美国文学史及选读期末复习题

1.Poor Richard’s Almanac is an annual collection of proverbs

written by Benjamin Franklin.

2.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”.

3.Philip Freneau has been called the “Father of American

Poetry”.

4.In Washington Irving’s Sketch Book appeared the first

modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.

5.“To a Waterfowl” is perhaps the peak of William Cullen

Bryant’s wok.

6.“Thanatopsis, William Cullen Bryant’s best-known poem,

consists of four stanzas in iambic tetrameter abab. The title means “view of death”.

7.Edgar Allan Poe is considered “father of American detective

stories and American gothic stories”.

8.Emerson believed above all in individualism, independence

of mind, and self-reliance.

9.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.

10.Hawthorne’s stories touch the deepest roots of man’s

moral nature.

11.After his death, Longfellow became the only American to

be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.

12.The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called free

verse.

13.Henry James is famous for his international theme of the

tradition less American confronting the complexity of European life.

14. Jack London believed in the inevitable triumph of the

strongest individuals.

Terms

1.Transcendentalism

2. Naturalism

3. The Lost Generation

5. Modernism

6. Romanticism

7. Puritanism

Identify the fragments.

2. From morning suns and evening dews

At 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 writer of these verses?

(2) What is the title of this poem?

(3) Give a brief comment on this poems.

Answer:

(1) Philip Freneau

(2) The Wild Honeysuckle

(3) Here Freneau offers a version of an abundant America with potential for providing a good life for all. The poem is also an indication of his dedication to American subject matter as he examined peculiarly American characteristics of the countryside.

3.From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. Drowsy and dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was