美国文学题1

第一部分 殖民地时期的美国文学What are the characteristics of Colonial America? All of the works written during this period are utilitarian , polemical , or didactic .The purpose of literature for these Puritans was first of all usefulness . It should teach some kond of lesson . In content , the literature of the colonial settlement served either God or colonial expansion or both . The literary style of the earliest American writers , in fact seems to have been determined by a practical consideration of the sort of impression each writer wanted to make upon a selected group of readers . Puritansmetaphorical mode of perception helped to develop literary symbolism as they saw the physical world a symbol of God . Hence symbolism as a technique was a common practice in writing . The Piritans placed unusual stress upon plainness in writing because they were unusually interested in influencing the simp;e-minded people . Bearing the direct influence fo the Christian Biblical poetics , the Puritan writings are fresh , simp;e ,direct , and with a touch of nobility . As it faithfully imitated and transplanted European forms to the new experience , early American literature was as much a product of continuities as an indigenous creation.第二部分 理性文学和革命文学1 As we have seen , theology dominated the Puritan phase of American writing . Politics was the next great subject to command the attention of the best minds.2 From 1732 to 1758 , Franklin wrote and published his famous Poor Richards Almanac , an annual collection of proverbs . 3 Enlightement The eighteenth century England is also , and better , known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age fo Reason . The Enlightenment was a progressive intellectual movement going on throughout Europe at the time , with France in the vanguard . The Enlightenment celebrated reason (rationality) , equality , science and human beings ability to perfect themselves and their society . The movement was based on the basic theories provided by the philosophers of the age , which ranged from John Lockes materialism , Lord Shaftsburys deism , and George Berkeleys immaterialism to David Humes skepticism . Whatever philosophical beliefs they might have , they held the eommom faith in human rationality and the possibility of human perfection through education . They believed that when reason served as the yardstick for the measurement of all human activities and social relations , superstition , injustice , privilege and oppression were to yield place to “eternal truth” ,”eternal justice” , and “natural equality” or inalienable rights of men . Everything was put under scrutiny , to be measured by reason . No authorities , political or religious or otherwise , were acepted unchallenged while almost all the old societies and governments and all the traditional concepts , including Christianity , were examined and criticized . The belief provided theory for the French Revolution in 1789 and the American War of Independence in 1776 . Alexander Pope (16881744) , Joseph Addison (16721719) , Richard Steele (16721792) , Jonathan Swift (16671745) , Daniel Defoe (16601731) , Henry Fielding (17071754) , Richard B. Sheridan (17511816) , Oliver Goldsmith (17301774) , Edward Gibbon (17371794) , and Samuel Johnson (17091784) were among the famous enlighteners in England . As England had already gone through its bourgeois revolution , what the English enlighteners were lege to do was to strive the bring the revolution to and end by clearing away the feudal remnants and rep;ace them with bourgeois ideology .第三部分 美国的浪漫主义文学1 In 1828 the election of the frontier hero Andrew Jackson as the seventh President of the United States had brought an effective end to the “Virginia Dynasty” of American Presidents .2 Wsahington Irvings Skwtch Book bacame the first work by an American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic .3 Washington Irving was the first great prose stylist of American romanticism , and his familiar style was destined to outlive the formal prose of such eontemporaries as Acott and Cooper ,and to provide a model for the prevailing prose narrative fo the future . 4 What are the unique features of American Romanticism? Although foreign influnences wre strong,American romanticism exhibited from the very outset distinct features of its own.It was different from its English and European counterpart because it originated from an amalgam of factors which were altogether American rather than anything else.American romanticism was in essence the expression of”a real new experience”and contained”an alien quality”for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place”was radically new and alen.Foe instance ,the American national experience of “pioneering “ into the west proved to be a rich fund of material for Ameican writers to draw upon.The wilderness with its virgin forests ,the sound of the axe cutting its way westward, the exotic landscape with its different sights, smells,and sounds(the robin rather than the nightingale is Emily Dicckinsons “criterion of tone,”for example), and the quaint,picturesque civilization of a primitive raceall these constituted an incomparably superior source of inspiration for native authors.A rude Natty Bumppo in buckskin, dweling in a fromtier blockhouse, treading a solitary bridle path through virgin forests was ,perhaps , matter enough for