本单元具体教学内容、教学基本要求、单元重点与难点

The Post-War Period: 50s & 60s

I. Historical Background – multi-faceted

II. Literature in the 1950s & 1960

Section 1.  Poetry

I.Features

II.Schools of Poetry (time, representatives, major features)

1).Confessional Poets: Robert Lowell

2).Black Mountain Poets: Charles Olson

3). Beat Generation: Allen Ginsberg

III.Close Reading:

1). Allen Ginsburg: Howl

2). Sylvia Plath: Daddy (confessional poem)

IV. Comparison of the social atmosphere: Lost Generation Vs. Beat Generation

2. 教学基本要求

1)To introduce students to the social background in 1950s & 1960s and  some information about different schools of poetry, major poets, their lives, contribution.

2) To develop students’ understanding of the Beat generation in American culture and their literature.

3) To improve students’ abilities to interpret and appreciate poetry of the beat and confessional poetry.

4) To improve students’ competence in comprehension of cross-cultural counter-cultural youth movement.

5)To improve students’ critical thinking on the way from The Lost Generation to Beat Generation

3. 单元重点、难点 

重点

1)Poetry of Beat generation represented by Allen Ginsberg.

2)Confessional poetry

 

难点

1)World wide counter-culture movement is the cultural soil of beat movement.

2)Inner turning in literature.

The Post-War Period: 50s & 60s

I. Historical Background – multi-faceted

1. Cold War

2. McCarthyism (persecution of communists)

3. Korean War

4. Civil Rights Movement

5. Counter-culture Movement – political, economical and military achievement

II. Literature in the 1950s

1. Regional literature emerged from the south, etc. Many women writers appeared.

2. Dramatists wrote about everyday people, e.g. Arthur Miller.

3. Minority literature developed quickly.

III. Literature in the 1960s

This period is the rising period of post-modern literature. Many forms of post-modern fiction appeared, such as metafiction, surfiction, parafiction, self-reflexive fiction, self-begetting fiction, anti-novel, etc. The literature in this period is considered as “multi-cultural” literature. The same mood in this period is despair, but continuing to search absurdity of modern life; lonely, but searching for the meaning of existence; identity.

Section 1 Poetry

I. Features

1. Some poets found inspiration in the past.

2. Poetry became more attuned to political and social issues of the period.

3. Poets became more visible in American public life.

4. There was no prescribed form for poetry.

5. Poets became more political. Themes such as homosexuality, racism, etc. are included in the poems. In 1960s, poetry became more and more political.

II. Schools of Poetry (time, representatives, major features)

1. Confessional Poets: Robert Lowell

The greatness of Lowell lies in the fact that, in talking candidly about himself, he is examining the culture of his nation. The identification of personal experience with that of an age has always ensured greatness and even immortality as it did.

2. Black Mountain Poets: Charles Olson

There is an emphasis on the importance of the moments of awareness. It portrays a world of “awakened, contemplative awareness”, one in which civilization appears alien, cold, and almost unreal.

3. Beat Generation: Alien Ginsberg

In the fifties, there was a widespread discontentment among the post-war generation, whose voice was one of protest against all the mainstream culture America had come to represent.