A Conci History of American
Literature（一）
What is literature?
Literature is language artistically ud to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages.
Chapter 1 Colonial Period
I.Background: Puritanism
1.features of Puritanism
(1)Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred.
(2)Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can be
pasd 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 (rious and
thoughtful) influenced American literature.
(2)It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is bad on a myth – garden of Eden.
(3)Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical m ode of perception was chiefly
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
diaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, rmons
2.writers of colonial period
(1)Anne Bradstreet
(2)Edward Taylor
(3)Roger Williams
(4)John Woolman
(5)Thomas Paine
(6)Philip Freneau
III.Jonathan Edwards
1.life
2.works
sie(1)The Freedom of the Will
(2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended
(3)The Nature of True Virtue
3.ideas – pioneer of transcendentalism
(1)The spirit of revivalism
(2)Regeneration of man
(3)God’s pre nce
(4)Puritan idealism
上映英文IV.Benjamin Franklin
1.life
2.works
(1)Poor Richard’s Almanac
(2)Autobiography
(1)He helped found the PennsylvaniaHospital and the American Philosophical Society.
(2)He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this ca)
from heaven”.
(3)Everything ems 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
What is Romanticism?
●An approach from ancient Greek: Plato
● A literary trend: 18c in Britain (1798~1832)
●Schlegel Bros.
I.Preview: Characteristics of romanticism
1.subjectivity
(1)feeling and emotions, finding truth
(2)emphasis on imagination
(3)emphasis on individualism – personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodness
of human beings
2.back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature
(1)unrestrained by classical rules
(2)full of imagination
(3)colloquial language
(4)freedom of imagination
(5)genuine in feelings: answer their call for classics
3.back to nature
nature is “breathing living thing” (Rousau)
II.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 esnce the expression of “a re al new experience
and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place”
stand by me shineewas 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 American
Romanticism.
(4)As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism
was both imitative and independent.
III.WashingtonIrving
1.veral names attached to Irving
(1)first American writer
(2)the mesnger nt 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 V oyages of Christopher Columbus
(4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada
(5)The Alhambra
4.Literary career: two parts
(1)1809~1832
a.Subjects are either English or European
b.Conrvative love for the antique
(2)1832~1859: back to US
5.style – beautiful
(1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness
(2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining
(3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere
(4)vivid and true characters
(5)humour – smiling while reading
(6)musical language
IV.James Fenimore Cooper
1.life
2.works
(1)Precaution (1820, his first novel, imitating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice)
(2)The Spy (his cond novel and great success)
(3)Leatherstocking Tales (his masterpiece, a ries of five novels)
The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, The
Prairie
3.point of viewenglish writing
the theme of wilderness vs. civilization, freedom vs. law, order vs. change, aristocrat vs.
democrat, natural rights vs. legal rights
4.style
(1)highly imaginative
(2)good at inventing tales
(3)good at landscape description
(4)conrvative
(5)characterization wooden and lacking in probability
(6)language and u of dialect not authentic
5.literary achievements
He created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. If the history of
the United States is, in a n, the process of the American ttlers exploring and
pushing the American frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leathe rstocking Tales
effectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West.
He turned the west and frontier as a uable past and he helped to introduce western
tradition to American literature.
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Section 2 Summit of Romanticism –American Transcendentalism
I.Background: four sources
1.Unitarianism
(1)Fatherhood of God
(2)Brotherhood of men
(3)Leadership of Jesus
(4)Salvation by character (perfection of one’s character)
(5)Continued progress of mankind
(6)Divinity of mankind
(7)Depravity of mankind
2.Romantic Idealism
Center of the world is spirit, absolute spirit (Kant)
3.Oriental mysticism
Center of the world is “oversoul”
4.Puritanism
Eloquent expression in transcendentalism
II.Appearance
1836, “Nature” by Emerson
III.Features
1.spirit/oversoul
2.importance of individualism
3.nature – symbol of spirit/God
garment of the oversoul
4.focus in intuition (irrationalism and subconsciousness)
IV.Influence
1.It rved as an ethical guide to life for a young nation and brought about the idea that
human can be perfected by nature. It stresd religious tolerance, called to throw off
shackles of customs and traditions and go forward to the development of a new and
distinctly American culture.
2.It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidly expanded economy where
opp ortunity 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 period in
American literature.
V.Ralph Waldo Emersoncontinue是什么意思
1.life
2.works
(1)Nature
(2)Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet
verification3.point of view
(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 moral influence on man,
and advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.
(3)If man depends upon himlf, cultivates himlf and brings out the divine in
himlf, he can hope to become better and even perfect. This is what Emerson
means by “the infinitude of man”.
(4)Everyone should understand that he makes himlf by making his world, and that
he makes the world by making himlf.
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.certificate
(4)As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America which
was to him a lone poem in itlf.
5.his influence
VI.Henry David Thoreau
1.life
2.works
(1) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River
(2)Walden
(3) A Plea for John Brown (an essay)
3.point of view
(1)He did not like the way a materialistic America was developing and was
vehemently outspoken on the point.
(2)He hated the human injustice as reprented by the slavery system.
psychotherapy(3)Like Emerson, but more than him, Thoreau saw nature as a genuine restorative,
healt hy influence on man’s spiritual well-being.
(4)He has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man.
(5)He was very critical of modern civilization.
(6)“Simplicity…simplify!”
(7)He was sorely disgusted with “the inundations of the dirty institutions of men’s
odd-fellow society”.
(8)He has calm trust in the future and his ardent belief in a new generation of men. Section 3 Late Romanticism
I.Nathaniel Hawthorne
河北英语
1.life
2.works
(1)Two collections of short stories: Twice-told Tales, Moss from and Old Man
(2)The Scarlet Letter
(3)The Hou of the Seven Gables
(4)The Marble Faun
3.point of view
(1)Evil is at the core of human life, “that blackness in Hawthorne”
(2)Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be pasd from
generation to generation (causality).
(3)He is of the opinion that evil educates.
(4)He has disgust in science.
4.aesthetic ideas
(1)He took a great interest in history and antiquity. To him the furnish the soil on
which his mind grows to fruition.
(2)He was convinced that romance was the predestined form of American narrative.
To tell the truth and satirize and yet not to offend: That was what Hawthorne had in
mind to achieve.
5.style – typical romantic writer
(1)the u of symbols
(2)revelation of characters’ psychology
(3)the u of supernatural mixed with the actual
(4)his stories are parable (parable inform) – to teach a lesson
(5)u of ambiguity to keep the reader in the world of uncertainty – multiple point of
view
II.Herman Melville
1.life
2.works
(1)Typee
(2)Omio
(3)Mardi
(4)Redburn
(5)White Jacket
(6)Moby Dick
(7)Pierre
(8)Billy Budd
