美国文学史及选读试卷 (4)

美国文学史及选读试卷

Ⅰ. Multiple choices. (60 points in total, 2 for each)

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. At 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

14. In the following statements, _________ is NOT true about Washington Irving’s famous story “Rip Van Winkle.”

A. The story is not only well-kno wn for Rip’s 20-year sleep but also considered a model of perfect English in American literature.

B. The story is set against the background of the inevitably changing America.

C. The social conservatism and literary preference for the past is revealed, to some extent, in the story.

D. Irving describes Rip’s response and reaction in a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferability of the present to the past.

15. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Experience is a serous discussion about the conflict between _________ and ordinary life.

A. nationalism

B. universalism

C. idealism

D. communism

16. As one of Hawthorne’s most profound tales, Young Goodman Brown is written in the manner of its concern with_________.

A. guilt and evil

B. good and bad

C. moral and corruption

D. destruction and hope

7. 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 an isolated town.

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

D. Humans should be united because they had to adapt themselves to changing environmental conditions.

8. Which of the following is not right about Mark Twain's style of language?

A. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect.

B. His sentence structures are simple, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language.

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

D. His style of language had exerted only a limited influence on the contemporary writers.

9.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. The Marble Faun and The Gilded Age

D. What Maisie Knows and The Bostonians

10. About the titular heroine in the novel Daisy Miller, which of the following is not right?______

A. She has become a celebrated cultural type who embodies the spirit of the New World.

B. She comes from the new world but remains traditional and conservative.

C. Her innocence turns out to be an admiring but a dangerous quality in the new world

D. The author’s sympathy for her, a tender flower crushed by the ha rsh winter in Rome was easily felt.

11. Which of the following is not right about Emily Dickinson’s poems about love?______

A. Her love poems show people’s feelings of rapture and happiness coming from their love experience.

B. Some of her love poems treats the suffering and frustration love can cause.

C. Many of them give original depictions of the longing for shared moments, the pain of separation, and the futility of finding happiness.

D. Some of them emphasizes the power of physical attraction and expresses a mixture of fear and fascination for the mysterious magnetism between sexes.

12. In her life, Emily Dickinson makes enchanting poetry out of ______.

A. a happy and active life

B. adventurous experiences

C. a single household and an inactive life

D. a hard and suffering life

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.Moby-Dick is a mixture of fantasy and （）based upon the South Pacific whaling industry.

A. romanticism

B. realism

C. naturalism

D. surrealism

17.Realism was a reaction against （）or a move away from the bias towards romance and self-creating fictions, and paved the way to Modernism.

A. Symbolism

B. Imagism

C. Romanticism

D. Mysticism

18.The impact of Darwin's evolutionary theory on the American thought and the influence of the 19th century French literature on the American men of letters gave rise to a school of realism（）.

A. American naturalism

B. American nationalism

C. American internationalism

D. American transcendentalism

19. After the Civil War America had been transformed from to .

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

B. an agrarian community…an industrialized and commercialized society

C. an industrialized and commercialized society…a highly developed society

D. a poor and backward society…an industrialized and commercialized society

20. Which of the following is not right about Emily Dickinso n’s poems of nature?

A. In them, she expressed her general skepticism about the relationship between man and nature.

B. Some of them showed her belief 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.

21. Eugene O’Neill is remembered for his tragic view of life and most of his plays are about .

A. the root, the truth of human desires and human frustrations

B. the moral nature of the modern mankind

C. the relationship between man and nature as well as man and woman

D. the inner contradiction of men before the real world

22. As a poet in the 20th century, Robert Frost _________.

A. rejected the conventional poetic principles and chose the revolutionary way

B. rejected the romantic way choosing instead the revolutionary principles

C. rejected the revolutionary principles choosing instead the romantic way

D. rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporaries choosing instead the old-fashioned way to be new

23. Pound’s translations cast light on his affinity to the Chinese and his strenuous effort in the study of _________.

A. ancient Asian literature

B. ancient Roman literature

C. Oriental literature

D. ancient Indian literature

24. Which of the following is not written by Eugene O’Neill?

A. Long Day’s Journey into Night and The Great Gatsby

B. The Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape

C. Desire Under the Elms and The Great God Down

D. Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie

23. Most of O’Neill’s plays are concerned about the following EXCEPT_____.

A. success and failure in man’s literary career

B. life and death, illusion and disillusion, dream and reality

C. alienation and communication, self and society, desire and frustration

D. the basic issues of human existence and predicament

24. Traditional fiction featured an authoritative narrator in telling a story, while modern fiction tended to employ the first person narration or limit the reader to “_____”.

A. one character’s point of view

B. the central consciousness

C. more characters points of view

D. both A and B

25. Which one of the following statements is NOT true of William Faulkner?

A. He is a 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.

23. ______ wrote about the society in the South by inventing families which represented different social forces: the old decaying upper class, the rising, ambitious, unscrupulous class of the “Poor Whites”, and the Negroes who labored for both of them.

A. Faulkner

B. Fitzgerald

C. Hemingway

D. Steinbeck

24. “For I have too much /Of apple-picking: I am overtired/ Of the great harvest I myself desired”. From these lines we can con clude that the speaker ______.

A. is happy about the harvest

B. is tired of the work of apple-picking

C. is not tired when seeing the harvest

D. becomes indifferent to the job

25. Which of the following statements about Hemi ngway’s works is Not true?

A. Man can be physically destroyed and spiritually defeated.

B. Hemingway’s style is actually polished and tightly controlled, but highly suggestive and connotative.

C. Hemingway develops the style of colloquialism initiated by Mark Twain.

D. “Grace under pressure” is actually an attitude towards life that Hemingway had been trying to demonstrate in his works.

Ⅱ. Choose the relevant match from Column B for each item in Column A. (10 points in all, 2 point for each)

1. O. Henry A. The Cop and Anthem

2. Jack London B. The Sea Wolf

3. John Steinbeck C. Tortilla Flat

4. Eugene O’ Neil D. The Emperor Jones

5. Richard Wright E. Native Son

Ⅲ. Explain the following terms. (25 points, 5 for each)

1.the Beat Generation

2.Symbolism

3.American Romanticism

4.Legend

5.Romance

Ⅳ. What are the unique features of American Romanticism? (5 points)

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

华师自考美国文学史及选读试题

美国文学史及选读试题 I. Multiple Choice 10’ 1. Who is different from others according to the division of writing period? A. Washington Irving B.William Cullen Bryant C. Captain John Smith D. James Fenimore Cooper 2. The American Romantic Period lasted roughly from ____ to ____. A. 1798-1832 B. 1810-1860 C. 1860-1864 D. 1776-1783 3. How many syllables are there in this first line of Raven? (“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,”) A. 11 B. 12 C. 13 D. 16 4. What dominated the Puritan phase of American writing? A. theology B. literature C. esthetics D. revolution 5. At the initial period of the spread of ideas of the Enlightenment was largely due to ____. A. typography B. journalism C. revolution D. the development of paper-making industry 6. Who has been called the “Father of American Literature”? A. Walt Scott B. Geoffrey Chaucer

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)

美国文学史及选读试卷 (4)

美国文学史及选读试卷 Ⅰ. Multiple choices. (60 points in total, 2 for each) 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. At 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 14. In the following statements, _________ is NOT true about Washington Irving’s famous story “Rip Van Winkle.” A. The story is not only well-kno wn for Rip’s 20-year sleep but also considered a model of perfect English in American literature. B. The story is set against the background of the inevitably changing America. C. The social conservatism and literary preference for the past is revealed, to some extent, in the story. D. Irving describes Rip’s response and reaction in a dramatic way, so that we see clearly both the narrator and Irving agree on the preferability of the present to the past. 15. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Experience is a serous discussion about the conflict between _________ and ordinary life.