美国文学定义

文学术语定义Romanticism ；定义 a movement of the 18th and 19th century. It is the predominance of imagination over reason and formal rules and over the sense of fact or the actual, a psychological desire to escape from unpleasant realities.具体的概念Romanticism was a movement in literature, philosophy, music and art which developed in Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It emphasized individual values and aspirations above those of society as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. It looked to the Middle Ages and to direct contact with nature for inspiration. It gave impetus to the national liberation movement in 19th-century Europe.特征：It was the expression of “a real new experience” and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien. 2 It tended to be didactic because of Puritan influence. 3 It was both imitative and independent.代表Washington Irving The Sketch Book James Fenimore Cooper Leatherstocking Tales(2)、Transcendentalism定义：A broad, philosophical movement in New England during the Romantic era (peaking between 1835 and 1845). It stressed the role of divinity in nature and the individual…s intuition, and exalted feeling over reason.特征；1 The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Over soul , as the most important thing in the universe. 2 The Transcendentalists stressed theimportance of the individual. 3 The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.代表人物：Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803--1882)拉尔夫.瓦尔多.爱默生Nature 《论自然》Henry David Thoreau (1817--1862)亨利.大卫.梭罗Walden瓦尔登湖Realism: 1. Time: the latter half of the 19th century, esp. 1870s, 1880s2. Features A: Realism came as a reaction against “the lie” of Romanticism and sentimentalism.B: It expressed the concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low.C: Its style was genteel was graceful by Howells and Henry James, plain and rough by Mark Twain and some other local color writers. D: Realists tried to vividly describe details from observation of actual life.E: Realists tried to offer an objective rather than an idealized view of human nature and society.3. Representative writers: William Dean Howells, Henry James and Mark Twain Naturalism的背景Industrialism: Industrialism produced financial giants as well as an industrial proletariat. Slums appeared in great numbers and the city poor lived a life of insecurity, suffering, and violence. Self-reliance disappeared in the fast development of economyCharles Darwin‟s theory: the struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, and natural selection.Herbert Spencer‟s social Dar winism --- the weak and stupid would fall victim in thenatural course of events to economic forces.Emile Zola‟s theory: The purpose of a novelist was to be a scientist, to place his characters in a situation and then to watch the influences of heredity and environment destroy them, or, if they were good enough, to watch them overcome the inimical force of heredity and environment.特征Humans are controlled by law of heredity and environment. And since they are controlled, they lack freedom of their own will. The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires. Life becomes a struggle for survival. The naturalists dismiss the realists as far too “genteel”. They find real life at the violent, sensational, sordid, unpleasant, and ugly aspects of life. They write about the life of poverty and crime, and all of these other aspects of life that are not too pleasant to consider.3. Representatives: Stephen Crane, Norris and Theodore DreiserStephen Crane‟s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) is the first naturalistic novel in America.Norris‟ McTeague is the “first full-bodied naturalistic American novel” and “a consciously naturalistic manifesto.”Theodore Dreiser‟s Sister Carrie is the greatest naturalistic work.。

Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and briefs of puritans. The American puritans accept the doctrine and practice of predestinationLost generation Lost Generation of the Roaring TwentiesWar disfigures and tears away precious lives. Its horrors embed themselves likean infectious disease in the minds of the survivors, who, when left to salvage the pieces of their former existences, are brushed into obscurity by the individuals attempting to justify the annihilation of the world that was. The era following World War I epitomizes the inheritance of tribulation and sorrow for the generation that remains to retrieve some form of happiness - the lost generation. The Sun Also Rises will maintain a place in history not only for its literary merit, but also for its documentation of what writer Gertrude Stein called the "Lost Generation."After WWI, many young Americans left their native country, bitter over the war and seeking adventure. A circle of artistic expatriates appeared-- among them Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound, and Pablo Picasso. Hemingway and Fitzgerald employed their keen social observation in writing The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby, respectively, widely considered the two masterpieces of Lost Generation fiction.Imagism意象主义Imagist movement is a movement of English and American poets in revolt from romanticism, seeking clarity of expression through the use of precise images. Its first anthology: Des Imagistes, published in 1914, edited by Pound. The principles of the imagist manifesto were laid down by Pound in 1913. The official credo was prepared the 1915 anthology: Some Imagist Poets, edited by Amy LowellMajor Features of Imagism特征With a spirit of revolt against conventions, imagism was anti-romantic and anti-Victorian. Imagism produced free verse without imposing a rhythmical pattern. In a sense, imagism was equivalent to naturalism infiction. Imagism tried to record objective observations of an object or a situation without interpretation or comment by the poet. The imagists remained totally objective. They merely wanted to give the reader an image. That was a picture, or a sound, or a smell, or a taste, or a touch. Imagism required a poet to present just the picture, not his insight.The southern renaissance 南方文艺复兴a. There was the historically significant conflict between the Hamiltonian north and the Jeffersonian soouth. b. The Civil War stood as the watershed of two differnet stages in many aspects. The South was never more united closely spiritually than before. c. American southern literature can date back to Edgar Allen Poe, and reach its summit with the appearance of the two giants Faulkner and Wolfe. The Southern Renaissance is featured in its unique feeling of guilt, failure and poverty as well.3. Southern Myths a. Chevalier heritage b. Agrarian virtue c. Plantation aristocracy d. Lost causee. White supremacyf. Purity of womanhoodThe local colorism定义Definition It is a type of writing that was popular in the late 19th century, particularly among authors in the American South of the particular region in which the story took place. Local color fiction “exploits the speech, dress, mannerisms, habits of thought which are peculiar to a certain region. Local color writing exists primarily for the portrayal of the people and life of a geographical setting” (Holman 295). Local colorism is the detailed representation in prose fiction of the setting, dialect, customs, dress and ways of thinking and feeling which aredistinctive of a particular region. 2. Local colorists: Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Willa Cather, John Steinbeck and William Faulkner.The Jazz Age What repeats frequently in the majority of his books describes the period from 1918-1929, the years between the end of World War I and the start of the Roaring Twenties; ending with the rise of the Great Depression, the traditional values of this age saw great decline while the American stock market soared. The focus of the elements of this age, in some contrast with the Roaring Twenties, in historical and cultural studies, are somewhat different, with a greater emphasis on all Modernism.The age takes its name from jazz music, which saw a tremendous surge in popularity among many segments of society. Among the prominent concerns and trends of the period are the public embrace of technological developments (typically seen as progress)—cars, air travel and the telephone—as well as new modernist trends in social behavior, the arts, and culture. Central developments included Art Deco design and architecture. In addition, many amateur artists began to aspire including Duke Ellington, Picasso, etc.New criticism:New Criticism was a dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the mid twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Its adherents were emphatic in their advocacy of close reading and attention to texts themselves, and their rejection of criticism based on extra-textual sources, especially biography. New Criticism emphasizes explication, or “close reading,” of “the work i tself.” It rejects old historicism‟s attention to biographical and sociological matters.Instead, the objective determination as to “how a piece work” can be found through close focus and analysis, rather than through extraneous and erudite special knowledge. It has long been the pervasive and standard approach to literature in college and high school curricula.Beat generation: One distinct group of poets in the postwar period is the Confessional School. This includes many people whose poetry seems to share common features such as a ruthless, excruciating self-analysis of one‟s own background and heritage, one‟s own most private desires and fantasies etc., and the urgent “I …all-tell-it-all-to-you” impulse: Delmore Schwartz, Stanley Kunitz, Theodore Roethke, John Berryman, W.D. Snodgrass, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Adrrienne.。