美国文学考研总结_美国文学史总结
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美国文学
Chapter 1 The Romantic period(浪漫时期)本章概述
一.十九世纪初期至中叶美国文学产生的历史、文化背景；
二、该时期文学创作的基本特征、基本主张；
三、对同时代与后期美国文学的影响；
四、主要作家作品。
文学史分析
一、The time period : 1.The Romantic Period stretchs from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War.2.It started with the the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Gra.3.It is also called “ the American Renaiance.”
二.The romantic thoughts : 1.The native feature : They revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands.A.The American national experience of “pioneering into the west ” proved to be a rich source of material.B.The wilderne came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral law.C.Literature began to celebrate American farmers ,the poor , the unlettered ,children ,and especially the noble savages.2.The Puritanism : A.The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values.B.American romantic writers tended more to moralized than their English and European counterparts.3.The Transcendentalism : A.The most clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period is New England Transcendentalism.B.It was stared in New England in the 1830s.C.This Transcendentalist group includes two of the most significant writers America has produced so far ,Emerson and Thoreau.D.Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “the recognition in man the capacity of knowing truth intuitively ,or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the sense.” 三.The representatives : 1.The poetry : There emerged a great host of men of letters during this period ,among the better-known is Walt Whitman , Whose Leaves of Gra established him as the most popular American poet of the 19th century.2.The fiction : The fiction of the American Romantic Period is an original and diverse body of work.3.The human nature : American Romanticists also differed in their their understanding of human nature.To Emerson and Thoreau , man is divine in nature and therefore forever perfectible;to Hawthorne and Melville , everybody is potentially a sinner , and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature.主要作家作品 A.华盛顿.欧文 B.拉尔夫.华尔多.爱默生 C.纳撒尼尔.霍桑 D.华尔特.惠特曼 E.赫尔曼.麦尔维尔
A.华盛顿.欧文
一.The literary creation 1.The works : A.A History of New York ,which , written under the name of Diedrich knickerbocker , was a great succe and won him wide popularity.The book is a parody of the Dutch colony.B.With the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffery Crayon , Gent ,Irving won a measure of international fame on both side of the Atlantic.The book contains familiar eays like “Rip Van Winkle ” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” C.Following The sketch Book , Irving published Bracebridge Hall ,and Tales of a Traveler.2.The literary source and contributions : A.Irving 's relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ingored considering his suce both abroad and at home.A History of New York is a patchwork of references.He parodies or imitates Homer , Fielding ,Swift and many other favorites of his.B.Washington Irving brought to the new nation what its people desired most in a man of letters---“Rip Van Winkle ” or “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ” are among the treasures of the American language and culture.It is not the sketches about the Old World but the tales about America that made Washington Irving a household word and his fame enduring.二.The artistic features : 1.Irving 's taste was eentially conservative.2.Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who “ perfected the best claic style that American Literature ever produce.” 3.Yet Irving never forgets to aociate a certain place with the inward movement of a person and to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and vivid character.B.拉尔夫.华尔多.爱默生
一.The literary creation : 1.The chief spokesman of this spiritual movement , New England transcendentalism is Emerson.2.Nature ,Emerson's first little book ,established him ever since as the most eloquent sopkesman of New England Transcendentalism.3.His lasting reputation began only with the publication of Eays.Many of his famous eays are included in Eays ,such as the American Scholar , Self-Reliance , The Over-Soul.二.The thought 1.The transcendentalism : A.The nature : Emersonian Transcendentalism is actually a philosophical school with absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and European Romanticism.B.The contents : Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-soul , the importance of the Individual , and Nature.Transcendentalists believed that there should be an emotional communication between an individual soul and universal “over-soul ” 2.The influence : A.By employing nature as a big symbol of the spirit ,or God , or the over-soul , Emerson has brought the puritan legacy of symbolism to its perfection.B.Emerson is the most represntative of the philosophical an literary school , and it inspired in his lifetime a whole generation of famous authors like Thoreau , Whitman , and Dickinson.三.The artistic features : 1.The casual style : Emerson's eays often have a casual style.They are usually characterized by a series of short ,sentencesw.2.To use comparison and metaphors : Emerson's philosophical discuion is sometimes difficult to understande but he uses comparisons and metaphors to make the general idea of his work clearly expreed.3.To employ the literary sources : Emerson often employed these literary sources to make and enrich his own points but never let them take the full reins of his discuion.C.纳撒尼尔.霍桑 一.The thoughts : 1.The view of sin: A.According to Hawthorne , “There is evil in every human heart.” A piece of literary work should “ show how we are all wronged and wronger , and avenge one another.” So in almost every book he wrote , Hawthorne discues sin and evil.B.One source of evil that Hawthorne is concerned most is overreaching intellect.The tension between intellect “ would be fully revealed.2.The Puritanism : A.Hawthorne 's view of man and human history originates , to a great extent , in Puritanism.He believed that ”the wrong doing of one generation lives into the succeive ones.“ B.In many of Hawthorne 's stories and novels , the Puritan concept of life is condemned , or the Puritan past is shown in an almost totally negative light , especially in his The House of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter.二.The masterpiece---The Scarlet letter : 1.The theme: In this particular novel , Hawthorne does not intend to tell a love stroy nor a story of sin , but focuses his attention on the moral , emotional , and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular , so as to show us the tension between society and individuals.2.The imagery : ”The custom-House “ to The Scarlet Letter proves fruitful to Hawthrone 's imagination , By relating a piece of red cloth shaped like ”A“ , Hawthorne succeeds in giving his tale a sense of historical reality and an air of authenticity.三.The artistic features : 1.The structure: The structure and the form of his writings are always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern.2.The allegory : Hawthorne is also a great allegorist and almost every story can be read allegorically , as is the case in ” Young Goodman Brown.“ 3.The symbolism : Hawthorne is a master of symbolism.The symbol can be found everywhere in his writing.By using pearl as thematic symbol ,Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community.4.The ambiguity : And the ambiguity is one of the salient characteristics of Hawthorne's art.D.华尔特.惠特曼
一.The works---Leaves of Gra : 1.Leaves of Gra has alwasys been considered a monumental work which commands great attention.2.The work has nine editions and the first edition was published in 1855.二.the thoughts : 1.The nationalism : As Whitman saw it , poetry could play a vital part in the proce of creating a new nation.The abundance of themes in his poetry voices freshne.He shows concern for the whole hardworking people and the burgeoning life of cities.2.The individual value : The realization of the individual value also found a tough position in Whitman's poems in a particular way.pursuit of love and happine is approved of repeatedly and affectionately in his lines.3.The political thoughts : Some of Whitman's poems are politically committed , Such as a collection under the title of drum Taps , ” Cavalry Croing a Ford.“ And ” When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom 'd.“ 三.The artistic features : 1.The brand-new means : Whitman employed brand-new means in his poetry.A.Whitman's poetic style is marked , first of all , by the use of the poetic ”I“.B.Usually , the relationship Whitman is dramatizing is a triangular one :”I“ the poet, the subject in the poem , and ” you “ the reader.C.What he prefers for his new subject and new poetic feeling is ” free verse ,“that is , poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.However , there is still a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical.2.The imagery : A.unifying images of the body , the crowd , teh sexuality are pervasive in his poems.B.One of the most often-used methods in Whitman's poems is to make colors and images fleet past the mind's eye of the reader.3.The Language: A.Another characteristic in Whitman's language is his strong tendency to use oral English.B.Whitman's vocabulary is amazing.He would use powerful , colorful , as well as rarely-used words , words of foreign origin and sometimes even wrong words.E.赫尔曼.麦尔维尔
一.The literary creation : Melville's writings can be well divided into two groups.1.The early period : His early works were writen after he was back from the sea.A.Among them are Typee , Omoo , and Mardi, which drew from his adventures.B.Redburn is semi-autobiographical novel.C.In White Jacket Melville relates his life on a United states man-of-war.D.Moby-Dick proves to be the best.2.The later period : With the publication of Pierre ,Melville's public fame was on the decline.A.Among them are ”Bartleby , the Scrivener , “ ”Benito Cereno, “ The Confidence-Man.B.Bill Budd again deals with the sea and sailors and the theme of a conflict between innocence and corruption.3.The themes respectively : A.In the early ones , Melville is more enthusiastic about setting out on a quest for the meaning of the universe , hence they are more metaphysical and the main characters are ardent and self-dramatizing ”I“, defyign God , as best reflected in Moby-Dick.B.In the late works , Melville becomes more reconciled with the world of man.二.The Masterpiece---Moby-Dick : 1.The literary status : Moby-Dick is regarded as the first American prose epic.2.The features : It is difficult to read because much of the talk in the talk in the novel is sailor's talk and much of the language is purposely old-fashioned and Elizabethan.3.The outline : The story is not complicated , dealing with Ahab , a man with an overwhelming obseion to kill the whale which has crippled him , on board his ship Pequod in the chase of the whale.4.The symbolism : It turns out to be a symbolic yoyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe , a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology.三.The artistic features: 1.The style of symbol and imagery A.Different people on board the ship are representations of defferent ideas and different social and ethnic groups.B.Facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings.C.Pequod is the microcosm of human society , and the voyage becomes a search for truth.D.For author ,Moby-Dick is still a mystery , an ultimate mystery of the universe.2.The other stills : Melville's great gifts of language , invention , psychological analysis , speculative agility , and narrative power are fused to make Moby-Dick a world claic.美国部分 The Realistic period(现实主义文学时期)本章概述
一.十九世纪中期现实主义文学产生的历史、文化背景；
二、美国现实主义文学创作的基本特征、基本主张；
三、对同时代与后期美国文学的影响；
四、主要作家作品。
文学史分析
一、The time period : The period ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to as the Age of Realism in the literary history of the United States.二.The theoretical base : 1.The thoughts of Howells : A.The literary principle : The fidelistic reflection of human reality is most clearly expreed by William Dean Howells.B.The influence : Guided by this principle of adhering to the truthful treatment of life , the realists touched upon various comtemporary social and political iues.2.The subject matters : A.The characters : They introduced industrial workers and farmers , ambitious businemen and vagrants , prostitutes and unheroic soldiers as major characters in fiction.B.The modes : They approached the harsh realities and preures in the post Civil War society either by a comprehensive picture of modern life , or by a psychological exploration of man's subconsciousne.3.The three towering figures : The three dorminant figures of the period are William Dean Howells , Mark Twain and Henry James.A.The common features : a.They brought to fulfillment native trends in the realistic portrayal brought to perfection teh vernacular style.b.They established the literary indentity of distinctively American protagonists , specifically the vernacular hero and the ”American Girl.“ C.In short , they set teh example and charted the future course for teh subjects , themes ,techniques and styles of fiction.B.The distinctions : a.They differed in their understanding of the ” truth “.While Mark Twain and Howells seemed to have paid more attention to the ”life“ of teh Americans ,Henry James had apparently laid a greater emphasis on the ”inner world “ of man.b.Though Twain and Howells both shared the same concern in presenting the truth of the American society , they had each of them different emphasis.Howells focused his discuion the rising middle cla and the way they lived , While Twain preferred to have his own region and people at the forefront of his stories.三.The naturalism in literature : 1.The sources : The impact of Darwin's evolutionary theory and the influence of the 19th century French literature on the American men of letters gave rise to yet another school of realism: American naturalism.2.The subject matter : They chose their subjets from the lower ranks of society , and portrayed misery and poverty of the ”underdogs “ who were demonstrably victims of society and nature.3.The themes : One of the most familiar themes in American naturalism is the theme of human ”bestiality “especially as an explanation of sexaul desire.4.The features: Artistically ,naturalistic writings are usually unpolished in language , lacking in academic skills and unwieldy in structure.Philosophically , the naturalists believe that the real and true is always partially hidden from the eyes of teh individual , or beyond this control.In a word , naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes le serious and le sympathetic but more ironic and more peimistic.主要作家作品
A.马克.吐温 B.亨利.詹姆斯 C.艾米莉.狄金森 D.西奥多.德莱塞
A.马克.吐温
一.The works : 1.The early period : A.With works like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn an Life on the Miiippi Twain shaped the world's view of America.B.The first among these books is Roughing it.C.Two of the best books during this period are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.2.The late period : A.the Gilded Age is Written in collaboration with Warner , the novel explored the scrupulous individualism.B.In A Connecticut Yankee in king Arthu's Court , Twain follows the journey of a representative of modern technology and ideas into a historically backward , feudal society.C.The others include: The Tragedy of Pudd's nhead Wilson The man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and The Mysterious Strager.二.The masterpieces : 1.The literary status : The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn proved themselves to be the milestone in American literature , and thus firmly established Twain's position in the literary world.2.The features: The books are noted for their unpretentious ,colloquial yet poetic style ,their wide-ranging humor , and their unviversally shared dream of perfect innocence and freedom.3.The language : the novel is written in a language which is not grand , pompous , but simple , direct , lucid , and faithful to the colloquial speech.4.The character portrayal : The profound portrait of Huckleberry Finn is another great contribution of the book to the legacy of American literature.三.The artistic features: 1.The local color : Twain is also known as a local colorist , who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions , Unlike James and Howells , Mark Twain wrote about the lower-cla people.2.The language : Another fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language , his use of vernacular.His words are colloquial , concrete and direct in effect , and his sentence structures are simple , 3.The sense of humor : Mark Twain's humor is remarkable , too.Mark Twain shared the popular image of the American funny man.However , his humor is not only of witty remarks , but a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social inujustic and satirize the decayed romanticism
B.亨利.詹姆斯
一.The literary creation : The literary of Henry James is generally divided into three periods.1.The early period : A.The theme: James took great interest in international themes he treated with great care the clashes between two different cultures and the emotional and moral problems of American in Europe , or Europeans in America.B.The Works : the American , Daisy Miller , The Europeans , The Portrait of A Lady is generally considered to be hsi masterpiece.2.The middle period : A.the Theme: James experimented with different themes and forms in his middle period.B.The works : The Bostonians , The Prince Casamaima , The Death of a Lion , The turn of the Screw , and The Beast in the Jungle.3.The late period : A.The theme : In his last and major period , James returned to his ” international theme.“ B.The works : What Maisie Knows , The Wings of the Dove , The Ambaadors and The Golden Bowl.These demanding novels are widely considered to be James' most influential contribution to literature.二.The contributions to literature : 1.The international theme A.James' fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with the international theme.These novels are always set against a larger international background , usually between European and America.The typical pattern of the conflict between the two cultures would be that of a young American man or American girl.B.Marriage and love are used by James as the focal point of the confrontation between the twol value systems.2.The literary criticism : A.Henry James's literary criticism is an indispensable part of his contribution to literature.The theme of his eay ” The Art of Fiction “ clearly indicates that the aim of the novel is to present life.B.He also advoctes the freedom of the artist to write about anything that concerns him , even the disgreeable , the ugly and commonplace.三.the artistic features : 1.The psychoanalysis: A.James's realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter.His fictional world is concerned more with inner life of human beings than with overt human actions.B.This emphasis on psychology and on the human consciousne proves to be a big breakthrough in novel writing James is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th-century ”stream-of-consciousne “ novels and the founder of psychological realism.2.The narrative point of view : A.James avoids the authorial omniscience and makes his characters reveal themselves.B.In his novels we usually learn the main story by reading through one or several minds and share their perspetives.3.The language : As to his language , James is not so easy to understand.With a large vocabulary , he is always accurate in word selection , trying to find the best expreion_r for his literary imagination.C.艾米莉.狄金森 一.The literary themes : 1.About eternity : A.Dickinso's poems are usually based on her own experiences , her sorrows and joys.But within her little lyrics Dickinso addrees those iues that concern the whole human beings.B.Closely related to Dickinson's religious poetry are her poems concerning death and immortality.2.About love : A.Love is another subject Dickinson dwelt on.One group of her love poems treats the suffering and frustration love can cause.B.The other group of love poems focuses on the physicalaspect of desire.However , it is those poems dealing wiht marriage that have aroused critical attention first.二.The artistic features : 1.The unique style : Her poems have no titles.In her poetry there is a particular stre pattern.2.The unconventional style : The form of her poetry is more or le like that of the hymns is community churches ,familiar ,communal ,and sometimes , irregular.3.The other styles : Her poetic idioms is noted for its laconic brevity , directne and plainne.Her poems are usually short , and many of them are centered on a single image or symbol and focused on one subject matter.D.西奥多.德莱塞 一.The works 1.The literary status : Theodore Dreiser is generally acknowledged as one of America's literary naturalists.2.The representatives : A.Sister Carrie is the best-known works.B.His best short fictions were Nigger Jeff, Old Rogaum and His Theresa.C.His ” Trilogy of Desire, “ The Financier , The Titan and The Stoic.D.Dreiser's greatest wrok is An American Tragedy.二.The thoughts of literary creation: 1.The naturalism : A.With the publication of Sister Carrie ,Dreiser was launching himself upon a long career later known as literary naturalism , which emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters.B.In his words , man is a ”victim of forces over which he has no control.“ To him ,life is ” so sad , so strannge , so mysterious and so inexplicable.“ 2.The Darwinism : A.The effect of Darwinist idea of ” survival of the fittest “ was shattering.B.In Sister Carrie Dreiser expreed His naturalistic pursuit.In his ” Trilogy of Desire ,“ Dreiser's focus shifted from the American Tragedy proves to be his greatest work Dreiser intended to tell us that it is the social preure.3.The American Values : A.From the first novel Sister Carrie on , Dreiser set himself to project the American values the human individual is obseed with a never-ending , yet meaningle search for satisfaction of his desires.One of the desires is for money.Sex is another human desire.B.Dreiser never forgot to imply that these human desires in life could hardly be defined.三.The artistic features: 1.For lack of concision , his writings appear more inclusive and le selective.He has been always accused of being awkward in setence structure , inept and occasionally flatly wrong in word selection and meaning , and mixed and disorganized in voice and tone.2.He broke away from the genteel tradition of literature and dramatized the life in a very realistic way.The Modern Period(现代文学时期)本章概述
一.20 世纪初期到中叶美国现代文学产生的历史、文化背景；
二、美国现代文学创作的基本特征、基本主张；
三、对当代美国文学发展的影响。
文学史分析
一、The cultural background 1.Darwinism and Maxism : A.Darwinism was still a big influence over the writers of this period.B.Marx believed that the root cause of all behavior was economic , and that the leading feature of the economic life was the division of society into antagonistic claes based on a relation to the means of production.2.Freudian theories : A.Freud propounded an idea of human beings themselves as grounded in the ”unconsious “,and made the practice of the psychoanalysis.B.William James ,famous for his theory of ”stream of conciousne.“and Carl Jung, noted for his ” collective unconscious “and ”archetypal symbol “ plus Freud's interpretation of dreams , have infused modern American literature.3.The modern European arts : A.In painting ,both the French Impreionist and the German expreion_r_rist artists depicted the human reality in a rather subjective point of view.B.Cubism is the name for another School of modern painting.Its emphasis on the formal structure of a work of art , especially its emphasis on the multiple-perspective viewpoints ,had provided the writers with more than one way to explain the reality.C.Composers like lgor produced music in a ” modern “mode ,featuring dionance and discontinuity.二.The literature between WWI and WW II : 1.The expatriate movement : A.The most recognizable literary movement that gave rise to the twentieth century American literature , the second American Renaiance , is the expatriate movement.B.When the First World War broke out , many young men volunteered to take part in ” the war to end wars “ only to find that modern warfare was not as glorious or heroic as they thought it to be.They began to write and they wrote from their own experiences in the war.C.They were basically expatriates who left America and formed a community of writers and artists in paris.These writers were later named by an American writer , Gertrude Stein, ”The Lost Generation.“ 2.Imagist movement: A.Modern American literature are famous poets such as EZra Pound , Williams, Frost , Pound's role as a leading spokesman of the famous imagist movement in the history of American literature can never be ignored.B.Williams rooted his poetic imagination in American native tradition.Frost is always liked by the Americans because the subject and the landscape of his poems are forever New England and his simplicity never fails to reveal some profound truth.C.Cummings , Stevens are also remembered for.The former always used ”i“ instead ”I“ to refer to himself as a protest against self-importance , while the later.Whose style is more cultivated and refined.3.The great novelists : A.Fitzgerald , Hemingway , Faukner are considered to be the masters in the field of American fiction.The Jazz Age of the 1920s is brought vividly to life in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald.Hemingway dramatizes in his novels the sense of lo and despair Faulkner creates his own mythical kingdom.B.Besides , writers like Anderson Lewis , Steinbeck contributed a great deal to modern American literature.Anderson explores the motivations and frustrations of his fictional characters.Lewis is a sociological writer and his Babbit presents a documentary picture of the narrow and limited middle-cla mind , Steinbeck is a representative of the 1930s.His The Grapes of Wrath proves to be a symbolic journey of man an the way to finding some truth about life and himself.4.The plays : A.The leading playwright of the modern period in American literature is Eugene O' Nell.For his tragic view of life and most of his plays are about the root , the truth of human desires and human frustration.B.Arthur Miller and Tenneee Williams were yet to acclaim the literary recognition and to hold the central position in American drama until the present times.三.The literature after WWII: 1.The poetry: A.The postwar poets , with Robert Lowell in the lead , would typically write about an object or a situation showing a growing sense of resistance to the expre culture and at the same time an aertion of the self.B.The outstanding ones are Gary Snyder , who tends to liberate poetry from the academy and Allen Ginsberg , whose ” Howl “ became the manifesto of the Beat Movement.2.The features : A.First of all , a group of new writers who survived the war wrote about their traumatic experience among whom we have Norman Mailer and Herman Wouk.Warren and O' Conner are representatives of the talented Southern writers.B.By the 1950s a significant group of Jewish-American writers had appeared and one of them was Saul Bellow.Their work , Examined subtly the dismantiling of the self by an intolerable modern history.C.Black fiction began to attract critical attention during this period too.The two major figures are Wright and Ralph Ellison.D.Other important writers who were writing at the time include J.D.Salinger and John Updike.Salinger is considered The Catcher in the Rye is regarded as a students' claic Updike's Rabbit novels examine the middle-cla values.E.American fiction in the 1960s and 1970s is always referred to as ” new fiction,“ with Kurt Vonnegut , Joseph Heller , John Bath , and Thomas Pynchon at its forefront.These writers shared almost the same belief that human beings are trapped in a meaningle world.四.The features : 1.In creation : A.Modern American writings are notable for what they omit-the explanations , interpretations ,connections and summaries.B.There are shifts in perspective , voice , and tone , but the biggest shift is from the external to psychic , from the public to the private , from the chronological to the psychic , the objective description to the subjective projection.C.Moern American writers in general emphasize the concrete sensory images or details.They rely on the reference or allusions to literary , historical ,philosophical , or religious details of the past.2.In techniques: A.Writers strove for directne , compreion , and vividne and were sparing of words.B.The average novel became quite a bit shorter than it had been in the 19th century.C.New significance was given to the short story.If realistic fiction achieved its effects by accumulation and saturation , modern fiction preferred suggestivene.D.Modern fiction tended to employ the first person narration or limit the reader to the ” Central consciousne “ or one character point of view.E.The modernistic vision is truth does not exist objectively but is product of a personal interaction with reality.主要作家作品
A.埃兹拉.庞德 B.罗伯特.弗洛斯特 C.尤金.奥尼尔 D.斯各特.菲兹杰拉德 E.欧内斯特.海明威 F.威廉.福克纳
A.埃兹拉.庞德
一.The literary creation : 1.The poetry : A.The works : Pound's poetic works include twelve volumes of verse in Collected in Collecte Early Poems of Ezra pound ,and some longer pieces such as Hugh Selwyn Mauberley and his life's work , Cantos.B.The theme: Pound's earlier poetry is saturated with the familiar poetic subjects : songs in praise of a lady ,song concerning the poet's craft , love and friendship ,death ,the transience of beauty and the permanence of art ,and some other subjects.Later he is more concerned about the problems of the modern culture: the contemporary cultural decay and the poible sources of cultural renewal as well 2.The critical eays : A.The works : Pound produced quite a number of critical eays , which can be found in Make it New Literary Eays , The ABC of Reading and Polite Eays, B.The theme : Eays best reflect Pound's appraisals of literary traditions and of modern writing.3.The translations : A.The works : He also published several volumes of translation , most notably , The Translation of Ezra Pound , Confucius ,and Shih-Ching B The significance : They have not only cast light on Pound's affinity to the Chinese and his strenuous effort in the study of Oriental literature , but also offered us a clue to the understanding of his poetry and literary theory.二.The achievements to American Literature : 1.The Imagist movement : A.Imagist Movement flourished from 1909 to 1917.B.This is a movement that advanced modernism in arts which concentrated on reforming the medium of poetry as opposed to Romanticism C.Three main principles direct treatment of poetic subjects , elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words , rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome.D.The primary Imagist objective is to avoid rhetoric and moralizing , to stick closely to the object or experience being described , and to move from explicit generalization Pound's famous one-image poem is ”In a Station of the Metro “.2.The artistic features: A.Pound's poetic work include his use of myth and personae.Pound could sustain a dialogue between past and present succefully.B.As to his language , his lines are usually oblique yet marvelously compreed His poetry is dense with personal , literary , and historical allusions ,but at the expense of syntax and summary statements.B.罗伯特.弗洛斯特
一.the poetic creation : 1.The subject-matter : The subject matters mainly focus on the landscape and people in New England.2.The theme: The basic themes of man's life in his long poetic career are the individual 's relationships to himself , to his fellow-man , to his world ,and to his God.3 The works : A.His first collection A Boy's Will , is marked by an intense but restrained emotion and the characteristic flavor of New England life B.North of Boston is described by the author as ”a book of people “.C.The same expreive idiom and brilliant observation appear in Mountain Interval.D.New Hampshire won Frost the first of four Pulitzer Prizes.E.The collection West-Running brook poses disturbing uncertainties about man's prowe and importance.F.A Witne Tree includes ” The Gift Outright ,“ the poem he later recited at President Kennedy 's inauguration G.At the age of seventy Frost took up , a religious question he had explored before , most notably in ” After Apple-Picking.“
二.The artistic features : 1.The conventions of nature poetry and claical pastoral poetry : A.Unlike his contemporaries in the early 20th century , he did not break up with the poetic tradition nor made any experiment on form.Instead , he learned from the tradition.B.He made the colloquial New England speech into a poetic expreion_r_r_r.C.Many of his poems are fragrant with natural quality.Images and metaphors in his poems are drawn from the simple country life and the pastoral landscape.2.The theme concerned : A.These thematic concerns include the terror and tragedy in nature , as well as its beauty , and the loneline and poverty of the isolated human being.B.First and foremost Frost is concerned with his love of life and his belief in a serenity.三.The styles : 1.the grace is style : By using simple spoken language and conversational rhythms , Frost achieved an effortle grace in his style.2.The verse forms : He combined traditional verse forms-with a clear American local speech rhythm , the speech of New England farmers.C.尤金.奥尼尔
一.The literary creation : Eugene O'Neill is unquestionably America's greatest playwright.He won the Pulitzer four times and was the only dramatist ever to win a Nobel Prize.He is widely acclaimed ” founder of the American drama.“
1.The early period :-one-act melodramatic plays A.He gained some experience by writing some one-act melodramatic plays at first , including Bound East for Cardiff.B.O'Neill's first full-length play , Beyond the Horizon , Made a great hit and won him the first Pulizer Prize , which theme is the choice between life and death , the interaction of subjective and objective factors.2.The middle period :-Symbolic expreion_r_r_rism A.Between 1920 and 1924 came his prominent achievements in symbolic expreion_r_r_rism : The Emperor Jones , The Hairy Ape , All God's Chillun Got Wings ,and Desire Under the Elms.The expreion_r_r_ristic techniques are used in these plays to highlight the theatrical effect of the rupture.B.He concerned himself with some non-realistic forms to contain his tragic vision in a number of his plays , such as The Great God Brown , and Lazarus Laughed , Strange Interlude , paved the way to the honor of the Nobel Prize in 1936.3.The late period :-Autobiographical plays : A.The best and greatest plays of the modern American theater late in his life are The Iceman Cometh ,and Long Day's Journey Into Night.B.Long Day's Journey Into Night has gained its status as a world claic and simultaneously marks the climax of O' Neill's literary career and the coming of age of American drama.二.The artistic features : 1.The peimism features : A.Of all the plays O' Neill wrote , most of them are tragedies , dealing with the basic iues of human existence and predicament.B.His characters in the plays are described as seeking meaning , but all meet disappointment and despair.C.His final dramas became ”transcendental , “ in the way that the dramatization of man's effort in finding the secret of life results in a reconciliation with the tragic impoiblity.2.The stylistic features : A.He was constantly experimenting with new styles and for his plays.He used just a single actor , alone on the stage , in his one-act play.B.In those expreion_r_r_ristic plays , abstract and symbolic stage sets are used and lighting and music are employed.C.As to his language , O' Neil frequently wrote the lines in dialect , or spelled words in ways which indicate a particular accent or manner of speech.3.The Variety of creation : In verse form he was aorted;he wrote in both the metrical forms and the free verse , in a form that might be called semi-free or semi-conventional.D.斯各特.菲兹杰拉德 一.The literary creation : Francis Scott Fitzgerald was a most representative figure of the 1920s , he is often acclaimed literary spokesman of the Jazz Age.1.The creation in novel : A.His first novel This Side of Paradise was so succeful that it won for him not only wealth and fame , but also the expensive prize of Zelda Sayre.He has been regarded as the prototype of a series of rich , beautiful women.B.His second novel , The Beautiful and Damned , increased his popularity.C.His masterpiece The Great Gatsby made him one of the greatest American novelists.D.Fitzgerald wrote one more important novel Tender is the Night , leaving his last novel The Last Tycoon unfinished.2.The creation in novellas : A.His short-story collections won him great popularity , such as Flappers and Philosopher , Tales of the Jazz Age , All the Sad Young Men.B.One of his best short stories is ” Babylon Revisited.“
二.The achievements in literature : 1.The a panorama of the Jazz Age A.Most critics have agreed that Fitzgerald is both that Fitzgerald is both an insider and an outsider of the Jazz Age with a double vision.This doublene or irony is one of the distinguishing marks as a writer and helps Fitzgerald to present a panorama of the Jazz Age with a deep insight.B.Fitzgerald 's fictional world is the best embodiment of the spirit of the Jazz Age , in which he shows a particular interest in the upper-cla society , especially the upper-cla young people.2.The theme of American Dream : A.Fitzgerald never spared an intimate touch in his fiction to deal with the bankruptcy of the American Dream , which is highlighted by the disillusionment of the protagonists' personal dreams.B.Money is only a convenient and inadequate symbol for what he dreams of earning , and love merely a vehicle that can transport him to a magic world of eternal happine.C.Although the protagonist's pursuit of his dream only proves to be futile to be futile , Fitzgerld does not negate the the affirmative role the ” magic moments “ play , which attend the hope and expectations of eternal happine.3.The artistic features : A.Fitzgerald is a great stylist in American literature.His style , closely related to his themes , is explicit and chilly.B.He follows the Jamesian tradition in using the scenic method in his chapters , leaving the tedious proce of transition to the readers' imagination.c.He also skillfully employs the device of having events observed by a ”central consciousne“ to his great advantage.E.欧内斯特.海明威
一.the literary creation : 1.The collection of short stories : A.The features : Greatly and permanently affected by the war experiences , Hemingway formed his writing style , together with his theme and hero.B.The masterpiece : In Our Time is the first book to present a Hemingway hero-Nick Adams.Nick becomes the prototype of the wounded hero.C.The significance : In this book , Hemingway sought to endow prose with the density of poetry , making each image each scene , and each rendered act several purposes.2.The novels : A.The Sun Also Rises;a.The contents : The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway 's first true novel.It casts light on a whole generation after the First World War and the effects of the war by way of a vivid portrait of ” The Lost Generation.“ b.The significance : The young expatriates in this novel are a group of wandering , amusing , but aimle people.In this period the Hemingway Code hero is exemplified in different versions.B.A Farewell to Arms : a.The contents : A Farewell to Arms wrote the epitaph telling us a story about the tragic love affair of a wounded American soldier with a British nurse.b.The significance : In this novel , Hemingway not to only emphasizes his belief that man is refute the idea of nature as an expreion_r_r_r of either God's design or his beneficence and to suggest that man is doomed to be entrapped.C.For whom the Bell Tolls : a.The contents : For Whom the Bell Tolls clearly represents a new beginning in Hemingway 's career as writer , which concerns a volunteer American guerrilla Robert Jordan fighting in the Spanish Civil War.b.The significance : In the end , the manner of his dying convinces people that life is worth living and there are causes worth dying for.D.The old man and the sea : a.The contents : Capping his career and leading to his receipt of the Nobel Prize , this short novel is about an old Cuban fisherman Santiago and his losing battle with a giant marlin.b.the significance ” It is a representation of life as a struggle against unconquerable natural forces 3.Other works : Men without Womenn , Death in the Afternoon, The Green Hills of Africa ,The Snows of Kilimanjaro , To Have and Have Not.二.The artistic features : 1.The Hemingway code here: A.Hemingway's world is limited.He deals with a limited range of characters in quite similar circumstances and measures them against an unvarying code , known as “grace under preure ”.Those who survive in the proce of seeking to master the code with the honesty , the discipline , and the restraint are Hemingway Code heroes.B.In the general situation of his novels , life is full of tension and battles;the world is in chaos;man is always fighting desperately a losing battle.C.Hemingway 's limited fictional world implies a much broader thematic pattern and serious philosophical concern.2.The theory of iceberg: A.Hemingway himself once said , “the dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.” B.According to Hemingway , good literary writing should be able to make readers feel the emotion of the characters directly and the best way to produce the effect is to set down exactly every particular kind of feeling without any authorial comments ,without conventionally emotive language , and with a bare minimum of adjectives and adverbs.3.The stylistic features : A.seemingly simple and natural , Hemingway 's style is actually polished and tightly controlled ,but highly suggestive and connotative.B.Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism intiated by Mark Twain.C.He uses short , simple and conventional words and sentences has an effect of clearne , tersene and great care.D.No wonder Hemingway was highly praised by the Nobel Prize Committee for“ his powerful style-forming mastery of the art ” of creating modern fiction
F.威廉.福克纳 一.the works :
1.After training in Canada : A.Faulkner published a volume of poetry The Marble Faun.B.His first novel is Soldier's Pay.2.After the trip to Europe : A.Sartoris B.The sound and the Fury C.Major works : As I Lay Dying Light in August , Absalom , Absalom!Wild Palms , The Hamelet , The Unvanquished and Go Down , Moses.3.After 1946: A.The Portable Faulkner.B.The Nobel Prize for the anti-racist Intruder in the Dust.C.Remarkable novels such as Requiem for a Nun , The Fable, The Town , and The Mansion.二.the Yoknapatawpha Kingdom : 1.the background: A.The source : Most of Faulkner's works are set in the American South , with his emphasis on the Southern subjects and consciousne.His stories are about people from a small region in Northern Miiippi , Yoknapatawpha County , which is actally an imaginary place.B.The time period : The Yoknapatawpha stories deal, generally , with the historical period from the Civil War up to the 1920s.C.The significance: Yoknapatawpha county has become an allegory or a parable of the Old South , with which Faulkner has managed Succefully to show a panorama of the experience and consciousne of the whole Southern society.2.The theme: A.The overran pattern : The Yoknapatawpha County series have an overall patter in which the fate of ruined homeland always focuses on the collision of Faukner's intelligent , sensitive , and idealistic protagonist with the society of the twentieth century.B.The theme : Most of the major themes are directly related to this confrontation.C.The stylistic methods : The past and the present , nature and society are always juxtaposed in his novels and stories.All his heroes turn out to be tragic.Faulkner suggests that society , eliminates man's chance of responding naturally to the experiences of his existence.According to Faulkner , the life-death cycle, the spring and winter of the earth , the birth and death of the animals is reality.Man, becomes weak and cowardly , confused and ineffectual.三.The masterpiece: Of Faulkner's literary works , four novels are masterpieces by any standards :The sound and the Fury , light in August , Absalom ,Absalom!And Go Down , Moses.1.The Sound and the Fury : The Sound and The Fury is a story of “Lost innocence ”which proves itself to be an intensification of the theme of imprisonment in the past.2.Light in August is primarily about the South as a state of mind.3.Absalom , Absalom!is a novel entirely of interpretation , the attempts of several characters-to explain the past , characterized by involutions of narrative structrue which expre corresponding complexities of meaning.4.Go Down , Moses is a sense a companion piece to Absalom , Absalom!In this book , Faulkner illumintes the problem of black and white in Southern society as a close-knit destiny of blood brotherhood.The best story to highlight Faulkner's concern is “ The Bear”.In this story ,Faulkner skillfully employs an old crafty bear as a symbol of the timele freedom of the wilderne.四.The literary achievements : 1.The literary theory : A.Faulkner has always been regarded as a man with great might of invention and experimentation.He added to the theory of the novel as an art form and evolved his own literary strategies.B.To him , the primary duty of a writer was to explore and represent the infinite poibilities inherent in human life.2.The narrative skills : A.the objective narration : He would never step between the characters and the reader to explain , but let the characters explain themselves and hinder as little as poible the reader's direct experience of the work of art.B.The inversion of chronological time: He deliberately broke up the chronology of his narrative by juxtaposing the past with the present , in the way the montage does in a movie.C.The stream-of-consciousne technique: Modern stream-of-consciousne technique was also frequently and skillfully expoited by Faulkner to emphasize the reactions and inner musings of the narrator.D.The description of multiple points of view : Faulkner was good at presenting multiple points of view , which gave the story a circular form.Thus a high degree of truth could be reached.E.Others : The other narrative techniques Faulkner used to construct his stories include symbolism and mythological and biblical allusions.3.The stylistic features : A.In style : His prose , marked by long and embedded sentences , complex syntax , and vague reference pronouns on the one hand and a variety of “ registers ” of the English language on the other , is very difficult to read.B.The formal pattern : In Faulkner's writings there are syntactical structures and verbals paralleled , negatives balanced against positives , compounded adjectives swelling his sentences , complex modifying elements placed after the nouns.C.The informal pattern : He captured the dialects of the Miiippi characters ,including Negroes and the redneck ,as well as more refined and educated narrators like Quention.D.The imageries : They symbols and imageries , they are most of them drawn from nature.
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