美国文学期末论文

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关于美国文学的论文

关于美国文学的论文美国梦作为美国文学中一个永恒的主题，始终贯穿于美国文学之中。

下文是店铺为大家搜集整理的关于美国文学的论文的内容，欢迎大家阅读参考!美国文学的论文篇1浅析美国文学中的旅行与美国梦摘要: 对于美国人而言，上路旅行不仅是自由和美国梦的隐喻，而且是实现“显明的命定”(Manifest Destiny)的物质手段和方式。

本文以惠特曼的《草叶集》和克鲁亚克的《在路上》等作品为例，说明旅行以及过路仪式表现了典型的美国经验，表达了对美国梦的追寻、实现和传播，成为美国文化传统的重要组成部分。

关键词: 旅行;美国梦;《草叶集》;《在路上》一道路将人们从一地引向另一地，它是不同地点彼此沟通的不可或缺的桥梁。

原本各自独立、互不关联的两地因而被连接起来，产生互动，拥有了更加丰盈的生命。

几乎所有的文化都赋予道路以特别的价值，对之倾注了连绵不断的情感。

在美国，道路四通八达，如同一张网把人们的日常生活联系起来，而由于美国人生性“不安分”，不愿久居一地，加上酷爱户外活动，上路旅行便成了美国生活的一种实现方式，同时也成为美国文化的一大隐喻。

这一隐喻对于美国有着特别的意义，因为美国毕竟是由旅行者创建的：当初，清教徒远离家国，跨越大西洋来到这片陌生的土地;后来，他们从偏居美利坚东北一隅的新英格兰逐步西进，扩展畛域，奠定今日美国之格局。

毫不夸张地说，道路在美国的建立和发展过程中建立了不朽的功勋。

此外，美国幅员辽阔、地域广袤，加上经济繁荣，汽车工业发达，美国成为举世闻名的车轮上的国家。

出于工作和生活的需要，美国人花费不少的时间“在路上”，驱车出行几乎成为他们的必需。

旅行不仅是指从出发地到目的地的跨越，而且常被视为对某种历程的经历，例如，它可以象征性地指代个人的成长，或者是对某种信仰(如宗教信仰)的追寻。

穿越全美、尤其是跨越大片未开发地区的旅行，是勇气和冒险精神的体现，这种对未知领域的探索伴随着美国向西部的扩张而被放大甚至神化。

美国文学史论文

美国文学史课程论文A Brief Summary of the Historyof American Literature From Romanticism to Postmodernism姓名：叶红立学号：2011212831班级：2011级3班分数：2013年12月21日IntroductionAmerican is a multi-national country because of its history. Just like a big container, it puts in various kinds of elements. When different cultures mixed together, that can not only be co-existed but also form a sharp contrast, which makes American literature has a flavor of distinct and various aesthetic feeling.The history of America literature began with the swarming in of immigrants with different background and cultures. After that, American literature had been greatly influenced by the European culture for a long period. It was not until America’s independence, did Americans realize that they need national literature strongly, and American literature began to develop. Romantics emphasized individualism and intuition. This was an exciting period in the history of American literature. Like the flowers of spring, there were suddenly many different kinds of writing at the same time. The Civil War was a watershed in the history, after which American literature entered a period of full blooming. Influenced by the Civil War, the American society was in a turbulent situation. The writings about local life, critical realism, unveiling the dark side of the society and yearning for nature were increased. After the First World War, Americans were at a loss postwar, and the Modern American literature and Postmodern American literature began.This passage will have a further discussion on this period by dividing them into several parts: Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Modernism and Post-modernism.1.Romanticism PeriodRomanticism is a movement of the 18th and 19th centuries that marked the reaction in literature, philosophy, art, religion, and politics against the neoclassicism and formal orthodoxy of the preceding period. And the American Romantic period stretched from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War.Romantic Period is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature. When Americans were constructing their country, they also began to realize their differences from their European counterparts. They began to hope to see an entirely different literature model which expressed American cultures. Great writers of that period captured on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream.There were plenty of good historical reasons why literature was so prominent during that period. Politically the time was ripe. After the 1812 war against England, the United States was finally free. Economically America had never been wealthier, but the Industrial Revolution and the nation’s change in status from a small, agricultural country to a major commercial and industrial power led to a massive impulse towards rapid urbanization. Culturally American own value emerged. There were American publishers and copyright laws to protect the writers from having their works printed. And also there were readers eager to expand their minds.American Romanticism shares many characteristics with British Romanticism. It was greatly inspired by Wordsworth’s poetic encounter with nature in The Prelude. However, developing as it did, Romanticism in America exhibited features of its own. It was mainly in the American romantic writers’ works. For examp1e, the American national experience of "pioneering into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams, and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral 1aw. The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper’s Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's Walden and, later, in Mark Twain’s Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn. With the growth of American national consciousness, American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values and American Romanticism. One of the performances is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. Here are going to introduce two representative writers and their works:Washington Irving(1783-1859) was the first American storyteller to be internationally recognized as a man of letters and the first great prose stylist of American romanticism, and his familiar style was destined to provide a model for the prevailing prose narrative of the future. His first book A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (1809), written under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, was a great success and won him wide popularity. He is best known for his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon,Gent (1819-1820), especially in which two short stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow have become American classics. Later he wrote works of history and biographies, such as The History of Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828), A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada and The Alhambra(1832). After that, he spent the rest of his life living a life of leisure and comfort, and writing The Life of Goldsmith (1840) and a five-volume Life of Washington (1855-1859). He died in 1859.James Fennimore Cooper (1789-1851) is respectfully remembered as a master of adventurous narrative and as the creator of an American hero-myth. According to a charming legend, Cooper’s first novel Precaution(1820) was a response to his wife’s challenge to improve on the current British society fiction, and the failure of this work turned him to historical novels. Later, The Spy, a tale of the Revolution he wrote, became a great success in America and Europe. In 1823, Cooper published The Pioneers (1823), which together with other 4 novels The Deer slayer (1841), The Last of the Mohicans(1826), The Pathfinder(1840) and The Prairie(1827) became his well-known Leather-stocking Tales. Cooper went on to write over thirty novels,including exciting adventures of the sea like The Pilot. Cooper created the American historical novel using authentic American subject.2.Realism PeriodAs the economy developed, the nation witnessed an incredible expansion, among which the most influential one was westward expansion. The conquest of the new territories opened new horizons, but the country was also torn by the risk of internal division, which led to American Civil War.By the end of the Civil War a new nation had been born, and it was to demand and receive a new literature less idealistic and more practical, less exalted and more earthy, less consciously artistic and more honest than produced in the age when the American dream had glowed with greatest intensity and American writers had created a great literary period by capturing on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream. Gradually, the Romanticism era in the United States was surpassed by another entirely different age.At about 1900s, American literature came to another entirely different age—the age of Realism. Realists searched for the social and human nature more directly. In part, Realism was a reaction against the Romantic emphasis on the strange, idealistic, and long-ago and far-away. It has been mainly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes.American realism was the outcome of the Civil War from all the aspects of politics, economy and culture. Politically the Civil War affected both the social and the value system of the country. America had transformed itself into an industrialized and commercialized society. The war also brought some obvious changes to the American economy. It had stimulated the technological development, and new methods of organization and management were tested to adapt to industrial modernization on a large scale. As far as the culture was concerned, the harsh realities of life as well as the disillusion of heroism resulting from the dark memories of the Civil War had set the nation against the romance.As a new literature, Realism emerged for an age. Under the influence of the Civil War and industrialization, Realism surely formed its own features. Realism aims at the description of the actualities of the life and free from subjective prejudice,idealism or romantic color. The writings are about local life, critical realism and unveiling the dark side of the society, and focuses on commonness of the common people, settings and events. Mark Twain is one of the representatives.Mark Twain (1835-1910) was the true father of American literature. He was an American humorist, lecturer, essayist, and author. His primary works are The Innocents Abroad, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. He intentionally deviates from classical genteel and tends to use local dialects, colloquial language, even Black English, slang, clipped structures and ungrammatical sentences. He was a combination of realism with romanticism. His works combine American folk humor and serious literature, characterize a local culture, elements such as speech, customs, and more peculiar to one particular place. The physical settings, and people’s behavior and thoughts are different from the other places.There are many other great writers in this period, such as William Dean Howells, Henry James, O. Henry, and so on. They have made great contribution to the world’s literature.3.Naturalism PeriodAfter the Civil War, it seemed that overnight the rapid industrialization of American society changed an agrarian nation into an industrial giant. As the westward expansion continued to push the frontier nearer the Pacific coast, the settlers found themselves subject to the ruthless manipulation of forces including the railroad, as can been seen in Frank Norris’wheat novels. The rapid social changes caused by industrialization brought serious social problems. While the captains of industry piled up huge personal fortunes, the ordinary man became the victim of industrialization. The harsh reality of the industrialization period changed man’s understanding about himself and the world in which he lived in. Living in a cold, indifferent, and essentially godless world, man was completely thrown upon himself for survival. During this special period, the literary naturalism was transplanted from France to the United States and became a very important literary movement in America.Naturalism was a literary movement of the late 19th century that yielded influence on the twentieth. It was an extension of Realism, a reaction against the restrictions inherent in the realistic emphasis on the ordinary, as naturalists insisted that the extraordinary is real, too.Naturalism, with its new techniques and new ways of writing, appealed to the imagination of the younger generation like Crane, Norris, and Theodore Dreiser. They tore the mask of gentility to pieces and wrote about the helplessness of man, his insignificance in a cold world, and his lack of dignity in face of the crushing forces of environment and heredity. They reported truthfully and objectively, with a passion for scientific accuracy and an overwhelming accumulation of factual detail. They painted life as it was lived in the slums, and were accused of telling just the hideous side of it. In naturalistic literature, man is always subject to the law of nature, which may not only be indifferent but also hostile. Therefore, gloom and despair characterize American literature of this period.American literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme economic classes who were determined by theirenvironment and heredity. In presenting the extremes of life, the naturalists sometimes displayed an affinity to the sensationalism of early romanticism, but unlike their romantic predecessors, the naturalism emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by heredity and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. The pessimism and deterministic ideas of naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Jack London and Theodore Dreiser.Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is the first American naturalism work. Norris’s McTeague is the manifesto of American naturalism. Dreiser’s Sister Carrie is the work in which naturalism attained maturity. These writers’ detailed description of the lives of the downtrodden and the abnormal, their frank treatment of human passion and sexuality, and their portrayal of men and women overwhelmed by blind forces of nature still exert a powerful influence on modern writers.Without satisfying people’s needs and refl ecting social conditions, Naturalism the same as Realism no longer stood on the historical stage. Although naturalist literature described the world with sometimes brutal realism, it sometimes also aimed at bettering the world through social reform. This combination of grim reality and desire for improvements is typical of America as it moved into the twentieth century, and paved the way to modernism.4.Modernism PeriodIn the year of 1914, the World War I broke out. World War I produced great misfortune to all human beings, but brought big fortune to Americans. Since the war was not fought on the American soil, by the second decade of the 20th century, the United States had become the most powerful industrialized nation in the world, outstripping Britain and Germany in terms of industrial production. After the war there was an economic boom and a deceptive affluence. American entered the era of big industry and big technology, a mechanized age that deprived individuals of their sense of identity. Along with the changes in the material landscape came the changes in the non-material system of belief and behavior. The war destroyed not only the lives of many promising young men, but also the early innocent beliefs of a whole generation, casting them into an age of disorientation, alienation and dissent. At the beginning of the 1930s, the economic crisis in America left a mark in the literary creations of this period. In addition, in Europe, there had been a big flush of new theories and new ideas in both social and natural sciences, as well as in the field of art which played an indispensable role in the conversion of American ideologies. The era of 1914 to 1945, marked by tremendous social upheaval and economic and political transformation, gave gave rise to modernism.Modernism originated at the end of the 19th century. It was a complex and diverse international movement in all creative arts: painting, novel, poem and play. It spread worldwide, particularly in the years following World War I. Towards the 1920s, these trends converged into a mighty torrent of modernist movement, which swept across the whole Europe and America. Modernist literature in America reached its peak in the 1920s up to the 1940s when this period ended.Literature of this period struggled to understand the new and diverse responses to the advent of modernity. Some writers celebrated the changes; others lamented the loss of old ways of being. Some imagined future utopias; others searched for new forms to speak of the new realities.The most recognizable "modernist" figures i n fiction are “the Lost Generation.”They were permanent expatriates living in Europe such as Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. The Lost Generation writers all gained prominence in 20th century literature. Their innovations challenged assumptions about writing and expression, and paved the way for subsequent generations of writers. Ernest Hemingway once took part in the First Would War, so many of his works deal with war or injury, and nearly all of them examined the nature of courage. By suffering from the violent of war, he felt that he was cut off from all his old beliefs and assumptions about life. He thought “The War had broken America`s culture and traditions, and separated it from its toots”. The works he wrote—The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea—inferred the state of mind, and they became the representatives of the feeling of this generation.Along with the greatest figures in “the Lost Generation” are famous poets such as Ezra Pound, Thomas Stearns Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and Robert Frost. African Americans also made significant contributions to the American modernist movement. Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings are three poets who opened the way to modern poetry. Ezra Pound started the “Imagist” movement, and his The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock has been called the first masterpiece of modernism. The Waste Land of T. S. Eliot particularly comments on the inhumanity and decadence of large modern cities.5.Postmodernism PeriodThe period after World War II has witnessed great changes of the United Stated of America in many aspects. The war, on the one hand, provided the base for the country to grow into a dominating superpower both in the western world and in international affairs on the global scale; on the other hand, it brought about tension and crisis within the country. Because the politics of America were influenced by two great fears. First, there was the fear of the Bomb; many Americans were sure there would be a war with the Soviet Union using atomic bombs. Also, in the late forties and early fifties, fear of Communism became a national sickness. Against such background emerges and develops the postmodernism in the 1970s.Postmodernism is regarded as a term encompassing all the new critical theories since the late 1960s. It is, accordingly, more reflective about what is subject, truth, metaphor, and human. Postmodernism is a literary experimentation focused mostly on fiction in the United States from the mid-1960s till about 1975. It became aligned with Post-structuralism and deconstruction between 1975 and 1985. Postmodernism became a general term for the cultural logic in post-industrialist society or the late stage of capitalism that is service-oriented and information-oriented.Post-modernism seems to grow or emerge from Modernism. Post-modernism involves not only a continuation, sometimes carried to an extreme, of the counter traditional experiments of modernism, but also diverse attempts to break away from modernist forms which had, inevitably, become in their turn conventional, as well as to overthrow the elitism of modernist “high art” by recourse to the models of “mass art”. In this regard, Postmodernism is a movement against Modernism.Postmodernism as a new development of literature was believed to be nothing, this group of postmodernists created some new rules for the game. For them, existentialist angst should not be what defines literature; instead literary imagination shows a virtual geography.The term of Post-modernism is in fact not an inclusive description of all literature since the 1950s or 1960s, but is applied selectively to those works in widereference to fiction. Firstly, war novels become an important genre after World War II, represented by Norman Mailer. Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead has been held as the masterpiece of its category. James Jones’ best novel From Here to Eternity is a powerful story of army life in Hawaii just before the attack on the Pearl Harbour. Secondly, metafiction as Chris Baldick puts it, is “more especially a kind of fiction that openly comments on its own fictional status.” A notable modern example i s John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Barth’s The Floating Opera, Barthelme’s Snow White, etc.EpilogueRomantic period stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. Then the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism and Naturalism came into existence, which were against the lie of romanticism. The period between World War I and World War II is referred to as the era of Modernism. During that period, a large number of artists and literary movements are totally different from those of the 19th-century’s in style, form and content. Since 1945, the United States of America experienced some successive social, political and racial upheavals. Against such background emerged and developed the postmodernism.American literature has gone though the progress of development over 200 years. It is characterized by the distinct individualism, which is optimistic, free and always creative. The living American literature has been providing potent thinking headsprings for the writers past and nowadays, and it will continue reanimating the talents to bequeath and enrich the tradition of American literature, of which deserved to be proud.Bibliography1.Malcolm Bradbury, Richard Ruland, Published in Penguin Books 1992, AmericanLiterature From Puritanism to Postmodernism2.李权文，王卓，华中师范大学出版社2010年8月第一版，《美国文学史》3.王守仁，《<新编美国文学史>简介》。

美国文学史期末论文终极版

Contents摘要 (1)Abstract (1)Chapter 1 American Romanticism(1810--1865) (2)1.Background reasons (2)1.1 Politically this period was ripe (2)1.2 Economically American had never been wealthier (2)1.3 Culturally American own value emerged (2)2.Basic features and styles (2)2.1 Expressiveness (2)2.2 Imagination (2)2.3 Worship of nature (2)2.4 Simplicity (3)2.5 Cultural nationalism (3)2.6 Liberty,freedom,democracy and individualism (3)3.Influence (3)Chapter 2 American Realism(1865--1914) (3)1. Background changes (3)1.1 Politics (4)1.2 Economics (4)1.3 Cultural and social changes (4)2. Basic features and styles (4)2.1 Truthful description of the actualities of the real life andmaterial (4)2.2 Focus on ordinariness (4)3. Three dominant figures (4)4. Influence (5)Chapter 3 American Naturalism(1890--1914) (5)1. Background information (5)1.1 Cultural and Social Background (5)1.2 Religion and theoretical basis (5)2. Major ideas and features of Naturalism (5)2.1 Determinism (5)2.2 World: godless, indifferent, hostile (6)2.3 Style: scientific objectivity (6)2.4 Subjects and themes (6)3. A representative work that show the ideas and features above (6)3. Influence (6)Chapter 4 American Modernism(1914--1945) (6)1. Background information (6)1.1 Politics (6)1.2 Economy (7)1.3 Cultural and social background (7)2. Characteristics and features of Modernism (7)3. Major genres and a representative of each one (7)3.1 Modern poetry——Ezra Pound (7)3.2 Modern fiction——Ernest Hemingway (7)4. Influence (8)Chapter 5 American Postmodernism(1914--1945) (8)1. Background information (8)1.1 Politics (8)1.2 Economics (8)1.3 Social and international background (8)2. Characteristics and major features (8)2.1 Experimental writing techniques (8)2.3 Irony, playfulness and black humor (9)3.Influence (9)Bibliographies (9)摘要具有自身特点的新文学的出现，是一个国家真正形成的标志。

大学英语美国文学《洛丽塔》课程论文(原创)

我读《洛丽塔》目录一、摘要正文二、正文1、序言2、作者介绍及写作背景3、作品主题探究。

3.1理性与真爱3.2伦理3.3追求4、作品的叙事艺术手法三、小结四、参考文献一、摘要正文我通过品读《洛丽塔》小说的品读及对电影的欣赏，从整体感知了作品的悲剧性以及从中看到美国当时的一些社会现象，从几个部分来探究了自己对于作品主题的理解和认识，包括理性对爱情及自由的束缚，伦理道德，《洛丽塔》的一些不为人知的秘密和纳博科夫对艺术的执着追求等。

以此，阐述了自己对现实世界的认知和对艺术的坚定不移的不懈追求。

关键词：理性与真爱伦理追求二、正文1、序言小说描述一位从法国移民美国的中年男子亨·亨伯特在少年时期，与一14岁的少女安娜贝儿发生了一段初恋，最后安娜贝儿因伤寒而早夭，造就了亨伯特的恋童癖。

第一次听说洛丽塔时它是被排在世界一百大禁书之列，不免让我好奇，如此精湛的一本书怎能被人类所无视？看了电影“洛丽塔”，也许在看前面的时候还可以带着轻快的安静的甚至带着微微笑意甚至轻蔑的不屑的眼光。

最后一个镜头却给了我一串沉重的省略号。

随着亨伯特对自由世界的最后一瞥，镜头在慢慢趋向于山下小村庄的时候渐渐消失，彩色化为了黑白，耳边回响着他饱含希望却又有些沉重的声音“我还在回想着当时的村庄和孩子们的笑声，可是在那些笑声里，没有我的洛丽塔”。

过了一会，漆黑的屏幕上出现了几行字：“1950年11月16日，亨伯特因急病猝死在狱中；同年圣诞节，洛丽塔死于难产。

”这不免让我想起了中国有句古话“不求同年同月同日生，但求同年同月同日死。

”亨亨是爱洛丽塔的，这种爱痛彻心扉，深入骨髓，与伦理无关，与道德无关，他只是爱她。

在《洛丽塔》一书全文的最后，亨伯特写道：“我正在想欧洲的野牛和天使，在想颜料持久的秘密，预言家的十四行诗，艺术的避难所，这便是你与我能共享的唯一的永恒，我的洛丽塔。

”“预言家的十四行诗，艺术的避难所”自然而然让人想起了莎士比亚著名的十四行诗：“你在不朽的诗里与时同长／只要一天有人类，或人有眼睛／这诗将长存，并且赐给你生命。

美国文学毕业论文

美国文学毕业论文美国文学记录了美国人民不断探索、向西拓展、追求幸福的历程,艺术地再现了美国200多年的发展历史,并在不同时期以不同的表现形式表现出来。

下文是店铺为大家搜集整理的关于美国文学毕业论文的内容，欢迎大家阅读参考!美国文学毕业论文篇1浅析美国文学中的美国梦摘要：美国梦是美国文学中贯穿始终的主题。

不同历史时期美国文学中的美国梦有着不同的表现，如殖民时期的开拓致富梦、建国后的自由民主梦、内战后的扩张发迷梦，而到一战后传统美国梦开始出现迷茫与失落、二战后则走向了绝望与反叛。

关键词：美国文学;美国梦;本质;资产阶级美国文学从诞生到现在虽然只有200多年的历史，却产生了一大批对世界文学有着巨大影响的作品，在这些作品当中美国梦是一个贯穿始终的主题。

美国梦是目前国内人文社会学科的一个研究热点。

本文试图从论述美国文学中美国梦的演变过程人手，研究其变化的原因及在文学中的表现，进而揭示其本质。

一、美国梦产生的历史背景美国梦的产生有其特定的历史背景。

自从哥伦布发现新大陆之后，欧洲人就梦想着到这块土地上去掠夺财富，开拓疆域。

英国清教徒更梦想着到这里来建立起新的耶路撒冷—上帝在人间的王国。

而当时的士著印第安人尚未建立国家，整个“新大陆”都是“无主土地”，无边无际、任人开垦和占有的无限土地带来了无限的机会，许多在旧世界中不可想象的事情在这里发生了。

如果说得天独厚的自然条件是美国梦形成的基础，那么《独立宣言》的发表便使美国梦有了思想依据。

《独立宣言》不仅宣布了人“生而平等”，还将追求幸福规定为不可剥夺的天赋人权。

在欧洲旧大陆的封建等级制度下，灰姑娘只是童话里的人物，而在美国，白手起家“从破衣烂衫到腰缠万贯”的大亨则比比皆是。

在一个尚未定型的国度中，尚未定型的年代里，只要抓住机会，梦想就会实理。

于是，在美国文学中，美国梦也就成了一个贯穿始终的主题。

二、不同历史时期的美国梦一部文学史也可以说是一部美国梦的历史，有着200多年历史的美国文学记录了不同时期美国人的梦想。

美国文学选读期末论文

美国文学选读期末论文英文学院11级13班1101011302陈欢A Rose for Emily----William Faulkner1.Introduction of the authorWilliam Faulkner (1897-1962), American novelist, born in an old Southern family in the town of Oxford, is regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.Faulkner trained in Canada as a cadet pilot in the Royal Air Force in 1918, attended the University of Mississippi from 1919 to 1920, and lived in Paris briefly in 1925. In 1930, he bought a pre-Civil War mansion, “Rowanoak” in Oxford, Mississippi, where he lived,a virtual recluse, for the rest of his life. As a writer, Faulkner’s primary concern was toprobe his own region, the deep South. One of his primary themes is the abuse of black by the Southern whites. As a master of a rhetorical, highly symbolic style, Faulkner was alsoa brilliant literary technician, making frequent use of convoluted time sequences and ofthe stream of consciousness technique. Though, his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and his last novel The Reivers(1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked his 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century; also on the list were As I Lay Dying (1930) and Light in August (1932). Absalom, Absalom! (1936) is often included on similar lists.2.Summary of the storyA Rose for Emily is Faulkner's published short novel in April 1930, which seems asthe most famous short fiction among his works. The story happens in a southern town-Jefferson after the civil war in the United States. Emily is a member of a family in the antebellum Southern aristocracy. After the Civil War, the family has fallen on hard times.She and her father, the last two of the clan, continue to live as if in the past. Neither will consent to a marriage for Emily to a man below their perceived status. Her father dies when Emily is about thirty. After her acceptance of her father's death, Emily revives somewhat and she becomes friendly with Homer Barron, a Northern laborer who comes to the town as a contractor to pave the sidewalks. This gives Emily's dull and stuffy life a little warm color. But Emily can't get rid of the constraint from family's dignity and the influence from her father. So, when she finds out that Homer doesn’t want to marry her, she kills him with arsenic. She thinks only this way can save her love and reputation.From that time, Emily lives a life of insular in her shabby closed house and sleeps with Homer's dead body for 40 years till she is died. The residents of the town know this amazing news till in her funeral.3.Writing Style of the storyFaulkner’s work is noted for its complexity partly because he deliberately places a considerable burden upon the reader. Instead of telling a simple straightforward story, he often exploits vague sequences, ambiguities, symbolism, experimental points of view, jumbled time sequences, avoidance of clear transition, withholding of vital information to compel the reader to join in the writer’s search for truth. Some of these techniques are used in A Rose for Emily.Faulkner’s chronology is unlike that of other writers of his time. He does not tell his story in linear fashion, but rather jumbles the sequential order. This technique builds suspense for the reader as the plot unfolds bit by bit. The whole story is a portrait of Miss Emily’s refusal to change. To highlight the thematic concern, Faulkner constantly shifts the focus of the attention to the retrospect of Emily’s life by way of flashbacks. Emily Grierson dies at the very beginning of the story. Then there goes to the recollection of Emily’s refusal to pay tax in 1926. The time of the second part jumps back to some thirty years ago, during which her father dies and she kills Home Barron two years after that.When Emily buys arsenic, the time is over a year after they have begun to say “PoorEmily”. Then for six months she does not appear on the streets. The fourth part deals with things that happen in 1987 and after 1897. In the last part, the time turns back to the year of the 1940 when Emily dies at seventy four. After the funeral, the town people go to her room and all the secrets are revealed. The displacement in the chronological time sequence allows the narrator to tell story in a most dramatic way and to fill in useful background details.4.My understanding of the storyThematically, this story is not as simple as it seems. The conflicts in the story can be interpreted on different level, just as can many of his longer fiction works. On the superficial level, it is a murder story with elements of Gothic literature—an eccentric woman living in isolation, an old decaying mysterious house that other people had not been in for decades, and, of course, a dead body in the house finally discovered after so many years. On another level, the story explores the inner world of human beings, or the inner struggle in the human heart. But what gives me the deepest impression is the conflict between the South and the NorthThe novel A Rose for Emily is written at a background of social change of the south after war in America. It tells a tragic lifelong story of a noble seed Emily Grison to show that the contradictions of people in South America when the north became to replace the south. Emily as a protagonist of the novel has complicated means. Firstly she stands for tradition, social model as an aristocrat. Secondly she represents romantic love when she falls in love with Homer. And when she is refused by Homer, instead of crying, she kills him with poison. Now she stands for a person who is cruel and callous. Emily is a character who stands for a victim in the confliction between the traditional south and new conception of north.The mentality of residents of the small town in the novel of respecting Emily is the symbol of common mind of the south people to the traditional south culture after civil war.People respect and call for her Miss Emily. In the long time to them, the Emily family is like the characters living in a picture. They see Emily as the tradition, obligation, even a monument which reveal a nostalgic emotion to a gradually fading away traditional culture.The residents send their children to Emily to learn ceramics and painting punctually and devoutly just as to the church in Sunday. We can see clearly that the residents are so struggling with helping Emily in her income to maintain her noble image. They use a nostalgic, protecting tradition mood to pay attention to Emily, even prevent Emily and Homer to get married to maintain her noble position. They hope to see a no corrupting, real kingly noble. The differences reflect a condition that south tradition is coming to be replaced by north. That the old colonel prevents Emily's tax to help her reveals the old generation's attention to vulnerable group. But, new senators are dissatisfied with this. They call a meeting especially for tax, send letters to Emily and make a delegation to visit Emily for tax. When new generation was sent to Emily to learn painting, they knew they can't learn something from Emily. So they stop to send their children to Emily. Actually, compared to the old generation, new generation thinks more about themselves instead of others. To some degree, it is their selfishness and indifference that cut the relation between Emily and outside. All these show the deep confliction between the traditional south and new conception of north.。

美国文学期末论文

美国文学期末论文( 2011届 )题目：女权主义批评视角下的《小伙子布朗》人物__浅析学院：外国语学院专业：英语学生姓名：方梦婧学号： 08090204指导教师：江玉娇职称：教授合作导师：职称：完成时间：2011年 1 月成绩：OutlineAbstract (3)摘要 (3)1. Introduction (4)1.1 Nathaniel Hawthorne (4)1.2 Young Goodman Brown (4)2. Background2.1 Puritan background (5)2.2 The role of Puritan women (5)3. Analysis of characters (5)3.1 Young Goodman Brown (5)3.2 Faith (6)3.3 The old fellow-traveler .............................................................. 错误!未定义书签。

3.4 Goody Cloyse............................................................................. 错误!未定义书签。

4. Conclusion (7)Work cited (8)Feminist Criticism PerspectiveFang MengjingAbstract:Feminist Criticism, broadly defined, examines how literature and other productions reinforce or undermine the oppression of women. It developed on the basis of women’s liberation movement. It is the concern of feminists critics to probe the marginalization of women in economic, political, social and psychology terms. Feminism represents one of the most significant social and aesthetic revolutions of modern times.From a feminist point of view, Young Goodman Brown, which was universally acclaimed as one of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s best short stories and revealed the themes of the reality of sin, the secret sin as well as the hypocrisy of Puritanism and all human kinds, presents Hawthorne’s particular portraits of women go against the prevailing literary sexism of his day.Key words: Faith,feminism, Puritanism, character analysis女权主义批评视角下的《小伙子布朗》人物浅析方梦婧摘要：女权主义批评，概括地说，是检验文学和其他作品如何影响女性所受压迫的批评方法。

美国文学论文

美国文学课程学期论文论文题目：（中文）从写作技巧分析《厄舍府的倒塌》（英文）A simple analysis of TheFall of the House of Usherfrom Writing Techniques学生姓名冶延菊学生学号201107050201411学生班级2011--2班学科专业英语学年学期2013--2014学年第二学期指导教师杨华所在学院语言文化学院2014年7月1日摘要作为爱伦坡恐怖小说代表作之一，《厄舍府的倒塌》不仅成功地塑造了典型的“不正常的”人物角色，而且在文章的框架结构、情节安排上有很多巧妙的设计。

