realism and the three复习讲义.doc

American Realism (1865-1910)I. General ReviewA literary and intellectual movement that led poets and novelists not to imagine life as it could be, but to examine life as it was actually lived and to record what they saw around them as honestly as they could.a contemporary view of what was happening; an attempt at defining what was real. General Features Story: detailed followings of reality, realistic events Character:superior to plot; complexity of human emotions; distinguished social classes or status Theme: ethical decisions at the root of the storyII. American Realism1. Backgrounds: Politically: Civil War headed resolutely towards capitalism a deterioration in American moral values lead to questions of the ever-lasting Emersonian goodness Economy: increasing industrialization and mechanization appearance of economic thumbs: Rockefeller, Morgan, ect. the redirection of American dream: the popularity of Horatio Alger (1867, Ragged Dick) the spirit of self-reliance the seek of money and power Charles Darwins “survival of the fittest”, the Jungle Law. Geography: The closing of frontier end of the spiritual sustenance of “the next hill” (illusion)reexamination of life (disillusionment)Literature: against “the lie” of Romanticism.Liberty SincerityPoetic diction & idealization accurate documentation & sociological insightBeauty objects from everyday life, preferably from lower classesAn individual and emotional age A positivist and scientific age Realism vs. RomanticismWhat lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. -Ralph Waldo EmersonClothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -Mark Twain2. The Three Primary Founders William Dean Howells (1837-1920)The Dean of American LiteratureThe Dean of American Letters The Father of American realism and a denouncer of the sentimental novel The first president of the American Academy of Arts and Lettersi. worksCriticism and FictionThe Rise of Silas Laphamii. Literary theories Realism is “fidelity to experience and probability of motive,” as a quest of the average and the habitual rather than the exceptional or the uniquely high or low. Realism was best suited as a technique to express the spirit of America. Object: man in everyday life “to seek him in his habitual moods of vacancy and tiresomeness” a central concern with psychological changes. Plot: Minimize and let it grow naturally from the characters and conditions. Character: equipped with solidity of specification and be real. truth as well as morality to winnow tradition and write in keeping with current humanitarian ideals the critic: learn from the detached scientist “to identify the literary species and explain the weakness of a work in the light of the authors intentions.”iii. Famous comments:Such beauty and such grandeur as we have is common beauty, common grandeur. These conditions invite the artist to the study and appreciation of the common. The arts must become demographic, and then we shall have the expression of America in art. - Criticism and FictionI hope the time is coming when not only the artist, but the common, average man, who always has the standard of the arts in his power, will have also the courage to apply it, and will reject the ideal grasshopper wherever he finds it, in science, in literature, in art, because it is not simple, natural, and honest, because it is not like a real grasshopper. But I will own that I think the time is yet far off, and that the people who have been brought up on the ideal grasshopper, the heroic grasshopper, the impassioned grasshopper, the self-devoted, adventureful, good old romantic card-board grasshopper, must die outbefore the simple, honest, and natural grasshopper can have a fair field. - Criticism and Fiction(2) Henry James (1843-1916) the most important author of trans-Atlantic literature. one of the key figures of 19th-century literary criticism.i. “international theme”America innocence and naive(individualism, self-dependence) the clash of personalities and cultures The moral and psychological complications. European complexity and decadence(traditionalism) James protagonist: young American woman facing oppression or abuse. James ideal: to combine the best of both harmoniously.ii. Representative worksDaisy MillerThe Portrait of a LadyThe AmbassadorsThe Turn of the Screw(3) Mark Twain (1835-1910) an important American writer and humorist. lauded as the greatest American humorist of his age. extensively quoted.“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”“Classic-a book which people praise and dont read.”“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”“Humor is mankinds greatest blessing.”1. Life Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, November 30, 1835. the sixth of seven children; Father died when he was 12; a printers apprentice, a tramp printer, a silver miner, a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi, and a frontier journalist; married Olivia in 1870; marriage lasted for 34 years. earned money by writing, but lost it in bad investments; later years tends to be a despairing determinist. died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut.“I came in with Halleys Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I dont go out with Halleys Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together. -Mark Twain (said in 1909)“I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and Im not feeling so well myself.” Mark Twain2. Writing Styles Local Colorism (Regionalism)i. Definition:Local colorism or Regionalism is fiction and poetry that focuses on the characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other features particular to a specific region. Influenced by Southwestern and Down East humor, between the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century this mode of writing became dominant in American literature.ii. Development of American Local Colorism1860s 1870s 1880s 20th centuryiii. Features:a. tend to idealize and glorifythe end of the frontier; the superiority of the East. the psychological need to assert other regional cultural identities; a nostalgia and sentimentality towards the past.b. a truthful colorIn local-color literature one finds the dual influence of romanticism and realism, since the author frequently looks away from ordinary life to distant lands, strange customs, or exotic scenes, but retains through minute detail a sense of fidelity and accuracy of description. iv. Function: contributed to the reunification of the country after the Civil War. to the building of national identity toward the end of the nineteenth century. the end of the frontier; the superiority of the East. the psychological need to assert other regional cultural identities; humor and “tall tale”i. Tall tale: stories with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual.“That fish was so big, why I tell ya, it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in! ii. Features: exaggeration of actual events narrator part of the story humorous and witty3. works“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”(a frontier tale; earned him national fame)The Adventures of Tom SawyerAdventures of Huckleberry Finn (all modern American literature comes)The Gilded Age (written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner)Life on the MississippiThe Innocents AbroadRoughing ItA Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs CourtThe Man That Corrupted HadleyburgThe Prince and the Pauper4. Adventure of Huckleberry Finn The storyIt tells a series of adventures of Huck and Jim down the Mississippi River. At the end of the novel, Huck is planning another adventure west towards the Indian Territory. Themes“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.” - Mark Twain social discrimination. (racism) personal conscience(humanitarianism) Achievementsi. true-to-life details intense verisimilitude of detail all characters had prototypesin realityii. Application of vernacular words: short, concrete and direct Sentence: simple and compound Excerpts And then think of me! It would get all around, that Huck Finn helpeda nigger to get his freedom; and if I was to ever see anybody from that town again, Id be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. Thats just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he dont want to take no consequences of it. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old womans nigger that hadnt ever done to no harm, and now was showing me theies One thats always on the lookout, and aint agoing to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further. I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. And went on thinking a