美国文学复习资料

Unit 3  Ralph Waldo Emerson                    拉尔夫-华尔多-爱默生 作品 1 《论自然》     Nature 2 《论美国学者》 The American Scholar  3 《神学院致辞》 The Divinity School Address 4 《论文集》     Essays : First Series  5 《论文集：第二辑》 Essays: Second Series  6 《人类代》   Representative Men  7 《人生的行为》 The Conduct of Life 8 《英国特征》   English Traits  9 《诗集》       Poems  10 《五月节》    May-Day and other Pieces    Unit 4  Nathaniel Hawthorne                     纳撒尼尔-霍桑 作品  1 《范肖》       Fanshawe 2 《故事重述》   Twice-Told Tales  3 《古宅青苔》   Mosses from an Old Manse  4 《红字》       The Scarlet Letter        主人公： 白兰 （Hester Prynne）齐里沃斯（Chillingworth）                狄姆斯台尔  （Dimmesdale）  5 《带有七个尖角阁的房子》  The House of the Seven Gables  6 《福谷传奇》   The Blithedale  Romance  7 《玉石雕像》   The Marble Faun  Unit 5  Herman Melville                       赫尔曼-梅尔维尔 作品  1 《泰比》 Typee  2 《欧穆》 Omoo 3 《玛地》 Mardi 4 《雷德本》 Redburn  5 《白外衣》 White Jacket  6 《白鲸》   Moby Dick       主人公：以实玛利 （Ishmael） 埃哈伯 （Ahab） 白鲸 （Moby Dick） 7 《骗子的化妆表演》 The Confidence Man  8 《战士集》 Battle Pieces  9 《克拉瑞尔》 Clarel  10 《约翰-玛尔和其他水手》 John Marr and Other Sailors  11 《梯摩里昂》 Timoleon  12 《毕利-伯德》 Billy Budd Unit 7    一、 Edgar Allan Poe                   埃德加-爱伦-坡 作品  1 《安娜贝尔-李》 Annabel Lee  2 《乌鸦》 The Raven  3 《十四行诗—致科学》  Sonnet---To Science  4 《致海伦》 To Helen  二、  Walt Whitman                    沃尔特-惠特曼 1 《草叶集》  Leaves of Grass  2 《我歌唱自我》 One’s Self Sing  3 《噢，船长！我的船长！》 O Captain! My Captain! Unit 8    Mark Twain                    马克-吐温 原名：萨缪尔-朗荷恩-克莱门        Samuel Langhorne Clemens   作品 1 《卡拉维拉县驰名的跳蛙》 The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County  2 《傻瓜出国记》 The Innocents Abroad  3 《镀金时代》 The Gilded Age 4 《汤姆-索耶历险记》 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 5 《密西西比河上》 Life on the Mississippi  6 《哈克贝里-费恩历险记》 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  7 《亚瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美国佬》 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court  8 《傻瓜威尔逊》 The Tragedy of Pudd’ nhead Wilson 9 《败坏了哈德莱堡的人》 The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg Unit 9     Henry James                    亨利-詹姆斯 1 《热衷游历的人》 A Passionate Pilgrim  2 《罗德里克-赫德森》 Roderick Hudson  3 《亨利-詹姆斯小说、故事集》The Novels and Tales of Henry James 4 《一个美国人》 The American  5 《黛西-密勒》 Daisy Miller 6 《一个女士的画像》 The Portrait of a Lady  7 《波士顿人》 The Bostonians  8 《卡萨玛西玛公主》 The Princess of Casamassima 9 《波音敦的珍藏品》 The Spoils of Poynton 10 《螺丝在拧紧》 The Turn of the Screw  11 《未成熟的少年时代》 The Awkward Age 12 《鸽翼》 The Wings of the Dove 13 《专使》The Ambassadors 14 《金碗》 The Golden Bowl  15 《小说的艺术》 The Art of Fiction Unit 10  Stephen Crane  作品 1 《街头女郎麦姬》 Maggie : A Girl of the Streets  2 《红色英雄勋章》 The Red Badge of Courage  3 《海上扁舟》 The Open Boat 4 《新娘来到黄天镇》The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky 5 《蓝色旅店》 The Blue Hotel  Unit 14     F. Scott Fitzgerald                       弗-斯科特-菲茨杰拉德 作品 1 《人间天堂》 This Side of Paradise 2 《漂亮的冤家》 3 《姑娘们与哲学家》 The Beautiful and the Damned  4 《爵士乐时代的故事》 Tales of the Jazz Age 5 《了不起的盖茨比》 The Great Gatsby        主人公： 盖茨比(Jay Gatzby)黛西 (Daisy)汤姆(Tom)                 故事叙述人：Nick Carraway 6 《夜色温柔》 Tender is the Night  7 《崩溃》 The Crack-Up Unit 15  William Faulkner                  威廉-福克纳 作品 1 《大理石牧神》 The Marble Faun 2 《士兵的报酬》 Soldier’s  Pay 3 《蚊群》 Mosquitoes 4 《喧嚣与骚动》 The Sound and the Fury 5 《我弥留之际》 As I Lay Dying 6 《八月之光》 Light in August 7 《押沙龙，押沙龙！》 Absalom，Absalom! 8 《沙多里斯》 Sartoris 9 《村子》 The Hamlet 10 《小镇》 The Town  11 《大宅》 The Mansion 12 《烧牲口棚》 Barn Burning      主人公 ：阿伯纳（Abner）萨蒂（Sarty）哈里斯 （Harris） Unit 16      Ernest Hemingway                           厄内斯特-海明威 作品  1 《在我们的时代里》 In Our Time 2 《太阳照样升起》 The Sun Also Rises  3 《永别了，武器》  A Farewell to Arms  主人公 ：亨利 Henry 4 《丧钟为谁而鸣》 For Whom the Bell Tolls  5 《老人与海》 The Old Man and the Sea  6  A Clean ， Well-Lighted Place  Unit 17   Ezra Pound          埃兹拉-庞德 1 《狂喜》 Exultations 2 《人物》 Personae 3 《中国》 Cathay 4 《诗章》Cantos 5 《意象派诗选》 Des Imagistes 6 《在一个地铁车站》 In a Station of the Merto Wallace Stevens         华莱士-斯蒂文斯 1 《必要的天使》 The Necessary Angel  2 《坛子的轶事》Anecdote of the Jar Unit 18  Eugene Glastone O’Neil                     尤金-格拉斯通-奥尼尔 1 《东航加的夫》 Bound East for Cardiff  2 《在这一带》 In the Zone 3 《漫长的返航》The Long Voyage Home  4 《加勒比的月亮》 The Moon of the Caribees  5 《琼斯皇帝》 Emperor Jones  6 《毛猿》 The Hairy Ape  7 《大神布朗》 The Great God Brown  8 《奇异的插曲》Strange Interlude 9 《榆树下的欲望》Desire Under the Elms 10 《悲悼》 Mourning Becomes Electra  11 《送冰的人来了》 The Iceman Cometh  12 《诗人的气质》 A Touch of the Poet  13 《长日终入夜》 Long Day’s Journey Into Night  14 《月照不幸人》 The Moon for the Misbegotten 15 《休依》 Hughie 16 《更庄严的大厦》More Stately Mansions Unit 21    Ralph Waldo Ellison              拉尔夫-华尔多-埃利森  作品 1 《看不见的人》 Invisible Man 2 《影子与行动》 Shadow and Act 3 《走向领域》 Going to the Territory Unit 24  Saul  Bellow             索尔-贝娄 1 《晃来晃去的人》 Dangling Man  2 《受害者》 The Victim 3 《奥吉-玛琪历险记》 The Adventures of Augie March 4 《只争朝夕》 Seize the Day   5 《雨王汉德森》 Henderson the Rain King 6 《赫尔索格》 Herzog 7 《塞姆勒先生的行星》 Mr Sammler’s Planet 8 《洪堡的礼物》 Humbolt’s Gift  9 《院长的十二月》 The Deans December  10 《更多人死于悲痛》 More Die of Heartbreak  11 《盗窃》 The Theft  12 《真实的》 The Actual  13 《拉维尔斯坦》 Ravelstein   14 《奥斯比的回忆及其其他故事》Mosby’s Memories and Other Stories  15 《最后的分析》 The Last Analysis  Unit 25    Joseph Heller                          约瑟夫-海勒     1 《第二十二条军规》 Catch-22 2 《我们轰炸了纽黑文》 We Bombed in New Haven  3 《出了毛病》 Something Happened 4 《像高尔德那样好》 Good As Gold 5 《天晓得》 God Knows Unit 26   Toni Morrison                  托尼-莫里森 1 《在黑暗中游戏：白色与文学想象》    Playing in the Dark : Whiteness and the Literary Imagination  2 《最蓝的眼睛》 The Bluest Eye 3 《秀拉》 Sula 4 《所罗门之歌》Song of Solomon  5 《柏油孩子》 Tar Baby  6 《宠儿》 Beloved 7 《爵士乐》 Jazz  8 《天堂》 Paradise 9 《爱》 Love  Ⅰ.Complete the following statements with a proper word or a phrase according to the textbook. 