美国文学文学术语

Imagism (1908-1917) 1. Time: 1908-1917 1) first began in 1908-1909 T.E. Hulme founded a Poet's Club discussed the techniques of writing poetry. 2) 1912-1914 Ezra Pound headed the movement. He and Flint laid down three Imagist principles 3)1914-1917: Amy Lowell pushed the movement into the period of "Amygism" 2.three Imagist Principles 1). economy of expression(exclusion of redundant words) 2). metrical freedom(free verse form and the rhythm of metrical phrase(讲究自由诗歌形式,使用音乐性短语的节奏而不按节拍器的节奏 3). produce a dominant and clear visual image or a series of related images (no symbolic meaning of images, avoidance of romantic or mystical themes) 3. Representatives :Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, Hilda Doolittle, Carlos Williams The Lost Generation 1. Time: a term coined by Gertrude Stein after the WWI (1920s) 2. Ideas: a group of American intellects, artists and writers fled to France to reject the values of American materialism. They were disillusioned and frustrated with the war and were spiritually bitter and lead aimless life. 3. Representatives: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzegerade, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein etc. Tough Guys 1) Men who show grace under pressure, who face up to life's tragedies such as danger, violence and even death with desperate courage and maintain dignity, honor and grace. 2) Life can defeat and destroy you, but if you keep calm and stand on your set of principles, you may win on your own terms. 人可以被毁灭但是精神不能被打败 Iceberg Theory 1) In his non-fiction work Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway said "the dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only 1/8 of it being above water ,7/8 is under the water. " “冰山运动之雄伟壮观,是因为他只有八分之一在水面上。” 2) It is a combination of briefness in form and connotations in content. Modernism Time: the late 19th century and extended to the whole 20th century. Ideas: characterized by such movement as Symbolism, Imagism, Futurism, Expressionism, Dadaism, Surrealism. existentialism, theatre of the absurd, and black humor. Representatives In Fiction: James Joyce Ulysses(novel), Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse technique of "stream of consciousness", D.H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers". William Faulkner's Sound and the Fury, Ernest Hemingway "Farewell to Arms" In Poetry: (Ireland)William Butler Yeats, T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. In the USA, Ezra Pound Local Color 1) time: the Civil War to the turn of the century 2) Definition: local color, “an amalgam (mixture) of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things immediately observable: the dialects, customs, sights, and sounds of regional America” 3) Representatives: Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Naturalism 1) Time: Later 19th and early 20th century 2) Definition: literary approach of French origine vividly depicted social problems and viewed human beings helpless victims of larger social and economic forces. 3) Characteristics 1. human beings were overwhelmed by the forces of environment and by the forces of heredity 2. more naked and wicked邪恶的than realism 3. less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic in writing 4) Representatives 1. Stephen Crane (1871—1900) Maggie, A Girl of the Streets (1893)(the first naturalist novel) 2. Theodore Dreiser (1871—1945) An American Tragedy 3.Jack London(1876-1916) The Call of the Wild Interior Monologue内心独白 It’s a narrative technique that exhibits the thoughts, feelings, and associations passing through a character’s mind. Realism 1) Time: late 19th and early-20th century 2) Ideas: It called for “reality and truth”in the depiction of ordinary life. “nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.”(W.D. Howells) 3) Some French representatives: Zola Les Rougon-Macquart Flaubert Madame Bovary Balzac Comedie Humaine 4) American representatives: W.D. Howells The Rise of Silas Lapham, Henry James The Portrait of a Lady, Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Free verse 1)Definition: a kind of poetry that lacks regular meter or pattern and may not rhyme. The poem depends on natural speech rhythms. 2)Representatives: Walt Whitman I Sit and Look Out Allegory(比喻,寓言) 1) Definition: A tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. An allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. 2) Representative: Walt Whitman O Captain! My Captain! Fireside Poets 1) Definition: their poems are suitable for memorization and recitation in school and also at home, where it was a source of entertainment for families gathered around the fire. 2) Characteristics: Fireside Poets insist poetic convention—standard forms, regular meter, and rhymed stanzas. 3) primary subjects: the domestic life, mythology, and politics of America. 4) Representatives: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow朗费罗William Cullen Bryant布莱恩特 John Greenleaf Whittier惠蒂尔James Russell Lowell洛厄尔