美国文学中重点篇章

The Scarlet Letter

An aging scholar, Chillingworth sends his beautiful young wife (being born into a poor country family, marrying the scholar to survive) Hester Prynne（海丝特普琳）to make their new home in New England. Two years later. He comes to New England, he wife has given birth to a baby girl. As a punishment for her sin of adultery, she is made to wear the letter “A” on her dress over her bosom. It is a sign of shame.

As Prynne refuses to name the father of her child, in order to find who her lover is, her husband disguises himself as a physician, changes his name to Roger Chillingworth. Gradually, he discovers that her lover is the much-admired brilliant young clergyman, Arthur Dimmesdale. Without telling Dimmesdale who he is and what he has found out, he begins to torture him in a cruel way, though there had never been love between he and his wife.

The Clergyman suffered horribly from guilt because he does not confess his sin. The weight of his guity seems to destroy both his body and his spirit. In the end, he dies in the arm of Prynne while confessing his sin at a public gathering. Chillingworth also dies. Comment

1 .Hawthorn portrays Hester as an aristocratic and sensitive young woman who meets her sentence with dignity and courage. When she is set free, she does not flee the community. She supports herself and her child by doing fancy needlework, devotes her life to her child and helping the sick and the poor, and wins the admiration and love of her fellowmen again. So, The Scarlet Letter is a hymn on the moral growth of the woman. The scarlet letter at first is a token of shame, Adultery, then the genuine sympathy and help she offers to her fellow villagers change it to Able. Later in the end, A appears in the sky, signifying Angel. Her life eventually acquires a real significance when she establishes a meaningful relationship with her fellowmen.

2. Hawthorne maintains that the best policy for man is to be true, honest and ever ready to show one’s worst to the outside world. Hester does it all her life, so she wins a moral victory. Dimmesdale does it finally, so he experiences physical and spiritual torture and dies, dies in his own hands. It is Chillingworth who commits “the unpardonable sin” by keeping suffering Dimmsdale’s conscience until he is tort ured to death, so the end of him is also tragic.

It reveals his feminist viewpoint. Hawthorne hopes (in Prynne’s words) that marriage can be based on mutual understanding and love.

The Fall of the House of Usher（厄舍古屋的倒塌）

Outline: A brother and a sister live in a decaying home. The sister with whom the brother may commit incest is so ill that the brother buried her alive and puts the coffin away in one part of the house. Then on a stormy night, the sister breaks out of her coffin and dies in the embrace of the brother, who also dies. The house collapses too.

恐惧是全人类共有的最基本的情感，是大家避之不及的。在世界文坛上没有人能够像19世纪的美国小说家、诗人、批评家埃德加·爱伦·坡那样投入地去关注、描写恐怖，感受恐惧，带给读者强烈的心灵震撼。

1《厄舍古屋的倒塌》中的哥特文学元素

哥特文学的特点正如英国评论家桑德斯所指出的，哥特文学拒绝描写日常生活，倾向于描写

“峭壁和深渊，折磨和恐怖、巫术、恋尸癖以及心神不定。它沉浸于鬼魂出没、突然死亡、地牢、巫术、幻觉和预言之中。哥特式小说，从根本上说，过去和现在都是对舒适与安全政治稳定和商业繁荣的负面反应。最重要的是，它反抗理性的支配。”[2]498《厄舍古屋的倒塌》中的哥特文学特点不仅为小说情节营造了必要的氛围，也是隐含作者“召唤”读者进入小说世界、进而进入人物心灵世界的必要技术手段。小说一开始，就描写了在“阴郁、晦暗、岑寂”的秋日中的厄舍古屋。古屋前氤氲环绕的山池，“倒映出灰色的芦苇、惨白的树干、茫然眼睛似的窗户”，古屋内鬼影幢幢，曲折的回廊，哥特式的大门，“窗户又长又窄，尖尖耸起”，四壁的玄色帐幔，乌黑的地板，家具古老破旧。叙事者“我”应童年伙伴厄舍先生之邀来探望饱受精神疾病折磨的厄舍先生，心情却和所处的场景一样地萧杀，茫然惆怅，又说不出所以然。古屋内的听差蹑手蹑脚，家庭医生“慌慌张张”，一脸的“奸刁和惶惑”[1]43。古屋男主人厄舍先生面如死灰，常年忍受着神秘的家族遗传病的折磨，深居简出，陷入异样的恐惧中惶惶不可终日。厄舍先生的妹妹在“我”抵达当日的傍晚突然去世，在一个狂风大作，暴雨将临的夜晚，厄舍先生的妹妹破棺而出，挣扎出湿冷的地窖，身裹白色的寿衾，血迹斑斑地出现在我和厄舍先生面前，和厄舍先生一同倒地而死，正如此前厄舍先生所预言，他将在“这种可悲的疯癫中断送性命……没第二条路。”[1]45“我”仓皇而逃，厄舍古屋在身后坍塌崩溃，淹没在黝黑的山池中。

坡曾说，他的作品中的恐怖是“心灵的恐怖”，叙述者和读者在他精心营造的特殊环境中，体验着离奇的情节和诡异的气氛。小说中场景、人物、情节和心理的描写互为呼应，共同营造了神秘莫测、恐怖阴森的氛围。美国哥特小说因其“内在化”和“心理化”的特点而有别于传统的英国哥特小说，而爱伦·坡尤其使其小说朝内在化发展方面[3]98。“哥特小说传统中的场景和人物经由坡的想像力的改造，丰富了其象征，延伸了其叙述的心理意义。”[4]84小说中缺乏明确的地理暗示，故事情节离奇，凸显出一座孤立的、远离真实生活的厄舍古屋，然而叙事者通过高度渲染经他感知的环境和叙事者自己心理的描写，将读者亦步亦趋地引入一个神秘的陌生世界，欲罢不能地去感知、最终依赖并信赖叙事者的讲述。坡在其《创作哲学》中也曾说：“孤立的场景必须放在封闭的空间才会出效果，这就像把画装进画框一样。封闭的空间对保持读者的注意力集中具有一种不容置疑的影响力。”[5]717隐含作者就是这样用“召唤”或“暗示”的方法来激发读者的想像。经坡改造后的哥特文学元素在强化叙事和叙事环境对读者的心灵感染力方面起着关键的作用，同时，古老的、反理性的哥特文化的再现也象征着人类亘古不变的对精神世界的好奇和探索。正如肖明翰先生指出的，爱伦·坡“更为重要的贡献是把道德探索同心理探索有机地结合起来。”[3]98

2不可靠的叙事者的模糊叙述

我”，即苏珊·S.兰瑟称为的“戏剧化叙述者”[6]155不仅是小说中的戏剧人物，也是联系小说世界和外部世界的唯一报告人。第一人称“我”的有限视角，剥夺了读者全面客观地观察和判断的权利。“我”受到小说中恐怖气氛的影响，同时也用受到感染的心情去渲染周围的环境。这是一位不可靠的“戏剧化叙述者”，小说中“我”的模糊叙述更是有力地彰显了这部小说所要体现的艺术效果。

小说一开始就萦绕着说不清、道不明的阴郁气氛，不知是叙事者的心情感染了环境，还是特定的环境影响了叙事者的心情，情景交融，却未见叙事者交待其原由。相反，一些模糊表述强化了神秘的气氛，引诱读者放松了警惕，还不禁同情起叙事者来。如“说不上是怎么回事———可乍见那座府邸，心头顿时添上一阵愁，叫人受不了”，“这个谜根本解不开”，“要分析这股感染力，即使费尽心机也是枉然”[1]41。“我”心里认为厄舍先生的邀请“蹊跷透

顶”[1]42，但还是马上赴约。名曰童年时的挚友，“我”对厄舍先生却知之甚少，直到帮厄舍先生的妹妹处理善后时，才知道厄舍先生和他妹妹是双胞胎。

模糊叙述使叙事者“我”的叙述的可靠性受到质疑，故事情节也因其真真假假而产生悬念上的张力。然而叙事者亦真亦假的叙述没有引起读者的愤怒或排斥，相反，读者会为自己的明察秋毫而沾沾自喜，为满足进一步的好奇心和虚荣心，读者会更主动地配合叙事者去解开故事的悬念。正如华莱士·马丁所指出，作者总是希望引导人们感到“他们自己才是它所针对的读者”，“当我们认为自己是隐含作者对之发言的读者时，我们就成为彼得·拉比诺维茨所谓的…作者的受众?，其根据是，我们与作者同样心照不宣地知道，正在讲的故事是个虚构。”[5]161然而小说的有限视角又使得读者不得不依赖叙事者的叙事和感知。如此这般，隐含作者将谨慎的、抑或轻信的读者引入一个神秘的陌生世界，切断其与现实生活的联系，全身心地去体会和感受叙述的艺术冲击力。恐怖产生于对陌生的、不确定事物的体验和猜测，我们置身于幻觉的险境之中，但又明了危险不会真正降临在我们读者身上，由此也产生了阅读的愉悦。

小说中频频出现的现实与幻影的交叉融合，同一事物的多重意象，延伸了有限的小说空间环境，模糊了真实和虚构的界限，物质世界和精神世界在象征中时而对峙，时而融合，拓展了恐怖的意义。小说一开始描绘了满目萧条的秋色中的厄舍古屋，“我”惆怅而凄戚，然而俯视倒映在山池中的厄舍古屋，让“我”“不禁浑身一阵寒噤，竟比刚才还要惶悚”[1]42。厄舍古屋“一条看不大清的裂缝，从正面屋顶上曲曲折折地裂到墙根，消失在阴沉沉的池水中”[1]43似乎早就预示了厄舍古屋最终的坍塌，并和山池最终融为一体。“我”见到厄舍先生时“既同情又害怕”，据厄舍先生自己解释，是因为家庭遗传的精神疾病和古屋的特点、环境感染了他的心灵。他处于极端的不安和恐惧之中，理智和疯狂在他的体内做着最后的较量，对丧失理智和死亡的恐惧让他惶惶不可终日。正如他自己所预言，“我快死了，准要在这种可悲的疯癫中断送性命”。古屋内回廊曲折，鬼影幢幢，对“我”来说既熟悉又陌生。“厄舍”因其一贯古怪、一脉单传的家族特点，以至成了一个双关语，既指这户家族成员，也指这座房子。当这一家族的最后成员倒地而死时，厄舍古屋也轰然坍塌。物和人的界限被模糊了，正如“usher”一词有着“引、领”之意，叙事者引领读者进入的不仅是隐形作者精心建构的厄舍古屋，也是对人的濒临崩溃的精神世界的一次探索。

厄舍先生的孪生妹妹玛德琳小姐身患神秘的不治之症，奄奄一息，俩人“彼此之间有着简直无从理解的共鸣”[1]52。玛德琳小姐去世之后，厄舍先生的“精神世界和物质世界的一切就此一片晦暗了”[1]46。叙事者通过描述厄舍先生幻影横生的构思，揭示了一个丧失了理智的光照后的精神世界。

在通过叙事者体验着厄舍先生信马由缰、光怪陆离的幻影带来的强烈的心灵震撼的同时，爱伦·坡所谓的“艺术美”也发挥到极致。厄舍先生凭着他幻影横生的构思所作的画，“不是地窖，便是隧道，其长无比，是个矩形，四壁低矮，光滑……但不见出口，也看不到火把……满满一室的强烈亮光四下翻滚，整个洞就此浴在一片不相称的阴森森的光辉中。”[1]47几天之后，“我”帮厄舍先生将玛德琳的棺材抬到地窖中停尸十四天，目睹了深埋在厄舍古屋之下的地窖，“那地窖关闭多年，火把差点给窒息的空气弄灭……又小又湿，没缝没隙，透不进一丝光……一部分地板，和地室前的长长的一条拱廊的四壁，都仔细包着黄铜。一扇铁门也照样包着铜，又大又沉，门一开，擦着铰链，就嘎嘎发出尖得出奇的一声。”[1]52小说中多处对封闭的建筑结构的描写通过不同形式、声音、色调和情感表现出来，带给读者强烈的感观和心灵的震撼，这震撼来源于人潜意识中对幽闭和死亡的排斥和惧怕。厄舍先生认为：“他们

家公馆的外表和实质上的一些特色，使他的心灵受了感染；灰墙和塔楼的模样，还有倒映出这一切影子的暗沉沉山池的模样，使他这个人的精神受了影响。”[1]45封闭的环境也是对厄舍先生的精神枷锁的象征，多年来精神世界所依附的外部环境终于成为桎梏心灵的枷锁，以至于让厄舍先生“完全明白自己那位理智国王快从宝座上摔下来了。”[1]47威尔伯曾提出，“从喻象层面上说，厄歇尔古屋可视为罗德里克·厄歇尔的躯体，其幽暗的内部，则是他头脑中的幻念”，而整部作品则是“通向自我深处的旅程”[7]79。

小说中多处引用穿插或虚构或真实的文学作品，被引用的作品对声、光、电的描写，恰到好处地衬托了恐怖气氛和故事的情节发展。厄舍先生即兴所作的诗“群魔闹金殿”（The Haunted Palace）高度渲染了厄舍先生即将丧失理智前迷乱的心智。暴风雨之夜，为了安抚心神不定、精神高度紧张的厄舍先生，“我”拿起一部传奇小说《疯子屈里斯特》（Mad Trist)，书中声音的描写和“我”耳边听到的“不差丝毫”，“诧异和无比恐惧，折磨得我好苦”[1]55。真真假假的作品的引用和叙述，混淆了真实和虚构，读者被“我”的情绪所感染，陷入无法自拔的恐惧和悬念之中，当“笨重的乌门慢慢裂开了大口”，门外站着“个子高大、身裹寿衾”的玛德琳小姐，“她那袭白衾上溅着鲜血，她那骨瘦如柴的身体上上下下都透着苦苦挣扎过的痕迹”[1]56，故事情节发展到了高潮。玛德琳小姐和厄舍先生双双倒地而死，“我”仓皇而逃，厄舍古屋顿时坍塌淹没在山池中。物质世界在理智和精神彻底崩溃之时也顿时分崩离析，失去了存在的意义。

形式各异的艺术想像和生活融为一体，纵然读者有意识要逃避这种恐怖的叙述，也欲罢不能地被这个神秘的陌生世界所吸引。爱伦·坡似乎就是用这种方式来刺激、引导他的读者去探究人的精神世界中人们一般不愿去面对、去了解的一面。恐怖叙述是爱伦·坡为了达到他所需要的效果所采用的手段，也是爱伦·坡联系物质世界和精神世界的纽带。恐怖叙述的特殊力量打破了物质世界为人铸造的外壳，打开了人的精神世界的另一扇窗。

2. The Portrait of a Lady （淑女画像）(American innocence caught in the traps of European duplicity) (Isabel, who succeeds to a large amount of legacy refuses the propose of an American millionaire Caspar, but gets married with an artist Osmond living in Italy. Later she finds that she is deceived. The artist marries her for the money, and their go-between is his mistress with whom he has an illegitimate daughter, Pansy. She returns to England. There she again meets Caspar and finally realizes that he is the one she loves. But she has promised Pansy to return to Italy, and she remembers her marriage vows and the child who has only her to look for protection. She rejects this last chance for happiness and rejoins her husband and step daughter.

He first became known as a writer of humorous western tales. In his early years, tone of his fiction is humorous, light, and optimism. But gradually, he turned to bitter satire and pessimism. Some critics link this change with the tragic events of his latter life: the failure of his investment, the death of his beloved wife and two daughters. But the basic reason should be the darkening life..

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn （哈克.费恩历险记）. His masterwork. The story relates how Huck, floating along with Jim and helping him as best as he can, changes his mind, his prejudice about Black people, and comes to accept Jim as a man and as close friend as well.

Huck starts by believing that Blacks are by nature lower than whites. So at first he cannot see Jim as a proper human being. Through their escape down the river, he gets to know

Jim better and becomes more and more convinced that he is not only a man, but also a good man. Thus he ends up by accepting him not merely a human being, but also a faithful friend.

1. Huck is a veritable recreation of living models. All the characters had prototypes in real life.

2. The book is written in the colloquial style, in the general standard speech of uneducated Americans. (e.g., ungrammatical element: knowed). Mark Twain’s significant contribution to American literature lies in the fact that he made colloquial speech as accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country. (About his language characteristics see p190)

3. He made his stance on anti-slavery clear, showed his democratic idea of freedom and equality, as he did in Puddn’ Head Wilson （傻瓜威尔逊）

Life on the Mississippi (在密西西比河上)。Another masterpiece. The first 20 chapters recall pre-war days of piloting on the river, especially Twain’s experience as a pilot. The last 40 are a rather dry description of the river and the town along it during the early 1880s. He writes about the new commercialism along the river. (In some people’s mind at that time, Dollar is their God; their religion is how to get it). The effect is to contrast the present with the past to communicate the author’s sense of loss.

Summary:

A country girl comes to Chicago to look for a better life. On the train, she gets acquainted with a traveling salesman, Drouet. She first stays with her sister. However, her sister is too poor to keep her. Then when she is seriously ill, Drouet comes to her rescue and takes her home. Later, her beauty attracts Drouet’s friend, Hurswood. He deserts his comfortable home and family, and forces her to elope with him. For sometime, they experience terrible poverty. Sister Carrie goes out to work on the stage and becomes successful. But Hurswood proves himself to be unfit. He tries different jobs but fails. Then Sister Carrie deserts him. On a cold winter night, he commits suicide.

Comment:

1. It presents a new moral fiber: man is an animal in the jungle, driven by greed and lust in

a struggle for existence, only the fittest survived. Therefore, existence is the most essential, the only instinct of man. In such circumstance, man has no power to assert his will, so man doesn’t have to be responsible for his moral act ivity.

2. As for Sister Carrie, the world is cold and harsh to her. Alone and helpless, she moves along like a mechanism driven by desire and catches blindly at any opportunities for a better existence. She is a feather in the wind, and always at the mercy forces she cannot understand, let alone to control. She does not seem to possess what may be called a moral fiber.

Robert Frost 弗罗斯特

Theme:

1. Most of Frost’s poems depict New England landscape. For example, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (雪夜停在林边)，It represents a moment of relaxation from the burdensome journey of life, an almost aesthetic enjoyment and appreciation of natural beauty.

2. However, he does not rest only on the description of the scenery, some of his poetry is

symbolic. E.g, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” indeed is wholesome and restorative against the chaotic existence of modern man. The scenes of rural life reflect the fragmentization of modern experience. E.g. In “Design”, a white spider holds a white moth on a white flower. It is about the “design of darkness” that governs the world and reflects on the impotence of its inhabitance, by extension, man.

3. The depiction of a great number of abnormal people indicates Frost’s awareness that something has gone wrong with the land and its way of life. In “Mending Wall”, the famous line “Good fences make good neighbors”（“墙高出睦邻”）reveals tension of modern life, and describes the feeling of alienation among modern men.

F.S Fitzgerald (1896-1940) 菲兹杰拉德

The Spokesman of “the roaring 20’s

“Roar” suggests noise, disorder, chaos, irrationality, confusion and loss.

“The Roaring 20’s”(浮躁的年代)，also known as “Jazz age”（爵士乐时代的故事），refers to the ten years from the end of World War I to the great Depression. At that time，many young people became the upper class generation since they got a lot of money from Stock Market，and the old moral codes were breaking down. They suffered from spiritual disillusionment and indulged themselves in pleasure-seeking. Fitzgerald, with his The Jazz Age, became its spokesman.

Works

He gave a vivid picture of “the change of morals”

“the change of manners”

“the change of life styles”

“the change of environment”

It was a fresh picture of the young man

Subject matter: life of upper class young generation, the breaking up of American dream, illusion and disillusion. He told us what money brought about.

Characters: vivid and believable, modeled on himself and his friends.

The Great Gatsby (了不起的盖茨比)p288

It’s like an autobiography

Daisy: beautiful, but mean, selfish, vulgar, snobbish, completely dehumanized and dehumanizing people for whom nothing is held sacred except themselves. Indulged in pleasure-seeking. What she cares about is how to kill time, what to do this afternoon, tomorrow afternoon, afternoon of the following 20 years. Money-oriented. Her voice is “full of money”－like the sound of coins.

Gatsby: charmingly innocent enough to believe that the past can be recovered and resurrected.

Both corrupt and corrupting tragically convinces of the power of money however it was made.

The more we read, the more we can see that Gatsby died of his wrong dreams. His life follows a pattern: first, there is a dream, then a disillusion, and finally a sense of failure. In the novel, the modern men live in sterility and meaninglessness, and futility. Take the party for example

The Old Man and the Sea (老人与海)

As a war writer, he mainly shows the effect of war on people’s spirit. His war novels reveal

that though the wound is not serious, the torture in spirit is forever, and it makes people desperate. All of his stories ended in sadness.

The Grapes of Wrath 愤怒的葡萄

Of Mice and Man (It appeared in 1937, and became a bestseller)

It is a sad story of two migrant workers, one of whom (Lennie) is very strong and powerful physically but mentally weak and deficient, and the other (George), the younger and the smaller, who takes care of the big one. What they wish for is a permanent home, a very small house with trees around. But this is pure dream for the helpless. Finally, disaster overtakes them. One day, when Lennie stays in the barn alone, wife of the landlord who feel lonely at home comes to talk with Lennie. As Lennie likes pets, especially likes caressing the smooth hair of animals, she asks him to feel her hair. Later, Lennie stroked very hard, and she cried and asked him not to mess it. Her crying puts him in panic, so he covers her mouth to stop her crying, and suffocates her to death. Thereafter, the local people were after him to lynch him, while the small one tries to keep him from being lynched. In order to free him from being tortured brutally, the small one killed him just before he was arrested.

The Grapes of Wrath

It is a story of the migration of agricultural workers from Oklahoma to Califonia. It consists of two blocks of material: the westward long hard journey of the Joads and the other disposed Oklahomans, the the general picture of the Great Depression. The Great Depression throws the country into abject chaos and makes life intolerable for the luckless million. Farmers in one of the worst stricken area become bankrupt and begin to move in a body toward California, where they hope to have a better life. It is a most tragic and brutalizing human experience for families like the Joads. There is unspeakable pain and suffering on the road, and deaths occurs frequently. Everywhere they go, they see a universal landscape of decay and desolation. When they reached California and try to settle down, they meet with bitter resistance from the local landowners.

