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I. Overview of American Romanticism（美国浪漫主义简介）
In the history of American literature, the Romantic periodis one of the most important periods. It stretched from the end of theeighteenth century through the outbreak of the civil war.
美国文学中的浪漫主义时期开始于18世纪末，到南北战争爆发为止，是美国文学史上的重要阶段。
1．Background（背景）
(1) A nationbursting into new life cried for literary expression. The buoyant mood of thenation and the spirit of the times seemed in some measure responsible for thespectacular outburst of romantic feeling. The literary milieu proved fertileand conductive to the imagination. Magazine appeared in ever-increasingnumbers. They played an important role in facilitating literary expansion.
(2) Foreign influencesadded incentive to the growth of romanticism. The Romantic Movement, which hadflourished earlier in the century both in England and Europe, proved to be adecisive influence on the upsurge of American romanticism.
(3) There is AmericanPuritanism as a cultural heritage to consider.
(1) 生机勃勃、开创新生活的美国渴望有新的文学表达形式。国家的上升状态、时代的上进精神促进了浪漫主义情感的爆发。文学环境为文学创作提供了广阔的空间。各种杂志如雨后春笋出现，在很大程度上促进了文学的长足发展。
(2) 外国思想和文化影响激发了美国浪漫主义思潮的蔓延。19世纪初波及英国和欧洲的浪漫主义运动对美国浪漫主义文学的成长发挥了相当重要的作用。
(3) 美国浪漫主义受到美国清教主义这一文化遗产的影响。
2．Characteristics（特点）
(1) AmericanRomanticism exhibited from the very outset distinct features of its own. Itoriginated from an amalgam of factors that were altogether American rather thananything else. It was in essence the expression of “a real new experience” andcontained “an alien quality”.
(2) As a logicalresult of the foreign and native factors at work, American Romanticism was bothimitative and independent.
(1) 美国浪漫主义文学自一开始便具有其独特的属性。它是美国因素熔为一体的产物。它所表达的是“一种真正的新的经历”，包含着“一种陌生的特质”。
(2) 由于国内外因素的影响，美国浪漫主义既有模仿，也有独立创造的特性。
II. Washington Irving(1783-1859)（华盛顿·欧文）
1．Life（生平）
Irving was borninto a wealthy New York merchant family. From a very early age he began to readwidely and write juvenile poems, essays and plays. His first book A Historyof New York was a great success. With the publication of The Sketch Book,he won a measure of international recognition. In 1826 he was sent to Spain asan American diplomatic attaché. From 1829-1832 he was Secretary of The UnitedStates Legation in London. He spent almost the rest of his life at Sunnyside onthe Hudson River. He was not married and died in 1859.
欧文生于纽约一个富商的家庭，自幼酷爱读书，少年时代便开始写诗歌、散文和戏剧。他的第一部小说《纽约外史》获得很大成功。《见闻札记》使他获得国际声誉。1826年欧文作为外交随员被派往西班牙。1829年至1832年他任美国驻伦敦大使馆秘书。他晚年大部分时间生活在哈德逊河畔的住所。他终身未婚，死于1859年。
2．His literarycontribution（文学贡献）
Irving’scontribution to American literature is unique in more ways than one. He did anumber of things that have been regarded as the first of their kind in America.
(1) He was firstAmerican writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame.
(2) He was the father of American literature. The short story as a genrein American literature probably began with Irving’s The Sketch Book. This book also marked the beginning ofAmerican Romanticism.
欧文对美国文学有着独特的贡献，他开创了美国文学史上的许多先河。
(1) 他是第一个获得国际声誉的美国作家。
(2) 他被称为“美国文学之父”。短篇小说作为美国文学的一种类型源于欧文的《见闻札记》。该书也象征着美国浪漫主义文学的开始。
3．Literarycareer（文学生涯）
Irving’s career can be roughly divided into two importantphases, the first of which spanned from his first book up to 1832, the otherstretching over the remaining years of his life.
(1) In the first period, most of time, he wrote aboutsubjects either English or European. He found value in the past and in thetradition of the Old World.
(2) In the second period,Irving found a whole new spirit of nationalism in American feeling and art andletters.
欧文的文学生涯大致可分为两个重要的时期。第一个时期从其处女作的发表到1832年。第二个时期跨越他的余生。
(1) 第一个时期欧文主要描写英国或欧洲主题。他在过去和旧世界里的传统中寻求价值。
(2) 第二个时期欧文在美国人情感和文艺中发掘新的民主主义精神。
4．Writing style（写作风格）
Irving was a highly skillful writer. The gentility, urbanity,and pleasantness of the man all seem to have adequate expression in his style.
(1) First, Irving avoids moralizing as much as possible; hewrites to amuse and entertain.
(2) He is good at enveloping his stories in an atmosphere, therichness of which is often more than compensation for the slimness of plot.
(3) His characters are vivid and true so that they tend tolinger in the mind of the reader.
(4) The humor has built itself into the very texture of hiswritings.
(5) The finished and musical language and the patentworkmanship have been among the points of critical attention.
欧文是一位精湛的文体家。他的雅人深致、文质彬彬及和颜悦色在他的文风里都能找到充分的反映。
(1) 首先，他尽量避免说教。他创作的目的在于让人赏心悦目。
(2) 他擅长烘托气氛，这很大程度上弥补了情节单薄这一不足。
(3) 他的人物刻画得惟妙惟肖，读后如闻其声，如见其人。
(4) 幽默是他文风的有机组成部分。
(5) 其作品精深圆熟，富有音乐性且技艺娴熟，这些都成为评论界关注的焦点。
5．Major works（主要作品）
A History of NewYork《纽约外史》
The Sketch Book《见闻札记》
“The Authors Account ofHimself”《作者自述》
“Rip Van Winkle”《瑞普·凡·温克尔》
“The Legend of SleepyHollow”《睡谷的传说》
The history of Lifeand Voyages of Christopher Columbus《哥伦布传》
A Chronicle of theConquest of Granada《征服格拉纳达》
Life of Goldsmith《哥尔斯密传》
Life of Washington《华盛顿传》
The CrayonMiscellany《克瑞恩文集》
“A Tour on the Prairies”《大草原之旅》
“Astoria”《阿斯托里亚》
Adventures of Captain Bonneville《博纳维尔船长历险记》
6．Analysis of majorworks（主要作品分析）
◆“Rip Van Winkle”《瑞普·凡·温克尔》
This story reveals the conservative attitude of its author.Before the war, there was peace and harmony. But there comes now the scramblefor power between parties and the tempo of life has quickened. The story mightbe taken as an illustration of Irving’s argument that change—and revolution—upsetthe natural order of things and the fact that Irving never seemed to accept amodern democratic America.
故事反映了作者保守的态度。战前生活悠闲、平和。战后却出现政党之争，生活节奏加快。这个故事表明了欧文的立场，即变革和革命打乱了生活的自然秩序，表明他对现代民主的美国持有保留的态度。
◆“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”《睡谷的传说》
The creation of archetypes is a particularly subtle feat ofIrving’s consummate craftsmanship. We may see in Ichabod Crane a New Englander,shrewd, commercial, a city-slicker, who is rather an interloper, a somewhatdestructive force, in village life, and who comes along to swindle thevillagers. He is driven away from where he does not belong, so that the serenevillage remains permanently good and happy. Brom Bones, on the other hand, is aHuck Finn-type of country bumpkin, tough, vigorous, boisterous but inwardlyvery good, a frontier type put out there to shift for himself. Thus the rivalryin love between Ichabod and Brom, viewed in this way, suddenly assumes thedimensions of two ethical groups locked in a kind of historic contest.
The style of the piece represents Irving at his best.
原型的创造是欧文高超的造诣之一。伊卡包德是通权达变的新英格兰人的代表，他是村子里的城市滑头，一种欲行欺诈的破坏性力量。他最后被赶出本不属于他的村庄，于是小村子又恢复平静祥和。布鲁姆则是哈克·贝恩式村野之夫，粗鲁、精力充沛，在边疆自食其力。由此可看出，伊卡包德和布鲁姆的情场之争又可以看作是特定历史条件下两个道德群体之间的竞争。
该故事的写作风格也代表了欧文的最高水准。
III. James FenimoreCooper (1789-1851)（詹姆斯·费尼莫·库柏）
1．Life（生平）
Cooper was born into a rich land-holding family of NewJersey. He was sent to Yale at 14 but was expelled because of improperbehavior. He went and spent five year at sea; In his early twenties, heinherited his father’s vast fortune and them began to write. His second novel, TheSpy, proved to be an immense success. In the three decades that followed, hewrote thirty-odd novels, including eleven of the sea, and a voluminous amountof other writings. He was best known in his own day and is still read andremembered today as the author of Leatherstocking Tales.
库柏出生于新泽西州一个富有家庭，家里拥有大片土地。库柏14岁进入耶鲁大学学习，后来因行为不端被开除。于是他出海做水手长达5年之久。20岁时他继承了父亲的巨额遗产，后来开始写作。他的第二本小说《间谍》获得巨大成功。接下来的30年，他又创作了30余部作品，其中包括11部航海小说。《皮裹腿故事集》使他生前闻名遐迩，至今仍拥有大量读者。
2．Literarycontribution（文学贡献）
Cooper was one of the first authors to write about the AmericanWestward movement. Cooper’s claim to greatness in American literature lay inthe fact that he created a myth about the formative period of the Americannation. Cooper wrote with increasing awareness of the importance to fiction ofthe Western frontier, where American society may be conceived as passing fromone set of principle to another in two directions. Cooper’s power lay in hisassurance that one direction was morally right and the other practicallyinevitable. Here lies Cooper’s conflict of allegiance. He was devoted to theprinciples of social order and responsible to the idea of nature and freedom inthe wildness.
库柏是首批描写西进运动的作家之一。库柏在美国文坛的重要地位体现在他创造了一个关于美国成长阶段的神话。在其小说中，库柏逐渐意识到在西部边疆，社会活动受到两种相互矛盾的原则的制约，库柏的伟大之处在于，他指出其中一种在道义上是正确的，另外一种则在实际上是势在必行的。这也是库柏思想上的矛盾所在。他既推崇社会秩序，又崇尚亲近自然、无拘无束的理想境界。
3．Writing style（写作风格）
(1) Cooper is good at inventing plots. His plots are sometimesquite incredible, but his stories are immensely intriguing.
(2) His landscape descriptions are majestic and suggestiveof Sir Walter Scott.
(3) He was quite conscious of the association of differentlocales. The fact that he had never been to the frontier and among the Indiansand yet could write five huge epic books about them which is an eloquent proofof the richness of his imagination. His Indians are among the first appearingin American fiction and probably the first group of noble savages.
(4) His style is dreadful. His characterization seemswooden and lacks probability, and his language, his use of dialect, is notauthentic.
(1) 库柏擅长虚构情节。其情节虽有时过于离奇，但是他的故事十分引人入胜。
(2) 其笔下风景波澜壮阔，颇有司各特小说之风。
(3) 他很注重联系不同的场景。他从未去过边疆，也没有跟印第安人生活在一起过，但是他却创作了五部关于他们的史诗般巨作。这充分证明了库柏想象力极其丰富。他笔下的印第安人是美国小说中最早出现的印第安人之一，他们或许也是首批“高贵的野蛮人”。
(4) 他的文体也有缺陷。他的人物刻画呆板，缺乏可信度，语言尤其是方言的使用并不纯正。
4．Majorworks（主要作品）
The Spy《间谍》
LeatherstockingTales《皮裹腿故事集》
The Pioneers (1823)《拓荒者》
The Last of theMohicans (1826)《最后的莫西干人》
The Prairie (1827)《草原》
The Pathfinder (1840)《探路者》
The Deerslayer (1841)《猎鹿人》
5．Analysis of majorwork（主要作品分析）
◆Leatherstocking Tales《皮裹腿故事集》
(1) Leatherstocking Tales is a series of five talesabout the life of American settlers. The protagonist Natty Bumppo is a mythicfigure. When he first appears, we see a real frontiersman, a man of flesh andblood in the virgin forests of North America. But as the story moves on, hedoes so gathering more and more of the halo of a legendary and mythic naturearound him. He becomes a type, a representation of a nation struggling to beborn, progressing from old age to rebirth and youth. The Leatherstocking novelsgo backwards, from old age to golden youth. That is the true myth of America.
(2) The Pioneers is the first of LeatherstockingTales. Its historical importance lies in the fact that it was probably thefirst true romance of the frontier in American literature. The basic conflictof the story is, in essence, one between Leatherstocking who insists on man’sold forest freedom and Judge Temple to whom man remains savage without law andorder. Bumppo embodies the idea of brotherhood of man and of nature andfreedom, and is morally right. Judge Temple symbolizes law and civilization,and represents the practically inevitable aspect. It is between them that theybuilt the wilderness into anything like a civilized place. Hence the plural inthe title of the book, The Pioneers.
(1) 《皮裹腿故事集》由五部描写美国西部移民生活的系列小说组成。主人公纳蒂·班波的形象颇具神话色彩。刚出场时，他是一位有血有肉、实实在在的活跃在北美丛林里的拓荒者形象。随着故事的不断深入，他的神话和传说成分愈渐增强。他成为一个典型，代表着整个国家努力从暮年走向重生、走向青春。皮裹腿系列小说由后向前，主人公从暮年到青年黄金时代。这是真正的美国神话。
(2) 《拓荒者》是《皮裹腿故事集》中最早发表的一部。该小说的重大历史意义在于，它是美国文学史上首部真正意义上的边疆小说。故事围绕皮裹腿和坦普尔法官之间的矛盾展开，皮裹腿崇尚自由自在、无拘无束的丛林生活，而坦普尔法官则认为没有法律和秩序人就会沦为野蛮人。班波代表了博爱、亲近自然、无拘无束的理想，是道义上正确的一方。坦普尔法官象征着法律和文明，是势不可挡的一方。他们一起把西部荒野建成了文明的地方，因而标题《拓荒者》使用了复数形式。