文档介绍：American Literature
2013 , Jan.
Course Description
Aims ?
1) a brief outline of British literature ?
2) good use of English ?
3) making friends
4) entertainment of reading ?
5) emotional sharing/ release ?
6) moral lessons ?
Nowadays literature has e a rare jewel.
Literature makes a good person.
Literature has spiritual values that are above fames and
Literature promotes a better/deeper understanding of humanity (human nature), therefore makes people e more patient, considerate, tolerant, open-minded, and with better tastes.
Literature and social life/ economy/ politics?
Some ideas to help read literature better
In a essful work of art, form and content cannot be seperated and form is meaning.
What is the story? How is the story told?
形式不是装饰,它就是内容。
Literature is ultimately metophorical and symbolic.
The general and the universal are not seized upon by abstraction, but got at through the concrete and the particular.
“Specific moral problems” are the subject matter of literature, but that the purpose of literature is not to point to a moral.
文学不直接指向道德。文学表达的是乡愁,它有时空感,宇宙感,生命感,这也是文学的宗教感。
莫言的小说:生死疲劳,丰乳肥臀
A Rose for Emily
Literature is not didactic (说教的) and does not “judge” in the same way as in other judgments; rather, plicates our exsiting system of judgement so as to improve our ability of judging. It is a plex judgement.
Comment with examples.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest i