英美文学选读笔记

《英美文学选读》笔记

Novel became the most widely read and the most vital and challenging expression of progressive thought. A harvest in novel

Critical realists：

They were angry at the inhuman social institutions， the decaying social morality as represented by the money-worship and Utilitarianism， and the widespread misery， poverty and injustice. Their truthful picture of people's life and bitter and strong criticism of the society had done much in awakening the public consciousness to the social problems and in the actual improvement of the society.

George Eliot， the pioneering woman， was the first novelist that "started putting all the actions inside"

Thomas Hardy， the Wessex man who not only continued to expose and criticize all sorts of social iniquities， but finally came to question and attack the Victorian conventions and morals.

Prose of the Victorian Period [P236]Poetry of the Victorian Period [P236-237]

The poetry of this period was mainly characterized by experiments with new styles and new ways of expression. Robert Browning who created the verse novel by adopting the novelistic presentation of characters. This transferred the thematic interest from mere narration of the story to revelation and study of character's inner world and brought to the Victorian poetry some psycho-analytical element.

Charles Dickens （1812-1870）

The definition of Critical Realist：

（1） A number of novelists who are strongly critical of the social reality of their day.

（2） They don't want to overthrow the existing social order and so they can't see a way out of the terrible situation.

（3） They have a word of sympathy for the miseries of the poor laboring masses and cried out loud against social injustice.

（4） But they don't approve the use of violence to right the social wrongs.

（5） Therefore， they fear rather than welcome the Chartist Movement.

Major works of Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist （1837-1838） attacked the workhouse system.

A Tale of Two Cities （1859） attacked the French Revolution.

Dombey and Son （1846-1848） attacked the Capitalist.

Bleak House （1852-1853） attacked the law court.

Hard Time （1854） attacked the Utilitarianism （facts）

Oliver Twist In this novel， Dickens attacked the workhouse system. Workers who worked hard but so little can't supply their family， hungry to death.

Plot Oliver is an orphan working in a workhouse. He can't stand the hungry so he turns to theft. In order to live， he becomes a thief and leads an underworld life. At the end of the novel， with the help of kind-hearted men， he learns that he isn't an orphan but is born in a decent family.

Significance of Oliver Twist

（1）The novel is the truthful presentation of the miseries of the poor and the oppressed.

（2） It blames the social system and institutions for such miseries. In Dickens's

depiction， labors， they either become oppressors or criminals.

The progressing aspect of the novel

It's said the publication of Oliver Twist has bettered the conditions in the English workhouses.Bleak House ¨ attacked the law court

It's about a family lawsuit. Almost all family members are involved in the lawsuit for many years. The result is that the long legal procedure makes everybody poor and miserable.

Hard Time ¨ attacked Utilitarianism

Utlitiarianists show their concern over facts. The novel exposed the influence of Utilitarianism in education. An educated man teaches his son and daughter by facts. The children have no time to play and to learn beautiful natural things. They only learn abstract， logical things. The son finally becomes a thief and is almost killed by others. The daughter becomes moral degenerated.

Charles Dickens means that Utilitarianism is a failure of education. It's also an attack on social Darwinism， which drugs people mind "you are poor and incapable so you have to work for me. "

Charles Dickens' point of view [P239]

（1） It's his serious intention to expose and criticize in his works all the poverty， injustice， hypocrisy and corruptness he sees all around him.

（2） He hates the state apparatus， esp. the parliament， but as a bourgeois writer， he can in no way supply any fundamental solution to the social plights.

（3） He hopes to call people's attention to the existing social problems， thus effecting some reform or amelioration.

Charles Dickens' style [P241]

（1） Charles Dickens is a master story-teller.

（2） The settings of his stories have an extraordinary vividness， a result of years' intimacy and rich imagination.

（3） In language， he is often compared with Shakespeare for his adeptness with the vernacular and large vocabulary with which he brings out many a wonderful verbal picture of man and scene.

（4） His humor and wit seem inexhaustible.

（5） Character-portrayal is the most distinguishing feature of his works.

自考“英美文学选读”总复习概要（5）

2.idea skeptical about the relationship between man and nature， concerns religion， death， immortality， love， nature

3.works：This is my letter to the World； I heard a Fly buzz-when I died； Because I could not stop for Death

Theodore Dreiser

1.works：

Sister Carrie greatest work： An American Tragedy

2.trilogy of desire： The Financier； The Titan； The Stoic

3.idea：naturalist

(1)heredity and environment are the forces determining man‘s destiny， under what life was ironic， even tragic

（2）human beings‘ life was trapped into ’a welter of inscrutable forces‘

(3)Darwin‘s idea of “ survial of the fittest” is embodied as “kill or to be killed” in Dreiser’s works

（4）explain the insignificance of life and attack the conventional moral stan

dards

(5)materialism is the core. man has a meaningless， endless search for satisfaction of his desires， desires for money

（6）sex is another human desire. sexual beauty symbolizes the social status

Chapter8 The Modern Period （America）

1.age： second half of the 19th century to early decades of the 20th century

2.background：

（1）the U.S. has become the most powerful country

（2）technological revolution

(3)a decline in moral standard， a spiritual wasteland， feelings of fear， loss， disorientation and disillusionment

3. influencing ideas： stream of consciousness：

4.“The Lost Generation” by Gertrude

6.modernism‘s features：

literature： convey a vision of social breakdown and moral decay

writer： develop techniques that could represent a break with the past. modernistic works are discontinuity and fragmentation

7.The differences between Modernism America and England

(1)American writers emphasize the concrete sensory images or details as the direct conveyor of experience

(2)modern fiction employ the first narration or confine the reader to the “central consciousness” or one character‘s point of view

common ground： directness， compression， vividness， sparing of words

wence

1.works：The Rainbow； Women in Love； Lady Chatterley‘s Lover

2.Sons and Lovers

contents： ignorant， drunken and brutish father（Mr.Morel）， the weary， frustrated mother（Mrs.Morel）， the intelligent and ambitious woman， tries to find emotional fulfillment in her sonsPaul.she hopes her sons should never became miners， they will be educated to realize her ideals of success， happiness and social respect. Paul is incapable of escaping the overpowering emotional bond imposed by her mothers love. （distorted relationship）

3.stream of consciousness： presents unspoken materials directly from the psyche of the characters， or make the characters tell their own inner thoughts in monologues； a literary form presenting psychological aspects of characters.The events seem to be trivial， insignificant， but below the surface of them， the natural flow of mental reflections， the shifting moods and impulses in the characters inner world are richly presented in an frank and penetrating way.（Ulysses）

Chapter7 The Realistic Period 1865-1914

2.American Realistic Period and English Realistic Period（Victorian Period）

Thomas Hardy

1.evaluation：naturalist（wrance； Theodore Dreiser； George Eliot），also critical realist writer （Dickens）

2.worksWessexThe Return of the Nature； The Mayor of Casterbridge； Tess of the D‘Urbervilles； Jude the Obscure

3.features：nostalgic（Washington Irving； F.Scott Fitzergerald； William Faulkner），also pessimistic

4.naturalism：Darwin‘s idea of “survival of the fittest”

（1）man is born with tragic，inevitably

bound by his own hereditary traits

（2）man proves powerless before fate however he tries，he seldom escapes his doomed destiny

5.Tess of the D‘Urbervilles：

（1）criticize the society， hypocrisy of the society

（2）nauralism， the misery， poverty Tess suffers

Chapter5 The Modern Period （England）

3.ideas：（1）Modernism originated from skepticism and disillusion of capitalism

（2）The French symbolism announced modernism

（3）.takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base.The major themes are the distorted，alienated and ill relationships

4.difference between Modernism and Realism

Modernism is a reaction against realism in many aspects

（1）Modernism rejects rationalism， which is the theoretical base of Realism

（2）Modernism refects the source of Realism， i.e. the external， objective， material world

（3）Modernism rejects almost all the traditional elements in literature

wence‘s works’ features：

1.he interests in exploring the psychological development， he thinks life impulse is man‘s instinct. any conscious oppression will cause distortion of the individual’s personality

2.make a psychological exploration of human relationships， especially those between men and women

3.he emphasizes that it‘s capitalist industrialization that turn man into inhuman machines. And the desires for power and money cause the alienation of human relationships

George Bernard Shawn

1.idea：against “art for art‘s sake”， art should serve social purposes by reflecting human life， revealing social contradictions and educating common people

2.works features： prolem plays， only one passion： indignation

（1）showing one‘s character by the expense of another’s

（2）inversion

Chapter4 Victorian Period1836-1901

Utilitarianism： whether it could promote the material happinesssocially conscious writers criticized（2）‘s depreciation of cultural values， cold indifference towards human feeling

（4）literature： magnitude and diversity， romantically and realistically

4.critical realist writers： criticized the society， concerned about the fate of common people

Charles Dickens

1.theme：critical realist writers， criticize： poverty， injustice， hypocrisy， corruptness

2.works： Oliver Twist； The Pickwick Paper； David Copperfield； Domeby and Son； A Tale of Two Cities； Bleak House； Little Dorrit； Hard Times； Great Expectations

3.characteristics：

（1）he is skillful in the dialect and have a large vocabulary

（2）character portrayal

（3）characters are mostly innocent， helpless ，persecuted child characters

（4）a mixture of humor and sympathism

（5）bizarre figure， horrible

4.Oliver Twist： the cruelty and hypocrisy of the workhouse system and the dark crimi

nal underworld life

The Bronte Sisters

1.scene：vast，rough，untouched moorland wilderness

2.Charlotte Bronte： Jane Eyre

Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre.

Rochester： a grim-looking， energetic， quick-tempered， but an understanding middle-aged man

Jane Eyre： has a burning spirit and a longing to love and be loved

Jane Eyre： struggles for recognition of her basic rights and equality as a woman. It‘s an individual conscious struggle towards self-realization. She gets joy through the sacrifice of herself or her weakness overcome

3.Emily Bronte： Wuthering Heights（uses flashbacks）

Nelly： Catherine‘s old nurse， narrator， told Mr.Lockwood， a temporary tenant the story

George Eliot

1.idea：founder of “stream of consciousness”， focus on inner struggle. hereditary influences govern human action. concern for the destiny of woman. the tragedy of women lies in their very birth（hereditary influences）

2.works features ：naturalistic and psychological novel

3.works：Middlemarch：a full view of life in a small Englishtown

Ernest Hemingway

1.Hemingway hero

1.a wounded hero confronts all the difficulties of the situation with his dignity and courage.（In Our Times-Nick Adams）

2.a group of wandering amusing and aimless people caught in the war.The Sun Also Rises-The Lost Generation）

3.man suffers both physically and mentally， and is doomed to suffer， refute God‘s kindness to man.（A Farewell to Arms-Frederick Henry）

4.proves life‘s worth and there are causes worth dying for.（For Whom the Bell Tolls-Robert Jordan）

5.show great respect for the struggle of mankind against unconquerable natural forces， though only a partial victory is possible.（The Old Man and the Sea-Santiago）

6.he is with the honesty， the discipline， and the restraint. man always fights a losing battle of life，but never lose dignity. man can be physically destroyed， but never defeated spiritually

（7）man of courage， and masculinity and inflexible heroism.（The Undefeated）

2.The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water

3.colloquialism （Mark Twain）（short， simple， conventional words）

4.works： Indian Camp（In Our Times）

William Faulkner

3.theme：almost all his heroes are tragic

1.they are prisoners of the past or of the society， or of some social and moral taboos， or of their own personalities

2.society conditions man with its laws and institutions and eliminates man‘s chance of responding naturally to the experiences of his existence

3.man tries to explain the incomprehensible by turning away from reality， but becomes weak， cowardly and confused（Emily-coward）

4. nostalgic in The Sound and The Fury

5.works‘ features：

（1）use of narrative techniques is remarkable，

let the characters explain themself， the

reader experiences the work of art directly

（2）breaks up chronology， juxtaposes the past with the present

（3）stream of consciousness

（4）inner musings of the narrator

（5）good at presenting multiple points of view

6.works： A Rose for Emily（Gothic devices）

Emily the symbols of the Old South， the prisoners of the past. an eccentric spinster. she refuses the inevitable changes and loss with the pass of time

William Shakespeare's writing feature

1. A play in the play.

2. Borrow plots from other stories such as Roman, Greek and ancient myth.

3. Several threads running through the play.

4. Combination of tragic and comic elements.

William Shakespeare's writing style

1. Tremendous vocabulary (16,000 words, invent words)

2. Literary devices (alliteration, simile, metaphor)

3. Use poetry in his play

William Shakespeare's humanistic ideas

1. Against cruelty and anti-natural character of civil wars

2. Against religious persecution, racial discrimination, social inequality.

3. Hates rebellion and despises democracy

Themes in Shakespeare's sonnets

1. Express love and praise to a young man

2. Immortalize beauty through verses

3. Friendship or betrayal of friendship

2. [P39] An Excerpt from The Merchant of Venice

a. How does Shylock justify himself according to the accusation of Duke and Bassanio?

[P40-41] There are 3 reasons.

b. Why does Shylock stick to his bond instead of taking twice his principle?

He hates the Christians and is determined to revenge on them because his daughter elopes with a Christian.

c. What do you think of Shylock inthe early court scene? What about him later?

In the early court scene, Shylock is cruel, eloquent, stubborn, tricky, isolated from law and friendship.

In the later court scene, Shylock is greedy, sympathetic and oppressed by Christians.



d. What is Shakespeare's attitude towards Shylock?

He sympathizes those who are oppressed. Antonio is oppressed by Shylock. Shylock is oppressed by Christians.

e. The whole play is a tragi-comedy. In the scene, Shylock is the tragic side. Antonio and his friends is the comic side.

49.How is Romanticism different from Neoclassicism?Provide brief evidence from the literary works you know best.

a.Neoclassicists upheld that artistic ideals should be order,logic,restrained emoticon and accuracy,and that literature,should be judged in terms of its service to humanity,and thus,literary expressions should be of proportion,unity,harmony and grace.Pope's An Essay on Criticism advocates grace,wit (usually though satire/humour),and simplicity in language(and the poem itself is a demonstration of those ideals,too);Fielding's Tom Jones helped establish the form of novel;Gray's “ Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' displays elegance in style,unified structure,serious tone and moral instructions.

b.Romanticists tended to see the

individual as the very center of all experience,including art,and thus,literary work should be “ spontaneous overflow of strong feelings, ” and no matter how fragmentary those experiences were (Wordsworth's “ I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, ” or “ The Solitary Reaper,) or Coleridge's “ Keble Khan ” ),the value of the work lied in the accuracy of presenting those unique feelings and particular attitudes.

c.In a word, Neoclassicism emphasized rationality and form but Romanticism attached great importance to the individual's mind (emotion, imagination, temporary experience … )



50.Summerize the story of Mark twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in about 100 words,and comment on the theme of the novel.

A.Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a Sequa to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.The Story takes place along the Mississippi River before the Civil War in the United States, around 1850.

Along the river, floats a small raft, with two people on it; One is an ignorant,uneducated black slave named Jim and the other is little uneducated outcast white boy about the age of thirteen, called Huckleberry Finn or Huck Finn.

The novel relates the story of the escape of Jim from slavery and ,more important, how Huck Finn, floating along with Jim and helping him as best he could, changes his mind ,his prejudice, about Black people, and comes to accept Jim as a man and as a close friends as well.

During their journey, they experience a series of adventures:coming across two frauds, the “ Duke ” and the “ King ” ,witnessing the lynching and murder of a harmless drunkard, being lost in a fog and finally Tom's coming to rescue.

B. The theme of the novel may be best summed in a word “ freedom ” : Huck wants to escape from the bond of civilization and Jim wants to escape from the yoke of slavery. Mark Twain uses the raft's journey down the Mississippi River to express his thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization.

英美文学重要笔记，精华版

The Renaissance - rebirth or revival

Humanism - the essence of the Renaissance, the dignity of human being & the importance of the present life

John Milton the only generally acknowledged epic in English literature since Beowulf. The conflict is between human love and spiritual duty. In heaven, Satan led a rebellion against God with his unconquerable will.



the most perfect example of the verse drama after the Greek style in English.

Neoclassicism - a revival of interest in the old classical works, order, logic, restrained emotion抑制情感 & accuracyEnlightenment - a progressive intellectual movement, reason (rationality), equality & science

Gothic novel - mystery, horror & castles

Daniel Defoe , praise the human labor and the Puritan fortitude 清教徒坚韧

Jonathan Swif

t - a master satiristIn his opinion, human nature is seriously and permanently flawed

Proper words in proper places



, four parts - Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Flying Island & Houyhnhnm

Henry Fielding - Father of English novel, Prose HomerComic epic in prose



William Blake -engraver雕刻家

from a happy and innocence world from children's eye

from a world of misery, poverty, disease, war and repression with a melancholy 忧郁的tone from men eyes Childhood, paradoxes, a pairing of opposites



