美国文学考研总结

第一篇：美国文学考研总结

美国文学

Chapter 1 The Romantic period(浪漫时期)本章概述

一.十九世纪初期至中叶美国文学产生的历史、文化背景；

二、该时期文学创作的基本特征、基本主张；

三、对同时代与后期美国文学的影响；

四、主要作家作品。

文学史分析

一、The time period : 1.The Romantic Period stretchs from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War.2.It started with the the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass.3.It is also called “ the American Renaissance.”

二.The romantic thoughts : 1.The native feature : They revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands.A.The American national experience of “pioneering into the west ” proved to be a rich source of material.B.The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral law.C.Literature began to celebrate American farmers ,the poor , the unlettered ,children ,and especially the noble savages.2.The Puritanism : A.The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values.B.American romantic writers tended more to moralized than their English and European counterparts.3.The Transcendentalism : A.The most clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period is New England Transcendentalism.B.It was stared in New England in the 1830s.C.This Transcendentalist group includes two of the most significant writers America has produced so far ,Emerson and Thoreau.D.Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “the recognition in man the capacity of knowing truth intuitively ,or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the sense.” 三.The representatives : 1.The poetry : There emerged a great host of men of letters during this period ,among the better-known is Walt Whitman , Whose Leaves of Grass established him as the most popular American poet of the 19th century.2.The fiction : The fiction of the American Romantic Period is an original and diverse body of work.3.The human nature : American Romanticists also differed in their their understanding of human nature.To Emerson and Thoreau , man is divine in nature and therefore forever perfectible;to Hawthorne and Melville , everybody is potentially a sinner , and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature.主要作家作品 A.华盛顿.欧文 B.拉尔夫.华尔多.爱默生 C.纳撒尼尔.霍桑 D.华尔特.惠特曼 E.赫尔曼.麦尔维尔

A.华盛顿.欧文

一.The literary creation 1.The works : A.A History of New York ,which , written under the name of Diedrich knickerbocker , was a great success and won him wide popularity.The book is a parody of the Dutch colony.B.With the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffery Crayon , Gent ,Irving won a measure of international fame on both side of the Atlantic.The book contains familiar essays like “Rip Van Winkle ” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” C.Following The sketch Book , Irving published Bracebridge Hall ,and Tales of a Traveler.2.The literary source and contributions : A.Irving 's relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ingored considering his sucess both abroad and at home.A History of New York is a patchwork of references.He parodies or imitates Homer , Fielding ,Swift and many other favorites of his.B.Washington Irving brought to the new nation what its people desired most in a man of letters---“Rip Van Winkle ” or “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ” are among the treasures of the American language and culture.It is not the sketches about the Old World but the tales about America that made Washington Irving a household word and his fame enduring.二.The artistic features : 1.Irving 's taste was essentially conservative.2.Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who “ perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produce.” 3.Yet Irving never forgets to associate a certain place with the inward movement of a person and to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and vivid character.B.拉尔夫.华尔多.爱默生

一.The literary creation : 1.The chief spokesman of this spiritual movement , New England transcendentalism is Emerson.2.Nature ,Emerson's first little book ,established him ever since as the most eloquent sopkesman of New England Transcendentalism.3.His lasting reputation began only with the publication of Essays.Many of his famous essays are included in Essays ,such as the American Scholar , Self-Reliance , The Over-Soul.二.The thought 1.The transcendentalism : A.The nature : Emersonian Transcendentalism is actually a philosophical school with absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and European Romanticism.B.The contents : Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-soul , the importance of the Individual , and Nature.Transcendentalists believed that there should be an emotional communication between an individual soul and universal “over-soul ” 2.The influence : A.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.B.Emerson is the most represntative of the philosophical an literary school , and it inspired in his lifetime a whole generation of famous authors like Thoreau , Whitman , and Dickinson.三.The artistic features : 1.The casual style : Emerson's essays often have a casual style.They are usually characterized by a series of short ,sentencesw.2.To use comparison and metaphors : Emerson's philosophical discussion is sometimes difficult to understande but he uses comparisons and metaphors to make the general idea of his work clearly expressed.3.To employ the literary sources : Emerson often employed these literary sources to make and enrich his own points but never let them take the full reins of his discussion.C.纳撒尼尔.霍桑 一.The thoughts : 1.The view of sin: A.According to Hawthorne , “There is evil in every human heart.” A piece of literary work should “ show how we are all wronged and wronger , and avenge one another.” So in almost every book he wrote , Hawthorne discusses sin and evil.B.One source of evil that Hawthorne is concerned most is overreaching intellect.The tension between intellect “ would be fully revealed.2.The Puritanism : A.Hawthorne 's view of man and human history originates , to a great extent , in Puritanism.He believed that ”the wrong doing of one generation lives into the successive ones.“ B.In many of Hawthorne 's stories and novels , the Puritan concept of life is condemned , or the Puritan past is shown in an almost totally negative light , especially in his The House of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter.二.The masterpiece---The Scarlet letter : 1.The theme: In this particular novel , Hawthorne does not intend to tell a love stroy nor a story of sin , but focuses his attention on the moral , emotional , and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular , so as to show us the tension between society and individuals.2.The imagery : ”The custom-House “ to The Scarlet Letter proves fruitful to Hawthrone 's imagination , By relating a piece of red cloth shaped like ”A“ , Hawthorne succeeds in giving his tale a sense of historical reality and an air of authenticity.三.The artistic features : 1.The structure: The structure and the form of his writings are always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern.2.The allegory : Hawthorne is also a great allegorist and almost every story can be read allegorically , as is the case in ” Young Goodman Brown.“ 3.The symbolism : Hawthorne is a master of symbolism.The symbol can be found everywhere in his writing.By using pearl as thematic symbol ,Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community.4.The ambiguity : And the ambiguity is one of the salient characteristics of Hawthorne's art.D.华尔特.惠特曼

一.The works---Leaves of Grass : 1.Leaves of Grass has alwasys been considered a monumental work which commands great attention.2.The work has nine editions and the first edition was published in 1855.二.the thoughts : 1.The nationalism : As Whitman saw it , poetry could play a vital part in the process of creating a new nation.The abundance of themes in his poetry voices freshness.He shows concern for the whole hardworking people and the burgeoning life of cities.2.The individual value : The realization of the individual value also found a tough position in Whitman's poems in a particular way.pursuit of love and happiness is approved of repeatedly and affectionately in his lines.3.The political thoughts : Some of Whitman's poems are politically committed , Such as a collection under the title of drum Taps , ” Cavalry Crossing a Ford.“ And ” When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom 'd.“ 三.The artistic features : 1.The brand-new means : Whitman employed brand-new means in his poetry.A.Whitman's poetic style is marked , first of all , by the use of the poetic ”I“.B.Usually , the relationship Whitman is dramatizing is a triangular one :”I“ the poet, the subject in the poem , and ” you “ the reader.C.What he prefers for his new subject and new poetic feeling is ” free verse ,“that is , poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.However , there is still a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical.2.The imagery : A.unifying images of the body , the crowd , teh sexuality are pervasive in his poems.B.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.3.The Language: A.Another characteristic in Whitman's language is his strong tendency to use oral English.B.Whitman's vocabulary is amazing.He would use powerful , colorful , as well as rarely-used words , words of foreign origin and sometimes even wrong words.E.赫尔曼.麦尔维尔

一.The literary creation : Melville's writings can be well divided into two groups.1.The early period : His early works were writen after he was back from the sea.A.Among them are Typee , Omoo , and Mardi, which drew from his adventures.B.Redburn is semi-autobiographical novel.C.In White Jacket Melville relates his life on a United states man-of-war.D.Moby-Dick proves to be the best.2.The later period : With the publication of Pierre ,Melville's public fame was on the decline.A.Among them are ”Bartleby , the Scrivener , “ ”Benito Cereno, “ The Confidence-Man.B.Bill Budd again deals with the sea and sailors and the theme of a conflict between innocence and corruption.3.The themes respectively : A.In the early ones , Melville is more enthusiastic about setting out on a quest for the meaning of the universe , hence they are more metaphysical and the main characters are ardent and self-dramatizing ”I“, defyign God , as best reflected in Moby-Dick.B.In the late works , Melville becomes more reconciled with the world of man.二.The Masterpiece---Moby-Dick : 1.The literary status : Moby-Dick is regarded as the first American prose epic.2.The features : It is difficult to read because much of the talk in the talk in the novel is sailor's talk and much of the language is purposely old-fashioned and Elizabethan.3.The outline : The story is not complicated , dealing with Ahab , a man with an overwhelming obsession to kill the whale which has crippled him , on board his ship Pequod in the chase of the whale.4.The symbolism : It turns out to be a symbolic yoyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe , a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology.三.The artistic features: 1.The style of symbol and imagery A.Different people on board the ship are representations of defferent ideas and different social and ethnic groups.B.Facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings.C.Pequod is the microcosm of human society , and the voyage becomes a search for truth.D.For author ,Moby-Dick is still a mystery , an ultimate mystery of the universe.2.The other stills : Melville's great gifts of language , invention , psychological analysis , speculative agility , and narrative power are fused to make Moby-Dick a world classic.美国部分 The Realistic period(现实主义文学时期)本章概述

