I. Introduction to the Course II. Introduction to Literature (1) III. Homework
I. Introduction to the Course 1.1 Tasks for the MA program
The overall objective: to be trained to be researchers
The immediate objective: to be trained to write an MA paper
The Tasks of a Researcher: 1) to know the world: to find truth from facts (theoretical study); 2) to reform the world: for the interests of human beings, to solve problems (to analyze, to give predictions, or to design methods, practical study)
The researching skills（details to be dealt with next term）
1) Decide what to research: the topic (to find the problem to solve);
2) How to research: to know the facts: 1) to collect data (search and reading); 2) to process the data: analyze, synthesize, judge, conclude, design (research and reading) (to find ways to solve the problem);
3) Present the result in written form: writing the research paper.
1.2 Literature and your studying area
1) Literature Studies 2) Literature and Translation 3) Literature and Linguistics 4) Literature and Culture
1.3 The text book: the contents Chapters1,2,3,4, 7
1.4 Referential materials
1) 《文学导论》，戴炜栋编，上海外语教育出版社，2002，Introducing Translation Studies，Jeremy Munday (可在湖南大学外国语学院董老师处邮购)
2) Andrew Bennett, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory 3rd Edition,
Longman, ISBN13: 9780582822955; ISBN10: 0-582-82295-5
3) Michael Meyer, The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading. Thinking. Writing, Bedford/St.Martins, 2008-00-00,
1.5 The teaching plan
1) Content: combination of theory and research； 2) Time: 8:30 – 11:50, Monday, Tuesday;
3) Steps: theory ---- research --- presentation --- discussion --- summary; 4) Requirement for presentation: written in paper form (digital for the teacher);
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II. Introduction to Literature
2.1 What is literature (Text Book: Chapter 1) 2.2 The function (value) of Literature 2.3 Literature and your studying area
2.1 What is Literature? 2.1.1 Definition
Literature can be described as a fiction consisting of carefully arranged words designed to stir the imagination. Stories, poems, and plays are fictional. They are made up – imagined –even when based upon actual historic events.
Such imaginative writing differs from other kinds of writing because its purpose is not primarily to transmit facts or ideas. Imaginative literature is a source more of pleasure than of information.
Imaginative literature offers pleasure and usually attempts to convey a perspective, mood, feeling, or experience.
2.1.2 Values of literature
1) It nourishes our emotional lives;
2) It broadens our perspectives on the world, allowing us to move beyond the inevitable boundaries of our own lives and culture because it introduces us to people different from ourselves, places remote from our neighbor-hoods, and times other than our own;
3) Practical values: writing paper or passing an exam;
4) Improve your value of judgments, and emotions; your sensibilities and habits of mind that you bring to your work, friends, family, and the rest of your life;
5) Cultivate the analytic skills.
2.1.3 Compare: Factual and Literary
1) Purpose of composition:
Literature: for pleasure, to convey perspective, mood, feeling, or experience;
Others: to provide information;
不同文本 科技文章 小说 诗歌 Informative Very strong 无 无 Expressive 无 Strong Strong Persuasive 无 Strong Strong Aesthetic 无 Strong Very strong
2) Nature of composition:
Literature: made up; out of imagination; Others: actual description; based on facts; 3) Features of language:
Literature: expressive, rhetorical; figures of speech Others: succinct(简洁), exact;
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表层意义
科学化 诗化 精确 A B C D E F 模糊
深层意义
Examples:
1) Factual Description: Snake by Encyclopaedia
Snake is the common name for an elongated, limbless reptile of the order Squamata (有鳞爬行目;squama 鳞 squamae: pl ), which also includes the lizards. Most snakes live on the ground, but some are burrowers（洞生）, arboreal（树生）, or aquatic; one group is exclusively marine. In temperate climates they hibernate[]（冬眠）. They are generally solitary in their habits, although they may congregate in places offering food or shelter, and large numbers may hibernate together. Snakes range in length from about 4 in. (10 cm) to over 30 ft (9 m). Most are protectively colored.
