美国文学选读（浪漫主义）

Part Two Literature of Romanticism I. General Summary of the Literary History of the Period In the early 1800’s, native American Writers began to win national and international fame. Washington Irving’s Sketch Book became the first American literary work to win financial and critical success on both sides of the Atlantic. He was followed by James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant and soon a rich national literature had begun to emerge at the hands of Poe, Melville, Hawthorne, Emerson and Thoreau. The attitudes of America’s writers were shaped by their New World environment and an array of ideas inherited from the romantic traditions of Europe. Romanticism was originated in England and came to America early in the 19th century. It was pluralistic: its manifestations were as varied, as individualistic, and as conflicting as the cultures and the intellects from which it sprang. Yet romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption. Transcendentalism exerted a dominating notion onto the major wirers of the Romantic period and its essence has been permanently absorbed into the main stream of American thought. As a moral philosophy, Transcendentalists took their ideas from the romantic literature of Europe, from neo-Platonism, from German idealistic philosophy and from the revelations of Oriental mysticism. They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. They believed in the transcendence of the “Oversoul”, an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part. As a philosophical and literary movement, Transcendentalism flourished in New England from the 1830’s to the Civil War. Its doctrines found their greatest literary advocated in Emerson, who believed that man was a part of absolute good, and in Thoreau who beheld divinity in the “unspotted innocence” of nature. It was a powerful expression of the intellectual mood of the age, and the ideas it represented have remained a strong influence on great American writers from the days of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman to the present. Literature ceased to be primarily didactic. Novels, short stories and poems replaced sermons and manifestos as American principal literary forms. Imaginative literature became intense, personal and symbolic. Moved by calls for a national literature, writers celebrated America’s meadows, groves, and streams, its endless prairies, dense forests and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that illustrated moral law. The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature, evident in Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales and Thoreau’s Walden and also in some writers of the later generations. Romantic writers placed increasing value on the free expression of emotion and displayed increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitivity and excitement. The novel of terror became the profitable literary staple that it remains today. Writers of gothic terror novels sought to arouse in their readers a turbulent sense of the remote, the supernatureal and the terrifying by describing castles and landscapes illuminated by moonlight and haunted by specters. A preoccupation with the demonic and the mystery of evil marked the works of Poe, Hawthrne, and Melville. Nationalism stimulated a greater literary interest in America’s language and its common people. In 1828, Noah Webster published a New England literary renaissance. The “School Poets”, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, and Whittier, interpreted the aspirations of the age to their countrymen and brought honor to the nation by achieving international fame. During this period most of the major writers were from New England and New England has become the center of literary creation, with Transcendentalism as the most influential literary trend. Thus critics call this period of literary flourishment in New England the New England Renaissance. 1. Gothic Romance It refers to the Romantic novels with settings of the ancient castles or old houses and descriptions of supernatural elements like ghosts and specters, usually horror-provoking, like Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher and some of Irving’s tales. 2. Transcendentalism It is a literary movement flourishing in New England from the 1830s to the American Civil War. It stressed intuitive understanding of God, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. The representative writers are Emerson and Thoreau. 3. Schoolroom Poets(New England Poets or Fireside Poets) The “Schoolroom Poets” refer to Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, and Whittier who wrote familiar poems for the common reader and interpreted the aspirations of the age to their countrymen and brought honor to the nation by achieving international fame. 4. New England Renaissance During Romantic period in American literature, the major writers like Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville and most of the “fireside school” were from New England and New England has became the center of literary creation, with Transcendentalism as the most influential literary trend. Thus critics call this period of literary flourishment in New England the New England Renaissance. 5. American Romanticism Romanticism was originated in England and came to America early in the nineteenth century. It shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that nature was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption. 6. How to define the Romantic Period in American literary history? The Romantic Period in the history of American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It started, with the publication of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman’s leaves of Grass. Being a period of the great flowering of American literature, it is also called “the American Renaissance.” 7. What is the historical and socio-cultural background of the Romantic Period in America? The development of the American society nurtured “the literature of a great nation.” The young Republic, devoid of a heavy burden of the inherited past and history, was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country. Historically, it was the time of west ward expansion. Economically, the whole nation was experiencing an industrial transformation, which affected the rural as well as the urban life. Politically, democracy and equality became the ideal of the new nation. With the founding of the American Independent Government, the nation felt an urge to have its own literary expression, to make known its new experience that other nation did not have. Besides, the nation’s literary milieu was ready for the movement of romantic feeling was brought about in the first half of the 19th century. 