2014.09.17 note: To 1820 (week 2)

Note:

1) Pilgrim
A pilgrim (from the Latin peregrinus) is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journey (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system. In the spiritual literature of Christianity, the concept of pilgrim and pilgrimage may refer to the experience of life in the world (considered as a period of exile) or to the inner path of the spiritual aspirant from a state of wretchedness to a state of beatitude.
*Puritan
The Puritans were a group of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries, including, but not limited to, English Calvinists. Puritanism in this sense was founded by John Calvin from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England.
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2) The Other Boleyn Girl 美人心機

The Other Boleyn Girl is a 2008 drama film directed by Justin Chadwick. The screenplay by Peter Morgan was adapted from the 2001 novel of the same name byPhilippa Gregory. It is a romanticized account of the lives of 16th-century aristocrats Mary Boleyn, one-time mistress of King Henry VIII, and her sister, Anne, who became the monarch's ill-fated second wife, though much history is distorted.
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3) The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales  is a collection of over 20 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century, during the time of the Hundred Years' War. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.
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4) EPISCOPAL 聖公會

*The Episcopal Church (TEC) is a United States-based member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is also known as the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA). It is divided into nine provinces and has dioceses in the U.S., Taiwan, Micronesia, the Caribbean, Central and South America, as well as the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe and the Navajoland Area Mission. The current Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church is Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first female primate in the Anglican Communion.
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5) propaganda 政治文宣

Propaganda is a form of communication aimed towards influencing the attitude of a population toward some cause or position.

Propaganda is information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or using loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. Propaganda can be used as a form of ideological or commercial warfare.

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6) The Giver (記憶傳承人)

The Giver is a 1993 American children's novel (generally Young Adult or older) by Lois Lowry. It is set in a society which is at first presented as a utopian society but gradually appears more and more dystopian. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth and thirteenth years of his life. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to "Sameness," a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the past memories of the time before Sameness, in case they are ever needed to aid in decisions that others lack the experience to make. Jonas learns the truth about his dystopian society and struggles with its weight. The Community lacks any color, memory, climate and terrain whatsoever, all part of Sameness and this emphasizes the dystopian qualities of the Community.

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7) predestination

Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the "paradox of free will", whereby God's omniscience seems incompatible with human free will. In this usage, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism; and usually predeterminism.

* the person who is chosen to be saved/ rescued

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8) Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was a Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian. Edwards "is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian," and one of America's greatest intellectuals.^[3][4] Edwards's theological work is broad in scope, but he was rooted in Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical fittingness, and how central The Enlightenment was to his mindset.^[5] Edwards played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening, and oversaw some of the first revivals in 1733–35 at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts.

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9) Jamestown 

→ 為紀念James 1 st

James 1st version of bible

The King James Version (KJV), commonly known as the Authorized Version (AV) or King James Bible (KJB), is an English translation of the Christian Bible for theChurch of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611.^[a] First printed by the King's Printer Robert Barker, this was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities. The first was the Great Bible commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII (1535), and the second was the Bishops' Bible of 1568.^[3]In January 1604, King James VI and I convened the Hampton Court Conference where a new English version was conceived in response to the perceived problems of the earlier translations as detected by the Puritans,^[4] a faction within the Church of England.

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10) Anne Bradstreet

寫作特色

1.subjectivity　

2.利用女性主義、符號學(simiology)

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11) Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a sermon written by British Colonial Christian theologian Jonathan Edwards, preached to his own congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts to unknown effect,^[1] and again on July 8, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut.^[2] Like Edwards' other works, it combines vivid imagery of Hell with observations of the world and citations of the scripture. It is Edwards' most famous written work, is a fitting representation of his preaching style,^[3] and is widely studied by Christians and historians, providing a glimpse into the theology of the Great Awakening of c. 1730–1755.

This is a typical sermon of the Great Awakening, emphasizing the belief that Hell is a real place. Edwards hoped that the imagery and message of his sermon would awaken his audience to the horrific reality that awaited them should they continue without Christ.^[4] The underlying point is that God has given humanity a chance to rectify their sins. Edwards says that it is the will of God that keeps wicked men from the depths of Hell. This act of restraint has given humanity a chance to mend their ways and return to Christ.

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12) The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence is the usual name of a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies,^[2] then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America. John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was unanimously approved on July 2. A committee of five had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when Congress voted on independence. The term "Declaration of Independence" is not used in the document itself.

Adams persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document,^[3] which Congress would edit to produce the final version. The Declaration was ultimately a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The national birthday, Independence Day, is celebrated on July 4, although Adams wanted July 2.

*Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (April 13 [O.S. April 2] 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the third President of the United States (1801–1809). He was a spokesman for democracy, and embraced the principles of republicanism and the rights of the individual with worldwide influence. At the beginning of the American Revolution, he served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia, and then served as a wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781). In May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France and later the first United States Secretary of State (1790–1793) serving under President George Washington. In opposition to Alexander Hamilton's Federalism, Jefferson and his close friend, James Madison, organized the Democratic-Republican Party, and later resigned from Washington's cabinet. Elected Vice President in 1796 in the administration of John Adams, Jefferson opposed Adams, and with Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.

*We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

*The pursuit of happiness (film)

The Pursuit of Happyness is a 2006 American biographical drama film based on Chris Gardner's nearly one-year struggle with homelessness. Directed by Gabriele Muccino, the film features Will Smith as Gardner, an on-and-off-homeless salesman. Smith's son Jaden Smith co-stars, making his film debut as Gardner's son, Christopher Jr. Will Smith and Jaden Smith later appeared together in the film After Earth.

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13) Common Sense (pamphlet)

Common Sense^[1] 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. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. Washington had it read to all his troops, which at the time had surrounded the British army in Boston. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history.

* Thomas Paine 

Thomas Paine (February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736]^{[Note 1][Note 2][Note 3]} – June 8, 1809) 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.^[1] His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights.^[2] He has been called "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination".

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14) The Federalist

The Federalist (later known as The Federalist Papers) is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay promoting the ratificationof the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October of 1787 and August 1788. A compilation of these and eight others, called The Federalist; or, The New Constitution, was published in two volumes in 1788 by J. and A. McLean.^[1] The collection's original title wasThe Federalist; the title The Federalist Papers did not emerge until the 20th century.

* 三權分立

legislative(立法) / executive (行政) / judiciary (司法)

*James Madison

James Madison, Jr. (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, political theorist and the fourth President of the United States (1809–1817). He is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for being instrumental in the drafting of the United States Constitution and as the key champion and author of the United States Bill of Rights.^[2] He served as a politician much of his adult life.

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15)  Sociology: Federal Government’s Checks and Balances

1. abolish                 2. amendment          3. appropriation               4. boycott                     

5. eminent domain   6. executive             7. filibuster              8. gerrymandering  

9. impeachment      10. judicial               11. laissez-faire               12. lame duck 

13. legislature          14. liberty               15. life                     16. pursuit

17. ratification        18. red herring         19. referendum                20. veto

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Word

1) emigrate 移居海外

2) ab- (負面)

*abhore 厭惡

*abolish (廢除)

Word:

1) pro- :in favor of 

*propaganda 

*proposal

2014. 09.10 note: orientation (week 1)

Note:

1)introduction:
This is a survey course on American literature designed to train non-native students to read, understand, and appreciate the great books as well as the major literary genres of American literature from the poetry of Anne Bradstreet of the Colonial America to Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire (play) for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1947, in the context of its cultural, historic, philosophical, political, artistic background and development.
 → Anne Bradstreet
 → A Street Car Named Desire

*some questions to be answered in the course
1) What is Literature?
2) Why people read Literature?
3) Why is it necessary for you to study Literature?
4) How to define American Literature? (analytical approach & historical approach)
5) Basic qualities of American Literature
6) How to study Literature?
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2) American Literature

American literature is the literature written or produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States. Therefore, its literary tradition begins as linked to the broader tradition of English literature. However, unique American characteristics and the breadth of its production usually now cause it to be considered a separate path and tradition.

*theme 
1)independent
2)individualistic
3) critical
4) renovated
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3) Christopher Columbus


Christopher Columbus ( born between 31 October 1450 and 30 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a Genoese explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa (today part of Italy). Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola, initiated the Spanish colonization of the New World.

*Christopher Columbus
Discovers America, 1492
→In the early modern period, the voyages of Christopher Columbus were a series of four voyages to the Americas between 1492 and 1502 that were led by the explorer Christopher Columbus. Columbus was an Italian navigator from the Republic of Genoa who became an admiral for the Spanish Crown, which sponsored these voyages. These voyages initiated European exploration andcolonization of the Americas and are thus of great significance in world history.
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3) William the Conquer

William I , usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimesWilliam the Bastard,^[2][a] was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. The descendant ofViking raiders, he had been Duke of Normandy since 1035 under the style William II. After a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands and by difficulties with his eldest son.
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4)Short fiction and poetry
In the postwar period, the art of the short story again flourished. Among its most respected practitioners was Flannery O'Connor (b. March 25, 1925 in Georgia – d. August 3, 1964 in Georgia), who renewed the fascination of such giants as Faulkner and Twain with the American south, developing a distinctive Southern gothic esthetic wherein characters acted at one level as people and at another as symbols. A devout Catholic, O'Connor often imbued her stories, among them the widely studied "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Everything That Rises Must Converge", and two novels, Wise Blood (1952); The Violent Bear It Away (1960), with deeply religious themes, focusing particularly on the search for truth and religious skepticism against the backdrop of the nuclear age. Other important practitioners of the form include Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, John Cheever, Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff, and the more experimental Donald Barthelme.
→ 美國文學最昌盛的文體: 短篇小說
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5) Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreet (born Anne Dudley; March 20, 1612 – September 16, 1672) was the most prominent of early English poets of North America and first female writer in the British North American colonies to be published. She was also a prominent Puritan figure in American Literature. Her first volume of poetry was The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, published in 1650. It was met with a positive reception in both the Old World and the New World.^[1][2]

*work

Bradstreet's education gave her advantages that allowed her to write with authority about politics, history, medicine, and theology. Her personal library of books was said to have numbered over 800, although many were destroyed when her home burned down. This event itself inspired a poem titled "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666". She rejects the anger and grief that this worldly tragedy has caused her and instead looks toward God and the assurance of heaven as consolation, saying:

"And when I could no longer look,

I blest His grace that gave and took,

That laid my goods now in the dust.

Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just.

It was his own; it was not mine.

Far be it that I should repine."

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6) Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in America. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech.^[2] His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. One of the most popular and critically respected American poets of the twentieth century,^[3] Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of America's rare "public literary figures, almost an artistic institution." ^[3] He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetical works. On July 22, 1961 Frost was named Poet laureate of Vermont by the state legislature through Joint Resolution R-59 of the Acts of 1961, which also created the position.
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7) Literature
It refers to artistic writings worthy of being remembered. In the broadest sense, 
literature includes any type of writings on any subject: the literature of medicine;usually, however, it means the body of artistic writings of a country or period that are characterized by beauty of expression and form and by universality of intellectual 
and emotional appeal: English literature of the 16th century. Belles lettres  is a more specific term for writings of a light, elegant, or excessively refined 
character: His talent is not for scholarship but for belles lettres.
Letters(rare today outside of certain fixed phrases) refers to literature as a domain of study or creation: a man of letters.
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8)colonial period

Colonial history of the United States

The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European settlements from the start of colonization of America until their incorporation into the United States. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain and the Netherlands launched major colonization programs in eastern North America. Small early attempts—such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke—often disappeared; everywhere the death rate of the first arrivals was very high. Nevertheless successful colonies were established. European settlers came from a variety of social and religious groups. No aristocrats settled permanently, but a number of adventurers, soldiers, farmers, and tradesmen arrived. Diversity was an American characteristic as the Dutch of New Netherland, the Swedes and Finns of New Sweden, the English Quakers ofPennsylvania, the English Puritans of New England, the English settlers of Jamestown, and the "worthy poor" of Georgia, came to the new continent and built colonies with distinctive social, religious, political and economic styles. Non-British colonies were taken over and the inhabitants were all assimilated, unlike in Nova Scotia, where the British expelled the French Acadian inhabitants. There were no major civil wars among the 13 colonies, and the two chief armed rebellions (in Virginia in 1676 and in New York in 1689–91) were short-lived failures. Wars between the French and the British—the French and Indian Wars and Father Rale's War—were recurrent, and involved French support for Wabanaki Confederacy attacks on the frontiers. By 1760 France was defeated and the British seized its colonies.

*Virginia 

→是為紀念Elizabeth (Virgin Queen) 而命名

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9) Captain John Smith

John Smith, an English soldier and explorer, is famous for his role in the founding and settling of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America.

Smith wrote many accounts of his experience in Virginia and New England, including The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles. In these works, especially in his account of fighting off 200 Native Americans while using one as a shield, Smith provided early examples of the tall tale. Furthermore, his discussions of leadership and survival in the Virginia wilderness make him one of the first American writers to explore the themes of self-creation,practicality, industry, self-reliance, and cultural contact. In many ways, he is a precursor to Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain.

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10)

National Treasure

國家寶藏( film)

National Treasure is a 2004 American adventure/heist film produced and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was written by Jim Kouf, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio,Cormac Wibberley, and Marianne Wibberley, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and directed by Jon Turteltaub. It is the first film in the National Treasure franchise and stars Nicolas Cage, Harvey Keitel, Jon Voight, Diane Kruger, Sean Bean, Justin Bartha, and Christopher Plummer.

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11)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. Written while Irving was living inBirmingham, England, it was part of a collection entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Although the story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains, Irving later admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills."

* Hen Pecker 妻管嚴

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11)Cast Away 浩劫重生

Cast Away is a 2000 American adventure drama film directed and produced by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks as a FedEx employee stranded on anuninhabited island after his plane crashes in the South Pacific. The film depicts his attempts to survive on the island using remnants of his plane's cargo. The film was a critical and commercial success, and Hanks was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 73rd Academy Awards for his performance.

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12) Puritanism

The Puritans were a group of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries, including, but not limited to, English Calvinists. Puritanism in this sense was founded by John Calvin from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England.

In modern times, the word 'puritan' is often used to mean 'against pleasure'.^[1] Historically, the word was used pejoratively to characterize the Protestant group as extremists, similar to the Cathars of France and, according to Thomas Fuller in his Church History, dated back to 1564. Archbishop Matthew Parker of that time used it and 'precisian' with the sense of the modern 'stickler'.

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Word:

1) pamphlet: 小冊子

2) stamp tax: 印花稅

3) de- 分開
e.g., diverse, divide, different