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1、1. Autobiography(L2)Autobiography is a branch of literature which is an account of a persons life. Autobiography simply presents with a more elegant and formally ordered version of the writers experiences and memories.Benjamin Franklin was the first one to use it and made it popular.2. American Puri
2、tanism(L1)The word puritan is derived from pure or holy. Puritans wanted to make pure their religious beliefs and practices.They are a group of radical protestantsThey wished to restore simplicity to church services.Bible was the only true authority.3. Free Verse(L10)Free verse is a form of poetry w
3、ithout a regular rhyme scheme or meter. Instead, it relies on alliteration, assonance(类似音), imagery, and parallel structure.Whitman was the first American to use free verse extensively (Walt Whitman is the father of free verse)Whitman was the first American to use free verse extensively, and made it
4、 popular .4. Transcendentalism(L6) Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the history of American literature in the 19th century. Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “the recognition（认知） in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively（直觉地）”. Transcendentali
5、sts place emphasis on the importance of the Over-soul(超灵), the individual and Nature. The most important representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.5. Local Colorism（Mark）As a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early seventies in America. The movement once
6、was so much widespread that it became contagious.Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. 6. American Tall Tales（Mark）Tall
7、 Tales离奇故事 are exaggerated and imaginary stories from the 1800s. They were made-up to tell about the courage many had while exploring and adventuring to the WILD, WILD, WEST. These stories entertained people around campfires, on steamboats, and many other places. 7. Sentimental novelSentimental nove
8、l (or domestic novel),broadly speaking, is any novel that exploits the readers capacity for tenderness, compassion, or sympathy to a disproportionate degree by presenting a beclouded遮蔽 or unrealistic view of its subject. The sentimental novel exalted feeling above reason and raised the analysis of e
9、motion to a fine art.8. Lost Generation（L16）The Lost Generation is a term used to describe a group of American writers who were rebelling against what America had become by the 1900s.Seeking the bohemian lifestyle and rejecting the values of American materialism, a number of intellectuals, poets, ar
10、tists and writers fled to France in the post World War I years.Paris was the center of it all. Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date. 9. Common meter(L11)We can call it r
11、egular meterhymn meter and ballad meter, also known as Common meter(普通格律)I t has Quatrains, Alternating tetrameter and trimeter, and Often 1st and 3rd lines rhyme, 2nd and 4th lines rhyme in iambic meterEmily Dickinson widely uses common meter in her poems and make it popular.10. Anti-Transcendental
12、ism(L7)Anti-Transcendentalism contrasts Transcendentalism, which focuses on the darkness of human soul. Anti-Transcendentalists felt that the Transcendentalism point of view was too optimistic, and the works of Emerson and Thoreau overlooked the evil that plagued man. They embraced the existence of
13、sin and evil, making their works very dark in nature. Its Characteristics are Not optimistic ,Sins ,Evil,and Dark in nature11. Gothic Romance(L4)A type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th cent. in England. Gothic romances were mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heav
14、ily tinged with horror, and they were usually set against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles.Seemingly modeled on Charlotte Bronts Jane Eyre , these novels usually concern spirited young women,who go to live in large gloomy mansions populated by peculiar servants and precocious c
15、hildren and presided over by darkly handsome men with mysterious pasts.12. Legend(L3)Legend, a story or group of stories handed down through popular oral tradition, usually consisting of an exaggerated or unreliable account of some actually or possibly historical person often a saint, monarch, or po
16、pular hero. The term was originally applied to accounts of saints lives (see hagiography), but is now applied chiefly to fanciful tales of warriors (e.g. King Arthur and his knights), criminals (e.g. Faust, Robin Hood), and other sinners; or more recently to those bodies of biographical rumor and embroidered anecdote surrounding dead film stars and rock musicians (J
