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American Literature
美国文学大纲部分知识点和考点整理
编辑于2020-06-29 22:32:02- 相似推荐
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American Literature
literature of colonial American(17th.C)
native american literature
of american indians ; oral ;
forms: songs, prayers, charms, omens, riddles, stories; content: scared stories, folktales, songs as part of the rituals of annual festivals, tribal traditions, narrative accounts of gods and heroes, metric pattern
a story of creation:
literature of colonial settlements
Puritan idealism
background: colonization
New England colonies-Great Migration(1628-40)
1620 May Flower, Plymouth, the austere pilgrims, Puritans
1630 Massachusetts
puritanism
purify the rituals, the religious practice of the Church of England/ a theocracy: a society which is ruled by priests who represent a god/ dominant in every field of American life/ combination of religion/ideal and reality: practical religion, religion applied to life/
Doctrines: predestination, original sin, total depreavity(hard work, thrifty, piety, sobriety), limited atonement from God's grace, education
background
neither American--made by immigrants form England, nor really literature--travel accounts and religious writings: sermons, histories, biographies, diaries, letters, autobiographies, poems
histories, travel accounts
poetry
few literary works--four main reasons
disencouraged by the Great Britain
few schools , illiterate
too busy with pioneering life
influence of the Puritans' surpressing
literature of the 18th. C
background: Am. Revolution
prominent genre: the prose of the great philosopher-statesmen
Puritan naive idealism
Benjamin Franklin
Poor Richard's Almance(历书1732-58)
Autobiography
style: clear, plain, formal, but informal in material organization
Thomas Paine
Common Sense-urging immediate independence form England
The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason--attack on religious belifs and practices
political pamphlets: radical and revolutional both in politics and religion
Philip Freneau
the first American-born poet, Poet of the American Revolution
literary nationalism, patriotism: The Rising Glory of American, The British Prison Ship
romantic poet: The wild Honey Suckle
early romantics(1810-1830)
characteristics of Romanticism
spirit, against being too objective
individualism: emphasisi on personal freedom, individual is the center of life and art
imagination
nature: stressing a close relationship between man and nature
interest in the past: the medieval, the primitive-the indians
distinct features of Am. romanticism
to moralize and edify rather than to entertain
New American experiences alien to European cultrue
the exotic landscape, the westward expansion, the myth of a New Eden, the Puritan heritage
New England poets
Fireside Poets, School Room Poets
features: conventional, influence of Victoria poetry, the genteel 19th C culture, morality, traditional meters, stanze forms, stereotyped metahphors and surficial symbolism, refined language
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
anthology- The Poets and Poetry of Europe
the first Am. to write narrative poems.--Evangeline, The Song of Hiawatha, A Psalm of Life
write Am. subjects, but always in European styles: musical and powerful, highly spiritual, didactic
William Cullen Bryant
the first romantic poet born in Am.
collections: The Fountain, The White-Footed Deer, A Forest Hymn, The Flood of Years, translating Illiad and Odyssey,
four subjects
the beauty and harmony of nature as a source of solace, joy, and escape
the dignity of humanity
the sacredness of human freedom
the power and beneficence of God
Thanatopsi （死亡随想曲）
the most famous nature poem
a turning point from admiration of death to hymn for nature; treats death as a part of nature; the destiny of us all; the great equalizer
The Prairies
James Fenimore Cooper
Leatherstocking Series
The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer
hero: Natty Bumppo
a symbol of Am. desire for unity wit nature, the relationship between nature and civilization, standing for innocence and purity
the essential American soul, the stereotype of Am. hero: isolated, selfless, stoic, enduring, individual
conventions in writing: the brave and faultless hero, the loyal Indian companion, physical danger, a test for skill, and the hairbreadth rescue
The spy, Precaution, The Pilot, The Monikins, The American Democrat,
themes:
wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law, order vs. change, aristocrat vs. democrat; natural rights vs. legal rights
conservative: westward expansion and change--- nagative
Washington Irving
Rip Van Winkle
Moring Chronicle Salmagundi-a satirical magazine A History of New York-a rollicking burlesque of a current serious history of the early Dutch settlers
The Sketch Book
won him international reputation nostalgia + conserbatism
Rip Van Winkle
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Biography of George Washington
style: graceful, refined, fluent, humorous, and dignified, sentimentalism, the theme of change and mutability
two periods of creation
Englishizing (1807-1832)
The Sketch Book, conservative, love for European antiquity
nationalism (from 1832)
depiction of the Wild West
Position in Am. literature
the central figure of Am. Early romanticism
the first great Am. belletrist, writing for pleasure
the first Am. professional writer
the first Am. writher to win international recognition
the writer of the first Am. modern short stories and juvenile literature, esseys
reflection of the British and European romanticism
high romantics(1830-1865)
New England transcendentalism(1836-1855)
=the 1st. American Renaissance The universe is composed of Nature and the soul. Spirit is present everywhere.----nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson---idealism
major concepts
intuition (core)
the inner light within; things truer, transcending the everyday experiences of sensation and reflection
spirit
transcending matter, stressing essence behind appearance
nature
symbol of spirit and God's enlightenment to wards human beings; pantheism(泛神论)，stressing unity of nature and humanity
individualism
self-reliant, unselfish, capable of self spiritual perfection; moral development, dignity of individual
oversoul
an all-pervading unitary spiritual power of goodness, omnipresent and omnipotent, from which all things came and of which every one was a part; replacement of God in general sense; a single essence leading to universal brotherhood of humanity , resolution of social problems
commerce and material
degrading , wasting life
significance
manifestation of romanticism
an ethical guide to life, stimulating the development of democracy
stimulating the development of Am. Literature
weakness: not systematic, borrowing, lack of logi, mystic, denial of the material
Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882)
leader of American Transcendentalism
The Amercian Scholar; economic crisis-optimism
Nature: the maifesto of Am. Transcendentalism
enjoy an original relation to the universe, discarding traditional ways of viewing the world/ nature is emblematic of the spiritual world: the symbol of the spirit, or God, or the Oversoul
the stars--God's revelation,
reverence by the man--reflection of wisdom,
the defference between the poetic landscape(the spiritual world) and the material world
delight of nature
nature as an equalizer
nature as relief and requirment of sorrows and calamity
a unity with nature
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Walden
Walden
three poposes
escaping from the dehumanization of Industraial Revolution to a simpler and more natural life style, to make the readers evalute the way he lived and thought
simpifying his own life and woring on his writings to find out the meaning of life, to reveal the hidden spirtual possibilities in everyone's life
putting transcendentalism into practice that one can best "transcend" normality and experience the ideal, the divine, through nature
subjects concerning with nature, the meaning of life, morality
the essentials of life, living rather than getting a living
a condemnation of social improvement
the importance of spirit over material
individualism
the escape form the power of time
spiritual life in harmony with nature
style
prophetic voice
direct forceful sentence
converssational in tone
humor
proverbial expression
brief tales, fables, and allegories
a prose stylist, a lover of nature, a New England mystic, a social philosopher, sa thorough transcendentalist
two books: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Fanshaw, Twice Told Tales
The Scarlet Letter
symbolism: A-adultery true love redempetion
conflicts between belif in Puritansim and attcak to Puritanism
other works: The Blithedale Romance, The Celestial Railroad--reaction aganist the technique development, The House of the Seven Gables--depiction of charcacters, imagination of supernatural. "Young Goodman Brown"-uncertainties of belief
Romance was the meeting place of the actual and the imaginary
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
To Helen
genres: fiction, legend, tales, poetry, critical articles ---prolific and versatile
literary thories
aestheticism: the creation of beauty is the only purpose of poetry writing--deviating from contemporary moralism and narrow provincialsim
formalized the technique of short story
1. tale: thematic totality 2. effect first 3. truth rather than beauty 4. psychological effect upon the reader
invented the story of detection, developed a new fiction of psychological analysis
the most famous: The Murders in the Rue Morgue ; The Mystery of Marie Roget; Thou Art the Man
created the principles of logic reasoning: 排除一切不可能的因素，剩下的便是事实；案情越反常，越离奇，破案月容易，越简单
horrible stories (the macabre): horror co-exists with beauty
peotry: Tamerlane and Other Poems The Taven and Other Poems To Helen
supernal beauty, beauty of form; original, with grotesque images, interest in the classical poetry, alienated beauty
Walt Whiteman (1819-1892)
Moby Dick
a book of symbolism. moby dick is a symbol of mysterious and malicious power of nature
Leaves of Grass
marked the birth of truly Am. peotry, the vigor of the Am. Renaissance
chief theme: democracy, equality, nature, sex life, social development
developing the form of free verse
influence of transcendentalism, esp. individualism, and Chinese and Indian philosophies
symbolism of leaves of grass: commoness, equality, returning back to nature
two principle beliefs
the thoery of universality illustrated by lengthy catalogues of people and things
the belief in the singularity and equality of all things in value
Song of Myself
the longest, embodying all poet's thoughts
change of the title: Poem of Walt Whitman, an American---Walt Whitman--Song of Myself
the use of "I""myself" through the poem
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
I Died for Beauty
a great poet with only 9 poems published in her lifetime, and 1775 poems published after her death
features of her poetry
indirection
influence of Christian tradition; four of three beats
New England perspectiv: a puritan introspection + brevity and intensity
unorthodox syntax and punctuation: not inflecting the third person singular form of the verb, wilful capitalization and dashes
counter- poetic style: lexical surprises, oxymoron矛盾修辞 and synaesthesia 联觉
innovation in rhyme: consonance 辅音韵， assonance 类韵 irregular in rhyme and rhythm
I Died for Beauty
realism (1865-1900)
from local color fiction to naturalism (darker)
background: conflicts between 1. agrarianism and industrialism, the south and the north; 2. between the East and the West, indicating the decline of romanticism and the rise of realism; 3. the battle between idealists and realists; 4. a period conception : the approach of realist fiction at the latter part of the 19th. C, as a protest against falseness and sentimentality seen in romantic literature
major features
representing contemporary and everyday scenes, truthful treatment of material, matter-of-fact, anti-romantic/sentimental
the function of environment in shaping characters , characterization as the center of the story, the psychology of people
focusing on the commonness of the lives of common people: the common chcracters and the everyday life
emphasizing objectivity
presentaing moral visions
William Dean Howells (1837
强调outsight 外在
definition of realism: material form the commonplac, character more important than plot, the good in life more real than the evil, expression of democracy
literary achievement, social novels: A Mordern Instance, the Rise of Silas Lapham, A Hazard of New Fortunes
Henry James (1843-1916)
强调内在 physological role
modernity, a transitional role between transendentalism, realism, naturalism and modernism--complexity and dialogues in his works, anxiety of the people of the modern time
period of creation
international theme (1870-1883)--cultrual shock
Watch and Ward- first novel,
Daisy Miller: the first which brought him international fame
The Portrait of a Lady: the beginning of Am. Modern novels, a tragedy of character
various theme - short stories
The Turn of the Srew, reason and anti-reason; The Bostanians, The Princess Casamassima, The Tragic Muse
Retruning to international theme
The Wings of the Dove, psycological; The Ambassador, the favorite of James himself
theory of fiction: a novelist as well as a theorist: the founder of Am. modern novel and fiction theories
the art of fiction: intelligent realism, psycological realism(a realist of the inner life), ambiguity
Beat Generation (first half of the 50s)
