美国浪漫主义文学评论

一、文学特征：

1、environment：①shaped by their New World environment美洲大陆新环境

②array of ideas inherited from the romantic traditions of Europe.欧洲早期浪漫主义思潮

2、美国文学特点:pluralistic多元化，manifestations表现形式: Varied多样, Individualistic个人主义,Conflicting矛盾

3、romanticism的特点：frequently shared certain general characteristics; moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption.浪漫主义之间大部分是相通的，都注重道德，强调个人主义价值观和直觉感受，并且认为自然是美的源头，人类社会是腐败之源。

★4、transcendentalism超验主义：

①as a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematized. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. 不讲逻辑，不讲系统，只强调超越理性的感受，超越法律和世俗束缚的个人表达。

②they spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.呼吁文化复兴，反对美国社会的拜金主义。

③they believed in the transcendence of “Oversoul,” an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part.相信精神上的超越，相信无所不能的善的力量，强调善为万物之源。

④it could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on the human mind. “Go back to nature, sink yourself back into its influence and you’ll become spiritually whole again.” The natural implication of all this was, of course, that things in nature tended to become symbolic, and the physical world was a symbol of the spiritual. This in turn added to the tradition of literary symbolism in American literature.

⑤代表人物：Emerson爱默生，believed that man was a part of absolute good。人性本善

Thoreau 梭罗，beheld divinity in the “unspotted innocence” of nature. 自然才是神圣的“洁白无瑕”

5、Literary forms文学形式：Novels, short stories, and poems replaced sermons and manifestos as America’s principal literary forms.长篇小说、短篇故事和诗歌取代说教类及宣言类作品成为美国主要的文学形式。

6、Imaginative literature想象类文学

7、the wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that illustrated moral law.戏剧化特色的野性讽喻了时代的道德准则。

8、The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. 逃离社会，回到自然成为了美国文学永恒的创作习惯。

9、Nationalism stimulated a greater literary interest in America’s language. In 1828 Noah Webster published “An American Dictionary of the English Language”. American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. 受民族主义影响，作家的目光转向了美国本土的语言，具有美国特征的本土方言开始在诗歌和小说中大量涌现。

10、At mid-century a cultural reawakening brought a “flowering of New England.”Led by Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau. New England →Transcendentalism, 从新英格兰文学到超验主义。

二、代表作家：

1、Washington Irving华盛顿.欧文the first great belletrist 第一个纯文学作家，划线部分为三个主要contribution

① the first great prose stylist of American romanticism. 美国第一位浪漫主义散文文体作家

②“Sketch Book”《见闻札记》, the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.现代文学史上第一部短篇小说和美国第一部伟大的青少年文学读物。

③Irving restored the waning Gothic romances which Poe soon infused with psychological subtleties.重振了没落的哥特式浪漫主义小说，随后坡在此基础上，把心理学的一些知识融入了这种体裁。

④“Legends of the Conquest of Spain”《西班牙征服记》

⑤manner 形式> matter 内容；avoid moralization教化to entertain娱乐/ amuse消遣

传说在美国独立战争时期的一次战役中，一个赫塞骑兵的头被炮弹打飞了。时候，他的阴魂常骑马在夜间飞驰，到战场上去寻找他的头颅。在睡谷有位从康涅狄格州来的教师，名叫伊卡包德·克兰，他对那些离奇的传说笃信不疑。他看上了当地一位殷实的荷兰农夫的独生女儿卡特琳娜·凡·塔塞尔。但他有许多情敌，其中最可怕的