An introduction to literature
Literature
一、What is literature?
Literature comes from Latin \"litterae\
The word literature literally means \"acquaintance with letters\" and the term \"letters\" is sometimes used to signify \"literature,\" as in the figures of speech \"arts and letters\" and \"man of letters.\" General meanings?
①published writings in a particular style on a particular subject (publications, books, brochures and so on)
②creative writing of recognized artistic value (artistic and literary writings) ③the profession or art of a writer (vocation)
④the humanistic study of a body of literature (subject) ⑤musical product
⑥knowledge or learning
⑦reading (supplementary literature)
A Crazy Act
Literature is about writing in a particular country of a period, all over the world in general.
Literature is a writing which has claimed to consider underground of beauty of form, and emotional effect. (Aestheticism) Literature is all the writings that have permanent value, excellent form and great emotional effect.
Literature is a writing having excellence of form or expression, and expressing ideas of permanence of universal interest. (critical mind) A developing term. Aestheticism
Aestheticism (or the Aesthetic Movement) was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design.
Generally, it represents the same tendencies that symbolism or decadence represented in France, and may be considered the British version of the same style. It was part of the anti-19th century reaction and had post-Romantic origins, and as such anticipates modernism. It was a feature of the late 19th century from about 1868 to about 1900.
The artists and writers of Aesthetic style used the slogan \"Art for Art's Sake\"(艺术是纯粹的), tended to profess that the Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure, rather than convey moral or sentimental messages. Instead, they believed that Art did not have any didactic purpose; it need only be beautiful.
The Aesthetes developed a cult of beauty, which they considered the basic factor of art. Life should copy Art, they asserted. They considered nature as crude and lacking in design when compared to art.
In Britain the best representatives were Oscar Wilde and Algernon Charles Swinburne, also including John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, greatly influenced by the French Symbolists.
Oscar Wilde (1856-1900):
a. an Irish playwright, an aesthete advocating “art for art’s sake”.
b. His language is concise, witty and sharp. He criticizes the hypocrisy and corruption of the upper class. His attacks are more like jokes.
c. Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest
A developing term.
What is literature?
1) The definition of 14th century:
➢ It means polite learning through reading. A man of literature or a man of letters = a man of wide reading, “literacy” 2) The definition of 18th century: ➢ practice and profession of writing 3) The definition of 19th century:
➢ the high skills of writing in the special context of high imagination 4) Robert Frost’s definition: ➢ performance in words 5) Modern definition:
➢ We can define literature as language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages. Literature is characterized by beauty of expression and form and by universality intellectual and emotional appeal.
Different Ideas
Literature is imitation. Literature is function.
Literature is an expression of emotions. (imagism意象派) Literature is literature.（pay attention to its form）
Imagism
1) It is a Movement in U.S. and English poetry characterized by the use of concrete language and figures of speech, modern subject matter, metrical freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images.
2) It grew out of the Symbolist Movement in 1912 and was initially led by Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and others.
3) The Imagist manifesto came out in 1912 showed three Imagist poetic principles: direct treatment of the “thing”（no fuss, frill, or ornament）, exclusion of superfluous words（precision and economy of expression）, the rhythm of the musical phrase rather than the sequence of a metronome（free verse form and music）.
4) Pound defined an image as that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time, and later he extended this definition when he stated that an image was “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas, endowed with energy.”
5) Generally an Imagist’s image represents a moment of revealed truth, truth revealed by a physical object presented and seen as such. An Imagist poem, therefore, often contains a single dominant image, or a quick succession of related images. Its effect is meant to be instantaneous. For example:
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough. 人群中幽然浮现的一张张脸庞， 黝黑的湿树枝上的一片片花瓣。
6) About the above poem:
❖ The “Metro” is the underground railway of Paris. In this brief poem, Pound uses the fewest possible words to convey an accurate image, according to the principles of the “Imagists”.
❖ He tries to render exactly his observation of human faces seen in an underground railway station. He sees the faces, turned variously toward light and darkness, like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half resisting, the wet, dark texture of a bough.
❖ The word “apparition”, with its double meaning, binds the two aspects of the observation together:
➢ Apparition meaning “appearance”, in the sense of something which appears, or shows up; something which can be clearly observed.
➢ Apparition meaning something which seems real but perhaps is not real; something ghostly which cannot be clearly observed.
This is perhaps the most famous poem written by Ezra Pound. 1.His Life:
1) Born in Idaho in 1885 and raised in Pennsylvania, Ezra Pound spent most of his life in Europe and became one of the 20th century's most influential -- and controversial -- poets in the English language.
2) Pound was undoubtedly a genius. Before he graduated from university, he had mastered 9 languages as well as English grammar and literature. After college in Pennsylvania and a brief stint as a teacher, in 1908 Pound travelled to Venice and then to London, where he refined his aesthetic sensibilities and edited the anthology Des Imagistes (1914).
3) Pound championed the likes of T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams and James Joyce and, influenced by Chinese and Japanese poetry, advocated free
meter and a more economical use of words and images in poetic expression, leading the Imagist Movement of poetry.
4) He moved to Paris in 1920 and got acquainted with Gertrude Stein and her circle of friends (which included Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso), then settled in Italy in 1924.
5) Enamored with Benito Mussolini, Pound made anti-American radio broadcasts during World War II. He was arrested as a traitor in 1945 and initially confined in Pisa. He was then sent to the U.S., where he was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial for treason.
6) Pound was confined for 12 years in a hospital (actually prison) for the criminally insane in Washington. During this time he translated works of ancient Greek and ancient Chinese literature. While in prison, he was awarded a prestigious poetry prize in 1949 for his last Cantos.
7) In 1958 he returned to Italy, where he continued to write and make translations until he died in 1972. 2. His works:
1) Pound wrote 70 books and over 1500 articles in his life.
2) His major work of poetry is The Cantos, a long poem which he wrote in sections between 1915 and 1945. 3. His masterpiece: The Cantos
1) In this poem, he traces the rise and fall of eastern and western empires, the destruction caused by greed and materialism.
2) He deplores the corruption of America after the heroic time of Jefferson, 3) The last part, produced from his own suffering, is the most moving.
7）There existed great influence of Chinese poetry on the Imagist movement. Imagists found value in Chinese poetry was because Chinese poetry is, by virtue of the ideographic and pictographic nature of the Chinese language, essentially imagistic poetry.
《天净沙·秋思》
马致远
枯藤、老树、昏鸦，小桥、流水、人家， 古道、西风、瘦马，夕阳西下，断肠人在天涯。
Autumn
Evening crows perch on old trees wreathed with withered vine, Water of a stream flows by a family cottage near a tiny bridge. A lean horse walks on an ancient road in western breeze,
The sun is setting in the west,
The heart-broken one is at the end of the Earth.
二、Why should we study literature?
It can nourish our emotional life.
It can broaden people's perspectives on the world and offer them knowledge in the form of information.
It can help people to escape from reality.
For nothing but the aesthetic pleasure of observing good artistry form. It can help students to write a paper or pass an examination.
三、How to study literature?
Literature is not literature.
Historical Perspectives: Biographical-Historical and Moral-Philosophical.(Diverse Types of Historicisms: including Feminist, Sociological or Marxian Studies of Language, Literature and Translation)
Structuralist Perspectives: Looking for Systematic Deep Structures both in Form and Content.(Semiotics, TG Grammar, Systematic/Functional Grammar, Narratology, Freudian psycho-analysis, Russian Formalism, Anglo-American New Criticism, Archetypalism, Myth Criticism, Structural Marxism, Ideology)
Poststructuralist or Postmodern Perspectives: Deconstructing Structuring Binaries (No Clear Distinction between Form and Content)[Postmodern Feminism, Postcolonialism, Postmodern Narratologies, New Historicism, Ideological Studies, Discourse Analysis, Reception Theories, Trauma Studies, Trans-Atlantic Studies, Transnationalism, Eco-criticism, Cultural Pathology, and other Postmodernisms] 1. The Traditional Approaches: 1) Analytical Approach
➢ Be familiar with the elements of a literary work, eg: plot, character, setting, point of view, structure, style, atmosphere, theme, etc; answer some basic questions about the text itself. 2) Thematic Approach
➢ “What is the story, the poem, the play or the essay about?” 3) Historical - Biographical Approach 4) Moral - Philosophical Approach. 2. The Formalistic Appoach
➢ Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Semiotics 3．The Psychological Approach: Freud 4. Mythological and Archetypal Approach 5. Feminist Approaches 6. Sociological Approach 7. Deconstruction
8. Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Reception Theory 9. Cultural Criticism
➢ American Multicultualism
➢ The New Historicism, British Cultural Materialism 10. Additional Approaches: ① Aristotlian Criticism ② Genre Criticism
③ Rhetoric, Linguistics, and Stylistics ④ The Marxist Approach ⑤ Ecological Criticism ⑥ Post Colonialism
Fiction
I. What is fiction?
Fiction refers to any narrative which has not actually occurred in the history or in the historical or real world, usually written in prose. It is often associated with novel.
The term novel probably comes from the Italian word \"novella\little new thing\" and \"tale\". 纪实小说？
Novel: a long work of prose fiction.
Novel, as a more realistic literary genre, is sometimes distinguished in academic literary criticism from the romance, but this distinction is not maintained by all critics.
Novel is different form romance in that it is more realistic, secular, social, psychological, character-centered, and so on.
Romance consist of \"the Constant Loves and invincible Courages of Heros, Heroins, Kings and Queens, Mortals of the first rank.\" (imagination) Novels, however, \"are of a more familiar Nature; Come near us, and represent to us Intrigues in Practice, delight us with Accidents and odd Events, but not such as are wholly unusual or unpresidented, such which being not so distant from our Belief bring also the pleasure nearer us. Romances give more Wonder, Novels more Delight.\" (William Congreve)
All in all, fiction is an imaginary but usually plausible and comparatively truthful prose narrative which dramatizes changes in human relationship. The author draws his materials from his experiences and observation of life, but shakes them to his purposes which include illumination of human experience.
Romance (heroic literature)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as having heroic qualities, who goes on a quest. Popular literature also drew on themes of romance, but with ironic, satiric or burlesque intent. Romances reworked legends, fairy tales, and history to suit the readers' and hearers' tastes, but by c.1600 they were out of fashion. Still, the modern image of \"medieval\" is more influenced by the romance than by any other medieval genre, and the word medieval invokes knights, distressed damsels, dragons, and other romantic tropes.
Modern usage of term \"romance\" usually refer to the romance novel, which is a subgenre that focuses on the relationship and romantic love between two people; these novels must have an \"emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.\" Despite the popularity of this popular meaning of Romance, other works are still,
occasionally, referred to as romances because of their uses of other elements descended from the medieval romance, or from the Romantic Movement: larger-than-life heroes and heroines, drama and adventure, marvels that may become fantastic, themes of honor and loyalty, or fairy-tale-like stories and story settings.
Shakespeare's later comedies, such as The Tempest or The Winter's Tale are sometimes called this romances. Modern works may differentiate from love-story as romance into different genres, such as planetary romance or Ruritanian romance. Science fiction was, for a time, termed scientific romance, and gaslamp fantasy is sometimes termed gaslight romance.
II. Types of fiction
Character: the Kunstlerroman, the spy novel, the Bildungsroman (initative
novel)
Setting: the historical novel, the campus novel Plot: the detective novel
Structure: the epistolary novel, the picaresque novel Length: novel, novella, short story, novellet
...... (Stream-of-consciousness novel, hypertext novel, Saga novel ...) Künstlerroman艺术家成长小说 A Künstlerroman, meaning \"artist's novel\" in German, is a narrative about an artist's growth to maturity. It may be classified as a specific sub-genre of Bildungsroman; such a work, usually a novel, tends to depict the conflicts of a sensitive youth against the values of a bourgeois society of his or her time. 1909 Jack London Martin Eden
1913 D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers
1914 James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 1920 F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise 1927 Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse
Bildungsroman成长小说，教育小说
Bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, or apprenticeship novel, or novel of education, arising in Germany, is a literary genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age), and in which character change is thus extremely important. The term coming-of-age novel is sometimes used interchangeably with Bildungsroman, but its use is usually wider and less technical.
There are many variations and subgenres of Bildungsroman that focus on the growth of an individual. An Entwicklungsroman (\"development novel\") is a story of general growth rather than self-cultivation. An Erziehungsroman (\"education novel\") focuses on training and formal schooling, while a Künstlerroman (\"artist novel\") is about the development of an artist and shows a growth of the self.
A Bildungsroman tells about the growing up of a sensitive person who is looking
for answers and experience. The genre evolved from folklore tales of a dunce or youngest son going out in the world to seek his fortune.
Usually in the beginning of the story there is an emotional loss which makes the protagonist leave on his journey. In a Bildungsroman, the goal is maturity, and the protagonist achieves it gradually and with difficulty.
The genre often features a main conflict between the main character and society. Typically, the values of society are gradually accepted by the protagonist and he is ultimately accepted into society – the protagonist's mistakes and disappointments are over. In some works, the protagonist is able to reach out and help others after having achieved maturity.
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte (1847)
David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens (1850)
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (1860-1861) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1884) The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde (1890) The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger (1951) Goodbye, Columbus, by Philip Roth (1959)
Eepistolary Novel书信体小说
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic \"documents\" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use.
The epistolary form can add greater realism to a story, because it mimics the workings of real life. It is thus able to demonstrate differing points of view without recourse to the device of an omniscient narrator.
Saul Bellow's novel Herzog (1964) is largely written in letter format. These are both real and imagined letters, written by the protagonist Moses E. Herzog to family members, friends and famous figures.
Picaresque novel流浪汉小说 (例:唐吉柯德)
Miguel de’Cervantes 流浪汉小说鼻祖（Don Quixote de la Mancha）
The picaresque novel is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts, in realistic and often humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. This style of novel originated in sixteenth century Spain and flourished throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It continues to influence modern literature.
Stream-of-consciousness novel意识流小说
In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions. The term \"Stream of Consciousness\" was taken from the book \"The Principles of Psychology\". Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a
special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow.
Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are distinguished from dramatic monologue, where the speaker is addressing an audience or a third person, which is used chiefly in poetry or drama. In stream of consciousness, the speaker's thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself); it is primarily a fictional device. The term was introduced to the field of literary studies from that of psychology, where it was coined by philosopher and psychologist William James.
Stream of consciousness is the continuous flow of sense‐perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories in the human mind or a literary method of representing a blending of mental processes in fictional characters, usually in an unpunctuated or disjointed form of interior monologue. The term is often used as a synonym for interior monologue, but they can also be distinguished, in two ways. In the first (psychological) sense, the stream of consciousness is the subject‐matter while interior monologue is the technique for presenting it.
In the second (literary) sense, stream of consciousness is a special style of interior monologue: while an interior monologue always presents a character's thoughts ‘directly’, without the apparent intervention of a summarizing and selecting narrator, it does not necessarily mingle them with impressions and perceptions, nor does it necessarily violate the norms of grammar, syntax, and logic; but the stream‐of‐consciousness technique also does one or both of these things. An important device of modernist fiction and its later imitators, the technique was pioneered by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922), and further developed by Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and William Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury (1928).
Hypertext novel超文本小说
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the underlying concept defining the structure of the World Wide Web. It is an easy-to-use and flexible format to share information over the Internet.
Saga novel大型系列小说
A saga novel is a novel among various literary novels which is encompassing the wide scopes of stories and narratives such as religious saga, national saga, family saga, and human saga, etc.
