美国文学术语.doc

1. American Romanticism
The romantic period stretched from the end of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of the Civil War. It is a term that is associated with imagination and boundlessness, as contrasted with classicism, which is commonly associated with reason and restriction. A romantic attitude may be detected in literature of any period, but as an historical movement it arose in the 18th and 19th centuries, in reaction to more rational literary, philosophic, artistic, religious, and economic standards. The most clearly defined romantic literary movement in the U. S. was Transcendentalism.
"Characteristics of the romantic movement in American literature are sentimentalism, primitivism and the cult of the noble savage; political liberalism; the celebration of natural beauty and the simple life; introspection; the idealization of the common man, uncorrupted by civilization; interest in the picturesque past; interest in remote places; antiquarianism ; individualism; morbid melancholy; and historical romance.

Tanscendentalism was a spiritual, philosophical and literary movement and is located in the history of American Thought as Post-Unitarian（一神教） and free thinking in religious spirituality, Kantian and idealistic in philosophy and romantic and individualistic in literature. New England Transcendentalism was the product of a combination of foreign influences and the native American Puritan tradition. The most important American Transcendentalists are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, whose representative works are Nature and Walden respectively. Transcendentalists generally agreed that the intuitive faculty, instead of the rational or sensical, became the means for a conscious union of the individual psyche with the world psyche also known as the Oversoul, life-force, prime mover and God . The basic premises include: First, an individual is the spiritual center of the universe - and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself; Second, the structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self - all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge; Third, transcendentalists accepted the neo-Platonic conception of nature as a living mystery, full of signs - nature is symbolic; Fourth, The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization - this depends upon the reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies: the expansive or self-transcending tendency and .the contracting or self-asserting tendency.
2. Free verse：
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.
Some poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, must still display some elements of form. Most free verse, for example, self-evidently continues to observe a convention of the poetic line in some sense, at least in written representations, thus retaining a potential degree of linkage, however nebulous （模糊的）, with more traditional forms. Donald Hall goes as far as to say that "the form of free verse is as binding and as liberating as the form of a rondeau （回旋诗）." and T. S. Eliot wrote, "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job."
Some poets have considered free verse restrictive in its own way. Robert Frost later remarked that writing free verse was like "playing tennis without a net".

Walt Whitman, who based his verse approach on the Bible, was the major precursor for modern poets writing free verse, though they were reluctant to acknowledge his influence.
Form and Structure：Although free verse requires no meter, rhyme, or other traditional poetic techniques, a poet can still utilize them to create some sense of structure. A clear example of this can be found in Walt Whitman's poems, where he repeats certain phrases and uses commas to create both a rhythm and structure.
Because of a lack of predetermined form, free verse poems have the potential to take truly unique shapes. The poet is given more license to express and, unrestrained by traditional bounds, has more control over the development of the poem. This could allow for a more spontaneous and essentially individualizing factor.
3. American realism
In American literature, the term "realism" encompasses the period of time from the Civil War to the turn of the century during which William Dean Howells, Rebecca Harding Davis, Henry James, Mark Twain, and others wrote fiction devoted to accurate representation and an exploration of American lives in various contexts.
Characteristics：
· Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail. Selective presentation of reality with an emphasis on verisimilitude （似真，逼真）, even at the expense of a well-made plot
· Character is more important than action and plot; complex ethical （伦理的） choices are often the subject.
· Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament （性情）and motive; they are in explicable (possible to explain) relation to nature, to each other, to their social class, to their own past.
· Class is important; the novel has traditionally served the interests and aspirations of an insurgent (rebellious) middle class. (See Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel)
· Events will usually be plausible (credible 可信的). Realistic novels avoid the sensational （耸人听闻的，令人激动的）, dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and romances.
· Diction is natural vernacular (dialect), not heightened or poetic; tone may be comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact.
· Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important: overt （公然的） authorial comments or intrusions （闯入）diminish as the century progresses.
4. .American modernism
American Modernism covered a wide variety of topics including race relations, gender roles, and sexuality. It reached its peak in America in the 1920s up to the 1940s. Celebrated Modernists include Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, and while largely regarded as a romantic poet, Walt Whitman is sometimes regarded as a pioneer of the modernist era in America.
The Centers of Modernism：
（1）Stylistic innovations - disruption of traditional syntax and form.
（2）Artist's self-consciousness about questions of form and structure.
（3）Obsession with primitive material and attitudes.
（4）International perspective on cultural matters.
Modern Attitudes：
（1）The artist is generally less appreciated but more sensitive, even more heroic, than the average person.
（2） The artist challenges tradition and reinvigorates it.
（3）A breaking away from patterned responses and predictable forms.
Contradictory Elements：
（1）Democratic and elitist.
（2）Traditional and anti-tradition.
（3）National jingoism （沙文主义） and provinciality（乡土观念） versus the celebration of international culture.
（4）Puritanical and repressive elements versus freer expression in sexual and political matters.
Literary Achievements：
（1）Dramatization of the plight of women.
（2）Creation of a literature of the urban experience.
（3）Continuation of the pastoral or rural spirit.
（4）Continuation of regionalism （地方主义） and local color.
5. Imagism （意象派）
Imagism—A literary movement launched by British and American poets early in the 20th century that advocated the use of free verse, common speech patterns, and clear concrete images as a reaction to Victorian sentimentalism, superposition and juxtaposition of images (意象的叠加和并置).
A literary movement in U.S. and English poetry characterized by the use of concrete language and figures of speech, modern subject matter, metrical freedom, and avoidance of romantic or mystical themes. It grew out of the Symbolist movement and was initially led by Ezra Pound, who, inspired by the criticism of T. E. Hulme (休姆,1883 – 1917), formulated its credo c. 1912; Hilda Doolittle (杜丽特尔) was also among the founders. Around 1914 Amy Lowell (艾米·洛威尔) largely took over leadership of the group. Imagism influenced the works of Conrad Aiken (康拉德·艾肯), T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore (玛丽安·穆尔), D. H. Lawrence, Wallace Stevens (华莱士·史蒂文斯), and others.
Flint summarizes the "few rules" of Imagism as follows:
（1）Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objective.
（2） To use absolutely no word that did not contribute to the presentation.
（3. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome （节拍器）