美国文学复习题

美国文学复习提纲第一部分连线题（1*10=10’）1. Thomas Jefferson The Declaration of Independence2. Walt Whitman O’ Captain, My Captain3. Mark Twain Jumping Frog4. Robert Frost Mending Wall5. Ezra Pound In a Station of the Metro6. Carl Sandburg Chicago7. Saul Bellow The Adventure of Augie March8. Ernest Hemingway Men without Women9. John Steinbeck The Grape of Wrath10. Jack London The Call of the Wild11. Sinclair Lewis Babbit12. Flannery O’ Connor A Good Man Is Hard to Find13. O. Henry The Last Leaf14. Jerome David Salinger The Catcher in the Rye15. William Falkner The Sound and the Fury第二部分单项选择*20=30’)1. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made such a stir in Englandthat she became known as the “________” who appeared in America.A. Tenth MuseB. Ninth MuseC. Best MuseD.First Muse2. In American literature, the 18th century was the age of the Enlightenment.________ was the dominant spirit.A. HumanismB. RationalismC. RevolutionD.Evolution3. Which of the following stirred the world and helped form the American republic?A. The American CrisisB. The FederalistC. Declaration of IndependenceD. The Age of Reason4. At the Reason and Revolution Period, Americans were influenced by theEuropean movement called the ________.A. Chartist MovementB. Romanticist MovementC. Enlightenment MovementD. Modernist Movement5. Thoreau was often alone in the woods or by the pond, lost in spiritualcommunication with ________.A. natureB. transcendentalist ideasC. human beingsD. celestial beings6. ________tells a simple but very moving story in which four people livingin a puritan community are involved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways.A. Twice-Told TalesB. The Scarlet LetterC. The House of the Seven GablesD. The Marble Faun7. Washington Irving’s social conservation and literary for the past isrevealed, to some extent, in his famous story, ________.A. The Legend of Sleepy HollowB. Rip Van WinkleC. The Custom-houseD. The Birthmark8. The convention of the desire for an escape from society and a return to naturein American literature is particularly evident in ________.A. Coo per’s Leatherstocking TalesB. Hawthorne’s The ScarletLetterC. Whitman’s Leaves of GrassD. Irving’s Rip Van Winkle9. As a philosophical and literary movement, ________ flourished in New Englandfrom 1830s to the Civil War.A. modernismB. rationalismC. sentimentalismD. transcendentalism10. Edgar Allan Poe mainly writes __________.A. poemsB. literary critic theoriesC. short storiesD. dramas11. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, “A” may stand for ________.A. AdulteryB. AngelC. AmiableD. All theabove12. The period before the American Civil War is generally referred to as ________ .A. the Naturalist PeriodB. the Modern PeriodC. the Romantic PeriodD. the Realistic Period13. In the following works, which signs the beginning of the American literature?A. The Sketch BookB. Leaves of GrassC. Leatherstocking TalesD. Adventures of HuckleberryFinn14. The main theme of Emily Dickinson is the following except ________.A. war and peaceB. love and marriageC. life and deathD.religion15. Emily Dickinson’s poetic idiom is noted for the following except ________.A. brevityB. directnessC. plainest wordsD.obscure16. The publication of ________ established Emerson as the most eloquentspokesman of New England Transcendentalism.A. NatureB. Self-RelianceC. The American ScholarD. The Over-Soul17. The Age of Realism in the literary history of the United States refers tothe period from ________ to ________.A. 1861...1914 B. 1863...1918 C. 1865...1914 D. 1865 (1918)18. ________ is considered to be Theodore Dreiser’s greatest work.A. An American TragedyB. Sister CarrieC. The FinancierD.The Titan19. ________ is a novella about a young American girl who gets “killed” bythe winter in Rome, and it brought Henry James international fame for the first time.A. The AmericanB. The EuropeansC. Daisy MillerD. The Portrait of a Lady20. ________ is described by Mark twain as a boy with “a soun d heart and adeformed conscience”.A. Tom SawyerB. Huckleberry FinnC. JimD. Tony21. Mark Twain wrote most of his literary works with a ________ language.A. grandB. pompousC. simpleD. vernacular22. The book from which “all modern American literature comes” refers to ________.A. The Great GatsbyB. The Sun Also RisesC. The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnD. Moby-Dick23. In which of the following works Hemingway presents his philosophy aboutlife and death through the depiction of the bull-fight as a kind of microcosmic tragedy?A. Death in the AfternoonB. The Snows of KilimanjaroC. To Have and Have NotD. The Green Hills of Africa24. ________ is Hemingway’s first true novel in which he depicts a vividportrait of “The Lost Generation”.A. The Sun Also RisesB. A Farewell to ArmsC. In Our TimeD. For Whom the Bell Tolls25. Robert Frost combined traditional verse forms—the sonnet, rhymingcouplets, blank verse—with a clear American local speech rhythm, the speech of ________ farmers with its idiosyncratic diction and syntax.A. SouthernB. WesternC. New HampshireD. New England26. ________, one of the most important poets in his time, is a leading spokesmanof the “Imagist Movement”.A. J. D. SalingerB. Ezra PoundC. Richard WrightD. Ralph Ellison27. “Tender Is the Night” is a ________ by Fitzgerald.A. short storyB. novellaC. poemD. novel28. ________ is said to be a “historical novel” by Faulkner.A. Go Down, MosesB. Light in AugustC. The Sound and the FuryD. Absalom29. ________ stems from the ambiguity of the speaker’s choice between safetyand the unknown.A. Mending the wall B Home BurialC. The Road not TakenD. Stopping by Woods on a SnowyEvening30. Hemingway’s writing style, together with his theme and the hero, is greatlyand permanently influenced by his experiences ________.A. in his childhoodB. in the warC. in AmericaD. in Africa31. The following writers were awarded Nobel Prize for literature except ________.A. William FaulknerB. F. Scott FitzgeraldC. John SteinbeckD. Ernest Hemingway32. ________ is not considered to be one of the masters in the field of Americanfiction in the modernistic period.A. F. Scott FitzgeraldB. Ernest HemingwayC. Arthur MillerD. William Faulkner33. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travelboth…” In the above two lines of Robert Frost’s “The Road not Taken”, the poet, by implication, was referring to ________.A. one’s course of lifeB. a marriage decisionC. a middle-age crisisD. a travel experience34. Most of the writers in the modern period were able to probe into the innerworld of human reality on the base of ________.A. William James’ “stream of consciousness”B. Carl Jung’s “collective unconscious” and “archetypal symbol”C. Sigmund Freud’s “interpretation of dreams”D. All of the above35. Writers of the second postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that theywere ____________.A. a Lost GenerationB. a Beat GenerationC. a Jazz GenerationD. none of the above36. In 1862, President Lincoln exclaimed: “So you are the little woman whowrote the book that started this great war!” The book refers to ________.A. Uncle To m’s CabinB. BelovedC. Pride andPrejudiceD.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn37. In Leaves of Grass, _______ is all that concerned Whitman.A. individualismB.freedomC. democracyD. all the above38. It is not surprising to find in _______’s fiction a world of jungle, where“kill or to be killed” was the law.A. Mark TwainB. Emily DickinsonC. Theodore DreiserD. Henry James39. Which one of the following statements is NOT true of William Faulkner?A. He is master of stream-of-consciousness narrative.B. His writing is often complex and difficult to understand.C. He often depicts slum life in New York and Chicago.D. He represents a new group of Southern writers40. The setting of the novel The Scarlet Letter is in ________.A. England during World War IB. Paris during the French RevolutionC. Puritan AmericaD. America after the Revolutionary War第三部分判断对错 (1*15=15’)(T)1. The Calvinist doctrine of “original sin” exerted great influence upon Hawthorne.(T)2. To Hawthorne sin will get punished, one way or another.(T)3. Roger Chillingworth, the scholar, the embodiment of pure intellect, committed the “Unpardonable Sin”.(F)4. Emily Dickinson didn’t like using capital letters where small ones are needed.(T)5. Walt Whitman used parallelism and refrain in his poems.(T)6. Walt Whitman was regarded as the Zenith in American romantic poetry. (T)7. Dickinson was original. She never imitates others.(T)8. Allan Poe defined poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty. (F)9. O. Henry seldom wrote about poor people.(T)10. According to Poe, art serves for pleasure. The chief aim of poetry is beauty, namely, to produce a feeling of beauty in the reader.(T)11. According to Dickinson, death means immortality.(F)12. According to Poe, truth is beauty, beauty truth.(T)13. According to Henry James, the aim of the novel is to reflect life reality.(T)14. James wrote mostly of the upper reaches of American society, and Howells concerned himself chiefly with middle class life whereas Twain dealt largely with the lower strata of society.(F)15. American writers, especially novelists were rather experimental after the World Wars.(T)16. O. Henry’s short stories are famous for their surprising endings. (T)17. Allen Ginsberg was the representative of the Beat Generation. (T)18. Allan Poe exerted great influence upon many southern American writers, especially William Faulkner.(F)19. Emily Dickinson was regarded as the forerunner of symbolism. (F)20. Mark Twain never touched upon the problem of slavery system in his novels.(F)21. Allan Poe was regarded as the forerunner of American Imagism. (T)22. Mark Twain was the father of American language.(T)23. Allan Poe advocated “pure” poetry.(F)24. Mark Twain’s contribution to the development of realism and to American literature as a whole was partly through his theories of localism in American fiction and partly through his themes.(T)25. Toni Morrison is one of the most famous contemporary women writers. (T)26. O. Henry was the pen name of William Sidney Porter.(T)27. Thomas Jefferson was the major writer of The Declaration of Independence(T)28. Henry James discovered the trick of making his characters reveal themselves with minimal intervention of the author.(T)29. N. Hawthorne was a symbolic writer in some sense.(T)30. Whitman’s poetry suggests rather than tells.第四部分术语解释 (4*5=20’)1. TranscendentalismTranscendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the middle 1800’s, which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Oversoul, and nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-reliant.2. NaturalismNaturalism, a more deliberate kind of realism, usually involves a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment. As a literary movement, naturalism was initiated in France and it came to be led by Zola, who claimed at “scientific” status for his studies of impoverished characters miserably subjected to hunger, sexual obsession, and hereditary defects.3. American DreamThe American Dream is the faith held by many people in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations.4. The Lost GenerationThe term Lost Generation was coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to a group of American Literary notables who lived in Paris from the time period which saw the end of WWI to the beginning of the Great Depression. Significant members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, . Eliot, and Gertrude Stein herself. Hemingway likely popularized the term, quoting Stein (“You are all a lost generation”) as epigraph