爱华网第一章 美国浪漫主义时期
一、美国浪漫主义时期概述
Ⅰ.本章学习目的和要求
通过本章学习，了解１９世纪初期至中叶美国文学产生的历史、文化背景；认识该时期文学创作的基本待征、基本主张，及其对同时代和后期美国文学的影响；了解该时期主要作家的文学创作生涯、创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题思想、人物刻画、语言风格等；同时结合注释，读懂所选作品并了解其思想内容和艺术特色，培养理解和欣赏文学作品的能力。
Ⅱ.本章重点及难点：
1．浪漫主义时期美国文学的特点
2．主要作家的创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格、思想意义。
3．分析讨论选读作品
Ⅲ.本章考核知识点和考核要求：
1.美国浪漫主义时期概述
(1)．"识记"内容：美国浪漫主义文学产生的社会历史及文化背景
(2)．"领会"内容： 美国浪漫主义在文学上的表现
a.欧洲浪漫主义文学的影响
b.美国本土文学的崛起及其待证
(3)．"应用"内容：清教主义、超验主义、象征主义、自由诗等名词的解释
2.美国浪漫主义时期的主要作家
Ａ．华盛顿•欧文
1．一般识记：欧文的生平及创作主涯
2．识记：《纽约外史》《见闻札记》
3．领会：欧文的创作领域、创作思想，及其作品的艺术风格
4.应用：选读《瑞普•凡•温可尔》的主题及其艺术特色
Ｂ．拉尔夫•华尔多•爱默生
1．一般识记：．爱默生的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：爱默生的超验主义思想
3．领会：
（1）爱默生的散文：《论自然》《论自助》《论美国学者》等
（2）．爱默生与梭罗：梭罗的超验主义思想和他的《沃尔登》
4． 应用：《论自然》节选：爱默生的基本哲 学思想及自然观
Ｃ．纳撒尼尔•霍桑
1．一般识记：霍桑的生平及创作主涯
2．识记：霍桑的长短篇小说
3．领会：
（1）《红字》的主题、心理描写、象征手法和、小说结构
（2）霍桑的清教主义思想及加尔文教条中的"原罪"对霍桑的影响（人性本恶的观点）
（3）霍桑对浪漫主义小说的贡献
4．应用：选读《小伙子布朗》的主题结构、象征手法及语言特色
Ｄ．华尔特•惠特曼
1．一般识记：惠特曼的生平及其创作生涯
2．识记：惠特曼的民主思想
3．领会：
（1）惠特曼的《草叶集》的主创意图、思想感情及诗体形式、语言风格
（2）．惠特曼的个人主义
4．应用：选读《草叶集》诗选："一个孩子的成长"、"涉水的骑兵'"、"自己之歌"的主题结构、诗歌的艺术特色、语言风格
Ｅ．赫尔曼•麦尔维尔
1．一般识记：麦尔维尔的生平及创作生涯
2．识记：麦尔维尔的早期作品：《玛地》《雷得本》《白外衣》，后期作品《皮埃尔》《骗子的化装表演》《比利伯德》等
3．领会：《白鲸》的
（1）主题：表层及深层意义
（2）小说结构：浪漫主义和现实主义的统一
（3）象征手法和寓言的运用
（4）语言特色
4．应用：选读《白鲸》最后一章的节选：主题思想、人物刻画、象征手法、语言特色
Chapter l The Romantic Period
(一)"识记"内容：
1.The origin of Romantic American literature
The Romantic Period, one of the most important periods inthe history of American literature, stretches from the end of the18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It started with thepublication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended withWhitman's Leaves of Grass.
2.The American Renaissance or New England Renaissance is a periodof the great flowering of American literature, from the i830sroughly until the end of the American Civil War. It came of age asan expression_r of a national spirit. One of the most importantinfluences in the period was that of the Transcendentalists,including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau. TheTranscendentalists contributed to the founding of a new nationalculture based on native elements. Apart from theTranscendentalists, there emerged during this period greatimaginative writers ---Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, andWalt Whitman---whose novels and poetry left a permanent imprint onAmerican literature.
3.Its social historical and cultural background
The development of the American society nurtured "the literatureof a great nation." America was flourishing into a politically,economically and culturally independent country. Historically, itwas the time of westward expansion in America economically, thewhole nation was experiencing an industrial transformation.Politically, democracy and equa1ity became the ideal of the newnation, and the two-party system came into being. Worthy of mentionis the literary and cultural life of the country. With the foundingof the American Independent Government, the nation felt an urge tohave its own literary expression_r, to make known its new experiencethat other nations did not have: the early Puritan settlement, theconfrontation with the Indians, the frontiersmen's life, and thewild west. Besides, the nation's literary milieu was ready for theRomantic movement as we11. Thus, with a strong sense of optimism, aspectacular outburst of romantic feeling was brought about in thefirst ha1f of the 19th century.
4.Major writers of this period
There emerged a great host of men of letters during this period,among whom the better-known are poets such as Philip Freneau,William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wordsworth Long Fellow, James RusselLowell, John Greenleaf Whitter, Edgar Ellen Poe, and, especially,Walt Whitman, whose Leaves Of Grass established him as the mostpopular American poet of the 19th century. The fiction of theAmerican Romantic period is an original and diverse body of work.It ranges from the comic fables of Washington Irving to the TheGothic tales of Edgar Allen Poe, from the frontier adventures ofJames Fenimore Cooper to the narrative quests of Herman Melville,from the psycho1ogical romances of Nathaniel Hawthorne to thesocial realism of Rebecca Harding Davis.
(二)．领会内容
1.The impact of European Romanticism on AmericanRomanticism
Foreign literary masters, especially the English counterpartsexerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the new world. Bornof one common cultural heritage, the American writers shared somecommon features with the English Romanticists. They revoltedagainst the literary forms and ideas of the period of classicism bydeveloping some relatively new forms of fiction or poetry.
(1) They put emphasis upon the imaginative and emotionalqualities of literature, which included a liking for thepicturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the sensational, and thesupernatural.
(2) The Americans also placed an increasing emphasis on the freeexpression_r of emotions and disp1ayed an increasing attention to thepsychic states of their characters. Heroes and heroines exhibitedextremes of sensitivity and excitement.
(3) The strong tendency to exalt the individual and the commonman was almost a national religion in America. Writers likeFreneau, Bryant, and Cooper showed a great interest in externalnature in their respective works.
(4) The literary use of the more colorfu1 aspects of the past wasalso to be found in Irving's effort to exploit the legends of theHudson River region, and in Cooper's long series of historicaltales.
(5) In short, American Romanticism is, in a certain way,derivative.
2.The unique characteristics of American Romanticism
Although greatly influenced by their English counterparts, theAmerican romantic writers revealed unique characteristics of theirown in their works and they grew on the native lands. Forexamp1e,(1) the American national experience of "pioneering intothe west" proved to be a rich source of material for Americanwriters to draw upon. They celebrated America's landscape with itsvirgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams, andvast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramaticcharacter that symbolized moral 1aw. (2)The desire for an escapefrom society and a return to nature became a permanent conventionof American literature. Such a desire is particularly evident inCooper's Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's Walden and, later, inMark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (3) With the growth ofAmerican national consciousness, American character types speakinglocal dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with increasingfrequency. (4) Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritageexerted great influences over American moral values and AmericanRomanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that Americanromantic writers tended more to moralize than their English andEuropean counterparts. (5) Besides, a preoccupation with theCalvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked theworks of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers.
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