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Percy Bysshe Shelley （1792-1822） 1792 Shelley was born in an aristocratic family. He was educated at Eton. 1810 18y， he went to Oxford Uni. He attacked war and glorified heroes and heroines of the French revolution. 1811 While in Oxford， he published The Necessity of Atheism in which he doubted the existence of God. As a result，he was expulsed by the university and his conservative father deprived him the heir of Barony and fortune. He went to London where he met Harriet Westbrook who was much younger than him and also came from an aristocratic family. They eloped to Scotland. Poverty finally separated the couple. 1814 He fell in love with Mary Wollstonecraft （daughter of Godwin） and eloped with her to Italy. In Italy， he met Byron with whom he kept a solid friendship. 1816 Harriet committed suicide. Shelley's political enemy attacked him an immoral man. 1818 He exiled himself to Italy and spent the rest of his life there. 1819 Peterloo Massacre happened in Manchester. The event marked a turning point in Shelley's view. Before that， he thought that workers should take up weapons and fights. After the event， he thought they should. Working class's resistance and anti-oppression became a constant theme of him. 1822 At the age of 30， he drowned in a small boat along the coast of Italy. Shelley's Major Works 1813 Queen Mob shows Shelley's social philosophy. 1. He criticizes the rising capitalism and the feudal society. 2. He defends the rights of the labor against their exploiters and oppressors. 3. The story is a fairy tale dream. It's an optimistic poem. Through Queen Mob's words， Shelley shows his philosophy. It's a revolutionary poem in which Shelley declares war on the injustice and violence of the world. （Shelley is a revolutionary poet.） 1819 Prometheus Unbound Prometheus is a god in Greek myth， who steals fire from heaven to help human. Zeus punishes him by hanging him on a cliff and sending eagles to bite his flesh. Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound described how Prometheus steals the fire and his sufferings. At the end， Prometheus reconciled with Zeus. Prometheus Unbound. In Shelley's work Prometheus doesn't comprise with authority （Zeus）。
The major writers of the Modern Period Ⅰ。
Ezra Pound （1885-1972） ⼀。
⼀般识记 Ezra Pound's contribution to American literature： Pound was one of the most important poets and critics of his time and he was regarded as the father of modern American poetry. He is a leading spokesman of the "Imagist Movement"， which though short-lived， had a tremendous influence on modern poetry. ⼆。
识记 His major works： Pound composed poems， wrote criticisms and did translations. （1） His poetic works： In 1915 Pound began writing his great work， The Cantos， which spanned from 1917 to 1959 and were collected in The Cantos of Ezra Pound （1986）。
He joined a famous literary salon run by an American woman writer Gertrude Stein， and became involved in the experimentations on poetry. His other poetic works include twelve volumes of verse Collected Early Poems of Ezra Pound （1982）， and Personae （1909）， and some longer pieces such as Hugh Selwyn Mauberley （1920）。
新大纲自考《英美文学选读》笔记总结-背完必过(总65页)--本页仅作为文档封面，使用时请直接删除即可----内页可以根据需求调整合适字体及大小--《英美文学选读》笔记背完必过Part One: English LiteratureAn Introduction to Old and Medieval English LiteratureI Understanding and application: (理解应用)1. England’s inhabitants are Celts. And it is conquered by Romans, Anglo Saxons and Normans. The Anglo-Saxons brought the Germanic language and culture to England, while Normans brought the Mediterranean civilization, including Greek culture, Rome law and the Christian religion. It is the cultural influence of these two conquests that provided the source for the rise and growth of English literature.2. The old English literature extends from about 450 to 1066, the year of the Norman conquest of England.3. The old English poetry that has survived can be divided into two groups: The religious group and the secular one4. Beowulf: a typical example of Old English poetry is regarded as the national epic of the Anglo-Saxons. It is an example of the mingling of nature myths and heroic legends.5. After the Norman’s conquest, three languages co-existed in England. French is the official language that is used by king and the Norman lords. Latin is the principal tongue of church affairs and in universities. Old English was spoken only by the common English people.6. In the second half of 14th century, English literature started to flourish with the appearance of writers like Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, John Gower, and othersII Recite: (识记再现)1. Romance:①It uses narrative verse or prose to sing knightly adventures or other heroic deeds is a popular literary form in the medieval period.②It has developed the characteristic medieval motifs of the quest, the test, the meeting with the evil giant and the encounter with the beautiful beloved.③The hero is usually the knight, who sets out on a journey to accomplish some missions. There are often mysteries and fantasies in romance.④Romantic love is an important part of the plot in romance.Characterization is standardized, While the structure is loose and episodic, the language is simple and straightforward.⑤The importance of the romance itself can be seen as a means of showing medieval aristocratic men and women in relation to their idealized view of the world.2. Heroic couplet:Heroic couplet is a rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter. It is Chaucer who used it for the first time in English in his work The Legend of Good Woman.3. The theme of Beowulf:The poem presents a vivid picture of how the primitive people wage heroic struggles against the hostile forces of the natural world under a wise and mighty leader. The poem is an example of the mingling of the nature myths and heroic legends.4. The Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales:The Wife of Bath is depicted as the new bourgeois wife asserting her independence. Chaucer develops his characterization to a higher artistic level by presenting characters with both typical qualities and individual dispositions.5. Chaucer’s achievement:①He presented a comprehensive realistic picture of his age and created a whole gallery of vivid characters in his works, especially in The Canterbury Tales.②He anticipated a new ear, the Renaissance, to come under the influence of the Italian writers.③He developed his characterization to a higher level by presenting characters with both typical qualities and individual dispositions.④He greatly contributed to the maturing of English poetry. Today, Chaucer’s reputation has beensecurely established as one of the best English poets for his wisdom, humor and humanity.6. “The F ather of English poetry”:Originally, Old English poems are mainly alliterative verses with few variations.①Chaucer introduced from France the rhymed stanzas of various types to English poetry to replace it.②In The Romaunt of the Rose (玫瑰传奇), he first introduced to the English the octosyllabic couplet (八音节对偶句).③In The Legend of Good Women, he used for the first time in English heroic couplet.④And in his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, he employed heroic couplet with true ease and charmfor the first time in the history of English literature.⑤His art made him one of the greatest poets in English; John Dryden called him “the father of Englishpoetry”.【例题】The work that presented, for the first time in English literature, a comprehensive realistic picture of the medieval English society and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life is most likely ______________. (0704)A. William Langland’s Piers PlowmanB. Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury TalesC. John Gower’s Confession AmantisD. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight【答案】B【解析】本题考查的是中世纪时期几位诗人作品的创作主题和创作范围。
PART TWO: AMERICAN LITERATUREChapter1 The Romantic Period1.主要作家及其作品：i.Washington Irving:The Sketch Book; Rip Van Winkle;The Legend of Sleepy Hollowii.Ralph Waldo Emerson:Essays; The American Scholar; Self-Reliance;The Over-Soul; The Poet; Experience; Nature iii.Nathaniel Hawthorne:Mosses from an Old Manse; The Scarlet Letter;The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales;The House of the Seven Gables;The Blithedale Romance;The Marble Fauniv.Walt Whitman:Leaves of Grass; There was a Child Went Forth;Drum Taps; Cavalry Crossing a Ford; Song of Myself;When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’dv.Herman Melville:Moby-Dick; Billy Budd; Typee; Omoo;Mardi; Redburn; White Jacket.2.清教主义Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. As the word itself hints，Puritans wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They felt that the Church of England was too close to the Church of Rome in doctrine form of worship，and organization of authority. American Puritans，like their brothers back in England，were idealists，believing that the church should be restored to complete "purity". They accepted the doctrine of predestination，original sin and total depravity，and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. But in the grim struggle for survival that followed immediately after their arrival in America，they became more and more practical，as indeed they had to be. Puritans were noted for a spirit of moral and religious earnestness that determinated their whole way of life. As a culture heritage，Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind and American values. American Puritanism also had a conspicuously noticeable and an enduring influence on American literature. It had become，to some extent，so much a state of mind，so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere，rather than a set of tenets.3.超验主义Transcendentalism has been defined philosophical1y as "the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively，or of attaining knowledge transcendingthe reach of the senses." Emerson once proclaimed in a speech，"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism inc1ude the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and，therefore，self-re1iant. The transcendentalists reacted against the cold，rigid rationalism of Unitarianism in Boston. They adhered to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation ，the innate goodness of man，and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths.4.象征主义5.自由诗Whitman is also radically innovative in terms of the form of his poetry. He adopted "free verse，" that is，poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. A looser and more open-ended syntactical structure is frequently favored. Lines and sentences of different lengths are left lying side by side just as things are，undisturbed and separate. There are few compound sentences to draw objects and experiences into a system of hierarchy. Whitman was the first American to use free verse extensively. By means of "free verse，" Whitman turned the poem into an open field，an area of vital possibility where the reader can allow his own imagination to play.6.爱默生的超验主义思想及他的自然观In his essays, Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-soul, the importance of the Individual, and Nature. Emerson rejected both the formal religion of the churches and the Deistic philosophy. Emerson and other Transcendentalists believed that there should be an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal ―over-soul,‖ since the over-soul is an all-pervading power from which all things come from and of which all are a part. Emerson is affirmative about man’s intuitive knowledge, with which a man can trust himself to decide what is right and to act accordingly. The ideal individual should be a self-reliant man.. he means to convince people that the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself are infinite. Emerson’s nature is emblematic of the spiritual world, alive with God’s overwhelming presence; hence, it exercises a healthy and restorative influence on human mind. ―God back to nature, sink yourself back into its influence and you’ll become spiritually whole again.‖ By employing nature as a big symbol of the Spirit, or God, or the over-soul. Emerson has brought the Puritan Legacy of symbolism to its perfection. 7.《小伙子布朗》中的寓言和象征In ―Young Goodman Brown,‖ Hawthorne set out to prove that everyone possesses some evil secret. The story illustrates Hawthorne's allegorical theme of human evil. In the manner of its concern with guilt and evil，it exemplifies what Milville called the" power of blackness" in Hawthorne's work. In "Young Goodman Brown，" he sets out to prove that everyone possesses some evil secret. "Evil is thenature of mankind." Its hero，a naive young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard，is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night，and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful.Allegorically，our protagonist，becomes an Everyman named Brown，a "young man" who will be aged in one night by an adventure that makes everyone in this world a fallen idol.However, The story is manipulated in such a way that we as readers feel that Hawthorne poses the question of Good and Evil in man but withholds his answer，and he does not permit himself to determine whether the events of the night of trial are real or the mere figment of a dream.8.