美国文学史总结
(完整版)美国文学史-知识点梳理
Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. ( A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.)II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of two kinds:1) Practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people "at home" what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (1608)A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country (1612)General History of Virgini a (1624): the Indian princess PocahontasCaptain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII (At that time, the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce hiswife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church ofEngland. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism(1) predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived a very frugal life. This is their ethics.(2) Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.(3) Limited atonement (the salvation of a selected few)(4) theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment3. Influence on American Literature(1) Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.(2) Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not want colonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. They prevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependenceby ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years (1776-1783) and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America. II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision of their writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.III．Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym “Silence Do good” .At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.”Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of the Puritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence ofornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau (1752-1832)“Poet of the American Revolution”“Father of American Poetry”“Pioneer of the New Romanticism”“A gifted and versatile lyric poet”Works“The Wild Honey Suckle”“The Indian Burying Ground”“To a Caty-Did”Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life Experience►He was born in New York.►At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his friends (H. H. Brackenridge) a poem entitled “The Rising Glory of America”.►Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.►After being released, he published “The British Prison Ship” in 1781.►In the same year, he published “To the Memory of the Brave Americans”.►After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.►But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works►“The Rising Glory of America” (1772) 《美洲光辉的兴起》►“The House of Night” (1779,1786) 《夜之屋》►“The British Prison Ship” (1781) 《英国囚船》►“To the Memory of the Brave Americans” (1781) 《纪念美国勇士》►“”The Wild Honey Suckle” (1786) 《野忍冬花》►“The Indian Burying Ground” (1788) 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花（黄杲炘译）►美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。
美国文学史期末总结
美国文学史美国文学全书的焦点集中于南太平洋一条名叫莫比·迪克的白鲸,以及捕鲸船皮廓德(Pequod)号的船长阿哈(Ahab)如何对它有不共戴天的仇恨.阿哈在一次航行中被莫比·迪克咬掉一条腿,立志报仇,指挥皮廓德号环航全球追踪,终于发现了它.经过三天放下小艇紧追.虽然刺中了这条白鲸,但它十分顽强狡猾,咬碎了小艇,也撞沉了大船.它拖着捕鲸船游开时,绳子套住阿哈,把他绞死了.全船人尽皆灭顶.只有一个水手借着由棺材改制的救生浮子而逃得性命.整个故事以这个水手伊希梅尔(Ishmael)自述的方式展开.The book focuses on a whale named Moby Dick lived in south pacific and the captain of whaler Pequod—Ahab. Ahab was once bite by Moby Dick and lost a leg, determined to revenge,he commanded whaler pequod do global tracking, and finally found it. After three days of hot pursuit with the skiff,while they stabbed this white whale, but it was very tenacious and cunning, eventually chewed the skiff, also sank the ship. It dragged whaler swimming away, the rope was around Ahab, he was hanged. Almost all of people on the boat drowned, only a sailor called Ishmael survived .。
美国文学史整理资料
Colonial Period 殖民时期Background: Puritanism 背景：清教主义1. features of Puritanism 特征宿命论:上帝决定一切之前发生的事情(1). Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred.(2). Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can be passed down from generation to generation. 原罪论:人类生来就是邪恶,这原罪(3). Total depravity 性恶说有限的赎罪:可以通过一代一代(4). Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.只有选举才能得救2. Influence 影响(1). A group of good qualities –hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced American literature. 一群好的品质——努力工作、节俭、虔诚、节制(严重的和深思熟虑的)美国文学的影响。
(2). It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden. 它导致了永恒的神话。
所有的文学是基于一个神话——伊甸园。
(3). Symbolism: the America n puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chiefly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American. 象征意义:美国清教徒的隐喻认知模式主要是在调用形成一个文学象征这是典型的美国人。
美国文学史总结
美国文学史总结从第二次世界大战后到新世纪，美国文学还有一个值得一提的发展现象——通俗文学（Popular Literature）日益受到重视，过去以低级杂志（pulps）为阵地的通俗小说有了平装本和精装本，进了图书馆和大学。
战后兴起的后现代主义思潮为研究通俗文学起了推波助澜的作用，学术界和思想界对于通俗文学观念的变化，刺激了通俗文学的进一步发展。
不但许多传统的通俗小说保持强劲的发展势头，而且诞生了许多新型通俗小说。
这些传统型和创新型的小说，很多都进入了《纽约时报》的“畅销书排行榜”（New York Times Best Sellers）。
每一本畅销小说诞生后，都会被改编成电影、电视剧；原创电影、电视剧在走红后也很快派生出同名畅销小说。
畅销小说和火爆的影视剧交相辉映，构成战后美国通俗文学的繁荣景象。
50年代，历史西部小说（Historical Western）占据了通俗文学的主导地位，随后现代犯罪小说（Modern Crime Fiction）迅速崛起，在60年代末和70年代初压倒了其他一切通俗小说。
70、80年代是美国通俗小说大发展时期，诞生了诸如甜蜜野蛮小说（Sweet-Savage Romance）、高科技惊险小说（High-Technical Thriller）之类的新型通俗小说。
此外，传统的女性言情小说（Women's Fiction）、科幻小说（Science Fiction）和恐怖小说（Horror Fiction）也出现有力回潮。
90年代，社会暴露小说（Social Expose Fiction）逐渐成为美国通俗文学领域的主导力量，如此格局一直维持到世纪末。
像马里奥·普佐（Mario Puzo）的《教父》（The Godfather）、斯蒂芬·金（Stephen King）的系列恐怖小说、迈克尔·克莱顿（Michael Crichton）的《侏罗纪公园》（Jurassic Park）和《失落的世界》（The Lost World）、玛格丽特·杜鲁门（Margaret Truman）的“谋杀案”系列政治暴露小说等，都是我国读者较为熟悉的美国通俗文学作品。
美国文学史总结
●American Puritanism（清教主义）◆Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. The Puritans wereoriginally members of a division of the Protestant Church, who came intoexistence in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I. The first settlerswho became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few ofthem Puritans. They came to America out of various reasons, but it should beremembered that they were a group of serious, religious people, advocatinghighly religious and moral principles.◆As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purify their religious beliefs andpractices. They felt that the Church of England was too close to the Churchof Rome in doctrine form of worship, and organization of authority.◆The American Puritans, like their brothers back in England, were idealists,believing that the church should be restored to complete “purity”. Theyaccepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, andlimited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. But in thegrim struggle for survival that followed immediately after their arrival inAmerica, they became more and more practical, as indeed they had to be.◆Puritans’lives were extremely disciplined and hard. Puritans tended tosuspect joy and laughter as symptoms of sin: a Puritan woman was oncethreatened with banishment for smiling in church. They drove out of theirsettlements all those opinions that seemed dangerous to them, and history hascriticized their actions. Yet in the persecution of what they considered error,the Puritans were no worse than many other movements in history. As aculture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the earlyAmerican mind.◆American Puritanism also had a enduring influence on American literature. Ithad become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of thenational cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets.● Influence of American Puritanism on literature◆Basis of American literature: the dream of building an Eden of Garden onearth (Early American literature were mainly optimistic because theybelieved that God sent them to the new continent to fulfill the sacred task sothey would overcome all the difficulties they met at last. GraduallyAmericans found that their dreams would not be successful, so lots ofpessimistic literary works were produced.)◆Symbolism(象征主义): lots of American writers liked to employ symbolismin their works. (typical way of Puritans who thought that all the simpleobjects existing in the world connoted deep meaning.) Symbolism meansusing symbols in literary works. The symbol means something represents orstands for abstract deep meaning.◆Style: simple, fresh and direct (just as the style of the Authorized Version ofHoly Bible)1.3 Colonial Literature● General features◆Humble origins: diaries, histories, letters etc.◆In content: serving either God or colonial expansion or both◆In form: imitating English literary traditionsAmerican Romanticism● General features of Romanticism◆ Stressing emotion rather than reason◆ Stressing freedom and individuality◆ Stressing idealism rather than materialism◆Writing about nature, medieval legends and with supernatural elements1.2 Features of American Romanticism (P43-44)● Imitative◆against the literary forms and ideas of classicism, developing some relativelynew forms of fiction and or poetry, emphasizing upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature, a liking for the picturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the sensational, and the supernatural (P41)● Independent◆peculiar American experience (landscape, pioneering to the West, Indiancivilization, new nation’s democracy and dreams) (P41-42)◆Puritan heritage (more moralizing, edifying more than mere entertainment)(careful about love and sex. example: Scarlet Letter) (P42)◆American national consciousness—the sense of missionTRANSCENDENTALISM:Nature’s voice pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism, the summit of American Romanticism.⏹First, the Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul，as the mostimportant thing in the universe.⏹Secondly, the Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. They weretelling people to depend upon themselves for spiritual perfection.⏹Thirdly, the Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of theSpirit or God.⏹New England Transcendentalism was the product of a combination of foreign influencesand native American Puritan tradition⏹Transcendentalism was a way of knowing —the belief that man can intuitivelytranscend the limits of the senses and of logic and receive directly higher truths and greater knowledge denied to other methods of knowing.⏹On the other hand, transcendentalism had some glaring weaknesses.⏹The transcendentalists believed in living close to nature and taught the dignity of manuallabor.1.4 The Scarlet Letter●Sample: Scarlet Letter (A: Adultery to Able to Angel)●Characters:◆Hester Prynne (heroine, attractive, active towards the sin)◆Roger Chillingworth (Hester’s husband, emotionless, only thinking aboutrevenge, real villain in the novel, signifying pure intellect which was merciless in Hawthorne’s mind)◆Arthur Dimmesdale (a handsome and admirable young priest, contradictory onthe sin he made with Hester, being a brave man at last)●Theme:(Ask students: Is this a love story? No)◆The theme of the story should be the moral, emotional and psychologicaleffects of the sin on people. (P76)(对于《红字》的主题，有很多种不同的说法，这和这本小说的复义性有关。
美国文学史作者的写作特点总结
美国文学史作者的写作特点总结1、Benjamin Franklin本杰明富兰克林（1706-1790）he is the only good American author before the the Revolutionary War and he is the only one in the colonial period.写作特点：1.叙事清楚简洁 2.富有哲理和睿智 3.文字质朴幽默 4.易于读者接受。
2.Thomas Paine 托马斯佩因（1737-1809）英国人民将他视为最受爱戴的政论家，他的书被看作穷人的圣经。
拿破仑称他为共和国的火炬，一切传奇中最伟大的人物。
写作特点：支持独立宣言，语言精炼，层次分明，结构严密，逻辑性强，抒情和说理有机结合3.Thomas Jefferson 托马斯杰弗逊(1743-1826)主张：主张追求幸福，人人生而平等，包括生命权、自由权和追求幸福的权利4.Philip Freneau 菲利普费瑞诺(1752-1832)Father of American Poetry” 美国诗歌之父，政治方面的新闻记者写作特点：the poems of Freneau fall mainly into two categories, one of description of nature, and one of expression of his political ideas.备注：菲利普弗瑞诺作为一个自然诗人，在时间上介于布拉兹特里特和布莱恩特之间；作为一个哥特式作家，介于威格斯沃斯和爱伦坡之间；作为一个原始主义者，介于莫顿和库珀之间。
5.Washington Irving华盛顿.欧文（1783-1859)the father of American literaturethe first great belletrist 第一个纯文学作家，美国第一位浪漫主义散文文体作家，重振了没落的哥特式浪漫主义小说。
美国文学史简述五篇范文
美国文学史简述五篇范文第一篇：美国文学史简述A Short Summary of the History of American LiteratureIn American Literature, Colonial and Revolutionary period, American Romanticism, The Realistic Period and American Modernism are the four important periods.During 17C and 18C is the American colonial and Revolutionary Period.Puritanism is the main school of this period, which is the practices and belief of puritans.The American puritans accept the doctrine and practice of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God.But due to the grim struggle for living in the new continent, they become more and more practical.American Puritanism is so much a part of the national atmosphere rather than a set of tenets.Jonathan Edwards was one of the great writers of the Puritanism, his works include The Freedom of the Will, The Nature of True Virtue and so on.Philip Freneau is “a poet of the American Revol ution” and “the father of American Poetry”.The Rising Glory of American and The Wild Honey Suckle are his famous works.Puritanism gradually declined at the end of 18C.As a result of the impact of European Literary Romanticism, there rapidly came into being the rise of romanticism in American.The American romanticism flourished from 1815 to 1865, which advocated importance to individual dignity and value, and they shared some characteristics— moral enthusiasm, individuality and intuitive perception.Transcendentalism, which appeared after 1830, marked the maturity of American Romanticism and the first Renaissance in the American literary history.It laid emphasis onspirit, individual and nature.Washington Irving is a writer of this period, who has been called “the father of American Literature”.He wins the international fame for The Sketch Book, which marked the beginning of American Romanticism.Ralph Waldo Emerson is the New England Transcendentalist.Nature, his famous work, is regarded as the “manifesto of Am erican Transcendentalism”.American industrialization was one of the important factors of the development of American Realistic Literature, which was the beginning of what Mark Twain called “The Gilded Age” from 1865 to 1914.American Realism came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism.It turned from an emphasis on the faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived.It expresses the common place and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.A realistic writer is more objective than subjective, more descriptive than symbolic.Realists looked for truth in any place.William Dean Howells is the champion of realism.He writes about the rising middle class and the way they live.The Rise of Silas Lapham, his masterpiece, is a fine example of the American realism.Mark Twain is a great literary artist and social critic.He writes about the story of the low class and is famous for his colloquial style and localism.The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is his famous fiction, which has been regarded as one of the greatest books of western literature and western civilization.After the WWI, some young writers wondered pointlessly and restlessly, while at the same time the y were called the “Lost Generation”.Then, there came into being the modernism from 1914 to 1945, it is used to show the literary art possessing outstanding characteristics in conception, feeling, form and style after the WWI.It meanscutting off history and a sense of despair and loss.It refused to accept the traditional ideological influences.F.Scott Fitzgerald is widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest writers.This Side of Paradise is his first novel, it became immensely popular for the simple reason that it caught the tone of the age.Ernest Hemingway is the famous writer of this period.He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea.A Farewell to Arms is his masterpiece in which the author deals with the war directly.This is what I want to say about the history of American literature.第二篇：美国文学史梗概美国文学史梗概一、殖民地时代和美国建国初期最早来自这片新大陆的欧洲移民主要是定居在新英格兰的清教徒和马萨诸塞的罗马天主教徒，二者虽然在教义上有很多不同之处，但他们都信奉加尔文主义：人生在世只是为了受苦受难，而他们唯一的希望是争做上帝的“选民”，死后进天国，相信“原罪”。
(完整版)美国文学史总结
ⅠColonial America(17th century)殖民主义时期文学1.In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America and he mistook the native people onthe new continent for Indians.Character of colonial literature:a.content: religious, politicalb.form: diary, journal, letters, travel books, sermons, history (personalliterature)c.Style: simple. direct, concised.out of humble originsEarly in the 17th century, the English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts began the main stream of what we recognize as the American national history.The earliest settlers in America included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese.The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607(北美弗吉尼亚詹姆斯顿)2.Captain Town Smith, the first American writer3.Puritan Thoughts: hard work, thrift(节俭), piety(虔诚), sobriety(节制), 这些也成了早期美国作品主导思想.典型的清教徒：John Cotton & Roger William, John Cotton was called “the Patriarch of New England(新英格兰教父)”清教徒采用的文学体裁：narratives(日记) and journals(游记)清教徒在美国的写作内容：1）Their voyage to the new land2）Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops3）About dealing with Indians4）Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit4.Private literature: theological, moral, historical, political5.The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, rose to the level of realpoetry. Anne Bradstreet is one of the most interesting of the early poets, 英国最早移民到美国的诗人. The best of the Puritan poets was Edward Taylor.ⅡReason and Revolution(18th century)理性和革命时期文学1.The War for Independence (1776-1783) ended in the formation of a Federative bourgeoisdemocratic republic - the United States of America.2.Bourgeois Enlightenment3.Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard’s Almanac(穷人理查德的年鉴), an annual collection ofproverbs.The Autobiography, 18世纪美国唯一流传至今的自传⏹The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a recordof self-examination and self-improvement. The Puritans, as a type, were very much given to self-analysis.⏹The Autobiography shows Franklin was spokesman for the new order of 18th-centuryEnlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free, by nature endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.⏹It is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision. The plainness of its style,the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the obvious features we cannot mistake.⏹Tone: OptimismThe American dream began with the settlement of the American continent –the Promised Land – the Garden of Eden – optimistic about the future4.Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, 极大恢复士气5.Thomas Jefferson:The Declaration of Independence6.Philip Freneau, Father of American Poetry: The Indian Burring Ground(印第安人的坟地)The Wild Honey Suckle(野忍冬花)⏹The poem is an indication of the poet’s dedication to American subjectmatter and the natural scenes on the new continent.⏹Here in this poem Freneau deals with the themes of loveliness and thetransience of life.⏹This poem, well within the melancholy genre, consists of the poet’s pensivemusings on the flower’s story.⏹The first two stanzas picture the advantages of the flower’s country retreat.⏹The next two stanzas unite the theme of the seasons with the thought that allmust die. Death and decay, as well as creation, are so common, so much a part of the universal law.ⅢRomanticism(end of the 18th century——Civil War)浪漫主义文学1.Washington Irving, Father of American literature: Sketch Book(见闻札记, the firstmodern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature, a collection of essays, sketches, and tales)2.James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales(皮袜子故事集, the AmericanNational Epic) contains of The Deerslayer(杀鹿者), The Last of the Mohicans(最后的莫希干人), The Pathfinder(探路人), The Pioneers(拓荒者), and The Prairie(大草原).3.Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven(乌鸦), Annabel Lee(安娜贝尔·李), The Fall of the House ofUsher(鄂榭府崩溃记)To Helen○Edgar Allan Poe wrote “To Helen” as a reflection on the beauty of Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard, of Richmond, Va., who died in 1824. She was the mother of one of Poe’s school classmates, Robert Stanard. When Robert invited Edgar, then 14, to his home (at 19th and East Grace Streets in Richmond) in 1823, Poe was greatly taken with the 27-year-old woman, who is said to have urged him to write poetry. He was later to write that she was his first real love.○ 1 stanza⏹Helen: An allusion to Helen of Troy in Greek mythology.⏹Nicean: Of or from Nicea (also spelled Nicaea), a city in ancient Bithynia (nowpart of present-day Turkey) near the site of the Trojan War.⏹Barks: small sailing vessels.⏹End rhyme: A, B, A,B, B.○ 2 stanza⏹wont: accustomed to⏹Naiad: Naiads were minor nature goddesses in Greek and Romanmythology. They inhabited and presided over rivers, lakes, streams, and fountains.⏹Naiad airs: Peaceful, gentle breezes or qualities⏹The glory that . . .Rome: These last two lines, beginning with the glorythat was, are among the most frequently quoted lines in world literature.⏹End rhyme: A, B, A, B, A.Half rhyme: Face and Greece○ 3 stanza⏹Psyche: In Greek and Roman mythology, Psyche was a beautifulprincess dear to the god of love, Eros (Cupid), who would visit her in a darkened room ina palace. One night she used an agate lamp to discover his identity. Later, at the urging ofEros, Zeus gave her the gift of immortality. Eros then married her.⏹End rhyme: A, B, B, A, B.⏹from the regions which are Holy Land: from ancient Greece and Rome;from the memory Poe had of Mrs. Stanard○Theme■Beauty, as Poe uses the word in the poem, appears to refer to the woman's soul as well as her body. On the one hand, he represents her as Helen of Troy–the quintessence of physical beauty–at the beginning of the poem. On the other, he represents her as Psyche–the quintessence of soulful beauty–at the end of the poem. In Greek, psyche means soul.4.Transcendentalism(超验主义):❖19th-century movement of writers and philosophers in New England who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of man, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. In their religious quest, the Transcendentalists rejected the conventions of 18th-century thought; and what began in dissatisfaction with Unitarianism developed into a repudiation of the whole established order.❖Representative figures: some 30 men and a couple of women such as Emerson, Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, and Margaret Fuller, most of them teachers or clergymen, radicals against rigid rationalism of Unitarianism.❖Time: 1836-1855❖Essence: “Transcendentalism is idealism” in essence❖Major Features:A.Emphasis on spirit;B.The importance of the individual as the most important element ofsociety;C．N ature as symbolic of the Spirit or GodRalph Waldo Emerson, Father of American Essay, Essayist, poet, philosopher, orator, critic : Nature(the Bible and manifesto(宣言) of the New England Transcendentalism), Self-relianceHenry David Thoreau(The Prophet(提倡者) of Non-Violence Movement, he wasEmerson’s truest disciple, who put into practice many of Emerson’s theories): Walden5.Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter⑴女主角honest, calmly face fault 诚实，坦然的面对罪过。
(完整word版)美国文学史-知识点梳理(word文档良心出品)
Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. ( A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.)II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of two kinds:1) Practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people "at home" what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (1608)A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country (1612)General History of Virgini a (1624): the Indian princess PocahontasCaptain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII (At that time, the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce hiswife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church ofEngland. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism(1) predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived a very frugal life. This is their ethics.(2) Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.(3) Limited atonement (the salvation of a selected few)(4) theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment3. Influence on American Literature(1) Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.(2) Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not want colonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. They prevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependenceby ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years (1776-1783) and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America. II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision of their writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.III．Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym “Silence Do good” .At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.”Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of the Puritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence ofornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau (1752-1832)“Poet of the American Revolution”“Father of American Poetry”“Pioneer of the New Romanticism”“A gifted and versatile lyric poet”Works“The Wild Honey Suckle”“The Indian Burying Ground”“To a Caty-Did”Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life Experience►He was born in New York.►At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his friends (H. H. Brackenridge) a poem entitled “The Rising Glory of America”.►Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.►After being released, he published “The British Prison Ship” in 1781.►In the same year, he published “To the Memory of the Brave Americans”.►After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.►But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works►“The Rising Glory of America” (1772) 《美洲光辉的兴起》►“The House of Night” (1779,1786) 《夜之屋》►“The British Prison Ship” (1781) 《英国囚船》►“To the Memory of the Brave Americans” (1781) 《纪念美国勇士》►“”The Wild Honey Suckle” (1786) 《野忍冬花》►“The Indian Burying Ground” (1788) 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花（黄杲炘译）►美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。
美国文学史总结
美国文学史总结Part I The Literature of Colonial America（殖民地时期的文学）Chapter 1→John Smith 约翰.史密斯1. A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened inVirginia Since the First Planting of That Colony 《自殖民地第一次在弗吉尼亚垦荒以来发生的各种事件的真实介绍》（1608）2. A Map of Virginia with a Description of the Country 《弗吉尼亚地图，附：一个乡村的描述》（1612）3.The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles 《弗吉尼亚通史》（1624）Chapter 2→William Bradford （威廉.布拉德福德）→Of Plymouth Plantation 《普利茅斯开发史》（1826）→John Winthrop （约翰.温思罗普）→The History of New England from 1630 to 1649 《新英格兰史》（1856）Chapter 3→John Cotton （约翰.科登）→Roger Williams （罗杰.威廉姆斯）→ A Key into the Language of America 《开启美国语言的钥匙》/《美国新英格兰地区土著居民语言指南》Chapter 4→Anne Bradstreet（安妮.布雷兹特里特）（女性作家）→The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America 《在美洲诞生的第十位缪斯》→Edward Taylor （爱德华.泰勒）（女性作家）→Psalms 《诗篇》Part II The Literature of Reason and Revolution（理性和革命时期文学）Chapter 5→Benjamin Franklin （本杰明.富兰克林）1.Poor Richard ’s Almanac 《穷理查德年鉴》（1732-1758，1729年正式出版）2.The Declaration of Independence 《独立宣言》（Franklin & Jefferson 杰弗逊）3.The Autobiography 《自传》4.Collect Works 《作品选集》Chapter 6→Thomas Paine （托马斯.佩因）1.The Case of the Officers of the Excise 《收税官的案子》（1772）（his first pamphlet）mon Sense 《常识》（1776）3.The America Crisis 《美国危机》（1776-1883）（a series of sixteen pamphlets）（signed“Common Sense” ）4.Rights of Man 《人权》（I 1791年， II 1792年）5.The Age of Reason 《理性时代》6.Agrarian Justice 《土地公平》（his last important treatise 他最后一部重要著作）Chapter 7→Thomas Jefferson （托马斯.杰弗逊）The Declaration of Independence 《独立宣言》（Benjamin Franklin & Jefferson 杰弗1.该集子并不是按写作顺序来安排的，而是按事件发展的先后顺序重新编排，即：TheDeerslayer（《杀鹿者》）；The Last of the Mohicans《最后的莫希干人》；The Pathfinder 《探路人》；The Pioneers《拓荒者》；The Prairie《大草原》}Chapter 11→William Cullen Bryant （威廉.卡伦.布莱恩特）1.Thanatopsis《死亡思考/死之思考》（1817）2.To a Waterfowl《致水鸟》（is perhaps the peak of his work 是其巅峰之作）Chapter 12→Edgar Allan Poe （埃德加.艾伦.坡）1.MS. Found in a Bottle 《金瓶子城的方德先生》2.The Fall of the House of Usher《鄂榭府崩溃记》3.Tales Of the Grotesque and Arabesque《述异集》（1840）4.The Raven《乌鸦》（1845）5.To Helen《给海伦》6.Annabel Lee《安娜贝尔.李》Chapter 13→Ralph Waldo Emerson（拉尔夫.沃尔多.爱默生）1.Nature《论自然》（1836）2.Two speeches（正真让他功成名就的是两次演讲）：The American Scholar《美国学者》（a great statements 一篇优秀的论说文）& Divinity School Address《神学院致辞》3.Poem《诗集》（1847）4.Essay《随笔录》5.Representative Men《代表》（1850）6.English Traits《英国人》（1856）7.Nature《论自然》8.Self-Reliance《论自助》Chapter 14→Henry David Thoreau（亨利.戴维.梭罗）1.Walden《沃尔登》（1854）Chapter 15→Nathaniel Hawthorne （纳撒尼尔.霍桑）1.The House of the Seven Gables《七个尖角阁的房子》2.Mosses from an Old Manse《古厦青苔》（1846）3.The Scarlet Letter 《红字》（1850）The Scarlet Letter is the introductory chapter of The Scarlet Letter. 《海关》是《红字》的前言。
美国文学知识
美国文学知识一．殖民地时期（The Literature of Colonial American）北美的第一本书：《海湾圣诗》（The Bay Psalmbook）约翰·史密斯（John Smith）：被誉为美国文学的第一位作家。
代表作《关于弗吉尼亚的真实叙述》（A True Relation of Virginia）是美国文学第一书。
纳撒尼尔·沃德（Nathaniel Ward）：被誉为“北美讽刺文学第一笔”。
代表作《北美的阿格瓦姆鞋匠》（The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam in America）。
威廉·布拉福德（William Bradford）：被誉为“美国历史之父”。
代表作《普利茅斯种植园史》（History of Plymouth Plantation）。
安妮·布拉德斯特里特（Anne Bradstreet）：殖民地时期的第一位诗人。
代表作《最近在北美出现的第十位缪斯》（The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America）。
迈克尔·威格尔斯沃斯（Michael Wigglesworth）：诗人。
代表作《判决日》（The Day Of Doom）。
爱德华·泰勒（Edward Taylor）：诗人。
代表作《上帝对其选民有影响的决定》（Gods Determinations Touching His Elect）。
乔纳森·爱德华兹（Jonathan Edwards）：“大觉醒”（The Great Awakening）运动中的主要思想家。
代表作《愤怒是上帝手中之罪人》。
二．独立战争到南北战争（American Literature between the War of Independence and the Civil War）本杰明·富兰克林（Benjamin Franklin）：美国启蒙运动的开创者、科学家、实业家、政治家和革命家，参与撰写了《独立宣言》（Declaration of Independence）。
美国文学史
美国文学史梗概一、殖民地时代和美国建国初期最早来自这片新大陆的欧洲移民主要是定居在新英格兰的清教徒和马萨诸塞的罗马天主教徒，二者虽然在教义上有很多不同之处，但他们都信奉加尔文主义：人生在世只是为了受苦受难，而他们唯一的希望是争做上帝的“选民”，死后进天国，相信“原罪”。
这时的文学作品也主要反映了这些思想，和欧洲文学一脉相承。
代表作家：考顿·马瑟，乔纳森·爱德华兹，安妮·布拉兹特里特，爱德华·泰勒。
二、18世纪独立战争胜利后，美国经济社会进入稳步发展时期这一时期是启蒙主义文学运动的时期，主要文学指导思想是“自然神论”（Deism），强调理性，认为“宇宙的运动始于上帝”；自然万物是“神的体现”，人生在世，不再是受苦受难以换取来世的新生，而是要消灭种族、性别和信仰的不平等，建立自己的“人间乐园”。
主要特点：作家多是美国独立战争的积极拥护者和参加者；文学指导思想除了自然神论之外还有“唯理主义”和“新古典主义”，18世纪末还开始萌发了“早期浪漫主义”；文学种类主要有历史、日记和政论，也有诗歌，讽刺小品和劝人向善的故事，18世纪末还产生了话剧。
启蒙运动中出现大量优秀的散文作品，并多出自开国元勋之手，如本杰明·富兰克林，托马斯·潘恩，以及托马斯·杰斐逊。
三、19世纪南北战争时期这一时期的文学先后发展了浪漫主义，现实主义和自然主义。
浪漫主义：18世纪70年代－19世纪30年代是浪漫主义发展的初期，南北战争前30年（1830－1860）为极盛时期，南北战争后10年逐渐衰微并向现实主义过度。
浪漫主义注重“想象”、“激情”和“个性解放”，认为人本质是善良的，铲除邪恶和拯救人类的手段是抛弃一切传统束缚，摧毁一切陈规陋习而回归到“自然的原始状态中去。
超验主义是其一分支，强调“天人合一”，认为上帝、人类和自然都是“超灵”的组成部分。
代表作家及作品：爱默生《自然》，索罗《瓦尔登湖》，霍桑《红字》，麦尔维尔《白鲸》，惠特曼《草叶集》。
美国文学史知识点梳理
P a r t I T h e L i t e r a t u r e o f C o l o n i a l A m e r i c aI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. ( A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.) II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of two kinds:1) Practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people "at home" what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions.III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (1608)A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country (1612)General History of Virgini a (1624): the Indian princess PocahontasCaptain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas.IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII (At that time, the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Pope'spermission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church of England. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism(1) predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived a very frugal life. This is their ethics.(2) Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.(3) Limited atonement (the salvation of a selected few)(4) theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment 3. Influence on American Literature(1) Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.(2) Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually intoa literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not want colonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. Theyprevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependence by ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years (1776-1783) and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America.II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision of their writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin. III．Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym “Silence Do good” .At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.”Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of the Puritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity ofdiction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence of ornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau (1752-1832)“Poet of the American Revolution”“Father of American Poetry”“Pioneer of the New Romanticism”“A gifted and versatile lyric poet”Works“The Wild Honey Suckle”“The Indian Burying Ground”“To a Caty-Did”Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life Experience?He was born in New York.?At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his frie nds (H. H. Brackenridge) a poem entitled “The Rising Glory of America”.?Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.?After being released, he published “The British Prison Ship” in 1781. ?In the same year, he pu blished “To the Memory of the Brave Americans”. ?After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.?But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works?“The Rising Glory of America” (1772) 《美洲光辉的兴起》?“The House of Night” (1779,1786) 《夜之屋》?“The British Prison Ship” (1781) 《英国囚船》?“To the Memory of the Brave Americans” (1781) 《纪念美国勇士》?“”The Wild Honey Suckle” (1786) 《野忍冬花》?“The Indian Burying Ground” (1788) 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花（黄杲炘译）?美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。
美国文学史考试总结
•Brief introduction of his life•Eliot（1888-1965）•American-born English poet，literary critic, and dramatist，who is best known for his poem The Waste Land. He was born in St. Louis，Missouri.•Features of his poetry••Eliot’s poetry was becoming noted for its fresh visual imagery视觉表象, its flexible 灵活tone语气音调and highly expressive rhythm.韵律•His famous principle “objective correlative”客观相关物i.e. using related有关联的objects, situations情境, events, all external外部的事实facts, to expressemotions.情感•His criticism他善于以精辟和富于权威性的语言表达其他人经常想到和提到，然而不能准确讲出的论点•Eliot was a distinguished literary critic. He became “a giver of laws and the arbiter of taste”in the new poetry and criticism.•His criticism possessed an air of authority and offered a measure of reassurance•The basic them of his criticism•the relationship of between tradition and individual talent, and between the past, the present and the future•His famous doctrine on poets and poetry•“impersonal theory" or the theory of impersonality and objectivity.•To Eliot, what the poet has to express, is not a “personality,个性”but a particular 方法medium in which impressions印象and experiences经历combine结合in 奇特peculiar and unexpected 出乎意料的ways.•Poetry is not a turning loose释放of emotion, but an escape from it; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from it.•The influence of his theory•Lead to the emergence of the New Criticism新批评主义in later years and influence a whole generation of poets.一代•His theory became something like a law for American poets for over two decades from mid 1920s through the 1950s.••The waste land is a reprehensive谴责work of the high modernism of 1920s, impersonal, 客观的discontinuous间断的with its fragments片段, full of literary allusions暗示and ancientmyths古代神话, measuring测量modern life against the historical past and finding itwanting不足in many ways.••The change of these five parts is abrupt 生硬and jerky, with no hint of logical order逻辑次序的暗示and causal relationship.因果关系•Through gaps, absence of connective tissues连接词, and discordant不和谐juxtapositions并列, the poet intends the reader to see and feel the 碎片agmentary nature of life.His influence on American literature•He was the most successful literary dictator独裁者in American literature history,one who wielded the most decisive influence over literary development for a long time.∙《普鲁弗洛克及其他》（Prufrock and Other Observations，1917年）∙《诗集》（Poems，1919年）∙《荒原》（The Waste Land，1922年）∙《诗集1909-1925》（Poems 1909-1925，1925年）∙《圣灰星期三》（Ash Wednesday，1930年）∙《老负鼠的猫经》（Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats，1939年）∙《焦灼的诺顿》（Burnt Norton，1941年）∙《四个四重奏》（Four Quartets，1943年）《诗集》（Collected Poems，1962∙《圣林》（The Sacred Wood，1920年）∙《安德鲁·马维尔》（Andrew Marvell，1922年）∙《但丁》（Dante，1929年）∙《当代文学的传统和尝试》（Tradition and Experimentation in Present-Day Literature，1929年）∙《朗伯斯后的沉思》（Thoughts After Lambeth，1931年）∙《约翰·德莱顿》（John Dryden，1932年）∙《古典与现代散文》（Essays Ancient and Modern，1936年）∙《诗与剧》（Poetry and Drama，1951年）∙∙《岩石》（The Rock，1934年）∙《大教堂中的谋杀》（Murder in the Cathedral，1935年）∙《家庭聚会》（The Family Reunion，1939年）∙《鸡尾酒会》（The Cocktail Party，1950年）∙《老政治家》（The Elder Statesman，1958年）托马斯·艾略特是英国20世纪影响最大的诗人。
美国文学史-知识点梳理
Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. < A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.>II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of two kinds:1> Practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people "at home" what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration2> Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony <1608>A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country <1612>General History of Virgini a <1624>: the Indian princess Pocahontas Captain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII <At that time, the Catholics were not allowedto divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he> broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church of England. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism<1> predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived a very frugal life. This is their ethics.<2> Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.<3> Limited atonement <the salvation of a selected few><4> theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment3. Influence on American Literature<1> Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.<2> Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not want colonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. They prevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependence by ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years <1776-1783> and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America. II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision of their writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.III．Benjamin Franklin <1706-1790>The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym "Silence Do good〞.At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the PennsylvaniaHospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called "the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.〞Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of the Puritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence of ornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine <1737-1809>Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson <1743-1826>The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau <1752-1832>"Poet of the American Revolution〞"Father of American Poetry〞"Pioneer of the New Romanticism〞"A gifted and versatile lyric poet〞Works"The Wild Honey Suckle〞"The Indian Burying Ground〞"To a Caty-Did〞Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life Experience►He was born in New York.►At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey <now PrincetonUniversity>. He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his friends <H. H. Brackenridge> a poem entitled "The Rising Glory of America〞.►Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.►After being released, he published "The British Prison Ship〞in 1781.►In the same year, he published "To the Memory of the Brave Americans〞.►After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.►But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works►"The Rising Glory of America〞<1772> 《美洲光辉的兴起》►"The House of Night〞<1779,1786> 《夜之屋》►"The British Prison Ship〞<1781> 《英国囚船》►"To the Memory of the Brave Americans〞<1781> 《纪念美国勇士》►"〞The Wild Honey Suckle〞<1786> 《野忍冬花》►"The Indian Burying Ground〞<1788> 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花〔黄杲炘译〕►美好的花呀,你长得：这么秀丽, 却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵,招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎,没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪.►大自然把你打扮得一身洁白,她叫你避开庸俗粗鄙的目光,她布置下树荫把你护卫起来,又让潺潺的柔波淌过你身旁；你的夏天就这样静静地消逝,这时候你日见萎蔫终将安息. ►那些难免消逝的美使我销魂, 想起你未来的结局我就心疼,别的那些花儿也不比你幸运——虽开放在伊甸园中也已凋零, 无情的寒霜再加秋风的威力,会叫这花朵消失得一无踪迹. ►##和晚露当初曾把你养育,让你这小小的生命来到世上,原来若乌有,就没什么可失去,因为你的死让你同先前一样；这来去之间不过是一个钟点——这就是脆弱的花享有的天年.►This poem is divided into four stanzas. Each stanza consists of six lines, rhyming "ababcc〞, and sounds just like music.►In the first two stanzas, Freneau devoted more attention to the environment of the flower in which he found it than to the appearance of the flower. He conmented on the secluded nature of the place where the honey suckle grew, drawing a conclusion that it was due to nature's protectiveness that the flower was able to lead a peaceful life free from men’s disturbance and destruction.►But the next stanza immediately changed the tone from silent admiration and appreciation to outright lamentation over the "future’s doom〞of the flower – even nature was unable to save the flower from its death.►And then, Freneau said, "if nothing once, you nothing lose.〞It is true in people’s existence. There is fate for the life and death. After one’s death, the only thing he can take away is what he brought when he gave birth to this world.Part III The Literature of RomanticismI．