2) The Snake by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) 1 A narrow fellow in the grass 2 3 4 5
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him, - did you not, His notice sudden is.
The grass divides as with a comb,
6 A spotted shaft is seen;
7 And then it closes at your feet 8 And opens further on. 9 He likes a boggy acre, 10 A floor too cool for corn. 11 Yet when a child, and barefoot, 12 I more than once at morn, 13 Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash 14 Unbraiding in the sun, 15 When, stooping to secure it, 16 It wrinkled, and was gone. 17 Several of nature's people
18 I know, and they know me; 19 I feel for them a transport
20 Of cordiality（[ˌkɔ:diˈæliti,ˈkɔ:diæliti]n. 诚实,郑重,诚恳）; 21 But never met this fellow, 22 Attended or alone,
23 Without a tighter breathing, 24 And zero at the bone.
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Directions: Compare this poem with Material No.1）. Find out the difference between literary writing and science writing(purpose and expression). Identify the literary points in the poem.
3.2 Story (Novel) 3.2.1 Definition
Novel.: a novel is an extended prose fiction narrative of 50,000 words or more, broadly realistic - concerning the everyday events of ordinary people - and concerned with character. \"People in significant action\" is one way of describing it.
Another definition might be \"an extended, fictional prose narrative about realistic characters and events.\" It is a representation of life, experience, and learning. Action, discovery, and description are important elements, but the most important tends to be one or more characters--how they grow, learn, find--or don't grow, learn, or find.
Novella. A prose fiction longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. The short story ends at about 20,000 words, while the novel begins at about 50,000. Thus, the novella is a fictional work of about 20,000 to 50,000 words. Examples:
Henry James, Daisy Miller
Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Henry James, Turn of the Screw
3.2.2 Types of novel/story
Adventure novel. A novel where exciting events are more important than character development and sometimes theme. Examples:
H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Apologue（寓言故事）. A moral fable, usually featuring personified animals or inanimate objects which act like people to allow the author to comment on the human condition. Often, the apologue highlights the irrationality of mankind. The beast fable, and the fables of Aesop are examples. Some critics have called Samuel Johnson's Rasselas an apologue rather than a novel because it is more concerned with moral philosophy than with character or plot. Examples:
George Orwell, Animal Farm
Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
Autobiographical novel. A novel based on the author's life experience. Many novelists include in their books people and events from their own lives because remembrance is easier than creation from scratch. Examples:
James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel
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Children's novel. A novel written for children and discerned by one or more of these: (1) a child character or a character a child can identify with, (2) a theme or themes (often didactic) aimed at children, (3) vocabulary and sentence structure available to a young reader. Many \"adult\" novels, such as Gulliver's Travels, are read by children. The test is that the book be interesting to and--at some level--accessible by children. Examples:
Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer
L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
Christian novel. A novel either explicitly or implicitly informed by Christian faith and often containing a plot revolving around the Christian life, evangelism, or conversion stories. Sometimes the plots are directly religious, and sometimes they are allegorical or symbolic. Traditionally, most Christian novels have been viewed as having less literary quality than the \"great\" novels of Western literature. Examples:
Charles Sheldon, In His Steps Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis Par Lagerkvist, Barabbas Catherine Marshall, Christy
C. S. Lewis, Perelandra
G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who was Thursday Bodie Thoene, In My Father's House
Coming-of-age story（成长小说）A type of novel where the protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience, or both, often by a process of disillusionment. Understanding comes after the dropping of preconceptions, a destruction of a false sense of security, or in some way the loss of innocence. Some of the shifts that take place are these:
ignorance to knowledge innocence to experience
false view of world to correct view idealism to realism
immature responses to mature responses
Example:
Jane Austen Northanger Abbey
Detective novel. A novel focusing on the solving of a crime, often by a brilliant detective, and usually employing the elements of mystery and suspense. Examples:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express Dorothy Sayers, Strong Poison
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Dystopian novel（反面乌托邦）. An anti-utopian novel where, instead of a paradise, everything has gone wrong in the attempt to create a perfect society. See utopian novel. Examples:
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Epistolary novel（书信体）. A novel consisting of letters written by a character or several characters. The form allows for the use of multiple points of view toward the story and the ability to dispense with an omniscient narrator. Examples:
Samuel Richardson, Pamela Samuel Richardson, Clarissa Fanny Burney, Evelina
C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters Hannah W. Foster, The Coquette
Existentialist novel（存在主义小说）. A novel written from an existentialist viewpoint, often pointing out the absurdity and meaninglessness of existence. Example:
Albert Camus, The Stranger
Fantasy novel（幻想小说）. Any novel that is disengaged from reality. Often such novels are set in nonexistent worlds, such as under the earth, in a fairyland, on the moon, etc. The characters are often something other than human or include nonhuman characters. Example:
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Gothic novel. A novel in which supernatural horrors and an atmosphere of unknown terror pervades the action. The setting is often a dark, mysterious castle, where ghosts and sinister humans roam menacingly. Horace Walpole invented the genre with his Castle of Otranto. Gothic elements include these:
Ancient prophecy, especially mysterious, obscure, or hard to understand.
Mystery and suspense
High emotion, sentimentalism, but also pronounced anger, surprise, and especially terror Supernatural events (e.g. a giant, a sighing portrait, ghosts or their apparent presence, a skeleton)
Omens, portents, dream visions
Fainting, frightened, screaming women
Women threatened by powerful, impetuous male Setting in a castle, especially with secret passages
The metonymy of gloom and horror (wind, rain, doors grating on rusty hinges, howls in the distance, distant sighs, footsteps approaching, lights in abandoned rooms, gusts of wind blowing out lights or blowing suddenly, characters trapped in rooms or imprisoned) The vocabulary of the gothic (use of words indicating fear, mystery, etc.: apparition, devil,
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ghost, haunted, terror, fright)
Examples:
Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto William Beckford, Vathek
Anne Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
Historical novel. A novel where fictional characters take part in actual historical events and interact with real people from the past. Examples:
Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
Sir Walter Scott, Waverly
James Fenimore Cooper, Last of the Mohicans Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe
Hypertext novel. A novel that can be read in a nonsequential way. That is, whereas most novels flow from beginning to end in a continuous, linear fashion, a hypertext novel can branch--the reader can move from one place in the text to another nonsequential place whenever he wishes to trace an idea or follow a character. Also called hyperfiction. Most are published on CD-ROM. See also interactive novel. Examples:
Michael Joyce, Afternoon Stuart Moulthrop, Victory Garden
Interactive novel. A novel with more than one possible series of events or outcomes. The reader is given the opportunity at various places to choose what will happen next. It is therefore possible for several readers to experience different novels by reading the same book or for one reader to experience different novels by reading the same one twice and making different choices.
Multicultural novel. A novel written by a member of or about a cultural minority group, giving insight into non-Western or non-dominant cultural experiences and values, either in the United States or abroad. Examples:
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart Amy Tan, The Kitchen God's Wife
Forrest Carter, The Education of Little Tree
Margaret Craven, I Heard the Owl Call My Name James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain Chaim Potok, The Chosen Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Penitent Alice Walker, The Color Purple
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Mystery novel. A novel whose driving characteristic is the element of suspense or mystery. Strange, unexplained events, vague threats or terrors, unknown forces or antagonists, all may appear in a mystery novel. Gothic novels and detective novels are often also mystery novels.
Novel of manners. A novel focusing on and describing in detail the social customs and habits of a particular social group. Usually these conventions function as shaping or even stifling controls over the behavior of the characters. Examples:
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Parody（仿拟小说）. A satiric imitation of a work or of an author with the idea of ridiculing the author, his ideas, or work. The parodist exploits the peculiarities of an author's expression--his propensity(倾向) to use too many parentheses, certain favorite words, or whatever. The parody may also be focused on, say, an improbable plot with too many convenient events. Fielding's Shamela is, in large part, a parody of Richardson's Pamela.
