英美文学通论
美国文学讲义1
发布时间: 2008-05-26   浏览次数: 632

 Chapter 1 Colonial Period I. Background: Puritanism

  1.features of Puritanism

  (1Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred.

  (2Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can be passed down from generation to generation.

  (3Total depravity

  (4Limited atonement: Only the ※elect§ can be saved.

  2.Influence

  (1A group of good qualities  hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety serious and thoughtful influenced American literature.

  (2It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth  garden of Eden.

  (3Symbolism: the American puritans metaphorical mode of perception was chiefly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American.

  (4With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible.

  II. Overview of the literature

  1.types of writing

  diaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons

  2.writers of colonial period

  (1Anne Bradstreet

  (2Edward Taylor

  (3Roger Williams

  (4John Woolman

  (5Thomas Paine

  (6Philip Freneau

  III.    Jonathan Edwards

  1.life

  2.works

  (1The Freedom of the Will

  (2The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended

  (3The Nature of True Virtue

  3.ideas  pioneer of transcendentalism

  (1The spirit of revivalism

  (2Regeneration of man

  (3Gods presence

  (4Puritan idealism

  IV.     Benjamin Franklin

  1.life

  2.works

  (1Poor Richards Almanac

  (2Autobiography

  3.contribution

  (1He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society.

  (2He was called ※the new Prometheus who had stolen fire electricity in this case from heaven§.

  (3Everything seems to meet in this one man  ※Jack of all trades§. Herman Melville thus described him ※master of each and mastered by none.