英美文学的浪漫主义

6.Romanticism 浪漫主义时期
文学特征：
1.Background
①shaped by their New World environment美洲大陆新环境
②array of ideas inherited from the romantic traditions of Europe.欧洲早期浪漫主义思潮
2.美国文学特点:
pluralistic多元化，manifestations表现形式: Varied多样, Individualistic个人主义,Conflicting矛盾
3.romanticism的特点
Frequently shared certain general characteristics; moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption.
浪漫主义之间大部分是相通的，都注重道德，强调个人主义价值观和直觉感受，并且认为自然是美的源头，人类社会是腐败之源。

4.transcendentalism超验主义：
①As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematized.
It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law
and custom.不讲逻辑，不讲系统，只强调超越理性的感受，超越法律和世俗束缚的个人表达。

②They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American
society.呼吁文化复兴，反对美国社会的拜金主义。

③T hey believed in the transcendence of “Oversoul,” an all-pervading power for
goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part.
相信精神上的超越，相信无所不能的善的力量，强调善为万物之源。

④I t could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on the human mind. “Go
back to nature, sink yourself back into its influence and you’ll become
spiritually whole again.” The natur al implication of all this was, of course, that things in nature tended to become symbolic, and the physical world was a
symbol of the spiritual. This in turn added to the tradition of literary symbolism in American literature.
⑤Representatives
Emerson爱默生，believed that man was a part of absolute good.人性本善
Thoreau梭罗，beheld divinity in the “unspotted innocence” of nature.自然才是神圣的“洁白无瑕”
5.Literary forms文学形式：
Novels, short stories, and poems replaced sermons and manifestos as America’s principal literary forms.
长篇小说、短篇故事和诗歌取代说教类及宣言类作品成为美国主要的文学形式。

6.Imaginative literature想象类文学
7.the wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that illustrated
moral law.戏剧化特色的野性讽喻了时代的道德准则。

8.The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature.逃离社会，回到自然成为了美国文学永恒的创作
习惯。

9.Nationalism stimulated a greater literary interest in America’s language. In 1828 Noah Webster published “An American Dictionary of the English Language”. American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency.受民族主义影响，作家的目光转向了美国本土的语言，具有
美国特征的本土方言开始在诗歌和小说中大量涌现。

10.At mid-century a cultural reawakening brought a “flowering of New England.” Led by Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau. New England→ Transcend entalism,从新英格兰文学到超验主义。

代表作家：
1、Washington Irving华盛顿.欧文
the first great belletrist 第一个纯文学作家，划线部分为三个主要contribution
① the first great prose stylist of American romanticism.美国第一位浪漫主义散文文体作家
②“Sketch Book”《见闻札记》, the first modern short stories and the first great
American juvenile literature.现代文学史上第一部短篇小说和美国第一部伟大的青少年文学读物。

③Irving restored the waning Gothic romances which Poe soon infused with
psychological subtleties.重振了没落的哥特式浪漫主义小说，随后坡在此基础上，把心理学的一些知识融入了这种体裁。

④“Legends of the Conquest of Spain”《西班牙征服记》
⑤ manner形式> matter内容；avoid moralization教化to entertain娱乐/ amuse
消遣
2、James Fenimore Cooper 詹姆斯.芬尼莫.库珀
①contribution: launched two kinds of immensely popular stories→ the sea adventure
tale and the frontier saga
开创了两种流传极广的小说体裁，边疆传奇小说和海上传奇小说。

②“Leatherstocking Tales”《皮袜子故事集》，包括“The Deerslayer”《杀鹿者》、“The
Last of the Mohicans”《最后的莫希干人》、“The Pathfinder”《探路人》、“The Pioneers”《拓荒者》、“The Prairie”《大草原》, regard as “the nearest approach yet to an American epic.”被认为是迄今为止美国最接近史诗的作品。

③the central figure in the novels, Natty Bumppo.小说的中心人物，纳蒂.班波
3、William Cullen Bryant威廉.卡伦.布莱恩特poet诗人
①as Irving had shown that American prose had cone of age, so Bryant demonstrated
to European readers that American poetry was ready to demand serious
attention.当欧文预示美国散文时代的到来时，布莱恩特向欧洲读者证实了美国的诗歌达到相当高的水平。

②He was the first American to gain the stature of a major poet.第一个获得美国主要
诗人称号的作家。

③“To a Waterfowl”《致水鸟》the most perfect brief poem in the language.用美国英
语写作的最完美的短诗。

4、Edgar Allan Poe埃德加.阿伦.坡
①show his true talents as an editor, poet, literary critic.编辑、诗人、文学评论家。

②Graham’s Magazine格雷厄姆杂志（坡的工作场所）
③“The Fall of the House of Usher”《鄂谢府崩溃记》、“The Raven”《乌鸦》the title
poem of a collection,
“Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque”《述异集》first collection of short stories.
第一部短篇小说集。

④often use grotesque or fantastic events.擅长描写哥特式和幻想类的小说。

5、Ralph Waldo Emersion拉尔夫.沃尔多.爱默生
①be responsible for bringing Transcendentalism to New England,是把超验主义引入
新英格兰的先驱。

②Emerson believed above all in individualism个人主义,
independence of mind思想独立, and self-reliance自强.
③作品：“Nature”《论自然》、“Essays”《随笔录》、“The American Scholar”《美
国学者》, our intellectual Declaration of Independence.我们知识分子的独立
宣言。

④his most important works are “Representative Men”《代表》and “English Traits”
《英国人》、“Poems”《诗集》
⑤摘自《论自然》：Standing on the bare ground, -my head bathed by the blithe air, and
uplifted into infinite space, -all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. 人形的约束没有了。

6、Henry David Thoreau 亨利.戴维.梭罗
①Emerson’s truest disciple. Put into practice many of Emerson’s theories爱默生最
忠实的信徒，把爱默生的许多理论付诸于实践。

②“In Walden”《沃尔登》成名作。

“Civil Disobedience”《平民反抗》essay随笔。

非暴力不合作
③教义：I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living, each should find out his
own way, not his neighbor’s or his parents.我不希望人们接受我的生活模
式，每一个都应该发现自己的生活方式，不是邻居的，也不是他父母的。

★7、Nathaniel Hawthorne纳萨尼尔.霍桑
①background: one of his ancestors was Judge Hathorne, who harm a person.曾经有
个做法官的祖辈害人。

②“The House of the Seven Gables”七尖角阁房，是霍桑著名神秘小说中的一个房
屋名称。

③he reveals the depth of his concern with the dark side of Puritanism, the harshness
and the persecutions.对清教徒阴暗面的深切关注，认为清教徒的戒行过于
森严，对不同信仰人的迫害过于残酷。

④“Mosses from an Old Manse”《古厦青苔》、“The Marble Faun”《玉石神像》
⑤特点⑴unique gift was for the creation of strongly symbolic stories which touch the
deepest roots of man’s moral nature.独特才能主要表现在他能够通过一
些极具象征意义的故事来触摸人类灵魂深处的道德品质。

⑵his ability to create vivid and symbolic images that embody great moral questions
appears strongly in his short stories.短篇小说里，通过活生生、极具有象
征意义的想象来体现人类社会的一些重大道德问题。

⑶to make a story exist in its own right but at the same time appear as a moral symbol.
杰出之处在于他能把一个故事安放在自己设置的正义标准之中来讲
述，他书中的正义标准成为当时人们的道德参考。

⑥（课堂笔记提及的）“The Scarlet Letter”《红字》
⑴女主角honest, calmly face fault诚实，坦然的面对罪过。

⑵弗洛伊德人格理论：Id 本我→ 欲望，只要快乐→Roger女主角的丈夫
Ego 自我→ 分辨对错，受约束，符合现实→Hester 女主角
Superego超我→ →Dim 女主角的情人，牧师
⑶女主角的自我成长和自我救赎的过程。

Ego growth and redeem by her own of
process
⑦“The Scarlet Letter”analysis分析：it not a praise of a Hester sinning, but a hymn
on the moral growth of the woman when sinned against. Young Hester borders on being licentious. Her drive is sexual. She does her best to keep her hold on
the magic chain humanity. Her life eventually acquires a real significance when she reestablishes a meaningful relationship with her fellowmen Symbolic of her moral development is the gradual imperceptible change with the scarlet letter
undergoes in meaning. At fir st it is a token of shame, “Adultery” but then the
genuine sympathy and help Hester offered to her fellow villagers’ changes it to “Able”. Later in the story, the letter A appears in the sky, signifying “Angel”.
There is reason to agree with the critical observation that A may represent
Adamic, or prehistoric, an archetypal vice suggestive of “original sin,”
Dimmesdale, on the other hand, banishes himself form society. Deeply
preoccupied with himself, he lives a stranger among his admirers. The result is that, whereas Hester is able to reconstruct her life and win a moral victory,
Dimmesdale undergoes the tragic experience of physical and spiritual
disintegration. Between him and Hester they point to a moral as Hawthorne may intend them to do, that the best policy for man is to be true, honest, and ever
ready to show one’s worst to the outside world.
★8、Herman Melville赫尔曼.麦尔维尔
①“Moby Dick”《白鲸》，a tremendous chronicle of whaling voyage in pursuit of a
seemingly supernatural white whale.主要讲述了一个为追捕一只想象中的神秘白鲸的漫长海上故事。

②The book is steeped in symbolism.本书达到了象征主义手法的创作高峰。

③主人公：Ishmael，取自圣经。

④在书中说：to write
a mighty book you must have a mighty theme.写一部宏大的著作，必须有一个
宏大的主题。

⑤故事人物：Captain Ahab.船长阿哈比；Queequeg，捕鲸人奎因奎格，was a friendly person；⑥the rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome,
sometimes merciless forces. The fitting symbol for his theme was the “gliding
great demon of the seas of life.”阿哈比舰长和各种危险之间的激烈斗争，他同那些强大的、神秘的自然展开斗争，他们令人毛骨悚然，有时还冷酷无情。

他把那只大白鲸贴切的比喻为“生命海洋中滑行的恶魔”。

⑦“Moby Dick”：one of the major themes in Melville is alienation, which he sensed
existing in the life of his time on different levels, between man and man, man
and society, and man and nature. Captain Ahab seems to be the best illustration of it all. The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” He had Ahab topmost in his mind. In a sense Ahab embodies all of the evil he once consigned to Moby Dick.
9、Henry Wadsworth Longfellow亨利.沃兹沃思.朗费罗poet诗人
①it would be hard, also, to overestimate the importance of his anthology “The Poets
and Poetry of Europe”. His own poetry became a means of teaching readers of his day something of the possible range of poetic subject matter and techniques, ancient, medieval, and modern.《欧洲诗人及诗》不能把这部作品估计过高。

他自己的诗歌成为了他教学的材料，在书中他讲述了诗的主题和一些写作
技巧。

从古代的，中世纪的一直到现代的诗歌，他都一一作了阐述。

②殊荣：he became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s corner
of Westminster Abbey.朗费罗被安葬在威斯敏斯特教堂的诗人之角，他也是
美国惟一获此殊荣的诗人。

③The gentleness, sweetness, and purity for his poetry was popular during his lifetime.
他的诗歌因高雅宜人、纯正有韵味而大受欢迎。

④he was consistently high-minded but conventional, and untouched by the religious
and social struggles that disturbed his contemporaries.他接受正统的思想，但并
不保守。

他的思想没有受到当时社会、宗教和各种政治斗争的影响。

⑤特点：exercised a great influence in bringing European culture to the U.S., and
likewise did much to popularize American folk themes abroad where his work was immensely popular and widely translated.在引进欧洲文化上起巨大推动作用，也把美国民间文化传播到国外，他的作品还被翻译成多种文字，在海外受到高度评价。

Scarlet Letter
Easy A 《绯闻计划》。