Basic Qualities of American Literature
(1) Independent、(2) Individualistic、(3) Critical、(4) Innovative、(5)Humorous、 The Literary Scene in Colonial America
The first American literature was neither American nor really literature、 John Smith
The 1st American Writer Captain
His most important work is The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624)
Anne Bradstreet(1612—1672) Tenth Muse
A Puritan poet, her poems mainly about religious experience, family life and early settler’s lives Contemplations《沉思录》
The Literature of Reason and Revolution Jonathan Edwards(1703-1758)
? Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God ? Personal Narrative
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) ? Poor Richard's Almanack ? The Way to Wealth ? The Autobiography Philip Freneau
“Father of American Poetry”
“Poet of the American Revolution” ? The Wild Honey Suckle
Washington Irving : the Father of American Short Stories ? Rip Van Winkle
? The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Romantic Individualism : James Fenimore Cooper The Leatherstocking Tales The Last of the Mohicans Spokesman of Transcendentalism: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature(l836) Essays (1841 )、 Essays: Second Series (1844) Henry David Thoreau ? Walden, 1854
? A Week on the Concord And Merrimac Rivers, 1849 ? “Civil Disobedience”, 1849 Walden
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter (1850)
“Young Goodman Brown”,
Herman Melville Master of Philosophical Allegory
His early works: sea adventures -- Typee(1846), Omoo(1847), Redburn(1849), Mardi(1849), White Jacket(1850), Moby-Dick (1851)、
His later works: Pierre (1852), Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853), Billy Budd (1924) Walt Whitman
Whitman is a father figure in American poetic history、
Leaves of Grass — the first collection of truly modern poetry （Pre-modern）A forerunner in the history of American poetry: use of free verse、
the poet of America and American democracy、 /representation of national spirit、 Realistic in Details but Idealistic and Romantic in Spirit strong tendency to use oral English
Emily Dickinson: the Recluse of Amherst
Her poetry usually concerns her meditation on love, religion, death, immortality, and nature、 Abundance of themes 1、 Religion 2、 Love 3、 Death and Immortality 4、 Nature
Dickinson was terse, suggestive, and indirect、 In general she used the language freely as she liked it to be an instrument to indicate her own sense of the complexity of matter, spirit, and consciousness、迪金森简洁，暗示，间接。总得来说，她就是自由地使用这种语言得，因为她喜欢这种语言，这就是一种表达她自己对物质、精神与意识得复杂性得感觉得工具。 Dickinson VS Whitman
1、 Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large; Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual、
2、 Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is “regional” (“because I see New-Englandly”)、
3、 In formal terms the two poets are vastly different: Whitman’s endless, all-inclusive catalogs contrast with the concise, direct, and simple diction and syntax which characterize Dickinson’s poetry、
The Age of American Realism: 1865-1914
Realism is the theory of writing in which familiar aspects of contemporary life and everyday scenes are represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner、
James wrote mostly of the upper reaches of American society, and Howells concerned himself chiefly with middle class life, whereas Mark Twain dealt largely with the lower strata of society、 Henry James and Psychological Realism
Unlike Mark Twain whose characters are mainly from the lower middle-class, Henry James is seen as a spokesman for the wealthy, leisured class、 The Portrait of a Lady Mark Twain
Local Colorism (Regionalism)
Twain became nationally famous after the publication of “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country”(1865)、 ? Life on the Mississippi
? The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ? Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
? The Gilded Age, his social satire written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg (l900) and The Mysterious Stranger (1916)
Style: 1、 Comic narrator、2、 Colloquial Language、3、 Humor、 4、 Mark Twain as a local colorist、
Themes of Huckleberry Finn 1、 Theme of Escape2、 Individual versus Society and celebration of humanism 3、Freedom and Bondage 4、Initiation fiction American Naturalism
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a more deliberate kind of realism in novels, stories and plays, usually involving a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment、
