南航美国文学史概述及作品选读总结

总体：

1．Anne Bradstreet（The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America）

①Contemplation

②To My Dear and Loving Husband 2. Benjamin Franklin

①The Autobiography (early American Dream)

3. Philip Freneau (Poet of American Revolution; The Father of American Poetry)

①The Wild Honey Suckle ②The Indian Burying Ground ③To a Caty-Did

4. Washington Irving (The Father of American Short Story; first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame; regarded as Father of American literature.)

①The legend of Sleep Hollow ②Rip Van Winkle

③The Sketch Book(the beginning of American Romanticism) 5. James Fennimore Cooper ①The Last Mohicans ②Leather Stocking Tales 6. William Cullen Bryant ①Thanatopsis ②To a Water Fowl

7. Edgar Allen Poe (Father of Modern Short Story; Father of Psychoanalysis criticism)

①To Helen ②The Raven

③The Fall of the House of Usher ④The Black Cat 8.

Ralph

Waldo

Emerson

(leading

New

England

transcendentalist)

①Nature ②Self-Reliance

③The American Scholar

9. Henry David Thoreau (an active transcendentalist) ①Walden

10. Nathaniel Hawthorne (a master of symbolism; first great American writer of fiction to work in moralistic tradition. combined the American romanticism with puritan moralism; created a new genre psychological romance)

①The Scarlet Letter ②Twice Told Tales ③The Marble Faun ④Blithedale Romance ⑤The Minister’s Black Veil 11. Herman Melville ①Moby Dick

12. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (the fireside poet; love of nature, love for the past)

①A Psalm of Life ②The Slave’s Dream ③My Lost Youth ④The Song of Hiawatha 13. Walt Whitman

①Leaves of Grass(first genuine epic poem) ②Song of Myself ③I Sit and Look Out

④Beat！Beat！Drums！

14. Emily Dickinson (the theme of her poetry concern religion, life, death, marriage, immorality, nature etc.)

①I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed ②I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain ③A Bird Came Down the Walk ④I Died for Beauty ___but Was Scarce ⑤I Hear a Fly Buzz ___When I Died ⑥Because I Could not Stop for Death WashingtonIrving Bracebridge Hall

布雷斯布里奇田庄(1822) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Tales of a Traveller

旅客谈(1824)

Christopher Columbus (1828)

c. writing characteristics

(1) humorous: the function of his writing is to amuse, to entertain instead of teaching or

instruction

(2) vivid and true character portrayal

(3) finished (refined) and musical language, thus regarded as “the Amn. Goldsmith”

d. analysis on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow(选自the sketch book见闻札记)

1. the story:setting,character, plot

2. theme:conflicts and praise

conflict betw. Ichabod and Brom

conflict betw. the village and the outside world

James Fenimore Cooper

The Spy (1821): a historical novel

The Pilot (1824): a sea novel

Leatherstocking Tales

皮裹腿故事集(1823-1841): frontier novels

The Last Mohicans (1826) (Colonial War betw. Britain and France)

e. writing features:

strong points: we can see a variety of incidents and tensions, complicated plot and

structure and a beautiful description of nature.

Weak points: characterization is weak. There is unsatisfactory description of characters

(esp. female). He is not free from syntactical awkwardness,

heavy-handed attempt at humor. “Where Irving excels Cooper is weak.”Dialect is not authentic.

Edgar Allan Poe

The Fall of the House Usher

Feature:

i. brevity (15 pages)

ii. Single effect

iii. originality in theme

To Helen

It was inspired by the beauty of the mother of a schoolmate of Poe in Richmond,

Virginia.

The poem is famous for a number of things:

1. its rhyme scheme: ababb

2. its varied line lengths

3. its metaphor of a travel on the sea

4. its oft-quoted lines:

\"To the glory that was Greece,/And the grandeur that was Rome.\"

theme: praise the ideal love and beauty and ancient Greek and Roman civilizations

The Raven乌鸦

theme: the lament over the death of a beautiful woman

tone: melancholy

Transcendentalism (essayists, poets, novelists) Their journal is “The Dial”.

Definition: Transcendentalism is idealism. (Emerson)

b. features

(1) stress on Oversoul, that is spirit.

(2) stress the importance of individual.

(3) fresh conception of nature.

c. significance

(1) inspired a whole generation of writers such as Whitman, Melville and Dickinson.

(2) dresses man’s subjective initiative as opposed to materialism.

(3) liberated people from Calvin’s original sin

d. limitation

(1) shallow: cut off from real life or reality; initiated by the rich, they were limited in a

certain circle. So, in some degree, they have been cut off from social life and can’t understand the sufferings of the common people.

(2) inward contradiction: gain knowledge by intuition, shows its idealistic aspect.

R.W. Emerson (Ralph Waldo)

Nature(1836): the Bible of New England transcendentalism The American Scholar (1837): \"America's Declaration of Intellectual

The Divinity School Address

神学院致辞(1838) Essays (1841/1847)

Representative Men (1850)

English Traits (1856)

Poems (1847)

d. significance

(1) He embodied a new nation’s desire and struggle to assert its own identity in its

formative period.

(2) his stress on individualism

Limitation:self-centered, individual

His ideas influence a lot of writers such as Dikinson, Hawthorne and Whitman.

Henry David Thoreau

A Week on the Concord and MerrimackRivers

康考德和梅里马克河上的一周(1849) Walden, or Life in the Woods (18)

Civil Disobedience不服从论(1849, an address)

c. Walden main ideas:

(1)on self-cultivation and human perfectibility, elevated from Puritan original sin, believe

in inner virtue and inwardly grace (2) criticism on civilization and capitalism

(3) only truth and knowledge can’t be taken away, trust in future and in man

Style: pithy (colloquial sayings), vivid description, symbols and images

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Twice-Told Tales (1837): a collection of short stories

Mosses from an Old Manse

古屋青苔(1846): another collection of short stories The House of the Seven Gables

七个尖角的阁楼(1851): on the effect of a curse The Scarlet Letter (1850): masterpiece

It’s not a love story, trying to show the moral, emotional and psychological effects of sin

on his characters.

“A”: Adultery-Able-Angel

“A” on chest: sinner, confessed, died, shows an honest man

Moral: man should be true and honest and ready to show one’s worst to the world（批评

与自我批评） Herman Melville Typee (《泰比》1846)

Omoo (《奥穆》1847)

Mardi (《马尔迪》1847)

这三部作品描写塔希提群岛和马吉萨斯群岛以及他在岛上的奇遇。

Redburn (《莱德勃恩》1849)：描写了他的第一次航海经验以及在利物浦港贫民窟的

见闻。

White Jacket (《白外套》1850)：根据他在美国海军军舰上服役时期的生活体验写成。

Pierre (《皮埃尔》1852)

Israel Potter (《伊斯莱尔·波特》1855): historical novel

Piazza Tales (《广场故事》1856): a collection of short story

Moby Dick (《白鲸》1851): masterpiece

(1) a whaling book: an encyclopedia of whaling/description of a whaler’s life

(2) a tragedy about man fighting against universe (hostile)Man in this universe lives a

meaningless and futile life, meaningless because futile. Man can observe and even manipulate in a prudentway, but he cannot influence and

overcome nature at its source. (3) alienation异化:

between man and man

between man and society (ship)

between man and nature

Ahab is the best representative.

To him the world exists for his sake. His selfhood must be asserted at the expense of all

else: lives may be sacrificed, and nature may have to be vanquished in order that he may do what he wills.

Richard Chase says: the idea Melville conveys in it is \"death---spiritual, emotional,

physical\". (5) theme: quest (6) symbolism

the voyage: a metaphor for \"search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of

experience\".

the Pequod皮阔德: the ship of the American soul

the endeavor of the crews: \"the maniacal fanaticism of our white mental consciousness\"

Moby Dick: (many interpretations) the symbol of nature

W. C. Bryant

the analysis on To a Waterfowl致水鸟

It is the \"most perfect brief poem in the language\". (Matthew Arnold)

It is a poem of nature in quatrains rhyming in abab.

theme: from a bird and its flight to an ordinary person and his course of life, this poem

conveys that everything in nature is under the beneficence and protection of the Power. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Theme: idealized love, children, family and friendship A Psalm of Life

The poem is divided into 9 stanzas, each composed of two iambic tetrameter lines and

two trochaic trimeter lines rhyming abab.

The first two stanzas refute the pessimism that life is but a dream, affirming the contrary

that life is real.

The following stanzas urge the reader to act in the present and to leave \"footprints\" as

great people did in order to inspire the followers.

The last stanza ends with a resounding note while admonishing people to learn to wait

as well as to labor.

Realism（the 19th-century literary movement that reacted to romanticism by insisting on a faithful, objective presentation

of the details of everyday life.）

features:

i.objective description (concern for the commonplace/the low)

ii. criticism of society and reality, exposing and criticizing the society; the writers’ dissatisfaction; no longer eulogize human glority

iii. verisimilitude逼真性(true to details)

iv. influenced by bourgeois’ 中产阶级democratic ideas (not overthrow but reform, changes)

v. reformative: to reform the society, not to change completely

features: Naturalism（A post-Darwinian movement of the late 19th century that tried to apply the \"laws\" of scientific determinism to fiction.）is a theory which applied scientific concepts and methods to such problems as plot development and characterisation.

Comparison between Realism and Naturalism: Realism. i. objective ii. creation of types

iii. influenced by British Rom. works with hope Naturalism

i. scientific accuracy

ii. collect material from their lives

iii.against this, hopeless/gloomy picture of the society Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass《草叶集》, (1) themes

i. unity of all man and of man within universe

ii. equality of all man iii. cycle of life and death

iv. enthusiastic idea toward Westward Expansion v. brotherhood

d. Song of Myself自我之歌

(1) influence of Transcendentalism: praise of individualism (2) cycle of life and death

(3) ideal of democracy: equality between different races and brotherhood

Emily Dickinson

A Bird came down the walk I died for Beauty---but was Scarce I Heard a Fly buzz---when I died--- Because I could not stop for Death- H.B. Stowe

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851): masterpiece significance:

1.intensified and strengthened abolitionist sentiment; 2. gave a better balanced, more specific picture of plantation life;

3. praised the merits of slaves and showed great sympathy for them

Henry James

The American (1877): begins with international theme Daisy Miller (1878): brings the author first international fame The Wings of the Dove (1902) The Ambassadors (1903) The Golden Bowl (1904)

The Portrait of A Lady贵妇画像:masterpiece

It tells about the fate of one of those splendid Jamesian

American girls, Isabel Archer, arriving in Europe, full of hope, and with a will to live a free and noble life, only to fail prey to the sinister designs of two vulgar and unscrupulous expatriates, Madam Merle and Gilbert Osmond

International theme国际主题:

the meeting of America and Europe; American innocence in contact and contrast with European decadence and the moral and psychological complications arising therefrom;

for the American it was a process of progression from inexperience to experience, from innocence to knowledge and maturity. Those American heroes or heroins who confronting European sophistication, either triumphed over it or were overwhelmed. Mark Twain

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Count卡拉维拉斯县有名的跳蛙(1865):a short story

The Innocents Abroad国外的无辜者(1869): letters on his travelling in Europe and Near East

Roughing It苦行记(1872): on his experience in the western America

The Gilded Age (1873): his first novel, collaborated with Charles Dudley Warner

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn哈克贝利·费恩历险记(1884): masterpiece

Life on the Mississippi(1883)

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court误闯亚瑟王宫(18)

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg败坏了哈德莱堡的人(1900)

The Mysterious Stranger (1916)

e. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

1. It is \"a boy's book\" which sets 20 years before Civil War. 2. themes:

1)picaresque以流浪汉和无赖为题材的(adventure story) 2) moral growth of Tom

3. techniques: verisimilitude, humor, colloquial style

Deadpan（铁面幽默）: oral humor/the teller has a strict face but the listeners are laughing.

Language: dialects as forms of art Jack London

The People of the Abyss深渊居民(1903): about London's slum The Iron Heel铁蹄(1908): the first proletarian criterion novel which envisages the development of fascism

The Call of the Wild野性的呼唤(1903): the most widely read book

The Sea Wolf 海狼(1904)

These two novels reflect the ideas of the law of survival and the will to power

Martin Eden马丁伊登(1909): a reflection of the contradiction between these competeing beliefs

c. Martin Eden--theme:the failure of American Dream. After he realized his dream of getting

into the upper class, he also realized the emptiness of it and committed suicide.

\"This is a book that missed fire with a majority of the critics. Written as an indictment of individualism, it was accepted as an indictment of socialism; written to show that man cannot live for himself alone, it was accepted as a demonstration that success made for death. Had Martin Eden been a socialist he would not have died.\"

Consciously London meant the novel to show that only a belief in the people, only the devotion of one's life to a cause greater than onself, could give life any real meaning. T. Dreisser西奥多·德莱塞

Sister Carrie 嘉莉妹妹(1900): the first novel, masterwork Jannie Gerhardt (1911) The Fanancier (1912) The Titan (1914) The Stoic (1947) The Genius (1915)

An American Tragedy美国悲剧(1925) Dreiser Looks at Russia(1928) c. Sister Carrie

theme:the emptiness of Ameircan Dream i. jungle law

Famous actress bank manager(the unfit is bound to die) <——

Country girl (able to follow her instinct) commit suicide ii. chance and luck

iii. criticism of American values: money and sex —the standards to see if a person is successful

iv. concern for the poor

Jazz Age: the Jazz Age lasted from 1919-1929, the decade enjoyed economic prosperity. The war and economic boom encouraged a breaking with the tradition (Puritanism). People upheld the value of money-making and pleasure-seeking.

Ezra Pound埃兹拉·庞德 Imagism意象派

Pound became the most important figure. Imagist poetry reached the peak of literature

for three things appeared: i. a manifesto ii. three principles iii. a lot of writings

Pound said, an image is \"that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an

instant of time.\"

In a Station of the Metro在地铁车站

1. This is the much-quoted masterpiece of Pound and a representative of the Imagist

poetry.

2. In form, the poem is similar to the Japanese haiku, a two-line couplet with rhymes.

Pound's poem reminds the Chinese of two lines by a Tang poet, Bai Juyi. When describing the sad yet beautiful face of Yang Huifei, a Tang emperess, the poet wrote,

The beautiful face, lonesome with tears; A pear branch, radiant with rain.

3. The poem is a representative of Imagist poems in that the image of petals on a wet,

black bough best represents the picture of those lovely faces in the crowd and that the image is dominant in the poem---the image itself is the poem.

T.S. Eliot poetry:

Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) Poems (1920)

The WasteLand (1922) The Hollow Men (1925) Ash Wednesday (1930)

Four Quartets (1943) plays:

Sweeney Agonistes (1932) Murder in the Cathedral (1935) The Cocktail Party (1950) The Confidential Clerk (19) critical essays:

The Sacred Wood (1920) For Lancelot Andrews (1928)

The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933) After Strange Gods (1934) On Poetry and Poets (1957) c. The Waste Land荒原

5 parts: The Burial of Dead, The Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon, Death by Water, What

the Thunder Said chief characteristics

1. quotations and allusions暗示 2. objective correlative

3. juxtaposition并列: mingle brand image with common image

4. use of antiquity古风 The Love Song

\"Prufrock\" is not the image of one unlucky modern man; instead, he represents many

other modern westerners who are \"divided between passion and timidity, between desire and impotence\".

4. theme

This poem reflects the decadent modern civilization and the nightmarish inferno in

which modern Westerners are living in. 5. techiniques 1) irony

2) striking images

3) the form of dramatic monologue

The poem is written in irregular lines, with but a few rhymes. Robert Frost b. Characteristics

1. not in the main stream of modern poetry, but with conventional form and plain

language. That’s why he’s the most popular poet in the 20th century.

2. a kind of a regionalist----New England, but not local colorism. He used New England as

a metaphor for the whole world and universe.

3. a plain poet using symbols from everyday country life. Simple symbols but express

deep meanings. The Road Not Taken

1. The poem was written in very regular lines with iambic pentametre and rhyme

scheme of abaab.

2. The symbolic meaning of the two divergent roads is rather clear. They represent any

important decisions in one's life. 3. details:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

1. It is a lyric poem with iambic tetrametre and interlocking enclosed rhyme.

2. It represents a moment of relaxation from the onerous

journey of life, an almost

aesthetic enjoyment and appreciation of natural beauty which is wholesome and retorative against the chaotic existence of modern man.

The Lost Generation

1.term: It is a term in frequent use after WWI in reference to the young men who

survived physically but were afterwards spiritually and morally adrift. So the lost generation refers to disillusioned writers who wrote after WWI. Many of them went to the battle. After the war, they rebelled against former ideals and values and can’t find new ones to replace.

2. It first coined by Gertrude Stein. In Paris, she opens the door to American expatriates.

She once said to Hemingway, “You’re all a lost generation.” 3.It was used as preface to The Sun Also Rises. Then it became popular. Fitzgerald once

said they are “a generation grown up to find all gods died, all wars fought, all faith in men shaken”.

Ernest Hemingway

1.Hemingway theme/hero/situation. Theme: “grace under pressure”

2.nihilism: negative attitude towards the world. There is only one thing man is certain---death

3. devotion to truth. He believes the writer's job is to tell truth. c. style

1.iceberg principle. The meaning here is that the writer should say only one eighth, in

such a way that the remaining seven eighths be discerned and provided by the reader.

2.language: short, common, fundamental words, simple sentence, structure.The effect of

the language: clearness, cleanness and great care.

3.dialogue: plays a very important part in his writings. Hemingway’s dialogue can show

setting, development of plot, characters, even theme. 4.cinematic way: he uses showing instead of telling. He likes to describes actions (kiss,

withdraw hand) vividly instead of mental description. 5.symbolism

6.use of stream of consciousness d. A Farewell to Arms

1. If we say The Sun Also Rises tells why they lost, this novel describes how they lost.

Thus it can be read as a footnote to the former. 2. the double meanings of the title 3. the hero Henry: Hemingway's hero

4. theme: war and love. It shows a world of complete unreason and reflects the mood of

the post-war generation. F. Scott Fitzgerald b. The Great Gatsby Theme:

1. about reality and atmosphere of 1920s 2. failure of American Dream

c.attitude towards the rich: paradoxical He is charmed by the rich.

He is critical of the rich who are corrupted themselves and meanwhile corrupting others.

d. attitude towards the Jazz Age: insider and outsider

John Steinbeck

b. The Grapes of Wrath愤怒的葡萄 1. significance

1) it’s a great social document in 1930s.

2) A protest novel. In the novel, the author attacks the decadence, wickedness and

cruelty of banks and land owners and the current social system as a whole.

3) themes: unity and faith

unity: Steinbeck believes that strength lies in the unity of people and he also stresses on individualism.

faith: The Great Depression was the most miserable period in the 20th century. Even though people suffered a lot, they still held on their hope and will live on.

2. characters:

Ma Joad (the mother): embodiment of the theme. She asked Rose to save the stranger.

1) she realized unity would bring people strength. 2) the faith in future

Tom: shows the change from I (individualism) to we (unity) Jim Casy: a preacher he developed himself from a labor to an organizer and set up the

guiding principle and after his death, Tom took over his role. The initial of his name: J.C.---Jesus Christ

William Faulkner

Sound and Fury:divided into 4 parts 1. themes:

a) downfall of the South. The south was in deterioration. It’s going from bad to worse.

The present and the past form a contrast from Benjy’s eyes.

