英美文学题库
Part Two American Literature
Chapter 1 The Romantic Period
I. Choose the right answer:
1. Of all the following issues, _____is definitely NOT the focus of the Romantic writers in the American literary history.
A. Puritan morality B. Human bestiality C. Noble savages D. Divinity of man
Answer: B
2. Henry David Thoreau’s work, ________, has always been regarded as a masterpiece of the New England Transcendental Movement.
A. Walden B. The Pioneers C. Nature D. "Song of Myself"
Answer: A
3. "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind" is a famous quote from______’s writings.
A. Walt Whitman B. Henry David ThoreauC. Herman Melville D. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Answer: D
4. ’Leaves of Grass’ commands great attention because of its uniquely poetic embodiment of________, which are written in the founding documents of both the Revolutionary War and the American Civil War.
A. the democratic ideals B. the romantic ideals C. the self-reliance spirits D. the religious ideals
Answer: A
5. According to Whitman, the genuine participation of a poet in a common cultural effort was to behave as a supreme_________.
A. democrat B. individualist C. romanticist D. leader
Answer: B
6. The period before the American Civil War is generally referred to as ___________.
A. The Naturalist Period B. The Modern Period C. The Romantic Period D. The Realistic Period
Answer: C
7. In the following works, which sign the beginning of the American literature?
A. The Sketch Book B. Leaves of Grass C. Leather Stocking Tales D. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Answer:B
8. _____is the author of the work ’The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’.
A. Washington Irving B. James Joyce C. Walt Whitman D. William Butler Yeats
Answer: A
9. Washington Irving’s ’Rip Van Winkle’ is famous for_________.
A. Rip’s escape into a mysterious B. The story’s German legendary source material
C. Rip’s seeking for happiness D. Rip’s 20-years sleep
Answer: D
10. Which of the following statement is not true about Washington Irving?
A. Washington Irving is regarded as Father of the American short stories.
B. Irving’s relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ignored considering his success both abroad and at home.
C. Irving’s taste was essentially progressive or radical.
D. Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who "perfected the best classic style that American literature ever produced."
Answer: C
11. The Publication of ______established Emerson as the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism.
A. Nature B. Self-Reliance C. The American Scholar D. The Over-Soul
Answer: A
12. The phrase "a transparent eye-ball’ compares philosophical mentation of Emerson’s. It appears in_________.
A. The American Scholar B. Nature C. The over Soul D. Essays: Second Series
Answer: B
13. In 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson made a speech entitled _______at
Harvard, which was hailed by Oliver Wendell Holmeasas :Our Intellectual Declaration of Independence".
A. "Self-Reliance" B. "Divinity School Address" C. "The American Scholar" D. "Nature"
Answer: C
14. _____is the most ambivalent (有争议的) writers in the American literary history.
A. Nathaniel Hawthorne B. Walt Whitman C. Ralph Waldo Emerson D. Mark Twain
Answer: A
15. "There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity", which author of the following authors does the mention belong to________.
A. Washington Irving B. Ralph Waldo Emerson C. Nathaniel Hawthorne D. Walt Whitman
Answer: C
16. In Hawthorne’s novels and short stories, intellectuals usually appear as________.
A. saviors B. villains C. commentators D. observers
Answer: B
17. All of the following are works by Nathaniel Hawthorne except_______.
A. The House of the Seven Gables B. White Jacket C. The Marble Faun D. The Blithedale Romance
Answer: B
18. Walt Whitman is radically innovative in the form of his poetry. What he prefers for his new subject is__________.
A. free verse B. blank verse C. lyric poem D. heroic couplet
Answer: A
19. Which of the following features cannot characterize poems by Walt Whitman?
A. Lyrical and well-structured B. Free-flowing C. Simple and rather crude D. Conversational and casual
Answer: A
20. " The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud. These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day." The two lines are taken from____________.
A. "There Was a Child Went Forth" by Walt Whitman B. "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound
C. "Cavalry Crossing a Ford" by Walt Whitman D. "Ulysses" by Joyce
Answer: A
21. "Moby Dick" is regarded as the first American_________.
A. Prose epic B. Comic epic C. Dramatic fiction D. Poetic fiction
Answer: A
22. The giant Moby Dick may symbolize all EXCEPT________.
A. mystery of the universe B. sin of the whale C. power of the great Nature D. evil of the world
Answer: B
23. Which of the following comments on the writings by Herman Melville is not true?
A. "Bartleby, the Scrivener" is a short story. B. "Benito Cereno" is a novella.
C. The Confidence---Man has something to do with the sea and sailors. D. Moby-Dick is regarded as the first American prose epic.
Answer: C
24. The Transcendentalists believe that, first, nature is ennobling, and second, the individual is____, therefore, self-reliant.
A. insignificant B. vicious by nature C. divine D. forward-looking
Answer:
II. Read the quoted part and answer the questions:
1. "Time grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on: a tart temper mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener by constant use. For a long while he used to perpetual club of the sages, philos
ophers, and other idle personages of the village.
Questions:
1) Please identify the author and the title of the work.
2) What’s the meaning of this passage?
参考答案:
1) This is an excerpt from "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving.
2) With his wife’s dominance at home, the situation became harder and harder for Rip Van Winkle. His wife’s temper became worse and she scolded him for more often. He had to stay in the club with idle people.
附:Question: Please describe the changes Rip Van Winkle experienced.
Answer: 1) Rip Van Winkle was the hero in Irving’s works. He was a good-natured man, a henpecked (惧内的，妻管严的) husband.
2) Because his wife’s shrewish (泼妇一样的) treatment, Rip had to escape from his home to the little inn in the village. When it failed to give him some restful air, he had to go hunting in the high mountain, where Rip met a stranger, and the man asked Rip to carry keg for him. Then Rip reached the place in the valley, where many strangers were playing nine-pins. Later Rip got drunk after drinking the liquor, which made him sleep for 20 years.
3) Rip woke up as an old man, entering the village learned that his wife had died, he got the freedom of his own,; and the American had been dependent from the control of Britain, he had changed from a subject of the King (George III) into a citizen of the independent new U.S.....
2. " I celebrated myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you"
Questions:
1) Please identify the author and the title of the poem that had used when published.
2) What is the theme of this poem?
参考答案:1) In the 1856, the title was "Poem of Walt Whitman, an American", then it became "Walt Whitman" in 1860, until 1881, it finally became "Song of Myself". The author is Walt Whitman. (P456--457)2) In this poem Whitman sets forth two principle beliefs:
A. The theory of universality (普遍性), which is illustrated by lengthy catalogues of people and things;
B. The belief in the singularity (个别性) and equality(平等性) of all beings in value. (P457)
3. "Standing on the bare ground, ----my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -----all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see all."
Questions:
1) Please identify the author and the title of the work.
2) Please briefly interpret this passage.
3). What rhetorical device of "transparent eye-ball".
4) Emerson said he want to become a transparent eye-ball, what king idea did he want to express?
参考答案:1) This selection is from "Nature" by Emerson.
2) In the essay Emerson clearly expresses the main principles of his Transcendentalist pursuit and his love for nature. Emerson develops his concept of "Over-Soul" Or "Universal Mind". Last but not the leas, it affirms the divinity of the human beings.
3) It used the device of metaphor.
4)
He wanted to tell us: Nature can purify (净化) our quality and let us get comfort.
III. Questions and answers:
1. The Romantic Period was called "The American Renaissance". Discuss the background of the Romantic Period, and compare it with the Romanticism of Britain.
Answer:
1) The two Romanticism both stress the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature;
2) They all pay attention to psychic states of the characters and exalt the individual and common man;
3) American Romanticism revealed unique characteristics: (difference)
<1> American authors describe their native land,, especially the spirit of the pioneering into the west, the desire for an escape from society and a return to nature;
<2> American writers use local dialect in language;
<3> Puritanism has great influence over American Romantics;
<4> Calvinism of original sin is obvious in their works;
<5> Transcendentalism is very important theory in American Romanticism;
<6> The important setting in American Romanticism are: ① the early puritan settlement; ② the confrontation with the Indians; ③ the frontiersmen’s life; ④ the wild west; ⑤ imagination.
2. Analyze the themes and characteristic of Hawthorne.
Answer:
Hawthorne was a man with inquiring imagination, meditative mind and dark vision to life.
His themes in writing are:
1) Man was born with evil and sin, one source of them is over-reaching intellect, whose image was always villain; (Chllingworth e.g.)
2) Hawthorne was influenced greatly by Puritanism, while he criticized it bitterly;
3) He believed Calvinistic ideas, thinking man was depraved and corrupted; they should obey God for saving the spirits;
4) He concerned the moral life of man and human history;
5) He was keen on the description of man’s development of psychology.
3. Explain the theory of Transcendentalism, then list its important author and works.
Answer:
Transcendentalism is a very important theory in American Romanticism, its main ideas are:
1) Man has the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or the ability of getting knowledge transcending the senses;
2) Nature is ennobling and individual is divine, therefore, man should be self-reliant.
3) Man is divine/holy and perfectible and man can trust himself to decide what is right and act accordingly; (but to Hawthorne and Melville man is a sinner);
4) Universe is over-soul -a symbol of the spirit, God or the universe, there is an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal "over-soul" -unity of Nature.
5) The important authors are: Emerson (The American Scholar) and Thoreau.
6) "Nature", Emerson’s works, is called the unofficial manifesto for the club.
4. Hawthorne was a master in using symbol and allegory; cite some example to analyze it.
Answer:
1) Allegorically, Young Goodman Brown becomes an Everyman called Brown, who will be aged in one night by an evil adventure, and the evilness makes everyone a fallen idol in the world
.
2) In the angle of Symbol: "Brown look up to the Heaven and resist the wicked one" symbols Brown has the force to resist the evilness of the Nature and he still has the faith to God; but "he is alone in the forest" symbols the society is the place full of sins and evilness, Brown’s strength is not enough at all; then after returning, he lives a dismal and gloomy life symbols he has been crushed down by the social evilness and lost his belief in goodness and piety.
5. Washington Irving was called "Father of the American short stories" and "the American Goldsmith". What characteristics did he have?
Answer:
1) He was nostalgic author, and he always juxtaposing the Old and the New world;
2) He remained a conservative and always exalted a disappearing past, and he prefer the past to present, prefer a dream-like world to a real one;
3) His stories were always from legend, especially German legends, showing best classic style. (P405—406)
6. Sea adventures are Melville’s favorite subject; "Moby-Dick" is a great novel in the theme, which is also noted for its symbolism, please analyze it in detail.
Answer:
1) About the sea adventure: it symbols the voyage of the mind in quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe; a spirit exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology;
2) About the boat; it symbols the society, and the crew symbol all kinds of people with different social and ethnic ideas;
3) About the white whale: To the author, it symbols nature, it is a complex, unfathomable and beautiful; To the captain Ahab, it is evilness, is a wall. So he will lead all his crew to cut through the wall to dig out all the unknown, mysterious things behind it. To the narrator, Ishmael, it is a mystery.
7. Walt Whitman is a unique poet. Can you explain what make him unique?
Answer:
1) His themes are: Democracy; the Revolutionary War and the Civil War; freedom; openness; brotherhood; individualism; the growth of industry and the wealth of the cities; universality.
2) His styles are special: "free verse"; "catalogue"; simple and even crude language. (P448-551)
Chapter 2 The Realistic Period
I. Choose the right answer:
1. Emily Dickinson was sometimes curious about the feeling of speech of death and in one of her poems she wrote about the______of death, the title of the poem is "I heard a Fly buzz when I died".
A. moment B. suffering C. happiness D. meaning
Answer: A
2. Theodore Dreiser belonged to the school of literary ______which emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters who were presented in special and detailed circumstances.
A. naturalism B. realism C. determinism D. humanism
Answer: A
3. More than five hundred poems that Dickinson wrote are about nature, in which her general _____about the relationship between man and nature is well expressed.
A. skepticism B. eulogy C. happiness D. denial
Answer: A
4. "This is my letter to the World" is
a poem expressing Emily Dickinson’s _____about her communication with the outside world.
A. happinessB. angerC. Anxiety D. sorrow
Answer: C
5. Though secluded herself in her own house, Emily Dickinson was never really indifferent of the outside world, as could be seen in her poems such as "I like to see it lap the Miles", which describes a(n) ______, an embodiment of modern civilization.
A. snake B. animal C. the road D. train
Answer: D
6. After "The Adventure of Tom Sawyer", Twain gives a literary independence to Tom’s buddy Huck in a book called_____, and the book from which "all modern American literature comes".
A. Life on the Mississippi River B. The Gilded Age C. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn D. The Sun Also Rises
Answer: C
7. Winterbourne is used as a ______in Henry James’s "Daisy Miller".
A. Protagonist B. Narrator of the events C. A character of central consciousness D. Persona
Answer: C
8. Emily Dickinson’s verse is most aptly characterized as ___________.
A. exposing the evils of the society B. paving the way for the following generation of free verse poets
C. sharing the same poetic conventions as Walt Whitman D. exhibiting sensitiveness to the symbolic implications of experience, such as love, death, immortality and etc.
Answer: D
9. The author of "The Portrait of a Lady" is best at_______.
A. probing into the unsearched secret part of human life
B. a truthful delineation of the motives, the impulses, the principles that shape the lives of actual men and women.
C. a dramatizing the collisions between two very different cultural systems on an international scene
D. disclosing the social injustices and evils of a civilized society after the Civil War.
Answer: C
10. The period ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to as _____________.
A. the Age of Realism B. the Age of Modernism C. the Age of Romanticism D. the Age of Colonicalism
Answer: A
11. Who exerts the simple most important influence on literary naturalism?
A. Emerson B. Jack London C. Theodore Dreiser D. Darwin
Answer: D
12. One of the most familiar themes in American naturalism is the theme of human "______".
A. bestiality B. goodness C. compassion D. greed
Answer: A
13. ______is considered by H.L. Mencken as "the true father of our national literature."
A. Hemingway B. Poe C. Irving D. Twain
Answer: D
14. Mark Twain wrote most of his literary works with a _______language.
A. grand B. pompous C. simple D. vernacular
Answer: D
15. Henry James’s fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with________.
A. international theme B. national theme C. European theme D. Regional theme
Answer: A
16. In the following writers, who is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century "Stream-of-consciousness" novels and the founder of psychological realism______________.
A. Henry James B. Mark Twain C. Emily Dickenson D. Theodore Dreiser
Answer: A
17. In Henry James’ "Daisy M
iller", the author tries to portray the young woman as an embodiment of ___________.
A. the corruption of the newly rich B. the free spirit of the New World C. the decline of aristocracy D. the force of convention
Answer: B
18. Which of the following is NOT a usual subject of poetic expression of Emily Dickinson’s?
A. War and peace B. Love and marriage C. Life and death D. Religion
Answer: A
19. The following titles are all related to the subject that escapes from the society and returns to nature except__________.
A. Dreiser’s Sister Carrie B. Copper’s Leather-Stocking Tales C. Thoreau’s Walden D. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Answer: A
20. The greatest work written by Theodore Dreiser is__________.
A. Sister Carrie B. An American Tragedy C. The Financier D. The Titan
Answer: B
21. Closely related to Emily Dickinson’s religious poetry are her poems concerning ___________.
A. Childhood B. Youth and happiness C. Loneliness D. Death and immortality
Answer: D
22. With Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the literary scene, _________became the major trend in American literature in the seventies and eighties of the 19th century.
A. sentimentalism B. romanticism C. realism D. naturalism
Answer: C
II. Read the quoted part and answer the questions:
1. "It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt tow things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to my self:
"All right, then, I’ll go to hell"----and tore it up.
It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never though no more about reforming."
1) Who was the "I", which book was the passage taken from? And by whom?
2) Why did he think "it was awful thought"? Analyze it.
3) Analyze the characteristic of the hero.
Answer:
1) The character is Huckleberry Finn, the passage is taken from "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain.
2) It is the climax of the Huck’s inner struggle on the Mississippi, when Huck is conflicting whether or not he should write a letter to tell Miss Watson where Jim is, and he is polarizing/contradicting by the two opposing forces between his heart and his head, between his affection for Jim and the laws of the society against those who help slaves escape. Huck’s final decision -to follow his own good hearted moral impulse rather than conventional village morality. During his thinking Huck thinks of the consequence of helping Jim (the runaway slave), he might go to hell, "it was awful thought", with the eventual victory of his moral conscience over his social awareness, Huck grows.
3) Huck is an innocent and reluctant rebel, a typical American Boy with a "sound heart and deformed conscience". Through the eyes of Huck, the Pre-Civil War American society is fully exposed and we are deeply impressed by Mark Twain’s thematic co
ntrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wildness and civilization.
2. "I should think it might be arranged," Winterbourne was thus emboldened to reply. "Couldn’t you get some one to stay----for the afternoon---with Randolph?"
Miss Miller looked at him a moment; and then with all serenity, "I wish you’d stay with him!" she said.
Questions:
1) Please identify the work and the author.
2) Please analyze the character of Daisy Miller in literature.
参考答案:
1) It is taken from Henry James’s "Daisy Miller".
2) She is the American Girl in Europe, a celebrated type who embodies the spirit of the New World. However, innocence, the keynote of her character, turns out to be an admiring but a dangerous quality and her defiance of social taboos in the Old World finally brings her to a disaster in the clash between two different cultures.
3. "We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess---in the Ring---
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain----
We passed the Setting Sun---”
Questions:
1) Please identify the poem and the poet;
2) What does "the School, the Fields of Gazing Grain and the Setting Sun" stands for?
Answers:
1) The lines are from "Because I could not stop fro Death", Emily Dickinson. (P523)
2) It stands for three stages of life: the School----youth;
the Fields of Gazing Grain----mature period;
the Setting Sun------end of life. (P523)
4. "The Eyes around---had wrung them dry---
And breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset----when the King
Be witnessed---in the Room----"
Questions:
1) What is the meaning of the first line?
2) What does "the King" refer to?
3) What idea does the poem from which this stanza is taken express?
Answers:
1) It means the relatives and friends had cried and cried so that there were no tears any more.
2) "The King" refers to the God of death.
3) The poem expresses that the author even imagined her own death, the loss of her own body, and the journey of her soul to the unknown.
III. Questions and answers:
1. What are the main ideas of Realists of America?
Answer:
The harsh life and disillusion from the dark memories of the Civil War made the nation dislike the romance, the new generation of writers came up with new inspirations:
1) They were interested in the realities of life. It aimed at the interpretation of the actuality of any aspect of life;
2) People’s attention was now directed the interesting features/things of everyday existence/things -something brutal, sordid/mean, class struggle etc.
3) The authors introduced common people such as: industrial workers and farmers, ambitious businessmen, vagrants, prostitutes/street girls, and unheroic soldiers in fiction;
4) American writers displayed native trends in portrayal of the landscape ad social surface realistically;
5) They formed perfect vernacular style in language;
6) Some authors explored and exploited/used the literary possibilities of the interior l
ife/psychology, such as Henry James;
7) The representatives were: Mark Twain, Henry James, William Dean Howells;
In short, they set the example and pictured the future course for the modernism. (in the subject, themes, techniques, and styles of fiction)
2. Take examples to analyze the style and theme of Mark Twain.
Answer:
Mark Twain is a great literary of America, H. L. Mencken considered him "the true father of our national literature".
1) Twain’s works like "Adventure of Huckleberry Finn" and "Life on the Mississippi" shaped the views of America and combined American folk humor and serious literature together;
2) "The adventures of Tom Sawyer" and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" proved to be the milestone in American literature, and they were the record of a vanishing way of life in the pre-Civil War Mississippi.
3) The books were noted for their unpretentious, colloquial, poetic, humorous, innocent and free style;
4) The language of Twain was simple, direct, lucid and faithful to truth -"vernacular";
5) Twain was famous for a local colorist, who presented social life through portraits of the local characters of his region -people living in the area, the landscape, the customs, dialects, costumes. Especially the theme of the Mississippi valley and the West;
6) The work of Twain were always confined to a particular region, historical moment, strong accent, intensified humor to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism.
3. Give a comment on the experience of Carrie.
参考答案：
1) Penniless and "full of the illusions of ignorance and youth", Sister Carrie leaves her rural home to seek work in Chicago, she grows from an innocent, pure country girl to be a girl mature in intellect and emotion, and she becomes a star of musical comedies. But in spite of her success in material, she is not happy but lonely and dissatisfied.
2) Sister Carrie best embodies Dreiser’s naturalistic belief that while men are controlled and conditioned 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.
4. The characteristic and theme analyses of Henry James.
Answer:
1) The Freudian approach is famous in his novels and his literary essays.
2) James took great interest in international themes -the clashed between two different cultures and the emotional and moral problems of Americans in Europe, or Europeans in America in his first period.
3) "The Portrait of A Lay" is generally considered to be his masterpiece.
4) James experimented with different themes and forms in his middle period.
5) In his last an major period, James returned to his "international-theme."
6) The typical pattern of the conflict between the two cultures would be that of a young American man or an American girl (Daisy Miller) who goes to Europe and affronts/met with his or her
destiny. The unsophisticated boy or girl would be beguiled, betrayed, cruelly wronged at the hands of those who pretend to stand for the highest possible civilization.
7) He focuses on psychological approach. His fictional world is concerned more with the inner life of human beings -this emphasis on psychology and on the human consciousness proves to be a big breakthrough in novel writing.
8) He is regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century "stream-of-consciousness" novels and the founder of psychological realism.
9) James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possible and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minimal intervention. (P495-498)
5. The period from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to the Age of Realism (The Gilded Age) in the literary history of the United States, why did it happen and what characters did it have?
Answer:
1) The American society after the Civil War provided rich soil for the rise and development of Realism, and Civil War affected the social and the value system of the country, America had transformed into an industrialized and commercialised society.
2) The war stimulated the technological development;
3) The booming economy and industry stepped up urbanization;
4) The phenomenon of polarization is serious;
5) People became doubtful about the human nature and the benevolence/grace of God;
6) Gone was the frontier, the spirit of the frontiersman/pioneer, the spirit of freedom and the American dream.
6. Please analyze the characteristics of Emily Dickinson’s poems.
Answer:
1) Dickinson’s poems are usually based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys. But within her little lyrics Dickinson addresses those issues that concern the whole human beings, which include religion, death, immortality, love, and nature. (theme)
2) Her masterpiece -----"I heard a Fly buzz---when I died", she looked at death from the point of view of both the living and the dying. She even imagined her own death, the loss of her own body, and the journey of her soul to the unknown.
3) The style of Dickinson:
A: A particular stress pattern: dash“-------”
B: Capital letters as a means of emphasis;
C: Language: brief, direct, and plain;
D: Poem: short, always on single image or symbol (e.g. "I like to see it lap the miles"---------describe a train in the personification of the literary device)
E: Her poems tend to be personal and meditative (e.g. “Because I could not stop for Death”).
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7. In the representatives of "Local colorism", the writers shared some things in common and also had some differences, please analyze them.
Answer:
1) 3 prominent writers differed in the understanding of the "truth": Mark Twain and Howells paid attention to the life of the Americans; Henry James emphasized the "inner world";
2) Howells focused on the rising middle class, while Twine dealt with the region and the people at the forefront;
3) The other local colorists concerned with the life of the sma
ll, well-defined region or province, the setting is always the isolated small town;
4) They were nostalgic historians, recording the vanishing way of life, and the fading present.
8. Analyze the theory of Theodore Dreiser’naturalism with example.
Answer:
1) His naturalism emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters who were presented in special and detailed circumstances. At bottom, life was shown to be ironic, even tragic.
2) The characters in his books are often subject to the control of the natural forces -especially those of environment and heredity. For example, the hero Hurstwood’s tragic death showed the theory.
3) The effect of Darwinist idea of "survival of the fittest" was shattering. It is not surprising to find in Dreiser’s fiction a world of jungle, where "kill or to be killed" was the law.
4) He criticizes materialistic to the core, living in such a society with such a value system, the human individual is obsessed with a never-ending, yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his/her desires. One of the desires is for money which was a motivating purpose of life in the United States in the late 19th century. For example in his masterpiece "Sister Carrie" he traces the material rise of Carrie Meeber, which indicates the critical attitude of the author.
5) Sexual beauty symbolizes the acquisition of some social status of great magnitude.
9. Darwin’s evolutionary theory gave rise to American naturalism, what are their characteristics?
Answer:
The American naturalists accepted the more negative implication of Darwin’s theory, and used it to explain the behaviours in literary works.
1) They regarded man as the complex combinations of inherited attributes/elements, their habits conditioned/controlled by social and economic forces;
2) They chose their subjects from the lower ranks of the society and portrayed misery and poverty/poorness;
3) They dealt with the nature of the man of "underdogs" -"bestiality", as an explanation of sexual desire;
4) Their languages were unpolished;
5) The naturalists believed that the real and true nature is hidden from the eyes o the individual, or beyond his control;
6) Naturalism evolved/came from realism, but the tone of the authors were more ironic and pessimistic. (P475-476)
American Literature
Chapter 3 The Modern Period
I. Choose the right answer:
1. Ezra Pound is a leading spokesman of the_________.
A. Imagist Movement B. Chartist Movement C. Modernist Movement D. Romantic Movement
Answer: A
2. Strong affinity of the Chinese and Oriental literature can be found in the works of_________.
A. Mark Twain B. Ezra Pound C. Emily Dickinson D. Arthur Miller
Answer: B
3. In Robert Frost’s famous poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", there are four lines like these: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep,/ And miles to go bef
ore I sleep”. The second sleep refers to______.
A. die B. calm down C. fall into sleep D. stop walking
Answer: A
4. Of the following American poets, whose work was first recognized in England and then in America?
A. Robert Frost B. Walt Whitman C. Emily Dickinson D. Wallace Stevens
Answer: A
5. "For I have had too much/ Of apple-picking: I am overtired/ Of the great harvest I myself desired" From these lines we can conclude 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 of the job
Answer: B
6. In these lines "The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough", Ezra Pound uses the figure of speech of ________.
A. metaphor B. simile C. hyperbole D. contrast
Answer: A
7. O’Neill’s inventiveness seemingly knew no limits. He was constantly experimenting with new styles and forms for his plays, especially during the twenties when ______was in full swing.
A. Symbolism B. Expressionism C. Romanticism D. Realism
Answer: B
8. "He got me, aw right. I’m trou. Even him didn’t tink I belonged." In these sentences taken from ’The Hairy Ape’, the words “he” and “him” both refer to__________.
A. Yank B. God C. The ape in the zoo D. A person unnamed
Answer: B
9. ______is a school of modern painting, whose emphasis is on the formal structure of a work of art and especially on the multiple-perspective viewpoints.
A. Expressionism B. Impressionism C. Cubism D. Imagism
Answer: C
10. In a class which discuss the Imagist Movement in the United States, we will definitely NOT include________.
A. William Carlos Williams B. Ezra Pound C. Gary Snyder D. Wallance Stevens
Answer: C
11. In which of the following poems by Ezra Pound did you find the allusion to Wi-shang? ____________
A. In a Station of the Metro B. The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter C. A Pact D. Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
Answer: B
12. In 1915, Ezra Pound began writing his great work_______, which spanned from 1917 to 1959.
A. Cantos B. Collected Early Poems of Ezra Pound C. Personae D. Hygh Selwyn Mauberley
Answer: A
13. Robert Frost was the Pulitzer winner on ______ occasions.
A. twoB. Three C. four D. five
Answer: C
13. The founder of the American drama is _______.
A. Arthur Miller B. Clifford Odets C. Tennesee Williams D. Eugene O’Neill
Answer: D
14. The first full-length play written by Eugene O’Neill is ______.
A. The Straw B. Beyond the Horizon C. Bound East for Cardiff D. The Hairy Ape
Answer: B
14. Eugene O’Neill’s ’The Hairy Ape’ explores the problem of________.
A. human disillusionment B. the corruption of human desire C. human responsibility D. the loss of human identity
answer: D
15. Fitzgerald’s fictional world is the best embodiment of the spirit of_______.
A. the Jazz age B. the Romantic Period C. the Renaissance Period D. the Neoclassical Pe
riod
Answer: A
16. Fitzgerald wrote the following except_________.
A. The Great Gatsby B. In Our Time C. Tender is the Night D. This Side of Paradise
Answer: B
17. "There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the chamoagne and the stars...", the two sentences are taken from________.
