美国文学史术语翻译 作家作品

A religious doctrine that advocates hard work, self-discipline, thrift, and sobriety, regards labour as one’s divine task, without the enjoyment of the fruit of the labour. The purpose is to purify the corrupted church as had been established by Jesus Chris himself.John cotton and William rogerRomanticismIs intellectual movement originating in Germany at the end of 18th century that gained strength in Western Europe after the Industrial Revolution, in the reaction to the social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, its scientific rationalization of nature. The romantic values revolved around the full spectrum of the human emotional side embracing its instincts and rejecting the conventions of the Age of Reason.Romanticism的特点：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 corruption.Transcendentalismas a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematized. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom.2) they spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. 3）they believe in the transcendence of "over soul", an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part.Emerson 第一个提出idealism代表人物：Emerson，believed that man was a part of absolute good。

Thoreau ，beheld divinity in the “unspotted innocence”of nature.Social &cultural background1 a protest of intellectualism and doctrine of the church2 a protest of foreign influencesA idealistic philosophy of German & France (Fichte Schelling and Kant)B oriental mysticism Hindu works, Buddhism/the doctrine and philosophy of Chinese Confucius and Mencius3 product of the dual heritage of American PuritanismInner communication of the soul with God/puritan principle of self culture and self-improvement. Feature s: 1 emphasis on the spirit or over soul 2 emphasis on the importance of individual 3 nature as the symbolic of God/spirit/over soulRealismis a movement in European and American literature from 1830s to the end of the century. This new attitude was characterized by a great interest in the realities of life. It aimed at the interpretation of the actualities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic colour. It expressed the concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low.代表作家：William Dean Howells Mark Twain and Henry James1. Changes for the better2. Changes for the worse“is the application of the principles of scientific determinism to fiction and drama”in the last decade of 19th century.Associated with realism, they shared emphasis on the depicting surface reality, but naturalism was more inclusive and less selective than realism. It emphasized the limited ability of humans to impose will upon their own destiny.Topics of literature in America1. Object of study: lower ranks of society and misery, poverty of the “underdogs”2. Theme: human bestiality, esp. as an explanation of the sexual desire.3. Mood: pessimistic Representatives: Jack London Stephen Crane Theodore Dreiser Frank NorrisWashington Irving the first great belletrist 第一个纯文学作家三个主要contribution ① the first great prose stylist of American romanticism.②“Sketch Book”Rip van winkle The legend of Sleepy Hollow-Icabod CraneThe father of American literature or the father of American lettersNathaniel Hawthorne（1804—1864）Theory of Sin: unpardonable sin---There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps through the whole life; but circumstance may rouse it to activity.“The Scarlet Letter”Characters: Hester Prynne: heroine----Pearl Dimmesdale: a young clergymanChillingworth: rigid priestSymbols“A” : a. Punishment, shame/disgrace, immorality and sin.B. able, angel and charity; prideTheme: 1it focuses on the nature of the individual and the individual relationship with the community2The implication of self-reliance, the difference between the private and the public character and the consequences of passion and repression are discussed.Significance: 1 he was the first major novelist in English to combine morality with art. 2 he is significant for the themes with regard to : the consequences of pride, selfishness, and secret guilt and so on. 3 he is significant for his style of writing romance, which he though a predestined from American narrative.