英美文学到现实主义

1. The early development of American literature

A. The early development of American literature is slow, as then America was at the period of development with low living standard.

B. The first problem immigrants had to solve was food. It was really hard for them to care for the spiritual enjoyment.

C. In 1704, first newspaper got published in America. In 1731, first library was established.

In 1752, first professional troupe （剧团 ）was set up. What was put on the stage were English plays.

It was not until 1767 that the first play by American writer was put on the stage. It was after the war of Independence that novels appeared. 2. Main literary writers and writings of this period

A.The writings of this period were diaries, travel notes and works of religion.

B. Though they could’t be regarded as the birth of American literature, to some extent, they reflected the living situation and social customs of the early colonized place, which had played an important role in the cultural life of American people, thus influenced the following American literature. 3. Literature of Reason and Revolution

Writers of the period

Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography; Poor Richard’s Almanac（历书,年鉴） Thomas Paine: Common Sense;

Thomas Jefferson: The Declaration of Independence Thomas Paine（1737-1809） and Common Sense

1. Published anonymously by Thomas Paine in January of 1776, Common Sense was an instant best-seller, both in the colonies and in Europe. It went through several editions in Philadelphia, and was republished in all parts of United America. Because of it, Paine became internationally famous.

2. Paine's political pamphlet brought the rising revolutionary sentiment into sharp focus by placing blame for the suffering of the colonies directly on the reigning British monarch, George III.

3. First and foremost, Common Sense advocated an immediate declaration of independence, postulating a special moral obligation of America to the rest of the world.

4. Not long after publication, the spirit of Paine's argument found resonance in the American Declaration of Independence.

1. What were Benjamin Franklin’s achievements? 2. How could he be so successful? 野金银花 菲利普·弗瑞诺

美丽的金银花， 造化令你素裹银妆， 你粲然绽放于幽静一角。 你得以远离庸人的目光。 芳菲满枝，无人垂顾， 她赐予你一片绿阴葱葱， 迎风起舞，无人注目。 她带给你一泓流水淙淙。 游子从不践踏你的玉体， 恬静的夏日倏然流淌，

过客从不催落你的泪滴。 你终于红衰翠减，玉陨香消. 妩媚动人，你却无法盛颜久长， 朝霞暮露，

落红满地，你令我黯然神伤。 孕育了你娇小的身躯。 纵然在伊甸乐园，人间天堂， 你从尘土来，又归尘土去，

也难免一日凋零，满目凄凉。 来时一无所有，去时化作尘土， 萧瑟秋风，凄白秋霜， 可叹生命苦短， 你终于消失得无影无踪。 你终究红消香断。 Analysis of the poem

 It is a deistic celebration of nature, romantic use of simple nature imagery, inspired by themes of death and

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transience. Much of the beauty of the poem lies in the sounds of the words and the effects created through changes in rhythm.

 Flower vs Human Being, Duration vs Life  Show us how to live an useful life.

 In a revolution, one should not do nothing for his country for fear of being hurt, harmed and destroyed. 1. What is Puritanism?

1). A religious and political movement. Through it, one sees emerging the right of the individual to political and religious independence.

2). Their religious doctrines: original sin, total depravity, predestination, limited atonement. 3). Their attitudes toward entertainment: joy and laughter are symptoms of sin.

4). Their attitudes toward work: work itself is a good in addition to what it achieves, that time saved by efficiency or good fortune should be spent in doing further work.

2. What is Puritanism’s influence on American literature? 1). Purpose: pragmatic

2). Contents: practical matter-of-fact accounts of life in the new world; highly theoretical discussions of religious questions.

3). Form: diary, autobiography, sermon, letter

4). Style: tight and logic structure, precise and compact expression, avoidance of rhetorical decoration, adoption of homely imagery, simplicity of diction.

Historical Introduction of Reason and Revolution Period

 1. Industrial Revolution: spurred the economy in American colonies.

 2. Independence War: the industrial growth led to intense strain with Britain.

 The British government tried to suppress their growth economically, and ruled them from abroad

politically and levied heavy tax on them.

 These aroused bitter resentment in colonies. Constant conflicts resulted in American revolutionary war  3. Spiritual life of the colonies—Enlightenment.  4. Philosophical and intellectual movement.

 5. Advocated reason or rationality, the scientific method, equality and human beings’ability to perfect

themselves and their society.

 6. Agreed on faith in human rationality and existence of discoverable and universally valid principles

governing human beings, nature and society.

 7. Opposed intolerance, restraint, spiritual authority and revealed religion

Benjamin Franklin

The only good writer of the colonial period.

Printer, enlightener, inventor, scientist, statesman, diplomat Aid Jefferson in writing The Declaration of Independence. Seeking help from France in American Independent War. Main Works: Poor Richard’s Almanac年鉴，历书

It contains many proverbs

Autobiography: With it he set the form for autobiography as a genre/风格，流派/. Style: he developed an utilitarian 功利主义and didactic style.

His style is characterized by simplicity, frankness, wit, clarity, logic and order.

Autobiography: inspiring account of a poor boy’s rise to a high position. It is a how-to-do-it book, one on the art of self-improvement.

Contents: It covered Franklin’s life only until 1757 when he was 51 years old. It described his life as a shrewd and industrious businessman and narrates how he owned the constant felicity 幸福，精彩 of his life, his long-continued health and acquisition of fortune.

Significance: It presents a prototype 原型 of American success which inspired generations of Americans. It is an embodiment of Puritanism and enlightening spirits.

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Why Franklin is admired and read widely?

1. He is a typical American, model of the self-made man, a cultural hero whose life exemplified the American dream of the poor boy who made good.

2. He stressed the importance of working hard to make money, happiness depending in the first place on economic success and optimistically believed that every American could do so.

3. He was convinced that no man could be virtuous or happy unless he did his best to improve the life of his society and his own life.

Why it is said that Franklin is the representative of American Enlightenment ?

1.He believed in reason or rationality, the scientific method, equality and human beings’ ability to perfect themselves and their society.

2. He opposed intolerance, restraint, spiritual authority and revealed religion Deist/自然神论/

3. He favored the education. Self-education, educating and disseminating knowledge among people by his newspaper and Autobiography, establishing learning club, college and library.

4. He favored freedom of thoughts. He set up the ideas of democracy in the USA.

Thomas Paine

Propagandist, pamphleteer, a master of persuasion who understands the power of language to move a man to action.

Main works: The American Crisis, Common Sense, The rights of man, The Age of Reason

Thomas Jefferson 1

Enlightener, planter, aristocrat, lawyer, a symbol of American democracy.

Man of many talents: scientist, inventor, musician, linguist, architect, diplomat and writer.

Thomas Jefferson 2

Political Career: He served his country as Minister to France(1784-17), Secretary of State(17-1793), Vice President(1791-1801) and third President(1801-1809).

Thoughts: Jeffersonian Democracy, which includes faith in the individual and common man, dislike an overly strong government, and emphasis on the importance of education and on agrarianism and land ownership as they brought responsibility and true judgment. Politically, he is considered the father of the democratic spirit in his country. The society he thought of as ideal was one where landowning farmers could live under as little government as possible.

Style: dignity, flexibility, clarity, command of generalization

Thomas Jefferson 3

The Declaration of Independence: The essay, adopted July 4, 1776, not only announced the birth of a new nation, but also set forth a philosophy of human freedom which served as unimportant force in the western world.

It is a statement of American principles and a review of the Causes of the quarrel with Britain, presented the American view to the world with classic dignity.

It instilled among the common people a sense of their own importance and inspired struggle for personal freedom, self government and a dignified place in society.

Philip Freneau

Father of American Poetry

Teacher, political journalist, seaman, humanitarian, polemist, propagandist, satirist, loyal follower of Jefferson Main Works: The Rising Glory of America (1772), The British Prison Ship (1781)

The Wild Honey Suckle (1786), The Indian Burying Ground (1788)

American Romanticism (or the American Renaissance)

（from early 1800 to the Civil War )

Background of American Romanticism (or the American Renaissance) Rapid development of the nation and changes of the society:

1.economic changes 2.political changes

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3. ideology 4. culture before 1860:

1. The Unite States had begun to change into an industrial and urban society, population, techology, etc.

2. A renewed interest in reform and humanitarianism appeared, church reforms, feminist movements, establishment of anti-slavery societies, etc.

3. The pursuit of simplicity, utility, and perfection remained an American characteristic.

4 . The level of education and literacy had risen significantly, improvements of printing press and expansion of postal service made possible the rapid production and wide distribution of periodicals Elements of Romanticism

1. Frontier: vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations.

2. Optimism: greater than in Europe because of the presence of frontier. 3. Experimentation: in science, in institutions (社会团体)

4. Mingling of races: immigrants in large numbers arrive to the US.

5. Growth of industrialization: polarization of north and south; north becomes industrialized, south remains agricultural.

