1.Romantic period
2.Washington Irving
3.Edgar Allan Poe
4.Nathanial Hawthorne
5.Walt Whitman
6.Emily Dickinson
7.II. Realist period
8.Mark Twain 9.Sherwood Anderson
10.Stephen Crane
11.Theodore Dreiser
12.III. Modern period
13. F. S. Fitzgerald
14.Ernest Hemingway
15.William Faulkner
1.Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the middle 1800’s, which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Oversoul, and Nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-reliant. New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism.
2.Naturalism
Naturalism, a more deliberate kind of realism, usually involves a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment. As a literary movement, naturalism was initiated in France and it came to be led by Zola, who claimed at “scientific” status for his studies of impoverished
characters miserably subjected to hunger, sexual obsession, and hereditary defects. Natural fiction aspired to a sociological objectivity, offering detailed and fully researched investigations into unexplored corners of modern society. The most significant work of naturalism in English being Dreiser’s Sister Carrie.
3.American Dream
The American Dream is the faith held by many people in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations.
4.The Lost Generation
The term Lost Generation was coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to a group of American Literary notables who lived in Paris from the time period which saw the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Significant members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, T. S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein herself. Hemingway likely popularized the term, quoting Stein (“You are all a lost generation”) as epigraph to his novel The Sun Also Rises. More generally, the term is being used for the young adults of Europe and America during World War I. They were “lost” because after the war many of them were disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to more into a settled life
5. Modernism
Modern writing is marked by a strong and conscious break with traditional forms and techniques of expression; it believes that we create the world in the act of perceiving it. Modernism implies historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, of loss, and of despair. It elevates the individual and his inner being over social man and prefers the unconscious to the self-conscious.
6. Romanticism
.
7. Puritanism
The principles and practices of puritans were popularly known as Puritanism. Puritanism accepted the doctrines of Calvinism: the sovereignty of God; the supreme authority of the Bible; the irresistibility of God’s will for man in every act of life from cradle to grave. These doctrines led the Puritans to
examine their souls to find whether they were of the elect and to search the Bible to determine God’s will.
8.Hemingway Heroes / Code Hero
“Hemingway Heroes” refer to some protagonists in Hemingway’s works. Such a hero usually is an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent. And usually he is a man of action and of a few words. He is such an individualist, alone even when with other people, somewhat an outsider, keeping emotions under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one can not get happiness. The Hemingway heroes stand for a whole generation. In a world which is essentially chaotic and meaningless, a Hemingway hero fights a solitary struggle against a force he does not even understand. The awareness that it must end in defeat, no matter how hard he strives, engenders a sense of despair. But Hemingway heroes possess a kind of “despairing courage”as Bertrand Russell terms. It is this courage that enables a man to behave like a man, to assert his dignity in face of adversity. Surely Hemingway heroes differ, one from another, in their view of the world. The difference which comes gradually in view is an index to the subtle change which Hemingway’s outlook had undergone.
Expressionism
Expressionism refers to a movement in Germany early in the 20th century, in which a number of painters sought to avoid the representation of external
reality and, instead, to project a highly personal or subjective vision of the world. The main principle involved is that expression determines form, and therefore imagery, punctuation, syntax, and so forth. In brief, any of the formal rules and elements of writing can be bent or disjointed to suit the purpose. Theatrically, expressionism was a reaction against realism in that it tends to show inner psychological realities. O’Neill’s plays are some of the best examples.
The Imagist Movement (Imagism)
Led by Ezra Pound and flourished from 1909 to 1917, the movement advanced modernism in arts which concentrated on reforming the medium of poetry as opposed to Romanticism, especially Tennyson' s wordiness and high-flown language in poetry. The three principles followed by the Imagists were:
(1)"Direct treatment" (2) "Economy of Expression" (3) " Rhythm" symbolism
Symbolism originates in France in the middle 19th century. The poetry collection The Flowers of Evil by the French poet Charles Baudelaire is a representative work of this genre. Symbolism tries to express the dreamy mysterious inner world of the writer.
Stream-of-consciousness
Stream-of-consciousness begins in the 1920’s in Britain. It is a psychological
term indicating “the flux of conscious and subconscious thoughts and impressions moving in the mind at any given time independently of the person’s will”. In late 19th century, the literary device of “interior monologue”was originated in France as an application of modern psychological knowledge to literary creation. In the 20th century, under the influence of Freud’s theory of psychological analysis, a number of writers adopted the “stream of consciousness”method of novel writing. The striking feature of these novelists is their giving precedence to the depiction of the characters’mental and emotional reactions to external events, rather than the events themselves. (to be continued)
Free verse:
a form of poetry without rhyme, meter, regular line length, and regular stanzaic structure. It depends on natural speech for rhythm. Robert Frost compared it to “playing tennis with the net down.”Though much simpler and less restrictive than conventional poetry and blank verse, free verse does no mean “formlessness.”T. S. Eliot once said that “no verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job.”Though its origin is unknown, it was attempted by such early poets as Surrey, Milton, Blake, and Macpherson. It was Whitman who did the greatest contribution to the development and popularity of free verse. Whitman favored the simplicity and freedom of expression. According to him, “The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of light of letters is simplicity. Noting is better than simplicity.”
Jazz age:
Jazz is a form of dance music that is derived from early Afro-American folk music, ragtime, and Negro blues. It is marked with exciting rhythm, pronounced syncopation, and constant improvisation. The musical instruments used are mainly drums, trumpets, and saxophones. Major composers of Jazz music include Irvin Berlin and W. C. Handy. The term Jazz Age was specifically employed by Fitzgerald to denote the 1920s, which was characterized by the loss of traditional moral standards, indulgence in romantic yearnings, and great social excitement. According to Malcolm Cowley, the Jazz Age was “a legend of glitter, of recklessness, and of talent in such profusion that it was sown broadcast like wild oats.”F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age, like Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age, was an epoch-making work.
Black humor:
a term frequently used in modern literary criticism. It is sometimes called ‘black comedy’or ‘tragic farce.’It is humor or laughter resulting from great pain, despair, horror and the absurdity of human existence. Black humor is a common quality of modern anti-novels and anti-dramas. Examples are Franz Kafka’s stories like “Metamorphosis”, “The Castle”and “The Trial”, Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 and Albee’s The Zoo Story. Other writers who did much contribution to the popularity of black humor were Beckett, Camus, Ionesco, Vonnegut, Pynchon and so on.
Autobiography:
a story a writer writes about his or her own life experiences. It is narrated from the first-person point of view. The term was probably first used by Southey. But the first important autobiography was Confessions written by Augustine of Hippo. Other examples include Franklin’s Autobiography, Adams’s The Education of Henry Adams, John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography, Carlyle’s Reminiscences, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, and so on.
Surprise Ending:
Also called “O. Henry ending,”it is a completely unexpected turn or revelation of events at the conclusion of a story or play. An example is “The Necklace”by Guy de Maupassant. Another instance is O. Henry’s story “The Gift of the Magi.”
Blank verse:
poetry that does not rhyme but has iambic pentameter lines. Though not originated in England or America, it has been the most important and most widely used English verse form. Blank verse is popular because it is closest to the rhythm of daily English speech. Thus most English poems which are dramatic, reflective or narrative are in the form of blank verse. This verse was probably first used in England by Surrey who translated Aeneid, by Sackville and Norton who composed Gorboduc. It was developed and perfected by Marlowe, Shakespeare and Milton. In the 18th century, most poets favored heroic couplets. But Young and Thomson were able to write in the tradition of
blank verse. The 19th century saw a renewed interest in this poetic form. Masters of blank verse included Wordsworth, Coleridge and Bryant. The fact that blank verse is still practiced by writers like T.S. Eliot, Yeats, Frost and Stevens shows how influential and favorable it really is. Characteristics of Realism
2.1 Realism aims at the description of the actualities of the life and free from subjective prejudice, idealism or romantic color.
2.2 Realism focuses on commonness of the common people. The emphasis is on ordinary people, settings and events.
2.3 Life is presented as it is.
2.4 Use real characters, real incidents, real language and local dialects. 2.5 In matters of style, diction and sentence structure tend toward a plain style.
3.Representative writers
William Howells .Mark Twain .Henry James
Major features of Naturalism
1. At the core of naturalism is determinism
2.An individual’s course in life is wholly determined by some combination of animal instinct, heredity, and environment. Humans lack freedom of their own will. All of their actions are controlled, determined.
3.The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires. Life becomes a struggle for survival.
Two of the naturalist’s recurrent concerns are: social systems that destroy and dehumanize, and individual experience of loss and failure.
4.Naturalism is a harsher and extreme form of realism. The naturalists have a major difference from the realists.
Themes of Hawthorne’s writing
1. Explore the relationship between the past and the present
2. Explore the hidden motivations of his characters.
3. Examine the effect of hidden sin and secret guilt
4. Moral or immoral, right or wrong is the question Hawthorne always talks about in his works.
1.5. Style
1. His style was soft, flowing and almost feminine.
https://www.doczj.com/doc/4315597718.html,nguage: smooth, clear, beautiful in sound and meaning
3. He also frequently uses symbols and settings to reveal the psychology of the characters.
Appreciation of The Scarlet Letter
1. Main Character:Hester Prynne.，Roger Chillingworth.，Arthur Dimmesdale
3. Character Analysis
Hester: brave, strong-minded, warm-hearted, intelligent, sacrificing, decisive Dimmesdale: timid, selfish, irresponsible, cowardly, weak-minded
Chillingworth: cold-blooded, dehumanized
Theme of The Scarlet Letter
To escape the bondage of religion either on people’s spirit or on people’s natural desire
4. Abundant use of symbols
A ---adultery angel able
Prison—the place that deprived people of spiritual freedom
Forest---the nature
Rose near the prison—Hester and her love
Cap—sth controlling one’s beauty
Walt Whitman(1819-1892)
Leaves Of Grass
“Song of myself”
Analysis of the artistic features
2.4.1. form: free verse
Oral and powerful lg: Although free verse, he wrote with repeated and parallel sentences to strengthen the feelings. He express what he wanted to express freely, smoothly, and heatedly. His poems are like waves of the sea that rushed to the beach violently, one after another.
2.4.2 the first person narrator: direct and sympathetic to the reader
2.4.
3. topic: sex.
To use his own expression, “he saw the world as a vision of love.”He believes that life is the source of poems, love and enthusiasm are the motives of creation.
III. Comments on the writer
3.1. Subject: son of time, feels the pulse of the time. As a romanticist and transcendentalist, he broke the conventional poetic materials, no myth,no romance, no story of king and lords. He sings for self, common people, America, city life, nature, etc.
3.2. Form: (Free verse) poetry without fixed beat or regular rhyme. Whitman is the first great American poet to use this form of poetry, he also used it more skillfully than any other poet.
(1)One's Self I Sing
1. What is the significance of singing about one's self?
It is an exaltation of the individual spirit, which is typical of American people.
2. What is the difference between physiology and physiognomy? Physiology is a science that deals with the functions and life process of human beings, whereas physiognomy refers to an art of judging character from contours of face itself or the appearance of a person.
3. What does Whitman mean by the term of "the Modern Man"?
He means that a man should be free from any prejudice and pride, totally
different from the traditional one, that is full of bias.
(3) O Captain! My Captain!
1. Why is the word "Captain" capitalized throughout the poem?
In this poem the word “Captain”specially refers to Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States.
2. What overall metaphor does the poet employ in this poem?
Life is a journey.
3. Why do people on the shores exult and bells ring, while the speaker remains so sad?
They welcome the ship returning from its hard trip, whereas the speaker is sad because the captain fails to receive his own honor.
Mark Twain 马克·吐温
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Count卡拉维拉斯县有名的跳蛙(1865):a short story
The Innocents Abroad国外的无辜者(1869)
Roughing It苦行记(1872): on his experience in the western America
The Gilded Age (1873): his first novel, collaborated with Charles Dudley Warner
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn哈克贝利·费恩历险记(1884): masterpiece
Life on the Mississippi (1883)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court误闯亚瑟王宫(1889)
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg败坏了哈德莱堡的人(1900)
The Mysterious Stranger (1916)
e. The Adventures of T om Sawyer
1. It is "a boy's book" which sets 20 years before Civil War.
2. themes:
1)picaresque以流浪汉和无赖为题材的(adventure story)
2) moral growth of Tom
3. techniques: verisimilitude, humor, colloquial style
Mark Twain’s Style in General
the true father of American literature
Frequent use of sarcasm, slang and regional dialects.
4.5.1. Subject Matter: came directly from American people’s life along the Mississippi River, less influenced by foreign cultures
4.5.2. Genuine American style:
a) Language: easy, informal, humorous and unaffected [free from affectation; sincere], wild
b) He intentionally deviates from classical genteel and tends to use local dialects, colloquial language, even Black English, slang, clipped structures and ungrammatical sentences
Major work : Huckleberry Finn《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》show escape to
freedom
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) 德莱赛
Naturalism is a theory in literature emphasizing the role of heredity and environment upon human life and character development roughly between 1890’s and early 1900’s. There is no clear-cut chronological division between the American naturalists and the American realists.
对比Realism Naturalism
emphasis on the ordinary emphasis also on the extraordinary a mirror a lens
the observer the scientist
moral or rational the accidental and physiological
Major Writing Features
6.3.1 As a naturalistic writer, Dreiser stressed determinism in his novels. ·His characters can’t assert their will against natural and economic forces. ·Dreiser held that people are not entirely to blame for what they are and what they do.
6.3.2. He developed the capacity for photographic and relentless observation, thereby truthfully reflecting the society and people of his time and making his novels very believable and convincing.
·Almost all of his main characters are based on the real people.
·Vivid description of environmental settings and social background
6.3.3. His novels are full of tragedies, serious subjects and miserable side of the society.
·Dreiser broke through the genteel tradition , revealed the life of the lower class people and dared to expose the vulgar and ugly side of the society.
Style
6.4.1. Language: very awkward, crude/on the bordering of line of grammar.
6.4.2. Serious in tone: never satirical or comic
6.4.3. Natural narrative method, free from artifice.
His narrative is based on quantities of materials and detailed descriptions. 作品
Si ster Carrie 嘉莉妹妹(1900): the first novel, masterwork
Jannie Gerhardt (1911)
The Fanancier (1912)
The Titan (1914)
The Stoic (1947)
The Genius (1915)
An American Tragedy美国悲剧(1925)
Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928)
c. Sister Carrie
theme:the emptiness of Ameircan Dream
i. jungle law
Famous actress bank manager(the unfit is bound to die) <——Country girl (able to follow her instinct) commit suicide
ii. chance and luck
iii. criticism of American values: money and sex —the standards to see if a person is successful
iv. concern for the poor
F.Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
an Irish-American Jazz Age novelist and short story writer.
Theme of the American Dream
Fitzgerald’s favorite theme is the American Dream. In The Great Gatsby and other works, a general pattern can be found to fully demonstrate Fitzgerald’s enthusiasm and his disillusionment with the American Dream: formally, a poor young man from the West trying to make his fortune in the East, but thematically, the young man goes on a journey of discovery from dream, through disenchantment, and finally to a sense of failure and despair. In this general pattern of the protagonist’s personal experience is incarnated the whole of American experience.
. Language
smooth, sensitive, original, simple and graceful
Jay Gatsby Nick Carraway Tom Buchanan Daisy Buchanan
The Great Gatsby
Theme:
1. about reality and atmosphere of 1920s
2. failure of American Dream
c. attitude towards the rich: paradoxical
He is charmed by the rich.
He is critical of the rich who are corrupted themselves and meanwhile corrupting others.
d. attitude towards the Jazz Age: insider and outsider
人物Jay Gatsby Nick Carraway Tom Buchanan Daisy Buchanan Gatsby, with all his freshness, his optimism, and his vitality
Gatsby in the novel represents the newly rich upstart, vulgar in his ostentatious [showy] wealth. However, he becomes a kind of new American Adam. He is “great”, because he is dignified and ennobled
by his dream and his mythic vision of life.
Tom Buchanan ：He is vulgar, hypocritical racist and bigot [person who holds sth strongly]. He is practical and non-idealistic, shallow and mistrustful of emotion. He never cares or takes responsibility.
Daisy Buchanan：she also has an inner emptiness, marked by her boredom and cynicism and moral irresponsibility. She is afraid of being alone, as though she has no inner self. But she has the power to charm. Daisy
represents material wealth to Gatsby, but it also connects with physical attraction. However, Daisy is unworthy of Gatsby’s love. She is incapable of living the fully imagined life that Gatsby has visualized. She is cowardly and selfish.
Nick is both a narrator and a character in this novel. He leads us to the dignity and depth of Gatsby’s character, and suggests the relation
of his tragedy to the American situation.
Ernest Hemingway 海明威
style
1.iceberg principle. The meaning here is that the writer should say only one eighth, in such a way that the remaining seven eighths be discerned and provided by the reader.
https://www.doczj.com/doc/4315597718.html,nguage: short, common, fundamental words, simple sentence, structure.The effect of the language: clearness, cleanness and great care.
3.dialogue: plays a very important part in his writings. Hemingway’s dialogue can show setting, development of plot, characters, even theme.
4.cinematic way: he uses showing instead of telling. He likes to describes actions (kiss, withdraw hand) vividly instead of mental description.
5.symbolism
https://www.doczj.com/doc/4315597718.html,e of stream of consciousness
traits for the Code Hero:
(1) Measuring himself against the difficulties life throws in his way, realizing that we will all lose ultimately because we are mortals, but playing the game honestly and passionately in spite of that knowledge.
(2) Facing death with dignity, enduring physical and emotional pain in silence
(3) Never showing emotions
(4) Maintaining free-will and individualism, never weakly allowing commitment to a single woman or social convention to prevent adventure, travel, and acts of bravery
(5) Being completely honest, keeping one's word or promise
(6) Being courageous and brave, daring to travel and have "beautiful adventures," as Hemingway would phrase it
(7) Admitting the truth of Nada (Spanish, "nothing"), i.e., that no external source outside of oneself can provide meaning or purpose. This existential awareness also involves facing death without hope of an afterlife, which the Hemingway Code Hero considers more brave than "cowering" behind false religious hopes
Themes nada，grace under pressure，code hero
Magic realism 加西亚·马尔克斯《百年孤独》Garcia Marques Century Loneliness)
一．The Literature of Colonial America(Puritanism) 1.The first English colony: Jamestown in Virginia in 1607 2.The first American writer: John Smith 3.Anne Bradstreet: first American woman poet; a Puritan poet; once called “Tenth Muse”; 二．Literature of Reason and Revolution War of Independence (1775-1783);The French and Indian War / the Seven Y ears’War(1756-1763) 1..Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography; Richard’s Almanac Maxims from Poor Richard’s Almanac (proverbs that give practical wisdom) 2..Thomas Paine (1737-1809): Common Sense: a strong push for the Revolution W ar; four parts (British enslavement of the colonies; praising democratic election; America’s economic and military potential to protect the rights of people) 3..Philip Freneau (1752-1832) The first American-born poet;“Poet of the American Revolution”, “Father of American Poetry”, the most significant poet of 18th century America W orks:The Wild Honey Suckle《野忍冬花》on mortality, The Indian Burying Ground 《印第安人殡葬地》on the imagined afterlife, The British Prison Ship《英国囚船》about his imprisoned experience. 三．Romanticism The American Romantic period is considered one of the most important periods, the first literary Renaissance, in the history of American literature. It stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil W ar. It started with the publication of W ashington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. 1.Washington Irving (1783-1859) Literary status: the first American to earn an international reputation; Father of the American short stories The Sketch Book: winning him international popularity，the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature. Major works: A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty under the name of “Diedrich Knickerbocker
湖州师范学院外国语学院2008— 2009学年第二学期 《美国文学》期末考试试卷（A卷）答案暨评分标准 I. Write the names of the authors. (10%) ①Walt Whitman ②Edgar Allen Poe ③Wallace Stevens ④Franklin Norris ⑤Stephen Crane ⑥William Faulkner ⑦Sinclair Lewis ⑧John Steinbeck ⑨Langston Hughes ⑩Tennessee Williams II. Fill in the following blanks with appropriate information.（10%） ①New England ②Regionalism or Local color writing ③semi-autobiographical ④anti-realism ⑤Imagist ⑥Santiago ⑦multiple narrations or points of view ⑧1930 ⑨Harlem Renaissance ⑩Eugene O’Neill III. Choose only one answer form the four choices as the most appropriate answer. （20%） 1－5. A D C B B 6－10. D B E B A IV. Identify the author and the title of the work from which each of the following excerpts is taken. And then answer the question after each excerpt. (20%) Passage 1 the author: Walt Whitman (1%) the title of the work : Songs of Myself (1%) Question: What is the poet celebrating? (2%) The poet is celebrating individualism and nationalism, singing of all those people who form the American nationality.
Part I The Literature of Colonial America I．Historical Introduction The colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. ( A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.) II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of two kinds: 1) Practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people "at home" what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration 2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American Writer The first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians. Captain John Smith is the first American writer. A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (1608) A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country (1612) General History of Virgini a (1624): the Indian princess Pocahontas Captain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers. One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England Literature William Bradford and John Winthrop John Cotton and Roger Williams Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor V．Puritan Thoughts 1. The origin of puritan In the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII (At that time, the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church of
美国文学期末考试复习必备（精） 1. What’s Puritanism? A religious and political movement which appeals to the right of the individual to political & religious independence. It includes three parts: a code of values, a point of view & a philosophy of life 2. What are the basic Puritan beliefs? 1). Total Depravity 2). Unconditional Election 3). Limited Atonement 4). Irresistible Grace 5). Perseverance of the "saints" 3. What are American Puritan values? Sobriety thrift, Self-reliance Diligence, Struggle, simple tastes 4. What are the features of American literature in the Colonial Period? A. Humble origins: diaries, journals, histories, letters. Its various forms, occupy a major position in the literature of the early colonial period. B. in content: serving either god or colonial expansion or both C. in form: imitating English literary traditions. D. in style: tight and logic structure, precise and compact expression, avoidance of rhetorical decoration, adoption of homely imagery and simplicity of diction. E. Symbolism formed in this period ------To the pious Puritan, the physical, phenomenal world was nothing but a symbol of God. F. Simple, fresh and direct style
Captain John Smith (first American writer). Anne Bradstreet；The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America （colonists living） Edward Taylor(the best puritan poet) John Cotton ”the Patriarch of New England” teacher spiritual leader Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography Poor Richard’s Almanack Thomas Jefferson： Political Career Thoughts The Declaration of Independence we hold truth to be self-evidence Philip Freneau“Father of American Poetry” The Wild Honey Suckle American Romanticism optimism and hope Nationalism Washington Irving“Father of American Literature short story”The first “Pure Writer” A History of New York The Sketch Book marked the beginning of American Romanticism! “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”Rip Van Winkle James Fenimore Cooper Father of American sea and frontier novels Leather stocking Tales The Last of the Mohicans The Pioneers The Prairie The Pathfinder The Deerslayer Edgar Allan Poe father of detective story and horror fiction Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque “MS. Found in a Bottle” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” “The Fall of the House of Usher”“The Masque of the Red Death”“The
大四美国文学期末考试题型及例题： 1.选择/对错60分（40道选择，20个对错） 2.名词解释10分（5个） 3.选段配对10分（5个） 4.问答20分（10/2） 1．历史：Father / poetess… 2. 名作家：Hemingway, Faulkner, Poe, Hawthorne, Emerson 3．作品：The W asteland/Moby Dick/Scarlet Letter 1.a)选择题（40个，40分） 1. At the age of reason and revolution, Americans were influenced by the European movement called the ________. A. Chartist Movement B. Romanticist Movement C. Enlightenment Movement D. Modernist Movement 2. Which is NOT connected to Benjamin Franklin? ________ A. He was born in a poor family. B. He was a pious puritan. C. He was phrased as “Jack of all trades”. D. He was a master of diplomacy. 3. Ernest Hemingway is noted for the following EXCEPT ________. A. Lost Generation B. Iceberg theory C. American Dream D. Code Heroes 4. Which character is NOT from The Scarlet Letter? ________ A. Hester Prynne B. Roger Chillingworth C. Captain Ahab D. Pearl 5. Jack London’s semi-biographical novel ________well presents the disillusionment of American Dream. A. The American Tragedy B. The Call of the Wild C. Martin Eden D. The Grapes of Wrath b)判断对错题（20个，20分） 1. Poe’s masterpiece “To Helen” is written to memorize his deceased wife. (F) 2. The tone of “Annabel Lee” is optimistic and hopeful. (F) 3. Mark Twain's novel Jumping Frog was an artistic failure, but it gave its name to the America of the postbellum period which it attempts to satirize. (F) 4. Sister Carrie ended up in tragedy because she could not control her fate. (F)
Introduction 1. The Youngest National Literature 1781 (Independence War) --- 2012= about 200 years 2. Great achievement: 1930-1980, nine American writers won the Nobel Prize The Periods of American Literature 1.The colonial period (约1607 - 1765) 2. The period of enlightenment and Independence War (1765-1800) 3. The romantic period (1800 - 1865) 4. The realistic period (1865 - 1914) 5. The period of modernism (1914 - 1945) 6. The Contemporary Literature (1945 -) Chapter I Colonial America American Puritanism 1. The beliefs and practices characteristic of Puritans(most of whom were Calvinists who wished to purify the Church of England of its Catholic aspects) 2. Strictness and austerity in conduct and religion Puritans‘ religio us belief: Calvinism ◆John Calvin, the great French theologian. The principal concepts: 1) Original sin and total depravity. 2) Predestination 3) Salvation of selected few ◆ The Puritans carried with them to America a code of values, a philosophy of life, and a point of view, which, in time, took root in the New world and became what is known as American Puritanism. (p11) The Influence of Puritanism on American Literature 1) Idealism（optimism） 2) Symbolism 3) Simplicity in writing Significance of Puritanism With time passing it became a dominant factor in American life, one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American Literature. To some extent it is a state of mind, a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes, rather than a set of tenets. Time: From the arrival of the first settlers in the early 17th century to the end of the 18th century Literary Features 1. Forms Personal literature in various forms --- diaries, histories, common books (札记)，journals, letters, travel books, sermons etc. 2. Content 1) practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people ―at home‖ what life was like in the new world 2) highly theoretical discussions of religious questions. 3. Style In Style, English literary traditions were imitated and transplanted. Early writers in the colonial period John Smith, a captain, one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia; the writer of A Description of New England. William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth Plantation, his writing: Of Plymouth Plantation (P16) John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, In his famous speech A Model of Christian Charity ,he states that there was a agreement between God and his people of building a new Garden of Eden in the new world. (P17) Therefore let us choose life, 所以，让我们选择生活， that we and our seed 这样，我们和我们的后代， may live by obeying His 可以听从上帝的声音， voice and cleaving to Him, 须臾不离上帝， for He is our life and 因为，上帝是我们的生命， our prosperity. 我们的兴旺 1
名词解释： Imagism: It’s a poetic movement of England and the U.S. flourished from 1909 to 1917.The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. The leaders of this movement were Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell. Beat generation: The term was coined by Jack Kerouac in 1948 to refer to a group of disillusioned writers following World War Two. Later, this literary and cultural movement continued into the 1960s. The Beat Generation must not be confused with the Lost Generation of writers. Spokesmen and representatives of the Beat Generation were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and others. They revolted against an America that was materialistic, belligerent and frustrating. Social, intellectual and sexual freedom was advocated. Traditional culture and normal social behavior were attacked and violated. Many of them were drug addicts wearing long hair and dirty clothes. They were fond of slangs and jazz. Masterpieces created by writers of this g roup include Kerouac’s On the Road and Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, which were regarded as pocket Bibles of that generation. Other prominent Beats include William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, and Neal Cassady. The Beat Generation, had greatly influenced the countercultural movements of the 1960s and the adolescents and adults in other countries. In England, the “angry young men” made an echo and imitated the American “beatnik.” 二、1. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature: it is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism. The American Scholar:it has been regarded as “America’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence”. 2. Henry David Thoreau: Walden 3. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter: 主题：Hawthorne focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular, so as to show us the tension between society and individuals. To Hawthorne, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature. 4. Herman Melville: Moby Dick A. 作品分析： （1）Moby Dick represents the sum total of Melville’s bleak view of the world in which he lived. It is at once godless and purposeless. The loss of faith and the sense of futility and meaningless which characterize modern life of the West were expresse d in Melville’s work so well that the twentieth century has found it both fascinating and great. (2) One of the major themes of this novel is alienation, which exists in the life of Melville on different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Melville also criticizes New England Transcendentalism of its emphasis on individualism and Oversoul. Another theme of this novel is “rejection and quest.” (3) The novel is highly symbolic. The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” Moby Dick is the most conspicuous symbol in the book and it is capable of many interpretations. It is a symbol of evil to some, one of goodness to others, and both to still others. Its whiteness is a paradoxical color, signifying as it does death and corruption as well as purity, innocence, and youth. It represents the final mystery of the universe which man will do well to desist from pursuing. (4) Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique of multiple views of his narratives. He tends to write periodic sentences. His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commented upon and praised. B. what does the white whale in Moby Dick symbolize? Why do you think so? For Captain Ahab, the white whale represents evil. After the loss of his leg in his encounter with the white whale, Ahab begins to hate Moby Dick and tries his best to kill the whale. It seems that he embodies all of the evil he once consigned to the white whale. For other members on the whaling ship, the white whale symbolizes the unknown, mysterious natural force of the universe. For the readers, the white whale is capable of many interpretations, for it is “paradoxically benign an d malevolent, nourishing and destructive,” “massive, brutal, monolithic, but at the same time protean, erotically beautiful, infinitely variable.” C. Major themes: obsession, religion, and idealism versus pragmatism, revenge, racism, sanity, hierarchical relationships, and politics. D. the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. Moby Dick is a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search, not a discovery, of the truth. The whole story turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology. 5. Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass.It has been praised as “Democ ratic Bible”, and as American Epic. 主题：(1)he shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. (2) realization of the individual value. (3) pursuit of love and happiness. (4) Before and during the Civil War, Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory. 写作风格：(1) Whitman wrote “free verse”, that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. (2) There is a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines contribute to the musicality of his poems. (3) Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest, undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day. (4) Whitman’s language is relatively simple and even rather crude. Another characteristic in Whitman’s language is his strong tendency to use oral English. Whitman’s vocabulary is amazing. He would use powerful, colorful, as well as rarely-used words. Leaves of Grass的分析： (1). Grass, the most common thing with the greatest vitality, is an image of the poet himself, a symbol of the then rising American nation and an embodiment of his ideals about democracy and freedom. (2). In this giant work, openness, freedom, and above all, individualism are all that concerned him. (3). In this book he also praises nature, democracy, labor and creation, and sings of man’s dignity and equality, and of th e brightest future of mankind. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-masse” and self as well. 6. Emily Dickinson: 诗歌的主要内容：love, nature, death and immortality. 7. Edgar Allen Poe: 短篇小说家和诗人。 Poe is the father of psychoanalytic criticism and the father of detective story. 主题：death of one’s beloved lover of great intelligence and beauty. He also writes about horror (Gothic) stories, murder, and insanity. 8. Henry James: The turn of the screw The founder of psychological realism. He was the first American writer to conceive his artistic work in international themes. 9. Mark Twain:The adventures of Huckleberry Finn Hemingway described it as the book from which “all modern American literature comes”. The style of this book is quite simple. The book is written in the colloquial style. Though a local book, it touches upon the human situation in a general, indeed universal way: humanitarianism ultimately triumphs. It tells a story about the United States before the Civil War, around 1850, when the great Mississippi Valley was still being settled. Here lies an America, wit its great national faults, full of violence and even cruelty, yet still retaining the virtues of “some simplicity, some innocence, some peace.” 10. Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser: 自然主义的代表人物。 11. F. Scott Fitzgerald:The Great Gatsby 迷惘一代的代表人物 12. Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms; For Whom the Bell Tolls; The Old Man and the Sea The title of For Whom the Bell Tolls comes from John Donne’s Meditation. 13. William Faulkner: stream of consciousness的写作手法 14. Ezra Pound: 意象派代表人物。 意象派基本主张： (1) Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective. (2) To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation (3) As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome. 15. Robert Frost: natural poet. 16. Eugene Glastone O’Neill: Desire Under the Elms Long Days Journey into Night: Mark Twain H. L. Mencken considered "the true father of our national literatu re” Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1884) and Life on the Mississippi(1883) Twain shaped the world's view of American and made a more extensive combination of American folk humor and serious literature than previous writers had ever done. Mark Twain’s sty le 1) Twain is also known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions 2) Another fact that made 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 3) Mark Twain's humor is remarkable, too. Most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks. 4) Paid more attention to the "life" of the Americans, Concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region and the lower-class people 5) Nostalgic in a vanishing way of life and recorders of a present that faded before their eyes Adventures of Huckleberry Fin The character analysis and social meaning of Huck Finn Huck is a typical American boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”. He appears to be vulgar in language and in manner, but he is honest and decent in es sence. His remarkable raft’s journey down on the Mississippi river can be regarded as his process of education and his way to grow up. Huck is the son of nature and a symbol for freedom and earthly pragmatism. Through the eye of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed. Twain contrasts the life on the river and the life on the banks, the innocence and the experience, the nature and the culture, the wilderness and the civilization. Ernest Hemingway A Nobel Prize winner for literature His style, the particular type of hero in his novels, and his life attitudes have been widely recognized, not only in English-speaking countries but all over the world Hemingway shot himself with a hunting gun In Our Time (1925)is the first book to present a Hemingway hero--Nick Adams The Sun Also Rises(1926) is Hemingway's first true novel. A vivid portrait of "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. Hemingway's second big success is A Farewell to Arms, telling us a story about the tragic love affair of a wounded American soldier with a British nurse -- emphasizes his belief that man is trapped both physically and mentally, but goes to some lengths to refute the idea of nature, man is doomed to be entrapped For Whom the Bell Tolls clearly represents a new beginning in Hemingway's career as a writer, which concerns a volunteer American guerrilla Robert Jordan fighting in the Spanish Civil War, this work Caps his career and leads to his receipt of the Nobel Prize The Old Man and the Sea, Men Without Women(1927), Death in the Afternoon(1932), The Snows of Kilimanjaro, To Have and Have Not (1937) Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twain Hemingway was highly praised by the Nobel Prize Committee for "his powerful style-forming mastery of the art" of creating modern fiction. Indian Camp The title indicates that the material is contemporary and to some extent, representative of the early twentieth-century experience A reference to the well-know phrase from the Book of Common Prayer:" Give us peace in our time, O Lord," the title is very ironic because there is no peace at all in the stories In a chronological order, introduces Nick Adams to readers from his childhood to adolescence and manhood Nick watches his father deliver an Indian woman of a baby by Caesarian section, with a Jack-knife and without anesthesia. This incident brings the boy into contact with something that is perplexing and unpleasant, and is actually Nick's initiation into the pain and violence of birth and death. Most of Hemingway's later works are merely variations of the Nick Adams stories in In Our Time The Hemingway code heroes and grace under pressure They have seen the cold world, and for one cause, they boldly and courageously face the reality. They have an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life. Whatever the result is, they are ready to live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will never be defeated. Finally, they will be prevailing because of their indestructible spirit and courage. The iceberg technique Hemingway believes that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action. The one-eighth is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimensions of the story. Thus, Hemingway’s language is symbolic and suggestive.