Book I

American Literature

Table of Contents

Introduction

Brief Outline of American Literature

Chapter I Colonial Period

Chapter II Revolutionary PeriodBenjamin Franklin

Philip Freneau

Chapter III American RomanticismWashington Irving

James Fenimore Cooper

William Cullen Bryant

Edgar Allan Poe

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Introduction

1. What is literature?Writings that are valued as works of art, esp. fiction, drama and poetry.

2. Forms (genres) of literature?Poetry, novel (fiction), drama, prose, essay, epic, elegy, short story, journalism, sermon, (auto) biography, travel accounts, novelette, etc.

Puritanism in America

1. They follow the ideas of the Swiss reformer John Calvin.

2. Doctrines:- Predestination- Original sin and total depravity (human beings are basically evil.)- Limited atonement (or the Salvation of a selected few)

3. Puritan values (creeds):Hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety, simple tastes.Puritans are more practical, tougher, and to be ever ready for any misfortune and tragic failure.They are optimistic.

Puritanism in America

4. Why did Puritans come to America?- to reform the Church of England

- to have an entirely new church

- to escape religious persecution

* God’s chosen people

* To seek a new Garden of Eden

* To build “City of God on earth”

Puritanism in America

5. Influence

- American Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping

influences in American thought and American literature.

- American literature is based on a myth, i.e. the Biblical myth

of the Garden of Eden.

- Puritanism can be compared with Chinese Confucianism.

Brief Outline of American literature

1. Colonial period (1607-1775)Anne BradstreetEdward Taylor

2. Revolutionary period (1775-1783)Benjamin FranklinPhilip Freneau

3. Democratic Period (1783-1802)

4. Romanticism (1820-1861)Washington IrvingEdgar Allan PoeNathaniel Howthorne William Whitman* Transcendentalism * (New England Renaissance)Ralph Waldo EmersonFillip Thoreau

5. Realism (1861-1914)Mark TwainHenry James

Naturalism:Stephen CraneTheodore Dreiser

6. The 1920sT.S. EliotWilliam FaulknerErnest Hemingway (Lost Generation)Imagism: Ezra Pound

Brief Outline of American literature

7. The 1930sSteinbeckHarlem Renaissance(Black American literature)HughesWrightEllison

8. American DramaEugene O’Neill

9. The Post-war SceneSaul BellowSalinger

Poetry:Confessional PoetryBlack Mountain PoetsSan Francisco RenaissanceThe Beat GenerationThe New York Poets

Colonial Period (1607-1775)Chapter One

Three major poets in colonial period:

1. Anne Bradstreet

2. Michael Wigglesworth

3. Edward Taylor

1. Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

the first noted poetess in colonial periodthe first noted poetess in colonial period

1. Anne Bradstreet’s Works“Some verses on the Burning of Our House”“The Spirit and the Flesh”The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America

2. Anne Bradstreet’s Life* She was born and educated in England.* At the age of 18, she came to America in 1630 with her father and husband. * She had 8 children.* She became known as the “Tenth Muse” who appeared in America.

the first collection

published by English

colonists living in America

2. Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705)the most popular poet in American the most popular poet in American Colonial PeriodColonial PeriodWork: “The Day of Doom” (1662)

3. Edward Taylor (1642?-1729)

the finest poet in colonial periodthe finest poet in colonial periodWork: Preparatory Meditation

Features of Colonial Poets

1. They were servants of God.

2. They faithfully imitated and transplanted English literary traditions.

In English style

Puritan poets

Chapter TwoRevolutionary Period (1775-1783)

“The Age of Reason”

“American Enlightenment”

• In the 18th century, people believed in man’s own nature and the power of human reason. With Franklin as its spokesman, the 18th century America experienced an age of reason.

• Words had never been so useful and so important in human history. People wrote a lot of political writings. Numerous pamphlets and printings were published. These works agitated revolutionary people not only in America but also around the world.

• The 18th-century American Enlightenment was a movement marked by an emphasis on rationality rather than tradition, scientific inquiry instead of unquestioning religious dogma, and representative government in place of monarchy.

• Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality as the natural rights of man.

• The colonists who would form a new nation were firm believers in the power of reason; they were ambitious, inquisitive, optimistic, practical, politically astute, and self-reliant.

Leading writers and their works

• Thomas Jefferson(1743-1826):

The Declaration of Independence (1776) • Thomas Paine(1737-1809):

Common Sense (1776)• Benjamin Franklin:

Autobiography • Philip Freneau:

“The Wild Honey Suckle”

1. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

《自传》 《格言历书》

2. LifeBenjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist background.

He was born into a poor candle-maker’s family. He had very little education. He learned in school only for two years, but he was a voracious reader.

At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder half-brother, a printer.

At 16, he began to publish essays under the pseudonym “Silence Do good” .

At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his own fortune.

He set himself up as an independent printer and publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.

1. Works

• The Autobiography• Poor Richard’s Almanack

Franklin’s Contributions to ScienceHe was also remembered for volunteer fire departments, effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient heating devices.

And for his lightning-rod, he was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.”

Franklin’s Contributions to the U.S.He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the United States:

The Declaration of Independence,

The Treaty of Alliance with France,

The Treaty of Peace with England,

The Constitution

Franklin’s Contributions to Society

He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital. He founded an academy which led to the University of Pennsylvania. And he helped found the American Philosophical Society.

The Autobiography is a record of self-examination and self-improvement.

Benjamin Franklin was a spokesman for the new order of the 18th century enlightenment

The Autobiography is a how-to-do-it book, a book on the art of self-improvement. (for example, Franklin’s 13 virtues)

Through telling a success story of self-reliance, the book celebrates, in fact, the fulfillment of the American dream.

The Autobiography is in the pattern of Puritan simplicity, directness, and concision.

3. Evaluation

2. Philip Freneau (1752-1832)

“Poet of the American Revolution”

“Father of American Poetry” “Pioneer of the New

Romanticism” “A gifted and versatile lyric

poet”

《《美洲光辉的兴起美洲光辉的兴起》》

《《夜之屋夜之屋》》

《《英国囚船英国囚船》》

1. Works

• “The Rising Glory of America” (1772)

• “The House of Night” (1779, 1786)

• “The British Prison Ship” (1781)

• “To the Memory of the Brave Americans” (1781)

• “The Wild Honey Suckle” (1786)

• “The Indian Burying Ground” (1788)

• “The Dying Indian: Tomo Chequi” 《《纪念美国勇士纪念美国勇士》》

《《野金银花野金银花》》

《《印第安人墓地印第安人墓地》》

《《奄奄一息的印第安人：奄奄一息的印第安人：托姆托姆 ·· 察吉察吉》》

The wild honeysuckleThe wild honeysuckle

2. Life• He was born in New York. • At 16, he entered the College of New Jersey

(now Princeton University).• While still an undergraduate, he wrote in

collaboration with one of his friends (H. H. Brackenridge) a poem entitled “The Rising Glory of America”.

( It pronounced the virtues of a new nation progressing towards its freedom; America would be a land blessed with “sweet liberty!/Without whose aid the nobles genius fails,/And science irretrievable must die”)

• In 1771 he decided do a postgraduate study in theology. But two years later he gave it up.

• Later he attended the War of Independence, and he was captured by British army in 1780.

• After being released, he published “The British Prison Ship” in 1781. • In the same year, he published “To the Memory of the Brave Americans”.• After war, he supported Jefferson, and contributed greatly to American government. • But after 50 years old, he lived in poverty. And at last he died in a blizzard.

3. Evaluation• He was the most significant poet of 18th century America.• Some of his themes and images anticipated the works of such 19th century

American Romantic writers as Cooper, Emerson, Poe and Melville.

4. Aspects of Freneau• Poet of American Independence: Freneau provides incentive and inspiration to the

revolution by writing such poems as "The Rising Glory of America" and "Pictures of Columbus."

• Journalist: Freneau was editor and contributor of The Freeman's Journal (Philadelphia) from 1781-1784. In his writings, he advocated the essence of what is known as Jeffersonian democracy - decentralization of government, equality for the masses, etc.

