本单元具体教学内容、教学基本要求、单元重点与难点

第4次课：新英格兰超验主义

1.教学内容

Section 2 Summit of Romanticism – American Transcendentalism

I. Background: four sources

1. Unitarianism

2. Romantic Idealism

3. Oriental mysticism

4. Puritanism

II. Appearance

1836, “Nature” by Emerson

III. Features

IV. Influence

V. Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. life

2. works

(1) Nature

(2) Two essays: The American Scholar, The Poet

3. point of view

4. aesthetic ideas

5. his influence

VI. Henry David Thoreau

1. life

2. works

3. point of view

VII. Close reading and works analysis

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Self-Reliance (Transcendentalism)

Henry David Thoreau: Walden

VIII. Emerson and Taosist philosophy.

2. 教学基本要求

1) To make students acquire some background knowledge of   about the American Transcendentalism,the sources, the appearance and the representative thinkers.

2) To develop students’ understanding of the American Transcendentalism

3) To improve students’ abilities to interpret and appreciate Emerson’s thoughts of Transcendentalism in his work “self-reliance” .

4) To improve students’ language cross-cultural communication skills and competence

5) To improve students’ critical thinking on the relationship between man and nature.

3. 单元重点、难点 

重点:

1) The source and features of American Transcendentalism.

2) Emerson’s “self-reliance”

3) Ecological thought in Emerson’s works and Chinese Taoism.

难点

1) Transcendentalism

2) Taoist ecological thought 

Summit of Romanticism – American Transcendentalism

I. Background: four sources

1. Unitarianism

(1) Fatherhood of God

(2) Brotherhood of men

(3) Leadership of Jesus

(4) Salvation by character (perfection of one’s character)

(5) Continued progress of mankind

(6) Divinity of mankind

(7) Depravity of mankind

2. Romantic Idealism

Center of the world is spirit, absolute spirit (Kant)

3. Oriental mysticism

Center of the world is “oversoul”

4. Puritanism

Eloquent expression in transcendentalism

II. Appearance

1836, “Nature” by Emerson

III. Features

1. spirit/oversoul

2. importance of individualism

3. nature – symbol of spirit/God

garment of the oversoul

4. focus in intuition (irrationalism and subconsciousness)

IV. Influence

1. It served as an ethical guide to life for a young nation and brought about the idea that human can be perfected by nature. It stressed religious tolerance, called to throw off shackles of customs and traditions and go forward to the development of a new and distinctly American culture.

2. It advocated idealism that was great needed in a rapidly expanded economy where opportunity often became opportunism, and the desire to “get on” obscured the moral necessity for rising to spiritual height.

3. It helped to create the first American renaissance – one of the most prolific period in American literature.