美国文学试卷

Mid-term Examination of American

Literature

满分：100分考试时间：2小时

ⅠFind out the match from column B for each item in column A. (1*10=10%)

1. Edgar Allan Poe a. A Forest Hymn

2. Walt Whitman b. Walden

3. Nathaniel Hawthorne c. Journey from Philadelphia to New Y ork

4. Ralph Waldo Emerson d. Nature.

5. Henry David Thoreau e. Leaves of Grass

6. Henry Wadsworth Longfellows f. The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended

7. William Cullen Bryant g. Poor Richard‟s Almanac

8. Jonathan Edwards h. V oice of the Night

9. Benjamin Franklin i. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque

10. Philip Freneau j. The Scarlet Letter

ⅡDecide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F). (1*10=10=10%)

( ) 1.The Calvinist doctrine of "original sin" exerted great influence up Hawthorne.

( ) 2.To Hawthorne sin will get punished, one way or another.

( ) 3.Emily Dickinson didn't like using capital letters where small ones are needed.

( ) 4.Walt Whitman was regarded as the Zenith in American romantic poetry.

( ) 5.Dickinson was original. She never imitated others.

( ) 6.Allan Poe defined poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.

( ) 7.According to Dickinson, death means immortality.

( ) 8.Emily Dickinson was regarded as the forerunner of symbolism.

( ) 9.Allan Poe advocated "pure" poetry.

( ) 10. Nathaniel.Hawthorne was a symbolic writer in some sense.

ⅢChoose the best answer. (1*20=20%)

1. It is on his____________ that Washington Irving‟s fame mainly rested.

A. childhood recollections

B. sketches about his European tours

C. early poetry

D.tales about America

2. At the middle of 19th century, America witnessed a cultural flowering which is called “____________________”.

A. the English Renaissance

B. the Second Renaissance

C. the American Renaissance

D. the Salem Renaissance

3. As a philosophical and literary movement, the main issues involved in the debate of Transcendentalism are generally concerning ____________________.

A. nature, man and the universe

B. the relationship between man and woman

C. the development of Romanticism in American literature

D. the cold, rigid rationalism of Unitarianism

4. About the novel The Scarlet Letter, which of the following statements is NOT right?

A. It‟s very hard to say that it is a love story or a story of sin.

B. It‟s a highly symbolic story and the author is a master of symbolism.

C. It‟s mainly about the moral, emotional and psychological effects of the sin upon the main

characters and the people in general.

D. In it the letter A takes the same symbolic meaning throughout the novel.

5. The great sea adventure story Moby-Dick is usually considered____________.

A. a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe.

B. an adventurous exploration into man‟s relationship with nature

C. a simple whaling tale or sea adventure

D. a symbolic voyage of the mind in quest of the artistic truth and beauty

6. In his poems, Walt Whitman is innovative in the terms of the form of his poetry, which is called “____________________.”

A. free verse

B. blank verse

C. alliteration

D. end rhyming

7. Which of the following is right about Emily Dickinson‟s poems about nature?

A. In them, she expressed her general affirmation about the relationship between man and

nature.

B. Some of them showed her disbelief that there existed a mythical bond between man and

nature.

C. Her poems reflected her feeling that nature is restorative to human beings.

D. Many of them showed her feeling of nature‟s inscrutability and indifference to the life and

interests of human beings.

8. As a great innovator in American literature, Walt Whitman wrote his poetry in an unconventional

style which is now called free verse, that is _________.

A. lyrical poetry with chanting refrains

B. poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme

C. poetry without rhymes at the end of the lines but with a fixed beat

D. poetry in an irregular metric form and expressing noble feelings

9. Which of the following is not a work of Nathaniel Hawthorne‟s?

A. The House of the Seven Gables.

B. The Blithedale Romance.

C. The Marble Faun.

D. White Jacket.

10. Emily Dickinson wrote many short poems on various aspects of life. Which of the following is not a usual subject of her poetic expression?

A. Religion.

B. Life and death.

C. Love and marriage.

D. War and peace.

11. In 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson made a speech entitled _______ at Harvard, which was hailed by Oliver Wendell Holmes as "Our intellectual Declaration of Independence."

A. "Nature"

B. "Self-Reliance"

C. "Divinity School Address"

D. "The American Scholar"

12. In American literature the first important writer who earned an international fame

on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean is_______________.

A. Washington Irving

B. Ralph Waldo Emerson

C. Nathaniel Hawthorne

D. Walt Whitman