1. American Literature
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
a group of religious people
Puritans
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. went into the making of American literature
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
Symbolism means using symbols in literary works. The symbol means something that represents or stands for abstract deep meaning.
Puritans thought that all the simple objects existing in the world connoted 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, there can be no good understanding of American culture and literature.

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

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

12. Colonial period and Revolutionary period
Jonathan Edwards
Benjamin Franklin

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

14. Romanticism ( )
Washington Irving
James Fenimore Cooper

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

16. Late Romanticism
not optimistic
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville

17. Romantic Poets
Emily Dickinson
Walt Whitman

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

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

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

21. Naturalism
Stephen Crane
Theodore Dreiser

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