May Sarton, an American novelist and poet with a great reputation, is a productive writer。 Through her whole life, she has created more than 50 works, including twenties novels, twenty-five collections of poetry, twelve journals and many memoirs。 It is worth mentioning that the journals and memoirs, which can be regarded as the most significant works by Sarton, are still very popular among the people in America and even all over the world, especially At Seventy, Journal of a Solitude, The House by the Sea and At Eighty-Two。 Sarton’s journal is her personal reflections about her real life, especially her old age life。 She talks about death, friendship, nature, poetry and current events in her journals directly or indirectly。 论文网

At Eighty-Two, Sarton’s last journal before her death, is an incredible but painful journal。 In this journal, she writes the visits of neighbors and friends, shopping and academic life; she concerns about the political and social issues; she writes the details of her own health and the death of her friends。 Besides all of these, Sarton also talks about her depressing feelings for many times。 She wonders she gives too much bad emotion to her readers and feels sorry about that。 However, she still sticks to writing her true feeling。 She could not help displaying her dissatisfaction with depression but she has learned some ways to get over it through her own experience。 This thesis intends to find out the reasons that cause the depressing feeling and to dig out the methods she overcomes it。

1。2。 Literature review

Gerontology is an emerging discipline accompanied by the development of population aging。 Although human society begins early to pay attention to the elderly, the modern sense of gerontology just budded in the 20th century。 Just as Wyatt-Brown says that “the situation of studying the literary gerontology is gradually beginning to change, but the professional awakening has been slow。” And Sarton is one of the few people who have focused on this topic。 In As We Shall Be: May Sarton and Aging, Marlene Springer praises Sarton's dignified and sensitive treatment of the elderly in her work。 He says, “relatively few works of literature explore the aged in depth, much less with sympathy。” What's more, he thinks the fact remains that attitude toward the elderly has been either unrealistic or extremely negative。 But “A modern exception to this pattern is May Sarton, one of the very few writers, especially in our culture, to explore profoundly both the perils and the possibilities confronted by older people; one of the few writers to treat the aged, and particularly older women, with dignity without ignoring the threats of senility, the helplessness of physical decay, the frustrations of waning power。” (Springer, 1980:46) Sarton never hesitates to talk about old age and she even presents real condition of an old woman to readers。 In Sarton’s journal, she cherishes the process of aging very much and even regards it as a great wealth of accumulating knowledge and experience。 文献综述

    According to the situation that people pay less attention to gerontology, there are not many research books on the literary criticism of May Sarton, even though her works are quite welcomed by a large amount of readers in America and many other countries。 In China, the most useful materials are Sarton’s several journals translated by Guohua Yang: Journal of a Solitude(1973), The House by the sea(1976), Recovering and After the Stroke(1980)。 And in 2008, Fu Na published her paper, Beauty of Phoenix: On May Sarton from Feminism Angle。 In this paper, Fu Na discusses Sarton’s literary thoughts and related works from feminism angle to reveal the inner link among Sarton, woman's liberation movement, and feminist trend of thought。