美国文学简史笔记常耀信

A C o n c i s e H i s t o r y o f A m e r i c a n L i t e r a t u r e

What is literature?

Literature is language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages.

Chapter 1 Colonial Period

I.Background: Puritanism

1.features of Puritanism

(1)Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred.

(2)Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can be passed down

from generation to generation.

(3)Total depravity

(4)Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.

2.Influence

(1) A group of good qualities –hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful)

influenced American literature.

(2)It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden.

(3)Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical m ode of perception was chiefly

instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American.

(4)With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and

honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible.

II.Overview of the literature

1.types of writing

diaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons

2.writers of colonial period

(1)Anne Bradstreet

(2)Edward Taylor

(3)Roger Williams

(4)John Woolman

(5)Thomas Paine

(6)Philip Freneau

III.Jonathan Edwards

1.life

2.works

(1)The Freedom of the Will

(2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended

(3)The Nature of True Virtue

3.ideas – pioneer of transcendentalism

(1)The spirit of revivalism

(2)Regeneration of man

(3)God’s presence

(4)Puritan idealism

IV.Benjamin Franklin

1.life

2.works

(1)Poor Richard’s Almanac

(2)Autobiography

3.contribution

(1)He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society.

(2)He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this case) from

heaven”.

(3)Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melville thus

described him “master of each and mastered by none”.

Chapter 2 American Romanticism

Section 1 Early Romantic Period

What is Romanticism?

●An approach from ancient Greek: Plato

● A literary trend: 18c in Britain (1798~1832)

●Schlegel Bros.

I.Preview: Characteristics of romanticism

1.subjectivity

(1)feeling and emotions, finding truth

(2)emphasis on imagination

(3)emphasis on individualism – personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodness of human

beings

2.back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature

(1)unrestrained by classical rules

(2)full of imagination

(3)colloquial language

(4)freedom of imagination

(5)genuine in feelings: answer their call for classics

3.back to nature

nature is “breathing living thing” (Rousseau)

II.American Romanticism

1.Background

(1)Political background and economic development

(2)Romantic movement in European countries

Derivative – foreign influence

2.features

(1)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

alien.

(2)There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authors

tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they

entertained.

(3)The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with American Romanticism.

(4)As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both

imitative and independent.

III.Washington Irving

1.several names attached to Irving

(1)first American writer

(2)the messenger sent from the new world to the old world

(3)father of American literature

2.life

3.works

(1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty

(2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of international recognition

with the publication of this.)

(3)The History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus

(4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada

(5)The Alhambra

4.Literary career: two parts

(1)1809~1832

a.Subjects are either English or European

b.Conservative love for the antique

(2)1832~1859: back to US

5.style – beautiful

(1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness

(2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining

(3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere

(4)vivid and true characters

(5)humour – smiling while reading

(6)musical language

IV.James Fenimore Cooper

1.life

2.works

(1)Precaution (1820, his first novel, imitating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice)

(2)The Spy (his second novel and great success)

(3)Leatherstocking Tales (his masterpiece, a series of five novels)

The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, The Prairie

3.point of view

the theme of wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law, order vs. change, aristocrat vs. democrat, natural rights vs. legal rights

4.style

(1)highly imaginative

(2)good at inventing tales

(3)good at landscape description

(4)conservative

(5)characterization wooden and lacking in probability

(6)language and use of dialect not authentic

5.literary achievements

He created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the history of the United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring and pushing the American frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West. He turned the west and frontier as a useable past and he helped to introduce western tradition to American literature.

Section 2 Summit of Romanticism – American Transcendentalism

I.Background: four sources

1.Unitarianism

(1)Fatherhood of God

(2)Brotherhood of men

(3)Leadership of Jesus

(4)Salvation by character (perfection of one’s character)

(5)Continued progress of mankind

(6)Divinity of mankind

(7)Depravity of mankind

2.Romantic Idealism

Center of the world is spirit, absolute spirit (Kant)

3.Oriental mysticism

Center of the world is “oversoul”

4.Puritanism

Eloquent expression in transcendentalism

II.Appearance

1836, “Nature” by Emerson

III.Features

1.spirit/oversoul

2.importance of individualism

3.nature – symbol of spirit/God

garment of the oversoul

4.focus in intuition (irrationalism and subconsciousness)

IV.Influence

1.It served as an ethical guide to life for a young nation and brought about the idea that human can

be perfected by nature. It stressed religious tolerance, called to throw off shackles of customs and traditions and go forward to the development of a new and distinctly American culture.

2.It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidly expanded economy where opportunity

often becam e opportunism, and the desire to “get on” obscured the moral necessity for rising to spiritual height.

3.It helped to create the first American renaissance – one of the most prolific period in American

literature.

V.Ralph Waldo Emerson

1.life

2.works

(1)Nature

(2)Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet

3.point of view

(1)One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in the transcendence of the “oversoul”.

(2)He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man, and

advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.

(3)If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself and brings out the divine in himself, he can

hope to become better and even perfect. This is what Emerson means by “the infinitude of

man”.

(4)Everyone should understand that he makes himself by making his world, and that he makes

the world by making himself.

4.aesthetic ideas

(1)He is a complete man, an eternal man.

(2)True poetry and true art should ennoble.

(3)The poet should express his thought in symbols.

(4)As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America which was to him a

lone poem in itself.

5.his influence

VI.Henry David Thoreau

1.life

2.works

(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River

(2)Walden

(3) A Plea for John Brown (an essay)

3.point of view

(1)He did not like the way a materialistic America was developing and was vehemently

outspoken on the point.

(2)He hated the human injustice as represented by the slavery system.

(3)Like Emerson, but more than him, Thoreau saw nature as a genuine restorative, healthy

influence on man’s spiritual well-being.

(4)He has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man.

(5)He was very critical of modern civilization.

(6)“Simplicity…simplify!”

(7)He was sorely disgusted with “the inundations of the dirty institutions of men’s odd-fellow

society”.

(8)He has calm trust in the future and his ardent belief in a new generation of men.

Section 3 Late Romanticism

I.Nathaniel Hawthorne

1.life

2.works

(1)Two collections of short stories: Twice-told Tales, Mosses from and Old Manse

(2)The Scarlet Letter

(3)The House of the Seven Gables

(4)The Marble Faun

3.point of view

(1)Evil is at the core of human life, “that blackness in Hawthorne”

(2)Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed from generation to

generation (causality).

(3)He is of the opinion that evil educates.

(4)He has disgust in science.

4.aesthetic ideas

(1)He took a great interest in history and antiquity. To him these furnish the soil on which his

mind grows to fruition.

(2)He was convinced that romance was the predestined form of American narrative. To tell the

truth and satirize and yet not to offend: That was what Hawthorne had in mind to achieve.

5.style – typical romantic writer

(1)the use of symbols

(2)revelation of characters’ psychology

(3)the use of supernatural mixed with the actual

(4)his stories are parable (parable inform) – to teach a lesson

(5)use of ambiguity to keep the reader in the world of uncertainty – multiple point of view

II.Herman Melville

1.life

2.works

(1)Typee

(2)Omio

(3)Mardi

(4)Redburn

(5)White Jacket

(6)Moby Dick

(7)Pierre

(8)Billy Budd

3.point of view

(1)He never seems able to say an affirmative yes to life: His is the attitude of “Everlasting Nay”

(negative attitude towards life).

