promise)! John Updike Rabbit Run, Redux, Is Rich, at RestJoseph Heller Catch-22We Bombed in New HavenSomething HappenedGood as GoldGod KnowsJames Langston Hughes Mulatto !The Weary Blues!Fine Clothes to the Jew!The Dream Keeper and Other Poems! Shakespeare in Harlem!Dreams!Me and the Mule!Boarder Line !Dear Lovely Death!I Wonder as I Wander!The Best of Simple!James Fenimore Cooper The Leather-stocking Tales!The Spy!The Pilot!The Littlepage Manus Cripts!The Pioneer!The Last of Mohicans!The Prairie!The Pathﬁnder !The Deerslayer!James Farrel Studs LoniganJudgement dayDanny O’NeilBernard CarrCalico ShoesGuillotine PartyA Note on Literary CriticismLiterature and MoralityJames Jones From Here to EternityJames Baldwin Go Tell It on the Mountain!Nobody Knows My Name!The Fire Next Time!Note of a Native Son!J. D. Salinger Catcher in the RyeThe Young FolksFrannyZooeyRaise High the Roof BeamCarpentersSeymour: An IntroductionJoel Chandler Harris Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings Kate Chopin The Awakening !Katherine Anne Porter The Leaning Tower and Other StoriesA Ship of FoolsThe Flowering JudasPale Horse, Pale RiderThe Old OrderOld MortalityThe Jilting of Granny WeathrallMaria ConceptionThe Never Ending WrongLillian Hellman The Children’s HourThe Little FoxesWatch on the RhineThe Searching WindThe Autumn GardenTos in the AtticThe Days to ComeAnother Part of the ForrestAn Unﬁnished WomanPentimentoScoundrel TimeLorraine Hansberry Raisin in the SunLouise Erdrich Love MedicineThe Beet QueenTracksThe Crown of ColumbusThe Bingo PalaceTales of Burning LoveThe Antelope WifeThe Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Hors The Master Butchers Singing ClubFour SoulsThe Painted DrumThe Plague of DovesShadow TagLulu’s BoysMalcolm Cowley Blue JuniataThe Dry SeasonThe Exile’s ReturnA Second Flowering / The Other War •Mark Twain !The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County !The Innocents Abroad!The Gilded Age!The Adventure of Tom Sawyer!The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn!Life on the Mississippi!A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court! The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson!Following the Equator!The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg!The Mysterious Stranger !The Prince and the Pauper!How to Tell a Story!Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc!Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have a DreamStride Toward FreedomStrength To LoveWhy We Can’t WaitWhere Do We Go From HereMaya Angelou Still I RiseMichael Gold 120 MillionChange The WorldThe Hollow ManJew Without MoneyHoboken BluesFiesta Battle Hymn!Nathaniel Hawthorne Twice-told Tales!Mosses from an Old Manse!The Blithedale Romance !The Scarlet Letter!The House of the Seven Gables!The Minister’s Black Veil!Young Goodman Brown!The Birthmark!The Snow-Image!Rappaccini’s Daughter!Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment!The Marble Faun!Nathanael West The Dream Life of Balso SnellThe Day of LocustMiss LoneyheartsNorman Mailer The Armies of the NightBarbary ShoreThe Deer ParkAn American DreamThe White NegroO Henry The Man Higher UpSixes and SevensThe Gift of MagiThe Police and the HymnThe Last LeafPaul Lawrence Dumbar We Wear the MaskPhilip Roth Goodbye, ColumbusPortnoy’s ComplaintThe Ghost WriterZuckerman UnboundThe Anatomy LessonPhilip Freneau Rising Glory of America!The British Prison Ship!To the Memory of the Brave Americans! The Wild Honeysuckle!The Indian Burying Ground !Ralph Waldo Emerson Essay!Nature!Self-reliance!Representative Men!English Traits!The Conduct of Life!May-Day and Other Pieces!The American Scholar!Days !The Humble Bee!The Rhodo!The Transcendentalist !Divinity!The Oversoul!Ralph Waldo Ellison Invisible Man!Shadow and Act!Going to the Territory!Robert Bly The Light Around the BodyThe SixtiesRobert Frost A Boy’s WillWest-Running BrookA Further RangeMending WallAfter Apple-PickingThe BirchesNorth of BostonNew HamphshireMountain IntervalA Witness TreeFire and IceStopping by Woods on a Song EveningThe Road Not Taken!Robert Penn Warren All the King’s MenRobert Lowell Life StudiesLord Weary’s CastleThe DolphinSkunk HourFor SaleWalking in the BlueFor the Union DeadRichard Wright Native SonUncle Tom’s ChildrenBlack Boy: A Record of ChildhoodThe OutsidersThe Long DreamEight MenSarah Orne Jewett Deephaven and Other StoriesThe Country of Pointed FirsSaul Bellow Dangling ManMr. Sammler’s PlanetThe VictimAnderson the Rain KingHerzogSeize the DayThe Adventure of Augie MarchThe Dean’s DecemberMore Die of HeartbreakThe TheftThe ActualRavelsteinThe Last AnalysisLooking for Mr. GreenHumboldt’s GiftStephen Crane Maggie: A Girl of the Streets!The Red Badge of Courage!The Open Boat!The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky!The Blue Hotel!Sinclair Lewis Main StreetBabbittDur Mr WrennThe JobArrowsmithElmer GantryDodsworthIt can’s Happen HereKingsblood RoyalSherwood Anderson Winesburg, OhioWindy McPherson’s SonMarching MenMid-American ChantsThe Book of the GrotesquePoor WhiteThe Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories Horses and MenI Want to Know WhyMany MarriagesDark LaughterDeath in the Woods and Other Stories Sylvia Plath The ColossusArielWinter TreesThe Bell JarPoint ShirleyTennessee Williams A Streetcar Named DesireThe Glass MenagerieCat on a Hot Tin RoofSummer and SmokeThe Rose TattooCamino RealOrpheus DescendingSuddenly Last SummerThe Sweet Bird of Youth The Night of the LguanaT. S. Eliot The Waste Land !Prufrock and Other Observations!The Burial of the Dead!A Game of Chess!The Fire Sermon!Death By Water!What the Thunder Said!Ash Wednesday!Four Quarters!Murder in the Cathedral!Family Reunion!Cocktail Party!Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie!Jannie Gerhardt!An American Tragedy!Trilogy of Desire!Financer / The Titan / The Stoic!Nigger Jeff!Theodore Roethke The Waking PoemsOn the Poet and His Craft: Selected Prose Thomas Paine Common Sense!American Crisis !Rights of Man!The Age of Reason!Thomas Wolfe Look Homeward, AngelOf Time and the RiverThe Web and the RockYou Can’t Go Home AgainThe Hills BeyondFrom Death to MorningThomas Jefferson Declaration of IndependenceTruman Capote In Cold BloodToni Morrison Song of Solomon!Beloved!The Bluest Eye!Sula!Tar Baby!Jazz!Paradise!Love!A Mercy!Recitatif!Upton Sinclair The JungleSpring and HarvestKing CoalOilBostonDragon’s TeethVilla Cather Oh, Pioneers!My AntoniaA Lost LadyThe Professor’s HouseDeath Comes to the ArchbishopMiss JewettWashington Irving The Sketch Book!The Legend of Sleepy Hollow!Rip Van Winkle!History of New York!The Life of George Washington!Bracebridge Hall!Talks of Traveller!The Alhambra!William Cullen Bryant To a Waterfowl!The Fountain!The Yellow Violet!Thanatoppsis!The White Footed Deer!A Forest Hymn!The Flood of Years!William E.B Dubois Souls of Black Folk!The Philadelphia Negro!John Brown!The Black Flame!William Dean Howells Criticism and Fiction!The Rise of Silas Lapham!A Modern Instance!A Hazard of Now Fortunes!A Traveller from Altruia!From the Eye of the Needle!Novel-Writing and Novel-Reading! William Carlos Williams PatersonDes ImagistesCollected Later PoemsCollected Early PoemsThe Red WheelbarrowSpring and AllSour GrapesThe Desert MusicThe Journey of LovePictures from BrueghelAsphodalThat Green FlowerThe Widow’s Lament in Spring The Dead BabyThe Sparrow, to My FatherIn the American GrainThe Great American NovelProletarian PortraitWilliam Faulkner The Sound and the Fury!Light in August! Absalom! Absalom!!Go down, Moses!Soldier’s Pay!As I Lay Dying!Sartoris!The Hamlet!The Town!The Mansion!The Marble Faun!Dry September!Barn Burning!William Inge Come Back, Little ShebaPicnicWalt Whitman Leaves of Grass!One’s Self I Sing!O Captain! My Captain!!Song of Myself!I Hear America Singing!Song of the Broad-Axe!When Lilacs Lost in the Dooryard Bloom’d! Democratic vistas!The Tramp and Strike Question !I Sit and Look Out!Wallace Stevens The Man with the Blue GuitarThe Necessary AngelAnecdote of the JarHarmoniumNotes Toward a Supreme FictionPeter Quince at the ClavierSunday MorningThe Auroras of Autumn!!!Ⅱ解释术语!!Aestheticism 唯美主义：is an intellectual and art movement supporting the emphasis of aesthetic values more than social-political themes for literature, ﬁne art, music and other arts.!Angry young man 奋⻘青：a group of mostly working and middle class British playwrights and novelists who became prominent in the 1950s. The group's leading members included John Osborne and Kingsley Amis .They showed an equally uninhibited disdain for the drabness of the postwar welfare state, and their writings frequently expressed raw anger and frustration as the postwar re forms failed to meet exalted aspirations for genuine change.!Allegory 寓⾔言:An allegory is a narrative, whether in prose or verse, in which the agents and action, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived by the author to make coherent sense on the primary level of signiﬁcation, and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of signiﬁcation.!Criticism 批判主义：is the practice of judging the merits and faults of something. To criticize does not necessarily imply "to ﬁnd fault", but the word is often taken to mean the simple expression of an objection against prejudice, or a disapproval of something. Often criticism involves active disagreement, but it may only mean "taking sides". It could just be an exploration of the different sides of an issue.!Critical realism 批判现实主义:is the theory that some of our sense-data (for example, those of primary qualities) can and do accurately represent external objects, properties, and events, while other of our sense-data (for example, those of secondary qualities and perceptual illusions) do not accurately represent any external objects, properties, and events. In short, critical realism refers to any position that maintains that there exists an objectively knowable, mind-independent reality, whilst acknowledging the roles of perception and cognition.!Classicism古典主义：the ideas and styles that are common in the literature, art, and architecture of ancient Greece and Rome; a traditional style of art, literature, music, architecture, etc., that is usually graceful and simple with parts that are organized in a pleasing way!Dadaism 达达主义: a form of artistic anarchy born out of disgust for the social, political and cultural values of the time. It embraced elements of art, music, poetry, theatre, dance and politics. Dada was not so much a style of art like Cubism or Fauvism; it was more a protest movement with an anti-establishment manifesto.!Determinism 决定论:is the philosophical position that for every event, including human interactions, there exist conditions that could cause no other event. "There are many determinisms, depending on what pre-conditions are considered to be determinative of an event or action.” Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have sprung from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations.!Existentialism 存在主义:is a term that has been applied to the work of a number of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, took the human subject — not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual and his or her conditions of existence — as a starting point for philosophical thought.!Free verse ⾃自由体诗:Free verse, or “open form” verse, is printed like traditional verse in short lines instead of with the continuity of prose, but it differs from traditional verse by the fact that its rhythmic pattern is not organized into a regular metrical form. Most free verse also has irregular lengths, and either lacks rhyme or uses it only sporadically.!golden age ⻩黄⾦金时代：the most ﬂourishing period in the history of a nation, literature, people, etc.!Gilded age 镀⾦金时代：the age of wealth and poverty, of progress and decline, and the age of gaudy excesses.!Hippie 嬉⽪皮⼠士：a member of a counterculture, originally a youth movement that started in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world.!Imagism 意象主义:Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. Imagism has been described as the most inﬂuential movement in English poetry since the activity of the Pre-Raphaelites. As a poetic style it gave Modernism its start in the early 20th century, and is considered to be the ﬁrst organized Modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is sometimes viewed as 'a succession of creative moments' rather than any continuous or sustained period of development.!Idealism 理想主义:In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing. In a sociological sense, idealism emphasizes how human ideas—especially beliefs and values—shape society.!Industrialism 产业主义:An economic and social system based on the development of large-scale industries and marked by the production of large quantities of inexpensive manufactured goods and the concentration of employment in urban factories.! Individualism 个⼈人主义:is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance and advocate that interests of the individual should achieve precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference upon one's own interests by society or institutions such as the government.!Local colorism 乡⼟土特⾊色(主义）：literary works that emphasizes the characteristics of their own region, deeply rooted in America, in local soil and culture. For the first time, the rich variety of American life and American people are fully presented in literary works.Local colorist is mostly concerned with the characteristics of people and life of their own regions. As a result, local colorists in different regions together presented a most colorful and comprehensive picture of America and American life, best presented not only the history of the country but the development of the nation and its culture.Literature ⽂文学：language artistically used to achieve identiﬁable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages.! Modernism 现代主义:It is the term referring to the literary, artistic and general culture of the first half of the twentieth century. Modernism is distinguished by its general rejection of previous literary traditions, particularly those of the late nineteenth century and of bourgeois society.!Materialism 唯物主义:Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are identical with material interactions.!Magic realism 魔幻现实主义： is an artistic genre in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or even “normal” setting, which has been widely used in relation to literature, art and ﬁlm. The magical realists aim to highlight reality as opposed to traditional way of presenting or reﬂecting reality, to express the irony in everyday events that we tend to ignore and to blur the boundary between real and unreal.!Naturalism ⾃自然主义: Naturalism is a growth of realism, a prominent literacy movement that seeks to replicate a believable everyday reality, as opposed to such movements as romanticism or surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic or even supernatural treatment. !New criticism 新批判主义:was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object.!Primitivism 原始主义:Primitivism is a preference for the supposedly free and contented existence found in a “primitive” way of life as opposed to the artiﬁcialities of urban civilization. It had a particular prominence in the 18th century Europe and 19th century America, contributing to the values of Romanticism.!Predestination 宿命论:in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the "paradox of free will", whereby God's omniscience seems incompatible with human free will. In this usage, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism; and usually predeterminism.!Psychological realism ⼼心理现实主义:refers to works of prose ﬁction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action. The psychological realism is not content to state what happens but goes on to explain the motivation of this action. In this type of writing character and characterization are more important than usual, and they often delve deeper into the mind of a character than novels of other genres.!Post-romanticism 后浪漫主义:refers to a range of cultural endeavors and attitudes emerging in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, after the period of Romanticism. Herman Melville and Thomas Carlyle are post-Romantic writers. Flaubert's Madame Bovary is a post-Romantic novel. The period of post-romanticism in poetry is deﬁned as the late nineteenth century, and includes the poetry of Tennyson.!Post-modernism 后现代主义:is a late-20th-century movement in the arts, architecture, and criticism that was a departure from modernism. Postmodernism includes skeptical interpretations of culture, literature, art, philosophy, history, economics, architecture, ﬁction, and literary criticism. It is often associated with deconstruction and post-structuralism because its usage as a term gained signiﬁcant popularity at the same time as twentieth-century post-structural thought.!Postmodernism is a blanket term covering a wide range of diverse experimentation that has been going on since the end of World War II. It is applied to a cultural condition prevailing in the advanced capitalist societies since the 1960s, characterized by a superabundance of disconnected images and styles — most noticeably in television, advertising, commercial design, and pop video.!。

美国文学选读复习资料

American Puritanism 殖民地时期( roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th)一、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明•富兰克林作品:1、Poor Richard's Almanac 《格言历书》--- A Collection of maxims, or proverbs, on the value of work and savings for success、2、The Autobiography 《自传》---“美国梦”的根源3、参与起草《独立宣言》浪漫主义American RomanticismThe 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、The social and cultural background of RomanticismThe young Republic was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country、The Romantic writings revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands、The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature、The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values、Romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in va lue of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a sourc e of goodness and man’s societies as a source of corruption、二、Edgar Allan Poe 埃德加·爱伦·坡---poet, short story writer and literary critic (48 poems,70 short stories)He greatly influenced the devotees of “Art for art’s sake、”He was father of psychoanalytic criticism (心理分析批评), and the detective story、诗歌的精髓就就是追求美小说的主题常常就是恐怖与死亡,其中还运用了象征手法。

美国文学选读重要的

美国文学选读PPTI. Romantic periodWashington IrvingEdgar Allan PoeNathanial HawthorneWalt WhitmanEmily DickinsonII. Realist periodMark TwainSherwood AndersonStephen CraneTheodore DreiserIII. Modern periodF. S. FitzgeraldErnest HemingwayWilliam FaulknerI. Early Romantics1.1. Backgrounda. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, romanticism occurredand developed in Europe.b. Industrial Revolution and French Revolution (1789) (fighting forliberty, equality and fraternity)c. Inspiration initially came from two great men: one is Frenchphilosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau and German writer Goethe (also related to lake poets)Goethe, Rousseau & Lake PoetsJohann Wolfgang von Goethe(1749-1832): stressing feelings and individualityJean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778): to free the individual personality and feelings, to return to natureIn 1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly published the “Lyrical Ballads” , which marked the break with the classicism and the beginning of romanticism.d. Neoclassicism, as represented by John Dryden (1631-1700) and Alexander Pope (1688-1744), esteemed objectivity, harmony, rationality, dignity, proportion, and moderation.1.2. Features of the romantic literature1.2.1.Expressiveness:Wordsworth: “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling”The romanticists held that the writers should express their emotions, feelings, impressions, instinct, intuition, or their beliefs in their works instead of the imitation of the classical writers.1.2.2. Imagination:1.2.3. Worship of nature：1.2.4. Simplicity：turned to the humble people and the everyday life，adopted the everyday languageRomanticismRomanticism is a term applied to literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and early 19th century. It can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified classicism in general and late 18th-century neoclassicism in particular. (to be continued)It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general.Inspired in part by the libertarian ideals of the French Revolution, the romantics believed in a return to nature and in the innate goodness of humans, as expressed by Jean Jacques Rousseau. (to be continued)They emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. They also showed interest in the medieval, exotic, primitive, and nationalistic. Critics date English literary Romanticism from the publication of William Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads in 1798 to the death of Sir Walter Scott and the passage of the first reform bill in the Parliament in 1832.II. American Romanticism(from the end of 18th to the Civil War)2.1. BackgroundA. American PuritanismB. America was striving for political, economic, and culturalindependence from Britain, radical changes took place: Development of industrialism, great immigration, westward expansion, etc. The buoyant mood of the nation called for a new literary expression, and romanticism answered the call.C. The European influence.2.2. Representative romanticists:In poetry: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry Longfellow In fiction: James Cooper, Washington Irving, Nathaniel HawthorneLecture 1 .Washington Irving (1783 to 1859)3.3.Appreciation of Rip V an Winkle3.3.1. Main idea(reference to page406)3.3.2. Analysis of the characterRip Van Winkle:Hen-pecked, good-tempered, well-oiled, warm-hearted, lazy, care-free, simple-minded, obedient, irresponsible, a little foolish, etc.His wife:nagging, sharp-tongued, hard-working, uneducated country woman 3.3.3. Analysis of the theme1. A story of man who has difficulty in f acing his age or the author’sconservative attitude towards the American Revolution and the young Republic, and his dissatisfaction with American development2. Criticism of some teachings of Puritanism:Unceasing labor, no play, all kinds of pleasures are condemned, greedy for wealthExpress a strong desire for leisure3. The theme of escape from one’s responsibility and even one’shistory4. The loss of identity3.3.4. Analysis of writing style1. The use of humorHumor (sentences written in a funny way in order to amuse the reader)Jocular humor—Irving (for fun, for amusement)Satirical humor—Mark Twain (to satire, to criticize)Tearful humor—O’ Henry (arouse sympathy on the poor)Black humor—Joseph Heller (humor in facing death)2. Graceful, refined, fluent, dignified and standard language. Hisessays are models of English.3. Romantic imagination and fantasies4. Vivid and picturesque description of setting3.4. Comment on IrvingHe was the first American man of letters to support himself as a professional writer.He was the first American author who explored native themes.He was the first American writer to win international recognition, and was extremely popular in Europe.His popularity came from his humor (use dignified words to for unimportant things/ exaggerate the seriousness of the situation)Conservative in his attitude toward the social changes.Lecture 2 . Edgar Allan PoeIntroduction to poetry1.1. What is poetrya. Emily Dickinson: “when I read something I feel so cold that no fire ca n warm me, I know its poetry; when I read something I feel my head is chopped off, I know it’s poetry.”b. The poet has found the emotion, the emotion has found the word.c. Wordsworth: “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”.d.“A good poem is the crystalization of word and emotions.”1.2.Types of poetry• 1.2.1. Narrative poetry• a. Epic: long narrative poems that record the adventures of a hero whose exploits [brave or adventurous deeds or action] are important to the history of a nation. As Homeric epics (a blind bard): The Iliad and The Odyssey• b. Ballad: a simple poem(less ambitious than epics) that tells a story.• c. Romance: another type of narrative poem, in which adventure is a central feature.1.2.2. Lyric poetry• a. Epigram[诙谐诗]: short poem expressing an idea in clear and amusing way• b. Elegy: a lament for the dead.• c. Ode: a long stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form.• d. Sonnet: 14 lines, the Italian (or Petrarchan: 8-line octave + 6-line sestet; typical rhyming: abbaabba+cdcdcd/cdecde) and the English (or Shakespearean: three 4-line quatrains + a concluding 2-line couplet)1.3. Elements of poetry• 1.3.1. V oice: speaker and tone• 1.3.2. Diction: the best words in the best order (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)• 1.3.3. Imagery: a concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea.•Images: visual, aural, tactile, olfactory (something smelled), gustatory (sth tasted)• 1.3.4. Figures of speech: simile and metaphor• 1.3.5. Symbolism: a symbol is any object or action that means more than itself, any object or action that represents sth beyond itself.• 1.3.6. Syntax: the grammatical structure of words in sentences and the development of sentences in longer units throughout the poem.1.3.7. SoundRhyme:two or more words or phrases contain an identical or similar vowel-sound, usually stressed, and the consonant sounds that follow the vowel-sound are identical and preceded by different consonants. eg. bright and night heaven and seven see and theeOn the basis of sound:Exact rhyme: repeat end sounds precisely eg. day — waySlant rhyme: provide an approximate sound eg.sun — boneIdentical rhyme: repeating the entire sound, including the initial consonant, sometimes by repeating the same word in a rhyme position and sometimes by repeating the sound with two senses. eg. two — tooEye rhyme: look alike, but sound different .eg. laughter —daughterOn the basis of the number of syllables:Masculine rhyme: the recurrence of sound is restricted to the final stressed syllable . eg. cold — boldFeminine rhyme: the stressed rhyming syllables are followed by identical unstressed syllableseg. spiteful— delightfulTriple rhyme: the rhyming stressed syllable is followed by two identical unstressed syllableseg. tenderly —slenderlyOn the basis of the position in a lineInternal rhyme: occurs at the beginning, sometimes combined with end rhyme eg. the grains beyond age, the dark veins of her motherEnd rhyme: occurs at the end of a lineeg. Three poets, in three distant ages born,Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.Alliteration is the repetition of consonants, especially at the beginning of words or stressed syllables. Eg. The willows waved violently in the wind. Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds within a noticeable range. Eg. All day the wind breathes low with mellower toneThro’ every holl ow cave and alley lone.Consonance is the repetition of identical consonant sounds before and after different vowels.Eg. tit and tat creak and crack• 1.3.8. Rhythm and meter• a. rhythm: beat we feel in a phrase of music or a line of poetry, the regular recurrence of the accent or stress in poem.• b. foot[音步]: unit of rhythm in a line of poetry containing one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables, as in the four division of “four m an/may c ome/and m en /may g o”• c. meter[格律]: poetic metre with a given number of feet, or fixed arrangement of accented and unaccented syllables.•Rising feet/meter: iamb (iambic), anapest (anapestic)•Falling feet/meter: trochee (trochaic), dactyl (dactylic)•Number of feet per line Mo n ometer Tr imeter Te tr ameter Pentameter Hexameter Hep t ameter Oc t ameter1.4. Some features of poetry• 1.4.1. emotional, passionate,•Expressing and arousing strong feeling such as love, pity, fear, sadness, joy, etc from the author or from the reader• 1.4.2. Symbolic• A symbol is something that stands for something else. In literature, it refers to any word, object, action, or character that embodies and evokes a range of additional meaning and significance.•Imagery is the use of figurative language to produce a picture in the minds of readers or hearers.• 1.4.3. Condensed and vivid language•Language is the most important thing in poetry. Poetic language is the most vivid and condensed language in literature.2.3. Poe’s featuresa. A short story writerstories two kinds:Horror Ratiocination（推理）b. A poetfifty poems typically Romantic in both form and contentc. A literary criticPoe’s poetictheories“The Philosophy of Composition ““The Poetic Principle”Poetry should be short and readable at one sitting, should appeal only to “beauty” (aiming at “an elevating excitement of the soul”)True poetry is “the rhythmical creation of beauty”Poe’s aesthetic theory•a. “Beauty is the sole purpose of the poem.” Poetry must concern itself just with “supernal beauty”, not with the narration of a s tory, nor even with the beauty of particular things.•b. The immediate object of poetry is pleasure, not truth. The function of poetry is not to summarize, nor interpret earthly experience, but to create a mood in which the soul soars.•c. Melancholy is the most legitimate of all the poetic tones. Sickness, abnormal love, death of a beautiful woman, are to him, unquestionably, the most poetical topics in the world.•d. The length of writing, both of tales and poetry, should be about 100 lines, so that the reader can be well engaged in it without any interruption. Understanding “The Raven”3.1. Topic of the poem:death: “the death of a beautiful woman is , unquestionably, the most poetic in the world”→a sense of melancholy over the death of a beloved beautiful young woman 3.2. Setting of the poem:midnight: a time associated with the end of lifebleak December: a season associated with the end of lifethe room: warmed and lighted by “dying embers”, associated with the supernaturalthe purple curtains: a color associated with Fu n ereal custom3.3. Mood of the personamelancholic, sorrowful, even desperate (The repetition of the word “Nevermore”increases the speaker’s feelings of pain and loss. This pattern of self-inflicted torture builds in intensity until the speaker breaks down emotionally and demands that the raven “Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door”).3.4. SoundIt takes Poe 4 years to complete “The Raven”→a marvel of regularity:719 feet of which 705 are perfect trochees (1 strong + 1 weak), 10 doubtful trochees and only 4 clearly dactyls (1 strong + 2 weak)Rhyme scheme: abcbbbAlliteration (flirt, flutter; stately, saintly…)Assonance (dreary, weary; napping, tapping, rapping;morrow, borrow, sorrow, with the sound “o”to show one’s sad,sorrow and grief mood; …)Sound and rhythm make the poem musical and melodious. They contribute a lot to the mood and the theme of the writing at the same time.3.5 symbolism3.5.1 Raven: disaster and misfortuneRaven, the large bird-like crow with black feathers, in Western countries, as well as it is in China, is conventionally regarded as an ominous fowl, a symbol of misfortune. Thus with the repetition of the "napping and tapping" the poet was filled "with fantastic terrors never felt before."3.5.2 the "lost Lenore" : the soul of the radiant maiden, beauty and hopeAt the moment when the poet was in the darkness peering, wondering, expecting and whispering Lenore but was just responded with a "nothing more," the Raven, "with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door." A conversation was held and the poet was so comforted with it. For twice, the poet felt the bird "beguiling my sad fancy into smiling."3.5.3 The poet’s strong passion to Lenore: the sub-consciousness of the poetIn the conversation the poet distinctly expressed his strong passion to Lenore. However, the only response from the Raven was "Nevermore." It seems what the poet had expressed is simply the view out of the "id", while the Raven 's words are rather restrictive and seem out of "ego." The poet was too affectionate to Lenore to be restrictive, while the Raven was what warned him to be rational and that what had been lost would return "nevermore."3.5.4 The poet’s frustration: the modern realityThe poet was of the firm belief that in modern society human beings are apa th etic creatures. He was deeply resentful at the people's indifference towards his mourning to Lenore; therefore, he turned to the Raven for comfort. But quite to his disappointment, he was merely responded with a cold "nevermore."Lecture 3:Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804—1864)Introduction to the writerthe great romantic novelist in the nineteenth century . the pioneer of psychological analyst in the history of American literature.1.2. Point of viewBlack vision of human nature: Obsessed by the Calvinistic concept of the original sin, Hawthorne believes human beings are evil-natured and sinful and this sin and evil is ever present in human heart and will pass on from one generation to another. His writings are to show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one another.1.4. Themes of Hawthorne’s writing⏹ 1. Explore the relationship between the past and the present⏹ 2. Explore the hidden motivations of his characters.⏹ 3. Examine the effect of hidden sin and secret guilt⏹ 4. Moral or immoral, right or wrong is the question Hawthorne alwaystalks about in his works.1.5. Style⏹ 1. His style was soft, flowing and almost feminine.⏹ nguage: smooth, clear, beautiful in sound and meaning⏹ 3.He also frequently uses symbols and settings to reveal thepsychology of the characters.II. Appreciation of “Young Goodman Brown”2.1. The main idea of the work2.2. Understanding of the excerpt2.3. Analysis of the structure⏹At sunset, Goodman Brown leaves his wife Faith, spends the night inthe forest, and at dawn returns a changed man. Within this basic structure, the story further divides into four separate scenes, the first and last of which, that is, the departure from and the return to Salem, are balanced. (to be continued)⏹The night in the forest falls naturally into two parts: the temptation bythe Devil and the meeting of the witch. The two scenes, particularly the former, make full and careful use of the dramatic devices of suspense and climatic arrangement. The climax of the story comes when Brown calls upon his wife to look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one, which is cut off abruptly by anticlimax as the meeting vanishes in a roaring wind, and Brown leaning against the rock finds it chill and damp to his touch.2.4. Analysis of the theme⏹Everyone possesses some evil secret.2.5. Analysis of the writing style⏹ 2.5.1. Ambiguity:⏹Whether the events of the night are actual or dreamlike⏹Whether Brown is lost to the devil or saved by Faith2.5.2. Contrast⏹Day and night⏹Good and Evil⏹The red of fire and blood and the black of night and forest2.5.3. Symbolism⏹day and the town: human convention and society⏹night and forest: symbols of doubt and wandering⏹red: Sin or Evil⏹black: doubt of the reality of either Evil or Good that tortures Brown2.5.4. Allegory⏹The story is often read as a conventional allegory in the sense thatYoung Goodman is everyman, and his journey to the dark forest and his encounter with the devil are symbolic of man’s life journey from innocence to knowledge, from good to evil.⏹Faith, if taken as an allegorical figure, is the incarnation of Christianbelief.III. Comment on the writer⏹ 3.1. the great romantic novelist in the nineteenth century⏹ 3.2. the pioneer of psychological analyst in the history of Americanliterature.Appreciation of The Scarlet Letter⏹1. Main Character:Hester Prynne.Roger Chillingworth.Arthur Dimmesdale3. Character Analysis⏹Hester: brave, strong-minded, warm-hearted, intelligent, sacrificing, decisive⏹Dimmesdale: timid, selfish, irresponsible, cowardly, weak-minded⏹Chillingworth: cold-blooded, dehumanizedTheme of The Scarlet Letter⏹To escape the bondage of religion either on people’s spirit or on people’s natural desire⏹4. Abundant use of symbols⏹A ---adultery⏹angel⏹able⏹Prison—the place that deprived people of spiritual freedom⏹Forest---the nature⏹Rose near the prison—Hester and her love⏹Cap—sth controlling one’s beautyLecture 4:Walt Whitman(1819-1892)1.1. Background of the 1820’s♦ 1. Democratic idealism began to exert influence, the antislavery movement.♦ 2. Democratic and abolitionist literature began to rise. In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published her Uncle Tom’s Cabin which was greatly honored by President Lincoln. “the little lady who wrote the book that made this big war.”♦ 3. The American literary field in the 19th century blossomed also with poetry. The most popular poet was Longfellow, because he was most interested in such subjects as home, family, nature and religion and his style was lyrical as well as conventional. But the best poet is no doubt Whitman.1.3. Major work♦Leaves Of Grass: a collection of Whitman’s poems, his lifelong achievement. The most famous pieces are “Song of Myself”, “There Was a Child Went Forth”, “Pioneers! Pioneers!” etc. Whitman experimented in his works with new poetic form of free verse and oral lg. Thus, Leaves of Grass has become landmark in American literary history, which represents the poet, the people, and the nation in the 19th America and celebrates the future of the nation and the ideals of equality and democracy.II. Appreciation of the selected readings2.1. “I hear American singing”♦ 2.1.1.Main idea: This poem is shortest among Whitman’s poems. It presents the reader a picture of the modern Americans: people from all walks of life are singing for their cheerful and creative work and their dream through out American.♦ 2.1.2.Themes: an eulogy to the thriving American nation, the laboring people; the poet’s optimistic attitude toward the world and life.♦ 2.1.3.Tone: Proud, cheerful, optimistic2.2. “There was a child went forth”2.2.1. Understanding of the poem:♦It is a poem about the experience of Whitman the child-poet as well as that of America the newly founded nation. Between the lines, Whitman recaptures the awakening consciousness of the child-poet and the lovely landscape in which the American child matures.♦The child went through several stages to know nature, human beings, his own origin, and at last the wide and endless world of sea. He was energetic, thirsty for knowledge. And the future for him is bright, for he will always go forth every day. By comparing the young nation to a child, Whitman made his optimistic view on its future felt and self-evident.2.2.2. Structure:The structure of the poem is a circular one. The first stanza is an introduction to the child. In the second stanza, it turns out to be a beautiful idyllic landscape where the child came to know nature. However, he went from the idyllic peaceful Eden to the noisy human city in the next stanza, and then came to know the conception of himself in the fourth stanza.♦In the last stanza, he saw his parents and other people in the crowding world. But the poem changes here into another idyllic episode: the beautiful scene on the sea. It is just like a circle. The child came in peace, grew in the crowded society, but went back to peace at the sea. The return to peace is just the beginning of another one. The child will mature day in and day out.2.3. “Song of myself”Theme:♦“Song of myself” , consisting 1345 lines, is the longest poem in Leaves of Grass. “Myself” is the central and principal image in this poem. It refers not only to the poet himself but also to a group of people who had the American national characteristics and the democratic ideals like Whitman.They were pioneers on the American continent: the ironsmiths, the carpenters, the butcher, and the waiters, etc., as listed in the poem.♦These people were optimistic in spirit and strong physically. They live harmoniously with other people in this world as well as with nature. In this song, Whitman sings of nationalism and of the nature of the self in relation to the cosmos and the meaning and purpose of birth and death.Individualism, nationalism, and internationalism or cosmopolitanism, the three contradicting beliefs are reasonably united.♦The selec ted part is the first and the sixth sections of “Song of myself”. In Section one, Whitman talks about the contradictory but also harmonious relations between myself and you, his willingness to live on this soil, and the importance of nature. These ideas are essential to understand Whitman’s philosophy and esp. the whole “Song of myself”♦In Section Six, the poet turns his attention to the grass. He probes into the relationships between the grass and himself/the Lord/a child or a new life/death and so on. The grass is a symbol of life and equality. He suggests the central underlying truth in nature is death. To him, death is not an ending, but the ultimate source of equality and unity. As a natural part of the cycle of life, in death the body becomes part of nature in a different way. Death is immortality, though people do not recognize that.2.4. Analysis of the artistic features♦ 2.4.1. form: free verse♦Oral and powerful lg: Although free verse, he wrote with repeated and parallel sentences to strengthen the feelings. He express what he wanted to express freely, smoothly, and heatedly. His poems are like waves of the sea that rushed to the beach violently, one after another.♦ 2.4.2 the first person narrator: direct and sympathetic to the reader♦ 2.4.3. topic: sex.♦To use his own expression, “he saw the world as a vision of love.” He believes that life is the source of poems, love and enthusiasm are the motives of creation.III. Comments on the writer♦ 3.1. Subject: son of time, feels the pulse of the time. As a romanticist and transcendentalist, he broke the conventional poetic materials, no myth,no romance, no story of king and lords. He sings for self, common people, America, city life, nature, etc.♦ 3.2. Form: (Free verse) poetry without fixed beat or regular rhyme.Whitman is the first great American poet to use this form of poetry, he also used it more skillfully than any other poet.Lecture 5:Emily Dickinson（1830-1886）1.2. Points of viewEmily Dickinson lived a life of self-seclusion. She was a sensitive woman and preferred to explore the inner life of herself other than the social one. Therefore, her poetry usually concerns her meditations on love, religion, death, immortality, and nature. Her world on one hand was small, because it was only a secluded woman’s world. But on the other hand, it was a cosmos, making up of the human inner world and natural outer one.1.2.1. Religious viewsCalvinism with its doctrine of predestination and its pessimistic ideas about life and man’s original sin haunted her during her childhood and adolescence. Because of the Calvinist influence, her view of life is pessimistic and her tone in the poems sounds tragic. In her poetry, we can strongly sense the doubts about the existence of God and the realization of after-life. She was so obsessed with this religious uncertainty that about one third of her poems are about death and immortality, themes that lie at the center of her poetic world.1.2.2. Ideas on loveLove is another subject Dickinson showed great interest in. She herself had lived a lonely life of a spinster. She had once or twice fallen in love with someone. But each time she was frustrated. Some of her love poems reflect the unhappy experiences of hers, such as “I never lost as much but twice”. There are also poems about the longing of physical love, the union of the bodies.1.2.3. Ideas on natureDickinson was also a nature poet. To her, nature is both simple and harmonious. She writes about nature to reveal its simplicity and profundity on one hand, and tries to establish a connection between nature and man on the other, like the transcendentalists. Her poems are full of insights intonature and human life.1.2.4. Ideas on poetry writingEmily Dickinson seemed to consider poetry writing as a private thing.When she was in her early twenties, she began to write poetry. Sometimes she would send her poems with letters to her friends. But she never approved of publishing her poems, for she thought, “Publication is the auction of the mind of man.”So she kept her poems to herself throughout the life. She did not regard herself as a poet. But in her opinion, a poet’s responsibility is to use concrete images to present abstract ideas. Her poems are terse and suggestive.1.3. Special features1.3.1. Experimentation on poetic forms: In poetic style, Dickinsonwas terse, suggestive, and indirect.1.3.2. PersonaDickinson’s poems present no identifiable speaker. It was only a supposed person in the poems. The speaker rarely has an age and often no gender; it emerges from no background and has no purpose beyond the moment of the speech. Her poetry is about personal crises of no particular individuals, nor is it about Emily Dickinson herself: instead, it speaks generally—addressing the human conditions.II. Appreciation of the selected works2.1. Wild Nights—Wild Night!2.1.1. Understanding the poemThis is a poem on love. Although Dickinson is a spinster, she is skillful in writing poems on love.2.1.2. Symbols:boat and the sea: male and female loverswild nights: passionate or wild love2.2. This is my letter to the world2.2.1. Understanding the poem：This is a poem on life.2.2.2. Theme: Dickinson’s proud expectation of a public place among her sweet countrymen.2.2.3. Structure2 stanzas: The first stanza is one sentence. There is a contrast in thisstanza: the World and Nature. The former never wrote to “me”the simple news, while the latter told “me”with tender Majesty. Thus the world is indifferent but nature is amiable. The second stanza is composed of 2 sentences. The first 2 lines reveal the way in which nature commits the news and the last two lines the poet’s request to the countrymen: judge tenderly to me.2.3. I died for Beauty—but was Scarce。

美国文学选读复习资料

1、Benjamin Franklin（1706-1790）本杰明·富兰克林He is the representative of the Enlightenment in America in 18th century. Humanist, statesman, writer, scientist, inventor.The Autobiography《自传》♂简析：The book is about the course of Franklin's struggle for success. It tells us the importance of being diligent. The book had a great influence on American people,and changed the destinies of many youth.It is the first America successful biographical work（传记文学）, has an important position in the history of American Literaturel.Poor Richard’s Almanac 《格言历书》♂简析：A collection of maxims （格言），or proverbs, on the value of work and savings for success.2、Edgar Allan Poe(1809-1849) 埃德加·爱伦·坡 Novelist,poet,critic.Good at writing Gothic（哥特式）and detective fiction.Father of western detective stories and psychoanalytic criticism.（扩展：文学理论建树不容忽视，影响深远。

美国文学选读复习PPT课件

1)Ralph Waldo Emerson 拉尔夫·华尔多·艾默生
• 《Self-reliance 论自立》选自《Essays论文集》 • “不论在何处，社会总是阴谋反对每一个社会成员的阳刚之气，...要想做一
个男子汉，首先就要做一个拒绝随波逐流的人。” • 惧怕舆论和强迫自己始终如一就只会使自己的创造力和独创精神丧失殆尽。
5)Henry Wadsworth Longfellow亨利·沃兹沃斯·朗费罗--Romanticism
I shot an arrow 我射出一支箭&A psalm of life人生颂 • 主题：Life is not a dream,seize the day but hold on your patience--
超验主义哲学Transcendentalism；人文主义Humanism 作品： • ①论自然Nature • ②论美国学者 The American scholar • ③神学院致辞 The Divinity school address • ④论文集Essays：Frist Series&.....Second • ⑤人类代表 Representative men • ⑥英国特征 Enct of life • ⑧诗集Poems • ⑨五月节 May-Day and other pieces
2）Nathaniel Hawthorne 纳撒尼尔·霍桑
红字：The severity of the Puritanic code of law • A--Adultery→angle able • 为什么女主把胸前的A绣得那么精美？ 1、love for A 2、She knows that she was guilty,it means sin. • 人物：女主：Hester Prynne 丈夫：Arthur Chillingworth 情人：Rodger Dimmesdale 女儿：Pearl • “The kingdom of heaven is like merchants in search of fine pearls;on fingding

美国文学复习资料

Lecture 1 Washington Irving1. Background Questions:1) What is the duration of American Romanticism?From the end of the 18th century to the Civil War (1861-1865)2) What are the main features of American Romanticism?Irrationalism: opposing rationalism/neo-classicism; focusing on feelings,intuitions and emotions; worshipping ideals, imaginationIndividualism: placing the individual and the common man against the group, against authorityBeing close to nature: the world as a living, breathing being; the close relationshipbetween man and natureSimplicity in style(Other distinctive features of American Romanticism besides the above common features of Romanticism)Objection to puritan moralityThe ―newness‖ of the Americans as a nation independent from the European yoke: newness of America as a nation, their ideals of individualism and political equality, and their dream of America as a new Garden of Eden for man, their national experience of ―pioneering into the west‖2. Selected Reading:Pre-Reading questions:1) What are the artistic features of Irving‘s writing?a. The use of humorb. Graceful, refined, fluent, dignified and standard language. His essays are models of English.c. Romantic imagination and fantasiesd. Vivid and picturesque description of the setting2) What are the different types of humor? Try to find some humorous expressions in the excerpt?a. Different types of humor:Jocular humor—Irving (for fun, for amusement)Satirical humor—Mark Twain (to satire, to criticize)Tearful humor—O‘ Henry (a rouse sympathy on the poor)Black humor—Joseph Heller (humor in facing death)b. There are a lot of examples:When depicting how Rip‘s close friend, his dog Wolf reacts to Rip‘s wife, Dame Van Winkle‘s any movement when it is at home.When introducing the so called celebrities at the small inn where Rip frequents in order to console himself when he is driven from home by his wife, and how Rip‘s wife behaves when she gets to the small inn.Topics for after-reading discussion:1) What kind of people do you think Rip Van Winkle and his wife Dame Van Winkle are? If your future husband/wife is Rip/Dame, what will you do to him/her?Rip Van Winkle: lazy, good-tempered, warm-hearted, hen-pecked, well-oiled,care-free, obedient, irresponsible, etc.His wife: nagging, termagant, sharp-tongued, hard-working country woman2) What are the possible themes of the short story?a. A story of man who has difficulty in facing his advancing age or the author‘s conservative attitude towards the American Revolution and the young Republic, and his dissatisfaction with American developmentb. Puritan teachings (Unceasing labor, no play, all kinds of pleasures are condemned, greedy for wealth) as opposed to the American desire for leisure, for the freedom of the individuals as part of American Romantic ideals.c. Escape from one‘s responsibility and even one‘s historyd. The loss of identity4) For what reasons is Irving considered ―father of American literature‖?Possible reasons:He is the first American author who explores native themes.He is the first American writer to win international recognition, extremely popular in Europe.His popularity comes from his humor (using dignified words to for unimportant things/ exaggerate the seriousness of the situation)―Rip Van Winkle‖ is often considered as the first American short story.Lecture 2 Edgar Allan Poe1. Background questions:1) What is Gothic writing in the 18th century?An 18th-century style of literature which describes romantic adventures in mysterious or frightening settings, like ancient castle, ruins or wilderness. The subject matter is always about murder, violence, rape, incest together with ghostly or supernatural horror sometimes.2) What is romantic in Gothic writing?Gothic style is usually called ―dark romanticism‖. Not like romanticism which tends to convey positively human‘s social, political and moral ideals, Gothic writing is full of violence and horror with the involvement of mysterious and supernatural forces to reveal the dark side of human nature, especially of human morality. Like general romanticism, it is irrational paying much attention to the release of human emotion, imagination, intuition and ideals which are suppressed or neglected by the rationalists.2. Selected Reading :1) What are the elements of poetry?Elements of poetry1. Voice: speaker and tone2. Diction: the best words in the best order (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)3. Imagery: a concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea.Images: visual, aural, tactile, olfactory (something smelled), gustatory (sth tasted)4. Figures of speech: simile and metaphor5. Symbolism: a symbol is any object or action that means more than itself, any object oraction that represents sth beyond itself.6. Syntax: the grammatical structure of words in sentences and the development ofsentences in longer units throughout the poem.7. Sound:a. rhyme: matching of final vowel and consonant sounds in two or more words1. end rhyme (at the ends of lines)2. internal rhyme (within lines)b. alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds, esp. at the beginning of wordsc. assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds8. Rhythm and metera. rhythm: beat we feel in a phrase of music or a line of poetry, the regular recurrence of the accent or stress in poem.b. foot[音步]: unit of rhythm in a line of poetry containing one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables, as in the four division of ―four man/may come/and men/may go‖c. meter[格律]: poetic metre with a given number of feet, or fixed arrangement of accented and unaccented syllables.Rising feet/meter: iamb (iambic), anapest (anapestic)Falling feet/meter: trochee (trochaic), dactyl (dactylic)Number of feet per lineMonometer Dimeter TrimeterTetrameterPentameterHexameterHeptameterOctameter2) What roles do sound and rhythm play in a poem?Sound and rhythm can make the writing musical and melodious. They contribute a lot to the mood and the theme of the writing at the same time.Topics for after-reading discussion:2) What effect does the raven’s word have on the persona?a. The raven‘s only one word answer to the speaker‘s questions which seems as irrelevant fits the scene quit e well. Each time the raven‘s answer is a sting on the broken heart of the speaker. Therefore, it adds to the sad and melancholic mood of the speaker.b. The repetition of the word ―Nevermore‖ also probes into the value of human being‘s existence philosop hically: as answered by the raven to the speaker, one‘s beloved can never be regained if bereaved.3) What types of techniques has the poet employed in the poem in terms of sound?End rhyme (abcbbb)Alliteration (flirt, flutter; stately, sain tly…)Assonance (dreary, weary; napping, tapping, rapping; morrow, borrow, sorrow, with the sound ―o‖ to show one‘s sad, sorrow and grief mood; burning, turning; peering, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming…)Lecture 3 Nathanial Hawthorne1. Background questions:1) What is New England Transcendentalism?Transcendentalism refers to a kind of attitude that believes in the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses. In another word, transcendentalists believe that man learns things not only through reasoning based on his five senses, or by his own sensual experiences, and that he also learns truth spontaneously, out of his soul or instincts. In a literal sense, it means the belief that knowledge and principles of reality can be obtained by studying thought, not necessarily by practical experiences.In this sense the term is almost synonymous with the word mysticism. It was first applied to the German philosophical systems of Hegel, Kant, and Fichte. Later the word came to be used more loosely to apply to a movement that began in New England around 1830, the spokesman of which was Ralph Waldo Emerson.The three key features of New England Transcendentalism are: First, the Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. Secondly, the transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. Thirdly, they take nature as symbolic of Spirit or God.New England Transcendentalism is important to American literature. It is the summit of American Romanticism. It inspires a whole new generation of famous authors such as Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman and Dickinson. Without its impetus America might have been deprived of one of its most prolific literary periods in its history.3) How does Hawthorne‘s life experience exert great influence on Hawthorne‘s later literary creation?Hawthorne‘s life experience exerts great influence on hi s literary career. Obsessed by the Calvinistic concept of the original sin, Hawthorne believes human beings are evil-natured and sinful and this sin and evil is ever present in human heart and will pass on from one generation to another. His writings are to show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one another.1) What is a literary allegory?A literary mode involving extended narratives that produce secondary meanings regarding the story that exists on the surface, or a literary form of indirect representation. Characters in allegorical works frequently serve as metaphors for abstract ideas.3) What is Hawthorne’s writing style?His style is soft, flowing and almost feminine.His language is smooth, clear, beautiful in sound and meaningHe also frequently uses symbols and settings to reveal the psychology of the characters.2) What is the structure of the whole story?At sunset, Goodman Brown leaves his wife Faith, spends the night in the forest, and at dawn returns a changed man. Within this basic structure, the story further divides into four separate scenes, the first and last of which, that is, the departure from and the return to Salem, are balanced. The night in the forest falls naturally into two parts: the temptation by the Devil and the meeting of the witch. The two scenes, particularly the former, make full and careful use of the dramatic devices of suspense and climatic arrangement. The climax of the story comes when Brown calls upon his wife to look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one, which is cut off abruptly by anticlimax as the meeting vanishes in a roaring wind, and Brown leaning against the rock finds it chill and damp to his touch.4) What are the allegorical meanings of Young Goodman, his journey to the dark forest, and his encounter with the devil?The story is often read as a conventional allegory in the sense that Young Goodman is everyman, and his journey to the dark forest and his encounter with the devil are symbolic of man‘s life journey from innocence to knowledge, from good to evil.5) Can you find some symbols in the story? Try to interpret their symbolic meanings.day and the town: human convention and societynight and forest: symbols of doubt and wanderingred: Sin or Evilblack: doubt of the reality of either Evil or Good that tortures BrownLecture 4 Walt Whitman1. Background questions:1) What is free verse?Poetry without fixed beat or regular rhyme. The rhythmical lines vary in length, and there is no fixed metrical pattern. It usually seems formless, but it does have a form or pattern based on repetition and parallel structure. Whitman is the first great American poet to use this form of poetry. He also used it more skillfully than any other poet.2) What do you know about Whitman’s Leaves of Grass?Leaves of Grass is Whitman‘s lifelong achievement. Walt Whitman is a poet with a strong sense of mission, having devoted all his life to the creation of the single poem Leaves of Grass. It goes through several editions altogether and contained many excellent poems in the collection. Generally speaking we can divide the whole period into three parts. They respectively are before and during the civil war and the last one is after war.From the poems which he writes before the civil war, such as ―Song of myself‖, ―There was a child went forth‖, we can easily find the trace of romanticism. He advocates democracy and encourages people to fight for individual rights, and helps them to understand their new status and to define themselves in the new world. Hence, the abundance of themes in his poetry voices freshness. He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and burgeoning life of cities. In celebrating the self, Whitman gives emphasis to the physical dimension of the self and openly and joyously celebrates sexuality.During the civil war, Whitman stood firmly on the side of the North and wrote a series of poems which expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battle field and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory, all of these poems were gathered as a collection under the title of ―Drum Tapes‖. Besides, he wrote down a g reat many poems to air his sorrow to the death of Lincoln, and one of the famous is ―When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom‘d‖This ground-breaking book breaks with the poetic convention, and its sexuality and exotic and vulgar language bring harsh criticisms on it at the very beginning.One of the major principles of Whitman‘s technique is parallelism or a rhythm of thought in which the line is the rhythmical unit, as in the poetry of the Bible.Another principle of Whitman‘s versification i s phonetic recurrence, i.e. the systematic repetition of words and phrases at the head of the line, in the middle or at the end.Unity, unreality of time and space, evil as only an appearance emerging into good, the equal potential divinity of everything from grass to mankind, the immanence of God in all creation, plentitude, continuity and gradation, the multiplicity of nature, and the need for a poetry commensurate with it—all these find adequate expression in this whole poem.2) Discuss the structure of the poem “There Was a Child Went Forth”.The structure of the poem is a circular one. The first stanza is an introduction to the child. In the second stanza, it turns out to be a beautiful idyllic landscape where the child came to know nature. However, he went from the idyllic peaceful Eden to the noisy human city in the next stanza, and then came to know the conception of himself in the fourth stanza. In the last stanza, hesaw his parents and other people in the crowding world. But the poem changes here into another idyllic episode: the beautiful scene on the sea. It is just like a circle. The child came in peace, grew in the crowded society, but went back to peace at the sea. The return to peace is just the beginning of another one. The child will mature day in and day out.3) What‘s the theme of “Song of Myself”?―Song of myself‖ is the longest poem in Leaves of Grass. ―Myself‖ is the central and principal image in this poem. It refers not only to the poet himself but also to a group of people who had the American national characteristics and the democratic ideals like Whitman. They were pioneers on the American continent: the ironsmiths, the carpenters, the butcher, and the waiters, etc., as listed in the poem. These people were optimistic in spirit and strong physically. They live harmoniously with other people in this world as well as with nature. In this song, Whitman sings of nationalism and of the nature of the self in relation to the cosmos and the meaning and purpose of birth and death. Individualism, nationalism, and internationalism or cosmopolitanism, the three contradicting beliefs are reasonably united.Lecture 5 Emily Dickinson3) In what ways does Dickinson differ from Whitman?Whitman mostly keeps his eye on society, but Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual; Whitman embraces a national outlook, but Dickinson holds a regional one; Whitman‘s language is musical, oral but powerful, on the other hand, Dickinson‘s language is usually concise, direct and simple.2. Pre-Reading questions:1) How does Dickinson view love?She herself had lived a lonely life of a spinster. She had once or twice fallen in love with someone. But each time she was frustrated. Some of her love poems reflect the unhappy experiences of hers, such as ―I never lost as much but twice‖. There are also poems about the longing of physical love, the union of the bodies, as in ―Wild nights! Wild nights!‖. For her, love is unhappiness, and love is passion at the same time.3) Wha t‘s Dickinson‘s attitude toward nature?Dickinson was also a nature poet. To her, nature is both simple and harmonious. She writes about nature to reveal its simplicity and profundity on one hand, and tries to establish a connection between nature and man on the other, like the transcendentalists. Her poems are full of insights into nature and human life.1) How does the poet interpret love in “Wild nights! Wild nights!”?Although Dickinson lives a spinster‘s life, she is good at convey the passi onate love between lovers through her poetry. In ―Wild nights! Wild nights!‖, she compares the boat and the sea to two lovers. The passion of love is deeply buried in the heart, like the stormy night. Love can only be released in such adverse circumstances. It is the wild consummated love, as wild as the stormy night, as perfect as the relationship of boat and sea. Therefore, love is something passionate, something a little tragic.3) What aesthetic principle can you see from her poem ―I died for Beauty, but was Scarce”?Beauty and truth are the same, a reflection of John Keats‘s aesthetic idea. In the poem, Dickinson presents 2 personas: one died for Beauty and one for truth. According to Dickinson, the sacrifice for beauty and the sacrifice for truth are both the glories ends in life.4) How do you understand the image ―fly‖ in the poem ―I heard a Fly buzz when I died‖?In the poem, Dickinson employs a strange image of a fly which is normally disgusting to symbolize the lingering of the dead a mong the human world, and also it‘s perspective of a decaying corpse. The fly is an envoy to the two worlds of life and death. The fly is an insect that has the freedom to fly between death and life. It flies to the dying before the death. It also lead the dead to fly to the next world far away.5) What is the theme of the poem “Because I could not stop for Death”?Death and immortality. Death was immortality. This is what Dickinson considers the mystical relationship between death and immortality.Lecture 6 Mark Twain1.Background questions:1) What do you know about America in the Mid- to Late-Nineteenth Century?"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was first published in 1865, when Mark Twain was living in the American Southwest, which was still in the process of being settled. The Industrial Revolution had brought machinery and factories to the eastern United States, but most of the country, particularly areas west of the Mississippi River, still relied on the land for economic development. Much of the land in the West was devoted to cattle, and the U.S. government was involved in battles and embroilments with various ways.2) What are the main characteristics of American Realism?Realistic Techniques• 1. Settings thoroughly familiar to the writer• 2. Plots emphasizing the norm of daily experience• 3. Ordinary characters, studied in depth• 4. Complete authorial objectivity• 5. Responsible morality; a world truly reportedPrinciples of Realism• 1. Insistence upon and defense of "the experienced commonplace".• 2. Character more important than plot.• 3. Attack upon romanticism and romantic writers.• 4. Emphasis upon morality often self-realized and upon an examination of idealism.• 5. Concept of realism as a realization of democracy.Characteristics of Realistic Writing• 1. The philosophy of Realism is known as "descendental" or non-transcendental. The purpose of writing is to instruct and to entertain. Realists were pragmatic, relativistic, democratic, and experimental.• 2. The subject matter of Realism is drawn from "our experience," - it treated the common, the average, the non-extreme, the representative, the probable.• 3. The morality of Realism is intrinsic, integral, relativistic - relations between people and society are explored.• 4. The style of Realism is the vehicle which carries realistic philosophy, subject matter, and morality. Emphasis is placed upon scenic presentation, de-emphasizing authorial comment and evaluation. There is an objection towards the omniscient point of view.2) Examine the structure of the story.The frame tale structure of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is one of its most important parts. In a frame tale, one story appears in—that is, it is framed by—another story.Twain has devised a story-within-a-story framing structure also known as a frame or 'envelope' narrative) by making his narrator the reluctant audience for his storyteller, Simon Wheeler, and by distinguishing his storyteller from his protagonist, Jim Smiley.3) From what aspects in the story can you define Mark Twain as a realist?Twain uses local customs of the time, dialect, and examples of social status in his story to create a realistic view of the region in which the story takes place. The way that the characters behave is very distinctive. Dialect is also used to give the reader a convincing impression of the setting in ―The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County‖. The social status of the main characters in this story also was something that Twain took into account in writing this story. Mark Twain is a realist who concentrates on the customs, dialect, and social status of specific regions of the country.1)Humorists generally have a target; they make jokes at someone's expense. Who is the target in the "Jumping Frog" story?Jim Smiley is the primary target. He is a trickster who turns out to be too clever for his own good. The narrator is also a target in Twain's story, a victim of the anonymous trickster who sent him to the garrulous Simon Wheeler. In fact, the narrator's eagerness to escape Wheeler at the end of the story suggests that he may be Wheeler's victim as well.3) What do you think is the possible theme of this story?Culture Clash"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," highlights various aspects of late nineteenth-century American society and culture through the retelling of a tall tale. Central to the story is the idea of conflicting cultures, particularly the clash between the settled, eastern portion of the United States and the still-developing West. At the time Twain wrote the story, the East and its inhabitants had a reputation for being civilized, cultured, and advanced. The West, on the other hand, was still being settled and was considered to be populated by less-educated.4) What kind of humor can you find in this brief masterpiece?Twain combines the vibrant, loquacious storytelling tradition rooted in folk tale, fable, and gossip with the more calculated literary tradition of satire, irony, and wit.Lecture 7 Theodore DreiserPossible Answers to the topics for after-reading discussion:2) Whereas before she looked at department stores and then factories, she now looks at theaters and then department stores. This really marks the transition away from manufacturing that Dreiser upholds throughout the novel. Much the way we see her move from her miller father to the salesman Drouet to the manager Hurstwood, her own job search progresses from manufacturing to selling to acting. For Dreiser, perhaps, the complete abandonment of manufacturing is the highest social achievement, one that Carrie is striving towards.Lcture 8 Francis Scott FitzgeraldHe believes that Daisy may come to a party some night. He thinks his wealth shown in those parties may gain his lover back. This is a sign of a corrupt way of 'winning' love through money and wealth. The American Dream- It rose in the 19th century and was based on the theory that each person, no matter what his background was, could succeed in life as long as he had skill and effort. It was the idea of the self-made man. The Great Gatsby is a novel about what happened to the American dream in the 1920s, a period when the old values that gave substance to the dream had been corrupted by the pursuit of wealth. What Fitzgerald seems to be criticizing in The GreatGatsby is not the American Dream itself but the corruption of the American Dream. Fitzgerald has delayed the introduction of the novel‘s most important figure—Gatsby himself—until the beginning of Chapter III. The reader has seen Gatsby from a distance, heard other chara cters talk about him, and listened to Nick‘s thoughts about him, but has not actually met him (nor has Nick).Chapter III is devoted to the introduction of Gatsby and the lavish, showy world he inhabits. Fitzgerald gives Gatsby a suitably grand entrance as the aloof host of a spectacularly decadent party. Despite this introduction, this chapter continues to heighten the sense of mystery and enigma that surrounds Gatsby, as the low profile he maintains seems curiously out of place with his lavish expenditures. Just as he stood alone on his lawn in Chapter I, he now stands outside the throng of pleasure-seekers. The delay shows he is different from others and Daisy. His difference determines partially his dream is to fail.In his first direct contact with Gatsby, Nick notices his extraordinary smile—―one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it.‖ Nick‘s impression of Gatsby emphasizes his optimism and vitality—something about him seems remarkably hopeful, and this belief in the brilliance of the future impresses Nick, even before he knows what future Gatsby envisions. The romantic dream and future are actually illusions and the mysterious atmosphere highlights the romance and illusions.throwing parties --- standing as an outsidera good library --- real books with uncut literaturea grand mansion --- the host‘s living in a small bedroomvarious rumours ---truththe gap between perception and reality.At the party, as he looks through Gatsby‘s books, Owl Eyes states that Gatsby has captu red the effect of theater, a kind of mingling of honesty and dishonesty that characterizes Gatsby‘s approach to this dimension of his life. The party itself is a kind of elaborate theatrical presentation, and Owl Eyes suggests that Gatsby‘s whole life is m erely a show, believing that even his books might not be real. The novel‘s title itself—The Great Gatsby—is suggestive of the sort of vaudeville billing for a performer or magician , subtly emphasizing the theatrical and perhaps illusory quality of Gatsby‘s life.ThemesThe Great Gatsby is an examination of American myth in the 20th century. Fitzgerald deliberately depicts Gatsby as a mysterious person so as to achieve the effect that Gatsby is American Everybody. The death, or rather the murdering, of Gatsby poignantly points at the truth about the withering of the American Dream and the ironic effect it has produced upon the whole American myth.Character portrayalJay Gatsby: Gatsby in the novel represents the newly rich upstart, vulgar in his ostentatious [showy] wealth. However, he becomes a kind of new American Adam. He is ―great‖, because he is dignified and ennobled by his dream and his mythic vision of life.Nick Carraway: Nick is both a narrator and a character in this novel. He leads us to the dignity and depth of Gatsby‘s character, and suggests the relation of his tragedy to the American situation. But as a character, Carraway has his own likes and dislikes. Since Carraway himself is。

