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Lesson 10 The Sad Young Man
Horton and Edwards
Teaching aim & procedures
Teaching aim: Learn to appreciate and try to make som
e comment on the text Procedures: Description Interpretation Evalution
Teaching aim & Precedures
Learn to appreciate and try to make some comment on the text
Procedures: Description
Interpretation
Evalution
Asking & answering questions
Paraphrasing & translating words, phrases & sentences
Pragmastylistic analysis: the aesthetic value
The structure of the whole text
contents Para (s) . Main idea
Part 1 1 Introduction to the subject
(Life in the 1920s)
Part 2 2-9 Development of the thesis:
Providing & analyzing related historical materials
Part 3 10-11 Conclusion
(theme of the text)
What is the “lost generation”? 1. a term used to define expatriate artists an
d writers living in Paris after the end of World War I.
2. a term alternately used to describe: 1) the generation that came of age during
World War I in the United States, 2) those who died in the same war in Britain, 3) those who participated in the
Cultural Revolution in China
What is the “lost generation”? 3. In America: a group of American writers who
were rebelling against what America had become by the 1900’s.
1) To reject the rigid Victorian styles of the 19th Century
2) To persue a cosmopolitan ( 世界性的，各国的 ) culture which includes and values a variety of backgrounds and cultures
3) to pack up their bags and travel to Europe’s cosmopolitancultures, such as Paris and London
What is the “lost generation”? 4. who were involved in it?
T.S.Eliot: author of "The Wasteland" , very influencial in literary criticism
Ezra Pound: one of the establisher of modernism in French, English and American literature
Gertrude Stein who, with her brother, set up a salon in Europe visited by Picasso, Henri Matisse, Sherwood Anderson, and Ernest Hemingway and who coined the term from a french auto-mechanic “une generation perdue”
Ernest Hemingway: one of the most celebrated authors of his time
About this text
The text is taken from Background of American Literary Thought (1967) by Horton & Edwards
Key point: the literary background of America in 1920s (politically, economically, culturally)
The political background
The First World War Question:How did WWI affect the younge
r generation? (Paras. 5-6) Whipping their naivette; making them cynical; Unable to fit into the post war society; Rebelling & overthrowing the genteel sta
ndards of behavior.
The economic background The booming of American industry after
WWI and the great depression in 1930s The gigantic, roaring factories;
The inpersonality of the corporate; The largescale aggressiveness made America no longer isolated either
in politics or in tradition and reach an international stature. (paras.2 3)
The great depression in 1930s(para. 6)
The cultural background
It became increasingly difficult for young people to accept standards of behavior that bore no relationship to the bustling business medium (environment) in which they were expected to battle for success (that is the traditional genteel Victorian morality) (paras. 3 6)
Why was the revolt logical and inevitable?
The conditions in the age; 1. the rebellion affected the entire wester
n world; 2. American people realized that their co
untry was no longer isolated in either politics or tradition and that they could no longer take refuge in isolationism.
How do they manifest their rejection?
Living an untraditional living (para. 1) Visiting speakeasies; denouncing Puritan morality; Making fashionable experimentations in
amour; wild spending on money (para.4) Going to naughty, jazzy parties; Being “flask-toting” sheik, “flapper’, or t
he “drug- store boy”
In what ways did Greenwich Village set the pattern?
Living a Bohemian and eccentric life; Defying the law; Flouting all social conventions; Attacking the war, Babbittry, and “purita
nical” gentility They are imitated by others, setting the p
attern (paras.7-8)
What is the “pattern of eascape”?
The writer listed all activities of these young people which help them to escape their responsibilities.
Many young people tried to imitate and go in for them. Thus a pattern (Para. 4)
What new philosophy do they preach?
being more sensitive to art & culture; Less avid for material gain; Less susceptible to standardization
What do they reject and advocate?
They reject the war but advocate “manhood”
They reject the materialism They reject the traditional Victorian value They pursue spiritual value and the cosm
opolitan cultures
What do they reject and advocate?
The theme of the literary works in that age such as “The Sun Also Rises”, “A Farewell to Arms ”
Were the lost generation really lost?
They were “lost” because they were troubled, worried, and had emigrated to Europe
They were NOT lost for they finally returned to America, producing a lot of stimulating literary works.
Interpretation of the text
Para. 1 1. The slightest mention … the mi
ddle-aged: At the very mention of this post-w
ar period, middle-aged people begin to think about it longingly.
2. nostalgic; 3. denunciation 4. vagaries
Interpretation of the text
Para. 2 People are unwilling to admit that our co
untry has developed to such a degree that we must play an important role in international affairs.
Interpretation of the text
Para. 3 1. The rejection of Victorian gentility … i
nevitable: In any case, an American could not avoi
d casting aside its middle-class respectability and affected refinement.
2. booming; 3. aggressiveness
Interpretation of the text
Para.3 4. The war acted merely as a catalytic ag
ent in …the Victorian structure: The war only helped to speed up the brea
kdown of the Victorian social structure. 5. obsolescent: out of date
Interpretation of the text
Para.4 1. It was tempted …sophistication. In America at least, the young people w
ere strongly inclined to shirk their responsibilities. They pretended to be worldly wise, drinking and behaving naughtily.
2. transitory pleasure 3. momentary novelties
Interpretation of the text
Para. 4 4. Prohibition afforded … illicit: The young people found greater pleasu
re in their drinking because Prohibition, by making drinking unlawful added a sense of adventure.
Interpretation of the text
Para. 5 1. Our young men began to enlist under
foreign flags: Our young men joined the armies of for
eign countries to fight in the war. 2. They wanted… turned belly up: The young people wanted to take part i
n the glorious adventure before the whole war ended.
Interpretation of the text
Para. 6 1. They had outgrown towns & families: These young people could no longer adapt th
emselves to lives in their home towns or their families.
2. …the returning veteran…do-goodism of Prohibition:
The returning veteran also had to face Prohibition which the lawmakers hypocritically assumed would do good to the people.
Interpretation of the text
Para. 6 3. Something in the tension-ridden yout
h of America had to “give”: (Under all this force and pressure) som
ething in the youth of America, who were already very tense, had to break down.
Interpretation of the text
Para. 7 1. It was only… artistic centre: It was only natural that hopeful young w
riters whose mind and writings were filled with violent anger against war. Babbity, and “Puritanical”gentility, should come in great numbers to live in Greenwich Village, the traditional artistic centre.
Interpretation of the text
Para. 8 1. Each town had its “fast’ set … conve
ntionally: Each town was proud that it had a grou
p of wild, reckless people, who lived unconventional lives.
Interpretation of the text
Para. 9 1. Meanwhile, the true intellectuals were f
ar from flattered: The true intellectuals did not feel pleased
and honoured by the immitation of their life-style by so many people.
2. to follow suit
Interpretation of the text
Para. 11 The “sad young men” cursed their luck b
ut didn’t die; escaped but voluntarily returned, flayed the Babbitts but loved their country, and in so doing gave the nation the liveliest, freshest, most stumulating writing in its literary experience.
Translation
一旦这些心情急迫的年青人饱尝了战争的滋味后，那种狂欢的精神和要从事轰轰烈烈的军事冒险的热情自然很快就烟消云散了。他们可以永远感到光荣，因为他们战斗得很出色，但是 1919 年从战场回来的却是一批已经发生了很大变化的士兵。从大学参军的这一批人更是如此。理想主义使它们很早就参了军，因此一般来说他们经历的战斗比较多。
Translation
对他们来说，回到了几乎没有受到战争影响的故乡是件痛苦的事，因为在故乡，公民们仍天真地象庆祝独立日那样自负地高谈阔论。两三年前他们自己也曾犯过这个毛病。更另他们痛苦的是他们发现自己原来的工作岗位已被留在家里的人占据了。经济在经历一场衰退，因而不能提供新的工作。
Translation
而现在所有的，为数不多的就业机会，人们又宁可要非退伍军人，而把退伍军人看作难对付的孩子，不太想要。就是他们的家庭对他们来说也常常是不舒服的 ; 他们再也不能适应家乡和家庭了，并增长了一种突然的、迷惘的厌世之感。这种思想不论他们还是他们的亲友都不能理解。战争激起了他们的劲头、打掉了他们的天真幼稚。
Translation
而现在，在全国落后的、不发达的地区，到处都要求他们抑制他们的劲头并恢复那种自欺欺人的、维多利亚式的天真无邪的态度。但是他们现在觉得这种态度同那种说什么他们的战斗已“使民主在这个世界有保障”的论调一样，都是陈旧过时的。
Translation
再者，似乎家乡的情况还不够，回来的退伍军人还是得面对像拿破仑那样愚蠢地蔑视一切的凡尔赛合约，虚伪地想做善事的禁酒和发战争财者洋洋自得的爱国主义。那些气鼓鼓的美国青年的不满迟早要以某种方式爆发出来。在经过一段短暂的强烈的不满之后，终于以一种彻底推翻有教养的行为标准的形式爆发出来。
Evaluation of the text
A piece of exposition, well organized, with the theme highlightened in the end The aesthetic value lies in: 1. long sentence Examples:
Evaluation of the text
1. No aspect of life in the Twenties has been more commented upon and sensationally romanticized than the so-called Revolt of the Younger Generation.
Evaluation of the text 2. The slightest mention (s) of the decade bring
s(V) nostalgic recollections (O1) to the middle-aged and curious questions(O2) by the young: / memories(A1) of the deliciously illicit thrill of the first visit to a speak easy, of the brave denunciation of Puritan morality, and of the fashionable experimentations in amour in the parked sedan on a country road; // questions(A2) about the naughty, jazzy parties, the flask-toting “sheik,” and the moral and stylistic vagaries of the “flapper” and the “drugstore cowboy.” (76 words altogether)
Nominalization & Parallelism
Evaluation of the text
2. Rhetoricl devices (results of violating co-operative principle, making the description concise, vivid, implied, indirecte)
1) They (the American young men) wanted to get into the fun before the whole thing turned belly up. (irony, meiosis/ litotis, metaphor)
2) High school assembly orators proclaim that service in the Europen conflict would be of great personal value.
(meiosis/ litotis)
Evaluation of the text
3) As it became more and more fashionable throughtout the country for young persons to add their own little matchsticks to the conflagration of “flamming youth”, it was Greenwich Village that funned the flames.
(metaphor) 年轻人往熊熊大火中填上自己那根小火柴时， 格林
威治村则将火苗煽动得越来越旺 年轻人的行为比作往反叛的烈火上添加小火柴，把
格林威治村年轻知识分子的行为比作为火焰煽风。
Thank You !
