美国文学选读期末名词解释.doc

1. American Romanticism(美国浪漫主义)Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individuals expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. The romantic period in American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil war. Irving, Whitman and Thoreau are the representatives.Background(1) Political background and economic development(2) Romantic movement in European countriesDerivative foreign influencefeatures(1) 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.(2) There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained.(3) The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with American Romanticism.(4) As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent.浪漫主义两大主题：爱和大自然的力量 The social and cultural background of Romanticism： -The young Republic was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country. -The Romantic writings revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands. -The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. -The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values. Romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and mans societies as a source of corruption.2. Transcendentalism (超验主义、先验主义) : It was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the middle 19th century. It began as a protest against the general state of culture and society. Among transcendentalists core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that “transcends” the physical and empirical(以观察或实验为依据的) and is only realized through the individuals intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson（爱默生）, Henry David Thoreau（梭罗）, Walt Whitman（惠特曼）, etc. It is a kind of philosophy that stresses belief in transcendental things and the importance of spiritual rather than material existence. （相信超凡的事物，认为精神存在比物质存在更重要).American Transcendentalism(美国超验主义)Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the history of American literature in the 19th century, which flourished from about 1835 to 1860. Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Oversoul, the individual and nature. Specifically, they stressed intuitive understanding of God, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. The most important representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid 19th century. He expressed the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. Besides, his The American Scholar was considered to be Americans “Intellectual Declaration of Independence”.Oversoul It is an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come of which all things are a part. It is a key doctrine for Transcendentalists.Self-reliance Self-reliance is an essay written by American Transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson.It contains the most solid statement of one of his repeating themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas.These ideas are considered a reaction to a commercial identify. Emerson calls for a return to individual identity.Individualism(个人主义)Individualism is a moral, political, and social philosophy, which emphasizes individual liberty, the primary importance of the individual, and the “virtues of self-reliance”. It is thus directly opposed to collectivism, social psychology and sociology, which consider the individuals rapport to the society or community. It is often confused with “egoism”, but an individualist need not be an egoist.Walden It is one of the American classics written by Henry David Thoreau.It records his experiment in living at Walden pond, his sympathetic understanding of nature, his meditation on the meanings of life and his social criticism.Compared with Emersons Nature, it is more radical and social-minded. 3.Free verse (自由体诗歌)Free verse is a general term referring to the modern form of verse with no fixed foot, rhythm or rime schemes. It was first written and labeled by a group of French poets of the late 19th century. Free verse has been characteristic of the work of many American poets, including Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound and Carl Sandburg.“The Song of Myself”It is the best known poem in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.It is a celebration of the individual as well as the common people.4. American Realism（美国现实主义）The period ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been preferred to as the age of Realism.It was a literary doctrine that called for “reality and truth” in the depiction of ordinary life. It is, in literature, an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. Three dominant figures are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain and Henry James.Local Colorism/ Regionalism (地方特色主义)Local Colorism is popular in the late 19th century, particularly among authors in the south of the U.S. This style relied heavily on using words, phrases, and slang that were native to the particular region in which the story took place. The term has come to mean any device which implies a specific focus, whether it is geographical or temporal. A well-know local colorism author was Mark Twain with his book The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn.5.Jazz Age(爵士乐时代)The Jazz Age refers to the 1920s, a time marked by hedonism and excitement in the life of flaming youth.With the rise of the Great Depression, materially rich, spiritually lost, the generation felt frustrated with life and indulged in pleasure. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism.6. Yoknapatawpha(约克纳帕塔法)Most of Faulkners literary works were set in the small county of American South. It is the fictional modification of his hometown, Oxford, Mississippi.To Faulkner, this small piece of land was worth a lifes work in literary writing and here Faulkner created a world of imagination. Yoknapatawpha has become an allegory of the Old South, with which Faulkner has managed successfully to show a panorama of the experience of the whole Southern society.7. Southern Renaissance(南方文艺复兴)It is the revival of American Southern literature that began in the 1920s until the 1950s. The writers affirmed their position on the superiority of the Southern lifestyle over that of the industrialized north. William Faulkner and Katherine Anne Porter are writers of this type. Avant-garde (先锋派)It is a French military and political term for the vanguard of an army or political movement.This term extended since the late 19th century in literature, which refers to the innovative writer who is ahead of the time both in themes and style. In the 20th century American literature, writers like Faulkner and e.e.cummings can be called avant-garde writers. 8 Imagism: its 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艾米洛威尔.Imagism: It came into being in Britain and U.S around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation. The imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image. Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles: direct treatment of subject matter; economy of expression; as regards rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome节拍器. Pounds “In a Station of the Metro” is a well-known imagist poem.Imagism (意象派)Imagism was a poetic school at the beginning of the 20th century. Imagist poets strived for a simple, clear and vivid image, which in itself is the expression of art and meaning. The imagist poetry is a kind of free verse shaking of conventional metres and emphasizing the use of common speech and new rhythms.This movement was led by Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.Imagery (意象) Imagery means words and phrases that create pictures ,or images in the readers mind. In a literary text, it occurs when an author uses an object that is not really there, in order to create a comparison between one that is, usually evoking a more meaningful visual experience for the reader. It is useful as it allows an author to add depth and understanding to his work, like a sculptor adding layer and layer to his statue, building it up into a beautiful work of art.9.Black humor: To deal with tragic things in comic ways to make it more powerful and more tragic.It refers to the use of morbid病态的 and absurd荒谬的 for darkly comic purpose. It carries the tone of anger, bitterness in the grotesque situation of suffering, anxiety, and death. It makes the reader laugh at the blackness of modern life. The writers usually do not laugh at the characters.代表人物：Thomas Pynchon + Joseph HelleJoseph Heller：Catch-22 第22条军规It is not only a war novel, but also a novel about peoples life in peaceful time. This novel attacked the dehumanization of all contemporary institutions and corruptions of individuals who gain power in institutions. Armed-forces are the most outrageous example of the two evils.It is a combination of humor with resentment(怨恨), gloom, anger, and despair. Seeing all that is unreasonable, hypocritical, ugly, and even frenzied(狂乱的)，writers of black humor nurse a grievance(不平) against their society which, according to them, is full of institutionalized(制度化的) absurdity. Yet they are cynical. They laugh a morbid(病态的) laugh when facing the hideous（丑恶的）. In hopeless indignation（愤慨） they take up freezing irony and burning satire as their weapons. Their novels are often in the form of anti-novel（反传统小说）, devoid of(缺