The Early 20th century English Literature 7 страница
Minnehaha dies of starvation. Hiawatha sails to rule over the land of the Northwest wind.
At a time, when the Indians were considered a lower race, Longfellow managed to show the beauty of their character, their valour, their closeness to nature, the charm of their customs and legends.
The Songs of Hiawatha was translated into many European languages. The Russian translation was made by I. A. Bunin. The originality and novelty of its literary form, the unknown poetic world of Indian folklore surprised everyone and attracted world attention.
Vocabulary
| ghastly ['ga:sth] а мрачный grind [gramd] v (ground) молоть herb [пз:Ь] п трава lodge [ЬсЭД п хатка (бобра) maize [meiz] n кукуруза nobility [nsu'biliti] n благородство seek [si:k] v (sought) искать similar ['simils] а подобный, похожий smite [smart] v разбить sought [so:t] past и р. р. от seek source [so:s] n источник stride [straid] n шаг valour ['vasls] n доблесть |
acknowledge [эк'поЬф] v признавать
acorn ['eiko:n] n желудь
ankle ['aenkl] n лодыжка
asunder [s'sAnda] adv на куски
beaver ['bi:va] n бобер
beheld [bi'held] past и р. р. от behold
behold [bi'hauld] v (beheld) смотреть
bow-string [baustnn] n тетива
craft [kra:ft] n ремесло
drift [drift] v плыть
dwarf [dwo:f] n карлик
enchant [m'tfaint] v заколдовывать
famine ['faemm] n голод
famished ['faemift) а изголодавшийся
Questions and Tasks
1. Where was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow born?
2. What played a great role in the life of young Longfellow?
3. Where was Longfellow educated?
4. When did he write his first verses and stories?
5. What career did Longfellow dream of?
6. What did he begin doing on his graduation from Bowdoin College?
7. What was Longfellow's first book?
8. Name his other notable works published from 1839 to 1841.
9. What theme did he touch upon in his collection of verses Poems on Slavery?
10. Retell the contents on the poems The Slave's Dream and The Negro in the Dismal Swamp.
11. Comment on Longfellow's poem The Building of the Ship.
12. Dwell on his lyrics about nature.
13. Speak on the subject of Longfellow's masterpiece The Song of Hiawatha.
14. Retell in your own words The Song of Hiawatha.
15. What is the importance of Longfellow's work as a translator?
16. What was his contribution of American literature?
17. Prove that by the end of his life Longfellow had won recognition all over the world.
American Literature
in the Second Half
of the 19th centurv and
the Beginning of the 20th century
CRITICAL REALISM
Towards the middle of the 19th century the romantic trend in American literature gave way to new, realistic forms. Critical realism as a trend in American literature developed after the Civil War. The critical realistic literature differed greatly from that of the previous writers such as Irving, Cooper and Longfellow.
The romanticists wrote their stories about ideal individuals through which they showed their emotions. The realists understood that the people should be shown as a whole. They saw man on the background of social conflicts of the day and explained human feelings in relation to this background.
Among the most outstanding American realists in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were Mark Twain, O. Henry and Jack London.
Mark Twain depicted common American people with great sympathy and humour. At the same time he cruelly condemned hypocrisy, bigotry and greed.
Jack London and O. Henry created typical characters of the American common people — farmers, workers, intellectuals. They revealed the truth of American life in their works.
American critical realism developed in contact with European realism. The works of Balzac [ 'Ьгекэк], Gogol, Turgenev and Tolstoy influenced it greatly. But American realism enriched world realism by introducing such problems as social injustice and Negro and Indian questions. American writers using the methods of critical realism created great works of art.
