American Literature Week 17

American Literature Note 17

Literature Line

literature time line

1. Classicism

Based on reason/ epic, tragedy, comedy

2. Medieval

Based on faith/ morality, mystery, miracle play/ 黑暗時期

3. Renaissance

4. Neoclassicaism

5. Romanticism

後文藝復興/ individualism, humanism, emotionism

6. Victorian Literature

High seriousness

7. Modernism

=> 每個時期都是前一個時期的反鬥。

T. S. Eliot

1tsimages

1. Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and "one of the twentieth century's major poets.

2. Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930) and Four Quartets (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935).

3. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry."

Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American

Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.

12d

p.1998 Poetry

1. key: “genuine” “imaginary gardens with real toads in them”

2.片段顯示確切的形象、個人色彩 everything is about me

3. 想像的東西躍然紙上

4. 你看到我的真，表示你對詩感到有興趣

E. E. Cummings

1eecummings

Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), known as E. E.

Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in

lowercase letters as e e cummings (in the style of some of his poems—see name and

capitalization, below), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and

playwright. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two

autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings

and paintings. He is remembered as an eminent voice of 20th century English

literature.

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

在電影”偷穿高跟鞋”中有出現這首詩。

(In Her Shoes trailer)

1in her shoes

[in Just-] p.2137

In Just--

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come (means “ two people are hand in hand”)

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far and wee

and bettyanddisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and (跳格子)

it's

spring

and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles

far

and

wee

-對cummings來說，標點符號(punctuation)、大小寫、空間的留白(spacing)都可

傳達重要的意涵。甚至是省略文法，然後讓讀者去體會、去詮釋，找出其象徵意

涵(symbolic meaning)。

-圖像詩(visual poem)、自由形式( verslibre)。

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

somewhere i have never traveled,gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence: (無力感很重)

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near (近鄉情怯)

(張愛玲: 在你面前我變得很低很低，低到塵埃裡。)

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose (性暗示)

(同大亨小傳裡” She blossoms for him like a flower”)

or if your wish be to close me,i and

my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what is is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) (你的眼神勝過千言萬語)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands (以柔克剛)

Tennessee Williams p.2297

He was an American playwright and author of many stage classics.

After years of obscurity, he became suddenly famous with The Glass Menagerie (1944), closely reflecting his own unhappy family background. This heralded a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, and Sweet Bird of Youth. His later work attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences, and alcohol and drug dependence further inhibited his creative output.

1play 12play

1play 1

A Street car Named Desire

1street

1. genre: Southern Gothic

2. Pulitzer Prize Drama

3. French Quarter, Downtown New Orleans

4. roles:

(1)Blanche DuBois:

A relic of the Old South 古老的榮光

(2)Stanley Kowalski:

A rising member of the industrial, urban working class

Stanley is the epitome of vital force.

(3)Stella Kowalski:

She married lower-class Stanley, with whom she shares a robust sexual relationship. Stella’s union with Stanley is both animal and spiritual, violent but renewing.

5. Deep South

- Lower South, Cotton States

-Confederate States of America: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,

Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas

1south