英美文学鉴赏--美国文学部分

1. Transcendentalism is a group of ideas in literature and philosophy that developed in the 1830s and 1840s as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church. They believe in an ideal spirituality that "transcends" the physical and empirical and is realized only through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions.

The major figures in the movement were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau Margaret Fuller.

2. Modernism is a cultural movement that generally includes the progressive art of architecture, design, literature, music, dance, painting and other visual arts which emerged in the beginning of the 20th century, particularly in the years following World War I. It was a movement of artists and designers who rebelled against late 19th century academic and historic tradition, and embraced the new economic, social and political aspects of the emerging modern world.

Among American writers, the best-known Modernists are T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and so on.

3. Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery, and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and artifice typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. This was in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets, who were by and large content to work within that tradition.

The most outstanding figures of the movement were Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell and Hilda Doolittle.

4. Puritanism refers to the movement arising within the Church of England in the latter part of the 16th century that sought to purify, or reform, that church and establish a middle course between Roman Catholicism and the ideas of the Protestant reformers. It remained the dominant religious force in New England throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The term Puritanism is also used in a broader sense to refer to attitudes and values considered characteristic of the Puritans.

Its representative figures are Anna Bradstreet Franklin, Thomas Paine.

5. Naturalism refers to the theory that literary composition should aim at a detached, scientific objectively in the treatment of natural man. The movement is an outgrowth of 19th century scientific thought. Artistically, naturalistic writings are usually unpolished in language, lacking in academic skills and unwieldy in structure. Philosophically, the naturalists believe that the real and true is always partially hidden from the eye of the individual.

Notable writers were Frank Norris, Sherwood Anderson and Theodore Dreiser.

6. Local colorism is a fiction and poetry that focuses on the characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other features particular to a specific region. It put emphasis on physical setting and those distinctive qualities of landscape which condition human thought and behavior. It started from1860s to the end of 19th century.

Bret Hart e’s The Luck of Roaring Camp marked a significant development in the brief history of local color fiction. Another important figure was Mark Twain.

7. The Lost Generation refers to a group of the disillusioned intellectuals and artists,who lived in Paris and other parts of Europe from the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. They rebelled against former ideals and values but could replace them only by despair or a cynical hedonism.

Significant members included Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot.

8.The Jazz Age describes the period from 1918-1929,the years between the end of World War

I and the start of the Roaring Twenties; ending with the rise of the Great Depression, the traditional values of this age saw great decline while the American stock market soared. The age takes its name from F. Scott Fitzgerald and jazz music, which saw a tremendous surge in popularity among many segments of society.

The dominant figure of this period was F. Scott Fitzgerald.

9. The American Dream is the concept widely held in the United States of America, that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve prosperity (often associated with the protestant work ethic). Today, in America it generally refers to the idea that one's prosperity depends upon one's own abilities and hard work, not on a rigid class structure, though the meaning of the phrase has changed over America's history. The course of Clinton was the classic example of ―The American Dream‖.

10. Psychological realism is a kind of ideological trend of literature which appears in the traditional literature in the course from realism to modernism. It recognizes that what is real to the individual is that which he or she perceives. It is the ground for the use of the centered consciousness, or the first-person narrator, since both of these present reality only as something perceived by the focal character.

Henry James was the founder whose works are The American, The Portrait of a Lady.

诗歌欣赏

I．The Wild Honey Suckle (开头：Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, hid in this silent, dull retreat……)

1. Writer :Philip Freneau

2. Theme: 1.In this poem the poet expressed a keen awareness of the loveliness and transience of nature. It implies that life and death are inevitable law of nature.

2.In the author's opinion, the origin land in America was filled with beauty and myth.

3. Technique of this poem :The central image is a native wild flower, which makes a drastic difference from elite flower images typical of tradition English poems.

Exaggeration personification Alliteration ,assonance, masculine rhyme used in the poem also produce musical or melodious and harmonious, which matches the beauty of the flower. The poem contains iambics trochaics and spondee.

II. Annabel Lee （开头：It was many and many years ago, in a kingdom by the sea……Annabel Lee）

1. Writer: Allen Poe

2. Theme : Eternal love. The love between the narrator and Annabel Lee is so strong and beautiful and pure that even the seraphs, the highest order of angels in heaven, envy it. The love remains alive–eternal–because the souls of the lovers remain united .

3.Techiques of the poem:

1)Melancholy is the most legitimate of all the poetic tones.

2)Use of Alliteration to create pleasing sound patterns.

3)Imagery and figurative language: Imagery–Darkness and Light Implied and explicit images of darkness and light occur throughout the poem.Poe implies t hat the kingdom by the sea is a bright, cheerful place where the sun shines on two young lov ers, the narrator and Annabel Lee.

III. Because I could not stop for death(开头: Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me…..结尾…were toward eternity)

1. Writer Emily Dickinson

2 Theme：Religion & Faith Life & Death Beauty & Truth Love & Marriage Nature Friendship Time & Eternity

3.Techniques of the poem: Alliteration Anaphora 首语重复, Personification ,Metaphor ,Paradox Imagery and Figurative language

IV. In a Station of the Metro(全诗：The apparition of these faces in the crowded; petals on a wet, black bough)

1. Writer: Ezra Pound

2.Theme: Although the society is depressed and helpless, there is still hope in everybody’s heart .The lovely face meant a promising future .The poem is just like a mirror which reflects the hopeful song in the soul of human beings

3. Techniques of the poem: Metaphor: the petals obviously indicate the lovely faces Contrast: the first line and the second line are using the contrast.

V. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening（开头whose woods these are I think I know, his house is in the village though…结尾and miles to go before I sleep）

1. Writer: Robert Frost

2. Theme: this poem stresses a central conflict between man's enjoyment of natural beauty and his responsibility in society. This shows a man's despairing courage to seek out the meaning of life.

3.Writing Skills

(1) Rhythm and Rhyme (2) Rhetorical Device:Alliteration (头韵sound & sleep; dark & deep 头韵) Personification (拟人―he‖—horse ―My little horse must think it queer.‖ Repetition(重复―and miles to go bef ore I sleep,)and miles to go before I sleep. ‖Images/Symbolism (意象象征)

VI．Anecdote of the Jar (开头I placed a jar in Tennessee, and around it was, upon a hill…结尾like nothing else in Tennessee)

1. Writer: Wallace Stevens

2. Theme: It is only about a jar literally, but figuratively reflect more about the relationship between nature and humans. The jar means humanity, culture, art and artistic imaginations. The nature is a desultory world and only ideas can make it united as a whole. Art is magic. It fantasize the nature. Without art, we are nothing and dead.

3. Technique of this poem, the most important one is symbolism and surrealism. For example, the ―I‖ in the poem maybe not refers to the writer Wallace Stevens himself, it can be anyone. And the jar symbolize art, while the wilderness in Tennessee is the symbol of nature.

1. What are the stylistic features of Hemingway’s novels?

海明威小说的主要特色是什么？

Hemingway’s novels are mainly concerned with ―tough‖ people, known for Hemingway hero of athletic prowess and masculinity and unyielding heroism, whose essential courage and honesty are implicitly contrasted with the brutality of civilized society. He deals with a limited range of characters in quite similar circumstances and measures them against an unvarying code, known as ―grace under pressure‖, which is actually an attitude towards life that Hemingway had been trying to demonstrate in his works. In the general situation of his novels, life is but a losing battle; however it is also a struggle man can demonstrate in such a way that loss becomes dignity; man can be physically destroyed but never defeated spiritually.

Hemingway once said, ―The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighty of it being above water.‖ Typical of this ―iceberg‖ analogy is Hemingway’s style: Hemingway’s economical writing style often seems simple, but his method is calculated. In his writing, Hemingway provided detached descriptions of action, using simple nouns and verbs to capture scenes precisely. By doing so he avoided describing his characters’emotions and thoughts directly. Hemingway was deeply concerned with authenticity in writing . Besides, Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twain. The accents and mannerisms of human speech are well presented, and the use of short, simple words and sentences has an effect of clearness, terseness and great care.

2. Discuss the symbolism in Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.简述麦尔维尔长篇小说《白鲸》的象Published in 1851, Moby-Dick is considered a masterpiece by Melville. Holding the thesis that ―All visible objects are but as pasteboard mask‖, Melville strikes through the surface of his adventurous narrative to formulate concepts of good and evil imbedded as allegory in its events. Under Melville’s pen, Moby-Dick turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology. Melville uses symbols as representations of different ideas, and through facts and incidents to acquire universal meanings: the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truths. The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolized nature, for it is complex, unfathomable, malignant, and beautiful as well. For the character Ahab, however, the whale represents only evil; for the author, as well as for the reader and Ishmael, the narrator, Moby Dick is an ultimate mystery of the universe, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search of the truth.

3. What is the theme and the major character in F.S. Fitzgerald’ The Great Gatsby?

菲兹杰拉德的小说伟大的盖茨比的主题和主要人物是什么？

Considered as Fitzgerald’s finest work, The Great Gatsby, written in crisp, concise prose and told by Nick Carraway, a satiric yet sympatheric narrator, it is the story of Jay Gatsby, a young American from the Midwest, Gatsby becomes a bootlegger in order to attain the wealth and lavish way of life he feels are necessary to win the love of Daisy Buchanan, a married upper-class woman who had once rejected him. The story ends tragically with Gatsby’s destruction. The book deals the bankruptcy of the protagonist’s personal dreams due to the clashes between their romantic vision of life and the sordid reality.

The hero of the novel, Gatsby , is the last of romantic heroes, whose energy and sense of commitment takes him in search of his personal grail. Gatsby’s failure magnifies to a great extent the end of the American dream. The protagonist’s pursuit of his dream only proves to be nothing but an illusion. Nevertheless, the affirmation of hope and expectation is self-asserted in the characters.

4. What is the theme, stylistic features and the major character in Dreiser’s Sister Carrie?

德来塞的《嘉丽妹妹》的主要人物主题结构，语言风格和艺术特点。

Published in 1900, Sister Carrie is one of the masterpieces by Dreiser. The novel tells the story of a small-town girl who moves to Chicago and eventually becomes a Broadway star in New Y ork City. It also traces the decline and eventual suicide of her lover. The novel best embodies Dreiser’s naturalistic belief that while men are controlled and conditioned by heredity, instinct, and chance, a few extraordinary and unsophisticated human beings refuse to accept their fate and instead, strive unsuccessfully, to find meaning and purpose in their existence. Some critics regarded Dreiser’s style as clumsy and plodding, lack of concision. Though the time sequence is clear and the plot straightforward, he has been always accused of being awkward in sentence structure, mixed and disorganized in voice and well calculated to achieve the thematic ends he sought. For him, language is a means of communication rather than art form. He broke away from the general tradition of literature and dramatized the life in a very realistic way. There is no comment, no judgment but facts of life in the stories.

5. What is Robert Frost’s nature poem?

什么是罗伯特弗洛斯特的自然诗

Robert Frost, American poet, known for his verse concerning New England life. He learned the familiar conventions of nature poetry from his predecessors, and made the colloquial New England speech into a poetic expression. A poem so conceived thus becomes a symbol or metaphor, a careful, loving exploration of reality. Images and metaphors in his poems are drawn from the simple country life. However, profound ideas are delivered under the disguise of the plain language and the simple form, for what Frost did is to take symbols from the limited human world beyond the rustic scene. These thematic concerns include the terror and tragedy in nature, as well as its beauty, and the loneliness and poverty of the isolated human being. In short, the nature poems demonstrate Frost’s love of life and his belief in a serenity that comes from the common experience.

6. What are the thematic concerns and the artistic characteristics of Emily Dickinson’s poetry?

艾米丽狄金森诗歌的艺术特色和主题是什么

Emily Dickinson, is American’s best known female poet. Her poetry covers the issues vital to humanity, which include religion, death, immortality, love, and nature. Her poem have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines. In her poetry, there is a particular stress pattern, in which dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis. Most of her poems borrow the repeated four-line, rhymed stanzas of traditional Christian hymns, with two lines of four-beat meter’s alternating with two lines of three-beat meter. A master of imagery that makes the spiritual materialize in surprising ways, Dickson managed manifold variations within her simple form; She used imperfect rhymes, subtle breaks of rhythm, and idiosyncratic syntax and punctuation to create fascinating word puzzles, which have produced greatly divergent interpretations over the years. Due to her deliberate seclusion, her poems tend to be very personal and meditative. She frequently personification to vivify some abstract ideas. Dickinson’s poetry, despite its ostensible formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness; and her limited private world have never confined the limitless power of her creativity and imagination.

二、理性和革命时期文学The Literature of Reason and Revolution

1。Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) “The Autobiography ”“Poor Richard’s Almanac”2。Thomas Paine (1737-1809) “The American Crisis”“Common Sense”

“Great Commoner of Mankind‖―pamphleteer‖

3。Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) “The Declaration of Independence”

4。Philip Freneau (1752-1832)

“The Wild Honey Suckle”“The Indian Burying Ground”“To a Caty-Did”―the poet of the Revolution‖―Father of American Poetry‖

―the first distinctly romantic note heard in American and the beauties of Santa Cruz‖

三、浪漫主义文学The Literature of Romanticism

1。Washington Irving (1783-1859) the first romanticism familiar style writer ―father of American literature‖

(“The Author’s Account of Himself”The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”“Sketch Book”) 2．James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

“The Last of the Mohicans”“Leather Stocking Tales”(The Deerslayer”, ”The Pathfinder”“The Last of the Mohicans”“The Pioneers”, “The Praire”)

two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure tale, and the frontier saga‖

3。William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) “Thanatopsis”“To a Waterfowl”美国的华兹华斯致水鸟是用美国英语写作的最美的短诗

