《美国浪漫主义.ppt》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《美国浪漫主义.ppt（10页珍藏版）》请在三一文库上搜索。
1、American Romanticism,The origin of American Romanticism,one of the most important periods in the history of American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irvings The Sketch Book and ended with Whitmans L
2、eaves of Grass.,Historical Background,The development of the American society nurtured “the literature of a great nation.“ America was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country. Historically, it was the time of westward expansion in America Economically, the who
3、le nation was experiencing an industrial transformation. Politically, democracy and equa1ity became the ideal of the new nation, and the two-party system came into being. With the founding of the American Independent Government, the nation felt an urge to have its own literary expression, to make kn
4、own its new experience that other nations did not have,The impact of European Romanticism on American Romanticism,Foreign literary masters, especially the English counterparts exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the new world. Born of one common cultural heritage, the American writers sha
5、red some common features with the English Romanticists. They revolted against the literary forms and ideas of the period of classicism by developing some relatively new forms of fiction or poetry.,They put emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature, which included a liking f
6、or the picturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the sensational, and the supernatural. The Americans also placed an increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions and disp1ayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitiv
7、ity and excitement. The strong tendency to exalt the individual and the common man was almost a national religion in America. Writers like,Freneau, Bryant, and Cooper showed a great interest in external nature in their respective works. The literary use of the more colorful aspects of the past was a
8、lso to be found in Irvings effort to exploit the legends of the Hudson River region, and in Coopers long series of historical tales. In short, American Romanticism is, in a certain way, derivative.,The unique characteristics of American Romanticism,Although greatly influenced by their English counte
9、rpart-s, the American romantic writers revealed unique characteristics of their own in Their works and they grew on the native lands. For example :,the American national experience of “pioneering into the west“ proved to be a rich source of material for American writers to draw upon. They celebrated
10、 Americas landscape with its virgin forests, meadows, groves, endless prairies, streams, and vast oceans. The wilderness came to function almost as a dramatic character that symbolized moral law. The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American l
11、iterature. Such a desire is particularly evident in Coopers Leather Stocking Tales, in Thoreaus Walden and, later, in Mark Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.,With the growth of American national consciousness, American character types speaking local dialects appeared in poetry and fiction with i
12、ncreasing frequency. Then the American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values and American Romanticism. One of the manifestations is the fact that American romantic writers tended more to moralize than their English and European counterparts. Besides, a
13、 preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of origina1 sin and the mystery of evil marked the works of Hawthorne, Melville and a host of lesser writers.,Major writers of this period,Poets:Philip Freneau, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Word sworth Long Fellow, James Russel Lowell, John Greenleaf Whitter,
14、 Edgar Ellen Poe, and, especially, Walt Whitman, whose Leaves Of Grass established him as the most popular American poet of the 19th century. Prose Writers: Washington Irving, James Fennimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville.,