英美文学选读要点（下篇：美国文学）

英美文学选读要点（下篇：美国文学） ?.本章学习目的和要求 通过本章学习，了解１９世纪初期至中叶美国文学产生的历史、文化背景；认识该时期 文学创作的基本待征、基本主张，及其对同时代和后期美国文学的影响；了解该时期主要作 家的文学创作生涯、创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题思想、人物刻画、语言风格等； 同时结合注释，读懂所选作品并了解其思想内容和艺术特色，培养理解和欣赏文学作品的能 力。 ?.本章重点及难点： 1．浪漫主义时期美国文学的特点 2．主要作家的创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格、 思想意义。 3．分析讨论选读作品 ?.本章考核知识点和考核要求： 1.美国浪漫主义时期概述 (1)．"识记"内容：美国浪漫主义文学产生的社会历史及文化背景 (2)．"领会"内容： 美国浪漫主义在文学上的表现 a.欧洲浪漫主义文学的影响 b.美国本土文学的崛起及其待证 (3)．"应用"内容：清教主义、超验主义、象征主义、自由诗等名词的解释 2.美国浪漫主义时期的主要作家 ? 1．一般识记：欧文的生平及创作主涯 2．识记：《纽约外史》《见闻札记》 3．领会：欧文的创作领域、创作思想，及其作品的艺术风格 4.应用：选读《瑞普?凡?温可尔》的主题及其艺术特色 ?? 1．一般识记：．爱默生的生平及创作生涯 2．识记：爱默生的超验主义思想 3．领会： （1）爱默生的散文：《论自然》《论自助》《论美国学者》等 （2）．爱默生与梭罗：梭罗的超验主义思想和他的《沃尔登》 4． 应用：《论自然》节选：爱默生的基本哲 学思想及自然观 ? 1．一般识记：霍桑的生平及创作主涯 2．识记：霍桑的长短篇小说 3．领会： （1）《红字》的主题、心理描写、象征手法和、小说结构 （2）霍桑的清教主义思想及加尔文教条中的"原罪"对霍桑的影响（人性本恶的观点） （3）霍桑对浪漫主义小说的贡献 4．应用：选读《小伙子布朗》的主题结构、象征手法及语言特色 ? 1．一般识记：惠特曼的生平及其创作生涯 2．识记：惠特曼的民主思想 3．领会： （1）惠特曼的《草叶集》的主创意图、思想感情及诗体形式、语言风格 （2）．惠特曼的个人主义 4．应用：选读《草叶集》诗选："一个孩子的成长"、"涉水的骑兵'"、"自己之歌"的主题 结构、诗歌的艺术特色、语言风格 ? 1．一般识记：麦尔维尔的生平及创作生涯 2．识记：麦尔维尔的早期作品：《玛地》《雷得本》《白外衣》，后期作品《皮埃尔》 《骗子的化装表演》《比利伯德》等 3．领会：《白鲸》的 （1）主题：表层及深层意义 （2）小说结构：浪漫主义和现实主义的统一 （3）象征手法和寓言的运用 （4）语言特色 4．应用：选读《白鲸》最后一章的节选：主题思想、人物刻画、象征手法、语言特色 Chapter l The Romantic Period ()"" 1.The origin of Romantic American literature The Romantic Period, one of the most important periods in the history of American literature, stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass. 2.The American Renaissance or New England Renaissance is a period of the great flowering of American literature, from the i830s roughly until the end of the American Civil War. It came of age as an expression of a national spirit. One of the most important influences in the period was that of the Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau. The Transcendentalists contributed to the founding of a new national culture based on native elements. Apart from the Transcendentalists, there emerged during this period great imaginative writers ---Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman---whose novels and poetry left a permanent imprint on American literature. 3.Its social historical and cultural background The development of the American society nurtured "the literature of a great nation." America was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country. Historically, it was the time of westward expansion in America economically, the whole nation was experiencing an industrial transformation. Politically, democracy and equa1ity became the ideal of the new nation, and the two-party system came into being. Worthy of mention is the literary and cultural life of the country. With the founding of the American Independent Government, the nation felt an urge to have its own literary expression, to make known its new experience that other nations did not have: the early Puritan settlement, the confrontation with the Indians, the frontiersmen's life, and the wild west. Besides, the nation's literary milieu was ready for the Romantic movement as we11. Thus, with a strong sense of optimism, a spectacular outburst of romantic feeling was brought about in the first ha1f of the 19th century. 4.Major writers of this period There emerged a great host of men of letters during this period, among whom the better-known are poets such as Philip Freneau, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Long Fellow, James Russel Lowell, John Greenleaf Whitter, Edgar Ellen Poe, and, especially, Walt Whitman, whose Leaves Of Grass established him as the most popular American poet of the 19th century. The fiction of the American Romantic period is an original and diverse body of work. It ranges from the comic fables of Washington Irving to the The Gothic tales of Edgar Allen Poe, from the frontier adventures of James Fenimore Cooper to the narrative quests of Herman Melville, from the psycho1ogical romances of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the social realism of Rebecca Harding Davis. () 1.The impact of European Romanticism on American Romanticism Foreign literary masters, especially the English counterparts exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the new world. Born of one common cultural heritage, the American writers shared some common features with the English Romanticists. They revolted against the literary forms and ideas of the period of classicism by developing some relatively new forms of fiction or poetry. (1) They put emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature, which included a liking for the picturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the sensational, and the supernatural. (2) The Americans also placed an increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions and disp1ayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitivity and excitement. (3) The strong tendency to exalt the individual and the common man was almost a national religion in America. Writers like Freneau, Bryant, and Cooper showed a great interest in external nature in their respective works. (4) The literary use of the more colorfu1 aspects of the past was also to be found in Irving's effort to exploit the legends of the Hudson River region, and in Cooper's long series of historical tales. (5) In short, American Romanticism is, in a certain way, derivative. 2.The unique characteristics of American Romanticism Although greatly influenced by their English counterparts, the American romantic writers revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands. For examp1e,(1) the American national experience of "pioneering into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams, and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral 1aw. (2)The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper's Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's Walden and, later, in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (3) With the growth of American national consciousness, American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. (4) Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values and American Romanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. (5) Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers. () 1. The American Puritanism and its great influence over American moral values, as is shown in American romantic writings. (1) American Puritanism Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. (The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church, who came into existence in the reigns Queen Elizabeth and King James ?.The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them Puritans. They came to America out of various reasons, but it should be remembered that they were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They felt that the Church of England was too close to the Church of Rome in doctrine form of worship, and organization of authority.) The American Puritans, like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to complete "purity". They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. But in the grim struggle for survival that followed immediately after their arrival in America, they became more and more practical, as indeed they had to be. Puritans were noted for a spirit of moral and religious earnestness that determinated their whole way of life. Puritans' lives were extremely disciplined and hard. They drove out of their settlements all those opinions that seemed dangerous to them, and history has criticized their actions. Yet in the persecution of what they considered error, the Puritans were no worse than many other movements in history. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind and American values. American Puritanism also had a conspicuously noticeable and an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets. (2) One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers. 2. New England Transcendentalism New England Transcendentalism is the mot clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period. It was started in the area around Concord, Mass. by a group of intellectual and the literary men of the United States such as Emerson, Henry David Thoreau who were members of an informal club, i. e. the Transcendental Club in New England in the l830s. The transcendentalists reacted against the cold, rigid rationalism of Unitarianism in Boston. They adhered to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation , the innate goodness of man, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. The writings of the transcendentalists prepared the ground of their contemporaries such as Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The main issues involved in the debate were generally philosophical, concerning nature, man and the universe. Basically, Transcendentalism has been defined philosophical1y as "the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses." Emerson once proclaimed in a speech, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism inc1ude the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-re1iant. 3. American Romanticists differed in their understanding of human nature. To the transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau, man is divine in nature and therefore forever perfectible; but to Hawthorne and Melville, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensab1e for the improvement of human nature, as is shown in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. . . Washington Irving(1783-l859) Irving's position in American literature Washington Irving was one of the first American writers to earn an international reputation, and regarded as an early Romantic writer in the merican literary history and Father of the American short stories. His life and major works Washington Irving was born in New York City in a wealthy family. From a very early age he began to read widely and write juvenile poems, essays, and plays. In l798, he conc1uded his education at private schools and entered a law office, but he loved writing more. His first successful work is A History Of New York from the Beginning Of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, which, written under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, won him wide popularity after it came out in 1809. With the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in serials between 1819 and 1820, Irving won a measure of international fame on both sides of the Atlantic. The book contains familiar essays on the Eng1ish life and Americanized versions of European folk tales like "Rip Van Winkle, and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Geoffrey Crayon is a carefully contrived persona and behind Crayon stands Irving, juxtaposing the Old World and the New, and manipulating his own antiquarian interest with artistic perspectives. The major work of his later years was The Life of George Washington. 1.Irving's great indebtedness to European literature Most of Irving's subject matter are borrowed heavily from European sources, which are chiefly Germanic. Irving's relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ignored considering his success both abroad and at home. A History of New York is a patchwork of references, echoes, and burlesques. He parodies or imitates Homer, Cervantes, Fielding, Swift and many other favorites of his. He was also absorbed in German Literature and got ideas from German legends for two of his famous stories "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Alhambra is usually regarded as Irving's "Spanish Sketch Book" simply because it has a strong flavor of Spanish culture. Most of the thirty-three essays in The Sketch Book were written in England, filled with English scenes and quotations from English authors and faithful to British orthography. Washington Irving brought to the new nation what its peop1e desired most in a man of 1etters the respect of the Old World. 2.Irving's unique contribution to American literature Irving's contribution to American literature is unique in more than one way. He was the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame. Although greatly influenced by European literature, Irving gave his works distinctive American flavor. "Rip Van Winkle" or "The Legend of Sleepy Hol1ow", however exotic these stories are, are among the treasures of the American language and culture. These two stories easily trigger off American imagination with their focus on American subjects, American landscape, and, in Irving's case, the legends of the Hudson River region of the fresh young 1and. It is not the sketches about the Old World but the tales about America that made Washington Irving a household word and his fame enduring. He was father of American short stories. And later in the hands of Hawthorne and Melville the short story attained a degree of perfection. 1.Irving's theme of conservatism as is revealed in "Rip Van Winkle" Irving's taste was essentia1ly conservative and always exa1ted a disappearing past. This socia1 conservatism and literary preference for the past is revea1ed, to some extent, in his famous story "Rip Van Winkle." The story is a tale remembered mostly for Rip's 20-year s1eep, set against the background of the inevitably changing America. Rip went to sleep before the War of Independence and woke up after it. The change that had occurred in the 20 years he slept was to him not always for the better. The revolution upset the natural order of things. In the story Irving ski1lfu1ly presents to us paralleled juxtapositions of two totally different worlds before and after Rip's 20 years' s1eep. By moving Rip back and forth from a noisy world with his wife on the farm to a wild but peaceful natural world in the mountains, and from a pre-Revolution village to a George Washington era, lrving describes Rip's response and reaction in a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferabi1ity of the past to the present, and the preferability of a dream-like world to the real one. Irving never seemed to accept a modern democratic America. 2.Irving's literary craftsmanship Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who "perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produced." (1) We get a strong sense impression as we read him along, since the language he used best reveals what a Romantic writer can do with words. We hear rather than read, for there is musicality in almost every line of his prose. (2) We seldom learn a mora1 lesson because he wants us amused and relaxed. So we often find ourselves lost in a world that is permeated with a dreaming quality. (3) The Gothic elements and the supernatural atmosphere are manipulated in such a way that we could become so engaged and involved in what is happening in a seemingly exotic place. (4) Yet Irving never forgets to associate a certain place with the inward movement of a person and to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and vivid character. He is worth the honor of being "the American Goldsmith" for his literary craftsmanship. Selected Reading: An Excerpt from "Rip Van Winkle" The story of Rip Van Winkle Rip, an indolent good-natured Dutch-American, lives with his shrewish wife in a village on the Hudson during the years before the Revolution. One day while hunting in the Catskills with his dog Wolf, he meets a dwarflike stranger dressed in the ancient Dutch fashion. He helps him to carry a keg, and with him joins a party silently playing a game of ninepins. After drinking of the liquor they provide, Rip falls into a sleep which lasts 20 years, during which the Revolutionary War takes place. He awakes as an old man and returns to his home village that has greatly altered. Upon entering the village, he is greeted by his old dog, which dies of the excitement and then learns that his wife has long been dead. Rip is almost forgotten but he goes to live with his daughter, now the mother of a family, and is soon befriended with his generosity and cheerfulness. This excerpt below is taken from the story, describing for us Rip's difficulties at home, which he often escapes by going to the local inn to spend his time with his friends and sometimes by going hunting in the woods with his dog, and then focusing on Rip 's return from his 20 years' sleep to his greatly altered home village. Here, Irving's pervasive theme of nostalgia for the unrecoverable past is at once made unforgettable. What are the theme and the artistic features of "Rip Van Winkle"? (1) The theme: Irving's taste was essentia1ly conservative and always exa1ted a disappearing past. This socia1 conservatism and literary preference for the past is revea1ed, to some extent, in his famous story "Rip Van Winkle." The story is a tale remembered mostly for Rip's 20-year s1eep, set against the background of the inevitably changing America. Rip went to sleep before the War of Independence and woke up after it. The change that had occurred in the 20 years he slept was to him not always for the better. The revolution upset the natural order of things. In the story Irving ski1lfu1ly presents to us paralleled juxtapositions of two totally different worlds before and after Rip's 20 years' s1eep. By moving Rip back and forth from a noisy world with his wife on the farm to a wild but peaceful natural world in the mountains, and from a pre-Revolution village to a George Washington era, lrving describes Rip's response and reaction in a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferabi1ity of the past to the present, and the preferability of a dream-like world to the real one. Irving never seemed to accept a modern democratic America. (2) The artistic features: "Rip Van Winkle" is not only well-known for Rip's 20-year sleep but also considered a model of perfect English in American Literature and in the English language as well. Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who "perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produced." He has a clear, easy style. (a) We get a strong sense impression as we read him along, since the language he used best reveals what a Romantic writer can do with words. We hear rather than read, for there is musicality in almost every line of his prose. (b) We seldom learn a mora1 lesson because he wants us amused and relaxed. So we often find ourselves lost in a world that is permeated with a dreaming quality. He uses genial humor to exaggerate the seriousness of situation. He uses dignified words to produce a half-mocking effect. (c)The Gothic elements and the supernatural atmosphere are manipulated in such a way that we could become so engaged and involved in what is happening in a seemingly exotic place.( Rip Van Winkle was overwhelmed by the magic power of the drink and fell into sleep for 20 years.) (d)Yet Irving never forgets to associate a certain place with the inward movement of a person and to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and vivid character. He is worth the honor of being "the American Goldsmith" for his literary craftsmanship. II. Ralph Waldo Emerson . His life: Ralph Waldo Emerson is the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism, which is unanimously agreed to be the summit of the Romantic period in the history of American literature. Emerson was son of a Unitarian minister. Though born of an impoverished family, Emerson never failed to receive some formal education. Whi1e a student at Harvard he began keeping journals, a practice he continued throughout his 1if e. He later drew on the journal for materials for his essays and poetry. After Harvard, he taught as a schoolmaster, which he soon gave up for the study of theology. He began preaching in 1826 and three years later he became a pastor in a church in Boston. Emerson was ardent at first in his service in religion, but gradually grew skeptical of the beliefs of the church; feeling Unitarianism intolerable, he finally left the ministry in l832. Emerson was greatly influenced by European Romanticism. He Carlyle, and listened to some famous Romantic poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth. Through his acquaintance with these men he became closely involved with German idea1ism and Transcendentalism. After he was back from Europe, Emerson retreated to a quiet study at Concord, Massachusetts, where he began to pursue his new path of "self-reliance." Emerson formed a club there at Concord with peop1e like Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, which was later known as the Transcendenta1 Club. And the unofficial manifesto for the Club was Nature(l836), Emerson's first little book, which established him ever since as the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism. Nature was the fundamental document of his philosophy and expressed also his constant, deeply-felt love for nature. It was called "the Manifesto of American Transcendentalism". He also helped to found and edit for a time the Transcendental journal, The Dial. Emerson lived an intel1ectually active and significant life between the mid-1830s and the mid-1840s, 1ecturing all over the country, and occasionally, abroad. He preached his Transcendental pursuit and his reputation expanded dramatically with his lectures and his essays. Though the rest of Emerson's life was a slow anticlimax to his midd1e years, people continued to honor the most influentia1 prophet and the intellectua1 liberator of their age, and his reputation as a family man of conventional life and a decent, solid citizen has remained always. His major works: Emerson is generally known as an essayist. During all his life he worked steadily at a succession of essays, usually derived from his journals or lectures he had already given. Nature did not establish him as an important American writer. His lasting reputation began only with the publication of Essays (1841 ). Many of his famous essays are included in Essay, which convey the best of his philosophical discussions and transcendental pursuits, such as The American Scholar, Self Reliance, The Over Soul. The second collection of Emerson's essays, Essays: Second Series (1844) demonstrated even more thorough1y than the first that Emerson's intellect had sharpened in the years since Nature. The Poet and Exprience are examples, the former a reflection upon the aesthetic problems in terms of the present state of literature in America and the latter a discussion about the conflict between idealism and ordinary 1ife. 1. Emersonian Transcendentalism Emersonian Transcendentalism is actual1y a philosophical school which absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and European Romanticism, with its focus on the intuitive knowledge of human beings to grasp the absolute in the universe and the divinity of man. In his essays, Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-sou1, the importance of the Individual, and Nature. (1) Emerson's philosophy of the over-sou1 Emerson rejected both the formal religion of the churches and the Deistic philosophy; instead he based his religion on an intuitive belief in an ultimate unity, which he called the "over-soul." Emerson and other Transcendentalists believed in the transcendence of "over-soul". It is an impersonal force that is eternal, moral, harmonious, and beneficient in tendency. They believed that there should be an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal "oversoul", since the over-sou1 is an all-pervading power from which all things come from and of which a1l are a part. One of the tendencies of the "over-soul " is to express itself in form, hence the world of nature as an emanation of the world of spirit. Emerson's remarkable image of "a transparent eyebal1" marks a paradoxical state of being, in which one is merged into nature, the over-soul, whi1e at the same time retaining a unique perception of the experience. (2) Emerson's philosophy of the importance of the Individual Emerson is affirmative about man's intuitive knowledge, with which a man can trust himself to decide what is right and to act accordingly. The ideal individual should be a self-reliant man. "Trust thyself," he wrote in Self Reliance, by which he means to convince people that the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself are infinite. (3) Emerson's view on nature Emerson's nature is emblematic of the spiritual world, alive with God's overwhelming presence. It mediates between man and God, and its voice leads to higher truth; hence, it exercises a healthy and restorative inf1uence on human mind. "Go back to nature, sink yourse1f back into its inf1uence and you'1l become spiritually who1e again." By employing nature as a big symbol of the Spirit, or God, or the over-soul, Emerson has brought the Puritan 1egacy of symbolism to its perfection. Emersonian Transcendentalism inspired a whole generation of famous American authors like Thoreau, Whitman, and Dickinson. 2.Thoreau's Transcendentalism Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is most often mentioned as inspired by Emerson, the most representative of the phi1osophical and literary school which is American Transcendenta1ism. Thoreau embraced his master's ideas as a disciple. In 1845 he built a cabin on some land belonging to Emerson by Walden Pond and moved in to live there in a very simple manner for a litt1e over two years, which gave birth to a great transcendentalist work Walden (1854). The book not only fully demonstrates Emersonian ideas of self-reliance but also develops and tests Thoreau's own transcendental philosophy. (1)For Thoreau, nature is not merely symbolic, but divine in itself and human beings can receive precise communication from the natural world by way of pure senses. So he was often alone in the woods or by the pond, lost in spiritual communion with nature. (2)Thoreau strongly believed in se1f-culture and was eager to identify himself with the Transcendental image of the self-reliant man. To achieve personal spiritual perfection, he thinks, the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self- sufficient, so he sought to reduce his physical needs and material comforts to a minimum to get spiritual richness. (3)His positiveness about the importance of individual conscience was such that he even considered the society fetters of the freedom of individuals. Though Thoreau became more than Emerson's disciple eventually, his indebtedness to Nature and its author has never been over1ooked. 3. The style of Emerson's essays Emerson's essays often have a casual style, for most of them were derived from his journals or lectures. They are usually characterized by a series of short, declarative sentences, which are not quite logically connected but will flower out into illustrative statements of truth and thoughts. Emerson's philosophical discussion is sometimes difficult to understand but he uses comparisons and metaphors to make the general idea of his work clearly expressed. Well-read in the classics of Western European literature, Emerson often employed these literary sources to make and enrich his own points but never let them take the full reins of his discussion. In general, Emerson was showing to the world a distinctive American style. Selected Reading: An Excerpt from Nature Question : What is Emerson's view on nature? Emerson's nature is emblematic of the spiritual world, alive with God's overwhelming presence; hence, it exercises a healthy and restorative inf1uence on human mind. "Go back to nature, sink yourse1f back into its inf1uence and you'1l become spiritually who1e again." By employing nature as a big symbol of the Spirit, or God, or the over-soul, Emerson has brought the Puritan 1egacy of symbolism to its perfection. The essay Nature discusses the love of nature, the uses of nature, the idealist philosophy in relation to nature, evidences of spirit in the material universe, and the potential expansion of human souls and works that will result from a general return to direct, immediate contact with the natural environment. In the essay Emerson clearly expresses the main principles of his Transcendentalist pursuit and his love for nature. In expressing his belief in the mystical "unity of nature," Emerson develops his concept of the" Over- Soul" or" Universal Mind." In the selection Emerson's famous metaphor of "a transparent eyeball" is employed to illustrate his philosophical discussion. III. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-l864) Imbued with an inquiring imagination, an intense1y meditative mind, and unceasing interest in the "interior of the heart" of man's being, Nathaniel Hawthorne remains one of the most interesting, yet most ambiva1ent writers in the American literary history. Hawthorne's life and writing career His life story is tota1ly without the exciting events which characterize the lives of so many American writers. He was born on the Fourth of July, l804 in Salem, Massachusetts, into a prominent Puritan family. His first American ancestor, William Hawthorne, as a magistrate of the Bay Colony, was active in the 1650's in persecution of the Quakers, while William's son, John, was a judge at the Salem witchcraft trials. However, the 17th century prominence of his family dec1ined during the century that followed. Nathaniel's father, a sea captain, died of yellow fever in 1808 leaving at Salem a widow and three children in genteel poverty. With the financial support from his more prosperous maternal relations, Hawthorne passed a serene childhood in spite of his father's death and spent his adolescence reading some books of those literary master minds, especially Bunyan, Spenser and Shakespeare, which were essential for his formation as a writer. From 1821 to 1825, he attended Bowdoin Co1lege in Maine, where the decision to devote himself to writing was gradually taking shape and finally put into practice during those years when he was living with his mother in Salem. The solitary years proved to be fruitful, for in 1837, he published Twice-Told Tales, a collection of short stories which attracted critical attention. After 1837, a series of salient events of Hawthorne's life happened that mattered a lot to his literary imagination and creation. He met Sophia Peabody, whom he married later and with whom he had three children: he worked in the United States Custom House in Boston and later in Salem, which definitely provided some authentic materials for his long works; he also stayed for some time at Concord and Lenox, where he met the principal literary figures of the time, Emerson and Thoreau and Melville. He was affected by the former's transcendentalist theory and struck up a very intimate relationship with the latter, and all the three people had played an indispensable role in Hawthorne's literary career. Hawthorne's major works Hawthorne wrote and published many good works, which have doubtlessly become part of the American literary heritage. Among them, the tales collected in Moses from an Old Manse (1846) and The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales (1851) best demonstrate Hawthorn's early obsession with the moral and psychological consequences of pride, selfishness, and secret guilt that manifest themselves in human beings; The Scarlet Letter (1850), always regarded as the best of his works, tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a Puritan community are invo1ved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways; The House of the Seven Gables (1851 ) was based on the tradition of a curse pronounced on the author's family when his great-grandfather was a judge in the Salem witchcraft trials; The Blithedale Romance (l852) is a novel he wrote to reveal his own experiences on the Brook Farm and his own methods as a psychological novelist. The Marble Faun (1860) is a romance set in Italy, concerned about the dark aberrations of the human spirit. 1. Hawthorne's thematic concerns (1) his "black" vision of life and human beings: his concern with human sin and evil Hawthorne's literary world is a most disturbed, tormented and problematical one mostly because of his "black" vision of life and human beings. He rejected the Transcendentalists' transparent optimism about the potentialities of human nature. Instead he looked more deeply and perhaps more honestly into life, finding in it much suffering and conflict but also finding the redeeming power of love. According to Hawthorne, "There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity." A piece of literary work should "show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one another." So in almost every book he wrote, Hawthorne discusses sin and evil. In "Young Goodman Brown," he sets out to prove that everyone possesses some evil secret. Its hero, a naive young man who accepts both societies in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful. "The Minister's B1ack Veil" goes further to suggest that everyone tries to hold the evil secret from one another in the way the minister tries to convince his people with his black vei1." The Birthmark" drives home symbolically Hawthorne's point that evi1 is man's birthmark, something he is born with. One source of evil that Hawthorne is concerned most is over-reaching intellect, which usually refers to someone, who is too proud, too sure of himself. The tension between the head and the heart constitutes one of the dramatic moments when the evil of "overreaching intellect" would be fully revealed. Hawthorne's intellectuals are usually villains, dreadful because they are devoid of warmth and feeling. What's more, they tend to go beyond and violate the natural order by doing something impossible and reaching the ultimate truth, without a sober mind about their own limitations as human beings. Chillingworth, Dr. Rappaccini in "Rappaccini's Daughter" are but a few specimens of Hawthorne's chilling, cold-blooded human animals. (2)Hawthorne's view of Puritanism: Hawthorne's view of man and human history originates, to a great extent, in Puritanism. He was not a Puritan himself, but he had Puritan ancestors who p1ayed an important role in his life and works. He believed that "the wrong doing of one generation lives into the successive ones," and often wondered if he might have inherited some of their guilt. This sensibility 1ed to his understanding of evil being at the very core of human life, which is typical of the Calvinistic belief that human beings are