• Freneau's Religion: Freneau is described as a deist - a believer in nature and humanity but not a pantheist. In deism, religion becomes an attitude of intellectual belief, not a matter of emotional of spiritual ecstasy. Freneau shows interest and sympathy for the humble and the oppressed.

• Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing. His famous poems are "The Wild Honey-Suckle" (1786), "The Indian Burying Ground" (1787), "The Dying Indian: Tomo Chequi" (1784), "The Millennium" (1797), "On a Honey Bee" (1809), "To a Caty-Did" (1815), "On the Universality and Other Attributes of the God of Nature," "On the Uniformity and Perfection of Nature," and "On the Religion of Nature" (the last three written in 1815).

Poem Appreciation •

The Wild Honeysuckle

• The following poem was published in his Poems (1786) and was virtually unread in the time when he was living.

• In the poem the poet expresses his keen awareness of the liveliness and transience of nature celebrating the beauty of the frail forest flower, thus showing his deep love for nature.

• The poem was written in six-line iambic tetrameter stanzas rhymed on ababcc pattern.

• The poem is said to anticipate the nineteenth-century romantic use of simple nature imagery.

• It is considered one of the author’s finest nature poems.

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,Hid in this silent, dull retreat,Untouch’d thy honey’d blossoms blow,Unseen thy little branches greet: No roving foot shall crush thee here, No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature’s self in white array’d,She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,And planted here the guardian shade,And sent soft waters murmuring by; Thus quietly thy summer goes, Thy days declining to repose.

Smit with those charms, that must decay,I grieve to see your future doom,They died----nor were those flowers more gay,The flowers that did in Eden bloom; Unpitying frosts, and Autumn’s power Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dewsAt first thy little being came:If nothing once, you nothing lose,For when you die you are the same; The space between, is but an hour, The frail duration of a flower.

The Indian Burying Ground

• The poem was published in the poet’s Miscellaneous Works in 1788.

• Like “The Wild Honey Suckle”, it anticipated romantic primitivism and the celebration of the “noble savage”.

• The poem portrays sympathetically the spirit of the nomadic Indian hunters, who were traditionally buried in a sitting position and with images of the objects they knew in life.

• It is believed to be the earliest to romanticize the Indian as a child of nature.

• The poem was written in ten iambic tetrameter quatrains with the rhyme scheme of “abab”.

In spite of all the learned have said;I still my old opinion keep,The posture, that we give the dead,Points out the soul’s eternal sleep.

Not so the ancients of these lands—The Indian, when from life released,Again is seated with his friends,And shares again the joyous feast.

His imaged birds, and painted bowl,And venison, for a journey dressed.Bespeak the nature of the soul,Activity, that knows no rest.

His bow, for action ready bent,And arrows, with a head of stone,Can only mean that life is spent,And not the old ideas gone.

Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way.No fraud upon the dead commit—Observe the swelling turf, and sayThey do not lie, but here they sit.

Here still a lofty rock remains,On which the curious eye may trace,(Now wasted, half, by wearing rains)The fancies of a ruder race.

Here still an aged elm aspires,Beneath whose far—projecting shade(And which the shepherd still admires)The children of the forest played!

There oft a restless Indian queen(Pale Shebah, with her braided hair)And many a barbarous form is seenTo chide the man that lingers there.

By midnight moons, o’er moistening dews,In habit for the chase arrayed,The hunter still the deer pursues,The hunter and the deer, a shade!

And long shall timorous fancy see

The painted chief, and pointed spear,

And Reason’s self shall bow the knee

To shadows and delusions here.

Chapter ThreeChapter Three

American American RomanticismRomanticism

(1820-1860)(1820-1860)

General IntroductionGeneral Introduction“ Romanticism The term ,Romanticism, is

associated with imagination and boundlessness, as contrasted with classicism, which is commonly associated with reason and restriction. The most profound and comprehensive idea of romanticism is the vision of a greater personal freedom for the individual.

Its origins may be traced to :Its origins may be traced to : the economic rise of the middle

class, struggling to free itself from feudal and monarchical restrictions;

the individualism of the Renaissance;

the Reformation, which was based on the belief in an immediate relationship between man and God;

the scientific deism, which emphasized the deity’s benevolence;

the psychology of Locke, Hartley, and others, who contended that minds are formed by environmental conditions, thus seeming to be indicate that all men are created equal and may be improved by environmental changes;

the optimistic humanitarianism of Shaftsbury;

the writings of Rousseau who contended that man is natural good, institutions also having made him wicked.

