美国文学史及选读(下册).ppt

1、A,1,Whitman and Dickinson,- Romantic Poetry,A,2,Whitman and Dickinson,Whitman and Dickinson Similarities: Both of them were distinctively American poets in theme and technique. Both of them were part of American Renaissance. A. Themes: both praised in their different ways, an emergent America, its e

2、xpansion, its individualism, and its Americanness. B. Techniques: breaking free of the poetic tradition and pioneering American modernist poetry with their poetic innovation. Differences: A. Whitman kept his eye on society at large while Dickinson explored the inner life of the self and individual.

3、B. Whereas Whitman is national in his outlook, Dickinson is regional. C. In formal terms, Whitman is characterized by his endless, all-inclusive catalogs while Dickinson by her concise, direct, and simple diction and syntax.,A,3,A,4,Whitman and Dickinson,I. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) 1. Literary Statu

4、s Father of American Poetry Precursor of Modern American Poetry Father of American Free Verse Celebrating America as a Poem 2. Life Working-class background He grew up in New York and worked there. Five years of schooling, loafing and reading Rich life experience: office boy, printers apprentice, ca

5、rpenter, schoolmaster, printer, editor (of 8 successive papers), and journalist,A,5,Whitman and Dickinson,3. The Publication of Leaves of Grass Whitmans lifetime literary endeavor A. The first edition of 12 poems in 1855 A stir broke with the poetic convention sexuality and exotic and vulgar languag

6、e harsh criticisms on it: “noxious weeds”, “poetry of barbarism”, “a mass of stupid filth” B. Nine editions in all (1855, 56, 60, 67,71, 76, 81, 89, 91-92) Began to be celebrated with the fifth edition C. His deathbed edition containing all of his 400-odd poems,A,6,Whitman and Dickinson,4. His ideas

7、: “a catalog and great acceptor” Enlightenment, humanitarianism Idealism and Transcendentalism Emerson and Whitman: Emersons letter of praise of the first edition “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that an American has yet contributed” Whitman: “dear Master,” “I was simmering, simmering

8、, simmering, Emerson brought me to a boil” He shared many similar ideas with Emerson: America itself was a poem; the greatest poet is a seer, complete in himself. (P.90),A,7,Whitman and Dickinson,5. Whitmans Poetic Experimentation He was a daring experimentalist who “broke the new wood” He began to

9、experiment around 1847 which lead to a complete break with traditional poetics. Features: A. parallelism B. phonetic recurrence (systematic repetition of words and phrases) C. his long catalogs of lines, his piling up of nouns, verbs, or adjectives, Whitman broke free from the traditional iambic pen

10、tameter and wrote “free verse”.,A,8,Whitman and Dickinson,6. Masterpieces: “Song of Myself” “There was a Child Went Forth” “In Crossing Brooklyn Bridge” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” (p.93) “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed” (p.94) 7. Whitmans Influence Whitmans influence over modern

11、 poetry is great in the world as well as in America. His best work has become part of the common property of Western culture. Many poets in England, France, Italy, and Latin America are in his debt, esp. by his optimism and innovation as a poet-prophet and poet-teacher. T. S. Eliot, Pound, Hart Cran

12、e, Carl Sandburg,A,9,Everlasting Singer of the Leaves of Grass,A,10,Whitmans House at Camden, NJ.,A,11,Whitman and Dickinson,II. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) 1. Literary status A secluded poetess “Mother” of American Poetry and American Modern Poetry 2. Life a Calvinist family Her father, a Whig lawy

13、er and treasurer of Amherst College Read widely such as the Bible, Shakespeare, Keats Began writing seriously in her twenties 1775 poems altogether, 7 published in her life,Dickinson at 9,A,12,The Evergreens where the Dickinsons lived,A,13,The Dickinson Homestead,A,14,Whitman and Dickinson,3. Her Id

14、eas Calvinism; Tragic in basic tone Death leads to immortality. Doubt; the loss of faith and the religious uncertainty 4. Themes: life, death, immortality, love, nature 5. Analysis of her masterpieces “My Life Closed Twice before its Close” (p.98) “Wild Nights Wild Nights” (p.99) “Because I could no

15、t stop for Death” “I heard a fly buzz when I died”(p.99) “Death is a Dialogue between” (p.100) “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” “Ill tell you how the sun rose”,A,15,A,16,Emily Dickinsons Poem: 249 Wild Nights Wild Nights!,Wild Nights Wild Nights! Were I with thee Wild Nights should be Our Luxury! Futi

16、le the Winds To a Heart in port Done with the Compass Done with the Chart ! Rowing in Eden Ah, the Sea! Might I but moor Tonight In Thee!,A,17,Dickinson with her friend and editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson,A,18,Whitman and Dickinson,6. Dickinsons Aesthetics She holds that beauty, truth and goodness

17、 are ultimately one. 7. Her poetic innovation A. She broke free of the conventional iambic pentameter B. She explored the inner life of the individual C. She was regional (New Englander) D. She was idiosyncratic in her frequent use of dashes and unique use of capitals. E. her concise, direct, and si

18、mple diction and syntax,A,19,A,20,Because I could not stop for Death,“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is a lyric poem on the theme of death. It contains six stanzas, each with four lines. A four-line stanza is called a quatrain. It reveals Emily Dickinsons calm acceptance of death. It is surpris

19、ing that she presents the experience as being no more frightening than receiving a gentleman callerin this case, her fianc (Death personified). The overall theme of the poem seems to be that death is not to be feared since it is a natural part of the endless cycle of nature.,A,21,I. The Age of Reali

20、sm (1865-1910),1. Background A. With the American Civil War (1861-1865), the industrialized North fought the agrarian South, the factory defeated the farm, and the USA headed toward capitalism. B. Commercialization, industrialization, mechanization, urbanization C. the frontier was closing and a ree

21、valuation of life began D. disillusionment and frustration were widely felt. “A Golden” turned out to be a Gilded one. E. The Age of Realism had arrived.,A,22,New York in 1911,A,23,I. The Age of Realism (1865-1910),2. The Definition of Literary Realism A. As a literary movement, realism came in the

22、latter half of the 19th century as a reaction against “the lie” of Romanticism and sentimentalism. B. It expressed the concern for the world. William Dean Howells: he must write what he observed and knew. Henry James: Life should be the main object of the novel. Mark Twain: writers should keep in th

23、eir mind the soul, the life, and the speech of the people.,A,24,C. In matters of style, there was contrast between the genteel and graceful prose on the one hand, and the vernacular diction, rough and ready frontier humor on the other. D. The American authors lumped together as “realists” seem to ha

24、ve some features in common: a. “authenticity of detail derived from observation” b. an objective rather than an idealized view of nature and experience E. William Dean Howells, Henry James and Mark Twain as the representatives,A,25,I. American Naturalism,1. Background： Social background: Modern Amer

25、ica industrialism financial giants and industrial proletariat skyscrapers and slums Ideological background: a cold, indifferent Godless world life as a struggle for survival Darwinian evolutionary concepts like “the survival of the fittest” and “the human beast” Herbert Spencers social Darwinism an

26、attitude of gloom and despair,A,26,American Naturalism,2. Literary background/ Definition In the 1890s, French naturalism, with its new techniques and new ways of writing, appealed to the imagination of the younger generation like Crane, Norris and Dreiser. They tore the mask of gentility into piece

27、s and wrote about helplessness of man, his insignificance in a cold world, and his lack of dignity in face of the crushing forces of environment and heredity.,A,27,American Naturalism,The whole picture is somber and dark; the general tone is one of hopelessness and even despair. Its a more deliberat

28、e kind of realism in novels, stories, and plays, usually involving a view of human being as passive victims of natural forces and environment.,A,28,They are concerned with the less elegant aspects of life. Its typical settings are the slum, the sweatshop, the factory and the farm. They represented t

29、he life of the lower class truthfully and broke into such forbidden regions as violence, sex and death. Practitioners: Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Stephen Crane, Edith Wharton (The House of Mirth,1905), Ellen Glasgow( Barren Ground,1925) .,A,29,Comment: Naturalists see human beings

30、no more than a physical object under the control of biological or, Life Among the Lowly,A,31,I. Life and career,Harriet Beecher Stowe (18111896) was a novelist and abolitionist，whose novel Uncle Toms Cabin (1852) is a classic of the 19th century anti-slavery literature.,A,32,I. Life and career,She t

31、aught school in Hartford and in Cincinnati, where she came into contact with fugitive slaves and learned about life in the South, and later settled in Maine with her husband, a professor of theology. While raising seven children, she began writing professionally.,A,33,I. Life and career,It is said t

32、hat President Lincoln met Stowe during the Civil War and said to her, So you are the little woman who wrote the book that made this big war.,A,34,I. Life and career,Stowe wrote more than two dozen books, both fiction and non-fiction, including A Key to Uncle Toms Cabin (1853), a fact-filled companio

33、n to her famous novel. Her other works include Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), Pearl of Orrs Island (1862) and Pink and White Tyranny (1871).,A,35,II. Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly,Perhaps the most important American novel of the nineteenth century, Stowes masterpiece is

34、published serially in the National Era in 1851-1852 and as a book in 1852. It became a bestseller in the United States and England and went on to sell three hundred thousand copies the first year. By 1900 it had been translated into forty-two languages.,A,36,II. Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among the

35、Lowly,1. Plot summary Stowes novel tells the stories of three slaves Tom, Eliza, and George who start out together in Kentucky, but whose lives take different turns. Eliza and George, who are married to each other but owned by different masters, manage to escape to free territory with their little b

36、oy, Harry.,A,37,II. Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly,Tom is not so lucky. He is taken away from his wife and children. Tom is sold first to a kind master, Augustine St. Clare, and then to the cruel Simon Legree, at whose hands he meets his death.,A,38,II. Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among t

37、he Lowly,Stowe relied upon images of domesticity, motherhood, and Christianity to capture her nineteenth century audiences hearts and imaginations.,A,39,II. Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly,2. Reactions to the novel Uncle Toms Cabin was based on various slave narratives. Stowe claimed to h

38、ave been inspired by grief over her babys death in 1849 and resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Uncle Toms Cabin has exerted an influence “equaled by few other novels in history.” Upon publication, the book received praise from abolitionists. But the novel was viciously attacked by proslav

39、ery readers, even after Stowe defended the research on which she based the novel in A Key to Uncle Toms Cabin (1853).,A,40,II. Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly,3. Major themes 1) the evil and immorality of slavery Uncle Toms Cabin is dominated by a single theme: the evil and immorality of

40、slavery. Stowe pushed home her theme of the immorality of slavery on almost every page of the novel, sometimes even changing the storys voice so she could give a “lesson on the destructive nature of slavery.,A,41,II. Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly,The most dreadful part of slavery, to my

41、 mind, is its outrages of feelings and affectionsthe separating of families, for example.” One way Stowe showed the evil of slavery was how this peculiar institution forcibly separated families from each other.,A,42,II. Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly,2) the moral power and holiness of wo

42、men Because Stowe believed that only women had the moral authority to save the United States from the demon of slavery, another major theme of Uncle Toms Cabin is the moral power and sanctity of women.,A,43,II. Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly,Through characters like Eliza, who escapes fro

43、m slavery to save her young son and eventually reunites her entire family, or Little Eva, who is seen as the ideal Christian, Stowe shows how she believed women could save those around them from even the worst injustices. While later critics have noted that Stowes female characters are often domesti

44、c cliches instead of realistic women, Stowes novel reaffirmed the importance of womens influence and helped pave the way for the womens rights movement in the following decades.,A,44,II. Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly,3) the exploration of the nature of Christianity and its fundamental i

45、ncompatibility with slavery Stowes puritanical religious beliefs show up in the novels final theme, which is the exploration of the nature of Christianity and how she feels Christian theology is fundamentally incompatible with slavery.,45,A,Mark Twain （1835-1910）,Pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

46、 Literary Status leading figure of local colorism /language reformer of English novel Novelist, humorist, lecturer, journalist, literary and cultural critic monumental figure in the development of western novel,46,A,47,A,Life and Career: Born in Florida and brought up in the small town of Hannibal,

47、Missouri, on the Mississippi River (a slave state then) born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Halleys Comet in 1835. He was twelve when his father died and he had to leave school.,48,A,With the publication of his frontier tale, “The celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, Twain

48、 became nationally famous. His first novel The Gilded Age (with Charles Dudley ) gave its name to the America of the realism period. Printers apprentice - self-taught - Steam-boat pilot married Olivia Lanton - Susy, Clara, Jean, his three daughters received honorary doctorate degree from Oxford Univ

49、ersity in 1907 - Twain outlived Jean and Olivia. Olivias death in 1904 and Jeans death on December 24, 1909 deepened his gloom died in 1910, one day after Halleys Comets closest approach to Earth,49,A,Main Works,The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County 1865 The Innocents Abroad 1869,. Roughin

50、g It 1872, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1876, A Tramp Abroad 1880,. The Prince and Pauper 1881, Life on the Mississippi 1881, The Gilded Age,The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1885, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court 1889, Pudds Head Wilson 1894,. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc 1896,

51、Following the Equator, 1897 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 1900 What is Man 1906 The Mysterious Stranger 1916,50,A,Style,Broad, often irreverent humor or biting social satire, realism of place and language, memorable characters, hatred of hypocrisy and oppression. Simple and plain diction, precis

52、e, direct.,His earlier works are light, humorous, optimistic. His later works become darker and more obscure, showing his discontent and disappointment toward the social reality. His last works show his acute pessimism, despair, skepticism and determinism.,51,A,Artistic Features,First, he possessed

53、utter clarity of style. He evolved a style so clear and economical that other contemporary styles seemed slightly archaic, rusty, and redundant. Second, he had a supreme command of vernacular American English. American dialect had been used very well by some other writers, but in their hands it was

54、surrounded and conditioned by a “literary” language that wittingly or unwittingly patronized it. Mark Twain removed the surrounding frame.,52,A,Artistic features,Third, there was Mark Twains humor, which resists explanation. In Twains time, humor, though it was seen as greatly valuable, remained cle

55、arly subordinate in the value system of the 19th century. The function of humor was to entertain, but it was not expected to participate in the high seriousness that Matthew Arnold and his age asked of literature. But Twain liberated humor, raising it to high arta liberation that parallels his creat

56、ion of vernacular American English.,53,A,The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,a story of his seeking for freedom, fame, fortune, love, manhood. The novel reveals the American values: one is hero complex, the other is American dream. His adventures are the realization of American dream. On the other hand, th

57、e book records the rising Age of American Bourgeois system. It also bears the irony and satire toward the religion and by-then popular rigid, didactic children education, which curbs the imagination of children and their innate nature for freedom and adventures and molds them into a stereotype of li

58、feless man.,54,A,The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and especially its sequence Adventures of Huckleberry Finn proved themselves to be the milestone in American literature, and thus firmly established Twains position in the literary world. The childhood of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in the Mississippi is a

59、record of a vanished way of life in the Pre-Civil War Mississippi valley. The books are noted for their unpretentious, colloquial yet poetic style, their wide-ranging humor, and their universally shared dream of perfect innocence and freedom.,55,A,significance,He portrayed uniquely American subjects in a humorous and colloquial, yet poetic, language. His success in creating this plain but evocative language precipitated the end of American reverence for British an