American Literature

American Literature • Description: This is a semester course that will cover American Literature History and some American literary works. • Karensun123@hotmail.com

Scores: • Attendance 20% • Seminar Presentation 30% • Quiz or homework 10% • Final 40%

Seminar Presentation: • Time limit: 15mins • About 6 each group • A written demonstration of everyone’s distribution in preparative procedure. • Authors or literary works may be presented.

Authors • Author’s life, major works • Characteristics, themes • Writing style • etc

Literary works • Content, including plots, characters, interpretation, author’s attitude and readers’ response • Structure • Language, including rhetoric, style and tone

What’s literature • The class of writings distinguished for beauty of style or expression, as poetry, essays, or history, in distinction from scientific treatises and works which contain positive knowledge; belles-lettres(literary studies and writings, contrasted with those on commercial, technical, scientific, etc subjects).(from Webster's 1913 Dictionary)

What’s American Literature? No American Literature? Special ? (Melting pot)

American Literature • Colonial period (about1607--1765) • The period of Enlightenment and American Revolution(1765—end of 18c) • Romantic Period (1800—1865) New England Transcendentalism or American Renaissance (1836– 1855) • The Age of Realism (1865—1918) • American Naturalism (1918—1945) • American Modernism (1945-- )

Colonial period (early 17c– end 18c) American Puritanism Jonathan Edwards Benjamin Franklin

Romantic Period (1800—1865) Washington Irving James Fenimore Cooper New England Transcendentalism or American Renaissance (1836– 1855) Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Walt Whitman,Hawthorne,Melville

The Age of Realism (1865—1918) William Dean Howells Mark Twain Henry James

American Naturalism (1918—1945) Stephen Crane Frank Norris Theodore Dreiser Imagism (1908—1917) Ezra Pound T.S.Eliot William Carlos Williams, etc

American Naturalism (1918—1945) 1920s F.Scott Fitzgerald Ernest Hemingway 1930s John Dos Passes John Steinbeck

African American Literature Harlem Renaissance • American Drama

American Puritanism 1.Significance: It carries a code of values and a philosophy of life, which took root in the New World. It was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American Literature.

American Puritanism 2.Puritan images: They were teetotalers, gaunt,lank-haired, wearing a black steeple hat.

American Puritanism • Three periods: a. In the early17C, 1 02 settlers went to America by Mayflower Ship to escape the religious persecution as they were regarded as heresies. As God’s chosen people, they endeavored to build “City of God on earth”. Promising virgin land, virgin forest Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

American Puritanism • b. As the further westward, Americans Puritans were preoccupied with business and profits. They were more practical. “A doctrinaire opportunist” Benjamin Franklin

c. In the first few decades of 20s, it has aroused antipathy（dislike） for its intolerance and bigotry(偏执）, for their austerity of taste and killjoy way of life, for the very heritage they passed to the New Nations. “notorious” Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane, Sister Carie by Theodore Dreiser were inhibited.

The influence of American Puritanism on American Literature: a.American Literature is based on Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. “ God is everywhere.” b. Optimism c.Style “ fresh, simple and direct” The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin—The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—Ernest Hemingway

The Literary Scene in Colonial American • The Function of Puritan Writers 1.To transform a mysterious God - mysterious because he is separate from the world. 2. To make him more relevant to the universe. 3. To glorify God.

The Literary Scene in Colonial American • Origin:Personal literature • Captain John SmithA Description of New England William BradfordOf Plymouth Plantation John WinthropA Model of Christian Charity

Servants of God • Anne Bradstreet • Edward Taylor

Anne Bradstreet 1.family background “Tenth Muse” 2.her writings: a. mode of perception is Puritan : Contemplations (沉思录)

Anne Bradstreet b. personal and human side: “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and “ In Reference to Her Czhildren” c.The struggle between spiritual and material “The Flesh and The Spirit”（肉与灵） d. The early settlers’ hard life: “As Weary Pilgrim” （疲劳的朝圣者）

Edward Taylor • a meditative poet. He was the first and last, a Puritan poet, concerned about how his images speak for God.

Edward Taylor l“Huswifery” (家务) 主啊，把我作成你的完美的纺车吧，你的圣谕做线杆，我的激情做梭子，我的灵魂做线轴，我的谈话做卷线筒，把纺出的线卷起；

For civil and religious freedom from British • Roger Williams • John Woolman • Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine • He fought for the right of men. • Booklet Common Sense • The first of his American Crisis exerted a great influence in American Revolution. • The Age of Reason made the Orthodox irate.

Philip Freneau • He was “ the father of American Poetry”. • “The Wild Honey Suckle”(野冬忍花) 俏丽的花，你长得这样秀媚，潜立在此间幽静之地，你甜蜜的花无人观赏抚摩仍开放你细嫩的枝无人观赏也致意；在这里，无漫游者会践踏你，无忙碌人会为你落泪。

造化为你穿素装， 嘱你躲避庸俗的目光，在此铺下庇荫地，让小溪在身边潺潺流去；就这样，你的夏天静静消逝，你的生命渐趋安息。你那必定凋敝的妩媚令我颠倒，预见你未来的末日惹我悲凄；妩媚已去也--- 伊甸绽开的群芳，那些并不比你更秀丽；无情的白霜，秋天的威力，不容此花留足迹。

Charles Brockden Brown • Wieland; or, The Transformation: An American Tale 〈韦兰德〉is the first American novel. • Robinson Crusoe by Defoe is the first British novel. • Although he was an imitator, some historic significance he did: 1.he was aware that his inspiration was rooted in his own land.

2. his characters’ inner world, and the characters carries the essential characteristics of a neurotic. They were read as psychological novels. He was the forefather of Adgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne

American Literature