8. What is the relationship between American Romanticism and European Romanticism? American Romanticism and the European Romanticism share much in common: In reaction to the Enlightenment and its emphasis on reason, Romanticism stressed emotion, the imagination, and subjectivity of approach. European literary masters, especially the English counterparts exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the New World. Born of one common cultural heritage, American Romanticism is surely, to some extent, derivative after their English predecessors. Although the European influences were strong, the great works that demonstrate what American Romantic writings were typically American. They revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native land. The content of the American Romantic period is an original and diverse body of work. American writers developed some new forms of fiction or poetry. They also placed an increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions and displayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. The strong tendency to exalt the individual and common man was another focus of the movement. 9. Unitarianism Unitarianism is a religious term. Unlike other more partial religious beliefs, Unitarianism was more rational and logical, occupying a sort of middle ground between extremes. Its principles, on which most people agreed, include the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of men, the leadership of Jesus (which ignores Jesus’s divinity), salvation by character, and continual progress of mankind. I t was an obvious improvement on Calvinism which never accepted the prospect of man’s perfectibility. It once had obvious influence on American writers, such as Emerson and Thoreau. II. Washington Irving (1783-1859) 1. Life achievements Washington Irving was the first important American fiction writer, the first professional writer, the first great American writer of juvenile literature and one of the first writers of history and biography as literary entertainment. He was the first belletrist, writing always for pleasure and to produce pleasure, which dealt a decisive blow to the then prevailing didactic literature. 2. Important literary works The Sketch Book: His first collection of short stories. Tales of a Traveler: An important collection of short stories, which contains many widely-read short stories. A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker: It is a rollicking burlesque of a current serious history of the early Dutch settlers which became a classic of humor. Rip Van Winkle: His most frequently anthologized short story about the strange experience of a lazy, henpecked but lovable man, Rip Van Winkle. 3. Analysis of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow is a humorous story of a school teacher, Ichabod Crane. He fell in love with Katrina Van Tassel together with Brom Van Brunt, nicknamed Brom Bones, a lad from the vicinity. One evening at a dance party at the Van Tassel’s, people told horrifying stories about ghosts and the headless horseman. Sure enough, Ichabod Crane really saw a headless horseman chasing after his steed on his way home. Almost scared to death, he left the place for good in no time. Later Brom Bones, who seemed to know a lot about the incident, was found happily together, with a light satirical notion on pedantrism as represented by the protagonist. 4. Style Irving was a writer interested in the effect of his writing rather than the thematic concern, which makes his themes quite diversified. His stories carry a strong romantic sensibility, with a special interest in remoteness, the Gothic and supernatural elements. His style is humorous, familiar and graceful, making him an early prose stylist in American literature. III. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) 1. Life and literary achievements Like Irving, James Fenimore Cooper also occupied several “firsts” in American literature: he was the first important novelist, the first frontier novelist, the first historical romance writer, and the first writer of sea adventures. Intensely influenced by Walter Scott both in subject matter and style, he was labeled as “the American Scott”. 2. Important works The Spy: It is a successful espionage novel set in the Revolutionary War． The pilot: A sea romance based on the 1ire of John Paul Jones, a great novesl fighter during the War of Independence． Leatherstocking Tales：It is a serial consisting of five related novels—The Deerslayer，nLast of the Mohicans， Pathfinder，The Pioneer，and The Prairie．The protagonist of the novel，Natty Bumppo，goes by various names of Leatherstocking，Deerslayer，Pathfinder and Hawkeye．He is a frontier hero，a prototype for the Western cowboy．Close after him are two “noble say-ages”，the Mohican(an American Indian tribe)chief Chingachgook and his son Uncas．With these memorable main characters and a vast group of supporting characters，the trilogy becomes the greatest American novels about its past． 3. Analysis of The Last of the Mohicans The Last of the Mohicans is the best written of the Leather-stocking Tales，with its vivid descriptions and exciting plot．Thecentral event of the novel is an adventure experienced by Natty Bumpoo，Chingachgook and his son Uncas in escorting a British team consisting of Major Duncan Heyward and two girls in his protection，Cora and Alice，on their way to Ford William Henry through the forest，where they were constantly endangered by the renegade Indian tribe，the Hurons．After a series of bloody battles and other dangers，the Hurons were defeated，but Uncas and Cora were also killed and Natty decided to stay in the forest to accompany the sorrowful Indian chief forever．