● Emily Dickinson Dickinson’s poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no title, hence are always quoted by their first line. The form of her poetry is often irregular, and her irregular or sometimes inverted sentence structure also confuses readers. Her poems are usually short, concise, simple and direct, and many of them are centered on a single image or symbol and focused on subject matter. But, Dickinson’s poetry, despite its ostensible formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness.
I Die for Beauty
This is one of the most popular poems written by Emily Dickinson. Its theme is death, beauty and truth. Two persons died, one for beauty, one for truth. Beauty and truth are one, as Keats said, “Beauty is truth; truth, beauty.” So, as brothers, the two dead persons talked between two neighboring tombs until the moss covered their names on the gravestones. The poetess uses metaphors to change the gloomy atmosphere of death into a very beautiful and warm scene—the tombs become rooms, the dead become intimate brothers… What is most impressive is the unique and fanciful imagination:“…the moss had reached our lips”, which is both beautiful in image and rich in implication.
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
Notes :
(l) The Eyes around - had wrung them dry: The relatives and friends cried and cried so that there were no tears any more.
(2) the King, the God of death. .
(3) With Blue - uncertain stumbling Buzz: The sight of the dying became dim, but her listening
was sensitive.
In her poems about death, Dickinson looked at death from the point of view of both the living and the dying. She even imagined her own death, the loss of her own body, and the journey of her soul to the unknown world. This poem is a description of the moment of death, a poem universally considered one of her masterpieces. She was imagining: when she died, a fly buzz—the symbol of death; her relatives and friends had cried too much; the god of death came into the room. She made her last will and gave everything away to her relative and friends. Her sight became dim, but she could hear the fly; she felt as if the buzz was blue, then she could not see the windows, she could not see anything—darkness covered all.
1.What does the poem I Died for Beauty show about Dickinson’s viewpoint on death?
According to this poem, Dickinson thinks death is not terrible, and if one dies for beauty and truth, he can die without regret.
2.Why did Emily Dickinson use so many dashes and capital letters in her poems ?
Emily Dickinson uses dashes as a musical device to create cadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis.
● Mark Twain’ s Writing Style
a. Twain is known as a local colorist, who preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on. Consequently, the rich material became the endless resources for his fiction, and the Mississippi valley and the West became his major theme. Unlike James and Howells, Mark Twain wrote about the lower-class people, because they were the people he knew so well and their life was the one he himself had lived. Moreover he successfully used local color and historical settings to illustrate and shed
light on the contemporary society.
b. Another fact that makes Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of vernacular. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, ever ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language. And Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonists in their everyday life. What’s more, his characters, confined to a particular region and to a particular historical moment, speak with a strong accent, which is true of his local colorism.
c. Mark Twain’s humor is remarkable. A g reat deal of his humor is characterized by puns, straight-faced exaggeration, repetition and anti-climax, let alone tricks of travesty and invective. However, his humor is a kind of artistic style used to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism.
● Henry James Contribution
James fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with the international theme. These novels are always set against a larger international background, usually between Europe and America, and centered on the confrontation of the two different cultures with two different groups of people representing two different value systems. Henry James’s literary criticism is an indispensable part of his contribution to literature. It is both concerned with from and devoted to human valu es. The theme of his essay “The Art of Fiction” clearly indicates that the aim of the novel is to present life, so it is not surprising to find in his writings human experiences explored in every possible from: illusion, despair, reward, torment, inspiration, delight, etc. he also advocates the freedom the artist to write about anything that concerns him, even the disagreeable, the ugly and the commonplace. The artist should be able to “feel” the life, to understand human nature, and then to record them in his own art form.
Moreover, James’s realism is characterized by his psychological approach to his subject matter. James is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century “stream-of-consciousness” novels and the founder of psychological realism.As to his language, James is not so easy to understand.
Comprehension and Appreciation
Daisy Miller tells of a young American beauty from a rich family traveling in Europe with her vulgar but well-intentioned mother. Although she is intelligent and perceptive, she is too inexperienced to cope with the social conventions of an American enclave in Rome. She dies, pathetically, from malaria, leaving her love for Winterbourne, the Europeanized American, unrequited.
