美国文学史期末考试复习题
美国文学简史期末复习考试资料
i.The Colonial Period1.关键词: America Puritanism2.Calvinism特点: total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement,Irresistible grace, Perseverance of the saints3.Anne Bradstreet( P17 ): a Puritan poet be known as “The Muse”4.Thomas Paine: one of continual, unswerving fight for the rights of man.works: “Common Sense”“American Crisis”“The Rights of Man”“The Age ofReason”理性时代5.Phillip Freneau(P22): 美国文学史上的重要人物dawning nationalism 代表人物Poems: The Wild Honeysuckle野生的金银花first modern American & the last medieval man6.Jonathan Edwards( Calvinism )a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakeningworks: “The Freedom of the Will”《自由意志论》“The Great Doctrine ofOriginal Sin Defended”《伟哉原罪论辩》“The Nature of True Virtue”“American Dream”“Self-made”7.Benjamin Franklin(puritanism)“Poor Richard’s Almance”“autobiography”新文学形式“18th century enlightenment”ii.Romanticism1.Washington Irving（1783-1859）①titles: “the father of American literature”“the American Goldsmith”②works: The Sketch Book (marked the beginning of AmericanRomanticism and the beginning of short stories as a genre in Americanliterature)Rip Van Winkle (P47—P48)The Legend of Sleepy Hollow2.James Fenimore Cooper（1789-1851）①One of the first writer to write American Westward movement②“The Leatherstocking Tales” (novel)first is “The Pioneers”---Plot:---theme conflict between Natty Bumppo and Judge Temple----character:Natty Bumppo---innocent, simple, honest and generous, for freedom,against civilization, wilderness is goodJudge Temple---just, reasonable, for civilization and law③Writing style:intriguing plotmajestic landscape descriptionsrich imaginationwooden characterizationnot authentic dialectiii.New England Transcendentalism---the culmination of American Romanticism Beginning of the Transcendentalism---1836, Nature, Emerson (1830s –the Civil War)Features：a:emphasizing on spirit or the Over-soul；b:stressing the importance of the individual；c:offering a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.1.Ralph Waldo Emerson：The founder of the Transcendentalist club and theeditor for a time of the journal the DialWorks:Nature --- “the Manifesto of American Transcen den talism” “the Bible ofNew England”:The Poet (from Nature)The American Scholar --- “Intellectual Declaration of Independence”2.Henry David ThoreauMasterpiece: Walden (Failure first, success in the 20th century)Content---a faithful record of his reflection in communicating with nature3.Nathaniel Hawthorne“The Scarlet Letter”Plot(P74)Theme:---(general theme) evil and sin exist in human heart and will be punishedone daymoral, emotional and psychological effect of the sin on the people in general---(specific theme) a hymn on the moral growth of the woman Hester whensinned againstsymbolism象征主义: “A”—Adultery—able—angel“pearl”—treasure4.Herman Melvilleworks: Moby Dick (1851)---little response, famous until the 20th centuryContent:---(general content) an encyclopedia of everything---(specific content) a tragedy of man fighting against overwhelmingpower in an indifferent even hostile world5.Edgar Allan PoeTheme: The death of beautySense of lossWorks:Poem--- “The Raven” “To Helen” “Annabel Lee”Writing style:MusicalRepetition of wordsParalleled structureMelancholy atmosphere(tone)Short story---The Fall of the House of UsherPlot: (P112)Theme: the fall of the house---the annihilation (disintegration) and of person6.Emily DickinsonSubject and theme:①(almost one third) Death and immortality“My life closed twice before its close”“Because I could not stop for death”theme: Everyone can’t live forever. Only after death can we getimmortality (immortality of soul)“ I heard a Fly Buzz- When I died”theme: skeptical & ambivalent about deathreluctance to death②Love“Wild Nights-Wild nights” (P99)③nature (both benevolent and cruel)“I’ll tell you how the sun rose”④emphasis of free will and human responsibility“To fight aloud”“A triumph may be”⑤soul ( conviction of her sovereignty)“I know that He exists”“The Brain is wider than the sky”Theme:influence of TranscendentalismHuman being’s mind (soul) is as divine as God⑥beauty, truth and goodness are ultimately one“I died for beauty-but was scare”“Tell all the truth but tell it slant” (P102)Writing style: emotional, original, against traditionChoice of words, verbal construction (capitalized and dash), spelling, fullof fresh images, brief, direct, plain words but not easy to readInfluence: precursor to the Imagist movement7.Walt WhitmanWorks: “Leaves of Grass”草叶集(9 editions from 1855 to 1892, Famous untilthe 5th edition)Poems in Leaves of Grass:“Song of Myself”(most famous one)“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” (1859)“When Lilacs紫丁香La st in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (1865)“O Captain My Captain!”Writing style: free verse( no regular rhyme, but musical)iv.过渡时期Harriet Beecher Stowework: Uncle Tom’s Cabin---The greatest manifesto of American anti-slavery (最有名的反奴隶制作品)Content: a faithful record of American black people's miserable life.v.Realism 镀金时代Gilded Age1.William Dean Howells豪厄尔斯①title: “champion of literary realism in US”“first president of AmericanAcademy of Arts and Letters”②works:essay--- Criticism and Fictionnovel---The Rise of Silas LaphamPlot: P120-121Character: Silas Lapham---common Bostonian of the late 19th century,average America happy with his family and proud of his success in the worldTheme:house---symbol of Lapham’s success (in material) an d aspiration for the polite societythe burning of the house---financial fall and moral rise2.Henry James①themes:exchanges between Americans and Europeans美国和欧洲文化的冲突②写作手法：a. eliminates the author and gives the reader the illusion ofbeing present at the scene of action让读者置身于情境中b. without comments or explanations: Dramatize, only dramatize, is hislesson作者只设定情境③Three distinctive periods:a. 1865-1882 novelsThe American (1877) 美国人The Europeans (1878) 欧洲人The Portrait of a Lady (1881) 淑女本色贵妇的肖像Daisy Miller(1878) 短篇小说b.1882-1895 playsc.1895-1990 novelsThe Turn of the Screw(1898)短篇小说碧庐冤孽（螺丝在旋紧）The Wings of the Dove (1902) 鸽之翼The Ambassadors (1903) 大使（奉使记）The Golden Bowl (1904) 金碗3.Mark Twain(Local Colorism)①Works: The Adventure of Tom SawyerThe Adventure of Huckleberry Finn 汤姆索亚历险记的续集，海明威称赞“all modern American literature comes”②theme: racism& slaveryintellectual& moral educationThe hypocrisy of civilized” society③real name: Samuel Langhorne Clemens④背景: Mississippi Rivervi.Naturalism(是现实主义的高级阶段)Time: at the end of the 19th centurySubject of naturalist: detailed description of lives of the low and the abnormal, frank description of human passion and sexuality, and portrayal of men overwhelmed by natureTheme of naturalists: pessimistic, deterministic自然主义的起源：Emile Zola “surrounding and heredity遗传can decide one’s destiny”写作手法：ironic讽刺, less sympathy, more serious than realism, deterministic决定论1.Stephen Crane①Works: (novels) Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) and The Red Badge ofCourage (1895) (short stories) “The Open Boat”②Writing style: psychological description, visual beauty with symbols2.Frank Norris①works: (Novel) McTeague麦克提格(1899)首部全面展示自然主义的作品the Octopus章鱼(best work) (1901) railwayWriting style:rich materialfresh imagerypoetic mode of fictionprecise and exact word(Essay of literary criticism) The Responsibilities of the Novelists (1903)3.O. Henry(a prolific American short-story writer)多产短篇小说家①Real name: William Porter②The Gift of the Magi③Writing style: short, interesting and clever plot, good-natured humor,surprising end, keen observation of details, slang and colloquialexpressions4.Theodore Dreiser西奥多·德莱塞works:Sister Carrie(1990)《嘉丽妹妹》Jennie Gerhardt (1911)《珍妮姑娘》（姐妹篇）The Financier (1912) 《金融家》“Trilogy of Desire” (欲望三部曲) The Titan (1914)《巨头》The Stoic(1947)《斯多葛》The "Genius" (1915) 《天才》--autobiographical novelAn American Tragedy--greatest and most successful Political commentary set5.Jack LondonWorks:---Reflection of his Involvement in the socialist movement:The Iron Heel, The People of the Abyss---Reflection of his belief in Darwinism:The Call of the Wild (1903)适者生存, The Sea Wolf (1904)---Reflection of the conflicting view :autobiographical novel Martin Eden (1909)vii.ModernismTwo literary periods•1920s --- The First World War (a decade of great joy and happenings )•1930s--- The Great Depression1.Ezra Pound--- the founder of Imagist movement(深受中国文化的影响)works: translations of Lipo’s poems “The River- Merchant’s Wife”翻译李白的《长干行》In a Station of the MetroThe apparition of these faces in the crowd ;Petals on a wet, black bough.—Ezra Pound2.T. S. EliotPoemsThe Waste Land (1922)---spiritual crisis of postwar Europe, like a manifestoof the “Lost generation”The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock (1917)--- a poem with a notable modernemotional color，意识流，现代主义情感色彩3.Wallace StevensBasic theme: interrelationship between reality and art, power of imaginationWorks: “Anecdote of the Jar”古坛轶事4.William Carlos WilliamsWorks: Famous poem: Paterson 帕特森(1946–58).Subject: everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people.Writing style: unusual meters and styles, easy and enjoyable to read5.Carl Sandburg---One of The greatest poets in the “Chicago Renaissance”---Chicago Poems6.Robert FrostSubject: the people and landscape of New England.(Misconception of him as a lyric poet or as an authentic painter of locallandscape)Theme: (universal and abstract) the complexity of human existenceWorks:poem collection：A Boy’s Will (1913), North of Boston(1914)New Hamphshire(1923),Collected Poems(1930),A Further Range(1936),A Witness Tree(1942)Some famous poems:“After Apple Picking”“Mending Wall”“Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening”“The Road not Taken”“Design”“The Wood-Pile”Writing style:---formto retain traditional forms of poetry---themedeceptively simple (trivial subjects)---languagelucid, easy, fluent7.William Faulkner: one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers---one of the southern writers (fictional Yoknapatawpha County)---the Nobel Prize-winning novelist(1949)---a famous short story writerWorks: 19 novels, 3volumes of short stories•poem collection: The Marble Faun, 1924)•Novel:The Sound and the Fury, 1929喧哗与躁动As I Lay Dying, 1930Light in August, 1932Absalom, Absalom!, 1936Go Down, Moses, 1942•short story: “A Rose For Emily”Theme: general human situationWriting style: difficult and experimental•Vivid characterization( character with great independence)•Multiple narrators•Story-novel (emphasis on narrative)•Modern stream of consciousness (fragmentary and obscure)• A variety of English8. F. Scott Fitzgeraldwork: The Great Gatsby(1925)Themes: The decline衰落of American Dream in the 1920sThe Hollowness空虚of the upper classSymbols: The green light9.Ernest Hemingway①Nick Adams, a Hemingway hero, first appears in the novel In Our Time(1925)②The Sun Also Rises (1926)Jake BarnesA Farewell to Arms (1929)Frederick Henry & Catherine BarkleyDeath in the Afternoon (1932 )Green Hills of Africa (1935)For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)The Old Man and the Sea (1952)Manolin & Santiagoviii.American drama1.Eugene O’Neil(1888 – 1953)father of American dramaWorks:first published play, Beyond the Horizon (1920) on BroadwayThe Iceman Cometh (1946)Long Days Journey into Night (1956)：an autobiographical play and releasedafter O'Neill's death.2.John Steinbeckthe Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962Famous for The Grapes of Wrath (1939), a novel widely considered to be a20th-century classic.。
美国文学史期末考试复习题.doc
美国文学史期末考试复习题可以参考课本及其他复习资料一、名词解释（交代背景、内容/特点、代表人物/作品）1. American Realism2. Black Humor3. Henry James’s international theme4. Beat Generation5. American Puritanism6. Transcendentalism7. Themes of Henry James’s writing8. The Lost Generation二、回答问题1. What are the characteristics of American romanticism？2. How is the Darwinian belief in naturalism opposed to the Christian creationist view? What is the determinist view of existence that informs naturalism? What are the implications of this view on ethics?3. What are the philosophical foundations and characteristics of American naturalism?4. What are the important point s for Hawthorne’s style?5. What is the predominant mood in Poe’s poetry? Discuss with two poems as examples.6. What are the parameters of American Realism?7. How is Thoreau revolt manifested both in his social actions and his writing? What is the nature of his revolt?8. The age of American realism is divided into two more periods. What are the periods called? What are the characteristics and who are the representatives of each period?。
美国文学史及其选读期末复习资料题
1.Captain John Smith became the first American writer.2.The puritans looked upon themselves asa 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’sappeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.8.Cooper’s enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novelsWilliam Cullen Bryant’s wok.is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories”.10.Emerson believed above all inand self-reliance.11.Hawthorne’s stories touch the deepest12.Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. 13.After his death, Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corne r of Westminster Abbey.14.Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, had become an American institution and the most famous literary woman in the world.15.The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives werecontrolled by and the16.The poetic style Walt WhitmanHenry James is famous for his international theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity of European life.17.Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “Lost Generation,”devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization. 18.With the publication of The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway became thespokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called “a lost generation.”Terms1.TranscendentalismTranscendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the m iddle 1800’s,which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Oversoul, and Nature. New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism.2.NaturalismNaturalism, a more deliberate kind of realism, usually involves a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forcesand social environment. As a literary movement, naturalism was initiated in France. Natural fiction aspired to a sociological objectivity, offering detailed and fully researched investigations into unexplored corners of modern society. The most significant work of naturalism in English being Dreiser’s Sister Carrie.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 World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Significant members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein herself. More generally, the term is being used for the young adults of Europe and America during World War I. They were “lost” because after the war many of themwere disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to more into a settled life5. 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. Romanticism7. PuritanismThe principles and practices of puritans were popularly known as Puritanism. Puritanism accepted the doctrines ofCalvinism: the sovereignty of God; the supreme authority of the Bible; the irresistibility of God’s will for man in every 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 Go d’s will.8.Hemingway Heroes / Code HeroSuch 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 The Hemingway heroes stand for a whole generation. But Hemingway heroes possess a kind of “despairing courage” It is this courage that enables a man to behave like a man, to assert his dignity in face of adversity.Give brief answers to the followingquestions.1.What are the characteristics of the Colonial Literature?In a real sense, there were no literal works in the early colonial period. They were just personal literature in the form of diaries, travel books, letters, journals, sermons, histories and prose.(1) In content, they wrote about the voyage to the new land, about adopting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops, about dealing with Indian, and especially about religion.(2) In form, English traditions were imitated.ment briefly on Emily Dickinson’s themes?(1)By far the largest portion of Dickinson’s poetry concerns death and immortality, theme which lie at the centre of Dickinson’s world.(2)Dickinson’s nature poems are also great in number and rich in matter. Natural phenomena, changes of seasons, heavenly bodies, animals, birds and insects, flowers of various kinds, and many other subjects related to nature find her way into her poetry.(3)Dickinson also wrote some poems about love. Like her death and nature poems, her love poems were original. (4)Besides deaths and immortality, nature and love, Dickinson’s poems are concerned about ethics, with respect to which, she emphasizes free will and human responsibility.4 Henry James is a great realistic writer. Name two of his major works. Do you know anything about his narrative “point of view”? What is it for? How does James employ it in his works? Briefly discuss this question.