美国文学史及选读考试整理0204192333.pdf

Washington Irving Bracebridge Hall布雷斯布里奇田庄 1822 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Tales of a Traveller旅客谈 1824 Christopher Columbus 1828 c writing characteristics 1 humorous the function of his writing is to amuse to entertain instead of teaching or instruction 2 vivid and true character portrayal 3 finished refined and musical language thus regarded as the Amn Goldsmith d analysis on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 选 自 the sketch book见闻札记 1 the story setting character plot 2 theme conflicts and praise conflict betw Ichabod and Brom conflict betw the village and the outside world James Fenimore Cooper The Spy 1821 a historical novel The Pilot 1824 a sea novel Leatherstocking Tales皮裹腿故事集 1823 1841 frontier novels The Last Mohicans 1826 Colonial War betw Britain and France e writing features strong points we can see a variety of incidents and tensions complicated plot and structure and a beautiful description of nature Weak points characterization is weak There is unsatisfactory description of characters esp female He is not free from syntactical awkwardness heavy handed attempt at humor Where Irving excels Cooper is weak Dialect is not authentic Edgar Allan Poe The Fall of the House Usher Feature i brevity 15 pages ii Single effect iii originality in theme To Helen It was inspired by the beauty of the mother of a schoolmate of Poe in Richmond Virginia The poem is famous for a number of things 1 its rhyme scheme ababb 2 its varied line lengths 3 its metaphor of a travel on the sea 4 its oft quoted lines To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome theme praise the ideal love and beauty and ancient Greek and Roman civilizations The Raven乌鸦 theme the lament over the death of a beautiful woman tone melancholy Transcendentalism essayists poets novelists Their journal is The Dial Definition Transcendentalism is idealism Emerson b features 1 stress on Oversoul that is spirit 2 stress the importance of individual 3 fresh conception of nature c significance 1 inspired a whole generation of writers such as Whitman Melville and Dickinson 2 dresses man s subjective initiative as opposed to materialism 3 liberated people from Calvin s original sin d limitation 1 shallow cut off from real life or reality initiated by the rich they were limited in a certain circle So in some degree they have been cut off from social life and can t understand the sufferings of the common people 2 inward contradiction gain knowledge by intuition shows its idealistic aspect R W Emerson Ralph Waldo Nature 1836 the Bible of New England transcendentalism The American Scholar 1837 America s Declaration of Intellectual The Divinity School Address神学院致辞 1838 Essays 1841 1847 Representative Men 1850 English Traits 1856 Poems 1847 d significance 1 He embodied a new nation s desire and struggle to assert its own identity in its formative period 2 his stress on individualism Limitation self centered individual His ideas influence a lot of writers such as Dikinson Hawthorne and Whitman Henry David Thoreau A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers 康考德和梅里马克河上的一周 1849 Walden or Life in the Woods 1854 Civil Disobedience 不服从论 1849 an address c Walden main ideas 1 on self cultivation and human perfectibility elevated from Puritan original sin believe in inner virtue and inwardly grace 2 criticism on civilization and capitalism 3 only truth and knowledge can t be taken away trust in future and in man Style pithy colloquial sayings vivid description symbols and images Nathaniel Hawthorne Twice Told Tales 1837 a collection of short stories Mosses from an Old Manse古屋青苔 1846 another collection of short stories The House of the Seven Gables七个尖角的阁楼 1851 on the effect of a curse The Scarlet Letter 1850 masterpiece It s not a love story trying to show the moral emotional and psychological effects of sin on his characters A Adultery Able Angel A on chest sinner confessed died shows an honest man Moral man should be true and honest and ready to show one s worst to the world 批评与自我批评 Herman Melville Typee 泰比 1846 Omoo 奥穆 1847 Mardi 马尔迪 1847 这三部作品描写塔希提群岛和马吉萨斯群岛以及 他在岛上的奇遇 Redburn 莱德勃恩 1849 描写了他的第一次 航海经验以及在利物浦港贫民窟的见闻 White Jacket 白外套 1850 根据他在美国海 军军舰上服役时期的生活体验写成 Pierre 皮埃尔 1852 Israel Potter 伊斯莱尔 波特 1855 historical novel Piazza Tales 广场故事 1856 a collection of short story Moby Dick 白鲸 1851 masterpiece 1 a whaling book an encyclopedia of whaling description of a whaler s life 2 a tragedy about man fighting against universe hostile Man in this universe lives a meaningless and futile life meaningless because futile Man can observe and even manipulate in a prudent way but he cannot influence and overcome nature at its source 3 alienation 异化 between man and man between man and society ship between man and nature Ahab is the best representative To him the world exists for his sake His selfhood must be asserted at the expense of all else lives may be sacrificed and nature may have to be vanquished in order that he may do what he wills Richard Chase says the idea Melville conveys in it is death spiritual emotional physical 5 theme quest 6 symbolism the voyage a metaphor for search and discovery the search for the ultimate truth of experience the Pequod 皮阔德 the ship of the American soul the endeavor of the crews the maniacal fanaticism of our white mental consciousness Moby Dick many interpretations the symbol of nature W C Bryant the analysis on To a Waterfowl致水鸟 It is the most perfect brief poem in the language Matthew Arnold It is a poem of nature in quatrains rhyming in abab theme from a bird and its flight