名词解释74831.doc

精品文档1美国梦：the American dream is an idea of believing to achieve a better life through hard effort.Also people have to work through their own hard work,courage,creativity and determination to move towards prosperity rather than relying on specific social classes and other assistance.2Puritanism:puritans wanted to “purify the church” to its original state,because they thought the church was corrupted and had too many rituals.To be a puritan:taking religion as the most important thing:living for glorifying God,believing predestination,original sin ,total depravity, limited atonement.3 The American Enlightenment Movement: Enlightenment is a philosophical movement of the 18th century that emphasized the use of reason to scrutinize previously accepted doctrines and traditions and that brought about many humanitarian reforms. The American Enlightenment is a term sometimes employed to describe the intellectual culture of the British North American colonies and the early United States. It is commonly dated from 1750-1820. Among the leading intellectual figures of this period are Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.4 Transcendentalism: was a movement for religious renewal, literary innovation, and social transformation. Its ideas were grounded in the claim of the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical (based on experience) and scientific and is knowable through intuition. Based in New England and existing in various forms from the 1830s to the 1880s, transcendentalism is usually considered the principal expression of romanticism in America. Many prominent ministers, reformers, and writers of the era were associated with it, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott, and Orestes Brownson.5 Gothic novel：the term “Gothic” derived from the frequent of the tales in the ruined.Moss-covered castles of the Middle Ages,but it has been extended to any novel which exploits the possibilities of mystery and terror in gloomy,craggy landscapes,decaying mansions with dark dungeons,secret passages,instruments of torture,ghostly visitation,ghostly music Or voices behind which lurks no one knows what ,and often ,as the central story,the persecution of a beautiful maiden by an obsessed and haggard villain,These novels , in rebellion against the increasing commercialism ,opened up to later fiction the dark,irrational side of human nature -the savage egoism, the perverse impluses. and the nightmares terror that beside beneath the controlled and ordered surface of the conscious mind.Moby-Dick：Theme:1.represents Melvilles bleak view of the word:Man can never overcome never.He must place himself at the mercy of nature.So,his book is first a Shakespearean tragedy of man who fights against overwhelming forces in an different universe.2. man in this universe lives a meaningless and futile lifeCaptain Ahab:is a tragic hero.He cuts himself from his wife,his children and the outside world.He hates Moby Dick which is an embodiment of nature.He is angry because his pride is wounded.He hears of no objection,and finally becomes a devil who fulfills his own revenge at the expense of his life as well as the lives of his crew.His tragedy stems from extreme individualism.Symbolism:1.Ahabs ship:a world in miniature 2.The voyage:a metaphor for”search and discovery” 3.Moby Dick:the mystery of the universeThe Scarlet Letter，which symbolizes Hester Prymes moral development.At first ,it is a token of shame “Adultery”,but the .her genuine sympathy and help changes it into “Able”.Later in the story ,the letter A appears in the sky,signifying”Angle”. Hester Pryme : in the strong character of the Hester Pryme.we see the tension between society and solitude which lies near the center of all Hawthornes art.The Scarlet Letter is not a praise of a Hester sinning,but a hymn on the moral growth of the woman sinned against;Dimmesdale:is totally different.He banishes himself from society.While Hester is able to reconstruct her life and win a moral victory.Dimmesdale undergoes the tragic experience of physical and spiritual torture.Hawthorne puts these two characters together,because he intends to illustrate that,the best policy for a man is to be true,honest,and ever ready to show ones worst to the outside world.Roger Chilling Worth:The real villain of the story. The scholar,the embodiment of pure and intellect ,commits “the Unpardonable Sin”_the violation of human heart.He keep preyingon Dimmesdales conscience until the poor is tormented to death.Annabel Lee1.Theme: Eternal love. The love between the narrator and Annabel Lee is so strong and beautiful and pure that even the seraphs, the highest order of angels in heaven, envy it. They attempt to kill this love by sending a chilling wind that kills Annabel Lee. However, the love remains aliveeternalbecause the souls of the lovers remain united. The death of a beautiful woman is a common theme in Poes writing.2.Rhyme, Rhythm, Repetition: Poe uses three Rsrhyme, rhythm, and repetitionin “Annabel Lee”to create a harmony of sounds that underscore the exquisite harmony of the narrators relationship with his belovedThe fall of the House of UsherThe Fall of the House of Usher is considered the best example of Poes totality, where every element and detail is related and relevant.The theme of the crumbling, haunted castle is a key feature of Horace Walpoles Castle of Otranto, a late 18th Century novel which largely contributed in defining the Gothic genre. The Fall of the House of Usher shows Poes ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically feelings of fear, doom, and guilt.These emotions center on Roderick Usher who, like many Poe characters, suffers from an unnamed disease. Like the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart, his disease causes his hyperactive senses. The illness manifests physically but is based in Rodericks mental or even moral state. He is sick, it is suggested, because he expects to be sick based on his familys history of illness and is, therefore, essentially a hypochondriac.Similarly, he buries his sister alive because he expects to bury her alive, creating his own self-fulfilling prophecy.Nature:Nature Emersons first published work was Nature (1836), which contains the gist of his transcendental attitude towards the phenomenal world, as a kind of beautiful symbol of the inner spiritual life, floating dreamlike before the eye, yet, it is to be noted, having discipline as one of its lessons for the attentive soul. As soon as it was published, it met with a mild reception. This work has the clearest statement of Transcendentalist ideas. In it Emerson stated that man should not see nature merely as something to be used; that mans relationship with nature transcends the idea of usefulness. Nature is a kind of discipline to man. Once you are in nature, totally in solitude, you feel youre nothing, but you see all. Nature makes people feel transparent and humble. Meanwhile, He saw an important difference between understanding (judging things only according to the senses) and reasonSelf-RelianceThis prose is finished according to a series of speech materials between 1836 and 1837. Self-Reliance is his significant work which expresses his idea of transcendentalism. “Believe in Yourself” is the core point of Self-Reliance. Emerson opposed all forms of imitation in the works. He thought the man should believe he was excellent at any time. The real man should learn how to reject to drift with the stream. If a man is afraid o