Picaresque novel. An episodic often autobiographical novel about a rogue or picaro (a person of low social status) wandering around and living off his wits. The wandering hero provides the author with the opportunity to connect widely different pieces of plot, since the hero can wander into any situation. Picaresque novels tend to be satiric and filled with petty detail. Examples:
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote Henry Fielding, Jonathan Wild
Pulp fiction（通俗小说）. Novels written for the mass market, intended to be \"a good read,\"--often exciting, titillating, thrilling. Historically they have been very popular but critically sneered at as being of sub-literary quality. The earliest ones were the dime novels of the nineteenth century, printed on newsprint (hence \"pulp\" fiction) and sold for ten cents. Westerns, stories of adventure, even the Horatio Alger novels, all were forms of pulp fiction.
Regional novel. A novel faithful to a particular geographic region and its people, including behavior, customs, speech, and history. Examples:
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird Thomas Hardy, Return of the Native
Roman a clef.（纪实小说）[French for \"novel with a key,\" pronounced roh MAHN ah CLAY] A novel in which historical events and actual people are written about under the pretense of being fiction. Examples:
Aphra Behn, Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
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Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Romance. An extended fictional prose narrative about improbable events involving characters that are quite different from ordinary people. Knights on a quest for a magic sword and aided by characters like fairies and trolls（巨人、侏儒、怪兽）would be examples of things found in romance fiction. Examples:
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
Sir Philip Sidney, The Arcadia
In popular use, the modern romance novel is a formulaic love story (boy meets girl, obstacles interfere, they overcome obstacles, they live happily ever after). Computer software is available for constructing these stock plots and providing stereotyped characters. Consequently, the books usually lack literary merit. Examples:
Harlequin Romance series
Science fiction novel. A novel in which futuristic technology or otherwise altered scientific principles contribute in a significant way to the adventures. Often the novel assumes a set of rules or principles or facts and then traces their logical consequences in some form. For example, given that a man discovers how to make himself invisible, what might happen? Examples:
H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
Sentimental novel. A type of novel, popular in the eighteenth century, that overemphasizes emotion and seeks to create emotional responses in the reader. The type also usually features an overly optimistic view of the goodness of human nature. Examples:
Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey
Thomas Day, The History of Sandford and Merton
Sequel（系列小说）. A novel incorporating the same characters and often the same setting as a previous novel. Sometimes the events and situations involve a continuation of the previous novel and sometimes only the characters are the same and the events are entirely unrelated to the previous novel. When sequels result from the popularity of an original, they are often hastily written and not of the same quality as the original. Occasionally a sequel is written by an author different from that of the original novel. See series. Examples:
Mark Twain, Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad
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Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Detective Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind Alexandra Ripley, Scarlett
Series（续集小说）. Several novels related to each other, by plot, setting, character, or all three. Book marketers like to refer to multi-volume novels as sagas（传奇）. Examples:
Anthony Trollope, Barsetshire novels C. S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia novels
L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea novels
James Fenimore Cooper, The Leatherstocking Tales
Utopian novel. A novel that presents an ideal society where the problems of poverty, greed, crime, and so forth have been eliminated. Examples:
Thomas More, Utopia
Samuel Butler, Erewhon
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
The most common verse in English poetry is iambic pentameter. See foot for more information. Western（美国西部小说） A novel set in the western United States featuring the experiences of cowboys and frontiersmen. Many are little more than adventure novels or even pulp（低级黄色书刊）fiction, but some have literary value. Examples:
Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Ox-Bow Incident
Owen Wister, The Virginian
III. Homework
1. Literature Studies
2. Literature and Linguistic Studies 3. Literature and Translation Studies 4. Literature and Culture Studies Outline:
I. Introduction to the topic and the thematic statement (main points of your idea); II. Discussion of the topic: the points, argumentation: evidence and reasons; III. Conclusion: summary of the main points, judgment;
(500 words)
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