美国文学名词解释

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1. Puritanism

Puritanism (1607-1765) is the religious belief of the hard-working, thrifty and pious puritans, most of whom were Calvinists who came to New England for the sake of religious freedom and intended to purify the Church of England of its Catholic aspects.

The basic puritan beliefs are Total Depravity due to the Original Sin; Unconditional Election and predestination; Limited Atonement that Jesus died for the chosen only; Irresistible Grace that God's grace is freely given; Perseverance of the "saints". American Puritanism is a two-fold cultural heritage, one being strict and religious and the other practical. Puritans were therefore called "practical idealist" or "doctrinaire opportunist".

During that period, American literature adopts an optimistic attitude. And the Puritans' metaphorical mode of perception brought American literary symbolism into being. Moreover, the puritan style of writing is fresh, simple and direct. The rhetoric is plain and honest. The forms are mainly diaries, journals and histories. The outstanding figures are William Bradford, Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor. 2. Romanticism

The Romantic Period of American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War, which started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass.

The American Romanticism is both imitative and independent. Firstly, like other Romanticism, it fights against the literary forms and ideas of classicism, emphasizes upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of individuals in literature, insists that man can know the world through his own ability, intuition and conscience and eulogizes nature, develops a liking for the picturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the sensational, and the supernatural things. Secondly, it is independent because it is based on peculiar American experience (landscape, pioneering to the West, Indian civilization, new nation’s democracy and dreams), Puritan heritage which tended to moralize and edify rather than entertain and American national consciousness—the sense of mission. New England Transcendentalism is the most clearly defined Romantic literary movement in this period.

Some early representatives are Washington Irving, James Cooper, William Bryant and Longfellow. And some late representatives are Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and Poe. It is really a creative period of a Native American culture and literature.

3. Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism, a philosophical, theological, and literary movement, is the summit of the Romantic Movement in American literature in the 19th century which started from an informal club who were reacting against the orthodoxy of Calvinism later known as transcendental club. The Dial is Transcendentalists’ magazine.

Transcendentalism greatly emphasizes the importance of intuition and self-trust and self-reliance to go little beyond the conventions. And transcendentalists placed emphasis on the spirit, or the over-soul, as the most important thing in the universe, stressed the importance of the essential divinity of man and individual and offered a


fresh perception of a nature as symbolic of the spirit or God.

The big three representatives of Transcendentalism are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller. Emerson’s Nature has been called the “Manifesto of American Transcendentalism”. Transcendentalism has influenced a large group of writers and marked the independence of American literature. 4. Realism

Realism encompasses the period of time from the Civil War to the turn of the century during which realists wrote fiction devoted to accurate representation and an exploration of American lives in various contexts.

Here are some characteristics of American Realism. First, American realists renders reality closely in comprehensive detail and selectively present the reality with an emphasis on verisimilitude, even at the expense of a well-made plot. And the description is straight-forward and matter-of-fact. Second, it emphasizes on the common people and common places. Third, characters are more important than plot. It examined characters from all social levels in depth. Forth, it attacks upon romanticism. Fifth, it put some emphasis upon morality often self-realized and upon an examination of idealism. The concept of realism is regarded as a realization of democracy.

The most influential figures are William Dean Howells and Mark Twain who focus on description of everyday life and Henry James who put some emphasis on psychology description. 5. Local-colorism

Local-colorism as a trend became dominant in American literature in the late 1860s and early 1870s.

It is a variation of American literary realism, as they depict the details of contemporary life, use the speech of the common people, and avoid fantastic plotlines. There are also often a romantic flavor in regional and local color writings as they receive influences from Washington Irving and the frontier tradition of tall tales. However, to some extent, it has some distinctive features. Local-colorism is a regional work that is dependent upon the life of a small, well-defined region or province. Local-colorists tend to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of the local life. They give more emphasis to the local details by tapping into its folklore, history, customs, beliefs and speech. Dialect peculiarities are defining characteristic of local color writing.

The most famous representative is Mark Twain who took his hometown near the Mississippi as the typical setting of nearly all his novels. 6. Naturalism

Naturalism designates a literary movement in the late 19th and early 20th century in France, America and England. It applies the principle of scientific determinism to fiction and drama. It views human being as animals in the natural world responding to environmental forces and internal stresses and drives, over none of which they have control and none of which they fully understand.

Here are the major features of naturalism. First, humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment. Second, the universe is cold, godless, indifferent and


hostile to human desire. Third, naturalistic writers are pessimistic. They choose their subjects from the lower ranks of the society. And the naturalists exercise a bias in the selection of characters and actions, frequently choosing primitive characters and simple, violent actions as best giving “experimental conditions” and strive to be honest and objective in the presentation of the material, try to be amoral in the view of human life, neither condemning nor praising human beings for actions beyond their control.

Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets are the most outstanding works. 7. Imagism

Imagism is a literary movement launched by British and American poets early in the 20th century in reaction against Victorian sentimentalism that advocated the use of free verse, common speech patterns, and clear concrete images.

Imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles. First, it uses direct treatment of subject matter, whether subjective or objective. Second, it adopts absolutely no word that did not contribute to the presentation. As regards rhythm, it composes in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome. Ezra Pound is a leading spokesman of this movement. His In a Station of the Metro is a well-known imagist poem. And other very important poets are William Carlos Williams, Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost. As a poetic style, Imagism gave Modernism its start in the early 20th century, and is considered to be the first organized Modernist literary movement in the English language. 8. Modernism

Modernism is comprehensive but vague term for a movement , which begin in the late 19th century and which has had a wide influence internationally during much of the 20th century.

2> modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical case.

3> the term pertains to all the creative arts, especially poetry, fiction, drama, painting, music and architecture.

4> in England from early in the 20th century and during the 1920s and 1930s, in America from shortly before the first world war and on during the inter-war period, modernist tendencies were at their most active and fruitful.

5>as far as literature is concerned, Modernism reveals a breaking away from

established rules, traditions and conventions. fresh ways of looking at man’s position and function in the universe and many experiments in form and style. It is particularly concerned with language and how to use it and with writing itself.

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