09级英语教育美国文学考试重点A

美国文学史

1.the colonial period

It stretched roughly from the settlement of Am in the early 17th C 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.) Here the major topic will be about Am Puritanism .

2.the Romantic Period

It covers the first half of the 19th C, which is a period following the national political independence. Around 1840s arose the culmination of the Romantic Period---New England Transcendentalism(1836-1855) .

3.the Age of Realism

It was after the civil war (1861-1865) till the end of the 19th century, covering the latter half of the 19th C. The civil war brought the Romantic period to an end.

4.Naturalism(the last decade of the 19th c)

In the last decade of the 19thc, the age of naturalism came into being. Naturalists saw man’s life as governed by two forces---- heredity & environment.

5.Modernism

In the decade of the 1920s,there came the age of modernism. (here are many eminent writers in this period, such as T.S Eliot, Earnest Hemingway, William Faulkner, etc.)

What is literature

1.Writings that are valued as works of art, esp. fiction, drama and poetry.

2.Forms (genres) of literature?

Poetry, novel (fiction), drama, prose, essay, epic, elegy, short story, journalism, sermon, (auto) biography, travel accounts, novelette, etc.

Puritanism

Doctrines:

Predestination

Original sin and total depravity (human beings are basically evil.)

Limited atonement (or the Salvation of a selected few)

Puritan values (creeds):

Hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety, simple tastes.

Puritans are more practical, tougher, and to be ever ready for any misfortune and tragic failure.

They are optimistic.

Why did Puritans come to America?

- to reform the Church of England

- to have an entirely new church

- to escape religious persecution

God’s chosen people

To seek a new Garden of Eden

To build “City of God on earth”

1.Influence of Puritanism

American Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American literature.

- American literature is based on a myth, i.e. the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden.

- Puritanism can be compared with Chinese Confucianism.

enlightenment

The 18th-century American Enlightenment was a movement marked by an emphasis on rationality rather than tradition, scientific inquiry

美国文学史

instead of unquestioning religious dogma, and representative government in place of monarchy.

Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality as the natural rights of man.

Leading writers and their works

Thomas Jefferson(1743-1826):

Thomas Paine(1737-1809):

Benjamin Franklin:

Philip Freneau:

Evaluation of Biography by Benjamin

The Autobiography is a record of self-examination and self-improvement.

Benjamin Franklin was a spokesman for the new order of the 18th century enlightenment

The Autobiography is a how-to-do-it book, a book on the art of self-improvement. (for example, Franklin’s 13 virtues)

Through telling a success story of self-reliance, the book celebrates, in fact, the fulfillment of the American dream.

The Autobiography is in the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision.

Romanticism

As a literary trend, Romanticism appeared in Europe and America at the turn of the 18th C & the 19th C. In 1798, the English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge published a volume of poems Lyrical Ballads. This usually marked the beginning of Romanticism.

Romanticism was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions were more important than reason and common sense. They stressed the close relationship between man and nature, emphasized individualism and affirmed the inner life of the self. They cherished strong interest in the past, especially the medieval and were attracted by the wild, the irregular, the indefinite, the remote, the mysterious, and the strange.

Washington Irving (1783-1859)

Plot Summery of “Rip Van Winkle”

The story of Rip Van Winkle is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. Rip Van Winkle, a villager of Dutch descent, lives in a nice village at the foot of New York's Catskill Mountains. An amiable man whose home and farm suffer from his lazy neglect, he is loved by all but his wife. One autumn day he escapes his nagging wife by wandering up the mountains. After encountering strangely dressed men, rumored to be the ghosts of Henry Hudson’s crew, and after drinking some of their liquor, he settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes up twenty years later and returns to his village. He finds out that his wife is dead and his close friends have died in a war or gone somewhere else. He immediately gets into trouble when he hails himself a loyal subject of King George III, not knowing that in the meantime the American Revolution has taken place. An old local recognizes him, however, and Rip's now grown daughter eventually puts him up. As Rip resumes his habit of idleness in the village, and his tale is solemnly believed by the old Dutch settlers, certain hen-pecked husbands especially wish they shared Rip's luck.

1.Adultery通奸

a symbol of her adultery against Roger Chillingworth.

This is the puritan way of treating her as a criminal, for the crime of adultery.

2. Alone and Alienation 孤独 疏远

standing for Hester's l …… 此处隐藏：10608字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……