美国文学史chaptertwo(sectionI)
(完整版)美国文学史-知识点梳理
Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. ( A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.)II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of 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 immigration2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (1608)A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country (1612)General History of Virgini a (1624): the Indian princess PocahontasCaptain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII (At that time, the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce hiswife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church ofEngland. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism(1) predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived a very frugal life. This is their ethics.(2) Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.(3) Limited atonement (the salvation of a selected few)(4) theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment3. Influence on American Literature(1) Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.(2) Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not want colonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. They prevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependenceby ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years (1776-1783) and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America. II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision of their writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.III．Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym “Silence Do good” .At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.”Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of the Puritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence ofornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau (1752-1832)“Poet of the American Revolution”“Father of American Poetry”“Pioneer of the New Romanticism”“A gifted and versatile lyric poet”Works“The Wild Honey Suckle”“The Indian Burying Ground”“To a Caty-Did”Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life Experience►He was born in New York.►At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his friends (H. H. Brackenridge) a poem entitled “The Rising Glory of America”.►Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.►After being released, he published “The British Prison Ship” in 1781.►In the same year, he published “To the Memory of the Brave Americans”.►After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.►But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works►“The Rising Glory of America” (1772) 《美洲光辉的兴起》►“The House of Night” (1779,1786) 《夜之屋》►“The British Prison Ship” (1781) 《英国囚船》►“To the Memory of the Brave Americans” (1781) 《纪念美国勇士》►“”The Wild Honey Suckle” (1786) 《野忍冬花》►“The Indian Burying Ground” (1788) 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花（黄杲炘译）►美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。
美国文学
Early American Writers and Poets
South, Jamestown, Virginia: Captain John Smith---first American writer 8 works Contributions: his description of America were filled with themes, myths, images, scenes, characters and events that were a foundation for the nation’s literature. He lured the Pilgrims into fleeing here and creating a New land. North, New England, Puritan Writers William Bradford: first governor of Plymouth, The History of Plymouth Plantation, simplicity, earnestness, direct reporting, readable, moving. John Winthrop: first governor of Boston, The History of New England, candid simplicity, honesty Two Poets: Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor
I. The native American and their culture– Indians II. The historical background of the colonial Time
美国文学史Chapter 2-Benamin Fanklin
Note: Alain LeRoy Locke (1886-1954) :American educator and writer
Librarian Printer
Inventor Statesman
Benjamin Franklin - Printer
At the age of twelve, he started as an apprentice with his older brother James. At the age of twenty-two, he opened his own printing shop. His newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette [ɡə'zet] became very popular and profitable. A few years later, _P_o_o_r_R_i_c_h_a_rd_’_s_A_l_m_a_n_a_c_k____was released and soon became the best selling book in the colonies, selling over 10,000 copies a year.
Benjamin Franklin (1706----1790)
Benjamin Franklin, --- America's “__fi_rs_t_g_re_a_t_m_a_n__of_l_e_tt_er_s_,” embodied the Enlightenment ideal of human rationality. Franklin recorded his early life in his famous _A__u_to_b_i_o_g_r_a_p_h_y_.
美国文学史Chapter 2
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
--The Declaration of Indepenence
Contents: 1 .the thoughts of democracy and freedom 2. the facts that Britain demolished the human rights 3.the declaration of independence and the pledge to support it Significance: the first time to declare the human right
American Literature
By Xie Lixiang
Chapter 2
• 1.Background • 1.1. American Revolution • 1.1.1. Reasons:the conflicts between America and Britain • America: economic development • Britain : attempt to maintain their control over America • the Stamp Act, • the Quartering Act • the Townshend Acts • 1.1.2 Outbreak: Apil 19,1775 • 1.1.3 Significance: the birth of USA
Chapter 2
2. New Historicism 2.1 Definition: New Historicism is a theory applied to literature that suggests literature must be studied and interpreted within the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic. 2.2 Aim: to understand the work through its historical context and to understand cultural and intellectual history through literature
美国文学史总结
Part I The Literature of Colonial America（殖民地时期的文学）Chapter 1→John Smith 约翰.史密斯1. A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Sincethe First Planting of That Colony 《自殖民地第一次在弗吉尼亚垦荒以来发生的各种事件的真实介绍》（1608）2. A Map of Virginia with a Description of the Country 《弗吉尼亚地图，附：一个乡村的描述》（1612）3.The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles 《弗吉尼亚通史》（1624）Chapter 2→William Bradford （威廉.布拉德福德）→Of Plymouth Plantation 《普利茅斯开发史》（1826）→John Winthrop （约翰.温思罗普）→The History of New England from 1630 to 1649 《新英格兰史》（1856）Chapter 3→John Cotton （约翰.科登）→Roger Williams （罗杰.威廉姆斯）→ A Key into the Language of America 《开启美国语言的钥匙》/《美国新英格兰地区土著居民语言指南》Chapter 4→Anne Bradstreet（安妮.布雷兹特里特）（女性作家）→The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America 《在美洲诞生的第十位缪斯》→Edward Taylor （爱德华.泰勒）（女性作家）→Psalms 《诗篇》Part II The Literature of Reason and Revolution（理性和革命时期文学）Chapter 5→Benjamin Franklin （本杰明.富兰克林）1.Poor Richard ’s Almanac 《穷理查德年鉴》（1732-1758，1729年正式出版）2.The Declaration of Independence 《独立宣言》（Franklin & Jefferson 杰弗逊）3.The Autobiography 《自传》4.Collect Works 《作品选集》Chapter 6→Thomas Paine （托马斯.佩因）1.The Case of the Officers of the Excise 《收税官的案子》（1772）（his first pamphlet）mon Sense 《常识》（1776）3.The America Crisis 《美国危机》（1776-1883）（a series of sixteen pamphlets）（signed “CommonSense” ）4.Rights of Man 《人权》（I 1791年，II 1792年）5.The Age of Reason 《理性时代》6.Agrarian Justice 《土地公平》（his last important treatise 他最后一部重要著作）Chapter 7→Thomas Jefferson （托马斯.杰弗逊）The Declaration of Independence 《独立宣言》（Benjamin Franklin & Jefferson 杰弗逊）（1776）Chapter 8→Philip Freneau （菲利普.弗瑞诺）1.The Power of Fancy 《想象的力量》（1770）2.The House of Night 《英国囚船》（1781）His earlier poems were collected in The Poems of Philip Freneau Written Chiefly During the Late War这些早期作品后来于1786年一起被收录在《战争后期弗洛诺主要诗歌集》中。
美国文学史及选读目录
PartⅠThe Literature of Colonial AmericaHistorical IntroductionThe First American WriterEarly New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropPuritan ThoughtsJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorPartⅡThe Literature of Reason and RevolutionHistorical IntroductionBenjamin Franklin [From The Autobiography]Thomas Paine [From The American Crisis]Thomas Jefferson [The Declaration of Independence]Philip Freneau [The Wild Honey Suckle; The Indian Burying Ground; To a Caty-Did] PartⅢThe Literature of RomanticismHistorical IntroductionWashington Irving [The Author’s Account of Himself; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow]James Fenimore Cooper [The Last of the Mohicans; From The Last of the Mohicans:Chapter12]William Cullen Bryant [Thanatopsis; To a Waterfowl]Edgar Allan Poe [To Helen; The Raven; Annabel Lee; The Fall of the House of Usher]Ralph Waldo Emerson [From Nature: ChapterⅠ; From Self-Reliance]Henry David Thoreau [From Walden]Nathaniel Hawthorne [The Scarlet Letter; From The Scarlet Letter: Ⅴ. Hester at HerNeedle]Herman Melville [Moby Dick; From Moby Dick Chapter54: The Town-Ho’s Story]Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [A Psalm of Life: What the Heart of the Young ManSaid to the Psalmist; The Slave’s Dream; My LostYouth; The Song of Hiawatha]PartⅣThe Literature of RealismHistorical IntroductionWalt Whitman [Song of Myself (1&10); I Sit and Look Out; Beat! Beat! Drums!]Emily Dickinson [I taste a liquor never brewed; I felt a Funeral, in my Brain; A Birdcame down the Walk—; I died for Beauty—but was scarce; I hearda Fly buzz—when I died—; Because I could not stop for Death]Harriet Beecher Stowe [Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Chap. Ⅶ) TheMother’s Struggle]Mark Twain [The Adventure of Tom Sawyer; The Adventure of Tom Sawyer (Chaps.ⅩⅩⅠ，ⅩⅩⅠⅠ)]O. Henry [The Cop and Anthem]Henry James [The Portrait of A Lady; The Portrait of A Lady (Chaps. Ⅵ，Ⅶ)]Jack London [The Sea Wolf; The Sea Wolf (Chap. ⅩⅩⅠ); Martin Eden; (Chap. Ⅰ)]Theodore Dreiser [Sister Carrie; Sister Carrie (Chap. Ⅰ)]PartⅤTwentieth-Century LiteratureHistorical IntroductionEzra Pound [A Virginal; Salutation the Second; A Pact; In a Station of the Metro; TheRiver-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter]Edwin Arlington Robinson [The House on the Hill; Richard Cory; Miniver Cheevy]Robert Frost [After Apple-Picking; The Road Not Taken; Stopping by Woods on aSnowy Evening; Departmental; Design; The Most of It]Carl Sandburg [Chicago; The Harbor; Fog; Cool Tombs; Flash Crimson; The People,Yes]Wallace Stevens [Peter Quince at the Clavier; Anecdote of the Jar; The Emperor ofIce-cream]Thomas Stearns Eliot [The Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; PreludesⅠ—Ⅳ; Journey of theMagi; The Hollow Men]F. Scott Fitzgerald [The Great Gatsby; The Great Gatsby (Chap. Ⅲ)]Ernest Hemingway [A Farewell to Arms; A Farewell to Arms (Chap. XLI)]John Steinbeck [The Grapes of Wrath; The Grapes of Wrath (XXIII)]William Faulkner [A Rose for Emily]。
