美国文学史期末考试复习题
美国文学期末复习题
美国文学期末复习题2013-2014-1 美国文学史及选读期末复习材料I Multiple choices1. Which is not connected with Thomas Paine?A. Common SenseB. The American CrisisC. The Rights of ManD. The Autobiography2. “These are the times that try men's souls”, these words were once read to Washington's troops and did much to spur excitement to further action with hope and confidence. Who is the author of these words?A.Benjamin FranklinB.Thomas PaineC. Thomas JeffersonD. George Washington3. At the Reason and Revolution Period, Americans were influenced by the European movement called theA. Chartist MovementB. Romanticist MovementC. Enlightenment Movement Modernist MovementD.4. In American literature, the Enlighteners were favorable to .A. the colonial orderB. religious obscurantismC. the Puritan traditionD.the secular literature5. The English colonies in North America rose in arms against their parent country and the Continental Congress adopted _____________ in 1776.A. Declaration of IndependenceB.the Sugar ActC. the Stamp ActD.the Mayflower Compact6. ____ usually was regarded as the first Americanwriter.A. William BradfordB. Anne BradstreetC. Emily DickinsonD. Captain John Smith7. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the “”who appeared in America.A. Ninth MuseB. Tenth MuseC. Best MuseD. First Muse8. Who was considered as the “poet of American Revolution”?A. Anne BradstreetB. Edward TaylorC. Michael WigglesworthD. Philip Freneau9. In 1817, the stately poem called Thanatopsis introduced the best poet _____ to appear in Americaup to that time.A. Edward TaylorB. Philip FreneauC. William Cullen BryantD. Edgar Allen Poe10. The finest example of Nathaniel Hawthorne 's symbolism is the recreation of Puritan Boston in _____ A. The Scarlet Letter B. Young Goodman BrownC. The Marble FaunD. The Ambitious Guest11. The universe is composed of Nature and the soul Spirit is present everywhere”. This is the voice of the book Nature written by Emerson, which pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England.A. RomanticismB. TranscendentalismC. NaturalismD. Symbolism12. Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism?A. NatureB. WaldenC. On BeautyD. Self-Reliance13. Mark Twain created, in _______ , a masterpiece of American realism that is also one of the great books of world literature.A. The Adventure of Huckleberry FinnB. The Adventure of Tom SawyerC. The Man That Corrupted HadleyburgD. The Gilded Age14. ________ marks the climax of Mark Twain 'sliterary creativity.A . The Adventureof Huckleberry Finn B. The Gilded AgeC. Life on the MississippiD. The Adventure of Tom Sawyer15. Choose the novel which is not written by Henry James.A. The AmbassadorsB. The Wings of the DoveC. The BostoniansD. The Mysterious Stranger16. Generally speaking, all those writers with anaturalistic approach to human reality tend to beA. transcendentalistsB. idealistsC. pessimistsD. impressionists17. Ezra Pound 's long poem ________ contained more than one hundred poems loosely connected.A. The Waste LandB. The CantosC. Don JuanD. Queen Mab18. T. S. Eliot 's first major poem _______ (1917), has been called the first masterpiece of modernism in English.A. The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockB. The Waste LandC. Four QuartetsD. Preludes19. Ernest Hemingway was badly wounded in Italy and sent to a hospital where he fell in love with a nurse. These two persons later became the characters of his novel . A. The Old Man and the Sea B. For Whom the Bell TollsC. The Sun Also RisesD. A Farewell to Arms20. In William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, he useda technique called ____________ , in which the whole story was told through the thoughts of one character.A. stream of consciousness C. symbolism naturalismB. imagismD.21. Led by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emersonand , there arose a kind of teachings of transcendentalism in the early nineteenth century.A. H erman Melville David Thoreau C. Mark Twain Theodore DreiserB. HenryD.22. A New _____ had appeared in England in the last years of the eighteenth century. It spread to continental Europe and then came to America early in the nineteenth century.A. realismB. critical realismC. romanticismD. naturalism23. From Henry David Thoreau 's jail experience, came his famous essay, _________ which statesThoreau's belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.A. WaldenB. NatureC. Civil DisobedienceD. Common Senseth24. Mark Twain, one of the greatest 19th century American writers, is well known for his ________________ .A. international themeB. waste-land imageryC. local colorD. symbolism25. Herman Melville '__s ____ is an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy religion, etc. in addition toa detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. Moby DickC. White Jacket C. Billy Budd26. The ship “_______ ”carried about one hundred Pilgrims and took 66 days to beat its way across the Atlantic. In December of 1620, it put the Pilgrims ashore at Plymouth, Massachusetts.A. SunflowerB. ArmadaC. MayflowerD. Pequod27. From 1733 to 1758, Benjamin Franklin wrote and published his famous _____ , an annual collection of proverbs.A. The AutobiographyB. Poor Richard 's AlmanacC. Common SenseD. The General Magazine28. In American literature, the eighteen-century was the age of the Enlightenment. ______ was the dominant spirit.A. HumanismB. RationalismC. RevolutionD. Evolution29. ____ was the most leading spirit of theTranscendental Club.A. Henry David ThoreauB. Ralph Waldo EmersonC. Nathaniel HawthorneD. Walt Whitman30. Edgar Allen Poe 's first collection of short stories isA. Tales of a TravelerTalesC. Canterbury Tales Grotesque ofArabesque31. _____ was a romanticized account of Herman Melville 's stay among the Polynesians.The successof the book soon made Melville well known as the “man who lived among cannibal ”s.A. Moby DickB. TypeeC. OmooD. Billy Budd B. LeatherstockingD. Tales of the32. Which is regarded as the“Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?A. The American ScholarB. English TraitsC. The Conduct of LifeD. Representative Men33. The three dominant figures of the realistic period in American literature are ________ .A. Theodore Dreiser, Emily Dickinson and William Dean HowellsB. Mark Twain, Henry James and William Dean HowellsC. Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser and William Dean HowellsD. Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson and William Dean Howells34. American literature produced only one female poet during the nineteenth century. This was ________ .A. Anne BradstreetB. Jane AustenC. Emily DickinsonD. Harriet Beecher35. In 1900, London published his first collection of short stories, named ____________ .A. The Son of the WolfB. The Sea WolfC. The Law of LifeD. White Fang36. In Henry James'Daisy Miler, the author tries to portray the young woman as an embodiment ofA. the force of conventionB. the free spirit of the New WorldC. the decline of aristocracyD. the corruption of the newly rich37. “ Theapparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” This is the shortest poem written by .A. T.S. EliotB. Robert FrostC. Ezra PoundD.E.E.Cumings38. The Fitzgerald lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than F. Scot Fitzgerald earned for parties, liquor, entertaining their friends and traveling. It was this living style that nicknamed the decade of the 1920s as ________ .A. The Roaring TwentiesB. The Jazz AgeC. The Dollar DecadeD. all of the above39. In 1954, ________ was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his “mastery of the art of modern narration”.A. T.S EliotB. Ernest HemingwayC. John SteinbeckD. William Faukner40. William Faukner' snovel _________ describes the decay and downfall of an old southern aristocratic family, symbolizing the old social order, told from four different points of view.A. The Sound and the FuryB. StartorisC. The UnvanquishedD. The Town41. “The Lure of the Spirit: The Flesh in Pursuit ” si the title of one chapter in Dreise'rs novel _______ .A. An American DreamB. Sister CarrieC. Dreiser Looks at RussiaD. Jannie Gerhardt42. The main theme of _________ The Art of Fiction reveals his literary credo that representation of life should be the main object of the novel.A. Henry James'B. William Dean Howells'C. Mark Twain 'sD. O. Henry 's43. With William Dean Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, _____________ became the major trend in the seventiesand eighties of the nineteenth century.A. sentimentalismB. romanticismC. realismD. naturalism44. While embracing the socialism of Marx, London also believed in the triumph of the strongest individuals. This contradiction is most vividly projected in the patently autobiographical novel ________ .A. The Call of the WildB. The Sea WolfC. Martin EdenD. The Iron Heel45 ________ is a novella about a young American girlwho gets“killed”by the winter in Rome, and it broughtHenry James international fame for the first time.A. The AmericanB. The EuropeansC. Daisy MillerD. The Portait of a LadyAnswers: 1-5 DBCDA 6-10 DBDCA 11-15 BAAAD 16-20 CBADA21-25 BCCCB 26-30 CBBBD 31-35 BABCA36-40 BCDBA 41-45 BACCCn Filling the following blanks with proper answers 1. Captain John Smith became the first American writer. 2. The puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people.3. The first major intellectual spokesman of theMassachusetts Bay colony was John Cotton, sometimes called the Patriarch of New England ”4. Anne Bradstreet published The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, andtenth Muse. 5. Poor Richard ' Almanac is proverbs written by Benjamin Frankli n.6. Thomas Paine ' famous pamphlet Common Sense boldly advocated a Declaration for Independence.7. Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration ofIndependencewith John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingsto n.8. Philip Freneau developed a natural, simple, andconcrete diction, best illustrated in such nature lyrics as “ The Wild Honey Suckle ” and The Indian Burying Ground ”.9. Philip Freneau has been called the Father of American she was nicknamed the an annual collection ofPoetry”.10. In Washington Irving ' Sketch Book appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.11. Cooper' enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novels that comprise the Leatherstocking tales12. To a Waterfowl”is perhaps the peak of William Cullen Bryant' wok.13. Thanatopsis, William Cullen Bryant' best-known poem, consistsof four stanzas in iambic tetrameter abab. The title means view of death”.14. Edgar Allan Poe is considered “father of American detective stories and Ameican gothic stories. ”15. Emerson believed above all in individualism, independence of mind, and self-reliance.16. In Walden Thoreau thought it better for a man to work one day a week and rest six, and the rest of the time could be devoted to thought.17. Hawthorne' stories touch the deepest roots of man' moral nature.18. Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seeminglysupernatural white whale.19. After his death, Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet' Corner _of Westminster Abbe y.20. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom' Cabin, had become an American institution and the most famous literary woman in the world.21. William Dean Howells found his subject matter in the experiences of the American middle class.22. William Dean Howells called for the treatment of the smiling aspects of life” as being the moreAmerica n.23. The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment.24. The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called free verse.25. O • Henry"s stories are usually short and interesting; Famous for their surprising end.26. Henry James is famous for his international theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity of European life.27. Jack London believed in the inevitable triumph of the strongest individuals.28. Dreiser' greatest and most successfulnovel, AnAmerican Tragedy, is about a young man who acts as if the only way he can be truly fulfilled is by acquiring wealth—through marriage if necessary.29. Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a Lost Generation,” devoid of faith and alienated from a civilizatio n.30. Wallace Stevens work is primarily motivated by the belief that ideas of orde”.31. With the publication of The Sun Also Rises Hemingway became the spokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called a lost generation”川Decide whether the statements are true or false (T/F).1. John Winthrop ' reports of exploration, published in the early 1600s, have been regarded as the first distinct American literature written in English.2. In 1612, William Bradford published in England a book calledA Map of Virginia; With a description of the country.3. Philip Freneau was neoclassical by training and taste yet romantic in essential spirit.4. Ralph Waldo Emerson was recognizedas the leader of transcendentalistmovement, but he always applied theterm “Transcendentalis”t to himself or to his beliefs and ideas.5. To Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, the telling of a tale was a way of inquiring into the meaning of life.6. Walt Whitman was attacked in his lifetime for his offensive subject matter of sexuality and for his conventional style.7. Tom Sawyer walked out of Twain 's pages directly from his fresh memory of his boyhood in the west.8. Hurstwood is a character in Theodore Dreise'rs Sister Carrie.9. In the decade of the 1910s, American literature achieveda new diversity and reached its greatest heights.10. Edwin Arlington Robinson began his career as a novalist in bleakness and poverty.11. T he greatest of America's realists, such as Henry James and Mark Twain, moved well beyond a superficial portrayal of nineteenth-century America.12. H enry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Mark Twain or William Dean Howells.13.Sister Carrie is generally regarded as TheodoreDreiser's masterpiece.14. G enerally speaking, Jack London was much more interested in ideas than Stephen Crane and lesssentimental than Frank Norris.15. R alph Waldo Emerson's prose style was sometimes as highly individual as his poetry.16. American literature is the oldest of all national literature.17. Georgia, Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New England, all were named after French monarchs and lands.18. Benjamin Franklin was a prose stylist whose writing reflected the neoclassic ideals of clarity, restraint, simplicity and balance.19. The Fall of the House of Usheris one of Edgar Allan Poe's poems.20. The Scarlet Letteris set in the seventeenth century. It is an elaboration of a fact which the author took out of the life of the Puritan past.21. Walt Whitman was so great that he won respect and love during his lifetime for hisLeaves of Gras.s22. Many of O. Henry 's stories contain a lot of slang and colloquial expressions, just like his own speech.23. Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Mark Twain or William Dean Howells.24. Robert Frost rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporaries, and chose “the old-fashioned way to be new”instead.25. John Steinbeck's theme was usually that simple human virtues such as kindness and fair treatment were far superior to official hard-heartedness, or the dehumanizing cruelty of exploiters for their own commercial advantage.26. Transcendentalistsspoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.27. Washington Irving was the first great belletrist, writing always for pleasure, and to produce pleasure. 28. James Fennimore Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure tale and the frontier saga.29. Puritan influence over American Romanticism was conspicuously noticeable.30. “Young Goodman Brown”seemsto prove everyone possesses some evil secrets1-5 FFTFT 6-10FTTFF 11-15 TFFTT 16-20 FFTFT 21-25FFFTT 26-30 TTTTTIV Answer the following questions briefl y1. These are the times that try men's souls: The summersoldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country; but he that standsit now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly—This dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods.Questions:(1) Which book is this passage taken from?(2) Who is the author of this book?(3) Whom is the author praising? Whom is the author criticizing?(4) What do you think of the language?Answers:(1) The American Crisis.(2) Thomas Paine(3) Paine is praising those who stand“it”, it referring to “the service of their country”. In the meantime, Paine is criticizing those who shrink from the service of their country in this crisis.(4) The language is plain, impressive and forceful. Painehimself once said that his purpose as a writer was to use plain language to make those who can scarcely read understand and to fit the powers of thinking and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question and nothing else.2. It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho, was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians.In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now widly heightened by circumstance of the Town-Ho's story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates…Nevertheless, so potent and influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governedin this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record. Questions:(1) From which novel is this paragraph taken?(2) What is the name of the novelist?(3) Who is Ahab?(4) What is Pequod?(5) What is the theme of the novel?Answers:(1) Moby Dick(2) Herman Melville(3) The captain of the whaling ship(4) The name of the whaling ship(5) The rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastnessof the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces.3. When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediatebalance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human temper. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expressionpossible in the most cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasivelight in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appealto the astonishedsensesin equivocal terms. Without a counselorat hand to whisper cautious interpretations, what falsehoodsmay not these things breathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognized for what they are, their beauty, like music, too often relaxes, then weakens then perverts the simpler human perceptions.Questions:(1) From which novel is this paragraph taken?(2) Who is the author of this novel?(3) How do you understand “the cosmopolitan standard of virtue”?(4) Is there any naturalist tendency in this passage? Answers:(1) Sister Carrie(2) Theodore Dreiser(3) “The cosmopolitan standard of virtue”is something that makes a person becomelow in virtue and become worse.(4) Yes.4. Briefly discuss the noveTlhe Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is one of the greatest novels in American literature. It fully explores the disillusionment and despair of the lost generation through the personal tragedy of a young man whose “incorruptible Dream”is easily smashed into pieces by the crude reality. The protagonist, Gatsby, is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies American itself. His failure magnifies the end of the American Dream. The style of the story is explicit and chilly. Fitzgerald's accurate dialogues, his careful observation of mannerism and the colorful images provide the reader with a vivid and profound scene of the reality.5. What are the three main principles that Ezra Pound endorsed?(1) Directly treat poetic subjects.(2) Eliminate merely ornamental or superfluous words.(3) Rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of metronome.6. Tell the differences between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman⑴ Emily Dickinson expresses the inner life of individuals, while Walt Whitman keeps his eyes on the society at large.(2) Emily Dickinson is regional", while Walt Whitman is national” in his outlook.(3) Formally, Emily Dickinson uses concise, simple dictions and syntax, while Walt Whitman uses endless, all-inclusive catalogs.V Essay Writing (这个部分给大家的答案只是罗列了回答的要点，要将其连缀成文，如果简单按复习题给的答案罗列，只得一半分数)1. Write a short essayabout the novel The Grapes ofWrathWriter: John Steinbeck----won Nobel Prize forLiterature in 1962; spoke for the oppressed and suffered Background information: (1) Oklahoma used to be a major agricultural state .In the 1930s, a draught ruined this place. People had to leave here to seek a way out. Many of them went to California in hope of finding jobs there to support their famil y. (2)The Great Depressio n. Meaning of title: (1) Hope to despair; (2) Wrath of people; (3) Indications of revolutio n.Theme: (1) Embodying the mass misery of farmers; (2) Praising the spirit of love and unity; (3) Advocating fight and struggle for better life.Structure: (1) Its structure is dictated by the bible; (2) There are two blocks of material: a. the westward trek of the Joads; b. the depressed Oklahomans, and the general picture of the Great Depression.Symbols: ⑴ dust---evil forces; (2) grapes---hop e rage2. Write a short essay about the novel A Farewell to Arms Writer: Hemingway --- (1) in 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize; (2) Main works: The Sun also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The old Manand the Sea. (3) His major contribution: a. Code hero---grace under pressure; b. Iceberg Theory--- economy of expression; (4) the lost generation Background information: World War n Theme: shows the filth, meaningless,calamity of war; the death, the nothingnessof life; the disillusionment with future, hope and love, happiness.The universe is indifferent. There is no God to watch over man. Characters: Henry--- initially detached fromlife --- though well-disciplined and friendly, he feels as if he has nothing to do with the war. After falling in love with Catherine he became a code hero in some way. Catherine---code hero: unfaltering devotion to Henry, brave, considerate, optimisticSymbols: rain---sadness, desperation, depression. It is raining outside almost every time something bad occurs. mud---nature's hostility to man.3. Write a short essay about the noveTl he Adventures of Tom SawyerAuthor: Mark Twain —the first truly American writer, a local colorist; he used short, concrete and colloquial language; his sentences are simple, and even ungrammatical; good at writing children's adventures;masterpiecesincluding: The Adventuresof Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer About the novel: The first famous novel about growing up and showing the contradictions between adults ' world and teenagersw'orld, a story of his seeking for freedom, fame, fortune, love, manhood; reveals the American values such as hero complex and American dream; records the rising Age of American Bourgeois system; bears the irony and satire toward the religion and rigid, didactic children education, which curbed theimagination of children and their innate nature for freedom and adventures and molded them into a stereotype of lifeless man.4. Comment briefly on Theodore Dreiser's theme and writing style?Theme: Dreiser's works are mainly concerned with the tragic nature of the human condition by depicting the coarse, vulgar, cruel, and terrible aspects of life like sex and crime.Style: In terms of style, Dreiser has sometimes been censured for his clumsy syntax, deficient characterization, and inept and dull prose. Yet his accumulated detail, carefully selected and faithfully recorded, is a technique ofpower. Like the other naturalists, he refused to judge—to consider people as good or evil. He clothes his concepts symbolically in the details of reality. It is his journalistic method that has made him one of America's foremost novelists.。
美国文学期末考试复习
美国文学期末考试复习Part one: Multiple choices. (25题，每题2分，共50分)1 "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind" is a famous quote from __D__’s writings.A. Walt WhitmanB. Henry David ThoreauC. Herman MelvilleD. Ralph Waldo Emerson2 Which of Hemingway’s novels describes the drifting漂流life of American exiles流亡者in Europe? BA. The Sun Also Rises.B. A Farewell to Arms.C. For Whom the Bell Tolls.D. The Old Man and the Sea.3 The theme of ___C____ may be well stated as "It sings of nationalism and of the nature of the self inrelation to the cosmos and the meaning and purpose of birth and death."A. Edgar Allan Poe’s "To Helen"B. Robert Frost’s "The Road Not Taken"C. Walt Whitman’s "Song of Myself" 惠特曼〔1819-1892，美国诗人〕。
D. Emily Dickenson’s "Because I could not stop for Death"4 The American Puritanism清教as a cultural heritage遗产benefited the Americans in ___A____.A. strengthening their moral valuesB. weakening their religious faithC. knowing truth intuitivelyD. developing their science and technology5 Mark Twain, one of the greatest 19th century American writers, is well known for his ___C___.A. international themeB. waste-land imageryC. local colorD. symbolism6 "Strange names were over the doors -strange faces at the windows -every thing was strange. His mindnow began to misgive使害怕him, that both he and the world around him were bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day before." The above passage is taken from __A____.A. Irving’s "Rip Van Winkle"B. Hawthorne’s "Young Goodman Brown"C. James’ "Daisy Miller"D. Hemingway’s "Indian Camp"7 According to Hawthorne, the scarlet letter "A" which originally stood for "___A____" finally obtainedthe meaning of "able" or "angel" through Hester’s efforts.A. adulteryB. arroganceC. accomplishmentD. agony8 As a naturalist writer, Theodore Dreiser was greatly influenced by ___B____.A. Nathaniel HawthorneB. Charles DarwinC. Henry JamesD. Ralph Waldo Emerson9 In Sister Carrie, Hurstwood, extremely hopeless and totally devastated荒废, ends his life by turning on the gas, while at the same time Carrie is rocking comfortably in her luxurious豪华的hotel room before she boards a ship for ___B____.A. New YorkB. LondonC. ParisD, Geneva10 Which of the following is the masterpiece of Mark Twain? CA. The Call of the WildB. The Adventures of Tom SawyerC.The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnD. Jumping Frog11 “”was a term created by the French novelist, Emile Zola. BA. RealismB. NaturalismC. TranscendentalismD. Impressionism12 The Cop and the Anthem is written by . AA. O. HenryB. Henry JamesC. Jack LondonD. Mark Twain13 An American Dictionary of the English Language waspublished in 1828 by . BA. Samuel JohnsonB. Noah WebsterC. Daniel WebsterD. Daniel Defoe14 Walden is written by . BA. EmersonB. ThoreauC. PoeD. Hawthorne15 American writers of the first postwar era who were devoid缺乏of faith and alienated疏远from the 。
西南大学网络教育0171美国文学史及选读期末考试复习题及参考答案
0171美国文学史及选读1、艾伦坡（Edgar Allan Poe）的小说表现出怎样的艺术特征？答：作品主题爱伦·坡的恐怖小说带有浪漫主义的特色。
纵观爱伦·坡的恐怖小说创作，其故事主题大都“揭示了人类意识及潜意识中的阴暗面”，这一点显然迥异于同时代的其他浪漫主义作家。
爱伦·坡以恐怖小说这样一种特殊的文学形式深入刻画与呈现了非现实状态下人的精神状态和心理特征，试图“以非现实、非理性的表达方式来揭示现代人的精神因顿”。
他借助想象奇特、恐怖怪异的故事情节，通过夸张、隐喻和象征等修辞手段表现人性的危机，激起读者浓厚阅读兴趣的同时，震撼心灵，发人深省。
爱伦·坡的创作原则是其“效果说”理论，他选择“死亡”作为其文学创作的主题是由他的这个创作原则决定的。
坡认为，无论是创作诗歌还是小说，作家必须讲究效果的统一，必须时刻想到预定的结局，要使每一个情节变得必不可少。
他在《评霍桑的“故事重述”》中曾经这样阐述自己的创作原则：“聪明的艺术家不是将自己的思想纳入他的情节，而是事先精心策划，想出某种独特的、与众不同的效果，然后再杜撰出这样一些情节——他把这些情节联结起来，而他所做的一切都将最大限度地有利于实现在预先构思的效果”。
使“每一事件，每一描写细节，甚至一字一句都收到一定的统一效果，一个预想的效果，印象主义的效果”。
他强调作品对读者所能唤起的情绪和产生的效果。
在“创作的哲学”中，他认为，故事的首要目的是要在情感上扣住读者的心弦，产生最激动人心的效果。
死亡主题是通过谨严紧凑的结构和作品的简洁而表现的。
爱伦坡的作品形式精美，技巧圆熟。
爱伦坡在《评霍桑的“故事重述”》里，强调了作品的简洁和统一效果。
在写作中，他还平萍理留情节和结构的高度简洁，小说中通常只有两个，最多三个人物，也没有离题的枝节和无关的装饰品。
在他看来，一位技巧高明的文学家在写作之前，必须成竹在胸，深思熟虑，为实现预期效果而选择和组织情节，并且不应该有一个词的意向直接或间接与预先的构思无关。
美国文学史及其选读期末复习资料题
1.Captain John Smith became the first American writer.2.The puritans looked upon themselves asa chosen people.is an annual collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin.4.Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet Common Sense boldly advocated a “Declaration for Independence”.5.Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.has been called the “Father of American Poetry”.7.In Washington I rving’sappeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.8.Cooper’s enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novelsWilliam Cullen Bryant’s wok.is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories”.10.Emerson believed above all inand self-reliance.11.Hawthorne’s stories touch the deepest12.Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. 13.After his death, Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corne r of Westminster Abbey.14.Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, had become an American institution and the most famous literary woman in the world.15.The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives werecontrolled by and the16.The poetic style Walt WhitmanHenry James is famous for his international theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity of European life.17.Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “Lost Generation,”devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization. 18.With the publication of The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway became thespokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called “a lost generation.”Terms1.TranscendentalismTranscendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the m iddle 1800’s,which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Oversoul, and Nature. New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism.2.NaturalismNaturalism, a more deliberate kind of realism, usually involves a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forcesand social environment. As a literary movement, naturalism was initiated in France. Natural fiction aspired to a sociological objectivity, offering detailed and fully researched investigations into unexplored corners of modern society. The most significant work of naturalism in English being Dreiser’s Sister Carrie.The Lost GenerationThe term Lost Generation was coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to a group of American Literary notables who lived in Paris from the time period which saw the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Significant members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein herself. More generally, the term is being used for the young adults of Europe and America during World War I. They were “lost” because after the war many of themwere disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to more into a settled life5. ModernismModern writing is marked by a strong and conscious break with traditional forms and techniques of expression; it believes that we create the world in the act of perceiving it. Modernism implies historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, of loss, and of despair. It elevates the individual and his inner being over social man and prefers the unconscious to the self-conscious.6. Romanticism7. PuritanismThe principles and practices of puritans were popularly known as Puritanism. Puritanism accepted the doctrines ofCalvinism: the sovereignty of God; the supreme authority of the Bible; the irresistibility of God’s will for man in every act of life from cradle to grave. These doctrines led the Puritans to examine their souls to find whether they were of the elect and to search the Bible to determine Go d’s will.8.Hemingway Heroes / Code HeroSuch a hero usually is an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent. And usually he is a man of action and of a few words. He is such an individualist, alone even when with other people, somewhat an outsider The Hemingway heroes stand for a whole generation. But Hemingway heroes possess a kind of “despairing courage” It is this courage that enables a man to behave like a man, to assert his dignity in face of adversity.Give brief answers to the followingquestions.1.What are the characteristics of the Colonial Literature?In a real sense, there were no literal works in the early colonial period. They were just personal literature in the form of diaries, travel books, letters, journals, sermons, histories and prose.(1) In content, they wrote about the voyage to the new land, about adopting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops, about dealing with Indian, and especially about religion.(2) In form, English traditions were imitated.ment briefly on Emily Dickinson’s themes?(1)By far the largest portion of Dickinson’s poetry concerns death and immortality, theme which lie at the centre of Dickinson’s world.(2)Dickinson’s nature poems are also great in number and rich in matter. Natural phenomena, changes of seasons, heavenly bodies, animals, birds and insects, flowers of various kinds, and many other subjects related to nature find her way into her poetry.(3)Dickinson also wrote some poems about love. Like her death and nature poems, her love poems were original. (4)Besides deaths and immortality, nature and love, Dickinson’s poems are concerned about ethics, with respect to which, she emphasizes free will and human responsibility.4 Henry James is a great realistic writer. Name two of his major works. Do you know anything about his narrative “point of view”? What is it for? How does James employ it in his works? Briefly discuss this question.(1) Henry James’s major works include Daisy Miller and The Portrait of A Lady, etc.(2) One of Henry James literary techniques is his narrative “point of view.” As the author, James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possible and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minimal intervention. So it is often the case that in his novels we usually learn the main story by reading through one or several minds and share their perspectives. This narrative method proves to be successful in bringing out his themes.5. Tell the differences between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman(1)Emily Dickinson expresses the inner life of individuals, while Walt Whitman keeps his eyes on the society at large. (2)Emily Dickinson is “regional”, while Walt Whitman is “national” in his outlook.(3)Formally, Emily Dickinson usesconcise, simple dictions and syntax, while Walt Whitman uses endless, all-inclusive catalogs.8. Briefly discuss the Jazz Age“The Jazz Age” describes the period the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between World War I and World War II, particularly in North America; with the rise of the Great Depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term “The Jazz Age”. It can also be known as “The Roaring Twenties” and “The Dollar Decade.”。
美国文学期末复习题
2013-2014-1 美国文学史及选读期末复习材料实用标准文案Ⅰ Multiple choices1. Which is not connected with Thomas Paine?A. Common SenseB. The American CrisisC. The Rights of ManD. The Autobiography2. “These are the times that try men’s souls”, these words were once read to Washington’s troops and did much to spur excitement to further action with hope and confidence. Who is the author of these words?A.Benjamin FranklinB. Thomas PaineC. Thomas JeffersonD. George Washington3. At the Reason and Revolution Period, Americans were influenced by the European movement called the ______.A. Chartist MovementB. Romanticist MovementC. Enlightenment MovementD. Modernist Movement4. In American literature, the Enlighteners were favorable to______.A. the colonial orderB. religious obscurantismC. the Puritan traditionD. the secular literature5. The English colonies in North America rose in arms against their parent country and the Continental Congress adopted ______ in 1776.A. Declaration of IndependenceB. the Sugar ActC. the Stamp ActD. the Mayflower Compact6. ______ usually was regarded as the first American writer.A. William BradfordB. Anne BradstreetC. Emily DickinsonD. Captain John Smith7. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the “______” who appeared in America.A. Ninth MuseB. Tenth MuseC. Best MuseD. First Muse8. Who was considered as the “poet of American Revolution”?A. Anne BradstreetB. Edward TaylorC. Michael WigglesworthD. Philip Freneau9. In 1817, the stately poem called Thanatopsis introduced the best poet ______ to appear in America up to that time.A. Edward TaylorB. Philip FreneauC. William Cullen BryantD. Edgar Allen Poe10. The finest example of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s symbolism is the recreation of Puritan Boston in ______.A. The Scarlet LetterB. Young Goodman BrownC. The Marble FaunD. The Ambitious Guest11. “The universe is composed of Nature and the soul… Spirit is present everywhere”. This is the voice of the book Nature written by Emerson, which pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England ______.A. RomanticismB. TranscendentalismC. NaturalismD. Symbolism12. Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism?A. NatureB. WaldenC. On BeautyD. Self-Reliance实用标准文案 13. Mark Twain created, in _________, a masterpiece of American realism that is also one of the great books of world literature.A. The Adventure of Huckleberry FinnB. The Adventure of Tom SawyerC. The Man That Corrupted HadleyburgD. The Gilded Age14. _________ marks the climax of Mark Twain ’s literary creativity.A . The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn B. The Gilded AgeC. Life on the MississippiD. The Adventure of Tom Sawyer15. Choose the novel which is not written by Henry James.A. The AmbassadorsB. The Wings of the DoveC. The BostoniansD. The Mysterious Stranger16. Generally speaking, all those writers with a naturalistic approach to human reality tend to be _________.A. transcendentalistsB. idealistsC. pessimistsD. impressionists17. Ezra Pound ’s long poem _________ contained more than one hundred poems loosely connected.A. The Waste LandB. The CantosC. Don JuanD. Queen Mab18. T. S. Eliot ’s first major poem _________(1917), has been called the first masterpiece of modernism in English.A. The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockB. The Waste LandC. Four QuartetsD. Preludes19. Ernest Hemingway was badly wounded in Italy and sent to a hospital where he fell in love with a nurse. These two persons later became the characters of his novel _________.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. For Whom the Bell TollsC. The Sun Also RisesD. A Farewell to Arms20. In William Faulkner ’s The Sound and the Fury , he used a technique called _________, in which the whole story was told through the thoughts of one character.A. stream of consciousnessB. imagismC. symbolismD. naturalism21. Led by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and ______, there arose a kind of teachings of transcendentalism in the early nineteenth century.A. Herman MelvilleB. Henry David ThoreauC. Mark TwainD. Theodore Dreiser22. A New ______ had appeared in England in the last years of the eighteenth century. It spread to continental Europe and then came to America early in the nineteenth century.A. realismB. critical realismC. romanticismD. naturalism23. From Henry David Thoreau ’s jail experience, came his famous essay, ______ which states Thoreau ’s belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.A. WaldenB. NatureC. Civil DisobedienceD. Common Sense24. Mark Twain, one of the greatest 19th century American writers, is well known for his _________.A. international themeB. waste-land imageryC. local colorD. symbolism25. Herman Melville ’s ______ is an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy religion, etc. in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. Moby DickC. White Jacket C . Billy Budd26. The ship “______” carried about one hundred Pilgrims and took 66 days to beat its way across the Atlantic. In December of 1620, it put the Pilgrims ashore at Plymouth, Massachusetts.A. SunflowerB. ArmadaC. MayflowerD. Pequod实用标准文案 27. From 1733 to 1758, Benjamin Franklin wrote and published his famous ______, an annual collection of proverbs.A. The AutobiographyB. Poor Richard ’s AlmanacC. Common SenseD. The General Magazine28. In American literature, the eighteen-century was the age of the Enlightenment. ______ was the dominant spirit.A. HumanismB. RationalismC. RevolutionD. Evolution29. ______ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.A. Henry David ThoreauB. Ralph Waldo EmersonC. Nathaniel HawthorneD. Walt Whitman30. Edgar Allen Poe ’s first collection of short stories is ______.A. Tales of a TravelerB. Leatherstocking TalesC. Canterbury TalesD. Tales of the Grotesque of Arabesque31. ______ was a romanticized account of Herman Melville ’s stay among the Polynesians. The success of the book soon made Melville well known as the “man who lived among cannibals ”.A. Moby DickB. TypeeC. OmooD. Billy Budd32. Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence ”?A. The American ScholarB. English TraitsC. The Conduct of LifeD. Representative Men33. The three dominant figures of the realistic period in American literature are _________.A. Theodore Dreiser, Emily Dickinson and William Dean HowellsB. Mark Twain, Henry James and William Dean HowellsC. Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser and William Dean HowellsD. Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson and William Dean Howells34. American literature produced only one female poet during the nineteenth century. This was _________.A. Anne BradstreetB. Jane AustenC. Emily DickinsonD. Harriet Beecher35. In 1900, London published his first collection of short stories, named _________.A. The Son of the WolfB. The Sea WolfC. The Law of LifeD. White Fang36. In Henry James ’ Daisy Miler , the author tries to portray the young woman as an embodiment of _________.A. the force of conventionB. the free spirit of the New WorldC. the decline of aristocracyD. the corruption of the newly rich37. “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” This is the shortest poem written by _________.A. T.S. EliotB. Robert FrostC. Ezra PoundD.E.E.Cumings38. The Fitzgerald lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than F. Scot Fitzgerald earned for parties, liquor, entertaining their friends and traveling. It was this living style that nicknamed the decade of the 1920s as _________.A. The Roaring TwentiesB. The Jazz AgeC. The Dollar DecadeD. all of the above39. In 1954, _________ was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his “mastery of the art of modern narration ”.A. T.S EliotB. Ernest HemingwayC. John SteinbeckD. William Faukner40. William Faukner ’s novel _________ describes the decay and downfall of an old southern aristocratic family, symbolizing the old social order, told from four different points of view.A. The Sound and the FuryB. Startoris实用标准文案 C. The Unvanquished D. The Town41. “The Lure of the Spirit: The Flesh in Pursuit ” is the title of one chapter in Dreiser ’s novel _________.A. An American DreamB. Sister CarrieC. Dreiser Looks at RussiaD. Jannie Gerhardt42. The main theme of _________ The Art of Fiction reveals his literary credo that representation of life should be the main object of the novel.A. Henry James ’B. William Dean Howells ’C. Mark Twain ’sD. O. Henry ’s43. With William Dean Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, _________became the major trend in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century.A. sentimentalismB. romanticismC. realismD. naturalism44. While embracing the socialism of Marx, London also believed in the triumph of the strongest individuals. This contradiction is most vividly projected in the patently autobiographical novel _________.A. The Call of the WildB. The Sea WolfC. Martin EdenD. The Iron Heel45_________ is a novella about a young American girl who gets “killed ” by the winter in Rome, and it brought Henry James international fame for the first time.A. The AmericanB. The EuropeansC. Daisy MillerD. The Portait of a LadyAnswers: 1-5 DBCDA 6-10 DBDCA 11-15 BAAAD 16-20 CBADA21-25 BCCCB 26-30 CBBBD 31-35 BABCA 36-40 BCDBA 41-45 BACCCⅡ Filling the following blanks with proper answers1. Captain John Smith became the first American writer.2. The puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people.3. The first major intellectual spokesman of the Massachusetts Bay colony was John Cotton, sometimes called “the Patriarch of New England.”4. Anne Bradstreet published The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America , and she was nicknamed the tenth Muse.5. Poor Richard ’s Almanac is an annual collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin.6. Thomas Paine ’s famous pamphlet Common Sense boldly advocated a “Declaration for Independence ”.7. Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.8. Philip Freneau developed a natural, simple, and concrete diction, best illustrated in such nature lyrics as “The Wild Honey Suckle ” and “The Indian Burying Ground ”.9. Philip Freneau has been called the “Father of American Poetry ”.10. In Washington Irving ’s Sketch Book appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.11. Cooper ’s enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novels that comprise the Leatherstocking tales .12. “To a Waterfowl ” is perhaps the peak of William Cullen Bryant ’s wok.13. “Thanatopsis ”, William Cullen Bryant ’s best-known poem, consists of four stanzas in iambic tetrameter abab. The title means “view of death ”.14. Edgar Allan Poe is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories ”.实用标准文案 15. Emerson believed above all in individualism, independence of mind, and self-reliance.16. In Walden , Thoreau thought it better for a man to work one day a week and rest six, and the rest of the time could be devoted to thought.17. Hawthorne ’s stories touch the deepest roots of man ’s moral nature.18. Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.19. After his death, Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet ’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.20. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom ’s Cabin , had become an American institution and the most famous literary woman in the world.21. William Dean Howells found his subject matter in the experiences of the American middle class.22. William Dean Howells called for the treatment of the “smiling aspects of life ” as being the more “American.”23. The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment.24. The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called free verse.25. O ·Henry ’s stories are usually short and interesting; Famous for their surprising end.26. Henry James is famous for his international theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity of European life.27. Jack London believed in the inevitable triumph of the strongest individuals.28. Dreiser ’s greatest and most successful novel, An American Tragedy, is about a young man who acts as if the only way he can be truly fulfilled is by acquiring wealth —through marriage if necessary.29. Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “Lost Generation,” devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization.30. Wallace Stevens ’ work is primarily motivated by the belief that “ideas of order ”.31. With the publication of The Sun Also Rises , Hemingway became the spokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called “a lost generation.”Ⅲ Decide whether the statements are true or false (T/F).1. John Winthrop ’s reports of exploration, published in the early 1600s, have been regarded as the first distinct American literature written in English.2. In 1612, William Bradford published in England a book called A Map of Virginia ; With a description of the country.3. Philip Freneau was neoclassical by training and taste yet romantic in essential spirit.4. Ralph Waldo Emerson was recognized as the leader of transcendentalist movement, but he always applied the term “Transcendentalist ” to himself or to his beliefs and ideas.5. To Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, the telling of a tale was a way of inquiring into the meaning of life.6. Walt Whitman was attacked in his lifetime for his offensive subject matter of sexuality and for his conventional style.7. Tom Sawyer walked out of Twain ’s pages directly from his fresh memory of his boyhood in the west.8. Hurstwood is a character in Theodore Dreiser ’s Sister Carrie .9. In the decade of the 1910s, American literature achieved a new diversity and reached its greatest heights.10. Edwin Arlington Robinson began his career as a novalist in bleakness and poverty.实用标准文案 11.The greatest of America ’s realists, such as Henry James and Mark Twain, moved well beyond a superficial portrayal of nineteenth-century America.12.Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Mark Twain or William Dean Howells.13.Sister Carrie is generally regarded as Theodore Dreiser ’s masterpiece.14.Generally speaking, Jack London was much more interested in ideas than Stephen Crane and less sentimental than Frank Norris.15.Ralph Waldo Emerson ’s prose style was sometimes as highly individual as his poetry.16. American literature is the oldest of all national literature.17. Georgia, Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New England, all were named after French monarchs and lands.18. Benjamin Franklin was a prose stylist whose writing reflected the neoclassic ideals of clarity, restraint, simplicity and balance.19. The Fall of the House of Usher is one of Edgar Allan Poe ’s poems.20. The Scarlet Letter is set in the seventeenth century. It is an elaboration of a fact which the author took out of the life of the Puritan past.21. Walt Whitman was so great that he won respect and love during his lifetime for his Leaves of Grass .22. Many of O. Henry ’s stories contain a lot of slang and colloquial expressions, just like his own speech.23. Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Mark Twain or William Dean Howells.24. Robert Frost rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporaries, and chose “the old-fashioned way to be new ” instead.25. John Steinbeck ’s theme was usually that simple human virtues such as kindness and fair treatment were far superior to official hard-heartedness, or the dehumanizing cruelty of exploiters for their own commercial advantage.26. Transcendentalists spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.27. Washington Irving was the first great belletrist, writing always for pleasure, and to produce pleasure.28. James Fennimore Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure tale and the frontier saga.29. Puritan influence over American Romanticism was conspicuously noticeable.30. “Young Goodman Brown ” seems to prove everyone possesses some evil secrets1-5 FFTFT 6-10FTTFF 11-15 TFFTT 16-20 FFTFT 21-25FFFTT 26-30 TTTTTⅣ Answer the following questions briefly.1. These are the times that try men ’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly —This dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods.Questions:(1)Which book is this passage taken from?实用标准文案 (2)Who is the author of this book?(3)Whom is the author praising? Whom is the author criticizing?(4)What do you think of the language?Answers:(1) The American Crisis.(2) Thomas Paine(3) Paine is praising those who stand “it ”, it referring to “the service of their country ”. In the meantime, Paine is criticizing those who shrink from the service of their country in this crisis.(4) The language is plain, impressive and forceful. Paine himself once said that his purpose as a writer was to use plain language to make those who can scarcely read understand and to fit the powers of thinking and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question and nothing else.2. It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho, was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now widly heightened by circumstance of the Town-Ho ’s story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates …Nevertheless, so potent and influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod ’s main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record.Questions:(1)From which novel is this paragraph taken?(2) What is the name of the novelist?(3) Who is Ahab?(4) What is Pequod?(5) What is the theme of the novel?Answers:(1) Moby Dick(2) Herman Melville(3) The captain of the whaling ship(4) The name of the whaling ship(5) The rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces.3. When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human temper. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished实用标准文案 by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms. Without a counselor at hand to whisper cautious interpretations, what falsehoods may not these things breathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognized for what they are, their beauty, like music, too often relaxes, then weakens then perverts the simpler human perceptions.Questions:(1) From which novel is this paragraph taken?(2) Who is the author of this novel?(3) How do you understand “the cosmopolitan standard of virtue ”?(4) Is there any naturalist tendency in this passage?Answers:(1)Sister Carrie(2) Theodore Dreiser(3) “The cosmopolitan standard of virtue ” is something that makes a person become low in virtue and become worse.(4) Yes.4. Briefly discuss the novel The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is one of the greatest novels in American literature. It fully explores the disillusionment and despair of the lost generation through the personal tragedy of a young man whose “incorruptible Dream ” is easily smashed into pieces by the crude reality. The protagonist, Gatsby, is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies American itself. His failure magnifies the end of the American Dream. The style of the story is explicit and chilly. Fitzgerald ’s accurate dialogues, his careful observation of mannerism and the colorful images provide the reader with a vivid and profound scene of the reality.5. What are the three main principles that Ezra Pound endorsed?(1) Directly treat poetic subjects.(2) Eliminate merely ornamental or superfluous words.(3) Rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of metronome.6. Tell the differences between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman(1) Emily Dickinson expresses the inner life of individuals, while Walt Whitman keeps his eyes on the society at large.(2) Emily Dickinson is “regional ”, while Walt Whitman is “national ” in his outlook.(3) Formally, Emily Dickinson uses concise, simple dictions and syntax, while Walt Whitman uses endless, all-inclusive catalogs.Ⅴ Essay Writing (这个部分给大家的答案只是罗列了回答的要点，要将其连缀成文，如果简单按复习题给的答案罗列，只得一半分数)1. Write a short essay about the novel The Grapes of WrathWriter: John Steinbeck----won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962; spoke for the oppressed and suffered实用标准文案 Background information: (1) Oklahoma used to be a major agricultural state. In the 1930s, a draught ruined this place. People had to leave here to seek a way out. Many of them went to California in hope of finding jobs there to support their family. (2)The Great Depression.Meaning of title: (1) Hope to despair; (2) Wrath of people; (3) Indications of revolution. Theme: (1) Embodying the mass misery of farmers; (2) Praising the spirit of love and unity; (3) Advocating fight and struggle for better life.Structure: (1) Its structure is dictated by the bible; (2) There are two blocks of material: a. the westward trek of the Joads; b. the depressed Oklahomans, and the general picture of the Great Depression.Symbols: (1) dust---evil forces; (2) grapes---hope →rage2. Write a short essay about the novel A Farewell to ArmsWriter: Hemingway---- (1) in 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize; (2) Main works: The Sun also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The old Man and the Sea. (3) His major contribution: a. Code hero---grace under pressure; b. Iceberg Theory--- economy of expression;(4) the lost generationBackground information: World War ⅡTheme: shows the filth, meaningless, calamity of war; the death, the nothingness of life; the disillusionment with future, hope and love, happiness. The universe is indifferent. There is no God to watch over man.Characters: Henry--- initially detached from life----though well-disciplined and friendly, he feels as if he has nothing to do with the war. After falling in love with Catherine he became a code hero in some way. Catherine---code hero: unfaltering devotion to Henry, brave, considerate, optimisticSymbols: rain---sadness, desperation, depression. It is raining outside almost every time something bad occurs. mud---nature's hostility to man.3. Write a short essay about the novel The Adventures of Tom SawyerAuthor: Mark Twain —the first truly American writer, a local colorist; he used short, concrete and colloquial language; his sentences are simple, and even ungrammatical; good at writing children ’s adventures; masterpieces including: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom SawyerAbout the novel: The first famous novel about growing up and showing the contradictions between adults ’ world and teenagers ’ world, a story of his seeking for freedom, fame, fortune, love, manhood; reveals the American values such as hero complex and American dream; records the rising Age of American Bourgeois system; bears the irony and satire toward the religion and rigid, didactic children education, which curbed the imagination of children and their innate nature for freedom and adventures and molded them into a stereotype of lifeless man.4. Comment briefly on Theodore Dreiser ’s theme and writing style?Theme: Dreiser ’s works are mainly concerned with the tragic nature of the human condition by depicting the coarse, vulgar, cruel, and terrible aspects of life like sex and crime.Style: In terms of style, Dreiser has sometimes been censured for his clumsy syntax, deficient characterization, and inept and dull prose. Yet his accumulated detail, carefully selected and faithfully recorded, is a technique of power. Like the other naturalists, he refused to judge —to consider people as good or evil. He clothes his concepts symbolically in the details of reality. It is his journalistic method that has made him one of America ’s foremost novelists.实用标准文案。
期末复习题 美国文学简史
Directions: In this part of the test, there are 9 items and 10 blanks. Fill in the best answer on the Answer Sheet according to the knowledge you have learned.1.The first American literature was neither ____ nor really____.2.Of the immigrants who came to America in the first threequarters of the seventeenth century, the overwhelmingmajority was _____.3.The English immigrants who settled on America’s northernseacoast were called _____, so named after those who wishedto “purify” the Church of England.4.Washington Irving, the Father of American literature,developed the _____ as a genre in American literature.5.Franklin’s best writing is found in his masterpiece _____.6.The most outstanding poet in America of the 18th century was_____.7.In the early 19th century, “Rip Van Winkle”had established_____’s reputation at home and abroad, and designated thebeginning of American Romanticism.8._____ has sometimes been considered the father of themodern short story.9.In 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne brought out his masterpiece_____, the story of a triangular love affair in colonialAmerica.Directions: In this part of the test, there are twenty items. Choose the best answer and write the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.1. The Colonial Period of American literature stretched roughly fromthe settlement of America in the early 17th century throughthe end of ________ century.A. the 18thB. the 19thC. the 20thD. 21th2. New-England’s Plantation was published in 1630 by ________A. Francis HigginsonB. William BradfordC. John SmithD. Michael Wigglesworth3. Of all the books written by Michael Wigglesworth the beat knownis ________A. The Flesh and the SpiritB. The True TravelsC. The Day of DoomD. Christopher Columbus4. Benjamin Franklin was the epitome of the ______.A. American EnlightenmentB. Sugar ActC. Chartist movementD. Romanticist5. In the first section of Autobiography the writer addressed to________A. his sonB. his friendsC. his wifeD. himself6. During 1807-1808, Washington Irving wrote for his brother’snewspaper called ________A. New York TimesB. Washington PostC. SalmagundiD. Daily News7. History of New York was published in 1807 under the name of________A. Washington IrvingB. Diedrich KnickerbokerC. James Fenimore CooperD. John Whittier8. Rip Van Winkle was written by ________A. James Fenimore CooperB. Benjamin FranklinC. Washington IrvingD. Walt Whitman9. The Spy was written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1821. It is anovel about ________A. American Civil WarB. American RevolutionC. American West ExpansionD. The First World War10. Natty Bumppo is the hero in Cooper’s ________A. The PrecautionB. The SpyC. The Gleanings in EuropeD. Leatherstocking Tales11. ________ was regarded as a poet of the American RevolutionA. Philip FreneauB. Walt WhitmanC. Robert FrostD. Cal Sandburg12. The Raven was written in 1844 by ________A. Philip FreneauB. Edgar Allan PoeC. Henry Wadsworth LongfellowD. Emily Dickinson13. The Minister’s Black Veil was written by ________A. Edgar Allan PoeB. Nathaniel HawthorneC. Henry David ThoreauD. Ralph Waldo Emerson14. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the ______ who appeared in America.A. Ninth MuseB. Tenth MuseC. Best MuseD. First Muse15. The ship ______ carried about one hundred Pilgrims and took 66 days to beat its way across the Atlantic. In December of 1620, it put the Pilgrims ashore at Plymouth, Massachusetts.A. SunflowerB. ArmadaC. MayflowerD. Titanic16. A new _____ had appeared in England in the last years of the 18th century. It spread to continental Europe and then came to America early in the 19th century.A. RealismB. Critical realismC. RomanticismD. Naturalism17. Washington Irving got his idea for his most famous story, Rip VanWinkle, from a ________A. Greek legendB. German legendC. French legendD. English legend18. Rip Van Winkle is found in Irving’s longer work, ________A. The Sketch BookB. History of New YorkC. Tales of a TravelerD. The Precaution19. ________ was often regarded as America’s first man of letters,devoting much of his career to literature.A. Benjamin FranklinB. Philip FreneauC. Washington IrvingD. James Fenimore Cooper20. All the following novels are in Cooper’s Leatherstocking Talesexcept ________A. The PioneersB. The PrairieC. The DeerslayerD. The SpyIII.Identification (20 points, 1 point for each)Directions: In this part of the test, there are twenty titles. Judge the authors of these works and fill them on the Answer Sheet.1.Gleanings in Europe2.Oliver Goldsmith3.The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America4.“The Day of Doom”5. A History of New York6.The Last of the Mohicans7.The House of the Night8. A Forest Hymn9.“The Raven”10.“The Cask of Amontillado”11.Mosses from an Old Manse12.“Israfel”13.“The Flesh and the Spirit”14.Life of George Washington15.The Pathfinder16.“the Wild Honey Suckle”17.The Flood of Years18.“The Poetic Principle”19.The Blithedale Romance20.“The Indian Burying Ground”IV. Terms (20 points, 4 points for each)Directions: In this part of the test, there are five terms. Please give the definition for these terms. Scores will be given for the related contents. Four individual contents will be enough for four points.1. Knickerbocker2. Poor Richard’s Almanac3. Leatherstocking Tales4. Puritanism5. Benjamin FranklinV.Appreciation (10 points, 5 points for each)Directions: In this part of the test, there are two excerpts. Each of the excerpts is followed by three questions. Read the excerpts and answer the questions on the Answer Sheet.Part AFrom morning suns and evening dewsAt first thy little being came:If nothing once, you nothing lose,For when you die you are the same;The space between, is but an hour,The frail duration of a flower.1. Who is the poet of the poem and what is the title of the poem? (2 points)2. Tell the metrical structure and rhyme scheme of the poem. (1 point)3. What does the “little being”refer to? What meaning is suggested by the phrase “but an hour”? (2 points)Part BThe opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sundial. It is true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds; and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation.From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of the assemblage and call the members all to naught; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in habits of idleness.1. Who was the writer of this story? What is the title of this story? (2 points)2. Who was Nicholas Vedder? (1 point)3. How did he express his opinions on public matters? (2 points)ment. (20 points, 10 points for each)Directions: In this part of the test, you are given five topics. Choose TWO of them and give a comment on the Answer Sheet. Scores will be given according to the content, grammar and the completeness of the related knowledge.1.What are the features of literature in Colonial America?ment on Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography.ment on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing techniques.4.What philosophical meaning is implied in Philip Freneau’s “TheWild Honey Suckle”?5.What are the artistic achievements of Edgar Allan Poe?答案I.Blanks: (10%)(每题1分，共10分，答错不给分)1. American literature2. English3. Puritans4. short story5. Autobiography6. Philip Freneau7. Washington Irving8. Edgar Allan Poe9. The Scarlet LetterII.Multiple Choice: ( 20%)(每题1分，共20分，答错不给分)1. A2. B3. C4. A5. A6. C7. B8. C9. B 10. D11. A 12. B 13. B 14. B 15. C16.C 17. B 18. A 19. C 20. DIII.Identification (20%)（每题1分，共20分，答错不给分）1.James Fenimore Cooper2.Washington Irving3.Anne Bradstreet4.Michael Wigglesworth5.Washington Irving6.James Fenimore Cooper7.Philip Freneau8.William Cullen Bryant9.Edgar Allan Poe10.Edgar Allan Poe11.Nathaniel Hawthorne12.Edgar Allan Poe13.Anne Bradstreet14.Washington Irving15.James Fenimore Cooper16.Philip Freneau17.William Cullen Bryant18.Edgar Allan Poe19.Nathaniel Hawthorne20.Philip FreneauIV.Terms (20%)（每题4分，共20分。
美国文学史及选读期末复习题
1.Captain John Smith became the first American writer。
2.The puritans looked upon themselves asa chosen people.is an annual collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin.4.Thomas Paine’s famousboldly advo cated a “Declaration for Independence”。
5.Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence with John Adams，Benjamin Franklin，Roger Sherman，and Robert Livingston.has been called the “Father of American Poetry”.7.In Washington Ir ving’sappeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.8.Cooper’s enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novelsWilliam Cullen Bryant’s wok.is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories"。
10.Emerson believed above all inand self—reliance.11.deepest12.Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. 13.After his death，Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey。
美国文学史期末复习资料
I.Multiple choice. Please choose the best answer among the four items. (10 x 1’=10’)1.In American literature, the 18th century was the age of Enlightenment. ______ was the2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.1-5，BBACD 6-10 BADCDII.Multiple choice. Please choose the best answer among the four items. (10 x 1’= 10’)11.12.13.14.15.no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.A. WaldenB. NatureC. Civil DisobedienceD. Common Sense16.17.18.19.Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less20.1-5 D A B C C 6-10 A C C D CII. Identify Works as Described Below (1’×15 =15’):1.The novel has a sole black protagonist who tells his own story but whose name inunknown to us.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on theMountains2.The main conflict of the play is the protagonist’s false value of fine appearance andpopularity with people and the cruel reality of the society in which money is everything.a.A Street Car Named Desireb. The Hairy Apec.Long Day’s Journey into Nightd. Death of Salesman3.It is an autobiographical play and Edmund in the play is based on the playwright himself.a. Long Day’s Journey into Nightb. Henderson the Rain Kingc. The Hairy Aped. The Glass Menageries4.The novel tells of how a black man kills a white woman by accident and how the society isresponsible for the murder.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on theMountains5._________ is one of the best works in American literature about the Second World War.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Catcher in the Ryec.The Red Badge of Couraged. The Naked and the Dead6. The novel by Hemingway is the best of its kind about World War I.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Sun Also Risesc.The Old Man and the Sead. The Naked and the Dead7.The novel is about how a family of farmers cannot survive in Oklahoma and travel toCalifornia to seek a living and how they suffer hunger in California.a.The Grapes of Wrathb. U.S. A.c.Babbittd. The Adventures of Augie March8.It is a trilogy including The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money, with suchtechniques as biographies, newsreels and camera eye.a.Babbittb. Light in Augustc. U.S.A.d. The Grapes of Wrath9.It is a novel which uses the stream of consciousness technique and whose title is takenfrom Shakespeare’s Macbeth.a. Absolom, Absolom!b. The Sound and the Furyc.A Farewell to Armsd. The Great Gatsby10. It is a naturalistic work about how a country girl is seduced and how she becomes afamous actress and how her lover falls into a beggar and finally commits suicide.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec. McTeagued.Maggie, A Girl of the Streets11. The novel is set on the Mississippi with the protagonist telling us the story in the localdialect. It is a representative work of local colorism.a.Sister Carrieb.The Adventures of Tom Sawyerc. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnd.The Portrait of a Lady12.The novel is a psychological study of a soldier (Henry Fleming)’s reactions in the CivilWar.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec.The Red Badge of Couraged. McTeague13. The poem is written in free verse in 52 cantos with the theme of the universality andequality in value of all people and all things.a.Cantosb. The Ravenc. Song of Myselfd.Chicago14. The novel is about how a group of people on a whaling ship kill a great whale butthemselves are killed by the whale, with the conflict between man and his fate.a.The Octopusb. Moby-Dickc. The Rise of Silas Laphamd. Leaves of Grass15. It is a philosophical essay in 8 chapters plus an introduction mainly concerned with thefour uses of nature.a. Waldenb. Naturec. The Scarlet Letterd. The American Scholar1-5.cdaad 6-10.aacbb cbbI.Choose the Best Answer for Each of the Following (1’×15=15’):1.An English ship brought 102 people from Plymouth, England on September 16, 1620 andarrived in the present Provincetown harbor on November 21 in the same year. This ship was named ____________.a. The Pilgrimsb. Mayflowerc. Americad. Titanic2._________ is father of American drama and in his dramatic career he wrote 49 plays.a. Tennessee Williamsb. Eugene O’Neillc. Arthur Millerd. Elmer Rice3._________ was the first American writer to write entirely American literature.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Washington Irvingc. Mark Twaind. Ernest Hemingway4. _______ was the leader of American transcendentalism.a. Benjamin Franklinb. Washington Irvingc. Ralph Waldo Emersond. Henry David Thoreau5._______was the greatest woman poet in American literature and she wrote about 1,700 shortlyric poems in her life time.a. Pearl S. Buckb.Harriet Bicher Stowec. Emily Dickensond. Walter Whitman6._________ is father of the detective story and of psychoanalytic criticism.a. Washington Irvingb. Ralph Waldo Emersonc. Walt Whitmand. Edgar Allan Poe7.William Dean Howells is concerned with the middle class life; ______ writes about the upper class society, and Mark Twain deals with the lower class reality.a. Stephen Craneb. Frank Norrisc. Theodore Dreiserd. Henry James8. Which of the following is a naturalistic writer?a. William Dean Howellsb. Mark Twainc. Ernest Hemingwayd.Theodore Dreiser9. His writings are characterized by simple, colloquial language and deep thoughts. He is______.a. Ernest Hemingwayb. William Faulknerc. F. Scott Fitzgeraldd. Mark Twain10. He wrote 18 novels all set in Jefferson Town, Yoknapatwapha County in the deep south.He is ______.a. William Faulknerb. John Steinbeckc. Ernest Hemingwayd. Mark Twain11. ________is Jewish in origin and in many of his novels the American Jews are majorcharacters.a. Sinclair Lewisb. Saul Bellowc. Norman Mailerd. Jerome David Salinger12._________ is often regarded as the greatest American woman poet and she wrote over 1,700 short lyric poems in her life time.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Robert Frostc. H.D.d. Emily Dickinson13.________ is father of American drama and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936.a. John Steinbeckb. William Faulknerc. Eugene O’Neilld. Arthur Miller14. He was the first black American to write a book about black life with great impact on theconsciousness of the nation and his masterpiece is one of the three classics about black Americans. Who is he?a.Richard Wrightb. Harriet Beecher Stowec. Langston Hughesd. Ralph Ellison15. Hemingway wrote about American compatriots in Europe whereas ________ wrote aboutthe Jazz age, life in American society.a.William Carlos Williamsb. William Faulknerc. John Steinbeckd. F. Scott Fitzgerald1-5 bbccc 6-10.dddaa 11-15.bdcadI.Choose the Best Answer for Each of the Following (1×15 %):2.The American Civil War broke out in 1861 between the Northern states and the Southstates, which are known respectively as the ______and the______.a. N, Sb. Revolutionaries, Reactionariesc. Union, Confederacyd. Slavery, Anti-Slavery2._____________was praised by the British as the “Tenth Muse in America”.a.Anne Bradstreetb. Edward Taylorc. Thomas Pained. Philip Freneau3.Mark Twain was a representative of ________ in American literature.a. transcendentalismb. naturalismc. local colorismd. imagism4. _______ was the leader of American transcendentalism.a. Benjamin Franklinb. Washington Irvingc. Ralph Waldo Emersond. Henry David Thoreau5.The greatest American poet and the first writer of free verse is ____________.a. Washington Irvingb.Ezra Poundc. Walt Whitmand. Emily Dickinson6._________ is father of the detective story and of psychoanalytic criticism.a. Washington Irvingb. Ralph Waldo Emersonc. Walt Whitmand. Edgar Allan Poe7.Henry James is concerned with the upper class life; ______ writes about the middle class society, and Mark Twain deals with the lower class reality.a. Stephen Craneb. Frank Norrisc. Theodore Dreiserd. William Dean Howells8. Which of the following is a naturalistic writer?a. William Dean Howellsb. Mark Twainc. Ernest Hemingwayd.Theodore Dreiser9. ________’s writings are characterized by simple, colloquial language and deep thoughts.a. Ernest Hemingwayb. William Faulknerc. F. Scott Fitzgeraldd. Mark Twain10. ______ wrote 18 novels all set in Jefferson Town, Yoknapatwapha County in the deepsouth. .a. William Faulknerb. John Steinbeckc. Ernest Hemingwayd. Mark Twain11. ________is Jewish in origin and in many of his novels the American Jews are majorcharacters.a. Sinclair Lewisb. Saul Bellowc. Norman Mailerd. Jerome David Salinger12._________ is often regarded as the greatest American woman poet and she wrote over 1,700 short lyric poems in her life time.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Robert Frostc. H.D.d. Emily Dickinson13.________ is father of American drama and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936.a. John Steinbeckb. William Faulknerc. Eugene O’Neilld. Arthur Miller14. _______ was the first black American to write a book about black life with great impact onthe consciousness of the nation and his masterpiece is one of the three classics about black Americans.b.Richard Wright b. Harriet Beecher Stowec. Langston Hughesd. Ralph Ellison15. ________ first used the “Jazz age” as the title of a collection of short storiesa. F. Scott Fitzgeraldb. William Faulknerc. John Steinbeckd. Ernest Hemingway1-5.caccc 6-10.dddaa 11-15.bdcbaII. Identify Works as Described Below (1×15 %):6.The play is about a stoker whose identity as a human being is not recognized by his fellowhuman beings and who tries to find affinity with a monkey in the zoo and is finally killed by the animal.a. The Hairy Apeb. Henderson the Rain Kingc. Long Day’s Journey into Nightd. The Glass Menageries7.The protagonist in this play is a crippled girl named Amanda.a.A Street Car Named Desireb. The Hairy Apec.Long Day’s Journey into Nightd.The Glass Menageries8.The hero of this novel tells about his own story to us but his name is unknown.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on the Mountains4. It is an autobiographical play and Edmund in the play is based on the playwright himself.a. Long Day’s Journey into Nightb. Henderson the Rain Kingc. The Hairy Aped. The Glass Menageries5.The novel tells of how a black man kills a white woman by accident and how he is finallyarrested and tried and sentenced to death.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on theMountains6._________ is one of the best works in American literature about the Second World War.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Catcher in the Ryec.The Red Badge of Couraged. The Naked and the Dead6. The novel by Hemingway is the best of its kind about World War I.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Sun Also Risesc.The Old Man and the Sead. The Naked and the Dead10.The novel is about how a family of farmers cannot survive in Oklahoma and travel toCalifornia to seek a living and how they suffer hunger in California.b.T he Grapes of Wrath b. U.S. A.c.Babbittd. The Adventures of Augie March11.It is a trilogy including The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money, with suchtechniques as biographies, newsreels and camera eye.b.B abbitt b. Light in Augustc. U.S.A.d. The Grapes of Wrath12.It is a novel which uses the stream of consciousness technique and whose title is takenfrom Shakespeare’s Macbeth.a. Absolom, Absolom!b. The Sound and the Furyc.A Farewell to Armsd. The Great Gatsby10. It is a naturalistic work about how a country girl is seduced and elopes with Hurstwoodand how she becomes a famous actress and how her lover falls into beggary and finally commits suicide.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec. McTeagued.Maggie, A Girl of the Streets11. It is a novel with 135 chapters plus an epilog; in it a group of people on a whaling ship killa great whale but they themselves are killed by the whale in the end, except Ishmael thenarrator who survives by adhering to a coffin.b.Sister Carrie b.The Adventures of Tom Sawyerc. Moby Dickd. The Portrait of a Lady12.The novel is a psychological study of a soldier (Henry Fleming)’s reactions in the Civil War,in which wound is called the red badge which symbolizes courage.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec.The Red Badge of Couraged. McTeague13. The poem is written in free verse in 52 cantos with the theme of the universality andequality in value of all people and all things.a.Cantosb. The Ravenc. Song of Myselfd.Chicago14. The novel is about how a man falls economically and socially but who rises morallybecause he gives up the opportunity to sell his factory to an English Syndicate, which would otherwise mean a ruin to that syndicate.a.The Octopusb. The Rise of Silas Laphamc. Moby-Dickd. Leaves of Grass15. It is a speech delivered at Harvard University. It is often hailed as the “declaration ofintellectual independence” in America.a. The American Scholarb. Naturec. The Scarlet Letterd. Walden1-5.adcad 6-10.aacbb cbaII. Match the following (1×20%)A. Match Works with Their Authors1.Hugh Selwyn Mauberly2.Walden3. Autobiography4. The Scarlet Letter5.Leaves of Grass6.The Raven7. The Rise of Silas Lapham8. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer9. Long Day’s Journey into Night10. The Old Man and the Seaa.Mark Twain b . Ernest Hemingwayc. Eugene O’Neilld. William Dean Howellse. Edgar Allan Poef. Walt Whitmang. Nathaniel Hawthorne h. Benjamin Franklini.Henry David Thoreau j. Ezra Poundk.Thomas Jefferson l. T.S. EliotB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear.1.Hester Prynne2.Mrs. Touchett3.Frederick Henry4.Benjy Compson5.the Joads6.General Edward Cummings7.Holden Caulfield 7.Bigger Thomas8.Yank 9.Happya.The Portrait of a Ladyb. The Scarlet Letterc. The Hairy Aped. A Farewell to Armse.The Sound and the Furyf. The Grapes of Wrathg. The Naked and the Deadh. The Catcher in the Ryei. Native Sonj. Death of a Salesmank.Invisible Manl.Catch-22A. Match Works with Their Authors1-5.jihgf 6-10.edccbB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear. 1-5.badef 6-10.ghicjIII. Match the following (1’×20=20’)A. Match works with their authors1.Nature2.Rip Van Winkle3. Nature4. The Scarlet Letter5.Leaves of Grass6.The Raven7. The Rise of Silas Lapham8. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn9. Cantos10. The Old Man and the Seaa.Ezra Poundb. Ernest Hemingwayc. Mark Twaind. William Dean Howellse. Edgar Allan Poef. Walt Whitmang. Nathaniel Hawthorne h. Ralph Waldo Emersoni.Washington Irving j. Waldo Emersonk.T.S. Eliot l. Robert FrostB. Match characters with the works in which they appear.2.Captain Ahab and Starbuck 2.Isabel Archer3.Frederic Henry and Catherine4.Benjy Compson5.the Joads6.General Edward Cummings7.Holden Caulfield 8.Bigger Thomas9.The Tyrones 10.Willy Lomana.The Portrait of a Ladyb. Moby-Dickc. Death of a Salesmand. A Farewell to Armse.The Sound and the Furyf. The Grapes of Wrathg. The Naked and the Dead h. The Catcher in the Ryei. Native Son j. Long Day’s Journey into Nightk.Absalom, Absalom l. The Old Man and the SeaA. Match Works with Their Authors1-5.jihgf 6-10.edcabB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear.1-5.badef 6-10.edcabV. Essay Questions (30%; c hoose only ONE of the following three topics and write a short essay of at least 200 words. Note: [1]Your essay should have at least 2 paragraphs; you are not simply to make a list of facts.[2] You may give a title to your essay, but you are required to indicate which of the 3 topics it belongs to. [3]You are not to write on a topic of your own.1.To the best of your knowledge, analyze and make comments on Emerson’s Naturement on any American poet you like.3.Analyze and/or comment on any one of the American novels or plays you have read.V. Essay Questions (30%; c hoose only ONE of the following three topics and write a short essay of at least 200 words. Note: [1]Your essay should have at least 2 paragraphs; you are not simply to make a list of facts.[2] You may give a title to your essay, but you are required to indicate which of the 3 topics it belongs to. [3]You are not to write on a topic of your own.)4.Make comments on an American novel we have discussed in this course.ment on an American poet.6.Describe how your knowledge of American literature is improved after taking thiscourse..IV. Please answer the following questions briefly. (2 x 10’ = 20’)1.Why do people think Franklin is the embodiment of American dream?2.What is “Lost Generation”?V. Discussion. (1 x 20’ = 20’)State your own interpretations of Hemingway’s iceberg theory of writing?IV. Please answer the following questions briefly. (2 x 10’ = 20’)3.Wha t is Hawthorne’s style? Explain the style with examples.4.At the end of the 19th century, there were three fighters for Realism. Who are they?What are their differences?________III. Please explain the following terms. (5 x 6’ = 30’)1. Puritanism2. Free verse3. International novel: 4．Romanticism 5. Naturalism 6. American Realism 7.American Naturalism Modernism Imagism1.Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.2.Free verse: It is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts toavoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech.3.International novel: IN brings together persons of various nationalities who representcertain characteristics of their own countries.4.Naturalism: It views human beings as animals in the natural world responding toenvironmental forces and internal stresses and drives, over none of which they havecontrol and none of which they fully understand. The literary naturalists have a majordifference from the realists. They look at a different spot to find real life.III. Please explain the following terms. (5 x 6’ = 30’)1. Puritanism2. international novel3. the lost generation4. free verse5.American transcendentalism Hemingway heroes1.Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.2.international novel: IN brings together persons of various nationalities who representcertain characteristics of their own countries.3.the lost generation: reveals the huge destruction of the wars to the young generation. Itdescribes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of “expatriates”. They werelost in disillusionment.4.free verse: It is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts toavoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech.5.transcendentalism: It stressed the power of intuition, believing that people could learnthings both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner worldby intuition. It took nature as symbolic of spirit or God. All things in nature were symbolsof the spiritual, of God’s presence. It emphasized the significance of the individual andbelieved that the individual was the most important element in society and that the idealkind of individual was self-reliant and unselfish. Transcendentalists envisioned religion asan emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “Oversoul”.。
美国文学史期末考试复习资料
一、作者-作品1.Eugene O’Neill 尤金·奥尼尔Desire under the Elms榆树下的欲望2.Washington Irving华盛顿.欧文The Sketch Book见闻札记The Legend of Sleepy Hollow睡谷的传说3.Nathaniel Hawthorne霍桑The Scarlet Letter红字4.Herman Melville麦尔维尔Moby Dick白鲸5.Edgar Allan Poe艾伦.坡The Raven乌鸦6.Walt Whitman惠特曼Leaves of Grass草叶集7. Harriet Beecher Stowe 哈丽雅特.比彻.斯托Uncle Tom’s Cabin汤姆叔叔的小屋8. Henry James 亨利.詹姆斯in the Portrait of a Lady一位女士的肖像9.Mark Twain 马克.吐温TheAdventures ofHuckleberry Finn哈克贝里.费恩历险The Gilded Age镀金时代10. O. Henry 欧.亨利The Gift of the Magi麦琪的礼物11. Stephen Crane：史蒂芬.克莱恩The Red Badge of Courage红色英勇勋章12.Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞Sister Carrie嘉莉妹妹13.Jack London 杰克.伦敦The Call of the Wild野性的呼唤14. John Steinbeck 约翰.斯坦贝克The Grapes of Wrath愤怒的葡萄15.F. Scott Fitzgerald弗斯.菲茨杰拉德The Great Gatsby了不起的盖茨比16.Ernest Hemingway 海明威The Sun Also Rises太阳照样升起17.Katherine Anne Porter 凯瑟琳.安.波特Flowing Judas and other Stories犹大之花18. Ezra Pound 埃兹拉.庞德 Imagism 意象派The Cantos 诗章19.William Carlos Williams: 威廉.威廉姆斯The Red Wheelbarrow红色手推车20. Joseph Heller约瑟夫海勒：Catch-22 第22条军规21.Thomas Stearns Eliot爱略特The Waste Land荒原22.Zora Neal Hurston 佐拉.赫斯顿Their eyes were watching God 他们眼望上苍二、名词解释1.Transcendentalism超验主义:(1)As a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalis m (also known as “ American Renaissance”) flourshed in New England fr om the 1830s to the Civil War. It is the high tide of American romanticism and its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau. Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and agai nst the materialism of American society.(2)The major features of Transcendentalism:① The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想超灵宇宙② The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To t hem, the individual is the most important element of Society. 个体+社会③ The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbol ic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled w ith God’s overwhelming presence. 自然+上帝代表人物：Emerson, Thoreau2.The Gilded Age镀金时代：an age of excess and extremes, of decline and progress, of poverty and dazzling wealth, of gloom and buoyant hope. Although Americans continued to read the works of Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Poe, the great age of American romanticism had ended. By the 1870s the New England Renaissance had waned. 无节制、走极端，倒退和进步、贫困和富有并存，既令人沮丧又让人有希望的时代。
大学课程《美国文学史》期末试卷及参考答案
大学课程《美国文学史》期末试卷1.Darwinism2.Lost generation3.Imagism4.Free VerseⅡ. Matching （本大题共10小题，每小题1分，共10分） 1. John Steinbeck 2. T.S. Eliot 3. Carl Sandburg 4. F. Scott Fitzgerald 5. Harriet Beecher Stowe 6. O ’ Henry 7. Thomas Paine 8. Ernest Hemingway 9. Ralph Waldo Emerson 10. Nathaniel Hawthorne a. A Farewell to Arms b. Common Sense c. Uncle Tom’s Cabind. The Cop and the Antheme. The Grapes of Wrathf. Fogg. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock h. Naturei. The Great Gatsby j. The Scarlet Letter.Ⅲ. Multiple choice.（本大题共 35 小题，每小题 1 分，共 35 分）1.In the early nineteenth century American moral values were essentially Puritan. Nothi ng has left a deeper imprint on the character of the people as a whole than did_______. A.Puritanism B Romanticism C Rationalism D Sentimentalism2. Franklin wrote and published his famous__________, an annul collection of proverbs.A. The AutobiographyB. Poor Richard‘s AlmanackC. Common SenseD. The Genera l Magazine3. In American literature, the eighteenth century was the age of the Enlightenment. _______was the dominant spirit.A. Humanism B Rationalism C Revolution D Evolution 4.________ usually was regarded as the first American writer.A.William BradfordB. Anne BradstreetC.Emily DickinsonD. Captain John Smith 5..Which is not Irving‘s works in the following.A. The Sketch BookB. Tales of a Traveller C .A History of New York D To A Waterfowl 6. Choose Freneau‘s poem from the following.A. The RavenB. To a WaterfowlC. To HellenD. The wild Honey Suckle7. In 1817, the stately poem called Thanatopsis introduced the best poet___to appear in America up to that time.A. Edward TaylorB. Philip FreneauC. William Cullen BryantD. Edgar Allan Poe pared with his contemporaries, _________was no doubt the best in exploring the wildness and frontier in fiction.A. Washington IrvingB. James Fenimore CooperC. William Cullen Bryant D Philip Freaneau9. Washington Irving‘s ‘Rip Van Winkle‘ is famous for_________. A.Rip‘s escape into a mysterious valleyB.The story‘s German legendary source materialC. Rip‘s seeking for happinessD. Rip‘s 20-years sleep 10. Choose Poe‘s work from the followingA. The Day of DoomB.The Last of the MohicansC. The Indian Burying Ground D The Fall of the House of Usher 11.Choose Irving‘s work from the following .A. The Sketch BookB. ThanatopsisC. The SpyD.The British Prison Ship 12._______ is the most commonly used in English poetry, in which an unstressed syllabl e comes first followed by a stressed.A. the trochaic footB. an anapestic footC. a quatrainD. a iambic foot 13. The Indian Burying Ground by___________ is the earliest poem which romanticizes the Indian as a child of nature.A. Washington IrvingB. Adgar Alan PoeC.Philip FreneauD.Nathaniel Hawthorne 14._______ is a poetic device used to increase the musical quality and link the lines and stanzas of a poem.A. meterB. repetitionC. rhymeD.foot15.Poetry is aimed at conveying and enriching human experience which is formed throu gh sense impressions. _____ is the representation of sense experience through language. A . meter B. image C. theme D. assonance16. In American literature, the 18th century was the age of Enlightenment. ______ was the dominant.院系： 专业班级： 姓名： 学号：装 订 线A. humanismB. rationalismC. romanticismD. evolution17. The short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is taken from Irving’s work named ______.A. The Leatherstocking TalesB. The Sketch BookC. The AutobiographyD. The History of New York18. Which of the following is not the characteristic of American Romanticism?A. RationalismB. inner selfC. personal feelingsD. individualism19.The short story “Rip Van Winkle” reveals the ____ attitude of its author.A. optimisticB. pessimisticC. conservativeD. ironic20. Transcendentalist doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in___and ThoreauA. JeffersonB. EmersonC. FreneauD. Mark Twain21. Which is r egarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?A. The American ScholarB. English TraitsC. OversoulD. Self-reliance22. ______ is the father of American Literature.A. Benjamin FranklinB. Philip FreneauC. PaineD. Washington Irving23. _____ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.A. ThoreauB. EmersonC. HawthorneD. Whitman24. Most of the poems in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-mass” and the ____ as well.A. natureB. self-relianceC. selfD. life25. For Melville, as well as for the reader and ____, the narrator, Moby Dick is still a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe.A. AhabB. StubbC. IshmaelD. Starbuck26. The poem is written in free verse in 52 cantos with the theme of the universality and equality in value of all people and all things.a.Cantosb. The Ravenc. Song of Myselfd. Chicago27. The novel is about how a group of people on a whaling ship kill a great whale but themselves are killed by the whale, with the conflict between man and his fate.a.The Octopusb. Moby-Dickc. The Rise of Silas Laphamd. Leaves of Grass28. An English ship brought 102 people from Plymouth, England on September 16, 1620 and arrived in the present Provincetown harbor on November 21 in the same year. This ship was named ____________.a. The Pilgrimsb. Mayflowerc. Americad. Titanic29._______was the greatest woman poet in American literature and she wrote about 1,700 short lyric poems in her life time.a. Pearl S. Buckb. Harriet Bicher Stowec. Emily Dickensond. Walter Whitman30. ._________ is father of the detective story and of psychoanalytic criticism.a. Washington Irvingb. Ralph Waldo Emersonc. Walt Whitmand. Edgar Allan Poe31. In American literature, the eighteen century was the age of the Enlightenment. ——was the dominant spirit.A. HumanismB. RationalismC. RevolutionD. Evolution 32.——Which statement about Franklin is not true?A. He instructed his countrymen as a printer.B. He was a scientist.C. He was a master of diplomacy.D. He was a Puritan.33.Who is regarded as the first American prose epic.A. NatureB. The Scarlet LetterC. WaldenD. Moby-Dick34.The Romanic Period of American literature started with the publication of Washington Irving's ——and ended with Whiteman's Leaves of Grass.A. The Sketch BookB. Tales of a TravelerC. The AlhambraD.A history of New York35.The period before the American Civil War is generally referred to asA. the Naturalist PeriodB. the Modern PeriodC. the Romantic PeriodD. the Realistic PeriodIV. Identification of Fragments（本大题共有7个诗歌或小说选段，请选5个选段并回答其后的问题，答题时请先注明选段, 再回答问题。
