美国文学史论文

1班2012213154 任亚男

A Brief Summary of the History of American Literature

The American Romantic period, which was regarded as one of the most important period in the history of American literature, stretched from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. The Sketch Book written by Washington Irving marked the beginning of American Romanticism. American Romanticism was a rebellion against objectivity of the rationalism. The romantics emphasized individualism, affirmed the inner life of the self, and cherished strong interest in the past, the wild, the remote, the mysterious and the strange. In this period, we saw a rising America fast burgeoning into a political, economic, and cultural independence it had never known before.

There were many reasons why American Romanticism emerged. First, democracy and political equality became the ideals of the new nation. Radical changes came about in the political life of the country. Parties began to scramble for power, and a new system---two-party system was making. Second, the fast spread of industrialism, the sudden influx of immigrants, and the pioneers pushing the frontier further west---all these produced an economic boom and a sense of optimism and hope among the people. Third, a nation bursting into new life cried for literary expression. The buoyant mood of the nation and the spirit of the times seemed in some measure responsible for the spectacular outburst of romantic feeling in the first half of the nineteenth century. Forth, magazines appeared in ever-increasing numbers, which provided the vast stage for romantics. Fifth, foreign influences added incentive to the growth of romanticism in America. Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Byron, Robert Bums, and many other English and European masters of poetry and prose all made a stimulating impact on the different departments of the country’s literature. For instance, Irving’s The Sketch Book was largely based on the essays of Addison and Steele, Bryan poetry was enlightened by Wordsworth, and Cooper’s novels were modeled after the works of Walter Scott. Thus American Romanticism was derivative in a way.

Although greatly influenced by the English and European literature, American Romanticism had distinctive features of its own. Different from their European counterparts, American Romanticism tended to moralize, to edify rather than to entertain. This is because there was American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider in their writings. Besides, American romanticism presented an entirely new experience alien to European culture. The exotic landscape, the frontier life, the

westward expansion, the myth of a New Garden of Eden in American, and the Puritan heritage were just a few examples of the native material for an indigenous literature. Evidently, American romanticism produced a feeling of “newness” which inspired the romantic imagination. Hence, as a logical result of the foreign and native factors, American romanticism was both imitative and independent.

The most clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period was New England Transcendentalism, which lasted from the 1830s to the beginning of the Civil War. The publication of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1836 essay Nature is usually regarded as the mark of the birth of this major distinctive cultural movement. Transcendentalism held that one must transcend, in a sense go beyond, logical and experience through intuition in order to find the deepest truth. Transcendentalists stressed spirit or the Oversoul. They affirmed the role or individual and saw nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. American Transcendentalism inaugurated the American Renaissance, giving it both a necessary impulse as well as its foundation.

As for the most representative American romantic writers, Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edger Allan Poe, Walt Whitman should be included. Washington Irving is regarded as “The Father of the American Short Stories”. With the publication of The Sketch Book, Irving won a measu re of international fame on both sides of the Atlantic. His Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow are classics in American literature. Ralph Waldo Emerson is the founder and center of the transcendental movement. In his essays, Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-soul, the importance of the individual, and nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne is considered as the first greatest American fiction writer in the moralistic tradition. His wide-spread work, The Scarlet Letter that is notable for its allegory and symbolism is regarded as the first symbolic novel in American literature. Walt Whitman is viewed as the first urban poet. His work has been described as a “rude shock” and “the most audacious and debatable contribution yet made to American liter ature”.

After the Civil War, every aspect of American life changed. First, America transformed itself from an agrarian community into an industrialized and commercialized society. Second, the war also brought some noticeable changes to the American economy. It had stimulated the technological development, and new methods of organization and management were tested to adapt to industrial modernization on a large scale. However, the changes were not all good. The centralization of wealth and power was in a limited few while the vast laboring

masses were poor and low, which caused the polarization of well-being, with the poor poorer and the rich richer. Third, the abrupt changes left Americans in a morally confused and exhausted “new” world. The harsh realities of life as well as the disillusion of heroism resulting from the dark memories of the Civil War had set the nation against the romance. Americans began to be tired of the sentimental feelings of Romanticism. Therefore, America Realism emerged in the latter half of the 19th century. As a literary movement, it was centered on novel, and dominant in America until the closing decade of the century. It focused on commonness of the lives of the common people, and emphasized objectivity and offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.

In American realist fiction, familiar aspects of contemporary life an everyday scenes were represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner, in which characters from all social levels were examined in depth. It stressed truthful treatment of material. As a powerful impulse to mirror the unmitigated realities of life, realism expressed its concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low.

The three dominant figures of the period are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James. Mark Twain i s one of America’s first and foremost realists and humorists. William Dean Howells is the founder of American Realism and the most prominent critic of the entire realistic period. Henry James is an early psychological realist. His novels have much influence on modern American writers. So he is often called one of the fathers of the psychological novel. Although the three writes wrote more or less at the same time, they had different understanding of the “truth”. Mark Twain and Howells paid more attention to the “life” of the American, while Henry James stressed the “inner world” of man. In addition, Twain and Howells had their own different emphasis though sharing the same concern. Howells focused on the rising middle-class and the way they lived, while Twain preferred to describe his own region and people.

One of the most significant trends of this period was the type of realism called local colorism. Generally, the writings of local colorists were concerned with the life of small, well-denied region or province. The characteristic setting was also the isolated small town. Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions. As I mentioned earlier, Mark Twain was a great local colorist

too, who often wrote about life on and around the Mississippi River. His masterpieces, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, are excellent examples of Local Color Realism.

During the latter period of Realism, the harsh reality of the industrialization period changed man’s understanding about himself and the world in which he lived in---cold, indifferent, and essentially Godless world. Finally, people turned to science and found their answers to their puzzles in Charles Darwin’s evolutionary the ory of natural selection. The impact of Darwin evolution theory on the American thought and the influence of the 19th century French literature on the American men of letters gave rise to another school: American Naturalism.

American naturalism was an important movement in American literature from the 1890s to 1920s. Although American naturalism was regarded as an outgrowth and extension of realism, it was more inclusive and less selective than realism. It wa s “the application of the principles of scientifi c determinism to fiction and drama.”

There are some major features of American naturalism. First, the characters in naturalistic works are frequently, though not invariably, ill-educated or lower-class characters whose lives are governed by the forces of heredity, environment, chance, instinct, and passion. The term for this idea is “determinism”. Second, the setting in those novels is frequently an urban one, as in Frank Norris’s McTeague. The naturalist usually uses carefully chosen surface detail to portray a gloomy and depressing setting. They emphasize that the universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires. They also claim that the works produced in this school have tended to emphasize either a biological determinism or a socio-economic determinism. Forth, in theme, naturalists represent the life of the lower classes truthfully and break into such forbidden regions as violence, death, and sex. In technique, their works exhibit honest skills and artistry. But they are evidently original and experimental in their perspective styles.

The major representatives of American naturalists include Stephen Crane, Jack London, Frank Norris, and Theodore Dreiser. Stephen Crane is regarded as the first American naturalist. Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is America’s first novel about slums. Norris and London excelled in examining the brute in man and his in presenting the close kinship between humanity and the jungle. Norris’s McTeague and Vandover and the Brute, and London’s The sea-Wolf and The Call of the Wild are among the best primitivistic books in American literature. Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is the first American naturalism work. Dreiser is generally regarded as the

bellwether of modern fiction. His works, particularly Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, and the Cowperwood trilogy represent a combination of reluctant naturalism and moral idealism.

Though as a literary movement naturalism was short-lived, its influence transcended historical periods and left a mark on the literary creation today.

Between 1914 and 1945, influenced by social upheaval, economic and political transformation and European modernism, America also saw the rise of its own modernism. American Modernism, like modernism in general, is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation.Its key elements are experimentation, anti-realism, individualism and a stress on the cerebral rather than emotive aspects. With a large number of great writers producing a huge amount of famous literary works, this period is also called the second renaissance in the history of American literature.

With emphasis shifted from the real world to the human mind, disappointment, despair and disillusion became the themes of Modernism writings which tended to show the inner feelings of characters. Modernism tried to reveal the distorted, alienated and ill relationships between man and nature, man and society, man and man, man and himself. A typical modernist work will seem to begin arbitrary without explanation and to end without resolution. There will be changes in perspective, tone and voice. Making use of symbols and images instead of statements is an essential way of aesthetic communication.

Realistic fiction is the greatest achievement of 20th century American literature. It roughly consisted of two phrases: between the World War’s “natural realism” of the twenties and left-wing realistic fiction of the thirties. During the first period, many writers described their escape from small-town and revealed hypocrisies such as Sherwood Anderson whose best work Winesburg, Ohio appeared in 1919 and remained a major work of experimental fiction about the American Midwest. Some of his best later works like The Triumph of the Egg, Death in the Woods and so on showed some interests in human psychology and the sense of conflicts between inner and outer worlds. He made great efforts to create the simplest prose using brief sentences and vocabulary. Left-wing writing turned into the mai n stream in the 1930s’ American literature. A group of writers such as John Steinbeck and Erskine Caldwell sprung up.

The lost generation is a term first used by Gertrude Stein to describe the post-

World War I generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war. Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date. The best-known representatives of Lost Generation are Hemingway, Fitzgerald and John Dos Passos. Hemingway’s distinctive writing style was characterized by economy and understatement which had a big influence on 20th century fiction. And he is famous for the spare, tightly written novels.

Southern literature is often twisted, violent and pessimistic, dealing with displacement and human distorted innocence. It is the product of the creative tension between the Southern past and the pressures of the modern world. Southern writers use the south as microcosm and as a miniature world for exploring problems of America, even the universe itself. William Faulkner is famous for his epic portray of many conflicts between the old and the new South. His works like Absalom, Absalom and The Sound and the Fury indicated his frequent use of stream of consciousness. His bold innovations paved the way for considerable number of future writers to continue to exploration of the diverse use of English language.

American Poetry began to utter the voice of its own in the mid-19th century. In the 20th century, it has become one of the great literary movement achievements of the nation. Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot are unanimously acclaimed leaders of modernist American poetry. They are in the same boat rejecting the 19th century literary traditions and innovating new experimental and avant-garde poetic forms.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the Harlem Renaissance came into being which refers to the propriety of African American intellectual life. From the black community in Harlem there was a cultural movement which took the reflection of the black culture as its responsibility and from which the figures of the the New Negroes came into being in American literature. Langston Hughes is viewed as a great African American writer, who is famous for his descriptions of black American life. He used his work to praise his people and voice his concerns about race and social injustice.

Modern American drama refers to the period from 1910 to 1945 during which many American play writers sought to overturn the 19th century’s formal constraints and outdated styles of performance. American dramatists of the modern era examined human relationship with ruthless candor which showed the moral ambivalence that challenged the status quo. Eugene O’Neill is unquestionable America’s greatest playwright. Most of his plays are tragedies, dealing with the basic issues of human

existence and predicament: life and death, illusion and disillusion, alienation and communication, dream and reality, self and society, desire and frustration, etc.

美国文学史-知识点梳理

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

美国文学史总结

ⅠColonial America(17th century)殖民主义时期文学 1.In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America and he mistook the native people on the new continent for Indians. Character of colonial literature: a.content: religious, political b.form: diary, journal, letters, travel books, sermons, history (personal literature) c.Style: simple. direct, concise d.out of humble origins Early in the 17th century, the English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts began the main stream of what we recognize as the American national history. The earliest settlers in America included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese. The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607(北美弗吉尼亚詹姆斯顿) 2.Captain Town Smith, the first American writer 3.Puritan Thoughts: hard work, thrift(节俭), piety(虔诚), sobriety(节制), 这些也成了早期 美国作品主导思想. 典型的清教徒：John Cotton & Roger William, John Cotton was called “the Patriarch of New England(新英格兰教父)” 清教徒采用的文学体裁：narratives(日记) and journals(游记) 清教徒在美国的写作内容： 1）Their voyage to the new land 2）Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops 3）About dealing with Indians 4）Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit 4.Private literature: theological, moral, historical, political 5.The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry. Anne Bradstreet is one of the most interesting of the early poets, 英国最早移民到美国的诗人. The best of the Puritan poets was Edward Taylor. ⅡReason and Revolution(18th century)理性和革命时期文学 1.The War for Independence (1776-1783) ended in the formation of a Federative bourgeois democratic republic - the United States of America. 2.Bourgeois Enlightenment 3.Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard’s Almanac(穷人理查德的年鉴), an annual collection of proverbs. The Autobiography, 18世纪美国唯一流传至今的自传 ?The Autobiography is, first of all, a Puritan document. It is Puritan because it is a record of self-examination and self-improvement. The Puritans, as a type, were very much given to self-analysis. ?The Autobiography shows Franklin was spokesman for the new order of 18th-century Enlightenment, and that he represented in America all its ideas, that man is basically good and free, by nature endowed by God with certain inalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

美国文学史常耀信版

美国文学史常耀信版 很有用的哦！ 2008-08-10 22:02 阅读206 评论0 字号：大中小 美国文学史常耀信版 美国文学 Part 1. Colonial America浪漫主义American Romanticism(1815-1865) 早期浪漫主义early romanticism——Irving欧文, Cooper库柏, Bryant布莱恩特 先验主义transcendentalism and symbolic representation——Emerson 爱默森，Margaret Fuller玛格丽特福勒，Thoreau 梭罗 三位重要的小说家——Hawthorne 霍桑，Melville 梅尔维尔，Poe 坡 二位重要的诗人——Whitman 惠特曼，Dickinson 狄更生 现实主义American Realism（1865-1914） 带有地方色彩的写作local color writing——Mark Twain马克吐温 现实主义literary realism——James 詹姆士，Howells 豪斯尔斯 自然主义literary naturalism——Garland 加兰特，Grane 格雷恩，Frank Norris 弗兰克诺里斯，Jack London 杰克伦敦，Theodore Dreiser 西奥多德莱塞 现代主义American Modernism(1914-1945) 现代主义在欧洲American modernism in Europe——Gerturde Stein 格特鲁德斯坦因，Ezra Pound 艾兹拉庞德，Amy Lowell 艾米洛威尔，H.D.(Hilda Doolittle) 杜丽埃尔 战时的现代派小说modern fiction between the wars——William Faulkner 威廉福克纳，Hemingway 海明威，Fitzgerald 费兹杰罗，Passos 帕索斯，Steinbeck 斯坦贝克 现代派诗歌modern American poetry——T.S. Eliot 艾略特，Wallace Stevens 史蒂文斯，William Carols Williams 威廉姆斯，卡明斯 Thomas Paine托马斯?潘恩1737-1809 The Case of the Officers of Excise税务员问题；Common Sense常识；American Crisis美国危机；Rights of Man人的权利：Downfall of Despotism专制体制的崩溃；The Age of Reason理性时代 Philip Freneau菲利普?弗伦诺1752-1832 The Rising Glory of America蒸蒸日上的美洲；The British Prison Ship英国囚船；To the Memory of the Brave Americans 纪念美国勇士-----同类诗中最佳；The Wild Honeysuckle野生的金银花；The Indian Burying Ground印第安人殡葬地 Jonathan Edwards The Freedom of the Will The Great Doctrine of Original Sin defended The Nature of True Virtue Benjamin Franklin本杰明?富兰克林1706-1790 A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Moneyoor Richard’s Almanack穷查理历书；The Way to Wealth致富之道；The Autobiography自传 Part 2. American Romanticism Washington Irving华盛顿?欧文1783-1859 A History of New York纽约的历史-----美国人写的第一部诙谐文学杰作；The Sketch Book见闻札记The Legend of Sleepy Hollow睡谷的传说-----使之成为美国第一个获得国际声誉的作家；

美国文学史期末参考复习资料

仅作参考，最主要还是要自己消化，整理 Chapter 1 Colonial Period 1. Puritanism: American puritans accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. 2. Influence (1) A group of good qualities – hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced American literature. (2) It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden. (3) Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chi efly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American. (4) With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible. II. Overview of the literature 1. types of writing diaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons 2. writers of colonial period (1) Anne Bradstreet (2) Edward Taylor III. Benjamin Franklin 1. life 2. works (1) Poor Richard’s Almanac (2) Autobiography 3. contribution (1) He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society. (2) He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this case) from heaven”. (3) Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melville thus described him “master of each and mastered by none”. Chapter 2 American Romanticism Section 1 Early Romantic Period I. American Romanticism 1. Background (1) Political background and economic development (2) Romantic movement in European countries Derivative – foreign influence 2. features (1) American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real new experience and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien. (2) There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained. (3) The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with Am erican Romanticism. (4) As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent. II. Washington Irving: Father of American Literature 1. several names attached to Irving (1) first American writer (2) the messenger sent from the new world to the old world (3) father of American literature 2. life 3. works (1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (2) The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this.) (3) The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (5) The Alhambra 4. Literary career: two parts (1) 1809~1832

美国文学史及选读复习重点

Captain John Smith (first American writer). Anne Bradstreet；The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America （colonists living） Edward Taylor(the best puritan poet) John Cotton ”the Patriarch of New England” teacher spiritual leader Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography Poor Richard’s Almanack Thomas Jefferson： Political Career Thoughts The Declaration of Independence we hold truth to be self-evidence Philip Freneau“Father of American Poetry” The Wild Honey Suckle American Romanticism optimism and hope Nationalism Washington Irving“Father of American Literature short story”The first “Pure Writer” A History of New York The Sketch Book marked the beginning of American Romanticism! “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”Rip Van Winkle James Fenimore Cooper Father of American sea and frontier novels Leather stocking Tales The Last of the Mohicans The Pioneers The Prairie The Pathfinder The Deerslayer Edgar Allan Poe father of detective story and horror fiction Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque “MS. Found in a Bottle” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” “The Fall of the House of Usher”“The Masque of the Red Death”“The

(完整版)美国文学史复习资料

美国文学史复习1（colonialism) 第一部分殖民主义时期的文学 一、时期综述 1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记b、journals 游记 2、清教徒在美国的写作内容： 1）their voyage to the new land 2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops 3) About dealing with Indians 4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit 3、清教徒的思想： 1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式 2) Wish to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位 3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who challenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝 4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。 4、典型的清教徒：John Cotton & Roger William 他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy; William begins the history of religious toleration in America. 5、William的宗教观点：Toleration did not stem from a lack of religious convictions. Instead, it sprang from the idea that simply to be virtuous in conduct and devout in belief did not give anyone the right to force belief on others. He also felt that no political order or church system could identify itself directly with God. 行为上的德，信仰上的诚，并没有给任何人强迫别人该如何行事的权利。没有任何政治秩序和教会体制能够直接体现神本身的意旨。 6、英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet 7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of Puritan poets is Edward Tayor. 学习指南： 1、Could you give a description of American Puritans? 关于美国清教徒的描绘 Like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to the "purity" of the first-century church as established by Jesus Christ himself. To them religion was a matter of primary importance. They made it their chief business to see that man lived and thought and acted in a way which tended to the glory of God. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God, all that John Calvin, the great French theologian who lived in Geneva had preached. It was this kind of religious belief that they brought with them into the wildness. There they meaant to prove that were God's chosen people enjoying his blessings on this earth as in Heaven. 2、Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing. 3、The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet & Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry. 4、The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards Italian, and Portuguese. 美国文学史复习2（reasoning and revolution) (2009-01-17 15:54:25) 一、美国的性质： The war for Independence ended in the formation of a Federative bourgeois democratic republic - the United States of America. 联邦的资产阶级民主共和国--美利坚合众国。 二、代表作家： 1、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明·富兰克林1706-1790 1）"Poor Richard's Almanac" 穷人查理德的年鉴annual collection of proverbs 流行谚语集 It soon became the most popular book of its kind, largely because of Franklin's shrewd humor, and first spread his reputation 2) Founded the Junto, a club for informal discussion of scientific, economic and political ideas. 建立了一个秘密俱乐部，讨论的主题是政治、经济和科学等时事方面的问题 3）established America's first circulating library, founded the college--University of Pennsylvania. 建立了美国第一个可租借的图书馆，还创办了一所大学——就是现在的宾夕法尼亚大学。 4）first applied the terms "positive" and "negative" to electrical charges. 5)As a representative of the Colonies, he tried in vain to counsel the British toward policies that would let America grow and flourish in association with England. He conducted the difficulty negotiations with France that brought financial and military support for America in the war. 作为殖民地的代表，他不断建议英国改变政策，使美国可以和英国一起发展、繁荣。他说服法国支持美国的独立战争。 6）As an author he had power of expression, simplicity, a subtle humor, sarcastic.作为作家具有非凡的才能，表达简洁明了，幽默，讽刺天才、 7）The Way to Wealth致富之道The Autobiography自传18世纪美国唯一流传至今的自传

美国文学史期末总结

美国文学史美国文学

全书的焦点集中于南太平洋一条名叫莫比·迪克的白鲸,以及捕鲸船皮廓德(Pequod)号的船长阿哈(Ahab)如何对它有不共戴天的仇恨.阿哈在一次航行中被莫比·迪克咬掉一条腿,立志报仇,指挥皮廓德号环航全球追踪,终于发现了它.经过三天放下小艇紧追.虽然刺中了这条白鲸,但它十分顽强狡猾,咬碎了小艇,也撞沉了大船.它拖着捕鲸船游开时,绳子套住阿哈,把他绞死了.全船人尽皆灭顶.只有一个水手借着由棺材改制的救生浮子而逃得性命.整个故事以这个水手伊希梅尔(Ishmael)自述的方式展开. The book focuses on a whale named Moby Dick lived in south pacific and the captain of whaler Pequod—Ahab. Ahab was once bite by Moby Dick and lost a leg, determined to revenge,he commanded whaler pequod do global tracking, and finally found it. After three days of hot pursuit with the skiff,while they stabbed this white whale, but it was very tenacious and cunning, eventually chewed the skiff, also sank the ship. It dragged whaler swimming away, the rope was around Ahab, he was hanged. Almost all of people on the boat drowned, only a sailor called Ishmael survived .

美国文学史及选读考研复习笔记6.

History And Anthology of American Literature （6） 附：作者及作品 一、殖民主义时期The Literature of Colonial America 1．船长约翰·史密斯Captain John Smith 《自殖民地第一次在弗吉尼亚垦荒以来发生的各种事件的真实介绍》 “A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony” 《弗吉尼亚地图，附：一个乡村的描述》 “A Map of Virginia: with a Description of the Country” 《弗吉尼亚通史》“General History of Virginia” 2．威廉·布拉德福德William Bradford 《普利茅斯开发历史》“The History of Plymouth Plantation”3．约翰·温思罗普John Winthrop 《新英格兰历史》“The History of New England” 4．罗杰·威廉姆斯Roger Williams 《开启美国语言的钥匙》”A Key into the Language of America” 或叫《美洲新英格兰部分土著居民语言指南》 Or “A Help to the Language of the Natives in That Part of America Called New England ” 5．安妮·布莱德斯特Anne Bradstreet 《在美洲诞生的第十个谬斯》 ”The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America” 二、理性和革命时期文学The Literature of Reason and Revolution 1。本杰明·富兰克林Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) ※《自传》“ The Autobiography ” 《穷人理查德的年鉴》“Poor Richard’s Almanac” 2。托马斯·佩因Thomas Paine (1737-1809) ※《美国危机》“The American Crisis” 《收税官的案子》“The Case of the Officers of the Excise”《常识》“Common Sense” 《人权》“Rights of Man” 《理性的时代》“The Age of Reason” 《土地公平》“Agrarian Justice” 3。托马斯·杰弗逊Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) ※《独立宣言》“The Declaration of I ndependence” 4。菲利浦·弗瑞诺Philip Freneau (1752-1832) ※《野忍冬花》“The Wild Honey Suckle” ※《印第安人的坟地》“The Indian Burying Ground” ※《致凯提·迪德》“To a Caty-Did” 《想象的力量》“The Power of Fancy” 《夜屋》“The House of Night” 《英国囚船》“The British Prison Ship” 《战争后期弗瑞诺主要诗歌集》 “The Poems of Philip Freneau Written Chiefly During the Late War” 《札记》“Miscellaneous Works” 三、浪漫主义文学The Literature of Romanticism 1。华盛顿·欧文Washington Irving (1783-1859) ※《作者自叙》“The Author’s Account of Himself” ※《睡谷传奇》“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” 《见闻札记》“Sketch Book” 《乔纳森·欧尔德斯泰尔》“Jonathan Oldstyle” 《纽约外史》“A History of New York” 《布雷斯布里奇庄园》“Bracebridge Hall” 《旅行者故事》“Tales of Traveller” 《查理二世》或《快乐君主》“Charles the Second” Or “The Merry Monarch” 《克里斯托弗·哥伦布生平及航海历史》 “A History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus” 《格拉纳达征服编年史》”A Chronicle of the Conquest of Grandada” 《哥伦布同伴航海及发现》 ”V oyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus” 《阿尔罕布拉》“Alhambra” 《西班牙征服传说》“Legends of the Conquest of Spain” 《草原游记》“A Tour on the Prairies” 《阿斯托里亚》“Astoria” 《博纳维尔船长历险记》“The Adventures of Captain Bonneville” 《奥立弗·戈尔德史密斯》”Life of Oliver Goldsmith” 《乔治·华盛顿传》“Life of George Washington” 2．詹姆斯·芬尼莫·库珀James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) ※《最后的莫希干人》“The Last of the Mohicans” 《间谍》“The Spy” 《领航者》“The Pilot” 《美国海军》“U.S. Navy” 《皮袜子故事集》“Leather Stocking Tales” 包括《杀鹿者》、《探路人》”The Deerslayer”, ”The Pathfinder” 《最后的莫希干人》“The Last of the Mohicans” 《拓荒者》、《大草原》“The Pioneers”, “The Praire” 3。威廉·卡伦·布莱恩特William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) ※《死之思考》“Thanatopsis” ※《致水鸟》“To a Waterfowl” 4。埃德加·阿伦·坡Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) ※《给海伦》“To Helen” ※《乌鸦》“The Raven” ※《安娜贝尔·李》“Annabel Lee” ※《鄂榭府崩溃记》“The Fall of the House of Usher” 《金瓶子城的方德先生》“Ms. Found in a Bottle” 《述异集》“Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque” 5。拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) ※《论自然》“Nature” ※《论自助》“Self-Reliance” 《美国学者》“The American Scholar” 《神学院致辞》“The Divinity School Address” 《随笔集》“Essays” 《代表》“Representative Men” 《英国人》“English Traits” 《诗集》“Poems” 6。亨利·戴维·梭罗Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) ※《沃尔登我生活的地方我为何生活》 1