(2)One of the major themes of his is alienation (far away from each other).

Other themes: loneliness, suicidal individualism (individualism causing disaster and death),

rejection and quest, confrontation of innocence and evil, doubts over the comforting 19c idea

of progress

4.style

(1)Like Hawthorne, Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the

technique of multiple view of his narratives.

(2)He tends to write periodic chapters.

(3)His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commented upon and

praised.

(4)His works are symbolic and metaphorical.

(5)He includes many non-narrative chapters of factual background or description of what goes

on board the ship or on the route (Moby Dick)

Romantic Poets

I.Walt Whitman

1.life

2.work: Leaves of Grass (9 editions)

(1)Song of Myself

(2)There Was a Child Went Forth

(3)Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

(4)Democratic Vistas

(5)Passage to India

(6)Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

3.themes –“Catalogue of American and European thought”

He had been influenced by many American and European thoughts: enlightenment, idealism, transcendentalism, science, evolution ideas, western frontier spirits, Jefferson’s individualism, Civil War Unionism, Orientalism.

Major themes in his poems (almost everything):

●equality of things and beings

●divinity of everything

●immanence of God

●democracy

●evolution of cosmos

●multiplicity of nature

●self-reliant spirit

●death, beauty of death

●expansion of America

●brotherhood and social solidarity (unity of nations in the world)

●pursuit of love and happiness

4.style: “free verse”

(1)no fixed rhyme or scheme

(2)parallelism, a rhythm of thought

(3)phonetic recurrence

(4)the habit of using snapshots

(5)the use of a certain pronoun “I”

(6) a looser and more open-ended syntactic structure

(7)use of conventional image

(8)strong tendency to use oral English

(9)vocabulary – powerful, colourful, rarely used words of foreign origins, some even wrong

(10)sentences – catalogue technique: long list of names, long poem lines

5.influence

(1)His best work has become part of the common property of Western culture.

(2)He took over Whitman’s vision of the poet-prophet and poet-teacher and recast it in a more

sophisticated and Europeanized mood.

(3)He has been compared to a mountain in American literary history.

(4)Contemporary American poetry, whatever school or form, bears witness to his great influence. II.Emily Dickenson

1.life

2.works

(1)My Life Closed Twice before Its Close

(2)Because I Can’t Stop for Death

(3)I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I died

(4)Mine – by the Right of the White Election

(5)Wild Nights – Wild Nights

3.themes: based on her own experiences/joys/sorrows

(1)religion – doubt and belief about religious subjects

(2)death and immortality

(3)love – suffering and frustration caused by love

(4)physical aspect of desire

(5)nature – kind and cruel

(6)free will and human responsibility

4.style

(1)poems without titles

(2)severe economy of expression

(3)directness, brevity

(4)musical device to create cadence (rhythm)

(5)capital letters – emphasis

(6)short poems, mainly two stanzas

(7)rhetoric techniques: personification – make some of abstract ideas vivid

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/795762510.html,parison: Whitman vs. Dickinson

1.Similarities:

(1)Thematically, they both extolled, in their different ways, an emergent America, its expansion,

its individual ism and its Americanness, their poetry being part of “American Renaissance”.

(2)Technically, they both added to the literary independence of the new nation by breaking free

of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in form unknown before:

they were pioneers in American poetry.

2.differences:

(1)Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large; Dickinson explores the inner life of the

individual.

(2)Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is “regional”.

(3)Dickinson has the “catalogue technique” (direct, simple style) which Whitman doesn’t have. Edgar Allen Poe

I.Life

II.Works

1.short stories

(1)ratiocinative stories

a.Ms Found in a Bottle

b.The Murders in the Rue Morgue

c.The Purloined Letter

(2)Revenge, death and rebirth

a.The Fall of the House of Usher

b.Ligeia

c.The Masque of the Red Death

(3)Literary theory

a.The Philosophy of Composition

b.The Poetic Principle

c.Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told Tales

III.Themes

1.death –predominant theme in Poe’s writing

“Poe is not interested in anything alive. Everything in Poe’s writings is dead.”

2.disintegration (separation) of life

3.horror

4.negative thoughts of science

IV.Aesthetic ideas

1.The short stories should be of brevity, totality, single effect, compression and finality.

2.The poems should be short, and the aim should be beauty, the tone melancholy. Poems should not

be of moralizing. He calls for pure poetry and stresses rhythm.

V.Style – traditional, but not easy to read

VI.Reputation: “the jingle man” (Emerson)

VII.His influences

Chapter 3 The Age of Realism

I.Background: From Romanticism to Realism

1.the three conflicts that reached breaking point in this period

(1)industrialism vs. agrarian

(2)culturely-measured east vs. newly-developed west

(3)plantation gentility vs. commercial gentility

2.1880’s urbanization: from free competition to monopoly capitalism

3.the closing of American frontier

II.Characteristics

1.truthful description of life

2.typical character under typical circumstance

3.objective rather than idealized, close observation and investigation of life

“Realistic writers are like scientists.”

4.open-ending:

Life is complex and cannot be fully understood. It leaves much room for readers to think by themselves.

5.concerned with social and psychological problems, revealing the frustrations of characters in an

environment of sordidness and depravity

III.Three Giants in Realistic Period

1.William Dean Howells –“Dean of American Realism”

(1)Realistic principles

a.Realism is “fidelity to experience and probability of motive”.

b.The aim is “talk of some ordinary traits of American life”.

c.Man in hi s natural and unaffected dullness was the object of Howells’s fictional

representation.

d.Realism is by no means mere photographic pictures of externals but includes a central concern

with “motives” and psychological conflicts.

e.He condemns novels of sentimentality and morbid self-sacrifice, and avoids such themes as

illicit love.

f.Authors should minimize plot and the artificial ordering of the sense of something “desultory,

unfinished, imperfect”.

g.Characters should have solidity of specification and be real.

h.I nterpreting sympathetically the “common feelings of commonplace people” was best suited

as a technique to express the spirit of America.

i.He urged writers to winnow tradition and write in keeping with current humanitarian ideals.

j.Truth is the highest beauty, but it includes the view that morality penetrates all things.

k.With regard to literary criticism, Howells felt that the literary critic should not try to impose

arbitrary or subjective evaluations on books but should follow the detached scientist in

accurate description, interpretation, and classification.

(2)Works

a.The Rise of Silas Lapham

b. A Chance Acquaintance

c. A Modern Instance

(3)Features of His Works

a.Optimistic tone

b.Moral development/ethics

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/795762510.html,cking of psychological depth

2.Henry James

(1)Life

(2)Literary career: three stages

a.1865~1882: international theme

●The American

●Daisy Miller

●The Portrait of a Lady

b.1882~1895: inter-personal relationships and some plays

●Daisy Miller (play)

c.1895~1900: novellas and tales dealing with childhood and adolescence, then back to

international theme

●The Turn of the Screw

●When Maisie Knew

●The Ambassadors

●The Wings of the Dove

●The Golden Bowl

(3)Aesthetic ideas

a.The aim of novel: represent life

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/795762510.html,mon, even ugly side of life

c.Social function of art

d.Avoiding omniscient point of view

(4)Point of view

a.Psychological analysis, forefather of stream of consciousness

b.Psychological realism

c.Highly-refined language

(5)Style –“stylist”

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/795762510.html,nguage: highly-refined, polished, insightful, accurate

b.Vocabulary: large

c.Construction: complicated, intricate

3.Mark Twain (see next section)

Local Colorism

1860s, 1870s~1890s

I.Appearance

1.uneven development in economy in America

2.culture: flourishing of frontier literature, humourists

3.magazines appeared to let writer publish their works

II.What is “Local Colour”?

Tasks of local colourists: to write or present local characters of their regions in truthful depiction distinguished from others, usually a very small part of the world.

Regional literature (similar, but larger in world)

●Garland, Harte – the west

●Eggleston – Indiana

●Mrs Stowe

●Jewett – Maine

●Chopin – Louisiana

III.Mark Twain – Mississippi

1.life

2.works

(1)The Gilded Age

(2)“the two advantages”

(3)Life on the Mississippi

(4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

(5)The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug

3.style

(1)colloquial language, vernacular language, dialects

(2)local colour

(3)syntactic feature: sentences are simple, brief, sometimes ungrammatical

(4)humour

(5)tall tales (highly exaggerated)

(6)social criticism (satire on the different ugly things in society)

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/795762510.html,parison of the three “giants” of American Re alism

1.Theme

Howells – middle class

James – upper class

Twain – lower class

2.Technique

Howells – smiling/genteel realism

James – psychological realism

Twain – local colourism and colloquialism

Chapter 4 American Naturalism

I.Background

1.Darwin’s theory: “natural selection”

2.Spenser’s idea: “social Darwinism”

3.French Naturalism: Zora

II.Features

1.environment and heredity

2.scientific accuracy and a lot of details

3.general tone: hopelessness, despair, gloom, ugly side of the society

III.significance

It prepares the way for the writing of 1920s’ “lost generation” and T. S. Eliot.

IV.Theodore Dreiser

1.life

2.works

(1)Sister Carrie

(2)The trilogy: Financier, The Titan, The Stoic

(3)Jennie Gerhardt

(4)American Tragedy

(5)The Genius

3.point of view

(1)He embraced social Darwinism – survival of the fittest. He learned to regard man as merely

an animal driven by greed and lust in a struggle for existence in which only the “fittest”, the

most ruthless, survive.

(2)Life is predatory, a “game” of the lecherous and heartless, a jungle struggle in which man,

bei ng “a waif and an interloper in Nature”, a “wisp in the wind of social forces”, is a mere

pawn in the general scheme of things, with no power whatever to assert his will.

(3)No one is ethically free; everything is determined by a complex of internal chemisms and by

the forces of social pressure.

4.Sister Carrie

(1)Plot

(2)Analysis

5.Style

(1)Without good structure

(2)Deficient characterization

(3)Lack in imagination

(4)Journalistic method

(5)Techniques in painting

Chapter 5 The Modern Period

Section 1 The 1920s

I.Introduction

The 1920s is a flowering period of American literature. It is considered “the second renaissance” of American literature.

The nicknames for this period:

(1)Roaring 20s – comfort

(2)Dollar Decade – rich

(3)Jazz Age – Jazz music

II.Background

a)First World War –“a war to end all wars”

(1)Economically: became rich from WWI. Economic boom: new inventions. Highly-consuming

society.

(2)Spiritually: dislocation, fragmentation.

b)wide-spread contempt for law (looking down upon law)

1.Freud’s theory

III.Features of the literature

Writers: three groups

(1)Participants

(2)Expatriates

(3)Bohemian (unconventional way of life) – on-lookers

Two areas:

(1)Failure of communication of Americans

(2)Failure of the American society

Imagism

I. Background

Imagism was influenced by French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japanese literature “haiku”II. Development: three stages

1.1908~1909: London, Hulme

2.1912~1914: England -> America, Pound

3.1914~1917: Amy Lowell

III. W hat is an “image”?

An image is defined by Pound as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas” “endowed with energy”. The exact word must bring the effect of the object before the reader as it had presented itself to the poet’s mind at the time of writing.

IV. Principles

1.Direct treat ment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective;

2.To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation;

3.As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a

metronome.

V. Significance

1.It was a rebellion against the traditional poetics which failed to reflect the new life of the new

century.

2.It offered a new way of writing which was valid not only for the Imagist poets but for modern

poetry as a whole.

3.The movement was a training school in which many great poets learned their first lessons in the

poetic art.

4.It is this movement that helped to open the first pages of modern English and American poetry. VI. Ezra Pound

1.life

2.literary career

3.works

(1)Cathay

(2)Cantos

(3)Hugh Selwyn Mauberley

4.point of view

(1)Confident in Pound’s belief that the artist was morally and culturally the arbiter and the

“saviour” of the race, he took it upon himself to purify the arts and became the prime mover

of a few experimental movements, the aim of which was to dump the old into the dustbin and

bring forth something new.

(2)To him life was sordid personal crushing oppression, and culture produced nothing but

“intangible bondage”.

(3)Pound sees in Chinese history and the doctrine of Confucius a source of strength and wisdom

with which to counterpoint Western gloom and confusion.

(4)He saw a chaotic world that wanted setting to rights, and a humanity, suffering from spiritual

death and cosmic injustice, that needed saving. He was for the most part of his life trying to

offer Confucian philosophy as the one faith which could help to save the West.

5.style: very difficult to read

Pound’s early poems are fresh and lyrical. The Cantos can be notoriously difficult in some sections, but delightfully beautiful in others. Few have made serious study of the long poem; fewer, if anyone at all, have had the courage to declare that they have conquered Pound; and many seem to agree that the Cantos is a monumental failure.

6.Contribution

He has helped, through theory and practice, to chart out the course of modern poetry.

7.The Cantos –“the intellectual diary since 1915”

Features:

(1)Language: intricate and obscure

(2)Theme: complex subject matters

(3)Form: no fixed framework, no central theme, no attention to poetic rules

VII. T. S. Eliot

1.life

2.works

(1)poems

●The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

●The Waste Land (epic)

●Hollow Man

●Ash Wednesday

●Four Quarters

(2)Plays

●Murder in the Cathedral

●Sweeney Agonistes

●The Cocktail Party

●The Confidential Clerk

(3)Critical essays

●The Sacred Wood

●Essays on Style and Order

●Elizabethan Essays

●The Use of Poetry and The Use of Criticisms

●After Strange Gods

3.point of view

(1)The modern society is futile and chaotic.

(2)Only poets can create some order out of chaos.

(3)The method to use is to compare the past and the present.

4.Style

(1)Fresh visual imagery, flexible tone and highly expressive rhythm

(2)Difficult and disconnected images and symbols, quotations and allusions

(3)Elliptical structures, strange juxtapositions, an absence of bridges

5.The Waste Land: five parts

(1)The Burial of the Dead

(2) A Game of Chess

(3)The Fire Sermon

(4)Death by Water

(5)What the Thunder Said

VIII. Robert Frost

1.life

2.point of view

(1)All his life, Frost was concerned with constructions through poetry. “a momentary stay

against confusion”.

(2)He understands the terror and tragedy in nature, but also its beauty.

(3)Unlike the English romantic poets of 19th century, he didn’t believe that man could find

harmony with nature. He believed that serenity came from working, usually amid natural

forces, which couldn’t be understood. He regarded work as “significant toil”.

3.works – poems

the first: A Boy’s Will

collections: North of Boston, Mountain Interval (mature), New Hampshire

4.style/features of his poems

(1)Most of his poems took New England as setting, and the subjects were chosen from daily life

of ordinary people, such as “mending wall”, “picking apples”.

(2)He writes most often about landscape and people –the loneliness and poverty of isolated

farmers, beauty, terror and tragedy in nature. He also describes some abnormal people, e.g.

“deceptively simple”, “philosophical poet”.

(3)Although he was popular during 1920s, he didn’t experiment like other modern poets. He

used conventional forms, plain language, traditional metre, and wrote in a pastured tradition. IX. e. e. cummings

“a juggler with syntax, grammar and diction” –individualism, “painter poet”

Novels in the 1920s

I. F. Scott Fitzgerald

1.life – participant in 1920s

2.works

(1)This Side of Paradise

(2)Flappers and Philosophers

(3)The Beautiful and the Damned

(4)The Great Gatsby

(5)Tender is the Night

(6)All the Sad Young Man

(7)The Last Tycoon

3.point of view

(1)He expressed what the young people believed in the 1920s, the so-called “American Dream”

is false in nature.

(2)He had always been critical of the rich and tried to show the integrating effects of money on

the emotional make-up o f his character. He found that wealth altered people’s characters,

making them mean and distrusted. He thinks money brought only tragedy and remorse.

(3)His novels follow a pattern: dream – lack of attraction – failure and despair.

4.His ideas of “American Dream”

It is false to most young people. Only those who were dishonest could become rich.

5.Style

Fitzgerald was one of the great stylists in American literature. His prose is smooth, sensitive, and completely original in its diction and metaphors. Its simplicity and gracefulness, its skill in manipulating the relation between the general and the specific reveal his consummate artistry.

6.The Great Gatsby

Narrative point of view – Nick

He is related to everyone in the novel and is calm and detected observer who is never quick to make judgements.

Selected omniscient point of view

II.Ernest Hemingway

1.life

2.point of view (influenced by experience in war)

(1)He felt that WWI had broken America’s culture and traditions, and separated from its roots.

He wrote about men and women who were isolated from tradition, frightened, sometimes

ridiculous, trying to find their own way.

(2)He condemned war as purposeless slaughter, but the attitude changed when he took part in

Spanish Civil War when he found that fascism was a cause worth fighting for.

(3)He wrote about courage and cowardice in battlefield. He defined courage as “an instinctive

movement towards or away from the centre of violence with self-preservation and self-respect,

the mixed motive”. He also talked about the courage with which to face tragedies of life that

can never be remedied.

(4)Hemingway is essentially a negative writer. It is very difficult for him to say “yes”. He holds

a black, naturalistic view of the world and sees it as “all a nothing” and “all nada”.

3.works

(1)In Our Time

(2)Men Without Women

(3)Winner Take Nothing

(4)The Torrents of Spring

(5)The Sun Also Rises

(6) A Farewell to Arms

(7)Death in the Afternoon

(8)To Have and Have Not

(9)Green Hills of Africa

(10)The Fifth Column

(11)For Whom the Bell Tolls

(12)Across the River and into the Trees

(13)The Old Man and the Sea

4.themes –“grace under pressure”

(1)war and influence of war on people, with scenes connected with hunting, bull fighting which

demand stamina and courage, and with the question “how to live with pain”, “how human

being live gracefully unde r pressure”.

(2)“code hero”

The Hemingway hero is an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and

intelligent, a man of action, and one of few words. That is an individualist keeping emotions

under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place. These people are usually spiritual

strong, people of certain skills, and most of them encounter death many times.

5.style

(1)simple and natural

(2)direct, clear and fresh

(3)lean and economical

(4)simple, conversational, common found, fundamental words

(5)simple sentences

(6)Iceberg principle: understatement, implied things

(7)Symbolism

III.Sinclair Lewis –“the worst important writer in American literature”

1.life

2.works

(1)Main Street

(2)Babbitt

(3)Arrowsmith

(4)Dodsworth

(5)Elmer Gantry

3.point of view – satirical critic of American middle class

(1)Lewis showed the villagers to be narrow-minded, greedy, pretentious and corrupt.

(2)He attacked middle class for its indifference to art and culture, and its assumption that

economic success made it superior.

4.style

(1)photographic, verisimilitude

(2)colloquialism

(3)characterization: he often created a type of character rather than an individual

(4)old fashioned in theme

(5)lack in psychological exploration

IV.Willa Cather

1.life

2.works

(1)Alexander’s Bridge

(2)O Pioneers

(3)The Song of the Lark

(4)My Antonia

3.features of her works

(1)She was one of the few “uneasy survivors of the nineteenth century”. Hanging onto the

traditional values, she was never able to come to terms with modernity.

(2)Old west becomes in most of her novels the centre of moral reference against which modern

existence is measured.

(3)She withdraws in her later fiction into the historical past.

(4)She often uses women protagonists in her novels.

Southern Literature

I.Heritage

American southern literature can date back to Edgar Allen Poe, and reach its summit with the appearance of the two “giants” – Faulkner and Wolfe. There are southern women writers – Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor.

II.Southern Myths – guilt, failure, poverty

1.Chevalier heritage

2.Agrarian virtue

3.Plantation aristocracy

4.Lost cause

5.White supremacy

6.Purity of womanhood

Southern literature: twisted, pessimistic, violent, distorted

Gothic novel: Poe

III.William Faulkner

1.life

2.literary career: three stages

(1)1924~1929: training as a writer

●The Marble Faun

●Soldier’s Pay

●Mosquitoes

(2)1929~1936: most productive and prolific period

●Sartoris

●The Sound and the Fury

●As I Lay Dying

●Light in August

●Absalom, Absalom

(3)1940~end: won recognition in America

●Go Down, Moses

3.point of view

He generally shows a grim picture of human society where violence and cruelty are frequently included, but his later works showed more optimism. His intention was to show the evil, harsh events in contrast to such eternal virtues as love, honour, pity, compassion, self-sacrifice, and thereby expose the faults of society. He felt that it was a writer’s duty to remind his readers constantly of true values and virtues.

4.themes

(1)history and race

He explains the present by examining the past, by telling the stories of several generations of

family to show how history changes life. He was interested in the relationship between blacks

and whites, especially concerned about the problems of the people who were of the mixed

race of black and white, unacceptable to both races.

(2)Deterioration

(3)Conflicts between generations, classes, races, man and environment

(4)Horror, violence and the abnormal

5.style/features of his works

(1)complex plot

(2)stream of consciousness

(3)multiple point of view, circular form

(4)violation of chronology

(5)courtroom rhetoric: formal language

(6)characterization: he was able to probe into the psychology of characters

(7)“anti-hero”: weak, fable, vulnerable (true people in modern society)

He has a group of women writers following him, including O’Connor and Eudora Welty

Section 2 The 1930s

Radical 1930s

I.Background

Great Depression (1929 “Black Thursday”)

II.Literature

1.Writers of the 1920s were still writing, but they didn’t produce good works.

