美国文学教案1_美国文学教案

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Chapter 1 Colonial Period I.Background: Puritanism 1.features of Puritanism(1)Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred.(2)Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can be paed down from generation to generation.(3)Total depravity(4)Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.2.Influence(1)A group of good qualities – hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety(serious and thoughtful)influenced American literature.(2)It led to the everlasting myth.All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden.(3)Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chiefly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American.(4)With regard to their writing, the style 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.II.Overview of the literature 1.types of writing diaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons 2.writers of colonial period(1)Anne Bradstreet(2)Edward Taylor(3)Roger Williams(4)John Woolman(5)Thomas Paine(6)Philip Freneau IV.Benjamin Franklin 1.life 2.works(1)Poor Richard’s Almanac(2)Autobiography 3.contribution(1)He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society.(2)He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire(electricity in this case)from heaven”.(3)Everything seems to meet in this one man – “Jack of all trades”.Herman Melville thus described him “master of each and mastered by none”.Chapter 2 American Romanticism Section 1 Early Romantic Period What is Romanticism? An approach from ancient Greek: Plato A literary trend: 18c in Britain(1798~1832)Schlegel Bros.I.Preview: Characteristics of romanticism 1.subjectivity(1)feeling and emotions, finding truth(2)emphasis on imagination(3)emphasis on individualism – personal freedom, no hero worship, natural goodne of human beings 2.back to medieval, esp medieval folk literature(1)unrestrained by claical rules(2)full of imagination(3)colloquial language(4)freedom of imagination(5)genuine in feelings: answer their call for claics 3.back to nature nature is “breathing living thing”(Roueau)II.American Romanticism 1.Background(1)Political background and economic development(2)Romantic movement in European countries Derivative – foreign influence 2.features(1)American romanticism was in eence the expreion of “a real new experience and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien.(2)There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider.American romantic authors tended more to moralize.Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained.(3)The “newne” of Americans as a nation is in connection with American Romanticism.(4)As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent.III.Washington Irving 1.several names attached to Irving(1)first American writer(2)the meenger sent from the new world to the old world(3)father of American literature 2.life 3.works(1)A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty(2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.(He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this.)(3)The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus(4)A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada(5)The Alhambra 4.Literary career: two parts(1)1809~1832 a.Subjects are either English or European b.Conservative love for the antique(2)1832~1859: back to US 5.style – beautiful(1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantne(2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining(3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere(4)vivid and true characters(5)humour – smiling while reading(6)musical language IV.James Fenimore Cooper 1.life 2.works(1)Precaution(1820, his first novel, imitating Austen’s Pride and Prejudice)(2)The Spy(his second novel and great succe)(3)Leatherstocking Tales(his masterpiece, a series of five novels)The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer, The Prairie 3.point of view the theme of wilderne vs.civilization, freedom vs.law, order vs.change, aristocrat vs.democrat, natural rights vs.legal rights 4.style(1)highly imaginative(2)good at inventing tales(3)good at landscape description(4)conservative(5)characterization wooden and lacking in probability(6)language and use of dialect not authentic 5.literary achievements He created a myth about the formative period of the American nation.If the history of the United States is, in a sense, the proce of the American settlers exploring and pushing the American frontier forever westward, then Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West.He turned the west and frontier as a useable past and he helped to introduce western tradition to American literature.Romantic Poets I.WaltWhitman 1.life 2.work: Leaves of Gra(9 editions)(1)Song of Myself(2)There Was a Child Went Forth(3)Croing Brooklyn Ferry(4)Democratic Vistas(5)Paage to India(6)Out of the Cradle Endlely Rocking 3.themes – “Catalogue of American and European thought”

He had been influenced by many American and European thoughts: enlightenment, idealism, transcendentalism, science, evolution ideas, western frontier spirits, Jefferson’s individualism, Civil War Unionism, Orientalism.Major themes in his poems(almost everything): equality of things and beings divinity of everything immanence of God democracy evolution of cosmos multiplicity of nature self-reliant spirit death, beauty of death expansion of America brotherhood and social solidarity(unity of nations in the world)pursuit of love and happine 4.style: “free verse”

(1)no fixed rhyme or scheme(2)parallelism, a rhythm of thought(3)phonetic recurrence(4)the habit of using snapshots(5)the use of a certain pronoun “I”

(6)a looser and more open-ended syntactic structure(7)use of conventional image(8)strong tendency to use oral English(9)vocabulary – powerful, colourful, rarely used words of foreign origins, some even wrong(10)sentences – catalogue technique: long list of names, long poem lines 5.influence(1)His best work has become part of the common property of Western culture.(2)He took over Whitman’s vision of the poet-prophet and poet-teacher and recast it in a more sophisticated and Europeanized mood.(3)He has been compared to a mountain in American literary history.(4)Contemporary American poetry, whatever school or form, bears witne to his great influence.II.Emily Dickenson 1.life 2.works(1)My Life Closed Twice before Its Close(2)Because I Can’t Stop for Death(3)I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I died(4)Mine – by the Right of the White Election(5)Wild Nights – Wild Nights 3.themes: based on her own experiences/joys/sorrows(1)religion – doubt and belief about religious subjects(2)death and immortality(3)love – suffering and frustration caused by love(4)physical aspect of desire(5)nature – kind and cruel(6)free will and human responsibility 4.style(1)poems without titles(2)severe economy of expreion(3)directne, brevity(4)musical device to create cadence(rhythm)(5)capital letters – emphasis(6)short poems, mainly two stanzas(7)rhetoric techniques: personification – make some of abstract ideas vivid III.Comparison:Whitman vs.Dickinson 1.Similarities:(1)Thematically, they both extolled, in their different ways, an emergent America, its expansion, its individualism and its Americanne, their poetry being part of “American Renaiance”.(2)Technically, they both added to the literary independence of the new nation by breaking free of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in form unknown before: they were pioneers in American poetry.2.differences:(1)Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large;Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual.(2)Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook, Dickinson is “regional”.(3)Dickinson has the “catalogue technique”(direct, simple style)which Whitman doesn’t have.Edgar Allen Poe I.Life II.Works 1.short stories(1)ratiocinative stories a.Ms Found in a Bottle b.The Murders in the Rue Morgue c.The Purloined Letter(2)Revenge, death and rebirth a.The Fall of the House of Usher b.Ligeia c.The Masque of the Red Death(3)Literary theory a.The Philosophy of Composition b.The Poetic Principle c.Review of Hawthorne’s Twice-told Tales III.Themes 1.death – predominant theme in Poe’s writing

“Poe is not interested in anything alive.Everything in Poe’s writings is dead.” 2.disintegration(separation)of life 3.horror 4.negative thoughts of science IV.Aesthetic ideas 1.The short stories should be of brevity, totality, single effect, compreion and finality.2.The poems should be short, and the aim should be beauty, the tone melancholy.Poems should not be of moralizing.He calls for pure poetry and strees rhythm.V.Style – traditional, but not easy to read VI.Reputation: “the jingle man”(Emerson)