模塊十：美國現(xiàn)實(shí)主義文學(xué)

1、 Howells, Henry James, Mark Twain, DreiserPart Ten The Age of Realism Chapter One IntroductionI. Teaching Contents1. The background of American Realism2. Definition of American Realism3. Principles of American Realism II. The Important Points:1. Realism2. American RealismIII. Difficulties:1. Definit

2、ion of American Realism 2. Principles of American RealismIV. Teaching Methods1. Questioning2. Discussing3. CAI1. Background1) The three conflicts that reached breaking point in this period(1) industrialism vs. agrarian(2) culturely-measured east vs. newly-developed west(3) plantation gentility vs. c

3、ommercial gentilityIn the Civil War, the industrialized North defeated the agrarian South, and the United States headed toward capitalism. The war led many to question the assumptions shared by the Transcendentalists. It taught men that life was not so good, man was not, and God was not. The war mar

4、ked a change in the quality of American life, a deterioration of American moral values.2) The 1880s urbanization: from free competition to monopoly capitalismAfter the Civil War, commerce took the lead in the national economy. Increasing industrialization and mechanization of the country soon produc

5、ed extremes of wealth and poverty. Wealth and power were more and more concentrated in the hands of the few captains of industry or robber barons. The spirit of self-reliance that Emerson had preached became perverted into admiration for driving ambition, a lust for money and power. In the meantime,

6、 life for the millions was fast becoming a veritable struggle for survival.3) The closing of American frontierThe frontier had been a factor of great importance in American life. Now that the frontier was about to close and the safety valve was ceasing to operate. The worth of the American dream beg

7、an to lose its hold on the imagination of the people. Beneath the glittering surface of prosperity there lay suffering and unhappiness. Disillusionment and frustration were widely felt. What had been expected to be a Golden Age turned out to be a Gilded one.4) What is American Realism?The period ran

8、ging from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to as the Age of Realism in the literary history of the United States, which is actually a movement or tendency that dominated the spirit of American literature, especially American fiction, from the 1850s onwards. The American realistic writers paid a great

9、interest in the realities of life and described the integrity (honesty, truthfulness) of human character reacting under various circumstances and pictured the pioneers of the Far West, the new immigrants and the struggles of the working classes. So American Realism was a reaction against Romanticism

10、 or a move away from the bias towards romance and self-creating fictions, and paved the way to Modernism. The leading figures were Mark Twain, Henry James, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, etc.2. Principles of Realism 1) Insistence upon and defense of the experienced commonplace. 2) Character more imp

11、ortant than plot. 3) Attack upon romanticism and romantic writers4) Emphasis upon morality often self-realized and upon an examination of idealism. 5) Concept of realism as a realization of democracy. 3. Identifying Characteristics Of Realistic Writing1) The philosophy of Realism is known as descend

12、ental or non-transcendental. The purpose of writing is to instruct and to entertain. Realists were pragmatic, relativistic, democratic, and experimental. 2) The subject matter of Realism is drawn from our experience, - it treated the common, the average, the non-extreme, the representative, the prob

13、able. 3) The morality of Realism is intrinsic, integral, relativistic - relations between people and society are explored. 4) The style of Realism is the vehicle which carries realistic philosophy, subject matter, and morality. Emphasis is placed upon scenic presentation, de-emphasizing authorial co

14、mment and evaluation. There is an objection towards the omniscient point of view. 5) Realistic Complexity and MultiplicityComplexity refers to the interwoven, entangled density of experience; multiplicity indicates the simultaneous existence of different levels of reality or of many truths, equally

15、true from some point of view.6) Realistic CharacterizationThere is the belief among the Realists that humans control their destinies; characters act on their environment rather than simply reacting to it. Character is superior to circumstance.7) The Use Of Symbolism And ImageryThe Realists generally

16、 reject the kind of symbolism suggested by Emerson when he said Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Their use of symbolism is controlled and limited; they depend more on the use of images.4. Realistic Techniques1) Settings thoroughly familiar to the writer 2) Plots emphasizing the

17、 norm of daily experience 3) Ordinary characters, studied in depth 4) Complete authorial objectivity 5) Responsible morality; a world truly reported5. Characteristics of Realistic Period in American literature1) truthful description of life2) typical character under typical circumstance3) objective

18、rather than idealized, close observation and investigation of life “Realistic writers are like scientists.”4) open-ending:Life is complex and cannot be fully understood. It leaves much room for readers to think by themselves.5) concerned with social and psychological problems, revealing the frustrat

19、ions of characters in an environment of sordidness and depravity Chapter Two Three Giants in Realistic PeriodI. Teaching Contents1. An Introduction to works of Howells, James and Mark Twain 2. An Introduction to Howells realistic principles3. An Introduction to Jamess international theme, literary c

20、riticism and style4. The Analysis of Mark Twains writing style II. The Important Points:1. The masterpieces of Howells, James and Mark Twain2. Their aesthetic theories and writing styles, and local colorismIII. Difficulties:1. Howells realistic principles2. Jamess international theme3. Mark Twains w

21、riting style IV. Teaching Methods1. Questioning2. Discussing3. CAI 1. William Dean Howells “Dean of American Realism”Howells wrote a successful campaign biography of Lincoln to help him to win the Presidency. He was a critic of eminent standing and a prolific writer. He helped to mould public taste

22、and became the champion of literary realism in America. He wrote eight critical books and about 1 700 book reviews to spread the credo of realism. As editor and critic Howells was generous in constructive and sympathetic reviews, helping younger and more radical writers to get a hearing. Writers suc

23、h as Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Henry James, and Mark Twain all enjoyed his friendly advice and assistance in times of need. Thus he was the dean of his countrys literature and became the first president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters(美國藝術(shù)文學(xué)學(xué)院). Yale, Princeton, Columb

24、ia, and Oxford all conferred honorary degrees upon him.2. His Realistic Principlesa. Realism is “fidelity to experience and probability of motive”.b. The aim is “talk of some ordinary traits of American life”.c. Man in his natural and unaffected dullness was the object of Howellss fictional represen

25、tation.d. Realism is by no means mere photographic pictures of externals but includes a central concern with “motives” and psychological conflicts.e. He condemns novels of sentimentality and morbid self-sacrifice, and avoids such themes as illicit love.f. Authors should minimize plot and the artific

26、ial ordering of the sense of something “desultory, unfinished, imperfect”.g. Characters should have solidity of specification and be real.h. Interpreting sympathetically the “common feelings of commonplace people” was best suited as a technique to express the spirit of America.i. He urged writers to

27、 winnow tradition and write in keeping with current humanitarian ideals.j. Truth is the highest beauty, but it includes the view that morality penetrates all things.k. With regard to literary criticism, Howells felt that the literary critic should not try to impose arbitrary or subjective evaluation

28、s on books but should follow the detached scientist in accurate des cription, interpretation, and classification.3. Worksa. The Rise of Silas Lapham 塞拉斯拉帕姆的發(fā)跡b. A Chance Acquaintance 偶然相遇c. A Modern Instance 一個(gè)現(xiàn)代例證d. Criticism and Fiction 批評與小說4. Features of His Worksa. Optimistic toneb. Moral devel

29、opment/ethicsc. Lacking of psychological depthHenry James1. LifeHenry James was born into a wealthy cultured family of New England. His father was an eminent philosopher and reformer, and his brother was to be the famous philosopher and psychologist. Henry James was one of the few authors in America

30、n literary history who did not have to worry about money. His early upbringing was unusual: he was exposed to the cultural influence of Europe at a very early age. Later he met and developed a life-long friendship with William Dean Howells, who became his moral police. For a while he attended the Ha

31、rvard Law School, where he read, instead of law, French novelists and critics. He also read intensively George Eliot and Hawthorne. He toured England, France and Italy, and met Flaubert and Turgenev who was then staying in Paris. He settled down in London in 1876 and, except for some visits to Ameri

32、ca, spent the rest of his life there. In 1915 he became a naturalized British citizen. James was not married.2. Literary career: three stagesa. 18651882: international themeThe American 美國人Daisy Miller 黛西米勒The Portrait of a Lady 貴婦畫像b. 18821895: inter-personal relationships and some playsThe novels

33、and plays were poorly received but he got a better knowledge of literary techniques. c. 18951900: novellas and tales dealing with childhood and adolescence, then back to international themeThe Turn of the Screw螺絲在擰緊What Maisie Knew 梅西所知道的The Ambassadors 奉使記The Wings of the Dove 鴿翼The Golden Bowl 金碗3

34、. Jamess international themeJamess fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with “the international theme”. These nove1s are always set against a large international background, usual1y between Europe and America, and centered on the confrontation of the two different cu1tures with two diffe

35、rent groups of peop1e representing two different value systems. American personalities of naivety, innocence, enthusiasm, vulgarity, ignorance, unsophistication, freshness, eagerness to learn, freedom, individuality are in contact and contrast with European personalities of over-refinement, degenera

36、tion, artificiality, complexity, high cultivation, urbanity. The typical pattern of the conf1ict between the two cultures wou1d be that of a young American man or an American gir1 who goes to Europe and affronts his or her destiny. The unsophisticated boy or girl wou1d be beguiled, betrayed, cruelly

37、 wronged at the hands of those who pretend to stand for the highest possible civilization. Marriage and 1ove are used by James as the focal point of the confrontation between the two value systems, and the protagonist usual1y goes through a painful process of a spiritual growth, gaining knowledge of

38、 good and evil from the conflict.4. Jamess literary criticism (The theme of “The Art of Fiction”)Jamess literary criticism is an indispensable part of his contribution to literature. It is both concerned with form and devoted to human values. The theme of his essay “The Art of Fiction” clearly indic

39、ates that: the aim of the novel is to present life, so it is not surprising to find in his writings human experiences explored in every possible form: illusion, despair, reward, torment, inspiration, delight, etc. He also advocates the freedom of the artist to write about anything that concerns him,

40、 even the disagreeable, the ugly and the commonplace. The artist should be able to feel the life, to understand human nature, and then to record them in his own art form.5. Jamess Aesthetic IdeaOne of Jamess literary techniques innovated to cater for this psychological emphasis is his narrative “poi

41、nt of view.” James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possible and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minimal intervention. So it is often the case that in his novels we usually learn the main story by reading through one or severa1 minds and share their perspectives. And we ob

42、serve people and events filtering through the individual consciousness and participate in his experience. This narrative method proves to be successful in bringing out his themes.Jamess realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter. His fictional world is concerned mor

43、e with the inner life of human beings than with overt human actions. His best and most mature works will render the drama of individual consciousness and convey the moment-to-moment sense of human experience as bewilderment and discovery. This emphasis on psychology and on the human consciousness pr

44、oves to be a big breakthrough in novel writing and has great influence on the coming generations. James is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century stream-of-consciousness novels and the founder of psychological realism.6. Style “stylist” a. Language: highly-refined, polished, insigh

45、tful, accurateb. Vocabulary: largec. Construction: complicated, intricateJames is not so easy to understand. He is often highly refined and insightful. With a large vocabulary, he is always accurate in word selection, trying to find the best expression for his literary imagination.Therefore Henry Ja

46、mes is not only one of the most important realists of the period before the First World War, but also the most expert stylist of his time.Local Colorism1. Background(1) Marked differences existed between different parts of the country.(2) The frontier humorists, who had flourished several decades be

47、fore the Civil War, had prepared the literary ground for local colorism. The earlier humorists influenced local color writers much.(3) Magazines appeared to let writer publish their works.2. Definition“Local colorism” is a unique variation of American literary realism. Generally, the works by local

48、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 escaped standardizing cultural influen

49、ce. 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.

50、 Their materials were necessarily limited and topics disparate, yet they had certain common artistic concerns. Tasks of local colorists: to write or present local characters of their regions in truthful depiction distinguished from others, usually a very small part of the world.3. Development1) Loca

51、l colorism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early seventies. The appearance of Bret Hartes The Luck of Roaring Camp in 1868 marked a significant development in the brief history of local color fiction.2) In the 1870s1890s, the literary geniuses of different localities ro

52、se to join the race to paint their own section of the country in the best colors available. This period is a spectacular growth of regional literature.3) Not until the turn of the 20th century did local colorist cease to be a dominant fashion.4. Representative Writers Garland, Harte the west Harte:

53、The Luck of Roaring Camp 咆哮營的幸運(yùn)兒Garland: Main-travelled Roads 大路條條 Eggleston Indiana The Hoosier Schoolmaster 山區(qū)校長 Mrs Stowe Old Town Folks 老城的人們Jewett Maine 深深擁有 Chopin Louisiana Bayou Folk路易斯安娜移民, A Night in Acadie愛克迪之夜, The Awakening覺醒Woolson: Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches處處城堡：鄉(xiāng)村湖景札記Mark

54、Twain 1. WorksThe Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, 卡拉維拉斯縣馳名的跳蛙a frontier tale(1) The Gilded Age 鍍金時(shí)代written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner(2) “the two advantages”The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (all modern American literature comes.)(3) Life

55、on the Mississippi 密西西比河上(4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court亞瑟王朝里的康涅狄格州美國佬(5) The Man That Corrupted Hardleybug敗壞了哈德萊堡的人(6) The Mysterious Stranger 神秘的陌生人(7) Autobiography contain bitter attacks on the human race(8)Innocents Abroad 傻子出國記(9)Roughing It艱難歲月(10)Puddnhead Wilson傻瓜維爾遜(11)The P

56、rince and the Pauper王子與貧民(12American Claimant美國申請人(13)Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy殘害一個(gè)男童(14)Goldsmiths Friend Abroad Again, 哥德斯密斯的朋友又出國了(15)The Treaty with China與中國的條約(16)To the Person Sitting in Darkness致坐在黑暗中的人 (13-16 show Mark Twains attitude towards the Chinese)2. Writing Style(1) His use of

57、 colloquial language, vernacular language, dialectsOne fact that made Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of vernacular. His words are col1oquial, short, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simp1e, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken 1angu

58、age. And Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonists in their everyday life. Whats 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 t