《英国文学简史(刘炳善版)》试卷和答案B卷(英语本科专业用)

××大学外国语学院英语系期末考试《英国文学简史（刘炳善版）》试卷 B 卷________级_______专业_____班学号___________ 姓名___________

8. John Keats H. Timon of Athens

9. William Shakespeare I. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

10.Byron J. The Faerie Queene

1._____

2._____

3._____

4._____

5._____

6._____

7._____

8._____

9._____ 10.____

Ⅱ. Define the literary terms below. (20’)

1.Epic

2.Romance

Ⅲ. Answer the following questions (20’)

1. What is the social significance of The Canterbury Tales?

2. Summarize the periods of Shakespeare’s literary career.Ⅳ. Comment on the following characters. (40’)

1.Robinson Crusoe.

2.The hero or heroin in the book on which you have written a report.

（答案见下一页）

××大学外国语学院英语系期末考试《英国文学简史（刘炳善版）》试卷 B 卷

（答案）

9. William Shakespeare I. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

10.Byron J. The Faerie Queene

1.___J__

2.___D__

3.___G__

4.___A__

5.___B__

6.___C__

7.___E__

8.___F__

9.___H__ 10.___I_

Ⅱ. Define the literary terms below. (20’)

3.Epic

A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. Many epics were drawn from an oral tradition and were transmitted by song and recitation before they were written down. Two of the most famous epics of Western civilization are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. The great epic of the Middle Ages is the Divine Comedy by the Italian poet Dante. The two most famous English epics are the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and John Milton's Paradise Lost, which employs some of the conventions of the classical epic.

4.Romance

It refers to any imaginative literature that is set in an idealized world and that deals with heroic adventures and battles between good characters and villains or

monsters. Originally, the term referred to a medieval tale dealing with the loves and adventures of kings, queens, knights, and ladies, and including unlikely or supernatural happenings. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the best of the medieval romances. John Keats's "The Eve of St. Agnes" is one of the greatest metrical romances ever written.

Ⅲ. Answer the following questions (20’)

1. What is the social significance of The Canterbury Tales?

The Canterbury Tales" is more than a mere collection of true-to-life pictures. Taking the stand of the rising bourgeoisie, Chaucer affirms men and women's right to pursue their happiness on earth and opposes the dogma of asceticism preached by the church. As a forerunner of humanism, he praised man's energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. HIS tales expose and satirize the evils of the time, as the degeneration of the noble (the Merchant's Tale), the heartlessness of the judge (the Doctor's Tale) and so on. With especially formidable force Chaucer attacks the corruption of the Church. He lashes the whole body of the clergy in the tales of the Pardoner, the Canon-Yeoman and the Friar. It is only from between the lines of the passages describing the poor country parson who is called “a Lollard" by the host and describing the studious Oxford scholar that we feel the author's warm feeling. Their indifference to worldly wealth is emphasized by the author in sharp contrast with the greed and debauchery of all the other clerics. This gives us an impression that Chaucer's political viewpoint bears some resemblance with that of John Wycliffe the leader of the Lollards, who preached reformation against the corruption of the Catholic Church.

Living in a transitional period, Chaucer is not entirely devoid of medieval prejudices. He is religious himself. There is nothing revolutionary in his writing, though he lived in a period of peasant rising. While rightly praising man's right to earthly happiness he sometimes likes to crack a rough joke and paint naturalistic pictures of sexual life. These are Chaucer's weak points. But these are, however, of secondary importance compared with his achievement as a great poet and story-teller.

2. Summarize the periods of Shakespeare’s literary career.

Shakespeare’s literary career can be divided into four periods.

1) Period of Early Experimentation:

This period is marked by youthfulness and exuberance of imagination, by extravagance of language, and by the frequent use of rimed couplets with his blank verse. It is the period of apprenticeship in which he made over old plays or