圣才电子书 www.100xuexi.com 十万种考研考证电子书、题库视频学习平台 第4章 美国浪漫主义时期
4.1 复习笔记
I. Overview of the Age（时代概观） Historical Background（历史背景）
(1) The war with Britain in 1812 freed the United States from the danger of foreign domination. In the years afterwards, the country lived more to itself. Contact with Europe was slighter. Consular and diplomatic exchanges were few.
1812年的英美战争摆脱了美国被外国控制的危险。多年以后，美国更加自立，与欧洲的联系甚少。领事和外交交流也很少。
(2) The attention of Americans that was turned to internal exploration and expansion encouraged the impulse towards self-definition, hence nationalism.
美国人的注意力转向内部探索和延伸，这就鼓励了他们进行自我定位，由此产生了民族主义。
(3) Nationalism often goes hand in hand with romanticism. But the special psychological make-up of American nationalism also gave American romanticism its own particular characteristics.
民族主义通常与浪漫主义相互依存。但是，美国民族主义的特殊心理构成也使得美国浪漫主义具有其特殊性质。
Features of Romantic Literature（浪漫主义文学特点）
(1) Since the United States had achieved a workable democracy and since the
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圣才电子书 www.100xuexi.com 十万种考研考证电子书、题库视频学习平台 frontier movement towards the West kept working conditions relatively good, American romanticism did not have the political radicalism as seen in European romanticists.
因为美国已经取得了切实可行的民主，西进边疆运动进展良好，使得美国浪漫主义不具有欧洲浪漫主义者所具有的政治激进主义。
(2) The romantic celebration of natural beauty was inspired in part by a desire to establish an original relationship with the “new” landscape.
美国人欲与“新”景观建立原始关系的渴望激发了对自然美的浪漫庆祝。 (3) Even though there was the desire to be less European, the United Sates as a young country could not be quite free of a sense of inferiority or “colonial complex” in the face of Europe.
尽管美国想极力摆脱欧洲的影响，但是作为一个新兴国家，她并不能完全消除自卑感或面对欧洲时的“殖民情结”。
(4) Literary giants such as Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville began producing works of great vitality and distinction. Soon, their achievements would be matched by those from Whitman and Dickinson, among others.
文学巨匠如坡、爱默生、梭罗、霍桑和麦尔维尔等人开始创作一些充满生气和才华的作品。很快，他们的成就被惠特曼和迪金森赶超。
II. Romanticism and Cultural Nationalism（浪漫主义与文化民族主义） “Early Romanticism” （“早期浪漫主义”）
Irving, Cooper and Bryant are regarded as pioneers of American romanticism.
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圣才电子书 www.100xuexi.com 十万种考研考证电子书、题库视频学习平台 Thus, their works and the works of others constituted what is called “early romanticism”.
欧文、库伯和布莱恩特被认为是美国浪漫主义的先驱。因此，他们和其他人的作品形成了“早期浪漫主义”的代表。 Features of Romanticism（浪漫主义特点）
(1) Romanticism celebrates the triumph of feeling and intuition over reason. And it is suspicious of the rationalist explanations of the universe and human nature by the Enlightenment writers. Characters in romantic stories sometimes showed extremes of sensitivity, such as fear of the dark and the unknown.
浪漫主义欢庆感觉和直觉对理性的胜利。它怀疑启蒙作家对宇宙和人性做出的理性解释。浪漫主义作品中的人物有时会表现出一种极端敏感性，如对黑暗和未知事物的恐惧等。
(2) Gothic styles, “oriental” styles and other exotic styles were favored by romanticists.
浪漫主义者推崇哥特式风格、“东方”风格和其他异域风格。
(3) Romanticism exalted the individual over society, thus showing a strong disliking for the bondage of convention and customs. As it is sometimes the contradiction, nostalgia for the past traditions is also a romantic strain.
浪漫主义赞扬个人主义，对传统和习俗有一种强烈的厌恶感。但是有时，浪漫主义会对传统有一种怀旧的矛盾心理。
(4) Nature is believed to be the source of goodness and the antithesis of society as society tends to be corrupt.
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圣才电子书 www.100xuexi.com 十万种考研考证电子书、题库视频学习平台 自然被认为是美德的源泉，社会是罪恶的源泉，因为社会容易腐败。
(5) Cultural nationalism—or the proud belief in one’s own cultural genius and heritage—is also a striking characteristic of romanticism.
文化民族主义——或对自己文化精英和遗产的自豪感——也是浪漫主义的一个显著特点。
Features of American Romanticism（美国浪漫主义的特点）
American romantic writers differed from their European counterparts in that they did not show the kind of political radicalism as seen in European romanticism.
美国浪漫主义作家不同于欧洲浪漫主义作家，因为他们的作品中没有政治激进主义。
Americans developed their romanticism to Transcendentalism, especially in New England, and its distinguished representatives were Emerson and Thoreau.
美国人将浪漫主义发展为超验主义，尤其是在新英格兰地区，其杰出代表人物是爱默生和梭罗。
4.2 课后习题答案
1. What were the feelings of the new nationhood? What are the connections between nationalism and romanticism?
Key: The new nationhood was proud of itself, but as a young country it could not be quite free of a sense of inferiority or “colonial complex” in the face of Europe.
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圣才电子书 www.100xuexi.com 十万种考研考证电子书、题库视频学习平台 Nationalism often goes hand in hand with romanticism. The special psychological make-up of nationalism gives romanticism its own particular characteristics.
2. Who are the most accomplished writers in this time period? How differently do they define Americanness?
Key: Literary giants such as Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville are the most accomplished writers in this time period. Soon, their achievements would be matched by those from Whitman and Dickinson, among others.
3. What are the five characteristics of Romanticism as listed in this chapter? Please discuss each by offering examples from authors you have read in this period. Key: First, romanticism celebrates the triumph of feeling and intuition over reason. And it is suspicious of the rationalist explanations of the universe and human nature by the Enlightenment writers. Since romantic writers placed a higher value on the free expression of emotion and on the power of imagination, they showed greater interests in the psychic states. As a result, characters in romantic stories sometimes showed extremes of sensitivity, such as fear of the dark and the unknown. For example, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” depicts the character’s extremes of sensitivity in a very vivid and horrifying way, which arouses the reader feelings of fear.
Second, if the Enlightenment had annulled the Middle Ages, romanticism
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童明《美国文学史》笔记和课后习题(含考研真题)详解-第4~7章【圣才出品】
