美国文学史及选读考试整理

Washington Irving

Bracebridge Hall 布雷斯布里奇田庄

(1822)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Tales of a Traveller 旅客谈

(1824)

Christopher Columbus (1828)

c. writing characteristics

(1) humorous: the function of his

writing is to amuse, to entertain

instead of teaching or

instruction

(2) vivid and true character

portrayal

(3) finished (refined) and musical

language, thus regarded as “the

Amn. Goldsmith ”

d. analysis on The Legend of Sleepy

Hollow(选自the sketch book 见闻札

记)

1. the story:setting,character,

plot

2. theme:conflicts and praise

conflict betw. Ichabod and Brom conflict betw. the village and the

outside world

James Fenimore Cooper

The Spy (1821): a historical

novel

The Pilot (1824): a sea novel

Leatherstocking Tales 皮裹腿故事

集

(1823-1841): frontier novels

The Last Mohicans (1826) (Colonial

War betw. Britain and France)

e. writing features:

strong points: we can see a variety

of

incidents

and

tensions,

complicated plot and structure and

a beautiful description of

nature.

Weak points: characterization is

weak. There is unsatisfactory

description of characters (esp.

female). He is not free from

syntactical

awkwardness,

heavy-handed attempt at humor.

“Where Irving excels Cooper is

weak.” Dialect is not authentic.

Edgar Allan Poe

The Fall of the House Usher

Feature:

i. brevity (15 pages)

ii. Single effect

iii. originality in theme

To Helen

It was inspired by the beauty of

the mother of a schoolmate of Poe

in Richmond, Virginia.

The poem is famous for a number of

things:

1. its rhyme scheme: ababb

2. its varied line lengths

3. its metaphor of a travel on the

sea

4. its oft-quoted lines:

"To the glory that was Greece,/And

the grandeur that was Rome."

theme: praise the ideal love and

beauty and ancient Greek and Roman

civilizations

The Raven乌鸦

theme: the lament over the death of

a beautiful woman

tone: melancholy

Transcendentalism (essayists, poets,

novelists)

Their journal is “The Dial”

.

Definition: Transcendentalism is

idealism. (Emerson)

b. features

(1) stress on Oversoul, that is

spirit.

(2) stress the importance of

individual.

(3) fresh conception of nature.

c. significance

(1) inspired a whole generation of

writers such as Whitman, Melville

and Dickinson.

(2) dresses man’s subjective

initiative as opposed to

materialism.

(3) liberated people from

Calvin’s original sin

d. limitation

(1) shallow: cut off from real life

or reality; initiated by the rich,

they were limited in a certain

circle. So, in some degree, they

have been cut off from social life

and can’t understand the

sufferings of the common people.

(2) inward contradiction: gain

knowledge by intuition, shows its

idealistic aspect.

R.W. Emerson (Ralph Waldo)

Nature (1836): the Bible of New

England transcendentalism

The American Scholar (1837):

"America's Declaration of

Intellectual

The Divinity School Address神学

院致辞

(1838)

Essays (1841/1847)

Representative Men (1850)

English Traits (1856)

Poems (1847)

d. significance

(1) He embodied a new nation’s

desire and struggle to assert its

own identity in its formative

period.

(2) his stress on individualism

Limitation:self-centered,

individual

His ideas influence a lot of

writers such as Dikinson,

Hawthorne and Whitman.

Henry David Thoreau

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack

Rivers

康考德和梅里马克河上地一周

(1849)

Walden, or Life in the Woods

(1854)

Civil Disobedience 不服从论(1849,

an address)

c. Walden

main ideas:

(1)on self-cultivation and human

perfectibility, elevated from

Puritan original sin, believe in

inner virtue and inwardly grace

(2) criticism on civilization and

capitalism

(3) only truth and knowledge

can’t be taken away, trust in

future and in man

Style: pithy (colloquial sayings),

vivid description, symbols and images

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Twice-Told

Tales

(1837):

a

collection of short stories Mosses from an Old Manse 古屋青苔(1846): another collection of

short stories

The House of the Seven Gables 七个尖角地阁楼(1851): on the effect of a curse The

Scarlet

Letter

(1850):

masterpiece

It ’s not a love story, trying to show the moral, emotional and psychological effects of sin on

his characters.

“A ”

: Adultery-Able-Angel “A ” on chest: sinner, confessed,

died, shows an honest man Moral: man should be true and honest and ready to show one ’s worst to the world （批评与自我批评）

Herman Melville

Typee (《泰比》

1846) Omoo (《奥穆》

1847) Mardi (《马尔迪》

1847)

这三部作品描写塔希提群岛和马吉萨斯群岛以及他在岛上地奇遇

. Redburn (《莱德勃恩》1849)：描写了他地第一次航海经验以及在利物浦港贫民窟地见闻

.

White Jacket (《白外套》1850)：根据他在美国海军军舰上服役时期地生

活体验写成

.

Pierre (《皮埃尔》

1852)

Israel Potter (《伊斯莱尔·波特》

1855): historical novel

Piazza Tales (《广场故事》1856): a

collection of short story Moby Dick (《白鲸》1851):

masterpiece (1)

a

whaling

book:

an encyclopedia of

whaling/description of

a

whaler ’

s life

(2) a tragedy about man fighting against universe (hostile) Man in

this universe lives a meaningless and futile life, meaningless

because futile.

Man can observe and even

manipulate in a prudent way, but he

cannot influence and overcome

nature at its source.

(3) alienation异化

:

between man and man

between man and society (ship)

between man and nature

Ahab is the best representative.

To him the world exists for his

sake. His selfhood must be

asserted at the expense of all else:

lives may be sacrificed, and

nature may have to be vanquished in

order that he may do what he

wills.

Richard Chase says: the idea

Melville conveys in it is

"death---spiritual, emotional,

physical".

(5) theme: quest

(6) symbolism

the voyage: a metaphor for "search

and discovery, the search for the

ultimate truth of experience".

the Pequod皮阔德: the ship of the

American soul

the endeavor of the crews: "the

maniacal fanaticism of our white

mental consciousness"

Moby Dick: (many interpretations)

the symbol of nature

W. C. Bryant

the analysis on To a Waterfowl致

水鸟

It is the "most perfect brief poem

in the language". (Matthew

Arnold)

It is a poem of nature in quatrains

rhyming in abab.

theme: from a bird and its flight

to an ordinary person and his

course of life, this poem conveys

that everything in nature is under

the beneficence and protection of

the Power.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Theme: idealized love, children, family and friendship

A Psalm of Life

The poem is divided into 9 stanzas, each composed of two iambic tetrameter lines and two trochaic

trimeter lines rhyming abab. The first two stanzas refute the pessimism that life is but a dream, affirming the contrary that life

is real.

The following stanzas urge the reader to act in the present and to leave "footprints" as great people did in order to inspire the

followers.

The last stanza ends with a resounding note while admonishing people to learn to wait as well as to labor.

Realism （the 19th-century literary movement that reacted to romanticism by insisting on a faithful, objective presentation of the details of everyday

life.） features:

? i.objective description (concern for the commonplace/the low) ? ii. criticism of society and reality, exposing and criticizing the

society;

the writers ’

dissatisfaction;

no

longer

eulogize human glority

? iii. verisimilitude 逼真性(true to details)

? iv. influenced by bourgeois ’ 中产阶级democratic ideas (not overthrow but reform, changes) ? v. reformative: to reform the society, not to change completely ? features:

Naturalism

（

A

post-Darwinian movement of the late 19th century that tried to apply the "laws" of scientific determinism to fiction.）is a theory which applied scientific concepts and methods to such problems as plot development and

characterisation.

?Comparison between Realism and Naturalism:

? Realism.

?i. objective

?ii. creation of types

?iii. influenced by British Rom.

works with hope ? Naturalism

?i. scientific accuracy

?ii. collect material from their lives

?iii.against this, hopeless/gloomy picture of the society

Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass《草叶集》,

(1) themes

?i. unity of all man and of man within universe

?ii. equality of all man

?iii. cycle of life and death

?iv. enthusiastic idea toward Westward Expansion

?v. brotherhood

d. Song of Myself自我之歌

?(1) influence of Transcendentalism: praise of

individualism

?(2) cycle of life and death

?(3) ideal of democracy: equality between different races and

brotherhood

Emily Dickinson

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- H.B. Stowe

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851): masterpiece significance:

?1.intensified and strengthened abolitionist sentiment;

?2. gave a better balanced, more specific picture of plantation

life;

?3. praised the merits of slaves and showed great sympathy for them Henry James

?The American (1877): begins with international theme

?Daisy Miller (1878): brings the author first international fame ?The Wings of the Dove (1902)

?The Ambassadors (1903)

?The Golden Bowl (1904)

?The Portrait of A Lady贵妇画像:masterpiece

?It tells about the fate of one of those splendid Jamesian American girls, Isabel Archer, arriving in Europe, full of hope, and with a will to live a free and noble life, only to fail prey to the sinister designs of two vulgar and unscrupulous expatriates, Madam Merle and Gilbert Osmond International theme国际主题:

?the meeting of America and Europe;

American innocence in contact and contrast with European decadence and the moral and psychological complications arising therefrom;

for the American it was a process

of progression from inexperience

to experience, from innocence to

knowledge and maturity. Those

American heroes or heroins who

confronting European

sophistication, either triumphed

over it or were overwhelmed. Mark Twain

?The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Count卡拉维拉斯县有名

地跳蛙(1865):a short story ?The Innocents Abroad国外地无辜者(1869): letters on his travelling

in Europe and Near East

?Roughing It苦行记(1872): on his experience in the western America ?The Gilded Age (1873): his first novel, collaborated with Charles

Dudley Warner

?The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

?The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 哈克贝利·费恩历险记(1884):

masterpiece

?Life on the Mississippi (1883)

?A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court误闯亚瑟王宫(1889) ?The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg 败坏了哈德莱堡地人(1900)

?The Mysterious Stranger (1916)

e. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

?1. It is "a boy's book" which sets

20 years before Civil War.

?2. themes:

?1)picaresque以流浪汉和无赖为题材地(adventure story)

?2) moral growth of Tom

?3. techniques: verisimilitude, humor, colloquial style

Deadpan（铁面幽默）: oral humor/the teller has a strict face but the listeners are laughing.

Language: dialects as forms of art Jack London

?The People of the Abyss深渊居民(1903): about London's slum ?The Iron Heel 铁蹄(1908): the

first proletarian criterion novel which envisages the development of fascism

?The Call of the Wild 野性地呼唤(1903): the most widely read book ?The Sea Wolf 海狼(1904)

?These two novels reflect the ideas of the law of survival and the will to power

?Martin Eden马丁伊登(1909): a reflection of the contradiction between these competeing beliefs c. Martin Eden--theme:the failure of American Dream. After he realized his dream of getting into the upper class, he also realized the emptiness of it and committed suicide.

?"This is a book that missed fire with a majority of the critics.

Written as an indictment of individualism, it was accepted as an indictment of socialism;

written to show that man cannot live for himself alone, it was

accepted as a demonstration that

success made for death. Had Martin

Eden been a socialist he would not

have died."

?Consciously London meant the novel to show that only a belief in the

people, only the devotion of one's

life to a cause greater than onself,

could give life any real meaning. T. Dreisser西奥多·德莱塞

?Sister Carrie 嘉莉妹妹(1900): the first novel, masterwork

?Jannie Gerhardt (1911)

?The Fanancier (1912)

?The Titan (1914)

?The Stoic (1947)

?The Genius (1915)

?An American Tragedy美国悲剧(1925)

?Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928)

c. Sister Carrie

?theme:the emptiness of Ameircan Dream

?i. jungle law

?Famous actress bank manager(the unfit is bound to die) <——?Country girl (able to follow her instinct) commit suicide

?ii. chance and luck

?iii. criticism of American values: money and sex —the standards to

see if a person is successful ?iv. concern for the poor

Jazz Age: the Jazz Age lasted from 1919-1929, the decade enjoyed economic prosperity. The war and economic boom encouraged a breaking with the tradition (Puritanism). People upheld the value of money-making and pleasure-seeking.

Ezra Pound埃兹拉·庞德

Imagism意象派

?Pound became the most important

figure. Imagist poetry reached the

peak of literature for three

things appeared:

?i. a manifesto

?ii. three principles

?iii. a lot of writings

?Pound said, an image is "that which

presents an intellectual and

emotional complex in an instant of

time."

In a Station of the Metro在地铁车站

?1. This is the much-quoted

masterpiece of Pound and a

representative of the Imagist

poetry.

?2. In form, the poem is similar to

the Japanese haiku, a two-line

couplet with rhymes. Pound's poem

reminds the Chinese of two lines by

a Tang poet, Bai Juyi. When

describing the sad yet beautiful

face of Yang Huifei, a Tang

emperess, the poet wrote,

?The beautiful face, lonesome with

tears;

?A pear branch, radiant with rain.

?3. The poem is a representative of

Imagist poems in that the image of

petals on a wet, black bough best

represents the picture of those

lovely faces in the crowd and that

the image is dominant in the

poem---the image itself is the

poem.

T.S. Eliot

poetry:

?Prufrock and Other Observations

(1917)

?Poems (1920)

?The Waste Land (1922)

?The Hollow Men (1925)

?Ash Wednesday (1930)

?Four Quartets (1943)

plays:

?Sweeney Agonistes (1932)

?Murder in the Cathedral (1935)

?The Cocktail Party (1950)

?The Confidential Clerk (1954)

critical essays:

?The Sacred Wood (1920)

?For Lancelot Andrews (1928)

?The Use of Poetry and the Use of

Criticism (1933)

?After Strange Gods (1934)

?On Poetry and Poets (1957)

c. The Waste Land荒原

?5 parts: The Burial of Dead, The

Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon, Death by Water, What the Thunder Said

?chief characteristics

?1. quotations and allusions暗示?2. objective correlative

?3. juxtaposition并列: mingle

brand image with common image

?4. use of antiquity古风

The Love Song

?"Prufrock" is not the image of one

unlucky modern man; instead, he represents many other modern westerners who are "divided between passion and timidity, between desire and impotence".

4. theme

?This poem reflects the decadent

modern civilization and the

nightmarish inferno in which

modern Westerners are living in.

5. techiniques

?1) irony

?2) striking images

?3) the form of dramatic monologue

?The poem is written in irregular

lines, with but a few rhymes. Robert Frost

b. Characteristics

?1. not in the main stream of modern

poetry, but with conventional form

and plain language. That’s why

he’s the most popular poet in the

20th century.

?2. a kind of a regionalist----New

England, but not local colorism.

He used New England as a metaphor

for the whole world and universe.

?3. a plain poet using symbols from

everyday country life. Simple

symbols but express deep meanings.

The Road Not Taken

?1. The poem was written in very

regular lines with iambic pentametre and rhyme scheme of abaab.

?2. The symbolic meaning of the two

divergent roads is rather clear.

They represent any important decisions in one's life.

?3. details:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening ?1. It is a lyric poem with iambic

tetrametre and interlocking enclosed rhyme.

?2. It represents a moment of

relaxation from the onerous journey of life, an almost aesthetic enjoyment and appreciation of natural beauty which is wholesome and retorative against the chaotic existence of modern man.

The Lost Generation

?1. term: It is a term in frequent

use after WWI in reference to the young men who survived physically

but were afterwards spiritually

and morally adrift. So the lost

generation refers to

disillusioned writers who wrote

after WWI. Many of them went to the

battle. After the war, they

rebelled against former ideals and

values and can’t find new ones to

replace.

?2. It first coined by Gertrude

Stein. In Paris, she opens the door

to American expatriates. She once

said to Hemingway, “You’re all a

lost generation.”

?3. It was used as preface to The Sun

Also Rises. Then it became popular.

Fitzgerald once said they are “a

generation grown up to find all

gods died, all wars fought, all

faith in men shaken”.

Ernest Hemingway

?1.Hemingway theme/hero/situation.

Theme: “grace under pressure”

2.nihilism: negative attitude

towards the world. There is only one thing man is certain---death

?3. devotion to truth. He believes

the writer's job is to tell truth.

c. style

?1.iceberg principle. The meaning

here is that the writer should say

only one eighth, in such a way that

the remaining seven eighths be

discerned and provided by the

reader.

?https://www.360docs.net/doc/3418465194.html,nguage: short, common,

fundamental words, simple

sentence, structure.The effect of

the language: clearness,

cleanness and great care.

?3.dialogue: plays a very important

part in his writings. Hemingway’s

dialogue can show setting,

development of plot, characters,

even theme.

?4.cinematic way: he uses showing

instead of telling. He likes to

describes actions (kiss, withdraw

hand) vividly instead of mental

description.

?5.symbolism

?https://www.360docs.net/doc/3418465194.html,e of stream of consciousness

d. A Farewell to Arms

?1. If we say The Sun Also Rises

tells why they lost, this novel

describes how they lost. Thus it

can be read as a footnote to the

former.

?2. the double meanings of the title

?3. the hero Henry: Hemingway's

hero

?4. theme: war and love. It shows a

world of complete unreason and

reflects the mood of the post-war

generation.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

b. The Great Gatsby

?Theme:

?1. about reality and atmosphere of

1920s

?2. failure of American Dream

c. attitude towards the rich:

paradoxical

?He is charmed by the rich.

?He is critical of the rich who are

corrupted themselves and

meanwhile corrupting others.

d. attitude towards the Jazz Age:

insider and outsider

John Steinbeck

b. The Grapes of Wrath愤怒地葡萄

1. significance

?1) it’s a great social document in

1930s.

?2) A protest novel. In the novel,

the author attacks the decadence,

wickedness and cruelty of banks

and land owners and the current

social system as a whole.

?3) themes: unity and faith

unity: Steinbeck believes that strength lies in the unity of people and he also stresses on individualism.

faith: The Great Depression was the most miserable period in the 20th

century. Even though people suffered

a lot, they still held on their hope

and will live on.

2. characters:

?Ma Joad (the mother): embodiment

of the theme. She asked Rose to

save the stranger.

?1) she realized unity would bring

people strength.

?2) the faith in future

?Tom: shows the change from I

(individualism) to we (unity)

?Jim Casy: a preacher he developed

himself from a labor to an

organizer and set up the guiding

principle and after his death, Tom

took over his role. The initial of

his name: J.C.---Jesus Christ William Faulkner

Sound and Fury: divided into 4 parts

?1. themes:

?a) downfall of the South. The south

was in deterioration. It’s going

from bad to worse. The present and

the past form a contrast from Benjy’s eyes. He’s an idiot so his reactions were distinctive feeling. He felt strongly the loss of love. The downfall of Mr.

Campson was not only a personal one but also a universal one---the society was in disorder.

b) conflict between the old/young

generations

A Rose For Emily