美国文学史整理

美国文学

简答题

1.Moby-dick is regarded as the Great American Novel, the first American prose epic(散文史诗：

a long narrative poem telling of heroic deeds of reflecting the values of the society from which it originated), though it is presented in the form of a novel.

①its surface meaning:It is a whaling tale or sea adventure, dealing with Ahab, a man with an overwhelming obsession to kill the whale which has crippled him, on board his ship Pequod in the chase of the big whale. The dramatic description of the hazards of whaling makes the book a very exciting sea narrative and builds a literary monument to an era of whaling industry in the nineteenth century.

②The deep symbolic theme: Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, considering that Melville is a great symbolist. It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology. This is shown in Captain Ahab's rebellious struggle against the overwhelming mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces.

The Peduod is the miscrocosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth; Moby Dick symbolizes nature for the author, evil for the character Ahab;

2. 《the adventure of huckleberry finn》

（1）Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain’s masterpiece. tells the story of a teenaged misfit，Huck，who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious.

3. The Great Gatsby

（1）The theme of the novel: The Great Gatsby, by summarizing the experiences and attitudes of the glamorous and wild 1920s, deals with the bankruptcy of the American Dream, which is high1ighted by the disillusionment of the protagonist's personal dream due to the clashes between his romantic vision of life and the relentless reality.（2）Chapter Ⅲof the novel, a vivid description of one of Gatsby's fabulous parties, presents a vivid atmosphere of paradox. Gatsby's party, characteristic of the roaring twenties in the U.S. evokes both the romance and the sadness of the Jazz Age. On the surface, the party is crowded, yet empty of warmth or friendship, with people coming to the party eagerly but appearing indifferent and contemptuous of their host. Gatsby himself as the host is a paradox -- exceedingly courteous but keeps himself detached from the noisy and confusing crowd, because he, though fascinated with the wealth, was fully aware of the corruptive nature of the society and the Vanity Fair. The charm and sweetness of the youth is spoiled by triviality and tawdriness; The splendid house and garden is purchased not for enjoyment but for impression. There is every sign of merriment, with guests eating, drinking, laughing, moving about and dancing, but people get dead drunk, break down in tears or quarrel over trivialities. So beneath the wealthy people's masks of relaxation and joviality there was only sterility, meaninglessness and futi1ity, and amid the grandeur and extravagance a spiritual waste1and and a hint of decadence and moral decay. This undeniable juxtaposition of appearance with reality, of the pretense of gaiety with the tension underneath, is easily recognizable in Fitzgerald's novels and stories.

4.Ezra Pound

赏析

The poem was first published in 1913 and is considered one of the leading poems of the Imagist tradition. Pound's process of deletion from thirty lines to only fourteen words typifies Imagism's focus on economy of language, precision of imagery and experimenting with non-traditional verse forms. The poem is Pound’s written equivalent for the moment of revelation and intense emotion he felt at the Metro at La Concorde, Paris.

By linking human faces, a synecdoche for people themselves, with petals on a damp bough, the poet calls attention to both the elegance and beauty of human life, as well as its transience. A dark, wet bough implies that it has just rained, and the petals stuck to the bough were shortly before attached to flowers from the tree. They may still be living, but they will not be for long. In this way, Pound calls attention to human mortality as a whole - we are all dying.

The word "apparition" is considered crucial as it implies both presence and absence – and thus transience as mentioned previously.

The plosive word "Petals" conjures ideas of delicate, feminine beauty which contrasts with the bleakness of the "wet, black bough".