Part Two: American Literature
Chapter 1: The Romantic Period
General Introduction
1. Duration and the symbols of beginning and ending:
Duration: from end of 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War
Beginning: publication of Sketch Book by Washington Irving
Ending: Leaves of Grass by Whitman
It is a great flowering of American literature; it is also called “American Renaissance”.
2. Social background:
Historically, westward territorial expansion provided rich materials for the development of Romanticism.
Economically, the industrial transformation set up the background for the development of Romanticism.
Politically, democracy and equality stimulated the desires for the development of a national literature – Romanticism.
3. Literary background:
1Common feature:
American writers share certain common with English Romanticists.
2New forms of fiction and poetry:
Emphasis on the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature
Emphasis on free expression of emotion
Emphasis on individual exalt
3Typical American features:
Influenced by American Puritanism and New England Transcendentalism, revealed the unique characteristics of their own.
American Puritanism:
Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them. They were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purity their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace form God. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind. American Puritanism also had a enduring influence on American literature.
New England Transcendentalism:
Started by a group of people who were members of the transcendental club.
Two most significant writers: Emerson and Thoreau
Emphasis: the nature and individual
Definition: Transcendentalists goes from the romantic literature of Europe. They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism, or the oversoul. They stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual was the most important element of society. They offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit of God. Nature was, to them, alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence. Transcendentalism is based on the belief that the most fundamental truths about life and death can be reached only by going beyond the world of the senses. Emerson’s Nature has been called the “Manifesto of American Transcendentalism” and his The American Scholar has been rightly regarded as America’s “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”.
4. Major writers:
Poets:
Philip Freneau; William Cullen Bryant; Henry Wordsworth Longfellow; James Russel Lowell; John Greenleaf Whitter; Edgar Ellen Poe; Walt Whitman
Fictionists:
Washington Irving; James Fenimore Cooper; Herman Melville; Nathaniel Hawthorne; Ralph Waldo Emerson
The typical authors during this period
I. Nathaniel Hawthorne
1. Hawthorne’s life and writing career:
Imbued with an inquiring imagination, an intensely meditative mind, and unceasing interest in the “interior of the heart” of man’s being, Nathaniel Hawthorne remains one of the most interesting, yet most ambivalent writers in the American literary history
From Emerson, Thoreau and Melville, he was affected by transcendentalist theory, and all the three people had played an indispensable role in Hawthorne’s literary career
2. Hawthorne’s major works:
Twice-Told Tales 故事重述 – a collection of short story
Mosses from an Old Manse 古宅青苔
The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales
Best demonstrate Hawthorn’s early obsession with the moral and psychological consequences of pride, selfishness, and secret guilt that manifest themselves in human beings.
The Scarlet Letter 红字 always regarded as the best of his works, tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a Puritan community are involved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways.
The House of the Seven Gables 有七个尖角阁楼的房子 was based on the tradition of a curse pronounced on the author’s family when his great-grandfather was a judge in the Salem witchcraft trials.
The Blithedale Romance 福 谷 传 奇 is a novel he wrote to reveal his own experiences on the Brook Farm and his own methods as a psychological novelis.
The Marble Faun 大 理 石 雕 像 is a romance set in Italy, concerned about the dark aberrations of the human spirit.
Young Goodman Brown 年轻小伙子布朗 – Selected reading
3. His thematic concerns:
The “black” vision:
His “black” vision of life and human beings refers to his concern with human sin and evil.
According to Hawthorne, “There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.” A piece of literary work should “show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one another”.
One source of evil that Hawthorne is concerned most is over-reaching intellect, which usually refers to someone, who is too proud, too sure of himself.
View of Puritanism:
Hawthorne’s view of man and human history originates, to a great extent, in Puritanism.
He believed that “the wrong doing of one generation lives into the successive ones,” This sensibility led to his understanding of evil being at the very core of human life.
In many of Hawthorne’s stories and novels, the Puritan concept of life is condemned, or the Puritan Past is shown in an almost totally negative light, especially in his The House Of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter.
