Jennifer Wu's learning notes

American Literature Note 16

Henry James     (more information)

He was an American writer who spent most of his writing career in Britain. He is regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.

James alternated between America and Europe for the first 20 years of his life; eventually he settled in England, becoming a British subject in 1915, one year before his death. He is best known for a number of novels showing Americans encountering Europe and Europeans. His method of writing from the point of view of a character within a tale allows him to explore issues related to consciousness and perception, and his style in later works has been compared to impressionist painting.

Style and themes:

James is one of the major figures of trans-Atlantic literature. His works frequently juxtapose characters from the Old World (Europe), embodying a feudal civilization that is beautiful, often corrupt, and alluring, and from the New World (United States), where people are often brash, open, and assertive and embody the virtues —

freedom and a more highly evolved moral character—of the new American society. James explores this clash of personalities and cultures, in stories of personal relationships in which power is exercised well or badly. His protagonists were often young American women facing oppression or abuse.

*Trans-Atlanic theme =跨大西洋主題 =international theme

Free will, conflict about culture shock

*Middle class 指商人、師字輩的(老師、律師…)

Works examples: (write about the upper-class life like The Age of Innocence)

1. The Portrait of a Lady

2. The American

3. Daisy Miller

Realism and Naturalism (World Literature Made Simple p.172)

Broadly defined as "the faithful representation of reality" or "verisimilitude," Although strictly speaking, realism is a technique, it also denotes a particular kind of subject matter, especially the representation of middle-class life. A reaction against romanticism, an interest in scientific method, the systematizing of the study of documentary history, and the influence of rational philosophy all affected the rise of realism. According to William Harmon and Hugh Holman, "Where romanticists transcend the immediate to find the ideal, and naturalists plumb the actual or superficial to find the scientific laws that control its actions, realists center their attention to a remarkable degree on the immediate, the here and now, the specific action, and the verifiable consequence."

Many critics have suggested that there is no clear distinction between realism and its related late nineteenth-century movement, naturalism. Whatever was being produced in fiction during the 1870s and 1880s that was new, interesting, and roughly similar in a number of ways can be designated as realism, and that an equally new, interesting, and roughly similar body of writing produced at the turn of the century can be designated as naturalism” One rough distinction made by critics is that realism espousing a deterministic philosophy and focusing on the lower classes is considered naturalism.

Emile Zola exemplified nineteenth century literary naturalism.

Word Explanation

1. tariff (n.)

a charge or list of charges either for services or on goods entering a country

e.g. The government is going to lower the tariff on imported cars .

2. mig- : move

e.g. migration (n.)

the movement from one place to another of a large group of people, birds

e.g. migraine 偏頭痛

3. malpractice不當醫療行為

4. se- : apart from

e.g. separate, segregation 種族分離

5. – ant : 人

e.g. accountant, immigrant, protestant

6. amendment (n.)

a written change or improvement to a law or document, or the process of doing this

e.g. An amendment to the United States Constitution limits the President to two

full terms in office.

American modernism

American modernism, like modernism in general, is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States starting at the turn of the 20th century with its core period between World War I and World War II and continuing into the 21st century.

Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of America's rare "public literary figures, almost an artistic institution."

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Anecdote of the Jar p.1975 (Wallace Stevens)

I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill.

It made the slovenly wilderness (它使淩亂的荒野

Surround that hill.            圍著山峰排列。)

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

-這一片荒野是散漫的、無序的、沒有中心的，但是在山頂放上一隻罈子，這一片散漫的空間就有了中心，有了制高點，荒野的事物仿佛被馴服了，向著罎子匍匐而來，湧向這個中心和高度。

-氛圍如同前不見古人，後不見來者，念天地之悠悠，獨愴然而涕下。

- free association 自由聯想，曾經有過得悸動。

- Ode an a Grecian Urn (full poem)

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all   

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens (full poem)

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,

And the green freedom of a cockatoo

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

She dreams a little, and she feels the dark

Encroachment of that old catastrophe,

As a calm darkens among water-lights.

The pungent oranges and bright, green wings

Seem things in some procession of the dead,

Winding across wide water, without sound.

The day is like wide water, without sound,

Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet

Over the seas, to silent Palestine,

Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

-對信仰的質言

-耶穌神蹟浮出水面(意識流興起好幾年)

-Journey of the magi (full poem) 信仰文明破產

Song- Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let it Snow!

Dean Martin’s version

Sugi and Jennifer’s version