美国文学选读 (上).ppt

美国文学选读 History and Anthology of American Literature The Lit. of Colonial America The Lit. of Reason and Revolution The Lit. of Romanticism The Lit. of Realism Twentieth-Century Literature The Literature of Colonial America Age character Literary Characteristics in this period The first writer of America The main thought in this period Main writers their literature Age character Literary Characteristics in this period The First American Writer his The First American Writer – Captain John Smith Main Writing of John A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony A Map of Virginia: with a Description of the County (1612) The book was a guide to the country and an invitation to the bold spirits needed to enlarge and strengthen the English plantations in the new land. General History of Virginia (1624 ) Contains his most famous tale of how the Indian princess Pocahontas saved him from the wrath of her father Powhatan by laying her head upon Smith’ when the Indians were about “to beat out his brains”. Puritan Thoughts Over the yeas the Puritans built a way of life that was in harmony with their somber religion, one that stressed hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety. Puritans wanted to make pure their religious beliefs and practices; Puritans wished to restore simplicity to church services and the authority of the Bible to theology. Puritans included people from the humblest to the loftiest ranks of English society, both educated an uneducated, poor and rich. Puritans opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated, but it is true that their lives were disciplined and hard. Puritans tended to suspect joy and laughter as symptoms of sin. Puritan religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God and to forget His mercy. Mains writer Their literature A pair of governor writer William Bradford – The History of Plymouth Plan