美國文學(xué)名詞解釋

1、美國文學(xué)名詞解釋1. American Puritanism American Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American literature. It has become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, rather than a set of tenets, so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the Americans b

2、reathe. It stresses predestination, original sin, total depravity, and limited atonement (or the salvation of a selected few) from God' s grace. With such doctrines in their minds, Puritans left Europefor America in order to establish a theocracy in the New World. Over the years in the new homel

3、and they built a way of life that stressed hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety.2. The American Dream The American Dream is the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial

4、 prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth as a measure of success and/or happiness.3. American Romanticism American Romanticism stretches from the end o

5、f the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War. It was America irst gr'east cf reative period. Although foreign influences were strong, American romanticism exhibited distinct features of its own. First, American romanticism was in essence the expression of“ a real new experience” and

6、containedalien quality ” for the simple reason that“ the spirit of the place ” was radically neSecond, Puritan influence over American romanticism was conspicuously noticeable.Famous writers, such as the novelists Hawthorne and Melville; the poets Dickinson and Whitman; the essayists Thoreau and Eme

7、rson, had made a great literary period by capturing on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream.4. American TranscendentalismAmerican Transcendentalism is literature, philosophical and literary movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to 1860. It originated among a sm

8、all group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, developing instead their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world. The beliefs that God is imminent in each person and in nature and that individu

9、al intuition is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of traditional authority. The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as Nature(1836), and Self-Reliance and by Henry D

10、avid Thoreau in his booWk alden(1854).5. American NaturalismAmerican Naturalism is a literary movement that became popular in America in the late 19th century and is often associated with literary realism. Viewed as a combination of realism and romanticism, critics contend that the American form is

11、heavily influenced by the concept of determinismthe theory that heredity and environment influence and determine human behavior. Although naturalism is often associated with realism, which also seeks toaccurately represent human existence, the two movements are differentiated by the fact that natura

12、lism is connected to the doctrine of biological, economic and social determinism. Representative writers are, among others, Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.6. International ThemeThe International theme was one of Henry James's main subjects, iwthhtichhe dealt wrelationship between American an

13、d European culture. He explored the attractions and conflicts between new and old, innocence and experience, candor and complexity, the puritanical and the aesthetic.7. Local ColorismLocal Colorism is a type of writing that was popular in the late 19th century, particularly among authors in the Sout

14、h of the United States. This style relied heavily on using words, phrases, and slang that were native to the particular region in which the story took place. The term has come to mean any device which implies a specific focus, whether it is geographical or temporal. A well-known local colorism autho

15、r was Mark Twain with his books Tom Sawyerand The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.8. ImagismImagism was a literary movement which came into being in Britain and U.S. around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation. The imagists, with E

16、zra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles: i) direct treatment of subject matter; ii) economy of expression; iii) as regard rhythm, to

17、 compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome. Ezra Pound's “ In a Station ofMetro ” is a we-kllnown imagist poem.9. Harlem RenaissanceHarlem Renaissance is a notable phase of black American writing centered in Harlem (a predominantly black area of New York Cit

18、y) in the 1920s. It brought a new self-awareness and critical respect to black literature in the US. Langston Hughes and Richard Wright are representatives of the movement with their works Weary Blues and Native Son respectively.10. The Lost GenerationThe term Lost Generation was coined by Gertrude

19、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 Stei

20、n herself. Hemingway likely popularized the term, quoting Stein (“ You are all a lost generationepigraph 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 aftwar many of them were disillus

21、ioned with the world in general and unwilling to move into a settled life.11. The Jazz AgeThe Jazz Age describes 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 de

22、cline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the ageis American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald' s The Great Gatsby, highlighting what some describesas the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term“ The Jazz Age ”.1

23、2. Hemingway (Code) HeroesThe works of Ernest Hemingway generally center on the concept of heroism. Each of his novels contains a“Hemingway hero” a man of honor and integrity who expresses himself not with words, but with actions. The Hemingway hero is a noble but tragic hero fighting with the overw

24、helming force; though he knows that he will be defeated at last, he decides to act like a hero. He is not a Godlike figure, but an ordinary, often flawed mortal who must look to himself for strength. The Hemingway hero is actually a mirror image of the author himself. Santiago in The Old Man and the

25、 Seais a typical Hemingway hero.13. The Beat GenerationIn the 1950s, there was a widespread discontent among the postwar generation, whose voice was one of protest against all the mainstream culture that America had come to represent. This has come to be known as the Beat Generation. The word“ beat

26、” represented anon-conformist, rebellious attitude toward conventional values concerning sex, religion, the arts, and the American way of life. It was an attitude that resulted from the feeling of depression and exhaustion and the need to escape into an unconventional, sometimes communal, mode of li

27、ving. Central elements of“ Beat ” culture included experimentationwith drugs, alternative forms of sexuality, an interest in Eastern religion, a rejection of materialism, and the idealizing of exuberant, unexpurgated means of expression and being. Allen Ginsberg ' s Howl (1956), William S. Burro

28、ughs's Naked Lunch (1959) and JackKerouac' s On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.14. Black HumorBlack humor, in literature, drama, and film, grotesque or morbid humor, used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggera