【正文】 lonely, vulnerable women indulged in memory of the past or illusion of the future. He was attracted to bizarre characters and their predicament. He looked deeply into the psychology of the outcasts of society. He saw life a game which cannot be won. Almost all his characters are defeated.3. his plays(1) The Glass Menagerie(2) A Streetcar Named Desire(3) Summer and Smoke(4) Cat on a Hot Tin RoofIII. Arthur Miller1. life2. theme: dilemma of modern man in relation to family and work3. his plays(1) Death of a SalesmanIV. Theatre of the AbsurdDefinition: The theatre of absurd came to vogue in the 1950s and 1960s. It refers to some plays the theme of which centers on the meaninglessness of life with its pain and suffering that seems funny, even ridiculous. The representatives are Samuel Becket’s Waiting for Godot, andEdward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?Chapter 8 Black American LiteratureI. OverviewNegro – coloured (legally free) – black (after civil rights movement)1. oral tradition2. written literature (from 1760s)II. Richard Wright1. life2. works(1) Native Son3. themes and subjectsHis mon theme is to condemn racism, urge reform, criticize evils of society. His books focus on racial conflict and physical violence. They review the devastating effect of institutionalized hatred (hatred brought by social system) and humiliation on black males’ psyche. They affirmed dignity and humility of society’s outcasts.III. Ralph Ellison1. works: Invisible ManIV. Alice Walker1. life2. works(1) The Colour Purple (epistolary)V. Toni Morrison1. life2. works(1) The Bluest Eye(2) Sula(3) Song of Solomon (the best black novel after Native Son and Invisible Man)(4) Tar Baby(5) Beloved(6) Jazz(7) Love (trilogy)3. themes: love, guilt, history, individual, gender, race, religion4. purpose: to empower the black people to act for themselves, to recognize for their own world, own history, own reality5. style – many kinds of factors: naturalism, realism, fantasy, reality, magical realism1993 Toni Morrison1987 Joseph Brodsky1980Czeslaw Milosz1978Isaac Bashevis Singer1976Saul Bellow1962John Steinbeck1954Ernest Hemingway1949William Faulkner1938Pearl S Buck1936Eugene O39。 60sI. Historical Background – multifaceted1. Cold War2. McCarthyism (persecution of munists)3. Korean War4. Civil Rights Movement5. Counterculture Movement – political, economical and military achievementSection 1 PoetryI. Schools of Poetry (time, representatives, major features)1. Confessional Poets: Robert LowellThe greatness of Lowell lies in the fact that, in talking candidly about himself, he is examining the culture of his nation. The identification of personal experience with that of an age has always ensured greatness and even immortality as it did.2. Black Mountain Poets: Charles OlsonThere is an emphasis on the importance of the moments of awareness. It portrays a world of “awakened, contemplative awareness”, one in which civilization appears alien, cold, and almost unreal.3. Beat Generation: In the 1950s there was a widespread discontentment among the postwar generation, whose voice was one of protest against all the mainstream culture that America had e to represent. This has e to be known as the Beat Generation. The representatives included Allan Ginsberg’s Howl and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.Section 2 Fiction1. J. D. Salinger(1) Life(2) Point of viewOne of his frequent themes is young people longing for simplicity and truth instead of plexity and hypocrisy of the life they observed around them. In his novels, he questions the moral foundations of society and often places innocent idealist characters in setting where a vicious, corrupt society could destroy them. Although his stories are often pessimistic, the characters represent hope rather than despair. They want to affirm truth. They deplore the lies with which the society conceals its own corruption. They withdraw the society, bee dropouts rather than participants in the society.(3) Catcher in the Rye2. Joseph Heller(1) Life(2) Catch22It is not only a war novel, but also a novel about people’s life in peaceful time. This novel attacked the dehumanization of all contemporary institutions and corruptions of individuals who gain power in institutions. Armedforces are the most outrageous example of the two evils.Language: circular conversation, wrenched clich233。 to use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation。2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation。 and the general tone one of hopelessness and even despair.III. Theodore Dreiser1. life2. works(1) Sister Carrie3. point of view(1) He embraced social Darwinism – survival of the fittest. He learned to regard man as merely an animal driven by greed and lust in a struggle for existence in which only the “fittest”, the most ruthless, survive.(2) Life is predatory, a “game” of the lecherous and heartless, a jungle struggle in which man, being “a waif and an interloper in Nature”, a “wisp in the wind of social forces”, is a mere pawn in the general scheme of things, with no power whatever to assert his will.(3) No one is ethically free。 Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual.(2) Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is “regional”.(3) Whitman has the “catalogue technique” which Dickinson doesn’t have. (direct, simple style)Edgar Allen PoeI. LifeII. Works1. short stories(1) ratiocinative storiesa. Ms Found in a Bottleb. The Murders in the Rue Morguec