美国文学史期末考试资料

一. 殖民时期的美国: Colonial America 17c早——18c末

1. 从英国探险者和殖民者在新大陆的作品开始，描述他们在新大陆真实而精力充沛的冒险。

2. 另一类为清教作品

Philip Freneau 菲利普·费瑞诺：第一位美国抒情诗人兼记者 “Father of American Poetry”(美国诗歌之父)

Puritanism: 清教主义

American Puritanism influences on American literature:

1. Idealism and optimism 理想主义和乐观主义

2. Symbolism 象征主义

3. Simplicity. 简洁

1.Edwards 爱德华兹：the first modern American can the country’s last medieval man.

“the current of Transcendentalism, originating in the piety of the Puritans, vecoming a philosophy in Jonathan Edwards, passing through Emerson.”

超验论由清教徒的虔诚演变而来 在乔纳森·爱德华兹的哲理得到发展 继而传给爱默生

2.Franklin 富兰克林

Jack of all trades (杂家)

1) He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the U.S.:

①The Declaration of Independence ②The Treaty of Alliance with France美法同盟条约

英美和平条约 ④Constitution

) 文学史上该类作品开山之

简单、直

接、明朗)

Edwards & Franklin:

Edwards represents the upper levels of the American mind.

1.不同点

Franklin represents the lower levers. Tradition of religious idealism理想主义的宗教信仰 2 the American Puritanism is a two faceted

the levelheaded common sense—明智冷静的判断力F

3.The one was as a good Puritan as the other. 两人均是虔诚的宗教徒

American Romanticism: 浪漫主义

1. Irving 欧文：美国第一个获得国际声誉的浪漫主义作家

① The first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame.

② The father of American literature.

Rip Van Winkle

见闻札记

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 睡觉的传说

见闻札记

1). The short story as a genre in American literature开创美国短片小说先河

2). The Sketch Book also marked the beginning of American Romanticism标志着浪漫主义的开始

Irving stories are among the best of American short stories 美国短篇小说之最

Irving’s charecters:

a. Irving’s style can be described as beautiful.It is imitative,but he was a hightly skillful writer b. He avoids moralizing as much as possible 尽量避免说教

c. He is good at enveloping his stories in an atmosphere.擅长将故事在一个内涵丰富的环境下展开

d. His characters are vivid and true 生动，真实

e. Humor

f. The finished and musical language 音乐般优美的语言

2. Cooper 库珀

1). He was one of the first authors to write about the American Westward movement.

2). “”《皮袜子故事集》主人公 Natty Bunppo

The Pioneers 《拓荒者》 The Last of the Mohicans 《最后的莫西干人》

The prairie《大草原》 The Pathfinder《探鹿者》 The Deerslayer 《猎鹿者》

3) He was a mythic writer. And he was good at inventing plots. 神话作家，编造故事的能力 The greatness of cooper

1. He created a myth about the formative period of American nation创造美国格式时代的神话

2. He wrote with increasing awareness of the importance to fiction of the Western Frontier.

3. He was at once devoted to principles of social order and responsive to the idea of nature and freedom in the eilderness.他马上接受了新的社会规则，对自然和子偶的理念做出了回应

4. He is a mythic writer and good at inventing plots.

New England Transcendentalism:超验主义

Definition

Authors: Emerson & Thoreau; Hawthorne & Melville; Whiteman & Dickenson; Allen Poe

1. Emerson：强调“oversoul” (超灵)

作品：1. Nature 2. The American Scholar 3. Self-reliance

regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism新英格兰超验主义的圣经 Emerson’s 文艺观点 optimistic

1） True poetry and true art should ennoble. It should serve as a moral purification and a passage toward organic unity and higher reality 真正的诗歌和艺术是高贵的，是为净化灵魂使之达到有机统一儿通向更高的现实而服务的

2） Emerson places emphasis on ideas, symbols, and imaginative words.他注重信念，象征和有想象力的词语

3） As to theme, emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America which was to him a long poem in itself, to celebrate the life of today. 他号召美国作家为美国和今天的生活写作，对他来说，美国本身就是一首长诗

Emerson’s 写作特点

He placed emphasis on spirit or the oversoul, which is the most important thing in the university He stressed the importance of the individual.

He regarded Nature as the symbol of spirit.

Emerson’s importance in the intellectual history of America lies in the fact that he make the nation have its own feature.标志着美国文化 有了自己的地位，特色

2. Thoreau 梭罗 强调 “nature”

His masterpiece, is the first and foremost, is the book on self-culture and human

perfectibility. 最重要的，这是一本关于自我修养与完善的书。 It is about man. What he is, what he should be and must be. 这本书是关于什么是人，他应该怎样做，必须怎么做的

Hawthorne, Melville & Dickenson were the three great American authors of the 19c who had no contemporary readers and yet became great in 20c 是美19c三个没有同时代读者，知道20c才备受好评的作家

Hawthorne 霍桑：dark romantic悲剧式人文主义 《红字》novel 《好人布朗》short story 七个尖角阁的房子 中的象征

1） His wife’s name “Faith”: a. the strong relifious beliefe

b.it also means Brown lived with “faith” everyday

2） His name “Goodman Brown”: “Goodman” could mean “farmer”, and “Brown” is a very common name. “Young Goodman Brown”: a very common young farmer.

3） Forest: The evil of internal world of everybody.

4） Sky, stars: Heaven and connection with God.

5） Colors: White-purity Red-sin Brown-the symbol of common people(neutral color) Melville 悲观主义 悲剧式人文主义 tragic humanism

1) «泰皮»

2) «欧穆» from his adventures among the people of the South Pacific islands

3) «玛地»

4) «雷得本» an account of his voyage to England

5) 白外衣» his life on a United States man-of-war

3. Whitman 惠特曼: the father of tree verse 自由体之父

Leaves of Grass 《草叶集》

Song of Myself 《自我之歌》when lilacs last in the Dooryard,Bloom当最后的丁香花开满园时 为林肯而作

Oh Captain, My captin 为林肯而作

4. Dickson 狄金森 从“个人内心”角度 地方 短

Wild Nights were American poets in theme and technique

5. Allan Poe 艾伦·坡 《乌鸦》

Literary Position

The father of modern short story; The father of detective story; The father of Psychoanalytic Criticism

Poe’s poems’ theory

1. Poems should be short, concise and readable at one sitting.

2. The aim of poem writing is beauty;

the most beautiful thing described by a poem is the death of a beautiful woman; the desirable tone基调 of a poem is melancholy悲伤.

3. He opposed didactic poems.反对说教诗歌

4. He stressed the form of poem, especially the beautiful and neat rhyme.

5. Famous Poems: The Raven, Annabel Lee, To Helen

Poe’s short story’s theory

1. The short story must be such length as to be read at one sitting (brevity)

2. The very first sentence ought to help to bring out the “single effect” of the story. 第一句话使读者对故事有一个简单的印象

3. No word should be used which does not contribute to the “pre-established”

design of the work (compression). “不为简单服务的句子都不应该在其中”

4. A tale should reveal some logical with “the fullest satisfaction,” and should end with the last sentence, leaving a sense of finality with the reader.故事应该最大程度的展露某些合乎逻辑的真理，最后收尾的一句话应该使读者感到故事圆满结束

Poe’s achievement

1. the establishment of a new symbolic poetry;

2. the formalization（形式化） of the new short story;

3. the invention of the story of detection（侦探） and the broadening of science fiction;

4. the foundation of a new fiction of psychological analysis and symbolism;

5. the slow development of an important critical theory and a discipline of analytical criticism.

Realism：现实主义

1. Howells 豪斯尔威:给总统写传记的两个人: Howells & Hawthorne

The Rise of Silas Lapham 《塞拉斯·路帕姆的发迹》

2. James 詹姆斯: the founder of psychological realism

意识流小说的先驱：The forerunner of “Stream of consciousnes” novels

The American Daisy Miller《戴茜·米勒》 The Golden Bowl 《金碗》

The Ambassadors 《奉使说》→ James considered his “most perfect” work of art.

James, Howells and Mark Twain are three staunch advocates of 19c American realism.

Local Colorism: 地方特色主义

Mark Twain 马克·吐温： 《汤姆·索亚历险记》→写给“孩子们的书” 《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》（最有名的、美现代文学的源头）Hemingway noted, “all modern American literature comes.”

The writing style: local colorism and the colloquial style.

The writing theme: racism and growing them

James, Howells and Mark Twain all worked for realism, but they are different.

In thematic terms, James wrote the upper calss, Hwells wrote the miidle, Mark Twain wrote the lower class.

Technically, Howells wrote in the vein of genteal realism, James pursued an “imaginative” treatment of reality. Mark Twain (in )used his theories of localism and colloquial style.

American Naturalism: 美国自然主义

1. Crane 克莱恩： A pioneer writing in the naturalistic tradition 自然主义写作手法先驱 《街头女郎：麦琪》is the first naturalistic novel in America Crane & Dickinson are two precursors of Imagist poetry 意象派诗歌先驱

2. Norris 诺里斯 《迈克提格》

3. Dreiser 德莱赛

O. Henry 欧亨利： 《麦琪的礼物》

Sinclair 辛莱克： The Jungle 《丛林》Sinclair Lewis 是美国历史上第一位诺贝尔文学奖获得者

The era of Modernism:1910-1930

Definition: modernism & Imagism: 意象派

1. Pound 庞德 《华夏集》 《诗章》(called pound’s “intellectual diary since 1915”) 《在地铁站》—意象派诗歌的经典之作

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet black bough

“apparition” has double meaning. a. meaning “appearance”.

b. meaning sth. Which seems real but perhaps is not real. 《休·赛尔温·毛伯丽》(庞德所做最好的一首诗)

译 《天净沙·秋思》 Autumn

2. T.S Eliot 艾略特:

1. Use of disconnected images/symbols

2. Use of literary allusions/references

3. Use of highly expressive meter and rhythm of free verses

4. Use of metaphysical whimsical images/whims

5. Use of flexible tone

3. Frost 弗罗斯特：He won the Pulitzer Prize four times.

The Road Not Taken 《未选择的路》

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 《雪夜驻马畔》

Frost认为 poem cannot be forced to 此观点与Pound 一致

4. Fitzgerald 菲茨杰拉德

“The Great Gatsby” 《了不起的盖茨比》

“Tender is the Night”

在“Tales of Jazz age”中，Fitzgerald 提出 “the Jazz Age ”

“The Last Tycoon” 《最后的大亨》 he didn’t finished.

5. Hemingway

→获诺贝尔奖（In our time, for the first time, Hemingway’s hero appears.）

6. Faulkner: 南部文学 喧哗与骚动 八月之光

Hemingway & Fitzgerald的异同之处：

The Commons

1. They grew up out of the same period and the same social situation. They are against the background of that time, so they wrote.

2. They are both talented writers; both lost the ability to write rather early in their career.

3. They are both great writers

The differences:

1. Reacted differently to their times:

Fitzgerald: he stayed in the United States and wrote about the Jazz Age. We go to him to know what this world was like. (用写作反对 describe)

Hemingway: he didn’t describe it. He went away to Europe and wrote about the expatriates.

2. The different features:

Fitzgerald: he tried to understand American culture at its roots

Hemingway: he is famous for his style (the simplicity and apparent naturalness of his prose, and its effect of directness, clarity and freshness. 文章简洁自然效果直接，清新自然 )

Transcendentalism：

1. It was a group of new ideas in , , , and that emerged in in the early to middle 19th century

2. There are three major features:

1) The transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe.

2) The transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them the individual was the most important element of society.

3) The transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.(Nature was,to them,not purely matter.) 自然是超灵或上帝的象征

Famous authors such as Emerson(MP Nature, The American Scholar),Thoreau( Walden) Realism:

1.It came in the latter half of 19th century .

2.a literary and intellectual movement that led poets and novelists not to imagine life as it could be, but to examine life as it was actually lived and to record what they saw around them as honestly as they could.

3. there are three elements of Realism:

① realists were concerned with the whole of life not just the surface of it

② Realists produced intensely personal works as well as broad studies of a changing society. ③ they used local color

④ the famous authors are James(Ambassadors), Howells (The rise of Silas Lapham), Mark Twain(The Adventure of Tom Sawyer ) and so on .

Naturalism

In the last decade of the 19th century, influenced by industrialism, Darin’s theory, literary naturalism came into being.

Features of Naturalism:

1.Humans are controlled by law of heredity and environment. And since they are controlled, they lack freedom of their own will.

2.The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires. Life becomes a struggle for survival.

3.Authors: Crane: Dreiser:

Modernism

1. It emerged in the beginning of the 20th century

2. It was a movement of artists and designers who rebelled against late 19th century

academic and historicist tradition

3. The key elements of Modernism in literature are experimentation, anti-realism, individualism and a stress on the cerebral rather than emotive aspects.

4. The work of Modernist writers is characterized by showing the disenchantment,

dislocation, and alienation of men in the world in most cases, a reaction to the cataclysm known as the Modern Age.

5. the best-known Modernists are T.S.Eliot, Pound, Fitzgerald(The Great Gatsby), Hemingway(The Old Man and the Sea )and so on. 1. It grew out of the Symbolist Movement in 1912

2. It is a Movement in U.S. and English poetry characterized by the use of concrete language and figures of speech, modern subject matter, metrical freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.

3. There are three Imagist poetic principles: direct treatment、elimination、rhythmical composition.

4. The Major Representatives of the Modern Poetry:Pound (his masterpiece is The Cantos(诗章）)T.S.Eliot (The Waste Land).

The

Generation

More generally,this included the young English and American expatriates as well as men and women caught in the war and cut off from the old values and yet unable to come to terms with the new era when civilization had gone mad.

作家作品 简化版

Franklin Irving Cooper Emerson：1. 2.3.Thoreau：Hawthorne： Melville:

WhitmanDickson:

Allan Poe:

Howells: The Rise of Silas Lapham

James: Mark Twain:T

Crane:Norris：

Dreiser：

O. Henry ： Sinclair Pound ： T.S Elio：Frost ：

Fitzgerald：

Hemingway： Faulkner：