to his novel The Sun Also Rises. More generally, the term is being used for the young adults of Europe and America during WWI. They were “lost” because after the war many of them were disillusio ned with the world in general and unwilling to move into settled life.5. ModernismModern writing is marked by a strong and conscious break with traditional forms and techniques of expression; it believes that we create the world in the act of perceiving it. Modernism implies historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, of loss, and of despair. It elevates the individual and his inner being over social man and prefers the unconscious to the self-conscious.6. PuritanismThe principles and practices of puritans were popularly known as Puritanism. Puritanism accepted the doctrines of Calvinism: the sovereignty of God; the supreme authority of the Bible; the irresistibility of God’s will for man in ever act of life from cradle to grave. These doctrines led the Puritans to examine their souls to find whether they were of the elect and to search the Bible to determine God’s will.7. Hemingway Heroes (Code Hero)“Hemingway Heroes” refer to some protagonists in Hemingway’s works. Such a hero usually is an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent. And usually he is a man of action and of a few words. He is such an individualist, alone even when with other people, somewhat an outsider, keeping emotions under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place where one can not get happiness.8. Jazz Age“The Jazz Age” describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between WWI and WWII, particularly in North America; with the rise of the Great Depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism.第五部分选读分析 25’Text1.From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from[he original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. Drowsy and dreamy influence seems to hang over the land，and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson.Questions:(1) Who is the writer of this short story from which the passage is taken?(2) What is the title of this short story?(3) Give a definition of “short story”.Answer:(1) Washington Irving(2) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow(3) A short story is a brief prose fiction, usually one that can be read in a single sitting. It generally contains the six major elements of fiction—characterization, setting, theme, plot, point of view and style.Text 2.Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.Questions:(1) Please examine the poetic form (rhyme and meter) (2’)(2) Describe the similarities and differences of these two roads. Which one does the speaker take? (3’)(3) How do you un derstand the word “sigh”? (4’)(4) What might the two roads stand for in the speaker’s mind? (2’)(5) What is the theme of this poem? (2’)Answer:(1) It is written in iambic tetrameter and rhymed abaab.(2) Similarities: both of the roads are beautiful;Differences: one is quiet and grassy, less-traveled, the other is trodden by many people and flatHe took the less-traveled road.(3) The word “sigh” is a tricky word. Because sigh can be interpreted into nostalgic relief or regret. If it is the relief sigh, then the difference means the speaker feels glad with the road he took. If it is the regret sigh, then the difference would not be good, and the speaker would be signing in regret. Hence, sigh is ambiguous here for the speaker is not showing whether his choice is right or wrong.(4) The real road, the life road and the road in career.(5) Choices is inevitable but you never know what you choice will mean until you have lived it. This is also the theme of the poem.Text 3.Tell me not, in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.Life is real-life is earnest-And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou art, to dust returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.Questions:(1). Who is the writer of the lines?(2). What is the title of the whole poem from which the two stanzas are taken?(3). Summarize the poet’s advice for living.Answers:(1). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(2). A Psalm of Life(3). His optimism which has characterized much of his poetry, also endeared many critics to him. He seemed to have persevered despite tragedy. This poem is the cry of his heart, “rallying from depression”, ready to affirm life, to regroup from losses, to push on despite momentary defeat.Text 4.Because I could not stop for Death —He kindly stopped for me —The Carriage held but just Ourselves —And Immortality.We slowly drove — He knew no hasteAnd I had put awayMy labor and my leisure too,For His Civility —We passed the School, where Children stroveAt Recess — in the Ring —We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain —We passed the Setting Sun —Or rather — He passed Us —The Dews drew quivering and Chill —For only Gossamer, my Gown —My Tippet — only Tulle —We paused before a House that seemedA Swelling of the Ground —The Roof was scarcely visible —The Cornice — in the Ground —Since then —’tis Centuries — and yetFeels shorter than the DayI first surmised the Horses’ HeadsWere toward Eternity —Questions:(1) Who wrote this poem? In the poem, what is he/she watching and recording? (3%)(2) What is death compared to in the poem? (2%)(3) What does the poet think of eternity? (2%)(4) What is the attitude of the poet towards death? (2%)Answer:(1) Emily Dickinson. She is watching and recording her own funeral.(2) Death is compared to a polite gentleman or polite wooer.(3) The speaker is not quite sure whether there will be eternity after death since she just s urmises that “the Horses’ Heads were toward Eternity —”.(4) She treats death light-heartedly for she believes that death is a necessary step towards eternity or immortality.。