全国2002年4月高等教育自学考试
英美文学选读试题
课程代码：00604
Ⅰ.Multiple Choice (40 points in all, 1 for each)
Select from the four choices [A],[B],[C],[D] of each item the one that best answers the question or completes the statement and write the letter on the answer sheet.
1.Romance,which uses narrative verse or prose to tell stories of ___ adventures or other heroic deeds, is a popular literary form in the medieval period.
A.Christian
B.knightly
C.Greek
D.primitive
2.Among the great Middle English poets, Geoffrey Chaucer is known for his production of ___.
A.Piers Plowman
B.Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
C.Confessio Amantis
D.The Canterbury Tales
3.Which of the following historical events does not directly help to stimulate the rising of the Renaisssance Movement?
A.The rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman culture.
B.The new discoveries in geography and astrology.
C.The Glorious revolution.
D.The religious reformation and the economic expansion.
4.Which of the following statements best illustrates the theme of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18?
A.The speaker eulogizes the power of Nature.
B.The speaker satirizes human vanity.
C.The speaker praises the power of artistic creation.
D.The speaker meditates on man's salvation.
5.“And we will sit upon the rocks,/Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,/By shallow rivers to
whose falls/Melodious birds sing madrigals.”The above lines are probably taken from __.
A.Spenser's The Faerie Queene
B.John Donne's “The Sun Rising”
C.Shakespeare's “Sonnet 18”
D.Marlowe's “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
6.“Bassanio:Antonio,I am married to a wife
Which is as dear to me as life itself;
But life itself, My wife, and all the world.
Are not with me esteem'd above thy life;
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all,
Here to the devil, to deliver you.
Portia:Your wife would give you little thanks for that,
If she were by to hear you make the offer.”
The above is a quotation taken from Shakespeare's comedy The Merchant of Venice.
The quoted part can be regarded as a good example to illustrate ____.
A.dramatic irony
B.personification
C.allegory
D.symbolism
7.The ture subject of John Donne's poem,“The Sun Rising,”is to ___.
A.attack the sun as an unruly servant
B.give compliments to the mistress and her power of beauty
C.criticize the sun's intrusion into the lover's private life
D. lecture the sun on where true royalty and riches lie
8.Of all the 18th century novelists Henry Fielding was the first to set out, both in theory and practice, to write specifically a “___ in prose,”the first to give the modern novel its structure and style.
A.tragic epic
https://www.doczj.com/doc/3a16208739.html,ic epic
C.romance
D.lyric epic
9.The Houyhnhnms depicted by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels are ___.
A.horses that are endowed with reason
B.pigmies that are endowed with admirable qualities
C.giants that are superior in wisdom
D.hairy,wild, low and despicable creatures, who resemble human beings not only in appearance but also in some other ways.
10.Here are four lines from a literary work:“Others for language all their care express,/And value books,as women men, for dress.”The work is ___.
A.Thomas Gray's “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
B.John Milton's Paradise Lost
C.Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism
D.Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream
11.The phrase “to urge people to abide by Christian doctrines and to seek salvation through
constant struggles with their own weaknesses and all kinds of social evils”may well sum up the implied meaning of ___.
A.Gulliver's Travels
B.The Rape of the Lock
C.Robinson Crusoe
D.The pilgrim's Progress
12.William Wordsworth, a romantic poet, advocated all the following EXCEPT ___.
A.the use of everyday language spoken by the common people
B.the expression of the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings
C.the use of humble and rustic life as subject matter
D.the use of elegant wording and inflated figures of speech
13.Which of the following is taken from John Keats’“Ode on a Grecian Urn”?
A.“I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”
B.“They are both gone up to the church to pary.”
C.“Earth has not anything to show more fair.”
D.“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”.
14.“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind!”is an epigrammatic line by __.
A.J.Keats
B.W.Blake
C.W.Wordsworth
D.P.B.Shelley
15.“Ode o na Grecian Urn”shows the contrast between the ___ of art and the ___ of human
passion.
A.glory …ugliness
B.permanence…transience
C.transience…sordidness
D.glory…permanence
16.In the statement“—oh,God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?”the term“soul”
apparently refers to ___.
A.Heathcliff himself
B.Catherine
C.one's spiritual life
D.one's ghost
17.The typical feature of Robet Browning's poetry is the ___.
A.bitter satire
https://www.doczj.com/doc/3a16208739.html,rger-than-life caricature
https://www.doczj.com/doc/3a16208739.html,tinized diction
D.dramatic monologue
18.The Victorian Age was largely an age of ____,eminently represented by Dickens and Thackeray.
A.poetry
B.drama
C.prose
D.epic prose
19.___is the first important governess novel in the English literary history.
A.Jane Eyre
B.Emma
C.Wuthering Heights
D.Middlemarch
20.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.
https://www.doczj.com/doc/3a16208739.html,wrence's
B.J.Galsworthy's
C.W.Thackeray’s
D.T.Hardy’s
21.___is considered to be the best-known English dramatist since Shakespeare, and his representative works are plays inspired by social criticism.
A.Richard Sheridan
B.Oliver Goldsmith
C.Oscar Wilde
D.Bernard Shaw
22.Which of the following is NOT a typical feature of Modernism?
A.To elevate the individual and inner being over the social being.
B.To put the stress on traditional values.
C.To portray the distorted and alienated relationships between man and his environment.
D.To advocate a conscious break with the past.
23.The Romantic writers would focus on all the following issues EXCEPT the ___ in the American
literary histrory.
A.individual feelings
B.idea of survival of the fittest
C.strong imagination
D.return to nature
24.Henry David Thoreau's work,__,has always been regarded as a masterpiece of New England
Transcendentalism.
A.Walden
B.The pioneers
C.Nature
D.Song of Myself
25.The famous 20-years sleep in “Rip Van Winkle”helps to construct the story in such a way that
we are greatly affected by Irving's ___.
A.concern with the passage of time
B.expression of transient beauty
C.satire on laziness and corruptibility of human beings
D.idea about supernatural manipulation of man's life
26.Walt whitman was a pioneering figure of American poetry. His innovation first of all lies in his
use of __,poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.
A.blank verse
B.heroic couplet
C.free verse
D.iambic pentameter
27.The literary characters of the American type in early 19th century are generally characterized by
all the following features EXCEPT that they ___.
A.speak local dialects
B.are polite and elegant gentlemen
C.are simple and crude farmers
D.are noble savages( red and white) untainted by society
28.Hester Pryme, Dimmsdale,Chillingworth and Pearl are most likely the names of the characters
in ___.
A.The Scarlet Letter
B.The House of the Seven Gablest
C.The Portrait of a Lady
D.The pioneers
29.“This is my letter to the World”is a poetic expression of Emily Dickinson's __ about her
communication with the outside world.
A.indifference
B.anger
C.anxiety
D.sorrow
30.With Howells,James,and Mark Twain active on the literary scene, __ became the major trend
in American literature in the seventies and eighties of the 19th century.
A.sentimentalism
B.romanticism
C.realism
D.naturalism
31.After The adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain gives a literary independence to Tom's buddy Huck
in a book entitled ___.
A.Life on the Mississippi
B.The Gilded Age
C.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
D.A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
32.However,___,the keynote of Daisy Miller's character,turns out to be an admiring but a
dangerous quality and her defiance of social taboos in the Old World finally brings her to a disaster in the clash between two different cultures.
A.experience
B.sophistication
C.worldliness
D.innocence
33.Generally speaking,all those writers with a naturalistic approach to human reality tend to be ___.
A.transcendentalists
B.idealists
C.pessimists
D.impressionists
34.Emily Dickinson wrote many short poems on various aspects of life.Which of the following is
NOT a usual subject of her poetic expression?
A.Religion and immortality.
B.Life and death.
C.Love and marriage.
D.War and peace.
35.In “After Apple-Picking,”Robert Frost wrote:“For I have had too much/Of applepicking:I am
overtired/Of the great harvest I myself desired.”From these lines we can conclude that the speaker is ___.
A.happy about the harvest
B.still very much interested in apple-picking
C.expecting a greater harvest
D.indifferent to what he once desired
36.Chinese poetry and philosophy have exerted great influence over ____.
A.Ezra Pound
B.Ralph Waldo Emerson
C.Robert Frost
D.Emily Dickinson
37.The Hemingway Code heroes are best remembered for their __.
A.indestructible spirtie
B.pessimistic view of life
C.war experiences
D.masculinity
38.IN The Emperor Jones and T he Hairy Ape,O'Neill adopted the expressionist techniques to
portray the ___ of human beings in a hostile universe.
A.helpless situation
B.uncertainty
C.profound religious faith
D.courage and perseverance
39.In Hemingway's “Indian Cmap”,Nick's night trip to the Indian village and his experience inside
the hut can be taken as ____.
A.an essential lesson about Indian tribes
B.a confrontation with evil and sin
C.an initiation to the harshness of life
D.a learning process in human relationship
40.which of the following statements about Emily Grierson, the protagonist in Faulkner's story
“A Rose for Emily,”is NOT true?
A.She has a distorted personality.
B.She is physically deformed and paralyzed.
C.She is the symbol of the old values of the South.
D.She is the victim of the past glory.
PART TWO
Ⅱ.Reading Comprehension (16 points, 4 for each)
Read the quoted parts carefully and answer the questions in English.Write your answer in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.
41.“Her eyes met his and he looked away.He neither believed nor disbelieved her,but he knew that
he had made a mistake in asking;he never had known,never would know,what she was thinking.The sight of her inscrutable face,the thought of all the hundreds of evenings he had seen her sitting there like that,soft and passive,but so unreadable, unknown, enraged him beyond measure.”
Questions:
A.Identify the writer and the work.
B.What does the phrase “inscrutable face”mean?
C.What idea does the quoted passage express?
42.“And when I am formulated,sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall.
Then how should begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways.”
Questions:
A.Identify the poem and the poet.
B.What does the phrase “butt-ends”mean?
C.What idea does the quoted passage express?
43.“God knows,…I'm not myself—I'm somebody else—…and I'm changed,and I can't tell what's
my name,or who I am.”
Questions:
A.Identify the work and the author.
B.The speaker says he is changed.Do you think he is changed, or the social environment has
changed?
C.What idea does the quoted sentence express?
44.“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere 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:
A.Idenfity the poem and the poet.
B.What does the phrase “ages and ages hence”mean?
C.What idea does the quoted passage express?
Ⅲ.Questions and Answers(24 points in all, 6 for each)
Give brief answers to each of the following questions in English.Write your answers in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.
45.As a rule,an allegory is story in verse or prose with a double meaning: a surface meaning,and an
implied meaning.List two works as examples of allegory.What is an allegory usually concerned with by its implied meaning?
46.Inspiration for the romantic approach initially came from two great shapers of thought.Who are
the two?And what ideas they expressed inspire the romantic writers?
47.The white whale,Moby Dick,is the most important symbol in Melville's novel.What symbolic
meaning can you draw from it?
48.Nature is a philosophic work, in which Emerson gives an explicit discussion on his idea of the
Qversoul.What is your understanding of Emersonian “Oversoul”?
Ⅳ.Topic Discussion(20 points in all, 10 for each)
Write no less than 150 words on each of the following topics in English in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.
49.How is Romanticism different from Neoclassicism?Provide brief evidence from the literary
works you know best.
50.Summerize the story of Mark twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in about 100
words,and comment on the theme of the novel.
全国2002年4月高等教育自学考试
英美文学选读试题答案
课程代码：00604
Ⅰ.Multiple Choice(40 points in all,1 for each)
1.B
2.D
3.C
4.C
5.D
6.A
7.B
8.B
9.A 10.C
11.D 12.D 13.D 14.D 15.B
16.B 17.D 18.C 19.A 20.A
21.D 22.B 23.B 24.A 25.A
26.C 27.B 28.A 29.C 30.C
31.C 32.D 33.C 34.D 35.D
36.A 37.A 38.A 39.C 40.B
Ⅱ.Reading Comprehension (16 points, 4 for each)
41.A.John Galasworthy:The Man of Property.
B.A face does not show any emotion or reaction so that it is impossible to know how that
person is feeling or what he is thinking about.
C.it presents the inner mind of Soames in face of his wife's coldness.He can never know
what is on his wife's mind because the makeup of his and her mentality is different. His
wife Irene, whose mind is romantically inclined, is disgusted with her husband's
possessiveness. Being unable to read his wife's mind is as good as saying that he really
can't regard her as his property- this is the very reason why he is enraged beyond
measure.
42.A.T.S.Eliot:“The Love Song of J.Alfred Pruforck.”
B.The ends of cigarettes,meaning trivial things here.
C.Here,Prufrock's inability to do anything against the society he is in is made strikingly
clear by using a sharp comparison .Prufrock imagines himself as a kind of insect pinned
on the wall and struggling in vain to get free.This image vividly shows Prufrock's current
predicament.
43.A.Washington Irving:“Rip Van Winkle”.
B.The social environment is changed.
C.When Rip is back home after a period of 20 years,he finds thta everything has changed.All
those old values are gone,and he can hardly feel at home in a changed society.One of the
functions that Rip serves in the story is to provide a measuring stick for change. It is
through him that Irving drives home the theme that a desire for change,improvement,and
progress could subvert stable society.
44.A.Robert Frost:“The Road Not Taken”.
B.Many many years later.
C.The speaker is telling his experience of making the choice of the roads.But he is
conscious of the fact that his choice will have made all the difference in his life.He
seems to be giving a suggestion to the reader.“Make good choice of your life.”
Ⅲ.Questions and Answers (24 points in all,6 for each)
45.A.Buyan's pilgrim's Progress and Spenser's The Faerie Queene.
B.It is usually concerned with moral ,religious,political,symbolic or mythical ideas.
46.A.The French philosopher,Jean Jacques Rousseau and the German writer Johna Wolfgan von
Goethe.
B.It is Rousseau who established the cult of the individual and championed the freedom of the
human spirit;his famous announcement was “I felt before I thought.”Goethe and his
compatriots extolled the romantic spirit.
47.A.To Ahab,the whale is either an evil creature itself or the agent of an evil force that controls
the universe,or perhaps both.
B.To Ishmale,the whale is an astonishing force,an immense power,which defies rational
explanation due to a sense of mystery it carries. It is beautiful,but malignant at the same time.
It also represents the tremendous organic vitality of the universe,for it has a life force that surges onward irresistibly, impervious to the desires or wills of men.
C.As to the reader, the whale can be viewed as a symbol of the physical limits that life
imposes upon man. It may also be regarded as a symbol of nature, or an instrument of God's vengeance upon evil man. In general,the multiplicity and ambivalence of the symbolic meaning of the whale is such that it becomes a source of intense speculation, an object or profound curiosity for the reader.
48.A.The Oversoul is believed to be an all-pervading power for goodness,omnipresent and
omnipotent from which all things come and of which all are a part. It exists in nature and
man alike and constitutes the chief element of the universe.
B.According to Emerson,it is a supreme reality of mind, a spiritual unity of all beings, and a
religion regarded as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the
universal Over-soul of which it is a part.
C.He holds that intuition is a more certain way of knowing than reason and that the mind
could intuitively perceive the existence of the Oversoul and of certain absolutes.
Ⅳ.Topic Discussion (20 points in all, 10 for each)
49.a.Neoclassicists upheld that artistic ideals should be order,logic,restrained emoticon and
accuracy,and that literature,should be judged in terms of its service to humanity,and thus,literary expressions should be of proportion,unity,harmony and grace.Pope's An Essay on Criticism advocates grace,wit (usually though satire/humour),and simplicity in language(and the poem itself is a demonstration of those ideals,too);Fielding's Tom Jones helped establish the form of novel;Gray's “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' displays elegance in style,unified structure,serious tone and moral instructions.
b.Romanticists tended to see the individual as the very center of all experience,including
art,and thus,literary work should be “spontaneous overflow of strong feelings,”and no matter how fragmentary those experiences were (Wordsworth's “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,”or “The Solitary Reaper,) or Coleridge's “Keble Khan”),the value of the work lied in the accuracy of presenting those unique feelings and particular attitudes.
c.In a word, Neoclassicism emphasized rationality and form but Romanticism attached great
importance to the individual's mind (emotion, imagination, temporary experience…)
50.A.Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a Sequa to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.The Story takes place along the Mississippi River before the Civil War in the United States, around 1850.
Along the river, floats a small raft, with two people on it; One is an ignorant,uneducated black slave named Jim and the other is little uneducated outcast white boy about the age of thirteen, called Huckleberry Finn or Huck Finn.
The novel relates the story of the escape of Jim from slavery and ,more important, how Huck Finn, floating along with Jim and helping him as best he could, changes his mind ,his prejudice, about Black people, and comes to accept Jim as a man and as a close friends as well.
During their journey, they experience a series of adventures:coming across two frauds, the “Duke”and the “King”,witnessing the lynching and murder of a harmless drunkard, being lost in a fog and finally Tom's coming to rescue.
B. The theme of the novel may be best summed in a word “freedom”: Huck wants to escape from
the bond of civilization and Jim wants to escape from the yoke of slavery. Mark Twain uses the raft's journey down the Mississippi River to express his thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization.
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.
《研究生英语英美文学欣赏》课程简介 课程编号： 课程名称：研究生英语英美文学欣赏 学时与学分：34学时/1学分 时间：2013-2 ---- 2013-7 教学对象：全日制非英语专业研究生 教师：刘晓燕等 课程描叙 一、课程性质和任务 本课程的目的是为培养理解和鉴赏英国和美国文学原著的能力而设置一门选修课程，旨在使学生掌握英国和美国文学源流和发展的基础上，通过阅读代表性的英国和美国文学作品，理解作品的内容，学会分析作品的艺术特色，并努力掌握正确评价文学作品的标准和方法，增强对作品中表现的社会生活和人物感情的理解，提高语言基本功和阅读文学作品的能力和鉴赏水平，提升整体人文素质。本课程的主要内容包括英国和美国文学史上代表作家的简要介绍和作品选读，结合英国和美国文学各个历史断代的主要历史背景，文学文化思潮和流派，社会政治、经济、文化等对英国和美国文学史上最具有影响、最具有代表性的作家的作品中的艺术特色、主题结构、人物刻画、语言风格和思想意义等进行深入地分析。 本课程主要为英美文学欣赏课，课堂讲授与研讨相结合。教师布置学生课前对作家生平、历史背景、和阅读材料进行研究，课堂上进行重点阅读和分析。本课程要求学生大量阅读，结合课堂上所讲授的英美文学的基本知识点和文学理论批评方法，体会经典文学作品的语言精妙之处、人物塑造方法、情节架构、文学修辞手法、写作技巧等等，并进而了解历史时代背景、文化知识、社会政经形势等。此外，本课程还要求学生能积极参与课堂讨论，鼓励新观点和新视角，能运用文学理论批评方法研究作品，学期中将不定期地布置相关作业，学期末将以学术论文的形式考查学习效果。 二、课程的教学内容及学时分配 第1学时英国文艺复兴时期简介 重点：文艺复兴；人文主义；主要作家和艺术特色 第2-3学时莎士比亚（I）（II） 重点：要重点理解莎士比亚思想和创作风格的变化，了解莎士比亚十四行诗的特点，品味莎士比亚作品的特色，能够对莎士比亚部分作品进行现代阐释。 第4学时弗朗西斯·培根和约翰·多恩 重点：理解培根的“论学习”的主要内容和修辞手法的运用；理解玄学派诗歌在16、17世纪的发展，其文艺宗旨与当时的文艺思潮的区别。
绝密★考试结束前 全国2014年4月高等教育自学考试 英美文学选读试题 课程代码：00604 请考生按规定用笔将所有试题的答案涂、写在答题纸上。全部题目用英文作答。 选择题部分 注意事项： 1．答题前，考生务必将自己的考试课程名称、姓名、准考证号用黑色字迹的签字笔或钢笔填写在答题纸规定的位置上。 2．每小题选出答案后，用2 B铅笔把答题纸上对应题目的答案标号涂黑。如需改动，用橡皮擦干净后，再选涂其他答案标号。不能答在试题卷上。 I. Multiple Choice(40 points in all, 1 for each) Select from the four choices of each item the one that best answers the question or completes the statement. Mark your choice by blackening the corresponding letter A, B, C or D on the answer sheet. 1. Shakespeare has established his giant position in world literature with his ______ plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long poems. A. 27 B. 38 C.47 D. 52 2. john Milton’s literary achievement can be divided into three groups: the early poetic works, the middle prose pamphlets and the last ______. A. romances B. dramas C. great poems D. ballads 3. The novels of ______ are the first literary works devoted to the study of problems of the lower— class people. A. John Milton B. Daniel Defoe C. Henry Fielding D. Jonathan Swift
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.
Chapter I The Renaissance Period Definitions of the Literary Terms: 文艺复兴时期的界定 1. The Renaissance: The Renaissance marks a transition from the medie val to the modern world. Generally, it refers to the period between the 14 th & 17th centuries. 历史文化背景It first started in Italy, with the flowering of painting, sculpture & literature. From Italy the movement went to emb race the rest of Europe. The Renaissance, which means "rebirth" or "reviva l," is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the re-discovery of ancient Roman & Greek culture, the new discoverie s in geography & astrology, the religious reformation & the economic expa nsion. The Renaissance, therefore, in essence is a historical period in whic h the European humanist thinkers & scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that e xpressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, & to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. 2. 文艺复兴到英国比较晚的原因The Renaissance was slow in reaching Englan d not only becaus e o f England?s separation from the Continent but also be cause of its domestic unrest. It was not until the reign of Henry VIII that the Renaissance really began to show its effect in England. With Henry VII I?s encouragement the Oxford reformers, scholars and humanists introduc ed classical literature to England. 15th century, began the English Renaissa nce, which was perhaps England?s Golden Age, especially in literature. 人文主义H umanism: Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the ancient author s and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its consci ous, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on s uch a conception that man is the measure of all things. Through the new l earning, humanists not only saw the arts of splendor and enlightenment, b ut the human values represented in the works. Renaissance humanists fou nd in the classics a justification to exalt human nature and came to see th at human beings were glorious creatures capable of individual development in the direction of perfections, and that the world they inhabited was thei rs not to despise but to question, explore, and enjoy. Thus, by emphasizin g the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, they voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the bea uty of this life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wond ers. Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are the b est representatives of the English humanists. The first period of the English Renaissance was one of imitation and assimi lation.
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.
