名词解释

Transcendentalism(超验主义)

Transcendentalism is literature, philosophical and literary movement that flourished in new england from about 1836 to 1860. it is the summit of American Romanticism. it originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Chruch, developing instead their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world. Transcendentalism derived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic german philosophy, and from such english authors as coleridge and wordsworth. Its mystical aspects were partly influenced by Indian and Chinese religious teachings. Although Transcendentalism was never a rigorously systematic philosophy, it had some basic tenets that were generally shared by its adherents. The beliefs that God is immanent in each person and in nature and that individual intuition is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism,

self-reliance, and rejection of traditional authority. The ideas of Transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature , and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden.

超验主义是从1836至1860于新英格兰发起的一场文学,哲学以及艺术运动.即浪漫主义的顶点.由于一小群知识分子反对加尔文教派和唯一神论教派理性的形式主义,他们从而提出人与自然的神圣这一信念.超验主义受到德国浪漫主义哲学以及英国浪漫主义作家柯勒律治和沃兹华斯的影响,还在一定程度上受到东方古典哲学和宗教的影响.尽管超验主义思想并不能算是严格意义上的哲学, 但是它还是有一些基本原则的.超验主义者认为人人都有内在的神性,只有通过接触自然才能使神性与人的天性相互融合.从而超验主义十分强调个人主义,自立,拒绝传统权威思想.超验主义思想在爱默生的<论自然> 和梭罗的<瓦尔登湖>等书中表现得淋漓尽致

Stream of consciousness(意识流)(or interior monologue)

In literary criticism, Stream of consciousness denotes a literary technique which seeks to describe an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes. Stream of consciousness writing is strongly associated with the modernist movement. Its introduction in the literary context, transferred from psychology, is attributed to May Sinclair. Stream of consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow,tracing as they do a character’s fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings. famous writers to employ this technique in the english language include James Joyce and William Faulkner.

学术界认为意识流是一种通过直接描述人物思维过程来寻求个人视角的文学写作技巧。意识流是现代主义运动的体现，它首先出现在心现学领域，由梅.辛克拉提出的，后引进文学领域。意识流写作通常被认为是一种特殊形式的内心独白.它的特别是联想性,以句法和标点的跳跃,文章的晦涩难懂为特征.来表现人物的片断思维和感官性直觉.比较著名的使用此技巧的有乔伊斯.福克纳.

Local Colorism(乡土文学)

Generally speaking, the writings of local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, weell-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.

Realism(现实主义)

Realism was a loosely used term meaning truth to the observed facts of life (especially when they are gloomy). Realism in literature is an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity.

the Age of Realism(现实主义时期)

1).Realism was a reaction against Romanticism and paved the way to Modernism; 2).During this period a new generation of writers, dissatisfied with the Romantic ideas in the older generation, came up with a new inspiration. This new attitude was characterized by a great interest in the realities of life. It aimed at the interpretation of the realities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic color. Instead of thinking about the mysteries of life and death and heroic i ndividualism, people’s attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existence, to what was brutal or sordid, and to the open portrayal of class struggle;3) so writers began to describe the integrity of human characters reacting under various circumstances and picture the pioneers of the far west, the new immigrants and the struggles of the working class; 4) Mark Twain Howells and Henry James are three leading figures of the American Realism.

Iceberg 冰山理论

Typical of this "iceberg" analogy is Hemingway's style, which he had been trying hard to get. According to Hemingway, good literary writing should be able to make readers feel the emotion of the characters directly and the best way to produce the effect is to set down exactly every particular kind of feeling without any authorial comments, without conventionally emotive language, and with a bare minimum of adjectives and adverbs. Seemingly simple and natural, Hemingway's style is actually polished and tightly controlled, but highly suggestive and connotative. While rendering vividly the outward physical events and sensations Hemingway expresses the meaning of the story and conveys the complex emotions of his characters with a considerable range and astonishing intensity of feeling.

Jazz Age(爵士时代)