美国文学名词解释

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1、（一）About Puritanism清教主义1.“would-be purifier”They wanted to purify the English Church and to restore church worship to the “pure and unspotted”condition of its earlier days .They opposed the elaborate rituals of the English Church. They believed that the Bible was the revealed word of God, therefore,

2、 people should guide their daily behavior with the Bible. 2.Basic Puritan Beliefs（1） Total Depravity - through Adams fall, every human is born sinful - concept of Original Sin.（2） Unconditional Election - God saves those he wishes - only a few are selected for salvation - concept of predestination（3

3、） Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the chosen only, not for everyone.（4）Irresistible Grace - Gods grace is freely given, it cannot be earned or denied. Grace is defined as the saving and transfiguring power of God.（5）Perseverance of the saints - those elected by God have full power to interpret th

4、e will of God, and to live uprightly. If anyone rejects grace after feeling its power in his life, he will be going against the will of God - something impossible in Puritanism.2.The impact of Puritanism (1)High standards of moral excellence and conscience ;(2) Emphasis on education(3)Hard working,

5、thrifty, independent spirit;(4)“Chosen people” consciousness .(诺斯替教）（二） Enlightenment(启蒙运动) Enlightenment is mans leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use ones intelligence without the guidance of another.A term used to describe the trends in thought and letters in Eur

6、ope and the American colonies during the 18th century prior to the French Revolution. The precursors of the Enlightenment can be traced to the 17th century and earlier.The phrase was frequently employed by writers of the period itself, convinced that they were emerging from centuries of darkness and

7、 ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science, and a respect for humanity.（三） Romanticism （浪漫主义） As an approach in literary creation, romanticism is ever present in literature of all times. But as a literary trend or movement, it occurred and developed in Europe and America at the turn of

8、 the 18th and 19th centuries under the historical background of the Industrial Revolution around 1760 and the French Revolution (1789-1799). A movement in the literature of virtually every country of Europe, the United States, and Latin America that lasted from about 1750 to about 1870,It was charac

9、terized by reliance on the imagination and subjectivity, freedom of thought and expression, and an idealization of nature. （四） Transcendentalism（超验主义） Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the U.S. in the first half of the 19th century. It asserts the existence of an ideal spir

10、itual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition .Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Over-soul, the individual and Nature. It was, in essence, romantic idealism on Puritan soil.（五） Free verse poetry without a fixed beat or regular r

11、hyme scheme.(六） Blank verse “Blank verse”ispoetrywritten in regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost alwaysiambic pentameters.（七） American Realism (18651918)（现实主义） American Realism came in the latter half of the nineteenth century as a reaction against Romanticism. It stresses truthful treatment

12、of material. It focuses on commonness of the lives of the common people, and emphasizes objectivity and offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience. The three dominant figures of the period are William Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James.（八） Definition of

13、 Local Color（乡土特色） 1.Literature that focuses on the characters, dialect, customs, topography（地形）, and other features particular to a specific region that exploits the speech, dress, mannerisms, and habits of that specific region .2. Twains Local colorismTwain preferred to present social life through

14、 portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. So the rich material of his boyhood experience on the Mississippi became endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississi

15、ppi valley and the west became his major theme.（九） American Naturalism (1890s-1910s) （自然主义）1. Historical Background:The spread of industrialization created extremes of wealth and poverty. Farmers were still going westward, but frontiers were about the close. They had to depend on the transcontinenta

16、l railway to transport their products.The spread of Darwins theory of evolution changed peoples ideology.2. Thematically, naturalistic writers： - wrote detailed descriptions of the lives of the downtrodden and of the abnormal- had frank treatment of human passion and sexualit- were concerned about h

17、ow men and women were overwhelmed by the forces of environment and by the forces of heredity- made detailed documentation of life: nothing but the truth, more naked and wicked than realism- created gloomy and pessimistic atmosphere 3. Here are the major features of naturalism. Humans are controlled

18、by laws of heredity and environment. The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires. Naturalistic writers are pessimistic. They choose their subjects from the lower.(10)Modernism（现代主义）(1)appeared after World War I(2)cutting off history and a sense of despair and loss(3)refus

19、ing to accept the traditional concept of value and all traditional ideological influences.1. BackgroundIn the first world war, America got considerable benefits with animal cost, but many artist and thinkers with suffering consciousness felt the terribleness of modern wars.Their heroism in mind grad

20、ually disappeared. Some of them going into battle suffered the sight of blood and all kinds of disasters. After back to America, they found that the social reality had experienced great change.2. Features or changes of the period(1)Increasing industrialization(2)Deepening urbanization(3)High speed d

21、evelopment of technology and science(4 )Trauma of the first world war(5)1930s economic depression(6)Collapse of social value system(7)Dropping moral standards(8)Common depression , fear ,sense of loss3. Features of the works Freuds psychoanalysis ,William James stream of consciousness theory and arc

22、hetypal symbol had great impact on the writers of modern American writers. They pay special attention to the inner world of the people, during this period ,the most compelling literature movement is the writers self exile, also known as the second American renaissance .(十一） Novelists the Lost Genera

23、tion“迷惘的一代”(1920s)The novelists who produced a literature of disillusionment in the aftermath of World War I, and some of them lived abroad:(1)Used their wartime experience as the basis for their works (2)were cut off from old values yet unable to come to terms with the new era(3)wondered pointlessl

24、y and restlessly(4)were frustrated by the war(5)spokesman Hemingway (十二）The Jazz AgeThe Jazz Age is the nickname in America of the decade of the 1920s, beginning from 1919 to the Crash at the end of 1929.These ten years were, for Americans, a time of carefree prosperity, isolated from the worlds pro

25、blem, bewildering great social change, and a feverish pursuit of pleasure.These were the ten years when the First World War was just over, when new inventions and manufacturing techniques greatly changed the way people lived; when people moved from the countryside in great numbers; when women won th

26、e right to vote and many started to earn their own money; when cars, washing machines,radios and vacuum cleaners became commonplace; and when millions of people lived beyond their means and went into debt in order to obtain such things while the middle class frantically pursued individual “success”

27、and personal enjoyment. They lived a rich, extravagant, frivolous moneymaking life, and it was this style of living gave the decade of the 1920s such nickname as the “Jazz Age”, the “Dollar Decade”, and the “Roaring Twenties.”（十三） Imagism(1900S-1910S)(意象派) The Imagist movement included English and A

28、merican poets in the early twentieth century who wrote free verse and were devoted to clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images. The Imagist Movement began in London and later spread to the US. It underwent three major phases in its development.（十四） IronyA contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature.