Part One Early American Literature 1
Chapter One Birth of American Literature 1
1．Introduction 1
1.1 A New Land 1
1.2 Puritan Ideas 2
1.3 Literary Characteristics 3
2．Jonathan Edwards(1703—1758) 3
3．Selected Writing "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"by Edwards 4
Chapter Two The Revolutionary Period 6
1．Introduction 6
1.1 Enlightenment Ideas 6
1.2 The American Revolution 7
1.3 Literature during the Revolutionary Period 8
2．Benjamin Franklin(1706—1790) 8
3．Thomas Jefferson(1743—1826) 9
4．Selected Writings 10
4.1 The Autobiography(an excerpt)by Franklin 10
4.2 "The Declaration of Independence"by Jefferson 13
Chapter Three The Rise of a National Literature 17
1．Introduction 17
1.1 The Expanding Frontier 17
1.2 Growth of American Literature 18
2．Washington Irving(1783—1859) 18
3．James Fenimore Cooper(1789—1851) 19
3.1 Life and Career 19
3.2 The Pioneers(synopsis) 20
4．Selected Writing "Rip Van Winkle"by Irving 22
Part Two American Literature between the 1820s and 1860s 36
Chapter Four Romanticism(Ⅰ) 36
1．Introduction 36
1.1 Historical Background 36
1.2 Literary Characteristics 37
1.3 New England Transcendentalism 38
2．Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803—1882) 40
3．Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804—1864) 41
3.1 Life and Career 41
3.2 The Scarlet Letter(synopsis) 42
4．Henry David Thoreau(1817—1862) 43
5．Walt Whitman(1819—1892) 45
6．Emily Dickinson(1830—1886) 46
7．Selected Writings 47
7.1 "Self-Reliance"(excerpts)by Emerson 47
7.2 "Young Goodman Brown"by Hawthorne 54
7.3 "The Village"(an excerpt from Walden)by Thoreau 64
7.4 "I Hear America Singing"by Whitman 68
7.5 "Song of Myself"by Whitman 68
7.6 "I Sit and Look Out"by Whitman 70
7.7 "O Captain!My Captain!"by Whitman 70
7.8 "I Never Saw a Moor"by Dickinson 71
7.9 "I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died—"by Dickinson 72
7.10 "I Like to See it Lap the Miles—"by Dickinson 72
7.11 "I Felt a Funeral,in my Brain"by Dickinson 73
7.12 "Because I Could not Stop for Death—"by Dickinson 74
7.13 "Tell All the Truth But Tell it Slant"by Dickinson 75
7.14 "Apparently with No Surprise"by Dickinson 75
7.15 "As Imperceptibly As Grief"by Dickinson 75
Chapter Five Romanticism(Ⅱ) 76
1．Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(1807—1882) 76
2．Edgar Allan Poe(1809—1849) 77
3．Herman Melville(1819—1891) 78
3.1 Life and Career 78
3.2 Moby-Dick(synopsis) 79
4．Selected Writings 80
4.1 "A Psalm of Life"by Longfellow 80
4.2 "Mezzo Cammin"by Longfellow 82
4.3 "To Helen"by Allan Poe 82
4.4 "Annabel Lee"by Allan Poe 83
4.5 "Eldorado"by Allan Poe 84
4.6 "The Raven"by Allan Poe 85
4.7 "The Tell-Tale Heart"by Allan Poe 89
Part Three American Literature between the 1860s and 1910s 94
Chapter Six Realism 94
1．Introduction 94
1.1 Historical Background 94
1.2 Literary Characteristics 95
2．Mark Twain(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)(1835—1910) 96
2.1 Life and Career 96
2.2 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(synopsis) 97
3．Henry James(1843—1916) 98
3.1 Life and Career 98
3.2 The Portrait of a Lady(synopsis) 99
4．O.Henry(1862—1910) 101
5．Selected Writings 102
5.1 "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"by Twain 102
5.2 "The Art of Fiction"(Excerpts)by James 107
5.3 "The Cop and the Anthem"by O.Henry 113
Chapter Seven Naturalism 118
1．Introduction 118
2．Stephen Crane(1871—1900) 119
2.1 Life and Career 119
2.2 The Red Badge of Courage(synopsis) 120
3．Theodore Dreiser(1871—1945) 121
3.1 Life and Career 121
3.2 Sister Carrie(synopsis) 122
4．Jack London(1876—1916) 123
5．Selected Writings 124
5.1 "An Episode of War"by Crane 124
5.2 "Black Riders Came from the Sea"by Crane 128
5.3 "A Youth in Apparel That Glittered"by Crane 128
5.4 "A Slant of Sun on Dull Brown Walls"by Crane 129
5.5 "The Law of Life"by London 129
Part Four American Literature between the Two World Wars 137
Chapter Eight Modernism(Ⅰ) 137
1．Introduction 137
1.1 Social and Historical Background 137
1.2 Literary Characteristics 138
2．Robert Frost(1874—1963) 141
3．Wallace Stevens(1879—1955) 142
4．William Carlos Williams(1883—1963) 142
5．Ezra Pound(1885—1972) 143
6．T.S.Eliot(1888—1965) 144
7．Selected Writings 145
7.1 "The Road Not Taken"by Frost 145
7.2 "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"by Frost 146
7.3 "After Apple-Picking"by Frost 146
7.4 "Mending Wall"by Frost 148
7.5 "Sunday Morning"by Stevens 149
7.6 "Anecdote of the Jar"by Stevens 152
7.7 "The Emperor of Ice-Cream"by Stevens 153
7.8 "The Snow Man"by Stevens 153
7.9 "Portrait of a Lady"by Williams 154
7.10 "The Red Wheelbarrow"by Williams 155
7.11 "The Young Housewife"by Williams 155
7.12 "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"by Williams 156
7.13 "In a Station of the Metro"by Pound 157
7.14 "The River-Merchant's Wife:A Letter"by Pound 157
7.15 "The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock"by Eliot 158
Chapter Nine Modernism(Ⅱ) 162
1．Sherwood Anderson(1876—1941) 162
2．Eugene Gladstone O'Neill(1888—1953) 163
2.1 Life and Career 163
2.2 Long Day's Journey into Night(synopsis) 164
3．F.Scott Fitzgerald(1896—1940) 165
3.1 Life and Career 165
3.2 The Great Gatsby(synopsis) 166
4．William Faulkner(1897—1962) 167
4.1 Life and Career 167
4.2 Absalom,Absalom!(synopsis) 168
5．Ernest Hemingway(1899—1961) 169
5.1 Life and Career 169
5.2 The Old Man and the Sea(synopsis) 170
6．Selected Writings 170
6.1 "Mother"(an excerpt from Winesburg,Ohio)by Anderson 170
6.2 Long Day's Journey into Night(an excerpt from Act Ⅳ)by O'Neill 176
6.3 "Babylon Revisited"by Fitzgerald 182
6.4 "A Rose for Emily"by Faulkner 198
6.5 "A Clean,Well-lighted Place"by Hemingway 205
Part Five Post-WWⅡ American Literature 210
Chapter Ten Postwar Realism and Ethnic Literature 210
1．Introduction 210
1.1 Historical Background 210
1.2 Literary Characteristics 211
2．Langston Hughes(1902—1967) 212
3．Charles Olson(1910—1970) 214
4．Saul Bellow(1915—2005) 214
4.1 Life and Career 214
4.2 Herzog(Synopsis) 216
5．J.D.Salinger(1919—2010) 217
5.1 Life and Career 217
5.2 The Catcher in the Rye(synopsis) 218
6．Joseph Heller(1923—1999) 219
6.1 Life and Career 219
6.2 Catch-22(Synopsis) 220
7．Flannery O'Connor(1925—1964) 222
8．Allen Ginsberg(1926—1997) 223
9．Toni Morrison(1931—) 224
9.1 Life and Career 224
9.2 Song of Solomon(synopsis) 225
10．Joyce Carol Oates(1938—) 226
10.1 Life and Career 226
10.2 Them(Synopsis) 228
11．Maxine Hong Kingston(1940—) 229
11.1 Life and Career 229
11.2 The Woman Warrior(synopsis) 230
12．Selected Writings 230
12.1 "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"by Hughes 230
12.2 "The Weary Blues"by Hughes 231
12.3 "Maximus,to Gloucester,Sunday,July 19"by Olson 232
12.4 "Graven Images"by Bellow 235
12.5 "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut"by Salinger 239
12.6 "The Life You Save May Be Your Own"by O'Connor 251
12.7 "Howl"by Ginsberg 259
Bibliography 269