第3部分美国现实主义时期：1865-1914
第10章现实主义时期
Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments
1. The age of realism is divided into two more periods. What are the two periods called?
Key: American Realism can be divided into two periods: the period of an expanding continental nation from1865 till the 1890s and the so-called “progressive period” from the 1890s till1914.
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2. What was Thomas Jefferson’s vision of America? Was that vision still viable after the Civil War? What were the distinct changes that had taken place?
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Key: Thomas Jefferson once had an idyllic vision of America in which the majority of Americans, as he hoped, would never have to be “occupied at a work bench, for tho who labor in the earth are the chon people of God.” So me embraced Jefferson’s vision.
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But in reality, the agrarian democracy as envisioned by Jefferson was no longer viable after 1865.
The United States changed from a nation of distinct regions into a nation dominated by Northern industrialization, business and finance.
3. Mark Twain coined the phra the “Glided Age.” What are some of the social and cultural phenomena that characterized the Gilded Age?
Key: (1) The development of railroads enabled the United States to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. With transportation being more affordable, people became more mobile; the promi of free or cheaper land translated quickly into Westward ttlements and ttlements in the Great Plains and mountainous regions.
(2) The spread of industrialism led to a ries of significant changes. Machines displaced most of the hand labor required in manufacturing industries. Skilled craftsmen gradually became obsolete. Factory owners and managers came to e machines as being more valuable than workers who ran them. Labor relationships grew impersonal.
(3) In the cities, inexperienced voters voted to power some corrupt city boss. In the 1860s and 1870s William Tweed and the “Tweed Ring” of municipal crooks cost New York City some two hundred million dollars, estimated to be equivalent to two billion dollars in the 1990s. In the 1880s the flattering term “Captain of Industry” was coined when business tycoons were celebrated as national heroes, as misleading models for the, young to follow. Yet, in the shadow of such success and prosperity was the exacerbation of poverty. This, to u Mark Twain’s phra, was “The Gilded Age,” the age of wealth and poverty, of decline and progress, and age of gaudy excess.
4. What is the “progressive era?”
Key: From the 1890s on, there was a great deal of enthusiasm for various social and economic reforms, hence the term “the progressive era.”
5. Why is realism the product for America’s age of adolescence?
Key: Becau at that time, America lost its innocence and entered into adolescence. And like an adol
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6. How does realism react to romanticism?
Key: (1) Realists claim that they ek truth that is verifiable by experience and has practical conquences; they do not ek abstract truth. With such a claim, realist writers are philosophically allied with pragmatism which, in the United States, is reprented by William James (Henry James’s brother) and John Dewey. The pragmatists also place high value on ethical conquences and conducts.
(2) Realists try to describe a small portion of the knowable world in order to maintain “objectivity.” Yet, ironically,any attempt at “objectivity” has to proceed from a totalized vision of the world.
7. Explain the perception of truth, knowledge, objectivity according to realism. Key: Realism reacts against romanticism’s emphasis on intuition, imagination, a
dreamy (or innocent) n of wonder, idealism, faith in nature, and general optimistic belief in the goodness of things.
8. Explain realism in terms of mimesis.
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Key: Realism is embedded in a mimetic theory of art. “Mimesis” means “imitation.” Realists believe that literature imitates reality. But the modernists and postmodernists will later recognize a flaw in the mimetic theory, namely: the mimetic theory es language as a transparent medium and language, conquently, does not play a significant role in the shaping and defining of “reality.” Regarding language,realists are also attentive to such details as dialect, customs, and experiences that are commonplac e and “real.”
9. What constitutes the early pha of realism?
Key: Local color and regional writings constituted the early pha of realism.
第11章地区和地方色彩写作
Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments
1. What is the subtle distinction between regionalism and local colorism?
Key: There was often a romantic flavor in local color writings as they continued to receive influences from Washington Irving and the frontier tradition of tall tales. But, regionalism had no such romantic flavor.
2. How important is Mark Twain to American literature and American culture, according to Bernard Shaw and Ernest Hemingway?
Key: Bernard Shaw once wrote to Mark Twain: “I am persuaded that the future historian of America will find your works as indispensable to him as a French historian finds the political tracts of Voltaire.” Not every writer who once enjoyed fame is indispensable to literary history, but Mark Twain is “indispensable.” Without him, American literature and its history would be, shall we say, less delightful.bilingual>ro什么意思
Ernest Hemingway once remarked: “All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” Apart from the fact he was one of the pioneers in stories that captured the “
local color” of the West, he shows to the world that one’s childhood experiences can be transformed into classic novels.
3. For what rious social purpos does Mark Twain u humor?
Key: If Mark Twain did not directly make social criticism as a theorist in economics and philosophy would, he was in fact more effective in that he showed a genuine hatred for social hypocrisy and pretentiousness through his u of humor. He was relentless with his humor in exposing the impotence of religious teaching in the face of temptation and the iniquity of slavery.
numb歌词4. Explain the complex ways in which Mark Twain employs child-like innocence in his writing.
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Key: (1) Where the image of innocence is projected in Mark Twain, it is always coupled with irony.
(2) As an ironist, Mark Twain allows us to e the adult through the eyes of a child, and to e the child through an adult’s perspective.
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(3) His greatest gift is therefore his multi- dimensional understanding of innocence. This understanding of innocence in Mark Twain is further extended to Americans encountering Europe. In such encounters, the irony of “innocence” mocks both the American naivety and the European pretentiousness. America and Europe take on the same ironic dynamisms that involve a child and an adult.
5. Why is it too simplistic to e Tom Sawyer as a “bad boy?”
Key: Becau that the “bad boy” image really shows the complexity of Mark Twain’s ironic genius. Some characteristics of the “bad boy”are prankish
