American Literature

Chapter 1 Colonial America

American Puritanism 美国清教主义

The English, the first settlers, puritans.

They were a group of religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles.

It is true that they wished to escape religious persecution.

They endeavor to build their “City of God on earth”.

American Puritanism: American puritans accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God.

John Calvin, the great French theologian had preached.

American literature grew out of humble origins. Diaries, histories, journals, letters, commonplace books, travel books, sermons, in short, personal literature in its various forms.

Captain John Smith, A Description of New England约翰·史密斯船长《新英格兰介绍》

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 威廉·布雷福德《普利茅斯开拓史》

John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity 约翰·温斯罗普《基督教仁爱的典范》

Anne Bradstreet, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America. 安妮·布雷特兹里特《第十位缪斯在美洲出现》Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the “Tenth Muse”.

Edward Taylor, Huswifery

Enlightenment and Revolutionary Period

Roger Williams, The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience

罗杰.威廉斯《血腥条例》

John Woolman, Journal 约翰伍尔曼《约翰伍尔曼自传》

Thomas Paine, works of two revolutionary. 托马斯·潘恩

Common Sense, The American Crisis was influenced in the American Revolution.

《常识》《美国危机》

wrote The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason in the French Revolution.

《权利论》《理智时代》

Philip Freneau, The Rising Glory of America 菲利普·弗伦诺《蒸蒸日上的美洲》

Edwards was the first modern American and the country’s last medieval man.

The Freedom of the Will《意志的自由》

Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood (笔名), founded the Junto Club (共读社) and the American Philosophical Society (美洲哲学会).

He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France, the treaty of peace with England, and the constitution.

“Jack of all trades”

The symbol of America in the Age of Enlightenment, he brought the colonial era to a close.

Poor Richard’s Almanac《格言历书》

Autobiography《自传》

Chapter 2 American Romanticism

American Romanticism

The Romantic period stretches from the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the Civil War.

Distinct 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 Then there is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider.

③ Another thing to mention in connection with American Romanticism was the “newness”of the

Americans as a nation.

④ American Romanticism was both imitative and independent.

Pre-romanticism

Washington Irving (1783 - 1859) 华盛顿·欧文

A History of New York under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, was a great success and won him wide popularity.《纽约外史》

The Sketch Book, he won a measure of international recognition.《见闻札记》

The History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus《哥伦布传》

A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada《攻克格拉纳达》The Alhambra《阿尔罕伯拉》

Life of Goldsmith《戈德史密斯传》Life of Washington《华盛顿传》

Irving’s contribution

①The first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame;

②He was father of American literature;

③The short story as a genre in American literature probably began with Irving (’s The Sketch Book, which the most famous are “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” );

④Marked the beginning of American Romanticism;

⑤He is at times known as “the American Goldsmith”.

For “Rip Van Winkle” Irving took suggestions from a German source.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789 - 1851) 詹姆斯?费尼莫尔?库珀

Cooper was one of the first authors to write about the American Westward movement.

first book, Precaution; the second one, The Spy.

Remembered today as the author of the “Leatherstocking Tales”, a series of five novels about the frontier life.

《皮袜子故事集》

a series of five novels: The Pioneers (1823) 《开拓者》

（Natty Bumppo）The Last of the Mohicans (1826) 《最后的莫希干人》

The Prairie (1827) 《草原》

The Pathfinder (1840) 《探路者》

The Deerslayer (1841) 《杀鹿者》

写作顺序：时间：

内容：→The Deerslayer→The Last of the Mohicans→The Pathfinder→The Pioneers→The Prairie

Cooper’s claim to greatness in American literature lies in the fact that he created a myth about the formative period.

New England Transcendentalism 新英格兰超验主义

1836 Emerson Nature《论自然》

Nature’s voice pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism, the summit of American Romanticism.

“The Transcendentalism, is idealism; idealism as appears in 1842.”(Emerson’s answer in his essay)

The Transcendentalist Club; the Dial《日晷》(杂志)

The word, “The Transcendental,” was not native to America; it was a Kantian term denoting.

The major features of New England Transcendentalism:

① First, the Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the

universe, which represented a new way of looking at the world.

② Secondly, the Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual, which represented a new way

of looking at man.

③ Thirdly, the Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.

New England Transcendentalism: In 1836,the book Nature appeared, which marked the emergence of New England Transcendentalism. The representatives were Emerson, Thoreau. +features ①②③

New England Transcendentalism was the product of a combination of foreign influences and the American Puritan tradition.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) 拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生

Emerson became the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism.

