美国文学 1. Romantic
美国文学名词解释
1. Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. 超验主义，它是一个蓬勃发展的新英格兰的哲学和文学运动，反对理性主义和加尔文主义的反应。
它强调直观地了解上帝没有教会的帮助下，主张心灵的独立性。
2. Romanticism had appeared in England in the last years of the eighteenth century. It spread to conti nental Europe and then came to America early in the nineteenth century. It came into being as a re action against the prevailing neoclassical spirit and rationalism during the Age of Reason. 浪漫主义曾经出现在英国，在过去几年的十八世纪。
它蔓延到欧洲大陆，然后来到美国在十九世纪初。
它应运而生作为理性的时代中针对当时新古典主义精神和理性的反应。
3. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puritans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the Church of England. 清教主义，它是清教徒，谁曾打算净化和简化英国教会的宗教礼仪的宗教信仰。
美国文学浪漫主义英文版
American RomanticismRomantic Period is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature. When Americans were constructing their country, they also began to realize their differences from their European counterparts. They began to hope to see an entirely different literature model which expressed American cultures. Great writers of that period captured on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream.Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual’s experience of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. The romantic period of American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It was an age of westward expansion, of the increasing gravity of the slavery question, of an intensification of the spirit of embattled sectionalism in the South, and of a powerful impulse to reform in the North. In literature it was America’s first great creative period, a full flowering of the romantic impulse on American soil.1. The unique characteristics of American RomanticismAlthough greatly influenced by their English coun terparts, the American romantic writers revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands. For examp1e，(1) the American national experience of "pioneering into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for Amer ican writers to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams, and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral 1aw. (2) The desire for an esca pe from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper’s Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's Walden and，later, in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (3) With the growth of American national consciousness, American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. (4)Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values and American Romanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. (5) Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers.2. Representative writers and their worksWashington Irving(1783-1859) was the first American storyteller to beinternationally recognized as a man of letters and the first great prose stylist of American romanticism, and his familiar style was destined to provide a model for the prevailing prose narrative of the future. His first book A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (1809), written under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, was a great success and won him wide popularity. He is best known for his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent (1819-1820), especially in which two short stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow have become American classics. Later he wrote works of history and biographies, such as The History of Life and V oyages of Christobra Columbus (1828), A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada and The Alhambra (1832). After that, he spent the rest of his life living a life of leisure and comfort, and writing. The Life of Goldsmith (1840) and a five-volume Life of Washington (1855-1859). He died in 1859.James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) is respectfully remembered as a master of adventurous narrative and as the creator of an American hero-myth. According to a charming legend, Cooper’s first novel Precaution (1820) was a response to his wife’s challenge to improve on the current British society fiction, and the failure of this work turned him to historical novels. Later, The Spy, a tale of the Revolution he wrote, became a great success in America and Europe. In 1823, Cooper published The Pioneers (1823), which together with other 4 novels The Deer slayer (1841), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Pathfinder (1840) and The Prairie (1827) became his well-known Leather-stocking Tales. Cooper went on to write over thirty novels, including exciting adventures of the sea like The Pilot. Cooper created the American historical novel using authentic American subject.In general, American Romanticism was a kind of imitation as well as innovation because it appeared under the Western Europe Romanticism and finally it created a unique style of fiction and poetry. American Romanticism embraced the individual and rebelled against the confinement of neoclassicism and religious tradition. American Romanticism created a new literary genre that continued to influence American writers.。
美国文学史浪漫主义时期文学
美国文学史浪漫主义时期文学摘要：浪漫主义时期是美国文学史上最重要的时期之一。
当美国人在大刀阔斧地建设自己的国家时，也开始逐渐意识到逐渐与欧洲的不同。
随着不断增强的民族主义意识及民族自豪感，美国人开始希望见到自己的不同与欧洲模式，能表达他们字的美国风情的文学。
这个时代伟大的作家充满热情地记录下这个伟大时代的乐观主义精神。
随后美国文学进入了超验主义时代。
超验主义十分强调个人主义、自立、拒绝传统权威思想。
它实际上是对浪漫主义的发展。
然后，美国的国家自信心受到了内战的动摇。
内战过后，美国处在迷茫中。
在1900年前后这段时期的文学由于美国国内环境的变化而由浪漫主义和超验主义乐观精神转向对社会和人类本质更直接的探讨。
从某种角度，现实主义反对浪漫主义的理想主义和怀旧情绪。
它主要关注中下层人民的日常生活，而在这种情况下人物性格是社会因素作用的结果，环境是整个事件发展不可分割的部分。
关键词：美国文学史；浪漫主义；文学特点The Romantic Period Literature in the history of AmericanLiteratureAbstract: Romantic Period is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature. When Americans were constructing their country, they also began to realize their differences from their European counterparts. They began to hope to see an entirely different literature model which expressed American cultures. Great writers of that period captured on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream. Later，American literature came to Transcendentalism Period which emphasized individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of tradition authority. It was actually greatly influenced by romanticism. However, the country’s confidence was waved by the Civil War. After the war, Americans got lost. At about 1900s, American literature came to another entirely different age—the age of Realism. Realists searched for the social and human nature more directly. In part, Realism was a reaction against the Romantic emphasis on the strange, idealistic, and long-ago and far-away. It has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes where character is a product of social factors and environment is the integral element in the dramatic complications.Keywords: American Literature History; Romanticism; Literary characteristics1、American RomanticismRomanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual’s experience of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. The romantic period of American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It was an age of westward expansion, of the increasing gravity of the slavery question, of an intensification of the spirit of embattled sectionalism in the South, and of a powerful impulse to reform in the North. In literature it was America’s first great creative period, a full flowering of the romantic impulse on American soil.1.1The unique characteristics of American RomanticismAlthough greatly influenced by their English counterparts, the American romantic writers revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands. For examp1e，(1) the American national experience of "pioneering into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams.and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral 1aw. (2) The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper’s Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's Walden and，later, in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (3) With the growth of American national consciousness, American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. (4)Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values and American Romanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. (5) Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesserwriters.historical reasonsWith the independence of the United States of America, political autonomy, the rise of the economy, and cultural independence, the largest land expansion in American history began during the Romantic period of the United States. As of 1860, the Civil War began, the territory of the United States extended to the western coast of the Pacific Ocean. No one could have predicted the middle of 19th century. The United States expanded from just 13 states in her early days to 21, with a nearly eightfold increase in the number of citizens from 4 million in 1790 to 1860. The total population of the country reached 30 million. At that time, the European bourgeois revolution and technological revolutionThe influence of life, this young country has experienced the rapid industrialization of baptism, the affected area in addition to the United States at each city area, including the vast rural areas. Whether industrial or agricultural development are the extensive use of the steam engine, in the vast continent of the United States, many factories such as a large number of factories set up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, the establishment of the inevitable with the demand for labor force increase, at the same time, when the United States appeared a lot of new inventions, these results quickly applied to the life, the production efficiency is greatly improved. In the romantic period, along with the rapid development of American politics, economy, culture, more and more around the worldImmigrants come to the United States, provide good human resources the arrival of immigrants to the industrial and agricultural development.epilogueThe peak period of Romanticism in American literature was the transcendentalism which appeared later.The concept of transcendentalism was first put forward by the New England Transcendentalism Club in 1830s.For the people of the New World,the idea was gradually accepted by American culture,the two most important writers were Emerson and Thoreau.They are regarded as the archetypal figures of American transcendentalism.Their works play an important role in thespiritual independence of American literature.Transcendentalism emphasizes the help of heaven to help the self-help.Strive to achieve the goal of self-improvement.Two other important writers,Hawthorne and Melvil,insisted on the original sin in the period of the moralism.They believed that only through moral constraints could human nature be promoted.reference documentation[1]Leslie A Fiedler. Love and Death in the merican Novel [M]. Harmondswort: Penguin Books, 1984.[2]Zhang Deming . Huckleberry. Adventures > and adult ceremony [J]. Journal of Zhejiang University, 1999. (4):91-97.[3]Jung .C.G.Conception of Collective unconsciousness [A] .trans by Wang Ai, selected by Ye Shuxian. Myth-archetypal criticism [C] .Xi 'an: Shaanxi normal University Press, 1987.101.[4]Bakhtin. Theory of novels [M] .translated by Bai Chunren, Xiao he .Shijiazhuang: Hebei Education Press, 1998.。
美国文学各时期
1.Early Colonial Literature. 1607-17002.The literature of Reason And Revolution(18th century) The 18th-century American Enlightenment was a movement marked by an emphasis on rationality rather than tradition, scientific inquiry instead of unquestioning religious dogma, and representative government in place of monarchy. Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality as the natural rights of man.3. American RomanticismFeatures:1)From the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of he Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. It is also called “the American Renaissance”.2)The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature.3) The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values.4) Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of original sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers5)The most clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period is New England Transcendentalism6)It ranges from the comic fables of Washington Irving to the Gothic tales of Edgar Allen Poe, from the frontier adventures of James Fenimore Cooper to the narrative quests of Herman Melville, from the psychological romances of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the social realism of Rebecca Harding.4. The literature of Realism (1865-1918)1. This new attitude was characterized by a great interest in the realities of life.2.Interpreting sympathetically the “common feelings of commonplace people” was best suited as a technique to express the spirit of America.3.They introduced industrial workers and farmers , ambitious businessmen and vagrants流浪者, prostitutes妓女and unheroic胆怯的soldiers as major characters in fiction .4.They approached the harsh realities and pressures in the post Civil War society either by a comprehensive picture of modern life , or by a psychological exploration of man's subconsciousness .5.Artistically ,naturalistic writings are usually unpolished in language , lacking in academic skills and unwieldy in structure . Philosophically , the naturalists believe that the real and true is always partially hiddenfrom the eyes of the individual , or beyond this control . In a word , naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic .5. The Modern Period of literature1.The idea of “seize the day” or “enjoy the present” was pervasive, as opposed to placing all hope in the future.2.the writer’s task was to develop techniques that could represent a break with the past. Thus, the defining formal characteristics of the modernistic works are discontinuity and fragmentation.3.A typical modern work will seem to begin arbitrarily, to advance without explanation, and to end without resolution.4.They usually “screen himself” and speak ind irectly through an impersonal and objective story, which is usually a myth or a piece of the earlier literature, or a “mask”, that is, a persona.On the Characteristics and Speciality of Literature in Each Stage美国文学各个时期特点文理学院11级英语二班陈佳雯02。
英美文学选读(美国文学部分)
《英美文学选读》（美国文学部分）American LiteratureChapter one : The romantic periodI. Emerson’s transcendentalism and his attitude toward nature:1.Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind.2. Emerson’s transcendentalism:The over-soul—it is an all-pervading power goodness, from which all things come and of which all are a part. It is a supreme reality of mind, a spiritual unity of all beings and a religion. It is a communication between an individual soul and the universal over-soul. And he strongly believe in the divinity and infinity of man as an individual, so man can totally rely on himself.3.His toward nature:Emerson loves nature. His nature is the garment of the over-soul, symbolic and moral bound. Nature is not something purely of the matter, but alive with God’s presence. It ex ercise a healthy and restorative influence on human beings. Children can see nature better than adult.II. Hawthorne’s Puritanism and his black vision of man:1. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puristans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the church of England.2. his black vision of man—by the Calvinistic concept of original sin, he believed that human being are evil natured and sinful, and this sin is ever present in human heart and will pass one generation to another.3. Young Goodman Brown—it shows that everyone has some evil secrets. The innocent and na?ve Brown is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and then he becomes distrustful and doubtful. Brown stands for everyone ,who is born pure and has no contact with the real world ,and the prominent people of the village and church. They cover their secrets during daily lives, and under some circumstances such as the witch’s Sabbath, they become what they are. Even his closed wife, Faith, is no exception. So Brown is aged in that night.III. The symbolism of Melville’s Mobby-Dick1.The voyage to catch the white whale is the one of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of universe.2. To Ahab, the whale is an evil creature or the agent of an evil force that control the universe. As to readers, the whale is a symbol of physical limits, or a symbol of nature. It also can stand for the ultimate mystery of the universe and the wall behind which unknown malicious things are hiding.IV. Whitman and his Leaves of Grass :1. Theme: sing of the “en-mass” and the self / pursuit of love, happiness, and ***ual love / sometimes about politics (Drum taps)2. Whitman’s originality first in his use of the poetic form free verse (i.e. poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme),by means of which he becomes conversational and casual.3.He uses the first person pronoun “I” to stress individualism, and oral language to acquire sympathy from the common reader.Chapter two : The realistic periodI. The character analysis and social meaning of Huck Finn in Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Mark TwainHuck is a typical American boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”. He appears to be vulgar in language and in manner, but he is honest and decent in essence. His remarkable raft’s journey down on the Mississippi river can be regarded as his process of education and his way to grow up. At first, he stands by slavery, for he clings to the idea that if he lets go the slave, he will be damned to go to hell. And when the “King” sells Jim for money, Huck decides to inform Jim’s master. After he thinks of the past good time when Jim and he are on the raft where Jim shows great care and deep affection for him, he decide to rescue Jim. AndHuck still thinks he is wrong while he is doing the right thing.Huck is the son of nature and a symbol for freedom and earthly pragmatism. Through the eye of Huck, the innocent and reluctant rebel, we see the pre-Civil War American society fully exposed. Twain contrasts the life on the river and the life on the banks, the innocence and the experience, the nature and the culture, the wilderness and the civilization.II. Daisy Miller by Henry James1. Theme: The novel is a story about American innocence defeated by the stiff, traditional values of Europe. James condemns the American failure to adopt expressive manners intelligently and point out the false believing that a good heart is readily visible to all. The death of Daisy results from the misunderstanding between people with different cultural backgrounds.2. The character analysis of Daisy: She represents typical American girl, who is uninformed and without the mature guidance. Ignorance and parental indulgence combine to foster he assertive self-confidence and fierce willfulness. She behaves in the same daring naive way in Europe as she does at home. When someone is against her, she becomes more contrary. She knows that she means no harm and is amazed that anyone should think she does. She does not compromise to the European manners.3. The character analysis of Winterbourne: He is a Europeanized American, who has live too long in foreign parts. He is very experience and has a problem understanding Daisy. He endeavors to put her in sort of formula, i.e. to classify her.III. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser:1. Theme: The author invented the success of Carrie and the downfall of Hurstwood out of an inevitable and natural judgment, because the fittest can survive in a competitive, amoral society according to the social Darwinism.2. The character analysis of Carrie: She follows the right direction to a pursuit of the American dream, and the circumstances and her desire for a better life direct to the successful goal. But she is not contented, because with wealth and fame, she still finds herself lonely. She is a product of the society, a realization of the theory of the survival of the fittest.3. The character analysis of Hurstwood: He is a negative evidence of the theory of the survival of the fittest. Because he is still conventional and can not throw away the social morals, he is not fitted to live in New York.Chapter Three: The Modern PeriodI. Ezra Pound and his theory of Imagism1. The principles: a. direct treatment of the thing; b. to use absolutely noword that does not contribute to the presentation; c. to compose in the sequence of the musical; d. to use the language of common speech and the exact word; e. to create new rhythms; f. absolutely freedom in the choice of subject.2. Imagism is to present an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. An imagistic poem must present the object exactly the way the thing is seen. And the reader can form the image of the object through the process of reading the abstract and concrete words.II. Frost and his poetry on nature:Frost is deeply interested in nature and in men’s relationship to nature. Nature appears as an explicator and a mediator for man and serve as the center of reference of his behavior. Peace and order can be found in Frost’s poetical natural world. With surface simplicity of his poems, the thematic concerns are always presented in rich symbols. Therefore his work resists easy interpretation.III. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his The Great Gatsby1. Theme: Gatsby is American Everyman. His extraordinary energy and wealth make him pursue the dream. His death in the end points at the truth about the withering of the American Dream. The spiritual and moral sterility that has resulted from the withered American Dream is fullyrevealed in the article. However, although he is defeated, the dream has gave Gatsby a dignity and a set of qualities. His hope and belief in the promise of future makes him the embodiment of the values of the incorruptible American Dream .2. The character analysis of Gatsby: Gatsby is great, because he is dignified and ennobled by his dream and his mythic vision of life. He has the desire to repeat the past, the desire for money, and the desire for incarnation of unutterable vision on this material earth. For Gatsby, Daisy is the soul of his dreams. He believe he can regain Daisy and romantically rebels of time. Although he has the wealth that can match with the leisured class, he does not have their manners. His tragedy lies in his possession of a naive sense and chivalry.IV. Ernest Hemingway’s artistic features:1. The Hemingway code heroes and grace under pressure:They have seen the cold world ,and for one cause, they boldly and courageously face the reality. They has an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life. Whatever is the result is, the are ready to live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will never be defeated. Finally, they will be prevail because of their indestructible spirit and courage.2. The iceberg technique:Hemingway believe that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action. The one-eighth the is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimensions of the story. Thus, Hemingway’s language is symbolic and suggestive.V. The character analysis of Emily in A Rose for Emily:Emily is a symbol of old values, standing for tradition, duty and past glory. But she is also a victim to all those she cares and embrace. The source of Emily’s strange ness is from her born pride and self-esteem, the domineering behavior of her father and the betrayal of her lover. Barricaded in her house, she has frozen the past to protect her dreams. Her life is tragic because the defiance of the community, her refusal to accept the change and her extreme pride have pushed her to abnormality and insanity.。
美国文学 1. Romantic
第一章美国浪漫主义时期一、美国浪漫主义时期概述Ⅰ.本章学习目的和要求通过本章学习，了解１９世纪初期至中叶美国文学产生的历史、文化背景；认识该时期文学创作的基本待征、基本主张，及其对同时代和后期美国文学的影响；了解该时期主要作家的文学创作生涯、创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题思想、人物刻画、语言风格等；同时结合注释，读懂所选作品并了解其思想内容和艺术特色，培养理解和欣赏文学作品的能力。
Ⅱ.本章重点及难点：1．浪漫主义时期美国文学的特点2．主要作家的创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格、思想意义。
3．分析讨论选读作品Ⅲ.本章考核知识点和考核要求：1.美国浪漫主义时期概述(1)．"识记"内容：美国浪漫主义文学产生的社会历史及文化背景(2)．"领会"内容：美国浪漫主义在文学上的表现a.欧洲浪漫主义文学的影响b.美国本土文学的崛起及其待证(3)．"应用"内容：清教主义、超验主义、象征主义、自由诗等名词的解释2.美国浪漫主义时期的主要作家Ａ．华盛顿·欧文1．一般识记：欧文的生平及创作主涯2．识记：《纽约外史》《见闻札记》3．领会：欧文的创作领域、创作思想，及其作品的艺术风格4.应用：选读《瑞普·凡·温可尔》的主题及其艺术特色Ｂ．拉尔夫·华尔多·爱默生1．一般识记：．爱默生的生平及创作生涯2．识记：爱默生的超验主义思想3．领会：（1）爱默生的散文：《论自然》《论自助》《论美国学者》等（2）．爱默生与梭罗：梭罗的超验主义思想和他的《沃尔登》4．应用：《论自然》节选：爱默生的基本哲学思想及自然观Ｃ．纳撒尼尔·霍桑1．一般识记：霍桑的生平及创作主涯2．识记：霍桑的长短篇小说3．领会：（1）《红字》的主题、心理描写、象征手法和、小说结构（2）霍桑的清教主义思想及加尔文教条中的"原罪"对霍桑的影响（人性本恶的观点）（3）霍桑对浪漫主义小说的贡献4．应用：选读《小伙子布朗》的主题结构、象征手法及语言特色Ｄ．华尔特·惠特曼1．一般识记：惠特曼的生平及其创作生涯2．识记：惠特曼的民主思想3．领会：（1）惠特曼的《草叶集》的主创意图、思想感情及诗体形式、语言风格（2）．惠特曼的个人主义4．应用：选读《草叶集》诗选："一个孩子的成长"、"涉水的骑兵'"、"自己之歌"的主题结构、诗歌的艺术特色、语言风格Ｅ．赫尔曼·麦尔维尔1．一般识记：麦尔维尔的生平及创作生涯2．识记：麦尔维尔的早期作品：《玛地》《雷得本》《白外衣》，后期作品《皮埃尔》《骗子的化装表演》《比利伯德》等3．领会：《白鲸》的（1）主题：表层及深层意义（2）小说结构：浪漫主义和现实主义的统一（3）象征手法和寓言的运用（4）语言特色4．应用：选读《白鲸》最后一章的节选：主题思想、人物刻画、象征手法、语言特色Chapter l The Romantic Period(一)"识记"内容：1.The origin of Romantic American literatureThe Romantic Period, one of the most important periods in the history of American literature, stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass.2.The American Renaissance or New England Renaissance is a period of the great flowering of American literature, from the i830s roughly until the end of the American Civil War. It came of age as an expression of a national spirit. One of the most important influences in the period was that of the Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau. The Transcendentalists contributed to the founding of a new national culture based on native elements. Apart from the Transcendentalists, there emerged during this period great imaginativewriters ---Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman---whose novels and poetry left a permanent imprint on American literature.3.Its social historical and cultural backgroundThe development of the American society nurtured "the literature of a great nation." America was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country. Historically, it was the time of westward expansion in America economically, the whole nation was experiencing an industrial transformation. Politically, democracy and equa1ity became the ideal of the new nation, and the two-party system came into being. Worthy of mention is the literary and cultural life of the country. With the founding of the American Independent Government, the nation felt an urge to have its own literary expression, to make known its new experience that other nations did not have: the early Puritan settlement, the confrontation with the Indians, the frontiersmen's life, and the wild west. Besides, the nation's literary milieu was ready for the Romantic movement as we11. Thus, with a strong sense of optimism, a spectacular outburst of romantic feeling was brought about in the first ha1f of the 19th century.4.Major writers of this periodThere emerged a great host of men of letters during this period, among whom the better-known are poets such as Philip Freneau, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Long Fellow, James Russel Lowell, John Greenleaf Whitter, Edgar Ellen Poe, and, especially, Walt Whitman, whose Leaves Of Grass established him as the most popular American poet of the 19th century. The fiction of the American Romantic period is an original and diverse body of work. It ranges from the comic fables of Washington Irving to the The Gothic tales of Edgar Allen Poe, from the frontier adventures of James Fenimore Cooper to the narrative quests of Herman Melville, from the psycho1ogical romances of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the social realism of Rebecca Harding Davis.(二)．领会内容1.The impact of European Romanticism on American Romanticism Foreign literary masters, especially the English counterparts exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the new world. Born of one common cultural heritage, the American writers shared some common features with the English Romanticists. They revolted against the literary forms and ideas of the period of classicism by developing some relatively new forms of fiction or poetry.(1) They put emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature, which included a liking for the picturesque, the exotic,the sensuous, the sensational, and the supernatural.(2) The Americans also placed an increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions and disp1ayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters.Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitivity and excitement.(3) The strong tendency to exalt the individual and the common man was almost a national religion in America. Writers like Freneau, Bryant, and Cooper showed a great interest in external nature in their respective works.(4) The literary use of the more colorfu1 aspects of the past was also to be found in Irving's effort to exploit the legends of the Hudson River region, and in Cooper's long series of historical tales.(5)In short, American Romanticism is, in a certain way, derivative.2.The unique characteristics of American RomanticismAlthough greatly influenced by their English counterparts, the American romantic writers revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands. For examp1e,(1) the American national experience of "pioneering into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams, and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral 1aw. (2)The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature.Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper's Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's Walden and, later, in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (3) With the growth of American national consciousness,American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. (4) Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values and American Romanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. (5) Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers.(三)．应用内容1. The American Puritanism and its great influence over American moral values, as is shown in American romantic writings.(1) American PuritanismPuritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. (The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church, who came into existence in the reigns Queen Elizabeth and King James Ⅰ.The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quitea few of them Puritans. They 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. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They felt that the Church of England was too close to the Church of 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".They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. But in the grim struggle for survival that followed immediately after their arrival in America, they became more and more practical, as indeed they had to be. Puritans were noted for a spirit of moral and religious earnestness that determinated their whole way of life. Puritans' lives were extremely disciplined and hard. They drove out of their settlements all those opinions that seemed dangerous to them, and history has criticized their actions. Yet in the persecution of what they considered error, the Puritans were no worse than many other movements in history. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind and American values. American Puritanism also had a conspicuously noticeable and an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets.(2) One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers.2. New England TranscendentalismNew England Transcendentalism is the mot clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period. It was started in the area around Concord, Mass. by a group of intellectual and the literary men of the United States such as Emerson, Henry David Thoreau who were members of an informal club, i. e. the Transcendental Club in New England in the l830s. The transcendentalists reacted against the cold, rigid rationalism of Unitarianism in Boston. They adhered 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. The writings of the transcendentalists prepared the ground of their contemporaries such as Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.The main issues involved in the debate were generally philosophical, concerning nature, man and the universe. Basically, Transcendentalismhas been defined philosophical1y as "the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses." Emerson once proclaimed in a speech, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism inc1ude the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-re1iant.3. American Romanticists differed in their understanding of human nature.To the transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau, man is divine in nature and therefore forever perfectible; but to Hawthorne and Melville, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensab1e for the improvement of human nature, as is shown in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.二.美国浪漫主义时期的主要作家Ⅰ. Washington Irving(1783-l859)Irving's position in American literature Washington Irving was one of the first American writers to earn an international reputation, and regarded as an early Romantic writer in the merican literary history and Father of the American short stories.一．一般识记His life and major worksWashington Irving was born in New York City in a wealthy family. From a very early age he began to read widely and write juvenile poems, essays, and plays. In l798, he conc1uded his education at private schools and entered a law office, but he loved writing more.His first successful work is A History Of New York from the Beginning Of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, which, written under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, won him wide popularity after it came out in 1809. With the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in serials between 1819 and 1820, Irving won a measure of international fame on both sides of the Atlantic. The book contains familiar essays on the Eng1ish life and Americanized versions of European folk tales like "Rip Van Winkle ＂, and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Geoffrey Crayon is a carefully contrived persona and behind Crayon stands Irving, juxtaposing the Old World and the New, and manipulating his own antiquarian interest with artistic perspectives.The major work of his later years was The Life of George Washington.二．识记1.Irving's great indebtedness to European literatureMost of Irving's subject matter are borrowed heavily from European sources, which are chiefly Germanic. Irving's relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ignored considering his success both abroad and at home.A History of New York is a patchwork of references, echoes, and burlesques. He parodies or imitates Homer, Cervantes, Fielding, Swift and many other favorites of his. He was also absorbed in German Literature and got ideas from German legends for two of his famous stories "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Alhambra is usually regarded as Irving's "Spanish Sketch Book" simply because it has a strong flavor of Spanish culture. Most of the thirty-three essays in The Sketch Book were written in England, filled with English scenes and quotations from English authors and faithful to British orthography. Washington Irving brought to the new nation what its peop1e desired most in a man of 1etters the respect of the Old World.2.Irving's unique contribution to American literatureIrving's contribution to American literature is unique in more than one way. He was the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame. Although greatly influenced by European literature, Irving gave his works distinctive American flavor. "Rip Van Winkle" or "The Legend of Sleepy Hol1ow", however exotic these stories are, are among the treasures of the American language and culture. These two stories easily trigger off American imagination with their focus on American subjects, American landscape, and, in Irving's case, the legends of the Hudson River region of the fresh young 1and. It is not the sketches about the Old World but the tales about America that made Washington Irving a household word and his fame enduring.He was father of American short stories. And later in the hands of Hawthorne and Melville the short story attained a degree of perfection.三．领会1.Irving's theme of conservatism as is revealed in "Rip Van Winkle"Irving's taste was essentia1ly conservative and always exa1ted a disappearing past.This socia1 conservatism and literary preference for the past is revea1ed, to some extent, in his famous story "Rip Van Winkle." The story is a tale remembered mostly for Rip's 20-year s1eep, set against the background of the inevitably changing America. Rip went to sleep before the War of Independence and woke up after it. The change that had occurred in the 20 years he slept was to him not always for the better. The revolution upset the natural order of things. In the story Irving ski1lfu1ly presents to us paralleled juxtapositions of two totally different worlds before and after Rip's 20 years' s1eep. By moving Rip back and forth from a noisy world with his wife on the farm to a wild but peaceful natural world in the mountains, and from a pre-Revolution villageto a George Washington era, lrving describes Rip's response and reaction in a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferabi1ity of the past to the present, and the preferability of a dream-like world to the real one. Irving never seemed to accept a modern democratic America.2.Irving's literary craftsmanshipWashington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who "perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produced."(1) We get a strong sense impression as we read him along, since the language he used best reveals what a Romantic writer can do with words. We hear rather than read, for there is musicality in almost every line of his prose.(2) We seldom learn a mora1 lesson because he wants us amused and relaxed. So we often find ourselves lost in a world that is permeated witha dreaming quality.(3) The Gothic elements and the supernatural atmosphere are manipulated in such a way that we could become so engaged and involved in what is happening in a seemingly exotic place.(4) Yet Irving never forgets to associate a certain place with the inward movement of a person and to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and vivid character. He is worth the honor of being "the American Goldsmith" for his literary craftsmanship.四．应用Selected Reading:An Excerpt from "Rip Van Winkle"The story of Rip Van WinkleRip, an indolent good-natured Dutch-American, lives with his shrewish wife in a village on the Hudson during the years before the Revolution. One day while hunting in the Catskills with his dog Wolf, he meets a dwarflike stranger dressed in the ancient Dutch fashion. He helps him to carry a keg, and with him joins a party silently playing a game of ninepins. After drinking of the liquor they provide, Rip falls into a sleep which lasts 20 years, during which the Revolutionary War takes place. He awakes as an old man and returns to his home village that has greatly altered. Upon entering the village, he is greeted by his old dog, which dies of the excitement and then learns that his wife has long been dead. Rip is almost forgotten but he goes to live with his daughter, now the mother of a family, and is soon befriended with his generosity and cheerfulness.This excerpt below is taken from the story, describing for us Rip's difficulties at home, which he often escapes by going to the local inn to spend his time with his friends and sometimes by going hunting in thewoods with his dog, and then focusing on Rip 's return from his 20 years' sleep to his greatly altered home village. Here, Irving's pervasive theme of nostalgia for the unrecoverable past is at once made unforgettable.What are the theme and the artistic features of "Rip Van Winkle"?(1) The theme:Irving's taste was essentia1ly conservative and always exa1ted a disappearing past.This socia1 conservatism and literary preference for the past is revea1ed, to some extent, in his famous story "Rip Van Winkle." The story is a tale remembered mostly for Rip's 20-year s1eep, set against the background of the inevitably changing America. Rip went to sleep before the War of Independence and woke up after it. The change that had occurred in the 20 years he slept was to him not always for the better. The revolution upset the natural order of things. In the story Irving ski1lfu1ly presents to us paralleled juxtapositions of two totally different worlds before and after Rip's 20 years' s1eep. By moving Rip back and forth from a noisy world with his wife on the farm to a wild but peaceful natural world in the mountains, and from a pre-Revolution village to a George Washington era, lrving describes Rip's response and reaction in a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferabi1ity of the past to the present, and the preferability of a dream-like world to the real one. Irving never seemed to accept a modern democratic America.(2) The artistic features:"Rip Van Winkle" is not only well-known for Rip's 20-year sleep but also considered a model of perfect English in American Literature and in the English language as well. Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who "perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produced." He has a clear, easy style.(a) We get a strong sense impression as we read him along, since the language he used best reveals what a Romantic writer can do with words. We hear rather than read, for there is musicality in almost every line of his prose.(b) We seldom learn a mora1 lesson because he wants us amused and relaxed.So we often find ourselves lost in a world that is permeated with a dreaming quality. He uses genial humor to exaggerate the seriousness of situation. He uses dignified words to produce a half-mocking effect.(c)The Gothic elements and the supernatural atmosphere are manipulated in such a way that we could become so engaged and involved in what is happening in a seemingly exotic place.( Rip Van Winkle was overwhelmed by the magic power of the drink and fell into sleep for 20 years.)(d)Yet Irving never forgets to associate a certain place with theinward movement of a person and to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and vivid character. He is worth the honor of being "the American Goldsmith" for his literary craftsmanship.II. Ralph Waldo Emerson一.一般识记His life: Ralph Waldo Emerson is the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism, which is unanimously agreed to be the summit of the Romantic period in the history of American literature.Emerson was son of a Unitarian minister. Though born of an impoverished family, Emerson never failed to receive some formal education. Whi1e a student at Harvard he began keeping journals, a practice he continued throughout his 1if e. He later drew on the journal for materials for his essays and poetry. After Harvard, he taught as a schoolmaster, which he soon gave up for the study of theology. He began preaching in 1826 and three years later he became a pastor in a church in Boston. Emerson was ardent at first in his service in religion, but gradually grew skeptical of the beliefs of the church; feeling Unitarianism intolerable, he finally left the ministry in l832.Emerson was greatly influenced by European Romanticism. He Carlyle, and listened to some famous Romantic poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth. Through his acquaintance with these men he became closely involved with German idea1ism and Transcendentalism. After he was back from Europe, Emerson retreated to a quiet study at Concord, Massachusetts, where he began to pursue his new path of "self-reliance." Emerson formed a club there at Concord with peop1e like Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, which was later known as the Transcendenta1 Club. And the unofficial manifesto for the Club was Nature(l836), Emerson's first little book, which established him ever since as the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism. Nature was the fundamental document of his philosophy and expressed also his constant, deeply-felt love for nature. It was called "the Manifesto of American Transcendentalism". He also helped to found and edit for a time the Transcendental journal, The Dial. Emerson lived an intel1ectually active and significant life between the mid-1830s and the mid-1840s, 1ecturing all over the country, and occasionally, abroad. He preached his Transcendental pursuit and his reputation expanded dramatically with his lectures and his essays. Though the rest of Emerson's life was a slow anticlimax to his midd1e years, people continued to honor the most influentia1 prophet and the intellectua1 liberator of their age, and his reputation as a family man of conventional life and a decent, solid citizen has remained always.二．识记内容：His major works:Emerson is generally known as an essayist. During all his life he worked steadily at a succession of essays, usually derived from his journals or lectures he had already given. Nature did not establish him as an important American writer. His lasting reputation began only with the publication of Essays(1841 ). Many of his famous essays are included in Essay, which convey the best of his philosophical discussions and transcendental pursuits, such as The American Scholar, Self Reliance, The Over Soul.The second collection of Emerson's essays, Essays: Second Series (1844) demonstrated even more thorough1y than the first that Emerson's intellect had sharpened in the years since Nature. The Poet and Exprience are examples, the former a reflection upon the aesthetic problems in terms of the present state of literature in America and the latter a discussion about the conflict between idealism and ordinary 1ife.三．领会1. Emersonian TranscendentalismEmersonian Transcendentalism is actual1y a philosophical school which absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and European Romanticism, with its focus on the intuitive knowledge of human beings to grasp the absolute in the universe and the divinity of man. In his essays, Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-sou1, the importance of the Individual, and Nature.(1) Emerson's philosophy of the over-sou1Emerson rejected both the formal religion of the churches and the Deistic philosophy; instead he based his religion on an intuitive belief in an ultimate unity, which he called the "over-soul."Emerson and other Transcendentalists believed in the transcendence of "over-soul". It is an impersonal force that is eternal, moral, harmonious, and beneficient in tendency. They believed that there should be an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal "oversoul", since the over-sou1 is an all-pervading power from which all things come from and of which a1l are a part. One of the tendencies of the "over-soul " is to express itself in form, hence the world of nature as an emanation of the world of spirit. Emerson's remarkable image of "a transparent eyebal1" marks a paradoxical state of being, in which one is merged into nature, the over-soul, whi1e at the same time retaining a unique perception of the experience.(2) Emerson's philosophy of the importance of the IndividualEmerson is affirmative about man's intuitive knowledge, with which a man can trust himself to decide what is right and to act accordingly. The ideal individual should be a self-reliant man. "Trust thyself," hewrote in Self Reliance, by which he means to convince people that the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself are infinite.(3) Emerson's view on natureEmerson's nature is emblematic of the spiritual world, alive with God's overwhelming presence. It mediates between man and God, and its voice leads to higher truth; hence, it exercises a healthy and restorative inf1uence on human mind. "Go back to nature, sink yourse1f back into its inf1uence and you'1l become spiritually who1e again." By employing nature as a big symbol of the Spirit, or God, or the over-soul, Emerson has brought the Puritan 1egacy of symbolism to its perfection.Emersonian Transcendentalism inspired a whole generation of famous American authors like Thoreau, Whitman, and Dickinson.2.Thoreau's TranscendentalismHenry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is most often mentioned as inspired by Emerson, the most representative of the phi1osophical and literary school which is American Transcendenta1ism. Thoreau embraced his master's ideas as a disciple. In 1845 he built a cabin on some land belonging to Emerson by Walden Pond and moved in to live there in a very simple manner for a litt1e over two years, which gave birth to a great transcendentalist work Walden (1854). The book not only fully demonstrates Emersonian ideas of self-reliance but also develops and tests Thoreau's own transcendental philosophy.(1)For Thoreau, nature is not merely symbolic, but divine in itself and human beings can receive precise communication from the natural world by way of pure senses. So he was often alone in the woods or by the pond, lost in spiritual communion with nature.(2)Thoreau strongly believed in se1f-culture and was eager to identify himself with the Transcendental image of the self-reliant man. To achieve personal spiritual perfection, he thinks, the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self- sufficient, so he sought to reduce his physical needs and material comforts to a minimum to get spiritual richness.(3)His positiveness about the importance of individual conscience was such that he even considered the society fetters of the freedom of individuals.Though Thoreau became more than Emerson's disciple eventually, his indebtedness to Nature and its author has never been over1ooked.3. The style of Emerson's essaysEmerson's essays often have a casual style, for most of them were derived from his journals or lectures. They are usually characterized by a series of short, declarative sentences, which are not quite logically。
英美文学考点(美国文学部分)
. 美国文学部分浪漫主义时期The Romantic Period第一位：washington irving1.A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, which written under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, was a great success.2. The Sketch Book won a international fame on both sides of the Atlantic.3. “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” got ideas form German legends.4. the Bracebrige Hall and Tales of a Traveler.5. the Alhambra is usually regarded as Irving’s “Spanish Skethch Book”. Only because it has a strong flavor of spanish culture.6.Iring’s taste was essentially conservative.7. washing Iving’s has always been regarded as a writer who perfected the best classic sytle that American Literature ever produced.8. Washing Iving is worth the honor of being “the American Goldsmith” for his literary craftsmanship.9. Irving’s pervasive theme of nostalgia怀旧的) for the unrecoverable past is at once made unforgettable.第二位：Emerson1.Transcendentalism ---the romantic period in the history of American literature.2.the chief spokesman of this spiritual movement is Ralph Waldo Emerson3.transcendental club, the unofficial manifesto for the club is Nature.4.Nature did not establish him as an important American writer, his last reputationbegan with the publication of Essays, which convey the best of his philosophical discussions and transcendental pursuits. Such as The American Scholar ,Self-Reliance , The Over-Soul.5.The Poet, a reflection upon the aesthetic problems of the present state of Americanliterature6.The Experience, a discussion about the conflict between idealism and ordinarylife.7.transcendentalism---with its focus on the intuitive konwledge of human beings tograsp the absolute in the universe and the divinity of man. Emerson put forward his philosopy of over-soul, the importance of individual, nature.8.emerson and other transcendentalists believed that there should be a emtotionalcomunication between a individual soul and the universal over-soul.9. a “transparent eyeball” marks a paradoxical state of being, in which one ismerged into nature, the over-soul. While at the same time retaining a unique perception of experience.10.emerson’s essays often have a casual style, for most of them were derived fromhis journals and lectures.11.堪称“the American Scolar”12.in the essay Emerson clearly expresses the main priciples of his transcendentalist pursuitand his love for nature.第三位：Hawthorne1.Hawthorne remains one of the most interesting, yet most ambivalent (矛盾情感)writers in theAmerican literary history.2.The Twice-Told Tales, a collection of short stories which attracted critical attention.3.The Mosses of an Old Manse, Snow-Image and other Twice-Told Tales best demonstrateHawthorne’s early obsessions with the moral and phycological consequences of pride, selfishness and secret guilt that manifest themselves in human beings.4.The Scarlet Letter often regarded as the best of his works, tells a simply but very movingstory in which 4 people living in a Puritan Community are involved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways.5.The House of the Seven Gables6.The Blithedale Romance(福谷传奇) is a novel he wrote to reveal his own experiences on theBrook Farm and his own methods as a psychological novelist.7.The Mable Faun(玉石雕像) set in Italy, the book is concerned about the dark aberrations(失常方面) of human spirit.8.The Birthmark9.The Young Goodman Brown –everyone possesses evil secret10.The Minister’s Dark Veil11.The Rappaccini’s Daughter12.Hawthorne’s view of man, human history originates, to a great extent, in Puritanism13.The House of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter 反清教思想，同时反清教思想on the onehand, it provides him with a subject, on the other hand, with the Puritan world and society as a historical background, he disscusses some of the most improtant issues that concern the moral life of man and human society.14.the structure and form of his writings is always carefully worked out to cater for the thematicconcern.(精心设计的)15.allegorist预言家 symbolist第四位：walt whitman1.Leaves of Grass is Whitman’s representative work, 体现了American democratic ideals 反映了American Independent War and Cival War.2.Leaves of Grass has nine editions. In this giant work, openness, freedom, individualism areall that concerned him. His aim was nothing less than to express some new poetic feelings and to initiate poetic traditon in which difference should be recognized.3.the poet’s essential purpose was to indentify his ego with the world and more specificallywith the democratic “en-masse” of the America, which is established in the openning lines of the “Song of Myself”4.most of poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-masse”and the self as well.5.politically committed 政治抒情诗such as Dump Taps6.Cavalry Crossing a Ford,Whitman expressed much mouring for the sufferings of the young livesin the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on fighting until the final victory.7.when Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d mournful as these poems are, a reader can detecta thin trace of ecstasy for the victory of the progress.8.Whitman’s potetic style is marked by the use of the poetic”Ⅰ”9.free verse, that is , poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.10.parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines are contribute to themusicality of his poems.11.one of the most often-used methods in his poems is to make colors and images fleet past themind’s eye of the readers.第五位 Herman Melville1.Moby-Dick is his masterpiece.2.Billy Budd, his second famous work3.Melville’s writings can be divided into two groups, each with something in common in thelight of the thematic concern and imginative focus.4.Typee, Omoo, Mardi which drew from his adventures among the people of the south pacific island.Redburn is a semi-autobiographical novel, concerining the sufferings of a genteel youth among the brutal sailors. Whitejacket relates his life on the United States of man-of –war.5.pierre 作者本意是想发动妇女文学革命，但却遭到强烈反对，结果名声下降。
美国文学选读名词解释
1.Puritanism (清教主义)：Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.1.) simply speaking , American Puritanism just refers to the spirit and ideal of puritans,who settled in the North American continent in the early part of the seventeenth century because of religious persecutions.2.)In content it means scrupulous ,moral rigor ,eapecially hostility to social pleasure and religion .3.)with time passing it became a dominant factor in American life , one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and literature .to some extentit is a state of mind , a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes ,rather than a set of tenets.4.) Actually it is a code of values , a philosophy of life and a point of view in American minds , also a two-faceted tradition of religious idealism and level -headed in common sense .5) Major topic:American Puritanism IntroductionThere were no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian languages and tribal cultures, American writing began with the work of English adventurers and colonists in the New World chiefly for the benefit of readers in the mother country.Therefore the writing in this period was essentially 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 immigration;(2) highly theoretical, generally polemical^辩的)，discussions of religious questions.2.The American Romanticism(浪漫主义)I.What is Romanticism a literary movement flourished as a cultural force the early period and the late period.associated with imagination and boundlessness, as an historical movement it arose in the 18th and 19th centuries. The most clearly defined romantic literary movement in the U. S.A was Transcendentalism.Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, and those of the late periodcontain Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe.□.Features of A merican romanticism（1）It was the expression of “a real new experience（全新体验）”.（2）American Puritanism was a cultural heritage. Many American romantic writings intended to edify（启发）more than they entertained.⑶American Romanticism is full of “newness（新奇）”. Ideals：Individualism; political equality Dream：America: a new Garden of Eden （4）American romanticism was both imitative and independent.3..transcendentalism、（超验主义）transcendentalism: It stressed the power of intuition, believing that people could learn things both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner world by intuition. It took nature as symbolic of spirit or God. All things in nature were symbols of the spiritual, of God’s presence. It emphasized the significance o f the individual and believed that the individual was the most important element in society and that the ideal kind of individual was self-reliant and unselfish. Transcendentalists envisioned religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “Oversoul”.4.Naturalism: It views human beings as animals in the natural world responding to environmental forces and internal stresses and drives, over none of which they have control and none of which they fully understand. The literary naturalists have a major difference from the realists. They look at a different spot to find real life.5.Free verse: It is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech.6.International novel: IN brings together persons of various nationalities who represent certain characteristics of their own countries.7.the lost generation: reveals the huge destruction of the wars to the young generation. It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colonyof “expatriates”. They were lost in disillusionment.8.American Dream: American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. It usually implies a successful andsatisfying life. It usually framed in terms of American capitalism （资本主义），its associated purported meritocracy,（知识界精华）and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Bill of Rights9.American Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience .10.Black Humor:also called Black Comedy, writing that juxtaposes morbid or ghastly elements with comical ones. The term did not come into common use until the 1960s. Then it was applied to the works of the novelists Nathanael West, Vladimir Nabokov, and Joseph Heller. The latter's Catch-22 （1961） is a notable example, in which Captain Yossarian battles the horrors of air warfare over the Mediterranean during World War II with hilarious irrationalities matching the stupidities of the military system. The term black comedy has been applied to playwrights in the Theatre of the Absurd.11.Local colorism: as a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s, it is defined by Hamlin Garland as having such quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality of circumstantial（详细的）authenticity（确实性）,as local colorists tried to immortalize（使不朽）the distinctive natural, social and linguistic features. It is characteristic of vernacular（本国语） language and satirical （讽刺的）humor12.Code HeroGeneral Features:1.He has great physical potential and courage.2.The “ code heroes ” have strong willpower.3.Thirdly , another important feature of the “code heroes" is their loyalty.4.Fourthly , the" code heroes "maintain great dignity in all situations.5.Fifthly , the “code heroes ” are endowed with certain specialized skills , such as fishing , bull fighting , and hunting , etc6.the “code heroes "are always put in some touch-and go situations, what the heroes must always face up to is their own personal fear of death and the threat of destruction, and it is this obstacle, death, that they have to overcome.13.iceberg theory:The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.2 American TranscendentalismAs a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalism （also known as “ American Renaissance"） flourished in New England from the 1830s to the Civil War. It is the high tide of American romanticism and its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau. Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.Transcendentalism 超验主义（+ H. D. Thoreau; NathanielHawthorne;)The major features of Transcendentalism:①The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想超灵宇宙②The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual is the most important element of Society.个体+社会③The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence.自然+上帝3 Stream of Consciousness 意识流or “interior monologue”,内心独白is one of the modern literary techniques. It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them. It was first used in 1922 by the Irish novelist James Joyce.。