一.十九世纪中期现实主义文学产生的历史、文化背景；

二、美国现实主义文学创作的基本特征、基本主张；

三、对同时代与后期美国文学的影响；

四、主要作家作品。

文学史分析

一、The time period : The period ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to as the Age of Realism in the literary history of the United States.二.The theoretical base : 1.The thoughts of Howells : A.The literary principle : The fidelistic reflection of human reality is most clearly expressed by William Dean Howells.B.The influence : Guided by this principle of adhering to the truthful treatment of life , the realists touched upon various comtemporary social and political issues.2.The subject matters : A.The characters : They introduced industrial workers and farmers , ambitious businessmen and vagrants , prostitutes and unheroic soldiers as major characters in fiction.B.The modes : They approached the harsh realities and pressures in the post Civil War society either by a comprehensive picture of modern life , or by a psychological exploration of man's subconsciousness.3.The three towering figures : The three dorminant figures of the period are William Dean Howells , Mark Twain and Henry James.A.The common features : a.They brought to fulfillment native trends in the realistic portrayal brought to perfection teh vernacular style.b.They established the literary indentity of distinctively American protagonists , specifically the vernacular hero and the ”American Girl.“ C.In short , they set teh example and charted the future course for teh subjects , themes ,techniques and styles of fiction.B.The distinctions : a.They differed in their understanding of the ” truth “.While Mark Twain and Howells seemed to have paid more attention to the ”life“ of teh Americans ,Henry James had apparently laid a greater emphasis on the ”inner world “ of man.b.Though Twain and Howells both shared the same concern in presenting the truth of the American society , they had each of them different emphasis.Howells focused his discussion the rising middle class and the way they lived , While Twain preferred to have his own region and people at the forefront of his stories.三.The naturalism in literature : 1.The sources : The impact of Darwin's evolutionary theory and the influence of the 19th century French literature on the American men of letters gave rise to yet another school of realism: American naturalism.2.The subject matter : They chose their subjets from the lower ranks of society , and portrayed misery and poverty of the ”underdogs “ who were demonstrably victims of society and nature.3.The themes : One of the most familiar themes in American naturalism is the theme of human ”bestiality “especially as an explanation of sexaul desire.4.The features: Artistically ,naturalistic writings are usually unpolished in language , lacking in academic skills and unwieldy in structure.Philosophically , the naturalists believe that the real and true is always partially hidden from the eyes of teh individual , or beyond this control.In a word , naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic.主要作家作品

A.马克.吐温 B.亨利.詹姆斯 C.艾米莉.狄金森 D.西奥多.德莱塞

A.马克.吐温

一.The works : 1.The early period : A.With works like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn an Life on the Mississippi Twain shaped the world's view of America.B.The first among these books is Roughing it.C.Two of the best books during this period are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.2.The late period : A.the Gilded Age is Written in collaboration with Warner , the novel explored the scrupulous individualism.B.In A Connecticut Yankee in king Arthu's Court , Twain follows the journey of a representative of modern technology and ideas into a historically backward , feudal society.C.The others include: The Tragedy of Pudd's nhead Wilson The man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and The Mysterious Strager.二.The masterpieces : 1.The literary status : The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn proved themselves to be the milestone in American literature , and thus firmly established Twain's position in the literary world.2.The features: The books are noted for their unpretentious ,colloquial yet poetic style ,their wide-ranging humor , and their unviversally shared dream of perfect innocence and freedom.3.The language : the novel is written in a language which is not grand , pompous , but simple , direct , lucid , and faithful to the colloquial speech.4.The character portrayal : The profound portrait of Huckleberry Finn is another great contribution of the book to the legacy of American literature.三.The artistic features: 1.The local color : Twain is also known as a local colorist , who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions , Unlike James and Howells , Mark Twain wrote about the lower-class people.2.The language : Another fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language , his use of vernacular.His words are colloquial , concrete and direct in effect , and his sentence structures are simple , 3.The sense of humor : Mark Twain's humor is remarkable , too.Mark Twain shared the popular image of the American funny man.However , his humor is not only of witty remarks , but a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social inujustic and satirize the decayed romanticism

B.亨利.詹姆斯

一.The literary creation : The literary of Henry James is generally divided into three periods.1.The early period : A.The theme: James took great interest in international themes he treated with great care the clashes between two different cultures and the emotional and moral problems of American in Europe , or Europeans in America.B.The Works : the American , Daisy Miller , The Europeans , The Portrait of A Lady is generally considered to be hsi masterpiece.2.The middle period : A.the Theme: James experimented with different themes and forms in his middle period.B.The works : The Bostonians , The Princess Casamassima , The Death of a Lion , The turn of the Screw , and The Beast in the Jungle.3.The late period : A.The theme : In his last and major period , James returned to his ” international theme.“ B.The works : What Maisie Knows , The Wings of the Dove , The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl.These demanding novels are widely considered to be James' most influential contribution to literature.二.The contributions to literature : 1.The international theme A.James' fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with the international theme.These novels are always set against a larger international background , usually between European and America.The typical pattern of the conflict between the two cultures would be that of a young American man or American girl.B.Marriage and love are used by James as the focal point of the confrontation between the twol value systems.2.The literary criticism : A.Henry James's literary criticism is an indispensable part of his contribution to literature.The theme of his essay ” The Art of Fiction “ clearly indicates that the aim of the novel is to present life.B.He also advoctes the freedom of the artist to write about anything that concerns him , even the disgreeable , the ugly and commonplace.三.the artistic features : 1.The psychoanalysis: A.James's realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter.His fictional world is concerned more with inner life of human beings than with overt human actions.B.This emphasis on psychology and on the human consciousness proves to be a big breakthrough in novel writing James is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th-century ”stream-of-consciousness “ novels and the founder of psychological realism.2.The narrative point of view : A.James avoids the authorial omniscience and makes his characters reveal themselves.B.In his novels we usually learn the main story by reading through one or several minds and share their perspetives.3.The language : As to his language , James is not so easy to understand.With a large vocabulary , he is always accurate in word selection , trying to find the best expression_r for his literary imagination.C.艾米莉.狄金森 一.The literary themes : 1.About eternity : A.Dickinso's poems are usually based on her own experiences , her sorrows and joys.But within her little lyrics Dickinso addresses those issues that concern the whole human beings.B.Closely related to Dickinson's religious poetry are her poems concerning death and immortality.2.About love : A.Love is another subject Dickinson dwelt on.One group of her love poems treats the suffering and frustration love can cause.B.The other group of love poems focuses on the physicalaspect of desire.However , it is those poems dealing wiht marriage that have aroused critical attention first.二.The artistic features : 1.The unique style : Her poems have no titles.In her poetry there is a particular stress pattern.2.The unconventional style : The form of her poetry is more or less like that of the hymns is community churches ,familiar ,communal ,and sometimes , irregular.3.The other styles : Her poetic idioms is noted for its laconic brevity , directness and plainness.Her poems are usually short , and many of them are centered on a single image or symbol and focused on one subject matter.D.西奥多.德莱塞 一.The works 1.The literary status : Theodore Dreiser is generally acknowledged as one of America's literary naturalists.2.The representatives : A.Sister Carrie is the best-known works.B.His best short fictions were Nigger Jeff, Old Rogaum and His Theresa.C.His ” Trilogy of Desire, “ The Financier , The Titan and The Stoic.D.Dreiser's greatest wrok is An American Tragedy.二.The thoughts of literary creation: 1.The naturalism : A.With the publication of Sister Carrie ,Dreiser was launching himself upon a long career later known as literary naturalism , which emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters.B.In his words , man is a ”victim of forces over which he has no control.“ To him ,life is ” so sad , so strannge , so mysterious and so inexplicable.“ 2.The Darwinism : A.The effect of Darwinist idea of ” survival of the fittest “ was shattering.B.In Sister Carrie Dreiser expressed His naturalistic pursuit.In his ” Trilogy of Desire ,“ Dreiser's focus shifted from the American Tragedy proves to be his greatest work Dreiser intended to tell us that it is the social pressure.3.The American Values : A.From the first novel Sister Carrie on , Dreiser set himself to project the American values the human individual is obsessed with a never-ending , yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his desires.One of the desires is for money.Sex is another human desire.B.Dreiser never forgot to imply that these human desires in life could hardly be defined.三.The artistic features: 1.For lack of concision , his writings appear more inclusive and less selective.He has been always accused of being awkward in setence structure , inept and occasionally flatly wrong in word selection and meaning , and mixed and disorganized in voice and tone.2.He broke away from the genteel tradition of literature and dramatized the life in a very realistic way.The Modern Period(现代文学时期)本章概述

一.20 世纪初期到中叶美国现代文学产生的历史、文化背景；

二、美国现代文学创作的基本特征、基本主张；

三、对当代美国文学发展的影响。

文学史分析

一、The cultural background 1.Darwinism and Maxism : A.Darwinism was still a big influence over the writers of this period.B.Marx believed that the root cause of all behavior was economic , and that the leading feature of the economic life was the division of society into antagonistic classes based on a relation to the means of production.2.Freudian theories : A.Freud propounded an idea of human beings themselves as grounded in the ”unconsious “,and made the practice of the psychoanalysis.B.William James ,famous for his theory of ”stream of conciousness.“and Carl Jung, noted for his ” collective unconscious “and ”archetypal symbol “ plus Freud's interpretation of dreams , have infused modern American literature.3.The modern European arts : A.In painting ,both the French Impressionist and the German expression_r_rist artists depicted the human reality in a rather subjective point of view.B.Cubism is the name for another School of modern painting.Its emphasis on the formal structure of a work of art , especially its emphasis on the multiple-perspective viewpoints ,had provided the writers with more than one way to explain the reality.C.Composers like lgor produced music in a ” modern “mode ,featuring dissonance and discontinuity.二.The literature between WWI and WW II : 1.The expatriate movement : A.The most recognizable literary movement that gave rise to the twentieth century American literature , the second American Renaissance , is the expatriate movement.B.When the First World War broke out , many young men volunteered to take part in ” the war to end wars “ only to find that modern warfare was not as glorious or heroic as they thought it to be.They began to write and they wrote from their own experiences in the war.C.They were basically expatriates who left America and formed a community of writers and artists in paris.These writers were later named by an American writer , Gertrude Stein, ”The Lost Generation.“ 2.Imagist movement: A.Modern American literature are famous poets such as EZra Pound , Williams, Frost , Pound's role as a leading spokesman of the famous imagist movement in the history of American literature can never be ignored.B.Williams rooted his poetic imagination in American native tradition.Frost is always liked by the Americans because the subject and the landscape of his poems are forever New England and his simplicity never fails to reveal some profound truth.C.Cummings , Stevens are also remembered for.The former always used ”i“ instead ”I“ to refer to himself as a protest against self-importance , while the later.Whose style is more cultivated and refined.3.The great novelists : A.Fitzgerald , Hemingway , Faukner are considered to be the masters in the field of American fiction.The Jazz Age of the 1920s is brought vividly to life in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald.Hemingway dramatizes in his novels the sense of loss and despair Faulkner creates his own mythical kingdom.B.Besides , writers like Anderson Lewis , Steinbeck contributed a great deal to modern American literature.Anderson explores the motivations and frustrations of his fictional characters.Lewis is a sociological writer and his Babbit presents a documentary picture of the narrow and limited middle-class mind , Steinbeck is a representative of the 1930s.His The Grapes of Wrath proves to be a symbolic journey of man an the way to finding some truth about life and himself.4.The plays : A.The leading playwright of the modern period in American literature is Eugene O' Nell.For his tragic view of life and most of his plays are about the root , the truth of human desires and human frustration.B.Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams were yet to acclaim the literary recognition and to hold the central position in American drama until the present times.三.The literature after WWII: 1.The poetry: A.The postwar poets , with Robert Lowell in the lead , would typically write about an object or a situation showing a growing sense of resistance to the express culture and at the same time an assertion of the self.B.The outstanding ones are Gary Snyder , who tends to liberate poetry from the academy and Allen Ginsberg , whose ” Howl “ became the manifesto of the Beat Movement.2.The features : A.First of all , a group of new writers who survived the war wrote about their traumatic experience among whom we have Norman Mailer and Herman Wouk.Warren and O' Conner are representatives of the talented Southern writers.B.By the 1950s a significant group of Jewish-American writers had appeared and one of them was Saul Bellow.Their work , Examined subtly the dismantiling of the self by an intolerable modern history.C.Black fiction began to attract critical attention during this period too.The two major figures are Wright and Ralph Ellison.D.Other important writers who were writing at the time include J.D.Salinger and John Updike.Salinger is considered The Catcher in the Rye is regarded as a students' classic Updike's Rabbit novels examine the middle-class values.E.American fiction in the 1960s and 1970s is always referred to as ” new fiction,“ with Kurt Vonnegut , Joseph Heller , John Bath , and Thomas Pynchon at its forefront.These writers shared almost the same belief that human beings are trapped in a meaningless world.四.The features : 1.In creation : A.Modern American writings are notable for what they omit-the explanations , interpretations ,connections and summaries.B.There are shifts in perspective , voice , and tone , but the biggest shift is from the external to psychic , from the public to the private , from the chronological to the psychic , the objective description to the subjective projection.C.Moern American writers in general emphasize the concrete sensory images or details.They rely on the reference or allusions to literary , historical ,philosophical , or religious details of the past.2.In techniques: A.Writers strove for directness , compression , and vividness and were sparing of words.B.The average novel became quite a bit shorter than it had been in the 19th century.C.New significance was given to the short story.If realistic fiction achieved its effects by accumulation and saturation , modern fiction preferred suggestiveness.D.Modern fiction tended to employ the first person narration or limit the reader to the ” Central consciousness “ or one character point of view.E.The modernistic vision is truth does not exist objectively but is product of a personal interaction with reality.主要作家作品

A.埃兹拉.庞德 B.罗伯特.弗洛斯特 C.尤金.奥尼尔 D.斯各特.菲兹杰拉德 E.欧内斯特.海明威 F.威廉.福克纳

A.埃兹拉.庞德

一.The literary creation : 1.The poetry : A.The works : Pound's poetic works include twelve volumes of verse in Collected in Collecte Early Poems of Ezra pound ,and some longer pieces such as Hugh Selwyn Mauberley and his life's work , Cantos.B.The theme: Pound's earlier poetry is saturated with the familiar poetic subjects : songs in praise of a lady ,song concerning the poet's craft , love and friendship ,death ,the transience of beauty and the permanence of art ,and some other subjects.Later he is more concerned about the problems of the modern culture: the contemporary cultural decay and the possible sources of cultural renewal as well 2.The critical essays : A.The works : Pound produced quite a number of critical essays , which can be found in Make it New Literary Essays , The ABC of Reading and Polite Essays, B.The theme : Essays best reflect Pound's appraisals of literary traditions and of modern writing.3.The translations : A.The works : He also published several volumes of translation , most notably , The Translation of Ezra Pound , Confucius ,and Shih-Ching B The significance : They have not only cast light on Pound's affinity to the Chinese and his strenuous effort in the study of Oriental literature , but also offered us a clue to the understanding of his poetry and literary theory.二.The achievements to American Literature : 1.The Imagist movement : A.Imagist Movement flourished from 1909 to 1917.B.This is a movement that advanced modernism in arts which concentrated on reforming the medium of poetry as opposed to Romanticism C.Three main principles direct treatment of poetic subjects , elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words , rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome.D.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 Pound's famous one-image poem is ”In a Station of the Metro “.2.The artistic features: A.Pound's poetic work include his use of myth and personae.Pound could sustain a dialogue between past and present successfully.B.As to his language , his lines are usually oblique yet marvelously compressed His poetry is dense with personal , literary , and historical allusions ,but at the expense of syntax and summary statements.B.罗伯特.弗洛斯特

一.the poetic creation : 1.The subject-matter : The subject matters mainly focus on the landscape and people in New England.2.The theme: The basic themes of man's life in his long poetic career are the individual 's relationships to himself , to his fellow-man , to his world ,and to his God.3 The works : A.His first collection A Boy's Will , is marked by an intense but restrained emotion and the characteristic flavor of New England life B.North of Boston is described by the author as ”a book of people “.C.The same expressive idiom and brilliant observation appear in Mountain Interval.D.New Hampshire won Frost the first of four Pulitzer Prizes.E.The collection West-Running brook poses disturbing uncertainties about man's prowess and importance.F.A Witness Tree includes ” The Gift Outright ,“ the poem he later recited at President Kennedy 's inauguration G.At the age of seventy Frost took up , a religious question he had explored before , most notably in ” After Apple-Picking.“

二.The artistic features : 1.The conventions of nature poetry and classical pastoral poetry : A.Unlike his contemporaries in the early 20th century , he did not break up with the poetic tradition nor made any experiment on form.Instead , he learned from the tradition.B.He made the colloquial New England speech into a poetic expression_r_r_r.C.Many of his poems are fragrant with natural quality.Images and metaphors in his poems are drawn from the simple country life and the pastoral landscape.2.The theme concerned : A.These thematic concerns include the terror and tragedy in nature , as well as its beauty , and the loneliness and poverty of the isolated human being.B.First and foremost Frost is concerned with his love of life and his belief in a serenity.三.The styles : 1.the grace is style : By using simple spoken language and conversational rhythms , Frost achieved an effortless grace in his style.2.The verse forms : He combined traditional verse forms-with a clear American local speech rhythm , the speech of New England farmers.C.尤金.奥尼尔

一.The literary creation : Eugene O'Neill is unquestionably America's greatest playwright.He won the Pulitzer four times and was the only dramatist ever to win a Nobel Prize.He is widely acclaimed ” founder of the American drama.“

1.The early period :-one-act melodramatic plays A.He gained some experience by writing some one-act melodramatic plays at first , including Bound East for Cardiff.B.O'Neill's first full-length play , Beyond the Horizon , Made a great hit and won him the first Pulizer Prize , which theme is the choice between life and death , the interaction of subjective and objective factors.2.The middle period :-Symbolic expression_r_r_rism A.Between 1920 and 1924 came his prominent achievements in symbolic expression_r_r_rism : The Emperor Jones , The Hairy Ape , All God's Chillun Got Wings ,and Desire Under the Elms.The expression_r_r_ristic techniques are used in these plays to highlight the theatrical effect of the rupture.B.He concerned himself with some non-realistic forms to contain his tragic vision in a number of his plays , such as The Great God Brown , and Lazarus Laughed , Strange Interlude , paved the way to the honor of the Nobel Prize in 1936.3.The late period :-Autobiographical plays : A.The best and greatest plays of the modern American theater late in his life are The Iceman Cometh ,and Long Day's Journey Into Night.B.Long Day's Journey Into Night has gained its status as a world classic and simultaneously marks the climax of O' Neill's literary career and the coming of age of American drama.二.The artistic features : 1.The pessimism features : A.Of all the plays O' Neill wrote , most of them are tragedies , dealing with the basic issues of human existence and predicament.B.His characters in the plays are described as seeking meaning , but all meet disappointment and despair.C.His final dramas became ”transcendental , “ in the way that the dramatization of man's effort in finding the secret of life results in a reconciliation with the tragic impossiblity.2.The stylistic features : A.He was constantly experimenting with new styles and for his plays.He used just a single actor , alone on the stage , in his one-act play.B.In those expression_r_r_ristic plays , abstract and symbolic stage sets are used and lighting and music are employed.C.As to his language , O' Neil frequently wrote the lines in dialect , or spelled words in ways which indicate a particular accent or manner of speech.3.The Variety of creation : In verse form he was assorted;he wrote in both the metrical forms and the free verse , in a form that might be called semi-free or semi-conventional.D.斯各特.菲兹杰拉德 一.The literary creation : Francis Scott Fitzgerald was a most representative figure of the 1920s , he is often acclaimed literary spokesman of the Jazz Age.1.The creation in novel : A.His first novel This Side of Paradise was so successful that it won for him not only wealth and fame , but also the expensive prize of Zelda Sayre.He has been regarded as the prototype of a series of rich , beautiful women.B.His second novel , The Beautiful and Damned , increased his popularity.C.His masterpiece The Great Gatsby made him one of the greatest American novelists.D.Fitzgerald wrote one more important novel Tender is the Night , leaving his last novel The Last Tycoon unfinished.2.The creation in novellas : A.His short-story collections won him great popularity , such as Flappers and Philosopher , Tales of the Jazz Age , All the Sad Young Men.B.One of his best short stories is ” Babylon Revisited.“