William Wordsworth - the leading figure of the English romantic poetry, simple, spontaneous, worshipper of nature'Lake Poets' - William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge & Robert SoutheyHe defines the poet as a 'man speaking to men', and poetry as 'the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in 'emotion recollected in tranquillity'.

the poet is very cheerful with recalling the beautiful sights. In the poem on the beauty of nature, the reader is presented a vivid picture of lively and lovely daffodils 水仙 and poet's philosophical ideas and mystical thoughts.

the sonnet describes a vivid picture of a beautiful morning in London, silent, bright, glittering, smokeless & mildly. It is so touching a sight that the poet expressed his religion piety 虔诚for nature.

thanks to poet's rich imagination, the mass of associations, this commonplace happening becomes a striking event, the poet succeeds in making the reader's share his emotion. The poem also shows the poet's passionate love of nature.

Percy Bysshe Shelley



terza rima, destructive-constructive potential, hopeful, 'I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!', 'If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?'

Jane Austen

The Victorian Period

Darwin's and shook the traditional faith, everything is created by GodUtilitarianism 功利主义 was widely accepted and practiced Critical realists were all concerned about the fate of the common people

Charles Dickens - one of the greatest critical realist writers of the Victorian Age

Character-portrayal is the most distinguishing feature of his worksA mingling of humor and pathos 悲伤





The Bronte Sisters - Charlotte, Emily & AnneEmily, a rather reserved and simple girl, was very much a child of nature.





Thomas Hardy - both a naturalistic and a critical realist writerLocal-colored, Wessex, 'novels of character and environment'

experi

ence is as to intensity, and not as to duration

American Romantic Period

Started with Washington Irving's and ended with Whitman's , also called 'the American Renaissance'Free expression of emotion, escapes from society, and return to nature New England Transcendentalism

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Interior of the heart, there is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life, but circumstances may rouse it to activity





Walt Whitman

Openness, freedom, individualism

I - me, my nation (society), Free verse, Envelope structure, Catalogue (Listing)

A new ideal, a new world, a new life-style

how a child is greatly influenced by his growing environments

a scene of the American Civil War, all the movements described in this picture are frozen.

Whitman is a man bubbling with energy and laden with ideas, spontaneous expression of his original ideas

Herman Melville - a master of allegory and symbolism, like Hawthorne the first American prose epic, Ishmael both as a character and a narrator, the captain, Ahab is a monomaniac

Realistic period - the Gilded Age, the poor poorer and the rich richer, people's attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existence

Local colorism, social Darwinism, bestiality, beyond man's control

Mark Twain - the true father of American literature

Local colorist, vernacular, simple sentence, 'the damned human race' The Gilded Age

3 boyhood books , ,

Huck's inner conflict about whether or not he should write a letter to tell Miss Watson where Jim is.

Henry James - international theme, psychological realistStream of consciousness, interior monologue, free association

the narrator is an American expatriate, named Winterbourne. Daisy is the most innocent girl. The clash is between two different cultures.

Emily Dickinson

Based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys

express Dickinson's anxiety about her communication with the outside world.

description of a moment of death

Dickinson makes the train part of nature by animalizing it, like a horse.

personify death and immortality so as to make her message strongly felt

Theodore Dreiser - America's literary naturalists Case history including everything Determinism (heredity biological & environment), survival of the fittest, the jungle law Trilogy of Desire - , , 'who shall cast the first stone?'

The modern period - the se

cond American Renaissance, the expatriate movement, the Lost Generation, a transformation from order to disorder

Seize the day, enjoy the present, spiritual wasteland, collective unconscious, psychoanalysis

Imagist movement, Jazz Age

Robert Lee Frost - four times awarded Pulitzer Prize, pastoral life and scene







F. Scott Fitzgerald - spokesman of the Jazz Age, Dollar Decade, 1920s

A double vision of the Jazz Age, both an insider and an outsiderAmerican Dream



Ernest Hemingway - awarded the Nobel Prize

Iceberg style, Code hero, the lost generation, grace under pressure

from birth and death coexist

William Faulkner - awarded a Nobel Prize

South, imprisonment in the past

Stream of consciousness, multiple points of view

Yoknapatawpha Country

Emily is regarded as the symbol of tradition and the

old way of life. Thus her death is like the falling of a monument.