（Realism）
一、Background
1）Mechanization 机器化
2）Urbanization 城市化
3）Industrialization 工业化
4）Federal government(race种族平等进入宪法）标志着马克·吐温的《镀金时代》开始
5）Railway system工业化的一大标志，电力和石油的应用
6) Northern industrialism had triumphed over Southern agrarianism.
二、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。
一、时期综述：
1、镀金时代：The Gilded Age, an age of excess and extremes, of decline and progress, of poverty and dazzling wealth, of gloom and buoyant hope. 无节制、走极端，倒退和进步、贫困和富有并存，既令人沮丧又让人有希望的时代。
2、Although Americans continued to read the works of Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne,
and Poe, the great age of American romanticism had ended. By the 1870s the New England Renaissance had waned. 新英格兰的文艺复兴已开始接近尾声。
3、现实主义和自然主义作家的人物刻画方法：
19世纪末,the literary naturalists who followed them, rejected the portrayal of idealized characters and events. Instead, they sought to describe the wide range of American experience and to present the subtleties of human personality, to portray characters who were less simply all good or all bed.
反对在作品中描绘理想化了的人物和事件，关注人性中的微妙之处。
4、Realism：（现实主义）appeared in the United States in the literature of local color, an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things was immediately observable. the dialects, customs, sights.现实主义有浓厚的美国本土特色，是浪漫主义故事情节和现实主义描写相结合的产物：美国风味的方言、风俗、各种观点
5、Naturalism：自然主义 a new and harsher realism, 新型的更为冷峻的现实主义，产生悲观的流派，产生于the end of the century 十九世纪末，因为Perception of society’s disorders对社会无序的感知。Presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were dominated by their environment and heredity. 设法尽力
客观真实地展现出受环境与出身局限的下层人民和各种经济阶层人物的真正生活。
The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment, the religious “truths” were illusory, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. 强调世界的非道德性，人们没有意志的自由，宗教上的真理是虚幻的，现实生活是痛苦的。Deterministic 决定论，宿命的，
代表作家：Stephen Crane 史蒂芬.克莱恩, Frank Norris 弗朗克.诺里斯,
Jack London 杰克.伦敦, Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞.
6、Darwinism: 达尔文主义:an evident influence on naturalism, stress the animality of man, to suggest that be was dominated by the irresistible forces of evolution. 对自然主义影响极大，强调人的动物性，意味着人的命运受进化的不可抗力来决定的。
二、代表作家：
1、Walt Whitman 沃尔特.惠特曼
①★free verse (自由诗体) without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. 无固定
节奏，无有规律的韵脚
②“Leaves of Grass”草叶集 1870 the first genuine epic poem. 美国历史上第一部真正的史诗，当中的民主思想标志着浪漫主义的结束
Poem’s特点：most of the poems in “Leaves of Gr6ass”are about man and nature.
③关注点：In his poetry, he combined the ideal of democratic common man and that of the rugged individual
④诗人职责：he envisioned the poet as a hero, a savior and a prophet, one who leads the community by his
expressions of the truth.表达真理的前提下，引导社会发展。
2、Emily Dickinson 爱米丽.狄金森
①作品：“I died for Beauty”我为美而死（诗歌）
Beauty / Truth / Goodness are ultimate(终极) the same
“Because I could not stop for Death”我不能等候死神
Theme：死亡是实现永恒Immortality的途径
②特点：her poetry in unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines.
3、Harriet Beecher Stowe 哈丽雅特.比彻.斯托小说家 only one female prose writer(散文作家) in 19th century
代表作：“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”汤姆叔叔的小屋关注农奴制度Pay attention to serf's system
4、Mark Twain 马克.吐温
①美国现实主义文学的代表作“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”哈克贝里.费
恩历险记(马克最有名的作品)
②特点：local colorist 地方特色:a unique variation of American literary realism, it refers to the particular concern about the local character of a region.
