美国文学选读复习手册.doc

美国文学选读复习资料
浪漫主义
American Romanticism
The Romantic Period stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It is a period of the great flowering of American literature.
The social and cultural background of Romanticism
The young Republic was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country.
The Romantic writings revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands.
The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature.
The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values.

爱默生
Emerson = The chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism 超验主义
He was a descendent of a long line of New England clergymen牧师【pastor】.
American Transcendentalism
As a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalism (also known as “ American Renaissance”) flourshed in New England from the 1830s to the Civil War. It is the high tide of American romanticism and its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau. Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.
Transcendentalism 超验主义(+ H. D. Thoreau; Nathaniel Hawthorne; )
The major features of Transcendentalism:
① The Transcendental