美国文学名词解释

Imagism：A literary movement launched by British and American poets early in the 20th century that advocated the use of free verse, common speech patterns, and clear concrete images as a reaction to Victorian sentimentalism.

Romantic

The American Romantic period stretches from the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the Civil War.

Romanticism shares certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in value of individualism and intuitive perception and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s society a source of corruption.

Symbolism

Symbolism 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 writers, 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 that poets employ in creation

The Lost Generation

“a lost generation” is used to refer to expatriate Americans bitter about their WW1 experiences and disillusioned with American society. This term has been used again and again to describe the people of the postwar years. It describes the writers like Hemingway who lived in poverty. It describes the Americans who returned to their native land with an intense awareness of living in an unfamiliar changing world. They were caught in the war and cut off from the old values and yet unable to come to terms with the new era when civilization had gone mad. They were lost in disillusionment and existential voids. They indulged in hedonism（享乐主义）in order to make their life less unbearable.

O, captain! My captain!

In this poem, the word ’Captain’ refers to Abraham Lincoln, who bring victory to the Civil War and freedom to the slaves but was murdered at the end. The ship represented the United States and ‘fearful trip’ represented the Civil War. This poem was written to honor the death of Abraham Lincoln. Walt Whitman appreciated him and was frustrated by his death.

Whitman uses line length and word choice to represent a wide range of emotion from joy to sorrow. The poem begins with the narrator feeling overjoyed because the "fearful trip is done." Soon, however, the mood swings from enthusiasm to sorrow once the narrator realizes that the Captain is dead. By using the second person is to express his longing for the captain and his sorrowful mourning over the death of the captain.

The first line of each stanzas begins with Captain to remind the reader that the focus remains on the Captain, while ends with "fallen cold and dead", at first to inform the reader of what is to come, later simply to remind the reader of the tragedy.

The calling“O captain! My captain!” vividly shows how grieved and dismal the poet was. This is also the inner crying of the poet’s heart. “Cold and dead” is not just the description of Lincoln, but also the feeling of the whole America. Lincoln’s death had broken their dreams. They had lost their hope. It progresses the whole poem to its climax.

Throughout the traditional iambic verse, there is a distinct rhyme scheme--aabbcded.In addition, Metaphor, repetition,symbolism, alliteration occurs many times in this poem.