霍桑的清教思想和他人性本恶的观点As we can see, Hawthorne’s literary world turns out to be a most disturbed, tormented and problematical one possible to imagine. This has much to do with his ―black‖ vision of life and human beings. According to Hawthorne, ―There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity. One source of evil that Hawthorne is concerned most is overreaching intellect, which usually refers to someone who is too proud, too sure of himself. He believed that ―the wrong doing of one generation lives into the successive ones,‖ and often wondered if he might have inherited some of their guilt. This sensibility led to his understanding of evil being at the very core of human life., which is typical of the Calvinistic belief that human beings are basically depraved and corrupted, hence, they should obey God to atone for their sins.9.麦尔维尔长篇小说《白鲸》的象征意义Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure，it is also a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe，a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology.Like Hawthorne，Melville is a master of allegory and symbolism. He uses allegory and symbolism in Moby-Dick to present its mighty theme. Instead of putting the battle between Ahab and the big whale into simple statements，he used symbols，that is，objects or persons who represent something else. Different people on board the ship are representations of different ideas and different social and ethnic groups；facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings；the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. The white whale，Moby Dick，symbolizes nature for Melville，for it is complex，unfathomable，malignant，and beautiful as well. For the character Ahab，however，the whale represents only evil. Moby Dick is like a wall，hiding some unknown，mysterious things behind. Ahab wills the whole crew on the Pequod to join him in the pursuit of the big whale so as to pierce the wall，to root out the evil，but only to be destroyed by evil，in this case，by his own consuming desire，his madness. For the author，as well as for the reader and Ishmael，the narrator，Moby Dick is still a mystery，an ultimate mystery of the universe，inscrutable and ambivalent，and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search，not a discovery，of the truth.10.惠特曼《草叶集》的结构(自由诗)、主题、语言特色1. The themes in Whitman's poetry：His poetry is filled with optimistic expectation and enthusiasm about new things and new epoch. Whitman believed that poetry could play a vita1 part in the process of creating a new nation. It could enab1e Americans to celebrate their release from the Old World and the colonia1 rule. And it could also help them understand their new status and to define themse1ves in the new wor1d of possibi1ities. Hence，the abundance of themes in his poetry voices freshness. He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. Pursuit of love and happiness is approved of repeatedly and affectionately in his lines. Sexual 1ove，a rather taboo topic of the time，is displayed candidly as something adorable. The individual person and his desires must be respected.2.Leaves of GrassWalt Whitman is a poet with a strong sense of mission，having devoted all his life to the creation of the "single" poem，Leaves of Grass.（1）the title ：It is significant that Whitman entitled his book Leaves of Grass . He said that where there is earth，where there is water，there is grass. Grass，the most common thing with the greatest vitality，is an image of the poet himself，a symbol of the then rising American nation and an embodiment of his ideals about democracy and freedom.（a）theme：In this giant work，openness，freedom，and above all，individua1ism（the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important）are all that concerned him. Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into American literature ，attack the slavery system and racial discrimination. In this book he also extols nature，democracy，labor and creation ，and sings of man's dignity and equality，and of the brightest future of mankind . Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the "en-masse" and the self as well.（b）the poet's essentia1 purposeHis aim was nothing less than to express some new poetica1 feelings and to initiate a poetic tradition in which difference shou1d be recognized. The genuine participation of a poet in a common cultural effort was，according to Whitman，to behave as a supreme individualist；however，the poet's essentia1 purpose was to identify his ego with the world，and more specifically with the democratic "en-masse" of America，which is established in the opening lines of "Song of Myself".3.Whitman's poetic style and languageTo dramatize the nature of these new poetical fee1ings，Whitman employed brand-new means in his poetry，which would first be discerned in his style and language.（1）Whitman's poetic style is marked，first of a1l，by the use of the poetic "I." Whitman becomes all those people in his poems and yet still remains "Walt Whitman"，hence a discovery of the self in the other with such an identification. Insuch a manner，Whitman invites his readers to participate in the process of sympathetic identification.（3）Whitman is conversational and casual，in the fluid，expansive，and unstructured style of talking. However，there is a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical. The reader can feel the rhythm of Whitman's thought and cadences of his feeling. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines also contribute to the musicality of his poems.（4）Whitman's languageContrary to the rhetoric of traditional poetry，Whitman's is relatively simple and even rather crude. Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest，undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day. The particularity about these images is that they are unconventional in the way they break down the social division based on religion，gender，class，and race. One of the most often-used methods in Whitman's poems is to make colors and images fleet past the mind's eye of the reader. Another characteristic in Whitman's language is his strong tendency to use oral English. Whitman's vocabulary is amazing. He would use powerfu1，colorful，as well as rarely-used words，words of foreign origin and sometimes even wrong words.美国现实主义时期1.Mark Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn;The Adventures of Tom Sawyer;The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County;Innocents Abroad; The Gilded Age2.Henry James: The American; Daisy Miller;The Europeans; The Portrait of A Lady;What Maisie Knows; The Wings of the Dove;The Ambassadors; The Golden Bowl; The Art to Fiction3.Emily Dickinson:4. Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie; American Tragedy1.What is Realism?In art and literature, Realism refers to an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures exactly as they act or appear in life. Realism emerged as a literary movement in Europe in the 1850s. In reaction to Romanticism, realistic writers should set down their observations impartially and objectively. They insisted on accurate documentation, sociological insight, and avoidance of poetic diction and idealization. The subjects were to be taken from everyday life, preferably from lower-class life. Realism entered American literature after the Civil War. William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James were the pioneers of realism in the U.S.1.What is Naturalism? (or American Naturalism)In literature, the term refers to the theory that literary composition should aim at a detached, scientific objectivity in the treatment of natural man. The movement is an outgrowth of 19th –century scientic thought, following in general the biological determinism of Darwin’s theory, or the economic determinism of Karl Marx. American Naturalism is a more advanced stage of realism toward the close of the 19th century. The American naturalists accepted the more negative implications of Darwin’s theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were conceived as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces. And consciously or unconsciously the American naturalists followed the French novelist and theorist Emile Zola's cal l that the 1iterary artist ―must operate with characters, passions, human and social data as the chemist and the physicist work on inert bodies, as the physiologist works on living bodies.‖ They chose their subjects from the lower ranks of society and portrayed the people who were demonstrably victims of society and nature. And one of the most familiar themes in American Naturalism is the theme of human ―bestiality‖, especially as an explanation of sexual desire.Artistically, naturalistic writings are usually unpo1ished in language, lacking in academic skills and unwieldly in structure. Philosophically, the naturalists believe that the real and true is always partially hidden from the eyes of the individual, or beyond his control. Devoid of rationality and caught in a process in which he is but a part, man cannot fully understand, let alone contro1, the world he lives in; hence, he is left with no freedom of choice.In a word, naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more detached, ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a different philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence. Notable writers of naturalistic fiction were Frank Norris, Sherwood Anderson, and Theodore Driser.2.The distinction between Realism and NaturalismNaturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more detached, ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a different philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.The distinction lies, first of all, in the fact that Realism is concerned directly with what is absorbed by the senses; Naturalism, a term more properly applied to literature, attempts to apply scientific theories to art. Second, Naturalism differs from Realism in adding an amoral attitude to the objective presentation of life. Naturalistic writers, adopting Darwin’s biological determinism and Marx’s economic determinism, regard human behavior as controlled by instinct, emotion, or social and economic conditions, and reject free will. Third, Naturalism had an outlook often bleaker than that of Realism, and it added a dimension of predetermined fate that rendered human will ultimately powerless.3.What is (Social) Darwinism?Social Darwinism is a belief that societies and individual human beings compete in astruggle for existence in which natural selection results in ―struggle of the fittest.‖ Social Darwinists base their beliefs on theories of evolution developed by British naturalist Charles Darwin. Social Darwinists typically deny that they advocate a ―law of jungle.‖ But most propose arguments that justify imbalances of power between individuals, races, and nations because they consider some more fit to survive than others. The theory had produced a big impact on Naturalism.马克吐温1.Twain as a local coloristTwain is also known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. Consequently, the rich material of his boyhood experience on the Mississippi became the endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississippivalley and the West became his major theme. Unlike James and Howe1ls, Mark Twain wrote about the lower-class people, because they were the people he knew so we1l ancl their 1ife was the one he himself had lived. Moreover he successfully used local color and historical settings to i1lustrate and shed light on the contemporary societyAnother fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of vernacular. His words are col1oquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simp1e, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken 1anguage. Mark Twain's humor is remarkable, too. It is fun to read Twain to begin with, for most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks, etc., and some of them are actually tall ta1es.(2) The novel’s theme, characterization of ―Huck‖ and the novel’s social significance: Theme: The novel is a vindication of what Mark Twain called ― the damned human race.‖ That is the theme of man’s inhumani ty to man---of human cruelty, hypocrisies, dishonesties, and moral corruptions. Mark Twain’s thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is best known for Mark Twain’s wonderful characterization of ―Huck,‖ a typical American boy whom its creator described as a boy with ―a sound heart and a deformed conscience,‖ and remarkable for the raft’s journey down the Mississippi river, which Twain used both realistically and symbolically to shape his book into an organic whole.Through the eyes of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed and at the same time we are deeply impressed by Mark Twain’s thematic contrasts between i nnocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization.黛西米勒的主题和主要人物的性格分析1.The theme of the novelDaisy Miller is one of James’s early works that dealt with the international theme, i.e.,to set against a large international background, usual1y between Europe and America, and centered on the confrontation of the two different cu1tures with two different groups of peop1e representing two different value systems: American innocence in contact and contrast with European decadence and the moral and psychological complications arising therefrom.2.Characterization of Daisy MillerIn this novel, the ―Americanness ‖in Daisy is revealed by her relatively unreserved manners. Daisy Miller, a typical young American girl who goes to Europe and affronts her destiny. The unsophisticated girl is cruelly wronged because of the confrontation between the two value systems. Miller has ever since become the American Girl in Europe, a celebrated cultural type who embodies the spirit of the New World. However, innocence, the keynote of her character, turns out to be an admiring but a dangerous quality and her defiance of social taboos in the Old World finally brings her to a disaster in the clash between two different cultures. In this novel James’s sympathy for Daisy could be easily felt when we think of a tender flower crushed by the harsh winter in Rome.3.The content of this selection: Daisy has just arrived at Switzerland with her family and meets Winterborne for the first time. Two days later Daisy goes alone with Winterborne on an excursion to an old castle, which is soon in the air among theby its narration from the point of view of the American youth Winterborne狄金森诗歌的主题结构及艺术特色The thematic concerns and the original artistic features of Dickinson's poetry: 1．Themes: Dicksinson’s poems are usually based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys. But within her litlle lyrics Dickinson addresses those issues that concern the whole human beings, which include religion, death, immortality, love, and nature.2．Artistic features: Her poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines. In her poetry there is a particular stress pattern, in which dashes are used as a musica1 device to create cadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis. Most of her poems borrow the repeated four-line, rhymed stanzas of traditional Christian hymns, with two lines of four-beat meter alternating with two lines of three-beat meter. A master of imagery that makes the spiritual materialize in surprising ways, Dickinson managed manifold variations within her simple form: She used imperfect rhymes, subtle breaks of rhythm, and idiosyncratic syntax and punctuation to create fascinating word puzzles, which have produced greatly divergent interpretations over the years. Dickinson’s irregular or sometimes inverted sentence structure also confuses readers. However, her poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness and plainness. Her poems are usually short, rarely more than twenty lines, and many of them are centered on a single image or symbo1 and focused on one subject matter. Due to her deliberate sec1usion, her poems tend to be very personal and meditative. She frequently uses personae to render the tone more familiar to the reader, and personification to vivifysome abstract ideas. Dickinson's poetry, despite its ostensible formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness; and her limited private world has never confined the limitless power of her creativity and imagination.美国现代时期1.Ezra Pound: The Cantos; In a Station of the Metro.2.Robert Lee Frost: The Road Not Taken; Stopping by Woods on aSnowy Evening3.Eugene O’Neill: Beyond the Horizon; The Emperor Jones; The HairyApe;All God’s Chillun Got Wings; Desire under the Elms;Anna Christie; The Great God Brown; Lazarus Laughed;Strange Interlude; The Iceman Cometh;Long Day’s Journey Into Night.4. F Scott Fitzgerald: This Side of Paradise; The Beautiful andDamned;The Great Gatsby; Tender is the Night;Flappers and Philosophers; Tales of the Jazz Age;All the Sad Young Men; Taps at Reveille;Babylon Revisited.5.Ernest Hemingway: In Our Time; The Sun Also Rises;A farewell to Arms; For Whom the BellTolls;The Old Man and the Sea; Men Without Women.6.William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury; Light in August;Absalom, Absalom; Go Down, Moses;A Rose for Emily.1）The Imagist Movement and the artistic characteristics of imagist poems：Led by the American poet Ezra Pound，Imagist Movement is a poetic movement that flourished in the U.S. and England between 1909-1917. It advances modernism in arts which concentrates on reforming the medium of poetry as opposed to Romanticism，especially Tennyson's worldliness and high-flown language in poetry. Pound endorsed three main principles as guidelines for Imagism，including direct treatment of poetic subjects，elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words，and rhythmical composition should be composed with 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. The leading poets are Ezra Pound，Wallace Stevens，wrence，etc.The characteristic products of the movement are more easily recognized than its theories defined；they tend to be short，composed of short lines of musical cadence rather than metrical regularity，to avoid abstraction，and to treat the imagewith a hard，clear precision rather than with overt symbolic intent. The influence of Japanese forms，tanka and haiku，is obvious in many. Most of the imagist poets wrote in free verse and they like to emply common speech. They stressed the freedom in the choice of subject matter and form.2）The Lost GenerationIt refers to，in general，the post-World WarⅠgeneration，but specifically a group of expatriate disillusioned intellectuals and artists，who experimented on new modes of thought and expression by rebelling against former ideals and values and replacing them only by despair or a cynical hedonism. The remark of Gertrude Stein，"You are all a lost generation，"addressed to Hemingway，was used as an epigraph to the latter's 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. The generation was "lost" in the sense that its inherited values were no longer relevant in the postwar world and because of its spiritual alienation from a U.S. that seemed to its members to be hopelessly provincial，materialistic，and emotional barren. The term embraces Hemingway，F. Scott Fitzgerald，Ezra Pound，E.E.Cummings，and many other writers who made Paris the center of their literary activities in the 1920s.3）What is Expressionism？Expressionism is used to describe the works of art and literature in which the representation of reality is distorted to communicate an inner vision，transforming nature rather than imitating it. In literature it is often considered a revolt against realism and naturalism，a seeking to achieve a psychological or spiritual reality rather than to record external events.In drama，the expressionist work was characterized by a bizarre distortion of reality. writers's concern was with general truths rather than with particular situations，hence they explored in their plays the predicaments of representative symbolic types rather than of fully developed individualized characters. Emphasis was laid not on the outer world，which is merely sketched in and barely defined in place or time，but on the internal，on an individual's mental state；hence the imitation of life is replaced in Expressionist drama by the ecstatic evocation of states of mind. In America，Eugene O'Neille's Emperor Jones，The Hairy Ape，etc. are typical plays that employ Expressionism4）The concept of "wasteland" in relation to the works of those writers in the twentieth-century American literatureThe Waste Land is a poem written by T.S.Eliot on the theme of the sterility and chaos of the contemporary world. This most widely known expression of the despair of the post-War era has appeared over and again in the works of those writers in the twentieth-century American literature. Fitzgerald sought to portray a spiritual wasteland of the Jazz Age. Beneath the masks of relaxation and joviality，there was only sterility，meaninglessness and futility amid the grandeur and extravagance，。
自考英语本科《英美文学选读》-美国现代时期一天全掌握The modern period 现代时期the second American Renaissance,the expatriate移居海外movement,the Lost Generation, 迷茫的一代a transformation from order to disorderSeize the day, enjoy the present, 及时行乐spiritual wasteland, collective unconscious,psychoanalysisImagist movement, Jazz Age应用名词解释："迷惘的一代"，意象派诗歌，象征主义，表现主义，意识流"荒原"意识在美国20世纪文学中的反映《地铁站一瞥》《盟约》《河商的妻子》：主题、意象、语言弗洛斯特的自然诗《摘苹果后》《未选择的路》《雪夜停马在林边》：主题、象征与比喻、语言《毛猿》第八场：主题结构、表现主义和象征主义手《了不起的盖茨比》第三章：主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格age:second half of the 19th century to early decades of the 20th centurybackground:(1)the U.S. has become the most powerful country(2)technological revolution(3)a decline in moral standard, a spiritual wasteland, feelings of fear, loss, disorientation and disillusionmentinfluencing ideas:(1)the same as English Modern period: Karl Marx, Darwin,Freud(2)stream of consciousness:modernism's features:literature: convey a vision of social breakdown and moral decaywriter: develop techniques that could represent a break with the past. modernistic works are discontinuity and fragmentation The differences between Modernism America and England(1)American writers emphasize the concrete sensory images or details as the direct conveyor of experience(2)modern fiction employ the first narration or confine the reader to the "central consciousness" or one character‘s point of viewcommon ground: directness, compression, vividness, sparing of wordsThe idea of “seize the day” or “enjoy the present ” was pervasive, as opposed to placing all hope in the future.“及时行乐”的思想十分横行，他们不把希望寄托在将来。
Chapter 3 The Modern PeriodI. BackgroundIn the early 20th century, nothing had more important and long-lasting effect on America than the two great world wars. America entered the era of big industry and big technology, a mechanized age that deprived individuals of their sense of identity. The war affected young writers' attitude toward life, society, and writing. Also during the interval between the two wars, some significant events exerted great influence on American literature.II. Modern period charactersFirst, many young American writers and artists lived abroad for months and years.Second, Marxism and Freudianism were widely studied. They changed people's view of society and themselves. Third, up to this point, the typical American writer had been native-born, white, more or less rich, Protestant and Anglo-Saxon. After the war, the voices of new groups of Americans were heard. They were poor, or immigrants, or Jews, or blacks. There was the new literature coming out of the South and the literature written by women with awakened self-consciousness.Fourth, during this period there occurred in America an intense reexamination of the structure of literature and of the nature of the critical activity itself.During the first decades of the 20th century, modernism became an international tendency against positivism and representational an in art and literature.a. compared with earlier writings, especially those of the 19th century, modern American writings are notable for what they omit---the explanations, interpretations, connections, and summaries. A typical modern work will seem to begin arbitrarily, to advance without explanation, and to end without resolution.b. Modernistic techniques and manifestos were initiated by poets first and later entered and transformed fiction in this period as well like the poets, prose writers strove for directness,compression, and vividness and were sparing of words.III. Main writers:I. Robert Lee Frost(1874-1963)In 1912, Robert Frost took his family to England. There he met Ezra Pound who had a very good opinion about his poems and helped him to find British publishers.A Boy's Will(1913) and North of Boston(1914) were published and highly acclaimed in England.Most of his major poetry was written before 1930, although he continued writing all the way through the 1950s and into the early 1960s. His major books include Mountain interval (1916), New Hampshire(1923), West-Running Brook (1928), A Further Range (1936), A Witness Tree (1942), A Mosque of Reason (1945), A Masque of Mercy(1947), A Steeple Bush(1947), Complete Poems(1949), and In the Clearing(1962). Although recognition came late to him at the age of forty, Robert Frost was the most popular American poet from 1914 to his death.a. During the course of his career, he changed from a national critic to a national hero.b. His verse at first was terrifying, showing a dark side of human life, human society, and the problems which confronted his own life.c. By the end of his life, his poems were filled with more sunshine. He was more pleasant. This is an important change because America needed such a poet that it could admire, especially because the other modernist poets during this time were obscure. They were intellectuals. They could not be understood by the average person. Robert Frost could be understood by the average person and his poetry is full of life, truth, and wisdom.Frost's achievement was fantastic. He won the Pulitzer Prize four times, received honorary degrees fromforty-four colleges and universities, and became the nation's unofficial Poet Laureate when he was invited to read "The Gift Outright" at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961.d. he used simple spoken language and conversational rhythms, and achieved an effortless grace in his style. He combined traditional verse forms—the sonnet, rhyming couplets, blank verse—with a clear American local speech rhythm, the speech of New England farmers with its idiosyncratic diction and syntax.II: F. Scott Fitzgerald(1896-1940): he was a most representative figure of 1920s. who was mirror of the exciting age in almost every way.Main works:This Side of ParadiseThe Beautiful and Damned.The Great GatsbyTender is the NightThe Last TycoonFlappers and PhilosophersTales of the Jazz AgeAll the Sad Young MenTaps at ReveilleBabylon Revisited(short stories)His works characters:a.He was thought of in his day a short-story writer, too.b.most critics have agreed that he is both an insider and an outsider of the Jazz Age with double vision.c. his fictional world is the best embodiment of the spirit of the Jazz age, in which he shows a particular interest in upper-class society, especially the upper-class young people.d. he never spared an intimate touch in his fiction to deal with the bankruptcy of the American Dream, which is highlighted by the disillusionment of the