Historical Introductionfrom early 19th century through the outbreak of the Civil War1. native factorsIt is a period following American Independence. In this period, democracy and political equality became the ideals of the new nation. America was in an economic boom. There is a tremendous sense of optimism and hope among the people. The spirit of the time is, in some measure, responsible for the outburst of romantic feeling.2. foreign influenceRomanticism emerged in England from 1798 to 1832. It added impetus to the growth of Romanticism in America. In England the general features of the works of the romantics is a dissatisfaction with the bourgeois society. British Romanticism inspired the American imagination. Thus American Romanticism was in a way derivative. II．American Romanticism: American RenaissanceRomanticism <appeared in England in the last years of the 18th century and spread to continental Europe and then> came to America early in the 19th century. It was pluralistic; its manifestations were as varied, as individualistic, and as conflicting as the cultures and the intellects from which it sprang. Yet romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in the 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.It exalted the individual, which suited the nation's revolutionary heritage and its frontier egalitarianism. It revolted against traditional art forms, which gratified those cramped by the strict limits of neoclassic literature, painting, and architecture. It rejected rationalism, which gladdened those who were opposed to cool, intellectual religious wrapped with the remnants of Calvinism.Romantic writers placed increasing value on the free expression of emotion and display increasing attention to the spiritual states of their characters. Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitivity and excitement. The novel of terror became the profitable literary staple that it remains today. Writers of gothic novels sought to arouse in their readers a turbulent sense of the remote, the supernatural, and the terrifying by describing castles and landscapes illuminated by moonlight and haunted by ghosts. A preoccupation with the demonic and the mystery of evil marked by the works of Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and a host of lesser writers.Early American romanticism was best represented by New England poets William Cullen Bryant <1794-1878> and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow <1807-1882> inpoetry, and James Fenimore Cooper <1789-1851> and Washington Irving<1783-1859> in fiction.The later/peak period is represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson <1803-1882> and Henry David Thoreau <1817-1862>.III．WashingtonIrving1. Rip Van WinkleThe story, written while Irving was staying with his sister Sarah and her husband Henry van Wart in Birmingham, England, is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. A villager of Dutch descent escapes his nagging wife by wandering up Kaaterskill Clove near his home town of Palenville, New York in the Catskill Mountains. After various adventures <in one version of the tale, he encounters the spirits of Henry Hudson and his crew playing ninepins at the top of KaaterskillFalls>, he settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes up 20 years later and returns to his village. He finds out that his wife is dead and his close friends have died in a war or gone somewhere else. He immediately gets into trouble when he hails himself a loyal subject of George III, not knowing that in the meantime the American Revolution has taken place and he is not supposed to be a loyal subject of any Hanoverian any longer.The story has become a part of cultural mythology: even for those who have never read the original story, "Rip Van Winkle" means either a person who sleeps for a long period of time, or one who is inexplicably <perhaps even blissfully> unaware of current events.Rip Van Winkle has been seen as a symbol of several aspects of America. Rip, like America, is immature, self-centered, careless, anti-intellectual, imaginative, and jolly as the overgrown child. The town itself symbolizes America – forever and rapidly changing. Washington Irving has Rip sleep through his own country’s history, through what we might call the birth pangs of America, and return to the "busy, bustling, disputatious〞self-consciously adult United States of America. His conflicts and dreams are those of the nation – the conflict of innocence and experience, work and leisure, the old and the new, the head and the heart.2. The Legend of Sleepy HollowThe story is set circa 1790 in the Dutch settlement of TarryTown, in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. It tells the story of Ichabod Crane, a sycophantic, lean, lanky, and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer, Baltus Van Tassel. As Crane leaves a party he attended at the Van Tassel home on an autumn night, he is pursued by the Headless Horseman, who is supposedly the ghost of a Hessian trooper who had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during "some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War, and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head". Ichabod mysteriously disappears from town, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones, who was "to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related". Although the nature of the HeadlessHorseman is left open to interpretation, the story implies that the Horseman was really Brom Bones in disguise.The creation of archetypes is a p articularly subtle feat of Irving’s consummate craftsmanship. We may see in Ichabod Crane a precocious, effect New Englander, shrewd, commercial, a city-slicker, who is rather an interloper, a somewhat destructive force, and who comes along to swindle the villagers. His book learning turns on him, and he is driven away from where he does not belong, so that the serene village remains permanently good and happy.Brom Bones, on the other hand, is of a Huck Finn-type of country bumpkin, rough, vigorous, boisterous but inwardly very good, a frontier type put out there to shift for himself.Thus, the rivalry in love between Ichabod and Brom, viewed in this way, suddenly assumes the dimensions of two ethical groups locked in a kind of historic contest. As to the style of the piece, it represents Irving at his best. The association between a certain local and the inward movement of a character, the emotional loading of almost every line of the story, their effect on the five sense of the reader whose attention is so fully engaged and who feels so much involved in what is happening – all these have placed this and other Irving stories among the best of American short stories.3. Irving’s Style<1> Irving avoids moralizing as much as possible. He writes simply to entertain rather to enlighten.<2> He is good at setting his stories in a magic and fantastic atmosphere. The richness of the atmosphere compensates for the slimness of his plot.<3> His characters are vivid and true to life. They tend to linger in the mind of the reader.<4> His writing is full of humor and satire.<5> two important themes, i.e. the themes of change and search for identify. These themes capture the spirit of Irving’s times and reflect his philosophical thinking on contemporary American social life.IV. James Fenimore Cooper 詹姆斯费尼莫尔库珀<1789--1851> -- launched two kinds of immensely popular stories → the sea adventure tale and the frontier sagaThe Leatherstocking Tales《皮袜子故事集》,regard as "the nearest approach yet to an American epic.〞〔开创了美国文学的一个重要主题—文明的发展对大自然和它代表的崇高品德的摧残与破坏〕Its central figure in the novels, Natty Bumppo <美国文学的一个重要的原型人物—独立不羁、逃避社会、在大自然中需求完美精神世界的班波>. Cooper’s Works<1> Precaution <1820, his first novel, imitating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice><2> The Spy <his second novel and great success><3> Leatherstocking Tales <his masterpiece, a series of five novels>The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, The Prairie Cooper’s Style<1> highly imaginative<2> good at inventing tales<3> good at landscape description<4> conservative<5> characterization wooden and lacking in probability<6> language and use of dialect not authenticLiterary AchievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the historyof the United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring and pushing the American frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West. He turned the west and frontier as a useable past and he helped to introduce western tradition to American literature.V. William Cullen Bryant 威廉卡伦布赖恩特<1794-1878>-- the first American to gain the stature of a major poet.To a Waterfowl《致水鸟》The Yellow Violet 《黄色的堇香花》VI. Edgar Allen Poe <1809-1849>American writer, known as a poet and critic but most famous as the first master of the short-story form, especially tales of the mysterious and macabre. The literary meritsof Poe's writings have been debated since his death, but his works have remained popular and many major American and European writers have professed their artistic debt to him.For a long time after his death Poe remained probably the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature.Emerson dismissed him in three words, "the jingle man.〞Mark Twain declared his prose to be unreadable.Henry James made the ruthless statement that "an enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive state of development.〞Whitman, who was the only famous literary figure present at the Poe Memorial Ceremony in Baltimore in 1875, had mixed feelings about him: he did admit Poe’s genius, but it was "its narrow range and unhealthy, lurid quality〞that most impressed him.T. S. Eliot proclaimed him a critic of the first rank, but charged him with "slipshod writing.〞Poe’s WorksPoetry: The Raven《乌鸦》Horror Fiction: The Fall of the House of Usher《厄舍大厦的倒塌》Whodunit: Murders in the Rue Morgue《莫格街谋杀案》致海伦海伦,你的美在我的眼里, 有如往日尼西亚的三桅船船行在飘香的海上,悠悠地把已倦于漂泊的困乏船员送回他故乡的海岸.早已习惯于在怒海上飘荡, 你典雅的脸庞,你的鬈发, 你水神般的风姿带我返航, 返回那往时的希腊和罗马, 返回那往时的壮丽和辉煌. 看哪！壁龛似的明亮窗户里, 我看见你站着,多像尊雕像, 一盏玛瑙的灯你拿在手上！塞姬女神哪,神圣的土地才是你家乡！In the first stanza, Helen’s beauty is soothing. It provides security and safety. Perhaps the reader is expected to associate Marlowe’s famous line: "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships〞to Helen’s beauty, for her beauty is as hypnotic for the speaker as were the ships that transported another wanderer – Ulysses - home from Troy.Throughout the poem, Poe uses allusions to classical names and places, as well as certain kinds of images to create the impression of a far-off idealized, unreal woman, like a Greek statue. Words that support the image of an ideal woman are "hyacinth〞and "classic〞<line 7>, "Naiad airs〞<line 8>, and "statue-like〞<line 12>. Helen stands, not like a real woman, but like a saint in a "window-niche〞<line 11>. She becomes a symbol both of beauty and of frustration, a romantically idealized, yet inaccessible image of the heart’s desire.乌鸦从前一个阴郁的子夜,我独自沉思,慵懒疲竭,沉思许多古怪而离奇、早已被人遗忘的传闻——当我开始打盹,几乎入睡,突然传来一阵轻擂,仿佛有人在轻轻叩击,轻轻叩击我的房门."有人来了,〞我轻声嘟喃,"正在叩击我的房门——唯此而已,别无他般.〞哦,我清楚地记得那是在萧瑟的十二月；每一团奄奄一息的余烬都形成阴影伏在地板.我当时真盼望翌日；——因为我已经枉费心机想用书来消除悲哀——消除因失去丽诺尔的悲叹——因那被天使叫作丽诺尔的少女,她美丽娇艳——在这儿却默默无闻,直至永远.那柔软、暗淡、飒飒飘动的每一块紫色窗布使我心中充满前所未有的恐怖——我毛骨惊然；为平息我心儿停跳．我站起身反复叨念"这是有人想进屋,在叩我的房门——.更深夜半有人想进屋,在叩我的房门；——唯此而已,别无他般.〞很快我的心变得坚强；不再犹疑,不再彷徨,"先生,〞我说,"或夫人,我求你多多包涵；刚才我正睡意昏昏,而你来敲门又那么轻,你来敲门又那么轻,轻轻叩击我的房门,我差点以为没听见你〞——说着我拉开门扇；——唯有黑夜,别无他般.凝视着夜色幽幽,我站在门边惊惧良久,疑惑中似乎梦见从前没人敢梦见的梦幻；可那未被打破的寂静,没显示任何迹象."丽诺尔？〞便是我嗫嚅念叨的唯一字眼,我念叨"丽诺尔！〞,回声把这名字轻轻送还,唯此而已,别无他般.我转身回到房中,我的整个心烧灼般疼痛,很快我又听到叩击声,比刚才听起来明显."肯定,〞我说,"肯定有什么在我的窗棂；让我瞧瞧是什么在那里,去把那秘密发现——让我的心先镇静一会儿,去把那秘密发现；——那不过是风,别无他般！〞我猛然推开窗户,.心儿扑扑直跳就像打鼓,一只神圣往昔的健壮乌鸦慢慢走进我房间；它既没向我致意问候；也没有片刻的停留；而以绅士淑女的风度,栖在我房门的上面——栖在我房门上方一尊帕拉斯半身雕像上面——栖坐在那儿,仅如此这般.于是这只黑鸟把我悲伤的幻觉哄骗成微笑,以它那老成持重一本正经温文尔雅的容颜,"虽然冠毛被剪除,〞我说,"但你肯定不是懦夫, 你这幽灵般可怕的古鸦,漂泊夜的彼岸——请告诉我你尊姓大名,在黑沉沉的冥府阴间！〞乌鸦答日"永不复述.〞听见如此直率的回答,我惊叹这丑陋的乌鸦,虽说它的回答不着边际——与提问几乎无关；因为我们不得不承认,从来没有活着的世人曾如此有幸地看见一只鸟栖在他房门的面——鸟或兽栖在他房间门上方的半身雕像上面,有这种名字"永不复还.〞但那只独栖于肃穆的半身雕像上的乌鸦只说了这一句话,仿佛它倾泻灵魂就用那一个字眼.然后它便一声不吭——也不把它的羽毛拍动——直到我几乎是哺哺自语"其他朋友早已消散——明晨它也将离我而去——如同我的希望已消散.〞这时那鸟说"永不复还.〞惊异于那死寂漠漠被如此恰当的回话打破,"肯定,〞我说,"这句话是它唯一的本钱,从它不幸动主人那儿学未.一连串无情飞灾曾接踵而至,直到它主人的歌中有了这字眼——直到他希望的挽歌中有了这个忧伤的字眼‘永不复还,永不复还.’〞但那只乌鸦仍然把我悲伤的幻觉哄骗成微笑,我即刻拖了X软椅到门旁雕像下那只鸟跟前；然后坐在天鹅绒椅垫上,我开始冥思苦想,浮想连着浮想,猜度这不祥的古鸟何出此言——这只狰狞丑陋可怕不吉不祥的古鸟何出此言,为何聒噪‘永不复还.〞我坐着猜想那意见但没对那鸟说片语只言.此时,它炯炯发光的眼睛已燃烧进我的心坎；我依然坐在那儿猜度,把我的头靠得很舒服,舒舒服服地靠在那被灯光凝视的天鹅绒衬垫,但被灯光爱慕地凝视着的紫色的天鹅绒衬垫,她将显出,啊,永不复还！接着我想,空气变得稠密,被无形香炉熏香,提香炉的撒拉弗的脚步声响在有簇饰的地板."可怜的人,〞我呼叫,"是上帝派天使为你送药,这忘忧药能中止你对失去的丽诺尔的思念；喝吧如吧,忘掉对失去的丽诺尔的思念！〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞"先知！〞我说"凶兆！——仍是先知,不管是鸟还是魔！是不是魔鬼送你,或是暴风雨抛你来到此岸,孤独但毫不气馁,在这片妖惑鬼崇的荒原——在这恐怖萦绕之家——告诉我真话,求你可怜——基列有香膏吗？——告诉我——告诉我,求你可怜！〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞"先知！〞我说,"凶兆！——仍是先知、不管是鸟是魔！凭我们头顶的苍天起誓——凭我们都崇拜的上帝起誓——告诉这充满悲伤的灵魂.它能否在遥远的仙境拥抱被天使叫作丽诺尔的少女,她纤尘不染——拥抱被天使叫作丽诺尔的少女,她美丽娇艳.〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞"让这话做我们的道别之辞,鸟或魔！〞我突然叫道——"回你的暴风雨中去吧,回你黑沉沉的冥府阴间！别留下黑色羽毛作为你的灵魂谎言的象征！留给我完整的孤独！——快从我门上的雕像滚蛋！从我心中带走你的嘴；从我房门带走你的外观！〞乌鸦说"永不复还.〞那乌鸦并没飞去,它仍然栖息,仍然栖息在房门上方那苍白的帕拉斯半身雕像上面；而它的眼光与正在做梦的魔鬼眼光一模一样,照在它身上的灯光把它的阴影投射在地板；而我的灵魂,会从那团在地板上漂浮的阴暗被擢升么——永不复还！The Raven is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. It is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow descent into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. The raven seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore". The poem makes use of a number of folk and classical references.安娜贝尔.李很久很久以前,在一个滨海的国度里,住着一位少女你或许认得,她的芳名叫安娜贝尔.李；这少女活着没有别的愿望,只为和我俩情相许.那会儿我还是个孩子,她也未脱稚气, 在这个滨海的国度里；可我们的爱超越一切,无人能与——我和我的安娜贝尔.李；我们爱得那样深,连天上的六翼天使也把我和她妒嫉.这就是那不幸的根源,很久以前在这个滨海的国度里,夜里一阵寒风从白云端吹起,冻僵了我的安娜贝尔.李；于是她那些高贵的亲戚来到凡间把她从我的身边夺去,将她关进一座坟墓在这个滨海的国度里.这些天使们在天上,不与我们一半快活, 于是他们把我和她妒嫉——对——就是这个缘故〔谁不晓得呢,在这个滨海的国度里〕云端刮起了寒风,冻僵并带走了我的安娜贝尔.李.可我们的爱情远远地胜利那些年纪长于我们的人——那些智慧胜于我们的人——无论是天上的天使,还是海底的恶魔,都不能将我们的灵魂分离,我和我美丽的安娜贝尔.李.因为月亮的每一丝清辉都勾起我的回忆梦里那美丽的安娜贝尔.李群星的每一次升空都令我觉得秋波在闪动那是我美丽的安娜贝尔.李就这样,伴着潮水,我整夜躺在她身旁。
美国文学史考点整理
美国文学研究一、作者及其主要作品梭罗《瓦尔登，或林中生活》霍桑《红字》短篇小说如《教长的黑面纱》《小伙子布朗》等麦尔维尔《白鲸》爱伦·坡《怪诞故事集》惠特曼《草叶集》亨利·詹姆斯《一位女士的画像》马克·吐温《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》《神秘的陌生人》德莱塞《美国的悲剧》杰克·伦敦《马丁·伊登》、《野性的呼唤》、《海狼》、《白牙》T·S·艾略特《荒原》（诗歌）菲茨杰拉德《了不起的盖茨比》海明威《太阳照常升起》福克纳《喧哗与骚动》尤今·奥尼尔《毛猿》《琼斯皇》《进入黑夜的漫长旅程》（戏剧）斯坦贝克《愤怒的葡萄》索尔·贝娄《洪堡的礼物》、《挂起来的人》诺曼·梅勒《裸者与死者》塞林格《麦田里的守望者》厄普代克《兔子，跑吧》（“兔子四部曲”）海勒《第二十二条军规》纳博科夫《洛丽塔》凯鲁亚克《在路上》威廉斯《玻璃动物园》（戏剧）米勒《推销员之死》（戏剧）拉尔夫·埃里森《看不见的人》托尼·莫里森《所罗门之歌》爱丽丝·沃克《紫色》谭恩美《喜福会》独立战争前后的文学富兰克林《自传》《穷查理历书》《致富之路》托马斯·潘恩《常识》《人的权利》《理性的时代》托马斯·杰弗逊《独立宣言》克里夫古尔《一个美国农夫的信》弗瑞诺《野忍冬花》《印第安人墓地》《纪念英勇的美国人》查尔斯·布罗克丹·布朗《韦兰德》二、简答题+论述题1.美国文学的诞生及一般特色1)历史背景：1775-81年的北美独立战争；1783年美利坚合众国的成立；1861-65年的南北战争。
独立战争以后，特别是进入19世纪之后，独立的美国文学开始诞生。
2)美国文学的一般特色：A.早期人少地多，为个人理想的实现提供了很大的空间和可能性，因此美国文学富于民主自由精神，个人主义、个性解放的观念较为强烈；B.这是一个由各国移民组成的国家，所以文学的内容、思想倾向和艺术风格都呈现出多样性、庞杂性；C.许多作家直接来自社会下层，使得文学的生活气息浓郁，平民色彩鲜明，具有开朗、豪放的特点；D.由于美国作家的敏感、好奇，使得美国文学浪潮迭起，日新月异，瞬息万变。
（完整版）美国文学史-知识点梳理
（完整版）美国文学史-知识点梳理Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. ( A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.)II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of two kinds:1) Practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people "at home" what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (1608)A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country (1612)General History of Virgini a (1624): the Indian princess PocahontasCaptain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders ofthe colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII (At that time, the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church ofEngland. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism(1) predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived avery frugal life. This is their ethics.(2) Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.(3) Limited atonement (the salvation of a selected few)(4) theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment3. Influence on American Literature(1) Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.(2) Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not wantcolonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. They prevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependenceby ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years (1776-1783) and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America. II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision oftheir writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.III．Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym “Silence Do good” .At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.”Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of thePuritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence ofornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau (1752-1832)“Poet of the American Revolution”“Father of American Poetry”“Pioneer of the New Romanticism”“A gifted and versatile lyric poet”Works“The Wild Honey Suckle”“The Indian Burying Ground”“To a Caty-Did”Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life ExperienceHe was born in New York.At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his friends (H. H. Brackenridge) a poem entitled “The Rising Glory of America”.Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.After being released, he published “The British Prison Ship” in 1781.In the same year, he published “T o the Memory of the Brave Americans”.After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works“The Rising Glory of America” (1772) 《美洲光辉的兴起》“The House of Night” (1779,1786) 《夜之屋》“The British Prison Ship” (1781) 《英国囚船》“To the Memory of the Brave Americans” (1781) 《纪念美国勇士》?“”The Wild Honey Suckle” (1786) 《野忍冬花》“The Indian Burying Ground” (1788) 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花（黄杲炘译）美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。
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ⅠColonial America(17th century)殖民主义时期文学1.In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America and he mistook the native people onthe new continent for Indians.Character of colonial literature:a.content: religious, politicalb.form: diary, journal, letters, travel books, sermons, history (personalliterature)c.Style: simple. direct, concised.out of humble originsEarly in the 17th century, the English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts began the main stream of what we recognize as the American national history.The earliest settlers in America included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese.The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607(北美弗吉尼亚詹姆斯顿)2.Captain Town Smith, the first American writer3.Puritan Thoughts: hard work, thrift(节俭), piety(虔诚), sobriety(节制), 这些也成了早期美国作品主导思想.典型的清教徒：John Cotton & Roger William, John Cotton was called “the Patriarch of New England(新英格兰教父)”清教徒采用的文学体裁：narratives(日记) and journals(游记)清教徒在美国的写作内容：1）Their voyage to the new land2）Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops3）About dealing with Indians4）Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit4.Private literature: theological, moral, historical, political5.The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, rose to the level of realpoetry. Anne Bradstreet is one of the most interesting of the early poets, 英国最早移民到美国的诗人. The best of the Puritan poets was Edward Taylor.ⅡReason and Revolution(18th century)理性和革命时期文学1.The War for Independence (1776-1783) ended in the formation of a Federativebourgeois democratic republic - the United States of America.2.Bourgeois Enlightenment3.Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard’s Almanac(穷人理查德的年鉴), an annual collection ofproverbs.The Autobiography, 18世纪美国唯一流传至今的自传⏹The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a recordof self-examination and self-improvement. The Puritans, as a type, were very much given to self-analysis.⏹The Autobiography shows Franklin was spokesman for the new order of 18th-centuryEnlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free, by nature endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.⏹It is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision. The plainness of its style,the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the obvious features we cannot mistake.⏹Tone: OptimismThe American dream began with the settlement of the American continent –the Promised Land – the Garden of Eden – optimistic about the future4.Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, 极大恢复士气5.Thomas Jefferson:The Declaration of Independence6.Philip Freneau, Father of American Poetry: The Indian Burring Ground(印第安人的坟地)The Wild Honey Suckle(野忍冬花)⏹The poem is an indication of the poet’s dedication to American subjectmatter and the natural scenes on the new continent.⏹Here in this poem Freneau deals with the themes of loveliness and thetransience of life.⏹This poem, well within the melancholy genre, consists of the poet’s pensivemusings on the flower’s story.⏹The first two stanzas picture the advantages of the flower’s country retreat.⏹The next two stanzas unite the theme of the seasons with the thought that allmust die. Death and decay, as well as creation, are so common, so much a part of the universal law.ⅢRomanticism(end of the 18th century——Civil War)浪漫主义文学1.Washington Irving, Father of American literature: Sketch Book(见闻札记, the firstmodern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature, a collection of essays, sketches, and tales)2.James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales(皮袜子故事集, the AmericanNational Epic) contains of The Deerslayer(杀鹿者), The Last of the Mohicans(最后的莫希干人), The Pathfinder(探路人), The Pioneers(拓荒者), and The Prairie(大草原).3.Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven(乌鸦), Annabel Lee(安娜贝尔·李), The Fall of the House ofUsher(鄂榭府崩溃记)To Helen○Edgar Allan Poe wrote “To Helen” as a reflection on the beauty of Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard, of Richmond, Va., who died in 1824. She was the mother of one of Poe’s school classmates, Robert Stanard. When Robert invited Edgar, then 14, to his home (at 19th and East Grace Streets in Richmond) in 1823, Poe was greatly taken with the 27-year-old woman, who is said to have urged him to write poetry. He was later to write that she was his first real love.○ 1 stanza⏹Helen: An allusion to Helen of Troy in Greek mythology.⏹Nicean: Of or from Nicea (also spelled Nicaea), a city in ancient Bithynia (nowpart of present-day Turkey) near the site of the Trojan War.⏹Barks: small sailing vessels.⏹End rhyme: A, B, A,B, B.○ 2 stanza⏹wont: accustomed to⏹Naiad: Naiads were minor nature goddesses in Greek and Romanmythology. They inhabited and presided over rivers, lakes, streams, and fountains.⏹Naiad airs: Peaceful, gentle breezes or qualities⏹The glory that . . .Rome: These last two lines, beginning with the glorythat was, are among the most frequently quoted lines in world literature.⏹End rhyme: A, B, A, B, A.Half rhyme: Face and Greece○ 3 stanza⏹Psyche: In Greek and Roman mythology, Psyche was a beautifulprincess dear to the god of love, Eros (Cupid), who would visit her in a darkened room ina palace. One night she used an agate lamp to discover his identity. Later, at the urging ofEros, Zeus gave her the gift of immortality. Eros then married her.⏹End rhyme: A, B, B, A, B.⏹from the regions which are Holy Land: from ancient Greece and Rome;from the memory Poe had of Mrs. Stanard○Theme■Beauty, as Poe uses the word in the poem, appears to refer to the woman's soul as well as her body. On the one hand, he represents her as Helen of Troy–the quintessence of physical beauty–at the beginning of the poem. On the other, he represents her as Psyche–the quintessence of soulful beauty–at the end of the poem. In Greek, psyche means soul.4.Transcendentalism(超验主义):19th-century movement of writers and philosophers in New England who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of man, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. In their religious quest, the Transcendentalists rejected the conventions of 18th-century thought; and what began in dissatisfaction with Unitarianism developed into a repudiation of the whole established order.Representative figures: some 30 men and a couple of women such as Emerson, Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, and Margaret Fuller, most of them teachers or clergymen, radicals against rigid rationalism of Unitarianism.Time: 1836-1855Essence: “Transcendentalism is idealism” in essenceMajor Features:A.Emphasis on spirit;B.The importance of the individual as the most important element ofsociety;C．N ature as symbolic of the Spirit or GodRalph Waldo Emerson, Father of American Essay, Essayist, poet, philosopher, orator, critic : Nature(the Bible and manifesto(宣言) of the New England Transcendentalism), Self-relianceHenry David Thoreau(The Prophet(提倡者) of Non-Violence Movement, he wasEmerson’s truest disciple, who put into practice many of Emerson’s theories): Walden5.Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter⑴女主角honest, calmly face fault 诚实，坦然的面对罪过。