美国文学史复习资料(名词解释)
美国文学史名词解释
1. PuritanismIt were flourishing from the beginning of 17th to the middle period of 18th. They stressed predestination, original sin, total depravity, and limited atonement from God‟s grace. They went to America to prove that they were God‟s chosen people w ho would enjoy God‟s blessings on earth and in Heaven. Finally, they built a way of life that stressed hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety. Both doctrinaire and an opportunist.Its Influence on literary were as follows:（影响）(1) American Literature is based on a myth ------ the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. (2)The American Puritan‟s metaphorical made of perception ---- symbolism. The representatives were Edwards(The Freedom of the Will), Franklin(On the Art of Self-improvement), Crevecoeur(Letters from an American Farmer).代表作家及代表作：Captain John Smith True Relation of Virginia (1608)Anne Bradstreet “To My Dear and Loving Husband”Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin2. American RomanticismRomanticism was a complex artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution.Elements of Romanticism1. Frontier: vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations.2. Optimism: greater than in Europe because of the presence of frontier.不要这么多，我就删掉了3、4、5条。
美国文学史复习资料(名词解释)
1. American Puritanism: a domination factor in American life. AmericanPuritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thoughts and literature.2. Transcendentalism: time 1836. Features: 1.the transcendentalistsplaced emphasis on spirit, or over soul, as the most important thing in the universe 2. The transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. 3. The transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the spirit of God. The representatives are Emerson and Thoreau.3. Free Verse: like traditional verse, it is printed in short lines instead ofthe continuity of prose, but it has no meter and either lack rhyme or uses it occasionally. A representative is Whitman’s Leave of Grass. 4. Realism: time: 2nd and half of 19th century. Features: verisimilitude ofdetails derived from observation. Representatives are Howells, James, Mark Twain5. Local Colorism: It is a branch of Realism; it refers to detailedrepresentation, in fiction of the setting, dialect, customs, dress and ways of thinking which are distinctive of a particular region. The representative of Local Colorism is Mark Twain.6. American Naturalism: time: 1890s. Features: 1. naturalists wroteabout 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.2. They reported truthfully and objectively with passion for scientific accuracy and an overwhelming accumulation of factual detail.3. The representatives are Crane, Dreiser.7. Imagism: six principles: momentary, one dominant image, hardpersonal word, direct treatment, concise, free verse. The representatives are Pound.8. Lost generations: it refers to a group of American writers of thedecade following WWI, disillusioned by their War experience or by materialization of American culture, holds a pessimistic new of life.The representatives are Fitzgerald and Hemingway.9. Flashback: interpolating narratives or scenes which represent eventsthat happened before the story began. For example: Miller used flashback in Death of Salesman.10. Black Humor: the tragic absurdity of the human condition is oftenseen in their novels. As a cosmic joke. The response they intend to provoke in the reader to the blackness of modern life is a laughter that is, laughing in face of a tragic situation. The representative work of black humor is Heller’s Catch-22.11. Harlem Renaissance: a period of remarkable creativity in literatureand other arts by African Americans, from the end of WWI in 1917 through the 1920s. The representative is Hughes.12. Irving: 1.He is was the first American writer of imagination literature to gain international fame. 2 The short story as a genre in American literature probably began with Irving’s The Sketch Book.3.The Sketch Book also marked the beginning of American romanticism.13. Hawthorne: feature: 1, symbol2, deep analysis of psychology3, gloomy and depressive tone4. evil sides of the world5, super natural element14. The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne): 1, Character: Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdable, Roger Chillingworth. 2. Theme: criticizing Puritan suppression/ sin and atonement.15. Emily Dickinson: feature: 1.short and concise2. approximate rhyme and meter3. ungrammatical elements 4. original images5. many poems about death15. Moby Dick (Melville): character: Ishmael (survivor), Ahab (captain) 12.Allan Poe: 1. the poetic principle ①the poem, he says, should be short, at one sitting ②Its chief aim is beauty ③melancholy is the most legitimate of all the poetic tone. ④the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.⑤stress rhyme, defines true poetry as “the rhythmical creation of beauty. 2. Work: to Helen, The Fall of the House of Usher.13. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain): 1. His usually use French, mostly Anglo-Saxon on origin, and his words are short, concrete and direct in effect.2. Most of his sentence structures are simple or compound.3. he use”took”repeatedly.4. There have ungrammatical elements in his work. One of his significant contributions to American literature lies in fact that he made colloquial speech an accepted.14. Frost: the features of his work1.he usually use traditional form 2. His language is plain3. He likes to use symbolism4. Most his poems describe nature of famers’ life.15. Fitzgerald: the Great Gatsby: 1.characters: Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanam, Tom Buchanam, Myrtle Wilson, George Wilson, Jay Gatsby, 2. Theme: criticizing materialized society, disillusionment of American dream.16. Miller: Death of Salesman: 1.Charaters: Willy &Linda&Biff&Happy Loman, Chalery and Bernard. 2. Theme: a criticizing metalized society/ understanding between parents and children.17. Salinger: The Catch in the①. Setting: 1950s New York2. Plot: Holden Caulfied 1st day: expelled. 2nd day: Sally (shallow). Carl (hypocritical).2nd night: Sneak home—Phoebe, Mr.Antolini. 3rd day: go to the west.②.character: Holden---rebellious, innocent, sincerely③. Style: This novel use colloquial and vulgar worlds. There also has exaggeration in this work ④: theme: growing pain.18: Cath-22: Yossarian, Milo, And Snowden.19. Lolita :( Nabokov): character: Humbert Humbert, Dolores Haze (Lolita), Clare Qulity .。
美国文学史复习名词解释
I. Explain the following literary terms. 1.Romanticism The most most profound profound and comprehensive idea idea of of of romanticism romanticism is is the the the vision vision of of a a greater personal freedom for the individual. Appeals to imagination; Stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, geniality. Subjectivity: in form and meaning. 2American transcendentalism American American transcendentalism transcendentalism was an important movement in in philosophy philosophy and literature that flourished during the early to middle years of the nineteenth century (about 1836-1860). For the transcendentalists, the soul of each individual is identical with the soul of the world and contains what the world contains. 3Realism : “nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.” the Civil war a. verisimilitude of details derived from observation b. representative in plot, setting and character c. an objective rather than an idealized view of human experience 4. Modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. The general term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the the changes changes changes in in in Western Western Western society society at at the the the end end of of the the the nineteenth nineteenth and beginning of of the the the twentieth twentieth century. American American modernism modernism modernism is is an artistic and cultural movement in in the the United States starting at at the the turn of of the the 20th 20th century century with with its its core core period period between between World World World War War I I and and World World War War II and continuing into the 21st century. II. Questions and Answers. Give brief answers to each of the following questions in English. 1.What is local color ？ an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things immediately observable: the dialects, customs, sights, and sounds of regional America”2. What is American Puritanism 1). Total Depravity - the concept of Original Si 2). Unconditional Election - the concept of predestination 3). Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only, not for everyone. 4). Irresistible Grace - God's grace is freely given, it cannot be earned or denied. 5). Perseverance of the "saints" - those elected by God have full power to interpret the will of God, and to live uprightly. If anyone rejects grace after feeling its power in his life, he will be going against the will of God. 3. Analyze Benjamin Franklin ’s Autobiography. themes in autobiography: Self- Improvement Mind: Self-education Body: Physical Activity Behavior: Moral Perfection Religion: The best service to God is to be good to man Benjamin Franklin and aspects of The American Dream Rags to Riches: Impotence to Importance: A Philosophy of Individualism: Freewill vs. Determinism: Hope and Optimism: The Autobiography is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. Benjamin Franklin was a spokesman for the new order of the 18th century enlightenment The Autobiography is a how-to-do-it book, a book on the art of self-improvement. (for example, Franklin ’s 13 virtues) Through telling a success story of self-reliance, the book celebrates, in fact, the fulfillment of the American dream. The Autobiography is in the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision 4. What is Imagism? It is is a a movement of of English English and American American poets poets in in revolt revolt from from Romanticism, Romanticism, which which flourish flourish 1910-1917. The characteristic products of of the the movement are are more more easily recognized than than its its theories defined: they tend to to be be be short short ,composed ,composed of of of short short lines of of musical musical cadence cadence rather rather than than metrical metrical regularity, to avoid abstraction, and to treat the image with a hard, clear precision rather than with overt symbolic intent. As part of the modernist movement, away from the sentimentality and moralizing tone of nineteenth-century Victorian poetry, imagist poets looked to many sources to help them create a new poetic expression, aiming aiming at at at clarity clarity of of expression expression through the use use of of of precise precise visual images. III. Topic discussion. 1. Discuss Allen Poe ’s literary achievements with his works.famous American poet, short-story writer and critic father of detective story master of gothic novel forerunner of symbolism a father of detective story Poe introduced of a new form of short fiction--- the detective story. The word The word ““detective ” did not exist in English at the time that Poe was writing, but the genre has become a )fundamental mode of twentieth-century literature and film. b ) master of gothic novel Gothic novel, a genre that rose with Romanticism in Britain in the late eighteenth century, explores the dark side of human experience —death, alienation, nightmares, ghosts, and haunted landscapes. Poe brought the Gothic to America. Gothic novels originated from The Castle of Otranto, written by Horace Walpole in Britain at the end of the 18th century, which created the early classical Gothic novel mode. It leads habitually with darkness and horror. Gothic elements include horror, mystery, supernatural phenomenon, misfortune, death, haunted houses, and family curses. c Literary critic Poe is one of the few American writers who not only wrote poetry, but also wrote about how to write poetry. His critical essays on poetry include The Poetic Principle, and The Philosophy of Composition. Poe remained the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature.2. Analyze Freneau ’s The Wild Honeysuckle.野金银花Philip Freneau as Father of American Poetry as Leader of 18th Century Naturalism The following poem was published in his Poems (1786) and was virtually unread in the time when he was living. In the poem the poet expresses his keen awareness of the liveliness and transience of nature celebrating the beauty of the frail forest flower, thus showing his deep love for nature. The poem was written in six-line iambic tetrameter stanzas rhymed on ababcc pattern. The poem is said to anticipate the nineteenth-century romantic use of simple nature imagery. It is considered one of the author ’s finest nature poems. Comments on The Wild Honey Suckle 1. A flower may be the most beautiful and overlooked piece of nature. Cherish it while it lasts for by the change of each season it may dissipate only to become a desire. Perhaps Freneau knew of a beauty that only nature could describe, provoked by the insincerity of the British people. 