The Early 20th century English Literature 14 страница
absorb [ab'so:b] v поглощать anti-submarine ['eentfsAbmarni] о противолодочный butchery ['but/an] n бойня colossal [ka'tosl] а громадный consequence [ 'knnsikwsns] n последствие constant ['ktmstant] а постоянный crash [kraef] n авария epilogue ['epilog] n эпилог exhausting [ig'zo:stirj] а изнурительный film script ['film'srkrpt] n киносценарий fragment ['fnsgmant] n обломок; кусок infantry ['mfantn] n пехота murderous ['m3:daras] о кровавый
'Flaubert [flau'bea], Gustave (1821 -1880) — Гюстав Флобер, франц. писатель
2 Maupassant [^mau'pasa], Guy de (1850—1893) — Гиде Мопассан, франц.
писатель
3 Stendahl [sten'da:l] (1783 - 1842) —- Стендаль, франц. писатель
4 Dante ['dsenti:], (1265- 1321) —Данте, итальянский поэт
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A Farewell to Arms
A Farewell to Arms is one of the best novels about World War I.
The book is considered to be Hemingway's masterpiece and it was translated into many languages.
In the novels The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Anns Hemingway describes the tragedy of the so called "lost generation". The term "lost generation" was introduced by an American writer, Gertrude Stein, who once addressed Hemingway saying: "You are the lost generation".
The "lost generation" were the people who suffered all the horrors of World War I. The post-war generation was disillusioned, because they realized that all the sacrifices and deaths were in vain. The ideals: freedom, brotherhood, justice, patriotism were mere words, in which nobody believed. The "lost generation" saw no purpose in life and gradually it became spiritually dead.
In the first novel the author shows the results of World War I, and in the second — the process which created the "lost generation".
The novel A Farewell to Arms is partly autobiographical. Like his hero, Frederick [ 'fredrik] Henry, the writer himself was an American volunteer, a lieutenant in the Italian ambulance corps, was badly wounded, sav? the horrors of the war and came to hate it.
There are two main themes in the novel: war and love. At first Fredric Henry is sure that he is fighting a just war, but gradually he doubts it, and at last he understands that the war is being waged for the benefit of those who profit by it. Frederic's opinion is shared by soldiers, drivers, workers and other common people.
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Having decided it is not his war, Frederic makes a "separate peace" and becomes a deserter.
The other theme of the novel is love. Fredric falls in love with Catherine Barkley ['кгевпп 'ba:kli], a volunteer nurse from Great Britain.
When he is wounded, she takes care of him. Then Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley escape to Switzerland.
For a while they are happy, living together, but it does not last long. Catherine dies in childbirth. After her death he remains quite alone. He is very much depressed.
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The author proves that private happiness is impossible in the restless world of the 20th century. Seeing misery around him, Hemingway's hero cannot be happy. It also emphasizes the fact that you cannot make a separate peace. The motifs of pessimism and despair are characteristic of the novel, as well as of other works written in the 20's, but in A Farewell to Arms Hemingway for the first time calls World War I a crime against humanity.
Hemingway's style of narration is laconic. He does not use the long detailed descriptions which were characteristic of his predecessors. Inner dialogues are typical for him. He seldom speaks of the feelings of his characters, much is left unsaid, but he manages to make the reader feel what his hero feels.
One more peculiarity of Hemingway's style is the use of weather as an accompaniment to the emotional tones of different scenes. The background of every tragic episode in A Farewell to Arms is "rain". It was raining when Catherine died.
| accompaniment [э'клтрэштэгИ] п сопровождение benefit ['bensfit] n польза, благо for the benefit of в пользу corps [кэ:] п {pi corps [ko:z]) род войск depress [di'pres] /угнетать, подавлять despair [dis'pea] n отчаяние disillusion [,disi'lu:z3n] n разочарование emotional [I'rmufanl] а эмоциональный emphasize ['emfgsaiz] v подчеркивать gradually ['graedjuali] adv постепенно laconic [ta'ktmik] о лаконичный
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lieutenant [lef'tengnt] n лейтенант mere [mis] а лишь motif [тэи'Ш] л основная тема narration [nae'reijbn] n повествование peculiarity [pi,kju:li'senti] n характерная черта predecessor [ 'pridisess] n предшественник profit ['profit] v получать выгоду sacrifice ['saskrrfais] n жертва spiritually ['spintjusli] adv духовно wage [weidj] v вести
The Old Man and the Sea
Hemingway himself said of his book: "I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things".
The story is a realistic description of an episode from the life of a fisherman. The author himself was a fisherman, and his close
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friendship with Cuban fishermen helped him to describe all the details of the process.
Santiago is a poor man, a widower and he lives alone. He is very lonely and then he finds that he has a devoted friend — the boy Manolin, whom he teaches the craft of fishing. Manolin looks after the old man, takes care of the old man's food. The boy loves the old man for his kind heart, his skill, his devotion to sea. The boy's parents have forbidden him to go fishing with the old man, because Santiago's luck has deserted him. Manolin thinks that he will bring him good luck, and he wants to go fishing with Santiago again.
The old man goes out to fish alone and hooks one of the biggest marlines. The battle with the fish is very hard and full of danger. Santiago has conquered the marline but the battle with the sea has not ended. Sharks start swimming after the skiff and the fish. Santiago kills the strongest, but the shark takes his harpoon and the rope. Santiago does not give up the fight. Almost broken physically, but spiritually unfeated, he reaches shore safely.
At the end of the story Santiago says:"... man is not made for defeat. ... A man can be destroyed but not defeated".
These words is the main idea of Hemingway's story.
Santiago's character embodies all the positive features of an ordinary man. When he meets disaster, his courage, moral strength and resolution support him in the most desperate moments of his life.
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Vocabulary
| craft [kra:ft] n умение desert [di'z3:t] v покидать desperate ['despant] а ужасный disaster [di'za:sta] n бедствие embody [im'bpdi] v содержать harpoon [ha:'pu:n] n гарпун |
hook [huk] v ловить (рыбу)
marline ['malm] n мор. марлинь
shark [fa:k] n акула
skiff [skif] n ялик
unfeated [An'frtid] о непобежденный
widower ['widgua] n вдовец
Questions and Tasks
1. Relate the story of Hemingway's childhood and schooldays.
2. What did he do when the USA entered World War I?
3. Why was Hemingway's war experience very important to him?
4. What was his first work?
5. What war books did Hemingway write?
6. Comment on Hemingway's war books.
7. What novel describes the bullfights in Spain?
8. What Hemingway's works are written about his hunting trip to Africa?
9. How did the Qvii War in Spain affect Hemingway?
10. What works did Hemingway write out of his Spanish war experience?
11. Prove that Hemingway was an active participant of World War II.
12. In how many wars did Hemingway take part?
13. Where did he live after World War II?
14. What story did he write in 1952?
15. When was Hemingway awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature?
16. In what novels did Hemingway depict the tragedy of the so called "lost generation"?
17. Explain the term "lost generation".
18. Give a brief account of the novel A Farewell to Arms.
19. Comment on Hemingway's style of narration.
20. What can you say about the plot and the main characters of The Old Man and the Sea?
21. What is the main idea of Hemingway's story?
Margaret Mitche (1900-1949)
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Margaret Mitchell ['maigsrat 'mitf/al] was born in Atlanta, Georgia. She was the daughter of an attorney who was president of the Atlanta Historical Society. All the family were interested in American history and she grew up in an atmosphere of stories about the Civil War.
Margaret Mitchell lived in one of the most important cities in the American South and her family had shaped Atlanta's history for three generations before her birth.
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| Margaret Mitchell |
She was educated at Washington Seminary in Atlanta and Smith College, Northampton. She worked for a time on the Atlanta Journal. She wrote hundred of essays,
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articles and reviews for the journal in the four years of her employment there between 1922—1926. She read all the standard journals, magazines, and reviews of her time.
The vivacity and intensity of her personality shines through everything she did, said, or wrote.
In 1925 Margaret Mitchell married John Marsh, and it was then she began to put on paper all the stories she had heard about the Civil War. The result was Gone with the Wind, first published in 1936. She worked on the book for ten years. It is a novel about the American Civil War and the Reconstruction as seen from a Southern point of view. The novel is a variant on the tradition of Southern romance fiction. Its action turns on the attempts of the heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, to restore Тага, the family plantation, and on her love relationships.
Margaret Mitchell became world-famous as the author of Gone with the Wind, the America's classic best-seller. More than 8 million copies were sold in 40 countries.
The novel was translated into eighteen languages. It won the Pulitzer Prize1 for fiction in 1937. It was later made into a highly successful film starring Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable and Leslie Howard.
Margaret Mitchell pfoduced the most famous novel in the English-speaking world. This book was her only published work. She died in 1949.
Questions and Tasks
1. Where was Margaret Mitchell born?
2. What was her family interested in?
3. Where was she educated?
4. Where did she work for a time?
5. What did she write for the journal?
6. When did she begin to write the novel Gone with the Wind?
7. How long did she work on the book?
8. Comment on the plot of the novel.
9. Why do we say that the book was America's classic best-seller?
10. When did she get the Pulitzer Price for fiction?
11. What can you say about the film based on the novel?
Vocabulary
attorney [эЧэ:ш] п юрист review [n'vju:] n рецензия
intensity [m'tensiti] n глубина shape Lfeip] v создавать
relationship [n'leifsnfip] n отношение vivacity [vi'vaesiti] n жизненная сила
restore [n'sto:] v восстанавливать
1 Pulitzer ['pulitsa] Prize — пулитцеровская премия: учреждена по завещанию Джозефа Пулитцера (1847 —1911), амер. журналиста и издателя
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chology of youth was Jerome David Salinger, whose novel Catcher in the Rye (1951) was devoted to the youth problem in the postwar period.
Some other well-known American contemporary writers such as John Updike and Ken Kesey examined various aspects of American life.
American post-war literature managed to present a many-sided picture of the changing American reality.
