《英美文学史》练习题库

华中师范大学网络教育学院

《英美文学史》练习题库

1. Write the names of the authors of the following literary works.

1)Pamela

2)Joseph Andrews

3)The School for Scandal

4)Dictionary

5)Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

6)Songs of Innocence

7) A Red, Red Rose

8)Lyrical Ballads

9)Kubla Khan

10)Poems

11)Ivanhoe

12)Vanity Fair

13)Jane Eyre

14)Wuthering Heights

15)Middlemarch

16)Treasure Island

17)Salome

18)The Forsyte Saga

19)The Return of the Native

20)Mrs. Warren?s Profession

21)Sailing to Byzantium

22)The Rainbow

23)To the Lighthouse

24)Dombey and Son

25)Queen Mab: A philosophical Poem

26)The Jew of Malta

27)Gulliver?s Travels

28)Sense and Sensibility

29)Jonathan Wild

30)T ess of D?Urbervilles

31)King Lear

32)Don Juan

33)The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

34)The Shepherd?s Calendar

35)The Rape of the Lock

36)The Rivals

37)The Mill on the Floss

38)A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

39)An Essay of Dramatic Poesy

40)A Sentimental Journey

41)Ode to the West Wind

42) The Declaration of Independence

43) The Pathfinder

44) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

45) Nature

46) Walden

47) Young Goodman Brown

48) Moby Dick

49) The Black Cat

50) Song of Myself

51) Captain, My Captain

52) Because I could stop for Death

53) The Road Not Taken

54) The Fall of the House of Usher

55) Uncle Tom?s Cabin

56) The Rise of Silas Lapham

57) The Portrait of a Lady

58) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

59) The Cop and the Anthem

60) The Sea Wolf

61) The Red Badge of Courage

62) The Pit

63) Sister Carrie

64) In a Station of the Metro

65) The River-Merchant?s Wife: A Letter

66) Anecdote of the Jar

67) Chicago

68) The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock

69) The Grapes of Wrath

70) The Great Gatsby

71) The Sound and the Fury

72) The Old Man and the Sea

73) The Hairy Ape

74) Death of a Salesman

75) A Rose for Emily

76) The Hollow Men

77) The Song of Hiawatha

78) Of Mice and Men

79) The Gilded Age

80) U.S.A

2. Choose the right answer.

1. Which of the following is NOT regarded as one of the characteristics of Renaissance?

A. Rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture.

B. Attempt to remove the old feudalist ideas in Medieval Europe.

C. Exaltation of man?s pursuit of happiness in his life, and tolerance of man?s foibles.

D. Praise of man?s efforts in soul delivery and personal salvation.

2. It is ___ alone who, for the first time in English literature presented to us a comprehensive realistic picture of the English society of his time and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life.

A. Edmund Spenser

B. Geoffrey Chaucer

C. William Shakespeare

D. John Donne

3.The following belong to the characteristics of ?metaphysical poetry? represented by ?John Donne? except___.

A. Conceits

B. Actual imagery and simple diction

C. Argumentative form

D. Elegant style

4. Paradise Lost is actually a story taken from____.

A. Greek Mythology

B. Roman legend

C. The Old Testament

D. The New Testament

5. _____, the first of the great tragedies, is generally regarded as Shakespeare?s most popular play on the stage, for it has the qualities of a “blood-and-thunder” thri ller and a …philosophical exploration? of life and death.

A. The Merchant of Venice

B. Hamlet

C. King Lear

D.The Winter?s Tale

6. It was ___and ___ the two conquests that provided the source for the rise and growth of English literature.

A. Anglos/ Saxons

B. Normans/ Anglo-Saxons

C. Romans/ Normans

D. Greeks/ Romans

7. Marlow?s greatest achievement is that he perfected the ?blank verse?, and he is regarded as ?the pioneer of English drama?, which of the following is not written by him?

A. Tamburlaine

B. The Jew of Malta

C. The Passionate to His Love

D. The Sun Rising

8. ____Essays is the first example of that genre in English literature, which has been recognized as an important landmark in the development of English prose.

A. John Milton?s

B. Francis Bacon?s

C. Montaigne?s

D. Thomas Gray?s

9. _____Was known as “the poets? poet”.

A. William Shakespeare

B. Edmund Spenser

C. John Donne

D. John Milton

10. Alexander Pope worked painstakingly on his poems and finally brought to its last perfection ______Dryden had successfully used in his plays.

A. the heroic couplet

B. the free verse

C. the blank verse

D. the Spenserian stanza

11. ____is the most successful religious allegory in the English language.

A. Genesis A

B. The Holy War

C. The Pilgrims progress

D. Exodus

12.Which of the following is NOT a typical feature of Samuel Johnson?s language style?

A. His sentences are long and well structured.

B. His sentences are interwoven with parallel words.

C. He tends to use informal and colloquial words.

D. His sentences are complicated, but his thoughts are clearly expressed.

13. ____has been regarded by some as "Father of the English novel" for his contribution to the establishment of the form of the modern novel.

A. John Bunyan

B. Henry Fielding

C. Daniel Defoe

D. Jonathan Swift

14. ____was the only important dramatist of the 18th century, in his plays, morality is the constant theme.

A. Alexander Pope

B. Richard Brinsley Sheridan

C. Samuel Johnson

D. George Bernard Shaw

15. The two major novelists of the English Romantic Period are _____and Walter Scott.

A. Washington Irving

B. Jane Austen

C. Herman Melville

D. Charles Dickens

16. _____defines the poet as "man speaking to men," and poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in emotion recollected in tranquility."

A. William Blake

B. William Wordsworth

C. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

D. John Keats

17. For the Romantics, ____is not only the major source of poetic imagery, but also provides the dominant subject matter.

A. love

B. man

C. nature

D. death

18. In the Romantic period, ____is the most prosperous literary form.

A. prose

B. poetry

C. fiction

D. play

19. The author of "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is __________.

A. Wordsworth

B. Austen

C. Byron

D. Keats

20. In terms of Pride and Prejudice, which is not true?

A. Pride and Prejudice is the most popular of Jane Austen?s novels.

B. Pride and Prejudice is originally drafted as "First Impressions".

C. Pride and Prejudice is a tragic novel.

D. In this novel, the author explores the relationship between great love and realistic benefits.

21. Romanticism is a period of British literature roughly dated from _________.

A.1660-----1798

B.1798----1832

C.1483-----1546

D.1836-----1901

22. Which of the following is the Gothic novel?

A. Shelly?s Prometheus Unbound

B. Keats? Lamia

C. Mary Shelly?s Frankenstein

D. Jane Austen?s Pride and Prejudice

23. Chronologically the Victorian refers to__________.

A.1798---1832

B.1836---1901

C. the Romantic period

D. the Neoclassical Period

24. ____ believes that man?s fate is predeterminedly tragic, driven by a combined force of …nature”, both inside and outside.

A. Charles Dickens

B. Thomas hardy

C. Bernard Shaw

D.T.S. Eliot

25. “Self-conceited”, “cruel” and “tyrannical” are most likely the names of the character in______.

A. Robert Browning?s …My Last Duchess?

B. Christopher Marlowe?s …Dr. Faustus?

C. Shakespeare?s Love?s …Labor?s lost?

D. Sheridan?s …The School for Scandal?

26. Robert Browning?s style is_______.

A. identical with that of the other Victorian

B. similar to that of Tennyson

C. perfectly artistic

D. rough and disproportionate in appearance

27.According to D.H. Lawrence, _____was the first novelist that “started putting all the actions inside”.

A. George Eliot

B. Thomas Hardy

C. Charles Dickens

D.T.S. Eliot

28. Which of the following description of Thomas Hardy is wrong?

A. Most of his novels are set in Wessex.

B. Tess of the D?Urbervilles is one of the most representative of him as both a naturalistic and a critical realist writer.

C. Among Hardy?s major works, Under the Greenwood Tree is the most cheerful and idyllic.

D. From The Mayor of Casterbridge on, the tragic sense becomes the keynote of his novels.

29. Charlotte?s works are famous for the depiction of the life of the middle-class working women, particularly________.

A. governesses

B. clerks C .baby-sitters D. managers

30. The three trilogies of _____ Forsyte novels are masterpieces of critical realism in the early 20th century.

A. D. H. Lawrence?s

B. John Galsworthy?s

C. James Joyce?s

D. Thomas Hardy?s

31. ____ is the most outstanding stream-consciousness novelist.

A. T.S. Eliot

B. Richard Brinsley Sheridan

C. James Joyce

D. Oscar Wilder

32. In his famous poem_____, Yeats explores the problems of death, love, old age and

art.

A. "Leda and the Swan"

B. "No Second Troy"

C. "September 1913"

D. "Sailing to Byzantium"

33. ____is a poem concerned with the spiritual breakup of a modern civilization in which human life has lost its meaning, significance and purpose. A. Ulysses B. The Waste Land C. The Confidential Clerk D. Dubliners

34. In ____, James Joyce intends to present a microcosm of the whole human life by providing an instance of how a single event contains all the events of its kind, and how history is recapitulated in the happenings of one day.

A. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

B. Dubliners

C. Ulysses

D. Finnegans Wake

35. Of the following poems by T.S. Eliot, which is hailed as a landmark and a model of the 20th Century English Poetry?

A. Poems 1909----1925

B. The Hollow Men

C. Prufrock and Other Observations

D. The Waste Land

36. Which of the following best describes the speaker of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”?

A. He is a man of an action.

B. He is a man of apathy.

C. He is a man of inactivity.

D. All the above are wrong.

37. Of the following works by D.H. Lawrence, _______established his position as novelist.

A. The White Peacock

B. The Trespasser

C. Women in Love

D. Sons and Lovers

38. Which of the following writi ngs is not the novel of D.H. Lawrence?s?

A. Sons and Lovers

B. A Portrait of the Artist as a Yong Man

C. The White Peacock.

D. The Rainbow

39. Of the following writings by James Joyce, which is a prime example of modernism in literature?

A. Ulysses

B. A Portrait of the Artist as a Yong Man

C. Dubliners

D. Finnegans Wake

40. Of all the following issues, _____is definitely NOT the focus of the Romantic writers in the American literary history.

A. Puritan morality

B. Human bestiality

C. Noble savages

D. Divinity of man

41. Henry David Thoreau?s work, ________, has always been regarded as a masterpiece of the New England Transcendental Movement.

A. Walden

B. The Pioneers

C. Nature

D. "Song of Myself"

42. “Leaves of Grass” commands great attention bec ause of its uniquely poetic embodiment of________, which are written in the founding documents of both the Revolutionary War and the American Civil War.

A. the democratic ideals

B. the romantic ideals

C. the self-reliance spirits

D. the religious ideals

43. According to Whitman, the genuine participation of a poet in a common cultural effort was to behave as a supreme_________.

A. democrat

B. individualist

C. romanticist

D. leader

44. 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

45. 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

46. Washington Irving?s “Rip Van Winkle” is famous for_________.

A. Rip?s escape into a mysterious

B. The story?s German legendary source material

C. Rip?s seeking for happiness

D. Rip?s 20-years sleep

47. Which of the following statement is not true about Washington Irving?

A. Washington Irving is regarded as Father of the American short stories.

B. Irving?s relationship with the Old World in terms of his literary imagination can hardly be ignored considering his success both abroad and at home.

C. Irving?s taste was essentially progressive or radical.

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

48. The Publication of ______established Emerson as the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism.

A. Nature

B. Self-Reliance

C. The American Scholar

D. The Over-Soul

49. "There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity", which author of the following authors does the mention belong to________.

A. Washington Irving

B. Ralph Waldo Emerson

C. Nathaniel Hawthorne

D. Walt Whitman

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

A. Prose epic

B. Comic epic

C. Dramatic fiction

D. Poetic fiction

51. 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

52. Theodore Dreiser belonged to the school of literary ______which emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters that were presented in special and detailed circumstances.

A. naturalism

B. realism

C. determinism

D. humanism

53. Emily Dickinson?s verse is most aptly characterized as ___________.

A. exposing the evils of the society

B. paving the way for the following generation of free verse poets

C. sharing the same poetic conventions as Walt Whitman

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

54. 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 Colonialism

55. Who exerts the simple most important influence on literary naturalism?

A. Emerson

B. Jack London

C. Theodore Dreiser

D. Darwin

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

A. Hemingway

B. Poe

C. Irving

D. Twain

57. Mark Twain wrote most of his literary works with a _______language.

A. grand

B. pompous

C. simple

D. vernacular

58. Henry James?s fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with________.

A. international theme

B. national theme

C. European theme

D. Regional theme

59. 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

60. The following titles are all related to the subject that escapes from the society and returns to nature except__________.

A. Dreiser?s Sister Carrie

B. Copper?s Leather-Stocking Tales

C. Thoreau?s Walden

D. Mark T wain?s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

61. Closely related to Emily Dickinson?s religious poetry are her poems concerning ___________.

A. Childhood

B. Youth and happiness

C. Loneliness

D. Death and immortality

62. With Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the literary scene, _________became the major trend in American literature in the seventies and eighties of the 19th century.