(1) Henry James’s major works include Daisy Miller and The Portrait of A Lady, etc.(2) One of Henry James literary techniques is his narrative “point of view.” As the author, James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possible and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minimal intervention. So it is often the case that in his novels we usually learn the main story by reading through one or several minds and share their perspectives. This narrative method proves to be successful in bringing out his themes.5. Tell the differences between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman(1)Emily Dickinson expresses the inner life of individuals, while Walt Whitman keeps his eyes on the society at large. (2)Emily Dickinson is “regional”, while Walt Whitman is “national” in his outlook.(3)Formally, Emily Dickinson usesconcise, simple dictions and syntax, while Walt Whitman uses endless, all-inclusive catalogs.8. Briefly discuss the Jazz Age“The Jazz Age” describes the period the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between World War I and World War II, 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, highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term “The Jazz Age”. It can also be known as “The Roaring Twenties” and “The Dollar Decade.”。
(完整版)美国文学期末试卷及答案,推荐文档
《美国文学》期末考试试卷（B卷）1.Poor Richard’s Almanac ( )2.The House of the Seven Gables ( )3.“Raven”( )4.My Antonia ( )5.Babbitt ( )6.A Streetcar Named Desire ( )7.Maggie: A Girl of the Streets ( )8.A Farewell to Arms ( )9.The Call of the Wild ( )10.Long Day's Journey into Night ( )mon Sense ( )12. “Rip Van Winkle”( )13. Walden( )14. The Song of Hiawatha( )15. Uncle Tom’s Cabin( )16.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn( )17.Sister Carrie( )18.The Waste Land( )19. A Farewell to Arms( )20.The Great Gatsby( )1.defined poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.2.While working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Samuel LanghorneClemens adopted the pseudonym , the way of a boatman taking soundings, and meaning two fathoms.3.Ezra Pound initiated a campaign for , which emphasized the directtreatment of an object or situation. He also advocated the language of common speech, but always the exact word.4.Fitzgerald summarized the experiences and attitudes of the 1920s decade in hismasterpiece novel _________.5.is the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for hisvigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters.6.The first of American literature was not written by an American, but by___________________, a British captain, who thus became the first American writer.7._________________ has been considered the “Father of modern American Poetry.\8._______________________was a great democratic poet. He is also the great poet touse the form of free verse.9._____________________is the first American lyric poet.10._______________________is also called novel of the road, it strings the incidentson the line of the hero’s travel.Ⅲ. Choose only one answer form the four choices as the most appropriate answer. (30%)1. In American literature, the eighteenth century was the age of the Enlightenment, _______________ was the dominant spirit.A. HumanismB. RationalismC. RevolutionD. Evolution2. Who was considered as the “Poet of American Revolution”?A. Michael WigglesworthB. Edward TaylorC. Anne BradstreetD. Philip Freneau3. The finest example of Hawthorne’s symbolism is the recreation of Puritan Boston in_______.A. The Scarlet LetterB. Young Goodman BrownC. The Marble FaunD. The Ambitious Guest4. ____________ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.A. ThoreauB. EmersonC. HawthorneD. Whitman5. Choose the work NOT written by Mark Twain.A. The Adventures of Tom SawyerB. Innocents AbroadC. Life on the MississippiD. The Rise of Silas Lapham6. Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?A. The American ScholarB. English TraitsC. The Conduct of LifeD. Representative Men7. Melville’s ____________________ is an encyclopedia of everything, history,philosophy, religion, etc, in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. Moby DickC. White JacketD. Billy Budd8. American literature produced only one female poet during the nineteenth century. Thiswas ___________.A. Anne BradstreetB. Jane AustenC. Emily DickinsonD. Harriet Beecher9. The main theme of _______________ The Art of Fiction reveals his literary credo thatrepresentation of life should be the main object of the novel.A. Henry James’B. William Dean Howells’C. Mark Twain’sD. O. Henry’s10. ___________ showed great interest in Chinese literature and translated the poetry of Li Po into English, and was influenced by Confucian ideas.A. Ezra PoundB. Robert FrostC. T. S. EliotD. E. E. Cummings11. With William Dean Howells, Henry James, and Mark Twain active on the scene,_______ became the major trend in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century.A. sentimentalismB. romanticismC. realismD. naturalism12. Ezra Pound's long poem____________ contained more than one hundred poemsloosely connected.A. The Waste LandB. The CantosC. Don JuanD. Queen Mab13. In Paris, Ernest Hemingway, along with _____________, accomplished a revolutionin literary style and language.A. Gertrude SteinB. Ezra PoundC. James JoyceD. all of the above14. __________ tells the Joad family' s life from the time they were evicted from theirfarm in Oklahoma until their first winter in California.A. Of Mice and MenB. The Grapes of WrathC. The Great GatsbyD. For Whom the Bell Tolls15. The two areas on which the modem American writers concentrated their criticismwere the failures of American society and ___________ .A. the failure of communication among AmericansB. the economic depressionC. the extreme prosperity of AmericaD. the paradise of New LandIV. Choose TEN of the following and decide whether the statements are true or false. (10%)1. All his literary life, Hawthorne seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life.2. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass are about love and religion.3.The First World War led the American intellectuals to a bitter disillusionment.4. Hemingway’s works have sometimes been read as an essentially negative commentary on a modern world filled with sterility, failure, and death.5.Mark Twain’s region was the Deep South, with its bitter history of slavery, civil war and destruction.6. Ernest Hemingway developed a spare, tight, reportorial prose based on simple sentence structure and using a restricted vocabulary, precise imagery, and an impersonal, dramatic tone.7.John Steinbeck' s theme was usually that simple human virtues such as kindness and fair treatment were far superior to official hard-heartedness, or the dehumanizing cruelty of exploiters for their own commercial advantage.8. Short-lived, the Imagist movement failed to exert a tremendous influence on modern poetry.9. Robert Frost won four Nobel Prizes in his life.10.In his novels, F. Scott Fitzgerald had revealed the stridency of an age of glittering innocence, he had portrayed the hollowness of the American worship of riches and the unending American dream of love, splendor and fulfilled desires.11.Of Plymouth Plantation was written by William Bradford.12.Realists thought highly of individual status and role in the world. The romanticists preferred the innate or intuitive perception by the heart of man. They thought that man was essentially of goodwill, only the civilized society made him degenerate. They pointed out, the means to uproot evils and to save mankind was habits, and to return to “natural primitive state”.13.Deists believed in a Creator God, but rejected providence(Godly direction) and revelation (divine will or Godly "truth")in favor of reason.14..President Lincoln praised Anne Bradstreet as “the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.”15.Edgar Allan Poe wrote two poems both entitled “ To Helen”.16.The thinking of Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau also greatly influenced the activethinking of Americans who became increasingly concerned with the possibility of building a government. Locke and Rousseau represented the impulse for a Jeffersonian democracy, and Hobbes represented the point of view, often expressed by Hamilton, of a strong central government.17.Hemingway, Pound, Cummings, Dos Passos, and Fitzgerald, belong to the school of “Beat Generation”.18.F. Scott Fitzgerald is called the leader and poet laureate of the Jazz Age who wrote the novels of the Jazz Age.19.Yoknapatawpha saga is a name for John Steinbeck’s novels.20.“Thanatopsis” is a word Bryant borrowed from Greek meaning “meditation on death”. V. Choose THREE of the following fragments and answer the questions. (20%)Passage OneLo! in you brilliant window-nicheHow statue-like I see thee stand,The agate lamp within thy hand!Ah, Psyche, from the regions whichAre Holy-Land!Questions:1.This is the last stanza of a poem “To Helen”. Its writer is _________.(1%)2. With whom is Helen associated in this stanza? (1%)3. How to appreciate the beauty of this poem? (3%)Passage 2I 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 differenceQuestions:1. Who is the writer of this poem? (1%)2. What is the title of this poem? (1%)3. What kind of feeling does this stanza show? (3%)4. How do you appreciate this poem? (3%)Passage 3I 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 terms, and, if it proved to be 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 byexperience, 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 _________ . (1%)2. The author of the work is____________ . (1%)3.List by yourself at least five reasons that the author gives for going to live in thewoods. (5%)Passage 4But, on one side of the portal（入口），and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.Questions:1.This part is from the novel , written by . (2%)2.What does “the wild rose bush” symbolize according to your opinion? (5%)Passage 5Often I think of the beautiful townThat is seated by the sea;Often in thought go up and downThe pleasant streets of that dear old town,And my youth comes back to me.And a verse of a Lapland songIs haunting my memory still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." Questions:1.The stanza is taken from the poem______?(1%)2.The author of the poem is_____ . (1%)3.The seventh line in each Stanza of this poem contains a key word, usually averb, which sums up the feeling established in the stanza. What is the verb andwhat kind feeling that it conveys?(4%)Passage 6Thou hast an house on high erect,Framed by that mighty Architect,With glory richly furnished,Stands permanent though this be fled.It’s purchased and paid for tooBy Him who hath enough to do.Questions:1.This stanza is taken from the poem _______by_______.(2%)2.What is one’s real house according to the poet? (5%)VI. Choose TWO of the following and Comment on them. (20%)1.Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. （10%）2.Emily Dickinson's “Because I Could not stop for Death”.（10%）3.Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance.（10%）《美国文学》期末考试试卷B卷答案暨评分标准Ⅰ. Choose TEN of the following works and write the names of the authors. (1*10=10%)1.Benjamin Franklin2.Nathaniel Hawthorne3.Edgar Allan Poe4.Willa Cather5.Sinclair Lewis6.Tennessee Williams7.Stephen Crane8.Ernest Hemingway9.Jack London10.Eugene O’Neill11.Thomas Paine12.Washington Irving13.Henry David Thoreau14.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow15.Harriet Beecher Stowe16.Mark Twin17.Theodore Dreiser18.T.S. Eliot19.Ernest Hemingway20.F. Scott FitzgeraldⅡ. Choose FIVE of the following and fill in the blanks. (2*5=10%)1.Edgar Allan Poe2.Mark Twain3.Imagism4.The Great Gatsby5.Sinclair Lewis6.John Smith7.Ezra Pound8.Walt Whitman9.William Cullen Bryant10.Picaresque novelⅢ. Choose only one answer form the four choices as the most appropriate answer. (2*15=30%)IV. Choose TEN of the following and decide whether the statements are true or false. (1*10=10%)V. Choose THREE of the following fragments and answer the questions. (20%)Passage 11.Edgar Allan Poe (1)2.Psyche (1)3.The beauty of form. （diction，rhyme and rhythm，rhetorical devices.）The beauty of content. (3)Passage 21.Robert Frost(1)2."Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"(1)3.This poem is written in classic five-line stanzas, with the rhyme scheme a-b-a-a-b and conversational rhythm. The poem seems to be about the poet, walking in the woods in autumn, choosing which road he should follow on his walk. In reality, it concerns the important decisions which one must make in life, when one must give up one desirable thing in order to possess another. Then, whatever the outcome, one must accept the consequences of one' s choice for it is not possible to go back and have another chance to choose differently.4.In the poem, the poet hesitates for a long time, wondering which road to take, because they are both pretty. In the end, he follows the one which seems to have fewer travelers on it. Symbolically, he chose to follow an unusual, solitary life; perhaps he was speaking of his choice to become a poet rather than some commoner profession. But he always remembers the road which he might have taken, and which would have given him a different kind of life.Passage 3Walden (1)Henry David Thoreau (1)Find the answer from the passage. (5)Passage 41.The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne.(2)2.life and liberty.(2)Passage 51.My Lost Youth.(1)2.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1)3.“haunting" sums up the feeling that was begun earlier with "Often in thought "and "comes back to me" .(3)Passage 61.Upon the Burning of Our House, Anne Bradstreet.(2)2.One's real house is in heaven, built by the great architect, God. (2)VI. Choose TWO of the three passages and comment on them. (20%)1. Analyze Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. （10%）2. Analyze Emily Dickinson's “Because I Could not stop for Death”.（10%）3. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance.（10%）The score is given to the theme, (7) content (6) and writing style(7) of the work chosen.。
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 asa chosen people.is an annual collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin.4.Thomas Paine’s famousboldly advo cated 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 Ir ving’sappeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.8.Cooper’s enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novelsWilliam Cullen Bryant’s wok.is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories"。
10.Emerson believed above all inand self—reliance.11.deepest12.Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. 13.After his death，Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey。
美国文学史期末考试复习资料
I.Multiple choice. Please choose the best answer among the four items. (10 x 1’=10’)1.In American literature, the 18th century was the age of Enlightenment. ______ was the2.The short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is taken from Irving’s work named______.3.Which of the following is not the characteristic of American Romanticism?4.The short story “Rip Van Winkle” reveals the ____ attitude of its author.5.Stylistically, Henry James’ fiction is characterized by _____.6.Transcendentalist doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in _____ and Thoreau.7.Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?8.____ is considered Mark Twain’s greatest achievement.9._____ is not among those greatest figures in “Lost Generation”.10.Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing b ecomes lessserious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more ____.1-5，BBACD 6-10 BADCDII.Multiple choice. Please choose the best answer among the four items. (10 x 1’= 10’)11.______ is the father of American Literature.12._____ is a fantasy tale about a man who somehow stepped outside the main stream oflife.13._____ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.14.Which of following is NOT a typical feature of Mark Twain’s language?15.From Thoreau’s jail experience, came his famous essay, _____ which states his belief thatno man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.A. WaldenB. NatureC. Civil DisobedienceD. Common Sense16.17.Most of the poems in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-mass” and the ____ as18.What did Fitzgerald call the 1920s?19.Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less20.For Melville, as well as for the reader and ____, the narrator, Moby Dick is still a mystery,an ultimate mystery of the universe.1-5 D A B C C 6-10 A C C D CII. Identify Works as Described Below (1’×15 =15’):1.The novel has a sole black protagonist who tells his own story but whose name inunknown to us.