Part One Early American Literature

Chapter One Birth of American Literature

1．Introduction

1.1 A New Land

1.2 Puritan Ideas

1.3 Literary Characteristics

2．Jonathan Edwards(1703—1758)

3．Selected Writing "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"by Edwards

Chapter Two The Revolutionary Period

1．Introduction

1.1 Enlightenment Ideas

1.2 The American Revolution

1.3 Literature during the Revolutionary Period

2．Benjamin Franklin(1706—1790)

3．Thomas Jefferson(1743—1826)

4．Selected Writings

4.1 The Autobiography(an excerpt)by Franklin

4.2 "The Declaration of Independence"by Jefferson

Chapter Three The Rise of a National Literature

1．Introduction

1.1 The Expanding Frontier

1.2 Growth of American Literature

2．Washington Irving(1783—1859)

3．James Fenimore Cooper(1789—1851)

3.1 Life and Career

3.2 The Pioneers(synopsis)

4．Selected Writing "Rip Van Winkle"by Irving

Part Two American Literature between the 1820s and 1860s

Chapter Four Romanticism(Ⅰ)

1．Introduction

1.1 Historical Background

1.2 Literary Characteristics

1.3 New England Transcendentalism

2．Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803—1882)

3．Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804—1864)

3.1 Life and Career

3.2 The Scarlet Letter(synopsis)

4．Henry David Thoreau(1817—1862)

5．Walt Whitman(1819—1892)

6．Emily Dickinson(1830—1886)

7．Selected Writings

7.1 "Self-Reliance"(excerpts)by Emerson

7.2 "Young Goodman Brown"by Hawthorne

7.3 "The Village"(an excerpt from Walden)by Thoreau

7.4 "I Hear America Singing"by Whitman

7.5 "Song of Myself"by Whitman

7.6 "I Sit and Look Out"by Whitman

7.7 "O Captain!My Captain!"by Whitman

7.8 "I Never Saw a Moor"by Dickinson

7.9 "I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died—"by Dickinson

7.10 "I Like to See it Lap the Miles—"by Dickinson

7.11 "I Felt a Funeral,in my Brain"by Dickinson

7.12 "Because I Could not Stop for Death—"by Dickinson

7.13 "Tell All the Truth But Tell it Slant"by Dickinson

7.14 "Apparently with No Surprise"by Dickinson

7.15 "As Imperceptibly As Grief"by Dickinson

Chapter Five Romanticism(Ⅱ)

1．Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(1807—1882)

2．Edgar Allan Poe(1809—1849)

3．Herman Melville(1819—1891)

3.1 Life and Career

3.2 Moby-Dick(synopsis)

4．Selected Writings

4.1 "A Psalm of Life"by Longfellow

4.2 "Mezzo Cammin"by Longfellow

4.3 "To Helen"by Allan Poe

4.4 "Annabel Lee"by Allan Poe

4.5 "Eldorado"by Allan Poe

4.6 "The Raven"by Allan Poe

4.7 "The Tell-Tale Heart"by Allan Poe

Part Three American Literature between the 1860s and 1910s

Chapter Six Realism

1．Introduction

1.1 Historical Background

1.2 Literary Characteristics

2．Mark Twain(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)(1835—1910)

2.1 Life and Career

2.2 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(synopsis)

3．Henry James(1843—1916)

3.1 Life and Career

3.2 The Portrait of a Lady(synopsis)

4．O.Henry(1862—1910)

5．Selected Writings

5.1 "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"by Twain

5.2 "The Art of Fiction"(Excerpts)by James

5.3 "The Cop and the Anthem"by O.Henry

Chapter Seven Naturalism

1．Introduction

2．Stephen Crane(1871—1900)

2.1 Life and Career

2.2 The Red Badge of Courage(synopsis)

3．Theodore Dreiser(1871—1945)

3.1 Life and Career

3.2 Sister Carrie(synopsis)

4．Jack London(1876—1916)

5．Selected Writings

5.1 "An Episode of War"by Crane

5.2 "Black Riders Came from the Sea"by Crane

5.3 "A Youth in Apparel That Glittered"by Crane

5.4 "A Slant of Sun on Dull Brown Walls"by Crane

5.5 "The Law of Life"by London

Part Four American Literature between the Two World Wars

Chapter Eight Modernism(Ⅰ)

1．Introduction

1.1 Social and Historical Background

1.2 Literary Characteristics

2．Robert Frost(1874—1963)

3．Wallace Stevens(1879—1955)

4．William Carlos Williams(1883—1963)

5．Ezra Pound(1885—1972)

6．T.S.Eliot(1888—1965)

7．Selected Writings

7.1 "The Road Not Taken"by Frost

7.2 "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"by Frost

7.3 "After Apple-Picking"by Frost

7.4 "Mending Wall"by Frost

7.5 "Sunday Morning"by Stevens

7.6 "Anecdote of the Jar"by Stevens

7.7 "The Emperor of Ice-Cream"by Stevens

7.8 "The Snow Man"by Stevens

7.9 "Portrait of a Lady"by Williams

7.10 "The Red Wheelbarrow"by Williams

7.11 "The Young Housewife"by Williams

7.12 "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"by Williams

7.13 "In a Station of the Metro"by Pound

7.14 "The River-Merchant's Wife:A Letter"by Pound

7.15 "The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock"by Eliot

Chapter Nine Modernism(Ⅱ)

1．Sherwood Anderson(1876—1941)

2．Eugene Gladstone O'Neill(1888—1953)

2.1 Life and Career

2.2 Long Day's Journey into Night(synopsis)

3．F.Scott Fitzgerald(1896—1940)

3.1 Life and Career

3.2 The　Great Gatsby(synopsis)

4．William Faulkner(1897—1962)

4.1 Life and Career

4.2 Absalom,Absalom!(synopsis)

5．Ernest Hemingway(1899—1961)

5.1 Life and Career

5.2 The Old Man and the Sea(synopsis)

6．Selected Writings

6.1 "Mother"(an excerpt from Winesburg,Ohio)by Anderson

6.2 Long Day's Journey into Night(an excerpt from Act Ⅳ)by O'Neill

6.3 "Babylon Revisited"by Fitzgerald

6.4 "A Rose for Emily"by Faulkner

6.5 "A Clean,Well-lighted Place"by Hemingway

Part Five Post-WWⅡ American Literature

Chapter Ten Postwar Realism and Ethnic Literature

1．Introduction

1.1 Historical Background

1.2 Literary Characteristics

2．Langston Hughes(1902—1967)

3．Charles Olson(1910—1970)

4．Saul Bellow(1915—2005)

4.1 Life and Career

4.2 Herzog(Synopsis)

5．J.D.Salinger(1919—2010)

5.1 Life and Career

5.2 The Catcher in the Rye(synopsis)

6．Joseph Heller(1923—1999)

6.1 Life and Career

6.2 Catch-22(Synopsis)

7．Flannery O'Connor(1925—1964)

8．Allen Ginsberg(1926—1997)

9．Toni Morrison(1931—)

9.1 Life and Career

9.2 Song of Solomon(synopsis)

10．Joyce Carol Oates(1938—)

10.1 Life and Career

10.2 Them(Synopsis)

11．Maxine Hong Kingston(1940—)

11.1 Life and Career

11.2 The Woman Warrior(synopsis)

12．Selected Writings

12.1 "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"by Hughes

12.2 "The Weary Blues"by Hughes

12.3 "Maximus,to Gloucester,Sunday,July 19"by Olson

12.4 "Graven Images"by Bellow

12.5 "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut"by Salinger

12.6 "The Life You Save May Be Your Own"by O'Connor

12.7 "Howl"by Ginsberg

Bibliography