美国文学整理精选.doc

An Overview of American Literature 1. Colonial period (early 17th—late 18th) 2. Romantic period (first half of 19th) 3. Realism (after 1865) 4. Naturalism (last decade of the 19th) 十九世纪末二十世纪初 5. Modernism (the first half of the 20th) 二十世纪上半叶 The Literature of the Colonial Period The Colonies Jamestown, Virginia 1607(first English settlement, Captain John Smith) New England 1620 Massachusetts Bay 1630 American Puritanism 1. American Puritanism stressed predestination, original sin, total depravity, and limited atonement from God’s grace. 2. A way of life that stressed hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety. Literature of Early Settlements 1. A literary expression of the Puritan idealism. 2. Types of writing: histories, travel accounts, biographies, diaries, letters, autobiographies, sermons, and poems… 3. Usefulness and Plainness: Utilitarian, polemical, or didactic. 4. Style: fresh, simple, direct and with a touch of nobility. First American writer: Captain John Smith A True Relation of Such Occurrence and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony A map of Virginia: with a Description of the Country (1612) General History of Virginia (1624) The first published book of poems by an American and the first American book to be published by a woman—Anne Bradstreet 1. Her ability to capture the colonial experience in poetry established her place as one of America’s most notable early writers. 2. Stylistic characteristics: (1) Bradstreet’s poems usually employ iambic抑扬格 pentameter with key variations in rhythm and syntax for special rhetorical effect or emphasis. (2) Her poems are also filled with imagery, followed with sustained parallels. Metaphysical conceits could also be found in her poems. (3) Her poems are also filled with self-effacing apology (art claiming artlessness), which gradually becomes more authoritative poetic persona (questioning God) (Persona: A voice or character representing the speaker in a literary wo