常耀信美国文学知识点

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清教思想及美国浪漫主义文学

清教思想及美国浪漫主义文学摘要：一个民族文学的产生、发展和繁荣受到方方面面的影响。

思想、文化、风俗、道德习惯和价值观念等对文学都有重要的影响。

美国文学从其萌芽状态起就受到清教思想的强烈影响，清教思想在美国文学中起着极为重要的作用，它对美国文学的影响是极为深刻和广泛的。

清教思想影响着美国文学的主题、目的、语言等诸多方面。

探讨清教思想与美国文学的关系对于了解美国的社会文化传统、价值观念，以及正确理解文学作品都有着不可忽视的意义。

关键词：清教思想美国浪漫主义文学深刻影响一、前言在北美大陆上生活的土著居民是印第安人。

自从15世纪末哥伦布发现这块新大陆后，这里便成为欧洲人向往的理想之地。

欧洲的文艺复兴和宗教改革使人们冲破黑暗，充满冒险精神和进取精神，开始把目光投向大洋彼岸。

进入17世纪，一批批欧洲移民来到美洲大陆定居。

这些欧洲移民虽然不全是清教徒，但清教徒人数占移民人数的大多数，而且居于主导地位。

他们心中都有一种神圣的使命感激励和鼓舞着他们。

也正是从这时起，清教思想开始在这些人的生活、习俗、文化、个性特征乃至文学作品中得到体现，成为美国文学中的一种思想史。

二、清教思想与美国浪漫主义文学美国浪漫主义文学大致从18世纪末延续到19世纪60年代美国内战爆发，从欧文的《随笔》（The Sketches）发表开始到惠特曼的《草叶集》（Leaves of Grass）发表结束。

浪漫主义文学是美国文学史上一个伟大的兴盛时期，因而也被称为“美国的文艺复兴”时期。

这期间涌现出一大批伟大的作家，如华盛顿・欧文、爱默生、霍桑、梭罗、麦尔维尔、惠特曼等。

美国浪漫主义文学的顶峰期被称为超验主义，也称先验主义。

新英格兰的超验主义文学是外国影响与美国本土清教传统相结合的产物。

超验主义强调“超灵”或“上帝”，把超灵看作是宇宙中最重要的东西，人的精神和自然界都是与这一精神相通的，自然是精神或上帝的象征。

伴随超验主义这一观点而来的便是对自然崇高思想的强调，对个人神圣和自力更生思想的强调。

“我很喜欢朗费罗”——英美文学专家常耀信教授访谈

一
个新世界。国家经济由农业经济向商品经济
【关键词】常耀信；朗费罗；时代背景；革新
中图分类号：Ｉ１０６文献标志码：Ａ文章编号：１６７３ — ８００４（２０１４）０３ — ００００ — ０５
２０１３年６月２２日。在首都经贸大学遇到现任教于中国南开大学及美国关
柳：也就是说时代的背景造就了朗费罗。常：是的，我们研究一位作家要注意时代背景的变化，人们欣赏品味的变化，以及文学批评
的影响。
为“ 西移运动” （ｔｈｅｗｅｓｔｗａｒｄｍｏｖｅｍｅｎｔ）的发展过
岛大学的常耀信教授，常教授今年７３岁，微笑祥和，精神矍铄，很有亲和力。
能够近距离地感受常教授的人格魅力，让我有个想法，抓住机会，做一个有关美国ｌ９世纪诗人朗费罗研究的访谈。这次看似随意的谈话，却处处闪耀着常教授治学智慧的光芒和学问的精湛，现将访谈录音笔记整理，以飨学术界研
对朗费罗做了很多具体的介绍，这一点您与其他
编写者不同。在其他的文学史中对朗费罗都是轻
们处于一种思想混乱的状态，期望有人能给他们
以慰藉和生气，给他们指明方向。朗费罗的诗作适应了人们的这种心理需要，因而成为他那个时代

美国文学教学大纲

海南师范学院本科英语专业理论课教学大纲：美国文学课程编号：03101026 学时：36 学分：2一、课程的性质和任务《美国文学史及选读》是英语语言文学专业（本科）的一门专业知识必修课。

它简要介绍了美国文学从十七世纪殖民时期到二十世纪的发展历史及其主要作品。

本课程是英语专业的专业基础课，目标是：通过文学史的教学拓宽学生的知识面，提高学生的文学修养，使学生了解英美文学各个历史时期的文艺思潮、文学流派、主要作家和作品；通过美国文学作品的教学，提高学生对英文原著的理解能力、鉴赏能力，培养学生发现问题、分析问题和解决问题的能力；通过课外实践活动，激发学生的文学兴趣，培养学生的文学鉴赏和批评能力及论文写作能力二、相关课程的衔接本课程是为英语专业高年级学生开设的，学生必须具有良好的英语阅读和理解基本功方能顺利地学习该课程，与此同时，它与美国历史、文化、社会背景等关系密切，因此，学生先期完成英语听说读写等技能训练基本课程，相关衔接课程有《英国文学》，《英语国家概况》《跨文化交际》等课程。

三、教学的基本要求1．了解美国文学发展史上的重要时期和阶段，包括殖民地时期、独立战争时期、浪漫主义时代、南北战争时期和两次世界大战前后文学现象及特征。

2．了解各个重要发展阶段的代表作家及作品，熟知其内容、风格和艺术价值及其在世界文学史上的重要地位。

3．了解伴随美国文学各个阶段产生的文艺批评思潮，提高学生的文艺理论水平。

四、教学方法与重点、难点教学方法：教学方法以课堂讲授为主，辅以讨论，并要求学生在课外大量阅读参考书，撰写读书报告及评论课上充分利用网络资源及现代化教学手段，使学生能够积极主动地进行学习本课程的重点与难点相对来说是一致的从时段上来说，19世纪20年代以后的美国文学由于处于第二次繁荣时期，对于美国文学的历史走向曾发生了相当重要的影响，自然是本课程的重点而这一阶段的文学语言丰富、色彩各异，且与哲学、史学、艺术学等结合得比较紧密，所以这一时期的文学作品在语言上和思想上都具备一定的难度，是本课程的难点所在另外，后现代文学作品的出现也增加了学生阅读的难度，因此了解后现代作品的创作手法，写作动机也是本科的一个难点解决的办法主要是在专业基础课之外，定期安排专家讲学，题目多涉及与课程难度相关的内容，旨在拓宽学生的知识面，使学生对特定时期的美国文学有一个历史层面上的深刻把握，从而有助于理解作品的语言和思想另外，课程组加强“英美文化”的教学力度和课外阅读的范围，在教学框架中将文学和文化结合起来，使学生在浓厚的异域文化氛围中感受美国文学，从而对深化对文学作品的理解从流派上说，《美国文学》课程的重点和难点都集中在流派嬗变的历史规律、流派与流派之间的关系、各流派的形成背景、形成历史以及体制特点美国文学各流派的继承性从总体上来说表现得相当明显，但对具体的继承与创造的关系尚缺乏充分的整理和研究我们的解决办法是：在分阶段的文学史教学过程中，充分梳理各文学流派的历史，从中概括流派的特性和历史以及与其他流派的区别我们开设有多门分阶段文学史的课程，目的就是在目前“横”的文学史的基础上，加强“纵”的线索，使学生形成纵横兼备的知识体系。

美国文学与拉美文学： - 语法文献库管理系统

美国文学与拉美文学参考书目1.沃尔特·惠特曼著：《草叶集》，世界图书出版公司，2010年。

2.沃尔特·惠特曼著，马永波译：《典型的日子》，中国国际广播出版社，2009年。

3.埃德加·爱伦·坡著：《爱伦•坡短篇故事全集》，上海世界图书出版公司，2008年。

4.纳撒尼尔·霍桑著，王元媛译：《红字》，长江文艺出版社，2006年。

5.纳撒尼尔·霍桑著，胡允桓译：《玉石人像》，百花洲文艺出版社，2009年。

6.赫尔曼·麦尔维尔著，曹庸译：《白鲸》，长江文艺出版社， 2006年。

7.赫尔曼·麦尔维尔著，马惠琴，舒程译：《泰比》，文化艺术出版，2006年。

8.马克·吐温著，成时译：《哈克贝利•费恩历险记》，人民文学出版社，1989年。

9.马克·吐温著，成时译：《汤姆•索亚历险记》，人民文学出版社，2008年。

10.马克·吐温著，董强译：《马克•吐温短篇小说集》，上海三联书店， 2010年。

11.马克·吐温著，张友松译，《百万英镑》，译林出版社，2008年。

12.马克·吐温著：《马克•吐温短篇小说选集》，世界图书出版公司，2008年。

13.豪威尔斯著，孙致礼 , 唐慧心译:《塞拉斯•拉帕姆的发迹》，译林出版社，2005年。

14.亨利.詹姆斯著，项星耀译：《一位女士的画像》，人民文学出版社，1984年。

15.杰克·伦敦著：《杰克·伦敦文集》，河北教育出版社，2000年。

16.杰克·伦敦著：《马丁·伊登》，上海译文出版社，1981年。

17.西奥图·德莱赛著：《嘉莉妹妹》，世界图书出版公司，2004年。

18.西奥图·德莱赛著，傅东华译：《珍妮姑娘》，上海世纪出版集团，2001年。

19.西奥图·德莱赛著：《斯多葛》，译林出版社，2005年。

英语专业考研英美文学考研经验

英语专业考研英美文学考研经验作为一名成功上岸英语专业英美文学方向的考研人，我深知这条道路的艰辛与不易。

在这里，我想把自己的备考经验分享给大家，希望能对正在备考的学弟学妹们有所帮助。

首先，我们来谈谈为什么选择英美文学这个方向。

对于我来说，英美文学就像是一扇通往不同世界的大门，通过阅读那些经典的作品，我能够感受到不同文化的魅力，了解到人类思想的深邃和多样性。

而且，研究英美文学能够提升我的语言能力和文学素养，这对于未来从事相关领域的工作或者进一步深造都具有重要意义。

确定了考研方向后，接下来就是制定合理的学习计划。

我的备考时间大致分为基础阶段、强化阶段和冲刺阶段。

在基础阶段，重点是打牢基础。

英语方面，我坚持每天背诵一定量的单词，使用的是《红宝书》和百词斩 APP，结合起来效果不错。

语法方面，重温了张道真的语法书，确保自己对英语语法有清晰的理解。

对于英美文学的专业课，我认真阅读了常耀信的《美国文学简史》和刘炳善的《英国文学简史》，这两本书是基础中的基础，一定要仔细研读，做好笔记。

同时，还阅读了一些经典的文学作品，如《简·爱》《傲慢与偏见》《了不起的盖茨比》等，通过阅读原著来加深对文学作品的理解。

进入强化阶段，开始有针对性地进行复习。

英语方面，开始刷历年真题，尤其是阅读理解和写作部分。

阅读理解要认真分析错题原因，总结答题技巧；写作则要多积累一些常用的句型和词汇，并且每周写一篇作文进行练习。

专业课方面，根据之前做的笔记，梳理出知识框架，并且开始背诵重要的知识点。

同时，关注一些学术期刊和论文，了解最新的研究动态。

冲刺阶段主要是进行模拟考试和查漏补缺。

按照考试时间进行全真模拟，让自己适应考试的节奏。

对于模拟考试中暴露出来的问题，及时进行解决。

此外，还要再次回顾重点知识点，强化记忆。

接下来，说说各科目的具体备考方法。

英语这门科目，词汇是重中之重。

除了前面提到的背单词方法，还可以通过阅读英语文章来扩大词汇量。

美国文学简史American Literature Poetry

American Literature: PoetryINTRODUCTIONAmerican Literature: Poetry, verse in English that originates from the territory now known as the United States. American poetry differs from British or English poetry chiefly because America’s culturally diver se traditions exerted pressure on the English language, altering its tones, diction, forms, and rhythms until something identifiable as American English emerged. American poetry is verse written in this form of English.The term American poetry is in some ways a contradiction. America represents a break with tradition and the invention of a new culture separate from the European past. Poetry, on the other hand, represents tradition itself, a long history of expression carried to America from a European past. American poetry thus embodies a clearly identifiable tension between tradition and innovation, past and future, and old forms and new forms. American poetry remains a hybrid, a literature that tries to separate itself from the tradition of English literature even as it adds to and alters that tradition.American poetry could be defined differently, however, especially if it is not limited to poetry in English. Without that qualifying term, American poetry has its origins in the rich oral traditions of Native American cultures. Each of these cultures developed complex symbolic tales of the origins and history of its people, akin to epic poems in the European tradition. These tales were performed as part of rituals and passed on through memorization from one generation to the next. Some of them have been translated into English. Yet these works tend to vanish from most histories of American poetry because they were part of ongoing performances based in spoken rather than written language. Moreover, their rhythms and sounds are bound to the native languages in which they evolved.Other cultures have contributed to the rich heritage of American poetry. Spanish-language poetry has been produced in America from the time of the earliest Spanish explorers to current Hispanic and Chicano and Chicana poetry. American poetry traditions also have thrived in many other languages, from Chinese to Yiddish, as the result of centuries of immigration to the United States.But most people mean by American poetry those rhythmic, memorable, and significant verse forms composed in English in the United States or in lands that became the United States. This overview of more than 300 years of American poetry tracks the creation of a national literature identifiably different from that of any other nation. In the 1600s colonial poets responded to the challenges of their new world and expressed the hopes and fears of Europeans who settled there. In the years following the Declaration of Independence (1776) American poets created a patriotic poetry as a defining literature for the new nation. A powerful new kind of poetry flowered in the mid- and late 19th century among the first poets to be born and raised as actual citizens of the United States. American modernist poetry emerged in the first half of the 20th century, as many writers sought to subdue nationalist impulses in their poetry and define themselves as part of an international advance in the arts. Finally, in the second half of the 20th century a multiplicity of diverse voices redefined American poetry. For information on American prose or drama, see American Literature: Prose; American Literature: Drama.I I BEGINNINGS: 1600S THROUGH THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION(1775-1783)From the beginning until well into the 19th century, widespread agreement existed that American poetry would be judged by British standards, and that poetry written in America was simply British poetry composed on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet in responding to British styles, American poetry took inspiration from the new physical environment and the evolving culture of the colonies. In the process it recorded a subtle shift from poets who were dependent imitators to poets who spoke for and in the language of the new nation.A New England PuritanPoetryPuritans who had settled in New England were the first poets of the American colonies. Most Puritan poets saw the purpose of poetry as careful Christian examination of their lives; and private poems, like Puritan diaries, served as a forum where the self could be measured daily against devout expectations. Puritan leaders deemed poetry a safe and inspiriting genre, since they considered the Bible itself to be God’s poetry. Thus poetry became the literary form that allowed devout believers to express, with God’s help, divine lessons. Other genres, such as drama and fiction, were considered dangerous, capable of generating lies and leading to idle entertainment instead of moral uplift.Puritan poets had grown up in England during a period when Christian epic poetry—culminating in Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton—was considered the highest literary accomplishment. When they came to America they maintained their cultural allegiances to Britain. Anne Bradstreet looked to British poets Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser; Edward Taylor looked to poets George Herbert and John Donne.Bradstreet was the first poet in America to publish a volume of poetry. The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America was published in England in 1650. Bradstreet had lived in England until 1630, when at the age of 18 she arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where she spent the rest of her life. Although Bradstreet wrote many poems on familiar British themes and produced skilled imitations of British forms, her most remarkable works responded directly to her experiences in colonial New England. They reveal her attraction to her new world, even as the discomforts of life in the wilderness sickened her. Her poetry contains a muted declaration of independence from the past and a challenge to authority.Although Bradstreet’s verses on the burning of her house in 1666 and poems on the death of three grandchildren end by reaffirming the God-fearing Puritan belief system, along the way they also question the harsh Puritan God. Further, Brads treet’s work records early stirrings of female resistance to a social and religious system in which women are subservient to men. In “The Prologue” (1650), Bradstreet writes, “I am obnoxious to each carping tongue / Who says my hand a needle better fits, / [than] A poet’s pen.…” Bradstreet’s instincts were to love this world more than the promised next world of Puritan theology, and her struggle to overcome her love for the world of nature energizes her poetry.Taylor, a poet of great technical skill, wrote powerful meditative poems in which he tested himself morally and sought to identify and root out sinful tendencies. In “God's Determinations Touching His Elect” (written 1680?), one of Taylor’s most important works, he celebrates God's power in the triump h of good over evil in the human soul. All of Taylor’s poetry and much of Bradstreet’s served generally personal ends, and their audience often consisted of themselves andtheir family and closest friends. This tradition of private poetry, kept in manuscript and circulated among a small and intimate circle, continued throughout the colonial period, and numerous poets of the 17th and 18th centuries remained unknown to the general public until long after their deaths. For them, poetry was a kind of heightened letter writing that reaffirmed the ties of family and friends. Taylor’s poems remained unpublished until 1939, when The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor appeared. Many of Bradstreet’s most personal poems also remained unpublished during her lifetime.Public poetry for the Puritans was more didactic or instructive in nature and often involved the transformation into verse of important biblical lessons that guided Puritan belief. Poet and minister Michael Wigglesworth wrote theological verse in ballad meter, such as The Day of Doom (1662), which turned the Book of Revelation into an easily memorized sing-song epic. Puritan poetry also included elaborate elegies,or poems honoring a person who had recently died. Puritans used these poems to explore the nature of the self, reading the character of the dead person as a text and seeing the life as a collection of hidden meanings.B SouthernSatireColonial poets of the 18th century still looked to British poets of their time, such as Alexander Pope and Ambrose Philips. Both were masters of pastoral verse—poetry that celebrated an idealized English countryside and rural life—and of satirical verse. Initially, this satiric tone was more prevalent in the southern colonies than in New England.Two poets from the Maryland Colony, Ebenezer Cook and Richard Lewis, wrote accomplished satirical poems based on British pastoral models. But their poems cleverly undermine those models by poking fun at the British. Cook’s The Sot-Weed Factor (1708) is a long narrative poem written in rhyming couplets that mocks Americans as a backward people but aims its satire most effectively at the poem’s narrator, who is a British snob. Americans may be laughable, Cook suggests, but they are not as ridiculous as the British with their ignorance and prejudice about Americans.C Revolutionary Era PatrioticPoetryA penchant for satire continued in the American Revolutionary era, when American poetry was centered on Connecticut and a group of poets known as the Connecticut Wits (or Hartford Wits). This group, most of whose members were associated with Yale University, included David Humphreys, John Trumbull, and Joel Barlow. Along with other writers they produced The Anarchiad (1786-1787), a mock epic poem warning against the chaos that would ensue if a strong central government, as advocated by the Federalists, was not implemented in the United States. American poets used the British literary model of the mock epic as a tool to satirize and criticize British culture. Trumbull’s mock epic M’Finga l (1775-1782) lampooned the British Loyalists during the Revolution.Revolutionary-era poets composed more than satire, however. They felt an urgency to produce a serious—even monumental—national poetry that would celebrate the country’s new democratic ideals. Epic poems, they believed, would confer importance and significance on the new nation’s culture. Educated in the classics, these poets were also lawyers, ministers, and busy citizens of the new republic. They did not bother with the question whether a new nation required new forms of poetry, but were content to use traditional forms to write about new subjects in orderto create the first truly American poetry. Whereas traditional epics celebrated past accomplishments of a civilization, American epics by necessity celebrated the future. Examples of such epics include Barlow’s The Vision of Columbus(1787), later revised as The Columbiad (1807); Greenfield Hill (1794) by clergyman Timothy Dwight; and The Rising Glory of America (1772) by Philip Freneau. All offered the prospect of America as the future culmination of civilization.Freneau, the most accomplished patriot poet, was not associated with Connecticut. He was born in New York City and later lived in a variety of places. His range of experience and clarity of expression made him a very popular poet, widely regarded as the first poet who spoke for the entire country. Much of his poetry focused on America’s future greatness, but he also wrote on other subjects, including the beauties of the natural w orld. Such lyric poems as “The Wild Honey Suckle” (1786) and “On a Honey Bee” (1809), can be seen as the first expressions in American poetry of a deep spiritual engagement with nature.D Early BlackVoicesSlavery was the great contradiction in the new nation that had affirmed in its Declaration of Independence a basic belief that “all men are created equal” and have “inalienable” rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Many of the country’s early leaders believed that African slaves were intellectually inferior to whites. Phillis Wheatley, a Boston slave, challenged those racist assumptions early on. Brought to America as a young girl, Wheatley was educated by her masters in English and Latin. She became an accomplished poet, and her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral(1773) was published in England. Like the white patriot poets, Wheatley wrote in 18th-century literary forms. But her highly structured and elegant poetry nonetheless expressed her frustration at enslavement and desire to reach a heaven where her color and social position would no longer keep her from singing in her full glory.Wheatley’s poetry, along with that of other slaves, begins a powerful African American tradition in American poetry. In 1746 Lucy Terry, a slave in Massachusetts who was also educated by her owner, wrote the first poem to be published by a black American: 'Bar's Fight.' The poem, which was not published until 1855, describes the victims and survivors of a Native American raid against settler s. It was followed by Jupiter Hammon’s biblically inspired, hymnlike verse, “An Evening Thought; Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries” (1761).Born at the time of the founding of the nation, African American poetry retained its concern with the burning issues of the American Revolution, including liberty, independence, equality, and identity. It also expressed African American experiences of divided loyalties. Just as white Americans experienced divided loyalties in the republic’s early years—unsure whether their identity derived from the new country or from their European past—so too did African Americans, who looked always to their African past and to their problematic American present.I IITHE 19TH CENTURYThe 19th century began with high hopes for poetic accomplishment. The first comprehensive anthologies of American poetry appeared in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s. In the first half of the century poets sought to entertain, to inform, and to put into memorable language America’s history, myths, manners, and topography, but they did not seek to forge a radical new poetic tradition. Their poetry built upon tradition, and they met the first great goal of American poetry:that it be able to compete in quality, intelligence, and breadth with British poetry. But just as they achieved this goal, poetic aspirations began to change. By the mid-19th century the new goal for American poetry was to create something very different from British poetry. Innovative poets, particularly Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, led the way.A The FiresidePoetsWilliam Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and John Greenleaf Whittier constituted a group sometimes called the Fireside Poets. They earned this nickname because they frequently used the hearth as an image of comfort and unity, a place where families gathered to learn and tell stories. These tremendously popular poets also were widely read around the hearthsides of 19th-century American families. The consensus of American critics was that the Fireside Poets first put American poetry on an equal footing with British poetry.Bryant gained public recognition first and is best remembered for “Thanatopsis,” published in 1821 but written when he was a teenager. Still widely anthologized, this poem offers a democratic reconciliation with death as the great equalizer and a recognition that the “still voice” of God is embodied in all processes of nature. During a busy life as a lawyer and editor of the New York Evening Post, Bryant wrote accomplished, elegant, and romantic descriptions of a nature suffused with spirit.Longfellow was the best known of the Fireside Poets, and it was with him that American poetry began its emergence from the shadow of its British parentage. His poetic narratives helped create a national historical myth, transforming colorful aspects of the American past into memorable romance. They include Evangeline (1847), which concerns lovers who are separated during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and The Song of Hiawatha (1855), which derives its themes from Native American folklore. No American poet before or since was as widely celebrated during his or her lifetime as Longfellow. He became the first and only American poet to be honored with a bust in the revered Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey in London, England.The accomplishments of the other Fireside Poets were various. Lowell’s Biglow Papers (1848) added to the American tradition of long satirical poems. Holmes wrote several memorable short po ems such as “The Chambered Nautilus” (1858). Whittier became best known for Snow-Bound (1866), a long nostalgic look at his Massachusetts Quaker boyhood, when the family gathered around the fireside during a snowstorm.B AbolitionistPoetryDuring the 19th century, black and white poets wrote about the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of slaves. George Moses Horton, a North Carolina slave, was the first Southern black poet. Joshua McCarter Simpson was a black poet from Ohio whose memorable songs of emancipation were set to popular tunes and sung by fugitive slaves. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper wrote passionate abolitionist and early feminist poems that called both blacks and whites to action against oppression. James M. Whitfield wrote powerful poems criticizing America for its failure to live up to its ideals. In his long poem “America” (1853), he writes: “America, it is to thee, / Thou boasted land of liberty,— / It is to thee I raise my song, / Thou land of blood, and crime, and wrong.”Black poets at this time appropriated the language and style of the predominantly white, mainstream patriotic America. In using mainstream language, these black poets showed their white audiences how differently songs of liberty and freedom sounded from the perspective of those who had been left out of the “all men are created equal” equation. Black poets also often expressed themselves with irony and ambiguity so that different audiences heard different intonations and meanings, a double voicing that would become central to later African American writing.White abolitionist poets, from their more privileged social position, could afford to be more confrontational about the issue of slavery. Whittier was a fiery abolitionist whose numerous antislavery poems were collected in Voices of Freedom(1846). Longfellow’s Poems on Slavery (1842) forms a long-forgotten but illuminating contribution to the tradition of American political poems. Lowell also was an ardent abolitionist.C WaltWhitmanA newspaper reporter and editor, Whitman first published poems that were traditional in form and conventional in sentiment. In the early 1850s, however, he began experimenting with a mixture of the colloquial diction and prose rhythms of journalism; the direct address and soaring voice of oratory; the repetitions and catalogues of the Bible; and the lyricism, music, and drama of popular opera. He sought to write a democratic poetry—a poetry vast enough to contain all the variety of burgeoning 19th-century American culture.In 1855 Whitman published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, the book he would revise and expand for the rest of his life. The first edition contained only 12 untitled poems. The longest poem, which he eventually named “Song of Myself,” has become one of the mos t discussed poems in all of American poetry. In it Whitman constructs a democratic “I,” a voice that sets out to celebrate itself and the rapture of its senses experiencing the world, and in so doing to celebrate the unfettered potential of every individual in a democratic society. Emerging from a working class family, Whitman grew up in New York City and on nearby Long Island. He was one of the first working-class American poets and one of the first writers to compose poetry that is set in and draws its energy from the bustling, crowded, diverse streets of the city.Whitman later added a variety of poems to Leaves of Grass. They include “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (1856), in which Whitman addresses both contemporary and future riders of the ferry, and “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” (1860), a reverie about his boyhood on the shores of Long Island. Other poems were about affection between men and about the experiences and sufferings of soldiers in the Civil War (1861-1865).Whitman’s work was initially embraced more fully in Britain than in the United States. An influential 1872 anthology, American Poems, published in England and edited by English literary critic William Michael Rossetti, was dedicated to Whitman and gave