美国文学期末复习资料(完美版)
转] 美国文学期末复习资料(完美版) 2013.6.11
美国文学期末复习资料(完美版)
Imagism （意向主义）
(1)Imagism came into being in Britain and US around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation.
（2）The Imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.
(3)Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles: i) direct treatment of subject matter; ii) economy of expression; iii) as regards rhythm,to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome; iv) Ezra Pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known imagist poem.
Ezra Pound (爱兹拉·庞德）
Cathay (1915)《中国》a volume of Chinese translation.
He blue-penciled The Waste Land《荒原》the most significant American poem of the twentieth century.Cantos《诗章》，a modern epic Pound’s major work of poetry。Hugh Selwyn Mauberley 《休·塞尔温·莫伯利》
In a Station of the Metro《在地铁站》
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; 这几张脸在人群中幻景般闪现；
Petals on a wet, black bough. 湿漉漉的黑树枝上花瓣数点。
Appreciation and comment:
In ―In a Station of the Metro‖ Pound attempts to produce the emotion he felt when he walked down into a Paris subway station and suddenly saw a number of faces in the dim light. To capture the emotion, Pound uses the image of petals on a wet, black bough. The image of ―petals‖ is juxtaposed with another image of ―wet, black bough.‖ The image is not decoration: It is central to the poem’s meaning. In fact, it is the poem’s meaning.
Ezra Pound’s main contribution to American literature
Ezra pound is regarded,and rightly, as the father of modern American poetry. Impatient with the fetters of English traditional poetics, he led the experiment in revolutionizing poetry. It was he who first discovered T.S. Eliot and blue-penciled the latter’s famous poem, T he Waste Land. It was he who helped William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, and William carols Williams in their literary careers. And he survived them all, writing continually right up to his death. Pound’s contribution to the development of modern poetry is very great.
T.S. Eliot （T.S.艾略特）
The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock《杰·阿尔弗雷德·普鲁弗洛克的情歌》—started 1915—is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement,
Literary terms: soliloquy (独白）interior monologue (内心独白）dramatic monologue （戏剧独白）motif （主旨，主题）epigraph （题词）
Soliloquy or interior monologue（独白或内心独白）: in drama, an extended speech delivered by a character alone on stage. The character reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings directly to the audience, as if thinking aloud.
Dramatic monologue（戏剧独白）: A kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in the poem.
Epigraph（主旨）: a quotation or motto at the beginning of a chapter, book,short story, or poem that makes some point about the work.
Motif（题词）: A recurring feature (such as a name, an image, or a phrase) in a work of literature.
A motif generally contributes in some way to the theme of a short story, novel,poem, or play.
2）The Waste Land 《荒原》
In 1922, Eliot published The Waste Land《荒原》in The Criterion《标准》. Which was thought as the most significant American poem of the 20th century and helped to establish a modern tradition of literature rich with learning and allusive thought.The poem is subdivided into five sections: I. The Brurial of the Dead II. A Game of ChessIII. The Fire Sermon IV. Death by waterV. What the Thunder Said
3) The Hollow Men《空心人》(1925)
4) Ash Wednesda y《圣灰星期三》(1927)
5)Four Quartets《四个四重奏》（1943）: Eliot regarded Four Quartets as hismasterpiece, and it is the
work that led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize inLiterature (1948).
Eliot also made significant contributions to the field of literary criticism, strongly influencing the school of New Criticism
In 1920 T.S. Eliot published his The Sacred Wood,《圣林》containing his famous critical essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent",《传统与个人才能》
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening《雪夜林边小驻》The Road Not Taken《未选择的路》
（诗歌及赏析见第9页）
Wallace Stevens（华莱士史蒂文斯）(1879–1955) was an American Modernist poet
He won the Pulitzer Prize forPoetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine with a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Robert Lee Frost （罗伯特弗罗斯特）
His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry
Francis Scott Fitzgerald （F.S`·菲茨杰拉德）
The spokesman of the ―roaring 20s‖ ―the Jazz Age‖
美国梦的实践者―爵士乐时代的桂冠诗人‖和―喧嚣的二十年代的代言人‖
In 1920 Fitzgerald’s first novel This Side of Paradise《人间天堂》（1920）
second novel entitled The Beautiful and Damned《美丽的和可诅咒的》（1922）
his best novel The Great Gatsby《了不起的盖茨比》（1925）
the novel Tender is the Night《夜色温柔》(1934).
The Last Tycoon《最后的大亨》, a novel about Hollywood and the film industry.
