AMERICA 1 美国浪漫主义时期

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

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一

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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 s

tarted with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whit

man's Leaves of Grass.

American Renaissance or New England Renaissance is a period of the great flow

ering of American literature, from the i830s roughly until the end of the American Civil W

ar. It came of age as an expression of a national spirit. One of the most important influen

ces in the period was that of the Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, H

enry David Thoreau. The Transcendentalists contributed to the founding of a new nation

al culture based on native elements. Apart from the Transcendentalists, there emerged d

uring 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

America was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent countr

y. Historically, it was the time of westward expansion in America economically, the whole

nation was experiencing an industrial transformation. Politically, democracy and equa1it