《美国文学简史》试图简洁而全面地展现美国民族的想象力——以文字形式体现出来的想象力。《美国文学简史》共分五章，第一章实际上是前史，即美国文学正式诞生前的文学史，是对新大陆这一“伊甸园”的想象。第二章的主题为“美国文学的创造” ，与“创造美国”这一主题密切相关，论述美国从1800年建国后到1865年南北战争结束之间的美国文学。第三章的主题为“重现过去，重塑未来”，与“重建美国”这一主题密切相关，论述南北战争后到1900 年之间的美国文学。第四章的主题为现代美国和现代主义，论述1900年至1945年二战结束之间的美国文学。第五章的主题是“美国的世纪”，论述1945年二战结束后美国逐渐称霸时期的美国文学。
1 The First Americans：American Literature During the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods
Imagining Eden
Writing of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods
2 Inventing Americas：The Making of American Literature 1800-1865 Making a Nation
The Making of American Myths
The Making of American Selves
The Making of Many Americas
The Making of an American Fiction and Poetry
3 Reconstructing the Past， Reimagining the Future：The Development of American Literature 1865-1900
Rebuilding a Nation
The Development of Literary Regionalisms
The Development of Literary Realism and Naturalism
The Development of Women's Writing
The Development of Many Americas
4 Making It New：The Emergence of Modern American Literature 1900-1945
Changing National Identities
Between Victorianism and Modernism
The Inventions of Modernism
Traditionalism， Politics， and Prophecy
Community and Identity
Mass Culture and the Writer
5 Negotiating the American Century：American Literature Since 1945
Towards a Transnational Nation
Formalists and Confessionals
Public and Private Histories
Beats， Prophets， and Aesthetes
The Art and Politics of Race
Realism and Its Discontents
Language and Genre
Creating New Americas
Index
《美国文学简史》：
What she learns， insum， is to see and appreciate Ahnira as an "absolute， archaic" embodiment of the life and landscapeof Dunnet Landing. Departing from Durmet Landing at the end of summer， the narrator iooksback from the boat carrying her away and sees Almira on the shore. As earthy and yet as strange.miraculous as her environment， Almira Todd then vanishes into it： the narrator loses sight of her，finally， as she "disappeared ... behind a dark clump of juniper and the pointed firs." The rune ofpassing away， departure， on which The Country of the Pointed Firs finishes gathers up in~：nations ofsadness and loss that quietly circulate through the entire narrative. This is a book about the ageiug oflife and communities. Almira Todd vanishes at the end of the story； and， equally， the life she rehearses，in all its homeliness and heroism —— that is vanishing too. In this book， Jewett manages somethingquite remarkable， She weaves together the great theme of pastoral， that the best days are the first toflee， and a major theme in American thought and writing at the turn of the century.， that an older，simpler form of society is dying.
Another woman writer who devoted herself， at least in her best work， to her New Englandhomeplace was Mary Wilkins Freeman （1852-1930）. Her finest achievements were the storiesshe produced for her first two published collections， A Humble Romance and Other Stories （1887）and A New England Nun and Other Stories （1891）. Set in the decaying rural counnunities of smallNew England villages and farms， these stories capture the spirit of the people through theirdialect. That spirit is often dour： Freeman describes what she calls， in one of her stories， "AChurch Mouse" （1891）， % hard-working and thrifty" but also "narrow-minded" group of peoplewhose "Puritan consciences" often blight their lives. Freeman focuses， in particular， as Jewettdoes on the lives of women in these small communities. Exploring their interior lives and theirrelationslaips， she shows them struggling to assert themselves， and acquire some small portion ofwhat they want， in a community dominated by male power —— or， to be more accurate， grumblingmale indifference. "You ain't found out yet we're women-folks. You ain't seen enough of men-folks yet to，" a woman tells her daughter in "The Revolt of 'Mother'" （1891）. "One of these da~you'll find out， an' then you'll know we only know what men-folks think we do， so far as any of itgoes，" she adds with caustic irony； "an' how we'd ought to reckon men-folks in with ProvidenCe，an' not complain of what they do any more than we do of the weather."
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