在小说、故事与戏剧中，一种更为深思熟虑得现实主义，通常就是把人瞧作就是自然力量与社会环境得被动受害者。
Naturalist fiction aspired to a sociological objectivity, offering detailed and fully researched investigations into unexplored corners of modern society … Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris in the U、S;
自然主义得小说渴望一种社会学得客观性，为现代社会得未探索得角落提供详细得、全面得调查。Theodore Dreiser与弗兰克诺里斯在美国;
Frank Norris (1870-1902): Mcteague (1899), The Octopus (1901),The Pit (1903)
Stephen CraneMaggie: a Girl of the Street (1893), The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
Jack London The Call of the Wild, 1903; People of the Abyss, 1903; The Sea-Wolf, 1904; The War of the Classes, 1905; White Fang, 1905; The Iron Heel, 1908; Martin Eden, 1909
commonly categorized as a literary naturalist (although his writings suggest a complexity of
ideas、) Thematic Concerns：1、 Superman Philosophy 2、 Disillusionment of American Dream Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) Sister Carrie、An American Tragedy、Jennie Gerhardt、The Genius 、Trilogy of Desire: The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoic the leader of American literary naturalism
also remembered for his stinging criticism of the genteel tradition and of what Howells described as the “smiling aspects of life” typifying America
Pessimistic Determinism 1) Naturalistic view 2) As a naturalist, he developed the capacity for photographic and relentless observation, thereby truthfully reflecting the society and people of his time、 作为一名自然主义者，她发展了摄影与无情观察得能力，从而如实地反映了当时得社会与人们得生活3）left-oriented 4）The illusion of American Dream 5）rudeness in style、 Modern Eruptions
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
the father of modern American poetry、
a leading spokesman of the “Imagist Movement” Profound Influence upon Modern Letters Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Mending the Wall、Home Buria1、The Road Not Taken、Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening、After Apple-Picking Themes
1、 Nature: duality of nature
2、 Human being: 1oneliness, perplexity and poverty
3、 (first and foremost theme) his love of life and his belief in a serenity T、 S、 Eliot (1888-1965)
1、 “The Love Song of J、 Alfred Prufrock” 2、 The Waste Land (1922) 3、 Ash Wednesday (1930) 4、 Four Quartets (1942) Stylistic Features
? 1、 Original and Complex Symbolism
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? 2、 Aesthetic principle— (*) Objective Correlative ? 3、 Rich Allusiveness or Literary Reference
? 4、 Innovation of conventional cadence, metrical meter; Musical Effects ? 5、 Use of common speech Ernest Hemingway （1899-1961)
? 1、 the spokesman of the “Lost Generation”;
? 2、 “the mastery of art of modern narration”、
? 1、 War 2、 the bullfight 3、 The hunt 4、 Fishing (*) His view of Death
The Sun Also Rises (1926) A Farewell to Arms (1929)For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
F、 Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)The literary spokesman of “the Jazz Age”
This Side of Paradise, 1921 The Beautiful and Damned The Great Gatsby (1925) Tender is the Night (l934) The Last Tycoon (unfinished)
Fitzgerald’s fiction reveals the hollowness of the American worship of riches and the unending American dreams of love, splendor and gratified desires and shows what America meant in terms of the reckless 1920s: Prohibition, speakeasies, new cars, victory abroad, popular fads, and new wealth、 菲茨杰拉德得小说揭示了美国人对财富得崇拜，以及美国人对爱情、辉煌与满足欲望得无休止得追求，并展示了美国在20世纪20年代得鲁莽:禁止、地下说、新汽车、海外胜利、流行时尚与新财富。
the bankruptcy of the American Dream A great stylist in American literature: (1) explicit and chilly style;
(2) Accurate dialogues and details, careful observation of mannerism; original diction and metaphors, the bold impressionistic and colorful quality、 (3) the Jamesian tradition: “central consciousness”
The Southern Renaissance and William Faulkner (1897-1962)
the most powerful and eloquent representative of American Southern writers
“the most radical innovator in the annals of American fiction,” and “a writer to whom the avant-garde of Europe and Latin America would go to school、” ( stream-of-consciousness) the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself Stylistic Features/ narrative technique
? 1、 Stream of Consciousness ? 2、 Multiple Viewpoints ? 3、 Complex syntax
? 4、 symbolism and mythological and biblical a11usions
? 5、 language: dialects; a master of his own particular style of writing ? 6、 protagonists: tragic “A Rose for Emily”
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