the united states of america

The United The United States of States of AmericaAmerica

英语国家概况英语国家概况

Chapter 13 LiteratureChapter 13 Literature

The United States of America

英语国家概况

英语国家概况

Foreign Language Teaching and Research PressForeign Language Teaching and Research Press

The Colonial andRevolutionary PeriodsI

The Romantic PeriodII

The Realistic Period III

The Naturalistic PeriodIV

The Modern PeriodV

CONTENT

The Contemporary PeriodVI


The Colonial and Revolutionary PeriodsI

1.2 Feature in the Revolutionary Period

1.3 Representative figures and works

1.1 Feature in the Colonial Period


1.1 The Colonial Period (1607-1775)

Q1: Who were Q1: Who were the first the first Americans? Americans? How did they How did they come to come to America?America?

Q2: What is Q2: What is the influence the influence of pluralism of pluralism on American on American literature?literature?


1.1 The Colonial Period (1607-1775)(cont.)

Character of Writings—religious, practical, or historical.

American Puritanism—major topic stresses predestination ( 预言 ) original sin total depravity ( 堕落 ) limited atonement ( 赎罪 ) or the salvation ( 拯

救 ) of a selected few who would receive God’s grace.

Discussion: Compare the American Discussion: Compare the American Puritanism with Chinese ConfucianismPuritanism with Chinese Confucianism..


1.2 The Revolutionary Period

representative work—Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.

Character of Declaration of Independence

rhetorical ( 带修辞色彩的 ) vigor

refined diction ( 措辞 )

polished style

ardent longing for freedom

Q: How was American literature Q: How was American literature forwarded in the Revolutionary forwarded in the Revolutionary Period?Period?


1.3 Representative Figures

1.3.2 Benjamin Franklin

1.3.1 Jonathan Edwards


1.3.1 Jonathan Edwards

religious idealism powerful sermons (布道 )—

preaching the puritan ideas and condemning people’s depravity.

best-known work— “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741).

initiating the Great Awakening Movement to revive Puritanism.


Almanac—published continuously for almost a quarter of a century.

adages (格言 ) and sayings

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

“Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

1.3.1 Jonathan Edwards (cont.)


1.3.2 Benjamin Franklin

levelheaded (头脑冷静的 ) common sense

a completely worldly man; a statesman, ambassador, scientist, essayist as well.

Poor Richard’s Almanac—both a literary achievement and a profitable business.


1.3.2 Benjamin Franklin (cont.)

Autobiography—most famous work. “the faithful account of the colorful career of

America’s first self-made man”—rising from poverty and obscurity (身份低微 ) to wealth and fame.

Autobiography—a record of spiritual growth in addition to self-examination and self-improvement.


The Romantic Period (1790-1865)II

2.2 Writers of Fiction

2.3 Writers of Poetry

2.1 Feature

2.4 Questions


2.1 Feature

American Renaissance.Character of American writings

free expression of emotions, attention to the psychic ( 精神的 ) states of their character.

exalted ( 赞美 ) the individual and the common man.

revealed unique characteristics of their own and grew on the native lands.

Best Representives Washington Irving & James Fennimore Cooper

Walt Whiteman & Emily Dickinson


2.2 Writers of Fiction

James Fennimore Cooper

Edgar Allan Poe

Herman Melville

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Washington Irving

Nathaniel Hawthorne

2.2.1

2.2.2

2.2.3

2.2.4

2.2.6

2.2.5


2.2.1 Washington Irving (1783-1859)

“the father of American literature”

the first to write using the local color and the details in his works.

symbolism to the themes. Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of

Sleepy Hollow—most famous stories.


2.2.2 James Fennimore Cooper (1789-1851)

two great figures of American mythology: the brave frontiersman and the bold Indian.

author of the “Leather Stocking Tales”—a series of five novels

The Pioneers (1823)

The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

The Prairie (1827)

The Pathfinder (1840)

The Deerslayer (1841) frontiersman hero—Natty Bumppo

representing the ideal American.


2.2.3 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism—summit of American Romanticism.

defined as “the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses”.

His essays have a casual style.

The best—Nature and Essays


2.2.4 Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

a descendant of Puritan immigrants. a pioneer in psychological description. wrote as a moralist; tried to find out

how men reacted in their mind when they found they had done something wrong; exposed the evils of the society by describing the psychological activities of human beings.

most famous novel—The Scarlet Letter other works

The House of Seven Gables (1851)

The Blithedale Romance (1852)

The Marble Faun (1860)


2.2.5 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

a lonely writer both in life and literature history.

literary output: poetry, short stories, and reviews for literary works.

strange theme and style make him an outsider of the main current of American literature.

foreigners acclaimed him as genius masterpieces

The Raven (1845)

The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)


2.2.6 Herman Melville (1819-1891)

fame—established on Moby Dick.

acknowledged as one of the world’s great masterpieces.

theme—too far advanced for his contemporaries

presenting a bleak view of the world:

• the universe is Godless and purposeless;

• human life is also meaningless and futile.


2.3 Writers of Poets

Emily Dickinson

Walt Whitman2.3.1

2.3.2


2.3.1 Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

poems—The Leaves of Grass combined the ideal of democratic

common man and that of the rugged individual

poetic style

free verse—poetry without a fixed beat ( 拍子 ) or regular rhyme scheme.

his poetry ironically ignored by the general public due to his unconventional style.


2.3.2 Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

different from Whitman the poetess—turned to the outer

world and embraced society, democracy and nation;

cast her eyes inward to explore the inner feelings of the individual.

shy and sensitive nature, she avoided visitors and led a quite reclusive ( 隐居的 ) life.


2.3.2 Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) (cont.)

short poems the real world—invisible in the concise lines,

neither are there people. nature dwell in her world, and metaphysical (形而上学的 ) thinking like death and immortality occupies her mind.

most famous poems

My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close (1896)

Because I could Not Stop for Death (1890)

A Narrow Fellow in the Grass (1891) constructing a wonderful world—small but intense,

fresh, individual and original.


2.4 Questions

Q1: What are the characteristics of Q1: What are the characteristics of American writing during the American writing during the Romantic period?Romantic period?

Q2:Q2: How much do you like Nathaniel How much do you like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work—Hawthorne’s work—The Scarlet The Scarlet LetterLetter, and how do you interpret , and how do you interpret the letter “A”?the letter “A”?


The Realistic Period (1790-1865)III


3.1 Feature


3.1 Feature

a reaction against Romanticism.

stressing—truthful treatment of material.

the writings are concerned with the world of experience, the commonplace, the familiar and the low.

dominant figures—

Mark Twain

William Dean Howells

Henry James



Henry James

William Dean Howells

Mark Twain3.2.1

3.2.2

3.2.3

2.2.6

2.2.5


3.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910)

grew up in the Mississippi River frontier town of Hannibal, Missouri.

Twain’s style— based on vigorous, realistic, colloquial American speech—a new appreciation of their national voice.

first major author coming from the interior of the country; capturing its distinctive, humorous slang and iconoclasm.


Masterpiece The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn Huck’s inner struggle

between his sense of guilt in helping Jim to escape and profound conviction that Jim is a human being.

Through escape, he gets to know Jim better and accepts Jim as both a human being and a loyal friend.

3.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910) (cont.)


Other Famous Novels

The Adventure of Tom Sawyer (1876)The Prince and the Pauper (1882)Life on the Mississippi (1883)The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900)The Mysterious Stranger (1916)

3.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910) (cont.)


Contribution

making colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in literature.

influence of his style

sweeping across the American literary world.

far-reaching

making Some 20th-century writers acknowledge their indebtedness ( 受惠 ) to Mark Twain

3.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910) (cont.)


bridges the 19th and 20th centuries and connects America and Europe.

“the international theme” —the meeting of America and Europe. Europeans—more cultured,

more concerned with art, and more aware of the subtleties of social situations

Americans—morality and innocence

3.2.2 Henry James (1843-1916)


Major Works

The American (1877)Daisy Miller (1878)The Wings of the Dove (1902)The Golden Bowl (1904)The Portrait of A Lady (1881)

3.2.2 Henry James (1843-1916) (cont.)


realism—photographic pictures of externals but includes a central concern with “motives” and psychological conflicts.

prolific writer— drama, poetry and novels in addition to criticism, travelogues (旅行见闻 ) and autobiography.

masterpiece—The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885)

3.2.3 William Dean Howells (1837-1920)


The Naturalistic Period (1900-1914) IV

4.2 Representative Figure

4.1 Feature


4.1 Feature

Apply principles of scientific determinism to fiction and drama. Viewing human beings as animals in the natural

world responding to environmental forces and internal stresses and drives.


Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)

American values—materialistic

human individual is obsessed with a never-ending, yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his desires.

• Money

• Sex

embracing social Darwinism

• “the survival of the fittest”

4.2 Representative Figure


Masterpiece

Sister Carrie (1900) Carrie—a country girl looking for a

better life in Chicago. Drouet took her home as mistress. Hurstwood, Drouet’s friend, deserted family and forced her to run away with him. Carrie became a famous actress; Hurstwood committed suicide.

Dreiser’s naturalistic pursuit

expounding the purposelessness of life

attacking the conventional moral standards.

4.2 Representative Figure (cont.)


Other Works

Trilogy (三部曲 ) of desire The Financer (1912)

The Titan (1914)

The Stoic (1945)

masterpiece—The American Tragedy (1925)

4.2 Representative Figure (cont.)


The Modern Period (1914-1939) V

5.2 Modern Poetry

5.1 Lost Generation


5. 1 Lost Generation

American writers caught in WWI and cut off from the old values; unable to come to terms with the new era.

5.1.1 Ernest Hemingway5.2.2

Q: What is the Lost Q: What is the Lost Generation?Generation?

F. Scott Fitzgerald 5.1.1


5.1.1 F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

The Great Gatsby—a masterpiece in American literature.

Gatsby discovers the devastating cost of success in terms of personal fulfillment and love.

Gatsby’s life pattern: first, a dream

Then, disenchantment ( 觉醒 )

Finally, a sense of failure and despair

end of the American Dream


5.1.2 Earnest Hemingway (1899-1961)

Nobel Prize winner major works

A Farewell To Arms (1928)

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

The Old Man and the Sea (1952)


5.1.2 Earnest Hemingway (1899-1961) (cont.)


Hemingway’s world—chaotic and meaningless man fighting a solitary struggle against a force he

does not understand.

Hero possessing a “despairing courage”. the courage enables a man to behave like a man, to

assert his dignity in face of adversity ( 灾祸 ).

writing style— colloquialism concrete, specific words

casual and conversational

short, simple sentences

5.1.2 Earnest Hemingway (1899-1961)(cont.)


5.2 Modern Poetry

Ezra Pound (1885-1972)— a link between US and Britain

Imagism “image”

something that “presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.”

The Cantos— he wrote and published until his death.

Representative Figure


The Contemporary Period (1939- )

Black Writers6.1

Jewish Writers6.2

The Beat Movement6.3

Literature of Modern South6.4

Women’s Voices6.5

Drama6.6

VI


6.1 Black Writers

Richard Wright—Native Son (1940) Ralph Ellison—Invisible Man (1952) James Baldwin—Go Tell It on the Mountain

(1954) readers conscious of an oppressed race groaning

and struggling for salvation


Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

poet laureate, literary figure of Harlem Renaissance.

embraced African-American jazz rhythms and incorporated blues, spirituals, colloquial speech, and folkways in his poetry.

most beloved poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” suggesting that, like the great

rivers of the world, African culture will endure and deepen.

6.1 Black Writers (cont.)


6.2 Jewish writers

Jewish writers not only focus upon Jewish characters and social questions, but also bring a distinctively Jewish sense of humor to their novels.

Yiddish—language used by European Jews preserve Jewish culture, isolated but intact ( 完好

的 ), until the early 20th century.


Saul Bellow (1915-2005)

Won Nobel Prize in 1976 Famous works

■ Dangling Man (1944)

■ The Victim (1947)

■ The Adventures of Augie March (1954)

■Henderson the Rain King (1959)

■ Herzog (1964)

■ Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970)

■ Humboldt's Gift (1975)

6.2 Jewish writers (cont.)


Saul Bellow (1915-2005)

6.2 Jewish writers (cont.)


6.3 The Beat Movement

“beat”— representing a non-conformist, rebellious attitude toward conventional values concerning sex, religion and the American way of life, an attitude resulting from the feeling of depression and exhaustion and the need to escape into an unconventional, communal mode of life.

central Beat writers

William Burroughs

Allen Ginsberg

Jack Kerouac


Beat Writers’ Works

express emotion “raw”, rather than “cooked” through memory and translation into art.

representative works Jack Kerouac— On the Road (1957),

William Burroughs—Naked Lunch (1959)

Allen Ginsberg—Howl (1956)

6.3 The Beat Movement (cont.)


Beat Writers’ Works

6.3 The Beat Movement (cont.)


6.4 Literature of Modern South

William Faulkner—Nobel Prize winning novelist

Major works The Sound and the Fury (1929)

As I Lay Dying (1930)

Light in August (1932)

Absalom, Absalom! (1936)

Go Down, Moses (1942)

stories set in a small southern county, exploration of basic human nature and basic patterns of human behavior make them enduring works in world literature.


