美国文学史习题

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 write rs in the American literary history.

A. Puritan morality

B. Human bestiality

C. Noble savages

D. Divinity of man

2. Henry David Thoreaus 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"

3. "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind" is a famous quote fro m______s writings.

A. Walt Whitman

B. Henry David Thoreau

C. Herman Melville

D. Ralph Waldo Emer son

4. Leaves of Grass commands great attention because of its uniquely poetic embodim ent of________, which are written in the founding documents of both the Revolutiona ry War and the American Civil War.

A. the democratic ideals

B. the romantic ideals

C. the self-reliance spirits

D. the religious ideals

5. According to Whitman, the genuine participation of a poet in a common cultural eff ort was to behave as a supreme_________.

A. democrat

B. individualist

C. romanticist

D. leader

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

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

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

9. Washington Irvings Rip Van Winkle is famous for_________.

A. Rips escape into a mysterious

B. The storys German legendary source material

C. Rips seeking for happiness

D. Rips 20-years sleep

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. Irvings relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can har dly be ignored considering his success both abroad and at home.

C. Irvings taste was essentially progressive or radical.

D. Washington Irving has always been regarded as a writer who "perfected the best cl assic style that American literature ever produced."

11. The Publication of ______established Emerson as the most eloquent spokesman o

f New England Transcendentalism.

A. Nature

B. Self-Reliance

C. The American Scholar

D. The Over-Soul

12. The phrase "a transparent eye-

ball compares philosophical mentation of Emersons. It appears in_________.

A. The American Scholar

B. Nature

C. The over Soul

D. Essays: Second Series

13. In 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson made a speech entitled _______at Harvard, which was hailed by Oliver Wendell Holmeasas :Our Intellectual Declaration of Independen ce".

A. "Self-

Reliance" B. "Divinity School Address" C. "The American Scholar" D. "Nature"

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

15. "There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through th

e whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity", which author o

f the followin

g authors does the mention belong to________.

A. Washington Irving

B. Ralph Waldo Emerson

C. Nathaniel Hawthorne

D. Walt Wh itman

16. In Hawthornes novels and short stories, intellectuals usually appear as________.

A. saviors

B. villains

C. commentators

D. observers

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 Blithe dale Romance

18. Walt Whitman is radically innovative in the form of his poetry. What he prefers fo r his new subject is__________.

A. free verse

B. blank verse

C. lyric poem

D. heroic couplet

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

20. " The horizons 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 tw o 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

21. "Moby Dick" is regarded as the first American_________.

A. Prose epic

B. Comic epic

C. Dramatic fiction

D. Poetic fiction

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

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.

24. The Transcendentalists believe that, first, nature is ennobling, and second, the indi vidual is____, therefore, self-reliant.

A. insignificant

B. vicious by nature

C. divine

D. forward-looking

Answer:1～5BADBD 6～10CBADC 11～15ABCAC 16～20BBAAA 21～

24ABCC

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 k eener by constant use. For a long while he used to perpetual club of the sages,philosop hers, and other idle personages of the village.

Questions:

1) Please identify the author and the title of the work.2) Whats the meaning of this pas

sage?

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 scolded him for more often. H e 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 g ot 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 in dependent 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 becam e "Walt Whitman" in 1860, until 1881, it finally became "Song of Myself". The autho r 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 pa ssage.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 backgro und 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 literat ure;

2) They all pay attention to psychic states of the characters and exalt the individual an

d common man;

3) American Romanticism revealed unique characteristics: (difference)

<1> American authors describe their native land,, especially the spirit of the pioneerin

g 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 settlem ent; ② the confrontation with the Indians; ③ the frontiersmen’s life; ④ the wild west;

⑤ imagination. (P399—402)

2.Explain the theory of Transcendentalism, then list its important author and works. Answer:

Transcendentalism is a very important theory in American Romanticism, its main idea s are:

1) Man has the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or the ability of getting knowled ge 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 betw een an individual soul and the universal "over-soul" -unity of Nature.

5) The important authors are: Emerson (The American Scholar) and Thoreau.

6) "Nature", Emersons works, is called the unofficial manifesto for the club. (P421P4 22)

3.Washington Irving was called "Father of the American short stories" and "the Ameri can 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 t he past to present, prefer a dream-like world to a real one;

3) His stories were always from legend, especially German legends, showing best clas sic style. (P405406)

4. Sea adventures are Melvilles favorite subject; "Moby-

Dick" is a great novel in the theme, which is also noted for its symbolism, please anal yze it in detail.

Answer:

1) About the sea adventure: it symbols the voyage of the mind in quest of the truth an

d knowledg

e o

f the universe; a spirit exploration into mans deep reality and psycholo

g y;

2) About the boat; it symbols the society, and the crew symbol all kinds of people wit

h different social and ethnic ideas;

3) About the white whale: To the author, it symbols nature, it is a complex, unfathoma ble and beautiful; To the captain Ahab, it is evilness, is a wall. So he will lead all his c rew to cut through the wall to dig out all the unknown, mysterious things behind it. To the narrator, Ishmael, it is a mystery. (P460461)

5. 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; o penness; brotherhood; individualism; the growth of industry and the wealth of the citi es; universality.

2) His styles are special: "free verse"; "catalogue"; simple and even crude language.

Chapter 2 The Realistic Period

I. Choose the right answer:

1. Emily Dickinson was sometimes curious about the feeling o

f speech of death and in one of her poems she wrote about the______of death, the title of the poem is "I heard a F ly buzz when I died".

A. moment

B. suffering

C. happiness

D. meaning

2. Theodore Dreiser belonged to the school of literary _____ _which emphasized heredity and environment as important determ inistic forces shaping individualized characters who were pres ented in special and detailed circumstances.

A. naturalism

B. realism

C. determinism

D. humanism

3. More than five hundred poems that Dickinson wrote are ab out nature, in which her general _____about the relationship between man and nature is well expressed.

A. skepticism

B. eulogy

C. happiness

D. denial

4. "This is my letter to the World" is a poem expressing Emily Dickinsons _____about her communication with the outside world.

A. happiness

B. Anger

C. Anxiety

D. sorrow

5. Though secluded herself in her own house, Emily Dickinson was never really indifferent of the outside world, as coul

d b

e seen in her poems such as "I like to see it lap th

e Miles", which describes a(n) ______, an embodiment o

f mode rn civilization.

A. snake

B. animal

C. the road

D. train

6. After "The Adventure of Tom Sawyer", Twain gives a liter ary independence to Toms buddy Huck in a book called_____, and the book from which "all modern American literature come s".

A. Life on the Mississippi River

B. The Gilded Age

C. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

D. The Sun Also Rises

7. Winterbourne is used as a ______in Henry Jamess "Daisy M iller".

A. Protagonist

B. Narrator of the events

C. A character of central consciousness

D. Persona

8. Emily Dickinsons verse is most aptly characterized as ___ ________.

A. exposing the evils of the society

B. paving the way for the following generation of free vers e poets

C. sharing the same poetic conventions as Walt Whitman

D. exhibiting sensitiveness to the symbolic implications of e xperience, such as love, death, immortality and etc.

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 c ultural systems on an international scene

D. disclosing the social injustices and evils of a civilized society after the Civil War.

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

11. Who exerts the simple most important influence on litera ry naturalism?

A. Emerson

B. Jack London

C. Theodore Dreiser

D. Darwin

12. One of the most familiar themes in American naturalism is the theme of human "______".

A. bestiality

B. goodness

C. compassion

D. greed

13. ______is considered by H.L. Mencken as "the true father of our national literature."

A. Hemingway

B. Poe

C. Irving

D. Twain

14. Mark Twain wrote most of his literary works with a ___ ____language.

A. grand

B. pompous

C. simple

D. vernacular

15. Henry Jamess fame generally rests upon his novels and s tories with________.

A. international theme

B. national theme

C. European theme D . Regional theme

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

17. In Henry James "Daisy Miller", the author tries to port ray 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

18. Which of the following is NOT a usual subject of poeti

c expression of Emily Dickinsons?

A. War and peace

B. Love and marriage

C. Life and death D . Religion

19. The following titles are all related to the subject tha t escapes from the society and returns to nature except_____ _____.

A. Dreisers Sister Carrie

B. Coppers Leather-

Stocking Tales

C. Thoreaus Walden

D. MarkTwains The Adventures of Huckleberr y Finn

20. The greatest work written by Theodore Dreiser is_________ _.

A. Sister Carrie

B. An American Tragedy

C. The Financier

D. The Titan

21. Closely related to Emily Dickinsons religious poetry are her poems concerning ___________.

A. Childhood

B. Youth and happiness

C. Loneliness

D. Death and immortality

22. With Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the liter ary scene, _________became the major trend in American litera ture in the seventies and eighties of the 19th century.

