美国文学 教案

1、.Lecture 1: Colonial AmericaI. Historical Background: 1. The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards, Italians, and Portuguese. 2. The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1617. 3. The war for Independence(1776-178

2、3) 4. The colonies, most of which in old English tradition, made the original United States II. American Puritanism: 1.   Origin of "Puritanism":· The term "Puritan" first began as a taunt or insult applied by traditional Anglicans to those who criticized or wished

3、 to "purify" the Church of England. Although the word is often applied loosely, "Puritan" refers to two distinct groups: "separating" Puritans, such as the Plymouth colonists, who believed that the Church of England was corrupt and that true Christians must separate the

4、mselves from it; and non-separating Puritans, such as the colonists who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who believed in reform but not separation. Most Massachusetts colonists were nonseparating Puritans who wished to reform the established church, largely Congregationalists who believed in fo

5、rming churches through voluntary compacts.  The idea of compacts or covenants was central to the Puritans' conception of social, political, and religious organizations. (from /faculty/campbell/enl310/purdef.htm） 2.   A definition of American Puritanism·

6、; Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. · The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church, who came into existence in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James !. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation wer

7、e quite a few of them Puritans. They came to America out of various reasons, but it should be remembered that they were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. · As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purify their religious beliefs and

8、practices. They felt that the Church of England was too close to the Church of Rome in the doctrine form of worship, and organization of authority. · The American Puritans, like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to complete purity.

9、 · They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. But in the grim struggle for survival that followed immediately after their arrival in America, they became more and more practical, as ind

10、eed they had to be. Puritans lives were extremely disciplined and hard. They drove out of their settlements all those opinions that seemed dangerous to them, and history has criticized their actions. Yet in the persecution of what they considered error, the Puritans were no worse than many other mov

11、ements in history. As a culture heritage, · Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind. American Puritanism also had an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of the national cultural atmosp

12、here, rather than a set of tenets.3.   21st Century Puritanism· A "21st Century Puritanism", then, is the always-reforming spirit of 17th-century Puritanism applied to the challenges of the 21st century church.  In place of an Arminian "free-will" gospel that

13、exalts human worth and ability, the 21st Century Puritan calls us back to the Biblical gospel that exalts the power and sovereignty of Almighty God.  In place of the "seeker-sensitive", man-pleasing paradigm for worship, the 21st Century Puritan points us back to the Biblical, God-ord

14、ained pattern of worship revealed in Scriptureemphasizing a Godward focuspreaching His glories, rejoicing in His mercy to hell-deserving sinners, falling at His feet in humble supplication, singing from joyful, forgiven, God-saturated hearts psalms and hymns that exalt His majesty and honor.  &

15、#183; (for further information, please go to III. Puritan Poets 1. Anne Bradstreet (the ninth muse): · "CONTEMPLATIONS" comprises thirty-three stanzas rhyming ababccc, in which six iambic pentameter lines culminate with an alexandrine. Adopting the models of Fletcher and Quarles

16、(Stanford 101), Bradstreet, with her three "c" rhymes and closing alexandrine, modifies the nine-line stanza of The Faerie Queene; this formal kinship with Spenser is compounded by the pace of her narrative. The work was probably completed in the 1660s. · First appearing in the p

17、osthumous Several Poems, "Contemplations" belongs to a later group of writings, often domestic in their subject matter, in which Bradstreet's personal voice achieves its graceful maturity.· (For further information, please go to:      2.    Edwar

18、d Taylor: "Huswifery" (Chang, p19) IV. Representatives of Dawning Nationalism 1. Philip Freneau: "The Wild Honey Suckle" (Chang, p23),"The Indian Burying Ground"2. Benjamin FranklinLecture 2-4: American RomanticismI. Historical Background: · American pioneers

19、had pushed the frontier line of settlement beyond the Mississippi to the west, which has risen as a sectional power to challenge the political dominance of the East and the South. · Before 1860, the United States had begun to change into an industrial and urban society. · Literary characte

20、ristics: Romanticism, Transcendentalism · The rise of Nationalism II. American Romanticism· The Romantic Period in the history of American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War, which started with the publication of Washington Irving's T

21、he Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass. ·  In this period, a new emphasis was placed upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature, a liking for the picturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the sensational, the supernatural and remote past was fostered, and

22、an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters was paid, and above all, the individual and the common man was exalted. ·  Dr. F. H. Hedge, an American transcendentalist, thought the essence of romanticism was aspiration, having its origin in wonder and mystery. 

23、83; Among the aspects of the "romantic" movement in England may be listed as a) sensibility; b) primitivism; c) love of nature; d) sympathetic interest in the past, especially the medieval; e) mysticism; and f) individualism. III. Two Earlier Writers1. Washington Irving2. James Fenimore Co

24、operIV. American Transcendentalism· The most clearly defined literary thought in this period is New England Transcendentalism. 1.  The definition of Transcendentalism · Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as "the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth

25、intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses."· Principal ideas of Transcendentalism are based on doctrines of ancient and modern European philosophers, particularly Kant. It was started by a group of members of the Transcendental Club in New England in the 1

26、830s, whose leaders were Emerson, who was greatly influenced by Carlyle, Coleridge and others, and his young friend Thoreau.  · As the movement developed, it sponsored two important activities: the publication of The Dial during 1840 - 1844 and Brook farm. Their main notions include: a) li

27、ving close to nature; b) the dignity of manual labor; c) the divinity in man in his own right; d) one great brotherhood among all the people; e) self - trust and self - reliance; and f) the need to resist the "vulgar prosperity of the barbarian." 2. Two Representatives A.  Ralph

28、Waldo Emerson:( leading New England Transcendentalist) · Nature: In 1836 a book entitled “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson came out and made a tremendous impact on the intellectual life of America. It uttered, ”The Universe is composed of Nature and the Soul,” and “Spirit is present everywhe

29、re.” A whole new way of thinking began to exert its influence on the consciousness of man. Natures voice pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism, the summit of American Romanticism.  · Influences of  Unitarianism on Emerson: · Emer

30、son's influence on later writers B. Henry David Thoreau( 1817-1862  ):  About Thoreau · He knew the country like a fox or a bird and passed through it as freely by paths of his own. . . . Under his arm he carried an old music-book to press plants; in his pocket his diary and

31、pencil, a spy-glass for birds, microscope, jack-knife and twine. He wore straw hat, stout shoes, strong gray trousers, to brave shrub-oaks and smilax, and to climb a tree for a hawk's or squirrel's nest. He waded into the pool for the water-plants, and his strong legs were no insignificant p

32、art of his armor. . . . His power of observation seemed to indicate additional senses. He saw as with microscope, heard as with ear-trumpet, and his memory was a photographic register of all he saw and heard. . . . Every fact lay in glory in his mind, a type of the order and beauty of the whole. His

33、 intimacy with animals suggested . . . that either he had told the bees things, or the bees had told him.' Snakes coiled round his leg, the fishes swam into his hand, and he took them out of the water; he pulled the woodchuck out of its hole by the tail, and took the foxes under his protection f

34、rom the hunters.                                               &#

35、160;    -From the Biographical Sketch by R.W. Emerson · Walden by ThoreauV. Two Great NovelistsA.  Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864)· family background:  great-parent, Salem witch craft  · thematic concerns: darkness, evil. · literary techniques: symbol

36、ism · literary works: 1.  "Young Goodman Brown"  2.   The Scarlet Letter 3.  The House of the Seven Gables 4.   A Wonder Book 5.  Tanglewood Tales 6.  The Marble Faun 7.  Our Old Home  B. Herman Melville:&

37、#160;· Typee · Omoo · Mardi · Redburn · White-Jacket · Pierre · Israel Potter · Piazza Tales · The Confidence-Man · Battle Pieces · Clarel · John Marr and Other Sailors · Timoleon · Billy Budd · Moby Dick VI. Two Poets·

38、Walt Whitman· Emily DickinsonVII. Edgar Allan PoeLecture 5-7: Realism and Naturalism(American Civil War - the last decade of the 19th century)   I. Realism  1. background· The Civil War (1861-1865) · Fast growing of the United States due to the time of steel and st

39、eam, electricity and oil.  2. definition of American Realism · The Age of Realism came into existence after Romanticism with the Civil War. It is as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of t

40、he ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience. Realist literature finds the drama and the tension beneath the ordinary surface of life. William D

41、ean Howells,(genteel realism) a fearless and enthusiastic champion of the new school, felt that he must say what he observed and knew ( “He can only write of what his fleshly eyes have seen,” as Henry James says of him). The main theme of Henry James “The Art of Fiction” reveals his literary credo t

42、hat representation of life should be the main object of the novel. And Mark Twain had, as his aim of writing, the soul, the life, and the speech of the people in mind.· In different periods, realism shows different features:  1) Genteel Realism: William Dean Howells    

43、 2)  Psychological Realism · It is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters thoughts and motivations. Henry Jamess novel The Ambassadors is considered to be a masterpiece of psychological realism. And Henry James is considered the founder of psychologica

44、l realism. He believed that reality lies in the impressions made by life on the spectator, and not in any facts of which the spectator is unaware. Such realism is therefore merely the obligation that the artist assumes to represent life as he sees it, which may not be the same life as it “really” is

45、.· Henry James: is a representative.3. Local Colorism · Local Colorism or Regionalism as first appeared in the late 1860s and early seventies in America. Hamlin Garland defined local colorism as having “such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other

46、 place or by anyone else than a native.” The ultimate aim of the local colorists is, as Garland indicates, to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local ch

47、aracter of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. They formed an important part of the realistic movement. Influences: · Although it lost its momentum toward the end of the nineteenth century, the l

48、ocal spirit continued to inspire and fertilize the imagination of authors such as Willa Cather, John Steinbeck and William Faulkner.· Mark Twain is a representative.II. American Naturalism· Naturalism was an outgrowth of Realism that responded to theories in science, psychology, human beha

49、vior and social thought current in the late nineteenth century. It had been shaped by the war, by the social upheavals that undermined the comforting faith of an earlier age, and by the disturbing teachings of Darwinism. Americas literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths

50、. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by their environment and heredity. The pessimism and deterministic ideas of naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as Stephen Crane, Frank Norri

51、s, Jack London and Theodore Dreiser. Cranes Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is the first American naturalistic work. Norriss McTeague is the manifesto of American naturalism. Dreisers Sister Carrie is the work in which naturalism attained maturity. These writers detailed description of the lives of th

52、e downtrodden and the abnormal, their frank treatment of human passion and sexuality, and their portrayal of men and women over-whelmed by blind forces of nature still exert a powerful influence on modern writers.· Stephen Crane· Dreisers Sister Carrie · Other minor naturalistsLecture

53、 8-10: The 1920sI. Literary trend: imagery· If F. O. Matthiessen regards the "flowering of New England" in the first half of the nineteenth century as an "American Renaissance", the decade of the 1920s can be termed the second renaissance in the history of American Literatur

54、e. In this period, impressionism appeared along with Dadaism and Expressionism. Symbolism and surrealism became stylish and popular. High Modernism began to dominate the world of literature and art. In America, a whole new generation of younger writers, "the Lost Generation," surfaced with

55、 their new voices. · The most active and influential writers are1. Poets: Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, E. E. Cummings, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, and Carl Sandburg;2. Novelists: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald,  and William Faulkner;&

56、#160;3. Playwright: Eugene O'Neill. 4. Other writers, such as  Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, Sinclair Lewis and Cather Willa are also important.II. Key Terms 1. Harlem Renaissance · In the 1920s in America, there was an upsurge of Black literature, popularly known as the

57、 “Harlem Renaissance”, out of which such eminent literary figures as Langston Hughes grew. So, “Harlem Renaissance” is a burst of literary achievement in the 1920s by Negro playwrights, poets and novelists who presented new insights into the American experience and prepared the way for the emergence

58、 of numerous Black writers after mid-twentieth century. 2. Lost Generation · This term has been used again and again to describe the people of the postwar years. It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of “expatriates” or exiles, the writers like Hemingway who lived in semi

59、-poverty and also the Americans who returned to their native land with an intense awareness of living in an unfamiliar changing world. · After World War ,the young disappointed American writers, such as Hemingway, Pound, Cummings, Fitzgerald, were welcomed by an American woman writer named Gert

60、rude Stein, who had lived in Paris since 1903. She called them “the Lost Generation”, because they had cut themselves off from their past in America in order to create a completely new type of writing. They wandered pointlessly and restlessly, enjoying things like fishing, swimming, bullfight and be

61、auties of nature, but they were aware all the while that the world is crazy and meaningless and futile. Their whole life is undercut and defeated. 3. Imagism · The First World War made American literature underwent a substantial change. The 1920s saw a vigorous literary activity in America. In

62、poetry there appeared a strong reaction against Victorian poetry, which is called Imagism. To be more exact in poetic significance, Imagism was begun by Ezra Pound and a few friends who wanted to rid poetry of the “bad habits”. The Imagists wanted “direct treatment of the thing” and a rhythm like that of a musical phrase. Instead of having the poet tell us what we should be feeling, Pound and his colleagues wanted an image to produc