6.5 Women’s Voices

Feminist movement during the 1960s and 1970s affected AmericanAmerican culture and women’s relationship with the opposite sex.


Tony Morrison (1931- )

Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

explored the experience of black women in a racist culture.

famous novels—The Bluest Eye (1970) & Beloved (1987) the latter is about Margaret

Garner, a slave escaping with her children; when recaptured, attempted to kill her children rather than return them to life of slavery.

6.5 Women’s Voices (cont.)


Alice Walker (1944- )

spoke for the women’s movement, for the anti-nuclear movement.

concern of her works sexual and racial realities

within black communities;

unavoidable connections between family and society.



Alice Walker’s Masterpiece

Fiction—weaving back and forth through time and individual perspectives.

Characters—seek redemption, forgiveness and peace.

received the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for The Color Purple.



Amy Tan (1952- )

Chinese-American writer portrays the lives of Chinese

American daughters and their Chinese immigrant mothers.

characters’ conflicting emotions being native-born Americans of

Chinese ancestry.

Novels The Joy Luck Club (1989)

The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991)

• focus on the relationships between mothers and daughters.



6.6 Drama

rise of American drama in 20th century.

With the opening of theatres, drama turned up as an influential literary form in American literature.

three representative playwrights.


Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953)

greatest playwright, won Nobel Prize in 1936.

drama—serious literature and wrote tragedies consistently.

wrote 45 plays highly experimental in form and

style;

combining literary theories of symbolism, naturalism and expressionism.

great influence on later American playwrights.

6.6 Drama (cont.)


Eugene O’Neill’s Famous Plays

Beyond the Horizon (1920) The Hairy Ape (1922) Desire Under the Elms (1924) The Iceman Cometh (1946) — climax of his career Long Day’s Journey into Night (1956) sensitive artist.

felt “the discordant ( 不调和的 ), broken, faithless rhythm” of his time;

probing into the root of human desires and frustrations;

pessimistic plays, leaving the characters without illusion and hope.

6.6 Drama (cont.)


Eugene O’Neill’s Famous Plays

6.6 Drama (cont.)


Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)

a dramatist, wrote novel, poetry, prose and short stories.

representative works The Glass Menagerie

(1945) A Streetcar Named Desire

(1947)—for which was awarded Pulitzer Prize.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)

Suddenly Last Summer (1958)

6.6 Drama (cont.)


Tennessee Williams’ Writing Features

wrote of isolated and lonely people of American society.

good at creating pathetic (悲惨的 ) woman typical one— Laura, heroine in The Glass

Menagerie.

a fragile girl lives in illusion, which is smashed to pieces by a male intruder—symbol of reality.

6.6 Drama (cont.)


Arthur Miller (1915-2005) “social dramatist”—concerns

the conflicts of the individual within society and presents a social critique of the inhuman capitalist system.

Death of a Salesman (1947) modern tragedy; presentation and disclosure of the

cruelty and bloodiness of capitalism. other important plays

All My Sons (1947) The Crucible (1953) A View from the Bridge (1955)

6.6 Drama (cont.)


Arthur Miller Masterpiece—Death of a Salesman

6.6 Drama (cont.)


Arthur Miller Masterpiece—Death of a Salesman

modern tragedypresentation and disclosure of the cruelty

and bloodiness of capitalism.miserable life and tragic death of Willy—

firm conviction in American dream.Disillusioned, he killed himself to get $

20,000 life insurance money.

6.6 Drama (cont.)


Willy—the salesman

not ambitious dream &

harsh reality

To establish his own business, to pay off the loan for the house, to have successful children and live happily with

his family.

The company he served for 30 years dismissed him for his getting old. Two sons turned out to be losers in the society;

One—a thief; the other—a braggart.

6.6 Drama (cont.)

the united states of america

Documents