美国文学选读复习提要3

美国文学选读复习提要3

Mark Twain 马克·吐温1835-1910

1.原名Samuel Langhorne Clemens 塞缪尔·朗赫恩·克莱门斯。1847年父亲去世后开始到一家出版社当学

徒工，从1853年开始全国旅行，期间做过印刷排字临时工，结识了船长霍勒斯·比克斯比，从那以后便开始水上生活his formal education ended soon after his father’s death in 1847, when he became a printer’s apprentice. From 1853, he traveled widely, as a journeyman printer, in the eastern states and in the west, he met Horace Bixby, the captain of the boat, and turned to a career on the river.国内战争爆发以后，他离开密西西比河，先后在军队当过志愿者，到内华达州掏过金，他还做过木材投机生意，当过新闻记者he left the Mississippi at the outbreak of the Civil War, and became, in swift succession, and army volunteer, a gold-prospector in Nevada, a timber speculator and a journalist.

2.在弗吉尼亚《企业》杂志任职期间，他开始使用笔名“马克·吐温”，意为口寻，也就是十二尺深while

working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, he adopted the pseudonym “Mark Twain”, the way of a boatman taking soundings, and meaning two fathoms, i.e. twelve feet.

3.1865年，他第一本书《跳蛙》出版”Jumping Frog”;

1869年，《傻子国外旅行记》“Innocents Abroad”;

1872年，《艰苦岁月》“Roughing It”;

1873年，《镀金时代》“The Gilded Age”

1876年，《汤姆·索亚历险记》“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”;

1883年，《密西西比河上的生活》“Life on the Mississippi”;

1884年，《哈克贝里·费恩历险记》”Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”;

1894年，《傻瓜威尔逊》“Pudd’n head Wilson”;

1900年，《败坏了哈德莱堡的人》“The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg”;

1906年，《什么是人？》“What is Man”;

1916年，《神秘来客》“The Mysterious Stranger”

4.晚年悲观与失望，对十九世纪美国社会价值观不能接受，后一直是一个坚定的怀疑论者，有时他通过

时事恶毒的评论来疏缓自己的压力，晚景凄凉，亲人相继离去he pointed towards his uneasy acceptance of the values of nineteenth-century American society, he wrote three works expressing his acute pessimism.

From that time until his death, he maintained a bitter skepticism, relieved at times by outraged commentary on world affairs. His last years were saddened by personal bereavement.

Ezra Pound埃兹拉·庞德1885-1972

1.埃兹拉·卢米斯·庞德Ezra Loomis Pound。他是一位非常具有个性的诗人，他能把传统与令人深刻和大

胆的创新很熟练地结合起来he had a distinct poetic personality, he combined a command of the older tradition with impressive and often daring originality.他是一位多产的随笔作家，他不断地为纽约、伦敦、巴黎的小杂志撰稿，然后把这些作品汇集到一起，于是便组成了一个令人兴奋的文学大世界，他坚持无私地扶持那些刚入道，没什么影响，而他认为有前途的文学艺术家，最为重要的可能就是他给T·S·爱略特的帮助了he was a prolific essayist for the little magazines of New York, London, Paris, which then constituted a large and exciting literary world. He unselfishly and persistently championed the experimental and often unpopular artists. Most important of all, perhaps, was the advice and encouragement which he gave to T·S· Eliot.

2.庞德和爱略特的作品都要求他们的读者熟悉古典作品，包括意大利和英国文艺复兴时期的作品，特别

是欧洲大陆地区文学，包括法国象征主义，庞德保持了作品的艰深晦涩风格 both Pound and Eliot required of their readers a familiarity with the classics, the productions of Italian and English Renaissance,, and specialized areas of Continental literature, including the works of the French symbolists. Pound’s

continued to draw fundamentally upon his formidably recondite culture.

3.《向塞克斯图·普罗佩提多斯致敬》”Homage to Sextus Propertius”; 《人物》（或《面具》）”Personae” or

“Masks”;

1920年《休·赛尔温·毛伯利》被看作是有关一战战争实质的讽刺类代表作”Hugh Selwyn Mauberley”, considered as a satire of the materialistic forces involved in World WarⅠ;

1917年开始创作《诗集》，截止1959年总首数已达109首，有点象但丁的《神曲》，也是由三个部分组成，结构较为松散，作品中的主人公是喜剧性的人而不是神，他认为人类文明的毁灭主要是由于人类的三个时期，即上古时期、复兴时期和现代时期缺乏信用所至”The Cantos”, began in 1917, by 1959, the numbered 109 poems. The progressive series, exceeding the proposed limit of one hundred poems, are loosely connected cantos, like Dante’s “Divina Commedia”in three sections, but representing a comedy human, not divine, dealing with the wreck of civilizations by reason of the infidelity of mankind in the three epochs-the ancient world, the Renaissance, and the modern period.

4.二战期间，庞德代表意大利政府，运用广播形式对美国军队进行强烈的谴责。回国后作为美国公民，

他因叛国罪而遭起诉，但法庭审查时，被判无罪。1958年叛国起诉撤消后，又返回意大利，1972年在判去世during World War Ⅱ, Pound, on behalf of the Italian government, conducted radio broadcasts beamed at the American troops. He was returned to the United States as a citizen accused of treason, but on examination he was declared insane. After the treason charges were dismissed in 1958, Pound returned to Italy, where he died in 1972.

5.教材作品：《一台古钢琴》：”A Virginal”

《再次致意》：”Salutation the Second”

《合同》：”A Pact”

《地铁站台》”In a Station of the Metro”

《长干行》”The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”

Robert Frost罗伯特·弗洛斯特1874-1963

1.在去世时弗洛斯特已成为了美国民族诗人的翘首，曾四次获得普利策奖，美国国会还通过了庆祝他生

日的一个议案。在他87岁高龄时，在美国总统约翰·F·肯尼迪的就职仪式中，他还念了自己的一首诗歌by the end of his life he had become a national bard; he won four Pulitzer Prizes; the United States Senate passed resolutions honoring his birthdays, and when he was eighty-seven he read his poetry at the inauguration of President John F· Kennedy.

2.1912年决定闯荡文坛，航海到英国，1913年在伦敦出版了第一本诗集《小男孩的意志》in 1912 he decided

to venture everything on a literary career. He sailed for England. 1913, in London, his first book “A Boy’s Will” was published.

3.1914年第二部诗集《波士顿以北》，后回美国a second volume of poems “North of Boston”, then Frost

returned.

1916年《山陵》”Mountain Interval”

1923年《新罕布什尔》”New Hampshire”

1928年《小河西流》”West-Running Brook”

1936年《又一片农场》”A Further Range”

1942年《智慧树》”A Witness Tree”

1947年《绒毛锈线菊》“Steeple Bush”

1962年《空旷地》”In the Clearing”

4.弗洛斯特反对当时的许多诗歌改革原则，相反奉行“旧瓶装新酒”的原则，采用旧形式来表达新内容，

他采用新英格兰乡村的朴实用语，特别偏好传统的抒情类和叙事类，短小精悍的格式，作为一个自然主义诗人，很明显，他的作品中体现了浪漫主义作家的一些风格，在他看来，大自然是比喻和象征的

无穷宝藏，作品中没有宗都的说教和冥想的玄思，他的诗歌都浅显明了，经常探讨黑暗中的神秘，宇宙万物中的各种不同的荒凉和嘈杂的风景，其实这就是人类自身居住的世界的另外一种表现，这个世界复杂、无助、孤寂Frost had rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporanes, 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, As a poet of nature he had obvious affinities with romantic writers. He saw nature as a storehouse of analogy and symbol, but he had little faith in religious dogma or speculative thought. 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.

F· Scott Fitzgerald F·司格特·菲茨杰拉德1896-1940

1.1920年他第一本小说《人间天堂》”This Side of Paradise”取得名声后迎娶美人泽达won success, fame,

and Zelda. 这本小说描写了美国“躁动青年”的放荡和随意生活，该作品在商业上立刻获得了极大的成功，泽达和菲茨杰拉德也决心过上他小说中描述的这种放荡无羁的生活，他们甚至有过之而无不及The book, with its portrayal of the casual dissipations of “flaming youth”, was an immediate commercial success, and Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald attempted to live up to-or even beyond-his fictional portraits of scandalous young men and women.

2.第二本小说《漂亮的和该死的》”The beautiful and Damned”

《爵士时代故事集》”Tales of the Jazz Age”

《蔬菜》或叫《从邮递员到总统》”The Vegetable” or “from Postman to President”

3.1925年的《了不起的盖茨比》”The Great Gatsby”及1934年的《夜色温柔》“Tender Is the Night”，在

这两部小说中，菲茨杰拉德提示了外表闪耀着天真的时代中的刺耳喧嚣。他运用生动优雅的散文，揭露了美国拜金主义的空虚，表现了美国人对爱情、豪华生活和各种欲望无止境的追求had revealed the stridency of an age of glittering innocence. In vivid and graceful prose he had, at the same time, portrayed the hollowness of the American worship of riches and the unending American dream of love, splendor, and fulfilled desires.

4.教材作品：《了不起的盖茨比》”The Great Gatsby”

八、Ernest Hemingway厄恩斯特·海明威1899-1961

1954年他因“现代叙述艺术的精湛技巧”而获得诺贝尔文学奖he was awarded a Nobel Prize for his “mastery of the art of modern narration”. 1961年在家自杀。

1.一战中作为美国在法国的救护队的一名志愿驾驶员到军队服役，后转移到意大利前线，后受重伤In

World War I, he volunteered to serve as a driver for an American ambulance unit in France, then transferred to duty on the Italian front, where he was seriously wounded.

2.他极大地推动了报告文学的发展，他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he developed a spare, tight, reportorial prose based on simple sentence structure and using a restricted vocabulary, precise imagery, and an impersonal, dramatic tone.

3.1923年第一本书《三个故事和十篇诗歌》”Three Stories and Ten Poems”

4.1926年《太阳照样升起》”The Sun Also Rises”海明威逐渐成为了格特鲁特·斯泰因所说的“迷惘的一

代”的代言人Hemingway became the spokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called “a lost generation”. 5.对充斥于现代社会人们生活中的无聊、失败、死亡等，海明威有时做出的是消极评论，后来这种人生

虚无主义的观点进行了修改，他反复运用坚定的语气声称，人凭借自己的勇气和方式，还是有可能过上美好生活的，在海明威看来，人类最伟大莫过于在压力之下显示自己的从容，或“最大限度地挖掘自己使自己成为一个纯粹的人”His works have sometimes been read as an essentially negative commentary on a modern world filled with sterility, failure, and death. Yet such a nihilistic vision is

repeatedly modified by Hemingway’s affirmative assertion of the possibility of living with style and courage.

To Hemingway, ma n’s greatest achievement is to show grace under pressure, or “purity of line through the maximum of exposure”.

6.1929年《永别了，武器》”A Farewell to Arms”

1932年《死在午后》”Death in the Afternoon”

1935年《非洲的青山》”The Green Hills of Africa”

1940年《丧钟为谁而呜》”For Whom the Bell Tolls”

1950年《过河入林》”Across the River and into the trees”

1952年《老人与海》”The Old Man and the Sea” (triumphant even in defeat)

十、William Faulkner威廉·福克纳1897-1962

1950年获诺贝尔文学奖

1.1．1931年《圣殿》”Sanctuary”; 1927年《沙多里斯》”Sartoris”.随后他开始认识到“故乡的一枚小小

邮票也值得去写，故乡有它一辈子也写不完的素材，我把这些素材经过升华，最后成为小说，有了这些基础以后，我可以随心所欲地达到一种绝对的高境界。打开别人的金矿，为自己创造了一个宇宙”

then he “discovered”, as he said later, “that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it and that by sublimating the actual into the apocryphal I would have complete liberty to use whatever talent I might have to its absolute top. It opened up

a gold mine of other people, so I created a cosmos of my own”.

2.1929年《喧嚣与骚动》”The Sound and the Fury”

1930年《在我弥留之际》”As I Lay Dying”

1932年《八月之光》”Light in August”

1934年《马蒂诺医生和其它故事选》”Doctor Martino and Others Stories”

1949年《大树林》”Big Woods”

1936年《押沙龙，押沙龙》”Absalom, Absalom”

1942年《去吧，摩西》”Go Down, Moses”

史努比家族三部曲，第1部1940年《小乡村》，第2部1957年《小镇》，第3部《大宅》，the trilogy on the Snopes family: “The Hamlet”, “The Town”, “The Mansion”.

3.尽管福克纳一生几乎都是在密西西比度过的，但他游历却非常广泛，他作品的中心主题却是不局限在

牛津，也不在密西西比河，甚至也不在美国，在他看来，“人类心灵与自己冲突”才是宇宙永恒的主题although his home was always in Mississippi, Faulkner traveled extensively. His central theme, however, was not Oxford, or Mississippi, or even America. It was, as he put it, the universal theme of “the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself”.

教材作品：《给艾米莉小姐的玫瑰》：“A Rose for Emily”