英国文学2

2006--2007学年第二学期外语系2004级本科、2006级专科接本科英语专业

英国文学史及选读（2）期末考试（B卷）

I. Complete the following statements with a proper word or a phrase. (20=1*20)

1. Oscar Wilde is a renowned dramatist who also writes a famous novel entitled The Picture of__________.

2. In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde portrays 2 “_______” who leads a double life or otherwise engages in an elaborate deception that allows them to misbehave and seem virtuous at the same time.

3. The Masterpiece of Joseph Conrad is ______, which has been seen as a scathing indictment of colonialism and which gazes unflinchingly into the depths of despair, human exploitation and suffering.

4. Joseph Conrad’s The Lagoon is a short story with the setting in ________.

5. The Waste Land has been hailed as __________’s masterpiece—the supreme triumph of the poetic art in modern times.

6. There are altogether _________ languages are used in The Waste Land, which makes the poem all the more different to comprehend.

7. Araby, as most other short stories by James Joyce, has ________ as the setting of the story.

8. ________tells the story of a boy’s gift for picking the winners in horse races. An omniscient narrator relates the tale of a boy whose family is always short of money.

9. Graham Swift’s novel ______________ makes him a Booker Prize Winner in 1996.

10. The Nobel Prize winner ____________is regarded as a great Irish poet only second to W. B. Yeats.

11. Modernism upholds a new view of time by emphasizing the _______ time over the chronological one.

12. The major themes of the modernist literature are the distorted, alienated and ill relationships between man and ______, man and society, man and man , and man and himself.

13. _______ is an appearance or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something, which is adapted by James Joyce to describe the sudden revelation of whatness of a thing, the moment in which the soul of the commonest object seems to us radiant.

14. Loosely, blank verse refers to any unrhymed poetry, but more generally, unrhymed __________verse (composed of lines of five two-syllable feet with the first syllable accented, the second unaccented).

15. A (An) _______is a literary work in which characters, events, objects, and ideas have secondary or symbolic meanings.

16. Rose-coloured Teacups is a tale of three generations of women, a sewing machine, and the ghosts that hover at the edge of memory. It is written by the famous contemparary British writer __________.

17. “Last year is dead, they seem to say / Begin afresh, afresh, afresh” are the ending lines of Larkin’s poem ________.

18. Ted Hughes was the winner of many Europe’s highest literary honors, and was appointed _______of England in 1984.

19. Postmodern literature arose after World War II

as a series of reactions against the perceived norms of ________ literature.

20. Modernism, in many aspects, is a reaction against ______.



II. Select from the four choices of each item the one that best answers the question or completes the statement. Make your choice by writing the corresponding letter A，B, C or D on the answer sheet. (20=2*10)

1. Who is considered to be the best known English dramatist since Shakespeare?

A. Oscar Wilde B. John Galsworthy C. W. B. Yeats D. George Bernard Shaw

2. The following plays belong to Bernard Shaw’s The Unpleasant volume except __________

A. Arms and the Man B. Widower's Houses C. The Philanderer D. Mrs. Warren's Profession

3. The protagonist in Joseph Conrad’s short story The Lagoon is______ .

A. the white man B. Arsat C. Nepommuck D. Doolittle

4. Which of the following does not appear in D. H. Lawrence’s The Rocking-Horse Winner?

A. Oscar Creswell B. Mangan C. Bassett D. Master Paul

5. The British postmodernist who is famous for his test in novel’s conventions and recently died in 2005 is ___________.

A. A.S. Byatt B. Doris Lessing C. John Fowles D. Graham Swift

6. _________is regarded as the most prominent stream-of-consciousness novelist.
A. Oscar Wide B. Virginia Woolf C. D. H. Lawrence D. E. M. Forster

7. Forster anchors his story The Road from Colonus in Greek tragedy, explicitly identifying _______ with Oedipus.

A. Oscar Creswell B. Ethel C. Mr. Lucas D. Mrs. Forman

8. Which of the following is written by Virginia Woolf?

A. The Voyage Out B. Aspects of the Novel C. A Vision D. The Hollow Men

9. One of W. Golding’s stories begins following a plane crash that left the pilot dead and a bunch of young boys, aged five to twelve, scattered throughout a tropical island. This story is entitled ____________.