二.The achievements in literature : 1.The a panorama of the Jazz Age A.Most critics have agreed that Fitzgerald is both that Fitzgerald is both an insider and an outsider of the Jazz Age with a double vision.This doubleness or irony is one of the distinguishing marks as a writer and helps Fitzgerald to present a panorama of the Jazz Age with a deep insight.B.Fitzgerald 's fictional world is the best embodiment of the spirit of the Jazz Age , in which he shows a particular interest in the upper-class society , especially the upper-class young people.2.The theme of American Dream : A.Fitzgerald 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.B.Money is only a convenient and inadequate symbol for what he dreams of earning , and love merely a vehicle that can transport him to a magic world of eternal happiness.C.Although the protagonist's pursuit of his dream only proves to be futile to be futile , Fitzgerld does not negate the the affirmative role the ” magic moments “ play , which attend the hope and expectations of eternal happiness.3.The artistic features : A.Fitzgerald is a great stylist in American literature.His style , closely related to his themes , is explicit and chilly.B.He follows the Jamesian tradition in using the scenic method in his chapters , leaving the tedious process of transition to the readers' imagination.c.He also skillfully employs the device of having events observed by a ”central consciousness“ to his great advantage.E.欧内斯特.海明威

一.the literary creation : 1.The collection of short stories : A.The features : Greatly and permanently affected by the war experiences , Hemingway formed his writing style , together with his theme and hero.B.The masterpiece : In Our Time is the first book to present a Hemingway hero-Nick Adams.Nick becomes the prototype of the wounded hero.C.The significance : In this book , Hemingway sought to endow prose with the density of poetry , making each image each scene , and each rendered act several purposes.2.The novels : A.The Sun Also Rises;a.The contents : The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway 's first true novel.It casts light on a whole generation after the First World War and the effects of the war by way of a vivid portrait of ” The Lost Generation.“ b.The significance : The young expatriates in this novel are a group of wandering , amusing , but aimless people.In this period the Hemingway Code hero is exemplified in different versions.B.A Farewell to Arms : a.The contents : A Farewell to Arms wrote the epitaph telling us a story about the tragic love affair of a wounded American soldier with a British nurse.b.The significance : In this novel , Hemingway not to only emphasizes his belief that man is refute the idea of nature as an expression_r_r_r of either God's design or his beneficence and to suggest that man is doomed to be entrapped.C.For whom the Bell Tolls : a.The contents : For Whom the Bell Tolls clearly represents a new beginning in Hemingway 's career as writer , which concerns a volunteer American guerrilla Robert Jordan fighting in the Spanish Civil War.b.The significance : In the end , the manner of his dying convinces people that life is worth living and there are causes worth dying for.D.The old man and the sea : a.The contents : Capping his career and leading to his receipt of the Nobel Prize , this short novel is about an old Cuban fisherman Santiago and his losing battle with a giant marlin.b.the significance ” It is a representation of life as a struggle against unconquerable natural forces 3.Other works : Men without Womenn , Death in the Afternoon, The Green Hills of Africa ,The Snows of Kilimanjaro , To Have and Have Not.二.The artistic features : 1.The Hemingway code here: A.Hemingway's world is limited.He deals with a limited range of characters in quite similar circumstances and measures them against an unvarying code , known as “grace under pressure ”.Those who survive in the process of seeking to master the code with the honesty , the discipline , and the restraint are Hemingway Code heroes.B.In the general situation of his novels , life is full of tension and battles;the world is in chaos;man is always fighting desperately a losing battle.C.Hemingway 's limited fictional world implies a much broader thematic pattern and serious philosophical concern.2.The theory of iceberg: A.Hemingway himself once said , “the dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.” B.According to Hemingway , good literary writing should be able to make readers feel the emotion of the characters directly and the best way to produce the effect is to set down exactly every particular kind of feeling without any authorial comments ,without conventionally emotive language , and with a bare minimum of adjectives and adverbs.3.The stylistic features : A.seemingly simple and natural , Hemingway 's style is actually polished and tightly controlled ,but highly suggestive and connotative.B.Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism intiated by Mark Twain.C.He uses short , simple and conventional words and sentences has an effect of clearness , terseness and great care.D.No wonder Hemingway was highly praised by the Nobel Prize Committee for“ his powerful style-forming mastery of the art ” of creating modern fiction

F.威廉.福克纳 一.the works :

1.After training in Canada : A.Faulkner published a volume of poetry The Marble Faun.B.His first novel is Soldier's Pay.2.After the trip to Europe : A.Sartoris B.The sound and the Fury C.Major works : As I Lay Dying Light in August , Absalom , Absalom!Wild Palms , The Hamelet , The Unvanquished and Go Down , Moses.3.After 1946: A.The Portable Faulkner.B.The Nobel Prize for the anti-racist Intruder in the Dust.C.Remarkable novels such as Requiem for a Nun , The Fable, The Town , and The Mansion.二.the Yoknapatawpha Kingdom : 1.the background: A.The source : Most of Faulkner's works are set in the American South , with his emphasis on the Southern subjects and consciousness.His stories are about people from a small region in Northern Mississippi , Yoknapatawpha County , which is actally an imaginary place.B.The time period : The Yoknapatawpha stories deal, generally , with the historical period from the Civil War up to the 1920s.C.The significance: Yoknapatawpha county has become an allegory or a parable of the Old South , with which Faulkner has managed Successfully to show a panorama of the experience and consciousness of the whole Southern society.2.The theme: A.The overran pattern : The Yoknapatawpha County series have an overall patter in which the fate of ruined homeland always focuses on the collision of Faukner's intelligent , sensitive , and idealistic protagonist with the society of the twentieth century.B.The theme : Most of the major themes are directly related to this confrontation.C.The stylistic methods : The past and the present , nature and society are always juxtaposed in his novels and stories.All his heroes turn out to be tragic.Faulkner suggests that society , eliminates man's chance of responding naturally to the experiences of his existence.According to Faulkner , the life-death cycle, the spring and winter of the earth , the birth and death of the animals is reality.Man, becomes weak and cowardly , confused and ineffectual.三.The masterpiece: Of Faulkner's literary works , four novels are masterpieces by any standards :The sound and the Fury , light in August , Absalom ,Absalom!And Go Down , Moses.1.The Sound and the Fury : The Sound and The Fury is a story of “Lost innocence ”which proves itself to be an intensification of the theme of imprisonment in the past.2.Light in August is primarily about the South as a state of mind.3.Absalom , Absalom!is a novel entirely of interpretation , the attempts of several characters-to explain the past , characterized by involutions of narrative structrue which express corresponding complexities of meaning.4.Go Down , Moses is a sense a companion piece to Absalom , Absalom!In this book , Faulkner illumintes the problem of black and white in Southern society as a close-knit destiny of blood brotherhood.The best story to highlight Faulkner's concern is “ The Bear”.In this story ,Faulkner skillfully employs an old crafty bear as a symbol of the timeless freedom of the wilderness.四.The literary achievements : 1.The literary theory : A.Faulkner 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 evolved his own literary strategies.B.To him , the primary duty of a writer was to explore and represent the infinite possibilities inherent in human life.2.The narrative skills : A.the objective narration : He would never step between the characters and the reader to explain , but let the characters explain themselves and hinder as little as possible the reader's direct experience of the work of art.B.The inversion of chronological time: He deliberately broke up the chronology of his narrative by juxtaposing the past with the present , in the way the montage does in a movie.C.The stream-of-consciousness technique: Modern stream-of-consciousness technique was also frequently and skillfully expoited by Faulkner to emphasize the reactions and inner musings of the narrator.D.The description of multiple points of view : Faulkner was good at presenting multiple points of view , which gave the story a circular form.Thus a high degree of truth could be reached.E.Others : The other narrative techniques Faulkner used to construct his stories include symbolism and mythological and biblical allusions.3.The stylistic features : A.In style : His prose , marked by long and embedded sentences , complex 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.B.The formal pattern : In Faulkner's writings there are syntactical structures and verbals paralleled , negatives balanced against positives , compounded adjectives swelling his sentences , complex modifying elements placed after the nouns.C.The informal pattern : He captured the dialects of the Mississippi characters ,including Negroes and the redneck ,as well as more refined and educated narrators like Quention.D.The imageries : They symbols and imageries , they are most of them drawn from nature.

