湖南自考英语专业：00604英美文学选读课程重点资料（1）

湖南自考英语专业：00604英美文学选读课程重点资料（1）

Chapter 1 The Romantic Period浪漫主义时期
1. From the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of he Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. It is also called “the American Renaissance”.浪漫主义时期开始于十八世纪末，到内战爆发为止，华盛顿.欧文出版的《见闻札记》标志着美国文学的开端，惠特曼的《草叶集》是浪漫主义时期文学的压卷之作。（也可称为“美国德文艺复兴”）
2. The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature.对逃离社会，回归自然的渴求成为美国文学的一个永恒的话题。
3. The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values.美国清教作为一种文化遗产，对美国人的道德观念产生了很大的影响。
4. Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of original sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers. 在霍桑，麦尔维尔以及其他一些小作家的作品种加尔文主义的原罪思想和罪恶的神秘性都得到了充分的表现。
5. The most clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period is New England Transcendentalism.美国浪漫主义文学运动足能标炳的是新英格兰的超验主义运动。
6. This Transcendentalist group includes two of the most significant writers America has produced so far, Emerson and his young friend, Henry David Thoreau, whose writing has a strong impact on American literature.超验主义文学的主要代表是爱默生和梭罗，他们的作品对美国文学产生了很大的影响。
7. Basically, Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses.”超验主义承认“人类具有本能了解或认识真理的能力，能够超过感官获取知识”。
8. Emerson once proclaimed in a speech, “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of you own mind.” Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-reliant.爱默生曾说过：“只有人心灵的尊严才是最神圣的”。超验主义还认为自然是高尚的，个人是神圣的，因此人必须自助。
9. It ranges from the comic fables of Washington Irving to the Gothic tales of Edgar Allen Poe, from the frontier adventures of James Fenimore Cooper to the narrative quests of Herman Melville, from the psychological romances of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the social realism of Rebecca Harding.美国浪漫主义时期的小说富有独创性，多样性，与华盛顿.欧文的喜剧性寓言体小说，有艾伦.坡的哥特式惊险故事，有库柏的边疆历险故事，有麦尔维尔的长篇叙事，有霍桑的心理罗曼史，有戴维斯的社会现实小说。
10. To Hawthorne and Melyille, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature.霍桑和麦尔维尔认为人们在内心上都是罪人，因此需要道德力量来改善人性。
(I). Washington Irving华盛顿.欧文
11. He is regarded as Father of the American short stories.他是美国浪漫主义文学代表作家之一,美国短篇小说之父。
12. With the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Irving won a measure of international fame on both sides of the Atlantic.1819年至1820年，欧文出版了《见闻札记》，该书为欧文获得了欧美两大洲的文学荣誉。
13. A History of New York---He parodies or imitates Homer.《纽约史》在多方面模仿了荷马。
14. Like the two famous personae he created, Diedrich Knickerbocker and Geoffrey Crayon, Irving remained a conservative and always exalted a disappearing past.他所创造的两个人物Diedrich Knickerbocker和Geoffrey Crayon和他一样，都停留在对过去的事情的津津乐道上。
15. We hear rather than read, for there is musicality in almost every line of his prose. We seldom learn a moral lesson because he wants us amused and relaxed.他的作品行文优美流畅，犹如音乐。他的作品寓教于乐，给人以轻松安逸之感，如入梦境。
16. He is worth the honor of being “the American Goldsmith” for his literary craftsmanship.在创作艺术方面他堪称是“美国的近匠”。
17. “rip van winkle”—Here, Irving’s pervasive theme of nostalgia for the unrecoverable past is at once made unforgettable.“瑞普.凡.温克尔”---欧文在此表达了对一去不复返的东西十分依恋，笔触生动，令人难忘。
(II). Ralph Waldo Emerson拉尔夫.华尔多.爱默生
18. New England Transcendentalism, which is unanimously agreed to be the summit of the Romantic period in the history of American literature.在美国浪漫主义时期的文学中，新英格兰的超验主义是不可或缺的。
19. Emersonian Transcendentalism is actually a philosophical school which absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and European Romanticism, with its focus on the intuitive knowledge of human beings to grasp the absolute in the universe and the divinity of man.爱默生的超验主义实际上是在吸收美国清教思想，强调人类具有本能的掌握宇宙绝对真理和人的神性而形成的一个哲学流派。
20. In his essays, Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-soul, the importance of the individual, and Nature. 爱默生的文章提出了超灵哲学,个人及自然的重要性。
21. Emerson id affirmative about man’s intuitive knowledge, with which a man can trust himself to decide what is right and to act accordingly.爱默生相信人的直觉知识。人类可以利用自己的直觉决定是非并采取相应得行动。
22. The ideal individual should be a self-reliant man.一个理想的个人应是自助自立的人。
23. “Go back to nature, sink yourself back into its influence and you’ll become spiritually whole again.”“回到自然中去吧，沉浸在自然的影响中吧，你将重新获得精神的完整。”
24. In 1845, a great transcendentalist work Walden was born.1845年，写成了超验主义的伟大作品《沃尔登》。
25. In general, Emerson was showing to the world a distinctive American style, as he called for in The American Scholar in 1837.总的说来，爱默生的散文表现出明显的美国风格，堪称“美国学者”。
the essay discuss the loveà26. “Nature”- of nature, the uses of nature, the idealist philosophy in relation to nature evidences of spirit in the material universe, and the potential expansion of human souls and works that will result from a general return to direct, immediate contact with the natural environment. In the essay Emerson clearly expresses the main principles of his Transcendentalist pursuit and his love for nature.“论自然”----全书讨论对自然的爱，对自然的利用，对自然的理性主义哲学，物质宇宙里的精神证据，人类灵魂的潜在扩展。在文章中爱默生表达了超验主义的思想原则及对自然的热爱。
(III) Nathaniel Hawthorne 纳萨尼尔。霍桑
27. The Scarlet Letter(1850), always regarded as the best of his works, tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a Puritan community.《红字》是霍桑的代表作，讲述的是四个生活在清教社区以不同方式犯有通奸罪的故事，情节简单，但内容感人。
28. According to Hawthorne, “There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity. ”霍桑认为，人人内心都有邪恶，这种邪恶也许一生都潜藏在内心，但在一定的条件下就表现出来。
29. “The Birthmark” drives home symbolically Hawthorne’s point that evil is man’s birthmark, something he is born with.在《胎记》中他一针见血地指出邪恶就是人类与生俱来的胎记。
30. One source of evil that Hawthorne is concerned most is overreaching intellect, which usually refers to someone who is too proud, too sure of himself.霍桑最关注的一个罪恶之源是一个人过于自尊自负。
31. Calvinistic belief that human beings are basically depraved and corrupted, hence, they should obey God to atone for their sins.加尔文思想认为人类本质是邪恶的，必然向上帝赎罪。
32. Hawthorne is also a great allegorist and almost every story can be read allegorically, as is the case in “Young Goodman Brown.”霍桑擅长隐喻，像《小伙子布朗》一样，他几乎每个故事都可以当作隐喻来读。
33. The scarlet letter A is ambiguous. And the ambiguity is one of the Salient characteristics of Hawthorne’s art.人们对A字究竟是什么意思搞不清楚。这种多重含义和象征意义的模糊性正是霍桑小说的艺术所在。
(IV) Walt Whitman华尔特.惠特曼
34. His aim was nothing less than to express some new poetical feelings and to initiate a poetic tradition in which difference should be recognized.他的目的就是要表达新的诗情，开创一种新的诗歌传统，抒发独特的自我。
35. the poet’s essential purpose was to identify his ego with the world, and more specifically with the democratic “en-masse” of America, which is established in the opening lines of “Song of Myself.”诗人的主要目的就是在世界上确定自我，更具体的说就是要在整个美国确定自我。《自我之歌》的开头几行就表现了这种思想。
36. As Whitman saw it, poetry could play a vital part in the process of creating a new nation.惠特曼认为，诗歌可以塑造一个新的民族精神。
37. In celebrating the self, Whitman gives emphasis to the physical dimension of the self and openly and joyously celebrates sexuality.在歌颂自我的同时，惠特曼强调子我的物理存在和性爱。
38. Whitman’s poetic style is marked, first of all, by the use of the poetic “I”.他的诗总用第一人称。
39. “Song of In this poem Whitman sets forth two principal belief: the theory ofàMyself”- universality, and the belief in the singularity and equality of all beings in value.《自我之歌》---诗中表明了两大信仰：一是普遍性信仰，二是人类个别性和平等性。
(V) Herman Melville赫尔曼.麦尔维尔
40. Moby-Dick was published in 1851.《白鲸》在1851年出版。
41. Of all these sea adventure stories, Moby-Dick proves to be the best.这些有关航海历险的书中，《白鲸》最好，达到了麦尔维尔创作的高峰。
42. Moby-Dick is regarded as the first American prose epic. 《白鲸》是美国第一部散文体史诗。
43. It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology. 《白鲸》不仅仅是海上生活的生动描述，而且也象征追求宇宙真理的心路历程。
44. the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage become a search for truth. The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolizes nature for Melville, for it is complex unfathomable, malignant, and beautiful as well. For the character Ahab, however, the whale represents only evil.这条船皮跨德成了人类社会和追求真理历程的缩影。白鲸则象征着自然，复杂，深不可测，也很美丽。但对埃哈布，白鲸则代表着邪恶。白鲸像一堵墙，隐藏着未知和神秘。
45. Melville’s great gifts of language, invention, psychological analysis, speculative agility, and narrative power are fused to make Moby-Dick a world classic.麦尔维尔的语言才华，创造才华，心理分析能力，观察的敏捷及生动地描述都使该书成为世界名著。