American literature introduction

1. American Literature
American Literature
Introduction
Introduction

2. Historical Background
1.Early history:
1) In 1542, Christopher Columbus found
the new continent called America.
2) In 1607, Captain John Smith led some
Englishmen across the ocean.
3) In 1620, 102 passengers sailed on the
ship Mayflower across the sea and
settled on the new continent “New
England”.
What do you know about American
early history?

3. Historical Background
2. People:
native inhabitants: Indians
Immigrants mostly from Europe: Spanish;
Dutch; French
English immigrants, Jamestown, Virginia,
1607
Puritans
a group of
religious people
advocated religious
&moral principles

4. Historical Background
3. Belief---Puritanism
 Puritans wanted to “purify the church” to
its original state, because they thought the
church was corrupted and had too many
rituals
a code of values
a philosophy of life
a point of view
Calvinists
took roots in the New World

5. Doctrines of Puritans
taking religion as the most important thing;
living for glorifying God;
believing predestination, original sin, total
depravi, & limited atonement

6. American Puritanism
Features of American Puritan
idealist dream
they would build
the new land to
an Eden on earth.
more practical,
tougher
the severe conditions
struggle for survival
preoccupied with business and profits

7. American Puritanism
Enduring shaping influence on literature
①Basis of American literature
went into
the making
of
American
literature
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
All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden.

8. American Puritanism
②Contributing to the development of
Symbolism: a technique, widely used
Puritans thought that all the
simple objects existing in the
world connoted deep meaning.
Symbolism means using symbols in literary
works. The symbol means something that
represents or stands for abstract deep
meaning.

9. American Puritanism
③Influencing the style of literature:
simple, fresh and direct (just as the
style of the Authorized Version of
Holy Bible)
Without understanding of Puritanism, ther
e can be no good understanding of Americ
an culture and literature.

10. Brief Outline of American
Literature
1. Colonial period and
Revolutionary
period
2.Romanticism
3.The age of
Realism
4. The Modern
period
5. After the WWII

11. Time:
1607
the Independence War
the settlement of North America
1783
Major topic: American Puritanism
Colonial period and Revolutionary period

12. Colonial period and Revolutionary period
Benjamin Franklin Jonathan Edwards

13. Romanticism
Time:
1783
the Civil War
the Independence War
1861
American ideal of
democracy & equality,
industrialization,
westward expansion,
foreign influences
literary
expansion &
expression
possible &
inevitable

14. Romanticism (1783-1861)
Washington Irving James Fenimore Cooper

15. Summit of Romanticism-Transcendentalism
(American Renaissance)
Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry DavidThoreau

16. Late Romanticism
Nathaniel Hawthorne Herman Melville
not
optimistic

17. Romantic Poets
Walt Whitman Emily Dickinson

18. Romanticism
Edgar Allen Poe
the most
controversial
& the most
misunderstood

19. The age of Realism
The age of Realism
Time:
1861
the First World War
the Civil War
1914
concern for the common-place
offer an objective view

20. The Age of Realism (1861-1914)
Mark Twain
Henry James

21. Naturalism
Stephen Crane Theodore Dreiser

22. Conclusion
Early Romanticism
The age of Realism
Colonial period and
Revolutionary period
Irving
Franklin
Cooper
Emerson
Hawthorne
Poe
Whitman
Dickenson
Twain
James
Dreiser
Melville
Thoreau
Transcendentalism
Late Romanticism
poets