美国文学导论

Literary Genres (文学体裁) (文学体裁 文学体裁)
Poetry Short Story Novel Drama
Some Sayings
Musical thought. ------ Thomas Carlyle The best words in the best order. ------ Samuel Taylor Coleridge Poetry is a language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reactions, something that cannot be said. ------ Edwin Arlington Robinson
Definition Elements Techniques
Definition
A novel can be defined as a highly stylized prose account of fictional reality in the form of story with profundity for the purpose of changing the reader's mind by the aid of the reader's active involvement while providing entertainment and superior truth of life.
Definition of Novel
Novel, long work of written fiction. Most novels involve many characters and tell a complex story by placing the characters in a number of different situations. Because novels are long—generally 200 pages or more—novelists can tell more richly detailed tales than can authors of briefer literary forms such as the short story.
What are the five types of conflict?
person vs. self person vs. person person vs. nature person vs. society person vs. higher power
Novel as a Literary Genre
What are the major elements?
Theme is a moral or a statement abstracted from the story. It is the most important in a serious piece of artistic work. In a sense, it determines all the other elements. Setting refers to the particular time and place with other environmental factors. Plot is a chain of logical events. In other words, there is causal relationship between the events. Plot is usually divided into several stages: exposition, conflict (complication/ increase of tension), climax, and denouement. Traditional plot features action and is critical in delineating characters, but recent trend focuses on character's psychological activities.
The Components of Poetry
Line
– Poetry is written in sentences just as is prose, and the punctuation indicates all grammatical pauses. – The lines in a poem end in two ways: END – STOPPED and RUN – ON.
What are the major elements?
Characters can be classified into flat characters and round characters. Flat characters are stereotypical and do not change as the plot develops; round characters are like real human beings, have multi aspects, and usually change over time. In terms of roles played in the story, characters can be categorized into protagonist or hero or heroine and antagonist or villain or adversary forces, with minor ones. Atmosphere is part of setting. It is rather the emotional effect intended by and caused in the reader, such as the feeling of coldness, dreary, oppressiveness, the sense of hardness or mystery.
Elements of the novel
1. 2. story character
protagonist, antagonist round character, flat character
3.
What is a short story?
A short story is a condensed fictional narrative, usually in prose. Short stories concern a relatively small number of characters involved in a single action with one theme, and are aimed at exciting in the reader a single emotional response.
How to understand characters?
DADI Description of the character Action of the character Dialogue of the character Interaction with other character
Rhythm
– Rhythm is communicated by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables. – Meter is used to refer to the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. – A foot usually consists of one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables.
Definition of Poetry
Poetry in its simplest definition is organized in units called lines (as sentences) and stanzas (as paragraphs). Poetry emphasizes rhythm, patterns of sound and imagery, and many other possible ways that words can suggest meaning. Poetry has at least four dimensions. It involves the reader's whole faculties: his intelligence, his senses, his emotions and his imagination, not merely his understanding. Therefore, poetry is a literary genre that communicate experience in the most condensed form.
美国文学导论
傅利 哈尔滨工业大学外国语学院
A Brief Introduction to American Literature
Fu, Li Harbin Institute of Technology
Outline
Literary Genres (文学体裁 文学体裁) 文学体裁 American Literary Movements (美国文学运动 美国文学运动 美国文学运动) Some Famous Writers in American Literature (重要的美国作家 重要的美国作家) 重要的美国作家
What form a plot diagram?
rising action
climax falling action
exposition
denouement
exposition: the start of the ste the action starts. rising action: the series of conflicts and crisis in the story that move or lead the story to climax. climax: the turning point or the point of the highest tension in the emotion or action of the story. falling action: all the actions which follow the climax. denouement/resolution: the conclusion of the tying together of all the threads or the outcome of the events.
Stanza
– A STANZA is a group of lines of verse forming one of the units or divisions of a poem.
Rhyme
– Rhyme is the repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem, which are usually labeled with letters alphabetically, like A, B, C or D.