美国文学期末考试名词解释部分.docx

美国文学期末考试名词解释部分.docx

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美国文学期末考试名词解释部分

Transcendentalism:

 transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. Transcendentalists spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. It placed emphasis on spirit, or the Over soul, as the most important thing in the world. It stressed the importance of individual and offered a fresh perception nature ad symbolic of the spirit of God. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thorough. 

Black Humor:

 the use of morbid and the absurd for darkly comic purposes in modern fiction and drama. The term refers as much to the tone of anger and bitterness as it does to the grotesque and morbid situations, which often deal with suffering, anxiety, and death. Black humor is a substantial element in the Anti-novel and the Theatre of Absurd. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is an almost archetypal example.  

Irony:

 a contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens in drama and literature. There are types of irony:

 verbal irony, dramatic irony and irony of situation. Irony of situation typically takes the form of a discrepancy between appearance and reality, or between what a character expects and what actually happens. Both verbal and irony of situation share the suggestion of a concealed truth conflicting with surface appearances.

IndividualismIt is a moral political and social philosophy which emphasizes individual liberty the primary importance of the individual and the unities of self-reliance.

Streamofconsciousness（意识流）（orinteriormonologue）;Inliterarycriticism,Streamofconsciousnessdenotesaliterarytechniquewhichseekstodescribeanindividual’spointofviewbygivingthewrittenequivalentofthecharacter’sthoughtprocesses.Streamofconsciousnesswritingisstronglyassociatedwiththemodernistmovement.Itsintroductionintheliterarycontext,transferredfrompsychology,isattributedtoMaySinclair.Streamofconsciousnesswritingisusuallyregardedasaspecialformofinteriormonologueandischaracterizedbyassociativeleapsinsyntaxandpunctuationthatcanmaketheprosedifficulttofollow,tracingastheydoacharacter’sfragmentarythoughtsandsensoryfeelings.famouswriterstoemploythistechniqueintheenglishlanguageincludeJamesJoyceandWilliamFaulkner.

Symbolismmeans using symbols in literary works the symbol means something represents or stands for abstract deep meaning

Americanrealism：

（美国现实主义）RealismwasareactionagainstRomanticismandpavedthewaytoModernism;2）.Duringthisperiodanewgenerationofwriters,dissatisfiedwiththeRomanticideasintheoldergeneration,cameupwithanewinspiration.Thisnewattitudewascharacterizedbyagreatinterestintherealitiesoflife.Itaimedattheinterpretationoftherealitiesofanyaspectoflife,freefromsubjectiveprejudice,idealism,orromanticcolor.Insteadofthinkingaboutthemysteriesoflifeanddeathandheroicindividualism,people’sattentionwasnowdirectedtotheinterestingfeaturesofeverydayexistence,towhatwasbrutalorsordid,andtotheopenportayalofclassstruggle;3）sowritersbegantodescribetheintegrityofhumancharactersreactingundervariouscircumstancesandpicturethepioneersofthefarwest,thenewimmigrantsandthestrugglesoftheworkingclass;4）MarkTwainHowellsandHenryJamesarethreeleadingfiguresoftheAmericanRealism.

American Naturalism:

 American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. The naturalists attempt to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by environment and heredity. It emphasized that the world was amoral, the men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by heredity and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. The pessimism and deterministic ideas naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.

American Puritanism:

 Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the protestant church who wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrines of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. American literature in the 17th century mostly consisted of Puritan literature. Puritanism had an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets. 

AJazzage（爵士时代）:

TheJazzAgedescribestheperiodofthe1920sand1930s,theyearsbetweenworldwarIandworldwarII.ParticularlyinnorthAmerica.Withtheriseofthegreatdepression,thevaluesofthisagesawmuchdecline.PerhapsthemostrepresentativeliteraryworkoftheageisAmericanwriterFitzgerald’sTheGreatGatsby.Highlightingwhatsomedescribeasthedecadenceandhedonism,aswellasthegrowthofindividualism.Fitzgeraldislargelycreditedwithcoiningtheterm”JazzAge”.

LocalColorism（乡土文学）：

Generallyspeaking,thewritingsoflocalcoloristsareconcernedwiththelifeofasmall,weell-definedregionorprovince.Thecharacteristicsettingistheisolatedsmalltown.2）Localcoloristswereconsciouslynostalgichistoriansofavanishingwayoflife,recordersofapresentthatfadedbeforetheireyes.Yetforalltheirsentimentality,theydedicatedthemselvestominutelyaccuratedescriptionsofthelifeoftheirregions,theyworkedfrompersonalexperiencetorecordthefactsofalocalenvironmentandsuggestedthatthenativelifewasshapedbythecuriousconditionsofthelocal.3）majorlocalcoloristsisMarkTwain.

Imagism:

is a poetic movement of England and the United States, flourished from 1909-1917. Its credo, expressed in Some Imagist Poets, included the use of the language of common speech, project matter, the evocation of images in hard, clear poetry, and concentration. 

The Lost Generation is a group of expatriate American writers residing primarily in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. The group was given its name by the American writer Gertrude Stein, who used “a lost generation” to refer to expatriate Americans bitter about their World War I experiences and disillusioned with American society. Hemingway later used the phrase as an epigraph for his novel The Sun Also Rises. It consisted of many influential American writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams and Archibald MacLeish. 

Beat Generation:

 group of American writers of the 1950s whose writing expressed profound dissatisfaction with contemporary American society and endorsed an alternative set of values. The term sometimes is used to refer to those who embraced the ideas of these writers. The Beat Generation's best-known figures were writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. 

Feminisim（女权主义）:

Feminisimincorporatesbothadoctrineofequalrightsforwomenandanideologyofsocialtransformationaimingtocreateaworldforwomenbeyondsimplesocialequality.2>ingeneral,feminismisideologyofwomen’sliberationbasedonthebeliefthatwomensufferinjusticebecauseoftheirsex.Underthisbroadumbrellavariousfeminismsofferdifferinganalysesofthecauses,oragents,offemaleoppression.3>definitionsoffeminismbyfeministstendtobeshapedbytheirtraining,ideologyorrace.So,forexample,Marxistandsocialistfeministsstresstheinteractionwithinfeminismofclasswithgenderandfocusonsocialdistinctionsbetweenmenandwomen.Blackfeministsarguemuchmoreforanintegratedanalysiswhichcanunlockthemultiplesystemsofoppression.

Free Verse:

 free verse is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure, instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech. While it alternates stressed and unstressed syllables as stricter verse form do, free verse dose so in a looser way. Walt Whitman’s poetry is an example of free verse. 

HemingwayCodeHero（海明威式英雄）:

HemingwayCodeHero,alsocalledcodehero,isonewho,woundedbutstrongmoresentitive,enjoysthepleasuresoflife（sex,alcohol,sport）infaceofruinanddeath,andmaintains,throughsomenotionofacode,anidealofhimself.2>barnesinthesunalsoRises,henryinaFarewelltoarmsandsantiagointheoldmanandtheseaaretypicalofHemingwayCodeHero

Impressionism（印象主义）:

Impressionismisastyleofpaintingthatgivestheimpressionmadebythesubjectontheartistwithoutmuchattentiontodetails.Writersacceptedthesameconvictionthatthepersonalattitudesandmoodsofthewriterwerelegitimateelementsindepictingcharacterorsettingoraction.2>briefly,itisastyleofliteraturecharacterizedbythecreationofgeneralimpressionsandmoodsratherthatrealisticmood.

Modernism（现代主义）：

Modernismiscomprehensivebutvaguetermforamovement,whichbegininthelate19thcenturyandwhichhashadawideinfluenceinternationallyduringmuchofthe20thcentury.2>modernismtakestheirrationalphilosophyandthetheoryofpsycho-analysisasitstheoreticalcase.3>thetermpertainstoallthecreativearts.Especiallypoetry,fiction,drama,painting,musicandarchitecture.4>inenglandfromearlyinthe20thcenturyandduringthe1920sand1930s,inAmericafromshortlybeforethefirstworldwarandonduringtheinter-warperiod,modernisttendencieswereattheirmostactiveandfruitful.5>asfarasliteratureisconcerned,Modernismrevealsabreakingawayfromestablishedrules,traditionsandconventions.freshways