美国文学大纲

2021年1月22日发(作者：祝天棋)
苏州科技学院外国语学院

___
美国文学史
___(
课程名称
)
课程考试大纲



一、课程性质与特点

美国文 学史为“英语”和“英语（师范）”专业任意选修课，属于考查课，共
24
学时，
1. 5
学分。本课程涵盖美国文学史上从殖民地时期、浪漫主义、现实主义、现代主义、后现
代主义 至当代各个时期重要的文学思潮、
流派及其发生的社会、
文化、
哲学背景以及各个时< br>期重要作家的代表性作品。

本课程所讲授的知识是英语专业本科生知识结构不可或缺的 一部分，
是英语专业学生人
文素养必要的组成成分，也是英语专业八级考试“人文知识”部分考 核的内容之一。

鉴于本课程学时短，
内容多，本课程的特点是以史为经，
以 作家作品为纬，
详讲浪漫主
义、现实主义和现代主义部分，略讲其它部分。


二、课程目标与基本要求

学生在学习本课程后应该对美国文学史上殖民地时期、浪漫主义、
现实主义、
现代主义、
后现代主义至当代各个时期重要的文学思潮、< br>流派及其发生的社会、
文化、
哲学背景以及各
个时期重要作家的代表性作品有个 宏观的了解，
能解释相关的名词，
熟悉各个时期的主要特
点和重要作家及其重要作品， 并能结合文学外在与内在因素对文学作品做出初步评论。


三、教材及主要参考书

教材：

童明：《美国文学史》
[
增订版
]
( A History of American Literature
, Revised and
expanded edition
)
.
北京：外语教学与研究出版社，
2010.

主要参考书：

常耀信：《美国文学简史》
[
第二版
](
A
Survey
of
American
Literature
,2nd
edition).
天津：南开大学出版社，
2003.

四、考核内容与考核目标


Part 1Early American Literature: Colonial Period to 1815

Chapter 1 The literature of the New World
1. “discoverer” of America: Christopher Columbus, 1492; Amerigo Vespucci ( Hence
“America”,1507 world map)
（识记，次重点）

(Indian) American Oral literature: origin stories, trickster tales , historical narratives (
理
解，次重点
)


Chapter 2The Literature of Colonial America: 1620-1763

3. Jamestown: first English settlement in North America
（识记，重点）

5. Captain John Smith: First author in the history of American literature (about Jamestown)
（识
记，一般）

m Bradford: Father of American history, author of
Of Plymouth Plantation
（识记，一般）

7. In 1620, the Bradford party sailed on the
Mayflower
and came to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
（识记，次重点）

8. Anne Bradstreet: the first poetess in the colonial period:
The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in
America
（识记，一般）

an Edwards: the great thinker of the “Great Awakening”
（识记，一般）


Chapter 3 Literature and American Revolution:1764
—
1815

10. American Puritanism (
重点，理解
)
11. The 18
th
century, in America, as in Europe, is known as the Age of Reason and Enlightenment.
（识记，次重点）

12. Enlightenment in America
（理解，次重点）

13. Deism and Unitarianism
（理解，一般）

14. Benjamin Franklin:
Poor
Richard’s Almanacs
;
Autobiography
（理解，重点）

Paine:
Common Sense
;
The American Crisis
;
The Rights of Man
（识记，重点）

16. Thomas Jefferson:
The Declaration of Independence
（理解，重点）

17. Alexander Hamilton:
The Federalist Papers
(co- author)
（识记，一般）

18. Philip
Freneau: the poet of “American Revolution”: The Wild Honey Suckle, The Indian
Burying Ground
（识记，重点）


Part 2American Romanticism 1815
—
1865

Chapter 4The Age of American Romanticism

1.

definition and characteristics of American Romanticism
（应用，重点）

2.

First flowering of American literature
（识记，次重点）


Chapter 5Early Romanticism

three early romanticists: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Cullen
Bryant
（识记，重点）

3.

Washington
Irving:
The
Sketch
Book
,
in
which
two
of
Irving
’
s
best
known
stories
“
Rip Van Winkle
”
and
“
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
”
are included
（理解，
重点）
;
A History of New York
（
识记，
一般）
;
A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher
Columbus
（识记，一般）

4.

James
Fenimore Cooper: The
Leather- stocking Tales
(
The Pioneers, The Last of
the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer
), the mythic hero of
this series is Natty Bumppo (
理解，重点
)
5.

William
Cullen
Bryant:
Poems
:
Thanatopsis (meaning
meditation
on
death);
To
a Waterfowl (about Nature
’
s power) (
识记，次重点
)

Chapter 6Transcendentalism and Symbolic Representation

1.

The Transcendental Club: 1) published 16 issues of The Dial; 2) established
Brook Farm, a utopian community
（识记，一般）

2.

Transcendentalism as a philosophy
（应用，重点）

3.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
1)

the leading spokesman for Transcendentalism(
识记，重点
).
2)

Nature
:
“
the manifesto of American transcendentalism
”
(
理解，重点
).;
3)

Essays
(First serirs,1941, Second series,1844):
“
The Over-soul
”
,
“
Compensation
”
,
Self-
Reliance
(
from
which
comes
the
idea
“
Trust
thyself
’
);
“
The Poet
”
.
（识记，一般）

4)

Representative Men
（识记，一般）

5)

Address:
“
The American Scholar
”
( called America
’
s
“
intellectual
Declaration of Independence
”
);
“
Divinity School Address
”
. (
识记，次重
点
)
6)

His poetry
（识记，一般）

7)

His style
（识记，一般）

4.

Margret Fuller: first editor of
The Dial
, author of
Woman in the Nineteenth
Century
(advocating for women
’
s rights)
（识记，一般）

5.

Henry David Thoreau:
1)

today
primary
remembered
for
two
of
his
works:
Walden

and
the
essay
“
Civil
Disobedience
”
. (
识记，重点
)

2)

Nature and Implications of Thoreau
’
s revolt as revealed in
Walden
and
“
Civil Disobedience
”

（理解，重点）

3)

Thoreau
’
s style: thinking in imagery
（理解，一般）


Chapter 7Hawthorne, Melville and Poe


1.

Hawthorne, Melville and Poe are masters of
“
negative capability
”
.
（理解，
重点）

2.

Nathaniel Hawthorne
1)

Hawthorne
’
s moral vision
（理解，次重点）

2)

Hawthorne
’
s
themes:
sin
and
evil,
internal
contradiction,
male
withdrawal
from marriage
（识记，重点）

3)

Hawthorne
’
s
style:
1)
elevated
in
diction
and
restrained
in
rhetoric,
thus
graceful and polished; 2) allegory and symbol; 3) irony and ambiguity
（识
记，重点）

4)

Novels:
Scarlet Letter
（应用，重点）
; The House of Seven Gables
（识记，一
般）
; The Blithedale Romance
（识记，一般）
; The Marble Faun
（识记，一般）

5)

Short stories: Young Goodman Brown; The Minister
’
s Black Veil; Major
Molineux; Rappcinni
’
s Daughter; The Birthmark
（识记，一般）

3.

Herman Melville
1)

His major works:
Moby Dick
（应用，重点）

2)

Other works:
Typee; Omoo; Mardi; Redburn
（识记，一般）
;
Billy Budd
（理解，
次重点）

4.

Edgar Allen Poe
1)

Father of American detective stories
（识记，重点）
;
2)

His only novel:
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
（识记，一般）

3)

Gothic fiction: E.g.
The Fall of the House of Usher
（识记，一般）
;
4)

Short stories:
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
（识记，一般）

5)

Theme of his poems: Beauty associated with sadness (melancholy)
（应用，
重点）
. E.g.
The Raven; To Helen; Ulalume; Annabel Lee
（识记，一般）


Chapter 8Whitman and Dickinson

Whitman
1) free verse
（理解，重点）

2) Collected poems:
Leaves of Grass
（识记，重点）

E.g.
Song of Myself (celebrating the Self and Individualism)
（理解，重点）

O Captain! My Captain! (in mourning of Lincoln)
（识记，次重点）

2. Emily Dickinson; wrote nearly 2000poems,but fewer than 20 were published
1) Recluse of Amherst
（识记，重点）

2) Themes of her poems: individualism and spirituality; suffering, dying and death
（
识记，
次重点）

3) style: short words and phrases separated and joined by dashes.
（识记，一般）


Chapter 9A House Divided: Writing Against Slavery

1. Harriet Beecher Stowe (Lincoln called her “the little lady who made this big war), author of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
(1851-1852)
（理解，重点）

2. Frederick Douglass:
Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
(1845)
（识记，
次重
点）

3. Harriet Ann Jacobs :
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
(1861)
（识记，一般）



Part 3American Realism 1865
—
1914

Chapter10The Age of Realism

1. subdivided into two periods: the period of an expanding continental nation from 1865 till the
1890s and the “progressive period” from the 1890s to 1914.
（识记，一般）

2. Realism as a broader term is also inclusive of naturalism, regionalism and local color writing.
（识记，一般）

3. Parameters (characteristics ) ofRealism
（运用，重点）


Chapter 11 Regional and Local color Writing

1. Mark Twain
1) Four Types of his writing:

A) personalized fiction (
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn; The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-
day; The Tragedy of Puddd’nhead Wilson
)
（理解，
重点）

B) Travel fiction (
The Innocents Abroad; Roughing It; A Tramp Abroad; Life on the
Mississippi; Following the Equator
)
（识记，一般）

C) Historical romance ( T
he Prince and The Pauper; A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court; Personal Reflections of Joan of Arc by the Sieur Louis Conte
)
（识记，
一般）

D) Tall tales (The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County; The Man that Corrupted
Hadleyburg)
（识记，次重点）

2
）
“All Modern literature come from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”
(Ernest Hemingway)
（识记，重点）


Chapter 12Henry James and William Dean Howells

1.

William Dean Howells
1)

held a central position in the development of American realism,
representative of Mid-western realism.
（识记，重点）

2)

His long essay of criticism: Criticism and Fiction
（识记，一般）

3)

Novels:
The
Rise
of
Silas
Lapham
(1885)
（识记，
重点）
; A Hazard of New Fortune
(1890)
（识记，一般）

2.

Henry James
1) Themes of his novels:
（识记，重点）

A. The international theme;
B. the emotion-of-life theme;
C. The artist theme;
D. psychological realism
2) Novels: Three of the best:
The Wings of Dove; The Ambassadors; The Golden Bowl
（识记，
次重点）

3) The two best-known novellas:
Daisy Miller; The Turn of the Screw
（识记，一般）

4) Other works:
The American; The Portrait of a Lady
（识记，次重点）


Chapter 13Literary Naturalism