美国文学名词解释

美国文学名词解释。。仅供参考

1.American Puritanism:Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the puritans.

The Puritans were originally members of a division of the protestant church who wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrines of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through

a special infusion of grace from God. Puritanism had an enduring influence on

American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets.

2.Transcendentalism: transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature,

religion, culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. It placed emphasis on spirit, or the Over soul, as the most important thing in the world. It stressed the importance of individual and offered

a fresh perception nature ad symbolic of the spirit of God. Prominent

transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thorough. 3.American Realism is a literary movement that came in the latter half of the

nineteenth century in the form of local color as a reaction against “the lie” of romanticism and sentimentalism. It reacts against romanticism’s emphasis on intuition, imagination, a dreamy (or innocent) sense of wonder, idealism, faith in nature, and general optimistic belief in the goodness of things. It expressed the concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low. Representative writers include William Dean Howells, Henry James, Mark Twain etc.

4.Local colorism is a literary movement first made its presence felt in late 1860s

and early seventies. Local color may be defined as the careful attention to details of the physical scene and to those mannerisms in speech, dress, or behavior peculiar to a geographical locality. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. In America, local color is mainly shown in the fiction. Mark Twain is the most renowned writer of local color.

5.Naturalism is a critical term applied to the method of literary composition that

aims at a detached, scientific objectivity in the treatment of natural man. It was an outgrowth of Realism. It conceives of man as controlled by his instincts or his passions, or by its social and economic environment and circumstances. The pessimism and deterministic ideas naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.

6.Modernism is a general term applied to the wide range of experimental and

avant-garde trends in literature of the early 20th century, including symbolism, futurism, expressionism, imagism, dadaism, and surrealism. It was characterized by a conscious rejection of established rules, traditions and convention. It also advocates revolution in form. American modernist writings are to be find in the works of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner etc.

7.Imagism came into being in Britain and U.S around 1910 as a reaction to the

traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation.