Vedio: Intro to American Lit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgZOQVJtvR8

1. What's literature?

The definition of 14 century: A man of literature or a man of letters = a man of literacy

The definition of 18 century: practice and pofession of writing

The definition of 19 century: the high skill of writing in the special context of high imagination

Modern definition: Literature is characterized by beauty of expression and form and by universal intellectual and emotional appeal. 

2. Why do people read literature?

3. Why is it necessary for you to study literature?

a. Improve English

b. Enrich knowledge

c. Explore the nature of human

4. How do define America literature?

5. Basic qualities of American writers?

6. How to study literaure?

a. Analytical Approach: the elements of literary work such as plot, character, setting, point of view, theme.

b. Thematic Approach: What's the story about?

c. Historical Approach: illustrationg the historical development

7. What's Amercan literture?

a. Independent

b. Individual

c. Innovative

Major Periods of American Literature

Part1: Cononial (1607-1765)

a. pamphlets and writings: to praise the benufits of the colonies and for European and colonist audiences

b. Captain John Smith: first Amerian author

c. Rip Van Winkle (first novel we have to read)

"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.

The story of Rip Van Winkle is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. In a pleasant village, at the foot of New York's Catskill Mountains, lives kindly Rip Van Winkle, a colonial British-American villager of Dutch ancestry. Van Winkle enjoys solitary activities in the wilderness, but he is also loved by all in town—especially the children to whom he tells stories and gives toys. However, he tends to shirk hard work, to his nagging wife's dismay, which has caused his home and farm to fall into disarray.

d. Puritanism (1620s-1783)

Forms of writing: histories, diaries, chronicles, poetry and sermons.

Part2: Revolution (1765- the end of 18 century)

a. two major things: politics and patriotism

b. political writers of the time: Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine

Part3: Romanticism (1800-1865)

Part4: Realism (1865-1918)

Part5: Modernism (1918-1945)

Part6: Contemporary literature (1945-)