2.The main stream is left-oriented.

III.Writers of 1930s

1.social concern and social involvement

2.revival of naturalistic tradition of Dreiser and Norris

IV.John Steinbeck

1.life

2.works

(1)Cup of Gold

(2)Tortilla Flat

(3)In Dubious Battle

(4)Of Mice and Men

(5)The Grapes of Wrath

(6)Travels with Charley

(7)Short stories: The Red Pony, The Pearl

3.point of view

(1)His best writing was produced out of outrage at the injustices of the societies, and by the

admirations for the strong spirit of the poor.

(2)His theme was usually simple human virtues, such as kindness and fair treatment, which were

far superior to the dehumanizing cruelty of exploiters.

4.style

(1)poetic prose

(2)regional dialect

(3)characterization: many types of characters rather than individuals

(4)dramatic factors

(5)social protect: spokesman for the poverty-stricken people

5.The Grapes of Wrath

Chapter 6 The Post-War Period: 50s & 60s

I.Historical Background – multi-faceted

1.Cold War

2.McCarthyism (persecution of communists)

3.Korean War

4.Civil Rights Movement

5.Counter-culture Movement – political, economical and military achievement

II.Literature in the 1950s

1.Regional literature emerged from the south, etc. Many women writers appeared.

2.Dramatists wrote about everyday people, e.g. Arthur Miller.

3.Minority literature developed quickly.

III.Literature in the 1960s

This period is the rising period of post-modern literature. Many forms of post-modern fiction appeared, such as metafiction, surfiction, parafiction, self-reflexive fiction, self-begetting fiction, anti-novel, etc.

The literature in this period is considered as “multi-cultural” literature. The same mood in this period is despair, but continuing to search absurdity of modern life; lonely, but searching for the meaning of existence; identity.

Section 1 Poetry

I.Features

1.Some poets found inspiration in the past.

2.Poetry became more attuned to political and social issues of the period.

3.Poets became more visible in American public life.

4.There was no prescribed form for poetry.

5.Poets became more political. Themes such as homosexuality, racism, etc. are included in the

poems. In 1960s, poetry became more and more political.

II.Schools of Poetry (time, representatives, major features)

1.Confessional Poets: Robert Lowell

The greatness of Lowell lies in the fact that, in talking candidly about himself, he is examining the culture of his nation. The identification of personal experience with that of an age has always ensured greatness and even immortality as it did.

2.Black Mountain Poets: Charles Olson

There is an emphasis on the importance of the moments of awareness. It portrays a world of “awakened, contemplative awareness”, one in which civilization appears alien, cold, and almost unreal.

3.Beat Generation: Alien Ginsberg

In the fifties, there was a widespread discontentment among the post-war generation, whose voice was one of protest against all the mainstream culture America had come to represent.

Section 2 Fiction

I.General Features

1.matter of fact

2.frank, amazingly detailed about war experiences

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/795762510.html,cking social consciousness

II.Overview

1.Post-war Realism: Cheever, Oates

2.Black Novel: Richard Wlight, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Malcolm, Leroi Jones

3.Jewish Novel: Saul Bellow

III.Post-War Realism

1.Features

(1)Naturalistic depiction has become explicit: old-fashioned realism is combined with

modernism.

(2)While following the realistic and naturalistic tradition, these writers borrowed various

experimental forms and techniques in probing the inner world in detail.

(3)It has been a search for a way to connect an oppressed response to society and history and an

awareness of individual loneliness.

2.J. D. Salinger

(1)Life

(2)Point of view

One of his frequent themes is young people longing for simplicity and truth instead of

complexity and hypocrisy of the life they observed around them. In his novels, he questions

the moral foundations of society and often places innocent idealist characters in setting where

a vicious, corrupt society could destroy them. Although his stories are often pessimistic, the

characters represent hope rather than despair. They want to affirm truth. They deplore the lies

with which the society conceals its own corruption. They withdraw the society, become

drop-outs rather than participants in the society.

(3)Catcher in the Rye

IV.Black Humour

1.definition: to deal with tragic things in comic ways to make it more powerful and more tragic.

It refers to the use of morbid and absurd for darkly comic purpose. It carries the tone of anger, bitterness in the grotesque situation of suffering, anxiety, and death. It makes the reader laugh at the blackness of modern life. The writers usually do not laugh at the characters.

2.Features

(1)Comic way to express tragic situations

(2)Creation of anti-hero

(3)Illogical narrative structure

3.Joseph Heller

(1)Life

(2)Catch-22

It is not only a war novel, but also a novel about people’s life in peaceful time. This novel

attacked the dehumanization of all contemporary institutions and corruptions of individuals

who gain power in institutions. Armed-forces are the most outrageous example of the two

evils.

Language: circular conversation, wrenched cliché

Jewish Literature

I.Definition

Jewish literature refers to published creative writings by American Jews about their American experiences. This kind of writings is shown in Jewish perspective.

II.Historical Background

III.Emergence: after WWII

IV.Jewish Point of View

1.Jews believe that God has sent perpetual sufferings to his chosen people to strengthen and purify

them, and they are the “chosen people”.

2.Humour is a prominent aspect of Jewish point of view. It is often a twisted kind of comedy to keep

them from despair. Jews are able to laugh at themselves, so some of their best humour is self-mocking.

3.Jews lay emphasis upon the power of intellects. The power to understand their own experience to

judge their own life rationally to think well is considered a high virtue.

4.Self-teaching is at the heart of almost all Jewish novels. The Jewish heroes often try to seek a

rational interpretation of the world through their own experience in it.

V.Saul Bellow

1.life

2.works

(1)Dangling Man

(2)The Adventures of Augie March

(3)Henderson the Rain King

(4)Herzog

(5)Mr. Sammler’s Planet

(6)Humboldt’s Gift

(7)The Dean’s December

3.point of view

(1)Saul Bellow’s strength lies in his faith in man and man’s ability to offer a “spirited resistance

to the forces of our time”. As he sees it, modern man has lived through frustration and defeat,

managed to grapple with destructive historical pressures, and striven for “certain durable

human goods” – truth, freedom, and wisdom.

(2)He is highly critical of modern life in which the old value system is no longer functioning.

His major characters are all concerned to find a way that would keep American civilization

from going under. They body forth Bellow’s credo that art has “something to do with the

achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos”, and that “a novelist begins with disorder and

disharmony and goes toward order by an unknown process of the imagination”.

4.characteristics of his heroes

Most of Saul Bellow’s heroes are marginal men, alienated or absurd characters caught b etween their own inadequacies and those imposed upon them by their friends and society. Most of them are Jewish intellectuals or writers who try to discover the queerness of existence and overcome it.

Struggling with the impersonality of the physical world, agonized by their own awareness of morality, his protagonists laugh at their own deficiency with irony because it relieves despair. The hunger for community, yet they hold back because that world have to betray the sanctity of their private self in order to achieve it.

5.style: realism + modernism

Chapter 7 American Drama

I.Brief Introduction

1.17th century

●Ye Bare and Ye Cubb (1665) by William Darby

2.18th century

●American subjects began to be treated seriously. The first tragedy is The Contrast (1787) by

Royal Tyler. It is considered “typical American play” about American soldiers.

3.19th century

●poetical plays, esp in the first half of a group of playwrights

●after civil war: realism, melodrama, emotional incidents (domestic melodrama), with simple

plots

4.20th century

separation from the old tradition

●1920s: “Little Theatre Movement”began after 1912, Washington Square Players,

Provincetown Players (New York City, Greenage Village). They are freed from the

conventional theatre and can be as experimental as they like.

●1930s: Eugene O’Neil, Clifford Odets

●Post-war: second climax of American drama, Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman

●60s: Theatre of the Absurd, Edward Albee

II.Eugene O’Neil

1.life

2.works

(1)Bound East for Cardiff

(2)Beyond the Horizon

(3)The Emperor Jones

(4)The Hairy Ape

(5)Desire under the Elms

(6)The Iceman Cometh

(7)Long Day’s Journey into Night

3.point of view

His purpose is to get the root of human desires and frustrations. He showed most characters in his plays as seeking meaning and purpose in their lives, some through love, some through religion, some through revenge, all met disappointment. The characters seem to share O’Neil’s perplexities of human nature. As a result of his tragic and nihilistic view of life, his works, in general, indicated chaos and hopelessness.

4.The Hairy Ape

Yank

5.style

(1)O’Neil was a tireless experimentalist in dramatic art. He paid little attention to the division of

scenes. He introduced the realistic or even the naturalistic into the American theatre.

(2)He borrowed freely from the best traditions of European drama, especially the stream of

consciousness.

(3)He made use of setting and stage property to help in his dramatic representation.

(4)He wrote long introduction and directions for all the scenes, explaining the mood and

atmosphere.

(5)He sometimes wrot e the actors’ lines in dialect.

6.His position

He was the first playwright to explore serious themes in theatre. With him, American drama developed into a form of literature. And in him, American drama came of age (mature). He came only after Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw in the world of drama.

III.Tennessee Williams

1.life

2.point of view and themes

He writes about violence, sex, homosexuality (taboos in drama). Some of his plays rooted in southern social scene. The characters are often unhappy wanderers; lonely, vulnerable women indulged in memory of the past or illusion of the future. He was attracted to bizarre characters and their predicament. He looked deeply into the psychology of the outcasts of society. He saw life a game which cannot be won. Almost all his characters are defeated.

3.his plays

(1)The Glass Menagerie

(2) A Streetcar Named Desire

(3)Summer and Smoke

(4)Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

4.style

(1)combination of coarseness and poetry

(2)vivid southern speech

(3)He helped to break taboos, long imposed on the American literature.

IV.Arthur Miller

1.life

2.theme: dilemma of modern man in relation to family and work

3.his plays

(1)The Man Who Had All the Luck

(2)All My Sons

(3)Death of a Salesman

(4)The Crucible

(5) A View for the Bridge

V.Theatre of the Absurd

1.introduction: existentialist philosophy, mainly in Europe

2.four founders: Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov

3.What is “absurd”?

Humorous and meaningless

4.features

(1)The basic assumption: human life lacks coherence and is chaotic. Life operates without any

rules.

(2)The world is meaningless, so the play appears meaningless.

(3)It examines the problems of life and death, of isolation and communication.

(4)It satirizes people who are unaware of the ultimate reality (death).

(5)In absurd drama, situation is more important than characters and events. The dramatist wants

to show people what their situation in their life is. Therefore, he constructs a play which

presents a picture of the universal situation. One result of these is that the characters are often

comic and humorous.

5.Edward Albee

(2)Life

(3)Works

a.Zoo Story

b.Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Chapter 8 Black American Literature

I.Overview

Negro – coloured (legally free) – black (after civil rights movement)

1.oral tradition

(1)songs and ballads

(2)spirituals: sorrow of the singers’ earlier condition and longing for freedom

(3)blues: after civil war, derived from work songs – loneliness, separation, losses, wonderings,

love, desperation, sense of doom

(4)jazz: after WWI, developed from blues, died out in the Great Depression

2.written literature (from 1760s)

(1)poetry: religious, enduring, patient to the white

(2)slave narrative: autobiographical experience of the person

(3)1920s: Harlem Renaissance – New York, black – black dialect and black folklore –“the new

negro” –representatives: Langston Hughes (“black poet laureate”), Huston, Claude McKay

(4)1940s: Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison

(5)50s~60s: a lot of black writers emerged in the civil rights movement: James Baldwin, Brooks,

Jones

(6)70s~80s: publishing of “Root” (Alex Haley), Walker –“The Colour Purple”, Morrison (the

second woman writer and the only black who won Nobel Prize)

II.Richard Wright

1.life

2.works

(1)Uncle Tom’s Children: Four Novellas

(2)Native Son

(3)Black Boy

(4)The Outsider (the first novel of existentialism in America, published in France)

3.themes and subjects

His common theme is to condemn racism, urge reform, criticize evils of society. His books focus on racial conflict and physical violence. They review the devastating effect of institutionalized hatred (hatred brought by social system) and humiliation on black males’ psyche. Th ey affirmed dignity and humility of society’s outcasts.

4.writing techniques – realism, naturalism

He tries to show that people cannot escape from society. Therefore, society must be changed. He is

a father figure, especially to the writers of violence.

III.Ralph Ellison

1.life

2.works: Invisible Man

significance: It has a universality of theme (problems of all modern people), not only regional dilemma of existence.

3.attitude: complexity of art – the best art makes good politics, not vice versa.

IV.James Baldwin

1.life

2.works

(1)Go Tell It on the Mountain

(2)Notes of a Native Son

(3)Nobody Knows My Name

(4)The Fire Next Time

3.point of view

Baldwin calls for the blacks to resort to means including force so as to bring about the nation’s self-realization. He saw love and understanding as difficult but necessary way to overcome racial conflict.

4.themes: race, homosexuality

V.Alice Walker

1.life

2.works

(1)Once (a collection of poems)

(2)In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (“womanism” instead of feminism)

(3)The Colour Purple (epistolary)

VI.Toni Morrison

1.life

2.works

(1)The Bluest Eye

(2)Sula

(3)Song of Solomon (the best black novel after Native Son and Invisible Man)

(4)Tar Baby

(5)Beloved

(6)Jazz

(7)Love (trilogy)

3.themes: love, guilt, history, individual, gender, race, religion

4.purpose: to empower the black people to act for themselves, to recognize for their own world, own

history, own reality

5.style – many kinds of factors: naturalism, realism, fantasy, reality, magical realism

