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The United States of America

The United States of America. 英语国家概况. 英语国家概况. Chapter 13 Literature. The United States of America. 英语国家概况. The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods. I. The Romantic Period. The Contemporary Period. VI. II. The Realistic Period. III. The Naturalistic Period. IV. V. The Modern Period.

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The United States of America

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  1. The United States of America 英语国家概况 英语国家概况

  2. Chapter 13 Literature The United States of America 英语国家概况

  3. The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods I The Romantic Period The Contemporary Period VI II The Realistic Period III The Naturalistic Period IV V The Modern Period CONTENT

  4. 1.3 Representative figures and works 1.1 Feature inthe Colonial Period 1.2 Feature in the Revolutionary Period The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods I

  5. Q1: Who were the first Americans? How did they come to America? 1.1 The Colonial Period(1607-1775) Q2: What is the influence of pluralism on American literature?

  6. 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 Puritanism with Chinese Confucianism.

  7. 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 forwarded in the Revolutionary Period?

  8. 1.3.1 Jonathan Edwards 1.3.2 Benjamin Franklin 1.3 Representative Figures

  9. 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.

  10. 1.3.1 Jonathan Edwards (cont.) • 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.”

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 2.3 Writers of Poetry 2.1 Feature 2.4 Questions 2.2 Writers of Fiction II The Romantic Period (1790-1865)

  14. 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

  15. Washington Irving James Fennimore Cooper Ralph Waldo Emerson Nathaniel Hawthorne EdgarAllanPoe HermanMelville 2.2 Writers of Fiction 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.4 2.2.5 2.2.6

  16. 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.

  17. 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.

  18. 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

  19. 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—TheScarlet Letter • other works • The House of Seven Gables (1851) • The Blithedale Romance (1852) • The Marble Faun (1860)

  20. 2.2.5Edgar 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)

  21. 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.

  22. Walt Whitman Emily Dickinson 2.3 Writers of Poets 2.3.1 2.3.2

  23. 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.

  24. 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.

  25. 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.

  26. 2.4 Questions Q1: What are the characteristics of American writing during the Romantic period? Q2:How much do you like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s work—The Scarlet Letter, and how do you interpret the letter “A”?

  27. 3.1 Feature 3.2 Representative Figures III The Realistic Period (1790-1865)

  28. 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

  29. Mark Twain Henry James William Dean Howells 3.2 Representative Figures 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 2.2.5 2.2.6

  30. 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.

  31. Masterpiece 3.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910) (cont.) • 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.

  32. Other Famous Novels 3.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910) (cont.) • 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)

  33. Contribution 3.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910) (cont.) • 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

  34. 3.2.2 Henry James (1843-1916) • 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

  35. Major Works 3.2.2 Henry James (1843-1916) (cont.) • The American (1877) • Daisy Miller (1878) • The Wings of the Dove (1902) • The Golden Bowl (1904) • The Portrait of A Lady (1881)

  36. 3.2.3 William Dean Howells (1837-1920) • 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)

  37. 4.1 Feature 4.2 Representative Figure The Naturalistic Period (1900-1914) IV

  38. 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.

  39. Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) 4.2 Representative Figure • 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”

  40. Masterpiece 4.2 Representative Figure (cont.) • 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.

  41. Other Works 4.2 Representative Figure (cont.) Trilogy (三部曲) of desire • The Financer (1912) • The Titan (1914) • The Stoic (1945) • masterpiece—The American Tragedy (1925)

  42. 5.1 Lost Generation 5.2 Modern Poetry The Modern Period (1914-1939) V

  43. F. Scott Fitzgerald 5.1.1 Ernest Hemingway 5.2.2 5. 1 Lost Generation Q: What is the 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

  44. 5.1.1 F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) • The Great Gatsby—amasterpiece 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

  45. 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)

  46. 5.1.2 Earnest Hemingway (1899-1961) (cont.)

  47. 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

  48. 5.2 Modern Poetry Representative Figure • 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.

  49. Jewish Writers The Beat Movement 6.2 6.3 Women’s Voices 6.5 Drama 6.6 VI The Contemporary Period (1939- ) Black Writers 6.1 Literature of Modern South 6.4

  50. 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

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