to an ordinary person and his course of life this poem conveys that everything in nature is under the beneficence and protection of the Power Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Theme idealized love children family and friendship A Psalm of Life The poem is divided into 9 stanzas each composed of two iambic tetrameter lines and two trochaic trimeter lines rhyming abab The first two stanzas refute the pessimism that life is but a dream affirming the contrary that life is real The following stanzas urge the reader to act in the present and to leave footprints as great people did in order to inspire the followers The last stanza ends with a resounding note while admonishing people to learn to wait as well as to labor Realism the 19th century literary movement that reacted to romanticism by insisting on a faithful objective presentation of the details of everyday life features i objective description concern for the commonplace the low ii criticism of society and reality exposing and criticizing the society the writers dissatisfaction no longer eulogize human glority iii verisimilitude 逼真性 true to details iv influenced by bourgeois 中产阶级 democratic ideas not overthrow but reform changes v reformative to reform the society not to change completely features Naturalism A post Darwinian movement of the late 19th century that tried to apply the laws of scientific determinism to fiction is a theory which applied scientific concepts and methods to such problems as plot development and characterisation Comparison between Realism and Naturalism Realism i objective ii creation of types iii influenced by British Rom works with hope Naturalism i scientific accuracy ii collect material from their lives iii against this hopeless gloomy picture of the society Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass 草叶集 1 themes i unity of all man and of man within universe ii equality of all man iii cycle of life and death iv enthusiastic idea toward Westward Expansion v brotherhood d Song of Myself自我之歌 1 influence of Transcendentalism praise of individualism 2 cycle of life and death 3 ideal of democracy equality between different races and brotherhood Emily Dickinson A Bird came down the walk I died for Beauty but was Scarce I Heard a Fly buzz when I died Because I could not stop for Death H B Stowe Uncle Tom s Cabin 1851 masterpiece significance 1 intensified and strengthened abolitionist sentiment 2 gave a better balanced more specific picture of plantation life 3 praised the merits of slaves and showed great sympathy for them Henry James The American 1877 begins with international theme Daisy Miller 1878 brings the author first international fame The Wings of the Dove 1902 The Ambassadors 1903 The Golden Bowl 1904 The Portrait of A Lady贵妇画像 masterpiece It tells about the fate of one of those splendid Jamesian American girls Isabel Archer arriving in Europe full of hope and with a will to live a free and noble life only to fail prey to the sinister designs of two vulgar and unscrupulous expatriates Madam Merle and Gilbert Osmond International theme 国际主题国际主题 the meeting of America and Europe American innocence in contact and contrast with European decadence and the moral and psychological complications arising therefrom for the American it was a process of progression from inexperience to experience from innocence to knowledge and maturity Those American heroes or heroins who confronting European sophistication either triumphed over it or were overwhelmed Mark Twain The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Count卡 拉维拉斯县有名的跳蛙 1865 a short story The Innocents Abroad国外的无辜者 1869 letters on his travelling in Europe and Near East Roughing It苦行记 1872 on his experience in the western America The Gilded Age 1873 his first novel collaborated with Charles Dudley Warner The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1876 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn哈克贝利 费恩 历险记 1884 masterpiece Life on the Mississippi 1883 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur s Court误闯亚 瑟王宫 1889 The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg败坏了哈德莱 堡的人 1900 The Mysterious Stranger 1916 e The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1 It is a boy s book which sets 20 years before Civil War 2 themes 1 picaresque 以流浪汉和无赖为题材的 adventure story 2 moral growth of Tom 3 techniques verisimilitude humor colloquial style Deadpan 铁面幽默 铁面幽默 oral humor the teller has a strict face but the listeners are laughing Language dialects as forms of art Jack London The People of the Abyss深 渊 居 民 1903 about London s slum The Iron Heel 铁 蹄 1908 the first proletarian criterion novel which envisages the development of fascism The Call of the Wild 野性的呼唤 1903 the most widely read book The Sea Wolf 海狼 1904 These two novels reflect the ideas of the law of survival and the will to power Martin Eden马丁伊登 1909 a reflection of the contradiction between these competeing beliefs c Martin Eden theme the failure of American Dream After he realized his dream of getting into the upper class he also realized the emptiness of it and committed suicide This is a book that missed fire with a majority of the critics Written as an indictment of individualism it was accepted as an indictment of socialism written to show that man cannot live for himself alone it was accepted as a demonstration that success made for death Had Martin Eden been a socialist he would not have died Consciously London meant the novel to show that only a belief in the people only the devotion of one s life to a cause greater than onself could give life any real