美国文学选读 名词解释与作品分析

1、美国文学选读 名词解释与作品分析 1. american puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in american thought and american literature. it is the religious belief of the puritans, who had intended to purify or simplify the religious rituals of the church of england. they believed in the original sin an

2、d the harsh day of doom, some good people - the chosen people or the elect - may be saved. their way of life was based on their somber religion and stressed hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety. puritans are more practical, tougher, and to be ready for any misfortune and tragic failure. they are op

3、timistic. 2. transcendentalism the transcendentalism movement was a reaction against 18th century rationalism and a manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th century thought. the movement was based on a fundamental belief in the unity of the world and god. mainly it stressed intuitive

4、understanding of god, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. the representative writers are emerson and thoreau. 超验主义（1830sthe civil war）：(1830-1850) 既不讲究逻辑，也不讲究系统，它只强调超越理性的感受，超越法律和世俗束缚的个人表达，他们相信精神上的超越，相信无所不能的善的力量，强调善为万物之源，万物都是善的一部分 transcendentalism: (1830-1850) def

5、ined as the recognition in man of the capacity of acquiring knowledge transcending the reach of the five senses, or of knowing truth intuitively, or of reaching the divine without the need of an intercessor. it had some basic principles that were generally shared by its adherents. they believed that

6、 god is immanent in each person and in nature and that individual intuition is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance and rejection of traditional authority. 1. stress the power of intuition, believing that people could learn things both from th

7、e outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner world by intuition. 2. place spirit (oversoul) first and matter second 3. take nature as symbolic of spirit or god. nature could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on human mind. people should come close to nature for instructi

8、ons 4. stress the importance of the individual (the ideal kind of individual is self-reliant and unselfish (individuality). 5. exalt feeling (subjectivity, imagination, heart thinking) over reason (rationalism, head thinking), individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. 代表：ralph wal

9、do emerson：nature, self-reliance；henry david thoreau：walden it exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. they believed in the transcendence of the oversoul, an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a pa

10、rt. 3. free verse means the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without paying attention to conventional rules of meter，instead, it uses the cadences(抑扬顿挫) of natural speech. it was originated by a group of french poets of the late 19th century. their purpose was to free themselves from the restricti

11、ons of formal metrical patterns and to recreate. walt whitman?s leaves of grass (1819-1892) is a notable example. 4. american naturalism is a literary movement that became popular in late 19th century america and is often associated with literary realism. viewed as a combination of realism and roman

12、ticism, critics contend that the american form 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. is heavily influenced by the concept of determinism the theory that heredity and environment influence determine human behavior. although naturalism is often associated with realism, which also seeks to accurately represent human existenc

13、e, the two movements are differentiated by the fact that naturalism is connected to the doctrine of biological, economic, and social determinism. a handful of significant american authors, such as stephen crane and theodore dreiser, utilized the form in making their novels like the red badge of cour

14、age and sister carrie. the gilded age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the united states during the post-civil war and post-reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. the gilded age is most famous for the creation of a modern industrial economy. the term book, the gild

15、ed age: a tale of today. the end of the gilded age coincided with the panic of 1893, a deep depression. the depression lasted until 1897 and marked a major political realignment in the election of 1896. after that came the progressive era. the lost generation is a group of expatriate american writer

16、s residing primarily in paris during the 1920s and 1930s. the group was given its name by the american writer gertrude stein, who used a lost generation to refer to expatriate americans bitter about their world war i experiences and disillusioned with american society. hemingway later used the phras

17、e as an epigraph for his novel the sun also rises. it consisted of many influential american writers, including ernest hemingway, f. scott fitzgerald and william carlos williams. the harlem renaissance originally called the new negro movement, the harlem renaissance was a literary and intellectual f

18、lowering that fostered a new black cultural identity in the 1920s and 1930s. with racism still rampant and economic opportunities scare, creative expression was one of the few avenues available to african americans in the early twentieth century. many of these beliefs were emphasized the necessity o

19、f black liberation, retaining black cultural pride, and not giving into white standards, especially the awareness of the blacks identity. harlem became the biggest hot spot in america for any aspiring african american artist. responding to the heady intellectual atmosphere of the time and place, wri

20、ters and artists, many of whom lived in harlem, began to produce a wide variety of fine and highly original works dealing with african-american life. these works attracted many black readers. hr was more than just a literary movement: it included racial consciousness, racial integration, the explori

21、ng of music particularly jazz, spirituals and blues, painting, and others. it was a huge leap for black liberation and culture. the beat generation is a group of american writers of the 1950s whose writing expressed profound dissatisfaction with contemporary american society and endorsed an alternat

22、ive set of values. the term sometimes is used to refer to those who embraced the ideas of these writers. the beat generations best-known figures were writers allen ginsberg and jack kerouac. psychological realism is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters thought

23、s and motivations. it places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization and on the motives, and internal action which springs from external action. in psychological realism, character and characterization are more than usually important. in the literature of the united state

24、s, henry james, arthur miller, and edith wharton are considered as major contributors to the practice of psychological realism. 10. confessional poetry is a type of modern poetry in which poets speak with openness and frankness about their own lives, such as in poems about illness, sexuality and dis

25、appointment. robert lowell, sylvia plath and allen ginsberg and theodore roethke are the most important american poets. 11. imagism is a literary movement launched by british and american poets early in the 20th century that advocated the use of free verse, common speech patterns, and clear concrete

26、 images as a reaction to victorian sentimentalism. the leaders of this movement were ezra pound and amy lowell. 12. the jazz age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between world war i and world war ii. particularly in north america. with the rise of the great depression, the valu

27、es of this age saw much decline. the age takes its name from popular music, which saw a tremendous surge in popularity. among the prominent concerns of the period are the public embrace of technological developments typically seen as progress- cars, air travel and the telephone- as well as new moder

28、nist trends in social behavior, the arts, and culture. perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is american writer fitzgeralds the great gatsby. fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term ?jazz age. 13. black humor is the use of morbid and the absurd for darkly comic purpos

29、es in modern fiction and drama. it is used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is somet

30、imes equated with tragic farce. black humor is a substantial element in the anti-novel and the theatre of absurd. joseph hellers catch-22 is an almost archetypal example. 14. catch-22 is a general critique of bureaucratic operation and reasoning. resulting from its specific use in the book, the phra

31、se is common idiomatic usage meaning no-win situationor double bindof any type. the term was originally from joseph heller?s anti-war novel catch-22. 15. local color local color or regionalism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early 1870s in america. the ultimate aim of t

32、he local colorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tells it apart from the world outside. the social and intellectual climate of the country provided a stimulating environment for the growth of local color fiction in america. local colorists concerned them

33、selves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. they tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. they formed an important part of the realistic movement. although it lost its momentum toward the end of the 19

34、th century, the local spirit continued to inspire and fertilize the imagination of author. 16. yoknapatawpha saga: most of faulkners works are set in the american south, with his emphasis on the southern subjects and consciousness. of his 19 novels, 15 of those are set in a sma1l region in northern

35、mississippi, yoknapatawpha county, which is actually an imaginary place based on faulkners childhood memory about the town of oxford in his native lafayette county. with his rich imagination, faulkner turned the land, the people and the history of the region into a literary creation and a mythical k

36、ingdom. the yoknapatawpha stories deal, generally, with the historical period from the civil war up to the 1920s when the first world war broke out, and people of a stratified society, the aristocrats, the new rich, the poor whites, and the blacks. as a result, yoknapatawpha county has become an all

37、egory or a parable of the old south, with which faulkner has managed successfully to show a panorama of the experience and consciousness of the whole southern society. the yoknapatawpha saga is faulkners real achievement. the adventures of huckleberry finn is considered as twains greatest achievemen

38、t. it tells a story about the u.s. before the civil war, around 1850s, when the great mississippi valley was still being settled. the story takes place along the river, on both sides of which there was unpopulated wilderness and a dense forest. along the river floats a small raft, with two people on

39、 it: one is an ignorant, uneducated black slave named jim and the other is a little uneducated outcast white boy called huckleberry finn. the book relates the story of the escape of jim from slavery system and more important, how huck finn helps him as best as he could, changed his mind, his prejudi

40、ce, and came to accept jim as a man and as a close friend as well. wrote about both the experiences of westward expansion and of southern slavery. main theme: hucks search for personal liberation, for the freedom based upon his maturity and his longing to be his own master. a satire on southern cult

41、ure before the civil war around 1850. shows how these no-count whites thought they were better than black slaves. satire on the genteel upper-class southerners- an aristocratic life full of violence and stupidity. the violence on which southern culture rests is a pretence or illusion to disguise the

42、 cowardliness of the people and their refusal to act as individuals. analyze (1) they are always exposed to and victimized by violence in various forms, nick becomes the prototype of the wounded hero who, with all the dignity and courage he could muster, confronts situation. (2) they are a group of

43、wandering, amusing, but aimless people, who are caught in the war and removed from the path of ordinary life. (3) they are the men trapped both physically and mentally. (4) god?s design or his beneficence and to suggest that man is doomed to be entrapped. (5) they believe: life is worth living and t

44、here are causes worth dying for. (6) in a tragic sense, the struggle of hemingway?s heroes show: it is a representation of life as a struggle against unconquerable natural forces in which only a partial victory is possible. nevertheless, there is a feeling of great respect for the struggle and manki

45、nd. (7) hemingway hero of athletic prowess and masculinity and unyielding heroism. (8) to master the code with the honest, the discipline, and the restrains are hemingway code heroes. in the general situation of his novels, life is full of tension and battles; the world is in chaos; man is always fi

46、ghting desperately a losing battle. however, 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 physically destroyed but never defeated spiritually. herman melville梅尔维尔 sea adventures are melvilles favorite subject; s also noted

47、for its symbolism, please analyzes it in detail. 1) about the sea adventure: it symbols the voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe; a spirit exploration into mans deep reality and psychology; 2) about the boat; it symbols the society, and the crew symbol all kinds of

48、people with different social and ethnic ideas; 3) about the white whale: to the author, it symbols nature, it is complex, unfathomable and beautiful; to the captain ahab, it is evilness, is a wall. so he will lead all his crew to cut through the wall to dig out all the unknown, mysterious things beh

49、ind it. to the narrator, ishmael, it is a mystery. symbolism in moby dick：it is regarded as the first american prose epic. 散文史诗？ it turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth 寻找真理and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into mans deep reality and psychology. different people on board the ship are representations of different ideas and different social and ethnic groups; facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings; the pequod is the microcosm of human society a