本书是笔者根据多年教授该课程的教学实践和授课讲义，同时借鉴参考国内外多种同类教材，并结合目前本课程授课时数的实际情况，反复筛选、精心编纂而成。

全书精选了近二十位具有代表性的小说家和诗人及其代表作，试图以此作为学习。在本书的体例设计上，本着将历史与作品融为一体的原则，文史结合，双管齐下，简明扼要，重点突出。每个章节均由时代背景、作家生平、选文、注释及思考题等部分构成。

Unit One The Early American Literature

 Chapter Ⅰ The Seventeenth Century Literature

 Chapter Ⅱ The Eighteenth Century Literature

Benjamin Franklin

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

The Autobiography (excerpts)

Unit Two The Age Of Romanticism

 Chapter Ⅰ American Literature of Pro-Romanticism

Washington Irving

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

Rip Van Winkle (excerpts)

 Chapter Ⅱ American Literature of Post-Romanticism

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

Self- Reliance (excerpts)

Edgar Allan Poe

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

The Cask of Amontillado (excerpts)

Nathaniel Hawthorne

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

The Scarlet Letter (Chapter 19 )

Walt Whitman

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

I Hear America Singing

Come Up from the Fields Father

From Song of Myself ( Section 1 )

O Captain ! My Captain !

Emily Dickinson

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

Success Is Counted Sweetest

There's a Certain Slant of Light

Again His Voice Is at the Door

I'm Nobody! Who Are You?

Unit Three The Age of Realism and Naturalism

 Chapter Ⅰ American Literature of the Middle and Late Nineteenth Century

Mark Twain

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ( Chapter 11 )

Henry James

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

Paste

 Chapter Ⅱ American Literature at the Turn of the Century

Theodore Dreiser

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

Sister Carrie ( Chapter 1 )

Jack London

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

Love of Life (excerpts)

Unit Four The Twentieth Century American Literature

 Chapter Ⅰ Between the Two World Wars

Robert Frost

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

The Road Not Taken

Mending Wall

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Fire and Ice

Ezra Pound

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

In a Station of the Metro

A Pact

Ernest Hemingway

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

In Another Country

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

The Great Gatsby (Chapter 3 excerpts)

John Steinbeck

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

The Grapes of Wrath ( Chapter 25 )

William Faulkner

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

A Rose for Emily

Eugene O'Neill

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

Long Day's Journey into

Night ( Act 2, Scene 2)

 Chapter Ⅱ American Literature Since 1945

Saul Bellow

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

The Adventures of Augie

March ( Chapter 21 )

Ralph Ellison

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

Invisible Man ( Chapter 1 )

Joseph Heller

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

Catch-22 (Chapter 5 excerpts)

Arthur Miller

1.About the Author

2.Selected Reading

Death of a Salesman (Act Ⅱ )

References