A. ’The Great Gatsby’ by Fitzgerald B. ’Sister Carrie’ by Theodore Dreiser C. ’Moby-Dick’ by Herman Melville D. ’Daisy Miller’ by Henry James
Answer: A
18. Which of the following comments on the novel ’The Great Gatsby’ is not true?
A. The Great Gatsby is a novel that is a set against the ending of the war.
B. Gatsby is a mystical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies American itself.
C. Gatsby is the last of the romantic heroes. D. Gatsby is wealthy but unintelligent and brutal.
Answer: D
19. _____is Hemingway’s masterpiece.
A. Farewell to Arms B. For Whom the bell Tolls C. The Sun Also Rises D. The Old Man and the Sea
Answer: D
20. Which of the following best describes the protagonist of William Faulkner’s "A Rose for Emily"?
A. She is a conservative aristocrat. B. She is a wealth lady. C. She is a prisoner of the past. D. She has good taste.
Answer: C
21. Who, disregarding grammar and punctuation, always used "I" instead of "I" to refer to himself as a protest against self-importance?
A. Cummings B. Wallance Stevens C. Fitzgerald D. Ernest Hemingway
Answer: A
22. Who is the author of the writing "The Grapes of Wrath"?
A. John Steinbeck B. Eugene O’Neill C. Fitzgerald D. Theodore Dreiser
Answer: A
II. Read the quoted part and answer the questions:
1. "The apparition of these faces in the crowded; / Petals on a wet, black bough."
1) From which poem does the stanza come? Who is the author?
2) What does the “petals”mean?
3) Briefly interpret the two lines.
Answers: 1) The lines are taken from "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound.
2) Here "petals" stands for "human faces". 3) The two lines compare human faces to petals on a wet, black bough. This way of making poetry comes from Chinese poetics.
2. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth"
Questions:
1) Please identify the poem and the poet;
2) Please briefly interpret this poem.
Answers:
1) It is taken from Robert Lee Frost’s "The Road Not Taken"
2) In this meditative poem, the speaker tells us how the course of his life determined when he came upon two rods that diverged in a wood. Forced to choose, he “took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”He seems to be giving a suggestion to the reader: "Make good choice of your life."
3. "The caterwauling horns had reached a crescendo and I turned away and
cut across the lawn toward home. I glanced back once. A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsby’s house, making his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the lost, who stood on the porch, his stand up in a formal gesture of farewell."
Questions:
1) Name the author and the title of the novel from which this passage is taken.
2) What is the setting of the novel?
3) What implied meaning can you get from reading this passage?
Answers:
1) The passage comes from "The Great Gatsby" written by Fitzgerald.
2) The Great Gatsby is a novel that is set against the ending of the war.
3) The passage hints at the meaninglessnes, spiritual emptiness and vanity of such a lift of pleasure-seeking. There is a tragic sense that the "party" will be over. Gatsby’s failure magnifies to a great extent the end of the American Dream. (However, the affirmation of hope and expectation is self-asserted in Fitzgerald’s artistic manipulation of the central symbol in the novel, the green light).
III Questions and answers:
1. Analyze the background of the Modern Period.
Answer:
(1) The U.S. participated in The First World War marked a crucial stage in the nation’s evolution/development to a world power.
(2) The technology has brought about great changes in the life of the American people.
2. The ideology analyses about the people and especially the authors.
(The ideology analysis of "The Lost Generation)
Answer:
(1) People became less certain about what might arise in this changing world and more cynical about accepted standards of honesty and morality. The idea of "seize the day" or "enjoy the present" was pervasive.
(2) There was a decline in moral standard and the first few decades of the twentieth century was described as a spiritual wasteland. The censor/standard of a great civilization being destroyed or destroying itself, social breakdown, and individual powerlessness and hopelessness became part of the American experience as a result of the First World War, with resulting feelings of fear, loss, disorientation and disillusionment.
(3) Disillusioned and disgusted by the frivolous, greedy, and heedless way of life in America, they began to write and they wrote from their own experience in the war.
(4) The sense of loss and despair prevails among the post-war generation who are physically and psychologically scarred; Faulkner creates his own mythical kingdom that mirrors not only the decline of the Southern society but also the spiritual wasteland of the whole American society.
(5) The world is even more disintegrating and fragmentary and people are even more estranged and despondent.
(6) These writers shared almost the same belief that human beings are trapped in a meaningless world and that neither God nor man can make sense of the human condition.
(7) In general terms, much serious literature written from 1912 onwards attempte
d to convey a vision of social breakdown and moral decay and the writer’s task was to develop techniques that could represent a break with the past
3. List some characteristic writers you know in the Modernism.
Answer:
(1) The spirit of frivolity and carelessness is brought vividly to life in "The Great Gatsby"
(2) Faulkner’s footsteps in portraying the decadence and evil in the Southern society in a Gothic manner.
(3) Salinger is considered to be a spokesman for the alienated youth in the post-war era and his The Catcher in the Rye is regarded as a students’ classic.
(4) O’Neill is remembered for his tragic view of life and most of his plays are about the root, the truth of human desires and human frustration.
4. What are the styles of the modernists in writing?
Answer:
(1) The defining formal characteristics of the modernistic works discontinuity and fragmentation.
(2) The biggest shift is from the external to the internal, from the public to the private, from the chronological to the psychic, from the objective description to the subjective projection.
(3) Modern American writers in general emphasize the concrete sensory images or details as the direct conveyer of experience.
(4) Their language is direct, compressive, vivid and sparing of words.
(5) Modern fiction tended to employ the first person narration or limit the reader to the "central consciousness" or one character’s point of view. This limitation accorded with the modernistic vision that truth does not exist objectively but is the product of a personal interaction with reality.
5. Some theories and ideologies influenced the Modernists, what are they?
Answer:
(1) Darwinism;
(2) Karl Marx’s scientific socialism;
(3) Freud’s "unconsciousness" and psychoanalysis;
(4) William James’ "stream of consciousness";
(5) Carl June’s "collective unconscious", "archetypal symble".
6. What are the characteristics of the Eugene O’Neill’s plays?
(1) Of all the plays O’Neill wrote, most of them are tragedies, dealing with the basic issues of human existence and predicament: life and death, illusion and disillusion, alienation and communication, dream and reality, self and society, desire and frustration, etc. His characters (The Hairy Ape) in the plays are described as seeking meaning and purpose in their lives in different ways, some through love, some through religion, others through revenge, but all meet disappointment and despair.
(2) Dramatization of man’s effort in finding the secret of life results in a reconciliation with the tragic impossibility.
(3) "The Hairy Ape" is a play that concerns the problem of modern man’s identity. Yank’s sense of belonging nowhere, hence homelessness and rootlessness, is typical of the mood of isolation and alienation in the early twentieth century in the United States and the whole world as well.
7. Analyze "The Hemingway Code Hero"
Answer:
(1) They are always Exposed to and victimized by v
iolence in various forms, Nick becomes the prototype of the wounded hero who, with all the dignity and courage he could muster, confronts situation.
(2) They are a group of wandering, amusing, but aimless people, who are caught in the war and removed from the path of ordinary life.
(3) They are the men trapped both physically and mentally.
(4) God’s design or his beneficence and to suggest that man is doomed to be entrapped.
(5) They believe: life is worth living and there are causes worth dying for.
(6) In a tragic sense, the struggle of Hemingway’s heroes show: it is a representation of life as a struggle against unconquerable natural forces in which only a partial victory is possible. Nevertheless, there is a feeling of great respect for the struggle and mankind.
(7) Hemingway hero of athletic prowess and masculinity and unyielding heroism.
(8) To master the code with the honest, the discipline, and the restrains are Hemingway Code heroes. In the general situation of his novels, life is full of tension and battles; the world is in chaos; man is always fighting desperately a losing battle. However, though life is but a losing battle, it is a struggle man can dominate in such a way that loss becomes dignity; man can be physically destroyed but never defeated spiritually.
8. About William Faulkner:
I. Analyses about his life and his theme:
Answer:1) His works criticizes the stratified society among the aristocrats, the new rich, the poor whites and the blacks.
2) His work shows a panorama of the experience and consciousness of the whole Southern society.
3) His works focus on the collision of the intelligent, sensitive, and idealistic protagonist/hero (Emily) with the society of the twentieth century.
4) Almost all his heroes turn out to be tragic. They are tragic because they are prisoners of the past, or the society, or some social and moral taboos, or of their own introspective personalities.
5) Faulkner suggests that society, which conditions man with its hierarchical stratification and with its laws and institutions, eliminates man’s chance of responding naturally to the experience of his existence, against this imprisoned, confused, fragmented social being is the primitive man who, not conditioned by the civilization and social institutions, accepts the life-death pattern of human existence.
6) By turning away from reality, by alienating himself from truth with his attempts to explain the inexplicable, becomes weak and cowardly, confused and ineffectual.
7) Theme of imprisonment in the past. The past that Faulkner uses in this book to set off the present is not the past of an earlier society or historical period, but the immediate past---the world of childhood, innocent and idealistic.
II. Analyses on Faulkner’s techniques in writing:
Answer:
1) He holds/believes in the infinite possibilities inherent in human life. Therefore a writer should observe with no judgment whatsoever and reduce authorial intr
usion to the lowest minimum. The range of narrative techniques used by Faulkner is remarkable. He would never step between the characters and the reader to explain, but let the characters explain themselves and hinder as little as possible the reader’s direct experience of the work of art. (detached)
2) He deliberately broke up the chronology of his narrative by juxtaposing the past with the present.
3) Faulkner was good at presenting multiple points of view.
III. The character analyses about Miss Emily Grierson:
Answer:
1) She is an eccentric spinster who refuses to accept the passage of time or the inevitable change and loss that accompanies it.
2) She is the symbols of the Old South but the prisoners of the past.
3) Something about plots: Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town, and she vanquished the people in the town, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell. And she is the victim of the idea of her family: none of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. Then she fell in love with a Northerner, but some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young men.