美国文学简史常耀信版讲义ppt课件

1、The Writers of the “Lost Generation,Lost Generation “Listen, Robert, going to another country doesnt make any difference. Ive tried all that. You cant get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. Theres nothing to that.” The Sun Also Rises, pg. 19,What is the Lost Generation? Literall

2、y, it is the generation of people born between 1883 and 1900.They were disillusioned by World War I. Known in Europe as the “1914 Generation”,The Other Lost Generation The phrase was coined by Gertrude Stein (spoken to Hemingway): “You are all a lost generation.” Group of American writers in the Pos

3、t-World War One era who were: Displeased with American social values, sexual and aesthetic conventions, and established morality. First fled to cities such as Chicago and San Francisco; then to Paris, London, Madrid, Barcelona, and Rome (in particular, Montparnasse). All pioneered new ways of writin

4、g, rebelling against the traditional Victorian literary style. Writers such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, and Gertrude Stein,Between 1921 and 1924, the number of Americans in Paris grew from 6,000 to 30,000. Paris was the prime city in which the Lost Generation chose to

5、wander,Paris,Montparnasse served as the heart of artistic creativity and intellect in Paris after the war. Contained many cheap studios, apartments, and was also an area filled with important cafes and other nightlife. All of the Lost Generation writers found themselves here at one time or another,M

6、ontparnasse,F. Scott Fitzgerald,Dropped out of Princeton University in 1917 to fight in WWI, but the war ended before he shipped out. one of the most popular and accomplished writers of the movement. major works This Side of Paradise The Last Tycoon The Beautiful and the Damned The Great Gatsby,Abou

7、t The Great Gatsby: The setting is New York City and Long Island during the 1920s. Nick, the narrator, is a young Princeton man, who works as a bond broker in Manhattan. He becomes involved in the life of his neighbor at Long Island , Jay Gatsby, shady and mysterious financier, who is entertaining h

8、undreds of guests at lavish parties,Gatsby reveals to Nick, that he and Nicks cousin Daisy Fay Buchanan, had a brief affair before the war. However, Daisy married Tom Buchanan, a rich but boring man of social position. Gatsby lost Daisy because he had no money, but he is still in love with her. He p

9、ersuades Nick to bring him and Daisy together again. Gatsby tries to convince Daisy to leave Tom, who, in turn, reveals that Gatsby has made his money from bootlegging. Daisy, driving Gatsbys car, hits and kills Toms mistress, Myrtle Wilson, unaware of her identity. Gatsby remains silent to protect

10、Daisy. Tom tells Myrtles husband it was Gatsby who killed his wife. Wilson murders Gatsby and then commits suicide. Nick is left to arrange Gatsbys funeral, attended only Gatsbys father and one former guest,A Brief Analysis: Dream of wealth - money brings him nothing but morally bankrupt Dream of so

11、cial position - he struggles to be a part of the upper class, but remains unalterably an outsider. Dream of lost love - only find the woman is not quite the ideal love of his dream - His life is a grand irony,Conclusion: Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald presages the decay of his generation. Cynical

12、yet poignant, the novel is a devastating portrait of the so-called American Dream, which measures success and love in terms of money. His book was meant as a grim sign to foreshadow that destruction,Life story - Born in 1899 in Illinois, the son of a country doctor. - badly injured in the Red Cross

13、Ambulance Corp in Italy before his 19th birthday. - fought in World War II and then settled in Cuba in 1945. - in 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature - because of the expulsion from Cuba, he moved to Idaho - commit suicide by shooting himself, in July, 1961,Ernest Hemingway,Major work

14、s: The Sun Also Rises (1926) A Farewell to Arms (1929) For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) The Old Man and the Sea (1952,Writing career: - First major novel was The Sun Also Rises, win his the position as spokesman of the “lost generation” 1926 -The novel concerns a group of psychologically bruised, disi

15、llusioned expatriates living in postwar Paris, who take psychic refuge in such immediate physical activities as eating, drinking, traveling, brawling, and lovemaking,his next important novel, A Farewell to Arms, 1929, based on his experience - The story tells of a tragic wartime love affair between

16、an ambulance driver and an English nurse. -For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 - in detailing an incident in the war, argues for human brotherhood - The Old Man and the Sea, 1952, restoring his literary image - celebrating the indomitable courage of an aged Cuban fisherman,The Sun Also Rises,The book was

17、a success and established Hemingway as an internationally-known author. While Hemingway, like Fitzgerald, explores and critiques the superficiality of his characters indulgent lifestyles, he touches upon a number of other themes, many of which have to do with new notions of masculinity arising after

18、 the war. Jakes purported impotence is a powerful symbol for the emasculated postwar male psyche, and bull-fighting describes sex as warfare on several metaphorical levels,Emasculation and impotence: One of the key changes Hemingway observes in the Lost Generation is that of the new male psyche, bat

19、tered by the war and newly domesticated. Jake embodies this new emasculation; most likely physically impotent, therefore, can never have Brett. Jake is even threatened by the homosexual men who dance with Brett in Paris; while not sexually interested in her, they seemed to have more manhood than Jak

20、e, physically speaking. Though a veteran, Jake now works in an office and fritters away his time with superficial socializing; he admires bull-fighters so much, because they are far more heroic than he is or ever was,Main Themes,Sexuality and bull-fighting: Hemingway draws numerous parallels between

21、 bull-fighting and Bretts sexuality. Romero, the bull-fighter, also penetrates with his sword both the bull and, as Jake metaphorically describes it, the audience In one episode, Jake also resembles steers, young oxen castrated before sexual maturity. Jake resembles the steer that joins the herd of

22、bulls, much as he, as a castrated male, manages to belong to his group of virile friends,Nature and regeneration: Hemingway depicts nature as a pastoral paradise uncorrupted by the city or women. Each time Jake ventures into nature, especially on his fishing trip, he is rejuvenated,The Aimlessness o

