what is American literature 什么是美国文学

Literature is fictional


Fiction: the prose that tell a story (fairy tells, short stories, and novels) that set them apart from the context of life Invented material: imaginative e.g. Harry Porter Stylized material: artistic control: through the play of language, selection of details, inclusion of metaphor, irony and imagery: compare: how does a newspaper report and a poet would describe the same event?
What is American Literature


Literature produced in American English by the people living in the United States excluding American expatriates or literature produced in other languages by minorities in the United States such as Native American Literature in Indian Language Primarily about American history, society, life, and people (American Experience)
When comes literature


Performance in words (Robert Frost) The desire to express and share experience An art, a creation Oral (songs, prayers, spells, charms, omens or riddles) and written (a story, a poem, a play, or an essay)
Literature, individual and society



A source to study the relation between humanity and society A display of the socialization of the behavior of individuals The meaning of individual existence in a society
Whrtistically used to achieve identifiable literacy qualities and to convey meaningful messages Literature is characterized by beauty of expression and form and by universality of intellectual and emotional appeal
1775-1828: Early Romanticism: The Early National Period Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe.



1828-1865: The Romantic Period (Also known as: The American Renaissance or The Age of Transcendentalism) Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthore, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman. 1865-1900: The Realistic Period Mark Twain, Henry James, Bret Harte, and Kate Chopin. 1900-1914: The Naturalistic Period Stephen Crane, Jack London, and Theodore Dreiser
Literature is aesthetic

Order and form in literature
Literature is intertextual



One work relates to other works of literature, it incorporates established literary conventions, and it belongs to at least one genre of literature. E.g. Compare poems by Sir Walter Raleigh and Christopher Marlowe “The Passionate shepherd to his love” (Christopher Marlow1600) “The Nymph’s Replay to the Shepherd” (Sir Walter Raleigh (c.1600)
How to study literature

Analytical approach Thematic approach Historical approach
The importance of Reading literature



For pleasure For relaxation For knowledge For experience For artistic appreciation
American Literature
The history of literature


Polite learning through reading (14th century) The practice and profession of writing (18th century) The high skill of writing in the special context of high imagination (19th century)
Literature is language


Oral & written denotation (scientist) instead of conotation (writer: emotional, irrational, subjective): writers of literature use language connotatively to bring into play all the emotional associations words may have. Denotation of “mother” is “female parent” while the connotation includes such qualities as protection, warmth, love, tenderness, devotion, mercy, intercession, home, childhood, the happy past
Literature is language


Defamiliarization: (The Russian Formalists 1920’s): “The technique of art is to make objects “unfamiliar“ to make forms difficult , to increase the difficulty and length of perception, because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged”--Viktor Shklovsky Diction and syntax, sounds and repetition, archaisms of diction and syntax are significant
The function of a writer

Less bound to the reality and fact than a historian, an economist or a scientist “Only the poet disdaining to be tied to any subjection, lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow in effect another nation, in making things either better than nature bring forth, or , quite anew, forms such as never were in nature” The Defense of Poecy---Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
What is American experience




American Independence West expansion and development (ambition, heroism and individualism Slavery and the Civil War Politics (the Civil Rights Movement)and Religion (Wars and Revolution) Americanism: Economy, education, enlightenment
Basic Qualities of American writers



Independent Individualistic Critical, Innovative humorous
Periods of American Literature:

1607-1776: Puritanism: Colonial Period John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, and Anne Bradstreet. 1765-1790: Deism: The Revolutionary Age Thomas Paine Thomas Jefferson Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay The Declaration of Independence. The Federalist Papers; The Constitution of the United States
Literature is true



Factual accuracy: the presentation of human condition (truth) 1. true to the facts of reality (people, places, and events Directly and indirectly stated ideas (communication) Typical characters and probable actions Allegory: concrete things represent ideas: e.g. “Fear knocked at the door,/faith answered. /there was no one there.”