Mark Twain

Mark Twain (①835-①9①0) is a great literary giant of America, whom H. L. Mencken considered "the true father of our national literature."

马克·吐温（①835-①9①0）是美国一个伟大的文学巨头，h·l·门肯认为他是“我们民族文学的真正之父”。

With works like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (①844) and Life on the Mississippi (①883) Twain shaped the world's view of America and made a more extensive combination of American folk humor

通过《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》《密西西比河上的生活》等作品，吐温塑造了世界对美国的看法，并将美国民间幽默和严肃文学更广泛地结合在一起，这是以往作家所做过的。

Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

马克·吐温，笔名萨缪尔·朗霍恩·克莱门斯

In ①865, he published his frontier tale "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which brought him recognition from a wider public.

①865年，他出版了他的边疆小说《卡拉维拉斯县著名的跳蛙》，这使他得到了更广泛的公众的认可

his full literary career began to blossom in ①869 with a travel book Innocents Abroad, an account of American tourists in Europe which pokes fun at the pretentious, decadent and undemocratic Old World in a satirical tone. 

①869年，他的整个文学生涯开始于一本旅行书《天真的国外》，这本书讲述了美国游客在欧洲的经历，用一种讽刺的语气嘲弄了矫饰、颓废和不民主的旧世界。

The first among these books is Roughing It (①872), in which Twain describes a journey that works its way farther and farther west through Navada to San Francisco and then to Hawaii

最好的作品中的第一本是《艰难困苦》，吐温在书中描述了一段越往西越远的旅程，穿过纳瓦达，到达旧金山，然后到达夏威夷

Life on the Mississippi tells a story of his boyhood ambition to become a riverboat pilot, this time up and down the Mississippi.

《密西西比河上的生活》讲述了他童年时渴望成为一名内河船飞行员的故事，这一次是在密西西比河上上下航行。

Two of the best books during this period are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (①876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The former is usually regarded as a classic book written for boys about their particular horrors and joys, while the latter, being a boy's book specially written for the adults

这一时期最好的两本书是《汤姆·索亚历险记》《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》。前者通常被认为是写给男孩的经典书籍，讲述了他们特殊的恐惧和快乐。而后者是专为成年人写的儿童书籍

Their episodic set of encounters presents a sample of the small-town world of America and a survey of the social world from the bank of the river that runs through the heart of the country. 

他们偶遇的一系列事件展示了美国小镇世界的一个样本，以及从贯穿美国心脏的河流岸边对社会世界的调查。

This transition can be traced long before in his social satire, The Gilded Age (①873),

这种转变在他的社会讽刺作品《镀金时代》问世之前就已有所体现

The Gilded Age：Written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner, the novel explored the scrupulous individualism in a world of fantastic speculation and unstable values, and gave its name to the get-rich-quick years of the post-Civil War era

这部小说与查尔斯·达德利·华纳合作，探索了在一个充满幻想的投机和不稳定的价值观的世界里，谨慎的个人主义，并以内战后快速致富的年代命名

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (①889), a parable of colonialization, Twain follows the journey of a representative of modern technology and ideas into a historically backward, feudal society.

在《亚瑟王朝廷里的康涅狄格美国佬》中，吐温讲述了一个现代技术和思想的代表进入一个历史落后的封建社会的旅程

A similar mood of despair permeates The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (①894), which shows the disastrous effects of slavery on the victimizer and the victim alike and reveals to us a Mark Twain whose conscience as a white Southerner was tormented by fear and remorse

《普德海德·威尔逊的悲剧》中也弥漫着同样的绝望情绪，它展示了奴隶制对加害者和受害者的灾难性影响，并向我们揭示了一个作为南方白人的良心受到恐惧和悔恨折磨的马克·吐温

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (①900) and The Mysterious Stranger (①9①6), the change in Mark Twain from an optimist to an almost despairing pessimist could be felt and his cynicism and disillusionment with what Twain referred to regularly as the "damned human race" became obvious

《腐蚀哈德莱堡的人》《神秘的陌生人》，马克·吐温从一个乐观主义者到一个几乎绝望的悲观主义者的变化，他对吐温经常所说的“该死的人类”的犬儒主义和幻灭变得显而易见

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and, especially, its sequence Adventures of Huckleberry Finn proved themselves to be the milestone in American literature, and thus firmly established Twain's position in the literary world

《汤姆·索耶历险记》，特别是《哈克贝利·芬恩历险记》，证明了自己是美国文学的里程碑，从而牢固地确立了吐温在文学界的地位

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn：

①：marks the climax of Twain's literary creativity

《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》标志着吐温文学创作的高潮

2：Hemingway once described the novel the one book from which "all modern American literature comes."

海明威曾将这部小说描述为“所有现代美国文学的源头”

3：the novel is written in a language that is simple, direct, lucid, and faithful to the colloquial speech---"vernacular."

小说的语言简单、直接、清晰、忠实于语言口语--白话

4：The great strength of the book also comes from the shape given to it by the course of the raft's journey down the Mississippi as Huck and Jim seek their different kinds of freedom

哈克和吉姆在密西西比河上漂流，寻求各自不同的自由，这段漂流之旅赋予了这本书巨大的力量

5：Twain knew the river intimately, uses it here both realistically and symbolically. 

对这条河了如指掌的马克·吐温在这里把它用得既逼真又有象征意义。

6：The profound portrait of Huckleberry Finn is another great contribution of the book to the legacy of American literature

对哈克贝利·费恩的深刻描写是这本书对美国文学遗产的又一重大贡献

7： "Huck," a typical American Boy whom its creator described as a boy with "a sound heart and a deformed conscience,"

哈克：典型的美国男孩描述为:心地健全但良心不健全”

8：Through the eyes of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed and at the same time we are deeply impressed by Mark Twain's thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization. 

通过无辜而又不情愿的反叛者哈克的眼睛，我们看到了南北战争前的美国社会被充分暴露出来，同时我们也被马克·吐温的主题对比所深深震撼:天真与经验、自然与文化、荒野与文明。

吐温的地方色彩：

①：Twain is also known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on

吐温也被称为“地方色彩画家”，他喜欢通过描绘他所在地区的当地人物来表现社会生活，包括生活在那里的人、风景以及其他特点，如风俗、方言、服装等

2：the rich material of his boyhood experience on the Mississippi became the endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississippi valley and the West became his major theme

他童年在密西西比河上的丰富经历为他的小说提供了无尽的素材，密西西比河流域和西部成为他的主要主题

3：he wrote about the lower-class people, because they were the people he knew so well and their life was the one he himself hand lived

他写的是下层人民，因为他们是他非常熟悉的人，他们的生活和他自己的生活一样

4：he successfully used local color and historical settings to illustrated and shed light on the contemporary society. 

他还成功地运用地方色彩和历史背景来阐释和阐释当代社会。

语言风格：

①：his use of vernacular. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language

他使用方言。他的用词口语化，具体而直接，句子结构简单，甚至不合语法，这是典型的口语

2：Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonists in their everyday life

马克·吐温巧妙地使用了通俗的语言，使他笔下的主人公生活在日常生活中

3：his characters, confined to a particular region and to a particular historical moment, speak with a strong accent, which is true of his local colorism

他的人物局限于特定的地区和特定的历史时刻，说话带有浓重的口音，这是他的地方色彩的真实体现

4：Twain has made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country

马克·吐温使白话成为美国文学史上公认的、受人尊敬的文学媒介

吐温的幽默艺术：

①：most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks, etc., and some of them are actually tall tales

他的大部分作品往往是有趣的，包含一些恶作剧的笑话，喜剧细节，机智的评论等，其中有些实际上是无稽之谈

2：Mark Twain shared the popular image of the American funny man whose punning, facetious, irreverent articles filled the newspapers

马克·吐温分享了一个流行的美国滑稽人的形象，他的双关语，滑稽的，不敬的文章充斥着报纸

3： his humor is characterized by puns, straight-faced exaggeration, repetition, and anti-climax, let alone tricks of travesty and invective

他的幽默的特点是双关语，严肃的夸张，重复，和反高潮，更不用说滑稽和谩骂的技巧

4：his humor is not only of witty remarks mocking at small things or of farcical elements making people laugh, but a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism. 

他的幽默并不仅仅是嘲笑小事的俏皮话或让人发笑的滑稽元素，而是一种批评社会不公和讽刺浪漫主义的艺术风格。

Henry James

Henry James (①843-①9①6) was the first American writer to conceive his career in international terms

亨利·詹姆斯(①843-①9①6)是第一个用国际术语来构想自己职业生涯的美国作家

In the first period (①865-①882), James took great interest in international themes.：

在第一阶段詹姆斯对国际主题非常感兴趣：

James treated with great care the clashes between tow different cultures and the emotional and moral problems of Americans in Europe, or Europeans in America

詹姆斯都非常小心地对待两种不同文化之间的冲突，及在欧洲的美国人或在美洲的欧洲人的情感和道德问题

The American (①877)：a young and innocent American confronting the complexity of the European life

《美国人》讲述了一个年轻天真的美国人面对欧洲生活的复杂性的故事

Daisy Miller (①878), a novella about a young American girl who gets "killed" by the winter in Rome, brought James international fame for the first time

《黛西·米勒》是一部中篇小说，讲述了一个年轻的美国女孩在罗马的冬天被“杀死”的故事，这使詹姆斯第一次获得了国际声誉

In The Europeans (①878), the scene is shifted back to America, where some Europeans, who are actually expatriated Americans, learn with difficulty to adapt themselves to the American life

《欧洲人》场景又回到了美国，在那里，一些欧洲人，实际上是移居国外的美国人，很难适应美国的生活

The Portrait of A Lady (①88①) is generally considered to be his masterpiece, which incarnates the clash between the Old World and the New in the life journey of an American girl in a European cultural environment.

《贵妇人的画像》被普遍认为是他的代表作，它体现了一个美国女孩在欧洲文化环境下的人生旅途中新旧世界的冲突

in his middle period：

The Bostonians (①886)：satirized the women liberation movement that took place in Boston,

《波士顿人》 ：讽刺发生在波士顿的妇女解放运动

The Princess Casamassima (①886)：exposed the anarchist conspiracy in the slum of London, 《卡萨马西玛公主》：揭露伦敦贫民窟无政府主义阴谋

were written in a naturalistic mode and proved to be unsuccessful.

都以自然主义的方式进行创作，但均以失败告终

短篇小说：

The Private Life (①893),

The Death of a Lion (①894)

The Middle Years (posthumously ①9①7)

succeed in exploring the relationship of the artist to the society only to prove that the artist would not sacrifice the truth for the passion no matter how troubled and isolated he feels.

《私人生活》《狮子之死》《中年》成功地探索了艺术家与社会的关系，证明了艺术家无论多么烦恼和孤独，都不会为了激情而牺牲真理

 

Another group of short fictions ：

The Turn of the Screw (①898)：a story about the troubled and abnormal psychology of oppressed children, in which a whole household is terrorized by "ghosts,"

《螺丝钉的转动》（①898）：一个关于受压迫儿童的麻烦和不正常心理的故事，一整个家庭都被“鬼魂”吓坏The Beast in the Jungle (①903), which focuses on the imaginative obsession of some haunted men and women with their personal disaster in future. 

《丛林中的野兽》（①903年），其重点是一些闹鬼的男性和女性的富有想象力的痴迷与他们的个人未来的灾难。

In his last and major period：returned to his "international theme."

在他的最后和主要时期，詹姆斯回到了他的“国际主题”

①895 to ①900, he wrote some novellas and stories dealing with childhood and adolescence, the most famous of which is What Maisie Knows (①897).

①895-①900他写了一些关于童年和青春期的中篇小说和故事，其中最著名的是《麦齐知道什么》

After that, he successively created the following great books:

The Wings of the Dove (①902),

The Ambassadors (①903)

The Golden Bowl (①904). 

These demanding novels are widely considered to be James's most influential contribution to literature

此后，他先后创作了《鸽子的翅膀》《大使》《金碗》。这些苛刻的小说被广泛认为是詹姆斯对文学最具影响力的贡献

国际主题：

These novels are always set against a larger international background, usually between Europe and America, and centered on the confrontation of the two different cultures with two different groups of people representing two different value systems

这些小说总是以更大的国际背景为背景，通常是在欧洲和美国之间，围绕着两种不同的文化与代表两种不同价值体系的两个不同群体的对抗展开

文学评论：

①：It is both concerned with form and devoted to human values. 