A. sentimentalism

B. romanticism

C. realism

D. naturalism Answer：1～5AAACD 6～10CCDCA 11～15DADDA 16～20BAABD 21～22DC

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 Id got to decide, fore ver, betwixt tow things, and I knowed it. I studied a minu te, sort of holding my breath, and then says to my self: "All right, then, Ill 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 Hucks inner struggle on the Mi ssissippi, 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 betwe en his heart and his head, between his affection for Jim a nd the laws of the society against those who help slaves e scape. Hucks final decision -

to follow his own good hearted moral impulse rather than co nventional village morality. During his thinking Huck thinks of the consequence of helping Jim (the runaway slave), he m ight go to hell, "it was awful thought", with the eventual victory of his moral conscience over his social awareness, Huck grows. (P480)

3) Huck is an innocent and reluctant rebel, a typical Ameri can Boy with a "sound heart and deformed conscience". Throug h the eyes of Huck, the Pre-

Civil War American society is fully exposed and we are deep ly impressed by Mark Twains thematic contrasts between innoce nce and experience, nature and culture, wildness and civiliza tion.

2. "I should think it might be arranged," Winterbourne was thus emboldened to reply. "Couldnt you get some one to stay ----for the afternoon---with Randolph?"

Miss Miller looked at him a moment; and then with all sere nity, "I wish youd 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". (P513)

2) She is the American Girl in Europe, a celebrated type w ho 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. (P499-500)

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" s tands 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.

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 "t he 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 exp resses that the author even imagined her own death, the los s of her own body, and the journey of her soul to the un known. 5.Take examples to analyze the style and theme of M ark Twain.

Answer:

Mark Twain is a great literary of America, H. L. Mencken c onsidered him "the true father of our national literature".

1) Twains works like "Adventure of Huckleberry Finn" and "Li fe on the Mississippi" shaped the views of America and comb ined American folk humor and serious literature together;

2) "The adventures of Tom Sawyer" and The Adventures of Huc kleberry Finn" proved to be the milestone in American litera ture, 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 fait hful to truth -"vernacular";

5) Twain was famous for a local colorist, who presented soc ial life through portraits of the local characters of his r egion -

people living in the area, the landscape, the customs, diale cts, 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 rom anticism.

6.The characteristic and theme analyses of Henry James. Answer:

1) The Freudian approach is famous in his novels and his l iterary 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 h is masterpiece.

4) James experimented with different themes and forms in his middle period.

5) In his last an major period, James returned to his "int ernational-theme."

6) The typical pattern of the conflict between the two cult ures would be that of a young American man or an American girl (Daisy Miller) who goes to Europe and affronts/met wi th his or her destiny. The unsophisticated boy or girl woul d be beguiled, betrayed, cruelly wronged at the hands of th ose who pretend to stand for the highest possible civilizati on.

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 p roves to be a big breakthrough in novel writing.

8) He is regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century "s tream-of-

consciousness" novels and the founder of psychological realism.

9) James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possibl

e and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minima l intervention. (P495-498)

7. Please analyze the characteristics of Emily Dickinsons poe ms.

Answer:

1) Dickinsons poems are usually based on her own experiences , her sorrows and joys. But within her little lyrics Dickin son addresses those issues that concern the whole human bein gs, which include religion, death, immortality, love, and nat ure. (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 ow n 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 devi ce)

E: Her poems tend to be personal and meditative (e.g. Becau se I could not stop for Death).

8. Darwins evolutionary theory gave rise to American naturali sm, what are their characteristics?

Answer:

The American naturalists accepted the more negative implicatio n of Darwins theory, and used it to explain the behaviours in literary works.

1) They regarded man as the complex combinations of inherite

d attributes/elements, their habits conditioned/controlled by s ocial and economic forces;

2) They chose their subjects from the lower ranks of the s ociety 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 i s hidden from the eyes o the individual, or beyond his con trol;

6) Naturalism evolved/came from realism, but the tone of the authors were more ironic and pessimistic.

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

2. Strong affinity of the Chinese and Oriental literature ca n be found in the works of_________.

A. Mark Twain

B. Ezra Pound

C. Emily Dickinson

D. Art hur Miller

3. In Robert Frosts famous poem "Stopping by Woods on a Sn owy Evening", there are four lines like these: The woods ar e lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep,/ And miles to go before I sleep. The second sleep refers to______.

