Lecture three06-07浪漫主义

• The moment Wolf entered the house, his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle. (Rip Van Winkle)
Lecture Three American Romanticism&Irving&Cooper
From the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the Civil War
American Romanticism
• 1.1770s-1830: burgeoning period 1.1770s• 2.1830-1860:culminating period (American 2.1830Transcendentalism) • 3.1860-1870s declining period 3.1860-
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)
Life and Major Works
• • • • • • • Sep. 15th 1789, Born in New Jersey 1803 Yale (without graduation) 1806-1807 sailors 1820 first novel (Precaution) 1826-1833 trip around the Europe Sep. 14th, 1851 death The Spy (1821); The Pilot (1823); “Leatherstocking Tales”; etc
Irving’s literary career(1)
• 1809-1832: predominantly “English”, writing about subjects either English or European; the Old World instead of the New World found its way into his writings.
“I was anxious to see the great men of Europe, for I had read in the works of various philosophers that all animals degenerated in America, and man among the number. A great man of Europe, thought I, must therefore be as superior to a great man of America as a peak of the Alps to a highland of the Hudson; and in this idea I was confirmed by observing the comparative importance and swelling magnitude of many English travelers among us, who, I was assured, were very little people in their own country.” (The Author’s Account of Himself)
“Rip Van Winkle”
• The characters and the story • the theme of escapement, nostalgia for the unrecoverable past and the author’s conservative attitude to American Revolution
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
• Ichabod Crane Shrew, commercial, credulous, an interloper • Brom Bones Rough, vigorous, a frontier type • The theme of preference for the country over the city
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distinct national features of American Romanticism(2)
• 2) the specific influence of American Puritanism : • First, tend to moralize. • Second, some taboo subjects for the writers not to break, like sex and love.
Features of American Romanticism
• • • • • 1.emphasis on imagination and emotion 2.optimism (newness as a nation) 3. a profound love for nature 4.puritan moral values 5.a cultural revolution
Irving’s contributions to American literature
• 1) the first American writer gain international fame (a sign of American literature emerging as an independent entity) • 2) the father of American literature (his The Sketch book marked the beginning of American Romanticism and helped prompt the development of the short story as a genre in American literature)
writing style and features
• Style: Beautiful, a bit sentimental, lucidity, musical language (“the American Goldsmith”) • entertaining instead of moralizing • Rich atmosphere • vivid characterization • humorous
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• • • •
1.____ was considered as the tenth muse emerging in the New World. 2.It is ______ who first advocated literary nationalism in his works. 3.Thomas Pain’s________was ever read to Washington’s soldiers in the Independent War. 4.___________ was greatly related to the movement of “the Great Awaking”.
• A History of New York (1809) • The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.(1815) • The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1825) • A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1829) • The Alhambra (1832)
Washington Irving (1783-1859)
“Father of American Literature”
life experiences
• • • • • New York merchant family (1783) first book (1809) England (1815) American diplomatic attaché to Spain (1826) secretary of the United States Legation in London (1829-1832) • returned to America and began to live in his “Sunnyside” in 1833 • died in 1859
reasons for the rising of American Romanticism
• 1) The optimistic mood of the nation following the national political independence inspired the romantic feeling and cried for literary expression. (American dream greatly inspired the romantic imagination. ) • 2) the fertile literary milieu, a media for people to express their opinions. • 3) the influences of the European romanticism • (Walter Scott, Byron, Gothic tradition, Lyrical Ballads)
Irving’s literary career (2)
• 1833-1859; writings about the American beauty and experiences, such as the westward movement. • A Tour on the Prairies(1835); Astoria(1836); Adventures of Captain Bonneville(1837)
the two characteristics of American Romanticism and their respective representatives • both derivative and independent • derivative vein: Irving and New England poets (they modeled their works upon English and European masters.) • Independent vein (a call for the National Literature): Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, etc.
distinct national features of American Romanticism(1)
• 1)Essentially, it is an expression of the spirit and specific experiences of the nation: • western movement, the wilderness, the exotic landscape (the robin instead of nightingale), the civilization of American Indians, etc.