1、美小说论文资料John Crowe Ransom, The New Criticism, Greenwood Press, Publishers Westport. ConnecticutPenn ,Warren Robert , Pure and Impure poetry, in Hazard Adams ed.Critical Theory Since Plato, Harcout Brace Jovanovich,Inc.At the end of the story, the death moment of Mr. Hooper, as Hawthorne wrote:Why do
2、you tremble at me alone Tremble also at each other! Have man avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What ,but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; th
3、e lover to his best beloved; when man does nor vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symble beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, Lo! On every visage a Black veil!Father Hooper feel back upon
4、his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on the lipsThe grass of many years has sprung up withered on that grave, the burial stone is moss-grown, and good Mr. Hoopers face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it mouldered beneath the Black Veil.“Unlike the novel , the other
5、major fictional type, the short story is characteristically concerned with relatively few characters and with only one major situation, which achieves its climax and solution and thus quickly comes to an end.(Guerin et al.97), that is, the short story possesses form”(Guerin et al.97). It is necessar
6、y to look for the key to a storys form in one or two devices or images or motifs that offer a pattern that leads.to larger implication. In short ,.a point at which the structure of the story coincides with and illuminates its meaning(Guerin et al.96).参考资料：Although the narrator of The Ministers Black
7、 Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne tells us that this was the observation of only one “superstitious” old woman, the rumor pervades the town and envelops Reverend Hooper in even more mystery. One of the people in the funeral procession swore, “the minister and maidens spirit were walking hand in hand” (12
8、55). Later in the same evening, Reverend Hooper marries two popular and good-looking people from the town but his appearance is so disquieting that even the joyous occasion is marked with tension. Some of the onlookers associate the beautiful bride with the corpse from earlier in the day and no one
9、feels comfortable allowing the veiled minister to officiate over such an occasion. Reverend Hooper even startles himself when he lifts the wine glass and sees his frightful reflection. This causes him to leave the wedding and dash away from the churchAfter the events of this Sunday, the townspeople
10、become more disturbed by the veil and resolve to confront Reverend Hooper about it. Strangely, even though he has always been easy to talk to, no one is able to go up and ask him about it personally. A small group is formed to go to him but it is dissolved when they find they cannot face him while h
11、is face is covered. The only person who does not shun him is his fiance, Elizabeth. Although she seems accepting of her husband-to-be, she worries about some of the rumors and wishes to make sure Hooper is mentally stable. She tries to find out what is behind the sudden appearance of the veil but hi
12、s answer does not satisfy her. Although he begs her not leave him in his loneliness, he tells her that he cannot remove the veil for the rest of his mortal life and in another one of theimportant quotes from The Ministers Black Veil “There is an hour to comewhen all of us shall cast aside our veils”
13、 (1257). She does not understand his reasoning and pleads with him to change his mind. Finally, however, she says that she cannot live a life with him, especially since he will not make this sacrifice and be honest with her. After this time, the Reverend is completely alone. He is a pariah in his ow
14、n community although people still call upon his services as a clergyman. He is seen as solemn but still very devoted to God; “in this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved, and dimly feared; a man apart
15、from men” (1259).His position in the community does not change, even throughout his long life. The reader is aware that a great deal of time has passed and soon he is at his deathbed. Elizabeth is present and helps to nurse him and Reverend Clark, who is the minister of Westbury prays at Hoopers bed
16、side. Just before Hooper expires, Clark asks him why he does not finally remove the veil and allow himself to be seen. Without a definite answer from Hooper, the minister goes to remove the veil but suddenly Father Hooper grabs the veil and tenaciously clings to it, pulling it back over his face. Th
17、e minister of Westbury is stunned and says, “Dark old man! With what horrible crime upon your soul are you now passing to the judgment?” (1261). He does not give an answer about his own sin or past but merely says to all present how ill he has been treated simply because of his choice to wear the ve
18、il. He tells them they should not have trembled at him but at each other. He says he looks around him and “lo! On every visage a black veil” (1261) which indicates that everyone is harboring secret sin. With this, he dies and they allow him to be buried with the veil covering his face. The narrator
19、ends with the chilling image that Hoopers face “moldered beneath the black veil!” (1261).Smith1v. ConclusionVI.References Meaning hereby refers to whatever should be captured by a good dictionary. For instance, the word “bank” has several distinct lexical definitions, including “financial institutio
20、n” and “edge of a river”.Syntactic ambiguity arises when a complex phrase or a sentence can be parsed in more than one way. “He ate the cookies on the couch,” for example, could mean that he ate those cookies which were on the couch (as opposed to those that were on the table), or it could mean that
21、 he was sitting on the couch when he ate the cookies.Semantic ambiguity arises when a word or concept has an inherently diffuse meaning based on widespread or informal usage. This is often the case, for example, with idiomatic expressions whose definitions are rarely or never well-defined, and are p
22、resented in the context of a larger argument that invites a conclusion.For example, “You could do with a new automobile. How about a test drive?” The clause “You could do with” presents a statement with such wide possible interpretation as to be essentially meaningless.citation needed Lexical ambigu
23、ity is contrasted with semantic ambiguity. The former represents a choice between a finite number of known and meaningful context-dependent interpretations. The latter represents a choice between any number of possible interpretations, none of which may have a standard agreed-upon meaning. This form
24、 of ambiguity is closely related to vagueness.(Ambiguity)Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity. For example the same piece of information may be ambiguous in one context and unambiguous in another.(Ambiguity)Instead, say whimsatt and Beardsley in the verbal icon(1954),the work must give its
25、elf any intention that might be garnered, and we must not go to the author for his or her intention: at least the author is not a reliable witness.(Guerin et al.87)There is the tension between.the particular and teh general ,teh concrete and the abstract; between the elements of even the simplest me
26、taphor; between the beautiful and the ugly; between the ideas.;between the elements involved in irony.;(Warren ,27)Warren Peen , Pure and Impure poetry,The name of this method of analysis was close-reading or (in Britain) practical criticism(Coyle et al. 722) criticism is ths study of form and struc
27、ture. Literature can offer a high emotional content, but this passion is always meditated by the poems formal structure and particular details,(Coyle et al. 726)“at a practical level the techniques of the New Criticism were equally attractive. The method was highly portable and adaptable to classroo
28、m practice; it was cheap in euipment, requiring only the words on the pages(Coyle et al. 729)The new criticism is also called formalistic approach in literary criticism, that is a syatematic methodological formalistic approach to literary criticism appeared only with the rise in the 1930s of waht ca
29、me to be called the New Criticism.(Guerin et al.80)“The New Critics sought precisions and structural tightness in the literary work; they favored a style and tone that tended toward irony ; they insisted on the presence within the work of everything necessary for its analysis; and they called for an
30、 end to a concern by critics and teachers of English with matters outside the work itself-the life of the authors,the history of his times, or the social and economic implications of the literary work. In short , they the attention of teschers ,students, critics, and readers to the essential matter:
31、 what the works says and how it says it as inseparable issues.(Guerin et al.81)Constants of the formalistic approach(Guerin et al.90) includes: form,texture, image, symbol,fallacy, point of view,the speakers voice, tension ,irony and paradox.“Unlike the novel , the other major fictional type, the sh
32、ort story is characteristically concerned with relatively few characters ad with only one major situation, which achieves its climax and solution and thus quickly comes to an end.(Guerin et al.97)like the principle of the arch. In an arch the way down is the way up； the arch stands because the force of gravity pulls the several stones down while at the same time pushing them against the keystone. Gravity therefore counteracts itself to keep the entire arch standing for that matter, that arch can carry great weight -just as a piece of li