美国文学史
《美国文学史》Part1 Early American Literature :Colonial Period to 1815Anne Bradstreet:Anne's domestic poems and the Contemplations are today recognized as her best literary achievement.To my dear and loving husband. A letter to my husband .Benjamin Franklin :Poor Richard's Almanacs.The Autobiography.Part2 American Romanticism:1815-1865Early romanticism :Irving,Cooper,Bryant.Literary Giant :Poe ,Emerson ,Thoreau ,Hawthorne ,MelvilleWashington Irving :Rip Van Winkle , The Legend of Sleepy Hollow-----The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon ,GentJames Fenimore Cooper :novelThe leather-stocking seriesPalph waldo Emerson :the father of American literature .Nature <论自然>，the American scholar(美国思想界的独立宣言)Thoreau :W alden,Civil disobedienceHawthorne:T he Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne--主人公Herman Melville :Moby Dick白金Captain AhabPoe :侦探小说之父the father of detective stories.Walt Whitman:leaves of grass《草叶集》Emily Dickinson:i am nobody !who are you ?Part3 American Realism:1865-1914Mark Twain :T he Adventures of Tom Sawyer.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.Henry james :T he AmericansThe Portrait of a LadyThe Bostonians.Daisy MillerWilliam Dean Howells:T he Rise of Silas Lapham.Stephen Crane; M aggie :A Girl of the Streets .《街头女郎梅季》The red Badge of Courage.《红色英勇勋章》Jack London :高度自传T he Call of the Wild《野性的呼唤》选择题：欲望三部曲是？Trilogy of desireThe financier《金融家》The titan《巨人》The stoic《斯多葛》Theodore dreiser :S ister Carrie .《嘉莉妹妹》An American Tragedy .《美国悲剧》Part4American Modernism:1914-1945Robert frost 罗伯特·弗罗斯特:T he Road not Taken .Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening .Sherwood Anderson :W inesburg ,Ohio ,proves to have the most profound influence on later American fiction .Gertrude stein 格特鲁德·斯泰因:迷失的一代lost generationCathay .Hugh Selwyn Mauberley .休赛尔诺莫伯利The Cantos. 诗章William Faulkner威廉·福克纳:意识流手法streams of consciousness内心独白inner monologueThe Yoknapatawpha. .The Sound and the Fury . 《喧嚣与骚动》--以莎士比亚的悲剧《麦克白》中的台词命名As I Lay Dying.《我弥留之际》Ernest Hemingway欧内斯特·米勒尔·海明威:The Old Man and Sea.《老人与海》主人公：桑提亚哥santiyagoScott Fitzgerald :The Great Gastby.《了不起的盖茨比》Tender is the Night.《夜色的温柔》John Steinbeck:The Grapes of Wrath.《愤怒的葡萄》T.S.Eliot :The Waste Land .《荒原》Jean Toomer :“哈莱姆文艺复兴”“黑人文艺复兴”Zora Neale HurstonRichard wright : Native Son .Black Boy .Part5 American Literature Diversified :1945to the New Millennium 三大剧作家Eugene O'Neill:"The father of American drama"The Hairy Ape .《毛猿》Long Day's Journey into Night .《长夜漫漫路迢迢》Tennessee Williams 托马斯·拉尼尔·威廉斯:“most important dramatist that emerged after World War two ”The Glass Menagerie .《玻璃动物园》A Streetcar Named Desire.《欲望号街车》Arthur Miller阿瑟·米勒:Death of a salesman.《推销员之死》《萨勒姆的女巫》The CrucibleSaul Bellow :犹太作家JewishBernard Malamud ：JewishJ.D.Salinger ：The Catcher in the Rye .《麦田里的守望者》主人公narrator :Holden Caufield .。
美国文学 殖民早期与美国文学的起始
美国文学史》扩充资料第1部分殖民早期与美国文学的起始Part I. Background Reading（阅读要点）:Colonial Beginnings (1600s to 1750)America has always been a land of beginnings. After Europeans “discovered” America in the fifteenth century, the mysterious New World became for many people a genuine hope of a new life, an escape from poverty and persecution, a chance to start again. We can say that, as a nation, America begins with that hope. When, however, does American Literature begin?The story of American literature begins in the early 1600s, long before there were any “Americans”. American literature begins with American experiences. Long before the first colonists arrived, before Christopher Columbus, before the North men who “Found” America about the year 1000, Native Americans loved here. Each tribe’s literature was tuphthy women into the fabric of daily life and reflected the unmistakably American experience of living with the land. Another kind of experience, one filled with fear and excitement, found its expression in the reports that Co’lumbusd and other explorure sent home in Spanish, French, and English. In addition, the journals of the people who lived and died in the New England worlderness tell unforgettable tales of hard and sometimes heartbreaking experiences of those early years.Experience, then, is the Key to early American literature. The New World provided a great variety of experinces, and these experiences demanded a wide variety of expressions by an even wider variety of early American writers. The earliest writers were Englishmen describing the English exploration and colonization of the New World (America). These writers included Thomas Hariot, John Smith (1580-1631), William Bradford John Winthrop (1588-1649), Edward Jaylor (1645-1729), Jonathan Edwards (1723-1758), William Byrd (1674-1744), etc. American Indians, explorers, Dilgrims, Puritan ministers, frontier wives, plantations, owners –they are all the creators of the first American literature.The PuritansThe ship Mayflower carried about one hundred passengers (their leader called them Pilgrims, or travelers) and test sixty0six days to beat its way across the Atlantic. In December of 1620, the Mayflower put the Pilgrims ashore at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Before the unrelenting(unmerciful) cold winter was over, half of them were dead. Within the next few years, however, those who survived were joined by more settlers from England. Only some of these first colonists were Puritans, but it was the puritans, led by their dergy-men, who dominated the government, the religious outlook, and the literature of the communiters they established.Who were these extraordinary people? The Puritans were devout Christians who wanted to purify their lives and their church of what they saw as the corruptions of English society and its state religion, the church of England. They called themselves saints or separatists, but they are now generally called puritans – a name that became a sign of their separateness.The puritans believed in an all-powerful God who freely granted to his “saints” the gift of grace. Grace was a complicated matter for the Puritans, but it can be described as the spirit that would gurarantee salvation – eternal happiness with God. In their daily lives the puritans wanted to demonstrate at every moment that they possessed grace or that they were worthy of it.For the Puritans everything was, ideally, aimed at personal salvation and the building of a new, God—centered society. They were willing to risk their lives for such a world. It would be a place where they would practice their religion freely and raise their children free from the frivolities (trifle) and temptations of the Old World. As we listen to their language, which refers to the Bible easily and frequently, their passionate desire to establish a New Jerusalem becomes clear. In their dreams they would build the city of God on earth.Life for the averge Puritan in the New World was essentially a life of work and prayer, but it was not a fanatically awstere life. The Puritans worked long and hard under extremely difficult conditions so that their farms and trading enterprises would prosper. In fact, they believed prosperity was a sign of election, or God’s special favour. Nevertheless, they did not turn away from eating and drinking, the pleasure of social gatherings, and the joys of a close family life. They simply kept reminding themselves that their souls were the constant battlegrounds of God and Satan and that every act and thought had to be judged according to whether or not it truly glorified God.In the pursuit of virtue, the Puritans passed laws against many activities that would distract good souls from their real task. Certain “delights” were for bidden, such as bowling, Maypole dancin g, gambling, attending plays, and “unprofitable” hunting (for someone who was a badshot, it was a sin to waste time and ammunition). Virtue was learned primarily at home, where the father had complete authority. The family was the center of activity; the aged were always cared for; young people were apprenticed to learn trades the community needed.Writing was an important part of Puritan life; it was often an extension of relation. IN fact, the first book published in America was the Bay Psalm Book (1740), a translation of the biblical Psalms. Many Puritans Kept journals to help them carefully examine their spiritual lives. These journals and diaries, detailed and intense, were usually meant to be purely prorate writings. Even when they did write for a public, however, the puritans wrote to instruct others or to testify to their experieme of divine grace; they wrote spiritual autobiographies.Puritan writing, in other words, was practical. The writers were not merely providing entertainment; they were dieply involved with their spiritual selves and attempts to improve them. They wrote no fiction, nor did they even approve of reading fiction, and they wrote no plays because they disapproved violently of the theatre. Their writings consisted largely of journals, sermons, hymns, histories, and poems.Just as Puritans sought to purify their loves, so too they sought to purify their language. Everything they wrote avoided ornate style, the‘convoluted, flowery complicated and decorative style of th eir European contemporaries. They preferred to write in what they called Plain style, even as they strove for plainness in their architecture, clothing, food, and howsehold furnishings. Plain style was meant simply to communicates ideas as clearly as possible. Writing was not a way of showing off cleverness or learning but a way of serving God and the community. The whole Puritan way of life is summed up in William Bradford’s desire to tell the story of Plymouth plantation in “a plain style, with singul ar regard write to simple truth in all things.”The Southern ColoniesLife in the southern colonies, begun in 1607 with Jamestown, Virginia, developed quite differently from life in New England. Unlike the Puritans, who lived fairly closely together, much of the southern population lived on farms or plantations that were distant from one another. Often like little colonies of their own, these plantation were largely self-sufficient.The larger estates were owned and operated by wealthy andwell-educated colonists who developed a more social and outgoing way oflife than the puritans. Different things became important to them; culturation of nature and of society, sophistication, and public service.Southern colonial literature reflects that experience. For the most part, southern gentlemen and ludies carried on coorespondence with friends who often lived at great distances from them, as well as with family and friends back in England. Many of the southern colonists belonged to the Church of England, the Church that the Puritans had attempted to reform, and their ties with the old World were stronger. As a result, they did not have the reasons the puritans had to create a literature of their own. Still, in their letters, journals, and public reports, southern writers recorded the details of their way of life. In their writings, the realities of science and politics blend with a New World sense of excitement and discovery. After all, the southern wilderness too had to be explored, mapped, and described.Of course, not all the residents of the southern colonies were the prosperous owners of plantations. Most were hardworking trades people, artisans, small farmers, indentured (bound by compact) servants, and slaves. Yet the sophisticated gentleman and lady dominate our sense of the early southern colonies as we meet them in literature. We can hear at once, in the voice of a man like William Byrd, a strong contrast between the more worldly and witty southerners and the intense, self-examining Puritans. This contrast, too, is an important part of the American experveme.Some writers and their writings.As I’ve said earlier, the earliest writers were English men describing the English exploration and colonization of the New World (America). Thomas Harriot’s Briefe and True Report of the New-Found Land of Virginia (1588) was only the first of many such works. Back in England, people planning to more to Virginia or New England would read the books as travel guides. But this was dangerous because such books often mixed facts with fantasy. For example, one writer (William Wood) clarimed that he had seen lions in Massachnsetts. It is probable that these “true reports” had a second kind of reader. People could certainly read them as tales of adventure and excitement. Like modern readers of science fiction, they could enjoy imaginary voyages to places they could never visit in reality.The writings of John Smith probably satisfied readers of both kinds. A real adventure, he had fought the Turks in ‘Hungary’, where he was wounded and taken prisoner. He was sold as a slave and escaped by Killing his master. In 1607 he helped found Jamestown, the firstEnglish colony in America. It was made up of one hundred men and four boys, and the man in charge was the 27 year-old Captain John Smith.It was at Jamestown that Smith may or may not have had the most famous of his adventures. Scholars are still not sure to what extent he was embroidering the truth when he claimed to have been captured by chief Powhatan and rescued from death by the chief’s beautiful daughter, Pocahontas. The story seemed to grow more romantic and exciting each time Smith related it. Although the details are not always correct, his Tue Relation of Virginia (1608) and Description of New England (1616) are fascinating “advertisement” a kind of 17th-century “commercial, which try to persuade the reader to settle in the New world. The Puritans, for instance, studied his Description of New England carefully and then decided to settle there in 1620. On the other hand, the book is an effort to raise money for another new expedition and to convince Englishmen to join Smith in establishing a new colony of which the hoped to be governor.Smith was often boastful about his own adventures in his books. His General Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624) contains the story of his rescue by beautiful Pocahontas. The story is probably untrue, but it is the first famous tale from American literature. His Elizabethan (of the time of Elizabeth I. Queen of England 1558-1603) style is not always easy to read, and his punctuation was strange even for the seventeenth century.Still, he can tell good story:Two great stones were brought before Powhattan: then as many as could dragged him (Smith) to them, and thereon (on the stones) laid him head and being ready with their clubs, to beat out his brains, Pocahontas, the King’s dearest daughter, got his head in her arms, and Laid down her own head upon his to save him from death: whereat (because of that) the King was contented (agreed) he should live.Almost from the beginning, as the English settled along the Atlantic coart of America, there were important differences between the Southern and the New England colonies. In the South, enormous farms or “plantations used the labor of black slaves to grow tobacco. The rich and powerful plantation owners were slow to develop a literature of their own. They preferred books imported from England. But in New England, the Puritans had come to the New world in order to form a society based on strict Christian beliefs. Like the puritans in England, they believed that society should be based on the laws of God. Therefore they had a far stronger sense of u nity and of a “shared purpose”. This was one of the reasons why culture and literature developed much faster than in theSouth. Harvard, the first college in the colonies, was founded near Boston in 1636 in order to train new Puritan ministers. The first printing press in America was started there in 1638, and America’s first newspaper began in Boston in 1704.The most interesting works of New England Puritan Lirterature were histories. To the Puritans, mistory developed according to “God’s plan”. In all of their early New England histories, they saw New England as the “Promised land” of the Bible.Of Phymouth Plantation by William Bradford is the most interesting of the Puritan histories. In describes the Puritans’ difficult relation with the Indians. It also describes their difficulties during the first winter, when half of the small colony died. This is all told in the wonderful “plain style” which the Puritans admired. In order to present the “clear light of truth” to uneducated rea ders, Puritan writers avoided elegant language, seldom using any metaphors or decorative language. The Examples they used were drawn either from the Bible or from the everyday life of farmers and fishermen. Braford’s plain language reflects his belief that everything in the Puritan way of life should have the power of simplacity. As one of the great Puritan ministers, John Cotton, said “God’s altar needs no polishing.” At the same time, Bradford’s history is deeply influenced by the belief that God directs everything that happens. Each event he writes about begins with, “If pleased God to …”. Year after Year Bradord always Keeps sight of the signs of God’s judgment and providence. He sees the signs everywhere, so that, far example, the Indian interpreter Squanto becomes “an instrument sent of God for their good.”For Bradford the Puritans’ flight from Europe is gurded by God in the same way as the Lsraelites’ exodus from Egypt. The History of New England by John Winthrop is also in the “splain style”. But it is far less cheerful. Winthrop was the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony and, like most of the Puritan writers, was a minister all his life. His writing style is rather cold. He rarely shows shock or sadness, even when he describes scenes of great unhappiness. Sometimes, the dryness of his “plain style” is very effective. This is him description of the New England, coast when he arrived on June 7. 1630:We had now fair sunshine weather, and so pleasant a sweet air as did much refresh us, and there came a smell off shore like the smell of a garden.Like all of the puritan historians, Winthrop believed that most events could be seen as a sign from God. For example, when a snake was foundand killed in a church, people saw this as the victory of New England religion over Satan.The first Puritans were not very democratic. The Wonder-Working Providence of Sion’s Saviour in New England (1650), by Edward Johnson, defends the harsh laws made by the Puritan leader. Everybody had to obey these church laws. Believers in other forms of Christianity were called “snakes” or even worse names.Puritan Society was a “theocracy”: the laws of society and the laws of religion were the same. Those who broke the laws were punished severly. In fact, by the beginning of the 1700s, newer puritan ideas were becoming important to the development of democracy.Even in the early days, some writers were struggling hard against the Puritan theocracy. Anne Hutchinson (1590-1643) and Roger Williams (1603-1683) both desired a fricer religious environment Rogers, who went off to establish his own colony in Rhode Island, was especially important. His Bloudy Tenent (1644) became a famous statement of the case for religious freedom. To him, freedo m was not only “good in itself”, it was a necessary condition for “the growth and development of the soul”.The New Englanders were quite successful at keeping the absolute “purity” of Puritanism during the early, difficult days of settlement. But when the Indians were no longer a danger, the dark forests had become farmland, and more comfortable settelements had grown up, puritan strictness began to relax. The change was very slow and was not easily recognized by New Englanders at the time. By looking at the early history of the Mather family in New England, we can see how the Puritan tradition grew weaker and weaker.Richard Mather (1596-1669), the founder of his family in America, was greatly admired as a typical strong Puritan minister. Another preacher, who knew Richard Mather well, described his way of preaching as “very plain, studiously avoiding obscure terms”. Increase Mather (1639-1723), his son, was a leader of the New England theorcracy until it began to fall apart at the end of the 17th century. He was also a minister at North church in Boston, the most powerful church in New England. The 1690s was the time of the great witchcraft (the imagined ability panic to work magic of certain women). In the town of Salem, Massachusetts, young girls and lonely old women were arrested and put on trial as witches. A number of these people were put to death for “selling their souls” to the devil.Increase Mather’s best-known book, Remarkable Providences (1684), tells us much about the psychological environment of the time. The book is filled with the Puritans strangebeliefs. To Mather and other Puritans, witchcraft and other forms of evil were an absolutely real part of everyday life.Increase’s son, Cotton Mather (1663-1728), became the most famous of the family. He had “an insane genius for advertising himself”. He wrote more than 450 works. Whenever something happened to him in his life, Cotton Mather wrote a religious book. When his first wife died, he published a long sermon (religious address) called Death Made Easy and Happy. When his little daughter died, he wrote . The Best Way of Living, which is to Die Daily. Most of these works were quite short and are of little interest to us today. But some, such as his famous Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), were very long and were published in many volumes. He was certain that his longest work, The Angel of Bethesda (writer in 1723), would “prove one of the most useful books that have been published in the World”. But the book was so long, no one ever tried to publish it. Cotton’s Diary gives us a clear picture of the inner life of this strange and often unpleasant man. On almost every page, he speaks of his special relationship with God. When he had a pair in his stomach or tee th, he thought about how he had broken God’s law with his stomach or teeth.The writings of Cotton Mather show how the later Puritan writers moved away from the “plain style” of their grandfather. The language is complicated and filled with strange words from Latin. Although Mather called his style “a cloth of gold”, ordinary people usually found it hard to read.In the writings of the earliest Puritans, we often find poems on religious themes. Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) was the first real New England pet. Anne Bradstreet came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony with her husband and her parents in 1630. The Bradstreets settled in the frontier village of Andover, where Anne, under difficult conditions that tried her faith, maintained a household and raised eight children. She had to defend her right to compose verses, for many Puritans, who did not disapprove of poetry itself, wondered if a woman should write it. Yet her first book, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America, was published in England in 1650 and was a great success. None of her early poems are very good. Her later poems, written with charming simplicity, show her progress in art. She refuses “to sing of wars, of captains, and of Kings”. Instead, she gives us a look into the heart of a 17th century American Woman. Bradstreet’s finest poems are those closest to her personal experience as a Puritan wife and mother living on the edge of the wilderness.In her tender poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband”, Bradstreet places her earthly married life within the frame work of eternity.If ever two were one, then surely us.If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;If ever wife was happy in a man,Compare with me, ye women, if you can.I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold.Or all the riches that he East doth hold.My love is such that rivers cannot quench,Nor ought (anything) but love from thee, give, recampese.Thy love is such I can no way repay,The heavens reward thee manifold (abundantly), I pray.The while we live, in love let’s s o persevereThat when we live no more, we may live ever.The poetry of Edward Taylor was unknown to American literary historians until 1939. Because Taylor considered his poems a private record of his religious experieme, he asked his heirs never to publish them. As a result, the work of this major New England poet was unknown for 210 years after his death. Perhaps another reason Taylor did not wish to publish his work was that his poetry was not written in the plain style of the Puritans.Written during the last years of the Puritan theocracy, it is some of the finest poetry written in Colonial America. Like Cotton Mather, Taylor hoped for a “rebirth” of the “Puritan way”. Mather wanted stronger leaders for society. Taylor, however, was concerned with the inner spiritual life of Puritan believers. He created rich, unusual images to help his reader “see, hear, taste and feel religious doctrine”. In oen poem, he describes truly religious people. They are as rare” As Black swans that in milkuhit e Rivers are”. Sometimes, he sounds quite modern. In a poem about the making of the universe, he asks, “Who in this Bowling Alley bowled the sun”?Throghout American history, even in the 20th century, there have been many sudden explosions of religious emotion. One of the most famous, called the “Great Awakening”, began about 1730. Preachers like George Whitfield toured the countryf, telling people to “repent and be saved by the New light.” The sermons of Jonathan Edwards were so powerful-and so frightening –that his church was often filled with screams and crying: “The God that holds you over the fire of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors (hate) you,” he said. The sermon from which this line is taken, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry god, is still famous for its literary quality. It remains the most famous literary monument to the Great Awakening.In fact, Edwards is the first major American writer who was educated and lived his entire life in the New world. Edwards was an extraordinary child who, at the age of eleven or twelve, wrote scientific essays on insects, colors, and rainbows. When he was thirtten, he entered Yale, where he experienced a religious conversion. In 1729 he succeeded his grandfather as minister in Northampton, Massachuses known as the Great Awakening a fervent revival of religious feeling that swept America from New England to the South from about 1734 to 1749.The Puritans admired science as “the study of God’s mat erial creation”. Edwards developed this idea further. He said that there was a close relation between knowledge of the physical world and knowledge of the spiritual world. This idea created a bridge between the old strict Puritan society and the new, freer culture which came later, with its scientific study of the world.Although Literature developed far mire slowly in the south than in New England, a few early writers are worth mentioning. IN Virginia, Robert Beverley (1673-1722) wrote intelligently about nature and society. His History and Present State of Virginia is written in a plain, clear style, mixing wild numour with scientific observation. Although he was a strong defender of black slavery, his section on the Indians of Virginia is free of race hatred. Even more amusing is the History of the Dividing Line by William Byrd.Here, I’d like to remind you of sth important. The New England Puritans wrote so much and so vividly that they tend to dominate early American literature. We should remind ourselves that not all early American settlers were Puritans. In the southern colonies, especially, other English setters had founded prosperous plantations and communities with a style of life quite unlike that of New England. William Byrd was one of the most brilliant of the southern landowning aristocracy. These southern gentry modeled themselves on the English upper classes, takingpride in stately nomes furnished with fine China, paintings, and books. Though hardworking and religious, they were not afraid of some of the worldly pleasunes that he Puritans shunned.Byrd was born in Jamestown, which John smith had helped establish 67 years earlier. When Byrd was only 7 years old, his rich father sent him to England for his education. Byrd lived in London more than half of his life, enjoying the city’s society and its theatres. He was 52 before he returned to Virginia. There he read his Greek and Latin Classics every day; owned the second largest library in America, numbering 3,600 book; entertained and visited his neighbors; and managed his huge 180,000 –acre estate, upon which he founded the city of Richmond.History of the Dividing Line was written for Londonaudiences. Byrd used humor and realism to describe life along the dividing line (or frontier) between Virginia’s settled areas and the deep forest. His opinions about the Indians were surprisingly liberal for the time. He felt that the English should marry them rather than fight them. He had a similarly liberal view of blacks:” We all know that very bright Talents may be lodged under a dark Skin”. These ideas were certainly not shaved by the majority of Southern plantation owners.The Birth of a Nation (1750-1800)A New NationOn April 19,1775, a group of American Militiamen (American Militiamen of the revolutionary peviod i.e. ready to march at a minute’s notice) faced British redcoats (English soldiers) across the little bridge outside the village of Concord, Massachu-Suddenly someone – no one knows –fired a musket shot, “the shot heard round the world”, and the American Revolution began. That shot was the climax of years of frustration, anger, and preparation among the colonists.During the half-century before the Revolution, the thirteen colonies had begun to prosper and to seem less and less like perilous settlements on the edge of a wilderness. They had begun to communicate more with one another and to grow aware of their mutual problems and feelings. They shared their anger over the oppressive political and economic policies of the British government. No one at that time, however, was thinking of revolution-not yet.Then came a series of infuriating laws and taxes. The stamp Act in 1765 required that the colonist buy special stamps for newspapers, licenses, pamphlets, and house British soldiers in their own homes. TheTownshend Acts in 1767 taxed tea, glass, lead, and paper. When some of the colonial assemblies refused to abide by the new laws, the British government declared those assemb lies “dissolved”. Violence was not far away: The Boston Massacre erupted in 1770 when British troops fired on a taunting mob. In 1773 the British Parliament insisted again on its right and power to tax Americans. The tax on tea became a symbol, and the famous Boston Tea Party became a symbol too – a symbol of American resistance –as colonists dressed as Indians dumped a shipment of British tea into Boston Harbor, Americans protested and petitioned King George III for “no taxation without representation.” They wanted only what was reasonable, they said. They wanted to share in their own government. Britain replied with the Intolerable Acts of 1774, designed to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party. Many more rights that had been granted to the colonists in their charters were revoked. Them, when Paul Revere spotted the redcoats on their way to seize American arms at Concord, Americans responded with force.Yet it was not until January 1776 that a widely heard public voice demanded complete separation from England. The voice was that of Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet Common Sense, with its heated language, increased the growing demand for separation. It pointed the way toward the Declaration of Independence in July. If ever writing affected public affairs, Common Sense did. We will not be surprised to find that most American literature in the eighteenth century was politrial. Through newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, broadsides, and litters, colonial leaders discussed their ideas of human nature and of government. They began forging a new sense of national identity. Battles had to be fought before the thirteen colonies achieved independence. Nevertheless, for years before the first shot was fired, language was the source of growing American power. For those Americans it was language that connected reason and revolution. By the time the Revolutionary War was over in 1783, Americans were well on their way to establishing a literary heritage as extraordinary as their political one.The Age of ReasonThomas Jefferson once said that a rational society is one that “informs the mind, sweetens the temper, cheers our spirits, and promotes health.”Jefferson’s attitude – affirm belief in progress, common sense, and the pursuit of happiness – is typical of the period we now call the Age of Reason.Some historians say we oversimplify the complex eighteenth century in suggesting it was a time when everyone was “reasonable.” Of course everyone was not reasonable. The century was marked by fiery emotion as。
(完整word版)美国文学史-知识点梳理(word文档良心出品)
Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. ( A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.)II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of 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 immigration2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (1608)A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country (1612)General History of Virgini a (1624): the Indian princess PocahontasCaptain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII (At that time, the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce hiswife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church ofEngland. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism(1) predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived a very frugal life. This is their ethics.(2) Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.(3) Limited atonement (the salvation of a selected few)(4) theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment3. Influence on American Literature(1) Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.(2) Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not want colonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. They prevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependenceby ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years (1776-1783) and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America. II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision of their writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.III．Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym “Silence Do good” .At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.”Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of the Puritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence ofornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau (1752-1832)“Poet of the American Revolution”“Father of American Poetry”“Pioneer of the New Romanticism”“A gifted and versatile lyric poet”Works“The Wild Honey Suckle”“The Indian Burying Ground”“To a Caty-Did”Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life Experience►He was born in New York.►At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his friends (H. H. Brackenridge) a poem entitled “The Rising Glory of America”.►Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.►After being released, he published “The British Prison Ship” in 1781.►In the same year, he published “To the Memory of the Brave Americans”.►After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.►But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works►“The Rising Glory of America” (1772) 《美洲光辉的兴起》►“The House of Night” (1779,1786) 《夜之屋》►“The British Prison Ship” (1781) 《英国囚船》►“To the Memory of the Brave Americans” (1781) 《纪念美国勇士》►“”The Wild Honey Suckle” (1786) 《野忍冬花》►“The Indian Burying Ground” (1788) 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花（黄杲炘译）►美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。
英语专业美国文学课件History of American Literature part 1
And Selected Readings
Marcus Cunliffe, The Literature of the United States Robert Spiller, The Cycle of American Literature Rod W. Horton and Herbert W. Edward, Backgrounds of American Literary Thought 常耀信，美国文学简史 常耀信，美国文学选读 童明，美国文学史 5．Rubinstein, Annette. American Literature, Root and Flowering（《美国文学的源和流》 6．史志康主编，《美国文学背景概观》 7．刘海平、王守仁等 “It is worth reiterating that those who colonized America during the 17th and the 18th centuries were part of a great migration initiated not only from all parts of England but also from Africa, from the Scottish Highlands, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland and other regions in Europe. While some of the settlers came in response to economic forces, others came in search for political and religious freedom. Africans were forced to come as slaves. This diversity of situations, when blended into specific environments, contributed to the development of regional cultures and to the cultural pluralism of America.” New England, Puritan literature: journals (diaries), hymns, sermons, home letters, histories; the South, Virginia: promotional tracts, journals, poems, letters, sermons (satire, a spirit of exploration inherent in the Renaissance); the Middle Colonies, culturally and ethnically more diverse: better reflecting the diversity of colonial life and anticipating the pluralism of America
美国文学史Part 1 the literature of colonial America
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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, discussions of religious questions. Furthermore, the influential Protestant work ethic, reinforced by the practical necessities of a hard pioneer life, inhibited the development of any reading matter designed simply for leisuretime entertainment. It is the belief that work itself is good in addition to what it achieves; that time saved by efficiency or good fortune should not be spent in leisure but in doing further work; that idleness is always immoral and likely to lead to even worse sin since “the devil finds work for idle hands to do”. This belief later developed into the American philosophic idea Puritanism.
美国文学史及作品选读提纲
美国文学史及作品选读提纲第一部分：The Literature of Colonial American考核知识点：a. The first distinctly America literatureb. The first American writer and his first workc. Kinds of literary writings in this periodd. The dominant influence of the Puritan values on the early American writingse. The most important poets in this period: Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor考核要求：1．一般识记：The beginnings of American national history and literary history2．识记：Kinds of literary writings in this period；the important writers, literary works and their main ideas3 领会：The dominant influence of the Puritan values on the early American writings第二部分:The Literature of Reason and Revolution考核知识点：a. The historical background about American Revolutionb. The general feature of the 18th-century American literaturec. The most important poet in this period: Philip Freneau考核要求：1．一般识记：The historical background about American Revolution；the life and literary creation of Philip Freneau2识记：The general feature of the 18th-century American literature; the most important poet in this period: Philip Freneau3. 领会：The influence of English literature on American writers4. 应用：The subject matter, themes and poetic style of Philip Freneau’s poetry;第三部分：The literature of Romanticism考核知识点：a. The importance of Washington Irving’s literary creation;b. The general characteristics shared by the Romantic writers;c. The influence of the Transcendentalist Movement on American literature;d. The principal literary forms of this periode. The permanent convention of American literature考核要求：1. 一般识记：historical background of this period; life and literary creation of important writers in this period2. 识记：The importance of Washington Irving’s literary creation; the general characteristics shared by the Romantic writers; the principal literary forms of this period;3. 领会：The influence of the Transcendentalist Movement on American literature; the permanent convention of American literature4. 应用：The subject matter and themes of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; the characterization and narrative skill displayed in the The Last of the Mohicans; the subject matter, charaterization and symbolic method of The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick第四部分：The Literature of Realism考核知识点：a. The influence of the westward expansion of American territory on American literature;b. The important women writers and their works in this period;c. The philosophy and method adopted by American realistic writers;d. Mark Twain’s contribution to American literature;e. The characteristic features of the American naturalists;f. The representative writers of American realism:g. The representative writers of American naturalism;h. The most important writers in this period:a) Walt Whitman and his free verse;b) Emily Dickinson and the characteristic features of her poetry;c) Mark Twain and the subject matter and humorous style of his works;考核要求：1.一般识记：The life and literary career of the important writers2.识记：The definition of realism and naturalism; the historical background; important works of the time and their main ideas3.领会：The significance and influence of American realism and American naturalism; the characteristic features of important writers and their works; the characteristics of free verse;4.应用：The subject matter, themes and style of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”; the theme and poetic imagery of Emily Dickinson’s poetry; the themes and humorous style of The Adventure of Tom Sawyer; the subject matter, themes and characterization of Sister Carrie第五部分：The Twentieth-Century Literature考核知识点：a. The historical background of the early 20th centuryb. The variety of avant-garde doctrines and literary schools emerging in early 20th centuryc. The leading writers of the modernist literature: Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot;d. Henry James and his masterpieces;e. Robert Frost and the characteristics of his poetry;f. The writers of “the lost generation” in the 1920s and their great achievements;g. Ernest Hemingway;h. The thriving of American drama in the 1920s and the representative dramatist of the time;i. The Harlem Renaissance in 1920s;j. The characteristic feature of the artists and writers in the Great Depression of the 1930s;k. John Steinbeck and his important works考核要求：1.一般识记：The historical background of the early 20th century ; the life and literary career of the important writers and their literary contributions2.识记: The variety of avant-garde doctrines and literary schools emerging in early 20th century; the great achievements of the writers of “the lost generation”; the Harlem Renaissance in 1920s; the thriving of American drama in the 1920s and the representative dramatist of the time; the important works and their main ideas; the characteristic feature of the artists and writers in the Great Depression of the 1930s;3.领会：The charateristic features of the modernist literature; the characteristic features of the writers of “the lost generation” in the 1920s; the most important writers of the time and their characteristic features; the themes, styles, techniques and significance or influence of the representative works in this period4.应用：The subject matter, themes and style of Robert Frost’s poetry;the themes and technique of T. S. Eliot’s poetry; the themes, characterization and style of Hemingway’s masterpiece For Whom the Bell Tolls。
《美国文学史》各章节知识点指南
《美国文学史》各章节知识点指南时间：2011年2月使用教材：《美国文学史》（第二版）常耀信著Chapter 1 Colonial America★1607 Jamestown, Virginia：the first permanent English settlement in America★1620 Plymouth, Massachusetts: the second permanent English settlement in America★Captain John Smith: the first American writer writing in English★Anne Bradstreet: the first American woman poetMajor work: The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America (1650)Contemplations (9) on P. 17 （熟悉这首诗歌）To My Dear and Loving Husband《致我亲爱的丈夫》★Philis Wheatley: the first black woman poet in American literature★Edward Taylor: the most famous poet in the colonial periodHuswifery on P. 19 （熟悉这首诗歌）★Roger Williams: The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience (1644)Translated the Bible into the Indian tongue★John Winthrop: ―Model of Christian Charity‖（〈基督慈善之典范〉）The History of New England (two volumes, 1825, 1826)(〈新英格兰史〉) 1630 --- 1649 in diary★Thomas Paine: Common Sense, The American Crisis, The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason ★Philip Freneau: Poet of the American RevolutionThe Wild Honeysuckle, The Indian Burying Ground, The Dying Indian: TomoChequi★Charles Brockden Brown: the first important American novelistWieland, Edgar Huntly, Ormond, Aurthur MervynChapter 2 Edwards, Franklin, Crevecoeur★the 18th century: Age of Reason and Enlightenment★Jonathan Edwards: America’s first systematic philosopherThe Freedom of the Will, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God★Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac熟悉37页的引文★Hector St. John de Crevecoeur: Letters from an American FarmerChapter 3 American Romanticism, Irving, Cooper★Washington Irving: the first American writer to win international acclaimThe Sketch Book: Rip V an Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow★James Fenimore Cooper: Leatherstocking Tales (五个故事的题目)Natty Bumpo (人物形象)Chapter 4 New England Transcendentalism, Emerson, Thoreau★Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature (the Bible and manifesto of New England Transcendentalism)The American Scholar (America’s Declaration of IntellectualIndependence)★Henry David Thoreau: Walden, or Life in the WoodsChapter 5 Hawthorne, Melville★Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter, Twice-Told Tales, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, Young Goodman Brown★Herman Melville: Moby Dick, Omoo, Mardi, Redburn, White Jacket, PierreChapter 6 Whitman, Dickinson★Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass; free verse; Song of Myself★Emily Dickinson: Of the 1775 poems, only 7 poems were published in her lifetime.熟悉教材中98至102页所选的诗歌Chapter 7 Edgar Allan Poe★Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher, The Philosophy of Composition, The Poetic Principle, The Raven，To Helen熟悉教材中107页所选的The Raven中的部分诗行Chapter 8 The Age of Realism, Howells, James★William Dean Howells: The Rise of Silas Lapham, Criticism and Fiction★Henry James: important writings listed on P. 125the international themeChapter 9 Local Colorism, Mark Twain★Hamlin Garland: Crumbling Idols, Veritism (真实主义)★Bret Harte: The Luck of Roaring Camp★Mark Twain: 主要作品, vernacular literature, colloquial style★Harriet Beecher Stowe 斯托夫人& her Uncle Tom’s Cabin《汤姆叔叔的小屋》★Louisa May Alcott 路易莎·梅·奥尔科特& her Little Women 《小妇人》★Kate Chopin 凯特·肖班& her The Awakening 《觉醒》Chapter 10 American Naturalism, Crane, Norris, Dreiser, Robinson★Stephen Crane: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (the first naturalistic novel in American literature), The Red Badge of Courage (the first anti-war novel in American literature),Famous short stories: The Open Boat, The Bride Comes to the Yellow Sky★Frank Norris: The Octopus, McTeague★Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, the Desire Trilogy, The Genius★Edwin Arlington Robinson: Richard Cory★Jack London: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, The Sea Wolf, Martin Eden★O. Henry (William Sidney Porter): famous for his short stories such as The Gift of the Magi★Upton Sinclair: The Jungle, the Muckraking MovementChapter 11 The 1920s, Imagism, Pound★The first American Renaissance: the first half of the 19th century★The second Renaissance: the 1920s★The three principles of the Imagist Poetry★熟悉四首意象派诗歌：In a Station of the Metro, Oread, The Red Wheelbarrow, Fog, 并会分析其中的第一和第四首★Ezra Pound: The Cantos, Hugh Selwyn MauberleyChapter 12 T. S. Eliot, Stevens, Williams★T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land （五个部分的题目）, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 其他主要作品founder of New Criticism: depersonalization, objective correlative★William Carlos Williams: PatersonChapter 13 Frost, Sandburg, Cummings, Hart Crane, Moore★Robert Frost: New England poet, lyrical poet, the unofficial poet laureate, won the Pulitzer Prize four timesThe Road Not Taken (熟悉此诗), Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,Mending Wall, Apple-picking <<摘苹果>>★Carl Sandburg: Fog, The Harbor (two famous Imagist poems)★ E. E. Cummings: the most interesting experimentalist in modern American poetry★Hart Crane: The BridgeChapter 14 Fitzgerald, Hemingway★F. Scott Fitzgerald: the spokesman of the Jazz AgeThe Great Gatsby★Ernest Hemingway: Hemingway hero with ―grace under pressure‖, the iceberg principle“I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show. ”冰山运动之雄伟壮观，是因为它只有八分之一在水面上。
美国文学史第2部分
Historical Background
By the mid-eighteenth century, American colonies were no longer a group of scattered settlements. With rapidly expanding populations, the word “state”, which suggests as independent government, was beginning to replace “colony” in people’s mind. This is an important sign of the political trend. The growth (especially the industrial growth) led to intense strain with England. Down to 1763, Great Britain had formulated no consistent policy for her colonial possessions. The guiding principle was the confirmed mercantilist view that colonies should supply the mother country with raw materials and not compete in manufacturing. But policy was poorly enforced, and the colonies had never thought of themselves as subservient. Rather, they considered themselves chiefly as commonwealths or states, much like England herself, having only a loose association with authorities in London. However, the British government hampered colonial economic development by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country, moreover, it forced dependence by ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.
(完整word版)美国文学史-知识点梳理
Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. ( A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.)II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of 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 immigration2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (1608)A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country (1612)General History of Virgini a (1624): the Indian princess PocahontasCaptain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII (At that time, the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce hiswife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church ofEngland. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism(1) predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived a very frugal life. This is their ethics.(2) Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.(3) Limited atonement (the salvation of a selected few)(4) theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment3. Influence on American Literature(1) Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.(2) Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not want colonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. They prevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependenceby ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years (1776-1783) and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America. II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision of their writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.III．Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym “Silence Do good” .At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.”Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of the Puritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence ofornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau (1752-1832)“Poet of the American Revolution”“Father of American Poetry”“Pioneer of the New Romanticism”“A gifted and versatile lyric poet”Works“The Wild Honey Suckle”“The Indian Burying Ground”“To a Caty-Did”Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life Experience►He was born in New York.►At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his friends (H. H. Brackenridge) a poem entitled “The Rising Glory of America”.►Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.►After being released, he published “The British Prison Ship” in 1781.►In the same year, he published “To the Memory of the Brave Americans”.►After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.►But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works►“The Rising Glory of America” (1772) 《美洲光辉的兴起》►“The House of Night” (1779,1786) 《夜之屋》►“The British Prison Ship” (1781) 《英国囚船》►“To the Memory of the Brave Americans” (1781) 《纪念美国勇士》►“”The Wild Honey Suckle” (1786) 《野忍冬花》►“The Indian Burying Ground” (1788) 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花（黄杲炘译）►美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。
美国文学史及选读复习笔记
History And Anthology of American Literature (VolumeⅠⅡ)美国文学史及选读1、2PartⅠThe Literature of Colonial America殖民主义时期的文学1.17世纪早期English and European explorers开始登陆美洲。
在他们之前100多年Caribbean Islands, Mexico andother Parts of South America已被the Spanish占领。
2.17th早期English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts(弗吉尼亚和马萨诸塞)开始了美国历史3.美国最早殖民者(earliest settlers)included Dutch ,Swedes ,Germans ,French ,Spaniards ,Italians and Portuguese(荷兰人，瑞典人，德国人，法国人，西班牙人，意大利人及葡萄牙人等)。
4.美国早期文学主要为the narratives and journals of these settlements采用in diaries and in journals(日记和日志)，他们写关于the land with dense forests and deep-blue lakes and rich soil.5.第一批美国永久居民：the first permanent English settlement in North America was established atJamestown,Virginia in 1607(北美弗吉尼亚詹姆斯顿)。
6.船长约翰·史密斯Captain John Smith他的作品(reports of exploration)17th早期出版，被认为是美国第一部真正意义上的文学作品in the early 1600s,have been described as the first distinctly American literature written in English.他讲述了filled with themes, myths, images, scenes, character and events,吸引了朝圣者和清教徒前往lure the Pilgrims and the Puritans.7.美国第一位作家：1608年Captain John Smith写了封信《自殖民地第一次在弗吉尼亚垦荒以来发生的各种事件的真实介绍》“A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony”.8.他的第二本书1612年《弗吉尼亚地图，附：一个乡村的描述》“A Map of Virginia: with a Description of theCountry”.9.他一共出版了八本书，其中有关于新英格兰的历史及描述。
（完整版）美国文学史-知识点梳理
（完整版）美国文学史-知识点梳理Part I The Literature of Colonial AmericaI．Historical IntroductionThe colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. ( A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.)II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of 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 immigration2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American WriterThe first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians.Captain John Smith is the first American writer.A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (1608)A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country (1612)General History of Virgini a (1624): the Indian princess PocahontasCaptain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders ofthe colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers.One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England LiteratureWilliam Bradford and John WinthropJohn Cotton and Roger WilliamsAnne Bradstreet and Edward TaylorV．Puritan Thoughts1. The origin of puritanIn the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII (At that time, the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church ofEngland. But there was no radical difference between the doctrines of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. A group of people thought the Church of England was too Catholic and wanted to purify the church. Then came the name Puritans.2. Puritanism -- based on Calvinism(1) predestination: God's electPuritans believed they are predestined before they were born.Nothing or no good work can change their fate.They believed the success of one's business is the sign to show he is the God's elect. So the Puritans works very hard, spend very little and invest more for the future business. They lived avery frugal life. This is their ethics.(2) Origianl sin and total depravityMan is born sinful. This determines some puritans pessimistic attitude towards life.