美国文学简史中文版
美国文学简史-序言-introductionPPT课件
of literature.
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Basic Qualities of American Writers
1) Independent
2) Individualistic
3) Critical
4) Innovative
5) Humorous
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Part II. The periods of American literature
II. American Prose Since 1945: Realism and Experimentation.
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• Literature is characterized by beauty of expression and form and by universality of intellectual and emotional appeal.
2. Forms (genres) of literature? Poetry, novel (fiction), drama, prose, essay, epic, elegy, short story, journalism, sermon, (auto) biography, travel accounts, novelette, etc.
2) Thematic Approach
➢ “What is the story, the poem, the play or the essay about?”
3) Historical Approach
➢ Aims at illustrating the historical development
1) Modern poetry: experiments in form (Imagism)
美国文学简史
Transcendentalism refers to a kind of attitude that believes in the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively（直觉地）or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses. In a literal sense, it means the belief that knowledge and principles of reality can be obtained by studying thought, not necessarily by practical experiences.Realism It is, in literature, an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. In part. Realism was a reaction against the Romantic emphasis on the strange, idealistic, and long-ago and far-away.Local Colorism the writings of local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, well-defined region or province. The characteristic setting is the isolated small town. Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes.1) The Lost Generationthey had cut themselves off from their past in America in order to create new types of writing which had never been tried before. Among these writers, the most famous are Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dos Passos.Chapter ThreeAmerican Romanticism * Irving * CooperII. Washington Irving (1783-1859)1 Writing StyleIrving’s style can only be described as beautiful though imitative.A. Irving avoids moralizing as much as possible: he wrote to amuse and entertain.B. He was good at enveloping his stories in a rich atmosphere, which is often more than compensation for the slimness of plot.C. His characters are vivid and true so that they tend to linger in the mind of the reader.D. He was such a humorous writer that it is difficult not to smile and occasionally even chuckle.E. His language was finished and musical.2. Literary StatusFather of American literatureThe first professional American writerThe first American Romantic writerThe first American short story writerThe first American imaginative writerto be recognized by the Europeans3. His Works:A History of New York (1809)The Sketch Book (1819-20)The short story as a genre in American literature probably began with Irving’s The Sketch Book, a collection of essays, sketches, and tales, of which the most famous and frequently anthologized are “Rip Van Winkle”and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”Rip Van Winkle《瑞普*凡*温尔克》It is a fantasy tale about a man who somehow stepped outside the main stream of life.Rip Van Winkle is a simple, good-natured, and hen-pecked man. An amiable man whose home and farm suffer from his lazy neglect, he is loved by all but his wife. One autumn day he escapes his nagging wife ，after drinking some of ghosts of Henry Hudson’s crew’s liquor, he falls asleep. He wakes up twenty years later and returns to his village. He finds out that everything changes.The Legend of Sleepy HollowThe History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828)The Alhambra《阿尔罕伯拉》(1832)Life of Goldsmith, Life of WashingtonTales of a TravelerIII. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)1. Literary Status:The first American Frontier novelThe first American Sea novelThe first American Spy NovelThe first American Historical NovelHis Leatherstocking Tales as the American National Epic3. His major works:Precaution (1820)The Spy (1821)“The Leatherstocking Tales” includesThe Pioneers (1823)The Last of the Mohicans (1826)The Prairie (1827)The Pathfinder (1840)The Deerslayer (1841)The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, each featuring the main hero Natty Bumppo, known by European settlers as "Leatherstocking," 'The Pathfinder", and "the trapper" and by the Native Americans as "Deerslayer," "La Longue Carabine"and "Hawkeye". He becomes a type, a representation of a nation struggling to be born, progressing from old age torebirth and youth.5. Writing Features:A. Plot construction:Cooper was good at inventing plots. Hisplots are sometimes quite incredible, but his stories are immensely intriguing.B. Landscape description: His landscape descriptions aremajestic and suggestive of sir Walter Scott, the legendary spirit of whose border tales might have been a source of inspiration for him.C. A rich imagination: He had never been to the frontier andamong the Indians and yet could write five huge epic books about them with his rich imagination. Free from injustice, he treated the American Indians as noble savages.D.Clumsy style: his style is dreadful; his characterizationseems wooden and lacking in probability.6. His Contributiona. Cooper hit upon the native subject of frontier andwilderness.b. He contributed to American literature different subgenres ofnovels: spy novel, sea novel, frontier novel, and historical romance.c. He created the first legendary frontier hero Natty Bumppoas the typical Pioneering figure.d. He introduced the West and the frontier as a usable past intoAmerican literature, thus ushering in the Western tradition into American world of letters.Chapter4New England Transcendentalism * Emerson * ThoreauPrinciples of Emerson’s transcendentalismThe over-soulPrimacy of IndividualPrimacy of NatureII. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)1. Literary Status:“Father of American Essay”,The Concord SageLeader and spokesman of New England Transcendentalism Essayist, poet, philosopher, orator, critic.His major works:A. CollectionsPoems(1847); Representative Men(1850); English Traits (1856)The Conduct of Life (1860); May Day and Other Poems (1867)Society and Solitude(1870); Letters and Social Aims (1876)Essays"Self-Reliance" "Compensation" "The Over-Soul""The Poet" "Experience""Nature" (the Bible and manifesto of the New England Transcendentalism)Emerson’s Nature has been called the “Manifesto of American Transcendentalism”"The American Scholar" (Intellectual Declaration of Independence)His The American Scholar has been rightly regarded as America’s “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”.C. Poems"Concord Hymn""The RhodoraNature(1836): “The Universe is composed of Nature and the Soul, Spirit is present everywhere”The book presents a theory of the universe, its origin, present condition, and final destiny. Nature’s voice pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism, the summit of American Romanticism/ American Renaissance.The American Scholar(1837): In this essay, Emerson calls for adistinctive American style, dealing with American subjects. Thus, regarded as “America’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence”Self-Reliance(1841): This essay focuses on his discussion on the individual’s relation’s with his culture—culture in the broadest definition, thus exploring the implications of the fierce individualism at the heart of his Transcendental faith: the dignity, the ultimate sanctity[holiness] of each human beingThe Over-Soul(1841): It is a philosophic work, in which Emerson gives an explicit discussion on his idea of the over-soul, with a most comprehensive and sensitive analysis of the varieties of religious experienceEvaluation to him:1. He was the first American to call for an independent culture in both Nature and The American Scholar.(America’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence).He called on American writers to write about America in a way peculiarly American.2.Emerson’s aesthetics places emphasis on ideas, symbol, andimaginative words, which brought about a revolution in American literature in general and in American poetry in particular.3.He embodied a new nation’s desire and struggle to assert itsown identity in its formative period.4.In modern times he is sometimes dismissed as having no senseof evil, and his optimistic philosophy as so much Transcendentalist folly.Henry Davis Thoreau(1817---1862)His major works:★Walden★Civil DisobedienceChapter 6Walt Whitman (1819-1892)Evaluation•One of the great innovators in American literature.•An author during the transition between Transcendentalism and Realism.•His masterpiece is Leaves of Grass (1855), which he spent his entire life writing.Major works1. Leaves of Grass the most influential volume of poems in the history of American literatureSong of Myself An epic poem published in Leaves of Grass using an all-powerful first person narrationEmily Dickinson 1830-1886Style•As part of Dickinson seeking essence or the heart of things,she eliminated inessential language and punctuation from her poems. She leaves out helping verbs and connecting words;she drops endings from verbs and nouns.•It is not always clear what Dickinson’s pronouns refer to;sometimes a pronoun refers to a word which does not appear in the poem. At her best, she achieves breathtaking effects by compressing language•Dickinson’s disregard for the rules of grammar and sentence structure is one reason twentieth century critics found her so appealing; her use of language anticipates the way modern poets used language.•The downside of her language is that the compression may be so drastic that the poem is incomprehensible; it becomes a riddle or intellectual puzzle.•Readers are still saying "What?" in response to some of her poems.Chapter 7Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)1. Literary Position⏹1. father of modern short story⏹2. father of detective story⏹3. father of psychoanalytic criticism3. Works⏹Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque《奇异怪诞故事集》⏹MS. Found in a Bottle《瓶子里发现的手稿》⏹The Murders in the Rue Morgue《毛格街杀人案》⏹The Fall of the House of Usher《厄舍古屋的倒塌》⏹The Masque of the Red Death《红色死亡的化妆舞会》⏹The Cask of Amontillado《一桶酒的故事》⏹The Raven《乌鸦》⏹Israfel《伊斯拉菲尔》⏹Annabel Lee《安娜贝尔•李》⏹To Helen《致海伦》⏹The Poetic Principle《诗歌原理》⏹The Philosophy of Composition《创作哲学》5. His Reputation:French imagists: Baudelaire (1821-1867), Mallarme (1822-1898), and Valery (1871-1945) used Poe as the model for their symbolist school.He is admired for his poetic vocabulary (pure poetry), his themes and his view that underneath human nature is cruel and irrational (ahead of his time)As a tragic young aristocrat who had been betrayed by American societyMajor European writers such as Swinburne (1837-1909), Bernard Shaw (1856-1926) and Dostoevsky (1821-1881) all appreciated Poe’s achievements.It was not until the 20th century when Americans started to learn from the French that Poe became popular in Europe. Chapter 8American Realism1.William Dean HowellsHis Works:☐The Rise of Silas Lapham☐ A Chance Acquaintance☐ A Modern Instance2.Henry JamesHis Works:Literary Career : Three Stages1. 