美国文学Introduction

Introduction to the Course

I. Course Objectives

1. 历史背景

Enable the Ss to get a general knowledge about the history of America; 2. 文学运动

Enable the Ss to know the four literary periods and literary movements in American literary history; 3. 作家作品赏析

Enable the Ss to know the background, representative writers and their works of each period in American literary history 4. 文学批评 Literary criticism

Enable the Ss to appreciate a literary work from different perspectives

II. How to study literature?

1. Historical Approach

Aims at illustrating the historical development of literature. 2. Thematic Approach

“What is the story, the poem, the play or the essay about?” 2. Analytical Approach

Be familiar with the elements of a literary work, eg: plot, characterization, setting,

subject matter, writing style, point of view, etc; answer some basic questions about the text itself.

III.Modes of teaching and learning

1. Lectures

2. Study groups: 12-15 Study groups, 4 students in 1 group and each group is responsible for one writer

Oral presentation and answer teacher’s questions in class

Write down the answers to the questions from the teacher and other groups

and tell the answers to the students in the next class

Write an essay on the writer or his novels as part of your mid-term exam (one

group, one essay) (at least 800 words ) and answer the questions raised from the teacher on the basis of the paper.

IV. Grade determinant

1. In-class performance Attendance 20% Absent -5, late and ill -3

Study groups: answer questions of the teacher and the other groups Quiz

2. Mid-term test 20% Essay

3. Final exam: Close-book test 60% Types of examination

-Matching the authors with their works -Multiple choice questions -True and false statements

-Defining the literary terms or answering questions

-Analyzing the theme, characters and language of a selected reading

V. Reference book

1. Course Book: 曹曼. 美国文学教程 2. Reference Books:

[1] 常耀信. 美国文学选读[Z]. 天津：南开大学出版社，1991. [2] 常耀信. 美国文学简史[Z]. 天津：南开大学出版社，1990. [3]吴定柏. 美国文学大纲[Z]. 上海：上海教育出版社，1998

[4]吴伟仁编. 美国文学史及选读（第1、2册）[Z]. 北京：外研社 [5] 童明. 美国文学史 外研社 3. Journals:

《外国文学评论》 《外国文学研究》 《外国文学》 《当代外国文学》 《国外文学》 4. 其他外语类核心期刊

Introduction to American literature

1. Ten American Writers winning the Nobel Prize for Literature

Sinclair Lewis (1930) Eugene O’Neill(1936) Pearl Buck(1938) T.S.Eliot (1948) William Faulkner (1949) Ernest Hemingway (1954) John Steinbeck (1962) Saul Bellow (1976)

Isaac Bashevis Singer辛格 ( 1978) Tony Morrison (1993)

2. The classification of different periods

1. Colonial Period

Puritans; Practical 2. The Romantic Age

Confident; divine 3. The Age of Realism

Realistic, mirror the life 4. The Modern Age

Disappointed; inner

The war of independence1776-1783

The civil war:1861-1865

WW : 1914-1918

WWП:1939-1945

Appendix 1:

I. Colonial Period (1620-1800) 殖民地时期文学

John Smith 约翰.史密斯 II. Revolutionary Period (1765—1800) 独立革命时期文学

Benjamin Franklin 富兰克林

III. The Age of Romanticism (1800—1865) 浪漫主义文学 Early Romanticism早期浪漫主义文学

Washington Irving 欧文 James Fenimore Cooper 库伯 Edgar Allan Poe 坡 Transcendentalism 超验主义

Ralph Waldo Emerson 爱默生 Henry David Thoreau 梭罗 Nathanial Hawthorne 霍桑 Herman Melville 麦尔维尔

Transitional period浪漫主义和现实主义转型时期

Walt Whitman 惠特曼 Emily Dickinson 狄金森 IV. The Age of Realism (1865—1918)现实主义文学

Local Colorism乡土文学

Mark Twain 马克.吐温 International novel 国际题材小说

Henry James 亨利.詹姆斯 Naturalism 自然主义

Theodore Dreiser 德莱塞 V. American Modernism (1918—1945) 现代主义文学

Imagism 意象派

Ezra Pound 庞德 the Jazz Age 爵士乐时代

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald 菲茨杰拉德 The Lost Generation迷惘的一代

Ernest Hemingway 海明威

American Drama 美国戏剧 Expressionism 表现主义

Eugene O’Neil 奥尼尔

The Great Depression 大萧条

John Steinbeck 斯坦贝克 Southern literature

William Faulkner 福克纳

Sherwood Anderson 舍伍德.安德森 Robert Frost 弗罗斯特

VI. American Literature after WW II 二战后文学

Black Humor黑色幽默

Joseph Heller 约瑟夫.海勒

Harlem Renaissance 哈莱姆文艺复兴

Langston Hughes 兰斯顿.休斯 the Feminist Writers 女性文学

I. Writer作家：

life生平 works作品

artistic features艺术特点 style风格， language语言风格，tone基调，setting场景，characterization人物刻画，theme主题 II .Literary movement文学时期： Historical background 历史背景 Sources 思想来源

Artistic features 艺术特点

representatives代表人物

I. New criticism新批评 II .Structuralism 结构主义批评

III. Psychoanalytic criticism 精神分析批评 IV. Feministic criticism 女性批评 V. Deconstruction 解构主义批评

subject matter题材，

American Literature Study Groups

1. Washington Irving The Devil and Tom Walker Rip Van Winkle

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 2. Edgar Allan Poe

The Masque of the Red Death Gothic novel

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 3. Thoreau Walden

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 4. Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter

Salem Witchcraft Trial ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 5. Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Local Colorism

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 6. Henry James The Portrait of a Lady Periodic sentence

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 7. Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie

The survival of the fittest ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________

8. Ezra Pound haiku

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 9. Robert Frost Synecdoche

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 10. Sherwood Anderson Mother

Freud’s id, ego and superego ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 11. Francis Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald’s marriage life ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 12. Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea Iceberg theory

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 13. Eugene O’Neill The Hairy Ape Expressionism

___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ 14. William Faulkner The Bear

Stream of consciousness ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________