美國文學(xué)名詞解釋-

1、(一About Puritanism清教主義1.“would-be purifier”They wanted to purify the English Church and to restore church worship to the “pure and unspotted”condition of its earlier days .They opposed the elaborate rituals of the English Church. They believed that the Bible was the revealed word of God, therefore,

2、people should guide their daily behavior with the Bible.2.Basic Puritan Beliefs(1Total Depravity - through Adams fall, every human is born sinful - concept of Original Sin.(2 Unconditional Election - God saves those he wishes - only a few are selected for salvation - concept of predestination(3Limit

3、ed Atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only, not for everyone.(4 Irresistible Grace - Gods grace is freely given, it cannot be earned or denied. Grace is defined as the saving and transfiguring power of God.(5Perseverance of the saints - those elected by God have full power to interpret the will o

4、f God, and to live uprightly. If anyone rejects grace after feeling its power in his life, he will be going against the will of God - something impossible in Puritanism.2.The impact of Puritanism (1High standards of moral excellence and conscience ;(2 Emphasis on education(3Hard working, thrifty, in

5、dependent spirit;(4“Chosen people”consciousness .(諾斯替教 (二Enlightenment(啟蒙運(yùn)動Enlightenment is mans leaving his self-caused immaturity.Immaturity is the incapacity to use ones intelligence without the guidance of another.A term used to describe the trends in thought and letters in Europe and the Americ

6、an colonies during the 18th century prior to the French Revolution. The precursors of the Enlightenment can be traced to the 17th century and earlier.The phrase was frequently employed by writers of the period itself, convinced that they were emerging from centuries of darkness and ignorance into a

7、new age enlightened by reason, science, and a respect for humanity.(三Romanticism (浪漫主義As an approach in literary creation, romanticism is ever present in literature of all times. But as a literary trend or movement, it occurred and developed in Europe and America at the turn of the 18th and 19th cen

8、turies under the historical background of the Industrial Revolution around 1760 and the French Revolution (1789-1799. A movement in the literature of virtually every country of Europe, the United States, and Latin America that lasted from about 1750 to about 1870,It was characterized by reliance on

9、the imagination and subjectivity, freedom of thought and expression, and an idealization of nature.(四Transcendentalism(超驗(yàn)主義Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in theU.S. in the first half of the 19th century. It asserts the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends

10、 the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition .Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Over-soul, the individual and Nature. It was, in essence, romantic idealism on Puritan soil.(五Free versepoetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.(六Blank verse“Blank

11、verse” is poetry written in regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always iambic pentameters.(七American Realism (18651918(現(xiàn)實(shí)主義American Realism came in the latter half of the nineteenth century as a reaction against Romanticism. It stresses truthful treatment of material. It focuses on commonnes

12、s of the lives of the common people, and emphasizes objectivity and offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience. The three dominant figures of the period are William Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James.(八Definition of Local Color(鄉(xiāng)土特色1.Literature that foc

13、uses on the characters, dialect, customs, topography(地形, and other features particular to a specific region that exploits the speech, dress, mannerisms, and habits of thatspecific region .2.Twains Local colorismTwain preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his r

14、egions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. So the rich material of his boyhood experience on the Mississippi became endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississippi valley and the west became his major th

15、eme.(九American Naturalism (1890s-1910s (自然主義1.Historical Background:The spread of industrialization created extremes of wealth and poverty. Farmers were still going westward, but frontiers were about the close. They had to depend on the transcontinental railway to transport their products.The spread

16、 of Darwins theory of evolution changed peoples ideology.2. Thematically, naturalistic writers:- wrote detailed descriptions of the lives of the downtrodden and of the abnormal- had frank treatment of human passion and sexualit- were concerned about how men and women were overwhelmed by the forces o

17、f environment and by the forces of heredity- made detailed documentation of life: nothing but the truth, more naked and wicked than realism- created gloomy and pessimistic atmosphere3. Here are the major features of naturalism.Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment.The universe is

18、 cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires. Naturalistic writers are pessimistic. They choose their subjects from the lower.(10Modernism(現(xiàn)代主義(1appeared after World War I(2cutting off history and a sense of despair and loss(3refusing to accept the traditional concept of value and all tr

19、aditional ideological influences.1. BackgroundIn the first world war, America got considerable benefits with animal cost, but many artist and thinkers with suffering consciousness felt the terribleness of modern wars.Their heroism in mind gradually disappeared. Some of them going into battle suffere

20、d the sight of blood and all kinds of disasters. After back to America, they found that the social reality had experienced great change.2.Features or changes of the period(1Increasing industrialization (2Deepening urbanization(3High speed development of technology and science(4 Trauma of the first w

21、orld war(51930s economic depression(6Collapse of social value system(7Dropping moral standards(8Common depression , fear ,sense of loss3. Features of the worksFreuds psychoanalysis ,William James stream of consciousnesstheory and archetypal symbol had great impact on the writers of modern American w

22、riters. They pay special attention to the inner world of the people, during this period ,the most compelling literature movement is the writers self exile, also known as the second American renaissance . (十一）Novelists the Lost Generation“迷惘的一代”(1920s The novelists who produced a literature of disill

23、usionment in the aftermath of World War I, and some of them lived abroad:(1Used their wartime experience as the basis for their works (2were cut off from old values yet unable to come to terms with the new era(3wondered pointlessly and restlessly(4were frustrated by the war(5spokesman Hemingway (十二）

24、The Jazz Age The Jazz Age is the nickname in America of the decade of the 1920 s, beginning from 1919 to the Crash at the end of 1929.These ten years were, for Americans, a time of carefree prosperity, isolated from the worlds problem, bewildering great social change, and a feverish pursuit of pleas

25、ure.These were the ten years when the First World War was just over, when new inventions and manufacturing techniques greatly changed the way people lived; when people moved from the countryside in great numbers; when women won the right to vote and many started to earn their own money; when cars, washing machines,radios and vacuum cleaners became commonplace; and when millions of people lived beyond th