Selected-Readings-in-English-and-American-Literature-Chpt.VIII.ppt

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1、英美文学精粹赏析英美文学精粹赏析Selected Readings In English and American Literature人民邮电出版社人民邮电出版社American ModernismAmerican Modernism Modernism is a cultural movement that generally includes the progressive art and architecture,design,literature,music,dance,painting and other visual arts which emerged in the begin

2、ning of the 20th century,particularly in the years following World War I.It was a movement of artists and designers who rebelled against late 19th century academic and historicist tradition,and embraced the new economic,social and political aspects of the emerging modern world.Modernism in literatur

3、e is not easily summarized,but the key elements are experimentation,anti-realism,individualism and a stress on the cerebral rather than emotive aspects.The work of Modernist writers is characterized by showing the disenchantment,dislocation,and alienation of men in the world,and by the emphasis on e

4、xperimentation and formalism and objectivism which are,in most cases,a reaction to the cataclysm known as the Modern Age.The Schools of American ModernismModern poetry:experiments in form(Imagism)Prose Writing:modern realism(the Lost Generation)Novels of Social AwarenessThe Harlem RenaissanceThe Fug

5、itives and New CriticismThe 20th Century American DramaImagism It is a Movement in U.S.and English poetry characterized by the use of concrete language and figures of speech,modern subject matter,metrical freedom,and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes,aiming at clarity of expression through th

6、e use of precise visual images.The Imagist manifesto came out in 1912 showed three Imagist poetic principles:direct treatment of the“thing”（no fuss,frill,or ornament）,exclusion of superfluous words（precision and economy of expression）,the rhythm of the musical phrase rather than the sequence of a me

7、tronome（free verse form and music）.The Jazz Age The First World War stands as a great dividing line between the 19th century and contemporary America.Lost Generation appeared.A group of new dramatists emerged:Eugene ONeil.The Great Depression In 1929,the Wall Street stock market crash ushered in a w

8、orldwide financial crisis.Nation after nation fell victim to:Industrial declineBank failuresDeflated prices and profitsCommercial stagnation The United States launched the New Deal with its objectives of:ReliefRecoveryReformEzra Pound 1885-1972 I.Life Ezra Pound was born in Idaho and raised in Penns

9、ylvania.In 1908 he moved to Europe,living first in Venice but eventually settling in London.Pound self-published A Lume Spento,his first published collection of short poems,while living in Venice.In the years before the World War I,Pound was largely responsible for the appearance of Imagism,and coin

10、ed the name of the movement Vorticism.Pound was confined for 12 years in a hospital(actually prison)for the criminally insane in Washington.During this time he translated works of ancient Greek and ancient Chinese literature.While in prison,he was awarded a prestigious poetry prize in 1949 for his l

11、ast Cantos.In 1958 he returned to Italy,where he continued to write and make translations until he died in 1972.II.Education In 1901 at the age of 15,he entered the University of Pennsylvania and two years later,transferred to Hamilton College.III.Literary Achievement1908 Pound travelled widely in E

12、urope,working as a journalist and published his first book of poetry,A Lume Spento,in Venice.1912 appointed himself foreign editor of Poetry and in this capacity was able to discover struggling talents like Robert Frost,and T.S.Eliot.1913 became the literary executor of Ernest Fenollosa,and began hi

13、s fruitful study of the Chinese language and ancient Chinese culture.1915 finished his volume of Chinese translation,Cathay,and began to work on his Cantos.After the publication of Homage to Sextus Propertius and Hugh Selwyn Mauberley,he moved first to Paris where he assisted young American writers

14、like Hemingway,and then settled in Rapallo,Italy,to work on his Cantos.He completed his translation of a Chinese classic,The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius.V.Selected readingsIn a Station of the Metro The poem is an Imagist poem by Ezra Pound published in 1913 in Poetry.The poem attempts to

15、describe Pounds experience upon visiting an underground metro station in Paris in 1912,and Pound suggested that the faces of the individuals in the metro were best put into a poem not with a description but with an equation.Because of the treatment of the subjects appearance by way of the poems own

16、visuality,it is considered a quintessential Imagist text.Robert Lee Frost 1874-19631874-1963 I.Life Frost is an important poet in the 20th century.He won the Pulitzer Prize four times and read poetry at the inauguration of President John F.Kennedy in 1961.He spent his early childhood in the Far West

17、 and later the family moved to New Hampshire.He went to Harvard but left in the middle because of his tuberculosis.When he was 28,he began to venture on writing.II.Major Works His first book A Boys Will(1913),whose lyrics trace a boys development from self-centered idealism to maturity,is marked by

18、an intense but restrained emotion and the characteristic flavor of New Eng1and life.His second book,a volume of poems North of Boston(1914),is described by the author as a book of people,which shows a brilliant insight into New England character and the background that formed it.Many of his major po

19、ems are collected in this volume,such as Mending the Wall and Home Burial,Mountain Interval(1916)contains such characteristic poems as“The Road Not Taken,”“Birches”.New Hampshire(1923)that won Frost the first of four Pulitzer Prizes includes Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.III.Theme Frost is co

20、nsidered a regional poet whose subject matters mainly focus on the landscape and people in New England.Frost wrote many poems that investigate the basic themes of mans life:the individuals relationships to himself,to his fellow-man,to world,and to his God.IV.Selected Readings The Road Not Taken This

21、 poem seems to be about the poet,walking in the woods in autumn,hesitating for a long time and wondering which road he should take since they are both pretty.In reality,this is a meditative poem symbolically written.It concerns the important decisions which one must take in the course of life,when o

22、ne must give up one desirable thing in order to possess another.Then,whatever the outcome,one must accept the consequences of ones choice for it is not possible to go back and have another chance to choose differently.Eugene Glastone ONeill1888-1953 I.LifeBirthplace:Broadway,New York CityFamily Back

23、ground:his father,a famous actorChildhood experience:travelling with his fathers theatre Education:private school when young;Princeton Uni.for one year;Bakers drama class at Havard.I.LifeWorking Experiences:sailor,sailing overseas;gold prospector at Honduras;theatre manager.Illness:T.B.at 24;sick fr

24、om mid 1930s to mid 1940s.Awards:3 Pulitzer Prizes;Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936.Literary linkage:influenced by fatalism of Greek Tragedies,the determinism by heredity and environment of Ibsen,Freudianism.II.Literary Achievements ONeill was no doubt the greatest American dramatist of the first

25、half of the 20th century.He was the first playwright to explore serious themes in the theater and to carry out his continual,vigorous,courageous experiments with theatrical conventions.His plays have been translated and staged all over the world.Three Pulitzer Prizes(1920,1922,1928)and the Noble Pri

26、ze in 1936 show his achievement and influence at home and abroad.As the nations first important playwright with forty nine published plays,he did a great deal to establish the modes of the modern theatre in the country.With him American drama developed into a form of literature and in him American d

27、rama came of age.III.Selected Readings The Hairy Ape The play tells the story of a brutish,unthinking laborer known as Yank,as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich.At first Yank feels secure as he stokes the engines of an oceanliner,and is highly confident in his ph

28、ysical power over the ships engines.However,when the weak but rich daughter of an in Yank undergoes a crisis of identity.He leaves the ship and wanders into Manhattan,only to find he does not belong anydustrialist in the steel business refers to him as a filthy beast,whereneither with the socialites

29、 on Fifth Avenue,nor with the labor organizers on the waterfront.Finally he is reduced to seeking a kindred being with the gorilla in the zoo and dies in the animals embrace.Modern man loses his sense of belonging under technological progress.Humanity is in a predicament by creating a world he does

30、not belong to.F.Scott Fitzgerald 1896 1940 I.Life Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in St.Paul,Minnesota on September 24,1896,the only son of an unsuccessful upper class father and an energetic mother of an Irish background.His family was socially prominent and genteelly poor.He became interested in

31、 writing at middle school.During he studied at Princeton University,he was also eager to write articles for the publication and dramas group of school.In 1917,he discontinued his studies and joined the army.There,he began to write his novels.In 1918,Fitzgerald met the“golden girl”,Zelda Sayre,in Mon

32、tgomery Alabama.After Fitzgerald published his first novel and got great success,Zelda and he married in New Yorks St Patricks Cathedral one week later.Zelda impact his whole life,because many heroines came from Zelda in his novels.Fitzgerald had been an alcoholic since his college days,and became n

33、otorious during the 1920s for his extraordinarily heavy drinking,leaving him in poor health by the late 1930s.Fitzgerald had died of a massive heart attack finally.II.Literary Career He was an American author of novels and short stories,whose works were the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age,a term h

34、e coined himself.He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.Fitzgerald is considered a member of the Lost Generation of the 1920s.He was also one of American famous writers.In 1922,his novel named Beautiful and the Damned was made into a film.Entering the 1930s

35、,he was in Hollywood as a screenwriter.He had created and adapted films such as Gone with the Wind and Last Time I Saw Paris.II.Literary Career He was an American author of novels and short stories,whose works were the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age,a term he coined himself.He is widely regarded

36、as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.Fitzgerald is considered a member of the Lost Generation of the 1920s.He was also one of American famous writers.In 1922,his novel named Beautiful and the Damned was made into a film.Entering the 1930s,he was in Hollywood as a screenwriter.

37、He had created and adapted films such as Gone with the Wind and Last Time I Saw Paris.III.Main WorksThis Side of Paradise(1920)The Beautiful and Damned (1922)Tales of the Age(1922)The Great Gatsby (1925)Tender is the Night(1934)The Last of Tycoon(unfinished)IV.Selected ReadingsThe Great Gatsby It is

38、 arguably Fitzgeralds finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known.A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess,Gatsby captured the spirit of the authors generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology.Self-made,self-invented millionaire Jay Gat

39、sby embodies some of Fitzgeralds-and his countrys-most abiding obsessions:money,ambition,greed and the promise of new beginnings.The Great Gatsby is the presentation of the 1920s,and of what has become known as the American Dream.Gatsby is the last of the romantic heroes,whose energy and sense of co

40、mmitment takes him in search of his personal grail;Gatsbys failure magnifies to a great extent the end of the American Dream.However，hope and expectation still exist as shown by the central symbol in the novel:the green light.Ernest Hemingway 1899-1961 I.Life He was born in Oak Park,Illinois.Hemingw

41、ay loved sports and often went hunting and fishing with his father,which provided him with writing materials.After high school,he worked as a reporter.During World War I he served as an honorable junior officer in the American Red Cross Ambulance Corps and in 1918 was severely wounded in both legs.I

42、.Life After the war,he went to Paris as a foreign reporter.Influenced and guided by Sherwood Anderson,Stephen Crane and Gertrude Stein he became a writer and began to attract attention.Hemingway was married four times.He spent time in Key West,Florida,Spain,and Africa after 1927.He was a war corresp

43、ondent from 1936-1939 during the Spanish Civil War.After the war,Hemingway moved to Havana,Cuba,and in 1958 moved to Idaho.In 1961,Hemingway shot himself with gun in his home.II.Academic AchievementsSpokesman of Lost Generation When WWI broke out,many young Americans volunteered to take part in the

44、war with the wish to end all wars.But the harsh reality made them aware that war was that glorious or heroic as they thought to be.Hemingway recorded the life of those physically and mentally wounded soldiers,revealed the frustration,loneliness and disillusionment of modern people.Hemingway Code Her

45、o Hemingways heroes display Hemingway values:they have seen the cold world and they boldly and courageously face the reality;whatever the result,they are ready to live with grace under pressure.II.Academic AchievementsGrace under pressure “Grace under Pressure”is an outstanding virtue of Hemingways

46、heroes,which best sums up his philosophical attitude toward life.Almost all his heroes are“soldier”either in a narrow or broad sense.They are out there to fight against nature or the world.No matter where the battleground is and how tragic the ending is,they will never be defeated.Iceberg theory Hem

47、ingway believes that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action;the 1/8 that is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimension of the story.III.Major WorksThe Torrents of Spring(1926)The Sun Also Rises(1926)A Farewell to Arms(1929)To Have and Have Not(1937)For

48、 Whom the Bell Tolls(1940)Across the River and into the Trees(1950)The Old Man and the Sea(1952)Islands in the Stream(1970)The Garden of Eden(1986,posthumous)True at First Light(1999,posthumous)2023/3/11III.Major WorksThe Old Man and the Sea It was written in 1951and published in 1952.It was awarded

49、 the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.The novel was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and produced in his lifetime.IV.Selected ReadingsA Clean Well-lighted Place No God,no meaning to this world,and man must consequently find someth

50、ing to distract himself from this horrible truth.For the older waiter:a clean,well-lighted caf as an escape,an artificial light made by man;for man,the only way to step out of the darkness of reality that life is filled with nothing meaningful.Glorified individuals:the veteran waiter and the elderly