(完整word版)美国文学史复习要点整理【手动】

美国文学史整理

一、Colonial America 殖民时期

1、 New England：Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. 2、 Doctrines of Puritanism清教

American Puritanism stressed predestination（命运神定), original sin（原罪）, total depravity (彻底的堕落), and limited atonement (有限的赎罪)from God’s grace. 3、 Writing style：fresh, simple and direct and with a touch of nobility； the rhetoric is plain and

honest.

4、 Life style：hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety. 5、 Main writer: ①Thomas Paine 托马斯·潘恩

work：Common Sense (1776) 《常识》 American Crisis (1776-1783) 《美国危机》 The Rights of Man《人权》 The Age of Reason《理性时代》 ②Benjamin Franklin（本杰明·富兰克林） Poor Richard’s Almanac 《穷查理历书》 Autobiography 《富兰克林自传》

③Thomas Jefferson 托马斯·杰弗逊

Declaration of Independence (1776)《独立宣言》

二、American Romanticism (early period) 浪漫主义前期

1、Characteristics：

①A rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. 反对理性主义的客观性。

②Feelings, intuitions and emotions were more important for romantics than reason and common sense.

感受、直觉和情感重于理性和常识。

③An emphasis on individualism; placing the individual against the group, against authority. 强调个人主义,将个人与团体,反对权威。

④Stress on the close relationship between man and nature. 强调人与自然之间的密切关系。

⑤Fascination with the wild, the irregular, the indefinite, the remote, the mysterious, and the strange

疯狂的迷恋,不规则,不定,远程,神秘,奇怪

⑥Cherishing a strong interest in the past, especially the medieval.

对过去有强烈的兴趣,特别是中世纪。

2、Features：New experience in the American Romanticism.

A deep influence from the American Puritanism. The “newness” of the Americans as a nation.

3、writers and works:

①Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 亨利·瓦兹沃思·朗费罗 A Psalm of Life (1838) 《人生礼赞》 Voices of the Night (1839) 《夜吟》

The Song of Hiawatha (1855) 《海华沙之歌》

The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858) 《迈尔斯·斯坦迪什的求婚》 Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863) 《路边客栈的故事》 ②Washington Irving 华盛顿·欧文

A History of New York (1809) 《纽约外史》 The Sketch Book (1819-1820) 《见闻札记》 “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” 《睡谷的传说》

“Rip Van Winkle” 《瑞普·凡·温克尔》 (The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person…..) Bracebridge Hall (1822) 《布雷斯布里奇田庄》 Tales of a Traveller (1824) 《旅客谈》

③James Fennimore Cooper 詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库柏

Leather-stocking Tales 《皮袜子故事集》 The Pioneer 《拓荒者》 The Prairie 《大草原》 The Spy 《间谍》

三、New England Transcendentalism (新英格兰超验主义)

1、Over-soul（超灵）~was an all-pervading power goodness, omnipresent and omnipotent.(简答) Individualism individual was the most important

a fresh view of nature symbolic of the Spirit or God. 2、writers and works:

①Ralph Waldo Emerson 艾默生 Nature (1836) 《论自然》

<节选：Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.>

The American Scholar (1837) 《论美国学者》 Divinity School Address (1838) 《神学院演说》 Self-Reliance (1841) 《论自助》 Representative Men (1850) 《代表人物》 The Transcendentalist 《超验主义者》 The Over-Soul 《论超灵》

②Henry David Thoreau 梭罗

Walden; or Life in the Woods (1854) 《瓦尔登湖；或林中生活》 <节选 Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. ……We can never have enough of Nature. >

四、American Romanticism (later period) 浪漫主义后期

我们可以把超验主义产生之前的那一段称为前期浪漫主义，而把19世纪30年代之后的文学称为后期浪漫主义。前期浪漫主义是以欧文等人将美国文学提高到欧洲水平为特征，后期浪漫主义则是以超验主义激励而起的“文艺复兴”文学兴起，并最终产生了独立的美国文学为标志。

1、 High Romantics in fiction

2、 ①Nathaniel Hawthorne 霍桑

Twice-Told Tales (1837) 《尽人皆知的故事》 Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) 《古屋青苔》 The Scarlet letter (1850) 《红字》 The House of Sever Gables (1851) 《有七个尖角阁的房子》 Blithedale Romance (1852) 《福谷传奇》 The Marble Faun (1860) 《玉石雕像》 Our Old House (1863) 《我们的故居》

< symbols and setting, ambiguity, supernatural elements. His style is soft, flowing, and almost

feminine. His touch is light, but his observation is somber.> ②Herman Melville 赫尔曼·麦尔维尔 Moby-Dick (1851) 《白鲸》 (pp113-118) Pierre (1852) 《皮埃尔》 Typee (1846)《泰比》 Omoo (1847)《奥穆》 Mardi (1849)《玛迪》

2、High Romantics in poetry

①Edgar Allan Poe 艾伦·坡

< the father of modern horror story and detective story. > Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840) 《怪诞故事集》

“The Raven” (1845) 《乌鸦》

“Annabel Lee ” (1849) 《安娜贝尔·李》 ②Walt Whitman 沃尔特·惠特曼 Leaves of Grass 《草叶集》 Features in Whitman’s poems：

·Organic form ：extremely long, not constrained by the number of beats in a line. ·Thought rhythm： does not move in terms of beats, but in terms of thoughts. ·Parallelism：The parallel lines say the same thing but use different words.

·Cataloguing technique：long lists of images, sights, sounds, smells, taste, and touch. ③Free verse (自由诗)

④Emily Dickinson 艾米丽·狄金森

Theme：Religion & faith Beauty & truth Life & death

Nature friendship love & marriage

Work：I died for beauty

Features：frequent use of dashes（破折号）， sporadic capitalization of nouns（零星的名词）， convoluted and ungrammatical phrasing（措辞费解不合文法），off-rhymes（压尾韵）, broken meters, bold and unconventional and often startling metaphors（大胆的隐喻）, and aphoristic wit（警句）.