美国文学 资料整理

一、Colonial period and Revolutionary period（1607-1783）
1.American Puritanism影响：①Basis of American literature,All literature is based on a myth –garden of Eden ②Contributing to the development of Symbolism: a technique, widely used ③Influencing the style of literature: simple, fresh and direct (just as the style of the Authorized Version of Holy Bible
2.时期特征：①Types of writing: diaries, histories, letters etc. ②Content: serving either God or colonial expansion or both ③Form: imitating English literary traditions
3.Anne Bradstreet——Contemplations《沉思录》
4. Jonathan Edwards
①Works。

The Freedom of the Will、The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended 、The Nature of True Virtue
②Points of view。

Ideas---reveal the medieval mind of the man 。

(1)Passion for the religion
(2)Regeneration of man: He urges his people to enjoy the sweetness of “conversion”(转变).
(3) God’s presence: God is the source of all being, the substance of all life. God made the world by an extension of Himself, he manifests Himself in nature and man, and that man, being a part of God, is divine. (4) Puritan idealism：Everything is an image or shadow of the divine.
5. Benjamin Franklin（the great man of letters）：Poor Richard’s Almanac、Autobiography 《自传》——It is regarded as one of the most important works of American literature produced during the 18th century. //It is a record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, an account of the colorful career of America's first self-made man. //It is a Puritan document --it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement ////The style: it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision. The narrative is lucid, the structure is simple, the imagery is homely.
二、The Romantic Period (18th C—the Civil War) (1783—1861)
1.解释：a movement of the 18th and 19th century that affected the whole of Europe and America. Romanticism was a movement in literature, philosophy, music and art which developed in Europe. It emphasized individual values and aspirations above those of society as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. It looked to the Middle Ages and to direct contact with nature for inspiration. general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption. The main representatives are Irving, Cooper, Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville.
1.特征：(1) It was the expression of “a real new experience”. Reason: “the spirit of the place”was radically new and alien. (2) American Puritanism was a cultural heritage. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained.(3) American Romanticism is full of “newness”.(4) American romanticism was both imitative and independent.
2. Washington Irving
①Works。

History of New York from the beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty ｛his 1st book/a success, won him popularity/satirized politics, history
and government of 19th century America ｝+The Sketch Book«见闻札记» (Europe held forth the charms…)+ The Legend of Sleepy Hollow+Rip V an Winkle (节选：Poor Rip was/ however, the ruby face/ Instead of the great tree/ Rip’s heart ) {theme: (1)it reveals conservative
attitude of Irving. (2)it might be an illustration of Irving’s argument that revolution upset the natural order of things.paralleled juxtapositions of two worlds:peaceful natural world in the mountains and a noisy world without his wife on the farm; a pre-Revolution village and Washington era. (3)Irving was unwilling to accept a modern democratic America. both Winkle and Irving prefer the past and a dream-like world} (影响：so famous, a part of the American cultural tradition; marks a distinct step in the development of the short-story; from a German source---changed the setting and added conflicts of his own to make it American)
②contribution。

father of American literature/ the first American to win international fame/ the messenger sent from the new world to the old world/ the 1st one to write the short story--The Sketch Book , which marked the beginning of American Romanticism
③style。

(1) Beautiful and highly skillful. providing a model for the narrative of thefuture.“The style is the man”.(2) striking features: avoided moralizing; wrote to amuse and entertain; was good at enveloping his stories in an atmosphere; his characters are vivid and true filled with humor ;musical language
3. James Fenimore Cooper
①Works。

Precaution +The Spy +The Pilot
②style。

(1) highly imaginative, a mythic writer (2) good at inventing tales and landscape description. He had never been to the frontier and among the Indians and yet could write five huge epic books about them (3) powerful but clumsy writer: characterization wooden and lacking in probability; language and use of dialect not authentic
③成就。

1)He created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. 2)He turned the west and frontier as a useable past. 3) He helped to introduce western tradition to American literature
4. Transcendentalism
①定义。

Transcendentalism 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. Emerson’s essay Nature was the major work of the transcendentalism.
②Features。

(1)spirit / oversoul is the most important thing. It exists in nature and man alike and constituted the universe. It is omnipresent (present everywhere) and omnipotent (able to do anything) (2) importance of individualism. The regeneration of society could only come about through the regeneration of the individual. The individual soul communed with the Oversoul and was therefore divine. (3) nature –symbol of spirit / the garment of the Oversoul. Nature could influence the human mind.
5. Ralph Waldo Emerson
①Works。

The American Scholar+The Divinity School Address+ Poet +Nature(节选standing on the bare /Philosophically considered,) (his first book expressing the main principles of Transcendentalism)
②Points of view。

(1)firmly believes in the transcendence of the “ oversoul ”(2) regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man. (3)“the infinitude of man”.If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself and brings out the divine in himself,
he can become better and even perfect. (4) Everyone should understand that he makes himself by making his world, and that he makes the world by making himself.
③Aesthetic Ideas: true poetry and true art should ennoble. The poet should express his thought in symbols. He called upon American authors to celebrate America which was to him a long poem in itself
④Influence。