美国文学史复习资料(同名9954)

美国文学史复习1（colonialism)第一部分殖民主义时期的文学一、时期综述1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记b、journals 游记2、清教徒在美国的写作内容：1）their voyage to the new land2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops3) About dealing with Indians4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit3、清教徒的思想：1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式2) Wish to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who challenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。

美国文学选读复习提纲

Proses:Natha n Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter-Chapter 2Hawthorne:心理分析小说，以宗教罪恶观sin评价社会。

-Why are women especially the elder ones so harsh and intolerant to Hester?1. Startled or astonished by the beauty, elegant and dignity of Hester.2. The patriarchal society let women have eternalized patriarchal ideas, unfavorable for women adulterers.-How does the author portray Hester Prynne?1. Core impressive image: the artistically and fantastically made letter A .2. Appeara nee-What does the scarlet letter with gold thread and elaborate embroidery( 朿9绣)suggests?1. Clue of Hester ' s attitsh e makes a mockery of her punishment by making this plain symbol of adultery into a gorgeousdecorati on.2. To n egate the awful meaning of the letter.3. as punishment, 血红色的A 字象征这人们反对human nature ,lush, 有devilish 意味，而Hester wants to changeher huma n reality, to make it prettier tha n it really is.-What does “ A” sta nd for?Adultery/A ngel (appeari ng in the sky whe n gover nor dies)/Able (Hester gains in flue nee)-What kind of pers on is Chilli ngworth?1. Devil or devil ' s emissary or SataicDld intellect and old age , without hominine feelings from heart and soul.2. In Hester ' s recalling, he is "…pale. ”Herman Melville: Moby Dick-Ch apter 41 Character Capta in AhabImage of America n: an idealist and an egoni st.Willa Cather: Miss JewettSarah Orne Jewett' s poetic principlesJewett both as a writer and a pers onCather ' s poetic principlesAs a writer, Jewett has her own writing style.She focuses on the places where she lives and loves, and makes them subject-matters of her stories. (Wherever she might be, She carried the Maine shore-country with her. She loved it by instinet, and in the light of wide experienee, from near and from afar. Every day, in every seas on of the year, she enjoyed the beautiful country in which she had the good fortune to be born. Her love of the Maine country was the supreme happ in ess of her life. Her stories were but reflect ions, quite incidental, of that peculiar and intensely personal pleasure. Take ,for instanee, that dear, daybreak paragraph which begins By the Morning Boat ”：On the coast of Maine …'P127 paragraph 3)She writes with delightful humor that comes from her delicate and tactful han dli ng of her n ative Ian guage.(Her pers onal opinions she voiced lightly, half-humorously; any expression was spontaneous, the outgrowth of the immediate con versati on.) And, the dist inctive thi ng about Miss Jewett is that she has her own in dividual voice.(her comme nt on the story of a mule) Sherwood An ders on: The Triumph of the EggF. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great GatsbyEast and West Egg represent, respectively, the split among upper class society of old-monied, aristocratic families and the 'nouveau riche" families whose fortunes were recently made. In the time setting for this novel, this division was distinct and very relevant "Old money" was considered morE respe匚lablE than Tl new money" and this is evident in the social depiction of life in East Egg and life in West Egg. Consider, for example, how Daisy (who lives in East Egg) considers Gatsby's (a West Egg resident) parties to be decadent and jnliike the(:ivilized gathering£ she is a匚customed to atteriding.Nick ultimately returns west because he has become disillusioned with east coast society. He left the west r like many people of his era, in search of a richer, broader, cultural experience. After his experiences with Gatsby r Nick finds the east 白ndit£ attendant lifestyle to be contemptible and lacking in authenticity.East Egg and West Egg together represent the ongoing divisions in society. East Egg is where the M real" aristocrats live: those with older money and established credentials. West Egg is where the new money lives, and is not considered as classy.Nick retums to West Egg because, while he has some social credenti^h that might allow him to live in East Egg； he is trying to make something of himself, ina way like Gatsby, his neighbor, and the western community is for those stillconstructing their identities*Ernest Hemi ngway: A Clea n, Well-Lighted PlaceExistential ism and the “ LostGeneration "Although Hemingway was writing years before existentialism became a prominent culture idea, his questioning of life and his experiences as a searching member of the lost generation gave his work existe ntialist overt on es.Noth ingn ess: (nada) an existe ntial an gst about his place in the uni verse and an un certa inty about the meaning of life . The struggle to deal with despair : the older waiter cannot actually stave off despair: in effective methods in cludi ng: money(bar)/mocki ng prayers (religio n)The Older Waiter: Lonely, recognizes himself in the old man and sees his own future.The Youn ger Waiter: n a^Ve and insen sitive, immature, dem on strates a dismissive attitude toward huma n life in gen eral. Symbols: The caf - t h e opposite of nothingnessDeceptive pacing: 写作风格从简，导致故事节奏忽快忽慢。

