A COURSE OF a SURVEY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE (UNIVERSITY STUDENTS INTERNAL USE)

QUANG BINH UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES    A COURSE OF A SURVEY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE (UNIVERSITY STUDENTS - INTERNAL USE) Compiled Vo Thi Dung, Ph.D QUANG BINH, 2016 PREFACE A course of a survey of English and American literature is intended chiefly for student university who begin their studies of English and American literature This course aims at providing the students with a general knowledge about English and American literature from the beginning to the present day Each chapter contains a timeline of historical events along with the dates of key literary texts by the movement’s authors These timelines are designed to help students make connections between and among the movements, eras, and authors covered in each chapter Students are required to master the way it goes in connect with its historical background and the typical authors and works of each period More than just a survey course, it shows students how Britain’s and America’s cultural landscape acted upon its literature – and how, in turn, literature affected the cultural landscape A course of a survey of English and American literature, studentsa hold a thought-provoking conversation with the giants of British and American literary history As students finish the course and find themrselves on the threshold of the 21st century, they better understand what it means to be both British and American, and a human being in an increasingly complex world We would be very happy if this material proved to be helpful for the study of the literature as a great pleasure We highly appreciated to receive the ideas and comments from the readers so that it will be corrected and used in an effective way The author Vo Thi Dung, Ph.D TABLE OF CONTENT Page Part I CHAPTER 1: SURVEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE I Brief introduction II Overview of English literary history + The Old English period + The Middle English period + The Modern English period CHAPTER 2: THE OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE I English literature in the making (450-1066) + The earliest inhabitants of England + The Romans conquest + The English (or Anglo-Saxon) Conquest + The Danish conquest + The Norman Conquest II The division of English literary history III Some feature of the Old English literature + The prevalence of poetry over prose + Oral + Anonymous + Translation + Religious inclination IV Old English poetry: Typical Old English Verse: Beowulf V Old English prose VI.Old English drama CHAPTER 3: THE MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE I Historical background II Language and literature + The Middle English language + The Middle English literature + Typical authors and works: Geoffrey Chaucer CHAPTER 4: THE MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE + The Renaissance + The Classic literature + The Age of Enlightenment + The 19th century English literature + English literature in the 20th century Part II CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF AMERICAN LITERATURE + Historical background - Early American and colonial period to 1776 - The religious life - The American Revolution + Literature - The literature of exploration - The early colonial literature in New England: Puritan literature + Typical authors and works CHAPTER 2: THE MIDDLE AMERICAN LITERATURE + Historical background - Expansion to the West - Slavery - Industrialization and immigration + Literature: - The Romantic period - Typical authors and works CHAPTER 3: THE MODERN AMERICAN LITERATURE + Historical background - The Roaring twenties - America and two world wars - The world depression - The New Deal era - Post - war American: the Cold war + Literature: - Modernism - Prose writing - Typical authors and works References PART I ENGLISH LITERATURE For more than 1,500 years, the literature of this island has taught, nurtured, thrilled, outraged, and humbled readers both inside and outside its borders Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Swift, Wilde – the roster of British writers who have made a lasting impact on literature is remarkable More importantly, Britain’s writers have long challenged readers with new ways of understanding an ever-changing world ENGLISH LITERARY HISTORY - The Middle Ages (to 1485): Beowulf, Geoffrey Chaucer,The Gawain-Poet, Sir Thomas Malory - The Renaissance (1485-1660): Often broken down between “The Sixteenth Century” (1485-1603) and “The Seventeenth Century” (1603-1660) - “The Sixteenth Century”: Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare - “The Seventeenth Century”: John Donne, Ben Jonson, Andrew Marvell, John Milton - The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (1660-1798): John Dryden, Daniel Defoe, Aphra Behn, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Samuel Johnson, Laurence Sterne, William Blake - The Romantic Period (1798-1832): William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, John Keats, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott - The Victorian Age (1832-1901): Thomas Carlyle, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde - Modernism (1901-?): William Butler Yeats, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, D H Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, T S Eliot CHAPTER SURVEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE I BRIEF INTRODUCTION What is literature? The subjects we learn at school can be divided roughly into two groups: the science and the arts The sciences include mathematics, geography, chemistry, physics, and so on Among the arts are drawing, painting, modeling, needle-work, drama, music, literature The purpose of education is to fit to us for life In a civilized community, and it seems to follow from the subjects we study that the two most important things in civilized life are Arts and Sciences Why then are the arts and the sciences important? I suppose with the sciences you would say the answer is obvious We have radium, penicillin, television and recorded sound, motors, cars, air-conditioning… These achievements have never been the primary intention of science; they are sort of by-product, the things that emerge only when the scientists has done his main job That main job simply started: to be curious, to keep on asking the question ‘why”? And not to be satisfied till the answer has been found The scientist is curious about the universe: he wants to know why water boils at one temperature and freezes at another; why cheese is different from the chalk; why one person behaves different from another; Not only ‘why’ but ‘what’? What is salt made of? What are the stars? The answers to these questions not necessarily make our lives any easier But the questions have to be asked It is man’s job to be curious; it is man’s job to try to find out the truth about the world about us, to answer the big question ‘what is the world really like?’, ‘The truth about the world is about us” Think over the word ‘truth’ for a moment It is a word used in many different ways - ‘you’re not telling the truth.’ ‘Beauty is truth, truth is beauty.’…I want to use it here in sense of what lies behind an outward show Let me hasten to explain by giving an example The sun rises in the east and sets in the west That is what we see; that is ‘outward show’ In the past the outward show was regarded as the truth But then a scientist came along to question it and then to announce that the truth was quite different from the appearance: the truth was that the earth revolved and the sun remained still – the outward show was telling a lie The curious things about scientific truths like this are that they often seem so useless It makes no difference to the average man whether the sun move or the earth moves He still has to rise at dawn and stop work at dusk But because thing is useless it does not mean that is valueless Scientists think it worthwhile to pursue truth They not expect that laws gravitation and relatively are going to make much different to everyday life, but they think it is a valuable activity to ask their eternal questions about the universe And so we say that truth-the thing they are looking for-is a valuable A value is something that raise our lives above the purely animal level- the level of getting our food and drink, producing children, sleeping, and dying This world of getting of living and getting children is sometimes called the world of subsistence A value is something added to the world of subsistence Some people say that our lives are unsatisfactory because they are mostly concerned with things that are permanent-things that decay and change Truth is a thing that will last forever Truth is one value Another is beauty The scientist’s concern is truth; the artist’s concern is beauty Some people-those clever thinkers called philosopherstell us that beauty and truth are the same things But in fact, the beauty and truth are two of the qualities of God Anyway, both the scientist and artist are seeking something which they think is real Their methods are different The scientist set his brain to work and, by a slow progress of trial and error, after long experiment and enquiry, he finds his answer This is usually an excitement moment The artist wants to make something which will produce just those sorts of excitement in the minds of other people-the excitement of discovering something new about the reality He may make a picture, a play, a poem… but he wants to make the people who see or hear or read his creation feel very excited and say about his creation ‘That is beautiful.’ Beauty, then you could define as a quality you find in any object which produces in your mind a special kind of excitement, an excitement somehow tied up with a sense of discovery It not be something made by man; a sunset or a bunch of flowers or a tree may make you feel this excitement and utter the word ‘beautiful!’ But the primary task of natural things like flowers and trees and the sun is perhaps not to be beautiful but just to exist The primary task of the artist’s creation is to be beautiful What is English literature? English literature is literature written in English It is not merely the literature of England or of the British Isles, but a vast and growing body of writings made up the work of authors who use the English language as a natural medium of communication In other words, the English literature refers not to a nation but to a language There is a tendency among some people regards, for instance, American literature as a separate entity, a body of writings distinct from that of the British Isles, and the same attitude is beginning to prevail with regard to the growing literatures of Africa and Australia Joseph Conrad was a