Overview of the Background of American Literature

Author: Shi Zhikang
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-10-01
Features: Seven years ago, I read the English version of The Background of American Literary Thought, co-authored by American scholars Rod W. Horton and Herbert W. Edwards, and was deeply inspired. Many of my doubts about American literature were resolved while studying it. Subsequently, based on extensive reading of relevant works, I developed a course titled The History of the Background of American Literature for graduate students majoring in English Language and Literature, which received positive feedback and formed the basic framework of this book. In 1993, I received funding from the university's academic monograph publication fund for this book. Over the following three years, I was frequently invited to write other manuscripts, which delayed the progress of this book. Today, with the assistance of my students, I have finally completed it and feel immensely gratified. Generally, American literature teaching and research focus on overviews of literary history, biographies of writers, analysis of works, and appreciation of writing techniques. This book differs in that we attempt to discuss the influence of various factors such as philosophy, religion, history, economics, and society on the development of American literature. American literature has a process of growing from a sapling to a mighty tree, and our focus is to analyze the sunlight, soil, air, and water that nourish and cultivate this tree. "Without common knowledge, it is difficult to speak of specialized expertise; gather common knowledge, organize it systematically, and you will easily achieve depth" (Mao Zedong). Broadening one's knowledge is the essence of scholarship. In this sense, this book should be of reference value to American literature researchers and students studying American literature. I designed the framework and outlined the content, while the writing was divided among several contributors (Chapter 1 was written by me, Chapters 2 and 4 by Huang Xian'an, Chapter 3 by Wang Xiaoling, Chapter 5 by Wu Gang, Chapter 6 by Xu Libing, Chapter 7 by Xue Hao, and Chapters 8 by Gong Fen and Huang Xian'an). Finally, I compiled and finalized the manuscript. Due to my limitations, there may be shortcomings in the book, and I sincerely hope for corrections from the readers. Shi Zhikang, September 1996, Shanghai International Studies University