（Realism）一、Background1）Mechanization 机器化2）Urbanization 城市化3）Industrialization 工业化4）Federal government(race种族平等进入宪法）标志着马克·吐温的《镀金时代》开始5）Railway system工业化的一大标志，电力和石油的应用6) Northern industrialism had triumphed over Southern agrarianism.二、文化特征：1）女性发挥作用明显，女性的作者和读者明显增多2）开始关注Mid class3）现实主义（realism）-->New York replaced Boston as the nation's literary center. 纽约成为新的文化中心。
一、时期综述：1、镀金时代：The Gilded Age, an age of excess and extremes, of decline and progress, of poverty and dazzling wealth, of gloom and buoyant hope. 无节制、走极端，倒退和进步、贫困和富有并存，既令人沮丧又让人有希望的时代。
2、Although Americans continued to read the works of Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne,and Poe, the great age of American romanticism had ended. By the 1870s the New England Renaissance had waned. 新英格兰的文艺复兴已开始接近尾声。
3、现实主义和自然主义作家的人物刻画方法：19世纪末,the literary naturalists who followed them, rejected the portrayal of idealized characters and events. Instead, they sought to describe the wide range of American experience and to present the subtleties of human personality, to portray characters who were less simply all good or all bed.反对在作品中描绘理想化了的人物和事件，关注人性中的微妙之处。
4、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5、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、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。
二、代表作家：1、Walt Whitman 沃尔特.惠特曼①★free verse (自由诗体) without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. 无固定节奏，无有规律的韵脚②―Leaves of Grass‖草叶集 1870 the first genuine epic poem. 美国历史上第一部真正的史诗，当中的民主思想标志着浪漫主义的结束Poem’s特点：most of the poems in ―Leaves of Gr6ass‖are about man and nature.③关注点：In his poetry, he combined the ideal of democratic common man and that of the rugged individual④诗人职责：he envisioned the poet as a hero, a savior and a prophet, one who leads the community by hisexpressions of the truth.表达真理的前提下，引导社会发展。
2、Emily Dickinson 爱米丽.狄金森①作品：―I died for Beauty‖我为美而死（诗歌）Beauty / Truth / Goodness are ultimate(终极) the same―Because I could not stop for Death‖我不能等候死神Theme：死亡是实现永恒Immortality的途径②特点：her poetry in unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines.3、Harriet Beecher Stowe 哈丽雅特.比彻.斯托小说家 only one female prose writer(散文作家) in 19th century代表作：―Uncle Tom’s Cabin‖汤姆叔叔的小屋关注农奴制度Pay attention to serf's system4、Mark Twain 马克.吐温①美国现实主义文学的代表作―Adventures of Huckleberry Finn‖哈克贝里.费恩历险记(马克最有名的作品)②特点：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.③contribution贡献：colloquial speech accepted as literary medium口语化被文学界接受④代表作：―The Gilded Age‖70-90年代，镀金时代，贫富分化，财富积累。
―The Adventures of Tom Sawyer‖用词简单、幽默、使用当地语言编写―Life on the Mississippi‖5、O. Henry 欧.亨利short story 短篇小说①特点：tell about the lives of poor people in New York关注下层人; usually short 简单; plots are exceedingly clever and interesting，humor abounds情节极度聪明有趣并富于幽默; the end is always surprising结尾意外; contain a great deal of slang and colloquial expressions使用大量的俚语和口语.②代表作：―The Four Million‖《四百万》小说集、―The Gift of the Magi‖《麦琪的礼物》单部小说★6、Henry James 亨利.詹姆斯novelist小说家；Literature theoretician 文学理论家，从小受欧洲教育①心理现实主义的开创者：the founder of psychological realism. The literary career of him is generally divided into three periods, in the first periods, James took great interest in international theme; exemplify the mature and formidable style of a third literary period, which critics have come to praise as ―The Major Phase‖.②特点：(1)deeply into the individual psychology of his characters, writing in a rich and intricate style that supported his intense scrutiny of complex human experience.深刻探讨人物人性心理，用深厚、复杂的写作方式对复杂的个人经历进行揣摩(2)1st person and 3rd person narration，第一和第三人称的叙述(3)omniscient 全视角是不真实的;③家庭背景：father: philosopher哲学家,富有；brother: psychologist, philosopher 心理学家,哲学家；④创作原则：The art of Fiction小说的艺术;art vs. life, brings the meaning of life;⑤贡献contribution：in his critical commentaries, he made major contributions to the art of fiction itself, helping to transform the novel from its alliance with journalism and romantic story-telling into an art from of penetrating analysis of individuals confronting society, chronicles of the psychological perceptions that James himself defined as the highest from of experience. 詹姆斯把小说从新闻形式和浪漫故事转变成为了对个人在社会大环境中面对种种冲突，进行深刻剖析的文学形式；对人们心理感受进行反映的一种文学形式，他定义这位感受的最高形式。