1、Chapter OneThe Colonial Period and 17th Century Literature of Puritanism1. John Smith: the first of American literature is written by him. A True relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia (1608), was a long report recording what he saw and heard in New England.
2、2. 还有一些人道主义作家则认为应与印第安人和平相处，甚至主张与印第安人通婚（Edward Taylor）3. Such religious and cultural background of the Puritan writers was responsible for the two essential characteristics of the early American literature: their religious subject and imitation of English literary traditions. (elite in New England, 这
3、就是长期美国文学长期没有自己文学的传统的原因之一)4. Anne Bradstreets poems of religious experience and domestic intimacy were unique and genuine, delicate and charming, embodying her profound understanding of religion and humanity. 5. The Colonial Period and 17th Century Literature of PuritanismHistorical narrative, poetry
4、(history religions experience), sermons6. Puritanism was central to colonial American literature, its impact could find expression in almost all respects concerning literature.7. In keeping with the belief that literature should concern itself primarily with spiritual values, the sermon became the m
5、ost highly developed and the most popular of Puritan literary forms, since its tight and logical structure, its precise and compact expression, and its avoidance of rhetorical decoration excellently illustrated Puritan aesthetic and moral theories.8. As to the Puritan concept of beauty, they believe
6、d that beauty was, as Thomas Hooker defined, “that sweet correspondence and orderly usefulness the Lord first implanted in the order of things,” thus the Puritans equated beauty with utility and order. 9. Two colonies: 1607 1620Chapter Two The Period of Enlightenment1. The 18th century American hist
7、ory witnessed two great revolutions: one was American Revolution and the other was the Enlightenment. (rationalistic spirit/ rationalism, Age of Reason)2. A major feature of American literature in the 18th century is its “utilitarian tendency”.3. 浪漫主义前驱： Philip Freneau “poems of Romantic fancy” such
8、 as The Wild Honey Suckle4. The prose of the great philosopher-statesman makes up a prominent part of 18th century American literature. It includes two parts. The first is political prose and the second is the prose in other meanings.3. John Adam 1765.8, published in Boston Daily 4 anonymous essays.
9、 Superficially speaking, his essays were to criticize the Stamp Acts and the other Acts imposed on the northern American.4. Thomas Pain: Common Sense is the major literary creation to drive the independence of the northern America.四个原因：the Stamp Acts; no longer the mother; separated by Atlantic ocea
10、n; the size of territory.5. John de Crevecoeur His masterpiece is “Letters from an American Farmer” (1782)American culture: mother land; experience; new continentHis concept of individualism is quite similar to that of Franklins, but his response of confusion to the independence war is quite differe
11、nt from Franklins optimism.6. Benjamin Franklin is the spokes man of Enlightenment movementThe individualism centered on making a fortune illustrated in Autobiography, and the individualism based on Transcendentalism advocated by Emerson and David Thoreau form the material and spiritual basis for th
12、e deep-rooted individualism in American history.Individualism: material aspect (Benjamin Franklin)Spiritual aspect (Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau)7. Phillis WheatleyShe is the first female African American poet. Wheatley s poetry was rediscovered in the 1830s by the new England abolitionists
13、, but it is no exaggeration to say that she has never been better understood than at the present. Her recent critics have not only corrected a number of biographical errors but, more important, have provided a context which her work can be best read and her life understood. This reconsideration show
14、s Wheatley to be a bold and canny spokesperson for her faith and her politics; she early on join the cause of American independence and the abolition of slavery, anticipating that when American Negroes first heard the “sons of liberty” cry for freedom they were chocked by indifference to their own “
15、abject slavery and utter wretchedness.” It doesnt take a philosopher to see that the exercise of slavery cannot be reconciled with a “principle” that God has implanted in every human breast, “Love of Freedom”. She was correct in reminding him that there could be no justice anywhere if people in auth
16、ority were deaf to the history of human sorrow.With the publication of Wheatleys Poems, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has argued, “Wheatley launched two traditions at once - the black American literary tradition and the black womans literary tradition, which is unique in the history of literature.”Race; cl
17、ass; gender8. The Great Awakening was a religious revival in American religious history.Chapter Three New England Transcendentalism and The Romantic Age1. The argument between Hamilton and Jefferson led to the formation of two parties in America, one was Federalist Party and the other was Democratic
18、 Republican (注意).2. Expansion : purchasing; annexation; war3. Philip Freneau is the father of American rationalism literary, a transitional character between neoclassicism and romanticism. 4. Romanticism such a flourishing literature also resulted from the power, imagination, and opportunity quicken
19、ed by democracy, nationalism, and the rapid growth of economy. 5. The works of Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant made American literature works advance shoulder to shoulder with European literature. The genuine independence of American literature was achieved by the
20、contributions of those men of letter as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville and Walt Whitman. 6. Washington Irving The Sketch Book 札记集 , a collection of essays, sketches, and stories, including the immortal “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
21、, appeared serially in the years 1819 to 1820, securely established Irvings reputation at home and abroad, and designated the beginning of American romanticism. Escapism; revolutionThe nature plays an important role in the novel. She is not only the shelter but also the parameter of the changing wor
22、ld. 7. William Cullen BryantLong famous as the first American lyric poet of distinction, William Cullen Bryant glorified the morning of the American national literature. (the beginning of romanticism)In 1811, he had finished the first draft of his best known poem “Thanaopsis”, whose publication in 1
23、817 brought him not only his first success but also general attention to his extraordinary genius. His first collection Poems appeared in Boston in 1821, which included “To a Waterfowl”致水鸟, “Thanatopsis”死亡随想曲 and “The Yellow Violet”黄色的堇香花 established his position in the history of American literatur
24、e. Nature was the chief theme of Bryants poetry, and besides, religion, and concern for humanitarian reforms and national morality were persistent themes. Nature is the symbol of God.8. So we can call the romanticism before the emergence of Transcendentalism as the pre-romanticism, and the romantici
25、sm after Transcendentalism as post-romanticism.9. Edgar Allan Poe As a creative writer and critic, he emphasizes the significance of the art that appeals simultaneously to reason and emotion, and he holds that when the work of art is produced it is no longer a fragment of its creators life, nor an a
26、djunct（附件，附属于）to some didactic purpose, but an object of art created in the cause of beauty.浪漫主义代表；现实主义先驱10. Ralph Waldo Emerson Spokesman of TranscendentalismName-sake Ralph Waldo Ellison (黑人 Invisible Man)Not Me Nature virtue intellectThe relationship of nature, man and God forms the basis of Emer
27、sons concept of “Oversoul”. His idea is further expressed in “American Scholar” and “The Poet”. Emerson defined the scholars as “Man Thinking” instead of “Thinker”. 11. Nathaniel Hawthorne The central subject of Hawthornes major works was the human soul. Hawthorne probed and pioneered the “romantic
28、legend tradition”. In The House of the Seven Gables, he distinguished romantic legend from novel and confirmed that the former could offer the author the creative freedom in theme and form. Romantic legend did give Hawthorne the freedom to shake off the chain of the contemporary fashion in novel cre
29、ation, and created a world of “As If”. In this world, reality and imagination reflected mutually and defined one another. With symbolism, the inner conflict of human nature and the individual inner psychology could be illustrated. In the process of Hawthornes creation, we can find that he progressiv
30、ely retreated from the reality and receded into his imagined or symbolized world. 12. In American poetry of the 19th century, there were two developing trends. One was initiated by Bryant, and developed to its consummation in the hands of such poets as Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russ
31、ell Lowel etc The poems in this category also depicted the familiar romantic subject matter such as the nature and the mediocre things. But generally speaking, what this kind of poems inherited was more than what they innovated. The second category was represented by Emerson and Walt Whitman. The po
32、ems in this category were deeply influenced by Transcendentalism and brought new factors to American poetry in terms of language style, form, and content. They, to some degree, set about a new development for American poetry. 13. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Psalm of Life 第一首翻成中文的诗歌14. Walt Whitman一
33、是 free verse, 二是 constant change in content, 三是 Heterosexuality, 都表现了民主。Chapter Four The Age of Realism1. Mark TwainThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) is Twains best book and the connection and continuation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Many critics see The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn as
34、 the great novel of American democracy at least for Hucks release of the old black slave Jim. The novel has also been called “the school of many late western writers.” One of these, Sherwood Anderson used it as a model for his own Winesburg, Ohio (1919). Ernest Hemingway, whose won style is based on
35、 Twains, once said, “All modern American literature comes from Huckleberry Finn.”Chapter Five American NaturalismMany American writers adopted this pessimistic form of realism, this so-called “naturalism” view of man.naturalism, a new and harsher realism.Chapter Six American Modernism1. A number of
36、writers who achieved eminence after 1914 - Gertrude Stein(命名the last generation), Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson - had begun to publish before the beginning of World War One. 2. Sherwood Anderson： Winesburg， Ohio3. Sigmund Freud: the interpretation of dreams4. Marcel Proust Remembrance of Things of P
37、ast 意识流代表作5. The poets did this with politics ranging form the libertarian conservatism of Robinson Jeffers and the fascism of Ezra Pound to the radicalism of Langston Hughes. 6. Hemingway identified the rapid change in womens status after World War One and the general blurring of sex roles that accompanied the new sexual freedom as aspects of modernity that men were simultaneously attracted to and found hard to deal with.
