美国文学史及选读试卷2

美国文学史及选读试卷2

美国文学选读复习资料 浪漫主义

American Romanticism

The Romantic Period stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It is a period of the great flowering of American literature.

The social and cultural background of Romanticism

The young Republic was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country.

The Romantic writings revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands. The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values.

爱默生

Emerson = The chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism 超验主义 He was a descendent of a long line of New England clergymen牧师【pastor】.

American Transcendentalism

As a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalism (also known as “ American Renaissance”) flourshed in New England from the 1830s to the Civil War. It is the high tide of American romanticism and its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau. Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. Transcendentalism 超验主义(+ H. D. Thoreau; Nathaniel Hawthorne; ) The major features of Transcendentalism:

① The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想 超灵 宇宙

② The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual is the most important element of Society. 个体+社会

③ The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence. 自然+上帝

Emerson’s代表作：Nature；Self-Reliance；The American Scholar；The Over-soul；

H. D. Thoreau 梭罗and his work

Walden 瓦尔登湖not only fully demonstrates Emersonian ideas of self-reliance but also develops and tests Thoreau’s own transcendental philosophy. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 朗费罗 Features of Longfellow’s poetic works

Chief romantic tendencies as humanitarian attitude, love of nature and love of beauty. The first American poet to write narrative poems. Conventional style and subjects

Generally simple ideas expressed musically and powerfully.

Simplicity and detachment from the deep problems of contemporary life Daybreak；The Bells

William Faulkner(1897-1962 1949 Nobel price “Stream of Consciousness” 意识流or “interior monologue”,内心独白 is one of the modern literary techniques.

美国文学史及选读试卷2

It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them. It was first used in 1922 by the Irish novelist James Joyce.

The Sound and the Fury (1929) 人物?? As I Lay Dying (1930) Light in the August ( 1932) Absalom, Absalom (1936) Go Down Moses (1942)

Ernest Hemingway

Iceberg Principle (Theory):冰山法则

The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. Code hero

a noble but tragic hero; fighting with the overwhelming force; though he knows that he will be defeated at last, he decides to act like a hero. In one sense Hemingway wrote all his life about one theme, which is neatly summed up in the famous phrase “grace under pressure” Major Works:

The Sun Also Rises 1926 (Jake Barnes)

A Farewell to Arms 1928 (a tragic story about war and love) (Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley) For Whom the Bell Tolls 1940 (Spanish civil war) (Robert Jordan) The Old Man and the Sea 1952 (Santiago)

Herman Melville

代表作：白鲸Moby Dick Other Works are: Billy Budd,Typee, Omoo, Mardi.

Symbolism in Moby Dick：It is regarded as the first American prose epic. 散文史诗？

It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth 寻找真理and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology.

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难以理解的, malignant恶性的, and beautiful as well.

Realism 浪漫主义之后，现代主义之前

As a literary movement, the Age of Realism came into existence after Romanticism with the Civil War It was a reaction against “the lie” of Romanticism and sentimentalism, and paved the way to Modernism. This literary interest in the so-called “reality” of life started a new period in the American literary writing known as The Age of Realism. Psychological Realism

It is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters’ thoughts and motivations. And Henry James is considered the founder of psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in the impressions made by life on the spectator, and not in any facts of which the spectator is unaware. Such realism is therefore merely the obligation that the artist assumes to represent life as he sees it.

The three dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells豪威尔斯, Mark Twain, and Henry James. Mark Twain and Howells seemed to have paid more attention to the “life” of the Americans, and Henry James had apparently laid greater emphasis o …… 此处隐藏：27744字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……