美国文学练习题答案10

I. Multiple Choices (40%)

1-5 DCADA 6-10 ADDAD 11-15DBCBA 16-20 DBCCC

21-25 DCDAC 26-30 ACDBC 31-35CAACD 36-40 DDCAB

II. Choose the relevant match from column B for each item in column A. (10%)

1-5 CABDE 6-10CDEAB

III. Interpreting the following texts. （15%）

Passage 1

1.Ezra Pound(2’)

2.This short poem is one of the most famous representative works of Imagist school. In the poem, “the object” to be treated is the faces in that dim and dam context. The impression is brought out most vividly by the single, dominant image of flower petals on a wet, black bough, which serves as the most. (5’)

Passage 2

1. Theodore Dreiser. Sister Carrie(2’)

2. (1)The world is cold and harsh to Sister Carrie. Alone and helpless, she moves along like a mechanism driven by desire and catches blindly at any opportunity for a better existence. A feather in the wind, she is totally at the mercy of forces she cannot comprehend, still less to say control. She does not seem to possess what may be called a mora l fiber in her. (4’)

(2) Spencer’s influence is seen at its most powerful as to Hustwood’s tragedy. Dreiser’s portrait is an authentic one of the impotent modern man unfit to survive.

He cannot help himself in his relationship with Sister Carrie. No respectable job, no handsome income, no genteel family, nothing could overcome his biological need and stop him from returning to savage, atavistic unreason. He thus hovers between being a man and beast in his behavior. He must die. (6’)

IV. Explain the following terms（15%）

1. Local Colorism or Regionalism as a trend first came to prominence in the late 19th century in America. The local colorists were devoted to capturing the unique customs, manners, speech, folklore, and other qualities of a particular regional community, usually in humorous short stories. (3分) The most famous of the local colorists was Mark Twain, with his masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (2分)

2. Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the history of American literature in the 19th century. （1分）Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively”. （1分）Transcendentalists place emphasis on the importance of the Over-soul, the individual and Nature. （2分）The most important representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. （1分）

3. It defines a sense of moral loss or aimlessness. The WWI destroyed the in ocent ideas, many good young men went to the war and died, or returned damaged, both physically and mentally; their moral faith were no longer valid--- they were “Lost.”（2分）. So in a broad Sense: it refers to the entire post -WWI American young generation. In a narrow sense: The Lost Generation is a term used to describe a group of American writers who were rebelling against what America had become by the 1900’s, including Heming way, F.S.Fitzgerald, etc. Who left