He’s an idiot so his reactions were distinctive feeling. He felt strongly the loss of love. The downfall of Mr.

Campson was not only a personal one but also a universal one---the society was in

disorder.

b) conflict between the old/young generations A Rose For Emily

什么是文学？ Modern definition:

We can define literature as language artistically used to

achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages. Literature is characterized by beauty of expression and form and by universality intellectual and emotional appeal.

定义美国文学：

American literature mainly refers to literature produced in American English by the people living in the United States.

美国作家的品质： Independent Individualistic Critical Innovative Humorous 文学发展：

诗歌：Poetry: 1)Traditionalism 2)Idiosyncratic poets 3)Experimental poetry

4)Surrealism and Existentialism 5)Women and Multiethnic poets

6)Native American poetry 7)African-American poetry 8)Asian-American poetry 9)New Directions

Contemporary American Literature A. Novels since 1945 1. War Novels

John Hersey(1914-): Hiroshima (46); The Wall (50) James Gould Cozzens (1903- ): Guard of Honor (1948) Erwin Shaw (1913-84): The Young Lion (48) James Jones (1921-77): From Here to Eternity (51)

Herman Wouk (1915- ): The Cain Mutiny (51); Winds of War (71);

War and Remembrance (79)

Norman Mailer (1923-): The Naked and the Death (48) Joseph Heller (1923-): Catch-22 (61); Closing Time (1994, a sequel) ?Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007): Slaughterhouse Five (1969)

Thomas Pynchon (1937- ): The Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) 2. Jewish American Novelists Saul

Bellow

(1915-2005)

Dangling

Man(44);

The

Victim(47);The Adventures of Augie March (53);

Seize the Day(56); Henderson the Rain King(59); Herzog(); Mr.

Sammler’s Planet (70); Humbolt’s Gift (75); Dean’s December (82);

The Actual (97)

Bernard Malamud (1914-86)

Novels: The Natural (52); The Assistant (57); A New Life (61); The Fixer (66); Dubin’s Life (79); God’s Grace (82).

Collection:

The

Magic

Barrel(58);

Idiots

First(63);

Rembrandt’s Hat(73)

Issac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)

Yiddish Works: Satan in Goray (34); The Family Moskat (45); Gimpel the Fool (53); The Magician of Lublin (59).

English Works: The Spinoza of Market Street(61); The Slave(62);

The Manor (67)

2. Jewish American Novelists Philip Roth (1933- )

Goodbye, Colu mbus (59); Portnoy’s Complaint (69); The Breast (72); ?The Professor of Desire (77); The Ghost Writer (79); Zuckerman Unbound (81)

The Anatomy Lesson (83); Patrimony (91); Operation Shylock (93);

Sabbath Theatre (95); American Pastoral (97); I Married a Communist (98); The Human Stain (2000); The Dying Animal (2001);

Plot Against American (2004); Every Man (2006); Exit The Ghost

(2007)

Paul Auster(1947- )

City of Glass (85); Ghosts (86); The Locked Room (86); The Country of Last Things (87); The Music of Chance (1990);Mr. Vertigo (94);

Timbuktu (99) Cynthia Ozick (1928- )

Trust (66); Bloodshed (76); Levitation (82); The Shawl (); The Cannibal Galaxy (83); The Messiah of Stockholm (87) 4. Novels Against the Cultural Norm Jerome David Salinger (1919- )

The Young Folks (40); The Catcher in the Rye (51); Nine Stories (53) ?Fanny and Zooey (61); Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (63) ?William Burroughs (1914- )

Beat Novels: Junky (53); Naked Lunch (59)

Scientific Novels: The Soft Machine(61); The Wild Boys(71); Exterminator (73); Cities of the Red Night(81); The Place of Dead Roads (83)

Jack Kerouac (1922-69)

On the Road (57); The Dharma Bums (58); Desolation Angels (65) ? 5.Experimental Novels

John Hawks (1925- )

The Cannibal (49); The Lime Twig (61);Second Skin (); The Blood