英美文学欣赏知识点100句 1.The work that presented,for the first time in English literature,a comprehensive realistic picture of the medieval English society and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life is Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. 首次在英国文学，中世纪英国社会的全面逼真的画面，创造了从各行各业生动的人物整体画廊是杰弗里·乔叟的坎特伯雷故事集。 2. Geoffrey Chaucer is regarded as the father of English poetry. 乔叟被看作是英国诗歌之父。 3. The verse form of heroic couplet was introduced into English poetry and employed in the poem with true ease and charm for the first time in the history of English literature by Geoffrey Chaucer. 3.英雄对联的诗体被引入英国诗歌和诗与真正的轻松和魅力，第一次在英国文学的杰弗里·乔叟的历史就业。 4. The Canterbury Tales presents a whole gallery of vivid characters,the team of pilgrims,people from all walks of life,including 31 members altogether. 4.坎特伯雷故事呈现生动的人物整体画廊，朝圣者的队伍，来自各行各业，其中包括31名成员共有人。 5. Generally,Renaissance refers to the intellectual movement during the period between 14th and mid-17th centuries,its essence was humanism. 5.一般来说，文艺复兴是指智力运动在14和中17世纪之间的时期，它的本质是人文精神。 6. English Renaissance Period was an age of poetry and drama.
英美文学选读翻译（英语专业自考） 第一部分：英国文学 第一章文艺复兴时期 文艺复兴标志着一个过渡时期,即中世纪的结束和现代社会的开始。一般来说,文艺复兴时期是从十四世纪到十七世纪中叶。它从意大利兴起,伴随着绘画、雕塑和文学领域的百花齐放,而后文艺复兴浪潮席卷了整个欧洲。文艺复兴,顾名思义即重生、复苏,是由一系列历史事件激发推动的,其中包括对古希腊罗马文化的重新发现。地理天文领域的新发现,宗教改革及经济发展。因此,文艺复兴从本质上是欧洲人文主义者竭力摒弃中世纪欧洲的封建主义,推行代表新兴城市资产阶级利益的新思想,并恢复早期宗教的纯洁性,远离腐败的罗马天主教廷的一场运动。 文艺复兴浪潮影响到英国的速度比较慢,不仅因为英国远离欧洲大陆,而且还因为其国内的动荡不安。乔叟去世后的一个半世纪是英国历史上最动荡不安的时期。好战的贵族篡取了王位,使英国走上自我毁灭之路。著名的玫瑰之战就是极好的例子。后来理查三世的恐怖统治标志着内战的结束,在都铎王朝的统治下英国的民族情感又成长起来。然而直到亨利八世统治期间(1509-1547),文艺复兴的春风才吹入英国。在亨利八世的鼓励下,牛津的改革派学者和人文主义者们将古典文学引入英国。基于古典文学作品及《圣经》的教育重获生机,而十五世纪就被广泛传阅的文学作品则更加流行了。自此,英国的文艺复兴开始了。英国,尤其是英国文学进入了黄金时代。这个时期涌现出莎士比亚、斯宾塞、约翰逊、锡德尼、马洛、培根及邓恩等一大批文学巨匠。但英国的文艺复兴并未使新文学与旧时代彻底决裂,带有十四、十五世纪特点的创作态度与情感依然贯穿在人文主义与改革时代。 人文主义是文艺复兴的核心。它源于努力恢复中世纪产生的对古希腊罗马文化的尊崇。人文主义作为文艺复兴的起源是因为古希腊罗马文明的基础是以"人"为中心,人是万物之灵。通过这些对古代文化崭新的研究,人文主义者不仅看到了光彩夺目的艺术启明星,还在那古典作品中寻求到了人的价值。在中世纪的社会中,个人完全隶属于封建统治,没有独立和自由可言;在中世纪的神学理论中,人与周围世界的关系仅仅是人消极适应或消极遁世,不允许追求快乐,以备死后灵魂得以超脱。然而人文主义者们却从古代文化遗产中找到了充足的论据,来赞美人性,并开始注意到人类是光荣的生命,人自己可以不断发展,至善至美,而且人们生存的世界是属于他们的,供他们怀疑、探索以及享受。由此,人文主义者通过强调人类的尊严、强调今生今世的重要性,喊出了他们的信仰,即人类不仅有权利在今生今世美好生活,而且还有能力完善自我,创造奇迹。人文主义遍布英国思想领域的。标志是荷兰学者伊拉斯谟先后到牛津大学与剑桥大学讲授古典文化研究。托马斯·漠尔、克利斯朵夫·马洛和威廉·莎士比亚是英国人文主义的代表。
1.Alliteration：Alliteration is the repetition of a speech sound in a sequence of nearby words. The term is usually applied only to consonants, and only when the recurrent sound begins a word or a stressed syllable within a word. In old English alliteration is the principle organizing device of the verse line. 2.Romance：Romance is a long composition, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, describing the life and adventure of a noble hero. Romance was characteristic of the early feudal age, as it reflected the spirit of chivalry. The content of romance was usually about love, chivalry, and religion. 3.Soliloquy is a dramatic speech delivered by one character speaking aloud while under the impression of being alone. The soliloquist thus reveals his inner thoughts and feelings to the audience. It is also known as interior monologue. 4.sonnet: A sonnet is a short song in the original meaning of the word. Later it became a poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter with various rhyming schemes. 5.Conceit--- a kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startling different things. A conceit may strike the readers weird at first glance, but proves appropriate in the end. 6.The name applied to an intellectual movement which developed in Western Europe during the seventeenth century and reached its height in the eighteenth. The common element was a trust in human reason as adequate to solve the crucial problems and to establish the essential norms in life, together with the belief that the application of reason was rapidly dissipating the remaining feudal traditions. It influenced lots of famous English writers especially those neoclassic writers, such as Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson etc.. 7.Renaissance refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries. It makes a transition from the medieval to the modern world. It started in Italy with the flowering of painting, sculpture and literature, and then spread to the rest of Europe. The term Renaissance means rebirth or revival. The Renaissance period was marked by a reawakening of interest in learning, in the individual and in the world of nature. The revival of learning led scholars back to the culture of Greece and Rome. The rebirth of interest in the individual gave rise to a new appreciation of beauty, to a desire for self-expression in varied activities and to the creation of art. The renewal of curiosity about the nature word ultimately drew men to discover new lands and new scientific truths.
《英美文学选读》期末考试练习 一、搭配题 二、判断题 1.( F ) Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Antony and Cleopatra are Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies. 2.(T ) The Elizabethan Drama is the real mainstream of the English Renaissance. 3.( T) Paradise Lost is a long epic divided into 12 books. 4.( F) Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, and A Journal of the Plague Year are the first literary works devoted to the study of problems of the lower-class people. 5.( T) Jonathan Swift defined a good style as “proper words in proper places.” 6.( T ) Henry Fielding has been regarded by some as “Father of the English Novel.” 7.( F) William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are regarded as the “Lake Poets.” 8.( T ) The British Romantic period is an age of prose. 9.( T ) The major theme of Jane Austen’s novels is love and marriage. 10.( T ) The Victoria period has been generally regarded as one of the most glorious in the English history. 11.( F ) Far from the Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy’s first novel. 12.( T ) Modernism rose out of skepticism and disillusion of capitalism. 13.( T ) The major themes of the modernist literature are the distorted, alienated and ill relationships between man and nature, man and society, man and man, and man and himself. 14.( T) The early poems of Pound and Eliot and Yeats’s matured poetry marked rise of “modern poetry.” 15.( T ) Shaw’s plays have one passion, and one only, that is, indignation. 16.( F) Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s four greatest tragedies. 17.( T ) The first period of the English Renaissance was one of imitation and assimilation. 18.( T ) Paradise Lost is John Milton’s masterpiece. 19.( F ) Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, and A Journal of the Plague Year are the first literary works devoted to the study of problems of the lower-class people. 20.( T ) In Jonathan Swift’s opinion, human nature is seriously and permanently flawed. 21.( T) Henry Fielding was the first to write specifically a “comic in prose.”