1、南京工业大学 备课笔记1Lecture One An Introduction to American LiteratureI. Colonial Period (from the settlement of America in the 17th century, that is, the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620, to the end of the 18th century.)II. Romantic Period (from the end of 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War)Feat
2、ures of Romanticism: Romanticism was spread to America in the early 19th century. Its manifestations were varied yet romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world w
3、as a source of goodness and mans societies a source of corruption. Romanticism influenced the major forms of American prose: transcendentalist writings, historical fiction and sentimental fiction. (1). Pre-Romanticism (Romantic Individualism)Representatives: Washington Irving and James F CooperWashi
4、ngton Irving: He was the first American author to achieve international renown. He was regarded as Father of American Literature in that he began the short stories as a genre in American Literature. His work, The Sketch Book, a collection of essays and tales, marked the beginning of American romanti
5、cism.Cooper: He was regarded as the first great American writer of fiction. He initiated three genres of fiction: the historical novel, sea novel, and frontier novel. His novels are filled with action-packed plots and vivid portrayal of American life in the wild land. Now he is remembered as the aut
6、hor “Leather-stocking Tales”, a series of five novels about the frontier life of American settlers in the formative period of the American nation.(2). Transcendentalism(American Renaissance/ Culmination of Romanticism):Definition: A literary and philosophical movement in New England in the early and
7、 middle part of the 19th century. It gave the expression to several strains of thought: the weakening of Calvinistic views about the corruption of human nature; the rise of Romantic attitudes towards the pervasiveness of the divine and inherent power of the individual imagination; and the frustratio
8、n with what was seen as the polite and unemotional rationalism of Unitarianism.(Its principles include the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of men, the leadership of Jesus, salvation by character and continued progress of mankind.)Representatives: Emerson and ThoreauEmerson: He was a prominent ess
9、ayist, philosopher and poet. He was the most representative of the philosophical and literary school which was American Transcendentalism and it inspired a whole generation of famous authors like Thoreau, Whitman and Dickinson. His Nature was regarded as the manifesto of Transcendentalism and The Am
10、erican Scholar as “American declaration of Intellectual Independence.”Thoreau: He was a friend of Emerson. His masterpiece Walden was a great Transcendentalist work.(3). Post-RomanticismA. Romantic Novelists: Hawthorne and MelvilleHawthorne: He was haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life. Evil
11、exists in the human heart as well. To him sin will get punished one way or another. As a result, his works are deeply concerned with the ethical problems of sin, punishment, and atonement. The Scarlet Letter was his masterpiece.Melville: He was a major literary figure whose exploration of psychologi
12、cal and metaphysical theme foreshadowed 20th-century literary concerns. When he was still alive, he was oblivious. His 南京工业大学 备课笔记2works remained in obscurity until the 1920s, when his genius was finally recognized. Moby-Dick represented the bleak view of the world in which he lived. This book was a
13、 tragedy of man fighting against an indifferent universe.B. Poets: Whitman, Dickinson, Allan Poe and LongfellowWhitman and Dickinson: They were the important poets of American Literature. Leaves of Grass had nine editions and the first one was published in 1855. It was a monumental work and the embo
14、diment of American democratic ideals. Dickinsons poetry was a clear illustration of her religious-ethical and political-social ideas.Longfellow: one of New England (Schoolroom or Fireside) poets and it was with him that American poetry began its emergence from the shadow of its British Parentage.Fir
15、eside Poets: Longfellow and other poets constituted a group sometimes called the Fireside Poets. They earned this nickname because they frequently used the hearth as an image of comfort and unity, a place where families gathered to learn and tell stories. These tremendously popular poets also were w
16、idely read around the hearthside of 19th-century American families. The consensus of American critics was that the Fireside Poets first put American poetry on an equal footing with British poetry.Allan Poe: American poet, short story writer and critic.III. Realistic Period(1865-1914)Realism: It was
17、characterized by a great interest in the realities of life. It aimed at the interpretation of the actualities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic color. Instead of thinking about the mysteries of life and death and heroic individualism, peoples attention was
18、directed to the interesting features of everyday existence, to what was brutal or sordid, to the open portrayal of class struggle. The three dominant figures of the period are William, Dean Howells, Mark Twain and Henry James.(1). Critical Realism: Howells focused his discussion on the rising middle
19、 class and the way they lived.(2). Local Colorism: American colorism was a unique variation of American literary realism. Generally, the works by local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region. This kind of fiction depicts the characters from a specified setting of an er
20、a, which are marked by its customs, dialects, costumes, landscape, or other peculiarities that have escaped standardizing cultural influence.Representative: Mark Twain (3). Psychological Realism: Henry James laid a great emphasis on the “inner world” of man. He tried to probe reaches of the psycholo
21、gical and moral nature of human beings. He was a realist of the inner life. He was regarded as the forerunner of the Stream of Consciousness.IV. The Modern Period (1914-1945)Modernism: a complex and diverse international movement in all creative arts, originating about the end of the 19th century. I
22、t provided the greatest renaissance of the 20th century. It was made up of many facets, such as the Stream of Consciousness, Symbolism, Surrealism, Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, etc. It has also been called “the tradition of the new”-a conscious rejection of established rules, traditions and conv
23、entions, and “ the dehumanization of art”-pushing into the background traditional notions of the individuals and society. Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. The modernist writers are mainly concerned with the inner being of an individ
24、ual. As a result, modernism casts 南京工业大学 备课笔记3away almost all the traditional elements in literature such as story, plot, character, etc. The works are often labeled as anti-novel, anti-poetry and anti-drama.The roaring 20s:In Poetry (Imagist Movement):Led by the American poet Ezra Pound, Imagist Mo
25、vement is a poetic movement that flourished in the U.S and England between 1909-1917. Pound endorsed three main principles as guidelines for Imagism, including direct treatment of poetic subjects, elimination of merely ornamental of superfluous words, and rhythmical composition should be composed wi
26、th the phrasing of music, not a metronome. The primary Imagist objective is to avoid rhetoric and moralizing, to stick closely to the object or experience being described, and to move from explicit generalization.Poets: T.S. Eliot. William Carlos Williams and Robert FrostNovels-Novelists of the 20s(
27、The Lost Generation)The Lost Generation: It refers to the disillusioned intellectuals and artists of the years following the First World War, who rebelled against former ideals and values but could replace them only by despair or a cynical hedonism. The remark of Gertrude Stein,” You are all a lost
28、generation,” addressed to Hemingway, was used as a Preface to the latters novel The Sun Also Rises, which brilliantly describes those expatriates who had cut themselves off from their past in America in order to create new types of writing.William Faulkner: an American novelist known for his epic po
29、rtrayal of the tragic conflict between the old and the new South. Faulkners complex plots and narrative style alienated many readers of his early works but he was recognized later as one of the greatest American writers. Most of his works are set in the American south, with his emphasis on the south
30、ern subjects and consciousness. His masterpiece is The Sound and the Fury.Fitzgerald: an American writer, whose novels and short stories chronicled changing social attitudes during the 1920s, a period dubbed “The Jazz Age” by the author. His major works include This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsb
31、y and Tender Is the Night. Hemingway: A Nobel Prize winner in Literature, he is one of the greatest writers. He is known for his writing styles, Hemingway heroes and Hemingway themes.The 30s during the period of the Great Depression:The Depression Writers: John Dos Passos and John SteinbeckJohn Dos
32、Passos: the leading naturalist of the depression, and his masterwork USA was probably the best work that came out of period.John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath is about the migration of the Joad family to California during the economic depression of the 30s.V. Post-modern Period (1945- )Post-moderni
33、sm: After the second world war, a variety of post-modernism like existentialist literature, the theatre of the absurd, new novels and black humor, rose with the spur of the existentialist idea “ the world was absurd and the human life was an agony.”Lecture Two Benjamin Franklin南京工业大学 备课笔记41. His ach
34、ievements: US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician published “Poor Richards Almanack“ 1732-1757; founder they sing their way into the consciousness of those who read them. Above all, there is a joyousness in them, a spirit of optimism and faith in the goodness of life which evokes immed
35、iate response in the emotions of his readers. 1. A Psalm of Life 1.1 Analysis: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow begins his poem “A Psalm of Life“ with the same exuberance and enthusiasm that continues through most of the poem. He begs in the first stanza to be told “not in mournful numbers“ about life. He
36、 states here that life doesnt abruptly end when one dies; rather, it extends into another after life. Longfellow values this dream of the afterlife immensely and seems to say that life can only be lived truly if one believes that the soul will continue to live long after the body dies.The second sta
37、nza continues with the same belief in afterlife that is present in the first. Longfellow states this clearly when he writes, “And the grave is not its goal.“ Meaning that, life doesnt end for people simply because they die; there is always something more to be hopeful and optimistic for. Longfellow
38、begins discussing how humans must live their lives in constant anticipation for the next day under the belief that it will be better than each day before it: “But to act that each to-morrow / Find us farther than to-day.“ In the subsequent stanza, Longfellow asserts that there is never an infinite a
39、mount of time to live, but art that is created during ones life can be preserved indefinitely and live on long after its creator dies. In the following stanzas, Longfellow likens living in the world to fighting on a huge field of battle. He believes that people should lead heroic and courageous live
40、s and not sit idle and remain ineffectual while the world rapidly changes around them: “Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!“ His use of the word “strife“ is especially interesting, since it clearly acknowledges that life is inherently difficult, is a constant struggle, and will
41、 never be easy. Longfellow then encourages everyone to have faith and trust the lord and not to rely on an unknown future to be stable and supportive. 2. 3 Commentary for A Psalm of LifeSensory languageRhyme schemeABABUses descriptive languageUses similesExcelsiorsummary: Excelsior is a poem about a
42、 traveler who had only one goal stuck into his head that was to get higher and nothing could make him stop, not even the warm light of 南京工业大学 备课笔记9houses, nor the warm welcome of a girl, nor the storm that will come at night, nor the avalanche could stop him. And in the end he died. He did what he d
43、etermined to do and he ended up losing his life.Lecture Six Edgar Allan Poe(He held a unique position in the American literary history. George Bernard Shaw once said America has only two great writers Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain.)1. Life (1809 1849)2. Works (He wrote all kinds of literary product
44、ions. Among all his works, his poems and short stories are more famous.)(1) PoemsA. TheoryPoems should be short, concise and readable at one sitting;The aim of poem writing is beauty; the most beautiful thing described by a poem is the death of a beautiful woman; the desirable tone of a poem is mela
45、ncholy;He opposed didactic poems;He stressed the form of poem, especially the beautiful and neat rhyme.(His poetry theory is not fair at all time. For example, according to him, Paradise Lost is not a good poem.)B. Famous poems: “The Raven”, “Annabel Lee”, “To Helen” etc.C. All his poems were writte
46、n according to his poetry theory and his poems have strong dreamy color.3. Poes poetry, which is very small in proportion to his total work, truthfully embodies his conviction that the function of poetry is not to summarize and interpret earthly experience, but to create a mood in which the soul soa
47、rs toward supernal beauty. He insists that poetry must be disembarrassed of that moral sense which involves the reader with humanity, and that everything that may detain the soul on earth must be excluded from poetry, and that all human emotion save that “tremulous delight” which attends an imaginar
48、y destruction of the physical world must be banished from poetry. Some of his poems have a narrative basis, but it is often difficult for the reader to find in it a complete plot. The reasons that account for this lie in that Poe believes that the elevation of excitement of the soul should be “ the
49、poetic principles”, thus poetry must concern itself only with “supernal beauty”, not with the narration of story, nor even with the beauty of particular things. Poe defines poetry as “ the rhythmical creation of beauty”, a definition giving unexampled emphasis upon the importance of the rhythmical of musical element in poetry, because Poe repeatedly explains that only in music can man come closest to attaining what he calls “supernal beauty”.4. Annelbel Lee41 Chinese translation4.2 Comments on this poem:4.2.1 Writing features:Anapaestic with frequent iambic substitutio
