Part one.docx

1、Part oneThe Literature of Colonial America1. The main stream of American national history was recognized as started in Virginia and Massachusetts.2. The early settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germens, French, Spaniards, Italians, and Portuguese. They all made a contribution to American civilization.

2、3. English tradition, laws and commerce functioned well in New England. The first writings featured as American were the narratives and journals of these settlement. (Dance with the Wolf) 4. The first distinctly American literature was ascribed to be written by John Smith. The characteristics of his

3、 description. Understand the words as themes, myths, images, scenes, characters, events, Pilgrims, Puritans, Old World (New World), Israel, Promised Land.5. Thomas Jefferson as a political philosopher (1743-1826). The third president of the United States. The founder of University of Virginia, he wa

4、s very profound in learning, good at violin knew many kinds of language, generous and very kind to people. I admire him a great deal.6. Understand the Puritans, and trace back to the origin of American value. Puritans were generally regarded as a crowd of toughness(坚韧), purpose（有追求的）, and character（

5、品格高尚的）. The word Puritan adopted by them means they wanted to make pure their religious beliefs and practices, so they could be also called as Separatists. P87. Understand the poem by Bradford before his death, (P6). Explain the words in the poem: His（God）, Truth(Jesus Christ), Grace(恩典).8. John Win

6、throp and his The History of New England, featured for its simplicity and honesty.9. The Puritan Movement:It maybe regarded as a second or greater Renaissance, a rebirth of the moral nature of man following the intellectual awakening of Europe in the 15th century and 16th century. Puritan movement h

7、ad two chief objects: Personal righteousness and civil and religious liberty. In another words, it aimed to make men honest and to make them free. Puritanism became a national movement. It included English churchmen as well as Separatists, Calvinists, Catholic noblemen, all bound together in resista

8、nce to despotism专政 in church and State, and with a passion for liberty and righteousness. Naturally such a movement had its extremes, and it is from a few zealots and fanatics that most of our misconceptions about the Puritan arises. Many simple pleasure were forbidden, and an austere朴素的 standard of

9、 living was forced upon an unwilling people. We should have a correct understanding of the Puritan movement if we want to study English literature of the time. Though the spirit of the movement was profoundly religious, the Puritans were not a religious sect宗派, neither was the puritan a narrow-minde

10、d and gloomy dogmatist, as he is still pictured in the history. Milton was a Puritan; and in the long struggle for human liberty there are few names honored by freemen everywhere.American Puritanism:The American puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant新教徒 Church, who came int

11、o existence in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them Puritans. They came to America out of various reasons, but it should be remembered that they were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly r

12、eligious and moral principles. The American Puritans, like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to complete “purity”. They accept the doctrine of predestination （神意论）, original sin and total depravity （堕落）, and limited atonement（赎罪） through a s

13、pecial infusion（充满） of grace from God. Puritans life was extremely disciplined and hard. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind. American Puritanism also had an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a sta

14、te of mind, so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets（教义， 信条）.11. Calvinism: Calvinism is the doctrine of John Calvin, the great French theologian who lived in Geneva. It is a doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement (o

15、r the salvation of a selected few) through a special infusion of grace from God.12. Puritan style of writing is generally regarded as simplicity, austerity（艰苦，严肃） and rigidity in matters of taste, their distaste for the arts and manifestation of sensuous激发美感的 beauty. Their style is fresh, simple and

16、 direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible.The puritans dreamed of living under a perfect order and worked with indomitable 坚忍不拔的courage and confident hope toward building a new Garden of Eden in America, where man

17、could at long last live the way he should. Fired with such a sense of mission, the puritans looked even the worst of life in the face with a tremendous amount of optimism. If Emerson saw the American as Adam himself reborn, standing simple and sincere before the world, if Thoreau portrayed himself a

18、s an Adam in his Eden, and Whitman felt rapturous狂喜的 at the sight of the American bustling with activity as the children of Adam restored to their lost paradise, and Henry James especially in his early career, about the innocence and simplicity of Americans, and if the spirit of optimism burst out o

19、f the page of so many American authors, the Chinese student of American literature shouldnt be unduly surprised: the optimistic Puritan has exerted a great influence on American literature. Part TwoThe Literature of Reason and RevolutionHuman beings are the animals who could use their reason.1. What

20、 is reason?Its a capability and process by using logic and argument to the conclusion. Strictly speaking, it is a capability opposite to perception, cognition, emotion and desire. It is supposed that by using reason, we could get to the fundamental truth, and the fundamental truth is the cause of al

21、l the facts and phenomenon in the world. Kant康德: (representative of reason) He used reason to arrange all the concepts as an integrated whole. Kant separated pure reason from practical reason, and he also studied the function of critical capability of intellectuals. (The starry闪亮的 heavens above me a

22、nd the moral law within me fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on.)Aristotle developed the methodology of logic form: from general to concrete, and from concrete to general. However in theology, reason is different from faith, r

23、eason deal with religious truth by discovery or by explanation. Kundela once said “God will laugh when human being is using his reason.” General speaking, modern Christianity, especially the Protestant tenets信条 allows an extensive use of reason, while still keeps the ultimate truth (supernatural tru

24、th) in the realm of faith.2. Theology dominated the puritan phase of American writing. Politics was the second great subject to command the best attention of the best minds.3. Themes of their writing were fight for independence and freedom, 4. Economic growth and the development of industry of US le

25、d to strain with England. To make US remain politically and economically dependent on Britain, British government hampered US economy by requiring US to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at price higher than at home. Politically the Britain government forced dependence by ruling

26、 from overseas and by taxing without giving them representative in parliament.5. The restless, growing America couldnt accept this as future. They need real liberty, development of their own economic growth.The war for Independence (1776-1783) ended in the formation of a federative bourgeois democra

27、tic republic- The United States of America.6. The spiritual life in this period was to a great degree moulded by the bourgeois Enlightenment. The representatives of the Enlightenment set themselves the task of disseminating传播 knowledge among the people and advocating revolutionary ideas. They dealt

28、a decisive blow upon the Puritan tradition and brought to life secular education and literature. The American reading public at the time displayed great interesting works of English: Newton, Swift, Locke and others. French Enlightenment writer Voltaire was also widely read. 18th century of England i

29、s known as the age of Enlightenment or the age of Reason. It was a progressive intellectual movement going on throughout Europe at the time, with French in the vanguard先驱. It celebrated reason (rationality), equality, science and human beings ability to perfect themselves and their society. The move

30、ment was based on the theories provided by the philosophy of the age, which ranged from Lockes materialism, Lord Shaftsburys deism(自然神论者，相信世界是上帝创造的， 却不理会他的教诲), and George Berkeleys immaterialism, to David Humes skepticism. Whatever philosophical beliefs they might have, they hold the common faith in

31、 human rationality and the possibility of human perfection through education. They believed when reason served as the yardstick衡量标准 for measurement of all human activities and social relations, superstition, injustice, privilege and oppression were yield place to “eternal truth”, “eternal justice”,

32、and “natural equality” or inalienable不可剥夺的 right of men. Everything was put under scrutiny细看, to be measured by reason. No authorities, political or religious or otherwise, were accepted unchallenged while almost all the old societies and governments and all the traditional concepts, including Chris

33、tianity, were examined and criticized. The belief provided theory for the French Revolution in 1789 and the American War of Independence.7. Secular世俗的 ideals were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin. He was a printer, humanist, scientist a master of diplomacy; a humanitarian who helped es