美国文学

Chapter 1 The Romantic period (浪漫时期)

本章概述

一. 十九世纪初期至中叶美国文学产生的历史、文化背景；
二、该时期文学创作的基本特征、基本主张；
三、对同时代与后期美国文学的影响；
四、主要作家作品。

文学史分析

一、The time period :

1. The Romantic Period stretchs from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War.

2.It started with the the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass .

3.It is also called " the American Renaissance ."

二. The romantic thoughts :

1.The native feature :
They revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands .

A.The American national experience of "pioneering into the west " proved to be a rich source of material .

B. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral law .
C.Literature began to celebrate American farmers ,the poor , the unlettered ,children ,and especially the noble savages .

2.The Puritanism :

A.The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values .

B.American romantic writers tended more to moralized than their English and European counterparts.

3.The Transcendentalism :

A. The most clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period is New England Transcendentalism .

B.It was stared in New England in the 1830s .

C. This Transcendentalist group includes two of the most significant writers America has produced so far ,Emerson and Thoreau .

D. Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as "the recognition in man the capacity of knowing truth intuitively ,or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the sense ."

三.The representatives :

1. The poetry :

There emerged a great host of men of letters during this period ,among the better-known is Walt Whitman , Whose Leaves of Grass established him as the most popular American poet of the 19th century .

2. The fiction :
The fiction of the American Romantic Period is an original and diverse body of work .

3.The human nature :

American Romanticists also differed in their their understanding of human nature . To Emerson and Thoreau , man is divine in nature and therefore forever perfectible ;to Hawthorne and Melville , everybody is potentially a sinner , and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature .

主要作家作品

A.华盛顿.欧文
B.拉尔夫.华尔多.爱默生
C.纳撒尼尔.霍桑
D.华尔特.惠特曼
E.赫尔曼.麦尔维尔

A.华盛顿.欧文

一.The literary creation

1.The works :

A. A History of New York ,which , written under the name of Diedrich knickerbocker , was a great success and won him wide popularity .The book is a parody of the Dutch colony .

B. With the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffery Crayon , Gent ,Irving won a measure of international fame on both side of the Atlantic .The book contains familiar essays like "Rip Van Winkle " and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow . "

C.Following The sketch Book , Irving published Bracebridge Hall ,and Tales of a Traveler .

2.The literary source and contributions :

A.Irving 's relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ingored considering his sucess both abroad and at home . A History of New York is a patchwork of references .He parodies or imitates Homer , Fielding ,Swift and many other favorites of his .

B. Washington Irving brought to the new nation what its people desired most in a man of letters ---"Rip Van Winkle " or "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow " are among the treasures of the American language and culture . It is not the sketches about the Old World but the tales about America that made Washington Irving a household word and his fame enduring .

二. The artistic features :

1.Irving 's taste was essentially conservative .

2.Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who " perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produce . "

3. Yet Irving never forgets to associate a certain place with the inward movement of a person and to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and vivid character .

B.拉尔夫.华尔多.爱默生

一. The literary creation :

1.The chief spokesman of this spiritual movement , New England transcendentalism is Emerson .
2.Nature ,Emerson's first little book ,established him ever since as the most eloquent sopkesman of New England Transcendentalism .

3.His lasting reputation began only with the publication of Essays . Many of his famous essays are included in Essays ,such as the American Scholar , Self-Reliance , The Over-Soul .

二. The thought

1. The transcendentalism :

A. The nature :
Emersonian Transcendentalism is actually a philosophical school with absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and European Romanticism .

B. The contents :
Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-soul , the importance of the Individual , and Nature . Transcendentalists believed that there should be an emotional communication between an individual soul and universal "over-soul "

2.The influence :

A. By employing nature as a big symbol of the spirit ,or God , or the over-soul , Emerson has brought the puritan legacy of symbolism to its perfection .

B. Emerson is the most represntative of the philosophical an literary school , and it inspired in his lifetime a whole generation of famous authors like Thoreau , Whitman , and Dickinson .

三. The artistic features :

1.The casual style :
Emerson's essays often have a casual style . They are usually characterized by a series of short ,sentencesw .

2. To use comparison and metaphors :
Emerson's philosophical discussion is sometimes difficult to understande but he uses comparisons and metaphors to make the general idea of his work clearly expressed .

3.To employ the literary sources :
Emerson often employed these literary sources to make and enrich his own points but never let them take the full reins of his discussion .