1、美国文学史复习资料美国文学史复习1（The Literature of Colonial）一、时期综述1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记 b、journals 游记2、清教徒在美国的写作内容：1）their voyage to the new land2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops3) About dealing with Indians4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit3、清教徒的思想：1）p
2、uritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式2) Wishto restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位来源：( - 美国文学史复习1（colonialism)_苗苗_新浪博客 3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who ch
3、allenged their way of life is opposing Gods will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步 5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。The influen
4、ces of Puritanism on American literature a. Optimism American literature is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. It is in good measure a literary expression of the pious idealism of the American puritan. The puritans dreamed of living under a perfect order and worked with indomitable co
5、urage and confident hope toward building a new Garden of Eden in American, where man could live the way he should. They looked even the worst of life in the face with a tremendous amount of optimism. All this went in due time into the making of American literature. The optimistic Puritan has exerted
6、 a great influence on American literature. b. Symbolism To the pious Puritan, the physical, phenomenal world is nothing but a symbol of God. Physical life was simultaneously spiritual; every passage of life, enmeshed in the vast context of Gods plan, possessed a delegated meaning. This metaphorical
7、mode of perception was chiefly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American. Puritan doctrine and literary practice contributed to the development of an indigenous symbolism. To Hawthorne, Melville, Howells and many others, symbolism as a technique has become
8、a common practice. c. Simplicity Simplicity characterizes the Puritan style of writing. The style of their writing is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible. All this has left an indelible impri
9、nt on American writing. Summery Literature of the New England Settlements is mainly a literary expression of the Puritan idealism. It is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden Eden. The pious and self-disciplined Puritans worked with courage and hope toward building a new Garden of Eden in America
10、. They looked even the worst of life in the face with a tremendous amount of optimism. The Puritan optimism has exerted enormous impact on American literature. 4、典型的清教徒： John Cotton & Roger William他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy; William begins the histor
11、y of religious toleration in America.5、William的宗教观点：Toleration did not stem from a lack of religious convictions. Instead, it sprang from the idea that simply to be virtuous in conduct and devout in belief did not give anyone the right to force belief on others. He also felt that no political order
12、or church system could identify itself directly with God. 行为上的德，信仰上的诚，并没有给任何人强迫别人该如何行事的权利。没有任何政治秩序和教会体制能够直接体现神本身的意旨。6、英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet1 7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of Puritan poets is Edward Tayor. 他的作品遵循了十七世纪中期一些杰出诗人风格和形式his work followed they style and forms of the leading English poets o
13、f the mid-seventeenth century。他大部分作品关于宗教的，大部分诗歌直接以赞美诗为基础进行创作的most of Taylors work treated religious themes, with many poems based directly on the Psalms. 在世时没出版过作品，1937年发现手稿，1960年泰勒诗歌全集。Native American LiteratureThe traditional literature was originally transmitted almost entirely by word of mouth,
14、and therefore belongs to the category of oral literature. It was composed in an Indian language for an Indian audience at a time when the tribal cultures were intact and contact with whites had been minimal. It consists of sacred stories, folktales, and songs as part of the rituals of annual festiva
15、ls, tribal traditions, and narrative accounts of gods and heroes. It took on a regularity of metric pattern which gave it the quality of poetry and was an organic part of everyday life. Myths and tales were educational and tools that taught the younger generation the beliefs andhistory of the tribe.
16、 The transitional literature is represented by translations of the great Indian orators of the 19thcentury and memoirs of the Indian experience in relation to white dominance. They were related by Indians to white audiences. The modern literature includes novels, short stories, and poetry written in
17、 English by native Americans of the 19th and 20th centuries, most of whom speak no other language. For some reason there are more good Indian poets than fiction writers today. These natural-born poets are gifted with colorful imagination and the ability to express in sonorous, musical words their im
18、pression of life and nature. As native American writers view injustice, violence, and despair as forces that influence native American life, they explore both their rich heritage and their tragic loss of identity as they find themselves trapped between a culture that is vanishing and a culture that
19、for them is not yet full available. Hence, their literature forms a unique and significant part of American literature.a、Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing.b、The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet & Edward Taylor, rose
20、 to the level of real poetry.c、The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans,French, Spaniards Italian, and Portuguese.人物介绍1. Anne Bradstreet a. Life Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems were based on four elements: the constitutions and ages of man, the seasons of the year, and the chie
21、f empires of the ancient world. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the “Tenth Muse” who appeared in America. Most of her poems are personal in subject, often meditating on domestic topics from a religious point of view. The argument of her poems is essentially about the j
22、ustice of Gods way with His Puritan flock and they search for a sense of mans nature and destiny and his mission in the new world. b. “Contemplation(9)”: “Contemplation(9)”:offers the reader an insight into the mentality of the early Puritan pioneering in a new world.2. Edward Taylor a. Life: a medi
23、tative poet writing his poems with vivid imagery as a mental exercise. b. The concern in his works: how his images speak for God. c. The analysis of his poem “Housewifery” Q1: What is expressed in the poem? Q2: How does the poet express the theme?3. Roger Williams a. A Puritan dissenter and a fighte
24、r for freedom and democracy b.The major works: “The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the cause of Conscience”condemning the religious conformity and upholding the spiritual freedom of the individual4. John Woolman a. His views on religion: convinced true religion consisted in an inward life in which
25、the heart loved and respected God and learned to excise true justice and goodness to men and brutes alike. Teaching goodness and piety, speaking against total depravity, original sin and limited atonement. b. The major works: “Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes” / “A plea for the Poor” Su
26、mmary: the period is one in which the national experience of the American settlers building the wilderness into a habitable place groped ad struggled for literary expression.美国文学史复习2（reasoningandrevolution) “The Age of Reason” “American Enlightenment” The Intellectual Backgrounds for the 18th Centur
27、y:A. American Puritanism (still dominating)B. The Great Awakening in 1730s and 1740s Jonathan Edwards as one of the leading advocatesC. Deism: a Compromise between Science and ReligionNewton and his “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”(in which he put forward his famous principle of univer
28、sal gravitation)D. The Influence of The Enlightenment Movement (in France: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire) (in England: Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe)Three Enlightenment thinkers 1.John Locke (1642-1704)2.Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)3.Jean Jacques Rouseau(1712-1778)The two basic patterns of thought dom
29、inating the 18th century American thinking1. Deism 自然神论 Toward the latter part of the 17th century, a complete new view of the universe came into being. Under the influence of Newtons laws of motion and the idea of universal gravitation, in the minds of thinking people, the universe became sth. Mech
30、anical, like a clock, subject to certain physical and mechanical laws. This gave rise to a whole set of new ideas and philosophies. New scientists and philosophers deduced the existence of God from the construction of the universe itself rather than from the Bible, They assumed that people were actu
31、ally good and that a harmonious universe proclaimed the benevolence of God. They were not interested in the theology but in mans own nature. Deism was predominant among these ideas. The Deists hold that God is indeed the creator of universe, “the maker of the clock”, but He has left to operate accor
32、ding to natural law. Thus the best way to worship God is to study his handiwork, namely, the natural word and the human world, to do good things to mankind. The new concept of the universe was radically different from the hitherto domineering Christian position of original sin and predestination. With Franklin as its spokesman, the 18th century America experienced an age of enlightenment, of reason, and order like England and Europe.2.Calvinist beliefs and tenets Calvi
