亨利•詹姆斯《波士顿人》的现代主义特征

VIP免费

3.0 陈辉 2024-11-19 4 4 624.09KB 55 页 15积分

侵权投诉

Acknowledgements

Firstly and also foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude toward my

supervisor Professor Wang Yuehong on the fulfillment of my thesis. In the past two and

a half years, she not only introduced me to the research field of Henry James, but also

gave me a lot of useful information and suggestion on my research. From the time when

I made preparations for this thesis, she has been giving me helpful advice and

encouragement. Whenever I met problems in my research, she always patiently guided

me and helped me out. It is she who broadens my mind and arouses my interest in my

research work. Thanks to her encouragement and support, my thesis could come to

today’s shape and thus be delivered here.

Secondly, I would like to express my appreciation to my Assistant Supervisor Dr.

Wu Yuxing, who also gave me a lot help on the completion of my thesis. Moreover, I

am greatly indebted to the professors and teachers of the Department of English:

Professor Dai Weihua, Professor Deng Zhiyong, Professor Wang Bin, Associate

Professor Jin Wenning etc., who have instructed and helped me a lot in the past more

than two years.

Finally, my thanks would go to my beloved family who always encouraged me and

backed me up whenever and whatever problems I would have. I also owe my gratitude

to my friends Xu Min and Lu Min who provided me with comfortable study and living

environment.

621

Abstract

Henry James (1843-1916), one of the greatest American writers and literary critics,

played an important role in the history of both English and American literature of the

nineteenth century. He formed his own literary theory during the process of his diligent

experiments in the novel writing. Among these trials, The Bostonians (1886) was one of

the novels James wrote in the middle period of his literary career. James made several

bold trials in the narrative techniques and expression in the novel. These trials enabled

him to advance much earlier than other contemporary writers in the field of modernism.

This thesis is to discuss the modernistic characteristics James presented in The

Bostonians from three aspects: central consciousness, extensive use of symbols and

spatial narration in the novel. The study finds that James not only displayed the inner

spiritual world of each character but also provided the reader with a certain degree of

explanation and reasoning, all of which involved the reader into the development of the

plot through the application of several central consciousnesses. Moreover, James chose

Boston as the background to depict the reality after the Civil War. Because he sensed

the great changes, James embodied these changes of the society and people’s spiritual

world through that of the Bostonian background by means of symbolism. Also, James

strengthened the satirical effect of the novel through the use of the spatial narration

which made the novel more concise in structure. These characteristics surely established

James as one of the forerunners of the modernistic literature. It is clearly seen that the

skills and techniques Henry James adopted in the novel clearly belong to the column of

Modernism. Thus his innovation of central consciousness and spatial narration, his

extensive use of symbols guide other writers into the field of modernism. Therefore,

James undoubtedly can be named as the pioneer of modernism.

This thesis includes five chapters. The first chapter provides the brief introduction

of James's writing career and his tireless experiment on the novel creation. Also, the

background information of The Bostonians and an abbreviated summary of the novel

are presented. The second chapter demonstrates James’s masterly command of the

traditional and multi-perspective narration. By means of these narrative skills, James

leads the reader into the world of the characters’ spirit and artfully guides the reader into

the completion of the novel. As this unity of the reader and the text is achieved through

the guidance of the author, thus, one of the most important aspects of James own

literary theory is formed, namely, the integration of the reader, the author, and the text.

The third chapter demonstrates James extensive use of symbols and symbolism to

depict the reality of the world and his perception of the great changes in the moral

senses of the Bostonians after the Civil War. The fourth chapter introduces some spatial

narration James adopts in the novel. This application adds to the effect of satire and the

vividness of the novel. The fifth chapter is the conclusion that reiterates the major

aspects and concludes James’s contribution to the modernistic literature.

