美国文学复习要点.doc

Benjamin Franklin: Remember Benjamin Franklin as inventor, statesman and writer. Remember him as father of the United States. Writing features The Autobiography: It is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision. The narrative is lucid, the structure is simple, the imagery is homely.Edgar Allan Poel Remember Poe as father of modern short story and father of detective story.l Remember his important works.l Remember his critical works: The Poetic Principle and The Philosophy of Composition.l Be able to list some of his famous short stories and some of his famous poems such as The Raven, Annabel Lee, To Helen. Tell the story The Cask of Amontillado in your own words.What is the theme of this short story?Be familiar with his poem To Helen.Ralph Waldo Emerson Know something about transcendentalism. Remember Emerson as the leader of this philosophy: Transcendentalism refers to a kind of attitude that believes in the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses. Major concepts 1) Power of intuition. 2) Spirit first, matter second. 3) Nature as symbolic of spirit or God. 4) Individual as the most important element in society/ self-reliant 5) Religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “oversoul” 6) Commerce as degrading/ pay less attention to the material world The “over-soul” as called by Emerson was an all-pervading unitary spiritual power of goodness, omnipresent and omnipotent, from which all things came and of which everyone was a part. Generally, the over-soul referred to spirit of God as the most important thing in the universe. Emersons Nature is called manifesto of transcendentalism. The American Scholar (1837) is regarded as “Americas Second Declaration of Independence / Declaration of Intellectual (Cultural) Independence” Be familiar with the essay Self-reliance.Henry David Thoreau n Remember Thoreau masterpiece.n Tell the main contents of Walden in your own words.Nathaniel Hawthornen Introduce The Scarlet Letter in your own words.n The influence of Puritanism on The Scarlet Letter.n Analyze the main characters.n Tell the symbolic meanings of the letter A.n List Hawthornes major works. Herman Melvillen Be able to list Melvilles major works.n Be able to retell the story of Moby Dick in your own words.n Be able to analyze the character Captain Ahab.n Be able to tell the symbolic meanings of Moby Dick, the ship Pequod and the coffin: the White Whale can be read as an allegorical representation of an unknowable God or the mysterious force of nature; the Pequod is a symbol of doom/death; Queequegs coffin alternately symbolizes life and death. n The influence of Puritanism on Moby Dick. Walt Whitman Remember Whitmans most important work. What is free verse? A kind of poetry that does not conform to any regular metre: the length of its lines is irregular, as is its use of rhymeif any. Instead of regular metrical pattern it uses more flexible cadences or rhythmic groupings, sometimes supported by anaphora and other devices of repetition. Now the most widely practiced verse form in English, it has precedents in translations of the biblical Psalms and in some poems of Blake and Goethe, but established itself only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with Walt Whitman. Be familiar with the poem O Captain, My Captain and know its main idea. Emily Dickinsonv Be familiar with her three poems in the textbook and their themes.v Know something about Dickinsons poetic features: A. Her poems have no titles, hence the first line of each poem is always quoted as the title of each poem.v B: particular stress pattern: dash“ ”v C: Capital letters as a means of emphasis;v D: Language: brief, direct, and plain;v E: Poem: short, always on original images or symbols v F: Conventional meters, iambic tetrameter, off-rhymes.v G: Short poetic lines, condensed by using intense metaphors and by extensive use of ellipsis.Mark Twainn What was Mark Twains true name? What does his pen name mean?n What book of his is thought to be the best one about which Hemingway said “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain?n What is his first real novel? What is its sequel?n Name three of his other works. n Retell the short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.n What do you know about Mark Twains Style? Vernacular Language: Mark Twain wrote in his unpretentious, colloquial, and poetic style. He used vernacular language. The directness of the language is a very influential point in Twains style. Local Color: Twain depicted social life through descriptions of local places and people he knew best and believed that “the most valuable capital, or culture, or education usable in the building of novels is personal experience.” Cracker-barrel Philosopher: Twain adopted the moral stance of a cracker-barrel