自考英美文学选读复习资料

1.…I glanced back once. A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsby's house, making the night fine as before, and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell.

A.Identify the author and the title of the novel from which this passage is taken.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

B.The passage describes the end of an event. What is it?

It is a description of the end of a big party

C.What implied meaning can you get from reading this passage?

The passage hints at the meaninglessness, spiritual emptiness and vanity of such a life of pleasure-seeking. There is a tragic sense that the “party”will be over.

2. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death.

A.Identify the poet and the title of the poem.

Whitman, Song of Myself

B.What do "soil" and "air" represent in the first line?

America, his country, his native land

C.What does the poet try to say in the above four lines?

I was born and nurtured by this land and shall from now on devote my whole life to the country.

3. “I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.”

(From Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”)

A. Who does“myself”refer to ?

The poet himself and the American people.

B. How do you understand the line“I loafe and invite my soul?”

The line indicates a separation of the body and the soul.

C. What does“a spear of summer grass”symbolize?

The phrase indicates Whitman’s optimism and experience.

4. "And the native hue of resolution/Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought." (Shakespeare, Humlet)

A. What does the "native hue of resolution" mean?

determination (determinedness, action, activity, ...)

B. What does the "pale cast of thought" stand for?

consideration (indecision, inactivity, hesitation, ...)

C. What idea do the two lines express?

Too much thinking (consideration,...) made (makes) activity (action) impossible. 5. "Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; /Destroyer and Preserver; hear,

O hear!"

A. Identify the poem and the poet.

Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind

B. What is the "Wild Spirit"?

The West Wind; "breath of Autumn’s being"

C. What does the "Wild Spirit" destroy and preserve?

It destroys things that are dead, it preserves new life.

6. "When the minister spoke from the pulpit, with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hands on the open bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading, lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers.

A. Identify the title of the short story from which this part is taken.

Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown

B. What had happened in the story before this church scene?

Brown had attended a witches’ party where he saw many prominent people of the village, the minister included.

C. Why was Goodman Brown afraid the roof might thunder down?

Brown was shocked by the minister, secretly a member of the evil club, who could talk about sacred truths of the religion openly and unashamedly. He thought God would punish such hypocrites down on them.

7. (A lot of common objects have been enumerated before, and here are the last two lines of There Was a Child Went Forth :)

The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud.

These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.

A. Who is the author of this poem? What is the title of the poem?

Whitman. There was a Child Went Forth

B. What does the "Child" stand for in the poem?

The young growing America.

C. In one or two sentences, interpret the implied meaning of the two lines. The poet uses his childhood experience of growing up and learning about the world around him to imply that young America will grow and develop like that.

D. How do you understand “These became part of the child”?

It is interesting to reexamine the sequence of the items list in this poem which “became part of the child”. They reflect the natural process of a boy’s growth. At first, his world was limited within the barnyard. Later, he sought into fields and streets. Then, he became interested in something more mysterious—his fellow human beings. Finally, he was on the symbolic threshold of the outside world, the sea. He had grown into a young man from a boy. 8.“And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall.

Then how should begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways.”