美国文学选读名词解释图文稿

美国文学选读名词解释集团文件版本号：（M928-T898-M248-WU2669-I2896-

1.Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and

b e l i e f s o f t h e P u r i t a n s.

1.simply speaking , American Puritanism just refers to the spirit and ideal of puritans,who settled in the North American continent in the early part of

the seventeenth century because of religious persecutions.

2.In content it means scrupulous ,moral

rigor ,especially hostility to social pleasure and religion .

3.with time passing it became a dominant factor in American life , one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and literature.to some extent it is a state of mind,a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes ,rather than a set of tenets.

4.Actually it is a code of values,a philosophy of

life and a point of view in American minds,also a two-faceted tradition of religious idealism and

level -headed in common sense .

2.The American Romanticism(浪漫主义):a literary movement flourished as a cultural force the early period and the late period.

associated with imagination and boundlessness, as an historical movement it arose in the 18th and 19th centuries.(Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe.)

II.Features of American romanticism

(1) It was the expression of “a real new

experience(全新体验)”.

(2) American Puritanism was a cultural heritage. Many American romantic writings intended to edify(启发) more than they entertained.

(3) American Romanticism is full of “newness(新奇)” .

Ideals：Individualism; political equality

Dream：America: a new Garden of Eden

(4)American romanticism was both imitative and independent.

3.Transcendentalism 超验主义

The major features of Transcendentalism:

① The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想超灵宇宙

② The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual is the most important element of Society.

③ The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence. 自然+上帝

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

American Transcendentalism:As a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalism (also known as “ American Renaissance”) flour ished in New England from the 1830s to the Civil War. It is the high tide of American romanticism and its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau. Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.

4.Naturalism: It views human beings as animals in the natural world responding to environmental forces