1. Henry David Thoreau 1. Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher. 1. He is often mentioned as inspired by Emerson, the most representative of the philosophical and literary school of American Transcendentalism. Thoreau embraced his master’s ideas as a disciple. 2. In 1845 he built a cabin on some land belonging to Emerson by Walden Pond and moved in to live there in a straightforward manner for a little over two years, which gave birth to a great Transcendentalist work,“Walden." 2. Thoreau’s masterpiece,“ Walden" , not only fully demonstrates Emersonian ideas of self-reliance but also develops and tests Thoreau' s own transcendental philosophy. 1. For Thoreau, nature is not merely symbolic, but divine in itself and human beings can receive precise communication from the natural world by way of pure senses. So he was often alone in the woods or by the pond lost in spiritual communion with nature." Walden” is full of eco-wisdom. 3. Thoreau strongly believed in self-culture and was eager to identify himself with the Transcendental image of the self-reliant man. 1. To achieve personal spiritual perfection, he thinks, the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self-sufficient and strive to achieve personal spiritual perfection.So he sought to reduce his physical needs and material comforts to a minimum to get spiritual richness.

1. Shakespeare‘s tragedies 1. Introduction 1. “Hamlet" is fighting against the outside evil; “Othello" is an external evil that causes a man's fall;“ King Lear" is man's mistakes set free the sins;“Macbeth" is an outward evil that destroys a hero. 2. Human beings are disillusioned with the ideal of the hero of humanism, the purpose of humanism, and the cruel reality. People want to control their destinies. The rise of the bourgeoisie reflects the change in rights. The end of tragedy is the combination of contingency and inevitability. The reason for the disaster is that society is also human. 2. The first common feature of tragedies is the tragic ending and the victory of the idea. 1. Each portrays some noble hero who faces the injustice of human life and is caught in a difficult situation. His fate is closely connected with the future of the whole nation. 3. The second common feature of tragedies is the combination of contingency and inevitability. 1. Each hero has his weakness of nature. Hamlet, the melancholic scholar-prince, faces the dilemma between action and mind. Othello's inner weakness is made use of by the outside evil force. The old King Lear, unwilling to give up his power, makes himself suffer from betrayal and infidelity. And Macbeth's lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to continuous crimes. 4. The third common feature of tragedies is the whole play is usually centered on the hero. 1. All characters and incidents serve to set him off. And along with the portrayal of the weakness or bias of the hero, the sharp conflicts between the individual and the evil forces in the society are also revealed. 5. The fourth common feature of tragedies is the emphasis on dialogue, and the competition is spectacular.

2.Shakespeare ‘s comedies a.The first feature is humanism. i.In plays he portrayed the young people who had just freed from the feudal fetter. He sang of their youth, their love and of happiness. ii.The heroes and heroines were sons and daughters of Renaissance. They trust not in God or King but in themselves. b.The second feature is the theme: love. A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty, often presented by elders. c.The third feature is the character. i.Usually, there are two groups of characters in Shakespeare's comedies. 1.The first group is composed of young men and women's personalities. They live in a world of youth and dreams of laughter and fight for their happiness. 2.The second group consists of superficial and shrewd clowns and other ordinary people. ii.These characters make the play full of humor and laughter. The success of Shakespeare's comedies owes much to the appearance of clowns. Without them, the spaces would become dull and humorless.

1.Hamlet a.“To be" means to live and not to take action and suffer the life passively.“Not to be”means to take action and die and to end one’s sufferings actively. i.This soliloquy shows the attitude of a Renaissance humanist toward life and death. The speech represents Hamlet's contemplation of suicide. Here, Hamlet is pondering the question of“life or death”. ii.He is thinking of committing suicide to end his own life by a sudden act of bravery, but he hesitates, doubting whether death can give him rest and peace. iii.On one hand, he defends personal revenge and social injustice, but on the other, he realizes the predicament he is in due to his excessive thinking. b.As a spokesman and intellectual for Renaissance humanism, Hamlet is the central figure of the tragedy. i.As an idealistic thinker, he is forthright, courageous and honest by nature. To realize his personal ideal of filial piety and a strong sense of justice to demand revenge, he pays great tribute to the infinite capabilities of man:“ the beauty of the world/ the paragon of animals.” ii.Being a careful observer, he is introspective, thoughtful, perhaps world- weary and sardonic.For his delaying inaction in revengeful action, trapped in a nightmare world of spying, testing, and plotting, and bearing the intolerable burden of the duty to revenge his father' s death, he is obliged to inhabit a shadow world, to live suspended between fact and thought, language and action. c.His life is constantly role-playing, examining the nature of action only to deny its possibility.He is too sophisticated to degrade his soul to the conventional role of a stage revenger.

7.Nature a.“Nature”is the manifesto of New England Transcendentalism. It is also known as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasized the beauty in the wildness of nature rather than the civilized village.+/-transcendentalism b.Emerson’s nature is emblematic of the spiritual world, alive with God’s overwhelming presence. i.It mediates between man and God, and its voice leads to higher truth. Hence, it exercises a healthy and restorative influence on human mind. By employing nature as a big symbol of the spirit, Emerson has brought the Puritan legacy to its perfection. ii.“ Go back to nature, sink yourself back into its influence, and you’II become spiritually whole again.”Emerson ’s famous metaphor of a“ transparent eyeball”is employed to illustrate his philosophical discussion.

f.Emerson opened a new literary plain, transcendentalism. Emerson's ideology was regarded as the core of transcendentalism. i.He is known as the reputation of "American Renaissance leader' . Emerson was a representative who established American culture. He was the first American to call for an independent culture in both“ Nature”and “ The American Scholar. ii.He called on American writers to write about America in a way peculiarly of American. He embodied a new nation's desire and struggle to assert its own identity in its formative period. iii.Former U.S. President Lincoln called him "the American Confucius' ,' the father of the American civilization". In modern times, he is sometimes dismissed as having no sense of evil, and his optimistic philosophy as so much Transcendentalist folly. b.Emerson's aesthetics places emphasis on ideas, symbol, and imaginative words, which brought about a revolution in American literature in general and in American poetry in particular. i.He thinks that, poets should function as preachers who gave directions to the mass. ii.True poetry and true art should ennoble and serve as a moral purification and a passage toward organic unity and higher reality. c.As an essayist, Emerson was a master of style. i.His essays have speech-like characteristics and a prophetic tone, a sermon-like quality, often linked to his practice as a Unitarianminister. ii.Emerson's aim was not merely to charm his readers, but encourage them to cultivate‘self-trust', to become what they ought to be, and to be open to the intuitive world of experience. 1.The ideal individual should be a self-reliant man. 2."Trust thyself," he wrote in“ Self Reliance”, by which he means to convince people that the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself are infinite. iii.Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for man to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's “Nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic; “Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." iv.Emerson’S essays have a casual style, for most of them were derived from his journals or lectures. 1.Emerson’s philosophical discussion is sometimes difficult to understand but he uses comparisons and metaphors to make the general idea of his work clearly expressed. 2.Well- read in the classics of Western European literature, Emerson often employed these literature sources to make and enrich his own points but never let them take the full reins of his discussion.

e.American Transcendentalism is a philosophical and literary movement that emphasized the inherent goodness of people and nature. i.Transcendentalists believed in the divinity of the individual, the importance of self-reliance, and the potential for spiritual insight through intuition and contemplation. ii.The movement sought to transcend the limitations of the physical world and established institutions to connect with higher spiritual truths. b.The characteristics of American Transcendentalism include i. Individualism: Transcendentalists championed the idea of individualism and self-reliance. They believed in the inherent goodness of people and stressed the importance of trusting one's own instincts and beliefs. ii.Nature: Nature held a central place in Transcendentalist thought. They believed that nature was a direct manifestation of the divine and that by connecting with the natural world, individuals could gain spiritual insight. iii.Intuition and Inner Experience: Transcendentalists valued intuition and inner experience over formalized religious doctrines. They believed that direct, personal experience with the divine was more meaningful than adherence to established religious practices. c.Here are some examples of this kind. i.Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s essay "Nature" and collections of essays such as' Self-Reliance" are central to Transcendentalist thought. ii.Henry David Thoreau is known for his book "Walden," where he reflects on simple living in natural surroundings.

4.The Merchant of Venice a.The Merchant of Venice is a play of William Shakespeare. i.It eulogizes the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, idealizing Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and exposing the insatiable greed and brutality of the Jew represented by Shylock. ii.But people today tend to regard the play as a satire of the Christian's hypocrisy and their false standards, their cunning ways of pursuing worldliness and their unreasoning prejudice against Jews. The allusion “pound of flesh" comes from this comedy. b.The first theme of this work is justice versus mercy. i.The play suggests that like Portia, all men must be merciful although human mercy should follow the divine mercy. Portia’s appeal to Shylock at a great length shows her Christian patience, mercy, and generosity in contrast to Shylock' s Jewish disobedience, inhumanity, and hatred from revenge. ii.Actually, it implies an irony here of an injustice for the Christian mercy: a forced conversion and monetary punishment are believed as necessary in order to regain harmony for the Christian world. c.The second theme of this work is material values versus love, or friendship. i.The play shows that true love and friendship are much more worthwhile and commendable than money and material values. ii.Antonio would like to sacrifice his life for his friend ' s love while Shylock, the wealthy merchant, even can not tell which is more important for him---his daughter or his money. The latter is the very embodiment of the corrupting influence of gold and money. iii.Finally love and virtue overcome greed, cruelty, hatred and revenge as Shylock gets punished, Antonio regains his ships and lovers win their true love. d.Shylock is a Jewish usurer who has been at odds with Antonio because of the competition and discrimination he has suffered at his hands. i.Shylock portrays an archetype of vice. He is a villain. And he is grotesque, malicious, cruel, vindictive, and subtle and complex in emotional makeup. When Antonio borrows money from him, the Jew decides to loan him but asks him to sign a bond that demands a pound of flesh from him if he fails to pay it back. And the demand for a pound of flesh shows the cruel feature of Shylock. ii.But he is also a character who evokes sympathy. Shylock is the victim of racial discrimination. But he is courageous in the face of adversity. When at court and in front of a devastating defeat, Shylock behaves not as a coward and loser. He fights back though he knows his doom is sealed. His loud lamentation at court is a moving show of his “undefeated”mindset. But we should know that Shylock is essentially a malicious man.

3.William Shakespeare a.William Shakespeare is an English poet, playwright and actor, widely deemed as the greatest playwright and poet in the English language. i.He is often called England ' s national poet and the Bard of Avon . He is also the greatest of all Elizabethan dramatists. ii.His literary career falls into four periods. His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, 2 long narrative poems and a few other verses. b.Shakespeare ' s narrative techniques were innovative and varied,including: i.Soliloquies and Asides: These devices allowed characters to speak directly to the audience, revealing their inner thoughts, motives, and plans, thus deepening the audience's engagement with the narrative. ii.Dramatic Irony: Shakespeare often employed this technique, where the audience knows more about the true nature of the events or the characters’situations than the characters themselves do, creating tension and emotional involvement. iii.Symbolism and Imagery: He used symbolic elements and vivid imagery to enhance themes and emotions. For example, the storm in “King Lear" symbolizes the turmoil within Lear' s mind. iv.Complex Characters: Shakespeare’s characters are deeply complex and multi-dimensional, contributing to layered and engaging narratives. They often evolve throughout the play, showing psychological depth and realism. c.William Shakespeare's works cover a wide range of themes, reflecting his deep understanding of human nature and social dynamics. Here are some of the key themes found in his plays and sonnets: i. Love and Romance: Love, often depicted in its many forms and complexities, is perhaps the most prevalent theme in Shakespeare's works. From the passionate, tragic love in " Romeo and Juliet" to the mature, enduring love in " The Tempest, " Shakespeare explores love's power, beauty, and often destructive capacity. ii.Power and Ambition: Shakespeare frequently examines the effects of power and ambition on individuals and societies. "Macbeth" is a prime example, where the thirst for power leads to downfall and chaos,while "King Lear" shows the tragic consequences of misjudged loyalty and power distribution.

2.Humanism a.Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for ancient authors. Humanism is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on the conception that man is the measure of all things. b.Through the new learning, humanists not only saw the arts of splendor and enlightenment, but the human values represented in the works. Renaissance humanists found in the classics a justification for exalting human nature and came to see that human beings were glorious creatures capable of individual development in the direction of perfection and that the world they inhabited was theirs not to despise but to question, explore and enjoy. c.Humanism stresses human values, dignity, ambitions, and the present life rather than the afterlife. Pursuing knowledge, power, beauty, and wealth/money are all the primary Renaissance elements.Humanism appeared in England in the 15th century, with Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare being the English humanists' best representatives.

1.English Renaissance a.Renaissance means“ rebirth.”It refers to the rebirth of art, literature, academic interests, and creativity, marking the transition from the medieval to the modern world, generally dated from the 14th to the mid-1 7th century. b.Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. i.It stresses human values, dignity, ambitions, and the present life rather than the afterlife. Pursuing knowledge, power, beauty, and wealth are all the primary Renaissance elements. ii.Humanism appeared in England in the 15th century, with Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare as the best representatives of the English humanists. c.Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare employed or borrowed many subjects or stories from ancient and foreign literature, such as Tamburlaine and Dr. Faustus. i.In that sense, the fusion of classical form with English content brought about the possibility of a mature and artistic drama ---the new Elizabethan Drama. d.Renaissance heroes represented by Tamburlaine and Dr. Faustus have grand ambitions. i.In Marlowe 's drama, Tamburlaine and Faustus seek power and knowledge, respectively . By conquering other kingdoms, Tamburlaine gains supreme happiness until eventually he is defeated by death, the only limitation on him as a man. After successful attempts to win knowledge, Dr. Faustus falls for his sin of pride with despair in God and trust in Devil. ii.Shakespeare has accepted the Renaissance views on literature. He holds that literature should be a combination of beauty, kindness, and truth and should reflect nature and reality. In Shakespeare's great tragedies, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth are all possessive of the ambition of power, so they are stuck in a life dilemma.

6.James Fenimore Cooper a.James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He was the first border writer and America’ first successful novelist, and was called “ the father of American Novels.” i.He developed three kinds of novels: revolutionary historical stories, sea adventure novels, and American frontier novels. "Leatherstocking Tales" is a collection of five tales he wrote. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel “The Last of the Mohicans,”which many consider his masterpiece. And “The Pioneers” was probably the first actual romance of the frontier in American literature, So Cooper was generally regarded as the first writer who hinted at national subjects. b.Cooper was also one of the first authors to write about the American westward movement, Cooper’s claim to greatness in American literature lay in the fact that he created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. i.His creation of the character of Natty Bumppo is the image of an independent, self-reliant, solitary man, the perfect example of individualism in an untouched, unimaginably huge virgin forest. ii.Suppose the history of the United States is, in a sense, the process of the American settlers exploring and pushing the American frontier forever westward. In that case, Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales effectively approximates the American national experience of adventure into the West. He turned the West and border into a usable past and helped introduce the western tradition to American literature. c.Cooper wrote with increasing awareness of the importance of fiction of the Western frontier, where American society may be conceived as passing from one set of principles to another in two directions. Cooper's power lay in his assurance that one path was morally right and the other practical inevitable. Here lies Cooper's conflict of allegiance. He was devoted to the principles of social order and responsible for the idea of nature. d.Although many of Cooper's best-known works are set in New York State, their characters are "Americans," not simply New York's. He describes American characters as the pioneer, the Indian. and the Yankee sailor. The problems they faced were not merely American but universal. i.He juxtaposed the work of man and the reign of natives on the scene of the American frontier. He depicts the whole process of the American quest for an ideal society. e.style i.plot structures:James Fenimore Cooper is good at inventing plots. His plots are sometimes quite incredible, but his stories are immensely intriguing. ii.landscape description:His landscape descriptions are majestic and suggestive of Sir Walter Scott, the legendary spirit whose border tales might have inspired him. iii.rich imagination :He was pretty conscious of the association of different locals. The fact that he had never been to the frontier and among the Indians and yet could write five huge epic books about them is eloquent proof of the richness of his imagination. His Indians are among the first appearing in American fiction and probably the first group of noble savages. iv.clumsy style :He is most successful in scenes of violence and actions or of night-time terror and mystery. But his character descriptions are often unsatisfactory, His plot is sometimes improbable and absurd. There are occasionally problems with his descriptions of the action scenes. His style is dreadful. His characterization seems wooden and lacks probability, and his language and use of dialect are not authentic.

5.Washington Irving a.Washington Irving was the "first American man of letters” and the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame. And he was called the “Father of American Literature.” He was also “the father of American short stories” and regarded as “ the American Goldsmith.” i.Washington Irving brought to the new nation what its people desire most in a man of letters the respect of the Old World. Although greatly influenced by European literature, Irving gave his works distinctive American flavor. b.Irving ’s fame mainly rests on his tales about America, particularly the Hudson River region. Irving’s contribution to American literature is unique in more than one way. He did several things that have been regarded as the first in America. He was also the first professional American writer and the first American Romantic writer. c.Most of Irving's subject matter are borrowed heavily from European sources, which are chiefly Germanic. Irving's relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ignored considering his success both abroad and at home. d.His first successful work is “A History of New York” . It is a patchwork of references, echoes, and burlesques. He parodies or imitates Homer, Fielding, Swift and many other favorites of his. He was also absorbed in German Literature and got ideas from German legends for two of his famous stories “ Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” e.Washinaton Irving’s story as a genre in American literature probably began with his “The Sketch Book” , then Irving won a measure of international fame on both sides of the Atlantic. This book also marked the beginning of American Romanticism. And later in the hands of Hawthorne and Melville the short story attained a perfection. i.The Sketch Book” contains familiar essays on the English life and Americanized versions of European folk tales like “ Rip Van Winkle and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” . These two stories are easily trigger off American imagination with their focus on American subjects landscapes, and, in Irving case, the legend of Hudson River region of the fresh land. f.Irving’s style can only be described as beautiful though imitative. He was a highly skillful writer. The gentility, urbanity, and pleasantness of the man all seem to have adequate expression in his style. Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who perfected the best classic style that American Literature ever produced. i.First, Irving avoids moralizing as much as possible; he writes to amuse and entertain. So we often find ourselves lost in a world that is permeated with a dreaming quality. ii.His characters are vivid and true so that they tend to linger in the mind of the reader. We get a strong sense impression as we read him alone, since the language he used best reveals what a Romantic writer can do with words. We hear rather than read, for there is musicality in almost every line of his prose. iii.The humor has built itself into the very texture of his writings. He is good at enveloping his stories in an atmosphere, the richness of which is often more than compensation for the slimness of plot. iv.The Gothic elements and the supernatural atmosphere are manipulated in such a way that we could become so engaged and involved in what is happening in a seemingly exotic place. Yet Irving never forgets to associate a certain place with the inward movement of a person and to charge his sentences with emotion so as to create a true and vivid character. v.He is worth the honor of being “the American Goldsmith” for his literary craftsmanship.

a.American Romanticism was influenced by its English and European counterpart since it was originated from those places. The American writers shared some standard features with the Enalish Romanticists. i.They revolted against the literary forms and ideas of the period of classicism by developing some relatively new forms of fiction or poetry. ii.They emphasize the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature, which include liking the picturesque, exotic, sensual，sensational, and supernatural things, iii.The Americans also emphasized the free expression of emotions and displayed increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. Heroes and heroines exhibited extremes of sensitivity and excitement. 1.The strong tendency to exalt the individual and the ordinary person was almost a national religion in America. 2.Writers like Freneau, Bryant, and Cooper showed a great interest in the external nature of their respective works. 3.The literary use of the more colorful aspects of the past was also to be found in Irving's effort to exploit the legends of the Hudson River region and Cooper's long series of historical tales. b.In short, American Romanticism is, in a certain way, derivative.