四川师范大学外国语学院美国文学英文课件 unit12.pptVIP

Modern American Poets:Robert Frost e. e. cummings His realistic depictions of rural life (New England) in American colloquial speech. Receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. (1924 for New Hampshire: A Poem With Notes and Grace Notes; 1931 for Collected Poems; 1937 for A Further Range; 1943 for A Witness Tree) Form of Poetry He insisted that poetry have a definite form, that it be dramatic, and it rely on voice tones to vary the effect of the traditional iambic rhythm. For him form is as important as sense; the ordering of sound and theme is one major concern of his career. He tends to use the formal stanza pattern. His theory of the “sounds of sense” or “sentence sounds”: Uniting the regularity of iambic meter with the freedom of the speaking voice. “Making all poems sound as different as possible from each other.” Thank you! * * Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) The epitaph is from his poem “The Lesson for Today” “A Momentary Stay against Confusion” Nature as a kind of perfection against confusion: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” The ultimate aim in writing of making life “whole again beyond confusion”: “After Apple-Picking” “And were an epitaph to be my story,I’d have a short one ready for my own.I would have written of me on my stone:I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” (“A Lesson for Today”) Frost revolutionized blank verse. It reflects the plainness of his characters’ lives and it surges with the combination of their drivenness and their reflective hesitancies. His style is rich in detail, determined to stay with the exact but down-to-earth word, and bent on avoiding exaggeration. Use of metaphors Deceptively Simple Style Regional or Universal? The difficulty of maintaining the will to order in a world of confusion and chaos (the spirit of his time). How does human relate to each other? A fruitful affection and dependence and also a self-respecting and self-reliant independence. “Fire and Ice” “The