omens ,riddles and stories.
b. Three stages: Traditional literature, Transitional Literature, Modern Literature c. The first permanent English settlement was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.
d. Puritanism :Origin of Puritan
Doctrines: based on Calvinism 1)predestination 2)original sin and total depravity
3)limited atonement 4)theocracy
Influence on American Literature 1)Its optimism has exerted a great influence on
American literature 2)Puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception changed
gradually into a literary symbolism
e. Literature of Colonial Settlement: Forms: histories, travel account, biographies,
diaries, letters, autobiographies, sermons and poems. Characteristics: 1) American
colonial literature is neither real literature nor American. 2) Their writings served either
God or colonial expansion
2. The Literature of the Revolutionary Period:
a. The Age of Reason: Definition: A rational society is that “reforms the mind,
sweetens the temper, cheers the spirits, and promotes health” (by Thomas
Jefferson).
b. The forms of literature: ballads, skits, broadsides, newspaper poems, editorials,
essays, private and public letters, satires, pamphlets
3. The Literature of the Romantic Period
1) American Romanticism: an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe
in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on
the individual’s expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and
forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions.
native factors: It is a period following American independence.(Political independence,
economic development and territorial expansion contributed much to literature.
foreign influence: Romanticism emerged from England and it added impetus to the
growth of Romanticism in America.
2) Distinct Features of American Romanticism
a. It was in essence the expression of a real new experience
b. American Puritanism served as a cultural heritage in American literature. c. American new ideals were strong enough to inspire Romantic spirit
d. both imitative & independent
4. The Literature of the Realistic Period:
a. Realism: is a term applied to literary composition that aims at an prejudice, idealism, or romantic color.
b. Time: Realism flourished from the Civil War to the turn of the century.
c. Features: (1) It stresses truthful treatment of material. (2) Characterization is the center of the story. (3) Open ending is a good example of the truthful treatment of material. (4) Realism focuses on common characters and everyday events. (5) Realism emphasizes objectivity. (6) Realism presents moral vision.
d. Two Literary Trends:
1)Local Color(or Local Corlorism/Regionalism etc.)
a. Local Color is a term applied to literature which, as that have escaped standardizing cultural influences
b. Features: Presenting a locale which is distinguished from the outside world; Describing the exotic and the picturesque; Nostalgia; Showing things as they are; The influence of setting on character（environmental determinism）
2) Naturalism:
a. Background: 1) Darwinism’s key points: the struggle for existence or evolution, the survival of the fittest, natural selection. 2) Social Darwinism: the weak and stupid would fall victim in the natural course of events to economic forces.
b. Definition: Naturalism is a critical term applied to the method of literary
composition
c. Features:Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment. The universe is cold, godless, indifferent, and hostile to human desires.
The literary naturalists have a major difference from the realists. (Violent, sensational, sordid, unpleasant and ugly vs. genteel)
5. The Literature of the Modernist Period:
1). Modernism:
Cultural Background: Darwin’s Origin of Species; Freud’s analytical psychology (libido, id, ego, superego); Irrational Philosophers: Schopenhauer & Nietzsche
Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th-century traditions.
2) Imagism: (Leaders: Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell)
Definition: Imagism is the doctrine and poetic practice of a small but influential group of American and British poets calling themselves imagists between 1912 and 1917. Aiming at a new clarity and exactness in the short lyric poem, the imagists cultivated concision and directness, building their short poems around single images; they also preferred looser cadences to traditional regular rhythms.
Features: Free choice of subject matter, Free verse, Image Without interpretation or comment
Influences: a. The imagist theories call for brief language, describing the precise picture in as few words as possible. This new way of poetry composition has a lasting influence in the 20th century poetry. b. The second lasting influence of Imagism is the form of free verse. There are no metrical rules. There are apparent indiscriminate line breaks, which reflects the discontinuity of life itself. That is art of the poem. (The poet uses the length of the lines and the strange groupings of words to show how life itself can be broken up into somehow meaningless clusters.)
2)The Lost Generation:
. first used by Gertrude Stein, an American woman writer, who was one of the leaders of the group,the term defines a sense of moral loss or aimlessness. The WWI destroyed the innocent ideas, many good young men went to the war and died, or
returned damaged, both physically and mentally; their moral faith were no longer valid--- they were “Lost.”
In the Narrow Sense: a group of American writers, including Hemingway,
F.S.Fitzgerald, J.Dos Passos, E.E.Cummings, Sherwood Anderson, and Hart Crane, etc.
In the Broad Sense: the entire post WWI American young generation
Main Characteristics: Suffering from the war, losing beliefs, being cut off from life, indulged in drinking and partying.