美国文学论文

美国文学论文
美国文学论文

美国文学研究

摘要:如同其他所有国家一般,美国的文学是由其独特的发展历史所塑成的。在早期,美国是由东岸的一系列英国殖民地所形成的,因此美国文学的传统较亲近于英国文学。不过,随著历史的进展和不断的移民潮,美国文学的特色和宽广度都已经超出英国文学的范畴。在最早的殖民时期,美国文学主要的题材是赞扬新大陆替殖民者和欧洲母国所带来的利益。宗教信仰上的争议也是题材之一。随著革命战争的爆发和美国的独立,催生了新国家的独立意识。写下了独立宣言.奴隶制度的冲突和接踵而来的内战也对美国文学有深刻影响,到了19世纪末,由于工业化的进展和国土开拓时期的结束,美国文学脱离了原先的边境文学,进入了20世纪,工业化带来的社会转变使美国文学发展的更为多元和复杂。黑人文学、南部文学、以及现代文学也在同时期兴起。在第二次世界大战后,新的世代、和新的种族、地区、社会特征都与之前的世代大不相同,大量的移民文学和新兴的女性主义文学也成为美国文学的一部分了。

关键词:殖民地;独立意识;美国文学;黑人文学;后现代主义文学

中图分类号:i306 文献标识码:a文章编号:1005-5312(2010)24-0061-02

美国文学表现为平民化,多元化,富于阳刚之气,热爱自由,追求以个人幸福为中心的美国梦。美国文学大致出现过3次繁荣:

美国文学选读期末考试重点

1、The Colonial Period(1607-1765) American Puritanism ( in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th) 北美第一位女诗人Anne Bradstreet(宗教气息,夫妻恩爱) Edward Taylor 都受英国玄学派影响(metaphysical) 2、The Enlightenment and Revolution Period Benjamin Franklin:Poor Richard's Almanac The Autobiography---“美国梦”的根源 3、American Romanticism(end of 18th to the civil war) American writers emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature. 早期浪漫主义Washington Irving father of American Literature 短篇小说 James Fenimore Cooper 历史,冒险,边疆小说《The Leather-stocking Tales>文明发展对大 自然的摧残与破坏 William Cullen Bryant 美国第一个浪漫主义诗人《To a Waterfowl>美国 山水,讴歌大自然,歌颂美国生活现实 Edgar Allan Poe ---(48 poems,70 short stories) He greatly influenced the devotees of “Art for art’s sake.” He was father of psychoanalytic criticism , and the detective story. Ralph Waldo Emerson---The chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism American Transcendentalism (also known as “American Renaissance”) It is the high tide of American romanticism Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. 《Nature》---the Bible of Transcendentalism by Emerson 《Self-Reliance》表达他的超验主义观点Henry David Thoreau------ Walden he regarded nature as a symbol of spirit.Thoreau was very critical of modern civilization. 小说家:Hawthorne-赞成超验He is a master of symbolism The Scarlet Letter《红字》 Melville 怀疑,悲观,sailing experiences Moby Dick百科全书式性质/海洋作品/动物史诗 诗人Longfellow《I Shot an Arrow...》《A Psalm of Life》第一首被完整地介绍到中国的美国诗歌Whitman (Free Verse---without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme ) 《Leaves of Grass》《One's Self I Sing》《O Captain! My Captain!》song Dickinson inner life of the individual ---died for beauty 4、The Age of Realism James upper reaches of American society. <一位女士的肖像》inner world of man Howells, concerned himself chiefly with middle class life. Twain the lower strata of society. humor and local colorism American Naturalism 自然主义(新型现实) Stephen Crane;《Maggie: A Girl of the Streets》《The Red Badge of Courage》pessimistic Theodore Dreiser;Sister Carrie;Jennie Gerhardt;An American Tragedy(Trilogy of Desire) O.Henry (William Sydney Porter):The Gift of the Magi;The Cop and the anthem Jack London:The Call of the Wild;Martin Eden 5、The Modern Period The 1920s-1930s ( the second renaissance of American literature) The Roaring Twenties ,The Jazz Age ,“lost”(Gertrude Stein) and “waste land”(T.S.Eliot) 现代主义小说家 F. Scott Fitzgerald:《The Great Gatsby》被视为美国文学“爵士时代”的象征,以美国梦American Dream 为主线。