Fitzgerald’s books of short stories include Flappers and Philosophers《时髦女和哲学家》(1921), Tales of the Jazz Age《爵士时代的故事》(1922), All the Sad Y oung Man 《一代悲哀的年轻人》(1926)
Ernest Hemingway（厄内斯特海明威）
His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction,
won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
He was generally regarded as spokesman for the Lost Generation.
The Lost Generation （迷惘的一代）
1.The Lost Generation is a term first used by Gertrude Stein to describe the post-World War I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.
2. Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.
3.The three best-known representatives of Lost Generation are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos.
his first novel, The Torrents of Spring《春湖》,but The Sun Also Rises《太阳照常升起》(1926) about the disillusionment of the lost generation was an immediate success. With the success of A Farewell to Arms (1929)《永别了武器》, he firmly established his reputation as a great American writer.
The Sun Also Rises《太阳照常升起》
Hemingway employed an epigraph（题词）in the novel which had been said by Gertrude Stein to describe the expatriates in Paris ―You are a lost generation.‖ The novel paints the image of the lost generation.
A Farewell to Arms《永别了武器》
It is an anti-war novel, describing the love between an American soldier Frederic Henry （弗瑞德里克亨利）and an English nurse Catherine.（凯瑟琳）
For Whom the Bell Tolls《丧钟为谁而鸣》
It tells of a volunteer American guerrilla in the Spanish Civil War.
The Old Man and the Sea.《老人与海》It tells of a Cuban fisherman, Santiago（桑提亚哥）,who catches a big fish, only to see it devoured by sharks. The novel highlights the theme that man can be destroyed but not defeated. （你尽可以把他消灭，但就是打不败他）It is a representation of life as a struggle against unconquerable forces in which only a partial victory is possible. This book led to Hemingway's receipt of the Novel Prize in 1954.
1)Hemingway was famous for his novels and short stories written his spare, laconic, terse, clear,
telegraph-like, yet intense prose with short sentences and very specific details. This style is his famou s―Iceberg Theory‖:（冰山理论）
Iceberg Theory（冰山理论）:
Think of an iceberg: one eighth of an iceberg is above the water. All of the rest is underneath the water. The same is true with Hemingway’s writing. His sentences only give one small bit of the meaning. The rest is implied. One must go very deep beneath the surface to understand the full meaning of his writing.Hemingway’s vocabulary is easy and his sentence patterns are easy, but they are extremely difficult to be fully understood.
Hemingway terms cou rageas ―grace under pressure‖ these heroes are called Hemingway heroes or the code hero:（硬汉）
Hemingway heroes refer to some protagonists in Hemingway's works. Such a hero usually an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent. And usually he is a man of action and of few words. His such an individualist,alone even when with other people, somewhat an outsider, keeping emotions under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one can not get happiness. For example, Frederic Henry in A Farewell to Arms, Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises, Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea or the undefeated bullfighter.
William Faulkner（威廉·福克纳）
Faulkner’s first novel Soldier’s Pay《士兵的报酬》was accepted by the publishers in 1926.
Fa ulkner’s second novel Mosquitoes (1927)《蚊群》is a satirical story about a group of southern artists and intellectuals.
The years from 1929 to1942 were a period of amazing literary output for Faulkner, such as The Sound
and the Fury(1929)《喧嚣与骚动》and As I Lay Dying (1930).《我弥留之际》
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950
Major works 1.The Sound and the Fury 《喧嚣与骚动》The book is divided into 4 sections, largely reliant on Stream of Consciousness and Multiple Point of View.
Stream of Consciousness: （意识流）
Stream of Consciousness or interior monologue, is one of the modern literary techniques. It was first used in 1922by the Irish novelist James Joyce. The modern American writer William Faulkner successfully advanced this technique. In the stories, action and plots are less important than the reactions and inner musings of the narrators. Time sequences are often dislocated. The reader feels himself to be a participant in the stories, rather than an observer.
Multiple Point of View(多重视角)
Faulkner was a master at presenting multiple points of view, showing within the same story how the characters reacted differently to the same person or the same situation. The use of this technique gave the story a circular form wherein one event was the center, with various points of view radiating from it. The multiple point of view technique makes the reader recognize the difficulty of arriving at a true judgment.
2. Light in August《八月之光》
3. Go Down, Moses.《去吧，摩西》
4. As I Lay Dying《在我弥留之际》
5. Absalom, Absalom!《押沙龙，押沙龙！》
Two famous short stories:―A Rose for Emily‖ 《纪念埃米莉的一朵玫瑰花》―The Bear‖《熊》
Comment：Faulkner as the foremost southern writer of the 20th century with 19 novels, 4collections of about 70 short stories, and two volumes of poetry. His important subjects are childhood, families, sex, obsessions the past and the modern southern memory, myth and reality, race, and alienation. His theme is essentially an analysis of the underlying cause for the failure and decay of the South before the Civil War. His fiction carries a strong sense of fragmentation in social community and within the individual himself due to the loss of love and lack emotional response.
He is noted for the Yoknapatawpha stories/s again which the fictional Yoknapatawpha （约克纳帕塔法县）County is the setting. The country stands for the Old South. It also serves as allegory or aparable of the Old South. He writes about the disintegration of the old social system in the American Southern States and its effect on the lives of modern people, both black and white. It shows a
panorama of the experience and consciousness of the whole Southern society.
Sinclair Lewis （辛克莱`刘易斯）
he became the first writer from the United Statesto be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
But it was not until1920 when Main Street《大街》appeared that he established his position as a very effective novelist.
Lewis published Babbitt《巴比特》which is generally regarded as his best book
His other novels ：Arrowsmith (1925)《阿罗史密斯》, and Dodsworth(1929).《杜德史沃斯》
John Dos Passos （多斯·帕索斯）
major works:U.S.A 《美国》或《美利坚》
The trilogy comprises The 42nd Parallel (1930)《北纬42度》, 1919(1932), and The Big Money (1936) 《赚大钱》Dos Passos used experimental techniques in these novels: the “Newsreels”（新闻短片）, the “Biographies”（人物小传）and the“Camera Eye”（摄相机镜头）(P263-264) to paint a vast landscape of American culture during the first decades of the 20th century.
John Steinbeck （约翰·斯坦贝克）
Steinbeck’s literary reputation was further built up by his next three novels: In Dubious Battle《胜负未决》(1936), Of Mice and Men(1937)《人鼠之间》about the tragic friendship of two migrant workers, and The Grapes of Wrath(1939)《愤怒的葡萄》. His masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath won a Pulitzer Prize in 1940. In 1947, he published The Pearl. 《珍珠》
In 1962, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
American Drama ：Eugene O’Neill （尤金·奥尼尔）
Eugene O'Neill was a great American playwright and the founder of modern American drama. He won Nobel Prize for literature and Pulizter Prize four times in his life.
Literary achievements
Beyond the Horizon (1920) 《天边外》(naturalism)（自然主义）
The Emperor Jones (1920) 《琼斯王》(symbolism and expressionism)（象征主义和表现主义）
The Hairy Ape (1922) 《毛猿》(naturalism)（自然主义）(p286)
Desire under the Elms (1924) 《榆树下的欲望》(Oedipus complex)（俄狄浦斯情结/恋母情结）
The Great God Brown (1926) 《伟大之神布朗》
The Iceman Cometh (1946)《送冰人来了》
Long Day’s Journey into Night (1956)《进入黑夜的漫漫旅程》(autobiographical play)(naturalism)（自传体戏剧自然主义）( p287)
In what way was Eugene O’ Neill an experimentalist in dramatic art?
O’Neill was a tireless experimentalist in dra matic art. He took drama away from the old traditions of the last century and rooted it deeply in life. he introduced the realistic or even the naturalistic aspect of life into the American theater. The stylistic aspect of O’Neill’s art merits notice for its variety and its display of consummate craftsmanship. He borrowed freely from the best traditions of European dramas be it Greek tragedies, or the realism of Ibsen, or the expressionism of Strindberg, and fused them into the organic art of his own. 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. O’Neill’s cease less experimentation enriched American drama and influenced later playwrights such as Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee. It is possible that he will go down in the history of American drama as the American Shakespeare. （P288）
Tennessee Williams （田纳西·威廉斯）
The Glass Menagerie (1944) 《玻璃动物园》A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)《欲望号街车》, winning the first Pulitzer Prize
Other best plays are Summer and Smoke (1948)《夏日烟云》,
The Rose Tattoo (1950)《玫瑰纹身》
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1954)《热铁皮屋顶上的猫》. won him his second Pulitzer Prize, dealing with sultry sex and violence in humorous terms.
