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美国文学思维导图
这是一个关于美国文学思维导图，美国文学（American Literature 或 Literature of the United States）指在美国产生的文学，包括建国前殖民地时期的文学作品。以下是对美国文学的详细概述。
编辑于2024-12-18 09:41:13- 美国文学
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美国文学思维导图
Colonial Period
Writers (Chapter 1-4)
the first American writer-Captain John Smith
the first noted poetess in colonial period- Anne Bradstreet
the best of the Puritan poets-Edward Taylor
the first permanent English settlement in North America-Jamestown, Virginia (in 1607)
Characteristics
Genre/Style :Sermons[说教], religious tracts, diaries, personal narratives, religious poems. It was written in plain style.
Effect/Aspects:Instructive, reinforces authority of the Bible and the church. Very little imaginative literature was produced.
Historical Context:Puritan settlers fled England where they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs, and came to New England to have religious freedom.
1.American literature was a literary expression of the pious[虔诚的] idealism of the Puritan request. 2.The Puritans' metaphorical mode of perception brought American literary symbolism into being. 3.The Puritan style of writing was characterized by simplicity.
Puritanism 术语必考！！！
Definition
Puritanism was a religious reform movement within the Church of England. It began in the late 16th century in England but soon spread to the Northern English colonies in the New World.
The Puritans in America laid the foundation for the religious, social, and political order of New England colonial life. Puritanism in Colonial America helped shape American culture, politics, religion, society, and history well into the 19th century.
Features
Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred
Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil . "In Adam's fall, we all sin"
Total depravity :Humanity's absolute corruption since the Fall of Man
Limited atonement[赎罪] or the salvation of a selected few: Only the "elect" can be saved
Influence on American literature
Basis of American literature
Contribute to the development of Symbolism: a technique,which is widely used and means using symbols in literary works. The symbol means something that represents or stands for abstract deep meaning.
Style of literature: simple, fresh and direct(just as the style of the Authorized Version of Holy Bible)
The Age of Reason
Definition
A movement that was marked by an emphasis on rationality rather than tradition,scientific inquiry instead of unquestioning religious dogma[教条], and representative government in place of monarchy.
Basic information
In 1783, the United States achieved its independence.
Rooted in reality rather than imagination
Concentration on social, political, and scientific improvements
Also called an age of pamphlets[小册子]
The literature produced in this era marked a major shift from a focus on religion to a more worldly,rational, and patriotic style.
Famous writers
Benjamin Franklin (Chapter 5)
Basic information
1️⃣The prototype of the American Dream 2️⃣America's first self-made man 3️⃣The first American 4️⃣America has never forgotten him because he did both 5️⃣Honored as one of the Founding Fathers and as one of America's greatest citizens 6️⃣Versatile:a master of many 7️⃣An exemplary self-made man,a true son of the Enlightenment
Famous works
Poor Richard's Almanac
Autobiography
Introduction
1️⃣Franklin wrote this book when he was 65 years old. 2️⃣It's a record of his rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity. 3️⃣Written in clear, witty prose, the account of the development of a self-made American provided the model for a story that would be told again and again. 4️⃣A masterpiece of the Age of Reason
Content
Part 1:Written in 1771 in England, a letter to his son; covering his life before the age of 25 : ·his short schooling, ·his apprenticeship, ·the development of his printing business, ·his marriage, etc.
Part 2:Written in 1784 at Passy, a suburb of Paris, giving a more detailed account of his activities in public affairs. He listed 13 virtues he wishes to perfect in himself.
The thirteen virtues: temperance, silence, order, resolution,frugality, industry, sincerity, justice,moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity,and humility
Part 3 & 4:Finished in Philadelphia, describing his life from the age of 25 to 51. It is an incomplete autobiography.
Style
Simple, clear, direct and concise
Significance
1️⃣Popular, still well-read today 2️⃣His values and style influenced lots of Americans 3️⃣With it, he set the form for autobiography as a genre
Thomas Paine (Chapter 6)
Basic information
1️⃣Journalist, essayist 2️⃣Introduced by Franklin to American society 3️⃣Wrote 16 pamphlets 4️⃣Pamphlet Common Sense created mood for revolution by using "Charged Words"
Famous works
Common Sense
The American Crisis
Rights of Man
The Age of Reason
Agrarian Justice
Style
plain-style, bold and simple
Thomas Jefferson (Chapter 7)
Famous work
Declaration of Independence
Philip Freneau (Chapter 8)
Introduction
"Poet of the American Revolution" "Father of American Poetry" "Pioneer of the New Romanticism" "A gifted and versatile lyric poet"
Famous works
The House of Night
The Wild Honey Suckle
The Indian Burying Ground
Romanticism
Definition
1️⃣Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement which developed in both Europe and the United States.From the late eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, it became a dominant force in politics, religion, and the arts. 2️⃣It emphasized individual values and aspirations above those of society as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. 3️⃣Romanticism reflected a deep appreciation of the beauty of nature. For the romantics, nature was how the spirit was revealed to humankind. 4️⃣Romanticism emphasized the importance of the subjective experience. The romantics believed that emotion and the senses could lead to higher truth than either reason or the intellect could. 5️⃣Romanticism was idealistic. Political and social romantics asserted that human beings could live according to higher principles, such as the beliefs in social equality, freedom, and human rights. 6️⃣Romanticism asserted the power of the individual. 7️⃣Romanticism was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism.
American Romanticism: imitative(derivative) VS innovative(independent)
Background
1️⃣A period of the rapid growth and rapid expansion Population/ nationalism/immigration/industrialization/a Gold Rush - optimistic attitude 2️⃣A period of the discussion of social issues The woman's issue/the slavery issue - a human being 3️⃣Fast development of the new nation An economic boom/optimism 4️⃣The desire for intellectual independence The fertilization of literary milieu 5️⃣Development of journalism (media to express) 6️⃣International influences European romanticism /Literary influence
Features
1️⃣Stressing emotion rather than reason 2️⃣Stressing freedom and individuality 3️⃣Stressing idealism rather than materialism 4️⃣Writing about nature, medieval legends with supernatural elements
Famous writers
Washington Irving (Chapter 9)
Brief introduction
1️⃣The first American writer to earn an international reputation 2️⃣The only American writer of his generation who could chide the British in an atmosphere of good humor 3️⃣Father of American short stories
Short story The short story as a genre in American literature probably began with Irving's The Sketch Book that touched American imagination and foreshadowed the coming of Hawthorne,Melville and Poe, in whose hands the short story attained a degree of perfection as a literary tradition.
Influence
1️⃣Mark the beginning of short story as a genre in American literature 2️⃣Mark the beginning of American Romanticism
Major works
A History of New York
The Sketch Book
Rip Wan Winkle
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Close reading
见PDF
The Alhambra
A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada
The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus
Contributions
① He was the father of American literature. ② He was the first romantic writer, first to get international fame. ③ He made short story as a genre. ④ His stories based on the legends of Europe and Spain gave his readers a glimpse of a world beyond their own shores. ⑤ His colorful legends of the Hudson River Valley helped awaken Americans to an appreciation of their nation and its native literature.
Style
① imitative, but highly skillful; ② never shocking and a bit sentimental at times;"The style is the man" ③ avoided moralizing as much as possible; wrote to amuse and entertain; ④ good at enveloping his stories in an atmosphere; ⑤ graceful presentation, careful phrases, humor,sense of irony; ⑥ simplicity, vivid characterization, vivid descriptive imagery.
James Fenimore Cooper (Chapter 10)
The first important American novelist
Famous work
Leatherstocking Tales
①The Pioneers ②The Last of the Mohicans ③The Prairie ④The Pathfinder ⑤The Deerslayer
Style
His writing is powerful yet clumsy. He is good at inventing plots. His style: verbose & lack of realism
Contributions
① He was the first writer of sea novels. ② He was the first excellent writer of border novels. ③ He was the first writer of series novels. ④ He was the first romantic writer with rationalism. ⑤ He was the first writer in American appreciated by many writers of different nationalities and different generations. ⑥ He was a mythic writer and created a myth about the formative period of the American nation.
William Cullen Bryant (Chapter 11)（杨老师讲了，王老师班上同学讲的，PPT见压缩包）
1️⃣First American poet to win international acclaim. 2️⃣Bryant was considered a child-prodigy, publishing his first poem at age ten and his first book when he was thirteen.
Famous works
Thanatopsis
To a Waterfowl
Edgar Allan Poe (Chapter 12)
Life experience
lead a miserable/bitter/poor life
Famous works
Short Story
Horror
The Fall of the House of Usher
Close reading
见PDF
Theme
Horror, death
Features
Gothic
Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto.
Gothic elements:deep analysis of human psychology; precursor[先驱] of detective stories
Prominent features of Gothic fiction include terror (both psychological and physical),mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles,darkness, death, decay, madness, secrets, and hereditary curses.
Elements of Gothic in Poe's Fiction
Grim setting
- Landscapes are often reflections of character's mind, inner world - Unusual buildings, extremes of nature, eccentric works of art - Very few of his stories take place in America;most take place in Europe or never-never land
Poe's Gothicism
·Decadent content ·Grotesque images ·Abnormal psyches ·Melancholy ·Supernatural elements ·Other gothic elements (deserted castle, old temple, dark and gloomy cellar; stone coffin; dead woman; hero of abnormal psyche)
Complex characters in deep psychological states Carefully crafted symbols: setting; houses, etc.
Ratiocination
The Purloined Letter
Theme
Poe places veiled clues before the reader.The writer/narrator strives to appear objective.
Poetry
To Helen
Close reading
见PDF
Background
Edgar Allan Poe wrote "To Helen" as a reflection on the beauty of Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard who died in 1824. She was the mother of one of Poe's school classmates, Robert Stanard. When Robert invited Edgar, then 14,to his home (at 19th and East Grace Streets in Richmond) in 1823, Poe was greatly taken with the 27-year-old woman, who is said to have urged him to write poetry. He was later to write that she was his first real love.
Theme
Beauty, death, death of beautiful ladies
Literacy theories
"The Philosophy of Composition" "The Poetic Principle"
Poetry should be short and readable at one sitting, should appeal only to "beauty" theories(aiming at "an elevating excitement of the soul") True poetry is "the rhythmical creation of beauty"
One full-length novel
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
Style
1️⃣His tales are filled with violence and death.Many of his characters are obsessed with a fear of death. Some of them strive to come back from the tomb; others are terrified of being buried alive or in fact are buried alive. 2️⃣His typical heroines are beautiful, but usually afflicted with mysterious diseases and doomed to an early death. 3️⃣He emphasized "the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque - the fearful colored into the horrible; the witty exaggerated into burlesque; the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical."
Literary position
1️⃣A poet, short-story writer, and literary critic 2️⃣Influenced French symbolism and the devotees of "art for art's sake" 3️⃣Poe is Father of psychoanalytic criticism, modern short story, and detective story
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Chapter 15) 论述会考！！！
Brief introduction
1️⃣An American novelist 2️⃣A pioneer of psychological analyst 3️⃣A short story writer 4️⃣The first great American writer of fiction to work in the moralistic tradition 5️⃣Combined the American romanticism with moralism
Major work
The Scarlet Letter
Close reading
见PDF
Style
1️⃣A man of craftsmanship, extraordinary in ①the use of symbol(serve as a weapon to attack realty;a master of symbolism) ②the use of ambiguity(keep the readers in the world of uncertainty with multiple point of view) ③revelation of characters' psychology(good at exploring the complexity of human psychology) ④the use of supernatural 2️⃣Many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration 3️⃣His works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity 4️⃣His works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, Dark Romanticism (The Dark Romantics emphasized human fallibility and proneness to sin and self-destruction, as well as the difficulties inherent in attempts at social reform) 5️⃣His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity (Black vision of human nature)
Influence
1️⃣He was a major American writer and the greatest writer living in the 19th century. He was regarded as a pioneer of psychological novel and a master of symbolism 2️⃣With the publication of The Scarlet Letter, he secured his position in the literary history forever, and he influenced many writers in his time and later generations, such as Herman Melville, Henry James, William Dean Howells and William Faulkner, etc.
Herman Melville (Chapter 16)（杨老师讲了，王老师班上同学讲的，PPT见压缩包）
Famous work
Moby-Dick
1️⃣An encyclopedia of everything 2️⃣A Shakespearean tragedy of man fighting against the fate 3️⃣The cornerstone of Melville's modern fame
Close reading
见PDF
Fireside Poets 术语必考！！！
Definition
1️⃣The Fireside Poets were a group of 19th-century American poets associated with New England. These poets were very popular among readers and critics both in the United States and overseas 2️⃣Also known as the Schoolroom Poets, the Household Poets and New England Poets 3️⃣Members include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Characteristics
1️⃣conventional, wealthy, highly cultured,interested in the advanced European art forms in literature; 2️⃣a strong sense of morality 3️⃣general adherence to poetic convention 4️⃣poems particularly suitable for memorization and recitation in school and a source of entertainment for families gathered around the fire at home
Characteristics of the poems: traditional & imitative 1️⃣standard forms 2️⃣regular meter 3️⃣rhymed stanzas 4️⃣Preferred conventional forms over experimentation, using European literary forms and literary language to talk about what was natively American Subjects of the poems: 1️⃣the domestic life 2️⃣mythology 3️⃣politics of America Often used American legends and scenes of American life as their subject matter
Terms Concerning Poetry
Foot
Foot is a unit of division of a line of poetry containing one strong beat and one or two weaker ones.
There are five kinds of regular feet in English poetry: iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl and spondee.
iamb
a unit of rhythm in poetry, consisting of one short or weak syllable that is not stressed followed by one long or strong syllable that is stressed（轻重）.
trochee
a metrical foot used in formal poetry consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one（重轻）.
anapest
a foot with two short or unstressed syllables followed by one long or stressed syllable（轻轻重）.
dactyl
a foot with one strong or long syllable followed by two unstressed or short syllables（重轻轻）.
spondee
in poetry, a rhythm of two long or strong syllables（重重）.
Meter
Meter is the regular arrangement of syllables in poetry according to the number and type of beats in a line.
There are monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, etc.
Rhyme
Rhyme is the repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that usually appear close to each other in a poem.
There are end rhyme, internal rhyme, alliteration and assonance.
Stanza
Stanza is a structural division of a poem,consisting of a series of verse lines which usually comprise a recurring pattern of meter and rhyme.
The two-line stanza is called the couplet, the best-known being the heroic couplet written rhyme.in iambic pentameter with an end.
The four-line stanza is called quatrain, which is the most popular of all stanzaic forms.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Chapter 17)（杨老师讲了，王老师班上同学讲的，PPT见压缩包）
Brief introduction
America's Uncrowned Poet Laureate
The most beloved and popular American poet of his time
After his death, he became the only American to be honored with a bust in the poet's corner of Westminster Abbey
Major works
Voices of the Night
A Psalm of Life
Close reading
见PDF
trochaic tetrameter
Evangeline
The Song of Hiawatha
Divine Comedy (The first American to translate Dante's The Divine Comedy)
Style
1️⃣His poetry, sentimental, often moralizing, is based on familiar and easily understood themes with simple, clear, and flowing language 2️⃣The hallmarks of his verse are gentleness,simplicity, and an idealized vision of the world 3️⃣His poetry contributed to creating American mythology 4️⃣Musical, mildly romantic, high-minded, and flavored with sentimental preachment
Contribution
1️⃣Exercised a great influence in bringing European culture to the US 2️⃣Did much to popularize American folk themes abroad 3️⃣His popular poems strongly reflected the optimistic sentiment and the love of the humanitarian spirit of the people
Influence
1️⃣The most popular & influential American poet of the 19th century 2️⃣Influenced the poetic taste of generations of readers throughout the English-speaking world 3️⃣Criticized for imitating European styles
Transcendentalism
Definition
1️⃣A religious, philosophical, and literary movement that began to express itself in New England in the 1830s and continued through the 1840s and 1850s. It stressed the role of divinity in nature and the individual's intuition,and exalted feeling over reason. 2️⃣Transcendentalists believed that true reality transcends, or exists beyond, the physical world. 3️⃣The core point of transcendentalism is to claim that people can directly know the truth beyond feeling and reason, and emphasize the importance of intuition.
Features
1️⃣The most important thing in the universe is spirit, or the Over-soul. 2️⃣The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. 3️⃣The ideal type of man is the self-reliant individual through the perfection of whom the regeneration of society can be achieved. 4️⃣The Transcendentalists have a fresh perception of nature as of the Spirit or God. Nature is the garment of the Over-soul. 5️⃣The new spirit was neither social, nor political, nor industrial, nor economic, nor literary, nor scientific,nor religious. It was all of them at once. It transcended every phase of life. It is a whole new way of thinking.
Tenets
1️⃣Believed in living close to nature/importance of nature. Nature is the source of truth and inspiration 2️⃣Taught the dignity of manual labor 3️⃣Advocated self-trust/confidence 4️⃣Valued individuality/non-conformity/free thought 5️⃣Advocated self-reliance/ simplicity
Influence
1️⃣It 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. 2️⃣It advocated idealism that was greatly needed in a rapidly expanded economy where opportunity often became opportunism, and the desire to "get on" obscured the moral necessity for rising to spiritual height. 3️⃣It helped to create the first American Renaissance - one of the most prolific period in American literature.
Famous writers
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Chapter 13) 翻译/论述会考！！！
Basic Information
1️⃣American essayist, philosopher, poet 2️⃣Founder of American Transcendentalist movement 3️⃣Through his essays, poems, and lectures, he established himself as a leading spokesman of transcendentalism 4️⃣"American Confucius" 5️⃣He believed that people were naturally good and that everyone's potential was limitless 6️⃣His intellectual contributions to the philosophy of transcendentalism inspired a uniquely American idealism and spirit of reform
Works
The Dial
Nature
Close reading
见PDF
The Bible of Transcendentalism
The American Scholar
America's Declaration of Intellectual Independence
Self-Reliance
Style
1️⃣In Emerson's prose the unit is the sentence and seldom the paragraph. Each sentence is a thought clearly put. 2️⃣Emerson's rich expression and keen observation made him one of the best prose writers of the century. 3️⃣His writing keeps directness, clarity, and careful development of new ideas. 4️⃣His language and emotions attained the peak of expression with his rhetorical style.
Henry David Thoreau (Chapter 14) 翻译/论述会考！！！
Basic Information
1️⃣American essayist, poet, naturalist, philosopher 2️⃣Leading transcendentalist 3️⃣Disciple of Emerson 4️⃣Tried to put transcendentalism into practice 5️⃣Believed people must judge right and wrong for themselves 6️⃣Ideas about civil disobedience and nonviolent protest were influential 7️⃣Emphasized the importance of self-reliance and the value of simplicity
Famous Work
Walden
Close reading
见PDF
Realism
Definition
1️⃣It calls for "reality and truth" in the depiction of ordinary life. 2️⃣It is, in literature, an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. 3️⃣It is most often associated with the literary movement in 19th-century France. 4️⃣The term refers, both to a literary method based on detailed accuracy of description and to a more general attitude that rejects idealization, escapism, and other qualities of romance in favor of recognizing soberly the actual problems of life. 5️⃣Realism is not a direct or simple reproduction of reality but a system of conventions producing a lifelike illusion of some real world outside the text, by processes of selection, exclusion, description or manners of addressing the reader. 6️⃣It is also inclusive of naturalism, regionalism and local color writing. 7️⃣Realists claim that they seek truth that is verifiable by experience and has practical consequences; they do not seek abstract truth.They are also attentive to such details as dialect, customs, and experiences that are commonplace and "real."
American Realism
Definition
American Realism came in the latter half of the 19th century as a reaction against Romanticism. It stresses truthful treatment of materials. It focuses on commonness of the life of the common people, and emphasizes objectivity and offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.
Background
1.American Civil War
Transformed the nation, politically, economically, socially and intellectually. Consequences of American Civil War (1) Unification of U.S.A; end of slavery system. (2) Did not raise the black to a position of equality with the white. (3) Did not bring about emotional reunion. (4) Followed by twelve years of "radical" Reconstruction from 1865 to 1877.
It can be divided into two periods: 1) the period of an expanding continental nation from 1865 till the 1890s; 2) the so-called "progressive period" from the 1890s till 1914.
2.The Gilded Age
1️⃣"An age of extremes" - "of decline and progress, of poverty and dazzling wealth, of gloom and buoyant hope" 2️⃣The Gilded Age is an age of gaudy excesses that was described as "The Great Barbecue".
3. Immigrant Booming
The new intercontinental rail system, inaugurated in 1869, and the transcontinental telegraph, which began operating in 1861, gave industry access to materials,markets, and communications. The constant influx of immigrants provided a seemingly endless supply of inexpensive labor as well.
4. Social Problems
Problems of urbanization and industrialization appeared: poor and overcrowded housing, unsanitary conditions, low pay ("wage slavery"), difficult working conditions, and inadequate restraints on business.
Features
1️⃣American Realism is a literary movement come in the latter half of the nineteenth century in the form of local color and naturalism as a reaction against "the lie" of romanticism and sentimentalism. 2️⃣It expressed the concern for the world of experience of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low. 3️⃣lt aimed at the interpretation of the actualities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic color. 4️⃣In matters of style, there was a contrast between the genteel and graceful prose on the one hand, and vernacular diction and rough and ready frontier humor on the other.
Famous Poets
Walt Whitman (Chapter 18) 翻译/论述会考！！！
Brief introduction
1️⃣A poet, an essayist 2️⃣A journalist, a humanist 3️⃣A giant of American letters 4️⃣The father of free verse 5️⃣Great innovator in American literature
Famous works
Leaves of Grass
Song of Myself
Close reading
见PDF
Reputation 1️⃣The first American genuine epic poems 2️⃣A collection of poems written mainly in free verse 3️⃣Most of the poems are about man and nature 4️⃣Praise the nature and the role of the individual
Theme 1️⃣Openness, freedom, and above all, individualism 2️⃣Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the "en masse" (全体) and the self as well
Beat ! Beat ! Drum !
Free Verse 术语必考！！！
1️⃣Free verse is poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme, completely in the sense of freedom of any formality, but organically as a poetic whole. 2️⃣Free verse is exactly what its name implies. There are no rules, and writers can do whatever they choose: to rhyme or not, to establish any rhythm. 3️⃣Free verse is often used in contemporary poetry.
Emily Dickinson (Chapter 19) 翻译/论述会考！！！
Brief introduction
1️⃣One of the greatest American poets in the late 19th century 2️⃣A poet and recluse 3️⃣Her themes focus on love, nature, death, religion, immortality and success
Writing techniques
1️⃣Original images 2️⃣A severe economy of expression 3️⃣Direct and plain language 4️⃣Exploring human's inner world 5️⃣No regular rhythm 6️⃣Faulty grammar/unusual capitalization/unusual use of punctuation marks
Famous work
Because I Could Not Stop for Death——
Close reading
见PDF
Comparison 问答会考！！！
Similarities
1️⃣Both of them were distinctively American poets in theme and technique. 2️⃣Both of them were part of American Renaissance. 3️⃣Themes: both praised, in their different ways, America of its expansion, individualism,and Americanness. 4️⃣Techniques: broke free of the poetic tradition of the iambic pentameter and exhibited a freedom in form unknown before.They were both considered as the pioneers of modern American poetry with their poetic innovation.
Differences
1️⃣Whitman kept his eye on society at large while Dickinson explored the inner life of the self and individual. 2️⃣Whitman is national in his outlook; Dickinson is regional. (public poet vs. private poet) 3️⃣Whitman is characterized by his endless, all-inclusive catalogs while Dickinson by her concise,direct, and simple diction and syntax.
Representative writers
Harriet Beecher Stowe (Chapter 20)（杨老师讲了，王老师班同学讲的，PPT见压缩包） 论述会考！！！
"So this is the little lady who wrote the book that made this great war."
Famous work
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Close reading
见PDF
Mark Twain (Chapter 21) 论述尤其会考！！！
Brief introduction
1️⃣Father of American Literature 2️⃣Forerunner of 19th Century American Realism 3️⃣Humorist 4️⃣Local colorist
Famous works
The Gilded Age
Written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner, the novel explored the scrupulous individualism in a world of fantastic speculation and unstable values. The novel was an artistic failure, but it gives its name to the America of the corrupt post-Civil War period in which it attempted to satirize.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
It usually regarded as a classic book written for boys about their particular horrors and joys. It has become the image ofa peaceful small-town American boyhood for millions of people, not only in the United States but throughout the world.
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
"All modern American literature comes." ——Hemingway
The book marks the climax of Twain's literary creativity It is considered as the best book that Twain ever produced.
Life on the Mississippi
It tells a story of his boyhood ambition to become a riverboat pilot.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
A parable of colonization, Twain follows the journey of a representative of modern technology and ideas into a historically backward, feudal society.
Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog
It is a collection of short stories from oral tales, tall tales that he heard in the west.
The Prince and the Pauper
Style
1️⃣Broad, often irreverent humor or biting social satire, realism of place and language, memorable characters,hatred of hypocrisy and oppression. 2️⃣Simple and plain diction, precise, direct. 3️⃣Create a real and genuine American style, colloquial style 4️⃣Informal, unaffected, wild and humorous; dialect, vernacular, jargon, slang. 5️⃣Sentence structure: simple, compound, a series of "than" and "and", semi-colons. 6️⃣Dialogues: make a character real to the reader, background information,advance the action. 7️⃣His 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 shows his acute pessimism, despair, skepticism, determinism. 8️⃣He possessed utter clarity of style. He evolved a style so clear and economical that other contemporary styles seemed slightly archaic, rusty, and redundant.
Contributions
As a literary artist: 1️⃣He made colloquial speech an accepted literary medium in the literary history of the country. 2️⃣His adherence to American themes, settings, and language set him apart from many other novelists of the day and had a powerful impact on other writers.
As a social critic: His writings touch upon issues of his time such as politics, religion, capital and labor, slavery, U.S. imperialism.