③contribution贡献：colloquial speech accepted as literary medium口语化被文学界接受
④代表作：“The Gilded Age”70-90年代，镀金时代，贫富分化，财富积累。
“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”用词简单、幽默、使用当地语言编写
“Life on the Mississippi”
5、O. Henry 欧.亨利short story 短篇小说
①特点：tell about the lives of poor people in New York关注下层人; usually short 简单; plots are exceedingly clever and interesting，humor abounds情节极度聪明有趣并富于幽默; the end is always surprising结尾意外; contain a great deal of slang and colloquial expressions使用大量的俚语和口语.
②代表作：“The Four Million”《四百万》小说集、“The Gift of the Magi”《麦琪的礼物》单部小说
★6、Henry James 亨利.詹姆斯novelist小说家；Literature theoretician 文学理论家，从小受欧洲教育
①心理现实主义的开创者：the founder of psychological realism. The literary career of him is generally divided into three periods, in the first periods, James took great interest in international theme; exemplify the mature and formidable style of a third literary period, which critics have come to praise as “The Major Phase”.
②特点：(1)deeply into the individual psychology of his characters, writing in a rich and intricate style that supported his intense scrutiny of complex human experience.
深刻探讨人物人性心理，用深厚、复杂的写作方式对复杂的个人经历进行揣摩
(2)1st person and 3rd person narration，第一和第三人称的叙述
(3)omniscient 全视角是不真实的;
③家庭背景：father: philosopher哲学家,富有；brother: psychologist, philosopher 心理学家,哲学家；
④创作原则：The art of Fiction小说的艺术;art vs. life, brings the meaning of life;
⑤贡献contribution：in his critical commentaries, he made major contributions to the art of fiction itself, helping to transform the novel from its alliance with journalism and romantic story-telling into an art from of penetrating analysis of individuals confronting society, chronicles of the psychological perceptions that James himself defined as the highest from of experience. 詹姆斯把小说从新闻形式和浪漫故事转变成为了对个人在社会大环境中面对种种冲突，进行深刻剖析的文学形式；对人们心理感受进行反映的一种文学形式，他定义这位感受的最高形式。
⑥代表作：“The American”、“Daisy Miller”、“in the Portrait of a Lady”(早期最好的作品)
Last full-length novel ==“The Wings of the Dove”、“The Ambassadors”、“The Golden Bowl”
⑦The name of the heroine “in the Portrait of a Lady” is Isabel Acher. The novel
is representative of the best of James’ mature work. The plot c oncerns the courtship, marriage, and development of the character of Isabel Archer, a young American girl who has been left penniless by the death of her father. The intricate novel of psychological and moral interrelationships is in one sense another treatment of the Jamesian theme of the American in conflict with European culture and in another sense the most personal of his novels, an intimate picture of a woman’s soul presented with masterly psychological finesse.
7、Jack London 杰克.伦敦
①代表作：“The People of the Abyss”、“The Call of the Wild”、“The Sea Wolf”、
“Martin Eden”(autobiographical novel自传体小说)
②while embracing the socialism of Marx, London also believed in the triumph of the strongest individuals. This contradiction is most vividly projected in the patently autobiographical novel.
8、Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞
①代表作：“Sister Carrie”《嘉莉妹妹》 the first novel, which traces the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G. W. Hurstwood.
“The Financier”、“The Titan”、“The Stoic”Trilogy of Desire欲望三部曲②“An American Tragedy”《美国悲剧》，The identification of potency with money is at the heart of Dreiser’s greatest and most successful novel,德莱塞最恢宏、最成功的小说，表达了金钱万能的主题。
（the 20th century）
一、Background:
① World War I 第一次世界大战，America have great profit.
② Jump in technology (automobile / radio) 科技方面的跳跃（汽车/收音机）
③ old moral code breaks 旧道德体系破碎
1、Imagism 意象派：is a poetic movement of England and the United States, flourished from 1909-1917. Its credo, expressed in Some Imagist Poets, included the use of the language of common speech, project matter, the evocation of images in hard, clear poetry, and concentration.
2、Lost Generation：迷惘的一代，Writers of the first postwar era
self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “Lost Generation,” devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization. It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of “expatriates” or exiles. It describes the writers like Hemingway who lived in semipoverty. It describes the Americans who returned to their native land with an intense awareness of living in an unfamiliar changing world.
3、Modernism现代主义：is loosely a synonym of anything contemporary. Strictly, especially in literary criticism, which began in the late 19th century and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. They pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one.
