美国文学史及选读.doc

备 课 本 教 研 室： 文 学 教 研 室课程名称：美国文学史及选读任课教师： 陈 倩 德 州 学 院 外 语 系美国文学史及选读课程的教育目标： 通过教学,使学生掌握美国文学的发展史及各阶段具有代表性的主要作家及其作品的主要特色，具备一定的分析鉴赏英语文学作品的能力,帮助培养学生的英语思维能力,提高英语整体水平。课程的基本要求：要求学生有目的、较系统地了解和掌握美国文学的发展史及各阶段具有代表性的主要作家及其作品的主要特色。课程的重点与难点：对具有代表性的作家的评价，对著名的美国小说和诗歌的分析、鉴赏及评价。主要参考书目美国文学简史（第二版）常耀信 南开大学出版社 2004美国文学选读李宜燮 南开大学出版社 2000牛津文学术语辞典上海外语教育出版社 2000美国文学大纲吴定柏 上海外语教育出版社 1998Introduction1.教学的目的和要求：简述美国文学史，包括美国文学史的5个主要阶段，每个阶段的起止时间，主要特点及代表作家，要求学生了解美国文学史概况2.教学重点：美国文学史的五个阶段及起止时间3.教学难点：各个阶段的主要特点4.教学内容Am literature is one lf the youngest national literature in the world. It became a colony of Britain in the early 17th century. And the American Independence War stretched from 1776 to 1783. The short history can be divided into several stages: 1.the colonial period It stretched roughly from the settlement of Am in the early 17th C through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607.(A group of people was sent by the English king James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607.They named the James River and build the James town.) Here the major topic will be about Am Puritanism . 2.the Romantic Period It covers the first half of the 19th C, which is a period following the national political independence. Around 1840s arose the culmination of the Romantic Period-New England Transcendentalism(1836-1855) . 3.the Age of Realism It was after the civil war (1861-1865) till the end of the 19th century, covering the latter half of the 19th C. The civil war brought the Romantic period to an end.4.Naturalism(the last decade of the 19th c) In the last decade of the 19thc, the age of naturalism came into being. Naturalists saw mans life as governed by two forces- heredity & environment.5.Modernism In the decade of the 1920s,there came the age of modernism. (here are many eminent writers in this period, such as T.S Eliot, Earnest Hemingway, William Faulkner, etc.)6.思考题：简介美国文学史Chapter I Literature of Colonial America1.教学的目的和要求：介绍对美国文学及美国文化影响重大的清教主义，要求学生理解清教主义的教义，掌握清教主义对美国文学的影响，殖民时代的主要作家及启蒙时代的特点2.教学重点：清教主义对美国文学的影响3.教学难点：清教主义的教义，爱德华兹和富兰克林各自的哲学思想4.教学内容 I American Puritanism1.origin of PuritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th C, the English King Henry VIII(At that time ,the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Popes permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife because she couldnt bear him a son. But the Pope didnt allow him to divorce because his wife is the Popes niece. Henry VIII became very dissatisfied with the Pope, so he )broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church of England. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans Of course they had different religious belief from that of the Catholic Church.2.Puritanism-based on Calvinism 1)predestination: Gods electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate. They believed the success of ones business is the sign to show he is the Gods elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived a very frugal life. This is their ethics. 2)original sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determine some puritans pessimisitic attitude toward life. 3)limited atonement (the salvation of a selected few) 4)theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one. (The Puritans established Am tradition-intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment.Puritannism & ConfucianismConfucianism (修身 齐家 治国 平天下) )3.Influence on Am literature 1)its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is bases on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden.(Adam and Eve used to live a carefree life in the Garden of Eden. lured by the snake, they ate the Forbidden Fruit in the apple tree. A peice of apple choked in Adams throat , then came Adams apple. After knowing the truth, God became very angry and drove them all out of the Garden of Eden. The snake used to walk like man but after that the God force him to crawl. Then man was forced to suffer the labor to keep the whole family and Woman was forced to suffer the agony of baby bearing.) After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believeing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise , to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritans has exerted a great influence on American literature, 2)Puritans metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism II Colonial LiteratureAmerican colonial literature is neither real literature nor Americanwhy?1.Diaries,histories,journals,letters,etc. personal literature in various forms2.Colonial Literature is mainly English literature tradition imitated & transplanted.Anne BradstreetEdward TaylorThey can be called servants of God. Their writings served either God or colonial expansion. Some other colonial writers wrote for civil and religious freedom, and some wrote for America shaking off the fetters of the savage British colonial rule.Roger WilliamsJohn WoolmanThomas Paine One of most important American prose writers of the 18th Century. He wrote a number of revolutionary works to attack British colonial rule. 1776, he wrote “Common Sense”, which greatly encouraged the painfully fighting people. After the war, he participated in the French Revolution and wrote “The Rights of Man” and “The Age of Reason” to spread the ideals of the French revolution among the people.Philip FreneauHe is the most important poet of the 18th Century, a notable representative of dawning nationalism in American literature.