美国文学纲要美国文学纲要追溯了美国叙事文学、小说、诗歌和戏剧从殖民前直至今日的发展道路，回顾了许多文学运动，如浪漫主义、现实主义和实验派。Outline of American Literature20 December 2008The Outline of American Literature traces the paths of American narrative, fiction, poetry and drama as they move from pre-colonial times into the present, through such literary movements as romanticism, realism and experimentation. Early American and Colonial Period to 1776Democratic Origins and Revolutionary Writers, 1776-1820The Romantic Period, 1820-1860, Essayists and PoetsThe Romantic Period, 1820-1860, FictionThe Rise of Realism: 1860-1914Modernism and Experimentation: 1914-1945American Poetry, 1945-1990: The Anti-TraditionAmerican Prose, 1945-1990: Realism and ExperimentationContemporary American PoetryContemporary American LiteratureBibliography: Outline of American Literature Early American and Colonial Period to 1776From orally transmitted works to printed offerings01 May 2008The First Thanksgiving, a painting by J.L.G. Ferris. (Library of Congress)(The following article is taken from the U.S. Department of State publication, Outline of American Literature.)Early American and Colonial Period to 1776By Kathryn VanSpanckerenAmerican literature begins with the orally transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics (always songs) of Indian cultures. There was no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian languages and tribal cultures that existed in North America before the first Europeans arrived. As a result, Native American oral literature is quite diverse. Narratives from quasi-nomadic hunting cultures like the Navajo are different from stories of settled agricultural tribes such as the pueblo-dwelling Acoma; the stories of northern lakeside dwellers such as the Ojibwa often differ radically from stories of desert tribes like the Hopi.Tribes maintained their own religions worshipping gods, animals, plants, or sacred persons. Systems of government ranged from democracies to councils of elders to theocracies. These tribal variations enter into the oral literature as well.Still, it is possible to make a few generalizations. Indian stories, for example, glow with reverence for nature as a spiritual as well as physical mother. Nature is alive and endowed with spiritual forces; main characters may be animals or plants, often totems associated with a tribe, group, or individual. The closest to the Indian sense of holiness in later American literature is Ralph Waldo Emersons transcendental Over-Soul, which pervades all of life.The Mexican tribes revered the divine Quetzalcoatl, a god of the Toltecs and Aztecs, and some tales of a high god or culture were told elsewhere. However, there are no long, standardized religious cycles about one supreme divinity. The closest equivalents to Old World spiritual narratives are often accounts of shamans initiations and voyages. Apart from these, there are stories about culture heroes such as the Ojibwa tribes Manabozho or the Navajo tribes Coyote. These tricksters are treated with varying degrees of respect. In one tale they may act like heroes, while in another they may seem selfish or foolish. Although past authorities, such as the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, have deprecated trickster tales as expressing the inferior, amoral side of the psyche, contemporary scholars some of them Native Americans point out that Odysseus and Prometheus, the revered Greek heroes, are essentially tricksters as well.Examples of almost every oral genre can be found in American Indian literature: lyrics, chants, myths, fairy tales, humorous anecdotes, incantations, riddles, proverbs, epics, and legendary histories. Accounts of migrations and ancestors abound, as do vision or healing songs and tricksters tales. Certain creation stories are particularly popular. In one well-known creation story, told with variations among many tribes, a turtle holds up the world. In a Cheyenne version, the creator, Maheo, has four chances to fashion the world from a watery universe. He sends four water birds diving to try to bring up earth from the bottom. The snow goose, loon, and mallard soar high into the sky and sweep down in a dive, but cannot reach bottom; but the little coot, who cannot fly, succeeds in bringing up some mud in his bill. Only one creature, humble Grandmother Turtle, is the right shape to support the mud world Maheo shapes on her shell hence the Indian name for America, Turtle Island.The songs or poetry, like the narratives, range from the sacred to the light and humorous: There are lullabies, war chants, love songs, and special songs for childrens games, gambling, various chores, magic, or dance ceremonials. Generally the songs are repetitive. Short poem-songs given in dreams sometimes have the clear imagery and subtle mood associated with Japanese haiku or Eastern-influenced imagistic poetry. A Chippewa song runs:A loon I thought it wasBut it wasMy lovessplashin