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on theMountains2.The main conflict of the play is the protagonist’s false value of fine appearance andpopularity with people and the cruel reality of the society in which money is everything.a.A Street Car Named Desireb. The Hairy Apec.Long Day’s Journey into Nightd. Death of Salesman3.It is an autobiographical play and Edmund in the play is based on the playwright himself.a. Long Day’s Journey into Nightb. Henderson the Rain Kingc. The Hairy Aped. The Glass Menageries4.The novel tells of how a black man kills a white woman by accident and how the society isresponsible for the murder.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on theMountains5._________ is one of the best works in American literature about the Second World War.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Catcher in the Ryec.The Red Badge of Couraged. The Naked and the Dead6. The novel by Hemingway is the best of its kind about World War I.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Sun Also Risesc.The Old Man and the Sead. The Naked and the Dead7.The novel is about how a family of farmers cannot survive in Oklahoma and travel toCalifornia to seek a living and how they suffer hunger in California.a.The Grapes of Wrathb. U.S. A.c.Babbittd. The Adventures of Augie March8.It is a trilogy including The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money, with suchtechniques as biographies, newsreels and camera eye.a.Babbittb. Light in Augustc. U.S.A.d. The Grapes of Wrath9.It is a novel which uses the stream of consciousness technique and whose title is takenfrom Shakespeare’s Macbeth.a. Absolom, Absolom!b. The Sound and the Furyc.A Farewell to Armsd. The Great Gatsby10. It is a naturalistic work about how a country girl is seduced and how she becomes afamous actress and how her lover falls into a beggar and finally commits suicide.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec. McTeagued.Maggie, A Girl of the Streets11. The novel is set on the Mississippi with the protagonist telling us the story in the localdialect. It is a representative work of local colorism.a.Sister Carrieb.The Adventures of Tom Sawyerc. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnd.The Portrait of a Lady12.The novel is a psychological study of a soldier (Henry Fleming)’s reactions in the CivilWar.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec.The Red Badge of Couraged. McTeague13. The poem is written in free verse in 52 cantos with the theme of the universality andequality in value of all people and all things.a.Cantosb. The Ravenc. Song of Myselfd.Chicago14. The novel is about how a group of people on a whaling ship kill a great whale butthemselves are killed by the whale, with the conflict between man and his fate.a.The Octopusb. Moby-Dickc. The Rise of Silas Laphamd. Leaves of Grass15. It is a philosophical essay in 8 chapters plus an introduction mainly concerned with thefour uses of nature.a. Waldenb. Naturec. The Scarlet Letterd. The American Scholar1-5.cdaad 6-10.aacbb cbbI.Choose the Best Answer for Each of the Following (1’×15=15’):1.An English ship brought 102 people from Plymouth, England on September 16, 1620 andarrived in the present Provincetown harbor on November 21 in the same year. This ship was named ____________.a. The Pilgrimsb. Mayflowerc. Americad. Titanic2._________ is father of American drama and in his dramatic career he wrote 49 plays.a. Tennessee Williamsb. Eugene O’Neillc. Arthur Millerd. Elmer Rice3._________ was the first American writer to write entirely American literature.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Washington Irvingc. Mark Twaind. Ernest Hemingway4. _______ was the leader of American transcendentalism.a. Benjamin Franklinb. Washington Irvingc. Ralph Waldo Emersond. Henry David Thoreau5._______was the greatest woman poet in American literature and she wrote about 1,700 shortlyric poems in her life time.a. Pearl S. Buckb.Harriet Bicher Stowec. Emily Dickensond. Walter Whitman6._________ is father of the detective story and of psychoanalytic criticism.a. Washington Irvingb. Ralph Waldo Emersonc. Walt Whitmand. Edgar Allan Poe7.William Dean Howells is concerned with the middle class life; ______ writes about the upper class society, and Mark Twain deals with the lower class reality.a. Stephen Craneb. Frank Norrisc. Theodore Dreiserd. Henry James8. Which of the following is a naturalistic writer?a. William Dean Howellsb. Mark Twainc. Ernest Hemingwayd.Theodore Dreiser9. His writings are characterized by simple, colloquial language and deep thoughts. He is______.a. Ernest Hemingwayb. William Faulknerc. F. Scott Fitzgeraldd. Mark Twain10. He wrote 18 novels all set in Jefferson Town, Yoknapatwapha County in the deep south.He is ______.a. William Faulknerb. John Steinbeckc. Ernest Hemingwayd. Mark Twain11. ________is Jewish in origin and in many of his novels the American Jews are majorcharacters.a. Sinclair Lewisb. Saul Bellowc. Norman Mailerd. Jerome David Salinger12._________ is often regarded as the greatest American woman poet and she wrote over 1,700 short lyric poems in her life time.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Robert Frostc. H.D.d. Emily Dickinson13.________ is father of American drama and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936.a. John Steinbeckb. William Faulknerc. Euge ne O’Neilld. Arthur Miller14. He was the first black American to write a book about black life with great impact on theconsciousness of the nation and his masterpiece is one of the three classics about black Americans. Who is he?a.Richard Wrightb. Harriet Beecher Stowec. Langston Hughesd. Ralph Ellison15. Hemingway wrote about American compatriots in Europe whereas ________ wrote aboutthe Jazz age, life in American society.a.William Carlos Williamsb. William Faulknerc. John Steinbeckd. F. Scott Fitzgerald 1-5 bbccc 6-10.dddaa 11-15.bdcadI.Choose the Best Answer for Each of the Following (1×15 %):2.The American Civil War broke out in 1861 between the Northern states and the Southstates, which are known respectively as the ______and the______.a. N, Sb. Revolutionaries, Reactionariesc. Union, Confederacyd. Slavery, Anti-Slavery2._____________was praised by the British as the “Tenth Muse in America”.a.Anne Bradstreetb. Edward Taylorc. Thomas Pained. Philip Freneau3.Mark Twain was a representative of ________ in American literature.a. transcendentalismb. naturalismc. local colorismd. imagism4. _______ was the leader of American transcendentalism.a. Benjamin Franklinb. Washington Irvingc. Ralph Waldo Emersond. Henry David Thoreau5.The greatest American poet and the first writer of free verse is ____________.a. Washington Irvingb.Ezra Poundc. Walt Whitmand. Emily Dickinson6._________ is father of the detective story and of psychoanalytic criticism.a. Washington Irvingb. Ralph Waldo Emersonc. Walt Whitmand. Edgar Allan Poe7.Henry James is concerned with the upper class life; ______ writes about the middle class society, and Mark Twain deals with the lower class reality.a. Stephen Craneb. Frank Norrisc. Theodore Dreiserd. William Dean Howells8. Which of the following is a naturalistic writer?a. William Dean Howellsb. Mark Twainc. Ernest Hemingwayd.Theodore Dreiser9. ________’s writings are characterized by simple, colloquial language and deep thoughts.a. Ernest Hemingwayb. William Faulknerc. F. Scott Fitzgeraldd. Mark Twain10. ______ wrote 18 novels all set in Jefferson Town, Yoknapatwapha County in the deepsouth. .a. William Faulknerb. John Steinbeckc. Ernest Hemingwayd. Mark Twain11. ________is Jewish in origin and in many of his novels the American Jews are majorcharacters.a. Sinclair Lewisb. Saul Bellowc. Norman Mailerd. Jerome David Salinger12._________ is often regarded as the greatest American woman poet and she wrote over 1,700 short lyric poems in her life time.a. Anne Bradstreetb. Robert Frostc. H.D.d. Emily Dickinson13.