The major example of a saga novel in English literature is George Eliot's Middlemarch. In the US, Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind belong to the category of saga novels.
However, the British and American Sagas are usually underestimated more than middle-sized novels in academic institutions despite their public popularity. In China, Lo Guanzhong (Lo Kuanchung)'s Sanguo zhi yanyi (Romance of the Three
Kingdoms) is the most representative and well-known saga novel since the 14th century as one of the four great classical novels in China.
▪ A Dream of Red Mansions (The Story of the Stone) ▪ Pilgrimage to the West (Journey to the West) ▪ Heroes of Marshes (Water Margins) ▪ Romance of the Three Kingdoms
III. History of fiction. (4-6)
① the early 14th century
② the mid-17th century——the first true novel France, the development of a refined short novel ③ the 18th century
Walter Scott, 历史小说经典作家, moved from romanticism to realism ④ the 19th century
The 19th century was an age of conversion from a tradition pre-modern state to a modern industrial society. ⑤ the 20th century
There arose a more deliberate kind of realism called neutralism which aimed to provide a precise description of actual circumstances of human life in minute detail.
In fiction, the established chronological development was challenged by Joseph Conrad and William Faulkner, while James Joyce and Virginia Woolf attempted stream-of-consciousness.
IV．Elements of fiction
▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪
Plot
Structure Character Setting
Point of view Theme style ......
Plot
Traditionally, plots arise out of conflict, either internal or external. When a story includes an internal conflict, the protagonist(主角) often undergoes a conflict within himself or herself.
四种关系：人与社会、人与自然、人与人、人与自我、（人与宗教）
▪ An author’s careful arrangement of incidents in a narrative to achieve a
desired effect.
▪ Plot is defined as the events that make up the story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause or effect, or by coincidence. One is generally interested in how well this pattern of events accomplishes some artistic or emotional effect.
▪ Plot and story. ▪ Plot and structure.
Plot is the pattern of events and situation in a narrative work. It keeps us interested and turning pages to find out what will happen next. Different from the story that indicates the “raw material” of events, the plot is the selected version of events in a certain order or duration. An effective plot usually follows the mode of cause and effect between incidents.
A story’s structure can be examined in relation to its plot. In examining structure, we look for patterns, for the shape that the story as a whole possesses. If plot is the sequence of unfolding action, structure is the design or form of the complete action. Plot and structure together reveal aspects of the story’s artistic design. ▪ the focus of plot —— conflict. 1) Virginia Woolf’s The Waves ．．．．．．．．．．．．． 2) Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles（坏境悲剧、性格悲剧、命运悲剧） 3) William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily The Waves The Waves, more than any of Virginia Woolf's novels, conveys the complexities of human experience. Tracing the lives of a group of friends, The Waves follows their development from childhood to youth and middle age.
While social events, individual achievements and disappointments form its narrative, the novel is most remarkable for the rich poetic language that conveys the inner life of its characters: their aspirations, their triumphs and regrets, their awareness of unity and isolation. Separately and together, they query the relationship of past to present, and the meaning of life itself.
Woolf's novel is concerned with the individual consciousness and the ways in which multiple consciousnesses can weave together. It’s different from a Bildungsroman in that the self may very well be considered to be its own society. The difficulty of assigning genre to this novel is complicated by the fact that obliterates traditional distinctions between prose and poetry, allowing the novel to flow between six not dissimilar interior monologues. The book similarly breaks down traditional boundaries between people, and Woolf herself wrote in her that the six were not meant to be separate \"characters\" at all, but rather facets of consciousness illuminating a sense of continuity. Even the name \"novel\" may not accurately describe the complex form of. Woolf herself called it not a novel but a \"playpoem.\" Tess of the d’Urbervilles Tess of the D’Urbervilles was subtitled A Pure Woman and published in 1891. It is one of Hardy’s saddest tales of rural troubles. Tess is the daughter of the poor John Durbeyfield who learn from the village parson that his family is related to ancient nobility, being the last of the family the D’Urbervilles. In trying to make use of this connection, Joan – John’s wife - suggests that Tess pursue the son of the local family of Mrs D’Urberville. As it turns out the Mrs D’Urberville has merely taken the name for convenience but Tess becomes involved with her son Alec nonetheless who gives her employment but takes advantage of her and in unpleasant circumstances seduces her.
They have a child together who dies early and cannot be baptised because he is illegitimate. The second stage of the novel concerns the family of the Reverend Mr Clare and his son Angel. Angel and Tess marry but when she admits the incident with Alec their relationship is torn apart leading to Angel’s departure for South America and Alec’s second attempt to ensnare Tess. This leads to murder, escape and superficial impurity on the part of Tess who is finally brought to \"Justice\".
This is an exceptionally bleak novel that offers little relapse from the persistent cruelty of fate (or as the novel would have it the President of the Immortals) against Tess. At the time the novel was considered pessimistic and immoral, and Henry James thought it thoroughly poorly conceived which reminds us of a certain conversation between a pot and a black kettle. A Rose for Emily
The story, told in five sections, opens in section one with an unnamed narrator describing the funeral of Miss Emily Grierson. (The narrator always refers to himself in collective pronouns; he is perceived as being the voice of the average citizen of the town of Jefferson.) He notes that while the men attend the funeral out of obligation, the women go primarily because no one has been inside Emily’s house for years. The narrator describes what was once a grand house ‘‘set on what had once been our most select street.’’ Emily’s origins are aristocratic, but both her house and the neighborhood it is in have deteriorated.
The narrator notes that prior to her death, Emily had been ‘‘a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.’’ This is because Colonel Sartoris, the former mayor of the town, remitted Emily’s taxes dating from the death of her father “on into perpetuity.’’ Apparently, Emily’s father left her with nothing when he died. Colonel Sartoris invented a story explaining the remittance of Emily’s taxes (it is the town’s method of paying back a loan to her father) to save her from the embarrassment of accepting charity.
The narrator uses this opportunity to segue into the first of several flashbacks in the story. The first incident he describes takes place approximately a decade before Emily’s death. A new generation of politicians takes over Jefferson’s government. They are unmoved by Colonel Sartoris’s grand gesture on Emily’s behalf, and they attempt to collect taxes from her. She ignores their notices and letters.
Finally, the Board of Aldermen sends a deputation to discuss the situation with her. The men are led into a decrepit parlor by Emily’s black man-servant, Tobe. The first physical description of Emily is unflattering: she is ‘‘a small, fat woman in black” who looks “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue.” After the spokesman awkwardly explains the reason for their visit, Emily repeatedly insists that she has no taxes in Jefferson and tells the men to see Colonel Sartoris. The narrator notes that Colonel Sartoris has been dead at that point for almost ten years. She sends the men away from her house with nothing. Story-telling techniques ▪ Flashback：
disrupt the linear movement of the plot and present an earlier action
▪ Foreshadowing
▪ Suspense ▪ Coincidence
Tickets, Please by D. H. Laurence
① 本我与超我的碰撞 ② 欲望本能
③ 非理性主义的艺术审美
Character
flat character and round character major character and minor character static character and active character
direct characterization and indirect characterization
Point of view and tone
It is the vantage point from which the story is presented by the narrator. In other words, it is the position of the story teller.
Forms
First-person narratives (I)
Third-person narratives (he, she, they) Second-person narratives (you) First-person narratives
There is little doubt that the first-person point of view is fairly “limited”. reliable narrator and unreliable narrator Third-person Narrator
the third-person omniscient narrator the third-person limited narrator limited omniscience multiple point of view Second-person Narrator
Its most striking feature is the person addressed by the narrator as “you” has different referents in various contexts: Specific character within the story, the current reader, or even the narrator himself.
Tone
Tone in writing is somewhat like some of voice in speech and can be serious, introspective, satirical, sad, ironic, playful, condescending, forma, or informal.
Tone is the author’s attitude toward the characters, the topic, or the readers, as expressed by the narrator.
Irony Verbal irony言语反讽 Situational irony情景反讽
Dramatic irony喜剧反讽
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions.
Ironic statements (verbal irony) are statements that imply a meaning in opposition to their literal meaning. A situation is often said to be ironic (situational irony) if the actions taken have an effect exactly opposite from what was intended. The discordance of verbal irony may be deliberately created as a means of communication (as in art or rhetoric). Descriptions or depictions of situational irony, whether in fiction or in non-fiction, serves the communicative function of sharpening or highlighting certain discordant features of reality.
Verbal and situational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. The ironic form of simile, used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes emphasize one's meaning by the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth — or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection.
In dramatic irony, the author causes a character to speak or act erroneously, out of ignorance of some portion of the truth of which the audience is aware. In other words, the audience knows the character is making a mistake, even as the character is making it. This technique highlights the importance of a particular truth by portraying a person who is strikingly unaware of it. 课本P49 Rape Fantasies
1. Verbal irony consists of understatements and overstatements.
Ex: Greta’s and Chrissy’s rape fantasies understate the impact of rape and what that situation would be like. When Darlene says that they should not go out alone at night, it is an overstatement. 2. Situational irony
Ex: Greta’s and Chrissy’s rape fantasies are not what rape truly be like but rather what they hope it would be like.
Ex: In her fantasies stranger rape her, but statistics show that women are more likely to be raped by someone they know. 3. Dramatic irony
Ex: Estelle is talking to the men at the bar about having a conversation with a rapist to remind him that she is real human and has a life too. She says she doesn’t think the person would be able to go through with the plans after having such a realization.
Theme
Like a common thread, the theme is repeated and incorporated throughout a literary work. It denotes the central idea formulated as a generalization.
In essence, the theme is the main idea or some type of lesson or message that the author wants to convey to the reader.
The Theme of “The Egg”: Disillusionment is necessary to the process of maturing.
Familiar Thematic Concerns
① The relations (p51) ② Time (52) ③ Death (52) ④ Life ⑤ Love ⑥ ……
The Theme of Time
① 《喧嚣与骚动》的时间主题 ② 《了不起的盖茨比》的时间主题 ③ 莎士比亚十四行诗的时间主题 ④ 米兰·昆德拉小说的时间主题
Ways to Identify Theme
① the title
② the central topic or “big idea”
③ to organize thoughts (evidence that support the topic, protagonist’s actions, speeches and responses, and so on)
Style
Definition:
Style is the manner of expression of a particular writer, school, period, or genre produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use. It is a combined qualities that distinguish one category from another. Subjectively, the style is the man himself.
Objectively, proper words in proper places make the true definition of a style. Relative Elements:
① Tone：Indicate the speaker’s attitude towards his subject and his audience. ② Diction: refers to a writer’s choice of words.
③ Imagery: is to establish a writer’s styles it extends to all the sense. ④ Syntax: is the pattern o arrangement of individual words and phrases ⑤ Structure: is helpful for a write to create a particular style two groups:①③ ②④⑤
文学：对谁说，说什么，怎么说 The Hallmarks of Two Styles:
Formal Style: periodic and loose sentences, parallelism, repetition, metaphor and comparison, Latinate language and multisyllabic words, as well as avulsions.
Familiar Style: judicious use of speech characteristics, such as simple vocabulary, use of slang and profanity, less rigorous grammar, contractions, simple and short sentences and irony and humor, minimal use of subordinate clauses and use of dialogue. (the art of modern narration) The art of modern narration现代叙事艺术
For his novels and for his short stories, which include some of the finest in the English language, Hemingway received wide acclaim. In 1954 he was awarded a Nobel Prize for his \"mastery of the art of modern narration.\" Taking his cue from Mark Twain's masterpiece, Hemingway brought the colloquial style to near perfection in American literature. In Paris, Hemingway -- along with Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and James Joyce --accomplished a revolution in literary style and language. He developed a spare, tight, reportorial prose based on simple sentence structure and using a restricted vocabulary, precise imagery, and an impersonal, dramatic tone.
His language is characterized by features including: economy of expression, short sentences and paragraphs, vigorous and positive language, and deliberate avoidance of gorgeous adjectives, and etc.
He-man 硬汉； 4 marriages, 4 wars, 4 air crashes
In Another Country by Ernest Hemingway It is about an ambulance corps member in Milan during World War I. Although unnamed, he is assumed to be \"Nick\" a character Hemingway made to represent him. He has an injured knee and visits a hospital daily for rehabilitation. There the \"machines\" are used to speed the healing, with the doctors making much of the miraculous new technology. They show pictures to the wounded of injuries like theirs healed by the machines, but the war-hardened soldiers are portrayed as skeptical, perhaps justifiably so.
As the narrator walks through the streets with fellow soldiers, the townspeople hate them openly because they are officers. Their oasis from this treatment is Cafe Cava, where the waitresses are very patriotic. When the fellow soldiers admire the protagonist's medal, they learn that he is American, ipso facto not having to face the same struggles in order to achieve the medal, and no longer view him as an equal, but still recognize him as a friend against the outsiders. The protagonist accepts this, since he feels that they have done far more to earn their medals than he has.
Later on, a major who is friends with the narrator, in an angry fit tells Nick he should never get married, it being only a way to set one up for hurt. It is later revealed that the major's wife had suddenly and unexpectedly died. The major is depicted as far more grievously wounded, with a hand withered to the size of a baby's hand, and Hemingway memorably describes the withered hand being manipulated by a machine which the major dismisses as a \"damn thing.\" But the major seems even more deeply wounded by the loss of his wife. It is also implied this entire episode is a dream, by subtle references to night time and searching for needed light. It is reminiscent of Dante's Inferno.
Loss, failure, and ruin permeate this brief story. Many of the characters grapple with a loss of function, a loss of purpose, and a loss of faith. It appears contagious. Two characters lose the normal use of a limb--the narrator (leg) and the major (hand). Almost all the characters in the story are portrayed as casualties of some sort. Detachment, disability, and fear of death are pervasive. For the soldiers, courage is not just facing enemy fire on the front line but also picking up the pieces of their
damaged lives and facing the prospect of tomorrow. War, it seems, is forever.
The title of the story is interesting. At first glance, \"In Another Country,\" refers to the fact that the American narrator is indeed in a foreign land--Italy. Yet he is also a visitor to another realm--the \"country\" of the sick and injured. And maybe World War I is the ultimate other country--a setting that defines nations or destroys them and has the potential to erase people, ideology, and the future. Does the doctor featured in the story truly believe that his patients will recover from their injuries or is he merely accustomed to dispensing hope in much the same way he might dole out aspirin? The likelihood that the machines will heal the soldiers is debatable. Do these gadgets prefigure modern technology or are they another reminder of how dependent upon machines both war and medicine really are?
Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)
I. Biography:
1) Born in Oak Park, Illinois, the son of a country doctor, Hemingway worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star after graduating from high school in 1917. 2) During World War I he served as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross; wounded on the Austro-Italian front just before his 19th birthday, he was decorated for heroism.
3) After recuperating in the United States, he sailed for France as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star. In Paris he became part of the coterie of expatriate Americans that included Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
4) During the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway served as a correspondent on the loyalist side.
5) He fought in World War II and then settled in Cuba in 1945. 6) In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
7) By 1960 Fidel Castro's revolution had led Hemingway to leave Cuba and settle in Idaho. There, anxiety-ridden, depressed, and ill with cancer, he shot himself, leaving behind many manuscripts. Two of his posthumously published books are the admired memoir of his apprentice days in Paris: A Moveable Feast (1964), and Islands in the Stream (1970), consisting of three closely related novellas. II. His Novels:
1) The Sun Also Rise (1926) The novel concerns a group of psychologically bruised, disillusioned expatriates living in postwar Paris, who take psychic refuge in such immediate physical activities as eating, drinking, traveling, brawling, and lovemaking. With the publication of it, he was recognized as the spokesman of the “lost generation” (so called by Gertrude Stein).
