The Mayflower课件.pptVIP

The Mayflower and Before; For most Americans, the spiritual founding of the country is indelibly associated with the image of Mayflower and Pilgrims. Just as we Chinese pass down the tale how Nvwa created the very first human as our ancestors for generations, the Mayflower has high symbolic meanings to people of America. It is intriguing to look for the source of this cultural heritage. ;The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers Felicia Dorothea Hemans The breaking waves dashes high On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods, against a stormy sky, Their giant branches toss’d And the heavy night hung dark The hills and water o’er, When a band of exiles moor’d their bark On the wild New England shore… ;The writer of this poem, oddly enough, was a female poet from Welsh who had never been to America and lived two centuries after the Pilgrims reached the New World. All Mrs. Hemans knew about the country were from a small article about the founders’ day celebrated in Plymouth posted on a two-year-old Massachusetts newspaper used to wrap her groceries. It was very possible the first time she ever heard about the Pilgrims and Mayflower. ; Therefore, it is not surprising to find the poem replete with errors------it was not night when they moored, and Plymouth was not “where first they trod”, but in fact their fourth landing site. Yet all these errors and the poet’s limited talents couldn’t stop the poetry becoming an instant classic, and formed the essential image of the ship landing that Americans carry with them to this day.; The 102 passengers of Mayflower finally landed on shore of New England on the gloomy afternoon of Nov. 21st, 1620, after 66 days at sea. About one third of them were members of a religious party called the Separatists, as they had broken completely from the Church of England, and forced to flee England for freedom. The rest were peasants and craftsmen. During the journey, the Pilgrims had handled t