美国文学选读

美国文学选读（精选八篇）

美国文学选读 篇1

学生学习“英美文学”课程的目的是多方面的:提高英语水平、拓宽英美文化视野、应付专业八级考试的人文知识考题,或是把该课程当作文学欣赏,只为愉悦心情。很少有学生是为了学习文学本身。老师也容易作此理解,因而把文学课上成综合英语、文化介绍、人文知识、文学欣赏一类的大杂糅课堂,这便导致了外国文学课没有文学的现象,失去了该课程的“文学”本质和价值,进而在某种程度上失去了存在的理由。笔者认为,外国文学教学的核心价值在于它的“文学”本质,正是在“文学”这一层面,外国文学教学具有特殊的重要性,对于大学生的文化修养、心理成长和思想进步具有无可替代的价值。本论文就是基于笔者的“美国文学教学”实践,论述外国文学教学的本质内涵及其促进大学生心智成长的功用。

1 外国文学教学的本质价值

中国人民大学黄晋凯教授指出:“可喜的是,上世纪九十年代后期以来,许多院校把外国文学从中外文系的专业课拓展成了通识教育、人文素质教育的重要组成部分。这就意味着,在人们的眼里,外国文学终于从毒害青年的毒品‘升华’为可以滋润生命的营养物(黄晋凯,2011)。”

既然是滋润生命的营养物,因此,即使是应用型大学也不应该将外国文学视为高深学问而敬而远之,也不应该视其为与职业应用脱节而忽略掉。而且,从人文素质发展的角度看,外国文学教学对于应用型大学更为重要,因为应用型大学学生接触外国人文思想的机会更少,但他们一毕业就要投入到全球化大生产的链条中,深深地淹没在全球化的意识形态中。

外国文学作为外国文化的子系统,似乎不能像其它作为科学的社会文化学科那样阐释社会文化现实,不能直接明确地向学生阐明社会文化原理和规律。而且,外国文学产生于遥远的外邦异族,其经典也与我们相隔久远。然而,文学是作家的艺术创造,是对现实的反映和重塑,是对人的本体的终极探究,是人学,直指人的感受和体验,直入人的意识和灵魂,具有更强大的培养人的力量。

从古希腊开始,西方文学就探索理性的文学本体论和实用的文学价值论。柏拉图在《理想国》(卷十)中论述道:理式是本原的真理和真实,是第一层,实物是第二层,而画、诗和剧等影像是第三层,画家、诗人和剧作家们按照实物象照镜子似的摹仿出影像;在《理想国》(卷二、三、十)中,他论述了文学对于教育城邦保卫者的功用,他认为对儿童讲故事将影响深刻,关系到儿童性格和观念的形成。这就奠定了文学基于理性,根于现实并且作用于人的成长的现实主义文学本体论。接着,他的学生亚里斯多德在《诗学》中论述了文学的情感因素:悲剧要能引起恐惧与怜悯之情,借以使这种情感得到陶冶;不论任何时候,戏剧的行为都必须能够产生怜悯和恐惧的效果。这便体现出文学作用于情感的具有浪漫主义性质的文学本体论。

由此可见,外国文学内在地融合了其他民族理性和实用的智慧,探索并追求解决人类情感、思想、道德、意识形态方面的现实问题。诚如清华大学童燕萍教授关于外国文学教学所论:“在现在的多元文化的大环境下,我们对学生分析问题和判断能力的培养就变得更为重要。文学经典……是培养学生分析和判断能力的不可或缺的课程(童燕萍,2011)。”

而且,外国文学凭着外国特色和文学特色,在作用于大学生心智成长时有着独特的方式和魅力。既有新奇的异域色彩,又有极强的文学感染力;既有寓于文本中的其他民族不同的思想和情怀,又有与学生日常生活息息相关的人文通识内容;因此,外国文学教学促进大学生心智成长既能够“晴天霹雳”、“柳暗花明”,又能够“春风化雨”、“润物无声”。

2 外国文学教学的内涵辨析

外国文学是关于外国的文学的教学,因而要牢牢把握“外国”特色和“文学”特色,要形成“外国文学课”不是“外语课”,而是“文学课”的自觉。简而言之,就是要自觉意识着,并牢牢把握住外国文学的核心要素:生活素材、文学语言、主题思想。

在此,笔者以自己教学《美国文学选读(第三版)》的体会和认识具体论之。

(1)异族生活性

外国文学作品是经由形象思维构建的世故人情,描述了其他民族的个人、家庭和社会的生活,或者经济、政治、学术的和情感的生活。外国文学教学首先要解读作品中的生活描述。

在教学《美国文学选读》第一单元“本杰明·富兰克林:《自传(节选)》”时,笔者着重于富兰克林对自己早年生活的描述:“哥哥自认为是我的主人,经常打我,所以我渴望逃离;他却游说小镇上的老板别雇我,因此,我寻机从波士顿逃到了纽约——近三百英里远、十七岁、没推荐、没熟人、只一点点钱;为了工作,又上了前往费城的小船,船上见到了班扬的《天路历程》,提到了笛福的《鲁宾逊漂流记》及其它作品……”这些生活的描述引导读者体验富兰克林的少年烦恼和逃离历程,想象殖民地时期的美国波士顿、纽约、费城等地的景观,感受美国建国前的社会人情,思考像《天路历程》、《鲁宾逊漂流记》一样的文学作品对富兰克林人生旅程的影响;如此就引导学生体验文学世界里的生活,避免了将《自传》当作伟人富兰克林成功的脚注或政治宣传等教条式讲解。

(2)外语文学性

外国文学课的本质是“文学”,应该突出“文学性”,尤其是在语言上突出“文学性”。“文学性”是20世纪早期俄国形式主义文学流派独辟蹊径追求的目标。形式主义者雅克布森阐明,“文学性,即文学之所以为文学的区别性特征”,他重视“区别两种语言——日常语言和文学语言”(马新国,2002);什克洛夫斯基论述,“‘文学性’……来源于文学语言及其构造之中……只有‘陌生化’的语言才能产生文学性”。(马新国,2002)因此,外国文学课要上成“文学课”,就要有意识地探索“陌生化”的文学语言,从而发掘“文学性”。

在教学第七单元“埃米莉·狄金森:《要描绘一片草原……》”时,笔者引领学生探讨“…a clover and one bee,/One clover and a bee”的结构。在同一个语法成分里同时使用不定冠词a和数词one,而且在重复时又换了位置,这不符合日常语法规则。这种“陌生化”语言引起读者对语言本身的好奇与关注,关注a与one的内涵及其相互关系:a作为虚义冠词,意义是隐性的,而one作为实义数词,意义是显性的;那么,a clover与one bee的关系可以理解为背景与主体意象的关系,同样,one clover与a bee的关系则与之相对;而重复寓意为“许多、无限”,意即一棵又一棵红花草—有的作为背景,有的作为主体意象;一只又一只蜜蜂—有的作为主体意象,有的作为背景;构成了繁花似锦、生机勃勃的大草原。如此,便诠释了“陌生化”语言产生的文学性,即通过“陌生化”超脱习惯了的能指与所指关系,引起读者对语言本身的好奇与关注,实现文学语言本身的审美效应,而不是实现日常语言传递信息促进交流的目的。

(2)他者思想性

外国文学教学常常注重作品的主题归纳与阐释,但要自觉地认识并鲜明地揭示主题的“外国性”,否则,有可能给大学生人生观、价值观、世界观造成混乱。

在教学第四单元“纳撒尼尔·霍桑:《红字(第二章)》”时,笔者引导学生理解文本,探讨主题。白兰美轮美奂,因通奸而受到清教戒律的惩罚,并终生负罪,却顽强地生存着。因此,学生会受白兰的感染,对她钦佩,理解和原谅,但也甚至视其通奸为纯真天性的解放,反三纲五常的勇敢。所以必须阐明:这是发生在北美大陆上的现象,要从历史视角看待。清教是北美大陆、北美殖民地、美国建国和崛起的精神支柱,尤其是白兰所处的17世纪艰辛拓荒的时代,而到了霍桑创作《红字》的十九世纪,人们对两百年前的清教社会的清规戒律产生了否定性的判断。有必要补充的是,美国随后的思想解放,带来的是20世纪初的一代迷惘、社会堕落和崩溃。这样引导学生从高屋建瓴的视角审视白兰的美德和错误,避免迷失在混沌不清甚至有害的价值观之中,发挥健康有益的借鉴意义。

3 外国文学教学的育人功用

外国文学课突出“文学”特色,就能够自然地与大学生心智成长目标结合起来,促进大学生语言文化的拓展、心理方面的成长、思想意识的进步。

(1)语言文化的拓展

文学首先是语言的艺术,如上文所引证的俄国形式主义文艺批评流派所主张的,文学的本质在于“陌生化”的文学语言,文学语言区别于日常语言,包含着艺术性的创造,是具有审美效应的语言。因此,大学生学习、领会、掌握、运用文学语言,是语言水平发展上质的飞跃。

同时,文学又是社会历史文化的载体。恩格斯在论及巴尔扎克时称赞道:“他的作品提供了社会各个领域无比丰富的生动细节和形象化的历史材料……甚至在经济的细节方面,我学到的东西也要比从当时所有职业历史学家、经济学家和统计学家那里学到的全部东西还要多。”所以,大学生在学习外国文学的过程中,循着“无比丰富的生动细节和形象化的历史材料”,沉浸于外邦异族的生活、文化、历史之中,感同身受,拓展视野。

笔者在教学第七单元“埃德加·爱伦·坡:《十四行诗——致科学》、《致海伦》”时,笔者引导学生探究“Diana、Hamadryad、Naiad、Elfin、Helen、Nicean、hyacinth、Greece、Psyche”等词的文化内涵,帮助学生认识古希腊和古罗马的神话,以此来理解诗人、诗歌、文学、艺术的古典欢乐神圣的形象,从而反衬出科学造成的残酷现实,烘托出情人的古典、坚韧、圣洁、凄婉的形象。如此,外国文学教学提升大学生的语言境界和文化领悟,而不是简单地增加词汇和获得文化知识,没有必要将外国文学课上成语言课和文化课。

(2)心理方面的成长

正如上文所引亚里斯多德在《诗学》中的论述,文学的一个使命就是引起情感,借以使这种情感得到陶冶。而情感是心理的一个基础方面,尤其是在大学生阶段。所以,外国文学教学能促进大学生在心理方面的健康成长。

为解决大学生心理成长问题,大学校园提供心理测试、心理咨询、情感辅导,而且越来越热门。这种科学的方式和手段,把对象当作客体,基于已有的现实和倾向,往往是以学生经历的挫折代价为基础的。而文学通过艺术审美陶冶的方式,让读者自主地移情、想象、体会、提升,其作用是内在的,影响更深远。而且既不用遭受现实的伤害,又有作家的智慧指引,向着健康的方向发展情感、陶冶性情、净化灵魂,促进心理整体性成长。

在教学第四单元“纳撒尼尔·霍桑:《红字(第二章)》”时,笔者引导学生读解白兰出场受罚的场景,通过移情体验白兰所处的可怜可悲的境地和清教社会中世人冷酷刻薄的态度,从而在内心深处培育怜悯之情、敬畏之心与公正之理,陶冶为人处世的智慧和性情,净化灵魂中放纵、邪恶、冷酷的罪孽,加强理性,把握情感发展的健康方向。

(3)思想意识的进步

正如《钢铁是怎样炼成的》培养了一代又一代共产主义新人,外国文学在思想意识方面的影响是巨大的。文学作品有血有肉,可触可感可思,主题思想像灵魂一样,不是说教出来,而是由人物形象表白出来,表露出来,表演出来,与读者没有距离,令读者无法拒绝。

但是,外国文学的影响包括正反两个方面,这就要求,外国文学教学要选准视角,努力发掘正面的主题思想,设法回避或鲜明批判反面的主题思想,真正发挥文学滋润生命的价值,并在此过程中培养学生识别精华与糟粕的能力,从而培养和强化进步的思想意识。

在教学第七单元“亨利·沃兹沃思·朗费罗:《人生颂》”时,笔者引导学生读解“梦幻、坟墓、牲畜、哑鼓、战场、斗争、英雄、伟人、脚印、心志”等意象,激起学生对诗中“人生真实,人生激荡;不断收获,不断追求”的人生理念的共鸣,培养学生积极的人生态度和高尚的人生观。在教学第七单元“沃尔特·惠特曼:《我歌唱自我》”时,笔者引导学生理解诗中“个人、大众、女性、男性、民主、平等、自由、法律”等概念,深刻体会诗人所倡导的民主思想和所流露的民主意识,培养学生的民主观念,消解王权思想和官本位意识,突破小农意识的局限,并进一步引导学生理解“面相、脑力、缪斯、激情、脉搏、力量”等概念,认识到外貌与心智、肉体与精神、生机与权力的同等地位,认识到生命的神圣性,从而培养学生的人文主义思想,消解封建思想和宗教观念的桎梏。同时,根据学生思想问题的实际情况,指出这两首诗中所体现的美国的根深蒂固的个人主义,即思考问题的出发点和归宿都是自我,没有把个人的志向和体验与集体、社会和国家条件联系成一个有机的整体,没有宽阔的视野和广大的参照系,因而不足以明示人生的定位。

通过这样的正面发掘和反面揭示,学生的思想意识得到提升,对正反面观念的辨别能力得到提高,这就不仅促进了学生当前的成长,而且赋予学生终生发展的自觉和能力。

4 结论

高等教育经历了过分强调知识技能、专业素质的发展阶段之后,逐渐转向综合平衡的教育理念,即重视通识教育,重视人文素质的培养;而外国文学教学是通识教育和人文素质培养的一个根本方面,尤其是它的“外国性”和“文学性”特色,具有不可替代的魅力。顺应教育理念的转变,追随外国文学教学改革的潮流,作为一线教师,应当心系大学生心智成长的目标,发掘外国文学教学的更大价值。

参考文献

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[2]恩格斯.致玛·哈克奈斯[A].江守义、丁云亮、何旺生.马克思主义文论[C].北京:北京师范大学出版集团.安徽大学出版社,2010:7.

[3]黄晋凯.走过风雨60年——外国文学教学与研究扫描[J].郑体武.新中国成立以来的外国文学教学与研究.上海:上海外语教育出版社,2011:11.

[4]马新国.西方文论史[M].北京:高等教育出版社,2002:378-385.

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美国文学史及选读教案 篇2

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课 程 名 称:主要英语国家文学史及文学作品选读 2 课 程 代 码: 31020022 授 课 教 师 ： 吴文南 系 别 ： 外语系

2010年3 月2 日 授课专业班级 ： 英语本科, 英语师范, 英语专升本

Introduction Teaching aid tool: a map of early America Teaching aim: the students learn why and how to learn literature course, get the general idea of the colonial America and their literary forms.Key Points: a.learning aim;b.Learning method;c.Colonial American characteristics.I.Introduction of the course 1.Why should we learn the course:

a.One of the main reasons might be that literature offers a bountiful and extremely varied body of written material, which is “important in the sense that it says something about fundamental human issues and which is enduring rather than ephemeral.Its relevance moves with the passing of time, but seldom disappears completely the Shakespeare plays whose ending were rewritten to conform to late 17th century taste and which were later staged to give maximum prominence to their romantic hero figures are now explored for their psychoanalytic import.In this way, though its meaning does not remain static, a literary work can transcend both time and culture to speak directly to a reader in another country or a different period of history.Literature is authentic material.By that we simply mean that most works of literature are not fashioned for the specific purpose of teaching a language.Recent course materials have quite rightly incorporated many authentic samples of language---for example, travel timetable, city plans, forms, pamphlets, cartoons, advertisements, newspaper or magazine articles.Learners are thus exposed to language that is as genuine and undistorted as can be managed in the classroom context.In reading literary texts, students have also to cope with language intended for native speakers and thus we gain additional familiarity with many different linguistic uses, forms and conventions of the written mode with irony, exposition, argument, narration and so on.b.Cultural enrichment: For many language learners, more indirect routes to understand a country must be adopted so that they gain an understanding of the way of life of the country: radio programmers, films and videos, newspapers and last, literary works.It is true of course that the “world” of a novel, play, or short story is a created one, yet it offers a full and vivid context in which characters from many social backgrounds can be depicted.A reader can discover their thoughts, feelings, customs, and possessions: what they buy, believe in, fear, enjoy;how they speak and behave closed doors.Reading the literature of a historical period is one of the ways we have to help us imagine what life was like in that other foreign territory.Literature is perhaps best seen as a complement to other materials used to increase the foreign learner‟s insight into the country whose language is being learnt.c.language enrichment: we have said that reading literary works exposes the student to many function of the written language, but what about other linguistic advantages? Language enrichment is one benefit often sought through literature, while there is little a=doubt that extensive reading increases a learner‟s receptive vocabulary and facilitates transfer to a more active form of knowledge, it is sometimes objected that literature does not give learners the kind of vocabulary they really need.It may be “authentic” in the sense already mentioned, but the language of literary works is not typical of the language of daily life, nor is it like the language used in learners‟ textbooks.We would not wish students to think that Elizabeth Berret Brownning‟s “How Do I love Thee? Is the kind of utterance normally whispered into a lover‟s era nowadays!The objection to literature on the grounds of lexical appropracy has some validity, but it need not be an overriding one if teachers make a judicious choice of the text to be read, considering it as a counterpoise and supplement to other materials.On the positive side, literature provides a rich context in which individual lexical or syntactical items are made more memorable.Reading a substantial and contextual zed body of text, students gain familiarity with many features of the written language---the formation and function of relines, the variety of possible structures, the different ways of connecting ideas---which broaden and enrich their own writing skills.The extensive reading required in tackling a novel or long play develops the student‟s ability to make inferences from linguistic clues, and to deduce meaning from context, both useful tools in reading other sorts of material as well.Literature helps extend the intermediate or advanced learner‟s awareness of the range of language itself.Literary language is not always that of daily communication, as we have mentioned, but it is special in its way.It is heightened: sometimes elaborate, sometimes marvelously simply yet, somehow, absolutely “right”.2.What should we learn? History and Anthology of American literature 3.Some Literary works: Selected Reading in American Literature

扬岂深 Selected Reading in American Literature

陶洁 Selected Reading in American Literature

常耀信

Contemporary American Literature with Collateral Readings 秦小孟 High Lights of American Literature

钱青

An Anthology of 20th Century American Fiction

万培德 A Survey of American Literature

常耀信 20世纪美国文学导论

李公昭 二十世纪美国文学导读

张立新

Part I

The Literature of Colonial America I.II.Teaching Time: 2 teaching hours.Teaching Aim: through introduction, the students should get an idea about the history and development of American nation and how did the American literature came into being and what is the characteristic of its early literature.III.Teaching method: Teacher‟s Presentation.IV.Teaching Tool: multi-medium.V.Key points: the characteristics of early literature.Introduction I.The native Americans and their culture:

Before being explored by European adventurers the American Continent had long been inhabitated by the natives---American Indians.Physical characteristics of the American Indians are mongolocial or a mixture of that with something else.They probably first began coming from Asia to America during the Ice „Age,8000-5999 BC.They crossed Berring Strait by raft.Through hundred and thousands of years these earliest inhabitants developed their own civilizations.They learned agriculture, basketry and pottery.The most striking achievements were in agriculture.Maize---“Indian Corn” was developed from a wild grass.The white potato, the cacao bean, tobacco were all developed by Indians.Indians remained in tribe society.II.The historical background of the Colonial Time: 1.the first England settlement: Christophe Columbus(1451 he believed the world is round, find the route to East by sailing West, he asked the help from Queen of Spain to support him.On Aug.3.1492, three small vessels set sail with 100 crews, after several months of sailing they arrived at Balama Island---San Salvador on Oct.12.1492.He landed and in March 1493 returned.He had 4 voyages in his lifetime.2.English settlement: 1607 Captain Christopher Newport, three ships---Chesapeake Bay Jamestown

Mayflower

1620 Plymouth Puritans

New England area 3.Conflicts with Indians and the founding of 13 colonies.III.The development of Literature:

American literature emerged out of obscurity into history only some four centuries ago.It is the newest of the literatures of great nations, yet it is original in many aspects.It is original because it mirrors the history of America, and epitomizes the development of political and economics, social and psychological institutions.It is original because upon it has played most of those great historical forces and factors that have molded the modern world: immigration, nationalism, individualism, imperialism, religion, science, technology and democracy.In addition to its realistic and vivid reflection of the madding of the distinctly shaped character of American people, it is original in variety and cultural colors;such features of American literature may find expression in its products in the colonial period.John Smith

a British soldier of fortune “A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as hath happened in Virginia”

“New England Trials”

“The General History of Virginia”

Within a few decades a considerable number of learned people, such as Puritan clergymen and governors, produced a considerable body of writing of high literary quality, yet they were not literary people in the professional sense.Their writing included diaries, travel books, collections of letters, journals, histories, poetry, biographies, autobiographies and prose, to which the Puritans contributed much.In addition to being true believers of their religious doctrines, the early puritans generally have college education with a sound knowledge of the literary classics, and learned much about the basic qualities of literature from the ancient and contemporary authors in the old continent.Such responsible for the two essential characteristics of the early American literature: their religious subject and imitation of English literary traditions.(1)William Bradford(1590-1657)Of Plymouth Plantation

(2)John Winthrop

(governor of Massachusetts Bay)Journal

1790 The History of New England(3)Edward Taylor

The New England Quarterly(4)Cotton Mather Magnolia Christi Americana Characteristics:

In spite of the unique features that the colonial men of letters, reflected in their writings, some common characteristic run through almost all the principal works of the major literary figures of the colonial period, which mirrored the nature of colonial American literature and continued to be the subsequent development of American literature and of America itself.Puritanism was central to colonial American literature and its impact could find expression in almost all respects concerning literature.The conviction that all religious progress centered in the individual led colonial writers to make records of his spiritual development in the forms of diary and autobiography: a strenuous self-analysis and ceaseless searching of conscience in the writings of the Puritans was the result of their belief that “election” would show itself in the behavior and in the experiences of the inner life of the individual.In keeping with the belief that American literature should concern itself with spiritual and in the experiences of the inner life of the individual.In keeping with the belief that literature should concern with spiritual values, the sermon became the most highly developed and the most popular of Puritan and compact expression, and its avoidance of rhetorical decoration excellently illustrated Puritan aesthetic and moral theories.In accordance with their way of life, the Puritans preferred a style characterized by homeliness of imagery, simplicity of diction and an emphasis on the values most easily recognized by their readers.It is for the same reason that they disliked the sensuous appeal of certain types of imagery and favored the figures and images drawn from the common experiences of the New England settlers.Questions for discussion: 1.What were the features of colonial America? 2.What were the literary characteristics? 3.What was the Puritanism? Reference Books: 1.《美国文学教程》 第一章2． 《美国文学的周期》

E.Spiller 3.《新编美国文学史》 第二章

刘海平

常曜信

Part II

The Literature of Reason and Revolution I，Teaching time: 2 teaching hours II.Teaching Aim: the students should know the reason and effect of American Revolution, and the characteristics of the literature.Through learning the selected works, the students get to know the writing style of them.III.Teaching Method: a.presentation, b.analysis of the contexts of the works, c.questions and discussion.IV.Key points: writing style of the prose works.Introduction: I.The Historical Background: a)two revolutions {American Revolution

Enlightenment(1)European‟s conflicts in the New Continent;(2)The cause of the Revolution;(3)The procedure of the Revolution;(4)The significance of the Revolution.II.The Development of Literature:(1)prose of Thomas Paine, Franklin and Thomas Jefferson;(2)Poetry of Byrant Questions for Discussion:(1)What do you know about American Revolution?(2)What do you know about Washinton?(3)What is the main trend of literature? III.Authors and their writings in this period:(1)Benjamin Franklin a.his life and works: Benjamin Franklin was a brilliant, industrious and versatile man.Starting as a poor boy in a family of 17 children, he became famous on both sides of the Atlantic as a statesman, scientist and author.Despite his fame, he always remained a man of industry and simple tastes.Franklin‟s writings range from informal sermons on thrift to urbane essays.He wrote gracefully as well as clearly with a wit which often gave an edge to his words.Though the style he formed came from imitating two noted English essayists, Addison and Steele, he made it into his own.His most famous work is his Autobiography.Before his autobiography, his “Poor Richard‟s Almanac(1733-1758)became popular readings which contain many proverbs like: Early to bed, and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.Franklin‟s Autobiography is many things.First of all it is an inspiring account of a poor boy‟s rise to a high position.Franklin tells his story modestly, omitting some of his misdeeds, his errors as being much less than perfect.He is resigned to the fact that his misdeeds will often receive a punishment of one sort or another.Viewing himself with objectivity, Franklin offers his life story as a lesson to others.It is a positive lesson that teaches the reader to live a useful life.In fact the Autobiography is a how-to-do it book, a book on the art of self-improvement.In 1771, while living in England and serving as ambassador for most of the colonies, Franklin began his autobiography as a letter to his son, Willliam.He got as far as the year 1730(including his arrival in Philadelphia)being interrupted by “the affairs of the Revolution”.In 1784, while living at Passy, France, then a suburb of Paris, he extended his Autobiography through 1731.The bulk of the remainder of the work was added in 1788 and the final few pages were written in1790, the year of his death.None of this was published while Franklin lived.Shortly after his death, a French translation of his life to 1731(the first two section that Franklin wrote)was published.Though this was soon translated into English and published in London, the “official text did not appear until 1818, as part of the works of Benjamin Franklin,” edited by his grandson William Temple Franklin.The first “complete” Autobiography---with the pages written in 1790---did not appear until 1868, edited by John Bigelow, who had bought Franklin‟s original manuscript from a Franklin family the previous year.The Autobiography covers Franklin‟s life only until 1757 when he was 51 years old, well before his major accomplishments as a diplomat.The work as a whole was written by a man well beyond the normal age of retirement, yet it is not the less lively for that fact.Franklin‟s mastery of a prose style characterized by clarity, concision, flexibility and order was central to his fame as a great man of letters.Such major features of his style was summarized by himself in a short paragraph:

The words used should be the most expressive that the language affords, provided that they are the most generally understood.Nothing should be expressed in two words that can as well be expressed in one;that is, no synonyms should be used, or rarely, but the whole should be as short as possible, consistent with clearness: the words should be placed as to agreeable to the ear in reading;summarily, it should be smooth, clear, and short for the contrary qualities are displeasing.(2)Analysis of the Selected part: A.3 paragraphs: a.what interest did Franklin have as a child;a.Being an apprentice to his brother, Franklin began writing;b.Improving argumentation.Summary: Franklin was thirty to knowledge and trying to learn the language with practical methods.B

a.the way of learning languages;b.Practice makes perfect;c.Relations to his relatives;d.Learning club.Summary: Franklin was a practical man.In learning languages we know he had a strong endurance and leaver mind.Part III The Literature of Romanticism I.II.Teaching Time : 8 periods.Teaching Aim: the students should know the characteristic of the origin and development of romanticism in American literature.Transcendentalism as a typical American literature trend developed in American land should be mastered.The students should know how to analyze Bryant‟s two poems.III.Key Points: characteristic of American romanticism and their writers.Part One: Historical Introduction:

We are now dealing with one f the most important periods in the history of American literature, the Romantic period, which stretches from the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the Civil War.Here we see a rising America fast burgeoning into a political, economic and cultural independence it had never known before.Democracy and political equality became the ideals of the new nation.Radical changes came about in the political life of the country.Parties began to squabble and scramble for power, and a new system was in the making.The spread of industrialism, the sudden influx of immigration, and the “pioneers” pushing the frontier further west---all these produced something of an economic boom and, with it, a tremendous sense of optimism and hope among the people.A nation bursting into new life for literary expression.The buoyant mood of the nation and the sprit of the times seem in some measure responsible for the spectacular outburst of romantic feeling in the first half of the nineteenth century.The literary milieu proved fertile and conducive to the imagination as well.Among other things, magazines appeared in ever-increasing numbers, of which The North American Review, The New York Mirror, The American Quarterly Review, The New England Magazine, The Southern Review, The Southern Literary Messenger, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper‟s Magazine and Knickerbockers Magazine played an important role in facilitating literary expansion in the country.Foreign influences added incentive to the growth of romanticism in America.The Romantic Movement, which had flourished earlier in the century both in England and Europe, proved to be a decisive influence without which the upsurge of American romanticism would hardly have been possible.Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Taylor Cole ridge, William Wordsworth, Byron, Robert Burns and many other English and European masters of poetry and prose all made a stimulating impact on the different departments of the country‟s literature.The influence of Sir Walter Scott was particularly powerful and enduring.His border tales and Waverley romances inspired many American authors such as James Fennimore Cooper with irresistible creative impulses.Scott‟s Waverley novels were models for American historical romance, and his The Lady of the Lake, together with Byron‟s Oriental romances, helped toward the development of American Indian romance.He was, in a way, responsible for the romantic description of landscape in American literature.The Gothic tradition, and the cult of solitude and of gloom came through interest in the works of writers like Mrs.Radcliff, E.T.A.Hoffman, James Thomson and the “graveyard‟ poets.Robert Burns and Byron both inspired and spurred the American imagination for lyrics of love and passion and despair.The impact of Lyrical Ballads of Wordswoth and Coleridge added, to some extent, to the nation‟s singing strength.Thus American romanticism was in a way derivative: American romantic writing was some of them modeled on English and European works.On the other hand, American romanticism had distinct features of its own.Different from their European counterparts, American romantics tended to moralize, to edify rather than to entertain.They presented an entirely new experience alien to European culture.The exotic landscape, the frontier life, the westward expansion, the myth of a New Garden of Eden in America, and the Puritan heritage were just a few examples of the native material for an indigenous literature.Evidently, it produced a feeling of “newness” which inspired the romantic imagination.Part II.Writers of the period 1.Washington Irving(1783-1859)I.Introduction of his life and works: Washington Irving was the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame.He became, in the words of the English novelist Thakeray, “ the first Ambassador whom the new World of letters sent to the old.” Irving was born the youngest of seven children of a precious reader and the author of juvenile poems, plays and essays when he was 16;he began the study of the law for which he had little relish.He preferred instead to pass his time in desultory reading and in the society of literary wits of New York.At 19, he began to contribute a serious of sketches or “letters” on society and the theater to the Morning Chronicle, a New York newspaper.When he was 21, Irving went on a grand tour of Europe.Two years later he returned to New York to be admitted to the bar and to begin the leisurely life of a gentleman lawyer;shortly afterward, Irving started work on what was to be his first literary triumph, his “History of New York(1809)by “Derrick Knickerbockers.” It was an irreverent to spoof of historical scholarship, salted with off-color comments.The book satirized the complacent Dutch burghers of early New York and pointed at the political follies of 19th century America.It also marked the beginning of the “Knickerbockers school” of New York literary satirists including Paulding, Fitzgreen Hallack and Joseph Rodman Drake who took their names and humorous tone from Irving‟s knickbocker History and flourished in New York in the first decades of the 19th century.At the end of the war of 1812, Irving was sent to England to supervise the Liverpool Branch of the family firm, but in 1818, as a result of the war and bad management, the firm went bankrupt.Irving was left only with a dislike for the “dirty soul-killing” world of business and a need to find a livelihood.His “History of New York” has earned the magnificent sum of $3000, so he turned to writing and began preparation of “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent(1820).It was the first work by an American to receive wide international acclaim and it made Irving a celebrity, praised alike in America and England.In it was the two tales that brought him his most enduring fame.“Rip Van Winckles” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

With his new literary success, Irving gave up all thought of returning to America and the world of trade or law.He set out to become a professional man of letters.The Sketch Book was soon followed by Bracebridge Hill(1822), a series of sketches on England country life.In 1824, he published “Tales of a Traveller”, his first volume of fiction, filled with years of the supernatural and clanking with the ghostly machinery of romantic Gothicism.In 1826 his literary fame earned him appointment as an American diplomatic attaché in Spain and there he gathered material for a biography of Christopher Columbers(1826).He wrote severy such kind of biographies.Irving then returned to England, where he accepted appointment as an American diplomat in London and three years later when he was nearing 50, he returned to the United States after an absence of 17 years.He bought “Sunnyside” his famous home on the Hudson River at Tarrytown and there, except for four years as United States minister to Spain he lived as a country spire, writing a series of histories and biographies.A study of Irving‟s works would lead to the conclusion that humor was at the root of almost everything that was significant in them.What was more impressive was that his humor was always well meaning, mild and easy to be accepted.Early in the 19th century when most of the American writers were speaking in the authoritative voice of a gentleman who seems to be superior in maturity, knowledge, sense, and good taste, and when the majority of American periodicals depended heavily on a broad, explosive humor and sarcasm that gradually vulgarized the periodical essay tradition, Irving‟s humor did much to cultivate a new literary taste.The style of Irving‟s work is characterized by simplicity, poise and ease flow.Unlike the tightly structured stories of Poe and Hawthorne, the tastes of Irving lie in his literary innovations and transitional role in the development of American literature.III.Analysis of the tale: 1.Plot structure of action: e.Exposition: time, place, persons preliminary condition of affairs;f.Development Conflicts Crane to Brom Bones;Crane to the girl;Crane to farmers;Crane to ghost;g.Summary----pumpkin, Bones marries the girl, some still believe in ghosts, h.Setting-----i.Style

Questions for discussion: 1.What is the plot of the story? 2.How did the conflict develop in the story? 3.What is the function of the setting? 4.What is the style of the story? Homework: Read the story Rip Van Winkle.2.James Fennimore Cooper(1789-1851)(a)Introduction: Cooper never saw the frontier.The advanced line of settlement that moved westward from the Atlantic had passed beyond Cooperstown, New York before his birth and throughout his life;he never traveled farther west than Michigan.Yet his writing helped create a mythical west that transcended the reality of life on the frontier, and in his greatest character---Natty Bumppo, or “Leatherstocking”---Cooper created an archetypal western hero whose many literary descendants range from the cowboys of popular fiction and the movies to the hero of Melville, Twain and Faulkner.James Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey.When he was thirteen months old, he was taken with his family to a small wildness settlement on Lake Otsego, 150 miles north of New York City.The village was named Cooperstown after his father, William Cooper, a rich member of the landed gentry who had acquired vast tracts of land in New York State following the American Revolution.James Cooper was raised in the rural family “Manor House”, and he roamed the edge of a wildness that stretched a thousand miles to the Mississippi.Although he saw the white hunters and the numerous wagon trains of settlers that passed through Cooperstown on their way west, he saw little of the once numerous reedmen of the eastern forests.Later in life he acknowledged, “ I was never among the Indians.All that I know of them is from reading and from hearing my father speak of them.”

When Cooper was fourteen, he entered Yale, but in his junior years after a series of undergraduate brawls and pranks he was expelled and was sent to sea as a common sailor on an Atlantic merchant ship.In 1808, he became a mild shipman in the U.S navy and served on Lawrence.In 1811, after the death of his father left him an inheritance of $50,000, Cooper resigned from the navy.He then married and began the free-spending life of a wealth gentleman.By 1819, his inheritance was gone and he was heavily in debt.To regain his fortunes, he speculated in land, invested in a frontier store and a whaling ship, and in 1820 he began writing the fiction that eventually brought him wealth and worldly fame.According to tradition, he once tossed aside a popular-sentimental novel with the comment that he could do better himself.When his family challenged him to fulfill his boast he wrote a tale that he quickly recognized as a botch and destroyed.His second attempt was Precaution(1820).It was a full-length novel of English life, written in imitation of Jane Austin and filled with the conventional sentimentality of the day‟s best sellers.Precaution was dull, and a financial failure, but it brought Cooper recognition and helped prepare the way for his next work.The Spy(1821), a novel of the American Revolution.The Spy appealed to patriotic American hungry for exciting fiction that dealt with American scenes and events.It soon went through three editions;it was translated into several European languages and turned into a stage play.And it started Cooper on his career as the first eminent American novelist.Two years later Cooper published The Pioneers(1823), a romance of the American frontier that was an immediate best seller.It was the first of the “Leatherstocking Tales,” five novels of the life of Natty Bumppo.They included “The Last of Mohicans”(1826), The Prairie(1927), The Pathfinder(1840), and the Deerslayer(1841).Following his success with The Pioneer, Cooper drew upon his own experiences and wrote The Pilot(1841)the first of eleven novels of the sea that he wrote over a period of three decades.In 1926, with his financial burdens eased by the profits from his writing Cooper left America to live abroad, partly to escape his remaining debts and partly to experience what he saw as the rich context of European society, while living in Paris and London and touring the Continent, he completed seven more novels and he received the adulation of a vast audience that read the numerous European translations of his works.In 1833, now financially independent, he returned to the United States and eventually settled in Coopstown.There he continued his prolific writing of novels(he eventually wrote 32), histories and essays on society.Patriotic, early critics honored Cooper for creating a literature out of nature materials and they railed him as the American Scott---an accurate but patronizing comparison that Cooper came to detest.But his greatest achievement was his portrayed of the age-old theme of Christian innocence struggling in a paradise lost, the majestic them of the irresistible force of civilization that destroyed the American wilderness and all its noble simplicities.It was a theme that Cooper embodies in his archetypal hero, Natty Bumppo, a character whose flights from society and domesti9city mark him as the first of the symbolic rebels in American writing and one of the most memorable characters in all of fiction.(b)Analysis of the selected part:

Questions for understanding: 1.How does Uncas demonstrate his courage? 2.Do you think that the Hurons were afraid of Uncas and Chingachgook? 3.How was Hawkey‟s weapon different from those used by the others? 4.How many Hurons were there? 5.Describe how Cora was saved from being scalped? 6.How does Magua escape from Chingachgook? 7.What observation does Hawkey make on the difference in defeat in battle between a huron and a Mohican? 8.What advice does Hawkey give to David? 9.Do you think it was unmanly for Heyward to cry? 10.Do you think the fight believable?

4.William Cullen Bryant(„1704-1878)I.Introduction of his life and works:

Long famous as the first American lyric poet of distinction, William Cullen Bryant glorified the morning of the American national literature with several volumes of his brilliant poetry, some of which have proved to be timeless to enrich the treasure house of American poetry.Besides his achievement in poetry, Bryant, as one of the great personalities of his age, was central to the American romantic movement, his force, courage and liberalism as critic and editor provided effective leadership in American cultural and political life for half a century, from the age of Jackson throughout the Civil /war and reconstruction period.The son of an enthusiastic naturalist, Bryant was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, whose beautiful natural landscape exerted such an potential influence upon the future poet that he recalled later his experience when reading The Lyrical Ballads at the age of sixteen: “ a thousand springs seemed to gush up at once into my heart and the force of nature, of sudden, to change into a strange freshness.” In addition to the inspiration of nature, Bryant received the best possible education from his childhood, both at a local school at his hometown and at William College, as well as through his reading in his father‟s ample library.His uncle was also responsible in preparing the way for the growth of the future poet by tutoring him in classical language and literature.Bryant was only 9 when he began to write poems.At the age of 14 he published his satire The Enbargo(1808), a poem in reaction against Jefferson‟s trade restriction.In 1811 he had finished the first draft of his best poem “Thanatopsis”, whose publication in 1817 brought him not only his first success but also general attention to his extraordinary genius.His first collection poems appeared in Boston in 1821, which consisted eight of his poems, such as his most famous poems “To a Waterfowl”, “Thantopsis” and “The Yellow violet” and thereafter established his position in the history of American literature.In 1825 he went to New York, the literary capital of the period and served as assistant editor of the Evening Post, a position providing more opportunities for him to display his dynamic force in American cultural and political life.The year 1829 saw that Bryant became editor in chief of the paper, one of the first great national newspaper in America, and from this time onward he grew to be a dominant leader in American literature and public causes.He established close relationship with Cooper, Irving and other major literary figures, with whom he gave an American formulation to the romantic movement and moreover his frequent lectures on poetry brought him popularity as influential critic.From 1832 to 1864 he published six volumes, including The Fountain(1842), The White-Footed Deer(1944)and The Food of Years(1878), with which he remained a popular favorite.His ever increasing achievements and reputation inn literature also made him become a public speaker, who as a liberal democrat, wrote and published continuously in his newspaper articles to strive for various freedoms, such as freedom of religion, of speech, of free trade, of the masses from the intolerable exploitation of debtor as well as banking and currency regulation and the freedom of the slaves.His devotion to public affairs drained him time and energy, but he never stopped his literary creation.His library of Poetry and song(1871-1872), the first great critical anthology, was his last literary effort.Another treasure that Bryant left was his poetic translation of Homer‟s Iliad(1870)and Odyssey(1871).Nature was the chief theme of Bryant‟s poetry and besides religion and concern for humanitarian reforms and national morality were persistent themes.As a poet, Bryant wrote of his own experience in nature and society, opposed to the conventional insipid generalization about nature, and the best of his poems provided an excellent example of truthful experience, precise expression, and disciplined imagination.Varieties of influences on Bryant‟s early activity as a poet included the neoclassical forms of Addison and Poe, the attitude of the “graveyard poets” like Young and Thomson, and the romantic conceptions of Scott, Burns and Wordsworth.His early poetry reflected some features of imitation, but soon learned to absorb them into his independent style.In addition to the alien influence, nature played a crucial role in the awakening of Bryant as a poet and in his poetic creation.To Bryant, nature was the symbol of the Maker, the mighty cause, and the infinite source;and the purpose of nature as the artifact of the Maker was to keep man‟s mind directed to the Supreme Craftsmen.Bryant held that nature should impact moral instruction and that it should elevate man.II.Analysis to the poem:

Thanatopsis Questions for discussion: 1.Look up the word thantopsis in a dictionary and explain its origin and meaning.2.Bryant divides his poem into three parts.Discuss why you think he made these particular divisions.3.What advice does the speaker give to those who shudder tat the thought of death? 4.What does the speaker mean when he says that the person who dies does not retire alone? 5.Interpret the following passage: “each one as before will chase/His favorite phantom…”

6.Explain how the person addressed as thou” gains in stature and importance as the poem progress.7.What is the message of the poet? Comment on the poem This poem is written in blank verse, namely, in unrhymed iambic pentameter, for the advantage to express with more freedom.At the idea of death, the beauty of nature will make a person less pessimistic.At the age of 16, when other kids were indulging in juvenile frivolity, Bryant already began to meditate over the significance of life and death.As a poet of the early 19th century, Bryant develops a view of man‟s final destiny.To the Puritans, death was seen as a preliminary to an afterlife.Bryant, however, treats death as part of nature, as the destiny of us all, and as the great equalizer in this world.In Bryant‟s view, to those “who in the love of nature,” nature offers all the kindness by presenting a smile and eloquence of beauty when one is in “gayer hours”;it shows sympathy and steals away their sharpness when one is in his darker musings.The death of a man means nothing but the returning to the origin, or a returning to nature.With this prospect, the reader may first be shocked, and soon after, he may shudder and grow sick at heart.However, if at that moment one just goes out to listen, a voice confirms that “Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim thy growth, to be resolved to earth again.” Then he would become brother to rocks, clod, birds and to oak trees, he would lie side by side with patriarchs, with the wise, the good and the beauteous.Running around, is the all-beholding sun.In this kingdom, he is not the first, nor ought to be the last.Before the eternity of nature, a human being is rather frail and weak.Once he joins in the “one mighty sepulcher,” he becomes a part of the hill, the vale, the woods, the river and he is tremendously stronger.Without a single exception, human beings will all share his destiny.To a Waterfowl Stanza 1: With the arrival of evening and in the setting sun and falling dew, where will the waterfowl, through the rosy clouds, fly? Stanza 2: In the rosy light of the setting sun, the hunter might see the bird, but it is too distant to be harmed.Thus it is able for the bird to fly easily and delightedly.Stanza 3: The poet is enquiring the destination of the fowl: Is it by the lake, along the river or at the ocean side? Stanza4: The poet believes that a supernatural power is guiding and protecting the bird.Stanza 5: The evening is falling and the bird, though rather exhausted, kept on flying.Stanza6: Soon the weary flight will end and a shelter will be found.Stanza 7: Though the bird has flown out of sight, the lesson it taught will stay in my heart forever.Stanza 8: As God leads the bird;my life should be guided by the same power, too.Comment on the poem

In the first three stanzas, there is no hint of any morals.However, in the fourth stanza, all of a sudden, a new figure as a god appears.The god has a supernatural power which directs the bird‟s flight.Bryant interrupted himself from describing a bird into teaching a lesson.Bryant may think it is not enough for a poem written just for the sake of its own, or just for the beauty of it, it should say something more than beauty, it should carry morals.It rhymes “abab”, while the lengthy of each line is so different that you cannot find a regular foot.However, the two long lines in the middle of each stanza may refer to the balance in the floating of the bird.The first and the fourth lines, which are relatively shorter, look like two wings.The stanzaic form reminds one of a flying bird.Questions for further understanding: 1.List some specific details that tell at what time of day the action of the poem is taking place.2.How would you argue for or against the idea that the time of day suggests or symbolizes death? 3.Name two or three things that the speaker and the bird have in common.4.As specified in the poem, what is the end of the bird‟s journey? 5.What might be the end of the speaker‟s journey? 6.What is the “lesson “ that the speaker learns? 7.Discuss the idea that it is a poem about blind faith.8.Scanning Poetry.5.Edgar Allan Poe(1809-1849)I.Introduction:

Poe was born in Boston, the child of traveling actors.Before he was 3, his father deserted the family, his mother died and he was taken into the home of John Allan, a prosperous merchant of Richmond, Virginia.Allan treated his foster child with leniency and harsh severity.He had Poe baptized with the middle name of Allan but failed to adopt him legally.In 2815 Allan moved to Europe on business, setting his family in England, where Poe was entered in school.Five years later, the Allans returned to Virginia, where Poe‟s school master judged him: not especially studious” but an “excellent classicist” and “the best reader of Latin verse.”

When he was 17, Poe entered the University of Virginia.He distinguished himself in Latin and French and soon gained a reputation as a self-proclaimed “aristocrat”, a poet, a wit, a gambler, and a heavy drinker.The next year, after bitter quarrels with Allan, who refused to pay Poe‟s gambling debts---he had lost $2000 at cards---Poe left the university and ran off to Boston, where he enlisted in the U.S.Army.While stationed in Boston, he arranged the publication of a slim volume of verse, “Tamerlane and other poems”(1827), his first book of poetry.In April.1829, he gained his release from the army and eight month later, his second volume of poems “Al Aaraaf, Tamerlan and Minor Poems” was published in Baltimore.Following the death of his foster-mother, Poe was briefly reconciled with Allan, who helped him secure appointment to West Point.Poe entered the academy as a cadet, when he was 21, but he remained only eight months.Galled by academy regulations and angered by a lack of support from his foster father, he deliberately violated a series of minor regulation, cut his classes, disobeyed orders to attend church, and early in 1831 he was dismissed.Just after he left West Point, his third volume of poetry was published, dedicated to “the U.S Corps of Cadets.” He then moved to Baltimore and devoted himself to earning his way as a writer.In 1832, five of Poe‟s stories were published in the Saturday Courier, a Philadelphia literary weekly.In 1833 he won first prize of $100 in a short story contest run by a Baltimore newspaper.He then returned to Richmond, where he was appointed editor---in which he published a series of stories, poems and acid literary reviews.When he was 27, he married his 13 years old cousin, Virginia Clemn.The remaining years of his life were filled with intense creativity by fits of acute mental depression and drinking bouts.In 1838 he published “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”, his one full length novel.The next year he became co-editor of Burton‟s Gentleman‟s Magazine, a Philadelphia literary monthly to which he contributed “The Fall of the House of usher”(1839)and his sonnet “Silence”(1840).Later in 1839 his “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque” appeared, his first collection of short stories.Then he became an editor of another Philadelphia monthly, Graham‟s Magazine, which printed “The Murder in the Rue Morgue” the ancestor of American detective stories.While living in New York, “The Raven”, his most famous work and an immediate success got published.When his wife died, he felt a great assault, he continued to write, say, “I have a great deal to do;and I have made up my mind not to die till it is done.” On October 3, 1849 he was found unconscious on the streets and four days later, he died.Poe‟s life had been a series of disasters: psychologically crippling childhood deprivations, bitter literary quarrels, overwhelming poverty, failed publishing ventures, even in 1848, an unsuccessful attempt at suicide.American‟s long judged his writing according to the legends.Poe‟s work was sometimes careless and derivative.He was rarely able to break from the need to do profitable hard work.The gothic terror he achieved was often commonplace, little above the popular, overheated romantic fiction of the times.Poe found his inspiration in a romanticism divorced from the actualities of American life, a world of disorder, perversity and romantic emotion.He helped established one of the world‟s most popular literary genres, the detective story.His writing influenced a variety of writers.He was among the first modern literary theorists of America, and his arguments against the didactic motive for literature and for the creation of beauty and intensity of emotion, though they ran counter to the prevailing literary ideals of his time, have had profound effect on the writers and critics who followed him.II.Analysis on his poems and story: To Helen Understanding Questions: 1.Although a real person inspired this poem, whose name was Jane;Poe addressed it to “Helen”.Why might he have done this? 2.In the final stanza, “Helen” is addressed as “Psyche” the Greek word for “breath: or “soul”.How do you reconcile this with the earlier references to Helen of Troy, whose legendary beauty led to the Trojan War? 3.Note that all three stanzas end with a reference to a place.How are these related to each other? To the meaning of the poem as a whole? Stanza 1: The poet first mentioned Helen, the most famous beauty in Greek mythology.Then Poe compared himself to Odysseus, who wandered for ten years over the sea to get home.As Odysseus, Edgar Allan Poe was persistent in his chasing after fine arts with the sincere belief that art or beauty and truth, is the ultimate aim, the home, for the wandering poet;while Helen, the embodiment of ancient beauty, is the guider to that dreamland.Stanza 2;all the art and literature originated from one thing---beauty.Having taken Helen as the embodiment of beauty, the poet was confident that once he saw Helen, he was sure to be led by Helen to the home of beauty---fine art and pure literature.Poe insisted that Greece and Rome are the homes of beauty, the treasure houses of fine art and literature.Stanza 3: The speaker sees Helen standing in the bright niche and holding in her hand an agate lamp.She is quite similar to goddess Psyche from Greek Myth.Through his description of his passion to Helen, Poe expressed his pursuit and sincere devotion to beauty.In this poem, three beauties in ancient Greek mythology---Helen, Naiad and Psyche---are mentioned just to show that beauty is something that existed;it is very holy but it is hard to reach.Comment on the poem This poem is believed to have been written when the poet was only fourteen, inspired, as Poe admitted by the beauty of Mrs.Jane Sitlth Stanard, the young mother of a school fellow who was “the first purely ideal love of my soul.” In this poem, the personal element of the young poet was almost completely sublimated in the idealization of the tradition of supernal beauty in art.The lady died in 1824, but she appeared in this poetic work in the figure of Helen, the well-known ancient beauty, with all the adoration of poet to her.In the first stanza, Helen‟s beauty is compared to the Nicean barks---a suggestion of classical associations;what‟s more, “of yore,” instead of “before” or “long ago”, is applied to add the classical atmosphere to the poem.As the ancient ships had transported the ancient hero---Ulysses—home from Troy, so will the beauty of Helen lead the poet to the home of art? The second stanza starts with “On desperate seas.” Actually, the transferred epithet is used just to show the poet‟s cordiality to the goddess of art.In classic myth, the flower Hyacinth preserved the memory of Apollo‟s love for the dead young Hyacinthus.(Hyacinthus is a very handsome young man of Greek myth and the object of Apollo‟s affections.Unfortunately, he was badly hurt by a discus when Apollo was gaming and dead soon.Very disappointed by that, Apollo changed him into the plant of hyacinth which had been taken as a symbol for affection.)All of these, the hyacinth hair, the face of classic beauty and the expression of Naiad, are charming enough to lead me to the home of art---ancient Greece and ancient Rome.In the third stanza, Helen is directly compared to goddess Psyche from the Holy Land.Through his description of his passion to Helen, Poe expressed his pursuit and sincere devotion to beauty.In the poem, three beauties in ancient Greek mythology are mentioned just to show that beauty is something that existed;it is very holy but it is hard to reach.The Raven Stanza 1: One night, while the poet was tired with reading and pondering, he heard the gentle knocks at his chamber door.Stanza 2: In a cold night when the poet was alone, he was awakened by the tapping and realized that he had failed, by reading a book, to ease his sorrow for the lost Lenore.Stanza 3: The poet felt frightened so he had to calm himself down by persuading that the tapping means a late visitor, and it could not be anything worse than that.Stanza 4: The poet was suddenly excited as to apologize for not hearing the gentle rapping, but when the door is widely opened, he found nothing but darkness outside.Stanza 5.The door was opened but it was all darkness and tranquility outside.The only sound echoing to the poet‟s ear was his murmuring of “Lenore.” He began to wonder who might have done the tapping.But the more he wondered, the more frightened he became.Stanza 6: The poet returned to his chamber but the tapping appeared again and louder.He made up his mind to calm down and find out the truth.Stanza 7: The poet opened the window and finally found that the tapping comes from a Raven perching on a bust of Pallas.Stanza 8: The poet was beguiled into smiling by the black bird and he asked its name and was replied with: “Nevermore,” which becomes the repetitive refrain of several stanzas.Stanza 9: The poet was astonished by the fact of a bird‟s talking, because neither had anybody ever experienced this nor was any bird named “Nevermore” before, despite the widely held belief that crows and ravens can mimic human speech if their tongues are “split” with a sharp tool.Stanza 10: The bird‟s repetition of “Nevermore” accidentally corresponds with the poet‟s self-talk;as if the bird is ensuring him “I will never leave.”

Stanza 11: After his astonishment, the poet realized that the bird was repeating the only word it accidentally picked up from its depressed master and it, as a matter of fact, shared nothing about the poet‟s murmuring about Hope.Stanza 12: The poet came nearer to the bird and began to fancy why the bird repeated that word.Stanza 13: Thinking about that word reminds the poet of his lost Lenore.Stanza 14: The poet felt too much troubled by the memory of Lenore so he wanted some magic drug to release him from thinking about her.Stanza 15: In stanza 14, the poet was inclined to release himself from the memory of Lenore.In the present stanza, he wants to find some magic drug to cure him.Stanza 16: The poet expressed his desire for meeting Lenore, but was boldly denied by a “Nevermore,” and this brings the poem to the climax.Stanza 17: The poet was so irritated by the bird‟s reply in the former stanza that he wanted to drive the bird away from him.However, the bird again responded with a “Nevermore”.Stanza 18: The Raven was rather innocent to the poet‟s reverie about “Lenore”.However, the poet was obsessively in a mood of frustration.Comment on the poem

The Raven was published in the New York Evening Mirror in 1845.Being regarded as the first poem with hazy conception in the West, it is the poem of which Poe himself felt quite proud and had been frequently taken by Poe as an example to illustrate his poetic art.Consisting of 18 stanzas, each with 6 lines, with the first five lines being trochaic octameter and the last line as trochaic tetrameter, this poem corresponds in every aspect with Poe‟s aesthetic standard for poetry: It took the lament over the death of a beautiful woman as its them;with the 108 lines, it is readable at one sitting;it is pervaded with a sense of melancholy.Although this poem was written in traditional feet and regular meters, Poe diverged from tradition with dramatic variation of the tone;mournful at the beginning(vainly I had sought to borrow from my book surcease of sorrow---sorrow for the lost Lenore.);then trepid at some spots;sometimes it showed a touch of humor, sometimes a mood of melancholy.But finally, a very pessimistic illusion.Once upon a dreary midnight, while the poet was pondering weak and weary, with the napping and tapping at the chamber door, the poet was led to a fantasy world of a dialogue between him and a raven.The whole scene might be a real one or just a dream, but the mysterious Raven must be a symbolic character.It may be symbolic in various ways: a.The Raven symbolizes disaster and misfortune.Raven, the large bird like crow with black feathers, in Western countries, as well as it is in China, is conventionally regarded as an ominous fowl, a symbol of misfortune.Thus with the repetition of the “napping and tapping” the poet was filled “with fantastic terrors never felt before.”

b.The raven symbolizes the soul of the radiant maiden, the “lost Lonore”.At the moment when the poet was in the darkness peering, wondering, expecting and whispering Lenore but was just responded with a “nothing more,” the Raven, “with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door.” A conversation was held and the poet was so comforted with it.For twice, the poet felt the bird “beguiling my sad fancy into smiling.”

c.The bird may be taken as a symbol of the sub-consciousness of the poet.In the conversation the poet distinctly expressed his strong passion to Lenore.However, the only response from the Raven was “Nevermore.” It seems what the poet had expressed is simply the view out of the “id”, while the Raven‟s words are rather restrictive and seem out of “ego”.The poet was too affectionate to Lenore to be restrictive, while the Raven was what warned him to be rational and that what had been lost would return “nevermore.”

d.The Raven is the symbol of modern reality.The poet was of the firm belief that in modern society human beings are apathetic creatures.He was deeply resentful at the people‟s indifference towards his mourning to Lenore;therefore, he turned to the Raven for comfort.But quite to his disappointment, he was merely responded with a cold “nevermore.”

As the most melodic poem in American literary history, Poe spent about four years for the creation of this piece of exquisite verse-narrative.In this poem, beside the regular meters and feet, the poet also employed many intricate musical expressions such as alliteration, internal rhyme, slant rhyme, end rhyme, perfect rhyme, imperfect rhyme, refrain and so on, so as to add variation, beauty and melody.Annabel Lee Stanza 1: The pretty young girl Annabel Lee used to live in a kingdom by the seaside.Before her death, the only thing in her hear was to love or to be loved by me.Stanza 2: Our love was so strong and beautiful that angels in heaven, who are with wings and living in heaven and likely to be freer and abler than any human beings, envied us.Seldom did any angels envy anything of the human world.If they did, there must be something spectacular in the object of their admiration.Stanza 3: My Annabel Lee was taken away from me.The faithful lovers were mercilessly separated by a superpower.Poe was indicating that Annabel lee might be an angel from heaven, because she was “brought back to heaven and she had some “highborn kinsmen” up there.Stanza 4: The poet was quite clear about the reason of Annabel Lee‟s is taken away from him.The evil wind came out by night and Annabel Lee was taken away by night, that indicates that somebody may appear as angels in daytime, but as devils during night.Stanza 5: Though the evil wind and the highborn kinsmen are very powerful to take my beautiful Annabel Lee away from me, they are not so powerful as to take her soul away from me.Our love is more powerful than death.After the death of one, our souls are still together.Stanza 6: My Annabel Lee had gone to heaven.She reminds me of her bright face by the moon, so that I can see her in my dream;when I see the stars in the sky, I see her bright eyes, too.We are together and nothing can separate us, neither the human power nor the God of death is possible.Comment on the poem

In Annabel Lee, when Poe was writing about the life and death of his wife, he neither did nor uses her real name, nor did he use the real background.Instead, he provided a false name and an imagined “kingdom by the sea.” On the one hand, Poe wanted to imply to us that such kind of true love could exist nowhere else but in a mythical kingdom of ancient time.Thus poe showed his resentment of reality.In the poem, Poe, instead of feeling sorry for himself, felt lost.The poem is not just a dirge.Much more than that, it is a mourning song for the death of a beautiful woman, which implies the death of beauty.This last poem has always been regarded as the best of Poe‟s poems.It coincides on every side with Poe‟s poetic theories;consisting of 41 lines, it is quite readable at one sitting;it wears a sad and melancholy tone;it tells the story of the death of a beautiful woman;with the repetition of the/ / sound, it was so rhythmically written into a piece of “word music”.Short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” Analysis of the story: When the narrator sees Roderick Usher, he is shocked at the change in his old friend.Never before has he seen a person who looks so much like a corpse with a “cadaverousness of complexion.” Death is in the air;the first meeting prepares us for the untimely and ghastly death of Roderick Usher later in the story.Usher tries to explain the nature of his illness;he suffers from a “morbid acuteness of the senses”.He can eat “only the most insipid food, wear only delicate garments,” and he must avoid the odors of all flowers.His eyes, he says, are “tortured by even a faint light,” and only a few sounds from certain stringed instruments are endurable.As Roderick Usher explains that he has not left the house in many years and that his only companion has been his beloved sister, the lady Madeline, we are startled by Poe‟s unexpectedly introducing her ghostly form far in the distance.Suddenly, while Roderick is speaking, Madeline passes “slowly through a remote portion of the apartment: and disappears without ever having noticed the narrator‟s presence.No doctor has been able to discover the nature of her illness---it is “a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person” in a “cataleptically” state;that is, Lady Madeline cannot respond to any outside stimuli.The narrator then tells us that nevermore will he see her alive.Of course, then, the question at the end of the story is: Was the Lady Madeline ever alive? Or is the narrator deceiving the reader by this statement? Roderick Usher and the narrator speak no more of the Lady Madeline;they pass the days reading together or painting, and yet Usher continues to be in a gloomy state of mind.We also learn that one of Usher‟s paintings impresses the narrator immensely with its originality and its bizarre depiction: It is a picture of a luminous tunnel or vault with no visible outlet.This visual image is symbolic of what will happen later;it suggests both the vault that Usher will put his sister into and also the maelstrom that will finally destroy the House of Usher.Likewise, the poem “The Haunted palace,” which Poe places almost exactly in the center of the story, is similar to the house of Usher in that some “evil things” are the influencing its occupants in the same way that Roderick Usher, the author of the poem seems to be haunted by some unnamed “evil things.” After he has finished reading the poem, usher offers another of his bizarre views;this time, he muses on the possibility that vegetables and fungi are sentient beings---that is, that they are conscious and capable f having feelings of their own.He feels that the growth around the House of Usher has this peculiar ability to feel and sense matters within the house itself.This otherworldly atmosphere enhances Poe‟s already grimly threatening atmosphere.One day, Roderick Usher announces that the Lady Madeline is “no more”;he says further that he is going to preserve her corpse for two weeks because of the inaccessibility of the family burial ground and also because of the “unusual character of the malady of the deceased.” These enigmatic statements are foreboding;they prepare the reader for the re-emergence of the Lady Madeline as a living corpse.At the request of Usher, the narrator helps carry the “unconfined‟ body to an underground vault where the atmosphere is so oppressive that their torches almost go out.Again Poe is using a highly effective gothic technique by using these deep, dark underground vaults, lighted only by torches, and by having a dead body carried downward to a great depth where everything is dank, dark, and damp.After some days of bitter grief, Usher changes appreciably;now he wanders feverishly and hurries from one chamber to another.Often he stops and stares vacantly into space as though he is listening to some faint sound;his terrified condition brings terror to the narrator.Then we read that on the night of the “seventh or eighth day” after the death of the lady Madeline, the narrator begins to hear “certain low and indefinite sounds” which come from an undetermined source.As we will learn later, these sounds are coming from the buried Lady Madeline, and these are the sounds that Roderick Usher has been hearing for days.Because of his over-sensitiveness and because of the extra-sensory relationship between him and his twin sister, Roderick has been able to hear sounds long before the narrator is able to hear them When Usher appears at the narrator‟s door looking “cadaverously wan” and asking, “Have you not seen it?” the narrator is so ill at ease that he welcomes even the ghostly presence of his friend.Usher does not identify the “it” he speaks of, but he throws open the casement window and reveals a raging storm outside—“a tempestuous…night…singular in its terror and its beauty.” Again, these details are the true and authentic trappings of the gothic tae.Night, a storm raging outside while another storm is raging in Usher‟s heart, and a decaying mansion in which “visible gaseous exhalations…enshrouded the mansion”---all these elements contribute to the eerie gothic effect Poe aimed for.The narrator refuses, however, to allow usher to gaze out into the storm with its weird electrical phenomena, exaggerated by their reflection in the “rank miasma of the tarn.” Protectively, he shuts the window and takes down an antique volume entitled Mad Trist by Sir launce lot Canning and begins reading aloud.When he comes to the section where the hero forces his way into the entrance of the hermit‟s dwelling, the narrator says that it “appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character…the very cracking and ripping sound” which was described in the antique volume which he is reading to Usher.The narrator continues reading, and when he comes to the description of a dragon being killed and dying with “a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing,” he pauses because at the exact moment, he hears a “low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted and most unusual screaming or grating sound” which seems to be the exact counterpart of the scream in the antique volume.He observes usher, who seems to be rocking from side to side, filled with some unknown terror.Very soon the narrator becomes aware of a distinct sound, “hollow, metallic and clangorous, yet apparently muffled.‟ When he approaches Usher, his friend responds that he has been hearing noises for many days and yet he has not dared to speak about them.The noises, he believes, come from lady Madeline: “we have put her living in the tomb!” He heard the first feeble movements a few days ago while she was in the coffin, then struggling with the vault and, finally, she is now on the stairs and so close that usher can hear “the heavy and horrible beating of her heart.” With a leap upward, he shrieks: “ Madman!I tell you that she now stands without the door!” At this moment, with superhuman strength, the antique doors are thrown open and in the half darkness there is revealed “the lofty and enshrouded figure of the Lady Madeline of Usher.” There is blood upon her white robes and the evidence of a bitter struggle on every portion of her emaciated frame.With the last of her energy, while she is trembling and reeling, she falls heavily upon her brother, and “in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.”

The narrator tells us that he fled from the chamber and from the entire mansion and, at some distance, he turned to look back in the light of the “full, setting and blood-red moon” and saw the entire House of Usher split at the point where there was a zigzag fissure and watched as the entire house sank into the “deep and dank tarn which covered, finally, the “fragments of the house of usher.”

One key to the story is, of course, the name of the main character.An usher is someone who lets one in or leads one in.Thus, the narrator is ushered into the house by a bizarre-looking servant, and he is then ushered into Roderick Usher‟s private apartment and into his private thoughts.Finally, Usher also means doorkeeper, and as they had previously ushered lady Madeline prematurely into her tomb, at the end of the story Lady Madeline stands outside the door waiting to be ushered in;failing that, she ushers herself in and falls upon her brother.In the concept of twins, there is also a reversal of roles.It is Usher himself who seems to represent the weak, the over-sensitive, the over-delicate, and the feminine.In contrast, lady Madeline, as many critics have pointed out, possesses a superhuman will to live.She is the masculine force, which survives being buried alive and is able, by suing almost supernatural strength, to force her way out and escape from her entombment in the vaults, and then despite being drained of strength, as evidence by the blood on her shroud, she is able to find her brother and fall upon him.Another reading of the story involves the possibility that Roderick usher‟s weakness, his inability to function in light, and his necessity to live constantly in the world of semi-darkness and muted and colors is that the Lady Madeline is a vampire who has been sucking blood from him for years.This would account for his paleness and would fit this story in a category with the stories of Count Dracula that were so popular in Europe at the time.In this interpretation, Roderick Usher buries his sister so as to protect himself.Vampires had to be dealt with harshly;thus, this accounts for the difficulty lady Madeline encounters in escaping from her entombment.In this view, the final embrace must be seen in terms of the Lady Madeline, a vampire, falling upon her brother‟s throat and sucking the last drop of blood from him.The final paragraph supports this view in that the actions occur during the “full blood-red moon,” a time during which vampires are able to prey upon fresh victims.At the opposite end of this phantasmal interpretation is the modern-day psychological view that the twins represent two aspects of one personality.The final embrace, in this case, becomes the unifying of two divergent aspects into one whole being at birth.Certainly many Romantics considered birth itself to be a breaking of oneself with that original spirituality.Lady Madeline can then be seen as the incarnation of “otherworldliness,” the pure spirit purged of all earthly cares.She is, one might note, presented in this very image;at one point in the story, she seems to float through the apartment in a cataleptic state.If Usher embodies the incertitude of life---a condition somewhere between waling and sleeping---when Lady Madeline embraces him, this embrace would symbolize the union of a divided soul, indicating a final restoration and purification of that soul in a life to come.They will now live in pure spirituality and everything that is material in the world is symbolized by the collapse of the House of Usher---the dematerialization of all that was earthly in exchange for the pure spirituality of Roderick Usher and the Lady Madeline.Even though Poe maintains that he did not approve of symbols or allegory, this particular story has been, as suggested above, subjected to many and varied types of allegorical or symbolic interpretations.Basically, the story still functions as a great story on the very basic level of the gothic horror story, in which the element of fear is evoked in its highest form.Further Reading: Allan Poe‟s short stories.6.Emerson and Thoreau‟s Transcendentalism Teaching Period: 2 Teaching hours.Teaching aim and requirement: Students should know what is Transcendentalism, Emerson‟s idea on transcendentalism;learn to analyzes his “of Nature” and the main idea of Thoreau‟s Walden.A.Ralph Waldo Emerson(1823-1882)I.Introduction: Emerson was 19th century American most notable prophet and sage.He was apostle of progress and optimism and his dedication to self-reliant individualism inspired his fellow transcendentalists.Emerson was born in Boston, the son of a Unitarian minister and the descendant of a long line of distinguished New England clergyman.He was educated at Boston Latin School and at Harvard.After his graduation from college in 1821 Emerson taught in a Boston school for young ladies.In 1825 he entered the Harvard Divinity School, where absorbed the liberal intellectualized Christianity of Unitarianism.It rejected the Calvinist ideas of predestination and total depravity, substituting instead a faith in the saving grace of divine love and a brief in the eventual brotherhood of man in a kingdom of Heaven on earth.In 1829 Emerson was ordained the Unitarian minister of the second church of Boston.He was a popular and successful preacher, but after 3 years he had come to doubt the validity of the sacrament of the Lord‟s Supper and his growing abjections to even the remnants of Christian dogma surviving in early 19th century Unitarianism led him to conclude that “to be a good minister it was necessary to leave the ministry.”

After preaching his farewell sermon Emerson went on a tour of Europe, where he met Cole ridge, Wordsworth and was strongly influenced by the ideas of European romanticism.Upon returning to America, he began his lifelong career as a public lecturer, which took him to meeting different variety of his people.He bought a house in Concord, Massachusetts and there he associated with Thoreau, Hawthorn, Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller and others who belonged to the informal Transcendental Club, organized for the “exchange of thought among those interested in the new views in philosophy, theology and literature.In concord, Emerson became the chief spokesman of transcendentalism in America.His philosophy was a compound of Yankee Puritanism and Unitarianism merged with the teachings of European romanticism.The word “transcendental” had long been used in philosophy to describe truths that were beyond the reach of man‟s limited senses and as a transcendentalist, Emerson argued that God was all-loving and all-pervading;that there was an essential unity in apparent the spirit;that nature was an image in which man could perceive the divine.Emerson‟s beliefs were a balance of skepticism and faith, stirred by moral fervor.To many of his readers they have been seemed neither coherent nor complete.His early writings were rejected as “the latest form of infidelity”.He has been called “St.Ralph, the optimist and charged with having a serene ignorance of the true nature of evil.His exaltation of intuition over reason has been dismissed as a justification of infantile enthusiasms;his celebration of individualism has been judged an argument for mindless self-assertiveness.Emerson was a seer and poet, not a man of cool logic.In his lectures, essays and poems, he sought to inspire a cultural rejuvenation, to transmit to his listens and readers his own worn traditions and in his faith in goodness and inevitable progress.His words both dazzled and puzzled his audience.Like his philosophy, his writing seemed to lack organization, but it abounded with epigrams and memorable passages.The 19th century found him a man who had “something capital to say about everything.” And his ideas influenced American writers from Melville, Thoreau, Whitman and Emily Dickson in the 19th century to Robert Frost, Hart Crane and Stevenson in the 20th century.Emerson‟s perceptions of man and nature as symbols of universal truth encouraged the development of the symbolist movement in American writing.His assertion that even the commonplaces of American life were worthy of the highest art helped to establish a national literature.His repudiation of established traditions and institutions encouraged a literary revolution;his ideas expressed in his own writing and in the works of others, have been taken as an intellectual foundation for movements of social change that have profoundly altered modern America.Emerson was no political revolutionary.He preached harmony in a discordant age, and he recognized the need of human society as incompatible with unrestrained individualism.As he remained a firm advocate of self-reliant idealism and in his writings and in the example of his life, Emerson has endured as a guide for those who would shun all foolish consistencies and escape blind submission to fate.I.Analysis of “Nature”

The whole work “Nature” is a long essay divided into eight parts: the opening, commodity, beauty, language, discipline, Idealism, spirit and prospects.Our selection is taken from the opening.Taken as a whole, “Nature” expresses Emerson‟s philosophy in a more systematic fashion than any other work of his.Questions for understanding: 1.According to Emerson, what is one of the best ways one can really be alone? 2.What distinguishes the “stick of timber of the wood-cutter from the tree of the poet? 3.In what part of nature does Emerson describe the most profound change taking place? 4.Where does Emerson find the source of the power to produce delight? 5.Interpret the following from nature: “The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child.”

6.Try to relate that statement(I am nothing)to Emerson‟s pantheism.7.What does Emerson mean when he says “I am nothing”? 8.Does Nature have the potential to lift man‟s spirits at all times, or only occasionally? Questions for further discussion: 1.What is Transcendentalism? 2.What are the Emersonian Transcendentalist ideas and his view of nature? 3.What is the main idea of Thoreau‟s Walden? 8.Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864)Teaching Time: 4 teaching hours.Teaching aim and requirement: The students should get to know Hawthorne‟s life and his literary career, his novels and short stories.They should understand the selected section of the “Scarlet Letter.”

I.Introduction of his life and works:

For long time Hawthorne has been considered to be the first great American writer of fiction to work in the moralistic tradition which can be traced down through such leading novelists as Henry James and William Faulkner.Different from his contemporary novelists in relation to literary themes, Hawthorne showed a great interest in the problem of guilt and his major novels generally dealt with sensational material, like poisoning, murder, adultery and crime, because he was ambitious to explore the result of sin, the effect on human conscious of guilt, pride, egotism and isolation.His concern with moral or ethical problems and his talent in dealing with them in the form of novel attained him success as a novelist and a momentous position in the history of „American literature.Hawthorne was born into the family of a sea captain, whose father died when he was only four years of age.Living with his mother and sister in Salem, Massachusetts, Hawthorne was taken care by his mother‟s brother, who, a well-to-do man, supported Hawthorne to receive the best schooling of the age.In 1821 he entered Bowdoin College and graduated in 1825 in the class with Longfellow and Franklin Pierce, later president of the United States.The next twelve years were so-called “seclusion”, when he lived in his mother‟s Salem home to read widely and prepare for his literary career.During these years of literary apprenticeship he contributed short stories to various periodicals and did hard work for many publishers, but his literary toil brought him little success.Among his publication of immaturity during this period the only work worth mentioning was his first novel Fanshowe, an abortive chronicle of Bowdoin life, which completely failed to attract popular and critical attention.His next book, Twice-told Tales(1837)was successful and its second edition appeared in 1842.The success of Twice-Told Tales encouraged Hawthorne to explore in literature.From 1839-1849 Hawthorne earned his living in the customhouses in Boston and Salem.In 1841-1842 he took part in the transcendental communistic experiment but he admitted later that his experience in the experiment was distasteful.In 1842 he married and settle at the Old Manse.In 1853 Frank Pierce was elected president and he soon appointed his old friend Counsal at Liverpool, one of the most lucrative positions for four years and then after his retirement he traveled extensively in Europe and continued to write before he returned home in 1860.After 1860 Hawthorne lived in Concord and devoted his remaining years to literature until he died suddenly while on a trip to New Hampshire with his lifelong friend Pierce.Before the publication of the Scarlet Letter in 1850, which made his fame and gave to American literature its first symbolic novel another important work that Hawthorne published was Mosses from an Old Manse(1846), a collection of short stories, which included some of his best like “Young Goodman Brown.” “The Celestial Railroad” and “Rappaccini‟s Daughter”.The appearance of “The Scarlet Letter” marked the maturity of Hawthorne as a novelist and soon he composed three important novels, The House of the Seven Gables, a great novels of family decadence, appeared in 1851, which was followed by The Blithedale Romance(1852), a novel describing the transcendental experiment and The Marble Faun(1860), a novel of moral allegory with Italian setting.When compared with The Scarlet letter, these three novels showed more obviously the defects that ran through almost all Hawthorne‟s novels: indulgence in symbolism and a skeptical attitude toward the affair of life.His other works included The Life of Frankllin pierce(1852)which resulted in his appointment of consul at Liverpool and Our Old Home(1863)a sheaf of essays，The central subject of Hawthorne‟s major works was the human soul.This determined that his works could be singularly free from passionate or erotic elements, His exploration of the soul resulted from his skeptical attitude toward the social reality that was characterized by a rapid change in almost all aspects of social life and from his ambition to probe into the nature of man.It was in his exploration of human soul that Hawthorne revealed his criticism of life.In fact, the primary significance of his major works dwells in the interest and the consistent vitality of his criticism of life.Hawthorne lived in an age when the dynamic influence of Puritanism was gone and the impact of romanticism and transcendentalism was largely felt among the intellectuals and thus he made his efforts to explore the roots of all kinds of social evils which appeared in a social background less religious and more industrialized.His experience of living in a limited social background and his seclusion of thinking led to his exclusive preoccupation with the inner world of man, where he believed was the source of social evils, because he looked down on the impact of man of the social environment that was undergoing a vast change.In many of his best stories and his two great novels The Scarlet Letter and The house of Seven Gables, Hawthorne gave his analysis of the moral problems of his own age through a remarkably vivid picture of the New England past.His excellent sense of the past and historical reconstructions and his fidelity to detail were fully expressed in these works although his major appeal lied beneath the allegorical form.Likewise, Hawthorne‟s true genius appears most clearly when he penetrates beneath costume and manner.His characters and setting are puritan and his skillful use of such materials are witchcraft, the Indian life in other dissenters the theocratic society and the general resentment against the royal authority exhibits his command of the history and traditions of the region.Moreover, their problems and situations are fundamentally universal.II.Analysis on the Selected chapter: Chapter 5 serves the purpose of filling in background information about Hester and Pearl and beginning the development of Hester and the scarlet as two of the major symbols of the romance.By positioning Hester‟s cottage between the town and the wildness, physically isolated from the community, the author confirms and builds the image of her that was portrayed in the first scaffold scene---that of an outcast of society being punished for her sin/crime and as a product of nature, society views her “…as the figure, the body, the reality of sin.”

Despite Hester‟s apparent humility and her refusal to strike back at the community, she resents and inwardly rebels against the viciousness of her Puritan persecutors.She becomes a living symbol of sin to the townspeople, who view her not as an individual but as the embodiment of evil in the world.Twice in this chapter, Hawthorne alludes to the community‟s suing Hester‟s errant behavior as a testament of immorality.For moralists, she represents woman‟s frailty and sinful passion, and when she attends church, she is often the subject of the preacher‟s sermon.Banished by society to live her life forever as an outcast, Hester‟s skill in needlework is nevertheless in great demand.Hawthorne derisively condemns Boston‟s Puritan citizens throughout the novel, but here in chapter 5 his criticism is especially sharp.The very community members most appalled by Hester‟s past conduct favor her sewing skills, but they deem their demand for her work almost as charity, as if they are doing her the favor in having her sew garments for them.Their small-minded and contemptuous attitudes are best exemplified in their refusal to allow Hester to sew garments for weddings, as if she would contaminate the sacredness of marriage were she to do so.The irony between the townspeople‟s condemnation of Hester and her providing garments for them is even greater when we learn that Hester is not overly proud of her work, rejects ornamentation as a sin.We must remember that Hester, no matter how much she inwardly rebels against the hypocrisy of Puritan society, still conforms to the moral strictness associated with Puritanism.The theme of public and private disclosure that so greatly marked Dimondale‟s speech in chapter 3 is again present in this chapter, but this time the scarlet A on Hester‟s clothing is associated with the theme.Whereas publicly the letter inflicts scorn on Hester, it also endow her with a new , private sense of other‟s own sinful thoughts and behavior;she gains a “sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts.” The scarlet letter---what it represents---separates Hester from society, but it enables her to recognize sin in the very same society that banishes her.Hawthorne uses this dichotomy to point out the hypocritical nature of Puritanism: Those who condemn Hester are themselves condemnable according to their own set of values.Similar to Hester‟s becoming a living symbol of immoral behavior, the scarlet A becomes an object with a life seemingly its own: Whenever Hester is in the presence of a person who is masking a personal sin, “the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb.”

In the Custom House preface, Hawthorne describes his penchant for mixing fantasy with fact, and this technique is evident in his treatment of the scarlet A.In physical terms, this emblem is only so much fabric and thread.But Hawthorne‟s use of the symbol at various points in the story adds a dimension of fantasy to factual description.In the Custom House, Hawthorne claims to have “experienced a sensation…as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron.” Similarly, here in chapter 5, he suggests that, at least according to some townspeople, the scarlet A literally sears Hester‟s chest and that, “red-hot with infernal fire,” it glows in the dark at night.These accounts create doubt in the reader‟s mind regarding the true nature and function of the symbol.Hawthornes‟ imbuing throughout the novel---particularly when Chillingworth sees a scarlet A emblazoned on Dimmesdale‟s bare chest and when townspeople see a giant scarlet A in the sky---and is a technique common to the romance genre.Question for discussion:

What are the artistic characteristics of The Scarlet Letter?