美国文学史及选读期末复习
美国文学史及选读期末复习.美国文学史复习1（colonialism)第一部分殖民主义时期的文学一、时期综述1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记b、journals 游记2、清教徒在美国的写作容：1）their voyage to the new land2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops3) About dealing with Indians4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit3、清教徒的思想：1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式2) Wish to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone whochallenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。
美国文学史期末考试资料
一. 殖民时期的美国: Colonial America 17c早——18c末1. 从英国探险者和殖民者在新大陆的作品开始，描述他们在新大陆真实而精力充沛的冒险。
2. 另一类为清教作品Philip Freneau 菲利普·费瑞诺：第一位美国抒情诗人兼记者“Father of American Poetry”(美国诗歌之父)Puritanism: 清教主义American Puritanism influences on American literature:1. Idealism and optimism 理想主义和乐观主义2. Symbolism 象征主义3. Simplicity. 简洁1.Edwards爱德华兹：the first modern American can the country’s last medieval man.“the current of Transcendentalism, originating in the piety of the Puritans, vecoming a philosophy in Jonathan Edwards, passing through Emerson.”超验论由清教徒的虔诚演变而来在乔纳森·爱德华兹的哲理得到发展继而传给爱默生2.Franklin富兰克林Jack of all trades (杂家)1) He was the only American to sign the four documents that created the U.S.:①The Declaration of Independence ②The Treaty of Alliance with France美法同盟条约英美和平条约④ConstitutionHis claim to a place in literature rests chiefly on his Poor Richard’s)文学史上该类作品开山之简单、直接、明朗)Edwards & Franklin:Edwards represents the upper levels of the American mind.1.不同点Franklin represents the lower levers. Tradition of religious idealism理想主义的宗教信仰2 the American Puritanism is a two facetedthe levelheaded common sense—明智冷静的判断力F3.The one was as a good Puritan as the other. 两人均是虔诚的宗教徒American Romanticism: 浪漫主义1. Irving欧文：美国第一个获得国际声誉的浪漫主义作家① The first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame.② The father of American literature.Rip V an WinkleThe Sketch Book见闻札记The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 睡觉的传说The Sketch Book见闻札记1). The short story as a genre in American literature开创美国短片小说先河2). The Sketch Book also marked the beginning of American Romanticism标志着浪漫主义的开始Irving stories are among the best of American short stories 美国短篇小说之最Irving’s charecters:a. Irving’s style can be described as beautiful.It is imitative,but he was a hightly skillful writerb. He avoids moralizing as much as possible 尽量避免说教c. He is good at enveloping his stories in an atmosphere.擅长将故事在一个内涵丰富的环境下展开d. His characters are vivid and true 生动，真实e. Humorf. The finished and musical language 音乐般优美的语言2. Cooper库珀1). He was one of the first authors to write about the American Westward movement.2). “Leatherstocking Tales”《皮袜子故事集》主人公Natty BunppoThe Pioneers 《拓荒者》The Last of the Mohicans 《最后的莫西干人》The prairie《大草原》 The Pathfinder《探鹿者》The Deerslayer 《猎鹿者》3) He was a mythic writer. And he was good at inventing plots. 神话作家，编造故事的能力The greatness of cooper1. He created a myth about the formative period of American nation创造美国格式时代的神话2. He wrote with increasing awareness of the importance to fiction of the Western Frontier.3. He was at once devoted to principles of social order and responsive to the idea of nature and freedom in the eilderness.他马上接受了新的社会规则，对自然和子偶的理念做出了回应4. He is a mythic writer and good at inventing plots.New England Transcendentalism:超验主义DefinitionAuthors: Emerson & Thoreau; Hawthorne & Melville; Whiteman & Dickenson; Allen Poe1. Emerson：强调“oversoul” (超灵)作品：1. Nature 2. The American Scholar 3. Self-relianceNature regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism新英格兰超验主义的圣经The American Scholar regarded as American’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence Emerson’s 文艺观点optimistic1）True poetry and true art should ennoble. It should serve as a moral purification and a passage toward organic unity and higher reality 真正的诗歌和艺术是高贵的，是为净化灵魂使之达到有机统一儿通向更高的现实而服务的2）Emerson places emphasis on ideas, symbols, and imaginative words.他注重信念，象征和有想象力的词语3）As to theme, emerson called upon American authors to celebrate America which was to him a long poem in itself, to celebrate the life of today. 他号召美国作家为美国和今天的生活写作，对他来说，美国本身就是一首长诗Emerson’s 写作特点He placed emphasis on spirit or the oversoul, which is the most important thing in the university He stressed the importance of the individual.He regarded Nature as the symbol of spirit.Emerson’s importance in the intellectual history of America lies in the fact that he make the nation have its own feature.标志着美国文化有了自己的地位，特色2. Thoreau 梭罗强调“nature”His masterpiece, Walden, is the first and foremost, is the book on self-culture and human perfectibility. 最重要的，这是一本关于自我修养与完善的书。
美国文学史及选读期末考试
Ⅰ. Write the author of each item. 10’1．Anne Bradstreet（The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America）①Contemplation②To My Dear and Loving Husband2. Benjamin Franklin①The Autobiography (early American Dream)3. Philip Freneau (Poet of American Revolution; The Father of American Poetry)①The Wild Honey Suckle②The Indian Burying Ground③To a Caty-Did4. Washington Irving (The Father of American Short Story; first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame; regarded as Father of American literature.)①The legend of Sleep Hollow②Rip Van Winkle③The Sketch Book(the beginning of American Romanticism)5. James Fennimore Cooper①The Last Mohicans②Leather Stocking Tales6. William Cullen Bryant①Thanatopsis②To a Water Fowl7. Edgar Allen Poe (Father of Modern Short Story; Father of Psychoanalysis criticism)①To Helen②The Raven③The Fall of the House of Usher④The Black Cat8. Ralph Waldo Emerson (leading New England transcendentalist)①Nature②Self-Reliance③The American Scholar9. Henry David Thoreau (an active transcendentalist)①Walden10. Nathaniel Hawthorne (a master of symbolism; first great American writer of fiction to work in moralistic tradition. combined the American romanticism with puritan moralism; created a new genre psychological romance)①The Scarlet Letter②Twice Told Tales③The Marble Faun④Blithedale Romance⑤The Minister’s Black Veil11. Herman Melville①Moby Dick12. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (the fireside poet; love of nature, love for the past)①A Psalm of Life②The Slave’s Dream③My Lost Youth④The Song of Hiawatha13. Walt Whitman①Leaves of Grass(first genuine epic poem)②Song of Myself③I Sit and Look Out④Beat！Beat！Drums！14. Emily Dickinson (the theme of her poetry concern religion, life, death, marriage, immorality, nature etc.)①I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed②I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain③A Bird Came Down the Walk④I Died for Beauty ___but Was Scarce⑤I Hear a Fly Buzz ___When I Died⑥Because I Could not Stop for DeathⅡ. True or False choice. 20’Ⅲ. Choose the best answer 10’Ⅳ. Appreciation 30’The Scarlet LetterAuthor: Nathaniel HawthorneSymbolism：The Scarlet Letter, A symbol of shame, but instead it becomes a powerful symbol of identity to Hester. The letter’s meaning shifts as time passes. Originally intended to mark Hester as an adulteress, the “A” eventually comes to stand for “Able.”The Meteor , to Dimmesdale, the meteor implies that he should wear a mark of shame just as Hester does. The meteor is interpreted differently by the rest of the community, which thinks that it stands for “Angel” and marks Governor Winthrop’s entry into heavenThe Rosebush, Next to the Prison Door .The narrator chooses to begin his story with the image of the rosebush beside the prison door. The rosebush symbolizes the ability of nature to endure and outlast man’s activities.Pearl is a sort of living version of her mother’s scarlet letter. She is the physical consequence of sexual sin and the indicator of a transgression (evildoing). Upward American spiritCharacter analysis:Hester: disloyalty, betrayal, deception, sexual desire, adultery. Face, correct, redeem, purify. Praise, content, conformability.Dimmesdale: adultery, cowardice, hypocrisy, dishonesty, selfishness, too coward to confess, tortured by his conscience. Sympathetic, disfavor his hesitation, indecisiveness and cowardice.Chillingworth: revenge. Tortured by the desire of revenge, twisted and reduced to nothing. disgusted, think he committed greater crime.Puritanism in The Scarlet LetterPuritan background: setting, events, characters, thoughts, behaviors.Puritan doctrines: original sin, total depravity, predestination, limited atonement.Ralph Waldo Emerson1.NatureThe declaration of TranscendentalismAnalysis of “Nature”A long essay which has eight parts: the opening, commodity, beauty, language, discipline, Idealism, spirit and prospects. Our selection is taken from the opening. Taken as a whole, “Nature” expresses Emerson’s philosophy in a more systematic fashion than any other work of his.Meanings of natureI BeautyNature is beautiful. : the complete, mysterious, useful and moral beauty of nature. First, nature’s beauty lies in its completeness. Second, nature’s beauty lies in its mystery. cannot be manipulated. Only when he holds a sincere r espect for nature, can man feel the mysterious beauty of nature. Third, nature’s beauty lies in its usefulness. Nature provides man without any benefitII Nature Is Divine●Nature is divine and has the eternal order which should not be violated. Influenced in a way byChinese ancient philosophy, Emerson believes that all the things in the world come from the same root---the Oversoul.●Emerson believes that man can find God in his own heart by direct contact with nature●Nature has permeated (penetrate) all aspects of human life. Spirit embodied in nature hasinfluence upon us. Nature inspires man and gives him\her power. Man should find the truth, goodness and beauty in his own soul and bring into play his potentiality as human being. Then, he will become hims elf “All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do".●For Emerson, the individual is potentially the most divine and any organization or existing ideacan not limit the development of individual.III Nature Is ChangingEverything in nature is in a process---growing, withdrawing and falling into the ground. The flowing of nature comes from a force which impels it to develop. For instance, a river is always in constantly flowing. It originates from mountains, flows along great plains and ultimately converges into the sea. Transcendental philosophyNature symbolizes freedom, independence and change. These are Individualism elements which attend to significance of common life. Therefore Emerson's nature is the theoretical base of American Individualism---one of the characteristics of American culture. As the symbol of Spirit, nature helps to prove that man's soul is beautiful, divine and fluid. Man should pursue spiritual fulfillmentExcerpt from Nature: in Nature Emerson puts forward every phenomenon of the nature there was the spirit of the spirit of the nature.Here from this paragraph we could see that emerson found the beauty in the wildness nature rather than the village or something. “in the wildness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages.” In the wildness of the nature, emerson can transcend physical body to the spirit of the God and he can become one part of the spirit.He emerges into the nature, and then he goes into the Oversoul. “I am part or particle of God.” “I am nothing; I see all”. This sentence clearly shows that emerson merges into the sporit. And in the nature we could get the eternal beauty.2.Self-Reliance①“The Confidence”. a man must show his opinion confidently and bravely in spite of different ideas.②“The Independence”. A man should keep himself firmly ; not be easily influenced by environment.③Keep personality, which is closely related to the confidence and the independence. a man must keep his personality and conform to his own principles.④“Showing no Sympathy to the Poor” shows that why the poor are poor is mainly due to their backward thinking. Showing help to this kind of people means doing harm to them.Comment: In Self-reliance, Emerson expressed the romantic idea of individualism, with an emphasis on being self-sufficient. He promoted relying on oneself rather than on established society. Emerson was known for his repeated use of phrase “trust thyself”. “Self-reliance” is his explanation---both systematic and passionate of what he meant by this, and why he was moved to make it his catchphrase. Every individual possesses a unique genius, Emerson argues, that can only be revealed when that individual has the courage to trust his or her own thoughts, attitudes, and inclinations against all public disapproval.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1. A Psalm of Life①Love of nature, love for the past ②Trochaic tetrameter③constant theme for poets: The relationship of life and death. ④He expresses his pertinent interpretation to that by warning us that though life is hard and everybody must die, time flies and life is short, yet, human beings ought to be hold “to act,” to face the reality straightly so as to make otherwise meaningless life significant.2. My Lost YouthⅤ. Terms 10’New England PoetsThe new England poets were the representatives of imitation, authors like Irving, William Cullen Bryant, Henry wadsworth Longfellow etc. tried to imitate the forms and themes of their English brothers, such as Alexander Pope, Robert Burns, Thomas Gray, wordsworth and so on.Rip van winkleThis is one story in Washington Irving’s Sketch Book. It tells a story of a kind but hen-pecked man rip van winkle. The protagonist does not take care of his own family very well and just wants to live idly. But his wife does not want him to live the life like that and keeps talking to him. Unhappy at home, he enters in the mountain with his gun and dog. One afternoon, he meets some strangers looking people playing at nine pins. Out of curiosity, he drinks the wine and falls into sleep. When he wakes up, he finds his dog missing and his gun rusted. He has to go back to the village again. But can not recognize the village and the folks. Later his surprise, he has been slept for 20 years. And his wife has been dead and his children grow up. At the end of story, his daughter takes him home and he still lives the life as he was used to.Ⅵ.Comment 20’1. Comment on Moby Dick:a. Although the narrator sees insanity in Ahab, Melville’s emotional sympathy is with the deficient Ahab. He begins with a noble intention to crush evil, but in taking this to the extreme, he becomes evil himself. He is destroyed by his consuming desire to root out evil.b. Moby Dick is a symbol to represent cruel, brutal, malicious powers of nature. Nature is capable of destroying the human world. Nature threatens humanity & thus calls out the heroic powers of the human beings. So the power of the universe is both of blessing and curse. In this way, the author constructs a complicated statement about American view of nature.2. Compare: Emily Dickinson with Walt Whitman in their writing style.Similarities①Along with Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman stands as one of the two giants of American poetry in the nineteenth century.②Pioneers of imagism③Part of American Renaissance④Influenced by transcendentalism⑤Thematically, they both extolled in their different ways and emergent America, its expansion, its individualism and its Americanness, their poetry being part of “American Renaissance”⑥Technically, they both added to the literary independence of the new nation by breaking free of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in form unknown before: they are pioneers in American poetry.Differences①Whitman seems to keep his eyes on society at large; Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual.②Whereas Whitman is “national” in his outlook. Dickinson is “regional”③Whitman has the “catalogue techniques”, all-inclusive catalogue. Whereas Dickinson’s concise, direct, simple diction and syntax。
美国文学史期末考试复习题
美国文学史期末考试复习题(使用书本为童明的《美国文学史修订版》)一、名词解释（交代背景、内容/特点、代表人物/作品）1. American Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience. (the representative writers and its features should be also added.)2. Black Humor :1）In the 1960s, in literature, drama, and film, black humor refers to grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world.2）Black humor often uses low comedy farce and low comedy to make clear that individuals are helpless victims of fate and character.3）Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is an example of this school3. Henry James’s international theme: 书p1594. Beat Generation：1) American poets, 1950s-1960s, a rebellion ,counterculture, romantic, drugs and uninhibited sex.2)Best and most influential poem: “Howl”:denounces the life-denying effects of American culture.5.American Puritanism：it comes from the American puritans, who were the first immigrants moved to American continent in the 17th century. Original sin, predestination and salvation were the basic ideas of American Puritanism. And, hard-working, piousness，thrift and sobriety were praised.书p176. Transcendentalism: is a philosophic and literary movement that flourished in New England, particular at Concord, as a reaction against Rationalism and Calvinism. Mainly it stressed intuitive understanding of God, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. The representative writers are Emerson andThoreau.7. Themes of Henry James’s writing: 书p1588.The Lost Generation:it refers to a group of young intellectuals who came back from war，were injured both physically and mentally. They lived by indulging themselves in the Bohemian way of life. Their American dream was disillusioned. The best representative of the lost generation was Ernest Hemingway.二、回答问题1. What are the characteristics of American romanticism？（书本p68. 3点+ P69.5点）2. How is the Darwinian belief in naturalism opposed to the Christian creationist view? 书p166What is the determinist view of existence that informs naturalism? What are the implications of this view on ethics?3. What are the philosophical foundations and characteristics of American naturalism? 书p1664. What are the important point s for Hawthorne’s sty le?5. What is the predominant mood in Poe’s poetry? Discuss with two poems as examples.6. What are the parameters of American Realism?书P1457. How is Thoreau revolt manifested both in his social actions and his writing?书p99What is the nature of his revolt?书p100( and nature in Civil Disobedience should be added)8. The age of American realism is divided into two more periods. What are the periods called? What are the characteristics and who are the representatives of each period?。
美国文学期末复习题