第二篇：美国文学总结

美国文学

一、殖民地时期的美国文学

1、约翰 史密斯：美国文学的第一个作家，《关于弗吉尼亚的真实叙述》；

2、纳撒尼尔 沃德：《北美的阿格瓦姆鞋匠》，北美讽刺文学第一笔；

3、威廉 布拉德福德：美国历史之父，《普利茅斯种植园史》

4、安妮、布拉德斯特利特 《第十个缪斯》

5、迈克尔 威格尔斯沃斯

6、爱德华 泰勒 长诗《上帝对其选民有影响的决定》

7、乔纳森 爱德华兹：大觉醒运动中主要的思想家；

二、南北战争时期的美国文学（）

1、富兰克林

2、托马斯、潘恩：《长诗》

3、托马斯、杰弗逊：《独立宣言》

4、约翰、伍尔曼：《日记》

5、飞利浦、弗瑞诺：美国独立革命的诗人

6、飞利浦、惠特利：美国文学史上第一位出版诗集的黑人女诗人，了不起的诗才之称，《胡塞先生和棺木》；

7、威廉、邓拉普：美国戏剧之父

8、华盛顿、欧文：美国文学之父，《见闻札记》《睡古传说》《温克尔》

9、詹姆斯 菲尼莫尔 库珀：《开拓者》《最后一个莫干希人》《探路人》

10、威廉、布莱恩特：美国的华兹华斯，《诗选》《黄色的紫罗兰》《致水鸟》

11、爱伦、坡：侦探小说的鼻祖，《厄舍古厦的倒塌》《乌鸦》

12、艾默生：超验主义，13、大卫梭罗

14、亨利、费朗罗：《伊凡吉林》歌颂爱情；《海华沙之歌》第一部描写印第安人的史诗；

15、纳撒尼尔、霍桑：《范肖》《带七个尖角阁的房子》《福谷传奇》以第一人称叙述；

16、麦尔维尔

17、斯托夫人的代表作《汤姆叔叔的小屋》

18、惠特曼：free verse；草叶集；

三、第一次世界大战时期的美国文学

1、豪威尔斯是美国现实主义文学的奠基人，其代表作诗《塞拉斯 拉帕姆的发迹》；

2、亨利、詹姆斯：《黛西 米勒》；《贵妇人的画像》《美国人》

3、马克 吐温

4、赫姆林加兰：加兰是“乡土文学作家”的重要代表，《大路》，80年代美国的真实写照；

5、弗兰克 诺里斯：开创自然主义的先河，代表作《章鱼》；

6、欧亨利：美国现代短篇小说的创始人；

7、杰克伦敦：自然主义，《马丁伊登》自传体小说

8、西奥多、德莱赛：美国现代小说的先驱，20世纪美国文学中第一位杰出的作家；《嘉莉妹妹》，《欲望三部曲》：《金融家》《巨人》《斯多葛》；

9、艾米丽 迪金森：现代英美诗歌的先驱；

四、一战到二战时期的美国文学

1、罗伯特 弗罗斯特：四次获得普利策奖

2、庞德：印象派诗歌运动的主要力量；

3、爱德华、肯明斯：视觉诗歌的创始人；

4、尤金、奥尼尔：《天边外》早起作品；《送冰人来了》；《长夜漫漫路迢迢》，1936年获得诺贝尔文学奖；

5、辛克莱、刘易斯：1930年获得诺贝尔文学奖；第一个获得该奖项的美国作家，《大街》《巴比特》

6、海明威：

7、菲茨杰拉德：《人间天堂》《了不起的盖茨比》《夜色温柔》

8、赛珍珠：《大地》1938年美国历史上第一个获得诺贝尔文学奖的女性作家；

9、约翰、斯坦贝克：20世纪美国文坛最重要的作家之一，1962年获得诺贝尔文学奖；《天堂的牧场》《煎饼坪》《愤怒的葡萄》《月落》《烦躁的冬天》

10、福克纳：《喧哗与骚动》 《寓言》获得普利策奖；

最重要的作品三部曲：《村子》《小镇》《大宅》

11、兰斯顿 休斯：哈莱姆的桂冠诗人五、二战以后的美国文学

1、杰克、开鲁亚克：垮掉的一代，《在路上》

2、塞林格：垮掉的一代的重要作家，《麦田的守望者》

3、纳博科夫：《洛丽塔》

4、约瑟夫、海勒：《第22条军规》

5、库特、冯尼格：黑色幽默手法；

6、威廉、斯泰轮：《苏菲的选择》

7、辛格：美国犹太作家，1978年诺贝尔文学奖 《路柏林的魔术师》

8、索尔、贝娄：1976年诺贝尔文学奖；《晃来晃去的人》

9、菲利普、罗斯：《美国牧歌》，获普利策奖；

10、托尼、莫里森：1993年获得诺贝尔，第一位美国黑人作家；

《最蓝的眼睛》《所罗门之歌》

11、田纳西、威廉斯：《欲望号街车》《热铁皮屋顶上的猫》

12、阿瑟、米勒：《推销员之死》

第三篇：美国文学总结

第一部分 殖民主义时期

the colonial period 1.Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing.代表人物: cotton mather 科顿.马瑟

Jonathan Edwards 乔纳森.爱德华兹

Anne brandstreet 安妮.布雷斯特里特

殖民时期第一位诗人，《最近在北美出现的第十位缪斯》 第二部分 理性和革命时期文学reasoning and revolution

1、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明.弗兰克林

代表作： Poor Richard’s Almanac穷人理查德的年鉴 annual collection of proverbs 流行谚语集 Autobiography 自传 18世纪美国唯一流传至今的自传

2、Thomas Paine 托马斯.潘恩 Rights of man 人的权利 The age of reason 理性时代

American Crisis《美国危机》, signed “Common Sense”.署名为“常识”

3、Philip Freneau 菲利浦.弗瑞诺

the most outstanding writer of the post-Revolutionary period（18 century）.是革命战争后期（18世纪）最杰出的作家。

the “Father of American Poetry” 美国诗歌之父

poet of American revolution

4、Thomas Jefferson 托马斯.杰弗逊

drafted the Declaration of Independence.起草了独立宣言

第三部分 浪漫主义文学/Romanticism transcendentalism超验主义：

1、Ralf Waldo Emerson拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生

be responsible for bringing Transcendentalism to New England, 是把超验主义引入新英格兰的先驱。

Nature论自然——新英格兰超验主义者的宣言书

The American Scholar美国学者— our intellectual Declaration of Independence.我们知识分子的独立宣言。

The Oversoul论超灵;THE Divinity school Address Self-reliance论自立;The Transcendentalist超验主义者;Representative Men代表人物;English Traits英国人的特征;School Address神学院演说

2、Henry David Thoreau 亨利.戴维.梭罗

Walden 《沃尔登》成名作

Civil Disobedience《平民反抗》（essay 随笔。）

3、Herman Melville赫尔曼·梅尔维尔

Moby Dick白鲸；

thMoby Dick”《白鲸》，a tremendous chronicle of whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.主要讲述了一个为追捕一只想象中的神秘白鲸的漫长海上故事。②The book is steeped in symbolism.本书达到了象征主义手法的创作高峰。③主人公：Ishmael，取自圣经。④在书中说：to write a mighty book you must have a mighty theme.写一部宏大的著作，必须有一个宏大的主题。Pierre皮尔埃;Piazza广场故事;Billy Budd比利·巴德

4、Washington Irving 华盛顿.欧文 美国文学之父

Sketch Book 《见闻札记》 奠定了他在文学史上的地位

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow睡谷的传说 Rip van winkle 瑞普.凡.温可尔

Legends of the Conquest of Spain《西班牙征服记》

A History of New York纽约的历史——美国人写的第一部诙谐文学杰作

5、James Fenimore Cooper 詹姆斯.芬尼莫.库珀

The spy 间谍 the pilot 领航者

Leatherstocking Tales《皮袜子故事集》，the central figure in the novels, Natty Bumppo.小说的中心人物纳蒂.班波

包括“The Deerslayer”《杀鹿者》、“The Pathfinder”《探路人》、“The Pioneers”《拓荒者》、Hawkeye 鹰眼人

“The Prairie”《大草原》 “The Last of the Mohicans”最后的莫希干人

6、Edgar Allan Poe 埃德加.爱伦.坡

首开近代侦探小说先河，the father of American detective story又是法国象征主义运动的源头 Annabel Lee安娜贝尔·李 to Helen 致海伦 The Raven乌鸦

他的诗中大多是古怪、奇特、病态的形象，着重描写犹豫的情绪，他认为诗歌就是“美得节奏之创造”

7、Nathaniel Hawthorne 纳撒尼尔.霍桑

清教传统对他影响颇深，反对超验主义，常用象征和隐喻的手法，擅长揭示人物的内心冲突和心理描写，作品宗教气氛浓厚

The Scarlet Letter红字 the minister’s black veil 牧师的黑面纱 Twice-told Tales尽人皆知的故事;Mosses from an Old Manse古屋青苔: Young Goodman Brown年轻的古德曼·布朗;The House of the Seven Gables有七个尖角阁的房子;The Blithedale Romance福谷传奇;The Marble Faun玉石雕像

8、Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 亨利.沃兹沃思.朗费罗

he became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s corner of Westminster Abbey.朗费罗被安葬在威斯敏斯特教堂的诗人之角，他也是美国惟一获此殊荣的诗人。The Song of Hiawatha海华沙之歌——美国人写的第一部印第安人史诗;Voices of the Night夜吟/夜之声;Ballads and Other Poens民谣及其他诗;Tales of a Wayside Inn路边客栈的故事——诗集：An April Day四月的一天/A Psalm of Life人生礼 Excelsior 向上 THE QUADROON GIRL

9、Walt Whitman沃尔特·惠特曼

擅长free verse(自由诗体)：Leaves of Grass草叶集:象征着一切平凡的事物和普通的民众，发展中的美国，是19世纪美国的史诗。

Song of the Broad-Axe阔斧之歌;Song of Myself自我之歌 I hear America Singing我听见美国在歌唱;When Lilacs Lost in the Dooryard Bloom'd小院丁香花开时;和O captain ,my captain!林肯死后的赞美和哀思

