美国文学选读之白鲸PPT课件

2. Life Experience
• Was born in 1819 in Lansingburgh • Left school at the age of 15 • Worked as a bank clerk, a salesman,
a farmer, a school teacher • Went to sea at about 20 • Good friend with Hawthorne
• --- The married life of Melville was more like that of Scott Fitzgerald than Mark Twains. Melville married Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of a wealthy judge. To support her and their growing family, he had to write for money.
3. Major works
His novels:
• Typee (1846); Omoo (1847) • Mardi (1849); Redburn (1849) • White Jacket (1850) • Moby Dick (1851) • Pierre (1852); Confidence Man (1857) • Billy Budd (uຫໍສະໝຸດ Baidufinished) • His poetic work: Clarel • His short stories: • “Bartleby”, “Benito Cereno”
Moby Dick
抹香鲸
• 抹香鲸的英文是Spermwhale，二名法为 Physeter macrocephalus。抹香鲸又称之 为巨抹香鲸、卡切拉特鲸。隶属齿鲸亚目、 抹香鲸科，是世界上最大的齿鲸。由于其 头部特别巨大，故又有“巨头鲸”之称呼， 主要栖息于南北纬70°之间的海域中。
• 身体粗短，行动缓慢笨拙，易于捕杀，故 现存量由原来的85万头下降到20万头。抹 香鲸的长相十分怪，头重尾轻，宛如巨大 的蝌蚪，庞大的头部约占体长的1/4-1/3， 整个头部仿佛是一个大箱子。它的鼻子也 十分奇特，只有左鼻孔畅通，而且位于左 上方，右鼻孔堵塞，所以它呼吸的雾柱是 以45°角向左前方喷出的。
• His longest novel, Moby Dick—largely considered a failure during his lifetime, was recognized in the 20th century as one of the chief literary masterpieces of both American and world literature.
• ---There are three things which deserve mention about his life: going out to sea, his marriage and his friendship with Hawthorne.
---Melville was a whaler, the lowest of sailors. He went to Liverpool, England and the South Pacific, spending most of his young manhood undergoing one of the most brutalizing experiences for a man. His experiences and adventures on the sea furnished him with abundant material for fiction.
Moby Dick
Herman Melville
1. Overview
• One of the half-dozen major American literary figures of the 19th century. An American novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet.
–He had little education. He had to leave school at the age of 15, and began to work. He worked as a clerk, a farmer and a teacher, before becoming a cabin boy on a ship at about twenty.
–Melville was born in New York City. Both his parents came from well-to-do families, but later their family business failed.
–Melville’s childhood was happy to the age of 11, when his father died in debt.
• ---During the summer of 1850, Melville and Hawthorne met. They exchanged visits, meeting at least nine times, and wrote to one another often.
• ---Melville saw in Hawthorne the one American who was expressively aware of the evil at the core of American life. He found Hawthorne’s understanding of evil, that blackness of vision, unusually fascinating.