美國(guó)文學(xué)史7(2)The1920s

1、 The 1920s Part 2 Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) He was a transitional poet between the 19th and 20th centuries. His subject was centered around a small New England town.He named it Tilbury town. In the town most people are failures in life. One of his major themes is the futility of human lif

2、e. He showed that there was no way human could avoid the destructive power of time. He turned to poetry as to an alternative world of elegance and beauty, but wrote his best poems about wasted, blighted or impoverished lives. His brief story and portrait poems are in traditional form with metrically

3、 regular verse, rhymes and elevated diction. Such techniques dignify the subject matter and also provide a contrast, whereas his subject is unpoetic according to traditional standards, that emphasize its sadness and banality.Collection of Poems: The Torrent and the Night Before The Town Down the Riv

4、er: (poem: Miniver Cheevy) The Man Against the Sky Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) To him, a poet lives in two worlds-one of reality and the other of imagination-and builds bridges b/w them. All his poems recorded the unending dialogue of imagination & reality. He tried to stress that the world of imagi

5、nation is important because it supplies an order which the real world lacks. He was firmly sure that the imaginative world is imagination. But he believed that people must move to this world because people need a world of order. His poetry emphasizes the sense of loss and gives a solutionthe realm o

6、f imagination. William Carlos WilliamsHis poetics: 1.The source of information- Life as it is lived is the beginning and the end of the poets endeavor. Life is in itself poetry simple and pure. American poetry must be rooted in America as its fount of inspiration and its source of information and su

7、bject matter. What he wanted to achieve is to reach the universal plane of meaning through the representation of the local. He believes that “l(fā)ocalism alone can lead to culture.”2. The language of his poetry- He feels strongly that poetry must be grounded in everyday experience and in the speech of

8、the common man. It must use the common meters of living speech.3.The use of image - He is an excellent imagist poet. To him, Philosophical and metaphysical speculation has absolutely no place in poetry. He says, “Say it! No ideas but in things”. (Paterson)Dont philosophize; visualize in terms of tha

9、t which is physical and particular. poem: Spring and Alllong poem: PatersonProse work: In the American Grain Robert Frost Robert Frost Robert Frost He is one of the most popular American modernist poets. The charm of his poetry is that it seems to be natural,direct and simple and the fact is that it

10、 is deceptively simple. Frosts poems are New England in their setting.The subjects come from country life of ordinary people.He used plain language, traditional poetics and symbols from everyday life to express profound ideas. He combined traditional poetic forms with American vocabulary and speech

11、rhythms.-This is his innovation. He stood aside from the literary movements of the 20th century since he showed little interest in experimentation in form. But for him, form is as important as sense. The ordering of sound and sense(語(yǔ)調(diào)與意義的統(tǒng)一) is one major concern of his career. Yet he stood aloft amo

12、ng his contemporary poets because of his modern thematic concern. In his poems. He managed to construct a “ momentary stay against confusion”.（抵御困惑的瞬間智慧）famous poem:The Road Not Taken Stopping By Woods on a Snowy EveningMending WallThe Wood Pile 我想我知道這是誰(shuí)的森林他的家雖在那邊鄉(xiāng)村；他看不到我駐足在此地佇望他的森林白雪無(wú)垠。我的小馬一定會(huì)覺(jué)得離奇停

13、留于曠無(wú)農(nóng)舍之地在這森林和冰湖之間一年內(nèi)最昏暗的冬夕。 它將它的佩玲朗朗一牽問(wèn)我有沒(méi)有弄錯(cuò)了地點(diǎn)。此外但聞微風(fēng)的拂吹和紛如鵝毛的雪片。這森林真可愛(ài)，黝黑而深邃?？墒俏疫€要去趕赴約會(huì)，還要趕好幾英里路才安睡，還要趕好幾英里路才安睡。 His “the sound of sense”（“帶意義的語(yǔ)帶意義的語(yǔ)調(diào)調(diào)”） 1.: 全詩(shī)由四行首尾韻詩(shī)節(jié)構(gòu)成，使用連鎖抱韻（interlocking enclosed rhyme），韻式為aaba, bbcb, ccdc,dddd，即每個(gè)詩(shī)節(jié)的一、二、四行押韻，第三行的韻腳成為下一節(jié)一、二、四行的韻腳，節(jié)節(jié)相連，環(huán)環(huán)相扣，前后呼應(yīng)，形成一種回環(huán)向前的運(yùn)動(dòng)感。最

14、后一節(jié)押同一韻，重錘定音，卻沒(méi)有單調(diào)之感 。整首詩(shī)的韻腳都是長(zhǎng)元音或雙元音，形成流暢、圓潤(rùn)的感覺(jué)，襯托了飄雪的夜晚的靜謐。 2.“The Death of The Hired Man”（雇工之死）“No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.” 第一行中hurt與head押頭韻，第二行中rolled與old head都以爆破音結(jié)尾，這都屬于刺耳音。 sharp-edged chair-back這幾個(gè)詞中，刺耳的輔音又堆在一起，使讀者感覺(jué)自己就坐在那把

15、硬椅子上，脖子被硬硬的椅子背硌得生疼。3.“The Span of Life”（生命的跨度）The old dog barks backward without getting up.I can remember when he was a pup. 這首詩(shī)把一只老狗的衰老 和他年幼時(shí)的活潑進(jìn)行了對(duì)比。詩(shī)人用了很含蓄的語(yǔ)言。詩(shī)的題目賦予這兩個(gè)相對(duì)比的形象以深遠(yuǎn)的意義，這兩個(gè)形象不僅代表了動(dòng)物的一生，也代表了人的一生。這首詩(shī)是三音步三音步的抑抑揚(yáng)格的對(duì)句。但是在第一行的第二個(gè)音步中, 詩(shī)人用一種古典音步 替換了原有的抑抑揚(yáng)格，這種音步由三個(gè)重讀音節(jié)組成。第一個(gè)音步本來(lái)是抑抑揚(yáng)格，由兩個(gè)弱讀音節(jié)與

16、一個(gè)重讀音節(jié)組成，緊隨著這個(gè)重讀音節(jié)又有三個(gè)重讀音節(jié)，這樣四個(gè)重讀音節(jié)就連在一起了old dog barks back(ward).而且這四個(gè)重讀音節(jié)都以重讀輔音開頭和結(jié)尾，所以發(fā)音時(shí)不能連讀，在讀每一個(gè)音時(shí)口形變化都很大。因?yàn)槊恳粋€(gè)音相差都很大，使讀者讀這一行時(shí)發(fā)音很費(fèi)力，朗讀速度大大減慢。這一詩(shī)行的笨重程度 就如那只衰老的狗，站都站不起來(lái)，只有轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)腦袋的力氣。第二行與第一行的對(duì)比非常明顯，是標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的抑揚(yáng)格，其韻律是輕快、規(guī)則的，各音節(jié)都是以元音或流音結(jié)尾，發(fā)音時(shí)口型變化小，能輕快地連續(xù)讀下來(lái)，整行詩(shī)能流暢地從口中吐出。 選擇三音節(jié)的音步是因?yàn)樵谕瑯拥囊慌闹?，容納三音節(jié)時(shí)的語(yǔ)速比容納兩音節(jié)時(shí)的

17、語(yǔ)速要快，這更能襯托出“Time is fleeting”.特別是在第二行中，更有利于表現(xiàn)這只狗小時(shí)候的靈活敏捷。 另外，第一行的單詞中爆破音和刺耳的輔音占很大比重d,d,g,b,k,b,k,d,t,g,t,g,p，而第二行中的輔音中滑音占了大部分n,r,m,m,r,wh,h,w。這樣，每一行詩(shī)句的聲音及描述的動(dòng)作都與這一行詩(shī)中的意象相呼應(yīng)，英語(yǔ)中再也沒(méi)有其它的只有兩句詩(shī)行的詩(shī)能與這首相媲美。 。 Carl Sandburg He is an important figure in the Chicago Renaissance of arts and letters. His poetic

18、aim was to celebrate the working people of America in poems that they could understand.He said:simple poems for simple people. He was aware that American life was increasingly urban, and he had little interest in the small town and its conventional middle class. In the cities ofthe Midwest, the urba

19、n spectacle seemed to display both the vitality of the masses and their exploitation in an unequal class system.poem: ChicagoFog The Harbor Ernest Hemingway(1899-1961)novel:The Sun Also Rises(1922)A Farewell to Arms(1928)For whom the Bell Tolls(1940s)The Old Man and the Sea(1952)Short stories: In Ou

20、r Time Winner Take Nothing Men without Women To Have and Have Not The Fifth Columnnon-fiction: Death in the Afternoon Green Hills of AfricaHis typical theme: He was generally regarded as spokesman for Lost Generation. In one sense Hemingway wrote all his life about one theme-“grace under pressure” (

21、重壓下的風(fēng)度重壓下的風(fēng)度), and created one hero who acts that theme out. In a time of general despair and pessimism he wrote stories with heroes that the readers could admire. There is a particular term “the code hero” （人物形象的準(zhǔn)則） for his character. Features of “the code hero” are 1) extremely great courage, 2) e

22、ndurance 3) man of great action 4)unconquerable will: A man can be destroyed, but not defeated. Almost all his stories deal with the theme of courage in face of tragedy. Hemingways world is a world essentially chaotic and meaningless, in which man fights a solitary sruggle against a force he does no

23、t even understand. The awareness that it must end in defeat, no matter how hard he strives against it, engenders a sense of despair，but the hemingway hero possesses “despairing courage”.(絕望中的勇氣) It is this courage that enables a man to behave like a man ,to assert his dignity in face of adversity. T

24、his is the essence of a code of honor（榮譽(yù)的準(zhǔn)則）, which all his heroes believe in. (Thus the typical Hemingway situations are usually characterized by chaos and brutality and violence, by crime and death, and sport, hard drinking and sexual promiscuity. And the typical Hemingway hero is one who, wounded

25、 but srong, more sensitive and wounded because stronger, enjoys the pleasures of life in face of ruin and death and maintains, through some notion of a code, an ideal of himself.) In his fiction the nihilistic vision of sterility, failure, and death is modified by his affirmative assertion of the po

26、ssibility of living with style and courage. Therefore, he often dealt with war and courage, and with the question of how tolive with pain. His iceberg theory of writing:（冰山原則）（冰山原則） 1/8 of an iceberg is above the water. All of the rest is underneath the water. The same is true with Hemingways writin

27、g. His sentences only give one small bit of the meaning. The rest is implied. One must go very deep beneath the surface to understand the full meaning of his writing.Lost Generation: Name applied to the disillusioned intellectuals and aesthetes of the years following WWI,who rebelled against former ideals and values but could replace them only by despair or a cynical hedonism. The remark of Gertrude Stein. “you are all a lost generation,” addressed to Hemingway, was used as a preface to the latters novel The sun Also Rise