殖民地时期及独立革命时期的美国文学

第一章 殖民地时期及独立革命时期的美国文学

I.知识结构：见笔记

II. 知识点精讲

1.时代背景

1)The Native American and their culture---Indians. Before Christopher

Columbus discovered the American continent, there was no real literature.

2)Christopher Columbus discovered the American continent in 1492.

3)Captain Christopher Newport reached Virginia in 1607.

4)Puritans came to the New England area, by Mayflower（五月花号）in

1620. (In 1629, the puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony.（马萨诸塞湾）Puritans came to America out of various reasons, but it

should be remembered that they were a group of serious, religious people,

advocating highly religious and moral principles. It is true that they wished

to escape religious persecution—and the English government regarded its

American colony as an ideal dumping ground for the undesirables, but they

were also determined to find a place where they could worship in the way

they thought true Christians should. They regarded themselves as God's

chosen people, they were meant to reestablish a commonwealth based on

the teachings of the Bible, restore the lost paradise, and build the

wilderness into a new Garden of Eden.) 5)The puritan migration began. (The settlement of the North American

continent by the English began in the early part of the seventeenth century.

The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation

were quite a few of them Puritans. They 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 popularly known as American

Puritanism.)

6)The British Industrial revolution (1750-1830) spurred the economy in

American colonies; in American, there was War of Independence

(1776-1783); the spiritual life of the colonies----Enlightenment began

toappear. Thus, this period was the literature of reason and revolution

(1781-1815).

2. 名词解释

1） Puritans（清教徒）: They are one division of English Protestant.

They regarded the reformation of the church under Elizabeth as incomplete,

and called for further purification.

The 17th century American Puritans included two parts: Separatists and

Massachusetts Bay Group. Their religious doctrines are original sin, total

depravity, predestination and limited atonement (or the salvation of a

selected few) through a special infusion of grace from God. They regarded themselves as chosen people of God. They were meant to reestablish a

commonwealth based on the teachings of the Bible, restore the lost

paradise, and build the wilderness into a new Garden of Eden. They

opposed arts and pleasure. They suspect joy and laughter as symptoms of

sin. They are opposed to mysticism and pantheism because these tended to

destroy the transcendence of God.

They embraced hardships, industry and frugality. They favored a disciplined,

hard, somber, ascetic and harsh life. Their attitudes toward work: work

itself is good in addition to what it achieves, that time saved by efficiency or

good fortune should be spent in doing further work. Pushing the frontiers

with them as they moved further and further westward, they became more

practical, as indeed they had to be. "A doctrinaire opportunist" came

perhaps closest to the American Puritan ideal for man.

2) American Puritanism(美国清教主义): It is a religious and political

movement. Through it, one sees emerging the right of the individual to

political and religious independence. It has become, to some extent, so

much a state of mind, rather than a set of tenets, a part of the national

cultural atmosphere that the Americans breathe, that we may state with a

degree of safety that, without some understanding of Puritanism, there can

be no real understanding of American culture and literature. American

Puritanism has been, by and large, a healthy legacy to the Americans. 3) American Dream(美国梦): The American Dream is the faith held by

many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and

determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through

financial prosperity. (These were values held by many early European

settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays

the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth as a

measure of success and/or happiness.)

4) Great Awakening(宗教大觉醒): Great Awakening is a series of religious

revivals that swept over the American colonies about the middle of the

18th century. It resulted in doctrinal changes and influenced social and

political thought. In New England it was started (1734) by the rousing

preaching of Jonathan Edwards.

3.作家作品

1）Captain John Smith(1580-1631)（约翰·史密斯）---first American writer