He incarnates the spirit of an epoch of American history when the nation, territorially and spiritually enlarged, entered lustily upon new adventures.
Local Color(ism) 术语必考！！！
Definition 1️⃣A type of writing popular in the late 19th century,particularly among authors in the American South of the particular region in which the story took place. 2️⃣It is a variation of American literary realism. Local color fiction "exploits the speech, dress, mannerisms,habits of thought which are peculiar to a certain region." 3️⃣Local colorism is the detailed representation in prose fiction of the setting, dialect, customs, dress and ways of thinking and feeling which are distinctive of a particular region. 4️⃣Local colorists concerned them with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. Their ultimate aim is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside.
Background: 1️⃣The social and intellectual climate of the country provided a stimulating milieu for the growth of local color fiction. 2️⃣Socially, marked differences existed between different parts of the country, the east assuming the superior "aristocratic" posture, the rest of the country keenly feeling psychological need to assert their cultural identity, seeking understanding and recognition by showing their local character. 3️⃣Intellectually, the frontier humorists had prepared the literary ground for local colorism. A goof number of periodicals appeared willing to accept local colorism.
Influence: Lost its momentum toward the end of the 19th century but continued to inspire the imagination of other authors.
Henry James (Chapter 23) 论述尤其会考！！！
Brief introduction
1️⃣He is a psychological realistc writer, short-story writer,playwright, critic,essayist and theorist of fiction 2️⃣James explored family relationships, romantic desires and power struggle through the lens, often in painstaking detail.
Psychological Realism 术语必考！！！
1️⃣Psychological realism is a style of writing that came to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.It's a highly character-driven genre of fiction writing,as it focuses on the motivations and internal thoughts of characters to explain their actions. 2️⃣A writer of psychological realism seeks to show not only what the characters do but also to explain why they take such actions.
International Theme
The meeting of America and Europe, American innocence in contact and contrast with European decadence, and its moral and psychological complications. For the American it was a process of progression from inexperience to experience,from innocence to knowledge and maturity.
American personalities
innocence, enthusiasm, vulgarity, ignorance, unsophistication, freshness, freedom, individuality
European personalities
over-refinement, degeneration, complexity, high cultivation
Style
1️⃣His realism, emphasizing the inner awareness and inward movements of his characters in face of outside occurrences, was called psychological realism. 2️⃣He is outstanding in American literary history for his detailed, lengthy psychological analysis. He is the most expert stylist of his time. 3️⃣His literary techniques was mainly concerned with "point of view", "limited omniscience" .
Stream of consciousness 术语必考！！！
1️⃣Stream of consciousness is the continuous flow of sense-perception, thoughts, feelings and memories in the human mind; or a literary method of representing such a blending of mental process in fictional characters,usually in a form of interior monologue. 2️⃣It is an important device of modernist fiction and its later imitators, the technique was pioneered by Dorothy Richardson in Pilgrimage (1915-35) and by James Joyce in Ulysses(1922) and further developed by Virginia Woolf in Mrs Dalloway (1925) and William Faukner in The Sound and the Fury (1928).
Showing vs Telling
1️⃣"Telling" is the reliance on simple exposition. 2️⃣"Showing" is the use of evocative description. 3️⃣Showing creates mental ictures for the reader, forces the reader to become involved in the story.
Famous work
The Portrait of a Lady
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Comparison 问答会考！！！
James - Upper class - Psychological realism Twain - Lower class - Local color(ism), colloquial style
A.In thematic terms, James wrote mostly of the upper reaches of American society; Mark Twain dealt largely with the lower strata of society. B. Technically, James pursued an "imaginative" treatment of reality or psychological realism, but Mark Twain's contribution to the development of realism and to American literature as a whole was partly through his theories of localism in American fiction,and partly through his colloquial style.
O.Henry (Chapter 22)（四个班都是同学讲的，PPT见压缩包）
Famous work
The Cop and the Anthem
Natualism
Definition
1️⃣In literature, the term refers to the theory that literary composition should aim at a detached, scientific objectivity in the treatment of natural man. The movement is an outgrowth of 19th-century scientific thought, following in general the biological determinism of Darwin's theory, or the economic determinism of Karl Marx. 2️⃣In a word, naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more detached, ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a different philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence. 3️⃣Naturalist writers turned literary creation into a mechanical record of society, in a way of attempting to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness and the writers stressed that men's lives were controlled by heredity and environment.
American Naturalism
Background
1️⃣Industrialism: create a large group of very poor people;live in slums and cannot control their lives; self-reliance disappeared in the fast development of economy 2️⃣The Origin of Species (Charles Darwin, 1859, godless world, human beast, the survival of the fittest ) 3️⃣Herbert Spencer: Social Darwinism (cruel natural law correspond with cruel social realities; human controlled by heredity and outside social power) 4️⃣Howell's "smiling aspect" realism seems too genteel and even false. Thus the influence of French naturalism,Tolstoy and Turgenev came to American literature
Theme
1️⃣Detailed descriptions of the lives of the downtrodden and of the abnormal 2️⃣Frank treatment of human passion and sexuality 3️⃣Concerned about how men and women were overwhelmed by the forces of environment and by the forces of heredity 4️⃣Involve a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment 5️⃣Naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by heredity and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion death.