Hawthorne is attracted in every way to the Puritan world, even though he condemns its less humane manifestations. On the one hand, it provides him with a subject, He inherited the Puritan tradition of moral earnestness, and he was deeply concerned with the concepts of original sin and guilt and the claims of law and conscience; and on the other, with the Puritan world or society as a historical background, he discusses some of the most important issues that concern the moral life of man and human history.
4. His masterpiece The Scarlet Letter:
Hawthorne’s remarkable sense of the Puritan past, his understanding of the colonial history in New England, his apparent preoccupation with the moral issues of sin and guilt, and his keen psychological analysis of people are brought to full display in his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter.
Psychological analysis in the novel:
With his special interest in the psychological aspect of human beings, there isn’t much action, or physical movement going on in his works and he is good at exploring the complexity of human psychology. So his drama is thought, full of mental activities. Thought propels action and grows organically out of the interaction of the characters, as we can find in The Scarlet Letter.
Symbolism in this novel:
Hawthorne is a master of symbolism, which he took from the Puritan tradition and bequeathed to American literature in a revivified form.
The symbol can be found everywhere in his writing, and his masterpiece provides the most conclusive proof.
The scarlet letter “A” is the central symbol of The Scarlet Letter, with which Hawthorne proves himself to be one of the best symbolists. As a key to the whole novel, the letter A takes on different layers of symbolic meanings as the plot develops.
At the beginning of the novel Hester was discovered to have committed adultery and was punished to wear a scarlet letter “A” made of cloth at her bosom and the letter symbolized her sin-“adultery”.
Then when Hester became gradually accepted by the community through her honesty and hard work, it stands for Hester’s intelligence and hard work-“able”.
At the end of the novel the symbol has evolved to represent the high virtues of Hester-“angelic”. So the letter changes from a symbol of sin to a symbol of ability and at last of the high human virtue .
By using Pearl as a thematic symbol, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community.
5. Hawthorne’s writing style:
As a man of literary craftsmanship, Hawthorne is extraordinary in that
1The structure and the form of his writings are always carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern.
2With his special interest in the psychological aspect of human beings, there isn’t much action, or physical movement going on in his works and he is good at exploring the complexity of human psychology. So his drama is full of mental activities. Thought propels action and grows organically out of the interaction of the characters, as we can find in The Scarlet Letter.
3Hawthorne is also a great allegorist and almost every story can be read allegorically, as is the case in "Young Goodman Brown." Allegory is used to hold fast against the crushing blows of reality. Its hero, a naive young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful. Allegorically, our protagonist, becomes an Everyman named Brown, a "young man" who will be aged in one night by an adventure that makes everyone in this world a fallen idol.
4Hawthorne is a master of symbolism, which he took from the Puritan tradition and bequeathed to American literature in a revivified form. The symbol serves as a weapon to attack and penetrate reality. The symbol can be found everywhere in his writing.
His masterpiece provides the most conclusive proof. The scarlet letter "A" is the central symbol of The Scarlet Letter. With which Hawthorne proves himself to be one of the best symbolists. As a key to the whole novel, the letter A takes on different layers of symbolic meanings as the plot develops.
In “Young Goodman Brown”, by using the black forest as a thematic symbol, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequences of sin on the community and people living in that community. The other symbols are the name of his wife “Faith”, the pink ribbon of her cap, the black mass of cloud, the blazing pines, the rock, etc.
5The scarlet letter A is ambiguous. People come up with different interpretations and they do not know which one is definite. So, ambiguity is one of the salient characteristics of Hawthorne’s art.
II. Walt Whitman
1. Whitman’s life:
Whitman is a giant of American letters. His Leaves of Grass has always been considered a monumental work which commands great attention because of its uniquely poetic embodiment of American democratic ideals.
He is the poet of the common people and the prophet and singer of democracy.
During the years in New York City, Whitman began to show his democratic partisanship. And this ideas governing Whit’s poetry-writing gradually took place.
2. Whitman’s democratic ideals:
Whitman’s democratic ideas govern his poetry-writing. In his famous poetry, openness, freedom, and above all, individualism (the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important) are all that concerned him.
Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into American literature, attack the slavery system and racial discrimination. In this book he also extols nature, democracy, labor and creation, and sings of man’s dignity and equality, and of the brightest future of mankind.
Whitman believed that poetry could play a vital part in the process of creating a new nation. It could enable Americans to celebrate their release from the Old World and the colonial rule. And it could also help them understand their new status and to define themselves in the new world of possibilities.
3. The themes in Whitman’s poetry:
His poetry is filled with optimistic expectation and enthusiasm about new things and new epoch, so the abundance of themes in his poetry voices freshness.
1He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. To Whitman, the fast growth of industry and wealth in cities indicated a lively future of the nation, despite the crowded, noisy, and squalid conditions and the slackness in morality.
2He advocates the realization of the individual value. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-masse” and the self as well.
3Pursuit of love and happiness is approved of repeatedly and affectionately in his lines. Sexual love, a rather taboo topic of the time, is displayed candidly as something adorable. The individual person and his desires must be respected.
4Some of Whitman’s poems are politically committed. Before and during the Civil War, Whitman expressed much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory.
4. Leaves of Grass:
1The title:
It is significant that Whitman entitled his book Leaves of Grass. He said that where there is earth, where there is water, there is grass. Grass, the most common thing with the greatest vitality, is an image of the poet himself, a symbol of the then rising American nation and an embodiment of his ideals about democracy and freedom.
2Theme
In this giant work, openness, freedom, and above all, individualism (the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important) are all that concerned him.
Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into American literature, attack the slavery system and racial discrimination. In this book he also extols nature, democracy, labor and creation, and sings of man’s dignity and equality, and of the brightest future of mankind. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-masse” and the self as well.
3Essential purpose
His aim was nothing less than to express some new poetical feelings and to initiate a poetic tradition in which difference should be recognized.
The genuine participation of a poet in a common cultural effort was, according to Whitman, to behave as a supreme individualist; however, the poet’s essential purpose was to identify his ego with the world, and more specifically with the democratic “en-masse” of America, which is established in the opening lines of “Song of Myself”.
5. Whitman’s poetic style and language:
1Poetic style:
To dramatize the nature of these new poetical feelings, Whitman employed brand-new means in his poetry, which would first be discerned in his style and language.
(1) Whitman’s poetic style is marked, first of all, by the use of the poetic “I”. Whitman becomes all those people in his poems and yet still remains “Walt Whitman”, hence a discovery of the self in the other with such an identification. In such a manner, Whitman invites his readers to participate in the process of sympathetic identification.
(2) Whitman is also radically innovative in terms of the form of his poetry. He adopted “free verse”.
(3) Whitman is conversational and casual, in the fluid, expansive, and unstructured style of talking. However, there is a strong sense of the poems being rhythmical. The reader can feel the rhythm of Whitman’s thought and cadences of his feeling. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines also contribute to the musicality of his poems.
2Whitman’s language:
(1) Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest, undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day. The particularity about these images is that they are unconventional in the way they break down the social division based on religion, gender, class, and race. One of the most often-used methods in Whitman’s poems is to make colors and images fleet past the mind’s eye of the reader.
(2) Another characteristic in Whitman’s language is his strong tendency to use oral English.
(3) Whitman’s vocabulary is amazing. He would use powerful, colorful, as well as rarely-used words, words of foreign origin and sometimes even wrong words.
III. Herman Melville
1. His life and his career as a writer:
Herman Melville is best-known as the author of his mighty book, Moby-Dick(1851), which is one of the world’s greatest masterpieces.
In 1841, Melville went to the South Seas on a whaling ship, where he gained the first-hand information about whaling that he used later in Moby Dick.
Hawthorne’s black vision regarding the evil of human beings had in some way changed Melville’s outlook on life and the world and his allegorical way of exposition had affected his writing technique. Shakespearean tragic vision and Emersonian Transcendentalism also produced some positive effects on his writing.
2. Major works:
The first period:
Typee 泰比
Omio 欧穆
Mardi 玛地
Redburn 莱德伯恩
White Jacket 白外套
Moby Dick 白鲸(莫比•迪克)
The second period:
Pierre 皮埃尔
Billy Budd 比利•巴德
The Confident Man
Bartleby, the Scrivener
Benito Cereno 贝尼托·塞莱诺
3. The differences between Melville’s early works and later ones:
Melville’s writings can be well divided into two groups, each with something in common in the light of the thematic concern and imaginative focus.
1His early works were sea adventures, considered to be the best. Melville relates his life on a United States man-of-war. Of all these sea adventure stories, Moby-Dick proves to be the best. By writing such a book Melville reached the most flourishing stage of his literary creativity.
2Pierre is a popular romance intended for the feminine market but provoking an outrageous repudiation. While in the late works, Melville becomes more reconciled with the world of man, in which, he admits, one must live by the rules. However, the purpose of Melville’s fictional tales, exotic or philosophical, is to penetrate as deeply as possible into the metaphysical, theological, moral, psychological, and social truths of human existence.
4. Moby-dick:
Moby-dick is regarded as the Great American Novel, the first American prose epic(散文史诗: a long narrative poem telling of heroic deeds of reflecting the values of the society from which it originated), though it is presented in the form of a novel.
Surface and the deep meaning
1its surface meaning: It is a whaling tale or sea adventure, dealing with Ahab, a man with an overwhelming obsession to kill the whale which has crippled him, on board his ship Pequod in the chase of the big whale. The dramatic description of the hazards of whaling makes the book a very exciting sea narrative and builds a literary monument to an era of whaling industry in the nineteenth century.
2 The deep symbolic theme: Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, considering that Melville is a great symbolist. It turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology. This is shown in Captain Ahab’s rebellious struggle against the overwhelming mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces.
The Peduod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth; Moby Dick symbolizes nature for the author, evil for the character Ahab;
Mixture of romanticism and realism
1 Romantic features: Ahab is a Byronic hero, a man with an overwhelming obsession or consuming desire to take revenge against the whale which has crippled him. His revenge ends in tragedy and he, who burns with a baleful fire, becomes evil himself in his thirst to destroy evil. Moby Dick, for the writer, symbolizes the unknown, mysterious natural force, an unreal world of speculation and mystery which is very hard for man to manipulate.
2 Realistic features: The dramatic description of the hazards of whaling makes the book a very exciting sea narrative and builds a literary monument to an era of whaling industry in the nineteenth century.
Allegory and symbolism
Symbolism: Moby-Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, it is also a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology.
Like Hawthorne, Melville is a master of allegory and symbolism.
Allegory: For the author, as well as for the reader and Ishmael, the narrator, Moby Dick is still a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, inscrutable and ambivalent, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search, not a discovery of the truth.
1.evil ['iːv(ə)l] n. 罪恶，邪恶;不幸 adj. 邪恶的;不幸的;有害的;讨厌的
2.sin [sɪn] n. 罪恶;罪孽;过失 v. 犯罪
3.vision ['vɪʒ(ə)n] n. 视力;美景;眼力;幻象;想象力 vt. 想象;显现;梦见 E.g. Hawthorne has a “black” vision of life and human being, which account for the fact that in almost every book he wrote, Hawthorne discusses sin and evil. 霍桑写的每一本小说几乎都在讨论罪与恶。因为他认为，人人内心都有邪恶。
4. critical ['krɪtɪk(ə)l] adj. 鉴定的;批评的，爱挑剔的;危险的;决定性的;评论的 E.g. In 1837, Nathaniel Hawthorne published Twice-Told Tales, a collection of short stories which attracted critical attention. 1837年，霍桑出版了《故事重述》，是一系列短篇小说，并且受到了批判性的关注。
5. symbol ['sɪmb(ə)l] n. 象征;符号;标志
6. symbolist ['sɪmbəlɪst] n. 象征主义者;符号学者;记号使用者 E.g. With the scarlet letter A as the biggest symbol of all, Hawthorne proves himself to be one of the best symbolists. 《红字》中字母 A 呈现出最大的象征意义，奠定了霍桑伟大象征主义者的地位。
7. faith [feɪθ] n. 信仰;信念;信任;忠实 In Young Goodman Brown by Hawthorne, the name of Goodman Brown’s wife is Faith, which also contains many symbolic meanings. 在霍桑的《小伙子歌德曼.布朗》中，歌德曼.布朗的妻子叫费丝， “Goodman”(好人) 和“Faith” (信仰)都有象征意义。
8. symbolic [sɪm'bɒlɪk] adj. 象征的;符号的;使用符号的
9. symbolism ['sɪmbəlɪz(ə)m] n. 象征，象征主义;符号论;记号 E.g. As a key to the whole novel of The Scarlet Letter, the letter A takes on different layers of symbolic meanings. 作为小说《红字》的关键要素，字母 A 呈现出不同层次的象征意义。
10. scarlet ['skɑːlət] adj. 深红的;鲜红色的;罪孽深重的;淫荡的 n. 猩红色;红衣; 绯红色 E.g. The Scarlet Letter is Hawthorne’s masterpiece. 《红字》是霍桑的杰作。
11. adultery [ə'dʌlt(ə)rɪ] n. 通奸，通奸行为 E.g. The Scarlet Letter always regarded as the best of Hawthorne’s works, tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a Puritan community are involved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways. 《红字》是霍桑的代表作，讲述的是四个生活在清教社区以不同方式与通奸罪有牵连的故事，情节简单，但内容感人。
12. obsession [əb'seʃ(ə)n] n. 痴迷;困扰 E.g. The works such as Mosses from an Old Manse and The Snow- Image and Other Twice-Told Tales demonstrate Hawthorne’s early obsession with moral and psychological consequences of pride, selfishness and secret guilt that manifest themselves in human being. 《古宅青苔》和《雪像》和《其他故事新编》证明霍桑早期对道德和人性的骄傲，自私和内疚的心理影响的痴迷。
13. psychological [saɪkə'lɒdʒɪk(ə)l] adj. 心理的;心理学的;精神上的 E.g. The Blithedale Romance is a novel Hawthorne wrote to reveal his own experiences on the Brook Farm and his own methods as a psychological novelist. 霍桑的《福谷传奇》是一部透露了他在布鲁克农场的经历和他作为心理小说家的一些方法的小说。
14. puritan ['pjʊərɪt(ə)n] adj. 清教徒的 n. 清教徒 E.g. In many of Hawthorne’s stories and novels, the Puritan concept of life is condemned, especially in his The house of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter. 在许多霍桑的故事和小说中，尤其是《有七个尖角阁楼的房子》和《红字》，清教徒的生活观念遭到了谴责。
15. puritanism ['pjʊrɪtənɪzəm] n. 清教;清教主义;清教徒习俗;道德上的极端拘谨 E.g. To a great extent, Hawthorne’s view of man and human history originates in Puritanism. 霍桑对人及人类历史的观点来自于清教徒主义。
16. birthmark ['bɜːθmɑːk] n. 胎记;胎痣 E.g. “The Birthmark” drives home symbolically Hawthorne’s point that evil is man’s birthmark, something he is born with. 在《胎记》中他一针见血地指出邪恶就是人类与生俱来的胎记。
17. latent ['leɪt(ə)nt] adj. 潜在的;潜伏的;隐藏的
18. circumstance ['sɜːkəmst(ə)ns] n. 环境，情况;事件;境遇 E.g. According to Nathaniel Hawthorne, “There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.” 霍桑认为，人人内心都有邪恶，这种邪恶也许一生都潜藏在内心，但在一 定的条件下就表现出来。
19. guilt [gɪlt] n. 犯罪，过失;内疚 The works such as Mosses from an Old Manse and The Snow- Image and Other Twice-Told Tales demonstrate Hawthorne’s early obsession with moral and psychological consequences of pride, selfishness and secret guilt that manifest themselves in human being. 《古宅青苔》和《雪像》和《其他故事新编》证明霍桑早期对道德和人性的骄傲，自私和内疚的心理影响的痴迷。
20. intellectual [,ɪntə'lektʃʊəl] adj. 智力的;聪明的;理智的 n. 知识分子;凭理 智做事者 E.g. Hawthorne’ s intellectuals are usually villains, dreadful because they are devoid of warmth and feeling. 霍桑笔下的知识分子通常是恶棍，非常可怕，因为他们缺乏温暖和感觉。
21. allegory ['æ lɪg(ə)rɪ] n. 寓言 E.g. “Young Goodman Brown” takes the form of an allegory.霍桑的《小伙子歌德曼.布朗》采取的是寓言的形式。
22. allegorical [,æ lɪ'gɒrɪk(ə)l] adj. 讽喻的;寓言的，寓意的 E.g. Faith Brown serves an allegorical purpose in this story. 布朗的妻子费丝布朗在这个故事中有着讽喻的目的。
23. allegorically [,æ lə'gɔrɪkli] adv. 寓言地;比喻地 E.g. Hawthorne is also a great allegorist and almost every story can be read allegorically, as is the case in “Young Goodman Brown.” 霍桑还是一个伟大的讽喻家，几乎他的每一个故事都有寓意，比如《小伙子歌德曼.布朗》。
24. protagonist [prə'tæ g(ə)nɪst] n. 主角，主演;主要人物，领导者 E.g. Goodman Brown is the protagonist in “Young Goodman Brown” .
25. devote [dɪ'vəʊt] vt. 致力于;奉献 E.g. As a poet with a strong sense of mission, Walt Whitman devoted all his life to the creation of the “single” poem, Leaves of Grass. 作为一个有使命感的诗人，惠特曼倾注自己一生的精力到《草叶集》的创作中。
26. monumental [mɒnjʊ'ment(ə)l] adj. 不朽的;纪念碑的;非常的 E.g. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass has always been considered a monumental work which commands great attention in America. 惠特曼的《草叶集》具有里程碑意 义，在美国广受关注。
27.democracy [dɪ'mɒkrəsɪ] n. 民主，民主主义;民主政治 E.g. Walt Whitman is the poet of the common people and the prophet and singer of democracy. 惠特曼是平民的诗人，是民主的预言家和歌颂者。
28. democratic [demə'krætɪk] adj. 民主的;民主政治的;大众的 E.g. Whitman’s democratic ideas govern his poetry-writing. In his Leaves of Grass, openness, freedom, and above all individualism, are all that concerned Walt Whitman. 惠特曼的民主观点支配着他的诗歌创造。开放，自由，尤其是个人主义都是惠特曼的《草叶集》所讨论的
29. individualism [ɪndɪ'vɪdjʊ(ə)lɪz(ə)m] n. 个人主义;利己主义;个人特征 E.g. In his Leaves of Grass, openness, freedom, and above all individualism, are all that concerned Walt Whitman. 开放，自由，尤其是个人主义都是惠特曼的《草叶集》 所讨论的。
30. individualist [,ɪndʒʊvɪdjʊəlɪst] n. 利己主义者，个人主义者 E.g. The genuine participation of a poet in a common cultural effort was, according to Whitman, to behave as a supreme individualist. 根据惠特曼，诗人真正参与共同的文化努力是像一个至高无上的个人主义者那样行动起来。
31. concern [kən'sɜːn] n. 关系;关心;关心的事 vt. 涉及，关系到;使担心 E.g. In his poetry, Whitman shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. 在诗歌中，惠特曼对全体劳动人民和城市的新兴生活表示 深切的关怀。
32. verse [vɜːs] n. 诗，诗篇;韵文;诗节 vi. 作诗 vt. 使熟练，使精通 E.g. Walt Whitman believed, by means of “free verse,” he has turned poetry into an open field, an area of vital possibility where the reader can allow his own imagination to play. 惠特曼认为，通过自由诗的方式，他已经把诗变成一个开放的领域，读者可以发挥自己的想象力的可能性的区域。
33. whaling ['weɪlɪŋ] n. 捕鲸;捕鲸业;一阵痛打 v. 捕鲸;鞭打 E.g. In 1841, Herman Melville went to the South Seas on a whaling ship, where he gained the first-hand information about whaling that he used later in Moby-Dick. 1841 年，麦尔维尔就上了南海捕鲸船，在那里他掌握了有关捕鲸活动的第一手资料， 也为他以后创作《白鲸》打下了基础。
34. adventure [əd'ventʃə] n. 冒险;冒险精神;投机活动 vt. 冒险 E.g. Of all Herman Melville’s sea adventure stories, Moby - Dick proves to be the best. 在所有赫尔曼·麦尔维尔的海上冒险故事中，《白鲸》被证明是最好的。
35. psychology [saɪ'kɒlədʒɪ] n. 心理学;心理状态
36. reality [rɪ'æ lɪtɪ] n. 现实;实际;真实 E.g. As the first American prose epic, Moby - Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, it is also regarded as a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology. 作为美国第一部散文史诗，《白鲸》不只是一个捕鲸故事或海上冒险， 也是对人类现实和心理的一种深度精神探索。
37. symbolize ['sɪmbəlaɪz] vt. 象征;用符号表现 vi. 采用象征;使用符号;作为... 的象征 E.g. The white whale, Moby-Dick, symbolizes nature for Melville, for it is complex, unfathomable, malignant and beautiful as well. 白鲸--莫比.迪克对于麦尔维尔而言， 象征着大自然，复杂、深不可测、凶恶同时也很美丽。
38. exploration [eksplə'reɪʃ(ə)n] n. 探测;探究;踏勘 E.g. As the first American prose epic, Moby - Dick is not merely a whaling tale or sea adventure, it is also regarded as a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology. 作为美国第一部散文史诗，《白鲸》不只是一个捕鲸故事或海上冒险，也 是对人类现实和心理的一种深度精神探索。
39.universe ['juːnɪvɜːs] n. 宇宙;世界;领域
40. quest [kwest] n. 追求;寻找 vi. 追求;寻找 vt. 探索 E.g. In his early works, Melville is more enthusiastic about setting out on a quest for the meaning of universe.在麦尔维尔的早期作品中，他更加热衷于追求宇宙真理。
41. transcendentalism [træ nsen'dent(ə)lɪz(ə)m] n. 超越论;先验论 E.g. Apart from Hawthorne, Shakespearean tragic vision and Emersonian transcendentalism also produced some positive effects on Melville’s writing. 除了霍桑，莎士比亚悲剧的眼光和爱默生的超验主义也对麦尔维尔的写作产生了一定的积极影响。
42. overwhelming [,əuvə'welmiŋ] adj. 压倒性的;势不可挡的 E.g. Ahab, a man with an overwhelming obsession to kill the whale which has crippled him, on board his ship Pequod in the chase of the big whale. 艾哈伯，一个报酬心切，一心想杀掉那只让他跛足的鲸的船长，登上了“裴廓德号”开始了捕鲸之旅。
43. existence [ɪg'zɪst(ə)ns] n. 存在，实在;生存，生活;存在物，实在物 E.g. The purpose of Melville’s fictional tales, exotic or philosophical, is to penetrate as deeply as possible into the metaphysical, theological, moral, psychological, and social truths of human existence. 麦尔维尔的小说故事，充满异国情调或哲学性，就是要尽可能深地洞察人类生存的形而上学，神学，道德，心理和社会的真理。
44. ambiguity [æ mbɪ'gjuːɪtɪ] n. 含糊;不明确;暧昧;模棱两可的话
45. salient ['seɪlɪənt] adj. 显著的;突出的;跳跃的 E.g. The ambiguity is one of the salient characteristics of Hawthorne’s art. 作为小说《红字》的关键要素，字母 A 呈现出不同层次的象征意义。含糊不清是霍桑艺术的显著特点之一。