英美文学整理分章节

关于殖民地时期的知识点
Q1The important literary figures of colonial America and their representative works.
Captain John Smith (Virginia):
A soldier of fortune雇佣兵
A True Relation of Virginia (1608)
The General History of Virginia (1624)
William Bradford 威廉·布莱福特(the governor of Plymouth for 30 years): History of Plimoth Plantation 普里茅斯殖民地史(Describes the signing of
the “Mayflower Compact”, the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims' dealings with Indians, and other experiences of the first settlers)
Anne Bradstreet安‧布莱斯特里特: (1612-1672)(One of the most important figures in the history of American Literature. The first American poet) : The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America《最近在北美出现的第十位缪斯》(The first book written by a woman to be published in America.) Jonathan Edwards 乔纳森·爱德华兹( --- the last Puritan .president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), the most brilliant theological(神学)
mind in North America.)
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)(one of his sermons)
Personal Narrative 《自述》(1740)story of his youthful religious experiences Benjamin Franklin (1706~1790)
Autobiography (1793) 《自传》
Poor Richard's Almanack (from 1732)
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Common Sense ( 1776)常识
Q2 Declaration of Independence 独立宣言
Largely the work of Thomas Jefferson杰斐逊
“all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
----the very heart of democracy
关于浪漫主义时期的知识
Q1What is romanticism?
Romanticism
represented an attitude toward the realities of man, nature, and society, which had its sources in the stirring events both in Europe and in America, it was not an organized system. Romanticism was rebellious in spirit, standing in reaction, against the neoclassical spirit then prevailing in Ameri­can literary life. The romantic emphasized freedom and individualism, believing that imagination was superior to ra ­tionalism. They preferred the innate or intuitive perception by the heart of man.
Q2 The important literary figures of American romanticism and their works.
1.Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
a)Nature (1836) 《自然》
b)Self-Reliance (1841) 《论自助》
2.Henry David Thoreau 梭罗
a)his essay “Civil Disobedience”论公民的不服从(1849),
converted Emersonian self-reliance into a workable formula
for opposing the power of government.
3.Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-l864)
a)Moses from an Old Manse (1846)
b)The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales (1851)
C)The Scarlet Letter (1850)
D)The House of the Seven Gables (1851 )
E)The Blithedale Romance (l852)
Hawthorne's thematic concerns:
(1) his "black" vision of life and human beings: his concern
with human sin and evil
(2)Hawthorne's view of Puritanism
(3) his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter
his apparent preoccupation with the moral issues of sin and guilt, and his keen psychological analysis of people are brought to full display in this novel
4.Herman Melville(1819-1891)
Moby-dick :(regarded as the Great American Novel, the first American prose epic散文史诗)
5.Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
6.Emily Dickinson
7.Edgar Allan Poe 爱伦坡Major writer in the South.
Important Points
1. Poe’s major works.
2. Poe’s literary characteristics and achievements
Q3.Edgar Allen Poe’s writing theories and his achievements.(见上面相关内容)
Q4.Allegory and symbolism in Moby Dick. Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, it is also 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.
the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolizes nature for Melville, for it is complex, unfathomable, malignant, and beautiful as well. For the character Ahab, however, the whale represents only evil. Moby Dick is like a wall, hiding some unknown, mysterious things behind. Ahab wills the whole crew on the Pequod to join him in the pursuit of the big whale so as to pierce the wall, to root out the evil, but only to be destroyed by evil, in this case, by his own consuming desire, his madness.
关于The Age of Realism的知识
Q1The important literary figures of American realism and their works.
The three dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James.
1.Mark Twain,
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"It was one of Twain's earliest writings, and helped establish his reputation as a humorist.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer （1876）
The Prince and the Pauper (1882)
Life on the Mississippi (1883)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
The £1,000,000 Bank-Note and Other Stories (1893)
……
2.Henry James (1843-1916 )
The Three Periods in His Literary Career:
the first period (1865-1882)
James took great interest in international themes: his treatment with the clashes between two different cultures and the emotional and moral problems of Americans in Europe, or Europeans in America.
The American (l877), Daisy Miller (l878), The Europeans (l878), and The Portrait of A Lady (188l )
middle period
James experimented with different themes and forms
Novels : The Bostonians (1886), The Princess Casamassima (l886 ) short stories (two groups)；The Private Life (1893), The Death of
a Lion (1894) and The Middle Years (posthumously
1917)exploring the relationship of the artist to the society。

The Turn of the Screw (1898)a story about the troubled and abnormal psychology of oppressed children. The Beast in the Jungle (1903)
focusing on the imaginative obsession of some haunted men and women with their personal disaster in future.
last and major period (1895-1904)
A return to his "international theme.“
From 1895 to 1900, he wrote some novellas and stories dealing with childhood and adolescence, the most famous of which is What Maisie Knows (l897).
Later, he created the following books: The Wings of the Dove (l902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904).
Q2The characteristics of Realism
emphasis on psychological
optimistic tone
details
pragmatic, practical
slow-moving plot
Q3Features of Mark Twain’s language.(3 points)
Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of vernacular. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language. And Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonists in their everyday life.
What's more, his characters, confined to a particular region and to a particular historical moment, speak with a strong accent, which is true of his local colorism. Besides, different characters from different literary or cultural backgrounds talk differently.
Q4Major themes of Henry James’works.(见上面相关内容）
Q5What is Naturalism? What is the relationship between Naturalism and Realism?
American Naturalism A SCHOOL OF REALISM
In literature, the term refers to the theory that literary composition should aim at a detached, scientific objectivity in the treatment of natural man. The movement is an outgrowth of 19th –century scientist thought,
关于The Modern Period的知识
Q1The important literary figures of American modernism and their works.
1. F. Scott Fitzgerald (l896-l940)
a.His novels and short stories chronicled changing social attitudes during the 1920s, a period dubbed "The Jazz Age".
This Side of Paradise（1920），his first novel
The Great Gatsby (1925）his masterpiece
Tender is the Night (l934), traces the decline of a young American psychiatrist whose marriage to a beautiful and wealthy patient drains his personal energies and corrodes his professional career.
The Last Tycoon ，unfinished.
b.Fitzgerald also wrote short stories of great popularity.
Flappers and Philosophers (l92l)
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
All the Sad Young Man (l926)
Taps at Reveille (1935).
2.William Faulkner (1897-l962)
3.Ernest Hemingway (l899-1961)
4.Robert Lee Frost (l874-l963)
以下是关于他的重要资料关于他的重要作品可以从中找到。

Q2.Characteristics of Modernism.
Q3Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age.
Q4Hemingway’s Style.
Q5Analyze “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”.。