protagonists personal dreams due to the clashes between their romantic vision of life and the sordid reality.e.he is still a great stylist in American literature. His style closely related to his themes, is explicit and chilly. his accurate dialogues, his careful observation of mannerism, styles, models and attitudes provide the reader with a vivid sense of realityIII: Ernest Hemingway(1899-1961): a Nobel Prize winner for literature.Main works: In Our TimeThe Sun Also RisesA Farewell to ArmsFor Whom the Bell TollsThe Old Man and the SeaMen without Women(The Undefeated, The Killers, Fifty Grand)Death in the AfternoonThe Green Hills of AfricaThe Snow of KilimanjaroTo Have and Have NotHis works characters:a. His world is limited. He deals with a limited range of characters in quite similar circumstances and measures then against an unvarying code, known as …grace under pressure‟, which is actually an attitude towards life that Hemingway had been trying to demonstrate in his works.b. Typical of the …iceberg‟analogy is Hemingway‟style, which he had been trying hard to get.c. His style is actually polished and tightly controlled, but highly suggestive and connotative.d. Render vividly the outward physical events and sensations Hemingway expresses the meaning of the story and conveys the complex emotions of his characters with a considerable range and astonishing intensity of feeling.e. He develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twainf. The accents and mannerisms of human speech are so well presented that the characters are full of flesh and blood and the use of short, simple and conventional words and sentences has an effect of clearness, terseness and great care.IV. William Faulkner(1897-1962): is regarded as one the leading American writers in the literary history of the United States.Main works:The Marble FaunSoldiers‟ paySartorisThe Sound and the FuryAs I Lay DyingLight in AugustAbsalom, AbsalomWild PalmsThe HamletThe UnvanquishedGo Down, MosesThe Portable FaulknerIntruder in the DustRequiem for a NunThe FableThe TownThe MansionThough in decline in the 20th century, the family retained some of the old customs and it was from his own family history, the southern region's characteristic of white social status, racial violence, honor codes, and traditional moral values that Faulkner drew the material for most of his fiction.With his friend Phil Stone's money he published The Marble Faun, a book of poems, in 1924. Since then his primary occupation was writing fiction.In 1925 he went to New Orleans where some of his early poems, articles, and sketches were published, and where he came into contact with the new intellectual current of his day, notably Freud's psychology and James Joyce's vanguard fiction.His works characters:a. he has always been regarded as a man with great might of invention and experimentation. He added to the theory of the novel as an art form and evolvedhis own literary strategies.b. his works were to explore and represent the infinite possibilities inherent in human life.c. he was a master of his own particular style of writing. His prose, marked by long and embedded sentences, co mplex syntax and vague reference pronouns on the one hand and a variety of “registers” of the English language on the other, is very difficult to read.d. he captured the dialects of the Mississippi characters, including Negroes and the red neck, as well as more refined and educated narrators like Quentin.IV. Terms definition:1. The Lost Generation: 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 synical hedonism;/ you are all a lost generation, addressed to Hemingway by Gertrude Stein, which was used as a Preface to 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.2. The Imagist Movement: Led by the American poet Ezra Pound;/a poetic movement that flourished in the U.S. and England between 1909-1917;/three main principles endorsed by Pound as guidelines for Imagism: direct treatment of poetic subjects, elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words, and rhythmical composition should be composed with the phrasing of music, not a metronome.3. Stream-of-Consciousness: a term coined by Willam James in his The Principles of Psychology to describe the flow of thoughts of the waking mind, now widely used in a literary context to describe the unspoken thoughts and feelings of the characters, without resorting to objective description or conventional dialogue;/ adapte d and developed by Joyce, V. Woolf, and others;/ the ability to represent the flux of a character‟s thought, impressions, emotions, or reminiscences, often without logical sequence of syntax, marked a revolution in the form of novel at that time.V. Questions and Answers1. Comment on Robert Lee Frost’s poetic stylea. well known as a lyrical poet, difficult to be classified with the old or the new: learned from the tradition and made the colloquial New England speech into a poetic expression;b. images and metaphors in his poems taken from simple rural life and pastoral landscape, profound ideas revealed under the disguise of plain language and simple form.c. combines traditional verse forms with a clear American local speech rhythm, writes in both the metrical forms and the free verse, and sometimes writes in a form that might be called semi-free conventional.2. Why is The Great Gatsby a successful novel?a. evoking a haunting mood of a glamorous, wild time that seemingly will never come again.b. sense of loss and disillusionment that comes with the failure embodied fully in the personal tragedy of a young man whose “incorruptible dream””smashed into pieces by the relentless reality”;c. Gatsby, a mythical figure whose personal experience approximates a sense of mind of the American; the last of the romantic heroes, whose energy and sense of commitment take him in search of his personal grail, Gatsby‟s failure predicts to a great extent the end of the American dream.3. Briefly introduce William Faulkner’s narrative techniques.a. would never step between the characters and the reader to explainb. purposely broke up the chronology of his narrative by juxtaposing the past with the present.c. the modern stream-of-consciousness technique also exploited to emphasize the reactions and inner musings of the narrator; the inner monologue helps achieve the most desirable effect of exploring the nature of human consciousness;d. good at presenting multiple points of view, which gave the story a circular form;e. the other narrative techniques include symbolism and mythological and biblical allusions.VI: Topic Discussion:1. Summarize the artistic features of imagist poems.a. Imagist poems tend to be short, composed of short lines of musical cadence rather than metrical regularity, to avoid abstraction, and to treat the image with a hard, clear precision rather than with overt symbolic intent/ the influence of Japanese forms, tanka and haiku, obvious in many.b. most of the imagist poets wrote in free verse and they like to employ common speech.they stresses the freedom in the choice of subject matter and form.2. Comment on Robert Frost’s nature poemsa. Robert Frost(1874-1963), American poet, known for his verse concerning New England life/ learned the familiar conventions of nature poetry from his predecessors, made the colloquial New England speech into a poetic expression; A poem so conceived thus becomes a symbol or metaphor, a careful, loving exploration of reality;b. Images and metaphors in his poems are drawn from the simple country life. However, profound ideas are delivered under the disguise of the plain language and the simple form;c. the thematic concern include the terror and tragedy in nature, as well as its beauty, and the loneliness and poverty of the isolated human being. In short, the nature poems demonstrate Frost‟s love of life and his belief ina serenity that comes from the common experience.3. Comment on the stylistic features of Hemingway’s novelsa. Hemingway once s aid,”The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water”.typical of this “iceberg”analogy is Hemingway‟s style: Hemingway‟s economical writing style often seems simple, but his method is calculated. In his writing, Hemingway provided detached descriptions of action, using simple nouns and verbs to capture scenes precisely to avoid describing his characters‟ emotions and thoughts directly. Hemingway was deeply concerned with authenticity in writing. Besides, Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twain. The accents and mannerisms of human speech are well presented, and the use of short, simple words and sentences has an effect of clearness, terseness and great care.4. Summarize the feature of the main character in W. Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily.The story focuses on Emily, and eccentric spinster who refused to accept the passage of time, or the inevitable change and loss that accompanies it. As a descendent of the Southern aristocracy, Emily is typical of those in Faulkner‟s Yoknapatwapha stories that are the symbols of the Old South but the prisoners of the past. The deformed personality and abnormity of Emily demonstrates Faulkner‟s point of view that by alienating oneself from reality, a person is bound to be a tragedy. Emily is regarded as the symbol of tradition and the old way of life. Thus her death parallels with the decline of the Old South.。
Part one: English Literature Chapter1 The Renaissance period（14世纪至十七世纪中叶）文艺复兴1. Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance.人文主义是文艺复兴的核心。
2. the Greek and Roman civilization was based on such a conceptionthat man is the measure of all things.人文主义作为文艺复兴的起源是因为古希腊罗马文明的基础是以“人”为中心，人是万物之灵。
3. Renaissance humanists found in then classics a justification to exalthuman nature and came to see that human beings were gloriouscreatures capable of individual development in the direction ofperfection, and that the world they inhabited was theirs not to despisebut to question, explore, and enjoy.人文主义者们却从古代文化遗产中找到充足的论据，来赞美人性，并开始注意到人类是崇高的生命，人可以不断发展完善自己，而且世界是属于他们的，供他们怀疑，探索以及享受。
4. Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare arethe best representatives of the English humanists.托马斯.摩尔，克利斯朵夫.马洛和威廉.莎士比亚是英国人文主义的代表。
全国2019年４月高等教育自学考试英美文学选读试题课程代码：00604全部题目用英文作答，答案写在答题纸相应的位置上。
PART ONEⅠ.Multiple Choice (40 points in all, 1 for each)Select from the four choices of each item the one that best answers the question or completes the statement. Write the answers on the answer sheet.1.“For a week after the commission of the impious and profane offence of asking for more,Oliver remained a close prisoner in the dark and solitary room...”(Dickens, Oliver Twist) What did Oliver ask for?[A]More time to play. [B]More food to eat.[C]More book to read. [D]More money to spend.2.Mrs. Warren’s Profession is one of George Bernard Shaw’s plays. What is Mrs. Warren’sprofession then ?[A]Real estate. [B]Prostitution.[C]House-keeping. [D]Farming.3.Dr. Faustus is a play based on the German legend of a magician aspiring forand finally meeting his tragic end as a result of selling his soul to the Devil.[A]immortality [B]political[C]money [D]knowledge4. The statement “A demanding mother turns away from her husband and gives all her affection to her sons” sums up the main plot of D. H. Lawrence′s .[A]Lady Chatterley’s Lover[B]Women in love[C]Sons and Lovers [D]The Plumed Serpent5.“Come to me－come to me entirely now,” said he ; and added, in his deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, “Make my happiness－I will m ake yours.”The above passage presents a scene in .[A]Emily Bronte’s Withering Heights[B]Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre[C]John Galsworthy′s The Forsyte Saga[D]Thomas Hardy′s Tess of the D′Urbervilles6.Which of the following is NOT written by William Butler Yeats?[A] “Sailing to Byzantium.”[B] “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.”[C] “Leda and the Swan.”[D] “The Waste Land.”7. “Drive my dead thought over the universeLike withered leaves to quicken a new birth.”(Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”)What rhetorical device does the poet use in the quoted lines?[A]Synecdoche. [B]Metaphor.[C]Simile. [D]Onomatopoeia.8.Crusoe is the hero in The life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Grusoe, of York, Mariner (also known as Robinson Crusoe)by .[A]Jonathan Swift [B]Daniel Defoe[C]George Eliot [D]wrence9. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” is an epigrammatic line by .[A]John Keats [B]William Blake[C]William Wordsworth [D]Percy Bysshe Shelley10.Christoper Marlow’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is a (n).[A]pastoral lyric [B]elegy [C]eulogy [D]epic11.Which of the following is NOT regarded as one of the characteristics of Renaissance humanism?[A]Cultivation of the art of this world and this life.[B]Tolerance of human foibles.[C]Search for the genuine flavor of ancient culture.[D]Glorification of religious faith.12. “In dream vision Arthur witnessed the loveliness of Gloriana, and upon awaking resolves toseek her.” The two literary figures Arthur and Gloriana are form .[A]Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene[B]William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet[C]Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His love”[D]John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”13.Which of the following best describes the nature of Thomas Hardy’s later works?[A]Sentimentalism. [B]Tragic sense.[C]Surrealism. [D]Comic sense.14. “...This grew: I gave commands;Then all smiles stopped altogether....”(Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”) The above lines imply that .[A]the Duchess was killed by her husband[B]the Duchess stopped smiling at her husband’s order[C]the Duchess died of laughing too much[D]the Duchess did not want to smile as much as her husband requested15.In which of the following works can you find the proper names “Lilliput,” “Brobdingnag,” “Houyhnhnm,” and “Yahoo”?[A]James Joyce’s Ulsses.[B]Charles Dickens’s Bleak House.[C]Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.[D]D. H. Lawrence’s Women in love.16.As a literary figure, Belinda appears in Alexander Pope’s.[A] “The Dunciad”[B] “An Essay on Man”[C] “An Essay on Criticism”[D] “The Rape of the lock”17. “The novel is structured around the discovery of the hero’s origin.” Thi s novel is mostprobably .[A]Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield[B]James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man[C]Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Growd[D]Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones18. “To wage by force or guile eternal war,Irreconcilable to our grand Foe.”（John Milton, Paradise lost)By what means were Satan and his followers to wage this war against God?[A]By planting a tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.[B]By turning into poisonous snakes to threaten man’s life.[C]By removing God from His throne.[D]By corrupting man and woman created by God.19. “When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherized upon a table.”(T. s. Eliot, “The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”) What does the image in the quoted lines suggest?[A]Violence. [B]Horror. [C]Inactivity. [D]Indifference.20.Which of the following is NOT typical of metaphysical poetry best represented by John Donne’s works?[A]Common speech. [B]Conceit.[C]Argument. [D]Refined language.21.William Wordsworth, a romantic poet, advocated all of the following except .[A]normal contemporary speech patterns[B]humble and rustic life as subject matter[C]elegant wording and inflated figures of speech[D]intensely subjective feeling toward individual experience22.In Samuel Taylor Coleridge′s “Kubla Khan,” “A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice”.[A]refers to the palace where Kubla Khan once lived[B]vividly describes a building of poor quality[C]is the gift given to a beautiful girl called Abyssinian[D]symbolizes the reconciliation of the conscious and the unconscious23.The hightide of Romanticism in American literature occurred around .[A]1820 [B]1850 [C]1880 [D]192024.The subject matter of Robert Frost’s Poems focuses on .[A] ordinary country people and scenes[B]battle scenes of ancient Greek and Roman legends[C]struggling masses and crowded urban quarters[D]fantasies and mythical happenings25.Which group of writers are among those who may be called early pioneers of American literature?[A]Mark Twain and Henry James.[B]Fenimore Cooper and Washington lrving.[C]Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner[D]Jack London and O’Henry.26.To Theodore Dreiser, life is “so sad, so strange, so mysterious and so inexplicable.” No wonder the characters in his books are often subject to the control of the natural forces, especially those of and heredity.[A]fate [B]morality[C]social conventions [D]environment27.Hawthorne generally concerns himself with such issues as in his fiction.[A]the evil in ma n’s heart [B]the material pursuit[C]the racial conflict [D]the social inequality28.provides the main source of influence on American naturalism.[A]The puritan heritage[B]Howells’ ideas of realism[C]Darwin’s theory of evolution[D]The pioneer spirit of the wild west29.In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of huckleberry Finn, Huck writes a letter to inform against Jim, the escaped slave, and then he tears the letter up. This fact reveals that .[A]Huck has a mixed feeling of love and hate[B]there is a conflict between society and conscience in Huck[C]Huck is always an indecisive person[D]Huck has very little education30.Which terms can best describe the modernists’ concern of the human situation in their fiction?[A]Fragmentation and alienation.[B]Courage and honor.[C]Tradition and faith.[D]Poverty and desperation.31.Whitman’s poems are characterized by all the following features except.[A]a strict poetic form[B]a simple and conversational language[C]a free and natural rhythmic pattern[D]an easy flow of feelings32.All his novels reveal that, as time went on, Mark Twain became increasingly .[A]prolific [B]artistic.[C]optimistic [D]pessimistic33.The poem “I like to see it lap the Miles－” is an interesting poem written by Emily Dickinson. What does “it” in the poem stand for?[A]The hound. [B]The star.[C]The horse. [D]The train.34.Which of the following is NOT a typical feature of Henry James’s writing style?[A] exquisite and elaborate language[B]minute and detailed descriptions[C]lengthy psychological analyses[D]American colloquialism35.In the beginning paragraph of Chapter 3, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald describes a big party by saying that “men and girls came and went like moths.” The author most likely i ndicatesthat .[A]there was a crowd of party-goers[B]such life does not have real meaning[C]these people were light-hearted[D]these were crazy and ignorant characters36.In Hemingway’s “Indian Camp,” Nick, the main character, witnesses[A]a tragic killing of the Indians by the white men[B]real friendship between the white men and the Indians[C]a senseless killing of each other[D]terrible scenes of birth and death37.Which one of the following statements is NOT true of William Faulkner?[A]He is master of stream-of-consciousness narrative.[B]His writing is often complex and difficult to understand.[C]He often depicts slum life in New York and Chicago.[D]He represents a new group of Southern writers.38.American “Transcendentalists most typically believe that .[A]man is divine in name [B]art is superior to life[C]man can transform nature [D]poetry is the highest form of art39.By the end of Sister Carrie,Dreiser writes, “It was forever to the pursuit of that radiance of delight which tints the distant hilltops of the world.” Dreiser implies that .[A]there is a bright future lying ahead[B]there is no end to man’s desire[C]one should always be forward-looking[D]happiness is found in the end40.We can perhaps describe Em ily Grierson in Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily” in all thefollowing ways except that .[A]she is psychologically deformed[B]she is wicked and morally corrupted[C]she is a symbol of the Old South[D]she is a prisoner and victim of the pastPART TWOⅡ.Reading Comprehension (16 points in all, 4 for each)Read the quoted parts carefully and answer the questions in English. Write your answers in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.41. “The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,And al l that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave.Awaits the inevitable hour.The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”Questions:A.Identify the author and the title of the poem from which this passage is taken.B.What does the phrase “inevitable hour” mean?C.Write out the main idea of the passage in plain English.42. “A violet by a mossy stoneHalf hidden from the eye!－Fair as a star, when only oneIs shining in the sky.”Questions:A.Identify the author and the title of the poem from which this stanza is taken.B.Pick out the metaphor used in this stanza.C.What quality does the author intend to show by using the metaphor?43. “We passed The School, where Children stroveAt Recess－in the Ring－We passed The Fields of Gazing GrainWe passed The Setting Sun－”Questions:A.Who is the author of this stanza taken from the poem “Because I could not stop for Death－?B.What do the underlined parts symbolize?C.Where were “we” heading toward?44. “It was you that broke the new wood.Now is a time for carving.We have one sap and one root－Let there be commerce between us.”Questions:A.Whom does the “us” refer to?B.What does the phrase “broke the new wood” mean here?C.What is the intention of the poet in writing the poem “A Pact” from which these lines aretaken?Ⅲ.Questions and Answers (24 points in all, 6 for each)Give brief answers to each of the following questions in English. Write your answers in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.45.In Chapter 15 of Wuthering Heights, Heath cliff said to Catherine: “Why did you betray your own, Cathy?... You loved me－then what right have you to leave me?... I have not broken your heart－you have broken it－and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”Taking the whole novel into consideration, do you think Heathcliff’s above accusation of Catherine’s betrayal can be justified? If you think so, what reasons does Catherine have to betray Heathcliff and their love?46.John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress is generally regarded as a religious allegory. What doesthe work symbolically concern? What is the predominant metaphor that is carried on through the whole work? And what is the aut hor’s purpose in writing such a book?47. The following passage is taken from The Merchant of Venice. Read it carefully and find thedramatic it contains. Use it as an example to illustrate what dramatic irony is. “Bassanio: Antonio, I am married to a wif eWhich is as dear to me as life itself;But life itself, my wife, and all world,Are not with me esteem’d above thy life;I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them allHere to this devil, to deliver you.Portia: Your wife would give you little thanks for that,If she were by to hear you make the offer.”48. What is the most famous theme in Henry James′s fiction? And what is his favourite approachin characterization, which makes him different from Mark and W. D. Howells as realists?Give two titles of his works in which this theme and this approach are employed.Ⅳ.Topic Discussion (20 points in all, 10 for each)Write no less than 150 words on each of the following topics in English in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.49.In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen explored three kinds of motivations of marriage themiddle-class people had in the second half of the 18th century. Try to make a brief discussion about them with specific examples from the novel. Make comments on Austen’s attitude towards these motivations.50.Retell in a few sentences the story of the last chapter (Ch, 135) “The Chase－T hird Day” ofMelville’s novel Moby-Dick. Discuss the meaning of the ending of the story.。
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自考英语：英美文学选读要点总结精心整理下载版[3] 英国】Chapter3 The Romantic Period (1798-1832)浪漫主义1.This urgency was provoked by two important revolutions: the French Revolution of 1789-1794 and the English Industrial Revolution which happened more slowly, but with Astonishing consequences.英国面临着新的发展动力:是1789-1794年的法国资产阶级大革命,是同时期英国内部的工业革命.2.In 1832, the Reform Bill was enacted, which brought the Industrial capitalists into power.1832年“改革法案”在议会通过并实施。
3.The Romantic Movement, whether in England, Germany or France, expressed a more or less negative forward the existing social.浪漫主义运动,无论是在英国,德国还是法国,都表现相互对工业革命时期现存的社会经济制度及城市资产阶级的上升的否定态度。
4. The Romantics demonstrated a strong reaction against the dominant modes of thinking of the 18th-century writers and philosophers. Where their predecessors saw man as a social animal, the Romantics saw him essentially as an individual in the solitary state.文学家摒弃了18 世纪盛行的文学及哲学基调---理性,古典主义文学家认为人是社会性的动物,浪漫主义文学家认为人应该是独立自由的个体.5. Thus, we can say that Romanticism actually constitutes a changeof direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit.因此,们还可以说浪漫主义其实是将人们的注意力从外部世界—社会文明转移到内部世界---人类自己的精神实质。
自考英语：英美文学选读要点总结精心整理下载版[3] 英国】Chapter3 The Romantic Period (1798-1832)浪漫主义1.This urgency was provoked by two important revolutions: the French Revolution of 1789-1794 and the English Industrial Revolution which happened more slowly, but with Astonishing consequences.英国面临着新的发展动力:是1789-1794年的法国资产阶级大革命,是同时期英国内部的工业革命.2.In 1832, the Reform Bill was enacted, which brought the Industrial capitalists into power.1832年“改革法案”在议会通过并实施。
3.The Romantic Movement, whether in England, Germany or France, expressed a more or less negative forward the existing social.浪漫主义运动,无论是在英国,德国还是法国,都表现相互对工业革命时期现存的社会经济制度及城市资产阶级的上升的否定态度。
4. The Romantics demonstrated a strong reaction against the dominant modes of thinking of the 18th-century writers and philosophers. Where their predecessors saw man as a social animal, the Romantics saw him essentially as an individual in the solitary state.文学家摒弃了18 世纪盛行的文学及哲学基调---理性,古典主义文学家认为人是社会性的动物,浪漫主义文学家认为人应该是独立自由的个体.5. Thus, we can say that Romanticism actually constitutes a changeof direction from attention to the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit.因此,们还可以说浪漫主义其实是将人们的注意力从外部世界—社会文明转移到内部世界---人类自己的精神实质。
美文学美国部分——浪漫主义时期Part two: American LiteratureChapter 1 The Romantic Period浪漫主义时期1. From the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of he Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. It is also called “the American Renaissance”.浪漫主义时期开始于十八世纪末，到内战爆发为止，华盛顿.欧文出版的《见闻札记》标志着美国文学的开端，惠特曼的《草叶集》是浪漫主义时期文学的压卷之作。
（也可称为“美国德文艺复兴”）2. The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature.对逃离社会，回归自然的渴求成为美国文学的一个永恒的话题。
3. The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values.美国清教作为一种文化遗产，对美国人的道德观念产生了很大的影响。
4. Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of original sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers. 在霍桑，麦尔维尔以及其他一些小作家的作品种加尔文主义的原罪思想和罪恶的神秘性都得到了充分的表现。
III. Nathaniel Hawthorne （1804-l864） Imbued with an inquiring imagination， an intense1y meditative mind， and unceasing interest in the "interior of the heart" of man's being， Nathaniel Hawthorne remains one of the most interesting， yet most ambiva1ent writers in the American literary history. ⼀。
⼀般识记 Hawthorne's life and writing career His life story is tota1ly without the exciting events which characterize the lives of so many American writers. He was born on the Fourth of July， l804 in Salem， Massachusetts， into a prominent Puritan family. His first American ancestor，William Hawthorne， as a magistrate of the Bay Colony， was active in the 1650's in persecution of the Quakers， while William's son， John， was a judge at the Salem witchcraft trials. However， the 17th century prominence of his familydec1ined during the century that followed. Nathaniel's father， a sea captain， died of yellow fever in 1808 leaving at Salem a widow and three children in genteel poverty. With the financial support from his more prosperous maternal relations，Hawthorne passed a serene childhood in spite of his father's death and spent his adolescence reading some books of those literary master minds， especially Bunyan， Spenser and Shakespeare， which were essential for his formation as a writer. From 1821 to 1825， he attended Bowdoin Co1lege in Maine， where the decision to devote himself to writing was gradually taking shape and finally put into practice during those years when he was living with his mother in Salem. The solitary years proved to be fruitful， for in 1837， he published Twice-Told Tales， a collection of short stories which attracted critical attention. After 1837， a series of salient events of Hawthorne's life happened that mattered a lot to his literary imagination and creation. He met Sophia Peabody， whom he married later and with whom he had three children： he worked in the United States Custom House in Boston and later in Salem， which definitely provided some authentic materials for his long works；he also stayed for some time at Concord and Lenox， where he met the principal literary figures of the time， Emerson and Thoreau and Melville. He was affected by the former's transcendentalist theory and struck up a very intimate relationship with the latter， and all the three people had played an indispensable role in Hawthorne's literary career. ⼆。
第三章模拟练习与答案Blank Filling1. In the early nineteenth century, Washington Irving wrote .which became the first work by an American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic.2. The Romantic period in the American literary history covers the time between the end of the century to the outbreak of the . It started with the publication of Irving's and ended with Whitman's . This period is also called.3. Irving's The Sketch Book is a collection of essays, sketches and tales, of which the most famous and frequently anthologized are and .4. The Transcendental Club often met at 's Concord home.5. Emersonian Transcendentalism is actually a philosophical school which absorbed some ideological concerns of American and Euro pean Romanticism.6. was regarded as Father of the American short stories.7. Irving also wrote two biographies, one is The Life of Oliver Goldsmith, andthe other is .8. Cooper's novel was a rousing tale about espionage against the British during the Revolutionary War.9. The central figure in the Leatherstocking Tales is. , who goes by the various names of Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, Pathfinder and Hawkeye.10. In , Whitman airs his sorrow at President Lincoln's death.11. The great work not only demonstrates Emersonian ideas of self-reliance but also develops and tests Thoreau's own transcendental philosophy.12. In , Whitman's own early experience may well be identified with the childhood of a young growing America.13. "Imbued with an inquiring imagination, an intensely meditative mind, and unceasing interest in the ntenor of the heart' of man's being" is used to describe .14. by Melville is a novella about a ship whose black slave cargo mutiny holds their captain a terrorized hostage.15. A superb book came out of Thoreau's two-year experiment at Walden Pond.17. Hester Prynne is the heroine in Hawthorne's novel .18. Melville's novel is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.19. The best of Cooper's sea romances was .The hero of the novel represents John Pall Jones, the great naval fighter of the Revolutionary War.20. is the narrator in Moby-Dick.21. Transcendentalism was put forward by the people from .22. has been regarded as "America's Declaration of Intellectual Independence."23. Published in 1823, was the first of the Leatherstocldng Tales, in their publication time, and probably the first true romance of the frontier in American literature.24. The way in which wrote The Scarlet Letter suggests that American Romanticism adapted itself to American puritan moralism.25. can somewhat be called "the Father of the American detective story".II. Multiple Choice1. Statement is wrong in describing Nathaniel Hawthorne.A. One source of evil that Hawthorne is concerned most is over-reaching intellectB. Hawthorne is a realistic writerC. Hawthorne is also a great allegoristD. Hawthorne is a master of symbolism2. In Walt Whitman's "There was a Child Went Forth," the child refers to .A. the poet himself as a childB. any American childC. the young AmericaD. one of the poet's neighbor3. In Moby-Dick, the voyage symbolizes .A. the microcosm of human societyB. a search for truthC. the unknown worldD. nature4. Thoreau was often alone in the woods or by the pond, lost in spiritual communication with .A. natureB. transcendentalist ideasC. human beingsD. celestial beings5. The Transcendentalist group includes two of the most significant writers America has produced so far,A. Henry David ThoreauB. Washington IrvingC. Nathaniel HawthorneD. Wait Whitman6. tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a puritan community are involved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways.A. Twice-Told TalesB. The Scarlet LetterC. The House of the Seven GablesD. The Marble Faun7. is regarded as the first American prose epic.A. NatureB. The Scarlet LetterC. WaldenD. Moby-Dick8. The Romantic Period of American literature started with the publication of Washington Irving's and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass.A. The Sketch BookB. Tales of a TravelerC. The AlhambraD. A history of New York9. Washington Irving's social conservation and literary for the past is revealed, to some extent, in his famous story, .A. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"B. "Rip Van Winkle"C. "The Custom-House'D. "The Birthmark"10. Which of the following comments on the writings by Herman Melville is not true?A. "Bartleby, the Scrivener" is a short story.B. "Benito Cereno" is a novella.C. The Confidence -Man has something to do with the sea and sailors.D. Moby-Dick is regarded as the first American Prose epic.11. The giant Moby Dick may symbolize all EXCEPT .A. mystery of the universeB. sin of the whaleC. power of the Great NatureD. evil of the world12. The convention of the desire for an escape from society and a return to nature in American literature is particularly evident in .A. Cooper's Leatherstocking TalesB. Hawthorne's The Scarlet LetterC. Whitman's Leaves of GrassD. Irving's Rip Van WinkleCivil War.A. modernismB. rationalismC. sentimentalismD. transcendentalism14. In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, "A" may stands for .A. AdulteryB. AngelC. AmiableD. All the above15. is not the member of Transcendental Club.A. EmersonB. ThoreauC. WhitmanD. Fuller16. Poe's first collection of short stories is .A. Tales of a TravellerB. Leatherstocking TalesC. Canterbury TalesD. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque17. For Melville, as well as for the reader and , the narrator, Moby Dick is still a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe.A. StarbuckB. StubbC. IshmaelD. Arab18. Choose the characters which appear in the novel The Scarlet Letter.A. Hester PrynneB. Atthur DimmesdaleC. Roger ChillingworthD. Pearl19. was a romanticized account of Melville's stay among the Polynesians. The success of the book soon made Melville become known as the" man who lived among cannibals".A. Moby DickB. TypeeC. OmooD. Billy Budd20. The period before the American Civil War is generally referred to as .A. the Naturalist PeriodB. the Modern PeriodC. the Romantic PeriodD. the Realistic Period21. All of the following are works by Nathaniel Hawthorne except .A. The House of the Seven GablesB. White JacketC. The Marble FaunD. The Blithedale Romance22. In the following works, which signs the beginning of the American literature?A. The Sketch Book.B. Leaves of Grass.23. The main theme of Emily Dickinson is the following except .A. religionB. love and marriageC. life and deathD. war and peace24. Emily Dickinson's poetic idiom is noted for the following except .A. brevityB. directnessC. plainest wordsD. obscure25. "There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity." The thought is reflected in .A. Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman BrownB. Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnC. Walt Whitman's Leaves of GrassD. Herman Melville's Moby Dick26. It is on his that Washington Irving's fame mainly rested.A. tales about AmericaB. early poetryC. childhood recollectionsD. sketches about his European tours27. is the most ambivalent writer in the American literary history.A. Nathaniel HawthorneB. Walt WhitmanC. Ralph Waldo EmersonD. Mark Twain28. In Hawthorne's novels and short stories, intellectuals usually appear as .A. saviorsB. villainsC. commentatorsD. observers29. Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle is famous for .A. Rip's escape into a mysterious placeB. The srory's German legendary source materialC. Rip's seeking for happinessD. Rip's 20-year sleep30. The publication of established Emerson as the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism.A. NatureB. Self-RelianceC. The American ScholarD. The Over-SoulA. This is my letter to the world.B. I heard a Fly buzz-when I died.C. The Road Not Taken.D. I like to see it lap the Miles.32. In the history of literature, Romanticism is regarded as .A. the thought that designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and all experienceB. the thought that designates man as a social animalC. the orientation that emphasizes those features which men have in commonD. the modes of thinking33. Which three novels drew from Melville's adventures among the people of the South Pacific islands?A. Typee.B. Omoo.C. Mardi.D. Redburn.34. In the poem "Song of Myself", Whitman sets forth the principle beliefs of .A. the theory of universalityB. singularity and equality of all beings in valueC. both A and BD. none above35. Most of the poems in Whitman's Leaves of Grass sing of the "en-mass"and the as well.A. natureB. lifeC. selfD. self-reliance36. Emily Dickinson's poems (441) "This is my letter to the World" expresses the poet's about her communication with the outside world.A. indignationB. joyC. anxietyD. indifference37. Which of the following features cannot characterize poems by Walt Whitman?A. Lyrical and well-structured.B. Free-flowing.C. Simple and rather crude.D. Conversational and casual.38. Which of the following writings is not finished by Ralph Waldo Emerson?A. Nature.B. Essays.C. The Over-Soul.D. Of Studies.39. In "I heard a Fly buzz-when I died", Emily Dickinson describes the moment of death .A. passionatelyB. pessimisticallyC. in despairD. peacefullyA. Representative Men.B. English Traits.C. Nature.D. The Rhodora.III.Read the quoted parts carefully and answer the questions in EnglishPassage 1"I like to see it lap the Miles...and lick the Valleys up...And stop to feed itself at Tanks...And then...prodigious step"Questions:A. Please give the name of the author.B. What does "it" in this poem refer to?C. What idea does this poem express?Passage 2"I celebrated myself, and sing myself,And what I assume you shall assume.For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."Questions:A. Identify the author and the work.B. Whom does "you" refer to?C. What are the two principle beliefs that the poet set forth on this poem?Passage 3"The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the grooves;...ran foul. Arab stopped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew the was gone."Questions:A. Identify the author and the work.B. Who is Ahab?C. What happens to Ahab in the end?"It was with some difficulty he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay -- the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half starved dog, that looked like Wolf, was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed -- 'My very dog,' sighed poor Rip, 'has forgotten me!'Questions:A. Identify the author and the work.B. Whom does Dame Van Winkle refer to?C. Why was it difficult for him to find his house?Passage 5"From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, andits rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. Drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the product or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson."Questions:A. Who is the writer of this short story from which the passage is taken?B. What is the title of this short story?C. Give a definition of" short story".Passage 6"To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these preachers of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile."A. Identify the author and the work.B. Give a brief comment on this passage.Passage 7Hester Prynne's term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison, than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. Then, she was supposed by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph.Questions:A. Which novel is this selection taken from?B. What is the name of the novelist?C. What do you think is the symbolic meanings of the scarlet letter onHester's breast?Passage 8"Arms and the clarion for the battle, but the song of thanksgiving to the victory!" answered the liberated David. "Friend," he added, thrusting forth his lean, delicate hand forwards Hawkeye, in kindness, while his eyes twinkled and grew moist, "I thank thee the hairs of my head still grow where they were first rooted by Providence for, though those of other men may be more glossy and curling, I have ever found mine own well suited to the brain they shelter. That I did not join myself to the battle, was less owing to disinclination, than to the bonds of the heathen. Valiant and skillful hast thou proved thyself in the conflict, and I hereby thank thee, before proceeding to discharge other and more important duties, because thou hast proved thyself well worthy of a Christian's praise."...Questions:A. This novel was written by the American novelist. What is his name?B. What is the name of the novel?C. The central figure in this novel appeared in this passage. It is .Passage 9I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if Ilive what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a comer, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a tree account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God.A. This passage is taken from a famous work entitledB. The author of the work isC. List by yourself at least five reasons that the author gives for going go live in the woods.Passage 10Lo! In you brilliant window-nicheHow statue-like I see thee stand,The agate lamp within thy hand!Ah, Psyche, from the regions whichAre Holy-Land!Questions:A. This is the last stanza of a poem "To Hellen". Its writer is .B. With whom is Hellen associated in line 4?C. Who is Psyche?IV.Give brief answers to each of the following questions in English1. Emily Dickinson is now recognized not only as a great poetess on her ownright but as a poetess of considerable influence upon American poetry of the present century. What are the qualities of her poems?2. Emerson is generally known as an essayist. What is the style of his proses?3. In American literature history, the Romantic Period, during which many amous writers and their masterpieces came into being, played an impor-tant role. Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman,etc., all of whom are not ignored by us. According to their writings, dis-cuss the features of American literature in this period.4. Nathaniei Hawthorne is one of the most interesting, yet most ambivalent riters in the American literarywhole ife; but circumstances may rouse it to activity." Based on this thought, he ompleted Young Goodman Brown. Try to discuss the theme of this work.5. Moby Dick by Herman Melville is one of the few books in American litera-ure that has produced an exciting effect upon readers. Try to discuss the ymbolism in the book.第一章模拟练习与答案I．Blank Filling1. Hard work , thrift, piety and sobriety, thses were the values that dominated much of the early American writing.2. The American poets who emerged in the seventeenth century adapted the style of established European poets to the subject matter confronted in a strange, new environment. Bradstreet was one such poet.3. wrote his most impressive work The Magnalia Christi America.4. The writer who best expressed the Puritan faith in the colonial period was .5. The Puritan philosophy known as was important in New England during the colonial time, and had a profound influence on the early American mind for several generations.6. Before his death, Jonathan . had gained a position as America's first systematic philosopher.7. Jonathan Edwards' masterpiece is .8. The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America is a collection of poems composed by .II. Multiple Choice1. The Puritan dominating values were .A. hard workB. thriftC. pietyD. sobriety2. Which statement about Cotton Mather is not true?A. He was a great Puritan historian.B. He was an inexhaustible'writer.C. He was a skillful preacher and an eminent theologian.D. He was a graduate of Oxford College.3. Jonathan Edwards' best and most representative sermon was .A. A True Sight of SinB. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry GodC. A Model of Christian CharityD. God's Determinations4. The common thread throughout American literature has been the emphasis on the .A. RevolutionismB. ReasonC. IndividualismD. Rationalism5. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the“” who appeared in America.A. Ninth MuseB. Tenth MuseC. Best MuseD. First MuseIII. Identification of FragmentsI heard the merry grasshopper then sing,The black-clad cricket bear a second part;They kept one tune and played on the same stringSeeming to glory in their little art.Small creatures abject thus their voices raise,And in their kind resound their Maker's praise,Whilst I, as mute, can warble forth no higher lays?Questions:1. This is the ninth of the Contemplations written by an early Americanwoman writer. What is her name?2. Make a brief comment on this short poem.。
Henry David Thoreau 梭罗(1817—1862)•American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher, best-known for his autobiographical story of life in the woods, Walden (1854). Thoreau was one of the leading personalities in New England T ranscendentalism. His "Civil Disobedience"(1849) influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.•Thoreau is considered one of the most influential figures in American thought and literature. A supreme individualist, he championed the human spirit against materialism and social conformity.•His most famous book, Walden(1854), is an eloquent account of his experiment in near-solitary living in close harmony with nature; it is also an expression of his transcendentalist philosophySimplicity Reflected in the Cycles of Nature•Henry David Thoreau was a complex man of many talents who worked hard to shape his craft and his life, seeing little difference between them.•One of his first memories was of staying awake at night "looking through the stars to see if I could see God behind them." One might say he never stopped looking into nature for ultimate T ruth.•It was from this journal that he later distilled his masterpiece, Walden.•Unfortunately, few people were interested in purchasing his book, so he spent the next nine years, surveying and making pencils at times but primarily writing and rewriting (creating seven full drafts) Walden before trying to publish it.He supported himself by surveying and making a few lectures, often on his experience at Walden pond.•In Walden, Thoreau explained many of the beliefs that led him to try this kind of life.He thought it better for a man to work one day a week and rest six. The rest of the time could be devoted to thought.•Thoreau maintained that this was a private purpose, not a program for society. For Thoreau, as for Emerson, self-reliance and independence of mind ranked above all:I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living, each should find out his own way, not his neighbors or his parents’.•One of Thoreau’s most important works, the essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849), grew out of an overnight stay in prison as a result of his conscientious refusal to paya poll tax that supported the Mexican War, which to Thoreau represented an effortto extend slavery.•The essay stated Thoreau’s belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.•T horeau’s advocacy of civil disobedience as a means for the individual to protest those actions of his government that he considers unjust has had a wide-ranging impact—on the British Labor movement, the passive resistance independence movement led by Gandhi in India, and the nonviolent civil-rights movement led by Martin Luther King in the United States.Major Literary WorksA Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers«在康科德与梅里马克河上一周»a record of a canoe (独木舟) excursion, giving observant comments on nature, man, society and literature1) Civil Disobedience «论公民之不服从»2) A Plea for John Brown«为约翰·布朗申辩»moved to a cabin on Walden Pond, on July 4, 1845; lived there for 2 yearsmasterpiece4) Walden«沃尔登湖»another name, Life in the Woodsa collection of nature essaysa great T ranscendentalist work.a book about man, what he is, and what he should be and must be.full of ideas expressed to persuade his neighbors out of their complacency(自满) Thoreau’s Point of View1.did not like the way a materialistic America was developing and was stronglyoutspoken(直言的) on the point2.hated the human injustice as represented by the slavery system3.saw nature as a genuine restorative(有助健康的), healthy influence on man’sspiritual well-beinghad faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man4.was very critical of modern civilization5.He was impatient with his fellowmen who did not want to spend so little time on theself-improvement.6.had trust in the futureEdgar Allen Poe坡 (1809—1849)•American poet, short-story writer, and critic,•His skillfully wrought tales and poems convey with passionate intensity the mysterious, dreamlike, and often macabre forces that pervaded his sensibility.•He is also considered the father of the modern detective story. Important Points•1. Poe’s major works.• 2. Poe’s literary characteristics and achievementsIntroductionShaw’s evaluation of Poe's achievementa critic,the greatest journalistic critic of his time"a poet his poetry is “exquisitely refined“(精致优雅)a short story writer his tales are "complete works of arta great writer of fiction, a poet of the first rank, and a critic of insight Poe’s Major Literary Works1) “The Raven” 《乌鸦》2) “Annable Lee” 《安娜贝尔·李》3) “The Sleeper” 《睡梦人》4) “A Dream Within a Dream” 《梦中梦》5) “Sonnet—To Science” 《十四行诗—致科学》6) “To Helen” 《致海伦》7）“The City in the Sea” 《海中的城市》earlier entitled The Doomed City 《衰败的城市》Tales two kindsHorrorTales of the Grotesque and Arabesque«述异集»a collection of short stories “The Black Cat” 《黑猫》“The Cask of Amontillado”（红色死亡假面舞会）“The Fall of the House of Usher”Ratiocination（推理）“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” 《莫格街谋杀案》“The Gold Bug”《金甲虫》“The Purloined Letter”《被窃的信件》Literary theory●The Philosophy of Composition 《创作原理》●The Poetic Principle 《诗歌原则》Themes1. death –predominant theme“Poe is not interested in anything alive. Everything in Poe’s writings is dead.”2. horror3.negative thoughts of sciencePoe’s theory for poetrypoemsshort but achieve maximum effectproduce a feeling of beauty in the reader"pure“, not to moralizeHe stresses rhythm insists on an even(规则的) metrical flow真实能够满足人的理智,感情能够满足人的心灵, 而美则能激动人的灵魂Poe’s theory for short story☐Short story should be of brevity, totality, single effect, compression(压缩) and finality.Poe’s achievement1. His aesthetics, his call for "the rhythmical creation of beauty" have influenced French symbolists and the devotees of "art for art's sake."2. He is the father of psychoanalytic(心理分析的) criticism.3. He is the father of the detective story.Poe’s Artistic theories⏹Poe argued for the creation of beauty and intensity of emotion, against thedidactic motive for literature.⏹Poe felt that literature should have no social function or responsibilitybut should be an expression of the isolated artist.⏹Poe thought that the artist should be concerned solely with beauty, ofimagination. The real world is cruel, ugly and fast into decaying. The artist’s life is lonely, painful and hopeless. The only happiness arose out of the creation and contemplation of beauty.Poe’s theories on Poetry⏹His poetry express the same deep hopelessness and rejection of the worldas his prose, but in a different way.⏹He avoids the intrusion of ugliness and tries to create a vision of beautyand a melodious sound. The basic tone is melancholy.⏹The function f poetry is not to summarize and interpret earthly experience,but to create a mood in which the soul soars toward supernal beauty. Poe’s theories on Fiction⏹ A good fiction should only tells one event, which can be finished once.⏹Fiction should stimulate readers and impress them deeply. It should havea consistent effect throughout the whole text.⏹He showed in his fiction the impulse to self-destruction, the fascinationwith horrible catastrophe, whimsical and abnormal psychology.⏹He depicted the inner world or psychology of his characters.The Raven’s symbolic meaning⏹ A. it symbolizes disaster and misfortune.⏹ B. it may symbolize the soul of the radiant maiden, the “lost Lenore.”⏹ C. it may symbolize the sub-consciousness of the poet.⏹ D. it is the symbol of modern reality.从前一个阴郁的子夜，我独自沉思，慵懒疲竭，沉思许多古怪而离奇、早已被人遗忘的传闻——当我开始打盹，几乎入睡，突然传来一阵轻擂，仿佛有人在轻轻叩击，轻轻叩击我的房门。
Chapter 3 The Modern PeriodI. BackgroundIn the early 20th century, nothing had more important and long-lasting effect on America than the two great world wars. America entered the era of big industry and big technology, a mechanized age that deprived individuals of their sense of identity. The war affected young writers' attitude toward life, society, and writing. Also during the interval between the two wars, some significant events exerted great influence on American literature.II. Modern period charactersFirst, many young American writers and artists lived abroad for months and years.Second, Marxism and Freudianism were widely studied. They changed people's view of society and themselves. Third, up to this point, the typical American writer had been native-born, white, more or less rich, Protestant and Anglo-Saxon. After the war, the voices of new groups of Americans were heard. They were poor, or immigrants, or Jews, or blacks. There was the new literature coming out of the South and the literature written by women with awakened self-consciousness.Fourth, during this period there occurred in America an intense reexamination of the structure of literature and of the nature of the critical activity itself.During the first decades of the 20th century, modernism became an international tendency against positivism and representational an in art and literature.a. compared with earlier writings, especially those of the 19th century, modern American writings are notable for what they omit---the explanations, interpretations, connections, and summaries. A typical modern work will seem to begin arbitrarily, to advance without explanation, and to end without resolution.b. Modernistic techniques and manifestos were initiated by poets first and later entered and transformed fiction in this period as well like the poets, prose writers strove for directness,compression, and vividness and were sparing of words.III. Main writers:I. Robert Lee Frost(1874-1963)In 1912, Robert Frost took his family to England. There he met Ezra Pound who had a very good opinion about his poems and helped him to find British publishers.A Boy's Will(1913) and North of Boston(1914) were published and highly acclaimed in England.Most of his major poetry was written before 1930, although he continued writing all the way through the 1950s and into the early 1960s. His major books include Mountain interval (1916), New Hampshire(1923), West-Running Brook (1928), A Further Range (1936), A Witness Tree (1942), A Mosque of Reason (1945), A Masque of Mercy(1947), A Steeple Bush(1947), Complete Poems(1949), and In the Clearing(1962). Although recognition came late to him at the age of forty, Robert Frost was the most popular American poet from 1914 to his death.a. During the course of his career, he changed from a national critic to a national hero.b. His verse at first was terrifying, showing a dark side of human life, human society, and the problems which confronted his own life.c. By the end of his life, his poems were filled with more sunshine. He was more pleasant. This is an important change because America needed such a poet that it could admire, especially because the other modernist poets during this time were obscure. They were intellectuals. They could not be understood by the average person. Robert Frost could be understood by the average person and his poetry is full of life, truth, and wisdom.Frost's achievement was fantastic. He won the Pulitzer Prize four times, received honorary degrees fromforty-four colleges and universities, and became the nation's unofficial Poet Laureate when he was invited to read "The Gift Outright" at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961.d. he used simple spoken language and conversational rhythms, and achieved an effortless grace in his style. He combined traditional verse forms—the sonnet, rhyming couplets, blank verse—with a clear American local speech rhythm, the speech of New England farmers with its idiosyncratic diction and syntax.II: F. Scott Fitzgerald(1896-1940): he was a most representative figure of 1920s. who was mirror of the exciting age in almost every way.Main works:This Side of ParadiseThe Beautiful and Damned.The Great GatsbyTender is the NightThe Last TycoonFlappers and PhilosophersTales of the Jazz AgeAll the Sad Young MenTaps at ReveilleBabylon Revisited(short stories)His works characters:a.He was thought of in his day a short-story writer, too.b.most critics have agreed that he is both an insider and an outsider of the Jazz Age with double vision.c. his fictional world is the best embodiment of the spirit of the Jazz age, in which he shows a particular interest in upper-class society, especially the upper-class young people.d. he never spared an intimate touch in his fiction to deal with the bankruptcy of the American Dream, which is highlighted by the disillusionment of the protagonists personal dreams due to the clashes between their romantic vision of life and the sordid reality.e.he is still a great stylist in American literature. His style closely related to his themes, is explicit and chilly. his accurate dialogues, his careful observation of mannerism, styles, models and attitudes provide the reader with a vivid sense of realityIII: Ernest Hemingway(1899-1961): a Nobel Prize winner for literature.Main works: In Our TimeThe Sun Also RisesA Farewell to ArmsFor Whom the Bell TollsThe Old Man and the SeaMen without Women(The Undefeated, The Killers, Fifty Grand)Death in the AfternoonThe Green Hills of AfricaThe Snow of KilimanjaroTo Have and Have NotHis works characters:a. His world is limited. He deals with a limited range of characters in quite similar circumstances and measures then against an unvarying code, known as …grace under pressure‟, which is actually an attitude towards life that Hemingway had been trying to demonstrate in his works.b. Typical of the …iceberg‟analogy is Hemingway‟style, which he had been trying hard to get.c. His style is actually polished and tightly controlled, but highly suggestive and connotative.d. Render vividly the outward physical events and sensations Hemingway expresses the meaning of the story and conveys the complex emotions of his characters with a considerable range and astonishing intensity of feeling.e. He develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twainf. The accents and mannerisms of human speech are so well presented that the characters are full of flesh and blood and the use of short, simple and conventional words and sentences has an effect of clearness, terseness and great care.IV. William Faulkner(1897-1962): is regarded as one the leading American writers in the literary history of the United States.Main works:The Marble FaunSoldiers‟ paySartorisThe Sound and the FuryAs I Lay DyingLight in AugustAbsalom, AbsalomWild PalmsThe HamletThe UnvanquishedGo Down, MosesThe Portable FaulknerIntruder in the DustRequiem for a NunThe FableThe TownThe MansionThough in decline in the 20th century, the family retained some of the old customs and it was from his own family history, the southern region's characteristic of white social status, racial violence, honor codes, and traditional moral values that Faulkner drew the material for most of his fiction.With his friend Phil Stone's money he published The Marble Faun, a book of poems, in 1924. Since then his primary occupation was writing fiction.In 1925 he went to New Orleans where some of his early poems, articles, and sketches were published, and where he came into contact with the new intellectual current of his day, notably Freud's psychology and James Joyce's vanguard fiction.His works characters:a. he has always been regarded as a man with great might of invention and experimentation. He added to the theory of the novel as an art form and evolvedhis own literary strategies.b. his works were to explore and represent the infinite possibilities inherent in human life.c. he was a master of his own particular style of writing. His prose, marked by long and embedded sentences, co mplex syntax and vague reference pronouns on the one hand and a variety of “registers” of the English language on the other, is very difficult to read.d. he captured the dialects of the Mississippi characters, including Negroes and the red neck, as well as more refined and educated narrators like Quentin.IV. Terms definition:1. The Lost Generation: 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 synical hedonism;/ you are all a lost generation, addressed to Hemingway by Gertrude Stein, which was used as a Preface to 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.2. The Imagist Movement: Led by the American poet Ezra Pound;/a poetic movement that flourished in the U.S. and England between 1909-1917;/three main principles endorsed by Pound as guidelines for Imagism: direct treatment of poetic subjects, elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words, and rhythmical composition should be composed with the phrasing of music, not a metronome.3. Stream-of-Consciousness: a term coined by Willam James in his The Principles of Psychology to describe the flow of thoughts of the waking mind, now widely used in a literary context to describe the unspoken thoughts and feelings of the characters, without resorting to objective description or conventional dialogue;/ adapte d and developed by Joyce, V. Woolf, and others;/ the ability to represent the flux of a character‟s thought, impressions, emotions, or reminiscences, often without logical sequence of syntax, marked a revolution in the form of novel at that time.V. Questions and Answers1. Comment on Robert Lee Frost’s poetic stylea. well known as a lyrical poet, difficult to be classified with the old or the new: learned from the tradition and made the colloquial New England speech into a poetic expression;b. images and metaphors in his poems taken from simple rural life and pastoral landscape, profound ideas revealed under the disguise of plain language and simple form.c. combines traditional verse forms with a clear American local speech rhythm, writes in both the metrical forms and the free verse, and sometimes writes in a form that might be called semi-free conventional.2. Why is The Great Gatsby a successful novel?a. evoking a haunting mood of a glamorous, wild time that seemingly will never come again.b. sense of loss and disillusionment that comes with the failure embodied fully in the personal tragedy of a young man whose “incorruptible dream””smashed into pieces by the relentless reality”;c. Gatsby, a mythical figure whose personal experience approximates a sense of mind of the American; the last of the romantic heroes, whose energy and sense of commitment take him in search of his personal grail, Gatsby‟s failure predicts to a great extent the end of the American dream.3. Briefly introduce William Faulkner’s narrative techniques.a. would never step between the characters and the reader to explainb. purposely broke up the chronology of his narrative by juxtaposing the past with the present.c. the modern stream-of-consciousness technique also exploited to emphasize the reactions and inner musings of the narrator; the inner monologue helps achieve the most desirable effect of exploring the nature of human consciousness;d. good at presenting multiple points of view, which gave the story a circular form;e. the other narrative techniques include symbolism and mythological and biblical allusions.VI: Topic Discussion:1. Summarize the artistic features of imagist poems.a. Imagist poems tend to be short, composed of short lines of musical cadence rather than metrical regularity, to avoid abstraction, and to treat the image with a hard, clear precision rather than with overt symbolic intent/ the influence of Japanese forms, tanka and haiku, obvious in many.b. most of the imagist poets wrote in free verse and they like to employ common speech.they stresses the freedom in the choice of subject matter and form.2. Comment on Robert Frost’s nature poemsa. Robert Frost(1874-1963), American poet, known for his verse concerning New England life/ learned the familiar conventions of nature poetry from his predecessors, made the colloquial New England speech into a poetic expression; A poem so conceived thus becomes a symbol or metaphor, a careful, loving exploration of reality;b. Images and metaphors in his poems are drawn from the simple country life. However, profound ideas are delivered under the disguise of the plain language and the simple form;c. the thematic concern include the terror and tragedy in nature, as well as its beauty, and the loneliness and poverty of the isolated human being. In short, the nature poems demonstrate Frost‟s love of life and his belief ina serenity that comes from the common experience.3. Comment on the stylistic features of Hemingway’s novelsa. Hemingway once s aid,”The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water”.typical of this “iceberg”analogy is Hemingway‟s style: Hemingway‟s economical writing style often seems simple, but his method is calculated. In his writing, Hemingway provided detached descriptions of action, using simple nouns and verbs to capture scenes precisely to avoid describing his characters‟ emotions and thoughts directly. Hemingway was deeply concerned with authenticity in writing. Besides, Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twain. The accents and mannerisms of human speech are well presented, and the use of short, simple words and sentences has an effect of clearness, terseness and great care.4. Summarize the feature of the main character in W. Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily.The story focuses on Emily, and eccentric spinster who refused to accept the passage of time, or the inevitable change and loss that accompanies it. As a descendent of the Southern aristocracy, Emily is typical of those in Faulkner‟s Yoknapatwapha stories that are the symbols of the Old South but the prisoners of the past. The deformed personality and abnormity of Emily demonstrates Faulkner‟s point of view that by alienating oneself from reality, a person is bound to be a tragedy. Emily is regarded as the symbol of tradition and the old way of life. Thus her death parallels with the decline of the Old South.。
