*Part I. The Literature of Colonial America

*Part II. The Literature of Reason and Revolution

*Part III. The Literature of Romanticism

*How to Define American Literature*Definition:*American literature is the literature produced in

American English by American citizens.*Basic qualities of American Writers:*independent*individualistic*critical*innovative*humorous

*How to define American Literature

*Anylytical approach

*Thematic approach

*Historical approach

*Sherwood Anderson Winsburg, Ohio*James Baldwin Go Tell It on the Mountain*Saul Bellow Seize the Day, Henderson

the Rain King*William S. Burroughs The Naked lunch*Willa Cather My Antonia*Kate Chopin The Awakening*Stephen Crane The Red Badge of Courage

*Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie, An American Tragedy

*Ralph Ellison Invisible Man

*William Faulkner Go Down, Moses, The Sound and the Fury

*F.Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

*Alex Haley Roots

*Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter*Joseph Heller Catch-22*Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises, The

Old Man and the Sea*James Jones From Here to Eternity*Maxine Hong Kingston The Woman Warrior

*Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird*Sinclair Lewis Main Street

*Jack London The Call of the Wild, Martin Eden

*Norman Mailer The Naked and the Dead

*Carson McCullers The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

*James A.Michener Cennennial

*Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind

*Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye

*Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

*Alice Walker The Color Purple

*Robert Penn Warren All the King’s Men

*Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

*Thornton Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel

*Herman Wouk The Winds of War

*Richard Wright Native Son

*Vladimir Nabokov Lolita*Frank Norris The Ocopus*J.D.Salinger The Catcher in the Rye*Erich Segal Man, Woman and Child*Upton Sinclair The Jungle*John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath*Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin*William Styron Sophie’s Choice

*Mark Twain The Adventurous of Huckberry Finn*Alice Walker The Color Purple*Rober Penn Warren All the King’s Men*Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence*Thomas Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel*Herman Wouk The Winds of War*Richard Right Native Son

*Historical Introduction

*Early American writers and Poets

*Puritan

*Puritanism

*I. The native American and their culture– Indians

*II. The historical background of the colonial Time

*Christopher Columbus discovered the American continent in 1491.

*Captain Christopher Newport reached Virginia in 1607.

*Puritans came the New England area, by Mayflower in 1619.

*The first settlement was established in Plymouth in 1620.

*South, Jamestown, Virginia:

*Captain John Smith---first American writer 8 works

*Contributions: his description of America were filled with themes, myths, images, scenes, characters and events that were a foundation for the nation’s literature. He lured the Pilgrims into fleeing here and creating a New land.

*North, New England, Puritan Writers

*William Bradford: first governor of Plymouth, The History of Plymouth Plantation, simplicity, earnestness, direct reporting, readable, moving.

*John Winthrop: first governor of Boston, The History of New England, candid simplicity, honesty

*Two Poets: Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor

*One division of English Protestant. They regarded the reformation of the church under Elizabeth as incomplete, and called for further purification from what they considered to be unscriptural and corrupt forms and ceremonies retained from the unreformed church.*The 17th century American Puritans included two parts:

Separatists and Massachusetts Bay Group *Their Religious Doctrines: original sin, total depravity,

predestination and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God.*They regarded themselves as chosen people of God. They

embraced hardships, industry and frugality. They favored a disciplined, hard, somber, ascetic and harsh life. They opposed arts and pleasure. They suspect joy and laughter as symptoms of sin.

*A religious and political movement. Through it, one sees emerging the right of the individual to political and religious independence.

*Their religious doctrines: original sin, total depravity, predestination, limited atonement.

*Their attitudes toward entertainment: joy and laughter are symptoms of sin.

*Their attitudes toward work: work itself is a good in addition to what it achieves, that time saved by efficiency or good fortune should be spent in doing further work.

*Purpose: pragmatic

*Contents: practical matter-of-fact accounts of life in the new world; highly theoretical discussions of religious questions.

*Form: diary, autobiography, sermon, letter

*Style: tight and logic structure, precise and compact expression, avoidance of rhetorical decoration, adoption of homely imagery, simplicity of diction.

*Historical Introduction

*Benjamin Franklin

*Thomas Paine

*Thomas Jefferson

*Philip Freneau

*Industrial Revolution: spurred the economy in American colonies.*Independence War: the industrial growth led

to intense strain with Britain. The British government tried to suppress their growth economically, and ruled them from abroad politically and levied heavy tax on them. these aroused bitter resentment in colonies. Constant conflicts resulted in American revolutionary war.

*Spiritual life of the colonies—Enlightenment.

*Philosophical and intellectual movement.

*Advocated reason or rationality, the scientific method, equality and human beings’ability to perfect themselves and their society.

*Agreed on faith in human rationality and existence of discoverable and universally valid principles governing human beings, nature and society.

*Opposed intolerance, restraint, spiritual authority and revealed religion

*The only good writer of the colonial period.

*Printer, enlightener, inventor, scientist, statesman, diplomat

*Aid Jefferson in writing The Declaration of Independence.

*Seeking help from France in American Independent War.

*Main Works: Poor Richard’s Almanac

*It contains many proverbs

*Autobiography

*With it he set the form for autobiography as a genre.

*Style: he developed an utilitarian and didactic style.

*His style is characterized by simplicity, frankness, wit, clarity, logic and order.

*Autobiography: inspiring account of a poor boy’s rise to a high position. It is a how-to-do-it book, one on the art of self-improvement.*Contents: It covered Franklin’s life only until 1757

when he was 51 years old. It described his life as a shrewd and industrious businessman and narrates how he owned the constant felicity of his life, his long-continued health and acquisition of fortune.*Significance: It presents a prototype of American

success which inspired generations of Americans. It is an embodiment of Puritanism and enlightening spirits.

*He is a typical American, model of the self-made man, a cultural hero whose life exemplified the American dream of the poor boy who made good.

*He stressed the importance of working hard to make money, happiness depending in the first place on economic success and optimistically believed that every American could do so.

*He was convinced that no man could be virtuous or happy unless he did his best to improve the life of his society and his own life.

*1.He believed in reason or rationality, the scientific method, equality and human beings’ ability to perfect themselves and their society. *2. He opposed intolerance, restraint, spiritual authority

and revealed religion. Deist*3. He favored the education. Self-education, educating

and disseminating knowledge among people by his newspaper and Autobiography, establishing learning club, college and library.*4. He favored freedom of thoughts. He set up the ideas

of democracy in the USA.

*Propagandist, pamphleteer, a master of persuasion who understands the power of language to move a man to action.

*Main works:

*The American Crisis

*Common Sense

* The Rights of Man

*The Age of Reason

*Enlightener, planter, aristocrat, lawyer, a symbol of American democracy.

*Man of many talents: scientist, inventor, musician, linguist, architect, diplomat and writer.

*Political Career: He served his country as Minister to France(1784-1789), Secretary of State(1789-1793), Vice President(1791-1801) and third President(1801-1809).

*Thoughts: Jeffersonian Democracy, which includes faith in the individual and common man, dislike an overly strong government, and emphasis on the importance of education and on agrarianism and land ownership as they brought responsibility and true judgment. Politically, he is considered the father of the democratic spirit in his country. The society he thought of as ideal was one where landowning farmers could live under as little government as possible.

*Style: dignity, flexibility, clarity, command of generalization

*The Declaration of Independence: The essay, adopted July 4, 1776, not only announced the birth of a new nation, but also set forth a philosophy of human freedom which served as unimportant force in the western world.

*It is a statement of American principles and a review of the Causes of the quarrel with Britain, presented the American view to the world with classic dignity.

*It instilled among the common people a sense of their own importance and inspired struggle for personal freedom, self government and a dignified place in society.

*Father of American Poetry

*Teacher, political journalist, seaman, humanitarian, polemist, propagandist, satirist, loyal follower of Jefferson

*Main Works:

*The Rising Glory of America (1772)

*The British Prison Ship (1781)

* The Wild Honey Suckle (1786)

*The Indian Burying Ground (1788)

*It is a deistic celebration of nature, romantic use of simple nature imagery, inspired by themes of death and transience. Much of the beauty of the poem lies in the sounds of the words and the effects created through changes in rhythm.

*Flower vs Human Being, Duration vs Life

*Show us how to live an useful life.

*In a revolution, one should not do nothing for his country for fear of being hurt, harmed and destroyed.

