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Gertrude Stein(格特鲁德 斯泰因)Background:she came from a well-to-do family and was able to live comfortably on her inheritance in Paris most of her adult life.she graduatde from Radcliffe College,Massachusetts.A writer,a patron of art and literature.Major WorksThree Lives Tender ButtonsThe making of Americans How to writeFour saints in three actsEvaluation1.Sensitive to the temper of her time and its subtleties of change.helped in her way,usher in the new,modern,period.became with timeThe Matron Saint of Paris Art(巴黎艺术的女性巅峰时代)The autobiography of Alice B.Toklas(1933)A kind of cultural monument in Paris 2.Literary theory and practice (1)stress the value of the individual word(2)repetitions of words eg:Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose3.The difficulty of the poem obscure language and abstraction,unconventional word order and coherence that any choice among them is next to impossible.Introduction of Major WorksSteins works:”Picasso”1.The feature of writing:the limitless potential of available language resources2.From the point of view of“good English”:achieve amazing effectiveness3.Writingstyle:solid,charming,lovely,perplexing,disconcerting,simple,clear,complicated,interesting,disturbing,repellant“Three Lives”:1.introduction:(1).Steins first published book and one of her best,most readable works(2).Artistically,its crude and off focus at times,and does not quite tell a story per se,but It offers a serious picture of life.(3).It is about the simple,vague,humble lives of the three women,with their passion,feelings,and inner thoughts(4).It is seen as one of the earliest modern works of American fiction2.The themes about“Melanctha”in“three lives”:(1).her seeking rest and quiet(2).her getting into trouble(3).her learning to become wiseSinclair Lewis(1885-1951)LifeBorn into a middle-class family in Sauk Center,Minnesota,Lewis was to place that class under ruthless satire,and at the same time to affirm its best virtues.From 1912 to 1919 he was able to published five novels,but it was not until the summer of 1920 when his sixth book,Main Street,came out that he became a famous man.He managed to acquire an international reputation which led straight to the Nobel Prize.Thus within some twenty years Lewis climbed to the summit of his career.Thereafter,none would ever reach the height of either Main Street or Babbitt.Sinclair Lewis was the first American author to win the Nobel Prize for literature.He wrote 22 novels in his life.Major worksMain Street(1920)Babbitt(1922)Arrowsmith(1925)Dodsworth(1929)BabbittPlot summaryLiterary significance and criticismThemePlot summaryCarol Milford is a liberal,free-spirited young woman,reared in Saint Paul,Minnesota,the state capital.She marries Will Kennicott,a doctor,who is a small-town boy at heart.When they marry,Will convinces her to live in his home-town of Gopher Prairie,Minnesota(a town modeled on Sauk Centre,Minnesota,the authors birthplace).Carol is appalled at the backwardness of Gopher Prairie.But her disdain for the towns physical ugliness and smug conservatism compels her to reform it.She speaks with its members about progressive changes,joins womens clubs,distributes literature,and holds parties to liven up Gopher Prairies inhabitants.Despite her friendly but ineffective efforts,she is constantly derided by the leading cliques.She finds comfort and companionship outside her social class.These companions are taken from her one by one.In her unhappiness,Carol leaves her husband and moves for a time to Washington,D.C.,but she eventually returns.Nevertheless,Carol does not feel defeated:I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be!I do not admit that Gopher Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe!I do not admit that dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women!I may not have fought the good fight,but I have kept the faith.(Chapter 39)Literary significance and criticismSome of Lewiss contemporaries said the novel was too bleak,even humorless,in its conveyance of ignorant small-town life and people.However,Main Street is generally considered to be Lewiss most significant and enduring work,along with its 1922 successor Babbitt.Some small-town residents resented their portrayal and the book was banned by the public library of Alexandria,Minnesota.Because of the popularity acquired by Lewis and his book,high-school teams from his hometown of Sauk Centre,Minnesota,began to be called the Main Streeters as early as the 192526 school year.This name was essentially given to the town by the nearby towns at school events.The Sauk Centre High School still goes by the name in a tribute to Lewis.ThemeLewis criticizes Babbittry,that is,materialism,cultural vulgarity,hypocrisy,and conformism.Literary contributionLewis was