One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in the transcendence of the “Oversoul”.

The other significant, Transcendentalist thesis, that the individual. means “the infinitude of man”.

Nature is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism.

Nature and The American Scholar（《论美国学者》）played a very important part in the intellectual history of the nation.

The American Scholar has been regarded as “America’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence”. What Emerson was trying to say was actually this, that the Americans should write about here and now instead of imitating and importing from other lands.

Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862) 亨利·戴维·梭罗

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers《康科德及梅里马克河畔一周》

Civil Disobedience《论公民的不服从》（写于梭罗拒交“人头税”被捕入狱释放后；影响了甘地Gandhi）

The famous book, Walden《瓦尔登湖》

A Plea for John Brown《为约翰·布朗的辩护》

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864) 纳撒尼尔·霍桑

First novel: Fanshaw (1828) 《范肖》

Short story collections: Twice-Told Tales (1837) 《重讲一边的故事》

Moses from an Old Manse (1846) 《古屋青苔》

The Scarlet Letter (1850) 《红字》 A (adultery→ability→angel)

The House of Seven Gables (1851) 《七个尖角阁的房子》

The Blithedale Romance (1852) 《福谷传奇》

The Marble Faun (1860)《大理石神像》

Short stories: Young Goodman Brown《好青年布朗》The Minister’s Black Veil《教长的黑面纱》

Herman Melville (1819 - 1891) 赫尔曼·梅尔维尔

波利尼西亚三部曲：Typee (1846)《泰比》, Omoo (1847)《奥姆》,Mardi (1849)《玛地》

Redburn (1849)《雷得本》

White Jacket (1850)《白外衣》

Moby Dick (1851)《白鲸》

Pierre (1852)《皮埃尔》

One of the major themes in Melville is alienation, which he sensed existing in the life of his time on different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature.

Moby Dick thus reveals the basic pattern of nineteenth-century American life: loneliness and suicidal individualism.

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) 瓦尔特·惠特曼

Leaves of Grass, the first edition of which came out in 1855.It contained twelve poems. It went through nine editions. When the fifth edition appeared, Whitman began to receive recognition in England and

American.1881(seventh edition) saw the publication of Leaves of Grass for the first time by a reputable publisher though ironically it was banned.

In his last months he prepared the “Deathbed Edition” which, containing all of his 400-odd poems.

Whitman was a transitional figure from Romanticism and Transcendentalism to Realism.

Whitman’s techniques: One of the principles of Whitman’s technique is parallelism or a rhythm of thought in which, the line is the rhythmical unit, as in the poetry of the English Bible. Another main principle of

Whitman’s versification is phonetic recurrence, i.e., the systematic repetition of words and phrases at the

beginning of the line, in the middle or at the end. Whitman broke free from the traditional iambic pentameter and wrote “free verse.”

Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)艾米莉·迪金森

She wrote altogether 1775 poems, only seven appeared in print in her lifetime.

Dickinson’s themes: ①Dickinson expressed a passionate yearning for religious certitude,

God’s help, and the good life.

②By far the largest portion of D’s poetry concerns death and immortality.

③Dickinson sees nature as both gaily benevolent and cruel.

④Dickinson emphasizes free will and human responsibility.

⑤Response to the expansion of America was a warm one.

Dickinson became the precursor of the Imagist movement.意象派运动先驱

Compare Whitman and Dickinson

①Thematically, both extolled, in their different ways, an emergent America, its expansion, its individualism,

and its Americanness, their poetry being part of American Renaissance.

②In technical terms, both added to the literary independence of the new nation by breaking free of the

convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in form unknown before: they were

pioneers in American poetry.

③Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large; Dickinson explores the inner life of the individuals.

④Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is “regional”.

⑤Dickinson has the catalogue technique which Whitman doesn’t have.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)埃德加·爱伦·坡

MS. Found in a Bottle, won first prize in a short story contest run by a Baltimore newspaper in 1833. 《瓶子里发现的手稿》

His first full-length novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.《阿瑟·戈登·皮姆的故事》

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque《奇异怪诞故事集》

Poe remained probably the most controversial and most misunderstood literary in the history of American literature.

Emerson dismissed him in three words, “the jingle man.”(打油诗)；

Mark Twain declared his prose to be unreadable.

Poe’s achievement in the three areas of work as a critic, poet and short story writer.

Poe’s reputation was first made in France.