(1) called for an independent culture. (2) called on American writers to write about America in a way peculiarly American. (3) Americans should write about here and now instead of imitating
6. Henry David Thoreau
①Works。

Walden
②Points of view。

(1) did not like the way a materialistic America was developing and was strongly outspoken on the point. (2) hated the human injustice as represented by the slavery system. (3) saw nature as a genuine restorative, healthy influence on man’s spiritual well-being. had faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man. (4) was very critical of modern civilization. (5) He was impatient with his fellowmen who did not want to spend so little time on the self-improvement. (6) had trust in the future
7. Nathaniel Hawthorne
①Works。

The Scarlet Letter (theme: Don’t intend to tell a love story or a story of sin; assumes the universality of guilty; explores the complexities and ambiguities of man’s choices; focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects of the sin on the people; Everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is indispensable for the improvement of human nature) (Writing characteristics: 1)It is a cultural allegory and structurally compact. 2)Hawthorne's ambiguity. The author doesn't give his views on the sign of the letter A. 3)It is a kind of romance.Two lovers come together, finally united in death. 4) Hawthorne's use of the supernatural. The appearance of the symbol A in the sky is : in twilight atmosphere, all things, natural or otherwise, may become probable. 5) His use of symbols. the scarlet letter “A”stands for Adultery, able, angel.) (“A”mean:For Puritan society, it just means punishment. For Hester, it means unjust humiliation. For Dimmesdale, it’s a reminder of his own sin. For Chillingworth, it’s a request for revenge. For Pearl, it’s nothing but a beautiful cloth.)
②Points of view。

Hawthorne is influenced by Puritanism deeply. He was not a Puritan himself, but he had Puritan ancestors who played an important role in his life and works. (1) Evil is at the core of human life. (2) Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed from generation to generation. (3) Evil educates. (4) He has disgust in science. One source of evil is overweening (too proud of oneself) intellect.
③Aesthetic Ideas:(1) He took a great interest in history and antiquity. (2) He was convinced that romance was the best form to describe America.
④style –typical romantic writer. a man of literary craftsmanship，extraordinary in the (1) use of symbol. The symbol serves as a weapon to attack reality. It can be found everywhere in his writing. (2)revelation of characters’ psychology. He is good at exploring the complexity of human psychology. There isn’t much physical movement going on in his works. (3)the use of supernatural mixed with the actual. His stories are parable (allegory) – to teach a lesson
8. Herman Melville
①Works。

Mardi 、Pierre 、Billy Budd、Moby Dick
②style。

(1)His works are symbolic and metaphorical. the Pequod -the ship of the American soul. (2)He manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique of multiple view of his narratives. (3) He tends to write periodic chapters
8.Symbolism: Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols. It is a movement in literature that originated in France in the late 19th century. Symbolism was an aesthetic movement that encouraged writers to express their ideas, feelings, and values by means of symbols or suggestions rather than by direct statements. Hawthorne and Melville are masters of symbolism in America in the 19th century.
9. Walt Whitman
①Works。

Leaves of Grass
②style。

(1) the use of a certain pronoun” I”. (2)Two principles: Parallelism or a rhyme of thought; Phonetic recurrence (the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of the line, in the middle or at the end). (3)the adopt of “free verse” ---poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.
③influences。

(1)His best work has become part of the common property of Western culture.
(2)He is recognized as a father figure who led the break from the past. (3)He has been compared to a mountain in American literary history. (4) Contemporary American poetry bears witness to his great influence.
④Contributions。

(1)First poetic writing which combines lyric verse and prose fiction - modern poetry thrives on this combination. (2)Whitman made the city and urban living conditions suitable settings for poetry. (3)In his remarkable use of sex and sexual imagery, Whitman broke new ground in American writing. (4)The central metaphor, the unity of self with all other selves, is unique in American literature.
⑤与Dickinson区别：Whitman：society at large; “national”; endless, all-inclusive catalogs// Dickinson: inner life of the individual; regional”; syntax
10. Emily Dickinson
①Works。

My life closed twice before its closeWriting style {(1) Rhythm: abcb, defe. (2) Metaphor: powerful, paradoxical(3) Personification: “If immortality unveil”(4) Ironical tone: “Parting is we all know of heaven”(5) Form: Written in two stanzas of four lines each. The first and third lines are iambic tetrameter. The second and fourth lines are iambic trimester (6)Theme: Emily Dickinson is talking about herself. Everything reminds her about death. Her sorrow is great and hard to forget. /“closing life” does not represent death but is the symbol of lost love./ third interpretation: “My life closed twice before its close.”This first line is an image for Adam’s fall into sin, his fall was the first close. The second “close”is man’s personal sin. } I Died For Beauty-but was scarce (原文tell all the truth) {(1) Form: the ABCB rhyme scheme. the rhythmic use of the dash to interrupt the flow—but has a more regular meter; the first and third lines in each stanza are iambic tetrameter, while the second and fourth lines are iambic trimeter; creating a four-three-four-three stress pattern in each stanza. (2) The ultimate effect of this poem is to show that every aspect of human life —ideals, human feelings, identity itself—is erased by death. But by making the erasure gradual—something to be “adjusted”to in the tomb } wild nights-wild nights(love), death is
a Dialogue between
②themes。

(1) Death and immortality. These themes lie at the center of Dickinson’s world. (2) Love. Dickinson was original, she never imitated others. (3) Nature. Natural phenomena;
Changes of seasons; Heavenly bodies; Animal birds and insects; flowers. (4)emphasizes free will and human responsibility. (5)holds that beauty, truth and goodness are ultimately one.
③Features。

(1)Like Whitman she was a courageous experimentalist. (2)unconventional: her choice of words, her verbal constructions, her spelling, her images. (3)Her poetry abounds in telling images. In the best of her poems every word is a picture seen. (4)Her severe economy of expression. (5)Her poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness and plainest words.
11. Edgar Allan Poe
①Works。

The Raven (原文: once upon a midnight); Sonnet—To Science (原文:yes, Heaven is thine)
②Aesthetic Ideas (theory for poetry): (1)The poem should be short, readable at one sitting (or as long as "The Raven"). (2) Its chief aim is beauty. Beauty aims at "an elevating excitement of the soul," and he concludes that "the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world." (3)Poe is opposed to “the heresy of the didactic”and calls for “pure”poetry. (4) He stresses rhythm, defines true poetry as "the rhythmical creation of beauty," and declares that "music is the perfection of the soul, or idea, of poetry." (5) Poe insists on an even metrical flow in versification. Poe rarely allows himself twenty-five percent of irregular feet. Its poetry exists in its ingenious creation of sounds. All sounds, vowels and diphthongs for example, and all poetic devices such as alliteration, assonance, and consonance are brought into full play for the "rhythmical creation of beauty."
③theory for short story。

brevity, totality, single effect, compression and finality./ The very first sentence ought to help to bring out the "single effect" of the story. The last sentence should leave a sense of finality with the reader.
④themes。

(1)love and death—predominant theme in Poe’s writing (2)disintegration (separation) of life (3)horror (4)negative thoughts of science
⑤style。

(1)Gothic elements. Supernatural horrors and an atmosphere of unknown terror pervades the action. (2)High emotion, sentimentalism, but also pronounced anger, surprise and especially terror. (3) Use of words indicating fear, mystery, etc: apparition, devil, ghost, haunted, terror, fright, fainting. (4)Traditional style but not easy to read.
三、Realism—1865(the end of the civil war) to 1914
1.解释：the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience. The representatives are Howells and Henry James.
2.Characteristics。

(1)truthful description of life (2)typical character under typical circumstance. (3)objective rather than idealized, close observation and investigation of life “Realistic. (4)concerned with social and psychological problems. (5)open-ending: leaves much room for readers to think by themselves.
3. Henry James
①Works。

The American, The Turn of the Screw
②theme。

Novels are set against a large international background, usually between Europe
and America./ novels focus on the confrontation of the two different cultures with two different groups of people representing two different value systems
③Style。

(1)over-elaborate style (2) Language: highly-refined, polished, insightful, accurate.
(3)Construction: complicated, intricate
④总结James, by emphasizing the inner awareness and inward movements of his characters in face of outside occurrences rather than merely delineating their environment in any detail , became the for erunner of “stream-of-consciousness” and psychological realism.
4.Local Colorism:It as a trend first made its presence in the late 1860s and early 1870s. It is a unique variation of American literary realism in post-civil war. Generally, the works by local colorists are concerned with the life of a small region or province. Local Colorism refers to the elements which characterize a local culture, elements such as speech, customs and mores peculiar to one particular place. Mark Twain was a typical one of them.They tended to identify and glorify, but they never forget to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life.
5. Mark Twain
①Works。

The Gilded Age , The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (原文I took the sack of)
②Features。

(1)represented social life through portraits of local places which he knew best
(2)drew from his own rich fund of knowledge of people and places (3)tall tales (highly exaggerated). (4) he used colloquial language, vernacular language, dialects (5)humor
③地位评论。

(1) Mark Twain was a famous American literary giant. He was a humorist. (2) Mark Twain preferred to represent social life. He drew heavily from his own rich fund of knowledge of people and places. (3) He made colloquial speech, his style of language influenced many later writers. Mark Twain was also a social critic. He loved life and people, and freedom and justice and hated tyranny and iniquity, despised meanness and cruelty
④The Differences between Howells, James and Twain
(1)In thematic terms, James wrote mostly of the upper reaches of American society, and Howells concerned himself chiefly with middle class life, whereas Mark Twain dealt largely with the lower strait of society. (2) Technically, Howells wrote in the vein of genteel realism, James pursued an “imaginative” treatment of reality or psychological realism, but Mark Twain’s contribution to the development of realism and to American literature as a whole was partly through his theories of localism in American fiction, and partly through his colloquial style. (3)Howells gave the most straightforward definition of realism .Henry James believed that the only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life. James shifted the ground of realistic art from the outer to the inner world. Mark Twain preferred to represent social life. He drew heavily from his own rich fund of knowledge of people and places. He confined himself to the life which he was familiar. Mark Twain managed to transform art into the freedom and humor, in short, the finest elements of western culture.。