美国文学期末论文
关于美国文学的论文
关于美国文学的论文美国梦作为美国文学中一个永恒的主题，始终贯穿于美国文学之中。
下文是店铺为大家搜集整理的关于美国文学的论文的内容，欢迎大家阅读参考!美国文学的论文篇1浅析美国文学中的旅行与美国梦摘要: 对于美国人而言，上路旅行不仅是自由和美国梦的隐喻，而且是实现“显明的命定”(Manifest Destiny)的物质手段和方式。
本文以惠特曼的《草叶集》和克鲁亚克的《在路上》等作品为例，说明旅行以及过路仪式表现了典型的美国经验，表达了对美国梦的追寻、实现和传播，成为美国文化传统的重要组成部分。
关键词: 旅行;美国梦;《草叶集》;《在路上》一道路将人们从一地引向另一地，它是不同地点彼此沟通的不可或缺的桥梁。
原本各自独立、互不关联的两地因而被连接起来，产生互动，拥有了更加丰盈的生命。
几乎所有的文化都赋予道路以特别的价值，对之倾注了连绵不断的情感。
在美国，道路四通八达，如同一张网把人们的日常生活联系起来，而由于美国人生性“不安分”，不愿久居一地，加上酷爱户外活动，上路旅行便成了美国生活的一种实现方式，同时也成为美国文化的一大隐喻。
这一隐喻对于美国有着特别的意义，因为美国毕竟是由旅行者创建的：当初，清教徒远离家国，跨越大西洋来到这片陌生的土地;后来，他们从偏居美利坚东北一隅的新英格兰逐步西进，扩展畛域，奠定今日美国之格局。
毫不夸张地说，道路在美国的建立和发展过程中建立了不朽的功勋。
此外，美国幅员辽阔、地域广袤，加上经济繁荣，汽车工业发达，美国成为举世闻名的车轮上的国家。
出于工作和生活的需要，美国人花费不少的时间“在路上”，驱车出行几乎成为他们的必需。
旅行不仅是指从出发地到目的地的跨越，而且常被视为对某种历程的经历，例如，它可以象征性地指代个人的成长，或者是对某种信仰(如宗教信仰)的追寻。
穿越全美、尤其是跨越大片未开发地区的旅行，是勇气和冒险精神的体现，这种对未知领域的探索伴随着美国向西部的扩张而被放大甚至神化。
美国文学史论文
美国文学史课程论文A Brief Summary of the Historyof American Literature From Romanticism to Postmodernism姓名：叶红立学号：2011212831班级：2011级3班分数：2013年12月21日IntroductionAmerican is a multi-national country because of its history. Just like a big container, it puts in various kinds of elements. When different cultures mixed together, that can not only be co-existed but also form a sharp contrast, which makes American literature has a flavor of distinct and various aesthetic feeling.The history of America literature began with the swarming in of immigrants with different background and cultures. After that, American literature had been greatly influenced by the European culture for a long period. It was not until America’s independence, did Americans realize that they need national literature strongly, and American literature began to develop. Romantics emphasized individualism and intuition. This was an exciting period in the history of American literature. Like the flowers of spring, there were suddenly many different kinds of writing at the same time. The Civil War was a watershed in the history, after which American literature entered a period of full blooming. Influenced by the Civil War, the American society was in a turbulent situation. The writings about local life, critical realism, unveiling the dark side of the society and yearning for nature were increased. After the First World War, Americans were at a loss postwar, and the Modern American literature and Postmodern American literature began.This passage will have a further discussion on this period by dividing them into several parts: Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Modernism and Post-modernism.1.Romanticism PeriodRomanticism is a movement of the 18th and 19th centuries that marked the reaction in literature, philosophy, art, religion, and politics against the neoclassicism and formal orthodoxy of the preceding period. And the American Romantic period stretched from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War.Romantic Period is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature. When Americans were constructing their country, they also began to realize their differences from their European counterparts. They began to hope to see an entirely different literature model which expressed American cultures. Great writers of that period captured on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream.There were plenty of good historical reasons why literature was so prominent during that period. Politically the time was ripe. After the 1812 war against England, the United States was finally free. Economically America had never been wealthier, but the Industrial Revolution and the nation’s change in status from a small, agricultural country to a major commercial and industrial power led to a massive impulse towards rapid urbanization. Culturally American own value emerged. There were American publishers and copyright laws to protect the writers from having their works printed. And also there were readers eager to expand their minds.American Romanticism shares many characteristics with British Romanticism. It was greatly inspired by Wordsworth’s poetic encounter with nature in The Prelude. However, developing as it did, Romanticism in America exhibited features of its own. It was mainly in the American romantic writers’ works. For examp1e, the American national experience of "pioneering into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams, and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral 1aw. The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper’s Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's Walden and, later, in Mark Twain’s Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn. With the growth of American national consciousness, American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values and American Romanticism. One of the performances is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. Here are going to introduce two representative writers and their works:Washington Irving(1783-1859) was the first American storyteller to be internationally recognized as a man of letters and the first great prose stylist of American romanticism, and his familiar style was destined to provide a model for the prevailing prose narrative of the future. His first book A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (1809), written under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, was a great success and won him wide popularity. He is best known for his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon,Gent (1819-1820), especially in which two short stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow have become American classics. Later he wrote works of history and biographies, such as The History of Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828), A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada and The Alhambra(1832). After that, he spent the rest of his life living a life of leisure and comfort, and writing The Life of Goldsmith (1840) and a five-volume Life of Washington (1855-1859). He died in 1859.James Fennimore Cooper (1789-1851) is respectfully remembered as a master of adventurous narrative and as the creator of an American hero-myth. According to a charming legend, Cooper’s first novel Precaution(1820) was a response to his wife’s challenge to improve on the current British society fiction, and the failure of this work turned him to historical novels. Later, The Spy, a tale of the Revolution he wrote, became a great success in America and Europe. In 1823, Cooper published The Pioneers (1823), which together with other 4 novels The Deer slayer (1841), The Last of the Mohicans(1826), The Pathfinder(1840) and The Prairie(1827) became his well-known Leather-stocking Tales. Cooper went on to write over thirty novels,including exciting adventures of the sea like The Pilot. Cooper created the American historical novel using authentic American subject.2.Realism PeriodAs the economy developed, the nation witnessed an incredible expansion, among which the most influential one was westward expansion. The conquest of the new territories opened new horizons, but the country was also torn by the risk of internal division, which led to American Civil War.By the end of the Civil War a new nation had been born, and it was to demand and receive a new literature less idealistic and more practical, less exalted and more earthy, less consciously artistic and more honest than produced in the age when the American dream had glowed with greatest intensity and American writers had created a great literary period by capturing on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream. Gradually, the Romanticism era in the United States was surpassed by another entirely different age.At about 1900s, American literature came to another entirely different age—the age of Realism. Realists searched for the social and human nature more directly. In part, Realism was a reaction against the Romantic emphasis on the strange, idealistic, and long-ago and far-away. It has been mainly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes.American realism was the outcome of the Civil War from all the aspects of politics, economy and culture. Politically the Civil War affected both the social and the value system of the country. America had transformed itself into an industrialized and commercialized society. The war also brought some obvious changes to the American economy. It had stimulated the technological development, and new methods of organization and management were tested to adapt to industrial modernization on a large scale. As far as the culture was concerned, the harsh realities of life as well as the disillusion of heroism resulting from the dark memories of the Civil War had set the nation against the romance.As a new literature, Realism emerged for an age. Under the influence of the Civil War and industrialization, Realism surely formed its own features. Realism aims at the description of the actualities of the life and free from subjective prejudice,idealism or romantic color. The writings are about local life, critical realism and unveiling the dark side of the society, and focuses on commonness of the common people, settings and events. Mark Twain is one of the representatives.Mark Twain (1835-1910) was the true father of American literature. He was an American humorist, lecturer, essayist, and author. His primary works are The Innocents Abroad, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. He intentionally deviates from classical genteel and tends to use local dialects, colloquial language, even Black English, slang, clipped structures and ungrammatical sentences. He was a combination of realism with romanticism. His works combine American folk humor and serious literature, characterize a local culture, elements such as speech, customs, and more peculiar to one particular place. The physical settings, and people’s behavior and thoughts are different from the other places.There are many other great writers in this period, such as William Dean Howells, Henry James, O. Henry, and so on. They have made great contribution to the world’s literature.3.Naturalism PeriodAfter the Civil War, it seemed that overnight the rapid industrialization of American society changed an agrarian nation into an industrial giant. As the westward expansion continued to push the frontier nearer the Pacific coast, the settlers found themselves subject to the ruthless manipulation of forces including the railroad, as can been seen in Frank Norris’wheat novels. The rapid social changes caused by industrialization brought serious social problems. While the captains of industry piled up huge personal fortunes, the ordinary man became the victim of industrialization. The harsh reality of the industrialization period changed man’s understanding about himself and the world in which he lived in. Living in a cold, indifferent, and essentially godless world, man was completely thrown upon himself for survival. During this special period, the literary naturalism was transplanted from France to the United States and became a very important literary movement in America.Naturalism was a literary movement of the late 19th century that yielded influence on the twentieth. It was an extension of Realism, a reaction against the restrictions inherent in the realistic emphasis on the ordinary, as naturalists insisted that the extraordinary is real, too.Naturalism, with its new techniques and new ways of writing, appealed to the imagination of the younger generation like Crane, Norris, and Theodore Dreiser. They tore the mask of gentility to pieces and wrote about the helplessness of man, his insignificance in a cold world, and his lack of dignity in face of the crushing forces of environment and heredity. They reported truthfully and objectively, with a passion for scientific accuracy and an overwhelming accumulation of factual detail. They painted life as it was lived in the slums, and were accused of telling just the hideous side of it. In naturalistic literature, man is always subject to the law of nature, which may not only be indifferent but also hostile. Therefore, gloom and despair characterize American literature of this period.American literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme economic classes who were determined by theirenvironment and heredity. In presenting the extremes of life, the naturalists sometimes displayed an affinity to the sensationalism of early romanticism, but unlike their romantic predecessors, the naturalism emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by heredity and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. The pessimism and deterministic ideas of naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Jack London and Theodore Dreiser.Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is the first American naturalism work. Norris’s McTeague is the manifesto of American naturalism. Dreiser’s Sister Carrie is the work in which naturalism attained maturity. These writers’ detailed description of the lives of the downtrodden and the abnormal, their frank treatment of human passion and sexuality, and their portrayal of men and women overwhelmed by blind forces of nature still exert a powerful influence on modern writers.Without satisfying people’s needs and refl ecting social conditions, Naturalism the same as Realism no longer stood on the historical stage. Although naturalist literature described the world with sometimes brutal realism, it sometimes also aimed at bettering the world through social reform. This combination of grim reality and desire for improvements is typical of America as it moved into the twentieth century, and paved the way to modernism.4.Modernism PeriodIn the year of 1914, the World War I broke out. World War I produced great misfortune to all human beings, but brought big fortune to Americans. Since the war was not fought on the American soil, by the second decade of the 20th century, the United States had become the most powerful industrialized nation in the world, outstripping Britain and Germany in terms of industrial production. After the war there was an economic boom and a deceptive affluence. American entered the era of big industry and big technology, a mechanized age that deprived individuals of their sense of identity. Along with the changes in the material landscape came the changes in the non-material system of belief and behavior. The war destroyed not only the lives of many promising young men, but also the early innocent beliefs of a whole generation, casting them into an age of disorientation, alienation and dissent. At the beginning of the 1930s, the economic crisis in America left a mark in the literary creations of this period. In addition, in Europe, there had been a big flush of new theories and new ideas in both social and natural sciences, as well as in the field of art which played an indispensable role in the conversion of American ideologies. The era of 1914 to 1945, marked by tremendous social upheaval and economic and political transformation, gave gave rise to modernism.Modernism originated at the end of the 19th century. It was a complex and diverse international movement in all creative arts: painting, novel, poem and play. It spread worldwide, particularly in the years following World War I. Towards the 1920s, these trends converged into a mighty torrent of modernist movement, which swept across the whole Europe and America. Modernist literature in America reached its peak in the 1920s up to the 1940s when this period ended.Literature of this period struggled to understand the new and diverse responses to the advent of modernity. Some writers celebrated the changes; others lamented the loss of old ways of being. Some imagined future utopias; others searched for new forms to speak of the new realities.The most recognizable "modernist" figures i n fiction are “the Lost Generation.”They were permanent expatriates living in Europe such as Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. The Lost Generation writers all gained prominence in 20th century literature. Their innovations challenged assumptions about writing and expression, and paved the way for subsequent generations of writers. Ernest Hemingway once took part in the First Would War, so many of his works deal with war or injury, and nearly all of them examined the nature of courage. By suffering from the violent of war, he felt that he was cut off from all his old beliefs and assumptions about life. He thought “The War had broken America`s culture and traditions, and separated it from its toots”. The works he wrote—The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea—inferred the state of mind, and they became the representatives of the feeling of this generation.Along with the greatest figures in “the Lost Generation” are famous poets such as Ezra Pound, Thomas Stearns Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and Robert Frost. African Americans also made significant contributions to the American modernist movement. Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings are three poets who opened the way to modern poetry. Ezra Pound started the “Imagist” movement, and his The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock has been called the first masterpiece of modernism. The Waste Land of T. S. Eliot particularly comments on the inhumanity and decadence of large modern cities.5.Postmodernism PeriodThe period after World War II has witnessed great changes of the United Stated of America in many aspects. The war, on the one hand, provided the base for the country to grow into a dominating superpower both in the western world and in international affairs on the global scale; on the other hand, it brought about tension and crisis within the country. Because the politics of America were influenced by two great fears. First, there was the fear of the Bomb; many Americans were sure there would be a war with the Soviet Union using atomic