1. The arbiter of nineteenth-century literary realism in America was  __________          ( William Dean Howells ) 2. _______________had already pointed towards Mark Twain’s uneasy acceptance of the values of nineteen-century American society.( The Gilded Age) 3. _____________ (1878) which one American critic described as “an outrage to American girlhood” brought James his first international fame.( Dassy Miller) 4. ______________(1900), which traces the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G.W.Hurstwood, was Dreiser’s first novel.( Sister Carrie) 5. In the years preceding World War I, nineteenth-century realism and _____________remained vital forces in American Literature.  ( naturalism) 6. Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “______________”, devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization.( Lost Generation) 7. Early in the 1920s the most prominent of the new American playwrights, _______________established an international reputation.( Eugene O’Neil) 8. Jazz music of the American ___________-- the most influential art form to originate in the United States-spread throughout the world.( Negro) 9. In London, Frost’s first book, ______________, brought him to the attention of influential critics(A Boy’s Will) 10. Frost employed the plain speech of rural ________________and preferred the short, traditional forms of lyric and narrative.( New Englanders) 11. In his finest novels, The Great Gatsby and_________________, Fitzgerald had revealed the stridency of an age of glittering innocence.( Tender is the Night) 12. ________________was the first American to be wounded in Italy during World War I.( Hemingway) 13. A Farewell to Arms portrayed a farewell both to ______and to _______ (war; love) 14. In 1952, Hemingway portrayed an old fisherman____________ in The Old Man and the Sea.( Santiago) 15. The only Faulkner novel that had come close to being a best seller in its day was____________, a book more famous for its shock value than for its literary quality.( Sanctuary) 16. *Oxford was with some fictional modifications, a prototype of Jefferson, in the mythical county of Yoknapatawpha, the setting of ____________and most of Faulkner’s subsequent works.( Sartoris) 17. Emerson was recognized throughout his life as the leader of_____________ movement, yet he never applied the term to himself or to his beliefs and ideas.( Transcendentalist) 18. Emerson’s truest disciple, the man who put into practice many of Emerson’s theories, was_________.( H.D Thoreau) 19. _______________deals with the effects of a curse, and though the tale itself is fiction, the germ of the story sprang from the author’s family history.( The House of the Seven Gables ) 20. Hawthorne’s unique gift was for the creation of strongly _________stories which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature. The finest example is the recreation of Puritan Boston, _______________.( symbolic; The scarlet letter) 21. _____________ is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. (Moby-Dick) 22. As we have seen, __________dominated the Puritan phase of American writing . ____________was the next great subject to command the attention of the best minds.( theology; Politics) 23. From 1732 to 1758 , Franklin wrote and published his famous_______________, an annual collection of proverbs(Poor Richard’s Almanac) 24. In 1828 the election of the frontier hero ________________as the seventh President of the United States had brought an effective end to the “Virginia Dynasty” of American Presidents .( Andrew Jackson) 25. Washington Irving’s ______________became the first work by an American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic .( Skwtch Book ) 26. _____________________was the first great prose stylist of American romanticism , and his familiar style was destined to outlive the formal prose of such contemporaries as Acott and Cooper ,and to provide a model for the prevailing prose narrative for the future .( Washington Irving) II. Define the literary terms listed below. 1. *American Naturalism American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. It had been shaped by the war and by the social upheavals that undermined the comforting faith of an earlier age. America’s literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes. In presenting the extremes of life, the naturalists sometimes displayed an affinity to the sensationalism of early romanticism, but the naturalists 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. Although naturalist literature described the world with brutal realism, it also aimed at bettering the world through social reform. 2. *Local Colorism Local Colorism or Regionalism as a trend first exist in the late 1860s and early 1870s in America. It may be defined as the careful attegogoms in speech, dress or behavior especially in a geographical locality. The ultimate aim of the local colorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities which tells it apart from the world outside. The social and intellectual climate of the country provided a stimulating milieu for the growth of local color fiction in America. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. They formed an important part of the realistic movement. Although it lost its momentum toward the end of the 19th century, the local spirit continued to inspire and fertilize the imagination of author. 3. *Lost Generation Lost Generation or the Sad Young Men, which was created by F.S. Fitzgerald in his book All the Sad Young Men. It refers to the post-World War I generation, but a group of US writers who experienced the war established their reputation in the 1920s. It stems from a remark made by Gertrude Stein to Ernest Hemingway, “You are all a lost generation.” Hemingway used it as an epigraph to The Sun Also Rises, a novel that expressed the attitudes of a hard-drinking, fast living set of disillusioned young expatriates in postwar Paris. The generation was “lost” in the sense and its inherited values were no longer relevant in the postwar world and because of its spiritual alienation from US, they seemed hopelessly provincial, materialistic, and emotionally barren. The term includes Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings and so on. 4. *Imagism Imagism is a poetic movement of England and the U.S. flourished from 1909 to 1917.The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. The leaders of this movement were Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell. 5. *Hemingway Heroes “Hemingway Heroes “refer to some protagonists in Hemingway’s works. Such a hero is an average man of masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent .And usually he is a man of action and of few words .He is such an individualist, alone even when with other people, somewhat an outsider, keeping emotions under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one can not get happiness .The Hemingway heroes stand for a whole generation. It must end in defeat, no matter how hard he strives. This is the essence of a code of honor in which all of Hemingway’s heroes believe ,whether he is Nick Adams, Jake Barnes, Frederic Henry .But surely they differ some from others in their view of the world .The difference which comes gradually in view is an index to the subtle change which Hemingway’s outlook has undergone. 6. *The Jazz Age World War1 was a tragic failure of old values, of old politics, of old ideas .The social mood was often one of confusion and despair. But during the 1920s American did not seem desperate, Instead, they entered a decade of prosperity and exhibitionism that prohibition, the legal ban against alcoholic beverages more to encourage than to curb. Fashions were extravagant; more land more automobiles crowded the roads, advertising flourished, and nearly every American home had a radio in it .Fads swept the nation. This was the Jazz Age, when New Orleans musicians moved “up the river” to Chicago, and the theatre of New York’s Harlem pulsed with the music that had become a symbol of the times . The roaring of the decade served to mask a quiet pain, the sense of loss that Gertrude Stein had observed in Paris. F. Scott.Fitzgerald portrays the Jazz Age as a generation of “the beautiful and damned”, drowning in their pleasures. 7.American Transcendentalism American Transcendentalism is more of a tendency, an attitude, than the philosophy. To “transcend” something is to rise above it, to pass beyond its limits. Transcendentalists took their ideas from the romantic literature of Europe, from new-Platoism, from German idealistic philosophy, and from the revelations of Oriental-mysticism. They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. Features: 1、they placed emphasis on spirit as the most important thing in the Universe. 2、they stressed the importance of the individual.. 3、they offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. 8. Symbolism Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols. A symbol conveys two kinds of meaning; it is simply itself, and it stands for something other than itself. In other words, a symbol is both literal and figurative. People, places, things and even events can be used symbolically. A symbol is a way of telling a story and a way of conveying meaning. The best symbols are those that are believable in the lives of the characters and also convincing as they convey a meaning beyond the literal level of the story. Hawthorn and Melville were the two masters of symbolism. For example, the scarlet letter “A” on Hester’s breast can give you symbolic meanings. If the symbol is obscure, then the very obscurity may also be part of the meaning of the story. Answer the following questions. III. Answer the following questions 1. *What does Huck Finn reflect? Huck Finn is a veritable recreation of living models. Huck and his father, Jim, the swindlers, Colonel Sherburn and the drunkard Boggs—all these characters had prototypes in real life. The portrayal of individual incidents and characters achieved intense verisimilitude of detail. Serious problems are being discussed through the narration of a little illiterate boy. The fact of the wilderness juxtaposed with civilization, the people half wild and half civilized, many of whom are coarse, vulgar, and brutal; and the fact of brutal slavery an of human beings—Blacks—being sold in the market places like animals. All these and many other incidents are depicted in true-to-life detail as the background against which Huck Finn’s awareness of good and evil develops. Though a local and particular book, it touches upon the human situation in a general, indeed “universal” way: Humanitarianism ultimately triumphs. 2. *What is Mark Twain’s contribution to American Literature?       One of Mark Twain’s significant contributions to American literature lies in the fact that he made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country. The style has swept American literature and made books before Huck Finn and after it quite different. Its influence is clearly visible in twentieth-century American literature. It is continued in both prose and poetry. Among the number of American authors who acknowledged their indebtedness to Mark Twain are Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, T.S.Eliot, William Faulkner, and contemporary authors such as J.D.Salinger, E.A.Robinson, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, E.E.Cummings and even Ezra Pound. The importance of the style in American literature cannot be overrated. 3. *What are the major features in American Realism?   ⑴ Realism is the theory of writing in which familiar aspects of contemporary life and everyday life scenes are represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner.   ⑵ In realist fiction characters from all social levels are examined in depth. This is a major change, and it is one of the examples of the truthful treatment of material, because this is how real life is.   ⑶ Open ending is also a good example of the truthful treatment of material.   ⑷ Realism focuses on commonness of the lives of the common people who are customarily ignored by the arts.   ⑸ Realism emphasizes objectivity and offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.   ⑹ Realism presents moral visions.   Realists are aware of accepted social standards. In their works they recreate real life and show the dilemmas that the people are having as they try to understand what life means in an ethical way. They are able to probe deeply into these problems of the human conscience. Their method is completely objective and carries with it the whole theoretical meaning of why people choose to be objective. 4. *What do you know about The Old Man and the Sea? It is a short novel ,a fable of a kind ,about an old Cuban fisherman Santiago and his battle with a great marlin . For 84 days Santiago does not catch a single fish but he does not feel discouraged .He goes far out into the sea and hooks a giant marlin. A desperate struggle ensues in which Santiago manages to kill the fish and tie it to his boat, only to find that on the way home he has to fight a more desperate struggle with other dangerous giant sharks, which eat up the marlin, leaving only a skeleton. The old man brings it home and goes to bed to dream, almost dead with exhaustion. Here in Santiago we see again the spirit of the noble—if tragic –Hemingway type of individualism, contending with a force he knows it is futile to battle with. He keeps on fighting because he believes that “a man is not made for defeat …A man can be destroyed but not defeated”. However ,the old man eventually comes to the realization that in going far out alone, “beyond all the people in the world ”,he has met his doom ,and he feels good to be one of the human and the natural world .That he begins to experience a feeling of brotherhood and love not only for his fellowmen but. For his fellow creatures in nature is a convincing proof that Hemingway ‘s vision of the world has undergone profound changed. 5. *“Make a comparison between Hemingway and Fitzgerald.         The world after the first World War was quite different. All the old certainties were gone, and everything was new. There was affluence and excitement on the one hand, and on the other, disturbing indications that the old world was simply dying. Against this background Fitzgerald and Hemingway wrote. Fitzgerald was an analyst. He stayed in the United States and wrote about the Jazz Age. We go to him know what this world was like. Hemingway, on the other hand, reacted to it; he did not describe it. He went away to Europe and wrote about the expatriates. His world was basically rootless. It is Fitzgerald who was so broken emotionally by their times. Both were talented writers; both lost the ability to write rather early in their career. Ultimately when the dust of time settles down and a clearer outline appears visible, it may be that both will remain great, the one as the other, but for different reasons: Hemingway predominantly for his style, and Fitzgerald for the fact that he tried to understand American culture at its roots and thus had more to say to posterity. 6. *What are features of Faulkner’s language? Faulkner is a difficult writer. Like all modern authors his demand on the cooperative response of the readers is exacting. He always structures his stories in his own original fashion and is proficient in employing a distinctive narrative method of gradually fitting in and of withholding or even giving confusing information. Gradually confusions vanish as context and periphery are defined and the center is revealed. There is a lot of interior monologues; the modern stream of consciousness technique is frequently and skillfully used. Words are often run together, with no capitalization and no proper punctuation. Sentences are not always clearly indicated; many long ones are pushed together in peculiar ways. One fragment runs into another without which often causes irritating perplexity. There is also Faulkner’s handling of language to consider. His prose ranges from colloquial, regional dialects to highly charged courtroom rhetoric, covering a variety of “registers” of the English language. Faulkner was a master of his own particular style of writing. 第一部分 殖民地时期的美国文学 What are the characteristics of Colonial America?   All of the works written during this period are utilitarian , polemical , or didactic .The purpose of literature for these Puritans was first of all usefulness . It should teach some kond of lesson . In content , the literature of the colonial settlement served either God or colonial expansion or both . The literary style of the earliest American writers , in fact seems to have been determined by a practical consideration of the sort of impression each writer wanted to make upon a selected group of readers . Puritans’metaphorical mode of perception helped to develop literary symbolism as they saw the physical world a symbol of God . Hence symbolism as a technique was a common practice in writing . The Piritans placed unusual stress upon plainness in writing because they were unusually interested in influencing the simp;e-minded people . Bearing the direct influence fo the Christian Biblical poetics , the Puritan writings are fresh , simp;e ,direct , and with a touch of nobility . As it faithfully imitated and transplanted European forms to the new experience , early American literature was as much a product of continuities as an indigenous creation. 第二部分 理性文学和革命文学. 1、 Enlightement   The eighteenth –century England is also , and better , known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age fo Reason . The Enlightenment was a progressive intellectual movement going on throughout Europe at the time , with France in the vanguard . The Enlightenment celebrated reason (rationality) , equality , science and human beings’ ability to perfect themselves and their society . The movement was based on the basic theories provided by the philosophers of the age , which ranged from John Locke’s materialism , Lord Shaftsbury’s deism , and George Berkeley’s immaterialism to David Hume’s skepticism . Whatever philosophical beliefs they might have , they held the eommom faith in human rationality and the possibility of human perfection through education . They believed that when reason served as the yardstick for the measurement of all human activities and social relations , superstition , injustice , privilege and oppression were to yield place to “eternal truth” ,”eternal justice” , and “natural equality” or inalienable rights of men . Everything was put under scrutiny , to be measured by reason . No authorities , political or religious or otherwise , were acepted unchallenged while almost all the old societies and governments and all the traditional concepts , including Christianity , were examined and criticized . The belief provided theory for the French Revolution in 1789 and the American War of Independence in 1776 .   Alexander Pope (1688~1744) , Joseph Addison (1672~1719) , Richard Steele (1672~1792) , Jonathan Swift (1667~1745) , Daniel Defoe (1660~1731) , Henry Fielding (1707~1754) , Richard B. Sheridan (1751~1816) , Oliver Goldsmith (1730~1774) , Edward Gibbon (1737~1794) , and Samuel Johnson (1709~1784) were among the famous enlighteners in England . As England had already gone through its bourgeois revolution , what the English enlighteners were lege to do was to strive the bring the revolution to and end by clearing away the feudal remnants and rep;ace them with bourgeois ideology . 第三部分  美国的浪漫主义文学 4 What are the unique features of American Romanticism?   Although foreign influences were strong, American romanticism exhibited from the very outset distinct features of its own. It was different from its English and European counterpart because it originated from an amalgam of factors which were altogether American rather than anything else. American romanticism was in essence the expression of ”a real new experience ”and contained ”an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien. For instance, the American national experience of “pioneering “into the west proved to be a rich fund of material for American writers to draw upon. The wilderness with its virgin forests ,the sound of the axe cutting its way westward, the exotic landscape with its different sights, smells, and sounds(the robin rather than the nightingale is Emily Dickinson’s “criterion of tone,” for example), and the quaint, picturesque civilization of a primitive race—all these constituted an incomparably superior source of inspiration for native authors. A rude Natty Bumppo in buckskin, dwelling in a frontier blockhouse, treading a solitary bridle path through virgin forests was , perhaps , matter enough for any romantic genius. And indeed, American authors were quite responsive to the stimulus which American life offered. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s tentive treatment of the frontier and the Indians in his works such as Hudson valley, William Cullen Bryant’s sketches of the wild west prairie where no human being had ever set foot and James Fenimore Cooper’s five Leatherstocking tales with”their majestic descriptions of American’s limitless forests and broad blue inland lake”—these are but aafew instances whereby the new American sensibility began to make itself felt.And ,of course , we should not forget to mention Emerson,Thoreau,Hawthorne,Melville and Whitman, all people who were instrumental ,in one way or another ,in creating an indigenous American literature.   Then there is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider.American moral values were essentially Puritan.Public opinion was overwhelmingly Puritan;social life and cultural taste were predominantly conditioned by the Puritan and cultural taste were predominantly conditioned by the Puritan atmosphere of the nation.Nothing has left a deeper imprint on the character of the people as a whole than did Puritanism;no one has been so successful in imposing his way of thinking on the continent as the American Puritan.puritanical influence over Ameican romanticism w3as conspicuously noticeable.One of its palpable manifestations is the fact that American romantic authors tended more to moralize than their English and European brothers.It is true that Edgar Allan poe fought vehemently against “the heresy of the didactic”,and writers like John Greenleaf Whittier tried to advocate both beauty and goodness.But the fact remains, nonetheless ,that many American romantic writings intended to edify more than theyentertained.There seemed to be areas of life which it was better for them to leave alone, taboos of a kind that most of the literary world agreed,however tacit it may have been, on not breaking.Sex and love werem for instance, subjects American authors were particularly careful in approaching.Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter talks eloquently about the sin itself ,and Whitman was for a long time misunderstood by his own countrymen because Leaves of Grass contains lines and passages not at all palatable to their “genteel” taste. 各文学阶段文学特点及风格 一、The First period—colonial period: (1) Representative writer: Smith: romance, adventures. (2) Style: 1. metaphysical poetry; 2. journals: diaries, letters, travel journals, and reports; 3. religious history. (3) features: 1. religious: puritan; 2. imitating (out of date); 3. new settings. 二、The Second period—the Period of Enlightenment and War of Independence: (1) Background: 1. economic progress; 2. 1776-1783: War of Independence/Revolutionary War; 3. 1789: new country. (2) Enlightenment: 1. a progressive intellectual movement first throughout Western Europe; 2. an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism: against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices; 3. the chief means for bettering the society was “education”; 4. the enlighteners were bourgeois democratic thinkers. (3) style: 1. political literature: rationality and scientific inquiry: Jefferson; 2. Neoclassicism: (mock) epic; 3. revolutionary, democratic, romantic poetry: Freneau; 4. dictionary: Noah Webster; 5. fiction: Brown; 6. Enlightenment: Franklin. 三、Romanticism (1800-1865): (1) Historical background: 1. political independence; 2. great economic progress: industrialization; immigration; 3. energetic, optimistic, and confident spirits; 4. Westward Expansion: construction and development of the West; 5. progress in science and technology. (2) Literary style: 1. transcendentalism: Emerson, Thoreau; 2. fiction: Hawthorne, Melville, Poe: romance, adventure, mystery; 3. Poetry:  1) Boston Brahmin Poets: Longfellow, Lowell;           2) Poet reformers/Abolitionist: Whittier;           3) Romantic poetry: Whitman; Bryant. (3) Features: 1. imitation; independence; 2. romanticism; optimism; 3. imagination; democracy; equality; 4. nature; 5. transcendentalism; 6. emotions; 7. colloquial language; 8. individualism; subjective; inner life. (4) Transcendentalism: 1. religious color; spirit; intuition; 2. nature: 1) material nature; 2) spiritual nature; 3. individual spirit unites with universal spirit by human intuition; 4. optimistic: human is everything/all. The universe exists for humans; 5. people are free and equal. 四、Realism (1865-1918) I. Historical background: (1) politics: 1.lower class wanted vote; 2. putridity(腐败); (2) economy: 1. the rich richer and the poor poorer; 2. business boomed; 3. urbanization; industrialization; 4.  the wealthiest country; a major world power; (3) spirit and science: 1. alienation; individuality; interested in everyday existence; 2. Naturalism: all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws without attributing(归因于) moral, spiritual, or supernatural significance to them. 3. Darwinism: A theory of biological evolution developed by Charles Darwin and others: all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations(遗传变异) that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. 4. Determinism: philosophical doctrine(观点): every event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedents(前提) that are independent of the human will. II. literary style: (1) local colorism/ regionalism; 1. New England: Jewett; 2. South: Harris; Chopin; Glasgow; Cather; 3. West: Harte; (2) Naturalism: Darwinism; determinism; pessimism: Crane; Norris; London; (3) Muckrake (n.揭开丑闻的文章;vt.揭发丑闻): exposing social problems; objective; everyday life:   Dreiser; Sinclair; (4) Frontier humor and realism: Mark Twain; (5) Midwestern realism: Howells; Henry James; (6) Women’s literature: Jewett; Chopin; Glasgow; (7) The Chicago School of poetry: Carl Sandburg. III. features: 1. realistic; criticism; 2. common people; 3. open portrayal of class struggle; 4. dialect. 五、Modernism (1918-1945) I. Historical background: 1. 1920s: economic progress; scientific discovery; industrialization; urbanization; 2. 1930s: the World Depression; 3. disappointment; losing innocence; disillusioned; 4. pleasure-seeking; materialism; 5. traditional moral values destroyed; 6. pessimism. II. Academic background: 1. Europe modern philosophy; 2. aesthetism; 3. Freudism/ Freudian psychology; 4. Marxism. III. Modernism: 1. breaking away from established rules, traditions and conventions; 2. experiments in from and style; 3. man’s position and function in universe; 4. ambiguous; inconsistent; changeable narrative viewpoint; 5. open ending; 6. inner world; individual; 7. pessimism; 8. imagism; symbolism; 9. innovative; 10. illogical; irrational. IV. literary styles: (1) poetry: 1. Chicago Poetry: innovative; laborers: Sandbury; 2. overseas poetry: innovative: 1) Imagism: Pound; Lowell; 2) New Poetry Movement: T S Eliot; Stevens; 3. New England Poetry: traditional; common people; brief: Frost; Robinson (2) drama: 1. New Drama Movement: expressionism: realism and romanticism or realism and symbolism: O’Neill; 2. Theatre of Absurd /Absurdism; 3. theme: social problems; criticism. (3) Novels: 1. small town life: vulgar, indifferent, narrow-minded people:                 Lewis; Anderson; 2. The Lost Generation: 1920s; disillusioned; going abroad: Passos; Fitzgerald; Hemingway; 3. Left Wing Literature: 1930s; Steinbeck; 4. South Literature/ Renaissance: Faulkner (4) Harlem Renaissance (1920s-1930s): terrible life of the black: Hughes; Wright (5) New Literary Criticism: detailed analysis of woks themselves Unit 8 Mark Twain Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) (1835-1910) I. Style: 1. realistic; daily/everyday life; 2. local colorism: his own regions and people; 3. lower class/ common people; colloquialism: simple, direct, and unpretentious language; dialect; 4. humor: criticism; sitire; 5. writing skills: anti-climax; pun; exaggeration; 6. different periods: a. early period: humorous; simple; hopeful; brief; b. middle period: faint tone; gloomy; low-spirited(意志消沉的); c. late period: pessimism; hopeless. II. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County: (1) content: a story of a frog, a pet of gambling Jim, which is defeated when a stranger fills its gullet with quail shot while Jim’s attention is distracted, in America in middle 19th century. (2) background: the California Gold Rush in 1849. (3) theme: 1. American society and culture in middle and late 19th century; 2. conflict between the settled, cultured East and the still-developing West. (4) style: 1. humorous tall tale(吹牛大话) of American Southwest; 2. allusion to figures in contemporary American history; 3. satire of American society/East and human nature; 4. inharmoniousness; 5. a story in another story: first person and third person narrators; 6. contrasting/different styles/levels of language; 7. vivid description; 8. figures of speech: personification; hyperbole; 9. symbolism: 1) Simon; Jim: westerner—earnest; naïve; simple; gullible(易受骗的); enterprising(有事业心,有进取心的); uneducated; honest; kind; crude(粗鲁的); determined; 2) Narrator: easterner—educated; snobbish; sophisticated; practical(实际的) Unit 15 Faulkner I. Theme: 1. Yoknapatawpha County; 2. history of the land and races in the south: Indian; African-American; Euro-American; 3. southern traditions, families, community, passion of ambition and love. II. style: 1. experiment with narrative chronology: violation of chronology(按时间排列事件,编年表); 2. different/ multiple points of view and voices; 3. long and complicated sentences; 4. stream of consciousness; 5. symbolism. Unit 16 Earnest Hemingway I. Style: 1. clean style devoid of unnecessary words; direct; terse(简洁,扼要的); 2. connotative(隐含,内涵的); understatement(保守的说法,掩饰,轻描淡写); 3. a lot of brief but meaningful dialogues; 4. exact and detailed description; 5. simple language; sometimes monotonous(单调,无变化的) narration; 6. exotic surroundings; 7. humanistic sympathies; universal theme; 8. revealing the inner natures of the characters in dangerous situations; 9. the code hero: “Tough Men/Guys” or “Man’s Man”; 10. main characters: psychological bruised(尤指精神上)伤害;擦伤;碰损), disillusioned expatriates(被逐出国外的人;移居国外的人) taking psychic(精神的) refuge in physical activities as eating, drinking, traveling, and lovemaking, etc; 11. repetition; 12. Iceberg Analog(类似物)/Theory: “The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one eighth of it above water”. II. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place: (1) content: an old man drinking in a bar late at night; the different attitudes of the two waiters towards him. (2) characters: 1. old man: vacuous(空虚,茫然若失,无所事事的); weak; lonely; despairing; unhappy; 2. middle-aged waiter: considerate; sympathetic; vacuous; lonely; understanding the essence(本质) of life; 3. young waiter: selfish; indifferent; impolite; impatient; passionate(热烈;充满激情的) (3) theme: 1. the place as a refuge from night, chaos loneliness, old age, impending death and nada; 2. Nothingness/nada is the only dependable and true experience; 3. Youth, confidence, love and passion will all be followed and replaced by despair, loneliness, aging, nada, and death. (4) style: 1. conversational/colloquial and journalistic style; 2. simple; direct; objective; 3. understatement; 4. pessimistic; 5. contrast; 6. strong emotion; 7. pun; 8. naturalism; 9. repetition; 10. exotic; 11. stream of consciousness. Unit 24 Saul Bellow Look for Mr. Green: (1) Content: The novel describes a relief worker sized up by tenants: "They must have realized that he was not a college boy employed afternoons by a bill collector, trying foxily to pass for a relief clerk, recognized that he was an older man who knew himself what need was, who had more than an average seasoning in hardship. It was evident enough if you looked at the marks under his eyes and at the sides of his mouth." (2) Comparisons, Contrasts, Connections The story ight be compared with some works by such black writers as James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, or any other writers who have written about the depression (e.g., John Steinbeck ). The story could be compared to some stories by such naturalistic writers as Theodore Dreiser and Jack London who are also concerned with the free will versus determinism theme. An interesting comparison would be with F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote on the formative influence of money on the self. The idea that illusion is necessary for the survival of self in a harsh, predatory world is a central theme of modern American drama (Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller), and this story might be compared to the important modern American plays. Bellow's depiction of women can be compared to others. (3) Major Themes, Historical Perspectives, and Personal Issues Historical Issues and Themes: How does society help the downtrodden (in this story an unemployed, crippled black man) in bad economic times (e.g., the depression)? The story also examines the problems of race, class, and gender. Other issues that the class might focus upon are: the plight of the noncompetitive in a capitalistic, highly competitive society; how money influences character; the alienation of the urban black man. Personal Issues and Themes: How does an idealistic humanist (i.e., the typical Bellow hero) reconcile noble ideas with the harsh facts of the human condition? Is man essentially a victim of his situation or is he the master of his fate? What is Bellow suggesting about the problem of human suffering and evil? The relationship of the individual to his society? The relationship of appearance to reality? The clash between the human need to order and make sense of life according to moral principles and life's amoral disorder, discontinuity, irrationality, and mystery? (4) Significant Form, Style, or Artistic Conventions The story can be discussed as a bildungsroman; as a parable; as a symbolic quest; as a realistic depiction of the depression and of the alienation of the urban black man.