美国文学 名词解释前4章

1 What is Puritanism?

Puritanism

was

a

religious

reform

that

arose

within

the

Church

of

England

in the late 16th century. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an

offshoot in the third and fourth decades of the 17th to the northern

English

colonies

in

the

new

world---a

migration

that

laid

the

foundation

for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England.

Puritanism, however, was not only a historically specific phenomenon

coincident with the founding of new England, it was also a way of being

in the world---a style of response to lived experience---that has

reverberated through American life ever since. Doctrinally, puritans

adhered to the five points of Calvinism as codified at the synod of dort

in 1619:

1) Unconditional election:

the

idea

that God had decreed

at the synod

of

damned and who was saved from before the beginning of the world;

2) limited atonement: the idea that Christ died for the elect only;

3) Total depravity: humanity’s utter corruption since the fall;

4) Irresistible grace: regeneration as entirely a work of God, which

cannot be re3sisted and to which the sinner contributes nothing;

5) The perseverance of the saints: the elect, despite their backsliding

and faintness of heart, cannot fall away from grace.

puritanism

American

Puritanism

was

practice

and

belief

of

Puritans.

Puritans

were

the

people

who

wanted

to

purify the Church of England and then were persecuted in England. They came to America for various

reasons. But because they were a group of serious and religious people, they carried a code of value

and a philosophy of life. To them, religion was the most important thing. They accepted the doctrine of

predestination, original sin, total depravity and limited atonement for God’s grace. They also believed

in

hard

working,

piety

and

sobriety.

In

a

word,

American

Puritanism

exerted

great

influences

upon

American thought and literature.

2

Enduring shaping influence on literature

1

dreamed

of

living

under

a

perfect

order

worked

with

courage,

hoped

to

build

an

Eden

of

Garden on earth, faced the worst of life with optimism

2 Contributing to

the development of Symbolism: a technique, widely used .Puritans thought

that all the simple objects existing in the world connoted deep meaning.

3. Influencing the style of literature: simple, fresh, and direct

s sicism(

新古典主义

)

In the field of literature, the enlightenment movement brought about a

revival of interest in the old classical works.

2>this tendency is known as neoclassicism. The Neoclassicists held that

forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the

ancient

Greek

and

Roman

writers

such

as

Homer

and

Virgil

and

those

of

the

contemporary French ones.

3> they believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic,

restrained

emotion

and

accuracy,

and

that

literature

should

be

judged

in

terms of its service to humanity.

American Romanticism(

美国浪漫主义

)

Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement

originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a

heightened i

nterest in nature, emphasis on the individual’s expression

of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of

classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and

conventions. The romantic period in American literature stretches from

the

end

of

the

18th

century

through

the

outbreak

of

the

civil

war.

It

was

an age of great westward expansion, of the increasing gravity of the

slavery question, of an intensification of the spirit of embattled

sectionalism

in

the

south,

and

of

a

powerful

impulse

to

reform

in

the

north.

In literature it was America’s first great creative period, a full

flowering of the romantic impulse on American soil. Although foreign

influences were strong, American romanticism exhibited from the very

outset distinct features of its own. First, American romanticism was in

essence the expression of “a real new experience”and contained “an

alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place”

was radically new and alien. Second, puritan influence over American

romanticism was conspicuously noticeable. Emerging as new writers of

strength and creative power were the novelists Hawthorne, Melville, the

poets

Dickinson,

Whitman,

the

essayists

Thoreau,

Emerson.

These

American

writers had made a

great literary

period by

capturing on their pages the

enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream.

Transcendentalism(

超验主义

)

Transcendentalism is literature, philosophical and literary

movement that flourished in new England from about 1836 to 1860. it is