美国文学简介英文版

1、Zhang RuiRequirement of the coursew You are supposed to do your HOMEWORKw Final marks: class performance （30%）+ final exam（70%）Contact with mew E-mail: montana2004yahoo. cnw Tel: w Code: 20090214Group workw What do you know about American Literature?American Nobel Prize Winners for Lite

2、rature w 1993 - Toni Morrison w 1987 - Joseph Brodskyw 1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer w 1976 - Saul Bellow w 1962 - John Steinbeck w 1954 - Ernest Hemingway w 1949 - William Faulknerw 1948 - T.S. Eliot w 1938 - Pearl Buck w 1936 - Eugene ONeillw 1930 - Sinclair Lewis Periods of A. Lit.w 1. The early A

3、. literature (Colonial period & early national and revolutionary period ) (1620-1781)w 2. The age of Romanticism (1781-1865)w 3. The age of Realism & Naturalism (1875-1914)w 4. A. Lit. between the two wars: 1914-1945 (modernism)w 5. Contemporary A. Lit.: 1945- (postmodernism)1. Colonial peri

4、od & early national and revolutionary periodw Early 17th Cthe end of the 18th CCharacteristics of the colonial literaturew Spirit: optimistic w The purposepragmaticw Writersamateurs English literary traditions were faithfully imitated and transplanted.w The categories of the lit.: travel book, d

5、iary, poem, history, letter, sermon poetry and prose gained most achievementsEarly American Writers and PoetsnCaptain John Smith-first American writer; A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia 关于弗吉尼亚的真实叙述nAnne Bradstreet: first American poet to publish a

6、 book; Features of the 18th C. A. Lit.1.political lit.: the prose of the great philosopher-statesmen makes up a prominent part; most of the writers were active supporters or participants of American revolution2. Major lit. figures: Philip Freneau菲利普 弗瑞诺The Wild Honey SuckleAmerican RomanticismwIt co

7、vers the first half of the 19th century.wPre-Romanticism & Post-RomanticismwCulminationNew England Transcendentalism （新英格兰超验主义）or American Renaissance (1836-1855)w It covers the first half of the 19th century.w Pre-Romanticism the beginning stage (1781-1830)w Post-Romanticism 30 years flowering

8、time (1830-1860) 10 years declining time (1865-1875)w Major figures:w pre-romantics: w Washington Irving(欧文)：The Sketch Book /Short stories / Essays 札记集、见闻札记w James Fenimore Cooper （库柏） Leatherstocking Tales（皮袜子故事集）w Post-romantics: w Ralph Waldo Emerson（爱默生）： Nature, Henry David Thoreau（梭罗）w Walt W

9、hitman（惠特曼）, Emily Dickinson（狄金森）, w Nathaniel Hawthorne（霍桑）, Herman Melville（麦尔维尔）, w William Cullen Bryant（布莱恩特）, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow（朗费罗）, James Russell Lowell（洛厄尔）New England Poets, w Edgar Allan Poe（爱伦坡）The Age of Realismw A major trend in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth cen

10、turyw The Civil War(1861-1865) w A reaction against “the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism,”w Expresses the concern for the commonplace and the low, and offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience3 featuresw “verisimilitude” of detail derived from obse

11、rvation （细节真实性）w The effort to approach the norm of experience a reliance on the representative in plot, setting, and character（人物、情节与背景的代表性）w To offer an objective rather than an idealized view of human nature and experience.（对人性与人生的客观评价）w Representative writers: William Dean Howells(1837-1920)gent

12、eel Realism, Mark Twain(1835-1910)local colorism, Henry James(1843-1916)psychological RealismAmerican Naturalismpessimistic realism/ determinism w The last decade of 19th CI. American Naturalismpessimistic realism/ determinisml 1. Backgroundl 1) The emergence of “Modern America”l Industrialism and s

13、cience and the new philosophy of lifecreate the economic, social, and cultural transformations of the countryl 2) New ideas about man and mans place in the universe began to take root in America.l Darwin: evolution; Spencer: social evolutionl The survival of the fittest & the human beastl 3) the

14、 change of the literary climatel Realists : too old French naturalisml 2. Representatives: Stephen Crane, Norris and Theodore DreiserlRepresentatives: lStephen Crane斯蒂芬克兰:Maggie: A Girl of the Streets街头女郎玛琪first A. naturalistic work/ The Red Badge of Courage红色英勇勋章(war novel) A precursor of Imagist p

15、oetryThe Black Riders 黑衣骑士 ( book of poems)lNorris: McTeague（1899） the manifesto of A. naturalismlTheodore DreiserA. Lit. between the two wars: 1914-1945 (modernism)Modern Poetryw Imagism (1908-1917) a strong reaction against Victorian poetrythe economy of expression and the use of a dominant imagew

16、 Ezra Poundfather of modern American poetryw T. S. EliotThe Waste Landw William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Hart CraneNovel in 1920sw F. Scott Fitzgerald Roaring twenties w HemingwayLost Generationw William Faulknerthe Deep SouthNovel in 1930sw The Great Depression

17、w A revival of naturalism - John Dos Passos（多斯帕索斯） U.S.A (The 42nd Parallel 1919 The Big Money)w Social realistsJohn SteinbeckThe Grapes of Wrathw Southern writersKatherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty and Carson McCullersAmerican Dramaw Eugene ONeill(尤金奥尼尔)1920sLong Days Journey into Nightw Clifford O