美国文学知识点整理

The Purloined Letter

《窃信案》

poetry

:

The Raven

(1844)

《乌鸦》

2

Annabel

Lee

《安娜贝尔李》

3

The Sleeper

《睡美人》

4

A Dream Within a Dream

《梦中梦》

5

Israfel

《伊斯拉菲尔》

6

The Bells

《钟》

7

Sonnet

–

To Science

《十四行诗

--

致科学》

8

To Helen

《献给海伦》

9

The City in the Sea

《海中的城市》

American Transcendentalism

Definition

of

Transcendentalism

< br>：

Transcendentalism

was

a

philosophical and literary movement which

flourished in New England

in

the

mid

years

of

the

19th

century.

NET

is

also

called

American

Transcendentalism

or

American

Renaissance.

It

marked

the

maturity

of

American Romanticism and the first Renaissance in the American literary

history.

The

term

was

derived

from

Latin

,

meaning

to

rise

above

or

to

pass

beyond

the

limits.

It

laid

emphasis

on

spirit

and

individual

and

nature.

Ⅳ

.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

重要著作

：

《论自然》

(Nature

)

；

《论超灵》

(

Over-Soul

)

、

《自助》

(

Self-Reliance

)

1,

A

liberator

from

old

conventions,

a

leader

in

experimentation

and

self-reliance.

2,

Provided

guidance

and

intellectual

climate

for

other

writers

such

as

Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman, Melville , and Emily Dickinson.

Ⅴ

.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Major

Works

:

A

Week

on

the

Concord

and

Merrimack

Rivers

(1849)

,

Civil

Disobedience

(1849),

Walden

(1854),

A

Plea

for

Captain

John

Brown (1859)

Ⅵ

.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

—

the first great American writer of fiction

Works:

Novels:

The

House

of

the

Seven

Gables

,

《七个尖角阁的房

子》

,1851

The Blithedale Romance

《福谷传奇》

,1852

The Marble Faun

《玉石雕像》

, 1860

The Scarlet Letter

《

红字》

,1850

主要人物：< /p>

Pearl

，

Roger Chillingworth

Two collections of short stories:

Twice-told Tales

《故事重述》

,1837

，

Mosses from an Old Manse

《古宅青苔》

, 1843

—

His masterpiece, which established him as the leading American native

novelist of the 19th century

Ⅶ

.

Herman Melville

(1819-1891) --

Works:

1. Redburn

2. Typee

3. Omoo

1849

1846

1874

1851

1849

4. Moby Dick

5. Mardi

6. White Jacket

1850

7. Pierre

1852

8. Billy Budd

1924

Moby Dick

: Type of work:

symbolic novel

Principal Characters: Ishmael, Captain Ahab

First publication: 1851

Setting:

Most

of

the

book

takes

place

on

various

oceans,

such

as

the

Atlantic, the Indian, and the Pacific, in the early to mid 1800’s. However,

a

good

deal

of

the

first

part

of

the

novel

takes

place

in

New

England

inside and around Nantucket.

Ⅷ

.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

major works:

The literature of Realism

(1865

–

1918)

Realism

had

originated

in

France

as

ré

alisme,

a

literary

doctrine

that

called for

―reality and truth‖

in the depiction of ordinary life.

?

Literary Features:

A. a reaction against Romanticism and paved

the way to Modernism.

?

B.

commonness

of

the

lives

of

the

common

people,

and

emphasizes

objectivity

and

offers

an

objective

rather

than

an

idealistic view of human experience.

?

C. vivid description of details from observation of actual life.

?

D. trying to hold an objective view of human nature and society

?

E.

People

sought

to

describe

the

wide

range

of

American

experience

and

to

present

the

subtleties

(

阴

险

)

of

human

personality, to portray characters who were less simply all good or

all bad.

I. Local Color

（乡土特色，地域色彩）

?

Realism began in America as Local Color.

?

A

synthesis

(

综合

)

of

romantic

plots

and

realistic

descriptions

of

things.

?

Reached its peak of popularity in the 1880s.

?

Began to decline by the turn of the century.

Bret Harte

布雷特

·

哈特

(1836

—

1902)

?

the first American writer of local color to achieve wide popularity

?

his

major

concern:

the

western

mining

towns

in

the

pioneering

days

The Luck of Roaring Camp

咆哮营的幸运儿

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811

—

1896) ---

a woman writer

?

Uncle Tom’

s Cabin

汤姆叔叔的小屋

?

an anti-slavery novel

?

the best-selling novel of the 19th century

?

It had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and

slavery in the United States

?

It

intensified

the

sectional

conflict

leading

to

the

American

Civil

War.

?

this

is

the

little

lady

who

made

this

big

war.‖

(Abraham

Lincoln)

Kate Chopin

凯特

·

肖邦

(1850

—

1904) -- a woman writer

The Awakening

觉醒

II. American Realism

?

Time: the latter half of the 19th century, esp. 1870s, 1880s.

?

Features

：

?

Realists tried to vividly describe details from observation of

actual

life.

?

Realists tried to offer an objective rather than an idealized view of

human nature and society.

?

It

expressed

the

concern

for

the

world

of

experience,

of

the

commonplace, and for the familiar and the low.

?

Its

style

was

genteel

and

graceful

by

Howells

and

Henry

James,

plain and rough by Mark Twain and some other local color writers.

The Great Masters of American Realism

?

Mark Twain