美国文学资料整理

Reason and revolution:

Benjamin Franklin-the only good American author before the Revolutionary War/founded Junto,a club for informal discussion of science, economic and political ideas/found the university of Pennsylvania/inventions: lighting rod,stove,bifocal glasses, printing press,armonica/served in the Continental Congress/aided Jefferson in writing the Declaration of Independence/his neswerpaper:Philadelphis Gazette./magazine:Gernaral Magazine./His shadow lies heavier than any other man’s on this young nation./Biographical Introduction.

Poor Richard’s almanac

Romanticism:

Washington Irving-the first great prose stylist of American romanticism/the apparent ease of his writing in not simply that of the gifted amateur; it results from his purposeful identification of his whole personality with what he wrote/his enthusiasm for the current European romanticism enabled him to combine these with his independents literary personality and American root/he was the first great belletrist, writing always for pleasure/the didactic and utilitarian had formerly prevailed/write good history and biography as literary entertainment/his influence abroad, as writer,visitor,diplomat,was that of a gifted cultural ambassador/the only American writer of his generation who could chide the British in an atmosphere of good humor/producing the Salmagundi paper/In 1836 he made his home at Sunnyside, near Tarrytown, so lovingly described years as “Sleepy Hollow” The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is—along with “Rip Van Winkle”—his most lasting artistic achievement.

Jonathan Oldstyle: satires of New York life/A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker/Bracebridge Hall/social comedy: Charles the Second/the Merry Monarch/the

Alhambra/Life of George Washington

James Fenimore Cooper- two kinds of stories: the sea adventure tale and the frontier saga (Leatherstocking Tales: the Deerslayer, the last of the Mohivans, the Pathfinder, the Pioneers, the Prairie)/He made the American conscious of his past and the European conscious of America)/Smith’s question: who reads an American book?-Irving, Cooper, Bryant, Poe.

The spy

Edgar Allan Poe-in 1833, he won a contest wit his story “Ms.Found in a Bottle” in 1833/editor with the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Graham’s Magazine, Burton’s Gentleman’s

Magazine (The Fall of the House of Usher first appeared)/his first collection of short stories, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, appeared in 1840/ Ralph Waldo Emerson-was responsible for bringing Transcendentalism to New England/the leader of the movement/His first book-Nature/The American Scholar and the Divinity School Address/most important works: Representation Men, English Traits/his harsh rhythms and striking images appeal to many modern readers as artful technique/his unit of thought is generally the sentence rather than the paragraph/our intellectual Declaration of Independence/Free should be the scholar-free and brave.

Henry David Thoreau-Emerson’s trust disciple/For Thoreau, as for Emerson, self-reliance and independence of mind ranked above all. From Walden

Nathaniel Hawthorne-The House of the Seven Gables: deals with the effects of curse/his material by observing and listening to others/he reveals the depth of his concern with the dark side of the Puritanism, the harshness and the persecutions/Mosses from an old manse/Surveyor of the Port Salem/a consular position in Liverpool/Rome: where he found the inspiration for his novel The Marble Faun/his gift was for the creation of strongly symbolic stories which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature/In “Ethan Brand”

a marble heart stands for pride and isolation from one’s fellow men/”Young Goodman Brown “uses the background of witchcraft to explore uncertainties of belief that trouble a man’s heart and mind/ “Dr.Heidegger’s Experiment”and “The Ambitious Guest” have symbolic and legendary qualities.“The Great Stone Face” is another of his allegorical stories. ‘the largest brain with the largest heart” in American Literature-Melville/Poe was concerned with the immediate emotional effects of literature and often seemed indifferent to investigations of value or morality. To Hawthorne and Melville, the telling of a tale, was a way of inquiring into the meaning of life.

