美国文学史发展概况(老师给的复习提纲)

美国文学史复习提纲

一、殖民主义时期的文学(The Literature of Colonial America) 17th.c

一、时期综述

1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：①narratives 日记, ②journals 游记

2、清教徒在美国的写作内容：

1）about their voyage to the new land

2) about 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）Puritans wanted to make pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式

2) Puritans wished to restore simplicity to church services and the authority of the Bible to theology.重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位

3）Puritans looked upon themselves as a people chosen by God, and it followed logically that anyone who challenged their way of life was opposing God's will and was 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）Puritan religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God and to forget his mercy.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 约翰·科登，Roger William 罗杰·威廉姆斯

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 安妮·布雷兹特里特(女) sincere belief in God

7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of the Puritan poets was Edward Taylor爱德华·泰勒(1642-1729)

8、Captain John Smith, his reports of exploration has been regarded as the first distinctly American literature.

学习指南：

1、Could you give me 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 meant 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.

4、The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards, Italian, and Portuguese.

二、理性和革命时期文学(The Literature of Reason and Revolution) 18th.c

一、美国的性质：

The war for Independence ended in the formation of a Federative bourgeois democratic republic - the United States of America. 最终以联邦的资产阶级民主共和国--美利坚合众国的建立而宣布结束。

二、代表作家：

1、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明·富兰克林1706-1790

1）"Poor Richard's Almanac" 《穷查理历书》，an annual collection of proverbs 流行谚语集

It soon became the most popular book of its kind, largely because of Franklin's shrewd humor, and first spread his reputation

2) Founded the Junto, a club for informal discussion of scientific, economic and political ideas. 建立了一个秘密俱乐部，讨论的主题是科学、经济和政治等时事方面的问题

3）established America's first circulating library, founded the college--University of Pennsylvania. 建立了美国第一个可租借图书的图书馆，还创办了一所大学——就是现在的宾夕法尼亚大学的前身。

4）first applied the terms "positive" and "negative" to electrical charges.

5) As a representative of the Colonies, he tried in vain to counsel the British toward policies that would let America grow and flourish in association with England. He conducted the difficulty negotiations with France that brought financial and military support for America in the war. 作为殖民地的代表，他不断建议英国改变政策，使美国可以和英国一起发展、繁荣。他说服法国支持美国的独立战争。

6）As an author he had power of expression, simplicity, a subtle humor, sarcastic.作为作家具有非凡的表达能力，文笔简洁，内蕴幽默，且擅讽刺。

7）《致》是《自》的简明总结“The Way to Wealth”《致富之道》

《自》是《致》的详细注脚“The Autobiography”《自传》, 18世纪美国唯一流传至今的自传

2、Thomas Paine 托马斯·佩因1737-1809 "Great Commoner of Mankind" 最平凡的人

1）famous pamphlet "Common Sense" 著名的政治小册子《常识》, it boldly advocated a "Declaration for Independence", and brought the separatist agitation to a crisis. 拥护独立宣言，是分裂活动发展成最后危机。

2）"The Case of the Officers of Excise"《收税官的案子》, "The American Crisis" 《美国危机》, "Rights of Man"《人的权利》, "The Age of Reason"《理性时代》, "Agrarian Justice"《土地公平》——his last important treatise

3、Thomas Jefferson 托马斯·杰弗逊1743-1826

1）drafted the "Declaration of Independence" in 1776 起草了《独立宣言》

2）University of Virginia 佛吉尼亚大学，亲自设计，担任校长

3）与清教徒不同，主张追求幸福。

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. 人人生而平等，造物主赋予他们若干不可剥夺的权利，其中包括生命权、自由权和追求幸福的权利。-----《独立宣言》

4、?Philip Freneau 菲利普·费瑞诺 poet and political journalist 诗人和政治方面的新闻记者

1）perhaps the most outstanding writer of the post-revolutionary period.

2）has been called the "Father of American Poetry" 美国诗歌之父

3）作品：1770年，第一部作品"The Power of Fancy"《想象的力量》,

1870年，第二部作品"The British Prison Ship"《英国囚船》,

同类诗歌中最佳："The Wild Honey Suckle"《忍冬花》, "The Indian Burying Ground"《印第安人的坟地》

学习指南：

1、Theology dominated the Puritan phase of American writing. Politics was the next great suject to command the attention of the best minds.神学主宰了清教徒时期的美国文学，给当时人们思想的影响也最深，其次才是政治。

2、Freneau was neoclassical by training and taste ye romantic in essential spirit.费瑞诺接受的是古典主义的教育，但其本质上却是属于浪漫主义的。

3、the beginning of literary independence: Jefferson’s "Notes on the State of Virginia"《弗吉尼亚笔记》

Bartram’s "Travels" 巴特拉姆的《旅行散文》

三、浪漫主义文学(The Literature of Romanticism) 19th.c

一、文学特征：

1、Environment:

1）shaped by their New World environment 美洲大陆新环境

2）array of ideas inherited from the romantic traditions of Europe 欧洲早期浪漫主义思潮

2、美国文学特点：

pluralistic多元化，manifestations varied表现形式多样，individualistic个人主义，conflicting 矛盾

3、Romanticism的特点：romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that he natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption.浪漫主义之间大多是相通的，都注重道德，强调个人主义价值观和直觉感受，并且认为自然是美的源头，人类社会是腐败之源。

4、Transcendentalism 超验主义

1）As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematized. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom.不讲逻辑，不讲系统，只强调超越理性的感受，超越法律和世俗束缚的个人表达。

2）They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.呼吁文化复兴，反对美国社会的拜金主义。

3）They believe in the transcendence of "oversoul", an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part. 相信精神上的超越，相信无所不能的善的力量，强调善为万物之源。

4）it could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on the human mind. “Go ba ck to nature, sink yourself back into its influence and you’ll become spiritually whole again.” The natural implication of all this was, of course, that things

in nature tended to become symbolic, and the physical world was a symbol of the spiritual. This in turn added to the tradition of literary symbolism in American literature.

5）代表人物：

Emerson爱默生: believed that man was a part of absolute good人性本善

Thoreau 梭(索)罗: beheld divinity in the “unspotted innocence” of nature. 自然才是神圣的“洁白无瑕”

5、Literary forms文学形式：Novels, short stories, and poems replaced sermons and manifestos as America’s principal literary forms.长篇小说、短篇故事和诗歌取代说教类及宣言类作品成为美国主要的文学形式。

6、Imaginative literature想象类文学

7、the wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that illustrated moral law.戏剧化特色的野性讽喻了时代的道德准则。

8、The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. 逃离社会，回到自然成为了美国文学永恒的创作习惯。

9、Nationalism stimulated a greater literary interest in America’s language. In 1828 Noah Webster published “An American Dictionary of the English Language”. American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. 受民族主义影响，作家的目光转向了美国本土的语言，具有美国特征的本土方言开始在诗歌和小说中大量涌现。

10、At mid-century a cultural reawakening brought a “flowering of New England.” Led by Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau. New England → Transcendentalism, 从新英格兰文学到超验主义。

二、代表作家：

1、?Washington Irving华盛顿·欧文the first great belletrist 第一个纯文学作家，划线部分为三个主要contribution

① the first great prose stylist of American romanticism. 美国第一位浪漫主义散文文体作家

②“Sketch Book”《见闻札记》, the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.现代文学史上第一部短篇小说和美国第一部伟大的青少年文学读物。

③Irving restored the waning Gothic romances which Poe soon infused with psychological subtleties.重振了没落的哥特式浪漫主义小说，随后坡在此基础上，把心理学的一些知识融入了这种体裁。

④“Legends of the Conquest of Spain”《西班牙征服记》,

“A History of New York”《纽约外史》-----美国人写的第一部诙谐文学杰作；

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”《睡谷的传说》-----使之成为美国第一个获得国际声誉的作家

“Bracebridge Hall”《雷斯布里奇田庄》, “Talks of a Traveller”《旅客谈》, “The Alhambra”《阿尔罕伯拉》

“Life of George Washington”《乔治华盛顿》-----最后作品

2、?James Fenimore Cooper 詹姆斯·芬尼莫·库珀

①contribution: launched two kinds of immensely popular stories → the sea adventure tale and the frontier saga 开创

了两种流传极广的小说体裁，海上传奇小说和边疆传奇小说。

②frontier saga边疆传奇小说：“Leatherstocking Tales”《皮裹腿故事集》，包括“The Deerslayer”《杀鹿者》、“The Last of the Mohicans”《最后的莫希干人》、“The Pathfinder”《探路人》、“The Pioneers”《拓荒者》、“The Prairie”《大草原》, regard as “the nearest approach yet to an American epic.” 被认为是迄今为止美国最接近史诗的作品。

③the central figure in the novels：Natty Bumppo. 小说的中心人物：纳蒂.班波

Judge Temple: man remain savage without law and order

第二部小说“The Spy”《间谍》，海上传奇小说“The Pilot ”《领航者》

3、William Cullen Bryant 威廉·卡伦·布莱恩特poet 诗人

①as Irving had shown that American prose had cone of age, so Bryant demonstrated to European readers that American poetry was ready to demand serious attention.当欧文预示美国散文时代的到来时，布莱恩特向欧洲读者证实了美国的诗歌达到相当高的水平。

②He was the first American to gain the stature of a major poet.第一个获得美国主要诗人称号的作家。

③“To a Waterfowl”《致水鸟》用美国英语写作的最完美的短诗。

the peak of his work 巅峰之作

④“Thanatopisis”《死之思考》

4、Edgar Allan Poe 埃德加·爱伦·坡

①true talents as an editor, poet, literary critic, and a writer of fiction 编辑、诗人、文学评论家、小说家

②Graham’s Magazine 格雷厄姆杂志（坡的工作场所）和伯顿创办的《绅士杂志》Gentleman’s Magazine

③“The Fall of the House of Usher”《鄂谢府崩溃记》、“The Raven”《乌鸦》the title poem of a collection,

“Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque”《述异集》，first collection of short stories. 第一部短篇小说集。

④often use grotesque or fantastic events.擅长描写哥特式和幻想类的小说。

5、Ralph Waldo Emersion 拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生

①be responsible for bringing Transcendentalism to New England, 是把超验主义引入新英格兰的先驱。

②Emerson believed above all in individualism个人主义, independence of mind思想独立, and self-reliance自强.

③作品：第一本书“Nature”《论自然》、“Essays”《随笔录》、“The American Scholar”《美国学者》, our intellectual Declaration of Independence.我们知识分子的独立宣言。

④his most important works are “Representative Men”《代表》and “English Traits”《英国人》、“Poems”《诗集》

⑤Standing on the bare ground, -my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. 人形的约束没有了。 -----《论自然》

6、Henry David Thoreau 亨利·戴维·梭罗

①Emerson’s truest disciple. Put into practice many of Emerson’s theories 爱默生最忠实的信徒，把爱默生的许多理论付诸于实践。

②“In Walden”《沃尔登》成名作，“Civil Disobedience”《平民反抗》essay 随笔

③教义：I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living, each should find out his own way, not his neighbor’s or his parents. 我不希望人们接受我的生活模式，每一个都应该发现自己的生活方式，不是邻居的，也不是他父母的。

7、?Nathaniel Hawthorne 纳萨尼尔·霍桑

①background: one of his ancestors was Judge Hawthorne, who harm a person.曾经有个做法官的祖辈害人。

②“The House of the Seven Gables”七尖角阁房，是霍桑著名神秘小说中的一个房屋名称。

③he reveals the depth of his concern with the dark side of Puritanism, the harshness and the persecutions.对清教徒阴暗面的深切关注，认为清教徒的戒行过于森严，对不同信仰人的迫害过于残酷。-----“The Custom House”《海关大厦》

④“Mosses from an Old Manse”《古厦青苔》、“The Marble Faun”《玉石神像》

⑤特点⑴unique gift was for the creation of strongly symbolic stories which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature. 独特才能主要表现在他能够通过一些极具象征意义的故事来触摸人类灵魂深处的道德品质。

⑵his ability to create vivid and symbolic images that embody great moral questions appears strongly in his short stories. 在他的短篇小说中，他通过活生生、极具有象征意义的想象来体现人类社会的一些重大道德问题。

⑶to make a story exist in its own right but at the same time appear as a moral symbol.杰出之处在于他能把一个故事安放在自己设置的正义标准之中来讲述，他在书中所讲的正义标准成为当时人们的道德参考。

⑥“The Scarlet Letter”《红字》

⑴女主角honest, calmly face fault 诚实，坦然的面对罪过。

⑵弗洛伊德人格理论：Id 本我→欲望，只要快乐→Roger 女主角的丈夫

Ego 自我→分辨对错，受约束，符合现实→Hester 女主角

Superego 超我→→Dim 女主角的情人，牧师

⑶女主角的自我成长和自我救赎的过程。Ego growth and redeem by her own of process

“The Scarlet Letter” analysis分析：it not a praise of a Hester sinning, but a hymn on the moral growth of the woman when sinned against. Young Hester borders on being licentious. Her drive is sexual. She does her best to keep her hold on the magic chain humanity. Her life eventually acquires a real significance when she reestablishes a meaningful relationship with her fellowmen Symbolic of her moral development is the gradual imperceptible change with the scarlet letter undergoes in meaning. At first it is a token of sha me, “Adultery” but then the genuine sympathy and help Hester offered to her fellow villagers’ changes it to “Able”. Later in the story, the letter A appears in the sky, signifying “Angel”. There is reason to agree with the critical observation that A may r epresent Adamic, or prehistoric, an archetypal vice suggestive of “original sin,” Dimmesdale, on the other hand, banishes himself form society. Deeply preoccupie d with himself, he lives a stranger among his admirers. The result is that, whereas Hester is able to reconstruct her life and win a moral victory, Dimmesdale undergoes the tragic experience of physical and spiritual disintegration. Between him and Hester they point to a moral as Hawthorne may intend them to do, that the best policy for man is to be true, honest, and ever ready to show one’s worst to the outside world.

8、?Herman Melville 赫尔曼·麦尔维尔

作品：two simple, romantic narratives: “Typee”《泰比》、“Omoo sort”《欧穆》

two philosophical novels: “Mardi”《玛地》、“Pierre”《皮埃尔》(时间顺序：《玛地》←《白鲸》→《皮埃尔》)

two celebrated short novels: “Benito Cereno”《班内托·西兰尼》、“Billy Budd”《比利·伯德》-----最后一部作品

①“Moby Dick”《白鲸》，a tremendous chronicle of whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.主要讲述了一个为追捕一只想象中的神秘白鲸的漫长海上故事。

Summury: Ishmael, a schoolmaster, wanted to change his life and decided to sign on a whaling ship. On the way, he made a friendly friend Queequeg, then they signed on the same ship—Pequod. The Captain Ahab was a person with one leg, and he was curious about catching the monster Moby Dick neglected other’s persuasion. Ahab asked for news about Moby Dick from other ships. Two shipmenbers managed to stop his crazy action, but failed. Even the bad weather and the prophesy of Fedallah can’t stop him. A few days later, Ahab found Moby Dick himself and the men fought against it for several days. At last, all the people died except Ishmael.

②The book is steeped in symbolism. 本书达到了象征主义手法的创作高峰。

The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience”.

Moby Dick : mystery of the university; power of the grant nature; evil of the world.

Pequod : is the microcosm of the human society; is the ship of American soul.

Whiteness is a paradoxical color, too, signifying as it does death and corruption as well as purity, innocence and youth.

③主人公：Ishmael伊什米尔，取自圣经。④在书中说：to write a mighty book you must have a mighty theme. 写一部宏大的著作，必须有一个宏大的主题。⑤故事人物：Captain Ahab.船长阿哈比；Queequeg捕鲸人奎因奎格，was a friendly person；⑥the rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome, sometimes merciless forces. The fitti ng symbol for his theme was the “gliding great demon of the seas of life.”阿哈比舰长和各种危险之间的激烈斗争，他同那些强大的、神秘的自然展开斗争，他们令人毛骨悚然，有时还冷酷无情。他把那只大白鲸贴切的比喻为“生命海洋中滑行的恶魔”。

⑦“Moby Dick”：one of the major themes in Melville is alienation, which he sensed existing in the life of his time on different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Captain Ahab seems to be the best illustration of it all. The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” He had Ahab topmost in his mind. In a sense Ahab embodies all of the evil he once consigned to Moby Dick.

9、Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 亨利·沃兹沃思·朗费罗poet 诗人

①it would be hard, also, to overestimate the importance of his anthology “The Poets and Poetry of Europe”. His own poetry became a means of teaching readers of his day something of the possible range of poetic subject matter and techniques, ancient, medieval, and modern. 我们《欧洲诗人及诗歌》不能把这部作品估计过高。他自己的诗歌成为了他教学的材料，在书中他讲述了诗的主题和一些写作技巧。从古代的，中世纪的一直到现代的诗歌，他都一一作了阐述。

②殊荣：After his death, he became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s corner of Westmin ster Abbey.朗费罗去世后被安葬在威斯敏斯特教堂的诗人之角，他也是美国惟一获此殊荣的诗人。

③The gentleness, sweetness, and purity for his poetry was popular during his lifetime. 他的诗歌因高雅宜人、纯正有韵味而大受欢迎。

④he was consistently high-minded but conventional, and untouched by the religious and social struggles that disturbed his contemporaries. 他接受正统的思想，但并不保守。他的思想没有受到当时社会、宗教和各种政治斗争的影响。

⑤特点：exercised a great influence in bringing European culture to the U.S., and likewise did much to popularize American folk themes abroad where his work was immensely popular and widely translated.在引进欧洲文化上起巨大推动作用，也把美国民间文化传播到国外，他的作品还被翻译成多种文字，在海外受到高度评

四、现实主义文学(The Literature of 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

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 and sounds of regional

American.现实主义首先出现在“地方色彩”的文学作品中，成为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、各种观点及美国特色的发音等。

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。They attempted to achieve extreme objectivety and frankness presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were dominated by their environment and heredity. 他们竭力客观、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. 他们强调世界的非道德性，认为人们并没有意志的自由，人们的生活状况往往被生活环境与自己的出身所局限，他们还认为宗教上的“真理”是虚幻的，人类的是世俗的，现实生活是痛苦的，死亡以后，一切就都烟消云散了。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，Henry Adams 亨利·亚当， 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, to stress the animality of man, to suggest that he 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。

7、William Dean Howells 威廉·迪安·豪威尔

①The arbiter of 19th century literary realism in America。十九世纪美国现实主义文学泰斗，提拔许多年轻作家

②His defined realism: nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.

不加一分，不减一分，百分之百描写现实。

③中央视角：an objective point of view

8、the greatest of America’s realists: Mark Twain & Henry James

二、代表作家：

1、?Walt Whitman 沃尔特·惠特曼

①free verse (自由诗体) poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. 无固定节奏，无有规律的韵脚

②best work: “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

Poem’s 特点：most of the poems in “Leaves of Grass” 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.他重新定义了诗人的形象：诗人是英雄，是救世主，也是先知，诗人通过对真理的表达来引导民众。

2、?Emily Dickinson 爱米丽·狄金森the great woman writer, was almost completely unknown

①作品：“I died for Beauty” 《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.

③Her poetry is mostly about the universal subject.

3、Harriet Beecher Stowe 哈丽雅特·比彻·斯托小说家the most famous woman writer

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”《汤姆索亚历险记》用词简单、幽默、使用当地语言编写

“Life on the Mississippi”《密西西比河上的生活》

“Roughing It”《艰苦岁月》

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，他把这种定义为人生感受的最高形式。

⑥代表作：“The American”、“Daisy Miller”、“The Portrait of a Lady”(早期最好的作品)

《美国人》《黛西·米勒》《一个贵妇人的画像》

Last full-length novel ==“The Wings of the Dove”、“The Ambassadors”、“The Golden Bowl”

晚期，长篇小说《鸽翼》《大使》《金碗》

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 concerns 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”《深渊中的人们》、“The Call of the Wild”《荒野的呼唤》、“The Sea Wolf”《海狼》、“Martin Eden”《马丁·伊登》(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.讲述了嘉丽·米贝的发迹和G. W.伍兹的悲剧性陨落。

“Jannie Gerhardt”《珍妮姑娘》，《嘉莉妹妹》的姐妹篇

“The Financier”《金融家》、“The Titan”《巨人》、“The Stoic”《斯多葛》-----Trilogy of Desire 欲望三部曲

②“An American Tragedy”《美国悲剧》，The identification of potency with mo ney 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。

五、20世纪文学(Twentieth-century Literature）

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 w ere 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(诺贝尔奖) “The Emperor Jones”《琼斯皇帝》、“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 mus ic 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”《诗章》

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·艾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”《J·阿尔弗雷德·普鲁弗洛克的情书》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”《大教堂里的谋杀案》，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(诺贝尔奖) 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 (诺贝尔奖) 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”《丧钟为谁而鸣》、“The Old Man and the Sea”

7、?John Steinbeck 约翰.斯坦贝克(诺贝尔奖)

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(诺贝尔奖)

①作品的主题：the u niversal 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!”《押沙龙，押沙龙！》、“Go Down, Moses”《去吧，摩西》

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