American LiteratureAmerican Literature美国文学史及选读

外国语学院　王秀银

I Class RequirementsI Class Requirements

1.One term paper (less than 500 words typed paper 2.Two presentations in class 30% (including reciting,questions)3.Close-book test 70% II Introduction1.Text BookTaoJie: Selected Readings in American

Literature2.Video Watching Four times3.Reading List

Reading ListReading List

*1) Washington Irving:

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

2) E.A.Poe

The Cask of Amontillado

3) Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter

*4) James Fenimore Cooper

The Last of the Mohicans

Reading List (continued)Reading List (continued)

5) H.W.Longfellow

A Psalm of Life

6)Walt Whitman

Song of Myself

7)Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death

Reading List (continued)Reading List (continued)8) Mark Twain The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras CountyThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer*9) Jack London Martin Eden*10) Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie11) Robert Frost Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Reading List (continued)Reading List (continued)

*12) T.S.Eliot13) F.Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby14) Ernest Hemingway A Clean Well-Lighted Place A Farewell to Arms15) William Faulkner Barn Burning A Rose for Emily

Why do you study literature?Why do you study literature?

Literature gives pleasure.

How to analyze literature?How to analyze literature?

Literature is language Literature is aesthetic Literature is fiction Literature is true Literature is

expressive

The Elements of FictionThe Elements of Fiction

PlotCharacterizationThemeSettingPoint of viewSymbolismProtagonist

How to appreciate a poem?How to appreciate a poem?

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (by Robert Frost)

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village,though; He will not see me stopping here To watch the woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningStopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

雪夜林边停雪夜林边停树林属谁我自明，他家住在那村中；安能料到我来此，赏观大雪漫林丛。小小马儿显疑情，为何偏在这儿停？冰湖林间无农舍，又逢雪夜黑蒙蒙。

Stopping by Woods on a Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningSnowy Evening

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely,dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

雪夜林边停（二）雪夜林边停（二）马儿甩动缰绳铃。欲告主人迷路经。只闻轻风蔌蔌语，鹅毛雪片淅淅生。

夜林深沉尤可爱，信守诺言难久停。找店尚早需赶路，投宿之前再远行。

A Religious StudyA Religious Study

The owner of the woods is God.Whose house is in the village, that is, who

has a church in the village.The poet is mistaken when he says that

God will not see him, because God can see everything.

God sent his message to through the horse.

A Religious StudyA Religious Study

The picture of a snowy night suggests the scene of the birth of Jesus.

In stanza four,tells of the man’s love of God’s creation,and the awareness of our responsibilities to other human beings.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening as a short storyEvening as a short story

It can be read as a poem about a man with a death wish.

It makes sense to read the poem as a kind of very short story.

Conflict:the appeal of the snowy woods versus the call to return to the human world.

The world at the beginning of the poem is a world of property , but the world at the end of the poem is a world of mysterious responsibilities.

The Literature of Colonial The Literature of Colonial AmericanAmerican

Time Line Pre-1400 Hundreds of American Indians tribes

inhabit the America before European explorers arrive

1492 Christopher Columbus lands in the New World

1617 Jamestown,Virginia:the first permanent English settlement

1620 Pilgrims land at Plymouth

The Literature of Colonial The Literature of Colonial AmericanAmerican

The first writingsThe first American writer: Captain John SmithMayflowerWhat does “Puritan” mean ?Mayflower Compact and William BradfordEnlightenment

MayflowerMayflower

The ship “Mayflower” carried about 100 passengers(their leader called them pilgrims,or travelers) and took 66 days to beat its way across the Atlantic. In December of 1620, the Mayflower put the pilgrims ashore at Plymouth,Massachusetts.Before the winter was over, half of them were dead. Only some of these first colonists were Puritans.

What does “Puritan” mean ?What does “Puritan” mean ?

Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church.As the word itself hints,Puritans wanted

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.The Puritans wished to restore simplicity to church services and authority of the Bible to theology.The Puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people, and it followed logically that anyone who challenged their way of life was opposing God’s will and was not to be accepted.

Their lives were disciplined and hard.Puritans tended to suspect joy and laughter as symptoms of sin.As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind.American Puritanism also had a enduring influence on American literature.

Mayflower CompactMayflower Compact

It is an agreement they signed before they left the ship,they decided to form a government and follow an elected leader.

William Bradford(1590-1657) was elected as the second governor and reelected 30 times.