The Scarlet Letter, a story of rebellion within an emotionally constricted Puritan society, is an undisputed masterpiece by Hawthorne.The Scarlet letter reveals both Hawthorne‟s superb craftsmanship and the powerful psychological insight with which he probed guilt and anxiety in the human soul.Hawthorne‟s remarkable sense of the Puritan past, his understanding of the colonial history in 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 this novel.So his drama is thought, full of mental activities.Thought propels action and grows organically out of the interaction of the characters.With modern psychological insight, Hawthorne probed the secret motivations in human behavior and the guilt and anxiety that he believed resulted from all sins against humanity, especially those of pride.Hawthorne is a master of symbolism.The structure and the form of the novel are carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern.By using Pearl as a thematic symbol, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community.As a key to the whole novel, the latter A takes on different layers of symbolic meanings as the plot develops.This ambiguity is one of the features of the work.Herman Melville(1919-1891)I.Introduction about his life and works: Herman Merville was born in 1819, the son of eight children.His father‟s business failed in 1830 and his father died shortly afterward.For the next seven years the family received support from relatives.He signed on as a “boy” on the British ship and sailed with her across the Atlantic to Liverpool and on the return voyage to America.While life as a sailor was harsh, his thirst for the sea was not quenched.Several years of voyage on different waling ships provided him material for his later writing career.In 1846 his first novel on sea appeared.Typee(1846), Omoo(1847), Redburn(1848)and(White-Jacket(1850)are novels on sea.He finished his masterpiece Moby Dick in 1851.He died quietly on September 28, 1891.For nearly the last thirty years of his life he had tried desperately to remain obscure in New York City, hidden from the world of letters.II.Analysis on Chapter 54:

A.Summary: The watery region around the Cape of Good Hope is a place where you meet more travelers than in any other part of the oceans.Soon after speaking to the Albatross, the Pequod encounters another whaler called the Town-Ho.Ahab relents and there is a regular gam.The ship is manned mainly by Polynesians and the reason is found I this story secretly brought aboard, the Pequod and never told to Captain Ahab.As the Town-Ho was sailing in the Pacific the ship sprung a leak.Forced labor at the pumps as the ship headed for the nearest island created a mutiny which was interrupted by the appearance of Moby Dick.The boats were lowered but the harpooner on the boat nearest him was devoured by the Great White whale.The ship made harbor and most of the crew deserted for fear of encountering Moby Dick.Polynesians agreed to help sail the ship the rest of its voyage.In this long story about Radney and Steelkilt, we see another view of Moby Dick.He seems to represent something like Divine Justice entering into the events of life and correcting an evil.Thus, quite the contrary to the manner in which Ahab sees Moby dick, he is here viewed as an agent of God‟s justice.Thus the second gam shows that moby Dick is not universally considered an evil agent and that this view is

particular to Ahab‟s monomania.This chapter contains two aspects of events.It is gone through the narration of boatman.He told the story happened on a whaling ship.21conflict between lakeman---Stilkilt and his rebels and the mate;2.conflict between the mate and the white whale.In both cases, Lakeman failed in the struggle against the unfair treatment and the mate died in the mouth of a whale.Through the story we got to know the life of boatman in whaling industry and the fieresness of the white whale.III.The novel on the whole can be understood from three levels: 1.It is a novel of journey and whale catching;2.it is a conflict between Captain Ahab and Moby Dick;3.It is a story of Ishmael, his thought about human body‟s ego realization, the relationship between man and nature, man and God, man and man, etc.Moby Dick may be read on several levels.It is a thrilling adventure story, “the world‟s greatest sea novel,” compounded of search, pursuit, conflict and catastrophe.It is the plot of unceasing search for revenge, The “Americanized Gothic” of mystery and terror, crowded with omens and forebodings from the cracked Eligah‟s warnings to the prophecies of Fedalla which are reminiscent of the witch‟s croaking in Mackebeth.Clear throughout is a mastery of suspense and horror of both subtle and broad humor, of exciting narrative in vigorous prose.The numerous chapters on whales and whaling dismay readers for the story‟s sake, but they provide verisimilitude.The chapters on whaling prepare the reader for the unfamiliar events, skillfully retard the swift action, and present an authentic, full way of life.The more import level, of course, is these of characterization and meaning, a galley of unique portraits emerges.In spite of their few, brief appearances, Peter coffin, Captain Bilded and Peleg and the officers of passing vellels are vividly described.Melville most convincingly individualizes Starbuck, Stubb and Flask.Starbuck‟s vary courage and “right-mindedness” is fully developed to make him a foil to Ahab.The three harpooners are also individualized---the American Tashtego;the physical admirable African, Daggoo, so unlike the minstrel-show Negroes in the literature of Melville‟s day;and Queengueg, the Polynessian “heatheric” who must help these

Christians, whose characterization is a masterpiece of understanding.The characterizations of the semi-auto-biographical Ishmael and of Ahab are the most important and they are in extricable tied up with the book‟s meaning.Ishmael‟s name connotes the wanderer and outcast.He shares the illness and restlessness of the romantic hero, but he rises above them.He is no more escapist.Himself inclined to melancholy, he recognizes that Ahab‟s concentration on woe is madness.Midway of the book, Ishmael, the participant and narrator, merges with the omniscient author.At first caught by the fever of the oath on the quarter-deck to hunt Moby-Dick to the kill, he alone has the intelligence and will to recognize and oppose the madness.Repudiating society and those in power, he grows in deep respect for and insight into the secrets of human life.Regarding both believer and infidel with an equal and critical eye, he is a believer in the dignity of man and the need of fellowship.32 And he alone of the Puequod‟s saved.The biblical Ahab worshiped false gods;he was slain in battle and the dogs licked up his blood.On his long prepared for entrance, “reality outran apprehension.” Branded like Milton‟s Satan, sturdy, erect on his bone leg, but “ with a crucification in his face,” Ahab has all the “overbearing dignity of some mighty woe.” His actions are of one piece, for he is driven by a force stronger than himself, though of his own creation---right after Moby Dick has sheared off his leg on a previous voyage, his “torn body and gasked soul bled into one another” and the final mononania secres him.With cunning he does his best to conceal the madness, but from the frenzied oath on the quarter-deck the steps to destruction are sure;a man never known to kneel sweats he would strike the sun if it insulted him;he throws overboard his pipe(symbol of serenity);smashes the quadrant(symbol of scientific aid);defies the lightening, breathing the kindred fire of his spirit back at it, and tempering a forged harpoon in the blood of his pagan harpooners, baptires it, as mentioned earlier, in the name of the devil.Isolation, pride, obsession with revenge, reliance on the unaided self and blasphemy make up his tragic flaw.But as his old friend Peleg says: “Ahab has his humanities.” His scenes with the cabin boy Pip show this.But the “humanities” are short lived.Captain Boomen, who lost an arm, to Moby Dick, wants no more of the monster, and such common sense shocks Ahab as idiocy.Various scholars have interpreted the whale in various ways.To Ahab, the whale represents all evils, visibly personified against which he piled, “all the rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down.” But to Ishmael, Ahab is insane.Less bluntly and plainly, Ishmael states what the whole means to him, he is appalled chiefly by the hideous whiteness, which suggests the demonism in the world.Starbuck, at sea to hunt whales, not his commander‟s vengeance, considers the whale a dumb beast, smiting from blindest instinct.Other seamen believe in the malice behind the tremendous strength, but assume no serf-appointed mission to destroy it.In the last chase Starbuck calls to Ahab that it is not too late, that Moby Dick seeks him not: “ It is thou that madly seekest him.” But Bound by more than oaths on the quarter-deck, Ahab is forever Ahab, the “Fate‟s lieutenant” acting under orders, he has fell impelled to follow.In the final analysis, Moby Dick has a richness which he has had enduring value for generations.Its symbolism is vast, its language graphic and powerful.It is romance of moral inquiry.Each of the main characters struggles with good and evil, with fate, with the conflict they see between God and nature.In his Ahab, he specifically molded a character which used his will to try to defy fate, a character of defiance.In Ishmael, he could stand by and allow reason to speculate on the events.Because he supplied no one formula of interpretation, he left his readers the same freedom he gained for himself---the ability to move back and forth between fate and meaning on the bridge of symbolism.He has mastered the art that Hawthorne experiments had taught him because he had the flucidity of spirit to allow his book finally to write itself.Questions for further discussion;1.Comment on character Ahab.33 2.What is the symbolic meanings of the novel? Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(1807-1882)I.Introduction about his life: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, on February 27, 1807, into a well-do-do family.He was educated at Bowdoin College, where he was a fellow student with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Franklin Pierce, the 14th president of the United States(1853-1857).After his graduation in 1825, Longfellow spent three years in Europe studying the culture and languages of Italy, Spain, and Germany.In 1836, Longfellow became professor of French and Spanish at Harvard, where he taught for 18 years and then he resigned in 1854 because he felt it interfered with his writing.Longfellow‟s most productive years were from 1843 to 1860.After 1854, Longfellow devoted himself completely to literary writing.Several long poems and collections of poems were published.But in his late time, he turned to religious and reflective poetry, and to translation.From 1864 to 1867, most of his time was spent in the translating of The Divine Comedy By Dante.His last collection of poems appeared in 1882, the year of his death.As a poet, Longfellow enjoyed the most popular reputation when he was alive, and his poetic works were regarded as the summit of the literary work of the 19th century.However, his tremendous fame decreased rapidly soon after Longfellow‟s death and especially in the 20th century, Longfellow‟s fame as the most important American poet of the previous century had to be vacated to Walt Whitman.Major Works:(1)Voice of the night(1839), his first book of poetry, which contains “Hymn to the Night” and “A Psalm of Life.”

(2)Ballad and Other Poems(1841), containing such favorites as “The village Blacksmith.”(3)Evangeline(1847).(4)“The Song of Hiawatha(1855), a long poem that was based on American Indian legend.(5)Translation of Dante‟s Comedy(1865-1867)II.Features of Longfellow‟s Poetic works: Longfellow was the best-known American poet during the 19th century.(1)Longfellow‟s long stay in Europe led to his mastery of several European languages and a broader knowledge of European literature than most other American literary figures, what‟s more, this enables him to embody in his poetry chief romantic tendencies as humanitarian attitude, love of beauty, love of nature and love for the past;and it enabled him to introduce American themes to Europe;American Indians, anti-slavery ideas and the scenery of the New World.Longfellow was popular because of his high-mindedness, his spiritual aspiration, his refinement of thought, his refinement of manners, and the gentleness, sweetness and purity of his poetry.(2)Longfellow was the first American poet to write narrative poems.“The Song of Hiawatha” is the first American epic in blank verse about the American Indians.(3)Longfellow‟s style and subject were conventional, especially in comparison with those of Whiteman or modern writers.He wrote in traditional regular meters and feet，34 in regular rhyming schemes.Longfellow did not appeal, as most of his contemporary writers did, for the breaking of American literature from European literature.Usually he wrote about American subjects, but always in European styles.(4)Being a highly learned and cultivated man, and a professor of several languages, Longfellow composed all his work with accurately selected words and delicate expressions.The ideas he expressed are generally simple ones but he expressed them musically and powerfully.(5)The child-like simplicity and detachment from the deep and important problems of contemporary life are perhaps the basic elements Longfellow‟s appeal to the common audience;but on the other hand, they led to a fatal weakness in his work---lack of the depth and insight of a great artist such as Whitman.As a poet, Longfellow failed to reflect in his poetry what he felt personally, instead of what he attained from reading.He enriched his poems with second-hand knowledge.However, in the late 19th century, Longfellow was doubtlessly the most popular American poet and a milestone in the development of American poetry.III.Understanding of his poems: a.A Psalm of Life: It was first published in Voice of the Night in the September edition of New York Monthly in 1839.It is very influential in China, because it is said to the first English poem translated into Chinese.The poem was written in 1838 when Longfellow was struck with great dismay;his wife died in 1835, and his courtship of a young woman was unrequired.However, despite all the frustrations, Longfellow tried to encourage himself by writing a piece of optimistic work.The relationship of life and death is a constant theme for poets.Longfellow expresses his pertinent interpretation to that by warning us that though life is hard and everybody must die, time flies and life is short, yet, human beings ought to be bold “to act,” to face the reality straightly so as to make otherwise meaningless life significant.The poem consists of 9 stanzas in trochaic tetrameters.It is rhymed “abab.”

Part IV.Literature of Realism Teaching Time: 8 teaching hours.Teaching aim and requirement: The students should learn the history, cultural background of the 19th century literature.They should know the basic characteristics, ideas and its influence.They should learn the main literary career of the writers in this period and understand the contents and artistic characteristics of the selected works.Teaching methods: presentation and discussion.Teaching tool: Computer.Key points: realistic writers and their main works.I.Introduction of the historical background

In the United States three fundamental issues reached the breaking point in the period of 1865-1900: the conflict between the agrarian ideal of Jefferson and the industrial ideal of Hamilton, the conflict between the plantation gentility of the South and the commercial gentility of the North, and the conflict between a culturally mature East and a raw and expanding West.The political historians would stress the conflict between the North and the South as basic, the economic historians would stress the conflict between agrarianism and industrialism, and the literary and cultural historians would stress the conflict between the West and East which indicated the decline of romanticism and the rise of realism.Realism came as a reaction against “the lie” of romanticism and sentimentalism as Everett Carter put it in Howells and the age of Realism.The battle between “idealists‟ and “realists” provided the major issue of American literary history after the Civil War(1861-1865).Literature began to pay less attention to general ideas and more to the immediate facts of life.This movement took two forms: interest in one‟s own backyard and experimentation with more literal methods of writing.“Realism is, in the broadest sense, simply fidelity to actuality in its representation in literature.Realist literature is based on the accurate, unromanticized observation of human experiences.It insists on precise description, authentic action and dialogue, moral honesty, and a democratic openness in subject matter and style.As a way of writing, realism has been applied in almost every literature throughout history.But as a literary movement, realism is a period concept.It refers to the approach of realist fiction occurred at the latter part of the 19th century.In part, the rise of realism came as a protest against the falseness and sentimentality which the realists thought they saw in romantic literature.The realists were determined to create anew kind of literature that was completely and totally realistic.The realistic movement found its effective origins in France with Balzac, in Russia with Rurgenev, in England with George Eliot, and in America with W.D.Howells and Mark Twain.Major Features:(1).Realism is the theory of writing in which familiar aspects of contemporary life and everyday scenes are represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner.This is the theory that authors try to use and guide them in their writing.It stresses truthful treatment of material.It is anti-romantic, anti-sentimental, and without abstract interest in nature, death, etc.Mark Twain laughed at people who were caught up in the

world of illusions, who were not mature enough to see real situations.This is one example of the truthful treatment of material.(2)In realist fiction characters from all social levels are examined in depth.Before this time characters served some sort of allegorical or symbolic purpose.The realist writers hold on to characters and keep examining how these people relate to each other.They value the individual very highly, stress the function of environment in shaping character, and take characterization as the center of the story.They have a great concern for the effect of action on characters, and a tendency to explore the psychology of the people in the story.This is a major change, and it is one of the examples the truthful treatment of material, because this is how real life is.(3).Open ending is also a good example of the truthful treatment of material.It is something that might be puzzling to the reader, but it has a theoretical purpose.It tells the reader that life is complex and cannot be fully understood.It is impossible to tie up all the loose ends.Besides , open ending leaves much room for the readers to think over the possible conclusion of the story(4).Realism focuses on commonness of the lives of the common people who are customarily ignored by the arts.Realists are interested in the commonplace, the everyday, the average, the trivial, and the representative.These authors are not interested in characters as symbols.They are interested in common characters and the everyday events which show the average life.By the end of the 19th century in America, the reading public was willing to read about average people just like themselves, and the novels during this time by the realist writers were filled with the stories of common people.They were not stories about kings and queens, princes and princesses, or knights in shining armor.They were about average folks.(5)Realism emphasizes objectivity and offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.Simple, clear, direct prose is the desirable vehicle, and objectivity on the part of the writer the proper attitude.The realist writers are detached observers of life.They are like scientists, making an investigation.The narrator in their works stand back, and try not to let their own emotions gain the way of the report which their works will give the reader.This is very different from the writers before the Civil War.Those writers were constantly eager to tell the reader what they thought about this character, whether they thought the character had done the right thing or the wrong thing.It is up to the reader to decide what it means.Much of this is the influence of the spirit of Darwin, of Darwin‟s investigations.(6).Realism presents moral visions.The author does have a purpose for presenting an objective account of realistic life.The moral sense is something that resides in the author‟s purpose.Realists are ethical writers.Interested in the problems of the individual conscience in conflict with social institutions.Many of their works show the Ameridcan businessman in the conflict over whether he should accept a bribe, whether he should give a bribe, whether he should participate in unfair business practices, etc.Generally, these writers show how the individual conscience wins when he opposes social conventions and social practices.This indicates their disbelief in romantic individualism.These writers are always interested in focusing on the

dilemma.Realists are aware of accepted social standards.They have a strong ethical sense that there are right ways to do things and wrong way to do things.So in other words, the world has some kind of unity, some kind of plan, and they examine people who have the dilemma of trying to follow that plan or do it the wrong way.In their works they re-create real life and show the dilemma that the people are having as they try to understand what life means in an ethical way.They are able to probe deeply into these problems of the human conscience.Their method is completely objective and carries with it the whole theoretical meaning of why people choose to be objective.II.Writers and their works

1.Walt Whitman I.Introduction about his life and works: In 1855 after first reading “Leaves of Grass” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to Walt Whitman, “ I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of “Leaves of Grass”.I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that American has yet contributed … I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start.”

Whitman was thirty-six years old, and nothing in his “long foreground” suggested that he would write the greatest single book of poetry in America‟s literary history.He was born in 1819 in a rural village in Long island, New York.His parents were semiliterate and provided him with little more than a sympathy for political liberalism and a deistic faith shaped by the teachings of Quakerism.He had only five or sic years of formal schooling, but he was a keen reader of 19th century novelists, the English romantic poets, the “classics” of European literature and the New Testment.His teachers characterized him as a “dreamy and impractical youth” and he drifted through a series of jobs as an office boy, a printer, and as a schoolteacher.He had a natural talent of journalism.For a short time he edited a Long Island weekly newspaper and when he was 22 and attacted to the Bohemian life of Manhatten he went to New York city.In new York, Whitman worked as a printer , an editor and as a free-lance journalist contributing essays, short stories and poems to the popular newspapers and magazines of the 1840‟s when he was 27, he became editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, but after only two years he was dismissed because of his radically liberal political views.He next made a brief visit to New Orleans, but he soon returned to New York City, where he opened a printing office and stationery store and began to write his greatest poetry.In 1855 he published the first edition of “Leaves of Grass”.It contained 12 poems which Whitman himself had reportedly set in type and printed at his own expense.Few copies of his slim book of poetry were sold, yet those who read it were rarely indifferent.His apparently formless free-verse departures from convention, his incantations and boasts, his sexuality and his exotic and vulgar language caused critics.They said his work was a “poetry of barbarism”, “noxious weeds”, “a mass of stupid filth.” Only Emerson praised it.From 1857 to 1859 Whitman edited the Brooklyn Times and reworked “Leaves of Grass,” published expanded second and third editions in 1856 and 1860.When the

Civil /war began, he traveled South to Washington D.C, where he obtained an appointment as a government clerk and worked as a volunteer nurse in nearby military hospital, while living in Washington he published Drum-taps(1856), Civil War poems he gathered into the fourth edition of “Leaves of Grass.”

By the appearance of the fifth edition(1871), Whitman‟s poetry had began to receive increasing critical recognition in England and America.He had come to see his work as a single poem to be revised and improved through a lifetime, but in 1872, when he was 54, he suffered a paralytic stroke.He moved from Washington D.C to his brother‟s home in New Jersey and there declining in his poetic abilities and cared for by a group of devoted friends.Whitman spent most of the remaining 19 years of his life, receiving successive editions of Leaves of Grass until the final version was published shortly before his death in 1892.The more than four hundred poems that had appeared in the nine editions of Leaves of Grass printed in Whitman‟s lifetime were unprecedented in American literature.They were a compound of commonplaces, of disorganized, new experience, of sentimentalism, and of true poetic inspiration.They had ecstatic perceptions of man and nature united and divine.Whitman had an expensive oceanic vision, an urgent desire to incorporate to entire American experience into his life and into poetry.He aspired to be a cosmic consciousness, to experience and glorify all humanity and all human qualities, including “sex, womanhood, maturnity, lustry, animations, organs, acts.‟

He had yearned to be the “bard of democracy”, a public poet celebrated by democratic men “en masse” but while he lived, the most of his poetry was read only by literary enthusiasts and intellectuals.In his final years, Whitman‟s devoted followers solemnized him as “The Good Gray poet”, but he became a national figure as a whiskery sage, but the wide popularity he had got escaped him and he was defeated in his influence on modern American poetry than the work of any other writer.Whitman had been an radically new poet, had made his own rhythms, created his own mythic world, and in writing his sprawing epic of American democracy he helped make possible the free-verse unorthodoxies and private literary intensities of a 20‟s century that would one day came to honor him as one of the great poets of the world.II.His selected poems: 1.Song of Myself: it is a poem consisting of 1345 lines.It is the longest poem in Leaves of Grass.The poet takes for granted the self as the most crucial element of the world and thus sets forth two of his principal beliefs: first, a theory of universality;second, all things are equal n value.In Part 1 of the selected sections, the author unfolds the theme of “ a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars” by cordially celebrating himself.Meanwhile, he “extols the ideals of equality and democracy and celebrates the dignity, the self-reliant spirit and the joy of the common man.‟

In part ten he told us his experience in walking the countryside.He went to the mountain, to the sea and to take part in the marriage ceremony of an Indian couple.At last he told us an experience of saving a runway slave, which showed his attitude

toward slavery b.“I Sit and Look Out: it is a short poem of 10 lines, opens with immediate presentation of the speaker‟s stance and frame of view.The stance, sitting, is fixed, and within the frame are placed “all the sorrows of the world.” Following the opening line, 7 lines, containing 11 juxtaposed parralled clauses, present, in sweeping and scanning way, 1 group of auditory images(I hear，,”)and 10 groups of visual and kinesthetic images(I see…”, I mark…I observe…”)these groups of images are typical ones or representatives of the sorrow of the world.The 9th line, abruptly, an end to the view of the sorrows that occur “without end,” and brings the speaker and the reader back to the stance of the view: a sitting-look-out-upon stance.Upon the stance, the speaker continues to see and hear more of these without end.What he chooses to do or can do is to be silent.What more is heard and seen? Why is he silent? And for how long will he be silent? There is a large blank that the reader should fill in with his own sensation and imagination.c.Beat, Beat, Drums: Walt Whitman

Song of Myself

In the Preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, Whitman says: “ The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity.Nothing is better than simplicity.” “Song of Myself” is characterized by simplicity of simplicity, but also by art of art.The simplicity lies in the simple expression—the wording and the sentencing and the natural lining of the poem.The art lies in the varying rhythms of the poem---the ebb and flow of emotion within it., the shift of mood, the alternation between moments of intensity and moments of relaxation.And the Preface says,” The messages of great poets to each man and woman are,…What we enclose you enclose, What we enjoy you may enjoy.” “Song of Myself” is saturated with the the pride of the persona himself and with the vehemence of the audacity of freedom.And the persona, that is, the “I” in the poem, is Walt Whitman, is every American and is every human being.The vehemence of pride and audacity flows not only in words, but also from and in the sounds of the lines, powerful and torrential lines bursting out in succession.The oneness of the persona with every American man and woman and with every human being, agrees to the varying but unifying rhythm, and to the harmonious melody.And in other words, not only the words describe the oneness, but also the melody expresses the oneness.This is the agreement between sound and sense.The “Song of Myself”, is the song of oneness, in terms of the sense and the sound.I Sit and Look Out

It is a poem of lines, and it opens with immediate presentation of the speaker‟s stance and frame of view.The stance, sitting, is fixed and within the frame are placed “all the sorrows of the world.”

Following the opening line, 7 lines, containing 11 juxtaposed parallel clauses，40 present, in a sweeping and scanning way, 1 group of auditory images(“I hear…)and 10 groups of visual and kinesthetic images(“I see…”, “I mark…”, “I observe…”).These groups of images are typical ones or representatives of the sorrows of the world.The 9th line puts, abruptly, an end to the view of the sorrows that occur “without end”, and brings the speaker and the reader back to the stance of the view: a sitting-look-out-open stance.Upon the stance, the speaker continues to see and hear more of these without end.What he chooses to do or can do is to be silent.What more is heard and seen? Why is he silent? And for how long will he be silent? There is a large blank that the reader should fill in with his own sensation and imagination.Free Verse: Free verse, also known as “open form” verse, is the verse without regular meter, line length, rhyme(scheme), or stanza form, depending on natural speech rhythms related to the actual cadence of the poet expressing himself.It is different from the conventional schemed verse in several aspects: 1.Regular meter, or controlled rhythmic pattern, is essential to conventional poetry;but free verse is based on the irregular rhythmic cadence of the recurrenc, with variation, of phrases and syntactical patterns rather than the recurrent metrical patterns.2.Rhyme occurs in most traditional poetry(except blank verse), and often with various schemes.In free verse, however, rhyme may or may not be present;but when it is used with great freedom.3.In conventional verse, the unit is often foot, or the line;but in free verse, the units are much larger, sometimes being paragraphs or strophes.If the free verse unit is the line, as it is in Whitman, the line is usually determined by qualities of actual speech rhythm and thought, rather than feet or syllable count;thus the line may be as short as one word, or as long as a passage.4.In comparison with conventional verse, free verse may be composed with rhythms and melodies more personal and individual, more appropriate to the subject and the theme.In the hands of the gifted poets free verse very often acquires rhythms and melodies of its own.There is in free verse greater flexibility of the form and greater agreement between sound and sense.There are signs of it in medieval alliterative verse and in the translation of the Authorized King James Bible, which attempts to approximate the Hebrew cadences.The Psalms and The Song of Solomon are noted examples of free verse.Milton opposed the tyranny of strict versification.Milton, in order to set off the vexation, hindrance and constraint of traditional verse, experimented with free verse in Lycidas and Samson Agonistes.After Milton, European poets, including Macpherson, Blake, Arnold, Heine, Goethe, Rimbaud, Hugo, and Baudelaire, continued the experiment with free verse.And the French poets of the late 19th century established the vers libre movement, from which the term free verse comes.41 Walt Whitman and Gerald Manley Hopkins did more and better than anyone else to develop it to maturity;and Whitman startled the literary world with Leaves of Grass, by using lines of variable lengths which depended for their rhythmic effect on cadenced units and on repetition, balance, and variation of words, phrases, clauses, and lines, instead of on recurrent metric effect.At the end of the 19th century, free verse was already a popular genre of poetry.Emily Dickinson(1830-1886)I.her life story: Emily Dickinson , born in Amherst, Massachusetts on Dec.!9, 1830, was the best poetess American ever created.She was a daughter of a prominent lawyer and politician.She did not receive much formal education but read widely at home.Actually, during the narrow span of her lifetime, she kept staying at home except for a few short trips to Boston or Philadelphia.Emily Dickinson was a witty woman, sensitive, full of humanity and with a genius for poetry.While she was living in almost total seclusion, she wrote in secret whatever she was able to feel, to see, to hear and whatever she was able to imagine.She wrote whenever and wherever.Although she guarded her poems even from her family, 1775 poems were discovered and published after her death.However, as the only noteworthy woman poet in American literature of the 19th century, she had only seven of her poems published during her lifetime, and it was not until the beginning of the 20th century that her genius was widely recognized.2.Features of Emily Dickinson‟s Poems In subject matter Emily Dickinson was very similar to the great romantic poets of her time.Her poems are short, many of them being based on a single image or symbol.But within her little lyrics she wrote about some of the most important things in life: love, nature, morality and immortality.She wrote about success, which she thought she never achieved;and she wrote about failure, which she considered her constant companion.She wrote of these things so brilliantly that she is now ranked as one of American‟s greatest poets.Poetry is for Dickinson a means to attain pleasure, away to preach her doctrine, and a medium to express her world outlook, an outlet for her despair and a remedy to pacify her soul.Her life experience fostered her belief as an existentialist as well as a great poet.Despite her seclusion of life, Emily Dickinson covered a wide range of subjects in poetry.Her favorite subjects are love, death or natural beauty.In her writing she wrote about life and death, expecting to understand the meaning of life by understanding the meaning of death.Living in the 19th century, c comparatively religious era, she did not belong to any organized religion.However, she wrote of God, man and nature;she probed into the spiritual unrest of man and often doubted about the existence and benevolence of God, because she felt that wild nature was her church and she was able to converse directly with God there.Emily Dickinson was a poet who could express feelings of deepest poignancy in terms of the true and wide saying, often in an aphoristc style.Her gemlike

poems are all very short, but fresh and original, marked by the vigor of her images, the daring of her thought and the beauty of her expression.Emily Dickinson wrote in the conventional metrical form, though she did not always strictly observes the rules of versification.Emily Dickinson defamiliarised conventional poetic form, deliberately overusing capitalization and deahes, to make her poems looking strange.In some way, she is very much similar to the style of John „Donne.II.Selected Poems: I Die for Beauty(449)Stanza 1: I died pursuing the beauty of art and immediately as I became accustomed to the new circumstance of a tomb.I was told that there was another who died for truth and arrived in the next room.Stanza 2: I died for beauty and he died for truth.Since “beauty is truth, and truth beauty” we are as close as brothers, or like twins.Stanza3: The two of us are like kinsmen who met at night, and we talked in separated rooms for a very long time until we have harmoniously united into one and have been completely forgotten by the human world.I Heard a Fly buzz---when I died---(465)Stanza 1: When I was dying, I heard the buzz of a fly which reminded me of the stillness in the air.Stanza 2: Before the absolute power of death, I was helpless, so were my relatives and friends.They could do nothing more than gathering around me, tearless and breathless, and watching the arrival of death to me.Stanza 3: When I was abandoning this material world, a fly comes to me.Comment on the poem

This poem is the description of the moment of death.The poetess made use of a very strange image of a fly to symbolize her last touch with the human world and, moreover, the perspective of a decaying corpse.The fly appeared as something which is able to fly between the two worlds of life and death.Besides, the word “fly” is very cleverly used in the work.On the one hand, it refers to that insect;on the other hand, it may indicate “free flying”.Before death, the “fly” was buzzing around, I hear it;after death, it may lead me to go far and forever, I am flying.The fly is inconsequently, of little importance---implying perhaps that death is the same.Because I Could Not Stop for Death(712)Stanza 1: The angel of death, in the image of a kind person, comes in a carriage for the sake of Immortality and the poet.Stanza 2: To show my politeness to god of death, I gave up my work and my enjoyment of life as well;I give up my life.Stanza 3: The journey of our carriage implied the experience of human life;school implies time of childhood;the fields of gazing grain, for youth and adulthood;while the setting sun, for old age.Stanza 4: Probably we may say the sun sets before we reach the destination---the

night falls, death arrives.I felt a fear and chilly after death, for my shroud is thin and my scarf too light.Despite the description of “death”, the usual gloomy and horrifying atmosphere is lightened by the poetess with the elegantly fluttering clothing she describes.Stanza 5.Several centuries had passed since the arriveal of death upon me.However, I felt it is shorter than a day.On that day I suddenly realized that death is the starting point for eternity, and the carriage is heading towards it.Comment on the poem

The poem is discussing death, a very gloomy subject, but it is done with a rather light tone.The tone is light just because the author does not take death as a catastrophe;instead, she treats the angel of death as a very polite gentleman, as a long-missing guest, giving up her work and leisure, putting on her fine silky dresses, she accompanies death in the same carriage to eternity.All the beauty of this work lies in the poetess‟ open-minded attitude towards death.Mark Twain(1835-1910)

I.Introduction about his life: As one of American‟s first and foremost realists and humorist, Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel Langhore Clemens, usually wrote about his own personal experiences and things he knew about from firsthand experience.His life spanned the two Americans, the frontier America that produced so much of the national mythology and the emerging urban industrial giant of the 20th century.At the heart of Twain‟s achievement is his creation of Tom Sawyer and huck finn, who embody that mythic America midway between the wildness and the modern superstate.Twain, the third of five children, was born in the village of Florida, Missouri and grew up in the larger river town of Hannibal, that mixture of idyll and nightmare in and around which Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn live out their adventure-filled summers.Hannibal was dusty and quiet with large forests nearby which Twain knew as a child and which he uses in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1884)when Pap kidnaps Huck and hides out in the great forest.The steamboats which passed daily were the fasination of the town and became the subject matter of Twain‟s Life on the Mississippi(1883).The town of Hannibal is immortalized as St.Petersburg in Twain‟s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer(1876).Twain‟s father was ambitious and suspected but only mildly successful country lawyer and storekeeper.He was a highly intelligent man who was a stern disciplinarian.Twain‟s mother, a southern belle in her youth, had a natural sense of humor, who was emotional and known to be particularly fond of animals and unfortunate human beings.Although the family was not wealthy, Twain apparently had a happy childhood.However, Twain‟s father died when he was twelve years old and for the next ten years, Twain was apprentice printer and then a printer both in Hannibal and in New York City, Hoping to find his fortune he conceived a wild scheme of making a fortune in South America.On a riverboat to New Orleans, he met a famous riverboat pilot who promised to teach him the trade for five hundred dollars.44 After completing his training, Twain was a riverboat pilot for four years and, during the time, he became familiar with all of the towns along the Mississippi River which acquainted with every type of character which inhabits his various novels, especially Huck Finn.When the Civil War destroyed the riverboat business, he went to Nevada with his brother , Orion.From there, he went to California, where he looked on a newspaper.In 1865 he became nationally famous with is short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog.Based upon stories he heard in California mining camps, the story is about an apparently innocent stranger who cheats a famous frog rather racer and beats him.The stranger fills the stomach of the other man‟s frog with tiny metal balls.It is a typical western humor story called a “hoax”.Like the western humorists, Twain‟s work is filled with stories about how ordinary people trick experts or how the weak succeed in “hoaxing” the story.Twain‟s most famous character, Huck Finn is a master at this.As a journalist, he went to the Sandwish Islands in 1866 and to Europe and the Holy Land in 1867.The latter of the two provided him with the experiences which he shaped into his first book, The Innocents Abroad,.Roughing It, his narrative of pioneers striving to establish civilization on the frontier, appeared in 1872, and his first novel-length fiction written with Charles Duddley Warner, The gilded Age:, came in 1873.It was one of the first novels which creates a picture of the entire nation, rather than of just one region.Although it has a number of Twain‟s typically humrous characters, the real theme is America‟s loss of its old idealism.The book describes how a group of young people are morally destroyed by the dream of becoming rich.III.Analysis on his “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”

The boye hero, Tom Sawyer, is Mark Twain himself(although he wrote in his preface that Tom is “a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I know:)Tom‟s leading trait is his faith and delight in the romantic world which adults call made-believe.Tom loves the pomp and valor of Arthurian chivalry;the stout independence and generous fellowship of Robin Hood;the swagger and audasity of pirates and robbers and their assurance that somewhere there are treasures to be seized.He defied the adult nations that counter these: that virtue consists less in pomp and valor than in soberness and submission;that the outlawry of merry men who plunder sheriffs and fat abbots is courageous, and that right conduct is reverence and obedience to rules and officials;that violent enterprise to seize treasures other men hold is wickedness bound to be punished, and that in fact pirates‟ gold is not worth seizing anyhow.Tom‟s adventures are a series of triumphs over the adult world which he defies.As a knight he boasts his rivals and is a gallant champion of his lady.As a humane outlaw he flouts the authorities and tricks the, and rectifies a miscarrage of official justice.As a treasure-hunter, he seizes a glittering gold.Tom‟s companion in these adventures, Huck Finn, belongs neither to Tom‟s world of romantic illusion nor to the social world of convention which Tom resists.He belongs instead to a world of simple nature which detects both the unreality of Tom‟s world and the artificiality of the adult world.Huck, as a pauper and outcast on the frontier of civilization, has had to scramble too hard amongst elemental things to see

anything in life but hard facts incapable of romantic transformation.He has grown up like a weed of gardeners and thinks it on the whole better to acknowledge himself a weed and try to escape the gardener‟s attention than to try to take on the character of a cultivated specimen.Tom and Huck are allies against the adult world of convention and responsibility, but they do not inhabit the same world, and Huck has almost as much difficulty in adjusting his naturalism to Tom‟s romanticism as he has in adjusting it to social conventions.When his literalism comes up against Tom‟s romanticism, and his nature against the village conventions, he has to reject the romantic and the conventional because his literalism and nature are the only things that work for him.He does this, not with bravado as a deliberate choice of the superior thing, but with humanity as a necessary choice of an inferior thing.Tom Sawyer is a story written for boys, full of the horror and joys of childhood flowing on the surface of expressions, generations after generations of young people have held it dear to their hearts.III.Analysis on the selected tow chapters.IV.Questions for discussion:

1.Is the novel only childhood story? 2.Compare your own childhood life with that of Tom‟s.Further Reading: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.O Henry and short story

1.his life: O.Henry is most commonly associated with the short story and masterful ironic “O Henry twist”.William Sidney Porter was born in North Carolina and without much schooling and virtually orphan worked in his uncle‟s drugstore, learning much of human nature.He spent all of his free time reading books, and by the time he was 20, he was still small, weighing less than a hundred pound, gradually retreating into a shy, poverty-stricken world of fantasy escape.He followed several occupations, being a bookkeeper, a drugstore clerk, and a Texas Ranger.During this time, he developed talents for cartooning and singing.In 1887 he met Athol Esta with whom he became enamored, but her family was opposed to the marriage.As a result, the two eloped.In 1894, he founded The Rolling Stone, a comic magazine which soon failed.O.Henry got to know New York and its inhabitants, to know its surface thoroughly by wandering about, by drifting into conversations with strangers on the streets or in the parks, by observing with an accurate eye and ear sights and sounds, of Broadway, Greenwich village, Wall Street.After gathering material on every aspect of New York life, O.Henry became a salaried writer and soon emerged as a central figure in the peak period of the American magazine short story.From that time on he was a wealthy man, living luxuriously and drinking heavily.In 1907 he married his second wife Sara

Lindsay Coleman.He was never a strong man physically and his exciting life eventually wore him out before his time.He died in drunkenness.His work is full of humor, his stories are amusing, flippant, flat, biting and are filled with irony, sentiment, and pathos.Drawing directly from his experience with many odd jobs, he combined realism with a world of his own, reflecting a fatalistic view of life.There is no great concern with unchanging human problems, and he had no firm moral messages.His work is typically American, and he gives us a good idea of various types of people in the United States.The theme of his stories is often based on some self-sacrificing member of a family who is undergoing hardship to help a close relative.He also addresses questions of loneliness, of desolate people, of grotesque underlings.2.his style: O.Henry‟s style is direct, pared of all unnecessary verbiage, except for occasional use of exaggeration or polysyllables.His use of dialect is completely authentic, in classic realist fashion.He uses slang to gain force and humor.Highly skilled in the use of Southen dialect, he was never identified with the local color movement, for he drew from too many sources to be identified with any one.He is the master of surprise, though occasionally he falls into cheapness just as his characters taken to the extreme become caricatures.His first collected work, Cabbage and Kings(1904)is a series of South American tales linked together by a loose plot construction.The characters Americans, revolutionists, patriots and even president of a mythical republic, belong to vaudeville or the comic opera.With The Four Million(1906)O.Henry produced his first book of New York stories, some of which as The gift of the Magi, The Skylight Room, The Cop and the Anthem, Springtime a la Carte and The furnished Room were hardly to be surpassed.Irishman frequents of cafes and of boarding house, white-collar men and women, art students, writers, factory girls, millionaires, cops and crooks jostle each other in these pages whose human comedy and tragedy mingle against the glittering, beautiful ignoble, crowded, lonely city.“The Gift of Magi “contains the most famous of O.Henry‟s trick endings.This Yuletide narrative tells of how a nearby penniless young husband and wife are each determined to buy the other a sactable Christmas present.He sells his watch to buy her a set of combs, she has her beautiful hair cut off and sells the tresses to buy him a watch fob.His characters, lain, simple people and his plots , depending often on the surprising ending, have little diversification, but he was skilled at ringing the changes on a few themes.The gift of Magi and The Furnished Room are among the best known of the tales that illustrate this technique of ironic coincidence and the surprising ending.3.Analysis of The Cop and the Anthem The story adopted one section of wanderer Soapy‟s life to explore the social life

of American society and attack the darkness of its social system.Soapy has no place to sleep and in the winter he had to go to prison for three months.In order to be arrested, he tried to break the shopping window, tease woman, eat without paying and took the other‟s umbrella, but he failed to arise public notice.When he heard the sound from the church and wanted to become good, he was arrested.Through this section of life, the author described the poor destiny of low people.The author adopted a light and humorous tone to tell the story.The humorous style is shown from three aspects.First, the social position and the plot provided the reasonable condition for his humorous sense.In the story Soapy is not a murderer, neither a gentleman, he is a wanderer, no one showed any attention to him.He himself is a thing to be teased.Although he wandered here and there, he didn‟t lose his own dignity.He thought that there were two ways waiting for him, one is to go to the charity, but it is shameful;the other is to go to the prison for three months.Compared with these two, he chose the latter.He designed several tricks which are very common in everyday life.On the other hand, these crimes are not serious to satisfy the condition for three months in prison.He didn‟t have the idea of killing others, or commit serious crime.The tricks suit the case to create the light tone.The other aspect of the humorous character lies in the plot.The sudden change of the plot forms the other element of the humorous.One scene happens that Soapy lies on the bench in the Square.The Square is his home, where he was doing one thing---turn round.Winter is coming and he had to find a place for winter.What should he do? People expect Soapy to find a good place.However, to our unexpectation, he thought of the prison.This is the first turning point, which is unexpected but reasonable.The method is quite familiar for him.Which way he chose had a suspicion and it hinted that it would be uneasy.The story tells 6 scenes to show his effort for being put into prison.The order of the scenes is natural and humorous.As a wanderer, what attracts him most is to eat his full and be sent into prison.This is one stone to kill two birds.But as soon as he entered the restaurant, his broken trousers betrayed him, he was thrown out.And then at the corner of the street, he broke the window of the shop and thought the policeman would catch him, but the police even didn‟t suspect him, because he waited for the cop to arrest him.This is abnormal according to the common thinking.The two different ideas make the scene fantastic and laughable.He went to another restaurant and after easting, the waiters only thrown him out and didn‟t call the police, because they know police would not bother such trival things.The development of the plot is quite different as he planned.The next scenery appeared when he tried to tease a woman but to his surprise he met a prostitute, so he had to escape.But he made efforts to escape.This is particularly funny.The other two cases also failed.The last case happened at the moment when he decided to correct and make a man himself.This time he was sentenced three months in prison.This tells us that the man like soapy did not have the chance to

be corrected.The story was humorous for its language.The whole tone of the story is light, humorous.A dead leaf was called Jack Frost‟s card;his door is North wind, to create the light atmosphere.This made us not feel so heavy and sentimental because the coming of the winter.And then soapy moved uneasily.He decided to solve the problem in “a singular committee of ways and means.” The words made it serious, but he made the decision of going into prison, which is funning.Another is the reverse of speaking.He exaggerates the thing which is not good.Prison is not a place connected with good feeling, to Soapy it is an ideal place that he dreams of for he could have meals and place to spend the long nights.The praise to it shows the poor people‟s living condition and satire towards American reality.Each time soapy failed the author would use the words to show his strong desire for the prison.The sharp contrast used in the story shows the main theme of the story which has the strong force to make our readers feel that we are within the streets of New York to witness the life of the common people.1.Do you like the writing style of the story? Why or why not?

2.Read more of his stories.Naturalism I.Introduction

(1)“Naturalism” is an extraordinarily elastic term;it is applied to many varied writers and is often defined differently by the very novelists who call themselves naturalists.One is tempted to think that it would have been far better for literary criticism had the term never been coined.However it is by now widely used and misused that it seems necessary to examine the often contradictory elements implied in its application and to see why Norris, Crane and London have frequently been classified as naturalists.The term was introduced to the United States by Frank Norris at the end of the 1880‟s.He had spent a year studying art in Paris and had been much impressed by Emile Zola, the French novelist who first formulated and applied the new literary theory.Like many other European writers and artists, Zola had been impressed by Darwin‟s theory of evolution.This explained men‟s origin in the animal world and his development from a higher primate into a Neanderthal man, a caveman and finally a fully human being.Darvin also enphasezed the role played by the struggle for existence in creating or destroying difficult conditions---survival and had descendants, which those poorly adapted to their surroundings died out leaving no one to carry on their kind.This completely contradicted the old idea of man as a being especially created by God who---according to the Christian and many other religions---was made up of two quite separate parts, an immortal spiritual soul and a mortal physical body.In the

religious interpretation of human life, the spirit was in the body somewhat as wine might be contained in a bottle.If the bottle were to be broken, the spirit might be poured into some other container or might continue to exist in heaven when no need for any container as a liquid does when frozen or jelled.But evolution taught that man was simply a part of nature just as a fish or a bird or an ape was.And like any other animal he was governed by his instincts and natural desires for food, warmth and sexual satisfaction.It was therefore foolish to speak of a struggle within man between his higher and lower nature, between conscience and desire.It was also foolish to praise or blame man for what his nature made him to.One may kill a tiger to prevent his eating a sheep, but one cannot blame the tiger for his attempt to do so.One may think a mouse stupid for running into a trap after a piece of cheese but one cannot criticize it for the lack of wisdom.The naturalistic novelist should therefore describe people simply as animals, impelled to act as they did because of the appetites and urges formed by heredity and environment, these were as much a part as their size or strength and more intelligent would win in the struggle for existence while the weaker and slower would be destroyed.Neither was blame worthy or praiseworthy.No one was morally responsible;people did what they had to do and were fortunate or unfortunate.This is all that the philosophy of naturalism actually says.But that philosophy was adapted by Zola and other writers it began to imply a great deal more---and sometimes a great deal that really contra-directed its original meaning.In reaction against the conventional literature which avoided any reference to the “private parts” of the body, or any description of most bodily functions, the naturalists tended to dwell on those things and on sexual desire to emphasize man‟s animal nature.Furthermore, since life could be observed more nakedly in the crowded homes and work places of the poorest people and since the lower depths of society had long been forbidden ground to the novelist, the young naturalist were likely to write about the slums or Negro quarters, or jobs which demanded great physical efforts and hardship.One of the most important of Zola‟s novel “Germinal” deals with life in and around a coal mine where the laborers are forced to work desperately hard in miserable conditions.The heat underground is so intense that women as well as men and children were forced to strip, going on all fours to drag heavy loads through tunnels.Their homes were also unspeakably dirty and crowded with no sanitary facilities.There was no privacy for sexual intercourse or any other bodily functions.As Zola describes mines he shows them becoming as shameless physically as animals defecting and copulating in public.But here we find that Zola himself departs from the original theory---as do most other naturalistic novelists.He is so sorry for the poor mines that he ardently wishes for an uprising to change these conditions and the book becomes a revolutionary book, forcing the reader too to long for a revolution.(2)American Naturalists:

传记文学选读课程价值初探 篇3

一、用传记文学引领学生确立“尊祖意识”和根祖文化意识

构建传记文学课程体系, 帮助引导高中学生建立传记文学意识, 可以帮助学生确立一种“尊祖意识”, 而尊祖或纪念先辈英雄与伟人, 一方面能够教育后人, 另一方面可以增进文学欣赏的修养和历史人文的素养。

中国家谱资料研究中心李吉教授在《弘扬根祖文化, 振兴历史文脉》一文中指出:“世界上每个民族都有属于自己的文化形态与传承体系, 由此构成本民族所特有的思想理念与价值取向, 并在其文化传承、升华凝练的过程中逐渐形成文化认同、文化崇拜的精神支柱和风俗礼制, 成为维系民族团结、社会进步、国家昌盛的共同基石的根祖文化。”

传记文学能够引领学生树立尊祖敬宗、慎终追远的情怀。古人所谓“克明俊德, 以亲九族”的价值观, 能够在传记文学教学的过程中, 引导学生逐步建立起来, 这是传记文学所独有的伦理构建功能。这里的着眼点虽小, 然而其意义却非常重大。

二、引导学生寻求传记中的史诗构架

名人的传记, 向来都是以英雄的史诗来编织的, 如此, 在引领学生进行传记研读时, 则要引导学生在名人传记中寻觅历史构架, 从而更好地提升自己的人文历史素养。

譬如法国大作家罗曼·罗兰的“巨人三传”《名人传》, 创作于20 世纪初期, 此传记里的三个人, 一个是德国的音乐家贝多芬, 一个是意大利的雕塑家、画家、诗人米开朗琪罗, 另一个是俄国作家、思想家、文学家列夫·托尔斯泰, 他们都是伟大的天才, 也都在人生的道路上经历了极为艰辛的考验, 在他们成长的过程中, 历史风云变幻, 他们所历经的苦难、执着的追求、对人类的大爱, 无不与其所历经的时代相关。

三、在传记教学中培养学生的求实求是精神

众所周知, 传记文学的材料来自两个方面:一靠已经成型的历史材料, 也就是各种报刊书籍、文字档案材料, 二靠活的材料, 也就是写作者对当事人深入细致的采访, 乃至实地考察。两者缺一不可。但对于传记文学作者来说, 在对待第一种材料时, 又不轻信传记资料, 而是要进行认真地校订, 保证传记作品内容的真实性与准确性。

真正的传记文学, 总会在演绎个人命运的同时, 为读者还原一段复杂交错的历史, 真实地再现时代风云与历史变革。无疑, 这种拒绝欺世盗名的严谨求实的治学态度与写作精神, 会让学生在欣赏传记文学的文学性时, 也得到求实求是精神的培养与熏陶。

四、在传记文学教学过程中建立起一种价值坐标

传记文学本身便具有了一种内在的评价体系, 而这种评价体系与标准, 往往是以“偏向性和导向性”为主的。偏向性, 源于传记作者的写作风格, 而导向性, 则源于作者的价值引领。传记文学作为文学创作形式的一种, 肯定要肩负鼓舞人、引领人的历史责任, 否则, 传记文学的价值便无从体现。奥地利作家茨威格最为突出的成就是在传记文学方面, 他因此被誉为“历史上最优秀的传记作家”, 他的《人类群星闪耀时》 (北京出版社2005 年版, 张伟译) , 是一部历史特写集, 写了两千多年里重大历史事件和人物。他不但写伟人名人, 还十分热情地讴歌小人物, 他说:“在我的传记文学中, 我不只写在现实生活中取得成功的人物, 而还写那些保持着崇高道德精神的人物……”茨威格对读者们说:“读伟人的传记吧, 与勇敢的心灵作伴!”茨威格的话, 充分体现了传记文学的价值引领的功能。

五、在研究传记文学的过程中, 对学生进行人格教育

每一部人物传记, 都会将传主的全部人格折射到传记作品中。人格或伟大、或正直、或大爱, 崇儒、尚道、好佛、爱自然等, 其人格魅力, 尽在作品中得到显现, 研究传记文学, 也是展示传主人格魅力, 并以此来影响学生矫正人生坐标的最好的契机、方法与切入点。

英美文学选读 篇4

American Literature

Chapter one : The romantic period

I. Emerson’s transcendentalism and his attitude toward nature:

1.Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.

2. Emerson’s transcendentalism:

The over-soul—it is an all-pervading power goodness, from which all things come and of which all are a part. It is a supreme reality of mind, a spiritual unity of all beings and a religion. It is a communication between an individual soul and the universal over-soul. And he strongly believe in the divinity and infinity of man as an individual, so man can totally rely on himself.

3.His toward nature:

Emerson loves nature. His nature is the garment of the over-soul, symbolic and moral bound. Nature is not something purely of the matter, but alive with God’s presence. It exercise a healthy and restorative influence on human beings. Children can see nature better than adult.

II. Hawthorne’s Puritanism and his black vision of man:

1. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puristans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the church of England.

2. his black vision of man—by the Calvinistic concept of original sin, he believed that human being are evil natured and sinful, and this sin is ever present in human heart and will pass one generation to another.

3. Young Goodman Brown—it shows that everyone has some evil secrets. The innocent and na?ve Brown is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and then he becomes distrustful and doubtful. Brown stands for everyone ,who is born pure and has no contact with the real world ,and the prominent people of the village and church. They cover their secrets during daily lives, and under some circumstances such as the witch’s Sabbath, they become what they are. Even his closed wife, Faith, is no exception. So Brown is aged in that night.

III. The symbolism of Melville’s Mobby-Dick

1.The voyage to catch the white whale is the one of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of universe.

2. To Ahab, the whale is an evil creature or the agent of an evil force that control the universe. As to readers, the whale is a symbol of physical limits, or a symbol of nature. It also can stand for the ultimate mystery of the universe and the wall behind which unknown malicious things are hiding.

IV. Whitman and his Leaves of Grass :

1. Theme: sing of the “en-mass” and the self / pursuit of love, happiness, and ***ual love / sometimes about politics (Drum taps)

2. Whitman’s originality first in his use of the poetic form free verse (i.e. poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme),by means of which he becomes conversational and casual.

3.He uses the first person pronoun “I” to stress individualism, and oral language to acquire sympathy from the common reader.

Chapter two : The realistic period

I. The character analysis and social meaning of Huck Finn in Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Huck is a typical American boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”. He appears to be vulgar in language and in manner, but he is honest and decent in essence. His remarkable raft’s journey down on the Mississippi river can be regarded as his process of education and his way to grow up. At first, he stands by slavery, for he clings to the idea that if he lets go the slave, he will be damned to go to hell. And when the “King” sells Jim for money, Huck decides to inform Jim’s master. After he thinks of the past good time when Jim and he are on the raft where Jim shows great care and deep affection for him, he decide to rescue Jim. And Huck still thinks he is wrong while he is doing the right thing.

美国文学选读 篇5

一、对于课程的认识

《古代文学作品选读》是一门以作品为核心的文学课程, 学生审美能力的培养、人文精神的构建、语言与文字表达能力的训练、传统文化的继承等各种课程功能都有赖于具体作家作品的阅读、分析。此课程所包含的作品从先秦跨越至清末, 其作品数量众多、作品质量优秀, 并且具有深厚的历史、哲学底蕴, 学生如果能够系统、认真地学习此课程, 对于树立学生正确的人生观、价值观、社会观都有不可低估的作用。

在实际教学中, 教师需要明确学生的学习需要。美国心理学家加涅提出所谓学习, 就是形成一个在意义、态度、动机和技能上相互联系且越来越抽象的认知模式。教师在进行课堂教学的过程中, 首先要弄清学生的学习心理。大致来说, 学生的学习心理主要由学习动力、学习智力、学习能力和自我评价几部分组成。针对学生的不同的学习心理就需要采取相应的教学策略。而教学策略指的是建立在一定的理论基础之上, 为实现某种教学目标而制订的教学实施总体方案, 它包括合理地安排及选择教学活动序列、教学内容、教学组织形式、教学方法和教学媒体等。[1]此二者相辅相成, 如果选用方式合适, 则能有效地解决“如何教”“如何学”的问题。在具体教学中, 应以学生的学习心理为切入口, 加深其对作品选读课程重要性的认识, 对学生进行美育和人文精神的渗透, 促进学生知识底蕴的丰富及人格的塑造。

二、有时代感的教学内容要能激发学习动力

就学习动力而言, 它表现为学习的志向、愿望或兴趣等形式, 对学生的学习起推动作用。因此, 在进行古代文学作品的教学过程中, 有效激发直接和间接的学习动机, 是增强学习动力的一项有效手段。

中国目前正处于社会发展与变革的关键时期, 商品经济的实行不但影响了人们的生活方式, 也悄然改变了人的价值观。美好的前途、优厚的收入成为绝大多数人的追求目标。即使是身处象牙塔中的大学生, 也在考虑学以致用的问题。很多文科学生把精力更多地投入辅修课的学习中。针对这一心理, 教师在设计教学内容时, 就要突出古代文学作品是“有用之学”。比如在给广告专业的学生讲授《诗经》中的爱情诗歌时, 可以有意识地攫取电视中常出现的钻石广告, 分析其中的爱情意识, 并进一步指出一个好的广告总是建立在深厚的人文底蕴的基础之上的, “死生挈阔, 与子成说, 执子之手, 与子偕老”其实正是现代人所不相信及渴望得到的。广告专业的学生如果能够很好地把握这一原则, 那么设计出来的广告更能贴近人心, 更有文化底蕴, 也更易于让客户接受。

再如在给新闻专业的学生教授一些古代的山水游记时, 可以展示一些电视上的游览录像, 分析新闻记者在台词编撰的优劣度, 指出形成这种差异的主要原因在于记者认识事物的能力不同、个人的文化积累不同。而古人的一篇山水游记之所以能够流传千古, 正是源于其积累深厚、看待事物深刻, 因此表达才能言简意赅, 韵味无穷。

“知之者不如好之者, 好之者不如乐之者。” (《论语·雍也》) 打破学生对古代文学作品的“无用之见”, 树立其“有用之貌”, 当学生对这门课程有了长远的期许后, 其学习动力则会被大大激发。

三、教学目标的侧重点是注重对学习智力的培养

当今社会强调个体的综合能力, 即学习智力。这不但指对专业知识的学习, 个人的人际、情感、意志、道德智力同样起着举足轻重的作用。大学生作为社会发展的生力军, 身上承载的责任不可谓不重, 然而与之重任相对的则是个体能力和素质不足, 除了专业知识以外, 具体表现在眼高手低、不能很好地融入团体、抗压能力差, 不愿吃苦。毫无疑问, 加强大学生的学习智力的教育、引导学生树立健康的价值观, 也是一个重大挑战。

在古代文学作品的教学中, 就可以针对这一点有侧重地进行教学。比方说在教授苏轼的《定风波》一词时, 就可以提出问题, 当你遇到风雨会采取怎样的方式?从而引出苏轼淡定从容地面对方式, 以此引起学生好奇, 为何苏轼可以如此超然?在讲述作品时介绍苏轼的人生经历, 让学生明了“乌台诗案”对苏轼性格和心态的影响, 苏轼之所以为苏轼, 正是因为他能从苦难中超脱出来, 更乐观从容地面对生活。从而得出结论, 在面对人生的风风雨雨时, 与其怨天尤人, 不如坦然面对。

再者, 在学习辛弃疾的作品《青玉案》 (元夕) 一词时, 就可以引申出近代著名学者王国维的“做学问的三种境界”, 所谓“昨夜西风凋碧树, 独上高楼, 望尽天涯路” (晏殊《鹊踏枝》) 、“为伊消得人憔悴, 衣带渐宽终不悔” (柳永《凤栖梧》) 及辛弃疾词作中的“众里寻他千百度, 蓦然回首, 那人却在灯火阑珊处”。引导学生就这三句话结合自己的经历谈谈理解。通过交流, 让学生认识到, 任何成功都不会一蹴而就, 它需要人定好目标、坚持不懈, 绝不轻易放弃, 最终希望的曙光会在前方出现。

认真学习古代优秀的文学作品可以帮助学生树立正确的人生观、价值观。从“长风破浪会有时, 直挂云帆济沧海”这样的诗句中, 学生会受到奋发向上的鼓舞, 形成积极的人生态度;从诸子百家的言论中, 学生可以学习到立身处世的方法……《古代文学作品选读》这一课程可以培养学生胸怀天下的忧患意识, 正直刚强的个性尊严, 刚健有为的人生态度和团结友善的仁爱品德。

四、教学方式要具备广泛性, 注重对学生学习能力的培养

文科学生一方面受社会重实用性的环境影响, 对本课程缺乏深入探究的动力, 另一方面, 由于学生从小学起就开始接触古代文学作品, 其主要目的是为了应对考试, 因此在学习时采取的学习方式主要是字词翻译和作品背诵, 而忽视了文学的审美愉悦作用, 从而导致学生产生厌学情绪。当他们步入高校再次面对古代文学作品时, 思维惯性使得学生往往只是被动听讲, 放弃了主体能动性, 对于作品所蕴含的美学价值、人文精神缺乏深入钻研的意识, 因此对于作品的理解停留在表面。

当今的学生身处信息时代, 获取知识的渠道非常多元化, 也造就了他们相对复杂的思想。一个作品在不同学生看来或许有着不同的情感面貌。因此, 在学习方式的选择上就要灵活机动, 既要发挥他们的主动探索精神, 又要培养他们的思辨能力。

例如在教学吴伟业的《圆圆曲》时, 就可以提前布置预习, 让学生以话剧的形式将诗歌内容表现出来, 在课堂上通过学生的表演, 结合诗歌的内容, 学生可以很形象地了解吴三桂和陈圆圆的情事, 在此基础上, 将学生分为三个部分, 一为吴三桂代言, 一为明遗民代言, 一为当代人代言围绕吴三桂的选择究竟对个人的命运是好是坏, 吴三桂被汉人当做汉奸唾骂这两个论题, 运用所搜集到的资料结合诗歌内容进行辩论, 使学生充分了解乱世背景下, 人的出身、性格决定了人生走向。此种形式的教学既能让学生掌握诗歌内容和主题, 又能发散学生的思维, 开阔其视野。

在教学方式上可以采取“主题教学”的授课模式。目前作品选读这一课程主要采取了以时间为主线的作品学习方式, 一个朝代讲若干作家, 一个作家讲若干作品。导致学生对于作品的理解流于表面。而采取主题教学这一模式, 可以将学生感兴趣的内容以相对集中的形式总体展示出来, 在类比中加深学生的认识。比方说, 在进行“古代山水田园诗”这一主题的教学时, 就可以先以田园、山水图片展示, 引起学生的直观感受, 再由学生介绍自己家乡一些著名的景点或自己熟悉的乡村生活的环境特点, 引起学生对自然的向往。在此基础上, 将中国古典诗歌中的山水田园诗作展示出来, 依据不同时代进行名篇的讲述和比较, 最后让学生进行讨论, 为什么中国的山水田园诗数量和质量都如此之高?古代文人为何进行此类诗作的创作?从而引发学生对于作品产生的背景、作家的心态及佛道二家对诗歌创作的影响。学生不但从宏观角度全面认识到山水田园诗的创作背景和艺术变迁, 而且从中充分体味到古中国古代文人的哲学观、人生观、价值观。在对这些内容和观念的探讨中, 学生形成积极向上的人生观。

五、教学结果要注重学生学习成果的展示和自我评价的提高

学以致用是提高学生学习兴趣的一个有效手段。从教学现状来看, 学生不愿意深入研读经典作品的一个重要原因就是缺乏教学成果的展示与应用平台。因此, 教师可以采用多种方式帮助学生进行学习展示。比方说可以采取传统的诗歌朗诵会或班级话剧表演等。也可以采取一些新颖的方式。针对新闻系的学生就可以出示一份国民素质的调查报告, 针对国民的腐败问题、竞争问题、对自然生态的破坏问题等, 让学生对儒家、道家或佛教等不同流派进行分析, 并找出解决对策。抑或根据大学生现状, 展开讨论, 当代大学生该如何面对未来的挑战和自身所处困境。引导学生从儒家的积极入世思想出发, 培养自己坚毅的性格、丰富的学养、高远的志向、脚踏实地的奋斗精神。即使是广告学专业的学生, 也可以让他们以广告创作为契机, 在房地产、饮料或通信等题材范围内, 围绕古代儒学思想的天人合一、注重亲情伦理等层面进行广告创作。这种方式可以使得学生在实践的同时, 既巩固了知识, 展示了能力, 又深刻认识到古代文学的内涵之深, 影响之广。

最后必须指出的是, 作为文科生必修的《古代文学作品选读》总的来说还是一门基础学科, 基础学科的作用其实是虽然不直观却影响深远, 罗宗强先生就曾提出:“求真的研究, 看似于当前未有直接的用处, 其实却是今天的文化建设非有不可的方面。”[2]他将此称之为“无用之用”, 并认为是更为有益的。如果教师能够很好地立足现代, 将时代因素和学生主体因素与古代文学课程进行有机的融合, 那么此课程的教学将会对学生的人文修养、人格塑造甚至专业素质等方面起到不可低估的积极影响。

摘要：《古代文学作品选读》是提高高校文科生文化修养、专业素养的一门基础课程, 在具体教学中, 应以学生的学习心理为切入口, 采用合适的教学策略, 加深学生对作品选读课程重要性的认知, 对学生进行美育和人文精神的渗透, 促进学生知识底蕴的深厚及人格的塑造。

关键词：古代文学作品,学习心理,教学策略

参考文献

[1]顾明远主编.教育大词典.上海教育出版社, 1990, VOL1:192.

美国文学选读 篇6

1 英国文学课程教学的现状

乍看起来, 以文学作为课程来学习, 以诗歌、小说为蓝本, 师生应该感到是一件惬意的事情。然而, 从本人的教学实践看来, 事实却并非如此。首先, 虽然经过了两年基础课的学习, 部分学生语言的基本技能仍然有障碍, 学生距离阅读并理解英国文学作品仍然有很大差距。究其原因, 可以从如下几个方面分析:

1.1 教师、教材方面

1) 英国文学历史源远流长, 作品繁多。由于教学任务所限, 大三学生需要在72学时内接触到教材上的所有内容, 大多数教师只得采用“一言堂”的灌输型教学模式。教师讲授、作品分析、提炼主题往往成为学生获得文学知识的单一、枯燥的方法。这种教学模式让作为学习认知主体的学生在整个教学中始终处于比较被动的状态, 多数学校的大班型授课使得学生难有机会阐述自己的观点。文学课的课堂教学难以真正成为丰富内涵、开拓视野、解读人生和陶冶情操等提高人文素质的主战场。

2) 大部分英国文学教材内容冗长, 按编年体例, “以史为序”来编排, 在介绍具体作品时往往遵循从作家生平导入, 接着对其创作生涯归纳, 然后对作家的代表作进行选读分析等一系列的编写原则。这种编写体例较少篇幅对作家、作品所关联的文学批评理论和文学批评方法加以介绍, 学生容易将主修文学课误解为就是了解文学史, 靠机械的背诵还是容易通过考试的, 这对于学生掌握有效的批评思路与方法, 提高反思型的思辨能力是不利的, 进而偏离了学习英国文学的最终目标, 即提高人文素质及培育人文精神。

3) 由于条件所限, 从事文学课程授课的老师难以拿到国外第一手文学作品, 难有机会同国外同行对世界文学最前沿的文学领域进行更多的交流。众多原因导致大多数英国文学教材内容缺乏现代意识, 许多教材只写到二战前, 缺少进期发展情况和对后殖民文学的介绍, 缺少对影响当今世界政治、经济走向的近代部分的文学作品介绍, 这对师生课堂互动和吸引学生热衷文学课都是不利因素。

1.2 学生方面

1) 英国文学作品介绍基本是从从中古英语开始, 这对于中国英语教学从小学开始所接受的基础的、规范化的语言技能训练中国学生来说, 一看到原汁原味的文学作品, 容易使他们在英国文学入门篇就产生畏难情绪, 产生厌倦心里。

2) 学生来源宽泛。如今越来越多的学校英语专业在高考录取中采取文理通招, 一些理科背景的的大学生高中没有学过世界史、世界地理, 进入大学后, 又忽视基础阶段的英语、阅读、国家概况等文学的前期课程的学习, 不了解文学课需要文史结合, 因而缺乏支撑学好文学课的背景知识。

3) 大学生就业难的状况使得英语专业的学生必须把重心放到语言“工具化”的方向上来。本着找工作看技能的原则, 学生们也越来越重视与经贸类相关的课程:如外贸英语、口译等实用性很强的专业课。正是这种“只见树木不见森林”的理念, 使得近年来英国文学课处于被边缘化的尴尬境地。一些学生把文学课看成“高雅艺术”, 是解决生存以后才可以考虑的事情。

4) 当代的大学生的生活环境、娱乐方式发生了很大的变化。正如米勒指出的那样, 这些年轻学者是“在电视、电影、流行音乐和互联网中泡大的第一批人。他们没有把太多的时间留给文学, 文学在他们的生活中无足轻重。”所以, 对于大多数青少年读者而言, 网络媒介提供的电子影视作品要比经典的名著更有吸引力。

2 英国文学课程教学改革实证研究的具体步骤

分析上述师生方面的原因:关键是学生对英国文学作品、英国文学课程的误读使得英国文学教学改革成为一项迫在眉睫的重要任务。如何拓展英国文学课程建设空间, 加大这门专业必修课的改革力度, 提高课程建设质量, 让学生通过英国文学课的学习最终意识到这是一门了解英语国家最有力的学科之一, 是一门“即见树木、又见森林”的必修课。

2.1 不同年级教学环节的改革

教育部在“关于外语专业面向21世纪本科教育改革的若干意见”中指出, “强化专业技能课;上足上好专业知识课;精心设置方向与模块, 动态地设置模块课程”。顺着这种思路, 我们进行优化、完善化英国文学的课程体系。

1) 在大一阶段, 从老师推荐开始, 让学生从英译汉的译本或双语读物入手, 逐步对英国文学的诗歌和小说有些许的认识。因为, 在现代大学生眼里“读小说、诗歌、剧本或是看戏成了越来越造作、次要、过时的活动。”所以, 要谨慎推荐文学读物, 要选择既能夯实基础、拓宽视野, 又能精简名篇、突出差异的作品。避免学生一开始对经典的作品产生逆反心理, 进而会严重地影响文学课教学效果。这个时期的作业布置应该放在指导学生挖掘文学作品的主题思想、情节安排、人物塑造等方面。老师应允许要学生的作业中对前人的研究成果提出挑战, 关键在于能够与时俱进地结合当今社会走向加以积极正面的引导。

2) 大二阶段的学生有激情, 渴望充实自己, 乐于挑战各种被称之为经典的东西。此时引导学生阅读名篇经典原著, 是因为经典作品满足了学生“质疑经典的可靠性, 揭橥经典确立过程中的阶级的、文化的和历史的原因, 提供对经典的别一种解读。”生生生生生生生生生, 老师要时刻关注社会现实, 强化反思性的教学理念, 可以在很大程度上呼唤那些对于阅读文学缺少热情与兴趣的学生回归, 帮助他们重新燃起对文学的激情。这个时期的作业布置应该放在指导学生探究文学作品的叙述角度、象征细节、语言风格等方面。

3) 大三阶段英国文学进入专业必修课阶段, 总计72学时, 每周两课时。经过两年的英语专业熏陶, 西方的文化理念逐渐影响了学生的思维模式。他们愿意充分展示自己才能、发挥自己潜能。随着学生对文学课程实践的深入和感悟, 他们对文学课研究范畴突破了对文学史纲以及文学文本的单纯记忆, 开始解读文学作品的内涵, 他们更加关注文学在整个人类自然生存中的责任与使命, 这样, 重读经典与重构经典就很可能在大三的部分学生中成为渴望。教师在授课中必须要同学生共同文学其中所饱含的人文理念与人文精神, 对当代文学思维方位与向度的调整, 在学生心中树立经典文学的影响力。这个时期的作业布置应该放在指导学生通过PPT、小论文、课堂辩论、公共演讲等形式抒发自己的观点。

2.2 教学方法与教学手段改革

英国文学课程教学方法与教学手段的改革, 是一个承上启下的过程。因为它可以带动英国文学的前期课程改革, 与综合英语、阅读、英语国家概况等课程的互动, 又可以牵制其后续课程的改革, 可以带动美国文学、散文等课程的优化。我们英美文学课程组在日常教学和实践中尝试了部分有效的和科学的教学尝试。

1) 让学生的表演成为文学课的亮点

教师改变以往在英国文学课堂教学的整个过程里“中心”的角色, 改变在介绍具体作品时遵循从作家生平导入, 接着对其创作生涯归纳, 然后对作家的代表作进行选读分析授课模式, 而是采用“名篇精讲”的专题化教学模式, 对知识整合成为不同的专题。进行横向及纵向的关联和比较, 知识点之间的交互有利于加深理解和记忆, 真正地做到优化教学资源、优化教学时间。针对不同的作品采用不同的课堂热身开始。在莎翁的作品中, 学生着装演绎莎翁陛下的哈姆雷特, 罗密欧与朱丽叶。或是采用电影对白, 精选《简爱》和《儿子与情人》, 从《简爱》中展开分析无私纯洁的爱情到《儿子与情人》中分析残缺的爱情中爱与恨的交织。教师与学生变换位置, 实现教与学的互动, 调动学生的积极性, 满足学生的表现欲。

2) 师生共同采用现代媒体技术

师生共同开设微博、QQ, 可以把参与者对文学课、文学评价和个人感受与大家共同分享, 师生很自然把这些问题带到课堂上继续讨论, 这种“开放型、辩论型、研究型”的方式有助于培养学生独立思考、提出问题、分析问题和解决问题的能力。有学生参与视频、微电影的拍摄, 即使语言功底较弱的学生也非常乐意担任拍摄、剪辑等后期制作的任务。同时, 在课程改革中可以充分发挥校园网络配备的经典西方电影和音像制品优势作用, 但更加重要的还是鼓励学生亲自动手, 主动参与。

3) 鼓励准备考研以及愿意从事英语文字工作的同学撰写课程论文, 并进行相应的点评, 点评时要以表扬为主, 帮助学生建立学习的成就感。在教学中, 教师可引导学生将已有的文学知识和英美概况中的知识进行对比分析, 指导他们阅读相关的理论文献资料, 阅读他们感兴趣的作家最前沿的作品评价, 介绍文学领域的最新动态和发展趋势。在教授文学人物塑造时, 可以与中国相同题材的作品比较, 例如:《罗密欧与朱丽叶》与《梁山伯与祝英台》比较, 分析不同社会制度下的婚姻。借此培养学生的科研嗅觉, 洞悉学术研究的特点, 提出有价值的问题, 锻炼逻辑论证能力, 为四年级的论文写作和考研打下基础。

4) 改革英国文学考核方法, 注重知识应用

改变文学课程考核“一卷定成绩”的做法。把成绩评定分成开卷与闭卷, 口试与笔试, 论文与报告相结合的形式, 让学生意识到英国文学课不仅考查学生掌握知识的情况, 更重要的是考查学生运用文学课中学到的不同思维模式、不同文化理念解决中西方文化碰撞中的实际问题的能力。课堂活动中的诗歌朗诵、论点辩论、论文展示、话题演讲、视频录像和微电影都将记录到平时成绩的考核中。

在期末考试卷的题型设置上平衡固定知识常识题目和灵活思考表达能力题目的分值比例, 既要保证让学生在考试中对所学知识进行系统和有效地整理和消化, 又要留给学生发挥思想的空间。但是需要不断改进和学习以最大限度地提高教学效果。

3 结束语

外语教学的最终目标是学生跨文化交际能力的培养, 而人文素质的培养则是高校英语专业人才基本准则, 市场经济下的英语专业复合型人才的培养更是离不开坚持人文主义培养传统。由此, 文学课程教学模式和实践所进行的理论方面的探索和教学实践的改革方兴未艾, 今后要探索的路还很长, 需要在实践中模式的教改模式需要不断地完善。我们只有通过不断开拓进取、深入调研才有可能使英国文学课程的教学更上一层楼, 为我国培养具备人文素养、文学鉴赏力和审美的敏感性、理解国际文化的复合型人才服务, 进而从整体上促进学生人文素质的提高。

摘要：人文素质的培养是高校英语专业人才培养的基本准则, 也是实现教学型和应用型大学的目标定位及人才培养目标。如何将英语专业重要课程之一的《英国文学》课程改革落实到实处, 是提高学生人文素质为导向的英语专业人才培养方案中迫切需要解决的问题。课题通过剖析高等学校英语专业英国文学课程教学中存在的问题, 研究实践教学中侧重以名篇选读为导向的英国文学课程教与学的案例, 探寻英国文学课程改革的新思路, 以此促进高等学校英语专业的高年级整体教学。

关键词：英国文学,名篇选读,教学模式

参考文献

[1]高等学校外语专业教学指导委员会英语组.高等学校英语专业英语教学大纲[[M].北京:外语教学与研究出版社, 上海:上海外语教育出版社, 2000.

[2]常耀信.美国文学简史 (第二版) [M].天津:南开大学出版社, 2003.

[3] (英) 特雷.伊格尔顿.文学理论[M].明尼阿波利斯:明尼苏达大学出版社, 1983.

美国文学选读 篇7

一、语言工具论

在双语教学中, 面对英文原著, 两种语言转换带给学生的接受、理解和思考就存在问题。学生比较被动, 听的是英语, 却按照汉语思维思考、理解和表达, 在听说读思之间不时进行双语翻译和转换, 相当费劲, 实际教学效果不尽如人意。

笔者一直疑惑不解的是:学生从小学或初中就开始投入大量精力学习英语, 汉语国际教育专业对英语尤其重视, 那么不管是接受还是运用双语, 学生为什么学得还是如此艰难?在教学中对学生实际调查, 发现问题根源不止一处。很重要的一点, 就是长期以来在外语教学中, 师生大多实践“语言工具论”, 认为英语无非就是一种工具, 通过语言对等法, 就可以将之转换成相应汉语, 也就可以理解其意义。殊不知, 语言只是一种“能指”, 不同语言背后的“所指”是不同的。简言之, 英语所指的背后蕴藏的文化内涵、思维方式等和汉语有很大不同, 我们在语言教学中往往忽略了这个“所指”, 仅仅关注语言本身这个外壳。这在低阶段的教学中无不妥之处, 但高阶段的双语教学中, 问题就凸显出来, 难以进行两种语言的思维转换。

英美文学课程明显不同于其他课程, 显然, 它的语言更抽象、凝练, 所指的涵义更丰富, 并且随着时代和作家的不同而动态发展。比如“nature”, 在文艺复兴时期、古典主义文学和浪漫主义思潮里, 意义截然不同。同样是诗歌, 莎士比亚十四行诗的音步、抑扬格、押韵形式等和汉诗迥异, 仅仅用语言对等法, 不可能真正达到解读英美文学作品的目的, 必须提前从汉语或英语阅读中了解大量相关文学甚至文化、历史知识做铺垫, 才能真正领略原著的魅力。

因此, 无论是老师的教还是学生的学, 双语教学首先在思想上要厘清过去的“顽疾”, 即抛弃简单的“语言工具论”。要挖掘语言所承载的文化思想, 体会不同语言所体现的思维方式的不同, 更要有跨文化比较的意识, 明白差异, 才能更好地进行双语转换。

二、“双语”理解机械化

在实际教学中, 往往规定了两种语言在课堂上的运用比例, 如目的语运用至少要占教学用语的50%, 这个量的规定反而削弱了双语教学的内涵。因此, 在教学中, 为了这个50%, 就会出现以下情况:教师绞尽脑汁进行双语讲解、转换, 费时不说, 内容量和深度也不够, 与单纯用母语或目的语的教学比较, 大打折扣。

其实, 双语教学早期多采用加拿大的浸入式方法, 不管是完全浸入式还是部分浸入式, 教师在课堂上都是用目的语, 只是学生在后者中用部分母语。但随着双语教学的发展, 方法逐渐与时俱进。“双语课不是以课上仅仅使用外语或两种语言来衡量的, 即使只使用外语授课, 仍然可称之为‘双语课’, 因为学生通过该课程获得用两种语言储存和表述知识的能力”[3]139。笔者也认为在现有的条件下, 没必要死守这个数量规定, 应根据教学内容和学生的实际情况进行教学语言调整。双语只是一种教学形式, 真正的衡量标准应该是知识的传授和接受。比如学习莎士比亚作品, 就宜多用母语解释文艺复兴文化背景、作品的内涵, 毕竟, 学生更习惯用母语思维思考。

三、文学性缺失

此处是基于英美文学作品原著选读课程而言的。文学作品的学习不同于科技类时事类作品的学习, 它更注重文学性。文学课程教学目标主要是通过原著的学习, 领略文学的艺术魅力和人文思想, 尤其是原汁原味的作品学习能弥补翻译中易缺失的部分, 从而零距离接触英美经典作品。教学中一旦纠结于双语, 具体学习、分析作品时, 就会更加关注文字本身, 如字词意思的转化、句子的翻译等, 反而是一种翻译式的学习, 忽略了引导、思考和体会等, 也就丧失了对作品文学性的领悟。

笔者认为, 要加强此门课程的文学性, 就需要结合其他文学课程, 进行综合学习。然而, 并不是所有的文学课程都适合双语教学的, 比如中国古代文学。并且, 目前“大多数双语示范课程被当成一门孤立的课程来进行传授, 忽视了整个课程体系的全方位建设及各门课程之间在知识内容方面的衔接性”[4]173。因此在课程教学中, 需要结合其他学科, 或涉及中西文学共通性或者中英作品比较领悟时, 双语教学就应该灵活。

四、忽略学生实际情况

双语教学主要针对非外语专业, 如本文所列的汉语国际教育专业。非外语专业的学生, 外语不是其学习的主要语言和方式, 况且学生对外语的热爱程度和其外语水平参差不齐。就连非常强调英语学习的汉语国际教育专业, 学生的英语水平都令人担忧。先不说其过级率和口语听力水平有待提高, 单就畏惧英语的学生就大有人在, 其中大多因为畏难而已放弃英语学习。在这样的情况下进行双语教学, 确实困难重重。

在具体教学中, 为了完成教学任务, 顺利进行双语教学, 教师对兴趣不浓、基础较为薄弱的学生没办法兼顾。所以, 课堂上就只有极少数基础较好的学生能跟上双语教学的步伐, 能坚持到最后。这样下来, 效果适得其反, 因为教学不应该只兼顾极少数优秀者。笔者在这一点上用了一些小策略, 尽量地根据学生实际情况进行分层教学。比如在每次课前, 给每个学生5分钟, 让学生做一个自己感兴趣的英语演讲。要做好这个演讲, 学生得提前寻找自己感兴趣的话题, 然后查阅资料, 再组织语言、朗读, 直至能够演讲。这样既能提高学生的兴趣, 又结合学生层次不一的情况, 分别有所锻炼。但如此一来, 教学任务加重了不少, 因此该方法最适合于小班教学。

总之, 双语教学只是一个教学概念和方式, 应根据具体课程和师生实际情况进行教学。本文也只是探讨具体教学中遇到的问题, 进行症候式分析, 对双语教学的探索还有待深入。

摘要：在全球化和汉语热的趋势下, 汉语国际教育专业因其专业特点, 对外语的要求较高。在条件允许的情况下, 专业课应多采用双语教学, 《英美文学课程》就是其中之一。双语教学有其自身优势, 且文学课进行双语教学很有必要。但在具体教学中还存在一些问题, 本文对此进行探讨。

关键词：双语教学,英美文学,症候式,汉语国际教育

参考文献

[1][加]W·F·麦凯, [西]M·西格恩.严正, 刘秀峰.双语教育概论[M].北京:光明日报出版社, 1989:45.

[2]李如龙.对双语教学的几点理解[J].山西大学学报 (哲学社会科学版) , 2007 (5) :105.

[3]黄崇岭.双语教学核心概念解析[J].外语学刊, 2008 (1) :139.

美国文学选读 篇8

关键词：文学课程,慕课,视频,课堂教学

一、基于慕课的英国文学 史及选读混合式教学模式的 调查分析

1. 问卷

授课对象为天津医科大学2012级英语专业的学生,共30人。课程结束后, 采用自编问卷对30名学生做了调查, 发出30份问卷,收回30份问卷,有效问卷共30份,并将数据输入SPSS17.0进行统计分析。

2. 调查分析

(1)学生对本课程慕课视频的评价。针对慕课视频的调查发现大部分学生认为慕课的视频视觉效果较好,能够激发学习兴趣。少数学生认为仅观看视频缺乏互动,不利于学习热情的维持 (见下表)。因此,在制作视频时, 应尽量考虑如下因素:讲解生动、条理清晰、有针对性。并且应充分利用慕课平台,实现师生互动交流、作业与测试等,以期达到学生对课程相关知识、课程以外的知识拓展,培养与其他学习者共同解决问题能力、锻炼网络自主探究知识的能力。(2)学生对本课程课堂活动的效果评价。调查发现,学生普遍认为课堂讲解较多,头脑风暴、小组讨论等较少,对课堂的活跃程度评价较差。 分析显示,造成这种现象的原因是多方面的,既有课堂学生人数较多的原因 (46.7% 的学生认为课堂人数较多,影响了发言的机会和意愿);还有学生害怕在集体面前发言(一点不害怕或比较不害怕的只占30%);除上述原因之外, 还有的学生认为教师的问题没有较好地引起讨论(26.7% 的学生认为教师的问题比较不能或非常不能激发讨论)。

课堂应是生命相遇、心灵相约的场域,是质疑问难的场所,是通过对话探求真理的地方。[1]因此,要组织好课堂讨论,不仅要求教师准备好能够激发学生讨论热情的有价值的问题,同时还要在日常教学中营造讨论或分享的氛围, 注重培养学生表达的能力和习惯。

(3)学生的交流与沟通评价。英国文学史及选读是一门理论与文本阅读实践结合的课程,强调学生在文本阅读中的参与、思考及之后的反思和共享。[2]交流、沟通和分享不仅是解决疑问的方法,也是实现知识与文本阅读实践相融合的有效途径。分析显示,63.3% 的学生认为交流互动非常重要,但是使用慕课网络平台或是面对面的交流机会较少(36.7% 的学生认为交流的机会较多),愿意与同学进行小组协作的学生占23.3%。由此可见,学生意识到交流和沟通对学习有促进作用,但却由于自身害羞或不习惯等原因使得实际学习中交流协作较少。因此,只有打破原有习惯,克服害羞心理,才能实现有效的沟通。

注:采取李克特量表的形式,1—5 数字越大,表示被调查者越认同题目所陈述的内容。

二、结论