美国文学期末复习题2013-2014-1 美国文学史及选读期末复习材料ⅠMultiple choices1. Which is not connected with Thomas Paine?A. Common SenseB. The American CrisisC. The Rights of ManD. The Autobiography2. “These are the times that try men’s souls”, these words were once read to Washington’s troops and did much to spur excitement to further action with hope and confidence. Who is the author of these words?A.Benjamin FranklinB. Thomas PaineC. Thomas JeffersonD. George Washington3. At the Reason and Revolution Period, Americans were influenced by the European movement called the ______.A. Chartist MovementB. Romanticist MovementC. Enlightenment MovementD. Modernist Movement4. In American literature, the Enlighteners were favorable to______.A. the colonial orderB. religious obscurantismC. the Puritan traditionD. the secular literature5. The English colonies in North America rose in arms againsttheir parent country and the Continental Congress adopted ______ in 1776.A. Declaration of IndependenceB. the Sugar ActC. the Stamp ActD. the Mayflower Compact6. ______ usually was regarded as the first American writer.A. William BradfordB. Anne BradstreetC. Emily DickinsonD. Captain John Smith7. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made sucha stir in England that she became known as the “______” who appeared in America.A. Ninth MuseB. Tenth MuseC. Best MuseD. First Muse8. Who was considered as the “poet of American Revolution”?A. Anne BradstreetB. Edward TaylorC. Michael WigglesworthD. Philip Freneau9. In 1817, the stately poem called Thanatopsis introduced the best poet ______ to appear in America up to that time.A. Edward TaylorB. Philip FreneauC. William Cullen BryantD. Edgar Allen Poe10. The finest example of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s symbolism is the recreation of Puritan Boston in ______.A. The Scarlet LetterB. Young Goodman BrownC. The Marble FaunD. The Ambitious Guest11. “The universe is composed of Nature and the soul… Spirit is present everywhere”. This is the voice of the book Nature written by Emerson, which pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England ______.A. RomanticismB. TranscendentalismC. NaturalismD. Symbolism12. Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism?A. NatureB. WaldenC. On BeautyD. Self-Reliance13. Mark Twain created, in _________, a masterpiece of American realism that is also one of the great books of world literature.A. The Adventure of Huckleberry FinnB. The Adventure of Tom SawyerC. The Man That Corrupted HadleyburgD. The Gilded Age14. _________ marks the climax of Mark Twain’s literary creativity.A . The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn B. The Gilded AgeC. Life on the MississippiD. The Adventure of Tom Sawyer15. Choose the novel which is not written by Henry James.A. The AmbassadorsB. The Wings of the DoveC. The BostoniansD. The Mysterious Stranger16. Generally speaking, all those writers with a naturalistic approach to human reality tend to be _________.A. transcendentalistsB. idealistsC. pessimistsD. impressionists17. Ezra Pound’s long poem _________ contained more than one hundred poems loosely connected.A. The Waste LandB. The CantosC. Don JuanD. Queen Mab18. T. S. Eliot’s first major poem _________(1917), has been called the first masterpiece of modernism in English.A. The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockB. The Waste LandC. Four QuartetsD. Preludes19. Ernest Hemingway was badly wounded in Italy and sent to a hospital where he fell in love with a nurse. These two persons later became the characters of his novel _________.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. For Whom the Bell TollsC. The Sun Also RisesD. A Farewell to Arms20. In William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, he useda technique called _________, in which the whole story was told through the thoughts of one character.A. stream of consciousnessB. imagismC. symbolismD. naturalism21. Led by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and ______, there arose a kind of teachings of transcendentalism in the early nineteenth century.A.Herman MelvilleB. Henry David ThoreauC. Mark TwainD. Theodore Dreiser22. A New ______ had appeared in England in the last years of the eighteenth century. It spread to continental Europe and then came to America early in the nineteenth century.A. realismB. critical realismC. romanticismD. naturalism23. From Henry David Thoreau’s jail experience, came his famous essay, ______ which states Thoreau’s belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.A. WaldenB. NatureC. Civil DisobedienceD. Common Sense24. Mark Twain, one of the greatest 19th century American writers, is well known for his _________.A. international themeB. waste-land imageryC. local colorD. symbolism25. Herman Melville’s ______ is an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy religion, etc. in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. Moby DickC. White Jacket C. Billy Budd26. The ship “______” carried about one hundred Pilgrims and took 66 days to beat its way across the Atlantic. In December of 1620, it put the Pilgrims ashore at Plymouth, Massachusetts.A. SunflowerB. ArmadaC. MayflowerD. Pequod27. From 1733 to 1758, Benjamin Franklin wrote and published his famous ______, an annual collection of proverbs.A. The AutobiographyB. Poor Richard’s AlmanacC. Common SenseD. The General Magazine28. In American literature, the eighteen-century was the age of the Enlightenment. ______ was the dominant spirit.A. HumanismB. RationalismC. RevolutionD. Evolution29. ______ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.A. Henry David ThoreauB. Ralph Waldo EmersonC. Nathaniel HawthorneD. Walt Whitman30. Edgar Allen Poe’s first collection of short stories is ______.A. Tales of a TravelerB. Leatherstocking TalesC. Canterbury TalesD. Tales of the Grotesque of Arabesque31. ______ was a romanticized account of Herman Melville’s stay among the Polynesians. The success of the book soon made Melville well known as the “man who lived among cannibals”.A. Moby DickB. TypeeC. OmooD. Billy Budd32. Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?A.The American ScholarB. English TraitsC. The Conduct of LifeD. Representative Men33. The three dominant figures of the realistic period in American literature are _________.A. Theodore Dreiser, Emily Dickinson and William Dean HowellsB. Mark Twain, Henry James and William Dean HowellsC. Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser and William Dean HowellsD. Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson and William Dean Howells34. American literature produced only one female poet during the nineteenth century. This was _________.A. Anne BradstreetB. Jane AustenC. Emily DickinsonD. Harriet Beecher35. In 1900, London published his first collection of short stories, named_________.A. The Son of the WolfB. The Sea WolfC. The Law of LifeD. White Fang36. In Henry James’Daisy Miler, the author tries t o portray the young woman as an embodiment of _________.A. the force of conventionB. the free spirit of the New WorldC. the decline of aristocracyD. the corruption of the newly rich37. “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” This is the shortest poem written by _________.A. T.S. EliotB. Robert FrostC. Ezra PoundD.E.E.Cumings38. The Fitzgerald lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than F. Scot Fitzgerald earned for parties,liquor, entertaining their friends and traveling. It was this living style that nicknamed the decade of the 1920s as _________.A. The Roaring TwentiesB. The Jazz AgeC. The Dollar DecadeD. all of the above39. In 1954, _________ was awarded the Nobel Prize for Lit erature for his “mastery of the art of modern narration”.A. T.S EliotB. Ernest HemingwayC. John SteinbeckD. William Faukner40. William Faukner’s novel _________ describes the decay and downfall of an old southern aristocratic family, symbolizing the old social order, told from four different points of view.A. The Sound and the FuryB. StartorisC. The UnvanquishedD. The Town41. “The Lure of the Spirit: The Flesh in Pursuit” i s the title of one chapter in Dreiser’s novel _________.A. An American DreamB. Sister CarrieC. Dreiser Looks at RussiaD. Jannie Gerhardt42. The main theme of _________ The Art of Fiction reveals his literary credo that representation of life should be the main object of the novel.A. Henry James’B. William Dean Howells’C. Mark Twain’sD. O. Henry’s43. With William Dean Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, _________became the major trend in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century.A. sentimentalismB. romanticismC. realismD. naturalism44. While embracing the socialism of Marx, London also believed in the triumph of the strongest individuals. This contradiction is most vividly projected in the patently autobiographical novel _________.A. The Call of the WildB. The Sea WolfC. Martin EdenD. The Iron Heel45_________ is a novella about a young American girl who gets “killed” by the winter in Rome, and it brought Henry James international fame for the first time.A. The AmericanB. The EuropeansC. Daisy MillerD. The Portait of a LadyAnswers: 1-5 DBCDA 6-10 DBDCA 11-15 BAAAD 16-20 CBADA21-25 BCCCB 26-30 CBBBD 31-35 BABCA 36-40 BCDBA 41-45 BACCCⅡFilling the following blanks with proper answers1.Captain John Smith became the first American writer.2.The puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people.3.The first major intellectual spokesman of the Massachusetts Bay colony was John Cotton, sometimes called “the Patriarch of New England.”4.Anne Bradstreet published The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, and she was nicknamed the tenth Muse.5.Poor Richard’s Almanac is an annual collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin.6.Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet Common Sense boldly advocated a “Declaration for Independence”.7.Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.8.Philip Freneau developed a natural, simple, and concrete diction, best illustrated in such nature lyrics as “The Wild Honey Suckle” and “The Indian Burying Ground”.9.Philip Freneau h as been called the “Father of American Poetry”.10.In Washington Irving’s Sketch Book appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.11.Cooper’s enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novels that comprise the Leatherstocking tales.12.“To a Waterfowl” is perhaps the peak of William Cullen Bryant’s wok.13.“Thanatopsis”, William Cullen Bryant’s best-known poem, consists of four stanzas in iambic tetrameter abab. The title means “view of death”.14.Edgar Allan Poe is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories”.15.Emerson believed above all in individualism, independence of mind, and self-reliance.16.In Walden, Thoreau thought it better for a man to work one day a week and rest six, and the rest of the time could be devoted to thought.17.Hawthorne’s stories touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature.18.Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.19.After his death, Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.20.Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle T om’s Cabin, had become an American institution and the most famous literary woman in the world.21.William Dean Howells found his subject matter in the experiences of the American middle class.22.William Dean Howells called for the treatment of the “smiling aspects of life” as being the more “American.”23.The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment.24.The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called free verse.25.O·Henry’s stories are usually short and interesting; Famous for their surprising end.26.Henry James is famous for his international theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity of European life.27.Jack London believed in the inevitable triumph of thestrongest individuals.28.Dreiser’s grea test and most successful novel, An American Tragedy, is about a young man who acts as if the only way he can be truly fulfilled is by acquiring wealth—through marriage if necessary.29.Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that the y were a “Lost Generation,” devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization.30.Wallace Stevens’ work is primarily motivated by the belief that “ideas of order”.31.With the publication of The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway became the spokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called “a lost generation.”Ⅲ Decide whether the statements are true or false (T/F).1. John Winthrop’s reports of exploration, published in the early 1600s, have been regarded as the first distinct American literature written in English.2. In 1612, William Bradford published in England a book called A Map of Virginia; With a description of the country.3. Philip Freneau was neoclassical by training and taste yet romantic in essential spirit.4. Ralph Waldo Emerson was recognized as the leader of transcendentalist movement, but he always applied the term “Transcendentalist” to himself or to his beliefs and ideas.5. To Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, the telling of a tale was a way of inquiring into the meaning of life.6. Walt Whitman was attacked in his lifetime for his offensive subject matter of sexuality and for his conventional style.7. Tom Sawyer walked out of Twain’s pages directly from his fresh memory of his boyhood in the west.8. Hurstwood is a character in Theodore D reiser’s Sister Carrie.9. In the decade of the 1910s, American literature achieved a new diversity and reached its greatest heights.10. Edwin Arlington Robinson began his career as a novalist in bleakness and poverty.11.The greatest of America’s realist s, such as Henry James and Mark Twain, moved well beyond a superficial portrayal of nineteenth-century America.12.Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Mark Twain or William Dean Howells.13.Sister Carrie is generally regar ded as Theodore Dreiser’s masterpiece.14.Generally speaking, Jack London was much more interested in ideas than Stephen Crane and less sentimental than Frank Norris.15.Ralph Waldo Emerson’s prose style was sometimes as highly individual as his poetry.16. American literature is the oldest of all national literature.17. Georgia, Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New England, all were named after French monarchs and lands.18. Benjamin Franklin was a prose stylist whose writing reflected the neoclassic ideals of clarity, restraint, simplicity and balance.19. The Fall of the House of Usher is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems.20. The Scarlet Letter is set in the seventeenth century. It is an elaboration of a fact which the author took out of the life of the Puritan past.21. Walt Whitman was so great that he won respect and loveduring his lifetime for his Leaves of Grass.22. Many of O. Henry’s stories contain a lot of slang and colloquial expressions, just like his own speech.23. Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Mark Twain or William Dean Howells.24. Robert Frost rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporaries, and chose “the old-fashioned way to be new” instead.25. John Steinbeck’s theme was us ually that simple human virtues such as kindness and fair treatment were far superior to official hard-heartedness, or the dehumanizing cruelty of exploiters for their own commercial advantage.26. Transcendentalists spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.27. Washington Irving was the first great belletrist, writing always for pleasure, and to produce pleasure.28. James Fennimore Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure tale and the frontier saga.29. Puritan influence over American Romanticism was conspicuously noticeable.30. “Young Goodman Brown” seems to prove everyone possesses some evil secrets1-5 FFTFT 6-10FTTFF 11-15 TFFTT 16-20 FFTFT 21-25FFFTT 26-30 TTTTTⅣAnswer the fo llowing questions briefly.1. These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is noteasily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly—This dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods.Questions:(1)Which book is this passage taken from?(2)Who is the author of this book?(3)Whom is the author praising? Whom is the author criticizing?(4)What do you think of the language?Answers:(1) The American Crisis.(2) Thomas Paine(3) Paine is praising those who stand “it”, it referring to “the service of their country”. In the meantime, Paine is criticizing those who shrink from the service of their country in this crisis.(4) The language is plain, impressive and forceful. Paine himself once said that his purpose as a writer was to use plain language to make those who can scarcely read understand and to fit the powers of thinking and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question and nothing else.2.It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho, was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now widly heightened by circumstance of the Town-Ho’s story, which seemedobscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his ma tes…Nevertheless, so potent and influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpiredabaft the Pequod’s main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record.Questions:(1)From which novel is this paragraph taken?(2) What is the name of the novelist?(3) Who is Ahab?(4) What is Pequod?(5) What is the theme of the novel?Answers:(1) Moby Dick(2) Herman Melville(3) The captain of the whaling ship(4) The name of the whaling ship(5) The rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces.3. When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one oftwo things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human temper. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms. Without a counselor at hand to whisper cautious interpretations, what falsehoods may not these things breathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognized for what they are, their beauty, like music, too often relaxes, then weakens then perverts the simpler human perceptions.Questions:(1) From which novel is this paragraph taken?(2) Who is the author of this novel?(3) How do you understand “the cosmopolitan standard of virtue”?(4) Is there any naturalist tendency in this passage?Answers:(1)Sister Carrie(2) Theodore Dreiser(3) “The cosmopolitan standard of virtue” is something that makes a person become low in virtue and become worse.(4) Yes.4. Briefly discuss the novel The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is one of the greatest novels in American literature. It fully explores the disillusionment and despair of the lost generation through the personal tragedy of a young man whose “incorruptib le Dream”is easily smashed into pieces by the crude reality. The protagonist, Gatsby, is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies American itself. His failure magnifies the end of the American Dream. The style of the story is explicit and chilly. Fitzgerald’s accurate dialogues, his careful observation of mannerism and the colorful images provide the reader with a vivid and profound scene of the reality.5. What are the three main principles that Ezra Pound endorsed?(1)Directly treat poetic subjects.(2)Eliminate merely ornamental or superfluous words.(3)Rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of metronome.6.Tell the differences between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman(1)Emily Dickinson expresses the inner life of individuals, while Walt Whitman keeps his eyes on the society at large.(2)Emily Dicki nson is “regional”, while Walt Whitman is “national” in his outlook.(3)Formally, Emily Dickinson uses concise, simple dictions and syntax, while Walt Whitman uses endless, all-inclusive catalogs.ⅤEssay Writing (这个部分给大家的答案只是罗列了回答的要点，要将其连缀成文，如果简单按复习题给的答案罗列，只得一半分数)1. Write a short essay about the novel The Grapes of WrathWriter: John Steinbeck----won Nobel Prize for Literature in1962; spoke for the oppressed and suffered Background information: (1) Oklahoma used to be a major agricultural state. In the 1930s, a draught ruined this place. People had to leave here to seek a way out. Many of them went to California in hope of finding jobs there to support their family. (2)The Great Depression.Meaning of title: (1) Hope to despair; (2) Wrath of people; (3) Indications of revolution.Theme: (1) Embodying the mass misery of farmers; (2) Praising the spirit of love and unity; (3) Advocating fight and struggle for better life.Structure: (1) Its structure is dictated by the bible; (2) There are two blocks of material: a. the westward trek of the Joads; b. the depressed Oklahomans, and the general picture of the Great Depression.Symbols: (1) dust---evil forces; (2) grapes---hope→rage2. Write a short essay about the novel A Farewell to ArmsWriter: Hemingway---- (1) in 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize; (2) Main works: The Sun also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The old Man and the Sea. (3) His major contribution: a. Code hero---grace under pressure; b. Iceberg Theory---economy of expression; (4) the lost generation Background information: World War ⅡTheme: shows the filth, meaningless, calamity of war; the death, the nothingness of life; the disillusionment with future, hope and love, happiness. The universe is indifferent. There is no God to watch over man.Characters: Henry--- initially detached from life----though well-disciplined and friendly, he feels as if he has nothing to do with the war. After falling in love with Catherine he became acode hero in some way. Catherine---code hero: unfaltering devotion to Henry, brave, considerate, optimisticSymbols: rain---sadness, desperation, depression. It is raining outside almost every time something bad occurs. mud---nature's hostility to man.3. Write a short essay about the novel The Adventures of Tom SawyerAuthor: Mark Twain—the first truly American writer, a local colorist; he used short, concrete and colloquial language; his sentences are simple, and even ungrammatical; good at writing children’s adventures; masterpieces including: The A dventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer About the novel: The first famous novel about growing up and show ing the contradictions between adults’ world and teenagers’ world, a story of his seeking for freedom, fame, fortune, love, manhood; reveals the American values such as hero complex and American dream; records the rising Age of American Bourgeois system; bearsthe irony and satire toward the religion and rigid, didactic children education, which curbed the imagination of children and their innate nature for freedom and adventures and molded them into a stereotype of lifeless man.4. Comment briefly on Theodore Dreiser’s theme and writing style?Theme: Dreiser’s works are mainly concerned with the tragic nature of the human condition by depicting the coarse, vulgar, cruel, and terrible aspects of life like sex and crime.Style: In terms of style, Dreiser has sometimes been censured for his clumsy syntax, deficient characterization, and inept and dull prose. Yet his accumulated detail, carefully selected andfaithfully recorded, is a technique of power. Like the other naturalists, he refused to judge—to consider people as good or evil. He clothes his concepts symbolically in the details of reality. It is his journalistic method that ha s made him one of America’s foremost novelists.。
美国文学期末试卷及答案