Romantic Subject Matter

1. The quest for beauty: non-didactic, \"pure beauty.“

2. The use of the far-away and non-normal- antique and fanciful:

a. In historical perspective: antiquarianism （好古癖） ; antiquing or artificially aging; interest in the past. b. Characterization and mood: grotesque（极丑陋）, gothicism （歌特式情趣）, sense of terror, fear; use of the odd and queer.

3. Escapism - from American problems.

4. Interest in external nature - for itself, for beauty:

a. Nature as source for the knowledge of the primitive. b. Nature as refuge.

c. Nature as revelation of God to the individual. Romantic Attitudes

1. Appeals to imagination; use of the \"willing suspension of disbelief.\"

2. Stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, geniality （和蔼,亲切）. 3. Subjectivity: in form and meaning. The Flowering of American Literature

1.The decade of 1850-59 is unique in the annals /记录/of literary production.

2. For a variety of reasons American authors, both African and European, published remarkable works in such a concentration of time.

3. The feat, it is safe to say, has not been duplicated in this or any other literary tradition. Works by European American Writers

 Year Author Title

 1850 Ralph Waldo Emerson Representative Men 代表性人物  1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter 红字  1851 Herman Melville Moby-Dick 白鲸

 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin 汤姆叔叔的小屋  18 Henry David Thoreau Walden 瓦尔登湖  1855 Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass 草叶集

Washington Irving （1783-1859）

（Father of American Literature）

 The Author’s Account of Himself 作者自述  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 睡谷的传说  Rip Van Winkle 里普.凡.温克尔

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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

1. The story is set circa /about/ 1790 in the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, New York, in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow.

2. It tells the story of Ichabod Crane, a lean, lanky, and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham \"Brom Bones\" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer, Baltus Van Tassel.

3. As Crane leaves a party he attended at the Van Tassel home on an autumn night, he is pursued by the Headless Horseman, who is supposedly the ghost of a Hessian trooper who had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during \"some nameless battle\" of the American Revolutionary War, and who \"rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head\".

4. Ichabod mysteriously disappears from town, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones, who was \"to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related\".

RIP VAN WINKLE

RIP VAN WINKLE is a famous tale written by Washington Erving, telling about a story in which an old man named Rip drank some beverage and fell into asleep for 20 years.

After that, he returned to the villege where he came from, and found everything changed. People talked about revolution and election, and he has no idea of what that meaned.

There have been many comments on this tale saying that it shows Irving's attitude against the American revolution, and his approving of the past.

James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 17 – September 14, 1851)

1.James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century.

2.He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo.

3. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, which many consider to be his masterpiece

 The Spy 间谍

 The Leather-Stocking Tales: 皮袜子五部曲

 The Pioneers: (1823), 开拓者

The Last of the Mohicans: (1826), 草原 The Prairie: (1827), 探路者 The Pathfinder: (1840), 杀鹿者

The Deerslayer: (1841) 最后的莫希干人

Part IV The Literature of Realism (现实主义时期) (1865 -1914)

 I. Historical Introduction  II. Literary Characteristics  III. Two American Poets

Part IV The Literature of Realism (现实主义时期) (1865 -1914)

 Time: The period ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to as the Age of Realism in the literary

history of the United States, which is actually a movement or tendency that dominated the spirit of American literature, especially American fiction, from the 1850s onwards.

 Definition: Realism was a reaction against Romanticism or a move away from the bias towards romance and

self-creating fictions, and paved the way to Modernism. It stresses truthful treatment of material.

 It focuses on commonness of the lives of the common people, and emphasizes objectivity and offers an

objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.

I. Historical Introduction

 The civil war brought about two results:

 1. Further industrialization(工业化), mechanization(机械化), urbanization(都市化), development of

transportation (运输) and communication(通讯).

 2. Further Westward Expansion, the last of the first 48 states were settled.

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 1. Feminist movement. Emily Dickinson(艾米莉·迪金森), Harriet Beecher Stowe(哈丽叶特·比契·斯陀),

etc.

 2. Decline of American Romanticism, Walt Whitman(沃特·惠特曼) “Leaves of Grass”《草叶集》  3. Appearance of American realism  4. Appearance of American naturalism

Walt Whitman (1819-12) Emily Dickinson（1830－1886

Walt Whitman (1819-12) and his achievements

 Whitman was one of the great innovators in American literature.

 In the book of poems he called “Leaves of Grass”《草叶集》, he gave America its first genuine epic poem.  The poetic style he devised is now called free verse.

Whitman’s Achievements

 Whitman was the first to explore fully the possibilities of free verse.  惠特曼是探索自由诗体可能性的第一个.

 Free verse: poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme O Captain!My Captain!

Come up from the Fields, Father Walt Whitman (1819-12), Leaves of Grass, 1900. Emily Dickinson（1830－1886）

 America’s best-known female lyrical poet  Nearly 1800 poems

Life Story ：She was born in Amberst, Massachusetts, a very wealthy family. Her father was a lawyer and founder of Amberst College.

She liked Poetry very much. She withdrew from social contact at the age of 23 and devoted herself in secret into writing.

 She was single in her whole life.  She died in 1886 at the age of 57.

 Sources: Dickinson enjoyed the Bible, English writers Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Browning, Keats, George Herbert, George Eliot, Thomas Carlyle.

 Themes: wholly original, from her personal experiences, love, nature, friendship, death, immortality, war, god, religious belief, humor, literature, music, art. Artistic Features

 Abundant use of dashes, irregular and special punctuation and capitalization. Clear-cut, delicately original imagery, precise and simple diction, fragmentary and enigmatic metrical pattern.

 Short poetic lines, condensed by using intense metaphors and by extensive use of ellipsis.  Conventional meters, iambic tetrameter(四音步句), off-rhymes.  Visual and audible effects, great imagination, sincere emotions

Harriet Beecher Stowe(1811-16)

 哈丽叶特·比契·斯陀 O. Henry (1862-1910)

 “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

 《汤姆叔叔的小屋》(1851 )

 欧·亨利

 The Cop and the Anthem  《与赞美诗》  The Gift of the Magi 《麦琪的礼物》

American Realism

 1. Reasons: civil war, social development. People sought to describe the wide range of

American experience and to present the subtleties of human personality, to portray characters who were less simply all good or all bad.

 2. Realism originated in France. A literary doctrine that called for “reality and truth” in

the depiction of ordinary life.

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 3. American realism, different from European realism, is more varied and individualistic.  4. Development of American realism: first appear in the literature of local color(乡土色

彩), arbiter/权威人士, 泰斗/: William Dean Howells. He defined realism as “nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material”.

5. Important writers:

William Howells (威廉·迪恩·豪威尔斯),  Mark Twain(马克·吐温),  Henry James(亨利·詹姆士). William Dean Howells (1837-1920)  《时来运转》10

Mark Twain(1835-1910)  威廉·迪恩·豪威尔斯

 A Modern Instance  马克·吐温

 “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”  《现代婚姻》 (1882 )

 The Rise of Silas Lapham  《汤姆·索亚历险记》 (1876 )

 “The Adventures of Huckleberry  《塞拉斯•拉帕姆的发迹》 (1885 )

 A Hazard of New Fortunes Finn”  《时来运转》10 《哈克贝利·芬历险记》 (1884 ) William Dean Howells (1837-1920) Henry James (1843-1916)

 威廉·迪恩·豪威尔斯  亨利·詹姆士  A Modern Instance  “Daisy Miller”  《现代婚姻》 (1882 )  《黛西·米勒》(1871 )  The Rise of Silas Lapham  “The Portrait of a Lady”  《塞拉斯•拉帕姆的 发迹》 (1885 )  《贵妇人的画像》(1881 )  A Hazard of New Fortunes  American Naturalism

 1. Naturalism came from France (pessimistic  realism).

 2. Reasons: It was shaped by civil war, social  upheavals, the teachings of Charles Darwin-  Darwinism. Darwinism seems to stress the  animality of man, to suggest that he was

 dominated by the irresistible forces of evolution.  3. American Naturalist writers: Stephen Crane, Frank

 Norris, Jack London, Henry Adams, Theodore Dreiser. Jack London (1876 - 1916) Theodore Dreiser (1871—1945)

 Call of the Wild 《野性的呼唤》  西奥多·德莱塞

(1903)  Sister Carrie  The Sea Wolf 《嘉莉妹妹》 （1900）

 An American Tragedy 《海狼》 (1904)

 Martin Eden  《美国悲剧》 (1925) greatest novel

 《马丁·伊登》 (1909)

 semi-autobiographical novel

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