美国文学复习资料1 超级好用!

一、时期综述（关于清教的应该都是重点）
4、典型的清教徒： John Cotton and Roger Williams 他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy.
Williams begins the history of religious toleration in America.
5、 6、英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet
7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of Puritan poets is Edward Taylor.
学习指南：.
2、Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing.
3、The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry.
4、The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards Italian, and Portuguese.
第二部分 理性和革命时期文学
Economically
Background Colony → state 1770s uprising(争端) in North→ American against→ Britain
→ politics 1776-1783 war of Independence → USA politically
Representatives： Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography
Prose \ essay Thomas Paine: Common Sense
Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence
Philip Freneau: poet \ journalist
启蒙运动对美国的影响 oppose coliral order and religious obscurantism. Secular education and literature → Franklin
一、时期综述
1、美国的性质：The war for Independence ended in the formation of a Federative bourgeois democratic republic – the
United States of America.联邦的资产阶级民主共和国——美利坚合众国。
二、代表作家：
1、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明.弗兰克林
①代表作：“Poor Richard’s Almanac”穷人理查德的年鉴 annual collection of proverbs 流行谚语集
It soon became the most popular book of its kind, largely because of Franklin’s shrewd humor, and first
spread his reputation. 机智、幽默、风趣成为最畅销的书籍，弗兰克林的成名作。
②Found the Junto, a club for informal discussion of scientific, economic and political ideas.
建立了一个秘密俱乐部，讨论的主题是政治、经济和科学等时事方面的问题。
③established America’s first circulating library, founded the college — University of Pennsylvania.
建立了美国第一个可租借的图书馆，还创办了一所大学—就是现在的宾夕法尼亚大学。
④first applied the terms “positive” and “negative” to electrical charges.
在电子运动中，首次使用了电流中的“正电”和“负电”的专业术语。
⑤As a representative of the Colonies, he tried in vain to counsel the British toward policies that would let America grow and flourish in association with England. He conducted the difficult negotiations with France that brought financial and military support for America in the war. 作为殖民地的代表，他不断建议英国改变政策，使美国可以和英国一起发展、

繁荣。他说服法国支持美国的独立战争。
⑥As an author he had power of expression, simplicity, a subtle humor, sarcastic. 作为作家具有非凡的才能，表达简洁明了，幽默，讽刺天才。
⑦“Autobiography” 自传 18世纪美国唯一流传至今的自传
2、Thomas Paine 托马斯.佩因 “Great Commoner of Mankind” 最平凡的人
①famous pamphlet “Common Sense” 著名的政治小册子《常识》，it boldly advocated a “Declaration for Independence”, and brought the separatist agitation to a crisis. 拥护“独立宣言”，使分裂活动发展成最后危机。
②“American Crisis”《美国危机》, signed “Common Sense”.署名为“常识”。（P31，第一段看一下）
3、Thomas Jefferson 托马斯.杰弗逊
①drafted the Declaration of Independence. 起草了独立宣言。 ②与清教不一样，主张追求幸福。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.人人生而平等，他们都从他们的“造物主”那边被赋予了某些不可转让的权利，其中包括生命权、自由权和追求幸福的权利。
4、Philip Freneau 菲利浦.弗瑞诺 poet and political journalist 诗人和政治方面的新闻记者。
①perhaps the most outstanding writer of the post-Revolutionary period.可能是革命战争后期最杰出的作家。
②has been called the “Father of American Poetry” 美国诗歌之父
学习指南：
1、Theology dominated the Puritan phase of American writing. Politics was the next great subject to command the attention of the best minds.
2、Freneau was neoclassical by training and taste yet romantic in essential spirit.
第四部分 现实主义文学
1、Realism 特征：①Mechanization 机器化 ②urbanization 城市化，许多人涌入城市，阶级差异明显③induseridization 工业化 ④federal government (race种族平等进入宪法)标志着马克.吐温的《镀金时代》开始。⑤railway system 工业化的一大标志，电力和石油的应用发挥了重大作用。
wrence的作品中突出了对铁路的描写。
2、文化特征：①女性发挥作用明显，女性的作者和读者明显增多。②开始关注中产阶级。Mid class. ③现实主义 realism，
New York replaced Boston as the nation’s literary center. 纽约成为新的文化中心。
3、Realism： Mark Twain local colorist 本土色彩浓厚
Henry James psychologist 心理描写深刻
Naturalism 自然主义 pessimistic 悲观的
Environment 环境
Heredity (lower) 底层的继承
4、Calvinist family Predestination 预知的
卡尔文主义 Pessimism 悲观的
悲观的，宿命的 tone(诗歌基调) tragic 关注死亡 Death and immortality(永恒)
5、两个作家的

