美国文学期末复习题

2013-2014-1 美国⽂学史及选读期末复习材料ⅠMultiple choices

1. Which is not connected with Thomas Paine?A. Common SenseB. The American CrisisC. The Rights of ManD. The Autobiography

2. “These are the times that try men’s souls”, these words were once read to Washington’s troops and did much to spurexcitement to further action with hope and confidence. Who is the author of these words?A.Benjamin FranklinB. Thomas PaineC. Thomas JeffersonD. George Washington

3. At the Reason and Revolution Period, Americans were influenced by the European movement called the ______.A. Chartist MovementB. Romanticist MovementC. Enlightenment MovementD. Modernist Movement

4. In American literature, the Enlighteners were favorable to______.A. the colonial orderB. religious obscurantismC. the Puritan traditionD. the secular literature

5. The English colonies in North America rose in arms against their parent country and the Continental Congress adopted______ in 1776.

A. Declaration of IndependenceB. the Sugar ActC. the Stamp Act

D. the Mayflower Compact

6. ______ usually was regarded as the first American writer.A. William BradfordB. Anne BradstreetC. Emily Dickinson

D. Captain John Smith

7. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the “______” whoappeared in America.A. Ninth MuseB. Tenth MuseC. Best MuseD. First Muse

8. Who was considered as the “poet of American Revolution”?A. Anne BradstreetB. Edward TaylorC. Michael WigglesworthD. Philip Freneau

9. In 1817, the stately poem called Thanatopsis introduced the best poet ______ to appear in America up to that time.A. Edward TaylorB. Philip FreneauC. William Cullen BryantD. Edgar Allen Poe

10. The finest example of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s symbolism is the recreation of Puritan Boston in ______.A. The Scarlet LetterB. Young Goodman BrownC. The Marble FaunD. The Ambitious Guest

11. “The universe is composed of Nature and the soul… Spirit is present everywhere”. This is the voice of the book Naturewritten by Emerson, which pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England ______.A. RomanticismB. TranscendentalismC. NaturalismD. Symbolism

12. Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism?A. NatureB. WaldenC. On BeautyD. Self-Reliance

13. Mark Twain created, in _________, a masterpiece of American realism that is also one of the great books of worldliterature.

A. The Adventure of Huckleberry FinnB. The Adventure of Tom Sawyer

C. The Man That Corrupted HadleyburgD. The Gilded Age

14. _________ marks the climax of Mark Twain’s literary creativity.A . The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn B. The Gilded AgeC. Life on the MississippiD. The Adventure of Tom Sawyer

15. Choose the novel which is not written by Henry James.A. The AmbassadorsB. The Wings of the DoveC. The BostoniansD. The Mysterious Stranger

16. Generally speaking, all those writers with a naturalistic approach to human reality tend to be _________.A. transcendentalistsB. idealistsC. pessimistsD. impressionists

17. Ezra Pound’s long poem _________ contained more than one hundred poems loosely connected.A. The Waste LandB. The CantosC. Don JuanD. Queen Mab

18. T. S. Eliot’s first major poem _________(1917), has been called the first masterpiece of modernism in English.A. The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockB. The Waste LandC. Four QuartetsD. Preludes

19. Ernest Hemingway was badly wounded in Italy and sent to a hospital where he fell in love with a nurse. These twopersons later became the characters of his novel _________.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. For Whom the Bell TollsC. The Sun Also RisesD. A Farewell to Arms

20. In William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, he used a technique called _________, in which the whole story was toldthrough the thoughts of one character.A. stream of consciousnessB. imagism

C. symbolismD. naturalism

21. Led by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and ______, there arose a kind of teachings of transcendentalism inthe early nineteenth century.A.Herman MelvilleB. Henry David ThoreauC. Mark TwainD. Theodore Dreiser

22. A New ______ had appeared in England in the last years of the eighteenth century. It spread to continental Europe andthen came to America early in the nineteenth century.A. realismB. critical realismC. romanticismD. naturalism

23. From Henry David Thoreau’s jail experience, came his famous essay, ______ which states Thoreau’s belief that no manshould violate his conscience at the command of a government.A. WaldenB. Nature

C. Civil DisobedienceD. Common Sense

24. Mark Twain, one of the greatest 19th century American writers, is well known for his _________.A. international themeB. waste-land imageryC. local colorD. symbolism

25. Herman Melville’s ______ is an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy religion, etc. in addition to a detailedaccount of the operations of the whaling industry.A. The Old Man and the SeaB. Moby Dick

C. White Jacket C. Billy Budd

26. The ship “______” carried about one hundred Pilgrims and took 66 days to beat its way across the Atlantic. In Decemberof 1620, it put the Pilgrims ashore at Plymouth, Massachusetts.A. SunflowerB. ArmadaC. MayflowerD. Pequod

27. From 1733 to 1758, Benjamin Franklin wrote and published his famous ______, an annual collection of proverbs.

A. The AutobiographyB. Poor Richard’s AlmanacC. Common SenseD. The General Magazine

28. In American literature, the eighteen-century was the age of the Enlightenment. ______ was the dominant spirit.A. HumanismB. RationalismC. RevolutionD. Evolution

29. ______ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.A. Henry David ThoreauB. Ralph Waldo EmersonC. Nathaniel HawthorneD. Walt Whitman

30. Edgar Allen Poe’s first collection of short stories is ______.A. Tales of a TravelerB. Leatherstocking TalesC. Canterbury Tales

D. Tales of the Grotesque of Arabesque

31. ______ was a romanticized account of Herman Melville’s stay among the Polynesians. The success of the book soonmade Melville well known as the “man who lived among cannibals”.A. Moby DickB. TypeeC. OmooD. Billy Budd

32. Which is regarded as the “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”?A.The American ScholarB. English TraitsC. The Conduct of LifeD. Representative Men

33. The three dominant figures of the realistic period in American literature are _________.A. Theodore Dreiser, Emily Dickinson and William Dean HowellsB. Mark Twain, Henry James and William Dean HowellsC. Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser and William Dean HowellsD. Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson and William Dean Howells

34. American literature produced only one female poet during the nineteenth century. This was _________.

A. Anne BradstreetB. Jane AustenC. Emily DickinsonD. Harriet Beecher

35. In 1900, London published his first collection of short stories, named_________.A. The Son of the WolfB. The Sea WolfC. The Law of LifeD. White Fang

36. In Henry James’Daisy Miler, the author tries to portray the young woman as an embodiment of _________.A. the force of conventionB. the free spirit of the New WorldC. the decline of aristocracyD. the corruption of the newly rich

37. “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” This is the shortest poem written by_________.A. T.S. EliotB. Robert FrostC. Ezra PoundD.

E.E.Cumings

38. The Fitzgerald lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than F. Scot Fitzgerald earned for parties,liquor, entertaining their friends and traveling. It was this living style that nicknamed the decade of the 1920s as _________.A. The Roaring TwentiesB. The Jazz AgeC. The Dollar DecadeD. all of the above

39. In 1954, _________ was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his “mastery of the art of modern narration”.A. T.S Eliot

B. Ernest HemingwayC. John SteinbeckD. William Faukner

40. William Faukner’s novel _________ describes the decay and downfall of an old southern aristocratic family, symbolizingthe old social order, told from four different points of view.A. The Sound and the FuryB. Startoris

C. The Unvanquished

D. The Town

41. “The Lure of the Spirit: The Flesh in Pursuit” i s the title of one chapter in Dreiser’s novel _________.A. An American DreamB. Sister Carrie

C. Dreiser Looks at RussiaD. Jannie Gerhardt

42. The main theme of _________ The Art of Fiction reveals his literary credo that representation of life should be the mainobject of the novel.A. Henry James’B. William Dean Howells’C. Mark Twain’sD. O. Henry’s

43. With William Dean Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, _________became the major trend in theseventies and eighties of the nineteenth century.A. sentimentalismB. romanticismC. realismD. naturalism

44. While embracing the socialism of Marx, London also believed in the triumph of the strongest individuals. Thiscontradiction is most vividly projected in the patently autobiographical novel _________.A. The Call of the WildB. The Sea WolfC. Martin EdenD. The Iron Heel

45_________ is a novella about a young American girl who gets “killed” by the winter in Rome, and it brought Henry Jamesinternational fame for the first time.A. The AmericanB. The EuropeansC. Daisy MillerD. The Portait of a Lady

Answers: 1-5 DBCDA 6-10 DBDCA 11-15 BAAAD 16-20 CBADA21-25 BCCCB 26-30 CBBBD 31-35 BABCA 36-40 BCDBA 41-45 BACCCⅡFilling the following blanks with proper answers1.Captain John Smith became the first American writer.2.The puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people.

3.The first major intellectual spokesman of the Massachusetts Bay colony was John Cotton, sometimes called “the Patriarchof New England.”

4.Anne Bradstreet published The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, and she was nicknamed the tenth Muse.5.Poor Richard’s Almanac is an annual collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin.

6.Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet Common Sense boldly advocated a “Declaration for Independence”.

7.Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, andRobert Livingston.

8.Philip Freneau developed a natural, simple, and concrete diction, best illustrated in such nature lyrics as “The Wild HoneySuckle” and “The Indian Burying Ground”.

9.Philip Freneau has been called the “Father of American Poetry”.

10.In Washington Irving’s Sketch Book appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.11.Cooper’s enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novels that comprise the Leatherstocking tales.12.“To a Waterfowl” is perhaps the peak of William Cullen Bryant’s wok.

13.“Thanatopsis”, William Cullen Bryant’s best-known poem, consists of four stanzas in iambic tetrameter abab. The titlemeans “view of death”.

14.Edgar Allan Poe is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories”.15.Emerson believed above all in individualism, independence of mind, and self-reliance.

16.In Walden, Thoreau thought it better for a man to work one day a week and rest six, and the rest of the time could bedevoted to thought.

17.Hawthorne’s stories touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature.

18.Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.19.After his death, Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner of WestminsterAbbey.

20.Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, had become an American institution and the most famousliterary woman in the world.

21.William Dean Howells found his subject matter in the experiences of the American middle class.

22.William Dean Howells called for the treatment of the “smiling aspects of life” as being the more “American.”23.The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives werecontrolled by heredity and the environment.

24.The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called free verse.

25.O·Henry’s stories are usually short and interesting; Famous for their surprising end.

26.Henry James is famous for his international theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity of Europeanlife.

27.Jack London believed in the inevitable triumph of the strongest individuals.

28.Dreiser’s greatest and most successful novel, An American Tragedy, is about a young man who acts as if the only way hecan be truly fulfilled is by acquiring wealth—through marriage if necessary.

29.Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “Lost Generation,” devoid of faith andalienated from a civilization.

30.Wallace Stevens’ work is primarily motivated by the belief that “ideas of order”.

31.With the publication of The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway became the spokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called “alost generation.”

Ⅲ Decide whether the statements are true or false (T/F).

1. John Winthrop’s reports of exploration, published in the early 1600s, have been regarded as the first distinct Americanliterature written in English.

2. In 1612, William Bradford published in England a book called A Map of Virginia; With a description of the country.3. Philip Freneau was neoclassical by training and taste yet romantic in essential spirit.

4. Ralph Waldo Emerson was recognized as the leader of transcendentalist movement, but he always applied the term“Transcendentalist” to himself or to his beliefs and ideas.

5. To Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, the telling of a tale was a way of inquiring into the meaning of life.6. Walt Whitman was attacked in his lifetime for his offensive subject matter of sexuality and for his conventional style.7. Tom Sawyer walked out of Twain’s pages directly from his fresh memory of his boyhood in the west.8. Hurstwood is a character in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie.

9. In the decade of the 1910s, American literature achieved a new diversity and reached its greatest heights.10. Edwin Arlington Robinson began his career as a novalist in bleakness and poverty.

11.The greatest of America’s realists, such as Henry James and Mark Twain, moved well beyond a superficial portrayal ofnineteenth-century America.

12.Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Mark Twain or William Dean Howells.13.Sister Carrie is generally regarded as Theodore Dreiser’s masterpiece.

14.Generally speaking, Jack London was much more interested in ideas than Stephen Crane and less sentimental thanFrank Norris.

15.Ralph Waldo Emerson’s prose style was sometimes as highly individual as his poetry.16. American literature is the oldest of all national literature.

17. Georgia, Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New England, all were named after French monarchs and lands.18. Benjamin Franklin was a prose stylist whose writing reflected the neoclassic ideals of clarity, restraint, simplicity andbalance.

19. The Fall of the House of Usher is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems.

20. The Scarlet Letter is set in the seventeenth century. It is an elaboration of a fact which the author took out of the life of thePuritan past.

21. Walt Whitman was so great that he won respect and love during his lifetime for his Leaves of Grass.22. Many of O. Henry’s stories contain a lot of slang and colloquial expressions, just like his own speech.23. Henry James was a realist in the same way as one views the realism of Mark Twain or William Dean Howells.24. Robert Frost rejected the revolutionary poetic principles of his contemporaries, and chose “the old-fashioned way to benew” instead.

25. 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.26. Transcendentalists spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society.27. Washington Irving was the first great belletrist, writing always for pleasure, and to produce pleasure.

28. James Fennimore Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure tale and the frontier saga.29. Puritan influence over American Romanticism was conspicuously noticeable.30. “Young Goodman Brown” seems to prove everyone possesses some evil secrets1-5 FFTFT 6-10FTTFF 11-15 TFFTT 16-20 FFTFT 21-25FFFTT 26-30 TTTTT

ⅣAnswer the following questions briefly.

1. These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from theservice of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is noteasily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What weobtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly—This dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put aproper price upon its goods.Questions:

(1)Which book is this passage taken from?(2)Who is the author of this book?

(3)Whom is the author praising? Whom is the author criticizing?(4)What do you think of the language?Answers:

(1) The American Crisis.(2) Thomas Paine

(3) Paine is praising those who stand “it”, it referring to “the service of their country”. In the meantime, Paine is criticizing thosewho shrink from the service of their country in this crisis.

(4) The language is plain, impressive and forceful. Paine himself once said that his purpose as a writer was to use plainlanguage to make those who can scarcely read understand and to fit the powers of thinking and the turn of language to thesubject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question and nothing else.

2.It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho, was encountered.She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. Tosome the general interest in the White Whale was now widly heightened by circumstance of the Town-Ho’s story, whichseemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments ofGod which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, formingwhat may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or hismates…Nevertheless, so potent and influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the fullknowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secretamong themselves so that it never transpired

abaft the Pequod’s main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on theship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record.Questions:

(1)From which novel is this paragraph taken?(2) What is the name of the novelist?(3) Who is Ahab?(4) What is Pequod?

(5) What is the theme of the novel?Answers:(1) Moby Dick(2) Herman Melville

(3) The captain of the whaling ship(4) The name of the whaling ship

(5) The rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesomesometimes merciless forces.

3. When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomesbetter, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance, underthe circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more humantemper. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human. Thegleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing ofthe unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vastarray of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms. Without a counselor at hand to whisper cautiousinterpretations, what falsehoods may not these things breathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognized for what they are, theirbeauty, like music, too often relaxes, then weakens then perverts the simpler human perceptions.Questions:

(1) From which novel is this paragraph taken?(2) Who is the author of this novel?

(3) How do you understand “the cosmopolitan standard of virtue”?(4) Is there any naturalist tendency in this passage?Answers:(1)Sister Carrie(2) Theodore Dreiser

(3) “The cosmopolitan standard of virtue” is something that makes a person become low in virtue and become worse.(4) Yes.

4. Briefly discuss the novel The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is one of the greatest novels in American literature. It fully exploresthe disillusionment and despair of the lost generation through the personal tragedy of a young man whose “incorruptib leDream”is easily smashed into pieces by the crude reality. The protagonist, Gatsby, is a mythical figure whose intensity ofdream partakes of a state of mind that embodies American itself. His failure magnifies the end of the American Dream. Thestyle of the story is explicit and chilly. Fitzgerald’s accurate dialogues, his careful observation of mannerism and the colorfulimages provide the reader with a vivid and profound scene of the reality.5. What are the three main principles that Ezra Pound endorsed?(1)Directly treat poetic subjects.

(2)Eliminate merely ornamental or superfluous words.

(3)Rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of metronome.6.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 uses concise, simple dictions and syntax, while Walt Whitman uses endless, all-inclusivecatalogs.

ⅤEssay Writing (这个部分给⼤家的答案只是罗列了回答的要点，要将其连缀成⽂，如果简单按复习题给的答案罗列，只得⼀半分数)

1. Write a short essay about the novel The Grapes of Wrath

Writer: John Steinbeck----won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962; spoke for the oppressed and suffered Background

information: (1) Oklahoma used to be a major agricultural state. In the 1930s, a draught ruined this place. People had to leavehere to seek a way out. Many of them went to California in hope of finding jobs there to support their family. (2)The GreatDepression.

Meaning of title: (1) Hope to despair; (2) Wrath of people; (3) Indications of revolution.

Theme: (1) Embodying the mass misery of farmers; (2) Praising the spirit of love and unity; (3) Advocating fight and strugglefor better life.

Structure: (1) Its structure is dictated by the bible; (2) There are two blocks of material: a. the westward trek of the Joads; b.the depressed Oklahomans, and the general picture of the Great Depression.Symbols: (1) dust---evil forces; (2) grapes---hope→rage2. Write a short essay about the novel A Farewell to Arms

Writer: Hemingway---- (1) in 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize; (2) Main works: The Sun also Rises, A Farewell to

Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The old Man and the Sea. (3) His major contribution: a. Code hero---grace under pressure; b.Iceberg Theory---economy of expression; (4) the lost generationBackground information: World War Ⅱ

Theme: shows the filth, meaningless, calamity of war; the death, the nothingness of life; the disillusionment with future, hopeand love, happiness. The universe is indifferent. There is no God to watch over man.

Characters: Henry--- initially detached from life----though well-disciplined and friendly, he feels as if he has nothing to do withthe war. After falling in love with Catherine he became a code hero in some way. Catherine---code hero: unfaltering devotionto Henry, brave, considerate, optimistic

Symbols: rain---sadness, desperation, depression. It is raining outside almost every time something bad occurs. mud---nature's hostility to man.

3. Write a short essay about the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Author: Mark Twain—the first truly American writer, a local colorist; he used short, concrete and colloquial language; hissentences are simple, and even ungrammatical; good at writing children’s adventures; masterpieces including: TheAdventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

About the novel: The first famous novel about growing up and show ing the contradictions between adults’ world and

teenagers’ world, a story of his seeking for freedom, fame, fortune, love, manhood; reveals the American values such as herocomplex and American dream; records the rising Age of American Bourgeois system; bears

the irony and satire toward the religion and rigid, didactic children education, which curbed the imagination of children andtheir innate nature for freedom and adventures and molded them into a stereotype of lifeless man.4. Comment briefly on Theodore Dreiser’s theme and writing style?

Theme: Dreiser’s works are mainly concerned with the tragic nature of the human condition by depicting the coarse, vulgar,cruel, and terrible aspects of life like sex and crime.

Style: In terms of style, Dreiser has sometimes been censured for his clumsy syntax, deficient characterization, and inept anddull prose. Yet his accumulated detail, carefully selected and faithfully recorded, is a technique of power. Like the othernaturalists, he refused to judge—to consider people as good or evil. He clothes his concepts symbolically in the details ofreality. It is his journalistic method that has made him one of America’s foremost novelists.