美国文学重点整理
美国文学题型：
1.60分三篇小说，三个诗歌，作者，出处，作品分析
2.20分名词解释
3.20分论述
1. 20世纪美国文学发展的经济背景
关键词：
Urbanization（new farm machines, rising productivity, rising leisure time）Industrialization(electric lights, camera, telephone, radio, type writer) Commercialization
Globalization.
Philosophy: Schopenhauer叔本华
Nietzsche 尼采
Jean Paul
Freud
补充：Fitzgerald：tender is the night, all the sad young man, the rich boy,
2. What is Lost Generation?
①It is a term to describe a group of American intellectuals, poets, artists and writers who fled to France in the post WWI years to reject the values of American materialism and to seek the bohemian lifestyle in Paris.
②It is full of youthful idealism, seeking the meaning of life, drank excessively, have love affairs,creating some of the finest American literature to date.
③American poet Gertrude Stein coined this expression, speaking to Hemingway, she said, you are all a lost generation.the term stuck the mystique surrounding these individuals continues to fancy us.
④Main representatives: F. Scott.Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos
3. What is modernism? Main features.
A cultural movement that generally includes the progressive art and architecture, design, literature, music, dance,painting and other visual arts which emerged in the beginning of the 20century, particularly in the years following WWI. It was a movement of artists and designers who rebelled against late 19th century academic and historic tradition, and embraced the new economic ,social and political aspects of the emerging modern world.
The avant-garde movements that followed including impressionism, post-impressionism, cubism（立体主义）, futurism, expressionism, contructivism（构
成主义）are generally defined as modernism
.
4. The Great Gatsby
作者： F. Scott Fitzgerald
男女主人公：Jay Gatsby & Daisy Fay Buchanan
Why is Gatsby great? Why did he die?
His flaws in characteristics: Naive,innocent, ideal
正是因为美国社会缺乏盖茨比精神，社会不重视精神世界的充实，人们经历spiritual emptiness, 所以盖茨比伟大。Post-war delusion（迷幻，错觉）
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
补充：Fitzgerald：tender is the night, all the sad young man, the rich boy,
几个重点背景：roaring twenties, jazz age, the lost generation, American dream
5. Ernest Hemingway
主要作品：
The Sun Also Rises《太阳照常升起》
A Farewell to Arms 《永别了，武器》Frederic Henry & Catherine Barkley
For Whom the Bell Tolls 《丧钟为谁而鸣》
The Old Man and the Sea 《老人与海》Santiago
“Man is not made for debeat…A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” From The Old Man and the Sea
What is Hemingway Code Hero? His writing style. What is Iceberg-principle?
补充：海明威的writing style:
Heroic code : Hemingway has his own understanding of hero. What the hero does is to face adversity with grace. He emphasizes self-control and other facts of his idea of manhood. What people achieve or fail at external is not as significant to heroism as comporting ourselves with inner nobility. As Santiago says, man is not made for defeated. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
Colloquial style
Emphasis on emotion
Ice burg theory
Short story: man without women
Winter takes nothing
主题主要是：life and death, experience and the meaning of life, the physical and psychological wound of the soldier.
Hemingway’s writing style: simple, telegraphic, natural, direct, clear, fresh, terse(简洁的，精练的), controversial, commonly found, fundamental words, lean and emotional,simple sentences, ice burg principle, symbolism. His style is probably the most widely imitated of any in the 20th century. He is generally known for his “mastery of the art of modern narration”. He once said, the dignity of movement of an iceburg is due to only 1/8of it above water. According to H, good literature writing should be able to make readers feel the emotion of the characters directly and the best
way to produce the effect is to set down exactly every particular kind of feeling without any authorized comments, without conventionally emotive language, and with a bare minimum of adj, and modifiers. His fiction usually focuses on people living essential, dangerous live -- soldiers, fisherman, athletes, who meet the pain and difficulties of their existence with stoic（坚忍的，苦修的）courage. His celebrated lit stylhe is direct,terse and often monotonous, yet particularly suited to his elemental subject matter. Masculine, man of action, self-discipline, terse.
The Hemingway hero code
It refers to some protagonists in Hemingway’s works. In the general situation of Hemingway’s novels, life i s full of tension and battles. The world is in chaos and man is always fighting a losing battle. Those who survive and perhaps emerge victorious in the process of seeking to master the code with a set of principles such as honor, courage, endurance, wisdom, discipline and dignity are known as Hemingway code. To behave well in the lonely, losing battle with life is to show “grace under power” and constitutes in itself a kind of victory, a theme clearly established in The old man and the sea.
A Farewell to arms
Is henny a good soldier?
No. he escaped and said goodbye to aimless, meaningless war and ran to Switzerland. It is not our war. He is anti-war thinking love may be disastrous, bring death. So man should be cold.
6. William Faulkner, Southern writer
主要作品：The Sound and the Fury 《喧哗与骚动》,Absalom, Absalom. Go down, moses. Light in august.
故事发生地：fictional Yoknapatawpha County
四大家族：
主题: The burden of history; the South’s conservative culture; the South’s troubled history; family; the land; religion; guilt; identity; death; the search for the redemptive meaning of life.
Writing features:
1. stream of consciousness and interior monologue.
2. multiple point of view
3. Violation of chronology
4.anti-hero: weak, fable(寓言，无稽之谈), vulnerable,
5.mythological pattern and open ending
7. The Color Purple
作者：Alice Walker 南方黑人女性作家alic
主人公：Celie & Nettie
论述: Sophia: “All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men,
but I ain't never thought I'd have to fight in my own house!”
The Color Purple is an epistolary（书信体的）novel, made up of 91 letters written by Celie and her sister Nettie. Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on black female life during the 1930s in the Southern United States.
8. The Bluest Eye
作者：Toni Morrison其他作品：Song of Solomon; Beloved.
主人公：Pecola Breedlove: inferiority complex,
（说过要考几种literary form fiction, poetry, drama）
American Drama
What is drama: a drama is a work of literature or composition which delineates life and human activities by means of presenting various actions, and dialogues between a group of characters and it is designed for theatrical presentation.
Elements: plot, character, theme, diction(措辞)，music and auditory aspect of a play.
1920s: little theater movement began after 1912 Washington square players. They are free from the conventional theater and can be as experimental as they like.
1930s: Eugene O’Neil
Post war: Arthur Miller
60s：theater of absurd: Edward Albee
1.美国最早的剧作家：William Darby
代表作：Ye Bare and Ye Cubb
2.一定会考第一位获得诺贝尔奖的剧作家：Eugene O’Neil被称为“剧作家之父”
Neil is credited with raising America drama theater from its narrow origins to an art from respected around the world. He is regarded as America’s premier playwright.
Feature: introduce the European theatrical trends of realism, naturalism and expressionism to the American stage as devices to express his comprehensive interest in his life and humanity. His purpose it to get the root if human desires and frustrations, disappointments and perplexities. As result his tragic and nihilistic view of life, his words in general, indicated chaos and hopelessness.
The long days journey
The emperor jones
The hairy ape
写作风格：realism, naturalism, expressionism
代表作：The Emperor Jones,The Long Days Journey Into Night, The Hairy Ape His purpose is to get the root of human desires and frustrations.
3.Arthur Miller应该不会考
代表作：Death of a Salesman.
Main characters: Willy Loman, Biff Loman
4.Tennessee Williams代表作：A Street Car Named Desire应该会考
流派：Theater of the Absurd 荒谬派
Beckett
Features:
the basic assumption: human life lacks coherence and is chaotic. Life operates without rules.
The world is meaningless, so the play appears to be meaningless.
It examines the problems of life and death, of isolation and communication
It satirizes people who are unaware of the ultimate reality: death
In absurd drama, situation is more important than characteristics and events. The dramatists want to show people what their situation is. Therefore, he constructs a play which presents a picture of the universal situation. One result of these is that the characters are so often comic and humorous.
5.Edward Albee
代表作：The Zoo Story, Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?
6.post-moderism
post-modernism is a complicated term, or set of ideas, one that has only emerged as am area of academic study since the mid-90s. post moderation is hard to define because it is
A.An emphasize on impressionism and subjectivity in writing. It emphasize on how
seeing(or reading or perception itself) takes palce.
B. A movement away from the apparent objectivity prob=vided by omniscient
third-person narrators, fixed narrative points of view and clear cut moral positions.
C. A blurring of destitution between genres so that poetry seems more dominating
and prose seems more poetic.
D.An emphasize on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives, and
random-seeming collages of different materials.
E. A tendency toward reflexivity, or self-conscious about the production of
self-consciousness about the production of the work of art, so that each piece calls attention to its own status as a production, as sth constructed and consumed in particular ways.
F. A rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalist designs(as in the
poem of williams) and a rejection in large part .
G.A rejection of the distinction between high and low or popular culture, both in
choice of materialism used to produce art and in methods of displayingm distributing and consuming art.
