American LiteratureA literature is the record of human experience and people ha

American Literature
    Hello everybody, welcome to attend my lecture about the American literature. Today I’d like to introduce to you briefly the American literature.
    It is commonly accepted that wherever there are people,there will be a literature. A literature is the record of human experience and people have always been impelled to write down their impressions of life. They do so in diaries and letters,in pamphlets and books and in essays, poems, plays and stories. In this respect American literature is like any other. There are,however,many characteristics of American writing that make it different from all others.
    American literature began with the first English colonies in Virginia and New England. (I) Colonists came to the New World to find religious freedom and prosperity. (2) They came, however, in no spirit of revolution. They came as Englishmen, bringing with them the literary wealth of English legends, ballads and poems and the richness of the English language. They were loyal to the Crown. The settlers did not even call themselves Americans yet.
    How the English colonists slowly came to think and act as "Americans" is a familiar and proud story. How their literature slowly grew to be "American"writing is less well-known. The growth of American literature,however,follows closely the history of the nation from its beginning to the present time.
    There is space here to discuss only the most important and the best. Even a short summary .however, shows something of the splendid accomplishment of American literature since it emerged from its crude colonial beginnings more than 300 years ago.
    The history of American literature is short, roughly about 200 years. Until the War of Independence and the founding of the US, American literature showed its own characteristics as a mirror reflecting the society. American literature was formed and developed at the time of the War of Independence. It showed great importance on the stage of world literature, it is the product of the development of the American society, reflecting the social life of America.
    The influence of Puritanism is of vital importance in the development of American literature, especially in the early periods. For more than 100 years after the Pilgrim landing in 1620,life and writing in New England were dominated by the religious attitude known as Puritanism. To understand the colonial life and literature, one must understand Puritanism, one of the major influences in American life.
    In the Puritan view,God was supreme. The Puritans held that he revealed his will through the Bible, which they believed literally. Clergymen interpreted the Bible in sermons, but each man and woman was obliged to study it for themselves too. The people had to be educated in order to read the Bible,to discuss it,and to write about it. (4) Harvard College was then founded in 1636 partly to meet this demand for an educated population. Indeed,the intellectual quality of New England life,which later influenced other parts of the country, is traceable to the Puritans’ need for a trained and literate population.
    The nation owns a great debt to Puritanism. It is true that in several ways Puritan life was harsh and unlovely,as one learns from reading "The Scarlet Letter" ,Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great novel. Nevertheless one must admire the Puritans for their zeal, their courage, and their strong moral nature. (5) They recognized that man is often guilty of evil actions. The 20th century has seen enough cruelty and depravity for one to believe that the Puritan view of human beings was valid in some aspects.
    The development of American Literature can be studied in the following several periods:the Colonial Period,from 1607 to 1765; the Early National and Revolutionary Period,from 1765 to roughly 1830; the Romantic Period,from 1830 to 1865; (6) the Realistic period, from 1865 to 1900; the Naturalistic and Symbolistic Period, from 1900 to 1930; the Modern Period,from 1930 to I960; and the Postmodern Period, from 1960 until now.
    In addition to the different periods of the American literature, we should understand some of the most important terms in different periods. The middle of the 19th century saw the beginning of a truly independent American literature. Thus this period,especially the years 1850—1855,has been called the American Renaissance. (7)In 1836,Ralph Waldo Emerson made a tremendous impact on the intellectual life of America with his little book entitled Nature. That is Transcendentalism which is the summit of American Romanticism. As a literary movement Realism came in the latter half of the 19th century as a reaction against" the lie" of Romanticism and Sentimen-talism. It expressed the concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low. With American Naturalism, writers wrote about the helplessness of man, his insignificance in a cold world, and his lack of dignity in face of the crushing forces of environment and heredity. (8) The whole picture is somber and dark and the general tone despair. In the 1920s,Imagism appeared as a reaction to the traditional English poetic principle.
    American literature of the 20th century is different from earlier literature in significant ways. It is possible to list several of its characteristics which are implied in the term modern;
    1. The scope of modern literature is broad. Writers are able to treat ugliness and violence freely.
    2. The meaning of modern literature is deeper and more complex than in earlier writing because life has become more complex.
    3. Modern writing is technically sophisticated.
    4. If technique is complicated, the language of modern writing is simpler than that of earlier times.
    5. (10) Modern literature exhibits more variety than that of earlier periods.
    To sum up, in today’s lecture we have mentioned briefly the history of American Literature,the characteristics and important terms in different development periods. Next lecture we’ll deal with detailed explanations of each period.