英語專業(yè)四八級美文學要點課件

1、Introduction to American literature1.The Colonial Period2.The Romantic Period (the first half of 19th century) 3.The Age of Realism and Naturalism4.The Period around WWI5.The Modern Period第1頁，共64頁。I. The Colonial Period (the early 17th and 18th century) 1. Puritanism: idealism and opportunism2. Benj

2、amin Franklin本杰明富蘭克林 : “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”自傳 Poor Richards Almanac窮查理歷書 (containing witty maxims for achieving wealth as a result of hard work and thrift)3.Philip Freneau (poem)菲利普弗倫諾 The Rising Glory of America蒸蒸日上的美洲 第2頁，共64頁。American PuritanismPuritans The early settlers foun

3、ding fathers of the America nationTo purify the rituals and lessen the authority of bishops escaped to the new world, create a new paradise advocate highly religious and moral principles. American Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American literature.

4、第3頁，共64頁。Chapter Two American Romanticism and New England Literature第4頁，共64頁。Logic ThreadAmerican RomanticismPre-romanticism1770s-1830sPost-romanticism (New EnglandTranscendentalism)Flowering time before American Civil War 1830-1860 Declining time after American Civil War 1865-1875 第5頁，共64頁。Represen

5、tative figures of the time: Pre-romanticism: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper庫珀 Post-romanticism: Novelists: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville Poets: Henry Wadesworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman Emily Dickinson Essayists: Ralph Waldo Emerson, -Nature Henry David Thoreau第6頁，共

6、64頁。American Romanticism The romantic period stretches from the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the Civil War (1790-1865).1. Background (1) Political background and economic development Territorial Expansion Industrial Growth The Civil War The “newness” of Americans as a nation

7、 is in connection with American Romanticism. optimism and hope among the people There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. (2) foreign influence Romantic movement in European countries 第7頁，共64頁。American RomanticismRomanticism was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationali

8、sm. For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions were more important than reason and common sense. They stressed the close relationship between man and nature;They emphasized individualism and affirmed the inner life of the self. 第8頁，共64頁。Washington Irving (1783-1859)華盛頓歐文早期浪漫主義小說家A History

9、of New York紐約的歷史-美國人寫的第一部詼諧文學杰作； The Sketch Book見聞札記 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow睡谷的傳說-使之成為美國第一個獲得國際聲譽的作家 Rip Van Winkle 第9頁，共64頁。James Fenimore Cooper 1789-1851詹姆斯費尼莫爾庫珀早期浪漫主義小說家 “Leatherstocking Tales”皮裹腿故事集a series of five novels, that is the Pioneers拓荒者(I823) the Last of the Mohicans(1826)最后的莫希干人

10、 The Prairie(1827)大草原 The Pathfinder(1840)探路者 The Deerslayer(1841)殺鹿者 adventure into the wilderness of the West/第10頁，共64頁。2.The summit of Romanticism- New England Transcendentalism / 1. Emerson / “Nature”2. Henry David Thoreau / “ Walden”3.Whitman / “Leaves of Grass”4. Hawthorn / “ The Scarlet Lette

11、r” 5.Herman Meville “Moby Dick”第11頁，共64頁。Post-romanticism (New England Transcendentalism)What is Transcendentalism?1.Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882)愛默生 The leading New England Transcendentalist “Nature”論自然-新英格蘭超驗主義者的宣言書 ;The American Scholar論美國學者2.Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862) Transcendentalist Emer

12、sons friend Walden第12頁，共64頁。The major features of Transcendentalism1.The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe.2. The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them the individual was the most important eleme

13、nt of society.3. The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was, to them, not purely matter. It was alive, filled with Gods overwhelming presence.第13頁，共64頁。The Development of Transcendentalism Nature (in 1836) by Ralph Waldo EmersonNatures vo

14、ice pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism, the summit of American Romanticism.Transcendentalist Club Transcendentalism was indebted to the dual heritage of American Puritanism, the religious idealism of their Puritan past.Transcendentalists emphasis

15、 on the individual was directly traceable to the Puritan principle of self-culture and self-improvement. Thus there is good reason to state that New England Transcendentalism was Romanticism on the Puritan soil. New England Transcendentalism was important to American literature. It inspired a whole

16、new generation of famous authors such as Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman and Dickinson. 第14頁，共64頁。Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864) Novels: Scarlet Letter紅字 Hester Prynne; The House of Seven Gables七個尖角閣的房子; The Blithedale Romance福谷傳奇; The Marble Faun大理石神像 Short story collections: Twice-T

17、old Tales 故事新編 Moses from an Old Manse古屋青苔第15頁，共64頁。Herman Melville赫爾曼梅爾維爾1819-1891Moby Dick/The White Whale莫比迪克/白鯨 第16頁，共64頁。Edgar Allan Poe埃德加愛倫坡1809-1849The first professional writer in America The first writer of detective story in the world-歌特風格；首開近代偵探小說先河，又是法國象征主義運動的源頭The Fall of the House of

18、Usher厄舍古屋的倒塌(novel); The Raven烏鴉(poem) Tamerlane and Other Poems帖木兒和其他詩; To Hellen致海倫（以詩為詩；永為世人共賞的偉大抒情詩人-葉芝） 第17頁，共64頁。Walt Whitman(1819-1892)沃爾特惠特曼 One of the great innovators in American PoetryFree verseGrowing up in a working-class background, having little educationLeaves of Grass草葉集 Song of Mys

19、elf”自我之歌 reveals a world of equality, without rank and hierarchy.第18頁，共64頁。poetsEmily Dickinson(1830-1886) The Poems of Emily Dickinson埃米莉迪金森詩集(love, death,nature,friendship, and immortality) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow亨利沃茲沃思朗費羅1807-1882 A Psalm of Life生命禮贊（short poem） The Song of Hiawatha海華沙之歌-美國人寫的

20、第一部印第安人史詩; William Cullen Bryant 1794-1878柯倫布萊恩特 To a Waterfowl致水鳥-英語中最完美的短詩 第19頁，共64頁。Harriet Beecher Stowe哈麗特比徹斯托1811-1896 Uncle Toms Cabin湯姆叔叔的小屋 第20頁，共64頁。Chapter 3The Age of Realism and Naturalism第21頁，共64頁。The three strong advocates of 19th century American realismWilliam Dean Howells (critic)豪

21、威爾斯 Henry James亨利詹姆斯Mark Twain馬克吐溫 第22頁，共64頁。Henry James1842-1910 James novels “international situation” are set against a background between America and EuropeJames contribution to literary criticism is immense. To him, “art without life is a poor affair”. “the aim of the novel is to represent life

22、”. His realism was called as Psychological realism. He was esp. an observer of the mind rather than a recorder of the times. The American, Daisy MillerThe Portrait of a Lady貴婦人畫像 The Wings of the Dove鴿翼The Ambassadors大使 第23頁，共64頁。Mark Twain馬克吐溫1. “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”湯姆索耶歷險記 2. “The Adventu

23、res of Huckleberry Finn” -his masterpiece/哈克貝利費恩歷險記 The Gilded Age鍍金時代 3. Famous for his localism, colloquial style, humor and bitter attacks 第24頁，共64頁。American Naturalism : pessimistic realism1. Naturalism came from France.2. Reasons: civil war, social upheavalsDarwins theory of evolution : the sur

24、vival of the fittest” Men were conditioned dominated by social and economic forces, by heredity and environment.3. Features of naturalist writing: A. naturalist writers turned literary creation into a mechanical record of society, in a way of attempting to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness.

25、They never made comments on the characters and their behaviors. B. The characters were often figures of low social and economic classesC. They stressed men had no free will, their lives were controlled by heredity and environment. 第25頁，共64頁。American Naturalism4. American Naturalist writers: Stephen

26、Crane, Frank Norris, Jack London, Henry Adams, Theodore Dreiser.第26頁，共64頁。Stephen Crane(1871-1900)斯蒂芬克萊恩 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets街頭女郎梅姬（美國文學史上首次站在同情立場上描寫受辱婦女的悲慘命運） The Red Badge of Courage紅色英勇勛章 The Black Riders (his first book of poems)第27頁，共64頁。Theodore Dreiser(1871-1945)Dreisers worksSister

27、Carrie 1900(A feather in wind, she is totally at the mercy of forces she cannot comprehend and control. She does not seem to possess what may be called a moral fibre in her.)Jennie Gerhardt 1911Trilogy of Desire欲望三部曲(Financer金融家1912,The Titan巨人1914,The Stoic斯多葛1915)An American Tragedy美國的悲劇1925（被稱為美國

28、最偉大的小說）第28頁，共64頁。Frank Norris (1870-1902)弗蘭克諾里斯 The Octopus 1901章魚 第29頁，共64頁。Jack London(1876 - 1916)杰克倫敦 Martin Edenmasterwork馬丁伊登 The Call of the Wild野性的呼喚 The Sea-Wolf海狼White Fang白獠牙 第30頁，共64頁。O Henry (1862-1910)歐享利 1. “The Gift of Magi”2. “The Cop and the Anthem” 3. Famous for his fascinating pl