Vocabulary
American Literature in the Post-War Period
The USA ended World War II as the most powerful capitalist country. The post-war period and the onset of the Cold War were in 1950s and 1960s. This was the period of political hostility between America and Russia. *•
The atmosphere of evil caused caution. The national mood was nervous and aggressive. It was the era of the so-called "silent generation", a generation who had stopped believing in humanist ideas. Some philosophers concluded that the Americans were becoming a nation of conformists1 with no fixed standards or beliefs.
Among the first to protest again the atmosphere of conformity2 were the writers of Beat Generation3.
The best-known figure of the "Beat" writers in prose was Jack Kerouac ['фаек 'кегэшк]. The writer who tried to explore the psy-
1 conformist [ksn'foimist] — конформист, букв , согласный
2 conformity [kgn'fo:miti] — приспособленчество, пассивное принятие суще
ствующего порядка господствующих мнений
3 Beat Generation — усталое, разбитое, разочарованное поколение; битники
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aspect ['sespekt] n аспект, сторона onset [/onset] n начало
caution ['kotfan] n осторожность psychology [sai'tolscfr] n психология
hostility [hDs'tiliti] n враждебность many-sided ['meni'saidid] о многосторонний
Questions ant Tasks
1. Characterize the post-war period of 1950s and 1960s.
2. Why was this period called the era of "silent generation'?
3. What writers were the first to protest against the atmosphere of conformity?
4. Who was the best-known figure of the Beat writers in prose?
5. What writer tried to explore the psychology of youth?
6. Name some other well-known American writers who examined various aspects of American life.
Jerome Salinger (bom in 1919)
Jerome David Salinger ['фэ'гэит 'deivid 'seeling] was bora in 1919 in New York into a prosperous family. His father was an importer of ham and cheeses. The boy had a sister eight years older than he. Salinger did not study well at school, that's why his parents enrolled him in the Valley Forge Academy in Pennsylvania. It was a military academy. He began writing his first short stories there. When Salinger graduated from the Valley Forge Academy he told his parents that he wanted to become a writer.
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But his father did not think that it was a suitable career for his son and sent him to Poland to learn the ham business. For some time he slaughtered pigs. Then he returned to America. In 1940 he published his first story the Young Men. During World War II Salinger spent four years in the army. In 1943, when he was in France, the American magazine Saturday Evening Post published his story The Varioni Brothers. In 1944 Salinger met Ernest Hemingway, who
_____ ] _. . т^ _ Jerome David Salinger
was a war-correspondent in France y
then. Hemingway had read Salinger's stories and said that the young writer was talented. In 1946 Salinger wrote some stories which brought him fame as a writer. They were published in the New Yorker, a very respectable literary magazine.
The Catcher in the Rye
In 1951 Salinger wrote his novel The Catcher in the Rye. It is one of the best novels devoted to youth problems in the postwar period. The book became popular with the readers. The story is told by a teenager Holden Caulfield. He is a sixteen-year-old pupil of the Pencey Preparatory school, which is a boarding school. He has been expelled from several schools, and he is about to be expelled from this school, too, as he has failed in a number of subjects. He is not sorry. He hates school and teachers. Finally, he runs away from school and goes to New York, where his parents live. Afraid to approach them, he registers at a hotel. During the few days he stays away from home, he goes to a restaurant, meets a girl friend, his sister Phoebe [ 'fi:bi] and his former teacher Mr Antolini. Holden loves Phoebe, and he tells her of his troubles. She is much younger than he but she always listens to him and understands him.
Touched by Phoebe's wish to run away from home with him, he decides to go home with her instead.
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Holden observes the hypocrisy and false values in the adult world. He is against judging people by their wealth. At school he hates insincerity. He does not like cheap, sensational films and plays shown at the Broadway theatres. He is against the American way of life. He is devoted to the few genuine people in his life.
His sister Phoebe is one of them. His deepest concern is to save other children from the pain of adapting themselves to the false adult world. His dream is to become a catcher in a rye field keeping watch on the edge of a steep cliff and saving little children from falling into the abyss.
Really, Holden's dream is unreal as children cannot avoid growing up. Holden's former teacher tries to persuade him that belonging to the adult world means maturity.
But the hero refuses to compromise his false environment and this leads him to a nervous breakdown.
Holden's way of talking is ungrammatical and slangy. But it produces a great impression.
Jerome David Salinger has become a classic because of his understanding of American youth. In his works he portrays young boys and girls who can't find their way after the war. They are honest, kind and good young people who look odd in the surroundings of modern society.
Vocabulary
| insincerity [,msm'senti] n лицемерие maturity [ms'tjuanti] л зрелость nervous ['ri3:v3s] а нервный odd [nd] а странный register ['realists] v записывать свое имя в книгу гостей в гостинице respectable [ns'pektabl] а представительный sensational [sen'seijbnl] о сенсационный slangy ['slaerji] а жаргонный slaughter ['sb:tg] забивать (скот) steep [sti:p] а крутой suitable ['sju:t3bl] а подходящий |
abyss [a'bis] л бездна adapt [s'daept] v приспособляться adult ['sd\lt] л взрослый breakdown ['breikdaun] л расстройство cliff [klif] л отвесная скала concern [kan'sain] л беспокойство compromise ['кютпргэтак] v пойти на
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