H.Post-modernism, like modernism, follows most of the ideas, rejecting boundaries
between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing pastiche, parody, irony and playfulness. But modern art favors reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity, ambiguity, simultaneity
：
世界著名剧作家名字：Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, V oltaire, Diderot,
Beaumarchais, Henrik Ibsen, Bernard Shaw, Chekhov
American novels (World War Ⅱ—)
1.Jerome David Salinger
代表作：The Catcher in the Rye
Main character: Holden Caulfield
2.Vladimir Nabokov
代表作：Lolita
Main characters: Humbert, Lolita
3.Jack Kerouac
代表作：On the Road
Main characters: Sal Paradise, Dean Monriarty
The Beat Generation:
Features: rejection of standard narrative values, the spirit quest, exploration of American and Eastern religious, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration.
4.Postmodernism: like modernism
Features of modernism: self-consciousness, spontaneity, fragmentation, discontinuity, ambiguity and simultaneity.
American poetry (anti-tradition school)
1.Black Mountain School
代表诗人：Charles Olson
Feature: projective verse
Black Mountain Review黑山学派的刊物
2.The San Francisco School
3.Beat Poets
代表诗人：Allen Ginsberg (Howl 1956), Jack Kerouac
Beat poetry is oral, repetitive and immensely effective. It is the most anti-establishment form of literature in America.
4.The New York School
They have the best formal educations of any group.
Post realism 战后现实主义
Features: despair, ethnic groups, existential crisis，oppressed, despair, nihilism, brutality,
1.Norman Mailer
代表作：The Naked and the Dead, The Armies of the Night
2.John Updike
代表作：Five Rabbit books:
Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit is Rich; Rabbit at Rest; Rabbit Remembered Main character: Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom
Black Humor
Features: grotesque or morbid humor; express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox and the cruelty of the modern world.
1.Kurt V onnegut
代表作：Slaughter House Five
2.Joseph Heller
代表作：Catch-22 (means dilemma)
Anti-hero: Joseph Yossarian
Poems
20世纪disappointment disillusionment allusions
T.S.Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, E.E.Cummings, Robert Frost (the road not taken)
Appreciation of poems: meter and rhyme
1. T.S.Eliot 诗歌之父
考印象派诗歌（不知道对应）
Imagism:20世纪美国文坛流派：Modernism: lost generation. Imagism came into being in Britain and US at around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation. T he imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of dominant image.
3 poetic principles of imagism:
Direct treatment of subject matter
Economy of expression
As regards rhythm, to compose in the sequence of musical phrase, not in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome.
Chaotic and structure less
必考：Pound: in a station of the metro
It is a well known imagism poem
人群中那些亡魂的脸
花瓣，在潮湿的黑色枝头
Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
考：TS Elliot the waste land
五个章节分别是：
The burial of the died
A game of chess
The fire sermon
Death by water
What the thunder said
Robert Frost: the road not taken
Realistic depiction
Rural life
Colloquial speech
Features: simple graceful tradition
Longfellow: a psalm of life
记住art is long and time is fleeting ,
And our hearts, though stout and brave
Still, like muffled drums, are beatifuneral marches to the grave 小说补充洛丽塔第二十二条军规
New England Transcendentalism: Philosophically, Transcendentalism means the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses. New England Transcendentalism stress the importance of the Over-soul, the Individual and Nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is enabling and the individual is divine and therefore, self-reliant. The leading figure of New England Transcendentalism is Emerson and Thoreau. American Romanticism: It is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature that stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. Being a period of the great flowering of American literat ure, it is also called “the American Renaissance.” American romantic works emphasize the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature. Romanticists include such literary figures as Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and some others. Free Verse: Poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme American Puritanism: The first settlers who came to America wer e called “Puritans”, so named after because they wished to “purify” the religious practice in the church. They established their own religious and moral principles as American Puritanism, which stressed predestination, original sin, total depravity, and li mited atonement from God’s grace. American Puritanism is one of the enduring influences in American thought and American literature. American Puritanism was greatly influenced by Calvinism. Symbolism: Symbolism is the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships. American Literature: Literature refers to body of work which for whatever reason deserves to be preserved as part of the reproduction of meaning within a given culture. It mainly includes novel, drama, poetry, short stories, biography and some other forms. American Literature refers to literature written by Americans in English. Epic A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. Many epics were drawn from an oral tradition and were transmitted by song and recitation before they were written down. Analysis "To a Waterfowl" is written in iambic trimeter and iambic pentameter, consisting of eight stanzas of four lines. The poem represents early stages of American Romanticism through celebration of Nature and God's presence within Nature. Bryant is acknowledged as skillful at depicting American scenery but his natural details are often combined with a universal moral, as in "To a Waterfowl" Figures of speech alliteration metaphor anaphora personification:
