美国文学史复习指导题
Exercises on Colonial America
I. Blank Filling
1.The most enduring shaping influence in American
thought and American literature was ________.
(Puritanism)
2.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.
(Puritanism)
3.Among all the settlers in the New Continent,
_________ settlers were the most influential.
(English)
4.Among the members of the small band of
Jamestown settlers was ______, an English soldier of fortune, whose reports of exploration, published in the early 1600s, have been described as the first distinct American literature written in English. (John Smith)
5.The term ―puritan‖ was applied to those settlers
who originally were devout members of the Church of _______. (England)
6.General History of Virginia contains ________ ?s
most famous tale of how the Indian princess named Pocahontas saved him from the wrath of her father. (John Smith)
7.The first permanent English settlement in North
America was established at _________, Virginia.
(Jamestown)
8.Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety, these were
the __________ values that dominated much of the early American writing. (puritan)
9._________ was regarded as the first woman poet
in American literature. (Anne Bradstreet)
10.William Bradford himself used a word ―Pilgrim‖
to describe the group of believers who sailed from Southampton England, on the Mayflower and settled in __________, Massachusetts in1620.
(Plymouth)
11.In 1620, ________________ became the first
Governor of Plymouth, Massachusetts. (William Bradford)
12.Many Puritans wrote verse, but the work of two
writers, Anne Bradstreet and ___________, rose to the level of real poetry. (Edward Tayor)
13.The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America is a
collection of poems composed by ___________________. (Anne Bradstreet)
14.______________ is the most truly American of
the national holidays in the United States and is the most closely connected with the earliest history. (Thanks Giving Day)
15.It is that on Thanksgiving each year, Americans
give thanks to ________ for the grace and mercy He has granted. Years later, president of the United States proclaimed ___________________ as Thanksgiving Day every year. (God; the fourth Thursday of November)
16.The ship ___________ carried about one hundred
Pilgrims and took 66 days to beat its way across the Atlantic. In icy November of 1620, it put the Pilgrims ashore at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
(Mayflower)
17.The War of Independence lasted eight years till
________. (1781)
18.The United States of America was founded
in_________. (1776)
19.The 18th century American thinking was
dominated by a set of new ideas about the universe, predominant among which is __________. (Deism)
20.Thomas Paine, with his natural gift for
pamphleteering and revolution, was appropriately born into an age of ___________. (revolution) 21.A series of sixteen pamphlets by Paine was
entitled ____________. (American Crisis)
22.One of the most important American thinkers
during the revolutionary period was ______________, who wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac. (Benjamin Franklin)
23.In American literature, the eighteenth century was
an Age of ________ and Revolution. (Reason) 24.In Franklin‘s ________________ he asks for
honesty and almost provides instructions, in typical American fa shion, of ―how to‖ succeed.
(The Autobiography)
25.The Declaration of Independence drafted by
__________ , adopted on _____________, announced the birth of a new nation. (Jefferson;
July 4, 1776)
II. Decide Whether the Statements are True or False
1.Having gathered the harvest in the first summer,
the puritans decided that a day of thanksgiving be fixed to give thanks to the friendly Indians for their help and friendship. (F)
2.American Literature is among the oldest national
literatures in the world.(F)
3.From 1930-1980, within about half of the century,
nine American writers have won the Nobel Prize.
(T)
4.Captain John Smith usually was regarded as the
first American writer.(T)
5.Smith published eight books in all, A Description
of New England is one of them.(T)
6.Mayflower in American history is name of a
flower. (F)
7.The Puritans were originally a group of people
who separated from the Church of England in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I.(T) III. Multiple Choice
1.English literature in the America is about more
than_____ years old. (C)
A. 500
B. 400
C. 200
D.100
2.The establisher of Jamestown was the famous
explorer and colonist____. (B)
A. John Winthrop
B. John
Smith
C. William Bradford
D. John
Goodwin
3.The early history of __________ Colony was the
history of William Bradford‘s leadership. (A)
A. Plymouth
B. Jamestown
C. New
England D. Mayflower
4.Jonathan Edwards‘ best and most representative
sermon was ______. (B)
A. Personal Narrative
B. Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God
C. Freedom of the Will
D. Images or
Shadows of Divine Things
5.The common thread throughout American
literature has been the emphasis on the ___________. (C)
A. Revolution
B. Reason
C.
Individualism D. Rationalism 6.Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems
made such a stir in England that she became known as the _________ who appeared in America.(B)
A. Ninth Muse
B. Tenth Muse
C. Best
Muse D. First Muse
7. Which statement about Franklin is not true? (A)
A.He instructed his countrymen as a printer.
B.He was a scientist.
C.He was a master of diplomacy.
D.He was a Puritan.
8. From 1732 –1758, Franklin wrote and published his famous ______________, an annual collection of proverbs.(B)
A. The Autobiography
B. Poor Richard‘s Almanac
C. The Common Sense
D. The General Magazine
9. Which is not written by Thomas Paine? (D)
A. Rights of Man
B. Common Sense
C. The Age of Reason
D. The Federalist
10. ―These are the times that try men‘s souls‖, these words was once read to Washington‘s troops and did much to shore up the spirits of the revolutionary soldiers. Who is the author of these words? (C)
A. Benjamin Franklin
B. Thomas Jefferson
C. Thomas Paine
D. George Washington
11. Who was consi dered as the ―Poet of American Revolution‖? (C)
A. Edward Taylor
B. Anne Bradstreet
C. Philip Freneau
D. William Cullen Bryant
12. It was not until January 1776 that a widely heard
public voice demanded complete separation from England. The voice was that of _________, whose pamphlet Common Sense, with its heated language, increased the Growing demand for separation. (B)
A. Thomas Jefferson
B. Thomas Paine
C. George Washington
D. Philip Freneau
Exercises on Realism and Naturalism Ⅰ. Blank Filling.
1.The arbiter of nineteenth century literary realism
in America was ______________. (William Dean Howells)
2.Henry _______________probed deeply at the
individual psychology of his characters, writing in
a rich and intricate style that supported his intense
scrutiny of complex human experience. (James) 3.Mark _______________, breaking out of the
narrow limits of local color fiction, described the breadth of American experience as no one had ever done before, or since. (Twain)
4.__________________had an evident influence on
naturalism. It seemed to stress the animal man, to suggest that he was dominated by the irresistible forces of evolution. (Darwinism)
5.The poetic style Whitman devised is now called
________________, that is poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. (free verse)
6.In his cluster of poems called Leaves of Grass,
________________gave America its first genuine epic poem. (Walt Whitman)
7.Mrs. Stowe‘s masterpiece is ______________.
( Uncle Tom‘s Cabin)
8.Samuel Langhorne Clemens is better known by
the pen name _____________. (Mark Twain)
9.One of Clemens‘ best books
_______________________is based on his experiences as a steamboat pilot. (Life on the Mississippi)
10.The result of Mark Twain‘s European trip was a
series of newspaper articles, later published as a book called ___________. (Innocents Abroad) 11._______________________was the first literary
giant born West of the Mississippi. (Mark Twain) 12.William Sidney Porter, whose pen name
was______________________, was the author of The Cop and the Anthem. (O. Henry)
13.Many of O. Henry‘s stories tell about the lives of
poor people in _______________. (New York) 14.O. Henry sympathized with the poor and hated
those rich who exploited and despised them. This is especially seen in his story entitled __________________. (An Unfinished Story) 15.It is said that O. Henry imitated De
____________________as a model , and there is indeed much in common between these two writers. (Maupassant)
16.The title of one of O. Henry‘s books
_________________ indicates that he considered all the people of New York city worth writing about, instead of only the upper class. (The Four Millions)
17.Henry James‘ first important fiction was
__________, which he took up for the first time the theme of The American-in-Europe. (A Passionate Pilgrim)
18.In 1881, Henry James published his novel
___________________, which is generally considered as his masterpiece. (The Portait of a Lady)
19.By emphasizing the inner awareness and inward
movements of his characters in face of outside occurrences ___________________ is considered the founder of Psychological realism. (Henry James)
20.The name of the heroine in The Portrait of a Lady
is _________. (Isabel Archer)
21.In 1902, Jack London published his first novel
_______________________. (A Daughter of the Snowy)
22.______________________ is the novel into
which Jack London put most of himself. (Martin Eden)
23.The first novel of Theodore Dreiser was
_______________. (Sister Carrie)
24.The identification of potency with money is at the
heart of Dreiser‘s masterpiec e_________. (An American Tragedy)
25.The protagonist of Dreiser‘s Trilogy of Desire is
___________________. (Frank Cowperwood) 26.Dreiser visited the Soviet Union in 1927 and
published __________________the following year. (Dreiser Looks at Russia)
27.Dreiser‘s nov el ___________________, a
commercial and critical failure when first published in 1900, was reissued in 1907 and won high praise for its grim, naturalistic portrayal of American society. (Sisoer Carrie)
28.Mark Twain‘s first novel,
_________________________was an artistic failure, but it gave its name to the America of the post-bellum period which it attempts to satirize.
(The Gilded Age)
29.Three years‘ life on the Mississippi left such a
fond memory with Mark Twain that he returned to the theme more than once in his writing career, his book ___________relates it in a vivid, moving way. (Life on the Mississippi)
30.__________ was Mark twain‘s masterwork from
which, as Hemingway noted , ―all modern American literature comes‖. (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
31.The best work that Mark Twain ever produced is
_________________, which was a success from its first publication in 1884, and has always been regarded as one of the great books of western literature and western civilization. (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
32.________________ is the pioneer who wrote in
the naturalistic tradition.(Stephen Crane)
33.Crane‘s novel ____________________relates the
story of a good woman‘s downfall and destruction in a slum environment. (Maggi: A Girl of the Streets)
34.War in the novel by Crane __________________
is a plain slaughter-house. There is nothing like valor or heroism on the battlefield, and if there is anything, it is the fear of death, cowardice, the natural instinct of man to run from danger. (The Red Badge of Courage)
35.Norr is‘s novel ____________________________
has been called ―the first full bodied naturalistic American novel ‖ and ―a consciously naturalistic manifesto‖. (Mcteague)
36.Jack London‘s masterwork ______________ is
somewhat autobiographical. (Martin Eden)
37.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. (The Gift of the Magi)
38.Three novels, ______, _________, ________,
were considered as the summit of Henry James‘s artistry. (The Golden Bowl, The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove) 39.Norris‘s ―Trilogy of Wheat‖ includes______,
_________, and The Wolf. ( The Octopus, The Pit) 40.The appearance of ________by Bret Harte in
1868 pushed the development of local colorism in America greatly. (The Luck of Roaring Camp) Ⅱ. Multiple Choice.
1.Howells defined realism as ―nothing more and
nothing less than the truthful treatment of material‖, and he best exemplified his theories in three novels. Choose them from the following .
(ABC)
A.The Modern Instance
B.The rise of Silas Laphan
C. A Hazard of New Fortunes
D.The Prince and the Pauper
2.Mark Twain created, in ________________, a
masterpiece of American realism that is also one of the great books of world literature. (A)
A.Huckleberry Finn
B.Tom Sawyer
C.The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
D.The Gilded Age
3.The pessimism and deterministic ideas of
naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as ________________. (ABCDE)
A.Stephen Crane
B.Frank Norris
C.Jack London
D.Henry James
E.Theodore Dreiser
4.Although realism and naturalism were products of
the nineteenth century, their final triumph came in the twentieth century, with the popular and critical success of such writers as _______________.
(ABCDE)
A.Edwin Arlington Robinson
B.Willa Cather
C.Sherwood Anderson
D.Robert Frost
E.William Faulkner
5.American literature produced only one female
poet during the nineteenth century. This was _______.(E)
A.Anne Bradstreet
B.Jane Austen
C.Emily Dickinson
D.Harriet Beecher
6.Which of the following is not written by Mark
Twain? (A)
A.The Modern Instance
B.Innocents Abroad
C.Life on the Mississippi
D.The Tragedy of Pudd‘nhead Wilson
E.The Prince and the Pauper
7.The publication of the novel
_____________stired a great nation to its depths and hurried on a great war. (D)
A.My Bondage and My Freedom
B.Stanzas on Freedom
C.V oices of Freedom
D.Uncle Tom‘s Cabin
8.Which statements about O. Henry are right?
(ABCDE)
A.He wrote about the poor people.
B.His stories are usually short and humorous.
C.The plots of his stories are exceedingly
clever and interesting.
D.Many of his stories contain a great deal of
slang and colloquial expressions.
E.The ends of his stories are always surprising.
9.Where Mark Twain and William Dean Howells
satirized European manners at times, __________was an admirer. (B)
A. O. Henry
B. Henry James
C. Walt Whitman
D. Jack London
11. Choose the well-known short stories written by
William Sidney Porter. (ABCDEF)
A.The Gift of the Magi
B.An Unfinished Story
C.The Furnished Room
D.The Open Boat
E.The V oice of the city
F.The cop and the Anthem
12.Choose the novel which is not written by Henry James.(E)
A.The Ambassador
B.Daisy Miller
C.The Wings of the Dove
D.The Golden Bowl
E.The Mysterious Stranger 13. While embracing the socialism of Marx, London also believed in the triumph of the strongest individuals. This contradiction is most vividly projected in the patently autobiographical novel ________. (C)
A.The Call of the Wild
B.The Sea Wolf
C.Martin Eden
D.The Iron Heel
14. In 1900, London published his first collection of short stories, named ____________________. (A)
A.The Son of the Wolf
B.The Sea Wolf
C.The Law of Life
D.White Fang
15. Dr eiser‘s Trilogy of Desire includes three novels. Find them from the following. (ABD)
A.The Financier
B.The Titan
C.The Genius
D.The Stoic
E.Jannie Gerhardt
16. The main theme of ________________The Art of Fiction reveals his literary theory that representation of life should be the main object of the novel. (A)
A.Henry James‘
B.William Dean Howells‘
C.Mark Twain‘s
D.O. Henry‘s
17.With Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, __________ became the major trend in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century.
(C)
A.sentimentalism
B.romanticism
C.realism
D.naturalism
18. Choose the works by Mark Twain which contain bitter attacks on the human race.(ABCD)
A. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur‘s Court
B. The man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
C. The Mysterious Stranger
D. The autobiography
19. Mark Twain stood on the side of China in its struggle against foreign invasions. His __________
and _____________ are two notable examples of his vigorous attacks on the imperialist behavior of the United States and other foreign countries in China. (AB)
A.The Treaty With China
B.To the Person Sitting in Darkness
C.Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy
D.Goldsmith‘s Friend Abroad Again
20.Stephen Crane‘s best short stories include ________, and __________, all reinforcing the basic Crane motif of environment and heredity overwhelming man.(ABC)
A.The Open Boat
B.The Blue Hotel
C.An Experiment in Misery
D.The Red Badge of Courage
21. Dreiser was left-oriented in his views. He visited Russia and wrote ____________and _______to express his new faith, and shortly before his death , he joined the Communist party. (AB)
A.Dreiser Looks at Russia
B.Tragic America
C.An American Tragedy
D.The Titan
22.Choose Jack London‘s works from the following.(ABCD)
A.The Call of the Wild
B.White Fang
C.The Sea Wolf
D.Martin Eden
23．To Dreiser, li fe is ―so sad, so strange, so mysterious and so inexplicable.‖ No wonder the characters in his books are often subject to the control of the natural forces, especially those of ________ and heredity. (A)
A. environment
B. morality
C. social conventions
D. fate
24. Dreiser‘s Trilogy of Desire includes three novels.
They are The Financier,The Titan and _____. (C)
A. The Genius
B. The Last Tycoon
C. The
Stoic D. The Giant
25. Henry James deals with ―_______‖ in his fiction.
(A)
A. the international theme
B. violent events in history
C. small town life in backward regions
D. sufferings of the aged
Ⅲ.Identification of Fragments.
E.Passage 1
Tom Sawyer stepped forward with conceited confidence and soared into the unquenchable and indestructible ―Give me liberty or give me death‖ speech, with fine fury and frantic gesticulation, and broke down in the middle of it. A ghastly stage fright seized him, his legs quaked under him, and he was like to choke. True, he had the manifest sympathy of the house ----but he had the house‘s silence, too, which was even worse than its sympathy. The master frowned, and this completed the disaster. Tom struggled awhile and then retired, defeated. Questions:
1.Which novel is this passage taken from?
The Advantures of Tom Sawyer
2.Who is the author?
Mark Twain
3.Describe Tom in your own words.
F.Passage 2
I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same with the side of bacon ; then the whisky –jug. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding ; I took the bucket and gourd ; took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and matches and other things-everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn‘t any, only the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.
Questions:
1.Which novel is this passage taken from?
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
2.Who is the author?
Mark Twain
3.Analyse the language style of this passage. Passage 3
Isabel always felt an impulse to pull out the pins; not that she imagined they inflicted any damage on the tough old parchment, but because it seemed to her
her aunt might make better use of her sharpness.
She was very critical herself ----it was incidental to her sex, and antionalit but she was very sentimental as well, and there was something in Mrs Touchett‘s dryness that set her own moral fountains flowing.
―Now what‘s your point of view?‖ she asked of her aunt. ―when you criticize everything here you should have a point of view . Yours doesn‘t seem to be American you thought everything over there so disagreeable . When I have mine;
it‘s thoroughly American!‖
―My dear young lady‖, said Mrs Touchett, ―there are as many points of view in the world as there are people of sense to take them. You may say that doesn‘t mak e them very numerous.
American? Never in the world; that‘s shockingly narrow. My point of view, thank God, is personal!‖
Isabel thought this a better answer than she admitted; it was a tolerable description of her own manner of judging, but it would not have sounded well for her to say so.
Questions:
1.This passage is taken from a well-known
novel. What is the name of the novel?
The Portraint of a Lady
2.Who is the author of this novel?
Henry James
3.Make a brief comment on the heroine Isabel
Archer.
4.What is Jamesian theme?
The international theme
II.Passage 4
On his bench in Madison Square, Soapy moved uneasily. When wild geese honk high of nights, and when women without sealskin coats grow kind to their husbands, and when Soapy moves uneasily on his bench in the park, you may know that winter is near at hand.
Questions:
1.This passage is taken from a short story
entitled ____________.
The Cop and the Anthem
2.The author‘s name is William Sidney Porter.
What is his pen name?
O. Henry
3.What are the features of his stories?
IV. Term Explanation
A.American Realism
B.Local Colorism
C.American Naturalism
D.Jamesian Theme
E.James‘s Point of View
V. Summary and analysis of the works
A.The Portrait of a Lady
B.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
C.Maggie, A Girl of the Streets
D.The Red Badge of Courage
E.The Cop and the Anthem
F.Martin Eden
G.Sister Carrie
H.An American Tragedy
VI. Questions
1.What is the favorite theme of Henry James?
Why is Isabel Archer regarded as a typical
Jamesian woman character?
2.What are the differences between Howells,
James and Twain?
3.Discuss Twain‘s art of fiction: the setting, the
language and the chacraters, based on his
novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
4.Make a comment on Carrie Meeber and
Hustwood in Sister Carrie.
5.The Call of the Wild : A dog story reveals the
essence of the American society in the early
20th century. Discuss with reference to the
survival of the fittest.
6.What are the features of O.Henry‘s short
stories?
The 20th Century Literature
I. Blank Filling
1. ___________ stands as a great dividing line between the nineteenth century and the
contemporary American literature.(The First World War)
2. The publication of The Waste Land, written by _____________, helped to establish a modern tradition of literature rich with learning and allusive thought. (T.S.Eliot)
3. Fitzgerald summarized the experiences and attitudes of the 1920s decade in his masterpiece novel ________________. (The Great Gatsby)
4. _______________of the 1930s greatly weakened the American nation‘s self-confidence. (The Great Depression)
5. The 1950s American writers often used the narrative techniques derived from William _____________. (Faulkner)
6. An American woman writer named ________________who had lived in Paris since 1903, welcomed the young expatriates to her literary salon, and gave th em a name ―the Lost Generation‖. (Gertrude Stein)
7. ____________ wrote about the disintegration of the old social system in the American Southern states, and its effect on the lives of modern people , both black and white. (William Faulkner)
8. Pound was the most important leader of a new movement in poetry which was known as the ____________ movement. (Imagist)
9. Ezra Pound‘s major work of poetry is the long
poem called ____________. (The Cantos)
10. Robert Frost‘s first book____________________ brought him to the attention of influential critics, such as Ezra Pound , who praised him as an authentic poet. (A Boy‘s Will)
11. Frost‘s second volume of poems was
______________. (North of Bosten)
12. ―The Road Not Taken‖ is a well-known poem
written by _________________. (Robert
Frost)
13. _________ was considered as an American epic
William Carlos Williams attempted to create.
(Paterson)
14. As T. S. Eliot declared, he followed strictly the advice of his close friend ____________ _in cutting and concentrating The Waste Land. (Ezra Pound) 15. Eliot wrote seven plays, the best of which is ___________, a verse play on an ancient historical
subject, written in 1935. (Murder in the Cathedral) 16. In 1925, Fitzgerald wrote his best novel
_______________. It is the story of an idealist who was destroyed by the influence of the wealthy, pleasure-seeking people around him.
(The Great Gatsby)
17. In American history, the 1920s is known as the roaring twenties or ____________. ―__________________‖ by Fitzgerald gives the name of age
(The Jazz Age; Tales of The Jazz Age)
18. Fitzgerald‘s last novel __________remained
unfinished. (The Last Tycoon)
19. With the publication of The Sun Also Rises,
________ became the spokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called ―a Lost Gener ation‖.(Ernest Hemingway)
20. 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. (A Farewell to
Arms)
21. Set in Spain during the Civil War, the novel ____________ by Hemingway emphasizes the theme of human brotherhood. (For Whom the Bell Tolls)
22. In the novel The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway portrayed an old fisherman named ________, who shows triumphant even in defeat. (Santiago)
23. In 1954, ____________was awarded the Nobel Prize for his ―mastery of the art of modern narration‖. (Ernese Hemingway)
24. In 1952, Hemingway published a successful novel called _____________, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and occasioned the award of the Nobel Prize in 1954. (The Old Man and the Sea) 25. In the same way that Fitzgerald‘s ―Tales of the Jazz Age‖ became the symbol for an age, Hemingway‘s novel ________________ painted the image of a whole generation, the Lost Generation. (The Sun Also Rises)
26. ________________ was the foremost novelist of the American Depression of the 1930s. (John Steinbeck)
27.In the short novel ____________, Steinbeck
portrayed the tragic friendship between two migrant workers. (Of Mice and Men)
28. __________is generally regarded as Steinbeck‘s masterpiece. (The Grapes of
Wrath)
29. Quentin is a character in Faulkner‘s
novel____________. (The Sound and the Fury) 30. Thomas Sutpen is a character in Faulkner‘s novel
________. (Absalom, Absalom!)
31. The works written by _______________may be viewed as a culmination of the development of twentieth-century southern fiction. (William Faulkner)
32. In one sense Hemingway wrote all his life about one theme, which is neatly summed up in the famous phrase, ―_____________________,‖ and created one hero who acts that theme out. (grace under pressure)
33. Hemingway hero possesses a kind of ―_________________‖. It is this courage that enables a man to behave like a man, to assert his dignity in face of adversity. (despairing courage) 34. The best Faulkner‘s works concern the life of the American Deep South . Here the Deep South is portrayed in minute detail. The series of the works have been termed __________. (the Yoknapatawph saga)
35. Three novels, ______, _________, ________, were considered as masterpieces by any literary standards in Faulkner‘s Yoknapatawpha saga. (The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom! Go Down, Moses)
35. Tennessee Williams‘ play ___________ presents a pathetic story of the Wingfields.( Glass Menagerie) Ⅱ.Multiple Choice.
1.Early in the 20th-century, ______published works
that would change the nature of American poetry.
A.Ezra Pound
B.T.S. Eliot
C.Robert Frost
D.Both A and B
2.―The apparition of these faces in the crowd ;
Petals on a wet, black bough.‖
This is an imagist poem written by________________.
A.T.S. Eliot
B.Robert Frost
C.Ezra Pound
D. E.E. Cummings
3. __________showed great interest in Chinese literature and translated the poetry of Li Po into English , and was influenced by Confucian ideas.
A.Ezra Pound
B.Robert Frost
C.T.S. Eliot
D.E.E. Cummings
4. Ezra Pound‘s long poem ___________contained more than one hundred poems loosely connected.
A.The Waste Land
B.The Cantos
C.Don Juan
D.Queen Mab
6. Frost is famous for his lyric poems, which of the following lyric poems was not written by Frost?
Stopping by Woods in a Snowy Evening
Fire and Ice
The Road Not Taken
Fog
7. As a poet, Sandburg was associated with the Imagists and wrote well-known Imagist poems such as:
A.Fog
B.Lost
C.The harbor
D.All of the above
8. Thomas Sutpen is a character in Fa ulkner‘s novel _____________.
A.Absalom, Absalom!
B.Light in August
C.Go Down, Moses
D.The Sound and the Fury
9. The first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature was a sharp social critic, whose name was ___________.
A.Sinclair Lewis
B.T.S. Eliot
C.Ernest Hemingway
D.William Faulkner
10. T.S. Eliot was not a _______.
A.poet
B.playwright
C.literary critic
D.novelist
11. Eliot‘s first major poem(1917)___________, has been called the first masterpiece of modernism in English.
A.The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
B.The Waste Land
C.Four Quartets
D.Preludes
12.The Fitzgeralds lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than Fitzgerald earned for parties, liquor, entertaining their friends and traveling. It was this living style that nicknamed the decade of the 1920s as _____________.
A.The Roaring Twenties
B.The Jazz Age
C.The Dollar Decade
D.All of the above
13.Choose the collections of short stories which is NOT written by Fitzgerald.
Flappers and philosophers
Tales of the Jazz Age
All the Sad Young Men
In Out Time
14. Choose that unfinished novel written by Fitzgerald.
A.The Great Gatsby
B.Tender Is the Night
C.This Side of Paradise
D.The Beautiful and the Damned
E.The Last Tycoon
16.In 1954, ___________was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his ―mastery of the art of modern na rration‖.
A.T.S. Eliot
B.Ernest Hemingway
C.John Steinbeck
D.William Faulkner
17. Hemingway was badly wounded in Italy and sent to a hospital where he fell in love with a nurse. These two persons later became the characters of his novel _________.
A.The Old Man and the Sea
B.For Whom the Bell Tolls
C.The Sun Also Rises
D. A Farewell to Arms
19. _______________tells the Joad family‘s from the
time they were evicted from their farm in Oklahoma until their first winter in California.
A.Of Mice and Men
B.The Grapes of Wrath
C.The Great Gatsby
D.For Whom the Bell Tolls
20. In Hemingway‘s ―Indian Camp,‖ Nick, the main character, witnesses ____.
A. a tragic killing of the Indians by the white men
B. real friendship between the white men and the Indians
C. a senseless killing of each other
D. terrible scenes of birth and death
20.____________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 t he Negroes who laboured for both of them.
A.Faulkner
B.Fitzgerald
C.Hemingway
D.Steinbeck
21. In Faulkner‘s The Sound and the Fury, he used a technique called __________, in which the whole story was told through the thoughts of different characters.
A.stream of consciousness
B.imagism
C.symbolism
D.naturalism
22. Faulkner‘s novel____________ describes the decay and downfall of an old southern aristocratic family, symbolizing the old social order, told from four different points of view.
A.The Sound and the Fury
B.Startoris
C.The Unvanquished
D.The Town
24.Faulkner write altogether 18 novels and three volumes of short stories. Of these three novels______, _______and __________are masterpieces by any literary standards
A.The Sound and the Fury
B.Absalom, Absalom!
C.Go Down , Moses
D.The Grapes of Wrath
25. Faulkner wrote about the histories of a number of Southern aristocratic families such as the _______, the __________, the __________ and the McCaslins, and traces them back to the very beginning when Chickasaw Indians were still lawful owners of the land.
https://www.wendangku.net/doc/0c19257138.html,psons
B.Sartorises
C.Sutpens
D.Joads
26. ___________was a trilogy by Dos Passos present
a near-authentic fictional history of the evolution of America which began from the Gilded Age.
A.Cowperwood trilogy
B.Paterson
C.U.S.A
D.The Sound and the Fury
27. The playwright who is considered as American Shakespeare is _________.
A. Arthur Miller
B. Eugene O‘Neil
C. Tennessee Williams
D. Clifford Odets
28. Willa Cather‘s novel____________ describes the
conflict between the Old West represented by Captain Forrester and the New West represented by Ivy Peters.
A. The Lost Lady
B. My Antonia
C. Death Comes for the Archbishop
D. Shadows on the Rock
29. _________ was considered as a play created with the absurd style.
A.Long Day’s Journey into Night
B.Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
C. All My Sons
D. The Iceman cometh
30. The founder of the American drama is _________.
A. Arthur Miller
B. Eugene O‘Neil
C. Tennessee Williams
D. Clifford Odets
Ⅲ. Identification of Fragments
A.Passage 1
B.In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet , black bough.
Questions:
1.Who is the author of this short poem?
2.What is the title of the poem?
Identify the dominant image in the poem.
petals, a wet, black bough
3.How do you appreciate this poem?
参考答案：1. Ezra Pound 2. In a Station of the Metro
3. ―The object‖ to be treated is the faces in that
dim and damp context. The impression is brought out most vividly by the single, dominant image of flower petals on a wet, black bough, which serves as the most concise, direct, and definite metaphor for the ―faces in the crowd.‖
III.Passage 2
We passed the School, where Children stove
At Recess— in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—
Questions:
1. Who is the author of this poem?
2. What is the title of the poem?
3. What do ―the School, the Fields of Gazing Grain, the Setting Sun‖ symbolize respectively?
参考答案：1. Emily Dickinson 2. Because I could not stop for death
3.the school--- one‘s childhood; the Fields of Gazing Grain--- one‘s adulthood; the Setting Sun--- one‘s old age
Passage 3
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.
Questions:
1. What is the title of the poem?
2. Who is the author of the poem?
3. What does ―the lovely, dark and deep woods‖ imply?
4. What makes ―I‖ tear ―myself‖ away from the woods?
5. What does the word ―promises‖ imply?
参考答案：1. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 2. Robert Frost 3. death wish 4. the promises to keep 5. responsibility (obligation)
Passage 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 title of the poem?
2) Who is the author of the poem?
3) What is the meaning of the first line?
4) What does ―the King‖ refer to?
5) What‘s the role of the dashes?
参考答案：1. I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—
2. Emily Dickinson
3. The people around her bed cried so hard at her
dying that there is not any tear in their eyes.
4. the king of death
5. as a musical
device
IV.Passage 5
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy----They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…Questions:
1.Which novel is this passage taken from?
2.Who is the writer of this novel?
3.Why is the hero of the story called the true
heir of the American Dream?
参考答案：1. The Great Gatsby 2. F. Scott Fitzgerald
4.American dream in the 1920s usually follows
a clear pattern: there is, at first, a dream, then
a disenchantment, and finally a sense of
failure and despair. Winning back his lost
love is Gatsby‘s dream. When he finally
meets Daisy again, only to find that the
woman before him is not quite the ideal love
of his dream. A sense of loss and
disillusionment comes to over him. In this,
Gatsby‘s personal experience approximates
the whole of the American experience.
Gatsby is the true heir to the American
dream.
5.IV. Term Explanation
F.Imagist Movement
G.The Jazz Age
H.The Lost Generation
I.Hemingway Hero
J.Stream-of Conciousness
K.Multiple Point of View
V. Summary and analysis of the novels
A.The Great Gatsby
B.The Old Man and the Sea
C. A Farewell to Arms
D.Absalom, Absalom!
E.The Sound and the Fury
VI. Analysis of the Poems
A.In the Station of the Metro
B. A Red Wheelbarrow
C.Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
D.The Road Not Taken
E.Fire and Ice
F.Fog
VII. Topic Discussion
1. Fitzgerald is the spokesman of the Jazz Age. Discuss.
2. Why is Gatsby called the true heir of the American dream
3. Hemingway is the spokesman of the Lost Generation. Discuss it based on his novel The Sun Also Rises.
4. Discuss Hemingway‘s art of fiction in reference to the theme, the particular type of hero and his style etc.
5. Do you know anything about ―Yoknapatawpha County‖? What is unique of Faulkner‘s fiction, geographically and historically?
The Literature of American Romanticism
I. Blank Filling.
1.In the early nineteenth century, Washington Irving
wrote __________ which became the first work by an American writer to win financial success on both side of the Atlantic. (The Sketch Book)
2.The Civil War of 1861---1865 ended in the defeat
o the Southerners and the abolition of ___________. (Slavery)
3.The American Transcendentalists formed a club
called _____________________. (the Transcendental Club)
4.The Transcendental Club often met at
____________‘s Concord home.
5.________was regarded as the first great prose
stylist of American romanticism. (Emerson)
6.In Irving‘s work ___________appeared the first
modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature. (The Sketch Book)
7.The short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is
taken from Irving‘s work named _________________. (The Sketch Book)
8.__________was the first American to achieve an
international literary reputation after the Revolutionary War. (Washington Irving)
9.Irving also wrote two biographies, one is Life of
Oliver Goldsmith, and the other is__________________. (Life of Washington) 10.Cooper‘s novel ____________was a rousing tale
about espionage against the British during the Revolutionary War. (The Spy)
11.The best of Cooper‘s sea roma nces was
_________________.The hero of the novel represents John Paul Hones, the great naval fighter of the Revolutionary War. (The Pilot) 12.The central figure in the Leatherstocking Tales is
______________, who goes by the various names of Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, Pathfinder and Hawkeye. (Natty Bumppo)
13.To a Waterfowl is perhaps the peak of
____________‘s work, it has been called by an eminent English critic ―the most perfect brief poem in the Language.‖ (Bryant)
14._________was the first American to gain the
stature of a major poet in the world literature.
(Bryant)
15.In 1845,Thoreau began a two-year residence at
________ Pond. (Walden)
16.Emerson‘s truest disciple, the man who put into
practice many of Emerson‘s theories, was __________. (Thoreau)
17.Hester Prynne i s the heroine in Hawthorne‘s
novel_____________. (The Scarlet Letter)
18.Melville‘s novel ___________ is a tremendous
chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. (Moby Dick) 19.The American romantic period stretches from the
end of the eighteenth century through the outburst of the _____________. (Civil War)
20.Published in 1823, ___________ was the first of
the Leatherstocking Tales,in their order of publication time, and probably the first true romance of the frontier in American historical romances. (The Pioneers)
21.In The Pioneers, __________represents the ideal
American, living a virtuous and free life in God‘s world. (Natty Bumppo)
22.In 1836, a little book came out which made a
tremendous impact on the intellectual life of America. It was entitled Nature by ____________.
(Emerson)
23.Emerson‘s essay _____________has been
regarded as ―America‘s Declaration of Intellectual Independence‖. It called on American writers to write about America in a peculiarly American way.
(The American Scholar)
24.Another well-known New England
Transcendentalist was ___________, a friend of Emerson‘s and his junior by some fourteen years.
(Thoreau)
25.Melville‘s world classic novel Moby Dick was
dedicated to _______________, a novelist.
(Hawthorne)
26.Melville is best known as the author of one book
named ______________, which is, critics have agreed, one of the world‘s greatest masterpieces.
(Moby Dick)
II. Decide whether the statements are true or false.
1.As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was
neither logical nor systematical. (It borrowed from many sources, but reconciled few of them.
So it never has become a complete philosophical system.) (T)
2.Transcendentalism exalted (means position of
high rank) feeling over reason, individual
expression over the restraints of law and custom.
(T)
3.Transcendentalists spoke for cultural rejuvenation
and against the materialism of American society.
(T)
4.Anyway, transcendentalism was a powerful
expression of the intellectual mood of the age, and the ideas it represented have remained strong influence on great American writers from the days of Hawthorne and Whitman to the present. (T) 5.The foundation of American national literature
was laid by the early American romanticists. (T) 6.Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular
stories: the sea adventure tales, and the frontier stories. (T)
7.Emerson was recognized as the leader of
transcendentalist movement, and he always applied the term ―Transcendentalist‖ to himself or to his beliefs and ideas. (F always---never)
8.Emerson was one of the most influential of
American thinkers, yet he had no elaborate, formal system of thought. (T)
9.In 1836, Emerson published his first book, Nature.
Nature‘s voice pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism, the summit of American Romanticism. (T)
10.Hawthorne‘s unique gift was for the creation of
strongly symbolic stories which touch the deepest roots of man‘s moral nature. (T)
11.Although foreign influence were strong, American
romanticism exhibited from the very outset distinct features of its own. (T)
12.Cooper‘s claim to greatness in American literature
lies in the fact that he created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. (T)
13.Thoreau was an active Transcendentalist. He was
by no means an ―escapist‖ or a recluse, but was intensely involved in the life of his day. (T)
III. Multiple Choice
1.As a philosophical and literary movement,
______ flourished in New England from the 1830s to the Civil War. (D)
A. modernism
B. rationalism
C. sentimentalism
D.
transcendentalism 2.Transcendentalist doctrines found their greatest
literary advocates in _________and Thoreau. (B)
A. Jefferson
B. Emerson
C. Freneau
D. Oversoul
3._________ was the most leading spirit of the
Transcendental Club.(B)
A. Thoreau
B. Emerson
C.
Hawthorne D. Whitman
4.Transcendentalists recognized _______ as the
―highest power of the soul.‖(A)
A. intuition
B. logic
C. data of
the senses D. thinking
5.Led by Emerson and ______, there arose a kind of
teachings of transcendentalism in the early nineteenth century. (B)
A. Melville
B. Thoreau
C. Mark
Twain D. Dreiser
6.An American Dictionary of the English Language
was published in 1828 by ___. (A)
A. Samuel Johnson
B. Noah Webster
C. Daniel Webster
D. Daniel Defoe
7.In the nineteenth century America, Romantics
often shared certain general characteristics.
Choose such characteristics from the following.
(ABCD)
A.moral enthusiasm
B.faith in the value of individualism and
intuitive perception
C.great love for the natural world
D.presumption about the corrosive effect of
human society
8.From the following, choose the poems written by
Adgar Allan Poe. (ABCD)
A. To Helen
B. The Raven
C. Annabel
Lee D. The Bells
9.In his post on the Messenger, Poe showed his true
talents as _______. (ABCD)
A. an editor
B. a poet
C. a literary
critic
D. a fiction writer
10.From Thoreau‘s jail experience, came his famous
essay, _________ which states Thoreau‘s belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government. (C)
a. Walden B. Nature C. Civil
Disobedience D. Common Sense
11.The finest example of Hawthorne‘s symbolism is
the recreation of Puritan Boston in _________.
(A)
A. The Scarlet Letter
B. Young
Goodman Brown
C. The Marble Faun d. The Ambitious
Guest
12.The House of Seven Gables is a famous
mystery-haunted novel written by_______ . (A)
A. Nathaniel Hawthorne
B. Nathaniel
Hathorne
C. Herman Melville
D. James Fenimore
Cooper
13.Hawthorne‘s ability to create vivid and symbolic
images that embody great moral questions also appears strongly in his short stories. Choose his short stories from the following.(ABC)
A.Young Goodman Brown
B.The Minister’s Black Veil
C.Dr. Rappaccin’s Darghter
D.The House of the Seven Gables
E.The Blithedale Romance
F.The Marble Faun
14.Choose the characters which appear in the novel
The Scarlet Letter. (ABCD)
A. Hester Prynne
B. Arthur Dimmesdale
C. Roger Chillingworth
D. Pearl
15.Choose the authors who belong to the romantic
group in American literature. (ABCDE)
A. Emerson
B. Thoreau
C. Hawthorne
D. Melville
E. Whitman
16.In the early nineteenth century American moral
values were essentially Puritan. Nothing had left a deeper imprint on the character of the people as a whole than did_______. (A)
A. Puritanism
B. Romanticism
C.
Rationalism
D. Sentimentalism
17.Irving was best known for his famous short
stories such as _________ and _____. (AB)
A.Rip Van Winkle
B.The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
C.Life of Goldsmith
D.Life of Washington
18.―The universe is composed of Nature and the
soul… Spirit is present everywhere‖. This is the
voice of the book Nature written by Emerson, which pushed America Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England__________. (B)
A. Romanticism
B. Transcendentalism
C. Naturalism
D. Symbolism
19.Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New
England Transcendentalism? (A)
A. Nature
B. Walden
C. On
Beauty
D. Self- Reliance
20.Which is regarded as the ―Declaration of
Intellectual Independence‖? (A)
A. The American Scholar
B. English
Traits
C. The Conduct of Life
D.
Representative Men
21.Melville‘s _______ is an encyclopedia of
everything, history, philosophy, religion, etc, in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry. (B)
A. The Old Man and the Sea
B. Moby Dick
C. White Jacket
D. Billy Budd IV. Identification of Fragments
A.Passage 1
To go into solitude, a man need to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore God; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these preachers of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
Questions:
1.This paragraph is taken from a famous essay
entitled __________.
2.Who is the author?
3.Give a peculiar term to cover the author‘ belief. Key
1. Nature
2. Emerson
3.Transcendentalism
B.Passage 2
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 eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.
Questions:
1.Which work is this fragment taken from?
2.How do you understand the philosophical ideas in
these words?
V.Key
1. Nature
2. He regards mature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man , and advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature. In this connection, Emerson‘s emotional experiences are exemplary in more ways than one.
Now this is a moment of ―conversion‖ when one feels completely merged with the outside world, when one has completely sunk into nature and beyond the physical limits of the body to share the omniscience of the Oversoul. In a word, the soul has completely transcended the limits of individuality and become part of the Oversoul. Emerson sees spirit pervading everywhere, not only in the soul of man, but behind nature, throughout nature.
A.Passage 3
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest term, and, if it proved to b mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of god. Questions:
1.This passage is taken from a famous work entitled
___________________.
2.The author of the work is
_____________________.
3.List by yourself at least five reasons that the
author gives for going to live in the woods.
Key
1. Walden
2. Thoreau
3. open
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-知识点梳理
Part I The Literature of Colonial America I．Historical Introduction The colonial period stretched roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th. The first permanent settlement in America was established by English in 1607. ( A group of people was sent by the English King James I to hunt for gold. They arrived at Virginia in 1607. They named the James River and build the James town.) II．The pre-revolutionary writing in the colonies was essentially of two kinds: 1) Practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people "at home" what life was like in the new world, and, often, to induce their immigration 2) Highly theoretical, generally polemical, discussions of religious questions. III．The First American Writer The first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, their lives in the new land, their dealings with Indians. Captain John Smith is the first American writer. A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony (1608) A Map of Virginia: A Description of the Country (1612) General History of Virgini a (1624): the Indian princess Pocahontas Captain John Smith was one of the first early 17th-century British settlers in North America. He was one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. His writings about North America became the source of information about the New World for later settlers. One of the things he wrote about that has become an American legend was his capture by the Indians and his rescue by the famous Indian Princess, Pocahontas. IV．Early New England Literature William Bradford and John Winthrop John Cotton and Roger Williams Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor V．Puritan Thoughts 1. The origin of puritan In the mediaeval Europe, there was widespread religious revolution. In the 16th Century, the English King Henry VIII (At that time, the Catholics were not allowed to divorce unless they have the Pope's permission. Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife because she couldn't bear him a son. But the Pope didn't allow him to divorce, so he) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church & established the Church of
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.
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