________ is father of American drama and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936.a. John Steinbeckb. William Faulknerc. Eugene O’Neilld. Arthur Miller14. _______ was the first black American to write a book about black life with great impact onthe consciousness of the nation and his masterpiece is one of the three classics about black Americans.b.Richard Wright b. Harriet Beecher Stowec. Langston Hughesd. Ralph Ellison15. ________ first used the “Jazz age” as the title of a collection of short storiesa. F. Scott Fitzgeraldb. William Faulknerc. John Steinbeckd. Ernest Hemingway1-5.caccc 6-10.dddaa 11-15.bdcbaII. Identify Works as Described Below (1×15 %):6.The play is about a stoker whose identity as a human being is not recognized by his fellowhuman beings and who tries to find affinity with a monkey in the zoo and is finally killed by the animal.a. The Hairy Apeb. Henderson the Rain Kingc. Long Day’s Journey into Nightd. The Glass Menageries7.The protagonist in this play is a crippled girl named Amanda.a.A Street Car Named Desireb. The Hairy Apec.Long Day’s Journey into Nightd.The Glass Menageries8.The hero of this novel tells about his own story to us but his name is unknown.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on the Mountains4. It is an autobiographical play and Edmund in the play is based on the playwright himself.a. Long Day’s Journey into Nightb. Henderson the Rain Kingc. The Hairy Aped. The Glass Menageries5.The novel tells of how a black man kills a white woman by accident and how he is finallyarrested and tried and sentenced to death.a.Native Sonb.Uncle Tom’s Cabinc.Invisible Mand. Go Tell It on theMountains6._________ is one of the best works in American literature about the Second World War.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Catcher in the Ryec.The Red Badge of Couraged. The Naked and the Dead6. The novel by Hemingway is the best of its kind about World War I.a.A Farewell to Armsb.The Sun Also Risesc.The Old Man and the Sead. The Naked and the Dead10.The novel is about how a family of farmers cannot survive in Oklahoma and travel toCalifornia to seek a living and how they suffer hunger in California.b.T he Grapes of Wrath b. U.S. A.c.Babbittd. The Adventures of Augie March11.It is a trilogy including The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money, with suchtechniques as biographies, newsreels and camera eye.b.B abbitt b. Light in Augustc. U.S.A.d. The Grapes of Wrath12.It is a novel which uses the stream of consciousness technique and whose title is takenfrom Shakespeare’s Macbeth.a. Absolom, Absolom!b. The Sound and the Furyc.A Farewell to Armsd. The Great Gatsby10. It is a naturalistic work about how a country girl is seduced and elopes with Hurstwoodand how she becomes a famous actress and how her lover falls into beggary and finally commits suicide.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec. McTeagued.Maggie, A Girl of the Streets11. It is a novel with 135 chapters plus an epilog; in it a group of people on a whaling ship killa great whale but they themselves are killed by the whale in the end, except Ishmael thenarrator who survives by adhering to a coffin.b.Sister Carrie b.The Adventures of Tom Sawyerc. Moby Dickd. The Portrait of a Lady12.The novel is a psychological study of a soldier (Henry Fleming)’s reactions in the Civil War,in which wound is called the red badge which symbolizes courage.a.An American Tragedyb. Sister Carriec.The Red Badge of Couraged. McTeague13. The poem is written in free verse in 52 cantos with the theme of the universality andequality in value of all people and all things.a.Cantosb. The Ravenc. Song of Myselfd.Chicago14. The novel is about how a man falls economically and socially but who rises morallybecause he gives up the opportunity to sell his factory to an English Syndicate, which would otherwise mean a ruin to that syndicate.a.The Octopusb. The Rise of Silas Laphamc. Moby-Dickd. Leaves of Grass15. It is a speech delivered at Harvard University. It is often hailed as the “declaration ofintellectual independence” in America.a. The American Scholarb. Naturec. The Scarlet Letterd. Walden1-5.adcad 6-10.aacbb cbaII. Match the following (1×20%)A. Match Works with Their Authors1.Hugh Selwyn Mauberly2.Walden3. Autobiography4. The Scarlet Letter5.Leaves of Grass6.The Raven7. The Rise of Silas Lapham8. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer9. Long Day’s Journey into Night10. The Old Man and the Seaa.Mark Twain b . Ernest Hemingwayc. Eugene O’Neilld. William Dean Howellse. Edgar Allan Poef. Walt Whitmang. Nathaniel Hawthorne h. Benjamin Franklini.Henry David Thoreau j. Ezra Poundk.Thomas Jefferson l. T.S. EliotB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear.1.Hester Prynne2.Mrs. Touchett3.Frederick Henry4.Benjy Compson5.the Joads6.General Edward Cummings7.Holden Caulfield 7.Bigger Thomas8.Yank 9.Happya.The Portrait of a Ladyb. The Scarlet Letterc. The Hairy Aped. A Farewell to Armse.The Sound and the Furyf. The Grapes of Wrathg. The Naked and the Deadh. The Catcher in the Ryei. Native Sonj. Death of a Salesmank.Invisible Manl.Catch-22A. Match Works with Their Authors1-5.jihgf 6-10.edccbB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear. 1-5.badef 6-10.ghicjIII. Match the following (1’×20=20’)A. Match works with their authors1.Nature2.Rip Van Winkle3. Nature4. The Scarlet Letter5.Leaves of Grass6.The Raven7. The Rise of Silas Lapham8. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn9. Cantos10. The Old Man and the Seaa.Ezra Poundb. Ernest Hemingwayc. Mark Twaind. William Dean Howellse. Edgar Allan Poef. Walt Whitmang. Nathaniel Hawthorne h. Ralph Waldo Emersoni.Washington Irving j. Waldo Emersonk.T.S. Eliot l. Robert FrostB. Match characters with the works in which they appear.2.Captain Ahab and Starbuck 2.Isabel Archer3.Frederic Henry and Catherine4.Benjy Compson5.the Joads6.General Edward Cummings7.Holden Caulfield 8.Bigger Thomas9.The Tyrones 10.Willy Lomana.The Portrait of a Ladyb. Moby-Dickc. Death of a Salesmand. A Farewell to Armse.The Sound and the Furyf. The Grapes of Wrathg. The Naked and the Dead h. The Catcher in the Ryei. Native Son j. Long Day’s Journey into Nightk.Absalom, Absalom l. The Old Man and the SeaA. Match Works with Their Authors1-5.jihgf 6-10.edcabB. Match the Characters with the works in which they appear.1-5.badef 6-10.edcabV. Essay Questions (30%; c hoose only ONE of the following three topics and write a short essay of at least 200 words. Note: [1]Your essay should have at least 2 paragraphs; you are not simply to make a list of facts.[2] You may give a title to your essay, but you are required to indicate which of the 3 topics it belongs to. [3]You are not to write on a topic of your own.1.To the best of your knowledge, analyze and make comments on Emerson’s Naturement on any American poet you like.3.Analyze and/or comment on any one of the American novels or plays you have read.V. Essay Questions (30%; c hoose only ONE of the following three topics and write a shortessay of at least 200 words. Note: [1]Your essay should have at least 2 paragraphs; you arenot simply to make a list of facts.[2] You may give a title to your essay, but you are requiredto indicate which of the 3 topics it belongs to. [3]You are not to write on a topic of yourown.)4.Make comments on an American novel we have discussed in this course.ment on an American poet.6.Describe how your knowledge of American literature is improved after taking thiscourse..IV. Please answer the following questions briefly. (2 x 10’ = 20’)1.Why do people think Franklin is the embodiment of American dream?2.What is “Lost Generation”?V. Discussion. (1 x 20’ = 20’)State your own interpretations of Hemingway’s iceberg theory of writing?IV. Please answer the following questions briefly. (2 x 10’ = 20’)3.Wha t is Hawthorne’s style? Explain the style with examples.4.At the end of the 19th century, there were three fighters for Realism. Who are they?What are their differences?________True or False. (10 x 2’= 20’)1. American literature is the oldest of all national literature.2. Thomas Jefferson was the only American to sign the 4 documents that created the US.3. All his literary life, Hawthorne seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil.4. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass are about human psychology.5. Hurstwood is a character in Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.6. Faulkner’s region was the Deep North, with its bitter history of slavery, civil war and destruction.7. Placed in historical perspective, Howells is found lacking in qualities and depth. But anyhow he is a literaryfigure worthy of notice.8. Faulkner’s works have been termed the Yoknapatawpha Saga, “one connected story”.9. As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematical.10. Emily Dickinson expr esses her deep love in the poem “Annabel Lee”.1-5 F F T F F 6-10 F F T F FII. Decide whether the statements are True or False. (10 x 2’= 20’)1. Early in the 17th century, the English settlements in Virginia and began the main stream of what we recognize as the American national history.2. American Romantic writers avoided writing about nature, medieval legends and with supernatural elements.3. As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematical.4. “Young Goodman Brown” wants to prove everyone possesses kindness in heart.5. Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Twain or Howells.6. The American realists sought to describe the wide range of American experience and to present the subtleties of human personality.7. Frost’s concern with nature reflected his deep moral uncertainties.8. Faulkner’s works have been termed the Yoknapatawpha Saga, “one connected story”.9. Roger Chillingworth is a character in Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.10. After the Civil War, the Frontier was closing. Disillusionment and frustration were widely felt. What had been expected to be a “Golden Age” turned to be a “Gilded” one.1-5 T F T F T 6-10 F T T F TIII. Please explain the follo wing terms. (5 x 6’ = 30’)1. Puritanism2. Free verse3. International novel: 4．Romanticism 5. Naturalism 6. American Realism 7.American Naturalism Modernism Imagism1.Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.2.Free verse: It is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts toavoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech.3.International novel: IN brings together persons of various nationalities who representcertain characteristics of their own countries.4.Naturalism: It views human beings as animals in the natural world responding toenvironmental forces and internal stresses and drives, over none of which they havecontrol and none of which they fully understand. The literary naturalists have a majordifference from the realists. They look at a different spot to find real life.III. Please explain the following terms. (5 x 6’ = 30’)1. Puritanism2. international novel3. the lost generation4. free verse5.American transcendentalism Hemingway heroes1.Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans.2.international novel: IN brings together persons of various nationalities who representcertain characteristics of their own countries.3.the lost generation: reveals the huge destruction of the wars to the young generation. Itdescribes the Americans who remained in Paris as a colony of “expatriates”. They werelost in disillusionment.4.free verse: It is poetry that has an irregular rhythm and line length and that attempts toavoid any predetermined verse structure; instead, it uses the cadences of natural speech.5.transcendentalism: It stressed the power of intuition, believing that people could learnthings both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner worldby intuition. It took nature as symbolic of spirit or God. All things in nature were symbolsof the spiritual, of God’s presence. It emphasized the significance of the individual andbelieved that the individual was the most important element in society and that the idealkind of individual was self-reliant and unselfish. Transcendentalists envisioned religion asan emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “Oversoul”.。
美国文学史期末考试复习资料
一、作者-作品1.Eugene O’Neill 尤金·奥尼尔Desire under the Elms榆树下的欲望2.Washington Irving华盛顿.欧文The Sketch Book见闻札记The Legend of Sleepy Hollow睡谷的传说3.Nathaniel Hawthorne霍桑The Scarlet Letter红字4.Herman Melville麦尔维尔Moby Dick白鲸5.Edgar Allan Poe艾伦.坡The Raven乌鸦6.Walt Whitman惠特曼Leaves of Grass草叶集7. Harriet Beecher Stowe 哈丽雅特.比彻.斯托Uncle Tom’s Cabin汤姆叔叔的小屋8. Henry James 亨利.詹姆斯in the Portrait of a Lady一位女士的肖像9.Mark Twain 马克.吐温TheAdventures ofHuckleberry Finn哈克贝里.费恩历险The Gilded Age镀金时代10. O. Henry 欧.亨利The Gift of the Magi麦琪的礼物11. Stephen Crane：史蒂芬.克莱恩The Red Badge of Courage红色英勇勋章12.Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞Sister Carrie嘉莉妹妹13.Jack London 杰克.伦敦The Call of the Wild野性的呼唤14. John Steinbeck 约翰.斯坦贝克The Grapes of Wrath愤怒的葡萄15.F. Scott Fitzgerald弗斯.菲茨杰拉德The Great Gatsby了不起的盖茨比16.Ernest Hemingway 海明威The Sun Also Rises太阳照样升起17.Katherine Anne Porter 凯瑟琳.安.波特Flowing Judas and other Stories犹大之花18. Ezra Pound 埃兹拉.庞德 Imagism 意象派The Cantos 诗章19.William Carlos Williams: 威廉.威廉姆斯The Red Wheelbarrow红色手推车20. Joseph Heller约瑟夫海勒：Catch-22 第22条军规21.Thomas Stearns Eliot爱略特The Waste Land荒原22.Zora Neal Hurston 佐拉.赫斯顿Their eyes were watching God 他们眼望上苍二、名词解释1.Transcendentalism超验主义:(1)As a philosophical and literary movement, American Transcendentalis m (also known as “ American Renaissance”) flourshed in New England fr om the 1830s to the Civil War. It is the high tide of American romanticism and its doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in Emerson and Thoreau. Transcendentalists spoke for the cultural rejuvenation and agai nst the materialism of American society.(2)The major features of Transcendentalism:① The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想超灵宇宙② The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To t hem, the individual is the most important element of Society. 个体+社会③ The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbol ic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled w ith God’s overwhelming presence. 自然+上帝代表人物：Emerson, Thoreau2.The Gilded Age镀金时代：an age of excess and extremes, of decline and progress, of poverty and dazzling wealth, of gloom and buoyant hope. Although Americans continued to read the works of Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Poe, the great age of American romanticism had ended. By the 1870s the New England Renaissance had waned. 无节制、走极端，倒退和进步、贫困和富有并存，既令人沮丧又让人有希望的时代。
美国文学期末试卷及答案
characters.6.The first of American literature was not written by anAmerican, but by ___________________, a British captain, who thus became the first American writer.7._________________ has been considered the “Fatherof modern American Poetry.\8._______________________was a great democraticpoet. He is also the great poet to use the form of free verse.9._____________________is the first American lyricpoet.10._______________________is also called novel of theroad, it strings the incidents on the line of the hero’s travel.Ⅲ. Choose only one answer form the four choices as the most appropriate answer. (30%)1. In American literature, the eighteenth century was the age of the Enlightenment, _______________ was the dominant spirit.A. HumanismB. RationalismC. RevolutionD. Evolution2. Who was considered as the “Poet of American Revolution”?A. Michael WigglesworthB. Edward TaylorC. Anne BradstreetD. Philip Freneau3. The finest example of Hawthorne’s symbolism is the recreation of Puritan Boston in _______.A. The Scarlet LetterB. Young Goodman BrownC. The Marble FaunD. The Ambitious Guest4. ____________ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.A. ThoreauB. EmersonC. HawthorneD. Whitman5. Choose the work NOT written by Mark Twain.A. The Adventures of Tom SawyerB. Innocents AbroadC. Life on the MississippiD. The Rise of Silas Lapham6. Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?A. The American ScholarB. English TraitsC. The Conduct of LifeD. Representative Men7. Melville’s ____________________ is an encyclopedia of everything, history, philosophy, religion, etc, in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. Moby DickC. White JacketD. Billy Budd8. American literature produced only one female poetduring the nineteenth century. This was ___________.A. Anne BradstreetB. Jane AustenC. Emily DickinsonD. Harriet Beecher9. The main theme of _______________The Art ofFiction reveals his literary credo that representation of life should be the main object of the novel.A. Henry James’B. William Dean Howells’C. Mark Twain’sD. O. Henry’s10. ___________ showed great interest in Chinese literature and translated the poetry of Li Po into English, and was influenced by Confucian ideas.A. Ezra PoundB. Robert FrostC. T. S. EliotD. E. E. Cummings11. With William Dean Howells, Henry James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, _______ became the major trend in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century.A. sentimentalismB. romanticismC. realismD. naturalism12. Ezra Pound's long poem____________ contained more than one hundred poems loosely connected.A. The Waste LandB. The CantosC. Don JuanD. Queen Mab13. In Paris, Ernest Hemingway, along with _____________, accomplished a revolution in literary style and language.A. Gertrude SteinB. Ezra PoundC. James JoyceD. all of the above14. __________ tells the Joad family' s life from the time they were evicted from their farm in Oklahoma until their first winter in California.A. Of Mice and MenB. The Grapes of WrathC. The Great GatsbyD. For Whom the Bell Tolls15. The two areas on which the modem American writers concentrated their criticism were the failures of American society and ___________ .A. the failure of communication among AmericansB. the economic depressionC. the extreme prosperity of AmericaD. the paradise of New LandIV. Choose TEN of the following and decide whether the statements are true or false. (10%)1. All his literary life, Hawthorne seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life.2. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass are about love and religion.3.The First World War led the American intellectuals to a bitter disillusionment.4. Hemingway’s works have sometimes been read as an essentially negative commentary on a modern world filled with sterility, failure, and death.5.Mark Twain’s region was the Deep South, with its bitter history of slavery, civil war and destruction.6. Ernest Hemingway developed a spare, tight, reportorial prose based on simple sentence structure and using a restricted vocabulary, precise imagery, and an impersonal, dramatic tone.7.John Steinbeck' s theme was usually that simple human virtues such as kindness and fair treatment were far superior toofficial hard-heartedness, or the dehumanizing cruelty of exploiters for their own commercial advantage.8. Short-lived, the Imagist movement failed to exert a tremendous influence on modern poetry.9. Robert Frost won four Nobel Prizes in his life.10.In his novels, F. Scott Fitzgerald had revealed the stridency of an age of glittering innocence, he had portrayed the hollowness of the American worship of riches and the unending American dream of love, splendor and fulfilled desires.11.Of Plymouth Plantation was written by William Bradford.12.Realists thought highly of individual status and role in the world. The romanticists preferred the innate or intuitive perception by the heart of man. They thought that man was essentially of goodwill, only the civilized society made him degenerate. They pointed out, the means to uproot evils and to save mankind was habits, and to return to “natural primitive state”.13. Deists believed in a Creator God, but rejected providence(Godly direction) and revelation (divine will or Godly "truth")in favor of reason.14..President Lincoln praised Anne Bradstreet as “the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.”15.Edgar Allan Poe wrote two poems both entitled “ ToHelen”.16.The thinking of Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau alsogreatly influenced the active thinking of Americans who became increasingly concerned with the possibility of building a government. Locke and Rousseau represented the impulse for a Jeffersonian democracy, and Hobbes represented the point of view, often expressed by Hamilton, of a strong central government.17.Hemingway, Pound, Cummings, Dos Passos, and Fitzgerald, belong to the school of “Beat Generation”.18.F. Scott Fitzgerald is called the leader and poet laureate of the Jazz Age who wrote the novels of the Jazz Age.19.Yoknapatawpha saga is a name for John Steinbeck’s novels.20.“Thanatopsis” is a word Bryant borrowed from Greek meaning “meditation on death”.V. Choose THREE of the following fragments and answer the questions. (20%)Passage OneLo! in you brilliant window-nicheHow statue-like I see thee stand,The agate lamp within thy hand!Ah, Psyche, from the regions whichAre Holy-Land!Questions:1.This is the last stanza of a poem “To Helen”. Its writer is_________.(1%)2. With whom is Helen associated in this stanza? (1%)3. How to appreciate the beauty of this poem? (3%)Passage 2I 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. Who is the writer of this poem? (1%)2. What is the title of this poem? (1%)3. What kind of feeling does this stanza show? (3%)4. How do you appreciate this poem? (3%)Passage 3I 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 notlife, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be 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_________ . (1%)2. The author of the work is____________ . (1%)3.List by yourself at least five reasons that the authorgives for going to live in the woods. (5%)Passage 4But, on one side of the portal（入口），and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to1.The stanza is taken from the poem______?(1%)2.The author of the poem is_____ . (1%)3.The seventh line in each Stanza of this poem contains a key word, usually a verb, which sums up the feeling established in the stanza. What is the verb and what kind feeling that it conveys?(4%)Passage 6Thou hast an house on high erect,Framed by that mighty Architect,With glory richly furnished,Stands permanent though this be fled.It’s purchased and paid for tooBy Him who hath enough to do.Questions:1.This stanza is taken from the poem_______by_______.(2%)2.What is one’s real house according to the poet? (5%)9.Jack London10.Eugene O’Neill11.Thomas Paine12.Washington Irving13.Henry David Thoreau14.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow15.Harriet Beecher Stowe16.Mark Twin17.Theodore Dreiser18.T.S. Eliot19.Ernest Hemingway20.F. Scott FitzgeraldⅡ. Choose FIVE of the following and fill in the blanks. (2*5=10%)1.Edgar Allan Poe2.Mark Twain3.Imagism4.The Great Gatsby3.This poem is written in classic five-line stanzas, with the rhyme scheme a-b-a-a-b and conversational rhythm. The poem seems to be about the poet, walking in the woods in autumn, choosing which road he should follow on his walk. In reality, it concerns the important decisions which one must make in life, when one must give up one desirable thing in order to possess another. Then, whatever the outcome, one must accept the consequences of one' s choice for it is not possible to go back and have another chance to choose differently.4.In the poem, the poet hesitates for a long time, wondering which road to take, because they are both pretty. In the end, he follows the one which seems to have fewer travelers on it. Symbolically, he chose to follow an unusual, solitary life; perhaps he was speaking of his choice to become a poet rather than some commoner profession. But he always remembers the road which he might have taken, and which would have given him a different kind of life.Passage 3Walden (1)Henry David Thoreau (1)Find the answer from the passage. (5)Passage 41.The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne.(2)2.life and liberty.(2)Passage 51.My Lost Youth.(1)2.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1)3.“haunting" sums up the feeling that was begun earlier with "Often in thought "and "comes back to me" .(3)Passage 61.Upon the Burning of Our House, AnneBradstreet.(2)2.One's real house is in heaven, built by the greatarchitect, God. (2)VI. Choose TWO of the three passages and comment on them. (20%)1. Analyze Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. （10%）2. Analyze Emily Dickinson's “Because I Could not stop for Death”.（10%）3. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance.（10%）The score is given to the theme, (7) content (6) and writing style(7) of the work chosen.。
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美国文学史期末考试复习题
可以参考课本及其他复习资料
一、名词解释（交代背景、内容/特点、代表人物/作品）
1. American Realism
2. Black Humor
3. Henry James’s international theme
4. Beat Generation
5. American Puritanism
6. Transcendentalism
7. Themes of Henry James’s writing
8. The Lost Generation
二、回答问题
1. What are the characteristics of American romanticism？
2. How is the Darwinian belief in naturalism opposed to the Christian creationist view? What is the determinist view of existence that informs naturalism? What are the implications of this view on ethics?
3. What are the philosophical foundations and characteristics of American naturalism?
4. What are the important point s for Hawthorne’s style?
5. What is the predominant mood in Poe’s poetry? Discuss with two poems as examples.
6. What are the parameters of American Realism?
7. How is Thoreau revolt manifested both in his social actions and his writing? What is the nature of his revolt?
8. The age of American realism is divided into two more periods. What are the periods called? What are the characteristics and who are the representatives of each period?。