• II. Essential prerequisites for the study of British and American literature • 1. Interest in literature • 2. A large vocabulary • 3. Good habits of study
• III. What is to be studied in American literature • 1. History of American literature; • 2. Major writers and their major works; • 3. Historical (economic, political and ideological) background for the creation of the major writers; • 4. Literary creative thought and artistic features of the major writers; • 5. Central thought and social significance and writing techniques of a specific literary work; • 6. General literary theories and schools
V. The Survey of Selected Readings in American Literature
• 7. Standing apart from his contemporaries but no less important in the history of American literature is Edgar Allan Poe, who was for a long time perhaps the most controversial of American writers. • 8. From the very outset he was not appreciated in his own country, but he was well received in Europe, in England, in Spain, and especially in France where he first acquired greatness.
V. The Survey of Selected Readings in American Literature
• New England Transcendentalism (1836-1855)
• 1.One of the major literary figures in this period was Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), the leading New England Transcendentalist, whose Nature (1836) has been called "the Manifesto of American Transcendentalism," and whose "The American Scholar"(1837) has been rightly regarded as America's "Declaration of Intellectual Independence."
• IV. Requirements • 1. Previewing without exception • 2. Regular attendance (exception permitted only with convincing reasons) • 3. Class participation (Be active) and oral presentation
V. The Survey of Selected Readings in American Literature • The Age of Rห้องสมุดไป่ตู้alism (1861-1865)
• 1.The Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. • 2.The Age of Realism came into existence. • 3.It came as a reaction against "the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism," as Everett Carter put it. • 4.A fearless and enthusiastic champion of the new school was William Dean Howells (18371920).
V. The Survey of Selected Readings in American Literature • American Puritanism
(the early 17th century--the end of the 18th)
1706-1790
1703-1758
V. The Survey of Selected Readings in American Literature • The Literary Scene in the Colonial Period
V. The Survey of Selected Readings in American Literature
• 5. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) did not feel comfortable with Emerson's buoyant sense of optimism about man and his nature, and kept a respectable distance from Emerson and his ideas. • 6. His The Scarlet Letter (1850) and other works reveal a blackness of vision of which Emerson was not capable.
V. The Survey of Selected Readings in American Literature • The Romantic Period
• 1.The Romantic Period that follows covers the first half of the nineteenth century. • 2. Washington Irving (1783-1859) and James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) will be our first concern. • 3. Irving's "Rip Van Winkle"and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in The Sketch Book will be placed at the top of any reading list on American literature.
V. The Survey of Selected Readings in American Literature
• 2. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was at first a faithful follower of Emerson, but alienated himself somewhat from the master later on. • 3. Another of Emerson's contemporaries, Walt Whitman (1819-1892), tried to write poetry describing the native American experience. • 4. Whitman and Dickinson were the two major American poets of the nineteenth century.
V. The Survey of Selected Readings in American Literature
• 3. In content these early writings served either God or colonial expansion or both. In form, English literary traditions were faithfully imitated and transplanted. • 4. The major representatives in this period were John Smith (1588-1649), William Bradford (1590-1657), John Winthrop (1588-1649), and Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672).
American Literature
Foreign Language Department
Tang Xu
Words On the study of American Literature
• I. Preliminary knowledge for the study of American literature • 1. Basic knowledge of American literary works • 2. Basic knowledge of world literary classics, particularly those of ancient Greece • 3. Basic knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman mythology • 4. Basic knowledge of American history and politics • 5. Basic knowledge of the Christian Bible