比较齐全的美国文学名词解释Word文档格式.docx

1、American realism ：（美国现实主义）Realism was a reaction against Romanticism and paved the way to Modernism; 2）.During this period a new generation of writers, dissatisfied with the Romantic ideas in the older generation, came up with a new inspiration. This new attitude was characterized by a great interes

2、t in the realities of life. It aimed at the interpretation of the realities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic color. Instead of thinking about the mysteries of life and death and heroic individualism, peoples attention was now directed to the interesting fe

3、atures of everyday existence, to what was brutal or sordid, and to the open portayal of class struggle;3） so writers began to describe the integrity of human characters reacting under various circumstances and picture the pioneers of the far west, the new immigrants and the struggles of the working

4、class; 4） Mark Twain Howells and Henry James are three leading figures of the American Realism. American Naturalism（美国自然主义文学）：The American naturalists accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwins evolutionary theory and used it to accout for the behavior of those characters in literary works

5、 who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.2） naturalism is evolved from realism when the authors tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more

6、 than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.3Dreiser is a leading figure of his school.Local Colorism（乡土文学）：Generally speaking, the writings of local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, weell-defined region or province. The characteristic setting is the isol

7、ated small town. 2） Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions, they worked from pers

8、onal experience to record the facts of a local environment and suggested that the native life was shaped by the curious conditions of the local. 3） major local colorists is Mark Twain.Imagism（意象主义）：Imagism came into being in Britain and U.S around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry

9、 to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation.2the imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.3imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles:A.direct treatm

10、ent of subject matter;B.economy of expression;C. as regards rhythm ,to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome. 4 pounds In a Station of the Metro is a well-known inagist poem.The Lost Generation（迷惘的一代）：The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to desc

11、ribe the post-war I generation of American writers:men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest A

12、merican literature to date.3the three best-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, hemingway and John dos Passos.The Beat Generation（垮掉的一代）:The members of The Beat Generation were new bohemian libertines. Who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity.2 The Beat w

13、riters produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non-conformity and for its non-conforming style.3 the major beat writings are Allen Ginsbergs howl.Howl became the manifesto of The Beat Generation.A Jazz age（爵士时代）:The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between world war I and world war II. Particularly in north America. With the rise of the great depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer