美国文学作业3

Ⅰ. Multiple Choices .

1. The Romantic Period in American literature started from the publication of Washington Irving’s ______ and ended with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

A. The Sketch Book

B. Tales of a Traveller

C. A History of New York

D. The Scarlet Letter

2. In 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. In the history of American literature ， ______ is usually agreed to be the summit of the American Romanticism. A. the Harlem Renaissance B. England Transcendentalism C. New England Transcendentalism D. New Transcendentalism

5. 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. 6. 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

7. 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

8. After the Civil War America was transformed from ______ to ______.

A. an agrarian community … an industrialized and commercialized society

B. an agrarian community … a society of freedom and equality

C. a poor and backward society … an industrialized and commercialized society D . an industrialized and commercialized society … a highly developed society 9. Which of the following is said of the American naturalism ？

A. They preferred to have their own region and people at the forefront of the stories.

B. Their characteristic setting is usually an isolated town.

C. Humans should be united because they had to adapt themselves to changing harsh environment.

D. Their characters were conceived more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes ， their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.

10. Which of the following is not right about Mark Twain’s style of language ？ A. His sentence structures are long, ungrammatical and difficult to read. B. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect.

C. His humor is remarkable and characterized by puns, straight-faced exaggeration ，repetition and anti-climax.

D. His style of language had exerted rather deep influence on the contemporary writers.

11. The impact of Darwin’s evolutionary theory on the American thou ght and the influence of the 19th century French literature on the American men of letters gave rise to another school of realism ：American ______. A. Romanticism B. Transcendentalism

C. Realism

D. Naturalism

12. Which of the following is not written by Henry James ？ A. The Portrait of A Lady and The Europeans B. The Wings of the Dove and The Ambassadors C. What Maisie Knows and The Bostonians D. The Genius and The Gilded Age

13. More than five hundred poems Dickinson wrote are about nature, in which her general Skepticism about the relationship between ______ is well-expressed. A. man and man B. men and women C. man and nature D. men and God

14. 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.

15. 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

16. By the end of the 19th century, the American realists sought to ______and therefore rejected the portrayal of idealized characters and events in their writings.

A. describe the wide range of American experience

B. show animal nature of human beings

C. present the subtleties of human personality

D. both A and C

17. In the first part of the 20th century ，apart from Darwinism ，there were two thinkers -______， whose ideas had the greatest impact on the period.