文章中有许多对外界环境以及人物心理的细节描写，作者以娴熟的写作技巧将它们融合，并生动地创造了一个充满恐惧的氛围。

读者明知恐怖氛围是“被安排”好的，且其目的性显而易见，但是读者还是被恐惧紧紧包围，这就是爱伦坡所强调的“预期效果”。

关键词：写作技巧；恐怖氛围；预期效果AbstractAs one of the masterpieces of Edgar Allan Poe’s horror fictions, The Fall of the House of Usher in which the author not only successfully creates some typical characters who are usually “abnormal”, but also builds the whole essay through a clever design,especially in frame structure and organization of plots. Based on the skilled writing techniques, the writer make a horrific atmosphere vividly by lots of detail description about the outside environment and characters’psychology. Although it appears that this atmosphere is managed from “deliberate policy”, the readers are still wrapped by a great fear, which is emphasized by Poe---”the expected effect”.Key words:writing technique; horrific atmosphere; “the expected effect”A simple analysis of The Fall of the House of Usher fromWriting TechniquesWe all know, The Fall of the House of Usher is one of the most successful works of Edgar Allan Poe is considered the father of the modern short story. As to this writing, which is also an example of psychoanalytic criticism. And there are something meaningful and interesting worthing our efforts to study and appreciate, so I want to share some my own analysis about this great work with you.First of all, a great peculiarity of the writing is based on a clever structure design. On the one hand, the author does his utmost to create an impressive outside world (or we call it natural environment). And the author not only takes advantage of adjectives and adverbs in order to build a mysterious and scary atmosphere, but also relies on repetition of these key words. For instance, “During the whole of a dull, dark ,and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low the heavens,... within view of the melancholy House of Usher. ”At the beginning of the story, Poe is eager to create a depressive scene for us, and like these adjectives “dull”“dark”“soundless” whose appearance has decided the keynote of the whole article. When you read the first sentence, you can be grasped by the potential scare instantly as if you tended to be out of breath. And with the constant duplication of those main words, the environment is depicted more and more specific, vivid and appealing. All of these preparations provide a perfect setting for the characters’ activities.On the other hand, at the same time, the writer also creates an inner world of the leading character----” I”. When it comes to the inward world, there are also a lot of significant words are used, such as adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and so on. Especially, the writer is apt to use adjectives and adverbs to describe the subtle changes of the character’s mood, feeling and expression. For example, the writing is started with “...but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.”“...with an utter depression of soul which I can...”“...above all things startled and even awed me”, and the last reaction of the character is , “From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast”(Allan Poe, 2005). Throughout the entire story,actually, the reactions of the inner world are always changing with the variation of the outward world. What’s more, with the rapid changes of the outside environment, the changes of the inner world become more and more fierce and shaper, of course, catching our more eyes.Secondly,Allan Poe achieves his purpose of creating fear with the help of muti-pronged approach that is an effective writing technique to get an “the expected effect”. Because Allan Poe proposes that “It is only with the denouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention”(2013: P17), there is nearly no redundant words in his work. In order to quickly bring about a terrific air for readers, the author depicts the environment through visual sense. For instance, in paragraph five, “The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread ... web-work from the eaves”, “No portion of the masonry had fallen... the individual stones”(Allan Poe, 2005). All those descriptions of objects provides the receivers with a visual impact through which can make an impressive picture.paragraph twenty-five to the last paragraph, there are several obvious sounds, like “rustled uneasily”“a light step”“the ordinary commingled noises”“a low and apparently distant, but harsh,protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound”, and so on, which is mentioned frequently and always designed in a very silent setting. They are so intensive and vivid that the readers have no time to put together their imagination when they are involved in reading, so the writer tries his best to simplify the process of shaping a “expected effect” air, and he shows every details frequently and even deliberately. However, it is not attractive for Poe to build a perfect atmosphere just through the combination of vision and hearing ,as a result. He also adds the psychological description of the characters. At the beginning of the article, “I know not how it was---but , with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit”, and there follows another strange feeling, “It was the manner in which all this,...and I accordingly obeyed forth with what I still considered a very singular summons”(Allan Poe, 2005). With the time passing by, the fierce degree of the characters’inner motion becomes fiercer and fiercer. What’more, the changes of the characters’psychology tends to be more apparent and intensive,which brings the readers a strong feeling of fear. Even though the readers know that all of those plots are organized on purpose, they still can’t get rid of the great fear when they indulge into the wonderful and constant structure design. That is the reason why Poe’s essays are popular in spite of over a century.From what I have discussed, we can know that Allan Poe can not only create plenty of excellent details and plots, but also can make full use of his deliberate arrangement to his readers’ attention, and give them a feeling of “personally on the scene” . So, when you are caught by the fear, Poe’s “expected effect” has been achieved.References1.Allan Poe,Edgar The Fall of the House of Usher, Beijing: China people's Liberation Army Publishing House, 20052. 陶洁编著，《美国文学选读》（第三版），高等教育出版社，2011.63./p-454954734.html, 20124. /article/164bc968-bcfc-4db7-929d-08c922be3db0.htm, 2011。

美国文学论文

美国文学研究摘要：如同其他所有国家一般，美国的文学是由其独特的发展历史所塑成的。

在早期，美国是由东岸的一系列英国殖民地所形成的，因此美国文学的传统较亲近于英国文学。

不过，随著历史的进展和不断的移民潮，美国文学的特色和宽广度都已经超出英国文学的范畴。

在最早的殖民时期，美国文学主要的题材是赞扬新大陆替殖民者和欧洲母国所带来的利益。

宗教信仰上的争议也是题材之一。

随著革命战争的爆发和美国的独立，催生了新国家的独立意识。

写下了独立宣言.奴隶制度的冲突和接踵而来的内战也对美国文学有深刻影响，到了19世纪末，由于工业化的进展和国土开拓时期的结束，美国文学脱离了原先的边境文学，进入了20世纪，工业化带来的社会转变使美国文学发展的更为多元和复杂。

黑人文学、南部文学、以及现代文学也在同时期兴起。

在第二次世界大战后，新的世代、和新的种族、地区、社会特征都与之前的世代大不相同，大量的移民文学和新兴的女性主义文学也成为美国文学的一部分了。

关键词：殖民地；独立意识；美国文学；黑人文学；后现代主义文学中图分类号：i306 文献标识码：ａ文章编号：1005-5312（2010）24-0061-02美国文学表现为平民化，多元化，富于阳刚之气，热爱自由，追求以个人幸福为中心的美国梦。

美国文学大致出现过3次繁荣：19世纪前期形成民族文学，第一和第二次世界大战后，美国文学两度繁荣，并产生世界影响，已有近10位作家获得诺贝尔文学奖。

一、美国文学的雏形早期的美国文学是从欧洲文学的样式和风格中衍生出来的。

例如，维兰德和查尔斯·布罗克登·布朗的小说创作就是对英格兰哥特小说的模仿。

麦尔维尔的小说中融入了很多哲学上的思索。

在其代表作《白鲸》中，作家通过对一场惊心动魄的捕鲸历程的描述，表达了对人类痴迷状态、人性中罪恶成分以及人类如何战胜这些天性的思索。

在他的另一部短篇杰作中，梅尔维尔则戏剧性的描写了战争时期一艘船上人们责任和同情心的主题。

美国文学学期论文参考范文

美国文学学期论文参考范文美国文学的历史虽然不长,但却发展得非常迅速,也涌现出许多杰出的作家,因此美国文学发展中的每个阶段都留下了不少传世经典之作。

下文是店铺为大家搜集整理的关于美国文学学期论文参考范文的内容，欢迎大家阅读参考!美国文学学期论文参考范文篇1浅论当代美国女性文学的特点一、前言美国作为发展速度最快的发达国家，除了在经济、科技和军事领域有突出的建树，在文学领域也取得了不俗的成绩。

考虑到美国属于移民国家的特性，在多文化交流和冲突下，美国女性文学取得了快速的发展，并涌现出一大批风格独特、独树一帜的女性作家，所创作的作品也在美国本土以及世界范围内广为流传。

从美国女性文学的发展来看，美国女性文学的大发展，是文化交流的结果，也是移民文化与美国本土文化相结合后诞生的又一种新文化。

所以，对当地美国女性文学的特点进行分析，有助于了解美国女性文学中所倡导的价值观，对于了解美国文化很有必要。

二、当代美国女性文学的分类经过了解发现，当代美国女性文学取得突出成就的作家，都是具有移民背景的女性作家，按照移民背景分类，当代美国女性文学主要可以分成以下几类：1、亚裔作家创作的美国女性文学。

在美国女性文学的创作队伍中，亚裔作家是重要的创作力量，其中华裔作家更是以独特的视角及东方文化的魅力，提高了女性文学的创作质量，使美国女性文学在整体水平上有较大的提升。

目前亚裔作家最杰出的要属华裔获奖作家汤婷婷、唐恩美和印度裔女作家巴拉蒂·玛克姬等人。

这几位知名作家创作的作品不但在美国文学史上获得了重要奖项，同时推动了美国文学的快速发展，使美国文学更加多元化。

2、黑人女作家创作的美国女性文学。

从美国女性文学的发展史上看，黑人女作家是重要的创作力量。

基于美国种族歧视的社会背景，黑人女作家的数量较少，并且创作的作品主要以关注美国文化发展和种族歧视有关，同时也细致的刻画了美国社会黑人群体生活的人生百态，对研究美国黑人发展史和美国文化具有积极的借鉴意义。

美国文学学期论文

美国文学学期论文推荐文章关于当前语言文字学界几个问题的思考热度：最新汉语言文学专业本科毕业论文热度：有关语言学课程的论文范文热度：乡土文学论文参考范文热度：有关伤痕文学论文热度：美国文学的历史不长，但发展较快，20世纪以来，在世界上的影响越来越大。

下文是店铺为大家搜集整理的关于美国文学学期论文的内容，欢迎大家阅读参考!美国文学学期论文篇1浅论华裔美国文学中的中国人物形象摘要：华裔美国人是美国人中一个特殊的群体，华裔美国文学同样是一个介于中国文学和美国文学之间的特殊的文学现象。

本文通过分析华裔美国文学中的中国人物形象，来研究华裔美国文学中关于中国文学和美国文学的交融和结合。

希望对推动中美两国文学的交融起到一定的积极作用。

关键词：华裔美国文学人物形象关公一引言正如华裔美国人兼具中国人和美国人双重性格一样，华裔美国文学同样跨越了中国文学和美国文学各自的人物性格和审美情趣。

在华裔文学历史上，许多华裔作家通过对原有的中国文学中的经典人物进行改写，添加了更易于美国人接受的故事情节，从而使得中国的文学形象树立在美国文学和美国人心中。

这些在华裔美国文学中出现的中国文学人物形象既体现了中国文化被世界所认可的艰难历程，也肯定了华裔作家在促进中美文学融合所作的艰苦努力。

二关公“关公”是一位在中国家喻户晓的大英雄，他的忠义，他的传奇被人们通过戏剧、评说、小说等形式代代相传。

正因如此，在华裔文学中，“关公”作为中国人物的主要形象被用于恢复中国式英雄的文学构建中。

“关公”的忠勇为华裔作家提供了广阔的写作空间，其代表的男性气质正是华裔作家构建华裔英雄主义作品的不二选择。

早在林语堂的《唐人街》里就有了关于关公的典型描述：“关公是中国历史上最著名的一位将军，是一位真正意义上的战神，他永远保护那些同他一样刚正、善良的人，惩罚那些虚伪、邪恶的人。

”赵健秀的《甘加丁之路》(1994)同样把关公定位为忠义、勇敢、正直的代表，认为关公是中国伟大品质的集中表现。

美国文学论文(汤姆索亚历险记)

An Analysis of the Artistic Language Characteristics inThe Adventures of Tom SawyerPublished in 1876, The Adventure of Tom Sawyer has earned high reputation as one of the best-loved tales in American literature.The novel, which tells of the exciting adventures of a typical boy named Tom Sawyer and his friends during the mid-nineteenth century, is not as simple as a children’s book. On the one hand, regardless of time changing and the differences of cultures, the adventures of Tom Sawyer are still intriguing and delightful, for the unique charms that hits the basic instincts of nearly all young people. On the other hand, the author Mark Twain wrote in the preface to the first edition that "Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, part of my plan has been to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and what they felt and thought." Thus, it is obviously that by reading this book, the adult readers could also look back on his or her own childhood with fond reminiscences. Above all, the novel is a combination of the past and the present, of the entertainment and education function for children, and at the same time, of the well-remembered events from childhood told in such a way as to evoke remembrances in the adult mind. Besides, allowing for Mark Twain’s conventions of writing styles, the novel, exploring questions of freedom and responsibility, retains vitality and humor between the lines, applies slangy expressions, which are full of local characteristics, and last but not least sets some symbolic plots. This thesis is going to make an analysis on the artistic language characteristics in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, helping the readers to appreciate the novel in a better way.1.The Language Characteristic of Humor and SatireMark Twain is, as always, the satirist and commentator on the foibles of human nature. As the authorial commentator, Twain often steps in and comments on the absurdity of human nature. Not surprisingly, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer relies heavily on satire and humor to make a observation on human nature, as well as the picture of lives at that time, ultimately producing a satire of altogether two aspects: the hypocritical regions and obsolete school education. Thus this thesis determines to analyse the characteristics of humor and satire in the book by the above two aspects.1.1The Humor and Satire of the Hypocritical RegionsIn The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer is a mischievous boy who yearns for the carefree lives and exhibits many admirable character traits such as generosity and goodness in spite of his pranks. The unrestrained character of Tom contrasts favorably with the meaningless and hypocritical regulations in regions. In the novel, Aunt Polly, who is responsible for nurturing Tom, always stops Tom from having a meal without praying. Readers may find it both funny and satirical that Tom can’t wait to dine while aunt Polly takes it seriously out of religious restraint. In addition, Mr. Dobbins, the schoolmaster, who seems to be deeply religious, but actually is sanctimonious. Each day, Mr. Dobbins would take a book out of the desk and be absorbed in it at times when no classes were reciting. Every boy and girl has a theory about the nature of the book. One day, Becky Thatcher has a chance to uncover the mystery-- “She came at once upon a handsomely engraved and colored frontispiece--a human figure, stark naked.” Thus, Mr. Dobbins turns out to be a hypocrite, which reinforces the wry sense of humor on the religion. Besides, in the novel, the kids will be rewarded with some tickets of different colors by reciting the passages of Scripture. According to the rules by the school, “each blue ticket was pay for two verses of recitation. Ten blue tickets equalled a red one, and could be exchanged for it; ten red tickets equalled a yellow one; for ten yellow tickets the superintendent gave a very plainly bound Bible to the pupil.” Tom couldn’t recite Bible at all, however, he gets the tickets by exchanging his playthings with the classmates and finally gets the prize of a Bible. There’s no doubt that it is totally a joke, which is another ridiculous case concerned with black humor and the satire on the religion.1.2The Humor and Satire of the Obsolete School EducationTom Sawyer is undoubtedly the representative student who is antagonistic towards the obsolete school education. Therefore, he is quite a rebellious boy who despises the so-called excellent students and doesn’t recite the passages of Bible in accordance with regulations of the school, who dares to participate in an adventure despite the rules, for he actually looks down on the laws made by the adult. What’s more, he and his friends are brave enough to make a mischief as a retribution on theschoolmaster, who always lashes pupils just in order to make a good showing on “Examination” day. All these things show Tom’s challenge to the unreasonable school education even the whole society. By the attitudes and acts of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain aims to criticize the education at that time which tried to preach but of no practical use at all. Twain criticizes the adult attitudes and behaviors throughout the novel. That is part of the conflict: the maturation of a youth into adulthood conflicting with the disapproval of the adult behaviors that exist. It is this double vision of humor and satire that raises the novel above the level of a boy's adventure story.2.The Language Characteristic of Applying Slang and Absorbing ExpressionsAccording to the dictionary, slang is defined as a casual type of language that is playful or trendy. Funny American slang words consist both of coined words and phrases and of new or extended meanings attached to established terms. Slang tends to develop from the attempt to find fresh and vigorous, colorful, pungent, or humorous expression. In order to make the story recreational and readable, The Adventure of Tom Sawyer applies much slang, which not only contributes to enhance the entertainment of the book, but also full of local colors, helping the readers to learn about the American culture.In chapter one, when aunt Polly wants to catch Tom but fails, she says: “ Old fools is the biggest fools there is.” and “ Can’t learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is.” Here, the slang about old fools and old dog makes the image of aunt Polly more vivid. Then, in self-examination, aunt Polly uses slang once again. In the book, it goes: “Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I’m a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know.” and “Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it’s so.” Hence, it can be concluded that aunt Polly cares and loves him, paying much attention on him. The slang here becomes comfort and enlightenment to aunt Polly.Besides, in chapter 5, Tom feels extremely bored with the sermon so he gets a large black beetle out. Suddenly, a vagrant poodle dog comes by. Then about the reaction of the poodle dog, Mark Twain has used many absorbing expressions, which is typically child language: “ The poodle dog spied the beetle; the drooping tail liftedand wagged. He surveyed the prize; walked around it; smelt at it from a safe distance; walked around it gain; grew bolder, and took a close smell......” Here, the most extraordinary word is “prize”, a metaphorical term, which is lively enough to show the overwhelming superiority of the poodle dog.The reason why Mark Twain has a preference for using much slang and many absorbing expressions in his work is associated with his earlier experience, when he was working with the people at the bottom of the society. Day by day, year by year, his wording is more expressive and suitable for all ages. As the old saying goes: “Art comes from life and goes beyond it.” The slang contributes to the literature value of The Adventure of Tom Sawyer and makes it charming and classical forever.3.The Language Characteristic of Setting Some Symbolic PlotsWhether or not one has read the novel, many of the characters--Tom himself, Becky Thatcher, Huck Finn, Injun Joe, and Aunt Polly--have become the classical images of American literature. Likewise, many plots are familiar and have become a part of the American cultural heritage: it is true that there are many seemingly extraneous scenes; nevertheless, each scene has its symbolic meaning, contributing to building a broad picture of the lives of these youths. In the broadest sense, the novel concentrates basically on Tom's--and to a lesser degree, Huck's--development from carefree childish behavior to one that is filled with mature. Furthermore, the primary adventure--which features the murder the boys witness and its aftermath--provides a single event that begins in the graveyard and runs throughout the plot of lesser adventures. The appeal of the novel lies mostly in Twain's ability to capture--or re-capture--universal experiences and dreams and fears of childhood. Twain captures the essence of childhood, with all its excitement, fear, and mischievousness.Twain does not confine himself to telling a simple children's story. To some extent, the novel is a combination of the past and the present, of the well-remembered events from childhood told in such a way as to tell us the maturation of a boy into a real man.4. ConclusionThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer, as the novel which remains one of the mostpopular and famous works of American literature, its story and characters have achieved folk hero status in the American popular imagination. Twain's reading audience loved this novel and its young hero, and the friendship of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn is one of the most celebrated in American literature, built on imaginative adventures, shared superstitions, and loyalty that rises above social convention. After analyzing the artistic characteristics of language of the novel, we could easily know that by the humor and satire, much slang, many absorbing expressions and the arrangement of the symbolic plots, Mark Twain wants to explore the inner world of the child and tell us how a boy ultimately grows up and becomes an adult who can still has his belief and can maintain the pureness in heart. Attracting in the content, profound in the meaning and mastered in language, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer can brighten the childhood of kids all around the world.Bibliography:[1] 马克·吐温.汤姆索亚历险记[M].刘光源译. 江苏:江苏译林出版社, 2019.[2] 王云霞. 永远的童年：童心·童趣·童真——谈《汤姆索亚历险记》[J].南都学坛, 2014(4): 61-62[3]李丽萍.《汤姆索亚历险记》的语言魅力[J]. 考试周刊, 2008(6): 8-14.。

美国文学方向的论文

美国文学方向的论文试论美国文学的文学价值【摘要】众所周知，美国是个大熔炉，孕育出来的美国文学自然也是多元素。

尝试简单论述一下多元素美国文学所体现的文学价值。

主要围绕从宗教色彩到世俗色彩的变化，美国梦的出现和发展以及自由民主思想等三个文学价值作简要阐述。

【关键词】美国文学;宗教;世俗;美国梦;自由民主思想“我们要用自己的双脚走路;我们要用自己的双手劳动;我们要讲出自己的思想”——1837年，爱默生在全美大学生联谊会上演讲了《美国学者》，并作出如此的呼吁。

《美国学者》被誉为“美国思想上的独立宣言”America’s Declaration of IntellectualIndependence。

像其他国家的文学发展一样，在爱默生和惠特曼等杰出作家的共同不懈努力下，美国本土逐渐孕育出了美国特色的文学。

正如惠特曼在《草叶集》中体现的一个统一的大美国思想般，大熔炉式的美国造就了多元素的美国文学——美式文学在经历不同的历史阶段中，不断发展创新，走向独立和成熟，成为世界文化中一朵绚丽的奇葩。

那么，当我们的思想畅游于美国文学之时，究竟能激荡出怎样的文学价值呢?随着历史的游历，一路走来，时代目睹了美国文学从宗教色彩到世俗色彩的变化;世界见证了美国梦在其文学中的出现和发展;我们还一直感受着自由民主思想在美国文学中的体现。

一、从宗教色彩到世俗色彩的变化由于种种历史和社会原因，美国早期的文学作品被抹上了浓厚的宗教色彩，世俗色彩甚浅。

长期以来，英国实行殖民掠夺政策，横征暴敛，军政高压，并且利用宗教来禁锢殖民地人们的思想和文化。

特别在清教徒占优势的新英格兰等地，人们的主要文化生活是每个礼拜日去教堂听取牧师的布道。

而且在当时的北美，文化水平较高的是宗教人士。

18世纪40年代，新英格兰地区还出现了被称为“大觉醒”的宗教运动。

于是，当时产生了大量的宗教文学作品，主要以宗教诗篇的形式出现。

在众多作家的作品中都体现出浓厚的宗教思想——例如著名女诗人AnneBradstreet在诗作“Some Verses on the Burning of Our House”中，提出了自己的主张：当跟富裕的天堂之家进行对比时，世俗财富不过是“dunghillmists粪堆上的雾气”。

美国文学与文化结业论文(很水,当摘抄看好了……)

《美国文学与文化》课程论文我们的梦想——读《了不起的盖茨比》有感2012-11-26前言：很高兴能跟着老师学习美国文学与文化。

短短几周的学习，要结束了，有着淡淡的遗憾。

我一直对文学有着莫名的向往，觉得一本书承载另一个世界是一件极神奇的事，很喜欢听那些故事，了解别的生活方式，了解另一种文化。

奈何悟性不高，又走上了工科女的不归路。

但一直对人文伸长了脖子使劲儿张望，希望可以有个人把我熏陶熏陶，让自己也能“腹有诗书气自华”。

老师的课程虽说短时间内没让我有文化起来，但确确实实给我指明了方向，希望，以后啊，不要求出口成章，至少能知道一些东西，明白一些东西，泡图书馆不仅仅是写高数。

本次作业，我选择的是Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby。

它的确带给我很多思考，毕竟用现在流行的话说：屌丝也想成为高富帅啊！那么，我们真正应该追求的是什么？我们先看看作者的生平，他的梦：在美国喧嚣嘈杂的二十年代，菲茨杰拉德是位名副其实的“金童”。

他创造了真正的一文千金的神话。

在鼎盛时期，他每一篇短篇小说的身价是四千美元，几乎是一个字一美元。

一贯矜持稳重的T. S. 在读完他的《了不起的盖茨比》后，甚至断言，菲茨杰拉德的小说是“自亨利. 詹姆士后,美国小说向前跨出的第一步”。

那个时候的他，真是香车美人，应有尽有，辗转于欧美两地的豪门酒会，成了那个时代青年人的代言人和偶像。

他的同龄挚友海明威这时还不过是籍籍无名的文学青年。

然而仅仅二十多年后，当海明威站在斯德哥尔摩的领奖台上时，菲茨杰拉德的书已经被人们悄悄的忘却。

今天，对于中国读者来说，海明威的名字已经成为了普通的文学常识，而知道菲茨杰拉德的中国读者却很少。

大概是早就预见到了这种反差，多愁善感的菲茨杰拉德曾在与海明威绝交后不久，在自己的日记中写到：“我与失败这一权威对话，厄内斯特则是与成功这一权威对话。

我们永远不会再次面对面的坐在同一张桌前了。

Analysis of writing style of Mark Twain 美国文学学年论文完整版

Analysis of writing style of Mark TwainMark Twain was the first important writer to consistently use the Ameri can speech rather than England’s English. His honor, whether it was aim ed at pure entertainment or at social satire, was irresistible. His realism, and details influenced many later American novelists. That was why Erne st Hemingway once said “all modern American literatures came from one book written by Mark Twain called The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin n.”And it became Twain’s masterpiece. Mark Twain’s three years’life on that returned to the Mississippi left such a fond memory with him that r eturned to the theme more than once in his writing career.Huckleberry Finn is a veritable recreation of living models, and is Huc k’s book, not Jim’s. The two major characters, Huck and Jim, represent the two sides of the dilemma: Huck strikes out for an absolute freedom, while Jim requires, in order to gain his own freedom, that Huck qualify his freedom by entering into the pursuit of Jim’s. It starts out as a come dy , an ‘As You Like It’with a hero drawn from the bottom of society ra ther than the top. Huck and his father, Jim, the swindlers(the Duke and the Dauphin), colonel sherburn and the drunkard Boggy-all these charact ers prototypes in real life. The portrayal of individual incidents and chara cters achieved intense verisimilitude of detail. Serious problems are being discussed through the narration of a little illiterate boy. The fact that the wilderness juxtaposed with civilization, the people half wild and half civili zed, many of whom are worse, vulgar, are brutal. As for the style of the book, the form is based on the simplest of all novel-forms, the so-calle d picaresque novel, or novel of the road, which strings its incidents on t he line of the hero’s travels. But, in this novel, rivers are roads that mov e, and the movement of the road in its own mysterious life transmutes t he primitive simplicity of the from: the road itself is the greatest characte r in this novel of the road, and the hero’s departures from the river andhis returns to it compose a subtle and significant pattern. The Adventur es of Huckleberry Finn shows us the major achievements of his art: the masterful use of dialects; humor and pathos, innocence and evil. This no vel demonstrates his ability to capture the enduring, archetypal, mythic i mages of America and to create the most memorable characters in all of American fiction.2.1 Use of Colloquial LanguageThe book is written in a colloquial style, in the general standard speec h of uneducated Americans. Moreover, the prose of Huckleberry Finn est ablished the prose virtues of American colloquial speech. It has somethin g to do with ease and freedom in the use of language. Most of all, it h as to do with the structure of the sentence, which is simple, direct, and fluent, maintaining the rhythm of the word’s group of speech and the int onations of the speaking voice. Mark Twain’s colloquial style has influenc ed a large number of American writers.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn displays the major achievements of his art: the carefully controlled point of view, with its implicit ironies e xpressed through the voice of a semiliterate boy: the masterful use of di alects: the felicitous balancing of nostalgic humorist and realism, humor and pathos, innocence and evil, all united for a journey down the Missis sippi that serves as the mythic center of the novel. This novel demonstr ates his ability to capture the enduring, archetypal, mythic images of Am erica and to create the most memorable characters in all of American fic tion.2.1.1 Vernacular LanguageMark Twain wrote in his unpretentious, colloquial, and poetic style. He used vernacular language, dialect with spelling representing pronunciatio n. Part of this comes from his interest in humor. The directness of the l anguage is a very influential point in Twain’s style. Ernest Hemingway in the 20th century said that he had learnt his craft from Mark Twain because if the direct speech and the direct narration that Twain was able to achieve. The hoax and tall tale are also part of twain’s style. Hoax is wr iting something fantastic and pretending that it were true, much like the t all tale. It tolls as if it were true, and so the reader would laugh that an y body could believe such preposterous things, the burlesque making fun of establishes ways of writing.Mark Twain said, “I amend dialect stuff by talking and talking it till it s ounds right.”He wanted his writing to have the sound of easy-going spe ech. In Huckleberry Finn the fountainhead of the American colloquial pro se, he wrote seven different dialects and each can be distinguished. If t he reader is a linguist, he can examine the different pronunciations that Twain has shown. In his own time, dialect writing was considered humor ous. People got a big laugh out of reading these misspell words. Anothe r feature of the book, which helps to make it famous is its language. The book is written in the colloquial style in the general standard speech of uneducated Americans.. Mark Twain’s introductory note on accents is a n indication of his conscious attempt to achieve accurate detail. “In this book,”he says, “a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri Neg ro dialect; the extreme forms of the backwoods southwestern dialect; the ordinary ‘pike country’dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. T he shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswo rk; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of p ersonal familiarity, with these several forms of speech.”“Painstaking ”an d “not haphazard,”though they possess a humorous ring, denote the co nscientious effort on the part of the author, and trustworthiness and famil iarity and the author’s awareness of dialects in using which reveal his at tempt to reproduce actual daily speech with a degree of accuracy. A rec ent and very influential recasting of Huck’s vernacular voice has identifie d.We may quote a passage from this masterpiece as an illustration:“I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done th e same with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I too k the bucket and gourd; took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old son a nd two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot/ I took fish lines and matches and other things- everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned o ut the place I wanted an ax, but there wasn’t any, only the one out at woodpile, and I know why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the g un, and now I was done.”The words used here are, perhaps “ammunition”which is etymologicall y French, mostly Anglo-Saxon in origin, and are short, concrete and dire ct in effect. Sentence structures are most of them simple or compound, with a series of “then”and “ands”and semi-colons serving as connective s. The repetition of the word “took”and the stringing together of things l eave the impression that Mark Twain depend solely on the concrete obje ct and action for the body and movement of his prose. What is more, th ere is an ungrammatical element, which gives the final finish to his style. The whole book approximates the actual speech habit of an uneducate d boy from south American of the mid-nineteenth century.The vernacular language in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn initiate d the new style of language in American novels, and has had significant influence upon American writers of later generations.2.1.2 Local ColorLocal color as a trend first made its presence in the late 1860s and e arly seventies. The vogue of local color fiction was, the logical combinati on of a long, progressive development. It was the outgrowth of historical and aesthetic forces that been gathering energy since early nineteenthcentury. Twain refers to the elements, which characterize a local culture, elements such as speech, customs, and also a particular place. Local c olorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local c haracter of their regions. They tended to identify and glorify, but they ne ver forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life.Twain depicted social life through descriptions of local places and peo ple he knew best and believed that “the most valuable capital, or culture, or education usable in the building of novels is personal experience.”Y et, sometimes Twain wrote a sentimental story, not because he was sen timental, but because he wanted to show the reader how stupid such a story really was. The reader has to be very careful when he or she rea ds Mark Twain. Twain often played trick on the reader. He often said thi ngs when he meant just the opposite. This is the irony that he got the humor from the Far West. He would do things that he did just to mak e fun , but the reader might think that he really meant it. Then the read er was the tender-foot who taken in .Mark twain preferred to respect social life through portraits of local pla ces which he knew best and drew heavily from his own rich fund of kno wledge of people and places. The Adventures of huckleberry Finn is one such example. Finn is living breathing personality. It is through his use of language and his activities that Twain creates character and sets dow n objective truth: Finn is uneducated; he dislikes civilized ways because they are restrictive and hypocritical he likes.Meanwhile, local color mixed romantic plots with realistic descriptions o f things which were readily observed, with the customs , dialects, sights, smell and sounds of regional America. After the Civil war, local color h ad further developed, In this book, this kind of literature mainly describes the local life, the keynote was optimistic, and the language was narrativ e humorous. The characters he created were humorous and full of wittin ess. Mark Twin’s work was regarded the witness of America’s pure locallife. According to Calkins, “Few American writers have written the same after reading telling.”From my point of view, American literature is so c harming for this kind of works.Local color became dominate in American Literature(1860-1870). One of the most important writing features of Mark Twain is the use of Local colorism. It is also impossible in the Mississippi River towns through wh ich Huck and Jim journey to imagine being a hero .This in turn makes Sherborn a cold-blooded killer and Huck a saint (and Tom a good). Let me repeat it as a saint，however, Huck is no more bent on social refor m, no more optimistic about it, than is sherburn. So local colorism is a variation of American realism, and also a description of a small refined r egion. Twain, breaking out of the narrow limits of local-color fiction, desc ribed the breadth of American experience as no one had ever done befo re, or since, and he created The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,a mas terpiece of American realism that proverbs to be one of the great books of world literature.2.1.3 PunIn English paronomasia called pun, means call by a different name. T he exact definition is: Humorous use of word to suggest different meanin gs, or of words of same or similar sound has different meanings. There are five forms of pun: homophonic pun, paranomasic, antalaclasis, sylleti c pun, asteismus. In a certain context, pun has several pragmatic functio ns. Throughout all of Twain’s writing, we see the conflict between the id eals of Americans and their desire for money. But Twain never tried to solve the conflict. He is like a newspaperman who reports what he sees. In this situation, his humor was often rather childish. This may bespeak why the critic P. Abel said:”Twain was a boy and an old man, but nev er was he a man.”In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,we can find many words and phrases that were used vividly to describe the things that happened, such as ‘I went along slow then, and I wasn’t right down certain whether I was glad I started or whether I wasn’t. This sentence is very interesting; pun is used to express the author’s mood at that moment. We can als o use another kind of language to replace the original, but the effect is so different. So we can conclude that pun played an important role in th is novel.。

美国文学论文

美国文学论文美国文学是世界上最年轻的文学之一,从其诞生之时起,就因其尖锐的批判性、持续的独创性和精彩的多元性而独树一帜。

下面是店铺为大家整理的美国文学论文，供大家参考。

美国文学论文范文一：Analysis of the main character Ahab in Moby Dick摘要:«白鲸»讲述了饱经风霜的亚哈船长与他的仇敌白鲸之间惊心动魄的故事，亚哈身上体现了令人敬佩的正义品质:百折不挠、英勇无畏、经验丰富，同时还具有令人恐惧的邪恶力量:偏执、自私、专横。

他集正义与邪恶与一身，具有鲜明的双重性。

关键词:正义;邪恶;性格双重性Abstract:«Moby Dick» tells us a thrilling tale between Captain Ahab and his enemy whale called Moby Dick.Ahab's character is amphibious. On one hand,he is indomitable、brave and experienced. On the other hand, he is bigoted, selfish and presuming.Key words: justice; evil; character's amphibiousness«Moby Dick» written by Herman Melville is regarded as the first American prose epic. It's an encyclopedia of everything, history, philosophy, religion, etc. But it is first a Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting again overwhelming odds in an indifferent and even hostile universe.The story goes roughly as follows. Ishmael, feeling depressed, seeks escape by going out to sea on the whaling ship, Pequod. The captain is Ahab, the man with one leg. Moby Dick, the white whale, had sheared off his leg on the most as a reward for anyone who sights thewhale first. The Pequod marked a good catch of whales but Ahab refuses to turn back until he has killed his enemy. Eventually,the white whale appears, and the Pequod begins its doomed fight with it. On the first day the whale overturns a boat; On the second, it swamps another. When the third day comes, Ahab and his crew manage to plunge a harpoon into it, but the whale carries the Pequod along with it to its doom. All on board the whaler get drowned, except one, Ishmael, who survives to tell the tale. From the story, we can see that captain Ahab is a hero who dares to fight though he failed at last. Ahab is Byronic hero, a man with consuming desire to take revenge against the whale which has crippled him. He is brave. Though he knows that it has difficulty in killing whale, he never gives up. He thinks that man can make the world for himself and he tries his best to kill the whale. Although he fails at last, his spiritual is respectable and we should also be indomitable.We know that Ahab's character is amphibious, and we now more focus on the bleak view. As the author is negative, the story is full of tragedy, including the ending.Captain Ahab is a typical Melvillean “isolato”, and a typical Bartleby whose lips are set ever for an “I prefer not to”. He cuts himself off from his wife and kid, and stays away most of the time from his crew. He hates Moby Dick which is an embodiment of nature. He is angry because his pride is wounded. After the loss of his leg in his encounter with the white whale, he seems to hold God responsible for the presence of evil in the universe. Thus his anger assumes the proportions of a cosmis nature. In his egocentric obsession. He loves his sanity, and humanity and becomes a devilish creature rushing headlong toward his doom.Captain Ahab believed in his own power, he is too much of a self-reliant individual to be a good human being. His selfhood must be asserted at the expense of all else: lives may be sacrificed,and nature may be sacrificed, and nature may have to be vanquished in order that he may do what he wills. Ahab is ,to be more exact, a victim of solipsism, His tragedy stemming in the main from extreme individualism, selfish will, a spirit too much withdrawn to itself to warrant salvation.In conclusion, we should observe the two sides of the Captain's character. We need be brave and confident. We have to remind that man is in society, and we can't live without society. We should respect the nature.美国文学论文范文二：The review about the Literature of RomanticismⅠ. BackgroundFrom the early 1800s to the civil war，American was a land of paradoxes, a land stirred by spiritual dreams and shaped by the realities of a growing materialism. the United States had begun to change into an industrial cause society, technology would bring vast material benefits and cause overwhelming social disorders. Americans had sought new liberties and new ideas in life and art, but conflicts of their society had culminated in a bloody civil war. In the first half of the nineteenth century the proportion of Americans who labored on farms declined as increasing members left the land to work in urban businesses and factories. New York became American’s largest city, supplanting Boston and Philadelphia as the economic and cultural capital of the nation. Though the first half of the century the pursuit of simplicity, utility, and perfection remained an American characteristic.In the years preceding the Civil War relatively few volumes of imaginative literature were published in the United States. Most book were almanacs, schoolbooks, self-help manuals, or workson religion, medicine, or the law. Fewer than a dozen volumes of poetry were published annually. Fiction was a prime component of ladies’ magazines. Novels were increasingly popular, especially historical romances written by Europeans, most notably by “the monarch and master of modern fiction,” Sir Walter Scott. But as the century progressed, native American writers won increasing national and international fame. Washington Irving’s Sketch Book (1819-1820)became the first work by an American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic.Ⅱ. The definition of RomanticismRomanticism is a movement prevailing the 19th century in Western World in literature. art music and philosophy beginning as a reaction and protest against the bondage of rules and customs of neo-classicism. It was marked and is always marked by a story reaction .It returned to nature and plain humanity for material. It brought about a renewed interest in medieval literature. It was also marked by sympathy for poor people and thus a deep understanding toward common people. It was a movement expression of indivdual orignality and different poets realized their variety.A dream of golden age is established against stern realities .Imagination is the key point.Ⅲ. The Characteristic s of the Romantic LiteratureThe main trends of thought of the literature of romanticism is Romanticism, Transcendentation, Anti-slavery. Transcendentation as a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematized. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. They believed in the transcendence of the “Oversoul”, an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part.Romanticism, attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many works of literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western civilization over a period from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. Romanticism canbe 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. It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental.Among the characteristic attitudes of Romanticism were the following: a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature; a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect; a turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities; a preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and inner struggles;a new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator, whose creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures; an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth; an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; and a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, the diseased, and even the satanic.Ⅳ. Main writer and masterpieceⅰ.Washington Irving(1783-1851)He was the Father of American Imaginative Literature; the Father of American Short Stories. He was the first great prose stylist of American romanticism familiar style.The apparent ease of his writing is not simply that of the gifted amateur; it results from his purposeful identification of his whole personality with what he wrote. He was urbane and worldly, yet humorous and gentle, his great and graceful style combine with American roots shaped his independent literary personality. He was the first great belletrist, writing always for pleasure, and to produce pleasure. In 1819-1820 ,his Sketch Book appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature to write good history and biography as literary entertainment. The most story of his Sketch Book is The Legend of Sleep Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. He introduced the familiar essay to America. His best-known stories awakened an interest in the life of American regions. In 1819, A History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker a rollicking burlesque of a current serious history of the early Dutch settlers, has become a classic of humor.Bracebridge Hall followed in 1822;then he first went to Germany in pursuit of an interest in German romanticism, which flavored the Tales of Traveller(1824), in Paris he with John Howard Payne wrote the brilliant social comedy Charles the Second or The Merry Monarch. A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus(1828); A Chronicle of the Conquest of Grandada(1829); Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus(1831) ; a famous volume of stories and sketches—The Alhambra(1832) and Legends of the Conquest of Spain (1835) and so on.ⅱ. James Fenimore Cooper(1789-1851)He was the first important American novelist began his literary career on a dare. In 1821,The Spy was successful, it was a rousing tale about espionage against the British during the Revolutionary War .Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure tale, and the frontier saga. The Pilot is the best of his many sea romances(1824). He wrote the first official history of the U.S. Navy in 1839. His frontier stories Leather Stocking T ales including five novels: The Deerslayer; The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers, The Prairie. Allan Nevins calls these five novels the nearest approach yet to an American epic. with a vast group of supporting characters, virtuous or villainous, Cooper made the American conscious of his past, and made the European conscious of American. And the Textbooks works is The Last of The Mohicans.ⅲ.Edgar Allan Poe(1809-1849)Poe was born in Boston. He was the Father of Modern Short Stories; the Father of Detective Story; and the Father of Psychoanalytic Critism. He was the jingle man. He won a contest with his story “Ms. Found in a Bottle” .Then he got a job as editor with the Southern Literary Messenger in 1833. He showed his true talents as an editor, a poet, a literary critic, and a writer of fiction. And he also issued The Fall of the House of Usher. In 1840, His first collection of short stories Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. The Raven was published as the title poem of a collection in 1845. In Europe, he was hailed as a pioneer in poetic and fictional techniques. His influence was especially strong on many French writers. The most famous works were To Helen; The Rav en; Annabel Lee; The Fall of the House of Usher. ⅳ. Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882)He was responsible for bringing Transcendentalism to New England and was recognized throughout his life as the leader of the movement. He believed above all in individualism, independence of mind and self-reliance. He admired courage, he was not afraid of changing or clashing ideas. Like many original minds, he was often several jumps ahead of what his followers thought was his position or philosophy. He was one of the most influential American thinkers, yet he had no elaborate, formal system of thought and he never attempted to create one. Emerson believed above all in individualism, independence of mind, and self-reliance. In 1836,he issued the first book Nature , which met with a mild reception. However , two speeches in the next two years, The American Scholar and The Divinity School Address ,made him famous. Many of his lectures were later distilled into his famous Essays. Among his most important works are Representative Men (1850)and English Traits (1856).His Poem appeared in 1847. In his day, Emerson’s poems were criticized for their lack of form and polish. In recent years, hover, his poetry has received high praise.His harsh rhythms and striking images appeal to many modern readers as artful techniques. His prose style is sometimes as highly individual as his poetry. Many of his essays were put together from his journal entries, speeches, and random notes, and they are often somewhat disorganized. Yet his skill in polishing each sentence into a striking thought makes his writing memorable. One of his great statements was in The American Scholar. That title is now carried by one of the finest magazines in American. Oliver Wendell Holmes called the speech “our intellectua l Declaration of Independence”. He is the world ’s eye. He is the world’s heart.ⅴ. Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862)He was Emerson’s truest disciple, who put into practice many of Emerson’s theories. Walden, the superb book came out of his two-year’s reside nce at Walden Pond. He explained many of the beliefs that led him to try this kind of life. He thought it better for a man to work one day a week and the rest of the week could be devoted to thought. For Thoreau, as for Emerson, self-reliance and independence of mind ranked above all each should find out his own way of living. In 1849, From his experience in jail came his famous essay” Civil Disobedience”, which stated Thoreau’s belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government. His famous book is Walden Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.ⅵ. Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864)The House of the Seven Gables deals with the effects of a curse, and though the tale itself is fiction, the germ of the story sprang from the author’s family history. Hawthorne gathered his material by observing and listening to others whose talk was filled with New England Lore, legend, and superstition. His famous book is The Scarlet Letter.Hawthorne’s unique gift was for the creation of strongly symbolic s tories which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature. The finest example is the recreation of Puritan Boston, “The Scarlet Letter”. In this novel each word, image, and event works toward a single effect. It is a complex story of guilt, its effects upon various persons, and how deliverance is obtained for some of them. His ability to create vivid and symbolic images that embody great moral questions appear strongly in his short stories. It was Hawthorne’s ability to make a story exist in its own right but at the same time appear as a moral symbol.Hawthorne shares with Edgar Allan Poe the distinction of advancing the art of the short story, giving to the form qualities that are uniquely American. To Hawthorne and Melville, however, the telling of a tale was a way of inquiring into the meaning of life. His stories also have The Blithedale Romance(1852); splendid stories called Mosses from an Old Manse(1846); The Marble Faun(1860)ⅶ. Herman Melville(1819-1891)Moby Dick, a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. The book is steeped in symbolism, another strong appeal to readers of his century. In 1846, Typee became known as the “man who lived among cannibals”. The book was basically factual but was no dou bt elaborated somewhat and built up from Melville’s reading as well as his experience. Equally successful was a sequel, Omoo(1847),about his adventures on Tahiti and other island. Later Melville based Bedburn(1849) on his first voyage to England, and White-Jacket(1850) on his brief career in the navy. He drew upon his naval experience again for Billy Budd(1891).He has two other philosophical novels Mardi, Pierre. two celebrated short novels Benito Cereno and Billy Budd. The story uses a ship as symbol of society and searchingly examines the problems of good and evil. Ahab’s ship was like a world inminiature with characters from all walks of life.ⅷ. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(1807-1882)Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, on February 27,1807 and died on March 24,1882 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the most beloved American poet of his time. His main books are Longfellow’s first collection of poems entitled Voices of the Night(1838); Hyperion” the prose romance(1839) ;Ballads and other Poems(1841); Poems on Slavery(1842); Evangeline(1847); Song of Hiawath(1855); The Courtship of Miles Standish(1858)After his death, he became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s corner of Westminster Abbey. The gentleness, sweetness, and purity for which his poetry was popular during his lifetime.Ⅴ.SummaryFrom the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of he Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. It is also called “the American Renaissance”. 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. Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of original sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne，Melville and a host of lesser writers. The most clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period is New England Transcendentalism. This Transcendentalist group includes two of the most significant writers America has produced so far， Emerson and his young friend, Henry David Thoreau, whose writing has a strong impact on American literature. Basically, Transcendentalism has been defined philoso phically as “the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses.” Emerson once proclaimed in a speech, “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of you own mind.” Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual isdivine and, therefore, self-reliant. It ranges from the comic fables of Washington Irving to the Gothic tales of Edgar Allen Poe, from the frontier adventures of James Fenimore Cooper to the narrative quests of Herman Melville, from the psychological romances of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the social realism of Rebecca Harding.American romantic literature by western romantic literature influence.19 century, the rapid development of American capitalism, the national consciousness and patriotic enthusiasm, to get rid of the English literature of bondage, pay attention to the human spirit and the pursuit of freedom to create a fill transcendence, thus the romantic literature began to flourish.Bibliography:1. 王长荣. 《现代美国小说史》.上海：外语教育出版社，1992.2. 邵锦娣，白劲鹏. An Introduction to Literature. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，20013. 隋刚.《美国文学旧作新读》. 北京：外文出版社，1998.。

美国文学论文(汤姆索亚历险记)

美国文学选读期末论文嘉莉妹妹

Analysis of Carrie as a Materialist According to the Naturalism inSister Carrie.Abstract：In the masterpiece Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser tells a story of Carrie’s rise from a poor country girl to Broadway star. In the novel, Dreiser uses lots of words to describe the psychology of Carrie from the satisfaction of basic life to the realization of self-development. This thesis aims to analysis the influence of naturalism on the main character Carrie in the road of desire. In the way of her development, th ere are two kinds of people: one is Carrie’s sister and the other is Drouet and Hurstwood, give Carrie the chance to fashion her ideal ego and be a successful actress. The former one stands for the poverty. In there, Carrie is driven by basic needs for survival and physiological necessities. The later one lets Carrie know she should realize her value but not to depend on man. The author finally indicates that in the survival of the fittest world people who industriously adapt to the society can live longer and better.Key Words: naturalism; Theodore Dreiser; Carrie; desire通过自然主义分析《嘉莉妹妹》中嘉莉这一物质主义形象摘要：西奥多德莱赛在他的杰作《嘉莉妹妹》中讲述了一位农村女孩到城市谋生最后成为百老汇名演员的故事。

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美国文学学期作业（2016-2017学年度第一学期）年级：姓名：学号：论文成绩：An Analysis of Scarlett’s Character inGone with the WindA war swallowed a beautiful woman, a perfect family and a love. Everything seemed to be a dream, going with the wind.Recently,I have just finished reading a famous novel written by Margaret Mitchell—Gone with the Wind,which is one of the most popular works among American novels.It took the author about 10years.Gone with the Wind is one of the most popular American novels. W hen it was published, its sales broke many records among the publishing circles, and it is famous all over the world. The novel mainly describes th e life of Scarlett who is the daughter of Tara’s master during the American Civil War. Meanwhile with the hint of a triangular love between Scarlett, Ashley and Rhett, the novel depicts a wide and prosperous picture of the social life of the South in America. Not only the rich content of the novel but also the complex plots and the contradictions between the figures of t he novel have an important artistic effect on shaping the characters in the novel. Among all the roles, Scarlett, is the most successful one who is full of conflicting and complicated features.Before the Civil War, spoiled and beautiful Scarlett is a proud prince ss. She is also naïve and carefree for she is brought up in a rich family, in which they have many large fertile fields to grow cottons and many slave s that work for them. It is no necessary for her to think about anything butjust to dress in new costumes to attract the sights of the boys and to join t he balls.Wherever she goes, she is always the focus and center among the young girls, and she is adored by many men, which irritates the other girl s. So she gradually becomes a girl who is coddled, undisciplined, egotisti c, fractious and narcissistic. She believes every man around the village will fall in love with her, and she can‟t endure the talk without a topic of her. But her self-centered and exclusive character causes the tragedies of her love. After her failure to confess to Ashley, she doesn’t fall down or le ave away which shows her courage for life at the first time.With the outbreak of the war, she loses everything she owns. In the summer of 1864, Sherman starts to attack Atlanta and everyone is fleeing the city. But Scarlett has to stay at Atlanta with Melanie for she has made a promise to Ashley to look after Melanie who is going into labor，she even braves the life danger to escort Melanie and her newly-born baby to go back to Tara in the flames of war. Her kindnessconquers theselfishness, which shows her nice aspect. She is so horrible but she sticks to go back home, but what she sees in Tara is only the endless loneliness and desolation.The war absolutely changes the way of her life and her affectionate h omestead, Tara. Scarlett can‟t lead a life comfortably as a child any more , for the reason that no one can protect her from threat. Scarlett changes h er concepts for the new life. She lays down her position of a lady of noblebirth and changes her concepts of the old Southern life. She wants to fee d her family and herself through her own work, which shows her realistic character towards life. When her sisters and the house servants complain, Scarlett even works in the fields of Tara herself to ensure a good harvest o f cotton. To her, the memory of hunger is clearer than the memory of brai n. She vows her famous line, "As God as my witness I will never be hung ry again.”The transition of the living environment is the exterior reason for Sc arlett‟s changing her character, which causes Scarlett‟s distinctive charac ter. Before the war, Scarlett lives in the traditional and conservative planta tion and the life style forms her plantation master‟s character of loving la nd than anything else in the world and her rebellious character spontaneo usly. She leads an extremely poor life during and after the war, and that a bominable environment molds her character to confront the reality bravel y; and her independence and selfishness to overcome difficulties. The rich life experience before war; the unstable life during the war and the extre mely poor life after war provide the foundation to form the character of S carlett. And thus in such environment, Scarlett’s character can be complic ated.Scarlett has the strong courage to face fresh and blood and to overco me difficulties, but this wish of independence is not accepted by the socie ty at that time. But in modern society, Scarlett is definitely an independent female who has strong will. She has the spirit of not admitting failure ev en it is at present.Scarlett is a hybrid who exhibits more of her Irish father’s hard-headedness than her mother’s refined Southern manners. Although initially she tries to behave prettily, her instincts rise up against social restrictions. Scarlett’s mother Ellen and Mammy also teach her all that a gentlewoman should know, but Scarlett never learns nor does she see any reason for learning it. Scarlett shows her distain for the artificial manners. She does as what she says with the development of the novel. Scarlett does not like the other girls at that time, who lead a life of waiting, they wait for men’s allegiance and acceptance; they wait for love and they wait for appreciation and compliment. Scarlett is completely different from them at all; instead, she strives for love and happiness actively. Her action is not different from the modern people.Scarlett hates the rules of the society. When she becomes a widow who has to wear black weeds and can’t show her face in the public, she is very displeased. After the war, in order to rebuild and protect Tara, she even goes outside to manage a sawmill herself and does other business successfully. People at that time can’t endure women to appear in public for earning money, and the men can’t tolerate the women who can defeat them. But Scarlett disregards of what people say, but just does what she believes.As f or Scarlett’ view of love and marriage spends most of her life being adored and loved by others. Wherever she goes, she is always the center and focus among the girls. Although she marries three times, she never understands the meaning of love or gets the true love. Scarlett divides love and marriage into two parts, which proves that she is a character full of contradictory and complexity. In the novel, Scarlett has been thinking that she loves Ashley and some decisions she made are also related with Ashley. However, she never considers marriage as a serious matter but just treats it as a play game, and she marries with the men she doesn’t love just in order to resolve living problems.Life is filled with various contradictions, and when a contradiction is over; another is coming, so the plots of the story will develop further and the portrayed image will be more charming.As readers, in my opinion, we don’t browse it, but peruse mind of it and apperceive it. To learn how to depict a character and to deliver a mind though the character is what we should do after perusing it.。

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