*Historical Introduction

*Washington Irving

*James Fenimore Cooper

*William Cullen Bryant

*Edgar Allan Poe

*Ralph Waldo Emerson

*Henry David Thoreau

*Nathaniel Hawthorne

*Herman Melville

*Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

*Stability, Prosperity, Freedom

*Geographically, America expanded its frontier. Economically, it began the industrialization and urbanization. Politically, people enjoyed more freedom. Culturally, cultural business prospered.

*Literary Ideas:Romanticism and Transcendentalism

*2 stages: pre-romanticism (1770s-1830)

post-romanticism(1830-60,65-75)

Rise of Romanticism: appeared in England in the 18th century. Reaction against the prevailing neoclassical spirit and rationalism during the Age of Reason.

*Moral enthusiasm: passion, emotion, fancy and imagination. *Faith in the value of individualism and intuitive

perception: display personalities, express feelings and ideas, stress men’s rights for freedom and happiness. Human nature is of good will. Man can know the world through his own ability/conscience/intuition.*Nature was a source of goodness and man’s

societies a source of corruption.

*The literary works of romanticism mostly reflected the fantastic and thrilling stories taking place long ago and far away, rich in mystic color. The romantic had a persistent interest in the primitive literature, in which he found inspiration of various kind.*The romantic showed a profound admiration

and love for nature. The beauty and perfection of nature could produce in him unspeakable joy and exaltation.

*Appeared in 1830, marked the maturity of American romanticism and the first renaissance in the American literary history.

*The term was derived from the Latin verb transcendere: to rise above , to pass beyond the limits.

*Rise of Transcendentalism: the product of combination of foreign influence (German idealistic philosopher, neo-Platonism, Oriental mysticism, Confucius and Mencius) and American native Puritan tradition.

*Spirit or Oversoul: the universe is composed of Nature and Soul. Spirit is everywhere.

*Individualism: the most important element in society, the divinity of individual.

*Nature: is a connecting link between God and man. It is a symbol of the Spirit.

*Community living and dignity of manual labor.

*Relying on Intuition and Conscience, man can transcend the limits of the senses and of logic and directly receive higher truths and greater knowledge denied to more mundane methods of knowing.

*Transcendentalist Bring Transcendentalism to New England

*Believe in individualism, independence of mind, self-reliance

*Prose, poetry, speech

*Father of American Short Stories

*First American author to make a living by his pen, first great prose stylist of American romanticism,.

*author of the first American short stories and familiar essays.

*the first American author of imaginative literature to achieve international distinction

*Main Works:

*The Sketch Book

*Tales of a Traveler,

*The Life of George Washington

*Style: simplicity, lucidity, poise and ease flow, discursive and leisurely, slow, graceful presentation, careful phrases and cadences.

*Significance: his literary innovations*1)author of first modern American short stories and the first

great American juvenile literature. It was him who introduced the familiar essay from Europe to America. *2)He ranked among the first of the modern men of letters to

write history and biography as literary entertainment. *3)He was the leaders of the world-wide Romantic

Movement.*4)His humor, which gave an impetus to the growth and

popularity of American indigenous humor. His humor was always well-meaning, mild and prone to be accepted.

*5) Irving’s genial writing also improved the feeling of American toward the British.

*The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: tells a miraculous story about the unsuccessful love affair of Ichabod Crane, a country teacher, which is combined with the legend of a headless horseman. The two stories share legendary elements, which the critics either interpret as an expression of the author’s conservative attitude toward the American Revolution and his nostalgia for the life before the Revolution, or doubt for their credibility.

*Cooper’s life experiences: Cooper town Yale college sailor Precation(1820) The Spy(1821) The Pioneers （ 1823 ）

*His literary achievements: thirty two novels social critic—conservative themes in his novels are wildness vs civilization, freedom vs law, order vs change, aristocratic vs democrat, and natural rights vs legal rights.

*He developed three kind of novels: 1. novels about revolutionary past. The Spy. 2. sea novels: The Pilot(1824) 3. Novels about American frontier

* Leatherstocking series: Natty bumppo—an ideal, innocence and purity ， wildness and the frontier for the first time

*

*Life Experence: born on a farm at Cummington, Massachusetts,loved nature, translated Homer’s Iliad and Odessey, his first poem The Enbargo(1808) published when he was 14; editor in chief in New York Evening Post;

*Thanatopsis (1811)

*The Fountain(1842)

*The White-Footed(1844)

*The Food of Years(1878)Library of Poetry and Song(1871-1872)

*Translation:Iliad(1870) and Odeyssey(1871)

*Poet, editor, critic, first writer of the detective story, writer of fiction, a pioneer in poetic and fictional techniques

*Life story: disastrous

*Artistic principles

*Poe argued for the creation of beauty and intensity of emotion, against the didactic motive for literature.