him more space than any other poet. From then on American poetry was judged not by how closely it approximated the best British verse, but by how radically it divorced itself from British tradition. Rough innovation came to be admired over polished tradition.D EmilyDickinsonEmily Dickinson, along with Whitman, is one of the most original and demanding poets in American literature. Living her whole life in Amherst, Massachusetts, Dickinson composed nearly2,000 short, untitled poems. Despite her productivity, only a handful of Dickinson’s poems were published before her death in 1886. Most of her poems borrow the repeated four-line, rhymed stanzas of traditional Christian hymns, with two lines of four-beat meter alternating with two lines of three-beat meter. A master of imagery that makes the spiritual materialize in surprising ways, Dickinson managed manifold variations within her simple form: She used imperfect rhymes, subtle breaks of rhythm, and idiosyncratic syntax and punctuation to create fascinating word puzzles, which have produced greatly divergent interpretations over the years.Dickinson’s intensely private poems cover a wide range of subjects and emotions. She was fascinated with death, and many of her poems struggle with the contradictions and seeming impossibility of an afterlife. She carries on an argument with God, sometimes expressing faith in him and sometimes denying his existence. Many of her poems record moments of freezing paralysis that could be death, pain, doubt, fear, or love. She remains one of the most private and cryptic voices in American literature.Because of Dickinson’s prominence, it sometimes seems that she was the only female poet in America in the 19th century. Yet nearly a hundred women published poetry in the first six decades of the 1800s, and most early anthologies of American poetry contained far more women writers than appeared in anthologies in the first half of the 20th century. Dickinson’s work can be better understood if read in the context of these poets.Lydia Huntley Sigourney was a popular early-19th-century poet whose work set the themes for other female poets: motherhood, sentiment, and the ever-present threat of death, particularly to children. She developed, among other forms, the same hymn stanza that Dickinson used, although she experimented with fewer variations on it than Dickinson, and her poetry was simple and accessible. The work of Sigourney, along with that of Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Frances Sargent Locke Osgood, Alice and Phoebe Cary, and Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt, was dismissed by most 20th-century critics until feminist critics began to rediscover the ironic edge to what had before seemed to be conventional sentimentality. The work of these and other women poets offers a window into the way 19th-century culture constructed and understood such concepts as gender, love, marriage, and motherhood.Poe, Melville, andOthersOther poets who tried out distinctive new forms included Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville. Poe devoted great effort to writing poetry that was unlike anything before it. A careful craftsman, he examined in detail the effects that his every poetic choice had. Poe’s poetry earned little respect from his contemporaries, who dismissed him as “the jingle man.” He had, said Whitman, “the rhyming art to excess.” Yet Poe’s nightmarish scenes, unnerving plots, and probings of abnormal psychology gave his poetry, as well as his tales, a haunting, memorable quality that makes him one of the most admired innovators in American literature. The opening lines of his best-kno wn poem, “The Raven” (1845), demonstrate Poe’s love of rhyming and his use of varying rhythm: “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, / Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.”Melville, though much better known as a novelist, nonetheless wrote powerful poetry about the Civil War, collected in Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866). He later wrote a long and mysterious poem, Clarel (1876), about his search for faith, his struggle with doubt, and his anxiety about the decline of civilization.Lesser-known innovators of the 19th century include Jones Very, Sidney Lanier and Henry Timrod. Very was a Massachusetts poet who produced strikingly original religious sonnets. Lanier was a Georgia poet who sought to reproduce in language the effects of music. Timrod, a Southern poet who was known as “the laureate of the Confederacy,” wrote some notably original and dark poetry in the 1860s.Toward the 20thCenturyWhitman had hoped that his work would generate new energy in American poetry. But when he died in 1892, the American poetic scene was relatively barren. Most of the major poets had died and no successor to Whitman was emerging. William Vaughn Moody, a poet born in Indiana, wrote The Masque of Judgement(1900), which was the first in a series of verse dramas about humanity’s spiritual tortures and eventual spiritual victory. Stephen Crane, best known for his novels, published two volumes of poetry, The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895) and War Is Kind and Other Poems (1899). In their tone and fragmented form, his grim poems anticipate the concerns of many modern writers. But neither poet lived far into the 20th century.I VTHE 20TH CENTURYBy 1900 the United States was far different from the new nation it had been a hundred years earlier. Westward expansion, waves of immigration, and increasing urbanization all combined to create a physically larger, more populous, and far more diverse country than its founders could have imagined. These changes are tracked mor e visibly in America’s fiction than in its poetry, but the nation’s growing diversity is evident in the diverse voices of 20th-century American poets. American poetry in the opening decades of the century displayed far less unity than most anthologies and critical histories indicate. Shifting allegiances, evolving styles, and the sheer number of poets make it difficult to categorize 20th-century poetry.A RegionalismIn the last decades of the 19th century, American literature had entered a period of regionalism, exploring the stories, dialects, and idiosyncrasies of the many regions of the United States. Dialect poetry—written in exaggerated accents and colorful idioms—became a sensation for a time though it produced little of lasting value. However, one major poet who rose to fame on the basis of his dialect poems was Paul Laurence Dunbar, a black writer from Ohio. Dunbar’s dialect poems, which romanticized the life of slaves in the pre-Civil War South, were extremely popular. His volumes Oak and Ivy (1893) and Majors and Minors(1895) brought attention to African American literature, although the dialect poems later embarrassed many black poets. Dunbar also wrote many nondialect poems, and through his work initiated an important debate in African American literature about what voices and materials black writers should employ.Other regions and groups developed their own distinctive voices. Kansas-born Edgar Lee Masters achieved success with Spoon River Anthology(1915). His poetic epitaphs (commemorations) capture the hidden passions, deceits, and hopes of Midwesterners buried in the fictional Spoon River cemetery. Edwin Arlington Robinson explored the lives of New Englanders in his fictional Tilbury Town through dramatic monologues—poems written entirely in the voice。

【分析】厄舍府的倒塌罗德瑞克精神分析

【关键字】分析《厄舍府的倒塌》罗德瑞克性格分析文献综述08外国语学院英语（6）班20082277 邹艳玲艾德加. 爱伦.坡在《爱伦坡短篇小说集》说到“坡是美国著名小说家,其作品多讲述恐惧和死亡,是正面描写这一主题的卓越代表。

其故事中的男性多是思维敏捷、多疑敏感而又忧郁的;女性则多是美丽的,但这种美总是和死亡紧密联系。

”常耀信在《美国文学简史》中提到“坡在营造恐怖氛围的同时,深入探索人大脑最隐秘处无意识和潜意识的精神活动, 展示了人物从心理变态到精神过程, 英国小说家D. H.劳伦斯称此为心灵的分裂过程”. 程爱民在20 世纪英美文学论稿认为“《厄舍府的倒塌》中的主要人物---罗德瑞克和玛德琳,作为双胞胎他们外表相似,性格却截然不同”。

文章运用朱刚.在二十世纪西方文艺批评理论谈到的“二元对立”的角度解读小说中罗德瑞克这一角色的性格复杂性。

”首先,在塑造两人性格时作家所运用的手法不同。

罗的角色在小说中是显性,他的性格也是显性的。

而对于妹妹玛德琳,所有关于她的信息都是从哥哥罗德瑞克的只言片语和最后那一幕的垂死挣扎中得来,因此妹妹玛德琳是小说中的隐性角色,其性格也是隐性的,读者只能通过兄妹两人的对比来了解玛德琳的形象和性格。

妹妹玛德琳作为一个隐性角色,其作用主要是更好地衬托和表现出哥哥罗德瑞克这个显性角色的复杂性格。

孙维林在致命的自恋人格认为“哥哥罗德瑞克极端自恋,妹妹只是哥哥心中一部分自我的影射”，罗德瑞克自恋性格的表现除了正常的情感之外,罗德瑞克似乎什么都有了:金钱、智慧、才能、甚至还有男子中并不多见的美貌,因此他有自恋的“资本”。

内向的性格特征决定了罗德瑞克不可能像一般的自恋者那样处处炫耀,但这些特点还是表现在他的一举一动中。

比如,他缺乏与他人真诚交流的能力,周围的人都被他当作了可利用的工具。

罗德瑞克以软硬兼施的口气让多年不见的朋友赶来陪他只是为了缓解自己的焦虑感。

表面看来他们是亲密的朋友,但他病态自恋的人格就像一堵无法逾越的墙,使他们之间不可能产生真正的思想交流。

《红字》中的人名寓意解析

《红字》中的人名寓意解析口河南大学大学外语教学部王玲摘要：在英美文学作品中，人物特殊的命名是一种常见的写作手法。

１９世纪美国浪漫主义作家霍桑在其代表作＜红字》中就运用了各种不同方法来为四个主要人物（ＨｅｓｔｅｒＰｒｙｎｎｅ。

ＡｒｔｈｕｒＤｉｍｍｅｓｄａｌｅ，ＲｏｇｅｒＣｈ越ｎ删ｏｒｄｌ，Ｐｅａｄ）命名。

从而让他们代表着善恶美丑等种种不同的道德寓意。

这些名字都蕴舍着作者为揭示作品人物性格和命运而煞费苦心为他们赋予特殊命名的苦心。

本文力图通过准确地揭示出这些人名的寓意来帮助读者更全面深入地把握作品的主题。

关键词：主题；象征意义；特殊命名；寓意在英美文学作品中．人物特殊的命名是一种常见的写作手法。

正如余江涛、张瑞德等编译的《西方文学术语词典》所言：“塑造人物有多种方法。

最简单的一种就是给人物命名。

每一个‘称呼’都可以使人物变得生动活泼、栩栩如生和富于个性。

有的给人物起绰号，有的根据人物的性格特征命名．有的根据人物外貌或生理特点等命名”。

在当年英国作家威廉．朗格伦的《农夫彼尔斯》和约翰．班扬的＜天路历程》这类宗教小说中，就曾把七大罪恶或人的品德变成具体人物登场。

美国十九世纪杰出的浪漫主义小说家霍桑在其代表作《红字》中所采用的象征比拟笔法则是在此基础上的创新。

为了让小说中的人物形象丰富多彩。

他采取了种种方法为四个主要人物（ＨｅｓｔｅｒＰｒｙｎｎｅ，ＡｒｔｈｕｒＤｉｍｍｅｓｄａｌｅ，ＲｏｇｅｒＣｈｉｌｌｉｎｇｗｏｒｔｈ，Ｐｅａｒｌ）命名，从而让他们代表着善恶美丑等种种不同的道德寓意。

这些名字都蕴含着作者为揭示作品人物性格和命运而煞费苦心为他们赋予特殊命名的苦心。

本文力图通过准确地揭示出这些人名的寓意来帮助读者更全面深入地把握作品的主题。

‘—’ＨｅｓｔｅｒＰｒｙｎｎｅ仅从女主角海斯特的名字——－Ｈｅ８ｔｅｒ．我们可以推测出她的形象和性格特征。

首先，看到Ｈｅｓｔｅｒ这个名字，读者．便会把她与希腊神话中宙斯的姐姐Ｈａｓｔｉａ联系起来。

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Introduction1. The Youngest National Literature1781 (Independence War) --- 2012= about 200 years2. Great achievement: 1930-1980, nine American writers won the Nobel PrizeThe Periods of American Literature1.The colonial period (约1607 - 1765)2. The period of enlightenment and Independence War (1765-1800)3. The romantic period (1800 - 1865)4. The realistic period (1865 - 1914)5. The period of modernism (1914 - 1945)6. The Contemporary Literature (1945 -)Chapter I Colonial AmericaAmerican Puritanism❖1. The beliefs and practices characteristic of Puritans(most of whom were Calvinists who wished to purify the Church of England of its Catholic aspects)❖2. Strictness and austerity in conduct and religionPuritans’ religio us belief: Calvinism◆John Calvin, the great French theologian.The principal concepts:1) Original sin and total depravity.2) Predestination3) Salvation of selected few❖◆ The Puritans carried with them to America a code of values, a philosophy of life, and a point of view, which, in time, took root in the New world and became what is known as American Puritanism. (p11)The Influence of Puritanism on American Literature1) Idealism（optimism）2) Symbolism3) Simplicity in writingSignificance of Puritanism❖With time passing it became a dominant factor in American life, one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American Literature. To some extent it is a state of mind, a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes, rather than a set of tenets.Time: From the arrival of the first settlers in the early 17th century to the end of the 18th centuryLiterary Features1. FormsPersonal literature in various forms --- diaries, histories, common books (札记)，journals, letters, travel books, sermons etc.2. Content1) practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people “at home” what life waslike in the new world2) highly theoretical discussions of religious questions.3. StyleIn Style, English literary traditions were imitated and transplanted.Early writers in the colonial period❖John Smith, a captain, one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia; the writer of A Description of New England.❖William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth Plantation, his writing: Of Plymouth Plantation (P16)❖John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, In his famous speech A Model of Christian Charity ,he states that there was a agreement between God and his people of building a new Garden of Eden in the new world. (P17)Therefore let us choose life, 所以，让我们选择生活，that we and our seed 这样，我们和我们的后代，may live by obeying His 可以听从上帝的声音，voice and cleaving to Him, 须臾不离上帝，for He is our life and 因为，上帝是我们的生命，our prosperity. 我们的兴旺___John Winthrop (1588-1649)Major writers in the periodAnne Bradstreet (1612-1672)Thomas Paine (1737-1809)Philip Freneau (1752-1832)Charles Brockden BrownAnne Bradstreet(1617-1672)1. Life and WorksHer first volume: The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America 《美洲最近出现的第十个谬斯》She was known as the “Tenth Muse”2. Major contents of her poetry❖Description of the early settlers’ life in the new world e.g. “As Weary Pilgrim”❖Poems about the justice of God’s way with His Puritan flock; in search of man’s nature and destiny and his mission in the new world. e.g. “Upon the Burning of Our House”❖Poems to her husband and her children. e.g. “To My Dear and Loving Husband”❖《我侬词》管道升❖你侬我侬，忒煞情多；情多处，热似火；把一块泥，捻一个你，塑一个我。

将咱两个一齐打破，用水调和；再捻一个你，再塑一个我。

我泥中有你，你泥中有我：我与你生同一个衾，死同一个椁。

Characteristics of her poetry❖singularly puritan mode of perception; imitation of Spenser and the French poet Bartas.Contemplations (9)❖The poem P17-18❖Comment on the poem: (p18) When she heard the grasshopper and the cricket sing, she thought of this as their praising Creator and searched her own soul accordingly. It is evident that she saw something metaphysical inhering in the physical,a mode of perception which was singularly Puritan.Edward Taylor❖His poetic style: In his elaborate metaphors, he is like the English metaphysical poets, such as John Donne and George Herbert.❖His poetic content: He was first and last, a Puritan poet, concerned about how his images speak for God.Huswifery《家务》P19❖Metaphor: Spinning wheel in the control of the housewife is just like the Christians in the obedience of God.❖The theme of the poem: If you give your life over to god and make him your center, you will be accepted joyfully into His kingdom.Writers writing for religious freedom and American independenceRoger Williams (1603-1683)“the first rebel against the divine church order in the wilderness” (Cotto n Mather)❖“The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience” (1644): attacking the religious conformity and upholding the spiritual freedom of the individualJohn Woolman (1720-1772)A Quaker(“inner right”—convinced that true religion consisted in inward life); attacking all forms of iniquity, pleading for the rights of all men and for the abolition of the slavery system:❖“some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes”❖“A Plea for the Poor”❖Journal: recording his spiritual experiences of inward communication with God.Thomas Paine (1737-1809)coming to America at 37 with the letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin; an unflinching fighter for the rights of man; participating in the French Revolution; die in poverty in NY.❖His great gift as a stylist was “plainness”: It is my design to make those who can scarcely read understand.❖Common Sense❖American Crisis❖Rights of Man❖The Age of ReasonPhilip Freneau (1752-1832)❖“Poet of the American Revolution’’the first professional American novelist❖The first American-born poet (the most significant poet of eighteenth-century America);❖notable mainly for two things: using his poetic talents serving the national independence; advocating nationalism inAmerican literature.❖Works:❖The Rising Glory of America(1772)❖The Jamaica Funeral❖The British Prison Ship(1781)❖To the Memory of the Brave Americans (1781)❖The Wild Honey Suckle (1786)❖The Indian Burying Ground (1788)❖Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810)❖Wieland (1798), Edgar Huntly (1799), Arthur Mervyn (1799-1800), and Ormond (1799),❖Subjects about the new world❖Description of his characters’ inner worldEarly American FictionModes of early American fiction:❖Epistolary fiction: The Power of Sympathy (1789) William Hill Brown❖Sentimental fiction: Charlotte Temple (1791) Susanna Rowson❖Picaresque and adventure fiction: Modern Chivalry (1792-1815) Hugh Henry Brackenridge❖Gothic fiction: Wieland (1798) Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810)Conclusion：❖In all, as to the development of American literature, the following two centuries since the arrival the Mayflower were stilla process of groping for literary expression of the national experiences. The literary scene still looked bleak and barren,however, the 18th century saw the emergence of two famous writers who would exercise seminal influence on the maturity of American literature, Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards.Chapter Two Period of Enlightenment1. Historical Background⑴ American Revolution(2)Enlightenment (启蒙运动)Originated in Europe in the 17th centuryResources: Newton’s theory; deism（自然神教派，）; French philosophy (Rousseau, Voltaire)DeismGod --- the Creator of the world, then leaving it to operate according to natural law.The best way to worship God --- Study man and nature instead of God, to do good things to mankind.Man is by nature good and free. Man could “perfect himself” and could decide his own destiny.Basic principles: stressing education; stressing Reason (Order) ；employing Reason to reconsider the traditions and social realities; concerns for civil rights, such as equality and social justice.Significance: accelerating social progress; freeing people from the limitations set by prevailing Puritanism; making spiritual preparation for American RevolutionRepresentatives: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson etc.Jonathan Edwards (1703—1758)（the first modern American and the country’s last medieval man）In 1716, at the age of 13, admitted to Yale, graduated four years laterIn 1723, took his M.A. in YaleIn 1729, after 3 years assistant to his grandfather, named to be the minister of the church of NorthamptonInstrumental in bringing about the “Great Awakening” from1730s to 1740sDied of a smallpox inoculation in 1758“never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way”Major WorksThe Freedom of the Will (1754)The Great doctrine of Original Sin Defended (1758)The Nature of True Virtue (1765)Personal NarrativeAnalysisInfluenced by the new ideas of Enlightenment, such as empiricismStill a pious PuritanHis sense of God’s overwhelming presence in nature and in soul anticipated the Transcendentalism.First modern American and the coun try’s last medieval manBenjamin Franklin (1706-1790)Life—Jack of all tradesBorn in a poor candle maker’s family in BostonNo regular educationBecame a apprentice of a printer when he was 12A editor of a newspaper and published lots of essays when he was 16Went to Philadelphia when he was 17A successful printer and publisherRetired when he was 42A scientist with lots of inventions and a famous experimentA famous statesman (the only America who once signed all the four documents that created the new country) (P33)An example who made American Dream come trueLiterary worksPoor Richard’s Almanac《穷查理的年历》He kept publishing it for 25 years.A popular almanac with poems, essays and a good many of sayingsHe made good use of his own wit and wisdom in the borrowed statements.➢Maxims（谚语，格言）and axioms（哲理，格言）➢Lost time is never found again.➢ A penny saved is a penny earned.➢God help them that help themselves.➢Fish and visitors stink in three days.➢Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.➢Eat not to dullness. Drink not to elevation.➢Diligence is the Mother of Good Luck.➢One Today is worth two tomorrow.➢Industry pays debts. Despair encreaseth them.The Autobiography— first of its kind in literatureWriting when he was 65An introduction of his life to his own sonIncluding four parts written in different time (1771. 1784, 1788, 1790)Puritanism’s influence, such as self-examination and self-improvement (timetable, thirteen virtues, life style) Enlightenment spirits (man’s nature good, rights of liberty, virtues includes “order”)A brief analysis of Autobiography1) as a Puritan document with a record of self-analysis and self-improvementeat not to dullness, drink not to elevation; avoiding trifling conversation; let all your things have their places; lose no time; wastes nothing; resolve to perform what you o ught; use no deceit; wrong none…13 virtues1. Temperance2. Silence3. Order4. Resolution5. Frugality6. Industry7. Sincerity8. Justice 9. Moderation 10. Cleanliness 11. Tranquility 12. Chastity 13. Humility2) as an elucidation of Franklin’s identity as a spokesman for the Age of EnlightenmentMan by nature is good and free; a record of the fulfillment of the American dream;the spirit of self-reliance and self-improvement .3)as an exemplary illustration of American style of writing simplicity, directness, concision, lucid narrative, etc.CrevecoeurCrevecoeur’s idea of “new man” in America.(p37-38), the fulfillment of the American DreamThe illusory nature of the DreamAmerican RomanticismIntroduction•Time: From the end of the 18th century throughout the outbreak of the Civil war•(The Sketch Book by Irving---Leaves of Grass by Whitman)Reasons for the rising of American Romanticism1. The internal cause1) The optimistic mood of the nation following the national political independence inspired the romantic feeling and criedfor literary expression.2) The fertile literary milieu. A media for people to express their opinions.2. The external causeThe influences of the European romanticism (Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Byron, etc.)Features of American Romanticism•Both imitative and independent1. American Romanticism is imitative.1) American romantic writing was modeled on English and European works (Writers of imitative school: Irving and NewEngland poets p43)2) Common features due to foreign influences: Emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature,individualism, interest to the past, love of nature, etc.3) The favorite themes: home, family and children, nature, and idealized love. indifferent to the major problems American life…(p43)2. American Romanticism is Independent.Distinct features of its own1) New spirit and alien qualityThe exotic landscapeWestward expansionThe Indian civilizationThe new spirit of the new men(p38 Crevecoeur’s idea of new man)2) Puritan influence (p42)American Romantic authors intended to moralize more than entertain the readersTaboos in American works--- e.g. sex and loveThe mark of Calvinistic view of original sin and the mystery of evil in some works3) Writers of independent school (p44)A calling for the creation of a native American culture and literature (Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, etc.)Washington Irving (1783-1859)Father of American LiteratureBiographical Notes•New York merchant family (1783)•first book (1809)•England (1815)•American diplomatic attaché to Spain (1826-1829)•Secretary of the United States Legation in London (1829-1832)•Returne d to America (1932) and began to live in his “Sunnyside” to the rest of his life•died in 1859Historical significance of Irving (p45)1. Father of American literature2. The author of the first American short stories3. His The Sketch Book marked the beginning of American RomanticismTwo periods of literary careerA. The 1st period (1809-1832)Predominantly “English”, writing about subjects either English or European; found value in the past and in the traditions of the old world, depicted “ruins” and objects of antiquity.Major works of the 1st periodA History of New York (1809)The Sketch Book (1815)The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1825)A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1829)The Alhambra (1832)B. The 2nd period (1833-1859)Found new spirit of America, writing about the American beauty and experience, such as westward expansion Major works of the 2nd periodA Tour on the Prairies(1835);Astoria(1836);Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837)Life of GoldsmithLife of WashingtonFeatures of Irving’s Writings (p47)•Avoid moralizing; write to amuse and entertain•Rich atmosphere•Vivid characterization•American humor•The musical language (the American Goldsmith)Rip Van Winkle•The Story (p48)•Characterization of Rip Van Winkle (p47)How to read?•Three aspects:•1. a story about a hen-pecked husband.•2. a story about time, change and identity.•3. a story about the independence war; a political reading.3. AnalysisThe theme of escapement: in the request of an ideal place to liveThe conservative attitude of Irving: change--- and revolution--- upset the natural order of things•nostalgia for the unrecoverable past“山中方一日，世上已千年”•晋朝时，有位名叫王质的樵夫，进到位于今浙江省衢州城东南的石室山伐木，遇见几位仙童对弈、吟曲。