A. die

B. calm down

C. fall into sleep

D. stop walki ng

4. Of the following American poets, whose work was first re cognized in England and then in America?

A. Robert Frost

B. Walt Whitman

C. Emily Dickinson

D. Wal lace Stevens

5. "For I have had too much/ Of apple-

picking: I am overtired/ Of the great harvest I myself desi red" From these lines we can conclude that the speaker ____ ______.

A. is happy about the harvest

B. is tired of the w ork of apple-picking

C. is not tired when seeing the harvest

D. becomes indiff erent of the job

6. In these lines "The apparition of these faces in the cr owd; / Petals on a wet, black bough", Ezra Pound uses the figure of speech of ________.

A. metaphor

B. simile

C. hyperbole

D. contras

7. ONeills inventiveness seemingly knew no limits. He was co nstantly experimenting with new styles and forms for his pla ys, especially during the twenties when ______was in full sw ing.

A. Symbolism

B. Expressionism

C. Romanticism

D. Realism

8. "He got me, aw right. Im trou. Even him didnt 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 u nnamed

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

10. In a class which discuss the Imagist Movement in the U nited States, we will definitely NOT include________.

A. William Carlos Williams

B. Ezra Pound

C. Gary Snyder

D. Wallance Stevens

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-Merchants Wife: A Letter

C. A Pact

D. Hugh Sel wyn Mauberle

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

13. Robert Frost was the Pulitzer winner on ______ occasions.

A. two

B. Three

C. four

D. five

14.The founder of the American drama is _______.

A. Arthur Miller

B. Clifford Odets

C. Tennesee Williams

D. Eugene ONeill

15. The first full-

length play written by Eugene ONeill is ______.

A. The Straw

B. Beyond the Horizon

C. Bound East for C ardiff

D. The Hairy Ape

16. Eugene ONeills The Hairy Ape explores the problem of____ ____.

A. human disillusionment

B. the corruption of huma n desire

C. human responsibility

D. the loss of human identity

17. Fitzgeralds fictional world is the best embodiment of th

e spirit of_______.

A. the Jazz age

B. the Romantic Pe riod

C. the Renaissance Period

D. the Neoclassical Period

18. Fitzgerald wrote the following except_________.

A. The Great Gatsby

B. In Our Time

C. Tender is the Night

D. This Side of Paradise

19. "There was music from my neighbors house through the su

mmer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and we nt like moths among the whisperings and the chamoagne and t he stars...", the two sentences are taken from________.

A. The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald

B. Sister Carrie by T heodore Dreiser

C. Moby-

Dick by Herman Melville D. Daisy Miller by Henry James 20.Which of the following comments on the novel The Great G atsby 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 par takes 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

21. _____is Hemingways masterpiece.

A. Farewell to Arms

B. For Whom the bell Tolls

C. The Sun Also Rises

D. The Old Man and the Sea

22.Which of the following best describes the protagonist of William Faulkners "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.

23. 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

24.Who is the author of the writing "The Grapes of Wrath"?

A. John Steinbeck

B. Eugene ONeill

C. Fitzgerald

D. Th eodore Dreiser

Answer:

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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 petalsmean?3) Briefly interpret the two li nes.

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 p oetics.

2. "The caterwauling horns had reached a crescendo and I tu rned away and cut across the lawn toward home. I glanced b ack once. A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsbys house , making his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowin g with complete isolation the figure of the lost, who stood on the porch, his stand up in a formal gesture of farewe ll."

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 passa ge?

Answers:

1) The passage comes from "The Great Gatsby" written by Fit zgerald.

2) The Great Gatsby is a novel that is set against the en ding of the war. 3) The passage hints at the meaninglessne s, spiritual emptiness and vanity of such a lift of pleasur e-

seeking. There is a tragic sense that the "party" will be over. Gatsbys failure magnifies to a great extent the end o f the American Dream. (However, the affirmation of hope and expectation is self-

asserted in Fitzgeralds artistic manipulation of the central symbol in the novel, the green light).

3.Some theories and ideologies influenced the Modernists, what are they?

Answer:

(1) Darwinism; (2) Karl Marxs scientific socialism; (3) Freud s "unconsciousness" and psychoanalysis; (4) William James "str eam of consciousness"; (5) Carl Junes "collective unconscious" , "archetypal symble".

4.What are the characteristics of the Eugene O`Neills plays?

(1) Of all the plays ONeill wrote, most of them are traged ies, dealing with the basic issues of human existence and p redicament: life and death, illusion and disillusion, alienati on and communication, dream and reality, self and society, d