陶洁版_美国文学期末笔记

美国文学笔记 I. Colonial Period（殖民地时期）（约1607-1765） II. The Revolutionary period（革命时期) :( 1765-18世纪末）Benjamin Franklin（1706-1790） III.The Romantic period （浪漫主义时期）: （1800-1865）Edgar Allan Poe（1809-1849） Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Henry Daivd Thoreau (1817-1862) Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) Herman Melville (1819-1891) Walt Whitman (1819~1892) Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) IV.The Realism and Naturalism（现实主义和自然主义) : （1865-1918） Mark Twain (1835-1910) Henry James (1843-1916) Stephen Crane (1881-1900) V. The Modern period (现代主义时期）: 1918-1945 F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) William Faulkner (1897-1962) Ernest Hemingway (1899—1961) Ezra Pound (1885—1972) Robert Frost（1847-1963） Eugene O’ Neil (1888-1953) VI. Contemporary literature（当代文学):（1945- ） I. Colonial Period（殖民地时期）（约1607-1765） II. The Revolutionary period（革命时期): (1765-18世纪末）Benjamin Franklin（1706-1790）： 1. Summary: One of the greatest founding fathers of the American Nation First great self-made man in America

常耀信《美国文学简史》(第3版)笔记和考研真题详解(9-14章)【圣才出品】

第9章地方色彩小说?马克?吐温 9.1复习笔记 I.Local Colorism（地方色彩主义） The vogue of local color fiction was the outgrowth of historical and aesthetic forces that had been gathering energy since early19th century.Local colorism as a literary trend first made its presence felt in the late1860s and early seventies.It is a variation of American literary realism. Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life,recorders of a present that faded before their eyes.They concerned themselves 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.Major local colorists are Bret Harte,Hanlin Garland, Harriet Beecher Stowe,Kate Chopin and Mark Twain. 地方色彩小说的流行是自19世纪早期以来历史和艺术力量凝聚的产物。作为一种文学潮流，地方色彩主义在19世纪60年代晚期和70年代早期初展头角。它是美国现实主义文学的一个分支。 地方色彩主义作家是怀念正在消逝的生活方式的历史家，他们记录了在他们眼前逝去的现在。他们致力于展示描述自己地方的特色，倾向于赞颂地方生活并将其理想化，但是他们又注意不失地方生活的真实色彩。主要的地方色彩主义作家包括布莱特·哈特、汉林·加兰德、哈里耶特·比彻·斯托、凯特·肖邦及马克·吐温等。 II.Mark Twain(1835-1910)（马克·吐温） 1.Life（生平） Mark Twain,pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens,is a great literary giant of America. He was brought up in the small town of Hannibal,Missouri,on the Mississippi River.He was twelve when his father died and he had to leave school.He was successively a printer’s apprentice,a tramp printer,a silver miner,a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi,and a frontier journalist in Nevada and California.This knocking about gave him wide knowledge of humanity. With the publication of his frontier tale,he became nationally famous.His first novel The Gilded Age was an artistic failure,but it gave its name to the American of the post-bellum period.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was his masterwork.Mark Twain was essentially an affirmative writer.But toward the latter part of his life,due to some tragic events,he changed to an almost

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美国文学作者作品 Edwards: 爱德华兹 The Freedom of the Will 《论意志自由》 Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended 《论原罪》 The Nature of True Virtue 《论真实德行的本原》 名篇：Personal Narrative 《自述》 Sinners in the hands of an Angry God 《愤怒上帝手中之罪》 Benjamin Franklin:本杰明·富兰克林 Poor Richard’s Almanac《穷理查德年历》Autobiography 《自传》 Washington Irving:华盛顿·欧文 A History of New York《纽约外传》The Sketch Book 《见文札记》名篇：Rip Van Winkle《瑞普·温·凡克尔》 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 《睡谷传奇》 James Fenimore Cooper:詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库柏Leatherstocking Tales 《皮袜子故事集》 The Pioneer 《拓荒者》The Prairie 《大草原》 The Last of Mohicans《最后的莫希干人》 The Pathfinder《探路人》The Deerslayer 《猎鹿者》

Ralph Waldo Emerson:拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生 Nature 《论自然》Self-Reliance 《论自立》Essays 《随笔集》名篇：The American Scholar 《美国学者》（has been regarded as “American Declaration of Intellectual Independence”被誉为美国思想的独立宣言） The Poet Henry David Thoreau:亨利·戴维·梭罗 Walden 《瓦尔登湖》 Nathaniel Hawthorne:纳撒尼尔·霍桑 The Scarlet Letter《红字》 The House of the Seven Gables 《七个尖角阁的房子》 Mosses from an Old Manse《古厦青苔》 The Blithedale Romance《福谷传奇》 The Marble Faun 《玉石神像》 Ethan Brand 《伊桑布兰德》 Young Goodman Brown 《好小伙子布朗》 Dr. Heidggeger’s Experiment 《海德格博士的体验》 The Ambitions Guest 《野心勃勃的客人》 The Greast Stone Face 《巨石脸》

常耀信《美国文学简史》笔记和考研真题详解(美国浪漫主义 欧文 库柏)【圣才出品】

第3章美国浪漫主义欧文库柏 3.1 复习笔记 I. Overview of American Romanticism（美国浪漫主义简介） In the history of American literature, the Romantic period is one of the most important periods. It stretched from the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the civil war. 美国文学中的浪漫主义时期开始于18世纪末，到南北战争爆发为止，是美国文学史上的重要阶段。 1. Background（背景） (1) A nation bursting into new life cried for literary expression. The buoyant mood of the nation and the spirit of the times seemed in some measure responsible for the spectacular outburst of romantic feeling. The literary milieu proved fertile and conductive to the imagination. Magazine appeared in ever-increasing numbers. They played an important role in facilitating literary expansion. (2) Foreign influences added incentive to the growth of romanticism. The Romantic Movement, which had flourished earlier in the century both in England

美国文学笔记

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常耀信《美国文学简史》笔记和考研真题详解(美国戏剧)【圣才出品】

第19章美国戏剧 19.1 复习笔记 I. Overview of American drama（美国戏剧概述） American drama began in 1916 when the Provincetown Players produced Eugene O’Neil’s first play, Bound East for Cardiff. It is true that there were no great masters in the theater comparable in stature to such major figures in fiction as Melville or James, but there had been people who did spadework for the rise of American drama in the 1920s. There was a renaissance of drama in the 1920s. American drama began the process of developing itself into a department of American literature equal in significance to both poetry and the novel. The theater of the Depression was not depressing. Like other branches of literature the drama was preoccupied with social concern. The staging of Tennessee Williams’The Glass Menagerie on Broadway in 1945 was an even of unusual significance, as it marked American drama’s coming of age. The late fifties saw a temporary decline in dramatic productions, but in the next decade, American drama picked up a good deal of fresh energy. With the passage of time there has appeared the increasingly more obvious tendency to “decentralize”from Broadway with more and more plays stages Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway. And from the end of the sixties.

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American Puritanism: Puritanism was a religious reform movement that arose within the Church of England in the late sixteenth century. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and forth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World--- a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England, Puritanism, however,was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincident with the founding of New England; it was also a way of being in the world---a style of response to lived experience---that has reverberated through American life ever since. Doctrinally, Puritans adhered to the Five Points of Calvinism as codified at the Synod of Dort in 1619:(1) unconditional election ( the idea that God had decreed who was damned and who was saved from before the beginning of the world); (2) limited atonement ( the idea that Christ died for the elect only); (3) total depravity (humanity's utter corruption since the Fall); (4) irresistible grace (regeneration as entirely a work of God, which cannot be resisted and to which the sinner contributes nothing); and (5) the perseverance of the saints (the elect, despite their backsliding and faintness of heart , cannot fall away from grace). American Dream: The American Dream is the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth as a measure of success and\ or happiness. Gothic tradition: Gothic novel or Gothic romance is a story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery. In an extended sense, many novels that do not have a medievalized setting, but which share a comparably sinister, grotesque, or chaustrophobic atmosphere have been classed as Gothic. It contributed to the new emotional climate of Romanticism. Historical novel: a novel in which the action takes place during a specific historical period well before the time of writing ( often one or two generations before, sometimes several centuries), and in which some attempt is made to depict accurately the customs and mentality of the period. The central character---real or imagined---is usually subject to divided loyalties within a larger historic conflict of which readers know the outcome. The pioneers of this genre were Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper American Romanticism:Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. The romantic period in American literature stretched from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil

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通过研读演练本书，达到把握教材重点知识点、适应多样化的专业课考研命题方式、提高备考针对性、提升复习效率与答题技巧的目的。同时，透过测试演练，以便查缺补漏，为初试高分奠定坚实基础。 适用院系： 外语学院：英语语言文学、外国语言学及应用语言学 适用科目： 619基础英语 内容详情 本书包括以下几个部分内容： Part 1 - 词汇短语 Part 2 - 课文精解 Part 3 - 单元语法 Part 4 - 全文翻译 Part 5 - 练习答案 Part 4 - 华东师范大学历年考研真题与答案：

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History And Anthology of American Literature （6） 附：作者及作品 一、殖民主义时期The Literature of Colonial America 1．船长约翰·史密斯Captain John Smith 《自殖民地第一次在弗吉尼亚垦荒以来发生的各种事件的真实介绍》 “A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony” 《弗吉尼亚地图，附：一个乡村的描述》 “A Map of Virginia: with a Description of the Country” 《弗吉尼亚通史》“General History of Virginia” 2．威廉·布拉德福德William Bradford 《普利茅斯开发历史》“The History of Plymouth Plantation”3．约翰·温思罗普John Winthrop 《新英格兰历史》“The History of New England” 4．罗杰·威廉姆斯Roger Williams 《开启美国语言的钥匙》”A Key into the Language of America” 或叫《美洲新英格兰部分土著居民语言指南》 Or “A Help to the Language of the Natives in That Part of America Called New England ” 5．安妮·布莱德斯特Anne Bradstreet 《在美洲诞生的第十个谬斯》 ”The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America” 二、理性和革命时期文学The Literature of Reason and Revolution 1。本杰明·富兰克林Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) ※《自传》“ The Autobiography ” 《穷人理查德的年鉴》“Poor Richard’s Almanac” 2。托马斯·佩因Thomas Paine (1737-1809) ※《美国危机》“The American Crisis” 《收税官的案子》“The Case of the Officers of the Excise”《常识》“Common Sense” 《人权》“Rights of Man” 《理性的时代》“The Age of Reason” 《土地公平》“Agrarian Justice” 3。托马斯·杰弗逊Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) ※《独立宣言》“The Declaration of I ndependence” 4。菲利浦·弗瑞诺Philip Freneau (1752-1832) ※《野忍冬花》“The Wild Honey Suckle” ※《印第安人的坟地》“The Indian Burying Ground” ※《致凯提·迪德》“To a Caty-Did” 《想象的力量》“The Power of Fancy” 《夜屋》“The House of Night” 《英国囚船》“The British Prison Ship” 《战争后期弗瑞诺主要诗歌集》 “The Poems of Philip Freneau Written Chiefly During the Late War” 《札记》“Miscellaneous Works” 三、浪漫主义文学The Literature of Romanticism 1。华盛顿·欧文Washington Irving (1783-1859) ※《作者自叙》“The Author’s Account of Himself” ※《睡谷传奇》“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” 《见闻札记》“Sketch Book” 《乔纳森·欧尔德斯泰尔》“Jonathan Oldstyle” 《纽约外史》“A History of New York” 《布雷斯布里奇庄园》“Bracebridge Hall” 《旅行者故事》“Tales of Traveller” 《查理二世》或《快乐君主》“Charles the Second” Or “The Merry Monarch” 《克里斯托弗·哥伦布生平及航海历史》 “A History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus” 《格拉纳达征服编年史》”A Chronicle of the Conquest of Grandada” 《哥伦布同伴航海及发现》 ”V oyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus” 《阿尔罕布拉》“Alhambra” 《西班牙征服传说》“Legends of the Conquest of Spain” 《草原游记》“A Tour on the Prairies” 《阿斯托里亚》“Astoria” 《博纳维尔船长历险记》“The Adventures of Captain Bonneville” 《奥立弗·戈尔德史密斯》”Life of Oliver Goldsmith” 《乔治·华盛顿传》“Life of George Washington” 2．詹姆斯·芬尼莫·库珀James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) ※《最后的莫希干人》“The Last of the Mohicans” 《间谍》“The Spy” 《领航者》“The Pilot” 《美国海军》“U.S. Navy” 《皮袜子故事集》“Leather Stocking Tales” 包括《杀鹿者》、《探路人》”The Deerslayer”, ”The Pathfinder” 《最后的莫希干人》“The Last of the Mohicans” 《拓荒者》、《大草原》“The Pioneers”, “The Praire” 3。威廉·卡伦·布莱恩特William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) ※《死之思考》“Thanatopsis” ※《致水鸟》“To a Waterfowl” 4。埃德加·阿伦·坡Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) ※《给海伦》“To Helen” ※《乌鸦》“The Raven” ※《安娜贝尔·李》“Annabel Lee” ※《鄂榭府崩溃记》“The Fall of the House of Usher” 《金瓶子城的方德先生》“Ms. Found in a Bottle” 《述异集》“Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque” 5。拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) ※《论自然》“Nature” ※《论自助》“Self-Reliance” 《美国学者》“The American Scholar” 《神学院致辞》“The Divinity School Address” 《随笔集》“Essays” 《代表》“Representative Men” 《英国人》“English Traits” 《诗集》“Poems” 6。亨利·戴维·梭罗Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) ※《沃尔登我生活的地方我为何生活》 1

常耀信《美国文学简史》笔记和考研真题详解(纽约派诗人 沉思型诗歌 黑山派诗人)【圣才出品】

第22章纽约派诗人?沉思型诗歌?黑山派诗人 22.1 复习笔记 I. The New York School（纽约派诗人） 1. Features of the New York School（纽约派诗歌的特点） The so-called New York School became well known with the publication of Donald Allen’s 1960 anthology. The poets of the New York School were different in their separate pursuits, but their poetry reveals something they shared in common. (1) For one thing, they were all vehemently up against the dominant New Critical values such as the impersonal presentation of images, and tried to assert their individual poetic voice. (2) They also introduced the popular and the low features of life into their writings like popular songs, comic strip figures, and Hollywood movies. (3) Thirdly, they exhibited a huge sense of humor, offering room as their poems did for elements like the vulgar and the sentimental. (4) Finally, they experimented with Surrealism, for a while. 所谓的纽约派是随着唐纳德·艾伦1960年发表的文集而出名的。纽约派诗人的追求各异，但他们的诗歌都有相同的特点。