Essays: The Philosophy of Composition《创作原理》

The Poetic Principle (1850)《诗的原则》

Poetry: Annabel Lee (1849)《安娜贝尔·丽》

The Raven (1845)《乌鸦》

The Bells (1849)《铃声》

To Hellen (1831)《致海伦》

Short stories: tales of terror: The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)《厄舍古屋的倒塌》

It is obvious that “melancholy” is to be the tone of the story.

Ligeia (1838)《姬莉雅》

Black Cat (1843)《黑猫》

tales of ratiocination: Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)《莫格街谋杀案》

The Purloined Letter (1844)《盗窃信》

The Gold Bug (1843)《金甲虫》

The Mystery of Marie Roget (1843)《玛丽·罗杰疑案》

Thou Art the Man (1844)《就是你》

（五部推理小说，主人公都为“Dupin”杜宾）

Poe is father of many things, one of which is psychoanalytic criticism, the other being the detective story.

Chapter 3 American Realism

American Realism

“Golden Age” turned out to be a “Gilded” one.(黄金时代→镀金时代)

Realism came in the latter half of the 19 century against “the lie” of romanticism and sentimentalism.

Commend on American Realism:

①With Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, realism became a major trend in the seventies

and eighties of the nineteenth century.

②It expressed concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low.

③In matters of style, there was contrast between the genteel and graceful prose on the one hand, and

vernacular diction and rough and ready frontier humor on the other.

William Dean Howells (1837 - 1920) 威廉·迪安·豪威尔斯

His poems printed in The Atlantic Monthly.《大西洋月刊》

His the first president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.(美国文学协会第一任主席)

Criticism and Fiction《批评与小说》

Their Wedding Journey《蜜月旅行》

The Rise of Silas Lapman《赛拉斯·拉帕姆的发迹》

Howells’ emphasis has always been on ethics.

Henry James (1843 - 1916) 亨利·詹姆斯

The one American author who exerted a measure of influence on James was Hawthorne.

The creative life of Henry James can be divided into three periods:

In the first period: The American（1877）《一个美国人》

Daisy Miller（1878）, won him international fame.《黛西·米勒》

The Portrait of a Lady（1881）《一位女士的画像》

In the second period: he dropped the “international theme”.

What Maisie Knew（1897）《梅茜所知道的》

The Turn of the Screw（1898）《螺丝在拧紧》

In the third and final phase of his creativity: The Wings of the Dove（1902）《鸽翼》

The Ambassadors（1903）《使节》

The Golden Bowl（1904）《金碗》

In his writing career James was concerned with “point of view”.

Local Colorism乡土文学

Local Colorism:

①Local Colorism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early seventies.The appearance

of Bret Harte’s “The Luck of Roaring Camp”in 1868 marked a significant development in the brief history of local color fiction.

②Local Colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions.

They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forget to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life.早期表达形式：“tall tales”，说大话。

Bret Harte The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Stories哈特《咆哮营的幸运儿及其他故事集》

Harriet Beecher Stowe/ Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin 斯托夫人《汤姆叔叔的小屋》

Hamlin Garland Crumbling Idols哈姆林·加兰《摇摇欲坠的偶像》defines Local Colorism.

Hamlin Garland coined the word “veritism”(写真主义)for his particular brand of realism. His masterpiece is Main-Traveled Road.《大路》

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) 马克·吐温

Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

The Celebrated jumping Frog of Calaveras County, became nationally famous.《卡拉维拉斯县弛名的跳蛙》

His first novel, The Gilded Age, was an artistic failure, but it gave its name to the America of the post-bellum period which it attempts to satirize.《镀金时代》

The Adventures of Tom Sawye r, “a boy’s book”.《汤姆·索亚历险记》

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, became his masterwork, as Hemingway noted, “all modern American literature comes”. Huck Finn is written in the colloquial style, in the general standard speech of uneducated Americans. “a number of dialects”《哈克贝里·费恩历险记》

Mark Twain made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country. William Faulkner, “In my opinion, Mark Twain was first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs, who descended from him.”

Life on the Mississippi, another masterpiece of his. Howells felt that he could taste “the mud” in it.

《密西西比河上生活》

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Cour《在亚瑟王朝廷里的康涅狄格州美国人》

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg 《败坏了哈德莱堡的人》

The Mysterious Stranger《神秘的陌生人》

Autobiography《自传》

Innocents Abroad《傻子出国旅行记》

Roughing It《艰苦岁月》

Pudd’nhead Wilson《傻瓜威尔逊》

The Prince and the Pauper《王子和贫儿》

Mark Twain was a friend of the Chinese.

What are the differences between Howells, James and Mark Twain?

①Although Howells, James and Mark Twain all worked for realism, there were obvious differences

between them. In thematic terms, James wrote mostly of the upper reaches of American society, and Howells concerned himself chiefly with middle class life, whereas Mark Twain dealt largely with the lower strata of society.

②Technically, Howells wrote in the vein of genteel realism, James pursued an “imaginative” treatment of

reality or psychological realism, but Mark Twain’s contribution to the development of realism and to American literature as a whole was partly through his theories of localism in American fiction, and partly through his colloquial style.

American Naturalism（美国特有）

The Darwinian concepts like “the survival of the fittest” and “the human beast”.（实验=科学）

American Naturalism: American Naturalism appeared in the1890s with the representatives of Crane, Norris and Dreiser. They tore the mask of gentility to pieces and wrote about the helplessness of man, his

insignificance in a cold world, and his lack of dignity in face of the crushing forces of environment and

heredity. They reported truthfully and objectively, with a passion for scientific accuracy and an overwhelming accumulation of a factual detail.

Stephen Crane (1871 - 1900) 斯蒂芬·克莱恩

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets《街头女郎玛吉》Maggie is naked representation of slum life.

Poem: The Black Riders《黑骑者》

The Red Badge of Courage, one of the greatest war novel.《红色英雄勋章》

His most famous short story, The Open Boat《海上扁舟》

Frank Norris (1870 - 1902)弗兰克·诺里斯

McTeague (1899)《麦克提格》

McTeague has been called “the first full-bodied naturalistic American novel”and “a consciously naturalistic manifesto.”

A trilogy on the production, distribution, and consumption of wheat:（“小麦史诗”三部曲：）

The Octopus (1901)《章鱼》The Pit (1903)《深渊》The Wolf《狼》(未完成)

Theodore Dreiser（1871—1945）西奥多·德莱塞

Sister Carrie (1900)《嘉莉妹妹》

Jennie Gerhardt (1911)《珍妮姑娘》

Trilogy: The Financier (1912)《金融家》The Titan (1914)《巨人》The Stoic (1947 )《斯多葛》

The "Genius" (1915)《天才》

An American Tragedy (1925)《美国悲剧》

Dreiser was left-oriented in his views. He visited Russia and wrote Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928)《德莱塞访苏印象记》and Tragic America (1931)《悲剧的美国》（非小说类）

Dreiser joined the Communist Party.

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1860 - 1935)埃德温·阿林顿·罗宾逊

The Man Against the Sky《面对苍穹的人》Richard Cory《理查德·科瑞》

Jack London (1876—1916) 杰克·伦敦

His masterwork and semi-autobiography: Martin Eden《马丁·伊登》

The Call of the Wild《野性的呼唤》White Fang《白芳》The Sea Wolf《海狼》

O. Henry (1862—1910)欧·亨利

O. Henry pseudonym of William Sydney Porter. He is a short-story writer.

Short story collections: The Four Million: The Gift of Magi《麦琪的礼物》

(The Cop and The Anthem《警察与赞美诗》)

The first half of the nineteenth century as an “American Renaissance,” the decade of the 1920s,can be termed the second renaissance.

Two events of great historic significance, the First World War and the Great Depression.

Simon De Beauvoir, The Second Sex.

aims of the coming of the image:

①to express the modern spirit, the sense of fragmentization and dislocation.

②as a reaction to the traditional English poetics with its iambic pentameter, its verbosity, and extra-poetic padding.

③to meet the need of expressing the temper of the age.

The first Imagist theorist, the English writer T. E. Hulme. “metronome”瞬间意象

The movement underwent three phases:

① It first began in London in the years 1908-1909.T. E. Hulme, found in 1908 a Poets’ Club.

② The second phase of movement was 1912-1914 when Ezra Pound took over and championed the new poetry.

an Imagist manifesto came out in 1912 in which Pound and Flint laid down three Imagist poetic principles.

In 1914,Pound edited the first anthology of Imagist poems, entitled Des Imagistes.

③ the third phase of Imagism (1914-1917), Amy Lowell, “Amygism,”as Pound called it.

Pound left to devote his attention to new movements like “V orticism.”漩涡派运动

After 1917 Imagism ceased to be a movement.

Imagism：Imagism was a poetic movement that flourished in America and England, at the beginning of the 20th century. Ezra Pound and Flint raised three principles for the movement.

① direct treatment of the “thing,” whether subjective or objective;

② to use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation;

③ as regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase ,not in the sequence of a

metronome.

poetry

Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

In 1908 he sailed to Europe and published his first book of poetry, A Lume Spento.《熄灭的细烛》

Around 1915 he finished his volume of Chinese translations, Cathay, began to work on his Cantos.

（李白《长干行》）《华夏集》《诗章》

He learned in the direction of Mussolini’s fascist totalitarianism.法西斯

At the end of the war he was arrested by the U.S. military authorities as Pisa(比萨斜塔).He wrote the first draft of his Pisan Cantos in prison.《比萨诗章》

The greatest cultural influence over Pound came perhaps from ancient China.

The beat poem that Pound ever wrote is probably his two-part Hugh Selwyn Mauberley.

The Cantos has been called Pound’s “intellectual diary since 1915.” Containing a total of 177 poems.

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

In 1911 he finished The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. It takes the form of soliloquy(内心独白),an interior monologue like that of Browning’s.

“Hollow Man” exhibiting a pessimism no less depressing.《空心人》

Ash Wednesday and Four Quartets indicated that the poet had turned conservative.

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

An obvious source of difficulty lies in his learned quotations and allusions.

In 1922,The Waste Land was first published in the English Criterion and in the American Dial.

The Waste Land reveals its author’s strong historical sense.

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)华莱士·史蒂文斯

Harmonium《风琴》

“Anecdote of the Jar”《坛子的故事》

“Sunday Morning”《星期天的早晨》

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) 威廉·卡洛斯·威廉姆斯

Williams was anti-Eliot all his life.

In the American Grain《美国谷物》

Long poem Paterson《佩特森》

Williams has been recognized as a forefather of open verse.(开放体)

“The Red Wheelbarrow”《红色手推车》

Robert Frost (1874-1963) 罗伯特·弗罗斯特

His first two poetry volumes were published in London in 1913 A Boy's Will and 1914 North of Boston.

He won the Pulitzer Prizes four times and received commendations by the American Academy of Arts. And became the nation’s unofficial Poet Laureate when invited to read his poem “The Gift Outright” at President Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961.《全心全意的奉献》

“The Road Not Taken”《未选择的路》

“Mending Wall”《修墙》

Frost has been linked with the tradition of nature poetry.

“Mowing”《割麦》

“Birches”《白桦树》

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”《雪夜驻足林边》

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) 卡尔·桑德堡

the Chicago Renaissance: From 1912-1925,the Chicago poets Vachel Lindsay, Edgar Lee Masters and Carl Sandburg were making their voice heard in the Mid-west. These poets, along with other writers and artists in Chicago, made Chicago a center of literature and arts, and in the field of poetry, added to the momentum of the new verse then locked in the battle with the dominant genteel tradition of the time.

Chicago Poems《芝加哥诗抄》

Good Morning, America 《早安，美国》

The People, Yes 《人民，是的》

Collected Poems《诗歌总集》（won Pulitzer Prize）

Carl Sandburg was probably the only great poet who wrote in the Whitmanesque tradition in the present century.

E. E. Cummings (1894-1963)

Cummings was probably the most interesting experimentalist in modern American poetry.

（没大小写，没标点符号）

Autobiographical narrative, The Enormous Room.《大屋》

novel

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)菲茨杰拉德

He joined in the Triangle Club.三角俱乐部

His first novel, This Side of Paradise.《人间天堂》

Two collections: Flappers and Philosophers (1920)《时髦女与哲学家》

Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)《爵士时代的故事》

His second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned (1922)《美与丑》

His masterpiece, The Great Gatsby (1925)《了不起的盖茨比》

The Last Tycoon, which he never finished. 《最后的大亨》

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) 海明威

His first novel, The Torrents of Spring (1926)《春潮》

As a journalist, Hemingway trained himself in the economy of expression.

In Our Time (1925)《在我们时代》（短篇小说集）

Men Without Women (1927)《没有女人的男人》

Winner Take Nothing (1933)《胜者无所得》

His first important novel –The Sun Also Rises (1926)《太阳照常升起》

His second important novel –A Farewell to Arms (1929)《永别了，武器》

Collections of Short Stories: Death in the Afternoon (1932)《死在午后》

Green Hills of Africa (1935)《非洲的青山》

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)《丧钟为谁而鸣》

Across the River and Into the Trees(1950)《过河入林》

The Old Man and the Sea (1952)《老人与海》

He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1952 and won the Nobel Prize in 1954.