美国英语论文美国文学英语论文

中国大学教学 2010年第10期 94 赵 硕,西北工业大学人文经法学院副教授,瑞典卡尔斯塔德大学客座教授,美国洛杉矶加利福尼亚大学(UCLA )访问学者。 美国UCLA 大学英语教学模式的发展与启示 赵 硕 摘 要:本文在分析UCLA (美国加州大学洛杉矶分校)英语教育特点的基础上,探讨了21世纪以来UCLA 大学英语教育的变革动因,概括了基于ESL 学习标准的UCLA 大学英语教学目标和策略,分析了UCLA 在交际能力培养和使用现代教育技术的基础上如何创造性地运用轻松自由教学模式以更好地实施跨学科教学,在此基础上提出了其教学模式与策略对我国大学外语教学的启示。 关键词:UCLA ;大学英语;教学模式;第二语言 美国加州大学洛杉矶分校共设有13个学院,其中文理学院人文学科设有英语外语教学专业,这既是基于UCLA 的学生来自世界一百多个国家和地区,也是为了推进英语的国际化和学生的教学需要而设置的,UCLA 的大学英语教学模式的发展值得我们研究与探讨。 一、UCLA 大学英语教育变革的动因 自2004年起,随着美国政府在教育政策、教育经费投入、教师待遇和教育国际交流等诸方面向外语教育倾斜,UCLA 给予大学外语教学前所未有的资助和扶持,其高校英语教育变革也随之启动。 随着全球化进程和高等教育国际化的日益推进,UCLA 日益感觉到让学校的各国大学生学习英语语言与文化的重要性。美国著名的民意分析和社会学家丹尔·扬克洛维奇认为:让居住在美国的外来人口理解英语语言和文化是美国高等教育在今后十年内必须解决的五大迫切需要之一[1]。无疑,通过高校英语教育,UCLA 的各国大学生可以熟悉和了解美国或其他国家的文化和语言,更多地理解他人的思想和看法。UCLA 认为学校需要对世界持有一种包容开放的姿态,要学会从别人的视角和眼光看待世界,而大学英语教育恰好能使青年一代唯我独尊的思想有所改善, 从而使各国的大学生能够在毕业后更好地融入美国这样一个多元文化的社会。由于UCLA 设有80个院系,学生来自125个不同的国家,设置了2000多门不同的课程,主要采用英语为教学语言,因此UCLA 的各个院系都十分关注英语语言教学和研究, 如何整合英语教学、优化教学资源、减少教育内耗以及创新外语教学以便更好地为学生的专业学习服务已经成为UCLA 英语教学改革的内在动力。 二、基于ESL 学习标准的UCLA 大学英 语教学目标 ESL(English as Second Language)标准包括作为表现指标的学习策略和自我监控策略以及为学生提供在Non-ESL 课堂中知识和技能方面的发展[2]。英语语言是UCLA 学习者必须掌握的学习语言,因此UCLA 的英语 教学系总是致力于发展和利用各种策略以促进学生的英语语言学习。同时,学生协作也是ESL 标准的一个成功指标,学校英语教师十分重视学生协作对第二语言发展的重要作用,认为学生协作是提高英语语言学习的一种重要方式。UCLA 的大学英语教学包括以下五个目标: 一是用英语来获得信息和知识。该标准是指大学生为了在社会和学术情景中有效进行沟通而必须获得的英语知识和技能,学生把英语作为第二语言来学习和使用,反映了UCLA 英语语言学习的核心内容。 二是用英语来进行文学评论、欣赏和表达。要求学生发展英语知识和技能以阅读和理解丰富的文学作品,包括从古典到现代不同文化的作品。学生必须做出口头和书面的文学解释,以提高对英语文本和意义的理解。 三是用英语进行批判性的分析和评价。发展学生分析和评价复杂文本和问题的能力,学生学习英语须考虑口头和书面文本的不同,并且使用不同的准则评价和解释文本。 四是用英语进行社会交际和课堂互动。英语用于社会交际和课堂互动体现了英语学习的技能和策略,学生必须掌握英语以实现真实的交际情境和学术情景。 五是用英语来学习和理解跨文化知识。清晰地说出 在社会和专业语境中获得的“第二文化”的组成部分,

美国文学期末考试复习必备(精)

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

英语文学文化及影视赏析

《英语文学文化及影视赏析》课程教学大纲 一、课程说明 1、课程名称(中英文):英语文学文化及影视赏析/English Literature and Culture & Appreciation of English movies 2、学时学分:75学时理论教学,2学分 3、适用专业:非英语专业研究生 4、开课学院:外国语学院 5、课程负责人:姜萌萌 二、课程描述: 本课程拟对英语经典文学与相关文化概况进行简要介绍,并遴选英美国家的经典作家和作品,对其文学特色、文化背景进行分析。课程重视文学作品与时代背景、西方历史文化的联系,在教学中将理论与实践相结合,做到寓教于乐。在课内,不仅有作家作品、相关文化背景和信息的介绍、经典作品片段的解读,并通过课堂讨论以及影视作品的欣赏帮助学生最直观地理解西方文化与文学作品的文本意义。在课外,学生需要查阅相关资料,完成相关问题的回答与读书报告,以一种轻松愉悦并且多方面切入的方式学习、了解和体验英语文学文化。该课程目的在于通过英语文学文化的学习,提高学生对英语语言的掌握能力、增强对英语文学经典的理解力和对西方文化的审美能力,进一步养成对英语的敏感性,培养人文素质和文学涵养。 三、教材: 王守仁主编,《英国文学选读》,北京:高等教育出版社。 陶洁主编,《美国文学选读》,北京:高等教育出版社。 秦秀白,《英美国家概况》,北京:高等教育出版社。 王佐良,《欧洲文化入门》,北京:外语教学与研究出版社。 自编讲义 四、教学方式: 理论与实践相结合。 五、考核方式: 提交一篇与所学课程相关的课程论文,用英语完成。 总成绩=期末考试成绩70%+平时成绩30%(考勤占10%)

美国文学史论文

美国文学史课程论文 A Brief Summary of the History of American Literature From Romanticism to Postmodernism 姓名:叶红立 学号:2011212831 班级:2011级3班 分数: 2013年12月21日

Introduction American is a multi-national country because of its history. Just like a big container, it puts in various kinds of elements. When different cultures mixed together, that can not only be co-existed but also form a sharp contrast, which makes American literature has a flavor of distinct and various aesthetic feeling. The history of America literature began with the swarming in of immigrants with different background and cultures. After that, American literature had been greatly influenced by the European culture for a long period. It was not until America’s independence, did Americans realize that they need national literature strongly, and American literature began to develop. Romantics emphasized individualism and intuition. This was an exciting period in the history of American literature. Like the flowers of spring, there were suddenly many different kinds of writing at the same time. The Civil War was a watershed in the history, after which American literature entered a period of full blooming. Influenced by the Civil War, the American society was in a turbulent situation. The writings about local life, critical realism, unveiling the dark side of the society and yearning for nature were increased. After the First World War, Americans were at a loss postwar, and the Modern American literature and Postmodern American literature began. This passage will have a further discussion on this period by dividing them into several parts: Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Modernism and Post-modernism.

美国文学期末考试重点

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.

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