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1、American Literature,Part V Twentieth-Century Literature,Section 1 The 1920s,I. IntroductionThe 1920s is a flowering period of American literature. It is considered “the second renaissance” of American literature.The nicknames for this period:(1) Roaring 20s comfort(2) Dollar Decade rich(3) Jazz Age
2、Jazz music,II. Background1. First World War “a war to end all wars”(1) Economically: became rich from WWI. Economic boom: new inventions. Highly-consuming society.(2) Spiritually: dislocation, fragmentation.2. wide-spread contempt for law (looking down upon law)3. Freuds theory,III. Features of the
3、literatureWriters: three groups(1) Participants(2) Expatriates(3) Bohemian (unconventional way of life) on-lookers,Two areas:(1) Failure of communication of Americans(2) Failure of the American society,Imagism,I. BackgroundImagism was influenced by French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japane
4、se literature “haiku”,II. Development: three stages,1. 19081909: London, Hulme2. 19121914: England - America, Pound3. 19141917: Amy Lowell,III. What is an “image”?,An image is defined by Pound as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, “a vortex or cluster of
5、 fused ideas” “endowed with energy”. The exact word must bring the effect of the object before the reader as it had presented itself to the poets mind at the time of writing.,IV. Principles,1. Direct treatment of the “thing”, whether subjective or objective;2. To use absolutely no word that does not
6、 contribute to the presentation;3. As regarding rhythm, to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome.,V. Significance,1. It was a rebellion against the traditional poetics which failed to reflect the new life of the new century.2. It offered a new way of writi
7、ng which was valid not only for the Imagist poets but for modern poetry as a whole.3. The movement was a training school in which many great poets learned their first lessons in the poetic art.4. It is this movement that helped to open the first pages of modern English and American poetry.,VI. Ezra
8、Pound,1. life2. literary career3. works(1) Cathay(2) Cantos(3) Hugh Selwyn Mauberley,4. point of view(1) Confident in Pounds belief that the artist was morally and culturally the arbiter and the “saviour” of the race, he took it upon himself to purify the arts and became the prime mover of a few exp
9、erimental movements, the aim of which was to dump the old into the dustbin and bring forth something new.(2) To him life was sordid personal crushing oppression, and culture produced nothing but “intangible bondage”.(3) Pound sees in Chinese history and the doctrine of Confucius a source of strength
10、 and wisdom with which to counterpoint Western gloom and confusion.(4) He saw a chaotic world that wanted setting to rights, and a humanity, suffering from spiritual death and cosmic injustice, that needed saving. He was for the most part of his life trying to offer Confucian philosophy as the one f
11、aith which could help to save the West.,5. style: very difficult to readPounds early poems are fresh and lyrical. The Cantos can be notoriously difficult in some sections, but delightfully beautiful in others. Few have made serious study of the long poem; fewer, if anyone at all, have had the courag
12、e to declare that they have conquered Pound; and many seem to agree that the Cantos is a monumental failure,6. ContributionHe has helped, through theory and practice, to chart out the course of modern poetry.,7. The Cantos “the intellectual diary since 1915”Features:(1) Language: intricate and obscu
13、re(2) Theme: complex subject matters(3) Form: no fixed framework, no central theme, no attention to poetic rules,. Thomas Stearns Eliot,His life (1888-1965),His works: Poems,The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 普鲁弗洛克的情歌 The Waste Land (epic) 荒原 Hollow Man 空心人Ashy Wednesday 圣灰星期三 Four Quarters 四个四重奏,艾
14、略特的诗歌创作以荒原和伴以英国天主教为标志可以分为早、中、晚三个时期。早期：主要包括普鲁弗洛克及其他和The Poems（1920）诗集两个本子。中期：The Waste荒原 The Hollow Man空心人 后期：Gerontion小老头、 Ashy Wednesday 圣灰星期三 Sweeney Among the Nightingales 夜莺中的斯威尼 The Hippopotamus 河马 Four Quarters 四个四重奏 Mr. Eliots Sunday Morning Service艾略特先生的星期日早礼拜,Four Quarters 四个四重奏,它是诗人登峰造极之作，
15、在诗中诗人对诗歌语言进行了严肃的思考，思考的结果从该诗本身的语言特色就可以看出来：普通正规而又十分精确。此时艾略特担心语言会因使用不当而退化，进而影响到我们思想情感的品质。它最初是四首独立的诗：Burnt Norton, 1935 烧毁的诺顿、 East Coker, 1940 东库克、The Dry Salvages, 1941 干燥的塞尔维吉斯Little Gidding, 1943 小吉丁,His works: Plays,Murder in the Cathedral 大教堂谋杀案 The Cocktail Party 鸡尾酒会 The Confidential Clerk 自信的书记
16、员,His works: Critical essays,The Sacred Wood Essays on Style and Order Elizabethan Essays The Use of Poetry and The Use of Criticisms After Strange Gods,The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,It depicts a timid middle-aged man going to propose marriage to a lady but hesitating all the way there. It tak
17、es the form of soliloquy, like interior monologue like that of Brownings. Prufrock is the image of a ineffectual, sorrowful, tragic twentieth-century Western man, possibly the modern intellectual who is divided between passion and timidity, between desire and impotence. He is tragic flaw is timidity
18、; his “curse” is his idealism. Knowing everything, but able to do nothing, he lives in an area of life and death; and caught between the two worlds, he belongs to neither. He craves love but has no courage to declare himself. He despairs of life. He discovers its emptiness and yet has found nothing
19、to replace it.,The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,Thus the poem develops a theme a frustration and emotional conflict.The title of the poem is ironic in that the “Love Song” is in fact about the absence of love. Prufrock: the name is of a furniture dealer in St. Louis. His initial “J” sounds tony a
20、nd classy, giving one a sense of the upper class to which he belongs.,The Waste Land,It is the masterpiece of Eliot.The waste land itself is a desolate and sterile country ruled by an impotent king. It is broadly acknowledged as one of the most recognizable landmarks of Modernism.,The Waste Land荒原,I
21、t includes five parts:(1) The Burial of the Dead, representing the stirring life in the land after the barren winter.(2) A Game of Chess, contrasting the splendors of the past represented by Cleopatra with uneasiness and despair of modern life. (3) The Fire Sermon, making an imaginative silhouette s
22、ketch of the ugliness of cities and the mechanization of modern life and emotion.,The Waste Land,(4) Death by Water, presumptively proving by the vision of a drowned phoenician sailor that water is not only the constructive source of life, but also the destructive source of death because of drowning
23、 and its absence as well, which causes drought. (5) What the Thunder Said, presenting a picture, through symbols of the Grail legend, of the drought, the decay and emptiness of modern life.,The Waste Land,The theme of the poem is modern spiritual barrenness, the despair and depression that followed
24、the First World War, the sterility and turbulence of the modern world, and the decline and break-down of Western culture. The poems noticeable characteristics are varied length and rhythm to harmonize with the changing subject matter, the unrhymed lines, lots of borrowing from some 35 different writ
25、ers, the employment of materials such as the legends of the Holy Grail, Frazers anthropological work The Golden Bough, several popular songs, and passages in six foreign language, including Sanskrit.,Some literary terms,Allusion (典故): A reference, generally brief, to a person, place, thing or event
26、with which the reader is presumably familiar. It is a device that allows a writer to compress great deal of meaning into a very few words. It “work” to the extent they are recognized and understood; when they are not, they tend to confuse.,Soliloquy：in drama, an extended speech delivered by a charac
27、ter along onstage. The character reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings directly to the audience, as if thinking aloud.,Dramatic monologue: a kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in the poem. It reveals the speakers per
28、sonality as well as the incident that is the subject of the poem. An example of a dramatic monologue is “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning.,point of view,(1) The modern society is futile and chaotic.(2) Only poets can create some order out of chaos.(3) The method to use is to compare the past and
29、the present.,Style,(1) Fresh visual imagery, flexible tone and highly expressive rhythm(2) Difficult and disconnected images and symbols, quotations and allusions(3) Elliptical structures, strange juxtapositions, an absence of bridges,. Robert Frost(1874-1963),His life story is on the Page 166-168,P
30、oint of View,(1) All his life, Frost was concerned with constructions through poetry. “a momentary stay against confusion”.(2) He understands the terror and tragedy in nature, but also its beauty.(3) Unlike the English romantic poets of 19th century, he didnt believe that man could find harmony with
31、 nature. He believed that serenity came from working, usually amid natural forces, which couldnt be understood. He regarded work as “significant toil”.,His Works,the first: A Boys Will(1913)collections: North of Boston (1914)Mountain Interval (mature)New HampshireFour Pulitzer Prizes Winner,The Inte
32、rpretation of his poems,The Road Not Taken (p.170)Stopping by woods on a Snowy Evening,The road not taken,Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other
33、, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on t
34、o way,I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference. (1916),黄色的树林里分出两条路，可惜我不能同时去涉足，我在那路口久久伫立，我向着一条路极目望去，直到它消失在丛林深处。但我却选了另外一条路，它荒草萋萋，十分幽寂，显得
35、更诱人、更美丽，虽然在这两条小路上，都很少留下旅人的足迹，,虽然那天清晨落叶满地，两条路都未经脚印污染。呵，留下一条路等改日再见！但我知道路径延绵无尽头，恐怕我难以再回返。也许多少年后在某个地方，我将轻声叹息把往事回顾，一片树林里分出两条路，而我选了人迹更少的一条，从此决定了我一生的道路。,未选之路林中两路分，可惜难兼行。 游子久伫立，极目望一径。 蜿蜒复曲折，隐于丛林中。 我选另一途，合理亦公正。 草密人迹罕，正待人通行。 足迹踏过处，两路皆相同。 两路林中伸，落叶无人踪。 我选一路走，深知路无穷。 我疑从今后，能否转回程。 数十年之后，谈起常叹息。 林中两路分，一路人迹稀。 我独进此路，境
36、遇乃相异。,Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923)-by Robert,Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farhouse near Between the woods and froze
37、n lake The darkest evening of the year.,He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sounds the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep,
38、这首雪夜林前小驻所描写的情景不用解释，但它后面的情趣、哲理、魅力，需要细细品位。我独自站在树林边沿，里面有一种东西在吸引我，但不能光听内心世界的召唤，我还要许多世间的约会、责任，“路迢途远岂敢酣眠”，这里的“眠”既是陶醉，又是安静，或是心灵的平静。一个情景，引起人无限遐想，每个人会根据自己的经历体会无数个生活背后的韵味。 诗人在雪夜里骑马路经一片树林，树林的主人是熟识的，他的家就住在村中。 诗人在白雪覆盖的林边伫立观赏雪景使坐骑感到奇怪，以为他迷失了路。 雪中的森林景色诱人，使人流连忘返，但是诗人却不能停留下来， 他还要继续走一段路程才能安眠。 继续走另有含义，指诗人要完成的工作，安眠指人生的
39、尽头。 诗人说他一定要把要做的事情做完才能最终安息。,Features of his poems,(1)He is a poet of nature. Most of his poems took New England as setting, and the subjects were chosen from daily life of ordinary people, such as “mending wall”, “picking apples”.,(2) He writes most often about landscape and people the loneliness and
40、 poverty of isolated farmers, beauty, terror and tragedy in nature. He also describes some abnormal people, e.g. “deceptively simple”, “philosophical poet”.,(3) Although he was popular during 1920s, he didnt experiment like other modern poets. He used conventional forms, plain language, traditional
41、metre, and wrote in a pastured tradition.,IX. E. E. Cummings,“a juggler with syntax, grammar and diction” individualism, “painter poet”,Novels in the 1920s,I. F. Scott Fitzgerald1.life participant in 1920s2. works(1) This Side of Paradise(2) Flappers and Philosophers(3) The Beautiful and the Damned(
42、4) The Great Gatsby(5) Tender is the Night(6) All the Sad Young Man(7) The Last Tycoon,3. point of view(1) He expressed what the young people believed in the 1920s, the so-called “American Dream” is false in nature.(2) He had always been critical of the rich and tried to show the integrating effects
43、 of money on the emotional make-up of his character. He found that wealth altered peoples characters, making them mean and distrusted. He thinks money brought only tragedy and remorse.(3) His novels follow a pattern: dream lack of attraction failure and despair.,4. His ideas of “American Dream”It is
44、 false to most young people. Only those who were dishonest could become rich.,5. StyleFitzgerald was one of the great stylists in American literature. His prose is smooth, sensitive, and completely original in its diction and metaphors. Its simplicity and gracefulness, its skill in manipulating the
45、relation between the general and the specific reveal his consummate artistry.,6. The Great GatsbyNarrative point of view NickHe is related to everyone in the novel and is calm and detected observer who is never quick to make judgments.Selected omniscient point of view,II. Ernest Hemingway,1. life2.
46、point of view (influenced by experience in war)(1) He felt that WWI had broken Americas culture and traditions, and separated from its roots. He wrote about men and women who were isolated from tradition, frightened, sometimes ridiculous, trying to find their own way.(2) He condemned war as purposel
47、ess slaughter, but the attitude changed when he took part in Spanish Civil War when he found that fascism was a cause worth fighting for.(3) He wrote about courage and cowardice in battlefield. He defined courage as “an instinctive movement towards or away from the centre of violence with self-prese
48、rvation and self-respect, the mixed motive”. He also talked about the courage with which to face tragedies of life that can never be remedied.(4) Hemingway is essentially a negative writer. It is very difficult for him to say “yes”. He holds a black, naturalistic view of the world and sees it as “al
49、l a nothing” and “all nada”.,3. works(1) In Our Time(2) Men Without Women(3) Winner Take Nothing(4) The Torrents of Spring(5) The Sun Also Rises(6) A Farewell to Arms(7) Death in the Afternoon(8) To Have and Have Not(9) Green Hills of Africa(10) The Fifth Column(11) For Whom the Bell Tolls(12) Acros
50、s the River and into the Trees(13) The Old Man and the Sea,4. themes “grace under pressure”(1) war and influence of war on people, with scenes connected with hunting, bull fighting which demand stamina and courage, and with the question “how to live with pain”, “how human being live gracefully under
