怀化学院外语系美国文学考试范围.docx

1. The characteristics of rational literature(1) emphasis on rationality(2) the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality as the natural rights of man(3) brought to life secular（世俗的，现世的） education and literature(4) clarity（清楚） and precision（精确） in writing2. Thomas PaineMajor works:A.Common Sense B.American CrisisC.The Rights of Man D.The Age of Reason3. Benjamin Frankin(1)who is he?A.the only writer in the colonial period whose works are read today. B.a spokesman for the new order of the 18th century enlightenment C.The father of all YankeesD.The father of his country for quite some timeE.The symbol of America in the Age of Enlightenment, who brought the colonial era to a close(2)Franklins Contributions to the U.S.As a scientist He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital, an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania, and the American Philosophical Society. As an accomplished scientist He searched on electricity, experienced with his kite and invented the lightning rod and others: Effective street lighting The Franklin Stove Volunteer fire departments Bifocal glasses Swim finsAs a philosiphor: His philosophical ideas are illustrated in his masterpiece “Autobiography”: Puritanism and Enlightenment.As a literary man:Poor Richards AlmanacAutobiography(3) Poor Richards Almanac The Almanac contained the calendar, weather, poems, sayings and astronomical(天文学的）and astrological(占星术的） information that a typical almanac of the period would contain. (4)Introduction to AutobiographyA.His Autobiography is perhaps the first real American writing as well as the first real autobiography in English. B.“Autobiography” is the recording of his rising from a state of poverty and obscurity to wealth and fame. (from rags to riches)C.The Autobiography is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. Through telling a success story of self-reliance, the book celebrates, in fact, the fulfillment of the American dream.D. His Autobiography is perhaps the first real American writing as well as the first real autobiography in English. “Autobiography” is the recording of his rising from a state of poverty and obscurity to wealth and fame. (from rags to riches)The Autobiography is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. Through telling a success story of self-reliance, the book celebrates, in fact, the fulfillment of the American dream.E. A Puritan document. It is a record of self-examination and self-improvement.(5) Style of FranklinHis style is characterized by simplicity, frankness, wit, clarity, logic and order.4. Thomas Jefferson(1737-1809) (1)comments: Enlightener, planter, aristocrat, lawyer, a symbol of American democracy. Man of many talents: scientist, inventor, musician, linguist, architect, diplomat and writer. He served his country as Minister to France(1784-1789), Secretary of State(1789-1793), Vice President(1791-1801) and third President(1801-1809). (2)works: A Summary View of the Rights of British America英属美国之权利概观 The Declaration of Independence独立宣言 Notes on the State of Virginia弗吉尼亚状况笔记(3)thoughs Jeffersonian Democracy, which includes faith in the individual and common man, dislike an overly strong government. Politically, he is considered the father of the democratic spirit in his country.1. the definition of romanticism(1) A general term to refer to a type of sensibilityfound in all periods of literary historyusually considered to be in opposition to the principles of classicism.(2) An European intellectual and artistic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. 2. characteristics of romanticismA rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. (subjective)The feelings, intuitions and emotions were more important than reason and common sense.Not think of the world as a ticking watch made by God; thought of the world as a living, breathing being. Emphasized individualism, placing the individual against the group, against authority.Affirmed the inner life of the self (subconscious)Cherished strong interest in the past, especially the medieval.Attracted by the wild, the irregular, the indefinite, the remote, the mysterious, and the strange.3.2 periods of romanticismEarly Romantic Period (the end of 18th c.-1830s) Late/High Romantic Period(1830s-1860s)-Summit of Romanticism-Transcendentalism(the American Renaissance)4. Washington Irving(1) The first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame;The father of American literatureThe father of American short storiesThe first great prose stylist of American RomanticismThe American Goldsmith(2)writing stylesHe avoids moralizing as much as possible; he writes to amuse and entertain.He is good at enveloping his stories in a Gothic and supernatural atmosphere, the richness of which is often more than compensation for the slimness of plot.His characters are vivid and true so that they tend to linger in the mind of the reader.The humor has built itself into the very texture of his writings.The finished and musical language and the patent workmanship have been among the points of critical attention.“The Style is the man.”(3)major worksA History of New York纽约外史The Sketch Book见闻札记(1. short story2. “Rip Van Winkle”3. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” )Life of Oliver Goldsmith哥尔德史密斯传Life of George Washington5. James Fenimore Cooper(1789-1851(1) The first American Frontier novelThe first American Sea novelThe first American Historical NovelHis Leatherstocking Tales as the American National EpicAmerican Scott (2)major works Three kinds of novels: based on history and full of danger, narrow escape and brave deedsThe historical romance The Spy 间谍 (1821)The sea adventure The Pilot 舵手 (1824)The frontier sagaLeatherstocking Tales 皮裹腿故事集 (1823-1841) The Deerslayer杀鹿者 (1841) The Last of the Mohicans最后的莫希干人 (1826) The Pathfinder探路人 (1840) The Pioneers拓荒者 (1823) The Prairie大草原 (1827)(3)writing stylesCooper is good at inventing plots. His plots are sometimes quite incredible, but his stories are immensely intriguing.His landscape descriptions are majestic and suggestive of Sir Walter Scott.His style is dreadful. His characterization seems wooden and lacks probability, and his language, his use of dialect, is not authentic.4. He was quite conscious of the association of different locales.6. Edgar Allan Poe(1)ritic, poet, short story writer A great writer of fiction, a poet of the first rank and a critic of acumen and insight.(2)writing styles Theme: love and death Style: traditional; much too rational; he failed to carry the newness of his idea into his style, which incidentally failed to echo his central theme; not easy to read(his choice of words and his syntax have been responsible for his difficult prose.)7. Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864) (1) American novelist and short story writer， the first greatest American fiction writer in the moralistic tradition Representative of American Romanticism His later works show some Transcendentalist influence, including a belief in individual choice and consequence, and an emphasis on symbolism. (2) Themes in Hawthornes Writings Sin and Evil History and AntiquityAlienation8. Walt Whitman (1819-1892(1)life:Whitman was brought up in a working-class background, on Long Island. He had five years of schooling and a good deal of “loafing” and reading. Thirsting for experience and gregarious in habit, Whitman tried at a variety of jobs and picked up a first-hand knowledge of life and people in the new world. The experience with the people and the country furnished both the material and the guiding spirit for his epic, Leaves of Grass. When the Civil War began, he worked as a “wound dresser” in a military hospital. In 1873, he suffered a paralytic stroke and moved to New Jersey where he was taken good care of by his friends and where he spent the remaining years revising his Leaves of Grass.(2) Literary point of view1. Influenced by the leading New Englander Emerson, Whitman states that the greatest poet breathes into the world the grandeur and life of the universe.2. Art should be based on organically on nature; the poets work grows out of nature and cosmic processes and derives its form from within.3. Whitman embraces idealism. He relies on insight and intuition.(3) Themes1. He extols transcendent power of love, brotherhood, and comradeship.2. He expresses the ideals of democracy and equality. His poems reveal a world of equality without rank and hierarchy. He attacks the slavery and racial discrimination.He advocates the realization of the individual value. He celebrates the dignity and the self-reliant spirit(4)writing style1. Whitman broke free from the traditional iambic pentameter and wrote “free verse”, that is , poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.2. There is a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines contribute to the musicality of his poems.3. Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest, undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day. 4. Whitmans language is relatively simple and even rather crude. Another characteristic in Whitmans language is his strong tendency to use oral English. Whitmans vocabulary is amazing. He would use powerful, colorful, as well as rarely-used words. (4) varying length(5) Major poetical devices of Leaves of Grass (1) The verbal effects of oratory. The catalogue technique: (3) Parallelism(6)whitmans influence His influence over modern poetry is great in the world as well as in America. He has been compared to mountain in American literary history. For his innovations in diction and versification, his frankness about sex, his inclusion of the commonplace and the ugly and his censure of the weakness of the American democratic practice-these have paved his way to a share of immortality in American literature.(7) Comparison with the conventional verse9. Emily Dickinson (1) She was born into a Calvinist family. Her father, an old Puritan, with a heart “pure and terrible”, influenced his daughter in no small way. She was shy, sensitive, sometimes rebellious. It was during her mid-twenties that Emily became a recluse. She wanted to live simply as a completely independent person.(2) Themes 1. Based on her own experiences, joys or sorrows, she writes about doubt and belief about religious subjects, suffering and frustration caused by love, success and failure. 2. The largest portion of Dickinsons poetry concerns death and immortality. For Dickinson, death leads to immortality.3. On the ethical level, she holds that beauty, truth and goodness are ultimately one. 4. She emphasizes free-will and human responsibility.(2)writing style 1. Her poetry abounds in telling images. In the best of her poems, every word is a picture. So she is regarded as the precursor of Imagism poetry. 2. Her poetic idiom is noted for its conciseness, directness and plainest words. 3. Her poems are usually short, and the first line of Dickinsons poems is used to be the title. 4. The capital letters in her poems are used for emphasis.10.bryant11.longfellow12.melville1. Features of New England TranscendentalismEmphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul(against Newtons view of the mechanical world)Stress on the importance of the individualThe ideal type of man is self-reliant individual(against Calvinist concept of Original Sin and the dehumanization of industrialism) Perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God (tradition of literary symbolism)2. Ralph Waldo Emerson(1)worksNatureAmerican ScholarSelf-RelianceThe Over-Soul1。Mark Twain (18351910)literary