2. Philip Freneau, in this poem, was expressing his dream of a paradise in nature, or rather, on the new continent of of America. America. His His dream dream was the originality of of the the paradise on the earth, i.e, USA. The wild honey suckle is something of freedom, tranquility, nature, and of no convention, no suppression, no traditional or anything beyond the pure nature. This poem poem is is not only a mere description of nature, but something ideal in the poet's construction of a real paradise of human beings. This paradise is of real freedom, pure nature, total independence, grand beauty. As we know, Freneau was against the British interference in the independence of the new land, and was hoping to establish a real free country of the people on the new Continent. So in my opinion, this poem was in fact the beautiful bode of a paradise in in nature(on nature(on the the earth), earth), in in very very very brief brief and true words. words. This This This paradise paradise is is independent independent without meeting any vicious interference, beautiful without catering to any viewer, tranquil but fearful of no hardships, wild in nature without any vulgar provocation. in this poem the poet expressed a keen awareness of the loveliness and transien ce of nature.he not only meditated on mortality but also celebrated nature.it im plies that life and death are inevitable law of nature, "the wild honey suckle"is philipfreneau's most widely read natureal lyric with th e theme of transience.the central image is a nativewild flower,which makes a dra stic difference from elite flower images typical of tradition english poems. the poem showed strong feelings for the natural beauty,which was the characteristic of romantic. 3. Analyze Poe ’s To Helen and translate the third stanza in your own words.The theme of this short poem is the beauty of a woman with whom Poe became acquainted when he was 14. Apparently she treated him kindly and may have urged him –or perhaps inspired him –to write poetry. Beauty, as Poe uses the word in the poem, appears to refer to the woman's soul as well as as her her her body. body. On the one one hand, hand, hand, he he he represents represents her her as as as Helen Helen Helen of of of Troy Troy –the quintessence of of physical physical beauty –at at the the the beginning beginning of of the the poem. poem. On On the other, he he represents represents her her as as as Psyche Psyche –the quintessence of soulful beauty –at the end of the poem. In Greek, psyche means soul. It was first published in 1831 collection Poems of Poe then reprinted in 1836 in the Southern Literary Messenger. Poe revised the poem in 1845, making several improvements, most notably changing "the beauty of fair Greece, and the grandeur of old Rome" to "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome." These improved lines are the most well-known lines of the poem. Imagery and Summary of the Poem Poe opens opens the the poem with with a a simile –“Helen, thy beauty is to to me me / / Like Like those Nic éan barks barks of of of yore yore ”–that compares compares the the beauty of of Helen Helen Helen (Mrs. (Mrs. Stanard) with small sailing boats (barks) that carried home travelers in ancient times. He extends this boat imagery into the second stanza, when he says Helen brought him home to the shores of the greatest civilizations of antiquity, classical Greece Greece and and Rome. It may well have have been been been that that Mrs. Mrs. Stanard Stanard ’s s beauty beauty and other admirable qualities, as well as her taking notice of Poe ’s writing ability, helped inspire him to write poetry that mimicked in some ways the classical tradition of Greece and Rome. Certainly the poem ’s s allusions allusions to to mythology mythology and the the classical classical age age suggest suggest that he he had had a grounding in, and a fondness for, ancient history and literature. In the final stanza of the poem, Poe imagines that Mrs. Stanard (Helen) is standing before him in a recess or alcove in front of a window. window. She She She is is holding an agate lamp, lamp, as as as the the the beautiful beautiful Psyche Psyche did did did when when she she discovered discovered the identity of Eros (Cupid). in the first stanza,helen's beauty is soothing.it provides security and safety.perhaps the reader is expected to associate marlowe's famousline:was this the face that launched a thousand ships? to helen's beauty,for her beauty is as hypnotic for the speaker as the ships that transported another wanderer-Ulysses-home from Troy. throughout the poem,Poe uses allusions to classical names and places,as well as certain kinds of images to create the impression of a far-off idealized,unreal w oman,like a Greek statue.words that support the image of an ideal woman are "hy acinth"and"classic""Naiad airs"and"statued like.helen stands,not like a real woman,bu t like a saint in a "windows-niche.she becomes a symbol both of beauty and of frustration,a romantically idealized,yet inaccessible image of the heart's desire. it's believed that few american poets can surpass Poe's ability in the use of english as a medium of pure musical and rhythmic beauty.Poe made good use of rhythm is not regular,which shows the poet was excited,the poem is a haunting melody done with extreme artistry of alliteration as in "weary"and"way-worn",assonanc e as in "wont to roam"and masculine end rhyme,for example,with"me"rhythm with "se a",the rhyme scheme is ababb,cdcec,fggfg.in the poem words containing vowels or diphthongs were used to bring about the slow rhythm which reveals the speaker's admiration and deep regret and suggest a theme that beauty is soothing yet inaccessible.in light of analysis above,the general tone of the poem is passionate a nd regretful. 4. Discuss Mark Twain Discuss Mark Twain’’s art of fiction: the setting, the language, and the characters, etc., based on his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn (1884) was first considered adult fiction. Huck Finn, which painted a picture of of Mississippi Mississippi frontier life, was intended as as a a sequel to to Tom Tom Sawyer. Huck, Huck, who who could could not not not possibly possibly write a story, tells us the story. Twain wrote a novel that embodies the search for freedom. He wrote during the post-Civil War period when there was an intense white reaction against blacks. According to some critics,[who?] Twain took aim squarely against racial prejudice, increasing segregation, lynchings, and the generally accepted belief that blacks were sub-human. He "made it clear that Jim was good, deeply loving, human, and anxious for freedom."[12] However, others have criticized the novel as racist, citing the use of the word "nigger" and Jim's Sambo-like character.[2][3] Throughout the story, Huck is in moral conflict with the received values of the society in which he he lives, lives, and while he he is is unable to to consciously consciously refute those values even even in in in his his thoughts, he he makes makes a moral moral choice choice based based on on his own valuation of of Jim's Jim's friendship and human worth, a decision in in direct direct opposition to the things he has been taught. Mark Twain in his lecture notes proposes that "a sound heart is a surer guide than an ill-trained conscience," and goes on to describe the novel as "...a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat."[13]5. Discuss James Cooper ’s literary contributions. Contributions of Cooper The creation of the famous Leather stocking saga has cemented his position as our first great national novelist and his influence pervades American literature. In his thirty-two years (1820-1851) of authorship, Cooper produced twenty-nine other long works of fiction and fifteen books - enough to fill forty-eight volumes in the new definitive edition of his Works. Among his achievements: 1. The first successful American historical romance in the vein of Sir Walter Scott (The Spy, 1821). 2. The first sea novel (The Pilot, 1824). 3. The first attempt at a fully researched historical novel (Lionel Lincoln, 1825). 4. The first full-scale History of the Navy of the United States of America (1839). 5. The first American international novel of manners (Homeward Bound and Home as Found, 1838). 6. 6. The The first trilogy in in American American American fiction fiction (Satanstoe, 1845; 1845; The The Chainbearer, 1845; 1845; and and The Redskins, 1846). 7. The first and only five-volume epic romance to carry its mythic hero - Natty Bumppo - from youth to old age. James Fenimore Fenimore Cooper Cooper was one of of the the the first first novelists to to enjoy enjoy enjoy great great fame as a result of of his his his literary literary career and although some may argue argue that that this is is because because because the the the subject subject matter was entertaining (rather than than instructive instructive or or socially socially conscious, for for example) example) example) the the the fact fact remains remains that that he was able able to to to introduce introduce Americans to their own frontier . A writer in the style of romanticism, James Fenimore Cooper was enamored with with tales tales of of the the the outdoors outdoors and encounters with with strange strange and often hostile people people or or or forces. forces. This material was well-received and because of his literary success James Fenimore Cooper was able to produce his large body of works throughout his lifetime. 6. Analyze Whitman Analyze Whitman’’s One s One’’s Self I Sing. Analysis of One ’s Self I Sing In In 1855 1855 he he published published Leaves Leaves of of of Grass Grass Grass by by by himself himself at at his his own expense. His His intention intention was to to create create a truly American poem, one "proportionate to our continent, with its powerful races of men, its tremendous historic events, its great oceans, its mountains, and its illimitable prairies." In fact, his his poem poem g oes goes goes beyond beyond beyond American American American subject subject to to deal deal deal with with with the the the universal universal themes themes of of of nature, nature, fertility, and mortality. "One "One’’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person," run the opening lines of Leaves of Grass from 1871 on, "Yet utter the word Democratic." A poetic universe of productive tension is hinted by that "Yet"; the tense equipoise between individualism and democracy, this poem suggests, is the foundational theme of Whitman’s book. The poem then goes on to introduce the site and symbol for this reconciliation of of individual individual to to mass: mass: mass: the the body, "physiology from from top top top to to to toe." toe." We receive individual identity through our body, . . . yet at the same time, physicality, and especially physical affection, are universal, binding us together in common humanity. Much of the boldly progressive politics of Whitman ’s poetry will follow from this emphasis on the body; thus his introduction of the theme of "physiology" is followed by his (then quite radical) insistence on the political equality of male and female. In In Whitman Whitman Whitman’’s s ““One ’s Self I I Sing Sing ”, , the the the theme theme theme of of of the the the poem, poem, namely namely the the the celebration celebration of of both both both oneself oneself and the whole human beings, is realized at various levels. In this renowned short poem, Whitman trumpets the individualism that underlies American democracy and society, interpreting the politics of democracy into terms of everyday life. The poem is also presented as a drama of democratic identity in which the poet seeks to balance and reconcile major conflicts in the body politic of America: the conflict between "separate person" and "en masse," individualism and equality, liberty and union, female and male, or even alluding to the conflict with the South and the North, the farm and the city, labor and capital, black and white, religion and science. In In Whitman Whitman Whitman’’s s ““One ’s Self I I Sing Sing ”, , the the the theme theme theme of of of the the the poem, poem, namely namely the the the celebration celebration of of both both both oneself oneself and the whole human beings, is realized at various levels. In this renowned short poem, Whitman trumpets the individualism that underlies American democracy and society, interpreting the politics of democracy into terms of everyday life. The poem is also presented as a drama of democratic identity in which the poet seeks to balance and reconcile major conflicts in the body politic of America: the conflict between "separate person" and "en masse," individualism and equality, liberty and union, female and male, or even alluding to the conflict with the South and the North, the farm and the city, labor and capital, black and white, religion and science. 。
美国文学重点名词解释
2.6.Transcendentalism: is literature，philosophical and literary movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to1860. It originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reaching against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world instead. Transcendentalism derived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, and from such English authors as Carlyle，Coleridge, and Wordsworth. The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature and Self-Reliance and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden..Symbolism象征主义：It is the writing technique of using symbols. It’s a literary movement that arose in France in the last half of the 19th century and that greatly influenced many English writer, particularly poets, of the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. It’s one of the most powerful devices thatpoets employ in creation.8.American naturalism：this term was cr eated by Emile Zola. Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory played an important role in naturalism. In the works off naturalism，characters were conceived as complex combinations of inherited attributes and habits conditioned by social and economic forces. At the end of the 19th century，this pessimistic form of realism appeared in america. Naturalism attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness. Characters in the works of naturalism were dominated by their environment and heredity. Naturalism emphasized：the world was around；men had no free will；religious“truth”were illusory；the destiny of human beings was misery in life and oblivion in death. The dominant figures in naturalism were Stephen crane，Frank Norris, Jack London and Theodore Dreiser.3.The lost generation: included the young English and American expatriates as well as men and women caught in the war and cut from the old value and yet unable to come to terms with the new era when civilization had gone mad. These writers adopted unconventional style of writing and reacted against the tendencies of the older writers in the 1920s. The term came from Gertrude Stein who said in Hemingway's presence that“you are all a lost generation.”4.Local colorismAs a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s，it is defined by Hamlin Garland as having such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality of circumstantial(详细的) authenticity(确实性), as local colorists tried to immortalize(使不朽) the distinctive natural, social and linguistic features. It is characteristic of vernacular(本.国语) language and satirical(讽刺的) humor. The major local colorist is Mark Twain.5.Jazz age: the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the term"Jazz Age" retroactively to refer to the decade after World War I and before the stock market crash in 1929, during which Americans embarked upon what he called "the gaudiest spree in history". Jazz Age is inextricably associated with the wealthy white"flappers" and socialites immortalized in Fitzgerald's fiction.6.Free verse: is a poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure, instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech. While it alternates stressed and unstressed syllables as stricter verse forms do, free verse does so in a looser way. Whitman's poetry is an example of free verse at its most impressive. It has since been used by Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and other major American can poets of the 20th century.7.The iceberg analogy: The Iceberg Theory is a writing theory by American writer Ernest Hemingway, as follows：if a writer of a prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader，if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them.1.Poe's Poetic IdeasA.His conviction that the function of poetry is not to summarize and interpret earthly experience,but to create a mood in which the soul soars toward supernal beauty.B.He insists that poetry must be disembarrassed of that moral sense.C.Poe believes that the elevation of excitement of the soul should be “the poetic principle” thuspoe try must concern itself only with “supernal beauty”.D.Poe defines poetry as “the rhythmical creation of beauty” a definition giving unexampledemphasis upon the importance of the rhythmical or musical element in poetry.2．Whitman's style1) The sprawling lines of the poems are often extremely long.2) Parallelism: the parallel lines say the same thing but use different words.3) Envelope structure: the first line begins with the subject, and then more and more lines list modifiers till the verb appears in the last line of the stanza. This is like enclosing a whole list of ideas in an envelope.4) Catalogue technique: means listing. Typical poems by Whitman make long, long lists of images, ofsights, sounds, smells, taste, and touch.5) No regular pattern.6) The verse unit is usually an independent clause.3．Formal features of Dickinson's poetryA.Dickson's poems are usually based on her own experience, her sorrows and joys. Dickinson wasoriginal. She sounded idiosyncratic, sometimes.B.Love is another subject Dickinson dwells on.C.Many poems Dickinson wrote are about nature, in which her general skepticism about therelationship between man and nature is well-expressed. Dickinson sees nature as both gailybenevolent and cruel.D.Dickinson's poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no titles, henceare always quoted by their first lines.E.On the ethical level Dickinson emphasizes free will and human responsibility.All these characteristics of her poetry were to become popular through Stephen Crane with the Imagists such as Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell in the 20th century. She became, with Stephen Crane, the precursor of the Imagist moverment.4．The theme and techniques in Eliot's "The Waste Land"Theme：The theme is modern spiritual barrenness, the despair and depression that followed the WWI, the sterility and turbulence of the modern world, and the decline and break-down of western culture. It also shows the search for regeneration by people living in a chaotic world.Technique：The poem’s noti ceable characteristics are varied length and rhythm to harmonize with the changing subject matter, the unrhymed lines, lots of borrowings from some thirty-five different writers, the employment of materials such as the legends of the Holy Grail, Frazer’s a nthropological work The Golden Bough several popular songs, and passages in six foreign languages, including Sanskrit. The poem, therefore, is obscure and hard to understand, needless to say its absence of logical continuity. The poem The Wast Land by T. S. Eliot, nevertheless, is broadly acknowledged as one of the most recognizable landmarks of modernism.5．Analysis of "Richard Cory" by Edwin Arlington Robinson"Richard Cory" is a short dramatic poem about a man whose outward appearance belies his inner turmoil. The tragedy in the poem reflects in its spirit the tragedies in Edwin Arlington Robinson's own life: Both of his brothers died young, his family suffered financial failures, and Robinson himself endured hardship before his poetry gained recognition—thanks in part to praise from an influential reader of them, Theodore Roosevelt.Robinson published the poem himself in 1897 as part of a poetry collection called Children of the Night. The poem is a favorite of students and teachers because of the questions it poses about the the title character.6．Comment on"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert FrostA.It is a peaceful poem and makes man feel relaxed when we read the lines: "The only other sounds the sweep of easy wind and downy flake." Frost also uses alliteration and repetition in his poems. The rhyme scheme he uses is a-a-b-a.B.It is one of the most quietly moving of Frost’s lyrics. On the surface, it seems to be simple, descriptive verses, records of close observation, graphic and homely pictures.C.It uses the simplest terms and commonest words. But it is deeply meditative, adding far-reaching meanings to the homely music. It uses its superb craftsmanship to come to a climax of responsibility: the promises to be kept, the obligation to be fulfilled. Few poems have said so much in so little.7.Theme and technique in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald1. Themes of The Great Gatsby: It resents the decline of the American dream in1920s, the hollowness of the upper class and the falseness of ideals and moves toward disillusion.2. Now Gatsby’s life follow a clear pattern: there is, at first, a dream, then disenchantment, and finallya sense of failure and despair. Gatsby’s personal experience approximates the whole of the American experience up to the first few decades of the 20th century.3. The novel is the presentation of the 1920s, and of what has become known as American Dream. 8.ment on Hemingway's style and Farewell to Arms"1. Hemingway was a glamorous public hero of sorts whose style of writing and living was probably more imitated than any other writers in human memory.2. In one sense Hemingway wrote all his life about one theme, which is neatly summed up in the famous phrase, “grace under pressure”, and created one hero who acts that theme out.3. In the same way that Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age becomes a symbol for an age, Hemingway’s book paints the image of a whole generation, the Lost Ge neration.4. Lieutenant Henry in A Farewell to Arms stands the Hemingway hero, an average man of decidedly masculine taste sensitive and intelligent, a man of action; and with other people, somewhat an outsider, keeping emotion under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one cannot have happiness.5. Hemingway’s world is a world essentially chaotic and meaningless, in which man fights a solitary struggle against a force he does not even understand.6. The war dominates so that the love story represents a mere dream and the brutal and atrocious realities of life do not allow materializing it.10.Analyze "Dry September" by William Faulkner11.“Dry September” was written in 1931, and is a well-known story of Faulkner.This story touches upon the strange relationship between sex and violence, examines the psychological state of the main characters, and exposes the crime of racial discrimination which makes one bristle with anger.The tone of this story contributes much to its effectiveness, particularly to the imagery of infernal heat and dryness and to the setting itself.From the character Miss Minnie the reader could perceive the obvious impact of Freud’s ideas on William Faulkner.。
美国文学史及选读的名词解释（全）
1. American Puritanism it it comes comes comes from from from the the the American American American puritans, puritans, puritans, who who who were were were the the the first first first immigrants immigrants immigrants moved moved moved to to American continent in the 17th century. Original sin, predestination （预言）（预言） and salvation （拯救） were the basic ideas of American Puritanism. And, hard-working, piousness （虔诚,尽职）， thrift and sobriety （清醒）（清醒）（清醒） were praised. 2. Romanticism: the literature term was first applied to the writers of the 18th century in Europe who broke away from the formal rules of classical writing. When it was used used in in in American American American literature literature literature it it it referred referred referred to to to the the the writers writers writers of of of the the the middle middle middle of of of the the 19th century century who who who stimulated stimulated （刺激）（刺激） the the sentimental sentimental sentimental emotions emotions emotions of of of their their their readers. readers. They wrote of the mysterious of life, love, birth and death. The Romantic writers expressed themselves freely and without restraint. They wrote all all kinds kinds of materials, poetry, essays, plays, fictions, history, works of travel, and biography. 3. 2. 2. Transcendentalism Transcendentalism Transcendentalism ((先验说,超越论): ): is is is a a a philosophic philosophic philosophic and and and literary literary literary movement movement that that flourished flourished flourished in in in New New New England, England, England, particular particular particular at at at Concord, Concord, Concord, as as as a a a reaction reaction reaction against against Rationalism Rationalism and and and Calvinism Calvinism Calvinism ((理性主义and 喀尔文主义). ). Mainly Mainly Mainly it it it stressed stressed intuitive intuitive understanding understanding understanding of of of God, God, God, without without without the the the help help help of of of the the the church, church, church, and and and advocated advocated independence of the mind. The representative writers are Emerson and Thoreau. 4. Local colorism: as a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s ，it is defined by Hamlin Garland as having such quality of texture and and background background background that that that it it it could could could not not not have have have been been been written written written in in in any any any other other other place place place or or or by by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality of circumstantial(详细的) authenticity(确实性), as local colorists tried to immortalize(使不朽) ) the the the distinctive distinctive distinctive natural, natural, natural, social social social and and and linguistic linguistic linguistic features. features. features. It It It is is characteristic of vernacular(本国语本国语) language and satirical(讽刺的) humor 5. Stream of consciousness （意识流）： It is one of the modern literary techniques. It is is the the the style style style of of of writing writing writing that that that attempts attempts attempts to to to imitate imitate imitate the the the natural natural natural flow flow flow of of of a a a character’s character’s thoughts, thoughts, feelings, feelings, feelings, reflections, reflections, reflections, memories, memories, memories, and and and mental mental mental images images images as as as the the the character character experiences experiences them. them. them. It It It was was was first first first used used used in in in 1922 1922 1922 by by by the the the Irish Irish Irish novelist novelist novelist James James James Joyce. Joyce. Those novels broke through the bounds of time and space, and depicted vividly and and skillfully skillfully skillfully the the the unconscious unconscious unconscious activity activity activity of of of the the the mind mind mind fast fast fast changing changing changing and and and flowing flowing incessantly 。
美国文学史名词解释_综合版
美国文学史名词解释_综合版第一篇：美国文学史名词解释_综合版美国文学选读复习资料the settlement of North American continent by English started in the early 17th century.Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World—a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England.Puritanism, however was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincidentwith the founding of New Zealand;it was also a way of being in the world—a style of response to lived experience—that has reverberated through American life ever since.As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind.American Puritanism also had a enduring influence on American literature.American Romanticism The Romantic Period stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War.• Romanticism was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism.(subjectivity)• For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions were more important thanreason and common sense.• They emphasized individualism, placing the individual against the group,against authority.• The affirmed the inner life of the self, and wanted to be free to develop andexpress his own inner thoughts.New England Poets: William Cullen Bryant;Henry Wadsworth Longfellow;Writers: James Fenimaore Cooper The Spy(1821)The Leatherstocking Tales(1823—1841)The Pilot(1824)The Red Rover(1827)Washington Irving（“The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Grayon” “Bracebridge Hall”“Tales of a Traveller”“The History of the Life and Voyages of ChristopherColumbus ”）American TranscendentalismIn the realm of art and literature it meant the shattering of pseudo-classic rules and forms in favor of a spirit of freedom, the creation of works filled with the new passion for nature and common humanity and incarnating a fresh sense of the wonder, promise, and romance of life.Transcendentalism① The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe.② The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual.To them, the individual is the most important element of Societ y.③ The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.Nature was not purely matter.It was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence.Writers Emerson’s：Nature；Self-Reliance；The American Scholar；The Over-soul；H.D.Thoreau：WaldenHenry Wadsworth LongfellowWalt Whitman：Leaves of Grass Emily Dickinson：I Died for Beauty；Because I couldnot stop for DeathWilliam Faulkner(1897-19621949 Nobel priceAs I Lay Dying(1930)Light in the August(1932)Absalom, Absalom(1936)Go Down Moses(1942)Ernest HemingwayIceberg Principle(Theory)“grace under pressure”Major Works:The Sun Also Rises 1926(Jake Barnes)A Farewell to Arms 1928(a tragic story about war and love)(Frederic Henry andCatherine Barkley)For Whom the Bell Tolls 1940(Spanish civil war)(Robert Jordan)The Old Man and the Sea 1952(Santiago)Herman Melville代表作：白鲸Moby DickOther Works are: Billy Budd,Typee, Omoo, Mardi.Nathaniel HawthorneThe Scarlet LetterMosses from an Old Manse;Twice-Told Tales;The Marble Faun;The House of theSeven GablesRealismAs a literary movement, the Age of Realism came into existence after Romanticismwith the Civil War It was a reaction against “the lie” of Romanticism andsentimentalism, and paved the way to Modernism.This literary interest in the so-called “reality” of life started a new period in theAmerican literary writing known as The Age of Realism.local colorism is a type of writing that was popular in the late 19th(1860s—1870s).The feature of local colorism are:(1)presenting a localedistinguished from the outside world;(2)describing the exoticof the picturesque;(3)glorifying the past;(4)showing things as they are;(5)influence of setting oncharacters.The well known local colorism authors were Mark Twain with his bookTom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Bret Harte’s with his TheLuck of the Roaring Camp.American naturalists accepted the more negativeinterpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to accout for the behaviorof those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complexcombinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economicforces.2)naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writingbecomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic.It isno more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to humanexistence.3>Dreiser with his Sister Carrie is a leading figure of his school.1917.The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry by “the directtreatment of the thing” and the economy of wording.“poetic techniques to recordexactly the momentary impressions”Three main principles of the Imagist Movement(1912):[1] direct treatment of poetic subjects[2] elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words,to use no word that doesnot contribute to the presentation.[3] rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in thesequence of a metronome.4> pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-knownpoem.The Modern PeriodPart I The 1920s-1930s(the second renaissance of American literature)l The Roaring Twenties(economically)l The Jazz Age(socially)l“lost” and “waste land”(spiritually)There had been a big flush of new theories and new ideas in both social and naturalsciences.Darwinism(Darwin), Socialism(Karl Marx), Psychoanalysis(Sigmund Freud)The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe thepost-war I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense ofbetrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full ofyouthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, hadlove affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the threebest-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway andJohn dos Passos.The Beat Generation is a group of American young writersand artists popular in the 1950s and early 1960s.the member of the beat generationwere new bohemian libertines, who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy,creativity.The beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non conformity and for its non conforming style.The major writing are jack Kerouac’s on the road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.American DreamThe is the idea held by many in the United States that through hard work, courage and determination one could achieve prosperity.These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations.The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America.IMAGERY: A common term of variable meaning, imagery includes the “mental pictures” that readers experience with a passage of literature.It signifies all the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem, whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor.PuritanismAmerican Puritanism was practice and belief of Puritans.Puritans were the people who wanted to purify the Church of England and then were persecuted in England.They came to America for various reasons.But because they were a group of serious and religious people, they carried a code of value and a philosophy of life.To them, religion was the most important thing.They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original s in, total depravity and limited atonement for God’s grace.They also believed in hard working, piety and sobriety.In a word, American Puritanism exerted great influences upon American thought and literature.第二篇：美国文学史名词解释It were flourishing from the beginning of 17th to the middle period of 18th.They stressed predestination, original sin, total depravity, and limited atonement from God‟s grace.They went to America to prove that they were God‟s chosen people who would enjoy God‟s blessings on earth and in Heaven.Finally, they built a way of life that stressed hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety.Both doctrinaire and an opportunist.Its Influence on literary were as follows:（影响）(1)American Literature is based on a myth------the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden.(2)The American Puritan‟s metaphorical made of perception----symbolism.The representatives were Edwards(The Freedom of the Will), Franklin(On the Art of Self-improvement), Crevecoeur(Letters from an American Farmer).代表作家及代表作：Captain John SmithTrue Relation of Virginia(1608)Anne Bradstreet“To My Dear and Loving Husband”Benjamin Franklin:The Autobiography of Benjamin FranklinRomanticism was a complex artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution.Elements of Romanticism1.Frontier: vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations.2.Optimism: greater than in Europe because of the presence of frontier.不要这么多，我就删掉了3、4、5条。
美国文学史名词解释
1、Romanticism浪漫主义a movement of the 18th and 19th century that affected the whole of Europe and America.It is the predominance of imagination over reason and formal rules and over the sense of fact or the actual, a psychological desire to escape from unpleasant realities.Romanticism was a movement in literature, philosophy, music and art which developed in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.It emphasized individual values and aspirations above those of society as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution.It looked to the Middle Ages and to direct contact with nature for inspiration的特点：frequently shared certain general characteristics, moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that he natural world was a source of corruption.浪漫主义之间大多是相通的，都注重道德，强调个人主义价值观和直觉感受，并且认为自然是美的源头，人类社会是腐败之源。
美国文学史复习 名词解释
I. Explain the following literary terms.1.RomanticismThe most profound and comprehensive idea of romanticism is the vision of a greater personal freedom for the individual. Appeals to imagination; Stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, geniality. Subjectivity: in form and meaning.2American transcendentalismAmerican transcendentalism was an important movement in philosophy and literature that flourished during the early to middle years of the nineteenth century (about 1836-1860). For the transcendentalists, the soul of each individual is identical with the soul of the world and contains what the world contains.3Realism: “nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.” the Civil wara. verisimilitude of details derived from observationb. representative in plot, setting and characterc. an objective rather than an idealized view of human experience4. Modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. The general term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States starting at the turn of the 20th century with its core period between World War I and World War II and continuing into the 21st century.II. Questions and Answers. Give brief answers to each of the following questions in English.1.What is local color？an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things immediately observable: the dialects, customs, sights, and sounds of regional America”2. What is American Puritanism1). Total Depravity - the concept of Original Si2). Unconditional Election - the concept of predestination3). Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only, not for everyone.4). Irresistible Grace - God's grace is freely given, it cannot be earned or denied.5). Perseverance of the "saints" - those elected by God have full power to interpret the will of God, and to live uprightly. If anyone rejects grace after feeling its power in his life, he will be going against the will of God.3. Analyze Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography.themes in autobiography: Self- Improvement Mind: Self-education Body: Physical ActivityBehavior: Moral Perfection Religion: The best service to God is to be good to man Benjamin Franklin and aspects of The American DreamRags to Riches: Impotence to Importance: A Philosophy of Individualism:Freewill vs. Determinism: Hope and Optimism:The Autobiography is a record of self-examination and self-improvement.Benjamin Franklin was a spokesman for the new order of the 18th century enlightenmentThe Autobiography is a how-to-do-it book, a book on the art of self-improvement. (for example, Franklin’s 13 virtues)Through telling a success story of self-reliance, the book celebrates, in fact, the fulfillment of the American dream.The Autobiography is in the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision4. What is Imagism?It is a movement of English and American poets in revolt from Romanticism, which flourish 1910-1917. The characteristic products of the movement are more easily recognized than its theories defined: they tend to be short ,composed of short lines of musical cadence rather than metrical regularity, to avoid abstraction, and to treat the image with a hard, clear precision rather than with overt symbolic intent.As part of the modernist movement, away from the sentimentality and moralizing tone of nineteenth-century Victorian poetry, imagist poets looked to many sources to help them create a new poetic expression, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images. III. Topic discussion.1. Discuss Allen Poe’s literary achievements with his works.famous American poet, short-story writer and critic father of detective story master of gothic novel forerunner of symbolism a father of detective storyPoe introduced of a new form of short fiction--- the detective story.The word “detective” did not exist in English at the time that Poe was writing, but the genre has become a )fundamental mode of twentieth-century literature and film.b) master of gothic novelGothic novel, a genre that rose with Romanticism in Britain in the late eighteenth century, explores the dark side of human experience—death, alienation, nightmares, ghosts, and haunted landscapes. Poe brought the Gothic to America.Gothic novels originated from The Castle of Otranto, written by Horace Walpole in Britain at the end of the 18th century, which created the early classical Gothic novel mode.It leads habitually with darkness and horror. Gothic elements include horror, mystery, supernatural phenomenon, misfortune, death, haunted houses, and family curses.c Literary criticPoe is one of the few American writers who not only wrote poetry, but also wrote about how to write poetry. His critical essays on poetry include The Poetic Principle, and The Philosophy of Composition.Poe remained the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature.2. Analyze Freneau’s The Wild Honeysuckle.野金银花Philip Freneau as Father of American Poetry as Leader of 18th Century NaturalismThe following poem was published in his Poems (1786) and was virtually unread in the time when he was living.In the poem the poet expresses his keen awareness of the liveliness and transience of nature celebrating the beauty of the frail forest flower, thus showing his deep love for nature. The poem was written in six-line iambic tetrameter stanzas rhymed on ababcc pattern.The poem is said to anticipate the nineteenth-century romantic use of simple nature imagery. It is considered one of the author’s finest nature poems.Comments on The Wild Honey Suckle1. A flower may be the most beautiful and overlooked piece of nature. Cherish it while it lasts for by the change of each season it may dissipate only to become a desire. Perhaps Freneau knew of a beauty that only nature could describe, provoked by the insincerity of the British people.2. Philip Freneau, in this poem, was expressing his dream of a paradise in nature, or rather, on the new continent of America. His dream was the originality of the paradise on the earth, i.e, USA. The wild honey suckle is something of freedom, tranquility, nature, and of no convention, no suppression, no traditional or anything beyond the pure nature.This poem is not only a mere description of nature, but something ideal in the poet's construction of a real paradise of human beings. This paradise is of real freedom, pure nature, total independence, grand beauty. As we know, Freneau was against the British interference in the independence of the new land, and was hoping to establish a real free country of the people on the new Continent. So in my opinion, this poem was in fact the beautiful bode of a paradise in nature(on the earth), in very brief and true words. This paradise is independent without meeting any vicious interference, beautiful without catering to any viewer, tranquil but fearful of no hardships, wild in nature without any vulgar provocation.in this poem the poet expressed a keen awareness of the loveliness and transien ce of nature.he not only meditated on mortality but also celebrated nature.it im plies that life and death are inevitable law of nature,"the wild honey suckle"is philipfreneau's most widely read natureal lyric with the theme of transience.the central image is a nativewild flower,which makes a dra stic difference from elite flower images typical of tradition english poems.the poem showed strong feelings for the natural beauty,which was the characteristic of romantic.3. Analyze Poe’s To Helen and translate the third stanza in your own words.The theme of this short poem is the beauty of a woman with whom Poe became acquainted when he was 14. Apparently she treated him kindly and may have urged him–or perhaps inspired him–to write poetry. Beauty, as Poe uses the word in the poem, appears to refer to the woman's soul as well as her body. On the one hand, he represents her as Helen of Troy–the quintessence of physical beauty–at the beginning of the poem. On the other, he represents her as Psyche–the quintessence of soulful beauty–at the end of the poem. In Greek, psyche means soul.It was first published in 1831 collection Poems of Poe then reprinted in 1836 in the Southern Literary Messenger. Poe revised the poem in 1845, making several improvements, most notably changing "the beauty of fair Greece, and the grandeur of old Rome" to "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome." These improved lines are the most well-known lines of the poem. Imagery and Summary of the PoemPoe opens the poem with a simile–“Helen, thy beauty is to me / Like those Nicéan barks of yore”–that compares the beauty of Helen (Mrs. Stanard) with small sailing boats (barks) that carried home travelers in ancient times. He extends this boat imagery into the second stanza, when he says Helen brought him home to the shores of the greatest civilizations of antiquity, classical Greece and Rome. It may well have been that Mrs. Stanard’s beauty and other admirable qualities, as well as her taking notice of Poe’s writing ability, helped inspire him to write poetry that mimicked in some ways the classical tradition of Greece and Rome.Certainly the poem’s allusions to mythology and the classical age suggest that he had a grounding in, and a fondness for, ancient history and literature. In the final stanza of the poem, Poe imagines that Mrs. Stanard (Helen) is standing before him in a recess or alcove in front of a window. She is holding an agate lamp, as the beautiful Psyche did when she discovered the identity of Eros (Cupid).in the first stanza,helen's beauty is soothing.it provides security and safety.per haps the reader is expected to associate marlowe's famousline:was this the face that launched a thousand ships? to helen's beauty,for her beauty is as hypnoticfor the speaker as the ships that transported another wanderer-Ulysses-home from Troy.throughout the poem,Poe uses allusions to classical names and places,as well as certain kinds of images to create the impression of a far-off idealized,unreal w oman,like a Greek statue.words that support the image of an ideal woman are "hy acinth"and"classic""Naiad airs"and"statued like.helen stands,not like a real woman,bu t like a saint in a "windows-niche.she becomes a symbol both of beauty and of frustration,a romantically idealized,yet inaccessible image of the heart's desire. it's believed that few american poets can surpass Poe's ability in the use of english as a medium of pure musical and rhythmic beauty.Poe made good use of r hythm is not regular,which shows the poet was excited,the poem is a haunting me lody done with extreme artistry of alliteration as in "weary"and"way-worn",assonanc e as in "wont to roam"and masculine end rhyme,for example,with"me"rhythm with "se a",the rhyme scheme is ababb,cdcec,fggfg.in the poem words containing vowels or d iphthongs were used to bring about the slow rhythm which reveals the speaker's admiration and deep regret and suggest a theme that beauty is soothing yet inac cessible.in light of analysis above,the general tone of the poem is passionate a nd regretful.4. Discuss Mark Twain’s art of fiction: the setting, the language, and the characters, etc., based on his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.Huckleberry Finn (1884) was first considered adult fiction. Huck Finn, which painted a picture of Mississippi frontier life, was intended as a sequel to Tom Sawyer. Huck, who could not possibly write a story, tells us the story. Twain wrote a novel that embodies the search for freedom. He wrote during the post-Civil War period when there was an intense white reaction against blacks. According to some critics,[who?] Twain took aim squarely against racial prejudice, increasing segregation, lynchings, and the generally accepted belief that blacks were sub-human. He "made it clear that Jim was good, deeply loving, human, and anxious for freedom."[12] However, others have criticized the novel as racist, citing the use of the word "nigger" and Jim's Sambo-like character.[2][3]Throughout the story, Huck is in moral conflict with the received values of the society in which he lives, and while he is unable to consciously refute those values even in his thoughts, he makes a moral choice based on his own valuation of Jim's friendship and human worth, a decision in direct opposition to the things he has been taught. Mark Twain in his lecture notes proposes that "a sound heart is a surer guide than an ill-trained conscience," and goes on to describe the novelas "...a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat."[13]5. Discuss James Cooper’s literary contributions.Contributions of CooperThe creation of the famous Leather stocking saga has cemented his position as our first great national novelist and his influence pervades American literature. In his thirty-two years (1820-1851) of authorship, Cooper produced twenty-nine other long works of fiction and fifteen books - enough to fill forty-eight volumes in the new definitive edition of his Works. Among his achievements:1. The first successful American historical romance in the vein of Sir Walter Scott (The Spy, 1821).2. The first sea novel (The Pilot, 1824).3. The first attempt at a fully researched historical novel (Lionel Lincoln, 1825).4. The first full-scale History of the Navy of the United States of America (1839).5. The first American international novel of manners (Homeward Bound and Home as Found, 1838).6. The first trilogy in American fiction (Satanstoe, 1845; The Chainbearer, 1845; and The Redskins, 1846).7. The first and only five-volume epic romance to carry its mythic hero - Natty Bumppo - from youth to old age.James Fenimore Cooper was one of the first novelists to enjoy great fame as a result of his literary career and although some may argue that this is because the subject matter was entertaining (rather than instructive or socially conscious, for example) the fact remains that he was able to introduce Americans to their own frontier. A writer in the style of romanticism, James Fenimore Cooper was enamored with tales of the outdoors and encounters with strange and often hostile people or forces. This material was well-received and because of his literary success James Fenimore Cooper was able to produce his large body of works throughout his lifetime.6. Analyze Whitman’s One’s Self I Sing.Analysis of One’s Self I SingIn 1855 he published Leaves of Grass by himself at his own expense. His intention was to create a truly American poem, one "proportionate to our continent, with its powerful races of men, its tremendous historic events, its great oceans, its mountains, and its illimitable prairies." In fact, his poem goes beyond American subject to deal with the universal themes of nature, fertility, and mortality."One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person," run the opening lines of Leaves of Grass from 1871 on, "Yet utter the word Democratic." A poetic universe of productive tension is hinted by that "Yet"; the tense equipoise between individualism and democracy, this poem suggests, is the foundational theme of Whitman’s book. The poem then goes on to introduce the site and symbol for this reconciliation of individual to mass: the body, "physiology from top to toe." We receive individual identity through our body, . . . yet at the same time, physicality, and especially physical affection, are universal, binding us together in common humanity. Much of the boldly progressive politics of Whitman’s poetry will follow from this emphasis on the body; thus his introduction of the theme of "physiology" is followed by his (then quite radical) insistence on the political equality of male and female.In Whitman’s “One’s Self I Sing”, the theme of the poem, namely the celebration of both oneselfand the whole human beings, is realized at various levels. In this renowned short poem, Whitman trumpets the individualism that underlies American democracy and society, interpreting the politics of democracy into terms of everyday life. The poem is also presented as a drama of democratic identity in which the poet seeks to balance and reconcile major conflicts in the body politic of America: the conflict between "separate person" and "en masse," individualism and equality, liberty and union, female and male, or even alluding to the conflict with the South and the North, the farm and the city, labor and capital, black and white, religion and science. In Whitman’s “One’s Self I Sing”, the theme of the poem, namely the celebration of both oneself and the whole human beings, is realized at various levels. In this renowned short poem, Whitman trumpets the individualism that underlies American democracy and society, interpreting the politics of democracy into terms of everyday life. The poem is also presented as a drama of democratic identity in which the poet seeks to balance and reconcile major conflicts in the body politic of America: the conflict between "separate person" and "en masse," individualism and equality, liberty and union, female and male, or even alluding to the conflict with the South and the North, the farm and the city, labor and capital, black and white, religion and science.。
美国文学史期末考试复习资料
一、作者-作品1.Eugene O’Neill 尤金·奥尼尔Desire under the Elms榆树下的欲望2.Washington Irving华盛顿.欧文The Sketch Book见闻札记The Legend of Sleepy Hollow睡谷的传说3.Nathaniel Hawthorne霍桑The Scarlet Letter红字4.Herman Melville麦尔维尔Moby Dick白鲸5.Edgar Allan Poe艾伦.坡The Raven乌鸦6.Walt Whitman惠特曼Leaves of Grass草叶集7. Harriet Beecher Stowe 哈丽雅特.比彻.斯托Uncle Tom’s Cabin汤姆叔叔的小屋8. Henry James 亨利.詹姆斯in the Portrait of a Lady一位女士的肖像9.Mark Twain 马克.吐温TheAdventures ofHuckleberry Finn哈克贝里.费恩历险The Gilded Age镀金时代10. O. Henry 欧.亨利The Gift of the Magi麦琪的礼物11. Stephen Crane：史蒂芬.克莱恩The Red Badge of Courage红色英勇勋章12.Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞Sister Carrie嘉莉妹妹13.Jack London 杰克.伦敦The Call of the Wild野性的呼唤14. John Steinbeck 约翰.斯坦贝克The Grapes of Wrath愤怒的葡萄15.F. Scott Fitzgerald弗斯.菲茨杰拉德The Great Gatsby了不起的盖茨比16.Ernest Hemingway 海明威The Sun Also Rises太阳照样升起17.Katherine Anne Porter 凯瑟琳.安.波特Flowing Judas and other Stories犹大之花18. Ezra Pound 埃兹拉.庞德 Imagism 意象派The Cantos 诗章19.William Carlos Williams: 威廉.威廉姆斯The Red Wheelbarrow红色手推车20. Joseph Heller约瑟夫海勒：Catch-22 第22条军规21.Thomas Stearns Eliot爱略特The Waste Land荒原22.Zora Neal Hurston 佐拉.赫斯顿Their eyes were watching God 他们眼望上苍二、名词解释1.Transcendentalism超验主义:(1)As a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalis m (also known as “ American Renaissance”) flourshed in New England fr om the 1830s to the Civil War. It is the high tide of American romanticism and its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau. Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and agai nst the materialism of American society.(2)The major features of Transcendentalism:① The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想超灵宇宙② The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To t hem, the individual is the most important element of Society. 个体+社会③ The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbol ic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled w ith God’s overwhelming presence. 自然+上帝代表人物：Emerson, Thoreau2.The Gilded Age镀金时代：an age of excess and extremes, of decline and progress, of poverty and dazzling wealth, of gloom and buoyant hope. Although Americans continued to read the works of Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Poe, the great age of American romanticism had ended. By the 1870s the New England Renaissance had waned. 无节制、走极端，倒退和进步、贫困和富有并存，既令人沮丧又让人有希望的时代。
美国古代文学史名词解释、简答、论述题
美国古代文学史名词解释、简答、论述题本文旨在阐述美国古代文学发展史中的重要名词、简述相关内容及针对论述题展开适当讨论。
一、名词解释1. Puritanism（清教主义）：是17世纪时在英格兰和美洲流行的宗教改革运动。
清教徒最初移民纽英格兰是为了逃避英王的压迫。
清教徒的中包括坚信的意志对人的一切事宜具有决定性作用，反对世俗和欲望，鼓励个人的努力，强调个人的责任以及间接地强调了民主的概念。
2. Transcendentalism（超验主义）：是19世纪30年代美国文化中一股对启蒙运动的反动，反对理性主义和经验主义。
超验主义者认为人们应该依靠个人直觉和灵感开启心灵深处的真实，超越感官经验。
超验主义者强调个人的自由发展，自然的神秘和美好。
3. Regionalism（地方主义）：是19世纪晚期至20世纪初美国文学的一种流派。
运动的核心思想是反对现代工业化和全球化，提倡重视地方风景、文化和民俗，关注本土的人、事、物，并以此为原材料创作文学。
二、简答题1. Nathaniel Hawthorne的小说《红字》反映了哪些思想和文化特征？《红字》十分典型地表现了清教徒文化对美国文学的影响，其中包括对罪恶的强烈谴责和对个人自由的崇尚。
小说中的同情感是从人性中萃取出来的，同时还揭示了社会伦理和人性的冲突。
2. 简要说明Mark Twain的《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》中的重要主题。
《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》中最为重要的主题之一是反对奴隶制度和种族歧视。
小说通过边缘化非洲裔角色吉姆和他与哈克贝利的冒险来表达这一主题。
通过小说中的观点发表间接批判制奴政策和对黑人的压迫。
三、论述题威廉·福克纳的小说《荒野上的救世主》中如何体现了超验主义思想？《荒野上的救世主》小说通过多个角色的人生经历，呈现出一种东西方的宗教信仰和精神世界上的共性。
超验主义的思想在小说中得到了体现，例如鲍姆对科学和机械世界的愤恨，以及詹妮·霍查神秘的形象等等。
(完整word版)美国文学史名词解释
美国文学史名词解释Romanticism1. The American Romanticism covers the first half of the 19th century。
2. American Romanticism was both imitative and independent. Some of American romantic writing was modeled on English and European works. While it was in essence the expression of “a real new experience” and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien。
3。
The American national experience of “pioneering” into the west proved to be a rich fund of material for American writers to draw upon。
4。
The “newness” of the Americans as a nation is another major element connected with American Romanticism. Their ideals of individualism and political equality, and their dream that America was to be a new Garden of Eden for man were distinctly American. 5。
In technique they loved traditional meters and stanza forms； in language their English was usually British.6。
（完整版）美国文学史期末考试名词解释
（完整版）美国⽂学史期末考试名词解释2013-2014第⼆学期《美国⽂学》考查范围I.名词解释部分 20%1.Black Humorhe term black humor was created in 1920s, but it was not noticed until 1960s. It was particularly a literary phenomenon in America after WWII. Black humor,in literature, is drama, novel, and film, grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity,paradox and cruelty of the modern world.Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. Black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic face. Josegh Heller and Kury Vonnegut are famous for their novels of black humor. Especially Heller?s Catch—22.2.American TranscendentalismThe emergence of the Transcendentalists as an identifiable movement took place during the late 1820s and 1830s, but the roots of their religious philosophy extended much farther back into American religious history. Transcendentalism and evangelical Protestantism followed separate evolutionary branches from American Puritanism, taking as their common ancestor the Calvinism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the Universe. They stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual was the most important element of society. They offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was, to them, alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence. Transcendentalism is based on the belief that the most fundamental truths about life and death can be reached only by going beyond the world of the senses. Emerson’s Nature has been called the “Manifesto of American Transcendentalism” and his The American Scholar has been rightly regarded as America’s “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”.3.Jazz AgeThe Jazz Age refers to the period of the 1920s when Traditional values of the previous period declined while the American stock market soared. The age takes its name from popular music, which saw a tremendous surge in popularity. The characters of Jazz Age novels live in restless pursuit of stimulus and pleasure and wallow in heavy drinking,fast driving and casual sex.The phrase was coined by Fitzgerald,who greatly criticized this new era of 'relaxation' in novels such as The Great Gatsby.4.The Lost GenerationAfter the WWI, some young writers chose Paris as their place of exile and used their wartime experience as the basis for their works.Those young people were not off from old values and yet unable to come to terms with the new era. They wondered pointlessly and restlessly, while at the same time were aware that the world was crazy and meaningless.The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe the post-war I generation of American writers:1>men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the three best-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and John dos Passos.5.Harlem RenaissanceThe Harlem Renaissance, known as the "New Negro Movement", was a literary and intellectual flowering that fostered a new black cultural identity in the 1920s and 1930s.During this period, the black community was able to seize upon its "first chances for group expression and self determination." the Harlem Renaissance is considered to have transformed "social disillusionment to race pride."6.ImagismA poetic movement of England and the U.S. that flourished from 1909 to 1917. The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. “poetic techniques to record exactly the momentary impressions” Three main principles of the Imagist Movement (1912) :[1] direct treatment of poetic subjects[2] elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words, to use no word that does not contribute to the presentation.[3] rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the s equence of a metronome.7.Free Versefree verse is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length, and that attempts avoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadenees of natural speech. While it alternates stressed and unstressed syllables as stricter verse forms do ,free verse does so in a looser way. Whitman’s poetry is an example of free verse at it s most impressive,for example Song of Myself. It has since been used Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and other major American poets of the 20th century.Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is, perhaps , the most notable example.8.TragedyIn general, a literary work in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous end. Unlike comedy, tragedy depicts the actions of a central character who is usually dignified or heroic.9.MythMyth is a fictional tale originally with religious significance,which explains the actions of gods or heroes,the causes of natural phenomena,or both.Allusions to characters and motifs from Greek,Roman,Celtic myths are common in English literature.10.PostmodernismA term referring to certain radically experimental works of literature and art produced after World War II. Postmodernism is distinguished from modernism,which generally refers to the revolution in art and literature that occurred during the period of 1910 through 1930,particularly following the disillusion experience of World War I.The postmodern era,with its potential for mass destruction and its shocking history of genocide,has evoked a continuing disillusionment similar to that widely experienced during the Modern period.Much of postmodernist writing reveals and highlights the alienation of individuals and the mindlessness of human existence.Postmodernists frequently stress that human desperately(and ultimately unsuccessfully)cling to illusions of security to conceal and forget the void over which their lives are perched.II⽂本解读部分（50%）以问答作业中出现的作家，作品为主。
美国文学史名词解释
A m e r i c a n P u r i t a n i s m美国清教主义Simply speaking, American Puritanism just refers to the spirit and ideal of puritans who settled in the North American continent in the early part of the seventeenth century because of religious persecutions.美国清教主义指的是清教徒的精神和理想的定居在北美大陆十七世纪初期由于内容的宗教迫害;It migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England. 它为新英格兰奠定了宗教,知识和社会秩序的基础; Puritans adhered to the Five Points of Calvinism as codified at the Synod of Dort: unconditional election, limited atonement, total depravity, irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints. 清教徒遵循加尔文派于多特宗教会议上制定的五点信条：无条件拣选,有限救赎,完全堕落,不可抗拒的恩典,以及圣徒的坚守;It is basis of American literature. All literature is based on a myth –garden of Eden.It contributing to the development of Symbolism: a technique, widely used.它是美国文学的基础;所有文学基于一个神话——伊甸园;它的发展导致的象征主义:技术,广泛使用;American Romanticism 美国浪漫主义The Romantic Period, one of the most important periods in the history of American literature, stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass.浪漫主义时期是美国文学历史上最重要的时期,从18世纪末延伸至爆发内战;它始于华盛顿·欧文的见闻札记,以惠特曼的草叶集结束;In literature it was America’s first great creative period, a full flowering of the romantic impulse on American soil. 在文学上,这个时期是美国第一次伟大的创作期,浪漫主义的种子在北美的土壤里生根发芽;American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real new experience”and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien.美国浪漫主义在本质上是一个“全新的经历”的表达,因为这个新大陆充满着生机和活力而使美国的浪漫主义蕴含异国的气质;Puritan influence over American romanticism was conspicuously noticeable. American romantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained.清教主义对美国浪漫主义有着显着的影响;浪漫主义作家往往更讲道德;许多浪漫主义作品旨在陶冶他们过瘾了;Subjectivity, back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature, back to nature is romanticism’s characteristics. 主体性,回到中世纪,尤其是中世纪民间文学,回归自然是浪漫主义的特征;It stressing emotion rather than reason, stressing freedom and individuality, Idealism rather than materialism. Writing about nature, medieval legends and with supernatural elements. 强调情感,而不是原因,强调自由和个性,理想主义,而不是唯物主义;写关于自然、中世纪的传说和超自然的元素American Transcendentalism 美国超验主义It is the summit of American Romanticism. 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. 它是美国浪漫主义的顶峰;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;The transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. They stressed the importance of the individual. Taking nature as the symbol of the Spirit. 超验主义者强调精神,或超灵,认为它是是宇宙中最重要的事情;他们强调个人的重要性,以自然为精神的象征;It helped to create the first American renaissance –one of the most prolific period in American literature. It marked the independence of American literature. 建立第一个美国文艺复兴时期,美国文学中最多产时期之一;标志着美国文学的独立;The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Emerson in such essays as Nature, and Self-Reliance and by Thoreau in his book Walden.超验主义思想在爱默生的论自然和论自立以及梭罗的瓦尔登湖等书中表现的淋漓尽致;Free verse 自由诗Free verse is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure; it uses the cadences of nature speech. Free verse does so in a looser way. Whitman’s poetry is an example of free verse at its most impressive. Such as the Song of Myself. Whitman who pioneered the form and made it acceptable in American poetry. 自由诗是一种诗体,押韵和句子长度都不规则,而是采取正常说话的方式,避免固定的诗体结构;它使用大自然的韵律演讲;自由诗比较松散;惠特曼的诗歌是自由诗的最好例子;例如自我之歌;惠特曼被认为是美国自由诗的先驱;Alliteration 头韵It refers to the repetition of the same sounds----usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllables----in any sequence of neighboring words:”Landscape-lover, lord of language”Tennyson. Such poetry, in which alliteration rather than rhyme is the chief principle of repetition, is known as alliteration verse. 头韵是两个单词或两个单词以上的首字母相同,形成悦耳的读音,最常见的押头韵的短语”Landscape-lover, lord of language”丁尼生;主要使用重复头韵的诗歌被称为头韵体诗歌,其元音相互押韵;Scarlet Letter A: Adultery to Able to Angel Nathaniel Hawthorne Characters: Hester Prynne heroine, attractive, active towards the sinRoger Chillingworth Hester's husband, emotionless, only thinking about revenge, real vallain in the novel, signifying pure intellect which was merciless in Hawthorne's mindArthur Dimmesdale a handsome and admirable young priest, contraditionary on the sin he made with Hester, being a brave man at last Theme: The theme of the story should be the moral, emotional and psychological effects of the sin on people.Scarlet Letter is a cultural allegory, in which the author indirectly tells the future of Puritanism.Scarlet Letter is a sample in which American Romanticism adapted itself to American Puritanism.Because of the strong influence of Puritanism in American society, Hawthorne only expressed his ideas on the sin indirectly by employing symbolism.Moby Dick Herman MelvilleMoby-dick is regarded as the Great American Novel, the first American prose epic. known as the whaling encyclopedia.Moby-Dick tells the story how Ahab,the captain of a whaling ship,is determined to kill the white whale for it has crippled one of his legs.Ambiguity You can understand his Moby Dick differently.First, it can be understand as a tragedy of man fighting against overwhelming odds in an indifferent and even hostile universe. Thus, Captain Ahab is a hero who dares to fight though he failed at last.Nowadays some new research indicated that the story means man should protect the nature otherwise man will be punished as those whalers in the story were punished by the whale.Symbolismthe voyage: the search for the ultimate truth of experience.Moby Dick: the final mystery of the universe which man will do well to desist from pursuing.style: periodical chapters; rich rhythmical prose; great poetical power.。
美国文学简史名词解释
Puritanism:the settlement of North American continent by English started in the early 17th century. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World—a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England. Puritanism, however was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincident with the founding of New Zealand; it was also a way of being in the world—a style of response to lived experience—that has reverberated through American life ever since. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind. American Puritanism also had a enduring influence on American literature.Romanticism ：The Romantic Period stretches from the end of the 18th \century through the outbreak of the Civil War.Romanticism was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. (subjectivity)For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions were more important than reason and common sense.They emphasized individualism, placing the individual against the group, against authority.They affirmed the inner life of the self, and wanted to be free to develop and express his own inner thoughts.Transcendentalism:In the realm of art and literature it meant the shattering of pseudo-classic rules and forms in favor of a spirit of freedom, the creation of works filled with the new passion for nature and common humanity and incarnating a fresh sense of the wonder, promise, and romance of life.Transcendentalism①The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the oversoul , as the most important thing in the universe.②The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual is the most important element of Society.③ The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence.RealismAs a literary movement, the Age of Realism came into existence after Romanticism with th e Civil War It was a reaction against “the lie” of Romanticism and sentimentalism, and paved the way to Modernism. This literary interest in the so-called “reality” of life started a new period in the American literary writing known as The Age of Realism.Psychological RealismIt is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters’ thoughts and motivations. And Henry James is considered the founder of psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in the impressions made by life on the spectator, and not in any facts of which the spectator is unaware. Such realism is therefore merely the obligation that the artist assumes to represent life as he sees it.Local colorism: local colorism is a type of writing that was popular in the late 19th(1860s—1870s). The feature of local colorism are: (1) presenting a locale distinguished from the outside world; (2)describing the exotic of the picturesque;(3)glorifying the past; (4) showing things as they are; (5) influence of setting o n characters.Black humor: the term black humor was created in 1920s, but it was not noticed until 1960s. it was particularly a literary phenomenon in America after WWⅡ. Black humor, in literature, is drama, novel, and film, grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. Black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic face. Josegh Heller and Kury V onnegut are famous for their novels of black humor. Especially Heller’s Catch—22.The novels of such writers as Kurt V onnegut, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth contain elements of black humor.Naturalism: The American naturalists accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to accout for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.2) naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.3>Dreiser with his Sister Carrie is a leading figure of his school.Imagism:A poetic movement of England and the U.S. that flourished from 1909 to 1917. The movement insists on the cre ation of images in poetry by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. “poetic techniques to record exactly the momentary impressions”Three main principles of the Imagist Movement (1912) :[1] direct treatment of poetic subjects [2] elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words, to use no word that does not contribute to the presentation.[3] rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence o f a metronome. 4> pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known poem.Harlem Renaissance：Harlem Renaissance refers to a period of outstanding literary vigor and creativity that occurred in the United states during the 1920s.2> the Harlem Renaissance changed the images of literature created by many black and white American writers. New black images were no longer obedient and docile. Instead they showed a new confidence and racial pride. 3> the center of this movement was the vast black ghetto of Harlem. In New Y ork City.4> the leading figures are langston Hughes, James W.Johnson.etc主要作品：The Weary Blues, The Dream keeper and Other Poems, Fine Clothes to the JewThe Modern PeriodPart I The 1920s-1930s ( the second renaissance of American literature)l The Roaring Twenties (economically)l The Jazz Age (socially)l “lost” and “waste land” (spiritually)There had been a big flush of new theories and new ideas in both social and natural sciences.Darwinism(Darwin), Socialism (Karl Marx), Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud)Lost generation:The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe the post-war I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the three best-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and John dos Passos.The Beat Generation:The Beat Generation is a group of American young writers and artists popular in the 1950s and early 1960s. the member of the beat generation were new bohemian libertines, who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity. The beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non conformity and for its non conforming style. The major writing are jack Kerouac’s on the road and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.American DreamThe is the idea held by many in the United States that through hard work, courage and determination one could achieve prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations.The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America. Allegory is a narrative that serves as an extended metaphor. Allegories are written in the form of fables, parables, poems, stories, and almost any other style or genre. The main purpose of an allegory is to tell a story that has characters, a setting, as well as other types of symbols, that have both literal and figurative meanings. One well-known example of an allegory is Dante’s The Divine Comedy.In Inferno, Dante is on a pilgrimage to try to understand his own life, but his character also represents every man who is in search of his purpose in the world.Alliteration is a pattern of sound that includes the repetition of consonant sounds. The repetition can be located at the beginning of successive words or inside the words. Poets often use alliteration to audibly represent the action that is taking place.Aside is an actor’s speech, directed to the audience, that is not supposed to be heard by other actors on stage. An aside is usually used to let the audience know what a character is about to do or what he or she is thinking. Asides are important because they increase an audience's involvement in a play by giving them vital information pertaining what is happening, both inside of a character's mind and in the plot of the play.Gothic is a literary style popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. This style usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other “dark” subjects. Gothic literature was named for the apparent influence of the dark gothic architecture of the period on the genre. Also, many of these Gothic tales took places in such “gothic” surroundings. Other times, this story of darkness may occur in a more everyday setting, such as the quaint house where the man goes mad from the "beating" of his guilt in Edgar Allan Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart.”In essence, these stories were romances, largely due to their love of the imaginary over the logical, and were told from many different points of view.Catharsis is an emotional discharge that brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety. According to Aristotle, catharsis is the marking feature and ultimate end of any tragic artistic work.imagery: A common term of variable meaning, imagery includes the "mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of literature. It signifies all the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem, whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor. Surrealism is an artistic movement doing away with the restrictions of realism and verisimilitude that might be imposed on an artist. In this movement, the artist sought to do away with conscious control and instead respond to the irrational urges of the subconscious mind. From this results the hallucinatory, bizarre, often nightmarish quality of surrealistic paintings and writings. Sample surrealist writers include Frank O'Hara, John Ashberry, and Franz Kafka.PuritanismAmerican Puritanism was practice and belief of Puritans. Puritans were the people who wanted to purify the Church of England and then were persecuted in England. They came to America for various reasons. But because they were a group of serious and religious people, they carried a code of value and a philosophy of life. To them, religion was the most important thing. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin, total depravity and limited atonement for God’s grace. They also believed in hard working, piety and sobriety. In a word, American Puritanism exerted great influences upon American thought and literature.。
美国文学史名词解释
1. American Puritanism: is a code of values, a philosophy of life, and a point of view；in essence, it is an idealism；it is the basis of American dream, but it is also concerned with business and profit.3. Realism: is a reaction against "the lie" of Romanticism and sentimentalism in the later half of the 19th century. It expressed the concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low.5. Local colorism: a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early seventies. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They formed an important part of the realistic movement.6. American Naturalism: is a branch and a furtherance of American Realism in the late 19th century. Naturalists 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（遗传）；they reported truthfully and objectively, with a passion for scientific accuracy and an overwhelming accumulation of factual detail；Naturalists reveal a bitter and wretched world where human beings battle hopelessly against overwhelming odds in a cold, harsh and at best apathetic environment.7.Imagism: Imagist movement came as a reaction to the traditional English poetics to meet the need of expressing the temper of the age, the sense of fragmentization and dislocation.（three phases: ① It first began in London in the years 1908-1909. T. E. Hulme founded a Poets' Club which met in Soho every Wednesday to dine and discuss poetry. ②The second phase of the movement was the period of some three years 1912-1914 when Ezra Pound took over and championed the new poetry. ③ The third phase of Imagism（1914-1917）was when Amy Lowell took over from Pound and pushed the movement into the period of "Amygism," as Pound called it.）8. The Lost Generation: is a term coined by Gertrude Stein. It is a label for the group of American young expatriate writers born at turn 20th century and reached maturing after World War I. These writers felt profound cut off from tradition, disillusioned and alienated with society and cynical idealism. To them, life ismeaningless and futile. F. Scott. Fitigerald, Ernst Hemingway, T. S. Eliot are the most important representatives.9. Iceberg Theory: If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those as strongly as though the writer had said. The dignity of the movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it begin above water.10. The Y oknapatawpha county series：It have overall pattern in which the fate of a ruined homeland always focus on the collision of Faulkner’s intelligence sensitive and isealistic protagonist with the society of the 20th century. Most of the major themes are the confrontation.11. The Hemingway hero: the typical Hemingway hero is one who wounded but strong, more sensitive and wounded because stronger, enjoys the pleasures of life (sex, alcohol, sport) in face of ruin and death and maintains, through some notion of a code, an ideal of himself.。
美国文学史期末考试资料
殖民时期的美国: Colonial America 17c早——18c末1. 从英国探险者和殖民者在新大陆的作品开始，描述他们在新大陆真实而精力充沛的冒险。
2. 另一类为清教作品Philip Freneau 菲利普·费瑞诺：第一位美国抒情诗人兼记者“Father of American Poetry”(美国诗歌之父)Puritanism: 清教主义American Puritanism influences on American literature:1. Idealism and optimism 理想主义和乐观主义2. Symbolism 象征主义3. Simplicity. 简洁1.Edwards爱德华兹：the first modern American can the country’s last medieval man.“the current of Transcendentalism, originating in the piety of the Puritans, vecoming a philosophy in Jonathan Ed wards, passing through Emerson.”超验论由清教徒的虔诚演变而来在乔纳森·爱德华兹的哲理得到发展继而传给爱默生4、典型的清教徒： John Cotton & Roger William他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy; William begins the history of religious toleration in America.5、William的宗教观点：Toleration did not stem from a lack of religious convictions. Instead, it sprang from the idea that simply to be virtuous in conduct and devout in belief did not give anyone the right to force belief on others. He also felt that no political order or church system could identify itself directly with God. 行为上的德，信仰上的诚，并没有给任何人强迫别人该如何行事的权利。
美国文学名词解释
美国文学名词解释美国文学是指美国国内所产生的文学作品，包括小说、诗歌、剧本等各种文学体裁。
它具有自己的特点和风格，反映了美国人的文化、价值观念和思想观念。
美国文学中有许多特殊的名词和术语，下面是其中一些常见的名词解释：1. Puritanism（清教主义）: 清教主义是美国文学发展的重要起点之一，它是在17世纪早期由清教徒带入美洲的思想和信仰体系。
清教徒强调个人责任和纯洁的生活方式，他们的文学作品通常传达着信仰、奋斗和自我批判的主题。
2. American Renaissance（美国文艺复兴）: 美国文艺复兴指的是19世纪中期到20世纪初期的一个时期，这个时期出现了一大批杰出的美国作家和作品。
其中包括威廉·福柯特、纳撒尼尔·霍桑、赫尔曼·梅尔维尔等人的文学作品。
这些作品在内容、风格上更加关注人性、自然和道德等问题。
3. Realism（现实主义）: 现实主义是19世纪末至20世纪初的一种文学流派，在美国文学发展史中具有重要的地位。
现实主义作家力求以客观、真实的方式描绘生活中的人和事，关注社会问题和个人命运。
马克·吐温和亨利·詹姆斯被认为是现实主义文学中最有影响力的作家。
4. Harlem Renaissance（哈莱姆文艺复兴）: 哈莱姆文艺复兴是20世纪20年代至30年代期间，在纽约哈莱姆区集中发展起来的一种文化和艺术运动。
这个运动推动了非洲裔美国人在文学、音乐、舞蹈和绘画等领域的发展。
其中包括作家朗斯顿·休斯、小说家托妮·莫里森等的作品被认为是哈莱姆文艺复兴的代表作。
5. Beat Generation（垮掉的一代）: 垮掉的一代是20世纪50年代和60年代期间在美国兴起的一种文学和文化运动。
这个运动反对传统社会规范和价值观，追求自由和个性的表达。
杰克·凯鲁亚克和艾伦·金斯堡是这个运动的代表作家，他们的作品通常以自由、追求和反叛为主题。
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1. American Puritanism: a domination factor in American life. AmericanPuritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thoughts and literature.2. Transcendentalism: time 1836. Features: 1.the transcendentalistsplaced emphasis on spirit, or over soul, as the most important thing in the universe 2. The transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. 3. The transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the spirit of God. The representatives are Emerson and Thoreau.3. Free Verse: like traditional verse, it is printed in short lines instead ofthe continuity of prose, but it has no meter and either lack rhyme or uses it occasionally. A representative is Whitman’s Leave of Grass. 4. Realism: time: 2nd and half of 19th century. Features: verisimilitude ofdetails derived from observation. Representatives are Howells, James, Mark Twain5. Local Colorism: It is a branch of Realism; it refers to detailedrepresentation, in fiction of the setting, dialect, customs, dress and ways of thinking which are distinctive of a particular region. The representative of Local Colorism is Mark Twain.6. American Naturalism: time: 1890s. Features: 1. naturalists wroteabout 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.2. They reported truthfully and objectively with passion for scientific accuracy and an overwhelming accumulation of factual detail.3. The representatives are Crane, Dreiser.7. Imagism: six principles: momentary, one dominant image, hardpersonal word, direct treatment, concise, free verse. The representatives are Pound.8. Lost generations: it refers to a group of American writers of thedecade following WWI, disillusioned by their War experience or by materialization of American culture, holds a pessimistic new of life.The representatives are Fitzgerald and Hemingway.9. Flashback: interpolating narratives or scenes which represent eventsthat happened before the story began. For example: Miller used flashback in Death of Salesman.10. Black Humor: the tragic absurdity of the human condition is oftenseen in their novels. As a cosmic joke. The response they intend to provoke in the reader to the blackness of modern life is a laughter that is, laughing in face of a tragic situation. The representative work of black humor is Heller’s Catch-22.11. Harlem Renaissance: a period of remarkable creativity in literatureand other arts by African Americans, from the end of WWI in 1917 through the 1920s. The representative is Hughes.12. Irving: 1.He is was the first American writer of imagination literature to gain international fame. 2 The short story as a genre in American literature probably began with Irving’s The Sketch Book.3.The Sketch Book also marked the beginning of American romanticism.13. Hawthorne: feature: 1, symbol2, deep analysis of psychology3, gloomy and depressive tone4. evil sides of the world5, super natural element14. The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne): 1, Character: Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdable, Roger Chillingworth. 2. Theme: criticizing Puritan suppression/ sin and atonement.15. Emily Dickinson: feature: 1.short and concise2. approximate rhyme and meter3. ungrammatical elements 4. original images5. many poems about death15. Moby Dick (Melville): character: Ishmael (survivor), Ahab (captain) 12.Allan Poe: 1. the poetic principle ①the poem, he says, should be short, at one sitting ②Its chief aim is beauty ③melancholy is the most legitimate of all the poetic tone. ④the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.⑤stress rhyme, defines true poetry as “the rhythmical creation of beauty. 2. Work: to Helen, The Fall of the House of Usher.13. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain): 1. His usually use French, mostly Anglo-Saxon on origin, and his words are short, concrete and direct in effect.2. Most of his sentence structures are simple or compound.3. he use”took”repeatedly.4. There have ungrammatical elements in his work. One of his significant contributions to American literature lies in fact that he made colloquial speech an accepted.14. Frost: the features of his work1.he usually use traditional form 2. His language is plain3. He likes to use symbolism4. Most his poems describe nature of famers’ life.15. Fitzgerald: the Great Gatsby: 1.characters: Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanam, Tom Buchanam, Myrtle Wilson, George Wilson, Jay Gatsby, 2. Theme: criticizing materialized society, disillusionment of American dream.16. Miller: Death of Salesman: 1.Charaters: Willy &Linda&Biff&Happy Loman, Chalery and Bernard. 2. Theme: a criticizing metalized society/ understanding between parents and children.17. Salinger: The Catch in the①. Setting: 1950s New York2. Plot: Holden Caulfied 1st day: expelled. 2nd day: Sally (shallow). Carl (hypocritical).2nd night: Sneak home—Phoebe, Mr.Antolini. 3rd day: go to the west.②.character: Holden---rebellious, innocent, sincerely③. Style: This novel use colloquial and vulgar worlds. There also has exaggeration in this work ④: theme: growing pain.18: Cath-22: Yossarian, Milo, And Snowden.19. Lolita :( Nabokov): character: Humbert Humbert, Dolores Haze (Lolita), Clare Qulity .。