Democratic Vistas民主的前景;The Tramp and Strike Question流浪汉和罢工问题;

10、Emily Dickinson 爱米丽.狄金森

19世纪最伟大，最富影响力的女诗人，是个虔诚的教徒，被称为“阿莫斯特的修女”赞成宗教、超验主义

I died for Beauty 我为美而死 Because I could not stop for Death”我不能等候死神

Theme：死亡是实现永恒Immortality的途径

11、William Cullen Bryant 威廉.卡伦.布莱恩特

To a Waterfowl 《致水鸟》 用美国英语写作的最完美的短诗

第四部分 现实主义文学/Realism The age of realism is also what Mark Twain referred as 镀金时代：The Gilded Age In the late 19 century, although Americans continued to read the works of Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Poe, the great age of American romanticism had ended.By the 1870s the New England Renaissance had waned.新英格兰的文艺复兴已开始接近尾声。Realism：（现实主义）

1、Mark Twain马克·吐温（美国文学中的林肯）

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn哈克贝利·费恩历险记;The Innocent's Abroad傻瓜出国记;The Gilded Age镀金时代;The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County加拉维拉县有名的跳蛙;The Adventures of Tom Sawyer汤姆·索耶历险记;用词简单、幽默、使用当地语言编写 The Prince and the Pauper王子与贫儿;Life on the Mississippi A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court亚瑟王宫中的美国佬;The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson傻瓜威尔逊;Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc冉·达克;The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg败坏哈德莱堡的人 How to Tell a Story怎样讲故事——对美国早期幽默文学的总结 自然主义：naturalism: 产生于the end of the century 十九世纪末 代表作家：

1、Stephen Crane 史蒂芬.克莱恩

the pioneer wrote in the naturalistic tradition Maggie: A Girl of the Streets街头女郎梅姬（美国文学史上首次站在同情立场上描写受辱妇女的悲惨命运）； the black riders war is kind The Red Badge of Courage红色英勇勋章； The Open Boat小划子;The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky新娘来到黄天镇

2、Frank Norris 弗朗克.诺里斯, Moran of the Lady Letty茱蒂夫人号上的莫兰（romantic）;Mc-Teague麦克提格（naturalistic）;The Epic of the Wheat（realistic）小麦诗史

2、Jack London 杰克.伦敦

The People of the Abyss深渊中的人们 thMartin Eden(autobiographical novel自传体小说)The Son of the Wolf狼之子, The Call of the Wild野性的呼唤;The Sea-wolf海狼;White Fang白獠牙 Love of Life热爱生命;Revolution革命;What Life Means to Me生命对我意味着什么;

3、Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞.Sister Carrie嘉莉妹妹 the first novel, which traces the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G.W.Hurstwood.揭露美国社会贫富分化以及道德沦丧 Jennie Gerhardt珍妮姑娘;Nigger Jeff黑人杰弗 Trilogy of Desire欲望三部曲（Financer金融家,The Titan巨人,The Stoic斯多噶）;An American Tragedy美国的悲剧（被称为美国最伟大的小说）;Darwinism: 达尔文主义

1、O.Henry 欧.亨利 short story 短篇小说 世界三大短篇小说大师之一“曼哈顿的桂冠诗人”，“美国生活的幽默百科全书”

②代表作：“The Four Million”《四百万》 小说集、The Gift of the Magi《麦琪的礼物》 单部小说

Sixes and Sevens七上八下 the Man Higher Up黄雀在后 The cop and the anthem 警察与赞美诗

2、Henry James 亨利.詹姆斯

Daisy Miller苔瑟·米乐； The Portrait of a Lady贵妇人画像； The Bostonians波士顿人 The Ambassadors大使； The Real Thing and Other Tales真货色及其他故事； The Wings of the Dove鸽翼； The Golden Bowl金碗

3、Kate Chopin 凯特.肖邦 乡土文学作家

一生未嫁

Wise than a god 智胜神明 at fault 过错 阿卡迪亚 a night in acadie 第五部分 现代主义时期 the period of modernism Imagism 意象派

Lost Generation：迷惘的一代

1、Modernism现代主义

现代主义的标志：T.S.Eliot’s “The Waste Land”, the most significant American poem of the twentieth century, helped to establish a modern tradition of literature rich with learning and allusive thought.2、典型的迷惘一代：

F.Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby” 《了不起的盖茨比》 novel Ernest Hemingway “The Sun Also Rises”《太阳照样升起》

“A Farwell to Arms” 《告别了，武器》 William Faulkner “The Sound and the Fury” 《喧嚣与骚动》

3、Playwrights戏剧、剧作家：

Eugene O’Neill : “The Emperor Jones”《琼斯国王》、Anna Christie《安娜.克里斯蒂》 The Hairy Ape《毛猿》

4、The Jazz Age(享乐时代)代表作家：

1、F Scott Fitzgerald弗朗西斯·菲茨杰拉德（迷惘的一代）The Great Gatsby了不起的盖茨比 The Side of Paradise人间天堂;The Beautiful and the Damned美丽的和倒霉;Tender in the Night夜色温柔;The Last Tycoon最后的巨头

2、Ernest Hemingway欧内斯特.海明威 novelist 小说家 迷惘的一代

①写作特点：(1)he developed a spare, tight, reportorial prose based on simply sentence structure and using a restricted vocabulary, precise imagery, and an impersonal, dramatic tone.推动了报告文学的发展，认为报告文学句子结构要简单，用语要节制，想象要简练，要采用不受感情影响的、戏剧化的语调。“创造了冰山原则—简洁的文字、鲜明的形象、丰富的情感、深刻的思想

②代表作：“The Sun Also Rises”太阳照样升起 Hemingway became the spokesman for “a lost generation”

“A Farewell to Arms”永别了，武器

“For Whom the Bell Tolls”、丧钟为谁而鸣 “The Old Man and the Sea” 老人与海

In Our Time在我们的年代里;The Torrents of Spring春潮;短篇小说： Men Without Women没有女人的男人;The Winners Take Notheing胜者无所获;The Fifth Column and First Forty-nine Stories第五纵队与首次发表的四十九个短篇 政论： To Have and Have Not贫与富 回忆录： A Moveable Feast到处逍遥

3、William Faulkner 威廉.福克纳 美国南方文学的代表作家，创造了“约克纳帕塔法县“

①作品的主题：the universal theme of “the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself”人类心灵与自己冲突是宇宙永恒的主题。

②作品：短篇小说：“The Sound and the Fury”《喧嚣与骚动》成名作、“Absalom, Absalom!”、押沙龙，押沙龙 “Go Down, Moses” 去吧，摩西 揭露奴隶制、种族主义和清教的罪恶

Dry September干燥的九月

Marble Faun云石林神（诗集）;Soldiers' Pay兵饷（小说）③narrative method叙述方法:

1、stream of consciousness 意识流

2、multiple point of view, narrator多角度，多个叙述者

4、Ezra Pound 埃兹拉.庞德 诗人

①Imagism 意象派的代表人物。

②major work of poetry is the long poem called “The Cantos”

The Spirit of Romance罗曼史精神;The Anthology Des Imagistes意像派诗选;Cathay华夏（英译中国诗）;Literary Essays文学论;Hugh Swlwyn Mauberley;A Few Don'ts by Imagiste意像派戒条;Personage面具;Polite Essays文雅集;The Cantos of Ezra Pound庞德诗章（109首及8首未完成稿）

5、Robert Frest罗伯特·弗罗斯特 自然主义诗人 poet Boy's Wish少年心愿；

North of Boston波士顿之北（Mending Wall修墙,After Apple-picking摘苹果之后Mountain Interval山间（成熟阶段）（The Road Not taken没有选择的道路）;②he become a national bard美国民族诗人的翘首, win four Pulitzer Prizes获得了四次普利兹奖.③“The Road Not Taken”、“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”向往大自然，想逃避社会；死亡、迷惑

6、Wallace Stevens 华莱士.斯蒂文斯 诗人

②代表作：“The Man with the Blue Guitar”《带蓝吉他的人》；

“Necessary Angel”《必要的天使》，collection of his occasional lectures on poetry诗歌的评论.“Anecdote of the Jar”《坛子的轶事》jar – man made – art, wildness – nature, jar bring order/meaning to the nature, 艺术到自然的秩序，integrated 统一体 ③特点：(1)he adopted a variety of experimental styles, created poetic surfaces of Frenchified elegance, exotic imagery, odd sounds, curious analogies, and inscrutable titles.尝试过多种实验性的写作风格。

(2)he confronted the contemporary abandonment of traditional values and sought to come to terms with the confusions of his time.The problem of the interrelation between the ideal and the real became a constant theme in his later poetry.理想和现实中所交叉的矛盾。

(3)a series of oppositions between inner and outer worlds – between subject and object, perceiver and perceived, fiction and fact, “imagination and reality”(想象与现实)

7、Thomas Stearns Eliot 托马斯.斯特恩斯.爱略特 现代主义代言人

②代表作：

“The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock”poems，holds its place in the development of Eliot’s poetry as a whole.“Tradition and the Individual Talent”essay,随笔《传统和个人天才》, the earliest statement of his aesthetics第一次阐释了自己的审美观点.provided a useful instrument for modern criticism.成为现代评论极为有效的评判标准。

“The Waste Land”《荒原》one of the major works of modern literature.Use a new form — the orchestration of related themes in successive movement.新的文学形式即相关的主题在连续运动中构成交响效果。

名诗： Ash Wednesday圣灰星期三;Four Quarters四个四重奏

“Murder in the Cathedral”，poetic tragedy, 诗歌悲诗, a drama(戏剧)of impressive spiritual power.极富感染力的戏剧

诗剧：Murder in the Cathedral大教堂谋杀案;Family Reunion大团圆;Cocktail Party鸡尾酒会

8、John Steinbeck 约翰.斯坦贝克

①the foremost novelist of the American Depression.美国大萧条时期最杰出的小说家。

②代表作： “Of Mice and Men”《人鼠之间》 portrayed the tragic friendship between two migrant workers “The Grapes of Wrath”《愤怒的葡萄》regarded as masterpiece 视为杰作。Cup of Gold金杯;Tortilla Flat煎饼房;In Dubious Battle胜负未定;The Moon is Down月亮下去了;Cannery Row罐头厂街;The Pearl珍珠

9、Edwin Arlington Robinson埃德温.阿林顿.罗宾逊

Captain Craig克雷格上尉——诗体小说； The Town Down the River河上的城镇;The Man Against the Sky天边人影

Avon's Harvest沃冯的收成;Collected Poems诗集

10、Eugene Oneil尤金•奥尼尔

Beyond the Horizon天边外（其成名作）

The Hairy Ape毛猿;All the God's Children Got Wings上帝的儿女都有翅膀

11、Arthur Miller阿瑟·米勒

Death of the saleaman Situation Normal情况正常;The Man Who Had All the Luck吉星高照的人;All My Sons都是我的儿子;The Death of a Salesman推销员;The Crucible严峻的考验/萨姆勒的女巫;A View from the Bridge桥头眺望;A Memory of Two Mondays两个星期一的回忆;After the Fall堕落之后;Incident at Vichy维希事件;The Price代价;The Creation of the World and Other Business创世及其他;The Archbishop's Ceiling大主教的天花板;The American Clock美国时钟

12、Archibald Mac Leish阿基博尔德·麦克利什

Towers of Ivory象牙塔;The Happy Marriage幸福的婚姻;Streets in the Moon月色中的街;New Found Land新发现的大陆;Conquistador新西班牙的征服者;Poems1912-1952 广播剧：The Fall of the City城市的陷落;Airraid空袭

13、Sinclair Lewis辛克莱•刘易斯 美国第一个获诺贝尔奖

Dur Mr Wrenn我们的雷恩先生;The Job求职 The Main Street大先进;Babbitt巴比特;

第四篇：美国文学流派总结

美国文学流派总结

重农派(Agrarians)迷惘的一代(The Lost Generation)黑山派诗歌(BIack Mountain Poems)垮掉的一代(the Beat Generation)黑色幽默(Black humor)

重农派(Agrarians)

美国现代南方作家组成的一个松散的文化团体，又称“逃亡者派”。1915年，一些与田纳西州纳什维尔镇范德比尔特大学有关的文化人常常聚会讨论文学及哲学问题。第一次世界大战期间集会曾一度中断，1919年重又恢复。范德比尔特大学教师、诗人约翰·克罗·兰塞姆成为这一活动的实际领导者，他的周围聚集了一批有才华的年轻人，如诗人罗伯特·潘·华伦、阿伦·泰特、唐纳德·戴维森以及小说家安德鲁·纳尔逊·莱特尔、诗人莫里尔·莫尔等。1922至1925年，他们出版了有影响的小型文艺杂志《逃亡者》，它所发表的重要的文章后来收组成为《逃亡者文选》(1928)。“逃亡者派”一词即由此而来。

“逃亡者”们提倡维护南方传统的文学地方主义，成为“南方文艺复兴”的一文中坚力量。1930年，以“逃亡者派”为主体的12个南方作家，其中有兰塞姆、华伦、泰特以及诗人约翰·弗莱彻、剧作家斯塔克·扬格等人，撰写的专题论文集《我要表明我的态度》出版。这部被看作“重农派”宣言的著作在社会上引起了不小反响。这些文章的主旨都是以南方农业社会为尺度来评价、批判现代美国资本主义社会。此后，阿伦·泰特等人编辑出版了“重农派”的第二部论文集《谁占有美国?》(1936)。

30年代经济大萧条时期，重农思想对南方知识分子影响极大。这种思想不仅贯穿在兰塞姆、戴维森、泰特、华伦等人的作品中，在威廉·福克纳、卡罗琳·戈登、莱特尔以至尤多拉·韦尔蒂等人的小说中也有鲜明的体现，一时形成了一股很有声势的文化潮流，以致有“重农运动”之称。1935年，华伦与克林斯·布鲁克斯共同创办了《南方评论》，1939年兰塞姆创办了《肯庸评论》，这些杂志便成为“重农派”作家重要的活动阵地。美国现代重要的文艺批评流派“新批评派”就是围绕着这些刊物形成的。“新批评派”中的不少成员也都是“重农派”的核心人物。

迷惘的一代(The Lost Generation)

第一次世界大战后出现在美国的一个文学流派。它不是一个有组织、有共同纲领的团体。这个名词源出侨居巴黎的美国女作家格特鲁德·斯泰因。她有一次指着海明威等人说：“你们都是迷惘的一代。”海明威把这句话作为他的长篇小说《太阳照样升起》的一句题辞，于是“迷悯的一代”成了一个文学流派的名称。“迷惘的一代”作家的共同点是厌恶帝国主义战争，却又找不到出路。第一次世界大战爆发时，他们大多是20岁左右的年轻人。他们在美国政府“拯救世界民主”口号的蛊惑下，怀着民主的理想，奔赴欧洲战场。他们目睹人类空前的大屠杀，发现战争远不是他们原来设想的那种英雄的事业，所谓“民主”、“光荣”、“牺牲”都是骗人的东西。他们在战争中经历了种种苦难，了解到普通兵士中间的反战情绪。这在他们心灵中留下了无法医治的创伤。他们的作品反映了这些思想感情。例如，约翰·多斯·帕索斯的《三个士兵》、爱·肯明斯的《巨大的房间》、威廉·福克纳的《士兵的报酬》和《萨托里斯》。厄内斯特。海明威是“迷惘的一代”的代表作家。他到欧洲打过仗，负过重伤。海明威当时对待战争的态度，象其他反战作家一样，只限于厌恶、逃避与诅咒。他对战后的和平生活也不抱希望，所以在作品中迷惘、悲观的情绪较为浓厚。“迷惘的一代”不仅指参加过欧洲大战的作家，也包括没有参加过战争、但对前途感到迷悯和迟疑的20年代作家，例如司各特·菲茨杰拉尔德、托·斯·艾略特和托·马斯·沃尔夫等。“迷悯的一代”主要繁荣在20年代；30年代以后，他们的创作倾向，包括海明威在内，都有了变化。

黑山派诗歌(BIack Mountain Poems)

美国当代的一个诗歌流派。20世纪50年代初，在马萨诸塞州黑山学院任教的查·奥尔逊、罗·邓肯、罗·克里利等人创办《黑山评论》杂志，提倡与40年代流行的传统格律体相反的“放射体”诗歌，逐步形成一个流派。奥尔逊的《放射体诗歌》(1950)一文阐述了他们的主要观点。奥尔逊认为诗是把诗人的“能”传递给读者的东西，因此诗是“能的结构”和“能的放射”；要以顺应呼吸的“音乐片语”代替传统诗律中的节拍；形式只是内容的延伸；一个意念必须直接导向另一个意念，提倡快速写作。黑山派诗人还倡导诗歌朗诵。他们强调诗歌的自发性和口语化，采用美国口语和埋语，反对艾略特等人精雕细刻、广征博引的学院派诗风。50年代后期他们与垮掉派诗人合流，引起较大的反响。

垮掉的一代(the Beat Generation)

第二次世界大战后在美国出现的一个文学流派。有人根据英文“Beats”和“Beatniks”(“垮掉青年”的俗称)译成“避世青年”或“疲塌派”，也有人取其诗歌的部分特征，称为“节拍运动”或“敲打诗派”。“垮掉青年”对战后美国社会现实不满，又迫于麦卡锡主义的反动政治高压，便以“脱俗”方式来表示抗议。他们奇装异服，蔑视传统观念，厌弃学业和工作，长期浪迹于底层社会，形成了独特的社会圈子和处世哲学。50年代初，他们的反叛情绪表现为一股“地下文学”潮流，向保守文化的统治发动冲击。多数垮掉派文人来自东部。著名的有杰克·凯鲁亚克、艾伦·金斯堡、威廉· 巴罗斯、格雷戈里。柯尔索、约翰·克莱伦·霍尔姆斯、塞缪尔·克雷姆和加里·斯奈德等。1950年，凯鲁亚克与巴罗斯合写侦探故事未成，却各自完成了一部垮掉派小说《小镇与城市》(1951)和《吸毒者》(1953)。霍尔姆斯从中受到启发，在小说《走吧》(1952)中更明确地反映纽约“垮掉青年”的生活感受，又在《纽约时报》上鼓吹垮掉派文学，但这种尝试受到东部学院派势力的压抑，他们就往西部寻求同道和发展基地。当时洛杉矶近郊的西威尼斯有个以劳伦斯·李普顿为首的垮掉派组织，他于1955年发表小说《神圣的野蛮人》。在旧金山，以劳伦斯·弗林盖梯的“城市之光”书店为中心，聚合了一群立志从事“文艺复兴”的反学院派诗人，他们的首领即是后来成为“垮掉的一代”理论家的肯尼斯·雷克思罗斯。1955年夏天，“垮掉文人”和反学院派诗人(包括旧金山诗人和黑山派诗人)在旧金山联合举办诗歌朗诵会，自此之后垮掉派文学作品开始流行。金斯堡在会上朗读了他那首被誉为“50年代《荒原》”的长诗《嚎叫》。这首诗以怨气冲天的哀号表达“我这一代精英”的痛苦与自暴自弃，斥责“莫洛克”神统治下的军事化、商业化的社会。1956年，他的诗集出版，轰动全国。1957年，凯鲁亚克的长篇小说《在路上》出版，它描写垮掉分子在各地流浪的生活，使大批精神苦闷的青年为之神往，奉为“生活教科书”。这两部作品出版后，《常青评论》、《黑山评论》等杂志连续出版专号，加以推荐。诺曼·梅勒的被称为美国存在主义宣言的《白种黑人》(1957)，以及1960年他在波士顿审讯中为巴罗斯小说所做的辩护，则从理论上论证了“垮掉文学”的意义。商业化宣传使得美国青年纷纷接受“垮掉”生活方式，从爵士乐、摇摆舞、吸大麻、性放纵直至参掸念佛和“背包革命”(指漫游旅行)，一时成为风气。“垮掉派”人生哲学的核心是个人在当代社会中的生存问题。霍尔姆斯和梅勒借用欧洲存在主义观念，宣扬通过满足感官**来把握自我。斯奈德和雷克思罗斯则吸收佛教禅宗的学说，以虚无主义对抗生存危机。在政治上，他们标榜自己是“没有目标的反叛者，没有口号的鼓动者，没有纲领的革命者”。在艺术上，据雷克思罗斯在《离异：垮掉的一代的艺术》(1957)中宣称，他们“以全盘否定高雅文化为特点”。凯鲁亚克发明的“自发式散文”写作法和查尔斯·奥尔逊的“放射诗”论，在“垮掉文人”中被广泛奉行。

由上述艺术观点支配的“垮掉文学”运动，虽然昙花一现，而且掺杂大量不健康的因素，仍在美国文学史上留下了一定影响。大量“垮掉诗”因具有大众化和反象征主义倾向，长期在青年中流传。在小说方面，凯鲁亚克的一组用自发表现法写成的“路上小说”，除了《在路上》之外，还有《地下人》(1958)、《达摩流浪汉》(1958)、《特莉斯苔萨》(1959)、《孤独天使》(1959)等。它们的一个特点是继承了马克．吐温的《哈克贝里·费思历险记》所开创的美国文学中写流浪生活的传统，形成了一种为当代其他小说家所仿效的模式，主人公为逃脱污浊的环境而四出漫游，寻找自由和归宿。它们的另一个特点是主人公毫不隐讳地大谈自己的境遇和感受，作自我剖析，这种“个人新闻体”手法在印年代得到较大的发展。巴罗斯对暴行、堕落、吸毒和犯罪等的描写在“垮掉”作家中首屈一指。他同时又在语言和小说的形式上进行大胆实验，用“剪裁法”拼凑和改变小说的结构。他的代表作《裸露的午餐》(1959)，由于反映了“真正地狱般的”地下生活，引起了一场诉讼和谐争。以后的作品如《诺瓦快车》(1964)、《柔软机器》(1966)和《爆炸的火车票》(1967)，也采用了真实与梦属相混合的手法，全面、冷酷地表现作者厌恶社会的冷酷的幽默感，后来有人因此把巴罗斯列入“黑色幽默”小说家行列。

黑色幽默(Black humor)

20世纪60年代美国重要的文学流派。1965年3月，弗里德曼编了一本短篇小说集，收入12个作家的作品，题名为《黑色幽默》，“黑色幽默”一词即由此而来。它是60年代美国小说创作中最有代表性的流派之一。进入70年代后，“黑色幽默”的声势大减，但不时仍有新作出现，它在美国文学中至今仍有相当深远的影响。它的主要作家有约瑟夫·海勒、克特·小伏尼格、托马斯·平钦、约翰·巴斯、詹姆斯·珀迪、布鲁斯·杰伊·弗里德曼、唐纳德·巴赛尔姆等。

“黑色幽默”的小说家突出描写人物周围世界的荒谬和社会对个人的压迫，以一种无可奈何的嘲讽态度表现环境和个人(即“自我”)之间的互不协调，并把这种互不协调的现象加以放大，扭曲，变成畸形，使它们显得更加荒诞不经，滑稽可笑，同时又令人感到沉重和苦闷。因此，有一些评论家把“黑色幽默”称为“绞架下的幽默”或“大难临头时的幽默”。“黑色幽默”作家往往塑造一些乖僻的“反英雄”人物，借他们的可笑的言行影射社会现实，表达作家对社会问题的观点。在描写手法方面，“黑色幽默”作家也打破传统，小说的情节缺乏逻辑联系，常常把叙述现实生活与幻想和回忆混合起来，把严肃的哲理和插科打诨混成一团。例如海勒的《第二十二条军规》、平钦的《万有引力之虹》、小伏尼格的《第一流的早餐》。有些“黑色幽默”小说则嘲笑人类的精神危机，如巴斯的《烟草经纪人》和珀迪的《凯柏特·赖特开始了》。

“黑色幽默”作为一种美学形式，属于喜剧范畴，但又是一种带有悲剧色彩的变态的喜剧。“黑色幽默”的产生是与60年代美国的动荡不安相联系的。当代资本主义社会的荒谬可笑的事物和“喜剧性”的矛盾不是作家们凭主观意志所能创造的，它们是那种社会生活的反映。这种反映虽然具有一定的社会意义和认识价值，作家虽然也抨击了包括统治阶级在内的一切权威，但是他们强调社会环境是难以改变的，因而作品中往往流露出悲观绝望的情绪。

第五篇：美国文学 期末考试 总结一

1.The Minister’s Black Veil--Hawthorne, 人物：Hooper

总结：A universally beloved minister appears in church one Sunday wearing a small black

veil which hides his face from the forehead to the mouth.Everyone is made uneasy by this.After he has worn it for several Sundays a delegation from the congregation go to his home

to ask him to remove it, or at least explain why he is wearing it.But intimidated胁迫 by the veil,they are afraid to raise the subject.His bride-to-be then declares she will speak to him about it.When he will not discuss the

matter with her she says she is afraid to marry him unless he lifts the veil at least once, or tells her

why he must refuses.He will not but begs her to marry him anyway, instead of condemning them

each to a lonely life.He continues to wear the veil throughout a lonely life.Everyone avoids him

but his sermons布道 become even more impressive and many people are brought to a state of

grace by them.“black veil”symbolizes the cover used to keep one’s guilt as a secret.2.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—Mark Twain 人物：Huck, Jim 1.Huck’s quest for freedom and Jim’s quest for anti-slavery

2.Society vs.individual

3.Huck’ birth and rebirth

4.Huck’s loneliness and isolation 人物性格分析：Huck is always practical and natural, exhibiting good common sense.Huck is

extremely adaptable.Huck is also very shrewd and possesses a good inventive ability.His

sympathy for other human beings, his shrewdness and ingenuity, his basic intelligence, his good

common sense and his basic practicality.3.An American Tragedy--Theodore Dreiser 人物：Clyde Griffths

总结：Clyde thinks money and success will bring him happiness.When a pregnant girlfriend

threatens to destroy this dream, he plans to kill her.At the last moment, he changes his mind, but

the girl dies accidentally anyway.Since Clyde has decided not to kill her, is he really responsible

for her death? This becomes the main question during the trial审判.The trial itself is not really

fair.The newspapers stir up public anger against him.In the end, Clyde is executed.Clearly,Dreiser believes that Clyde is not really guilty.Dreiser calls his novel a tragedy, and in certain

ways it is similar to classical Greek tragedy.It concentrates on a single individual, who gives it

unity;and his individual is eventually destroyed by forces which he cannot control.4.The Hairy Ape—Eugene O’Neill人物：Yank

全文总结：Yank, the ape-like seaman, attempts to rise to a higher level.Yank’s initial crisis is

seeing himself unfavorably in the mirror of the society girl when she calls him a filthy beast.After

this incident, and throughout the play, he struggles to find out exactly who and what he is.Ultimately he tries to find meaning and purpose in the animal world by freeing a caged gorilla, but

this final effort fails also.In the end, Yank dies, without ever finding his place of belonging.The

general feeling is one of despair: Man is rootless in an indifferent and impersonal universe.The next day Yank goes to the monkey house at the zoo.The gorilla’s brute

strength impresses him and he speaks to the animal as a friend.He describes the feelings he had in

the park, watching the sun rise on the sea.At last he understood Paddy’s nostalgia for the old life,but he knew he could never belong to it.This realization led him to seek out the gorilla.Yank says

the gorilla is lucky to belong to one world while he belongs to neither heaven nor earth.Identifying himself with the animal, Yank frees him to get even with the men who have put him in the cage.The gorilla picks him up, crushes him and throws him into the open cage.When the door has slammed shut on him and the gorilla has gone the dying Yank calls out mockingly to imaginary spectators to step right up and have a look at the one and only---Hairy Ape.He dies, having pronounced this final judgment on himself.In a stage note the playwright suggests that perhaps Yank at last belongs.5.A Farewell to Arms—Ernest Hemingway 人物：Henry, Catherine Barkley, Emilio

Dialogue

Interior monologue// stream of consciousness

Understatement The Grim Reality of War

The Relationship between Love and Pain

Feelings of lossThe novel tells about the war experience and the love story of an American lieutenant, Henry, during the World War I.Henry serves in the Italian ambulance crops, and fall in love with an English nurse, Catherine.Although in civilian clothes, he is suspected, and forced to flee with Cat to Switzerland.They go to Lausanne for the birth of their child, but the baby is stillborn and Cat dies in childbirth.Henry is left alone in a strange land;his dream of leading a decent life broke into smithereens.So the novel is both farewell to war, and a farewell to love.6.Autobiography--Benjamin FranklinIt is probably the first autobiography in American literature.It is an interesting record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity.It’s a record of self-examination and self-improvement.He wrote it at 65.