*Poe felt that literature should have no social function or responsibility but should be an expression of the isolated artist.

*Poe thought that the artist should be concerned solely with beauty, of imagination. The real world is cruel, ugly and fast into decaying. The artist’s life is lonely, painful and hopeless. The only happiness arose out of the creation and contemplation of beauty.

*A good fiction should only tells one event, which can be finished once.*Fiction should stimulate readers and impress

them deeply. It should have a consistent effect throughout the whole text.*He showed in his fiction the impulse to self-

destruction, the fascination with horrible catastrophe, whimsical and abnormal psychology.*He depicted the inner world or psychology of

his characters.

*Stanza 1. The pretty young girl Annabel Lee used to live in a kingdom by the seaside. Before her death, the only thing in her heart was to love or to be loved by me.*Stanza 2. Our love was so strong and

beautiful that angels in heaven, who are with wings and living in heaven and likely to be freer and abler than any human beings, envied us. Seldom did any angels envy anything of the human world. If they did, there must be something spectacular in the object of their admiration.

*Stanza 3.My Annabel Lee was taken away from me. The faithful lovers were mercilessly separated by a superpower. Poe was indicating that Annabel Lee might be an angel from heaven, because she was “brought back(and taken away”) to heaven and she had some “highborn kinsmen” up there.

*Stanza 4: The poet was quite clear about the reason of Annabel Lee’s being taken away from him. The evil wind came out by night and Annabel Lee was taken away by night, that indicates that somebody may appear as angels in daytime, but as devils during night.

*Stanza 5. Though the evil wind and the highborn kinsmen are very powerful to take my beautiful Annabel lee away from me, they are not so powful as to take her soul away from me. Our love is more powerful than death. After the dath of one, our souls are still together.

*My Annabel Lee had gone to heaven. She reminds me of her bright face by the moon, so that I can see her in my dream; hen I see the stars in the sky, I see her bright eyes, too. We are together and nothing can separate us;, neither the human power nor the God of death is possible.

*His poetry express the same deep hopelessness and rejection of the world as his prose, but in a different way.*He avoids the intrusion of ugliness and tries to create a

vision of beauty and a melodious sound. The basic tone is melancholy.*The function f poetry is not to summarize and interpret

earthly experience, but to create a mood in which the soul soars toward supernal beauty.*The creation of work of art requires the utmost

concentration and unity, as well as the most scrupulous use of words.

*Romantic novelist, short-story writer.*Advanced the art of short

story and gave to the form qualities that are uniquely American.*First great American writer

of fiction to work in the moralistic tradition. Combined the American romanticism with puritan moralism

*Contents: sensational material, poisoning, murder, adultery, crime.

*Methods: the New England Past, theocratic society, puritan, witchcraft, the Indian life, symbolic and allegorical form.

*Themes: explore the human soul/ nature of man, deal with moral or ethical problems, study the effects of sin on man.

*Purpose: to show the inner world of man is the source of evil in society, to criticize the present age.

*1. His exploration of the soul resulted from his skeptical attitude toward the social reality and from his ambition to probe into the nature of man.*2. His selection of themes and skillful use of the

historical materials resulted from his personal life and family history. reclusion, judge ancestor.*3. His concentration on the human mind and character

on conscious and unconscious desires, is an outgrowth of the Puritan emphasis on the individual conscience. He scolded the harshness of Puritans, yet took the Puritanism as his living criteria. Freedom of will, a conscious choice between good and evil.

*Rich imagination, well-woven structure, psychological analysis, various symbols, delicate imageries, ambiguity, mystery.

*Wide and well-controlled vocabulary, formal words with pleasant sound, long and complex sentences, fresh and effective metaphors and similes, summarized historical narrative, but links scenes dramatically.

*Twice-Told Tales, 1837

*Mosses from an old Manse, 1846

*The Scarlet Letter, 1850

*The House of the Seven Gables, 1851

*Blithedale Romance, 1852

*The Marble Faun, 1860

*Our Old Home, 1863

*The Scarlet Letter is a complex story of guilt/sin, its moral, emotional and psychological effects on various persons, and how deliverance is obtained for some of them.

*In the fiction, Hawthorne approached the question of evil more profoundly. He considered the effect on an individual’s character of enforced penance, of hypocrisy, and of hatred.

*Hester: disloyalty, betrayal, deception, sexual desire, adultery. Face, correct, redeem, purify. Praise, content, conform.*Dimmesdale:adultery, cowardice, hypocrisy,

dishonesty, selfishness, too coward to confess, tortured by his conscience. Sympathetic, disfavor his hesitation, indecisiveness and cowardice.*Chillingworth: revenge. Tortured by the desire

of revenge, twisted and reduced to nothing. disgusted, think he committed greater crime.

*Puritan background: setting, events, characters, thoughts, behaviors.*Puritan doctrines: original sin, total

depravity, predestination, limited atonement.*The novel expresses Hawthorne’s attitudes

toward Puritanism. Like puritans who concerned themselves with the original sin and developed it into their beliefs, Hawthorne concerns the novel with the same theme, and tries to establish his doctrines around it.

*Through challenging Puritanism, Hawthorne establishes his own “Puritanism”:

1. Their religious doctrines. Conclusion: he believes in men’s ability to redeem themselves or advocates individuality.

2. Their rigid, inhuman attitude toward life and enjoyment: suppress men’s all desires, live a hard, disciplined and ascetic life, discriminate men’s rights for happiness. Conclusion: stress men’s rights and desires for pleasure.

3. Their hypocrisy: clergymen commit crimes against their preaching and beliefs.

*Life experience:born in New York City, his father died and left large debts and his mother lived with her family. He dropped school early and went to work as a bank clerk, salesman farmhand school teacher and a seaman; in 1841 he signed on a whaling cruise to the South seas.*After three years of sea life, he returned to

Boston.These experience provided him materials for his writings.

*Main works:

*Typee(1846) Omoo(1847)

*Mardi(1849) Redburn(1849)

*White-Jacket(1850)

*Moby Dick (1851)

*Some poems and short stories

*1. It is a novel of journey and whale catching.

*2. It is a conflict between Captain Ahab and Moby Dick.

*It is a story of Ishmael, his thought about human body’sego realization, the relationship between man and nature, mand and God, man and man, etc.

*1.His writing is consciously literary.*2. There is a threefold quality in his writing; the

style of fact, the style of oratory celebrating the fact, and the style of meditation.*3. His style is highly symbolic and

metaphorical.*4.The novel has many non-narrative chapters,

and this is how Melville changed an adventural story into a philosophical novel.*5. He used the technique of multiple views to

achieve the effect of ambiguity.

*His life: born in Porland, Maine, studied at Bowdoin College, published his poems at the age of 13, went to Europe to study language, after 4 years and returned to be a professor in Boweoin College. In his poems, the themes like love of nature, love for the past, his poems is famous for spiritual aspiration, simple piety, homely affection, love of beauty, refined of thought and manners. He always took active attitude towards life. He adopted European ideas in American subject, and always in European styles. In his lyrics he drew on the techniques of European poetry as well as on his own native creativity, and acquired a mastery of rhyme and rhythm. The ideas he expressed are generally simple ones and his techniques display them to advantage. He expressed his ideas musically and powerfully. His works are highly spiritual. He emphasized the mysteries of birth, death, and love. Most of his works are simple and easily read so that even children can understand them.

*It was first published in Voices of the Night*In the September edition of New York

Monthly in 1839. It is very influential in China, because it is said to be the first English poem translated into chinese.*The poem was written in 1838 when

Longfellow was struck with great dismay : his wife died in 1835, and his courtship of a young woman was unrequited. However, despite all the frustrations, Longfellow tried to encourage himself by writing a piece of optimistic word

*The relationship of life and death is a constant theme for poets. He expresses his pertinent interpretation to that by warning us that though life is hard and everybody must die, time flies and life is short, yet, human beings ought to be hold “to act,” to face the reality straightly so as to make otherwise meaningless life significant.*The poem consists of 9 stanzas in trochaic

tetrameters. It is rhymed “abab.”