【正文】 e major literary figures of the colonial period, which mirrored the nature of colonial American literature and continued to be the subsequent development of American literature and of America itself. Puritanism was central to colonial American literature and its impact could find expression in almost all respects concerning literature. The conviction that all religious progress centered in the individual led colonial writers to make records of his spiritual development in the forms of diary and autobiography: a strenuous selfanalysis and ceaseless searching of conscience in the writings of the Puritans was the result of their belief that “election” would show itself in the behavior and in the experiences of the inner life of the individual. In keeping with the belief that American literature should concern itself with spiritual and in the experiences of the inner life of the individual. In keeping with the belief that literature should concern with spiritual values, the sermon became the most highly developed and the most popular of Puritan and pact expression, and its avoidance of rhetorical decoration excellently illustrated Puritan aesthetic and moral theories. In accordance with their way of life, the Puritans preferred a style characterized by homeliness of imagery, simplicity of diction and an emphasis on the values most easily recognized by their readers. It is for the same reason that they disliked the sensuous appeal of certain types of imagery and favored the figures and images drawn from the mon experiences of the New England settlers.Questions for discussion:1. What were the features of colonial America?2. What were the literary characteristics?3. What was the Puritanism?Reference Books: 1. 《美國(guó)文學(xué)教程》 第一章 常曜信2． 《美國(guó)文學(xué)的周期》 E. Spiller3. 《新編美國(guó)文學(xué)史》 第二章 劉海平Part II The Literature of Reason and RevolutionI, Teaching time: 2 teaching hoursII. Teaching Aim: the students should know the reason and effect of American Revolution, and the characteristics of the literature. Through learning the selected works, the students get to know the writing style of them.III. Teaching Method: a. presentation, b. analysis of the contexts of the works, c. questions and discussion.IV. Key points: writing style of the prose works.Introduction:I. The Historical Background:a) two revolutions {American Revolution Enlightenment(1) European’s conflicts in the New Continent。b. Improving argumentation.Summary: Franklin was thirty to knowledge and trying to learn the language with practical methods.B a. the way of learning languages。 Crane to the girl。 Crane to ghost。c. Relations to his relatives。(3) The procedure of the Revolution。b. Learning method。 that is, no synonyms should be used, or rarely, but the whole should be as short as possible, consistent with clearness: the words should be placed as to agreeable to the ear in reading。 shortly afterward, Irving started work on what was to be his first literary triumph, his “History of New York (1809) by “Derrick Knickerbockers.” It was an irreverent to spoof of historical scholarship, salted with offcolor ments. The book satirized the placent Dutch burghers of early New York and pointed at the political follies of 19th century America. It also marked the beginning of the “Knickerbockers school” of New York literary satirists including Paulding, Fitzgreen Hallack and Joseph Rodman Drake who took their names and humorous tone from Irving’s knickbocker History and flourished in New York in the first decades of the 19th century.At the end of the war of 1812, Irving was sent to England to supervise the Liverpool Branch of the family firm, but in 1818, as a result of the war and bad management, the firm went bankrupt. Irving was left only with a dislike for the “dirty soulkilling” world of business and a need to find a livelihood. His “History of New York” has earned the magnificent sum of $3000, so he turned to writing and began preparation of “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent(1820). It was the first work by an American to receive wide international acclaim and it made Irving a celebrity, praised alike in America and England. In it was the two tales that brought him his most enduring fame. “Rip Van Winckles” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”With his new literary success, Irving gave up all thought of returning to America and the world of trade or law. He set out to bee a professional man of letters. The Sketch Book was soon followed by Bracebridge Hill (1822), a series of sketches on England country life. In 1824, he published “Tales of a Traveller”, his first volume of fiction, filled with years of the supernatural and clanking with the ghostly machinery of romantic Gothicism. In 1826 his literary fame earned him appointment as an American diplomatic attach233。 it was translated into several European languages and turned into a stage play. And it started Cooper on his career as the first eminent American novelist.Two years later Cooper published The Pioneers (1823), a romance of the American frontier that was an immediate best seller. It was the first of the “Leatherstocking Tales,” five novels of the life of Natty Bumppo. They included “The Last of Mohicans”(1826), The Prairie(1927), The Pathfinder(1840), and the Deerslayer(1841). Following his success with The Pioneer, Cooper drew upon his own experiences and wrote The Pilot(1841) the first of eleven novels of the sea that he wrote over a period of three decades.In 1926, with his financial burdens eased by the profits from his writing Cooper left America to live abroad, partly to escape his remaining debts and partly to experience what he saw as the rich context of European society, while living in Paris and London and touring the Continent, he pleted seven more novels and he received the adulation of a vast audience that read the numerous European