1865~1882: international theme☐The American (1877)☐The Europeans (1878)☐Daisy Miller (1878)☐The Portrait of a Lady (1881)The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan's Magazine in 1880–1881 and then asa book in 1881. It is one of James' most popular long novels,and is regarded by critics as one of his finest.☐Washington Square (1881)2.1882~1895: Novels in the naturalistic mode:The Bostonians, 1886 波士顿人Turning to three dominant subjects:☐The Figure in the Carpet, 1896 地毯上的图案☐What Mazie Knew, 1897 梅瑟所知道的☐The Turn of the Screw, 1898 螺丝在拧紧☐The Beast in the Jungle, 1903 丛林猛兽3.1895~1900: Returning to international themesNovels complex and profound☐The Wings of the Dove, 1902 鸽翼☐The Ambassadors, 1903 奉使记☐The Golden Bowl, 1904 镀金碗Stylist: Henry Jamesnguage: highly-refined, polished, insightful, accurate.2.V ocabulary: large.3.Construction: complicated, intricateJames’ place in American Literature☐Bridging the 19th and 20th c.☐Connecting America and Europe.☐A pioneer in psychological realism☐A “master craftsman”☐Criticized by some because of his focus on the elite (James deals largely with the moral and social problems of middle- and upper-class society. )☐Along with the increasing complexity of his style, his hypersensitive narrators, or protagonists, having alienated James from the common reader, as James himself realized.Mark Twain (1835-1910)Major works1.“Personalized fiction”1.The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day (1873)This novel is about thepost-Civil War boom years in the south called Reconstruction. It satirizes the greed and selfishness in the speculative exploitation of public resources during the administration of Grant.☐The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) a novel set in the South before the Civil War that criticizes racism and the disastrous effects of slavery on the victimizer and the victim alike. It reveals to us a Mark Twain whose conscience as a white southerner was tormented by fear and remorse.☐The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)A classic book written for boys about their particular horrors and joys☐The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)2. Travel fiction:☐The Innocents Abroad (or The New Pilgrim’s Progress)(1869) 《傻子国外旅行记》This is the fictionalized account of Mark Twain’s steamboat tour to Europe and Israel. The pilgrims are real people that Mark Twain knew.☐Roughing It (1873) 《艰难生涯》recounts his early adventures as a miner and journalist in a jocular, often scoffing way/ a “nonfiction novel,”: a novel that employs the conventions of fiction to tell a true story / New journalism新新闻体：以报导者主观的反应为特点的新闻学,常含有虚构成分2. Travel fiction:☐Life on the Mississippi (1883) （密西西比河上的生活）combines an autobiographical account of his experiences as a river pilot with a visit to the Mississippi nearly two decades after he left it;3. Historical RomanceThe Prince and the Pauper (1882)（王子与贫儿）, a children's book, focuses on switched identities in Tudor England(1485-1603). It is a carefully structured historical romance with many humorous situations☐A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur‘s Court（在亚瑟王朝廷中的康涅狄格州美国人）(1889)satirizes oppression, cruelty,aristocracy and feudalism in Arthurian England(6th century). It isa parable of colonialization. A representative of moderntechnology and ideas came to a historically backward feudal society and offered to develop the Arthurian world and rid it of superstition, however, he destroyed rather than modernized it.4. Tall tales⏹The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865)《卡拉维拉斯县驰名的跳蛙》 a tale filled with the kind of exaggeration and comedy that characterize the frontier life.Twain's first book in 1867 /collects 27 stories that were previously published in magazines and newspapers.⏹The title story first appeared in print in 1865 / "The NotoriousJumping Frog of Calaveras County" / "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog."⏹The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900) 《败坏了哈德莱堡的人》is an ingeniously plotted parable of a town proud of its reputation for honesty with the motto “Lead Us Not Into Temptation.” However, the citizens surrender to a stranger’s temptation of gold, and in the end Hadleyburg changes to a new name and revises its motto to “Lead Us Into Temptation.”In the novel, his obsessive vision of humanity as greedy, oafish, hypocritical, cruel and predatory was wholly apparent.5. Anti-imperialist:The essay “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” (1901)is a response to the Boxer rebellion in China. It is a scathing political attack against imperialismFeatures / Contributions☐As a literary artist:⏹He made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literarymedium in the literary history of the country. His success in creating this plain but evocative language precipitated the end of American reverence for British and European culture.⏹He is justly renowned as a humorist of his time but successivegenerations of writers, however, recognized the role that Twain played in creating a truly American literature.⏹Twain's work was inspired by the unconventional West and thepopularity of his work marked the end of the domination of American Literature by New England writers.⏹His adherence to American themes, settings, and language sethim apart from many other novelists of the day and had a powerful effect on such later American writers as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, both of whom pointed to Twain as an inspiration for their own writing.Chapter NineAmerican Naturalism1.Stephen Crane (1871 –1900)Short stories:The Open Boat《海上扁舟》H. G. Wells holds it beyond all question, the crown of all his work.The Blue Hotel《蓝色旅馆》Poems:The Black Riders and Other Lines《黑衣骑士及其他》War is Kind《战争是仁慈的》Fictions:Stephen Crane's fiction is typically categorized as representative of Naturalism, Realism, Impressionism or a mixture of the three.•Maggie: A Girl of the Streetsthe first naturalistic; Critics would later call the novel "the first dark flower of American Naturalism" for its distinctive elements of naturalistic fiction•The Red Badge of Courage•his masterpiece•one of the finest books of American literature;Significant Style•Crane's works reflect many of the major artistic concerns at the end of the nineteenth century, especially naturalism,impressionism, and symbolism.•His works insist that people live in a universe of vast and indifferent natural forces, not in a world of divine providence or a certain moral order. "A Man Said to the Universe" is useful in identifying this aspect of Crane.Many readers (including Hamlin Garland and Joseph Conrad, who were personal friends of Crane) have used the term impressionist to describe Crane's vivid renderings of moments of visual beauty and uncertainty.•Crane's vivid and explosive prose styles distinguish his works from those by many other writers who are labeled naturalists. Writing features1.Syntax is direct and simplees symbols3.careful in choosing narrative point of view4.vivid color, animal imagery, stereotyped characters, colloquialEnglish, and simple and straightforward narration.Frank Norris(1870-1902)Works of Frank NorrisTheme:Depictions of suffering caused by corrupt and greedy turn-of-the-century corporate monopolies✓Mc Teague (1899) 《麦克提格》His trilogy on the production, distribution and consumption of wheat:The Octopus (1901) 《章鱼》His most glaring metaphor is that of the tentacles of the railway tracks spreadingand choking the countryside in the appropriately titledbook The Octopus.It is based on an actual clash in 1880 between farmers in the San Joaquin Valley(圣华金河) and the SouthPacific railroad. The land is assigned to the railroadcompany, and then rented to the farmers. But therailroad raises the price of the land. After that the freightrate is also raised so much that the farmers are ruinedaltogether. All of the farmers are crushed under thewheels of the railroad. Some of them die, others go mad.The pit 《深渊》The Wolf (Never Written)✓The Responsibilities of the Novelist (1903)《小说家的责任》Theodore Dreiser 西奥多·德莱塞(1871-1945)Dreiser’s Major Works1) Sister Carrie«嘉莉妹妹»2) Jennie Gerhardt «珍妮姑娘»3) The Trilogy of Desire«欲望三步曲»(1) The Financier«金融家»(2) The Titan«巨人»(3) The Stoic«斯尔葛»4) The Genius «天才»an autobiographical work5) An American Tragedy «美国悲剧»(it was banned in Boston in 1927)6)The Bulwark《堡垒》Dreiser’s Style•Without good construction•deficient characterization•lack in imagination•Simple words•Journalistic method of reiteration重复新闻手法•Techniques in painting (word-picture, sharp contrast, truth in color, movement in outline)Evaluation•He faced every form of attack that a serious artist could encounter misunderstanding, misrepresentation, artistic isolation and commercial seduction. But he survived to lead the rebellion of the 1900s.•Dreiser has been a controversial figure in American literary history.•His works are powerful in their portrayal of the changing American life, but his style is considered crude.•It is in Dreiser’s works that American naturalism is said to have come of age.•Dreiser’s novels are formless at times and awkwardly written, and his characterization is found deficient and his prose pedestrian and dull, yet his very energy proves to be more thana compensation.•Dreiser’s stories are always solid and intensely interesting with their simple but highly moving characters. Dreiser is good at employing the journalistic method of reiteration to burn a central impression into the reader’s mind.For a commemorative service in 1947, H. L. Mencken wrote a eulogy in which he stuck by the argument that he had been making for over thirty-five years: despite Dreiser's flaws as a stylist, "the fact remains that he is a great artist, and that no other American of his generation left so wide and handsome a mark upon the national letters•American writing, before and after his time, differed almost as much as biology before and after Darwin. He was a man oflarge originality, of profound feeling, and of unshakable courage. All of us who write are better off because he lived, worked, and hoped."•Here lies the power and permanence that have made Dreiser one of America’s foremost novelists.Jack London(1876-1916)Works•London's most famous novels:The Call of the Wild 《野性的呼唤》White Fang 《白牙》The Sea-Wolf 《海狼》The Iron Heel 《铁蹄》Martin Eden 《马丁·伊甸》•Love of Life One of his most famous short fiction。
美国文学简介(中文版)---美国大使馆新闻处
第一章早期美国与殖民时代美国文学的基础始于印第安文化的口传神话、传奇、故事与歌词(多为歌曲)。
美洲原住民的口述传统相当多样化，印地安故事对大自然的敬畏精神，以及身体与母亲。
大自然拥有生命并赋予精神力量；主角可能是动物或植物，通常是与部落、族群或与个人有关的图腾。
印第安人对美国的贡献往往大于常人所认为的。
美国英语中有数百个印地安字，包括"独木舟"、"烟"、"马铃薯"、"鹿皮鞋"、"鹿"、"柿子"、"貉"、"战斧"以及"图腾"。
当代印第安写作还包含非常优美的作品，将于第8章讨论。
欧洲第一个关于美洲探险的纪录是斯堪的纳维亚语。
古挪威冒险故事“Vinland Saga”叙述爱冒险的莱弗埃里克松(Leif Eriksson)与一伙四处流浪的古挪威人在11世纪的头十年于美洲东北岸某处短暂定居的故事—可能是在加拿大的新斯科细亚省(Nova Scotia)。
然而，第一位为人熟知并持续在美洲与全世界接触者，始于意大利探险家克里斯托弗哥伦布(Christopher Columbus)的著名航行旅程，由西班牙皇后依莎贝拉(Isabella)所赞助。
哥伦布在其“书信集”(Epistola)中的日志于1493年出版，内容叙述旅程的见闻。
初次的英国殖民是场灾难，第一个殖民地于1585年成立于南北卡罗莱纳沿岸的罗阿诺克(Roanoke)；所有殖民地居民消失。
第2个殖民地更加永久：詹姆士城(Jamestown)成立于1607年，其间忍受了饥饿、暴力与暴政。
然而，此时期的文学将美国描绘成具有财富与机会之地的色彩，殖民叙述便举世闻名。
在17世纪，海盗、探险与探险家开辟了第2波永久殖民者的道路，将老婆、孩子、农具与工匠的工具带来至此。
早期探险文学由日记、书信、旅行日志、船只记录所组成，而探索者向资助者报告内容。
美国文学简史
Introduction一the Colonial Period(in the early seventeenth century through the end of the eighteenth)The major topic is about Puritanism. And the representatives are Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin.二the Romantic Period(covers the first half of the nineteenth century; from the end of the eighteenth century to the Civil War)The representatives and their works:Washington Irving: the Sketch Book《见闻札记》(two famous stories are “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”)James Fenimore Cooper: Leatherstocking Tales(illustrates the importance of the frontier and the wilderness)American Romanticism culminated around 1840s in what has come to be known as “New England Transcendentalism” or “American Renaissance”The representatives and their works:Ralph Waldo Emerson: nature; the American scholar (is regarded as America’s …Declarations of Intellectual Independence‟)Henry David Thoreau: WaldenWalt Whitman: Leaves of GrassEmily DickinsonNathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet LetterHerman Melville: Moby Dick 《大白鲸》Edgar Allan Poe侦探小说之父Wadsworth Longfellow三the Realism Age (the civil war to the first world war)The representatives and their works:William Dean Howells: the Atlantic monthly----- a influential journal Mark twain: the Adventures of Huckleberry FinnHenry JamesRealism developed into Naturalism. Representatives are like Theodore Dreiser whose work is Sister Carrie 《嘉莉妹妹》四Modernism PeriodRepresentatives and their works:poetsEzra Pound -------the father of modern American poetryT.S.Eliot: the Waste Land《荒原》William Carlos WilliamsWallace StevensRobert FrostThe novel flourished in the 1920s.Representatives:F.Scott Fitzgerald : the Great GatsbyErnest HemingwayWilliam Faulkner20年代是美国的第2次文艺复兴American drama: Eugene O‟NeillChapter oneAmerican Puritanism: the first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American were quite a few of them puritans. They were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. They carried with them to American 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 popularly known as American Puritanism.Its influence: 1）it was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and literature. 2）It contributed to no small extent to the development of an indigenous symbolism.3) It influenced the writing style of American literature: simple, fresh, direct.American puritans were idealists and more practical. They accepted the doctrine of predestination (命运天定), original sins and total depravity （性恶说）and limited atonement (有限的救赎）。
美国文学史学习指南中文翻译
《白鲸》赫尔曼·梅尔维尔美国文学简史有些十九世纪伟大作家的创作生涯在他谈论起了是相当有趣的。
梭罗和迪金森在当时没有读者，坡和惠特曼被人误解，麦尔维尔由于忠于自己的风格，当时也没有受到重视。
他不像梭罗和迪金森那样对此满不在乎，而是常常因此痛苦万分，与惠特曼相比，他有生之年甚至完全没有得到人们的肯定。
赫尔曼·梅尔维尔的童年是快乐的，但在他11岁时，父亲去世，留下了一大笔债。
麦尔维尔很早就开始工作了，没有受过什么教育。
他做过银行职员、商人、老师，还在叔叔的农场帮过忙。
这些日子都没有让他过上好日子。
在20岁左右的时候他做了海员。
麦尔维尔的人生中有三件事应当引起我们的特别注意，出海就是其中一件事，另外两件事分别是他的婚姻和与霍桑的友谊。
但是普通的水手是工人阶级的最底层，而麦尔维尔不过是个捕鲸手，而捕鲸手有事水手里地位最低的。
但和马克·吐温一样，麦尔维尔由此了解到最底层人民的生活。
麦尔维尔去过英国的利物浦和南太平洋，他的青年时光所经历的事情对普通人来说是相当严酷，但是他在海上的经历却使他受益匪浅，为他的小说提供了丰富的素材。
麦尔维尔的婚姻生活与马克·吐温稍有不同，倒是与菲茨杰拉德更为相似。
这是三位作家区的太太的地位都比自己高，但只有马克·吐温一人获得了太太的理解与支持。
麦尔维尔和菲茨杰拉德都为了挣钱满足太太奢华的生活而写了很多粗罗德文学作品。
麦尔维尔区的市一位有钱的法官的女儿，伊丽莎白·肖。
为了供养太太和人数不断增多的家庭，麦尔维尔不得不靠写作为生，在当时的情况下，靠写作谋生是极其不易的，更何况麦尔维尔又是一位醉心文学的艺术家。
麦尔维尔曾经经济上非常窘迫，直到年迈塔菜不为这个问题操心。
1850年的夏天，麦尔维尔与霍桑相识了。
当时麦尔维尔住在马萨诸塞州的皮茨菲尔德，霍桑住在勒诺克斯。
他们成为了好朋友，相互拜访至少九次以上，并且经常通信，尽管后来霍桑这边的消息中断了。
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。
A Survey of American Literature
美国文学简史（第二版）A Survey of American Literature作者：刘炳善编著出版社：河南人民出版社出版时间：2007-1-1版次：3页数：463字数：700000印刷时间：2009-10-1开本：16开纸张：胶版纸印次：1I S B N：9787215045385包装：平装内容简介：本书第一版自1990年问世以来，作为教育部选定的高校文科教材及美国文学研究的重要参考书，在国内广泛使用，畅销不衰。
全书精述17世纪早期至当今时代的美国文学发展史，评价主要作家及其代表作品，解析引领时代风气或主导作家创作的重要文学思潮和流派等。
本书第二版吸收了近年来美国文学研究方面的新发现、新成果，增补了50余位当代作家作品的评介，论述了后现代主义特征在战后美国文坛特别是诗歌、小说、戏剧创作当中的表现；此外，新版还注重收入近几十年来评论界对美国文学的新定义、新解释，增加了对少数民族作家的介绍，如美国黑人作家、印第安人作家、美国亚裔作家、美国拉丁裔作家等，上述群体的崛起使美国文学凸现多样化格局，增添了艺术背景的真实性。
本书作者常耀信教授，长期潜心于美国文学研究，任教于大洋两岸，主讲英美文学逾20年；始终孜孜以求，在研究中不断吸收、融汇美国文学创作及文学批评最新发展，故该书既体现了作者本人数年的教学、研究成绩，又荟萃了中外多家学者的研究发现。
本书一直被用作高校英语专业美国文学教材，新版仍适用于大专院校英专学生，还可作英专考研必读书和学术研究参考书，最佳配套课本为常销不衰的《美国文学选读》（上、下）系常教授携其优秀同事合力编著，该系列还将有考研复习伴侣读要及中文版精华缩编本奉献给广大读者！作者简介：常耀信：教授，博士生导师，任教于中国南开大学及美国关岛大学，研究方向为英美文学。
著有《希腊罗马神话》、《漫话英美文学》、《美国文学简史》（英文版）、《美国文学史（上）》（中文版）；主编有《美国文学研究选读》（上、下）、《美国文学研究评论选》（下、下）及《自选评论文集——文化与文学中的比较研究》等。
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美国文学(American Literature)
美国文学的历史不长，它几乎是和美国自由资本主义同时出现，较少受到封建贵族文化的束缚。
美国早期人口稀少，有大片未开发的土地，为个人理想的实现提供了很大的可能性。
美国人民富于民主自由精神，个人主义、个性解放的观念较为强烈，这在文学中有突出的反映。
美国又是一个多民族的国家，移民不断涌入，各自带来了本民族的文化，这决定了美国文学风格的多样性和庞杂性。
美国文学发展的过程就是不断吸取、融化各民族文学特点的过程。
许多美国作家来自社会下层，这使得美国文学生活气息和平民色彩都比较浓厚，总的特点是开朗、豪放。
内容庞杂与色彩鲜明是美国文学的另一特点。
个性自由与自我克制、清教主义与实用主义、激进与反动、反叛和顺从、高雅与庸俗、高级趣味与低级趣味、深刻与肤浅、积极进取与玩世不恭、明快与晦涩、犀利的讽刺与阴郁的幽默、精心雕琢与粗制滥造、对人类命运的思考和探索与对性爱的病态追求等倾向，不仅可以同时并存，而且形成强烈的对照。
从来没有一种潮流或倾向能够在一个时期内一统美国文学的天下。
美国作家敏感、好奇，往往是一个浪潮未落，另一浪潮又起。
作家们永远处在探索和试验的过程之中。
20世纪以来，许多文学潮流起源于美国，给世界文学同时带来积极的与消极的影响。
殖民地时期
印第安人的文化欧洲人发现新大陆的时候，北美洲的土著居民印第安人处于原始公社制度各种不同的阶段。
印第安人在向大自然的斗争中创造了自己的文化，主要是民间口头创作，包括神话传说和英雄传说。
由于他们没有文字，这些传说后来才得以整理问世，启发了后世美国作家的灵感。
早期移民的文化移民刚到新大陆时忙于生存斗争，所以开始时文学发展比较缓慢。
最早发表的关于北美的作品是游记、日记之类的文字。
作者都是英国人。
英国殖民地建立之后，统治者利用宗教，主要是清教主义作为控制殖民地思想意识的主要手段，因此许多出版物是关于神学的研究。
著名的作家有科顿·马瑟(1663-1728)和乔纳森。
爱德华兹(1703-1758)等。
随着工业、贸易和民族意识的增涨，宗教自由的呼声提高，清教主义的神权统治走向衰亡，为人本主义与自由民主等民族独立的意识所代替。
诗歌创作：北美出版的第一部诗集《海湾圣诗》是以民歌形式写成的圣诗。
迈克尔·威格尔斯沃思的诗全是解释加尔文教的教义，成了宗教性的普及读物。
女诗人安妮·布拉兹特里特写的也是宗教生活，不过多少以世俗的笔调抒写妇女的心情。
生前只发表过挽诗的牧师爱德华·泰勒反映了严格的清教主义的衰落。
在这些诗人身上，英国的影响也是明显的，布拉兹特里特得益于斯宾塞，泰勒的诗里看得出约翰·多思和乔治·赫伯特的影响。
独立革命至南北战争时期
美国民族文学形成于独立革命时期。
这场斗争产生大量的革命诗歌，并且造就了美国头一批重要的散文家和诗人。
政治上的独立促进文化上的独立。
战争结束之后，美国作家的作品陆续增多，逐渐摆脱英国文学的垄断局面。
年轻的民主共和国使人们满怀信心，并吸引着旧世界更多的人们奔向新的大陆。
这样的社会条件促使19世纪上半叶的文学创作具有浪漫主义的色彩。
作家们吸取欧洲浪漫派文学的精神，对美国的历史、传说和现实生活进行描绘，
美利坚民族内容逐渐丰富和充实起来。
从20、30年代到南北战争前夕，是浪漫主义运动的全盛时期，各种不同风格的作家泉涌而出，作品从内容到形式都具有鲜明的民族特色。
批评家们称这一时期为美国文学“第一次繁荣”。
到了世纪中叶，浪漫主义文学的基调由乐观走向疑虑，迫切的社会矛盾，如蓄奴制，又使某些作家采取现实主义的创作方法。
民族文学的诞生独立革命是美国民族文学诞生的背景。
早在战争爆发之前，美国殖民地人民在欧洲启蒙主义学说影响之下，已经具有民族独立的意识。
富兰克林世俗的格言比爱德华兹清教主义的教诲更能吸引广大群众。
富兰克林用清晰、幽默的文体传播了科学文化，激发自力更生的精神，他的爱国热情和关于自学、创业的言论，对于美国人民的人生观、事业观和道德观产生了深远的影响。
独立革命期间充满反抗与妥协之间的尖锐斗争，迫使作家们采取政论、演讲、散文等简便而又犀利的形式投入战斗。
发表“不自由毋宁死”这一名言的演说家舶特里克·亨利，象战鼓那样鼓动战士奋勇杀敌的托马斯·潘恩，行文朴质无华却字字击中要害的托马斯·杰斐逊，都是无畏的战士，他们为了战斗的需要锤炼自己的语言艺术。
那个时期的诗歌也具有强烈的政治性，大量的革命歌谣出自民间。
菲利普·弗瑞诺是当时著名的革命诗人，他的创作开创了美国诗歌的优秀传统。
早期浪漫主义文学19世纪初，一些以美国为背景、美国人为主人公的作品开始出现，初具美利坚民族的特色。
欧文致力发掘北美早期移民的传说故事，他的《见闻札记》开创了美国短篇小说的传统。
库珀在《皮袜子故事集》中以印第安人部落的灭亡为背景，表现了勇敢、正直的移民怎样开辟美国文明的途径。
诗人布莱思特笔下的自然景色完全是美国式的，他歌颂当地常见的水鸟和野花，而且通过它们歌颂人与人之间的和谐。
这些作家的作品满怀乐观向上的时代精神。
色彩阴暗的爱伦·坡在诗歌、短篇小说和理论批评方面达到新的水平，标志着民族文学的多样性和在艺术上的发展。
超验主义与后期浪漫主义19世纪30年代以后，东北部沿海的美国文化中心新英格兰地区成了最早的工业区。
杰克逊总统的民主主义路线又使国内的民主空气增涨。
这在意识形态上造成两方面的后果：一方面出现了超验主义者团体，另一方面使一些作家产生不少疑虑，浪漫主义文学的基调由乐观转向怀疑和消极。
超验主义是一场思想解放运动，先表现为宗教，哲学思想中的改革，后扩展到文学创作领域。
以埃默森为首的超验主义者为了据弃加尔文教派“以神为中心”的思想，吸取康德先验论和欧洲浪漫派理论家的思想材料，提出人凭直觉认识真理，因而在一定范围内人就是上帝。
这一派思想的出发点是人文主义，即强调人的价值，反对权威，祟尚直觉，主张个性解放，打破神学和外国教条的束缚，对美国作家产生不小的影响。
到了50年代，随着工业化引起的种种社会问题的出现，作家们敏锐地感受到民主制的弊病。
梭罗侧重超验主义中人的“自助”精神，主张回返自然，保持纯真的人性，因此与资产阶级社会秩序发生冲突。
在霍桑与梅尔维尔身上，这种矛盾以抽象、神秘的形式表现出来。
霍桑深受加尔文教派的影响，又想有所摆脱，于是转向对人类状况与命运的探索，如《红字》(1850)。
梅尔维尔同霍桑一样，把他所感觉到的社会矛盾归结为抽象的“恶”，而“恶”的强大与不可理解使《白鲸》(1851)等作品蒙上神秘、悲观的气氛。
“婆罗门”“婆罗门”是指这一时期新英格兰地区一批有高度文化教养的作家，或称“绅士派诗人”。
朗费罗、洛威尔(1819-1891)和霍姆斯(1809-1894)都是知识界的名流。
他们出于资产阶级民主主义和人道主义，歌颂爱国主义精神，反对蓄奴制，同情印第安人，也对社会流弊提出一些批评。
由于他们的出身地位和文化教养，他们的观点和情绪一般较为温和。
废奴文
学19世纪30年代之后，北部进步人士掀起越来越高涨的废除黑奴运动。
黑人的处境激起许多作家的同情，从埃默森、朗费罗到惠特曼都写过反对蓄奴的诗篇。
影响最大的作品是斯托夫人的小说《汤姆叔叔的小屋》(1852)，林肯称她为“发动了一次战争的小妇人”。
诗人惠蒂埃抗议蓄奴制的诗篇数量最多，反映了19世纪废奴运动历次重大的斗争。
废奴文学虽限于道义上的谴责，却推动了废奴斗争，在文学史上也是19世纪现实主义创作的先声。
伟大的民主诗人怠特曼美国19世纪的民主精神在惠特曼的《草叶集》(1855)里得到充分发挥。
他以丰富、博大、包罗万象的气魄反映了广大劳动群众在民主革命时期的乐观向上精神。
他歌颂劳动，歌颂大自然，歌颂物质文明，歌颂“个人”的理想形象；他的歌颂渗透着对人类的广泛的爱。
诗人以豪迈、粗犷的气概蔑视蓄奴制和一切不符合自由民主理想的社会现象。
他那种奔放的自由诗体，同他的思想内容一样，也是文学史上的创新，产生了广泛的影响。
黑人文学美国黑人文学起源于黑人奴隶歌曲，这些歌曲，不论是悲歌还是民歌，倾诉了黑人背井离乡、沦为奴隶的痛苦心情。
书写文学最早出现在18世纪，19世纪以后陆续增多。
表现形式先是诗歌，再是小说。
作者多数是已经获得自由的黑人。
除少数迎合白人读者的口味外，多数作家倾吐黑人奴隶的苦难，控诉蓄奴制的罪恶。
南北战争前后，以道格拉斯(1817-1895)为首的黑人作家提出废除蓄奴制、争取黑人人权的要求。
黑人文学的战斗性增强。
南北战争后出现的诗人邓巴(1872-1906)、小说家切斯纳特(1858-1932)在艺术上更为成熟，前者想象丰富，表现含蓄，后者揭露了战后南方种族歧视的状况，但对白人统治者又存有幻想，反映了黑人知识分子的思想倾向。