Romantic AttitudesRomantic Attitudes

1. Appeals to imagination; use of the "willing suspension of disbelief."

2. Stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, geniality.

3. Subjectivity: in form and meaning.

1. Time Range1. Time Range

From the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War.

2. Ideals:2. Ideals:

Ideals: Democracy and political equality became the ideals of the new nation.

3. Social Background3. Social Background

Economic boom:

IndustrialismImmigration

Westward

expansion

optimism and hope among people

4. Features4. Features American Romanticism was both

imitative and independent.

Imitative

Independent

English and European Romanticists

Emerson and Whitman

5. Themes:5. Themes:

Imitative

Independent

home, family, nature, children and idealized love, etc.

major problems of American life, like the westward expansion and democracy and equality, etc.

1.1. Washington Irving Washington Irving (1783--1859)(1783--1859)

““ Father of American Imaginative Father of American Imaginative literature”literature”

““Father of the American short Father of the American short story”story”

1) Works1) Works

a)a) A History of New YorkA History of New York from from the Beginning of the World the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch to the End of the Dutch Dynasty by Diedrich Dynasty by Diedrich KnickerbockerKnickerbocker

《纽约外史》

b)b) The Sketch BookThe Sketch Book of of Geoffrey Crayon, GentGeoffrey Crayon, Gent

““ Rip Van Winkle”Rip Van Winkle”

““The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

《见闻札记》

《睡谷的传说》

《瑞普 ·凡 · 温克

尔》

c)c) Bracebridge Hall 1822 Bracebridge Hall 1822

d)d) Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith 18401840

e)e) Life of George Life of George Washington 1855-1859Washington 1855-1859

《布雷斯布里奇庄园》

《哥尔德斯密斯》

《华盛顿传》

22 ）） LifeLifeIrving was born into a Irving was born into a

wealthy New York merchant wealthy New York merchant family. From a very early age, family. From a very early age, he began to read widely and he began to read widely and write juvenile poems, essays write juvenile poems, essays and plays.and plays.

Later, he studied law.Later, he studied law.

His first book His first book A History of New A History of New YorkYork, written under the name of , written under the name of Diedrich KnickerbockerDiedrich Knickerbocker, was a , was a great success and won him wide great success and won him wide popularity.popularity.

In 1815, he went to England to In 1815, he went to England to take care of his family business take care of his family business there, and when it failed, had to there, and when it failed, had to write to support himself.write to support himself.

With the publication of With the publication of The Sketch The Sketch BookBook, he won a measure of , he won a measure of international recognition.international recognition.

Knickerbocker

Rip Van Winkle

In 1826, as an American In 1826, as an American diplomatic attaché, he diplomatic attaché, he was sent to Spain, where was sent to Spain, where he gathered material for he gathered material for his writing. his writing.

From 1829 to 1832, he From 1829 to 1832, he was secretary of the U.S was secretary of the U.S Legation in London.Legation in London.

Then when he was fifty, he returned Then when he was fifty, he returned to America and bought “Sunnyside”, to America and bought “Sunnyside”, his famous home. There he spent his famous home. There he spent the rest of his life, living a life of the rest of his life, living a life of leisure and comfort, except for a leisure and comfort, except for a period of four years (1842--1846), period of four years (1842--1846), when he was Minister to Spain.when he was Minister to Spain.

View of Sunnyside

33 ）） EvaluationEvaluationWashington Irving was the first Washington Irving was the first

American writer of imaginative American writer of imaginative literature to gain international literature to gain international fame.fame.

The short story as a genre in The short story as a genre in American literature began with American literature began with Irving’s Irving’s The Sketch BookThe Sketch Book..

The Sketch BookThe Sketch Book also marked the also marked the beginning of American beginning of American Romanticism.Romanticism.