Ezra Pound (埃兹拉?庞德) In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd;人群中这些面孔幽灵般闪现Petals on a wet,black bough.湿漉漉的黑色枝条上的众多花瓣 1. Why does the poet call the faces of pedestrians "apparition"? These pedestrians are all walking in a hurry amidst the drizzling rain. 2.What do "petals" and "bough" stand for? Petals refer to the faces while the bough stands for the floating crowd. Robert Frost (1)Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire,有人说世界将终结于火, Some say in ice.有人说是冰。 From what I’ve tasted of desire，从我尝过的欲望之果 I hold with those who favor fire.我赞同倾向于火之说。 But if it had to perish twice,但若它非得两度沉沦 I think I know enough of hate.我想我对仇恨了解也够多 To know that for destruction ice可以说要是去毁灭,
Part I Identification Directions: Decide whether the following statements are true or false. 1.( T ) Hurstwood is a character in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. 2.( F )In 1954, T. S. Eliot was awarded a Nobel Prize for his “mastery of the a rt of modern narration.” 3.( T )Hemingway believed that a man could find meaning in life by facing his death with dignity and courage. 4.( T )Literary naturalism may be regarded as the new development of literary realism, and was sometimes called “pessimistic realism.” The naturalistic writers were philosophical pessimists. 5.( F )Hemingway, Pound, Cummings, Dos Passos, and Fitzgerald, belong to the school of “Beat Generation”. 6.( F )William Faulkner's woks mainly concerned the decay in economy and moral in the American North. 7.( F ) Fitzgerald's fictional world is the best embodiment of the spirit of the romantic period. 8.( T )The narrator in T he Great Gatsby is a minor character named Nick Carraway, who is also a participant in the event. 9.( T ) Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises pained the image of the whole generation, the lost generation. 10.( F )In Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, he used a technique called imagism, in which the whole story was told through the thoughts of one character. Part II Multiple choice: Directions: Choose the best answer and write the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet. 1. ___________ showed great interest in Chinese literature and translated the poetry of Li Po into English, and was influenced by Confucian ideas. A. Ezra Pound B. Robert Frost C. T. S. Eliot D. E. E. Cummings 2. Ezra Pound's long poem____________ contained more than one hundred poems loosely connected. A. The Waste Land B. The Cantos C. Don Juan D. Queen Mab 3. In Paris, Ernest Hemingway, along with _____________, accomplished a revolution in literary style and language. A. Gertrude Stein B. Ezra Pound C. James Joyce D. all of the above 4. The Fitzgeralds lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than F. Scoot Fitzgerald earned for parties, liquor, entertaining their friends and
Part I The Literature of Colonial America I．Historical Introduction The 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 immigration 2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American Writer The 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 Pocahontas Captain 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 Literature William Bradford and John Winthrop John Cotton and Roger Williams Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor V．Puritan Thoughts 1. The origin of puritan In 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 of
Introduction 1. The Youngest National Literature 1781 (Independence War) --- 2012= about 200 years 2. Great achievement: 1930-1980, nine American writers won the Nobel Prize The Periods of American Literature 1.The colonial period (约1607 - 1765) 2. The period of enlightenment and Independence War (1765-1800) 3. The romantic period (1800 - 1865) 4. The realistic period (1865 - 1914) 5. The period of modernism (1914 - 1945) 6. The Contemporary Literature (1945 -) Chapter I Colonial America American Puritanism 1. The beliefs and practices characteristic of Puritans(most of whom were Calvinists who wished to purify the Church of England of its Catholic aspects) 2. Strictness and austerity in conduct and religion Puritans‘ religio us belief: Calvinism ◆John Calvin, the great French theologian. The principal concepts: 1) Original sin and total depravity. 2) Predestination 3) Salvation of selected few ◆ The Puritans carried with them to America a code of values, a philosophy of life, and a point of view, which, in time, took root in the New world and became what is known as American Puritanism. (p11) The Influence of Puritanism on American Literature 1) Idealism（optimism） 2) Symbolism 3) Simplicity in writing Significance of Puritanism With time passing it became a dominant factor in American life, one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American 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. Time: From the arrival of the first settlers in the early 17th century to the end of the 18th century Literary Features 1. Forms Personal literature in various forms --- diaries, histories, common books (札记)，journals, letters, travel books, sermons etc. 2. Content 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 2) highly theoretical discussions of religious questions. 3. Style In Style, English literary traditions were imitated and transplanted. Early writers in the colonial period John Smith, a captain, one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia; the writer of A Description of New England. William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth Plantation, his writing: Of Plymouth Plantation (P16) John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, In his famous speech A Model of Christian Charity ,he states that there was a agreement between God and his people of building a new Garden of Eden in the new world. (P17) Therefore let us choose life, 所以，让我们选择生活， that we and our seed 这样，我们和我们的后代， may live by obeying His 可以听从上帝的声音， voice and cleaving to Him, 须臾不离上帝， for He is our life and 因为，上帝是我们的生命， our prosperity. 我们的兴旺 1