Natty Bumppo was portrayed as a frontier hero with a daring character and a strong passion for the wilderness and its inhabitants，his Indian friends． What are the artistic achievements of Cooper? James Fenimore Cooper is regarded as the frist great American writer of fiction. He initiated three genres of fiction: the historical novel, sea novel, and frontier novel. His novels are filled with action-packed plots and vivid portrayal of American life in the wild land. In 1823 Cooper wrote The Pioneers, the first of the five novels that make up the Leather-Stocking Tales. The remaining four books: The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841), continue the story of Natty Bumppo, one of the most famous characters in Amercan fiction. The “Leather-Stocking Tales” are noted for their portrayal of American subject matter in American settings. The hero of the tales, Natty Bumppo, embodies the conflict between preserving nature unspoiled and developing the land in the name of progress. IV. William Cullen Bryant(1794—1878) Analyses of“To a Waterfowl”and“Thanatopsis” “To a Waterfowl” It is a lyric poem with a strong spiritual intent．Simple as it is，it may well represent the peak of Bryant’s poetic creation．Rated as“the most perfect brief poem in the language” by Matthew Arnold，it expresses both the poet’s grateful view，at the close of a day of self—doubt and despair，of a solitary bird on the horizon and his sense of a divine power guiding and protecting everything in nature．The clarity of the central image，the “gliding” quatrains(four-line stanzas)and the aptness and simplicity of the moral analogy have always been admired by critics and general readers alike． “Thanatopsis”： “Thanatopsis” is Bryant’s best—known poem in the form of blank verse and with the theme of death．It follows the tradition of the English“graveyard school”and the central image is the“mighty sepulcher”，which will bring contentment to the dying，who knows there are countless people from all places and all time to share the great tomb of man．The title of the poem means “view of death”． 1. Blank Verse It is a specific form of verse whose lines are unrhymed iambic pentameters. Bryant, Frost and some other American poets have used this form of verse. 2. Free Verse It is a general term referring to the modern form of verse with no fixed foot, rhythm or rhyme schemes. V. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) 1.What are the artistic achievements of Poe? 2. What are his important works? 1. Literary achievements Edger Allan Poe was a real literary genius and his position as a major romantic writer in the history of American literature is firmly established. The poems and short stories he wrote more than one and a half centuries ago are still keenly studied worldwide. His works are filled with a strong romantic flavor. Yet unlike his predecessors or contemporaries such as Cooper and Hawthorne, he took no interest in native American actualities, the past or the present. The settings of his stories and poems were deliberately obscured. He was the first conscious modern literary theorist, advocating that a literary work must strive for a “single effect”, that literature was a world of imagination, a reality in itself, a notion that highly resounds “art for art’s sake” and inspires critics and literary theorists of later generations. According to him, only short poems could sustain the level of emotion in the reader that was generated by all good poetry. The most important purpose of poetry is the creation of beauty. The immediate object of poetry is pleasure, not truth. Music is essential. Poe made good use of a number of poetic devices to create a mood appropriate to theme of his poems. The result is often a poem of almost haunting melody done with extreme artistry of alliteration, assonance and repetition. Beauty and melancholy were the major concern of most of his works. According to Poe, the highest form of beauty was a young lady and the highest degree of melancholy was death, so a frequent motif of his short stories and poems is the death of a beautiful young lady. Edgar Allan Poe is known as a poet and critic but most famous as the first master of the short story form, especially tales of the mysterious and macabre. Whether or not Poe invented the short story, it is certain that he originated the novel of detection and science fiction Many of Poe’s tales are distinguished by the author’s unique grotesque inventiveness in addition to his superb plot construction. Such stories include The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), in which the penetrating gloominess of the atmosphere is accented equally with plot and characterization. He also established a new symbolic poetry. Poe’s poems are remarkable for their flawless literary construction and for their haunting themes and meters as in the peoms “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee.” Thematically, Poe was ahead of his time. Besides some eternal literary themes such as love, death and beauty, he was aware of some spiritual problems that were to become recurrent themes of 20th century literature. Isolation, boredom, anxiety and the lack of communication find expression in some of his best works such as “The Fall of the House of Usher”. 2. Important works Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque: His first collection of short stories. The Raven: The Raven is his best-known poem, a poetic expression of melancholy. To Helen: The poem is an awe-inspiring celebration of classic beauty. Annabel Lee: A poem about “lost love”—the death of a beautiful lady. The Fall of the House of Usher: It is Poe’s best short story in the form of a horror tale but with a modern theme—“the doom of the isolated consciousness”. 1. What’s the possible theme of the poem? 2. What’s the rhyme scheme. 3. What poetic devices are used in the poem? 4. In the poem. Poe showed his ability in the use of English as a medium of pure musical and rhythmic beauty. Please illustrate it. 5. What’s the tone of the poem and how is it established? To Helen Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicéan barks2 of yore, That gently, O’er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad3airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo! in you brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche,4 from the regions which Are Holy Land! ★ Translation and Analysis of Poe’s poem: To Helen 海伦，你的美貌对于我 就像古代尼西亚帆船， 她从芬芳的大海轻轻驶过， 载着倦于旅途的流浪汉， 将他送回家园。 我惯于在狂暴的大海漂荡， 你卷曲的秀发，古典的面容， 水仙般绰约的风姿和模样， 使我回到希腊的光荣， 回到罗马的辉煌。 看啊！从你明亮的窗龛 我见你站着如一座雕像， 玛瑙的灯盏在手中闪光！ 啊，赛姬，你的渊源 是那神圣的地方！ In the first stanza, Helen’s beauty is soothing. It provides security and safety. Perhaps the reader is expected to associate Marlowe’s famous line: “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?” to Helen’