英美文学选读自学资料 - 美国文学部分

mu

　　American Literature

　　Chapter one : The romantic period

　　I. Emerson’s transcendentalism and his attitude toward nature:
　　1.Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.
　　2. Emerson’s transcendentalism:
　　The over-soul—it is an all-pervading power goodness, from which all things come and of which all are a part. It is a supreme reality of mind, a spiritual unity of all beings and a religion. It is a communication between an individual soul and the universal over-soul. And he strongly believe in the divinity and infinity of man as an individual, so man can totally rely on himself.
　　3.His attitude toward nature:
　　Emerson loves nature. His nature is the garment of the over-soul, symbolic and moral bound. Nature is not something purely of the matter, but alive with God’s presence. It exercise a healthy and restorative influence on human beings. Children can see nature better than adult.

　　II. Hawthorne’s Puritanism and his black vision of man:
　　1. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puritans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the church of England.
　　2. his black vision of man—by the Calvinistic concept of original sin, he believed that human being are evil natured and sinful, and this sin is ever present in human heart and will pass one generation to another.
　　3. Young Goodman Brown—it shows that everyone has some evil secrets. The innocent and naive Brown is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and then he becomes distrustful and doubtful. Brown stands for everyone ,who is born pure and has no contact with the real world ,and the prominent people of the village and church. They cover their secrets during daily lives, and under some circumstances such as the witch’s Sabbath, they become what they are. Even his closed wife, Faith, is no exception. So Brown is aged in that night.

　　III. The symbolism of Melville’s Mobby-Dick
　　1.The voyage to catch the white whale is the one of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of universe.
　　2. To Ahab, the whale is an evil creature or the agent of an evil force that control the universe. As to readers, the whale is a symbol of physical limits, or a symbol of nature. It also can stand for the ultimate mystery of the universe and the wall behind which unknown malicious things are hiding.

　　IV. Whitman and his Leaves of Grass :
　　1. Theme: sing of the “en-mass” and the self / pursuit of love, happiness, and usually love / sometimes about politics (Drum taps)
　　2. Whitman’s originality first in his use of the poetic form free verse (i.e. poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme), by means of which he becomes conversational and casual.
　　3.He uses the first person pronoun “I” to stress individualism, and oral language to acquire sympathy from the common reader.

　　Chapter two : The realistic period
　　I. The character analysis and social meaning of Huck Finn in Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
　　Huck is a typical American boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”. He appears to be vulgar in language and in manner, but he is honest and decent in essence. His remarkable raft’s journey down on the Mississippi river can be regarded as his process of education and his way to grow up. At first, he stands by slavery, for he clings to the idea that if he lets go the slave, he will be damned to go to hell. And when the “King” sells Jim for money, Huck decides to inform Jim’s master. After he thinks of the past good time when Jim and he are on the raft where Jim shows great care and deep affection for him, he decide to rescue Jim. And Huck still thinks he is wrong while he is doing the right thing.
　　Huck is the son of nature and a symbol for freedom and earthly pragmatism. Through the eye of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed. Twain contrasts the life on the river and the life on the banks, the innocence and the experience, the nature and the culture, the wilderness and the civilization.

　　II. Daisy Miller by Henry James
　　1. Theme: The novel is a story about American innocence defeated by the stiff, traditional values of Europe. James condemns the American failure to adopt expressive manners intelligently and point out the false believing that a good heart is readily visible to all. The death of Daisy results from the misunderstanding between people with different cultural backgrounds.
　　2. The character analysis of Daisy: She represents typical American girl, who is uninformed and without the mature guidance. Ignorance and parental indulgence combine to foster he assertive self-confidence and fierce willfulness. She behaves in the same daring naive way in Europe as she does at home. When someone is against her, she becomes more contrary. She knows that she means no harm and is amazed that anyone should think she does. She does not compromise to the European manners.
　　3. The character analysis of Winterbourne: He is a Europeanized American, who has live too long in foreign parts. He is very experience and has a problem understanding Daisy. He endeavors to put her in sort of formula, i.e. to classify her.

　　III. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser:
　　1. Theme: The author invented the success of Carrie and the downfall of Hurstwood out of an inevitable and natural judgment, because the fittest can survive in a competitive, amoral society according to the social Darwinism.
　　2. The character analysis of Carrie: She follows the right direction to a pursuit of the American dream, and the circumstances and her desire for a better life direct to the successful goal. But she is not contented, because with wealth and fame, she still finds herself lonely. She is a product of the society, a realization of the theory of the survival of the fittest.
　　3. The character analysis of Hurstwood: He is a negative evidence of the theory of the survival of the fittest. Because he is still conventional and can not throw away the social morals, he is not fitted to live in New York.

　　Chapter Three: The Modern Period
　　I. Ezra Pound and his theory of Imagism
　　1. The principles: a. direct treatment of the thing; b. to use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation; c. to compose in the sequence of the musical; d. to use the language of common speech and the exact word; e. to create new rhythms; f. absolutely freedom in the choice of subject.
　　2. Imagism is to present an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. An imagistic poem must present the object exactly the way the thing is seen. And the reader can form the image of the object through the process of reading the abstract and concrete words.

　　II. Frost and his poetry on nature:
　　Frost is deeply interested in nature and in men’s relationship to nature. Nature appears as an explicator and a mediator for man and serve as the center of reference of his behavior. Peace and order can be found in Frost’s poetical natural world. With surface simplicity of his poems, the thematic concerns are always presented in rich symbols. Therefore his work resists easy interpretation.

　　III. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his The Great Gatsby
　　1. Theme: Gatsby is American Everyman. His extraordinary energy and wealth make him pursue the dream. His death in the end points at the truth about the withering of the American Dream. The spiritual and moral sterility that has resulted from the withered American Dream is fully revealed in the article. However, although he is defeated, the dream has gave Gatsby a dignity and a set of qualities. His hope and belief in the promise of future makes him the embodiment of the values of the incorruptible American Dream .
　　2. The character analysis of Gatsby: Gatsby is great, because he is dignified and ennobled by his dream and his mythic vision of life. He has the desire to repeat the past, the desire for money, and the desire for incarnation of unutterable vision on this material earth. For Gatsby, Daisy is the soul of his dreams. He believe he can regain Daisy and romantically rebels of time. Although he has the wealth that can match with the leisured class, he does not have their manners. His tragedy lies in his possession of a naive sense and chivalry.

　　IV. Ernest Hemingway’s artistic features:
　　1. The Hemingway code heroes and grace under pressure:
　　They have seen the cold world ,and for one cause, they boldly and courageously face the reality. They has an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life. Whatever is the result is, the are ready to live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will never be defeated. Finally, they will be prevail because of their indestructible spirit and courage.
　　2. The iceberg technique:
　　Hemingway believe that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action. The one-eighth the is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimensions of the story. Thus, Hemingway’s language is symbolic and suggestive.

　　V. The character analysis of Emily in A Rose for Emily:
　　Emily is a symbol of old values, standing for tradition, duty and past glory. But she is also a victim to all those she cares and embrace. The source of Emily’s strangeness is from her born pride and self-esteem, the domineering behavior of her father and the betrayal of her lover. Barricaded in her house, she has frozen the past to protect her dreams. Her life is tragic because the defiance of the community, her refusal to accept the change and her extreme pride have pushed her to abnormality and insanity.

－－－－－－－

Summary

更新时间：2004.4.19 21：00

Ralph Waldo Emerson's main attitude

Emerson regarded religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “Over-soul” of which it was a part. He held that intuition was a more certain way of knowing than reason and that the mind could intuitively perceive the existence of the Over-Soul and of certain absolutes. Having this certain knowledge, a man should trust himself to decide what was right and to act accordingly.

Self-reliance: His basic philosophical faith is that the ultimate source of truth is within ourselves. We recognize truth outside ourselves, in nature or in others, and so must often depend on others, books, etc. to express it for us, but it is somehow within us. But we must assume that other people have the same potential as we do. Presumably, trusting oneself means much more than that; it means trusting that somehow or other we have an innate wisdom, and that every person has that wisdom, although few have much access to it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's main attitude (Another Version)

　　I. Emerson’s transcendentalism and his attitude toward nature:
　　1.Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.
　　2. Emerson’s transcendentalism:
　　The over-soul—it is an all-pervading power goodness, from which all things come and of which all are a part. It is a supreme reality of mind, a spiritual unity of all beings and a religion. It is a communication between an individual soul and the universal over-soul. And he strongly believe in the divinity and infinity of man as an individual, so man can totally rely on himself.
　　3.His attitude toward nature:
　　Emerson loves nature. His nature is the garment of the over-soul, symbolic and moral bound. Nature is not something purely of the matter, but alive with God’s presence. It exercise a healthy and restorative influence on human beings. Children can see nature better than adult.

Thoreau's main attitude

   Both Thoreau's Transcendental philosophy and his scientific knowledge contributed to his love of nature.

   Thoreau illustrated through his writing that the pursuit of material things had no value. He desired a life of contemplation, of being in harmony with nature, and of acting on his own principles.

   Thoreau advocated thrift and hard work.

   Thoreau thought physical labor and a minimum of material goods made men more sensitive and kept them closer to nature.

   He was also strongly opposed to slavery. Thoreau was very much an individualist, distrusting group action and preferring to depend on individual reform for the improvement of society.

Whitman Versus Dickinson

Similarity:

1. They were both great writers in American literary, behind whom stood Emerson.

2. They were exploring individual identity in nineteenth-century America. They are both innovators in poetry because they chose to change common things in writing poetry.

3. Both Whitman and Dickinson portray death in their poetry as a positive yet indefinite.

4. They received little formal education. One similarity, on the other hand, is their use of modern ideas and concepts in their poetry. They both used modern but different concepts in their poems such as enumeration and startling imagery.

Difference:

1. The way they structured their poems. Basically, the structures of Whitman's poem is the lack of any structure. Dickinson, on the other hand, wrote poems with a definite structure.

2. Another difference between their poetry is the use of rhyme. Dickinson's poems, unlike Whitman's, made use of slant rhyme.

3. Whitman often wrote about the Civil War. Dickinson often wrote about death and nature.

4. The punctuation is drastically different as well.

5. The life style: Whitman tried his best to be a democratic and popular poet, but Dickinson had no notion like this and illustrated the fact that one could take a single household and inactive life and make enchanting poetry out of it.

6. Whitman wrote for audiences while Dickinson had no audience.

7. Whitman published his masterpiece during his life while Dickinson did not care for that.

8. Dickinson’s short poetic lines, condensed by using intense metaphors and by extensive use of ellipsis (the omission of words understood to be there), contrasted sharply with Whitman, who used long lines, little rhyme, and irregular rhythm in his poetry.

With similar differences and dissimilar similarities, both contributed to the American literature of the late middle 1800s. Whitman's prophet versus Emily Dickinson's recluse.