美国文学史浪漫主义时期文学

美国文学史浪漫主义时期文学

摘要：浪漫主义时期是美国文学史上最重要的时期之一。当美国人在大刀阔斧地建设自己的国家时，也开始逐渐意识到逐渐与欧洲的不同。随着不断增强的民族主义意识及民族自豪感，美国人开始希望见到自己的不同与欧洲模式，能表达他们字的美国风情的文学。这个时代伟大的作家充满热情地记录下这个伟大时代的乐观主义精神。随后美国文学进入了超验主义时代。超验主义十分强调个人主义、自立、拒绝传统权威思想。它实际上是对浪漫主义的发展。然后，美国的国家自信心受到了内战的动摇。内战过后，美国处在迷茫中。在1900年前后这段时期的文学由于美国国内环境的变化而由浪漫主义和超验主义乐观精神转向对社会和人类本质更直接的探讨。从某种角度，现实主义反对浪漫主义的理想主义和怀旧情绪。它主要关注中下层人民的日常生活，而在这种情况下人物性格是社会因素作用的结果，环境是整个事件发展不可分割的部分。

关键词：美国文学史；浪漫主义；文学特点

The Romantic Period Literature in the history of American

Literature

Abstract: Romantic Period is one of the most important periods in the history of

American literature. When Americans were constructing their country, they also

began to realize their differences from their European counterparts. They began to

hope to see an entirely different literature model which expressed American cultures.

Great writers of that period captured on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism

of that dream. Later，American literature came to Transcendentalism Period which

emphasized individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of tradition authority. It was

actually greatly influenced by romanticism. However, the country’s confidence was

waved by the Civil War. After the war, Americans got lost. At about 1900s, American

literature came to another entirely different age—the age of Realism. Realists

searched for the social and human nature more directly. In part, Realism was a

reaction against the Romantic emphasis on the strange, idealistic, and long-ago and

far-away. It has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life

among the middle and lower classes where character is a product of social factors and

environment is the integral element in the dramatic complications.

Keywords: American Literature History; Romanticism; Literary characteristics

1、American Romanticism

Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in

the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on

the individual’s experience of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes

and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions.

The romantic period of American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century

to the outbreak of the Civil War. It was an age of westward expansion, of the

increasing gravity of the slavery question, of an intensification of the spirit of

embattled sectionalism in the South, and of a powerful impulse to reform in the North.

In literature it was America’s first great creative period, a full flowering of the

romantic impulse on American soil.

1.1 The unique characteristics of American Romanticism

Although greatly influenced by their English counterparts, the American romantic

writers revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on

the native lands. For examp1e，(1) the American national experience of "pioneering

into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw

upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves,

endless prairies, streams.and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a

dramatic character that symbolized moral 1aw. (2) The desire for an escape from

society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature.

Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper’s Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's

Walden and， later, in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (3) With the

growth of American national consciousness, American character types speaking local

dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. (4)Then the

American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American

moral values and American Romanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that

American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European

counterparts. (5) Besides, a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin

and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser

writers.

historical reasons

With the independence of the United States of America, political autonomy, the

rise of the economy, and cultural independence, the largest land expansion in

American history began during the Romantic period of the United States. As of 1860,

the Civil War began, the territory of the United States extended to the western coast of

the Pacific Ocean. No one could have predicted the middle of 19th century. The

United States expanded from just 13 states in her early days to 21, with a nearly