basically depraved and corrupted, hence, they should obey God to atone for their sins. In many of Hawthorne's stories and novels, the Puritan concept of life is condemned, or the Puritan Past is shown in an almost totally negative light, especially in his The House Of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne is attracted in every way to the Puritan world, even though he condemns its less humane manifestations. On the one hand, it provides him with a subject, He inherited the Puritan tradition of moral earnestness, and he was deeply concerned with the concepts of original sin and guilt and the claims of law and conscience; and on the other, with the Puritan world or society as a historical background, he discusses some of the most important issues that concern the moral life of man and human history. (3) his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne's remarkable sense of the Puritan past, his understanding of the co1onial history in New England, his apparent preoccupation with the moral issues of sin and guilt, and his keen psychological analysis of people are brought to full display in his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter. (a) the story: The main character of The Scarlet Letter is Hester Prynne, a young married woman who has borne an illegitimate child while living away from her husband in a village in Puritan New England .The husband ,Roger Chillingworth, arrives in New England to find his wife pilloried and made to wear the scarlet letter A(meaning adulteress) on her dress as a punishment for her illicit affair and for her refusal to reveal the name of the child's father. Chillingworth becomes obsessed with finding the identity of his wife's former lover. He learns that Hester's lover is a saintly young minister, Arther Dimmesdale and Chillingworth then proceeds to revenge himself by mentally tormenting the guilt-stricken young man. Hester herself is revealed to be a compassioned and splendidly self-reliant heroine who is never truly repentant for the act of adultery committed with the minister; she feels that their act was consecrated by their deep love for each other .In the end Chillingworths morally degraded by his monomaniac pursuit of revenge, and Dimmesdale is broken by his own sense of guilt and publicly confess his adultery before dying in Hester's arm. Only Hester can face the future optimistically, as she plans to ensure the future of her beloved little girl by taking her to Europe. (b) theme: This novel, together with some other of Hawthorne's work, assumes the universality of guilt and explores the complexities and ambiguities of man's choices. It is marked by a depth of psychological and moral insight seldom equaled and never surpassed by any American writer. In this particular nove1, Hawthorne does not intend to tell a love story nor a story of sin, but focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular, so as to show us the tension between society and individuals. " To Hawthorne, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature, as is shown in the The Scarlet Letter. (c)The structure and the form of his writings are always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern. He was a skillful craftsman with an impressive sense of form. Hawthorne was also the master of a classic literary style that is remarkable for its directness, its clarity, its firmness and its sureness of idiom. (d) With his specia1 interest in the psychologica1 aspect of human beings, there isn't much action, or physical movement going on in his works and he is good at exploring the complexity of human psychology. So his drama is Thought, full of mental activities. Thought propels action and grows organically out of the interaction of the characters, as we can find in The Scarlet Letter. (e)Hawthorne is a master of symbolism, which he took from the Puritan tradition and bequeathed to American literature in a revivified form. The symbo1 can be found everywhere in his writing, and his masterpiece provides the most conclusive proof. The scarlet letter "A" is the central symbol of The Scarlet Letter, with which Hawthorne proves himself to be one of the best symbolists. As a key to the whole novel, the letter A takes on different layers of symbolic meanings as the plot develops. At the beginning of the novel Hester was discovered to have committed adultery and was punished to wear a scarlet letter "A" made of cloth at her bosom and the letter symbolized her sin-"adultery". Then when Hester became gradually accepted by the community through her honesty and hard work, it stands for Hester's intelligence and hard work-"able". At the end of the novel the symbol has evolved to represent the high virtues of Hester-"angelic". So the letter changes from a symbol of sin to a symbol of ability and at last of the high human virtue. By using Pearl as a thematic symbo1, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community. (f)The scarlet letter A is ambiguous. People come up with different interpretations and they do not know which one is definite. So, ambiguity is one of the salient characteristics of Hawthorne's art. 2.Hawthorne's writing style As a man of literary craftsmanship, Hawthorne is extraordinary in that (1)The structure and the form of his writings are always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern. (2) With his specia1 interest in the psychologica1 aspect of human beings, there isn't much action, or physical movement going on in his works and he is good at exploring the complexity of human psychology. So his drama is Thought, full of mental activities. Thought propels action and grows organically out of the interaction of the characters, as we can find in The Scarlet Letter. (3) Hawthorne is also a great allegorist and almost every story can be read allegorically, as is the case in "Young Goodman Brown." A1legory is used to ho1d fast against the crushing blows of reality. Its hero, a naive young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful. Allegorically, our protagonist, becomes an Everyman named Brown, a "young man" who will be aged in one night by an adventure that makes everyone in this world a fallen idol. (4)Hawthorne is a master of symbolism, which he took from the Puritan tradition and bequeathed to American literature in a revivified form. The symbol serves as a weapon to attack and penetrate reality. The symbo1 can be found everywhere in his writing. a) His masterpiece provides the most conclusive proof. The scarlet letter "A" is the central symbol of The Scarlet Letter. With which Hawthorne proves himself to be one of the best symbolists. As a key to the whole novel, the letter A takes on different layers of symbolic meanings as the plot develops. At the beginning of the novel Hester was discovered to have committed adultery and was punished to wear a scarlet letter "A" made of cloth at her bosom and the letter symbolized her sin-"adultery". Then when Hester became gradually accepted by the community through her honesty and hard work, it stands for Hester's intelligence and hard work-"able". At the end of the novel the symbol has evolved to represent the high virtues of Hester-"angelic". So the letter changes from a symbol of sin to a symbol of ability and at last of the high human virtue. By using Pearl as a thematic symbo1, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community. b) In "Young Goodman Brown", by using the black forest as a thematic symbol, Hawthirne emphasizes the consequences of sin on the community and people living in that community. The other symbols are the name of his wife "Faith", the pink ribbon of her cap, the black mass of cloud, the blazing pines, the rock, etc. With the use of allegory and symbolism, his fictional characters' actions and dilemmas fairly obviously express larger generalizations about the problems of human existence. (5) The scarlet letter A is ambiguous. People come up with different interpretations and they do not know which one is definite. So, ambiguity is one of the salient characteristics of Hawthorne's art. Selected Reading: Young Goodman Brown 1.The story: Goodman Brown, a Puritan who lives in the village of Salem, leaves his wife Faith who pleads him not to go, to attend a witches' Sabbath in the woods. A satanic figure leads the credulous protagonist to a witches' Sabbath. There, he astonishingly finds lots of prominent people of the village and the church. When he is about to be confirmed into the group, he finds his wife Faith is also there beside him. He immediately cries out" look up to Heaven and resist the wicked one," only to find he is alone in the forest. He returns to his home, but since then lives a dismal and gloomy life because he is never able to believe in goodness or piety again. 2.The theme, allegory, symbolism and language features of the selected reading (1)allegorical theme: "Young Goodman Brown" is one of Hawthorne's most profound tales. The story illustrates Hawthorne's allegorical theme of human evil. In the manner of its concern with guilt and evil, it exemplifies what Milville called the" power of blackness" in Hawthorne's work. In "Young Goodman Brown," he sets out to prove that everyone possesses some evil secret. "Evil is the nature of mankind." Its hero, a naive young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful. (2)allegory:Hawthorne is a great allegorist and almost every story can be read allegorically, as is the case in "Young Goodman Brown." A1legory is used to ho1d fast against the crushing blows of reality. Its hero, a naive young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful. Allegorically, our protagonist, becomes an Everyman named Brown, a "young man" who will be aged in one night by an adventure that makes everyone in this world a fallen idol. (3)ambivalence of Hawthorne's art :The story is manipulated in such a way that we as readers feel that Hawthorne poses the question of Good and Evil in man but withholds his answer, and he does not permit himself to determine whether the events of the night of trial are real or the mere figment of a dream. IV.Walt Whitman Whitman is a giant of American letters. His Leaves of Grass has always been considered a monumental work which commands great attention because of its uniquely poetic embodiment of American democratic ideals. He is the poet of the common people and the prophet and singer of democracy. . Whitman's life He was born in 1819 into a working-c1ass family and grew up in Brook1yn, New York. Son of a carpenter, Whitman left his schooling for good at eleven, and became an office boy. Later on he changed several jobs, one of which was in the printing office of a newspaper, which would be of great he1p in his literary career. By this early age he had a1ready shown his strong love for literature, reading a great deal on his own, especially the works of Shakespeare and Milton, and developed his potential for the writing career in the future. Before he was 17 years o1d he had already had his poems printed on a paper, although these early works were not comparable to his later and mature ones. However, Whitman did not become a professional writer directly henceforth, until an opportunity came up which sent him back to New York City, where he formal1y took up journalism and indulged himself in the excitement of the fast-growing metropolis. Feeling compe1led to speak up for something new and vital he found in the air of the nation, Whitman turned to the manual work of carpentry around 1851 or 1852, as an experiment to familiarize himself with the reality and essence of the life of the nation. At the same time, he widened his reading to a new scale and made it more systematic. After enriching himself simultaneously by these two very different, approaches, Whitman was ab1e to put forward his own set of aesthetic princip1es. Leaves of Grass was just the expression of these principles. Whitman's democratic ideals Whitman's democratic ideas govern his poetry-writing. In his famous poetry, openness, freedom, and above all, individua1ism (the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important) are all that concerned him. Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into American literature ,attack the slavery system and racial discrimination. In this book he also extols nature ,democracy, labor and creation ,and sings of man's dignity and equality, and of the brightest future of mankind Whitman believed that poetry could play a vita1 part in the process of creating a new nation. It could enab1e Americans to celebrate their release from the Old World and the colonia1 rule. And it could also help them understand their new status and to define themse1ves in the new wor1d of possibi1ities. 1. The themes in Whitman's poetry: His poetry is filled with optimistic expectation and enthusiasm about new things and new epoch. Whitman believed that poetry could play a vita1 part in the process of creating a new nation. It could enab1e Americans to celebrate their release from the Old World and the colonia1 rule. And it could also help them understand their new status and to define themse1ves in the new wor1d of possibi1ities. Hence, the abundance of themes in his poetry voices freshness. (1) He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. To Whitman, the fast growth of industry and wealth in cities indicated a lively future of the nation, despite the crowded, noisy, and squalid conditions and the slackness in morality. (2) He advocates the realization of the individua1 value. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the "en-masse" and the self as well. (3) Pursuit of love and happiness is approved of repeatedly and affectionately in his lines. Sexual 1ove, a rather taboo topic of the time, is displayed candidly as something adorable. The individual person and his desires must be respected. (4) Some of Whitman's poems are politically committed. Before and during the Civil War, Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory, as in poems like "Cavalry Crossing a Ford." Later, he wrote down a great many poems to air his sorrow over the death of Lincoln, and one of the famous is "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." 2.Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman is a poet with a strong sense of mission, having devoted all his life to the creation of the "single" poem, Leaves of Grass. (1) the title :It is significant that Whitman entitled his book Leaves of Grass . He said that where there is earth, where there is water, there is grass. Grass, the most common thing with the greatest vitality, is an image of the poet himself, a symbol of the then rising American nation and an embodiment of his ideals about democracy and freedom. (2) theme and the poet's essentia1 purpose (a) theme: In this giant work, openness, freedom, and above all, individua1ism(the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important) are all that concerned him.Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into American literature ,attack the slavery system and racial discrimination. In this book he also extols nature,democracy, labor and creation ,and sings of man's dignity and equality, and of the brightestfutureof mankind . Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the "en-masse" and the self as well. (b) the poet's essentia1 purpose His aim was nothing less than to express some new poetica1 feelings and to initiate a poetic tradition in which difference shou1d be recognized. The genuine participation of a poet in a common cultural effort was, according to Whitman, to behave as a supreme individualist; however, the poet's essentia1 purpose was to identify his ego with the world, and more specifically with the democratic "en-masse" of America, which is established in the opening lines of "Song of Myself". 3.Whitman's poetic style and language To dramatize the nature of these new poetical fee1ings, Whitman employed brand-new means in his poetry, which would first be discerned in his style and language. (1) Whitman's poetic style is marked, first of a1l, by the use of the poetic "I." Whitman becomes all those people in his poems and yet still remains "Walt Whitman", hence a discovery of the self in the other with such an identification. In such a manner, Whitman invites his readers to participate in the process of sympathetic identification. (2) Whitman is also radically innovative in terms of the form of his poetry. He adopted "free verse," that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. A looser and more open-ended syntactical structure is frequently favored. Lines and sentences of different lengths are left lying side by side just as things are, undisturbed and separate. There are few compound sentences to draw objects and experiences into a system of hierarchy. Whitman was the first American to use free verse extensively. By means of "free verse," Whitman turned the poem into an open field, an area of vital possibility where the reader can allow his own imagination to play. (3) Whitman is conversational and casual, in the fluid, expansive, and unstructured style of talking. However, there is a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical. The reader can feel the rhythm of Whitman's thought and cadences of his feeling. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines also contribute to the musicality of his poems. (4) Whitman's language Contrary to the rhetoric of traditional poetry, Whitman's is relatively simple and even rather crude. (a) Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest, undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day. The particularity about these images is that they are unconventional in the way they break down the social division based on religion, gender, class, and race. One of the most often-used methods in Whitman's poems is to make colors and images fleet past the mind's eye of the reader. (b) Another characteristic in Whitman's language is his strong tendency to use oral English. (c) Whitman's vocabulary is amazing. He would use powerfu1, colorful, as well as rarely-used words, words of foreign origin and sometimes even wrong words. Walt Whitman has proved a great figure in the literary history of the United States because he embodies a new ideal, a new world and a new life-style, and his influence over the following generations is significant and incredible. Selected Readings: 1. There Was a Child Went Forth This poem describes the growth of a child who learned about the world around him and improved himself accordingly. In the poem Whitman's own early experience may well be identified with the childhood of a young, growing America. Young American nation were creating a new life with their own hands. We see Whitman in the process of absorbing the world into himself .He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the growing life of cities. The poem describes the influence of environment on the child, and the poet divides these influences into the animal and vegetable world of nature and the human world of the home. It is interesting to reexamine the sequence of the items listed in this poem which "became part of the child." They reflect the natural process of a boy's growth. At first, his world was limited within the barnyard. Later, he sought into fields and streets. Then, he became interested in something more mysterious -his fellow human beings. Finally, he was on the symbolic threshold of the outside world, the sea. He had grown into a young man from a baby. 2. Cavalry Crossing a Ford This poem is grouped under the Drum-Taps section in the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass， which reminds its readers of a picture, or a photo, of a scene of the American Civil War. All the movements described in this picture are frozen. And while sounds are depicted, it's more likely that they come out of the watcher's imagination, rather than from the picture itself. This poem incorporates his emotions and feelings during the war period. Not a lover of violence and bloodshed, Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory. Whitman uses colors and images. 3. Song of Myself The two principal beliefs embodied in this poem: In this poem Whitman sets forth two principal beliefs: the theory of universality, which is illustrated by lengthy catalogues of people and things, and the belief in the singularity and equality of all beings in value. He extols whole universe and the world. He is thinking of the self as a powerful and sensitive instrument for receiving and expressing. He moves from himself to you to others, to all humanity all together about him. . Herman Melville(1819-1891) Herman Melville is best-known as the author of his mighty book, Moby-Dick(1851), which is one of the world's greatest masterpieces. His life and his career as a writer Herman Melville was born in 1819 in Lansingburgh, New York. The early sailing experiences were rewarding, for they gave him a love of the sea, and aroused his desire for adventure. In 1841, Melvile went to the South Seas on a whaling ship, where he gained the first-hand information about whaling that he used later in Moby Dick. In the following three years, Melville served on three different whalers, finally served for a year in the regular navy. Working as a sailor, he had experienced the most brutalizing life in his time for a man, yet years of adventures also furnished him with abundant raw materials for most of his major fictions and his imaginative visions of life. In 1850, Melville and Hawthorne became very good friends. Hawthorne's black vision regarding the evil of human beings had in some way changed Melville's outlook on life and the world and his allegorical way of exposition had affected his writing technique. Shakespearean tragic vision and Emersonian Transcendentalism also produced some positive effects on his writing. The differences between Melville's early works and later ones: Melville's writings can be well divided into two groups, each with something in common in the light of the thematic concern and imaginative focus. (1) His early works were sea adventures, condidered to be the best. Among them are Typee(1846), Omoo(1847), and Mardi(1849). Redburn(1849) is a semi-autobiographical novel, concerning the sufferings of a genteel youth among brutal sailors; in White Jacket(1850) Melville relates his life on a United States man-of-war. Of all these sea adventure stories, Moby-Dick proves to be the best. By writing such a book Melville reached the most flourishing stage of his literary creativity. (2)Pierre is a popular romance intended for the feminine market but provoking an outrageous repudiation. A series of short stories or novellas which attracted public attention. Among them are "Bartleby, the Scrivener," a short story strikingly symbolizing the loneliness and anonymity and passivity of little men in big cities. Billy Budd again deals with the sea and sailors and the theme of a conflict between innocence and corruption. In the early works Melville is more enthusiastic about setting out on a quest for the meaning of the universe, hence they are more metaphysical and the main characters are ardent and self-dramatizing "I," defying God, as best reflected in Moby-Dick; while in the late works, Melville becomes more reconciled with the world of man, in which, he admits, one must live by the rules. However, the purpose of Melville's fictional tales, exotic or philosophical, is to penetrate as deeply as possible into the metaphysical, theological, moral, psychological, and social truths of human existence. 