美国文学术语

multiple points of view: In multiple points of view , we are shown the events from the positions of two or more different characters. The use of this technique gives the story a circular form wherein one event is the center, with various points of view radiating from it. The multiple points of view technique makes the reader recognize the difficulty of arriving at a true judgment.Faulkner was a master at presenting multiple points of view, showing within the same story how the characters reacted differently to the same person or the same situation. For example, The Sound and the Fury uses four different narrative voices to piece together the story and thus challenges the reader by presenting a fragmented plot told from multiple points of view. Multiple points of view The employment of several narrators or narrative points of views to tell a story, thus making the structure of the book somewhat radioactive. For example, The Sound and the Fury uses four different narrative voices to piece together the story and thus challenges the reader by presenting a fragmented plot told from multiple points of view.Hemingway Code Hero It refers to some protagonists in Hemingways works. In the general situation of Hemingways novels, life is full of tension and battles; the world is in chaos and man is always fighting desperately a losing battle. Those who survive and perhaps emerge victorious in the process of seeking to master the code with a set of principles such as honor, courage, endurance, wisdom, discipline and dignity are known as the Hemingway code. To behave well in the lonely, losing battle with life is to show grace under pressure and constitutes in itself a kind of victory, a theme clearly established in The Old Man and The Sea. Though life is but a losing battle, it is a struggle man can dominate in such a way that loss becomes dignity; man can be physical1y destroyed but never defeated spiritually. Obviously, Hemingways limited fictional world implies a much broader thematic pattern and serious philosophica1 concern. Hemingway Code Heroes plainly embody Hemingways own values and view of life. Stream-of-Consciousness Stream of Consciousness is a narrative method to describing the unspoken thoughts and feelings of the characters, but not using objective description or conventional dialogue. Authors represent the thought, emotions without logical sequence or syntax and make the characters tell the inner movement of consciousness and the thoughts. Harlem Renaissance The first flowering of African-American literature. It came about during the 1920s and early 1930s in the Harlem district of New York. The first important literary movement of African-American writers, it brought the long neglected African-American literature to the attention of the whole world. Though short-lived, it produced such outstanding writers as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Rudolph Fisher, Wallace Thurman, Arna Bontemps, Eric Waldron, and James W. Johnson.the Lost Generation Its a term coined by Gertrude Stein and Hemingway quoted it on the title page of The Sun Also Rises”You are all a lost generation”. Since then it is used to refer to the post-war generation who are devoid of religious and traditional values, individually lost a sense of identity,exist only for feverish sensuality or are sustained only by their personal honor. Leading figures include: Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Dos Passos, and F.S. Fitzgerald.American dreamThe American dream is a national ethos in United States which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of American dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstance of birth. The idea of American dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights including Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness.Modernism现代主义：is loosely a synonym of anything contemporary. Strictly, especially in literary criticism, which began in the late 19th century and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. They pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one.The jazz age:It refers to the 1920s,marked by frivolity, carelessness, hedonism, and excited in the life of flaming youth.Franics is largely responsible for the term and many of his workers portray it. The term is brought vividly to life in The Great Gatsby.Puritanism: is practices and beliefs of puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purify their religious and practices. They felt that the church of England was too close to the church of Rome in doctrine form of worship. The Puritans wished to restore simplicity to church services and authority of the Bible to theology. The Puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people, and it followed logically that anyone who challenged their way of life was opposing Gods will and was not to be accepted.Their life were disciplined and hard. Puritans tended to suspect joy and laughter as symptoms of sin. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind. American Puritanism also had an enduring influence on American literature.Transcendentalism:Transcendentalism took their ideas from the romantic literature from Europe. As a philosophical and literary movement, transcendentalism flourished in New England from 1830s to the Civil War. Its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau.Emersons Nature has been called the “ Manifesto of American transcendentalism”.And his The American Scholar has been rightly regarded as Americans “Declaration of Intellectual Independence.Symbolism is a literary movement that arose in France in the last half of the 19th century and that greatly influenced many English writers, particularly poets of the 20th century. To the symbolist poets, an emotion is indefinite and therefore difficult to communicate. Symbolist poets tend to avoid any direct statement of meaning. Instead, they work through emotionally powerful symbols that suggest meaning and mood.A symbol is something that conveys two kinds of meaning: it is simply itself and it sands for something other than itself. A symbol, in other words, is both literal and figurative. People, places, things can be used symbolically.American naturalism: was a new and harsh realism, and like realism, it had come from Europe. In naturalist fiction people are often caught within forces of nature or society that are beyond their understanding or control. In T. Dreisers novels the characters actions are determined by uncontrollable society and physical factors.American naturalist writers are Stephen Crane,Frank Norris, Jack London and Theodore Dreisers Sister Carrie is the work in which naturalism attained maturity.Psychological realism:It is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters thoughts and motivations. And Henry James is considered the founder of psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in the impressions made by life on the spectator. Such realism is therefore only the obligation that the artist assumes to represent life as he sees it, which may not be the same life as it “really” is. “the ambassadors” is considered to be a masterpiece of psychological realism.Free verse: is a poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure. Instead, it uses the natural speech. Whitmans poetry is an example of free verse at its most impressive. It was Whitman who pioneered the form and made it acceptable in American poetry.American Romanticism:A literary movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Romantic literature generally exhibits some of these six characteristics:1. a profound love of nature; 2.a focus on the self and the individual; 3.a fascinate with the super, the mysterious and the gothic; 4.a yearning for the picturesque and the exotic; 5.a deep-rooted idealism or love of the country; 6.a passionate nationalism. Example: Scarlet Letter.ImagismImagism as a literary movement flourished only briefly, but it had considerable in fluence on modern poetry. Imagism as the doctrine and poetic practice is characterized by the following three poetic principles: direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective, to use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation. As regarding rhythm to c