A Concise History of American Literature美国文学简史.docx

1、A Concise History of American Literature美国文学简史Notes on American LiteratureChapter 1 Colonial PeriodI. Background: PuritanismWhat are the main items of Puritan Thoughts?Puritan countable:A.Puritan-a member of a Protestant religious group in the 16th and 17th centuries, who wanted to make religion sim

2、plerB. Someone with strict moral views who thinks that pleasure is unnecessary and wrong;-The playboy and the puritan made an odd couple, but they could use each other.The Puritan work ethic1. Features of Puritanism(1) Predestination: God has decided everything before things occur.(2)Original sin: H

3、uman beings are born to be evil, and this original sin can be passed down from generation to generation.(3)Total depravity(4)Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.2.Influence(1) A group of good qualities hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced American liter

4、ature.(2) It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth Garden of Eden.(3) Symbolism: the American puritans metaphorical mode of perception is chiefly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American.(4) With regard to their writing, the style

5、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.Overview of the literatureHere, literature can be something used in a broad sense, meaning writing. In 1820 (40 years after the American Revolution), Sy

6、dney Smith, an English clergyman, writer and wit, posed the question: “In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?”This seemed a reasonable question to ask. America had not yet begun to produce its own distinctive literature. Also, America remained under the cultural domination of

7、 England long after it had won its political independence. One scholar estimated, in 1820, 70% of the books Americans read were published in England. By then, two elements essential to a strong sense of national identity were missing: a distinctive cultural life and a significant national literature

8、.1. Types of writingDiaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons2. Writers of colonial period(1) Anne Bradstreet(2)Edward Taylor(3)Roger Williams(4)John Woolman(5)Thomas Paine(6)Philip FreneauJonathan Edwards 1. Life (170358)2. Works(1)The Freedom of the

9、Will(2) The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended(3)The Nature of True Virtue3. Ideas pioneer of transcendentalism(1) The spirit of revivalism(2) Regeneration of man(3) Gods presence(4) Puritan idealismBenjamin Franklin 1. Life: (1706-1790)2. Works(1) Poor Richards Almanac(2) Autobiography3. Contr

10、ibution(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

11、 each and mastered by none”.Chapter 2 American RomanticismSection 1 Early Romantic PeriodWhat is Romanticism?-An approach from ancient Greek: Plato-A literary trend: 18th century in Britain (1798-1832)German philosopher, Friedrich von Schlegel (17721829, critic, and writer, most prominent of the fou

12、nders of German romanticism.)I. Preview: Characteristics of romanticism1.Subjectivity(1) Feeling and emotions, finding truth(2)Emphasis on imagination(3)Emphasis on individualism personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodness of human beings2.Back to medieval, esp. Medieval folk literature(1)Un

13、restrained by classical rules(2)full of imagination(3)Colloquial language(4)Freedom of imagination(5)Genuine in feelings: answer their call for classics3.Back to natureNature is “breathing living thing” (Rousseau)II. American Romanticism1. Background(1) Political background and economic development(

14、2) Romantic movement in European countriesDerivative foreign influence2.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 Pur

15、itanism 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 American Romanticism.(4) As a logical result of the foreign and n

16、ative factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent.Washington Irving 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 literature2. Life3. Works(1) A History of New York from the Begi

17、nning 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 Alhambra4. Lit

18、erary career: two parts(1) 1809-1832A.Subjects are either English or EuropeanB.Conservative love for the antique(2)1832-1859: back to US5.Style beautiful(1) Gentility, urbanity, pleasantness(2) Avoiding moralizing amusing and entertaining(3) Enveloping stories in an atmosphere(4) Vivid and true char

19、acters(5) Humour smiling while reading(6) Musical languageJames Fenimore Cooper 1. Life2.Works(1) Precaution (1820, his first novel, imitating Austens Pride and Prejudice)(2) The Spy (his second novel and great success)(3) Leather stocking Tales (his masterpiece, a series of five novels)The Deer sla

20、yer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, The Prairie3.ThemesWilderness vs. Civilization, freedom vs. Law, order vs. Change, aristocrat vs. Democrat, natural rights vs. Legal rights4. Style(1) Highly imaginative(2) Good at inventing tales(3)Good at landscape description(4)Conservat

21、ive(5)Characterization wooden and lacking in probability(6)Language and use of dialect not authentic5.Literary achievementsHe created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the history of the United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring and pushi

22、ng the American frontier forever westward, then Coopers Leatherstocking Tales effectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West. He turned the west and frontier as a useable past and he helped to introduce western tradition to American literature.Section 2 Summit o

23、f Romanticism American Transcendentalism Transcendentalism: A literary and philosophical movement, associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition. I.Backgrou

24、nd: four sources1.Unitarianism(1) Fatherhood of God(2)Brotherhood of men(3)Leadership of Jesus(4) Salvation by character (perfection of ones character)(5)Continued progress of mankind(6) Divinity of mankind(7)Depravity of mankind2.Romantic IdealismCenter of the world is spirit, absolute spirit (Kant

25、)3.Oriental mysticismCenter of the world is “oversoul”4.PuritanismEloquent expression in transcendentalismII.Appearance1836, “Nature” by EmersonIII.Features1. Spirit/over soul2.Importance of individualism3.Nature symbol of spirit/GodGarment of the oversoul4.Focus in intuition (irrationalism and subc

26、onsciousness)IV.Influence1. It served as an ethical guide to life for a young nation and brought about the idea that human can be perfected by nature. It stressed religious tolerance, called to throw off shackles of customs and traditions and go forward to the development of a new and distinctly Ame

27、rican culture.2.It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidly expanded economy where opportunity often became opportunism, and the desire to “get on” obscured the moral necessity for rising to spiritual height.3. It helped to create the first American renaissance one of the most prolific

28、periods in American literature.Ralph Waldo Emerson 1. Life (180382)2. Works(1) Nature(2) Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet3.Ideas(1)One major element of his philosophy is his firm belief in the transcendence of the “oversoul”.(2)He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying mora

29、l influence on man, and advocates a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.(3) If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself and brings out the divine in himself, he can hope to become better and even perfect. This is what Emerson means by “the infinitude of man”.(4) Everyone s

30、hould understand that he makes himself by making his world, and that he makes the world by making himself.4. Aesthetic ideas(1) He is a complete man, an eternal man.(2)True poetry and true art should ennoble.(3)The poet should express his thought in symbols.(4)As to theme, Emerson called upon Americ

31、an authors to celebrate America which was to him a lone poem in itself.5.His influenceHenry David Thoreau 1. Life (181762),2. Works(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River(2)Walden(3)A Plea for John Brown (an essay)3.Ideas(1)He does not like the way a materialistic America was developing and is vehemently outspoken on the point.(2) He hates the human injustice as represented by the slavery system.(3) Like Emerson, but more than him, Thoreau sees nature as a genuine restorative, healthy influence on mans spiritual well-being.