any romantic genius.And indeed, American authors were quite responsive to the stimulus which American life offered.Henry Wadsworth Longfellows tentive treatment of the frontier and the Indians in his works such as Hudson valley, William Cullen Bryants sketches of the wild west prairie where no human being had ever set foot and James Fenimore Coopers five Leatherstocking tales with”their majestic descriptions of Americans limitless forests and broad blue inland lake”these are but aafew instances whereby the new American sensibility began to make itself felt.And ,of course , we should not forget to mention Emerson,Thoreau,Hawthorne,Melville and Whitman, all people who were instrumental ,in one way or another ,in creating an indigenous American literature. Then there is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider.American moral values were essentially Puritan.Public opinion was overwhelmingly Puritan;social life and cultural taste were predominantly conditioned by the Puritan and cultural taste were predominantly conditioned by the Puritan atmosphere of the nation.Nothing has left a deeper imprint on the character of the people as a whole than did Puritanism;no one has been so successful in imposing his way of thinking on the continent as the American Puritan.puritanical influence over Ameican romanticism w3as conspicuously noticeable.One of its palpable manifestations is the fact that American romantic authors tended more to moralize than their English and European brothers.It is true that Edgar Allan poe fought vehemently against “the heresy of the didactic”,and writers like John Greenleaf Whittier tried to advocate both beauty and goodness.But the fact remains, nonetheless ,that many American romantic writings intended to edify more than theyentertained.There seemed to be areas of life which it was better for them to leave alone, taboos of a kind that most of the literary world agreed,however tacit it may have been, on not breaking.Sex and love werem for instance, subjects American authors were particularly careful in approaching.Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter talks eloquently about the sin itself ,and Whitman was for a long time misunderstood by his own countrymen because Leaves of Grass contains lines and passages not at all palatable to their “genteel” taste.练习二1. Emerson was recognized throughout his life as the leader of_ movement, yet he never applied the term to himself or to his beliefs and ideas. 2. Emersons truest disciple, the man who put into practice many of Emersons theories, was_.Define the literary terms listed belowAmerican Transcendentalism Keys: 1. Transcendentalist, 2, H.D ThoreauTerm: American Transcendentalism or “New English Transcendentalism” or “American Renaissance” is more of a tendency, an attitude, than the philosophy of Transcendentalists. To “transcend” something is to rise above it, to pass beyond its limits. Transcendentalists took their ideas from the romantic literature of Europe, from new-Platoism, from German idealistic philosophy, and from the revelations of Oriental-mysticism. They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. The major features of New England Transcendentalism can be summarized as the follows.Firstly, the Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the Universe.Secondly, they stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual was the most important element of society.Thirdly, they offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was , to them, alive, filled with Gods overwhelming presence. Transcendentalism is based on the belief that the most fundamental truths about life and death can be reached only by going beyond the world of the senses.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 Americas “Declaration of Intellectual Independence.” Thoreau built and went to live in a small cottage on Walden Pond for a little over two years, and then came back to write about his experience there in his famous book Walden. To later generations, scarred by the horrors of the Civil War, the transcendentalist persuation that humanity was godlike and that evil was non-existent appeared to be an optimistic folly. As a philosophy, Transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematical. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. Yet Transcendentalism was a powerful expression of the intellectual mood of the age, and the ideas it represented have remained a strong influence on great American writers from the days of Hawthorne and Whitman to the present. 练习31 _deals with the effects of a curse, and though the tale itself is fiction, the germ of the story sprang from the authors family history.2. Hawthornes unique gift was for the creation of strongly _stories which touch the deepest roots of mans moral nature. The finest example is the recreation of Puritan Boston, _.3. _ is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. Define the literary terms listed belowSymbolismKeys:1. The House of the Seven Gables 2, symbolic The scarlet letter3. Moby-Dick.Symbolism: Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols. A symbol is something that conveys two kinds of meaning; it is simply itself, and it stands for something other than itself. In other words, a symbol is both literal and figurative. People, places, things and even events can be used symbolically. A symbol is a way of telling a story and a way of conveying meaning. The best symbols are those that are believable in the lives of the characters and also convincing as they convey a meaning beyond the literal level of the story. Hawthorn and Melville were the two masters of symbolism. For example, the scarlet letter “A” on Hesters breast can give you symbolic meanings. If the symbol is obscure or ambiguous, then the very obscurity and the ambiguity may also be part of the meaning of the story. Answer the following questions. 1. Give a brief analysis of the main characters in The scarlet Letter2. Give a brief analysis of the character Ahab in Moby-Dick.3. What is the theme in Moby-Dick?4. What is Hawthorns style?Keys: 2, The way in which Hawthorn wrote The Scarlet Letter suggests that American Romanticism adapted itself to American Puritan moralism. The load of didacticism is nowhere heavier and the desire to elevate nowhere stronger than it is, perhaps, in this 19th American classic. Reading it, one wonders whether it is a story of love. The answer is yes, but then no, because the love part of the story is long over before the book begins. One wonders whether it is a story if sin. The answer is yes, but then no, for the sinning part is long over before the book opens Modern and contemporary authors would have written pages where Hawthorn uttered not a word, What he was predominantly concerned was the moral, emotional, and psychological effect of the sin on the people in general and those complicated in it in particular. In the strong character of Hester Psynne we see the tension between society and solitude which, as Marius Bewley put it, lies near the center of all Hawthorns art, The Scarlet Letter is not a praise of a Hester Prynne sinning, but a hymn on the moral growth of the woman when sinned against. Hawthorns female characters tend to fall into two broad categories. (答案未完)4 Ahab may have been Melvilles portrait of an Emersonian self-reliant individual. Melville lost no opportunity in his criticism of New England Transcendentalism. Constantly under his attack is its emphasis on individualism and Oversoul. To say that the whole of Moby-Dick is a negative reflection upon Transcendentalism is not in fact an exaggeration. Take Emersons self-reliance for instance. Ahab is too much of a self-reliant individual to be a good human being. He stands alone on his own one leg among the millions of the peopled earth, For him the only law is his own will. To him the world exists for his sake. His selfhood must be asserted at the expense of all else: lives may be sacrificed, and nature may have to be vanquished in order that he may do what he will. He never stops to think-and he never bothers about it-that, in asserting his private personality, he denies ruthlessly the humanity and individuality of his fellowmen. Ahab is no Odysseus, and this crew seems to be a ship of fools too much under the captains evil spell to exercise their discretion. Between them, they encompass their own undoing. Richard Chase is right when he says that the idea Melville conveys in Moby-Dick is “Death-spiritual, emotional, physical,” which is the price of self-reliance when it is pushed to the point of solipsism. Ahab is, to be more exact, a victim of solipsism, his tragedy stemming in the main from extreme individualism, selfish will, a spirit too much withdrawn to itself to warrant salvation, Moby-Dick thus reveals the basic pattern of 19th century American life: loneliness and suicidal individualism in a self-styled democracy,5. One of the major themes in Melville is alienation, which he sensed existing in the life of his time on different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Captain Ahab seems to be the best illustration of it all. He cuts himself off from his wife and kid, and stays away most of the time from his crew, and he hates Moby-Dick which is am embodiment of nature. He is angry because his pride is wounded. After the loss of his leg in his encounter with the white whale, he seems to hold God responsible for the presence of evil in the universe. Thus his anger assumes the proportions of a cosmic nature. He is bent on avenging himself. He hears of no objection. In his egocentric obsession within “the masoned, walled town of a captains exclusiveness,” he loses his sanity and humanity and becomes a devilish creature rushing headlong toward his doom. And he knows it most clearly of all. When D.H Lawrence remarks,” “he Melvillerecords also, almost beyond pain or pleasure, the extreme transitions of the isolated, far-driven soul, the soul which is now alone, without any real human contact” he had Ahad topmost in his mind. In a sense Ahab embodies all of the evil he once consigned to Moby-Dick9. A. Hawthorne wrote romance because he thought it the predestined form of American narrative. He presented material on the alienation between fact and fancy. The purpose of a novel, as it developed in 18th century Europe, was to record the actual events of life, to stick to what actually happened, but Hawthorn explained that the purpose of romance was to present the truth of the human heart by the writers own choice or creation. He wanted to reveal reality and satirize it but not to offend the Puritan conventions, For Hawthorne, romance, unlike the novel, was not tied to conventional reality. Romance had the