Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau
美国浪漫主义时期诗歌
Chapter 2 Literature of American RomanticismA Brief IntroductionThe American Romantic period is considered one of the most important periods, the first literary Renaissance, in the history of American literature. It stretches from the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass.American romantic literature is best explained by referring to certain stirring events of American national history. Historically, it was the time of western expansion. The western boundary had reached to the Pacific by 1860; the number of states had increased from the original thirteen at the time of independence to twenty-one by the middle of the 19th century; its total population increased from four million people in 1790 to thirty million in 1860. Economically, the whole nation was experiencing an industrial transformation, which affected American people's lives. The growth of industrialization helped restructure economic life. The sudden influx of immigration gave a big push to the booming industry. Politically, democracy and political equality became the ideals of new nation, and the two-party system came into being. Literarily and culturally, the new nation needed to express its own experiences: their early Puritan settlements, their confrontations with the Indians, their frontiersmen's life, and the wild west. Besides, the ever-increasing numbers of newspapers, magazines, journals and books reviews provided a great market. All these produced a strong sense of optimism for American romanticism.This surging romanticism also had support abroad. In Europe, the Romantic Movement which had flourished earlier in the century both in England and Europe added incentive to the growth of Romanticists in America. The American writers who traveled to Europe and kept in touch with European Romanticism were greatly influenced. Washington Irving was the most important. The greatest benefit for Irving during his travels in Europe was his contact with Sir Walter Scott, one of the most important British writers of his period. Scott introduced Irving to the Tales of German Romances, upon which Irving wrote some of his best-known short stories. In addition, Scott's border tales and Waverley romances inspired such Americans as James Fenimore Cooper. The Gothic tradition and the cult of solitude and gloom came through interest in the works of writers like Mr. Radcliffe, E. T. A. Hoffman, James Thomson and the “graveyard” poets. Robert Burns and Byron both inspired and spurred the American imagination for lyrics and passion and despair. The impact of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads added, to some extent, to the nation's singing strength.American Romanticism was modeled on English and European works but exhibited from the very outset distinct features of its own. For instance, the American national experience of “pioneering” into the west proved to be a rich fount of material for American write rs to draw upon. Then, there is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American moral values were essentially Puritan, and its influence over American Romanticism was conspicuously noticeable. American romantic authors tended more to moralize than their English and European brothers, and many American romantic writers intended to edify more than they entertained. Another thing merits attention with American Romanticism--the “newness” of America as a nation. The ideals of individualism and political equality, and the dream that America was to be a new Garden of Eden for man were distinctly American.As a result of the immerse influence of European Romanticism and the American writers' efforts in popularizing it, American Romanticism grew rapidly, bringing into American literature a swelling tide of newness, freedom, and individuality. Basically, Romanticism is often described as “emotion rather than reason, the heart opposed to the head,” as “imagination contrasted with reason and the sense of fact,” and as “a sense of mystery of the universe and the perception of its beauty.” They most highly value is originality and emotional sincerity.American Romanticism can be divided into two periods. The first period or the early National Period stretches from 1800 to 1830. During this period some American writers began to attract notice abroad. Although English literature was still influential, and was admired and followed, American writers began to use their own scene, their own culture, and their own history as the material in their writings. In this period, the important writers were Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant, who are seen as a trio, the first truly successful American writers. Irving's Sketch Book (1819-1820) is the first work by American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.The second period stretches from 1830 to 1865, which has been called by some scholars the “American Renaissance”. Ralph Waldo Emerson's The American Scholar(1837) proved to be a declaration of American literature, in which he announced that: “Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws a close.” And he told his countrymen that: “We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds” Writers in this period can be divided into three groups: Transcendentalists, “brooding” Romantics and the Brahmins (literally, a member of the very highest caste of Hindu society). Although all of them share the general Romantic ideas, they each have their own special emphasis. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were the spokesmen of transcendentalism. Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville are called “broodings” or dissenters. T hey were filled with a deep awareness of the human capacity for evil. They stressed the presence of evil in the universe and rejected the philosophy of transcendentalism. Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell are the three Brahmins, the members of the genteel school. They were, to some degree, New England aristocrats, socially important men for whom literature was an accomplishment as well as a vocation. It should be pointed out that John Whittier and Emily Dickinson fall outside the classification.With Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature published in 1836, Romanticism came to its climax, Transcendentalism, or New England Transcendentalism.The actual term was coined by opponents of the movement, but accepted by its members, one of whom was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who published Transcendentalism in 1841. The group also included social reformers. Some of the famous members include Bronson, Alcott, Thoreau and Hawthorne.Transcendentalism was a movement among young intellectuals in Boston in the 1830's. They formed themselves into an informal club: the Transcendentalist Club. They edited a journal—The Dial, to voice their opinions. Transcendentalism was, in essence, romantic idealism on Puritan thoughts. It was a system of thought that originated from three sources. First, it is from William Ellery Channing's Unitarianism. Channing (1780 - 1842) represented a thoughtful revolt against orthodox Puritanism. Unitarianism believed God was one being, and gave each congregation free control of its own affairs and its own independent authority. It laid the foundation for the central doctrines of transcendentalism. Secondly, the idealistic philosophers' influence from England,France and Germany, such as Wordsworth Longfellow, Coleridge, Carlyle Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Goethe, Richter, and Herder, exerted enormous impact on American transcendentalists. Thirdly, the ancients: the Greek philosophers, especially Plato, the Neoplatonists, the Christian mystics from the Middle Ages to Swedenborg, the Hindu wisdom of the age-old V edas, and Chinese classics. As a result, New England Transcendentalism blended native American tradition with foreign influence.Basically religious, transcendentalism emphasized the importance of the individual conscience, and the value of intuition in matters of moral guidance and inspiration.James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets. These poets usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside. Lowell graduated from Harvard College in 1838, despite his reputation as a troublemaker, and went on to earn a law degree from Harvard Law School. He published his first collection of poetry in 1841 and married Maria White in 1844. He and his wife had several children, though only one survived past childhood. The couple soon became involved in the movement to abolish slavery, with Lowell using poetry to express his anti-slavery views and taking a job in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the editor of an abolitionist newspaper. After moving back to Cambridge, Lowell was one of the founders of a journal called The Pioneer, which lasted only three issues. He gained notoriety in 1848 with the publication of A Fable for Critics, a book-length poem satirizing contemporary critics and poets. The same year, he published The Biglow Papers, which increased his fame. He would publish several other poetry collections and essay collections throughout his literary career.Maria White died in 1853, and Lowell accepted a professorship of languages at Harvard in 1854. He traveled to Europe before officially assuming his role in 1856; he continued to teach there for twenty years. He married his second wife, Frances Dunlap, shortly thereafter in 1857. That year Lowell also became editor of The Atlantic Monthly. It was not until 20 years later that Lowell received his first political appointment: the ambassadorship to Spain and, later, to England. He spent his last years in Cambridge, in the same estate where he was born, where he also died in 1891.Lowell believed that the poet played an important role as a prophet and critic of society. He used poetry for reform, particularly in abolitionism. However, Lowell's commitment to the anti-slavery cause wavered over the years, as did his opinion on African-Americans. Lowell attempted to emulate the true Yankee accent in the dialogue of his characters, particularly in The Biglow Papers. This depiction of the dialect, as well as Lowell's many satires, were an inspiration to writers like Mark Twain and H. L. Mencken.Henry W adswoth Longfellow (1807-1882)Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include Paul Revere's Ride, The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five Fireside Poets.Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, then part of Massachusetts, and studied at Bowdoin College. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at HarvardCollege. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, living the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a former headquarters of George Washington. His first wife, Mary Potter, died in 1835 after a miscarriage. His second wife, Frances Appleton, died in 1861 after sustaining burns from her dress catching fire. After her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on his translation. He died in 1882.Longfellow predominantly wrote lyric poems which are known for their musicality and which often presented stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses.A Psalm of LifeTell me not in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end or way;But to act, that each tomorrowFind us farther than today.Art is long, and Time is fleeting,And our hearts, though stout and brave,Still, like muffled drums, are beatingFuneral marches to the grave.In the world's broad field of battle,In the bivouac of Life,Be not like dumb, driven cattle!Be a hero in the strife!Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!Let the dead Past bury its dead!Act, - act in the living Present!Heart within, and God o'erhead!Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sand of time;Footprints, that perhaps another,Sailing o'er life's solemn main,A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,Seeing, shall take heart again.Let us then be up and doing,With a heart for any fate;Still achieving, still pursuing,Learn to labor and to wait.Notes:1.This poem was published in “V oices of the Night”. In nine quartrains of alternately rimedtrochaic tetrameters, this popular didactic piece stresses the importance of a full and sincere acitivity in making the most of life‟s brief span, rather than succumbing to moods of vain regret or dejection. The poem established the familiar Longfellow‟s pattern of clear, felicitous expression of common ideas, melodioally encouraging memorization.2.numbers: meters, rhythms3.For the soul/ not what they seem: the temporary body of human being dies, but the soulnenver dies. When wer a re doning things of no miportance, we say the soul slumbers. “The soul is dead…” the poet means that when we are hopeless.4.Dust thou art, to dust returnest: see Holy Bible, The Old Testament, Genesis, chap.2 sec. 7.“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostril the breath of life; and man became a living soul”.5.Art is lo ng, and time is fleeting: Chaucer‟s “ The Parliament of Fowls”, line 1. “ the life soshort, the craft so long to learn.”6.funeral marches: some pieces of music played in a funeral service.7.sands of time: moments in time (as measured by sand in an hour-glass).8.main: the sea (poetic diction).9.take heart: to gain courage.W alt Whitman (1819-1892)Born on May 31, 1819, Walt Whitman was the second son of Walter Whitman, a housebuilder, and Louisa V an V elsor. The family, which consisted of nine children, lived in Brooklyn and Long Island in the 1820s and 1830s.At the age of twelve, Whitman began to learn the printer's trade, and fell in love with the written word. Largely self-taught, he read voraciously, becoming acquainted with the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible.Whitman worked as a printer in New Y ork City until a devastating fire in the printing district demolished the industry. In 1836, at the age of 17, he began his career as teacher in the one-room school houses of Long Island. He continued to teach until 1841, when he turned to journalism as a full-time career.He founded a weekly newspaper, Long-Islander, and later edited a number of Brooklyn and New Y ork papers. In 1848, Whitman left the Brooklyn Daily Eagle to become editor of the New Orleans Crescent. It was in New Orleans that he experienced at first hand the viciousness of slavery in the slave markets of that city. On his return to Brooklyn in the fall of 1848, he founded a “free soil” newspaper, the Brooklyn Freeman, and continued to develop the unique style of poetry that later so astonished Ralph Waldo Emerson.In 1855, Whitman took out a copyright on the first edition of Leaves of Grass, which consisted of twelve untitled poems and a preface. He published the volume himself, and sent a copy to Emerson in July of 1855. Whitman released a second edition of the book in 1856, containing thirty-three poems, a letter from Emerson praising the first edition, and a long open letter by Whitman in response. During his subsequent career, Whitman continued to refine the volume, publishing several more editions of the book.At the outbreak of the Civil War, Whitman vowed to live a “purged” and “cleansed” life. He wrote freelance journalism and visited the wounded at New Y ork-area hospitals. He then traveled to Washington, D.C. in December 1862 to care for his brother who had been wounded in the war. Overcome by the suffering of the many wounded in Washington, Whitman decided to stay and work in the hospitals and stayed in the city for eleven years. He took a job as a clerk for the Department of the Interior, which ended when the Secretary of the Interior, James Harlan, discovered that Whitman was the author of Leaves of Grass, which Harlan found offensive. Harlan fired the poet.Whitman struggled to support himself through most of his life. In Washington, he lived on a clerk's salary and modest royalties, and spent any excess money, including gifts from friends, to buy supplies for the patients he nursed. He had also been sending money to his widowed mother and an invalid brother. From time to time writers both in the states and in England sent him “purses” of money so that he could get by.In the early 1870s, Whitman settled in Camden, NJ, where he had come to visit his dying mother at his brother's house. However, after suffering a stroke, Whitman found it impossible to return to Washington. He stayed with his brother until the 1882 publication of Leaves of Grass gave Whitman enough money to buy a home in Camden.In the simple two-story clapboard house, Whitman spent his declining years working on additions and revisions to a new edition of the book and preparing his final volume of poems and prose, Good-Bye, My Fancy (1891). After his death on March 26, 1892, Whitman was buried in a tomb he designed and had built on a lot in Harleigh Cemetery.Whitman‟s poetry is democ ratic in both its subject matter and its language. As the great lists that make up a large part of Whitman‟s poetry show, anything—and anyone—is fair game for a poem. Whitman is concerned with cataloguing the new America he sees growing around him. Just as America is far different politically and practically from its European counterparts, so too must American poetry distinguish itself from previous models. Thus we see Whitman breaking new ground in both subject matter and diction.In a way, though, Whitman is not so unique. His preference for the quotidian links him with both Dante, who was the first to write poetry in a vernacular language, and with Wordsworth, who famously stated that poetry should aim to speak in the “language of ordinary men.” Unlike Wordsworth, however, Whitman does not romanticize the proletariat or the peasant. Instead he takes as his model himself. The stated mission of his poetry was, in his words, to make “anattempt to put a Person, a human being (myself, in the latter half of the 19th century, in America) freely, fully, and truly on record.” A truly democratic poetry, for Whitman, is one that, using a common language, is able to cross the gap between the self and another individual, to effect a sympathetic exchange of experiences.This leads to a distinct blurring of the boundaries between the self and the world and between public and private. Whitman prefers spaces and situations—like journeys, the out-of-doors, cities—t hat allow for ambiguity in these respects. Thus we see poems like “Song of the Open Road“ and “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” where the poet claims to be able to enter into the heads of others. Exploration becomes not just a trope but a mode of existence.For Whitman, spiritual communion depends on physical contact, or at least proximity. The body is the vessel that enables the soul to experience the world. Therefore the body is something to be worshipped and given a certain primacy. Eroticism, particularly homoeroticism, figures significantly in Whitman‟s poetry. This is something that g ot him in no small amount of trouble during his lifetime. The erotic interchange of his poetry, though, is meant to symbolize the intense but always incomplete connection between individuals. Having sex is the closest two people can come to being one merged individual, but the boundaries of the body always prevent a complete union. The affection Whitman shows for the bodies of others, both men and women, comes out of his appreciation for the linkage between the body and the soul and the communion that can c ome through physical contact. He also has great respect for the reproductive and generative powers of the body, which mirror the intellect‟s generation of poetry.The Civil War dimini shed Whitman‟s faith in democratic sympathy. While the cause of the war nominally furthered brotherhood and equality, the war itself was a quagmire of killing. Reconstruction, which began to fail almost immediately after it was begun, further disappointed Whitman. His later poetry, which displays a marked insecurity about the place of poetry and the place of emotion in general (see in particular “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom‟d“), is darker and more isolated.Whitman‟s style remains consistent throughout, however. The poetic structures he employs are unconventional but reflect his democratic ideals. Lists are a way for him to bring together a wide variety of items without imposing a hierarchy on them. Perception, rather than analysis, is the basis for this kind of poetry, which uses few metaphors or other kinds of symbolic language. Anecdotes are another favored device. By transmitting a story, often one he has gotten from another individual, Whitman hopes to give his readers a sympathetic experience, which will allow them to incorporate the anecdote into their own history. The kind of language Whitman uses sometimes supports and sometimes seems to contradict his philosophy. He often uses obscure, foreign, or invented words. This, however, is not meant to be intellectually elitist but is instead meant to signify Whitman‟s status as a unique individual. Democracy does not necessarily mean sameness. The difficulty of some of his language also mirrors the necessary imperfection of connections between individuals: no matter how hard we try, we can never completely understand each other. Whitman largely avoids rhyme schemes and other traditional poetic devices. He does, however, use meter in masterful and innovative ways, often to mimic natural speech. In these ways, he is able to demonstrate that he has mastered traditional poetry but is no longer subservient to it, just as democracy has ended the subservience of the individual.Whitman‟s po etry reflects the vitality and growth of the early United States. During the nineteenth century, America expanded at a tremendous rate, and its growth and potential seemedlimitless. But sectionalism and the violence of the Civil War threatened to break apart and destroy the boundless possibilities of the United States. As a way of dealing with both the population growth and the massive deaths during the Civil War, Whitman focused on the life cycles of individuals: people are born, they age and reproduce, and they die. Such poems as “When Lilacs Last in the Doory ard Bloom‟d” imagine death as an integral part of life. The speaker of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom‟d” realizes that flowers die in the winter, but they rebloom in the springtime, and he vows to mourn his fallen friends every year just as new buds are appearing. Describing the life cycle of nature helped Whitman contextualize the severe injuries and trauma he witnessed during the Civil War—linking death to life helped give the deaths of so many soldiers meaning.Throughout his poetry, Whitman praised the individual. He imagined a democratic nation as a unified whole composed of unique but equal individuals. “Song of Myself” opens in a triumphant paean to the individual: “I celebrate myself, and sing myself” (1). Elsewhere the speaker of that exuberant poem identifies himself as Walt Whitman and claims that, through him, the voices of many will speak. In this way, many individuals make up the individual democracy, a single entity composed of myriad parts. Every voice and every part will carry the same weight within the single democracy—and thus every voice and every individual is equally beautiful. Despite this pluralist view, Whitman still singled out specific individuals for praise in his poetry, particularly Abraham Lincoln. In 1865, Lincoln was assassinated, and Whitman began composing several elegies, including “O Captain! My Captain!” Although all individuals were beautiful and worthy of praise, some individuals merited their own poems because of their contributions to society and democracy.Whi tman‟s poetry revels in its depictions of the human body and the body‟s capacity for physical contact. The speaker of “Song of Myself” claims that “copulation is no more rank to me than death is” (521) to demonstrate the naturalness of taking pleasure in t he body‟s physical possibilities. With physical contact comes spiritual communion: two touching bodies form one individual unit of togetherness. Several poems praise the bodies of both women and men, describing them at work, at play, and interacting. The s peaker of “I Sing the Body Electric” (1855) boldly praises the perfection of the human form and worships the body because the body houses the soul. This free expression of sexuality horrified some of Whitman‟s early readers, and Whitman was fired from his job at the Indian Bureau in 1865 because the secretary of the interior found Leaves of Grass offensive. Whitman‟s unabashed praise of the male form has led many critics to argue that he was homosexual or bisexual, but the repressive culture of the nineteenth century prevented him from truly expressing those feelings in his work.Many of Whitman‟s poems rely on rhythm and repetition to create a captivating, spellbinding quality of incantation. Often, Whitman begins several lines in a row with the same word or phrase, a literary device called anaphora. For example, the first four lines of “When I Heard the Learn‟d Astronomer” (1865) each begin with the word when. The long lines of such poems as “Song of Myself” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom‟d” fo rce readers to inhale several bits of text without pausing for breath, and this breathlessness contributes to the incantatory quality of the poems. Generally, the anaphora and the rhythm transform the poems into celebratory chants, and the joyous form and structure reflect the joyousness of the poetic content. Elsewhere, however, the repetition and rhythm contribute to an elegiac tone, as in “O Captain! My Captain!” This poem uses short lines and words, such as heart and father,to mournfully incant anelegy for the assassinated Abraham Lincoln.Throughout Whitman‟s poetry, plant life symbolizes both growth and multiplicity. Rapid, regular plant growth also stands in for the rapid, regular expansion of the population of the United States. In “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom‟d,” Whitman uses flowers, bushes, wheat, trees, and other plant life to signify the possibilities of regeneration and re-growth after death. As the speaker mourns the loss of Lincoln, he drops a lilac spray onto the coffin; the act of laying a flower on the coffin not only honors the person who has died but lends death a measure of dignity and respect. The title Leaves of Grass highlights another of Whitman‟s themes: the beauty of the individual. Each leaf or blade of grass possesses its own distinct beauty, and together the blades form a beautiful unified whole, an idea Whitman explores in the sixth section of “Song of Myself.” Multiple leaves of grass thus symbolize democracy, another instance of a beautiful whole composed of individual parts. In 1860, Whitman published an edition of Leaves of Grass that included a number of poems celebrating love between men. He titled this section “The Calamus Poems,” after the phallic calamus plant.Whitman‟s interest in the self ties into his praise of the individual. Whitman links the self to the conception of poetry throughout his work, envisioning the self as the birthplace of poetry. Most of his poems are spoken from the first person, using the pronoun I. The speaker of Whitman‟s most famous poem, “Song of Myself,” even assumes the name Walt Whitman, but nevertheless the speaker remains a fictional creation employed by the poet Whitman. Although Whitman borrows from his own autobiography for some of the speaker‟s experiences, he also borrows many experiences from popular works of art, music, and literature. Repeatedly the speaker of this poem exclaims that he contains everything and everyone, which is a way for Whitman to reimagine the boundary between the self and the world. By imaging a person capable of carrying the entire world within him, Whitman can create an elaborate analogy about the ideal democracy, which would, like the self, be capable of containing the whole world.Song of Myself(Excerpt)1I celebrate myself, and sing myself,And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.I loafe and invite my soul,I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,Born here of parents born here from parents and their parents the same,I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,Hoping to cease not till death.Creeds and schools in abeyance,Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,Nature without check with original energy.2Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,。
American Renaissance (1836-1855)
Major features of New England Transcendentalism
The ideal type of man was the self-reliant individual whom Emerson never stopped talking about in his life. So people could depend on themselves for spiritual perfection.
Transcendentalism Major writers of American Renaissance
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) and Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Major Features of New England Transcendentalism
This kind of view of the universe represented a new way of looking at the world and was a reaction to the eighteenth-century Newtonian concept of the universe as consisting of matter and a reaction against the popular tendency to get ahead in world affairs to the neglect of spiritual welfare.
Major features of New England Transcendentalism
新视界大学英语综合教程第三册Unit 5 Active reading课文及翻译
Unit 5 Active readingThe lonely American1 Americans in the 21st century devote more technology to staying connected than any society in history, yet somehow the devices fail us: Studies show that we feel increasingly alone. Our lives are spent in a tug-of-war between conflicting desires – we want to stay connected, and we want to be free. We lurch back and forth, reaching for both. How much of one should we give up in order to have more of the other? How do we know when we’ve got it right?2 Yet people in this country continue to drift apart. We need to know why.3 First, let’s look at the frenetic busyness of our lives. Americans may be the only people in the world who believe that each individual has the right and the capacity to fit whatever he or she wants into one small life. America is the original “You can be anything you want if you really try, and it’s never too late to start trying!” country.4 A good friend described the impact of busyness on our neighborhoods brilliantly: “Being neighborly used to mean visiting people. Now being nice to your neighbors means not bothering them.” People’s lives are shaped by how busy they are. Lives also are shaped by the respect and deference that is given to busyness – especially when it is valued above connection and community. If people are considerate, they assume that their neighbors are very busy and so try not to intrude on them. Dropping by is no longer neighborly. It is simply rude.5We treat socializing as if it’s a frivolous diversion from the tasks at hand rather than an activity that is essential to our well-being as individuals and as a community. Soon our not bothering to call people (or even email them) gets read by others as a sign that we are too caught up in the busy sweep of our own lives to have time for them. Our friends are not surprised. Our relatives may be indignant, but even they know how hard it is. An unspoken understanding develops. It’s too bad that we’ve lost touch, but that’s just the way it is.6 The pace of everyday life may push us toward isolation, but there is a pull, as well: a very seductive picture of standing apart as a victory, not a retreat. Ever since Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his famous essay and Henry David Thoreau set out to embody the concept in his cabin on Walden Pond, a long series of American icons have idealized the concept of self-reliance.7 And when we do find ourselves isolated, by standing tall in our own minds, side by side with self-reliant heroes, each of us is suddenly no longeralone but part of a group –a great American tradition of lonesome cowboys and go-it-alone entrepreneurs. That psychological magic becomes the spoonful of sugar that makes painful experiences of finding ourselves left out easier to swallow. We may have isolated ourselves without entirely meaning to, but we also have ended up in a place that looks a lot like where we always knew that we were supposed to stand. On the outside, proud to be there.8 It is also the last place on earth that a person would want to be.9 The consequences of social disconnection are both extensive and remarkably diverse. To begin with, social support is an important determinant of overall health. It has significant effects on longevity, on an individual’s response to stress, on immune functions, and on the incidence of a variety of specific illnesses. In diseases as varied as heart attacks and dementia, medical research repeatedly has found that social networks and social activity have a protective effect.10 Social isolation damages ecological health as well. The rising tide of single-person households strains the earth’s resources. Additionally, in our consumer-oriented culture, a common solution to not having enough people in one’s life is to turn to things, objects that will define one’s identity through possessions rather than through one’s place in a social world. (We once passed an elegant store in New York City whose name summed up the problem: More and More. We watched the shop from across the street, keeping a safe distance.)11 The truth is that if one can bring oneself to acknowledge loneliness, half the battle is won. It is not an easy half of a battle, however. When we began to talk about these ideas with friends, their first response was to passionately defend their styles of staying disconnected. Having chosen, like so many Americans, to step back, they explained how right the choice has been for them.12 Small daily choices – whether to go to a local store or order off the Internet, whether to pick up a ringing telephone or let it go to voicemail, whether to get together with a friend or pop in a DVD –end up defining one’s social world. These little decisions are cumulative. You step back a little from others. They step back a little from you. You feel a little left out. Feeling left out, unexamin ed, leads you to step back further. But feeling left out, when it’s examined,can lead people to work a little harder to reconnect.13 Loneliness was never the goal. It’s just the spot where too many people wind up. We get stuck because the world we have wandered away from is so frantic and demanding. We get stuck because we have dreamed about lonesome heroes who stand defiantly apart. We get stuck because we feel left out and stop looking for ways back in. We should remember that the outside was not meant to be our final destination.孤独的美国人1 在使人与人保持联系方面，21世纪的美国人投入了比历史上任何一个社会都要多的技术手段。
美国超验主义英语的介绍
Mottos
• ''The world shrank itself into a drop of dew.'' 世界将其自身缩小成为一滴露水
"Believe yourself"
"A person must be able to become what he wants to be "
The major features of Transcendentalists
4.东方神秘主义 【Oriental mysticism】
Weaknesses
The transcendentalist movement had a smafor a few years.
The transcendentalism was never a systematic philosophy. It borrowed from many sources.
“American Scholar”: American’s declaration of intellectual independence.( to develop American’s own culture)
Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862
He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
《英美文学史》名词解释资料讲解
英美文学史名词解释1.English Critical RealismEnglish critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the forties and in the early fifties. The realists first and foremost criticized the capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint and delineated (portrayed) the crying (extremely shocking) contradictions of bourgeois reality. The greatness of the English realists lies not only in their satirical portrayal of bourgeoisie and in the exposure of the greed and hypocrisy of the ruling classes, but also in their sympathy for the laboring people. Humor and satire are used to expose and criticize the seamy (dark) side of reality. The major contribution of the critical realists lies in their perfection of the novel. Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray are the most important representative of English critical realism.2.The "Stream of Consciousness"The "stream of consciousness" is a psychological term indicating "the flux of conscious and subconscious thoughts and impressions moving in the mind at any given time independently of the person's will." In late 19th century, the literary device of "interior monologue" was originated in France as an application of modern psychological knowledge to literary creations. In the 20th century, under the influence ofFreud 's theory of psychological analysis, a number of writers adopted the "stream of consciousness" method of novel writing. The striking feature of these novelists is their giving precedence to the depiction of the characters' mental and emotional reactions to external events, rather than the events themselves. In doing so, the novelists abandoned the conventional usages of realistic plot structure, characterization and description, and their works became successions of "fleeting images of the external world mingled with thoughts and half-thoughts and shadows of thought attached to the immediate present or moving back and forth in memory." James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are the two best known novelists of the "stream of consciousness".3.TranscendentalismTranscendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the history of American literature in the 19th century. Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as "the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively". Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Over-soul, the individual and Nature. The most important representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.4.RenaissanceRenaissance in European history refers to the period from 14thcentury to 17th century. "Renaissance" means "revival", the revival of interest in Ancient Greek and Roman culture and getting rid of conservatism in feudalist Europe and introducing new ideas that express the interests of the rising bourgeoisie. It started in Italy and ended in England and Spain. Renaissance has two striking features. One is a thirsting curiosity for the classical literature; the other is the keen interest in the activities of humanity. Humanism is the key-note of the Renaissance. Thomas More and William Shakespeare are the best representatives of the English humanists.5.6.Passive RomanticismEnglish romanticism began when Lyrical Ballad was published in 1798 and ended in 1832. It in effect is a revolt of the English imagination against the neoclassical reason. The romanticists who saw both the corruption of the feudal societies and the inhumanity of capitalism and felt that the society denied people their essential human needs. They were discontented with, and opposed to the development of capitalism. Some romantic writers reflected the thinking of classes ruined by the bourgeoisie, and by way of protest against capitalism development turned to the feudal past, i.e., the "merry old English", as their ideal, or, "frightened by the coming of industrialism and the nightmare towns ofindustry, they were turning to nature to nature for protection." These were the elder and sometimes called passive or escapist romantics, represented by Wordsworth and Coleridge.6. ImagismImagism is a Movement in U.S. and English poetry characterized by the use of concrete language and figures of speech, modern subject matter, metrical freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes, aiming at clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images. It grew out of the Symbolist Movement in 1912 and was initially led by Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and others. The Imagist manifesto that came out in 1912 showed three Imagist poetic principles: direct treatment of the “thing” (no fuss, frill or or nament), exclusion of superfluous words (precision and economy of expression), the rhyme of the musical phrase rather than the sequence of a metronome (free verse form and music).7. The Local Color MovementThe local color movement came into particular prominence in America after the Civil War, perhaps as an attempt to recapture the glamour of a past era, or to portray the sections of the reunited country.Local color as a literary school emphasizes its setting, being concerned with the character of a district or of an era, as marked by its customs, dialects costumes, landscape or other peculiarities that have escaped standardizing cultural influences. In local color literature, one finds the dual influence of romanticism and realism since the author frequently looks away from ordinary life to distant lands, strange customs, or exotic scenes, but retains through minute detail a sense of fidelity and accuracy of description. Mark Twain is a representative of the American Local Colorism.8. The Lost GenerationThe Lost Generation is applied to the American writers who fought in the First World War, voluntarily exiled to Paris, and associated with the informal literary saloon of Gertrude Stein’s Paris home for a certain period of time. They were all disillusioned with the American Tradition of writing as well as the post-war American society. The most eloquent spokesman of the group is Earnest Hemingway. Other writers are Ezra Pound, Fitzgerald, etc..。
美国文学术语[整理版]
![美国文学术语[整理版]](https://img.taocdn.com/s3/m/ecbe5d9f85868762caaedd3383c4bb4cf7ecb78e.png)
1. American RomanticismThe romantic period stretched from the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the Civil War. It is a term that is associated with imagination and boundlessness, as contrasted with classicism, which is commonly associated with reason and restriction. A romantic attitude may be detected in literature of any period, but as an historical movement it arose in the 18th and 19th centuries, in reaction to more rational literary, philosophic, artistic, religious, and economic standards. The most clearly defined romantic literary movement in the U. S. was Transcendentalism."Characteristics of the romantic movement in American literature are sentimentalism, primitivism and the cult of the noble savage; political liberalism; the celebration of natural beauty and the simple life; introspection; the idealization of the common man, uncorrupted by civilization; interest in the picturesque past; interest in remote places; antiquarianism ; individualism; morbid melancholy; and historical romance.Tanscendentalism was a spiritual, philosophical and literary movement and is located in the history of American Thought as Post-Unitarian（一神教）and free thinking in religious spirituality, Kantian and idealistic in philosophy and romantic and individualistic in literature. New England T ranscendentalism was the product of a combination of foreign influences and the native American Puritan tradition. The most important American Transcendentalists are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, whose representative works are Nature and Walden respectively. T ranscendentalists generally agreed that the intuitive faculty, instead of the rational or sensical, became the means for a conscious union of the individual psyche with the world psyche also known as the Oversoul, life-force, prime mover and God . The basic premises include: First, an individual is the spiritual center of the universe - and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself;Second, the structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self - all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge; Third, transcendentalists accepted the neo-Platonic conception of nature as a living mystery, full of signs - nature is symbolic; Fourth,The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization - this depends upon the reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies: the expansive or self-transcending tendency and .the contracting or self-asserting tendency.2. Free verse：Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Some poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, must still display some elements of form. Most free verse, for example, self-evidently continues to observe a convention of the poetic line in some sense, at least in written representations, thus retaining a potential degree of linkage, however nebulous （模糊的）, with more traditional forms. Donald Hall goes as far as to say that "the form of free verse is as binding and as liberating as the form of a rondeau（回旋诗）." and T. S. Eliot wrote, "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job."Some poets have considered free verse restrictive in its own way. Robert Frost later remarked that writing free verse was like "playing tennis without a net".Walt Whitman, who based his verse approach on the Bible, was the major precursor for modern poets writing free verse, though they were reluctant to acknowledge his influence.Form and Structure：Although free verse requires no meter, rhyme, or other traditional poetic techniques, a poet can still utilize them to create some sense of structure. A clear example of this can be found in Walt Whitman's poems, where he repeats certain phrases and uses commas to create both a rhythm and structure.Because of a lack of predetermined form, free verse poems have the potential to take truly unique shapes. The poet is given more license to express and, unrestrained by traditional bounds, has more control over the development of the poem. This could allow for a more spontaneous and essentially individualizing factor.3. American realismIn American literature, the term "realism" encompasses the period of time from the Civil War to the turn of the century during which William Dean Howells, Rebecca Harding Davis, Henry James, Mark Twain, an d others wrote fiction devoted to accurate representation and an exploration of American lives in various contexts.Characteristics：Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail. Selective presentation of reality with an emphasis on verisimilitude （似真，逼真）, even at the expense of a well-made plotCharacter is more important than action and plot; complex ethical （伦理的）choices are often the subject.Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament （性情）and motive; they are in explicable (possible to explain) relation to nature, to each other, to their social class, to their own past.Class is important; the novel has traditionally served the interests and aspirations of an insurgent (rebellious) middle class. (See Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel)Events will usually be plausible (credible 可信的). Realistic novels avoid the sensational （耸人听闻的，令人激动的）, dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and romances.Diction is natural vernacular (dialect), not heightened or poetic; tone may be comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact.Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important: overt （公然的）authorial comments or intrusions （闯入）diminish as the century progresses.4. .American modernismAmerican Modernism covered a wide variety of topics including race relations, gender roles, and sexuality. It reached its peak in America in the 1920s up to the 1940s. Celebrated Modernists include Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, and while largely regarded as a romantic poet, Walt Whitman is sometimes regarded as a pioneer of the modernist era in America.The Centers of Modernism：（1）Stylistic innovations - disruption of traditional syntax and form.（2）Artist's self-consciousness about questions of form and structure.（3）Obsession with primitive material and attitudes.（4）International perspective on cultural matters.Modern Attitudes：（1）The artist is generally less appreciated but more sensitive, even more heroic, than the average person.（2）The artist challenges tradition and reinvigorates it.（3）A breaking away from patterned responses and predictable forms.Contradictory Elements：（1）Democratic and e l itist.（2）Traditional and anti-tradition.（3）National jingoism （沙文主义）and provinci a lity（乡土观念）versus the celebration of international culture.（4）Puritan ical and repressive elements versus freer expression in sexual and political matters.Literary Achievements：（1）Dramatization of the plight of women.（2）Creation of a literature of the urban experience.（3）Continuation of the pastoral or rural spirit.（4）Continuation of regionalism （地方主义）and local color.5. Imagism （意象派）Imagism—A literary movement launched by British and American poets early in the 20th century that advocated the use of free verse, common speech patterns, and clear concrete images as a reaction to Victorian sentimentalism, superposition and juxtaposition of images (意象的叠加和并置).A literary movement in U.S. and English poetry characterized by the use of concrete language and figures of speech, modern subject matter, metrical freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes. It grew out of the Symbolist movement and was initially led by Ezra Pound, who, inspired by the criticism of T. E. Hulme (休姆,1883 – 1917), formulated its credo c. 1912; Hilda Doolittle (杜丽特尔)was also among the founders. Around 1914 Amy Lowell (艾米·洛威尔)largely took over leadership of the group. Imagism influenced the works of Conrad Aiken (康拉德·艾肯), T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore (玛丽安·穆尔), D. H. Lawrence, Wallace Stevens (华莱士·史蒂文斯), and others.Flint summarizes the "few rules" of Imagism as follows:（1）Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objective.（2）To use absolutely no word that did not contrib ute to the p resentation.（3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome （节拍器）。
英语专业美国文学史 浪漫主义
the Oversoul
The Oversoul (God) is an all-pervading power, omnipotent and omnipresent, existing in nature and man alike.(similar concept of Neo-Platonism) 人人心中都 存在一种能使其心灵认知自然之美得东 西，这种抽象，无形，存在于心灵之中 的东西即为超灵。
Transcendentalism
The term is derived from the Latin verb “transcendere” meaning, to rise above, or pass beyond the limits.
