1puritanism清教主义The dogmas 教条preached by Puritans. They believed that all men were predestined命中注定and the individual ‘s free will played no part in his quest for salvation. This was a rejection of the dogmas preached by the Roman Catholic Church and its rites仪式. The Puritans also advocated a strict moral code which prohibited many earthly pleasures such as dancing and other merry-makings.清教徒提倡严格的道德准则禁止如跳舞和其他许多世俗的快乐的气质。
They stressed the virtues of self-discipline,自律thrift节俭and hard work as evidence that one was among the “elect” to be chosen to go to Heaven after death2RomanticismThe term refers to the literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and early 19th century. Romanticism rejected the earlier philosophy of the Enlightenment, which stressed that logic and reason were the best response humans had in the face of cruelty, 残忍的stupidity, superstition,迷信的and barbarism. Instead, the Romantics asserted that reliance 依赖upon emotion and natural passions provided a valid and powerful means of knowing and a reliable guide to ethics 伦理and living. The Romantic movement typically asserts 声称，代言the unique nature of the individual, the privileged status 特权地位of imagination and fancy想象和幻想, the value of spontaneity over “artifice” and “convention”价值的理解“技巧”和“公约”，the human need for emotional outlets, the spiritual destruction 精神上的摧残of urban life.城市生活。
Their writings are often set in rural, or Gothic settings and they show an obsessive 强迫性的concern with “innocent” characters—children, younglovers, and animals. The major Romantic poets included William Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Gordon Byron.3Epic 史诗An epic is a long oral narrative poem that operates on a grand scale大尺度and deals with legendary传奇or historical events of national or universal significance.意义Most epics deal with the exploits利用of a single individual and also interlace the main narrative with myths, legends, folk tales and past events; there is a composite effect, the entire culture of a country cohering in the overall experience of the poem. Epic poems are not merely entertaining stories of legendary or historical heroes; they summarize and express the nature or ideals of an entire nation at a significant or crucial period of its history.4TranscendentalismTranscendentalism is a philosophical and literary movement, flourishing in New England from the 1830s to the Civil War.It is the summit of American Romanticism.It is strongly against Rationalism and Materialism (物质享乐主义）.What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us is idealism, idealism as appears in 1842. Transcendentalism was a romantic idealism, or philosophical romanticism. It is also regarded as a considerable-scale ideological and cultural revolution after American people struggled to get free from the English colonial rule5RealismRealism is the trend, beginning with mid nineteenth-century French literature andextending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors, toward depictions描写of contemporary life当代生活and society as it was, or is. In the spirit of general "realism," realist authors opted 选择for depictions of everyday and banal平庸的activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.In England, the French realists were imitated consciously and notably 值得注意的是by George Edward Moore (1873-1958) and Arnold Bennett 1867-1931), but the English novel from the time of Defoe (18th cent.) had had its own unlabelled strain of realism, and the term is thus applied to English literature in varying senses and contexts,语境sometimes qualified as 'social' or Psychological' realism etc.6lost generationIt is applied to the generation of American writers who came of age during or just after WW one and who fought in the war. The terms derives from Gertrude Stein’s comment to Ernest Hemingway, “you are all a lost generation”. Hemingway, himself a memeber of the lost generation, used the phrase as a motto and theme for his novel “the sun also rises’. Members of this lost generation, who fund themselves without emotional or cultural stability in a time of social upheaval and to whom the traditional values made mo sense as a result of the war, included F.Scott Fitzgerald , Louis Bloomfield, Hart Crane ,Malcolm Cowley and John Dos Passos. Although many of them spent much of their time in Paris, others lived and worked in New York and some remained in the middle west and the South. They constituted a group reacting against certain tendencies of older writers.7FeminismFeminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal, political, economic, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist advocates or supports the rights and equality of women. Feminist theory, which emerged from these feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues such as the social construction of sex and gender.Feminist activists campaign for women's rights – such as in contract law, property, and voting –while also promoting bodily integrity, autonomy, and reproductive rights for women. Feminism is mainly focused on women's issues, but because feminism seeks gender equality, bell hooks and other feminists have argued that men's liberation is a necessary part of feminism, and that men are also harmed by sexism and gender roles.8 ModernismModernism is a general term that is applied to writing marked by a strong and conscious break with traditional forms and techniques of expression in the first half of twentieth century. Modern when applied to literature is commonly taken to imply a historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, loss, cynicism, and despair. It rejects traditional values and assumptions, and elevates the individual and the inner being over the social human being and prefers the unconscious to the self-conscious. The psychologies of Freud and Jung have been influential in the modern movement in literature. In many aspects it is a reaction against realism and naturalism. With existentialism as its philosophical base, although by no means can all modern writers be termed existentialists, the movement is profoundly experimental with language form, symbol, and myth.The following names will suffice to indicate the vitality, variety and artistic success of modern writing: T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, W.B. Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, to name just a few9 American dreamBrode sense and narrow senseFor the former, American Dream is the equality freedom and democracy in the land of the Unites States. The later one means ,everyone in America if noly work hard and never give up, he could achieve his dream and could live a better life in this piece of land, that is to say, people should make their efforts, such as diligence, courage, and determination to realize dreams rather than depend on the help from others.10 imagismImagism flourished in Britain and in the United States for a brief period that is generally considered to be somewhere between 1909 and 1917. And imagist poets looked to many sources to help them create a new poetic expression.English writer T. E. Hulme is credited with creating the philosophy that would give birth to the Imagism movement. His ideas inspired Ezra Pound to organize the new movement. Pound defined the image as “that which presents an intellectual and emoti onal complex in an instant of time.” He also laid down three Imagist poetic principles:1.Direct treatment of the "thing," whether subjective or objective.2.To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.3.As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome(节拍器).In the history of American poetry, Imagism was important in a number of ways in the development of modern poetry . Its literary theories and poetic forms have continued to exercise their influence on modern and contemporary poetry. It is this movement that helped to open the first pages of modern English and American poetry.美国诗歌史上，意象是非常重要的在现代诗歌的发展途径。