英美文学考点(美国文学部分)

1、. 美国文学部分浪漫主义时期The Romantic Period第一位：washington irving 1.A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, which written under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, was a great success.2. The Sketch Book won a international fame on both sides of the Atlantic.3. “Ri

2、p Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” got ideas form German legends.4. the Bracebrige Hall and Tales of a Traveler.5. the Alhambra is usually regarded as Irvings “Spanish Skethch Book”. Only because it has a strong flavor of spanish culture.6.Irings taste was essentially conservative.7. wa

3、shing Ivings has always been regarded as a writer who perfected the best classic sytle that American Literature ever produced.8. Washing Iving is worth the honor of being “the American Goldsmith” for his literary craftsmanship.9. Irvings pervasive theme of nostalgia怀旧的) for the unrecoverable past is

4、 at once made unforgettable.第二位：Emerson1. Transcendentalism -the romantic period in the history of American literature.2. the chief spokesman of this spiritual movement is Ralph Waldo Emerson3. transcendental club, the unofficial manifesto for the club is Nature.4. Nature did not establish him as an

5、 important American writer, his last reputation began with the publication of Essays, which convey the best of his philosophical discussions and transcendental pursuits. Such as The American Scholar , Self-Reliance , The Over-Soul.5. The Poet, a reflection upon the aesthetic problems of the present

6、state of American literature6. The Experience, a discussion about the conflict between idealism and ordinary life.7. transcendentalism-with its focus on the intuitive konwledge of human beings to grasp the absolute in the universe and the divinity of man. Emerson put forward his philosopy of over-so

7、ul, the importance of individual, nature.8. emerson and other transcendentalists believed that there should be a emtotional comunication between a individual soul and the universal over-soul.9. a “transparent eyeball” marks a paradoxical state of being, in which one is merged into nature, the over-s

8、oul. While at the same time retaining a unique perception of experience.10. emersons essays often have a casual style, for most of them were derived from his journals and lectures. 11. 堪称“the American Scolar”12. in the essay Emerson clearly expresses the main priciples of his transcendentalist pursu

9、it and his love for nature.第三位：Hawthorne1. Hawthorne remains one of the most interesting, yet most ambivalent (矛盾情感)writers in the American literary history.2. The Twice-Told Tales, a collection of short stories which attracted critical attention.3. The Mosses of an Old Manse, Snow-Image and other T

10、wice-Told Tales best demonstrate Hawthornes early obsessions with the moral and phycological consequences of pride, selfishness and secret guilt that manifest themselves in human beings. 4. The Scarlet Letter often regarded as the best of his works, tells a simply but very moving story in which 4 pe

11、ople living in a Puritan Community are involved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways.5. The House of the Seven Gables 6. The Blithedale Romance(福谷传奇) is a novel he wrote to reveal his own experiences on the Brook Farm and his own methods as a psychological novelist.7. The Mable F

12、aun(玉石雕像) set in Italy, the book is concerned about the dark aberrations(失常方面) of human spirit. 8. The Birthmark9. The Young Goodman Brown everyone possesses evil secret 10. The Ministers Dark Veil 11. The Rappaccinis Daughter12. Hawthornes view of man, human history originates, to a great extent, i

13、n Puritanism13. The House of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter 反清教思想，同时反清教思想on the one hand, it provides him with a subject, on the other hand, with the Puritan world and society as a historical background, he disscusses some of the most improtant issues that concern the moral life of man and

14、human society.14. the structure and form of his writings is always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern.(精心设计的)15. allegorist预言家 symbolist 第四位：walt whitman1. Leaves of Grass is Whitmans representative work, 体现了American democratic ideals 反映了American Independent War and Cival War.2.

15、Leaves of Grass has nine editions. In this giant work, openness, freedom, individualism are all that concerned him. His aim was nothing less than to express some new poetic feelings and to initiate poetic traditon in which difference should be recognized.3. the poets essential purpose was to indenti

16、fy his ego with the world and more specifically with the democratic “en-masse” of the America, which is established in the openning lines of the “Song of Myself”4. most of poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-masse”and the self as well.5. politically committed 政治抒情诗such as Dump Taps 6. Cavalry C

17、rossing a Ford, Whitman expressed much mouring for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on fighting until the final victory.7. when Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd mournful as these poems are, a reader can detect a thin trace of ecstasy for the

18、victory of the progress.8. Whitmans potetic style is marked by the use of the poetic”9. free verse, that is , poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.10. parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines are contribute to the musicality of his poems.11. one of the most of

19、ten-used methods in his poems is to make colors and images fleet past the minds eye of the readers.第五位 Herman Melville1. Moby-Dick is his masterpiece.2. Billy Budd, his second famous work3. Melvilles writings can be divided into two groups, each with something in common in the light of the thematic

20、concern and imginative focus.4. Typee, Omoo, Mardi which drew from his adventures among the people of the south pacific island. Redburn is a semi-autobiographical novel, concerining the sufferings of a genteel youth among the brutal sailors. Whitejacket relates his life on the United States of man-o

21、f war.5. pierre 作者本意是想发动妇女文学革命，但却遭到强烈反对，结果名声下降。6. Bartleby , the Scrivenr, a short story symbolizing the loniness and anonymity and passivity of a little man in the big city. Benito Cereno, a novella about a ship whose black slave cargo munity holds their captain a terrorized hostage. The Confidence

22、- Man, explore the paradoxes of belief and the optimisms and hypocrisies of American life. 7. Billy Budd, which again deals with the sea and sailors , and the theme of the conflice betwwen innocence and corruption.8. Moby-Dick is regarded as the first American prose epic.9. 有关人物和文章主题意思请细看教科书。第二部分现实主

23、义时期The Realistic Period1. The period of ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to as the age of realism in the literary history of the United States. 2. Realism was a reaction against the romanticism or a move away from the bias and towards romance and self-creating fictions, and paved the way

24、for modernism.3. Mark Twain referred to as the Gilded Age. 4. William Dean Howells Criticism and Fiction. He confess I do not care to judge any work of the imagination without first applying this test to it .5. The three prominent writers of the period are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Henry Jam

25、es.6. they approached the harsh realities and pressures in the post-cival War society either by a comprehensive picture of modern life in its various occupations , class stratifications and manners, or by a psycological exploration of mans subconsciousness.7. Tough the three prominent writers wrote

26、more or less at the same time, they differed in their understanding of the “truth”. Mark Twain and Howells paid more attention to the “life” of the Americans. Henry James had apparently laid a greater emphasis on the innner world of man. Howells focused his discussion on the rising middle class and

27、the way they lived. Mark Twain preferred to have his own region and people at the forfront of his stories. This particular concern about the local character of a region came about as the local colorism, a unique variation of American literary realism. 8. 除了Mark Twain, the other local colorists may i

28、nclude Sarah Orne Jewett, Hamlin Garland, Joseph Kirkland. 9. Generally, their writhings are concerned with the life of a small and well-defined region or province. The characteristic setting is the isolated small town. Local colorists are consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life,

29、 recorders of a present that faded before their eyes. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to miutely accurate desciptions of the life of their regions.10. 达尔文进化论对美国思想的影响和19世纪法国文学对美国的影响，产生了other school of realism, American naturalism. Darwin, in his The Origin of Species, Desc

30、ent of Man hypothesized that over the millennia man had evolved from the lower way of life. 11. In a word, naturalism is evolved from the realism when the authors tune become less serious and less sympothetic but more ironic and pessimistic. It is no more than a different philosophical approach to r

31、eality ,or to human exsistence.第一位Mark Twain第二位Henry James1、 Henry James was the first American writer to conceive his career in international theme.2、 William James, who made great contribution to the theory of stream-of-consciousness technique.3、 The materialistic bent of the American life and its

32、 lack of culture and sophistication, be believed, could not provide him with enough materials for great literary works.4、 1915. he became a naturalized British citizen. The order of Merit 5、 it is his novels and literary essays that make him a fascinating case in the American literary history and a

33、conspicuous figure in world literature. 6、 The literary career of Henry James is generally divided into 3 periods. In the firsr period, James took great interest in international themes. In almost all the stories and novels during this period, James treated with great care the clashes between 2 diff

34、erent cultures and moral and emotional problems of Americans in Europe,or Europeans in America. 7、 The American, tells a story about a young and innocent American confronting the complexity of the European life8、 Daisy Miller, a novells about a young American girl who gets killed by Winter in Rome.

35、Brought James international fame for the first time. 9、 The Europeans, the scene is shifted back to the America, where some Europeans, who are actually expatriated Americans, learn with difficulty to adapt themselves to the American life. 10、 The Portrait of A Lady, Henry Jamess masterpiece, which i

36、ncanates clashes between the Old world and the New in the life journey of an American girl in a European cultural environment.11、 James experimented with different themes and forms in his middle period. The Bostons, which satirized the women liberation that took place in Boston. The Princess Casamas

37、sima, which exposed the anarchist conspiracy in the slum of London. The Private Life. The Death of a Lion . the Middle Years 讲的是艺术家与社会的关系，艺术家不应该为了情感而牺牲真理。 The Turn of the Screw, a story about the troubled and abnormal psychology of oppressed chiildren, in which the whole household is terrorized by “

38、ghosts”. The Beast in the Jungle, which focuses on the imaginative obsession of the some haunted women and men with their personal disater in future.12、 In the last and major period, James returned to his international themeFrom 1895 to 1900. he worte novellas and stories dealing with the childhood

39、and adolescence. What Maise knows. The Wings of the Dove. The Ambassadors. The Golden Bowel these demanding novels are widely considered to be James most influential contribution to the literature. James fame usually rests upon the novels and stories with the international theme. Henry James literar

40、y criticismThe Art of Fiction clearly indicates the aim of novel is to present life. Henry James realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter. This emphasis on the psychology and human consciousness proves to be a big breakthrough in novel writing and has great influe

41、nce on the coming generations.This is why Henry Jame is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th-century stream-of-consciousness and the founder of the psychological realismHenry James is not only one of the most important realist of the period before the First World War, but also the most e

42、xpert stylist of his time.第三位 Emily Dickinson Dickinsons poetry writing began in the early 1850s, altogether, he wrote1775 poems. Letter to the world, a way to bridge her private world with the public. Dickinsons poems are usually based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys. I heard a Fly Buz

43、z- When I died,a poem universally considered to one of her masterpieces. Love is another subject Dickinson dwelt on. One of group her love poems treats the suffering and frustratio love can cause. If you were coming in the Fall、There came a Day at summers full、 I cant live with you. The other group

44、of love poems focuses on the physical aspect of desire. I am wife- Ive finished that. Im ceded- Ive stopped being theirs A few examples to show Dickinsons confusion and doubt about the role of the women in the 19th century America. Dickinsons poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her p

45、oems have no titles, hence always quoted by their first lines. Ther is a particular stress pattern, in which dashes are used as a musical device to creat cadence and captial letter as a means of the emphasis. The form of her poetry is more or less like that of the hymns in community churches, famili

46、ar, communal, and sometimes, irregular.This is my letter to the World. I heard a Fly buzz- when I died. I like to see it lap the miles. Because I could not stop for Death第四位：Theodore Dreiser Theodore Dreiser is generally acknowledged as one of Americas literary naturalists. Influence by Balzac, Char

47、les Darwin. Herbert Spenser Short fictions: Nigger Jeff, His Theresa, Old Rogaum The trilogy of Desire: The Financier, The Titan. The Stoic斯多葛 The Genius, a classic story of a “misunderstood artist”, was once condemned for obscenity and blasphemy. In 1925, Dreisers greatest work An American Tragedy

48、appeared. In 1927, he accepted an invitation to visit Russia and wrote Dreiser Looks at Russian the following year, he joined Communist Party shortly before his death in 1945. Literary naturalism: naturalism emphasized heredity and environment as improtant deterministic forces of individualized char

49、acters who are presented in special and detailed circumstances. In Sister Carrie, Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of life and attacking the conventional moral standards. An American Tragedy proves to be his greatest work and by entitling this book with su

50、ch a name, Dreiser intended to tell us it is the social pressure that makes Clydes downfall inevitable. Clydes tragedy is a tragedy that depends upon the American social system which encouraged people to pursue the “dream of success” at all costs. One of the desires is for money which was a motivati

51、ng purpose of life in the United States in the late 19th century. There is no comment , no judgement but facts of life in stories.第三部分：The Modern Period the First World War, became the emblem of all wars in the twentieth century, which means violence, devastation, blood and death. United States part

52、icipation in World War I marked a crucial stage in the nations evolution to a world power. The idea of “seize the day” or” enjoy the present” was pervasive, as opposed to placing all hope in future. In a word, there was a decline in moral standard and the first few decades of the twentieth century w

53、as best decribed as a spiritual wasteland. Apart from Darwinism, which was still a big influence on the writers of this period, the two thinkers whose ideas had the greatest impact on the period were the German Karl Marx and the Austrian Sigmund Freud. Marx was a sociologist who believed that the ro

54、ot cause of all behavior was economic, and that the leading feature of the economic life was the division of the society in to antagonistic classes based on a relation to the means of production. Freud propounded an idea of human beings themselves as grounded in the “unconscious” that controlled a g

55、reat deal of overt behavior, and made the practice of the psychoanalysis which emphasized the improtance of the unconsicous and irration in the human psyche. In painting, both the Frech impressionist and the German expressionist artists avoided the representation of external reality and depicted the

56、 human reality in a rather subjective point of view. Disillusioned and disgusted by the frivolous, greedy, and heedless way of life in America, they began to write and they wrote from their own experiences in the war. In “the Lost Generation” or modern American literature are famous poets such as Ez

57、ra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost. Ezra Pound-a leading spokesman of the famous imagist movement in the history of American literature can never be ignored and his one-image poem best demonstrates his principles of what a new poetry should be. While sharing the same pursuit of imagism,

58、 Willam Carlos Williams rooted his poetic imagination in American native tradition. Robert Frost is always liked by the Americans because the subject and the landscape of his poems are forever New England and his simplicity never fails to reveal some profound truth. E. E.Cumings, disregarding grammar and punctuation, used “i” instead of I to refer to himself as a protect againse self-importance. Wallace Stevens, whose style is more cultivated and refined, focused