美国文学考试大纲

美国文学备考大纲

1，A. 梭罗的主要观点in Life without Principles

1. Don’t cheat people by conspiring with them to protect their comfort zones.

2. Don’t make religions and other such institutions the sort of intellectual comfort zone

that prevents you from entertaining ideas that aren’t to be found there.

3. Don’t cheat yourself by working primarily for a paycheck. If what you do with your life

free-of-charge is so worthless to you that you’d be convinced to do something else in exchange for a little money or fame, you need better hobbies.

4. Furthermore, don’t hire someone who’s only in it for the money.

5. Sustain yourself by the life you live, not by exchanging your life for money and living

off that.

6. It is a shame to be living off an inheritance, charity, a government pension, or to

gamble your way to prosperity – either through a lottery or by such means as

prospecting for gold.

7. Remember that what is valuable about a thing is not the same as how much money it

will fetch on the market.

8. Don’t waste conversation and attention on the superf icial trivialities and gossip of the

daily news, but attend to things of more import: “Read not the Times. Read the

Eternities.”

9. Similarly, politics is something that ought to be a minor and discreet part of life, not the

grotesque public sport it has become.

10. Don’t mistake the march of commerce for progress and civilization– especially when

that commerce amounts to driving slaves to produce the articles of vice like alcohol

and tobacco. There’s no shortage of gold, of tobacco, of alcohol, but there is a sh ort

supply of “a high and earnest purpose."

B. 超验主义（transcendentalism）的特点（self-improvement，oversoul），Transcendentalism was a religious and philosophical movement that was developed during the late 1820s and 1830s in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest to the general state of culture and society, Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both people and nature. Transcendentalists believed that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—ultimately corrupted the purity of the individual. They had faith that people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed.

There are three main ideas of the transcendentalist. First of all, the transcendentalists emphasis on spirit, or the oversoul, they think this is the important factor the existence of the universe. Oversoul is ubiquitous and the soul of all things,, and it exists in nature. Secondly, the transcendentalist stressed the importance of the individual. They think that individual is the most important part of the society, social innovation can only be achieved through personal cultivation. So man's first duty is to self-improvement, not sedulous pursuit wealth. The ideal person is relying on its own people. Thirdly, the transcendentalist in a whole new view of nature that nature is the symbol of oversoul or god. In their view, nature is not just material. It has a life, filled with the