The Realistic Period : 1865-1914

Realistic period — "the Gilded(鍍金的) Age", the poor poorer and the rich richer, people's attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existence

Local colorism, social Darwinism, bestiality, beyond man's control

3 dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells(美國現實文學先驅), Mark Twain and Henry James.

Henry James —"inner world" of man

Howells —focused on rising middle class

Mark Twain — his own region and people, particular "local colorism"

Local colorists — Sarah Orne Jewett, Joseph Kirkland and Hamlin Garland.

Mark Twain

— the true father of American literature

Local colorist, vernacular（方言）, simple sentence, wide-ranging humor, both realistically and symbolically, "the damned human race", The Gilded Age,Life on the Mississippi and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court 亞瑟王朝廷上的康涅狄格州美國人

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer湯姆·索亞歷險記 (for boys),Adventures of Huckleberry Finn哈克貝里·費恩歷險記(for adults) prove themselves to be the milestone in American literature

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn his masterpiece, -"all modern American literature comes".

"Huck", a typical American Boy with "a sound heart and a deformed(畸形的) conscience", and remarkable for the raft's journey down the Mississippi river, through the eyes of Huck, we see the pre-Civil War American society.

READING: excerpt from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Huck's inner conflict about whether or not he should write a letter to tell Miss Watson where Jim is.

Henry James

—the first American writer to conceive his career in international theme

—the forerunner of the 20th-century "stream of consciousness" （意識流）novel and the founder of psychological realism, interior monologue, free association, his language is not so easy to understand.

早期：The American一個美國人 Daisy Miller黛西·米勒 bring him international fame for the first time.

The Europeans, The Portrait of A Lady貴婦人的畫像 are his masterpieces.

中期：The Bostonians波士頓人, short fiction:"The Turn of the Screw"螺絲在擰緊"The Beast in the Jungle"叢林猛獸

晚期：The Wings of the Dove鴿巢，The Ambassadors專使，The Golden Bowl金碗

READING: excerpt from Daisy Miller

Daisy Miller the narrator is an American expatriate(僑民), named Winterbourne. Daisy is the most innocent girl. Her defiance(違抗) of social taboos(禁忌) in the Old World brings her to a disaster in the clash(沖擊) between two different cultures.

Emily Dickinson
Based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys, "letter to the world", about religious and immortality（永生）, love, nature

1) her poems have no title

2) dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence（節奏）and capital letters as a means of emphasis.

READING:"This is my letter to the World" express Dickinson's anxiety about her communication with the outside world.

"I heard a Fly buzz - when I died"— description of a moment of death

"I like to see it lap the Miles"—Dickinson makes the train part of nature by animalizing it, like a horse.

"Because I could not stop for Death "— personify death and immortality so as to make her message strongly felt. 因為我不能停步等候死神

Theodore Dreiser

— America's literary naturalists

Case history including everything Determinism（決定論）(heredity遺傳biological & environment), Darwinist idea（達爾文主義）of "survival of the fittest', "the jungle law"（弱肉強食原則）

Jennie Gerhardt 珍妮姑娘，An American Tragedy美國的悲劇

Trilogy of Desire欲望三部曲： The Financier金融家, The Titan巨頭, The Stoic斯多葛

READING: excerpt from Sister Carrie嘉麗妹妹 "who shall cast the first stone?"

After Carrie deserts Hurstwood, he is in great despair. He turns the gas on in a cheap lodging-house and ends his life, while at the same time Carrie is rocking comfortably in her luxuriant hotel room.