20世纪英国文学课上问题

Reading Hardy’s Poetry

1.What is the setting of each of the three poems?

2.What happened to Whom in each of the three poems?

3.What are the themes of the three poems? How can you describe the poet’s tone

expressed in the three poems?

4.What does the change in tens e in the last of “Neutral Tones” imply?

5.How can we compare the darkling thrush and the “Romantic” birds?

6.“The Wind and the Rain” involves the third person narration. What effects does

the third person narration create?

Reading “ Odor of Chrysanthemums”

1.Wh en and where does the story begin? What’s the implication of the setting? How is it related to Mr. Bates’ death?

2.What’s Mrs. Bates like? What’s Mr. Bates like?

3.How does Mrs. Bates’ feeling about her husband change in the course of the story?

4.What does the relationship between Mr. And Mrs. Bates reveal?

5.How are Mrs. Bates’ relationships with her father and her mother-in-law? What do they have in common?

6.Why does the story take “Odor of Chrysanthemums” as its title? What’s significance of chrysanthemum?

7.What do the children in the story tell us about?

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

1.What’s the place like that the poet dreams of living in ?

2.What can the poet have in this place?

3.Where is the poet? What feeling does the poet convey through the contrast?

4.What images ?

(visual, audio and kinaesthetic images)

5.What elements of this poem show that the poet was under the influence of Romanticism? (Love of nature, imagination, emotional tone, personal involvement) To the Rose Upon the Rood of Time

1.Whom does the poet address in this poem?

What’s its symbolic meaning?

2.What’s the significance of mentioning Cuchlan and Fergus in the first stanza?

3.How do you understand “leave me still a little space”? Why does the poet need it?

4.What’s the general tone of this poem?

5.How do you compare this poem with the first in style?

The Second Coming

1.What’s the Second Coming?

2.How do you understand “gyre,”“falcon,” and “falconer”?

3.What’s the world like, according to the poet?

4.What does the poet envision?

5.What does the coming of the rough beast indicate?

6.How do you compare the previous two and with Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush”?

T. S. Eliot: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Spiritual paralysis and stagnation of the modern man

Prufruck’s psychological journey: diffidence & pretence—eagerness, diffidence & uncertainty—self-debasement—fantasy—disillusionment

Virginia Woolf: “The Mark on the Wall”

How is the stream of consciousness technique related to the topics discussed here?

The Daughters of the Late Colonel

Use of details

1.The daughters’ character traits (e.g. Ch.1 and Ch.2)

2.The daughters’ feeling (e.g.Ch.6)

3.The daughters’ relationship with other people (e.g. Ch.2, Ch. 7, Ch. 10&11)

4.The daughters’ situation

Linguistic features:

1.Repetition of words

2.Employment of dashes and ellipsis (to indicate hesitation to say sth, omission of sth, the speaker dare not say, etc.)

Major Narrative points of view

1.The narrator’s observation

2.The narrator seeing into Constantia

3.The narrator seeing into Josephine

To Room Nineteen

1.How do you understand “intelligence”? How do you understand the first sentence of the story?

2.What has caused Susan’s restlessness, irritation, panic and near- madness?

3.

4.What are the meanings and significance of the “demon” and “ the madwoman in the mirror”?

5.To Room 19 vs. Chrysanthemums

Differences:

●Set in different scenes(London vs. Mining area)