英美概况课件——美国文学.pptVIP

American Romanticism Transdentalism The Age of Realism Naturalism Modernism American Romanticism Length of time the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War Background ?the ideals of democracy and political equality ?foreign influences, esp. the British Romanticism Features ?Newness, or the new experience ?American Puritanism Main Writers and Their Works Washington Irving The Sketch Book The Legend of Sleepy Hollow James Fenimore Cooper Leathers tocking Tales: The Pioneer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter Herman Melville Moby Dick The Scarlet Letter 《红字》 The House of the Seven Gables 《有七个尖角阁的房子》 Twice-Told Tales《老调重弹》 Mosses from an Old Manse 《古屋青苔》 The Marble Faun 《玉石雕像》 The Blithedale Romance《福谷传奇》 Hester Prynne is the main protagonist and the most complicated character in The Scarlet Letter. Shes the embodiment of deep contradictions: bad and beautiful, holy and sinful, conventional and radical. At first glance, Hester may seem more victim than heroine. The adultery she committed when her husband was thought lost at sea leads Bostons Puritan authorities to brand her with the bright red A of the title. Shes forced to stand in shame before the mass of Puritan citizens, enduring their stares, their whispers and their contempt. In the eyes of the townspeople, she is the ultimate example of sin. Hester Prynne is also the object of a cruel and shadowy love triangle between herself, her minister lover Arthur Dimmesdale, and her husband, now called Roger Chillingworth. Hester Prynne may seem a victim and an object, but she also shows great personal strength. She survives. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale: the lover of Hester in secret and father of Pearl. Dimmesdale leads two lives: that of a saint and that of a sinner.Arthur Dimmesdale’s physical appearance in this novel directly portrays the condition of his conscience. The Reverend’s s