bombs. Also, in the late forties and early fifties, fear of Communism became a national sickness. Against such background emerges and develops the postmodernism in the 1970s.Postmodernism is regarded as a term encompassing all the new critical theories since the late 1960s. It is, accordingly, more reflective about what is subject, truth, metaphor, and human. Postmodernism is a literary experimentation focused mostly on fiction in the United States from the mid-1960s till about 1975. It became aligned with Post-structuralism and deconstruction between 1975 and 1985. Postmodernism became a general term for the cultural logic in post-industrialist society or the late stage of capitalism that is service-oriented and information-oriented.Post-modernism seems to grow or emerge from Modernism. Post-modernism involves not only a continuation, sometimes carried to an extreme, of the counter traditional experiments of modernism, but also diverse attempts to break away from modernist forms which had, inevitably, become in their turn conventional, as well as to overthrow the elitism of modernist “high art” by recourse to the models of “mass art”. In this regard, Postmodernism is a movement against Modernism.Postmodernism as a new development of literature was believed to be nothing, this group of postmodernists created some new rules for the game. For them, existentialist angst should not be what defines literature; instead literary imagination shows a virtual geography.The term of Post-modernism is in fact not an inclusive description of all literature since the 1950s or 1960s, but is applied selectively to those works in widereference to fiction. Firstly, war novels become an important genre after World War II, represented by Norman Mailer. Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead has been held as the masterpiece of its category. James Jones’ best novel From Here to Eternity is a powerful story of army life in Hawaii just before the attack on the Pearl Harbour. Secondly, metafiction as Chris Baldick puts it, is “more especially a kind of fiction that openly comments on its own fictional status.” A notable modern example i s John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Barth’s The Floating Opera, Barthelme’s Snow White, etc.EpilogueRomantic period stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. Then the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism and Naturalism came into existence, which were against the lie of romanticism. The period between World War I and World War II is referred to as the era of Modernism. During that period, a large number of artists and literary movements are totally different from those of the 19th-century’s in style, form and content. Since 1945, the United States of America experienced some successive social, political and racial upheavals. Against such background emerged and developed the postmodernism.American literature has gone though the progress of development over 200 years. It is characterized by the distinct individualism, which is optimistic, free and always creative. The living American literature has been providing potent thinking headsprings for the writers past and nowadays, and it will continue reanimating the talents to bequeath and enrich the tradition of American literature, of which deserved to be proud.Bibliography1.Malcolm Bradbury, Richard Ruland, Published in Penguin Books 1992, AmericanLiterature From Puritanism to Postmodernism2.李权文，王卓，华中师范大学出版社2010年8月第一版，《美国文学史》3.王守仁，《<新编美国文学史>简介》。
美国文学史期末论文终极版
Contents摘要 (1)Abstract (1)Chapter 1 American Romanticism(1810--1865) (2)1.Background reasons (2)1.1 Politically this period was ripe (2)1.2 Economically American had never been wealthier (2)1.3 Culturally American own value emerged (2)2.Basic features and styles (2)2.1 Expressiveness (2)2.2 Imagination (2)2.3 Worship of nature (2)2.4 Simplicity (3)2.5 Cultural nationalism (3)2.6 Liberty,freedom,democracy and individualism (3)3.Influence (3)Chapter 2 American Realism(1865--1914) (3)1. Background changes (3)1.1 Politics (4)1.2 Economics (4)1.3 Cultural and social changes (4)2. Basic features and styles (4)2.1 Truthful description of the actualities of the real life andmaterial (4)2.2 Focus on ordinariness (4)3. Three dominant figures (4)4. Influence (5)Chapter 3 American Naturalism(1890--1914) (5)1. Background information (5)1.1 Cultural and Social Background (5)1.2 Religion and theoretical basis (5)2. Major ideas and features of Naturalism (5)2.1 Determinism (5)2.2 World: godless, indifferent, hostile (6)2.3 Style: scientific objectivity (6)2.4 Subjects and themes (6)3. A representative work that show the ideas and features above (6)3. Influence (6)Chapter 4 American Modernism(1914--1945) (6)1. Background information (6)1.1 Politics (6)1.2 Economy (7)1.3 Cultural and social background (7)2. Characteristics and features of Modernism (7)3. Major genres and a representative of each one (7)3.1 Modern poetry——Ezra Pound (7)3.2 Modern fiction——Ernest Hemingway (7)4. Influence (8)Chapter 5 American Postmodernism(1914--1945) (8)1. Background information (8)1.1 Politics (8)1.2 Economics (8)1.3 Social and international background (8)2. Characteristics and major features (8)2.1 Experimental writing techniques (8)2.3 Irony, playfulness and black humor (9)3.Influence (9)Bibliographies (9)摘要具有自身特点的新文学的出现，是一个国家真正形成的标志。
大学英语美国文学《洛丽塔》课程论文(原创)
我读《洛丽塔》目录一、摘要正文二、正文1、序言2、作者介绍及写作背景3、作品主题探究。
3.1理性与真爱3.2伦理3.3追求4、作品的叙事艺术手法三、小结四、参考文献一、摘要正文我通过品读《洛丽塔》小说的品读及对电影的欣赏，从整体感知了作品的悲剧性以及从中看到美国当时的一些社会现象，从几个部分来探究了自己对于作品主题的理解和认识，包括理性对爱情及自由的束缚，伦理道德，《洛丽塔》的一些不为人知的秘密和纳博科夫对艺术的执着追求等。
以此，阐述了自己对现实世界的认知和对艺术的坚定不移的不懈追求。
关键词：理性与真爱伦理追求二、正文1、序言小说描述一位从法国移民美国的中年男子亨·亨伯特在少年时期，与一14岁的少女安娜贝儿发生了一段初恋，最后安娜贝儿因伤寒而早夭，造就了亨伯特的恋童癖。
第一次听说洛丽塔时它是被排在世界一百大禁书之列，不免让我好奇，如此精湛的一本书怎能被人类所无视？看了电影“洛丽塔”，也许在看前面的时候还可以带着轻快的安静的甚至带着微微笑意甚至轻蔑的不屑的眼光。
最后一个镜头却给了我一串沉重的省略号。
随着亨伯特对自由世界的最后一瞥，镜头在慢慢趋向于山下小村庄的时候渐渐消失，彩色化为了黑白，耳边回响着他饱含希望却又有些沉重的声音“我还在回想着当时的村庄和孩子们的笑声，可是在那些笑声里，没有我的洛丽塔”。
过了一会，漆黑的屏幕上出现了几行字：“1950年11月16日，亨伯特因急病猝死在狱中；同年圣诞节，洛丽塔死于难产。