29、ot, humorous touch, interesting puns, localism, and unexpected endings.第31頁，共64頁。American literature in the 1920s and 1930s1. Poets: T. S. Eliot / “the Waste Land” Robert Frost2. Novelists: Fitzgerald / “the Great Gatsby” Hemingway / “Farewell to Arms” Faulkner / wrote about the South 第32頁，共64頁。Amer

30、ican literature in the 1920sPoetry: T. S. Eliot The Wasteland. Novel: Sinclair Lewis Main Street 1920 Theodore Dreiser An American Tragedy 1925, sister carrieF. S. Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby 1926, Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises 1926, A Farewell to Arms, 1929, William Faulkner The Sound and th

31、e Fury, 1929, Drama: Eurgene ONeill, The Emperor Jones, 1920, Anna Christie, 1921, The Hairy Ape 1922, Harlem Renaissance. 第33頁，共64頁。Jazz AgeHistorical Background: WWI, peace-making period/boom time. After WWI, people found that the war which cost millions of lives failed to provide an abiding solut

32、ions to the worlds problems, that the war was just the traps of political leaders. Such a disillusionment about the value of war, accompanied by the booming of American economy drove people to cynical hedonism. People experiment with new amusements. They restlessly pursued stimulus and pleasures, wa

33、llow in heavy drinking, fast driving and casual sex. By these, they hoped to seek relief from serious problems.第34頁，共64頁。The Lost Generation迷惘的一代 a disillusionment about the value of war disgusted by the new frivolous, greedy way of life in AmericaWhen the First World War broke out, many idealistic

34、young Americans volunteered to take part in the war and test their own bravery. They discovered that modern warfare was not glorious or heroic. Disillusioned by slogans of patriotism and glory, disgusted by the new frivolous, greedy way of life in America, many of these young Americas began to write

35、. Some writers left America and formed a community of writers and artists in Paris. They stood aside, as onlookers, and wrote about they saw. They wrote from their own experiences in the war, and their own observations.他們不再相信虛偽的道德說教，而以玩世不恭的生活態(tài)度來表示自己的消極抗議。“迷惘的一代”的代表作是海明威的太陽照樣升起（1926）。 第35頁，共64頁。The L

36、ost Generation迷惘的一代 An American woman writer named Gertrude Stein(1874-1946), who had lived in Paris since 1903, welcomed the young American writers to her apartment which was already famous as a literary salon. Gertrude Stein was the advisor, friend of some of the American artists and writers of th

37、e time. Ezra Pound joined her group for a few years in the early 1920s. Together, they encouraged and helped such young writers as the novelist Ernest Hemingway and E.E.Cummings, and F.Scott Fitzgerald. Many other writers were drawn to Gertrude Steins home. She called them “The Lost Generation”, a n

38、ame which stuck to them, because they had cut themselves off from their past in America in order to create new types of writing which had never been tried before.第36頁，共64頁。Ernest Hemingway(1899-1961)his stories of courage in the face of tragedy Iceberg TheoryThe Sun Also Rises 1926A Farewell to Arms

39、 1929永別了，武器 For Whom the Bell Tolls 1940以西班牙內(nèi)戰(zhàn)為背景的反法西斯主義的長篇小說喪鐘為誰而鳴 The Old Man and the Sea 1952老人與海塑造了以桑提亞哥為代表的“可以把他消滅，但就是打不敗他”的“硬漢形象”一個人并不是生來要被打敗的，你盡可以把他消滅掉，可就是打不敗他。 第37頁，共64頁。Hemingway heroHe is sensitive, intelligent. He is a man of action and of few words. He is alone even when with other peopl

40、e. He is somewhat an outsider, keeping emotion under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place when one can not get happiness. In a world which is essentially chaotic and meaningless, a Hemingway hero fights a solitary struggle against a force he does not even understand. The awareness

41、 that it must end in defeat, no matter how hard he strives, engenders a sense of despair, but Hemingway hero possesses a kind of despairing courage. It is this courage that enables a man to behave like a man, to assert his dignity in face of adversity. This is the essence of a code of honor in which

42、 all of Hemingways heroes believe. 第38頁，共64頁。F.Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)The literary spokesman of Jazz Age This Side of Paradise 1920人間天堂 The Beautiful and Damned 1921漂亮冤家 The Great Gatsby 1925了不起的蓋茨比(The American Dream is dead) Tender Is The Night 1934夜色溫柔 The Last Tycoon 1941最后的巨頭第39頁，共64頁。Will

43、iam Faulkner(1897-1962)get Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930stream-of-consciousness and multiple point of view.約克納帕塔法世系小說 （Yoknapatawpha County）The Sound and the Fury 喧囂與騷動 As I Lay Dying 我彌留之際Sanctuary圣堂 Light in August八月之光 Absalom, Absalom! 押沙龍，押沙龍 Go Down, Moses去吧，摩西 第40頁，共64頁。Sherwood Anderson(

44、1876-1941) 舍伍德安德森 Winesburg, Ohio 1919俄亥俄州的溫斯堡Poor White 1920窮白人 Death in the Woods 1933最后一本重要短篇集林中之死及其它（海明威和菲茨杰拉德都受過他很大影響，海明威曾說：“他是我們所有人的老師”。 第41頁，共64頁。Sinclair Lewis辛劉易斯(1885-1951)Main Street 1920Babbitt 1922The first American writer to get Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930(美國第一個獲諾貝爾獎) Babbitt: p

45、resents a documentary picture of the narrow and limited middle-class mind辛劉易斯的大街（1920）粉碎了“村鎮(zhèn)是美好的世外桃源”的神話。他后來的作品對商業(yè)、科技、宗教界的問題都作了揭露，他所塑造的巴比特成了庸俗、浮夸、講求實利的中產(chǎn)階級的典型人物 第42頁，共64頁。Imagism意像派 Background：Imagism came as a reaction to the traditional English poetics to meet the need of expressing the temper of

46、the age. (the rapid change of society)the leader: Ezra Pound (1) Direct treatment Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective(2) Economy of Expression To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation: (3) Rhythm As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequen

47、ce of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome. 第43頁，共64頁。Ezra Pound (1885-1972)艾茲拉龐德 Cantos 詩章In a Station of the Metro在巴黎地鐵站第44頁，共64頁。Robert Frost(1874-1963)The most popular American poet of the 20th centuryThe Road Not Taken沒有走過的道路雪夜林畔小駐Mending Wall修墻 第45頁，共64頁。20th centuryLittle Th

48、eatre movement andGeorge Pierce Baker (47 Workshop at Harvard) experimental plays by such students as Eugene ONeill and Sidney Howardthe Theatre of the Absurd(荒誕派戲劇)第46頁，共64頁。Eugene ONeill(1888-1953)尤金奧尼爾 The Americas greatest playwright, and the only one to receive the Nobel PrizeThe Emperor Jones瓊

49、斯皇The Hairy Ape 1922毛猿 Beyond the Horizon天邊外 Desire under the elms(1923)The iceman cometh(1946)Long Days Journey into night(1955);送冰的人來了; 第47頁，共64頁。Arthur Miller (1915-)PlaywrightDeath Of A Salesman 1949第48頁，共64頁。American literature in the 1930sBackground: a dark decadeThe Great DepressionLeft-wing

50、writing become the main stream of 1930s American literatureJohn Dos Passos John Steibeck第49頁，共64頁。John Steinbeck(1902-1968)Awarded Nobel Prize in 1962The Grape of Wrath 1939Of Mice and Men(1937)Tortilla Flat煎餅坪1935In Dubious Battle 1936勝負未決第50頁，共64頁。John Dos Passos1896-1970Manhattan Transfer (1925).

51、 His USA trilogy: The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932) The Big Money (1936). （The USA trilogy also included what became known as newsreels ）The big Time最好的歲月The Grand Design偉大的設想第51頁，共64頁。VI. Modern times 1. A great variety of literary trends2. Black literature / Alex Haley / “Roots”3. Jewish write

52、r / Saul Bellow 第52頁，共64頁。American literature after World War IIThe Beat Generation垮掉的一代 In the middle of the 1950s, a group of writers in San Francisco put on a concerted and well-publicized rebellion against “official” American life and culture. The leaders were poet Allen Ginsberg and novelist Ja

53、ck Kerouac. Kerouac杰克凱魯亞克 named the group Beat. The Beat Movement was a revolt against the frightened, conservative political mood created by Senator McCarthy, against the greedy, money-seeking “respectable” life of the dominant middle class but particularly against the literary formalism of America

54、n writing after the Second World War.第53頁，共64頁。The Beat Generation垮掉的一代In literature, they took Walt Whitman as their model, who had broken all the literary rules of his time and lived an exuberant, free life. In rejecting the carefully written works of their contemporary writers, the Beats instead

55、wanted to write with complete spontaneity and honesty. They wanted to express emotion “raw”, exactly as it was felt, rather than “cooked” through memory and translation into art. Jack Kerouac杰克凱魯亞克在路上(On the Road, 1957)， ；艾倫金斯堡 第54頁，共64頁。The year 1960 “black humor” The liberation from official standards of correctness gav