美国文学史及作品选读教案(共5页).doc

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1、精选优质文档-倾情为你奉上Lecture 10The Age of Modernism: Literature in the 1930s (John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck and Katherine Anne Porter) Teaching ContentJohn Dos Passos; John Steinbeck; Katherine Anne Porter Time Allotment2 periods Teaching Objectives and Requirements1 Make the students know something about

2、 the 1930s of America.2 Make the students know about John Dos Passos. 3 Help the students to know clearly about John Steinbeck.4 Make the students know about Katherine Anne Porter. Key Points and Difficult Points in TeachingJohn Steinbeck Teaching Methods and Means Lecture; Discussion; Multi-media T

3、eaching Process1 The 1930s1.1 General introduction The 1930s is often regarded as a dim decade as compared with the glittering twenties. There is a visible continuity between the two decades. Eliot, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner continued to produce great works of literature. The 1930s was rad

4、ically different from the 1920s in mood as well as in expression. Its mood was colored differently from the very beginning. The Wall Street crash of 1929 set the tone for the writing of the decade. For ten years the Americans plodded through a lightless tunnel and substantial change came only when W

5、WII broke out. The 1930s was truly a dark time, one of dreadful travail. As the Depression spread, life became a nightmarish experience of a struggle for survival for millions of people. 1.2 Literary scene The writers of the 1930s were faced with the challenge of painting a physical waste land that

6、America had become. There was, for many, sheer despair in the bleak years of the thirties. Social concern was topmost in the minds of many authors and social involvement was to be the major feature of the literature of the thirties. The naturalistic rhetoric was brought about a revival. In addition,

7、 the writers of the 1930s responded to the turbulence of their times very well. Literary expression in the period was abundant and forceful. The 1930s was a great age of fiction. (P256) The two major authors who became dominant figures in fiction were John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck. Dos Passos U

8、. S. A. and Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath, along with their works and those of other writers offer an authentic account of the American experience in the debilitating years of the Depression. (P256-257) There were young novelists such as James T. Farrell, John OHara, and Erskine Caldwell who poured

9、 out their torrents of anger and protest in their left-oriented works. The drama of the 1930s is rich and varied. It is true that no figure comparable to ONeill appeared, but many people of talent tried to enrich the stage with their plays. The 1930s was not very good for poetry. (P258) 2 John Dos P

10、assos (1896-1970) In a sense the thirties can be called the decade of John Dos Passos. He was the leading naturalist of the Depression, and his masterwork, U. S. A., was probably the best work that came out of the period. John Dos Passos was a spectacular phenomenon in the twentieth-century literary

11、 history of the United States. 2.1 Works Trilogies U. S. A. (1938): The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932) and The Big Money (1936) District of Columbia (1952): Adventures of a Young Man (1939), Number One, (1943) and The Grand Design (1949)chronicles Dos Passos further disillusion with the labour mo

12、vement and radical politics Novels: One Mans Initiation (1920) Three Soldiers (1921)Manhattan Transfer (1925)Chosen Country (1951)Midcentury (1961) Plays The Garbage Man (1926)Airways (1928) Fortune Heights (1934) A biography The Head and Heart of Thomas Jefferson (1954) An autobiography The Best of

13、 Times: An Informal Memoir (1966)2.2 U. S. A. It belongs to that category of fiction North Frye call “anatomy”. (P261-263) In U. S. A., Dos Passos developed the experimental literary devices where the narratives intersect and continue from one novel to the next. The devices included what became know

14、n as the “Newsreels” (impressionistic collections of slogans, popular song lyrics, newspaper headlines and extracts from political speeches), the “Biographies”, and the “Camera Eye”. U. S. A. is an organic whole, every bit as well organized as The Waste Land and The Cantos. 3 John Steinbeck (1902-19

15、68)3.1 General introduction John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 “.for his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished by a sympathetic humor and a keen social perception.” Throughout his life John Steinbeck remained a private person who shunned publicity. H

16、is Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech is as follows:“Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibi

17、lities have been decreed by our species.the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate mans proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope an

18、d of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.” 3.2 Works Cup of Gold (1929) (the first novel) The Pastures of Heaven (1932) To a God Unknown (1933) Tortilla Flat (1935): a novel about Monterey,

19、brought him national recognition In Dubious Battle (1935), Of Mice and Men (1937) The Long Valley (1938) The Grapes of Wrath (1939): best-known novel The Moon is Down (1942): a novel about the resistance in to the occupation. Cannery Row (1945) The Pearl (1947) A Russian Journal (1948) Burning Brigh

20、t (1950) East of Eden (1952) Sweet Thursday (1954) The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957) Once There Was a War (1958) The Winter of Our Discount (1961) 3.3 Discussion of The Grapes of Wrath (P265-268) The title of the book comes from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” a war song of the Civil War. It is

21、 a story of the migration of agricultural workers from the dust bowl of Oklahoma to California. It is a crisis novel, full of bitterness and pain but not exactly despair. It is Steinbecks clear expression of sympathy with the dispossessed and the wretched. (P266-268) 4 Katherine Anne Porter Was born

22、 in Indian Creek Texas Began her life as a news reporter and sometimes as an actress and ballad singer travelling through the south Later stayed in Europe and Mexico which proved very valuable for her writing Was basically a short-story writer Her famous short fiction includes “The Flowering Judas”

23、and “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” (a rich and complex story, more than one interpretation, revealing the Exquisiteness of Katherine Ann Porters artistic imagination) both collected in Flowering Judas (1930), making her one of the finest short story writer of a high order Her Pale Horse, Pale R

24、ider (1939) and Learning Tower and Other Stories (1944) reinforced her reputation Her Collected Stories (1965) won her both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Her writings, especially her short fiction, have been well anthologized and offered as “standard fare” for the college classroom. Re

25、flection Questions and Assignments1 Read The Grapes of Wrath and make comments from one or two aspects.2 Pre-read Chapter 19 American Drama in the textbook by Chang Yaoxin. Major ReferencesEdward by . The American Tradition in Literature. Random House Inc., 1956.James D. Hart. The Oxford Companion t

26、o American Literature. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1995.常耀信.美国文学简史. 天津：南开大学出版社，2003.常耀信.漫话英美文学. 天津：南开大学出版社，2004.董衡巽. 美国文学简史(修订本). 北京：人民文学出版社，2003.李公昭.20世纪美国文学导论. 西安：西安交通大学出版社，2000.刘洊波. 英美文学史及作品选读. 北京：高等教育出版社，2001.钱青等. 美国文学名著精选（上，下）. 北京：商务印书馆，1995.陶洁. 美国文学选读（第二版）. 北京：高等教育出版社，2005.吴伟仁. 美国文学史及选读（第一、二册）. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1990.吴定柏. 美国文学大纲.上海：上海外语教育出版社，1998. 杨岂深，龙文佩. 美国文学选读. 上海：译文出版社，1985.张伯香. 英美文学选读北京: 外语教学与研究出版社，1998.张冲. 新编美国文学史（第一卷）. 上海：上海外语教育出版社，2000.左金梅.美国文学. 青岛：青岛海洋出版社, 2000.专心-专注-专业