Transcendentalism has been defined as the recognition in man of the capability of acquiring knowledge or of knowing truth intuitively, or of reaching the divine without the need of an intercessor. 人人心中都有一个可以通过直觉的内省来认识的上 帝，……要敢于不通过任何中介或掩饰去爱上帝，包 括牧师，教会等……
Pantheism
Pantheism: A doctrine identifying the Deity with the universe and its phenomena. God is not a personality as in Christianity. Theism: Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in a personal God as creator and ruler of the world Atheism: Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
RalphWaldoEmerson拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生
He continued his speeches against slavery, but never with the fire of Theodore Parker. In 1857 he wrote an essay on “Memory” but ironically, in his later years, his own memory would falter, especially after his beloved house burned in 1872. He died quietly of pneumonia （ 肺 炎 ） in 1882.
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, abolitionist(废奴主义者), naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
In 1835, Emerson married Lydia Jackson; they lived in Concord and had four children while he settled into his life of conversations, reading and writing, and lecturing, which furnished a comfortable income.
美国文学考试范围整理参考1
1.AutobiographyAutobiography is a branch of literature which is an account of a person‟s life. The essential difference between a novel and autobiography is this:①The novel …uses‟ real experience as the raw material for fiction by inventing plots and characters.②Autobiography simply presents with a more elegant and formally ordered version of the writer‟s experiences and memories.2.Legend1)Legend, a story or group of stories handed down through popular oral tradition,usually consisting of an exaggerated or unreliable account of some actually or possibly historical person —often a saint, monarch, or popular hero.2)Legends are sometimes distinguished from myths in that they concern humanbeings rather than gods, and sometimes in that they have some sort of historical basis whereas myths do not; but these distinctions are difficult to maintain consistently.3)The term was originally applied to accounts of saints' lives, but is now appliedchiefly to fanciful tales of warriors, criminals, and other sinners; or more recently to those bodies of biographical rumor and embroidered anecdote surrounding dead film stars and rock musicians.3.Gothic romance1) A type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th century in England.Gothic romances were mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and they were usually set against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles.2)Seemingly modeled on Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Daphne du Maurier'sRebecca, these novels usually concern spirited young women, either governesses or new brides, who go to live in large gloomy mansions populated by peculiar servants and precocious children and presided over by darkly handsome men with mysterious pasts.4.TranscendentalismTranscendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the history of American literature in the 19th century. Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “the recognition（认知）in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively（直觉地）”. Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Over-soul(超灵), the individual and Nature. The most important representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.5.American Realism1)As a literary movement, Realism came in the latter half of the nineteenth centuryas a reaction against “the lie” of Romanticism and Sentimentalism.2)In terms of content, it pursues the verisimilitude (逼真,相似) of detail derived fromobservation.3)In matters of style, there was contrast between the genteel and graceful prose andthe vernacular diction and rough and ready frontier humour.4)Truthful treatment of the material.6.American Tall Tales1)Tall Tales are exaggerated and imaginary stories from the 1800's.2)They were made-up to tell about the courage many had while exploring andadventuring to the "WILD, WILD, WEST".3)These stories entertained people around campfires, on steamboats, and manyother places.7.Sentimental novel1)Sentimental novel (or domestic novel), broadly speaking, is an 18th centuryliterary genre that exploits the reader‟s capacity for tenderness, compassion, or sympathy to a disproportionate degree by presenting a beclouded ( 遮蔽) or unrealistic view of its subject.2)The sentimental novel exalted feeling above reason and raised the analysis ofemotion to a fine art. Sentimental novels relied on emotional response, both from their readers and characters. They feature scenes of distress and tenderness, and the plot is arranged to advance emotions rather than action. The result is a valorization of "fine feeling," displaying the characters as a model for refined, sensitive emotional effect. The ability to display feelings was thought to show character and experience, and to shape social life and relations.8.Lost GenerationThe Lost Generation is a term used to describe a group of American writers who were rebelling against what America had become by the 1900‟s.Seeking the bohemian lifestyle and rejecting the values of American materialism, a number of intellectuals, poets, artists and writers fled to France in the post World War I years.Paris was the center of it all. Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.9.American Puritanism1)The word "puritan" is derived from pure or holy. Puritans wanted to make puretheir religious beliefs and practices.2)They are a group of radical protestants.3)They wished to restore simplicity to church services.4)Bible was the only true authority.mon meterCommon metre is a poetic metre consisting of four lines which alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, rhyming in the pattern a-b-a-b. The metre is denoted by the syllable count of each line, i.e. 8.6.8.6 or 86.86, depending on style, or by its shorthand abbreviation "CM".Often 1st and 3rd lines rhyme, 2nd and 4th lines rhyme in iambic meter.11.Free verse1)Free verse is a form of poetry without a regular rhyme scheme or meter. Instead,it relies on alliteration, assonance(类似音), imagery, and parallel structure.2)Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Versedisplays some elements of form. Most free verse, for example, self-evidentlycontinues to observe a convention of the poetic line in some sense, at least inwritten representations, though retaining a potential degree of linkage, however nebulous, with more traditional forms.12.Anti-Transcendentalism1)Anti-Transcendentalism contrasts Transcendentalism, which focuses on thedarkness of human soul.2)Anti-Transcendentalists felt that the Transcendentalism point of view was toooptimistic, and the works of Emerson and Thoreau overlooked the evil that plagued man. They embraced the existence of sin and evil, making their works very dark in nature.3)It is often characterized by not optimistic, sins, evil and dark in nature.13.Naturalism1)Naturalism, a literary mode developed in the late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies, is an extreme form of realism. The naturalists portray people and events objectively and precisely without idealizing them.2)They view people as part of the animal world. The characters in naturalisticwritings are always victims of external forces and internal drives without control or full knowledge of them.14.Romance1)As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style ofheroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe.2)They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knighterrant portrayed as having heroic qualities, who goes on a quest.3)Romances reworked legends, fairy tales, and history to suit the readers' andhearers' tastes.15.WaldenWalden was written by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau and published in 1854. The work details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. It is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self reliance. By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American Romantic Period. As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, about two miles (3 km) from his family home.16. Moby DickMoby Dick was written by Herman Melvillewas and published in 1851. It is widely considered to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature and an encyclopedia of everything. It is an sea adventure. The story tells about the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ahab‟s burning desire for revenge really is the c enter of the story, because in a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab's boat and bit off his leg drives. At the novel‟s end, Ahab f inds and attacks Moby-Dick, but the wale carrys the Pequod along with it to its doom. All on board the whaler get drowned, except one, Ishmael, who survives to tell the tale.1.What is Emily Dickenson’s idea about death?1)Death, the ultimate experience, is for Dickinson the supreme touchstone. Itreveals ultimate truth; it makes clear the true nature of God and the state of the soul. She held the common Puritan belief that the way a person died indicated the state of his/her soul, a peaceful death being a sign of grace and harmony with God.2)Death is personified in many guises in her poems, ranging from a suitor to atyrant.3)Her attitude toward death is ambivalent. Death is a terror to be feared andavoided, a trick played on humanity by God, a welcome relief, and a blessed way to heaven.4)Death is the beginning of immortality or eternity.2.What are the principles of Code Hero?The code hero must perform his work well to create a kind of personal meaning amidst the greater meaninglessness.The code hero will lose in his conflict with life because he will die. But all that matters is how one faces death. In fact, one should court death, in the bull ring, on the battlefield, against big fish, because facing death teaches us how to live.The code hero must create and follow certain rituals regarding death because those rituals help us. The bullfighter must have grace and must make his kills clean. He must face noble animals. He must put on his suit a certain way. Religion is helpful only in that it provides us with rituals. But religions are wrong when they promise life after death.If an individual faces death bravely, then he becomes a man, but he must repeat the process, constantly proving himself, until the ultimate defeat.3. What are the features of New England Transcendentalism?1)The Transcendentalists places emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the mostimportant thing in the universe. They believ the existence of Oversoul. It is omnipresent and omnipotent, exists in nature and man alike and constitutes the universe.2)The Transcendentalists think highly of the importance of individualism,Theregeneration of society could only come about through the regeneration of the individual. They believe that people are equipped with holiness and get truth form intuition.3)Nature is the symbol of spirit or the garment of the Oversoul. Nature couldexercise a healthy and restorative influence on the human mind. The physical world was a symbol of the spiritual.3.What are Mark Twain’s writing characteristics?1)Mark Twain is famous for his humor and satire. His language is artistic and like asharp weapon.2)Mark Twain‟s humor is based o n the humor of the west America and also throughhyperbole, which made his writing full of allegories that lay behind the humour.3)He used colloquial idioms and colloquial syntax.4)He described persons who was innocent, simple, naive, and ignorant as his heroesor heroines.4.What are the basic puritan beliefs?1)Total Depravity. They believe the concept of Original Sin, through Adam andEve's fall, every person is born sinful.2)Unconditional Election. They believe the concept of predestination. God "saves"those he wishes, only a few are selected for salvation.3)Limited Atonement. Jesus died for the chosen only, not for everyone.4)Irresistible Grace. God's grace is freely given, it cannot be earned or denied.Grace is defined as the saving and transfiguring power of God.5)Perseverance of the "saints". They believe that those elected by God will continuein a state of grace to the end and will finally be saved.6)Value of education. The main purpose of Puritan literature is teaching.7)Their success, or lack of success would serve as a sign of God‟s approval ordisapproval.8)Work ethic. They believe that hard work was an honor to God which would leadto a prosperous reward.9)Intolerance. They believe error must be opposed and driven out.5.What are the differences between American dream in Autobiography and Sister Carrie?（这个说不清楚，你们自己查哈。
Ralph_Waldo_Emerson_and_Henry_David_Thoreau
He admired direct, vigorous, succinct, and economical prose.