《美国文学》期末考试试卷（B卷）1.Poor Richard's Almanac ( )2.The House of the Seven Gables ()3.“Raven” ( )4.My Antonia ( )5.Babbitt ( )6. A Streetcar Named Desire ( )7.Maggie: A Girl of the Streets ( )8. A Farewell to Arms ( )9.The Call of the Wild ( )10.Long Day's Journey into Night ( )mon Sense ( )12.“Rip Van Winkle”()13.Walden()14.The Song of Hiawatha()15.Uncle Tom's Cabin( )16.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn()17.Sister Carrie()18.The Waste Land()19. A Farewell to Arms()20.The Great Gatsby()1. defined poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.2.While working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Samuel Langhorne Clemensadopted the pseudonym , the way of a boatman taking soundings, and meaning twofathoms.3.Ezra Pound initiated a campaign for , which emphasized the direct treatment of an objector situation. He also advocated the language of common speech, but always the exactword.4.Fitzgerald summarized the experiences and attitudes of the 1920s decade in hismasterpiece novel.5. is the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for hisvigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters.6.The first of American literature was not written by an American, but by , a British captain,who thus became the first American writer.7.has been considered the “Father of modern American Poetry.\8.was a great democratic poet. He is also the great poet to use the form of free verse.9.is the first American lyric poet.10.is also called novel of the road, it strings the incidents on the line of the hero,s travel. IH. Choose only one answer form the four choices as the most appropriate answer. (30%)1.In American literature, the eighteenth century was the age of the Enlightenment, was the dominant spirit.A.HumanismB.RationalismC.RevolutionD.Evolution2.Who was considered as the “Poet of American Revolution”?A.Michael WigglesworthB.Edward TaylorC.Anne BradstreetD.Philip Freneau3.The finest example of Hawthorne,s symbolism is the recreation of Puritan Boston in .A.The Scarlet LetterB.Young Goodman BrownC.The Marble FaunD.The Ambitious Guest4.was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.A.ThoreauB.EmersonC.HawthorneD.Whitman5.Choose the work NOT written by Mark Twain.A.The Adventures of Tom SawyerB.Innocents AbroadC.Life on the MississippiD.The Rise of Silas Lapham6.Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?A.The American ScholarB.English TraitsC.The Conduct of LifeD.Representative Men7.Melville,s is an encyclopedia of everything, history, philosophy, religion, etc, in additionto a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.A.The Old Man and the SeaB.Moby DickC.White JacketD.Billy Budd8.American literature produced only one female poet during the nineteenth century. Thiswas.A.Anne BradstreetB.Jane AustenC.Emily DickinsonD.Harriet Beecher9.The main theme of The Art of Fiction reveals his literary credo thatrepresentation of life should be the main object of the novel.A.Henry James,B.William Dean Howells,C.Mark Twain'sD.O. Henry's10.showed great interest in Chinese literature and translated the poetry of Li Po into English, and was influenced by Confucian ideas.A.Ezra PoundB.Robert FrostC.T. S. EliotD. E. E. Cummings11.With William Dean Howells, Henry James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, becamethe major trend in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century.A.sentimentalismB.romanticismC.realismD.naturalism12.Ezra Pound's long poem contained more than one hundred poems loosely connected.A.The Waste LandB.The CantosC.Don JuanD.Queen Mab13.In Paris, Ernest Hemingway, along with, accomplished a revolution in literary style andlanguage.A.Gertrude SteinB.Ezra PoundC.James JoyceD.all of the above14.tells the Joad family' s life from the time they were evicted from their farm in Oklahomauntil their first winter in California.A.Of Mice and MenB.The Grapes of WrathC.The Great GatsbyD.For Whom the Bell Tolls15.The two areas on which the modem American writers concentrated their criticism werethe failures of American society and.A.the failure of communication among AmericansB.the economic depressionC.the extreme prosperity of AmericaD.the paradise of New LandIV. Choose TEN of the following and decide whether the statements are true or false. (10%)1.All his literary life, Hawthorne seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life.2.Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass are about love and religion.3.The First World War led the American intellectuals to a bitter disillusionment.4.Hemingway,s works have sometimes been read as an essentially negative commentary on a modern world filled with sterility, failure, and death.5.Mark Twain,s region was the Deep South, with its bitter history of slavery, civil war and destruction.6.Ernest Hemingway developed a spare, tight, reportorial prose based on simple sentencestructure and using a restricted vocabulary, precise imagery, and an impersonal, dramatic tone.7.John Steinbeck' s theme was usually that simple human virtues such as kindness and fair treatment were far superior to official hard-heartedness, or the dehumanizing cruelty of exploiters for their own commercial advantage.8.Short-lived, the Imagist movement failed to exert a tremendous influence on modern poetry.9.Robert Frost won four Nobel Prizes in his life.10.In his novels, F. Scott Fitzgerald had revealed the stridency of an age of glittering innocence, he had portrayed the hollowness of the American worship of riches and the unending American dream of love, splendor and fulfilled desires.11.Of Plymouth Plantat iwas written by William Bradford.12.Realists thought highly of individual status and role in the world. The romanticists preferred the innate or intuitive perception by the heart of man. They thought that man was essentially of goodwill, only the civilized society made him degenerate. They pointed out, the means to uproot evils and to save mankind was habits, and to return to “natural primitive state”.13.Deists believed in a Creator God, but rejected providence(Godly direction) and revelation (divine will or Godly "truth")in favor of reason.14..President Lincoln praised Anne Bradstreet as “the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.”15. Edgar Allan Poe wrote two poems both entitled“ To Helen”.16.The thinking of Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau also greatly influenced the active thinking ofAmericans who became increasingly concerned with the possibility of building a government. Locke and Rousseau represented the impulse for a Jeffersonian democracy, and Hobbes represented the point of view, often expressed by Hamilton, of a strong central government.17.Hemingway, Pound, Cummings, Dos Passos, and Fitzgerald, belong to the school of “Beat Generation”.18.F. Scott Fitzgerald is called the leader and poet laureate of the Jazz Age who wrote the novels of the Jazz Age.19.Yoknapatawpha saga is a name for John Steinbeck,s novels.20.“Thanatopsis” is a word Bryant borrowed from Greek meaning “meditation on death”. Y Choose THREE of the following fragments and answer the questions. (20%)Passage OneLo! in you brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see theestand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from theregions which Are Holy-Land!Questions:1.This is the last stanza of a poem “To Helen”. Its writer is.(1%)2.With whom is Helen associated in this stanza? (1%)3.How to appreciate the beauty of this poem? (3%)Passage 2I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and II took the one less traveledby, And that has made all the differenceQuestions:1.Who is the writer of this poem? (1%)2.What is the title of this poem? (1%)3.What kind of feeling does this stanza show? (3%)4.How do you appreciate this poem? (3%)Passage 3I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God.Questions:1.This passage is taken from a famous work entitled. (1%)2.The author of the work is . (1%)3.List by yourself at least five reasons that the author gives for going to live in thewoods. (5%)Passage 4But, on one side of the portal (入口)，and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.Questions:1.This part is from the novel, written by . (2%)2.What does “the wild rose bush” symbolize according to your opinion? (5%)Passage 5Often I think of the beautiful townThat is seated by the sea;Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dearold town, And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of aLapland song Is haunting my memory still: "A boy's will is thewind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." Questions:1.The stanza is taken from the poem?(1%)2.The author of the poem is. (1%)3.The seventh line in each Stanza of this poem contains a key word, usually a verb, whichsums up the feeling established in the stanza. What is the verb and what kind feelingthat it conveys?(4%)Passage 6Thou hast an house on high erect, Framed by that mightyArchitect,With glory richly furnished, Stands permanent though this befled. It,s purchased and paid for too By Him who hath enoughto do.Questions:1. This stanza is taken from the poem by.(2%)2. What is one,s real house according to the poet? (5%)VI. Choose TWO of the following and Comment on them. (20%)1.Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. (10%)2.Emily Dickinson's “Because I Could not stop for Death” . (10%)3.Ralph Waldo Emerson,s Self-Reliance. (10%)《美国文学》期末考试试卷B卷答案暨评分标准I.Choose TEN of the following works and write the names of the authors. (1*10=10%)1.Benjamin Franklin2.Nathaniel Hawthorne3.Edgar Allan Poe4.Willa Cather5.Sinclair Lewis6.Tennessee Williams7.Stephen Crane8.Ernest Hemingway9.Jack London10.Eugene O,Neill11.Thomas Paine12.Washington Irving13.Henry David Thoreau14.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow15.Harriet Beecher Stowe16.Mark Twin17.Theodore Dreiser18.T.S. Eliot19.Ernest Hemingway20. F. Scott FitzgeraldII.Choose FIVE of the following and fill in the blanks. (2*5=10%)1.Edgar Allan Poe2.Mark Twain3.Imagism4.The Great Gatsby5.Sinclair Lewis6.John Smith7.Ezra Pound8.Walt Whitman9.William Cullen Bryant10.Picaresque novelm.Choose only one answer form the four choices as the most appropriate answer. (2*15=30%)IV. Choose TEN of the following and decide whether the statements are true or false. (1*10=10%)V. Choose THREE of the following frag gm e nts and answer thePassage 11.Edgar Allan Poe (1)2.Psyche (1)3.The beauty of form. (diction, rhyme and rhythm, rhetorical devices.)The beauty of content. (3)Passage 21.Robert Frost(1)2."Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”⑴3.This poem is written in classic five-line stanzas, with the rhyme scheme a-b-a-a-b andconversational rhythm. The poem seems to be about the poet, walking in the woods in autumn, choosing which road he should follow on his walk. In reality, it concerns the important decisions which one must make in life, when one must give up one desirable thing in order to possess another. Then, whatever the outcome, one must accept the consequences of one' s choice for it is not possible to go back and have another chance to choose differently.4.In the poem, the poet hesitates for a long time, wondering which road to take, because they are both pretty. In the end, he follows the one which seems to have fewer travelers on it. Symbolically, he chose to follow an unusual, solitary life; perhaps he was speaking of his choice to become a poet rather than some commoner profession. But he always remembers the road which he might have taken, and which would have given him a different kind of life. Passage 3Walden (1)Henry David Thoreau (1)Find the answer from the passage. (5)Passage 41.The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne. (2)2.life and liberty.(2)Passage 51.My Lost Youth.(1)2.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1)3.“haunting" sums up the feeling that was begun earlier with "Often in thought "and "comes back to me" .(3)Passage 61.Upon the Burning of Our House, Anne Bradstreet.(2)2.One's real house is in heaven, built by the great architect, God. (2)VI. Choose TWO of the three passages and comment on them. (20%)1.Analyze Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. (10%)2.Analyze Emily Dickinson's “Because I Could not stop for Death” . (10%)3.Ralph Waldo Emerson,s Self-Reliance. (10%)The score is given to the theme, (7) content (6) and writing style(7) of the work chosen.。
美国文学史期末复习题
I. Multiple choice. Please choose the best answer among the four items. (10 x 1’= 10’)1.In American literature, the 18th century was the age of Enlightenment. ____ was2.The short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is taken from Irving’s work3.4.5.6.Transcendentalist doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in _____ and7.8.9.10.Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone i n writing becomes1-5，BBACD 6-10 BADCDI. Multiple choice. Please choose the best answer among the four items. (10 x 1’= 10’)12._____ is a fantasy tale about a man who somehow stepped outside the main15.From Thoreau’s jail experience, came his famous essay, _____ which states his belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.A. WaldenB.NatureC. Civil DisobedienceD. Common Sense16.Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?17.Most of the poems in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-mass” and theNaturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes19.1-5 D A B C C 6-10 A C C D CII. Identify Works as Described Below (1’×15 =15’):10. It is a naturalistic work about how a country girl is seduced and how she becomes a famous actress and how her lover falls into a beggar and finally commits suicide.a. An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec. McTeagued. Maggie, A Girl of the Streets11. The novel is set on the Mississippi with the protagonist telling us the story in thelocal dialect. It is a representative work of local colorism.a.Sister Carrieb.The Adventures of Tom Sawyerc. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnd.The Portrait of a Lady12. The novel is a psychological study of a soldier (Henry Flemin g)’s reactions in the Civil War.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec.The Red Badge of Couraged. McTeague13. The poem is written in free verse in 52 cantos with the theme of the universality and equality in value of all people and all things.a.Cantosb. The Ravenc. Song of Myselfd.Chicago14. The novel is about how a group of people on a whaling ship kill a great whale but themselves are killed by the whale, with the conflict between man and his fate. b a.The Octopus b. Moby-Dickc. The Rise of Silas Laphamd. Leaves of Grass15. It is a philosophical essay in 8 chapters plus an introduction mainly concerned with the four uses of nature. ba. Waldenb. Naturec. The Scarlet Letterd. The American Scholar1-5.cdaad 6-10.aacbb cbbI.Choose the Best Answer for Each of the Following (1’×15=15’):1.An English ship brought 102 people from Plymouth, England on September 16, 1620 and arrived in the present Provincetown harbor on November 21 in the same year. This ship was named _______.a. The Pilgrimsb. Mayflowerc. Americad. Titanic2._______ is father of American drama and in his dramatic career he wrote 49 plays.a. Tennessee Williamsb. Eugene O’Neillc. Arthur Millerd. Elmer Rice3.____ was the first American writer to write entirely American literature.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Washington Irvingc. Mark Twaind. Ernest Hemingway4. _______ was the leader of American transcendentalism.a. Benjamin Franklinb. Washington Irvingc. Ralph Waldo Emersond. Henry David Thoreau5._______was the greatest woman poet in American literature and she wrote about 1,700 short lyric poems in her life time.a.Pearl S. Buckb.Harriet Bicher Stowec. Emily Dickensond. Walter Whitman6._______ is father of the detective story and of psychoanalytic criticism.a. Washington Irvingb. Ralph Waldo Emersonc. Walt Whitmand. Edgar Allan Poe7. William Dean Howells is concerned with the middle class life; ______ writes about the upper class society, and Mark Twain deals with the lower class reality.a. Stephen Craneb. Frank Norrisc. Theodore Dreiserd. Henry James8. Which of the following is a naturalistic writer?a. William Dean Howellsb. Mark Twainc. Ernest Hemingwayd.Theodore Dreiser12._________ is often regarded as the greatest American woman poet and she wrote over 1,700 short lyric poems in her life time.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Robert Frostc. H.D.d. Emily Dickinson14. He was the first black American to write a book about black life with great impact on the consciousness of the nation and his masterpiece is one of the three classics about black Americans. Who is he?a. Richard Wrightb. Harriet Beecher Stowec. Langston Hughesd. Ralph Ellison15. Hemingway wrote about American compatriots in Europe whereas ________ wrote about the Jazz age, life in American society.a. William Carlos Williamsb. William Faulknerc. John Steinbeckd. F. Scott Fitzgerald1-5 bbccc 6-10.dddaa 11-15.bdcadI. Choose the Best Answer for Each of the Following (1×15 %):2.The American Civil War broke out in 1861 between the Northern states and the South states, which are known respectively as the ______and the______.a. N, Sb. Revolutionaries, Reactionariesc. Union, Confederacyd. Slavery, Anti-Slavery3. Mark Twain was a representative of ________ in American literature.a. transcendentalismb. naturalismc. local colorismd. imagism5. The greatest American poet and the first writer of free verse is ___________.a. Washington Irvingb.Ezra Poundc. Walt Whitmand. Emily Dickinson14. _______ was the first black American to write a book about black life with great impact on the consciousness of the nation and his masterpiece is one of the three classics about black Americans.a.Richard Wrightb. Harriet Beecher Stowec. Langston Hughesd. Ralph Ellison15. _______ first used the “Jazz age” as the title of a collection of short storiesa. F. Scott Fitzgeraldb. William Faulknerc. John Steinbeckd. Ernest Hemingway1-5.caccc 6-10.dddaa 11-15.bdcba1-5.adcad 6-10.aacbb cbaII. Match the following (1×20%)A. Match Works with Their Authors1. Hugh Selwyn Mauberly2. Walden3. Autobiography4. The Scarlet Letter5. Leaves of Grass6. The Raven7. The Rise of Silas Lapham8. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer9. Long Day’s Journey into Night10. The Old Man and the Seaa. Mark Twain b . Ernest Hemingway c. Eugene O’Neill d. William Dean Howells e. Edgar Allan Poe f. Walt Whitmang. Nathaniel Hawthorne h. Benjamin Franklini.Henry David Thoreau j. Ezra Poundk.Thomas Jefferson l. T.S. Eliot1-5.jihgf 6-10.edccbB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear.1.Hester Prynne2.Mrs. Touchett3. Frederick Henry4.Benjy Compson5. the Joads6.General Edward Cummings7. Holden Caulfield 7.Bigger Thomas8. Yank 9.Happya.The Portrait of a Ladyb. The Scarlet Letterc. The Hairy Aped. A Farewell to Armse.The Sound and the Furyf. The Grapes of Wrathg. The Naked and the Deadh. The Catcher in the Ryei. Native Sonj. Death of a Salesmank.Invisible Manl.Catch-221-5.badef 6-10.ghicjIII. Match the following (1’×20=20’)A. Match works with their authors1. Nature2. Rip Van Winkle3. Nature4. The Scarlet Letter5. Leaves of Grass6. The Raven7. The Rise of Silas Lapham8. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn9. Cantos10. The Old Man and the Seaa. Ezra Poundb. Ernest Hemingwayc. Mark Twaind. William Dean Howellse. Edgar Allan Poef. Walt Whitmang. Nathaniel Hawthorne h. Ralph Waldo Emersoni.Washington Irving j. Waldo Emersonk.T.S. Eliot l. Robert FrostA. Match Works with Their Authors1-5.jihgf 6-10.edcabB. Match characters with the works in which they appear.2.Captain Ahab and Starbuck 2.Isabel Archer3. Frederic Henry and Catherine4.Benjy Compson5. the Joads6.General Edward Cummings7. Holden Caulfield 8.Bigger Thomas9. The Tyrones 10.Willy Lomana.The Portrait of a Ladyb. Moby-Dickc. Death of a Salesmand. A Farewell to Armse.The Sound and the Furyf. The Grapes of Wrathg. The Naked and the Dead h. The Catcher in the Ryei. Native Son j. Long Day’s Journey into Night k.Absalom, Absalom l. The Old Man and the SeaB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear.1-5.badef 6-10.edcabTrue or False. (10 x 2’= 20’)1. American literature is the oldest of all national literature.2. Thomas Jefferson was the only American to sign the 4 documents that created the US.3. All his literary life, Hawthorne seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil.4. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass are about human psychology.5. Hurstwood is a character in Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.6. Faulkner’s region was the Deep North, with its bitter history of slavery, civil war and destruction.7. Placed in historical perspective, Howells is found lacking in qualities and depth. But anyhow he is a literary figure worthy of notice.8. Faulkner’s works have been termed the Yoknapatawpha Saga, “one connected story”.9. As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematical.10. Emily Dickinson expresses her deep love in the poem “Annabel Lee”.1-5 F F T F F 6-10 F F T F FII. Decide whether the statements are True or False. (10 x 2’= 20’)1. Early in the 17th century, the English settlements in Virginia and began the main stream of what we recognize as the American national history.2. American Romantic writers avoided writing about nature, medieval legends and with supernatural elements.3. As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematical.4. “Young Goodman Brown” wants to prove everyone possesses kindness in heart.5. Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Twain or Howells.6. The American realists sought to describe the wide range of American experience and to present the subtleties of human personality.7. Frost’s concern with nature reflected his deep moral uncertainties.8. Faulkner’s works have been termed the Yoknapatawpha Saga, “one connected story”.9. Roger Chilli ngworth is a character in Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.10. After the Civil War, the Frontier was closing. Disillusionment and frustration were widely felt. What had been expected to be a “Golden Age” turned to be a “Gilded” one.1-5 T F T F T 6-10 F T T F TIII. Please explain the following terms. (5 x 6’ = 30’)1.Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.2.Free verse: It is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts to avoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech.3.International novel: IN brings together persons of various nationalities who represent certain characteristics of their own countries.4.Naturalism: It views human beings as animals in the natural world responding to environmental forces and internal stresses and drives, over none of which they have control and none of which they fully understand. The literary naturalists have a major difference from the realists. They look at a different spot to find real life.5.Transcendentalism: It stressed the power of intuition, believing that people could learn things both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner world by intuition. It took nature as symbolic of spirit or God. All things in nature were symbols of the spiritual, of God’s presence. It emphasized the significance of the individual and believed that the individual was the most important element in society and that the ideal kind of individual was self-reliant andunselfish. Transcendentalists envisioned religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “Oversoul”。
美国文学期末复习资料题
2013-2014-1 美国文学史及选读期末复习材料.- Ⅰ Multiple choices1. Which is not connected with Thomas Paine?A. Common SenseB. The American CrisisC. The Rights of ManD. The Autobiography2. “These are the times that try men’s souls”, these words were once read to Washington’s troops and did much to spur excitement to further action with hope and confidence. Who is the author of these words?A.Benjamin FranklinB. Thomas PaineC. Thomas JeffersonD. George Washington3. At the Reason and Revolution Period, Americans were influenced by the European movement called the ______.A. Chartist MovementB. Romanticist MovementC. Enlightenment MovementD. Modernist Movement4. In American literature, the Enlighteners were favorable to______.A. the colonial orderB. religious obscurantismC. the Puritan traditionD. the secular literature5. The English colonies in North America rose in arms against their parent country and the Continental Congress adopted ______ in 1776.A. Declaration of IndependenceB. the Sugar ActC. the Stamp ActD. the Mayflower Compact6. ______ usually was regarded as the first American writer.A. William BradfordB. Anne BradstreetC. Emily DickinsonD. Captain John Smith7. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the “______” who appeared in America.A. Ninth MuseB. Tenth MuseC. Best MuseD. First Muse8. Who was considered as the “poet of American Revolution”?A. Anne BradstreetB. Edward TaylorC. Michael WigglesworthD. Philip Freneau9. In 1817, the stately poem called Thanatopsis introduced the best poet ______ to appear in America up to that time.A. Edward TaylorB. Philip FreneauC. William Cullen BryantD. Edgar Allen Poe10. The finest example of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s symbolism is the recreation of Puritan Boston in ______.A. The Scarlet LetterB. Young Goodman BrownC. The Marble FaunD. The Ambitious Guest11. “The universe is composed of Nature and the soul… Spirit is present everywhere”. This is the voice of the book Nature written by Emerson, which pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England ______.A. RomanticismB. TranscendentalismC. NaturalismD. Symbolism12. Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism?A. NatureB. WaldenC. On BeautyD. Self-Reliance.- 13. Mark Twain created, in _________, a masterpiece of American realism that is also one of the great books of world literature.A. The Adventure of Huckleberry FinnB. The Adventure of Tom SawyerC. The Man That Corrupted HadleyburgD. The Gilded Age14. _________ marks the climax of Mark Twain ’s literary creativity.A . The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn B. The Gilded AgeC. Life on the MississippiD. The Adventure of Tom Sawyer15. Choose the novel which is not written by Henry James.A. The AmbassadorsB. The Wings of the DoveC. The BostoniansD. The Mysterious Stranger16. Generally speaking, all those writers with a naturalistic approach to human reality tend to be _________.A. transcendentalistsB. idealistsC. pessimistsD. impressionists17. Ezra Pound ’s long poem _________ contained more than one hundred poems loosely connected.A. The Waste LandB. The CantosC. Don JuanD. Queen Mab18. T. S. Eliot ’s first major poem _________(1917), has been called the first masterpiece of modernism in English.A. The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockB. The Waste LandC. Four QuartetsD. Preludes19. Ernest Hemingway was badly wounded in Italy and sent to a hospital where he fell in love with a nurse. These two persons later became the characters of his novel _________.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. For Whom the Bell TollsC. The Sun Also RisesD. A Farewell to Arms20. In William Faulkner ’s The Sound and the Fury , he used a technique called _________, in which the whole story was told through the thoughts of one character.A. stream of consciousnessB. imagismC. symbolismD. naturalism21. Led by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and ______, there arose a kind of teachings of transcendentalism in the early nineteenth century.A. Herman MelvilleB. Henry David ThoreauC. Mark TwainD. Theodore Dreiser22. A New ______ had appeared in England in the last years of the eighteenth century. It spread to continental Europe and then came to America early in the nineteenth century.A. realismB. critical realismC. romanticismD. naturalism23. From Henry David Thoreau ’s jail experience, came his famous essay, ______ which states Thoreau ’s belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.A. WaldenB. NatureC. Civil DisobedienceD. Common Sense24. Mark Twain, one of the greatest 19th century American writers, is well known for his _________.A. international themeB. waste-land imageryC. local colorD. symbolism25. Herman Melville ’s ______ is an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy religion, etc. in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. Moby DickC. White Jacket C . Billy Budd26. The ship “______” carried about one hundred Pilgrims and took 66 days to beat its way across the Atlantic. In December of 1620, it put the Pilgrims ashore at Plymouth, Massachusetts.A. SunflowerB. ArmadaC. MayflowerD. Pequod.- 27. From 1733 to 1758, Benjamin Franklin wrote and published his famous ______, an annual collection of proverbs.A. The AutobiographyB. Poor Richard ’s AlmanacC. Common SenseD. The General Magazine28. In American literature, the eighteen-century was the age of the Enlightenment. ______ was the dominant spirit.A. HumanismB. RationalismC. RevolutionD. Evolution29. ______ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.A. Henry David ThoreauB. Ralph Waldo EmersonC. Nathaniel HawthorneD. Walt Whitman30. Edgar Allen Poe ’s first collection of short stories is ______.A. Tales of a TravelerB. Leatherstocking TalesC. Canterbury TalesD. Tales of the Grotesque of Arabesque31. ______ was a romanticized account of Herman Melville ’s stay among the Polynesians. The success of the book soon made Melville well known as the “man who lived among cannibals ”.A. Moby DickB. TypeeC. OmooD. Billy Budd32. Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence ”?A. The American ScholarB. English TraitsC. The Conduct of LifeD. Representative Men33. The three dominant figures of the realistic period in American literature are _________.A. Theodore Dreiser, Emily Dickinson and William Dean HowellsB. Mark Twain, Henry James and William Dean HowellsC. Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser and William Dean HowellsD. Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson and William Dean Howells34. American literature produced only one female poet during the nineteenth century. This was _________.A. Anne BradstreetB. Jane AustenC. Emily DickinsonD. Harriet Beecher35. In 1900, London published his first collection of short stories, named _________.A. The Son of the WolfB. The Sea WolfC. The Law of LifeD. White Fang36. In Henry James ’ Daisy Miler , the author tries to portray the young woman as an embodiment of _________.A. the force of conventionB. the free spirit of the New WorldC. the decline of aristocracyD. the corruption of the newly rich37. “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” This is the shortest poem written by _________.A. T.S. EliotB. Robert FrostC. Ezra PoundD.E.E.Cumings38. The Fitzgerald lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than F. Scot Fitzgerald earned for parties, liquor, entertaining their friends and traveling. It was this living style that nicknamed the decade of the 1920s as _________.A. The Roaring TwentiesB. The Jazz AgeC. The Dollar DecadeD. all of the above39. In 1954, _________ was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his “mastery of the art of modern narration ”.A. T.S EliotB. Ernest HemingwayC. John SteinbeckD. William Faukner40. William Faukner ’s novel _________ describes the decay and downfall of an old southern aristocratic family, symbolizing the old social order, told from four different points of view.A. The Sound and the FuryB. Startoris.- C. The Unvanquished D. The Town41. “The Lure of the Spirit: The Flesh in Pursuit ” is the title of one chapter in Dreiser ’s novel _________.A. An American DreamB. Sister CarrieC. Dreiser Looks at RussiaD. Jannie Gerhardt42. The main theme of _________ The Art of Fiction reveals his literary credo that representation of life should be the main object of the novel.A. Henry James ’B. William Dean Howells ’C. Mark Twain ’sD. O. Henry ’s43. With William Dean Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, _________became the major trend in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century.A. sentimentalismB. romanticismC. realismD. naturalism44. While embracing the socialism of Marx, London also believed in the triumph of the strongest individuals. This contradiction is most vividly projected in the patently autobiographical novel _________.A. The Call of the WildB. The Sea WolfC. Martin EdenD. The Iron Heel45_________ is a novella about a young American girl who gets “killed ” by the winter in Rome, and it brought Henry James international fame for the first time.A. The AmericanB. The EuropeansC. Daisy MillerD. The Portait of a LadyAnswers: 1-5 DBCDA 6-10 DBDCA 11-15 BAAAD 16-20 CBADA21-25 BCCCB 26-30 CBBBD 31-35 BABCA 36-40 BCDBA 41-45 BACCCⅡ Filling the following blanks with proper answers1. Captain John Smith became the first American writer.2. The puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people.3. The first major intellectual spokesman of the Massachusetts Bay colony was John Cotton, sometimes called “the Patriarch of New England.”4. Anne Bradstreet published The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America , and she was nicknamed the tenth Muse.5. Poor Richard ’s Almanac is an annual collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin.6. Thomas Paine ’s famous pamphlet Common Sense boldly advocated a “Declaration for Independence ”.7. Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.8. Philip Freneau developed a natural, simple, and concrete diction, best illustrated in such nature lyrics as “The Wild Honey Suckle ” and “The Indian Burying Ground ”.9. Philip Freneau has been called the “Father of American Poetry ”.10. In Washington Irving ’s Sketch Book appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.11. Cooper ’s enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novels that comprise the Leatherstocking tales .12. “To a Waterfowl ” is perhaps the peak of William Cullen Bryant ’s wok.13. “Thanatopsis ”, William Cullen Bryant ’s best-known poem, consists of four stanzas in iambic tetrameter abab. The title means “view of death ”.14. Edgar Allan Poe is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories ”..- 15. Emerson believed above all in individualism, independence of mind, and self-reliance.16. In Walden , Thoreau thought it better for a man to work one day a week and rest six, and therest of the time could be devoted to thought.17. Hawthorne ’s stories touch the deepest roots of man ’s moral nature.18. Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.19. After his death, Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet ’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.20. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom ’s Cabin , had become an American institution and the most famous literary woman in the world.21. William Dean Howells found his subject matter in the experiences of the American middle class.22. William Dean Howells called for the treatment of the “smiling aspects of life ” as being the more “American.”23. The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment.24. The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called free verse.25. O ·Henry ’s stories are usually short and interesting; Famous for their surprising end.26. Henry James is famous for his international theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity of European life.27. Jack London believed in the inevitable triumph of the strongest individuals.28. Dreiser ’s greatest and most successful novel, An American Tragedy, is about a young man who acts as if the only way he can be truly fulfilled is by acquiring wealth —through marriage if necessary.29. Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “Lost Generation,” devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization.30. Wallace Stevens ’ work is primarily motivated by the belief that “ideas of order ”.31. With the publication of The Sun Also Rises , Hemingway became the spokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called “a lost generation.”Ⅲ Decide whether the statements are true or false (T/F).1. John Winthrop ’s reports of exploration, published in the early 1600s, have been regarded as the first distinct American literature written in English.2. In 1612, William Bradford published in England a book called A Map of Virginia ; With a description of the country.3. Philip Freneau was neoclassical by training and taste yet romantic in essential spirit.4. Ralph Waldo Emerson was recognized as the leader of transcendentalist movement, but he always applied the term “Transcendentalist ” to himself or to his beliefs and ideas.5. To Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, the telling of a tale was a way of inquiring into the meaning of life.6. Walt Whitman was attacked in his lifetime for his offensive subject matter of sexuality and for his conventional style.7. Tom Sawyer walked out of Twain ’s pages directly from his fresh memory of his boyhood in the west.8. Hurstwood is a character in Theodore Dreiser ’s Sister Carrie .9. In the decade of the 1910s, American literature achieved a new diversity and reached its greatest heights.10. Edwin Arlington Robinson began his career as a novalist in bleakness and poverty..- 11.The greatest of America ’s realists, such as Henry James and Mark Twain, moved well beyond a superficial portrayal of nineteenth-century America.12.Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Mark Twain or WilliamDean Howells.13.Sister Carrie is generally regarded as Theodore Dreiser ’s masterpiece.14.Generally speaking, Jack London was much more interested in ideas than Stephen Crane and less sentimental than Frank Norris.15.Ralph Waldo Emerson ’s prose style was sometimes as highly individual as his poetry.16. American literature is the oldest of all national literature.17. Georgia, Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New England, all were named after French monarchs and lands.18. Benjamin Franklin was a prose stylist whose writing reflected the neoclassic ideals of clarity, restraint, simplicity and balance.19. The Fall of the House of Usher is one of Edgar Allan Poe ’s poems.20. The Scarlet Letter is set in the seventeenth century. It is an elaboration of a fact which the author took out of the life of the Puritan past.21. Walt Whitman was so great that he won respect and love during his lifetime for his Leaves of Grass .22. Many of O. Henry ’s stories contain a lot of slang and colloquial expressions, just like his own speech.23. Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Mark Twain or William Dean Howells.24. Robert Frost rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporaries, and chose “the old-fashioned way to be new ” instead.25. John Steinbeck ’s theme was usually that simple human virtues such as kindness and fair treatment were far superior to official hard-heartedness, or the dehumanizing cruelty of exploiters for their own commercial advantage.26. Transcendentalists spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.27. Washington Irving was the first great belletrist, writing always for pleasure, and to produce pleasure.28. James Fennimore Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure tale and the frontier saga.29. Puritan influence over American Romanticism was conspicuously noticeable.30. “Young Goodman Brown ” seems to prove everyone possesses some evil secrets1-5 FFTFT 6-10FTTFF 11-15 TFFTT 16-20 FFTFT 21-25FFFTT 26-30 TTTTTⅣ Answer the following questions briefly.1. These are the times that try men ’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly —This dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods.Questions:(1)Which book is this passage taken from?.- (2)Who is the author of this book?(3)Whom is the author praising? Whom is the author criticizing?(4)What do you think of the language?Answers:(1) The American Crisis.(2) Thomas Paine(3) Paine is praising those who stand “it ”, it referring to “the service of their country ”. In the meantime, Paine is criticizing those who shrink from the service of their country in this crisis.(4) The language is plain, impressive and forceful. Paine himself once said that his purpose as a writer was to use plain language to make those who can scarcely read understand and to fit the powers of thinking and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question and nothing else.2. It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho, was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now widly heightened by circumstance of the Town-Ho ’s story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates …Nevertheless, so potent and influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod ’s main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record.Questions:(1)From which novel is this paragraph taken?(2) What is the name of the novelist?(3) Who is Ahab?(4) What is Pequod?(5) What is the theme of the novel?Answers:(1) Moby Dick(2) Herman Melville(3) The captain of the whaling ship(4) The name of the whaling ship(5) The rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces.3. When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human temper. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished.- by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms. Without a counselor at hand to whisper cautiousinterpretations, what falsehoods may not these things breathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognizedfor what they are, their beauty, like music, too often relaxes, then weakens then perverts the simpler human perceptions.Questions:(1) From which novel is this paragraph taken?(2) Who is the author of this novel?(3) How do you understand “the cosmopolitan standard of virtue ”?(4) Is there any naturalist tendency in this passage?Answers:(1)Sister Carrie(2) Theodore Dreiser(3) “The cosmopolitan standard of virtue ” is something that makes a person become low in virtue and become worse.(4) Yes.4. Briefly discuss the novel The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is one of the greatest novels in American literature. It fully explores the disillusionment and despair of the lost generation through the personal tragedy of a young man whose “incorruptible Dream ” is easily smashed into pieces by the crude reality. The protagonist, Gatsby, is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies American itself. His failure magnifies the end of the American Dream. The style of the story is explicit and chilly. Fitzgerald ’s accurate dialogues, his careful observation of mannerism and the colorful images provide the reader with a vivid and profound scene of the reality.5. What are the three main principles that Ezra Pound endorsed?(1) Directly treat poetic subjects.(2) Eliminate merely ornamental or superfluous words.(3) Rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of metronome.6. Tell the differences between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman(1) Emily Dickinson expresses the inner life of individuals, while Walt Whitman keeps his eyes on the society at large.(2) Emily Dickinson is “regional ”, while Walt Whitman is “national ” in his outlook.(3) Formally, Emily Dickinson uses concise, simple dictions and syntax, while Walt Whitman uses endless, all-inclusive catalogs.Ⅴ Essay Writing (这个部分给大家的答案只是罗列了回答的要点，要将其连缀成文，如果简单按复习题给的答案罗列，只得一半分数)1. Write a short essay about the novel The Grapes of WrathWriter: John Steinbeck----won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962; spoke for the oppressed and suffered.- Background information: (1) Oklahoma used to be a major agricultural state. In the 1930s, a draught ruined this place. People had to leave here to seek a way out. Many of them went to Californiain hope of finding jobs there to support their family. (2)The Great Depression.Meaning of title: (1) Hope to despair; (2) Wrath of people; (3) Indications of revolution. Theme: (1) Embodying the mass misery of farmers; (2) Praising the spirit of love and unity; (3) Advocating fight and struggle for better life.Structure: (1) Its structure is dictated by the bible; (2) There are two blocks of material: a. the westward trek of the Joads; b. the depressed Oklahomans, and the general picture of the Great Depression.Symbols: (1) dust---evil forces; (2) grapes---hope →rage2. Write a short essay about the novel A Farewell to ArmsWriter: Hemingway---- (1) in 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize; (2) Main works: The Sun also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The old Man and the Sea. (3) His major contribution: a. Code hero---grace under pressure; b. Iceberg Theory--- economy of expression;(4) the lost generationBackground information: World War ⅡTheme: shows the filth, meaningless, calamity of war; the death, the nothingness of life; the disillusionment with future, hope and love, happiness. The universe is indifferent. There is no God to watch over man.Characters: Henry--- initially detached from life----though well-disciplined and friendly, he feels as if he has nothing to do with the war. After falling in love with Catherine he became a code hero in some way. Catherine---code hero: unfaltering devotion to Henry, brave, considerate, optimisticSymbols: rain---sadness, desperation, depression. It is raining outside almost every time something bad occurs. mud---nature's hostility to man.3. Write a short essay about the novel The Adventures of Tom SawyerAuthor: Mark Twain —the first truly American writer, a local colorist; he used short, concrete and colloquial language; his sentences are simple, and even ungrammatical; good at writing children ’s adventures; masterpieces including: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom SawyerAbout the novel: The first famous novel about growing up and showing the contradictions between adults ’ world and teenagers ’ world, a story of his seeking for freedom, fame, fortune, love, manhood; reveals the American values such as hero complex and American dream; records the rising Age of American Bourgeois system; bears the irony and satire toward the religion and rigid, didactic children education, which curbed the imagination of children and their innate nature for freedom and adventures and molded them into a stereotype of lifeless man.4. Comment briefly on Theodore Dreiser ’s theme and writing style?Theme: Dreiser ’s works are mainly concerned with the tragic nature of the human condition by depicting the coarse, vulgar, cruel, and terrible aspects of life like sex and crime.Style: In terms of style, Dreiser has sometimes been censured for his clumsy syntax, deficient characterization, and inept and dull prose. Yet his accumulated detail, carefully selected and faithfully recorded, is a technique of power. Like the other naturalists, he refused to judge —to consider people as good or evil. He clothes his concepts symbolically in the details of reality. It is his journalistic method that has made him one of America ’s foremost novelists..-。
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美国文学史期末考试复习题(使用书本为童明的《美国文学史修订版》)
一、名词解释（交代背景、内容/特点、代表人物/作品）
1. American Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience. (the representative writers and its features should be also added.)
2. Black Humor :
1）In the 1960s, in literature, drama, and film, black humor refers to grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world.
2）Black humor often uses low comedy farce and low comedy to make clear that individuals are helpless victims of fate and character.
3）Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is an example of this school
3. Henry James’s international theme: 书p159
4. Beat Generation：
1) American poets, 1950s-1960s, a rebellion ,counterculture, romantic, drugs and uninhibited sex.
2)Best and most influential poem: “Howl”:denounces the life-denying effects of American culture.
5.American Puritanism：it comes from the American puritans, who were the first immigrants moved to American continent in the 17th century. Original sin, predestination and salvation were the basic ideas of American Puritanism. And, hard-working, piousness，thrift and sobriety were praised.书p17
6. Transcendentalism: is a philosophic and literary movement that flourished in New England, particular at Concord, as a reaction against Rationalism and Calvinism. Mainly it stressed intuitive understanding of God, without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. The representative writers are Emerson and
Thoreau.
7. Themes of Henry James’s writing: 书p158
8.The Lost Generation:it refers to a group of young intellectuals who came back from war，were injured both physically and mentally. They lived by indulging themselves in the Bohemian way of life. Their American dream was disillusioned. The best representative of the lost generation was Ernest Hemingway.
二、回答问题
1. What are the characteristics of American romanticism？
（书本p68. 3点+ P69.5点）
2. How is the Darwinian belief in naturalism opposed to the Christian creationist view? 书p166
What is the determinist view of existence that informs naturalism? What are the implications of this view on ethics?
3. What are the philosophical foundations and characteristics of American naturalism? 书p166
4. What are the important point s for Hawthorne’s sty le?
5. What is the predominant mood in Poe’s poetry? Discuss with two poems as examples.
6. What are the parameters of American Realism?
书P145
7. How is Thoreau revolt manifested both in his social actions and his writing?
书p99
What is the nature of his revolt?
书p100( and nature in Civil Disobedience should be added)
8. The age of American realism is divided into two more periods. What are the periods called? What are the characteristics and who are the representatives of each period?。