回见英文美国文学简史名词解释

2021年1月19日发(作者：bambini)
Puritanism:

the
settlement
of
North
American
continent
by
English
started
in
the
early 17
th
century
. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third
and
fourth decades of the seventeenth century to
the
northern
English colonies
in
the
New
World
—
a
migration
that
laid
the
foundation
for
the
religious,
intellectual,
and
social order of New England. Puritanism, however was not only a historically specific
phenomenon
coincident

with
the
founding
of
New
Zealand;
it
was
also
a
way
of
being
in
the
world
—
a
style
of
response
to
lived
experience
—
that
has
reverberated
through
American
life
ever
since.
As
a
culture
heritage,
Puritanism
did
have
a
profound
influence
on
the
early
American
mind.
American
Puritanism
also
had
a
enduring influence on American literature.
Romanticism
：
The
Romantic Period stretches
from
the end
of
the
18th
century
through the outbreak of the
Civil War.

Romanticism was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. (subjectivity)
For romantics, the
feelings,
intuitions and emotions were
more
important than
reason
and common sense.
They
emphasized
individualism,
placing
the
individual
against
the
group,
against
authority
.
They affirmed
the
inner
life of the self, and wanted to be
free to develop and express
his own inner thoughts.
Transcendentalism:
In
the
realm
of
art
and
literature
it
meant
the
shattering
of
pseudo-classic rules and
forms
in
favor of a spirit of
freedom,
the creation of works
filled with
the
new passion
for
nature and common
humanity and
incarnating a
fresh
sense of the wonder, promise, and romance of life.
Transcendentalism

①

The
Transcendentalists
placed
emphasis
on
spirit,
or
the
oversoul
,
as
the
most
important thing in the universe.

②

The
Transcendentalists
stressed
the
importance
of
the
individual.
To
them,
the
individual is the most important element of Society
.
③
The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit
or
God.
Nature
was
not
purely
matter.
It
was
alive,
filled
with
God’s
overwhelming
presence.
Realism

As
a
literary
movement,
the
Age
of
Realism
came
into
existence
after
Romanticism
with
th
e
Civil
War
It
was
a
reaction
against
“the
lie”
of
Romanticism
and
sentimentalism,
and
paved
the
way
to
Modernism.
This
literary
interest
in
the
so-
called “reality” of life started a new period in the American literary writing known
as The Age of Realism.

Psychological Realism

It
is
the
realistic
writing
that
probes
deeply
into
the
complexities
of
characters’
thoughts
and
motivations.
And
Henry
James
is
considered
the
founder
of
psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in the impressions made by life on
the spectator, and
not
in any
facts of which the
spectator
is
unaware. Such
realism
is
therefore merely the obligation that the artist assumes to represent life as he sees it.


Local
colorism:
local
colorism
is
a
type
of
writing
that
was
popular
in
the
late
19
th
(1860s
—
1870s).
The
feature
of
local
colorism
are:
(1)
presenting
a
locale
distinguished
from
the
outside
world;
(2)describing
the
exotic
of
the
picturesque;
(3)glorifying
the
past;
(4)
showing
things
as
they
are;
(5)
influence
of
setting
o
n
characters.

Black
humor
:
the
term
black
humor
was
created
in
1920s,
but
it
was
not
noticed
until 1960s.
it
was particularly a
literary phenomenon
in
America after WW
Ⅱ
. Black
humor,
in
literature,
is
drama,
novel,
and
film,
grotesque
or
morbid
humor
used

to
express
the
absurdity
,
insensitivity
,
paradox,
and
cruelty
of
the
modern
world.
Ordinary
characters
or
situations
are
usually
exaggerated
far
beyond
the
limits
of
normal satire or
irony
. Black
humor
uses devices often associated with tragedy and
is
sometimes equated with tragic
face. Josegh Heller and Kury V
onnegut are
famous
for
their novels of black humor. Especially Heller’s Catch—
22.

The
novels
of
such
writers
as
Kurt
V
onnegut,
Thomas
Pynchon,
John
Barth,
Joseph
Heller, and Philip Roth contain elements of black humor.
Naturalism:
The
American
naturalists
accepted
the
more
negative
interpretation
of
Darwin’s
evolutionary
theory
and
used
it
to
accout
for
the
behavior
of
those
characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations
of
inherited
attributes,
their
habits
conditioned
by
social
and
economic
forces.2)
naturalism
is
evolved
from
realism
when
the
author’s
tone
in
writing
becomes
less
serious and
less sympathetic but
more
ironic and
more pessimistic. It
is no
more than
a gloomy philosophical approach
to reality
, or to
human existence.3>Dreiser
with his
Sister Carrie is a leading figure of his school.


Imagism:

A poetic
movement of
England and
the U.S.
that
flourished
from 1909 to
1917.
The
movement
insists
on
the
cre
ation
of
images
in
poetry
by
“the
direct
treatment
of
the
thing”
and
the
economy
of
wording.
“poetic
techniques
to
record
exactly the momentary impressions”

Three main principles of the Imagist Movement (1912) :

[1]
direct
treatment
of
poetic
subjects
[2]
elimination
of
merely
ornamental
or
superfluous words, to use no word that does not contribute to the presentation.


[3] rhythmical composition
in
the sequence of
the
musical phrase rather
than
in
the
sequence
o
f
a
metronome.

4>
pound’s
In
a
Station
of
the
Metro
is
a
well
-known
poem.
Harlem Renaissance
：
Harlem Renaissance refers to a period of outstanding
literary
vigor and creativity that occurred in the United states during the 1920s.2> the Harlem
Renaissance
changed
the
images
of
literature
created
by
many
black
and
white
American writers. New black images were no longer obedient and docile. Instead they
showed a
new confidence and racial pride. 3> the center of this
movement was

the
vast
black
ghetto
of
Harlem.
In
New
Y
ork
City
.4>
the
leading
figures
are
langston
Hughes, James

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