美国文学的介绍IntroductionoftheAmericanLiterature.ppt

American LiteratureLecture OneBy Magua
Part I. Introduction
Part I: answer the questions
What is literature?
The definition of 14th century:
It means polite learning through reading. A man of literature or a man of letters = a man of wide reading, “literacy”
2) The definition of 18th century:
practice and profession of writing
3) The definition of 19th century:
the high skills of writing in the special context of high imagination
Robert Frost’s definition:
performance in words
Modern definition:
We can define literature as language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages. Literature is characterized by beauty of expression and form and by universality intellectual and emotional appeal.
It improves your language proficiency.
It enriches your knowledge about the English culture.
It helps you explore the nature of human beings. It gives you spiritual and psychological relief.
2. Why is it necessary for you to study literature?
do people read literature?
Reading for Pleasure
Howells think that “the study of literature should begin and end in pleasure”. Apart from its role of protest, education, cognition and aesthetic appreciation, literature is primarily give pleasure.
Reading for Relaxation
Get readers away to an imaginary world, thus forget their problems and obligations of everyday life.
Reading to Acquire Knowledge
It gives readers an insight into the tradition , custom, belief, attitudes, folklore, values of the age in which it is written.
Reading to Confront Experience
Literature is appealing mainly because of its relationship to human experience. It sheds light on plexity and ambiguity of human experiences and thus broadens readers’ awareness of the possibilities of the experience.
Reading for Artistic Appreciation
Good craftsmanship and the beauty of expression and form; It can be analyzed according to literary theories and criteria; literary criticism, to clarify, explain and ev