英美文学考试题型及复习提纲.doc

英美文学考试题型及复习提纲（2008级）一、考试题型：本次考试共有5个大题，总分为100分，考试方式为闭卷考试，考试时长为120分钟，具体分值分布如下：I选择题，20个小题，每小题2分，共40分。考试内容为文学综合知识。II.连线题，10个小题，每小题1分，共10分。考试内容为作家与作品。III.名词解释。1. Puritanism 2. Free Verse. 3. American Naturalism3个小题，每小题5分，共15分。考试的内容为文学术语。IV. 篇章阅读。3个小题，每小题5分，共15分。考试的内容：作品。1. Song of Myself 2. I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - 3.The Road Not TakenV. 短文写作。一个小题，满分20分，考试的目标是对所学的作品进行赏析与评论。二、考试总目标: 考察学生英美文学的基本理论知识和理解、鉴赏英美文学原著的能力，分析作品的艺术特色的能力、正确评价文学作品的标准和方法，以及阅读文学作品的能力和鉴赏水平。三、美国文学本学期授课基本内容（请结合授课讲义PPT，lecture 1-11） Part one: The early American literature 1. American Puritanism（清教主义） Puritans=Calvinists(加尔文主义)1. John Calvin, a theologian, Puritans believed most doctrines preached by him, so they were also called CalvinistsPuritans wanted to “purify the church” to its original state, because they thought the church was corrupted and had too many ritualsTo be a Puritan: taking religion as the most important thing; living for glorifying God; believing predestination（命运天定）, original sin(原罪，人生下来就是有罪的，因为人类的祖先亚当和夏娃是有罪的), total depravity(人类是完全堕落的，所以人要处处小心自己的行为，要尽可能做到最好以取悦上帝), limited atonement (有限救赎，只有被上帝选中的人才能得到上帝的拯救) Life style of Puritans: pious（虔诚的）, austerity（简朴） of taste, diligence and thrift, rigid sense of morality, self-relianceThe Puritan dominating values were: hard work， thrift， piety ，sobriety。 2. Philip Freneau （佛瑞诺）(1752-1832)He was the most important poet in the 18th century. He was entitled “Father of American Poetry”. He wrote lots of poems supporting American Revolution and human liberty. His poems presented Romantic spirits but his form was mainly influenced by Classicism.Most famous poems: “The Indian Burying Ground”垂死的印第安人 and “The 重点把握：Wild Honey Suckle”野地里的忍冬花3. Benjamin Franklin2. His works:1) Poor Richards Almanac穷理查德历书 2) Autobiography自传 Part two: The Age of Romanticism I. Romanticism:The Romantic Period, one of the most important periods 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 Irvings The Sketches Book and ended with Whitmans Leaves of Grass. Being a period of the Great flowering of American literature, it is also called “the American Renaissance”.1. Washington Irving1. several names attached to Irving(1) first American writer(2) the messenger sent from the new world to the old world(3) father of American literature2. life3. works(1) A History of New York 纽约外史(2)The Sketch Book 见闻札记 He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this. It was published first in installment in America, then in full version in England. Two stories: “Rip Van Winkle”“瑞普凡温可尔” , “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” “睡谷的传说”4. Irvings contribution to American literature His contribution is unique in more ways than one. He did a number of things that have been regarded as the first of their kind in America. (1) He was the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame. To say that he was father of American literature is not much exaggeration. (2)The short story as a genre in American literature began with Irvings The Sketch Book. The book touched the American imagination and foreshadowed the coming of Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe, in whose hands the short story attained a degree of perfection as a literary tradition. It also marked the beginning of American Romanticism. 5. The theme of “Rip Van Winkle” (1) it reveals conservative attitude of Irving. (2) it might be an illustration of Irvings argument that revolution upset the natural order of things.The story is a tale remembered mostly for Rips 20-year s1eep, set against the background of the inevitably changing America. Rip went to sleep before the War of Independence and woke up after it. The change that had occurred in the 20 years he slept was to him not always for the better. The revolution upset the natural order of things. In the story Irving ski1lfu1ly presents to us paralleled juxtapositions of two totally different worlds before and after Rips 20 years s1eep. By moving Rip back and forth from a noisy world with his wife on the farm to a wild but peaceful natural world in the mountains, and from a pre-Revolution village to a George Washington era, Irving describes Rips response and reaction in a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferabi1ity of the past to the present, and the preferability of a dream-like world to the real one. Irving never seemed to accept a modern democratic America.II. TranscendentalismSummit of Romanticism American Transcendentalism1. What is TranscendentalismEmerson declares in his essay, What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us is idealism; idealism as appears in 1842. Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the history of American literature in the 19th century. Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “the recognition（认知） in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively（直觉地）”. Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Over-soul, the individual and Nature. The most important representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.Some New Englanders, not quite happy about the materialistic-oriented life of their time, formed themselves into an informal club, the Transcendentalist Club, and met to discuss matters of interest to the life of the nation as a whole. They expressed their views, published their journal, the Dial(日晷), and made their voice heard.Ralph Waldo Emerson1. life2. his contributions(1) He was the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism (2) He helped to found and edit the Transcendentalist journal, the Dial, to explain their ideas. (3) He was the most influential writer among his contemporaries. (4) He was the prophet of his age; he was likened to a cow from which all had milk though not all liked the taste. Thoreau, Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and many others were indebted to him in varying degrees; Hawthorne and Melville, reacting to his doctrine of optimism, benefited in their ways from Emersonianism. His influence extended beyond his own century. Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens were among the authors of the present century responsive to his philosophy.3. works(1) Nature(2) Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet3. point of view(1) One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in the transcendence of the “over-soul”.(2) He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man, and advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.(3) If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself and brings out the divine in himself, he can hope to become better and even perfect. This is what Emerson means by “the infinitude of man”.(4) Everyone should understand that he makes himself by making his world, and that he makes the world by making himself.4. aesthetic ideas(1) He is a complete man, an eternal man.(2) True poetry and true art should ennoble.(3) The poet should express his thought in symbols.(4) As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America which was to him a lone poem in itself.Henry David Thoreau1. lifeHe had few or no readers at his age. He became one of the three great American authors of the nineteenth century who had no contemporary readers and yet became great in the twentieth century, the other two being Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson. And his became a major voice for nineteenth-century America, now better heard perhaps than Emersons. His influence goes beyond America. His statue was placed in the Hall of Fame in New York in 1969 alongside those of other great Americans.2. works(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River(2) WaldenThoreaus masterpiece, is a great Transcendentalist work. It is a book about man, what he is, and what he should be and must be. Furthermore, the book is full of ideas expressed to jostle his neighbors out of their smug complacency. He recorded how he tried to minimize his own needs on Walden Pond.Nathaniel Hawthorne1. life2. works(1) Two collections of short stories: Twice-told Tales, Mosses from and Old Manse(2) The Scarlet Letter (an immediate success and allowed Hawthorne to devote himself to his writing)(3) The House of the Seven Gables(4) The Blithedale Romance(5) The Marble Faun Short stories:Young Goodman Brown 小伙子古德曼.布朗The Ministers Black Veil 教长的黑面纱The Birthmark 胎记3. Point of viewImbued with an inquiring imagination, an intensely meditative mind, and unceasing interest in the “interior of the heart” of mans being, Hawthorne remains one of the most interesting, yet most ambivalent writers in the American literary history. Hawthorne is influenced by Puritanism deeply. He was not a Puritan himself, but he had Puritan ancestors who played an important role in his life and works.Melville : “霍桑描写黑暗的巨大力量，是由于受到加尔文派交易关于与生俱来的堕落与原罪思想的影响。没有一位思想深邃的人能完全摆脱这种思想所发生的各种形式的影响。”Hawthorne评价Melville: “他既不肯信教，又对自己的不信感到惶恐不安。” 对霍桑同样适用。(1) Evil is at the core of human life, “that blackness in Hawthorne”Hawthorne is haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life and had a “black” vision of life and human beings. According to Hawthorne, “There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.” So, he takes that evil exists in the human heart, human heart is the source of evil. This also explains why he rejects the Transcendentalist optimism but looks more deeply and more honestly into life, finding much suffering & conflict in it. So in almost every book he wrote, Hawthorne discusses sin and evil. For example, in “Young Goodman Brown”, he sets out to rove that everyone possesses some evil secret. “The Birthmark” drives Hawthornes point that evil is mans birthmark, something he is born with. Hawthornes literary world turns out to be a most disturbed, tormented and problematical one possible to imagine.(2) Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed from generation to generation (causality).The House of the Seven Gables is an appalling fictional version of Hawthornes belief that the wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones, and that evil will come out of evil though it may take many generations to happen. Colonel Pyncheon takes by force the land of Matthew Maule, and condemns him as a wizard. He builds a house on the land while Matthew Maule is sent to the scaffold. Before he dies, the wizard curses the colonel, saying God will give him blood to drink. Retribution does come. The house seems to be haunted. The scion of the colonel wither and die out, and eventually it is the descendant of the persecuted wizard who gets the upper hand. 霍桑在探讨罪恶时，不是宣扬加尔文教义，而是抨击了它对人性的摧残，是要使人正视罪的存在，并把人从泯灭人性的罪恶感中解脱出来。(3) He is of the opinion that evil educates.Achievement is “under the impact of and by engagement with evil”经历过犯罪,受到其影响，人们才能有所成就Man is better for the crime which brings about the fall.人在犯罪后才能更好的完善自己(4) He has disgust in science and considers that one source of evil is overweening (too proud of oneself) intellect.His intellectual characters are villains, dreadful and cold-blooded. Hollingsworth in The Blithedale Romance, Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter, and Dr. Rappaccini in Rappaccinis Daughter are specimens of Hawthornes chilling, cold-blooded human animals. Take Dr. Rappaccini for example. In order to prove a scientific hypothesis, he does not hesitate to sacrifice the happiness of his own daughter in an experiment. He succeeds but he has to pay dearly: his daughter dies.4. aesthetic ideas(1) He took a great interest in history and antiquity. To him these furnish the soil on which his mind grows to fruition.Trying “to connect a bygone time with the very Present”, he creats “a neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land (介乎现实和虚幻的中间地带)where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other（真实和想象可以相遇并彼此影响” and makes the dream strange things look like truth.