A. sentimentalism

B. romanticism

C. realism

D. naturalism

63. Ezra Pound is a leading spokesman of the_________.

A. Imagist Movement

B. Chartist Movement

C. Modernist Movement

D. Romantic Movement

64. Strong affinity of the Chinese and Oriental literature can be found in the works of_________.

A. Mark Twain

B. Ezra Pound

C. Emily Dickinson

D. Arthur Miller

65. Of the following American poets, whose work was first recognized in England and then in America?

A. Robert Frost

B. Walt Whitman

C. Emily Dickinson

D. Wallace Stevens

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

A. metaphor

B. simile

C. hyperbole

D. contrast

67. O?Neill?s inventiveness seemingly knew no limits. He was constantly experimenting with new styles and forms for his plays, especially during the twenties when ______was in full swing.

A. Symbolism

B. Expressionism

C. Romanticism

D. Realism

68. In a class which discusses the Imagist Movement in the United States, we will definitely NOT include________.

A. William Carlos Williams

B. Ezra Pound

C. Gary Snyder

D. Wallace Stevens

69. In which of the following poems by Ezra Pound did you find the allusion to Wi-shang? ____________

A. In a Station of the Metro

B. The River-Merchant?s Wife: A Letter

C. A Pact

D. Hugh Selwyn Mauberley

70. 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

71. The founder of the American drama is _______.

A. Arthur Miller

B. Clifford Odets

C. Tennessee Willia ms

D. Eugene O?Neill

72. The first full-length play written by Eugene O?Neill is ______.

A. The Straw

B. Beyond the Horizon

C. Bound East for Cardiff

D. The Hairy Ape

73. Eugene O?Neill?s “The Hairy Ape” explores the problem of________.

A. human disillusionment

B. the corruption of human desire

C. human responsibility

D. the loss of human identity

74. Fitzgerald?s fictional world is the best embodiment of the spirit of_______.

A. the Jazz age

B. the Romantic Period

C. the Renaissance Period

D. the Neoclassical Period

75. Fitzgerald wrote the following except_________.

A. The Great Gatsby

B. In Our Time

C. Tender is the Night

D. This Side of Paradise

76. "There was music from my neighbor?s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the chamoagne and the stars...", the two sentences are taken from________.

A. ?The Great Gatsby? by Fitzgerald

B. ?Sister Carrie? by Theodore Dreiser

C. ?Moby-Dick? by Herman Melville

D. ?Daisy Miller? by Henry James

77. Which of the following comments on the novel “The Great Gatsby” is not true?

A. The Great Gatsby is a novel that is a set against the ending of the war.

B. Gatsby is a mystical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies American itself.

C. Gatsby is the last of the romantic heroes.

D. Gatsby is wealthy but unintelligent and brutal.

78. _____is Hemingway?s masterpiece.

A. Farewell to Arms

B. For Whom the bell Tolls

C. The Sun Also Rises

D. The Old Man and the Sea

79. Which of the following best describes the protagonist of William Faulkner?s "A Rose for Emily"?

A. She is a conservative aristocrat.

B. She is a wealth lady.

C. She is a prisoner of the past.

D. She has good taste.

80 Who, disregarding grammar and punctuation, always used "i" instead of "I" to refer to himself as a protest against self-importance?

A. Cummings

B. Wallace Stevens

C. Fitzgerald

D. Ernest Hemingway

3. Answer the following questions briefly.

1)What is Chaucer's contribution to English language?

2)What was the English Renaissance?

3)What are the themes of "Robinson Crusoe"?

4)Summarize Shelley's significance in the English literature.

5) What are the periods of Shakespeare’s dramatic composition? And what are their respective features?

6) What are the principles of classicists? Tell three representative classicists in the English literature and their representative works.

7)Summarize Eliot's influence briefly.

8)Why is Hamlet a representative of humanism?

9) What are the characteristics of the American writings in the Romantic Period?

10) How does “Rip Van Winkle” reveal Washington Irving’s conservative attitude?

11) What is Hawthorne’s writing style?

12) Comment on the language of Whitman’s poems

13) What is Dreiser’s wri ting style?

14) What is the Imagist Movement?

15) What is the basic concern of The Hairy Ape?

16) What is the theme of The Old Man and the Sea?

17) 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.

18) Why Modernism is different from Realism?

4. Answer the following questions in detail.

1)What are the general features of Shakespeare's plays?

2) Summarize Byron's chief contribution and significance in the English literature.

3) What are the three periods of Yeats’s literary career? Enumerate some representative works at each period.

4) What are the characteristics of Romanticism in English literature? Give examples to illustrate them.

5) Comment on the similarities and differences of the three dominant figures—William Dean Howells,Henry James and Mark Twain of the Realistic period.

6) The background of American Modernism

7) What is Hawthorne’s “black” vision of life and human beings?

8) Analyze the theory of Theodore Dreiser’naturalism with example.

9) Take examples to analyze the style and theme of Mark Twain.