自学考试英美文学

1.Hamlet is the first of the great tragedies...brief comment on the theme of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

A.Shakespeare depicts the image of Hamlet as a Renaissance humanist to embody the dramatist's own ideas,personal idea,and social and political one.
B.In Hamlet;s case,first and foremost is his own personal ideal,that of filial piety and a strong sense of justice that demands revenge.But he has his social and political ideals too.On the one hand,he eulogizes the infinite capabilities of man:"What a piece of work is man;how noble in reason!How infinite in faculty!"On the other hand he sees and hopes to get rid of the social evils besetting human beings,as he speaks of a "sea of troubles."
C.So Hamlet engages himself in personal revenge but at the same time intend to set right the "time" that is "out of joint."The burden of these duties makes Hamlet a man of contemplation rather than of action,which leads to the soliloquies revealing the inner working of his mind.Then, the struggle between good and evil dominatively controls the scene of Hamlet's tragedy,a tragedy of humanist who is always to see and construct a better world.
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2.Robinson Crusoe is universally considered as Daniel Defoe's ...brief comment on Robinson Crusoe.

A.In Robinson Crusoe,Defoe traces the growth of Robinson from a native and artless youth into a shrewed and hardened man,tempered by mumerous trails in his eventful life.The realistic account of the successful struggle of Robinson single-handedly against the nature forms the best part of the novel.
B.In describing Robinson's life on the island,Defoe glorifies human labor and the Puritan fortitude, which save Robinson from despair and are a source of pride and happiness.He toils for the sake of subsistence,and the fruits of his labor are his own.
C.Robinson is here a real hero:a typical eighteenth-century English middle-class man,with a great capacity for work,inexhaustible energy,courage,patience and persistence in overcoming obstacles,in struggling against the hostile natural environment .He is the very prototype of the empire builder,the pioneer colonist.
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3.Please make a comment on American literary natualist Theodore Dreiser's writing style.

A.Dreiser's style has been a point of heated disscussion.The consensus that has been reached so far seems to be that ,although Dreiser's novels are formless at times and wakwardly written,and his characterization is found deficient and his prose pedestrain and dull,yet his very energy proves to be more than a compensation.
B.Dreiser's stories are always solid and intensely interesting with their simple but highly moving characters.Dresier is good at employing the journalistic method of reiteration to burn a central impression into the reader's mind.His interest in painting is reflected in his taste for word-pictures,sharp contrast,truth in color,and movement in outline.Here lies the power and permanence that have made Dreiser one of America's f

oremost novelists.
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4.The Great Gatsby is an examination of American myth....brief comment on The great Gatsby.

A.The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece in American literature.It evokes a haunnting mood of a glamorous,wild time that seemingly will never come again.
B.Besides,the loss of an ideal and the disillusionment that comes with the failure are exploited fully in the personal tragedy of a young man whose "incorruptible dream" is "smashed into pieces by the relentless reality."
C.Gatsby is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies American itself;Gatsby is the last of the romantic heros,whose energy and sense of commitment takes him in search of his personal grail;Gatsby's failure magnifies to a great extent the end of American dream.
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5.Thomas Hardy is not an nayst of human life or nature...brief comment on Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

A.This novel is one of the best and most popular works by Hardy.It's a fierce attack on the hypocritical morality of the bourgeois society and the capitalist invasion into the country and destruction of the English peasantry towards the end of the century.
B.Tess,as a pure woman brought up with the traditional idea of womanly virtues,is abused and destroyed by both Alec and Angel,agents of the destructive force of the society.And the misery,the poverty and the heartfelt pain she suffers and her final tragedy give rise to a most bitter cry of protest and denunciation of the society.Of course,naturalistic tendency is also strong in the novel.
C In a way Tess seems to be led her final destruction step by step by Fate.Coincidence adds one "wrong" to another until she is caught up in a dead-end.
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6.Please make a brief comment on Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown.

A.Young Goodman Brown is one of Hawthorne's most profound tales.In the manner of its concern with guilt and evil,it exemplifies what Melville called the "power of blackness" in Hawthorne's work.
B.Its hreo,a naive young man who accepts both society in general and his fellow men as individuals worth his regard, is confronted with the vision of human evil in one terrible night, and becomes thereafter distrustful and doubtful.
C.Allegorically,our protagonist becomes an Everyman named Brown, a "young" man,who will be aged in one night by an adventure that makes everyone in this world a fallen idol.
D.However, the story is manipulated in such a way and we as readers feel that Hawthorne poses the question of Good and Evil in man but withholds his answer,and he does not permit himself to determine whether the events of the night of trial are real or the mere figment of a dream.
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7.In Pride and Prejudice,Jane Austen explored three kinds of...Make comment on Austen's attitude towards these motivations.

A.Motivation one:to pursue material interest through marriage;Wickman,Miss Bingley and Charlotte Lucas are examples of this kind.
B.

Motivation two:to seek sensual pleasure and beauty;Lydia is example of this kind.
C.Motivation three:to search for true love and slao take personal merits and financial positions into considerations;Elizabeth Bennet is a typical example of this kind.
D.Austen celebrated the third kind of motivations of marriage while criticizing the first two wrong motivations.
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8.Mark Twain presented the 19th-century America ...based on his novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

A.Mark Twain used the Mississippi valley as his fictional kingdom,writing about the landscape and people,the customs and the dialects of one particular region, and is therefore known as a local colorist.
B.He creates life-like characters,especially the unconventional Hucklebrerry Finn,who runs away from civllazation and stands opposite to conventional village morality.
C.He uses a simple,direct vernacular language,totally different from any precious literary language.It is the kind of colloquial language belonging to the lower class,the living local American English.
D.He has created a special humor to satirize social injustices and the decayed convention.
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9.Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels...brief comment on Gulliver's Travels.

A.As a whole,the book is one of the most effective and devastating criticisms and satires of all aspect in the then English and European life-socially,politically,religiously,philosophically,scientifically,and morally.Its social aignificance is great and its exploration into human nature profound.
B.Gulliver's Travels is an artistic maeterpiece.In structure,the four parts make an organic whole,with each contrived upon an independent structure,and yet complementing the others and contributing to the central concerns of study of human nature and life.The first two parts are generally considered the best paired-up work.
C.In the novel,man is observed from both ends of a telescope.The exaggerated smallness in Part 1 works just as effectively as the exggerated largeness in Part 2 .The similaries between human beings and the Lilliputians and the contrast between the Brobdingnagians and human beings both bear reference ti the possibilities of human state part 3,though seemingly a bit random,furthers the criticism of the western civilazation and deals with different malpractices and false illusions about science,philosophy,history and even immortality.The last part ,where comparison is made through both similarities and differences,leads the reader to a fundamental question:What on earth is a human being?
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10.Summarize the story Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in about 100 words,and comment on the theme of the novel.

A.The story takes place along the Mississippi River before the Civil War in the United States.The novel relates the story of the escape of Jim from slavery and ,more important,how Huck Finn,floating along with Jim and helping him as best he could,changes his mind,his preju

dice,about black people,and comes to accept Jim as a man and as a close friend as well.During their journey,they experience a series of adventures:coming across two frands,the "Duck" and the "King," witnessing the lynching and murder of a harmless drunkark,being lost in a fog and finally Tom's coming to rescue.
B.The theme of the novel maybe the best summed in a "freedom":Huck wants to escape from the bond of civilization and Jim wants to escape from the yoke of slavery.Mark Twain uses the raft;s journey down the Mississipi river to express his thematic contrasts between innocence and experience,nature and culture,wilderness and civilization.
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11.Please discuss the significance of William Wordsworth's poetry in the history of English literature.

A.First of all,Wordsworth's theory,as stated in his "preface" to the sound edition of the "Lyrical Ballads," serves as a manifesto of Romanticism.The poet takes the direct experience of the senses as the source of poetic truth as poetry comes from the "emotion recollected in transquillity."The significance of the "Preface" also presents itself in the poet's advocation of the writing of the common people in prdinary language.
B.Secondly,his practice is what his theory implies,for the joys and sorrows of the commom people are his themes,It canbe seen in many his poems such as the "Lucy poems."
C.Thirdly,natural scenery with its beauty and mystery acts also as one of his favorite themes and the sympathy out of the poet's nature towards the poor in rural places becomes part of his concern.
D.Fourthly,the inner workings of individual's mind remain what Wordsworth likes to reveal in his depiction of natural scenery,and the spiritual growth of his own makes his masterpiece The Prelude.
E.Finally,the seemingly simplicity of the poet both in direction and description is immersed in a profound and sympathetis longing for a better world.So the most important contribution he has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry,the poetry of growing inner self,but also changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a return to nature.
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12.Retell in a few sentences the story of the last chapter(chapter135)...Discuss the meaning of the ending of the story.

A.The story of Moby-Dick is simple,telling the battle between Ahab,captain of the whaling ship Pequod and the monstrous white whale Moby Dick.Ahab is obsessed by his determination to revenge himself upon the fierce,cunning whale,bacause it has crippled him.After many days of search and pursuit,the white whale is finally sighted.
B.Chapter 135 is a description of the third day's chase.Three boat has been lowered in chase of the whale,but ywo of them are later destoryed by the whale.Although the whale is harpooned at last,the ship is sunk and all the people abord are drowned except Ishmale,the narrator of the story who happens to be rescued by another whale ship.
C.Mo

by-Dick is not merely a whale tale or sea adventure.It is a tragic epic.The voyage the Pequod has made is a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe,a spiritual exploration into man's deep reality and psychology.The battle betweeen Ahab and the white whale symbolizes the struggle between man and nature,man and fate,good and evil.
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13.Please give a short introduction to the major characteristics of wrence's literary creation in novel writing.

wrence express a strong reaction against the mechanical civilization on the sensual tenderness oh human nature,and it is this agonized concern that haunts his writing.
wrence,introducting psychological elements into his words,holds that human sexuality is the dominating "Life Force,"and frankly describes scenes of sex.
C.As far as artistic tendency is concerned,Lawrence is mainly realistic,and he makes the use of poetic imagination,symbolism and psychological description in his writing.
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14.How is Romanticism different from Neoclassicism? Provide brief evidence from the literary works you know best.

A.Neoclassicists upheld that artistic ideals should be order,logic,restrained emotion and accuracy,and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity,and thus,literary expressions should be of proportion,unity,harmony and grace.Pope's An Essay on criticism advocates grave,wit, and simpilicity in language;Fielding's Tom Jones helped establish the form of novel;Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard displays elegance in style,unified structure,serious tone and moral instruction.
B.Romanticists tended to see the individual as the very center of all experience,including art,and thus,literary should be "spontaneous overflow of strong feelings," and no matter how fragmentary those experiences were,the value of the work lied in the accuracy of presenting those unique feeling and particular attitudes.
C.In a word,Neoclassicism emphasizes rationality and form but Romanticism attached great importance to the individual's mind.
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15.Analyze the character of Jane Eyre based on the selection taken from Chapter XXIII of Jane Eyre.

A.Jane Eyre,an orphan child with a fiery spirit and a longing to love and be loved,a poor, plain,little governess who dares to love her master.
B.In Chapter XXIII,Jane finds herself helplessly in love with Mr. Rochester,she desperately and openly declares her equality with him and her love for him.
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16.Symbolism has been widely used by American writers.Discuss the way symbolism is used in Faulkner's story A Rose for Emily.

A.Rose ,as a symbol of love, may fefer to the love between Emily and the Northerner,yet used rather ironically,in the way it is associated with decay and death in the story.
B.Rose could also stand for the pity,sympahty,or the lament "we" shows for Emily.
C.The pity and lament does not only to Emily but all those w

ho are imprisoned in the past and fail to adapt to the change.
D.Emily,an eccentric spinster who refuses to accept the passage of time,is the symbol of the Old South imprisoned in the past.
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17."My Faith is gone!"cried he,after one stupefied ment on this passage.

A.This passage is taken from Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown.Here Goodman Brown utters this cry when he finds his wife Faith,together with lots of prominent people of the village and the church,attending a witches'Sabbath in the woods.
B.His cri shows his great surprise and disillusionment.Thereafter,he becomes distrustful and doubtful.He lives a dismal and gloomy life bacause he is never able believe in goodness or piety again.Here the author makes a pun of the word "faith."Goodman Brown loses not only his faith in religion and life,but also his faith in his wife,for his wife's name is Faith.
C.From this story,we also can see that Hawthorne is a great allegorist and a master of symbolism.The story itself is an allegory and is full of symbols such as the frost,the night,and the pink ribbon.
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18.Symbolism is an important literary practice in literature...Discuss the way symbolism is used in Melville's Moby-Dick.

A.To Ahab,the whale is either an evil creature itself or the agent of an evil force that controls the universe,or perhaps both.The chase of white whale symbolizes Ahab's pursuit of truth and fighting against the evil power.
B.To Ishmael,the whale is an astonishing force,an immense power,which defies rational explanation due to a sense of mestery it carries.
C.It also represents the tremendous organic vitality of the universe.
D.To the readers,the whale can be viewd as a symbol of the physical limit that life imposes upon man.
E.It may also be regard as a symbol of nature.At the end of the chapter,the author says"...the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rilled five thousand years ago."Here the sea symbolizes nature that remains moving but unmoved.
F.Different people on board the ship are representations of different ideas and different social and ethnic groups. The Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth.
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19.Literarily,William Blake was the first important romantic poet.Please make a brief comment on his poetry.

A.His first colection of poems Poetical Sketches is one of youthful verse with joy,laughter,love and harmony is its prevailing notes.The second volume of his Songs of Innocence presents a happy and innocent world.And the third-Songs of Experience paint a different world,a world of misery,poverty,disease,war and repression with a melancholy tone.The last two hold the similar subject-matter,but their tone,emphasis and conclusion differ.Childhood remians central to the poet's concern in the two,with a number of poems from then can be pairs.
B.The maturity of Blake's poetry is shown in his poem Marriage of Heaven and Hell in which the relationship of t

he contraries is explored,for in the poet;s eyes,"without contraries,there is no progression."
C.He also wrote many prophetic poems.
D.He took "This World" as "A world of Imagination and Vision,"declaring that"the nature of my work is visionary or imaginative."Though in that case,his peotry is written in plain and direct language.
E.His poem often carry the lyric beauty with immense compression of meaning.He distrust the abstractness and tends to embody his views with visual images.Symbolism in wide range is also a distinctive feature of his poetry.
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20.Elizabeth Bennet,the heroine in Pride and Prejudice...Make a brief comment on Elizabeth's character.

A.Elizabeth is clever,alert,observant.She is more observant and less charitable than Jane in recognizing the chacters of Bingley's sisters.She recongnizes Mr. Collins' chacter in his letter and after reading meeting him turns down firmly and with dignity his patronizing proposal.She is able to match wits with Darcy several times and with Colonel Fitzwilliam,earning their respect and admiration.
B.Fearless and frank,not rattled by the attack of Lady Catherine de Bourgh,she wins a notable victory,sending her Ladyship away completely routed.She is independent but not infallible in her judgment-taken in by the charm of the worthless Wickham.She cannot be blamed for misjudging Darcy.
C.She shows flexibility,discernment,and honesty of mind when she reads Darcy's defense in his letter and admits the justice of much of what he says.
D.She is able to control her emotions at times of stress.She is witty,fun-loving,recognizesmhumor in herself and in others,but ridiculing only folly,nonsense,and inconsistencises.She recognizes the follies of her own family and their shortcomings as well as their virtues.
E.She is considerate of others but quite capable of asserting herself when occasion demands.She shows a sense of humor by telling what Darcy has said about her at the Meryton ball.
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21.Why is Hardy regarded as a naturalistic writer in English literature?Discuss in relation to his novels you know.

A.He reads Darwin's The Origin of Species and accepted the idea of survival of the fittest.
B.He was also influenced by Spencer's The First Principle,which led him to the belief that man's fate is predeterminedly tragic,driven by a combined force of "nature".
C.The outside nature is shown as some mysterious supernatural force.
D.Man proves impotent before Fate.
E.Man discuss in relation to his novels.In his works ,man is shown inevitably bound by his own inherent nature and hereditary traits which prompt him to go and search for some specific happiness or success and set him in conflict with the environment.
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22.Please discuss Henry James' contribution to American literature in regard to his representative works,themes,writing techniques and language.

A.Works :Daisy Miller,The Portrait of A Lady.
B.International themes.
C.HIs psychologica

l emphasis and narrative point of view.
nguage:highly refined and insightful.
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23.Make a comment on the character of Jane Eyre, the heroine of the novel by Charlotte Bronte.

A.Jane is an orphan child with a fiery spirit and a longing for love and be loved.
B.She is poor,plain,little governess who dare to love her master and cuts a completely new woman image.
C.Jane Eyre represents those middle-class working women who who are struggling for recognition of their basic rights and equality as a human being.
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24.Why are natualists inevitably pessimistic in their view?

A.Naturalism aws greatly influenced by Darwin's evolutionary theory and Frrench literature.
B.Naturalists accepted the more negative implication of Darwin's theory and used it to account for the behavior of those character in literary works who were conceived as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes,their habits condition by social and economic forces.
C.Naturalism is evolved from realism when the anthor's writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but ironic and more pessimistic.