Vocabulary
background ['baekgraund] n фон relation [n'leifan] n отношение
bigotry ['bigstn] n фанатизм in relation относительно
reveal [n'vi:l] vразоблачать
Questions and Tasks
1. When did the romantic trend in American literature give way to realistic forms? *
2. How did the critical realistic literature differ from that of the romanticists?
3. Name the most outstanding American realists in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
4. Comment on the works of Mark Twain, Jack London and O. Henry.
5. The works of what writers influenced the development of American critical realism?
6. What problems were introduced by American critical realism?
7. Did it enrich world literature? Why?
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Mark Twain [twem] is the pen-name of the Samuel Langhorne Clemens, one of the greatest representatives of American critical realism of the second half of the 19th century. He is known as a great humorist and satirist.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835 in a lawyer's family in a very small town called Florida in Missouri. The family soon moved to Hannibal on the banks of the Mississippi River and there Samuel Clemens spent his boyhood.
When Samuel was twelve, his father died
and the boy had to earn his own living. He
changed several professions: he was a type
setter in a district newspaper, a printer and
journalist in the office of the Haimibcd Jour
nal. While Samuel Clemens was a printer, Mark Twain
he began to write for newspapers, sending travel letters to them.
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| New Orleans during Twain's time |
In April 1857, while on the way from Cincinnati to New Orleans, Clemens apprenticed himself as a river pilot on board a Mississippi steamboat. It was one of Sam Clemens's dreams as a boy to pilot a steamboat. He was licensed two years later and continued in that profession until the Civil War closed the river (1861). It was at this period of his life that he made his first attempt at literature having written a number of sketches based on his experiences as a
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pilot. He signed his articles Mark Twain, i. e. "sounding two", a term used by the sailors to show a depth of the river. That meant the depth was two fathoms (12 feet), and that it was safe for the boat to move ahead (twain = two).
The breaking out of the Civil War stopped the traffic on the Mississippi and Clemens was out of job. His brother had been appointed as Secretary to the Governor of the State of Nevada, and Sam decided to go with him.
| Twain loved to wear his Oxford robes |
About this time silver had been found in Nevada, and a lot of fortune-seekers went to this area. Sam decided to try his luck too. He spent six years in Nevada, digging gold. He found no silver. On rainy days when the mines stopped working Sam wrote sketches which were published in the Territorial Enterprise, a daily paper of Virginia City. It was while working for the Enterprise that Clemens's career as a journalist really began. Here the writer's pen-name appeared for the first time.
In 1864 Twain went to San Francisco where he worked for the Golden Era and the Californian newspapers.
Here Mark Twain began to write sketches and stories. In 1865 Mark Twain won national fame with his story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.
In 1866 A/fa California proposed Mark Twain to write a series of letters, and he went to Europe for the first time. Thus a series of letters was written as Mark Twain's first important book The Innocents Abroad (1869) — a tale of a tour in Europe and the East made by a group of Americans on board a steamer. The work was a great success. It is very interesting because Europe's scenes and customs are viewed through the eyes of an "innocent" American. After that Mark Twain got the reputation of the most famous American humourist.
Before the book appeared Mark Twain had met Olivia Lang-don, whom he married in 1870. In October 1871 Mark Twain moved to Hartford which remained his home for the happiest years of his life. The years 1874 to 1885 were very productive. In that period he
published the following works: The Guilded Age (1874), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), A Tramp Abroad (1880), The Prince and the Pauper (1882) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).
In 1889 Mark Twain wrote A Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur. It is a biting satire on the political and social system of day against the background of a fantastic plot placed in England of the 6th century.
Mark Twain went abroad several times and visited different parts of the world. Three honorary degrees were given to Mark Twain by American universities, and in 1907 Oxford University in England gave him an honorary Doctorate of Letters1. His last novel The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg was published in 1899. Mark Twain attacks the hypocrisy and corruption of contemporary bourgeois society in it.
In the last years of his life Mark Twain wrote several political articles and pamphlets. Till his dying day Mark Twain did not stop his literary activities and continued working on his Autobiography.
Vocabulary
biting ['baitirj] а острый innocent ['mssant] л-простак
corruption [кэ'глр/эп] п моральное раз- license flaisans] v давать разрешение
ложение sound [saund] v измерять глубину воды
fathom [ Тзебэт] л морская сажень (лотом)
(=6 футам) (для измерения глуби- typesetter ftaipsets] л полигр. наборщик
ны воды) view [vju:] v рассматривать