美国文学选读复习.doc

History And Anthology of American Literature (VolumeⅠⅡ)
美国文学史及选读1、2
PartⅠThe Literature of Colonial America殖民主义时期的文学(at the beginning of 17th century)
Part Ⅱ The Literature of Reason And Revolution理性和革命时期文学(by the mid-18th century)
1． Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence 独立宣言 (1776年 18世纪中后期)（仔细阅读知道意思）
Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography
Thomas Paine: The American Crisis*

一、 Benjamin Franklin 本杰明·富兰克林1706-1790
Symbol of America in the Age of Enlightenment
殖民地时期作家。独立战争前惟一的杰出的美国作家in the colonial period, the only good American author before the Revolutionary War.
1． 其还是美国第一位主要作家the first major writer非凡表达能力，简洁明了，有点幽默，还是一位讽刺天才as an author he had power of expression, simplicity, a subtle humor. He was also sarcastic.
2． 他最好作品收录在《自传》“Autobiography”。
“对这个年青的国家来说，他的损失比其它任何人的都要大“his shadow lies heavier than any other man’s on this young nation.

二、 Thomas Jefferson托马斯·杰弗逊（1743-1826）
1． 美国历史上最为广泛影响人物his thought and personality have influenced his countryman more deeply and remained more effectively alive.同富兰克林一样具人道主义精神vigorous humanitarian sympathies.启蒙运动的产物a product of the Enlightenment.
2． 1776年同约翰·亚当斯、本杰明·富兰克林、罗杰·谢尔曼、罗伯特·R·利文斯顿一起起草《独立宣言》with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert R Livingston, he drafted the Declaration of Independence.
3． 1790-1793任华盛顿内阁中第一任国务卿，as the first American secretary of state. 1800起担任两届美国总统。
4． 教材作品：《独立宣言》(1776年7月4日)：“The Declaration of Independence”。

三、 Thomas Paine 托马斯·佩因（1737-1809）*
1． 1776-1783《美国危机》“American Crisis” signed “mon Sense” was a series of sixteen pamphlets.
2． 战争结束后perfecting the model of an iron bridge without piers。
(1791-1792)《人权》“Rights of Man”。
3． 《理性的时代》“The Age of Reason”1794-1795, 他最后一部作品1797《土地公平》“Agrarian Justice”.
4． 教材作品：《美国危机》：“The American Crisis”.

四、 Philip Freneau 菲利浦·弗瑞诺（1752-1832）*
1． 革命战争后期最杰出作家perhaps the most outstanding writer of the Post-Revolutionary period “美国革命诗人”（the poet of the Revolution）;“美国诗歌之父”（Father of American Poetry）.
2． 1770年第1部作品《想象的力量》（The Power of Fancy）.1775年因出版有关讽刺英国人作品而被认可as a satirist of the British.
3． 1776年出版《夜屋》（The House of Night）哥特式小说the Gothic mood.
4． 1781写下名诗《英国囚船》(The British Prison Ship)
5． 教材作品：《野忍冬花》： “The Wild Honey Suckle”
《印第安人的坟地》： “The Indian Burying Ground”
《致凯提·迪德》： “To a Caty-Did”

Part Ⅲ The Literature of Romanticism浪漫主义文学(1810-1860)
1. 浪漫主义共同点romantics shared certain general characteristics:他们都注重道德，强调个人主义价值观及直觉感觉，并且认为自然是美的源头，人类社会是腐败之源moral enthusiasm, faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption.
3． 超验主义（1830s—the Civil War1830-1850) 既不讲究逻辑，也不讲究系统，它只强调超越理性的感受，超越法律和世俗束缚的个人表达，他们相信精神上的超越，相信无所不能的善的力量，强调善为万物之源，万物都是善的一部分
Transcendentalism: (1830-1850) Defined as the recognition in man of the capacity of acquiring knowledge transcending the reach of the five senses, or of knowing truth intuitively, or of reaching the divine without the need of an intercessor. It had some basic principles that were generally shared by its adherents. They believed that God is immanent in each person and in nature and that individual intuition is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance and rejection of traditional authority.
1. Stress the power of intuition, believing that people could learn things both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner world by intuition.
2. Place spirit (oversoul) first and matter second
3. Take nature as symbolic of spirit or God. Nature could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on human mind. People should e close to nature for instructions
4. Stress the importance of the individual (the ideal kind of individual is self-reliant and unselfish (individuality).
5. Exalt feeling (subjectivity, imagination, heart thinking) over reason (rationalism, head thinking), individual expression over the restraints of law and custom.
代表：Ralph Waldo Emerson：Nature, Self-reliance；Henry David Thoreau：Walden
As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematized. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. They believed in the transcendence of the “Oversoul”, an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things e and of which all things are a part.
4． Dark Romanticism 19 century America (often conflated with Gothicism or called American Romanticism) is a literary subgenre centered on writers Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven(death, beauty), Nathaniel Hawthorne: The scarlet letter and Herman Melville: Moby Dick(dark, glooming, mysterious). As opposed to the perfectionist beliefs of Transcendentalism, the Dark Romantics emphasized human fallibility and proneness to sin and self-destruction, as well as the difficulties inherent in attempts at social reform. The Dark Romantics adapted images of anthropomorphized evil in the form of Satan, devils, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and ghouls, as more telling guides to man's inherent nature.
5． American Renaissance (1836-1855): American Romanticism culminated达到顶峰 around the 1840s in what has e to be known as “New England Transcendentalism” or “American Renaissance”
6． The differences of American Romanticism and British Romanticism.
The UK is one of the earliest countries of romantic literature. The British romanticism writers discontented in the development of the capitalist urban civilization, and they tended to be cynical and have the tendency of going back to nature and live in seclusion. In mid-to-late 18th century poet Robert burns (1759-1796) and William Blake 1757-1827) was a pioneer of the romantic literature. And the American romantic literature is influenced by western European romantic literature. In the early 19th century, (1810-1840) the American capitalism developed rapidly, which caused strong national consciousness and patriotic enthusiasm of Americans. They wanted to get rid of the bondage of British literature and American romanticism attaches great importance to the spirit of creation and the pursuit of free transcendentalism.
Although greatly influenced by their English counterparts， the American romantic writers revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands. For examp1e，
1.The American national experience of "pioneering into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests， meadows， groves， endless prairies， streams， and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral 1aw. 
2.The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper’s Leather Stocking Tales， in Thoreau's Walden and， later， in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 
3.With the growth of American national consciousness， American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. 
4.Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values and American Romanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. 5.Besides， a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne， Melville and a host of lesser writers. 

一、 Washington Irving华盛顿·欧文1783-1859
1. 他是美国第一位浪漫主义散文文体作家，大众化风格was the first great prose stylist of American romanticism familiar style.
2. 1819-1820他第一部《见闻札记》是现代文学史上的第一部短篇小说，也是美国第一部伟大的青少年文学读物，他把历史与传说当作娱乐形式来写，把大众化的散文引入美国his “Sketch Book” appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature to write good history and biography as literary entertainment. He introduced the familiar essay to America
3. 1809年以迪德里奇·尼克博克的名字出版《纽约外史》，轻松欢快的滑稽戏形式讲出了早期荷兰殖民者在美洲殖民时的真实历史成为了幽默作品中的经典“A History of New York” by Diedrich Knickerbocker a rollicking burlesque of a current serious history of the early Dutch settlers, has bee a classic of humor.
14．教材作品：《作者自叙》：“The Author’s Account of Himself”;
《睡谷传奇》：“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”.

二、 Edgar Allan Poe埃德加·阿伦·坡1809-1849
1. 1833年，在一次小说比赛中他的《金瓶子城的方德先生》获奖he won a contest with his story “Ms. Found in a Bottle” .
2. 发表了《鄂榭府崩溃记》“The Fall of the House of Usher”.
3. 1840 年，第一部短篇小说集《述异集》his first collection of short stories “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque”.
4. 教材作品：《给海伦》：“To Helen”
《乌鸦》：“ The Raven”
《安娜贝尔·李》“ Annabel Lee”
《鄂榭府崩溃记》“The Fall of the House of Usher”

三、 Ralph Waldo Emerson 拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生1803-1882
1． 他是把超验主义思想引入新英格兰的先驱，被看作是超验主义运动的领袖he was responsible for bringing Transcendentalism to New England and was recognized throughout his life as the leader of the movement 爱默生首先强调的是个人主义、思想独立和自强 he believed above all in individualism, independence of mind and self-reliance他崇尚英勇，并不忌讳变化和有冲突的思想he admired courage, he was not afraid of changing or clashing ideas.
2． The Style of Emerson’s Essays
Emerson’s essays often have a casual style, for most of them were derived from his journals or lectures. They are usually characterized by a series of short, declarative sentences, which are not quite logically connected but will flower out into illustrative statements of truth and thoughts. Emerson’s philosophical discussion is sometimes difficult to understand but he uses parisons and metaphors to make the general idea of his work clearly expressed.Well-read in the classics of Western European literature,Emerson often employed these literary sources to make and enrich his own points but never let them take the full reins of his discussion. In general, Emerson was showing to the world a distinctive American style.
3． 1836 年出版了第一本书《论自然》“Nature”, 1847年他的《诗集》问世. Many of his lectures were later distilled into his famous “Essays”. Among his most important works are “Representative Men” and “English Traits” .His “Poems” appeared in 1847.
4． 人们认为他的诗作缺乏诗的形式，用语也太粗糙，但最后他的诗歌却受到了高度评价，他那样并不工整的韵律和动人的形象如艺术品一样，非常适合现代读者的口味in his day, Emerson’s poems were criticized for their lack of form and polish. In recent years, hower, his poetry has received high praise. His harsh rhythms and striking images appeal to many modern readers as artful techniques.
5． 《美国学者》The American Scholar被称为“我们知识分子的独立宣言” “our intellectual Declaration of Independence”
6． 教材作品：《论自然》：“Nature”;
《论自助》：“Self-Reliance”

四、 Nathaniel Hawthorne纳撒尼尔·霍桑1804-1864
1．《霍桑独特的才能主要表现在他能够通过一些极具象征意义的故事来触摸人类灵魂深处的道德品质，最好的例证便是波士顿清教徒引以自娱的《红字》，小说的每一个字，每一幅画面和每一个事件都能够达到了一个特定的效果，它讲述了关于罪的故事，罪对不同人的影响以及有些人获得拯救的故事Hawthorne’s unique gift was for the creation of strongly symbolic stories which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature. The finest example is the recreation of Puritan Boston, “The Scarlet Letter”. In this novel each word, image, and event works toward a single effect. It is a plex story of guilt, its effects upon various persons, and how deliverance is obtained for some of them.
1． 在他的短篇小说中，他通过活生生，极有象征意味的想象来体现人类社会的一些重大道德问题his ability to create vivid and symbolic images that embody great moral questions appear strongly in his short stories。霍桑同埃德加·阿伦·坡并称为美国短篇小说现代艺术大师，他们都创作了独一无二的小说形式样Hawthorne shares with Edgar Allan Poe the distinction of advancing the art of the short story, giving to the form qualities that are uniquely American。
2． 他的作品还有：《伊桑·布兰德》、《小伙子布朗》、《海德格博士的体验》、《野心勃勃的客人》、《巨石脸》。“Ethan Brand”; “Young Goodman Brown”; “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment”; “The Ambitious Guest”; “The Great Stone Face”.
3． 教材作品：《红字》：“The Scarlet Letter”

五、 James Fenimore Cooper詹姆斯·芬尼莫·库珀1789-1851*
1．美国第一位凭着胆识走上文坛的著名小说家the first important American novelist began his literary career on a dare.
2．1821年他第二部小说《间谍》获得极大的成功，是一部引人入胜的探险类故事，事件发生在美国独立战争期间“The Spy” was successful, it was a rousing tale about espionage against the British during the Revolutionary War.
5．教材作品：《最后的莫希干人》：“The Last of the Mohicans”最后的莫西干人

六、 William Cullen Bryant威廉·卡伦·布莱恩特1794-1878*
1. 1817年伟大史诗《死之思考》（希腊语），人们一致认为这是当时美国最杰出的一篇诗作the stately poem called ” Thanatopsis” (Greek, meaning “view of death”) introduced the best poet to appear in American up to that time.
2. 《致水鸟》是其巅峰之作，“用美国英语写作的最完美的短诗”，“To a Waterfowl” is perhaps the peak of his work, “Most perfect brief poem in the language”.
3. 当欧文用自己的作品预示美国散文时代的到来时，布莱恩特向欧洲读者证实了美国的诗歌也达到了相当高的水平，他是第一个获得美国主要诗人称号的作家As Irving had shown that American prose had e of age, so Bryant demonstrated to European readers that American poetry was ready to demand serious attention. He was the first American to gain the stature of a major poet.
4. 教材作品：《死之思考》：“Thanatopsis”
《致水鸟》：“To a Waterfowl”

七、 Henry David Thoreau亨利·戴维·梭罗1817-1862*
4． 他是爱默生最忠实的信徒，是他把爱默生的许多理论付诸了实践he was Emerson’s truest disciple, who put into practice many of Emerson’s theories.
5． 1854年，梭罗根据他在沃尔登湖畔居住两年经历写出名作《沃尔登》“Walden”, the superb book came out of his two-year’s residence at Walden Pond 在这部书中阐释了他去体验这种生活的原因，他认为一个一星期最好工作一天，而剩下的六天时间则用来思索，他也认为人类心灵的自助和独立最为重要，每个人都应该发现自己的生活方式he explained many of the beliefs that led him to try this kind of life. He thought it better for a man to work one day a week and the rest of the week could be devoted to thought. For Thoreau, as for Emerson, self-reliance and independence of mind ranked above all each should find out his own way of living.
6． 教材作品：《沃尔登 我生活的地方；我为何生活》：“Walden Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”

八、Herman Melville赫尔曼·麦尔维尔1819-1891*
1. 《白鲸》主要讲述了一个为追捕一只想象中的神秘白鲸的漫长海上故事，这本书达到了象征主义手法的创作高峰，这种写法强烈地吸引了现在社会的读者 “Moby Dick”, a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. The book is steeped in symbolism, another strong appeal to readers of his century.
2. 教材作品：《白鲸》：“Moby Dick”

九、Henry Wadsworth Longfellow亨利·沃兹沃思·朗费罗1807-1882*
1．朗费罗去世后被安葬在威斯敏斯特教堂的诗人之角，他也是美国惟一获此殊荣的诗人，他的诗歌因高雅宜人，纯正有韵味而大受欢迎after his death, he became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s corner of Westminster Abbey. The gentleness, sweetness, and purity for which his poetry was popular during his lifetime.
2．教材作品：《人生礼赞》：“A Psalm of Life”;
《奴隶的梦》：“The Slave’s Dream”;
《逝去的青春》；“My Lost Youth”;
《海华沙之歌 海华沙的禁食》“The Song of Hiawatha Hiawatha’s Fasting

PartⅣ The Literature Of Realism现实主义文学1860-一战前1914
1. 19世纪，美国现实主义文学：他们寻找描写美国人真实生活的方法，他们声称平凡的、就近的事件同重大的、遥运的事件一样都是艺术创作的源泉they sought to portray American life as it really was, insisting that the ordinary and local were as suitable for artistic portrayal as the magnificent and the remote.
2. 美国新的现实主义即自然主义大师们不再崇尚过去粉饰太平的写作方法，他们设法尽力客观，真实地展现出受环境与出身局限的下层人民和各种经济阶层人物的真正生活，他们强调世界的非道德性，他们认为，人们并没有意志的自由，他们的生活状况往往受到了生活的环境与自己的出身所局限；他们还认宗教上的“真理”是虚幻的，人类世俗的现实生活是痛苦的，死亡以后，一切又烟消云散了现实主义的分支
Naturalism: (in the late nineteenth century), American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. America’s literary natur