美國(guó)文學(xué)選讀下冊(cè)重點(diǎn)內(nèi)容總結(jié)

1、The 1920s (1) Modernism a general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in the literature (and other arts)of the early 20th century, including Symbolism, Futurism, Expressionism, Imagism, Vorticism, Dada, and Surrealism, along with the innovations of u

2、naffiliated writers. Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th-century traditions. Modernist writers disturbed their readers by adopting complex and difficult new forms and styles. In fiction, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf attempted new ways of tracing the flow of charact

3、ers thoughts in their stream-of consciousness style. In poetry, Ezra Pound and T.S.Eliot replaced the logical exposition of thoughts with collages of fragmentary images and complex allusions. Modernist writing is predominantly cosmopolitan, and often expresses a sense of urban cultural dislocation,

4、along with an awareness of new anthropological and psychological theories. Its favored techniques of juxtaposition and multiple point of view challenge the reader to reestablish a coherence of meaning from fragmentary forms. In English, its major landmarks are Joyces Ulysses and Eliots The Waste Lan

5、d (both 1922).The 1920s (2) ImagismImagism: the doctrine and poetic practice of a small but influential group of American and British poets calling themselves imagists between 1912 and 1917. Imagist Movement is a revolt against the sentimental and manneristic （格式化的）poetry at the turn of the century.

6、 Led at first by Ezra Pound, and the by Amy Lowell, the group rejected most 19th-century poetry as cloudy（含糊的 ）verbiage（啰嗦）, and aimed instead at a new clarity and exactness in the short lyric poem. The imagists cultivated concision and directness, building their short poems around single images; th

7、ey also preferred looser cadences（節(jié)奏） to traditional regular rhythms. Apart from Pound and Lowell, the group also includes H.D., F.S.Flint, D.H. Lawrence and William Carlos Williams.The three phrases1908 1909. T. E. Hulme founded a club in London Basic principles; more discussion, less writing1912 1

8、914. Ezra Pound1912, the three imagist poetic principles came out1914, the first anthology of Imagist poems- Des Imagistes 詩(shī)選1914 1917. Amy Lowell No great achievementsThe three Imagist poetic principles1. Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective. 要求詩(shī)歌直接呈現(xiàn)描寫對(duì)象 （以雕塑和繪畫的手法，只展現(xiàn)而

9、不加評(píng)論 所用的語(yǔ)言盡可能相似于描寫對(duì)象。2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation -Economy of expression. (There must be no explanations, no drawing of conclusions.) 不用沒有意義的形容詞、修飾語(yǔ)，意象具有跳躍性 (fragmented) 3. Rhythm- It concerns a breaking away from conventional prosody, the use of free ver

10、se and interrelationship between music and verse.摒棄傳統(tǒng)格律，注重詩(shī)歌形式的自由。主張按照語(yǔ)言的音樂性寫詩(shī)，反對(duì)按固定音步寫詩(shī)。 Modernist writers 1. Ezra Pound (1885 1972) - father of modern American poetry, a leading spokesman of the Imagist movement Works :imagist poem: In a Station of the MetroCathay 華夏（中國(guó)古詩(shī)譯集）1915Homage to Sextus Pr

11、opertius 向普羅波蒂斯致敬1917Hugh Selwyn Mauberley 休 塞爾溫 莫伯利 1920 Cantos 詩(shī)章(masterpiece) (containing a total of 117 poems)the influence of Confucius over Pound (embodied in the ideas of Cantos):Pound sees in Chinese history and the doctrine of Confucius a source of strength and wisdom with which to counterp

12、oint western gloom and confusion. To him, the wisdom of Confucianism boils down to one notion: Order and tranquility, from which light shines forth. Order and tranquility come from enlightened rule, and a salient feature of Confucian enlightened rule is even distribution of wealth and light taxation

13、.His survey of Chinese history is highly simplistic and idealistic. He sees the rise and fall of dynasties purely as the result of their following or violating the Confucian principle The character for the cardinal Confucian virtue, “compassion”, opens and informs the whole canto.2. T. S. Eliot (188

14、8-1965) Nobel Prize winner （1948）T·S·艾略特的著名長(zhǎng)詩(shī)荒原的副題就是：“獻(xiàn)給埃茲拉·龐德，最卓越的匠人”，該詩(shī)曾得利于龐德的親自修改。 He became a British naturalized citizen in 1927.his famous principle of objective correlative 客觀相關(guān)物poems:The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 普魯弗洛克的情歌 1911Gerontion 小老頭 1920 Hollow man 空心人 1925Ash Wed

15、nesday 圣灰節(jié) 1930 Four Quartets 四個(gè)四重奏 1943The Waste Land 荒原 1925 -the manifesto of “l(fā)ost Generation”, established Eliots position as the leader of “Waste Land Painters”.“Waste land” itself becomes a symbol of the declining western civilization. It is a milestone of the modern western poetry.drama: Swe

16、eney Agonistes 力士斯威尼 The Cocktail Party 雞尾酒會(huì)The Confidential clerk 機(jī)要秘書 Murder in the Cathedral 大教堂謀殺案As a literary critic, he has famous doctrine on poets and poetry:the“ impersonal theory ”非個(gè)性化理論 All these would necessarily lead to the emergence of the New Criticism. Collection of critical essays:

17、 Essays on Style and Order風(fēng)格及秩序論文集 The Sacred Wood神木The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism Elizabethan EssaysEssays Ancient and Modern After Strange Gods 拜異教之神3. Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) An unusual poet in modern American literary history. He was a very successful business man.To him, a poet

18、lives in two worlds-one of imagination and the other of reality -and builds bridges between them. All his poems recorded the unending dialogue of imagination & reality.famous poem: Anecdote of the Jar 壇子的故事 The Emperor of Ice-Cream 冰淇淋大帝 The Idea of Order at key West 在基韋斯特的秩序的思考prose writing:The

19、 Necessary Angel 必不可少的安琪兒volume of poetry:Ideas of Order 關(guān)于秩序的思考The Man with the Blue Guitar Parts of a WorldTransport to Summer 轉(zhuǎn)入夏季The Auroras of Autumn 秋天的晨曦Collected Poems 詩(shī)集 4. William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)Williams worked all his life as a physician. He wrote poems about everyday subjects

20、 and the lives of ordinary people, using clear, concrete language. An American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He wrote poetry not because he had to but because he wanted to.Williams attitude toward Eliot and Pound:He is a friend of Pounds but resented his broken multi-cultural s

21、tyle.As a matter of fact, he was anti-Eliot all his life. His antagonism to T. S. Eliot dated from the publication of The Waste Land, which, he believed, gave the poem back to the academics. He strongly disapproves of the Pound-Eliot bookish, and intellectual brand of poetry, for he believes that “l(fā)

22、ocalism alone can lead to culture.His poetics :1.The source of information - American poetry must be rooted in America as its fount of inspiration（靈感）and its source of information and subject matter. He believes that “l(fā)ocalism alone can lead to culture.”(民族化同樣能產(chǎn)生好的文學(xué))What he wanted to achieve is to

23、reach the universal plane of meaning through the representation of the local.通過描寫本土的狀貌來反映普遍意義Life as it is lived is the beginning and the end of the poets endeavor. Life is in itself poetry simple and pure. Poetry inheres in the life around us.2. The language and rhythm- He feels strongly that poetr

24、y must be grounded in everyday experience and in the speech of the common man. It must use the common meters of living speech.3.The use of image -He is an excellent imagist poet. To him, Philosophical and metaphysical speculation has absolutely no place in poetry. In Paterson he writes, “Say it! No

25、ideas but in things” ,(思想僅寓于事物之中) which means that dont philosophize and say it in terms of some kind of concretization . ( 不要說教，要借助于意象使觀點(diǎn)具體化)poem: The Red Wheelbarrow 紅色手推車Spring and All 春天及一切l(wèi)ong poem: Paterson 佩特森Prose work: In the American Grain 美國(guó)性格The Red Wheelbarrow The picture presents commo

26、n sights in the colorful, lively life. The wheelbarrow is very common in country life, and rainwater means hope, virility to the crops. The moving chicken are very lively and make one light-hearted. The picture, with red and white, is very colorful. This lively, colorful scene makes one light-hearte

27、d and cheerful. The picture conveys a very lively common life. It makes the readers realize that beauty inheres in the lively, common life. Or life itself is poem pure and poem inheres in the life around us.On the surface level, “so much depends on”emphasizes the necessity and importance of these th

28、ings to farm life . What is the metaphorical meaning?The metaphorical meaning may be that common life is very important to people. Life is poetic; it can offer enough material for poetry writing. ?1. How to understand the “object” and the “image” in the poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” ? In order to under

29、stand the poem, its necessary for us to state the writers poetic ideas. William Carlos Williams believes that life itself can provide enough material efor poetry writing, and poetry inheres in the life around us. The consensus seems to be that he states his poetic idea in this poem. Then the poem ca

30、n be understood as the following:The “image is a quick succession of related images -“the red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens”. (the lively, common life; synecdoche提喻) The poet doesnt state the “object” directly in the poem. The “object” is subjective. It refers to the p

31、oets poetic idea concerning “material for poetry writing”. Through this image, the poet points out that the lively common life can provide material enough for poetry writing; poetry inheres in life around us. Poets should make their poetry as lively as life. 2. Appreciate the poem “The Red Wheelbarr

32、ow” on the basis of the three Imagist poetic principle 1) The poet directly presents the image in the poem - “the red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens”, and this suggests the lively, common life. According to the poet William Carlos Williamss poetic ideas, the poem maybe

33、illustrates his poetic idea concerning “material for poetry writing”. He is perhaps comparing “material for poetry writing” to the lively, common life. “wheelbarrow, chicken, rainwater” are very common objects in farm life.These things are important to both farm life and poets poetic endeavor for li

34、fe can provide enough writing material. Poets should make their poetry as lively as life itself. 2) Altogether 16 words . No words that does not contribute to the presentation. No explanation. 3)It is written in free verse. Whats more, there is special sound effect in it: the whole poem consists of

35、one sentence which is divided into 8 lines and 4 stanzas. Pause falls between the units of the sentence ,for example: so much depends (P) upon (P) such unnatural pauses gives the poem a spasmodic (不連續(xù)的） sound effect, which represents the actual movement of the red wheelbarrow. the influence of Imagi

36、sm1)the imagist theories call for brief language, describing the precise picture in as few words as possible. This new way of poetry composition has a lasting influence in the 20th century poetry.2)the second lasting influence of Imagism is the form of free verse. There are no metrical rules. There

37、are apparent indiscriminate（雜亂的） line breaks, which reflects the discontinuity of life itself. That is art of the poem. (The poet uses the length of the lines and the strange groupings of words to show how life itself can be broken up into somehow meaningless clusters.)5.Robert Frost (1874-1963) “新英

38、格蘭詩(shī)人” 詩(shī)多以田園生活為題材He won the Pulitzer Prize four times. He was considered as the “unofficial poet laureate of the nation”. In 1961, he was invited to read his poems in the inauguration ceremony of President Kennedy. He was the only poet who once had such an honor.Poetry Collections： his first volume A

39、 Boys Will (1913)少年的意志North of Boston（1914) 波士頓以北“Mending Wall ”修墻The Wood Pile 柴堆 Mountain Interval (1916) 山間“The Road Not Taken” 一條未走的路New Hampshire (1923) 新罕布什爾“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”雪夜林邊駐West-Running Brook (1928) 西去的溪流A Further Range (1936) 又一片牧場(chǎng)A Witness Tree (1942) 見證樹 writing f

40、eature：He is one of the most popular American modernist poets. The charm of his poetry is that it seems to be natural,direct and simple and the fact is that it is deceptively simple.貌似簡(jiǎn)單的復(fù)雜性Frosts poems are New England in their setting.The subjects come from country life of ordinary people.He used p

41、lain language, traditional poetics and common symbols to express profound ideas. His innovation is to combine traditional poetic forms （傳統(tǒng)英詩(shī)形式） with American speech rhythms and vocabulary. He showed little interest in experimentation in form. But for him, form of poetry is as important as sense . Th

42、e ordering of sound and sense(詩(shī)歌的語(yǔ)調(diào)與內(nèi)容的統(tǒng)一) is one major concern of his career.His poetry emphasizes modern thematic concern . By writing poem, he managed to construct a “ momentary stay against confusion”.（暫時(shí)逃避現(xiàn)實(shí)的混亂）Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Eveningsome sound devices alliteration: （頭韻）詩(shī)句中相鄰的詞以相同的

43、字母或聲韻開頭 The sun sank slowly .assonance（元音韻）相同或相似的元音在詩(shī)行中反復(fù)出現(xiàn) The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plainconsonance（輔音韻）詩(shī)行中兩個(gè)或兩個(gè)以上的詞的詞尾輔音相同 I like to see it lap the Miles And lick the Valleys upthe sound devices employedthe rhyme pattern in this poem (Vowels and diphthongs)Winter Solstice冬至 -the longe

44、st and darkest eveningalone, dark, quiet, cold Robert Frost was greatly influenced by the Transcendentalist ideas which hold that nature can exercise a healthy and restorative influence upon peoples mind.Major features of New England Transcendentalism: 3) The Transcendentalists regarded nature as sy

45、mbolic of the Spirit or God Nature is the garment of the Oversoul. Therefore it could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on the human mind. Things in nature tended to become symbolic.SymbolismThe woods (beyond the borders of the village) sit on the edge of civilization. It is restful, sedu

46、ctive, lovely, deep-naturethe village (or "society," "civilization," "duty," "responsibility") -human worldthe theme constructing “a momentary stay against confusion” The speaker was in his onerous life journey. The woods is so lovely & fascinating that he

47、 had a strong desire to escape from the chaotic society & find refuge in the forest. Frost was deeply influenced by the Transcendentalist idea which holds that nature can exercise a healthy and restorative influence upon the human mind. So after pausing a little while beside the woods, the speak

48、er got enough energy and virility from the restorative nature. He remembered he had so much responsibilities. He must continue his life journey. His short stay by the woods provides “a momentary stay against confusion”.Some information concerning “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” As a poet, Fro

49、st started very late. (His first volume of poetry wasnt published until he was nearly forty. )The large family was a heavy burden for him. At the same time, He was intensely aware of the chaos of the modern age. How he wanted to escape from the harsh reality.American Modernism Novelists：1. F. Scott

50、Fitzgerald (1896-1940) 爵士樂時(shí)代的命名者和象征Fitzgerald is generally regarded as spokesman of the 1920s ,the peculiar decade that combined the postwar economic boom and the sense of spiritual disorientation.novels: This Side of Paradise人間天堂(1920)The Beautiful and Damned 漂亮冤家(1922)The Great Gatsby 了不起的蓋茨比(1925

51、)Tender is the Night 夜色溫柔(1934)The Last Tycoon( unfinished) 最后的大亨Collections of short Stories: Flappers and Philosophers (1921) 時(shí)髦女郎和哲學(xué)家Tales of the Jazz Age (giving its name to the 1920s）the 1920s- the Jazz age 爵士樂時(shí)代的故事(1921)All the Sad Young Man 一代悲哀的年輕人(1926) (The Rich Boyone of his best story)Ta

52、ps at Reveille 清晨起床號(hào)The diamond as big as the Ritz 大如里茲飯店的鉆石（短篇故事集中的故事）The Great Gatsby ( two heroes)it is set in Long Island's North Shore and New York City during the summer of 1922.hero :Jay Gatsby Nick Carraway ( he is both a narrator and a character in the novel )heroine:Daisy Buchanan （her

53、 husband-Tom Buchanan)Theme of the novel：The novel is the single most profound commentary in American fiction on American Dream. Fitzgerald deals with the bankruptcy of the American dream, which is highlighted by the disillusionment of the heros personal dreams due to the clashes between the romanti

54、c version of life and the sordid reality. It is a story of an idealist who tries to recapture his lost love but in vain and is finally destroyed by the influence of the wealthy people around him. Gatsby is the true heir to the American dream. He fails to understand that he cannot recapture the past

55、no matter how much money he makes. Material cant identify with happiness. Daisy refuses to leave the security of her established position for Gatsbys adoration and precarious wealth.the magnitude of The Great Gatsby Fitzgeralds greatness lies in the fact that he found intuitively, in his personal ex

56、perience, the embodiment of that of the nation and created a myth out of American life. Gatsbys life follows a clear pattern: at first, a dream, then a disenchantment, and finally a sense of failure and despair. Gatsbys personal experience approximates the whole of the American experience up to the

57、first few decades of the twentieth century. Gatsbys personal life has assumed a magnitude as a “cultural-historical allegory” for the nation. Here lies the greatest intellectual achievement that Fitzgerald ever achieved. Techniques in the novel1.first-person point view: using the “dramatic narrator”- Nick Carraway (meaning the narrator is also a character in the novel); Nick is related with all the three groups