23、f the Lost Generation World War I undercut traditional notions of morality, faith, and justice. No longer able to rely on the traditional beliefs that gave life meaning, the men and women who experienced the war became psychologically and morally lost, and they wandered aimlessly in a world that app

24、eared meaningless. Jake, Brett, and their acquaintances give dramatic life to this situation,The Aimlessness of the Lost Generation World War I undercut traditional notions of morality, faith, and justice. No longer able to rely on the traditional beliefs that gave life meaning, the men and women wh

25、o experienced the war became psychologically and morally lost, and they wandered aimlessly in a world that appeared meaningless. Jake, Brett, and their acquaintances give dramatic life to this situation,The Destructiveness of Sex Sex is a powerful and destructive force in The Sun Also Rises. Brett i

26、s closely associated with the negative consequences of sex. She is a liberated woman, having sex with multiple men and feeling no compulsion to commit to any of them. Her carefree sexuality makes Jake and Mike miserable and drives Cohn to acts of violence. In Brett, Hemingway may be expressing his o

27、wn anxieties about strong, sexually independent women,A Farewell to Arms A Farewell to Arms is a semi-autobiographical novel. The novel is told through the point of view of Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian army during World War I,Plot summary: The

28、novel is divided into five parts. In the first book, Henry meets Catherine Barkley and their relationship begins. While on the Italian front, Henry is wounded in the knee by a shell and sent to a hospital in Milan. The second part shows the growth of Henry and Catherines relationship as they spend t

29、ime together in Milan over the summer. Henry falls in love with Catherine and by the time he is healed, Catherine is three months pregnant,In the third part, Henry returns to his unit, but not long after, the Austro-Germans break through the Italian lines and the Italians retreat. Henry is taken to

30、a place by the battle police where officers are being interrogated and executed for the treachery that supposedly led to the Italian defeat. However, after hearing the execution of a Lt.Colonel, Henry escapes by jumping into a river. In the fourth part, Catherine and Henry reunite and flee to Switze

31、rland in a rowing boat. In the final book, Henry and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until she goes into labour. After a long and painful labour, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to haemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Henry alone in the rain,The Grim Reality of War The novel offe

32、rs masterful descriptions of the conflicts senseless brutality and violent chaos. Nevertheless, the novel cannot be said to condemn the war; A Farewell to Arms is hardly the work of a pacifist. Instead, just as the innocent engineers death is an inevitability of war, so is war the inevitable outcome

33、 of a cruel, senseless world. Hemingway suggests that war is nothing more than the dark, murderous extension of a world that refuses to acknowledge, protect, or preserve true love,Quotation Explanation: “I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices wer

34、e like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could

35、 say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.,When Henry meets the young patriot, Gino, in Chapter XXVII, the two have a

36、conversation that confirms Henrys ambivalence about war. Gino prattles on about the sacredness of the fatherland and his own willingness to die for his country. To Henry, such abstractions as honor, glory, and sacrifice do little to explain or assuage the unbelievable destruction that he sees around

37、 him. What matters, he decides, are the names of villages and soldiers, the concrete facts of decimated walls and dead bodies. He believes that in order to discuss the war honestly, one must dismiss artificial concepts and deal with terms grounded in the reality of the war. He tarnishes the romantic

38、ized ideal of the military hero by equating the “sacrifices” of human lives in war with the slaughter of livestock. He further compares romantic riffs about honor and glory to burying meat in the ground. Nothing can be sustained or nurtured by such pointlessness,The Grim Reality of War The novel off

39、ers masterful descriptions of the conflicts senseless brutality and violent chaos. Nevertheless, the novel cannot be said to condemn the war; A Farewell to Arms is hardly the work of a pacifist. Instead, just as the innocent engineers death is an inevitability of war, so is war the inevitable outcom

40、e of a cruel, senseless world. Hemingway suggests that war is nothing more than the dark, murderous extension of a world that refuses to acknowledge, protect, or preserve true love,Hemingway hero - an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent, a man of action, and one of f

41、ew words, somewhat an outsider, keeping emotions under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one cannot have happiness. - Hemingway hero appears on the scene to learn to live in grace under pressure,Hemingway theme - “grace under pressure” Hemingways journalistic style: Hemin

42、gway is considered as the initiator of Journalistic style. Hemingways spare, laconic prose was influenced by his early work as a journalist, and he has probably had the greatest stylistic influence over 20th-century American writers of anyone. The key to Hemingways style is economy; we usually learn

43、 less about Jake through his direct interior narration, but more through what he leaves out and how he reacts to others. Hemingway provides a good outline of his own style when Jake describes Romeros bull-fighting style. Like Romero, Hemingway moves close to his subject, but eschews flashiness in fa

44、vor of honest, authentic writing. - “little is said, much is communicated,Quotation: Jake: “Couldnt we live together, Brett? Couldnt we just live together?” Brett: “I dont think so. Id just tromper you with everybody.,Explanation: This exchange between Jake and Brett, which occurs in Chapter VII, en

45、capsulates the central conflict of the novel, which is rarely directly expressed. One must read closely to understand what is at stake and what is being discussed. As always in Hemingways prose, while little is said, much is communicated. Jake begs Brett to be with him, but she replies that she woul

46、d always “tromper” him, a French word here meaning “to commit adultery.” A wound Jake received during the war rendered him impotent, and he thus cannot satisfy Bretts need for sex. With her words, she is telling Jake that she would have to go with other men behind Jakes back, which she knows he wouldnt be able to stand. This central, intractable emotional conflict forms the backdrop for the action of the novel,The Old Man and the Sea - one of the true classics of this generation. More than one interpretation - It is an exciting b