美国文学术语.doc

第一部分1.American Puritanism(美国清教主义)：Puritanism was a religious reform movement that arose within the Church of England in the late sixteen century. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World-a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England. Puritanism, however, was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincident with the founding of New England; it was also a way of being in the world-a style of response to lived experience-that has reverberated through American life ever since. Doctrinally, Puritans adhered to the Five Points of Calvinism as codified at the Synod of Dort in 1619: unconditional election (the idea that God had decreed who was damned and who was saved from before the beginning of the world); limited atonement (the idea that Christ died for the elect only); total depravity (humanitys utter corruption since the Fall); irresistible grace (regeneration as entirely a work of God, which cannot be resisted and to which the sinner contributes nothing); and the perseverance of the saints(the elect, despite their backsliding and faintness of heart, cannot fall away from grace). 2Colonial America (殖民时期的美国)：After the first voyage of Columbus in 1492, the early 1600s witnessed the beginning of a great bide of emigration from Europe to North America. Spanning more than three centuries, this movement grew from a trickle of a few hundred English colonists to a floodtide of newcomers numbered in the millions. Impelled by powerful and diverse motivations, they built a new civilization on a once savage continent. In November 9, 1620, the Mayflower ship lands at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with 101 colonists. This marked the establishment of the first American colony and began the strenuous settlement in the world wholly new to them. During their settlement, the Native Americans who met them possessed a tragic history of subjugation and bloodshed by those strangers from abroad. 3American Dream (美国梦): The American Dream is the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settles, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth as a measure of success and/or happiness. 4. Great Awakening (大宗教觉醒运动)：Great Awaking is a series of religious revivals that swept over the American colonies about the middle of the 18th century. It resulted in doctrinal changes and influenced social and political thought. In New England it was started (1734) by the rousing preaching of Jonathan Edwards.第二部分1.American Romanticism (美国浪漫主义) : Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individuals expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. The romantic period in American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War. It was an age of great westward expansion, of the increasing gravity of the slavery question, of an intensification of the spirit of embattled sectionalism in the South, and of a powerful impulse to reform in the North. In literature it was Americas first great creative period, a full flowering of the romantic impulse on American soil. Although foreign influences were strong, American romanticism exhibited from the very outset distinct features of its own. First, American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real new experience” and contained “an alien quality “for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien. Second, Puritan influence over American romanticism was conspicuously noticeable. Emerging as new writers of strength and creative power were the novelists Hawthorne, Simms, and Melville; the poets Poe, Whittier, Holmes, Longfellows, Lowell, Dickinson, and Whitman; the essayists Thoreau, Emerson, and Holmes. These American writers had made a great literary period by capturing on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream. 2.Gothic tradition(哥特传统): Gothic novel or Gothic romance is a story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery. In an extended sense, many novels that do not have a medievalized setting, but which share a comparably sinister, grotesque, or claustrophobic atmosphere have been classed as gothic. It contributed to the new emotional climate of Romanticism.3.Historical novel(历史小说): a novel in which the action takes place during a specific historical period well before the time of writing(often one or two generations before, sometimes several centuries), and in which some attempt is made to depict accurately the customs and mentality of the period. The central character-real or imagined-is usually subject to divided loyalties within a larger historic conflict of which readers know the outcome. The pioneers of this genre were Walter Scott and James Fennimore Cooper.第三部分1、 Transcendentalism(超验主义)：Transcendentalism is literature, philosophical and literary movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to 1860. It originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, developing instead their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world. Transcendentalism derived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, and from such English authors as Carlyle, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Its mystical aspects were partly influenced by Indian and Chinese religious teachings. Although transcendentalism was never a rigorously systematic philosophy, it had some basic tenets that were generally shared by its adherents. The beliefs that God is immanent in each person and in nature and that individual intuition is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of traditional authority. The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature(1836), and Self-Reliance and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden(1854).2、 Individualism(个人主义)：Individualism is a moral, political, and social philosophy, which emphasizes individual liberty ,the primary importance of the individual, and the “virtues of selfreliance”. It assumes that a person can be socially and culturally free of upbringing: deepstructure language(s)，family(s) of origin, and both formal and informal education and work processes. Individualism claims the ability to oppose “authority”, and to all manner of controls over the individual, especially when exercised by the political state or “society”. It is thus directly opposed to collectivism, social psychology and sociology, which consider the individuals rapport to the society or community. It is often confused with “ egoism”, but an individualist need not be an egoist.3、 Unitarianism(上帝一位论)： Unitarianism is, in general, the form of Christianity that denies the doctrine of the Trinity, believing that God exists only in one person. While there were previous antiTrinitarian movements in the early Christian Church, like Arianism and Monarchianism, modern Unitarianism originated in the period of the Protestant Reformation.4、 American Renaissance( 美国文艺复兴)： American Renaissance the name sometimes is given to a flourishing of distinctively American literature in the period before the Civil War. This renaissance is represented by the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, H.D. Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman. Its major works are Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter (1850), Melvilles MobyDick (1851), and Whitmans Leaves of Grass (1855). The American Renaissance may be regarded as a delayed manifestation of Romanticism, especially in Emersons philosophy of Transcendentalism. 5、 American Enlightenment（美国启蒙运动）: Enlightenment is a philosophical movement of the 18th century that emphasized the use of reason to scrutinize previously accepted doc trines and traditions and that brought about many humanitarian reforms . The American Enlightenment is a term sometimes employed to describe the intellectual culture of the British North American colonies and the early United States (as they become following the American Revolution ) .It is commonly dated from 17501820.Among the leading intellectual figures of this period are Thomas Jefferson Madison.6、 Free verse （自由诗）:Free verse is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech. While it alternates stressed and unstressed syllables ad stricter verse forms do ,free verse does so in a looser way .Whitmans poetry is an example of free verse at its most impressive .Take the line from Song of Myself : A child said what is grass? Fetching it to me with full hands. Here, question and answer create a rising and falling effect, ending in a stop .It is arranged rhythmically, tightened and loosened by the poet .Although free verse had been used before Whitman-NOTABLY Italian opera and in the King Jamess translation if the Bible -it was Whitman who pioneered the form and made it acceptable in American poetry .IT has since been used by Ezra Proud , T.S. Eliot and other major American poets of the twentieth century .第四部分1. Realism（现实主义）：It is, in literature, an approach that attempts describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. In part, Realism was a reaction against the Romantic emphasis on the strange, idealistic, and long-ago and far-away. Although realism is not limited to any one century or group of writers, it is most often associated with the literary movement in 19th-century France, specifically with the French novelists Flaubert and Balzac. George Eliot introduced realism into England, and William Dean Howells introduced it into the United States. Realism has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes, where character is a product of social factors and environment is the integral element in the dramatic complications. Later writers felt that realism laid too much emphasis on external reality. Many, notably Henry James, turned to a psychological realism that closely examined the complex workings of the mind. 2. Local Colorism (地方特色主义) : Local colorism is a type of writing that was popular in the late 19th century, particularly among authors in the south of the U.S. .This style relied heavily on using words,phrases,and slang that were native to the particular region in which the story took place.The term has come to mean any device which implies a specific focus,whether it be geographical or temporal. A well-known local colorism author was Mark Twain with his books Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 3. Naturalism (自然主义) ：Naturalism, a more deliberate kind of realism,usually involes a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment. As a literary movement,naturalism was initiated in France and it came to be led by Emile Zola, who claimed a scientific status for his studies of impoverished characte