美国文学浪漫主义时期

30

年代的新英格兰的

先验主义俱乐部。本来

,

这个超验主义只是对新英格兰人提出 来的。它是针对波士顿的唯一神教派的冷淡古

板的理性主义而提的。而后来逐渐影响到全 国

,

特别是在高级知识分子和文学界人士当中影响颇大。超验主

义文学的主要代表是爱默生

(Emerson)

和梭罗

(Henry Davd Thoreau),

他们的作品对美国文学产生了很大影响。

超验主义

承认人类具有本能了解或认识真理的能力

,

能够超过 感官获取知识

。爱默生曾说

:

只有人心灵的

尊严才是最神圣的。

超验主义还认为自然是高尚的

,

个人是神圣的

,

因此人必须自助。

这一时期涌现了许多作家

,

著名的有富雷诺

(Philip Freneau

〉

、

布雷恩特

(William Cullen Bryant)

、

郎费罗

(Henry

Words worth longfellow)

、娄威尔

(James Rassel Lowell)

、惠特

(John Greenleaf wh itter

〉

、爱伦

·

坡

(Edgar Ellen

Poe)

、以及惠特曼

(Walt Whitman)

。惠特曼的《草叶集》

(Leaves of Grass)

是美国十九世纪最有影响的诗歌。

美国浪漫主义时 期的小说富有独创性、多样性

,

有华盛顿

·

欧文的喜剧性寓言体小说

,

有爱伦

·

坡的歌德式惊险

故事

,

有库柏的边疆历险故事

,

有 麦尔维尔长篇叙事

,

有霍桑的心理罗曼史

,

有戴维斯

(Rebecca

Harding

Davis)

的社会 现实小说。美国浪漫主义作家在人性的理解上也各自不同。爱默生、梭罗等超验主义者认为人类在

自然中是神圣的

,

因此人类是可以完善的

,

但霍桑和麦尔维尔则认为人们在内心上都是罪人

,

因此需要道德力

量来改善人性。

《红字 》一书就典型地反映了这个观点。

The Romantic Period

< br>(

一

)

识记

内容：

origin of Romantic American literature

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.

American Renaissance or Renaissance is

a period of the great flowering of American literature, from

the i830s roughly until the end of the American Civil War. It came of age as an expression of a national spirit. One

of the most important influences in the period was that of the Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Henry

David

Thoreau.

The

Transcendentalists

contributed

to

the

founding

of

a

new

national

culture

based

on

native

elements.

Apart

from

the

Transcendentalists,

there

emerged

during

this

period

great

imaginative

writers

---Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman---whose novels and poetry left a permanent imprint

on American literature.

social historical and cultural background

The development of the American society nurtured

politically, economically and culturally independent country.

Historically

, it was the time of westward expansion

in

economically

,

the

whole

nation

was

experiencing

an

industrial

transformation.

Politically,

democracy

and

equa1ity became the ideal of the new nation, and the two-party system came into being. Worthy of mention is

the

literary and cultural life

of the country. With the founding of the American Independent Government, the nation

felt an urge to have its own literary expression, to make known its new experience that other nations did not have:

the early Puritan settlement, the confrontation with the Indians, the frontiersmen's life, and the wild west. Besides,

the nation's literary milieu was ready for the Romantic movement as we11. Thus, with a strong sense of optimism,

a spectacular outburst of romantic feeling was brought about in the first ha1f of the 19th century.

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 Russel Lowell, John Greenleaf

Whitter,

Edgar

Ellen

Poe,

and,

especially,

Walt

Whitman,

whose

Leaves

Of

Grass

established

him

as

the

most

popular American poet of the 19th century.

The fiction of the American Romantic period is an original and

diverse body of work. It ranges from the comic fables of Washington Irving to the The Gothic tales of Edgar

Allen

Poe,

from

the

frontier

adventures

of

James

Fenimore

Cooper

to

the

narrative

quests

of

Herman

Melville,

from

the

psycho1ogical

romances

of

Nathaniel

Hawthorne

to

the

social

realism

of

Rebecca

Harding Davis.

(

< br>二

)

．领会内容

impact of European Romanticism on American Romanticism

Foreign literary masters, especially the English counterparts exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the new

world.

Born

of

one

common

cultural

heritage,

the

American

writers

shared

some

common

features

with

the

English Romanticists. They revolted against the literary forms and ideas of the period of classicism by developing

some relatively new forms of fiction or poetry.

(1) 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.

(2) 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.

(3)

The

strong

tendency

to

exalt

the

individual

and

the

common

man

was

almost

a

national

religion

in .

Writers like Freneau, Bryant, and Cooper showed a great interest in external nature in their respective works.

(4) The literary use of the more colorfu1 aspects of the past was also to be found in Irving's effort to exploit

the legends of the Hudson River region, and in Cooper's long series of historical tales.

(5)

In short, American Romanticism is, in a certain way, derivative.

unique characteristics of American Romanticism

Although

greatly

influenced

by

their

English

counterparts, the

American

romantic

writers

revealed

unique

characteristics

of

their

own

in

their

works

and

they

grew

on

the

native

lands.

For

examp1e,(1)

the

American

national experience of

of material

for American writers

to draw upon. They celebrated '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

1aw.

(2)The

desire

for

an

escape

from

society

and

a

return

to

nature

became

a

permanent

convention

of

American literature.

Such a desire is particularly evident in Cooper's

Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreau's Walden

and,

later,

in

Mark

Twain's

Adventures

of

Huckleberry

Finn.

(3)

With

the

growth

of

American

national

consciousness,

American character types speaking local dialects

appeared in poetry and fiction with increasing

frequency.

(4)

Then

the

American

Puritanism

as

a

cultural

heritage

exerted

great

influences

over

American

moral values and American Romanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that

American romantic writers

tended

more

to

moralize

than

their

English

and

European

counterparts.

(5)

Besides,

a

preoccupation

with

the

Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil

marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of

lesser writers.

< br>(

三

)

．应用内容

1.

The American Puritanism

and its great influence over American moral values, as is shown in American

romantic writings.

(1)

American Puritanism

Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. (The Puritans were originally members of a division of the

Protestant Church, who came into existence in the reigns Queen Elizabeth and King James

Ⅰ

.The first settlers who

became

the

founding

fathers

of

the

American

nation

were

quite

a

few

of

them

Puritans.

They

came

to

out

of

various reasons, but it should be remembered that they were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly

religious

and

moral

principles.

As

the

word

itself

hints,

Puritans

wanted

to

purify

their

religious

beliefs

and

practices. They felt that the Church of England was too close to the Church of Rome in doctrine form of worship,

and organization of authority.) The American Puritans, like their brothers back in , were idealists, believing that the

church should be restored to complete

They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and

total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God.

But in the grim struggle

for survival that followed immediately after their arrival in , they became more and more practical, as indeed they

had to be. Puritans were noted for a spirit of moral and religious earnestness that determinated their whole way of

life.

Puritans' lives were extremely disciplined and hard.

They drove out of their settlements all those opinions

that

seemed

dangerous

to

them,

and

history

has

criticized

their

actions.

Yet

in

the

persecution

of

what

they

considered

error,

the

Puritans

were

no

worse

than

many

other

movements

in

history.

As

a

culture

heritage,

Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind and American values. American Puritanism