The implication of the title: As grape will mature, anger will be mature, and it will result in revolutionary. As injustice building up and up, something is going to explode into violence.

1. The novel is full of bitterness but not exactly despair. There is still a ray of hope.

2. It helped toward increasing the nation’s awareness of its problem.

3. It is Steinbeck’s clear expression of sympathy with the disposed and the wretched. So it was accused of being communist-oriented and banned for a long time. And Steinbeck himself is regarded as “Spokesman of the oppressed”

4. Style of Steinbeck: conversation dialect and full of slang

美国文学重点的名词解释

New England Transcendentalism: Philosophically, Transcendentalism means the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses. New England Transcendentalism stress the importance of the Over-soul, the Individual and Nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is enabling and the individual is divine and therefore, self-reliant. The leading figure of New England Transcendentalism is Emerson and Thoreau. American Romanticism: It is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature that stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. Being a period of the great flowering of American literat ure, it is also called “the American Renaissance.” American romantic works emphasize the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature. Romanticists include such literary figures as Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and some others. Free Verse: Poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme American Puritanism: The first settlers who came to America wer e called “Puritans”, so named after because they wished to “purify” the religious practice in the church. They established their own religious and moral principles as American Puritanism, which stressed predestination, original sin, total depravity, and li mited atonement from God’s grace. American Puritanism is one of the enduring influences in American thought and American literature. American Puritanism was greatly influenced by Calvinism. Symbolism: Symbolism is the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships. American Literature: Literature refers to body of work which for whatever reason deserves to be preserved as part of the reproduction of meaning within a given culture. It mainly includes novel, drama, poetry, short stories, biography and some other forms. American Literature refers to literature written by Americans in English. Epic A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. Many epics were drawn from an oral tradition and were transmitted by song and recitation before they were written down. Analysis "To a Waterfowl" is written in iambic trimeter and iambic pentameter, consisting of eight stanzas of four lines. The poem represents early stages of American Romanticism through celebration of Nature and God's presence within Nature. Bryant is acknowledged as skillful at depicting American scenery but his natural details are often combined with a universal moral, as in "To a Waterfowl" Figures of speech alliteration metaphor anaphora personification:

美国文学赏析

Ezra Pound (埃兹拉?庞德) In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd;人群中这些面孔幽灵般闪现Petals on a wet,black bough.湿漉漉的黑色枝条上的众多花瓣 1. Why does the poet call the faces of pedestrians "apparition"? These pedestrians are all walking in a hurry amidst the drizzling rain. 2.What do "petals" and "bough" stand for? Petals refer to the faces while the bough stands for the floating crowd. Robert Frost (1)Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire,有人说世界将终结于火, Some say in ice.有人说是冰。 From what I’ve tasted of desire，从我尝过的欲望之果 I hold with those who favor fire.我赞同倾向于火之说。 But if it had to perish twice,但若它非得两度沉沦 I think I know enough of hate.我想我对仇恨了解也够多 To know that for destruction ice可以说要是去毁灭,

常耀信《美国文学简史》(第3版)笔记和考研真题详解(9-14章)【圣才出品】

第9章地方色彩小说?马克?吐温 9.1复习笔记 I.Local Colorism（地方色彩主义） The vogue of local color fiction was the outgrowth of historical and aesthetic forces that had been gathering energy since early19th century.Local colorism as a literary trend first made its presence felt in the late1860s and early seventies.It is a variation of American literary realism. Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life,recorders of a present that faded before their eyes.They concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions.They tended to idealize and glorify,but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life.Major local colorists are Bret Harte,Hanlin Garland, Harriet Beecher Stowe,Kate Chopin and Mark Twain. 地方色彩小说的流行是自19世纪早期以来历史和艺术力量凝聚的产物。作为一种文学潮流，地方色彩主义在19世纪60年代晚期和70年代早期初展头角。它是美国现实主义文学的一个分支。 地方色彩主义作家是怀念正在消逝的生活方式的历史家，他们记录了在他们眼前逝去的现在。他们致力于展示描述自己地方的特色，倾向于赞颂地方生活并将其理想化，但是他们又注意不失地方生活的真实色彩。主要的地方色彩主义作家包括布莱特·哈特、汉林·加兰德、哈里耶特·比彻·斯托、凯特·肖邦及马克·吐温等。 II.Mark Twain(1835-1910)（马克·吐温） 1.Life（生平） Mark Twain,pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens,is a great literary giant of America. He was brought up in the small town of Hannibal,Missouri,on the Mississippi River.He was twelve when his father died and he had to leave school.He was successively a printer’s apprentice,a tramp printer,a silver miner,a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi,and a frontier journalist in Nevada and California.This knocking about gave him wide knowledge of humanity. With the publication of his frontier tale,he became nationally famous.His first novel The Gilded Age was an artistic failure,but it gave its name to the American of the post-bellum period.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was his masterwork.Mark Twain was essentially an affirmative writer.But toward the latter part of his life,due to some tragic events,he changed to an almost

常耀信美国文学知识点

Introduction 1. The Youngest National Literature 1781 (Independence War) --- 2012= about 200 years 2. Great achievement: 1930-1980, nine American writers won the Nobel Prize The Periods of American Literature 1.The colonial period (约1607 - 1765) 2. The period of enlightenment and Independence War (1765-1800) 3. The romantic period (1800 - 1865) 4. The realistic period (1865 - 1914) 5. The period of modernism (1914 - 1945) 6. The Contemporary Literature (1945 -) Chapter I Colonial America American Puritanism 1. The beliefs and practices characteristic of Puritans(most of whom were Calvinists who wished to purify the Church of England of its Catholic aspects) 2. Strictness and austerity in conduct and religion Puritans‘ religio us belief: Calvinism ◆John Calvin, the great French theologian. The principal concepts: 1) Original sin and total depravity. 2) Predestination 3) Salvation of selected few ◆ The Puritans carried with them to America a code of values, a philosophy of life, and a point of view, which, in time, took root in the New world and became what is known as American Puritanism. (p11) The Influence of Puritanism on American Literature 1) Idealism（optimism） 2) Symbolism 3) Simplicity in writing Significance of Puritanism With time passing it became a dominant factor in American life, one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American Literature. To some extent it is a state of mind, a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes, rather than a set of tenets. Time: From the arrival of the first settlers in the early 17th century to the end of the 18th century Literary Features 1. Forms Personal literature in various forms --- diaries, histories, common books (札记)，journals, letters, travel books, sermons etc. 2. Content 1) practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people ―at home‖ what life was like in the new world 2) highly theoretical discussions of religious questions. 3. Style In Style, English literary traditions were imitated and transplanted. Early writers in the colonial period John Smith, a captain, one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia; the writer of A Description of New England. William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth Plantation, his writing: Of Plymouth Plantation (P16) John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, In his famous speech A Model of Christian Charity ,he states that there was a agreement between God and his people of building a new Garden of Eden in the new world. (P17) Therefore let us choose life, 所以，让我们选择生活， that we and our seed 这样，我们和我们的后代， may live by obeying His 可以听从上帝的声音， voice and cleaving to Him, 须臾不离上帝， for He is our life and 因为，上帝是我们的生命， our prosperity. 我们的兴旺 1

美国文学赏析整理

一 I heard the merry grasshopper then sing, The black-clad cricket bear a second part, They kept one tune, and played on the same string, Seeming to glory in their little art. Shall creatures abject thus their voices raise? And in their kind resound their maker’s praise, Whilst I, as mute, can warble forth no higher lays? “Under the cooling shadow of a stately Elm, Close state I by a goodly River’s side, Where gliding streams the Rocks did overwhelm; A lonely place with pleasures dignifi’d. I once that lov’d the shady woods so well, Now thought the rivers did the trees excel, And if the sun would ever shine there would I dwell. “While musing thus with contemplation fed, And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain, The sweet tongu’d Philomel percht o’er my head, And chanted forth a most melodious strain, Which rapt me so with wonder and delight, I judg’d my hearing better than my sight. 题目：the 9th of Contemplations 作者：Anne Bradstreet 赏析： 1. Rhyme royal: sevenline iambic petametre 七行五步抑扬格 2. Rhyme: ababccc 3. Theme: religion 4. 象征：black-clad=death; abject=admitting defeat; maker= god 5. A genuine expression of poetic feeling in the presence of nature. The poem offers the reader an insight into the mentality of the early Puritan pioneering in a new world. The poet heard the grasshopper and the cricket sing, and she searched for her own soul accordingly. 6. She saw sth metaphysical inhering in the physical, a mode of perception which was singularly Puritan 二 It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method. In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalog more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or

常耀信《美国文学简史》笔记和考研真题详解(美国浪漫主义 欧文 库柏)【圣才出品】

第3章美国浪漫主义欧文库柏 3.1 复习笔记 I. Overview of American Romanticism（美国浪漫主义简介） In the history of American literature, the Romantic period is one of the most important periods. It stretched from the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the civil war. 美国文学中的浪漫主义时期开始于18世纪末，到南北战争爆发为止，是美国文学史上的重要阶段。 1. Background（背景） (1) A nation bursting into new life cried for literary expression. The buoyant mood of the nation and the spirit of the times seemed in some measure responsible for the spectacular outburst of romantic feeling. The literary milieu proved fertile and conductive to the imagination. Magazine appeared in ever-increasing numbers. They played an important role in facilitating literary expansion. (2) Foreign influences added incentive to the growth of romanticism. The Romantic Movement, which had flourished earlier in the century both in England

美国文学重点名词解释

学习资料收集于网络，仅供参考 1. 2. 6.Transcendentalism: is literature，philosophical and literary movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to1860. It originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reaching against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world instead. Transcendentalism derived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, and from such English authors as Carlyle，Coleridge, and Wordsworth. The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature and Self-Reliance and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden. .Symbolism象征主义：It is the writing technique of using symbols. It's a literary movement that arose in France in the last half of the 19th century and that greatly influenced many English writer, particularly poets, of the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. It's one of the most powerful devices that poets employ in creation. 8.American naturalism：this term was created by Emile Zola. Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory played an important role in naturalism. In the works off naturalism，characters were conceived as complex combinations of inherited attributes and habits conditioned by social and economic forces. At th century，the end of the 19this pessimistic form of realism appeared in america. Naturalism attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness. Characters in the works of naturalism were dominated by their environment and heredity. Naturalism emphasized：the world was around；men had no free will；religious“truth”were illusory；the destiny of human beings was misery in life and oblivion in death. The dominant figures in naturalism were Stephen crane，Frank Norris, Jack London and Theodore Dreiser. 3.The lost generation: included the young English and American expatriates as well

常耀信《美国文学简史》笔记和考研真题详解(美国戏剧)【圣才出品】

第19章美国戏剧 19.1 复习笔记 I. Overview of American drama（美国戏剧概述） American drama began in 1916 when the Provincetown Players produced Eugene O’Neil’s first play, Bound East for Cardiff. It is true that there were no great masters in the theater comparable in stature to such major figures in fiction as Melville or James, but there had been people who did spadework for the rise of American drama in the 1920s. There was a renaissance of drama in the 1920s. American drama began the process of developing itself into a department of American literature equal in significance to both poetry and the novel. The theater of the Depression was not depressing. Like other branches of literature the drama was preoccupied with social concern. The staging of Tennessee Williams’The Glass Menagerie on Broadway in 1945 was an even of unusual significance, as it marked American drama’s coming of age. The late fifties saw a temporary decline in dramatic productions, but in the next decade, American drama picked up a good deal of fresh energy. With the passage of time there has appeared the increasingly more obvious tendency to “decentralize”from Broadway with more and more plays stages Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway. And from the end of the sixties.

美国文学简史名词解释定义

American Puritanism: Puritanism was a religious reform movement that arose within the Church of England in the late sixteenth century. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and forth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World--- a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England, Puritanism, however,was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincident with the founding of New England; it was also a way of being in the world---a style of response to lived experience---that has reverberated through American life ever since. Doctrinally, Puritans adhered to the Five Points of Calvinism as codified at the Synod of Dort in 1619:(1) unconditional election ( the idea that God had decreed who was damned and who was saved from before the beginning of the world); (2) limited atonement ( the idea that Christ died for the elect only); (3) total depravity (humanity's utter corruption since the Fall); (4) irresistible grace (regeneration as entirely a work of God, which cannot be resisted and to which the sinner contributes nothing); and (5) the perseverance of the saints (the elect, despite their backsliding and faintness of heart , cannot fall away from grace). American Dream: The American Dream is the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth as a measure of success and\ or happiness. Gothic tradition: Gothic novel or Gothic romance is a story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery. In an extended sense, many novels that do not have a medievalized setting, but which share a comparably sinister, grotesque, or chaustrophobic atmosphere have been classed as Gothic. It contributed to the new emotional climate of Romanticism. Historical novel: a novel in which the action takes place during a specific historical period well before the time of writing ( often one or two generations before, sometimes several centuries), and in which some attempt is made to depict accurately the customs and mentality of the period. The central character---real or imagined---is usually subject to divided loyalties within a larger historic conflict of which readers know the outcome. The pioneers of this genre were Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper American Romanticism:Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. The romantic period in American literature stretched from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil