美国文学选读期末复习资料

美国文学选读期末复习资料

The Colonial Period or The Enlightenment and Revolution Period American Puritanism ( roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th)

一、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明·富兰克林

作品：1、Poor Richard's Almanac 《格言历书》--- A Collection of maxims, or proverbs, on the value of work and savings for success.

2、The Autobiography 《自传》---“美国梦”的根源

3、参与起草《独立宣言》

American Romanticism

The Romantic Period stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It is a period of the great flowering of American literature.

浪漫主义两大主题：爱和大自然的力量

The social and cultural background of Romanticism：

---The young Republic was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country.

---The Romantic writings revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands.

---The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature.

---The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values.

Romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies as a source of corruption.

二、Edgar Allan Poe 埃德加·爱伦·坡---poet, short story writer and literary critic (48 poems,70 short stories)

He greatly influenced the devotees of “Art for art’s sake.”

He was father of psychoanalytic criticism (心理分析批评), and the detective story.

诗歌的精髓就是追求美

小说的主题常常是恐怖和死亡，其中还运用了象征手法。

The Poetic Principle : 1. The poem, should be short, readable at one sitting;

2. Beauty (the rhythmical creation of beauty);

3. Melancholy 忧伤(especially the death of a beautiful woman).

代表作：The Fall of the House of Usher 《厄舍大厦的倒塌》

Ligeia 《莉盖亚》

Annabel Lee 《安娜贝尔·李》

The Raven 《乌鸦》

The Cask of Amontillado 《阿芒提拉多的酒桶》---gothic novel 人物：蒙特利瑟Montresor, 弗图纳多Fortunato ，筵席上男人将喝醉的死对头哄骗至地窖并砌墙活埋的故事。

三、Ralph Waldo Emerson 拉尔夫·华尔多·爱默生---The chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism （超验主义）

He was a descendent（后裔）of a long line of New England clergymen（牧师）.

散文家、诗人、超验主义的哲学的主要倡导者。

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American Transcendentalism

As a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalism (also known as “American Renaissance”) flourshed 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.

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?