philosopher. This term is often used to mean someone who understands folk wisdom, has a pretty good common sense of view of life, and is pretty realistic about social problems. Twain was that kind of a person. Henry James Remember Henry James as founder of psychological realism. The definition of psychological realism. Know his international theme: “The international theme” refers to the moral and psychological complications when the American innocence encountered the European sophistication Remember the themes in The Jolly Corner: Memory and Reminiscence, Alienation and LonelinessStephen Cranen The definition of American Naturalism.n Remember Stephen Cranes important works.n Be familiar with The Open Boat and know the themes of the short story.F. Scott Fitzgerald Remember Fitzgerald as the spokesman of the Jazz Age and his major works. Be able to introduce The Great Gatsby and make comments about Gatsby.William Faulkner Remember some of Faulkners famous works. Know something about his writing features: a. complex plot b. stream of consciousness c. characterization: he was able to probe into the psychology of characters d. violation of chronology e. courtroom rhetoric: formal language f. multiple points of view, circular form Be familiar with Barn Burning and know the conflict in it. Ernest Hemingway Remember him as the spokesman of the Lost Generation. Memorize Hemingways major works. Know the theme of the short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place: The theme of Nada /nothingness is the keynote of the whole story. Nada means hopelessness, aimlessness and meaninglessness of life. Nearly all the characters live in Nada. Faced with “nothing in the modern society now and then, man should seek light and order to establish dignity in life. Hemingways Iceberg principle: His sentences only give one small bit of the meaning. The rest is implied. One must go very deep beneath the surface to understand the full meaning of his writing. Certainly, there are moments when the reader feels the suggestion of vast meaning beneath Hemingways few, spare words. Hemingways Code Hero: The “Hemingway Code” of manhood does not involve mere physical strength, sexual potency, or ability to accumulate (or spend) wealth. According to this code, a man is defined by will, pride, and endurance: the endurance to accept pain, even loss-when the loss cannot be avoided; the pride of knowing that one has done ones best, with the courage to act truly according to ones own nature; and the will to face defeat or victory without whining on one hand or boasting on the other. Ezra Pound Remember Ezra Pounds most important work The Cantos. Be familiar with In a Station of the Metro and know the images in it. Remember the three Imagist poetic principles: direct treatment of the “thing”（no fuss, frill, or ornament）, exclusion of superfluous words（precision and economy of expression）, the rhythm of the musical phrase rather than the sequence of a metronome（free verse form and music）Wallace Stephens Be familiar with his poem Anecdote of the Jar. Remember the symbolic meaning of the jar.William Carlos Williams Be familiar with his poem The Red Wheelbarrow. Images in The Red Wheelbarrow.Robert Frostl His four collections of poems that won Pulitzer Prizes.l Be familiar with the three poems of his in the textbook.l Symbolic meaning of road.l Theme in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Langston HughesBe familiar with his poem Me and the Mule.Images in Me and the MuleEugene Gladstone ONeillv Remember ONeill as the father/founder of modern American theatre.v Remember the four plays which won him Pulitzer Prizes: Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie, Strange Interlude, Long Days Journey into Night.v Introduce the play Desire Under the Elms and analyze the tragic elements in it.v Themes of Desire Under the Elms.Arthur Miller Remember his masterpiece. Death of a Salesman and American Dream.Ralph Waldo Ellison Remember him as a black writer. Remember his important works: Invisible Man (novel), Shadow and Act (a collection of political, social and critical essays), Going to the Territory (collection of essays) Be familiar with Chapter I of Invisible Man.Toni Morrisonn Remember her important novels.n Themes of Recitatif.n Be familiar with Recitatif.20th-Century American Poets What do you know about Confessional poetry? Poets in the 1950s and 1960s who, closing the gap between the poet and the speaker (a gap desired in modernist poetics), intensely explore their dark selves; Robert Lowell is foremost among these poets. Other noted ones: John Berryman, W .D. Snodgrass, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton. Lowells Life Studies gave Confessional poetry a new life and a new level of popularity in the postwar period. Confessional poems b