American Literature• 1. Theme-Pursuit of Happiness

• 2.Early Fiction

• 3. Before the Civil War

• 4. After The Civil War

• 5.In the 20th Century

1. Theme-pursuit of happiness

• 1.1 fantastic dreams

• 1.2 down-to earth dreams

• 1.3 religious pilgrimage

• 1.4 restlessness

2. Early Fiction2.1 Washington Irving

• Inventing a history for the Americans

• History of New York

• Rip Van Winkle

• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

• Literary possibilities of the west

2.2 James F. Cooper

---Mythmaker

---forerunner of all heroic forest scouts,

bear hunters and cowboys

3.1 Transcendentalists 1) Ralph Emerson

--by studying and responding to nature,

individuals could reach a higher spiritual

state without formal religion.

“Nature”

2)Henry David Thoreau

Walden

---The dictates of an individual’s conscience should take precedence over the demand of society

3.2 Power of Imagination 1) Edgar Allen Poe

• Romantic poet

• Suspenseful and terrifying tales

• The Masque of Red Death

• The Fall of the House of Usher

• Pioneer in science fiction and mystery story

2) Nathaniel Hawthorne

---Imaginative romances

---Exploration of moral themes

Twice-told Tales

The Scarlet Letter

3) Herman Melville

---his life experience

---his masterpiece:

Moby Dick

3.3 New Vision

• Walt Whitman(1818-1892)

---a true American Voice: Celebrating the American landscape, people, their

speech and government

---His life experience

---His masterpiece: Leaves of Grass (Song of Myself)

---features of his poems

3.4 Reform and Liberation

• The end of slavery

• Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin– The story– Its social influence

• The civil war

4.1 Regionalism

1)What is regionalism

2)Important figures:

---William Dean Howells

---Mark Twain:– Life experience– Literary style– Masterpiece:

The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn

4.2 A New Wave1)Naturalists

---Realistic description of everyday life: W.D.Howells:The Rise of Silas Lapham

Stephen Crane:The Red Badge of Courage

Theodore Dreiser:Sister Carrie

Upton Sinclair: The Jungle

Jack London: Call of the Wild

---the fate of individuals:

Henry James:The Wings of the Dove

Edith Wharton:The Age of Innocence

4.3 Sympathetic views

1) Sympathetic views:

Kate Chopin

Willa Cather

2) Democratic spirit:

Black Writers

W.E.B.Dubois:

Souls of Black Folk

5.1 Rebellious Spirit

• “Revolt from the village”

• Rebellion against the limited life of small towns– Sherwood Anderson:Winesburg, Ohio– Sinclair Lewis

The first American Nobel Prize winner

Main Street

5.2 the Modernists

• Imagism

– Ezra Pond

• T.S. Eliot:

– The Waste Land

• E.E.Coming

• Wallace Stevens

• William Carols Williams

5.3 Lost Generation• A literature of disillusionment• F.Scott Fitzgerald:

– The Great Gatsby

• John Dos Passos: U.S.A• Ernest Hemingway(Nobel prize winner)

– Moral code and style– masterpieces

• William Faulkner(Nobel prize winner)– Realistic and experimental– materpieces

5.4 Harlem Renaissance

• What is Harlem• The new Negro

articulate, conscious of racial identity

• Langston Hughes• Countee Cullen• Style: ---exotic images ---rhythms of black music

5.5 New Drama

• Eugene O,Neill (Nobel Prize winner)

– Symbolism

– Science of psychology

– Heightened language

– Theme: individuals’ search for identity

– masterpieces

5.6 Depression Realism and Escapism

• John Steinbeck– The Grapes of Wrath

• Margaret Mitchell– Gone With the Wind

• During WWII– Norman Mailer: The Naked and the Dead– Joseph Heller:Catch-22

5.7 Postwar Voices and the “Beat Generation”

• Receptivity of black voice:– Ralph Ellison:Invisible Man

• Jewish writers– Saul Bellow, Bashevis Singer, Philip Roth

• Playwright:Williams and Arthur Miller

• The Beat Generation– Alan Ginsberg: Howl– J.D. Salinger:the Catcher in the Rye

5.8 New American Voices

• The feminist movement– Toni Morrison:The Beloved

the first black American Nobel Prize winner– Alice Walker:The Color of Purple

• Writers from other ethnic groups:Chinese writers:

Maxine Hong Kingston

Amy Tan