Title: The United States of America
1The United States of America
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2Chapter 13 Literature
The United States of America
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3CONTENT
4The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods
I
5 1.1 The Colonial Period (1607-1775)
Q2 What is the influence of pluralism on
American literature?
6 1.1 The Colonial Period (1607-1775)(cont.)
- Character of Writingsreligious, practical, or
historical. - American Puritanismmajor topic stresses
- predestination (??)
- original sin
- total depravity (??)
- limited atonement (??) or the salvation (??) of a
selected few who would receive Gods grace.
Discussion Compare the American Puritanism with
Chinese Confucianism.
71.2 The Revolutionary Period
- representative workThomas Jeffersons
Declaration of Independence. - Character of Declaration of Independence
- rhetorical (??????) vigor
- refined diction (??)
- polished style
- ardent longing for freedom
Q How was American literature forwarded in the
Revolutionary Period?
81.3 Representative Figures
91.3.1 Jonathan Edwards
- religious idealism
- powerful sermons (??)preaching the puritan ideas
and condemning peoples depravity. - best-known work Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God (1741). - initiating the Great Awakening Movement to revive
Puritanism.
10 1.3.1 Jonathan Edwards (cont.)
- Almanacpublished continuously for almost a
quarter of a century. - adages (??) and sayings
- A penny saved is a penny earned.
- Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man
healthy, wealthy, and wise.
111.3.2 Benjamin Franklin
- levelheaded (?????) common sense
- a completely worldly man a statesman,
ambassador, scientist, essayist as well. - Poor Richards Almanacboth a literary
achievement and a profitable business.
12 1.3.2 Benjamin Franklin (cont.)
- Autobiographymost famous work.
- the faithful account of the colorful career of
Americas first self-made manrising from
poverty and obscurity (????) to wealth and fame. - Autobiographya record of spiritual growth in
addition to self-examination and self-improvement.
13 The Romantic Period (1790-1865)
II
142.1 Feature
- American Renaissance.
- Character of American writings
- free expression of emotions, attention to the
psychic (???) states of their character. - exalted (??) the individual and the common man.
- revealed unique characteristics of their own and
grew on the native lands. - Best Representives
- Washington Irving James Fennimore Cooper
- Walt Whiteman Emily Dickinson
152.2 Writers of Fiction
2.2.1
2.2.2
2.2.3
2.2.4
2.2.5
2.2.6
162.2.1 Washington Irving (1783-1859)
- the father of American literature
- the first to write using the local color and the
details in his works. - symbolism to the themes.
- Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy
Hollowmost famous stories.
172.2.2 James Fennimore Cooper (1789-1851)
- two great figures of American mythology the
brave frontiersman and the bold Indian. - author of the Leather Stocking Talesa series
of five novels - The Pioneers (1823)
- The Last of the Mohicans (1826)
- The Prairie (1827)
- The Pathfinder (1840)
- The Deerslayer (1841)
- frontiersman heroNatty Bumppo representing the
ideal American.
182.2.3 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
- chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalisms
ummit of American Romanticism. - defined as the recognition in man of the
capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of
attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the
senses. - His essays have a casual style.
- The bestNature and Essays
192.2.4 Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
- a descendant of Puritan immigrants.
- a pioneer in psychological description.
- wrote as a moralist tried to find out how men
reacted in their mind when they found they had
done something wrong exposed the evils of the
society by describing the psychological
activities of human beings. - most famous novelThe Scarlet Letter
- other works
- The House of Seven Gables (1851)
- The Blithedale Romance (1852)
- The Marble Faun (1860)
202.2.5 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
- a lonely writer both in life and literature
history. - literary output poetry, short stories, and
reviews for literary works. - strange theme and style make him an outsider of
the main current of American literature. - foreigners acclaimed him as genius
- masterpieces
- The Raven (1845)
- The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
212.2.6 Herman Melville (1819-1891)
- fameestablished on Moby Dick.
- acknowledged as one of the worlds great
masterpieces. - themetoo far advanced for his contemporaries
- presenting a bleak view of the world
- the universe is Godless and purposeless
- human life is also meaningless and futile.
222.3 Writers of Poets
2.3.1
2.3.2
232.3.1 Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
- poemsThe Leaves of Grass
- combined the ideal of democratic common man and
that of the rugged individual - poetic style
- free versepoetry without a fixed beat (??) or
regular rhyme scheme. - his poetry ironically ignored by the general
public due to his unconventional style.
24 2.3.2 Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
- different from Whitman
- the poetessturned to the outer world and
embraced society, democracy and nation - cast her eyes inward to explore the inner
feelings of the individual. - shy and sensitive nature, she avoided visitors
and led a quite reclusive (???) life.
25 2.3.2 Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) (cont.)
- short poems
- the real worldinvisible in the concise lines,
neither are there people. - nature dwell in her world, and metaphysical
(?????) thinking like death and immortality
occupies her mind. - most famous poems
- My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close (1896)
- Because I could Not Stop for Death (1890)
- A Narrow Fellow in the Grass (1891)
- constructing a wonderful worldsmall but intense,
fresh, individual and original.
262.4 Questions
- Q1 What are the characteristics of American
writing during the Romantic period? - Q2 How much do you like Nathaniel Hawthornes
workThe Scarlet Letter, and how do you interpret
the letter A?
27 The Realistic Period (1790-1865)
III
28 3.1 Feature
- a reaction against Romanticism.
- stressingtruthful treatment of material.
- the writings are concerned with the world of
experience, the
commonplace, the familiar and the low. - dominant figures
- Mark Twain
- William Dean Howells
- Henry James
293.2 Representative Figures
3.2.1
3.2.2
3.2.3
2.2.5
2.2.6
303.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910)
- grew up in the Mississippi River frontier town of
Hannibal, Missouri. - Twains style based on vigorous, realistic,
colloquial American speecha new appreciation of
their national voice. - first major author coming from the interior of
the country capturing its distinctive, humorous
slang and iconoclasm.
31Masterpiece
3.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910) (cont.)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Hucks inner struggle between his sense of guilt
in helping Jim to escape and profound conviction
that Jim is a human being. - Through escape, he gets to know Jim better and
accepts Jim as both a human being and a loyal
friend.
32Other Famous Novels
3.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910) (cont.)
- The Adventure of Tom Sawyer (1876)
- The Prince and the Pauper (1882)
- Life on the Mississippi (1883)
- The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900)
- The Mysterious Stranger (1916)
-
33Contribution
3.2.1 Mark Twain (1835-1910) (cont.)
- making colloquial speech an accepted, respectable
literary medium in literature. - influence of his style
- sweeping across the American literary world.
- far-reaching
- making Some 20th-century writers acknowledge
their indebtedness (??) to Mark Twain
34 3.2.2 Henry James (1843-1916)
- bridges the 19th and 20th centuries and connects
America and Europe. - the international theme the meeting of
America and Europe. - Europeansmore cultured, more concerned with art,
and more aware of the subtleties of social
situations - Americansmorality and innocence
35Major Works
3.2.2 Henry James (1843-1916) (cont.)
- The American (1877)
- Daisy Miller (1878)
- The Wings of the Dove (1902)
- The Golden Bowl (1904)
- The Portrait of A Lady (1881)
36 3.2.3 William Dean Howells (1837-1920)
- realismphotographic pictures of externals but
includes a central concern with motives and
psychological conflicts. - prolific writer drama, poetry and novels in
addition to criticism, travelogues (????) and
autobiography. - masterpieceThe Rise of Silas Lapham (1885)
37 The Naturalistic Period (1900-1914)
IV
38 4.1 Feature
- Apply principles of scientific determinism to
fiction and drama. - Viewing human beings as animals in the natural
world responding to environmental forces and
internal stresses and drives.
39Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)
4.2 Representative Figure
- American valuesmaterialistic
- human individual is obsessed with a never-ending,
yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his
desires. - Money
- Sex
- embracing social Darwinism
- the survival of the fittest
40Masterpiece
4.2 Representative Figure (cont.)
- Sister Carrie (1900)
- Carriea country girl looking for a better life
in Chicago. Drouet took her home as mistress.
Hurstwood, Drouets friend, deserted family and
forced her to run away with him. Carrie became a
famous actress Hurstwood committed suicide. - Dreisers naturalistic pursuit
- expounding the purposelessness of life
- attacking the conventional moral standards.
41Other Works
4.2 Representative Figure (cont.)
- Trilogy (???) of desire
- The Financer (1912)
- The Titan (1914)
- The Stoic (1945)
- masterpieceThe American Tragedy (1925)
42 The Modern Period (1914-1939)
V
435. 1 Lost Generation
Q What is the Lost Generation?
- American writers caught in WWI and cut off from
the old values unable to come to terms with the
new era.
5.1.1
445.1.1 F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
- The Great Gatsbya masterpiece in American
literature. - Gatsby discovers the devastating cost of success
in terms of personal fulfillment and love. - Gatsbys life pattern
- first, a dream
- Then, disenchantment (??)
- Finally, a sense of failure and despair
- end of the American Dream
455.1.2 Earnest Hemingway (1899-1961)
- Nobel Prize winner
- major works
- A Farewell To Arms (1928)
- For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
- The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
465.1.2 Earnest Hemingway (1899-1961) (cont.)
475.1.2 Earnest Hemingway (1899-1961)(cont.)
- Hemingways worldchaotic and meaningless
- man fighting a solitary struggle against a force
he does not understand. - Hero possessing a despairing courage.
- the courage enables a man to behave like a man,
to assert his dignity in face of adversity (??). - writing style colloquialism
- concrete, specific words
- casual and conversational
- short, simple sentences
485.2 Modern Poetry
Representative Figure
- Ezra Pound (1885-1972) a link between US and
Britain - Imagism
- image
- something that presents an intellectual and
emotional complex in an instant of time. - The Cantos he wrote and published until his
death.
49 The Contemporary Period (1939- )
VI
Black Writers
6.1
Literature of Modern South
6.4
506.1 Black Writers
- Richard WrightNative Son (1940)
- Ralph EllisonInvisible Man (1952)
- James BaldwinGo Tell It on the Mountain (1954)
- readers conscious of an oppressed race groaning
and struggling for salvation
51Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
6.1 Black Writers (cont.)
- poet laureate, literary figure of Harlem
Renaissance. - embraced African-American jazz rhythms and
incorporated blues, spirituals, colloquial
speech, and folkways in his poetry. - most beloved poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers
- suggesting that, like the great rivers of the
world, African culture will endure and deepen.
526.2 Jewish writers
- Jewish writers not only focus upon Jewish
characters and social questions, but also bring a
distinctively Jewish sense of humor to their
novels. - Yiddishlanguage used by European Jews
- preserve Jewish culture, isolated but intact
(???), until the early 20th century.
53Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
6.2 Jewish writers (cont.)
- Won Nobel Prize in 1976
- Famous works
- Dangling Man (1944)
- The Victim (1947)
- The Adventures of Augie March (1954)
- Henderson the Rain King (1959)
- Herzog (1964)
- Mr. Sammlers Planet (1970)
- Humboldt's Gift (1975)
54Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
6.2 Jewish writers (cont.)
556.3 The Beat Movement
- beat representing a non-conformist, rebellious
attitude toward conventional values concerning
sex, religion and the American way of life, an
attitude resulting from the feeling of depression
and exhaustion and the need to escape into an
unconventional, communal mode of life. - central Beat writers
- William Burroughs
- Allen Ginsberg
- Jack Kerouac
56Beat Writers Works
6.3 The Beat Movement (cont.)
- express emotion raw, rather than cooked
through memory and translation into art. - representative works
- Jack Kerouac On the Road (1957),
- William BurroughsNaked Lunch (1959)
- Allen GinsbergHowl (1956)
57Beat Writers Works
6.3 The Beat Movement (cont.)
586.4 Literature of Modern South
- William FaulknerNobel Prize winning novelist
- Major works
- The Sound and the Fury (1929)
- As I Lay Dying (1930)
- Light in August (1932)
- Absalom, Absalom! (1936)
- Go Down, Moses (1942)
- stories set in a small southern county,
exploration of basic human nature and basic
patterns of human behavior make them enduring
works in world literature.
596.5 Womens Voices
- Feminist movement during the 1960s and 1970s
affected American culture and womens
relationship with the opposite sex.
60 Tony Morrison (1931- )
6.5 Womens Voices (cont.)
- Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.
- explored the experience of black women in a
racist culture. - famous novelsThe Bluest Eye (1970) Beloved
(1987) - the latter is about Margaret Garner, a slave
escaping with her children when recaptured,
attempted to kill her children rather than return
them to life of slavery.
61 Alice Walker (1944- )
6.5 Womens Voices (cont.)
- spoke for the womens movement, for the
anti-nuclear movement. - concern of her works
- sexual and racial realities within black
communities - unavoidable connections between family and
society.
62Alice Walkers Masterpiece
6.5 Womens Voices (cont.)
- Fictionweaving back and forth through time and
individual perspectives. - Charactersseek redemption, forgiveness and
peace. - received the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for The Color
Purple.
63Amy Tan (1952- )
6.5 Womens Voices (cont.)
- Chinese-American writer
- portrays the lives of Chinese American daughters
and their Chinese immigrant mothers. - characters conflicting emotions
- being native-born Americans of Chinese ancestry.
- Novels
- The Joy Luck Club (1989)
- The Kitchen Gods Wife (1991)
- focus on the relationships between mothers and
daughters.
646.6 Drama
- rise of American drama in 20th century.
- With the opening of theatres, drama turned up as
an influential literary form in American
literature. - three representative playwrights.
65Eugene ONeill (1888-1953)
6.6 Drama (cont.)
- greatest playwright, won Nobel Prize in 1936.
- dramaserious literature and wrote tragedies
consistently. - wrote 45 plays
- highly experimental in form and style
- combining literary theories of symbolism,
naturalism and expressionism. - great influence on later American playwrights.
66Eugene ONeills Famous Plays
6.6 Drama (cont.)
- Beyond the Horizon (1920)
- The Hairy Ape (1922)
- Desire Under the Elms (1924)
- The Iceman Cometh (1946) climax of his career
- Long Days Journey into Night (1956)
- sensitive artist.
- felt the discordant (????), broken, faithless
rhythm of his time - probing into the root of human desires and
frustrations - pessimistic plays, leaving the characters without
illusion and hope.
67Eugene ONeills Famous Plays
6.6 Drama (cont.)
68Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
6.6 Drama (cont.)
- a dramatist, wrote novel, poetry, prose and short
stories. - representative works
- The Glass Menagerie (1945)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)for which was
awarded Pulitzer Prize. - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
- Suddenly Last Summer (1958)
69Tennessee Williams Writing Features
6.6 Drama (cont.)
- wrote of isolated and lonely people of American
society. - good at creating pathetic (???) woman
- typical one Laura, heroine in The Glass
Menagerie. - a fragile girl lives in illusion, which is
smashed to pieces by a male intrudersymbol of
reality.
70Arthur Miller (1915-2005)
6.6 Drama (cont.)
- social dramatistconcerns the conflicts of the
individual within society and presents a social
critique of the inhuman capitalist system. - Death of a Salesman (1947)
- modern tragedy
- presentation and disclosure of the cruelty and
bloodiness of capitalism. - other important plays
- All My Sons (1947)
- The Crucible (1953)
- A View from the Bridge (1955)
71Arthur Miller MasterpieceDeath of a Salesman
6.6 Drama (cont.)
72Arthur Miller MasterpieceDeath of a Salesman
6.6 Drama (cont.)
- modern tragedy
- presentation and disclosure of the cruelty and
bloodiness of capitalism. - miserable life and tragic death of Willy firm
conviction in American dream. - Disillusioned, he killed himself to get 20,000
life insurance money.
73Willythe salesman
6.6 Drama (cont.)
74Thank You !