Features
1️⃣The core of naturalism is determinism. An individual's course in life is wholly determined by some combination of animal instinct, heredity, and environment. 2️⃣Humans lack freedom of their own will. All of their actions are controlled, determined.
Famous writers
Jack London (Chapter 24)
Major works
The Sea Wolf
Martin Eden
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A (semi-)autobiographical novel
The Call of the Wild
Theme
Jack London's Themes centered on 1️⃣Primitive violence 2️⃣Anglo-Saxon supremacy 3️⃣Biological evolution 4️⃣Class warfare 5️⃣Mechanistic determinism He described the suffering of the working people, reveal the cruelty and evils of the social system and disclose the corruption and moral degeneration of the ruling class.
Theodore Dreiser (Chapter 25) 论述会考！！！
One of the leading literary figures to employ naturalism in his writings, a literary naturist.
Famous works
Sister Carrie
Chapter I : The Magnet Attracting: A Waif Amid Forces (磁性相吸：各种力的摆布)
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The Trilogy of Desire
The Financier
The Titan
The Stoic
An American Tragedy
Style
1️⃣He is good at employing the journalistic method of repetition to burn a central impression into the reader's mind. 2️⃣Photographic & relentless observation, thereby truthfully reflecting the society and people of his time. 3️⃣Painting-like description: sharp contrast, truth in color,movement in outline. 4️⃣He pioneered the naturalist school and is known for portraying characters whose value lies not in their moral code, but in their persistence against all obstacles. 5️⃣His characters are unable to assert their will against natural and economical forces and subject to the control of the natural forces of heredity and environment.
Theme
1️⃣Naturalism and Darwinism 2️⃣American Dream 3️⃣Exposing polarization between rich and poor 4️⃣Social darkness 5️⃣Pessimistic determinism
Twentieth-Century Literature
Modernism
Definition
Modernism is a general term applied to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in literature of the early 20th century, including symbolism, futurism,expressionism, imagism, vorticism, dadaism, and surrealism.
Features
1️⃣A radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature. 2️⃣The ordered, stable and inherently meaningful world view of the nineteenth century could not accord with the contemporary world. 3️⃣A distinctive break with Victorian bourgeois morality; rejecting nineteenth-century optimism.
American Modernism
American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States starting at the turn of the 20th century with its core period between World War I and World War II and continuing into the 21st century.
Present a sense of disillusionment/disillusionment loss
Imagism
Definition
Imagism was born in England and America in the early twentieth century. A reactionary movement against Romanticism and Victorian poetry, imagism emphasized simplicity, clarity of expression, and precision through the use of exacting visual images.
Literary resources
1️⃣Greek myths 2️⃣Provencal poetry 3️⃣Japanese haiku 4️⃣Traditional Chinese poetry
Representative works
The Red Wheelbarrow
Written by William Carlos Williams
In a Station of the Metro
Inadequacy
1️⃣vague, ambiguous, obscure 2️⃣empty content: excessive pursuit of image, do not pay attention to content
Famous writers
Ezra Pound (Chapter 26) 翻译/论述会考！！！
The father of Imagist Poerty
Famous works
The Cantos
In a Station of the Metro
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Theme
A feeling of despair and hopelessness towards western civilization and even human beings.
Cathay
The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter
A Pact
Features
Language: intricate and obscure Form: no fixed framework, no central theme, no attention to poetic rules Style: very difficult to read
Edwin Arlington Robinson (Chapter 27)（四个班都是同学讲的，PPT见压缩包）
Robert (Lee) Frost (Chapter 28) 翻译/论述会考！！！
Brief introduction
1️⃣The unofficial poet laureate of the US 2️⃣Pulitzer Prize for poetry 4 times
Famous works
Mending the Wall
The Road Not Taken
Close reading
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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
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"My best bid for remembrance"
Theme
1️⃣The relationship between nature and man These thematic concerns include the beauty, terror and tragedy in nature, as well as the loneliness and poverty of the isolated human being. 2️⃣The fragmentation of modern experience 3️⃣The nature of existence; the complexity of human life The poetry of Robert Frost combined pastoral imagery with philosophical themes.
Style
Profound meanings are hidden underneath the plain language and simple form. 1️⃣ He used simple & plain language, and traditional forms of poetry. 2️⃣ Most of his poems are dramatic monologues or dialogues of New England speakers. 3️⃣ Symbolism (He used symbols from everyday life to express profound ideas. ) With surface simplicity of his poems, the thematic concerns are always presented in rich symbols.Therefore his work resists easy interpretation.
Features
1️⃣ He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. 2️⃣ His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. 3️⃣ Deceptively simple style (reason for popular), simple language. 4️⃣ Symbolism (the images-woods, stars and houses are taken from everyday life to express profound ideas) 5️⃣ A good poem "begins in delight and ends in wisdom" （歌始于喜悦，而终于智慧）
Carl Sandburg (Chapter 29)（四个班都是同学讲的，PPT见压缩包）
Famous work
Fog
Wallace Stevens (Chapter 30)（四个班都是同学讲的，PPT见压缩包）
T.S. Eliot (Chapter 31)（杨老师讲了，王老师班上同学讲的，PPT见压缩包）
Brief introduction
1️⃣A poet, dramatist, literary critic, and modernist. 2️⃣One of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry.
Famous works
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
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The Waste Land
Eliot's epochal masterpiece
The Hollow Men
Four Quartets
Noble Prize for literature in 1948
Theme
1️⃣Death2️⃣Sexuality3️⃣Lost generation4️⃣The modern society (futile and chaotic)5️⃣Religion6️⃣War
Style
1️⃣Eliot's poetry was becoming noted for its fresh visual imagery, its flexible tone, and highly expressive rhythm. 2️⃣Eliot's poetry is difficult to read. A.ages and symbols seem disconnected B.quotations and allusions 3️⃣Eliot piles up a heap of images, visual, auditory, olfactory, and more for the readers to figure out what is being said. (e.g. The Winter Evening Settles Down) 4️⃣Dramatic monologue( e.g.The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock) 5️⃣His poems are interesting also for its method of presentation.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (Chapter 32) 论述尤其会考！！！
Brief introduction
1️⃣Famous American novelist,short story writer, and essayist 2️⃣Representative of "the roaring 1920s" 3️⃣A spokesman of the Jazz Age 4️⃣Representative of the Lost Generation
The 1920s
1️⃣The 1920s is a flowering period of American literature.It is considered "the second renaissance" of American literature. 2️⃣The nicknames for this period: (1) Roaring Twenties - excessive celebration & advancement (2) Dollar Decade - rich (3) Jazz Age - Jazz music
The Lost Generation 术语必考！！！
1️⃣The Lost Generation is a term first used by Gertrude Stein to describe the post-World War I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war. 2️⃣The three best-known representatives of Lost Generation are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. 3️⃣The works of "the Lost Generation" showed a period of disillusionment with the past, hopelessness about the future,and escapism. 4️⃣It brilliantly describes an expatriate group of disillusioned intellectuals and aesthetes of the years following WWI, who rebelled against former ideals and values but could replace them only by despair or a cynical hedonism.
Jazz Age 术语必考！！！
1️⃣The Jazz Age refers to the period of the 1920s when traditional values of the previous period declined while the American stock market soared. The characters of Jazz Age novels live in restless pursuit of pleasure and wallow in heavy drinking, fast driving and casual sex. 2️⃣It lasted from 1919 to 1929. The jazz music as the symbol of youth rebellion. The young listened to Jazz music , showing their breaking away from tradition. 3️⃣It was marked by political ignorance and wild pursuit of material wealth. 4️⃣"It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire."- F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Roaring Twenties
At the time there was a legal ban on the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drink called prohibition.Since a lot of people didn't feel like drinking the gin there was a huge market for organized crime. Organized criminals catered to the needs of the drinking public by illegally supplying them with liquor and made a fortune doing it.
Prohibition
The era during which the United States Constitution outlawed the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages.Many social problems have been attributed to the Prohibition era.A profitable, often violent, black market for alcohol flourished.Stronger liquor surged in popularity because its potency made it more profitable to smuggle.
Flappers
The costume history image in our minds of a woman of the "Roaring Twenties" is likely to be the image of a flapper. Flappers did not truly emerge until 1926. Flapper fashion embraced all things and styles modern. A fashionable flapper had short sleek hair, a shorter than average shapeless shift dress, a chest as flat as a board, wore make up and applied it in public, smoked with a long cigarette holder, exposed her limbs and epitomized the spirit of a reckless rebel who danced the nights away in the Jazz Age.
Famous works
The Great Gatsby
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Position
1️⃣The Great Gatsby creates a portrait of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream. 2️⃣Today, The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary classic and "Great American Novel". 3️⃣The book is consistently ranked among the greatest works of American literature.
Theme
1️⃣Mainly concerned with the moral degradation in modern America that resulted from the rapid growth of capitalism and material comfort 2️⃣The discrepancy between the material well-off and the moral degeneration 3️⃣Enthusiasm and disillusionment with the American Dream
Ernest Hemingway (Chapter 33) 论述会考！！！
Famous works
A Farewell to Arms
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Translated into《永别了武器》or《战地春梦》
The Old Man and the Sea
Symbolism: Santiago - mankind; sea - nature and environment; marlin - purpose of life; shark - the evil force which control human's fate
Theme: the importance of life lies in the process of searching and resistance
The Sun Also Rises
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Style
simple and spare
Theme
1️⃣War (violent, meaningless, chaotic slaughter), death, love (as a response to the horrors of war and the world), failure, moral bankruptcy, deception, and sterility in the post World War I society 2️⃣Courage is another theme as reflected in some of his works especially The Old Man and the Sea. He defines "courage" as "grace under pressure" 3️⃣Common theme: grace under pressure
The Hemingway Code Hero
1️⃣The Hemingway man is not a thinker, he is a man of action. 2️⃣"Grace under pressure" is their motto. Whatever the result is, they are ready to live with grace under pressure. 3️⃣The Hemingway code heroes are best remembered for their indestructible spirit. They will never be defeated. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated." - From The Old Man and the Sea 4️⃣Maintaining free-will and individualism. 5️⃣Significance of "Hemingway heroes": restoring the human dignity in the 20th century
Iceberg Theory
"If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them.The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water."
John Steinbeck (Chapter 34)（四个班都是同学讲，PPT见压缩包）
Famous work
The Grapes of Wrath
William Faulkner (Chapter 35)
1️⃣A master of stream of consciousness 2️⃣Yoknapatawpha is depicted as the mythical county in his novels
Famous works
A Rose for Emily
The Sound and the Fury