A. Our Nicky’s Heart B. Night and Day C. Lord of the Flies D. Finnegans Wake

10. Which of the following characters does NOT belong to The Lieutenant’s Woman?

A. Ernestina B. Sarah C. Charles D. Mrs. Pritcett

11. Postmodernist authors use established sub-genres as literary tools, including the following EXCEPT ________.

A. Stream of Consciousness B. Cyberpunk C. African-American. D. Feminism

12. Which of the following writers stands as a representative of modernist poetry?

A. William Wordsworth B. T. S. Eliot C. Dylan Thomas D. Robert Burns

13. Which of the following is correct according to the time when they appeared?

A. critical realism, romanticism, modernism, postmodernism

B. romanticism, modernism, critical realism, postmodernism

C. romanticism, critical

realism, modernism, postmodernism

D. critical realism, modernism, postmodernism, romanticism

14. The 20th century has witnessed a great achievement in English poetry, which are mainly represented by the following except _____.

A. Thomas Hardy B. Ezra Pound C. T. S. Eliot D. Lord Byron

15. In his novels, Laurence made a bold psychological exploration of various human relationships, especially those between _____, with a great frankness.

A. man and nature B. man and society C. man and woman D. all of the above

16. Which of the following is James Joyce's masterpiece?

A. Dubliners B. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man C. Ulysses D. Finnegans Wake

17. 1941, the year Irish novelist James Joyce and British novelist Virginia Woolf both died, is sometimes used as a rough boundary for __________’s start.

A. romanticism B. modernism C. critical realism D. postmodernism

18. The most famous poet Wales has ever produced is __________, whose Under Milk Wood became popular after his death in 1953.

A. Philip Larkin B. Dylan Thomas C. Ted Hughes D. Seamus Heaney

19. V. S. Naipaul, a Trinidadian-born British writer of Indo-Trinidadian ethnicity, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in _______ and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990.

A. 2000 B. 2001 C. 2002 D. 2003

20. _________ is a leading figure of “The Movement”, who addressed everyday British life in plain, straightforward language and often in traditional forms.

A. Philip Larkin B. Dylan Thomas C. Ted Hughes D. Seamus Heaney



III．Find the relevant match from column B for each item in column A. (10 =1*10)

1. ( )Graham Swift a. Daniel Martin

2. ( )A. S. Byatt b. Women in Love

3. ( )Seamus Heaney c. Waterland

4. ( )John Fowles d. A Woman of No Importance

5. ( )Doris Lessing e. A Passage to India

6. ( )E. M. Forster f. Children of Violence

7. ( )Oscar Wilde g. Lord Jim

8. ( )Bernard Shaw h. Death of a Naturalist

9. ( )D. H. Lawrence i. Shadow of the Sun

10. ( )Joseph Conrad j. Major Barbara

Ⅳ. Read the following and answer the questions below. (40=12.5+12.5+15)

Passage 1:

…

[Nepommuck joins th

e group, full of news.]
HOSTESS. Ah, here you are at last, Nepommuck. Have you found out all about the Doolittle lady?
NEPOMMUCK. I have found out all about her. She is a fraud.
HOSTESS. A fraud! Oh no.
NEPOMMUCK. YES, yes. She cannot deceive me. Her name cannot be Doolittle.
HIGGINS. Why?
NEPOMMUCK. Because Doolittle is an English name. And she is not English.
HOSTESS. Oh, nonsense! She speaks English perfectly.
NEPOMMUCK. Too perfectly. Can you shew me any English woman who speaks English as it should be spoken. Only foreigners who have been taught to speak it speak it well.
HOSTESS. Certainly she terrified me by the way she said How d'ye do. I had a schoolmistress who talked like that; and
I was mortally afraid of her. But if she is not English what is she?
NEPOMMUCK. Hungarian.
ALL THE REST. Hungarian!
NEPOMMUCK. Hungarian. And of royal blood. I am Hungarian. My blood is royal.
HIGGINS. Did you speak to her in Hungarian?
NEPOMMUCK. I did. She was very clever. She said 'Please speak to me in English: I do not understand French.' French!
She pretends not to know the difference between Hungarian and French. Impossible: she knows both.
HIGGINS. And the royal blood. How did you find that out?
NEPOMMUCK. Instinct, maestro, instinct. Only the Magyar races can produce that air of the divine right, those resolute eyes. She is a princess.
HOST . What do-you say, Professor?
HIGGINS. I say an ordinary London girl out of the gutter and taught to speak by an expert. I place her in Drury Lane.
NEPOMMUCK. Ha ha ha! Oh, maestro, maestro, you are mad on the subject of cockney dialects. The London gutter is the whole world for you.
HIGGINS [to the Hostess] What does your Excellency say?
HOSTESS. Oh, of course I agree with Nepommuck. She must be a princess at least.
HOST. Not necessarily legitimate, of course. Morganatic perhaps. But that is undoubtedly her class.
HIGGINS. I stick to my opinion.
HOSTESS. Oh, you are incorrigible.
Questions:

1. The excerpt is taken from a play entitled____________ written by ______________. (2 points)

2. Liza Dolittle, the protagonist, impresses the party favorably due to her genteel manner. Do you know her real identity? (2 points)

3. Describe what kind of lady Liza is fancied to be by the people in the party according to the above excerpt. (2 points)

4. What makes the transformation of Liza possible? (2 points)

5. What does the underlined part mean?

(2 points)

6. What is the theme of the play? (2.5 points)

Passage 2:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.



Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Questions:

1. The title of the poem is _______________. It is written by ______________. (2 points)

2. What image is shown in the opening two lines? (2 points)

3. What does the “gyre” refer to? (2 points)

4. What does the “rough beast” refer to? (2 points)

5. What does “Spiritus Mund” refer to? (2 points)

6. What is the theme of the poem? (2.5 points)

Passage 3:

…

"She's stark naked," said Stanley, sounding annoyed.

Harry, the oldest, a man of about forty-five, said: "Looks like it."

Young Tom, seventeen, said nothing, but he was excited and grinning.

Stanley said: "Someone'll report her if she doesn't watch out."

"She thinks no one can see," said Tom, craning his head all ways to see more.

At this point the woman, still lying prone, brought her two hands up behind her shoulders with the ends of her scarf in them, tied it behind her back, and sat up. She wore a red scarf tied around her brea

sts and brief red bikini pants. This being the first day of the sun she was white, flushing red. She sat smoking, and did not look up when Stanley let out a wolf whistle. Harry said: "Small things amuse small minds," leading the way back to their part of the roof, but it was scorching. Harry said: "Wait, I'm going to rig up some shade," and disappeared down the skylight into the building. Now that he'd gone, Stanley and Tom went to the farthest point they could to peer at the woman. She had moved, and all they could see were two pink legs stretched on the blanket. They whistled and shouted but the legs did not move. Harry came back with a blanket and shouted: "Come on, then." He sounded irritated with them. They clambered back to him and he said to Stanley: "What about your missus?" Stanley was newly married, about three months. Stanley said, jeering: "What about my missus?"—preserving his independence. Tom said nothing, but his mind was full of the nearly naked woman. Harry slung the blanket, which he had borrowed from a friendly woman downstairs, from the stem of a television aerial to a row of chimney-pots. This shade fell across the piece of gutter they had to replace. But the shade kept moving, they had to adjust the blanket, and not much progress was made. At last some of the heat left the roof, and they worked fast, making up for lost time. First Stanley, then Tom, made a trip to the end of the roof to see the woman. "She's on her back," Stanley said, adding a jest which made Tom snicker, and the older man smiled tolerantly. Tom's report was that she hadn't moved, but it was a lie. He wanted to keep what he had seen to himself: he had caught her in the act of rolling down the little red pants over her hips, till they were no more than a small triangle. She was on her back, fully visible, glistening with oil.

Questions:

1. Identify the author and the work. (2 points)

2. What is Henry’s attitude towards the half-naked woman? (2 points)

3. What is Stanley’s attitude towards the half-naked woman? (2 points)

4. What is Tom’s attitude towards the half-naked woman? (2 points)

5. What is woman’s attitude towards these three men? (2 points)

6. Who is the protagonist in the story? Why? (2.5 points)

7. What does the author want to say about the relationship between men and women in modern society? (2.5 points)



V. Provide answers to the following questions. (10=2.5*4)

1. What is “stream of consciousness”? Give examples to illustrate. (2.5 points)

2. What is the basic philosophy of Modernism？ (2.5 points)

3. What is “free verse”? Give examples to illustrate. (2.5 points)

4. What are the characteristics and social influence of Joyce's novel? (2.5 points)