meaning T Dreisser 西奥多西奥多 德莱塞德莱塞 Sister Carrie 嘉 莉 妹 妹 1900 the first novel masterwork Jannie Gerhardt 1911 The Fanancier 1912 The Titan 1914 The Stoic 1947 The Genius 1915 An American Tragedy美国悲剧 1925 Dreiser Looks at Russia 1928 c Sister Carrie theme the emptiness of Ameircan Dream i jungle law Famous actress bank manager the unfit is bound to die Country girl able to follow her instinct commit suicide ii chance and luck iii criticism of American values money and sex the standards to see if a person is successful iv concern for the poor Jazz Age the Jazz Age lasted from 1919 1929 the decade enjoyed economic prosperity The war and economic boom encouraged a breaking with the tradition Puritanism People upheld the value of money making and pleasure seeking Ezra Pound 埃兹拉埃兹拉 庞德庞德 Imagism 意象派 Pound became the most important figure Imagist poetry reached the peak of literature for three things appeared i a manifesto ii three principles iii a lot of writings Pound said an image is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time In a Station of the Metro在地铁车站 1 This is the much quoted masterpiece of Pound and a representative of the Imagist poetry 2 In form the poem is similar to the Japanese haiku a two line couplet with rhymes Pound s poem reminds the Chinese of two lines by a Tang poet Bai Juyi When describing the sad yet beautiful face of Yang Huifei a Tang emperess the poet wrote The beautiful face lonesome with tears A pear branch radiant with rain 3 The poem is a representative of Imagist poems in that the image of petals on a wet black bough best represents the picture of those lovely faces in the crowd and that the image is dominant in the poem the image itself is the poem T S Eliot poetry Prufrock and Other Observations 1917 Poems 1920 The Waste Land 1922 The Hollow Men 1925 Ash Wednesday 1930 Four Quartets 1943 plays Sweeney Agonistes 1932 Murder in the Cathedral 1935 The Cocktail Party 1950 The Confidential Clerk 1954 critical essays The Sacred Wood 1920 For Lancelot Andrews 1928 The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism 1933 After Strange Gods 1934 On Poetry and Poets 1957 c The Waste Land荒原 5 parts The Burial of Dead The Game of Chess The Fire Sermon Death by Water What the Thunder Said chief characteristics 1 quotations and allusions 暗示 2 objective correlative 3 juxtaposition 并 列 mingle brand image with common image 4 use of antiquity 古风 The Love Song Prufrock is not the image of one unlucky modern man instead he represents many other modern westerners who are divided between passion and timidity between desire and impotence 4 theme This poem reflects the decadent modern civilization and the nightmarish inferno in which modern Westerners are living in 5 techiniques 1 irony 2 striking images 3 the form of dramatic monologue The poem is written in irregular lines with but a few rhymes Robert Frost b Characteristics 1 not in the main stream of modern poetry but with conventional form and plain language That s why he s the most popular poet in the 20th century 2 a kind of a regionalist New England but not local colorism He used New England as a metaphor for the whole world and universe 3 a plain poet using symbols from everyday country life Simple symbols but express deep meanings The Road Not Taken 1 The poem was written in very regular lines with iambic pentametre and rhyme scheme of abaab 2 The symbolic meaning of the two divergent roads is rather clear They represent any important decisions in one s life 3 details Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 1 It is a lyric poem with iambic tetrametre and interlocking enclosed rhyme 2 It represents a moment of relaxation from the onerous journey of life an almost aesthetic enjoyment and appreciation of natural beauty which is wholesome and retorative against the chaotic existence of modern man The Lost Generation 1 term It is a term in frequent use after WWI in reference to the young men who survived physically but were afterwards spiritually and morally adrift So the lost generation refers to disillusioned writers who wrote after WWI Many of them went to the battle After the war they rebelled against former ideals and values and can t find new ones to replace 2 It first coined by Gertrude Stein In Paris she opens the door to American expatriates She once said to Hemingway You re all a lost generation 3 It was used as preface to The Sun Also Rises Then it became popular Fitzgerald once said they are a generation grown up to find all gods died all wars fought all faith in men shaken Ernest Hemingway 1 Hemingway theme hero situation Theme grace under pressure 2 nihilism negative attitude towards the world There is only one thing man is certain death 3 devotion to truth He believes the writer s job is to tell truth c style 1 iceberg principle The meaning here is that the writer should say only one eighth in such a way that the remaining seven eighths be discerned and provided by the reader 2 language short common fundamental words simple sentence structure The effect of the language clearness cleanness and great care 3 dialogue plays a very important part in his writings Hemingway s dialogue can show setting development of plot characters even theme 4 cinematic way he uses showing instead of telling He likes to describes actions kiss withdraw hand vividly instead of mental description 5 symbolism 6 use of stream of consciousness d A Farewell to Arms 1 If we say The Sun Also Rises tells why they lost this novel describes how they lost Thus it can be read as a footnote to the former 2 the double meanings of the title 3 the hero Henry Hemin