美国文学术语解释

术语解释（美国文学简史）

1、American Puritanism

Back grounding:

American Puritanism appeared in the colonial period, from 1607 to 1775, in America. Representatives:

There are many writers in this period, such as Captain John Smith, the author of the True Relation of Virginia (1608) and Description of New England (1616),Anne Bradstreet, who wrote the famous work called Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America (1650).

Main ideas:

They stress predestination, original sin, total depravity, and limited atonement from God’s grace. They go to America to prove that they are God’s chosen people who will enjoy God’s blessings on earth and in Heaven. Finally, they build a way of life that stresses hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety.

Influences:

American Literature is based on a myth ------ the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. The American Puritan’s metaphorical made of perception ---- symbolism. It has a great influence not only on the Literary Scene in Colonial America, , but also on the literature in the 18th century, especially on Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin.

American Romanticism

Back grounding:

It appeared in the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War, from 1828 to 1865, and it was strongly influenced by European culture.

Representative:

There are some representative new England poets and out-sanding writers such as, James Fenimaore Cooper, the author of The Leather Stocking Tales, Washington Irving , whose famous work is The Sketch Book (1819).

Main ideas:

Romanticism is a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. .For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions are more important than reason and common sense. They emphasize individualism, placing the individual against the group, against authority.

Influence:

It produces a feeling of “Newness”which inspires the romantic imagination.

3、Transcendentalisms

Back grounding:

Transcendtalism flourished in the New England from about 1836 to 1860.

Ralph Waldo Emerson published ‘Nature’in 1836 which represented a new way of intellectual thinking in America.

Representatives:

There are two representative writers, namely Ralph Waldo Emerson (), whose famous work called Nature, Henry David Thoreau (), the author of Walden..

Main ideas:

Believe people can learn things both from the outside world by means of the 5 senses and from the inner world by intuition; It places spirit first and matter second; It takes nature as symbolic of spirit or God. It emphasizes the significance of the individual; Religion is an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal ‘over soul’.

Influences:

It is a manifestation of Romantic Movement in literature and philosophy and an ethical guide to life of America. However, it is never a systematic philosophy because of a lack of logical connection.

4、Realism

Back grounding:

In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence, from 1865 to 1918.

Representatives:

There are some famous writers in this period, such as William Dean Howells , the Dean of American Realism, whose famous work is A Chance Acquaintance 《偶然相遇》; O. Henry, the author of After Twenty Years; Henry James, the author of The Portrait of a Lady.

Main ideas:

Realism is the theory of writing in which familiar aspects of contemporary life and everyday scenes are represented in a straightforward or mother-of-fact manner. It often uses the open ending,