美国文学 不同时期的流派Lecture 1.doc

What is literature? Literature is language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages. Brief Introduction to American Literature Although American literature may be among the youngest national literatures in the world, it swiftly developed, well matured, began to receive international recognition and has exercised an impactful effect upon the world literature. American literature can be divided into several stages such as the colonial period, the period of enlightenment and American revolution, the romantic period, the age of realism, the modern period and the contemporary literature.  Schools of American Literature 重农派(Agrarians) 迷惘的一代(The Lost Generation) 黑山派诗歌(BIack Mountain Poems) 垮掉的一代(the Beat Generation) 黑色幽默(Black humor) The Colonial Period It was after American independence that American literature began to take shape. In the colonial period, American writers did not turn up with real American style basically, and American literature, by and large, followed the English tradition and did not give rise to the works of great literary value. New English Renaissance, Transcendentalism Between 1840 and 1850, American literature reached its first peak called New English Renaissance. Transcendentalism, according to transcendence through self-knowledge, self-reliance, and the contemplation of nature, fanned the flame and played a motivating role. This first American literature in the 1830s and ended with its flowering in the 1850s. A considerable number of writer such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville and Walt Whitman fully displayed their talents. They freed themselves from the hindrance of the tradition of English literature, discolored the brand of the English literature shown in the works by the former writers, and created a great number of literary works, brilliant, really American and original in style, in which “Nature”, Walden, the Scarle