比较 Dickinson Whitman
关注点： inner world of individual 关注个人内心 Society / large 关注社会
形式： free verse free verse
语言： concise、direct、simple 简洁、直接的 ( diction )
By the mid-eighteenth century colonial America was no longer a group of scattered, struggling settlements. It was a series of neighboring, flourishing colonies with rapidly expanding, mixed populations. The growth, particularly the industrial groowth, led to intense strain with England. In the seventies of the 18th century the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their nother country. The War for Independence last for 8 years . the spiritual life in the colonies during that period was to a great degree moulded by the bourgeois Enlightenment.

Chapter III The Literature of Romanticism Historical Introduction
1. The attitudes of america’s writers were shaped by their New World environment and an array of ideas inherited from the ramantic traditions of Europe. A new romanticism had appeared in England in the last years of the wighteenth century. It spread to continental Europe and then came to america early in the nineteenth century.
2. Romantic values were prominent in american plitics, art, and philosophy until the Civil War.
rationalism americans had sought new liberties and new ideas in life and art, but the excesses and conflicts of their society had culminated in a bloody Civil War.
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

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
④ (笔记上添的) the Critic 评论家认为，他揭示了矛盾 the direction was morally right
the other practically / inevitable
Leatherstocking: insist on old forest freedom 皮袜子：保存了这些原始森林的面貌
Judge Temple: man remain savage without law and order
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 （笔记上添的） integrate 统一性 one sitting → brevity 简洁
readability 可读性 → totality of impression 开门见山，加强印象
compression 浓缩
finality 要求结局
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
★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”。
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。
Washington Irving - one of the first American writers to earn an international reputation, an early Romantic writer, and Father of the American short stories, “the American Goldsmith”
regarded as a writer who “perfected the best classic style that American literature ever produced.”
First novel 纽约外史won him wide popularity
见闻札记 won international fame
→contains German folk tales ,
READING: excerpt from “Rip Van Winkle”瑞普?凡?温可尔
It is not only well-known for Rip’s 20-year sleep but also considered a model of perfect English in American literature and in the English language as well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - the spokesman of New England Transcendentalism（超验主义） movement
论美国学者, 论自助,
a reflection upon the aesthetic(美学的) problems in terms of the present state of literature in America
a discussion about the conflict between idealism and ordinary life. American Puritanism, European Romanticism, intuitive(直觉的) knowledge, over-soul, individual, nature
Henry David Thoreau梭罗 -沃乐登
READING: excerpt from Nature

论自然 is regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism， Emerson’s first little book, which discuss the love of nature, the uses of nature… “a transparent eyeball”

Nathaniel Hawthorne
Interior(内部) of the heart, ‘there is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life, but circumstances may rouse it to activity’, so in almost every book, Hawthorne discuss sin and evil.
the scarlet letter A is ambiguous(不明确的). And the ambiguity is one of the salient(显著的) characteristics of Hawthorne’s art.
READING: Young Goodman Brown 小伙子布朗
Goodman Brown, a Puritan(清教徒), who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful.
Walt Whitman
Openness, freedom, individualism
I - me, my nation (society), Free verse（自由体诗）, Envelope structure（信件结构）, Catalogue (Listing)
A new ideal, a new world, a new life-style
草叶集written in the founding documents of both the Revolutionary War in the United States and the Civil War.
READING; 1. There Was a Child Went Forth 2. Cavalry Crossing a Ford 3. Song of Myself
一个孩子的成长 how a child is greatly influenced by his growing environments, be identified with the childhood of a young, growing America.
涉水的骑兵a scene of the American Civil War, all the movements described in this picture are frozen.
自己之歌 Whitman is a man bubbling with energy and laden(装满) with ideas, spontaneous(自发的) expression of his original ideas

Herman Melville - a master of allegory and symbolism, like Hawthorne
玛地 雷得本 白外衣 皮埃尔 比利?伯德
READING: excerpt from Moby-Dick
白鲸 is one of the world’s greatest masterpieces, the first American prose epic, It turns out to be 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.
Ishmael both as a character and a narrator； the captain, Ahab is a monomaniac(狂热者) whose single purpose is to capture the fierce, cunning(狡猾的) white whale, Moby Dick, which had torn away his leg.

The Realistic Period : 1865-1914
Realistic period – “the Gilded(富有的) Age”, the poor poorer and the rich richer, people's attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existence
Local colorism, social Darwinism, bestiality, beyond man's control
3 dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells(美国现实文学先驱), Mark Twain and Henry James.
? Henry James –“inner world” of man
? Howells –focused on rising middle class
?

Mark Twain – his own region and people, particular “local colorism”
? Local colorists – Sarah Orne Jewett, Joseph Kirkland and Hamlin Garland.

Mark Twain - the true father of American literature
Local colorist, vernacular（方言）, simple sentence, wide-ranging humor, both realistically and symbolically, 'the damned human race'
, 亚瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美国人
汤姆?索亚历险记 (for boys),哈克贝里?费恩历险记(for adults) prove themselves to be the milestone in American literature
his masterpiece, -“all modern American literature comes”.
“Huck”, a typical American Boy with “a sound heart and a deformed(畸形的) conscience”, and remarkable for the raft’s journey down the Mississippi river, through the eyes of Huck, we see the pre-Civil War American society.
READING; excerpt from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn READING; excerpt from
Huck's inner conflict about whether or not he should write a letter to tell Miss Watson where Jim is.

Henry James – the first American writer to conceive his career in international theme
- the forerunner of the 20th-century “stream of consciousness” novel and the founder of psychological realism, interior monologue, free association, his language is not so easy to understand
早期一个美国人 黛西?米勒 bring him international fame for the first time
贵妇人的画像 his masterpiece
中期波士顿人short fiction:螺丝在拧紧丛林猛兽
晚期鸽巢 专使 金碗
READING; excerpt from Daisy Miller
the narrator is an American expatriate(侨民), named Winterbourne. Daisy is the most innocent girl. Her defiance(违抗) of social taboos(禁忌) in the Old World brings her to a disaster in the clash(冲击) between two different cultures.

Emily Dickinson
Based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys, “letter to the world”, about religious and immortality（永生）, love, nature
1) her poems have no titles
2) dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence（节奏） and capital letters as a means of emphasis.
READING;
express Dickinson's anxiety about her communication with the outside world.
description of a moment of death
Dickinson makes the train part of nature by animalizing it, like a horse.
我爱看它舔食一哩又一哩
personify death and immortality so as to make her message strongly felt
因为我不能停步等候死神

Theodore Dreiser - America's literary naturalists
Case history including everything Determinism（决定论） (heredity遗传 biological & environment), Darwinist idea（达尔文主义）of ‘survival of the fittest’, ‘the jungle law’（弱肉强食原则）
珍妮姑娘 美国的悲剧
Trilogy of Desire欲望三部曲 - 金融家, 巨头, 斯多葛
READING; excerpt from Sister Carrie
嘉丽妹妹 'who shall cast the first stone?'
After Carrie deserts Hurstwood, he is in great despair. He turns the gas on in a cheap lodging-house and ends his life, while at the same time Carrie is rocking comfortably in her luxuriant hotel room.

The Modern Period
? The modern period - the second American Renaissance, the expatriate(侨民) movement, “the Lost Generation”, a transformation from order to disorder
? Seize the day, enjoy the present, spiritual wasteland, collective unconscious, psychoanalysis(心理分析)
Imagist movement, Jazz Age
? “the Lost Generation” – Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost
? Two thinkers of this period: German Karl Marx(马克思) and the Austrian Sigmund Freud（弗洛伊德）
? William James – famous for his theory of “stream of consciousness”
? E.E.Cummings, always used “i” instead of “I”, protest against self-importance

Ezra Pound - a leading spokesman of the ‘Imagist Movement' (意象主义)
- 3 main principles: 1)direct treatment of poetic subjects, 2)elimination of ornamental words, 3)rhythmical(韵律) composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome(节拍器).
- He translate some ancient Greek and Chinese works
诗章
READING; 1. In a Station of the Metro 2. The River - Merchant's Wife: A Letter 3. A Pact
地铁站一瞥Pound attempts to produce the emotion he felt when he walked down into a Paris subway station and suddenly saw a number of faces in the dim light. To capture the emotions, Pound uses the image of petals on wet, black boughs.
河商的妻子 This is a verse “letter” in which the speaker communicates indirectly, by means of vivid images and shifting tone, the history of her feelings for her absent husband.
盟约agreement with Whitman's free verse

Robert Lee Frost - four times awarded Pulitzer Prize, pastoral life and scene.
Frost is liked by the Americans because the subject and the landscape of his poems are forever New England and his simplicity never fails to reveal some profound truth.
READING; 1.After Apple-Picking 2.The Road Not Taken 3. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
摘苹果后 a memory of experience in which the end of labor leaves the speaker with a sense of completion and fulfillment yet finds him blocked from success by winter’s approach(接

近) and physical weariness(疲倦).
未选择的路 tells us how the course of his life was determined when he came upon two roads that diverged in a wood. He ‘took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.’
雪夜停马在林边 the speaker literally stops his horse in the winter twilight(日出前) to observe the beauty of the forest scene, and then is moved to continue his journey.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - spokesman of the Jazz Age, ‘Dollar Decade’, 1920s
A double vision of the Jazz Age, both an insider and an outsider American Dream
He shows a particular interest in the upper-class society, especially young people.
人间天堂 his first novel
夜色温柔 最后一个巨头
READING; excerpt from The Great Gatsby了不起的盖茨比
his masterpiece, ‘incorruptible dream’ is ‘smashed into pieces by the relentless reality.’
Gatsby is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies America itself; he is the last of the romantic heroes

Ernest Hemingway - awarded the Nobel Prize
’Iceberg style’, ‘Code hero’, ‘grace under pressure’ 重压下的风度,
The use of short, simple and conventional word
在我们的时代里the first book to present a Hemingway hero –Nick Adams
太阳照样升起‘The Lost Generation’: a group of young Americans who left their native land and fought in the war and later engaged themselves in writing in a new way about their own experiences.
永别了,武器about the tragic love affair of a wounded American soldier with a British nurse.
丧钟为谁而鸣 老人与海
READING; Indian Camp
from Nick watches his father deliver an Indian woman of a baby by Caesarian(剖腹术) section, with a jack-knife and without anesthesia(麻醉). birth and death coexist(共存)

William Faulkner - awarded a Nobel Prize
American South, Yoknapatawpha Country ,imprisonment in the past
Stream of consciousness, multiple points of view, 内心独白, 时序颠倒
喧嚣与骚动 我弥留之际 押沙龙, 押沙龙
八月之光 熊
READING; excerpt from A Rose for Emily
Emily, an eccentric(古怪的) spinster(老处女) who refuses to accept the passage of time, or the inevitable(不可避免的) change and loss that accompanies it. She is regarded as the symbol of tradition and the old way of life. Thus her death is like the falling of a monument.