Sunday Morning (星期天的早晨)
The poet insists that people should worship nature rather than God. He thinks that the only immortality is nature, and the only way to salvation is through one’s own effort.
The emperor of Ice-Cream (冰淇淋皇帝)
Chapter 13
Williams.  Frost  .  Sandburg  .  Cummings

Williams Carlos Williams (卡洛斯.威廉斯)
He worked all his life as a physician in America and loves and remains faithful to the world of reality and things.
Williams is noted for his fidelity to the facts of life. He feels strongly that poetry must be grounded in everyday experience and in the speech of the common man. It must use the common meters of living speech. It must rid itself of all encrustation and ornamentation, and include the rough, the ugly, and the commonplace.
Famous poem:
Paterson (帕特生)
1. An unusual poem. “Paterson” is the name of both a town and a doctor in the town. It describes the pastoral of Paterson of early days, and displays his intense love for his homeland.
2. In technique, it faithfully reproduces the quiet, serene rhythm of life in its natural flow. The form of the poem is highly flexible to accommodate the variety of themes.
The Red Wheelbarrow (红色手推车) read p.225
多有意
思瞧

那辆红色的手
推车

浇淋着雨
水闪闪发亮

在一群白色的
雏鸡旁。
In the poem, the animate (the chickens) is placed side by side with the inanimate (the wheelbarrow), and the white color in contrast with the red. The poem appeals to the imagination because it forces it to visualize and obtain an aesthetic pleasure. It is typical imagism, which stresses visual image
 Spring and All (春天和全部)
Williams wrote this poem to catch that moment in time when winter is on its way out but still lingering, and spring is coming in though not yet quite sure of its entrance. It illustrates the Poet’s keen perception of nature around him.

Robert Frost 弗罗斯特
Theme:
1. Most of Frost’s poems depict New England landscape. For example, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (雪夜停在林边)， It represents a moment of relaxation from the burdensome journey of life, an almost aesthetic enjoyment and appreciation of natural beauty.
2. However, he does not rest only on the description of the scenery, some of his poetry is symbolic. E.g, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” indeed is wholesome and restorative against the chaotic existence of modern man. The scenes of rural life reflect the fragmentization of modern experience. E.g. In “Design”, a white spider holds a white moth on a white flower. It is about the “design of darkness” that governs the world and reflects on the impotence of its inhabitance, by extension, man.
3. The depiction of a great number of abnormal people indicates Frost’s awareness that something has gone wrong with the land and its way of life. In “Mending Wall”, the famous line “Good fences make good neighbors”（“墙高出睦邻”） reveals tension of modern life, and describes the feeling of alienation among modern men.

Carl Sandburg (卡尔.桑德堡)
1. His most cherished ideal in life was to be “the word of the people”, to express the thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of ordinary men and women. He showed sympathy for people and wrote chiefly “to help the sick and give the people hope”.
2. He knew the importance of the people. He was confident in the belief that the people will one day rise and come into their own.
3. So, he was optimistic. He saw an America of “tomorrows”, and his attitude toward the industrial and mechanical civilization was essentially affirmative.
4. He was a socialist. His was a hearty voice from the masses of the people he had close contact with all his life.
Works:
Cornhuskers （剥玉米机）
Smoke and Steel （烟与钢）
Good Morning, America
The People, yes
Fog
Lost（失落）
Chicago（芝加哥）

E．E. Cummings （肯明斯）
1. He hates science and technology.
2. He values vitality, celebrates individualism and rejects groupiness.
3. He was fascinated with a child’s world, born anew with its simplicity, innocence and spontaneous joy.
Style:
He is regarded as”anarchism” in language. He broke away from the rules of syntax, spelling, space, punctuation, diction and so on.
Works:
Tulips and Chimney (郁金香和烟囱)
The Enormous Room (大房间)
Chapter 14
F.S Fitzgerald   Hemingway
F.S Fitzgerald (1896-1940) 菲兹杰拉德
The Spokesman of “the roaring 20’s
“Roar” suggests noise, disorder, chaos, irrationality, confusion and loss.
“The Roaring 20’s”(浮躁的年代)， also known as “Jazz age”（爵士乐时代的故事）， refers to the ten years from the end of World War I to the great Depression. At that time， many young people became the upper class generation since they got a lot of money from Stock Market， and the old moral codes were breaking down. They suffered from spiritual disillusionment and indulged themselves in pleasure-seeking. Fitzgerald, with his The Jazz Age, became its spokesman.
Life story： typical picture of the young man of his age.
He was born into a middle class family. He didn’t finish his university education at Princeton because of his academic record that suffered from his illness. Then he fell in love with the very beautiful daughter of a judge, Zelda. At first, as he had no means of supporting this woman with great financial and social expectations, Zelda broke their engagement. Then as he became successful as a writer, she agreed to marry him. They lived in expensive style, became the model of young people with their fame and wealth, and was part of the “Roaring 20s”－driving fast car, drinking hard whisky, and taking an immense delight in it. In 1940, he died of heart attack. He was a victim of success.
Works
He gave a vivid picture of “the change of morals”
                     “the change of manners”
                     “the change of life styles”
                     “the change of environment”
It was a fresh picture of the young man
Subject matter: life of upper class young generation, the breaking up of American dream, illusion and disillusion. He told us what money brought about.
Characters: vivid and believable, modeled on himself and his friends.
This Side of Paradise (人间天堂) The hero is born into a wealthy family, and enjoys many privileges. He has once traveled around Europe. All of these make him egocentric/self-centered. As his mother is in poor health, he is sent to the home of a relative. He can’t get used to the surrounding as he believes he is superior to the others in the country. He goes to Princeton University after middle school, and gets acquainted and then falls in love with a young widow. He asks to marry her but is refused. Then the War broke out, and he goes to be trained. Later, his mother dies He falls in love with the sister of a friend, but the girl marries a man who is richer than him. In the end, his investment fails and his best teacher and friend dies. He loves a girl, but has no courage to declare himself because he is afraid of being refused again. In frustration, he returns to Princeton.
It describes Fitzgerald’s sense of failure with his academic performance and the frustration of his dreams. It portrays a generation “grown up to find all God dead, all wars fought, all faith in man shaken.”
Tender Is the Night (夜色温柔) The material is from his experience in Europe with Zelda, who suffered from mental disease.