本书是一本用英语编写、文学史与作品选读相结合的英语专业本科生教材。文学史部分主要介绍美国文学中几个重要时期的历史背景、文学思潮、文学流派以及作家的文学生涯、艺术特色及代表作品的情节；作品选读部分选择了美国文学中代表人物的优秀作品，主要包括短篇小说、诗歌和散文等，并提供了必要的注释和小说的生词表。

Preface
Chapter I The Colonial Period and 17th Century Literature of Puritanism
The Historical Background
The Development of Literature
Chapter II The Period of Enlightenment
The Historical Background
The Development of Literature
Benjamin Franklin
from Autobiography
Philip Freneau
To the Memory of the Brave Americans
The Wild Honey Suckle
Chapter III New England Transcendentalism and the Romantic Age
A. Period of Pre-Romanticism
The Historical Background
The Development of Literature
Washington Irving
from Rip Van Winkle.
William Cullen Bryant
Thanatopsis
To a Waterfowl
B.Period of Post-Romanticism
The Historical Background
The Development of Literature
Edgar Allan Poe
To Helen
The Raven
Ralph Waldo Emerson
from Nature
The Rhodora: on being asked, whence is the flower?
Nathaniel Hawthorne
from The Scarlte Letter
Walt Whitman
from Song of Myself.
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Psalm of Life
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
Harriet Beecher Stowe
from Uncle Tom's Cabin
Emily Dickinson
67
303
449
632
1129
Chapter IV The Age of Realism
The Historical Background
The Development of Literature
Mark Twain
from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Henry James
from The Art of Fiction
Chapter V American Naturalism
The Historical Background
The Development of Literature
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Richard Cory
Miniver Cheevy
Stephen Crane
from The Red Badge of Courage
Theodore Dreiser
from Sister Carrie
Robert Lee Frost
Mending Wall
The Road Not Taken
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Chapter VI American Modernism
The Historical Background
The Development of Literature
Ernest Hemingway
from A Farewell to Arms
Francis Scott Fitzgerald
from The Great Gatsby
John Steinbeck
from The Grapes of Wrath
T.S.Eliot
from The Waste Land
William Faulkner
Dry September
Eugene O'Neill
from Long Day's Journey Into Night
Chapter VII American Literature since 1945
The Historical Background
The Development of Literature
Saul Bellow
from Seize the Day
Joseph Heller
from Catch-22
Flannery O'Connor
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Allen Ginsberg
from Howl
Alice Walker
Everyday Use
Main Reference Books