美国文学史及选读2复习笔记.docx

1、美国文学史及选读2复习笔记History And Anthology of American Literature (Volume)美国文学史及选读2Part The Literature Of Realism现实主义文学1. 美国国内战争Civil War 1861-1865.美国现实主义文学：他们寻找描写美国人真实生活的方法，他们声称平凡的、就近的事件同重大的、遥运的事件一样都是艺术创作的源泉they sought to portray American life as it really was, insisting that the ordinary and local were as

2、 suitable for artistic portrayal as the magnificent and the remote.2. 现实主义一词来源于法语realism, 她是一种文学原则，她强调描写平凡的生活，强调其“真实性和现实性”。Realism had originated in France as realism, a literary doctrine that called for “reality and truth” in the depiction of ordinary life. “现实主义要求创作素材绝对真实，即不能夸张，也不能缩小”,William Dean

3、 Howells(豪厄斯) defined realism as “nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material”.他反对那些表现失意和绝望类苍白无力的小说，他强调现实主义作品要发掘出生活中微笑的一方面，因为美国人都坚信自己的国家是一个充满希望，什么奇迹都有可能发生的一个国家，作为文学也应该把这些特征表现出来he spoke out against the writing of a bleak fiction of failure and despair. He called for the trea

4、tment of the “Smiling aspects of life” as being the more “American”, insisting that American was truly a land of hope and of possibility that should be reflected in its literature.3. 美国现实主义文学总体说来对生活的表面现象进行了乐观的处理，这是其局限，然而最伟大的现实伟大的现实主义大师亨利詹姆斯、马克吐温则摆脱了对十九世纪美国进行肤浅描写的局限，詹姆斯对他作品中的人物个性心理进行了深度探讨，他运用深厚的和复杂的写

5、作方式对复杂的个人经历进行了揣摩。马克吐温打破了乡土小说的狭窄局限，前所未有地描述了广阔的美国生活the bulk of Americas literary realism was limited to optimistic treatment of the surface of life. Yet the greatest of Americas realists, Henry James and Mark Twain, moved well beyond a superficial portrayal of nineteenth-century America. James probed

6、deeply into the individual psychology of his characters, writing in a rich and intricate style that supported his intense scrutiny of complex human experience. Mark Twain, breaking out of the narrow limits of local color fiction, described the breadth of American experience as no one had ever done b

7、efore, or since.4. 美国新的现实主义即自然主义大师们不再崇尚过去粉饰太平的写作方法，他们设法尽力客观，真实地展现出受环境与出身局限的下层人民和各种经济阶层人物的真正生活，他们强调世界的非道德性，他们认为，人们并没有意志的自由，他们的生活状况往往受到了生活的环境与自己的出身所局限；他们还认宗教上的“真理”是虚幻的，人类世俗的现实生活是痛苦的，死亡以后，一切又烟消云散了naturalism, a new and harsher realism. Americas literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting m

8、oral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classed who were dominated by their environment and heredity, the naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were co

9、ntrolled by heredity and the environment, that religious “truths” were illusory, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death.一、Walt Whitman沃尔特惠特曼1819-18921. 美国文学史上极其重要的、具有创新精神的作家之一，他的草叶集中系列诗歌是美国文学史上第一部真正的史诗one of the great innovators in American literature. In the cluster o

10、f poems he called “Leaves of Grass” he gave America its first genuine epic poem.他所创造的这种诗体叫做自由诗，在这种诗歌中，没有固定的节拍，也没有有规律的韵脚，惠特曼认为传统的格律诗不适合表达民主之声the poetic style he devised is now called free verse-that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. Whitman thought that the voice of democracy s

11、hould not be haltered by traditional forms of verse.2. 1855年出版草叶集第一部，其中的大部分作品表达的主题是人类与大自然。有一部分诗歌描写的是令作者痴迷的纽约，少量诗歌还对内战进行了描写，在诗歌中，惠特曼把各种具有平民思想的普通人，社会下层的不同个体的理念有机地结合了起来most of the poems in “Leaves of Grass” are about man and nature. However, a small number of very good poems deal with New York, the cit

12、y that fascinated Whitman, and with the Civil War. In his poetry, Whitman combined the ideal of the democratic common man and that of the rugged individual. 他给诗人重新进行了定义，他认为诗人是一个英雄，是一个救世主，还是先知，诗人通过对真理的表达来引导大众in his poetry, Whiman combined the ideal of the democratic common man and that of the rugged

13、individual. He envisioned the poet as a hero, a savior and a prophet, one who leads the community by his expressions of the truth.3. 教材作品：自己之歌：”Song of Myself”我坐在这儿眺望着：”I sit and Look Out”敲呀！敲呀！鼓啊！：”Drum-Taps Beat! Beat! Drums”二、Emily Dickinson爱米丽狄金森1830-18861. 她的诗歌古怪、简洁，她对做任何大众或流行诗人的概念保持惊人冷漠，她往往是通过

14、一件具体的家庭小事，和一种闲适的生活来阐明事理，并把这些描写成为令人痴迷的诗歌she wrote her whimsical, darting verse with sublime indifference to any notion of being a democratic or popular poet. Her work illustrated the fact that one could take a single household and an inactive life, and make enchanting poetry out of it.2. 她同姐姐终身未嫁一直住在

15、一起，1862年以后，她过上了完全与世隔绝的生活，从此再也没有离开过自己的家乡，也没有同朋友聚会，狄金森与世隔绝可能是受到一桩不满爱情的影响，但主要可能还是源于她自己独特的个性，源于她自己要同世人隔绝的愿望，她诗歌并没有受到生活局限，相反她诗歌却极富创造性和想象力she and her sister remained at home and did not marry. After 1862 she became a total recluse, not leaving her house nor seeing even close friends. Her later retirement

16、from the world, though perhaps affected by an unhappy love affair, seems mainly to have resulted from her own personality, from a desire to separate herself from the world. The range of her poetry suggests not her limited experiences but the power of her creativity and imagination.3. 她在世时，发表了仅七首诗，爱米

17、丽并没有按当时的标准来修改自己的作品，也无意去出版这些作品Emily, however, refused to revise her poems to fit the standards of others and took no interest in having them published; in fact she had only seven poems published during her lifetime.4. 她的诗歌富有激情，诗歌都很短，很多诗建立在一个简单的意象或象征之上，狄金森在她小小抒情诗歌中却对生活中的大部分重大事件进行了探讨Emily Dickinsons po

18、etry comes out in bursts. The poems are short, many of them being based on a single image or symbol. But within her little lyrics Miss Dickinson writes about some of the most important things in life.5. 教材作品：我品味未经酿造的饮料：”I taste a liquor never brewed”我意识到一场葬礼：”I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain”鸟儿沿着小径过来：“

19、A Bird Came Down the Walk-“我为美而死：”I Died for Beauty-but Was Scarce”听到苍蝇的嗡嗡声-我死时：”I Heard a Fly Buzz-when I died-“我不能等候死神：”Because I Could not Stop for Death-“三、Harriet Beecher Stowe哈丽雅特比彻斯托1811-18961. 她出生名门，父亲莱曼是当地有名的牧师，父亲在家“一手遮天”，非常专横，对待他们兄妹非常严厉，他希望家里的男孩子将来成为传教士，女孩子能够嫁给传教士she was born into a respec

20、table family that was to become famous, her father Lyman was a renowned clergyman. The family was dominated by the father who ruled with the kind of wrathful severity that he imagined were the chief characteristics of the God he worshiped and feared. The boys were expected to become preachers, the g

21、irls to marry preachers.2. 1851年6月5日，系列小说汤姆叔叔的小屋的第一集在民族时代专栏上开始连载，到1852年4月1日最后一集刊登完成the novel “Uncle Toms Cabin” or “The Man That Was a Thing”, began serially in the National Era on June 5, 1851, and the last installment appeared on April 1, 1852.3. 这部小说被翻译成40多种文字，被全球数百万计的人们广泛阅读，这部小说的成功源于该作品倾注了作者自己对两

22、主人公所受痛苦和压迫的深刻感受，再就是人们为作者要解放这些奴隶的决心所感动Since then has been published in some forty languages and has been read by millions of people around the world. The power of the novel unquestionably comes from the investment of the authors sense of her own suffering and oppression (as well as her determination

23、to be free) in the characters of Tom and his fellow slave Eliza, the protagonists of the books two main plots.4. 汤姆叔叔小屋题解“A Key to Uncle Toms Cabin” with documented case histories to support what she had portrayed fictionally. 1856年德雷德，阴暗大沼地的故事“Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp” attempt to repe

24、at the theme and extend the argument of her masterpiece: that a society resting on slavery could not long survive.5. 教材作品：汤姆叔叔的小屋：“Uncle Toms Cabin”四、Mark Twain 马克吐温1835-19101. 原名Samuel Langhorne Clemens 塞缪尔朗赫恩克莱门斯。1847年父亲去世后开始到一家出版社当学徒工，从1853年开始全国旅行，期间做过印刷排字临时工，结识了船长霍勒斯比克斯比，从那以后便开始水上生活his formal ed

25、ucation ended soon after his fathers death in 1847, when he became a printers apprentice. From 1853, he traveled widely, as a journeyman printer, in the eastern states and in the west, he met Horace Bixby, the captain of the boat, and turned to a career on the river.国内战争爆发以后，他离开密西西比河，先后在军队当过志愿者，到内华达

26、州掏过金，他还做过木材投机生意，当过新闻记者he left the Mississippi at the outbreak of the Civil War, and became, in swift succession, and army volunteer, a gold-prospector in Nevada, a timber speculator and a journalist.2. 在弗吉尼亚企业杂志任职期间，他开始使用笔名“马克吐温”，意为口寻，也就是十二尺深while working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise

27、, he adopted the pseudonym “Mark Twain”, the way of a boatman taking soundings, and meaning two fathoms, i.e. twelve feet.3. 1865年，他第一本书跳蛙出版”Jumping Frog”;1869年，傻子国外旅行记“Innocents Abroad”;1872年，艰苦岁月“Roughing It”;1873年，镀金时代“The Gilded Age”1876年，汤姆索亚历险记“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”;1883年，密西西比河上的生活“Lif

28、e on the Mississippi”;1884年，哈克贝里费恩历险记”Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”;1894年，傻瓜威尔逊“Pudd head Wilson”;1900年，败坏了哈德莱堡的人“The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg”;1906年，什么是人？“What is Man”;1916年，神秘来客“The Mysterious Stranger”4. 晚年悲观与失望，对十九世纪美国社会价值观不能接受，后一直是一个坚定的怀疑论者，有时他通过时事恶毒的评论来疏缓自己的压力，晚景凄凉，亲人相继离去he pointed towa

29、rds his uneasy acceptance of the values of nineteenth-century American society, he wrote three works expressing his acute pessimism. From that time until his death, he maintained a bitter skepticism, relieved at times by outraged commentary on world affairs. His last years were saddened by personal

30、bereavement.5. 教材作品：汤姆索亚历险记“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”五、O. Henry 欧亨利原名威廉悉尼波特（笔名欧亨利）William Sidney Porter.1. 由于人们对他撰写的故事特别感兴趣,安斯利杂志的出版人便邀请他到纽约专门写稿he wrote stories for different magazines, and when there came a big demand for his stories, the publishers of “Ainslees Magazing” invited him to come to

31、 New York.2. 欧亨利写的故事大部分讲的是纽约穷苦人的生活，也写过其他地方类似人的辛酸生活，他讲述的故事一般很短，情节安排巧妙又引人入胜，故事幽默，有趣，结果往往又出人意料，他的故事中有许多俚语和地方性语言表达，美国以外读者理解这些内容有些困难，这些表达方式，在作者看来是一种本地特色，并且能够很好地同故事中的人物和场景结合起来Many of his stories tell about the lives of poor people in New York, as well as in other places, his works abound in good-natured h

32、umor. His stories are usually short, the plots are exceedingly clever and interesting; humor abounds, and the end is always surprising. Many of his stories contain a great deal of slang and colloquial expressions that make them hard to be understood by people outside of America. Such forms of speech are used to give what is called local, to make the stories fit in with the characters and scenes described.3. 欧亨利认为他自己是一个十分谦虚的人，他很害羞，不喜与人交往，即使是成名以后也是这样His own estimate of himself was always a very mod