一 I heard the merry grasshopper then sing, The black-clad cricket bear a second part, They kept one tune, and played on the same string, Seeming to glory in their little art. Shall creatures abject thus their voices raise? And in their kind resound their maker’s praise, Whilst I, as mute, can warble forth no higher lays? “Under the cooling shadow of a stately Elm, Close state I by a goodly River’s side, Where gliding streams the Rocks did overwhelm; A lonely place with pleasures dignifi’d. I once that lov’d the shady woods so well, Now thought the rivers did the trees excel, And if the sun would ever shine there would I dwell. “While musing thus with contemplation fed, And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain, The sweet tongu’d Philomel percht o’er my head, And chanted forth a most melodious strain, Which rapt me so with wonder and delight, I judg’d my hearing better than my sight. 题目：the 9th of Contemplations 作者：Anne Bradstreet 赏析： 1. Rhyme royal: sevenline iambic petametre 七行五步抑扬格 2. Rhyme: ababccc 3. Theme: religion 4. 象征：black-clad=death; abject=admitting defeat; maker= god 5. A genuine expression of poetic feeling in the presence of nature. The poem offers the reader an insight into the mentality of the early Puritan pioneering in a new world. The poet heard the grasshopper and the cricket sing, and she searched for her own soul accordingly. 6. She saw sth metaphysical inhering in the physical, a mode of perception which was singularly Puritan 二 It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method. In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalog more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or
美国文学期末考试复习必备（精） 1. What’s Puritanism? A religious and political movement which appeals to the right of the individual to political & religious independence. It includes three parts: a code of values, a point of view & a philosophy of life 2. What are the basic Puritan beliefs? 1). Total Depravity 2). Unconditional Election 3). Limited Atonement 4). Irresistible Grace 5). Perseverance of the "saints" 3. What are American Puritan values? Sobriety thrift, Self-reliance Diligence, Struggle, simple tastes 4. What are the features of American literature in the Colonial Period? A. Humble origins: diaries, journals, histories, letters. Its various forms, occupy a major position in the literature of the early colonial period. B. in content: serving either god or colonial expansion or both C. in form: imitating English literary traditions. D. in style: tight and logic structure, precise and compact expression, avoidance of rhetorical decoration, adoption of homely imagery and simplicity of diction. E. Symbolism formed in this period ------To the pious Puritan, the physical, phenomenal world was nothing but a symbol of God. F. Simple, fresh and direct style
1、The Colonial Period（1607-1765） American Puritanism ( in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th) 北美第一位女诗人Anne Bradstreet(宗教气息，夫妻恩爱) Edward Taylor 都受英国玄学派影响（metaphysical） 2、The Enlightenment and Revolution Period Benjamin Franklin:Poor Richard's Almanac The Autobiography---“美国梦”的根源 3、American Romanticism（end of 18th to the civil war） American writers emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature. 早期浪漫主义Washington Irving father of American Literature
学习资料收集于网络，仅供参考 1. 2. 6.Transcendentalism: is literature，philosophical and literary movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to1860. It originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reaching against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world instead. Transcendentalism derived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, and from such English authors as Carlyle，Coleridge, and Wordsworth. The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature and Self-Reliance and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden. .Symbolism象征主义：It is the writing technique of using symbols. It's a literary movement that arose in France in the last half of the 19th century and that greatly influenced many English writer, particularly poets, of the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. It's one of the most powerful devices that poets employ in creation. 8.American naturalism：this term was created by Emile Zola. Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory played an important role in naturalism. In the works off naturalism，characters were conceived as complex combinations of inherited attributes and habits conditioned by social and economic forces. At th century，the end of the 19this pessimistic form of realism appeared in america. Naturalism attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness. Characters in the works of naturalism were dominated by their environment and heredity. Naturalism emphasized：the world was around；men had no free will；religious“truth”were illusory；the destiny of human beings was misery in life and oblivion in death. The dominant figures in naturalism were Stephen crane，Frank Norris, Jack London and Theodore Dreiser. 3.The lost generation: included the young English and American expatriates as well