美国文学名词解释1.docVIP

1 The Enlightenment启蒙运动: The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement originating in France, which attracted widespread support among the ruling and intellectual classes of Europe and North America in the second half of the 18th century. It characterizes the efforts by certain European writers to use critical reason to free minds from prejudice, unexamined authority and oppression by Church or State. Therefore, the Enlightenment is sometimes called the Age of Reason 2 American Dream美国梦: It is the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth as measure of success or happiness 3. Transcendentalism 超验主义: It was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the middle 19th century. It began as a protest against the general state of culture and society. Among transcendentalist’s core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that “transcends” the physical and empirical and is only realized through the individual’s intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, etc. It is a kind of philosophy that stresses belief in transcendental things and the importance of spiritual rather than material existence. 4. American Puritanism美国清教主义: It is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Puritan Church. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them. They were a group of ser 5.Symbolism象征主义：It is the writing technique of using symbols. It’s a literary movement that arose in France in the last