4、现代主义的标志：T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”, the most significant American poem of the twentieth century, helped to establish a modern tradition of literature rich with learning and allusive thought.
5、典型的迷惘一代：
F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby”《了不起的盖茨比》novel Ernest Hemingway “The Sun Also Rises”《太阳照样升起》“A Farwell to Arms”《告别了，武器》
William Faulkner “The Sound and the Fury”《喧嚣与骚动》
6、Playwrights戏剧、剧作家：Eugene O’Neill “The Emperor Jones”《琼斯国王》、“Anna Christie”《安娜.克里斯蒂》、“The Hairy Ape”《毛猿》
7、The Jazz Age(享乐时代)：when New Orleans musicians moved “up the river” to Chicago, and the theatre of New York’s Harlem pulsed with the music that had become a symbol of the times. Fitzgerald portrays the Jazz Age as a generation of “the beautiful and damned”, drowning in their pleasures.
二、代表作家：
1、Ezra Pound 埃兹拉.庞德诗人
①Imagism 意象派的代表人物。Pound and Eliot became the early leaders in restoring to poetry the use of literary reference as an imaginative instrument. 庞德和爱略特都是运用意象主义作为文学表现手法的早期
诗人。
②major work of poetry is the long poem called “The Cantos”
2、Robert Frost 罗伯特.弗洛斯特自然主义诗人 poet
①诗歌特点和内容：(1)rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporaries, choosing instead “the old-fashioned way to be new.” He employed the plain speech of rural New Englanders and preferred the short, traditional forms of lyric and narrative.
(2)He saw nature as a storehouse of analogy and symbol.
(3)His concern with nature reflected deep moral uncertainties, and his poetry, for all its apparent simplicity, often probes mysteries of darkness and
irrationality in the bleak and chaotic landscapes of an indifferent universe where men stand alone, unaided and perplexed.
②he become a national bard美国民族诗人的翘首, win four Pulitzer
Prizes获得了四次普利兹奖.
③“The Road Not Taken”、“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
向往大自然，想逃避社会；死亡、迷惑
3、Wallace Stevens 华莱士.斯蒂文斯诗人
①His work is primarily motivated by the belief that “ideas of order,” that is ,true ideas, correspond with an innate order in nature and universe, and that it is the high privilege of individuals and mankind to discover this correspondence. 作品动机起源于秩序理念，他的秩序就是真理，就是自
然与宇宙天然一致的次序，是人类与个体发现这种一致性的特权。
②代表作：“The Man with the Blue Guitar”《带蓝吉他的人》；
“Necessary Angel”《必要的天使》，collection of his occasional
lectures on poetry诗歌的评论.
“Anecdote of the Jar”《坛子的轶事》jar – man made – art, wildness
– nature, jar bring order/meaning to the nature, 艺术到自然的秩
序， integrated 统一体
③特点：(1)he adopted a variety of experimental styles, created poetic surfaces of Frenchified elegance, exotic imagery, odd sounds, curious analogies, and inscrutable titles.尝试过多种实验性的写作风格。
(2)he confronted the contemporary abandonment of traditional values and sought to come to terms with the confusions of his time. The problem of the interrelation between the ideal and the real became a constant theme in his later poetry.理想和现实中所交叉的矛盾。
(3)a series of oppositions between inner and outer worlds – between subject and object, perceiver and perceived, fiction and fact, “imagination and reality”(想象与现实)
★4、Thomas Stearns Eliot 托马斯.斯特恩斯.爱略特现代主义代言人
①多重身份：poet诗人, critic评论家, playwright剧作家
②代表作：
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”poems，holds its place in the development of Eliot’s poetry as a whole.
“Tradition and the Individual Talent”essay,随笔《传统和个人天才》, the earliest statement of his aesthetics第一次阐释了自己的审美观点. provided a useful instrument for modern criticism.成为现代评论极为有效的评判标准。
“The Waste Land”《荒原》one of the major works of modern literature. Use a new form — the orchestration of related themes in successive movement. 新的文学形式即相关的主题在连续运动中构成交响效果。
“Four Quartets”《四个四重奏》poem
“Murder in the Cathedral”，poetic tragedy, 诗歌悲诗, a drama(戏剧) of impressive spiritual power.极富感染力的戏剧
③作品特点：
(1) concerns various aspects of the frustration and enfeeblement of individual character as seen in perspective with the decay of states, peoples, and religious faith.触及人性中的软弱沮丧的弱点，正确思索了国家、人
民、宗教信仰等的丧失。
(2)poem conceived as a made object, an organic thing in itself, whose concrete elements are true correlatives of the artist’s imagination and experience with respect to that poem.诗歌是客观成型的东西，诗歌的具体
元素与艺术家的想象和经历密切相关，也与诗歌相一致。
(3)The degree to which fusion and concentration of intellect, feeling, and experience were achieved was Eliot’s criterion for judging the poem.知
识、情感、体验的融合与集中程度是爱略特判定诗歌好坏的标准。
5、F. Scott Fitzgerald F.司各特.菲茨杰拉德novelist 小说家
①作品：“This Side of Paradise”《人间天堂》，the first novel.
“The Great Gatsby”《了不起的盖茨比》novel
“Tender Is the Night”《夜色温柔》 novel
②第二本小说的开展过程：dream梦想→ Daisy self-centered 理想化的
淑女，自我为中心→ disenchantment, disillusion魔法消失，(因阶级差异)
梦想破灭→ sense of failure and despair (light)失败和绝望
Ash 灰(象征) → forest树木，西部开发，树木变成灰了
③limited point of view有限视角→ suspense悬念 + mystery神秘真实
性→reliable可信的，不偏，不评价
6、Ernest Hemingway 厄恩斯特.海明威novelist 小说家
①写作特点：(1)he developed a spare, tight, reportorial prose based on simply sentence structure and using a restricted vocabulary, precise imagery, and an impersonal, dramatic tone.推动了报告文学的发展，认为报告文学
句子结构要简单，用语要节制，想象要简练，要采用不受感情影响的、戏剧化的语调。
(2) His primary concern was an individual’s “moment of truth,” and his fascination with the threat of physical, emotional, of psychic death is reflected in his lifelong preoccupation with stories of war.主题强调换个体
“真理的瞬时性”，痴迷于描写肉体情感方面面临的威胁和心灵死亡等主
题。
(3) man’s greatest achievement is to show grace under pressure作品主
题, or purity of line through the maximum of exposure最大限度地挖掘自己使自己成为一个纯粹的人.
②代表作：“The Sun Also Rises” Hemingway became the spokesman for “a lost generation”
“A Farewell to Arms”、“For Whom the Bell Tolls”、“The Old Man and the Sea”
7、John Steinbeck 约翰.斯坦贝克
①the foremost novelist of the American Depression.美国大萧条时期最杰出的小说家。
②代表作：
“Of Mice and Men”《人鼠之间》 portrayed the tragic friendship between two migrant workers
“The Grapes of Wrath”《愤怒的葡萄》regarded as masterpiece 视为杰作。
8、William Faulkner 威廉.福克纳
①作品的主题：the universal theme of “the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself”人类心灵与自己冲突是宇宙永恒的主题。
②作品：“The Sound and the Fury”《喧嚣与骚动》成名作、“Absalom, Absalom!”、“Go Down, Moses”
③narrative method叙述方法:1、stream of consciousness 意识流
2、multiple point of view, narrator多角度，多个叙述者
Imagism 意象主义
(1)Imagism came into being in Britain and US around 1910 as a reaction to the
traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation.
2The Imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to
express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.
(3) Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles: i) direct treatment
of subject matter; ii) economy of expression; iii) as regards rhythm, to compose in the
sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome; iv) Ezra Pound’s In a
Station of the Metro is a well-known imagist poem.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald F.S`·菲茨杰拉德
The spokesman of the ―roaring 20s‖―the Jazz Age‖
美国梦的实践者―爵士乐时代的桂冠诗人‖和―喧嚣的二十年代的代言人‖
The Lost Generation 迷惘的一代
1.The Lost Generation is a term first used by Gertrude Stein to describe the post-World War
I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.
2. Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively,
had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.
3.The three best-known representatives of Lost Generation are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos.
The Old Man and the Sea. 《老人与海》
It tells of a Cuban fisherman, Santiago桑提亚哥, who catches a big fish, only to see it devoured by sharks. The novel highlights the theme that man can be destroyed but not defeated.你尽可以把他消灭,但就是打不败他It is a representation of life as a struggle against unconquerable forces in which only a partial victory is possible. This book led to Hemingway's receipt of the Novel Prize in 1954.
1) Hemingway was famous for his novels and short stories written his spare, laconic, terse, clear,
telegraph-like, yet intense prose with short sentences and very specific details. This style is his
famous ―Iceberg Theory‖
Iceberg Theory冰山理论:
Think of an iceberg: one eighth of an iceberg is above the water. All of the rest is
underneath the water. The same is true with Hemingway’s writing. His sentences only give
one small bit of the meaning. The rest is implied. One must go very deep beneath the surface
to understand the full meaning of his writing. Hemingway’s vocabulary is easy and his
sentence patterns are easy, but they are extremely difficult to be fully understood.
Hemingway terms courage as ―grace under pressure‖these heroes are called Hemingway heroes or the code hero:硬汉
Hemingway heroes refer to some protagonists in Hemingway's works. Such a hero usually an
average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent. And usually he is a man of
action and of few words. His 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. For example, Frederic Henry in A Farewell to Arms, Jake Barnes
in The Sun Also Rises, Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea or the undefeated bullfighter
.
Stream of Consciousness: 意识流
Stream of Consciousness or interior monologue, is one of the modern literary techniques. It
was first used in 1922 by the Irish novelist James Joyce. The modern American writer
William Faulkner successfully advanced this technique. In the stories, action and plots are
less important than the reactions and inner musings of the narrators. Time sequences are
often dislocated. The reader feels himself to be a participant in the stories, rather than an
observer.
Multiple Point of View(多重视角)
Faulkner was a master at presenting multiple points of view, showing within the same story
how the characters reacted differently to the same person or the same situation. The use of
this technique gave the story a circular form wherein one event was the center, with various
points of view radiating from it. The multiple point of view technique makes the reader recognize the difficulty of arriving at a true judgment.
Comment Faulkner as the foremost southern writer of the 20th century with 19 novels, 4 collections of about 70 short stories, and two volumes of poetry. His important subjects are childhood, families, sex, obsessions the past and the modern southern memory, myth and reality, race, and alienation. His theme is essentially an analysis of the underlying cause for the failure and decay of the South before the Civil War. His fiction carries a strong sense of fragmentation in social community and within the individual himself due to the loss of love and lack emotional response.
He is noted for the Yoknapatawpha stories/saga in which the fictional Yoknapatawpha 约
克纳帕塔法县County is the setting. The country stands for the Old South. It also serves as allegory or a parable of the Old South. He writes about the disintegration of the old social system
in the American Southern States and its effect on the lives of modern people, both black and white. It shows a panorama of the experience and consciousness of the whole Southern society.
The Great Gatsby and American dream
American dream refers to the pursuit of the equality, freedom and corporeal property. American dream has always been one of the most popular motifs in American
literature. This kind of spirit encourages American people generation by generation and prompts America to become the most developed country and own the most wealth in this world.
Gatsby is the typical representative that succeed in the process of pursuing for American dream.This novel’s greatness embodies that it concerns the individuals in America and finally associates them with the whole American nation. Fitzgerald figured a classical tragedy, and it is a tragedy of the American dream. Gatsby is doomed to lose and finally reduced to a tragic character.
Because at the very beginning, Gatsby’s love for Daisy is partly based on the glamour he associates with the money, and he pursues her by becoming wealthy himself. His passion for Daisy blends with earlier desires for financial success going all the way back to the daily schedule he established as a boy. His dream is completely misguided. When they meet again, Gatsby become a rich but the Daisy he pursues merely becomes his empty imagination with symbolistic meaning. In his heart, Daisy is beautiful and innocent, and she represents all the merits in the upper class of America. This kind of imagination is beyond Gatsby’s ability and power, and it is also beyond the reality. Gatsby pursue for money, but he dosen’t treat money as the final goal, he just wants to accomplish his love dream by using money. B ut Daisy’s preference for wealth is stronger than any love in her heart. Because all her sentiments has become into cold money. Although Gatsby makes money by illegal methods, he is positive for his life and strong for his faith. No matter how precious Gat sby’s merits are, his romantic love still diverts from the reality and finally loses in the dirty society. Gatsby died with his American dream.
美国文学史复习（colonialism) 第一部分殖民主义时期的文学 一、时期综述 1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记b、journals 游记 2、清教徒在美国的写作内容： 1）their voyage to the new land 2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops 3) About dealing with Indians 4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit 3、清教徒的思想： 1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式 2) Wish to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位 3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who challenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝 4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。 4、典型的清教徒：John Cotton & Roger William 他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy; William begins the history of religious toleration in America. 5、William的宗教观点：Toleration did not stem from a lack of religious convictions. Instead, it sprang from the idea that simply to be virtuous in conduct and devout in belief did not give anyone the right to force belief on others. He also felt that no political order or church system could identify itself directly with God. 行为上的德，信仰上的诚，并没有给任何人强迫别人该如何行事的权利。没有任何政治秩序和教会体制能够直接体现神本身的意旨。 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 Tayor. 学习指南： 1、Could you give a description of American Puritans? 关于美国清教徒的描绘 Like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to the "purity" of the first-century church as established by Jesus Christ himself. To them religion was a matter of primary importance. They made it their chief business to see that man lived and thought and acted in a way which tended to the glory of God. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God, all that John Calvin, the great French theologian who lived in Geneva had preached. It was this kind of religious belief that they brought with them into the wildness. There they meaant to prove that were God's chosen people enjoying his blessings on this earth as in Heaven. 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 & Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry.
1.Puritanism（清教主义）: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. 1.) simply speaking , American Puritanism just refers to the spirit and ideal of puritans,who settled in the North American continent in the early part of the seventeenth century because of religious persecutions. 2.)In content it means scrupulous ,moral rigor ,eapecially hostility to social pleasure and religion . 3.)with time passing it became a dominant factor in American life , one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and literature .to some extentit is a state of mind , a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes ,rather than a set of tenets. 4.）Actually it is a code of values , a philosophy of life and a point of view in American minds , also a two-faceted tradition of religious idealism and level -headed in common sense . 5）Major topic:American Puritanism Introduction There were no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian languages and tribal cultures，American writing began with the work of English adventurers and colonists in the New World chiefly for the benefit of readers in the mother country. Therefore the writing in this period was essentially 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(好辩的）, discussions of religious questions. 2.The American Romanticism(浪漫主义) I. What is Romanticism a literary movement flourished as a cultural force the early period and the late period.
1.Why did Franklin write his Autobiography? Franklin says that because his son may wish to know about his life, he is taking his one week vacation in the English countryside to record his past. He also says that he has enjoyed his life and would like to repeat it 2.What made Franklin decide to leave the brother to whom he had been apprenticed? His brother was passionate, and had often beaten him. The aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to him through his whole life .After a brush with the law, Franklin left his brother. 3.How did he arrive in Philadephia? First he set out in a boat for Amboy, the boat dropped him off about 50 miles from Burlington, the next day he reached Burlington on foot, in Burlington he found a boat which was going towards Philadelphia, he arrived there about eight or nine o’clock, on the Sunday morning and landed at the Market Street wharf. 4.What features do you find in the style of the above selection? It is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision(言简意赅). The narrative is lucid(易懂的), the structure is simple, the imagery is homely(朴素的). 二、Questions 1.How many characters does Poe include in The Cask of Amontillado? What are these names? Montresor, Fortunato and Luchesi 2. What drink are the French most famous for? Wine 3.Does Montresor have something of great value to him which we might consider to be his treasure? His pride and the pride of his French family heritage. Perhaps his devious plot of revenge. 4.Does Montresor seem to have much respect for Italians? Montresor does not have much respect for Italians. He feels the French are superior, especially with respect to wine. 5.What was Fortunato's insult? Poe does not tell us directly, but only implies it in the third paragraph 6.Which wine does Montresor use to lure Fortunato into the catacombs? "Amontillado" (the Spanish wine; Montresor's ruse to lead Fortunato down into the catacombs. 7.Why does Montresor entertain Fortunato with wines from his collection? Montresor wants to get Fortunato drunk enough to be able to trap him in his plan of vengeance. 8.In what two ways does Montresor imprison Fortunato? He fetters (chains and locks) Fortunato to the wall of the catacombs. He builds a wall to close Fortunato off in a small corner of the catacombs, where Montresor will leave him to die. 9.In what ways is The Cask of Amontillado grotesque? First, which of Montresor's actions are abnormal? The whole obsessive plot of vengeance. The fettering and entombment of Fortunato. Montresor's sick sense of humor. 10.Is there anything grotesque about Fortunato? His obsession with alcohol. His drunkenness. His tendency to berate Luchesi (he may have been drunk and may have insulted Montresor in a similar
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
1.The American Transcendentalists formed a club called _________ . the Transcendental Club 2.______ was regarded as the first great prose stylist of American romanticism. Washington Irving 3.At nineteen___________ published in his brother’s newspaper, his "Jonathan Oldstyle" satires of New York life. 4.In Washington Irving’s work___________ appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature. The Sketch Book 5.The first important American novelist was____________. James Fenimore Cooper 6.James Fenimore Cooper’s novel ___________ was a rousing tale about espionage against the British during the Revolutionary War.The Spy 7.The best of James Fenimore Cooper's sea romances was_____________.The Pilot 8."To a Waterfowl" is perhaps the peak of_______________’s work; it has been called by an eminent English critic “the most perfect brief poem in the language.”William Cullen Bryant 9.__________ was the first American to gain the stature of a major poet in the world literature. 10.Edgar Allan Poe’s poem____________ is perhaps the best example of onomatopoeia in the English language.The Bells 11.Edgar Allan Poe's poem____________ was published in 1845 as the title poem of a collection. The Raven 12.From Henry David Thoreau’s Concord jail experience, came his famous essay ______. Civil Disobedience By the 1830s Washington Irving was judged the nation' s greatest writer, a lofty position he later shared with James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant. In the early nineteenth century, the attitude of American writers was shaped by their New World environment and an array of ideas inherited from the romantic tradition of Europe. As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematical. The foundation of American national literature was laid by the early American romanticists. At mid-19th century, a cultural reawakening brought a "flowering of New England". Romantic writers in the 19th century placed increasing value on the free expression of emotion and displayed increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. With a vast group of supporting characters, virtuous or villainous, James Fenimore Cooper made the America conscious of his past, and made the European conscious of America.
美国文学选择题及答案 1. William Faulkner is the author of ______. a. Far From the Madding Crowd b. Sound and Fury c. For Whom the Bell Tolls d. Scarlet Letter 2. Robert Frost is a famous_______. a. novelist b. playwright c. poet d. literary critic 3. The Old Man and the Sea is one of the great works by ________. a. Jack London b. Charles Dickens c. Samuel Coleridge d. Earnest Hemingway 4. _______refers to some contrast or discrepancy between appearance and reality. a. Allegory b. Conflict c. Irony d. Flashback 5. The great transcendental work by Henry David Thoreau is______. a. Nature b. Walden c. Experience d. Essays 6. Mark Twain shaped the world’s view of America and made a combination of _____and serious literature. a. American folk humor b. funny jokes c. English folklore d. American values 7. Who was the first American to achieve an international literary reputation after the Revolutionary War? a. Fennimore Cooper. b. Nathaniel Hawthorn. c. Walt Whitman. d. Washington Irving. 8. I Have a Dream is addressed by _____. a. Abraham Lincoln b. John F. Kennedy c. Martin Luther King d. Ralph Waldo Emerson 9. Which of the following is NOT a poem by Emily Dickinson? a. This is my letter to the world b. I heard a Fly buzz—when I died c. This is just to say d. Because I could not stop for death 10. Eugene O’Neil is an American ______. a. novelist b. playwright c. poet d. essayist 11. The period from 1865—1914 has been referred to as the _______in the literary history of the United States. a. Age of Realism b. Age of Classicalism c. Age of Romanticism d. Age of Renaissance 12. With “Collected Poems”, ______won the second Pulitzer Prize. a. Ezra Pond b. e. e. cummings c. Robert Frost d. William Cullen Bryant 13. Grass is a poem written by _______.
III Multiple choice (20%) 1. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. When her poems were published in England, she became known as the “______” who appeared in America. A Ninth Muse B Tenth Muse C Best Muse D First Muse 2. ______ is the sometimes exaggerated use of local language, characters and customs in regional literature. A purple prose B waste-land imagery C local color D symbolism 3. The Fitzgeralds lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than F. Scoot Fitzgerald earned for parties, liquor, entertaining their friends and traveling. It was this living style that nicknamed the decade of the 1920s as _______. A The Jazz Age B The Gilded Age C The Glorious Age D The Beat Age 4. ___________ was a reaction to the ideas of the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment. A Romanticism B Realism C Naturalism D Modernism 5. Although only few of her poems were published in her lifetime and a complete collection of them didn’t appear until the 1950’s, _____ had a major impact on 20th century poetry. A Anne Bradstreet B Gertrude Stein C Emily Dickinson D Amy Lowell 6. Who of the following is NOT a 20th century American poet? A Henry Wordsworth Longsfellow B Amy Lowell C Ezra Pound D Robert Frost 7. Mark Twain, one of the greatest 19th century American writers, is well known for his ______. A International theme B Waste-land imagery C Local color
一 I heard the merry grasshopper then sing, The black-clad cricket bear a second part, They kept one tune, and played on the same string, Seeming to glory in their little art. Shall creatures abject thus their voices raise? And in their kind resound their maker’s praise, Whilst I, as mute, can warble forth no higher lays? “Under the cooling shadow of a stately Elm, Close state I by a goodly River’s side, Where gliding streams the Rocks did overwhelm; A lonely place with pleasures dignifi’d. I once that lov’d the shady woods so well, Now thought the rivers did the trees excel, And if the sun would ever shine there would I dwell. “While musing thus with contemplation fed, And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain, The sweet tongu’d Philomel percht o’er my head, And chanted forth a most melodious strain, Which rapt me so with wonder and delight, I judg’d my hearing better than my sight. 题目：the 9th of Contemplations 作者：Anne Bradstreet 赏析： 1. Rhyme royal: sevenline iambic petametre 七行五步抑扬格 2. Rhyme: ababccc 3. Theme: religion 4. 象征：black-clad=death; abject=admitting defeat; maker= god 5. A genuine expression of poetic feeling in the presence of nature. The poem offers the reader an insight into the mentality of the early Puritan pioneering in a new world. The poet heard the grasshopper and the cricket sing, and she searched for her own soul accordingly. 6. She saw sth metaphysical inhering in the physical, a mode of perception which was singularly Puritan 二 It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method. In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalog more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or
1. The History of American literature The literature of Colonial American (1607-1765) The literature of Reason and Revolution(1765 — 18 世纪末） The literature of Romanticism （ 1800— 1865） The literature of Realism （ 1865— 1918） The literature of Modernism （ 1918－ 1945） The contemporary literature (1945 －Now) 2.Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography That good fortune, when I reflected on it, which is frequently the case, has induced me something to say that were it left to my choice, I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end, only asking the advantage authors have of correcting in a second edition some faults of the first. 3.Thomas Jefferson The Declaration of Independence We hold these truths to be self-evident, that 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. 4.Edgar Allan Poe The Cask of Amontillado I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong. 5.Washington Irving Rip Van Winkle ( The Sketch Book ) “ Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but, sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.” Interpretations of Rip Van Winkle A New Critical Approach : A peaceful village before Revolution Natural world in the mountains ; A noisy world after revolution ------Irving was unwilling to accept a modern democratic America------both Rip and Irving prefer the past and a dream-like world A Feminist Approach : Rip is a good person with more advantages than disadvantages, and readers always show sympathy on him because he has such bad-tempered wife. It seems that he has good reason to go out from his family. He was forced to go out . In fact , Rip: a lazy ,foolish man,an irresponsible father,a hard-hearted husband.His wife :a hard-working ,thrift woman, a kind ,responsible mother, an able, brave woman. 6.Summit of Romanticism (American Transcendentalism) Emerson Nature & Self-Reliance Thoreau Walden