Conflict:The main conflict centers on the tension that arises between Daisy Miller and sophisticated Americans in Europe. They cannot abide her outspokenness and her flouting of prevailing European customs and traditions. Mrs. Walker says she is "reckless." Mrs. Costello labels her and her mother "horribly common."
Themes :The collision between the cultures of the Old World and the New World
Naturalism was an outgrowth of Realism.Realism focused on the description of the details of everyday existence as an expression of the social milieu of the characters.
Key themes of Naturalism in literature
?Survival, determinism, violence, and taboo as key themes.
?The "brute within" each individual, comprised of strong and often warring emotions: passions, such as lust, greed, or the desire for dominance or pleasure; and the fight for
survival in an amoral, indifferent universe. The conflict in naturalistic novels is often "man against nature" or "man against himself" as characters struggle to retain a "veneer of civilization" despite external pressures that threaten to release the "brute within."
?Nature as indifferent force acting on the lives of human beings. The romantic vision of Wordsworth—that "nature never did betray the heart that loved her"—here becomes Stephen Crane's view in "The Open Boat": "This tower was a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the individual—nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent."
?The forces of heredity and environment as they affect—and afflict—individual lives.
?An indifferent, deterministic universe. Naturalistic texts often describe the futile attempts of human beings to exercise free will, often ironically presented, in this universe that reveals free will as an illusion.
Literature of the 20th Century
II. Definition of Modernism
Modernism can be regarded as an advanced form of Realism, but more complex and more diversified than Realism. While Realism is concerned with what is the reality, Modernism cares more about how the reality is narrated. Besides, language is not just a transparent medium of reality, but it is constitutive of reality. It is characterized by some new experimentation on the form of literature and new interpretations, such as psychoanalysis, open-endedness, and perspectives.
● Robert Frost The Road Not Taken
Summary, Stanza 1 :On the road of life, the speaker arrives at a point where he must decide which of two equally appealing (or equally intimidating) choices is the better one. He examines one choice as best he can, but the future prevents him from seeing where it leads. Summary, Stanza 2: The speaker selects the road that appears at first glance to be less worn and therefore less traveled. This selection suggests that he has an independent spirit and does not wish to follow the crowd. After a moment, he concludes that both roads are about equally worn.
Summary, Stanza 3: Leaves cover both roads equally. No one on this morning has yet taken either road, for the leaves lie undisturbed. The speaker remains committed to his decision to take the road he had previously selected, saying that he will save the other road for another day. He observes, however, that he probably will never pass this way again and thus will never have an opportunity to take the other road.
Summary, Stanza 4: In years to come, the speaker says, he will be telling others about the choice he made. While doing so, he will sigh either with relief that he made the right choice or with regret that he made the wrong choice. Whether right or wrong, the choice will have had a significant impact on his life.
Notes:
1..The road beyond the bend may represent the future or the unknown, neither of which can be perceived.
2..Here, Frost uses personification, saying that the road has a claim.
3..Personification occurs here also if wanted means desired. No personification occurs,
however, if wanted means lacked.
4..Sigh can indicate relief or happiness, or it can indicate regret or sorrow. The interpretation of its meaning is up to the reader.
●T. S. Eliot II. Works
1. Poetry: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Waste Land
The Hollow Men
Ash Wednesday
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Four Quartets
Analysis of Anecdote of the Jar
Anecdote of the Jar
By
Wallace Stevens
In the poem, Anecdote of the Jar, Stevens portrays the complex relationship of human to nature through confusion of who is greater than whom, how they depend on each other, the connection between the two, and the form the poem is written in. Stevens forces the reader to feel the confusion and chaos present between the jar (a symbol for humans) and nature. This relationship can be felt and read through the form the poem is written in.
