Title: The Ethical Environment and Ethical Structure of the American Anti-Family Elegy

Abstract

Abstract: After the Second World War, American society laid great emphasis on the significance of family, claiming the “Golden Age” of American families had arrived. Conversely, American family elegies demonstrated a tendency of conspicuous hostility against the traditional norms of family, most evident in their refusal of inheritance and denial of authority. This act, however, poses a threat to the traditional ethical relations between the living and the dead. For poets, the desire to disrupt the mainstream ethical structure of American family reflects their quest for distinct personal identities and unique voices of poetry. Hostility, nonetheless, does not necessarily suggests a breach from tradition. As an extreme measure to break from family tradition, the denial of inheritance is an effort to cure social ills and to seek freedom and transcendence.

Key words: American anti-family elegy, ethical environment, ethical structure, post World War II

Zhang Lei, Peng Yu. Title: The Ethical Environment and Ethical Structure of the American Anti-Family Elegy[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2018, 40(4): 83-94.

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