Herman Melville 作家及作品介绍.ppt

Herman Melville (1819-1891) Herman Melville (1819-1891) 1) Novelist 2) Symbolism + allegory 3) Moby-Dick (a white whale): His best work and masterpiece; the first American prose epic.（散文体史诗） Melville’s major works 1) Early works: Mardi; Redburn; White Jacket Moby-Dick 2) Late works: Pierre; Billy Budd Melville’s viewpoints 1. Apart from Hawthorne, whose black vision regarding the evil of human beings had in some way changed Melville’s outlook on life and whose allegorical way of exposition had affected his writing techniques, Shakespearean tragic vision and Emersionian Transcendentalism also produced some positive effect of his writing. Melville’s viewpoints 2. In the early ones, Melville is more enthusiastic about setting out on a quest for the meaning of the universe, hence they are more metaphysical形而上学的, 超自然的and the main characters are ardent激烈的and self-dramatizing自我中心的 “I”, defying God, as best reflected on Moby-Dick; while in the late works, Melville becomes more reconciled with the world of man, in which, he admits, one must live by rules. 2001.4 29. Most of Herman Melville’s novels are based on sea voyages and sea adventures. Which of the following is not the case? A. Typee. B. Moby-Dick. C. Omoo. D. The Confidence-Man  Analysis of Moby-Dick 1. The story 2. Theme: surface and deep interpretations 3. Structure: a combination of romanticism and realism 4. Symbolism and allegory 5. Artistic features: 1) Language style; 2) writing style 6. The excerpt 1.The story The story goes roughly as follows. The outcast youth Ishmael, feeling depressed, seeks escape by going out to sea on the whaling ship, Pequod. The captain is Ahab, the man with one leg. Moby-Dick, the white whale, had sheared off折断 his leg on a previous voyage, and Ahab resolves to hunt him to the kill. He hangs a doubloon （古金币）on the mast as reward for anyone who sights the whale first. The pequod makes a good catch of whales but