美国文学史及宣读考试内容汇总.ppt

1、Historical Background,The influence of WWI ： an economic boom a sudden jump in technology The breakdown of old moral values bobbed hair, short skirts, women drinking and smoking a tremendous disillusionment,The 20th Century American Literature (1900-1910s),Nothing had changed. There was a popular co

2、ntempt for the lawthe prohibition of alcohol, bootleggers, etc. The dream had failed and the country was building up economic troubles toward disaster. A loss of faith began with Darwins theories of evolution. Without faith man could no longer keep his feeling and thought whole; hence a sense of lif

3、e being fragmented and chaotic. Without faith, man no longer felt secure and happy; hence the feeling of gloom and despair.,Bertrand Russell, commented on the spirit of the periodMan must not expect any help from a beneficent God. Man must recognize that he is of no importance in such a world - Noth

4、ing can preserve an individual life beyond the grave. Death will doom all human endeavors and achievements to ultimate extinction. He advises man to believe in himself, to face life with “a despairing courage”.,Imagism,Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored p

5、recision of imagery and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry.,Literary Sources of Imagism,The Imagist Movement drew from a variety of poetic traditionsGreek, Provencal, Japanese and Chinese poetry. The ideographic

6、 and pictographic nature of Chinese language, and virile laconism and austere pregnancy which characterize ancient Chinese poetry fascinated the Imagists.,three major phases,19081909An Englishman, T. E. Hulme, founded a Poets Club in 1908, which met in Soho every Wednesday evening to discuss poetry.

7、 He believed that the most effective means to express the momentary impressions is through “the use of one dominant image”. 19121914Ezra Pound took over the movement. In 1912, they published a collection of poems, entitled Des Imagistes, in which a manifesto came into being. a. Direct treatment of t

8、he “thing”, whether subjective or objective; b. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation; c. As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome. 19141917Amy Lowell took over the movement and developed it into “Amygi

9、sm”. In 1915, 1916, 1917, three volumes of Some Imagist Poets came out, containing six principles based on the original three. After 1917, Imagism ceased to be a movement.,Features of Imagism,To use the language of common speech, but to employ the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely dec

10、orative word. We believe that the individuality of a poet may often be better expressed in free verse than in conventional forms. In poetry, a new cadence means a new idea. Absolute freedom in the choice of subject.,Features of Imagism,4. To present an image. We are not a school of painters, but we

11、believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is for this reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk the real difficulties of his art. 5. To produce a poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred no

12、r indefinite. 6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very essence of poetry.,In a Station of the Metro,a classic specimen of Imagist poetry the use of one dominant image to represent what he was experiencing apparition: appearance, something which shows up; something which is no

13、t real and which cannot be clearly observed influence from ancient Chinese poetry (长恨歌: “玉容寂寞泪阑干，梨花一枝春带雨.”),(1910s-1940s),1920s A time of carefree prosperity, isolated from the worlds problems, bewildering social change, a feverish pursuit of pleasure, selfish frivolity, abandonment of social custom

14、s.,American Literature Between the Wars,Industrialization and urbanization. Womens liberation. Mass media and luxuries. A sense of disillusionment.,Young people took part in the War with great enthusiasm, believing this war will end all wars. However, they saw at last their ideals for a better world

15、 was bargained away for power and profit. People began to question politics and government.,All these helped to turn the US into a greedily consuming society. People lived beyond their means, gambling and making profits illegally. By 1920s, modernism became part of everyday vocabulary of the America

16、ns. T. S. Eliots The Waste Land (1922), disclosing the spiritual wasteland of modern people, established the modern tradition in the American literary scene.,The Lost Generation,The “Lost Generation” is a term used to refer to the generation, actually an age cohort, that came of age during World War

17、 I. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises. In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to Gertrude Stein, who was then his mentor and patron.,The term originated with Gertrude Stein who, after being unimpressed

18、by the skills of a young car mechanic, asked the garage owner where the young man had been trained. The garage owner told her that while young men were easy to train, it was those in their mid-twenties to thirties, the men who had been through World War I, who he considered a “lost generation” une g

19、nration perdue.,It refers to his generation, those who were members of the age classes called to duty in the “Great War”. This generation included distinguished artists such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, Waldo Peirce, Alan Seeger, and, Erich Maria Remarque. I

20、t has alternately been used to describe the generation which participated in the Cultural Revolution in China.,In Britain the term was originally used for those who died in the war, and often implicitly referred to upper-class casualties who were perceived to have died disproportionately, robbing th

21、e country of a future elite. Many felt “that the flower of youth and the best of the nation had been destroyed”,Disillusioned by the War and disgusted about the society, many intellectuals and young people fled to Europe, standing aside and writing about what they saw the failure of communication am

22、ong Americans and the failure of the American society. They believed that the American bourgeois society was hypocritical, vulgar and crude, concerning only with making money. It was a society where individual thought and individual expression were crushed. They were looking forward for a complete c

23、hange.,1930s,A time of poverty, unemployment, bleakness, important social movements, a new social consciousness and social upheaval.,1. The Crash,The collapse of the Stock Market in 1929 brought about an abrupt end to the prosperity in the previous decade. Workers were unemployed, thinking of organi

24、zing and wresting power away from the bosses; whereas the farmers were driven off the land by drought and debts. By 1933, America was close to economic collapse.,2. The New Deal.,Thanks to Franklin Roosevelt who launched the New Deal, improvements were seen again and a lot of changes to benefit peop

25、le were discovered.,3. The Leftists,The expatriates came back from Paris, taking an active part in political agitation and social improvements. They spoke on behalf of the oppressed and the suffering people, looking to Russia as an example of a better, more secure social system. They hoped that thei

26、r writing would play a decisive role in bringing about social changes. Therefore, they advocated new ways of writing and reforms in language. Unfortunately, after the joint Russo-German invasion of Poland, the country was soon swept into WWII.,It is said that people in the 1920s believed in everythi

27、ng, people in the 1930s believed in one thing, and people in the 1940s believed in nothing.,Robert Frost ( 1874-1963 ),born in San Francisco, but known as a New England poet. entered Dartmouth College, but soon left; later on he tried college again at Harvard, but left at the end of two years, beari

28、ng an enduring dislike for academic convention. lived by farming and writing poetry. He used to say he was one and a half mena half teacher, a half farmer, and a half poet. It took 20 years for him to get recognition. He later received honorary degrees from 44 colleges and universities, won the Puli

29、tzer Prize four times, and was invited to read his poem at the inauguration of President J. F. Kennedy in 1961.,other collections of poems,North of Boston Mountain Interval , 1916 New Hampshire , 1923, Pulitzer Prize winner Collected Poems , 1930, Pulitzer Prize winner A Further Range , 1937, Pulitz

30、er Prize winner A Witness Tree , 1942, Pulitzer Prize winner Complete Poems , 1949 In the Clearing , 1962,Features of his poetry,Frost depicts mostly New England landscape, but his poetry reflects the fragmentation of modern experience and alienation among modern men. The world of Frost can be appal

31、ling and terrifying. However, Frost had a lovers quarrel with the world. He is concerned with constructing “a momentary stay against confusion”.,Features of his poetry,He wrote in Wordsworthian style plain speech of rural New Englanders, short traditional forms of lyric and narrative. He used symbol

32、s from everyday country life to express his deep ideas.,Features of his poetry,He had a lot of Emerson in him, seeing nature as a storehouse of analogy and symbol. In his probing into the mysteries of darkness and the indifferent universe, we see a great moral uncertainty. What he was doing was to e

33、xplore the complexity of human existence through treating seemingly trivial subjects.,Ernest Hemingway ( 1899-1961 ),born in Oak park, Illinois tried to join the Army, but was rejected because of his bad eye which was injured when he learned boxing. volunteered as an ambulance driver in France, then

34、 a soldier in the Italian infantry. He was badly wounded and fell in love with a Red Cross nurse who refused his proposal. married his first wife in Chicago, then sailed to France, working as a correspondent for the Canadian Toronto Star. There he was introduced by Sherwood Anderson to Gertrude Stei

35、n and Ezra Pound. During these years he wrote a lot and became a chief spokesman for the Lost Generation.,In 1954, when Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, it was for “his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence

36、that he has exerted on contemporary style.”,Hemingways important works,The Sun Also Rises , 1926 A Farewell to Arms , 1929 For Whom the Bell Tolls , 1940 The Old Man and the Sea , 1952 “The Snows of the Kilimajaro” “The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber”,Features of his novels,Hemingway situatio

37、n: characterized by chaos and brutality and violence, by crime and death, by sports and sex Hemingway theme: “grace under pressure” Hemingway hero: wounded but strong, enjoying the pleasures of life in the face of disasters and death; “despairing courage”; “Man is not born to be defeated.” Hemingway

38、 style: simplicity and economy of expression; short, uncomplicated sentences; colloquial style,Theme,Hemingways nature is a place for rebirth, for therapy, and the hunter or fisherman has a moment of transcendence when the prey is killed. Nature is where men are without women: men fish; men hunt; me

39、n find redemption in nature,inverts the American literary theme of the evil “Dark Woman” versus the good “Light Woman”. the theme of women and death the theme of emasculation (阉割）：a result of a generation of wounded soldiers; and of a generation in which women such as Brett Misogynistic （厌女人者） and h

40、omophobic （对同性恋的憎恶或恐惧 ）,Duality of main character,Gatsby is favored in the title as the novels main character. Nick is the survivor who is finally favored and lives to tell the story. This subtle inversion allows Nick to replace Gatsby as the main character. The privileged form Gatsby is ultimately