“a man is not made for defeat…. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

Hemingway’s book paints the image of a whole generation, the Lost Generation.迷惘的一代

Hemingway wrote all his life about one theme, “grace under pressure.”

the Hemingway hero possesses “despairing courage.”

【硬汉（A code of hero）： 1. “重压下的优雅”； 2. “绝望中的勇气”】

In the latter part of his life, Hemingway came to be known as “Papa Hemingway.” This compliment refers in the main to his contribution to the development of a new style of writing in America, that is, the colloquial style. Iceberg style 冰山风格Telegraph style电报式风格口语体

the Hemingway hero：an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent, a man of action, and one of few words. That is an individualist, keeping emotions under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place. These people are usually spiritual strong, people of certain skills and most of them encounter death many times.

Chapter 6 The Southern Renaissance

Since the beginning of the 20 century, there have emerged a few generations of southern writers. There were Ellen Glasgow (1874-1945), William Faulkner (1896-1962), Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers.

William Faulkner (1896-1962) 威廉·福克纳

The town of Oxford became the model for his fictional Jefferson the seat of his fictional Yoknapatawpha county.

In his lifetime Faulkner cultivated a literary friendship with two men who were Phil Stone and Sherwood Anderson. His first two novel, Soldiers' Pay (1926) and Mosquitoes(1927), were not very promising.

《士兵的报酬》《蚊群》

Yoknapatawpha fiction: 约克纳帕塔法世系

1.Sartoris (1929) revealed Faulkner’s fuller development as a writer. 《沙多里斯》

2.The Sound and the Fury (1929),was definitely the mature work. 《喧哗与骚动》

3.As I Lay Dying (1930) 《我弥留之际》

4.Sanctuary (1931),earned him rather bad reputation. 《圣殿》

5.Light in August (1932) 《八月之光》

6.Absalom, Absalom! (1936) 《押沙龙，押沙龙！》

Go Down, Moses (1942) 《去吧，摩西》 A Rose for Emily《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》

Achievement in fiction: ①his mythic picture of the South;

②his fictional world as epitomized in his Yoknapatawpha county;

③his distinctive narrative method;

④his skillful use of language.

He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1949.

Faulkner wrote altogether 19 novels and three volumes of short stories. Of these three novels, The Sound and the Fury ,Absalom, Absalom! and Go Down, Moses are masterpiece.

The name of The Sound and the Fury took form Shakespeare’s Mecbeth.

Katherine Anne Porter (1890 -1980) 凯瑟琳·安妮·波特

She was basically a short-story writer. She and Faulkner are equally famous

Her famous short fiction includes the “The Flowering Judas” and “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.”

《开花的犹大树》《被遗弃的魏瑟罗奶奶》

Collections of Short Stories: Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939) 《灰色的马，灰色的骑手》

The Leaning Tower and Other Stories ( 1944) 《斜塔及其他故事》

Ship of Fools,it was made into a popular movie. 《愚人船》（唯一的长篇小说）

Eudora Welty (1909 - 2001)尤多拉·韦尔蒂

Her first story, Death of a Traveling Salesman in 1936. 《流动推销员之死》

Welty’s major themes relate to traditional southern family relationships.

Delta Wedding《三角洲的婚礼》

Carson McCullers (1917 - 1967)卡森·麦卡勒斯

Her themes: alienation, violence, and horror.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter《心灵是孤独的猎人》The Ballad of the Sad Café《伤心咖啡馆之歌》

Chapter 7

The same period of Southern Renaissance

Sherwood Anderson (1876 - 1941) 舍伍德·安德森

His masterpiece, Winesburg, Ohio (1919) 《小镇畸人》

Collections of Short Stories: The Triumph of the Egg(1921)《鸡蛋的胜利》

Death in the Woods (1933) 《林中之死》

Themes of Winesburg, Ohio: Alienation, loneliness, and want of love and understanding.

He was influence such writers as Hemingway and Faulkner.

Sinclair Lewis (1885 - 1951) 辛克莱·刘易斯

The first American author to win the Nobel Prize for literature.

From 1912 to 1919 he was able to publish five novels, but it was not until the summer of 1920 when his sixth book, Main Street, came out that he became a famous man. 《大街》（原名“Village Virus”《小镇毒瘤》）

Babbitt (1922) 《巴比特》

Babbitt, a word which has found its way into the English dictionary as a synonym for the vulgar and philistine businessman.

