1. Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. 超验主义，它是一个蓬勃发展的新英格兰的哲学和文学运动，反对理性主义和加尔文主义的反应。
它强调直观地了解上帝没有教会的帮助下，主张心灵的独立性。
2. Romanticism had appeared in England in the last years of the eighteenth century. It spread to conti nental Europe and then came to America early in the nineteenth century. It came into being as a re action against the prevailing neoclassical spirit and rationalism during the Age of Reason. 浪漫主义曾经出现在英国，在过去几年的十八世纪。
它蔓延到欧洲大陆，然后来到美国在十九世纪初。
它应运而生作为理性的时代中针对当时新古典主义精神和理性的反应。
3. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puritans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the Church of England. 清教主义，它是清教徒，谁曾打算净化和简化英国教会的宗教礼仪的宗教信仰。
4. Imagism is to present an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. An imagistic poem must present the object exactly the way the thing is seen. And the reader can form the image of the object through the process of reading the abstract and concrete words.Imagism 意象派：is a poetic movement of England and the United States, flourished from 1909-1917. Its credo, expressed in Some Imagist Poets, included the use of the language of common speech, project matter, the evocation of images in hard, clear poetry, and concentration. 英国是与美国的诗意动作，从1909-1917蓬勃发展。
它的信条，在表达意象的一些诗人，包括使用共同的讲话，不管项目，图像的硬盘，明确诗歌和浓度唤起的语言。
5、Realism：（现实主义）appeared in the United States in the literature of local color, an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things was immediately observable. the dialects, customs, sights.现实主义有浓厚的美国本土特色，是浪漫主义故事情节和现实主义描写相结合的产物：美国风味的方言、风俗、各种观点 6.Naturalism：自然主义 a new and harsher realism, 新型的更为冷峻的现实主义，产生悲观的流派，产生于the end of the century 十九世纪末，因为Perception of society’s disorders 对社会无序的感知。
Presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were dominated by their environment and heredity. 设法尽力客观真实地展现出受环境与出身局限的下层人民和各种经济阶层人物的真正生活。
The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment, the religious “truths” were illusory, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. 强调世界的非道德性，人们没有意志的自由，宗教上的真理是虚幻的，现实生活是痛苦的。
Deterministic 决定论，宿命的，代表作家：Stephen Crane 史蒂芬.克莱恩, Frank Norris 弗朗克.诺里斯,Jack London 杰克.伦敦, Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞.6. The naturalists tend to depict the dark side of the socity, and always take the low classes as their heros or heroes. Compare to the realism and romanticism, they have a more pessimistic view toward the society, the life. Take Theodore Dreiser for example, his Sister Carrie or American Tragedy reveal that man can not control themselves, and is at the mercy of the nature, the heredity, the society and instinct.博物学家倾向于描绘社会的阴暗面,总是以低类为他们的英雄和英雄。
比较现实主义和浪漫主义,他们对社会有更悲观的观点,生活。
以西奥多·德莱塞为例,他的嘉莉妹妹还是美国的悲剧表明,男人不能控制自己,自然的摆布,遗传,社会和本能。
7.Darwinism: 达尔文主义:an evident influence on naturalism, stress the animality of man, to suggest that be was dominated by the irresistible forces of evolution. 对自然主义影响极大，强调人的动物性，意味着人的命运受进化的不可抗力来决定的。
Lost Generation：迷惘的一代，Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “Lost Generation,” devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization. It describes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of “expatriates” or exiles. It describes the writers like Hemingway who lived in semipoverty. It describes the Americans who returned to their native land with an intense awareness of living in an unfamiliar changing world第一战后时代的作家自觉地承认，他们是“迷惘的一代”，缺乏信仰和文明疏远。
它描述了谁留在巴黎的“外籍人士”或流放的殖民地的美国人。
它描述了像海明威的作家谁住在semipoverty。
它描述了谁返回故土与生活在一个陌生的不断变化的世界的强烈意识的美国人3、Modernism现代主义：is loosely a synonym of anything contemporary. Strictly, especially in literary criticism, which began in the late 19thcentury and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. They pay more attention to the psychic time than the chronological one.local colorist 地方特色:a unique variation of American literary realism,it refers to the particular concern about the local character of a region. 现代主义现代主义：是松散的任何当代的代名词。
严格，特别是在文学批评，它开始于19世纪末世纪和心理分析为理论基础的理论。
他们更注重心灵的时间比实足之一。
当地调色地方特色：美国现实主义文学的独特变化，它指的是关于一个区域的局部特征的特别关注。
The symbolism of Melville’s Moby Dick: A very philosophical and metaphysical novel; a story of revenge; a Shakespearean tragedy.1. The voyage to catch the white whale is the one of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of universe.2. To Ahab, the whale is an evil creature or the agent of an evil force that control the universe. As to readers, the whale is a symbol of physical limits, or a symbol of nature. It also can stand for the ultimate mystery of the universe and the wall behind which unknown malicious things are hiding. 梅尔维尔的白鲸的象征意义：一个非常哲学和形而上学的小说;复仇的故事;莎士比亚的悲剧。