美國(guó)文學(xué)史復(fù)習(xí)資料(內(nèi)江師范學(xué)院)

1、History And Anthology Of American LiteraturePart I The Literature of Colonial AmericaThe earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards, Italians, and Portuguese, The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. At last ear

2、ly in the 17th century, the English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts began the main stream of what we recognize as the American history.Two Important New England Settlements：The Plymouth Colony(The Mayflower Compact); The Massachusetts Bay Colony(The Arbella covenant）The first American writ

3、ings：The first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. (wrote in diaries and in journals)Captain John Smith (1580-1631) was the first American writer and he published eight in all. His works always has long titles.Early New England Literature1) A literat

4、ure of ideas: New England had from the beginning a literature of ideas: theological, moral, historical, political. 2) Theocracy: The first intention in Massachusetts was to found a theocracya society in which God would govern through the church. The church thus became the supreme political body. 3)

5、The Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing: Over the years the puritans built a way of life that was in harmony with their somber religion, one that stressed hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety. These were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest America

6、n writing, including the sermons, books, and letters of such noted Puritan clergyman as John Cotton and Cotton Mather.4) The American poets: The American poets who emerged in the 17th century adapted the style of established European poets to the subject matter confronted in a strange, new environme

7、nt. Anne Bradstreet was one such poet.William Bradford(威廉布拉德福德): first governor of Plymouth. He wrote The History of Plymouth Plantation. The Pilgrim Fathers: English Puritans who went to America in 1620 and founded the colony of Plymouth, MassachusettsJohn Winthrop(約翰溫思羅普): first governor at Boston

8、. He wrote The History of New England.Puritan Thoughts:1. What was a Puritan? The “Puritan” was “a would-be purifier”. Puritans wanted to make pure their religious beliefs and practices. 2. What did the Puritans want to do?The Puritans wished to restore simplicity to church services and the authorit

9、y of the Bible to theology. They felt that the Church of England was too close to the Church of Rome in doctrine, form of worship, and organization of authority. Another point of controversy was that the Church of England was the established church, that is, the official church of the state, and the

10、 most extreme Puritans, among them the Plymouth Plantation group, felt the influences of politics and the court had led to corruption within the church. 3. What kind of people were the Puritans?Puritans include people from the humblest to the loftiest ranks of English society, both educated and uned

11、ucated, poor and rich. Puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts has sometimes been exaggerated, but it is true that their lives were disciplined and hard. Puritans tended to suspect joy and laughter as symptoms of sin. Puritan religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God and

12、 to forget his mercy. Puritanism (the practices and doctrines of the Puritans) was the strongest in the New England region and had great influence upon its history, its people and its literature.John Cotton and Roger Williams:contradictory examples of PuritansJohn Cotton 約翰科登The first major intellec

13、tual spokesman of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, sometimes called “the Patriarch of New England”.Roger Williams 羅杰威廉姆斯With Williams begins the history of religious toleration in America, and with him, too, the history of the separation of church and state. Williams advocated the freedom of belief. In

14、 him we have a balance to John Cotton. Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor安妮布萊德斯特和愛德華泰勒Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry.Anne Dudley Bradstreet is one of the most interesting of the early poets.Bradstreets first published work appeared in London: The Tenth Muse Lately

15、 Sprung Up in America. Edward Taylor: Puritan Preacher and Poet The best of the Puritan poets was Edward Taylor. His work followed the style and forms of the leading English poets of the mid-seventeenth century. Part II The Literature of Reason and Revolution (18th)Two historical event:I. The Americ

16、an War for Independence 1775-1783II. EnlightenmentTheology dominated the Puritan phase of American writing. Politics was now the great subject to command the attention of the best minds. Benjamin Franklin (本杰明富蘭克1706-1790) Representative works: 1. Poor Richards Almanac; 2. The Autobiography:An intro

17、duction of his life to his own son, including four parts written in different times. The first success story of self-made Americans;Thomas Paine（托馬斯佩因1737-1809）: Revolutionary War patriot and pamphleteer.Major works:1.The Case of the Officers of the Excise (1772);2. Common Sense (1776);3. The Americ

18、an Crisis (1776-1783);4. The Rights of Man (1791 - 92).Thomas Jefferson(托馬斯杰弗遜1743-1826): Author of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was an act of the Second Continental Congress, adopted on July 4, 1776, which declared that the Thirteen Colonies in North America were

19、 Free and Independent States. Philip Freneau (菲利浦弗瑞諾1752 - 1832)Philip Morin Freneau was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. Remembered as the poet of the American Revolution and the father of American poetry, he was a transitional figure in American literature.“The Wild Honey Suckle” His na

20、ture poem, “The Wild Honey Suckle” , is considered an early seed to the later Transcendentalist movement taken up by William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Inthispoemthepoetexpressedakeenaware-ness ofthelovelinessandtransience of nature. HenotonlymeditatedonMortality bu

21、talsocelebratednature. The poemimplies that life anddeath areinevitablelawofnature.“Thewildhoneysuckle” isPhilip Freneaus most widelyreadnaturallyricwiththe themeoftransience.Thecentral imageisa native wildflower, whichmakesadrasticdifferencefromeliteflower imagestypicalof traditional Englishpoems.T

22、hepoemshowedstrongfeelingsfor thenaturalbeauty, which wasthe characteristicof romanticpoets.Thepoemwaswritteninregular6-linetetrameterstanzas, rhyming: ababcc. Thestructure ofthe poemisregular, soithastheneoclassicqualityofproportion andbalance. Theline“ thespaceisbutanhour“ containsahyperbolestress

23、ingthetransience of life. Thetoneofthepoemisbothsentimentaland optimistic.Part III The Literature of RomanticismLiterary Characteristics: Romanticism; Transcendentalism.1. RomanticismThe attitudes of Americas writers were shaped by their New World environment and an array of ideas inherited from the

24、 romantic traditions of Europe. A new romanticism had appeared in England in the last years of the 18th century. It spread to continental Europe and then came to America early in the 19th century.Romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of ind

25、ividualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and mans societies a source of corruption.Romantic values were prominent in American politics, art, and philosophy until the Civil War. 2. Transcendentalism (超驗(yàn)主義)The phase of New England Transcend

26、entalism is the summit of American Romanticism.It is a philosophical view, a notion, a concept, an idea, a way of looking at things, a set of attitudes about man, God, and the universe, a way of how to get to the basic truth of the universe. Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as the

27、recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses. The representative writers of Transcendentalism are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.3.The growth of cultural nationalism aroused American artists to write patr

28、iotic songs, to paint vast panorama of American scenes, and to design monumental buildings that would register the grandeur of the American people and their land.A.Art-music: most American music remained derivative; Francis Scott Keys “Star Spangled Banner”-painting: the Hudson River School-architec

29、ture: Gothic buildingsB. Literature:1)Literature ceased to be primarily didactic, a servant of politics and religion.2) Imaginative literature became intense, personal, and symbolic as more writers came to perceive themselves as prophets and seers. Moved by a call for a national literature, writers

30、celebrated Americas meadows, groves, and streams, its endless prairies, dense forests, and vast oceans. 3) The desire for an escape from society, and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature4) Romantic writers displayed increasing attention to the psychic states of the

31、ir characters. 5) Nationalism stimulated a greater literary interest in Americas language and its common people. Noah Webster: An American Dictionary of the English Language. 6) New England literary renaissance (“flowering of New England”) Washington Irving (華盛頓歐文1783-1859) .1) Irving is the first b

32、elletrist in American literature, writing for pleasure at a time when writing was practical and for useful purposes. 2) He is the first American literary humorist. 3) He has written the first modern short stories. The short story as a genre in American literature probably began with IrvingsThe Sketc

33、h Book.4) He is the first to write history and biography as entertainment5) He was the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame. Washington Irving, (1783-1859) American author, short story writer, essayist, poet, travel book writer, biographer, and columnist. Two fa

34、mous short stories in The Sketch Book: Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a short story by Washington Irving. The story is set in the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, New York, in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. It tells the story of Ichabod Crane, a

35、priggish schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham Brom Bones Van Brunt, a buff and tough man, for the hand of eighteen-year-old Katrina Van Tassel. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow follows a tradition of folk tales and poems involving a supernatural wild chase.James Fennimore Cooper (詹姆斯芬

36、尼莫庫(kù)珀1789-1851): The first important American novelist begin his literary career on a dare.The Leatherstocking Tales (1823 - 41):The Deerslayer (1841) The Last of the Mohicans (1826) The Pathfinder (1840) The Pioneer (1823) The Prairie (1827) Natty Bumppo:several names for the same character: Hawk-ey

37、e, the Pathfinder, the Deerslayer, Leatherstocking; a typical frontier man: honest, simple, innocent, generous; represents brotherhood of man, nature and freedom; an ideal American, or a perfect example / father image of the frontier man.William Cullen Bryant (威廉卡倫布萊恩特1794-1878)Thanatopsis (view of

38、death)- masterpiece of American poetryThis poem had three main points it wished to make, the final one being the most important:1) Live life fully in order to die well and comfortably.2) In death, all are joined with Nature and with each other for eternity.3) This comfort and togetherness in death m

39、ay only be obtained through death. What Greek words were combined to make the title? How do the meanings of these words contribute to the meaning of the poem? -Thanatos (death) Opsis (seeing).The title presents the poem as a way of seeing death.Define the following words; consider the context of the

40、 poem: shroud, pall, narrow house, and sepulcher. How do these words and their meanings impact the meaning of the poem? -All of these words are associated with death and burial. This furthers the idea of the poem presenting a way of looking at death.The tone of this poem shifts. What is the tone in

41、the first part of the poem? When does the tone shift? What is the tone after the shift? -The tone in the first part of the poem is forbidding, stern, final and then shifts to one of comfort.How is this poem an example of a historical piece? -It represents part of the view of the time period.How is t

42、his a Romantic poem? -The speaker hears the voice of nature, turns to nature for comfort. It presents a William Wordsworths nature. The recurring theme of death seems to be quite constant throughout the genre of Romanticism. Bryant attempts to make death a comfortable feeling, referring to the word

43、couch as something you can simply curl up and feel good in.How is this a Calvinist poem? -Look at the poem as religious counsel. Many elements of Calvinistic beliefs are present.To a WaterfowlBryants poem begins with a waterfowl in flight and a hunter below. The birds instinct allows it to fly to sa

44、fety. In spite of the danger, hardships and temptations on the way, the bird continues its flight to its destination. As the speaker watches the bird, he ponders the mysteries of migration. Bryant parallels the birds instinct to a Power. Even though humans have no real instinct to guide them to safe

45、ty, there is a Power or God that will guide them to safety. In the last paragraph of the poem Bryant seems to be comparing our life with God to that of a waterfowl. He says: He who from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will l

46、ead my steps aright. He is saying that throughout our life wherever we go God is going to be with us guiding us down the right path. And in times when we think we must go alone, he too will be with us then. He never leaves us long enough for us to fall, just long enough for us to learn from what we

47、do. Edgar Allan Poe (埃德加阿倫坡18091849): The father of the modern detective story.American poet, short-story writer, and literary critic The Fall of the House of Usher is a short story of Gothic horror written in first-person point of view. Major characters 1. Narrator, a friend of the master of the Ho

48、use of Usher. When he visits his friend, he witnesses terrifying events.2. Roderick Usher, the master of the house. He suffers from a depressing malaise characterized by strange behavior. 3. Madeline Usher, twin sister of Roderick. She also suffers from a strange illness. After apparently dying, she

49、 rises from her coffin. Main Theme The central theme of The Fall of the House of Usher is terror that arises from the complexity and multiplicity of forces that shape human destiny. Dreadful, horrifying events result not from a single, uncomplicated circumstance but from a collision and interminglin

50、g of manifold, complex circumstances. Other Themes Evil-incest (亂倫); Isolation; Failure to Adapt; Madness; Mystery; Strange PhenomenaSymbolism The Fungus-Ridden Mansion-Decline of the Usher family. The Collapsing Mansion-Fall of the Usher family. The “Vacant eye-like” Windows of the Mansion-(1) Holl

51、ow, cadaverous eyes of Roderick Usher; (2) Madeline Ushers cataleptic gaze; (3) the vacuity of life in the Usher mansion.Works: To Helen is a poem about the ideal woman that can only exist by imagination, a woman that was the Goddess of the soul. Poe uses an allusion to refer to Helen. Helen can ref

52、er to the Greek goddess of light or Helen of Troy who is considered to be the most beautiful woman ever alive. In the poem, beauty, death (of a beautiful woman) and the past are combined together. The places where western civilization originated, such as the Mediterranean Sea, Greece and Rome, and t

53、he Holy Land (Christianity) are referred to in each of the three stanzas respectively, which may indicate the decease of the past glory and grandeur of the civilization.The Raven; Annabel Lee: In the poem, Poe examines a theme which he examines in many of his works: the death of a beautiful woman. I

54、t is a poem written in memory of his deceased young wife Virginia Clemm. The poem is permeated with melancholy. The poem coincides with Poes poetics. It is readable at one sitting. In the poem, Poe examines a theme which he examines in many of his works: the death of a beautiful woman, which, accord

55、ing to him, is “unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” The poem is permeated with melancholy as he believes “melancholy is the most legitimate of all the poetic tones.” And it is rhythmic.The poem has got the elements of a fairy tale. 1)It has the beginning of a fairy tale (1st stanz

56、a). 2)The couples love originated from their childhood. 3)Annabel Lee died because the angels envied the couples great love and, with a cold wind, they killed Annabel Lee, who was then carried away and buried in a sepulchre in the kingdom by the sea. 4)However, unlike The Raven, in which the narrato

57、r believes he will nevermore be reunited with his love, Annabel Lee says the two will be together again.5)On moonlit nights, the speaker will go and lie down by the side of his deceased young wifeRalph Waldo Emerson(拉爾夫沃爾多愛默生1803-1882): was an American author, poet, and philosopher; founder of Transcendentalism Beliefs: 1) individualism; 2) independence of mind; 3) self-relianceMajor works1) Nature ( a book which declared the birth of Transcendentalism)2) Some other essays preaching his thoughts: The Poet, Self-reliance and The American Scholar:Americas Declaration of Intellectual Indepen