主要文学流派及其代表作

1、主要文学流派及其代表作Classicism 古典主义As a critical term, a body of doctrine thought to be derived from or to reflect the qualities of ancient Greek and Roman culture particularly in literature, philosophy, art or criticism. Classicism stands for certain definite ideas and attitudes, mainly drawn from the criti

2、cal utterances of the Greeks and Romans or developed through an imitation of ancient art and literature. These include restraint, restricted scope, dominance of reason, sense of form, unity of design and aim, clarity, simplicity, balance, attention to structure and logical organization, chasteness i

3、n style, severity of outline, moderation, self-control, intellectualism, decorum, respect for tradition, imitation, conservatism and "good sense".Its representatives and their major works include ：John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Progress (1678).Neoclassicism 新古典主义It mainly applies to the cl

4、assical tendency which dominated the literature of the 17th century and 18th century. It was, at least , the result of a reaction against the fires of passion which had blazed in the late Renaissance, especially in the metaphysical (十七世纪诗体的) poetry. And Neoclassicism esteemed objectivity, harmony, r

5、ationality, dignity, proportion, and moderation, stressed artistic systems and technical correlation of stylistic components, admired conciseness, elegance, good taste and wit, combined pleasure with instruction and matched content to style. Its representatives and their major works are: John Dryden

6、 (1631-1700): The World Well Lost (1678);Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Rape of the Lock (1714),The Dunciad (1742).Early Romanticism 浪漫主义Romanticism, as a literary trend, occurred and developed in Europe and America at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries under the historical background of the I

7、ndustrial Revolution.Romanticism stresses individual and creative function of imagination. It places individual at the very center of all life and all experience and at the center of art.Its characteristics are:(1) Romanticism is a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism.(2) For romantics,

8、the feelings, intuitions and emotions are more important than reason and common sense.(3) Romantics do not think of the world as a ticking watch made by God(4) They emphasize individualism, placing the individual against the against the group,againstauthority.(5) They affirm the inner life of the se

9、lf, and want each person to be free to develop and express his own inner thoughts(6) They cherish strong interest in the past, especially the medieval.(7) They are interested in variety and attracted by the wild, the irregular, the indefinite, remote,the mysterious, and the strange.(8) American Roma

10、nticism presents an entirely new experience alien to European culture, and produce a feeling of "newness" which has inspired the romantic imagination.Its representatives and their major works are:Words worth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads (1798);Washington Irving: The Sketch Book (1820)Hig

11、h RomanticsAmerican romanticism reaches its peak with the appearance of the major authors of the 19thCentury, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in poetry, and Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville in fiction. They took their departure from the complacent romantic impulse of

12、 the early 19th century and created for themselves new literary personalities. They established firm ground for their art in well-conceived literary theories and well-structured literary forms.Its representatives and their major worksEdgar Allan Poe: The Raven (1845);Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass (1

13、855);Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet LetterHerman Melville: Moby Dick ( 1851 ).RealismRealism is based on the accurate, unromanticized observation of human experiences. It insists everyday scenes are represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner on precise description, authentic action

14、and dialogue, moral honesty and a democratic openness in subject matter and style. As a literary movement, realism refers to the approach of realist fiction occured at the latter part of the 19th century.Its major features are:(1) Realism is the theory of writing in which familiar aspects of contemp

15、orary life and everyday senses are represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner.(2) In realist fiction characters from all social levels are examined in depth.(3) Open ending is also a good example of the truthful treatment of material.(4) Realism focuses on commonness of the lives of t

16、he common people who are customarily ignored by the arts.(5) Realism emphasizes objectivity and offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.(6) Romanticism presents moral visions.Its representatives and their major works are:William Dean Howell: A Modern I

17、nstance (1882)Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1884)George Eliot: Adam Bede (1859)The Mill on the Floss(1860)NaturalismNaturalism applies the principles of scientific determinism to fiction. It views human beings animals in the natural world responding to environmental forces and inter

18、nal stresses and drives, over none of which they have control and none of which they fully understand. Here are three major concepts of literary naturalism in the broad abstract way:(1) Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment.(2) The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hosti

19、le to human desires.(3) The literary naturalists have a major difference from the realists: the difference is restraint, not action itself; naturalist characters act out of a similar set of motives and desires, and they differ from their realist counterparts only in being unable to resist the condit

20、ions that press upon them.Its representatives and their major works are: Stephen Crane: Maggie, a Girl of the Streets (1893), The Red Badge of Courage (1895);Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie (1899),An American Tragedy (1925)ModernismFrom 1890s to early 1940s, modernism became an international tendenc

21、y against positivism and representational art and literature. The essence of modernism is a break with the past and it also fosteres a belief in art and literature as an avenue to self-fulfillment. Modernism takes shape in a convergence of tendencies in modern culture, accidental circumstances and c

22、oncerts efforts on the past of influential writers, some politically conservative and some radical. It includes a wide range of artistic expressions such as symbolism, impressionism, post-impressionism, futurism, imagism, vorticism, expressionism, dada, and surrealism.Its major features are:(1) Mode

23、rnism dramatizes discontinuity and imminent severance from the past while making determined efforts to use the past, its values and artistic forms, lay emphasis on incorporating them in new literary production.(2) Modernists have a sense of fragmentation in social communities and the fragmentation w

24、ithin the individual himself.(3) The distinctive feature of literary modernism is its strong and conscious break with traditional perceptions and techniques of expression, and its great concern with language all aspects of its medium.Its representatives and their major works are:Thomas Stearns Eliot

25、: The Hollow Men (1922)Ash Wednesday (1930);Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms (1929),The Old Man and the Sea (1952)Postwar RealismPostwar realism is different from the normative realism of the 19th century. It has been search for vision that can relate an oppressed response to society and history

26、 to an awareness of individual loneliness and moral and transcendental hunger both to differentiate and reunite the self and the society and it is not merely a return to the old tradition of realism. Postwar realism embodies great changes in literature along with the great changes in society.Postwar

27、 realist writers focus more on spiritual aspects of human life while revealing denouncing the dark forces in society.Its representatives and their major works are:James Thurber: New Yorker (1925-1933);Updike: The Centaur (1964)Postmodernism1963 is identified as the beginning of Postmodernism. It is

28、characterized by a multiplicity of individual voices. And postmodern fiction shares a common sense that a crisis is at hand for society and for literature and that all forms of dogma, convention, ideology need to be reexamined and replaced if necessary by fresher systems more suitable to the times.I

29、ts major features are:(1) Postmodern writers brood over what they perceive to be absence of answers and continuity by emphasizing randomness and discontinuity and by blurring the distinction between author and fictional character. They insist on drawing the reader into the confidence that the text i

30、s the only reality.(2) Postmodern fiction seeks to show the form rather than the content of American reality.(3) The fundamental rule of the postmodern fiction is the absurd and the arbitrary.(4) Postmodern writers hold that the reality of modern life is too elusive and uncertain for people to ratio

31、nalize and idealize(5) The distrust of traditional mimetic genres, allied to the philosophical climate of structuralism and deconstruction, has encouraged postmodernism to embrace popular forms, such as detective fiction, science fiction, and fairy tale.Its representatives and their major works are:Kurt Vonnegut: The Sirens of Titan (1959),Cat's Cradle (1963)Raymond Fe