常耀信《美国文学简史》第3版复习笔记节选
第2章 爱德华兹·富兰克林·克里夫古尔
American critic Van Wyck Brooks attempted a general survey of eighteen-century America and American characters. He stated that Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin shared the eighteenth century between them. The American Puritanism is a two-faceted tradition of religious idealism and levelheaded common sense. Jonathan Edwards represents the former aspect, and Franklin the latter. The one was as a good Puritan as the other.
美国评论家范·威克·布鲁克斯在评述到18世纪美国及美国人性格时指出：乔纳森·爱德华兹和本杰明·富兰克林一起代表了18世纪。决定美国人性格的清教主义传统具有宗教虔诚和冷静务实两个特点；乔纳森·爱德华兹代表前者，富兰克林代表后者。两人都是虔诚的清教徒。
Ⅰ. Jonathan Edwards （1703-1758）（乔纳森·爱德华兹）
1、Life（生平）
Edwards was born into a very religious family. He entered Yale at 13 and took his M. A. in 1723. Later He became the minister of the church of Northampton, Massachusetts. His sermons taught the power of God and the depravity of man and man’s need to communicate with Holy Spirit to receive God’s grace. He was instrumental in bringing about the “Great Awakening.” He became famous not only in his own country, but won a measure of international recognition as well.
爱德华兹出生于一个宗教气息极其浓郁的家庭里。13岁，他进入耶鲁大学学院学习，于1723年获得硕士学位。后来他成为马萨诸塞州北安普敦郊区的牧师。他在布道时着重描述上帝的威力、人的堕落以及人与圣灵的交流、接受上帝恩惠的必要性等。他是促进北美“大觉醒”运动发生和发展的关键人物之一。他不仅扬名北美，而且饮誉欧洲。
2、Ideas（思想）
(1) He was the first modern American and the country’s last medieval man.
His works reveal the modern consciousness of the man. He was influenced to no small extent by Newton’s mechanical view of the universe and the Lockean thesis. He tried to reconcile Puritan ideas with the new rationalism of Lock and Newton.
The same works reveals the medieval mind of the man. He liked to walk in the woods, to be solitary, far from all mankind, so as to sweetly converse with Christ, to be wrapped and swallowed up in God. This is meant by the inward communication of soul with god, by “conversation” through the heart rather than through reason.
(1) 他是美国**位具有现代思想的哲学家，美国最后一位思想依旧停留在中世纪的神学家。
他的作品显示出他思想的强烈现代意识。他深受牛顿机械宇宙观和洛克哲学思想的影响。他竭力调和清教思想和洛克、牛顿的理性主义。
他的作品也显示出他作为一个中世纪人的心态。他喜欢在林中独自漫步，和基督愉快的交谈，身心都深置于上帝的包围中。这就是所谓“灵魂与上帝的交流”，这种交流由发自内心“皈依”而来而不是出于理性的考虑。
(2) He was a good deal of a transcendentalist.
He holds that God is immanent. God manifests himself in nature and man, and that man, being a part of God, is divine.
His work Images or Shadow of Divine Things anticipated the nature symbolism of nineteenth-century Transcendentalism. The mystical implication of his Puritan idealism was to be developed and given full, explicit realization by Ralph Waldo Emerson in the next century.
(2) 他在很大程度上是一位超验主义者。
他认为上帝无处不在。上帝通过自然界和人体现自己，人既是上帝的一部分，因此也是神圣的。
其作品《神圣事物的形影》堪称19世纪超验主义自然象征论的先导。而他的清教神秘主义在19世纪爱默生的著作中得到了全面而明确的陈述。
3、Major works（主要作品）
The Freedom of the Will《自由的意志》
The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended《伟大的基督教教义的原罪说辩》
The Nature of True Virtue《真正美德的本质》
“Sinners in the hands of An Angry God” 《发怒的上帝手中的罪人》
“Personal Narrative” 《自述》
Images or Shadow of Divine Thing《神圣事物的形影》
……
完整内容见达聪学习网“常耀信《美国文学简史》笔记和考研真题详解”
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