美国文学史及选读名词解释

美国文学史及选读名词解释

1.Transcendentalism

19th-century movement of writers and philosophers in New England who were loosely bound toge ther by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all cr eation,the innate goodness of man,and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths.In their religious quest,the Transcendentalists rejected the conven tions of18th-century thought;and what began in a dissatisfaction with Unitarianism developed int o a repudiation of the whole established order.

ngston Hughes

American poet and writer emphasized on lower-class black life.He established himself as a major force of the Harlem Renaissance.In1926,in the Nation,he provided the movement with a manife sto when he skillfully argued the need for both race pride and artistic independence in his most me morable essay,'The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain."In many ways Hughes always remain ed loyal to the principles he had laid down for the younger black writers in1926.His art was firml y rooted in race pride and race feeling even as he cherished his freedom as an artist.He was both n ationalist and cosmopolitan.As a radical democrat,he believed that art should be accessible to as many people as possible.He could sometimes be bitter,but his art is generally suffused by a keen sense of the ideal and by a profound love of humanity,especially black Americans.

3.Henry David Thoreau

American essayist,poet,and practical philosopher,renowned for having lived the doctrines of Tra nscendentalism as recorded in his masterwork,Walden(1854),and for having been a vigorous adv ocate of civil liberties,as evidenced in the essay“Civil Disobedience”(1849).In his writings Thor eau was concerned primarily with the possibilities for human culture provided by the American na tural environment.He adapted ideas garnered from the then-current Romantic literatures in order t o extend American libertarianism and individualism beyond the political and religious spheres to t hose of social and personal life.He demanded for all men the freedom to follow unique lifestyles, to make poems of their lives and living itself an art.In a restless,expanding society dedicated to pr actical action,he demonstrated the uses and values of leisure,contemplation,and a harmonious ap preciation of and coexistence with nature.Thoreau established the tradition of nature writing later developed by the Americans

4.the Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance,a flowering of literature(and to a lesser extent other arts)in New York City during the1920s and1930s,has long been considered by many to be the high point in Africa n American writing.It probably had its foundation in the works of W.E.B.Du Bois who believed that an educated Black elite should lead Blacks to liberation.He further believed that his people co uld not achieve social equality by emulating white ideals;that equality could be achieved only by t