美国浪漫主义文学
1.Walter Scott: Waverly novels, The Lady of the Lake
2.Byron: Oriental romances 3.Gothic tradition, the cult of solitude and gloom
General Characteristics of American Romanticism
The development of the America society nurtured"the literature of a great nation."America was flourishing into a politically,economically and culturally independent country. I.National influences II.International influences
Major writers in The Romantic Period
Washington Irving(1783-l859) (华盛顿· 欧文 )
Washington Irving was born in New York City in a wealthy family. From a very early age he began to read widely and write juvenile poems, essays, and plays.
Characteristics of American Romanticism
3.With the growth of American national consciousness, American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing frequency. 4.New England Transcendentalism is the most clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period.
Characteristics of American Romanticism
I.The American national experience of "pioneering into the west" proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams, and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral law.
Characteristics of American Romanticism
II.American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American Romanticism: 1.American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. 2.Besides a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of original sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers.
Distinct Feature of American Romanticism
1.It was the expression of “a real new experience”;
2.It tended to be didactic because of Puritan influence; 3.It was both imitative and independent
American Romanticism
1.It was a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions were more important than reason and common sense; 2.They put emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature, which included a liking for the picturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the sensational, and the supernatural. 3.The Americans also placed an increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions and disp1ayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitivity and excitement.
II.International influences
Romantic Movement in England and Europe proved to be a decisive influence; Many English and European masters of poetry and prose made stimulating impact on American Romanticism.
The Romantic Period
Background
of American Romanticism General Characteristics of American Romanticism Major Writers of the period
Backgrounds of American Romanticism
ห้องสมุดไป่ตู้
American Romanticism
4.The strong tendency to exalt the individua l and the common man was almost a nationa l religion in America. Writers like Freneau, Bryant, and Cooper showed a great interest in external nature in their respective works. 5.In short, American Romanticism is, in a c ertain way, derivative.
American Literature
——The Romantic Period (1790-1865)
The Romantic Period
The Romantic Period,one of the most important periods in the history of American literature, stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.It is a great flowering of American literature; It is also called “the American Renaissance”.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (拉尔夫· 华尔多· 爱默生 )
Ralph Waldo Emerson is the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism, which is unanimously agreed to be the summit of the Romantic period in the history of American literature
I.National influences
In politics: Democracy and political equality
became the ideals of the new nation. Radical changes came about in the political life of the country. Parties began to squabble and scramble for power, and new system was in the making. In economics: The spread of industrialism, the sudden influx of immigration, and the pioneers pushing the frontier further west, all these produced something of an economic boon and with it, a tremendous sense of optimism and hope among the people.