“The Rising Glory of America” is a good example. He is the transitional role b/w the neoclassism of the 18th C and the Romanticism of the 19th C. This is clearly manifested in his “The Indian burying Ground” and “The Wild Honey Suckle”III Edwards and Franklintwo representatives of the age of Enlightenment (of the 18th Century) (The 18th C Am history witnessed two great revolutions: one was Am Independence War, the other was Enlightenment. Enlightenment was several decades earlier than the Revolution, and it helped paved the path for the Independence war in peoples war. (P.28)i.Background: the age of Enlightenment Toward the latter part of the 17th century, with Newtons laws of motion and the idea of gravity, a completely new view of the universe came into being. In the minds of some thinking people, the universe became something mechanical subject to certain physical laws instead of to the supervision of God. This brought about a whole set of new ideas, among which was deism（自然神论）。Deists believe God is indeed the creator of the world, but He has left it to operate according to natural law. Thus the best way to worship God is to study the natural world and human world. Many people speak for this idea, such as Voltaire in France, Alexander Pope in England. The idea of order became the watchword of the day. All these ideas also had great influence in America. Thus 18th century America experienced an age of Enlightenment, of reason, of order with Franklin as its spokesman. Though Newtons idea was very influential over the minds of the people in the 18th century, the Calvinist position did not seem to be dead, The old idea is in collision with the new idea. The best testimony was “The Great Awakening”. It is in fact a series of religious revivals in the 1730s & 1740s, which aims to bring new feeling and strength into religion. Jonathan Edwards played an important role in this movement.ii. .Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin FranklinSee the commentary on P27 in the text book.Edwards represents religious idealism of Am Puritanism, while Franklin represents levelheaded common sense of Am 1.Jonathan Edwards(1703-1758) He was born into a very religious New England family. He tried to reassert the Calvinist idea. He was in part instrumental in bringing about the “Great Awakening” movement. After this movement, He wrote many great works,see text book P29.“Personal Narrative” He discovered a dynamic world filled with the presence of God. He holds that God manifests Himself in nature and man, and man, being a part of God, is also divine. Everything in the physical world is an image of the divine. We can say he anticipated the symbolism of the 19th century Transcendentalism. The mystical implications of his Puritans idealism was to be developed by Emerson in the next century.2. Benjamin Franklin Like Edwards, he also came from a Puritan family. They stood on the opposite ends of one spectrum.( They are Antagonists. ) He made many inventions . His public career was also very influential in America. He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the republic. As the symbol of America in the Age of Enlightenment , he brought the colonial age to an end. “ Poor Richards Almanac” (adages)“Autobiography”.6.思考题：清教主义对美国文学有什么影响爱德华兹和富兰克林各自的哲学思想是什么 Chapter 2 Am Romanticism1. 教学的目的和要求：介绍浪漫主义及美国浪漫主义的定义，要求学生掌握美国浪漫主义的产生背景及特点，及两位前期浪漫主义作家 2. 教学重点：浪漫主义及美国浪漫主义的定义及特点3.教学难点：浪漫主义的主要作品4.教学内容i. (As a literary trend, Romanticism appeared in Europe and Am at the turn of the 18th C & the 19th C. In 1798, the English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge published a volume of poems Lyrical Ballads. This usually marked the beginning of Romanticism. It was the reaction from the formal orthodox of the past in fields such as literature, art, etc. )Romanticism: a sweeping but indispensable modern term applied to the profound shift in Western attitudes to art and human creativity that dominated much of European culture in the first half of the 19th C, and that has shaped most subsequent developments in literature -even those reacting against it. Its chief emphasis was upon freedom of individual self-: sincerity, spontaneity, and originality became the new standards in literature, replacing the decorous imitation of classical models favoured by 18th C neoclassicism. Rejecting the ordered rationality of the Enlightenment as mechanical, impersonal, and artificial, the Romantics turned to the emotional directness of personal experience and to the boundlessness of individual imagination and aspiration. The restrained balance valued in 18th C was abandoned in favour of emotional intensity, often taken to extremes of rapture, nostalgia, horror, melancholy, or sentimentality. Some-but not all-Romantic writers cultivated the appeal of the exotic , the bizarre, or the macabre; almost all showed a new interest in the irrational realms of dream and delirium or of folk superstition and legend.ii.American Romanticism-from the end of 18th C through the outbreak of the Civil War1.Background1)native factors: It is a period following Am independence In this period, .democracy and political equality became the ideals of the new nation. America was in an economic boom. There is a tremendous sense of optimism and hope among the people. The spirit of the time is, in some measure, responsible for the outburst of romantic feeling.2)foreign influence Romanticism emerged in England from 1798 to 1832. It added impetus to the growth of Romanticism in Am. In England the general features of the works of the romantics is a dissatisfaction with the bourgeois society. British Romanticism inspired the American imagination. Thus American Romanticism was in a way derivative.2.its distinct feature1)it was in essence the expression of a real new experience For example, the Am national experience of western expansion was a rich fund of material for Am writers. They were quite responsive to the stimulus which Am life offered. The authors described both the frontier & the Indian life.2) Am Puritanism served as a cultural heritage in Am literature Am moral values were essentially Puritan. Its influence over am Roman was quite noticeable. Many Am Ro writers tended to moralize more than their European brothers. Am authors were careful in approaching some subjects, such as true love, sex and love.3) Am new ideals were strong enough to inspire Romantic spirit Am is a newly independent nation from the colonial rule. Therere many new ideals. Its ideals of individualism, political equality and Am dream were distinctly American.4).both imitative & independent As a logical result of the foreign and native factors, Am Ro was both imitative & independent. There were writers who model their works upon the English neoclassical authorsFrom other writers we can see a vigorous literary independence is emerging. They called for the creation of a native American culture.Washington Irving (Irving modeled himself on Goldsmith so that he is at times known as “the American Goldsmith”)His contribution to American literature is unique in more ways than one. He did a number of things that have been regarded as the first of their kind in America.“A History of New York”Under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker “The Sketch Book”:-1.Rip Van WinkleThis short story are based on German folk tales, but Irving changed the setting of the original to the native Hudson river valley.2.The Legend of Sleepy HollowIchabod craneshrewd, credulous, self-assertive, coward, commercialBom bones-rough, vigorous,inwardly goodThey are rivals in love.They assumes the dimensions of two ethical groupslocked in a kind of historical conest.James Fenimore Cooper-the Am Scott He invented a new genre of Am lite-the historical novel in a similar way with Walter Scott“Leatherstocking Tales”The five novels of the tales: The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans,The Prairie, The Pathfinder, TheDeerslayer1.the historical significance of the five tales2.the important theme of the The Pioneers6.思考题：美国浪漫主义有什么特点清教主义对美国浪漫主义有什么影响 Chapter 3 New England Transcendentalism (1836-1855)1.教学的目的和要求：介绍美国超验主义，要求学生理解超验主义产生的背景，掌握超验主义的特点及两位超验主义哲学家 3. 教学重点：超验主义的特点3.教学难点：清教主义对超验主义的影响4.教学内容 I IntroductionEmersons Nature (1836) pushed Am Ro to a new phase-New England Transcendentalism. Its the summit of Am Romanticism.1.Background2.major features 1)emphasis on Spirit or the Oversoul 2)the importance of the individual 3)nature as symbolic of the Spirit of God3.The essence of New England Transcendentalism-a product of the combination of foreign influences & native Puritan tradition 1)foreign influence 2)puritan tradition New England Transcendentalism was, in actuality, Romanticism on the Puritan soil.(Comment : Transcendentalist believed instinct or intuition is the deepest level of mans soul. They tried to find truth through feeling, rather than through logic. So they write not in a logical way. We can say they formed a movement of feelings & beliefs rather than a system of philosophy.) II Leading writersRalph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Nature “self-Reliance”-“To be great is to be misunderstood” “The American Scholar”-Americas Declaration of Intellectual Independence(Emersons Transcendentalism, with its emphasis on democratic individualism, may have provided an ideal explanation for the conduct and activities of an expanding capitalist society.)Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862) ( He is Emersons junior by some 14 years. In 1845, he bulid a cabin on Walden Pond and moved in on July 4, illustrating his desire to be independent and find truth for himdelf. He wanted to move away from the rudh of American social life which was getting more and more materialisticoriented.) Waldon-or Life in the Woods “Civil disobedience” Though he lived in Walden Pond for over two years. He was by no means an “escapist”. He didnt like the way materialistic America was developing. He hated human injustice. He refused to pay a polltax for US war to Vietnamese to American government which he thought unjust. For this he was detained for a night in jail. This incident inspired him to write this famous essay, which advocated passive resistence to unjust laws of society.Its influence:1.After WWI in India, Gandhi employed this essay to support his antiBritish passive resistance.2.In 1960s in America, Martin Luther King based his strategy of the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement on the same essay.3.Also in 1960s in the Anti-War Movement, American students fight against US war to Vietanam. They organize their movement as “Civil disobedience” 6.思考题：清教主义对美国超验主义有什么影响Chapter 4 Post-Romantic Writers1.教学的目的和要求：主要介绍后浪漫主义诗人与小说家，要求学生理解惠特曼与狄金森的主要诗作，掌握霍桑与麦尔维尔的作品及写作特点，了解爱伦坡 2.教学重点：主要后浪漫主义作家的作品及写作特点3.教学难点：惠特曼与狄金森的主要诗作 4.教学内容： Walt Whitman1) life experience He was brought up in a working class family on Long Island, NY. With little schooling, he read a lot and did a numbe