2) A Farewell To Arms (1929) tells of a tragic wartime love affair between an ambulance driver and an English nurse.
3) Death in the Afternoon (1932), a nonfiction work about bullfighting
4) Green Hills of Africa (1935), a nonfiction work about big-game hunting, glorify virility, bravery, and the virtue of a primal challenge to life.
5) To Have And Have Not (1937)
6) The Fifth Column (his only play 1938)
7) For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940), in detailing an incident in the war, argues for human brotherhood.
8) Across the River and into the Trees (1950)
9) The Old Man And The Sea (1952, Pulitzer Prize), celebrates the indomitable courage of an aged Cuban fisherman. 10) Paris: A Moveable Feast (1964) 11) Islands in the Stream (1970) III. His Collections of Stories
1) Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923), 2) In Our Time (1924)
3) Men without Women (1927) 4) Winner Take Nothing (1933) 5) First Forty-nine Stories (1938) IV. His famous stories: 1) The Killers 2) The Undefeated
3) The Snows of Kilimanjaro V. His Writing Style:
1. Hemingway’s fiction usually focuses on people living essential, dangerous lives—soldiers, fishermen, athletes, bullfighters—who meet the pain and difficulty of their existence with stoic courage. His celebrated literary style, influenced by Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, is direct, terse, and often monotonous, yet particularly suited to his elemental subject matter.
2. While Hemingway’s early career benefited from his connections with Fitzgerald and (more so) with American novelist Sherwood Anderson, his aesthetic is actually closer to that shared by the transplanted American poets that he met in Paris during the 1920s; T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and, most crucially, Gertrude Stein. In this context, we must realize that Hemingway’s approach to the craft of fiction is direct but never blunt or just plain simple. 3. Hemingway’s text is the result of a painstaking selection process, each word performing an assigned function in the narrative. These choices of language, in turn, occur through the mind and experience of his novels’ central characters whether they serve explicitly as narrators of their experience or as focal characters from whose perspectives the story unfolds. The main working corollary of Hemingway’s “iceberg principle”（冰山原则） is that the full meaning of the text is not limited to moving the plot forward: there is always a web of association and inference, a submerged reason behind the inclusion (or even the omission) of every detail.
4. We note, too, that although Hemingway’s novels usually follow a straightforward chronological progression as in the three days of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway does make use of summary accounts of the past, of memories related externally as stories, and of flashbacks. These devices lend
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further depth to his characters and create narrative structures that are not completely straightforward chronicles.
Hemingway is direct. But he is also quite subtle, and subtlety is not a trait that we ascribe to the American way. In the end, Hemingway is an international artist, a man who never relinquished his American identity but who entered new territories too broad and too deep to fit within the domain of any national culture.
As or more important, Hemingway’s style, with its consistent use of short, concrete, direct prose and of scenes consisting exclusively of dialogue, gives his novels and short stories a distinctive accessibility that is immediately identifiable with the author. Owing to the direct character of both his style and his life-style, there is a tendency to cast Hemingway as a “representative” American writer whose work reflects the bold, forthright and rugged individualism of the American spirit in action.
His own background as a wounded veteran of World War I, as an engaged combatant in the fight against Fascism/Nazism, and as a “he-man” with a passion for outdoor adventures and other manly pursuits reinforce this association.
But this identification of Hemingway as a uniquely American genius is problematic. Although three of his major novels are told by and/or through American men, Hemingway’s protagonists are expatriates, and his fictional settings are in France, Italy, Spain, and later Cuba, rather than America itself.
Poetry
I. What is Poetry?
Poetry is the language sung, chanted, spoken, or written according to some pattern of recurrence that emphasizes the relationships between words on the basis of sound and sense. (dictionary)
Poetry is “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings…recollected in tranquility.” (William Wordsworth) Poetry is “musical thought.” (Thomas Carlyle) If I read a book and it makes my body so cold nofire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry. (Emily Dickinson) Poetry is “hundreds of things coming together at the right moment.” (Elizabeth Bishop) In essence, poetry is a kind of \"saying\". As the most condensed and concentrated form of literature, poetry says the most in the fewest number of words.
II. Classification
1. narrative poetry 叙事诗 2. lyric poetry 抒情诗 3. dramatic poetry 戏剧诗
Narrative poetry is a form of poetry which tells a story, often making use of the voices of a narrator and characters as well; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. The poems that make up this genre may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be complex. It is usually dramatic, with objectives, diverse characters, and meter. Narrative poems include epics(史诗), romance, and ballads.
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were sung, accompanied by a lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat. Aristotle, in Poetics, mentions lyric poetry along with drama, epic poetry, dancing, painting and other forms of mimesis. The lyric poem, dating from the Romantic era, does have some thematic antecedents in ancient Greek and Roman verse, but the ancient definition was based on metrical criteria, and in archaic and classical Greek culture presupposed live performance accompanied by a stringed instrument. Lyric poetry is characterized by brevity, melody and emotional intensity. epigram讽刺诗(epigraph)
elegy and lament（哀歌、挽歌） ode颂歌
aubade晨曲、黎明曲（爱情）
sonnet 十四行诗(Petrarchan and Shakespearean) sestina villanelle The sonnet has two basic patterns: the Italian (or (Petrarchan) and the English (or Shakespearean). An Italian sonnet is composed of an eight-line octave and a six- line sestet. A Shakespearean sonnet is composed of three four-line quatrain and a concluding two-line couplet.
A villanelle is a poetic form that entered English-language poetry in the 19th century from the imitation of French models. The word derives from the Italian villanelle from Latin villanus (rustic). A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain. Because of its non-linear structure, the villanelle resists narrative development. Villanelles do not tell a story or establish a conversational tone. In music, the villanelle is a dance form, accompanied by sung lyrics or an instrumental piece based on this dance form.
维拉内拉诗(16世纪法国的一种19行诗)； ①农村舞曲，维拉涅拉歌舞(意大利古代农村的一种歌舞)，②那不勒斯民歌( villanella的名词复数 ) (意大利16世纪时的一种无伴奏的歌曲，如牧歌——pastorale)
Dramatic poetry presents the voice of an imaginary character or characters speaking directly, without any additional narration by the author. In a dramatic poem, the poet says within the limits of one imaginary character addressing another imaginary character. Dramatic poetry is form writing with very deep expression of deep emotions. The poet's motive is to capture the audiences' attention and make them feel the writing. It usually involves a narrative poem about a person involved in a situation, sometimes a true story and sometimes it is just a form of creative art.
III. History
① old English (Beowulf) and the Middle Ages ② the Elizabethan time
③ the earlier seventeenth century ④ the late seventeenth century ⑤ from 1790s to 1830s ⑥ the Victorian time
⑦ at the turn of 20th century(modernism) ⑧ after WWII Beowulf Beowulf, which was probably composed between 700 A.D. and 900 A.D., is an epic, a long poem telling a story about a hero and his exploits. It is further classified as a folk epic in that it pieces together its story from folk tales transmitted orally for centuries, probably sometimes to the accompaniment of a musical instrument such as a harp.
Beowulf consists of 3,182 lines written in vernacular Old English (native language of the author's time and place) rather than in Latin, the lofty language of religion, philosophy, science, history, and, of course, literature. That fact does not mean that the writing in Beowulf is inferior; on the contrary, it is superior. Today, this epic is recognized as the greatest work in Old English. Unlike many other epics, Beowulf has characteristics of an elegy (a somber poem or song that praises or laments the dead). The Elizabethan era The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia was first used in 1572 and often thereafter to mark the Elizabethan age as a renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals, international expansion, and naval triumph over the hated Spanish foe.
This \"golden age\" represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of poetry, music and literature. The era is most famous for theatre, as William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that broke free of England's past style of theatre. It was an age of exploration and expansion abroad, while back at home, the Protestant Reformation became more acceptable to the people, most certainly after the Spanish Armada was repulsed. It was also the end of the period when England was a separate realm before its royal union with Scotland.
The Elizabethan Age is viewed so highly because of the periods before and after. It was a brief period of largely internal peace between the English Reformation and the battles between Protestants and Catholics and the battles between parliament and the monarchy that engulfed the seventeenth century. The Protestant/Catholic divide was settled, for a time, by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, and parliament was not yet strong enough to challenge royal absolutism. The Victorian time The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence for Britain. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities and political
concerns to the passage of the Reform Act 1832. Modernism Modernism is a cultural movement that generally includes the progressive art and architecture, design, literature, music, dance, painting and other visual arts which emerged in the beginning of the 20th century, particularly in the years following World War I. It was a movement of artists and designers who rebelled against late 19th century academic and historicist tradition, and embraced the new economic, social and political aspects of the emerging modern world.
The avant-garde movements that followed-including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Constructivism, De Stijl, and Abstract Expressionism-are generally defined as Modernist.
Modernism in literature is not easily summarized, but the key elements are experimentation, anti-realism, individualism and a stress on the cerebral rather than emotive aspects.
The work of Modernist writers is characterized by showing the disenchantment, dislocation, and alienation of men in the world, and by the emphasis on experimentation and formalism and objectivism which are, in most cases, a reaction to the cataclysm known as the Modern Age
VI. Reading
To begin with, read the poem once straight through open-mindedly. On the second reading, read for the exact sense of all the words.
Finally, try to paraphrase the poem as a whole, and analyze the elements line by line.
V. Elements
1. voice 2. situation and setting 3. diction 4. imagery 5. figures of speech 6. symbolism and allegory 7. syntax 8. rhyme
9. rhythm and meter 10. myth and allusion 11. structure 12. theme
Voice: Speaker and tone
• When reading or hearing a poem, we hear a speaker’s voice.
• The speaker of a poem is different from the poet, just as a character in a play or story is different from the author. So in a poem, reader may hear the poet’s voice, or the persona’s (the speaker’s) voice, or both.
In poetry unattractive or unreliable speakers are common, and poets intentionally invite readers to ponder what the speakers are talking about.
It is the speaker’s voice that conveys the poem’s tone, which usually implies the attitude the poet takes toward a theme or a subject. The tone of a poem is the emotional coloring, or the emotional meaning, of the work and is an extremely important part of the full meaning.
The tone may be affectionate, solemn, calm, hostile, earnest, playful, or sarcastic.
Elements to make tone:
① The use of meter and rhyme (or the lack of them)
② The inclusion of certain kinds of details and exclusion of other kinds ③ Particular choices of words and sentence pattern
④ Particular choices of imagery and figurative language ⑤ ……
Imagery Imagery may be defined as the representation through language of sense experience. The word image perhaps most often indicates a mental picture: ①a sight(visual imagery),②a sound(auditory imagery),③a smell(olfactory imagery),④a taste(gustatory imagery),⑤touch like hardness or wetness(tactile imagery),⑥an internal sensation such as hunger, thirst(organic imagery),⑦movement(kinesthetic imagery)
Figures of speech
Types
① metaphor ② simile
③ personification ④ apostrophe
⑤ overstatement and understatement ⑥ verbal irony ⑦ metonymy ⑧ synecdoche ⑨ paradox ⑩ pun Metonymy 转喻
Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. Metonyms can be either real or fictional concepts representing other concepts real or fictional, but they must serve as an effective and widely understood second name for what they represent.
Metonymy also may be instructively contrasted with metaphor. Both figures involve the substitution of one term for another. In metaphor, this substitution is based on some specific similarity, whereas, in metonymy, the substitution is based on some
understood association (contiguity).
For instance, \"Hollywood\" is used as a metonym (an instance of metonymy) for US cinema, because of the fame and cultural identity of Hollywood, a district of the city of Los Angeles, California as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars. Another example is \"Westminster,\" which is used as a metonym for the Parliament of the United Kingdom, because it is located there. Synecdoche 提喻
Synecdoche, meaning \"simultaneous understandingerm is used in one of the following ways:
① Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing （\"the gray beard\" as an older man, \"wheels\"as vehicle）
② The whole is used to refer to part of it (use of America to indicate only the United States)
③ A specific class of thing is used to refer to a larger, more general class (\"bug\" for any kind of insect)
④ A general class of thing is used to refer to a smaller, more specific class (\"the good book\" or \"The Book\" for the Bible)
⑤ A container is used to refer to its contents(\"barrel\" for a barrel of oil) ⑥ A material is used to refer to an object composed of that material ➢ \"glasses\" for spectacles ➢ \"steel\" for a sword ➢ \"strings\" for guitar
➢ \"tin\" for a container made with tin plating
➢ \"wood\" for a type of club used in the sport of golf
➢ \"irons\" for shackles placed around a prisoner's wrists or ankles to restrict their movement
➢ \"plastic\" for a credit card
➢ \"silver\" for flatware or other dishes that were once made of silver metal ➢ \"threads\" for clothing
VI. Robert Frost
① The Road not Taken
② Stopping by woods on a Snowy Evening ③ Design
④ Fire and Ice
⑤ After Apple Picking ⑥ Mending Wall
Robert Frost(1874 - 1963), The most popular 20th Century American Poet, A four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Biographical Information
Born in San Francisco in 1874, died in Boston in 1963.
After his father's death in 1885, young Frost left California with his family and settled in Massachusetts.
Attended high school in Mass., entered Dartmouth College, but remained less
than one semester.
Did odd jobs: teaching school and working in a mill and as a newspaper reporter.
Attended Harvard College as a special student but left without a degree.
Over the next ten years he wrote (but rarely published) poems, operated a farm in Derry, New Hampshire, and supplemented his income by teaching at Derry's Pinkerton Academy. Literary Career
At 38, he sold the farm and took his family to England.
In England, his efforts to establish himself as a poet was almost immediately successful. A Boy's Will was published 1913, followed a year later by North of Boston.
Favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic resulted in American publication of the books.
The Frosts sailed for the United States in February 1915 and landed in New York City.
Sales of his books enabled Frost to buy a farm in Franconia, N.H.; to place new poems in literary periodicals and publish a third book, Mountain Interval (1916); and to embark on a long career of writing, teaching, and lecturing. Frost’s poetic theory
He emphasized on the dramatic qualities of poetry. He believed that all poetry is essentially metaphorical. He insisted that poetry cannot be forced into being.
He thought that poetry serves as a means of giving patterns to man’s existence.
Major Features of Frost’s Poems
He was an essentially pastoral poet often associated with rural New England. He used the rural world as a source of symbols, whose philosophical dimensions transcend any region.
His adopts traditional verse forms, plain language and everyday speech to explore the complexity of human existence through treating seemingly trivial subjects.
The Road not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
This poem is written in classic five-line stanzas, a narrative poem consisting of four stanzas of iambic tetrameter (though it is hypermetric by one beat - there are nine syllables per line, instead of the strict eight required for tetrameter), with the rhyme scheme a-b-a-a-b and conversational rhythm.
The sigh can be interpreted as one of regret or of self-satisfaction; in either case, the irony lies in the distance between what the speaker has just told us about the roads' similarity and what his or her later claims will be. Frost might also have intended a personal irony; in a 1925 letter to Crystine Yates of Dickson, Tennessee, asking about the sigh, Frost replied, \"It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life.\" The poem seems to be about the poet, walking in the woods in autumn, choosing which road he should follow on his walk. In reality, it concerns the important decisions which one must make in life, when one must give up one desirable thing in order to possess another. Then, whatever the outcome, one must accept the consequences of one’s choice for it is not possible to go back and have another chance to choose differently.
