美国文学简史常耀信版讲义6-The Writers of the “Lost Generation”

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常耀信《美国文学简史》（第3版）【章节题库（含名校考研真题）】（第24章二战后美国小说（2））【圣

常耀信《美国文学简史》（第3版）【章节题库（含名校考研真题）】（第24章二战后美国小说（2））【圣第24章二战后美国小说（2）I.Fill in the blanks.1._____by Joseph Heller is the representative novel of black humor.（南开大学2008研）【答案】Catch-22【解析】《第二十二条军规》是约瑟夫·海勒的著名小说，也是黑色幽默的代表作。

2.A great postmodern writer,_____became the cult figure of the counterculture generation at that time,known as“a gum for the youth”in supporting the students in their anti-war movements.【答案】Kurt Vonnegut【解析】在上世纪60—70年代的美国大学里，年轻学生们常常把库尔特·冯内古特的书揣在牛仔裤兜里，他让前卫小说变得好读、有趣，成为美国黑色幽默文学代表人物。

II.Multiple Choice1.William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac belong to_____.A.the Confessional SchoolB.the Black Mountain PoetsC.novelists of absurdityD.the Beat Writers【答案】D【解析】美国作家威廉·巴勒斯（William Burroughs）与艾伦·金斯堡（Allen Ginsberg）及杰克·凯鲁亚克（Jack Kerouac）同为“垮掉的一代”文学运动的创始者。

2.Which beat-poet wrote the work On the Road?A.Allen Ginsberg.B.Jack Kerouac.C.William Burroughs.D.Charles Bukowski.【答案】B【解析】《在路上》是“垮掉的一代”作家杰克·凯鲁亚克的代表作。

常耀信《美国文学简史》(第3版)配套题库【章节题库(含名校考研真题)+模拟试题】

目录第一部分章节题库（含名校考研真题） (5)第1章殖民地时期的美国 (5)第2章爱德华兹•富兰克林•克里夫古尔 (12)第3章美国浪漫主义•欧文•库柏 (17)第4章新英格兰超验主义•爱默生•梭罗 (25)第5章霍桑•麦尔维尔 (33)第6章惠特曼•狄金森 (42)第7章埃德加•爱伦•坡 (51)第8章现实主义时期•豪威尔•詹姆斯 (55)第9章地方色彩小说•马克.吐温 (63)第10章美国自然主义•克兰•诺里斯•德莱赛•罗宾森 (69)第11章20世纪20年代•意象派•庞德 (78)第12章艾略特•史蒂文斯•威廉斯 (82)第13章弗罗斯特•桑德堡•卡明斯•哈特•克兰•穆尔 (90)第14章菲茨杰拉德•海明威 (96)第15章南方文艺复兴•威廉姆•福克纳 (106)第16章安德森•斯坦•刘易斯•凯瑟•沃尔夫 (114)第17章20世纪30年代•多斯•帕索斯•斯坦贝克 (118)第18章波特•韦尔蒂•麦卡勒斯•韦斯特•新批评 (121)第19章美国戏剧 (123)第20章二战后诗歌•20世纪40年代的诗人 (128)第21章自白派•垮掉的一代 (129)第22章纽约派诗人•沉思型诗歌•黑山派诗人 (131)第23章二战后美国小说（1） (132)第24章二战后美国小说（2） (135)第25章多种族文学（1） (139)第26章多种族文学（2） (145)第二部分模拟试题 (147)第1章常耀信《美国文学简史》（第3版）模拟试题及详解（一） (147)第2章常耀信《美国文学简史》（第3版）模拟试题及详解（二） (154)第一部分章节题库（含名校考研真题）第1章殖民地时期的美国I. Fill in the blanks.1. Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety, these were the _____ values that dominated much of the early American writing.【答案】Puritan【解析】清教主义，起源于英国，在北美殖民地得以实践与发展。

美国文学简史笔记-常耀信-(重点参考)

A Concise History of American LiteratureWhat is literature?Literature is language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages.Chapter 1 Colonial PeriodI.Background: Puritanism1.features of Puritanism(1)Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred.(2)Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can be passed downfrom generation to generation.(3)Total depravity(4)Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.2.Influence(1) A group of good qualities –hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful)influenced American literature.(2)It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden.(3)Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chieflyinstrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American.(4)With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain andhonest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible. II.Overview of the literature1.types of writingdiaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons2.writers of colonial period(1)Anne Bradstreet(2)Edward Taylor(3)Roger Williams(4)John Woolman(5)Thomas Paine(6)Philip FreneauIII.Jonathan Edwards1.life2.works(1)The Freedom of the Will(2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended(3)The Nature of True Virtue3.ideas – pioneer of transcendentalism(1)The spirit of revivalism(2)Regeneration of man(3)God’s presence(4)Puritan idealismIV.Benjamin Franklin1.life2.works(1)Poor Richard’s Almanac(2)Autobiography3.contribution(1)He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society.(2)He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this cas e) fromheaven”.(3)Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melville thusdescribed him “master of each and mastered by none”.Chapter 2 American RomanticismSection 1 Early Romantic PeriodWhat is Romanticism?●An approach from ancient Greek: Plato● A literary trend: 18c in Britain (1798~1832)●Schlegel Bros.I.Preview: Characteristics of romanticism1.subjectivity(1)feeling and emotions, finding truth(2)emphasis on imagination(3)emphasis on individualism –personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodness ofhuman beings2.back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature(1)unrestrained by classical rules(2)full of imagination(3)colloquial language(4)freedom of imagination(5)genuine in feelings: answer their call for classics3.back to naturenature is “breathing living thing” (Rousseau)II.American Romanticism1.Background(1)Political background and economic development(2)Romantic movement in European countriesDerivative – foreign influence2.features(1)American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real ne w experience andcontained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radicallynew and alien.(2)There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authorstended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more thanthey entertained.(3)The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with American Romanticism.(4)As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism wasboth imitative and independent.III.Washington Irving1.several names attached to Irving(1)first American writer(2)the messenger sent from the new world to the old world(3)father of American literature2.life3.works(1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty(2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of internationalrecognition with the publication of this.)(3)The History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus(4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada(5)The Alhambra4.Literary career: two parts(1)1809~1832a.Subjects are either English or Europeanb.Conservative love for the antique(2)1832~1859: back to US5.style – beautiful(1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness(2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining(3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere(4)vivid and true characters(5)humour – smiling while reading(6)musical languageIV.James Fenimore Cooper1.life2.works(1)Precaution (1820, his first novel, imitating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice)(2)The Spy (his second novel and great success)(3)Leatherstocking Tales (his masterpiece, a series of five novels)The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, The Prairie3.point of viewthe theme of wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law, order vs. change, aristocrat vs.democrat, natural rights vs. legal rights4.style(1)highly imaginative(2)good at inventing tales(3)good at landscape description(4)conservative(5)characterization wooden and lacking in probability(6)language and use of dialect not authentic5.literary achievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the history of the United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring and pushing the American frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West. He turned the west and frontier as a useable past and he helped to introduce western tradition to American literature. Section 2 Summit of Romanticism – American TranscendentalismI.Background: four sources1.Unitarianism(1)Fatherhood of God(2)Brotherhood of men(3)Leadership of Jesus(4)Salvation by character (perfection of one’s character)(5)Continued progress of mankind(6)Divinity of mankind(7)Depravity of mankind2.Romantic IdealismCenter of the world is spirit, absolute spirit (Kant)3.Oriental mysticismCenter of the world is “oversoul”4.PuritanismEloquent expression in transcendentalismII.Appearance1836, “Nature” by EmersonIII.Features1.spirit/oversoul2.importance of individualism3.nature – symbol of spirit/Godgarment of the oversoul4.focus in intuition (irrationalism and subconsciousness)IV.Influence1.It served as an ethical guide to life for a young nation and brought about the idea that human canbe perfected by nature. It stressed religious tolerance, called to throw off shackles of customs and traditions and go forward to the development of a new and distinctly American culture.2.It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidly expanded economy where opportunityoften became opportunism, and the desire to “get on” obscured the moral necessity for rising to spiritual height.3.It helped to create the first American renaissance – one of the most prolific period in Americanliterature.V.Ralph Waldo Emerson1.life2.works(1)Nature(2)Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet3.point of view(1)One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in the transcendence of the“oversoul”.(2)He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man, andadvocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.(3)If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself and brings out the divine in himself, he canhope to become better and even perfect. This is what Emerson means by “the infinitude ofman”.(4)Everyone should understand that he makes himself by making his world, and that he makesthe world by making himself.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He is a complete man, an eternal man.(2)True poetry and true art should ennoble.(3)The poet should express his thought in symbols.(4)As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America which was tohim a lone poem in itself.5.his influenceVI.Henry David Thoreau1.life2.works(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River(2)Walden(3) A Plea for John Brown (an essay)3.point of view(1)He did not like the way a materialistic America was developing and was vehementlyoutspoken on the point.(2)He hated the human injustice as represented by the slavery system.(3)Like Emerson, but more than him, Thoreau saw nature as a genuine restorative, healthyinfluence on man’s spiritual well-being.(4)He has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man.(5)He was very critical of modern civilization.(6)“Simplicity…simplify!”(7)He was sorely disgusted with “the inundations of the dirty institutions of men’s odd-fellowsociety”.(8)He has calm trust in the future and his ardent belief in a new generation of men.Section 3 Late RomanticismI.Nathaniel Hawthorne1.life2.works(1)Two collections of short stories: Twice-told Tales, Mosses from and Old Manse(2)The Scarlet Letter(3)The House of the Seven Gables(4)The Marble Faun3.point of view(1)Evil i s at the core of human life, “that blackness in Hawthorne”(2)Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed from generation togeneration (causality).(3)He is of the opinion that evil educates.(4)He has disgust in science.4.aesthetic ideas(1)He took a great interest in history and antiquity. To him these furnish the soil on which hismind grows to fruition.(2)He was convinced that romance was the predestined form of American narrative. To tell thetruth and satirize and yet not to offend: That was what Hawthorne had in mind to achieve.5.style – typical romantic writer(1)the use of symbols(2)revelation of characters’ psychology(3)the use of supernatural mixed with the actual(4)his stories are parable (parable inform) – to teach a lesson(5)use of ambiguity to keep the reader in the world of uncertainty – multiple point of viewII.Herman Melville1.life2.works(1)Typee(2)Omio(3)Mardi(4)Redburn(5)White Jacket(6)Moby Dick(7)Pierre(8)Billy Budd3.point of view(1)He never seems able to say an affirmative yes to life: His is the attitude of “EverlastingNay” (negative attitude towards life).(2)One of the major themes of his is alienation (far away from each other).Other themes: loneliness, suicidal individualism (individualism causing disaster and death),rejection and quest, confrontation of innocence and evil, doubts over the comforting 19cidea of progress4.style(1)Like Hawthorne, Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employingthe technique of multiple view of his narratives.(2)He tends to write periodic chapters.(3)His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commented upon andpraised.(4)His works are symbolic and metaphorical.(5)He includes many non-narrative chapters of factual background or description of what goeson board the ship or on the route (Moby Dick)Romantic PoetsI.Walt Whitman1.life2.work: Leaves of Grass (9 editions)(1)Song of Myself(2)There Was a Child Went Forth(3)Crossing Brooklyn Ferry(4)Democratic Vistas(5)Passage to India(6)Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking3.themes –“Catalogue of American and European thought”He had been influenced by many American and European thoughts: enlightenment, idealism, transcendentalism, science, evolution ideas, western frontier spirits, Jefferson’s individualism, Civil War Unionism, Orientalism.Major themes in his poems (almost everything):●equality of things and beings●divinity of everything●immanence of God●democracy●evolution of cosmos●multiplicity of nature●self-reliant spirit●death, beauty of death●expansion of America●brotherhood and social solidarity (unity of nations in the world)●pursuit of love and happiness4.style: “free verse”(1)no fixed rhyme or scheme(2)parallelism, a rhythm of thought(3)phonetic recurrence(4)the habit of using snapshots(5)the use of a certain pronoun “I”(6) a looser and more open-ended syntactic structure(7)use of conventional image(8)strong tendency to use oral English(9)vocabulary – powerful, colourful, rarely used words of foreign origins, some even wrong(10)sentences – catalogue technique: long list of names, long poem lines5.influence(1)His best work has become part of the common property of Western culture.(2)He took over Whitman’s vision of the poet-prophet and poet-teacher and recast it in a moresophisticated and Europeanized mood.(3)He has been compared to a mountain in American literary history.(4)Contemporary American poetry, whatever school or form, bears witness to his greatinfluence.II.Emily Dickenson1.life2.works(1)My Life Closed Twice before Its Close(2)Because I Can’t Stop for Death(3)I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I died(4)Mine – by the Right of the White Election(5)Wild Nights – Wild Nights3.themes: based on her own experiences/joys/sorrows(1)religion – doubt and belief about religious subjects(2)death and immortality(3)love – suffering and frustration caused by love(4)physical aspect of desire(5)nature – kind and cruel(6)free will and human responsibility4.style(1)poems without titles(2)severe economy of expression(3)directness, brevity(4)musical device to create cadence (rhythm)(5)capital letters – emphasis(6)short poems, mainly two stanzas(7)rhetoric techniques: personification – make some of abstract ideas vividparison: Whitman vs. Dickinson1.Similarities:(1)Thematically, they both extolled, in their different ways, an emergent America, itsexpansion, its individualism and its Americanness, their poetry being part of “AmericanRenaissance”.