重要年代:

西元1776年 美國獨立

西元1492年 哥倫布發現美洲大陸

西元1066年 Norman conquest 征服者威廉 →英國文學要記得的年代

Norman conquest 諾曼征服

The Norman conquest of England was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army of Norman,Breton, and French soldiers led by Duke William II of Normandy, later William the Conqueror.

美國文學最昌盛的文體: 短篇小說

a man of letters 指文人

Romanticism浪漫主義文學特點：individualism個人主義, beautiful and form, intellectual, emotional.

文學強調：individualistic, independent, critical and innovative

pamphlet 小冊子

Washington Irving: Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American author, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819).

Rip Van Winkle: "Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by American author Washington Irving published in 1819 as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. Irving, along with James Fenimore Cooper, was among the first American writers to earn acclaim in Europe, and Irving encouraged American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne,Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edgar Allan Poe.

di- 代表一分為二

diversity

divorce

The Revolutionary Period: The years from 1763 to 1810 witnessed the birth of a new nation in suffering and blood, and the first painful efforts of that nation to draw breath as an independent life.

Thomas Paine: Thomas Paine was an English and American political activist, philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary. As the author of the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, he inspired the rebels in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. Virtually every rebel read (or listened to a reading) of his powerful pamphlet Common Sense (1776), the all-time best-selling American title which crystallized the rebellious demand for independence from Great Britain. His The American Crisis (1776–83) was a prorevolutionary pamphlet series. Common Sense was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."

Common Sense: Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776. In clear, simple language it explained the advantages of and the need for immediate independence. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation.