美国文学史术语翻译 作家作品

A religious doctrine that advocates hard work, self-discipline, thrift, and sobriety, regards labour as one’s divine task, without the enjoyment of the fruit of the labour. The purpose is to purify the corrupted church as had been established by Jesus Chris himself.

John cotton and William roger

Romanticism

Is intellectual movement originating in Germany at the end of 18th century that gained strength in Western Europe after the Industrial Revolution, in the reaction to the social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, its scientific rationalization of nature. The romantic values revolved around the full spectrum of the human emotional side embracing its instincts and rejecting the conventions of the Age of Reason.

Romanticism的特点：frequently shared certain general characteristics, moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that he natural world was a source of corruption.

Transcendentalism

as a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematized. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom.2) they spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. 3）they believe in the transcendence of "over soul", an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part.

Emerson 第一个提出idealism

代表人物：Emerson，believed that man was a part of absolute good。

Thoreau ，beheld divinity in the “unspotted innocence”of nature.

Social &cultural background

1 a protest of intellectualism and doctrine of the church

2 a protest of foreign influences

A idealistic philosophy of German & France (Fichte Schelling and Kant)

B oriental mysticism Hindu works, Buddhism/the doctrine and philosophy of Chinese Confucius and Mencius

3 product of the dual heritage of American Puritanism

Inner communication of the soul with God/puritan principle of self culture and self-improvement. Feature s: 1 emphasis on the spirit or over soul 2 emphasis on the importance of individual 3 nature as the symbolic of God/spirit/over soul

Realism

is a movement in European and American literature from 1830s to the end of the century. This new attitude was characterized by a great interest in the realities of life. It aimed at the interpretation of the actualities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic colour. It expressed the concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low.

代表作家：William Dean Howells Mark Twain and Henry James

1. Changes for the better

2. Changes for the worse