英语国家社会与文化入门上册 第六单元British Literature.ppt

Unit 6 British Literature — Literature in the 20th Century and Onwards  20th Century Literature ◇ Any summary of the complex 20th century is difficult for wars and revolutions. ◇ The 20th century marked the end of the British Empire, which was replaced by the Commonwealth of Nations. ◇ 20th century literature can be broadly divided into two stylistic period: Modernism, and Postmodernism. These period roughly correspond to literature written before the Second World War(1939-1945) and literature written after it. Both are characterized by a high degree of experimentation Modernism Second World War Postmodernism (1939-1945) characterized experimentation Modernist writers express the difficulty they see in understanding and communicating how the world works. Their writing seems disorganized, hard to understand.It often portrays the action from the viewpoint of a single confused individual. Postmodernists think that meaning does not exist outside of the human head, likewise it does not exist inside a book, wanting to be discovered, instead it is made in the process of reading a book, or of making sense of the world. English Modernist writers: 1. Joseph Conrad Works: The Heart of Darkness (novel) (which has been made into a film by the well-known American director, Francis Ford Coppola, but set in Vietnam in the 1960s, and called Apocalypse Now.) 小说情节以蒸汽船船长马洛（Marlow）的回忆的形式，讲述了他溯刚果河而上，前去黑非洲深处寻见一个名叫柯兹（Kurtz）的做象牙生意的殖民者的经历。柯兹自前往非洲后已多年没有回家，却经常将象牙生意所得寄赠女友，他在殖民地的“成就”似乎在当地也有口皆碑。马洛在前往柯兹的贸易站的一路上，饱览了刚果河两岸非洲腹地的异域景色，还不断听说有关柯兹的各种传闻，说他是一个脱离了文明世界、被土著黑人奉为神明的白人。这些土著人以为马洛的汽船是前来接走他们的柯兹神，便当汽船接近柯兹贸易站的时候发动袭击，试图阻止汽船前进。经过各种冒险之后，马洛的船找到了柯兹的贸易站，并在一番周折之后，终于见到了此前一直只以“声音”形式存在的“殖民英雄”和“土著神明”柯兹。然而，此时的柯兹已经神形枯萎、病入膏肓，很快就死去了，死前呼喊“可怕”、“可怕”。马洛回到国内，向柯兹的女友隐瞒了事情真相，并告诉她柯兹临终前一直念叨着她的名字。当马洛结束叙述的时候，只见“远处的海面被一道黑色的云层遮蔽，阴云覆盖