Nathaniel Hawthorne:
Romantic novelist, short-story writer. Combined the American romanticism with puritan moralism; a central figure in the American Renaissance “Mosses from an Old Manse ( 1846 )
(“Young Goodman Brown” and “Rappaccini’s daughter”) The Scarlet Letter (1850)
The House of the Seven Gables (1851) The Blithedale Romance (1852) The Marble Faun,(1860) Interrogating the innocence
Strong sense of sin and evil in life.
Sin will get punished, and evil educates.
Source of sin: original sin, conflict between body and soul. Source of evil : overweening intellect, a part of human nature The Seven Commandments Of The Children Of Noah
Idolatry - Monotheism. Adultery. Murder. Blasphemy, not to curse God. Not to eat the live meat not to steal Maintain courts to enforce these laws. Seven heavenly virtues
Faith Hope Charity Fortitude Justice Temperance Prudence Hawthorne’s aesthetics
Favor on “romance”, instead of “novel”
Contents: sensational material, such as poisoning, murder, adultery, crime.
Themes: explore the human nature, deal with moral problems, study the effects of sin on man. Purpose: to show the inner world of man is the source of evil in society—the tragic rise born of the fortunate fall,
fall→ rise innocence →maturity The Scarlet Letter
? Time: in the mid-1600s Setting: Puritan town of Boston Characters:
Roger Chillingworth Pearl
? The victim of the adultery A symbol: the symbol of the violation of the social laws ? A merciless avenger To Hester: the fruit of human love and passion ? The worst sinner To Dimmesdale: the reminder of his sin
? Symbol of devil To Chillingworth: the motivation to take his revenge Puritanism in The Scarlet Letter
Puritan emphasis on the individual conscience.
Hawthorn’s attitude towards Puritanism – scolded the harshness of Puritans, yet took the Puritanism as his living criteria.
Purpose of The Scarlet Letter 1. Explore the source of evils:
unreasonable and inhuman social system
men’s inner world, defects in men’s nature: strong desire, dishonesty, cowardice, revenge. 2. Explore the effect of sin on different characters:
To brave Hester: gain moral rebirth by redeeming her sin, win respect/ love again. To coward Dimmesdale: torment of conscience, suffer in hell fire.
To vicious and vengeful Chillingworth: reduced to demon, deteriorated, malicious sinner 3. Explore ways of redeeming sin: brave to confess and face it
correct it through love, devotion, generosity and forgiveness. Hawthorne’s Style
rich imagination; well-woven structure; psychological analysis; effective symbolism with delicate imageries, ambiguity and mystery Symbolism in the novel
Chillingworth is cold and inhuman and thus brings a “chill” to Hester’s and Dimmesdale’s lives. “Prynne” rhymes with “sin”
“Dimmesdale” suggests “dimness”—weakness, indeterminacy, lack of insight, and lack of will, all of which characterize the young minister.
“Pearl” evokes a biblical allegorical device—the “pearl of great price” that is salvation. a token of shame “Adultery” at first A
A symbol of being alone and alienation “Angel”, “Able” ,”Admiration”
Hester offers the genuine sympathy and help to her fellow villagers
Herman Melville
a master of allegory and symbolism 1) early works
Typee (1846) : the “man who lived among cannibals.” Omoo(1847)
Mardi (1849) :The first three drew from his adventures among the people of the South Pacific islands;
Redburn (1849) is a semi-autobiographical novel, based Bedburn on his first voyage to England
White Jacket (1850) relates his life on a United States man-of-war. Moby Dick (1851)
Later works: Pierre (1852) The Confidence Man (1857) Billy Budd（1924） Moby-Dick
is regarded as : * an encyclopedia of everything * the first American prose epic The white whale Pequod ----a world in miniature * Melville's bleak view --------\” * One of the major themes --------- alienation,
* Ahab may have been Melville's portrait of an Emersonian self-reliant individual-----solipsism .
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
\ Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell and Whittier
first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy
poet and educator; \; The Song of Hiawatha ; Evangeline. Longfellow holds the distinction of being the first American poet?????
Poetry : Voices of the Night (1839) Evangeline (1847) The Song of Hiawatha (1855) A Psalm of Life My Lost Youth the Slave’s Dream Hiawatha’s Fasting
* His writings belong to the milder aspects of the romantic movement, and he was strongly influenced by the German romantic lyrists.
* He wrote about American subjects, but always in European styles.
* His works are highly spiritual. He emphasized the mysteries of birth, death, and love. Most of his works are simple and easily read so that even children can understand them.
* If his worst fault is that-he made poetry seem so easy to write that anyone could do it, his greatest virtue is that he made poetry seem worth reading and worth writing.
* He was the first American poet to be honored by having his bust placed in the Poets' Comer of Westminster Abbey. This indicates that his poetry has been highly appreciated in Britain. （A Psalm of Life 赏析见另材料）
P4 the literature of realism
1. How to define the Realistic Period in American Literary history?
The period ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to as the Age of Realism in the literary history of the United States, which is actually a movement or tendency that dominated the spirit of American literature, especially American fiction, from the 1850s onwards.
What is the historical and socio-cultural background of the Realistic Period in America?
The American society after the Civil War provided rich soil for the rise and development of Realism. This period is characterized with changes, in relation to every aspect of American life, politically, economically, culturally, and religiously.
First of all, politically, the Civil War affected both the social and the value system of the country. America had transformed itself into an industrialized and commercialized society. Wilderness gave way to civilization. The burgeoning economy and industry stepped up urbanization. However, economically, the changes were not all for the better. The industrialization and the urbanization were accompanied by the incalculable sufferings of the laboring people.
Therefore, polarization of the wellbeing between the poor and the rich started to show up. Thirdly, as far as the ideology was concerned, people became dubious about the human nature and the benevolence of God, which the Transcendentalists cared most. What Mark Twain referred to as “ the Gilded Age” replaced the frontier and the spirit of the frontiersman, which is the spirit of freedom and human connection.
Fourthly, the literary scene after the Civil War proved to be quite different a picture. The harsh realities of life as well as the disillusion of heroism resulting from the dark memories of the Civil War had set the nation against the romance. The Americans began to be tired of the sentimental feelings of Romanticism. Thus, started a new period in the American literary writings known as the Age of Realism, characterized by a great interest in the realities of life
Realism had originated in France as realisme, a literary doctrine that called for “reality and truth” in the depiction of ordinary life.
The three dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James.
English realism
a new literary trend rose in late 18th century and flourished in the 19th century with the impact of the Industrial Revolution.
presenting the reality, the external life of characters, exposing the dark side of the society Truthful to life, little fancy or fantasy
major contribution: perfection of the novel American realism
a. Historical and social background: the impact of American Civil War (1861-1865) b. Literary influence from Europe: Realism as a literary trend
Walt Whitman
one of America's best ; and most influential poets
Leaves of Crass; Song of Myself O Captain My Captain 2. Leaves of Grass (response)
* sexuality and exotic and vulgar language
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* Whitman, along with Emerson, sees the poet as taking over what had used to be the job of a minister, a clergyman, the Church. 1. Leaves of Grass
a poet with a strong sense of mission
Whitman was one of the most original and inspiring American poets, true to his art and to his role as a poet. He devoted himself to poetry eulogizing the native American experience. As America's first genuine epic poem, Leaves of Grass ran nine editions with more than 400 poems all written in free verse form, that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. Title: The title implies rebirth, renewal, or green life.
where there is earth, where there is water, there is grass.
Blend science, democracy and spirituality into one. To write on the organic principle （Song of Myself 赏析另见资料）
Emily Dickinson
America’s best-known female poet
Her modernity is her articulation of psychological experience and skeptical desire for faith. affected by two men, Benjamin Newton and Charles Wadsworth.
The Poems of Emily Dickinson; I taste a liquor never brewed; I felt a Funeral, in my Brain; A Bird came down the Walk ; I died for Beauty—but was scarce; I heard a Fly buzz — when I died ; Because I could not stop for Death ； This is my letter to the world
Emily Dickinson was a pessimistic poet. She had a tragic message and was closer to Edgar Allan Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville.
The range of her poetry suggests not her limited experience but the power of her creativity and imagination. Her subjects were love, death, nature, religion, immortality, pain, beauty. The poems employed irregular rhythms, slantrhymes, paradox, and a careful balancing of abstract Latinate and concise Anglo-Saxon words.
She is now ranked as one of America’s great poets. 2 Subjects:
Death: her poems concerning death and immortality, ranging over the physical as well as the psychological and emotional aspects of death.
Love: One group of her love poems treats the suffering and frustration love can cause. The other group of love poems focuses on the physical aspect of desire.
Nature: In her poems about nature, her general skepticism about the relationship between man and nature is well-expressed.
Religion: In some of her poems she wrote about her doubt and belief about religious subjects. 诗歌赏析另见材料 Artistic characteristics
Her poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines. In her poetry, there is a particular stress pattern, in which dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis. Most of her poems borrow the repeated four-line, rhymed stanzas of traditional Christian hymns, with two lines of four-beat meter alternating with two lines of three-beat meter. A master of imaginary that makes the spiritual materialize in surprising ways, Dickinson managed manifold variations within her simple form.
She uses imperfect rhythms, subtle breaks of rhythm, and idiosyncratic syntax and punctuation to create fascinating world puzzles, which have produced greatly divergent interpretations over the years. Due to her deliberate seclusion, her poems tend to vivify some abstract ideas. Her poetry, despite its ostensible formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness. Her limited private world have never confined the limitless power of her creativity and imagination.
Local Colorism
Time: late 1860s and early 70s
Features: the realistic presentation of the local characters with their regional qualities such as dialects and customs.
having such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by another one else than a native.
--- Hamlin Garland: Crumbing Idols Local colorists: Stowe, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin
美国文学整理到现实主义时期
