吴定柏《美国文学大纲》(第2版)(章节题库 美国犹太作家)【圣才出品】

第13章美国犹太作家

Ⅰ.Fill in the blanks.

Saul Bellow’s first novel was_____written in1944.

【答案】Dangling man

【解析】索尔·贝娄的第一部长篇小说《晃来晃去的人》（Dangling man）1944年问世。

Ⅱ.Multiple Choice

1.Which of the following is NOT a southern writer in the USA?

A.Saul Bellow

B.Tennessee Williams

C.Eudora Welty

D.Flannery O’Connor

【答案】A

【解析】索尔·贝娄是著名的犹太作家，他出生于加拿大，在芝加哥长大，因而不是南方作家。

2.Which of the following is NOT a Jewish Nobel Prize writer?

A.Saul Bellow

B.Joseph Brodsky

C.Isaac Bashevis Singer

D.Ralph Waldo Ellison

【答案】D

【解析】索尔·贝娄、艾萨克·巴什维斯·辛格和约瑟夫·布罗茨基均为著名的美国犹太作家，曾获得诺贝尔文学奖。拉尔夫·华尔多·埃利森为非裔美国作家，其代表作为《看不到的人》。

Ⅲ.Explain the following term.

Modernism

Key:It’s a general term applied to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in literature of the early20th century,including Symbolism, Futurism,Expressionism,Imagism,Vorticism,Dada,and Surrealism.Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of19th century traditions:the conventions of realism,for instance,were abandoned by Franz Kafka and other novelists,and by expressionist drama,while several poets rejected traditional meters in favor of free verse.Modernist writers tended to see themselves as an avant-garde disengaged from bourgeois values,and disturbed their readers by adopting complex and difficult new forms and styles.In fiction,the accepted continuity of chronological development was upset by Joseph Conrad,and William Faulkner,while James Joyce and Virginia Woolf attempted new ways of tracing the flow of characters’thoughts in their stream-of-consciousness styles.In poetry, Ezra Pound and T.S.Eliot replaced the logical exposition of thoughts with collages of fragmentary images and complex allusions.Modernist writing is predominantly cosmopolitan,and often expresses a sense of urban cultural dislocation,along with an awareness of new anthropological and psychological theories.Its favored

techniques of juxtaposition and multiple point of view challenge the reader to reestablish a coherence of meaning from fragmentary forms.

Ⅳ.Short answer questions

1.What are the values Saul Bellow cherishes?What,according to Saul Bellow,is the relationship between art and literature on the one hand and the values he cherishes on the other?

Key:Bellow cherishes so much the cultural and personal value and believes that literature and art are crucial in developing and communicating the cultural and personal.

2.Speak of Bernard Malamud’s vision and art in comparison to Bellow and Kafka. Key:Like Bellow,Malamud creates the American Jew as a symbol of the modern man’s struggle.But Malamud is a quieter writer than Bellow in that he has woven into the fabric of his works the more mythic and the more suggestive.It is said that he is closer to Kafka in the exploration of the theme of alienation.But unlike Kafka whose view of the human condition leans towards sheer pessimism, Malamud is concerned with the core of the good and moral life,thus more inclined towards the hope of redemption.