Herman Melville-A whaling ship,he said ,was “my Yale College and my

Harvard”/At twenty-two he signed for a voyage on the whaler Acushnet /Typee was a romanticized account of his stay among the Polynesians/was knows as the “man who lived among cannibals”/Omoo about his adventures on Tahiti and other islands/Melville based Bedburn on his first voyage to England /White-Jacket on his brief career in the navy/his naval experience again for Billy Budd/These forces,together with the combined influences of his reading of Shakespeare and his association with Hawthorne helped Moby Dick to escape the romantic travel-tale mold of his earlier works and to become a unique and enduring work/The fitting symbol for his theme was the “gliding great demon of the seas of life”/ regarded as “a shredded Shakespearean play” by Van Wyck/Mardi:had “depths here and there that compel a man to swim for his life”/short stories:Bartleby the Scrivener/Benito Cereno and Billy Budd(ship as symbol of society and searchingly examines the problems of good and evil.

Realism:

Walt Whitman-one of the greatest innovators in American literature/his work “Leaves of Grass” gave American its first genuine epic poem/his only contact with the Eastern religions or with German Transcendentalists,whose ideas he frequently used in his poetry was what he had read of them in the writings of Emerson/he supported Jackson’s Democratic Party/favored the exclusion of slavery from new states/most of his poems in Leaves of Grass are about man and nature,some about New York(he served as a male nurse in Civil War,he combined the ideal of the democratic common man and that of the fugged individuals./free verse:poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.

Emily Dickinson-illustrated the fact that one could take a single household and an inactive life,and make enchanting poetry out of it/whimsical ,darting verse/write about love,nature,morality and immorality ,success and failure. Harriet Beecher Stowe

Mark Twain-(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)/career: a licensed pilot in 1859, an army volunteer, gold prospector, timber speculator/while working for the Virginia City, Territorial Enterprise,he adopted the pseudonym笔名“Mark Twain”(the way of a boatman taking soundings and meaning two fathoms, twelve feet./his first book: Jumping Frog./major literary success：Innocent Abroad/in 1898,h wrote three works expressing his pessimism: The Man that Corrupted Hadlebury.the philosophizing treatise what is man? The

Mysterious Stranger

His most famous works: The Adventure of Tome Sawyer/Roughing it /The Gilded Age/Life on the Mississippi/Adventure of Huckleberry Finn.

Henry James-his first novel: Watch and Ward in the Atlantic/the American: with its “international theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity European life/Daisy Miller: which one American critic described as “an outrage to American girlhood” but which brought James his first international fame’ The Portrait of a Lady, the finest example of his early work/second period work:Bonstonians/the Princess Casamassima,the Tragic Muse/last novels: the wing of the Dove/the ambassadors/the golden bowl(exemplify the mature and formidable style of a third literary period, which critics have come to praise as “the major phase”/he made major contributions to the art of fiction itself, helping to transform the novel from its alliances 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 form of experience.

Jack London-his sincere intellectual and personal involvement in the socialist movement in recorded in The People of the Abyss, The Iron Heel, The War of the Classes. Revolution-deeply felt commitment to the fundamental reality of the law of survive/realizes the idea of the “superman”/The contradiction between these competing beliefs is most vividly projected in the patently autobiographical novel Martin Eden/within two years, by the time he published his first collection of stories. the son of the wolf ,he was on his way to becoming the highest paid author of his time/by his twenty-seventh birthday the call of the wild hade made him rich/he his subjects: astral projection星体投射,agronomy农学,penal reform 刑法改革warfare, struggle of strong and week individuals in the context of irresistible natural forces such as the wild sea and the arctic wastes/he was fascinated by the way violence tested and defined human character/ Theodore Dreiser-his first novel: G.w.Hurstwood (because it used strong language and used names of living persons, it was suppressed by its publishers/early period work: Nigger Jeff and Butcher Rogaum’s Daughter/Jennie Gerhardt: the first of long succession of books what marked his turn to writing as a full-time career)/in The Financier ,The Titan ,and The Stoic, he shifted from the pathos of helpless protagonists to the power of those unusual individuals who assume dominant roles in business and

society/men of high sexual energy were autobiographical novel The “Genius”/The identification of potency with money is at the heart of Dreiser’s greatest and most successful novel, An American Tragedy/Dreiser Looks at Russia

Twentieth-century:

Ezra Pound-

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Robert Frost

F.Scott Fitzgerald

Life on the Mississippi Characters

Mark Twain

Mark Twain, the narrator of Life on the Mississippi is the main character and, indeed, the character who ties the narrative together. Growing up as a young boy in Hannibal, Missouri, located on the Mississippi River, Twain watched steamboats go by with envy and desire to become one of the men who worked on them. As he got older, he eventually got the idea to go explore the Amazon on a boat. However, it was too early for that; so he took a job training to become a pilot on a steamship, under an experienced man named Bixby. Twain writes the narrative from an older perspective, poking fun at his younger self, whom he describes as inexperienced, naive, and slightly puffed-up about what he already knew about the river. Later, Twain returns to the river twenty-one years after his first training, trying to be incognito

The Portrait of a Lady Theme of

Independence

It turns out that Cyndi Lauper’s claim that girls just wanna have fun is totally wrong. What girls – rather, women – just want in this novel is actually independence and the freedom to make their own choices. The many women that Henry James depicts in The Portrait of a Lady have hopes, dreams, and even schemes, but not all of them come true. The novel examines the various obstacles (men, social pressure…you know, the usual) that stand between these characters and true, unrestricted independence.

The Portrait of a Lady Theme of

Women and Femininity

The Portrait of a Lady is not simply the portrait of one single woman –instead, it reveals to us a whole range of different women, all of whom are emblematic of their time, the late nineteenth century. We see an example of the modern career gal as well as a traditional, proper-to-a-fault, obedient Victorian daughter, and everything that falls between these two extremes. In the novel, Henry James presents the state of women in general as he saw it – in relation to men, in relation to each other, and in relation to society on the whole.

The Sea-Wolf is an example of symbolic naturalism, a novel that is simultaneously a study of environmental conditioning and a symbolic tale of initiation, a

ritual of death and rebirth. Saved from drowning by Wolf Larsen, Humphrey van Weyden is shanghaied and set to work as a cabin boy. Conditioned by the violent "world of the real" aboard the Ghost, van Weyden is transformed from an elitist aesthete into a man of

courageous action. In contrast, Wolf Larsen, the bullying materialist, is gradually incapacitated by raging headaches.

Sister Carrie:

Theme Analysis

Lack of communication

The failure of the characters to communicate with words is a recurring theme in this novel. This is most evident in the relationship between Hurstwood and Carrie as only the readers are made privy to their thought processes. They are unable to express their full views of each other and this may be interpreted as an attempt to reflect how little we know of our friends, partners and ourselves. A useful example of this may be found when Hurstwood fishes for words when trying to express his affection for Carrie, and finds instead that words fail him. Language is seen to be an inadequate means to articulate emotions.

By contrasting the characters’ thoughts with what they say, the narrative also exposes the gap between expression and the unconscious. By recording what they are thinking, it is also possible to see, on a simplified level, an echo of how quickly we change our minds.

Material possessions

Carrie’s fear of poverty and desire for material possessions are the only two factors which disturb her from her passivity. Consumerism often dominates her decisions as she is mainly characterized by her love of new clothes and need for comfort.

Interestingly, the narrative does not condemn her for this

predilection. She and Drouet represent polar opposites of the puritan work ethic as they prefer finery and living for the moment. Although she is not punished by the author for her extravagant tastes, and is a likeable figure at times, she is never given a great amount of depth. Her encounters with Ames teach her that desire for wealth will lead to dissatisfaction, and she considers him as wise for holding such views, but it is not until the end that she appears to ponder these thoughts more closely. For this reason, it is possible to see that through Carrie Dreiser is attempting to convey a convincing human rather than a good or evil main protagonist. Carrie’s desires are recognizable, as is her sense of melancholy when the desires are fulfilled.

In a Station of the Metro

The Crowd of Faces

Symbol Analysis

Line 1: The entire poem is basically a single metaphor. If you were ever confused about the difference between a metaphor and a simile, and the difference it can make to use one instead of the other, this is a great poem to look at. Pound could have said that the faces "look like" flower petals, which would have produced a simile. By leaving this expression out, the poem reads as if it were saying that the faces are petals. Textbook metaphor. The two images are fused into one.

The Bough

Symbol Analysis

Line 2: The success of the comparison between the human faces and

the flower petals depends upon making the second image seem very life-like. So Pound uses some intense natural imagery to describe the "wet, black bough" to which the petals are attached. This image connects to our sense of sight and touch, so the reader feels like he or she could reach out and pluck the faces out of the scene like a flower from a tree. He also uses some alliteration with "black" and "bough," as if the words on the page and the images in our head were fusing together at the same time.

A Farewell to Arms: Major Themes

Love as a response to the horrors of war and the world Hemingway repeatedly emphasizes the horrific devastation war has wrought on everyone involved. From the opening account of cholera that kills "only" 7,000 men to the graphic description of the artillery bombardment to the corrupt violence during the Italian retreat, A Farewell to Arms is among the most frank anti-war novels.

But Hemingway does not merely condemn war. Rather, he indicts the world at large for its atmosphere of destruction. Henry frequently reflects upon the world's insistence on breaking and killing everyone; it is as if the world cannot bear to let anyone remain happy and safe.

Indeed, whenever Henry and Catherine are blissful, something comes along to interrupt it - be it Henry's injury, his being sent back to the front, his impending arrest, or, finally, Catherine's death from childbirth. With such misery confronting them at every turn, the two turn to each other. Catherine, especially, plunges almost too easily into love when she first meets Henry. She admits she was "crazy" at first, most likely over the fairly recent death of her fiancé,

but Henry, too, succumbs to the temptations of love. Love is a pleasurable diversion (see Games, below) that distracts lovers from the outside world; the two often tell each other not to think about anything else, as it is too painful. Hidden within the shelter of Catherine's beautiful hair, Henry and Catherine feel protected from the cruel outside world.

The major problem with such escapist love is, as Henry and other characters point out several times, one does not always know the "stakes" of love until it is over, or that one does not know about something until one has lost it. Henry hardly allows himself to think of life without Catherine while he is in love, and once he does lose her, it seems unlikely that he will recover.

Grace under pressure and the Hemingway hero Although less important in this novel than in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway maps out what it means to be a hero. Chiefly, the "Hemingway hero," as literary

criticism frequently tags him, is a man of action who coolly exhibits "grace under pressure" while confronting death. Henry's narration is certainly detached and action-oriented -only rarely does he let us into his most private thoughts -and he displays remarkable cool when shooting the engineering sergeant. Characters in the novel strive for this grace under pressure in an otherwise chaotic world. Even when the men eat spaghetti (and especially when they eat macaroni in the dugout during the artillery bombardment), they try to exercise mastery over a single skill to compensate for the uncontrollable chaos elsewhere. Dr. Valentini is another example of a skillful, confident Hemingway hero.

The Hemingway hero also eschews glory for a more personal code of honor. Unlike the selfish and boastful Ettore, Henry is not greedy for accolades, nor is he stupidly sacrificial. He judiciously determines what is worth the sacrifice, and decides that the war is no longer worthwhile. Even after he makes his "separate peace," however, he feels slightly guilty over letting his friends continue the battle without him.

Rain and destruction

From the first chapter to the last word, the novel is flooded with rain and other images of water. The rain almost always

heralds destruction and death; it impinges upon whatever momentary happiness Henry and Catherine have and turns it into muddy misery. Ironically, rain often signifies fertility in literature but here stands for sterility, as it does in much

post-WWI literature.

However, water is positive in other ways. Henry receives symbolic baptisms when he bathes and, more prominently, when he twice escapes from the authorities via a river and a lake. Frozen water is kinder to him and to soldiers in general; snow usually prevents fighting, and Henry and Catherine are happiest during their snowy winter in Switzerland.