美国文学史
1.Captain John Smith became the first American writer.
2.The puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people.
3.The first major intellectual spokesman of the Massachusetts Bay colony was John Cotton,
sometimes called “the Patriarch of New England.”
4.Anne Bradstreet published The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, and she was
nicknamed the tenth Muse.
5.Poor Richard’s Almanac is an annual collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin.
6.Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet Common Sense boldly advocated a “Declaration for
Independence”.
7.Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence with John Adams, Benjamin
Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.
8.Philip Freneau developed a natural, simple, and concrete diction, best illustrated in such
nature lyrics as “The Wild Honey Suckle” and “The Indian Burying Ground”.
9.Philip Freneau has been called the “Father of American Poetry”.
10.In Washington Irving’s Sketch Book appeared the first modern short stories and the first great
American juvenile literature.
11.Cooper’s enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novels that comprise
the Leatherstocking tales.
12.“To a Waterfowl” is perhaps the peak of William Cullen Bryant’s wok.
13.“Thanatopsis”, William Cullen Bryant’s best-known poem, consists of four stanzas in iambic
tetrameter abab. The title means “view of death”.
14.Edgar Allan Poe is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic
stories”.
15.Emerson believed above all in individualism, independence of mind, and self-reliance.
16.In Walden, Thoreau thought it better for a man to work one day a week and rest six, and the
rest of the time could be devoted to thought.
17.Hawthorne’s stories touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature.
18.Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly
supernatural white whale.
19.After his death, Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s
Corner of Westminster Abbey.
20.Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, had become an American institution
and the most famous literary woman in the world.
21.William Dean Howells found his subject matter in the experiences of the American middle
class.
22.William Dean Howells called for the treatment of the “smiling aspects of life” as being the
more “American.”
23.The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will,
that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment.
24.The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called free verse.
25.O·Henry’s stories are usually short and interesting; Famous for their
surprising end.
26.Henry James is famous for his international theme of the traditionless American confronting
the complexity of European life.
27.Jack London believed in the inevitable triumph of the strongest individuals.
28.Dreiser’s greatest and most successful novel, An American Tragedy, is about a young man
who acts as if the only way he can be truly fulfilled is by acquiring wealth—through marriage if necessary.
29.Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “Lost
Generation,” devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization.
30.Wallace Stevens’ work is primarily motivated by the belief that “ideas of order”.
31.With the publication of The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway became the spokesman for what
Gertrude Stein had called “a lost generation.”
Terms
1.Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the middle 1800’s, which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Oversoul, and Nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-reliant. New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism.
2.Naturalism
Naturalism, a more deliberate kind of realism, usually involves a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment. As a literary movement, naturalism was initiated in France and it came to be led by Zola, who claimed at “scientific” status for his studies of impoverished characters miserably subjected to hunger, sexual obsession, and hereditary defects. Natural fiction aspired to a sociological objectivity, offering detailed and fully researched investigations into unexplored corners of modern society. The most significant work of naturalism in English being Dreiser’s Sister Carrie.
3.American Dream
The American Dream is the faith held by many people 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.
4.The Lost Generation
The term Lost Generation was coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to a group of American Literary notables who lived in Paris from the time period which saw the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Significant members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, T. S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein herself. Hemingway likely popularized the term, quoting Stein (“You are all a lost generation”) as epigraph to his novel The Sun Also Rises. More generally, the term is being used for the young adults of Europe and America during World War I. They were “lost”because after the war many of them were disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to more into a settled life
5. Modernism
Modern writing is marked by a strong and conscious break with traditional forms and techniques of expression; it believes that we create the world in the act of perceiving it. Modernism implies historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, of loss, and of despair. It
elevates the individual and his inner being over social man and prefers the unconscious to the self-conscious.
6. Romanticism
Romanticism as a literary movement came into being in England in the later half of the 18th century. It first made its appearance in England as a renewed interest in medieval literature. William Blake and Robert Burns represented the spirit of what is usually called Pre-Romanticism. With the publication of Willi am Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads in collaboration with S. T. Coleridge, romanticism began to bloom and found a firm place in history of English literature. In fact, the first half the 19th century recorded the triumph of Romanticism.
7. Puritanism
The principles and practices of puritans were popularly known as Puritanism. Puritanism accepted the doctrines of Calvinism: the sovereignty of God; the supreme authority of the Bible; the irresistibility of God’s will for man in every act of life from cradle to grave. These doctrines led the Puritans to examine their souls to find whether they were of the elect and to search the Bible to determine God’s will.
8.Hemingway Heroes / Code Hero
“Hemingway Heroes” refer to some protagonists in Hemingway’s works. Such a hero usually is an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent. And usually he is a man of action and of a few words. He is such an individualist, alone even when with other people, somewhat an outsider, keeping emotions under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one can not get happiness. The Hemingway heroes stand for a whole generation. In a world which is essentially chaotic and meaningless, a Hemingway hero fights a solitary struggle against a force he does not even understand. The awareness that it must end in defeat, no matter how hard he strives, engenders a sense of despair. But Hemingway heroes possess a kind of “despairing courage” as Bertrand Russell terms. It is this courage that enables a man to behave like a man, to assert his dignity in face of adversity. Surely Hemingway heroes differ, one from another, in their view of the world. The difference which comes gradually in view is an index to the subtle change which Hemingway’s outlook had undergone.
Identify the fragments.
1. These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly—This dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods.
(1)Which book is this passage take from?
(2)Who is the author of this book?
(3)Whom is the author praising? Whom is the author criticizing?
(4)What do you think of the language?
Answer:
(1) The American Crisis.
(2) Thomas Paine
(3) Paine is praising those who stand “it”, it referring to “the service of their country”. In the
meantime, Paine is criticizing those who shrink from the service of their country in this crisis. (4) The language is plain, impressive and forceful. Paine himself once said that his purpose as a writer was to use plain language to make those who can scarcely read understand and to fit the powers of thinking and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question and nothing else.
2. From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came;
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.
(1) Who is the writer of these verses?
(2) What is the title of this poem?
(3) Give a brief comment on this poems.
Answer:
(1) Philip Freneau
(2) The Wild Honeysuckle
(3) Here Freneau offers a version of an abundant America with potential for providing a good life for all. The poem is also an indication of his dedication to American subject matter as he examined peculiarly American characteristics of the countryside.
3.From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. Drowsy and dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Question:
(1) Who is the writer of this short story from which the passage is taken?
(2) What is the title of this short story?
(3) Give a definition of “short story”?
Answer:
(1) Washington Irving
(2) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
(3) A short story is a brief prose fiction, usually one that can be read in a single sitting. It generally contains the six major elements of fiction—characterization, setting, theme, plot, point of view and style.
4. It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho, was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now widly heightened by circumstance of the Town-Ho’s story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own
particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates…Nevertheless, so potent and influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod’s main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record.
Question:
(1)From which novel is this paragraph taken?
(2) What is the name of the novelist?
(3) Who is Ahab?
(4) What is Pequod?
(5) What is the theme of the novel?
Answer:
(1) Moby Dick
(2) Herman Melville
(3) The captain of the whaling ship
(4) The name of the whaling ship
(5) The rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces.
5. To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generation the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these preachers of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
Question:
(1)This paragraph is taken from a famous essay. What is the of the essay?
(2)Who is the author?
(3)What does the author say would happen if the stars appeared one night in a thousand years?
(4)Give a peculiar term to cover the author’s belief.
Answer:
(1) Nature
(2) Ralph Waldo Emerson
(3)Then, the men cannot believe and adore the God, cannot preserve the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown.
(4)Transcendentalism
6. Isabel always felt an impulse to pull out the pins; not that she imagined they inflicted any damage on the tough old parchment, but because it seemed to her her aunt might make better use of her sharpness. She was very critical herself-it was incidental to her sex, and her nationality but
she was very sentimental as well, and there was something in Mrs. Touchett’s dryness that set her own moral fountains flowing.
Questions:
(1) This passage is taken from a well-known novel. What is the name of the novel?
(2) Who is the author of this novel?
(3) Make a brief comment on the heroine of this novel?
(4) What is theme of the author? Tell something about it.
Answer:
(1) The Portrait of a Lady
(2) Henry James
(3) She is one of the Jamesian American girls. She arrives in Europe, full of hope, and with a will to live a free and noble life, but in fact, she only falls prey to the sinister designs of two vulgar and unscrupulous expatriates, Madam Merle and Gilbert Osmond.
(4) Jamesian theme refers to Henry James’s handling of his major fictional theme, “the international theme”: the meeting of America and Europe, American innocence in contact and contrast with European decadence and the moral and Psychological complications arising there from.
7.When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human temper. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms. Without a counselor at hand to whisper cautious interpretations, what falsehoods may not these things breathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognized for what they are, their beauty, like music, too often relaxes, then weakens then perverts the simpler human perceptions.
Questions:
(1) From which novel is this paragraph taken?
(2) Who is the author of this novel?
(3) How do you understand “the cosmopolitan standard of virtue”?
(4) Is there any naturalist tendency in this passage?
Answer:
(1)Sister Carrie
(2) Theodore Dreiser
(3) “The cosmopolitan standard of virtue” is something that makes a person become low in virtue and become worse.
(4) Yes.
Give brief answers to the following questions.
1.What are the characteristics of the Colonial Literature?
In a real sense, there were no literal works in the early colonial period. They were just personal
literature in the form of diaries, travel books, letters, journals, sermons, histories and prose.
(1) In content, they wrote about the voyage to the new land, about adopting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops, about dealing with Indian, and especially about religion.
(2) In form, English traditions were imitated.
https://www.sodocs.net/doc/6b13381699.html,ment briefly on Emily Dickinson’s themes?
(1)By far the largest portion of Dickinson’s poetry concerns death and immortality, theme which lie at the centre of Dickinson’s world.
(2)Dickinson’s nature poems are also great in number and rich in matter. Natural phenomena, changes of seasons, heavenly bodies, animals, birds and insects, flowers of various kinds, and many other subjects related to nature find her way into her poetry.
(3)Dickinson also wrote some poems about love. Like her death and nature poems, her love poems were original.
