第一章 殖民地时期及独立革命时期的美国文学

第一章殖民地时期及独立革命时期的美国文学

I.知识结构

II.知识点精讲

1.时代背景

1)The Native American and their culture---Indians. Before Christopher

Columbus discovered the American continent, there was no real literature.

2)Christopher Columbus discovered the American continent in 1492.

3)Captain Christopher Newport reached Virginia in 1607.

4)Puritans came to the New England area, by Mayflower（五月花号）in

1620.

In 1629, the puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony.（马萨

诸塞湾）

Puritans came to America out of various reasons, but it should be remembered that they were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. It is true that they wished to escape religious persecution—and the English government regarded its American colony as an ideal dumping ground for the undesirables, but they were also determined to find a place where they could worship in the way they thought true Christians should.They regarded themselves as God's chosen people, they were meant to reestablish a commonwealth based on the teachings of the Bible, restore the lost paradise, and build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. 5)The puritan migration began.

The settlement of the North American continent by the English began in the early part of the seventeenth century. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them Puritans. They carried with them to America a code of values, a philosophy of life, and a point of view, which, in time, took root in the New World and became what is popularly known as American Puritanism.

6) The British Industrial revolution (1750-1830) spurred the economy in American colonies; in American, there was War of Independence (1776-1783); the spiritual life of the colonies----Enlightenment began to

appear. Thus, this period was the literature of reason and revolution (1781-1815).

2.名词解释

1）Puritans（清教徒）: They are one division of English Protestant.

They regarded the reformation of the church under Elizabeth as incomplete, and called for further purification.

The 17th century American Puritans included two parts: Separatists and Massachusetts Bay Group. Their religious doctrines are original sin, total depravity, predestination and limited atonement (or the salvation of a selected few) through a special infusion of grace from God. They regarded themselves as chosen people of God. They were meant to reestablish a commonwealth based on the teachings of the Bible, restore the lost paradise, and build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. They opposed arts and pleasure. They suspect joy and laughter as symptoms of sin.

They are opposed to mysticism and pantheism because these tended to destroy the transcendence of God.

They embraced hardships, industry and frugality. They favored

a disciplined, hard, somber, ascetic and harsh life. Their attitudes

toward work: work itself is good in addition to what it achieves, that time saved by efficiency or good fortune should be spent in doing further work. Pushing the frontiers with them as they moved