英美文学选读各章笔记
看各章总纲和课本上涉及到的作者 这是南开讲义 有所不同第一章
美国浪漫主义时期
一、美国浪漫主义时期概述
Ⅰ.本章学习目的和要求
通过本章学习，了解１９世纪初期至中叶美国文学产生的历史、文化背景；认识该时期文学创作的基本待征、基本主张，及其对同时代和后期美国文学的影响；了解该时期主要作家的文学创作生涯、创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题思想、人物刻画、语言风格等；同时结合注释，读懂所选作品并了解其思想内容和艺术特色，培养理解和欣赏文学作品的能力。
Ⅱ.本章重点及难点：
1．浪漫主义时期美国文学的特点
2．主要作家的创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格、思想意义。
3．分析讨论选读作品
Ⅲ.本章考核知识点和考核要求：
1.美国浪漫主义时期概述
(1)．"识记"内容：美国浪漫主义文学产生的社会历史及文化背景
(2)．"领会"内容： 美国浪漫主义在文学上的表现
a.欧洲浪漫主义文学的影响
b.美国本土文学的崛起及其待证
(3)．"应用"内容：清教主义、超验主义、象征主义、自由诗等名词的解释
2.美国浪漫主义时期的主要作家
Ａ．华盛顿·欧文
1．一般识记：欧文的生平及创作主涯
2．识记：《纽约外史》《见闻札记》
3．领会：欧文的创作领域、创作思想，及其作品的艺术风格
4.应用：选读《瑞普·凡·温可尔》的主题及其艺术特色
Ｂ．拉尔夫·华尔多·爱默生
1．一般识记：．爱默生的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：爱默生的超验主义思想
3．领会：
（1）爱默生的散文：《论自然》《论自助》《论美国学者》等
（2）．爱默生与梭罗：梭罗的超验主义思想和他的《沃尔登》
4． 应用：《论自然》节选：爱默生的基本哲 学思想及自然观
Ｃ．纳撒尼尔·霍桑
1．一般识记：霍桑的生平及创作主涯
2．识记：霍桑的长短篇小说
3．领会：
（1）《红字》的主题、心理描写、象征手法和、小说结构
（2）霍桑的清教主义思想及加尔文教条中的"原罪"对霍桑的影响（人性本恶的观点）
（3）霍桑对浪漫主义小说的贡献
4．应用：选读《小伙子布朗》的主题结构、象征手法及语言特色
Ｄ．华尔特·惠特曼
1．一般识记：惠特曼的生平及其创作生涯
2．识记：惠特曼的民主思想
3．领会：
（1）惠特曼的《草叶集》的主创意图、思想感情及诗体形式、语言风格
（2）．惠特曼的个人主义
4．应用：选读《草叶集》诗选："一个孩子的成长"、"涉水的骑兵'"、"自己之歌"的主题结构、诗歌的艺术特色、语言风格
Ｅ．赫尔曼·麦尔维尔
1．一般识记：麦尔维尔的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：麦尔维尔的早期作品：《玛地》《雷得本》《白外衣》，后期作品《皮埃尔》《骗子的化装表演》《比利伯德》等
3．领会：《白鲸》的
（1）主题：表层及深层意义
（2）小说结构：浪漫主义和现实主义的统一
（3）象征手法和寓言的运用
（4）语言特色
4．应用：选读《白鲸》最后一章的节选：主题思想、人物刻画、象征手法、语言特色
Chapter l The Romantic Period
(一)"识记"内容：
1.The origin of Romantic American literature
The Romantic Period, one of the most important periods in the history of American literature, stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
2. The American Renaissance or New England Renaissance is a period of the great flowering of American literature, from the i830s roughly until the end of the American Civil War. It came of age as an expression of a national spirit. One of the most important influences in the period was that of the Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau. The Transcendentalists contributed to the founding of a new national culture based on native elements. Apart from the Transcendentalists, there emerged during this period great imaginative writers ---Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman---whose novels and poetry left a permanent imprint on American literature.
3.Its social historical and cultural background
The development of the American society nurtured "the literature of a great nation." America was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country. Historically, it was the time of westward expansion in America economically, the whole nation was experiencing an industrial transformation. Politically, democracy and equa1ity became the ideal of the new nation, and the two-party system came into being. Worthy of mention is the literary and cultural life of the country. With the founding of the American Independent Government, the nation felt an urge to have its own literary expression, to make known its new experience that other nations did not have: the early Puritan settlement, the confrontation with the Indians, the frontiersmen's life, and the wild west. Besides, the nation's literary milieu was ready for the Romantic movement as we11. Thus, with a strong sense of optimism, a spectacular outburst of romantic feeling was brought about in the first ha1f of the 19th century.
4.Major writers of this period
There emerged a great host of men of letters during this period, among whom the better-known are poets such as Philip Freneau, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Long Fellow, James Russel Lowell, John Greenleaf Whitter, Edgar Ellen Poe, and, especially, Walt Whitman, whose Leaves Of Grass established him as the most popular American poet of the 19th century. The fiction of the American Romantic period is an original and diverse body of work. It ranges from the comic fables of Washington Irving to the The Gothic tales of Edgar Allen Poe, from the frontier adventures of James Fenimore Cooper to the narrative quests of Herman Melville, from the psycho1ogical romances of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the social realism of Rebecca Harding Davis.
(二)．领会内容
1.The impact of European Romanticism on American Romanticism
Foreign literary masters, especially the English counterparts exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the new world. Born of one common cultural heritage, the American writers shared some common features with the English Romanticists. They revolted against the literary forms and ideas of the period of classicism by developing some relatively new forms of fiction or poetry.
(1) They put emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature, which included a liking for the picturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the sensational, and the supernatural.
(2) The Americans also placed an increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions and disp1ayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitivity and excitement.
(3) The strong tendency to exalt the individual and the common man was almost a national religion in America. Writers like Freneau, Bryant, and Cooper showed a great interest in external nature in their respective works.
(4) The literary use of the more colorfu1 aspects of the past was also to be found in Irving's effort to exploit the legends of the Hudson River region, and in Cooper's long series of historical tales.
(5) In short, American Romanticism is, in a certain way, derivative.
2.The unique characteristics of American Romanticism
Although greatly influenced by their English counterparts, the American romantic writers revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands. For examp1e,(1) the American national experience of "pioneering into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams, and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral 1aw. (2)The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper's Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's Walden and, later, in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (3) With the growth of American national consciousness, American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. (4) Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values and American Romanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. (5) Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers.
(三)．应用内容
1. The American Puritanism and its great influence over American moral values, as is shown in American romantic writings.
(1) American Puritanism
Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. (The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church, who came into existence in the reigns Queen Elizabeth and King James Ⅰ.The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them Puritans. They came to America out of various reasons, but it should be remembered that they were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They felt that the Church of England was too close to the Church of Rome in doctrine form of worship, and organization of authority.) The American Puritans, like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to complete "purity". They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. But in the grim struggle for survival that followed immediately after their arrival in America, they became more and more practical, as indeed they had to be. Puritans were noted for a spirit of moral and religious earnestness that determinated their whole way of life. Puritans' lives were extremely disciplined and hard. They drove out of their settlements all those opinions that seemed dangerous to them, and history has criticized their actions. Yet in the persecution of what they considered error, the Puritans were no worse than many other movements in history. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind and American values. American Puritanism also had a conspicuously noticeable and an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets.
(2) One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers.
2. New England Transcendentalism
New England Transcendentalism is the mot clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period. It was started in the area around Concord, Mass. by a group of intellectual and the literary men of the United States such as Emerson, Henry David Thoreau who were members of an informal club, i. e. the Transcendental Club in New England in the l830s. The transcendentalists reacted against the cold, rigid rationalism of Unitarianism in Boston. They adhered to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation , the innate goodness of man, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. The writings of the transcendentalists prepared the ground of their contemporaries such as Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The main issues involved in the debate were generally philosophical, concerning nature, man and the universe. Basically, Transcendentalism has been defined philosophical1y as "the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses." Emerson once proclaimed in a speech, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism inc1ude the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-re1iant.
3. American Romanticists differed in their understanding of human nature.
To the transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau, man is divine in nature and therefore forever perfectible; but to Hawthorne and Melville, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensab1e for the improvement of human nature, as is shown in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
二.美国浪漫主义时期的主要作家
Ⅰ. Washington Irving(1783-l859)
Irving's position in American literature Washington Irving was one of the first American writers to earn an international reputation, and regarded as an early Romantic writer in the merican literary history and Father of the American short stories.
一．一般识记
His life and major works
Washington Irving was born in New York City in a wealthy family. From a very early age he began to read widely and write juvenile poems, essays, and plays. In l798, he conc1uded his education at private schools and entered a law office, but he loved writing more.
His first successful work is A History Of New York from the Beginning Of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, which, written under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, won him wide popularity after it came out in 1809. With the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in serials between 1819 and 1820, Irving won a measure of international fame on both sides of the Atlantic. The book contains familiar essays on the Eng1ish life and Americanized versions of European folk tales like "Rip Van Winkle ＂, and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Geoffrey Crayon is a carefully contrived persona and behind Crayon stands Irving, juxtaposing the Old World and the New, and manipulating his own antiquarian interest with artistic perspectives.
The major work of his later years was The Life of George Washington.
二．识记
1.Irving's great indebtedness to European literature
Most of Irving's subject matter are borrowed heavily from European sources, which are chiefly Germanic. Irving's relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ignored considering his success both abroad and at home.
A History of New York is a patchwork of references, echoes, and burlesques. He parodies or imitates Homer, Cervantes, Fielding, Swift and many other favorites of his. He was also absorbed in German Literature and got ideas from German legends for two of his famous stories "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Alhambra is usually regarded as Irving's "Spanish Sketch Book" simply because it has a strong flavor of Spanish culture. Most of the thirty-three essays in The Sketch Book were written in England, filled with English scenes and quotations from English authors and faithful to British orthography. Washington Irving brought to the new nation what its peop1e desired most in a man of 1etters the respect of the Old World.
2.Irving's unique contribution to American literature
Irving's contribution to American literature is unique in more than one way. He was the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame. Although greatly influenced by European literature, Irving gave his works distinctive American flavor. "Rip Van Winkle" or "The Legend of Sleepy Hol1ow", however exotic these stories are, are among the treasures of the American language and culture. These two stories easily trigger off American imagination with their focus on American subjects, American landscape, and, in Irving's case, the legends of the Hudson River region of the fresh young 1and. 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. He was father of American short stories. And later in the hands of Hawthorne and Melville the short story attained a degree of perfection.
三．领会
1.Irving's theme of conservatism as is revealed in "Rip Van Winkle"
Irving's taste was essentia1ly conservative and always exa1ted a disappearing past. This socia1 conservatism and literary preference for the past is revea1ed, to some extent, in his famous story "Rip Van Winkle." The story is a tale remembered mostly for Rip's 20-year s1eep, set against the background of the inevitably changing America. Rip went to sleep before the War of Independence and woke up after it. The change that had occurred in the 20 years he slept was to him not always for the better. The revolution upset the natural order of things. In the story Irving ski1lfu1ly presents to us paralleled juxtapositions of two totally different worlds before and after Rip's 20 years' s1eep. By moving Rip back and forth from a noisy world with his wife on the farm to a wild but peaceful natural world in the mountains, and from a pre-Revolution village to a George Washington era, lrving describes Rip's response and reaction in a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferabi1ity of the past to the present, and the preferability of a dream-like world to the real one. Irving never seemed to accept a modern democratic America.
2.Irving's literary craftsmanship
Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who "perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produced."
(1) We get a strong sense impression as we read him along, since the language he used best reveals what a Romantic writer can do with words. We hear rather than read, for there is musicality in almost every line of his prose.
(2) We seldom learn a mora1 lesson because he wants us amused and relaxed. So we often find ourselves lost in a world that is permeated with a dreaming quality.
(3) The Gothic elements and the supernatural atmosphere are manipulated in such a way that we could become so engaged and involved in what is happening in a seemingly exotic place.
(4) Yet Irving never forgets to associate 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. He is worth the honor of being "the American Goldsmith" for his literary craftsmanship.
四．应用
Selected Reading:
An Excerpt from "Rip Van Winkle"
The story of Rip Van Winkle
Rip, an indolent good-natured Dutch-American, lives with his shrewish wife in a village on the Hudson during the years before the Revolution. One day while hunting in the Catskills with his dog Wolf, he meets a dwarflike stranger dressed in the ancient Dutch fashion. He helps him to carry a keg, and with him joins a party silently playing a game of ninepins. After drinking of the liquor they provide, Rip falls into a sleep which lasts 20 years, during which the Revolutionary War takes place. He awakes as an old man and returns to his home village that has greatly altered. Upon entering the village, he is greeted by his old dog, which dies of the excitement and then learns that his wife has long been dead. Rip is almost forgotten but he goes to live with his daughter, now the mother of a family, and is soon befriended with his generosity and cheerfulness.
This excerpt below is taken from the story, describing for us Rip's difficulties at home, which he often escapes by going to the local inn to spend his time with his friends and sometimes by going hunting in the woods with his dog, and then focusing on Rip 's return from his 20 years' sleep to his greatly altered home village. Here, Irving's pervasive theme of nostalgia for the unrecoverable past is at once made unforgettable.
What are the theme and the artistic features of "Rip Van Winkle"?
(1) The theme:
Irving's taste was essentia1ly conservative and always exa1ted a disappearing past. This socia1 conservatism and literary preference for the past is revea1ed, to some extent, in his famous story "Rip Van Winkle." The story is a tale remembered mostly for Rip's 20-year s1eep, set against the background of the inevitably changing America. Rip went to sleep before the War of Independence and woke up after it. The change that had occurred in the 20 years he slept was to him not always for the better. The revolution upset the natural order of things. In the story Irving ski1lfu1ly presents to us paralleled juxtapositions of two totally different worlds before and after Rip's 20 years' s1eep. By moving Rip back and forth from a noisy world with his wife on the farm to a wild but peaceful natural world in the mountains, and from a pre-Revolution village to a George Washington era, lrving describes Rip's response and reaction in a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferabi1ity of the past to the present, and the preferability of a dream-like world to the real one. Irving never seemed to accept a modern democratic America.
(2) The artistic features:
"Rip Van Winkle" is not only well-known for Rip's 20-year sleep but also considered a model of perfect English in American Literature and in the English language as well. Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who "perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produced." He has a clear, easy style.
(a) We get a strong sense impression as we read him along, since the language he used best reveals what a Romantic writer can do with words. We hear rather than read, for there is musicality in almost every line of his prose.
(b) We seldom learn a mora1 lesson because he wants us amused and relaxed. So we often find ourselves lost in a world that is permeated with a dreaming quality. He uses genial humor to exaggerate the seriousness of situation. He uses dignified words to produce a half-mocking effect.
(c)The Gothic elements and the supernatural atmosphere are manipulated in such a way that we could become so engaged and involved in what is happening in a seemingly exotic place.( Rip Van Winkle was overwhelmed by the magic power of the drink and fell into sleep for 20 years.)
(d)Yet Irving never forgets to associate 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. He is worth the honor of being "the American Goldsmith" for his literary craftsmanship.
II. Ralph Waldo Emerson
一.一般识记
His life: Ralph Waldo Emerson is the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism, which is unanimously agreed to be the summit of the Romantic period in the history of American literature.
Emerson was son of a Unitarian minister. Though born of an impoverished family, Emerson never failed to receive some formal education. Whi1e a student at Harvard he began keeping journals, a practice he continued throughout his 1if e. He later drew on the journal for materials for his essays and poetry. After Harvard, he taught as a schoolmaster, which he soon gave up for the study of theology. He began preaching in 1826 and three years later he became a pastor in a church in Boston. Emerson was ardent at first in his service in religion, but gradually grew skeptical of the beliefs of the church; feeling Unitarianism intolerable, he finally left the ministry in l832.
Emerson was greatly influenced by European Romanticism. He Carlyle, and listened to some famous Romantic poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth. Through his acquaintance with these men he became closely involved with German idea1ism and Transcendentalism. After he was back from Europe, Emerson retreated to a quiet study at Concord, Massachusetts, where he began to pursue his new path of "self-reliance." Emerson formed a club there at Concord with peop1e like Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, which was later known as the Transcendenta1 Club. And the unofficial manifesto for the Club was Nature(l836), Emerson's first little book, which established him ever since as the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism. Nature was the fundamental document of his philosophy and expressed also his constant, deeply-felt love for nature. It was called "the Manifesto of American Transcendentalism". He also helped to found and edit for a time the Transcendental journal, The Dial. Emerson lived an intel1ectually active and significant life between the mid-1830s and the mid-1840s, 1ecturing all over the country, and occasionally, abroad. He preached his Transcendental pursuit and his reputation expanded dramatically with his lectures and his essays. Though the rest of Emerson's life was a slow anticlimax to his midd1e years, people continued to honor the most influentia1 prophet and the intellectua1 liberator of their age, and his reputation as a family man of conventional life and a decent, solid citizen has remained always.
二．识记内容：
His major works:
Emerson is generally known as an essayist. During all his life he worked steadily at a succession of essays, usually derived from his journals or lectures he had already given. Nature did not establish him as an important American writer. His lasting reputation began only with the publication of Essays (1841 ). Many of his famous essays are included in Essay, which convey the best of his philosophical discussions and transcendental pursuits, such as The American Scholar, Self Reliance, The Over Soul. The second collection of Emerson's essays, Essays: Second Series (1844) demonstrated even more thorough1y than the first that Emerson's intellect had sharpened in the years since Nature. The Poet and Exprience are examples, the former a reflection upon the aesthetic problems in terms of the present state of literature in America and the latter a discussion about the conflict between idealism and ordinary 1ife.
三．领会
1. Emersonian Transcendentalism
Emersonian Transcendentalism is actual1y a philosophical school which absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and European Romanticism, with its focus on the intuitive knowledge of human beings to grasp the absolute in the universe and the divinity of man. In his essays, Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-sou1, the importance of the Individual, and Nature.
(1) Emerson's philosophy of the over-sou1
Emerson rejected both the formal religion of the churches and the Deistic philosophy; instead he based his religion on an intuitive belief in an ultimate unity, which he called the "over-soul." Emerson and other Transcendentalists believed in the transcendence of "over-soul". It is an impersonal force that is eternal, moral, harmonious, and beneficient in tendency. They believed that there should be an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal "oversoul", since the over-sou1 is an all-pervading power from which all things come from and of which a1l are a part. One of the tendencies of the "over-soul " is to express itself in form, hence the world of nature as an emanation of the world of spirit. Emerson's remarkable image of "a transparent eyebal1" marks a paradoxical state of being, in which one is merged into nature, the over-soul, whi1e at the same time retaining a unique perception of the experience.
(2) Emerson's philosophy of the importance of the Individual
Emerson is affirmative about man's intuitive knowledge, with which a man can trust himself to decide what is right and to act accordingly. The ideal individual should be a self-reliant man. "Trust thyself," he wrote in Self Reliance, by which he means to convince people that the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself are infinite.
(3) Emerson's view on nature
Emerson's nature is emblematic of the spiritual world, alive with God's overwhelming presence. It mediates between man and God, and its voice leads to higher truth; hence, it exercises a healthy and restorative inf1uence on human mind. "Go back to nature, sink yourse1f back into its inf1uence and you'1l become spiritually who1e again." By employing nature as a big symbol of the Spirit, or God, or the over-soul, Emerson has brought the Puritan 1egacy of symbolism to its perfection.
Emersonian Transcendentalism inspired a whole generation of famous American authors like Thoreau, Whitman, and Dickinson.
2.Thoreau's Transcendentalism
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is most often mentioned as inspired by Emerson, the most representative of the phi1osophical and literary school which is American Transcendenta1ism. Thoreau embraced his master's ideas as a disciple. In 1845 he built a cabin on some land belonging to Emerson by Walden Pond and moved in to live there in a very simple manner for a litt1e over two years, which gave birth to a great transcendentalist work Walden (1854). The book not only fully demonstrates Emersonian ideas of self-reliance but also develops and tests Thoreau's own transcendental philosophy.
(1)For Thoreau, nature is not merely symbolic, but divine in itself and human beings can receive precise communication from the natural world by way of pure senses. So he was often alone in the woods or by the pond, lost in spiritual communion with nature.
(2)Thoreau strongly believed in se1f-culture and was eager to identify himself with the Transcendental image of the self-reliant man. To achieve personal spiritual perfection, he thinks, the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self- sufficient, so he sought to reduce his physical needs and material comforts to a minimum to get spiritual richness.
(3)His positiveness about the importance of individual conscience was such that he even considered the society fetters of the freedom of individuals.
Though Thoreau became more than Emerson's disciple eventually, his indebtedness to Nature and its author has never been over1ooked.
3. The style of Emerson's essays
Emerson's essays often have a casual style, for most of them were derived from his journals or lectures. They are usually characterized by a series of short, declarative sentences, which are not quite logically connected but will flower out into illustrative statements of truth and thoughts. Emerson's philosophical discussion is sometimes difficult to understand but he uses comparisons and metaphors to make the general idea of his work clearly expressed. Well-read in the classics of Western European literature, Emerson often employed these literary sources to make and enrich his own points but never let them take the full reins of his discussion. In general, Emerson was showing to the world a distinctive American style.
四．应用
Selected Reading:
An Excerpt from Nature
Question : What is Emerson's view on nature?
Emerson's nature is emblematic of the spiritual world, alive with God's overwhelming presence; hence, it exercises a healthy and restorative inf1uence on human mind. "Go back to nature, sink yourse1f back into its inf1uence and you'1l become spiritually who1e again." By employing nature as a big symbol of the Spirit, or God, or the over-soul, Emerson has brought the Puritan 1egacy of symbolism to its perfection.
The essay Nature discusses the love of nature, the uses of nature, the idealist philosophy in relation to nature, evidences of spirit in the material universe, and the potential expansion of human souls and works that will result from a general return to direct, immediate contact with the natural environment. In the essay Emerson clearly expresses the main principles of his Transcendentalist pursuit and his love for nature. In expressing his belief in the mystical "unity of nature," Emerson develops his concept of the" Over- Soul" or" Universal Mind." In the selection Emerson's famous metaphor of "a transparent eyeball" is employed to illustrate his philosophical discussion.
III. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-l864)
Imbued with an inquiring imagination, an intense1y meditative mind, and unceasing interest in the "interior of the heart" of man's being, Nathaniel Hawthorne remains one of the most interesting, yet most ambiva1ent writers in the American literary history.
一．一般识记
Hawthorne's life and writing career
His life story is tota1ly without the exciting events which characterize the lives of so many American writers. He was born on the Fourth of July, l804 in Salem, Massachusetts, into a prominent Puritan family. His first American ancestor, William Hawthorne, as a magistrate of the Bay Colony, was active in the 1650's in persecution of the Quakers, while William's son, John, was a judge at the Salem witchcraft trials. However, the 17th century prominence of his family dec1ined during the century that followed. Nathaniel's father, a sea captain, died of yellow fever in 1808 leaving at Salem a widow and three children in genteel poverty. With the financial support from his more prosperous maternal relations, Hawthorne passed a serene childhood in spite of his father's death and spent his adolescence reading some books of those literary master minds, especially Bunyan, Spenser and Shakespeare, which were essential for his formation as a writer. From 1821 to 1825, he attended Bowdoin Co1lege in Maine, where the decision to devote himself to writing was gradually taking shape and finally put into practice during those years when he was living with his mother in Salem. The solitary years proved to be fruitful, for in 1837, he published Twice-Told Tales, a collection of short stories which attracted critical attention.
After 1837, a series of salient events of Hawthorne's life happened that mattered a lot to his literary imagination and creation. He met Sophia Peabody, whom he married later and with whom he had three children: he worked in the United States Custom House in Boston and later in Salem, which definitely provided some authentic materials for his long works; he also stayed for some time at Concord and Lenox, where he met the principal literary figures of the time, Emerson and Thoreau and Melville. He was affected by the former's transcendentalist theory and struck up a very intimate relationship with the latter, and all the three people had played an indispensable role in Hawthorne's literary career.
二．识记
Hawthorne's major works
Hawthorne wrote and published many good works, which have doubtlessly become part of the American literary heritage. Among them, the tales collected in Moses from an Old Manse (1846) and The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales (1851) best demonstrate Hawthorn's early obsession with the moral and psychological consequences of pride, selfishness, and secret guilt that manifest themselves in human beings; The Scarlet Letter (1850), always regarded as the best of his works, tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a Puritan community are invo1ved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways; The House of the Seven Gables (1851 ) was based on the tradition of a curse pronounced on the author's family when his great-grandfather was a judge in the Salem witchcraft trials; The Blithedale Romance (l852) is a novel he wrote to reveal his own experiences on the Brook Farm and his own methods as a psychological novelist. The Marble Faun (1860) is a romance set in Italy, concerned about the dark aberrations of the human spirit.
三．领会
1. Hawthorne's thematic concerns
(1) his "black" vision of life and human beings: his concern with human sin and evil
Hawthorne's literary world is a most disturbed, tormented and problematical one mostly because of his "black" vision of life and human beings. He rejected the Transcendentalists' transparent optimism about the potentialities of human nature. Instead he looked more deeply and perhaps more honestly into life, finding in it much suffering and conflict but also finding the redeeming power of love. According to Hawthorne, "There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity." A piece of literary work should "show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one another." So in almost every book he wrote, Hawthorne discusses sin and evil. In "Young Goodman Brown," he sets out to prove that everyone possesses some evil secret. Its hero, a naive young man who accepts both societies in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful. "The Minister's B1ack Veil" goes further to suggest that everyone tries to hold the evil secret from one another in the way the minister tries to convince his people with his black vei1." The Birthmark" drives home symbolically Hawthorne's point that evi1 is man's birthmark, something he is born with.
One source of evil that Hawthorne is concerned most is over-reaching intellect, which usually refers to someone, who is too proud, too sure of himself. The tension between the head and the heart constitutes one of the dramatic moments when the evil of "overreaching intellect" would be fully revealed. Hawthorne's intellectuals are usually villains, dreadful because they are devoid of warmth and feeling. What's more, they tend to go beyond and violate the natural order by doing something impossible and reaching the ultimate truth, without a sober mind about their own limitations as human beings. Chillingworth, Dr. Rappaccini in "Rappaccini's Daughter" are but a few specimens of Hawthorne's chilling, cold-blooded human animals.
(2)Hawthorne's view of Puritanism:
Hawthorne's view of man and human history originates, to a great extent, in Puritanism. He was not a Puritan himself, but he had Puritan ancestors who p1ayed an important role in his life and works. He believed that "the wrong doing of one generation lives into the successive ones," and often wondered if he might have inherited some of their guilt. This sensibility 1ed to his understanding of evil being at the very core of human life, which is typical of the Calvinistic belief that human beings are basically depraved and corrupted, hence, they should obey God to atone for their sins.
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. Hawthorne is attracted in every way to the Puritan world, even though he condemns its less humane manifestations. On the one hand, it provides him with a subject, He inherited the Puritan tradition of moral earnestness, and he was deeply concerned with the concepts of original sin and guilt and the claims of law and conscience; and on the other, with the Puritan world or society as a historical background, he discusses some of the most important issues that concern the moral life of man and human history.
(3) his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne's remarkable sense of the Puritan past, his understanding of the co1onial history in New England, his apparent preoccupation with the moral issues of sin and guilt, and his keen psychological analysis of people are brought to full display in his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter.
(a) the story: The main character of The Scarlet Letter is Hester Prynne, a young married woman who has borne an illegitimate child while living away from her husband in a village in Puritan New England .The husband ,Roger Chillingworth, arrives in New England to find his wife pilloried and made to wear the scarlet letter A(meaning adulteress) on her dress as a punishment for her illicit affair and for her refusal to reveal the name of the child's father. Chillingworth becomes obsessed with finding the identity of his wife's former lover. He learns that Hester's lover is a saintly young minister, Arther Dimmesdale and Chillingworth then proceeds to revenge himself by mentally tormenting the guilt-stricken young man. Hester herself is revealed to be a compassioned and splendidly self-reliant heroine who is never truly repentant for the act of adultery committed with the minister; she feels that their act was consecrated by their deep love for each other .In the end Chillingworths morally degraded by his monomaniac pursuit of revenge, and Dimmesdale is broken by his own sense of guilt and publicly confess his adultery before dying in Hester's arm. Only Hester can face the future optimistically, as she plans to ensure the future of her beloved little girl by taking her to Europe.
(b) theme: This novel, together with some other of Hawthorne's work, assumes the universality of guilt and explores the complexities and ambiguities of man's choices. It is marked by a depth of psychological and moral insight seldom equaled and never surpassed by any American writer.
In this particular nove1, Hawthorne does not intend to tell a love story 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. " To Hawthorne, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature, as is shown in the The Scarlet Letter.
(c)The structure and the form of his writings are always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern. He was a skillful craftsman with an impressive sense of form. Hawthorne was also the master of a classic literary style that is remarkable for its directness, its clarity, its firmness and its sureness of idiom.
(d) With his specia1 interest in the psychologica1 aspect of human beings, there isn't much action, or physical movement going on in his works and he is good at exploring the complexity of human psychology. So his drama is Thought, full of mental activities. Thought propels action and grows organically out of the interaction of the characters, as we can find in The Scarlet Letter.
(e)Hawthorne is a master of symbolism, which he took from the Puritan tradition and bequeathed to American literature in a revivified form. The symbo1 can be found everywhere in his writing, and his masterpiece provides the most conclusive proof. The scarlet letter "A" is the central symbol of The Scarlet Letter, with which Hawthorne proves himself to be one of the best symbolists. As a key to the whole novel, the letter A takes on different layers of symbolic meanings as the plot develops. At the beginning of the novel Hester was discovered to have committed adultery and was punished to wear a scarlet letter "A" made of cloth at her bosom and the letter symbolized her sin-"adultery". Then when Hester became gradually accepted by the community through her honesty and hard work, it stands for Hester's intelligence and hard work-"able". At the end of the novel the symbol has evolved to represent the high virtues of Hester-"angelic". So the letter changes from a symbol of sin to a symbol of ability and at last of the high human virtue. By using Pearl as a thematic symbo1, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community.
(f)The scarlet letter A is ambiguous. People come up with different interpretations and they do not know which one is definite. So, ambiguity is one of the salient characteristics of Hawthorne's art.
2.Hawthorne's writing style
As a man of literary craftsmanship, Hawthorne is extraordinary in that
(1)The structure and the form of his writings are always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern.
(2) With his specia1 interest in the psychologica1 aspect of human beings, there isn't much action, or physical movement going on in his works and he is good at exploring the complexity of human psychology. So his drama is Thought, full of mental activities. Thought propels action and grows organically out of the interaction of the characters, as we can find in The Scarlet Letter.
(3) Hawthorne is also a great allegorist and almost every story can be read allegorically, as is the case in "Young Goodman Brown." A1legory is used to ho1d fast against the crushing blows of reality. Its hero, a naive young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful. Allegorically, our protagonist, becomes an Everyman named Brown, a "young man" who will be aged in one night by an adventure that makes everyone in this world a fallen idol.
(4)Hawthorne is a master of symbolism, which he took from the Puritan tradition and bequeathed to American literature in a revivified form. The symbol serves as a weapon to attack and penetrate reality. The symbo1 can be found everywhere in his writing.
a) His masterpiece provides the most conclusive proof. The scarlet letter "A" is the central symbol of The Scarlet Letter. With which Hawthorne proves himself to be one of the best symbolists. As a key to the whole novel, the letter A takes on different layers of symbolic meanings as the plot develops. At the beginning of the novel Hester was discovered to have committed adultery and was punished to wear a scarlet letter "A" made of cloth at her bosom and the letter symbolized her sin-"adultery". Then when Hester became gradually accepted by the community through her honesty and hard work, it stands for Hester's intelligence and hard work-"able". At the end of the novel the symbol has evolved to represent the high virtues of Hester-"angelic". So the letter changes from a symbol of sin to a symbol of ability and at last of the high human virtue. By using Pearl as a thematic symbo1, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community.
b) In "Young Goodman Brown", by using the black forest as a thematic symbol, Hawthirne emphasizes the consequences of sin on the community and people living in that community. The other symbols are the name of his wife "Faith", the pink ribbon of her cap, the black mass of cloud, the blazing pines, the rock, etc.
With the use of allegory and symbolism, his fictional characters' actions and dilemmas fairly obviously express larger generalizations about the problems of human existence.
(5) The scarlet letter A is ambiguous. People come up with different interpretations and they do not know which one is definite. So, ambiguity is one of the salient characteristics of Hawthorne's art.
四．应用
Selected Reading:
Young Goodman Brown
1.The story:
Goodman Brown, a Puritan who lives in the village of Salem, leaves his wife Faith who pleads him not to go, to attend a witches'
Sabbath in the woods. A satanic figure leads the credulous protagonist to a witches' Sabbath. There, he astonishingly finds lots of prominent people of the village and the church. When he is about to be confirmed into the group, he finds his wife Faith is also there beside him. He immediately cries out" look up to Heaven and resist the wicked one," only to find he is alone in the forest. He returns to his home, but since then lives a dismal and gloomy life because he is never able to believe in goodness or piety again.
2.The theme, allegory, symbolism and language features of the selected reading
(1)allegorical theme: "Young Goodman Brown" is one of Hawthorne's most profound tales. The story illustrates Hawthorne's allegorical theme of human evil. In the manner of its concern with guilt and evil, it exemplifies what Milville called the" power of blackness" in Hawthorne's work. In "Young Goodman Brown," he sets out to prove that everyone possesses some evil secret. "Evil is the nature of mankind." Its hero, a naive young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful.
(2)allegory:Hawthorne is a great allegorist and almost every story can be read allegorically, as is the case in "Young Goodman Brown." A1legory is used to ho1d fast against the crushing blows of reality. Its hero, a naive young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful. Allegorically, our protagonist, becomes an Everyman named Brown, a "young man" who will be aged in one night by an adventure that makes everyone in this world a fallen idol.
(3)ambivalence of Hawthorne's art :The story is manipulated in such a way that we as readers feel that Hawthorne poses the question of Good and Evil in man but withholds his answer, and he does not permit himself to determine whether the events of the night of trial are real or the mere figment of a dream.
IV. Walt Whitman
Whitman is a giant of American letters. His Leaves of Grass has always been considered a monumental work which commands great attention because of its uniquely poetic embodiment of American democratic ideals. He is the poet of the common people and the prophet and singer of democracy.
一.一般识记
Whitman's life
He was born in 1819 into a working-c1ass family and grew up in Brook1yn, New York. Son of a carpenter, Whitman left his schooling for good at eleven, and became an office boy. Later on he changed several jobs, one of which was in the printing office of a newspaper, which would be of great he1p in his literary career. By this early age he had a1ready shown his strong love for literature, reading a great deal on his own, especially the works of Shakespeare and Milton, and developed his potential for the writing career in the future. Before he was 17 years o1d he had already had his poems printed on a paper, although these early works were not comparable to his later and mature ones. However, Whitman did not become a professional writer directly henceforth, until an opportunity came up which sent him back to New York City, where he formal1y took up journalism and indulged himself in the excitement of the fast-growing metropolis. Feeling compe1led to speak up for something new and vital he found in the air of the nation, Whitman turned to the manual work of carpentry around 1851 or 1852, as an experiment to familiarize himself with the reality and essence of the life of the nation. At the same time, he widened his reading to a new scale and made it more systematic. After enriching himself simultaneously by these two very different, approaches, Whitman was ab1e to put forward his own set of aesthetic princip1es. Leaves of Grass was just the expression of these principles.
二．识记
Whitman's democratic ideals
Whitman's democratic ideas govern his poetry-writing. In his famous poetry, openness, freedom, and above all, individua1ism (the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important) are all that concerned him. Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into American literature ,attack the slavery system and racial discrimination. In this book he also extols nature ,democracy, labor and creation ,and sings of man's dignity and equality, and of the brightest future of mankind
Whitman believed that poetry could play a vita1 part in the process of creating a new nation. It could enab1e Americans to celebrate their release from the Old World and the colonia1 rule. And it could also help them understand their new status and to define themse1ves in the new wor1d of possibi1ities.
三．领会
1. The themes in Whitman's poetry:
His poetry is filled with optimistic expectation and enthusiasm about new things and new epoch.
Whitman believed that poetry could play a vita1 part in the process of creating a new nation. It could enab1e Americans to celebrate their release from the Old World and the colonia1 rule. And it could also help them understand their new status and to define themse1ves in the new wor1d of possibi1ities. Hence, the abundance of themes in his poetry voices freshness.
(1) He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. To Whitman, the fast growth of industry and wealth in cities indicated a lively future of the nation, despite the crowded, noisy, and squalid conditions and the slackness in morality.
(2) He advocates the realization of the individua1 value. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the "en-masse" and the self as well.
(3) Pursuit of love and happiness is approved of repeatedly and affectionately in his lines. Sexual 1ove, a rather taboo topic of the time, is displayed candidly as something adorable. The individual person and his desires must be respected.
(4) Some of Whitman's poems are politically committed. Before and during the Civil War, Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory, as in poems like "Cavalry Crossing a Ford." Later, he wrote down a great many poems to air his sorrow over the death of Lincoln, and one of the famous is "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."
2.Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman is a poet with a strong sense of mission, having devoted all his life to the creation of the "single" poem, Leaves of Grass.
(1) the title :It is significant that Whitman entitled his book Leaves of Grass . He said that where there is earth, where there is water, there is grass. Grass, the most common thing with the greatest vitality, is an image of the poet himself, a symbol of the then rising American nation and an embodiment of his ideals about democracy and freedom.
(2) theme and the poet's essentia1 purpose
(a) theme:
In this giant work, openness, freedom, and above all, individua1ism(the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important) are all that concerned him.Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into American literature ,attack the slavery system and racial discrimination. In this book he also extols nature,democracy, labor and creation ,and sings of man's dignity and equality, and of the brightest future of mankind . Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the "en-masse" and the self as well.
(b) the poet's essentia1 purpose
His aim was nothing less than to express some new poetica1 feelings and to initiate a poetic tradition in which difference shou1d be recognized. The genuine participation of a poet in a common cultural effort was, according to Whitman, to behave as a supreme individualist; however, the poet's essentia1 purpose was to identify his ego with the world, and more specifically with the democratic "en-masse" of America, which is established in the opening lines of "Song of Myself".
3.Whitman's poetic style and language
To dramatize the nature of these new poetical fee1ings, Whitman employed brand-new means in his poetry, which would first be discerned in his style and language.
(1) Whitman's poetic style is marked, first of a1l, by the use of the poetic "I." Whitman becomes all those people in his poems and yet still remains "Walt Whitman", hence a discovery of the self in the other with such an identification. In such a manner, Whitman invites his readers to participate in the process of sympathetic identification.
(2) Whitman is also radically innovative in terms of the form of his poetry. He adopted "free verse," that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. A looser and more open-ended syntactical structure is frequently favored. Lines and sentences of different lengths are left lying side by side just as things are, undisturbed and separate. There are few compound sentences to draw objects and experiences into a system of hierarchy. Whitman was the first American to use free verse extensively. By means of "free verse," Whitman turned the poem into an open field, an area of vital possibility where the reader can allow his own imagination to play.
(3) Whitman is conversational and casual, in the fluid, expansive, and unstructured style of talking. However, there is a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical. The reader can feel the rhythm of Whitman's thought and cadences of his feeling. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines also contribute to the musicality of his poems.
(4) Whitman's language
Contrary to the rhetoric of traditional poetry, Whitman's is relatively simple and even rather crude.
(a) Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest, undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day. The particularity about these images is that they are unconventional in the way they break down the social division based on religion, gender, class, and race. 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.
(b) Another characteristic in Whitman's language is his strong tendency to use oral English.
(c) Whitman's vocabulary is amazing. He would use powerfu1, colorful, as well as rarely-used words, words of foreign origin and sometimes even wrong words.
Walt Whitman has proved a great figure in the literary history of the United States because he embodies a new ideal, a new world and a new life-style, and his influence over the following generations is significant and incredible.
四．应用
Selected Readings:
1. There Was a Child Went Forth
This poem describes the growth of a child who learned about the world around him and improved himself accordingly. In the poem Whitman's own early experience may well be identified with the childhood of a young, growing America. Young American nation were creating a new life with their own hands. We see Whitman in the process of absorbing the world into himself .He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the growing life of cities.
The poem describes the influence of environment on the child, and the poet divides these influences into the animal and vegetable world of nature and the human world of the home. It is interesting to reexamine the sequence of the items listed in this poem which "became part of the child." They reflect the natural process of a boy's growth. At first, his world was limited within the barnyard. Later, he sought into fields and streets. Then, he became interested in something more mysterious -his fellow human beings. Finally, he was on the symbolic threshold of the outside world, the sea. He had grown into a young man from a baby.
2. Cavalry Crossing a Ford
This poem is grouped under the Drum-Taps section in the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass， which reminds its readers of a picture, or a photo, of a scene of the American Civil War. All the movements described in this picture are frozen. And while sounds are depicted, it's more likely that they come out of the watcher's imagination, rather than from the picture itself. This poem incorporates his emotions and feelings during the war period.
Not a lover of violence and bloodshed, Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory.
Whitman uses colors and images.
3. Song of Myself
The two principal beliefs embodied in this poem:
In this poem Whitman sets forth two principal beliefs: the theory of universality, which is illustrated by lengthy catalogues of people and things, and the belief in the singularity and equality of all beings in value. He extols whole universe and the world. He is thinking of the self as a powerful and sensitive instrument for receiving and expressing. He moves from himself to you to others, to all humanity all together about him.
Ⅴ. Herman Melville(1819-1891)
Herman Melville is best-known as the author of his mighty book, Moby-Dick(1851), which is one of the world's greatest masterpieces.
一．一般识记
His life and his career as a writer
Herman Melville was born in 1819 in Lansingburgh, New York. The early sailing experiences were rewarding, for they gave him a love of the sea, and aroused his desire for adventure. In 1841, Melvile went to the South Seas on a whaling ship, where he gained the first-hand information about whaling that he used later in Moby Dick. In the following three years, Melville served on three different whalers, finally served for a year in the regular navy. Working as a sailor, he had experienced the most brutalizing life in his time for a man, yet years of adventures also furnished him with abundant raw materials for most of his major fictions and his imaginative visions of life.
In 1850, Melville and Hawthorne became very good friends. Hawthorne's black vision regarding the evil of human beings had in some way changed Melville's outlook on life and the world and his allegorical way of exposition had affected his writing technique. Shakespearean tragic vision and Emersonian Transcendentalism also produced some positive effects on his writing.
二．识记
The differences between Melville's early works and later ones:
Melville's writings can be well divided into two groups, each with something in common in the light of the thematic concern and imaginative focus.
(1) His early works were sea adventures, condidered to be the best. Among them are Typee(1846), Omoo(1847), and Mardi(1849). Redburn(1849) is a semi-autobiographical novel, concerning the sufferings of a genteel youth among brutal sailors; in White Jacket(1850) Melville relates his life on a United States man-of-war. Of all these sea adventure stories, Moby-Dick proves to be the best. By writing such a book Melville reached the most flourishing stage of his literary creativity.
(2)Pierre is a popular romance intended for the feminine market but provoking an outrageous repudiation. A series of short stories or novellas which attracted public attention. Among them are "Bartleby, the Scrivener," a short story strikingly symbolizing the loneliness and anonymity and passivity of little men in big cities. Billy Budd again deals with the sea and sailors and the theme of a conflict between innocence and corruption. In the early works 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," defying God, as best reflected in Moby-Dick; while in the late works, Melville becomes more reconciled with the world of man, in which, he admits, one must live by the rules. However, the purpose of Melville's fictional tales, exotic or philosophical, is to penetrate as deeply as possible into the metaphysical, theological, moral, psychological, and social truths of human existence.
三．领会
1. Moby-dick
Moby-dick is regarded as the Great American Novel, the first American prose epic(散文史诗： a long narrative poem telling of heroic deeds of reflecting the values of the society from which it originated), though it is presented in the form of a novel.
(1).its surface and the deep meaning
(a).its surface meaning: It is a whaling tale or sea adventure, dealing with Ahab, a man with an overwhelming obsession to kill the whale which has crippled him, on board his ship Pequod in the chase of the big whale. The dramatic description of the hazards of whaling makes the book a very exciting sea narrative and builds a literary monument to an era of whaling industry in the nineteenth century.
The deep symbolic theme: Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, considering that Melville is a great symbolist. It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology. This is shown in Captain Ahab's rebellious struggle against the overwhelming mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces.
In the perverted grandeur of Captain Ahab and in the beauties and terrors of the voyage of the "Pequod," however, Melville dramatized his bleak view of the world in which he lived. It is at once godless and purposeless. Man in this universe lives a meaningless and futile life, meaningless because futile. As some critics note, man can observe and even manipulate in a prudent way, but he cannot influence and overcome nature at its source. Once he attempts to seek power over it he is doomed. Here Melville expressed his deep concerns: the equivocal defeats and triumphs of the human spirit and its fusion of creative and murderous urges.
(2)It is a mixture of romanticism and realism
(a) romantic features: Ahab is a Byronic hero, a man with an overwhelming obsession or consuming desire to take revenge against the whale which has crippled him. His revenge ends in tragedy and he, who burns with a baleful fire, becomes evil himself in his thirst to destroy evil. Moby Dick, for the writer, symbolizes the unknown, mysterious natural force, an unreal world of speculation and mystery which is very hard for man to manipulate.
(b) realistic features: The dramatic description of the hazards of whaling makes the book a very exciting sea narrative and builds a literary monument to an era of whaling industry in the nineteenth century.
(3)Allegory and symbolism
Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, it is also a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology.
Like Hawthorne, Melville is a master of allegory and symbolism. He uses allegory and symbolism in Moby-Dick to present its mighty theme. Instead of putting the battle between Ahab and the big whale into simple statements, he used symbols, that is, objects or persons who represent something else. Different people on board the ship are representations of different ideas and different social and ethnic groups; facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings; the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolizes nature for Melville, for it is complex, unfathomable, malignant, and beautiful as well. For the character Ahab, however, the whale represents only evil. Moby Dick is like a wall, hiding some unknown, mysterious things behind. Ahab wills the whole crew on the Pequod to join him in the pursuit of the big whale so as to pierce the wall, to root out the evil, but only to be destroyed by evil, in this case, by his own consuming desire, his madness. For the author, as well as for the reader and Ishmael, the narrator, Moby Dick is still a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, inscrutable and ambivalent, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search, not a discovery, of the truth.
(4)Other artistic devices in Moby-Dick
Melville's great gifts of language, invention, psychological analysis, speculative agility, and narrative power are fused to make Moby-Dick a world classic. The skillful use of Ishmael both as a character and a narrator gives the novel a moral magnitude; the manipulation of the whaling chapters for some philosophical speculation makes the novel more than symbolic; different levels of language use and styles turn the whole book into a symphony with all the musical instruments going on to form a melody; and moreover, Melville's knowledge of epic and tragedy, the highest literary genres, helps him produce a great tragic epic, with Ahab at the center as a tragic hero, who burns with a baleful fire, becoming evil himself in his thirst to destroy evil.
四．应用
Selected Reading:
An Excerpt from Moby-Dick
(1) The image of the captain, Ahab: The captain, Ahab, is a monomaniac whose single purpose is to capture the fierce, cunning white whale, Moby Dick, which had torn away his leg during their last encounter. Ahab is a tragic hero with an overwhelming obsession or consuming desire to kill Moby Dick. He transforms himself into an evil in his thirst to destroy evil.
(2)Interpretations of the different meanings of the story: Moby-Dick is one of the few books in American literature that has produced an exciting effect upon readers, of which its author could not have dreamed. (a) It is a mixture of fantasy and realism based upon the South Pacific whaling industry; (b) It might be read as an initiation story about Ishmael, the outcast, finding himself in a real world of hard work and danger and an unreal world of speculation and mystery; (c)It is a fabulous dramatization of Ahab's obsessed determination to revenge himself in the pursuit of one particular whale who has previously destroyed his boat and humiliated him by ripping off one of his legs.(d) The deep symbolic theme: Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, but turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology. This is shown in Captain Ahab's rebellious struggle against the overwhelming mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces.
Nevertheless, the book has been so often interpreted in so many ways, allegorically and symbolically, that now we can safely conclude that Moby-Dick "means" almost as many things as it has readers who are deeply involved in the conflicts of life and sensitive enough to become involved in the spirit of conflict expressed in a work of art.
(3)The excerpt: The following excerpt is from the conclusion of the book, in which the great chase of the white whale is ending. The Pequod has finally sighted Moby-Dick. The boats have been lowered in chase of the whale, which has already demolished two of them. Though Ahab kills the white whale, yet all the human beings involved, except the narrator, die in the process. At the end only nature, symbolized by the sea, remains moving but unmoved.
Chapter 2The Realistic Period
Ⅰ.本章学习目的和要求
通过本章的学习，了解美国19世纪中期现实主义文学产生的历史、文化背景，认识该时期文学创作的基本特征、基本主张，及其对同时代和后期美国文学的影响；了解该时期的主要作家的文学创作生涯、人生观及价值观及其代表作品的主题思想、人物刻画、语言风格；同时结合注释，读懂所选作品并了解其思想内容和艺术特色，培养理解和欣赏文学作品的能力。
Ⅱ.本章重点和难点
1.美国现实主义文学的特点
2.现实主义与自然主义的异同，这两种倾向在美国19世纪小说中的反映
3.主要作家的创作思想、艺术特色、及其代表作品的主题结构、人物刻画、语 言风格、艺术手法、社会意义等
4.分析选读作品的思想内容及艺术特色、人物刻画
Ⅲ.考核知识点和考核要求
（一）．现实主义时期概述
1．识记：美国现实主义文学产生的社会和文化背景
（a）美国南北战争
（b）威廉·迪安·豪威尔斯：美国现实主义的先驱
（c）达尔文主义和法国小说家佐拉的影响
2．领会：A.美国现实主义文学的特点
（a）占主导地位的美国现实主义小说
（b）现实主义文学中的地方色彩小说
（c）现实主义文学中的自然主义倾向
B.现实主义文学和自然主义倾向之异同
C．达尔文主义、法国自然主义作家的主张以及对现实主义时期美国文学的影响
3．应用：A. 名词解释：现实主义、达尔文主义、自然主义、地方色彩主义
B．现实主义文学和自然主义倾向在美国19世纪小说中的反映
（二）．美国现实主义时期的主要作家
A．马克·吐温
1．一般识记：马克·吐温的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：马克·吐温的主要作品
《汤姆·索亚历险记》
《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》
《亚瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美国人》
3．领会：马克·吐温作品中的地方色彩、幽默及语言特色
4．应用：（1）选读《哈克贝里·费恩》第三十一章：主题结构、人物刻画、语言特色
（2）哈克的性格分析及其社会意义
B．亨利·詹姆斯
1．一般识记：詹姆斯的生平和创作生涯
2．识记：詹姆斯的早期作品《黛西。米勒》，〈〈一个美国人〉〉〈〈贵妇人的画像〉〉〈〈欧洲人》
中期作品《波士顿人》〈〈螺丝在拧紧〉〉〈〈丛林猛兽》
后期作品《专使》〈〈鸽翼〉〉〈〈金碗》
文艺理论著作：《小说的艺术》
3．领会：（1）詹姆斯的“现实主义”
（2）詹姆斯的小说艺术特色：“视角”与心理分析
4.应用：（1）选读《黛西·米勒》第一章：主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格
（2）《黛西·米勒》的主题和人物分析
C．艾米莉·狄金森
1．一般识记：狄金森的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：狄金森的诗歌
（1）狄金森有关“永恒”主题的诗
（2）狄金森的爱情诗
（3）狄金森的自然诗
3．领会：狄金森诗歌的主题结构，创新和艺术特色
4．应用：选读狄金森诗歌第441、465．585和712首的结构、主题、语言特色
D．西奥多·德莱塞
1．一般识记：德莱塞的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：德莱塞的主要作品
《嘉丽妹妹》《珍妮姑娘》《美国的悲剧》
“欲望”三部曲：《金融家》《巨头》《斯多葛》
3．领会：德莱塞小说的语言风格
4．应用：（1）达尔文主义与德莱塞作品中的自然主义倾向
（2）选读《嘉丽妹妹》的最后一章节选：主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格
Chapter 2The Realistic Period
一、识记：
1．The Age of Realism (How to define the Realistic Period in American literary history?)
The period ranging from 1865 to l914 has been referred to as the Age of Realism in the 1iterary history of the United States, which is actually a movement or tendency that dominated the spirit of American literature, especia1ly American fiction, from the 1850s onwards. Realism was a reaction against Romanticism or a move away from the bias towards romance and self-creating fictions, and it paved the way to Modernism. Instead of thinking about the irrational, the imaginative, realists touched upon social and political realities and pressures in the post-Civil war society. Three dominant figures are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James.
2.The historical and socio-cultural background of American Realism
The American society after the Civil War provided rich soil for the rise and deve1opment of Realism. This period is characterized with changes, in relation to every aspect of American life, politically, economically, culturally, and religiously. First of all, politically, the Civil War affected both the social and the value system of the country. America had transformed itse1f into an industria1ized and commercialized society. Wilderness gave way to civilization. The burgeoning economy and industry stepped up urbanization. However, economically, the changes were not all for the better. The industrialization and the urbanization were accompanied by the incalculable sufferings of the laboring people. Therefore, polarization of the wellbeing between the poor and the rich started to show up. Thirdly, as far as the ideology was concerned, people became dubious about the human nature and the benevo1ence of God, which the Transcendentalists cared most. What Mark Twain referred to as “ the Gi1ded Age” replaced the frontier and the spirit of the frontiersman, which is the spirit of freedom and human connection. Fourthly, the literary scene after the Civi1 War proved to be quite different a picture. The harsh rea1ities of life as well as the disillusion of heroism resulting from the dark memories of the Civil War had set the nation against the romance. The Americans began to be tired of the sentimental feelings of Romanticism. Thus, started a new period in the American literary writings known as the Age of Realism, characterized by a great interest in the realities of life.
3.The Gilded Age
It refers to the period of gross materialism and blatant political corruption in the U.S. history during the 1870s that gave rise to important novels of social and political criticism. The period takes its name from the earliest of these, The Gilded Age(1873),written by Mark Twain in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. The novel gives a vivid and accurate description of Washington D.C., and is peopled with caricatures of many leading figures of the day, including greedy industrialists and corrupt politicians. The political novels of the Gilded Age represent the beginnings of a new strain in the American literature, the novel as a vehicle of social protest, a trend that grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the works of the muckrakers and culminated in the proletarian novelists.
二．领会
1.What is Realism?
In art and literature, Realism refers to an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures exactly as they act or appear in life. Realism emerged as a literary movement in Europe in the 1850s. In reaction to Romanticism, realistic writers should set down their observations impartially and objectively. They insisted on accurate documentation, sociological insight, and avoidance of poetic diction and idealization. The subjects were to be taken from everyday life, preferably from lower-class life. Realism entered American literature after the Civil War. William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James were the pioneers of realism in the U.S.
2.The literary characteristics of the Realistic Period in American literature
Guided by the principle of adhering to the truthful treatment of 1ife, the realists touched upon various contemporary social and political issues. In their works, instead of writing about the polite, we11--dressed, grammatica1ly correct middle--class young people who moved in exotic places and remote times, they introduced industrial workers and farmers, ambitious businessmen and vagrants, prostitutes and unheroic soldiers as major characters in fiction. They approached the harsh realities and pressures in the post-Civil War society either by a comprehensive picture of modern life in its various occupations, c1ass stratifications and manners, or by a psychological exploration of man's subconsciousness.
The three dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James. Together they brought to fulfillment native trends in the realistic portrayal of the 1andscape and social surfaces, brought to perfection the vernacular style, and explored and exploited the literary possibilities of the interior life.
3.The three dominant figures of the Realistic period differed in their understanding of the “truth ”
(1) While Mark Twain and Howells paid more attention to the "life" of the Americans, Henry James laid a greater emphasis on the" inner world" of man. He came to believe that the literary artist should not simply hold a mirror to the surface of social life in particular times and places. In addition, the writer should use language to probe the deepest reaches of the psychological and moral nature of human beings. He is a realist of the inner life.
(2) 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 discussion on the rising middle class and the way they lived, while Twain preferred to have his own region and people at the forefront of his stories, which is known as “ local colorism”, a unique variation of American literary realism.
4.What is Local Colorism?
Post-Civil War America was large and diverse enough to sense its own local differences. Regional voices had emerged. “ Local colorism” is a unique variation of American literary realism. Generally, the works by local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, well--defined region or province. This kind of fiction depicts the characters from a specific setting or of an era, which are marked by its customs, dialects, costumes, landscape, or other peculiarities that have eacaped standardizing cultural influence. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions. They worked from personal experience; they recorded the facts of a unique environment and suggested that the native life was shaped by the curious conditions of the loca1e. Their materials were necessarily limited and topics disparate, yet they had certain common artistic concerns. Writers whose works are characterized with local colors are Mark Twain, Sarah Orne Jewett, Joseph Kirkland and Hamlin Garland.
5.The influence of Darwinism and French naturalist writers on American literature in its Realistic Period
The impact of Darwin's evolutionary theory on the American thought 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. Darwin, in his The Origin of Species(1859) and Descent Of Man (187l ),expounded his theory of natural selection. The American naturalists accepted the more negative implications of this theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were conceived as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces. And consciously or unconsciously the American naturalists followed the French novelist and theorist Emile Zola's call that the 1iterary artist “must operate with characters, passions, human and social data as the chemist and the physicist work on inert bodies, as the physiologist works on living bodies.” They chose their subjects from the lower ranks of society and portrayed the people who were demonstrably victims of society and nature. And one of the most familiar themes in American Naturalism is the theme of human “bestiality”, especially as an explanation of sexual desire. For example, Frank Norris, in his McTeague (l899), described the relations of a crude dentist with a superficially refined German-American girl, who, awakened by his desires, is drawn into an animalistic affection.
三．应用
1.What is Naturalism? (or American Naturalism)
In literature, the term refers to the theory that literary composition should aim at a detached, scientific objectivity in the treatment of natural man. The movement is an outgrowth of 19th –century scientic thought, following in general the biological determinism of Darwin’s theory, or the economic determinism of Karl Marx.
American Naturalism is a more advanced stage of realism toward the close of the 19th century.The American naturalists accepted the more negative implications of Darwin’s theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were conceived as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces. And consciously or unconsciously the American naturalists followed the French novelist and theorist Emile Zola's call that the 1iterary artist “must operate with characters, passions, human and social data as the chemist and the physicist work on inert bodies, as the physiologist works on living bodies.” They chose their subjects from the lower ranks of society and portrayed the people who were demonstrably victims of society and nature. And one of the most familiar themes in American Naturalism is the theme of human “bestiality”, especially as an explanation of sexual desire.
Artistically, naturalistic writings are usually unpo1ished in language, lacking in academic skills and unwieldly in structure. Philosophically, the naturalists believe that the real and true is always partially hidden from the eyes of the individual, or beyond his control. Devoid of rationality and caught in a process in which he is but a part, man cannot fully understand, let alone contro1, the world he lives in; hence, he is left with no freedom of choice.
In a word, naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more detached, ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a different philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence. Notable writers of naturalistic fiction were Frank Norris, Sherwood Anderson, and Theodore Driser.
2.The distinction between Realism and Naturalism
Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more detached, ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a different philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.
The distinction lies, first of all, in the fact that Realism is concerned directly with what is absorbed by the senses; Naturalism, a term more properly applied to literature, attempts to apply scientific theories to art. Second, Naturalism differs from Realism in adding an amoral attitude to the objective presentation of life. Naturalistic writers, adopting Darwin’s biological determinism and Marx’s economic determinism, regard human behavior as controlled by instinct, emotion, or social and economic conditions, and reject free will. Third, Naturalism had an outlook often bleaker than that of Realism, and it added a dimension of predetermined fate that rendered human will ultimately powerless.
3.What is (Social) Darwinism?
Social Darwinism is a belief that societies and individual human beings compete in a struggle for existence in which natural selection results in “struggle of the fittest.” Social Darwinists base their beliefs on theories of evolution developed by British naturalist Charles Darwin. Social Darwinists typically deny that they advocate a “law of jungle.” But most propose arguments that justify imbalances of power between individuals, races, and nations because they consider some more fit to survive than others. The theory had produced a big impact on Naturalism.
The major writers in the Realistic Period
I. Mark Twain (1835--19l0)
Mark Twain is a great literary giant of America, whom H.L.Mencken considered “the true father of our national literature.” With works like Adventure of
Huckleberry Finn (1884) and Life on the Mississippi (1883) Twain shaped the world’s view of America and made a more extensive combination of American folk humor and serious literature than previous writers had ever done.
（一）一般识记
Mark Twain’s life and writing:
Mark Twain, Pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born on November 30, 1835, in Missouri, and grew up in the river town of Hannibal. After his father died, he began to seek his own fortune .He once worked as a journeyman printer, a steamboat pilot, a newspaper colunist and as a deadpan lecturer. Twain's writing took the form of humorous journalism of the time, and it ennabled him to master the technique of narration.
(二) 识记
Mark Twain’s major works:
In l865, he pub1ished his frontier tale “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” which brought him recognition from a wider public. But his full literary career began to blossom in 1869 with a travel book Innocents Abroad, an account of American tourists in Europe which pokes fun at the pretentious, decadent and undemocratic Old World in a satirical tone. Mark Twain’s best works were produced when he was in the prime of his life. All these masterworks drew upon the scenes and emotions of his boyhood and youth. The first among these books is Roughing It (1872), in which Twain describes a journey that works its way farther west. Life on the Mississippi tells a story of his boyhood ambition to become a riverboat pilot. Two of the best books during this period are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The former is usually regarded as a classic book written for boys about their particular horrors and joys, while the latter, being a boy’s book specially written for the adults, is Twain’s most representative work, describing a journey down the Mississippi undertaken by two fugitives, Huck and Jim. Their episodic set of encounters presents a sample of the social world from the bank of the river that runs through the heart of the country.
His social satire is The Gilded Age, written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. The novel explored the scrupulous individualism in a world of fantastic speculation and unstable values, and gave its name to the get-rich-quick years of the post-Civil War era. Twain’s dark view of the society became more self-evident in the works published later in his life. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), a parable of colonialization. A similar mood of despair permeates The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), which shows the dis
astrous effects of slavery on the victimizer and the victim alike and reveals to us a Mark Twain whose conscience as a white Southerner was tormented by fear and remorse. By the turn of the century, with the publication of The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg (l900) and The Mysterious Stranger (1916), the change in Mark Twain from an optimist to an almost despairing pessimist could be felt and his cynicism and disillusionment with what Twain referred to regularly as the “damned human race” became obvious.
(三) 领会
1.Twain as a local colorist
Twain is also known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. Consequently, the rich material of his boyhood experience on the Mississippi became the endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississippi
valley and the West became his major theme. Unlike James and Howe1ls, Mark Twain wrote about the lower-class people, because they were the people he knew so we1l ancl their 1ife was the one he himself had lived. Moreover he successfully used local color and historical settings to i1lustrate and shed light on the contemporary society.
2.His use of vernacular
Another fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of vernacular. His words are col1oquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simp1e, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken 1anguage. And Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonists in their everyday life. What's more, his characters, confined to a particular region and to a particular historical moment, speak with a strong accent, which is true of his 1ocal colorism. Besides, different characters from different literary or cultural backgrounds talk differently, as is the case with Huck, Tom, and Jim. Indeed, with his great mastery and effective use of vernacular, Twain has made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable 1iterary medium in the literary history of the country. His style of language was later taken up by his descendants, Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway, and influenced generations of letters.
3.His humor
Mark Twain's humor is remarkable, too. It is fun to read Twain to begin with, for most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks, etc., and some of them are actually tall ta1es. By considering his experience as a newspaperman, Mark Twain shared the popu1ar image of the American funny man whose punning, facetious, irreverenl articles filled the newspapers, and a great deal of his humor is characterized by puns, straight-faced exaggeration, repetition, and anti-climax, let alone tricks of travesty and invective. However, his humor is not only of witty remarks mocking at small things or of farcical elements making people laugh, but a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism.
(四) 应用
Huckleberry Finn
What is the book about?
Huckleberry Finn, by general agreement, is Twain’s finest book and an outstanding American novel. Its narrator is Huck, a youngster whose carelessly recorded vernacular speech is admirably adapted to detailed and poetic de
scription of scenes, vivid representations of characters, and narrative renditions that are both broadly comic and subtly inonic.
Huck, son of the village drunkard, is uneducated, superstitious, and sometimes credulous; but he also has a native shrewdness, a cheerfulness that is hard to put down, compassionate tolerance, and an instinctive tendency to reach the right decisions about important matters. He runs away from his persecuting father and, with his companion, the runaway slave Jim, makes a long and frequently interrupted voyage floating down the Mississippi River on a raft. During the journey Huck meets and comes to know members of greatly varied groups, so that the book memorably portrays almost every class living on or along the river. Huck overcomes his initial prejudices and learns to respect and love Jim.
The book’s pages are dotted with idyllic descriptions of the great river and the surrounding forests, and Huck’s exuberance and unconscious humor permeate the whole. But a thread that runs through adventure after adventure is the theme of man’s inhumanity to man---of human cruelty. Children miss this theme, but adults who read the book with care cannot fail to be impressed by an attitude that was to become a reiterated theme of the author during his later years.
The significance of the novel
The book marks the climax of Twain's literary creativity. Hemingway once described the novel the one book from which “all modern American literature comes.”The book is significant in many ways. First of all, the novel is written in a language that is totally different from the rhetorical language used by Emerson, Poe, and Melville. It is not grand, pompous, but simple, direct, lucid, and faithful to the colloquial speech. This unpretentious style of colloquialism is best described as “vernacular”. Speaking in vernacular, a wild and uneducated Huck, running away fom civilization for his freedom, is vividly brought to life. Secondly, the great strength of the book also comes from the shape given to it by the course of the raft's journey down the Mississippi as Huck and Jim seek their different kinds of freedom. Twain, who knew the river intimately, uses it here both realistically and symbolically. Thirdly, the profound portrait of Huckleberry Finn is another great contribution of the book to the legacy of American literature. The novel begins with a description of how Widow Douglas attempts to civilize Huck and ends with him deciding not to let it happen again at the hands of Aunt Sally. The climax arises with Huck's inner struggle on the Mississippi, when Huck is polarized by the two opposing forces between his heart and his head, between his affection for Jim and the laws of the society against those who help slaves escape.
Huck’s final decision -- to fo1low his own good--hearted moral impulse rather than conventional village morality -- amounts to a vindication of what Mark Twain called" the damned human race," damned for its comfortable hypocrisies, its thoroughgoing dishonesties, and its pervasive cruelties. With the eventual victory of his moral conscience over his social awareness, Huck grows.
3.Selected Reading:
An Excerpt from Chapter 3l of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(1) the story:
This novel begins with Huck under the motherly protection of the Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson. When his father comes to demand the boy’s fortume, Huck pretends that he has transferred the money to Judge Thather, so his father catches him and puts him into a lonely cabin. One night, ahen his father is drunken, Huck escapes to Jackson’s island and meets Miss Watson’s runaway slave, Jim. They start down the river on a raft. After several adventures, the raft is hit by a steamboat and the two are separated. Huck swims ashore and is saved by the Grangerford family, whose feud with the Sheperdsons causes bloodshed. Later, Huck discovers Jim and they set down again, giving refuge to a gang of frauds: the “Duke”and “King,” whose dramatic performances culminate in the fraudulent exhibition of the “Royal Nonesuch.” Huck also witnesses the lynching and murder of a harmless drunkard by an Arkansas aristocrat on the shore. When he finds that some rogues intend to claim legacies as Peter Wilks’s brother, Huck interferes on behalf of the three daughters, and the scheme is failed by the arrival of the real brothers. Then he discovers that the “King” has sold Jim to Mrs Phelps, Tom Sawyer’s Aunt Sally. At the Phelps farm, Huck and Tom try to rescue Jim. In the rescue, Tom is accidentally shot and Jim is recaptured. Later, Tom reveals that the rescue is necessary only because he “wanted the adventures of it.” It is also disclosed at the end of the novel that Huck’s father has died, so Huck’s fortune is safe.
(2) The novel’s theme, characterization of “Huck” and the novel’s social significance:
Theme: The novel is a vindication of what Mark Twain called “ the damned human race.” That is the theme of man’s inhumanity to man---of human cruelty, hypocrisies, dishonesties, and moral corruptions. Mark Twain’s thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is best known for Mark Twain’s wonderful characterization of “Huck,” a typical American boy whom its creator described as a boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience,” and remarkable for the raft’s journey down the Mississippi river, which Twain used both realistically and symbolically to shape his book into an organic whole.
Through the eyes of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed and at the same time we are deeply impressed by Mark Twain’s thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization.
(3)The selected chapter:
Huck and Jim are with the frauds. They decide to leave them in their raft when Huck learns that Jim is sold by the “King” to Mrs.Phelps. There is a very important description here of Huck’s inner conflict about whether or not he should write a letter to tell Miss Watsom where Jim is. Huck’s internal conflict between his sound heart and deformed conscience is obvious: On one hand, he feels that he ought to help return Jim to his owner, Miss Watson. On the other hand, his friendship for Jim makes such a course of action difficult for him. Huck instinctively knows the right thing to do. But his conscience dictates the conventional morality of the South. The whole episode is a subtle yet powerful condemnation of the society that makes Huck feel that he will go to hell for doing what his very instinct knows to be the right thing to do. Huck’s moral dilemma is brought about by a corrupt society that has institutionalized slavery.
Ⅱ. Henry James (1843-1916 )
Henry James was the first American writer to conceive his career in international terms. Today with the development of the
modern novel and the common acceptance of the Freudian approach, his importance, as well as his wide influence as a novelist and critic, has been all the more conspicuous.
(一) 一般识记
His life and writing:
Henry James was born in New York City. His father was a theological writer and his elder brother was the distinguished philosopher and psycho1ogist Wil1iam James, who made a great contribution to the theory of the stream-of-consciousness technique. James was one of the few authors in the American literary history who was not ob1iged to work for a living. He exposed early to an international society. In 1862, he entered Harvard Law School where he developed a lifelong friendship with William Dean Howells. There he read intensively Balzac, Merimee , George Sand, George Eliot and Hawthorne. Later, he toured Europe and met Flaubert, Maupassant, Zola and Turgenev, who exerted a great influence on him. While Mark Twain and William Dean Howells satirized European manners at times, Henry James was an admirer of ancient European civilization. The materialistic bent of American life and its lack of culture and sophistication, he believed, cou1d not provide him with enough materials for great literary works, so he settled down in London in 1876, and in 1915 he became a naturalized British citizen.
二．识记
His major works:
Henry James's 1iterary achievement is remarkable. His literary writings are bulky and voluminous, ranging from the book reviews, stories, travel accounts, autobiographies, novels, plays, to literary criticism. It is his novels and his literary essays that make him a fascinating case in the American literary history and a conspicuous figure in world literature.
The three periods in his literary career:
The literary career of Henry James is generally divided into three periods. In the first period (1865-1882), James took great interest in international themes: his treatment with the c1ashes between two different cultures and the emotional and moral problems of Americans in Europe, or Europeans in America. His early works include The American (l877), Daisy Miller (l878), The Europeans (l878), and The Portrait of A Lady (188l ) which is generally considered to be his masterpiece, which incarnates the clash between the Old World and the New in the life journey of an American girl in a European cu1tura1 environment.
James experimented with different themes and forms in his middle period. Nove1s include The Bostonians (1886), and The Princess Casamassima (l886 ). His short stories The Private Life (1893), The Death of a Lion (1894) and The Middle Years (posthumously 1917) succeed in exploring the relationship of the artist to the society. Another group of short fictions includes The Turn of the Screw (1898), a story about the troubled and abnormal psycho1ogy of oppressed children and The Beast in the Jungle (1903), which focuses on the imaginative obsession of some haunted men and women with their personal disaster in future.
In his last and major period, James returned to his "international theme." From 1895 to 1900, he wrote some novellas and stories dealing with childhood and adolescence, the most famous of which is What Maisie Knows (l897). After that, he successively created the following great books: The Wings of the Dove (l902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904). These demanding novels are wide1y considered to be James's most influential contribution to literature. The treatment of the international theme is characrerized hy the richness of syntax and characterization and the originality in point of view, symbolism, metaphoric texture, and organizing rhythm. James is now more mature as an artist,
more at home in the craft of fiction.
And he also wrote quite a number of literary criticisms, among which The Art of Fiction is the most famous.
三．领会
1. James’s international theme:
James's fame generally rests upon his nove1s and stories with the international theme. These nove1s are always set against a large international background, usual1y between Europe and America, and centered on the confrontation of the two different cu1tures with two different groups of peop1e representing two different value systems. American personalities of naivety, innocence, enthusiasm, vulgarity, ignorance, unsophistication, freshness, eagerness to learn, freedom, individuality are in contact and contrast with European personalities of over-refinement, degeneration, artificiality, complexity, high cultivation, urbanity. James admire European cultures. The typical pattern of the conf1ict between the two cultures wou1d be that of a young American man or an American gir1 who goes to Europe and affronts his or her destiny. The unsophisticated boy or girl wou1d be beguiled, betrayed, cruelly wronged at the hands of those who pretend to stand for the highest possible civilization. Marriage and 1ove are used by James as the focal point of the confrontation between the two value systems, and the protagonist usual1y goes through a painful process of a spiritual growth, gaining knowledge of good and evil from the conflict: However, we may misinterpret Henry James if we think he makes an antithesis, in his international novels, of American innocence versus European corruption.
2.James’s literary criticism (The theme of “The Art of Fiction”)
James's literary criticism is an indispensable part of his contribution to literature. It is both concerned with form and devoted to human values. The theme of his essay “The Art of Fiction” clearly indicates that the aim of the novel is to present life, so it is not surprising to find in his writings human experiences explored in every possible form: illusion, despair, reward, torment, inspiration, delight, etc. He also advocates the freedom of the artist to write about anything that concerns him, even the disagreeable, the ugly and the commonplace. The artist should be able to "feel" the life, to understand human nature, and then to record them in his own art form.''
3. James’s realism (psychological realism)
James’s realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter. His fictional world is concerned more with the inner life of human beings than with overt human actions. His best and most mature works will render the drama of individual consciousness and convey the moment-to-moment sense of human experience as bewilderment and discovery. And we observe people and events filtering through the individual consciousness and participate in his experience. This emphasis on psychology and on the human consciousness proves to be a big breakthrough in novel writing and has great influence on the coming generations. James is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century "stream-of-consciousness" novels and the founder of psychological realism.
4.James’s narrative point of view
One of James's literary techniques innovated to cater for this psychological emphasis is his narrative “point of view.” James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possible and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minimal intervention. So it is often the case that in his novels we usually learn the main story by reading through one or severa1 minds and share their perspectives. This narrative method proves to be successful in bringing out his themes.
5. His language
James is not so easy to understand. He is often highly refined and insightful. With a large vocabulary, he is always accurate in word selection, trying to find the
best expression for his literary imagination .Therefore Henry James is not only one of themost important realists of the period before the First World War, but also the most expert stylist of his time.
四．应用
Selected Reading:
An Excerpt from the First Part of Daisy Miller
The story:
Frederick Winterbourne, the narrator of the story, is an American expatriate. While visiting Switzerland, he meets the newly rich Mrs. Miller from New York, her son Randolph and her daughter Daisy. The Millers come from America that advocates freedom and individuality so when they live among the Europeans they do not pay any attention to the complex code that underlies behavior in European society. Winterbourne is shocked at Daisy’s innocence and her mother’s unconcern when Daisy accompanies him to the castle of Chillon.Later he meets the Miller in Rome, where Daisy has aroused suspicion by being seen constantly with Giovanelli, a third-rate Italian, without being engaged. Daisy is abandoned by her former friends, because they think she has gone too far. Spending all the evenings in the Colosseum, Daisy is infected with Roman fever. She falls ill with malaria, and a week afterward dies. At her funeral Giovanelli tells Winterbourne that Daisy was “the most beautiful young lady Iever saw, and the most amiable…and the most innocent.”
1.The theme of the novel
Daisy Miller is one of James’s early works that dealt with the international theme, i.e., to set against a large international background, usual1y between Europe and America, and centered on the confrontation of the two different cu1tures with two different groups of peop1e representing two different value systems: American innocence in contact and contrast with European decadence and the moral and psychological complications arising therefrom.
2.Characterization of Daisy Miller
In this novel, the “Americanness ”in Daisy is revealed by her relatively unreserved manners. Daisy Miller, a typical young American girl who goes to Europe and affronts her destiny. The unsophisticated girl is cruelly wronged because of the confrontation between the two value systems. Miller has ever since become the American Girl in Europe, a celebrated cultural type who embodies the spirit of the New World. However, innocence, the keynote of her character, turns out to be an admiring but a dangerous quality and her defiance of social taboos in the Old World finally brings her to a disaster in the clash between two different cultures. In this novel James’s sympathy for Daisy could be easily felt when we think of a tender flower crushed by the harsh winter in Rome.
3.The content of this selection: Daisy has just arrived at Switzerland with her family and meets Winterborne for the first time. Two days later Daisy goes alone with Winterborne on an excursion to an old castle, which is soon in the air among the upper class in Rome. Daisy Miller’s tragedy of indiscretion is intensified and enlarged by its narration from the point of view of the American youth Winterborne.
Ⅲ. Emily Dickinson (1830-l886)
一、一般识记
Dickinson’s life and writing
Miss Emi1y Dickinson was born into a Calvinist family of Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended Amherst Academy for seven years and suffered serious religious crisis. After affected by an unhappy 1ove affair with Reverend Charles Wadsworth, she became a total recluse, 1iving a normal New England village life only with her family. Her private life was pretty much in order. She wrote poetry, and read intensively by herself. Her favorite writers were Keats, the Brontes, the Brownings, and George E1iot; classic myths, the Bible, and Shakespeare were what Emily drew commonly on for allusions and references in her poetry and letters. She also drew intellectua1 resources from her contemporary American, Thoreau and Emerson. In general, Dickinson wanted to live simply as a complete independent being, and as a spinster.
Dickinson's poetry writing began in the early 1850s. Altogether she wrote 1,775 poems, of which only seven had appeared during her 1ifetime. Most of her poems were published after her death. Her fame kept rising. She is now recognized not only as a great poetess on her own right but as a poetess of considerable influence upon American poetry of the 20th century.
二．识记
Dicksinson’s poems:
(1) Her religious poems: she wrote about her doubt and be1ief about religious subjects. While she desired salvation and immortality, she denied the orthodox view of paradise. Although she believed in God, she sometimes doubted His benevolence.
(2)Her poems concerning death and immortality: These poems are closely related to her religious poetry, ranging over the physical as well as the psychological and emotional aspects of death. She showed her ambiguous attitude towards death and immortality. She looked at death from the point of view of both the living and the dying. She even imagined her own death, the loss of her own body, and the journey of her soul to the unknown. Perhaps her greatest rendering of the moment of death is to be found in "I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died --", a poem universally considered one of her masterpieces.
(3)Her love poems: Love is another subject Dickinson dwelt on. One group of her love poems treats the suffering and frustration love can cause. These poems are clear1y the reflection of her own unhappy experience, closely re1ated to her deepest and most private feelings. Many of them are striking and original depictions of the longing for shared moments, the pain of separation, and the futility of finding happiness. The other group of 1ove poems focuses on the physical aspect of desire, in which Dickinson dealt with, allegorically, the influence of the male authorities over the female, emphasizing the power of physica1 attraction and expressing a mixture of fear and fascination for the mysterious magnetism between sexes. However, it is those poems dealing with marriage that have aroused critical attention first and showed Dickinson's confusion and doubt about the role of women in the 19th century America.
(4)Her nature poems: More than 500 of her poems are about nature, in which her general skepticism about the relationship between man and nature is well-expressed. On the one hand, she shared with her romantic and transcendental predecessors who believed that a mythical bond between man and nature existed, that nature revealed to man things about mankind and universe. On the other hand, she felt strongly about nature's inscrutability and indifference to the life and interests of human beings. However, Dickinson managed to write about nature in the affirmation of the sheer joy and the appreciation, unaffected by philosophical speculations. Her acute observations, her concern for precise details and her interest in nature are pervasive, from sketches of flowers, insects, birds, to the sunset, the fully detailed summer storms, the change of seasons; from keen perception to witty ana1ysis.
三．领会
The thematic concerns and the original artistic features of Dickinson's poetry:
1．Themes: Dicksinson’s poems are usually based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys. But within her litlle lyrics Dickinson addresses those issues that concern the whole human beings, which include religion, death, immortality, love, and nature.
2．Artistic features: Her poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines. In her poetry there is a particular stress pattern, in which dashes are used as a musica1 device to create cadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis. Most of her poems borrow the repeated four-line, rhymed stanzas of traditional Christian hymns, with two lines of four-beat meter alternating with two lines of three-beat meter. A master of imagery that makes the spiritual materialize in surprising ways, Dickinson managed manifold variations within her simple form: She used imperfect rhymes, subtle breaks of rhythm, and idiosyncratic syntax and punctuation to create fascinating word puzzles, which have produced greatly divergent interpretations over the years.Dickinson’s irregular or sometimes inverted sentence structure also confuses readers. However, her poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness and plainness. Her poems are usually short, rarely more than twenty lines, and many of them are centered on a single image or symbo1 and focused on one subject matter. Due to her deliberate sec1usion, her poems tend to be very personal and meditative. She frequently uses personae to render the tone more familiar to the reader, and personification to vivify some abstract ideas. Dickinson's poetry, despite its ostensible formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness; and her limited private world has never confined the limitless power of her creativity and imagination.
四．应用
Selected Readings:
1. (44l ) This is my letter to the World
This poem expresses Dickinson 's anxiety about her communication with the outside world and her vision of the poet’s task and function.
2. (465) I heard a Fly buzz -- when l died --
This poem is a description of the moment of death. Dickinson’s attitude toward death is that of peaceful acceptance. She looked at death from the point of view of both the living and the dying. She even imagined her own death, the loss of her own body, and the journey of her soul to the unknown. This poem, universally considered one of her masterpieces, is perhaps her greatest rendering of the moment of death.
3. (585) I like to see it lap the Miles -
This poem is an interesting study of how Dickinson makes the train part of nature by animalizing it.
4. (7l2) Because I could not stop for Death-
This is one of Dickinson’s most celebrated poems describing death. It possesses many features typical of her poetry. She holds ambivalent attitudes towards death. On the one hand, death is a stage of life, where man bids farewell to the human world of transience and goes to the Heaven of immortality; death is a release from a lifetime of work and suffering to a lasting peace in heaven. Therefore, she depicts the dark subject of death in a light tone. In this poem Dickinson personifies death and immortality so as to make her message strongly felt and vivify the abstract ideas. On the other hand, she feels uncertain about immortality of death. Many rhetorical devices are used in this poem, such as personification (Death and immortality are personified as “He”.), image or symbols especially in the third stanza. Other symbols include “Carriage”(hearse), “House”(Ground) etc. She also uses punctuation for musicality and capitalization for emphasis.
Ⅳ.Theodore Dreiser (l87l-1945 )
Theodore Dreiser is generally acknowledged as one of America's literary naturalists. He possessed none of the usual aids to a writer’s career: no money, no friend in power, no formal education worthy of mention, no family tradition in letters. With every disadvantage piled upon him, Dreiser, by his strong will and his dogged persistence, eventually burst out and became one of the important American writers.
一、 一般识记
Dreiser’s life and writing:
Theodore Dreiser was born in Terre Hante, Indiana, into a poor and intensely re1igious family. He had a very unhappy chi1dhood. Dreiser had some education at a Catholic school in Terre Hante, and later went to a public school of Warsaw, Indiana, and then spent a year at Indiana University. Dreiser read voraciously by himself. He immersed himself in Dickens and Thackeray, read widely Shakespeare, and tasted Bunyan, Fielding, Pope, Thoreau, Emerson, and Twain, but his true literary influences were from Balzac, Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. From the age of fifteen, Dreiser began to work on his own, earning a meager support by doing some odd jobs. He had longed to become a writer, so he went up to Chicago afterwards and made a beginning by placing himself with one of Chicago's newspapers, where he learned by experience. Later on, he slowly groped his way to authorship. During the last two decades of his 1ife Dreiser turned away from fiction and involved himself in political activities and debating writing. He joined the Communist Party shortly before his death in 1945.
二．识记
His major works:
Dreiser is a prolific writer. Among his works, Sister Carrie (1900) is the best-known, tracing the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G. W. Hurstwood. In his ear1y period some of his best short fictions were written, among which are Nigger Jeff and Old Rogaum and His Theresa. In l9l1, Jennie Gerhardt came out, followed by two volumes of his “Trilogy of Desire,” The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914), the third, The Stoic, being published posthumously in 1947. The Genius (19l5), a c1assic story of a “misunderstood artist,” was once condemned for “obscenity and blasphemy,”remained unpublished unti1 1923. In 1925 Dreiser's greatest work The American Tragedy appeared. But it was banned in Boston in 1927. In 1927 he accepted an invitation to visit Russia and wrote Dreiser Looks at Russia the following year.
三．领会
1.Dreiser’s literary naturalism (or American naturalism):
With the publication of Sister Carrie, Dreiser became one of the most significant American writers of literary naturalism. As a genre, naturalism emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters who were presented in special and detailed circumstances. At bottom, life was shown to be ironic, even tragic. Dreiser described earthly existence as “a welter of inscrutable forces,” in which was trapped each individua1 human being. In his words, Man is a “victim of forces over which he has no control.” To him, life is "so sad, so strange, so mysterious and so inexplicable." No wonder the characters in his books are often subject to the control of the natural forces -- especially those of environment and heredity.
2.The effect of Darwinist idea of "survival of the fittest" was shattering. It is not surprising to find in Dreiser's fiction a world of jungle, where “kill or to be killed” was the law.
3.Dreiser’s naturalism in his works:
Dreiser’s naturalism found expression in almost every book he wrote. In Sister Carrie Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of 1ife and attacking the conventional moral standards. After a series of incidents and coincidents, Carrie obtains fame and comfort while Hurstwood loses his wealth, social position, pride and eventually his life. In his "Trilogy of Desire," Dreiser's focus shifted from the pathos of the helpless protagonists at the bottom of the society to the power of the American financial tycoons in the late 19th century. An American Tragedy proves to be his greatest work and by entit1ing this book with such a name, Dreiser intended to tell us that it is the social pressure that makes Clyde's downfal1 inevitable. Clyde's tragedy is a tragedy that depends upon the American social system which encouraged people to pursue the "dream of success" at all costs.
4.Dreiser’s exploration of human desire and revelation of the dark side of human nature:
From the first novel Sister Carrie on, Dreiser set himself to project the American values for what he had found them to be --materialistic to the core. Living in such a society with such a value system, the human individual is obsessed with a never-ending, yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his desires. One of the desires is for money which was a motivating purpose of life in the United States in the late l9th century. For example, in Sister Carrie, there is not one character whose status is not determined economically. Sex is another human desire that Dreiser explored to considerab1e lengths in his novels to reveal the dark side of human nature. In Sister Carrie, Carrie climbs up the social ladder by means of her sexual appeal. Also in the “Trilogy of Desire,” the possession of sexual beauty symbolizes the acquisition of some social status of great magnitude. However, Dreiser never forgot to imply that these human desires in 1ife could hardly be defined. They are there like a powerful "magnetism" governing human existence and reducing human beings to nothing. So like all naturalists he was restrained from finding a solution to the social problems that appeared in his novels and accordingly almost all his works have tragic endings.
5.Dreiser's style
Dreiser's style has been a controversial aspect of his work from the beginning. For lack of concision, his writings appear more inclusive and less selective, and the readers are sometimes burdened with massive detailed descriptions of characters and events. Though the time sequence is clear and the plot straigt forward, he has been always accused of being awkward in sentence structure, inept and occasionally flat1y wrong in word selection and meaning, and mixed and disorganized in voice and tone. For him 1anguage is a means of communication rather than an art form. However, Dreiser's contribution to the American literary history cannot be ignored. He broke away from the genteel tradition of literature and dramatized the life in a very realistic way. There is no comment, no judgment but facts of life in the stories. His style is not polished but very serious and well calculated to achieve the thematic ends he sought.
四．应用
An analysis of Sister Carrie:
1. The story of Sister Carrie
Carrie Meeber is the protagonist of the story. Penniless and “full of the illusions of ignorance and youth,” she leaves her rural home to seek work in Chicago. On the train, she becomes acquainted with Charles Drouet, a salesman. In Chicago, she lives with her sister and sister-in-law, and works for a time in a shoe factory. Meager income and terrible work condition oppress her imaginative spirit. After a period of unemployment and loneliness, she accepts Drouet and becomes his mistress. During his absence, she falls in love with Drouet’s friend George Hurstwood, a middle-aged, married, comparatively intelligent and cultured saloon manager. They finally elope, first to Montreal and then to New York. They live together for more than three years. Carrie becomes mature in intellect and emotion, while Hurstwood, away from the atmosphere of success on which his life has been based, steadily declines. So their relations become strained. At last, she thinks him too great a burden and leaves him. Hurstwood sinks lower and lower. After becoming a beggar, he commits suicide, while Carrie becomes a star of musical comedies. But in spite of her success, she is lonely and dissatisfied.
2. The theme of the book:
Sister Carrie best embodies Dreiser’s naturalistic belief that men are controlled and conditioned by heredity, environment and chance, but a few extraordinary and unsophisticated human beings refuse to accept their fate wordlessly and instead strive, unsuccessfully, to find meaning and purpose for their existence. Carrie, as one of such, senses that she is merely a cipher in an uncaring world yet seeks to grasp the mysteries of life and thereby satisfies her desires for social status and material comfort. In Sister Carrie, Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of life and impotence of men.
3.The last chapter of the novel:
After Carrie deserts Hurstwood, he is in great despair. Feeble and penniless, Hurstwood wanders in a cold winter night with nobody trying to help. Extremely hopeless and totally devastated, he turns the gas on in a cheap lodging-house and ends his life, while at the same time Carrie is rocking comfortably in her luxuriant hotel room before she boards a ship for London.
Chapter 3 The Modern Period
Ⅰ.本章学习目的和要求
通过本章的学习，了解20世纪初期至中叶美国现代文学产生 的历史、文化背景，认识该时期文学创作的基本特征、基本主张，及其对当代美国文学发展的影响；了解该时期主要作家的文学生涯、创作意图、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构、人物刻画和语言风格等；同时结合注释，读懂所选作品，了解其思想内容和写作特色，培养理解和欣赏文学作品的能力。
Ⅱ本章重点及难点
1． 美国现代文学的特征
2． 主要作家的创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构、人物刻画和语言风格
3． 名词解释："迷惘的一代"，意象派诗歌，象征主义，表现主义，意识流
4． 选读作品的主题结构、艺术特色、人物刻画和语言风格
Ⅲ 考核知识点和考核要求
（一）现代时期美国文学概述
1． 识记：
A．两次世界大战期间美国文学产生的历史及文化背景
（1）两次世界大战
（2）移居国外的美国人
（3）马克思主义理论和弗洛伊德学说
（4）欧洲现代派艺术
B．战后美国文学产生的历史及文化背景
2． 领会：
A． 两次世界大战期间的美国文学
（1）诗歌：意象派诗人；象征主义
（2）小说；"迷恫的一代"
（3）戏剧：表现主义
B．战后美国文学
（1）诗歌："垮掉的一代"等
（2）小说：黑人小说、犹太人小说、实验小说（荒诞派 小说）等
（3）美国现代文学多元化的现象
C．美国现代文学写作手法的创新
3．应用
A．名词解释："迷惘的一代"，意象派诗歌，象征主义，表现主义，意识流
B．"荒原"意识在美国20世纪文学中的反映
C．分析选读作品的主题结构、艺术特色、人物刻画和语言风格
（二）美国现代时期的主要作家
A．埃兹拉。庞德
1．一般识记：庞德的生平和创作生涯
2．识记：庞德的诗歌
（1）短诗：《地铁站一瞥》
（2）长诗：《诗章》
3． 领会：
（1）庞德与意象主义
（2）庞德与中国文化
（3）庞德的诗歌理论及艺术特色
4．应用：《地铁站一瞥》《盟约》〈〈河商的妻子》：主题、意象、语言
B．罗伯特·弗洛斯特
1．一般识记：弗洛斯特的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：弗洛斯特的诗歌：田园诗；自然诗
3．领会：
（1）弗洛斯特诗歌的艺术特色
（2）弗洛斯特的诗论
4．应用：
(1) 弗洛斯特的自然诗
(2)〈〈摘苹果后〉〉〈〈未选择的路〉〉〈〈雪夜停马在林边》：主题、 象征与比喻、语言
C．尤金·奥尼尔
1．一般识记：奥尼尔的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：奥尼尔的戏剧
（1）早期作品：独幕剧；多幕剧《天外边》
（2）中期作品：《琼斯皇帝》〈〈伟大之神布朗〉〉〈〈毛猿》 -------表现主义和象征主义的力作
（3）后期作品：《直到夜晚的漫长一天》 一 自传体戏剧 剧
3．领会：
（1）奥尼尔戏剧的悲观主义和神秘主义色彩
（2）奥尼尔戏剧的艺术特色
4．应用：选读《毛猿》第八场：主题结构、表现主义和象征主义手
法、语言特色
D．司各特·菲兹杰拉德
1．一般识记：菲兹杰拉德的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：
（1）菲兹杰拉德与"爵士时代"
（2）主要作品：短篇小说集：《爵士时代的故事》
中、长篇小说：《人间天堂》《了不起的盖茨比》《夜色温柔》〈〈最后一个巨头》
3．领会：
（1）《了不起的盖茨比》与"美国梦
（2）菲兹杰拉德的小说艺术
4．应用：《了不起的盖茨比》第三章：主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格
E．欧内斯特·海明威
1．一般识记：海明威的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：海明威的主要作品
（1）短篇小说集：《在我们的时代里》-一涅克的故事
（2）长篇小说：《太阳照样升起》〈〈永别了，武器》《丧钟为谁而鸣》《老人与海》
3．领会：海明威与"迷惘的一代"
4．应用：
（1）海明威小说的艺术特色："硬汉"形象、"重压下的风 度"、"冰山"原则等
（2）《在我们的时代里》选篇：主题结构、人物刻画、语言 风格
F．威廉·福克纳
1．一般识记: 福克纳的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：
（l）福克纳的主要作品：中、短篇小说：《给艾米莉**的玫瑰》《老人》《熊》等；长篇小说：《喧嚣与骚动》 《八月之光》《我弥留之际》《押沙龙，押沙龙！》
（2）福克纳的"约克纳帕塔法'神话王国
3．领会：
（1）福克纳小说的艺术特色："意识流"、"内心独白"、"时序颠倒"、"对位式结构"、"象征隐喻"等
（2）福克纳的文体
（3）福克纳与美国南方文学
4．应用：《给艾米莉**的玫瑰》：主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格
Chapter 3 The Modern Period
一．识记
1.The historical and socio-cultural background of the American literature between the two World Wars:
(1) The two World Wars: The twentieth century began with a strong sense of social breakdown. The two Wor1d Wars, especially the First World War (l914--l918), became the emblem of all wars in the twentieth century, which means violence, devastation, blood and death, and made a big impact on the life of the American people and their literary writings.
With all these wars the whole wor1d had undergone a dramatic social change, a transformation from order to disorder. America in this period was characterized by economic boom and material prosperity but social chaos, spiritual waste and and moral decay. Economically, with America's participation in Wor1d War I and the technological revolution, the United States had its booming industry and material prosperity. Socially, the world was disorderly and turbulent. There was a sense of unease and restlessness underneath. Spiritually and morally, there was a decline in moral standard and the first few decades of the twentieth century was best described as a spiritual wasteland. The censor of a great civilization being destroyed or destroying itself, social breakdown, and individual powerlessness and hopelessness became part of the American experience as a result of the First World War, with resulting feelings of fear, loss, disorientation and disillusionment.
(2) The impact of Marxism, Freudianism and European modern art on American modern literature: Between the mid-l9th century and the first decade of the 20th century, there had been a big flush of new theories and new ideas in both social and natural sciences, as well as in the field of art in Europe, which played an indispensable ro1e in bringing about modernism and the modernistic writings in the United States.
a. Marxism and Freudianism
Apart from Darwinism, which was still a big influence over the writers of this period, the two thinkers whose ideas had the greatest impact on the period were the German Karl Marx and the Austrian Sigmund Freud. Marx was a sociologist who 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 classes based on a relation to the means of production. Freud propounded an idea of human beings themselves as grounded in the "unconscious" that controlled a great deal of overt behavior, and made the practice of the psychoanalysis which emphasizes the importance of the unconscious or the irrationa1 in the human psyche. William James, an American psychologist famous for his theory of "stream of consciousness," and Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, noted for his "collective unconscious" and "archetypal symbol" as part of modern mythology. Their theories, plus Freud's interpretation of dreams, have infused modern American literature and made it possible for most of the writers in the modern period to probe into the inner world of human reality.
b. European modern art:
The implications of modern European arts to modern American writings can also be strong1y felt in the American literature between the wars, even thereafter. In painting, both the French Impressionist and the German Expressionist artists avoided the representation of external reality and depicted the human rea1ity in a rather subjective point of view. This highly personal vision of the world is self-evident in the works by writers such as William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, etc. Cubism, another school of modern painting popular in the early 20th century with 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 and engaged the readers in creating order out of fragmentation as we1l. Composers like Igor Stravinsky similar1y produced music in a "modern" mode, featuring dissonance and discontinuity rather than neat formal structure and appealing total harmonies.
(3)The expatriate movement
There was a spiritual crisis in the modern period, but a full blossoming of literary writings. The expatriate movement, also called the second American Renaissance, is the most recognizable literary movement that gave rise to the twentieth century American literature. 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. Disillusioned and disgusted by the frivolous, greedy, and heedless way of life in America, they began to write and they wrote from their own experiences in the war. Among these young writers were the most prominent figures in American literature, especially in modern American 1iterature. They were basically expatriates who 1eft America and formed a community of writers and artists in Paris, involved with other European novelists and poets in their experimentation on new modes of thought and expression. These writers were later named by an American writer, Gertrude Stein, also an expatriate, "The Lost Generation."
2. The historical and socio-cultural background of the American literature after the World War Ⅱ:
What happened immediately after the Second World War in the United States and other parts of the world exerted a tremendous influence on the mentality of Americans. It changed man's view of himself and the world as well.
First of all, the dropping of an atomic bomb over Hiroshima in Japan shocked the whole world and made possible the destruction of the Western civilization. Then a mutual fear and hostility grew between the Eastern and Western courtries with the Cold War, the effect of which could be felt in the form of McCarthyism in the Unites States. Besides, the Korean War and the Vietnam War broadened the gap between the government and the people. The assassination of John F. Kennedy, and of Martin Luther King, spokesman of the American Civil Rights Movement, the resignation of Nixon because of the Water-Gate scandal, etc. intensified the terror and tossed the whole nation again into the grief and despair. The impact of these changes and upheavals on the American society is emotional. People start to question the role of science in human progress and the fear of the misuse of modern science and technology is spreading. They no longer believe in God but start to reconsider the nature of man and man's capacity for evil. They begin to think of life as a big joke or an absurdity. The world is even more disintegrating and fragmentary and people are even more estranged and despondent.
二．领会
1. American literature between the two world wars:
(1) The Imagist Movement and the artistic characteristics of imagist poems:
Led by the American poet Ezra Pound, Imagist Movement is a poetic movement that flourished in the U.S. and England between 1909-1917. It advances modernism in arts which concentrates on reforming the medium of poetry as opposed to Romanticism, especially Tennyson's worldliness and high-flown language in poetry. Pound endorsed three main principles as guidelines for Imagism, including direct treatment of poetic subjects, elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words, and rhythmical composition should be composed with the phrasing of music, not a metronome. 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. The leading poets are Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, D.H.Lawrence, etc.
The characteristic products of the movement are more easily recognized than its theories defined; they tend to be short, composed of short lines of musical cadence rather than metrical regularity, to avoid abstraction, and to treat the image with a hard, clear precision rather than with overt symbolic intent. The influence of Japanese forms, tanka and haiku, is obvious in many. Most of the imagist poets wrote in free verse and they like to emply common speech. They stressed the freedom in the choice of subject matter and form.
(2) The Lost Generation
It refers to, in general, the post-World WarⅠgeneration, but specifically a group of expatriate disillusioned intellectuals and artists, who experimented on new modes of thought and expression by rebelling against former ideals and values and replacing them only by despair or a cynical hedonism. The remark of Gertrude Stein, "You are all a lost generation, "addressed to Hemingway, was used as an epigraph to the latter's novel The Sun Also Rises, which brilliantly describes those expatriates who had cut themselves off from their past in America in order to create new types of writing. The generation was "lost" in the sense that its inherited values were no longer relevant in the postwar world and because of its spiritual alienation from a U.S. that seemed to its members to be hopelessly provincial, materialistic, and emotional barren. The term embraces Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, E.E.Cummings, and many other writers who made Paris the center of their literary activities in the 1920s.
(3) What is Expressionism?
Expressionism is used to describe the works of art and literature in which the representation of reality is distorted to communicate an inner vision, transforming nature rather than imitating it. In literature it is often considered a revolt against realism and naturalism, a seeking to achieve a psychological or spiritual reality rather than to record external events.
In drama, the expressionist work was characterized by a bizarre distortion of reality. Expressionist writers's concern was with general truths rather than with particular situations, hence they explored in their plays the predicaments of representative symbolic types rather than of fully developed individualized characters. Emphasis was laid not on the outer world, which is merely sketched in and barely defined in place or time, but on the internal, on an individual's mental state; hence the imitation of life is replaced in Expressionist drama by the ecstatic evocation of states of mind. In America, Eugene O'Neille's Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape, etc. are typical plays that employ Expressionism.
4) The concept of "wasteland" in relation to the works of those writers in the twentieth-century American literature
The Waste Land is a poem written by T.S.Eliot on the theme of the sterility and chaos of the contemporary world. This most widely known expression of the despair of the post-War era has appeared over and again in the works of those writers in the twentieth-century American literature. Fitzgerald sought to portray a spiritual wasteland of the Jazz Age. Beneath the masks of relaxation and joviality, there was only sterility, meaninglessness and futility amid the grandeur and extravagance, there was a hint of decadence and moral decay. Hemingway, the leading spokesman of the Lost Generation, dramatized in his novels the sense of loss and despair among the post-war generation who are physically and psychologically scarred. Though disillusioned in the post-war period, he strove to bring about man's "grace under pressure" and tried to bring out the idea that man can be physically destroyed but never defeated spiritually. William Faulkner exemplified T.S. Eliot's concept of modern society as a wasteland in a dramatic way. He created his own mythical kingdom that mirrored not only the decline of the Southern society but also the spiritual wasteland of the whole American society. He condemned the mechanized, industrialized society that has dehumanized man by forcing him to cultivate false values and decrease those essential human values such as courage, fortitude, honesty and goodness.
2. Postwar American literature
(1) The Beat Generation
Also called Beat Movement, it is an American social and literary movement originating in the 1950s. Beat Generation writings expressed profound dissatisfaction with contemporary American society and endorsed an alternative set of values. They rejected traditional forms and advocated personal release, purification, and illumination through the heightened sensory awareness.
Beat poets sought to liberate poetry from academic preciosity and bring it "back to the streets." Allen Ginsberg and other major figures of the movement, such as the novelist Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder, advocated a kind of free, unstructured composition in which the writer put down his thoughts and feelings without plan or revision-to convey the immediacy of experience-an approach that led to the production of much undisciplined and incoherent verbiage on the part of their imitators.
(2) The pluralism of postwar American fiction:
American fiction from 1945 onwards is a bigger story than poetry and drama.
a. War fiction: A group of new writers who survived the war wrote about their traumatic experience within the military machine and on European and Pacific battlefields, among whom we have Norman Mailer and Herman Wouk.
b. Southern literature: Robert Penn Warren and Flannery O'Conner are representatives of the talented Southern writers, who followed Faulkner's footsteps in portraying the decadence and evil in the Southern society in a Gothic manner.
c. Jewish literature: By the 1950s a significant group of Jewish-American writers had appeared and one of them was Saul Bellow. Their works, drawing on the Jewish experience of suffering and endurance, tradition and the Jewish religion, examined subtly the dismantling of the self by an intolerable modern history. Other iportant Jewish writers include Bernard Malamud, Issac Bashevis Singer, and Philip Roth. Saul Bellow placed emphasis upon the power of intellect. The power to understand their own experience, to judge their lives rationally, to think well, is considered a high virtue. Self-teaching is at the heart of all his novels as his Jewish heroes or anti-heroes seek a rational interpretation of the world through their own experiences in it.
d. Black fiction: It began to attract critical attention during this period too. The two major figures are Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, both of whom captured the wide attention of the white readers by truthfully, openly, and shockingly describing the life of black people as they knew it from their own experience. For the first time in the history of American writings, African writers started to question their identity as a group and as an individual.
e. Other important writers who were writing at the time include J.D.Salinger and John Updike. Salinger is considered to be a spokesman for the alienated youth in the post-war era and his The Catcher in the Rye (1951) is regarded as a students' classic. Updike's Rabbit novels examine the middle-class values and portray the troubled relationships in people's private life and their internal decay under the stress of the modern times.
f. "new fiction" or Novels of absurdity: American fiction in the 1960s and 1970s proves to be different from its predecessors in that the writers started to depart from the conventions of the novel writing and experimented with some new forms. Hence, it is referred to as "new fiction," with Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, John Bath, and Thomas Pynchon at its forefront. Roughly speaking, these writers shared the same belief that human beings are trapped in a meaningless world and that neither God nor man can make sense of the human condition. What's more, this absurdist vision is integrated with an absurd form, which is characterized by comic exaggerations, ironic uses of parodies, multiple realities, often two-dimensional characters, and a combination of fantastic events with realistic presentations.
g. Literature of ethnic groups: More recently American literature is alive with a diversity of interests. Writers from different ethnic and multicultural backgrounds, including women writers, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Indian-Americans, are beginning to make their voices heard and they are writing about American experience and consciousness from quite a fresh outlook, hence, bringing vitality to the American literary imagination.
3.The literary characteristics of American modern literature:
(1) Theme: In general terms, much serious literature written from 1912 onwards attempted to convey a vision of social breakdown and mora1 decay and the writer's task was to develop techniques that could represent a break with the past. Thus, the defining formal characteristics of the modernistic works are discontinuity and fragmentation.
(2) Technical experimentation: An awareness of the irrational and the workings of the unconscious mind are pervasive in much modernistic writing. Technically, modernism was marked by a persistent experimentalism. It rejected the traditional framework of narrative, description, and rational exposition in poetry and prose, in favor of a stream of consciousness presentation of personality, a dependence on the poetic image as the essential vehicle of aesthetic communication, and upon myth as a characteristic structural principle.
Compared with earlier writings, modern American writings are notable for what they omit -- the explanations, interpretations, connections, and summaries. There are shifts in perspective, voice, and tone, but the biggest shift is from the external to the internal, from the public to the private, from the chronological to the psychic, from the objective description to the subjective projection. Modern American writers in general emphasize the concrete sensory images or details as the direct conveyer of experience. They strive for directness, compression, and vividness and are sparing of words. Modern fiction prefer suggestiveness and tend to employ the first person narration or limit the reader to the "central consciousness" or one character's point of view. This limitation accorded with the modernistic vision that truth does not exist objectively but is the product of a personal interaction with reality. As a result, the effect of modern American writings is surprising, unsettling, and shocking.
The major writers of the Modern Period
Ⅰ.Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
一． 一般识记
Ezra Pound's contribution to American literature: Pound was one of the most important poets and critics of his time and he was regarded as the father of modern American poetry. He is a leading spokesman of the "Imagist Movement", which though short-lived, had a tremendous influence on modern poetry.
二． 识记
His major works:
Pound composed poems, wrote criticisms and did translations.
(1) His poetic works: In 1915 Pound began writing his great work, The Cantos, which spanned from 1917 to 1959 and were collected in The Cantos of Ezra Pound (1986). He joined a famous literary salon run by an American woman writer Gertrude Stein, and became involved in the experimentations on poetry. His other poetic works include twelve volumes of verse Collected Early Poems of Ezra Pound (1982), and Personae (1909), and some longer pieces such as Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920).
(2) His critical essays: Make It New (l934), Literary Essays (l954), The ABC of Reading (1934) and Polite Essays (l937), etc. These essays best reflect Pound's appraisals of literary traditions and of modern writing.
(3) His translations: The Translations of Ezra Pound (1953), Confucius (1969), and Shih-Ching (1954) These translations 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. From the analysis of the Chinese ideogram Pound learned to anchor his poetic language in concrete, perceptual reality, and to organize images into larger patterns through juxtoposition.
三． 领会
1． Ezra Pound's poetic subjects or themes:
(1) His earlier poetry is saturated with the familiar poetic subjects that characterize the 19th century Romanticism: songs in praise of a lady, songs concerning the poet's craft, love and friendship, death, the transience of beauty and the permanence of art, and some other subjects that Pound could call his own: the pain of exile, metamorphosis, the delightful psychic experience, the ecstatic moment, etc.
(2) Later he is more concerned about the problems of the modern culture: the contemporary cultural decay and the possible sources of cultural renewal as well. In The Cantos, Pound traces the rise and fall of eastern and western empires, the moral and social chaos of the modern world, especially the corruption of America after the heroic time of Jefferson. From the perception of these things, stems the poet's search for order, which involves a search for the principles on which the poet's craft is based.
2. His artistic achievment:
(1) He is the leader of the Imagist Movement:
Led by the American poet Ezra Pound, Imagist Movement is a poetic movement that flourished in the U.S. and England between 1909-1917. It advances modernism in arts which concentrated on reforming the medium of poetry as opposed to Romanticism, especially Tennyson's wordiness and high-flown language in poetry. Pound endorsed three main principles as guidelines for Imagism, including direct treatment of poetic subjects, elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words, and rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome. 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. The leading poets are Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, D.H.Lawrence, etc. Pound's famous one-image poem "In a Station of the Metro" would serve as a typical example of the Imagist ideas.
(2) His use of myth and personae:
Pound argued that the poet cannot relate a delightful psychic experience by speaking out directly in the first person: he must "screen himself" and speak indirectly through as impersonal and objective story, which is usually a myth or a piece of the earlier literature, or a "mask," that is a persona. In this way, Pound could sustain a dialogue between past and present succesfully. (persona: It is an invented person; a character in drama or fiction. Persona, a Latin word meaning "mask ," is used in Jungian psychology to refer to one's "public personality"-the facade or mask presented to the world but not representative of inner feelings and emotions. In literary criticism, persona is sometimes used to refer to a person figuring in, for example, a poem, someone who may or may not represent the author himself. )
(3) His language:
His lines are usually oblique yet marvelously compressed. His poetry is dense with personal, literary, and historical allusions, but at the expense of syntax and summary statements.
四．应用：Selected Readings:
1. In a Station of the Metro
(1) Theme: This poem is an observation of the poet of the human faces seen in a Paris subway station or a description of a moment of sudden emotion at seeing beautiful faces in a Metro in Paris. He sees the faces, turned variously toward light and darkness, like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half resisting, the wet, dark texture of a bough.
(2) The one image in this poem: This poem is probably the most famous of all imagist poems. In two lines it combines a sharp visual image or two juxtoposed images (意象叠加) "Petals on a wet, black bough" with an implied meaning. The faces in the dim light of the Metro suggest both the impersonality and haste of city life and the greater transience of human life itself. The word "apparition" is a well-chosen one which has a two-fold meaning: Firstly, it means a visible appearance of something real. Secondly, it builds an image of a ghostly sight, a delusive and unexpected appearance.
(3) Pound uses the fewest possible words to convey an accurate image, which is the principle of the Imagist poetry. This poem looks to be a modern adoption of the haiku form of Japanese poetry which adapts the 3-line, 17 syllable and where the title is an intergral part of the whole. The poem succeeds largely because of its internal rhymes: station/apparition; Metro/petals/wet; crowd/bough. Its form was determined by the experience that inspired it, involving organically rather than being chosen arbitrarily.
2. The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter
(1) Theme: It is an adaptation from the Chinese Li Po (701-762) named Rihaku in Japanese, which, by means of vivid images and shifting tones, describes the silky shy tenderness of the young wife writing to her absent husband the river-merchant.
The history of her feelings for her husband develops as the following: her bashfulness when she was a young girl, her spiritual affinity with him during the phase of their marriage, the material nature of her love at the time of his departure as well as her longing for his return when she grows old.
(2) use of images and allusion: In this poem Pound uses images such as "hair" "grown moss" "falling leaves" to suggest the passing years and growing age. Besides, Pound employs an allusion to "a story of a woman waiting for her husband on a hill." In Pound's version, the line emphasizes the otherworldly nature of her love during her marriage.
3. A Pact
This poem is about Pound's evaluation on Whitman. Pound started to find some agreement between "Whitmanesque" free verse, which he had attacked for its carelessness in composition, and the "verse libre" of the Imagists who showed more concern for formal values. In the poem Pound affirmed Whitman's contribution in the experiment on the form and content of American poetry and expressed his eagerness to communicate with Whitman..
Ⅱ. Robert Lee Frost (l874-l963)
一． 一般识记
His life and writing:
Frost is an important poet in the 20th century .He won the Pulitzer Prize four times and read poetry at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961.
He spent his early childhood in the Far West and later the family moved to New Hampshire. He went to Harvard but left in the middle because of his tuberculosis. When he was 28, he began to venture on writing.
二． 识记
His major works:
His first book A Boy's Will (1913), whose lyrics trace a boy's development from self-centered idealism to maturity, is marked by an intense but restrained emotion and the characteristic flavor of New Eng1and life. His second book, a volume of poems North of Boston (1914), is described by the author as "a book of people," which shows a brilliant insight into New England character and the background that formed it. Many of his major poems are collected in this volume, such as "Mending the Wall," in which Frost saw man as learning from nature the
zones of his own 1imitations, and "Home Buria1," which probes the darker corners of individual lives in a situation where man cannot accept the facts of his condition. Mountain Interval (19l6) contains such characteristic poems as "The Road Not Taken," "Birches". New Hampshire (1923) that won Frost the first of four Pulitzer Prizes includes "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", which stems from the ambiguity of the speaker's choice between safety and the unknown. The collection West-Running Brook (1928) poses disturbing uncertainties about man's prowess and importance. Collected Poems (l930) and A Further Range (1935) gathered Frost's second and third Pulitzer Prizes. Both translate modern upheaval into poetic materia1 the poet could skillfully control. Frost's fourth Pulitzer Prize was awarded for A Witness Tree (l942) which includes "The Gift Outright," the poem he later recited at President Kennedy's inauguration. Frost took up a religious question most notably in "After Apple-Picking:" can a man's best efforts ever satisfy God? A Masque of Reason (l945) and A Masque of Mercy (1947) are comic-serious dramatic narratives, in both of which biblical characters in modern settings discuss ethics and man's re1ations to God.
三． 领会
1. His thematic concerns:
(1) Generally Frost is considered a regional poet whose subject matters mainly focus on the landscape and people in New England. These thematic concerns include the terror and tragedy in nature, as well as its beauty, and the 1oneliness and poverty of the isolated human being. But first and foremost Frost is concerned with his love of life and his belief in a serenity that only came from working usefully, which he practiced himself throughout his life.
(2) Frost wrote many poems that investigate the basic themes of man's life: the individual's relationships to himself, to his fellow-man, to world, and to his God. Profound meanings are hidden underneath the plain language and simple form. His poetry, by using nature as a storehouse of analogy and symbol, often probes mysteries of darkness and irrationality in the bleak and chaotic landscapes of an indifferent universe when men stand alone, unaided and perplexed.
2. His nature poems:
Robert Frost is mainly known for his poems concerning New England life. He learned from the tradition, especially the familiar conventions of nature poetry and of classical pastoral poetry, and made the colloquial New England speech into a poetic expression. A poem so conceived thus becomes a symbo1 or metaphor, a careful, loving exploration of reality, in Frost's version, "a momentary stay against confusion." Many of his poems are fragrant with natural quality. Images and metaphors in his poems are drawn from the rural world, the simple country 1ife and the pastoral 1andscape. However, profound ideas are delivered under the disguise of the p1ain language and the simple form, for what Frost did is to take symbols from the limited human world and the pastoral landscape to refer to the great world beyond the rustic scene. These thematic concerns include the terror and tragedy in nature, as well as its beauty, and the 1oneliness and poverty of the isolated human being. But first and foremost Frost is concerned with his love of life and his belief in a serenity that only came from working usefully, which he practiced himself throughout his life.
3. Frost's style in language:
By using simple spoken language and conversational rhythms, Frost achieved an effortless grace in his style. He combined traditiona1 verse forms -- the sonnet, rhyming coup1ets, blank verse with a clear American local speech rhythm, the speech of New England farmers with its idiosyncratic diction and syntax. In verse form he was assorted; he wrote in both the metrical forms and the free verse, and sometimes he wrote in a form that borrows freely from the merits of both, in a form that might be called semi-free or semi-conventional.
四． 应用
Selected Readings:
l. After Apple-Picking
This poem is so vivid a memory of experience on the farm in which the end of labor leaves the speaker with a sense of completion and fulfilment yet finds him blocked from success by winter's approach and physical weariness. On the one hand, Frost expressed his love of life and his belief in a serenity that only came from working usefully. On the other hand, the poet was concerned with individual's relationships to himself, to his fellow-man, to world, and to his God. He took up a religious question: can a man's best efforts ever satisfy God?
Besides this is a typical lyric poem describing the pastoral landscape in New England. Symbols and images from the pastoral landscape to refer to the great world beyond the rustic scene.
The language of this poem is characterized by simple spoken language and conversational rhythms, the combination of traditiona1 verse forms -- the sonnet, rhyming coup1ets, blank verse with the speech of New England farmers with its idiosyncratic diction and syntax. Frost wrote in both the metrical forms and the free verse, in a form that might be called semi-free or semi-conventional.
2. The Road Not Taken
(1) The theme: This poem seems to be about the poet, walking in the woods in autumn, hesitating for a long time and wondering which road he should take since they are both pretty. In reality, this is a meditative poem symbolically written. It concerns the important decisions which one must take in the course of life, when one must give up one desirable thing in order to possess another. Then, whatever the outcome, one must accept the consequences of one's choice for it is not possible to go back and have another chance to choose differently. In the poem, he followed the one which was not frequently travelled by. Symbolically, he chose to follow an unusual, solitary life; perhaps he was speaking of his choice to become a poet rather than some common profession. But he always remembered the road which he might have taken, and which would have given him a different kind of life.
(2) Language: This poem is written in classic five-line stanzas, with the rhyme scheme a-b-a-a-b and conversational rhythm. The poet uses "the road " to symbolize life's journey.
3. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
(1) The theme: This is a deceptively simple poem in which the speaker literally stops his horse in the winter twilight to observe the beauty of the forest scene, and then is moved to continue his journey. Philosophically and symbolically, it stems from the ambiguity of the speaker's choice between safety and the unknown.
(2) This poem suggests deep thought about death and about life. The strange attraction of death to man is symbolized by the dark woods silently filled up with the coldness of snow. Frost frequently uses the technique of symbolism in his poetry. Some critics think that the "village" stands for the human world, "woods" for nature, "horse" for the animal world, and "promises" for obligations. The poem represents a moment of relaxation from the burdensome journey of life, an almost aesthetic enjoyment and appreciation of natural beauty which is wholesome and restorative against the chaotic existence of modern man.
(3) The last stanza shows a kind of sad, sentimental but also strong and responsible feeling. The attraction of the beauty of the nature makes the speaker stop in the journey. He finally turns away from it, with a certain weariness and yet with quiet determination, to face the needs of life. This stresses the central conflict of the poem between man's enjoyment of nature's beauty and his responsibility in society. This shows a man's despairing courage to seek out the meaning of life.
In the last stanza, the three adjectives "lovely" "dark" "deep" reinforce one another. Not only do they represent beauty and terror of nature symbolized by the dark woods, but they also reveal the speaker's love for nature and human isolation from it. Besides, the word "sleep" here means "die" symbolically.
Ⅲ. Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)
Eugene O'Neill is unquestionably America's greatest playwright. He won the Pulitzer Prize four times and was the only dramatist ever to win a Nobel Prize (1936). He is widely acclaimed "founder of the American drama."
一． 一般识记
His life and writing career: O'Neill was born in New York on October 16, 1888 into a theatrical family. He grew up in New London, Connecticut, and spent his early years with his parents on theatrica1 road tours. He received university education for one year and later traveled all over the world. He avidly read up on dramatic literature, and cultivated an interest in play writing. In 1914, he attended Professor George Pierce Baker's drama workshop at Harvard, where his career as a dramatist began. Since then, O'Neill had been wholly dedicated to the mission as a dramatist.
二． 识记
His major plays: During all his career as a dramatist, O'Neill wrote and pub-
lished about forty-nine plays altogether of various lengths. He wrote some one-act melodramatic plays at first, including Bound East for Cardiff (1916), which describes the dying sailor Yank and his dream about the security and peace which could never exist. O'Neill's first full-length play, Beyond the Horizon, made a great hit and won him the first Pulitzer Prize. Its theme is the choice between life and death, the interaction of subjective and objective factors, and this theme is dramatized more explicitly in The Straw (1921) and Anna Christie (1921). Anna Christie is more of a success because it deploys the developing complexity of O'Neill's personal vision, showing us that life is a closed circle of possibi1ities from which it is impossible to escape.
Between 1920 and 1924 came his prominent achievements in symbolic expressionism: The Emperor Jones (1920), The Hairy Ape (1922), All God's chillun Got Wings (1924), and Desire Under the Elms (1924). These plays are daring forays into race relations, class conflicts, sexual bondage, social critiques, and American tragedies on the Greek model. What is more, the expressionistic techniques are used in these plays to highlight the theatrical effect of the rupture between the two sides of an individual human being, the private and the public. Built on the success of these expressionistic experimentations, O'Neill reached out to extend his mastery of the stage and worked up to the summit of his career. 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 (l926), which fuses symbolism, poetry, and the affirmation of a pagan idea1ism to show how materialistic civilization denies the life--giving impulses and destroys the genuine artist, and Lazarus Laughed (1927), which makes full use of the Bible, Greek choruses, Elizabethan tirades, expressionist masks, populous crowd scenes, and orchestrate laughter. With the winning of the third Pulitzer Prize for Strange Interlude (l928), O'Neill consolidated his experience of two decades of playwriting and paved the way to the honor of the Nobel Prize in 1936.
Late in his life, he produced the best and greatest plays of the modern American theater. The Iceman Cometh (l946) proves to be a masterpiece in the way it is a complex, ironic, deeply moving exploration of human existence, written out of a profound insight into human nature and constructed with tremendous skill and logic. Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956) can be read autobiographically. However, like most great works of literature, the play reaches beyond its immediate subject, dedicated not only to the life of the American family, but also "to the life of Man, to Life itself." As a product of hard-won art, Long Day's Journey Into Night has gained its status as a world classic and simultaneously marks the climax of O'Neill's literary career and the coming of age of American drama.
三． 领会
1.Themes: O'Neill is always remembered for his tragic view of life and most of his plays deal with the basic issues of human existence and predicament: life and death, illusion and disillusion, alienation and communication, dream and reality, self and society, desire and frustration, etc. His characters in the plays are described as seeking meaning and purpose in their lives in different ways, some through love, some through religion, others through revenge, but all meet disappointment and despair. As a playwright, O'Neill himself was constantly wrestling with these issues and struggling with the perplexity about the truth of life. He was searching for an answer both psychologically and artistically, and his dramatic thought fol1owed a tragic pattern running through all his plays, from a celebration and exaltation of "pipe dreams," the romantic dream so to speak, to the doubt about the reality of the dream or the inevitability of the defeat. So, 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 impossibility.
2.O'Neill's experimentations in dramatic art: O'Neill's inventiveness seemingly knew no limits. He was constantly experimenting with new styles and forms for his plays.
(1) He introduced the realistic or even the naturalistic aspect of life into the American theater. He borrowed freely grom the best traditions of European dramas, be it Greek tragedies, or the realism of Ibsen, or the expressionism of Stringberg, and fused them into the organic of his own. In those expressionistic plays, abstract and symbolic stage sets are used to set off against the emotional inner selves and subjective states of mind; lighting and music are employed to convey the changes of mood.
(2) He borrowed freely from modern literary techniques such as the stream-of -consciousness device with the help of which he managed to reveal the emotional and psychological complexities of modern man. He made use of setting and state property to help in his dramatic representation
(3) As to his language, O'Neill frequently wrote the lines in dialect, or spelled words in ways which indicate a particular accent or manner of speech. This, sometimes, makes his plays difficult to read, but when they are spoken aloud, the sense becomes clear and the meaning is amplified by the accent.
O'Neill's ceaseless experimentation enriched American drama and influenced later playwrights.
3.Expressionism: It is used to describe the works of art and literature in which the representation of reality is distorted to communicate an inner vision, transforming nature rather than imitating it. In literature it is often considered a revolt against realism and naturalism, a seeking to achieve a psychological or spiritual reality rather than to record external events.
In drama, the expressionist work was characterized by a bizarre distortion of reality. Expressionist writers's concern was with general truths rather than with particular situations, hence they explored in their plays the predicaments of representative symbolic types rather than of fully developed individualized characters. Emphasis was laid on the internal, on an individual's mental state-the emotional content, the subjective reactions of characters, and symbolic or abstract representations of reality; hence the imitation of life is replaced in Expressionist drama by the ecstatic evocation of states of mind. In America, Eugene O'Neille's Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape, etc. are typical plays that employ Expressionism to highlight the theatrical effect of the rupture between the two sides of an individual human being, the private and the public.
The movement, though short-lived, gave impetus to a free form of writing and of theatrical production.
四．应用Selected Reading:
An Excerpt from Scene VⅢ of The Hairy Ape
1.The theme of the play or the tragic vision in it:
The tragic sense of modern man belonging nowhere, being helpless and impotent remained as the common theme of O'Neill's works.
The Hairy Ape is a good illustration. The play concerns the problem of modern man's identity. Yank's sense of belonging nowhere, hence homelessness and rootlessness, is typical of the mood of isolation and alienation in the early twentieth century in the United States and the whole world as well.
Yank was a stroker on a transatlantic liner. He was happy with life until the day when his brutality shocked and made faint Mildred Douglas. He was greatly insulted. Thus became gloomy, sullen and violent. He attempted to seek identity with the aristocratic class, the radical class. In the last scene of the play, rejected, Yank wandered to the zoo where he found affinity with the great ape there, only to be crushed to death. So, Yank's journey in quest of self-identity finished with his death, yet with the realization that he did belong nowhere. The general feeling is one of despairingly tragic. Man is homeless and rootless, alienated from the indifferent society.
2. The expressionistic techniques in the play:
(1) In this expressinistic play, abstract and symbolic stage sets are used to set off against the emotional inner selves and subjective states of mind. Take O'Neill's use of contrastive tones of remarks for example, Yank's friendliness and excitement contrasts the ape's anger, indifference and impatience and also contrasts his own bitterness, self-mocking and despair. So the emotional content, the subjective reactions of characters are emphasized, which symbolically represent the despairing reality.
(2) externalization of human interior: O'Neill uses vision to reveal psychological reality. In this play, Yank was haunted by appearance of Mildred Douglas, which shows his pain and despair. Therefore, O'Neill does not record external events as realists do. He sought to portray the way in which hidden psychological processes impinge upon outward action. He brought psychological realism, philosophical depth, and poetic symbolism into American literature.
3.Language: In this play O'Neill intentionally wrote the lines of Yank in dialect to show his social and economic status as an uneducated coal stoker. Many other examples could be found in this selection, for instance, "dat" for that, "yuh" for you, etc.
IV. F. Scott Fitzgerald (l896-l940)
一． 一般识记
His life and writing:
Francis Scott Fitzgerald was a most representative figure of the 1920s, who was mirror of the exciting age in almost every way. An active participant of his age, he never failed to remain detached and foresee the failure and tragedy of the "Dollar Decade." Thus he is often acc1aimed literary spokesman of the Jazz Age.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on September 24, l896. In his childhood, he admired his gentleman1y father who retained his upper-class manners but was always a little sensitive to the poor Irish beginnings on his mother's side. He had an expensive education in private schools at Princeton. But due to illness and neglect of academic study, he left the university in 1917 without graduation. He married Zelda Sayre, who exerted a strong influence on his literary career and his personal life. Zelda has been regarded as the prototype of a series of rich, beautiful women who figure so prominently in his fiction. The young couple frequently went abroad and lived extravagantly a luxurious life. To keep earning enough money, Fitzgerald wrote short stories and novels at a rapid speed. The l930s brought relentless decline for Fitzgerald with a series of misfortunes: his reputation declined, his wealth fell, his health failed, and what's more, Ze1da had suffered from some serious mental breakdowns which confined her in a sanitarium for the rest of her life. A1coholism, loneliness and despair combined to ruin Fitzgerald. He died in 1940 of a heart attack.
二． 识记
His major works:
His novels and short stories chronicled changing social attitudes during the 1920s, a period dubbed "The Jazz Age". His first novel This Side of Paradise won for him wealth and fame. His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned increased his popularity, which also portrays the emotiona1 and spiritual collapse of a wealthy young man during an unstable marriage. The coup1e in the novel were undoubtedly modeled after Fitzgerald himself and Zelda. His masterpiece The Great Gatsby (1925) made him one of the greatest American novelists. Afterwards, Fitzgerald wrote one more important novel Tender is the Night (l934), in which he traces the decline of a young American psychiatrist whose marriage to a beautiful and wealthy patient drains his personal energies and corrodes his professional career. His last novel The Last Tycoon remains unfinished.
Fitzgerald also wrote short stories of great popularity. His short story collections include Flappers and Philosophers (l92l), Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), All the Sad Young Man (l926) and Taps at Reveille (1935). One of his best short stories is "Babylon Revisited," which depicts an American's return to Paris in the 1930s and his regretful rea1ization that the past is beyond his reach, since he can neither alter it nor make any amends.
三． 领会
1. Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age:
(1) The Jazz Age: It refers to the 1920s, a time marked by frivolity, carelessness, hedonism and excitement in the life of the flaming youth. Fitzgerald is largely responsible for the term and many of his literary works portray it. The Jazz Age is brought vividly to life in The Great Gatsby.
(2) Most critics have agreed that Fitzgerald is both an insider and an outsider of the Jazz Age with a double vision of fascination and aloofness. He lived in his great moments and joined the big party in the l920s, partaking of the wealth, frivolity, temptations of the time, whi1e reproducing the drama of the age by standing aloof and keeping a cold eye on the performance of his contemporaries. He drank and did crazy things after he got drunk, whereas staying sober enough to see the corruptive nature of the society and the vanity fair that everyone, including himself, was infatuated with. This doubleness 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.
(3) 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--class society, especially the upper-class young people. Young men and women in the 1920s had a sense of reckless confidence not only about money but about 1ife in genera1. Since they grew up with the notion that the world would improve without their help, they felt excused from seeking the common good. Plunging into their persona1 adventures, engaging themselves in casual sex and heavy drinking, they took risks that did not impress them as being risks, and they spent money extravagant1y and enjoyed themselves to their hearts' content. But beneath their masks of relaxation and joviality there was only sterility, meaninglessness and futi1ity, and amid the grandeur and extravagance a spiritual waste1and and a hint of decadence and moral decay. This undeniable juxtaposition of appearance with reality, of the pretense of gaiety with the tension underneath, is easily recognizable in Fitzgerald's novels and stories.
2. Fitzgerald and the American Dream:
(1) Fitzgerald's fictions often deal with the bankruptcy of the American Dream, which is high1ighted by the disillusionment of the protagonists' personal dreams due to the clashes between their romantic vision of life and the sordid reality. American Dream is a popular belief that people can achieve success, whether it is wealth, fame or love through honest hard working in a new world of liberty, equality, chances and promises. Yet in the 1920s, the American Dream was bankrupt in the sense that the wealthy people were spiritually disorientated and morally corrupted. The fact that the rich people turned to be more indifferent and careless brought forth the disillusionment of American Dream.
A great number of his stories started with the basic situation in which a rising young man of the middle class is in love with the daughter of a very rich family. The young man is not attracted by the fortune in itself; he is not seeking money so much as what money can bring to him; and he loves the girl not so much as he loves what the gir1 symbolizes. 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 happiness. The man's real dream, as Malcolm Cow1ey suggested, is that of achieving a new status and a new essence, of rising to a loftier place in the mysterious hierarchy of human worth.
(2) Fitzgerald's own life was a mirror of the 1920s. He was the victim of his "American Dream." He was fascinated with material wealth on one hand by writing hard to accumulate wealth to live an extravagant life, yet was bewildered with the wealth on the other, fully aware of the underlying spiritual disorientation and moral decay. Finally in his life, alcoholism, loneliness and despair combined to ruin him. So his dream backfires him.
3. Fitzgerald's style:
He is a great stylist in American literature. His style, closely re1ated to his themes, is explicit and chilly. His accurate dialogues, his careful observation of mannerism, styles, models and attitudes provide the reader with a vivid sense of reality. He fol1ows the Jamesian tradition in using the scenic method in his chapters, each one of which consists of one or more dramatic scenes, sometimes with intervening passages of narration, leaving the tedious process of transition to the readers' imagination. He also skillfully employs the device of having events observed by a "central consciousness" to his great advantage. The accurate details, the completely original diction and metaphors, the bold impressionistic and colorful quality have all proved his consummate artistry.
四．应用Selected Reading:
An Excerpt from Chapter IlI of The Great Gatsby
(1) The theme of the novel: The Great Gatsby, by summarizing the experiences and attitudes of the glamorous and wild 1920s, deals with the bankruptcy of the American Dream, which is high1ighted by the disillusionment of the protagonist's personal dream due to the clashes between his romantic vision of life and the relentless reality. American Dream is a popular belief that people can achieve success, whether it is wealth, fame or love through honest hard working in a new world of liberty, equality, chances and promises. Yet in the 1920s, the American Dream was bankrupt in the sense that the wealthy people were spiritually disorientated and morally corrupted. The fact that the rich people turned to be more indifferent and careless brought forth the disillusionment of American Dream.
The story of The Great Gatsby is a good illustration. At the beginning of the story, Gatsby, a poor young man from the Midwest, is in love with but rejected by an upper-class woman, Daisy. He later attains the wealth by bootlegging and other criminal activities. Yet his fascination with and pursuit of money is but the means of recapturing the past and regaining his lost love. And for him, Daisy is the representation of a kind of idealized happiness. So Gatsby's real dream is that of achieving a new status and a new essence, of rising to a loftier place in the mysterious hierarchy of human worth. That is why Daisy Buchanan seems so charming to Gatsby and that is why Gatsby has directed his who1e life to winning back her love. Yet his dream ended up with Daisy's indifference and carelessness. Under this thematic design, the novel displays some modern motifs like the Waste-land theme as symbolized by the Valley of Ashes and boredom as reflected in Daisy and Tom.
(2) Chapter Ⅲ of the novel, a vivid description of one of Gatsby's fabulous parties, presents a vivid atmosphere of paradox. Gatsby's party, characteristic of the roaring twenties in the U.S. evokes both the romance and the sadness of the Jazz Age. On the surface, the party is crowded, yet empty of warmth or friendship, with people coming to the party eagerly but appearing indifferent and contemptuous of their host. Gatsby himself as the host is a paradox -- exceedingly courteous but keeps himself detached from the noisy and confusing crowd, because he, though fascinated with the wealth, was fully aware of the corruptive nature of the society and the vanity fair. The charm and sweetness of the youth is spoiled by triviality and tawdriness; The splendid house and garden is purchased not for enjoyment but for impression. There is every sign of merriment, with guests eating, drinking, laughing, moving about and dancing, but people get dead drunk, break down in tears or quarrel over trivialities. So beneath the wealthy people's masks of relaxation and joviality there was only sterility, meaninglessness and futi1ity, and amid the grandeur and extravagance a spiritual waste1and and a hint of decadence and moral decay. This undeniable juxtaposition of appearance with reality, of the pretense of gaiety with the tension underneath, is easily recognizable in Fitzgerald's novels and stories.
V. Ernest Hemingway (l899-1961)
一．一般识记
His life and writing:
Hemingway was a myth in his own time and his life was colorful. He was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Hemingway loved sports and often went hunting and fishing with his father, which provided him with writing materials. After high school, he worked as a reporter. During World War I he served as an honorable junior officer in the American Red Cross Ambulance Corps and in 1918 was severely wounded in both legs. After the war, he went to Paris as a foreign reporter. Influenced and guided by Sherwood Anderson, Stephen Crane and Gertrude Stein he became a writer and began to attract attention. Later he actively participated in the Spanish Civil War and World War II. In 1954, he was awarded the Nobe1 Prize for literature. In 196l, in ill hea1th, anxiety and deep depression, Hemingway shot himself with a hunting gun.
二．识记
His major works: Greatly and permanently affected by the war experiences, Hemingway formed his own writing style, together with his theme and hero. His first book In Our Time (1925) presents a Hemingway hero called Nick Adams. Exposed to and victimized by violence in various forms, Nick becomes the prototype of the wounded hero who, with all the dignity and courage he could muster, confronts situations which are not of his own choosing yet threaten his destruction. The Sun Also Rises(l926), Hemingway's first true novel, casts light on "The Lost Generation." The young expatriates in this novel are a group of wandering, amusing, but aimless peop1e, who are caught in the war and removed from the path of ordinary life. Hemingway's second big success is A Farewell to Arms (1929) wrote the epitaph to a decade and to the whole generation in the 1920s. It tells us about the tragic 1ove story about a wounded American soldier with a British nurse. Frederick Henry represents the experience of a whole nation, who is wounded in war and disi11usioned with the insanity and futility of the universe. In this novel, Hemingway not on1y emphasizes his belief that man is trapped both physically and mental1y, but goes to same lengths to refute the idea of nature as an expression of either God's design or his beneficence and to suggest that man is doomed to be entrapped.
For Whom the Bell Tolls concerns a volunteer American guerrilla Robert Jordan fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Although fully aware of the doomed failure of his struggle, he keeps on striving because it is a cause of freedom and democracy. In the end, the manner of his dying convinces people that life is worth living and there are causes worth dying for. The Old Man and the Sea, capping his career and leading to his receipt of the Nobel Prize, is about an old Cuban fisherman Santiago and his losing battle with a giant marlin. In a tragic sense, it is a representation of life as a struggle against unconquerable natural forces in which only a partial victory is possible. Nevertheless, there is a feeling of great respect for the struggle and mankind.
Hemingway's other important works include Men Without Women (1927), Death in the Afternoon (l932), The Green Hills of Africa (1935), The Snows Of Kilimanjaro (1936) and To Have and Have Not (1937).
三．领会
1. The themtic patterns of his works:
(1) The Lost Generation: It refers to, in general, the post-World WarⅠgeneration, but specifically a group of expatriate disillusioned intellectuals and artists, who experimented on new modes of thought and expression by rebelling against former ideals and values and replacing them only by despair or a cynical hedonism. The remark of Gertrude Stein, "You are all a lost generation, "addressed to Hemingway, was used as an epigraph to Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises, which brilliantly describes those expatriates who had cut themselves off from their past in America in order to create new types of writing. The generation was "lost" in the sense that they were disillusioned with the war-wrecked world and spiritually alienated from a U.S. that seemed to be hopelessly provincial, materialistic, and emotional barren. The term embraces Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, E.E.Cummings, and many other writers who made Paris the center of their literary activities in the 1920s.
(2) The Hemingway Code Hero It refers to some protagonists in Hemingway's works. In the general situation of Hemingway's novels, life is full of tension and battles; the world is in chaos and man is always fighting desperately a losing battle. Those who survive and perhaps emerge victorious in the process of seeking to master the code with a set of principles such as honor, courage, endurance, wisdom, discipline and dignity are known as "the Hemingway code". To behave well in the lonely, losing battle with life is to show "grace under pressure" and constitutes in itself a kind of victory, a theme clearly established in The Old Man and The Sea. Though life is but a losing battle, it is a struggle man can dominate in such a way that loss becomes dignity; man can be physical1y destroyed but never defeated spiritually. Obviously, Hemingway's limited fictional world implies a much broader thematic pattern and serious philosophica1 concern. Hemingway Code Heroes plainly embody Hemingway's own values and view of life.
2. Hemingway's style:
His style is probably the most widely imitated of any in the 20th century. He is generally known for his "mastery of the art
of modern narration." Hemingway himself once said, "The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. Typical of this "iceberg" analogy is Hemingway's style. According to Hemingway, good literary writing should be ab1e to make readers feel the emotion of the characters directly and the best way to produce the effect is to set down exact1y every particular kind of feeling without any authoria1 comments, without conventionally emotive language, and with a bare minimum of adjectives and adverbs. Seemingly simple and natural, Hemingway's style is actually polished and tightly contro1led, but highly suggestive and connotative. While rendering vividly the outward physical events and sensations Hemingway expresses the meaning of the story and conveys the complex emotions of his characters with a considerable range and astonishing intensity of feeling. Besides, Hemingway develops the style of co1loquia1ism initiated by Mark Twain. The accents and mannerisms of human speech are so well presented that the characters are fu11 of flesh and blood and the use of short, simple and conventional words and sentences has an effect of clearness, terseness and great care. This ruthless economy in his writing stands as a striking app1ication of Mies van der Rohe's architectural maxim: "Less is more." No wonder Hemingway was highly praised by the Nobel Prize Committee for "his powerful style-forming mastery of the art" of creating modern fiction.
四． 应用
Selected Reading: Indian Camp
(1) Theme: Hemingway's concern about violence and death by revealing Nick's feeling of perplexity, anxiety and terror over the misery of life and death.
(2) Characterization: "Indian Camp" relates the story of young Nick watching his father deliver an Indian woman of a baby by Caesarian section with a jack-knife and without anesthesia to relieve the pain. The cries of the mother and the cruel death of the husband brings the boy into contact with something that is perplexing and unpleasant. And this is actually Nick's initiation into the pain and violence of birth and death. The reader is impressed by Nick's innocence and perplexity over the misery of life and death.
Nick Adams is, when he first grows up, the early Hemingway protagonist, introduced to a world of violence, disorder, and death, and learning the hard way about what the world is like. Growing up in violent and dismal surroundings, Nick is psychologically and emotionally wounded and is later alienated from the society. The wound is a symbol and the climax for a process of the development of the character of Hemingway Hero; it is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual disgrace.
(3) Language: Hemingway sought to endow prose with the density of poetry, making each image, each scene and each rendered act serve several purposes.
Ⅵ. William Faulkner (1897-l962)
一． 一般识记
His life and writing:
Faulkner is the most powerful and eloquent representative of American Southern writers. American Southern writers mainly write about the histiry, customs, people and social change of the American South, a region that contains much beauty, violence, passion, courage and, finally tragedy. It was from the region's characteristics that Faulkner drew the material for most of his fiction.
Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi and raised in nearby Oxford, and lived there almost all his life. He left school in his teens and later studied as aspecial student at the University of Mississippi. Fond of literature, he was increasingly motivated to become a writer. In 1918, he enlisted in the British Royal Flying Corps. Later he travelled Europe and learned the experimental writing of James Joyce and of the ideas of Sigmund Freud. He died of a heart attack in Oxford, Mississippi.
二． 识记
His major works: Faulkner published a volume of poetry The Mirble Faun (1924) and his first novel Soldiers' Pay (1926). In writing Sartoris (l929), he began to see and feel the dignity and sorrow of what was to become his most frequently used subject matter. The Sound and the Fury was considered as the work of a major writer. His other major works include As I Lay Dying (l930), Light in August (l932), Absalom, Absalom (1936), Wild Palms (1939) and The Hamlet (1940). The Unvanquished (1938) and Go Down Moses (1942) are thematica1ly interwoven. An anthology of his writings is entitled The Portable Faulkner. In l950, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for the anti-racist Intruder in the Dust (1948). His other remarkable novels include Requiem for a Nun (l951), The Fable (1954), The Town (1957), and The Mansion(1959).
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. The Sound and the Fury is his acclaimed masterpiece, an account of the tragic downfall of the Compson family. It is a story of "lost innocence," which proves itself to be an intensification of the theme of imprisonment in the past. Faulkner develops the theme of deterioration and loss by juxtaposing the childhood of the Compson brothers with their present experience. As a resu1t, the novel not merely relates Quentin's nosta1gic feeling about the past, or a Southern family that remains trapped within its past, but conveys a strong sense of grief over the deterioration of the South from the past to the present.
The major concern of Light in August is primarily about the South as a state of mind. In this novel, different attitudes towards life - plainly obsessions with the past, with blood or race and solely concern with bringing forth and preserving life - represented by different major characters.
Absalom, Absalom! is a novel entirely of the attempts to explain the past, characterized by involutions of narrative structure. It is immensely complex, for it is both a "historical novel" and a novel about history as an epistemological problem.
Go Down, Moses is in a sense a companion piece to Absalom, Absalom! but at the same time another and very different attempt to handle the Southern reality of land, family and the plantation as a form of life. In this book, Faulkner illuminates the problem of b1ack 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 which the view of the moral abomination of slavery and the human entanglements goes beyond history, to the beginnings, to the mythic time. In this story, Fau1kner skillfully emp1oys an o1d crafty bear as a symbol of the timeless freedom of the wilderness.
三．领会
1. Yoknapatawpha County as the setting:
Most of Faulkner's works are set in the American South, with his emphasis on the Southern subjects and consciousness. They are about people from a sma1l region in Northern Mississippi, Yoknapatawpha County, which is actually an imaginary place based on Faulkner's childhood memory about the town of Oxford in his native Lafayette County. With his rich imagination, Faulkner turned the land, the people and the history of the region into a literary creation and a mythical kingdom. The Yoknapatawpha stories deal, generally, with the historical period from the Civil War up to the 1920s when the First World War broke out, and people of a stratified society, the aristocrats, the new rich, the poor whites, and the blacks. As a result, Yoknapatawpha County has become an allegory or a parable of the Old South, with which Faulkner has managed successfully to show a panorama of the experience and consciousness of the whole Southern society. The Yoknapatawpha saga is Faulkner's real achievement.
2. The thematic pattern:
Most of the major themes are directly related to the tragic collision or confrontation between the old South and the new South (or the civilized modern society) represented by different characters in his novels.
(1) Faulkner exemplified T. S. Eliot's concept of modern society as a wasteland in a dramatic way. He lamented the decline of the old South and condemned the mechanized, industrialized society which has dehumanized man by forcing him to cultivate fa1se values and decrease those essential human values such as love, courage, fortitude, honesty and goodness. Faulkner held tolerance and compassion with traditional values such as serenity and elegance on one hand, and recognized the need to redefine and reaffirm them on the other.
(2) The past and the present, nature and society are always juxtaposed in his works. Almost all of his protagonists turn out to be tragic because they are prisoners of the past, or of the society, or of some social and moral taboos, or of their own introspective personalities. By describing his protagonists the way he does, Faulkner suggests that society, which conditions man with its hierarchical stratification and with its laws, the civi1ization and socia1 institutions, eliminates man's chance of responding naturally to the experiences of his existence. Man, turning away from reality by alienating himself from truth with his attempts to explain the inexplicable, becomes weak and cowardly, confused and ineffectua1.
3. Faulkner's narrative technique:
He 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.
(1) Withdrawal of the author as a controlling narrator: To him, the primary duty of a writer was to explore and represent the infinite possibilities inherent in human life. Therefore a writer should observe with no judgement whatsoever and reduce authorial intrusion to the lowest minimum.
(2) Dislocation of the narrative time: The most characteristic way of structuring his stories is to fragment the chronological time. He deliberately broke up the chrono1ogy of his narrative by juxtaposing the past with the present, in the way the montage does in a movie.
(3) The modern stream-of-consciousness technique and the interior monologue: Stream-of-consciousness technique was frequent1y and skillfully exploited by Faulkner to emphasize the reactions and inner musings of the narrator. And the interior monologue helps him achieve the most desirable effect of exploring the nature of human consciousness.
(4) Multiple points of view: The employment of several narrators or narrative points of views to tell a story, thus making the structure of the book somewhat radiative. For example, The Sound and the Fury uses four different narrative voices to piece together the story and thus challenges the reader by presenting a fragmented plot told from multiple points of view.
(5) The other narrative techniques he used to construct his stories include symbolism and mythological and biblical a11usions.
3. Faulkner's language: He was a master of his own particular style of writing. Great writers such as Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James and James Joyce all had a part in influencing Faulkner. His prose, marked by long and embedded sentences, complex syntax, and vague reference pronouns and a variety of "registers" of the English language, is very difficu1t to read. In contrast, Faulknen cou1d sound very casual or informal sometimes. He captured the dialects of the Mississippi characters. Most of the symbols and imageries are drawn from nature.
四． 应用
A Rose for Emily
(1) The theme: "A Rose for Emily" is Faulkner's first short story published in 1930. Set in the town of Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha, the story expresses Faulkner's theme of the confrontation of the old South and the civilized modern society. Emily is in collision with the industrialized and mechanized society by clinging to the past and alienating herself from the modern society, which makes her a tragic victim.
(2) Characterization: As a descendent of the Southern aristocracy, Emily Grierson is typical of those in Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha stories that are symbols of the old South but also the prisoners of the past. Firstly, she depended on her father and clang to his memory by remaining unmarried because of dominance of her father and his rigid ideas about social status, by keeping his portrait in a prominent place in her living room, by refusing to release her father's dead body for burial and by assuming her father's domineering traits ( She "carries her head high in her dignity as the last Grierson." ) Secondly, Emily was eccentric in refusing to accept the passage of time or the inevitable social change by refusing to pay taxes, buying poison and offering no explanation and refusing to cooperate with modern postal service. Thirdly, Emily demonstrates her deformed personality and abnormality in her relationship with her sweetheart. Her refusal to adapt herself to the new order and her defiance of the old order are not just pathetic attempts to cling to the past, but developed into obsession and homicidal mania by killing Homer Barren in order to keep him.
However, it is important to remember that Emily, for all her eccentricities, not to mention her serious mental illness, is never laughed at or treated with contempt or disgust. She is seen first and foremost as a tragic human being. Though twisted by forces beyond her control, her struggle to assert her will even in madness, has something valiant and heroic about it. Faulkner holds tolerance and compassion for her tragedy on one hand, because she displays serenity and elegance in character; he partially condemns her alienation of herself from the reality which makes her tragedy inevitable.
(3) Stylitic features: In this story, Faulkner also employed the dislocated time sequence by juxtaposing the past with the present. The story is divided into five sections which represent five petals of rose. Faulkner makes best use of the Gothic devices in narration to dramatize Emily's deformed personality and abnormality in her relationship with her sweetheart. Other narative techniques used in the story include the multiple points of view and symbolism. Take symbolism for example, Emily as "the fallen monument " is the symbol of tradition, the old South and old way of life, while gin and gasoline pumps, taxes, postal service are symbols of mechanized and civilized modern society. Rose is associated with love, but here "a dead rotten love." It shows Faulkner's sympathy or respect for Emily.
这是美国的
真心感谢，很受用
有英国的吗
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