American Literature美国文学

1、American LiteratureAmerican LiteratureThe earliest forms of American literature were pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies. Religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were also topics of early writing. Other early writings described conflicts and interaction with

2、the Native Americans.The revolutionary period also contained political writings.Thomas PaineCommon Sense and The American Crisis American literature has recorded the story of a quest.EconomicReligiousRestlessAmerican literature has been a continuous narrative of the “pursuit of happiness.” Early Fic

3、tionIn the post-war period, The Federalist essays by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and James Jay represented a historical discussion of government organization and republican values.Thomas Jefferson Declaration of Independence Heavily influenced the Constitution. His Autobiography The Notes on t

4、he State of Virginia Many LettersThe first American novel, The Power of Sympathy, was written by Hill Brown in 1789.Early post-revolutionary writers were interested in creating an American history.Washington Irvin History of New York “Rip Van Winkle” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” Tour on PrairiesJam

5、es Fenimore Cooper The Spy Leatherstocking Tales The Pioneers The Last of the Mohicans The Prairie The Pathfinder The DeerslayerTranscendentalistsTranscendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early middle of the 19th ce

6、ntury. Transcendentalism was rooted in the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant, which the New England intellectuals of the early 19th century embraced as an alternative to the Lockean “sensualism” of their fathers.Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and s

7、ociety at the time, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School.Among Transcendentalists core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that “transcends” the physical and empirical and is only realized through the i

8、ndividuals intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions.Ralph Waldo Emerson NatureHenry David Thoreau WaldenRomanticismAmerican Romanticism were quasi-allegorical novels that explored such themes as guilt, pride, and emotional repression.Anti-transcendental works from Melvil

9、le, Hawthorne, and Poe all comprise the Dark Romanticism subgenre of literature popular during this time. Edgar Allan Poe “The Masque of Red Death” “The Fall of the House of Usher” “Never Bet the Devil Your Head” - an attack on transcendentalismNathaniel Hawthorne Twice Told Tales The Scarlett Lette

10、r The Blithedale Romance - an attack on transcendentalismHerman Melville Moby DickChanging Visions of America Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass Emily Dickinson Many of her poems dwell on death, often with a mischievous twist. Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Toms CabinRegionalism William Dean Howells Editor o

11、f Atlantic magazine The Rise of Silas Lapham Bret Harte The Luck of Roaring Camp Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Life on the MississippiNaturalistsHenry James The American Portrait of a Lady The Wings of the Dove The Am

12、bassadors The Golden BowlStephen Crane Maggie, A Girl of the Streets The Red Badge of CourageTheodore Dreiser Sister CarrieUpton Sinclair The JungleJack London Call of the WildEdith Wharton The House of Mirth The Age of InnocenceThe “Lost Generation” American writers known as the “lost generation” o

13、ften expressed disillusionment following World War I. Ezra Pound T.S. Eliot The Waste Land F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises A Farewell to Arms For Whom the Bell Tolls William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury Light in AugustHarlem Renaissance The 1920s saw the r

14、ise of an artistic African-American community centered in New York City in Harlem, a fashionable black neighbourhood Langston Hughes Countee CullenNew Drama Eugene ONeil Desire Under the Elms Mourning Becomes Electra The Iceman Cometh Long Days Journey Into NightRealism & Escapism John Steinbeck

15、 The Grapes of Wrath Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on a poor family of share croppers, the Joads, driven from their home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agriculture industry. In a nearly hopeless situation, they set out for Californias Central Valley along with thousands of other Okies in search of land, jobs, and dignity. Joseph Heller Catch 22New American Voices Postmodernism Authors typically labelled Postmodern have dealt with and are today dealing directly with many of the ways that popular culture and mass media have influenced t