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I. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)（纳撒尼尔·霍桑）
1．Life（生平）
Hawthorne wasborn in Salem, Massachusetts. Some of his ancestors were men of prominence inthe Puritan theocracy. One ofhis ancestors was a colonial magistrate, notorious for his part in thepersecution of the Quakers, and another was a judge at the Salem WitchcraftTrial in 1692. Gradually, the family fortune declined. Hawthorn was intenselyconscious of the wrongdoing of his ancestors, and this awareness led to hisunderstanding of evil being at the core of human life, so he seemed to behaunted by his sense of sin and evil in his life.
霍桑出生于马萨诸塞州的萨勒姆镇，他的一些祖先是17世纪新英格兰清教神权统治中的显赫人物。他的一位祖先是殖民地行政官，因参与迫害贵格党人而臭名昭著。另一位祖先则是1692年萨勒姆审巫案的法官。家族渐渐走向没落。霍桑强烈地意识到他祖先的恶性，这也让他明白了邪恶存在于人生命的核心部分，因此他的一生心中的罪恶感都挥之不去。
2．Ideas（思想）
(1) He washaunted by his sense of sin and evil in life, therefore we see “black vision”in his works—the power of blackness. Evil seems to be man’s birthmark. Inalmost every book he wrote, Hawthorne discussed sin and evil.
(2) He rejectedthe Transcendentalists' transparent optimism about the potentialities of humannature.
(3) Wheneverthere is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed from generation togeneration. In his opinion, evil educates.
(4) He believedthat romance was the predestined form of American narrative. He took a great interest in history and antiquity. To him thesefurnished the soil on which his mind grew to fruition.
(5) Hawthornehad a negative attitude toward science.
(1) 霍桑一生心中都萦绕着罪恶感，因此我们可以在他的作品中感受到“黑色视觉”——邪恶的力量。他认为罪恶是人生来所带的标记。几乎他的每一部作品都涉及到了罪与恶。
(2) 他反对超验主义者对人性抱着纯粹乐观的态度。
(3) 罪行必遭惩罚，罪或者恶都会代代相传。他相信罪恶起教化的作用。
(4) 他认为传奇是美国小说叙事的注定形式。他对历史和文物古迹有浓郁的兴趣。认为这些可以滋养思想的成长。
(5) 霍桑对科学持消极的态度。
3．Writing style（写作风格）
(1) He is themost ambivalent writer, a consummate romantic in the American literaturehistory. One salient feature of Hawthorne’s art is his ambiguity, of which thetechnique of multiple views employed in the last part of his masterpiece TheScarlet Letter offers a good illustration.
(2) He is goodat exploring of the complexity of human psychology. He is anatomist of"the interior of the heart". His works are full of mental activities.
(3) Allegory isused to hold fast against the crushing blows of reality, the symbolism servesas a weapon to attack and penetrate it. Hawthorne is a master of symbolism,which he took from the Puritan tradition and bequeathed to American literaturein a revivified form. The symbol can be found everywhere in his writing, andhis masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, provides the most conclusive proof.
(1) 霍桑是美国文学历史上思想最为矛盾、写作手法娴熟的浪漫主义作家。矛盾性是霍桑写作艺术的一个显著特征，在他的代表作《红字》的最后一部分作家运用了多重视角的写作技巧。
(2) 他善于探究人的复杂心理，是人物内心的剖析师。他的作品有着丰富的心理活动描写。
(3) 寓言是对现实沉重的打击，象征主义则是揭露和抨击的武器。霍桑是象征主义大师，他继承了清教的传统并光复了美国文学。象征在他的作品中随处可见，尤其在他的代表作《红字》中找到确证。
4．Influence（影响）
Hawthorne’sinfluence has been great. He was accorded due recognition by his contemporaryJames Russell Lowell in the latter’s A Fable for Critics. He changedHerman Melville’s original scheme for his Moby Dick. William DeanHowells learned to use Hawthorne’s fiction as the benchmark for theirnovel-writing practice. In this century William Faulkner and some Gothicnovelists clearly show their indebtedness to him.
霍桑的影响可谓深远。詹姆斯·拉塞尔·洛威尔在《写给批评家的寓言》的末了给予他以应有的认可。他改变了赫尔曼·麦尔维尔《白鲸》中最初的创作意图。威廉·迪安·豪威尔斯学着用霍桑的作品作为他们小说创作的基准。在这个世纪威廉姆·福克纳和一些哥特式小说家对他也怀感恩之情。
5．Majorworks（主要作品）
The Scarlet Letter《红字》
Twice-told Tales《重讲一遍的故事》
Mosses from an Old Manse《古屋青苔》
The House of the Seven Gables《带有七个尖角阁的房子》
The Blithdale Romance《玉石雕像》
The Marble Faun《福谷传奇》
“Young Goodman Brown”《年轻的小伙子布朗》
“The Minister’s Black Veil”《牧师的黑面纱》
“Rappacini’s Daughter”《拉普奇尼博士的女儿》
6．Analysis of his majorworks（主要作品分析）
◆The Scarlet Letter《红字》
(1) Theme—This novel assumes the universality of guilt and explores thecomplexities and ambiguities of man's choices. Hawthorne does not intend totell a love story nor a story of sin, but focuses his attention on the moral,emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the peoplein general and those main characters in particular, so as to show us thetension between society and individuals. To Hawthorne, everybody is potentiallya sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvementof human nature.