(2) He was convinced that romance was the best form to descrine American society. To tell the truth and satirize and yet not to offend: That was what Hawthorne had in mind to achieve.5. style typical romantic writer. As a man of literary craftsmanship, Hawthorne is extraordinary.(1) the use of symbolsHawthorne is a master of symbolism. The symbol serves as a weapon to attack reality. It can be found everywhere in his writing. Most of his metaphors and similes are stirringly fresh and effective. He makes skillful use of colors as a means for conveying mood. Black, red, and grey predominate. Hawthorne uses concrete objects as well as characters to serve as his symbols.(2) revelation of characters psychology With his special interest in the psychological aspect of human beings, there isnt much action, or physical movement going on in his works and he is good at exploring the complexity of human psychology(3) the use of supernatural mixed with the actual the ambiguity is one of the most important characteristics of Hawthornes art.(4) his stories are parable (parable inform) to teach a lesson(5) an impressive sense of formThe structure and the form of his writings are always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern(6) the ambiguity It is one of the most important characteristics of Hawthornes art. People come up with different interpretations and they do not know which one is definite. (7) Hawthornes vocabulary was wide and well controlled. He chose his words with a sharp sense of precise meaning and a keen ear for pleasant sound.6. The Scarlet Letter (always regarded as the best of his works, tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a Puritan community are involved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways)Whitman and DicksonWalt Whitman and “free verse”.father of modern poetry, singer of the Great PublicWhitman was born in 1819 into a working-class family and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Whitman was a daring experimentalist. His early poems are in conventional rhyme and meter, but apparently he found the restrictions disappointing. He began to experiment about 1847 which led to a complete break with traditional poetics. He broke free from the traditional iambic pentameter and wrote His long “catalogs” of lines gave free rein to his imagination in his life-long attempt to celebrate life in the new world. What he prefers for his new subject and new poetic feelings is “free verse”, that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. By means of “free verse”, Whitman believed, he has turned the poem into an open field, and area of vital possibility where the reader can allow his own imagination to play. Contrary to the rhetoric of traditional poetry, Whitmans is relatively simple and even rather crude. Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest, undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day. Another characteristic in Whitmans language is his strong tendency to use oral English.Whitman has been compared to a mountain in American literary history. You may go around him if you like, but you cannot pretend that he is not there. For his innovations in diction and versification, his frankness about sex, his inclusion of the commonplace and the ugly and his censure of the weaknesses of the American democratic practicethese have paved his way to a share of immortality in American literature. Walt Whitman has proved a great figure in the literary history of the United States because he embodies a new ideal, a new world and a new life-style, and his influence over the following generations is significant and incredible.The themes in Whitmans poetry: “Catalogue of American and European thought”He had been influenced by many American and European thoughts: enlightenment, idealism, transcendentalism, science, evolution ideas, western frontier spirits, Jeffersons individualism, Civil War Unionism, Orientalism. He was more indebted to Emerson than any other nineteenth-century American author. He drew most heavily from Emerson. I was simmering, simmering, simmering, Emerson brought me to a boil.” Echoing Emersons America is a poem in our eyes, Whitman declares The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. Both Whitman and Emerson wrote on the organic principle. To them, art should be based organically on nature; the poets work grows out of nature and derives its form from within. His poetry is filled with optimistic expectation and enthusiasm about new things and new epoch. Major themes in his poems (almost everything):1) he extols the ideal of equality of things and beings, democracy, nature, labor and creation, openness, freedom2) He celebrates mans dignity, the self-reliance spirit, advocates the realization of the individual value and brightestfutureof mankind Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the en-masse and the self as well.3) He praises the expansion of America4) He emphasis on brotherhood and social solidarity (unity of nations in the world)5) Pursuit of love and happiness is approved of repeatedly and affectionately in his lines. Sexual 1ove, a rather taboo topic of the time, is displayed candidly as something adorable. The individual person and his desires must be respected.Expresses his pursuit of love and happiness, his ideas about death, beauty of death6) He attacks the slavery system and racial discrimination 7) He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. To Whitman, the fast growth of industry and wealth