Arthur Miller （亚瑟·米勒）
All My Sons (1947)《吾子吾弟》, Death of a Salesman (1949)《推销员之死》（winning the Pulitzer
Prize）, The Crucible (1953) 《严峻考验》and A View from the Bridge (1955)《桥头眺望》
A typical theme of Arthur Miller’s plays concerns th e dilemma of modern man in relation to his family and work. What occurs often in a Miller play is that the hero finds himself under a pressure from his society and its ethics, tries in vain to extricate himself from the physical and spiritual quandary into which he has fallen and finds release only in death,often in the form of actual or virtual suicide. The world is harsh. There is little or no choice for the hero. Either he submits to the impossible demands of society, or he rejects them. He dies in either case. Miller is, however, ,not completely pessimistic. Reading his plays, one feels a faith in man and in life, however vague it may be, though very often gloom overweight hope.（P299）
Edward Albee （爱德华·阿尔比）
The Zoo Story (1958)《动物园的故事》, The Sandbox(1959)《沙箱》, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962).《谁害怕弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫》
His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd.（荒诞剧）Postmodernism（后现代主义）（P312-313）
Postmodernism represents a new mode of perception and a way of writing. In poetry it strives to go against the vogue of the New Critical poem and its parent style, the High Modernism of the previous decades. It its thematic concerns, Postmodernism views the world as one that is not to be molded, but as formless and unpredictable.Postmodernism does not endeavor to impose on life and reality, but is willing to embrace it for what it is. And it tends to use topics and subjects of a personal, even a forbidden, nature. In its formal aspects, Postmodernism seeks for a freedom in literary expression.
Postmodernism asserts its own identify by virtue of its negation, partial in some cases, of its inheritance.Postmodernist novel exhibits its own unique features such as metafiction, black humor, and forms of avantgardism.
The Beat Generation（垮掉的一代）（P362）
In the 1950s, there was a widespread discontentment among the postwar generation, whose voice was one of protest against all the mainstream culture that America had come to represent. This has come to be known as the Beat Generation. Th e word ―beat,‖which Ginsberg and his friend Jack Kerouac picked up from a junkie friend of theirs, represented a non-conformist, rebellious attitude toward conventional values concerning sex, religion, the arts, and the American way of life. It was an attitude that resulted from the feeling of depression and exhaustion and the need to escape into an unconventional sometimes communal, mode of living.―beat‖ literature offered something like a fresh
breath of wind both in the prose and poetry of the 1950s and 1960s. The most enduring works are represented by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road杰克·克鲁亚克的《在路上》and William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch威廉·巴勒斯的《裸体午餐》in prose and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl 艾伦·金斯堡的《嚎叫》and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Pictures from the Gone world劳伦斯·弗林盖特《小时的世界之画面》in poetry.
Allen Ginsberg （艾伦·金斯堡）
The poet laureate of the Beat Generation.The spokesman for the Beat Generation
In 1955, at the Six Gallery, he read aloud his poem ―Howl‖ to his friends. This night has been called ―the birth trauma of the Beat Gen eration.‖
in 1956, with the help of his friend, he published Howl and Other poems which is a consummate work of carefully worded invectives, a torrent of deliberate voluble curses, spearheaded against an America that has destroyed ―the best minds‖ of the postwar generation.
Howl《嚎叫》is now regarded as the most significant long poem of the contemporary period, ranking among others, with Whiteman’s ―Song of Myself‖ (惠特曼的《自我之歌》)and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land（艾略特的《荒原》）.(P370)Ginsberg’s other collections incl ude Kaddishand Other Poems《卡迪西》, EmptyMirror《空镜》, Reality Sandwiches《现实的三明治》, White Shroud, Poems 1980-1985, 《白色尸衣，诗集1980-1985》and etc
Saul Bellow （索尔·贝娄）
Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature
His best-known works include The Adventures of Augie March《奥吉·玛琪历险记》,Henderson the Rain King《雨王汉德逊》, Herzog《赫索格》, Mr.Sammler's Planet《赛姆勒先生的行星》Seize the Day《只争朝夕》,Humboldt's Gift《洪堡的礼物》and Ravelstein《拉维尔斯坦》
Saul Bellow’s basic themes of the novels
Saul Bellow’s basic themes are essentially three-fold:first, he views contemporary society as a threat to human life and human integrity. Modern civilization tends to dehumanize, making people lose their distinction and turning them into what he calls ―fat goods‖. Material affluence di stracts and produces a sense of alienation. Then living in such an environment, peoplet end to become paranoid, high-strung, and impotent, and so lose their sanity.Bellovian characters suffer most from a kind of psychosis. They go through a phase before they regain their mental balance and serenity. Finally, there is the quest motif, a quest for truth and values, difficult, excruciating, but successful in a way.
Comment:Saul Bellow is the first important Jewish novelist to begin publishing in the mid-1940s. His novels present the problems of the modern urban man in search of his identity. This is a common theme that many writers develop in the postwar era. But he does it with the Jewish character and with particular Jewish flavor. His is often acclaimed as the best writer after Hemingway and Faulkner. He received Nobel Prize in 1976 because ―the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture are combined in his work.‖
J.D.Salinger(J.D·塞林格)
In 1951, he published his first and only novel, The Catcher in the Rye《麦田守望者》,and became famous overnight. The novel deals with the 16-year-old boy Holden Caulfield, a modern Huck Finn.
Comment on the novel
Holden is out of step with the educational, commercial, and sexual customs of the adult society and able to see through and expose its falsities and ―phoniness.‖ as he believes that all children are in danger of losing their innocence and integrity in a corrupt and decadent world, he wishes to be a catcher in the rye. Rebellious against the dubious values of the adult world, he represents the young people who are unable to talk to their parents or accept the―American way of life.‖ From the experience of this young boy, the novel reveals hypocrisy, venality, and squalor in society. This novel uses the first person point of view, and is written in a typical children’s language and from a child’s perspective of innocence. Evidently, it follows Mark Twain’s tradition.
Joseph Heller（约瑟夫·海勒）
Joseph Heller is the most prominent American novelist ofthe absurd in the postwar period.
His famous novel,Catch-22(1961)《第二十二条军规》
The novel is an anti-war novel about death. It is a typical case of black humor（黑色幽默）. The author creates a character, Yossarian, an image of anti-hero（反英雄）
Black humor(黑色幽默)：
Black humor refers to the use of the morbid and the absurd in literature for darkly comic purpose.It carries the tone of anger and bitterness in the grotesque situations of suffering,anxiety and death. It makes readers laugh at the blackness of modern life. The representative novel of black humor in American literature is Joseph Heller’Catch-22. 《第二十二条军规》
Anti-hero（反英雄）:Antihero refers to the chief person in a modern novel or play whose character is widely discrepant from that which we associate with the traditional protagonist or hero of a serious literary work. Instead of manifesting largeness, dignity,power, or heroism, the antihero is petty, ignominious, passive, ineffectual, or dishonest. The use of non-heroic protagonists occurs as early as the picaresque novel（流浪汉小说）of the 16th century, and the heroine of Defoe’s Moll Flanders《摩尔·弗兰德斯》is a thief and a prostitute（妓女）. The term ―antihero‖, however, is usually applied to writings in the period of disillusion after the Second World War.For example, Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.《第二十二条军规》
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
雪夜林畔小驻
想来我认识这座森林，
林主的庄宅就在邻村,
却不会见我在此驻马，
看他林中积雪的美景。
我的小马一定颇惊讶：
四望不见有什么农家，
偏是一年最暗的黄昏，
寒林和冰湖之间停下。
它摇一摇身上的串铃，
问我这地方该不该停。
此外只有轻风拂雪片，
再也听不见其他声音。
森林又暗又深真可羡，
但我还要守一些诺言，
还要赶多少路才安眠，
还要赶多少路才安眠。
Appreciation and comment:
The poem is one of Robert Frost’s most anthologized lyric poems consisting of four stanzas. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter quatrains. This seemingly simple and fresh tells that in the winter twilight the poet stops his horse to observe the beauty of the forest scene. The poet is so fascinated by the lovely nature that he almost forests his journey. His horse shakes its bells and the poet is reminded to continue his journey. In the poem “promises” may mean one’s life missions to fulfill. Symbolically, “sleep” refers to “die”. The poem seems to say that life is a journey and that no matter what attracts you on the way you have to continue your journey and fulfill your life promises before you take your “final rest”. Th e poem also reveals the speaker’s desire for a momentary relief from the obligations of the world.
The Road not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 未选择的路罗伯特·弗罗斯特
黄色的树林里分出两条路
可惜我不能同时去涉足
我在那路口久久伫立
我向着一条路极目望去
直到它消失在丛林深处
但我却选择了另外一条路
它荒草萋萋，十分幽寂
显得更诱人，更美丽
虽然在这条小路上
很少留下旅人的足迹
那天清晨落叶满地
两条路都未经脚印污染
呵，留下一条路等改日再见
但我知道路径延绵无尽头
恐怕我难以再回返
也许多少年后在某个地方，
我将轻声叹息将往事回顾：
一片树林里分出两条路——
而我选择了人迹更少的一条，
从此决定了我一生的道路。
Appreciation and comment:
The Road not Taken is Robert Frost’most widely anthologized poem. It tells how the course of his life was determined when he came upon two roads that diverged in a wood on an autumn day. The poet, after much hesitation and reflection, challenged himself by choosing the one less travelled and he said his life was different. Symbolically,the roads the poet mentioned in the poem are roads that man has to choose in life. The poet chose to follow an unusual, solitary life. Perhaps, he was speaking of his choice to become a poet rather than some commoner profession. The dilemma man faces in the course of life choice is universal and painful. The poet tells us that one has to give up something desirable so as to reap what seems better. In fact, each choice runs risk of losing something beautiful. However,man has to choose and must be responsible for what he has chosen. 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. The poet seems to say that it is of great importance to make a wise choice in life. The poem is composed in five-line stanzas, rhyming abaab.
美国文学史复习资料
美国文学史复习（colonialism) 第一部分殖民主义时期的文学 一、时期综述 1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记b、journals 游记 2、清教徒在美国的写作内容： 1）their voyage to the new land 2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops 3) About dealing with Indians 4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit 3、清教徒的思想： 1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式 2) Wish to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位 3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who challenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝 4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。 4、典型的清教徒：John Cotton & Roger William 他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy; William begins the history of religious toleration in America. 5、William的宗教观点：Toleration did not stem from a lack of religious convictions. Instead, it sprang from the idea that simply to be virtuous in conduct and devout in belief did not give anyone the right to force belief on others. He also felt that no political order or church system could identify itself directly with God. 行为上的德，信仰上的诚，并没有给任何人强迫别人该如何行事的权利。没有任何政治秩序和教会体制能够直接体现神本身的意旨。 6、英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet 7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of Puritan poets is Edward Tayor. 学习指南： 1、Could you give a description of American Puritans? 关于美国清教徒的描绘 Like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to the "purity" of the first-century church as established by Jesus Christ himself. To them religion was a matter of primary importance. They made it their chief business to see that man lived and thought and acted in a way which tended to the glory of God. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God, all that John Calvin, the great French theologian who lived in Geneva had preached. It was this kind of religious belief that they brought with them into the wildness. There they meaant to prove that were God's chosen people enjoying his blessings on this earth as in Heaven. 2、Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing. 3、The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet & Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry.
美国文学选读复习资料
American Puritanism 殖民地时期 ( roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th) 一、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明?富兰克林 作品： 1、Poor Richard's Almanac 《格言历书》--- A Collection of maxims, or proverbs, on the value of work and savings for success. 2、The Autobiography 《自传》---“美国梦”的根源 3、参与起草《独立宣言》 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. Romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics:moral enthusiasm,faith in value of in dividualism and intuitive perception,and a presumption that the natural world was a source of good ness and man’s societies as a source of corruption. 二、Edgar Allan Poe埃德加·爱伦·坡 ---poet,short story writer and literary critic(48poems,70short stories) He greatly influenced the devotees of“Art for art’s sake.” He was father of psychoanalytic criticism(心理分析批评),and the detective story.诗歌的精髓就是追求美 小说的主题常常是恐怖和死亡，其中还运用了象征手法。 The Poetic Principle: 1.The poem,should be short,readable at one sitting; 2.Beauty(the rhythmical creation of beauty); 3.Melancholy忧伤(especially the death of a beautiful woman).
美国文学史期末参考复习资料
仅作参考，最主要还是要自己消化，整理 Chapter 1 Colonial Period 1. Puritanism: American puritans accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. 2. Influence (1) A group of good qualities – hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced American literature. (2) It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden. (3) Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chi efly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American. (4) With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible. II. Overview of the literature 1. types of writing diaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons 2. writers of colonial period (1) Anne Bradstreet (2) Edward Taylor III. Benjamin Franklin 1. life 2. works (1) Poor Richard’s Almanac (2) Autobiography 3. contribution (1) He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society. (2) He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this case) from heaven”. (3) Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melville thus described him “master of each and mastered by none”. Chapter 2 American Romanticism Section 1 Early Romantic Period I. American Romanticism 1. Background (1) Political background and economic development (2) Romantic movement in European countries Derivative – foreign influence 2. features (1) American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real new experience and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien. (2) There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained. (3) The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with Am erican Romanticism. (4) As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent. II. Washington Irving: Father of American Literature 1. several names attached to Irving (1) first American writer (2) the messenger sent from the new world to the old world (3) father of American literature 2. life 3. works (1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (2) The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this.) (3) The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (5) The Alhambra 4. Literary career: two parts (1) 1809~1832
(完整版)美国文学史复习资料
美国文学史复习1（colonialism) 第一部分殖民主义时期的文学 一、时期综述 1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记b、journals 游记 2、清教徒在美国的写作内容： 1）their voyage to the new land 2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops 3) About dealing with Indians 4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit 3、清教徒的思想： 1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式 2) Wish to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位 3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who challenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝 4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。 4、典型的清教徒：John Cotton & Roger William 他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy; William begins the history of religious toleration in America. 5、William的宗教观点：Toleration did not stem from a lack of religious convictions. Instead, it sprang from the idea that simply to be virtuous in conduct and devout in belief did not give anyone the right to force belief on others. He also felt that no political order or church system could identify itself directly with God. 行为上的德，信仰上的诚，并没有给任何人强迫别人该如何行事的权利。没有任何政治秩序和教会体制能够直接体现神本身的意旨。 6、英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet 7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of Puritan poets is Edward Tayor. 学习指南： 1、Could you give a description of American Puritans? 关于美国清教徒的描绘 Like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to the "purity" of the first-century church as established by Jesus Christ himself. To them religion was a matter of primary importance. They made it their chief business to see that man lived and thought and acted in a way which tended to the glory of God. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God, all that John Calvin, the great French theologian who lived in Geneva had preached. It was this kind of religious belief that they brought with them into the wildness. There they meaant to prove that were God's chosen people enjoying his blessings on this earth as in Heaven. 2、Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing. 3、The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet & Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry. 4、The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards Italian, and Portuguese. 美国文学史复习2（reasoning and revolution) (2009-01-17 15:54:25) 一、美国的性质： The war for Independence ended in the formation of a Federative bourgeois democratic republic - the United States of America. 联邦的资产阶级民主共和国--美利坚合众国。 二、代表作家： 1、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明·富兰克林1706-1790 1）"Poor Richard's Almanac" 穷人查理德的年鉴annual collection of proverbs 流行谚语集 It soon became the most popular book of its kind, largely because of Franklin's shrewd humor, and first spread his reputation 2) Founded the Junto, a club for informal discussion of scientific, economic and political ideas. 建立了一个秘密俱乐部，讨论的主题是政治、经济和科学等时事方面的问题 3）established America's first circulating library, founded the college--University of Pennsylvania. 建立了美国第一个可租借的图书馆，还创办了一所大学——就是现在的宾夕法尼亚大学。 4）first applied the terms "positive" and "negative" to electrical charges. 5)As a representative of the Colonies, he tried in vain to counsel the British toward policies that would let America grow and flourish in association with England. He conducted the difficulty negotiations with France that brought financial and military support for America in the war. 作为殖民地的代表，他不断建议英国改变政策，使美国可以和英国一起发展、繁荣。他说服法国支持美国的独立战争。 6）As an author he had power of expression, simplicity, a subtle humor, sarcastic.作为作家具有非凡的才能，表达简洁明了，幽默，讽刺天才、 7）The Way to Wealth致富之道The Autobiography自传18世纪美国唯一流传至今的自传
美国文学史及选读复习重点
Captain John Smith (first American writer). Anne Bradstreet；The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America （colonists living） Edward Taylor(the best puritan poet) John Cotton ”the Patriarch of New England” teacher spiritual leader Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography Poor Richard’s Almanack Thomas Jefferson： Political Career Thoughts The Declaration of Independence we hold truth to be self-evidence Philip Freneau“Father of American Poetry” The Wild Honey Suckle American Romanticism optimism and hope Nationalism Washington Irving“Father of American Literature short story”The first “Pure Writer” A History of New York The Sketch Book marked the beginning of American Romanticism! “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”Rip Van Winkle James Fenimore Cooper Father of American sea and frontier novels Leather stocking Tales The Last of the Mohicans The Pioneers The Prairie The Pathfinder The Deerslayer Edgar Allan Poe father of detective story and horror fiction Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque “MS. Found in a Bottle” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” “The Fall of the House of Usher”“The Masque of the Red Death”“The
美国文学选读期末考试重点
1、The Colonial Period（1607-1765） American Puritanism ( in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th) 北美第一位女诗人Anne Bradstreet(宗教气息，夫妻恩爱) Edward Taylor 都受英国玄学派影响（metaphysical） 2、The Enlightenment and Revolution Period Benjamin Franklin:Poor Richard's Almanac The Autobiography---“美国梦”的根源 3、American Romanticism（end of 18th to the civil war） American writers emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature. 早期浪漫主义Washington Irving father of American Literature
美国文学简史 期末复习资料
i.T h e C o l o n i a l P e r i o d 1.关键词: America Puritanism 2.Calvinism特点: total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Perseverance of the saints 3.Anne Bradstreet( P17 ): a Puritan poet be known as “The Muse” 4.Thomas Paine: one of continual, unswerving fight for the rights of man. 5.works: “Common Sense”“American Crisis”“The Rights of Man”“The Age of Reason”理性时代 6.Phillip Freneau(P22): 美国文学史上的重要人物 7.dawning nationalism 代表人物 Poems: The Wild Honeysuckle野生的金银花 first modern American & the last medieval man 8.Jonathan Edwards( Calvinism ) 9. a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening 10.works: “The Freedom of the Will”《自由意志论》“The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended”《伟哉原罪论辩》“The Nature of True Virtue” “American Dream”“Self-made” 11.Benjamin Franklin(puritanism) 12.“Poor Richard’s Almance”“autobiography”新文学形式 13.“18th century enlightenment” ii.Romanticism 1.Washington Irving（1783-1859） 2.①titles: “the father of American literature” 3.“the American Goldsmith” 4.②works: The Sketch Book (marked the beginning of American Romanticism and the beginning of short stories as a genre in American literature) 5.Rip Van Winkle (P47—P48) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 6.James Fenimore Cooper（1789-1851） 7.①One of the first writer to write American Westward movement 8.②“The Leatherstocking Tales” (novel) 9.first is “The Pioneers” 10.---Plot: ---theme conflict between Natty Bumppo and Judge Temple- ---character: Natty Bumppo---innocent, simple, honest and generous, for freedom, against civilization, wilderness is good Judge Temple---just, reasonable, for civilization and law ③Writing style: intriguing plot majestic landscape descriptions rich imagination
美国文学复习资料
Chapter 1 1.American literature in the colonial periods (殖民地时期的文学，1607-1765): ①1942 Christopher Columbus(哥伦布) discovery of America ②17th century English began their settlement of the North American continent (北美拓殖开始) ③1606 the frist English settlement James Town, Virginia ④1620 the ship Mayflower arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts ⑤1629 the Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony 2.Puritanism(清教主义) and writers, early poetries 1) the spirit and ideal of puritans who settled in the North American continent in the early part of the seventeenth century because of religious persecutions. The doctrines of predestination(宿命), original sin(原罪), total depravity(完全的堕落) and limited atonement(有限的救赎) were all that they believed in. 2)writers: William Bradford(1590-1702 Of Plymouth Plantation普利茅斯开发历史), Anne Bradstreet(1617-1672 The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America在美洲诞生的第十个谬斯), Jonathan Edwards(1702-1758), Edward Taylor(1642-1729). 3)Early poetries: The Bay Psalm Book(1640, 1st book written and printed) , The Day of Doom(1662), New England Primer(1638, the 1st and most successful educational textbook) 3.The Main Features of this period 1)American literature grew out of humble origins. Diaries, histories, journals, letters, commonplace books, travel books, sermons, in short, personal literature in its various forms, occupy a major position in the literature of the early colonial period; 2) In content these early writings served either God or colonial expansion or both. In form, if there was any form at all, English literary traditions were faithfully imitated and transplanted;3) The Puritanism formed in this period was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American literature. 4.American literature in the revolutionary periods( Enlightenment启蒙运动, 1765 -1800) 1)revolutionary ended in 1763 2)1772 Patriot groups began to form committees 3)1774 Frist Continental Congress 4)1775 fighting broke out 5)1776 the Declaration of Independence in Second Continental Congress 6)1783 The Treaty of Paris(巴黎和约) → real independence 7)1776- 1783 Independence War 5.Famous literary figures Roger Williams(罗杰·威廉斯1603-1683): The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience, Discussed in a Conference between Truth and Peace （1644） Philip Freneau(菲利普·弗伦诺1752-1832): "the poet of the American Revolution". His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature John Woolman(约翰·伍尔1702-1772), Tomas Paine(托马斯·潘恩1737-1809)，Benjamin Franklin本杰明·富兰克林 6.Benjamin Franklin(1706 - 1790) and works