美国文学期末考试总结

Ⅰ. Write the author of each item. 10’

1．Anne Bradstreet（The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America）

①Contemplation

②To My Dear and Loving Husband

2. Benjamin Franklin

①The Autobiography (early American Dream)

3. Philip Freneau (Poet of American; The Father of American Poetry)

①The Wild Honey Suckle

②The Indian Burying Ground

③To a Caty-Did

4. Washington Irving(The Father of American Short Story; first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame; regarded as Father of American literature.)

①The legend of Sleep Hollow

②Rip Van Winkle

③The Sketch Book(the beginning of American Romanticism)

5. James Fennimore Cooper

①The Last Mohicans

②Leather Stocking Tales

6. William Cullen Bryant

① Thanatopsis

② To a Water Fowl

7. Edgar Allen Poe (Father of Modern Short Story; Father of Psychoanalysis criticism)

①To Helen

②The Raven

③The Fall of the House of Usher

④The Black Cat

8. Ralph Waldo Emerson (leading new England transcendentalist)

①Nature

②Self-Reliance

③The American Scholar

9. Henry David Thoreau (an active transcendentalist)

①Walden

10. Nathaniel Hawthorne (a master of symbolism; first great American writer of fiction to work in moralistic tradition. combined the American romanticism with puritan moralism; created a new genre psychological romance)

①The Scarlet Letter

②Twice Told Tales

③The Marble Faun

④Blithedale Romance

⑤The Minister’s Black Veil

11. Herman Melville

①Moby Dick

12. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(the fireside poet; love of nature, love for the past)

①A Psalm of Life

②The Slav e’s Dream

③My Lost Youth

④The Song of Hiawatha

13. Walt Whitman

①Leaves of Grass(first genuine epic poem)

②Song of Myself

③I Sit and Look Out

④ Beat！Beat！Drums！

14. Emily Dickinson (the theme of her poetry concern religion, life, death, marriage, immorality, nature etc.)

①I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed

②I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain

③A Bird Came Down the Walk

④I Died for Beauty ___but Was Scarce

⑤I Hear a Fly Buzz ___When I Died

⑥Because I Could not Stop for Death

Ⅱ.True or False choice. 20’

Ⅲ. Choose the best answer 10’

Ⅳ. Appreciation 30’

The Scarlet Letter

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Symbolism：The Scarlet Letter, A symbol of shame, but instead it becomes a powerful symbol of identity to Hester. The letter’s meaning shifts as time passes. Originally inte nded to mark Hester as an adulteress, the “A” eventually comes to stand for “Able.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1.Nature

The declaration of Transcendentalism

Analysis of “Nature”

A long essay which has eight parts: the opening, commodity, beauty, language, discipline, Idealism, spirit and prospects. Our selection is taken from the opening. Taken as a whole, “Nature” expresses Emerson’s philosophy in a more systematic fashion than any other work of his.

Meanings of nature

I Beauty

nature is beautiful. : the complete, mysterious, useful and moral beauty of nature. First, nature’s beauty lies in its completeness. Second, nature’s beauty lies in its mystery. cannot be manipulated. Only when he holds a sincere respect for nature, can man feel the mysterious beauty of nature. Third, nature’s beauty lies in its usefulness. Nature provides man without any benefit

II Nature Is Divine

●Nature is divine and has the eternal order which should not be violated. Influenced in a way by

Chinese ancient philosophy, Emerson believes that all the things in the world come from the same root---the Oversoul.

●Emerson believes that man can find God in his own heart by direct contact with nature

●Nature has permeated (penetrate) all aspects of human life. Spirit embodied in nature has

influence upon us. Nature inspires man and gives him\her power. Man should find the truth,