英美文学选读之美国文学The Romantic period (一)
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美国文学
Chapter 1 The Romantic period
(浪漫时期)
本章概述
一. 十九世纪初期至中叶美国文学产生的历史、文化背景;
二、该时期文学创作的基本特征、基本主张;
三、对同时代与后期美国文学的影响;
四、主要作家作品。
文学史分析
一、The time period
:
1. The Romantic Period stretchs from
the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil
War.
2.It started with the the publication
of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's
Leaves of Grass .
3.It is also called ' the American
Renaissance .'
二. The romantic |
thoughts :
1.The native feature :
They revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works
and they grew on the native lands .
A.The American national experience of
'pioneering into the west ' proved to be a rich source of material
.
B. The wilderness came to function
almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral law .
C.Literature began to celebrate American farmers ,the poor , the
unlettered ,children ,and especially the noble savages
.
2.The Puritanism
:
A.The American Puritanism as a
cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral
values .
B.American romantic writers tended
more to moralized than their English and European
counterparts.
3.The Transcendentalism
:
A. The most clearly defined Romantic
literary movement in this period is New England Transcendentalism
.
B.It was stared in New England in the
1830s .
C. This Transcendentalist group
includes two of the most significant writers America has produced
so far ,Emerson and Thoreau .
D. Transcendentalism has been defined
philosophically as 'the recognition in man the capacity of knowing
truth intuitively ,or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach
of the sense .'
三.The representatives
:
1. The poetry :
There emerged a great host of men of
letters during this period ,among the better-known is Walt Whitman
, Whose Leaves of Grass established him as the most popular
American poet of the 19th century .
2. The fiction :
The fiction of the American Romantic Period is an original and
diverse body of work .
3.The human nature
:
American Romanticists also differed
in their their understanding of human nature . To Emerson and
Thoreau , man is divine in nature and therefore forever perfectible
;to Hawthorne and Melville , everybody is potentially a sinner ,
and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the
improvement of human nature .
主要作家作品
A.华盛顿.欧文
B.拉尔夫.华尔多.爱默生
C.纳撒尼尔.霍桑
D.华尔特.惠特曼
E.赫尔曼.麦尔维尔
A.华盛顿.欧文
一.The literary
creation
1.The works :
A. A History of New York ,which ,
written under the name of Diedrich knickerbocker , was a great
success and won him wide popularity .The book is a parody of the
Dutch colony .
B. With the publication of The Sketch
Book of Geoffery Crayon , Gent ,Irving won a measure of
international fame on both side of the Atlantic .The book contains
familiar essays like 'Rip Van Winkle ' and 'The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow . '
C.Following The sketch Book , Irving
published Bracebridge Hall ,and Tales of a Traveler
.
2.The literary source and
contributions :
A.Irving 's relationship with the Old
World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ingored
considering his sucess both abroad and at home . A History of New
York is a patchwork of references .He parodies or imitates Homer ,
Fielding ,Swift and many other favorites of his
.
B. Washington Irving brought to the
new nation what its people desired most in a man of letters ---'Rip
Van Winkle ' or 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ' are among the
treasures of the American language and culture . It is not the
sketches about the Old World but the tales about America that made
Washington Irving a household word and his fame enduring
.
二. The artistic features
:
1.Irving 's taste was essentially
conservative .
2.Washington Irving has always been
regarded as a writer who ' perfected the best classic style that
American Literature ever produce . '
3. Yet Irving never forgets to
associate a certain place with the inward movement of a person and
to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and
vivid character .
B.拉尔夫.华尔多.爱默生
一. The literary creation
:
1.The chief spokesman of this
spiritual movement , New England transcendentalism is Emerson
.
2.Nature ,Emerson's first little book ,established him ever since
as the most eloquent sopkesman of New England Transcendentalism
.
3.His lasting reputation began only
with the publication of Essays . Many of his famous essays are
included in Essays ,such as the American Scholar , Self-Reliance ,
The Over-Soul .
二. The thought
1. The transcendentalism
:
A. The nature :
Emersonian Transcendentalism is actually a philosophical school
with absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and
European Romanticism .
B. The contents :
Emerson put forward his philosophy of the over-soul , the
importance of the Individual , and Nature . Transcendentalists
believed that there should be an emotional communication between an
individual soul and universal 'over-soul '
2.The influence
:
A. By employing nature as a big
symbol of the spirit ,or God , or the over-soul , Emerson has
brought the puritan legacy of symbolism to its perfection
.
B. Emerson is the most represntative
of the philosophical an literary school , and it inspired in his
lifetime a whole generation of famous authors like Thoreau ,
Whitman , and Dickinson .
三. The artistic features
:
1.The casual style :
Emerson's essays often have a casual style . They are usually
characterized by a series of short ,sentencesw
.
2. To use comparison and metaphors
:
Emerson's philosophical discussion is sometimes difficult to
understande but he uses comparisons and metaphors to make the
general idea of his work clearly expressed .
3.To employ the literary sources
:
Emerson often employed these literary sources to make and enrich
his own points but never let them take the full reins of his
discussion .