(2)Technically, they both added to the literary independence of the new nation by breakingfree of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in form unknownbefore: they were pioneers in American poetry.2.differences:(1)Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large; Dickinson explores the inner life of theindividual.(2)Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is “regional”.(3)Dickinson has the “catalogue technique” (direct, simple style) which Whitman doesn’thave.Edgar Allen PoeI.LifeII.Works1.short stories(1)ratiocinative storiesa.Ms Found in a Bottleb.The Murders in the Rue Morguec.The Purloined Letter(2)Revenge, death and rebirtha.The Fall of the House of Usherb.Ligeiac.The Masque of the Red Death(3)Literary theorya.The Philosophy of Compositionb.The Poetic Principlec.Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told TalesIII.Themes1.death –predominant theme in Poe’s writing“Poe is not interested in anything alive. Everything in Poe’s writings is dead.”2.disintegration (separation) of life3.horror4.negative thoughts of scienceIV.Aesthetic ideas1.The short stories should be of brevity, totality, single effect, compression and finality.2.The poems should be short, and the aim should be beauty, the tone melancholy. Poems shouldnot be of moralizing. He calls for pure poetry and stresses rhythm.V.Style – traditional, but not easy to readVI.Reputation: “the jingle man” (Emerson)VII.His influencesChapter 3 The Age of RealismI.Background: From Romanticism to Realism1.the three conflicts that reached breaking point in this period(1)industrialism vs. agrarian(2)culturely-measured east vs. newly-developed west(3)plantation gentility vs. commercial gentility2.1880’s urbanization: from free competition to monopoly capitalism3.the closing of American frontierII.Characteristics1.truthful description of life2.typical character under typical circumstance3.objective rather than idealized, close observation and investigation of life“Realistic writers are like scientists.”4.open-ending:Life is complex and cannot be fully understood. It leaves much room for readers to think by themselves.5.concerned with social and psychological problems, revealing the frustrations of characters in anenvironment of sordidness and depravityIII.Three Giants in Realistic Period1.William Dean Howells –“Dean of American Realism”(1)Realistic principlesa.Realism is “fidelity to experience and probability of motive”.b.The aim is “talk of some ordinary traits of American life”.c.Man in his natural and unaffected dullness was the object of Howells’s fictionalrepresentation.d.Realism is by no means mere photographic pictures of externals but includes a centralconcern with “motives” and psychological conflicts.e.He condemns novels of sentimentality and morbid self-sacrifice, and avoids such themes asillicit love.f.Authors should minimize plot and the artificial ordering of the sense of something“desultory, unfinished, imperfect”.g.Characters should have solidity of specification and be real.h.Interpreting sympathetically the “common feelings of commonplace people” was best suitedas a technique to express the spirit of America.i.He urged writers to winnow tradition and write in keeping with current humanitarian ideals.j.Truth is the highest beauty, but it includes the view that morality penetrates all things.k.With regard to literary criticism, Howells felt that the literary critic should not try to impose arbitrary or subjective evaluations on books but should follow the detached scientist inaccurate description, interpretation, and classification.(2)Worksa.The Rise of Silas Laphamb. A Chance Acquaintancec. A Modern Instance(3)Features of His Worksa.Optimistic toneb.Moral development/ethicscking of psychological depth2.Henry James(1)Life(2)Literary career: three stagesa.1865~1882: international theme●The American●Daisy Miller●The Portrait of a Ladyb.1882~1895: inter-personal relationships and some plays●Daisy Miller (play)c.1895~1900: novellas and tales dealing with childhood and adolescence, then back tointernational theme●The Turn of the Screw●When Maisie Knew●The Ambassadors●The Wings of the Dove●The Golden Bowl(3)Aesthetic ideasa.The aim of novel: represent lifemon, even ugly side of lifec.Social function of artd.Avoiding omniscient point of view(4)Point of viewa.Psychological analysis, forefather of stream of consciousnessb.Psychological realismc.Highly-refined language(5)Style –“stylist”nguage: highly-refined, polished, insightful, accurateb.Vocabulary: largec.Construction: complicated, intricate3.Mark Twain (see next section)Local Colorism1860s, 1870s~1890sI.Appearance1.uneven development in economy in America2.culture: flourishing of frontier literature, humourists3.magazines appeared to let writer publish their worksII.What is “Local Colour”?Tasks of local colourists: to write or present local characters of their regions in truthful depiction distinguished from others, usually a very small part of the world.Regional literature (similar, but larger in world)●Garland, Harte – the west●Eggleston – Indiana●Mrs Stowe●Jewett – Maine●Chopin – LouisianaIII.Mark Twain – Mississippi1.life2.works(1)The Gilded Age(2)“the two advantages”(3)Life on the Mississippi(4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court(5)The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug3.style(1)colloquial language, vernacular language, dialects(2)local colour(3)syntactic feature: sentences are simple, brief, sometimes ungrammatical(4)humour(5)tall tales (highly exaggerated)(6)social criticism (satire on the different ugly things in society)parison of the three “giants” of American Realism1.ThemeHowells – middle classJames – upper classTwain – lower class2.TechniqueHowells – smiling/genteel realismJames – psychological realismTwain – local colourism and colloquialismChapter 4 American NaturalismI.Background1.Darwin’s theory: “natural selection”2.Spenser’s idea: “social Darwinism”3.French Naturalism: ZoraII.Features1.environment and heredity2.scientific accuracy and a lot of details3.general tone: hopelessness, despair, gloom, ugly side of the societyIII.significanceIt prepares the way for the writing of 1920s’ “lost generation” and T. S. Eliot.IV.Theodore Dreiser1.life2.works(1)Sister Carrie(2)The trilogy: Financier, The Titan, The Stoic(3)Jennie Gerhardt(4)American Tragedy(5)The Genius3.point of view(1)He embraced social Darwinism – survival of the fittest. He learned to regard man as merelyan animal driven by greed and lust in a struggle for existence in which only the “fittest”, themost ruthless, survive.(2)Life is predatory, a “game” of the lecherous and heartless, a jungle struggle in which man,being “a waif and an interloper in Nature”, a “wisp in the wind of social forces”, is a merepawn in the general scheme of things, with no power whatever to assert his will.(3)No one is ethically free; everything is determined by a complex of internal chemisms andby the forces of social pressure.4.Sister Carrie(1)Plot(2)Analysis5.Style(1)Without good structure(2)Deficient characterization(3)Lack in imagination(4)Journalistic method(5)Techniques in paintingChapter 5 The Modern PeriodSection 1 The 1920sI.IntroductionThe 1920s is a flowering period of American literature. It is considered “the second renaissance” of American literature.The nicknames for this period:(1)Roaring 20s – comfort(2)Dollar Decade – rich(3)Jazz Age – Jazz musicII.Backgrounda)First World War –“a war to end all wars”(1)Economically: became rich from WWI. Economic boom: new inventions.Highly-consuming society.(2)Spiritually: dislocation, fragmentation.b)wide-spread contempt for law (looking down upon law)1.Freud’s theoryIII.Features of the literatureWriters: three groups(1)Participants(2)Expatriates(3)Bohemian (unconventional way of life) – on-lookersTwo areas:(1)Failure of communication of Americans(2)Failure of the American societyImagismI. BackgroundImagism was influenced by French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japanese literature “haiku”II. Development: three stages1.1908~1909: London, Hulme2.1912~1914: England -> America, Pound3.1914~1917: Amy LowellIII. W hat is an “image”?An image is defined by Pound as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas” “endowed with energy”. The exact word must bring the effect of the object b efore the reader as it had presented itself to the poet’s mind at the time of writing. IV. Principles1.Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective;2.To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation;3.As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of ametronome.V. Significance1.It was a rebellion against the traditional poetics which failed to reflect the new life of the newcentury.2.It offered a new way of writing which was valid not only for the Imagist poets but for modernpoetry as a whole.3.The movement was a training school in which many great poets learned their first lessons in thepoetic art.4.It is this movement that helped to open the first pages of modern English and American poetry. VI. Ezra Pound1.life2.literary career3.works(1)Cathay(2)Cantos(3)Hugh Selwyn Mauberley4.point of view(1)Confident in Pound’s belief that the artist was morally and culturally the arbiter and the“saviour” of the race, he took it upon himself to purify the arts and became the primemover of a few experimental movements, the aim of which was to dump the old into thedustbin and bring forth something new.(2)To him life was sordid personal crushing oppression, and culture produced nothing but“intangible bondage”.(3)Pound sees in Chinese history and the doctrine of Confucius a source of strength andwisdom with which to counterpoint Western gloom and confusion.(4)He saw a chaotic world that wanted setting to rights, and a humanity, suffering fromspiritual death and cosmic injustice, that needed saving. He was for the most part of his lifetrying to offer Confucian philosophy as the one faith which could help to save the West.5.style: very difficult to readPound’s early poems are fresh and lyrical. The Cantos can be notoriously difficult in some sections, but delightfully beautiful in others. Few have made serious study of the long poem;fewer, if anyone at all, have had the courage to declare that they have conquered Pound; and many seem to agree that the Cantos is a monumental failure.6.ContributionHe has helped, through theory and practice, to chart out the course of modern poetry.7.The Cantos –“the intellectual diary since 1915”Features:(1)Language: intricate and obscure(2)Theme: complex subject matters(3)Form: no fixed framework, no central theme, no attention to poetic rulesVII. T. S. Eliot1.life2.works(1)poems●The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock●The Waste Land (epic)●Hollow Man●Ash Wednesday●Four Quarters(2)Plays●Murder in the Cathedral●Sweeney Agonistes●The Cocktail Party●The Confidential Clerk(3)Critical essays●The Sacred Wood●Essays on Style and Order●Elizabethan Essays●The Use of Poetry and The Use of Criticisms●After Strange Gods3.point of view(1)The modern society is futile and chaotic.(2)Only poets can create some order out of chaos.(3)The method to use is to compare the past and the present.4.Style(1)Fresh visual imagery, flexible tone and highly expressive rhythm(2)Difficult and disconnected images and symbols, quotations and allusions(3)Elliptical structures, strange juxtapositions, an absence of bridges5.The Waste Land: five parts(1)The Burial of the Dead(2) A Game of Chess(3)The Fire Sermon(4)Death by Water(5)What the Thunder SaidVIII. Robert Frost1.life2.point of view(1)All his life, Frost was concerned with constructions through p oetry. “a momentary stayagainst confusion”.(2)He understands the terror and tragedy in nature, but also its beauty.(3)Unlike the English romantic poets of 19th century, he didn’t believe that man could findharmony with nature. He believed that serenity came from working, usually amid naturalforces, which couldn’t be understood. He regarded work as “significant toil”.3.works – poemsthe first: A Boy’s Willcollections: North of Boston, Mountain Interval (mature), New Hampshire4.style/features of his poems(1)Most of his poems took New England as setting, and the subjects were chosen from dailylife of ordinary people, such as “mending wall”, “picking apples”.(2)He writes most often about landscape and people – the loneliness and poverty of isolatedfarmers, beauty, terror and tragedy in nature. He also describes some abnormal people, e.g.“deceptively simple”, “philosophical poet”.(3)Although he was popular during 1920s, he didn’t experiment like other modern poets. Heused conventional forms, plain language, traditional metre, and wrote in a pasturedtradition.IX. e. e. cummings。

常耀信《美国文学简史》(第3版)章节题库-第十一章至第十二章【圣才出品】

第11章20世纪20年代·意象派·庞德Ⅰ.Fill in the blanks.1.Pound was the leader of a now movement in poetry which he called the“_____”movement.【答案】imagist【解析】埃兹拉·庞德（1885—1972）是美国诗人和文学评论家，意向派诗歌云顶的代表人物，代表作品《诗章》《在地铁车站》。

2._____,by Ezra Pound,employs the complex association of scholarly lore, anthropology,modern history and personages,private history and Witticism,and obscure literary interpolations in various languages.[人大2006研]【答案】The Cantos【解析】庞德的《诗章》包罗万象，是庞德的代表作。

3.Author_____Title_____.[南京大学2007研]The apparition of these faces in the crowd;Petals on a wet,black bough.【答案】Author:Ezra Pound Title:“In a Station of the Metro”【解析】题目节选自庞德的《在一个地铁车站》，该诗是以一个意象作为叙述语言的典型范例。

4.Ezra Pound’s lifelong endeavor had been devoted to the writing of_____,which contains_____poems.[国际关系学院2007研]【答案】The Cantos;117【解析】庞德把毕生精力都投入到写作《诗章》当中，《诗章》共包括117首诗。

常耀信《美国文学简史》(第3版)【章节题库(含名校考研真题)】(第8章现实主义时期

第8章现实主义时期•豪威尔•詹姆斯I.Fill in the blanks.1.The American novelist_____probed deeply at the individual psychology of his characters,writing in a rich and intricate style that supported his intense scrutiny of complex human experience.（人大2006研）【答案】Henry James【解析】美国小说家亨利·詹姆斯的作品善于挖掘人物心理。

2.Daisy Miller was written by_____.（大连外国语学院2007研）【答案】Henry James【解析】《黛西·米勒》是美国作家Henry James的国际主题小说。

3.The name of the heroine in The Portrait of a Lady is_____.（人大2006研）【答案】Isabel Archer【解析】《一位贵妇的画像》（The Portrait of a Lady）是亨利·詹姆斯的早期代表作，也是他的杰作之一。

该小说的女主人公是伊莎贝尔·阿切尔。

4.The Age of Realism is also what Mark Twain referred to as“_____”.【答案】The Gilded Age【解析】现实主义时期被马克吐温看作“镀金时代”。

5.By1875,American writers were moving toward_____in literature.We can see this in the true-to-life descriptions of Bret Harte,William Dean Howells,Hamlin Garland.【答案】realism【解析】到1875年后美国文学过渡到了现实主义时期，我们可以在布勒特·哈特，威廉姆·迪恩·豪威尔斯和哈姆林·加兰的作品中找到对生活逼真的描述。

美国文学简史常耀信版讲义8

(3) 1940~end: won recognition in America Go Down, Moses 《去吧，摩西》
Yoknapatawpha 约克纳帕塔法
Yoknapatawpha County: --- A county in northern Mississippi, the setting for most of William Faulkner’s novels and short stori es, and patterned upon Faulkner’s actual home i n Lafayette County, Mississippi.
The Southern Renaissance was the rei nvigoration of American Southern literat ure that began in the 1920s and 1930s with the appearance of writers such as William Faulkner, Wolfe, Tennessee Williams, etc.
Plot: 小说的故事发生在杰弗生镇上的康普生家。这是一个曾经显赫一时的望族，祖上出过一位州长、一位将军。家中原来广有田地，黑奴成群，如今只剩下一幢破败的宅子，黑佣人也只剩下老婆婆迪尔西和她的小外孙勒斯特了。一家之长康普生先生是一九一二年病逝的。他在世时算是一个律师，但从不见他接洽业务，他整天醉醺醺，唠唠叨叨地发些愤世嫉俗的空论，把悲观的情绪传染给大儿子昆丁。康普生太太自私冷酷，无病呻吟，总感到自己受气吃亏，实际上是她在拖累、折磨全家人。她时时不忘南方大家闰秀的身分，以致她仅仅成了一种“身分”的化身，而完全不具有作为母亲与妻子应有的温情。家中没有一个人能从她那里得到爱与温暖。女儿凯蒂可以说是全书的中心，虽然没有以她的观点为中心的单独的一章，但书中一切人物的所作所为都与她息息相关。物极必反，从古板高傲、规矩极多的旧世家里偏偏会出现浪荡的子女。

常耀信版_美国文学简史_William_Faulkner1

Features of Southern literature prior to this renaissance --- focus on historical romances about the "Lost Cause" of the Confederate States of America. --- glorified the heroism of the Confederate army and civilian population during the Civil War and the supposedly "idyllic culture" that existed in the South before the war (known as the Antebellum South).
Narrative techniques
• Never step between the characters and the reader to explain, but let the characters explain themselves and hinder as little as possible the reader’s direct experience of the work of art. • The most characteristic way of structuring his stories is to fragment the chronological time. Juxtapose the past with the present.
• A man with great might of invention and experimentation. • Novel as an art form ; evolved his own literary strategies . • Primary duty :explore and represent the infinite possibilities inherent in human life. • Writer should observe with no judgment whatsoever and reduce authorial intrusion to the lowest minimum.

常耀信美国文学简史重点笔记

常耀信美国文学简史重点笔记美国文学Part One Colonial America(17世纪早期到18世纪末）Part Two The Literature of Romanticism(19世纪上半叶）The frontier hero Andrew Jackson as the 7th President of the United States had brought an effective end to the “Virginia Dynasty” of American Presidents.The United States had begun to change into an industrial cause society, technology would bring vast material benefits and cause overwhelming social disorders.Romantics shared certain general characteristics: （选择题常考）moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption.Washington Irving华盛顿·欧文1783-1859He was the first great prose stylist of American romanticism familiar style.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. He introduced the familiar essay to America “Jonathan Old style”, satires of New York. His major works include: The Author’s Account of Himself The Legend of Sleepy HollowJames Fenimore Cooper詹姆斯·芬尼莫·库珀1789-1851The first important American novelist began his literary career on a dare.“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” th e best of his many sea romances.His frontier stories “Leather Stocking Tales” 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 y et to an American epic”.The Last of The MohicansHenry Wadsworth Longfellow亨利·沃兹沃思·朗费罗1807-1882In his prose romance “Outre-Mer”, he uses Finish folk meter in his celebration of American Indian Legends in “Hiawatha”. His greatest virtue is that he made po etry seem worth reading and worth writing. His works include:A Psalm of Life My Lost Youth Song of Hiawatha Voices of the Night William Cullen Bryant威廉·卡伦·布莱恩特1794-1878The stately poem called ” Thanatopsis” (Greek, meaning “view of death”) introduced the best poet to appear in American up to that time.“To a Waterfowl” is perhaps the peak of his work, “Most perfect brief poem in the language”.His most important later works are his translations of the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” into English blank verse.As Irving had shown that American prose had come of age, so Bryant demonstrated to European readers that American poetry was ready to demand serious attention. He was the first American to gain the stature of a major poet.Part Three New England Transcendentalism（2015年川师大真题）New England Transcendentalism isregarded as the summit of American Romanticism. What do you know about Transcendentalism?Transcendentalism is a literature, philosophical and artistic movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to 1860. It originated from a small group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodox of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian church, developing their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world. The major features of New England Transcendentalism can be summarized as follows: First, the Transcendentalism placed emphasis on spirit, or the over soul, as the most important thing in the universe. Second, the Transcendentalism stressed the importance of the individual. Thirdly, the Transcendentalism offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the spirit or god. New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism. The ideas of Transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Emerson in such essays asNature, and Self-Reliance and by Thoreau in his book Walden.Ralph Waldo Emerson 拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生1803-1882He was responsible for bringing Transcendentalism to New England and was recognized throughout his life as the leader of the movement, and he believed above all in individualism, independence of mind and self-reliance. He admired courage, he was not afraid of changing or clashing ideas. His works include:Nature The American Scholar The Divinity School Address Self-RelianceMany of his lectures were later distilled into his famous “Essays”. Among his most important works are “Representative Men” and “English Traits” .His “Poems”appeared in 1847.In his day, Emerson’s poems were criticized for the ir lack of form and polish. In recent years, however, 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.The American Scholar is called “our int ellectual Declaration of Independence”(选择题常考）Henry David Thoreau亨利·戴维·梭罗1817-1862He was Emerson’s truest disciple, who put into practice many of Emerson’s theories.The superb novel Walden is written by Thoreau,and was published in 1854.it came out of his two-year experiment lived at Walden.Thoreau 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 rest six,so that people could devote more time to thought.Thoreau maintained that this was purpose ,not a program for society .and in his book ,he think ,self-reliance and independence of mind ranked above all . From his experience in jail came his famous essay Civil Disobedience, which stated Thoreau’s belief that no man should violate h is conscience at the command of a government.Nathaniel Hawthorne纳撒尼尔·霍桑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 works include:The Custom House The Blithedale Romance Mosses from an Old Manse The Marble Faun Young Goodman Brown The Scarlet LetterHawthorne’s unique gift was for the creation of strongly symbolic stories 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.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.（2014年川师大真题）What's symbolism? Please illustrate it with Nathaniel Hawthorne's works?In literature, symbolism was an aesthetic movement that encouraged writers to express their ideas, feelings and values by means of symbols or suggestions rather than by direct statements. It enables writers to compress a very complex idea or sets of ideas into image or even one word. Hawthorne is a master of symbolism. The symbol can be found everywhere in his writing. His masterpieces The Scarlet Letter and Young Good Man Brown provided the most convincing proof.In the Scarlet Letter, A is the biggest symbol of all. As a key to the whole novel, the letter takes on different layers of symbolic meaning as the plot develops. At first, it is a token of shame"Adultery", then it has been changed into "Able", and finally it signifies "Angel". People come up with different interpretations and they don't know which one is definite. The Scarlet Letter A is ambiguous and the ambiguity is one of the prominent characteristics of Hawthorne's art.In Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorne masterfully uses symbolism in presenting the theme. For example, the names of protagonists carry strong symbolic meanings. Brown is an extremely common name, which stands for everyone. That means the problem that Brown met is a universal one. His wife is Faith, who should be the most faithful one to him. However, the fact proves that even she possess some evil secrets that he doesn't know.Herman Melville赫尔曼·麦尔维尔1819-1891Moby 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. Melville had the rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming ,mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome ,sometimes merciless force （选择题常考）The fitting symbol for his the“gliding gre at demon of the seas of life,”the white whale .Ahab’s ship,the Requod ,was like a world in miniature ,with characters ranging from the observer and narrator Ishmael to the savage harpooners and the motley crew.Melville said this book had been“broiled in he ll-fire, referring to the turbulence of his own spirit from which the book sprang.Typee, became known as the “man who lived among cannibals”His works include:Omoo Mardi Billy Budd Moby DickBilly Budd a nd Moby Dick use a ship as symbol of society and searchingly examines the problems of good and evil.Aha b’s ship was like a world in miniature with characters from all walks of life.Walt Whitman沃尔特·惠特曼1819-1892O ne of the great innovators in American literature. In the cluster of poems he called “Leaves of Grass” he gave America its first genuine epic poem. The poetic style he devised is now called free verse-that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. Whitman thought that the voice of democracy should not be haltered by traditional forms of verse. Most of the poems in “Leaves of Grass” are about man and nature. However, a small number of very good poems deal with New York, the city that fascinated Whitman, and with the Civil War. In his poetry, Whitman combined the ideal of the democratic common man and that of the rugged individual. In his poetry, Whitman combined the ideal of the democratic common man and that of the rugged individual. He envisioned the poet as a hero, a savior and a prophet, one who leads the community by his expressions of the truth. His works include:Song of Myself I sit and Look Out Drum-Taps Beat! Beat! DrumsEmily Dickinson爱米丽·狄金森1830-1886She wrote her whimsical, darting verse with sublime indifference to any notion of being a democratic or popular poet. Her work illustrated the fact that one could take a single household and an inactive life, and make enchanting poetry out of it. She and her sister remained at home and did not marry. After 1862 she became a total recluse, not leaving her house nor seeing even close friends. Her later retirement from the world, though perhaps affected by an unhappy love affair, seems mainlyto have resulted from her own personality, from a desire to separate herself from the world. The range of her poetry suggests not her limited experiences but the power of her creativity and imagination.Emily, however, refused to revise her poems to fit the standards of others and took no interest in having them published; in fact she had only seven poems published during her lifetime.Emily Dick inson’s poetry c omes out in bursts. The poems are short, many of them being based on a single image or symbol. But within her little lyrics Miss Dickinson writes about some of the most important things in life. His works include:I taste a liquor never brewed Because I Could not Stop for Death A Bird Came Down the Walk-Edgar Allan Poe埃德加·阿伦·坡1809-1849He won a contest with his story “Ms. Found in a Bottle” .Then he got a job as editor with the “Southern Literary Messenger”. His first collection of short stories “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque”.In Europe, he was hailed as a pioneer in poetic and fictional techniques. His influence was especially strong on many French writers. His works include:The Fall of the House of Usher To Helen The RavenPart Four The Age of Realism（19世纪下半叶）In the Civil War 1861-1865，they sought to portray American life as it really was,, insisting that the ordinary and local were as suitable for artistic portrayal as the magnificent and the remote.Realism had originated in France as real isme, a literary doctrine that called for “reality and truth” in the depiction of ordinary life. William Dean Howells defined realism as “nothingmore and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material”.（选择题常考）He spoke out against the writing of a bleak fiction of failure and despair. He called for the treatment of the “Smiling aspects of life” as being the more “American”, insisting that American was truly a land of hope and of possibility that should be reflected in its literature.The bu lk of Ameri ca’s literary realism was limited to optimistic treatment of the surface of life. Yet the greatest of America’s realists, Henry James and Mark Twain, moved well beyond a superficial portrayal of nineteenth-century America. James probed deeply into the individual psychology of his characters, writing in a rich and intricate style that supported his intense scrutiny of complex human experience. Mark Twain, breaking out of the narrow limits of local color fiction, described the breadth of American experience as no one had ever done before, or since.(预测问答题）Naturalism, a new and harsher realism. America’s literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classed who were dominated by their environment and heredity, the naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment, that religious “truths” were illusory, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death.Harriet Beecher Stowe哈丽雅特·比彻·斯托1811-1896She was born into a respectable family that was to become famous, her father Lyman was a renowned clergyman. The family was dominated by the father who ruled with the kind of wrathfulseverity that he imagined were the chief characteristics of the God he worshiped and feared. The boys were expected to become preachers, the girls to marry preachers. She is an anti-slavery writer. Her works include:Uncle Tom’s Cabin(问答题重点）Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the masterpiece of Harriet Beecher Stowe(an American realism novelist).The novel began serially in the National Era. When the novel did appear,however,it was an overnight success.It sold 350,000 copies during the first year,and since then has been published in some forty languages and has been read by millions of people around the world.The power of the novel unquestionably comes from the investment of the author’s sense of h er own suffering and oppression(as well as her determination to be free) in characters of Tom and his fellow slave Eliza,the protagonists of the book’s two main plots.Uncle Tom’s Cabin traces the trials, sufferings and human dignity of Uncle Tom, an old black slave. The novel helped tremendously Americans know more about the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery and hurried on a great war.HowellsHis major works include: A Modern Instance and The Rise of Silas Lapham.He writes about the rising middle class and the way they lived.Henry James亨利·詹姆斯1843-1916H e received the major part of his education at home, his family’s travels in Europe were another source of education for Henry. The American with its “international” theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity of European life. D aisy Miller, which one American critic described as “an outrage to American girlhood” but which brought James his firstinternational fame. The Portrait of a Lady the finest example of James’s early work.Unli ke Howells James’s greatest influence was exerted not on his own age but on the one that followed. He had been attacked for criticizing his native land and for the narrow emotional and social range of his characters. And he had been ridiculed for the obscure and costive style of his final period, a style that was able to express the subtlest meanings but was based on the assumption that the reader was as well educated, as exquisitely attuned, and in as little hurry as the author. He helps to transform the novel from its alliances with journalism and romantic story-telling into an art form of penetrating analysis of individuals confronting society, chronicles of the psychological perceptions that James himself defined as the highest form of experience.Local Colorism(预测问答题）Generally speaking, the writings of local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region or province. The characteristic setting is the isolated small town. 2) Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions, they worked from personal experience to record the facts of a local environment and suggested that the native life was shaped by the curious conditions of the local. 3) major local colorists is Mark Twain.Mark Twain 马克·吐温1835-1910H is formal education ended soon after his father’s death in 1847, when he bec ame a printer’s apprentice. From 1853, hetraveled widely, as a journeyman printer, in the eastern states and in the west, he met Horace Bixby, the captain of the boat, and turned to a career on the river. He left the Mississippi at the outbreak of the Civil War, and became, in swift succession, and army volunteer, a gold-prospector in Nevada, a timber speculator and a journalist.W hile working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, he adopted the pseudonym “Mark Twain”, the way of a boatman taking soundings, and meaning two fathoms, i.e. twelve feet. His works include: Jumping Frog Innocents Abroad The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Adventures of Huckleberry FinnHe pointed towards his uneasy acceptance of the values of nineteenth-century American society, he wrote three works expressing his acute pessimism. From that time until his death, he maintained a bitter skepticism, relieved at times by outraged commentary on world affairs. His last years were saddened by personal bereavement.（2010年川师大真题）Give a brief description to the American realists of the later part of the 19th century?In the later part of the 19th century, famous American realists include: Mark Twain, Henry James, Jack London and Theodorn Dreiser.Mark Twain was the first literary giant in that he broke the narrow limits of local color and described the breadth of American as no one had ever done before. He was acclaimed as "the true father of our national literature". He first created the American boy in his book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It has always been regarded as one of the greatest books of western literature and western civilization. Hemingway described it as the book from which" all modern American literaturecomes." Other famous books of Mark Twain include: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi River and The Gilded Age.Henry James is considered as the founder of psychological realism. He stresses the "psychology" of human being and his realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter. He was the first American writer to conceive his artistic work in international themes. His novels describe the life of the upper class, and they are marked by highly refined language. His famous works include: Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady.Jack London is one of the most articulate and militant spokesman of the working class at the turn of century. He is a leading figure of naturalism. His famous works include: Martin Eden, The call of the Wild and The Law of Life. The Call of the Wild is London's best-known story in which the protagonist is a sled-dog who under the pressure of the environment reverts to savagery.Theodore Dreiser is generally acknowledged as one of American's literary naturalist. His famous work include Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy. Sister Carrie tells about a poor country girl who goes to Chicago to pursue the American dream. The novel shows Dresser's naturalistic view about life by illustrating the purposelessness of life. The dominant symbol of the novel is the rocking chair that is indicative of the uncertainty of life.O. Henry 欧·亨利H e wrote stories for different magazines, and when there came a big demand for his stories, the publishers of “Ainslee’s Magazing” invited him to come to New York.Many of his stories tell about the lives of poor people in New York, as well as in other places, his works abound in good-natured humor. His stories are usually short, the plots are exceedingly clever and interesting; humor abounds, and the end is always surprising. Many of his stories contain a great deal of slang and colloquial expressions that make them hard to be understood by people outside of America. Such forms of speech are used to give what is called local, to make the stories fit in with the characters and scenes described.His works include:The Gift of the Magi A Municipal Report The Cop and the AnthemJack London杰克·伦敦1876-1916He grew up in extreme poverty: from earliest youth he supported himself with menial and dangerous jobs, experiencing profoundly the struggle for survival. His works include:The Call of the Wild The Son of the Wolf The Sea Wolf Martin Eden The Law of LifeThe most enduringly popular of his stories involved the primitive (and melodramatic) struggle of strong and weak individuals in the context of irresistible natural forces such as the wild sea or the arctic wastes.London’s stories of man in and against nature continue to be popular all over the world. In them, London strips everything down to the symbolic starkness of dream, to a primordial simplicity that has the strange and compelling power of ancient myth.Theodore Dreiser西奥多·德莱塞1871-1945From his mother he seems to have absorbed a quality of compassionate wonder, from his father he seems to have inherited moral earnestness and the capacity to persist in the faceof failure, disappointment, and despair.Dreiser’s childhood was decidedly unhappy. The large family moved from house to house in Indiana dogged by poverty, insecurity, and internal division. Dreiser as a youth was as ungainly, confused, shy, and full of vague yearnings as most of his fictional protagonists, male and female, his education was to come from experience and from independent reading and thinking.Sister Carrie, which traces the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G·W·Hurstwood. It depicted social transgressions by characters who felt no remorse and largely escaped punishment, and it used “strong” language and used names of living persons.H is best short fictions “Nigger Jeff” and “Butcher Rogaum’s Daughter””Trilogy of Desire”: “The Financier”; “The Titan”; “The Stoic”, Dreiser shifted from the pathos of helpless protagonists to the power of those unusual individuals who assume dominant roles in business and society.The identification of potency with money i s at the heart of Dreiser’s greatest and most successful novel, “An American Tragedy”. The Center of this immense novel’s thick texture of biographical circumstance, social fact, and industrial detail is a young man who acts as if the only way he can be truly fulfilled is by acquiring wealth-through marriage if necessary. Part Five American Literature in the 1920sImagism came into being in Britain and U.S around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation. The imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to expressthese momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image. Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles: A.direct treatment of subject matter;B.economy of expression;C. as regards rhythm ,to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome. Pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known imagist poem.Ezra Pound埃兹拉·庞德1885-1972He had a distinct poetic personality, he combined a command of the older tradition with impressive and often daring originality. He was a prolific essayist for the little magazines of New York, London, Paris, which then constituted a large and exciting literary world. He unselfishly and persistently championed the experimental and often unpopular artists. Most important of all, perhaps, was the advice and encouragement which he gave to T·S· Eliot.Both Pound and Eliot required of their readers a familiarity with the classics, the productions of Italian and English Renaissance,, and specialized areas of Continental literature, including the works of the French symbolists. Pound’s continued to draw fundamentally upon his formidably recondite culture. His works include：The Cantos In a Station of the Metro A VirginalThomas Stearns Eliot托马斯·斯特恩斯·爱略特1888-1965He won the Nobel Prize in 1948.His first book of poems “Prufrock and Other Observations”, which concerns various aspects of the frustration and enfeeblement of individual character as seen in perspective with the decay of states, peoples, and religious faith.The Waste Land, one of the major works of modern literature. Its subject, the apparent failure of western civilization whichWorld War I seemed to demonstrate, suggested the spiritual debility of the modern individual and his culture while in satirical counterpoint his Sweeney poems had symbolized the rising tide of anticultural infidelity and human baseness. It used abundant of literary reference. It also introduced a form-the orchestration of related themes in successive movements. His works include:The Hollow Men Ash-Wednesday Four Quartets The Love Song of J·Alfred Prufrock Robert Frost罗伯特·弗洛斯特1874-1963 By the end of his life he had become a national bard; he won four Pulitzer Prizes; the United States Senate passed resolutions honoring his birthdays, and when he was eighty-seven he read his poetry at the inauguration of President JohnF·Kennedy. Frost had rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporanes,(选择题常考）choosing instead “the old-fashioned way to be new”. He employed the plain speech of rural New Englanders and preferred the short, traditional forms of lyric and narrative, As a poet of nature he had obvious affinities with romantic writers. He saw nature as a storehouse of analogy and symbol, but he had little faith in religious dogma or speculative thought. His poetry, for all its apparent simplicity, often probes mysteries of darkness and irrationality in the bleak and chaotic landscapes of an indifferent universe where men stand alone, unaided and perplexed.Carl Sandburg卡尔·桑德堡1878-1967He lived to enjoy enormous popular acclaim, by the end of his life he had become a familiar figure to national television audiences who listened to him read his poems, sing folk ballads and relate anecdotes about Lincoln.His works include:Chicago Poems Cornhuskers Flash Crimson Chicago Cool Tombs。

常耀信美国文学史第三版Chapter 6 Whitman·Dickinson

First edition(1855)
It contained twelve poems and did not sell well, but it made a stir on the American literary scene. It broke with the poetic convention, and its sexuality and exotic and vulgar language brought harsh criticisms on it.
➢In 1848, he traveled south to work in the New Orleans.
➢In 1855, the first edition of his work, Leaves of Grass came out with his own money, which contained twelve poems.
ideas about death, and beauty of death. ❖ Attacks the slavery system and racial
discrimination.
Literary points of view
❖Whitman was a catalog of American and European thought.
The Leaves were called “noxious weeds ,” it’s poetry “poetry of barbarism ” and “a mass of stupid filth.” 邪恶的种子，野蛮的诗歌，一滩愚蠢的污秽物。
Whitman’s Major Works
❖ Responds enthusiastically to the expansion of America.

常耀信美国文学讲义PPT课件

After this rough beginning, Robert went
on to become a great poet. He married Elinor White and had 2 kids. Robert never in truth had any jobs, except being a poet, but he published many poems in his lifetime. Robert won four Pultizer awards and read The Gift Outright (全心的奉献)at the inauguration of John. F. Kennedy. He died on January 29, 1963 of a heart attack. He was 88 years old.
Birches After Apple-Picking Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening The Road Not Taken
Frost's poems are
critiqued in the "Anthology of Modern American Poetry", Oxford University Press, where it is mentioned that behind a sometimes charmingly familiar and rural façade, Frost's poetry frequently presents pessimistic and menacing undertones which often are not recognized nor analyzed.

美国文学史及作品选读提纲

美国文学史及作品选读提纲第一部分：The Literature of Colonial American考核知识点：a. The first distinctly America literatureb. The first American writer and his first workc. Kinds of literary writings in this periodd. The dominant influence of the Puritan values on the early American writingse. The most important poets in this period: Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor考核要求：1．一般识记：The beginnings of American national history and literary history2．识记：Kinds of literary writings in this period；the important writers, literary works and their main ideas3 领会：The dominant influence of the Puritan values on the early American writings第二部分:The Literature of Reason and Revolution考核知识点：a. The historical background about American Revolutionb. The general feature of the 18th-century American literaturec. The most important poet in this period: Philip Freneau考核要求：1．一般识记：The historical background about American Revolution；the life and literary creation of Philip Freneau2识记：The general feature of the 18th-century American literature; the most important poet in this period: Philip Freneau3. 领会：The influence of English literature on American writers4. 应用：The subject matter, themes and poetic style of Philip Freneau’s poetry;第三部分：The literature of Romanticism考核知识点：a. The importance of Washington Irving’s literary creation;b. The general characteristics shared by the Romantic writers;c. The influence of the Transcendentalist Movement on American literature;d. The principal literary forms of this periode. The permanent convention of American literature考核要求：1. 一般识记：historical background of this period; life and literary creation of important writers in this period2. 识记：The importance of Washington Irving’s literary creation; the general characteristics shared by the Romantic writers; the principal literary forms of this period;3. 领会：The influence of the Transcendentalist Movement on American literature; the permanent convention of American literature4. 应用：The subject matter and themes of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; the characterization and narrative skill displayed in the The Last of the Mohicans; the subject matter, charaterization and symbolic method of The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick第四部分：The Literature of Realism考核知识点：a. The influence of the westward expansion of American territory on American literature;b. The important women writers and their works in this period;c. The philosophy and method adopted by American realistic writers;d. Mark Twain’s contribution to American literature;e. The characteristic features of the American naturalists;f. The representative writers of American realism:g. The representative writers of American naturalism;h. The most important writers in this period:a) Walt Whitman and his free verse;b) Emily Dickinson and the characteristic features of her poetry;c) Mark Twain and the subject matter and humorous style of his works;考核要求：1.一般识记：The life and literary career of the important writers2.识记：The definition of realism and naturalism; the historical background; important works of the time and their main ideas3.领会：The significance and influence of American realism and American naturalism; the characteristic features of important writers and their works; the characteristics of free verse;4.应用：The subject matter, themes and style of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”; the theme and poetic imagery of Emily Dickinson’s poetry; the themes and humorous style of The Adventure of Tom Sawyer; the subject matter, themes and characterization of Sister Carrie第五部分：The Twentieth-Century Literature考核知识点：a. The historical background of the early 20th centuryb. The variety of avant-garde doctrines and literary schools emerging in early 20th centuryc. The leading writers of the modernist literature: Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot;d. Henry James and his masterpieces;e. Robert Frost and the characteristics of his poetry;f. The writers of “the lost generation” in the 1920s and their great achievements;g. Ernest Hemingway;h. The thriving of American drama in the 1920s and the representative dramatist of the time;i. The Harlem Renaissance in 1920s;j. The characteristic feature of the artists and writers in the Great Depression of the 1930s;k. John Steinbeck and his important works考核要求：1.一般识记：The historical background of the early 20th century ; the life and literary career of the important writers and their literary contributions2.识记: The variety of avant-garde doctrines and literary schools emerging in early 20th century; the great achievements of the writers of “the lost generation”; the Harlem Renaissance in 1920s; the thriving of American drama in the 1920s and the representative dramatist of the time; the important works and their main ideas; the characteristic feature of the artists and writers in the Great Depression of the 1930s;3.领会：The charateristic features of the modernist literature; the characteristic features of the writers of “the lost generation” in the 1920s; the most important writers of the time and their characteristic features; the themes, styles, techniques and significance or influence of the representative works in this period4.应用：The subject matter, themes and style of Robert Frost’s poetry;the themes and technique of T. S. Eliot’s poetry; the themes, characterization and style of Hemingway’s masterpiece For Whom the Bell Tolls。

常耀信《美国文学简史》笔记和考研真题详解（弗罗斯特桑德堡卡明斯哈特克兰穆尔）【圣才出品】

常耀信《美国⽂学简史》笔记和考研真题详解（弗罗斯特桑德堡卡明斯哈特克兰穆尔）【圣才出品】第13章弗罗斯特?桑德堡?卡明斯?哈特?克兰?穆尔13.1 复习笔记I. Robert Frost (1874-1963)（罗伯特·弗罗斯特）1. Life（⽣平）Robert Frost was born in San Francisco and spent his early childhood in the Far West. At the death of his father, when Frost was eleven, the family moved to New Hampshire. After graduating from high school, he entered Dartmouth College. In 1913 his first book A boy’s Will came out in London. His second volume North of Boston came out in 1914. The next year, Frost came back to the United States which recognized him as its bard. He won the Pulitzer Prize four times and received commendations by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Poetry Society of America respectively in 1938 and 1941. He received honors from forty-four institutions, and became the nation’s unofficial Poet Laureate when invited to read his poe m at President Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961.罗伯特·弗罗斯特出⽣于旧⾦⼭，在美国西部度过了童年。

常耀信《美国文学简史》（第3版）章节题库-第十六章至第十七章【圣才出品】

常耀信《美国⽂学简史》（第3版）章节题库-第⼗六章⾄第⼗七章【圣才出品】第16章安德森·斯坦·刘易斯·凯瑟·沃尔夫Ⅰ.Fill in the blanks.1.Winesburg,Ohio was written by_____.[⼤连外国语学院2007研]【答案】Sherwood Anderson【解析】《俄亥俄州的温斯堡》（或译《⼩城畸⼈》）是美国⼆⼗世纪早期⼩说家舍伍德·安德森（Sherwood Anderson）的⼀部著名⼩说。

2.Two writers played important roles in making Faulkner what he later became. _____helped him to write and publish his first novel Soldier’s Pay and_____was his idol and inspired him to write creatively.【答案】Sherwood Anderson;James Joyce【解析】安德森和乔伊斯对福克纳的⽂学创作产⽣了很⼤影响。

3.The author of Main Street is_____.【答案】Sinclair Lewis【解析】《⼤街》的作者是⾟克莱·刘易斯，他是第⼀个获得诺贝尔⽂学奖的美国⼈。

4.An American woman writer named_____who had lived in Paris since1903, welcomed the young expatriates to her literary salon,and gave them a name “the Lost Generation”.【答案】Gertrude Stein【解析】美国作家格特鲁德·斯坦因于1903年移居法国巴黎并开始组织⼀个著名的沙龙，海明威、菲茨杰拉尔德等⼈都来过这⾥。

常耀信《美国文学简史》（第3版）章节题库-第十三章至第十四章【圣才出品】

常耀信《美国⽂学简史》（第3版）章节题库-第⼗三章⾄第⼗四章【圣才出品】第13章弗罗斯特·桑德堡·卡明斯·哈特·克兰·穆尔Ⅰ.Fill in the blanks.1.In Robert Frost’s______,the speaker tells us how the course of his life was determined when he came upon two roads that diverted in a wood.【答案】The Road not Taken【解析】《未选择的路》是美国著名诗⼈罗伯特·弗罗斯特的著名诗篇。

这⾸深邃的哲理诗展现了现实⽣话中⼈们处在⼗字路⼝时难以抉择的⼼情。

2.Robert Frost poetry focused on the landscape and people in_______.【答案】New England【解析】弗罗斯特的抒情诗主要描写了⼤⾃然和农民，尤其是新英格兰的景⾊和北⽅的农民。

3._____combined traditional verse forms with a clear American local speech rhythm，forming his own characteristic.【答案】Robert Frost【解析】弗罗斯特将传统诗歌形式与美国本⼟⼝语体结合起来，形成了独特的诗歌特点。

4.At one time,Sandburg’s reputation mainly rested on a multi-volume biography of_____including The Prairie Years and The War Years.【答案】Abraham Lincoln【解析】卡尔·桑德堡（Carl Sandburg）美国现代诗⼈及传记作家。

常耀信《美国文学简史》(第3版)章节题库-第七章至第八章【圣才出品】

第7章埃德加·爱伦·坡Ⅰ.Fill in the blanks.1.In consideration of the beauty of poems,_____concludes that“the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.”[天津外国语学院2007研]【答案】Edgar Allan Poe【解析】爱伦·坡认为，美的效应在于使灵魂激动而变得高尚；无论哪种美，其最高形式必然使敏感的灵魂悲泣。

因此，诗的基调应该是“忧郁”。

人最感到忧郁的事莫过于死，而最富于诗意的死莫过于心爱的年轻美女离世。

2._____is regarded as the father of psychoanalytic criticism and the detective story. [首师大2008研]【答案】Edgar Allan Poe【解析】爱伦·坡被认为是精神分析批评之父和侦探小说的鼻祖。

3._____is generally thought of as the true beginner of the short stories because he was the first writer who formulated poetics of the short stories.【答案】Edgar Allan Poe【解析】爱伦·坡被视作短篇小说的真正始祖因为他是第一个在小说中赋予了诗意的作家。

4._____is usually acknowledged as the originator of detective stories.He is also credited with developing many of the standard features of detective fiction.His detective M August Dupin of Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined letter is the forerunner of a long line of fictional detectives who are eccentric and brilliant.【答案】Edgar Allan Poe【解析】爱伦·坡被视作侦探小说的鼻祖。

常耀信《美国文学简史》(第3版)【章节题库(含名校考研真题)】(第3章美国浪漫主义

第3章美国浪漫主义•欧文•库柏I.Fill in the blanks.1.“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”was written by_____.（大连外国语学院2008研）【答案】Washington Irving【解析】短篇小说《睡谷传说》（“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”），是华盛顿·欧文的代表作《见闻札记》（The Sketch Book）中最著名的两篇故事中的一篇。

另一篇是《瑞普·凡·温克尔》（“Rip Van Winkle”）。

2.Ichabod Crane,the schoolmaster,is a character in the short story_____collected in The Sketch Book.（首师大2008研）【答案】“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”【解析】Ichabod Crane是一个小学校长，欧文的《睡谷传奇》中的人物。

3.The Romantic period in the American literary history covers the time between the end of the_____century to the outbreak of the_____.It started with the publication of Irving’s_____and ended with Whitman’s_____.This period is also called_____.【答案】18th;Civil War;The Sketch Book;Leaves of Grass;the American Renaissance【解析】美国浪漫主义时期开始于十八世纪末，到内战爆发为止,是美国文学史上最重要的时期。

华盛顿·欧文出版的《见闻札记》标志着美国浪漫主义文学的开端，惠特曼的《草叶集》是浪漫主义时期文学的压卷之作。