Allen Ginsberg: "Howl", Howl and Other Poems; Jack Kerouac--first used the term "Beat Generation"-- On the Road: a pun ---"on the road to enlightenment" as the Chinese word "Dao", and literally to the road as homeless, aimless wonderers
William Faulkner
awarded Nobel Prize in 1950; hometown---the origin of “Yoknapatawpha" in his works
Sartoris; The Sound and the Fury
Eugene O'Neill
winner of four Pulitzer Prizes and one Nobel Prize
Beyond the Horizon(first long play);expressionism, The Hairy Ape, Emperor Jones; the most matured: The Iceman Cometh I, Long Day's Journey Into Night, realistic
Modern poetry (1890s-1940s)
Modernism began in Germany, 1890s-1940s; Am. Modernism: 1914-1940s, with 1917-1920 as the second renaissance of American literature
American Modernism
major features
discontinuity and imminent severance from the past, critical of received belifs, and disillusionment
a sense of fragmentation in social communities and within the individual himself
break with traditional forms, experimental
imagism
emergence: 1. a reaction to Victorian and Edwardian poetry; in London, England, beginning with Thomas Ernest Hulme, Poet's Clud in 1908, calling on poets to express momentary impressions through the use of one dominant image; 2. in Chicago, American a new magzine entitled Poetry: A magzine of Verse, by Harriet Monroe----marked a poetic renaissance at the beginning of modern poetry aganist Victorian poetry
Major features
anti-romantic and anti-Victorian: free choice of subject matters, concretness of imagery, musical phrases, economy of expression, the use of a dominant image, or a quick succession of related images, free verse
objective observations of an object or a situation without interpretation or comment by the poet
representatives
Esra Pound, Amy Lowell, Hilda Doolittle
modern poetry (1890-1940s)
Esra Pound (1885-1972)
leaders of imagist movement, patron of many writers
Cantos
eg.
In a station of the metro, the apparition fo these faces in the crowd, petals on wet, black bough
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; Prufrock and Other Observations; Gerontion
The Waste Land 荒原
includes: The Burial of the Dead, The Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon, Death by Water, What the Thunder Said
the organizing principle: death and rebirth
reads like the manifesto of the " Lost Generation"
the theme: modern spiritual poverty, the despair dan depression that followed the first WW, the sterility and turbulence of the modern world, and the decline and break-down of Western culture
other works
The Hollow Man, Ash Wddnesday, verse plays
Poetry should be impresonal and that not only the poet's private life but even the world in which he lived was irrelevant to a true understanding of his work
Rober Lee Frost (1874-1963)
Mending Wall
changing of tone: form the dark side of human life and society and problems he confronted to more sunshine
won Pulitzer four times
Farmer poet of New England: wrote rural poetry
politically conservative, thematically modern. combined traditional poetic forms with American vocabulary and speech rhythms
mordern fiction before 1945
Lost Generation
postwar realism in fiction
disillusionment of the American writers who enlisted in the army, loss of the original value
expatriates: disillusionment and alienation
Gertrude Stein: You are all a lost generation, to Hemingway, Hemingway used it as a preface to The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
spokesman for the Lost Generation
novels, short stories, laconic, intense prose style, theme of courage in face of tragedy
a sensational public image: big game hunter, deep-sea fisherman, bullfight afficionado, roistering drinker, Green Hills of Africa (big game hunting), Death in the Afternoon (bull fighting)
In Our Time: short story collection; The Torrents of Spring; The Sun Also Rises---the first novel: the disillusionment of the lost generation; For Whom the Bell Tolls: based on his experience in The Spanish Civil War
The Old Man and the Sea
write in Cuba, winning Nobel Prize in 1954, "A man can be destroyed but not defeated"
the code hero: characters involved in war, in the competitive games such as hunting and bull fighting which demand stamina and courage, and are "tough", courageous, and honest, but broken physically by the brutality of war and disillusioned by the insensitivity and holloweness of civilized society
The Iceberg Principle
the dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one eighth of it being above water
the style of a news reporter
F. S. Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
spokesman of the late 1920s, the postwar economic boom and the sense of spiritual disorientation
a leading participant in the typically pleasure --seeking and money making life of the 1920s, and a self-conscious writer with detached observationo of it; fell in love with Zelda Sayre, the arechetype of many women in his novels----the "roaring 20s", "Jazz Age", "Dollar Decade"
The Beautiful and the Damned, Tales of the Jazz Age, Tender is the Night; The Great Gatsby--the single most profound commentary in American fiction o what has become known as American Dream, reveals the falseness of ideals and moves toward disillusion