美国文学史复习提纲

美国文学史复习提纲I. Explain the following literary terms.1. RomanticismThe most profound and comprehensive idea of romanticism is the vision of a greater personal freedom for the individual. Appeals to imagination; Stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, geniality. Subjectivity: in form and meaning.2 American transcendentalismAmerican transcendentalism was an important movement in philosophy and literature that flourished during the early to middle years of the nineteenth century (about 1836-1860). For the transcendentalists, the soul of each individual is identical with the soul of the world and contains what the world contains.3 Realism: ―nothing more and nothing less than the tru thful treatment of material.‖ theCivil wara. verisimilitude of details derived from observationb. representative in plot, setting and characterc. an objective rather than an idealized view of human experience4. Modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. The general term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States starting at theturn of the 20th century with its core period between World War I and World War II and continuing into the 21st century.II. Questions and Answers. Give brief answers to each of the following questions in English.1. What is local color？an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things immediately observable: the dialects, customs, sights, and sounds of regional America‖2. What is American Puritanism1). Total Depravity - the concept of Original Si2). Unconditional Election - the concept of predestination3). Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only, not for everyone.4). Irresistible Grace - God's grace is freely given, it cannot be earned or denied.5). Perseverance of the "saints" - those elected by God have full power to interpret the will of God, and to live uprightly. If anyone rejects grace after feeling its power in his life, he will be going against the will of God.3. Analyze Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography.themes in autobiography: Self- Improvement Mind: Self-education Body: Physical ActivityBehavior: Moral Perfection Religion: The best service to God is to be good to man Benjamin Franklin and aspects of The American DreamRags to Riches: Impotence to Importance: A Philosophy of Individualism:Freewill vs. Determinism: Hope and Optimism:The Autobiography is a record of self-examination and self-improvement.Benjamin Franklin was a spokesman for the new order of the 18th century enlightenment The Autobiography is a how-to-do-it book, a book on the art of self-improvement. (for example, Franklin’s 13 virtues)Through telling a success story of self-reliance, the book celebrates, in fact, the fulfillment of the American dream.The Autobiography is in the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision4. What is Imagism?It is a movement of English and American poets in revolt from Romanticism, which flourish 1910-1917. The characteristic products of the movement are more easily recognized than its theories defined: they tend to be short ,composed of short lines of musical cadence rather than metrical regularity, to avoid abstraction, and to treat the image with a hard, clear precision rather than with overt symbolic intent.As part of the modernist movement, away from the sentimentality and moralizing tone of nineteenth-century Victorian poetry, imagist poets looked to many sources to help them create a new poetic expression, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images. III. Topic discussion.1. Discuss Allen Poe’s literar y achievements with his works.famous American poet, short-story writer and critic father of detective storymaster of gothic novel forerunner of symbolisma father of detective storyPoe introduced of a new form of short fiction--- the detective story.Th e word ―detective‖ did not exist in English at the time thatPoe was writing, but the genre has become a fundamental mode of twentieth-century literature and film.b) master of gothic novelGothic novel, a genre that rose with Romanticism in Britain in the late eighteenth century, explores the dark side of human experience—death, alienation, nightmares, ghosts, and haunted landscapes. Poe brought the Gothic to America.Gothic novels originated from The Castle of Otranto, written by Horace Walpole in Britain at the end of the 18th century, which created the early classical Gothic novel mode.It leads habitually with darkness and horror. Gothic elements include horror, mystery, supernatural phenomenon, misfortune, death, haunted houses, and family curses.C Literary criticPoe is one of the few American writers who not only wrote poetry, but also wrote about how to write poetry. His critical essays on poetry include The Poetic Principle, and The Philosophy of Composition.Poe remained the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature.2. Analyze Freneau’s The Wild Honeysuckle.野金银花Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, 美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，Hid in this silent, dull retreat, 却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——Untouched thy honey'd blossoms blow, 甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，Unseen thy little branches greet; 招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；No roving foot shall crush thee here, 没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，No busy hand provoke a tear. 没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。

《高中英语课件：美国文学选读》

梅尔维尔作品选读
《白鲸》、《红字》等小说，探究人性与自然、信仰与道德、理性与情感之间的冲突，表现出浓郁的文化多元性。
现实主义文学
1
文学背景及特点
反对浪漫主义的情感膨胀与逃避现实，揭示社会现象及阶级冲突，倡导真飘逸公主号》、《哈特利家庭之旅》等小说，幽默而严谨地反映了美国19世纪末的生活和文化。
2 托尼·莫里森作品选读 3 大卫·福斯特·华莱士
作品选读
《宠儿》、《至爱梅琳娜》
等小说，将种族和阶级问
《无限笑话》、《我與我
题融入女性主义和后殖民
的大腦》等小说，拓展了
主义的议题中，重新定义
当代文学的意涵和形式，
了美国文学的多元性和世
要求读者同时进行文本分
界性。
析和自我反思。
结语
美国文学的发展与现状
高中英语课件：美国文学选读
本课件涵盖美国文学不同时期的代表性作家、作品及其文学成就，为您深入探究美国文学的历史、文化背景和文学特色提供全面的视角和参考。
初期美国文学
文学背景及特点
关注新大陆发掘及开拓，反映早期殖民地经济和社会发展，抒发宗教信仰与欧洲背景的交融。
华盛顿·欧文作品选读
《沃尔夫特斯坦传奇》、《睡谷传说》等小说，探究美国本土民间历史和传说，形成清新的小品文学风格。
简·奥斯汀作品选读
《傲慢与偏见》、《理智与情感》等小说，描绘社交场合中少女与贵族之间的纠葛与情感，具有细腻幽默的文学风格。
浪漫主义文学
文学背景及特点
反对启蒙及工业革命对自然和人的摧残，推崇个性与想象力，抒发个人感受及情感反叛。
伦·坡作品选读
《乌鸦》、《黑猫》等小说，讲述爱与死亡、痛与欲望、灵与肉之间的绝望诉求，创立了恐怖小说的黄金时代。

美国文学选读复习

美国文学选读复习History And Anthology of American Literature (VolumeⅠⅡ)美国文学史及选读1、2PartⅠThe Literature of Colonial America殖民主义时期的文学(at the beginning of 17th century)Part Ⅱ The Literature of Reason And Revolution理性和革命时期文学(by the mid-18th century)1．Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence 独立宣言(1776年18世纪中后期)（仔细阅读知道意思）Benjamin Franklin: The AutobiographyThomas Paine: The American Crisis*一、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明·富兰克林1706-1790Symbol of America in the Age of Enlightenment殖民地时期作家。

独立战争前惟一的杰出的美国作家in the colonial period, the only good American author before the Revolutionary War.1．其还是美国第一位主要作家the first major writer非凡表达能力，简洁明了，有点幽默，还是一位讽刺天才as an author he had power of expression, simplicity, a subtle humor. He was also sarcastic.2．他最好作品收录在《自传》“Autobiography”。

“对这个年青的国家来说，他的损失比其它任何人的都要大“his shadow lies heavier than any other man’s on this young nation.二、Thomas Jefferson托马斯·杰弗逊（1743-1826）1．美国历史上最为广泛影响人物his thought and personality have influenced his countryman more deeply and remained more effectively alive.同富兰克林一样具人道主义精神vigorous humanitarian sympathies.启蒙运动的产物 a product of the Enlightenment.2．1776年同约翰·亚当斯、本杰明·富兰克林、罗杰·谢尔曼、罗伯特·R·利文斯顿一起起草《独立宣言》with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert R Livingston, he drafted the Declaration of Independence.3．1790-1793任华盛顿内阁中第一任国务卿，as the first American secretary of state. 1800起担任两届美国总统。