In the poem, the poet hesitates for a long time, wondering which road to take, because they are both pretty. In the end, he follows the one which seems to have fewer travelers on it. Symbolically, he chose to follow an unusual, solitary life; perhaps he was speaking of his choice to become a poet rather than some commoner profession. But he always remembers the road which he might have taken, and which would have given him a different kind of life.
Stopping by woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know, His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter in the Rubaiyat stanza created by Edward Fitzgerald. Imagery and personification are prominent in the work. Each verse (save the last) follows an a-a-b-a rhyming scheme, with the following verse's a's rhyming with that verse's b, which is a chain rhyme.
Design I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -- A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?-- If design govern in a thing so small.
The poet has a special sympathy for the persistent firefly and the patient spider. He does not laugh at the \"emulating flies\" who try to imitate stars, even though \"they can't sustain the part\".
The \"heal-all\" is a common country plant supposed to have healing properties; it is almost always blue in color. The poet has found a strange white variety and, stranger still, attached to it a white spinner, \" a snow-drop spider\" , holding a white moth, completing a pattern of whiteness. Here, in a world of chaos and darkness, there is purpose and design—\" if\" (the poet speculates whimsically) \" design govern in a thing so small\".
Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice
Is also great And would suffice.
Style and structure: It is written in a single 9-line stanza, which greatly narrows in the last two lines. The poem's meter is an irregular mix of iambic tetrameter and dimeter, and the rhyme scheme (which is ABAABCBCB) also follows no regular pattern.
Theme: It discusses the end of the world, likening the elemental force of fire with the emotion of desire, and ice with hate.
Certain scientists say that the earth will some day be burned up by the sun. Other scientists say that a new Ice Age will kill all lives on the earth. The poet compares the strong emotion of desire to fire. Knowing its destructive force on mankind, he thinks it likely that the world will end by fire. On the other hand, he compares hatred to ice. This, too, is a powerfully destructive emotion. Ice would also be capable of ruining the earth in the same way that hatred can ruin men.
Drama
I. What is drama?
① An imitation of action. (Aristotle)
② Dram is a story that people act out on a stage before spectators. (G. B. Tennyson)
③ The theatrical situation, reduced to a minimum, is that A impersonates B while C looks on. (Eric Bentley)
④ A play is something not really a piece of literature for reading. (Marjorie Boulton)
⑤ A true play is three-dimensional; it is literature that walks and talks before our eyes. —— theatricality Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning \"action\of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. Types of drama:
① Tragedy, “tragic flaws”悲剧性的瑕疵→the tragic heroes often do some deeds and suffer
from their great errors.
ex: 1. Oedipus the king written by Sophocles → 杀父娶母 reveals Oedipus’s step-by-step progression toward self-discovery. 2. Death of a salesman written by Arthur miller 家庭悲剧 domestic tragedy
② comedy, ③ tragicomedy
Comedies: high comedies(高雅喜剧), low comedies (滑稽喜剧), farce comedies(闹剧), romantic comedies, comedies of manners(风尚喜剧，讽刺喜剧satiric comedies) The theatre of absurd 荒诞剧 the feminist theatre 女性戏剧 morality play(16世纪) wonder play（奇迹剧 17世纪） melo play Five elements of tragedy:
Tragedy focuses on life’s sorrows & difficulties, recounting a series of important events in the life of a significant person, treated with seriousness & dignity, and culminating in an unhappy catastrophe.
II. History
a) The ancient Greek time 第一次高潮 b) The Roman time （morality play）（之后有一千多年的空白期） c) The latter part of the 16th century (Shakespeare) 第二次高潮 d) The Restoration period（复辟时期）
e) The 18th century (The Romantic Movement) 【melodrama】 f) The 19th century ( realism ) →小说比较多，戏剧较少 g) The 20th century 第三次高潮
【Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde】 【 Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee】
Greek Dramatists 出现了四大悲剧作家：
Aeschylus
➢ the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays can still be read or performed
Sophocles
➢ one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens
Euripides
➢ one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens
Aristophanes
➢ known as the Father of Comedy
Morality play
In the 14 century a new kind of drama named morality play appeared and it flourished through the 16 century, combining delight and instruction, morality plays were wonderful teaching vehicles to teach the dangers of sin and the goodness of God.
The morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment. In their own time, these plays were known as \"interludes\a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to prompt him to choose a Godly life over one of evil. The plays were most popular in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays of the Middle Ages, they represented a shift towards a more secular base for European theatre.
(The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII (1457 – 1509). The term can be used more broadly to include Elizabeth I's reign (1558 – 1603), although this is often
treated separately as the Elizabethan era. )
William Shakespeare Widely regarded as the greatest writer in English Literature
• 1563-1616
• Stratford-on-Avon, England • wrote 37 plays • about 154 sonnets • started out as an actor The Great Comedies
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream • The Merchant of Venice • As You Like It • Twelfth Night The Great Tragedies • Othello • King Lear • Macbeth • Hamlet
Historical background:
• The Elizabeth Age (1558-1603): England enjoyed peaceful development under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I, who maintained a balance between the Protestants and the Catholics.
• In 1588, English navy defeated the Spanish Armada, which accelerated the awakening English people’s national consciousness;
• The enclosure movement: Many peasants were forced to leave the land and settled down in towns. The two opposite classes came into being, the capitalist and the laboring class.
• Reformation: It was a return to pure Christianity--cleansing the church of all the corruption. English Reformation was triggered by Henry VIII’s divorce and remarrying. Renaissance and Humanism:
• (1) Renaissance: a French word, meaning “rebirth”. The art and science of ancient Greece and Rome were being rediscovered after long years of neglect. • (2) English Renaissance had two impulses—humanist reverence for the classics and English pride and sense of national identity.
• (3) Humanism emphasized the dignity and potential of the individual and the worth of life in this world. Four Periods
The First Period (1590-1594)
• His works of this period are concerned with the affairs of youth and full of romantic sentiment.
• Romeo and Juliet is his earliest success in tragedy.
• His first theatrical success was his historical play Henry VI in three parts.
The Second Period (1595-1600)
• This is his mature period, mainly a period of great comedies and mature historical plays.
• Works of this period reflect the social contradiction and it is in this period that his position was secured as a mature and highly successful dramatist and poet, admired, praised, and reserved by everyone. The Third Period (1601-1607)
• Works of this period are mainly tragedies and dark comedies. • Plays of this period aggravated the tragic note.
• The cause of such change should be sought from his change of moods as influenced by the social upheavals at the turn of the century. The Fourth Period (1608-1612) • A period of romantic drama.
• This period includes 4 romances and a historical play.
• With this period we turn from the storm, the gloom, and the whirlwind to a great peacefulness light, and a harmony of earth and heaven.
Melodrama Besides Shakespeare, melodrama was another important kind of plays that receive a
boost from the Romantic Movement. It included simplified characters and clear moral issues. Though the scripts were of slight literary merit, the performance of passion, or terror, or lively fun afforded the audience chances to wallow in raw emotion(沉迷于直接的情感中), which is especially loved by the working class. Until it was superseded by film, melodrama remained one of the greatest sourse of mass entertainment.
The 20th century 课本P186最后一段 背诵(见下)
George Bernard Shaw 现实主义作家(英) An Irish playwright
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925
After those of William Shakespeare, Shaw's plays are some of the most widely produced in English language theatre. His major works：
Pygmalion 《卖花女》
Cashel Byron's Profession 《卡歇尔.拜伦的职业》 Our Theaters in the Nineties《九十年代的英国戏剧》） Widowers' House 《鳏夫的房产》
Mrs. Warren's Profession 《沃伦夫人的职业》 Caesar and Cleopatra 《凯撒与克利奥佩特拉》 St. Joan 《圣女贞德》
Man and Superman《人与超人》
Back to Methuselah《回归玛士撒拉》 The Apple Cart 《苹果车》
John Bull's Other Island 《约翰.布尔的另外岛屿》
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) (英) Most Importannt Works: Molloy（马洛依）
Malone Dies(马隆纳之死) The Unnamable（无名的人） (Triology of Novels) Play
★Waiting For Godot（等待戈多）→荒诞剧的最经典之作 Endgame（最后的一局） Happy Days（快乐的日子） Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) (英) 1.开创唯美主义 2.Art for art’s sake
3.As the result of a famous trial, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned after being convicted of \"gross indecency\" for homosexual acts. Plays:
1、Vera（《 薇拉》，1880年） 2、 Lady Windermere`s Fan （《溫德密爾夫人的扇子》1892年，又譯《溫夫人的扇子》、《少奶奶的扇子》）
3、The Duchess of Padua（ 《帕都瓦公爵夫人》， 1893年） 4、 Salomé（1893年，《莎樂美》，原著用法語寫成） 5、A Woman of No Importance（1892年，《無足輕重的女人》） Eugene O’Neill (1888-1935) (美) His Major Works:
① Desire Under the Elms (1924) ② Mourning Becomes Electra (1931) ③ The Iceman Cometh (1946)
④ 1920’s Pulitzer Prize for Beyond the Horizon ⑤ 1921’s Pulitzer Prize for Anna Christie ⑥ 1928’s Pulitzer Prize for Strange Interlude
⑦ 1956’s fourth Pulitzer Prize posthumously for his autobiographical, and to an extent, darkest play and his apex, Long Day's Journey into Night Arthur Miller(美)
According to CNN.com, “(his plays) made him one of the leading lights of 20th century theatre…” His Major Plays:
1944. The Man Who Had All the Luck --closed after 4 performances 吉星高照的人
1947. All My Sons, （全是我的儿子）opened at the Coronet (1/29) and ran for 328 performances--Miller's first major success.
1949. Death of A Salesman, 推销员之死opened at the Morosco (2/10) for 742 performances.
1953. The Crucible.严峻的考验 Opened at the Martin Beck (1/12) for 197 performances.
1956. A View From the Bridge, two-act version) opened at London‘s Comedy Theater 桥头眺望
1964. After the Fall, opened at the ANTA Washington Square (1/23) for 208 performances. 堕落之后
1964. Incident at Vichy. Opened at the ANTA Washington Square (12/3) for 99 performances. 维希事件 Edward Albee(美) ▪ Born in Washington, DC on March 12, 1928
▪ Adopted by the rich Albee family involved in the theater business ▪ Dismissed from almost every school he attended The Zoo Story (1959) His first major play
One-act play, written in three weeks
Branded as the birth of the American absurdist drama Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) Edward Albee’s best known play.
Earned him the well deserved respect among the critics. Nominated for Pulitzer prize.
Won the Tony Award and New York Drama Critics Circle Award. ★ ★
The twentieth-century theater was know for its diversity(多元化). Realism continued and the most successful illogic, anarchy, and absurdity existed side by side with realism. One subculture that broke sharply from the realistic method was expressionism(表现主义)that concerned on the nature of the inner self instead of the external world. These plays commonly followed the pattern of the dream, in which the mind broke loose and the inner concerns were more revealed. August Strindberg, the known expressionist, indeed named his best-known work of his genre A Dream Play. For the generation who had lived through the wars, the problem of communication in an increasingly complex and terrifying world because the major issue. Their response to the spiritual and material impoverishment, and the ultimate threat of total annihilation was put clear in the theater of the absurd. Eugene Inonesco and Samuel Beckett were representatives of the school. Another important theatrical theory named “anenation effect”(异化效应) was put forward by Bertolt Brecht. He demand the audience should not passively enjoy the play but remain a sense of critical detachment by looking at familiar objects in a new and unfamiliar way. Toward the end of twentieth century, there has begun a conscious returning to the rituals of the past. When society seems to fall apart, a desire of restoration starts. In New York, Greek tragedies have been returned to ritual. Mine, chorus and ancient Persian texts are produced to evoke the mystery at the heart of life. On the very experimental fringe of the contemporary theater, we have seen the revival of the tradition(传统的复古).
III. Elements 1. Plot: soul of tragedy, (4 parts: exposition, complication, reversal, resolution) 2. Character
3. Thought 4. Language
5. Spectacle or visual effects 6. Choral odes
There are three types of Drama Elements. • Literary • Technical • Performance 1. Literary Elements
(What is needed to write a script or story?)
• Script: A script is the written words and directions of a play. • Plot: The plot is the storyline or arrangement of action. • Character: A character is a person portrayed in a drama.
• Story Organization: The story organization is how a story is told – the beginning, middle and end.
• Setting: The setting is where the action takes place
• Dialogue: A dialogue is a spoken conversation between two characters. • Monologue: A monologue is a long speech made by one person.
• Conflict: The internal or external struggle between opposing forces, ideas, or interests that create dramatic tension. 2. Technical Elements
(What is needed to produce a play?) • Scenery
The scenery is theatrical equipment such as curtains, backdrops, and platforms to communicate the environment. An example might be trees to show a forest environment. • Costumes • Props
Props are any article other than costumes or scenery used as part of a dramatic production. An example might be a table on the stage. • Sound and Music
Sound is the effect an audience hears during a show, like the sound of rain. And music – well, you know what music is! • Make-up
Make-up is the use of costumes, wigs and body paint to transform an actor into a character.
3. Performance Elements
(What do the actors do on stage to make a character come alive?)
• Acting: Acting is how speaking and moving help to create characters.
• Speaking: Speaking is vocal expression, projection, speaking style and diction.
• Non-verbal Expression: Non-expression includes gestures, facial expressions, and movement.
IV．The Problem Play社会问题戏剧
a) Term definition
The problem play or play of ideas is a type of drama that has developed during the nineteenth century to deal with controversial social issues in a realistic manner.
It presents problematic issue through debates between the characters on stage.
b) The most important exponent of the problem play: Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen, his work combine penetrating characterization with emphasis
on topical social issue, usually concentrated on the moral dilemma of a central character.
Three most famous works:
①A doll’s house: 玩偶之家 the restriction of women’s lives
②Ghosts: 鬼魂 sexually transmitted disease(卖淫带来的严重后果) ③An enemy of the people: 人民的敌人 provincial greed
V．The Feminist Theatre
Feminist plays explore issues of women’s oppression and rights based on sex and gender-related issues. Often they are committed to radical social change and direct political action.
The strategies of feminist theory are largely focused on politics, patriarchal prejudice, sexual oppression, wage inequities, discriminatory hiring practices, and women’s invisibility with a male- dominated culture.
女权主义行为: ①there is an effort to reconstruct the history of women in theater and to recover plays and materials buried over centuries.(重现被埋没的女性作品)②they evolve new writing styles compatible with radical feminism which remain the predominant critical approach in the United States.
VI．The Theatre of the Absurd
a) Term
Critics have applied the label to wide range of plays which demonstrate some common characteristic:①broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic image;②characters caught in hopeless situation forced to do repetitive or meaningless action;③dialogue full of cliches，wordplay, and nonsense;④plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive;⑤either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the “well-made” play. The mode of most absurdist plays is tragicomedy.
In practice, the theatre of the absurd departs from realistic characters, situations and all of the associated theatrical conventions. Time ,place and identity are ambiguous and fluid and even basic causality frequently breaks down. b) Representative masterpiece: Waiting for Godot Waiting for Godot
Beckett’s masterpiece is a strange little play in which “nothing happens.” New
dramatic strategies have been introduced: no recognizable plots, puppet-like characters, mechanical behaviour and language, illogical acts, and nightmares. The prisoners understood well that “Life means waiting, killing time and clinging to the hope that relief may be just around corner.” Samuel Beckett: 1969, Nobel Prize for Literature 小说三部曲：Molloy, Malone, the Unnamable
三部有名戏剧：Waiting for Godot，Endgame, Krapp’s last tape
整理:Erica
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