美国文学重点

美国文学重点From the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. Started with Washington Irving's <The Sketch Book> and ended with Whitman's <Leaves of Grass>, also called 'the American Renaissance' .Free expression of emotion, escapes from society, and return to nature New England Transcendentalism 新英格兰超验主义- Walt Whitman, whose <Leaves of Grass> established him as the most popular American poet of the 19th century.an early Romantic writer, regarded as a writer who “perfected the best classic style that American literature ever produced.”First novel <A History of New York> 纽约外史won him wide popularity<The Sketch Book> 见闻札记 won international fame→contains German folk tales <Rip Van Winkle>, <The Legend of Sleepy Hollow>READING: excerpt from “Rip Van Winkle”瑞普·凡·温可尔It is not only well-known for Rip’s 20-year sleep but also considered a model of perfect English in American literature and in the English language as well.- the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism（超验主义） movement>论美国学者, <Self - Reliance>论自助, <The Over-Soul><The Poet> a reflection upon the aesthetic(美学的) problems in terms of the present state of literature in America<Experience> a discussion about the conflict between idealism and ordinary life. American Puritanism, European Romanticism, intuitive(直觉的) knowledge, over-soul, individual, nature Henry David Thoreau梭罗 -<Walden>沃乐登READING: excerpt from Nature<Nature> 论自然 is regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism，Emerson’s first little book, which discuss the love of nature, the uses of nature…“a transparent eyeball”heart, ‘there is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps,the salient(显著的) characteristics of Hawthorne’s art.READING: Young Goodman Brown小伙子布朗<Young Goodman Brown> Goodman Brown, a Puritan(清教徒), who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful.Openness, freedom, individualismI- me, my nation (society), Free verse（自由体诗）, Envelope structure（信件结构）, Catalogue (Listing)A new ideal, a new world, a new life-style<Leaves of Grass> 草叶集written in the founding documents of both the Revolutionary War in the United States and the Civil War.READING; 1. There Was a Child Went Forth 2. Cavalry Crossing a Ford 3. Song of Myself <There Was a Child Went Forth>一个孩子的成长 how a child is greatly influenced by his growing environments, be identified with the childhood of a young, growing America.<Cavalry Crossing a Ford> 涉水的骑兵a scene of the American Civil War, all the movements described in this picture are frozen.<Song of Myself> 自己之歌 Whitman is a man bubbling with energy and laden(装满) with ideas, spontaneous(自发的) expression of his original ideasallegory and symbolism, like Hawthorne<Mardi>玛地 <Redburn>雷得本 <White Jacket>白外衣 <Pierre>皮埃尔 <Billy Budd>比利·伯德READING: excerpt from Moby-Dick<Moby-Dick>白鲸 is one of the world’s greatest masterpieces, the first American prose epic, It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology.Ishmael both as a character and a narrator； the captain, Ahab is a monomaniac(狂热者) whose single purpose is to capture the fierce, cunning(狡猾的) white whale, Moby Dick, which had torn away his leg.Realistic period –“the Gilded(富有的) Age”, the poor poorer and the rich richer, people's attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existenceLocal colorism, social Darwinism, bestiality, beyond man's control3 dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells(美国现实文学先驱), Mark Twain and Henry James.✧Henry James –“inner world” of man✧Howells –focused on rising middle class✧Mark Twain –his own region and people, particular “local colorism”✧Local colorists – Sarah Orne Jewett, Joseph Kirkland and Hamlin Garland.- the true father of American literaturevernacular（方言）, simple sentence, wide-ranging humor, both realistically and symbolically, 'the damned human race' <The Gilded Age><Life on the Mississippi>, <A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court> 亚瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美国人<The Adventures of Tom Sawyer>汤姆·索亚历险记 (for boys),<>哈克贝里·费恩历险记<Adventures of Huckleberry Finn> his masterpiece, -“”. “Huck”, a typical American Boy with “a sound heart and a deformed(畸形的) conscience”, and remarkable for the raft’s journey down the Mississippi river, through the eyes of Huck, we see the pre-Civil War American society.READING; excerpt from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn READING; excerpt from<Adventures of Huckleberry Finn> Huck's inner conflict about whether or not he should write a letter to tell Miss Watson where Jim is.– the first American writer to conceive his career in international theme- the forerunner of the 20th-century “stream of consciousness” novel and the founder of psychological realism, interior monologue, free association, his language is not so easy to understand早期<The American>一个美国人 <Daisy Miller>黛西·米勒 bring him international fame for the first time<The Europeans> <The Portrait of A Lady>贵妇人的画像 his masterpiece中期<The Bostonians>波士顿人short fiction:<The Turn of the Screw>螺丝在拧紧<The Beast in the Jungle>丛林猛兽晚期<The Wings of the Dove>鸽巢 <The Ambassadors>专使 <The Golden Bowl>金碗READING; excerpt from Daisy Miller<Daisy Miller> the narrator is an American expatriate(侨民), named Winterbourne. Daisy is the most innocent girl. Her defiance(违抗) of social taboos(禁忌) in the Old World brings her to a disaster in the clash(冲击) between two different cultures.Based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys, “letter to the world”, about religious and immortality（永生）, love, nature1) her poems have no titles2) dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence（节奏） and capital letters as a means of emphasis.READING;<This is my letter to the World> express Dickinson's anxiety about her communication with the outside world.<I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - > description of a moment of death<I like to see it lap the Miles> Dickinson makes the train part of nature by animalizing it, like a horse.我爱看它舔食一哩又一哩<Because I could not stop for Death -> personify death and immortality so as to make her message strongly felt因为我不能停步等候死神- America's literary naturalistseverything Determinism（决定论） (heredity遗传 biological & environment), Darwinist idea（达尔文主义）of ‘survival of the fittest’, ‘the jungle law’（弱肉强食原则）<Jennie Gerhardt> 珍妮姑娘 <An American Tragedy> 美国的悲剧Trilogy of Desire欲望三部曲 - <The Financier>金融家, <The Titan>巨头, <The Stoic>斯多葛READING; excerpt from Sister Carrie<Sister Carrie>嘉丽妹妹 'who shall cast the first stone?'After Carrie deserts Hurstwood, he is in great despair. He turns the gas on in a cheap lodging-house and ends his life, while at the same time Carrie is rocking comfortably in her luxuriant hotel room.The modern period - the second American Renaissance, the expatriate(侨民) movement, “the Lost Generation”, a transformation from order to disorderSeize the day, enjoy the present, spiritual wasteland, collective unconscious, psychoanalysis(心理分析)Imagist movement, Jazz Age“the Lost Generation”– Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Robert FrostTwo thinkers of this period: German Karl Marx(马克思) and the Austrian Sigmund Freud（弗洛伊德）William James–famous for his theory of “stream of consciousness”E.E.Cummings, always used “i” instead of “I”, protest against self-importance- a leading spokesman of the 'Imagist Movement' (意象主义)- 3 main principles: 1)direct treatment of poetic subjects, 2)elimination of ornamental words, 3)rhythmical(韵律) composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome(节拍器).- He translate some ancient Greek and Chinese works<The Cantos> 诗章READING; 1. In a Station of the Metro 2. The River - Merchant's Wife: A Letter 3. A Pact <In a Station of the Metro>地铁站一瞥Pound attempts to produce the emotion he felt when he walked down into a Paris subway station and suddenly saw a number of faces in the dim light. To capture the emotions, Pound uses the image of petals on wet, black boughs.<The River - Merchant's Wife: A Letter> 河商的妻子 This is a verse “letter”in which the speaker communicates indirectly, by means of vivid images and shifting tone, the history of her feelings for her absent husband.<A Pact>盟约agreement with Whitman's free verse- four times awarded Pulitzer Prize, pastoral life and scene.New England and his simplicity never fails to reveal some profound truth.READING; 1.After Apple-Picking 2.The Road Not Taken 3. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening <After Apple-Picking> 摘苹果后 a memory of experience in which the end of labor leaves the speaker with a sense of completion and fulfillment yet finds him blocked from success by winter’s approach(接近) and physical weariness(疲倦).<The Road Not Taken> 未选择的路 tells us how the course of his life was determined when he came upon two roads that diverged in a wood. He ‘took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.’<Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening> 雪夜停马在林边 the speaker literally stops his horse inthe winter twilight(日出前) to observe the beauty of the forest scene, and then is moved to continue his journey.–America’s greatest playwright, ‘founder of the American drama’, won the Pulitzer Prize four times and was the only dramatist ever to win a Nobel Prize.<Beyond the Horizon>天外边 <The Emperor Jones>琼斯皇帝 <The Great God Brown>伟大之神布朗<Long Day’s Journey Into Night> 直到夜晚的漫长一天autobiographical(自传体戏剧), gained its status as a world classic and marks the climax of O’Neill’s literary career and the coming of age of American drama.READING; excerpt from The Hairy Ape<The Hairy Ape> 毛猿 concerns the problem of modern man’s identity. Yank’s sense of belonging nowhere, hence homelessness and rootlessness, is typical of the mood of isolation and alienation in the early 20th century.spokesman of the Jazz Age, ‘Dollar Decade’, 1920sHe shows a particular interest in the upper-class society, especially young people.<This Side of Paradise>人间天堂 his first novel<Tender is the Night>夜色温柔 <The Last Tycoon>最后一个巨头READING; excerpt from The Great Gatsby了不起的盖茨比<The Great Gatsby> his masterpiece, ‘incorruptible dream’ is ‘smashed into pieces by the relentless reality.’Gatsby is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies America itself; he is the last of the romantic heroes- awarded the Nobel Prize,The use of short, simple and conventional word<In our Time> 在我们的时代里the first book to present a Hemingway hero –Nick Adams<The Sun Also Rises> 太阳照样升起‘The Lost Generation’: a group of young Americans who left their native land and fought in the war and later engaged themselves in writing in a new way about their own experiences.<A Farewell to Arms> 永别了,武器about the tragic love affair of a wounded American soldier with a British nurse.<For Whom the Bell Tolls>丧钟为谁而鸣 <The Old Man and the Sea>老人与海READING; Indian Camp<Indian Camp> from <In Our Time> Nick watches his father deliver an Indian woman of a baby by Caesarian(剖腹术) section, with a jack-knife and without anesthesia(麻醉). birth and death coexist(共存)Nobel PrizeAmerican South, Yoknapatawpha Country ,imprisonment in the pastStream of consciousness, multiple points of view, 内心独白, 时序颠倒<The Sound and the Fury>喧嚣与骚动 <As I Lay Dying>我弥留之际 <Absalom, Absalom>押沙龙, 押沙龙<Light in August>八月之光 <The Bear>熊READING; excerpt from A Rose for Emily<A Rose for Emily> Emily, an eccentric(古怪的) spinster(老处女) who refuses to accept the passage of time, or the inevitable(不可避免的) change and loss that accompanies it. She is regarded as the symbol of tradition and the old way of life. Thus her death is like the falling of a monument.。