4。Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) 侦探小说鼻祖

“To Helen”“The Raven”“Annabel Lee”“The Fall of the House of Usher”5。Ralph Waldo Emerson ( “Nature”“Self-Reliance”“The American Scholar”“our intellectual Declaration of Independence‖

6。Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

“Walden Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”“Civil Disobedience”

7。Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) ―The House of the Seven Gables‖

“The Scarlet Letter”第一个象征主义小说“The House of the Seven Gables”

8。Herman Melville (1819-1891) “Moby Dick”象征主义高峰

9。Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

“A Psalm of Life”“The Slave’s Dream”“My Lost Youth”

“The Song of Hiawatha Hiawatha’s Fasting”Poet’s corner of Westminster Abbey‖四、现实主义文学The Literature of Realism

1。Walt Whitman (1819-1892) “Song of Myself”“I Sit and Look Out”“DRUM-TAPS Beat! Beat! Drums”“Leaves of Grass”―free verse‖

2。Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

I taste a liquor never brewed”“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”

“A Bird came down the Walk—““I died for Beauty-but was scarce”

“I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—““Because I could not stop for Death—“

3。Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) 废奴主义者“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”（南北战争导火索）“Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp”the mother’s struggle

4。Mark Twain (1835-1910) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”“The Gilded Age”

the True Father of American literature Adventures of Hucklebrry Finn现代美国文学之源5。O·Henry (1862-1910 “The Cop and the Anthem”“The Gift of the Magi”―father of Modern American Short Story‖

6。Henry James (1843-1916) the Portrait of A Lady”“The American”“Daisy Miller”心理现实主义

7。Jack London (1876-1916) “The Sea Wolf”“Martin Eden”工人阶级代言人

“The Call of the Wild”“Martin Eden”

8。Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie”“The Financier”“The Titan”“The Stoic”

五、二十世纪文学Twentieth—Century Literature

1。Ezra Pound (1885-1972) “A Virginal”“Salutation the Second”

“father of modern American poetry‖和Eliot 是意象派创始人象征主义诗歌“A Pact”“In a Station of the Metro”“The River-Merchant’s Wife:A Letter”2。Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)与大自然的关系

terror, beauty, “The House on the Hill”“Richard Cory”“Miniver Cheevy”

3。Robert Frost (1874-1963) “After Apple-Picking”mm“The Road Not Taken”Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”“Departmental”“Design”“The Most of It”

Unofficial poet laureate

4。Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) “Chicago”“The Harbor”“Fog”

“Cool Tombs”“Flash Crimson”“The People, Yes”

5。Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) “Peter Quince at the Clavier”

“Anecdote of the Jar”“The Emperor of Ice-Cream”

6。Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) “The Love Song of J·Alfred Prufrock”\ “Preludes”“Journey of the Magi”The Hollow Men A Penny for the Old Guy”7。F·Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) 美国梦Jazz age

“The Great Gatsby”“This Side of Paradise”“Tender Is the Night”

8。Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) “A Farewell to Arms”“The Sun Also Rises”

1954诺贝尔，因“mastery of the art of modern narraion”“For Whom the Bell Tolls”“The Old Man and the Sea”

9。John Steinbeck (1902-1968) “The Grapes of Wrath”1962诺贝尔

10。William Faulkner (1897-1962)“A Rose for Emily”“Go Down, Moses”

1950诺贝尔意识流小说《麦田里的守望者》重要的南方作家

《最后一个莫西干人》.库珀德勤歌娜姐妹马瓜chingachgook uncas

《红字》霍桑Hester Prynne / Arthur Dimmesdale (牧师) / Roger Chillingworth (丈夫) 《福谷传奇》：霍桑Miles Coerdale (叙述者) 霍林沃思普利希拉赞诺比亚的丈夫

《白鲸》作者：麦尔维尔船长亚哈Pequod船船员拉德尼大副梅塞

《汤姆叔叔的小屋》：斯托夫人汤姆伊莉莎（黑人奴隶）乔治伊娃Simon Legree

《汤姆索亚历险记》马克吐温汤姆索亚哈克贝利分道格拉斯寡妇

《野性的呼唤》杰克伦敦巴克米勒法官

《嘉丽妹妹》德来塞嘉丽杜洛埃（推销员）赫斯特伍德（酒店经理）

《伟大的盖茨比》菲斯杰拉德尼克（穷职员）：黛西：拜金盖茨比：专一汤姆虚假冷酷《永别了武器》作者：海明威弗雷德里克（美国青年）凯瑟琳巴克莱（英国护士）

《老人与海》作者：海明威人物：圣地亚哥

《愤怒的葡萄》作者：斯坦培克人物：约得牧师凯绥