美国文学期末复习笔记 (1)
美国文学笔记III. The Romantic period （浪漫主义时期）: （1800-1865）American Transcendentalism(美国超验主义）（1830s- Civil War）Summit of Romanticism/ American Renaissance1. Appearance1836, ―Nature‖ by Emerson2. Features of Transcendentalism(1). Spirit(思想）/Oversoul（超灵）(2). importance of individualism(3). nature – symbol of spirit/God；garment of the oversoul(4). focus in intuition (irrationalism and subconsciousness)IV. The American Realism 现实主义时期(1865-1918)1. Three Giants in Realistic PeriodWilliam Dean Howells –―Dean of American Realism‖Henry JamesMark Twain2. Comparison:Theme:Howells –middle classJames –upper classTwain –lower classTechnique:Howells –smiling/genteel realismJames –psychological realismTwain –local colourism and colloquialismMark Twain (1835-1910):1. Summary:American writer, short story writer/Humorist2. Major works:The Celebrated jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865)《卡拉维拉县弛名的跳蛙》Innocents Abroad (1869) 《傻子国外旅行记》The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) 《汤姆.索亚历险记》Life on the Mississippi (1883) 《密西西比河上》The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1886)《哈克贝里.费恩历险记》: All modern American literature comes from his masterpiece ―The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.‖——Ernest Hemingway3. Style:(1). colloquial language（口语）, vernacular (本土的）language, dialects(2). local colour(3). syntactic feature: sentences are simple, brief, and sometimes ungrammatical(4). humour(5). tall tales (highly exaggerated) （荒诞不经的故事）(6). social criticism (satire on the different ugly things in society)4. ContributionOne of Mark Twain’s significant contributions to American literature lies in the fact that he made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country.Henry James (1843-1916)1. Summary:An American and British novelist, literary criticFounder of psychological realismFirst of the modern psychological novelistInitiator of the international theme: American innocence in face of European sophistication2. Major works:Daisy Miller （1878）《戴茜·米勒》The Portrait of a Lady (1881) 《贵妇的肖像》The Wings of the Dove (1902)《鸽翼》The Ambassadors (1903)《专使》The Golden Bowl (1904)《金碗》The Art of Fiction(1884)《小说的艺术》3. His Point of view(1). Psychological analysis, forefather of stream of consciousness(2).Psychological realism(3). Highly-refined language4. Style –“stylist”(1). Language: highly-refined, polished, insightful, and accurate(2).V ocabulary: large(3). Construction: complicated, intricateNaturalism（自然主义）1. Background:(1). Dar win’s theory: ―natural selection‖(2).Spenser’s idea: ―social Darwinism‖(3). French Naturalism: Zora2. Features(1). environment and heredity(2). scientific accuracy and a lot of details(3). general tone: ironic and pessimistic, hopelessness, despair, gloom, ugly side of the societySt ephen Crane (1881-1900)1. Summary:Novelist, poetPioneer in the naturalistic traditionPrecursors（先驱）of Imagist poetry2. Major Works:Maggie: A Girl of the Streets 《街头女郎麦姬》: the first naturalistic novel in AmericaThe Red Badge of Courage 《红色英勇勋章》The Open Boat《海上扁舟》V. AMERICAN MODERNISM (1918-1945)（美国现代主义）F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)1. Summary:Famous American novelist, short story writer, and essayistthe representative of the 1920sthe spokesman for the Jazz Ageone of the“lost generation”writers2. Major WorksThis Side of Paradise (1920) 《人间天堂》Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) 《爵士乐时代的故事》Tender Is the Night (1934) 《夜色温柔》The Great Gatsby (1925) 《了不起的盖茨比》:Narrative point of view – Nick CarrawayTheme: The decline of the American Dream3. His Point of view(1). He expressed what the young people believed in the 1920s, the so-called ―American Dream‖ is false innature.(2). He had always been critical of the rich and tried to show the integrating effects of money on theemotional make-up of his character. He found that wealth altered people’s characters, making them mean and distrusted. He thinks money brought only tragedy and remorse.(3). His novels follow a pattern: dream – lack of attraction – failure and despair.4. His ideas of “American Dream”It is false to most young people. Only those who were dishonest could become rich.William Faulkner (1897-1962)1. Sumary:An American novelist and poetInitiator of American Southern RenaissanceOne of the most influential modern novelists of 20th centuryNobel Prize winner for literature in 19492. Major Works:The Sound and the Fury 《喧哗与骚动》As I Lay Dying 《在我弥留之际》Light in August 《八月之光》Absalom, Absalom 《押沙龙，押沙龙！》Go Down, Moses 《去吧，摩西》Barn Burning 《烧牲口棚》Yoknapatawpha County（约克纳帕塔法县）:--- A fictional county in northern Mississippi, the setting for most of William Faulkner’s novels and short stories, and patterned upon Faulkner’s actual home in Lafayette County, Mississippi.3. Major Themes of his Works(1). history and race(2). Deterioration(3). Conflicts between generations, classes, races, man and environment(4). Horror, violence and the abnormal4. Faulkner's narrative technique(1).Withdrawal of the author as a controlling narrator(2). Dislocation of the narrative time: The most characteristic way of structuring his stories is to fragment thechronological time.(3). the modern stream-of-consciousness（意识流）technique and the interior monologue（内心独白）：(4). Multiple points of view（多重视角）(5). symbolism and mythological and biblical（圣经的）allusionsErnest Hemingway (1899—1961)1. Summary:Novelist and short-story writerOne of the great American writers of the 20th centuryThe Spokesman of the ―Lost Generation‖Nobel Prize winner for literature in 19542. Major worksThe Sun Also Rises 《太阳照常升起》A Farewell to Arms《永别了，武器》For Whom the Bell Tolls 《丧钟为谁而鸣》/ 《战地钟声》The Old Man and the Sea 《老人与海》A Clean, Well-lighted Place 《一个干净，明亮的地方》3. Major Themes(1).The ―Nada‖(虚无) Concept(2).Grace under pressure(压力下的优雅）―Man is not made for defeats. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.‖------The Old Man and the Sea(3). Code Hero（准则英雄/ 硬汉）a. The Hemingway hero is not a thinker; he is a man of action.b.―Grace under pressure is their motto.c.The Hemingway code heroes are best remembered for their indestructible(不可毁灭的）spirit.4. Artistic features(1) .The iceberg（冰山）techniqueThe dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.(2). Language stylea. simple and naturalb.direct, clear and freshc. lean and economicald.simple, conversational, common found, fundamental wordse. simple sentencesf. Iceberg principle: understatement, implied thingsg.SymbolismEzra Pound (1885—1972)1. Summary:A leading spokesman of the ―Imagist Movement‖(意象主义运动）One of the most influential American poets and critic2. Major works:Cathay:《华夏集》《神州集》《中国诗章》Hugh Selwyn Mauberley《休·赛尔温·毛伯利》Cantos /《诗章》3. Imagism (1909-1917)(1) .Background:Imagism was influenced by French symbolism, ancient Chinese poetry and Japaneseliterature ―haiku‖(2). Defintion : The imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to expressthe these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.(3): Manifesto of Imagism:•Direct treatment•Economy of expression•New rhythmIn a station of the Metro《在一个地铁站》: a quintessential（典型的）imagist textRobert Frost（1847-1963）1. Summary:the most popular American poetWon Pulitzer Prize four timesReceived honorary degrees from forty-four colleges and universitiesRead ― The Gift Outright‖ at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 19612. Famous Poems:F ire and Ice《火与冰》The Road Not Taken 《未选择的路》Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 《雪夜伫立林边有感》Mending Wall《补墙》After Apple-Picking《摘罢苹果》3. Frost’s writing featureHis combination of the traditional verse pattern and a colloquial distinctive language (New England Speech)Eugene O’Neil (1888-1953)1. Summary:America's greatest playwrightWon the Pulitzer Prize four timesWon Nobel Prize in 1936Founder of the American drama2. Major WorksBeyond the Horizon (1920) 《天边外》The Emperor Jones(1920) 《琼斯皇帝》The Hairy Ape (1922)《毛猿》Desire under the Elms (1924) 《榆树下的欲望》美国文学笔记整理完整版18世纪末-19世纪中后浪漫主义时期Romanticism1. 早期浪漫主义华盛顿·欧文美国文学之父father of American Literature(为美国文学第一次赢得世界声誉)Washington Irving 以笔记小说和历史传厅闻名，humor1783-1859 The Sketch Book见闻札记（标志浪漫主义开始）A History of New York纽约史---美国人写的第一部诙谐文学杰作；----The Legend of Sleepy Hollow睡谷的传说---成为美国第1个获国际声誉作家-----Rip Van Winkle里普·万·温克尔(李伯大梦)The Alhambra阿尔罕伯拉2.超验主义New England Transcendentalism埃德加·爱伦·坡侦探小说之父Father of western detective stories and psychoanalytic criticism精神批Edgar Allan Poe 评，首开近代侦探小说先河，又是法国象征主义运动的源头1809-1849 Novelist小说家, poet, critic批评家good at writing Gothic(哥特式）and detective fictionPoetryThe Raven《乌鸦》To Helen《献给海伦》Short storiesHorror ( suspense, terror, Insanity, death，Revenge and rebirth）The Fall of the House of Usher《厄舍古屋的倒塌》The Masque of the Red Death 《红色死亡的化妆舞会》The Black Cat《黑猫》The Cask of Amontillado《一桶白葡萄酒》Ligeia《丽姬娅》Detective /ratiocinative(推理的）(originator)The Purloined Letter 《窃信案》The Muder in the Rue Morgue 《莫格街谋杀案》The Mystery of Marie Rog《玛丽.罗热疑案》The Gold Bug 《金甲虫》拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生Nature论自然-----新英格兰超验主义者的宣言书manifestoRalf Waldo Emerson The American Scholar论美国学者;American essayist,lecturer, poetThe Founder of Transcendentalism1803-1882 Self-reliance论自立The Transcendentalist超验主义者Representative Men代表人物School Address神学院演说Days日子-首开自由诗之先河free verseRalph Waldo Emerson was an American philosopher, essayist, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism个人主义.纳撒尼尔·霍桑subject: human soul first great American writer of fiction 虚构Nathaniel Hawthorne 象征主义大师American novelist and short story writer1804-1864 The Scarlet Letter红字Twice-told Tales尽人皆知的故事Mosses from an Old Manse古屋青苔The House of the Seven Gables有七个尖角阁的房子The Marble Faun玉石雕像The Blithedale Romance福谷传奇Young Goodman Brown年轻的布朗The Birthmark胎记His point of view : Hawthorne is influenced by Puritanism（清教主义）deeply.(1). Evil is at the core of human life 邪恶是人类生活的中心(2).whenever there is sin 罪恶, there is punishment 惩罚. Sin or evil can be passed from generation to generation 代代相传(3). Evil educates. 邪恶的教育(4). He has disgust in science科学. One source of evil is overweening (自负的) (too proud of oneself) intellect . His intellectual characters聪明的特征are villains反派角色, dreadful可怕的and cold-blooded冷血的赫尔曼·迈尔维尔擅长航海奇遇和异域风情Herman Melville Moby Dick/The White Whale白鲸（first American prose epic史诗）1819-1891 Main characters: Ishmael(以实玛利）: the narrator 叙述者Ahab（埃哈伯）: the protagonist 主要人物Moby DickTypee泰比Omoo奥穆Mardi玛地White Jacket白外衣Pierre皮尔埃; Billy Budd比利·巴德沃尔特·惠特曼Father of free verse自由诗之父Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass草叶集（the birth of truly American poetry and the1819-1892 end of romanticism）共和圣经Democratic Bible 美国史诗American EpicAmerican poet, essayist散文家, journalist新闻工作者, and humanist人道主义学家The father of free verse（自由诗）Song of Myself自我之歌Democratic Vistas 民主的前景One’s Self I Sing 《我歌唱一个人的自己》O Captain! My Captain! 《噢，我的船长！我的船长！》3.Writing themes (almost everything):equality of things and beings 平等的事情和人divinity 神学of everythingImmanence（无所不在）of GodDemocracy 民主evolution of cosmos（宇宙的演化）multiplicity 多样性of natureself-reliant spirit 自力更生的精神death, beauty of deathexpansion of America 美国的扩张brotherhood 手足情谊and social solidarity（社会团结）(unity of nations in the world世界统一的国家) pursuit 追求of love and happiness4.S tyle: “free verse（自由诗）: the verse that does not follow a fixed metrical pattern固定的韵律模式, the verse without a fixed beat 固定的节拍or regular rhyme scheme规律的格律.(1).Parallelism（排比）(2).phonetic recurrence（同字起句法）（the repetition重复of words or phrases at the beginning of the line, inthe middle or at the end)(3).the use of a certain pronoun ―I‖ (the first person narrator)(4).strong tendency to use oral English使用英语口语的强烈倾向(5).the habit of using snapshots 生活小照(6).a looser and more open-ended syntactic structure语法结构(7).use of conventional image 传统的想象(8).vocabulary – powerful, colourful, rarely used words of foreign origins, some even wrong(9). sentences – catalogue目录technique: long list of names, long poem lines5. Significance of Leaves of GrassLeaves of Gras s, either in content or in form, is an epoch-making work in American literature:无论是在内容还是在形式上,是一个划时代的作品在美国文学→Its democratic content marked the shift from Romanticism to Realism. 其民主内容标志着从浪漫主义到现实主义的转变→Its free-verse form broke from old poetic conventions to open a new way for American poetry.其生发的形式从旧的诗意的约定了打开新的思路对美国诗歌。
【精品】美国文学浪漫主义时期
【关键字】精品美国文学浪漫主义时期浪漫主义时期开始于十八世纪末,到内战爆发为止,是美国文学史上最重要的时期。
华盛顿·欧文出版的《见闻札记》标志着美国文学的开端,惠特曼的《草叶集》是浪漫主义时期文学的压卷之作。
浪漫主义时期的文学是美国文学的繁荣时期,所以也称为"美国的文艺复兴。
"美国社会的发展哺育了"一个伟大民族的文学"。
年轻的美国没有历史的沉重包袱,很快在政治、经济和文化方面成长为一个独立的国家。
这一时期也是美国历史上西部扩张时期,到1860年领土已开拓到太平洋西岸。
到十九世纪中叶,美国已由原来的十三个州扩大到二十一个州,人口从1790年的四百万增至1860年的三千万。
在经济上,年轻的美国经历向工业的转化,影响所及不仅仅是城市,而且也包括农村。
蒸汽动力在工、农业生产上的运用、工厂的建立、劳动力的大量需求以及科技上的发明创造使经济生活得到了重组。
另外,大量移民促进了工业更加蓬勃的发展。
政治上,民主与平等成为这个年轻国家的理想,产生了两党制。
值得一提的是这个国家的文学和文化生活。
随着独立的美国政府的成立,美国人民已感到需要有美国文学,表达美国人民所特有的经历:早期清教徒的殖民,与印第安人的遭遇,边疆开发者的生活以及西部荒原等。
这个年轻国家的文学富有想象,已产生了一种文学环境。
报刊杂志如雨后春笋,出现了一大批文学读者,形成了十九世纪上半叶蓬勃的浪漫主义的文学思潮。
外国的,尤其是英国的文学大师对美国作家产生了重大影响。
美国作家由于秉承了与英国一样的文化保守,形成了同英国一样的浪漫主义风格。
欧文(Irving)、库柏(Cooper),坡(Poe),弗伦诺(Freneau)和布雷恩特(Bryant)一一反古典主义时期的文学样式和文学思潮,开创了较新的小说和诗歌形式。
这一时期大多数美国文学作品中,普遍强调文学的想象力和情感因素,注重生动的描写、异国情调的表达、感官的体会和对超自然力的描述。
美国文学史概论之三：浪漫主义时期文学
4. Other Romantic poets: a. W.C. Bryant (Thanatopsis, The Yellow Violet, To a waterfoul) b. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (A Psalm of Life; The Song of Hiawatha; Evangeline; The Courtship of Miles Standish) c. John Greenleaf Whittier, New England Laureate, (Snow-Bound) d. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Boston Brahmin (Old Ironsides, The last Leaf) e. James Russell Lowell, Boston Brahmin (A Year’s Life, Biglow Papers) f. Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, poet of forest (Poems, Sonnets, “A Cricket”)
III. American Romantic Period (1820-1865)
I. Romantic Fathers: Washington Irving and J. F. Cooper II. New England Transcendentalists (1836-1855): Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau III. The First Literary Renaissance 1. Two novelists: Hawthorne and Melville 2. A Controversial man of letters: E. A. Poe 3. The Epitomes of American Poetry: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
美国文学名词解释
1.American Puritanismit comes from the American puritans, who were the first immigrants moved to American continent in the 17th century. Original sin, predestination（预言）and salvation（拯救）were the basic ideas of American Puritanism. And, hard-working, piousness（虔诚,尽职），thrift and sobriety（清醒）were praised.2.Romanticism: the literature term was first applied to the writers of the 18th century in Europe who broke away from the formal rules of classicalwriting. When it was used in American literature it referred to the writers of the middle of the 19th century who stimulated（刺激）the sentimental emotions of their readers. They wrote of the mysterious of life, love, birth and death. The Romantic writers expressed themselves freely and without restraint. They wrote all kinds of materials, poetry, essays, plays, fictions, history, works of travel, and biography.3.Transcendentalism (先验说,超越论): is a philosophic and literary movement that flourished in New England, particular at Concord, as areaction against Rationalism and Calvinism (理性主义and喀尔文主义). Mainly it stressed intuitive understanding of God, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. The representative writers are Emerson and Thoreau.4.Local colorism: as a trend became dominant in American literature in the 1860s and early 1870s，it is defined by Hamlin Garland as havingsuch quality of texture and background that it could not have been written in any other place or by anyone else than a native stories of local colorism have a quality of circumstantial(详细的) authenticity(确实性), as local colorists tried to immortalize(使不朽) the distinctive natural, social and linguistic features. It is characteristic of vernacular(本国语) language and satirical(讽刺的) humor5.American Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. Itcame as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience6.Naturalism: American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. American naturalism had been shaped by the war; by the social upheavals（剧变）that undermined the comforting faith of an earlier age. America‟s literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting m oral truths.They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by their environment and heredity. Although naturalist literature described the world with sometimes brutal realism, it sometimes also aimed at bettering the world through social reform.7.Imagism（意象派）: It‟s a poetic movement of England and the U.S. flourished from 1909 to 1917.The movement insists on the creation ofimages in poetry by “the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. The leaders of this movement were Ezra Po und and Amy Lowell.8.The Lost generation：it refers to a group of young intellectuals （知识分子）who came back from war，were injured （受伤害）bothphysically （身体上）and mentally （精神上）. They lived by indulging （放任）themselves in the Bohemian （波西米亚）way of life.Their American dream was disillusioned （破灭了）. The best representative of the lost generation was Ernest Hemingway.9.American Dream: American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. It usually implies asuccessful and satisfying life. It usually framed in terms of American capitalism（资本主义）, its associated purported meritocracy,（知识界精华）and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Bill of Rights.1.What are the artistic characteristics of the Scarlet Letter?The novel, a story of rebellion within an emotionally constricted Puritan society, is an undisputed masterpiece written by Hawthorne. It reveals both Hawthorne‟s super craftsmanship and the powerful psychological insight with which he probed guilt and anxiety in the human soul. Hawthorne‟s remarkable sense of the Puritan past, his understanding of the colonial history in England, his apparent preoccupation with the moral issue of sin and guilt, and his keen psychological analysis of people are brought to full display in the novel. With modern psychological insight, Hawthorne probed the secret motivations in human behavior and the guilt and anxiety that he believed resulted from all sins against humanity, especially those of pride. Hawthorne is a master of symbolism. The structure and the form of the novel are carefully worked out to cater for the thematic concern. By using Pearl as a thematic symbol, Hawthorne emphasizes the consequence of the sin of adultery has brought to the community and people living in that community. The letter A takes on different layers of symbolic meanings.2.What is the relationship between American romanticism and European Romanticism?They share much in common: in reaction to the enlightenment and its emphasis on reason, Romanticism stressed emotion, the imagination, and subjectivity of approach. European literary masters, especially the English counterparts exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the new World. American romanticism is to some extent derivative after their English predecessors. But the great American Romantic works were typically American. The writers developed some new forms of fiction or poetry. They placed an increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions and displayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. The strong tendency to exalt the individual and common man was another focus of the movement.1.The term “Puritan” was applied to those settlers who originally were devout members of the Church of England.2.Harvard College was established in 1636, with a printing press set up nearly in 1639.3.Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety, these were the puritan values that dominated much of the early American writing.4.The American poets who emerged in the seventeenth century adapted the style of established European poets to the subject matter confronted ina strange, new environment. Anne Bradstreet was one of such poets.5.Bradstreet used a word “pilgrim” to describe the community of believers who sailed from Southampton England, on the Mayflower and settledin Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620.6.The writer who best expressed the Puritan faith in the colonial period was John Winthrop.7.The Puritan philosophy known as Puritanism was important in New England during colonial time, and had a profound influence on the earlyAmerican mind for several generations.8.At the initial period the spread of ideas of the American Enlightenment was largely due to journalism.9.Franklin edited the first colonial magazine, which he called the Great Magazine.10.Franklin‟s beat writing is found in his masterpiece Autobiography.11.Thomas Paine, with his natural gift for pamphleteering and rebellion, was appropriately born into an age of revolution.12.On January 10, 1776, Paine‟s famous pamphlet Common Sense appeared.13.Paine‟s second most important work The Rights of Man was an impassioned plea against hereditary monarchy.14.The most outstanding poet in America of the 18th century was Philip Freneau.15.Philip Freneau‟s famous poem “The British Prison Ship” was written about his imprisoned experience.16.Philip Freneau was a close friend and political associate of President Thomas Jefferson.17.Philip Freneau was considered as the “poet of the American Revolution”, because he wrote impassioned verse in support of the Americanrevolution.18.Philip Freneau was noteworthy first because of the nature of his poems. They were truly American and very patriotic. In this respect, he reflectedthe spirit of his age. Therefore, he has been called the “father of American poetry”.19.In American literature, the eighteenth century was an Age of Reason and Revolution.20.In the early 19th century Rip Van Winkle established Washington Irving‟s reputation at home and abroad, and designed the beginning ofAmerican Romanticism.21.Ralph Waldo Emerson‟s first book in 1836 Nature brought American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New EnglandTranscendentalism.22.In the early 19th century, Washington Irving wrote The Sketch Book which became the first work by an American writer to win financial successon both sides of the Atlantic.23.Allan Poe‟s poems have the musical quality and romantic beauty. The Raven is his best-known poem.24.The Civil War of 1861-1865 ended in the defeat of the Southerners and the abolition of slavery.25.Leaves of Grass, either in content or form, is an epoch-making work in American literature; its democratic content marked the shift fromRomanticism to Realism, and its free verse form broke from old poetic conventions to open a new road for American poetry.26.Washington Irving was regarded as the first great prose stylist of American Romanticism.27.In 1823 James Fenimore Cooper wrote The Pioneers, the first of the five novels that make up The Leatherstocking Tales. The remaining fourbooks: The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer, continue the story of Natty Bumppo, one of the most famous characters in American fiction.28.The short story …The Legend of Sleepy Hollow‟ is taken from Washington Irving‟s work named The Sketch Book.29.Washington Irving was the first American to achieve an international literary reputation after the Revolutionary War.30.Melville is famous for writing about the sea and the islands of the Southern Pacific. In his master piece Moby Dick, he tells a story of whalingvoyage which sets a symbolic account of the conflict between man and his fate.31.The first important American novelist was James Fennimore Cooper.32.The central figure in the Leatherstocking Tales is Natty Bumppo, who goes by the various names of Leatherstocking, Deerlayer, Pathfinder andHawkeye.33.“To a Waterfowl” is perhaps the peak of William Cullen Bryant‟s work. It has been called by an eminent English critic “the most perfect briefpoem in the language”.34.Among William Cullen Bryant‟s most important later works are his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey into English blank verse.35.Edgar Allan Poe‟s poem “The Raven” is perhaps the best example of onomatopoeia in the English language.36.Most of Allan Poe‟s stories can be roughly divided into two kinds: tales of Gothic horror or grotesque like The Black Cat, an incisive enquiryinto the capacity of the human mind to originate its destruction and The Fall of the House of Usher.37. A superb book Walden came out of Thoreau‟s two-year experience at Walden Pond.38.From Thoreau‟s Concord jail experience, came his famous essay “Civil Disobedience”.39.In 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne brought out his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, the story of a triangle love affair in colonial America.40.Herman Melville‟s novel Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.41.In “I Hear America Singing”, Walt Whitman depicts the beauty of labor and laborers.42.For the whole 19th century Emily Dickinson was the only woman poet who enjoys high academic esteem today. She has been acclaimed as apoet of philosophical and tragic dimensions, a poet who was responsive to the challenging questions of man, nature and human consciousness.43.The American Romantic period stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outburst of the Civil War.44.In The Pioneers, Natty Bumppo represents the ideal American, living a virtuous and free life in God‟s world.45.The way in which Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter suggests that American Romanticism adapted itself to American Puritan morality.。
山东师范大学美国文学名词解释
一共考了四个，除了里边加红的三个还考了个international theme，这个我没整理，你到时找找哈！Allegory寓言:is a story with a symbolic meaning used to teach a moral principle.American renaissance:the name sometimes is given to a flourishing of distinctively Am erica literature in the period before the civil war.American Puritanism美国清教主义:it comes from the American puritans, who were t he first immigrants moved to American continent in the 17th century. Original sin, pre destination and salvation were the basic ideas of American Puritanism. And, hard-work ing, piousness thrift and sobriety were praised.American dream美国梦:is the faith held by many in the united states of America tha t through hard work,courage,and determination one can achieve a better life for onesel f,usually through financial prosperity.these were values held by many early European s ettlers,and have been passed on to subsequent generations. nowadays the American dre am has led to an emphasis on material wealth as a measure of success and happiness.American revolution: the war between the American colonies and great Britain,leading the formation of independent united states, by the middle of the 18th century,differenc es in life, thought ,and interests had developed between the mother country and the gr owing colonies. local political institutions and practice diverged significantly from the english way,while social customs,religious beliefs ,and economic interests added to the potential sources of conflict. The British government, like other imperial powers in the 18th century, intended to regulate commerce in the British interest.American romanticism美国浪漫主义:romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a height ened interest in nature,emphasis on the individua l’s e xpression of emotion and imagina tion,departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism and rebellion against establish ed social rules and conventions.American enlightenment美国启蒙运动:is a philosophical movement of the 18th centur y that emphasized the use of reason to scrutinize previously accepted doctrines and tra ditions. It is sometimes described as the intellectual culture of the British North Ameri can colonies and the early United States.Alliteration头韵:i t refers to the repetition of the same sounds—usually initial consona nts of words or of stressed syllables.Assonance类韵:it is the repetition of similar vowel sounds in a line of poetry. It has been an optional poetic device used within and between lines of verse for emphasis o r musical effect.Civil war美国内战:a military conflict between the US of American(the union)and the Confederate states of America(the confederacy)from1861 to1865.Consonance和音:it refers to the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neigh boring words whose vowel sounds are different in a line of poetry.Free verse自由诗:is a form of poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid and predetermined verse structure; instead,it uses the cadencesof natural speechGothic tradition哥特传统: gothic novel or gothic romance is a story of terror and su spense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery. In an extended sense,many n ovels that do not have a medievalized setting,but which share a comparably sinister,gr otesque,or claustrophobic atmosphere have been classed as gothic.Great awakening宗教大觉醒运动:is a series of religious revivals that swept over the American colonies about the middle of the 18th century. It resulted in doctrinal chang es and influenced social and political thought.Historical novel历史小说:a novel in which the action takes place during a specific hi storical period well before the time of writing(often one or two generations before,som etimes several centuries), and in which some attempt is made to depict accurately the customs and mentality of the period.Individualism个人主义: is a moral,political,and social philosophy,which emphasizes in dividual liberty, the primary importance of the individual, and the “virtues of self-reliance”Irony反讽:irony is a contrast or a difference between the way things seem and the w ay they really are.verbal irony occurs when words that appear to be saying one thing are really saying something quite different.situational irony occurs when what is expect ed to happen is not what actually comes to pass. Dramatic irony occurs when events that mean one thing to the characters mean something quite different to the reader. iro ny is often accompanied by a grim humor.Lyric抒情诗: in the modern sense, it is any fairly short poem expressing the personal mood,feeling,or meditation of a single speaker. Lyric poetry is the most extensive cat egory of verse. Lyrics may be composed in almost any meter and on almost every su bject,although the most usual emotions presented are those of love and grief. Among t he common lyric forms are the sonnet, ode, elegy, and the more personal kinds of hy mn.Local colorism地方特色主义: local colorism is a type of writing that was popular in the late19th century,particularly among authors in the South of the u.s. this style relie d heavily on using words,phrases,and slang that were native to the particular region in which the story took place.Naturalism自然主义:naturalism,a more deliberate kind of realism,usually involves a vi ew of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment.Natur al fiction aspired to a sociological objectivity,offering detailed and fully researched inv estigations into unexplored corners of modern society.Original sin原罪:i n christian theology,the sin of Adam,by which all humankind fell fr om divine grace,stating that the essentially graceless nature of humanity requires redem ption to save it.Point of view视角:it is the relationship of the storyteller or narrator, to the story.a st ory has a first-person point of view if one of the characters,referred to as “i”,tells the story. A story has a limited third-person point of vies if the narrator reveals the thou gh ts of only one character but refers to that character as “he”or”she”.Realism现实主义: it is, in literature,an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity.In part, realism was a reaction against the romant ic emphasis on the strange, idealistic, and long-ago and far-away.Sonnet十四行诗: it is a poem consisting of 14 lines,with rhymes arranged according t o one or other of certain definite schemes,of which the Petrarchan and the Elizabethan are principal ,namely:abba abba OR abab cdcd efef gg.Social Darwinism社会达尔文主义:social Darwinism was an application of Charles Dar win’s theory of evolution to the field of social relations. Social Darwinism argued that social progress resulted from conflicts in which the fittest or best adapted individuals, or entire societies, would prevail.Transcendentalism超验主义:is a literature, philosophical and artistic movement that fl ourished in new England from about 1836 to 1860. The beliefs that god is immanent in each person and in nature and that individual intuition is the highest source of kno wledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of t raditional.Unitarianism上帝一位论:is general,the form of Christianity that denies the doctrine of the Trinity,believing that God exists only in one person.The modern Unitarianism orig inated in the period of the Protestant Reformation.。
美国文学史选择题
美国文学史选择题●美国文学主要分为四个时期：●I. The Literature Around the Revolution of Independence（独立革命前后的文学）。
●一、殖民地时期（The Literature of Colonial American) (Colonial Period 1607--1775[独立战争1775-1783]）●其他：●major topic: American Puritanism●起源（关键概括）：●是English Protestant的一个分支、Martin Luther(1517)、JohnCalvin、因他们认为伊丽莎白教会改革不彻底、unscriptural不根据基督教《圣经》来--而called for further purification、"would bepurifier"●清教主义信仰（关键内容概括）：●purify the English Church让宗教崇拜重返早期"pure and unspotted"condition、反教会的繁杂仪式rituals、人们要根据《圣经》行事●教条学说：●把宗教当成最重要的事●为了光辉上帝活着●相信：●predestination预言天数上帝拯救、拯救少数●limited atonement赎罪耶稣死亡是上帝选择、不是为了大家●oringinal sin & total depravity堕落每个人生来有原罪、应该努力工作●清教主义表现/影响：●道德卓越moral excellence与良知conscience●重教育●努力、节俭thrifty、独立●有上帝选民chosen people意识●实践理想主义、教条机会主义●欢愉是罪●文学贡献：促进了象征主义的发展--Puritans 认为任何一个简单的东西都有深意connoted deep meaning.●印第安文学Native American Literature●major forms: legends, folktales, battle songs and poems●早期来美洲的目的：金子、土地、宗教迫害persecution、政治观念错误、穷人、罪犯、经商●美洲殖民地：●第一个：1607 英国人建立Jamestown--现在的Virginia●第二个：1620 William Bradford领导的清教徒，乘坐May Flower号船，到今天的Massachusetts●人物集：●1、约翰•史密斯（John Smith）：早期英国殖民者、探险家，在弗吉尼亚建立了第一个永久英国殖民地。
最新美国文学-浪漫主义Romanticism
Contents
1. Introduction to American Romanticism 2. Introduction to American Transcendentalism 3. Washington Irving 华盛顿·欧文（1783——1859） 4. James Fennimore Cooper 詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库珀（1789——1851） 5. William Cullen Bryant 威廉·柯伦·布莱恩特（1794——1878） 6. Edgar Allan Poe 埃德加·艾伦·坡 7. Ralph Waldo Emerson 拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生 8. Henry David Thoreau 亨利·大卫·梭罗（1817——1862） 9. Nathaniel Hawthorne 纳撒尼尔·霍桑（1804——1864） 10. Herman Melville 赫尔曼·梅尔维尔（1819——1891） 11. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow亨利·沃兹沃思·朗费罗
National influences International influences
National Influences
A. In politics: democracy and political equality lay the
foundation of Romanticism;
American came into a political, economic and cultural independence. Democracy and political equality became the ideals of the new nation.
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第一章美国浪漫主义时期一、美国浪漫主义时期概述Ⅰ.本章学习目的和要求通过本章学习，了解１９世纪初期至中叶美国文学产生的历史、文化背景；认识该时期文学创作的基本待征、基本主张，及其对同时代和后期美国文学的影响；了解该时期主要作家的文学创作生涯、创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题思想、人物刻画、语言风格等；同时结合注释，读懂所选作品并了解其思想内容和艺术特色，培养理解和欣赏文学作品的能力。
Ⅱ.本章重点及难点：1．浪漫主义时期美国文学的特点2．主要作家的创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格、思想意义。
3．分析讨论选读作品Ⅲ.本章考核知识点和考核要求：1.美国浪漫主义时期概述(1)．"识记"内容：美国浪漫主义文学产生的社会历史及文化背景(2)．"领会"内容：美国浪漫主义在文学上的表现a.欧洲浪漫主义文学的影响b.美国本土文学的崛起及其待证(3)．"应用"内容：清教主义、超验主义、象征主义、自由诗等名词的解释2.美国浪漫主义时期的主要作家Ａ．华盛顿·欧文1．一般识记：欧文的生平及创作主涯2．识记：《纽约外史》《见闻札记》3．领会：欧文的创作领域、创作思想，及其作品的艺术风格4.应用：选读《瑞普·凡·温可尔》的主题及其艺术特色Ｂ．拉尔夫·华尔多·爱默生1．一般识记：．爱默生的生平及创作生涯2．识记：爱默生的超验主义思想3．领会：（1）爱默生的散文：《论自然》《论自助》《论美国学者》等（2）．爱默生与梭罗：梭罗的超验主义思想和他的《沃尔登》4．应用：《论自然》节选：爱默生的基本哲学思想及自然观Ｃ．纳撒尼尔·霍桑1．一般识记：霍桑的生平及创作主涯2．识记：霍桑的长短篇小说3．领会：（1）《红字》的主题、心理描写、象征手法和、小说结构（2）霍桑的清教主义思想及加尔文教条中的"原罪"对霍桑的影响（人性本恶的观点）（3）霍桑对浪漫主义小说的贡献4．应用：选读《小伙子布朗》的主题结构、象征手法及语言特色Ｄ．华尔特·惠特曼1．一般识记：惠特曼的生平及其创作生涯2．识记：惠特曼的民主思想3．领会：（1）惠特曼的《草叶集》的主创意图、思想感情及诗体形式、语言风格（2）．惠特曼的个人主义4．应用：选读《草叶集》诗选："一个孩子的成长"、"涉水的骑兵'"、"自己之歌"的主题结构、诗歌的艺术特色、语言风格Ｅ．赫尔曼·麦尔维尔1．一般识记：麦尔维尔的生平及创作生涯2．识记：麦尔维尔的早期作品：《玛地》《雷得本》《白外衣》，后期作品《皮埃尔》《骗子的化装表演》《比利伯德》等3．领会：《白鲸》的（1）主题：表层及深层意义（2）小说结构：浪漫主义和现实主义的统一（3）象征手法和寓言的运用（4）语言特色4．应用：选读《白鲸》最后一章的节选：主题思想、人物刻画、象征手法、语言特色Chapter l The Romantic Period(一)"识记"内容：1.The origin of Romantic American literatureThe Romantic Period, one of the most important periods in the history of American literature, stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass.2.The American Renaissance or New England Renaissance is a period of the great flowering of American literature, from the i830s roughly until the end of the American Civil War. It came of age as an expression of a national spirit. One of the most important influences in the period was that of the Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau. The Transcendentalists contributed to the founding of a new national culture based on native elements. Apart from the Transcendentalists, there emerged during this period great imaginative writers ---Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman---whose novels and poetry left a permanent imprint on American literature.3.Its social historical and cultural backgroundThe development of the American society nurtured "the literature of a great nation." America was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country. Historically, it was the time of westward expansion in America economically, the whole nation was experiencing an industrial transformation. Politically, democracy and equa1ity became the ideal of the new nation, and the two-party system came into being. Worthy of mention is the literary and cultural life of the country. With the founding of the American Independent Government, the nation felt an urge to have its own literary expression, to make known its new experience that other nations did not have: the early Puritan settlement, the confrontation with the Indians, the frontiersmen's life, and the wild west. Besides, the nation's literary milieu was ready for the Romantic movement as we11. Thus, with a strong sense of optimism, a spectacular outburst of romantic feeling was brought about in the first ha1f of the 19th century.4.Major writers of this periodThere emerged a great host of men of letters during this period, among whom the better-known are poets such as Philip Freneau, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Long Fellow, James Russel Lowell, John Greenleaf Whitter, Edgar Ellen Poe, and, especially, Walt Whitman, whose Leaves Of Grass established him as the most popular American poet of the 19th century. The fiction of the American Romantic period is an original and diverse body of work. It ranges from the comic fables of Washington Irving to the The Gothic tales of Edgar Allen Poe, from the frontier adventures of James Fenimore Cooper to the narrative quests of Herman Melville, from the psycho1ogical romances of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the social realism of Rebecca Harding Davis.(二)．领会内容1.The impact of European Romanticism on American Romanticism Foreign literary masters, especially the English counterparts exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the new world. Born of one common cultural heritage, the American writers shared some common features with the English Romanticists. They revolted against the literary forms and ideas of the period of classicism by developing some relatively new forms of fiction or poetry.(1) They put emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature, which included a liking for the picturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the sensational, and the supernatural.(2) The Americans also placed an increasingemphasis on the free expression of emotions and disp1ayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters.Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitivity and excitement.(3) The strong tendency to exalt the individual and the common man was almost a national religion in America. Writers like Freneau, Bryant, and Cooper showed a great interest in external nature in their respective works.(4) The literary use of the more colorfu1 aspects of the past was also to be found in Irving's effort to exploit the legends of the Hudson River region, and in Cooper's long series of historical tales.(5)In short, American Romanticism is, in a certain way, derivative.2.The unique characteristics of American RomanticismAlthough greatly influenced by their English counterparts, the American romantic writers revealed unique characteristics of their ownin their works and they grew on the native lands. For examp1e,(1) the American national experience of "pioneering into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams, and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral 1aw. (2)The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature.Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper's Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's Walden and, later, in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (3) With the growth of American national consciousness,American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. (4) Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values and American Romanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. (5) Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers.(三)．应用内容1. The American Puritanism and its great influence over American moral values, as is shown in American romantic writings.(1) American PuritanismPuritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. (The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church, who came into existence in the reigns Que en Elizabeth and King James Ⅰ.The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them Puritans. They 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. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They felt that the Church of England was too close to the Church of 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".They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. But in the grim struggle for survival that followed immediately after their arrival in America, they became more and more practical, as indeed they had to be. Puritans were noted for a spirit of moral and religious earnestness that determinated their whole way of life. Puritans' lives were extremely disciplined and hard.They drove out of their settlements all those opinions that seemed dangerous to them, and history has criticized their actions. Yet in the persecution of what they considered error, the Puritans were no worse than many other movements in history. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind and American values. American Puritanism also had a conspicuously noticeable and an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets.(2) One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers.2. New England TranscendentalismNew England Transcendentalism is the mot clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period. It was started in the area around Concord, Mass. by a group of intellectual and the literary men of the United States such as Emerson, Henry David Thoreau who were members of an informal club, i. e. the Transcendental Club in New England in the l830s. The transcendentalists reacted against the cold, rigid rationalism of Unitarianism in Boston. They adhered 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. The writings of the transcendentalists prepared the ground of their contemporaries such as Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.The main issues involved in the debate were generally philosophical, concerning nature, man and the universe. Basically, Transcendentalism has been defined philosophical1y as "the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses."Emerson once proclaimed in a speech, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism inc1ude the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-re1iant.3. American Romanticists differed in their understanding of human nature.To the transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau, man is divine in nature and therefore forever perfectible; but to Hawthorne and Melville, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensab1e for the improvement of human nature, as is shown in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.二.美国浪漫主义时期的主要作家Ⅰ. Washington Irving(1783-l859)Irving's position in American literature Washington Irving was one of the first American writers to earn an international reputation, and regarded as an early Romantic writer in the merican literary history and Father of the American short stories.一．一般识记His life and major worksWashington Irving was born in New York City in a wealthy family. From a very early age he began to read widely and write juvenile poems, essays, and plays. In l798, he conc1uded his education at private schools and entered a law office, but he loved writing more.His first successful work is A History Of New York from the Beginning Of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, which, written under the name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, won him wide popularity after it came out in 1809. With the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in serials between 1819 and 1820, Irving won a measure of international fame on both sides of the Atlantic. The book contains familiar essays on the Eng1ish life and Americanized versions of European folk tales like "Rip Van Winkle ＂, and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Geoffrey Crayon is a carefully contrived persona and behind Crayon stands Irving, juxtaposing the Old World and the New, and manipulating his own antiquarian interest with artistic perspectives.The major work of his later years was The Life of George Washington.二．识记1.Irving's great indebtedness to European literatureMost of Irving's subject matter are borrowed heavily from European sources, which are chiefly Germanic.Irving's relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ignored considering his success both abroad and at home.A History of New York is a patchwork of references, echoes, and burlesques. He parodies or imitates Homer, Cervantes, Fielding, Swift and many other favorites of his. He was also absorbed in German Literature and got ideas from German legends for two of his famous stories "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Alhambra is usually regarded as Irving's "Spanish Sketch Book" simply because it has a strong flavor of Spanish culture. Most of the thirty-three essays in The Sketch Book were written in England, filled with English scenes and quotations from English authors and faithful to British orthography. Washington Irving brought to the new nation what its peop1e desired most in a man of 1etters the respect of the Old World.2.Irving's unique contribution to American literatureIrving's contribution to American literature is unique in more than one way. He was the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame. Although greatly influenced by European literature, Irving gave his works distinctive American flavor. "Rip Van Winkle" or "The Legend of Sleepy Hol1ow", however exotic these stories are, are among the treasures of the American language and culture. These two stories easily trigger off American imagination with their focus on American subjects, American landscape, and, in Irving's case, the legends of the Hudson River region of the fresh young 1and. It is not the sketches about the Old World but the tales about America that made Washington Irving a household word and his fame enduring.He was father of American short stories. And later in the hands of Hawthorne and Melville the short story attained a degree of perfection.三．领会1.Irving's theme of conservatism as is revealed in "Rip Van Winkle"Irving's taste was essentia1ly conservative and always exa1ted a disappearing past.This socia1 conservatism and literary preference for the past is revea1ed, to some extent, in his famous story "Rip Van Winkle." The story is a tale remembered mostly for Rip's 20-year s1eep, set against the background of the inevitably changing America. Rip went to sleep before the War of Independence and woke up after it. The change that had occurred in the 20 years he slept was to him not always for the better. The revolution upset the natural order of things. In the story Irving ski1lfu1ly presents to us paralleled juxtapositions of two totally different worlds before and after Rip's 20 years' s1eep. By moving Rip back and forth from a noisy world with his wife on the farm to a wild but peaceful natural world in the mountains, and from a pre-Revolution village to a George Washington era, lrving describes Rip's response and reactionin a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferabi1ity of the past to the present, and the preferability of a dream-like world to the real one. Irving never seemed to accept a modern democratic America.2.Irving's literary craftsmanshipWashington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who "perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produced."(1) We get a strong sense impression as we read him along, since the language he used best reveals what a Romantic writer can do with words. We hear rather than read, for there is musicality in almost every line of his prose.(2) We seldom learn a mora1 lesson because he wants us amused and relaxed. So we often find ourselves lost in a world that is permeated witha dreaming quality.(3) The Gothic elements and the supernatural atmosphere are manipulated in such a way that we could become so engaged and involved in what is happening in a seemingly exotic place.(4) Yet Irving never forgets to associate a certain place with the inward movement of a person and to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and vivid character. He is worth the honor of being "the American Goldsmith" for his literary craftsmanship.四．应用Selected Reading:An Excerpt from "Rip Van Winkle"The story of Rip Van WinkleRip, an indolent good-natured Dutch-American, lives with his shrewish wife in a village on the Hudson during the years before the Revolution. One day while hunting in the Catskills with his dog Wolf, he meets a dwarflike stranger dressed in the ancient Dutch fashion. He helps him to carry a keg, and with him joins a party silently playing a game of ninepins. After drinking of the liquor they provide, Rip falls into a sleep which lasts 20 years, during which the Revolutionary War takes place. He awakes as an old man and returns to his home village that has greatly altered. Upon entering the village, he is greeted by his old dog, which dies of the excitement and then learns that his wife has long been dead. Rip is almost forgotten but he goes to live with his daughter, now the mother of a family, and is soon befriended with his generosity and cheerfulness.This excerpt below is taken from the story, describing for us Rip's difficulties at home, which he often escapes by going to the local inn to spend his time with his friends and sometimes by going hunting in the woods with his dog, and then focusing on Rip 's return from his 20 years'sleep to his greatly altered home village. Here, Irving's pervasive theme of nostalgia for the unrecoverable past is at once made unforgettable.What are the theme and the artistic features of "Rip Van Winkle"?(1) The theme:Irving's taste was essentia1ly conservative and always exa1ted a disappearing past.This socia1 conservatism and literary preference for the past is revea1ed, to some extent, in his famous story "Rip Van Winkle." The story is a tale remembered mostly for Rip's 20-year s1eep, set against the background of the inevitably changing America. Rip went to sleep before the War of Independence and woke up after it. The change that had occurred in the 20 years he slept was to him not always for the better. The revolution upset the natural order of things. In the story Irving ski1lfu1ly presents to us paralleled juxtapositions of two totally different worlds before and after Rip's 20 years' s1eep. By moving Rip back and forth from a noisy world with his wife on the farm to a wild but peaceful natural world in the mountains, and from a pre-Revolution village to a George Washington era, lrving describes Rip's response and reaction in a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferabi1ity of the past to the present, and the preferability of a dream-like world to the real one. Irving never seemed to accept a modern democratic America.(2) The artistic features:"Rip Van Winkle" is not only well-known for Rip's 20-year sleep but also considered a model of perfect English in American Literature and in the English language as well. Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who "perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produced." He has a clear, easy style.(a) We get a strong sense impression as we read him along, since the language he used best reveals what a Romantic writer can do with words. We hear rather than read, for there is musicality in almost every line of his prose.(b) We seldom learn a mora1 lesson because he wants us amused and relaxed.So we often find ourselves lost in a world that is permeated with a dreaming quality. He uses genial humor to exaggerate the seriousness of situation. He uses dignified words to produce a half-mocking effect.(c)The Gothic elements and the supernatural atmosphere are manipulated in such a way that we could become so engaged and involved in what is happening in a seemingly exotic place.( Rip Van Winkle was overwhelmed by the magic power of the drink and fell into sleep for 20 years.)(d)Yet Irving never forgets to associate a certain place with the inward movement of a personand to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and vivid character. He is worth the honor of being "the American Goldsmith" for his literary craftsmanship.II. Ralph Waldo Emerson一.一般识记His life: Ralph Waldo Emerson is the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism, which is unanimously agreed to be the summit of the Romantic period in the history of American literature.Emerson was son of a Unitarian minister. Though born of an impoverished family, Emerson never failed to receive some formal education. Whi1e a student at Harvard he began keeping journals, a practice he continued throughout his 1if e. He later drew on the journal for materials for his essays and poetry. After Harvard, he taught as a schoolmaster, which he soon gave up for the study of theology. He began preaching in 1826 and three years later he became a pastor in a church in Boston. Emerson was ardent at first in his service in religion, but gradually grew skeptical of the beliefs of the church; feeling Unitarianism intolerable, he finally left the ministry in l832.Emerson was greatly influenced by European Romanticism. He Carlyle, and listened to some famous Romantic poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth. Through his acquaintance with these men he became closely involved with German idea1ism and Transcendentalism. After he was back from Europe, Emerson retreated to a quiet study at Concord, Massachusetts, where he began to pursue his new path of "self-reliance." Emerson formed a club there at Concord with peop1e like Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, which was later known as the Transcendenta1 Club. And the unofficial manifesto for the Club was Nature(l836), Emerson's first little book, which established him ever since as the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism. Nature was the fundamental document of his philosophy and expressed also his constant, deeply-felt love for nature. It was called "the Manifesto of American Transcendentalism". He also helped to found and edit for a time the Transcendental journal, The Dial. Emerson lived an intel1ectually active and significant life between the mid-1830s and the mid-1840s, 1ecturing all over the country, and occasionally, abroad. He preached his Transcendental pursuit and his reputation expanded dramatically with his lectures and his essays. Though the rest of Emerson's life was a slow anticlimax to his midd1e years, people continued to honor the most influentia1 prophet and the intellectua1 liberator of their age, and his reputation as a family man of conventional life and a decent, solid citizen has remained always.二．识记内容：His major works:Emerson is generally known as an essayist. During all his life he worked steadily at a succession of essays, usually derived from his journals or lectures he had already given. Nature did not establish him as an important American writer. His lasting reputation began only with the publication of Essays(1841 ). Many of his famous essays are included in Essay, which convey the best of his philosophical discussions and transcendental pursuits, such as The American Scholar, Self Reliance, The Over Soul.The second collection of Emerson's essays, Essays: Second Series (1844) demonstrated even more thorough1y than the first that Emerson's intellect had sharpened in the years since Nature. The Poet and Exprience are examples, the former a reflection upon the aesthetic problems in terms of the present state of literature in America and the latter a discussion about the conflict between idealism and ordinary 1ife.三．领会1. Emersonian TranscendentalismEmersonian Transcendentalism is actual1y a philosophical school which absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and European Romanticism, with its focus on the intuitive knowledge of human beings to grasp the absolute in the universe and the divinity of man. In his essays, Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-sou1, the importance of the Individual, and Nature.(1) Emerson's philosophy of the over-sou1Emerson rejected both the formal religion of the churches and the Deistic philosophy; instead he based his religion on an intuitive belief in an ultimate unity, which he called the "over-soul."Emerson and other Transcendentalists believed in the transcendence of "over-soul". It is an impersonal force that is eternal, moral, harmonious, and beneficient in tendency. They believed that there should be an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal "oversoul", since the over-sou1 is an all-pervading power from which all things come from and of which a1l are a part. One of the tendencies of the "over-soul " is to express itself in form, hence the world of nature as an emanation of the world of spirit. Emerson's remarkable image of "a transparent eyebal1" marks a paradoxical state of being, in which one is merged into nature, the over-soul, whi1e at the same time retaining a unique perception of the experience.(2) Emerson's philosophy of the importance of the IndividualEmerson is affirmative about man's intuitive knowledge, with which a man can trust himself to decide what is right and to act accordingly. The ideal individual should be a self-reliant man. "Trust thyself," he wrotein Self Reliance, by which he means to convince people that the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself are infinite.(3) Emerson's view on natureEmerson's nature is emblematic of the spiritual world, alive with God's overwhelming presence. It mediates between man and God, and its voice leads to higher truth; hence, it exercises a healthy and restorative inf1uence on human mind. "Go back to nature, sink yourse1f back into its inf1uence and you'1l become spiritually who1e again." By employing nature as a big symbol of the Spirit, or God, or the over-soul, Emerson has brought the Puritan 1egacy of symbolism to its perfection.Emersonian Transcendentalism inspired a whole generation of famous American authors like Thoreau, Whitman, and Dickinson.2.Thoreau's TranscendentalismHenry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is most often mentioned as inspired by Emerson, the most representative of the phi1osophical and literary school which is American Transcendenta1ism. Thoreau embraced his master's ideas as a disciple. In 1845 he built a cabin on some land belonging to Emerson by Walden Pond and moved in to live there in a very simple manner for a litt1e over two years, which gave birth to a great transcendentalist work Walden (1854). The book not only fully demonstrates Emersonian ideas of self-reliance but also develops and tests Thoreau's own transcendental philosophy.(1)For Thoreau, nature is not merely symbolic, but divine in itself and human beings can receive precise communication from the natural world by way of pure senses. So he was often alone in the woods or by the pond, lost in spiritual communion with nature.(2)Thoreau strongly believed in se1f-culture and was eager to identify himself with the Transcendental image of the self-reliant man. To achieve personal spiritual perfection, he thinks, the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self- sufficient, so he sought to reduce his physical needs and material comforts to a minimum to get spiritual richness.(3)His positiveness about the importance of individual conscience was such that he even considered the society fetters of the freedom of individuals.Though Thoreau became more than Emerson's disciple eventually, his indebtedness to Nature and its author has never been over1ooked.3. The style of Emerson's essaysEmerson's essays often have a casual style, for most of them were derived from his journals or lectures. They are usually characterized by a series of short, declarative sentences, which are not quite logically。