美国文学史期末复习资料
美国文学（本科）试题5
I. Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases and
put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 1 point for each)
1. The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at
Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 .
2. became the first American writer.
3. Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the values that dominated much of the early American writing.
4. In American literature, the 18th century was an age of and Revolution.
5. Franklin’s best writing is found in his masterpiece.
6. On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet appeared.
7. The signing of symbolized the birth of an independent American nation.
8. The most outstanding poet in America of the 18th century was .
9. Washington Irving’s became the first work by an American writer to win international fame.
10. is the summit of American Romanticism.
11. With the publication of Emerson’s in 1836,American Romanticism reached its summit.
12. Hester Prynne is the heroine in Hawthorne’s novel.
13.Henry James’ major fictional theme is.
14. brought the Romantic period to an end. So the age of Realism came into existence.
15. The Poetic style invented by Whitman is now called .
16. “Because I could not stop for Death---” is written by.
17. The term The Gilded Age is given by to describe the post-civil war years.
18. Theodore Dreiser’s first novel is.
19. The leader of the literary movement Imagism is .
20. is the spokesman for Lost Generation.
II. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers
or completions. Choose the one that is the best in each case and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 1 point for each)
1. The first American writer of local color to achieve wide popularity was .
A. Bret Harte
B. Mark Twain
C. Henry James
D. William Dean Howells
2. Which of the following is the masterpiece of Mark Twain?
A. The Gilded Age
B. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
C. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
D. Jumping Frog
3. Which writer has no naturalist tendency?
A. Mark Twain
B. Jack London
C. Theodore Dreiser
D. Frank Norris
4. Transcendentalist doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in and
Thoreau.
A. Jefferson
B. Emerson
C. Freneau
D. Oversoul
5. Which of the following doesn’t belong to Dreiser’s “Trilogy of Desire”?
A. The Financier
B. The Titan
C. The Stoic
D. An American Tragedy
6. Which is the character who appears in the novel Moby Dick?
A. Hester Prynne
B. Mr. Hooper
C. Ahab
D. Pearl
7. written by Henry James brought him first international fame.
A. The Golden Bowl
B. The American
C. The Tragic Muse
D. Daisy Miller
8. “”was a term created by the French novelist, Emile Zola.
A. realism
B. naturalism
C. transcendentalism
D. veritism
9. Jack London was at his height of his powers when he wrote , which is deeply influenced by Darwinism.
A. The Sea Wolf
B. To Build a Fire
C. The Call of the Wild
D. Martin Eden
10. The Cop and the Anthem is written by .
A. O. Henry
B. Henry James
C. Jack London
D. Mark Twain
11. “Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.” is a line in the poem The River-Merchant’s Wife:
A Letter written by .
A. T. S. Eliot
B.Robert Frost
C.Ezra Pound
D. Carl Sandburg
12. The imagist poets followed three principles, they are , direct treatment and economy of
expression.
A. blank verse
B. rhythm
C. free verse
D. common speech
13. Of the following American writers, who has NOT been an expatriate in Paris?
A. Ernest Hemingway
B. Ezra Pound
C. F. S. Fitzgerald
D. Emily Dickinson
14. Who was the foremost novelist of the American Depression of the 1930s?
A. Ernest Hemingway
B. Ezra Pound
C. John Steinbeck
D. F. S. Fitzgerald
15. The first writings that we call American were the narratives and of the early settlements.
A. journals
B. poetry
C. drama
D. folklores
16. An American Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1828 by .
A. Samuel Johnson
B. Noah Webster
C. Daniel Webster
D. Daniel Defoe
17. Walden is written by .
A. Emerson
B. Thoreau
C. Poe
D. Hawthorne
18. is famous for psychological realism.
A. Mark Twain
B. William Dean Howells
C. Henry James
D. Walt Whitman
19. Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism?
A. Nature
B. Walden
C. On Beauty
D. Self-Reliance
20. Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?
A.The American Scholar
B. English Traits
C. The Conduct of Life
D. Nature
21. Santiago is the character in Hemingway’s novel.
A. In Our Time
B. The Old Man and the Sea
C. For Whom the Bell Tolls
D. The Sun Also Rises
22. Which of the following is a much harsher realism?
A. local colorism
B. naturalism
C. romanticism
D. imagism
23. Who is the arbiter of 19th century literary realism in America?
A. Mark Twain
B. Bret Harte
C. William Dean Howells
D. Henry James
24. F. S. Fitzgerald is NOT the author of .
A. The Great Gatsby
B. Tender is the Night
C. A Farewell to the Arms
D. This Side of Paradise
25. The pessimism and deterministic ideas of naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers
as .
A. Mark Twain
B. F. S. Fitzgerald
C. Walt Whitman
D. Stephen Crane
26. Charles Drouet is a character in the novel of______.
A. The American
B. The Portrait of a Lady
C.Sister Carrie
D. The Gift of the Magi
27. American literature produced only one female poet during the 19th century. She was .
A. Anne Bradstreet
B. Jane Austen
C. Emily Dickinson
D. Harriet Beecher
28. read his poetry at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.
A. Robert Frost
B. T. S. Eliot
C. Carl Sandburg
D. Ezra Pound
29. With Howells, James and Mark Twain active on the scene, became the major trend in the 70s
and 80s of the 19th century.
A. sentimentalism
B. romanticism
C. realism
D. naturalism
30. “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough”. This is the shortest
poem written by .
A. T. S. Eliot
B. Robert Frost
C.Ezra Pound
D. Wallace Stevens
III. Comment on the following poems. Put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 10 points for each)
1.Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by: Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
1. I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died—
by: Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air —
Between the Heaves of Storm —
The Eyes around — had wrung them dry —
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset — when the King
Be witnessed — in the Room —
I willed my Keepsakes — Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable — and then it was
There interposed a Fly —
With Blue — uncertain stumbling Buzz —
Between the light — and me —
And then the Windows failed — and then
I could not see to see —
IV. Give brief answers to the following and write your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 15 points for each)
1. Being a period of the great flowering of American literature, the Romantic Period is called “the Amer ican Renaissance”. Briefly discuss what the features of American literature in this period are.
2. How does Sister Carrie embody Dreiser’
2008-2009学年度第二期《美国文学史及作品选读》
（2006级本科）期末考试A卷
参考答案
命题人：王琪、丁华良、祝小丁
I. Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases and
put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 1 point for each)
1. 1607
2. John Smith
3. Puritan
4. Reason
5. The Autobiography
6. Common Sense
7. The Declaration of Independence
8. Philip Freneau 9. Sketch Book 10. Transcendentalism
11. Nature 12. The Scarlet Letter 13. international theme 14. The civil war
15. free verse 16. Emily Dickinson 17. Mark Twain
18. Sister Carrie 19. Ezra Pound 20. Ernest Hemingway
II. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers or completions. Choose the one that is the best in each case and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 1 point for each)
1 --- 5: A C A B D 6 --- 10: C D B C A
11 ---15:C B D C A 16 --- 20: B B C A A
21 ---25: B B C C D 26 --- 30: C C A C C
III. Comment on the following poems. Put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 10 points for each)
1. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was Frost's favorite of his own poems and Frost in a letter to Louis Untermeyer called it "my best bid for remembrance."
This poem illustrates many of the qualities most characteristic of Frost, including the attention to natural detail, the relationship between humans and nature, and the strong theme suggested by individual lines. The speaker in the poem, a traveler by horse on the darkest night of the year, stops to watch a woods filling up with snow. He thinks the owner of the woods is someone who lives in the village and will not see him stopping there. While he is attracted by the beauty of the woods and nature, he is reminded by his little horse and realizes that he has obligations which pull him away from the lure of nature. The speaker describes the beauty and temptation of the woods as “lovely, dark and deep,” but reminds himself that he must not remain there, because he has “promises to keep,” and a long journey ahead of him. He has to complete his obligations and then make his aspirations to be realized. Through the symbolic woods and horse, we also get to know that the speaker has strong self-awareness and self-discipline.
In another way, the poem can be analyzed from the perspective of aspiration and realization. Aspiration is something to be worked at. We enjoy the fruit of our realization only when we reach our destination. But from the spiritual point of view, we notice something else that is the transformation of aspiration and realization. Today's aspiration transforms itself into tomorrow's realization. Again, tomorrow's realization is the pathfinder of a higher and deeper goal. There is no end to our realization, and there is no end of our aspiration as long as you are alive. Our journey is eternal, and the road that we are taking on is also eternal. All aspirations become realization till the end of one’s life.
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter in the Rubaiyat stanza created by Edward Fitzgerald. Each verse (save the last) follows an a-a-b-a rhyming scheme, with the following verse's a's rhyming with that verse's b, which is a chain rhyme. Overall, the rhyme scheme is AABA-BBCB-CCDC-DDDD.
2. The poetess is watching her own death and recording the process. Instead of seeing God and hearing the songs of angels yearned for by Puritans upon death she heard a fly buzz, which is really ironic. Fly: sets off the stillness in the room;
blocks off the light (from heaven);
suggests a coming decadence
→ the speaker loses the opportunity of gaining immortality after death
The fly plays an import ant role in the speaker’s experience of death. The poem is, in part, about “the conflict between preconception and perception.” The person on his or her deathbed shifts perspective from “the ritual of dying” to “the fact of death.” The fly, by interrupting the dying speaker with its “Blue —uncertain stumbling Buzz —” obliterates his or her false notions of death. The sound of the fly represents “the last conscious link with reality.” The poem lacks any hint of a life after death.
IV. Give brief answers to the following and write your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 15 points for each)
1.
(1) The whole nation had a strong sense of optimism and the mood of “feeling good”, giving birth to
the spectacular outburst of romantic feeling.
(2) The English counterpart exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the young nation.
(3) Taking foreign influence in consideration, the great works of American writers still carried
typically American romantic color.
(4) The young nation had brought forth its own p hilosophy. Transcendentalism stresses man’s
capacity of knowing truth intuitively, and of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses.
2.
(1) In this novel, Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of life
and attacking the conventional moral standards.
(2) The novel best embodies his naturalistic belief that while men are controlled by heredity, instinct
and chance, a few extraordinary and unsophisticated human beings refuse to accept their fate wordlessly and instead strive, unsuccessfully, to find meaning and purpose for their existence.
(3) To Sister Carrie, the world is cold and harsh. Alone, helpless, she moves along like a mechanism
driven by desire and catches blindly at any opportunities for a better existence, opportunities first offered by Drouet, and then by Hurstwood. A feather in the wind, she was totally at the mercy of forces she cannot comprehend, still less to say control. The famous picture of Carrie sitting in a rocking chair in her room in the evening, rocking back and forth, is a picture of Carrie’s drifting with the tide. She has no control, no freedom of will.
美国文学（本科）试题6
I. Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases: (20%, 1 point for each)
1. I n 1817, the stately poem called “Thanatopsis” introduced the best poet, ______, to appear in America up to that time.
2. James Fennimore Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure and
______.
3. Ralph Emerson was recognized throughout his life as the leader of ______ movement, yet he
never applied the term to himself or to his beliefs and ideas.
4. Herman Melville’s novel ______ is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a
seemingly supernatural white whale.
5. In the early 19th century, Washington Irving wrote ______ which became the first work by an
American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic.
6. In 1845, Henry David Thoreau began a two-year residence at ______ Pond.
7. After his death, ______ became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner
of Westminster Abbey.
8. The American Romantic period stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outburst of
the ______.
9. The arbiter of 19th century literary realism in America was ______.
10. The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called ______, which is poetry without a fixed beat
or regular rhyme scheme.
11. ______ is considered the founder of psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in the
impressions made by life on the spectator.
12. ______ is the novel into which Jack London put most of himself.
13. O. Henry’s ______ is a very moving story of a young couple who sell their best possessions in
order to get money for a Christmas present for each other.
14. ______ was the leader of a new movement in poetry which he called the “Imagist” movement.
15. In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald completed his best novel ______. It is the story of an idealist who was
destroyed by the influence of the wealthy, pleasure-seeking people around him.
16. Ernest Hemingway’s stature as a writer was confirmed with the publication of his novel ______ in
1929. The novel portrayed a farewell both to war and to love.
17. ______ was the foremost novelist of the American Depression of the 1930s.
18. William Faulkner considered __________ to be “the first truly American writer”.
19. As a genre, naturalism emphasized heredity and ______ as important deterministic forces shaping
individualized characters that were presented in special and detailed circumstances.
20. A series of sixteen pamphlets by Thomas Paine was entitled ______.
II. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers or completions.
Choose the one that is the best in each case: (30%, 1 point for each)
1. Moby Dick was dedicated to ____.
A. Ralph Emerson
B. Nathaniel Hawthorne
C. Henry Thoreau
D. Henry Longfellow
2. ____ was Mark Twain’s masterpiece from which, as Hemingway noted, “all modern American
literature comes.”
A. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
B. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
C. Life on the Mississippi
D. The Gilded Age
3. ____ usually was regarded as the first American writer.
A. Emily Bradford
B. Ann Bradstreet
C. Emily Dickinson
D. John Smith
4. Benjamin Franklin was the epitome of the ____.
A. American Enlightenment
B. Sugar Act
C. Chartist movement
D. Romanticist
5. Thomas Jefferson’s attitude, that is, a firm belief in progress, and the pursuit of happiness, is
typical of the period we now call ____.
A. Age of Evolution
B. Age of Reason
C. Age of Romanticism
D. Age of Regionalism
6. As a literary and philosophical movement, ____ flourished in New England from the 1830s to the
Civil War.
A. modernism
B. rationalism
C. sentimentalism
D. transcendentalism
7. ____ is NOT written by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
A. The American Scholar
B. Self-Reliance
C. The Divinity School Address
D. Civil Disobedience
8. There is a good reason to state that New England Transcendentalism was actually ____ on the
Puritan soil.
A. Romanticism
B. Symbolism
C. Mysticism
D. Rationalism
9. American literature produced only one female poet during the 19th century. This was ____.
A. Anne Bradstreet
B. Jane Austen
C. Emily Dickinson
D. Harriet Beecher
10. Which of the following statements about O. Henry is NOT right?
A. He wrote about the poor people.
B. The ends of his stories are always surprising.
C. Many of his stories contain a great deal of slang and colloquial expressions.
D. The plots are usually clumsy.
11. The main theme of ____’s The Art of Fiction reveals his literary credo that representation of life
should be the main object of the novel.
A. Henry James
B. William Howells
C. Mark Twain
D. O. Henry
12. Which of the following does NOT have a naturalist tendency?
A. Stephan Crane
B. Frank Norris
C. Jack London
D. Walt Whitman
13. For Melville, as well as for the reader and _____, the narrator, Moby Dick is still a mystery, an
ultimately mystery of the universe.
A. Stubb
B. Ishmael
C. Ahab
D. Starbuck
14. Which of the following is NOT optimistic about human nature?
A. Ralph Emerson
B. Walt Whitman
C. Nathaniel Hawthorne
D. Henry Thoreau
15. Emily Dickinson wrote many of her poems on various aspects of life. Which of the following is
NOT a usual subject of her poetic expression?
A. Religion
B. Life and death
C. Love and marriage
D. War and peace
16. Of the following American writers, _____ had won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
A. Mark Twain
B. Ernest Hemingway
C. Henry James
D. F. S. Fitzgerald
17. In 1862, President Lincoln exclaimed: “So yo u are the little woman who wrote the book that started
this great war!” The book refers to ____.
A. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
B. Beloved
B. Pride and Prejudice D. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
18. The works of _____ reveals the misery of the migrant workers because of the American
Depression.
A. F. S. Fitzgerald
B. John Steinbeck
C. Ernest Hemingway
D. William Howells
19. In Leaves of Grass, _____ is all that concerned Whitman.
A. individualism
B. freedom
C. democracy
D. all the above
20. It is not surprising to find in _____’s fiction a world of jungle, where “kill or to be killed” was the
law.
A. Mark Twain
B. Emily Dickinson
C. Theodore Dreiser
D. Henry James
21. During the period after the Civil War, the American society entered in what Mark Twain referred to
as ____.
A. the Golden Age
B. the Modern Age
C. the Gilded Age
D. the Puritan Age
22. “The Custom-House” is an introductory note to _____.
A. Moby-Dick
B. The Scarlet Letter
C. The Marble Faun
D. The Blithedale Romance
23. When we say that a poor young man from the West tried to make his fortune in the East but was
disillusioned in the quest of an idealized dream, we are probably discussing ______’s thematic concern in his fiction writing.
A. Henry James
B. F. Scott Fitzgerald
C. Ernest Hemingway
D. William Faulkner
24. American writers after World War I self-consciously acknowledged that they were (a) “____”,
devoid of faith and alienated from the Western civilization.
A. Lost Generation
B. Beat Generation
C. Sons of Liberty
D. Angry Young Men
25. Which one of the following statements is NOT true of William Faulkner?
A. He is master of stream-of-consciousness narrative.
B. His writing is often complex and difficult to understand.
C. He often depicts slum life in New York and Chicago.
D. He represents a new group of Southern writers
26. The setting of the novel The Scarlet Letter is in ____.
A. England during World War I
B. Paris during the French Revolution
C. Puritan America
D. America after the Revolutionary War
27. Which statement is NOT true of the American naturalist?
A. They ventured the forbidden subjects such as sex, death, and violence.
B. They stressed the possible triumph of human will.
C. They wrote in a daring, open, and direct manner.
D. They see human beings no more than a physical object.
28. ____ is often acclaimed as the literary spokesman of the Jazz Age.
A. Ernest Hemingway
B. F. Scott Fitzgerald
C. William Faulkner
D. John Steinbeck
29. ____, one of America’s greatest playwrights, won the Nobel Prize in 1936, the first American
playwright to receive the honor. Some of his most famous works include The Hairy Ape, Long Day’s Journey into Night.
A. Arthur Miller
B. Tennessee Williams
C. Bernard Malamud
D. Eugene O’Neill
30. Edgar Allan Poe occupies an important position in American literature as a poet and a ____.
A. short story writer
B. novelist
C. dramatist
D. translator
III. Read the poems carefully and answer the questions that follow. Put your answers on the Answer Sheet: (20%, 10 points for each poem)
1. Because I could not stop for Death —
Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The Carriage held but just Ourselves —
And Immortality.
We slowly drove — He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility —
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess — in the Ring —
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain —
We passed the Setting Sun —
Or rather — He passed Us —
The Dews drew quivering and Chill —
For only Gossamer, my Gown —
My Tippet — only Tulle —
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground —
The Roof was scarcely visible —
The Cornice — in the Ground —
Since then —’tis Centuries — and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity —
Questions:
1.1 Who wrote this poem? (1%)
1.2 What is the poet or the speaker in the poem watching and recording? (1%)
1.3 What is death compared to in the poem? (1%)
1.4 What is depicted in the 3rd stanza? How is it related to the whole poem? (2%) 1.5 What is depicted in the 4th stanza? (1%)
1.6 What does the poet or the speaker in the poem think of eternity? (2%)
1.7 What is the attitude of the poet or the speaker in the poem towards death? (2%)
2. Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee; -
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee -
With a love that the wingéd seraphs in Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher,
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: -
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: -
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,
In her sepulcher there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Questions:
2.1 Who wrote this poem? (1%)
2.2 What is the theme of the poem? (2%)
2.3 What is the mood of the poem? (1%)
2.4 How does the poem coincide with Poe’s poetics or theory of poetry writing? (3%)
2.5 What makes you think the poem reads like a fairy tale? (3%)
IV. Answer the following questions, and put your answers on the Answer Sheet: (30%, 15 points for each)
1. What is local color fiction? List at least 5 of the best known writers of local color.
2. Instead of having her punished for her life of sin, Dreiser let Caroline Meeber in Sister Carrier
become successful. Can you tell why?
2007—2008学年度第二期《美国文学史及作品选读》考试A卷
参考答案
命题人：王琪、丁华良
I: Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases. (20%, 1 point for each)
1. Bryant
2. frontier saga
3. transcendentalist
4. Moby Dick
5. Sketch Book
6. Walden
7. Longfellow
8. Civil War
9. Howells 10. free verse
11. Henry James 12. Martin Eden 13. The Gift of Magi
14. Pound 15. The Great Gatsby 16. A Farewell to Arms
17. Steinbeck 18. Mark Twain
19. Environment 20. American Crisis
II: Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers or completions. Choose the one that is the best in each case. (30%, 1 point for each)
1 --- 5: B B D A B 6 --- 10: D D A C D
11 ---15: A D B C D 16 --- 20: B D B D C
21 --- 25: C B B A C 26 --- 30: C B B D A
III. Read the poems and answer the questions that follow. (20%)
Poem 1
1.1 Who wrote this poem? (1%)
Emily Dickinson.
1.2 What is the poet or the speaker in the poem watching and recording? (1%)
Apparently the woman tells the story of how she is busily going about her day when a polite gentleman by the name of Death arrives in his carriage to take her out for a ride, but, in reality, the speaker is
watching and recording her own funeral.
1.3 What is death compared to in the poem? (1%)
Death is compared to a polite gentleman or polite wooer.
1.4 What is depicted in the 3rd stanza? How is it related to the whole poem? (2%)
Death takes the woman on a leisurely ride to the grave and beyond, passing playing children, wheat fields, and the setting sun, which indicate the three periods of a day, morning, noon and evening and symbolize the three stages of human life — childhood, middle age and old age.
1.5 What is depicted in the 4th stanza? (1%)
In this stanza, the speaker describes her dead body and what is wearing. She feels cold because it is evening now and dew drops are forming and she is not wearing much, but more probably it is because she is dead and blood circulation in her body has stopped.
1.6 What does the poet or the speaker in the poem think of eternity? (2%)
The speaker is not quite sure whether there will be eternity after death since she just surmises that “the Horses’ Heads / were toward Eternity —”.
1.7 What is the attitude of the poet or the speaker in the poem towards death? (2%)
The woman describes their journey with the casual ease one might use to recount a typical Sunday drive. She treats death light-heartedly for she believes that death is a necessary step towards eternity or immortality.
Poem 2
2.1 Who wrote this poem? (1%)
Edgar Allan Poe.
2.2 What is the theme of the poem? (2%)
In the poem, Poe examines a theme which he examines in many of his works: the death of a beautiful woman. It is a poem written in memory of his deceased young wife Virginia Clemm.
2.3 What is the mood of the poem? (1%)
The poem is permeated with melancholy.
2.4 How does the poem coincide with Poe’s poetics or theory of poetry writing? (3%)
The poem coincides with Poe’s poetics. It is readable at one sitting. In the poem, Poe examines a theme which he examines in many of his works: the death of a beautiful woman, which, according to him, is “unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” The poem is permeated with melancholy as he believes “melancholy is the most legitimate of all the poetic tones.” And it is rhythmic.
2.5 What makes you think the poem reads like a fairy tale? (3%)
The poem has got the elements of a fairy tale.
1) It has the beginning of a fairy tale (1st stanza).
2) The couple's love originated from their childhood.
3) Annabel Lee died because "the angels" envied the couple's great love and, with a cold wind, they
killed Annabel Lee, who was then carried away and buried in a sepulchre in the kingdom by the sea.
4) However, unlike The Raven, in which the narrator believes he will "nevermore" be reunited with
his love, Annabel Lee says the two will be together again.
And neither the angels in heaven above，
Nor the demons down under the sea，
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
5) On moonlit nights, the speaker will go and lie down by the side of his deceased young wife
In the sepulchre there by the sea，
In her tomb by the side of the sea.
The poem reads like a fairy tale.
IV. Answer the following questions, and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 15 points
for each)
1. What is local color fiction? List at least 5 of the best known writers of local color.
Realism first appeared in the United States in the literature of local color, an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things was immediately observable; the dialects, customs, sights, and sounds of regional America. Bret Harte was the first American writer of local color to achieve wide popularity, presenting stories of western mining towns with colorful gamblers, outlaws, and scandalous women. Harte, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Kate Chopin, Joel Chandler Harris, and Mark Twain provided regional stories and tales of the life of America’s Westerners, Southerners, and Easterners. Local color fiction reached its peak of popularity in the 1880s, but by the turn of the century it had begun to decline.
2. Instead of having her punished for her life of sin, Dreiser let Caroline Meeber in Sister Carrier become successful. Can you tell why?
This is due to a number of reasons:
1) Theodore Dreiser based the novel on the life of his sister Emma. In 1883 she ran away to Toronto, Canada with a married man who had stolen money from his employer. Another sister of his was
a prostitute.
2) Like Sister Carrie who went to Chicago at the age of 18, Dreiser himself left home at age 15 for Chicago and started to support himself, doing menial jobs. He understood perfectly well how hard life was for a girl like Sister Carrie in a big city.
3) His sympathy for Sister Carrie is related to his naturalistic beliefs. The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment, that religious “truth” were illusory, that the destiny of humani ty was misery in life and oblivion in death. As a pioneer of naturalism in American literature, Dreiser wrote novels reflecting his mechanistic view of life, a concept that held humanity as the victim of such ungovernable forces as economics, biology, society, and even chance. In his works, conventional morality is unimportant, consciously virtuous behavior having little to do with material success and happiness. So Sister Carrie is not to be blamed for her sin of life.
4) His sympathy for Sister Carrie also shows the influence of the teachings of Charles Darwin----natural selection and the survival of the fittest and that of the teachings of Herbert Spencer----social Darwinism. In this novel, Sister Carrie is portrayed as an example of the survival of the fittest in an indifferent world.
08年试题及答案
美国文学史
及作品选读
（2008级本科）
2010—2011学年度第二期试题A卷
考试（查）：考查命题人：王琪、丁华良审题人:
开（闭）卷：闭卷答题时间：120 分钟
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
I. Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases
and
put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (15%, 1 point for each)
1. The Puritan philosophy known as was important in New England during
colonial time and had a profound influence on the early American mind for
several generations. .
2. The term The Gilded Age is given by to describe the post-civil war years.
3. Roger Chillingworth is a character in the novel of______.
4. ’s poems have the musical quality and romantic beauty. To Helen is his famous poem.
5. is the summit of American Romanticism.
6. The first important American novelist was .
7. In 1845, Thoreau began a two year residence at Pond.
8. The American Romantic Period covers from the end of the 18th century through
the outbreak of the .
9. The leader of the literary movement Imagism is .
10. The characters in American naturalistic works are passive and controlled by
heredity and _____ .
11. Franklin’s best writing is found in his masterpiece______ .
12. Washington Irving’s became the first work by an American writer to
win international fame.
13. With the publication of Emerson’s in 1836,American Romanticism
reached its summit.
14. The international theme is a major theme in the novels of .
15. The Poetic style invented by Whitman is now called .
II. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers
or completions. Choose the one that is the best in each case and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 1 point for each)
1. Which of the following doesn’t belong to Dreiser’s “Trilogy of Desire”?
A. The Financier
B. The Titan
C. The Stoic
D. An American Tragedy
2. Which writer has no naturalist tendency?
A. Mark Twain
B. Jack London
C. Theodore Dreiser
D. Frank Norris
3. The imagist poets followed three principles, they are , direct treatment and
economy of expression.
A. blank verse
B. rhythm
C. free verse
D. common speech
4. “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough”. This
is the shortest poem written by .
A. T. S. Eliot
B. Robert Frost
C.Ezra Pound
D. Wallace Stevens
5. Which of the following novels was Not written by Ernest Hemingway?
A. The Old Man and the Sea
B. A Farewell to the Arms
C. The Sun Also Rises
D. The Sound and the Fury
6. The Waste Land is written by .
A. Robert Frost
B. T. S. Eliot
C. Carl Sandburg
D. Ezra Pound
7. The first writings that we call American were the narratives and of the early
settlements.
A. journals
B. poetry
C. drama
D. folklores
8. All his novels reveal that, as time went on, Mark Twain became
increasingly .
A. prolific
B. artistic
C. optimistic
D. pessimistic
9. believed that nature is ennobling and the individual is divine.
A. postmodernists
B. transcendentalists
C. realists
D. naturalists
Herman Melville’s is not only an adventure story, but also a significant philosophical work on spiritual exploration.
A. Moby Dick
B.The Egg
C. Nature
D. The Over-Soul
11. Which of the following novels was not written by Jack London?
A. The Sea Wolf
B. To Build a Fire
C. The Call of the Wild
D. Martin Eden
12. W ho is the man who put into many of Emerson’s theories into practice?
A. Thoreau
B. Poe
C. Hawthorne
D. Whitman
13. “Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.” is a line in the poem The
River-Mercha nt’s Wife: A Letter written by .
A. T. S. Eliot
B.Robert Frost
C.Ezra Pound
D. Carl Sandburg
14. The author of The Great Gatsby is .
A. Ernest Hemingway
B. Ezra Pound
C. F. S. Fitzgerald
D. Emily Dickinson
15. Sister Carrie finally became a famous .
A. teacher
B. nurse
C. actress
D. scientist
16. is considered as the father of American detective story.
A. Ernest Hemingway
B. Ezra Pound
C. F. S. Fitzgerald
D. Edgar Allan Poe
17. The central figure in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales is .
A. Natty Bumppo
B. Magua
C. Uncas
D. Hawkeye
18. Walt Whitman’s famous collection of poems is.
A. Leaves of Grass
B. Harmonium
C. The Raven
D. Song of Myself
American literature produced only one female poet during the 19th century.
She was .
A. Anne Bradstreet
B. Jane Austen
C. Emily Dickinson
D. Harriet Beecher
20. An American Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1828
by .
A. Samuel Johnson
B. Noah Webster
C. Daniel Webster
D. Daniel Defoe
III. Explain the following terms, and put your answers on the Answer Sheet.
(15%, 5 points for each)
1. Local Colorism
2. Free Verse
3. the Lost Generation
IV. Comment on the following poems, and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 10 points for each)
1. A Psalm of Life
What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! — Life is earnest—
And the grave is not its goal:
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destin’d end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, — act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’er head!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time.
Footsteps, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreck’d brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
2. I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —
By Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air —
Between the Heaves of Storm —
The Eyes around — had wrung them dry —
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset — when the King
Be witnessed — in the Room —
I willed my Keepsakes — Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable — and then it was
There interposed a Fly —
With Blue — uncertain stumbling Buzz —
Between the light — and me —
And then the Windows failed — and then
I could not see to see —
V. Give brief answers to the following and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 15 points for each)
1. What is Hawth orne's “black” vision of life and human beings?
2. How does Sister Carrie embody Dreiser’s naturalistic belief?
2010—2011学年度第二期
《美国文学史及作品选读》试题A卷
参考答案及评分标准
I. Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases and
put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (15%, 1 point for each)
1. Puritanism
2. Mark Twain
3. The Scarlet Letter
4. Allan Poe
5. Transcendentalism
6. Cooper
7. Walden
8. Civil War
9. Ezra Pound 10. social environment 11. Autobiography 12. Sketch Book 13. Nature 14. Henry James 15. free verse
II. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers
or completions. Choose the one that is the best in each case and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 1 point for each)
1-5: DABCD 6-10: BADBA
11-15: BACCC 16-20: DAACB
III. Explain the following terms, and put your answers on the Answer Sheet.
(15%, 5 points for each)
4. Local Colorism
(1) There is an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions: the
dialects, customs, sights, and sounds of regional America. (2%)
(2) Bret Harte in the 1860s was the first American writer of local color to
achieve wide popularity. (1%)
(3) Local color fiction reached its peak of popularity in the 1880s, but by the
turn of the century it had begun to decline as its limited resources were exhausted and its most popular writers grew tediously repetitious or turned to other literary modes. (2%)
5. Free Verse
(1) It refers to a kind of poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme schemes.
(2%)
(2) The purpose is to free the poets from the restrictions of formal metrical
patterns and to recreate instead the free rhythm of natural speech. (2%)
(3) Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is, perhaps, the most notable example.
(1%)
6. the Lost Generation
(1) It is a term first used by Gertrude Stein to describe the post-World War I
generation of American writers: men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war. (2%) (2) Full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life,
drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date. (2%)
(3) The three best known representatives of Lost Generation are Fitzgerald,
Hemingway, and John Dos Passos. (1%)
IV. Comment on the following poems, and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 10 points for each)
1. A Psalm of Life
(1) The lyrical form of this poem is abab. (1%)
(2) Its title, though used now exclusively for this poem, was originally, in the poet’s mind, a generic one. He notes from time to time that he has written a psalm, a psalm of death, or another psalm of life. The `psalmist’ is thus the poet himself. Literally, the psalmist is of course King David. (2%)
(3) This is a very inspirational poem. The concept of living only in the present is a very difficult thing for people, as the regrets of the past and hopes of the future can be very troublesome and misleading at times. This psalm brings out feelings of confidence -- strength and belief in oneself. The message is very clear. Just live. The poe t makes the reader focus on the here and now. Don’t be hindered by the fear of oncoming, certain death, or whatever mistakes you may have made before, live by the second and only plan ahead that far. There is no concrete point in life, nothing is sure and steady, so don’t live like it is going to be that way. (5%)
(4) This psalm is truly the outlook of the generation after the Napoleonic wars, 100 years before WW1. Make of life what you can, strive to accomplish your dreams, work hard for self gratification, learn to love and to be loved. For God has given us a gift, and not to make the most of life is a SIN and a waste. (2%)
2. I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —
(1) The poetess is watching her own death and recording the process. Instead of
seeing God and hearing the songs of angels yearned for by Puritans upon death she heard a fly buzz, which is really ironic. (4%)
(2) Fly: sets off the stillness in the room;
blocks off the light (from heaven);
suggests a coming decadence
→ the speaker loses the opport unity of gaining immortality after death (2%) (3) The omnipresent fly in “I Heard a Fly Buzz — When I Died —” has been a problem for critics since the poem’s publication in 1896. Sharon Cameron, writing in her book Lyric Time: Dickinson and the Limits of Genre, believes that the fly plays an important role in the speaker’s experience of death. According to Cameron, the poem is, in part, about “the conflict between preconception and perception.” The person on his or her deathbed shifts perspective from “the ritual of dying” to “the fact of death.” Cameron argues that the fly, by interrupting the dying speaker with its “Blue — uncertain stumbling Buzz —” obliterates his or her false notions of death. Cameron sees the fly’s “stumbling” as evidence that it, too, is dying, and the speaker’s “experience becomes one with the fly’s.” (2%) (4) Inder Nath Kher also discusses the symbolism of the fly in his book The Landscape of Absence: Emily Dickinson’s Poetry. Kher believes that the sound of the fly represents “the last conscious link with reality.” Kher points out that the poem lacks any hint of a life after death. The buzz of the fly is described as “Blue,” and Kher, noting that blue is usually Dickinson’s symbol for eternity, suggests that in this poem it becomes “the symbol of complete extinction.” (2%) V. Give brief answers to the following and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 15 points for each)
1. What is Hawthorne’s “black” vision of life and human beings?
(1) Hawthorne’s literary world is very distu rbed, tormented and problematical mostly because of his “black” vision of life and human beings. He rejected what he saw as the Transcendentalists' transparent optimism about the potentialities of human nature. Instead he looked more deeply and perhaps more honestly into life, finding in it much suffering and conflict. (5%)
(2) According to him, "There is evil in every human heart," and a piece of literary work should "show how we are all wronged and wrongers, and avenge one another." So in almost every book he wrote, Hawthorne discusses sin and evil. (5%)
(3) Hawthorne's intellectuals are usually villains, dreadful because they are devoid of warmth and feeling. Chillingworth is but one specimen of Hawthorne's chilling, cold-blooded human animals. (5%)
2. How does Sister Carrie embody Dreiser’s naturalistic belief?
(1) In this novel, Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of life and attacking the conventional moral standards. (5%) (2) The novel best embodies his naturalistic belief that while men are controlled by heredity, instinct and chance, a few extraordinary and unsophisticated human beings refuse to accept their fate wordlessly and instead strive, unsuccessfully, to find meaning and purpose for their existence. (5%)
(3) To Sister Carrie, the world is cold and harsh. Alone, helpless, she moves along like a mechanism driven by desire and catches blindly at any opportunities for a better existence, opportunities first offered by Drouet, and then by Hurstwood. A feather in the wind, she was totally at the mercy of forces she cannot comprehend,
still less to say control. The famous picture of Carrie sitting in a rocking chair in
her room in the evening, rocking back and forth, is a picture of Carrie’s drifting
with the tide. She has no control, no freedom of will. (5%)
07试卷与答案
美国文学史
及作品选读
（2007级本科）
2009—2010学年度第二期试题A卷
考试（查）：考试命题人：王琪、丁华良、祝小丁审题人:
开（闭）卷：闭卷答题时间：120 分钟
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I. Complete each of the following statements with proper words or phrases and
put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (20%, 1 point for each)
1. became the first American writer.
2. Washington Irving’s became the first work by an American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic.
3. Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the values that dominated much of the early American writing.
4. Chekhov, Maupassant and were considered to be three important masters of short story in the world.
5.______ is a term used by Mark Twain to describe the post-civil war years.
6. The signing of symbolized the birth of an independent American nation.
7. The arbiter of 19th century literary realism in America was .
8. The most outstanding poet in America of the 18th century was .
9. The Civil War ended in the defeat of the Southerners and the abolition of .
10. is the summit of American Romanticism.
11. American innocence in face of European sophistication refers to one of Henry James’s fictional
themes .
12. The first important American novelist was .
13. was the man who put into practice many of Emerson’s theories.
14. The American Romantic Period covers from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of
the .
15. The early stage of American realism was .
16. The leader of the literary movement Imagism is .
17. is the spokesman for Lost Generation.
18. The characters in American naturalistic writers are passive and controlled by heredity and .
19. The author of The Grapes of Wrath is .
20. Henry James’s brought him his first international fame.
II. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers
or completions. Choose the one that is the best in each case and put your answers on the Answer Sheet. (30%, 1 point for each)
1. Edgar Allan Poe wrote poems which are marvels of beauty and craftsmanship such as .
A. I Hear America Singing
B. The Raven
C. To a Waterfowl
D. The Fall of the House of Usher
美国文学史期末参考复习资料
仅作参考，最主要还是要自己消化，整理 Chapter 1 Colonial Period 1. Puritanism: American puritans accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. 2. Influence (1) A group of good qualities – hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced American literature. (2) It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden. (3) Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chi efly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American. (4) With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible. II. Overview of the literature 1. types of writing diaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons 2. writers of colonial period (1) Anne Bradstreet (2) Edward Taylor III. Benjamin Franklin 1. life 2. works (1) Poor Richard’s Almanac (2) Autobiography 3. contribution (1) He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society. (2) He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this case) from heaven”. (3) Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melville thus described him “master of each and mastered by none”. Chapter 2 American Romanticism Section 1 Early Romantic Period I. American Romanticism 1. Background (1) Political background and economic development (2) Romantic movement in European countries Derivative – foreign influence 2. features (1) American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real new experience and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien. (2) There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained. (3) The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with Am erican Romanticism. (4) As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent. II. Washington Irving: Father of American Literature 1. several names attached to Irving (1) first American writer (2) the messenger sent from the new world to the old world (3) father of American literature 2. life 3. works (1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (2) The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this.) (3) The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (5) The Alhambra 4. Literary career: two parts (1) 1809~1832
美国文学史及选读试卷 (1)
美国文学史及选读试卷 Ⅰ.Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternatives. Choose the one that would best complete the statement. (60points in all, 2 for each) 1. Which of following can be said of the common features which are shared by the English and American Romanticists ? A. An increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions. B. An increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. C. An increasing emphasis on the desire to return to nature. D. both A and B. 2. Which of the following statements about the Romantic period in the history of American literature is NOT true? （） A. In most of the American writings of this period there was a new emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature. B. The writers of this period placed an increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions and displayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. C. There was a strong tendency to exalt the individual and the common man. D. Most heroes and heroines in the writings of this period exhibited extremes of reason and nationality. 3.______ is unanimously agreed to be the summit of the American Romanticism in the history of American literature. A. New England Transcendentalism B. England Transcendentalism C. the Harlem Renaissance D. New Transcendentalism 4.Hawthorn e’s unique gift was for the creation of ______ which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature. A. symbolic stories B. romantic stories
美国文学史及选读期末复习
美国文学史复习1（colonialism) 第一部分殖民主义时期的文学 一、时期综述 1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记 b、journals 游记 2、清教徒在美国的写作内容： 1）their voyage to the new land 2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops 3) About dealing with Indians 4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit 3、清教徒的思想： 1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式 2) Wish to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位 3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who challenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝 4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步 5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。 4、典型的清教徒： John Cotton & Roger William 他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy; William begins the history of religious toleration in America. 5、William的宗教观点：Toleration did not stem from a lack of religious convictions. Instead, it sprang from the idea that simply to be virtuous in conduct and devout in belief did not give anyone the right to force belief on others. He also felt that no political order or church system could identify itself directly with God. 行为上的德，信仰上的诚，并没有给任何人强迫别人该如何行事的权利。没有任何政治秩序和教会体制能够直接体现神本身的意旨。 6、英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet 7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of Puritan poets is Edward Tayor. 学习指南： 1、Could you give a description of American Puritans? 关于美国清教徒的描绘 Like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to the "purity" of the first-century church as established by Jesus Christ himself. To them religion was a matter of primary importance. They made it their chief business to see that man lived and thought and acted in a way which tended to the glory of God. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God, all that John Calvin, the great French theologian who lived in Geneva had preached. It was this kind of religious belief that they brought with them into the wildness. There they meaant to prove that were God's chosen people enjoying his blessings on this earth as in Heaven. 2、Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing. 3、The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet & Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry. 4、The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards Italian, and Portuguese. 美国文学史复习2（reason and revolution) (2009-01-17 15:54:25) 一、美国的性质： The war for Independence ended in the formation of a Federative bourgeois democratic republic - the United States of America. 联邦的资产阶级民主共和国--美利坚合众国。 二、代表作家： 1、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明·富兰克林 1706-1790 1）"Poor Richard's Almanac" 穷人查理德的年鉴 annual collection of proverbs 流行谚语集
美国文学史复习资料
美国文学史复习（colonialism) 第一部分殖民主义时期的文学 一、时期综述 1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记b、journals 游记 2、清教徒在美国的写作内容： 1）their voyage to the new land 2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops 3) About dealing with Indians 4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit 3、清教徒的思想： 1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式 2) Wish to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位 3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who challenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝 4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。 4、典型的清教徒：John Cotton & Roger William 他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy; William begins the history of religious toleration in America. 5、William的宗教观点：Toleration did not stem from a lack of religious convictions. Instead, it sprang from the idea that simply to be virtuous in conduct and devout in belief did not give anyone the right to force belief on others. He also felt that no political order or church system could identify itself directly with God. 行为上的德，信仰上的诚，并没有给任何人强迫别人该如何行事的权利。没有任何政治秩序和教会体制能够直接体现神本身的意旨。 6、英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet 7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of Puritan poets is Edward Tayor. 学习指南： 1、Could you give a description of American Puritans? 关于美国清教徒的描绘 Like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to the "purity" of the first-century church as established by Jesus Christ himself. To them religion was a matter of primary importance. They made it their chief business to see that man lived and thought and acted in a way which tended to the glory of God. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God, all that John Calvin, the great French theologian who lived in Geneva had preached. It was this kind of religious belief that they brought with them into the wildness. There they meaant to prove that were God's chosen people enjoying his blessings on this earth as in Heaven. 2、Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing. 3、The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet & Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry.
美国文学史及选读期末复习题
1.Captain John Smith became the first American writer. 2.The puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people. is an annual collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin. 4.Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet Common Sense boldly advocated a “Declaration for Independence”. 5.Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.
has been called the “Father of American Poetry”. 7.In Washington I rving’s appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature. 8.Cooper’s enduring fame rests on his William Cullen Bryant’s wok. is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories”. 10.Emerson believed above all in
美国文学史及选读复习重点
Captain John Smith (first American writer). Anne Bradstreet；The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America （colonists living） Edward Taylor(the best puritan poet) John Cotton ”the Patriarch of New England” teacher spiritual leader Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography Poor Richard’s Almanack Thomas Jefferson： Political Career Thoughts The Declaration of Independence we hold truth to be self-evidence Philip Freneau“Father of American Poetry” The Wild Honey Suckle American Romanticism optimism and hope Nationalism Washington Irving“Father of American Literature short story”The first “Pure Writer” A History of New York The Sketch Book marked the beginning of American Romanticism! “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”Rip Van Winkle James Fenimore Cooper Father of American sea and frontier novels Leather stocking Tales The Last of the Mohicans The Pioneers The Prairie The Pathfinder The Deerslayer Edgar Allan Poe father of detective story and horror fiction Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque “MS. Found in a Bottle” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” “The Fall of the House of Usher”“The Masque of the Red Death”“The
美国文学史及选读期末复习题
1.C aptain John Smith became the first American writer. 2.T he puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people. collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin. 4.T homas Paine’s famous pamphlet Common Sense boldly advocated a “Declaration for Independence”.
5.T homas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. has been called the “Father of American Poetry”. 7.I n Washington Irving’s appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.
8.C ooper’s enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novels that comprise the is perhaps the peak of William Cullen Bryant’s wok. “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories”.
美国文学史及选读考研复习笔记6.
History And Anthology of American Literature （6） 附：作者及作品 一、殖民主义时期The Literature of Colonial America 1．船长约翰·史密斯Captain John Smith 《自殖民地第一次在弗吉尼亚垦荒以来发生的各种事件的真实介绍》 “A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony” 《弗吉尼亚地图，附：一个乡村的描述》 “A Map of Virginia: with a Description of the Country” 《弗吉尼亚通史》“General History of Virginia” 2．威廉·布拉德福德William Bradford 《普利茅斯开发历史》“The History of Plymouth Plantation”3．约翰·温思罗普John Winthrop 《新英格兰历史》“The History of New England” 4．罗杰·威廉姆斯Roger Williams 《开启美国语言的钥匙》”A Key into the Language of America” 或叫《美洲新英格兰部分土著居民语言指南》 Or “A Help to the Language of the Natives in That Part of America Called New England ” 5．安妮·布莱德斯特Anne Bradstreet 《在美洲诞生的第十个谬斯》 ”The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America” 二、理性和革命时期文学The Literature of Reason and Revolution 1。本杰明·富兰克林Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) ※《自传》“ The Autobiography ” 《穷人理查德的年鉴》“Poor Richard’s Almanac” 2。托马斯·佩因Thomas Paine (1737-1809) ※《美国危机》“The American Crisis” 《收税官的案子》“The Case of the Officers of the Excise”《常识》“Common Sense” 《人权》“Rights of Man” 《理性的时代》“The Age of Reason” 《土地公平》“Agrarian Justice” 3。托马斯·杰弗逊Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) ※《独立宣言》“The Declaration of I ndependence” 4。菲利浦·弗瑞诺Philip Freneau (1752-1832) ※《野忍冬花》“The Wild Honey Suckle” ※《印第安人的坟地》“The Indian Burying Ground” ※《致凯提·迪德》“To a Caty-Did” 《想象的力量》“The Power of Fancy” 《夜屋》“The House of Night” 《英国囚船》“The British Prison Ship” 《战争后期弗瑞诺主要诗歌集》 “The Poems of Philip Freneau Written Chiefly During the Late War” 《札记》“Miscellaneous Works” 三、浪漫主义文学The Literature of Romanticism 1。华盛顿·欧文Washington Irving (1783-1859) ※《作者自叙》“The Author’s Account of Himself” ※《睡谷传奇》“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” 《见闻札记》“Sketch Book” 《乔纳森·欧尔德斯泰尔》“Jonathan Oldstyle” 《纽约外史》“A History of New York” 《布雷斯布里奇庄园》“Bracebridge Hall” 《旅行者故事》“Tales of Traveller” 《查理二世》或《快乐君主》“Charles the Second” Or “The Merry Monarch” 《克里斯托弗·哥伦布生平及航海历史》 “A History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus” 《格拉纳达征服编年史》”A Chronicle of the Conquest of Grandada” 《哥伦布同伴航海及发现》 ”V oyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus” 《阿尔罕布拉》“Alhambra” 《西班牙征服传说》“Legends of the Conquest of Spain” 《草原游记》“A Tour on the Prairies” 《阿斯托里亚》“Astoria” 《博纳维尔船长历险记》“The Adventures of Captain Bonneville” 《奥立弗·戈尔德史密斯》”Life of Oliver Goldsmith” 《乔治·华盛顿传》“Life of George Washington” 2．詹姆斯·芬尼莫·库珀James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) ※《最后的莫希干人》“The Last of the Mohicans” 《间谍》“The Spy” 《领航者》“The Pilot” 《美国海军》“U.S. Navy” 《皮袜子故事集》“Leather Stocking Tales” 包括《杀鹿者》、《探路人》”The Deerslayer”, ”The Pathfinder” 《最后的莫希干人》“The Last of the Mohicans” 《拓荒者》、《大草原》“The Pioneers”, “The Praire” 3。威廉·卡伦·布莱恩特William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) ※《死之思考》“Thanatopsis” ※《致水鸟》“To a Waterfowl” 4。埃德加·阿伦·坡Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) ※《给海伦》“To Helen” ※《乌鸦》“The Raven” ※《安娜贝尔·李》“Annabel Lee” ※《鄂榭府崩溃记》“The Fall of the House of Usher” 《金瓶子城的方德先生》“Ms. Found in a Bottle” 《述异集》“Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque” 5。拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) ※《论自然》“Nature” ※《论自助》“Self-Reliance” 《美国学者》“The American Scholar” 《神学院致辞》“The Divinity School Address” 《随笔集》“Essays” 《代表》“Representative Men” 《英国人》“English Traits” 《诗集》“Poems” 6。亨利·戴维·梭罗Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) ※《沃尔登我生活的地方我为何生活》 1
美国文学史及选读考试整理
Washington Irving Bracebridge Hall 布雷斯布里奇田庄 (1822) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Tales of a Traveller 旅客谈 (1824) Christopher Columbus (1828) c. writing characteristics (1) humorous: the function of his writing is to amuse, to entertain instead of teaching or instruction (2) vivid and true character portrayal (3) finished (refined) and musical language, thus regarded as “the Amn. Goldsmith ” d. analysis on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow(选自the sketch book 见闻札记 ) 1. the story:setting,character, plot 2. theme:conflicts and praise conflict betw. Ichabod and Brom conflict betw. the village and the outside world James Fenimore Cooper The Spy (1821): a historical novel The Pilot (1824): a sea novel Leatherstocking Tales 皮裹腿故事集(1823-1841): frontier novels The Last Mohicans (1826) (Colonial War betw. Britain and France) e. writing features: strong points: we can see a variety of incidents and tensions, complicated plot and structure and a beautiful description of nature. Weak points: characterization is weak. There is unsatisfactory description of characters (esp. female). He is not free from syntactical awkwardness, heavy-handed attempt at humor. “Where Irving excels Cooper is weak.” Dialect is not authentic. Edgar Allan Poe The Fall of the House Usher Feature: i. brevity (15 pages) ii. Single effect iii. originality in theme To Helen It was inspired by the beauty of the mother of a schoolmate of Poe in Richmond, Virginia. The poem is famous for a number of things: 1. its rhyme scheme: ababb 2. its varied line lengths 3. its metaphor of a travel on the sea 4. its oft-quoted lines: "To the glory that was Greece,/And the grandeur that was Rome." theme: praise the ideal love and beauty and ancient Greek and Roman civilizations The Raven 乌鸦 theme: the lament over the death of a beautiful woman tone: melancholy Transcendentalism (essayists, poets, novelists) Their journal is “The Dial ” . Definition: Transcendentalism is idealism. (Emerson) b. features (1) stress on Oversoul, that is spirit. (2) stress the importance of individual. (3) fresh conception of nature. c. significance (1) inspired a whole generation of writers such as Whitman, Melville and Dickinson. (2) dresses man ’s subjective initiative as opposed to materialism. (3) liberated people from Calvin ’s original sin d. limitation (1) shallow: cut off from real life or reality; initiated by the rich, they were limited in a certain circle. So, in some degree, they have been cut off from social life and can ’t understand the sufferings of the common people. (2) inward contradiction: gain knowledge by intuition, shows its idealistic aspect. R.W. Emerson (Ralph Waldo) Nature (1836): the Bible of New England transcendentalism The American Scholar (1837): "America's Declaration of Intellectual The Divinity School Address 神学院致辞 (1838) Essays (1841/1847) Representative Men (1850) English Traits (1856)