The poem uses confusing wording to show the relationship of humans to nature. For example, line 9 says, "It took dominion everywhere." "It" referring to nature, means the power that nature has over the jar (humans). Nature's dominant overpowering weakens humans. Humans then become powerless and vulnerable to whatever nature has become. Another line proving this dominance states, "The jar was gray and bare." This line describes the jar of being plain and simple. This normalcy becomes ineffective and powerless. The ordinary doesn't have as much power as the objects that stick out from the crowd. Humans don't seem to stand out in the vastness of the wilderness.
The next line turns the control in an interesting way: "It did not give of bird or bush." Because the jar was in the previous line, it is natural to think "it" in this line refers to the jar. The plot begins to thicken as it was previously suggested that the wilderness had all the control in the relationship. The jar now becomes an authority because it will not give into the natural world. To the reader, the relationship just became undefined. The power was turned over from nature to man.
Stevens also shows the dominance issue in the beginning of the poem. He says, "It made the slovenly wilderness /Surround that hill." The authority is placed again in front of the jar. The wilderness is careless and aware of this new object placed in its environment. Then the poem states, "The wilderness rose up to it, / And sprawled around no longer wild." The roles are reversed once again. The wilderness is now in charge. The reversal of the roles contained the poem in an environment of utter confusion. Stevens showed the audience that this relationship really was chaotic, throughout the poem, to prove his point.
Stevens created this confusing state to allow the reader to really feel what the relationship is between the two. This relationship is hard to understand and is something that cannot be set. Using irregular rhymes and wording, Stevens is able to create this unsolvable relationship. Taking a step away from the poem to real life proves that Stevens is correct in his undertaking
of ideas from human to nature. For example, this very paper is from a tree that man has cut down, showing that nature was defenseless in the act. On the other hand, there are certainly a number of hurricanes, tornadoes, avalanches, etc. happening in the world today. Humans can do nothing to prevent these disasters from happening. Neither human nor wilderness is the dominant source.
With all the confusion in the poem, Stevens reveals an underlying message to the reader. Line 7 in the poem reads, "The jar was round upon the ground. " This section of the poem shows the dependency of humans on nature. Through the rhymes of "round" and "ground", we can see the relationship. To achieve a rhyme such as this, the two words have to be consistent and dependent on each other. Stevens shows the dependent relationship of humans to nature through these two words. It is a very solid line that helps the reader not to be totally confused when reading the poem. This line also begins to show the base for the relationship.
The next line (8) also supports this hidden security of the relationship between human and the natural world. It says, "And tall and of a port in air." This line represents the unseen connection between human and nature. The "port" refers to a connecting force that ties the relationship together. The jar, being "tall" in the air, represents the depth of the relationship. Above the initial confusion and chaos, there is a deeper meaning to the relationship. The "port" runs through the confusion to get above it and reveal the true relationship. Stevens used the word "air" to represent the unseen connection. We, as humans, depend on air to survive. Although we have never seen, touched, or heard air, we know that it is there and depend on it to live. Stevens refers to air to show the unseen connection between mankind and the natural world. This connection is very important and crucial to the relationship. In fact, the relationship depends on this connection.
Another way to look at the connection of humans to the natural world is through the first and last lines of the poem. These two lines embody the poem to start and finish in a calm way. Both end in the word Tennessee. This can show the relationship outline as being simple. Just as the port went above all the chaos, the outline of the poem goes around the chaos The first line of the poem is the beginning of the relationship. This opens the reader in a confusing state to figure out what Stevens is really trying to get across. This mass confusion is the body of the relationship. Somewhere in the poem, Stevens shows in a deeper meaning of the relationship through a connection. As the poem nears the end, the same word is used to end the poem. That is the end of the relationship; there is no more to be added. It leaves the reader feeling satisfied, even if he or she didn't understand the content of the poem.
Stevens truly does a wonderful job of portraying the relationship of humans to nature. By using the jar to represent man, he was successful in creating an environment not only expressed in the poem, but also felt by the reader. He used irregular rhymes and role changes to express the complex relationship. The reader is left with confusion but an slight understanding of the relationship. Stevens expressed the relationship of humans to nature very well in this piece of work.
《英美文学选读》模拟试题（一） 一、单项选择题 1.The excerpt from Chapter 10 of Sons and Lovers ends with the conflict between Paul and his mother. The conflict is possibly caused by Paul and his mother’s different views towards _____. A. Paul’s father B. art C. life D. Paul’s brother 2.The _____ can be regarded as one of the themes of Joyce’s story “Araby”. A. loss of innocence 在所有有關童年故事中，孩子都是同叔叔同姨媽同住，父母則不在身邊—這便是一種象征，象征父母與孩子之間骨肉親情的隔絕和一種正常關系的缺 失. B. childish love C. awareness of harsh life D. false sentimentality 錯誤的多愁善感 3.After reading “Araby”, one more feel the story has a _____ tone. A. joyous B. harsh C. solemn D. painful 4.In “Araby”, Joyce’s diction evokes a sort of _____ quality that characterizes the boy on this otherwise altogether ordinary shopping trip. A. religious B. moral C. sentimental D. vulgar 5.The major concern of _____ fiction lies in the tracing of the psychological development of his characters and in his energetic criticism of the dehumanizing effect of the capitalist industrialization on human nature. A. D. H. Lawrence’s B. J. Galsworthy’s C. W. Thackeray’s D. T. Hardy’s 6.The mission of _____ drama was to reveal the moral, political and economic truth
英美文学名词解释总结 Romance:Anyimaginationliteraturethatissetinanidealizedworldandth atdealswithaheroicadventuresandbattlesbetweengoodcharactersandvi llainsormonsters.传奇故事：指以理想化的世界为背景并且描写主人公的英雄冒险事迹和善与恶的斗争的想象文学作品。 Alliteration:Therepetitionoftheinitialconsonantsoundsinpoetry.头韵：诗歌中单词开头读音的重复。 Couplet:Itisapairofrhymingverselines,usuallyofthesamelength;oneoft hemostwidelyusedverse-sinEuropeanpoetry.Chaucerestablishedtheus eofcoupletsinEnglish,notablyintheCanterburyTales,usingrhymingiam bicpentameterslaterknownasheroiccoupletsBlankverse:Versewritteni nunrhymediambicpentameter.素体诗：用五音步抑扬格写的无韵诗。 Conceit:Akindofmetaphorthatmakesacomparisonbetweentwostartlin glydifferentthings.Aconceitmaybeabriefmetaphor,butitusuallyprovid estheframeworkforanentirepoem.Anespeciallyunusualandintellectual kindofconceitisthemetaphysicalconceit.新奇的比喻：将两种截然不同的食物进行对比的一种隐喻。 它虽被视为是一种隐喻，但是它往往构建了整首诗的框架，
英语专业-英美文学试卷及答案-期末
英美文学试卷A 共9页第 I. Mark the following statements as true (T) or false (F). (10 x 1’=10’) 1. ( ) Chaucer is the first English short-story teller and the founder of English poetry as well as the founder of English realism. His masterpiece The Canterbury tales contains 26 stories. 2. ( ) English Renaissance is an age of essay and drama. 3. ( ) The rise of the modern novel is closely related to the rise of the middle class and an urban life. 4. ( ) The French Revolution and the American War of Independence were two big influences that brought about the English Romantic Movement. 5. ( ) Charlotte’s novels are all about lonely and neglected young women with a fierce longing for life and love. Her novels are more or less based on her own experience and feelings and the life as she sees around. 6. ( ) The leading figures of the naturalism at the turn of 19th century are Thomas Hardy, John Galsworthy and Bernard Shaw. 7. ( ) Emily Dickinson is remembered as the “All American Writer”. 8. ( )The Civil War divides the American literature into romantic literature and realist literature. 9. ( ) Mark Twain is the first American writer to discover an American language and American consciousness.
美文学这门科目庞大之极，堪称英本自考之最。自己一个人看那么厚的一本书，不用说能不能看下来，能记住多少实在不好说！ 我在复习的时候，总结了一些规律，与大家分享，望对你有用，帮你顺利通过！ 1.题型分析： 一般来讲，肯定是这种类型：a.单项选择题（40道，40分） b.引文简析（无非就是问问作者是谁，出自哪个作品，主题意象什么的，4道，16分）c.简答题（4道，24分）d.论述题（无非就是分析加读后感，20分） 经验：你应该可以看出来了，重点当然是单选了，分数大，又好得分，实在不行还可以蒙。建议尽可能把书看一遍，但不要看作者生平，那肯定不会考。有个印象就可以了，不用去背，如果你汉语文学功底好，可以省去不少时间。 2.比例分析 据本人统计，历年来英美文学的国考试卷中英国文学占52%，美国文学占48%。（2003年4月例外，其中英国部分58%）其中，可以看出 单选题：前22题肯定为英国部分，其余为美国部分。 大题部分：基本上是一人一半，各占50% 经验：书上共652页，英国411页，美国241页。英国作家共38位，美国15位。其中，美国部分中，诗歌作品也比较少，比较好确认。结论：死学美国，顺带英国。 3.内容分析 历年命题的趋势逐渐由课文内容向选读作品转移，选读的比重越来越大。 经验：课文内容作到大体了解，但要特别重视作家艺术特色。选读部分加大力度，多注意书上的注释及选文大意和某些细节，尽量作到能用英语复述。实在不行，也至少作到能用汉语复述。 4.真题解析及预测 自学考试的一大特点就是重复率高，所以历年试题是必惫的复习材料，不可缺少。有人说：“一套真题等于3套模拟题！”这话绝对没错。所以要花大力气在上面。记得我考那回就有一道10分大题和前一年的一模一样。 注：马克吐温的《哈克贝里费恩历险记》的分析在2000~2002年中，连续考了三次。 经验：注意历年真题，尤其是去年的。去年的10分大题大致如下： a.《傲慢与偏见》中的三种婚姻 b.《白鲸》选文作品复述几分析象征意义。 ================================================ 4月14日]投机取巧教你过英美文学[压题篇] 本文是投机取巧过英美文学的最后一篇，收录北京市2004年4月10日英美文学考试的试题(除选择题外)，是我在北京自考论坛处网友处所得，特此对提供帮助的朋友表示感谢。 二、1、Thomas Gray：Elegy in the Country Churchyard的第一段 2、Yeats的Down by the sallen garden，考的是他俩站在河边，那个女孩*在他肩头，他觉得自己年轻懵懂，而且泪流满面。 3、Emyly Bronte的Whuthering Heights里面Hethcliff在他lover临死之前的那段表现，还问了narrator 是谁 4、Emlily Dikinson的I Heard a Fly Buzz--When I died，问那个blue Buzz是什么意思
英美文学选读-阶段测评4 成绩：30分 一、Multiple Choice 共40 题 题号: 1 本题分数:2.5 分 ( )is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th—century “stream—of—consciousness” novels and the founder of psychological realism. A、Theodore Dreiser B、William Faulkner C、Henry James D、Mark Twain (P498.para.2)亨利.詹姆斯是美国现实主义文学大师，他的作品往往涉及美国之外的主题，其作品的风格是“心理活动”。被誉为20世纪美国意识流文学的先驱。 标准答案：C 考生答案：D 本题得分：0 分 题号: 2 本题分数:2.5 分 Closely related to Dickinson’s religious poetry are her poems concerning( ),ranging over the physical as well as the psychological and emotional aspects of death. A、love and nature B、death and universe C、death and immortality D、family and happiness （P518para2）迪金森的诗歌涉及宗教和爱情两方面，而其涉及宗教的诗歌往往是以死亡和永恒为主题的，所以答案是C。 标准答案：C 考生答案：A
Part One：English Poetry 1.William Shakespeare Sonnet 18 ?Why does the poet compare `thee` to a summer?s day? And who could `thee` be? Because summer?s day and thee both represent beauty . thee could be beauty, love. ?What picture have you got of English summer, and could you explain why? Warm, beautiful, sunshine. Because summer is the best season of a year ,the most beautiful season. It is like our May. ?How does the poet answer the question he puts forth in the first line? Thee is more beautiful than summer. ?What makes the poet think that “thou” can be more fair than summer and immortal? Because humanism is more eternal than summer and immortal. ?What figures of speech are used in this poem? Simile, metaphor, personification, oxymoron and so on . ?What is the theme of the poem? Love conquers all, Beauty lives on. 2. Thomas Nashe Spring ?Read the poem carefully, pay attention to those image- bearing words, and see how many images the poet created in the poem and what sense impressions you can get from those images. There is “Blooms each thing, maids dance in a ring, the pretty birds do sing, the palm and may make country houses gay, Lambs frisk' and play, the shepherds pipe all day, And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay, The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit, In every street these tunes bur ears do greet!” The “Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit，”impressions me most because of the harmony of the people?s relationship. ?Can you point out and explain the sound and their musical effect in the poem? In the Poem, each section has four lines, each line has ten syllables ( five tone step ) . In order to give the reader a spring breeze , streams , flowers , winding , Song Xin texture of sound and light flavor, Naixi greater uses English word S , z , f , V , R , L , and θconsonants means. In Naixi's poem, the use of phonological is also very harmonious, very smooth , very mellow. Section I of the poetry has Three pairs [ ing ] , section II of the poem has three pairs [ ei ] and the third quarter has three pairs [ i : ]. 3.John Donne A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning ?What is a “valediction” any way? Is the speaker in the poem about to die? Why does the speaker forbid mourning? No, it is about the lover s?separation. As the poem metaphors, the poet believed he and his wife?s love is sacred, he didn?t hope they cry when separation comes, let their love be stained by the ordinary and mundane.
1. In the medieval period ， it is Chaucer alone who ， for the first time in English literature ， presented to usa comprehensive __picture of the English society of his time and created a whole galery of vivid ___ from all walks of life in his masterpiece “the Canterbury Tales ”。 A. visionary / women B. romantic /men C. realistic / characters D. natural / figures 2. Although ____ was essentially a medieval writer, he bore marks of humanism and anticipated a new era of literature to come. A. William Langland B. John Gower C. Geoffrey Chaucer D. Edmund Spenser 3. Humanism spume from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique authors and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious ，intellectual side ，for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on the conception that man is the ____ of all things . A. measure B. king C. lover D. rule 4. The essence of humanism is to ______. A. restore a medieval reverence for the church B. avoid the circumstances of earthly life C. explore the next world in which men could live after death D. emphasize human qualities 5. Many people today tend to regard the play “ The Merchant of Venice ” as a satire of the hypocrisy of ___ and their false standards of friendship and love ， their cunning ways of pursuing worldliness and their unreasoning prejudice against _________ . A. Christians / Jews B. Jews / Christians C. oppressors / oppressed D. people / Jews 6. In “ Sonnet 18 ”， Shakespeare has a profound meditation on the destructive power of _________ and the eternal __________ brought forth by poetry to the one he loves . A. death/ life B. death/ love C. time / beauty D. hate / love 7.In The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan describes The Vanity Fair in a ______ tone. A. delightful B. satirical C. sentimental D. solemn 8. The religious reformation in the early 16th-century England was a reflection of the class struggles waged by the _____. A. rising bourgeoisie against the feudal class and its ideology B. working class against the corruption of the bourgeoisie C. landlord class against the rising bourgeoisie and its ideology D. feudal class against the corruption of the Catholic Church 9. The ______ was a progressive intellectual movement throughout western Europe in the 18th century . A. Renaissance B. Enlightenmrent C. Religious Reformation D. Chartist Movement 10.The 18th century witnessed a new literary form -the modern English novel, which, contrary to the medieval romance, gives a ______ presentation of life of the common English people. A. romantic B. idealistic C. prophetic D. realistic 1. The title of the novel “ A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ” written by James Joyce suggests a character study with strong _________ elements .
[职业资格类试卷]教师公开招聘考试中学英语（英美文学）模拟试卷5 词汇与结构 1 The famous novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written by______. （A）Edgar Ellen Poe （B）Henry James （C）Mark Twain （D）Theodore Dreiser 2 The famous actress Audrey Hepburn's musical comedy My Fair Lady was adapted from the play Pygmalion which was written by______. （A）Eugene O' Neil （B）Bernard Shaw （C）Ernest Hemingway （D）Jack London 3 The play Death of a Salesman was written by______. （A）Arthur Miller （B）William Faulkner （C）Edward E. Cummings
（D）Eugene O'Neil 4 Of the following works, which one is not written by Mark Twain? （A）The Gilded Age （B）Life on the Mississippi （C）The Adventures of Tom Sawyer （D）Uncle Tom's Cabin 5 Which works was regarded as the "National epic of the English people"? （A）The Canterbury Tales （B）Anglo-Saxon Chronicle （C）Beowulf （D）Le Morte D'Arthur(the Death of King Arthur) 6 Geoffrey Chaucer is known as______. （A）Father of English Prose （B）Father of British Poetry （C）the Poet's poet （D）University Wits 7 Who is not the representative of English humanists?
《英美文学选读》模拟试题（二） 一、单项选择题 1.D. Father and son in the medieval period, it is Chaucer alone who, for the first time in English literature, presented to us a comprehensive _____ picture of the English society of his time and created a whole gallery of valid _________ from all walks of life in his masterpiece “the Canterbury Tales”. A. visionary/women B. romantic/men C. realistic/characters D. natural/figures 2.Humanism sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique authors and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on the conception that man is the _____ of all things. A. measure B. king C. lover D. rule 3.Many people today tend to regard the play “The Merchant of Venice” as a satire of the hypocrisy of ___________ and their false standards of friendship and love, their cunning ways of pursuing worldliness and their unreasoning prejudice against _____. A. Christians/Jews B. Jews/Christians C. oppressors/oppressed D. people/Jews 傳統的理論認為該劇的主題是褒揚安東尼奧Antonio與巴塞尼奧Bassanio之間的友誼，贊美鮑西婭Portia的完美:美貌，智慧與堅貞，並揭露了Jews--Shylock的貪婪與殘忍 但是經曆了几個世紀對對Jews不會平的待遇,今天許多人將該劇的主題看作chritains的hypocrisy ,為追求世俗利益而不擇手段以及對Jews不公正的偏見 補充閱讀 1) Bassanio——Portia 2) Antonio——Shylock The traditional theme of the play is to praise the friendship betweem Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of greate beaulity, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable greed and brutality o f the Jew. Tody, many people tend to regard the play as a satire of the christians’ hypocrisy and their false standards of frindship and love, their cunning way of pursuing worldliness(俗心, 俗气) and their unreasoning prejudice against Jews.
英美文学史名词解释 Document number：NOCG-YUNOO-BUYTT-UU986-1986UT
英美文学史名词解释 1.English Critical Realism English critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the forties and in the early fifties. The realists first and foremost criticized the capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint and delineated (portrayed) the crying (extremely shocking) contradictions of bourgeois reality. The greatness of the English realists lies not only in their satirical portrayal of bourgeoisie and in the exposure of the greed and hypocrisy of the ruling classes, but also in their sympathy for the laboring people. Humor and satire are used to expose and criticize the seamy (dark) side of reality. The major contribution of the critical realists lies in their perfection of the novel. Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray are the most important representative of English critical realism. 2.The "Stream of Consciousness" The "stream of consciousness" is a psychological term indicating "the flux of conscious and subconscious thoughts and impressions moving in the mind at any given time independently of the person's will." In late 19th century, the literary device of "interior monologue" was originated in France as an application of modern psychological knowledge to literary creations. In the 20th century, under the influence of Freud 's theory of psychological analysis, a number of writers adopted the "stream of consciousness" method of novel writing. The striking feature
Comment on Walden In 1845, Thoreau decided to conduct an experiment of self-sufficiency by building his own house on the shores of Walden Pond and living off the food he grew on his farm. He sought to reduce his physical needs to a minimum, in order to free himself for study, thought, and observation of nature, himself. Walden can be many things and can be read on more than one level. But it is, first and foremost, a book about man, what he is, and what he should be and must be. Considered one of the all-time great books, Walden is a record of Thoreau's two year experiment of living at Walden Pond. The writer's chief emphasis is on the simplifications and enjoyment of life now. It is regarded as 1. a nature book.2. a do-it-yourself guide to simple life. 3. a satirical criticism of modern life and living. 4. a belletristic achievement 5. a spiritual book. The Scarlet Letter Symbolic meaning of the letter “A” :1.The scarlet letter “A” is the central symbol of the novel. At the beginning it symbolized the sin of Hester—“adultery”, 2.then gradually when Hester became accepted by the community, it stands for Hester’s intelligence and diligence—“able”. 3.At the end of the novel the symbol has evolved to represent the high virtues of Hester Prynne—“angel”. Comments on The Scarlet Letter:1.The theme of the story should be the moral, emotional and psychological effects of the sin on people. 2.Scarlet Letter is a cultural allegory, in which the author indirectly tells the future of Puritanism.3.Scarlet Letter is a sample in which American Romanticism adapted itself to American Puritanism.(Because of the strong influence of Puritanism in American society, Hawthorne only expressed his ideas on the sin indirectly by employing symbolism.) Symbolism in the novel Moby Dick A. the voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” B. the Pequod is the ship of the American soul and consciousness. C. Moby Dick is a symbol of evil to some, of goodness to others, and of both to still others. D. The whiteness of Moby Dick is a paradoxical color, signifying death and corruption as well as purity, innocence and youth; it represents the final mystery of the universe. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Setting: unpopulated wildness an a dense forest along Mississippi River Characters:1.Ignorant uneducated black slave Jim2.Uneducated outcast white boy Huck Finn。Theme: Huck’s inner waving struggle between what he was taught and what he thought out of good-heart and humanity.Its Features：1.Profound portrait of Huckleberry Finn 2.Magic power with language, the use of vernacular. 3. Humor In a Station of the Metro1 by Ezra Pound The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough. Note: 1。a Paris subway station Analysis of this poem The poem’s form is similar to Japanese haiku, with considering its title as a verse-line. The word “apparition” has double meaning:1. “appearance”, something which can be clearly observed;2. something which seems real but perhaps is not real; something ghostly which cannot be clearly observed. Petals may refer to the faces in the crowd, while bough may refer to the railway in the Metro.
[考研类试卷]英语专业（英美文学）模拟试卷6 一、填空题 1 ______is often given the credit for the discovery of the modern novel; but whether or not he deserves that honor remains an open question. 2 "If the censure of Yahoo could any way affect me, I should have great reason to complain that some of them are so bold as to think my book of travels a mere fiction out of mine own brain." This question is selected from______. 3 Henry Fielding has been regarded as "______", for his contribution to the establishment of the form of the modern novel. 4 British novel came of age in______. 5 The Vicar of Wakefield is the only novel of______, which describes misfortunes falling on the central character and the family. 6 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by______is taken a model of sentimentalist poetry, esp. the Graveyard school. 7 Friday is a character in the novel______. 8 Among the representatives of the Enlightenment,______was the first to introduce rationalism to England. 9 Essay on Criticism is a didactic poem written in the form of______. 10 Auld Lang Syne written by______deals with the friendship and has long become a universal parting-song of all the English-speaking countries. 11 War in Crane's novel______is a plain slaughterhouse. There is nothing like valor or heroism on the battlefield, and if there is anything, it is the fear of death, cowardice, the natural instinct of man to run form danger. 12 The literary career of Henry James is generally divided into______periods, in the first period(1865-1882), James took great interest in______theme.