【正文】 ture. Fascination with the wild, the irregular, the indefinite, the remote, the mysterious, and the strange Cherishing a strong interest in the past, especially the medieval. Features of American Romanticism：New experience in the American Romanticism. The exotic landscape, the frontier life, the westward expansion, the myth of a New Garden of Eden in America, and the Puritan heritage, etc., these were all materials for an indigenous literature. A deep influence from the American Puritanism. Different from their European counterparts, American romantics tended to moralize, to edify rather than to entertain.The “newness” of the Americans as a nation. The Americans are different from the Europeans. Their ideals of individualism and political equality, and their dream that America was to be a new Garden of eden for man were distinctly American.The New England Poets:Henry W. LongfellowA Psalm of Life 人生禮贊Main writersWashington IrvingThe Sketch Book (18191820)見聞札記。The Pioneers 拓荒者。The Prairie 大草原。The Deerslayer獵鹿人新英格蘭超驗主義TranscendentalismTranscendentalismas a way of knowing, believes that individuals can intuitively receive higher truths otherwise unavailable through mon methods of knowing, thus transcending the limits of rationalism. Some of its major concepts are: It placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul（超靈）, as the most important thing in the universe. It emphasized the importance of the individual and believed that the individual was the most important element in society and that the ideal kind of individual was selfreliant and unselfish. It offered a fresh view of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.SignificanceA group of new writers apply transcendental ideas in their worksWeaknessTranscendentalism tended to bee mysticism.sometimes resulted in rampant individualismmake moral indignation an irrelevant emotion. Main writersRalph Waldo Emerson(超驗主義領(lǐng)袖）Nature（標(biāo)志性之作）。 Edgar Allen Poethe father of modern horror story and detective story Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque怪誕故事集；The Raven烏鴉 Literary theories (on poetry) Poetical principles Length: there is a distinct limit to all works of literary art—the limit of a single sitting. Province: Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.Tone: Sadness is the tone of Beauty’s highest manifestation. Melancholy is the most legitimateof all the poetical tones. Death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical topic in the world.The immediate object of poetry is pleasure, not truth. Poe defines true poetry as “the rhythmical creation of beauty”, and declares that music is the perfection of the soul, or idea, of poetry.Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass草葉集216。 they do not seek abstract truth.Realists believe that literature imitates reality. They are attentive to such details as dialect, customs, and experiences that are monplace and “real”. Realists try to describe a small portion of the knowable world in order to maintain “objectivity.”Main WritersWilliam Dean HowellsThe Rise of Silas Lapham塞拉斯 it must be life transformed and changed so that the art form would give the truthful impression of actuality. Point of view Psychological realism（心理現(xiàn)實主義）:by emphasizing the inner awareness and inward movements of his characters in face of outside occurrences became the first of the modern psychological analysts in the novel modern streamofconsciousness technique