美国文学问答题答案整理.docVIP

问答题 3. Why did Mark Twain define the period of the civil war as a “Gilded Age”? 4. What is “Naturalism” in literary creation? Naturalism a more deliberate kind of realism, usually involves a view of human beings as a passive victims of natural forces and social environment. Naturalism a more deliberate kind of realism, usually involves a view of human beings as a passive victims of natural forces and social environment. The most significant work of naturalism in English is Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. The first naturalistic writer in America is Stephen Crane (the red badge of courage) 5. What is the “lost generation”? Who were the most important writers of the lost generation? The term lost generation was coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to a group of American literary notables who lived in Paris from the time period which saw the end of WWI to the beginning of the Great Depression. Significant members included Earnest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Thomas Stearns Eliot, and Gertrude himself. Puritanism in colonial America Puritanism, in the 16th and 17th cent., a movement for reform in the Church of England that had a profound influence on the social, political, ethical, and theological ideas of England and America.? 1) Puritanism is a strict religious doctrine.2) Puritanism also has practical aspects. Puritans have to work hard, and prepare for the obstacles they will meet in their life.3)American Puritanism contains original sin, predestination, total depravity，limited atonement of Gods grace. 7. The founding fathers of America. George Washington Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Franklin 8. Transcendentalism As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematized. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law and custom. They believed in the transcendence of the “Oversoul”, an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are a part. Representatives: