大连外国语学院美国文学课堂讲义.docVIP

Welcome to American Literature 1. What is literature?2. How do we define American literature?3. Why do people read literature?4. How to study literature? I. What is literature? The word “literature” came into English from the 14th century in the sense of polite learning through reading. (literacy) From the mid-18th century, it referred to the practice and profession of writing. Whence comes literature? Literature: language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages. “performance in words.” (beauty of expression and form, intellectual and