美国文学参考

1. 选择题20分

2. 匹配题10分

3. 名词解释20分

4. 选读30分

5. 论述题20分

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 clu

b of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village.

Questions:

1) Please identify the author and the title of the work.2) W hat’s the meaning of this passage?

参考答案:

1) This is an excerpt from "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving. (P408)

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 scold ed him for more often. He had to stay in the club with idle people. (P407)

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. (P427)

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. (P423)

3) It used the device of metaphor. (P423) 4) He wanted to tell us: Nature can purify (净化) our quality and let us get comfort. (P243)

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: ①the early puritan settlement; ②the confrontation with the Indians; ③the frontiersmen’s life; ④the wild west; ⑤imagination. (P399—402)

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. (P432—433) 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. (P421—P422)

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. (P434—435)

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. (P460—461)

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)