41、placed under erasure by the secondary form, Nick.,The paradoxical narrator,Nick defer to Gatsbys memory by suggesting admiration is the reason for writing this story; but he later demonstrates “unaffected” or even sincere “scorn” for Gatsby, indicating quite a different relationship than what is pre

42、sented at the beginning of the story. He asserts his honesty in his narration, yet instead of being a reliable man, he is rather deceitful and hypocritical, which could be perceived as our reading proceeds.,An Unexpected end,In the beginning: “Gatsby turned out all right” (Fitzgerald 2). Readers are

43、 thus led by Nick to accept this assertion and expect that Gatsby is sure to triumph(成功) in the end, yet they will get perplexed（困惑的） when they “witness” the violent death of Gatsby. Readers desire for a happy ending encounters uneasy disappointment triggered by the fact that Gatsby is killed.,Decon

44、struction of Gatsby the Hero,Gatsby is portrayed as a romantic hero: a rebellious boy, an ambitious young roughneck, an idealistic dreamer, a devoted lover, a brave soldier, a lavish host. He is like a romantic knight of ages past somehow displaced in history, lost, with his “incorruptible dream”.,D

45、econstruction of Gatsby the Hero,Yet he is also the romantic embodiment of the modern world the novel condemns. That is, by romanticizing Gatsby, the novel also romanticizes the corruption that produced him, the corruption in which he willingly and successfully participates.,Deconstruction of Gatsby

46、 the Hero,Like the characters the novel condemns, Gatsby succeeds in a world of predators and prey. Some of the people who buy his liquor may become ill from it; some may die. All of the small investors who buy the fraudulent bonds will lose money that they probably cant afford to lose. Even his des

47、ire for Daisy which creates the most romantic image of him is not free from the taint of this underworld view of life: when Gatsby first courted Daisy at her parents home in Louisville, “he took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously eventually he took Daisy” (p. 156; ch. 8),Self-contradic

48、tions,Gatsby Main character Privileged form,Nick Narrator Secondary form Admiration “Scorn” “Honesty” Hypocrisy,Expected triumph VS. Unexpected death Innocence VS. Decadence,Duality of main character,Paradoxical Narrator,Ending,Theme,Conclusion,The Great Gatsby condemns the modern decadence that, th

49、e novel suggests, replaced the innocent America of the past, an America associated with the unspoiled West. But this ideological project is undermined by the texts own ambivalence toward the binary oppositions upon which the project rests.,Objectives of American Literature,To extend the students kno

50、wledge of the historical and social backgrounds of American literature. To give students a brief outline of American literature up to the late of 20th century. To provide and consolidate some reading and appreciation skills for the analysis of literary texts. To develop students interests in literat

51、ure, and help them form the habit of reading extensively. To further develop students question consciousness, moral attitudes and critical thinking.,The Literature of Colonial America,(about 16071765),Historical Introduction,1492 Christopher Columbus who sailed west in search of the east Indies foun

52、d the New World immigrants: Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese English immigrants the first settling of the English people in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 the second group came, with Mayflower dropping anchor at Plymouth harborin 1620.,In 1776, the Declaration of Indep

53、endence was signed, together with three other documents, the treaty of alliance with France, the Treaty of Paris and the Constitution, which legally marked the United States as an independent nation. In 1789 George Washington was elected the first president, and two years later, Washington D. C. was

54、 established as the nations capital.,Historical Introduction,American Puritanism,Most of the early settlers were Puritans, a group of serious, religious people who advocated strict religious and moral principles. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church(新教). They w

55、anted to purify the English Church and to restore church worship to the pure and unspotted condition of its earlier days. They opposed the elaborate rituals of the English Church. They believed that the Bible was the revealed word of God. Therefore, people should guide their daily behavior with the

56、Bible.,Origin of Puritanism,follow the idea of a Swiss reformer John Calvin doctrines： a. predestination b. original sin and total depravity c. limited atonement values: hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety,American Puritanism is a two-fold cultural heritage, one being religious and the other practica

57、l. Puritans were therefore called practical idealist or doctrinaire opportunist. On the one hand, Puritanism is a highly strict religious doctrine. On the other hand, Puritanism also has its practical aspect.,American Puritanism,The impact of Puritanism on American literature,1. American literature,

58、 in a sense, is a literary expression of the pious idealism of the Puritan request. The Puritans dreamed of living under a perfect order and worked with hope and courage toward building a new Garden of Eden. Therefore, they tended to look everything with a big amount of optimism. This went into the

59、works of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and even James.,2. The Puritans metaphorical mode of perception brought American literary symbolism into being. To the pious Puritans, the physical world was spiritual, nothing but a symbol of God. The world, therefore, was one of multiple meanings. This idea was distinguishable in the works of such early writers as William Bradford, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards and Emerson. In the works of Hawthorne, Melville and Poe, this developed itself into symbolism.,The impact of Puritanism on America