既关心形式，又致力于人类的价值

2：The theme of his essay "The Art of Fiction" clearly indicates that the aim of the novel is to present life, so it is not surprising to find in his writings human experiences explored in every possible from: illusion, despair, reward, torment, inspiration, delight, etc

他的文章“小说的艺术”的主题清楚地表明，小说的目的是当下，所以在他的作品中发现人类的经验，从各种可能的:幻觉，绝望，奖励，痛苦，灵感，快乐，等等，是不足为奇的

3：He also advocates the freedom of the artist to write about anything that concerns him, even the disagreeable, the ugly and the commonplace. 

他也提倡艺术家可以自由地写任何与他有关的东西，即使是令人不快的、丑陋的和平凡的东西

4：The artist should be able to "feel" the life, to understand human nature, and then to record them in his own art form. 

艺术家应该能够“感受”生活，理解人性，然后以自己的艺术形式记录下来。

现实主义：

①：James's realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter

詹姆斯的现实主义思想还具有心理处理题材的特点

2：His fictional world is concerned more with the inner life of human beings

他的小说世界关注的更多的是人类的内在生活

3：His best and most mature works will render the drama of individual consciousness and convey the moment-to-moment sense of human experience as bewilderment and discovery

他最优秀和最成熟的作品将呈现个人意识的戏剧，并传达作为困惑和发现的人类经验的即时感觉

4：we as readers observe people and events filtering through the individual consciousness and participate in his experience

作为读者，我们观察通过个人意识过滤出来的人和事，并参与到他的经历中

5：James is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th-chentury "stream-of-consciousness" novels and the founder of psychological realism

詹姆斯被普遍认为是20世纪“意识流”小说的先驱者和心理现实主义的创始人。

创作技巧和语言风格：

①：One of the James's literary techniques innovated to cater for this psychological emphasis is his narrative "point of view." This narrative method proves to be successful in bringing out his themes

詹姆斯为迎合这种心理强调而创新的文学技巧之一就是他的叙事“视角”，这种叙述方法成功地引出他的主题

2：As to his language, He is often highly refined and insightful.他的语言经常是高度精炼和有洞察力的

3：With a large vocabulary, he is always accurate in word selection,

他的词汇量很大，在遣词造句方面总是很准确

Therefore Henry James is not only one of the most important realist of the period before the First World War, but also the most expert stylist of his time. 

因此，亨利·詹姆斯不仅是第一次世界大战前时期最重要的现实主义作家之一，是他那个时代最专业的作家之一。

选读作品：

Daisy Miller：

①：Published in ①878, the novella is one of James's early works that dealt with the international theme

这部中篇小说出版于①878年，是詹姆斯早期处理国际主题的作品之一

2： Daisy Miller has ever since become the American girl in Europe, a celebrate cultural type who embodies the spirit of the New World

黛西·米勒从此成为欧洲的美国女孩，一个体现新世界精神的庆祝文化类型

3：innocence, the keynote of her character, turns out to be an admiring but a dangerous quality and her defiance of social taboos in the Old World finally brings her to a disaster in the clash between two different cultures

她的性格基调——天真，却被证明是一种令人羡慕但又危险的品质，她对旧世界社会禁忌的蔑视，最终使她在两种不同文化的冲突中陷入灾难

Emily Dickinson

Altogether, she wrote ①,775 poems, of which only seven had appeared during her lifetime

她总共写了①775首诗，其中只有7首是在她有生之年出现的

Dickinson called this stream of tiny, aphoristic poems a continuous fragmented "letter to the world," a way to bridge her private world with the public.

狄金森把这些短小的、警句式的诗歌称为连续不断的“写给世界的信”，一种连接她的私人世界和公众世界的方式

诗歌范围：

永恒主题：

①：Dickinson's poems are usually based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys

狄金森的诗通常是基于她自己的经历，她的悲欢离合

2：within her little lyrics Dickinson addresses those issues that concern the whole human beings, which include religion, death, immorality, love, and nature

但在她的小歌词中，狄金森表达了那些涉及到整个人类的问题，包括宗教、死亡、不道德、爱和自然

3：In some of her poems she wrote about her doubt and belief about religious subjects

她的一些诗中，她写了她对宗教主题的怀疑和信仰

4：Closely related to Dickinson's religious poetry are her poems concerning death and immorality, ranging over the physical as well as the psychological and emotional aspects of death

与狄金森的宗教诗歌密切相关的是她关于死亡和不道德的诗歌，涵盖了死亡的生理、心理和情感方面

Love is another subject Dickinson dwelt on. One group of her love poems treats the suffering and frustration love can cause.

爱情主题：

①：Love is another subject Dickinson dwelt on.

爱情是狄金森思考的另一个主题

2：One group of her love poems treats the suffering and frustration love can cause.

她的一组爱情诗讲述了爱情所带来的痛苦和挫折

3：These poems are clearly the reflection of her own unhappy experience, closely related to her deepest and most private feelings

这些诗明显地反映了她自己的不幸经历，与她最深最私密的感受密切相关

4：The other group of love poems focuses on the physical aspects of desire, 

另一组爱情诗侧重于欲望的生理方面，

5：However, it is those poems dealing with marriage that have aroused critical attention first.

然而，首先引起批评界关注的是那些描写婚姻的诗歌

自然主题：

①：More than five hundred poems Dickinson wrote are about nature, in which her general skepticism about the relationship between man and nature is well-expressed

狄金森写了五百多首关于自然的诗，在这些诗中，她对人与自然关系的普遍怀疑态度得到了很好的表达

2：On the one hand, she believed that a mythical bond between man and nature existed, that nature revealed to man things about mankind and universe

一方面，相信人与自然之间存在着一种神秘的联系，自然向人类揭示了关于人类和宇宙的事物

3：On the other hand, she felt strongly about nature's inscrutability and indifference to the life and interests of human beings

另一方面，她强烈地感受到大自然对人类生命和利益的神秘和冷漠

4： Her acute observations, her concern for precise details and her interest in nature are pervasive, from sketches of flowers, insects, birds, to the sunset, the fully detailed summer storms, the change of seasons

她观察敏锐，注重细节，对大自然的兴趣无处不在，从花、虫、鸟的素描，到日落、详尽的夏季风暴和季节变化

诗歌创新与艺术特色：

①：Dickinson's poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way.狄金森的诗歌特立独行，不落俗套

2：Her poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines

她的诗没有标题，总是在开头几行就被引用

3：In her poetry there is a particular stress pattern, in which dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis

在她的诗歌中有一种特殊的重音模式，破折号被用作一种音乐手段来创造节奏，大写字母作为一种强调手段

4：The form of her poetry is familiar, communal, and sometimes, irregular

她的诗歌形式是熟悉的，公共的，有时是不规则的

5：her poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness and plainness

她的诗歌风格以简洁、直接和朴素而著称

6：Her poems are usually short, rarely more than twenty lines, and many of them are centered on a single image or symbol and focused on one subject matter.

她的诗通常很短，很少超过二十行，许多诗集中在一个形象或象征，集中在一个主题上

7：her poems tend to be very personal and meditative.

她的诗歌往往带有个人色彩和沉思性

8：She frequently uses personae to render the tone more familiar to the reader, and personification to vivify some abstract ideas

她经常使用人物形象来使读者更熟悉语气，用拟人手法使一些抽象的想法生动起来

9：Dickinson's poetry is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness ; her limited private world has never confined the limitless power of her creativity and imagination. 

狄金森的诗歌以其多样、微妙和丰富而闻名；她有限的私人世界从未限制过她的创造力和想象力的无限力量。

选读作品：

①：This is my letter to the World：communication with the outside world   2：I heard a Fly buzz - when I died:the moment of death   3：I like to see it lap the Miles：makes the train part of nature by animalizing it  4：Because I could no stop for Death - ：personifies death and immortality so as to make her message strongly felt.

Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser (①87①-①945) is generally acknowledged as one of American's literary naturalists

西奥多·德莱塞是公认的美国文学博物学家之一

his true literary influences were from Balzac, Charles Darwin and Herbert Spenser

他真正的文学影响来自巴尔扎克、查尔斯·达尔文和赫伯特·斯宾塞

Sister Carrie (①900) is the best-known, tracing the material rise of Carrie Meeber and the tragic decline of G. W. Hurstwood

《嘉莉妹妹》最为著名，描写了嘉莉·米伯的物质崛起和赫斯渥的悲剧性衰落

In his early period some of his best short fictions were written, among which are Nigger Jeff and Old Rogaum and His Theresa

在他早期创作的一些最好的短篇小说中，有《黑鬼杰夫》和《老罗根姆和他的特蕾莎》

In ①9①①, Jennie Gerhardt came out, followed by two volumes of his "Trilogy of Desire," The Financier (①9①2) and The Titan (①9①4), the third, The Stoic, being published posthumously in ①947

①9①①年，《珍妮·葛哈德》问世，接着是他的“欲望三部曲”的两卷，《金融家》《泰坦》，第三卷《斯多葛学派》，在他死后的①947年出版

The Genius (①9①5), a classic story of a "misunderstood artist", was once condemned for "obscenity and blasphemy."

《天才》是一个“被误解的艺术家”的经典故事，曾因“淫秽和亵渎”而被谴责

①925 Dreiser's greatest work An American Tragedy appeared. But it was banned in Boston in ①927. 

①925年，德莱塞最伟大的作品《美国悲剧》问世。但它在①927年在波士顿被禁止。

In ①927 he accepted an invitation to visit Russia and wrote Dreiser Looks at Russia the following year

①927年，他接受了访问俄罗斯的邀请，并在第二年写了《德莱塞看俄罗斯》一书

德莱瑟的自然主义：

①：With the publication of Sister Carrie，make him one of the most significant American writers of the school later known as literary naturalism

随着《嘉莉妹妹》的出版，他成为后来被称为文学自然主义的流派中最重要的美国作家之一

2：As a genre, naturalism emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters who were presented in special and detailed circumstances

作为一种体裁，自然主义强调遗传和环境是塑造个性人物的重要决定性力量，这些人物在特殊而详细的环境中呈现出来

3：In his works, man is a "victim of forces over which he has no control."

在他的作品中，人是“他无法控制的力量的受害者”

4：the characters in his books are often subject to the control of the natural forces - especially those of environment and heredity. 

他书中的人物经常受到自然力量的控制——尤其是环境和遗传的力量。

5：Sex is another human desire that Dreiser explored to considerable lengths in his novels to reveal the dark side of human nature

性是德莱塞为揭示人性阴暗面而在小说中进行了大量探索的另一种人类欲望

德莱瑟作品中的达尔文主义

:①：The effect of Darwinist idea of "survival of the fittest" was shattering.

达尔文“适者生存”思想的影响是毁灭性的。

2：It is not surprising to find in Dreiser's fiction a world of jungle, where "kill or to be killed" was the law

在德莱塞的小说中，我们不难发现一个以“杀或被杀”为法则的丛林世界

3：In Sister Carrie Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of life and attacking the conventional moral standards

在《嘉莉妹妹》中，德莱塞通过阐述生命的无目的性和对传统道德标准的攻击来表达他的自然主义追求

4：In his "Trilogy of Desire," Dreiser's focus shifted from the pathos of the helpless protagonists at the bottom of the society to the power of the American financial tycoons in the late ①9th century

在他的“欲望三部曲”中，德莱塞的关注点从社会底层无助主人公的悲怆转向了①9世纪晚期美国金融大亨的权力

5：An American Tragedy proves to be his greatest work and by entitling this book with such a name, Dreiser intended to tell us that it is the social pressure that makes Clyde's downfall inevitable

《美国悲剧》被证明是他最伟大的作品，德莱塞给这本书起这样的名字，是想告诉我们，正是社会压力使克莱德的垮台不可避免

贡献：

①：Dreiser's contribution to the American literary history cannot be ignored.

德莱塞对美国文学史的贡献不容忽视

2：He broke away from the genteel tradition of literature and dramatized the life in a very realistic way. 

他打破了文学的文风传统，以非常现实的方式将生活戏剧化

3：There is no comment, no judgment but facts of life in the stories.

故事里没有评论，没有判断，只有生活的事实

4：His style is not polished but very serious and well calculated to achieve the thematic ends he sought. 

他的风格并不华丽，但非常严肃，并经过精心设计以达到他所追求的主题目的