-
⑴
Transcendentalism
超验主义
Transcendentalism was a broad,
philosophical movement in New England during the
Romantic era
(peaking
between
1835
and
1845).
It
stressed
the
role
of
divinity
in
nature
and
the
individual’s
intuition,
and
exalted
feeling
over
reason.
The
phase
of
New
England
Transcendentalism
is
the
summit
of
American
Romanticism.
The
Transcendentalists
placed
emphasis
on
spirit,
or
the
oversoul, as the most
important thing in the universe, stressed the
importance of the individual and
offered a fresh perception of nature as
symbolic of the Spirit or God.
⑵
American
Romanticism
美国浪漫主义
(1)
American
Romanticism
is
one
of
the
most
important
periods
in
the
history
of
American
literature.
(2
) It started with the publication of
Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with
Wa
lt Whitman’s Leaves of
Grass. (3
) Being a period of the great
flowering of American literature, it
is
also call
ed “the American
Renaissance”.(4
) It was a rebellion
against the objectivity of rationalism.
For romantics, the feelings, intuitions
and emotions were more important than reason and
common
sense. They emphasized
individualism, placing the individual against the
group. They affirmed the
inner life of
the self, and cherished strong interest in the
past, the wild, the remote, the mysterious
and
the
strange.
They
stressed
the
element
“Americanness”
in
their
works.(5)
American
romanticists includes such literary
figures as Washington Irving, James Fennimore
Cooper, William
Cullen Bryant, Edgar
Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David
Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Herman
Melville, Walt Whitman and some others.
⑶
Imagism
意象派
Imagism came
into being in Britain and U. S. around 1910 as a
reaction to the traditional English
poetry to express the sense of
fragmentation and dislocation. 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.
Imagism
as
a
movement
flourished
only
briefly,
but
it
had
considerable influence on the
development of form and subject matter in modern
poetry. Poets like
T. S. Eliot, William
Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, and E. E.
Cummings, recognizing strengths in
imagist philosophies, made poems of the
imagist type.
Imagism is characterized
by the following three poetic principles :
1. Direct treatment of
subject matter;
2. Economy
of expression
3. as regards
rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical
phrase, not in the sequence of
metronome
Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” is
a well
-known imagist poem.
⑷
Lost Generation
迷茫的一代
The
Generation
was
the
generation
that
came
of
age
during
World
War
I.
The
term
was
popularized by Ernest Hemingway, who
used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for
his novel.
Variously, the term is used
for the period from the end of World War I to the
beginning of the Great
Depression,
though in the United States it is used for the
generation of young people who came of
age
during
and
shortly
after
World
War
I,
alternatively
known
as
the
World
War
I
generation.
In
Britain the term was
originally used for those who died in the war
Writers of the first post war era
self-
consciously acknowledged that they
were a “Lost Generation”,
disillusioned
by
the
war,
and
devoid
of
faith
and
alienated
from
a
civilization.
Hemingway
was
regarded as the
spokesman for the Lost Generation.
⑸
Free Verse
自由体诗，如惠特曼的
草叶集
Free verse is
an open form of poetry. It does not use consistent
meter patterns, rhyme, or any other
musical pattern. It thus tends to
follow the rhythm of natural speech. A clear
example of this can be
found in Walt
Whitman's poems, where he repeats certain phrases
and uses commas to create both
a
rhythm
and
structure.
Much
pattern
and
discipline
is
to
be
found
in
free
verse:
the
internal
pattern
of
sounds,
the
choice
of
exact
words,
and
the
effect
of
associations
give
free
verse
its
beauty.
诗歌
(
诗人
诗名
主题
韵式
象征意义；
Poem analysis in the
terms of
title of the poem
,
poet’s name
,
word
,
phrase
explanation
,
theme
,
metrical
,
rhyme
scheme )
1
、
The Road Not
Taken
Poet:
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
;Four times winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
born
in
San
Francisco.
Entered
Dartmouth
College
after
graduating
from
high
school,
dissatisfied
with college
life and withdrew, entered Harvard University in
1897 after marrying Elinor White; left
Harvard
two
years
after
and
moved
to
a
farm
near
Derry
,
New
Hampshire,
given
to
him
by
his
grandfather
?
Poem Type:
lyrical poem
?
Rhyme Scheme:
Iambic tetrameter;
4 5-
line stanzas with the
rhyme scheme “abaab”.
?
Literary
Devices:
Symbolism
Metaphor
Personification
2
、
In
a station of the
Metro
(
Imagism
)
Poet: Ezra
Pound
(1885
—
1972)
Poe; Translator
;Editor; Polemicist
辩论家
;Essayist
Life and Career:
Pound was often called “the poet’s
poet” because his profound influence on 20th
century writing
in English.
In a Station of the Metro
地铁车站
The apparition of these faces in the
crowd;
人流中这几张脸魔幻般浮现；
Petals on a wet, black
bough.
雨湿蒙蒙花瓣偎在乌黑树干。
Question:
How is
the central image in the poem “In a Station of the
Metro” related to
the subject the poet
intends to present?
Who
composed this poem? What kind of form is adopted
in this verse?
?
Ezra Pound; the Japanese haiku.
Why does the poet call the faces of
pedestrians “apparition”?
?
These
pedestrians are all walking in a hurry amidst the
drizzling rain.
What do
“petals” and “bough” stand for?
?
Petals refer to the faces while the
bough stands for the floating crowd.
What does the poet describe in the
poem?
?
The poem
is an observation of the poet of the human faces
in a Paris subway station where
Pound
was once impressed by the pretty faces of people
hurrying out of the dim, damp and
gloomy
metro
station.
The
faces
Pound
observed
reflect
variously
against
light
and