英美文学期末考试复习资料

● Emily Dickinson Dickinson’s poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no title, hence are always quoted by their first line. The form of her poetry is often irregular, and her irregular or sometimes inverted sentence structure also confuses readers. Her poems are usually short, concise, simple and direct, and many of them are centered on a single image or symbol and focused on subject matter. But, Dickinson’s poetry, despite its ostensible formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness.I Die for BeautyThis is one of the most popular poems written by Emily Dickinson. Its theme is death, beauty and truth. Two persons died, one for beauty, one for truth. Beauty and truth are one, as Keats said, “Beauty is truth; truth, beauty.” So, as brothers, the two dead persons talked between two neighboring tombs until the moss covered their names on the gravestones. The poetess uses metaphors to change the gloomy atmosphere of death into a very beautiful and warm scene—the tombs become rooms, the dead become intimate brothers… What is most impressive is the unique and fanciful imagination:“…the moss had reached our lips”, which is both beautiful in image and rich in implication.I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -Notes :(l) The Eyes around - had wrung them dry: The relatives and friends cried and cried so that there were no tears any more.(2) the King, the God of death. .(3) With Blue - uncertain stumbling Buzz: The sight of the dying became dim, but her listeningwas sensitive.In her poems about death, Dickinson looked at death from the point of view of both the living and the dying. She even imagined her own death, the loss of her own body, and the journey of her soul to the unknown world. This poem is a description of the moment of death, a poem universally considered one of her masterpieces. She was imagining: when she died, a fly buzz—the symbol of death; her relatives and friends had cried too much; the god of death came into the room. She made her last will and gave everything away to her relative and friends. Her sight became dim, but she could hear the fly; she felt as if the buzz was blue, then she could not see the windows, she could not see anything—darkness covered all.1.What does the poem I Died for Beauty show about Dickinson’s viewpoint on death?According to this poem, Dickinson thinks death is not terrible, and if one dies for beauty and truth, he can die without regret.2.Why did Emily Dickinson use so many dashes and capital letters in her poems ?Emily Dickinson uses dashes as a musical device to create cadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis.● Mark Twain’ s Writing Stylea. Twain is known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. Consequently, the rich material became the endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississippi valley and the West became his major theme. Unlike James and Howells, Mark Twain wrote about the lower-class people, because they were the people he knew so well and their life was the one he himself had lived. Moreover he successfully used local color and historical settings to illustrate and shedlight on the contemporary society.b. Another fact that makes Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of vernacular. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, ever ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language. And Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonists in their everyday life. What’s more, his characters, confined to a particular region and to a particular historical moment, speak with a strong accent, which is true of his local colorism.c. Mark Twain’s humor is remarkable. A g reat deal of his humor is characterized by puns, straight-faced exaggeration, repetition and anti-climax, let alone tricks of travesty and invective. However, his humor is a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism.● Henry James ContributionJames fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with the international theme. These novels are always set against a larger international background, usually between Europe and America, and centered on the confrontation of the two different cultures with two different groups of people representing two different value systems. Henry James’s literary criticism is an indispensable part of his contribution to literature. It is both concerned with from and devoted to human valu es. The theme of his essay “The Art of Fiction” clearly indicates that the aim of the novel is to present life, so it is not surprising to find in his writings human experiences explored in every possible from: illusion, despair, reward, torment, inspiration, delight, etc. he also advocates the freedom the artist to write about anything that concerns him, even the disagreeable, the ugly and the commonplace. The artist should be able to “feel” the life, to understand human nature, and then to record them in his own art form.Moreover, James’s realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter. James is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century “stream-of-consciousness” novels and the founder of psychological realism.As to his language, James is not so easy to understand.Comprehension and AppreciationDaisy Miller tells of a young American beauty from a rich family traveling in Europe with her vulgar but well-intentioned mother. Although she is intelligent and perceptive, she is too inexperienced to cope with the social conventions of an American enclave in Rome. She dies, pathetically, from malaria, leaving her love for Winterbourne, the Europeanized American, unrequited.Conflict:The main conflict centers on the tension that arises between Daisy Miller and sophisticated Americans in Europe. They cannot abide her outspokenness and her flouting of prevailing European customs and traditions. Mrs. Walker says she is "reckless." Mrs. Costello labels her and her mother "horribly common."Themes :The collision between the cultures of the Old World and the New WorldNaturalism was an outgrowth of Realism.Realism focused on the description of the details of everyday existence as an expression of the social milieu of the characters.Key themes of Naturalism in literature∙Survival, determinism, violence, and taboo as key themes.∙The "brute within" each individual, comprised of strong and often warring emotions: passions, such as lust, greed, or the desire for dominance or pleasure; and the fight forsurvival in an amoral, indifferent universe. The conflict in naturalistic novels is often "man against nature" or "man against himself" as characters struggle to retain a "veneer of civilization" despite external pressures that threaten to release the "brute within."∙Nature as indifferent force acting on the lives of human beings. The romantic vision of Wordsworth—that "nature never did betray the heart that loved her"—here becomes Stephen Crane's view in "The Open Boat": "This tower was a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the individual—nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent."∙The forces of heredity and environment as they affect—and afflict—individual lives.∙An indifferent, deterministic universe. Naturalistic texts often describe the futile attempts of human beings to exercise free will, often ironically presented, in this universe that reveals free will as an illusion.Literature of the 20th CenturyII. Definition of ModernismModernism can be regarded as an advanced form of Realism, but more complex and more diversified than Realism. While Realism is concerned with what is the reality, Modernism cares more about how the reality is narrated. Besides, language is not just a transparent medium of reality, but it is constitutive of reality. It is characterized by some new experimentation on the form of literature and new interpretations, such as psychoanalysis, open-endedness, and perspectives.● Robert Frost The Road Not TakenSummary, Stanza 1 :On the road of life, the speaker arrives at a point where he must decide which of two equally appealing (or equally intimidating) choices is the better one. He examines one choice as best he can, but the future prevents him from seeing where it leads. Summary, Stanza 2: The speaker selects the road that appears at first glance to be less worn and therefore less traveled. This selection suggests that he has an independent spirit and does not wish to follow the crowd. After a moment, he concludes that both roads are about equally worn.Summary, Stanza 3: Leaves cover both roads equally. No one on this morning has yet taken either road, for the leaves lie undisturbed. The speaker remains committed to his decision to take the road he had previously selected, saying that he will save the other road for another day. He observes, however, that he probably will never pass this way again and thus will never have an opportunity to take the other road.Summary, Stanza 4: In years to come, the speaker says, he will be telling others about the choice he made. While doing so, he will sigh either with relief that he made the right choice or with regret that he made the wrong choice. Whether right or wrong, the choice will have had a significant impact on his life.Notes:1..The road beyond the bend may represent the future or the unknown, neither of which can be perceived.2..Here, Frost uses personification, saying that the road has a claim.3..Personification occurs here also if wanted means desired. No personification occurs,however, if wanted means lacked.4..Sigh can indicate relief or happiness, or it can indicate regret or sorrow. The interpretation of its meaning is up to the reader.●T. S. Eliot II. Works1. Poetry: The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockThe Waste LandThe Hollow MenAsh WednesdayOld Possum's Book of Practical CatsFour QuartetsAnalysis of Anecdote of the JarAnecdote of the JarByWallace StevensIn the poem, Anecdote of the Jar, Stevens portrays the complex relationship of human to nature through confusion of who is greater than whom, how they depend on each other, the connection between the two, and the form the poem is written in. Stevens forces the reader to feel the confusion and chaos present between the jar (a symbol for humans) and nature. This relationship can be felt and read through the form the poem is written in.The poem uses confusing wording to show the relationship of humans to nature. For example, line 9 says, "It took dominion everywhere." "It" referring to nature, means the power that nature has over the jar (humans). Nature's dominant overpowering weakens humans. Humans then become powerless and vulnerable to whatever nature has become. Another line proving this dominance states, "The jar was gray and bare." This line describes the jar of being plain and simple. This normalcy becomes ineffective and powerless. The ordinary doesn't have as much power as the objects that stick out from the crowd. Humans don't seem to stand out in the vastness of the wilderness.The next line turns the control in an interesting way: "It did not give of bird or bush." Because the jar was in the previous line, it is natural to think "it" in this line refers to the jar. The plot begins to thicken as it was previously suggested that the wilderness had all the control in the relationship. The jar now becomes an authority because it will not give into the natural world. To the reader, the relationship just became undefined. The power was turned over from nature to man.Stevens also shows the dominance issue in the beginning of the poem. He says, "It made the slovenly wilderness /Surround that hill." The authority is placed again in front of the jar. The wilderness is careless and aware of this new object placed in its environment. Then the poem states, "The wilderness rose up to it, / And sprawled around no longer wild." The roles are reversed once again. The wilderness is now in charge. The reversal of the roles contained the poem in an environment of utter confusion. Stevens showed the audience that this relationship really was chaotic, throughout the poem, to prove his point.Stevens created this confusing state to allow the reader to really feel what the relationship is between the two. This relationship is hard to understand and is something that cannot be set. Using irregular rhymes and wording, Stevens is able to create this unsolvable relationship. Taking a step away from the poem to real life proves that Stevens is correct in his undertakingof ideas from human to nature. For example, this very paper is from a tree that man has cut down, showing that nature was defenseless in the act. On the other hand, there are certainly a number of hurricanes, tornadoes, avalanches, etc. happening in the world today. Humans can do nothing to prevent these disasters from happening. Neither human nor wilderness is the dominant source.With all the confusion in the poem, Stevens reveals an underlying message to the reader. Line 7 in the poem reads, "The jar was round upon the ground. " This section of the poem shows the dependency of humans on nature. Through the rhymes of "round" and "ground", we can see the relationship. To achieve a rhyme such as this, the two words have to be consistent and dependent on each other. Stevens shows the dependent relationship of humans to nature through these two words. It is a very solid line that helps the reader not to be totally confused when reading the poem. This line also begins to show the base for the relationship.The next line (8) also supports this hidden security of the relationship between human and the natural world. It says, "And tall and of a port in air." This line represents the unseen connection between human and nature. The "port" refers to a connecting force that ties the relationship together. The jar, being "tall" in the air, represents the depth of the relationship. Above the initial confusion and chaos, there is a deeper meaning to the relationship. The "port" runs through the confusion to get above it and reveal the true relationship. Stevens used the word "air" to represent the unseen connection. We, as humans, depend on air to survive. Although we have never seen, touched, or heard air, we know that it is there and depend on it to live. Stevens refers to air to show the unseen connection between mankind and the natural world. This connection is very important and crucial to the relationship. In fact, the relationship depends on this connection.Another way to look at the connection of humans to the natural world is through the first and last lines of the poem. These two lines embody the poem to start and finish in a calm way. Both end in the word Tennessee. This can show the relationship outline as being simple. Just as the port went above all the chaos, the outline of the poem goes around the chaos The first line of the poem is the beginning of the relationship. This opens the reader in a confusing state to figure out what Stevens is really trying to get across. This mass confusion is the body of the relationship. Somewhere in the poem, Stevens shows in a deeper meaning of the relationship through a connection. As the poem nears the end, the same word is used to end the poem. That is the end of the relationship; there is no more to be added. It leaves the reader feeling satisfied, even if he or she didn't understand the content of the poem.Stevens truly does a wonderful job of portraying the relationship of humans to nature. By using the jar to represent man, he was successful in creating an environment not only expressed in the poem, but also felt by the reader. He used irregular rhymes and role changes to express the complex relationship. The reader is left with confusion but an slight understanding of the relationship. Stevens expressed the relationship of humans to nature very well in this piece of work.。