“The House of the Seven Gables” Mosses from an Old Manse The Marble FaunHerman MelvilleMoby DickCharacters Ishmael, the narrator Ahab, captain of the ship Moby Dick, the whale hunted Locale: Pequod, the whaling shipTheme A. Man vs Nature/universe—foreshadows the 20th century literature, such as T.S. Eliot and Samuel Beckett (sense of belongings) B. Alienation of the major character, Ahab; Revenge—nothingness of lifeSymbolismthe voyage: “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of ex perie nce. ”The Pequod: the ship of American soulMoby Dick: many interpretations—evil, or goodness, or both.Ahab: the evil of human mind.Ralph Waldo Emersion①be responsible for bringing Transcendentalism to New England,②Emerson believed above all in individualism个人主义, independence of mind思想独立, and self-reliance自强作品：“Nature”“Essays”、“The American Scholar”, our intellectual Declaration of Independence. Henry David Thoreau WaldenTo him nature is a concrete existence, is the integration of all the details in the universe. In his eyes man and nature are in an integral and harmonious existence. He dedicated his whole being to his lobe of nature.Edgar Allan PoeAs a critic:A Talk on “A twice-Told Tale”The Philosophy of CompositionThe Poetic Principle (beauty, pure poetry and melancholy)2. A short story writer: good at psychoanalysis, and art for art’s sakeA. Detective story The Purloined Letter ;The Murders in the Rue MorgueB. Gothic Novels Ligeia; Black Ca;t The Fall of the House of Usher ;The Cask of Amontillado;3. A poet The Raven; To Helen; Annabel Lee; Israfel ;Sonnet—to Science4. The Themes: Death, Revenge, and Rebirth.Walt WhitmanMajor work Leaves of Grass (1855)(Song of Myself; O Captain! My Captain!)Ideals: freedom, equality, democracy, dignity, self-reliance and joy of man.Free verse –verse librates in French, refers to the poem without fixed rhyme or beat, it has varied length of lines, different from blank verse. Walt Whitman used this form of verse in Leaves of Grass in 1855.1. What is the theme of O Captain! My Captain?Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" was written on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Whitman compares the nation to a ship that had just returned form sea (i.e. the country had just pulled itself out of civil war), and Lincoln to the ship's captain, slain upon returning home (Lincoln was assassinated shortly after the South surrendered).Love/Loyalty, Coming of age and Death.2. What figures of speech are employed? Metaphor.3. Illustrate the rhyme scheme aa-bb-cd-cdEmily DickinsonThemes : death immortality love natureWilliam Dean HowellsThe Rise of Silas LaphamEconomically bankrupt, socially disgraced, he gained his moral rise. His moral rise began with financial fall. Falling, he achieved his moral and ethical rise.Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin anti-slaveryHenry JamesInternational theme American innocence and naivety are contrasted with European experienced and sophistication.The 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 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.The Art of Fiction:1) “point-of-view”;2) Anticipating the stream of consciousness T\2. Relationship between life and art3. Political viewsThe first of the modern psychological novelists and a realist of the inner lifeMark Twain马克.吐温①“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”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：colloquial speech accepted as literary medium④代表作：“The Gilded Age”“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” “Life on the Mississippi”What are the prominent features of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ？a)The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn relates the story of the escape of an uneducated and ignorant Black slave Jim from slavery and how the uneducated outcast white boy Huckleberry Finn, floating along with him and helping him as best he could along the Mississippi River, changes his mind, his prejudice about Black people, and comes to accept Jim as a Man and as a close friend as well.b) The novel is a veritable recreation of living models. Nearly all the characters had prototypes in real life: Huck, his father, Jim, the swindlers (the Duke and Dauphin), Colonel Sherburn and the drunkard Boggs. The portrayal of individual incidents and characters achieved intense verisimilitude of detail.c)The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is especially famous for its language. The book is written in the colloquial style, in the general standard speech of uneducated Americans. Large amount of dialects or vernaculars are employed to depict the characters of their lower positions, such as Huck and Jim are always speaking in the ungrammatical, simple structure.d)The colloquial style has impacted American literature and made the book Huck Finn and after it quite different. It was Mark Twain who made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the U.S.A. Its influence has extended to the 20th century American literature; it is continued in both prose and poetry. Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway were the direct descendents of the colloquial style; T.S. Eliot and William Faulkner, J.D. Salinger, Robert Frost, to name just a few, find their trace of Mark Twain’s style.Frank Norris “the octopus”Theodore DreiserAn American TragedyThree different worlds: her sister’s working class existence, her life with Druet in Chicago, andwith Hurstwood in New York.Sister CarrieHis style1. Simple and moving characters2. The journalistic method of reiteration3. word-pictures, sharp contrast, truth in color, and movement in outline.。