The Modern Period

The modern period — the second American Renaissance, the expatriate(侨民) movement, "the Lost Generation"（迷失的一代）, a transformation from order to disorder

Seize the day, enjoy the present, spiritual wasteland, collective unconscious, psychoanalysis(心理分析)

Imagist movement, Jazz Age

"the Lost Generation" — Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost

Two thinkers of this period: German Karl Marx(马克思) and the Austrian Sigmund Freud（弗洛伊德）

William James — famous for his theory of "stream of consciousness"（意识流）

E.E.Cummings, always used "i" instead of 'I", protest against self-importance

Ezra Pound

— a leading spokesman of the "Imagist Movement" (意象主义)

3 main principles: 1)direct treatment of poetic subjects, 2)elimination of ornamental words, 3)rhythmical(韵律) composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome(节拍).

— He translate some ancient Greek and Chinese works
"The Cantos" 诗章

READING: 1. In a Station of the Metro 2. The River — Merchant's Wife: A Letter 3. A Pact
"In a Station of the Metro" 地铁站一瞥

Pound attempts to produce the emotion he felt when he walked down into a Paris subway station and suddenly saw a number of faces in the dim light. To capture the emotions, Pound uses the image of petals on wet, black boughs.

"The River — Merchant's Wife:A Letter"河商的妻子

This is a verse "letter" in which the speaker communicates indirectly, by means of vivid images and shifting tone, the history of her feelings for her absent husband.

"A Pact"盟约 agreement with Whitman's free verse

Robert Lee Frost

— four times awarded Pulitzer Prize, pastoral life and scene.

Frost is liked by the Americans because the subject and the landscape of his poems are forever New England and his simplicity never fails to reveal some profound truth.

READING: 1.After Apple-Picking 2.The Road Not Taken 3. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
"After Apple-Picking"摘苹果后a memory of experience in which the end of labor leaves the speaker with a sense of completion and fulfillment yet finds him blocked from success by winter's approach(接近) and physical weariness(疲倦).

"The Road Not Taken" 未选择的路tells us how the course of his life was determined when he came upon two roads that diverged in a wood. He "took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"雪夜停马在林边 the speaker literally stops his horse in the winter twilight(日出前) to observe the beauty of the forest scene, and then is moved to continue his journey.

Eugene O'Neill

— America's greatest playwright, "founder of the American drama", won the Pulitzer Prize four times and was the only dramatist ever to win a Nobel Prize.

"Beyond the Horizon"天外边 "The Emperor Jones"琼斯皇帝 "The Great God Brown"伟大之神布朗

"Long Day's Journey Into Night" 漫长一天autobiographical(自传体戏剧), gained its status as a world classic and marks the climax of O'Neill's literary career and the coming of age of American drama.

READING: excerpt from The Hairy Ape

"The Hairy Ape" 毛猿concerns the problem of modern man's identity. Yank's sense of belonging nowhere, hence homelessness and rootlessness, is typical of the mood of isolation and alienation in the early 20th century.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

—spokesman of the Jazz Age, "Dollar Decade", 1920s

A double vision of the Jazz Age, both an insider and an outsider American Dream.

He shows a particular interest in the upper-class society, especially young people.

This Side of Paradise人间天堂his first novel

Tender is the Night夜色温柔 The Last Tycoon最后一个巨头

READING: excerpt from The Great Gatsby了不起的盖茨比

his masterpiece, "incorruptible dream" is "smashed into pieces by the relentless reality."

Gatsby is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies America itself; he is the last of the romantic heroes

Ernest Hemingway

— awarded the Nobel Prize
“Iceberg style”, “Code hero”, “grace under pressure” 重压下的风度,

The use of short, simple and conventional word

In our Time 在我们的时代里the first book to present a Hemingway hero –Nick Adams

The Sun Also Rises 太阳照样升起The Lost Generation': a group of young Americans who left their native land and fought in the war and later engaged themselves in writing in a new way about their own experiences.

A Farewell to Arms 永别了,武器about the tragic love affair of a wounded American soldier with a British nurse.

For Whom the Bell Tolls丧钟为谁而鸣

The Old Man and the Sea老人与海

READING:Indian Camp from <In Our Time> Nick watches his father deliver an Indian woman of a baby by Caesarian(剖腹术) section, with a jack-knife and without anesthesia(麻醉). birth and death coexist(共存)

William Faulkner — awarded a Nobel Prize

American South, Yoknapatawpha Country ,imprisonment in the past

Stream of consciousness, multiple points of view, 内心独白, 时序颠倒

The Sound and the Fury喧嚣与骚动，As I Lay Dying我弥留之际，Absalom, Absalom押沙龙，押沙龙！Light in August八月之光，The Bear熊

READING: excerpt from A Rose for Emily
"A Rose for Emily" Emily, an eccentric(古怪的) spinster(老处女) who refuses to accept the passage of time, or the inevitable change and loss that accompanies it. She is regarded as the symbol of tradition and the old way of life. Thus her death is like the falling of a monument.