made an excellent use of a more or less disinterested narrator only peripherally involved in the action auch as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby
Siclair Lewis
The first Am. writher to receive the Nobel Prixe for literature in 1930
revealing America's contradictions and vulgarities, againzst the genteel tradition of the 19th. C
sardonic depiction of American materialism and of the banalities of middle- class Americans
Main Street, Babbittt
naturalism
（another surbordinate order of realism）悲观主义 受达尔文进化论的影响
background
influence of Darwin's evolutionary theory: the struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, natural selection
social Darwinism: Herbert Spencer---survival of the fittest
emergence
Emile Zola: initiated the influence of heredity and environment on characters in writing
major concepts
a branch of realism, darker than realism
Determinism: humans controlled by heredity and environement, no fredom of their own will, no evidence of effective choice, or free will, or autonomous action
the universe is cold, godless indifferent and hostile to human desires; social systems that destory and dehumanize, and individual experience of loss and failure
different form realism: realism--to genteel, the smiling aspects of life of middle class life; naturalism--the violent, sensational, sordid, unpleasant, and ugly aspects of life of the slums, of war
American naturalists
looking at the life of crime, poverty and war; not as pessimistic about life as the French, determinism not the popular attitudes toward life; but the greatest American writers of this time were those naturalists
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
Maggie, A Girl of the Streets --- the first naturalistic novel written by an American
The Red Badge of Courage: the animal man in a cold, manipulating world; courage and heroism irrelevant to fighting; sheer impulse governing all; indifference of nature, theme of illusion and reality
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)
Sister Carrie: transgressing the sexual code; the rocking chair; a picture of conditions----neither condemning nor praising the woman--this is the way she has to be
The Trilogy of Desire: The Financier, The Titan, The Stoic
An American Tragedy
Jack London (1876-1916)
influence by Marxism and Darwinism, Nietzsche's view of superman
The Call of the Wild; Sea Wolf
local color fiction
between the late 1860s and early 1870s
background
1. shifting of cultural center from Boston (New England) to New York 2. growth of communication and transportation 3. rapid growth of local magazines 4. regionalism 5. a subordinate order order of (before) realism, fidelity to a particular geographical section and a faithful representation of its habits, speech, manners, history, folklore, or beliefs
basic features
local, region, a form of regionalism
combination of romanticism and realism： Romantic--the exotic and the picturesque, realism--the past
the influence of setting on character: characteristic of vernacular language and satirical humor
woman representatives
Kate Chopin; Harriet Beecher Stowe--the little lady who wrote the book that made this great war, Uncle Tom's Cabin;
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
The Notorious Jumping Frog of the Calaveras County
the frontier America (The Wilderness)---midway between (Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn), the emerging urban (the modern super sate)
life and creation
1. village of Florida, Missouri, later moved to town of Hannibal, witnessed the life along the Mississippi 2. an apprentice printer, then a printer 3. a riverboat pilot along the Mississippi River: the best of Twin's stories are believed to based on the life during this period----The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin 4. California: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, a collection of short stories, including "Jim Smiley's Jumping Frog", a "hoax" 5. Europe: as a reporter, The Innocents Abroad, Roughing it 6. New York, and then to Connecticut: 1873, first novel The Gilded Age; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1884; The Prince and the Pauper, 1882; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889; The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, 1899 7. misfortunes-- The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg; human evil---Mysterious Stranger
analysis of Huck Finn
the idea of lost boyhood
initiation fiction: "Father of American Literature"
satire: made fun of the American values---the arrogant white, aristocrats, and their violence based on their cowardiness
style
1.vernacular language: dialect with spelling representing prounciation 2. local color: descriptions of local places and local people 3. cracker-barrel philosopher: men with folk wisdom, good common sense of life, realistic
significance
demonstrates Mark Twin's ability to capture the enduring, archetypal, mythic images of America and to create the most memorable characters in all of American fiction; initiates the local color fiction and the vernacular tradition
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