1. Moby-dick Moby-dick is regarded as the Great American Novel, the first American prose epic(散文史 诗： a long narrative poem telling of heroic deeds of reflecting the values of the society from which it originated), though it is presented in the form of a novel. (1).its surface and the deep meaning (a).its surface meaning: It is a whaling tale or sea adventure, dealing with Ahab, a man with an overwhelming obsession to kill the whale which has crippled him, on board his ship Pequod in the chase of the big whale. The dramatic description of the hazards of whaling makes the book a very exciting sea narrative and builds a literary monument to an era of whaling industry in the nineteenth century. The deep symbolic theme: Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, considering that Melville is a great symbolist. It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology. This is shown in Captain Ahab's rebellious struggle against the overwhelming mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces. In the perverted grandeur of Captain Ahab and in the beauties and terrors of the voyage of the "Pequod," however, Melville dramatized his bleak view of the world in which he lived. It is at once godless and purposeless. Man in this universe lives a meaningless and futile life, meaningless because futile. As some critics note, man can observe and even manipulate in a prudent way, but he cannot influence and overcome nature at its source. Once he attempts to seek power over it he is doomed. Here Melville expressed his deep concerns: the equivocal defeats and triumphs of the human spirit and its fusion of creative and murderous urges. (2)It is a mixture of romanticism and realism (a) romantic features: Ahab is a Byronic hero, a man with an overwhelming obsession or consuming desire to take revenge against the whale which has crippled him. His revenge ends in tragedy and he, who burns with a baleful fire, becomes evil himself in his thirst to destroy evil. Moby Dick, for the writer, symbolizes the unknown, mysterious natural force, an unreal world of speculation and mystery which is very hard for man to manipulate. (b) realistic features: The dramatic description of the hazards of whaling makes the book a very exciting sea narrative and builds a literary monument to an era of whaling industry in the nineteenth century. (3)Allegory and symbolism Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, it is also a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology. Like Hawthorne, Melville is a master of allegory and symbolism. He uses allegory and symbolism in Moby-Dick to present its mighty theme. Instead of putting the battle between Ahab and the big whale into simple statements, he used symbols, that is, objects or persons who represent something else. Different people on board the ship are representations of different ideas and different social and ethnic groups; facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings; the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolizes nature for Melville, for it is complex, unfathomable, malignant, and beautiful as well. For the character Ahab, however, the whale represents only evil. Moby Dick is like a wall, hiding some unknown, mysterious things behind. Ahab wills the whole crew on the Pequod to join him in the pursuit of the big whale so as to pierce the wall, to root out the evil, but only to be destroyed by evil, in this case, by his own consuming desire, his madness. For the author, as well as for the reader and Ishmael, the narrator, Moby Dick is still a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, inscrutable and ambivalent, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search, not a discovery, of the truth. (4)Other artistic devices in Moby-Dick Melville's great gifts of language, invention, psychological analysis, speculative agility, and narrative power are fused to make Moby-Dick a world classic. The skillful use of Ishmael both as a character and a narrator gives the novel a moral magnitude; the manipulation of the whaling chapters for some philosophical speculation makes the novel more than symbolic; different levels of language use and styles turn the whole book into a symphony with all the musical instruments going on to form a melody; and moreover, Melville's knowledge of epic and tragedy, the highest literary genres, helps him produce a great tragic epic, with Ahab at the center as a tragic hero, who burns with a baleful fire, becoming evil himself in his thirst to destroy evil. Selected Reading: An Excerpt from Moby-Dick (1) The image of the captain, Ahab: The captain, Ahab, is a monomaniac whose single purpose is to capture the fierce, cunning white whale, Moby Dick, which had torn away his leg during their last encounter. Ahab is a tragic hero with an overwhelming obsession or consuming desire to kill Moby Dick. He transforms himself into an evil in his thirst to destroy evil. (2)Interpretations of the different meanings of the story: Moby-Dick is one of the few books in American literature that has produced an exciting effect upon readers, of which its author could not have dreamed. (a) It is a mixture of fantasy and realism based upon the South Pacific whaling industry; (b) It might be read as an initiation story about Ishmael, the outcast, finding himself in a real world of hard work and danger and an unreal world of speculation and mystery; (c)It is a fabulous dramatization of Ahab's obsessed determination to revenge himself in the pursuit of one particular whale who has previously destroyed his boat and humiliated him by ripping off one of his legs.(d) The deep symbolic theme: Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, but turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology. This is shown in Captain Ahab's rebellious struggle against the overwhelming mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces. Nevertheless, the book has been so often interpreted in so many ways, allegorically and symbolically, that now we can safely conclude that Moby-Dick "means" almost as many things as it has readers who are deeply involved in the conflicts of life and sensitive enough to become involved in the spirit of conflict expressed in a work of art. (3)The excerpt: The following excerpt is from the conclusion of the book, in which the great chase of the white whale is ending. The Pequod has finally sighted Moby-Dick. The boats have been lowered in chase of the whale, which has already demolished two of them. Though Ahab kills the white whale, yet all the human beings involved, except the narrator, die in the process. At the end only nature, symbolized by the sea, remains moving but unmoved. Chapter 2 The Realistic Period . 通过本章的学习，了解美国19世纪中期现实主义文学产生的历史、文化背景，认 识该时期文学创作的基本特征、基本主张，及其对同时代和后期美国文学的影响；了解该时 期的主要作家的文学创作生涯、人生观及价值观及其代表作品的主题思想、人物刻画、语言 风格；同时结合注释，读懂所选作品并了解其思想内容和艺术特色，培养理解和欣赏文学作 品的能力。 . 1.美国现实主义文学的特点 2.现实主义与自然主义的异同，这两种倾向在美国19世纪小说中的反映 3.主要作家的创作思想、艺术特色、及其代表作品的主题结构、人物刻画、语 言 风格、艺术手法、社会意义等 4.分析选读作品的思想内容及艺术特色、人物刻画 . （一）．现实主义时期概述 1．识记：美国现实主义文学产生的社会和文化背景 （a）美国南北战争 （b）威廉?迪安?豪威尔斯：美国现实主义的先驱 （c）达尔文主义和法国小说家佐拉的影响 2．领会：A.美国现实主义文学的特点 （a）占主导地位的美国现实主义小说 （b）现实主义文学中的地方色彩小说 （c）现实主义文学中的自然主义倾向 B.现实主义文学和自然主义倾向之异同 C．达尔文主义、法国自然主义作家的主张以及对现实主 义时期美国文学的影响 3．应用：A. 名词解释：现实主义、达尔文主义、自然主义、地方色彩主义 B．现实主义文学和自然主义倾向在美国19世纪小说中的反映 （二）．美国现实主义时期的主要作家 A? 1．一般识记：马克?吐温的生平及创作生涯 2．识记：马克?吐温的主要作品 《汤姆?索亚历险记》 《哈克贝利?费恩历险记》 《亚瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美国人》 3．领会：马克?吐温作品中的地方色彩、幽默及语言特色 4．应用：（1）选读《哈克贝里?费恩》第三十一章：主题结构、人物刻画、语言特色 （2）哈克的性格分析及其社会意义 B? 1．一般识记：詹姆斯的生平和创作生涯 2．识记：詹姆斯的早期作品《黛西。米勒》，〈〈一个美国人〉〉〈〈贵妇人的画像〉〉〈〈欧 洲人》 中期作品《波士顿人》〈〈螺丝在拧紧〉〉〈〈丛林猛兽》 后期作品《专使》〈〈鸽翼〉〉〈〈金碗》 文艺理论著作：《小说的艺术》 3．领会：（1）詹姆斯的“现实主义” （2）詹姆斯的小说艺术特色：“视角”与心理分析 4.应用：（1）选读《黛西?米勒》第一章：主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格 （2）《黛西?米勒》的主题和人物分析 C? 1．一般识记：狄金森的生平及创作生涯 2．识记：狄金森的诗歌 （1）狄金森有关“永恒”主题的诗 （2）狄金森的爱情诗 （3）狄金森的自然诗 3．领会：狄金森诗歌的主题结构，创新和艺术特色 4．应用：选读狄金森诗歌第441、465．585和712首的结构、主题、语言特色 D? 1．一般识记：德莱塞的生平及创作生涯 2．识记：德莱塞的主要作品 《嘉丽妹妹》《珍妮姑娘》《美国的悲剧》 “欲望”三部曲：《金融家》《巨头》《斯多葛》 3．领会：德莱塞小说的语言风格 4．应用：（1）达尔文主义与德莱塞作品中的自然主义倾向 （2）选读《嘉丽妹妹》的最后一章节选：主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格 Chapter 2 The Realistic Period 1．The Age of Realism (How to define the Realistic Period in American literary history?) The period ranging from 1865 to l914 has been referred to as the Age of Realism in the 1iterary history of the United States, which is actually a movement or tendency that dominated the spirit of American literature, especia1ly American fiction, from the 1850s onwards. Realism was a reaction against Romanticism or a move away from the bias towards romance and self-creating fictions, and it paved the way to Modernism. Instead of thinking about the irrational, the imaginative, realists touched upon social and political realities and pressures in the post-Civil war society. Three dominant figures are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James. 2.The historical and socio-cultural background of American Realism The American society after the Civil War provided rich soil for the rise and deve1opment 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 itse1f into an industria1ized 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 benevo1ence of God, which the Transcendentalists cared most. What Mark Twain referred to as “ the Gi1ded 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 Civi1 War proved to be quite different a picture. The harsh rea1ities 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. 3.The Gilded Age It refers to the period of gross materialism and blatant political corruption in the U.S. history during the 1870s that gave rise to important novels of social and political criticism. The period takes its name from the earliest of these, The Gilded Age(1873),written by Mark Twain in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. The novel gives a vivid and accurate description of Washington D.C., and is peopled with caricatures of many leading figures of the day, including greedy industrialists and corrupt politicians. The political novels of the Gilded Age represent the beginnings of a new strain in the American literature, the novel as a vehicle of social protest, a trend that grew in the late 19thth and early 20 centuries with the works of the muckrakers and culminated in the proletarian novelists. 1.What is Realism? In art and literature, Realism refers to an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures exactly as they act or appear in life. Realism emerged as a literary movement in Europe in the 1850s. In reaction to Romanticism, realistic writers should set down their observations impartially and objectively. They insisted on accurate documentation, sociological insight, and avoidance of poetic diction and idealization. The subjects were to be taken from everyday life, preferably from lower-class life. Realism entered American literature after the Civil War. William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James were the pioneers of realism in the U.S. 2.The literary characteristics of the Realistic Period in American literature Guided by the principle of adhering to the truthful treatment of 1ife, the realists touched upon various contemporary social and political issues. In their works, instead of writing about the polite, we11--dressed, grammatica1ly correct middle--class young people who moved in exotic places and remote times, they introduced industrial workers and farmers, ambitious businessmen and vagrants, prostitutes and unheroic soldiers as major characters in fiction. They approached the harsh realities and pressures in the post-Civil War society either by a comprehensive picture of modern life in its various occupations, c1ass stratifications and manners, or by a psychological exploration of man's subconsciousness. The three dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James. Together they brought to fulfillment native trends in the realistic portrayal of the 1andscape and social surfaces, brought to perfection the vernacular style, and explored and exploited the literary possibilities of the interior life. 3.The three dominant figures of the Realistic period differed in their understanding of the “truth ” (1) While Mark Twain and Howells paid more attention to the "life" of the Americans, Henry James laid a greater emphasis on the" inner world" of man. He came to believe that the literary artist should not simply hold a mirror to the surface of social life in particular times and places. In addition, the writer should use language to probe the deepest reaches of the psychological and moral nature of human beings. He is a realist of the inner life. (2) Though Twain and Howells both shared the same concern in presenting the truth of the American society, they had each of them different emphasis. Howells focused his discussion on the rising middle class and the way they lived, while Twain preferred to have his own region and people at the forefront of his stories, which is known as “ local colorism”, a unique variation of American literary realism. 4.What is Local Colorism? Post-Civil War America was large and diverse enough to sense its own local differences. Regional voices had emerged. “ Local colorism” is a unique variation of American literary realism. Generally, the works by local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, well--defined region or province. This kind of fiction depicts the characters from a specific setting or of an era, which are marked by its customs, dialects, costumes, landscape, or other peculiarities that have eacaped standardizing cultural influence. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions. They worked from personal experience; they recorded the facts of a unique environment and suggested that the native life was shaped by the curious conditions of the loca1e. Their materials were necessarily limited and topics disparate, yet they had certain common artistic concerns. Writers whose works are characterized with local colors are Mark Twain, Sarah Orne Jewett, Joseph Kirkland and Hamlin Garland. 5.The influence of Darwinism and French naturalist writers on American literature in its Realistic Period The impact of Darwin's evolutionary theory on the American thought and the influence of the 19th century French literature on the American men of letters gave rise to yet another school of realism: American naturalism. Darwin, in his The Origin of Species(1859) and Descent Of Man (187l ),expounded his theory of natural selection. The American naturalists accepted the more negative implications of this theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were conceived as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces. And consciously or unconsciously the American naturalists followed the French novelist and theorist Emile Zola's call that the 1iterary artist “must operate with characters, passions, human and social data as the chemist and the physicist work on inert bodies, as the physiologist works on living bodies.” They chose their subjects from the lower ranks of society and portrayed the people who were demonstrably victims of society and nature. And one of the most familiar themes in American Naturalism is the theme of human “bestiality”, especially as an explanation of sexual desire. For example, Frank Norris, in his McTeague (l899), described the relations of a crude dentist with a superficially refined German-American girl, who, awakened by his desires, is drawn into an animalistic affection. 1.What is Naturalism? (or American Naturalism) In literature, the term refers to the theory that literary composition should aim at a detached, scientific objectivity in the treatment of natural man. The movement is an outgrowth of 19th –century scientic thought, following in general the biological determinism of Darwin’s theory, or the economic determinism of Karl Marx. th American Naturalism is a more advanced stage of realism toward the close of the 19 century. The American naturalists accepted the more negative implications of Darwin’s theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were conceived as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces. And consciously or unconsciously the American naturalists followed the French novelist and theorist Emile Zola's call that the 1iterary artist “must operate with characters, passions, human and social data as the chemist and the physicist work on inert bodies, as the physiologist works on living bodies.” They chose their subjects from the lower ranks of society and portrayed the people who were demonstrably victims of society and nature. And one of the most familiar themes in American Naturalism is the theme of human “bestiality”, especially as an explanation of sexual desire. Artistically, naturalistic writings are usually unpo1ished in language, lacking in academic skills and unwieldly in structure. Philosophically, the naturalists believe that the real and true is always partially hidden from the eyes of the individual, or beyond his control. Devoid of rationality and caught in a process in which he is but a part, man cannot fully understand, let alone contro1, the world he lives in; hence, he is left with no freedom of choice. In a word, naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more detached, ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a different philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence. Notable writers of naturalistic fiction were Frank Norris, Sherwood Anderson, and Theodore Driser. 2.The distinction between Realism and Naturalism Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more detached, ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a different philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence. The distinction lies, first of all, in the fact that Realism is concerned directly with what is absorbed by the senses; Naturalism, a term more properly applied to literature, attempts to apply scientific theories to art. Second, Naturalism differs from Realism in adding an amoral attitude to the objective presentation of life. Naturalistic writers, adopting Darwin’s biological determinism and Marx’s economic determinism, regard human behavior as controlled by instinct, emotion, or social and economic conditions, and reject free will. Third, Naturalism had an outlook often bleaker than that of Realism, and it added a dimension of predetermined fate that rendered human will ultimately powerless. 3.What is (Social) Darwinism? Social Darwinism is a belief that societies and individual human beings compete in a struggle for existence in which natural selection results in “struggle of the fittest.” Social Darwinists base their beliefs on theories of evolution developed by British naturalist Charles Darwin. Social Darwinists typically deny that they advocate a “law of jungle.” But most propose arguments that justify imbalances of power between individuals, races, and nations because they consider some more fit to survive than others. The theory had produced a big impact on Naturalism. The major writers in the Realistic Period I. Mark Twain (1835--19l0) Mark Twain is a great literary giant of America, whom H.L.Mencken considered “the true father of our national literature.” With works like Adventure of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and Life on the Mississippi (1883) Twain shaped the world’s view of America and made a more extensive combination of American folk humor and serious literature than previous writers had ever done. Mark Twain’s life and writing: Mark Twain, Pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born on November 30, 1835, in Missouri, and grew up in the river town of Hannibal. After his father died, he began to seek his own fortune .He once worked as a journeyman printer, a steamboat pilot, a newspaper colunist and as a deadpan lecturer. Twain's writing took the form of humorous journalism of the time, and it ennabled him to master the technique of narration. () Mark Twain’s major works: In l865, he pub1ished his frontier tale “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” which brought him recognition from a wider public. But his full literary career began to blossom in 1869 with a travel book Innocents Abroad, an account of American tourists in Europe which pokes fun at the pretentious, decadent and undemocratic Old World in a satirical tone. Mark Twain’s best works were produced when he was in the prime of his life. All these masterworks drew upon the scenes and emotions of his boyhood and youth. The first among these books is Roughing It (1872), in which Twain describes a journey that works its way farther west. Life on the Mississippi tells a story of his boyhood ambition to become a riverboat pilot. Two of the best books during this period are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The former is usually regarded as a classic book written for boys about their particular horrors and joys, while the latter, being a boy’s book specially written for the adults, is Twain’s most representative work, describing a journey down the Mississippi undertaken by two fugitives, Huck and Jim. Their episodic set of encounters presents a sample of the social world from the bank of the river that runs through the heart of the country. His social satire is The Gilded Age, written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. The novel explored the scrupulous individualism in a world of fantastic speculation and unstable values, and gave its name to the get-rich-quick years of the post-Civil War era. Twain’s dark view of the society became more self-evident in the works published later in his life. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), a parable of colonialization. A similar mood of despair permeates The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), which shows the dis astrous effects of slavery on the victimizer and the victim alike and reveals to us a Mark Twain whose conscience as a white Southerner was tormented by fear and remorse. By the turn of the century, with the publication of The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg (l900) and The Mysterious Stranger (1916), the change in Mark Twain from an optimist to an almost despairing pessimist could be felt and his cynicism and disillusionment with what Twain referred to regularly as the “damned human race” became obvious. () 1.Twain as a local colorist Twain is also known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. Consequently, the rich material of his boyhood experience on the Mississippi became the endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississippi valley and the West became his major theme. Unlike James and Howe1ls, Mark Twain wrote about the lower-class people, because they were the people he knew so we1l ancl their 1ife was the one he himself had lived. Moreover he successfully used local color and historical settings to i1lustrate and shed light on the contemporary society. 2.His use of vernacular Another fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of vernacular. His words are col1oquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simp1e, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken 1anguage. And Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonists in their everyday life. What's more, his characters, confined to a particular region and to a particular historical moment, speak with a strong accent, which is true of his 1ocal colorism. Besides, different characters from different literary or cultural backgrounds talk differently, as is the case with Huck, Tom, and Jim. Indeed, with his great mastery and effective use of vernacular, Twain has made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable 1iterary medium in the literary history of the country. His style of language was later taken up by his descendants, Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway, and influenced generations of letters. 3.His humor Mark Twain's humor is remarkable, too. It is fun to read Twain to begin with, for most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks, etc., and some of them are actually tall ta1es. By considering his experience as a newspaperman, Mark Twain shared the popu1ar image of the American funny man whose punning, facetious, irreverenl articles filled the newspapers, and a great deal of his humor is characterized by puns, straight-faced exaggeration, repetition, and anti-climax, let alone tricks of travesty and invective. However, his humor is not only of witty remarks mocking at small things or of farcical elements making people laugh, but a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism. () Huckleberry Finn What is the book about? Huckleberry Finn, by general agreement, is Twain’s finest book and an outstanding American novel. Its narrator is Huck, a youngster whose carelessly recorded vernacular speech is admirably adapted to detailed and poetic description of scenes, vivid representations of characters, and narrative renditions that are both broadly comic and subtly inonic. Huck, son of the village drunkard, is uneducated, superstitious, and sometimes credulous; but he also has a native shrewdness, a cheerfulness that is hard to put down, compassionate tolerance, and an instinctive tendency to reach the right decisions about important matters. He runs away from his persecuting father and, with his companion, the runaway slave Jim, makes a long and frequently interrupted voyage floating down the Mississippi River on a raft. During the journey Huck meets and comes to know members of greatly varied groups, so that the book memorably portrays almost every class living on or along the river. Huck overcomes his initial prejudices and learns to respect and love Jim. The book’s pages are dotted with idyllic descriptions of the great river and the surrounding forests, and Huck’s exuberance and unconscious humor permeate the whole. But a thread that runs through adventure after adventure is the theme of man’s inhumanity to man---of human cruelty. Children miss this theme, but adults who read the book with care cannot fail to be impressed by an attitude that was to become a reiterated theme of the author during his later years. The significance of the novel The book marks the climax of Twain's literary creativity. Hemingway once described the novel the one book from which “all modern American literature comes.”The book is significant in many ways. First of all, the novel is written in a language that is totally different from the rhetorical language used by Emerson, Poe, and Melville. It is not grand, pompous, but simple, direct, lucid, and faithful to the colloquial speech. This unpretentious style of colloquialism is best described as “vernacular”. Speaking in vernacular, a wild and uneducated Huck, running away fom civilization for his freedom, is vividly brought to life. Secondly, the great strength of the book also comes from the shape given to it by the course of the raft's journey down the Mississippi as Huck and Jim seek their different kinds of freedom. Twain, who knew the river intimately, uses it here both realistically and symbolically. Thirdly, the profound portrait of Huckleberry Finn is another great contribution of the book to the legacy of American literature. The novel begins with a description of how Widow Douglas attempts to civilize Huck and ends with him deciding not to let it happen again at the hands of Aunt Sally. The climax arises with Huck's inner struggle on the Mississippi, when Huck is polarized by the two opposing forces between his heart and his head, between his affection for Jim and the laws of the society against those who help slaves escape. Huck’s final decision -- to fo1low his own good--hearted moral impulse rather than conventional village morality -- amounts to a vindication of what Mark Twain called" the damned human race," damned for its comfortable hypocrisies, its thoroughgoing dishonesties, and its pervasive cruelties. With the eventual victory of his moral conscience over his social awareness, Huck grows. 3.Selected Reading: An Excerpt from Chapter 3l of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1) (1) the story: This novel begins with Huck under the motherly protection of the Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson. When his father comes to demand the boy’s fortume, Huck pretends that he has transferred the money to Judge Thather, so his father catches him and puts him into a lonely cabin. One night, ahen his father is drunken, Huck escapes to Jackson’s island and meets Miss Watson’s runaway slave, Jim. They start down the river on a raft. After several adventures, the raft is hit by a steamboat and the two are separated. Huck swims ashore and is saved by the Grangerford family, whose feud with the Sheperdsons causes bloodshed. Later, Huck discovers Jim and they set down again, giving refuge to a gang of frauds: the “Duke”and “King,” whose dramatic performances culminate in the fraudulent exhibition of the “Royal Nonesuch.” Huck also witnesses the lynching and murder of a harmless drunkard by an Arkansas aristocrat on the shore. When he finds that some rogues intend to claim legacies as Peter Wilks’s brother, Huck interferes on behalf of the three daughters, and the scheme is failed by the arrival of the real brothers. Then he discovers that the “King” has sold Jim to Mrs Phelps, Tom Sawyer’s Aunt Sally. At the Phelps farm, Huck and Tom try to rescue Jim. In the rescue, Tom is accidentally shot and Jim is recaptured. Later, Tom reveals that the rescue is necessary only because he “wanted the adventures of it.” It is also disclosed at the end of the novel that Huck’s father has died, so Huck’s fortune is safe. (2) The novel’s theme, characterization of “Huck” and the novel’s social significance: Theme: The novel is a vindication of what Mark Twain called “ the damned human race.” That is the theme of man’s inhumanity to man---of human cruelty, hypocrisies, dishonesties, and moral corruptions. Mark Twain’s thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is best known for Mark Twain’s wonderful characterization of “Huck,” a typical American boy whom its creator described as a boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience,” and remarkable for the raft’s journey down the Mississippi river, which Twain used both realistically and symbolically to shape his book into an organic whole. Through the eyes of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed and at the same time we are deeply impressed by Mark Twain’s thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization. (3)The selected chapter: Huck and Jim are with the frauds. They decide to leave them in their raft when Huck learns that Jim is sold by the “King” to Mrs.Phelps. There is a very important description here of Huck’s inner conflict about whether or not he should write a letter to tell Miss Watsom where Jim is. Huck’s internal conflict between his sound heart and deformed conscience is obvious: On one hand, he feels that he ought to help return Jim to his owner, Miss Watson. On the other hand, his friendship for Jim makes such a course of action difficult for him. Huck instinctively knows the right thing to do. But his conscience dictates the conventional morality of the South. The whole episode is a subtle yet powerful condemnation of the society that makes Huck feel that he will go to hell for doing what his very instinct knows to be the right thing to do. Huck’s moral dilemma is brought about by a corrupt society that has institutionalized slavery. ?. Henry James (1843-1916 ) Henry James was the first American writer to conceive his career in international terms. Today with the development of the modern novel and the common acceptance of the Freudian approach, his importance, as well as his wide influence as a novelist and critic, has been all the more conspicuous. () His life and writing: Henry James was born in New York City. His father was a theological writer and his elder brother was the distinguished philosopher and psycho1ogist Wil1iam James, who made a great contribution to the theory of the stream-of-consciousness technique. James was one of the few authors in the American literary history who was not ob1iged to work for a living. He exposed early to an international society. In 1862, he entered Harvard Law School where he developed a lifelong friendship with William Dean Howells. There he read intensively Balzac, Merimee , George Sand, George Eliot and Hawthorne. Later, he toured Europe and met Flaubert, Maupassant, Zola and Turgenev, who exerted a great influence on him. While Mark Twain and William Dean Howells satirized European manners at times, Henry James was an admirer of ancient European civilization. The materialistic bent of American life and its lack of culture and sophistication, he believed, cou1d not provide him with enough materials for great literary works, so he settled down in London in 1876, and in 1915 he became a naturalized British citizen. His major works: Henry James's 1iterary achievement is remarkable. His literary writings are bulky and voluminous, ranging from the book reviews, stories, travel accounts, autobiographies, novels, plays, to literary criticism. It is his novels and his literary essays that make him a fascinating case in the American literary history and a conspicuous figure in world literature. The three periods in his literary career: The literary career of Henry James is generally divided into three periods. In the first period (1865-1882), James took great interest in international themes: his treatment with the c1ashes between two different cultures and the emotional