a sociological writer.His novel forms a segment of American social history.For several decades Lewis nibbled like a silkworm at the mulberry leaf of American middle-class life,so that he got to known it inside out.He explained the American middle-class and gave a name,Babbitt,a word which has found its way into the English dictionary as a synonym for the vulgar and philistine businessman.Lewis limitationsIn theme his affirmation of what he regarded as the best middle-class virtues made him appear rather old-fashioned.In style,apart from the fact that his novels sprawl and want order and art,he was accurate in external description but lacking in psychological exploration.Thus,amid the experimental atmosphere of the postwar years,he looked conservative and outmoded.That image has remained in the memory of critics and readers alike even today.Willa Cather章嫣然2013105204 Willa Cather(1873-1947)She was born in Virginia,Willa Cather moved at the age of nine with her family to a prairie state of the West-Nebraska.Old west thus becomes in most of her novels the center of moral reference against which modern existence is measured.She was one of the few“uneasy survivors of the nineteenth century.”Hanging onto the traditional values,she was never able to come to terms with modernity.She lived in between the worlds,rejecting the modern and trying to escape into the refuge of the past.Her works are a fictional projection of her own crisis in life.WORKSMy Antonio(1918)我的安东妮亚The Song of the Lark(1915)云雀之歌A Lost Lady(1923)一个迷途的女人The Professors House(1925)教授的房子Death Comes for the Archbishop(1927)大主教之死Shadows on the Rock(1931)岩石上的影子 My Antonio(1918)My Antonia is a novel published in 1918 by American writer Willa Cather,considered one of her best works.It is the final book of her prairie trilogy of novels,preceded by O Pioneers!and The Song of the Lark.This novel is considered as Cathers first masterpiece.Cather was praised for bringing the American West to life and making it personally interestingLiterary style and themes Although Cather began her writing career as a journalist,she made a distinction between journalism,which she saw as being primarily informative,and literature,which she saw as an art form.Cathers work is often marked by its nostalgic tone,her subject matter and themes drawn from memories of her early years on the American plains.Some critics have charged Cather with being out of touch with her times and failing to use more experimental techniques,such as stream of consciousness,in her writing.Cathers style is not the accumulative cataloguing of the journalists,nor the fragmentary atomism of psychological associations.Thinking Willa Cather writes in the belief that,when a pioneer goes forth with his tradition into a new land,he will found a home with the graces and riches of the mind and spirit,and she may have found solace and satisfaction in her writings.Thus a traditionalist to the end,she managed to cling to her ideal and left an inspiriting literary record of a thinking minds response to modern life.Thomas WolfeBrief Introduction:Born(October 3,1900 September 15,1938)A major American novelist of the early twentieth century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels,plus many short stories,dramatic works and novellas.He is known for mixing highly original,poetic,rhapsodic,and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing.Major Works:Look Homeward,Angel(1929)天使望家乡 Of Time and the River(1935)时间与河流The Web and The Rock(1939)蛛网与岩石You Cant Go Home Again(1940)不能再回家The Story of a Novel(1936)一本小说的故事The Lost Boy(1937)迷失的男孩 All his writings are self-revelations.All his protagonists are his own personality.He saw the whole life of America as the province of his fictional representation.Personal writerAll the strengths and weaknesses evident in his art are his own.Ambitious manOriginal artistAnalysis of Thomas Wolfe:Themes of works:One such theme is male power jockeying,which is a major part of The Bonfire of the Vanities,A Man in Full,and I Am Charlotte Simmons as well as several of his journalistic pieces.He often satirizes racial politics,most commonly between whites and black;he also frequently highlights class divisions between characters.Mens fashions often play a large part in his stories,being used to indicate economic status.The Influence of Thomas Wolfe:After Wolfes death,his contemporary William Faulkner said that Wolfe may have had the best talent of their generation.Wolfes influence extends to the writings of beat generation writer Jack Kerouac,and of authors Ray Bradbury and Philip Roth,among others.He remains an important writer in modern American literature,as one of the first masters of autobiographical fiction,and is considered North Carolinas most famous writer.
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