(3) Limited atonement (the salvation of a selected few)(4) theocracyThey combined state with religion. Their government is at least not a liberal one.The Puritans established American tradition -- intolerant moralism. They strictly punished drunks, adultery & heretics.Puritans changed gradually due to the severity of frontier environment3. Influence on American Literature(1) Its optimismAmerican literature was from the outset conditioned by the Puritan heritage. It can be said American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. After that, man have an illusion to restore the paradise. The puritans, after arriving at America, believing that God must have sent them to this new land to restore the lost paradise, to build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. Fired with such a strong sense of mission, they treated life with a tremendous amount of optimism. The optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature.(2) Puritan's metaphorical mode of perception changed gradually into a literary symbolism.Part II The Literature of Reason And RevolutionI．Historical IntroductionWith the growth, especially of industry, there appeared the intense strain with England. The British government did not wantcolonial industries competing with those in England. The British wanted the colonies to remain politically and economically dependent on the mother country. They took a series of measures to insure this dependence. They prevented colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the cost of making them in this country. Politically, the British government forced dependenceby ruling the colonies from overseas and by taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.However, by the mid-eighteenth century, freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington. In the seventies of the 18th century, the English colonies in North America rose in arms against their mother country. The War for Independence lasted for 8 years (1776-1783) and ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democratic republic -- the United States of America. II．American EnlightenmentIt was supported by all progressive forces of the country which opposed themselves to the old colonial order and religious obscurantism.It dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature. The spiritual life during that period was to a great degree moulded by it.The representatives set themselves the task of disseminating knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas.The writers injected an invigorating vein into the English language in America as they aimed at clarity and precision oftheir writings.At the initial period the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to journalism. Writings of Europe were widely read in America. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.III．Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)The AutobiographyPoor Richard’s AlmanacLifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym “Silence Do good” .At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.Multiple identities:a printera leading authora politiciana scientista inventora diplomata civic activistFranklin’s Contributions to SocietyHe helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital.He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania.And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.And for his lightning-rod, he was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.”Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:The Declaration of Independence,The Treaty of Alliance with France,The Treaty of Peace with England,The ConstitutionThe AutobiographyThe Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was probably the first of its kind in literature. It is the simple yet immensely fascinating record of a man rising to wealth and fame from a state of poverty and obscurity into which he was born, the faithful account of the colorful career of America’s first self-made man.The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The meticulous chart of 13 virtues he set for himself to cultivate to combat the tempting vices, the stupendous effort he made to improve his own person, the belief that God helps those who helps themselves and that every calling is a service to God – all these indicate that Franklin was intensely Puritan. Then, the book is also a convincing illustration of thePuritan ethic that, in order to get on in the world, one has to be industrious, frugal, and prudent.The Autobiography is also an eloquent elucidation of the fact that Franklin was spokesman for the new order of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free by nature, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.A look at the style of The Autobiography will readily reveal that it is the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness and concision. The plainness of its style, the homeliness of imagery, the simplicity of diction, syntax and expression are some of the salient features we cannot mistake. The lucidity of the narrative, the absence ofornaments in wording and of complex, involved structures in syntax, and the Puritan abhorrence of paradox are all graphically demonstrated in the whole of the book. Taken as a whole, it is safe to say that the book is an exemplary illustration of the American style of writing.IV．Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Common SenseAmerican CrisisV．Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)The Declaration of IndependenceVI．Philip Freneau (1752-1832)“Poet of the American Revolution”“Father of American Poetry”“Pioneer of the New Romanticism”“A gifted and versatile lyric poet”Works“The Wild Honey Suckle”“The Indian Burying Ground”“To a Caty-Did”Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing.Life ExperienceHe was born in New York.At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He decided to do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up. While still an undergraduate, he wrote in collaboration with one of his friends (H. H. Brackenridge) a poem entitled “The Rising Glory of America”.Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.After being released, he published “The British Prison Ship” in 1781.In the same year, he published “T o the Memory of the Brave Americans”.After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government.But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.Main Works“The Rising Glory of America” (1772) 《美洲光辉的兴起》“The House of Night” (1779,1786) 《夜之屋》“The British Prison Ship” (1781) 《英国囚船》“To the Memory of the Brave Americans” (1781) 《纪念美国勇士》?“”The Wild Honey Suckle” (1786) 《野忍冬花》“The Indian Burying Ground” (1788) 《印第安人墓地》野忍冬花（黄杲炘译）美好的花呀，你长得：这么秀丽，却藏身在这僻静沉闷的地方——甜美的花儿开了却没人亲昵，招展的小小枝梢也没人观赏；没游来荡去的脚来把你踩碎，没东攀西摘的手来催你落泪。
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Major Writers and Literary Works
--- several names attached to Irving (1) the first American writer who gained international fame (2) started short story as a literary genre (3) father of American literature
• Characteristics of Romanticism • 1. subjectivity • (1) feeling and emotions, finding truth • (2) emphasis on imagination • (3) emphasis on individualism –
(Rousseau: French Philosopher)
American Romanticism
• Background • (1) Political background • a. economic boom • b. calling for culture independence • c. eagerness in literary expression • (2) Romantic movement in European
• Major work:
• The Sketch Book , including his best-known short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle
countries
Features
• (1) American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real new experience” and blended with “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien.
• (2) There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained.
Washington Irving (1783—1859)
--- Irving encouraged American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edgar Allan Poe.
• Romantic Techniques
• 1. Remoteness of settings in time and space.
• 2. Improbable plots.
• 3. Inadequate or unlikely characterization.
• 4. Gothicism ---sense of terror, fear; use of the odd and queer.
Review of the previous lecture
• Puritanism (features) • New England • Almanacs • Philip Freneau and his work • Feature of Freneau’s poetry
American Romanticism
• Section 1 Early Romantic Period
• What is Romanticism? • A literary trend:
18th in Britain (1798~1832) from the late 18th century to the Civil War in America
• (Gothic stories are romantic tales of terror and the supernatural, which rely a great deal on scene and setting to convey a sense of horror to the reader. The crumbling castle or shadowy mansion, as well as the dark and stormy night, are typical elements of the Gothic tale. )
• (3) The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with American Romanticism.
• (4) As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent.
personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodness of human beings
• 2. back to medieval, esp. medieval folk literature
• (1) unrestrained by classical rules • (2) freedom of imagination • (3) colloquial language • (4) genuine in feelings • 3. back to nature • nature is “breathing living thing”