”这不免让我想起了中国有句古话“不求同年同月同日生，但求同年同月同日死。
”亨亨是爱洛丽塔的，这种爱痛彻心扉，深入骨髓，与伦理无关，与道德无关，他只是爱她。
在《洛丽塔》一书全文的最后，亨伯特写道：“我正在想欧洲的野牛和天使，在想颜料持久的秘密，预言家的十四行诗，艺术的避难所，这便是你与我能共享的唯一的永恒，我的洛丽塔。
”“预言家的十四行诗，艺术的避难所”自然而然让人想起了莎士比亚著名的十四行诗：“你在不朽的诗里与时同长／只要一天有人类，或人有眼睛／这诗将长存，并且赐给你生命。
美国文学毕业论文
美国文学毕业论文美国文学记录了美国人民不断探索、向西拓展、追求幸福的历程,艺术地再现了美国200多年的发展历史,并在不同时期以不同的表现形式表现出来。
下文是店铺为大家搜集整理的关于美国文学毕业论文的内容，欢迎大家阅读参考!美国文学毕业论文篇1浅析美国文学中的美国梦摘要：美国梦是美国文学中贯穿始终的主题。
不同历史时期美国文学中的美国梦有着不同的表现，如殖民时期的开拓致富梦、建国后的自由民主梦、内战后的扩张发迷梦，而到一战后传统美国梦开始出现迷茫与失落、二战后则走向了绝望与反叛。
关键词：美国文学;美国梦;本质;资产阶级美国文学从诞生到现在虽然只有200多年的历史，却产生了一大批对世界文学有着巨大影响的作品，在这些作品当中美国梦是一个贯穿始终的主题。
美国梦是目前国内人文社会学科的一个研究热点。
本文试图从论述美国文学中美国梦的演变过程人手，研究其变化的原因及在文学中的表现，进而揭示其本质。
一、美国梦产生的历史背景美国梦的产生有其特定的历史背景。
自从哥伦布发现新大陆之后，欧洲人就梦想着到这块土地上去掠夺财富，开拓疆域。
英国清教徒更梦想着到这里来建立起新的耶路撒冷—上帝在人间的王国。
而当时的士著印第安人尚未建立国家，整个“新大陆”都是“无主土地”，无边无际、任人开垦和占有的无限土地带来了无限的机会，许多在旧世界中不可想象的事情在这里发生了。
如果说得天独厚的自然条件是美国梦形成的基础，那么《独立宣言》的发表便使美国梦有了思想依据。
《独立宣言》不仅宣布了人“生而平等”，还将追求幸福规定为不可剥夺的天赋人权。
在欧洲旧大陆的封建等级制度下，灰姑娘只是童话里的人物，而在美国，白手起家“从破衣烂衫到腰缠万贯”的大亨则比比皆是。
在一个尚未定型的国度中，尚未定型的年代里，只要抓住机会，梦想就会实理。
于是，在美国文学中，美国梦也就成了一个贯穿始终的主题。
二、不同历史时期的美国梦一部文学史也可以说是一部美国梦的历史，有着200多年历史的美国文学记录了不同时期美国人的梦想。
美国文学选读 期末论文
美国文学选读期末论文英文学院11级13班1101011302陈欢A Rose for Emily----William Faulkner1.Introduction of the authorWilliam Faulkner (1897-1962), American novelist, born in an old Southern family in the town of Oxford, is regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.Faulkner trained in Canada as a cadet pilot in the Royal Air Force in 1918, attended the University of Mississippi from 1919 to 1920, and lived in Paris briefly in 1925. In 1930, he bought a pre-Civil War mansion, “Rowanoak” in Oxford, Mississippi, where he lived,a virtual recluse, for the rest of his life. As a writer, Faulkner’s primary concern was toprobe his own region, the deep South. One of his primary themes is the abuse of black by the Southern whites. As a master of a rhetorical, highly symbolic style, Faulkner was alsoa brilliant literary technician, making frequent use of convoluted time sequences and ofthe stream of consciousness technique. Though, his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and his last novel The Reivers(1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked his 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century; also on the list were As I Lay Dying (1930) and Light in August (1932). Absalom, Absalom! (1936) is often included on similar lists.2.Summary of the storyA Rose for Emily is Faulkner's published short novel in April 1930, which seems asthe most famous short fiction among his works. The story happens in a southern town-Jefferson after the civil war in the United States. Emily is a member of a family in the antebellum Southern aristocracy. After the Civil War, the family has fallen on hard times.She and her father, the last two of the clan, continue to live as if in the past. Neither will consent to a marriage for Emily to a man below their perceived status. Her father dies when Emily is about thirty. After her acceptance of her father's death, Emily revives somewhat and she becomes friendly with Homer Barron, a Northern laborer who comes to the town as a contractor to pave the sidewalks. This gives Emily's dull and stuffy life a little warm color. But Emily can't get rid of the constraint from family's dignity and the influence from her father. So, when she finds out that Homer doesn’t want to marry her, she kills him with arsenic. She thinks only this way can save her love and reputation.From that time, Emily lives a life of insular in her shabby closed house and sleeps with Homer's dead body for 40 years till she is died. The residents of the town know this amazing news till in her funeral.3.Writing Style of the storyFaulkner’s work is noted for its complexity partly because he deliberately places a considerable burden upon the reader. Instead of telling a simple straightforward story, he often exploits vague sequences, ambiguities, symbolism, experimental points of view, jumbled time sequences, avoidance of clear transition, withholding of vital information to compel the reader to join in the writer’s search for truth. Some of these techniques are used in A Rose for Emily.Faulkner’s chronology is unlike that of other writers of his time. He does not tell his story in linear fashion, but rather jumbles the sequential order. This technique builds suspense for the reader as the plot unfolds bit by bit. The whole story is a portrait of Miss Emily’s refusal to change. To highlight the thematic concern, Faulkner constantly shifts the focus of the attention to the retrospect of Emily’s life by way of flashbacks. Emily Grierson dies at the very beginning of the story. Then there goes to the recollection of Emily’s refusal to pay tax in 1926. The time of the second part jumps back to some thirty years ago, during which her father dies and she kills Home Barron two years after that.When Emily buys arsenic, the time is over a year after they have begun to say “PoorEmily”. Then for six months she does not appear on the streets. The fourth part deals with things that happen in 1987 and after 1897. In the last part, the time turns back to the year of the 1940 when Emily dies at seventy four. After the funeral, the town people go to her room and all the secrets are revealed. The displacement in the chronological time sequence allows the narrator to tell story in a most dramatic way and to fill in useful background details.4.My understanding of the storyThematically, this story is not as simple as it seems. The conflicts in the story can be interpreted on different level, just as can many of his longer fiction works. On the superficial level, it is a murder story with elements of Gothic literature—an eccentric woman living in isolation, an old decaying mysterious house that other people had not been in for decades, and, of course, a dead body in the house finally discovered after so many years. On another level, the story explores the inner world of human beings, or the inner struggle in the human heart. But what gives me the deepest impression is the conflict between the South and the NorthThe novel A Rose for Emily is written at a background of social change of the south after war in America. It tells a tragic lifelong story of a noble seed Emily Grison to show that the contradictions of people in South America when the north became to replace the south. Emily as a protagonist of the novel has complicated means. Firstly she stands for tradition, social model as an aristocrat. Secondly she represents romantic love when she falls in love with Homer. And when she is refused by Homer, instead of crying, she kills him with poison. Now she stands for a person who is cruel and callous. Emily is a character who stands for a victim in the confliction between the traditional south and new conception of north.The mentality of residents of the small town in the novel of respecting Emily is the symbol of common mind of the south people to the traditional south culture after civil war.People respect and call for her Miss Emily. In the long time to them, the Emily family is like the characters living in a picture. They see Emily as the tradition, obligation, even a monument which reveal a nostalgic emotion to a gradually fading away traditional culture.The residents send their children to Emily to learn ceramics and painting punctually and devoutly just as to the church in Sunday. We can see clearly that the residents are so struggling with helping Emily in her income to maintain her noble image. They use a nostalgic, protecting tradition mood to pay attention to Emily, even prevent Emily and Homer to get married to maintain her noble position. They hope to see a no corrupting, real kingly noble. The differences reflect a condition that south tradition is coming to be replaced by north. That the old colonel prevents Emily's tax to help her reveals the old generation's attention to vulnerable group. But, new senators are dissatisfied with this. They call a meeting especially for tax, send letters to Emily and make a delegation to visit Emily for tax. When new generation was sent to Emily to learn painting, they knew they can't learn something from Emily. So they stop to send their children to Emily. Actually, compared to the old generation, new generation thinks more about themselves instead of others. To some degree, it is their selfishness and indifference that cut the relation between Emily and outside. All these show the deep confliction between the traditional south and new conception of north.。
美国文学期末论文
美国文学期末论文( 2011届 )题目：女权主义批评视角下的《小伙子布朗》人物__浅析学院：外国语学院专业：英语学生姓名：方梦婧学号： 08090204指导教师：江玉娇职称：教授合作导师：职称：完成时间：2011年 1 月成绩：OutlineAbstract (3)摘要 (3)1. Introduction (4)1.1 Nathaniel Hawthorne (4)1.2 Young Goodman Brown (4)2. Background2.1 Puritan background (5)2.2 The role of Puritan women (5)3. Analysis of characters (5)3.1 Young Goodman Brown (5)3.2 Faith (6)3.3 The old fellow-traveler .............................................................. 错误!未定义书签。
3.4 Goody Cloyse............................................................................. 错误!未定义书签。
4. Conclusion (7)Work cited (8)Feminist Criticism PerspectiveFang MengjingAbstract:Feminist Criticism, broadly defined, examines how literature and other productions reinforce or undermine the oppression of women. It developed on the basis of women’s liberation movement. It is the concern of feminists critics to probe the marginalization of women in economic, political, social and psychology terms. Feminism represents one of the most significant social and aesthetic revolutions of modern times.From a feminist point of view, Young Goodman Brown, which was universally acclaimed as one of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s best short stories and revealed the themes of the reality of sin, the secret sin as well as the hypocrisy of Puritanism and all human kinds, presents Hawthorne’s particular portraits of women go against the prevailing literary sexism of his day.Key words: Faith,feminism, Puritanism, character analysis女权主义批评视角下的《小伙子布朗》人物浅析方梦婧摘要：女权主义批评，概括地说，是检验文学和其他作品如何影响女性所受压迫的批评方法。
美国文学论文
美国文学课程学期论文论文题目：（中文）从写作技巧分析《厄舍府的倒塌》（英文）A simple analysis of TheFall of the House of Usherfrom Writing Techniques学生姓名冶延菊学生学号201107050201411学生班级2011--2班学科专业英语学年学期2013--2014学年第二学期指导教师杨华所在学院语言文化学院2014年7月1日摘要作为爱伦坡恐怖小说代表作之一，《厄舍府的倒塌》不仅成功地塑造了典型的“不正常的”人物角色，而且在文章的框架结构、情节安排上有很多巧妙的设计。
文章中有许多对外界环境以及人物心理的细节描写，作者以娴熟的写作技巧将它们融合，并生动地创造了一个充满恐惧的氛围。
读者明知恐怖氛围是“被安排”好的，且其目的性显而易见，但是读者还是被恐惧紧紧包围，这就是爱伦坡所强调的“预期效果”。
关键词：写作技巧；恐怖氛围；预期效果AbstractAs one of the masterpieces of Edgar Allan Poe’s horror fictions, The Fall of the House of Usher in which the author not only successfully creates some typical characters who are usually “abnormal”, but also builds the whole essay through a clever design,especially in frame structure and organization of plots. Based on the skilled writing techniques, the writer make a horrific atmosphere vividly by lots of detail description about the outside environment and characters’psychology. Although it appears that this atmosphere is managed from “deliberate policy”, the readers are still wrapped by a great fear, which is emphasized by Poe---”the expected effect”.Key words:writing technique; horrific atmosphere; “the expected effect”A simple analysis of The Fall of the House of Usher fromWriting TechniquesWe all know, The Fall of the House of Usher is one of the most successful works of Edgar Allan Poe is considered the father of the modern short story. As to this writing, which is also an example of psychoanalytic criticism. And there are something meaningful and interesting worthing our efforts to study and appreciate, so I want to share some my own analysis about this great work with you.First of all, a great peculiarity of the writing is based on a clever structure design. On the one hand, the author does his utmost to create an impressive outside world (or we call it natural environment). And the author not only takes advantage of adjectives and adverbs in order to build a mysterious and scary atmosphere, but also relies on repetition of these key words. For instance, “During the whole of a dull, dark ,and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low the heavens,... within view of the melancholy House of Usher. ”At the beginning of the story, Poe is eager to create a depressive scene for us, and like these adjectives “dull”“dark”“soundless” whose appearance has decided the keynote of the whole article. When you read the first sentence, you can be grasped by the potential scare instantly as if you tended to be out of breath. And with the constant duplication of those main words, the environment is depicted more and more specific, vivid and appealing. All of these preparations provide a perfect setting for the characters’ activities.On the other hand, at the same time, the writer also creates an inner world of the leading character----” I”. When it comes to the inward world, there are also a lot of significant words are used, such as adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and so on. Especially, the writer is apt to use adjectives and adverbs to describe the subtle changes of the character’s mood, feeling and expression. For example, the writing is started with “...but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.”“...with an utter depression of soul which I can...”“...above all things startled and even awed me”, and the last reaction of the character is , “From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast”(Allan Poe, 2005). Throughout the entire story,actually, the reactions of the inner world are always changing with the variation of the outward world. What’s more, with the rapid changes of the outside environment, the changes of the inner world become more and more fierce and shaper, of course, catching our more eyes.Secondly,Allan Poe achieves his purpose of creating fear with the help of muti-pronged approach that is an effective writing technique to get an “the expected effect”. Because Allan Poe proposes that “It is only with the denouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention”(2013: P17), there is nearly no redundant words in his work. In order to quickly bring about a terrific air for readers, the author depicts the environment through visual sense. For instance, in paragraph five, “The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread ... web-work from the eaves”, “No portion of the masonry had fallen... the individual stones”(Allan Poe, 2005). All those descriptions of objects provides the receivers with a visual impact through which can make an impressive picture.paragraph twenty-five to the last paragraph, there are several obvious sounds, like “rustled uneasily”“a light step”“the ordinary commingled noises”“a low and apparently distant, but harsh,protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound”, and so on, which is mentioned frequently and always designed in a very silent setting. They are so intensive and vivid that the readers have no time to put together their imagination when they are involved in reading, so the writer tries his best to simplify the process of shaping a “expected effect” air, and he shows every details frequently and even deliberately. However, it is not attractive for Poe to build a perfect atmosphere just through the combination of vision and hearing ,as a result. He also adds the psychological description of the characters. At the beginning of the article, “I know not how it was---but , with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit”, and there follows another strange feeling, “It was the manner in which all this,...and I accordingly obeyed forth with what I still considered a very singular summons”(Allan Poe, 2005). With the time passing by, the fierce degree of the characters’inner motion becomes fiercer and fiercer. What’more, the changes of the characters’psychology tends to be more apparent and intensive,which brings the readers a strong feeling of fear. Even though the readers know that all of those plots are organized on purpose, they still can’t get rid of the great fear when they indulge into the wonderful and constant structure design. That is the reason why Poe’s essays are popular in spite of over a century.From what I have discussed, we can know that Allan Poe can not only create plenty of excellent details and plots, but also can make full use of his deliberate arrangement to his readers’ attention, and give them a feeling of “personally on the scene” . So, when you are caught by the fear, Poe’s “expected effect” has been achieved.References1.Allan Poe,Edgar The Fall of the House of Usher, Beijing: China people's Liberation Army Publishing House, 20052. 陶洁编著，《美国文学选读》（第三版），高等教育出版社，2011.63./p-454954734.html, 20124. /article/164bc968-bcfc-4db7-929d-08c922be3db0.htm, 2011。
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美国文学学期作业（2016-2017学年度第一学期）年级：姓名：学号：论文成绩：An Analysis of Scarlett’s Character inGone with the WindA war swallowed a beautiful woman, a perfect family and a love. Everything seemed to be a dream, going with the wind.Recently,I have just finished reading a famous novel written by Margaret Mitchell—Gone with the Wind,which is one of the most popular works among American novels.It took the author about 10years.Gone with the Wind is one of the most popular American novels. W hen it was published, its sales broke many records among the publishing circles, and it is famous all over the world. The novel mainly describes th e life of Scarlett who is the daughter of Tara’s master during the American Civil War. Meanwhile with the hint of a triangular love between Scarlett, Ashley and Rhett, the novel depicts a wide and prosperous picture of the social life of the South in America. Not only the rich content of the novel but also the complex plots and the contradictions between the figures of t he novel have an important artistic effect on shaping the characters in the novel. Among all the roles, Scarlett, is the most successful one who is full of conflicting and complicated features.Before the Civil War, spoiled and beautiful Scarlett is a proud prince ss. She is also naïve and carefree for she is brought up in a rich family, in which they have many large fertile fields to grow cottons and many slave s that work for them. It is no necessary for her to think about anything butjust to dress in new costumes to attract the sights of the boys and to join t he balls.Wherever she goes, she is always the focus and center among the young girls, and she is adored by many men, which irritates the other girl s. So she gradually becomes a girl who is coddled, undisciplined, egotisti c, fractious and narcissistic. She believes every man around the village will fall in love with her, and she can‟t endure the talk without a topic of her. But her self-centered and exclusive character causes the tragedies of her love. After her failure to confess to Ashley, she doesn’t fall down or le ave away which shows her courage for life at the first time.With the outbreak of the war, she loses everything she owns. In the summer of 1864, Sherman starts to attack Atlanta and everyone is fleeing the city. But Scarlett has to stay at Atlanta with Melanie for she has made a promise to Ashley to look after Melanie who is going into labor，she even braves the life danger to escort Melanie and her newly-born baby to go back to Tara in the flames of war. Her kindnessconquers theselfishness, which shows her nice aspect. She is so horrible but she sticks to go back home, but what she sees in Tara is only the endless loneliness and desolation.The war absolutely changes the way of her life and her affectionate h omestead, Tara. Scarlett can‟t lead a life comfortably as a child any more , for the reason that no one can protect her from threat. Scarlett changes h er concepts for the new life. She lays down her position of a lady of noblebirth and changes her concepts of the old Southern life. She wants to fee d her family and herself through her own work, which shows her realistic character towards life. When her sisters and the house servants complain, Scarlett even works in the fields of Tara herself to ensure a good harvest o f cotton. To her, the memory of hunger is clearer than the memory of brai n. She vows her famous line, "As God as my witness I will never be hung ry again.”The transition of the living environment is the exterior reason for Sc arlett‟s changing her character, which causes Scarlett‟s distinctive charac ter. Before the war, Scarlett lives in the traditional and conservative planta tion and the life style forms her plantation master‟s character of loving la nd than anything else in the world and her rebellious character spontaneo usly. She leads an extremely poor life during and after the war, and that a bominable environment molds her character to confront the reality bravel y; and her independence and selfishness to overcome difficulties. The rich life experience before war; the unstable life during the war and the extre mely poor life after war provide the foundation to form the character of S carlett. And thus in such environment, Scarlett’s character can be complic ated.Scarlett has the strong courage to face fresh and blood and to overco me difficulties, but this wish of independence is not accepted by the socie ty at that time. But in modern society, Scarlett is definitely an independent female who has strong will. She has the spirit of not admitting failure ev en it is at present.Scarlett is a hybrid who exhibits more of her Irish father’s hard-headedness than her mother’s refined Southern manners. Although initially she tries to behave prettily, her instincts rise up against social restrictions. Scarlett’s mother Ellen and Mammy also teach her all that a gentlewoman should know, but Scarlett never learns nor does she see any reason for learning it. Scarlett shows her distain for the artificial manners. She does as what she says with the development of the novel. Scarlett does not like the other girls at that time, who lead a life of waiting, they wait for men’s allegiance and acceptance; they wait for love and they wait for appreciation and compliment. Scarlett is completely different from them at all; instead, she strives for love and happiness actively. Her action is not different from the modern people.Scarlett hates the rules of the society. When she becomes a widow who has to wear black weeds and can’t show her face in the public, she is very displeased. After the war, in order to rebuild and protect Tara, she even goes outside to manage a sawmill herself and does other business successfully. People at that time can’t endure women to appear in public for earning money, and the men can’t tolerate the women who can defeat them. But Scarlett disregards of what people say, but just does what she believes.As f or Scarlett’ view of love and marriage spends most of her life being adored and loved by others. Wherever she goes, she is always the center and focus among the girls. Although she marries three times, she never understands the meaning of love or gets the true love. Scarlett divides love and marriage into two parts, which proves that she is a character full of contradictory and complexity. In the novel, Scarlett has been thinking that she loves Ashley and some decisions she made are also related with Ashley. However, she never considers marriage as a serious matter but just treats it as a play game, and she marries with the men she doesn’t love just in order to resolve living problems.Life is filled with various contradictions, and when a contradiction is over; another is coming, so the plots of the story will develop further and the portrayed image will be more charming.As readers, in my opinion, we don’t browse it, but peruse mind of it and apperceive it. To learn how to depict a character and to deliver a mind though the character is what we should do after perusing it.。