2. James Fenimore Cooper(1789-1851)

novelist

1) Works. Leatherstocking Tales

The Pioneers 1823 …………………… 4

The Last of the Mohicans 1826 …….2

The Prairie 1827 ………………………5

The Pathfinder 1840 …………………3

The Deerslayer 1841 ……………........1

Precaution 1820 The Spy 1821 The Pilot 1823

2) LifeBorn into a rich land-holding family of

New Jersey, Cooper was one of the new American authors who did not have to worry about money.

He was sent to Yale at 14, but was expelled in his junior year because of improper behavior.

He went and spent five years at sea; then, while still in his early twenties, he inherited his father’s vast fortune and settled down to a life of comfort and even luxury.

His second book, The Spy, a novel about the American Revolution, proved to be an immense success.

He was a prolific writer, wrote more than thirty novels.

Fiction Precaution,1820; The Spy,1821; The Pioneers, 1823; The Pilot, 1824; Lionel Lincoln,1824; The Last of the Mohicans, 1826; The Red Rover,1827; The Prairie, 1827; The Red Rover,1827; The Red Rover, 1828; The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish,1829; The Water Witch,1830

The Bravo,1831; The Heidenmauer,1832; The Headsman,1833; The Monikins,1835; Homeward Bound,1838; Home as Found,1838; Mercedes of Castile,1840; The Pathfinder, 1840; The Deerslayer, 1841; The Two Admirals,1842; The Wing-and-Wing,1842; Le Mouchoir; an Autobiographical

Romance,1843;

Ned Myers, 1843; Wyandotte, 1843; Afloat and Ashore,1844; Miles Wallingford: A Sequel to Afloat

and Ashore,1844; Satanstoe,1845; The Chain Bearer,1845; The Redskins,1846; The Crater,1847; Jack Tier,1848; Oak Openings, 1849; The Sea Lions,1849; The Ways of the Hour,1850.

Non-Fiction : Notions of the Americans:

Picked Up by a Travelling Bachelor, 1828;

Sketches of Switzerland,1836;Gleanings in Europe,1837; The American Democrat,1838;The History of the Navy of the

United States of America,1839.

Title Publication Date Natty Bumppo's Age Set in Year

The Pioneers 1823 70 1793 Natty Bumppo first appears as a seasoned scout in advancing years, with the dying

Chingachgook, the old Indian chief and his faithful comrade, as the eastern forest frontier begins to disappear and Chingachgook dies.

The Last of the Mohicans 1826 40 1757

An adventure of the French and Indian Wars in the Lake George county.

The Prairie 1827 90 1804 Set in the new frontier where the Leatherstocking dies.

The Pathfinder 1840 40 1757Continuing the same border warfare in the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario

country.

The Deerslayer 1841 23 1740-45 Early adventures with the hostile Hurons on Lake Otsego, NY.

Contributions of Cooper

The creation of the famous Leatherstocking saga has cemented his position as our first great national novelist and his influence pervades American literature. In his thirty-two years (1820-1851) of authorship, Cooper produced twenty-nine other long works of fiction and fifteen books - enough to fill forty-eight volumes in the new definitive edition of his Works. Among his achievements:

Cooper Creates many “first” in the field of

American novels 1. The first successful American historical romance in

the vein of Sir Walter Scott (The Spy, 1821). 2. The first sea novel (The Pilot, 1824). 3. The first attempt at a fully researched historical

novel (Lionel Lincoln, 1825). 4. The first full-scale History of the Navy of the United

States of America (1839). 5. The first American international novel of manners

(Homeward Bound and Home as Found, 1838). 6. The first trilogy in American fiction (Satanstoe, 1845;

The Chainbearer, 1845; and The Redskins, 1846). 7. The first and only five-volume epic romance to carry

its mythic hero - Natty Bumppo - from youth to old age.

3 ） Evaluation

Leatherstocking Tales is a series of five novels about the frontier of American settlers.

The Pioneers was probably the first true romance of the frontier in American literature.

Natty Bumppo represents the ideal American, living a virtuous and free life in God’s world. To him and to Cooper, the wildness is good, pure, perfect, where there is freedom not tainted and fettered by any forms of human institutions.

Natty Bumppo is a veritable embodiment of human virtues like innocence, simplicity, honesty and generosity, a man born with an immaculate sense of good and evil and right and wrong.

Cooper is a mythic writer. His preface to the Leatherstocking series indicates that he wrote with increasing consciousness to create a mythic figure. Cooper is good at inventing plots. His plots are sometimes quite incredible.

Cooper has been known as a powerful yet clumsy writer. His style is dreadful, his characterization wooden and lacking in probability, and his language, his use of dialect, is not authentic.

Anyhow, Cooper did help to introduce the “western tradition” into American literature.

3. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

the first American lyric poet of distinction

1) Works

a) Poems 1821

b) The Fountain 1842

《诗选》

《泉》

c) The White-Footed Deer 1844 d) A Forest Hymn 1860e) The Flood of Years 1878

《白蹄鹿》

《森林赋》

《似水流年》

f) “To a Waterfowl” 1815g) “Thanatopsis” 1817h) “The Yellow Violet”

1814

《致水鸟》

《死亡随想》

《黄色堇香花》

2 ） Life

Bryant was a poet, and editor.

He was born into a doctor’s family in Massachusetts.

He started to write poems when he was 14 years old.

Bryant quitted his study in university and then became a lawyer.

In 1825, he turned to journalism. In 1827, he became an editor for Evening Post and wrote a lot of political criticism. But it is his poetry which made him popular among people.

v

He was influenced by Graveyard School in England and wrote “Thanatopsis”.

His best works are his lyric poems about nature and so his style is quite similar to that of Wordsworth.

4. Edgar Allan Poe 4. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)(1809-1849)

father of modern short story

father of detective story

father of psychoanalytic criticism

1) Works1) Works

a) Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque

b) “MS. Found in a Bottle”

C) “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”

《奇异怪诞故事集》

《瓶子里发现的手稿》

《毛格街杀人案》

d) “ The Fall of the House of Usher”e) “The Masque of the Red Death”f) “The Cask of Amontillado”

《厄舍古屋的倒塌》

《红色死亡的化妆舞会》

《一桶酒的故事》

g) The Ravenh) Israfel

i) Annabel Lee

j) To Helen

《乌鸦》

《伊斯拉菲尔》

《安娜贝尔•李》

《致海伦》

k) The Poetic Principle

l) The Philosophy of Composition

《诗歌原理》

《创作哲学》

2) Life2) Life

• Famous American Poet, short-story writer and critic.

3) Evaluation3) Evaluation

• Poe remained the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature.

• Emerson dismissed him in three words “the jingle man” ， Mark Twain declared his prose to be unreadable. And Whitman was the only famous literary figure present at the Poe Memorial Ceremony in 1875.

• Ironically, it was in Europe that Poe enjoyed respect and welcome.

• Bernard Shaw said: “Poe was ‘the greatest journalistic critic of his time; his poetry is exquisitely refined; and his tales are “complete works of art”.

• Poe’s reputation was first made in France. Charles Baudelaire said that “Edgar Poe, who isn’t much in America, must become a great man in France.”

• Today, Poe’s particular power has ensured his position among the greatest writers of the world. The majority of critics today, in America as well as in the world, have recognized the real, unique importance of Poe as a great writer of fiction, a poet of the first rank, and a critic of acumen and insight. His works are read the world over. His influence in world-wide in modern literature.

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) (1804-1864)

WorksWorks

a) Twice-Told Tales 1837

b) Mosses from an Old Manse 1843

c) The Scarlet Letter 1850

Collections of short stories

《故事重述》

《古宅青苔》

《红字》

d) The House of the Seven Gables 1851

e) The Blithedale Romance 1852

d) The Marble Faun 1860

《七个尖角阁的房子》

《福谷传奇》

《大理石雕像》

g) “Young Goodman Brown”

h) “The Minister’s Black Veil”

g) “Dr. Rappacini’s Daughter”

《好小伙儿布朗》

《教长的黑面纱》

《拉普齐尼博士的女儿》

LifeLife

Hawthorne was born in Salem Massachusetts.

Some of his ancestors were men of prominence in the Puritan theocracy of seventeenth-century New England. One of them was a colonial magistrate, notorious for his part in the persecution of the Quakers, and another was a judge at the Salem Witchcraft Trial in 1692.

When Nathaniel was four, his father died on a voyage in Surinam, Dutch Guinea, but maternal relatives recognized his literary talent and financed his education at Bowdoin College.

Among his classmates were many of the important literary and political figures of the day: writer Horatio Bridge, future Senator Jonathan Ciley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and future President Franklin Pierce. These prominent friends supplied Hawthorne with government employment in the lean times, allowing him time to bloom as an author.

Like James Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne was extremely concerned with conventionality; his first pseudonymously published short stories imitated Sir Walter Scott, as did his 1828 self-published Fanshawe.

Hawthorne later formally withdrew most of this early work, discounting it as the work of inexperienced youth. From 1836 to 1844 the Boston-centered Transcendentalist movement, led by Ralph Waldo Emerson, was an important force in New England intellectual circles.

The Transcendentalists believed that human existence transcended the sensory realm, and rejected formalism in favor of individual responsibility. Hawthorne's fiancée Sophia Peabody drew him into "the newness," and in 1841 Hawthorne invested $1500 in the Brook Farm Utopian Community, leaving disillusioned within a year.

His later works show some Transcendentalist influence, including a belief in individual choice and consequence, and an emphasis on symbolism. As America's first true psychological novel, The Scarlet Letter would convey these ideals; contrasting puritan morality with passion and individualism.

The Scarlet Letter represents the height of Hawthorne's literary genius; dense with terse descriptions. It remains relevant for its philosophical and psychological depth, and continues to be read as a classic tale on a universal theme.

Reasons for Hawthorne's Current PopularityReasons for Hawthorne's Current Popularity

One of the most modern of writers, Hawthorne is relevant in theme and attitude. According to H. H. Waggoner, Hawthorne's attitudes use irony, ambiguity, and paradox.

Hawthorne rounds off the puritan cycle in American writing - belief in the existence of an active evil (the devil) and in a sense of determinism (the concept of predestination).

Hawthorne's use of psychological analysis (pre-Freudian) is of interest today.

In themes and style, Hawthorne's writings look ahead to Henry James, William Faulkner, and Robert Penn Warren

Influences on HawthorneInfluences on Hawthorne

Salem - early childhood, later work at the Custom House.

Puritan family background - one of his forefathers was Judge Hathorne, who presided over the Salem witchcraft trials, 1692.

Belief in the existence of the devil. Belief in determinism.

Major Themes in Hawthorne's FictionMajor Themes in Hawthorne's Fiction Alienation - a character is in a state of

isolation because of self-cause, or societal cause, or a combination of both.

Initiation - involves the attempts of an alienated character to get rid of his isolated condition.

Problem of Guilt -a character's sense of guilt forced by the puritanical heritage or by society; also guilt vs. innocence.

Pride - Hawthorne treats pride as evil. He illustrates the following aspects of pride in various characters: physical pride (Robin), spiritual pride (Goodman Brown, Ethan Brand), and intellectual pride (Rappaccini).

Puritan New England - used as a background and setting in many tales.

Italian background - especially in The Marble Faun.

Allegory - Hawthorne's writing is allegorical, didactic and moralistic.

Other themes include individual vs. society, self-fulfillment vs. accommodation or frustration, hypocrisy vs. integrity, love vs. hate, exploitation vs. hurting, and fate vs. free will.

Hawthorne as a Literary ArtistHawthorne as a Literary Artist First professional writer - college educated,

familiar with the great European writers, and influenced by puritan writers like Cotton Mather.

Hawthorne displayed a love for allegory and symbol. He dealt with tensions involving: light versus dark; warmth versus cold; faith versus doubt; heart versus mind; internal versus external worlds.

His writing is representative of 19th century, and, thus, in the mainstream due to his use of nature, its primitiveness, and as a source of inspiration; also in his use of the exotic, the gothic, and the antiquarian.

Features of his worksFeatures of his works setting themes Idea Feature technique

Puritan New England

Evil & sin

“black vision” toward human beings

Ambiguity

symbolism

The Scarlet LetterThe Scarlet Letter

Hester Chillingworth Dimmesdale Pearl

Sin

evil

Adultery

Ability

Angel