Transcript 幻灯片 1

American Literature
Philip Freneau
Teaching Objectives
O Introduction to Philip Freneau
O Analysis of His poems
Philip Freneau (1752-1832)
菲利普·弗瑞诺
O Poet
O “Father of American
Poetry”
O Political journalist
Biographical Introduction
O Born in New York on January 2, 1752, of French Huguenot([‘hju:ɡənɔt]
胡格诺教徒)and Scottish stock
O At 16, entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University)
O Attended the War of Independence, and was captured by British army
in 1780
O Editor and contributor of The Freeman's Journal (Philadelphia) from
1781 to 1784
O After war, flung himself into the controversies between the
Jeffersonian Democrats and Hamilton’s Federalists
O supported Jeffersonian Democrats
O advocating the essence of “Jeffersonian democracy” --decentralization of government, equality for the masses, The national
government is a dangerous necessity to be instituted for the common
benefit, etc.
O After 50 years old, lived in poverty and died in a blizzard
Works of Philip Freneau
O Revolutionary Poems
“The Poet of the Revolution” “美国独立革命的诗人”
O 1772 The Rising Glory of America
美洲新兴的荣耀
O 1781 The British Prison Ship
英国囚船
O 1781 To the Memory of the Brave Americans 纪念美洲勇士
O 1774 Pictures of Columbus
哥伦布画像
O Nature lyrics
O Romantic Poet
O 1776 The Beauties of Santa Cruz
美丽的圣克鲁斯
O 1786 The Wild Honeysuckle
野地里的忍冬
O 1776 The House of Night
夜之屋
O 1788 The Indian Burying Ground
印第安人墓地
Common Beliefs of Enlightenment,
（FOUPS)
O 1) Faith in natural goodness - a human is born
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without taint or sin; the concept of tabula rasa or
blank slate.
2) Outdated social institutions cause unsociable
behavior - religious, social, economic, and political
institutions, which have not modernized, force
individuals into unacceptable behavior.
3) Universal benevolence普渡众生 - the attitude of
helping everyone.
4)Perfectibility of a human being - it is possible to
improve situations of birth, economy, society, and
religion
5) The sovereignty of reason - echoes of Rene
Descartes' cogito ergo sum or I think, therefore, I am
(as the first certitude in resolving universal doubt.)
Freneau as Leader of 18th Century
Enlightenment
O 1) Fresh interest in nature.
O 2)The belief that nature is a revelation of God.
O 3) Humanitarian sympathy for the humble and
oppressed.
O 4)The faith that people are naturally good. That
they lived peaceful and kind lives in a primitive
past before the advent of civilization.
O 5) The basic doctrine that the golden age will
dawn again when social institutions are modified,
since they are responsible for existing evil.
The Wild Honey Suckle
O published in Poems (1786)
O one of Freneau’s best nature poems
O unread in the time when he was living
O anticipates the nineteenth-century romantic
use of simple nature imagery
The Wild HoneySuckle - Philip Freneau
Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
美丽的花儿 如此清秀的绽放
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
隐藏在这安宁幽静的所在
Untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow,
未经染指的花蕊盛开芬芳
Unseen thy little branches greet:
未被注目的细枝问询摇摆
No roving foot shall crush thee here,
不会有那旅人践踏的脚步
No busy hand provoke a tear.
不会有那好事者的采摘
O a comely face; young fair maidens
O 好看的脸；年轻的漂亮少女
O retreat [ri’tri:t]隐退处, 静居处
O He lives in a quiet retreat.
O 他住在一个僻静的地方。
O 静修(期)
O They spent a week in (a) retreat.
O 他们静修了一周。
O blossom [‘blɔsəm] n.
O (尤指果树的)花
O 花丛, 花簇
O The oriental cherry is in full blossom.
O 樱花盛开。
O rove [rəuv] vt.
O 流浪, 漂泊,漫游
O He spent most of his life roving the world.
O 他一生的大部分时间都在世界上流浪。
O Stanza 1: The first stanza of the
poem treats the advantages as well
as the disadvantages of the
flower’s modest retirement---it is
designed with beauty and well
protected in solitude; whereas its
beauty might be admired by few.
Figures of speech
O Apostrophe[ə’pɔstrəfi] (呼语)---”fair flower”
O Personification--- “dost”, “you”, “she”
O Alliteration—”blossoms blow”
O Alliteration: occurrence of the same consonant sound
at the beginning of successive words or inside the
words
O Parallelism---”untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow/
unseen thy little branches greet”
O Symbolism-- “A silent and dull retreat”, “flower”, “white”--symbolizing “purity” and “death”
By Nature's self in white arrayed,
白色的花儿开得自在
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
将那凡尘俗眼躲避开来
And planted here the guardian shade,
四周有香林掩盖
And sent soft waters murmuring by;
一条细水带着细语相伴
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
这夏日便如此消逝远去
Thy days declining to repose.
你的花期也渐近凋敝
Stanza 2
O array [ə‘rei] n. 衣服, 服装
O She puts on her finest array.
O 她穿上最漂亮的衣服。
O vt.
O 盛装, 打扮, 装饰
O They arrayed themselves in all their finery.
O 她们打扮得花枝招展。
O They bade one another a casual goodbye and parted.
O 他们随便说声再见便分手了。
O The young man silently bade adieu to his hometown.
O 这个年轻人默默地告别了故乡。
O Bade goodbye, adieu, farewell to..
O Bade sb.. goodbye
O shun [ʃʌn]vt.
O 避开, 回避, 避免
O He was a shy man who shunned all publicity.
O 他是个怕羞的人, 总是避开一切引人注目的
活动。
O Stanza 2: the honeysuckle bears a
special relationship with nature which
has advised it to keep away from the
“vulgar eye”; Nature has designed it in
white---a color of simplicity and purity,
and, it has sent the soft waters flowing
gently by. However, in spite of all the
nature’s kindness, the flower cannot
escape its doom. The best time of its life
is fading, for death is waiting.
Smit with those charms, that must decay.
暗香也终将销残
I grieve to see your future doom;
念及你之终期 我便哀恸不已
They died - nor were those flowers more gay,
它们谢去—也不减分毫妍丽
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
曾在天堂绽放的花朵
Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power
严霜与那秋日的肃杀
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.
不会让花儿留下丝毫痕迹
Stanza 3
O Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to
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him the other also.
doom [du:m]vt.
注定; 判定
Bad weather doomed the crops.
坏天气注定了庄稼要歉收。
vestige [‘vestidʒ] n.残余部分; 遗迹; 痕迹
These upright stones are the vestiges of some ancient
religion.
这些竖立的石头是某种古代宗教的遗迹。
O Stanza 3: the indifference of nature---
the “unpitying frosts” are as much a
part of nature as the “soft waters.”
Thus, the notion that nature has
provided a “guardian shade” for the
protection of the honeysuckle is a
sentimental fancy. It is relative, but
death is absolute.
From morning suns and evening dews
那娇蕊自朝霞与暮露里
At first thy little being came:
来到这尘世
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
来时一无所有 去时了无牵挂
For when you die you are the same;
尘归尘 土归土
The space between, is but an hour,
这相隔的时间 不过一晌
The frail duration of a flower.
这便是一朵花儿憔悴的命运一场
Hyperbole
“the space is but an hour"
contains a stressing and
transience of life.
O Stanza 4: the poet sees his fate
mirrored in that of the flower.
Human beings, as any other
creatures or flowers, are a part of
nature. They originated from
nature and will surely return to
nature some day, thus their
reduction to nature in the day
ahead will constitute no real loss.
Evaluation of The Wild Honey Suckle
O Theme:
O Deep love for nature
O celebrating the beauty and liveliness of the frail forest flower
O Providence of Creator
O Transience of nature and beauty
O Transience of human beings’ lives
O Form
O Four six-line stanzas
O rhymed on ababcc pattern
The Wild HoneySuckle
O Flower vs Human Being Duration vs Life,
O the human being has the ability to foresee his
death. Whereas, the flower, with its happy
ignorance, lacks this consciousness and is
completely unaware of its doom. Its innocence left
it happier than the foreseeing human beings.
Unfortunately, the human beings are quite
unwilling to refuse this knowledge and that
arouses all their sufferings
O Show us how to live an useful life.
O In a revolution, one should not do nothing for his
country for fear of being hurt, harmed and destroyed.
O Freneau, the first American-born
poet, was one of the earliest who
cast their eyes over the natural
surroundings of the New Continent
and American subject matter(主题).
As is displayed in this poem:
Honeysuckle, instead of rose or
daffodil became the object of
depiction; it is “wild “ just to convey
the fresh perception of the natural
scenes on the new continent.
O philosophical meditation
O The flowers, similar to the early Puritan settlers, used to
believe they were the selects of God to be arranged on
the abundant land, but now have to wake up from that
fantasy and be more respectful to natural law.
O Time is constant but time of a life is short; any favor is
relative but change is absolute with or without the
awareness, nature develops: flowers were born,
bloomed and declined to repose, and human beings
would exist in exactly the same way.
OA
flower and a person share many
similarities.
O 1)They are both born in the nature, grow out
of the nurture of nature.
O 2)Both of them are the blessing and
distillation of Nature.
O Everything, flower, man, no matter how
beautiful it is, will decay sooner or later. A
flower, no matter how comely it is, if
growing in a deserted place and its beauty
can’t be known, fails to realize its values as a
flower. Though it avoids being harmed,
crushed and pricked, yet its beauty is also
unknown to people. (It makes us wonder if
such an arrangement is the Nature’s kindness
or cruelty?)
O Think
about a person who is talented and
knowledgeable. If he can’t do good for society with his
knowledge and wisdom, that is, his “beauty” is
unknown to others, maybe by doing so, he protects
himself soundly, places himself in safety, yet his
talents and life values can’t be realized either. So
what’s the use of his talents and knowledge? How is
his life valuable? If you are unwilling to do
something for fear of losing something else,
your life is meaningless, empty and valueless.
And your life will appear much shorter and
your life space is much limited since you do
nothing to enrich and extend it.
What lessons can we draw from the poem?
O 1. The wild can also be beautiful.
O 2.Everyone
should take an active
attitude toward life. never avoid
challenges for fear of losing something.
O 3.One can’t achieve anything under the
shelter and protection.
Appreciation of the poem:
O Superficially, the poem is about a flower. And the poet
laments its beauty is not realized and known, frailty
and easy transience of the flower and all those
charms in the world. In fact, he refers/alludes the
flower to human beings, the duration of a flower to
human’s life. By depicting the situation of the wild
beautiful flower and its short life, he shows us how to
spend one’s life and gives us an important philosophy
in life: don’t be afraid to lose something, because, at
the same time, you also get something.
O How quickly a most beautiful thing will pass, even
before known to the public! The flower is the blessing
the Nature who protects it well from the injuries and
tears. Yet no matter how well it is protected, it will
decay one day, even those in Eden can’t avoid death.
Once autumn comes, unpitying frost shall destroy
everything of you.
characteristics
O Plain language vivid images
O Intellectual control (the narrator distances himself
from flower by making her an object to inspire
thought rather than sympathetic involvement)
O Blending of Romanticism and Neoclassicism
The Indian Burying Ground
O portrays sympathetically the spirit of the nomadic游牧的
Indian hunters, who were traditionally buried in a sitting
position and with images of the objects they knew in life
O believed to be the earliest to romanticize the Indian as a
child of nature
O Form: written almost in ten iambic tetrameter
quatrains(四音步四行诗
O the rhyme scheme of “abab”.
The Indian Burying Ground
O published in Miscellaneous Works(杂文集)in
1788
O In 1787, Freneau chanced to pay a visit to an Indian tribe
and saw the strange way of the Indians burying a body.
Freneau was greatly shocked and deeply impressed by
their burying the dead in a sitting posture and that
resulted in this poem of rich imagination.
O The poem describes the spirituality of Indians
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surrounding death, which is seen as a happy
occasion, unlike Western white culture.
Freneau sees the Indians as children of the
forest – a people that live in harmony with nature
and have found the essence of life.
Further more Freneau distances himself from
‘the learned’ and the reason they represent.
He doesn’t see as the Indians as savages as the
learned do, so in that way you could say that he
didn’t approve of the way the Indians were
treated.
Americans should respect the Indians and their
way of thinking.
long-horned grasshoppers,
O bush-crickets,
To a Caty-did
美洲大螽斯
Field Bush cricket
Evaluation of the poet
O 1. Poet of American Independence: Freneau provides incentive and
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inspiration to the revolution by writing such poems as "The Rising
Glory of America" and "Pictures of Columbus哥伦布 ."
2.Journalist: Freneau was editor and contributor of The Freeman's
Journal (Philadelphia) from 1781-1784.
In his writings, he advocated the essence of what is known as
Jeffersonian democracy - decentralization of government, equality
for the masses, etc.
3. Freneau's Religion: Freneau is described as a deist - a believer
in nature and humanity but not a pantheist. In deism, religion
becomes an attitude of intellectual belief, not a matter of
emotional of spiritual ecstasy. Freneau shows interest and
sympathy for the humble and the oppressed.
4. Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are
death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these
themes become important in 19th century writing.
Thanks for your attention!
The Rising Glory of America
O wrote in collaboration with Hugh Henry Brackenridge（布
雷肯里奇）before graduation from College of New Jersey
O pronounces the virtues of a new nation progressing
towards its freedom
O provides incentive and inspiration to the revolution
Lyric
O Any fairly short poem consisting of the utterance by a single
speaker, who expresses a state of mind or a process of
perception, thought, and feeling.
O Many lyric speakers are represented as musing in solitude
O The “I” in the poem need not to be the poet who wrote it
Father of American Poetry
O Themes of Freneau as
O death, nature, transition, and the human in nature
which become important in 19th century writing
O “gifted and versatile (talented) lyric poet”
O He was the most significant poet of 18th century
America.
Some of his themes and images anticipated the works
of such 19th century American Romantic writers as
Cooper, Emerson, Poe and Melville.
“Pioneer of the New Romanticism”
Neoclassicism新古典主义
O a type of classicism which draws its name from its
finding in classical literature of ancient Greek and
Roman writers and in contemporary French neoclassical
writings the models for its literary expressions and a
group of attitudes toward life and art.
O It dominated English literature in the restoration age
and in the 18th century. Neoclassic ideals had concrete
effects on literature. The neoclassicists believed that
the artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained
emotion and accuracy. They followed some fixed laws
and rules. Poetry should by lyrical, epic, didactic, satiric
or dramatic. Prose should be precise, direct, smooth
and flexible. Drama should be written in heroic couplet;
the three unities of time, space and action should be
strictly observed.
Romanticism
O 1. stress emotion, passion, imagination and fancy,
rich in mystic color, deal with moral theme.
O 2.It exalted the individualism and encouraged people
to fight for individual right and human happiness
bravely. It displays personalities, expresses feelings
and thoughts of common people. It stresses man’s
ability to master the world by one’s conscience or
intuition. They believed that human nature was of
good-will. One form of it is transcendentalism.
O 3. The Romanticists showed a profound admiration
and love for nature, the beauty and perfection of
nature could produce in them an unspeakable joy
and exaltation; the romanticist believed that he was
the chosen and favored creature in nature, hence he
was free in using his talent to eulogize nature. Nature
is symbolized in literary works, marked by men’s
subjective mood.
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