美国文学考试必备知识点.doc

1. z Romantic period
2. z Washington Irving
3. z Edgar Allan Poe
4. z Nathanial Hawthorne
5. z Walt Whitman
6. z Emily Dickinson
7. zII. Realist period
8. z Mark Twain
9. z Sherwood Anderson
10. z Stephen Crane
11. z Theodore Dreiser
12. zIII. Modern period
13. z F. S. Fitzgerald
14. z Ernest Hemingway
15. z William Faulkner

1.Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the middle 1800’s, which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Oversoul, and Nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-reliant. New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism.
2.Naturalism
Naturalism, a more deliberate kind of realism, usually involves a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment. As a literary movement, naturalism was initiated in France and it came to be led by Zola, who claimed at “scientific” status for his studies of impoverished characters miserably subjected to hunger, sexual obsession, and hereditary defects. Natural fiction aspired to a sociological objectivity, offering detailed and fully researched investigations into unexplored corners of modern society. The most significant work of naturalism in English being Dreiser’s Sister Carrie.
3.American Dream
The American Dream is the faith held by many people in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations.
4.The Lost Generation
The term Lost Generation was coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to a group of American Literary notables who lived in Paris from the time period which saw the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Significant members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, T. S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein herself. Hemingway likely popularized the term, quoting Stein (“You are all a lost generation”) as epigraph to his novel The Sun Also Rises. More generally, the term is being used for the young adults of Europe and America during World War I. They were “lost” because after the war many of them were disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to more into a settled life
5. Modernism
Modern writing is marked by a strong and conscious break with traditional forms and techniques of expression; it believes that we create the world in the act of perceiving it. Modernism implies historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, of loss, and of despair. It elevates the individual and his inner being over social man and prefers the unconscious to the self-conscious.
6. Romanticism

.
7. Puritanism
The principles and practices of puritans were popularly known as Puritanism. Puritanism accepted the doctrines of Calvinism: the sovereignty of God; the supreme authority of the Bible; the irresistibility of God’s will for man in every act of life from cradle to grave. These doctrines led the Puritans to examine their souls to find whether they were of the elect and to search the Bible to determine God’s will.
8. Hemingway Heroes / Code Hero
“Hemingway Heroes” refer to some protagonists in Hemingway’s works. Such a hero usually is an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent. And usually he is a man of action and of a few words. He is such an individualist, alone even when with other people, somewhat an outsider, keeping emotions under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one can not get happiness. The Hemingway heroes stand for a whole generation. In a world which is essentially chaotic and meaningless, a Hemingway hero fights a solitary struggle against a force he does not even understand. The awareness that it must end in defeat, no matter how hard he strives, engenders a sense of despair. But Hemingway heroes possess a kind of “despairing courage” as Bertrand Russell terms. It is this courage that enables a man to behave like a man, to assert his dignity in face of adversity. Surely Hemingway heroes differ, one from another, in their view of the world. The difference which comes gradually in view is an index to the subtle change which Hemingway’s outlook had undergone.

Expressionism
Expressionism refers to a movement in Germany early in the 20th century, in which a number of painters sought to avoid the representation of external reality and, instead, to project a highly personal or subjective vision of the world. The main principle involved is that expression determines form, and therefore imagery, punctuation, syntax, and so forth. In brief, any of the formal rules and elements of writing can be bent or disjointed to suit the purpose. Theatrically, expressionism was a reaction against realism in that it tends to show inner psychological realities. O’Neill’s plays are some of the best examples.

The Imagist Movement (Imagism)
Led by Ezra Pound and flourished from 1909 to 1917, the movement advanced modernism in arts which concentrated on reforming the medium of poetry as opposed to Romanticism, especially Tennyson' s wordiness and high-flown language in poetry. The three principles followed by the Imagists were:
(1) "Direct treatment" (2) "Economy of Expression" (3) " Rhythm"
symbolism
Symbolism originates in France in the middle 19th century. The poetry collection The Flowers of Evil by the French poet Charles Baudelaire is a representative work of this genre. Symbolism tries to express the dreamy mysterious inner world of the writer.
Stream-of-consciousness
Stream-of-consciousness begins in the 1920’s in Britain. It is a psychological term indicating “the flux of conscious and subconscious thoughts and impressions moving in the mind at any given time independently of the person’s will”. In late 19th century, the literary device of “interior monologue” was originated in France as an application of modern psychological knowledge to literary creation. In the 20th century, under the influence of Freud’s theory of psychological analysis, a number of writers adopted the “stream of consciousness” method of novel writing. The striking feature of these novelists is their giving precedence to the depiction of the characters’ mental and emotional reactions to external events, rather than the events themselves. (to be continued)
Free verse:
a form of poetry without rhyme, meter, regular line length, and regular stanzaic structure. It depends on natural speech for rhythm. Robert Frost compared it to “playing tennis with the net down.” Though much simpler and less restrictive than conventional poetry and blank verse, free verse does no mean “formlessness.” T. S. Eliot once said that “no verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job.” Though its origin is unknown, it was attempted by such early poets as Surrey, Milton, Blake, and Macpherson. It was Whitman who did the greatest contribution to the development and popularity of free verse. Whitman favored the simplicity and freedom of expression. According to him, “The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of light of letters is simplicity. Noting is better than simplicity.”
Jazz age:
Jazz is a form of dance music that is derived from early Afro-American folk music, ragtime, and Negro blues. It is marked with exciting rhythm, pronounced syncopation, and constant improvisation. The musical instruments used are mainly drums, trumpets, and saxophones. Major composers of Jazz music include Irvin Berlin and W. C. Handy. The term Jazz Age was specifically employed by Fitzgerald to denote the 1920s, which was characterized by the loss of traditional moral standards, indulgence in romantic yearnings, and great social excitement. According to Malcolm Cowley, the Jazz Age was “a legend of glitter, of recklessness, and of talent in such profusion that it was sown broadcast like wild oats.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age, like Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age, was an epoch-making work.
Black humor:
a term frequently used in modern literary criticism. It is sometimes called ‘black comedy’ or ‘tragic farce.’ It is humor or laughter resulting from great pain, despair, horror and the absurdity of human existence. Black humor is a common quality of modern anti-novels and anti-dramas. Examples are Franz Kafka’s stories like “Metamorphosis”, “The Castle” and “The Trial”, Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 and Albee’s The Zoo Story. Other writers who did much contribution to the popularity of black humor were Beckett, Camus, Ionesco, Vonnegut, Pynchon and so on.
Autobiography:
a story a writer writes about his or her own life experiences. It is narrated from the first-person point of view. The term was probably first used by Southey. But the first important autobiography was Confessions written by Augustine of Hippo. Other examples include Franklin’s Autobiography, Adams’s The Education of Henry Adams, John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography, Carlyle’s Reminiscences, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, and so on.
Surprise Ending:
Also called “O. Henry ending,” it is a completely unexpected turn or revelation of events at the conclusion of a story or play. An example is “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant. Another instance is O. Henry’s story “The Gift of the Magi.”
Blank verse:
poetry that does not rhyme but has iambic pentameter lines. Though not originated in England or America, it has been the most important and most widely used English verse form. Blank verse is popular because it is closest to the rhythm of daily English speech. Thus most English poems which are dramatic, reflective or narrative are in the form of blank verse. This verse was probably first used in England by Surrey who translated Aeneid, by Sackville and Norton who composed Gorboduc. It was developed and perfected by Marlowe, Shakespeare and Milton. In the 18th century, most poets favored heroic couplets. But Young and Thomson were able to write in the tradition of blank verse. The 19th century saw a renewed interest in this poetic form. Masters of blank verse included Wordsworth, Coleridge and Bryant. The fact that blank verse is still practiced by writers like T.S. Eliot, Yeats, Frost and Stevens shows how influential and favorable it really is.
Characteristics of Realism
v2.1 Realism aims at the description of the actualities of the life and free from subjective prejudice, idealism or romantic color.
v2.2 Realism focuses on commonness of the common people. The emphasis is on ordinary people, settings and events.
2.3 Life is presented as it is.
2.4 Use real characters, real incidents, real language and local dialects.
2.5 In matters of style, diction and sentence structure tend toward a plain style.
3.Representative writers
vWilliam Howells .Mark Twain .Henry James
Major features of Naturalism
1. At the core of naturalism is determinism
2.An individual’s course in life is wholly determined by some combination of animal instinct, heredity, and environment. Humans lack freedom of their own will. All of their actions are controlled, determined.
3.The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires. Life becomes a struggle for survival.
¡Two of the naturalist’s recurrent concerns are: social systems that destroy and dehumanize, and individual experience of loss and failure.
4.Naturalism is a harsher and extreme form of realism. The naturalists have a major difference from the realists.

Themes of Hawthorne’s writing
n1. Explore the relationship between the past and the present
n2. Explore the hidden motivations of his characters.
n3. Examine the effect of hidden sin and secret guilt
n4. Moral or immoral, right or wrong is the question Hawthorne always talks about in his works.
1.5. Style
n1. His style was soft, flowing and almost feminine.
n2.Language: smooth, clear, beautiful in sound and meaning
n3. He also frequently uses symbols and settings to reveal the psychology of the characters.
Appreciation of The Scarlet Letter
n1. Main Character:Hester Prynne.，Roger Chillingworth.，Arthur Dimmesdale
3. Character Analysis
n Hester: brave, strong-minded, warm-hearted, intelligent, sacrificing, decisive Dimmesdale: timid, selfish, irresponsible, cowardly, weak-minded
n Chillingworth: cold-blooded, dehumanized
Theme of The Scarlet Letter
nTo escape the bondage of religion either on people’s spirit or on people’s natural desire
n4. Abundant use of symbols
nA ---adultery angel able
nPrison—the place that deprived people of spiritual freedom
nForest---the nature
nRose near the prison—Hester and her love
nCap—sth controlling one’s beauty

Walt Whitman(1819-1892)
Leaves Of Grass
“Song of myself”
Analysis of the artistic features
w2.4.1. form: free verse
wOral and powerful lg: Although free verse, he wrote with repeated and parallel sentences to strengthen the feelings. He express what he wanted to express freely, smoothly, and heatedly. His poems are like waves of the sea that rushed to the beach violently, one after another.
w2.4.2 the first person narrator: direct and sympathetic to the reader
w2.4.3. topic: sex.
wTo use his own expression, “he saw the world as a vision of love.” He believes that life is the source of poems, love and enthusiasm are the motives of creation.
III. Comments on the writer
w3.1. Subject: son of time, feels the pulse of the time. As a romanticist and transcendentalist, he broke the conventional poetic materials, no myth,no romance, no story of king and lords. He sings for self, common people, America, city life, nature, etc.
w3.2. Form: (Free verse) poetry without fixed beat or regular rhyme. Whitman is the first great American poet to use this form of poetry, he also used it more skillfully than any other poet.

(1)One's Self I Sing
1. What is the significance of singing about one's self?
It is an exaltation of the individual spirit, which is typical of American people.
2. What is the difference between physiology and physiognomy?
Physiology is a science that deals with the functions and life process of human beings, whereas physiognomy refers to an art of judging character from contours of face itself or the appearance of a person.
3. What does Whitman mean by the term of "the Modern Man"?
He means that a man should be free from any prejudice and pride, totally different from the traditional one, that is full of bias.
(3) O Captain! My Captain!
1. Why is the word "Captain" capitalized throughout the