Key Words: Henry James, central consciousness, symbolism, spatial

narration

621

摘要

亨利·詹姆斯（1843-1916）是位著名的作家和小说评论家，在十九世纪英美

文学史上占据着重要的地位。詹姆斯在小说创作过程中不断创新，进而形成了自

己独特的小说理论。《波士顿人》（1886）是他中期创作的一部作品。亨利·詹

姆斯对小说的叙事手法和表达手法进行了创新。这些创新使小说具备了明显的现

代主义特征，进而确立了詹姆斯现代主义创作的领先地位。本文主要从意识中心，

象征主义手法和空间叙事这三个方面来探讨詹姆斯在小说中所体现的现代主义特

征。研究发现詹姆斯通过多个意识中心的运用，不仅展示了人物的内心世界还提

供给读者一定的解释和推理，使读者积极加入到小说情节的发展中；詹姆斯还选

择了内战过后的波士顿作为背景，运用象征手法描述了当时社会的变化和人们思

想状态的变迁；通过空间叙事的跳跃性，詹姆斯增强了小说的讽刺效果，使小说

的结构更加紧凑。亨利·詹姆斯在《波士顿人》中所运用的技巧属于现代主义小

说的特点。因此，詹姆斯在意识中心、空间叙事和象征主义手法上的创新使他进

入了现代主义作家之列，确立了他现代主义先锋作家的地位。

本文共分五章。第一章是序言，此部分简单介绍了詹姆斯的创作生涯和小说

创作的不懈创新，此外还介绍了《波士顿人》的创作背景和故事梗概，并且回顾

了国内外的研究现状。第二章介绍了詹姆斯在叙述手法上的创新：“意识中心”。

结合传统叙事和第三人称有限视角，詹姆斯将读者带入了各个角色的内心世界，

引导读者自行联想，继而完成小说的创作。这种手法不仅实现了文本、读者、作

者的统一，发展了詹姆斯自己的小说理论，也使该篇小说具备了现代主义特征。

第三章介绍了小说的象征主义特色。詹姆斯通过大量运用象征和象征主义手法描

述了美国内战过后的社会状态，体现了詹姆斯对当时人们精神状态改变的敏锐触

觉。第四章讲述了小说的空间叙述特点。通过打乱小说的时空结构，詹姆斯增强

了小说的讽刺效果和生动性。第五章是结论，重申了本文的主要论点，总结了詹

姆斯对现代主义到来的贡献。

关键词：亨利·詹姆斯意识中心象征主义空间叙事

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Abstract

摘要

Chapter One Introduction ……………………………………………………………… 1

§1.1 Henry James and The Bostonians ………………………………………………1

§1.2 Literature review ………………………………………………………………..4

§1.3 The Structure and the Value of the Thesis …………………………………..8

Chapter Two Central Consciousness in the Narrative Technique in The Bostonians….. 9

§2.1 Central Consciousness………………………………………………………….. 9

§2.2 Application of Central Consciousness in The Bostonians …………………...12

§2.2.1 First-Person Narration …………………………………… …………….13

§2.2.2 Characters’ Multi-Perspective Narration……………………………..….19

§2.3 Significance of Central Consciousness in The Bostonians ……………..……….24

Chapter Three Symbolism in The Bostonians …………………………………………26

§3.1. Symbol and Symbolism ……………...……………………...………………….26

§3.2. The Application of Symbolism in The Bostonians …………………………..28

§3.2.1 The Analysis of the Symbolic Meaning of the Characters……………. ...28

§3.2.2 The Symbolic Meaning of the Visit to Memorial Hall ………………..…37

Chapter Four Spatial Narration in The Bostonians ……………………………….……41

§4.1 Theory of Modernistic Spatial Narration ……………………………………..41

§4.2 The Application of the Spatial Narration in The Bostonian …………………42

Chapter Five Conclusion ………………………………………………………………44

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………..47

在读期间公开发表的论文和承担科研项目及取得成果 …………………………51

Chapter One Introduction

§1.1 Henry James and The Bostonians

Henry James (1843-1916), one of the greatest American writers, played an

important role in the history of both English and American literature. During his

lifetime, James was a very prolific and diligent writer as he not only created literary

works but also expressed his own creative thoughts about novel writing and formed his

own literary theory. He spent more than 40 years in his novel writing and created more

than 130 works, including 22 long novels, 113 novellas and more than ten literary

reviews. Although the public acceptance of his works did not reach his high expectation,

James’s influence on literature and literary theory is much more obvious, more

pervasive than that of his contemporaries. T. S. Eliot considered him as the “most

intelligent man of his generation” and on one occasion even placed him among “the

greatest novelists” (Dupee 1948:111). The renowned British critic F. R. Leavis even

commented him with “What achievement in the art of fiction... can we point to in

English as surpassing his?”(Leavis 1955:45) With all the comment on his works, James

could be leveled as one of the most important writers in the late nineteenth and early

twentieth century.

Though born in a wealthy family in New York, he spent most of his life in Europe

and later even became a British citizen in 1915. Because he didn’t have to worry about

his material life, James had more time to experience the colorful civilization at that time.

Although James did not accept the regular school education, various family tutors and

the companions of his father’s, such as R. W. Emerson, H. D. Thoreau, broadened his

horizon (Dai 2007:3). His frequent travels to Europe enabled him to have a better

understanding of European culture, which had a great influence on his

international-theme novel creating in the first writing period. In such novels he always

put the innocent American, usually a female, into the sophisticated European world.

Due to his familiarity with both the new and the old world, he focused his novels on the

reality of both Europe and America and contrasted them. This formed the typical feature

of James’s novel writing from the beginning to the middle period, that is, from 1875 to

1886. In the middle period, after the publication of two long novels, The

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

15 积分 4人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

AcknowledgementsFirstlyandalsoforemost,IwouldliketoexpressmysinceregratitudetowardmysupervisorProfessorWangYuehongonthefulfillmentofmythesis.Inthepasttwoandahalfyears,shenotonlyintroducedmetotheresearchfieldofHenryJames,butalsogavemealotofusefulinformationandsuggestiononmyresearch.FromthetimewhenIma...

展开>> 收起<<

亨利•詹姆斯《波士顿人》的现代主义特征.pdf

共55页,预览6页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

亨利•詹姆斯《波士顿人》的现代主义特征

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

推荐作者

热门标签

举报选择: