美国文学复习资料.doc

Imagism:1) It is a movement in U.S. and English poetry characterized by the use of concrete language and figures of speech, modern subject matter, metrical freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.2) It grew out of the symbolist movement in 1912 and was initially led by Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and others. 3) The Imagist manifesto came out in 1912 showed 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（节拍器）（free verse form and music）. 4) Pound defined an image as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, and later he extended this definition when he stated that an image was “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas, endowed with energy.” 5) There existed great influence of Chinese poetry on the Imagist movement. Imagists found value in Chinese poetry because Chinese poetry is, by virtue of the ideographic(表意的） and pictographic（表形的） nature of the Chinese language, essentially imagistic poetry.Modernism 1) Modernism is a cultural movement that generally includes the progressive art and architecture, design, literature, music, dance, painting and other visual arts which emerged in the beginning of the 20th century , particularly in the years following World War I. It was a movement of artists and designers who rebelled against late 19th century academic and historicist tradition, and embraced the new economic, social and political aspects of the emerging modern world. 2) The avant-garde movements that followed-including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Constructivism, and Abstract Expressionism-are generally defined as Modernist.3) Modernism in literature is not easily summarized, but the key elements are experimentation, anti-realism, individualism and a stress on the cerebral （理智的）rather than emotive aspects.4) The work of Modernist writers is characterized by showing the disenchantment, dislocation, and alienation of men in the world, and by the emphasis on experimentation and formalism and objectivism which are, in most cases, a reaction to the cataclysm known as the Modern Age.5) Among American writers, the best-known Modernists are T.S.Eliot, Ezra Pound, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and so on.The Lost Generation:1) The Lost Generation is a term used to describe a group of American intellectuals, poets, artists and writers fled to France in the post WWI years to reject the values of American materialism and to seek the bohemian lifestyle in Paris.2) Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date. 3) American poet Gertrude Stein actually coined the expression lost generation. Speaking to Ernest Hemingway, she said, you are all a lost generation. The term stuck the mystique surrounding these individuals continues to fascinate us. 4) The main representatives of Lost Generation include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos.5) The Lost Generation writers all gained prominence in 20th century literature. Their innovations challenged assumptions about writing and expression, and paved the way for subsequent generations of writers. American realism1) century as a reaction against “the lie” of romanticism and sentimentalism. It expressed the concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low. 2) The American realists advocated “verisimilitude of detail derived from observation,” the effort to approach the norm of experience a reliance on the representative in plot, setting, and character, and to offer an objective rather than an idealized view of human nature and experience. Regionalism (local color writing)1. The concept: The style of writing derived from the presentation of the features and peculiarities of a particular locality and its inhabitants. Simply it means The use of regional detail in a literary or artistic work. The name is given especially to a kind of American literature that in its most characteristic form made its appearance just after the Civil War and for nearly three decades was the single most popular form of American literature. Following in the footsteps of the pre-war sectional humorists, local colorists were interested in realistically depicting life in different sections of the United States in order to promote understanding and unification. Fiction writers like Sarah Orne Jewett, Bret Harte, O. Henry, and Mark Twain have been identified within this tradition. By the 1930s, the local color style had spread beyond the bounds of novels and short stories into less formal territory like the hometown material section of local newspapers. Local color writing had always been premised (前提）on an informal approach and rejection of high-culture concerns. Now it entered mass media.Naturalism and Muckraking1. The reasons on the coming of American Naturalism:1) Industrialism produced financial giants, but at the same time created an industrial proletariat entirely at the mercy of external forces beyond their control. Slums appeared in great numbers where conditions became steadily worse. 2) New ideas about man and mans place in the universe began to take root in America. Living in a cold, indifferent, and essentially Godless world, man was no longer free in any sense of the word. Darwinian concepts like “the survival of the fittest” and “the human beast” became popular catchwords and standards of moral reference in an amoral world. 3) French naturalism, with its new technique and new way of writing, appealed to the imagination of the younger generation. 2. The main characteristics of naturalism: 1) The writers of naturalism tore the mask of gentility to pieces and wrote about the helplessness of man, his insignificance in a cold world, and his lack of dignity in face of the crushing forces of environment and heredity. In their works there is a desire to assert ones human identity, to define oneself against the social and natural forces one confronts.2) They reported truthfully and objectively, with a passion for scientific accuracy and an overwhelming accumulation of factual detail. 3) The major representatives of American naturalists include Jack London, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser and so on.3. Muckraking:1) Muckraking is applied to American journalists, novelists, and