美国文学简史

1、 Puritanism：American Puritanism was the practice and belief of Puritans who were a group of serious and religious people ,and carried a code of value and a philosophy of life. To them, religion was the most important thing. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin, total depravity

2、and limited atonement for Gods grace. They also believed in hard working, piety and sobriety. In a word, American Puritanism exerted great influences upon American thought and literature.1. American Puritanismit comes from the American puritans, who were the first immigrants moved to American contin

3、ent in the 17th century. Original sin, predestination（预言） and salvation（拯救） were the basic ideas of American Puritanism. And, hard-working, piousness（虔诚,尽职）， thrift and sobriety（清醒） were praised.2. Transcendentalism (先验说,超越论): is a philosophic and literary movement that flourished in New England, pa

4、rticular at Concord, as a reaction against Rationalism and Calvinism (理性主义and喀尔文主义). Mainly it stressed intuitive understanding of God, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. The representative writers are Emerson and Thoreau.3. American Realism: In American literatu

5、re, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived.

6、 It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience4. Naturalism: American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. American naturalism had been shaped by the war; by the social upheavals（剧变） that unde

7、rmined the comforting faith of an earlier age. Americas literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by their environment and heredity.

8、 Although naturalist literature described the world with sometimes brutal realism, it sometimes also aimed at bettering the world through social reform.5. Imagism（意象派）: Its a poetic movement of England and the U.S. flourished from 1909 to 1917.The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry

9、 by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. The leaders of this movement were Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell.6. The Lost generation： it refers to a group of young intellectuals （知识分子） who came back from war， were injured （受伤害） both physically （身体上） and mentally （精神上）. They lived b

10、y indulging （放任） themselves in the Bohemian （波西米亚） way of life. Their American dream was disillusioned （破灭了）. The best representative of the lost generation was Ernest Hemingway.7. Local colorism: as a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s，it is defined by Hamlin

11、Garland as having such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality of circumstantial(详细的) authenticity(确实性), as local colorists tried to immortalize(使不朽) the distinctive natural, soc

12、ial and linguistic features. It is characteristic of vernacular(本国语) language and satirical(讽刺的) humor8. Code hero: The Hemingway hero is an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent, a man of action, and one of few words. That is an individualist keeping emotions under co

13、ntrol, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place. These people are usually spiritual strong, people of certain skills, and most of them encounter death many times. The heroes in his book are all have something in common which Hemingway values: they have seen the cold world and for one cause or

14、another, they boldly and courageously face the reality; whatever the result is, they are ready to live with grace under pressure. The Hemingway code hero has an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life, though he is pessimistic that is Hemingway. 9 Iceberg Theory : It is a term used to

15、describe the writing style of American writer Ernest Hemingway. The meaning of a piece is not immediately evident, because the crux of the story lies below the surface, just as most of the mass of a real iceberg similarly lies beneath the surface. 2/Compare Whitman and Dicksons poetry in terms of co

16、ntent and technique?1.Similarities:(1)Thematically, they both extolled, in their different ways, an emergent America, its expansion, its individualism and its Americanness, their poetry being part of “American Renaissance”.(2)Technically, they both added to the literary independence of the new natio

17、n by breaking free of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in form unknown before: they were pioneers in American poetry.(newness pioneers)2.differences:(1)Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large; Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual.(2)Whereas Wh

18、itman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is “regional”.(3)Dickinson has the “catalogue technique” (concise, direct, simple style and diction) which Whitman doesnt have (endlessallinclusive catalogue sentences).Chapter 1 Colonial PeriodI. Background: Puritanism1. features of Puritanism （Tulip）(1

19、) Total depravity(2) Unconditional election (3) Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.(4) Irresistable grace(5) The perseverence of saints 2. Influence(1) A group of good qualities hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced American literature.(2) It led to the

20、 everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth garden of Eden.(3) Symbolism: the American puritans metaphorical mode of perception was chiefly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American.(4) With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and d

21、irect; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible. II. Overview of the literature1. types of writingdiaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons2. writers of colonial period(1) An

22、ne Bradstreet(2) Edward Taylor(3) Roger Williams (4) John Woolman (5) Thomas Paine (6) Philip Freneau III. Jonathan Edwards1. life2. works(1) The Freedom of the Will(2) The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended(3) The Nature of True Virtue3. ideas pioneer of transcendentalism(1) The spirit of revi

23、valism(2) Regeneration of man(3) Gods presence(4) Puritan idealismIV. Benjamin Franklin1. life2. works(1) Poor Richards Almanac(2) Autobiography3. contribution(1) He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society.(2) He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fir

24、e (electricity in this case) from heaven”.(3) Everything seems to meet in this one man “Jack of all trades”. Herman Melville thus described him “master of each and mastered by none”.Franklin (1706-1790) was a universal genius who did not realize that his Autobiography would eventually become a class

25、ic of its kind. It shows the beginnings of his personal, civic, and political success, yet the account is uncolored by vanity. Franklin shows us that he is a human being as well as a successful man.Though his style of writing was clear and even plain in his time, we now find it a bit hard to read. I

26、t has many long words, often from the Latin language, and long sentences. But we must remember that he was writing two centuries ago. It is true that Franklins style is formal. The organization of much of what he says-if not how he says it-is informal, however. In his famous Autobiography, in partic

27、ular, he talks first about one thing and then another with little attempt at connecting them. We can see a man of versatile energy and new ideas.Of course, not all of his ideas were new. In some cases he simply became the most prominent advocate of old ones, especially the beliefs that we should wor

28、k hard and that we should save our money. These principles had been current since Puritan times but Franklin spread them widely by putting them into a popular almanac, or calendar, called Poor Richards Almanac, which he himself printed. It contained many popular sayings such as God helps them that h

29、elp themselves, Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him, and Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship. Chapter 2 American RomanticismThe span 1828-1865 from the Jacksonian era to the Civil War, often identified as the Romantic Period in America, marks the ful

30、l coming of age of a distinctively American literature. This period is sometimes known as the American Renaissance, the title of F. O. Matthiessens influential book (1941) about its outstanding writers, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthor

31、ne; it is also sometimes called the Age of Transcendentalism, after the philosophical and literary movement, centred on Emerson, that was dominant in New England. In all the major literary genres except drama, writers produced works of an originality and excellence not exceeded in later American his

32、tory. Emerson, Thoreau, and the early feminist Margaret Fuller shaped the ideas, ideals, and literary aims of many contemporary and later American writers. It was the age not only of continuing writings by William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, and James Fenimore Cooper, but also of the novels an

33、d short stories of Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the southern novelist William Gilmore Simms; of the poetry of Poe, John Greenleaf Whittier, Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the most innovative and influential of all American poets, Walt Whitman; and of the beginning o

34、f distinguished American criticism in the essays of Poe, Simms, and James Russel Lowell, the tradition of African-American poetry by women was continued by Francis Watkins Harper, and the African-Amrican novel was inaugurated. Section 1 Early Romantic PeriodWhat is Romanticism?l An approach from anc

35、ient Greek: Platol A literary trend: 18c in Britain (17981832)l Schlegel Bros.I. Preview: Characteristics of romanticism1. subjectivity(1) feeling and emotions, finding truth(2) emphasis on imagination(3) emphasis on individualism personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodness of human beings2.

36、 back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature(1) unrestrained by classical rules(2) full of imagination(3) colloquial language(4) freedom of imagination(5) genuine in feelings: answer their call for classics3. back to naturenature is “breathing living thing” (Rousseau)II. American Romanticism1. Ba

37、ckground(1) Political background and economic development(2) Romantic movement in European countriesDerivative foreign influence2. features(1) 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 p

38、lace” was radically new and alien.(2) There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained.(3) The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with Amer

39、ican Romanticism.(4) As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent.Many intellectual historians have seen romanticism as a key movement in the Counter-Enlightenment, a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment. Whereas the thin

40、kers of the Enlightenment emphasized the primacy of deductive reason, Romanticism emphasized intuition, imagination, and feeling, to a point that has led to some Romantic thinkers being accused of irrationalism. Romanticism focuses on Nature; a place free from societys judgement and restrictions. Ro

41、manticism blossomed after the age of Rationalism, a time that focused on handwork and scientific reasoning. In literary style, the Romantics preferred boldness over the preceding ages desire for restraint, maximum suggestiveness over the neoclassical ideal of clarity, free experimentation over the r

42、ules of composition, genre, and decorum, and they promoted the conception of the artist as inspired creator over that of the artist as maker or technical master. III. Washington Irving1. several names attached to Irving(1) first American writer(2) the messenger sent from the new world to the old wor

43、ld(3) father of American literature2. life3. works(1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty(2) The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this.)(3) The History of the Life and Voyage

44、s of Christopher Columbus(4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada(5) The Alhambra4. Literary career: two parts(1) 18091832a. Subjects are either English or Europeanb. Conservative love for the antique(2) 18321859: back to US5. style beautiful(1) gentility, urbanity, pleasantness(2) avoiding morali

45、zing amusing and entertaining(3) enveloping stories in an atmosphere(4) vivid and true characters(5) humour smiling while reading(6) musical languageIV. James Fenimore Cooper1. life2. works(1) Precaution (1820, his first novel, imitating Austens Pride and Prejudice)(2) The Spy (his second novel and

46、great success)(3) Leatherstocking Tales (his masterpiece, a series of five novels)The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, The Prairie3. point of viewthe theme of wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law, order vs. change, aristocrat vs. democrat, natural rights vs.

47、 legal rights4. style(1) highly imaginative(2) good at inventing tales(3) good at landscape description(4) conservative(5) characterization wooden and lacking in probability(6) language and use of dialect not authentic5. literary achievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of the Americ

48、an nation. If the history of the United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring and pushing the American frontier forever westward, then Coopers Leatherstocking Tales effectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West. He turned the wes

49、t and frontier as a useable past and he helped to introduce western tradition to American literature.Section 2 Summit of Romanticism American TranscendentalismI. Background: four sources1. Unitarianism(1) Fatherhood of God(2) Brotherhood of men(3) Leadership of Jesus(4) Salvation by character (perfe

50、ction of ones character)(5) Continued progress of mankind(6) Divinity of mankind(7) Depravity of mankind2. Romantic IdealismCenter of the world is spirit, absolute spirit (Kant)3. Oriental mysticismCenter of the world is “oversoul”4. PuritanismEloquent expression in transcendentalismII. Appearance18

51、36, “Nature” by EmersonIII. Features1. spirit/oversoul2. importance of individualism3. nature symbol of spirit/God, garment of the oversoul4. focus in intuition (irrationalism and subconsciousness)IV. Influence1. It served as an ethical guide to life for a young nation and brought about the idea tha

52、t human can be perfected by nature. It stressed religious tolerance, called to throw off shackles of customs and traditions and go forward to the development of a new and distinctly American culture.2. It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidly expanded economy where opportunity often

53、became opportunism, and the desire to “get on” obscured the moral necessity for rising to spiritual height.3. It helped to create the first American renaissance one of the most prolific period in American literature.V. Ralph Waldo Emerson1. life2. works(1) Nature(2) Two essays: The American Scholar,

54、 The Poet3. point of view(1) One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in the transcendence of the “oversoul”.(2) He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man, and advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.(3) If man depen

55、ds upon himself, cultivates himself and brings out the divine in himself, he can hope to become better and even perfect. This is what Emerson means by “the infinitude of man”.(4) Everyone should understand that he makes himself by making his world, and that he makes the world by making himself.4. ae

56、sthetic ideas(1) He is a complete man, an eternal man.(2) True poetry and true art should ennoble.(3) The poet should express his thought in symbols.(4) As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America which was to him a great poem in itself.5. his influenceEmerson graduated fr

57、om Harvard University and was ordained a Unitarian minister in 1829. His questioning of traditional doctrine led him to resign the ministry three years later. He formulated his philosophy in Nature (1836); the book helped initiate New England Transcendentalism, a movement of which he soon became the

58、 leading exponent. In 1834 he moved to Concord, Mass., the home of his friend Henry David Thoreau. His lectures on the proper role of the scholar and the waning of the Christian tradition caused considerable controversy. In 1840, with Margaret Fuller, he helped launch The Dial, a journal that provided an outlet for Transcendentalist ideas. He became internationally famous with his Essays (1841, 1844), including Self-Reliance.The Taming of the Shrewd Representative Men (1850) consists