《英语测试》作业参考答案

《英美文学》作业参考答案

I.

A

1. G

2. L

3. A,U

4. E

5. P

6. K,V

7. B

8. C

9. Q 10. F

11. H 12. D 13. I 14. W, S 15. J 16. M 17. N 18. R 19 T 20. O

B

1. D

2. E

3. A,G

4. H

5. L

6. B

7. K

8. F

9. M 10. U

11.I 12. N 13. C,V 14. T 15. S 16. R 17. P 18. Q 19. O 20. J

II.

1. C

2. B

3. D

4. A

5. B

6. B

7. A

8. C

9. C

10. D 11. A 12. D 13. B 14. A 15. C 16. D 17. A 18. C

19. B 20. C 21. A 22. D 23. A 24. C 25. C 26. B 27. C

28. A 29. D 30. A 31. D 32. A 33. C 34. B 35. D 36. A

37. B 38. C 39. A 40. C 41. D 42. A 43. B 44. A 45. D

III.

1. Spenserian stanza refers to the poetic form invented by the English poet Spenser. The stanza contains nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter, rhyming ababbcbcc

2. Sonnet is a form of the poem in English. Each consists of 14 lines written in iambic pentameter with various fixed patterns of rhyme scheme. For example, the English or Shakespearean sonnet has the fixed rhyme pattern of abab cdcd efef gg.

3. Transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of senses. The moment of transcendentalism was a reaction against the cold, rigid rationalism of Unitarianism in America.

4. Epic refers to a long verse narrative on a serous subject, told in a formal and elevated style, and centered on a heroic or legendary figure on whose actions depend the fate of a tribe, a nation or the human race. For instance, Beowulf is the English national epic.

5. Neoclassicism refers to the tendency of a revival of interest in the old classic works. According to the neoclassicists, all forms of literature were to be modeled after the classic works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers and those of contemporary French ones. They believed that the artistic ideas should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity. This belief led them to seek proportion, unity, harmony and grace in literary expressions.

6. Imagism appeared in 1920s as a strong reaction against Victorian poetry and was started by Ezra Pound. The emphasis of imagism was on the economy of expression and on the use of a dominant image. Pound and his friends wanted an image to produce the emotion, and to “speak for itself”. The imagists wanted “direct treatment of the ‘thing’” and a rhythm like that of a musical phrase. The movement which has these aims is known in literary history as Imagism.

7. The Jazz Age refers to 1920s in America when Americans entered a decade of prosperity and extravagant

fads swept the nation, when New Orleans moved to Chicago and the theatre of New York’s Harlem pulsed with the music that had become a symbol of the times. The roaring of the decade served to mask a quiet pain, the sense of loss. Fitzgerald describes the Jazz Age as a generation of “ of the beautiful and damned”, drowning in their pleasure.

8. Humanism, broadly speaking emphasizes and exalts the dignity and elements of human beings as opposed to the supernatural, divine elements or the grosser, animal elements. Humanists believed that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of the present life, but also had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.

9. T he Lost Generation refers to the American writers such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and so on. Most of them fought in the first World War and formed a group reacting against the traditional values, as they remained in Paris as a place of “expatriates”and cut themselves off from their past in America. They were unable to come to terms with the new era when they returned to America. It was Gertrude Stein, an American writer, who first called them “the Lost Generation”.

10. Metaphysical poetry is commonly used to name the work of the 17th-century writers influenced by John Donne. The metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. The diction of the metaphysical poetry is simple and echoes the words and cadence of common speech, the imagery is drawn from the actual life, and the form is frequently that of an argument with the poet’s beloved, with God, or with himself.

11. English sonnet, which is also called Shakespearian sonnet, is a form of the poems, each of which contains 14 lines written in iambic pentameter with the fixed pattern of the rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg.

12. Modernism rose out of skepticism and disillusion of capitalism. In many aspects, modernism is a reaction against realism and rationalism. Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. The modernist writers concentrate more on the private than on the public, more on the subjective than on the objective. They are mainly concerned with the inner being of an individual.

IV.

1. If people can survive generation after generation and they can read with their eyes, if this poem exists forever, this poem will make your beauty alive eternally. The quotation is taken from Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare. In the poem Shakespeare has a profound meditation on the destructive power of time and the constructive power of art (poetry) that brings the eternal beauty to the one he loves.

2. The west wind is like a trumpet foretelling something that will happen in the future. Although winter is a cold and hard season for everything, it will be over soon and followed by the warm and beautiful spring. Here, Winter carries the figurative sense of hardship, frustration, adversity, coldness and so on, while Spring stands for hope, warmth, enjoyment, success, etc.

3. I still have a lot of obligations and duties to fulfill before I die. There is still a long way for me to go in my life in this world. The quotation is taken from Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. The language of the poem is both simple and musical, but the ideas are philosophically profound.

4. Did God smile when he looked at the tiger he created? Did God make the lamb and at the same time make its enemy, the tiger? The quotation is taken from William Blake’s famous poem The Tiger, in which the poet imitates the tone of an innocent child who asks some simple but profound questions about the world, because he can not understand the mystery of the universe.

5. The poetic lines mean that though time has passed, the urn, the work of art still remains. Human life is transient but art is immortal. The quotation is taken from Keats’ poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” which shows the contrast between the permanence of art and the transience of human passion.

6. When I found that the path divided into two small paths in the little woods, I decided to take the one which was not frequently taken by travelers. So my decision made a difference from those of others. The quotation is taken from the poem “The Road Not Taken” written by Robert Frost. Figuratively, the “road” can be understood as one’s decision-making in life or life course. The poem suggests that we do not have to follow the footsteps of others.

7. What does it matter even if we failed in the battle against the ruler (the God)? The loss of the battle does not mean that we lost everything. We still have unconquerable will, lasting hate and the great determination to take revenge. With the high spirits we may overcome anything and win the final victory. The lines are taken from Milton’s Paradise Lost. The quotation reflects Satan’s revolting and revolutionary spirits in fighting against tyranny, though he and his followers were defeated once.

8. Lucy, the girl, is as beautiful as a violet flower growing partly behind a stone covered by moss. She is as humble, lonely, and invisible as the flower which can not be seen easily and fully by passers-by. The lines are taken from Wordsworth’s poem She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways. Being a leading romantic poet, Wordsworth gives expressions to objective truth about nature and about the ordinary men and women who lived in close touch with nature.

9. We share some essential and basic things which are rooted in the literary tradition of America. So let us become friends and exchange views with each other. The quotation is taken from Ezra Pound’s poem A Pact. In the poem Pound started to find some agreement between “Whitmanesque” free verse, which he had attacked for its carelessness in composition, and the “verse libre”of the Imagists who showed more concern for formalism.

10. All men are mortal. In this sense, all people are equal to one another, so the noble, the rich, the powerful and the beautiful ones had better not regard themselves as superior to others. They can not avoid death either. The quotation is taken from Gray’s poem “Elegy Written in a Country churchyard”. In the poem, the poet shows his keen sense of equality and democracy as well as his sympathy for the poor and his disgust for the vanity of the rich and the noble.

11. The air current of the west wind is moving everywhere. The wind is described as a destroyer because it destroys the last sign of life from the branches of trees in late autumn, and as a preserver because it blows the wild seeds down which will be covered with earth and come to life in the next spring. The quotation is taken from Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind. In the poem, Shelley sings the quality of the west wind which symbolizes both destructive and constructive forces.

12. As human beings we share something in common. You shall take what I take, for the reason that we have the same physical elements and cultural heritage. The lines are taken from Whitman’s Song of

Myself. In the poem Whitman sets forth two principal beliefs: the theory of universality and the belief in the singularity and equality of all beings in value.

V.

1. Though Shylock in the play The Merchant of Venice is described as a usurer and intends to cut a pound of flesh from Antonio’s body, he is by no means a monster. Being a Jew, he is prejudiced against by the native Christians. Actually, he is the real victim of racial and religious discrimination, for in the end he lost is property, his daughter and is freedom of religion. Since he is wronged, we ought to take a sympathetic attitude towards him.

2. There are several factors which account for Tess’ tragedy. First, the industrial society was men-centered and women were looked down upon. The industrialization deprived Tess’ family of their means of life and made her a farm worker. Second, Tess’ father, lazy and full of delusion and vanity of noble birth, shifts the responsibility of supporting the family to her shoulders. Third, Tess’own weakness in her character also results in her tragedy. She is so innocent and credulous that she is liable to fall into the traps of the men she has encountered.

3. The general theme of O’Neill’s most tragedies deals with the basic issues of human existence and predicament, life and death, illusion and disillusion, alienation and communication, dream and reality, desire and frustration, etc. His characters in the plays are described as seeking meaning and purpose in their lives in different ways, but all meet disappointment and despair.

4. For a time, Tom in Henry Fielding’s novel became a national hero. People found him with manly virtues. He is honest, kind-hearted, high-spirited, loyal, and brave, but impulsive, short of prudence and full of animal spirits. In a way, he stands for a wayfaring of Everyman, who is expelled from the paradise and has to go through hardships to gain some knowledge of himself and to approach perfections.

5. Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights is a riddle because it means different tings to different people. From the social point of view, it is a story about a poor man abused, betrayed and distorted by his social betters because he is a poor nobody. As a love story, this is one the most moving: the passion between Heathcliff and Catherine proves the most intense, the most beautiful and at the same time the most horrible passion ever to be found possible in human beings.

6. The theme of The Great Gatsby can be expressed in the following statements. The novel evokes a haunting mood of a glamorous, wild time that seemingly will never come again. Besides, the loss of an ideal and the disillusionment that comes with the failure are fully exploited in the personal tragedy of a young man whose dream is smashed by the relentless reality. Gatsby is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies America itself. His failure in life implies the end of the American Dream.

7. In his masterpiece, Defoe realistically describes the successful struggle of Robinson single-handedly against the hostile nature. Robinson is a typical 18th-century English middle-class man, wit a great capacity for work, inexhaustible energy, courage, patience and persistence in overcoming obstacles, in struggling against the unfriendly natural environment. He is the very prototype of the empire builder, the pioneer colonist. That is the reason why he is a real hero.

8. Jane Eyre is an orphan child with a independent and fiery spirit and a longing to love and to be

loved. She is a poor, plain and little governess who dares to love her master, a man superior to her in many ways, and even is brave enough to declare to the man her love for him. The author presents a completely new woman image. She represents those middle-class working women who are struggling for recognition of their basic rights and equality as a human being.

9. The Hairy Ape concerns the problem of modern man’s identity. Yank’s sense of belonging nowhere, hence homelessness and rootlessness, is typical of the mood of isolation and alienation in the early twentieth century in the United States and te whole world as well.

10. Hamlet is a humanist, free from medieval prejudices and superstitions. He cherishes a profound reverence for man and a firm belief in man’s power and destiny. He hates the evil and loves the good. He cares for nothing but human worth and shows contempt for rank and wealth. His intellectual genius is outstanding. He discovers how wicked and unjust the world is. However, the key-note of Hamlet’s character is melancholy and his delay or hesitation in action which can be justified by the social reality and his limitation. Hamlet is a hero of the Renaissance. His learning, wisdom, noble nature, limitation and tragedy are all representative of the humanists at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries.

11. Jane Eyre is a little plain governess with her quick wit, honesty, frankness, loving heart and the spirit of independence and self-dignity. She is longing to love and to be loved. She is not very beautiful in appearance and graceful in manners, but she is brave enough to declare her love for her master who is superior to her in many ways. She is a completely new type of woman in her times. Therefore, Jane Eyre is a lovable woman.

12.The story of The Great Gatsby takes place during the glamorous and wild time after the First World War in America. The novel shows the loss and the disillusionment in the personal tragedy of Gatsby whose dream is smashed into pieces by the relentless reality. Gatsby is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream partakes of a state of mind that embodies America itself. Gatsby is the last of the romantic heroes, whose energy and commitment takes him in search of his personal grail. His failure indicates the end of American Dream. However, the green light in the novel symbolizes hope and expectation.