美国文学选读(陶洁版)复习资料

美国文学选读（陶洁版）复习资料ADAM整理William Faulkner(1897-1962 1949 Nobel price“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.The Sound and the Fury (1929) 人物??As I Lay Dying (1930)Light in the August ( 1932)Absalom, Absalom (1936)Go Down Moses (1942)Ernest HemingwayIceberg Principle (Theory):冰山法则The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. 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 of an 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 action.Code heroa noble but tragic hero; fighting with the overwhelming force; though he knows that he will be defeated at last, he decides to act like a hero. In one sense Hemingway wrote all his life about one theme, which is neatly summed up in the famous phrase “grace under pressure”Major Works:The Sun Also Rises 1926 (Jake Barnes)A Farewell to Arms 1928 (a tragic story about war and love) (Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley) For Whom the Bell Tolls 1940 (Spanish civil war) (Robert Jordan)The Old Man and the Sea 1952 (Santiago)Herman Melville代表作：白鲸Moby Dick Other Works are: Billy Budd,Typee, Omoo, Mardi.Symbolism in Moby Dick：It is regarded as the first American prose epic. 散文史诗？It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth 寻找真理and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology.Different people on board the ship are representations of different ideas and different social and ethnic groups; facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings; the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolizes nature for Melville, for it is complex, unfathomable难以理解的, malignant恶性的, and beautiful as well.Realism 浪漫主义之后，现代主义之前As 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 wayto 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 and motivations. 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.William Dean Howells：The Rise of Silas LaphamHenry James：The Portrait of a Lady (Isabel Archer; Madam Merle; Gilbert Osmond)Daisy Miller (Daisy; Mr. Winterbourne; Mr. Giovanelli)Mark Twain = Samuel Langhorne Clemens Missouri Writing: humor and local colorism 地方特色The characteristics of local colorismTwain preferred to have his own region and people at the forefront of his stories. This particular concern about the local character of a region came about as “local colorism,”a unique variation of American literary realism.“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,”brought him recognition from a wider public. His best works were produced when he was in the prime of his life：Life on the Mississippi & The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.Mark Twain’s most representative work：The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnHis humor, a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism, is remarkable.Nathaniel Hawthorne effected by 超验主义One of the most ambivalent writers in the American literary history.The Scarlet Letter:红字Other works: Mosses from an Old Manse; Twice-Told Tales; The Marble Faun; The House of the Seven GablesHe is a master of symbolism, which he took from the Puritan tradition 清教徒传统and bequeathed to American literature in a revivified form.In his masterpiece, by using Pearl as a thematic symbol, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community. With the scarlet A as the biggest symbol of all, which is ambiguous, he proves himself to be one of the best symbolists.American Naturalism 自然主义The impact of Darwin’s evolutionary theory达尔文进化论on the American thought and the 19th century French literature on the American men of letters gave rise to another school of realism: American naturalism.The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral与道德无关的, that men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by heredity遗传and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion湮没in death. 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.代表作家Stephen Crane；Frank Norris；Theodore Dreiser；Edwin Arlington Robinson；Upton Sinclair；Jack London；O’ HenryStephen Crane：Maggie: A Girl of the Streets；The Red Badge of Courage；The Open Boat；The Black Riders and Other Lines；War Is KindEdwin Arlington Robinson：Richard CoryJack London：The Call of the Wild；The White Fang；The Sea Wolf；Martin EdenUpton Sinclair：The JungleO.Henry (William Sydney Porter)：The Gift of the Magi；The Cop and the anthemTheodore Dreiser：Trilogy of Desire:1.The Financier2. The Titan3. The Stoic；Sister Carrie；Jennie Gerhardt；An American TragedyThe 20th Century American Poets：Two characteristic strains：introspection自省&social criticismT.S.Eliot：The Waste LandImagism 意象派A poetic movement of England and the U.S. that 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. “poetic techniques to record exactly the momentary impressions”Three main principles of the Imagist Movement (1912) :[1] direct treatment of poetic subjects[2] elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words, to use no word that does not contribute to the presentation.[3] rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome.Ezra Pound：Idaho爱达荷洲worked for the Italian government in WW II, engaged in some radio broadcasts of anti-Semitism and pro-Fascism.代表作:Cantos; Hugh Selwyn Mauberley; In a Station of the Metro; CathayWilliam Carlos Williams:The Red WheelbarrowE.E.Cummings: L(a; r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-rWallace Stevens:Anecdote of the JarThe 20th Century American Poets:Major Features1. The relationship of art and life; reality and imagination; fact and miracle; chaos and order.2. References to painting, music, and color.3. Abstract, philosophical, and difficult. He saw poetry as a personal transaction between self and reality.4. Meticulous language, though frequently exotic; coined words, and some are employed simply for sound effects.Robert Frost: Fire and Ice; Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening; The Road Not Taken Major Features:1. His verse was terrifying at first, showing the dark side of human life and society. Later, filledwith sunshine.2.New England as the setting; The subjects come from daily life of ordinary life;Rural poetry inpastoral tradition. ( Wordsworth; Emerson)3.His themes include landscape and people of New England, loneliness and poverty of isolatedfarmers, beauty, terror and tragedy in nature.Simple language, a graceful style and traditional forms of poetry.诗歌鉴赏：In both "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "The Road Not Taken," the speaker hesitates on route. Compare the hesitations. Do they derive from thesame impulse and misgiving or are they distinct?Langston Hughes: The first prominent black writer in American literary history.Poet Laureate of Harlem & O’ Henry of HarlemA poet, playwright, novelist, song writer, biographer, editor, newspaper columnist, translator,lecturer.主要作品：The Weary Blues, The Dream keeper and Other Poems, Fine Clothes to the Jew Harlem RenaissanceIn the 1920s in America, there was an upsurge of Black literature, popularly known as the “Harlem Renaissance”, out of which such eminent literary figures as Langston Hughes grew. So, “Harlem Renaissance” is a burst of literary achievement in the 1920s by Negro playwrights, poets and novelists who presented new insights into the American experience and prepared the way for the emergence of numerous Black writers after mid-twentieth century.The Harlem Renaissance began with a work entitled: New Negro: An Interpretation(by Alain Locke).Dialect, folklore, and Jazz.The Modern PeriodPart I The 1920s-1930s ( the second renaissance of American literature)l The Roaring Twenties (economically)l The Jazz Age (socially)l“lost” and “waste land” (spiritually)There had been a big flush of new theories and new ideas in both social and natural sciences.Darwinism(Darwin), Socialism (Karl Marx), Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud)The Lost GenerationThe term “Lost Generation” came from Gertrude Stein, who had a salon in her house for English and American expatriates in Paris. The Phrase was a remark she made to a mechanic in Hemingway’s presence that “Y ou are all a lost generation.”The Jazz AgeThe Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between World War Ⅰand World War Ⅱ, particularly in North America.With the rise of the Great Depression, the values of this age saw much decline.The most representative literary work of the age is American writer F. Scott 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 “The Jazz Age”.Gertrude Stein used the term to describe the post-World 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. The term is commonly applied to Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings and some others.Winners of Nobel Prize for Literature during this periodSinclair Lewis (1930); Eugene O’Neill (1936); Pearl S. Buck (1938); T.S. Eliot (1948); William Faulkner (1949); Ernest Hemingway (1954); John Steinbeck (1962)Sinclair Lewisl Main Street (masterpiece) (a bitter satire on the life style of American small towns) Carol Milford // Will Kennicottl BabbittSome other famous writers and poets:Sherwood Anderson: Winesburg, Ohio;Hands; Paper PillsF. Scott. Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby; This Side of Paradise; T ender is the Night; The Beautifuland the DamnedThe Last Tycoon ( unfinished)John Dos PassosEzra PoundRobert FrostAmerican DreamThe is the idea held by many in the United States that through hard work, courage and determination one could achieve prosperity繁荣. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations.The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America. He states: "The American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. ….It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."In the United States’Declaration of Independence独立宣言, our founding fathers: "…held certain truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." …….The Post-War Period 战后Literature：This period is the rising period of post-modern literature. Many forms of post-modern fiction appeared. The same mood in this period is despair, but continuing to search absurdity荒谬of modern life; lonely, but searching for the meaning of existence; identity.The Beat Generation 行为怪癖的一代The Beat Generation is a group of American young writers and artists popular in the 1950s and early 1960s,known especially for their use of non-traditional forms and their rejection of conventional social values.The term "Beat" was reportedly coined by Jack Kerouac in the late 1940s, quickly becoming a slang term in America after World War II, meaning "exhausted" or "beat down" and provided this generation with a definitive label for their personal and social positions and perspectives.The core group consisted of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs。

美国文学选读课件

American Natrualism

Applied scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to the study of human beings. Influenced by Darwinism (natural selection) and psychology (Freud) Posited that men were governed by heredity（遗传） and environment. Often depict man in conflict with nature, society, or himself. Prominent from 1880-1920(ish) Naturalism, together with realism, regionalism, is a truly American mode of writing.

Two Poems to facilitate our thinking
"When I was one-and-twenty..." by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, 'Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.' But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me.

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1. Startled or astonished by the beauty, elegant and dignity of Hester.
2. The patriarchal society let women have eternalized patriarchal ideas, unfavorable for women adulterers.
2
书山有路
(bar)/mocking prayers (religion) The Older Waiter：Lonely, recognizes himself in the old man and sees his own future.
The Younger Waiter: naïve and insensitive, immature, demonstrates a dismissive attitude toward human life in general.
书山有路
Proses:
Nathan Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter-Chapter 2 Hawthorne: 心理分析小说，以宗教罪恶观 sin 评价社会。
-Why are women especially the elder ones so harsh and intolerant to Hester?
Symbols: The café- the opposite of nothingness Cleanliness and good lighting
Order and clarity
Nothingness
Chaotic, confusing and dark
Style: minimalist/”iceberg principle” Deceptive pacing: 写作风格从简，导致故事节奏忽快忽慢。Conveys only the most essential information in the scene.
As a writer, Jewett has her own writing style. She focuses on the places where she lives and loves, and makes them subject-matters of her stories. (Wherever she might be, She carried the Maine shore-country with her. She loved it by instinct, and in the light of wide experience, from near and from afar. Every day, in every season of the year, she enjoyed the beautiful country in which she had the good fortune to be born. Her love of the Maine country was the supreme happiness of her life. Her stories were but reflections, quite incidental, of that peculiar and intensely personal pleasure. Take ,for instance, that dear, daybreak paragraph which begins “By the Morning Boat”:
her human reality, to make it prettier than it really is.
-What does “A” stand for?
Adultery/Angel (appearing in the sky when governor dies)/Able (Hester gains influence)
Saul Bellow: Looking for Mr. Green
Character analysis: Raynor and Field
Poets: 19th Century: Walt Whitman: One’s Self I Sing Emily Dickinson: I’m Nobody!/ Success Is Counted Sweetest 20th Century: Wallace Stevens: Anecdote of the Jar William Carlos Williams: The Red Wheelbarrow William Carlos Williams: Spring and All
2. In Hester’s recalling, he is “…pale.”
Sharp Contrast Hester
Chillingworth
Young, beautiful, perfect in figure
Old(in his decaying age), ugly, deformed, cold and
“On the coast of Maine…”P127 paragraph 3) She writes with delightful humor that comes from her delicate and tactful handling of her native language.(Her personal opinions she voiced lightly, half-humorously; any expression was spontaneous, the outgrowth of the immediate conversation.) And, the distinctive thing about Miss Jewett is that she has her own individual voice.(her comment on the story of a mule)
1.Clue of Hester’s attitude: she makes a mockery of her punishment by making this plain symbol of adultery into a
gorgeous decoration.
2. To negate the awful meaning of the letter. 3.as punishment, 血红色的 A 字象征这人们反对 human nature ,lush, 有 devilish 意味，而 Hester wants to change
Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken === Robert Lowell: Skunk Hour Allen Ginsberg: A Supermarket in California
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-How does the author portray Hester Prynne?
1. Core impressive image: the artistically and fantastically made letter A.
2. Appearance -What does the scarlet letter with gold thread and elaborate embroidery(刺绣) suggests?
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Sherwood Anderson: The Triumph of the Egg F. Scott Fitzgerald: The GreatGatsby
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Ernest Hemingway: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place Existentialism and the “Lost Generation”: Although Hemingway was writing years before existentialism became a prominent culture idea, his questioning of life and his experiences as a searching member of the lost generation gave his work existentialist overtones. Nothingness: (nada) an existential angst about his place in the universe and an uncertainty about the meaning of life. The struggle to deal with despair: the older waiter cannot actually stave off despair: ineffective methods including: money
indifferent
Herman Melville: Moby Dick-Chapter 41
Character Captain Ahab
Image of American: an idealist and an egonist.
Hale Waihona Puke Willa Cather: Miss Jewett Sarah Orne Jewett’s poetic principles Jewett both as a writer and a person Cather’s poetic principles
-What kind of person is Chillingworth?
1. Devil or devil’s emissary or Satan: cold intellect and old age, without hominine feelings from heart and soul.