(4)Besides deaths and immortality, nature and love, Dickinson’s poems are concerned about ethics, with respect to which, she emphasizes free will and human responsibility.
3. Comment briefly on Theodore Dreiser’s themes and writing style?
Theme: Dreiser’s works are mainly concerned with the tragic nature of the human condition by depicting the coarse, vulgar, cruel, and terrible aspects of life like sex and crime.
Style: In terms of style, Dreiser has sometimes been censured for his clumsy syntax, deficient characterization, and inept and dull prose. Yet his accumulated detail, carefully selected and faithfully recorded, is a technique of power. Like the other naturalists, he refused to judge—to consider people as good or evil. He clothes his concepts symbolically in the details of reality. It is his journalistic method that has made him one of America’s foremost novelists.
4 Henry James is a great realistic writer. Name two of his major works. Do you know anything about his narrative “point of view”? What is it for? How does James employ it in his works? Briefly discuss this question.
(1) Henry James’s major works include Daisy Miller and The Portrait of A Lady, etc.
(2) One of Henry James literary techniques is his narrative “point of view.” As the author, James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possible and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minimal intervention. So it is often the case that in his novels we usually learn the main story by reading through one or several minds and share their perspectives. This narrative method proves to be successful in bringing out his themes.
5. What are the three main principles that Ezra Pound endorsed?
(1)Directly treat poetic subjects.
(2)Eliminate merely ornamental or superfluous words.
(3)Rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of metronome.
6.Tell the differences between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman
(1)Emily Dickinson expresses the inner life of individuals, while Walt Whitman keeps his eyes on the society at large.
(2)Emily Dickinson is “regional”, while Walt Whitman is “national” in his outlook.
(3)Formally, Emily Dickinson uses concise, simple dictions and syntax, while Walt Whitman uses endless, all-inclusive catalogs.
7. Briefly discuss Hemingway’s Iceberg Principle
Iceberg principle is that the full meaning of the text is not limited to moving the plot forward:
there is always a web of association and inference, a submerged reason behind the inclusion (or even the omission) of every detail.
In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway outlined his “theory of omission” or “iceberg principle.”He states: “is a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. The writer who omits things because he does not know only makes hollow places in his writing.”
8. Briefly discuss the Jazz Age
“The Jazz Age” describes the period the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between World War I and World War II, particularly in North America; with the rise of the Great Depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term “The Jazz Age”. It can also be known as “The Roaring Twenties” and “The Dollar Decade.”
9. Jack Landon’s themes
(1) London was logically inconsistent in his viewpoint.
On the one hand, he took faith in Darwin’s survival o f the fittest, evolutionary concept of progress, and on the other hand, he embraced the socialists’ doctrines of Marx.
(2) London wrote on many subjects and themes which centered around primitive violence, Anglo-Saxon supremacy(至上), biological evolution, class warfare, and mechanistic determinism. His heroes are physically robust and rugged but often psychologically harried(苦恼). His heroines are athletic, daring, yet intensely feminine. They are man’s intellectual equal and his e motional superior.
10. Briefly discuss Imagism
Imagism was one of the modern literary movements which expressed the modern spirit, the sense of fragmentation（破裂）and dislocation（错位，混乱）. It came as a reaction to the traditional English poetics. The first Imagist theorist is the English writer T.E. Hume. He suggests that modern art deal with expression and communication of momentary（瞬间的）phases in the poet’s mind.
Poetic techniques should become subtle enough to record exactly the momentary impressions. The most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through one dominant image. Each word must be an image seen. Each sentence should be a lump(团,块), a piece of clay, a vision seen. Hulme advises the poet to seek the hard, personal word for expression. The Imagist movement lasted from 1908 to 1917.
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
美国文学史复习资料
美国文学史复习（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.
(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 .
美国文学史作品作家汇总 全
美国文学史作品作家汇总 美国文学 Part 1. Colonial America 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 论意志自由The Great Doctrine of Original Sin defended论原罪The Nature of True Virtue论真是德行的本原 Benjamin Franklin本杰明?富兰克林1706-1790 A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Money; Poor Richard’s Almanac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；Brace bridge Hall布雷斯布里奇田庄；Talks of Travelers旅客谈；The Alhambra阿尔罕伯拉 Jamie Fennimore Cooper詹姆斯?费尼莫尔?库珀1789-1851 The Spy间谍;The Pilot领航者;The Little page Manuscripts利特佩奇的手稿;Leather stocking Tales皮裹腿故事集:The Pioneer拓荒者；The Last of Mohicans最后的莫希干人;The Prairie大草原;The Pathfinder探路者;The Deer slayer杀鹿者 Part 3.New England Transcendentalism Ralf Waldo Emerson拉尔夫?沃尔多?爱默生1803-1882 Essays散文集:Nature论自然-----新英格兰超验主义者的宣言书;The American Scholar 论美国学者;Divinity; The Over soul论超灵;Self-reliance论自立;The Transcendentalist超验主义者;Representative Men代表人物;English Traits 英国人的特征;School Address神学院演说 Concord Hymn康考德颂;The Rhoda杜鹃花;The Humble Bee野蜂;Days日