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) One of the most read and influential of American authors The hermit in the wildness, the worshipper of nature, the prophet of passive resistance
Walden is Thoreau’s entreaty to his readers to begin a new life. The book affirms change over stasis, present over past, vitality over stagnation, life over death. It celebrates renewal, even immortality. In writing Walden, Thoreau tells of the course of his own spiritualization. Optimism about change is evident in his own story.
Extract of Walden
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear…I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”
爱默生美国文学的前驱
爱默生美国文学的前驱爱默生（Ralph Waldo Emerson）是19世纪美国文学中的重要人物，他被誉为美国文学的前驱。
他的影响不仅仅局限于文学领域，还波及到哲学、社会学等多个学科。
本文将探讨爱默生在美国文学中的地位以及他的作品对后来的影响。
一、爱默生的生平及对美国文学的助推爱默生于1803年出生在美国麻塞诸塞州。
他的父亲是一个牧师，所以他从小就接触到了以宗教为主导的教育。
他在哈佛大学就读期间展现出了卓越的才华，受到了时任校长的赏识。
毕业后，他也选择成为一名牧师。
然而，爱默生的思想逐渐与传统的宗教观念背道而驰。
他开始质疑教会的权威和传统的道德规范。
这种思想转变使他逐渐摒弃了传统的宗教教义，转而追求个人的自由和灵性上的解放。
爱默生的不拘一格的思想和对个体的尊重，对美国文学产生了深远的影响。
他的作品是美国文学中的先驱，为后来的作家们铺平了道路。
他的散文作品《自立》（Self-Reliance）更是成为他最具代表性的作品之一。
二、爱默生的作品风格及主题爱默生的作品风格简洁明快，富有哲学思辨。
他的散文作品充满了智慧和对生命的探索。
他试图揭示人们内心深处的真实自我，并鼓励人们追求个人的自由和独立。
他的作品贴近现实生活，引导人们独立思考和探索。
他提出了“超验主义”（Transcendentalism）的概念，认为人类能够通过思考和直觉超越理性，与宇宙建立内在的联系。
爱默生的作品涉及多个主题，包括自由、独立、自我价值以及与自然的关系。
他主张个人在面对外部压力时应保持独立和坚韧，追求内心真实的声音。
他强调每个人都有独特的价值，应该为自己的追求而努力。
三、爱默生对后来作家的影响爱默生的作品对后来的作家产生了深远的影响。
他的思想和风格激发了许多作家的创作灵感，塑造了美国文学的发展方向。
其中，最为受影响的作家之一是亨利·戴维·梭罗（Henry David Thoreau）。
梭罗在爱默生的指导下成为了一个优秀的作家和哲学家。
美国文学史概论之三：浪漫主义时期文学
4. Other Romantic poets: a. W.C. Bryant (Thanatopsis, The Yellow Violet, To a waterfoul) b. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (A Psalm of Life; The Song of Hiawatha; Evangeline; The Courtship of Miles Standish) c. John Greenleaf Whittier, New England Laureate, (Snow-Bound) d. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Boston Brahmin (Old Ironsides, The last Leaf) e. James Russell Lowell, Boston Brahmin (A Year’s Life, Biglow Papers) f. Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, poet of forest (Poems, Sonnets, “A Cricket”)
III. American Romantic Period (1820-1865)
I. Romantic Fathers: Washington Irving and J. F. Cooper II. New England Transcendentalists (1836-1855): Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau III. The First Literary Renaissance 1. Two novelists: Hawthorne and Melville 2. A Controversial man of letters: E. A. Poe 3. The Epitomes of American Poetry: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
海师美国文学名词解释
American Puritanism清教主义:Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the protestant church who wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrines of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. American literature in the 17th century mostly consisted of Puritan literature. Puritanism had an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets.Transcendentalism 超验主义:Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. Transcendentalists spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. It placed emphasis on spirit, or the Over soul, as the most important thing in the world. It stressed the importance of individual and offered a fresh perception nature ad symbolic of the spirit of God. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thorough.American Naturalism美国自然主义文学:American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. The naturalists attempt to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by environment and heredity. It emphasized that the world was amoral, the men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by heredity and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. The pessimism and deterministic ideas naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.American Naturalism(美国自然主义文学)：ZDThe American naturalists accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.2) naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.3>Dreiser is a leading figure of his school.The Gilded Age镀金时代:the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.The Gilded Age is most famous for the creation of a modern industrial economy. The end of the Gilded Age coincided with the Panic of 1893, a deep depression. The depression lasted until 1897 and marked a major political realignment in the election of 1896. After that came the Progressive Era.The Lost Generation迷惘的一代:The Lost Generation is a group of expatriate American writers residing primarily in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. The group was given its name by the American writer Gertrude Stein, who used “a lost generation” to refer to expatriate Americans bitter about their World War I experiences and disillusioned with American society. Hemingway later used the phrase as an epigraph for his novel The Sun Also Rises. It consisted of many influential American writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams and Archibald MacLeish.The Lost Generation(迷惘的一代）：ZDThe lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe the post-war I generation of American writers:men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the three best-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and John dos Passos. Tragedy:In general, a literary work in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous end. Unlike comedy, tragedy depicts the actions of a central character who is usually dignified or heroic. Through a series of events, this tragic hero is brought to a final downfall. The causes of the tragic hero’s downfall vary. In traditional dramas, t he cause can be fate, a flaw in character or an error in judgment. In modern dramas, where the tragic hero is often an ordinary individual, the causes range from moral or psychological weakness to the evils of society.Catch-22第22条军规:Catch-22 is a general critique of bureaucratic operation and reasoning. Resulting from its specific use in the book, the phrase "Catch-22" is common idiomatic usage meaning "a no-win situation" or "a double bind" of any type. The term was originally from Joseph Heller’s anti novel Catch-22.Beat Generation垮掉的一代:、Group of American writers of the 1950s whose writing expressed profound dissatisfaction with contemporary American society and endorsed an alternative set of values. The term sometimes is used to refer to those who embraced the ideas of these writers. The Beat Generation's best-known figures were writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.The Beat Generation(垮掉的一代):ZDThe members of The Beat Generation were new bohemian libertines. Who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity.2> The Beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non-conformity and for its non-conforming style.3> the major beat writings are Allen Ginsberg’s howl.Howl became the manifesto of The Beat Generation.Psychological Realism心理现实主义:It is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters’ thoughts and motivations. It places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization and on the motives, and internal action which springs from and develops external action. In Psychological Realism, character and characterization are more than usually important. Henry James is considered a great master of psychological realism.Free Verse自由诗体: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 as stricter verse form do, free verse dose so in a looser way. Walt Whitma n’s poetry is an example of free verse.Confessional Poetry自白诗:It is a type of modern poetry in which poets speak with openness and frankness about their own lives, such as in poems about illness, sexuality and despondence. Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg and Theodore Roethke are the most important American poets.Imagism意象派:The 1920s saw a vigorous literary activity in America. In poetry there appeared a strong reaction against Victorian poetry. Imagists placed primary reliance on the use of precise, sharp images as a means of poetic expression and stressed precision in the choice of words, freedom in the choice of subject matter and form, and the use of colloquial language. Most of the imagist poets wrote in free verse, using such devices as assonance and alliteration rather than formal metrical schemes to give structure to their poetry.The movement which had these as its aims is known in literary history as Imagism. Its prime mover was Ezra Pound.Imagism(意象主义)：ZDImagism came into being in Britain and U.S around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation.2>the imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.3>imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles:A.direct treatment of subject matter;B.economy of expression;C. as regards rhythm ,to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome. 4> pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known inagist poem.Black Humor:the use of morbid and the absurd for darkly comic purposes in modern fiction and drama. The term refers as much to the tone of anger and bitterness as it does to the grotesque and morbid situations, which often deal with suffering, anxiety, and death. Black humor is a substantial element in the Anti-novel and the Theatre of Absurd. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is an almost archetypal example.Irony:A contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens in drama and literature. There are types of irony: verbal irony, dramatic irony and irony of situation. Irony of situation typically takes the form of a discrepancy between appearance and reality, or between what a character expects and what actually happens. Both verbal and irony of situation share the suggestion of a concealed truth conflicting with surface appearances.A J azz age(爵士时代):The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between world war I and world war II. Particularly in north America. With the rise of the great depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term” Jazz Age”.。
美国文学史概述及选读复习资料
美国文学史American Literature in the colonical and Revolutionary:1.Benjamin Franklin(本杰明.富兰克林)2.hilip Freneau 菲利普·费瑞诺Benjamin Franklin(本杰明.富兰克林)1)"Poor Richard's Almanac" 穷人查理德的年鉴(以笔名Richard Sunders)2)“annual collection of proverbs “流行谚语集(It soon became the most popular bookof its kind, largely because of Franklin's shrewd humor, and first spread his reputation) 3)The Way to Wealth (Father Abraham’s Sermon)致富之道(as the “perface to Poor RichardImproved)4)The Autobiography自传(18世纪美国唯一流传至今的自传)5)Founded the Junto, a club for informal discussion of scientific, economic and politicalideas. 建立了一个秘密俱乐部，讨论的主题是政治、经济和科学等时事方面的问题.6)established America's first circulating library, founded the college--University ofPennsylvania. 建立了美国第一个可租借的图书馆，还创办了一所大学——就是现在的宾夕法尼亚大学.7)first applied the terms "positive" and "negative" to electrical charges.8)Writer,printer,publisher,scientist,philanthropist,and diplomat,he was the most famousand respected private figure of his time.The Rising Glory of America蒸蒸日上的美洲；The British Prison Ship英国囚船；To the Memory of the Brave Americans纪念美国勇士-----同类诗中最佳；The Wild Honeysuckle野生的金银花；The Indian Burying Ground印第安人殡葬地(1)poet and political journalist 诗人和政治方面的新闻记者(2)perhaps the most outstanding writer of the post-revolutionary period.(3)has been called the "Father of American Poetry" 美国诗歌之父(4)Imaginative and melancholy treatment of nature and human life,and sharp satire against the British tyranny19th Century American LiteratureWashington Irving(华盛顿.欧文)1．James Fenimore Cooper(詹姆斯.芬尼莫.库珀)2．Nathaniel Hawthorne(纳萨尼尔.霍桑)3．Edgar Allan Poe （埃德加.阿伦.坡）4．Henry Daived Thoreau(亨利.戴维.梭罗)5．Herman Melville(赫尔曼.麦尔维尔)6．Walt Whiteman(沃尔特.惠特曼)The Rise of American Romanticism• One of the most important periods in the history of American literature, stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War(1861-65).• It started with the publication of Washington Irving's e T he h Sketch Book(1820) and ended with Whitman's s Leaves f of Grass(1855)..Romanticism的特点：frequently shared certain general characteristics, moral enthusiam,faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and apresumption that he natural world was a source of corruption.浪漫主义之间大多是相通的，都注重道德，强调个人主义价值观和直觉感受，并且认为自然是美的源头，人类社会是腐败之源。
RalphWaldoEmerson拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生
Among transcendentalists' core beliefs was the belief in an ideal spiritual state that "transcends" the physical and empirical and is realized only through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. The major figures in the movement were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman.
Transcendentalism is a group of new ideas in literature and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early-to-middle 19th century. It is sometimes called American Transcendentalism to distinguish it from other uses of the word transcendental. The movement developed in the 1830s and 40s as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School.
爱默生简介英文
爱默生简介英文拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生，美国思想家、文学家，诗人。
爱默生是确立美国文化精神的代表人物。
下面是店铺为你整理的爱默生简介英文，希望对你有用!拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生简介Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 - April 27, 1882) was born in Boston. American thinker, writer, poet. Emerson is the representative of the American culture. Former US President Lincoln called him "American Confucius" and "Father of American Civilization". Published in 1836 debut "on nature". His contribution to literature is mainly in prose and poetry. 18 April 1882 died in Boston.拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生早年经历Emerson is a priestly family, and his father, William Emerson, is a well-known pastor. Emerson died six weeks before his eight-year-old birthday (1811), raising his adult by mother and aunt. He was sent to the Boston Latin School for the following year.In October 1817, when Emerson was 14 years old, he was enrolled at Harvard and was appointed as a new student, and this identity allowed him to get a free stay. In order to add meager salary, during the winter vacation he will go to Ripley uncle in Massachusetts Vasheng City school counseling and teaching services. During the school, he read a large number of works of British romantic writers, enriched the idea, broaden the horizons.In 1821, after Emerson graduated from Harvard University, he assisted his brother in setting up a school for young women in his mother's house, after he set up his own school in Chelmsford Emerson 's brother went to Gedding to read the theology, and Emerson was in charge of the school. After a fewyears, Emerson lived the day as a principal, and then into the Harvard University Theological Seminary, and in 1829 to a pastor of the image of the image cut a striking figure.His first wife was Ellen Tucker, who died of tuberculosis on February 8, 1831, at the age of 20.In 1832, he was resigned with a church officer's dispute over the management of the communion service and the doubts about public prayer. After 1832, Emerson traveled to the European countries, met the pioneers of romanticism, and had accepted their transcendental ideas and had a great influence on the formation of his ideology.Between 1832 and 33 years, Emerson traveled to Europe, and the experience was recorded in the English Traits (1856). On the way he met William Walls, Coleridge, John Stewart Mill and Thomas Carlisle. After the end of the journey, Emerson and Carlisle continue to contact until Carlisle died in 1881, Emerson in the United States as the agent of Carlisle. Emerson's tourist destination is not limited to the United Kingdom, he also went to France (in 1848), Italy and the Middle East.Emerson returned to Boduten and carried out sermons in Concord. At this time his speech is closer to the Aristotelian style, important speech has "historical philosophy", "human culture", "the current era" and so on. Emerson often and his friends Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alco, Margaret and others held a small gathering to explore theological, philosophical and sociological issues. This gathering was known as the "transcendentalist club", Emerson also naturally become a transcendentalist leader.In 1835, Emerson bought a house in Concord, Massachusetts, and soon became one of the most important citizens in the city. Where he also married his second wife, Lydia Jackson. He calledher the Lydia and she called him Mr. Emerson, both of whom gave birth to the children, Alan, Edith and Edward Emerson. Allen is named after his ex-wife, which is Lydia's suggestion.拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生文学生涯In September 1835, Emerson and other like-minded intellectuals founded the Transcendental Club. Until July 1840, Emerson published his first essay in September 1836, Nature ". When the work becomes the basic principle of transcendence, many people immediately think that this is the Italian works.In 1837 Emerson published a famous speech on the theme of "American Scholar", proclaiming that American literature had been independent from British literature and warned American scholars not to let the study learn to spread, do not blindly follow tradition, imitate. In addition, this speech also criticized the American society of money worship, emphasizing the value of people. Known as the United States in the field of ideological and cultural "Declaration of Independence."One year later, Emerson criticized the only deity of Christianity in the Dean of the Theological Seminary, striving for the supreme human being, and advocating the intuition of the truth. "Believe in your own thoughts, and believe that what is right in your heart that is right for you is applicable to all ... ..." literary critics Lawrence Bull in the "Emerson Biography" said, Emerson and his doctrine, Is the most important secular religion in the United States.In 1838 he was invited to return to Harvard University Theological Seminary for the graduation ceremony. His comments immediately shocked the entire Protestant community, because he explained that when Jesus was a man, he was not God (at that time people would rather not hear such aspeech). Thus, he was condemned as an atheist and poisoned the young man's mind, and faced with these criticisms he did not make any response or defense. In the following 40 years, he was no longer invited to the Harvard University speech, but in the mid-1880s, his position became a doctrine of the doctrine.ProceedingsIn 1840 Emerson was the editor of the "sundial" of the transcendentalist publication, further promoting transcendentalism. Later, he compiled his own speech into a book, which is the famous "Proceedings". The first episode of the Proceedings was published in 1841, including 12 papers such as "On Self-help", "On Spirit", "On Compensation", "On Love", "On Friendship". Three years later, the second episode of the Proceedings was also published. This book as Emerson won a great reputation, his mind is called the core of transcendentalism, he himself was known as the "American Renaissance leader" reputation.In early 1842, Emerson's eldest son of China because of suffering from scarlet fever and died. Emerson presented his grief in his two masterpieces: an elegy and his essay "Experience" (Experience). In the same year William James was born, Emerson agreed to be his godfather.Emerson became a famous speaker in New England and other countries outside the United States. When he can not attend some speeches as scheduled, Frederick Douglas will replace him. Emerson's speech has many different themes, many of his works are extracted from his speech.Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau are friends and often walk with them at Concord. Emerson inspired Thoreau's talent. Thoreau has also built a housein Walden, of Jackson County, Colorado. When Thoreau lives in Walden, Emerson offers food and hires Thoreau to finish some work. When Thoreau left Walden two years later, Emerson left because he wanted to travel, and Thoreau lived at Emerson's home.Their friendly relationship was broken by Thomson's first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, when Ruth gave rude advice. This book is not very extensive design, and Emerson took him to see their agents, which allows Thoreau to bear the cost of publishing this book and the risk. Readers of this book is not much, this thoreau began to bear the debt. Finally, the two of them reconcile some of the differences, but Thoreau in private still condemned Emerson gradually deviated from his initial outlook on life, and Emerson began to Thoreau as a weary person. Emerson gave a negative evaluation of Thoreau's rhetoric in the 19th century.Emerson is an abstract and esoteric writer, but his speech still has a lot of people to listen. Emerson's work is based on his diary's observation of things, and when he was still at Harvard, he had written diary habits, and those diaries were carefully indexed by Emerson. He writes his own experiences and ideas in his diary and brings out some meaningful messages and combines with his intensive and condensed lecture essence. Later, he revised and relented the content of the speech, so that his essay and some other works.He was a man who was regarded as one of the great performers at the time, and fascinated the audience with a low voice. He was very enthusiastic and treated with an equal attitude and valued the audience. His straightforward and uncompromising stance on the abolition of niggerism led him toobject to and mock after talking about the subject. He continues to publish a radical abolition of the slaves but does not consider whether people like it. He tried to refrain from joining any open political movement or group, and was often eager to be independent, which reflected his individualist position. He often insisted not to advocate, to become a person alone on their own. In his later years, people wanted him to count the number of his writings, and he still said that his faith was "infinite individual".Emerson's early reading of the French essayist Montaigne's works, and by its great influence. He understood the personal style from these works and began to lower his trust in God. He never read Kant's work, but he read Coleridge's explanation of the German transcendentalist. This makes Emerson do not believe in the soul and God.influencesAfter Emerson died, he was buried in the Slippe Valley Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. In May 2006, Emerson published the "Theological Seminary" after 168 years, Harvard University Theological Seminary announced the creation of UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association).Emerson's collection of many of the prose of "Collected Essays: First (1841) and Second (1844) Series" is considered one of the 100 masterpieces.Emerson's Proceedings praised the idea that people would trust themselves, and those who believed in themselves were representatives of all, because he perceived the universal truth. Emerson with a transcendentalist's tone, quietly narrated his view of the world, transcendentalism combined and penetrated the neo-Platonism and similar Calvin sectarian a serious moral and that can be in all natural In the discovery of God's love romanticoptimismEmerson likes to speak, face the crowd to make him excited, he said he felt a great emotion in the call, his main reputation and achievements established here. He became the leader of American transcendentalism through his own essays and speeches, and became the most important of the informal philosophers. His philosophical spirit is manifested in the remarkable view of logic and empiricism. He despises the exploration of pure theory and believes in nature, which embodies the laws of God and God.In addition to the Proceedings, Emerson's works include "Representatives", "British Characteristics", "Poems", "May Festival and Other Poems".Emerson 's prose writer, thinker, poet in one. His poetry, prose unique, pay attention to the ideological content and not too much emphasis on rhetoric gorgeous, writing like aphorism, philosophical easy to understand, persuasive, and a typical "Emerson style." Some people commented on his words: "Emerson seems to only write a sentence," his text reveals the temperament is difficult to describe: both full of autocratic and no doubt, but also has an open spirit of democracy; both aristocratic arrogance , More civilians of the direct; both clear and easy to understand, and often mixed with some kind of mysticism ... ... a person can be inserted in an article so many alarm is really amazing, those worth it in the morning Why do you read the words always inspiring, the years are not for him to cover the dust, but against the background he was sparkling.Emerson's greatest achievement in the history of American culture and literature is that he insists on the establishment of an independent national culture and literature. He is against thesudden attack, follow the footsteps. He preached the spiritual independence of the New World. Emerson's thought in its famous "American philosopher" in the further development. Emerson asked the American thinkers to "know themselves", "observe the natural", search by others long, create a new culture of the new continent, write their own books, in order to achieve their own perfection at the same time, for human progress contribution. He asked the American philosopher to be an independent thinker, not someone else's thought.He pointed out that the book contains the wisdom of the past era, but can not step by step in the past, can not regulate the moment step. He asked scholars to become a universe, rather than being pulled out of their own orbit. Some of the ideas are creative, some of the behavior is creative, and some of the rhetoric is creative, these are from the mind itself feel good and the United States and the natural emission of the. He warned that the genius of the past could be the enemy of today's genius, and that Shakespeare could "modernize" the original style of modernity. American scholars should look forward, the eyes long in front of the head, full of hope to write their own books, each era should write their own books.。
Henry David Thoreau
1 Henry David Thoreau亨利·戴维·梭罗（Henry David Thoreau ，1817-1862），美国作家、哲学家，著名散文集《瓦尔登湖》和论文《论公民的不服从权利》（又译为《消极抵抗》、《论公民的不服从》）的作者。
1817年7月12日，梭罗出生于马萨诸塞州的康科德城（Concord, Mass achusetts ），1837年毕业于哈佛大学，是个品学兼优的学生。
毕业后他回到家乡以教书为业。
1841年起他不再教书而转为写作。
在拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生（Ralph Waldo Emerson ）的支持下，梭罗在康科德住下并开始了他的超验主义实践。
这时期，梭罗放弃诗歌创作而开始撰写随笔，起先给超验主义刊物《日规》（Dial ）写稿，其后各地的报纸杂志上都有他的文章问世。
梭罗除了被一些人尊称为第一个环境保护主义者外，还是一位关注人类生存状况的有影响的哲学家，他的著名论文《论公民的不服从权利》影响了托尔斯泰和圣雄甘地。
1845年7月4日梭罗开始了一项为期两年的试验，他移居到离家乡康科德城（Concord ）不远，优美的瓦尔登湖畔的次生林里，尝试过一种简单的隐居生活。
他于1847年9月6日离开瓦尔登湖，重新和住在康科德城的他的朋友兼导师拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生一家生活在一起。
出版于1854年的散文集《瓦尔登湖》（Walden ）详细记载了他在瓦尔登湖畔两年又两个月的生涯。
虽毕业于世界闻名的哈佛大学，但他没有选择经商发财或者从政成为明星，而是平静地选择了瓦尔登湖，选择了心灵的自由和闲适。
他搭起木屋，开荒种地，写作看书，过着非常简朴、原始的生活。
在不同时期，梭罗靠教书与务工过活。
他曾经在他家办的铅笔厂工作过，还发明了一种可以简化生产、降低费用的机器。
梭罗是拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生的学生和朋友，受爱默生的影响，梭罗也是一位先验主义者。
transcendentalism Emerson Thoreau英美文学史
Introduction
• The theme of it is : individualism • Emerson calls on individuals to value their own thoughts, opinions, and experience above those presented to them by other individuals, society, and religion . • “self -reliance” is widely considered to be the definitive statement of Emerson’s philosophy of individualism and the finest example of his prose.
• abundance of material & spirit exploration
• Establishment of a new writing style
• plain,concise • use of pun
Transcendentalism
the end
Emerson’s Influence to America
• • • •
Nation’s desire Revolution in American literature Best writer Gave spirits to others
Self-Reliance
• Introduction • excerpt
• —— Walden，Thoreau
Civil Disobedience
• Jailed experience
• nonpayment of poll tax
- 1、下载文档前请自行甄别文档内容的完整性，平台不提供额外的编辑、内容补充、找答案等附加服务。
- 2、"仅部分预览"的文档,不可在线预览部分如存在完整性等问题,可反馈申请退款(可完整预览的文档不适用该条件!)。
- 3、如文档侵犯您的权益，请联系客服反馈,我们会尽快为您处理(人工客服工作时间：9:00-18:30)。
Themes
4. Calls for an independent culture in The American Scholar. in Emerson’s phrase, the scholar is “Man Thinking” and that is the central theme of it.
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) One of the most read and influential of American authors The hermit in the wildness, the worshipper of nature, the prophet of passive resistance
Analysis of Walden
A great Transcendentalist work and Thoreau’s masterpiece A faithful record of his reflections when he was in solitary communion with nature (the pantheistic quality of nature) A book on self-culture and human perfectibility; a book about man, what he is and what he should be and must be.
Henry David Thoreau
Pencil-maker’s family Harvard A private school Friendship with Emerson Trip on the Concord and Merrimack River in 1839 A cabin on Walden Pond and moved in on July4 and lived there for over 2 years since1845 A night in jail for a poll-tax of $2
Harvard Divinity School 1825 Married 1826 His wife died 1831
His major works
Collections 1.Reprensentative Men(1850) 2.English Traits(1856) 3.The Conduct of Life(1860) 4.May Day and other Poems(1867) 5.Society and Solitude(1870) 6.Letters and Social Aims
Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau
二班
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803— 1882), A writer, essayist, poet, and philosopher “Father of American Essay” The Concord Sage Leader and Spokesman of New England Transcendentalism
Nature
Nature, regarded as the Bible of the New England Transcendentalist, is a lyrical expression of the harmony Emerson felt between himself and nature. Emerson defines nature as an all encompassing divine entity inherently known to us in our unfettered innocence, rather than as merely a component of a world ruled by a divine, separate being learned by us through passed—on teachings in our experience.
His writing style
His writing is physical, intellectual, and spiritual. He expresses stark reality in strong language and conveys delicate detail and subtle nuance. His work is characterized both by directness of style and by the suggestion of far than appears on the surface. He admired direct, vigorous, succinct, and economical prose.
Analysis of Walden
Prophet of individualism in American literature—critical of modern civilization which was degrading and enslaving man. He was impatient with the overstress on the external development of human beings such as railroad, telegraph.
Analysis of Walden
Regeneration became a major thematic concern of Walden and decided the framework. Walden exhibits Thoreau’s calm trust in the future and his ardent belief in a new generation of men. The book concludes on a clear note of optimism and hope.
Extract of Walden
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear…I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”
Walden, Thoreau’s Masterpiece
Walden is Thoreau’s entreaty to his readers to begin a new life. The book affirms change over stasis, present over past, vitality over stagnation, life over death. It celebrates renewal, even immortality. In writing Walden, Thoreau tells of the course of his own spiritualization. Optimism about change is evident in his own story.
The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Boston, Massachusetts Father died at his age of 8 Harvard1817
ቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱ
Transcendentalism journal The Dial Travel in Europe Friendship with Wordsworth And Coleridge
Writing Style
Causal and provocative. Repeated and varied illustrations to logical argument and detailed description. Sentences are usually fragmentary, gem-like and quotable The coherence of his writing lies in his personality Concentrate on concrete image, the simplicity of symbols and diction
His Major works
• Civil Disobedience,1849 • A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River,1849 • Walden,1854
His other works
• Excursion,1863 • • • • The Maine Woods,1864 Slavery in Massachusetts,1854 A plea for Captain John Brown,1859 Walking,1862
Themes
3. Believe that the individual is the most importance of all, and convince people the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself. He is optimistic about human perfectibility.