美国文学史(考点)

A Survey of American Literature

Introduction:

1. Colonial Period: the early 17th——then end of the 18th

2. American Renaissance: 1840s

3. The Civil War (1861-1865): the Romantic Peroid to an end.

4. Realism: William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Henry James

Chapter 1

1.American Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought

and American literature

2.doctrine: predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement

Chapter 4

1.New England Transcendentalism (名词解释)

It developed around 1840s, it’s the summit of American Romanticism. The representative writers included Emerosn, Thoreau.

The major features of New England Transcendentalism can be summarized as follows: First, it emphasizes on the Oversoul, which was an all-pervading power for goodness, omnipresent and omnipotent; Secondly, the Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual, the regeneration of society could only come about through the regeneration of the individual, his perfection, his self-culture and self-improvement; Thirdly, the Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.

Chapter 5

1.The Scarlet Letter (分析题)

The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850.

It is set in the 17th century. One Hester Prynne, who lived before the close of the 17th century, committed some form of adultery and was punished by having the wear a scarlet letter A on her breast.

The story shows us the moral, emotional, and psychological effect of the sin on the people in general and those complicated in it in particular. It is not a praise of a Hester Prynne sinning, but a hymn on the moral growth of the woman when sinned against.

At first “A” is a token of shame, “Adultery”, but then it is changed to “Able”, “Angel” and “Adamic”.

The Scarlet Letter is a kind of cultural allegory.

Chapter 8

1.Age of Realism: 1870s——1880s

pare Howells, James and Twain (简答题)

Similarity: They are all writers of Realism and interpret realism as the “common feelings of commonplace people”.

Differences: In thematic terms, James wrote mostly of the upper reaches of American society, and Howells concerned himself chiefly with middle class life, whereas Mark Twain dealt largely

with the lower strata of society; Technically, Howells wrote in the vein of genteel realism, James pursued an “imaginative” treatment of reality or psychological realism, but Mark Twain dealt with local colonism.

Chapter 9

1.Local Colorism （名词解释）

Such quality of texture ad background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native, such as speech, customs, and mores peculiar to one particular place. 2.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (分析题)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written by Mark Twain.

The book relates the story of the escape of Jim from slavery and, more important, how Huck Finn, floating along with him and helping him as best he could, changes his mind, his prejudice about Black people, and comes to accept Jim as a man and as a close friend as well.

What Huck has got to do is to cut through social prejudices and social discriminations to find truth for himself.

The theme of the work is: Humanism ultimately triumphs.

Chapter 10

1.American Naturalism focuses on: environment and heredity.

Chapter 11

1.Gertrude Stein: “the Lost Generation”

2.Sinclair Lewis: the first Nobel Prize in American literature

3.Imagism （名词解释）1912-1922

The key word is “momentary”. The most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.

Three Imagist poetic principles: 1. Direct treatment of the “thing”; 2. no useless word, stresses economy of expression; 3. as regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase.

Imagist poets includes William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound and T. E. Eliot.

Chapter 14

1.The Great Gatsby (分析题)

It was written in 1925 by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The story is about Gatsy, a poor youth from the Midwest. He falls in love with Daisy, a wealthy girl, but is too poor to marry her. The girl is then married to a rich young man, Tom Buchanan. Gatsby engages himself in bootlegging and other “shady” activities in order to win his love back, thus earning enough money to buy a magnificent villa. There he spreads dazzling parties every weekend in the hope of alluring the Buchanans to come. They finally come and Gatsby meets Daisy again, only to find that the woman before him is not quite the ideal love of his dreams. A sense of loss and disillusionment comes over him. Then Daisy kills a woman in an accident, and plots with Tom to shift the blame on Gatsby. So Gatsby is shot and the Buchanans escape.

The story presents a sense of disillusionment of American dream.