(2) Symbolism—Hawthorne portrays Hester as an aristocratic and sensitiveyoung woman who meets her sentence with dignity and courage. When she is setfree, she does not flee the community. She supports herself and her child bydoing fancy needlework, devotes her life to her child and helping the sick andthe poor, and wins the admiration and love of her fellowmen again. So, TheScarlet Letter is a hymn on the moral growth of the woman. The scarletletter at first is a token of shame, Adultery, then the genuine sympathy andhelp she offers to her fellow villagers change it to Able. Later in the end, Aappears in the sky, signifying Angel. Her life eventually acquires a realsignificance when she establishes a meaningful relationship with her fellowmen.
(1) 主题——这部小说展现了罪恶的普遍性并探究了人们面临选择时的复杂与矛盾心理。霍桑无意去讲述一个关于爱情或罪恶的故事，而是关注于罪恶感带给普通人或一些主要角色在道德、情感、心理方面的影响，从而展示了社会与个人之间的紧张状况。对于霍桑来讲，每个人都是潜在的罪人，道义上的勇气对人性的改善是必不可少的。
(2) 象征主义——霍桑将海斯特描绘成一位仪态高贵并善感的年轻女子，从容勇敢地面对判决。当她获释后，她并没有逃离社区。她带着孩子靠做精美的针线活自力更生，将爱奉献给自己的孩子并帮助老弱病残，重新赢得了同乡人的赞美和爱戴。因此，《红字》就是一曲歌颂海斯特道德成长的赞歌。红字最初是羞耻的象征，是“通奸”；然后因为她对同乡人真诚的同情和帮助使得红字的意义变为“能干”；最后，红字A出现在天空中，意味着“天使”。当她和她的同乡建立了深长的关系时，她的生命最终获得了真正的意义。
II. Herman Melville (1819-1891)（赫尔曼·麦尔维尔）
1．Life（生平）
Melville is afamous novelist and poet in American literature. He had little education andbegan to work after stopped schooling. There are three things which deservemention about his life: going out to sea, his marriage and his friendship withHawthorne. His experiences and adventures on the sea furnished him withabundant material for fiction. Melville had to do hackwork for the money heneeded to keep his wife in her extravagant style. Melville saw in Hawthorne theone American who was expressively aware of the evil at the core of Americanlife. He found Hawthorne’s understanding of evil, that blackness of vision,unusually fascinating. A significant change came about in the original designof his masterpiece Moby Dick when the two men met, and the novelwas rewritten into the world classic that we read today.
麦尔维尔是美国著名的小说家和诗人。他接受的教育有限，辍学之后即开始工作。影响他一生的事件有三：出海，他的婚姻及其与霍桑的友谊。他在海上的经历和冒险为他的小说创作提供了丰富的素材。在婚姻生活上，麦尔维尔不得不创作劣质作品以满足妻子的奢华生活。麦尔维尔意识到霍桑已洞察到美国社会生活中存在着的恶。他觉得霍桑所理解的恶和视角的黑暗不同寻常。当两个人相会后，麦尔维尔的代表作《白鲸》的创作意图发生了重大改变。改写后的作品成为当今世界的文学经典。
2．Majorworks（主要作品）
Redburn《莱德伯恩》
Typee《泰比》
Omoo《奥姆》
Moby Dick《白鲸》
Mardi《玛地》
White Jacket《白外套》
Pierre《皮埃尔》
Billy Budd《比利巴德》
The Confidence Man《骗子》
Clarel《克拉勒尔》
3．Analysis of majorwork（主要作品分析）
◆Moby Dick《白鲸》
(1) Moby Dickrepresents the sum total of Melville’s bleak view of the world in which helived. It is at once godless and purposeless. The loss of faith and the senseof futility and meaningless which characterize modern life of the West wereexpressed in Melville’s work so well that the twentieth century has found itboth fascinating and great.
(2) One of themajor themes of this novel is alienation, which exists in the life of Melvilleon different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature.Melville also criticizes New England Transcendentalism of its emphasis on individualismand Oversoul. Another theme of this novel is “rejection and quest”.
(3) The novel is highly symbolic. The voyage itself is a metaphor for“search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” Moby Dick is the most conspicuous symbol in the book and itis capable of many interpretations. It is a symbol of evil to some, one ofgoodness to others, and both to still others. Its whiteness is a paradoxicalcolor, signifying as it does death and corruption as well as purity, innocence,and youth. It represents the final mystery of the universe which man will dowell to desist from pursuing.
(4) Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity throughemploying the technique of multiple view of his narratives. He tends to write periodic sentences.His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commentedupon and praised.
(1) 《白鲸》代表了麦尔维尔对他所生活的时代悲凉的世界观。这里没有上帝也毫无意义可言。西方现代生活中信仰的丢失、无用感及无意义等淋漓尽致地表现在梅尔维尔的这部作品中，因此20世纪人们发现它伟大且引人入胜。
(2) 该小说的主题是疏离。疏离存在于麦尔维尔生活时代的不同层面，如人与人之间，人与社会之间，以及人与自然之间。麦尔维尔同时对新英格兰超验主义过度强调个人主义和超灵进行了批判。该小说的另外一个主题是拒绝与追寻。
(3) 该小说富有象征意义。航行本身是探索和发现，寻求最终真相的隐喻。莫比·迪克是全书中最明显的象征，它可以有多种解释。有人认为它代表邪恶，有人认为它代表了善良，也有人认为它二者兼有。它的白色是自相矛盾的颜色，既代表了死亡和腐朽，又代表了纯洁、天真和青春。它代表论文宇宙的最终奥秘，人最好别去求甚解。
(4) 麦尔维尔通过运用多重视角的技巧以实现模棱两可的效果。他倾向于写掉尾句。他富有韵律的散文和诗意被大众评论和赞美。