A Brief Summary of the History of American Literature（一）

浪漫主義時期是美國文學史上最重要的時期之一。當美國人在大刀闊斧地建設自己的國家時，也開始逐漸意識到逐漸與歐洲的不同。隨著不斷增強的民族主義意識及民族自豪感，美國人開始希望見到自己的不同與歐洲模式，能表達他們字的美國風情的文學。這個時代偉大的作家充滿熱情地記錄下這個偉大時代的樂觀主義精神。隨后美國文學進入了超驗主義時代。超驗主義十分強調個人主義、自立、拒絕傳統權威思想。它實際上是對浪漫主義的發展。

然后，美國的國家自信心受到了內戰的動搖。內戰過后，美國處在迷茫中。在1900年前后這段時期的文學由于美國國內環境的變化而由浪漫主義和超驗主義樂觀精神轉向對社會和人類本質更直接的探討。從某種角度，現實主義反對浪漫主義的理想主義和懷舊情緒。它主要關注中下層人民的日常生活，而在這種情況下人物性格是社會因素作用的結果，環境是整個事件發展不可分割的部分。

1910年至1930年間被稱為現代主義時期。一戰后，美國進入了高度繁榮的十年，商業的繁榮程度超過了許多人的想象。20世紀初期，現代機器改變了人們日常生活的節奏、環境和面貌。大批的藝術家和作家獲得了不同程度的成功，開始改造傳統的藝術形式，試圖從中發現新的元素—人們進入機械時代之后所產生的美學共鳴。在這個時期，很多藝術家和文學運動在很大程度上與19世紀的風格、形式及內容迥異。現代的心理學對20世紀早期的文學產生了深刻的影響，大多數優秀的現代主義作家對人類心理學表現出濃厚興趣。

Abstract

Romantic Period is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature. When Americans were constructing their country, they also began to realize their differences from their European counterparts. They began to hope to see an entirely different literature model which expressed American cultures. Great writers of that period captured on their pages the enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream. Later，American literature came to Transcendentalism Period which emphasized individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of tradition authority. It was actually greatly influenced by romanticism.

However, the country’s confidence was waved by the Civil War. After the war, Americans got lost. At about 1900s, American literature came to another entirely different age—the age of Realism. Realists searched for the social and human nature more directly. In part, Realism was a reaction against the Romantic emphasis on the strange, idealistic, and long-ago and far-away. It has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes where character is a product of social factors and environment is the integral element in the dramatic complications.

The period between 1910 and 1930 is referred to as the era of Modernism. As modern machinery had changed the pace, atmosphere, and appearance of daily life in the early 20th century, so many artists and writers, with varying degrees of success, reinvented traditional artistic forms and tried to find radically new ones—an aesthetic echo of what people had come to call “the machine age.” During that period, a large number of artists and literary movements are totally different from those of the 19th-century’s, in style, form and content. Modern psychology has a profound impact on the early 20th-century’s literature.

Key words: American literature; Romanticism; New England Transcendentalism; Realism; Modernism

1. American Romanticism

Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual’s experience of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. The romantic period of American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It was an age of westward expansion, of the increasing gravity of the slavery question, of an intensification of the spirit of embattled sectionalism in the South, and of a powerful impulse to reform in the North. In literature it was America’s first great creative period, a full flowering of the romantic impulse on American soil.