Pole, Demetrios Kapectanakis was a Greek, Ernest Hemingway is an American, Lin Yutang is a Chinese, but English is the medium they have in common, and they all belong-with Chaucer and Shakespeare and Dickens-to English literature On the other hand, a good deal of the work of Sir Thomas More and Sir Francis Bacon-both Englishmen-is written not in English but in Latin, and William Beckford and T.S Eliot have written in French Such writings are outside the scope of our survey Literature is an art which exploits language English literature is an art which exploits the English language But in this brief history we must confine ourselves to the literature produced in the British Isles To the writer, geography seems to be more important than history and the geography of England that is perpetually reflected in its literature, far more than the pattern of events which we call the history of a nation England is an island and the sea washes its literature as much as its shores It’s a cold, stormy sea, quite unlike the placid Mediterranean or the warm water of the tropics Its voice is never far away from the music of English poetry, and it can be heard clearly enough even in the novels of a ‘town’ writer like Dickens The landscape of England is variedmountains, lakes and rivers- but the uniform effect is one of green gentlenessdowns and farms and woods The English landscape made Wordsworth; tropical jungles could never have produced a poet like him, and, often, when we read him in the tropics, we find it hard to accept his belief in a kindly, gentle power brooding over nature-it does not fit in with snakes and elephants and tigers and torrential rain We have to know about the English landscape before we can begin to appreciate the English nature poets Ruling sea and land is the English climate In the tropics there are no seasons except the rainy and the dry, but in England one is aware of the earth approaching and retreating from the sun-springs, summer, autumn, winter and the festivals associated with these seasons The longing for spring is a common theme with English poets, and Christmas, the winter festival, is the very essence of Charles Dickens Four distinct seasons, but all comparative gentle- the summer is never too hot and the winter is never arctic Snow and frozen ponds and bare trees are common images in English literature, but it is only by a great effort of the imagination that the inhabitant of a perpetually warm land can bring himself to appreciate their significant for the English poet and his English reader It is has been said that the English climate is responsible for the character: they are cold rather than hot-blooded, temperate rather than fiery, active because of the need to keep warm Therefore, unkind person said – you can stand the English climate, you can stand anything The English have, for nearly a thousand years, been free of domination by foreign powers (an island is not easy to invade), and this has made them independent, jealous of their freedom, but also a little suspicious of foreigners The English are, in fact, a curious mixture, and their literature reflects the contradictions in their character The world of literature ‘Literature is what is beautiful aesthetically expressed in verbal symbols and images Literature is shaped content and a significant form Literature is one of the seven arts of the human kind Other arts are painting, music, sculpture, architecture, landscape gardening and cinema We read (the silent print on a page of literary book) and we enter a mysterious world That is near to us and removes from us It is a world in which we sometimes find our own concernsour own hopes and fears, loves and hatreds It is a world sometimes so remote from our concerns that we forget about them, and return to them to find that they look different…’ II THE DIVISION OF ENGLISH LITERARY HISTORY The literary history of England may be divided into three periods: The Old English period 450 AD – 1066 (Anglo-Saxon) The so-called "Dark Ages" (455 CE -799 CE) occur when Rome falls and barbarian tribes move into Europe Franks, Ostrogoths, Lombards, and Goths settle in the ruins of Europe and the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes migrate to Britain, displacing native Celts into Scotland, Ireland, and Wales Early Old English poems 10 CHAPTER THE MODERN AMERICAN LITERATURE I HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The term "modern" was coined in the 16th century to indicate present or recent times (ultimately derived from the Latin adverb modo, meaning "just now") The modern period has been a period of significant development in the fields of science, politics, warfare, and technology It has also been an age of discovery and globalization During this time, the European powers and later their colonies began a political, economic, and cultural colonization of the rest of the world The modern era is closely associated with the development of individualism, capitalism, urbanization and a belief in the possibilities of technological and political progress 1.1 The Roaring twenties America of the “Roaring Twenties” was in harmony with “Big Boom” and modern entertainment Business flourished and succeeded beyond people’s dream Americans enrolled in higher education, with college enrollment doubling in the 1920s The typical urban American home was equipped with electric appliances such as a radio (in Italy in 1895) and a telephone (March 10, 1876) that could connect people with the outside world Although prohibition began in 1919, nightclubs proliferated, jazz music, cocktail, and daring modes of dress and dance were seen everywhere Dancing, automobile touring, and movie-going were national interest American women, in particular, resolutely modern with the short “flapper” dresses and short hair, glorified in the right to vote, which was assured by the 19th Amendment in 1920 They gave a strong voice and took important public role in society Despite outward modernity and material prosperity, young Americans of the 1920s were “the lost generation” – so named by literary portraitist Gertrude Stein Without stable and traditional cultural and historical values, the individual lost a sense of identity The secure, supportive family life, the settled community, the moral values, all seemed undermined by the World War I and its aftermath 1.2 America and two world wars * World War I 162 America adopted a policy of strict neutrality and was at first determined to stay out of the First World War Nevertheless, attacks on passenger’s ships by German submarines and the discovery of a German plot to involve Mexico in war with the United States led Congress to declare war on German in April 1917 *World War II After Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the relationships between the two countries went from bad to worse Disused shipyards and factories became bustling with life, mass-producing ships, airplanes, jeeps and supplies War production and experimentation led to new technologies, including the nuclear bomb which led to the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August and Nagasaki on August The United Nations Charter drafted at the 163 Potsdam peace conference in July 1945 ended American isolationism and recognized the nation’s important role in international affairs 1.3 The world depression The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and rising levels of unemployment as failing companies laid off workers By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its nadir, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed Though the relief and reform measures put into place by President Franklin D Roosevelt helped lessen the worst effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the economy would not fully turn around until after 1939, when World War II kicked American industry into high gear 1.4 The New Deal era The New Deal was a series of social liberal programs enacted in the United States between 1933 and 1938, and a few that came later They included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders during the first term (1933–1937) of President Franklin D Roosevelt The programs were in response to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians refer to as the "3 Rs", Relief, Recovery, and Reform: relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression Many historians distinguish between a "First New Deal" (1933–34) and a "Second New Deal" (1935–38), with the second one more liberal and more controversial The "First New Deal" (1933–34) dealt with the pressing banking crises through the Emergency Banking Act and the 1933 Banking Act Federal money created jobs in public works and rural electrification Artists and intellectuals were paid to create murals and state handbooks The Second New Deal (1935-39) was aimed at providing security against unemployment, illness and old age, and preventing the terrible hardships of the Depression being repeated All these remedies helped improve the economic situation of the time 164 1.5 Post - war American: the Cold war The end of World War II was not just the end of a war, but also the beginning of a tense and dynamic period that affected society on all levels This atmosphere is known broadly as the “Cold War.” While the Cold War played out step-by-step between the United States and the Soviet Union, it was simultaneously playing out in the everyday lives of the masses within their borders In fact, the United States had enjoyed an extended period of economic expansion during the war, and following the war the U.S economy continued with great strength for more than a decade Life in America, consequently, was arguably better than it had ever been Britain, France, the United States, Canada and eight other western European countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty of April 1949, establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) The desire to keep Europe free of Communism was seen also behind the Marshall Plan, devised by Marshall in 1974, in which the USA gave or loaned billions of dollars to various European countries, particularly Germany, to assist in post – war reconstruction of their industries The hostility between the Western and Communist blocs, known as the cold war, became a real war between North Korean and the Republic of Korea in 1950 Many other incidents throughout the world increased international tension 1.6 Civil Right The Civil Rights Movement, also known as the American Civil Rights Movement and other names encompasses strategies, groups, and social movements in the United States whose goals were to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans and to secure legal recognition and federal protection of the citizenship rights enumerated in the Constitution and federal law II LITERATURE 2.1 Modernism American modernism was broadly of two kinds One was cosmopolitan, and created by expatriate writers, especially Pound, H D (Hilda Doolittle) (18861961), Stein, and Eliot Based in urban centers such as London and Paris, these writers sought to internationalize literature, often making powerful connections between their work and a broad range of past literature Generally, they had little belief in the usefulness (or existence) of an American literary tradition There was 165 also a group of non-expatriate American modernists, even though several of them did spend time abroad Stevens, Frost, Williams, Marianne Moore (1887-1972), F Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and Hemingway developed a modernist literature that was connected to American traditions, and the heavy concentration on region and place in the work of Stevens, Frost, Faulkner, and Williams marked them as radically different from Pound, Stein, and Eliot What all the modernists shared was a belief in literature's importance in the modern world, and the need for it to be continually vital Vision and viewpoint became essential aspects of the modernist novel It was no longer sufficient to write a straight-forward third-person narrative The way the story was constructed became as important as the story itself William Faulkner, Henry James and many other American writers experimented with fictional points of view Faulkner’s novel The sound and the Fury (1929) break up the narrative into four sections, each giving the viewpoint of a different character 2.2 Prose writing (1914-1945): American Realism On the whole, American authors more realistically than European writers, despite the fact that American people prose between the wars experimented with viewpoint and form The importance of facing reality became a dominant theme in the 1920s and 1930s: Earnest Hemingway wrote of war, hunting, and other pursuits with a simple style; William Faulkner took Mississippi heat and dust as the background for his novel; Sinclair Lewis delineated bourgeois lives with ironic voice; F.Scot Fitzgerald repeatedly portrayed the tragedy awaiting those whose live in flimsy dreams III TYPICAL AUTHORS 3.1 William Faulkner William Faulkner (1897 - 1962) stands as one of the most preeminent American writers of the twentieth century On September 25, 1897, William Cuthbert Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi His family had accumulated a great deal of wealth before the American Civil War However, his family like many Southern families had lost all of its financial power during the conflict His parents would move to Oxford, Mississippi Although William Faulkner was bright, he felt no passion for his formal education He dropped out of high school Faulkner was employed in a bank in 166 Oxford and began to write In his early forays into writing, Faulkner emulated the poetic styling Edward FitzGerald, A E Housman, John Keats, and Algernon Swinburne In 1918 William Faulkner tried to become a pilot for the U.S Army Faulkner failed to meet the physical requirements Faulkner traveled to Toronto, Canada He posed as an English citizen and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force By the time Faulkner reached France, the conflict had ended After returning to the United States, William Faulkner attended the University of Mississippi from 1919 until 1921 The New Republic published his poem "L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune" The Marble Faun was William Faulkner’s first collection of poems These poems were written in a pastoral style Book sales were very poor In 1925, William Faulkner traveled throughout England, France and Italy His writing during this period was influenced by symbolism and impressionism Faulkner’s stream-of-consciousness novel The Sound and the Fury were published in 1929 This novel was ranked sixth on the Modern Library’s on the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century William Faulkner would marry his former sweetheart Estelle Oldham in 1929 Oldham brought her two children from a previous marriage The couple would also have two daughters over the next four years The oldest one would die after only nine days But Faulkner was still responsible for taking care of his new wife and young children Faulkner’s family life did not hinder his pursuit of extramarital affairs In 1931, A Rose for Emily was published This work is widely anthologized and is a masterpiece of narrative and communal point of view In order to make money in 1931, Faulkner wrote the novel Sanctuary The sensational subject captured the public’s attention The financial success of Sanctuary drove sales to Faulkner’s earlier stream-of-consciousness novel, The Sound and The Fury In 1932, Faulkner was assigned to write screenplays for the film studio MetroGoldwyn-Mayer This position required Faulkner to move to California He was well-paid, but never comfortable in his new surroundings In part, this discomfort led to Faulkner’s excessive drinking This period in his life would also set up the paradigm in which William Faulkner’s screenwriting would provide the money, which allowed him to write his fiction 167 In 1936, William Faulkner released Absalom, Absalom! In this novel, he examined the way that the shadow of American slavery lingered over the modern South In 1939, the National Institute of Arts and Letters selected William Faulkner to join its ranks The same year Faulkner was awarded the O Henry Memorial Short Story Award—a distinction he would earn the following year (1940) as well Faulkner’s writing from this period was a skillful net of vivid narrative lines His skill was also gaining Faulkner a reputation in which his work was worthy of scholarly study In 1946, Viking Press published The Portable Faulkner In 1949, William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for literature The prestige and monetary value of this award allowed Faulkner a greater degree of financial autonomy He continued to gain recognition for his writing during this period In 1950, Faulkner was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Howells Medal for Fiction and in 1951 Faulkner won the National Book Award for his collected stories From 1957 until 1958, William Faulkner would serve as the writer-inresidence at the University of Virginia Before his death in 1962, William Faulkner was awarded the National Institute’s Gold Medal for Fiction He died of a heart attack Faulkner’s literature had significant influence on both popular and Modernist literature His literary reputation included poetry, novels, short stories and screenplays 3.2 F Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined He was born in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an upper-middle-class family Fitzgerald spent the first decade of his childhood primarily in Buffalo, New York His formative years in Buffalo revealed him to be a boy of unusual intelligence and drive with a keen early interest in literature In 1908, his father was fired from Procter & Gamble, and the family returned to Minnesota, where Fitzgerald attended St Paul Academy in St Paul from 1908 to 1911 When he was 13 he saw his first piece of writing appears in print - a detective story published in the school newspaper In 1911, when Fitzgerald was 15 years old, his parents sent him to the Newman School, a prestigious Catholic prep school in Hackensack, New 168 Jersey There he met Father Sigourney Fay, who noticed his incipient talent with the written word and encouraged him to pursue his literary ambitions After graduating from the Newman School in 1913, Fitzgerald decided to stay in New Jersey to continue his artistic development at Princeton University At Princeton, he firmly dedicated himself to honing his craft as a writer There he wrote for the Princeton Triangle Club, the Nassau Lit, and the Princeton Tiger He also was involved in the American Whig - Cliosophic Society, which ran the Nassau Lit Fitzgerald's writing pursuits at Princeton came at the expense of his coursework He was placed on academic probation, and in 1917 he dropped out of school to join the U.S Army Afraid that he might die in World War I with his literary dreams unfulfilled, in the weeks before reporting to duty Fitzgerald hastily wrote a novel called The Romantic Egotist Although the publisher Charles Scribner's Sons rejected the novel, the reviewer noted its originality and encouraged Fitzgerald to submit more work in the future Paris in the 1920s proved the most influential decade of Fitzgerald's development Fitzgerald made several excursions to Europe, mostly Paris and the French Riviera, and became friends with many members of the American expatriate community in Paris, notably Ernest Hemingway Like most professional authors at the time, Fitzgerald supplemented his income by writing short stories for such magazines as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire, and sold his stories and novels to Hollywood studios Although Fitzgerald's passion lay in writing novels, only his first novel sold well enough to support the opulent lifestyle that he and Zelda adopted as New York celebrities (The Great Gatsby, now considered to be his masterpiece, did not become popular until after Fitzgerald's death.) Because of this lifestyle, as well as the bills from Zelda's medical care when they came, Fitzgerald was constantly in financial trouble and often required loans from his literary agent, Harold Ober, and his editor at Scribner's, Maxwell Perkins When Ober decided not to continue advancing money to Fitzgerald, the author severed ties with his longtime friend and agent Fitzgerald began working on his fourth novel during the late 1920s but was sidetracked by financial difficulties that necessitated his writing commercial short stories, and by the schizophrenia that struck Zelda in 1930 Her emotional health 169 remained fragile for the rest of her life In 1932, she was hospitalized in Baltimore, Maryland Fitzgerald rented the "La Paix" estate in the suburb of Towson, Maryland to work on his latest book, the story of the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychiatrist who falls in love with and marries Nicole Warren, one of his patients The book went through many versions, the first of which was to be a story of matricide Some critics have seen the book as a thinly-veiled autobiographical novelrecounting Fitzgerald's problems with his wife, the corrosive effects of wealth and a decadent lifestyle, his own egoism and self-confidence, and his continuing alcoholism Indeed, Fitzgerald was extremely protective of his "material" (i.e., their life together) When Zelda wrote and sent to Scribner's her own fictional version of their lives in Europe, Save Me the Waltz, Fitzgerald was angry and was able to make some changes prior to the novel's publication, and convince her doctors to keep her from writing any more about what he called his "material," which included their relationship His book was finally published in 1934 as Tender Is the Night Critics who had waited nine years for the followup to The Great Gatsby had mixed opinions about the novel The novel did not sell well upon publication but, like the earlier Gatsby, the book's reputation has since risen significantly Fitzgerald is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century He is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned,The Great Gatsby (his most famous), and Tender Is the Night A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published posthumously Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with age and despair Fitzgerald's work has been adapted into films many times Tender is the Night was filmed in 1962, and made into a television miniseries in 1985 The Beautiful and Damned was filmed in 1922 and 2010 The Great Gatsby has been the basis for numerous films of the same name, spanning nearly 90 years; 1926, 1949, 1974, 2000, and 2013 adaptations In addition, Fitzgerald's own life from 1937 to 1940 was dramatized in 1958 in Beloved Infidel 3.3 Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago He was an American author and journalist His economical 170 and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works Three novels, four collections of short stories, and three non-fiction works were published posthumously Many of these are considered classics of American literature Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois After high school he reported for a few months for The Kansas City Star In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms In 1921, he married Hadley Richardson, the first of his four wives The couple moved to Paris, where he worked as a foreign correspondent and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s "Lost Generation" expatriate community The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's first novel, was published in 1926 In 1927 Hemingway divorced from Hadley Richardson and married Pauline Pfeiffer They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War where he had been a journalist, and after which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940 They separated when he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II Shortly after the publication of The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in two successive plane crashes that left him in pain or ill health for much of the rest of his life Hemingway had permanent residences in Key West, Florida (1930s) and Cuba (1940s and 1950s) In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961 Hemingway - himself a great sportsman - liked to portray soldiers, hunters, bullfighters - tough, at times primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this confrontation lose hope and faith His straightforward prose, his spare dialogue, and his predilection for understatement are particularly effective in his short stories, some of which are collected in Men Without Women (1927) and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938) Hemingway died in Idaho in 1961 171 III PRACTICE * Choose the word or phrase which best completes each sentence Circle A, B, C, D to indicate the correct answer On December 7, 1941, following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on a Germany b Italy c Japan d Hungary The world depression of the 1930s strongly affected the American ………… Workers lost their jobs and factories closed; businesses and banks failed; farmers could not pay their debts and lost their farms a relationships b people c role d population Modernism is a philosophical movement that, along , arose from wide-scale and far-reaching transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries a with cultural trends and changes c with education trends and changes b religious belief d with creation trend When did modernism in American literature take place? a 1914-1940 b 1900-1914 c 1918-1945 d 1914-1945 In what ways was modernism different than previous literary movements? a It was a break from traditional forms b Many writers experimented with things like fragmentation and point-of-view c It was influenced by a devastating war d Themes like alienation and loss were common The Civil Rights Movement, also known as the American Civil Rights Movement and other names such as , encompasses strategies, groups, and social movements in the United States a Negro American Revolution c Black civil rights movement b the Second Reconstruction d All are correct same name What fueled the growth of modernism in literature in the United States? a The growth and influence of technology b A growing interest in the ideas of Freud c The attitudes of the youth culture d A sense that life would never be the way it was before WWI As a movement, modernism involved many art forms and ., including sculpture, painting, dance, and music, as well as literature 172 a radio b media c politic d artistic work Most “high modernist” literature interprets modernity as: a the ultimate fulfillment of humankind’s potential for communal cooperation b an experience of loss, alienation, and ruin alienation rời bỏ c a passing fad d a continuation and enshrinement of classical Western cultural traditions 10 Modernist literary techniques had the effect of: a increasing the average length of published literary works b decreasing the average length of published literary works c diminishing interest in film and visual media d increasing the publication of “high art” in mainstream media outlets 11 Most high modernists conceived of their aesthetic movement as: a rooted in the landscape of America b a way of protecting the “purity” of American culture and rejecting the influences of Europe c international in nature, bringing together American and European culture d a rejection of America and American experiences 12 In 1920, what development changed social and political life for women? a They were denied the legal right to drive automobiles b They gained the right to vote c Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, banning sex discrimination in pay in a number of different professions d They were prohibited from enrolling in most college and universities 13 In the modern period, innovations in American theater often occurred as reactions against: xu huoứng a European symbolic and psychological dramas b popular Broadway productions c nineteenth-century immigrant theater d the conventions of Hollywood film * Answer the following questions What aspects became essential aspects of the modernist novel in American literature? What are the major themes in Faulkner’s fiction? What awards did Faulkner receive for his writing? 173 “In a rose for Emily”, the story begins and ends with Miss Emily’s funeral Trace the chronology of the intervening section (niên đại/can thiệp, xen vào) Why does Miss Emily’s servant disappear after her death? Write a brief introduction to William Cuthbert Faulkner When did William Faulkner win the Nobel Prize for literature? Discuss the meaning of idealism in The Great Gatsby Talk about a brief of Fitzgerald’s life 10 When did Hemingway win the Nobel Prize in Literature? 11 Discuss The Old man and the Sea as a work of literary symbolism 12 Discuss the characteristics in the novel The Old man and the Sea that helps define Hemingway’s writing style 13 What are themes you can recognize in The Old man and the Sea? 14 A brief introduction to Hemingway * Choose the word/phrase from the box to fill in the gaps in the following sentences actually provided widespread emerged atomic bomb fundamental causes After the was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, and the Second World War came to an end Economic problems were among the of World War II Germany, Italy, and Japan tried to compete with other nations for markets, raw materials, and colonies In World War I, every country in the Americas eventually declared war on the Axis, but only Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and the United States military forces The Second World War was the most …………… and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries and resulting in more than 50 million military and civilian deaths Modernism, which ………… in Europe and in America in the early years of the 20th century expresses a sense of modern life which is in sharp contrast with the Western civilization’s classical tradition * Complete sentences with prompts given to contribute a great deal to the genre of 174 to develop out of to have strong feelings about the role of something in particular, the notion that to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of to face a backlash to launched in reaction against something mounted on something to launch in ≠ to launch off made significant comments on the relation of something 175 REFERENCES American Literature Review (2012), Bob Star Publishing Baym, Nina, ed (2007), The Norton Anthology of American Literature, New York: W.W Norton & Company, 2007 Elane Kirn (1989), About the USA, the Office of English Language Programs, Bureau of Educational and Cutural Affairs, United States Department of States, Washington, DC 20547 Gray, Richard (2011), A History of American Literature, Willey Blackwell Đinh Thị Minh Hiền (1999), American Literature, Nxb Giáo dục Hugh Holman and William Harmon (1992), Handbook to Literature, 6th ed NY: Macmillan Trần Thanh Ngọc (2001), Tài liệu dạy-học A course of American literature Book 1, Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Đà Nẵng GC Thornley and Gwyneth Roberts (1998), An outline of English literature, Nxb Longman McDannell, Colleen, ed (2001), Religion of the United States in Practice, Vols I&II, princeton: Princeton UP 10 Nguyễn Chí Trung (1998), English literature, Nxb Giáo dục 11 Nguyễn Tư Trừng (1995), A course of a survey of English literature, Trường Đại học Sư phạm Huế 12 Pete B High (2000), An outline of American literature, Nxb Longman Website tham khảo: http://www.literature-study-online.com/resources/ http://www.world-english.org/literaturequiz.htm http://www.americanliterature.com/ss/ssindx.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_literature https://books.google.com.vn/books 176 ... America’s cultural landscape acted upon its literature – and how, in turn, literature affected the cultural landscape A course of a survey of English and American literature, studentsa hold a thought-provoking... youth and old age, life and death, rise and fall of nations and individuals, friendship and desertion, faithfulness and betrayal, heroism and cowardice, hope and resignation, good and evil, as well... approaching dawn, they departed They came at length to the coast of Dane land and the sea boiled white between them and the land, and the land itself was scarred and pitted with a thousand narrow