【优质】美国文学复习大纲

2021年1月22日发(作者：赵焕臣)
㈠

The Significant Differences between British Literature and American Literature
⒈
non-existence of folk literature
⒉
the subject of American dream
⒊
strong concept of democracy, freedom, individualism, liberation of personality
⒋
diversity and complexity
⒌
rich flavor of life and civilian color
㈡


Periodization of American Literature
th
th
⒈
Early American Literature (17
century and 18
century)

①
The Literary Scene in Colonial America (ab.1607-1765)
②
Literature of Enlightenment and Revolution (1765-1790s)
th_
⒉
19
century American Literature (1st golden time)
1) Romanticism;
2)Realism; 3)Naturalism
th
⒊
American Literature of the 20
century and the present
1)modernism (2nd golden time); 2)postmodernism (3rd)
㈢

Outline of American Literature
⒈

Colonial Period (1607
—
1765)
⒉

Revolutionary Period (1765
—
1790s)
⒊

The Age of Romanticism (1800
—
1865)
⒋

The Age of Realism (1865
—
1918)
⒌

American Modernism (1918
—
1945)
⒍

Contemporary Literature (1945-- )
█
Colonial Period (1607-1765)
㈠
American Puritanism: one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American
literature.
㈡
Major writers
①
Captain John Smith
（约翰·史密斯

the first American writer
②
Anne Bradstreet (
安妮·布拉德斯特里特
) the first American woman poet a Puritan poet, once called
“Tenth Muse”

●
General features of Colonial Literature
(p15-p16)
a. Humble origins: diaries, histories, letters etc.
b. In content: serving either God or colonial expansion or both
c. In form: imitating English literary traditions
█
Literature of Reason and Revolution
㈠
Background
（从标题就可看出）

The Enlightenment Movement
The War of Independence
㈡

Major Writers and Works
①
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Poor Richard's Almanack
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
②
Thomas Paine (1737-1809
）

Common Sense
The American Crisis
③
Philip Freneau(1752-1832)
“Father of American Poetry”

“Pioneer of the New Romanticism”


㈢
Nature lyrics:
The Wild Honey Suckle
The Indian Burying Ground
█
Romantism 1800--- 1861/1865

㈠
The phase of New England Transcendentalism is the summit of American Romanticism.
㈡
Classification of the Romantic Writers
⒈
Early Romantic writers/ pioneers
Washington Irving
James Fenimore Cooper
⒉
Edgar Allan Poe
⒊
Transcendentalists
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
⒋
Novelists
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Harrite Beecher Stowe
⒌
Poets
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson

●
Washington Irving
⒈
the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame
⒉
the father of American short stories
⒊
Major Works
①
A History of New York
《纽约外史》

②
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon
《见闻札记》
a collection of essays and short stories
③“Rip Van Winkle” 《瑞普·凡·温克尔》

④“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” 《睡谷的传说》

●
James Fenimore Cooper
⒈
Frontier Novel
⒉
the first authors to write about the Frontier Novelone of American Westward movement and introduced
the
“
Western
”
tradition into American literature
⒊
Works:
Leatherstocking Tales
《皮袜子故事集》

The Pioneers
The Last of The Mohicans
The Prairie
The Pathfinder
The Deerslayer
●
Edgar Allan Poe
⒈
the first author in American literature to make the neurotic the hero and the protagnist
⒉
Father of psychoanalytic criticism(
精神分析
) and detective story
⒊
Poetic Theory
①
chief aim -- beauty
②
the most beautiful thing described by a poem is the death of a beautiful woman;
③
the desirable tone of a poem is melancholy
●
Ralph Waldo Emerson
⒈
Ralph Waldo Emerson is the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism.
⒉
Major Works:
①
Nature
the manifesto or the Bible of New England Transcendentalism
②
The American Scholar
America
’
s Declaration of Intellectual Independence
●
Nathaniel Hawthorne
⒈
Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter ---- A
⒉
The scarlet letter
⒊
This change is significant. It shows the moral growth of Prynn.
⒋
The
letter
“
A
”
begins
as
a
symbol
of
sin--adultery.
It
then
becomes
a
symbol
of
alone
and
alienation,
and finally it becomes a symbol of able, angel and admirable
●
Herman Melville
⒈
Symbolism in Moby Dick (p86)
⒉
The voyage--search for the ultimate truth
⒊
The white whale-- mixture of evil and goodness
⒋
Its whiteness--paradoxical color, death and corruption as well as purity, innocence, and youth
⒌
To Ahab: A symbol of evil
⒍
To Ishmael: Moby-dick is the embodiment of the mysterious nature or universe.
●
Walt Whitman
⒈
Leaves of Grass

In
terms
of
poetic
form,
he
advocated
a
completely
new
and
completely
American
form
of
poetic
expression
—

free verse(it is a kind of poetry that does not conform to any regular meter: the length of its lines
is irregular, as is its use of rhyme--- if any.)
●
Emily Dickinson
⒈
Themes in Dickinson
’
s poetry
Death and immortality
Nature
Beauty, truth and goodness
love
█
Three Giants in Realistic Period
⒈
William Dean Howells

“Dean of American Realism”

The Rise of Silas Lapham
⒉
Henry James
①
Psychological realism

②
The Portrait of a Lady
–
forerunner of the stream-of-consciousness and psychological realism

③
Daisy Miller --first of international theme
⒊
Mark Twain--local colorism
⒋
Major Works of Mark Twain
①
The Gilded Age (1873)
②
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer(1876)
③
Life on the Mississippi(1883)
④
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1884)
●
American Naturalism
⒈
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
Novels: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893)
⒉
The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
⒊
Frank Norris (1870 -- 1902)
Mcteague
《麦克提格》

●
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)