Arrowsmith (1925) 《阿罗史密斯》（1926年获得普利策奖，但是谢绝该奖。）

He is first American writer who won the Nobel prize for Literature.

Willa Cather (1873 - 1947)薇拉·凯瑟

My Antonio《我的安东尼亚》

The Song of the Lark《云雀之歌》

The Professor’s House《教授的房子》(Professor St. Peter)

Thomas Wolfe (1900 - 1938)托马斯·沃尔夫

His first book, Look Homeward, Angel《天使，望故乡》

Of Time and the River《论时间与河流》

The Web and The Rock《罗网与磐石》

The last book, You Can’t Go Home Again《你不能再回家》

American writer who won the Nobel prize for Literature

writer time page book note

Sinclair Lewis 1930 P13 Babbitt

Eugene O’ Nell 1936 P15 Beyond the Horizon

Pearl Buck 1938

The blank period in World War II (1940 - 1944)

T.S. Eliot 1948 P9 In 1927, Eliot joined British citizenship. William Faulkner 1949 P12 As I Lay Dying

Hemingway 1954 P11 The Old Man and the Sea

John Steinbeck 1962 P14 Of Mice and Men

……

Toni Morrison 1993 P17 The first black woman writer who won this prize

Chapter 8 The 1930s

The 1930s is often regarded as a dim decade.(the Great Depression)

John Dos Passos (1896 - 1970)约翰·多斯·帕索斯

In a sense the thirties can be called the decade of John Dos Passos.

His masterpiece, U.S.A.《美国》

His writings were Communist-oriented for a long period. 左翼

Two trilogies:

U.S.A. (1938) - The 42nd Parallel (1930) 《北纬四十二度》

1919 (1932) 《一九一九年》

The Big Money (1936) 《赚大钱》

District of Columbia (1952) - Adventures of a Young Man (1939) 《一个青年的冒险》

《哥伦比亚特区》Number One (1943) 《一号》

The Grand Design (1949) 《庞大设计》

“Newsreels,” the “Biographies,” and the “Camera Eye”. （描写手法）

新闻短篇人物传记摄影机镜头

John Steinbeck (1902 - 1968) 约翰·斯坦贝克

Cup of Gold (1929) 《金杯》

The Pastures of Heaven(1932) 《天堂牧场》

To a God Unknown (1933) 《献给无名之神》

Tortilla Flat (1935),made him popular.《煎饼坪》

In Dubious Battle (1936)《胜负未决的战斗》

Of Mice and Men (1937),became a bestseller. 《人鼠之间》

His greatest book, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), won in time the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

《愤怒的葡萄》

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

The Grapes of Wrath is one of the major American books. The title of the book comes from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” a war song of the Civil War. 共和国战歌

Nathanael West (1903 - 1940)纳撒尼尔·韦斯特

The Dream Life of Balso Snell《鲍尔所斯内尔的梦幻生活》

Miss Lonelyhearts 《孤心小姐》

Chapter 9 America Drama

American drama began in 1916 when the Provincetown Players produced Eugene O’Neil’s first play, Bound East for Cardiff.

Eugene O'Neill(1888 - 1953) 尤金·奥尼尔

O'Neill’ first performed play, the one-act Bound East for Cardiff. 独幕剧《东行卡迪夫》

Beyond the Horizon《天边外》The Emperor Jones《琼斯王》

Anna Christie《安娜·克里斯提》The Hairy Ape《毛猿》

He received the Pulitzer Prize for his Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie between 1920 and 1922, and the Nobel Prize in 1936.

“American Shakespeare.”

Elmer Rice (1892 - 1967)艾尔默·莱斯

The well-known play, The Adding Machine. 《加法器》

Street Scene《街景》

Susan Glaspell (1882 - 1948) 苏珊·格拉斯佩尔

Glaspell founded the Provincetown Players. 普洛文斯顿剧社

Glaspell has been regarded by some people as “mother of American drama.”

Trifles《琐事》

Clifford Odets (1906 - 1963)克利福德·奥德茨

He joined the Group Theater in 1930. 同仁剧团

Waiting for Lefty, it is about taxi driver’s strike. 《等待老左》

Till the Day I Die《至死不渝》

Tennessee Williams (1911 - 1983)田纳西·威廉斯

pseudonym of Thomas Lanier Williams Ⅲ. 托马斯·拉尼尔·威廉斯三世

The Glass Menagerie (1945) 《玻璃动物园》

Streetcar Named Desire (1947), a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. 《欲望号街车》

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), another Pulitzer Prize-winning play. 《热铁皮屋顶上的猫》

Arthur Miller (1915 - 2005)亚瑟·米勒

Arthur Miller who has, along with Tennessee Williams, led the postwar new drama.

His first important work, All My Sons (1947) 《全是我儿子》

Death of a Salesman (1947), his masterpiece, won him the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

《推销员之死》

Edward Albee爱德华·阿尔比

He alone is the heir to the great traditions of O’ Neill and Williams.

His first play, The Zoo Story (1958) 《动物园的故事》

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) 《谁怕弗吉利亚·伍尔夫》

Albee has been linked with the traditions of the Theater of Absurd. 荒诞派戏剧

The theater of the absurd: came into vogue in the 1950s and 1960s. It refers to some plays the theme of which centers on the meaninglessness of life with its pain and suffering that seems funny, even ridiculous. The representative is Edward Albee.

Chapter 10 Postwar Literature

Poetry

1.Academy poets 学院派诗人

1)Elizabeth Bishop伊丽莎白·毕肖普

2)Richard Wilbur理查德·威尔伯

3)Howard Nemerov霍华德?奈莫洛夫

2.the Confessional School (theme: Death) 自白派

1)Robert Lowell罗伯特·洛威尔

2)Sylvia plath西尔维娅·普拉斯

3)Anne Sexton安妮·塞克斯顿

3.the Beat Generation 垮掉的一代

Allen Ginsberg艾伦·金斯伯格

4.the New York School 纽约派(Surrealism 超现实主义)

1)Kenneth Koth肯尼斯·科思

2)John Ashbery约翰·阿什贝利

3)Frank O’ Hara弗兰克·奥哈拉

5.the Black Mountain Poets 黑山派

1)Charles Olson 查尔斯·奥尔森（记住这个就行）

Creeley Lever tov Duncan

Novel

1.Jewish literature: Saul Bellow

2.Black literature: Toni Morrison, Richard Wright

3.Southern literature: Flannery O’ Connor (Female)

4.Black Humor: Joseph Heller, Nabokov

5.Beat literature: Jack Kerouac

Saul Bellow索尔·贝娄

His first book, Dangling Man《摇来晃去的人》

The Adventures of Augie March《奥吉马奇历险记》

Herzog received four awards. 《赫索格》

What are Saul Bellow’s basic themes?

①Saul Bellow’s basic themes are essentially three-fold: First, he views contemporary society as a threat to

human life and human integrity.

②Then, living in such an environment, people tend 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.

③Finally, there is the quest motif, a quest for truth and values, difficult, excruciating, but successful in a

way.

Saul Bellow is keenly aware of his Jewish heritage.

Norman Mailer诺曼·梅勒

He joined the war against Japan in 1944 partly because he was obsessed with the idea to write a big war book. The Naked and the Dead《裸者与死者》

J. D. Salinger 塞林格

The Catcher in the Rye (Holden) 《麦田里的守望者》

John Updike 约翰·厄普代克

“Rabbit” pentalogy: Rabbit Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit Is Rich (1981), Rabbit at Rest (1990) and Licks of Love (2000)

Flannery O’ Connor弗兰纳里·奥康纳

Wise Blood (1952, a novel) 《慧血》

Her most famous work, A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955, a collection of short stories) 《好人难寻》

She is best known and will be remembered mostly as a short story writer.

Joseph Heller约瑟夫·海勒

The famous Catch-22, a novel, the title of which has become a new addition to the English language.

《第二十二条军规》

Jack Kerouac杰克·凯鲁亚克

On the Road《在路上》

Vladimir Nabokov (Russian American) 弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫

He was an American writer by adoption.

Lolita, “the dirty book.”《洛丽塔》

Chapter 11 Multiethnic Literature

Richard Wright (African American)理查德·赖特

Native Son, is a story about an African American adolescent’s growth of awareness. It consists of three sections, subtitled respectively, “Fear,”“Flight,” and “Fate.”《土生子》

Toni Morrison (African American, female) 托妮·莫里森

Sula《苏拉》Beloved《宠儿》

She won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993.

Alice Walker (African American, female) 艾丽斯·沃克

The Color Purple, is an epistolary novel. It consists of 90 letters. 《紫色》

Maxine Hong Kingston (Asian American) 汤婷婷

The Woman Warrior《女勇士》

Amy Tan (Asian American) 谭恩美

The Joy Luck Club《喜福会》