美国文学试题库
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I. Each of the following below is followed by four alternative answers. Choose the one that would best complete the statement.
1. All of the following are the features of Puritans EXCEPT _____.
A. wanting to make pure their religious beliefs and practices
B. looking upon themselves as a chosen people
C. tolerating others’ beliefs and sought for a happy and an easy life
D. wishing to restore simplicity to church serves and emphasized the image of a
wrathful God
2. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in _____.
A. James Fennimore Cooper
B. Thomas Paine
C. Benjamin Franklin
D. Ralph Waldo Emerson
3. Of the following works, ______ was not written by Thomas Paine.
A. Rights of Man
B. Civil Disobedience
C. The Age of Reason
D. Common Sense
4. The “Father of American Poetry” is ____.
A. William Cullen Bryant
B. Philip Freneau
C. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
D. Allan Poe
5. The most outstanding writer of the Post-Revolutionary period, who wrote in his
poems the indigenous wild life and other native American subjects, is _____.
A. William Cullen Bryant
B. Philip Freneau
C. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
D. Allan Poe
6. The Romantic writers would focus on all the following issues EXCEPT the _____
in the American literary history.
A. individual feelings
B. idea of survival of the fittest
C. strong imagination
D. return to nature
7. Cooper’s story of the “frontier saga” is made up of 5 famous novels that comprise
the ________ Tales, in which the main character is Natty Bumppo.
A. Leaterstoking
B. The Deer Slayer
C. Sea Adventure
D. The Romantic
8. Most of Herman Melville’s novels are based on sea voyages and sea adventures.
But in the following ______is NOT the case.
A. Typee
B. Moby Dick
C. Omoo
D. The Confidence Man
9. The following are correct for transcendentalism EXCEPT _____.
A. It is a systematized philosophical and literary movement.
B. It exalted feeling over reason, individual expression over the restraints of law
and custom.
C. It spoke for cultural rejuvenation against the materialism of American society.
D. It appealed to those who scorned the pale deity of New England Unitarianism.
10. 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
11. Which essay of Emerson is regarded as an unofficial manifesto for the
“Transcendental Club”?
A. Self-reliance
B. Nature
C. The American Scholar
D. The Oversoul
12. Emerson based his religion on an intuitive belief in an ultimate unity, which he
called ________.
A. the Spirit
B. the Over-lord
C. the oversoul
D. the Self
13. _______ is not a fictional character in The Scarlet Letter.
A. Hester
B. Arthur Dimmersdale
C. Roger Chillingworth
D. Ishmael
14. Hester Pryme，Dimmesdale，Chillingworth and Pearl are most likely the names of
the characters in_____.
A. The Scarlet Letter
B. The House of the Seven Gables
C. The Portrait of a Lady
D. The Pioneers
15. The giant Moby Dick may symbolize all EXCEPT________.
A. mystery of the universe
B. sin of the whale
C. power of nature
D. evil of the world
16. Most of Herman Melville’s novels are based on sea voyages and sea adventures.
Which of the following is NOT the case?
A. Typee
B. Moby Dick
C. Omoo
D. The Confidence Man
17. Ahab’s ship, the Pequod, may symbolize all EXCEPT________.
A. a miniature of the world
B. a society
C. the United States
D. evil of the world
18. Of the following works _____ concerns most concentratedly about the Calvinistic
view of original sin.
A. The Wasteland
B. The Scarlet Letter
C. Leaves of Grass
D. As I Lay Dying
19. The New England transcendentalism was from the very beginning a local
phenomenon restricted only to those people living in New England, who carried out the movement as a reaction against the cold, rigid rationalism of _____ in Boston.
A. Puritanism
B. Calvinism
C. Classicism
D Unitarianism
20. The period before the American Civil War is commonly referred to as ____.
A. the Romantic Period
B. the Realistic Period
C. the Naturalist Period
D. the Modern Period
21. Realism supported by William Dean Howells, ________, was described as
“nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.”
A. the major advocate of the 19th century American realism
B. the major advocate of the 20th century American realism
C. the major advocate of the 19th century British realism
D. the major opponent of the 19th century American realism
22. The first American writer of local color to achieve wide popularity in the 1860s
was ______.
A. Bret Harte
B. Mark Twain
C. Beecher Stowe
D. O’Henry
23. The period ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to as _____.
A. the Age of Colonialism
B. the Age of Romanticism
C. the Age of Realism
D. the Age of Modernism
24. Statement _______ is NOT true in describing American naturalists.
A. They were deeply influenced by Darwinism.
B. They were identified with French novelist and theorist Emile Zola.
C. They chose their subjects from the lower ranks of society.
D. They used more serious and more sympathetic tone in writing than realists.
25. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed” is most probably a poem ______.
A. that celebrates the burgeoning life of cities
B. that sings highly freedom and democracy
C. that condemns violence and bloodshed
D. that mourns for the death of Lincoln
26. ______ is not among the artistic features of Whitman's writing.
A. The use of the poetic “I”
B. Free verse
C. Musicality or rhythm
D. Allegory
27. 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
28. We can perhaps summarize that Walt Whitman’s poems are characterized b y all
the following features EXCEPT _______.
A. conversational and casual
B. lyrical and well-structured
C. simple and rather crude
D. free-flowing
29. 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.
30. Emily Dickinson’s verse is most aptly characterized as _______.
A. exposing the evils of the society
B. paving the way for the following generation of free verse poets
C. sharing the same poetic conventions as Walt Whitman
D. exhibiting sensitiveness to the symbolic implications of experience, such as
love, death, immortality, etc.
31. _____ describes realism as “nothing more and no thing less than the truthful
treatment of martial.”
A. Frank Norris
B. William Dean Howells
C. Mark Twain
D. Henry James
32. The arbiter of the 19th century American realism was _____, who defined realism
as “nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of martial.”
A. Frank Norris
B. William Dean Howells
C. Mark Twain
D. Henry James
33. _______ is not a dominant figure of the Realistic Period.
A. William Dean Howells
B. Mark Twain
C. Henry James
D. James F. Cooper
34. With Howells，Henry 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
35. Mark Twain, one of the greatest 19th century American writers, is well known for
his________.
A. international theme
B. waste-land imagery
C. local color
D. symbolism
36. Who exerts the single most important influence on literary naturalism, of which
Theodore Dreiser and Jack London are among the best representative writers?
A. Freud
B. Darwin
C. W.
D. Howells
D. Emerson
37. _____ exerts the single most important influence on literary naturalism, of which
Theodore Dreiser and Jack London are among the best representative writers?
A. Freud
B. Darwin
C. W.
D. Howells
D. Emerson
38. The phrase “cathedral of frosted glass” was used to describe the latest works of
_____.
A. Henry James
B. Ezra Pound
C. T. S. Eliot
D. Robert Frost
39. Henry James’s fame generally rests upon his novels and stories w ith________.
A. the love and marriage theme
B. the theme of humor and satire on life
C. the theme of revealing the miserable life of the poor and criticizing the
capitalism
D. the international theme
40. Generally speaking，all those writers with a naturalistic approach to human reality
tend to be____.
A. transcendentalists
B. idealists
C. pessimists
D. impressionists
41. Writers such as Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Theodore Dreiser could be
called the naturalists whose works are full of ______.
A. optimistic and successful stories
B. success rewarded by characters’ hard-working spirits
C. pessimism and deterministic ideas
D. love of nature and nature’s love for man
42. Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Theodore Dreiser could be called _______
whose works are full of pessimism and deterministic ideas.
A. optimistic and successful writers
B. romantic writers
C. naturalistic writers
D. writers full of love for nature
43. In fiction writing, Henry James’s primary concern is to present the _______.
A. inner life of human beings
B. American Civil War and its effects
C. life on the Mississippi River
D. Calvinistic view of original sin
44. The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoic make up the “Trilogy of _____”.
A. Money
B. Desire
C. Marriage
D. Power
45. The writers of the fifties used a prose style modeled on the works Earnest
Hemingway and Fitzgerald, narrative techniques derived from ________, and psychological insight taken from the writing Sigmund Freud and his followers.
A. Theodore Dreiser
B. Henry James
C. William Faulkner
D. Eugene O’Neill
46. The book from which “all modern American literature comes” (Hemingway)
refers to _______.
A. Moby Dick
B. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
C. The Sun Also Rises
D. The Great Gatsby
47. With the works of T. S. Eliot, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Earnest Hemingway, William Faulkner appearing in the _____, the American literature achieved a new diversity and reached its greatest heights.
A. 1900s
B. 1910s
C. 1920s
D. 1930s
48. After…there was a widespread discontentment among the postwar generation,
whose voice was one of protest against the ______culture.
A. the Second World War in the 50s in the U.S….mainstream American
B. the First World War in the 50s in the U.S….mainstream American
C. the Second World War in the 50s in Great Britain….mainstream Britain
D. the Second World War in the 50s in the U.S….minor American
49. Of the following aspects, ____ 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.
50. Writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald of the period after the First World War were
called “Lost Generation” ______.
A. for their being devoid of faith and alienation from civilization
B. for their being stout in faith and alienation from civilization
C. for their determination in faith harmony with the society
D. for their strong belief in religion
51. Strong affinity to the Chinese and Oriental literature can be found in the works of
_______.
A. Mark Twain
B. Ezra Pound
C. Emily Dickinson
D. Arthur Miller
52. Chinese poetry and philosophy have exerted great influence over____.
A. Ezra Pound
B. Ralph Waldo Emerson
C. Robert Frost
D. Emily Dickinson
53. “In a Station of the Metro” is regarded by critics as a classic specimen of
_______.
A. the absurd poetry
B. the transcendental poetry
C. the romantic poetry
D. the imagist poetry
54. In “After Apple-Picking”，Robert Frost wrote：”For I have had too much/Of
apple-picking：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
55. Robert Frost, living in the 20th century, deliberately rejected the revolutionary
poetic principles of his contemporaries ______.
A. by dislike the traditional forms of lyric and narrative
B. by adopting the traditional forms of lyric and narrative
C. by arguing against the traditional forms of lyric and narrative
D. by not always observing the traditional forms of lyric and narrative
56. Which is of the following poems is NOT composed by Robert Frost?
A. Success
B. After Apple-Picking
C. The Road Not Taken
D. Mending Wall
57. Experimental American playwrights after the First World War, ______, created
works of tragedy, stark realism, and social protest.
A. hostile to outworn and timid theatrical convention
B. hostile to outworn convention and new American theater
C. eager to use outworn and timid European theatrical convention
D. dependent on the European theatrical convention
58. The founder of the American drama is _______.
A. Arthur Miller
B. Eugene O’Neill
C. Tennessee Williams
D. Clifford Odets
59. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock draws a vivid picture of _____.
A. a renaissance man…whose life is characteristic by strong longing for
achievements
B. a modern man who is helpless, submissive, slow in actions and whose life is
full of boredom
C. a medieval man…whose life is full of interesting adventures
D. a man living in neoclassical time who emphasized reason
60. The Hemingway Code heroes are best remembered for their____.
A. indestructible spirit
B. pessimistic view of life
C. war experiences
D. masculinity
61. F. Scott Fitzgerald is not the author of _______.
A. This Side of Paradise
B. Tender is the Night
C. The Great Gatsby
D. In Our Time
62. Fitzgerald summarized the experiences and attitudes of the 1920s in his short
stories and famous novel _______.
A. Tender Is the Night
B. This Side of Paradise
C. The Great Gatsby
D. Tales of the Jazz Age
63. In 1920, Fitzgerald’s first novel _______ was published, which brought him,
reputation, wealth but also Zelda, an embodiment of his romantic notions of a Southern Belle.
A. The Great Gatsby
B. This Side of Paradise
C. The Beautiful and Damned
D. Tender is the Night
64. Babylon Revisited is the short story written by ___.
A. Allan Poe
B. F. Scot Fitzgerald
C. Washington Irving
D. Henry James
65. Modernist writers feel symbols _____ and could better express their inexpressible
experiences.
A. are more suggestive and more complex
B. are clear in meaning
C. could avoid ambiguity
D. would not be open to different interpretations
66. 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.
67. In The Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape，O’Neill adopted the expressionist
techniques to portray the ____ of human beings in a hostile universe.
A. helpless situation
B. uncertainty (or problem of modern man’s identity)
C. profound religious faith
D. courage and perseverance
68. Most of ______stories described the sweat drenched lives of factory workers and
migrant farmers.
A. O. Henry’s
B. John Steinbeck’s
C. T heodore Dreiser’s
D. Jack London’s
69. In the 1930s John Steinbeck and other writers described _______ in journalistic
reports, in short stories, and in novels.
A. the hopeful and promising lives of factory workers and migrant farmers
B. confident and proud lives of factory workers and migrant farmers
C. the sweat-drenched lives of factory workers and migrant farmers
D. the happy lives of factory workers and migrant farmers
70. William Faulkner wrote all of the following except_____.
A. Light in August
B. The Sound and the Fury
C. Anna Christie
D. Go Down, Moses
71. By idealizing the past William Faulkner highlights in his The Sound and the Fury
_______.
A. the present decadent and loveless world
B. the present energetic and loving world
C. the present decadent, yet lovable world
D. the present world as decadent and lovable as the past
72. At the beginning of Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, there is detailed description of
Emily’s old house. The purpose of such description is to imply that the person living in it _______.
A. is a wealth lady
B. has good taste
C. is a prisoner of the past
D. is a conservative aristocrat
73. At the beginning of A Rose for Emily, Faulkner uses a figurative language to
describe the place where Emily lives. The house is a perfect mirror image of the owner who is supposed to be ___and deliberately detaches herself from the communal life in this small town.
A. friendly and generous
B. wealthy and conservative
C. polite and dignified
D. stubborn and coquettish
II. Choose one or more answers from the choices to complete the statement.
74. Before the War of Independence, the conflicts between (American) Colonies and
the mother country mainly are in _______.
A. politic
B. economy
C. culture
D. religion
75. The following poems were written by Phillip Freneau EXCEPT _____.
A. Thanatopsis
B. The Wild Honey Suckle
C. The Raven
D. The Indian Burying Ground
E. To a Caty-Did
76. American enlightenment to some extent is different from other countries’ in that
one of the task of the Americans was _______.
A. to disseminate knowledge among the people
B. to advocate revolutionary ideas
C. to aim at bring to life secular education and literature
D. to make the English language in America more invigorating
77. Transcendentalism took their ideas from ___.
A. neo-Platonism
B. romantic literature of Europe
C. oversoul
D. German idealistic philosophy
E. oriental mysticism
F. Darwinism
78. Which of the following is/are written by Arlington Robinson?
A. The Hollow Man
B. Richard Cory
C. Miniver Chevy
D. The Wild Honey Suckle
79. Death, love, nature, human emotions are the favorite subject of the two poets
______ and _____, though the treatment in attitude and form is entirely different.
A. Frost
B. Whitman
C. Dickinson
D. T. S. Eliot
E. Allan Poe
80. Which of the following terms belong to modernism?
A. expressionism
B. surrealism
C. naturalism
D. realism
E. dadaism
F. individualism
81. American naturalism was shaped by ______，beside the influence of French
naturalism.
A. American Civil War
B. American social upheavals
C. the teachings of Charles Darwin
D. the blind forces of nature
82. Which of the following writers DONOT belong to naturalism?
A. Jack London
B. Theodore Dreiser
C. T. S. Eliot
D. Frank Norris
E. Henry James
F. Stephen Crane
III. Match the following into pairs.
?Part A:
83. T. S. Eliot A. The Golden Bowel
84. John Steinbeck B. Of Mice and Men
85. Henry James C. Tales of the Jazz Age
86. Jack London D. For Whom the Bell Tolls
87. William Faulkner E. Light in August
88. F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Billy Budd
89. Theodore Dreiser G. The Gift of Magi
90. Ernest Hemingway H. The Law of Life
91. Herman Melville I. An American Tragedy
92. O. Henry J. The Hollow Man
? Part B:
93. T. S. Eliot A. The Wings of Dove
94. John Steinbeck B. The Four Million
95. Henry James C. This Side of Paradise
96. Jack London D. The Green Hills of Africa
97. William Faulkner E. As I lay Dying
98. F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Main Street
99. Theodore Dreiser G. Of Mice and Men
100. Ernest Hemingway H. The Sea Wolf
101. Sinclair Lewis I. The Financier
102. O. Henry J. Four Quartets
IV. Reading comprehension: Read the quoted parts carefully and answer the questions.
103. “We passed the School, where Children strove/ At Recess—in the Ring—/We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—/We passed the Setting Sun—”
1) What is the title of the poem?
2) Who does “we” refer to?
3) What does “the School”, “the Fields of Gazing Grain”, and “the Setting Sun”
imply respectively?
4) Where are “we” going?
104. Trust n o Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
?? Act—act in the glorious Present!
????? Heart within, and God o’er head!
1) Who is the poet?
2) What is the title of the poem?
3) What does the poet want to tell in these lines?
105. “The apparition of those faces in the crowd;/ Petals on a wet, black bough.”
1) Who is the writer?
2) What does “apparition” mean?
3) What is the relation between “those faces” and “Petals”?
106. “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.”
1) Identify the poem and the poet.
2) What does the phrase “ages and ages hence” mean?
3) Why does the poet say “that has made all the difference”?
4) What idea does the quoted passage express?
107. “But I have promises to keep,/ And many miles to go before I sleep,/And many miles to go before I sleep.”
1) What is the title of the poem?
2) What does “promises” mean in this poem?
3) Why does the poet sa y “And many miles to go before I sleep,/And many miles
to go before I sleep.”?
4) What does “And many miles to go before I sleep,/And many miles to go before
I sleep” mean?
108. Lo! In yon brilliant window-niche/ How statue-like I see thee stand,/The agate lamp within thy hand!/ Ah, Psyche, from the regions which/ Are Holy-Land！
1) Who is the writer of the poet?
2) What does “Psyche” imply in the poem?
3) What does “Holy-Land” refer to?
109. To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
110. I heard a Flay buzz—when I died—
?? The Stillness in the Room
?? Was like the Stillness in the Air—
?? Between the Heaves of Storm—
111. There is music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to
and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before...
V. Fill in the blanks with the proper information, or decide whether the following statement is true or false.
112. Individualism profoundly colors the work of all the great 19th century American writers. The 4 writers who first developed and represented 3 major strains individualism—______, ______, and ______ —were respectively ______, Cooper, and Emerson and his close associate Thoreau.
113. “Common Sense” is the famous pamphlet written by _____.
114. Cooper created two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure tales and ____. The latter is made up of 5 famous novels that comprise the _____ Tales, in which the main character is ____.
115. The “Father of American poetry” refers to ______.
116. The Sketchbook is the collection of short stories written by ____.
117.Moby Dick was written by _____. The central character of the novel is _____, ???the Captain.
118. Nature is the representative work written by the famous transcendentalist _____. 119. “The Raven” and “To Helen” are the famous poems written by _____.
120. The narrator in “The Fall of the House of Usher” is _____, which is written by _____.
121. Walt Whitman’s cluster of poems is called _____. The poetic style devised by him now is called _____.
122. In Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death”, “a house” and “A Swelling of the Ground” refer to _____.
123. The arbiter of the 19th century American realism is _____.
124. The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoi c comprise the “Trilogy of _____”. The author is _____.
125. _____ summarized the experiences and attitude of the decade in his short stories and famous novel The Great Gatsby. And this decade refers to ___ (time) in America, which is also called the Jazz Age, the Lost Generation.
126. “the old-fashioned way to be new” is used to describe the poetic creation of ____ , one of his famous poem is “After Apple-picking”.
127. Nick Carraway, the main character in The Great Gatsby from the Middle West to the East, is also the narrator and observer in the story.
128. In vivid and graceful prose, Fitzgerald at the same time portrayed the hollowness of the American worship of riches and the unending American dream of love, splendor, and fulfilled desires.
129. The main characters in A Farewell to Arms are Lieutenant Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley, and setting is in Italian front.
130. For Whom the Bell Tolls, set in Spain during the Civil War, restated the writer’s view of love found and lost and described the indomitable spirit of common people. The same judgment was reflected in his portrayal of the old fisherman, Santiago, triumphant even in defeat, in The Old Man and the Sea.
131. Hemingway’s primary concern was individual’s “moment of truth,” and his fascination with the threat physical emotional, or psychic death is reflected in his lifelong preoccupation with stories of war. To him, man’s greates t achievement is to show grace under pressure. And he had rejected the romantic ideal of the ultimate unity of lovers, suggesting instead that all relationships must end in death.
132. Hemingway developed a spare, tight, reportorial prose based on simple sentence structure and using a restricted vocabulary, precise imagery, and impersonal, dramatic tone.
133. Edwin Arlington Robinson’s approach to characterization, and his diction and themes, reflected the new movements in poetry, and his poems sometimes appear to be simple, yet the surface simplicity often serves to conceal an intricacy and subtlety of thought.
134. As one who undertook as a spokesman for the common people to inscribe “public speech”, Carl Sandburg was proud late in his career to “favor sim ple poems for simple people.”
135. Like much of his later work, Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
concerns various aspects of the frustration and enfeeblement of individual character as seen in perspective with the decay of states, peoples, and religious faith.
136. The title of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” suggests an ironic contrast between a “love song” and a poem that proves to be about the absence of love. 137. T.S. Eliot’s “Ash-Wednesday” is a poem of mystical conflicts between faith and doubt, beautiful in its language if difficult in its symbolism.
138. In “The Hollow Man”, T.S. Eliot satirized the straw men, the Guy Fawks men, whose world would end “not with a bang, but a whimper”.
139. Using his own cosmos to express his universal theme of “the problems of he human heart”, Faulkner created the novels for which he is now best known. 140. The first writings in the colonial America were the narratives and journals of the settlements.
141. New England had from the beginning a literature of ideas and was the center of culture, religion, and politics before the Civil War.
142. The first intention of the Puritans in Massachusetts was to found a theocracy—a society in which God would govern through the church and the church thus became the supreme political body.
143. In addition to other aspects, freedom before The War for Independence was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington or Lafayette.
144. Before the War for Independence, the conflicts between the colony and the mother country (Britain) were mainly political and economical.
145. The secular ideals of the American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin.
146. The famous Poor Richard’s Almanac was written by Benjamin Franklin, modeled on the sort of farmer’s annual calendar widely sold at the time, and was an annual collection of proverbs.
147. The first colonial magazine, the General Magazine, was edited by Benjamin Franklin.
148. The Junto, a club for informational discussion of scientific, economic and political ideas, was founded by Benjamin Franklin.
149. Paine’s Rights of Man not only championed Rousseau’s doctrines of freedom, but also suggested the overthrow of the British monarchy.
150. Philip Freneau is the most outstanding writer of the post-Revolutionary period. 151. Philip Freneau’s close observation of nature distinguished his treatment of indigenous wild life and other native American subjects and he developed later a natural, simple, and concrete diction, best illustrated in such nature lyrics as “The Wild Honey Suckle” and ‘The Indian Burying Ground”.
152. The meaning of Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” means “view of death”.
153. “The most perfect brief poem in the language” refers to Bryant’s “Thanatopsis”. 154. Natty Bumppo is the main character in Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book. 155. Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” was written in the third person “he” and the narrator of the story is “he”.
156. The impulse to self-destruction, the fascination with horrible catastrophes, and the soul-sickness appear in almost all Poe’s powerful short stories, as “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Black Cat”.
157. Poe’s poetry expr essed the deep hopelessness and rejection of the world as his prose, but usually in a very different way.
158. Allan Poe thought the artist should be concerned neither with truth nor morality but solely with beauty, not the beauty of nature which he values but that of the imagination.
159. The magazine “The Dial” was edited and published by Ralph Waldo Emerson and his followers.
160. The American transcendentalists highlighted spirits, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe, which was an all-pervading power for goodness, omnipresent and omnipotent.
161. A recurrent theme in Hawthorne’s stories is that of a man who cannot feel close to others, who suffers “ice in blood” —–a detachment that makes him an observer of human life rather than a responsible participant; Many of his tales take this as their central theme.
162. Hawthorne’s unique gift was for the creation of strongly symbolic stories which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature as exemplified in The Scarlet Letter and “Young Goodman Brown”.
163. A marble heart in Hawthorne’s “Ethan Brand” stands for pride and isolation from one’s fellow men.
164. “Young Goodman Brown” uses the background of witchcraft to explore uncertainties of beliefs that trouble man’s heart and mind.
165. In Moby Dick, the universe is taken as basically both good and evil.
166. Melville created Ahab as the very prototype of the utterly intransigent individualist, but he also realized that power in our world means, basically, power over other men. For any one man to succeed in living absolutely as he wishes, many others must be persuaded or forced into supporting his way of life. 167. That conviction itself, Ahab’s belief that human dignity demands a rejection of the inhumanity of the universe, is, together with the white whale taken as symbol of an amoral universe, the heart of the book Moby Dick.
168. To some extent, Moby Dick expressed Melville’s brooding, sometimes frightening speculations about man and God and the universe.
169. Generally speaking, the theme of Moby Dick is about the rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome, sometimes merciless forces.
170. Ahab’s ship, the Pequod, is the symbol of society, like a world in miniatur e, with characters ranging from the observer and narrator Ishmael to the savage harpooners and the motley crew.
171. Melville’s Billy Budd, like Moby Dick, uses a ship as symbol of society and searchingly examines the problems of good and evil.
172. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver W. Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier were the famous poets in New England during American romantic period, who were called “The School-room Poets”.
173. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver W. Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier were the famous poets in New England during American romantic period.
174. Realists have some features in common: verisimilitude of detail derived from life and so on to offer an objective rather than an idealized view of human nature and experience.
175. In American realism, Howells called for the treatment of the “smiling aspects of life”.
176. The American naturalism comes from Europe.
177. The pessimism and deterministic ideas are often expressed in the works of the American naturalists.
178. American naturalism was shaped by civil war, by the social upheavals that undermined the confronting faith of an earlier age, and by the disturbing teachings of Charles Darwin.
179. “The Gilded Age” refers to the first d ecade after the War for Independence. 180. In Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman presents the combination of the ideal of the democratic common man and that of the rugged individual.
181. In Leaves of Grass the poet describes only man and nature and does not touch any topics about cities.
182. Whitman envisioned the poet in the poems as a hero, a savior and a prophet, one who leads the community by his expressions of truth.
183. One of the typical features in Dickinson’s poetic writing is the unique choice of words and the unique arrangement and punctuation.
184. While a simple list of he favorite subjects—death, love, nature, human emotions (or psychology) —would seem similar to those of Whitman her treatment is entirely different in attitude as well as form.
185. In O. Henry’s The Four Million, his main concern is about the lives of rich people in New York.
186. Most of O. Henry’s stories have two endings: first an unexpected ending, then another, which is quite a different one and a still better surprise.
187. Most of Henry James’s novels are about an American’s confrontation in Europe, in which the heroes and heroines come to Europe to seek for perfection, but end in failure.
188. Many of O. Henry’s stories contain a great deal of slang and colloquial expressions, which are used to make the stories fit in with the characters and scenes described.
189. In novels and short stories and critical commentaries Henry James made major contribution to the art of fiction itself, helping to transform the novel from its alliances with journalism and romantic storytelling into an art form of penetrating analysis of individuals confronting society, chronicles of the psychological perceptions that James himself defined as the highest form of experience.
190. London embraced the hopeful socialism of Marx on the one hand and the rather darker view of Nietzsche and Darwinism on the other, and this, to some extent, decided his writing attitudes.
191. Wolf Larsen, the ruthless, amoral protagonist in The Call of the Wild, best realiz es Jack London’s ideal of the “superman”.
192. The most enduringly popular of London’s stories involved the primitive (and melodramatic) struggle of strong and weak individuals in the context of irresistible natural forces such as the wild sea or the arctic wastes.
193. London’s sincere intellectual and personal involvement in the socialist movement is recorded in such novels and polemical works as The People of the Abyss, The Iron Heel, The War of the Classes, and Revolution.
194. London’s competing, deepl y felt commitment to the fundamental reality of the law of survival and the will to power is dramatized in his most popular novels, The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf.
195. The contradiction between London’s competing beliefs is most vividly projected in the patently autobiographical novel Martin Eden, a central document for the London scholar.
196. In London’s The Law of Life,the tribal patriarch’s death is depicted as an illustration of the law that all living things die rather than in terms of the particular psychological state of the individual facing his end.
197. In “Trilogy of Desire”, Dreiser shifted from the pathos of helpless protagonists as describe in Sister Carrie and Jannie Gerhardt to the power of those unusual individuals who assume dominant roles in business and society.
198. Theodore Dreiser in his famous novel Main Street denunciated the American small-town provincialism.
199. The American literature achieved a new diversity and reached its greatest heights in the 1920s in which Emily Dickinson, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, F.
Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner all showed their voices. 200. The expressionism, postimpressionism, futurism, Dadaism, cubism, imagism, surrealism, naturism, etc. all belong to modernism.
201. Modernism refers to various literary schools of various artists: painters, musicians, poets, etc. in the first part of the 20th century whose rebellion against conventions was a striking feature.
202. Experimental American playwrights after the Fist World War, hostile to outworn and timid theatrical convention, created works of tragedy, stark realism, and social protest.
203. The Negro playwrights, poets and novelists of Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s presented new insights into American experience and paved the way for the numerous black writers after mid century.
204. “Harlem Renaissance” is a burst of literary achievement in the 1920s by Negro playwrights, poets, and novelists who presented new insights into American experience and prepared the new way for the emergence of numerous black writers after mid-century.
205. The writers of the 1950s used a prose style modeled on the works of Earnest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, narrative techniques derived from William Faulkner, and psychological insights taken from the writing of Sigmund Freud and his followers.
第17单元20世纪美国诗人（1） I.Fill in the blanks. 1.Author_____Title_____（南京大学2007研） The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet,black bough. 【答案】Author:Ezra Pound；Title:“In a Station of the Metro” 【解析】题目节选自庞德的《在一个地铁车站》，该诗是以一个意象作为叙述语言的典型范例。 2.Ezra Pound’s lifelong endeavor had been devoted to the writing of_____,which contains_____poems.（国际关系学院2007研） 【答案】The Cantos;117 【解析】庞德把毕生精力都投入到写作《诗章》当中，《诗章》共包括117首诗。 3.Pound was the leader of a new movement in poetry which he called the“_____”movement. 【答案】imagism 【解析】庞德是意象主义运动的领军人物。 4._____was successful in two fields of activity which did not seem compatible with
one another:he was a very successful businessman and a very remarkable contemporary poet at the same time.（人大2006研） 【答案】Wallace Stevens 【解析】华莱士·史蒂文斯(Wallace Stevens)是美国20世纪的著名诗人。他集企业家和诗人于一身。 5.Winner of the National Book Award in1950and the Pulitzer Prize in1963,______ is the author of the five-volume epic Paterson which is a lucid statement of the author’s aesthetics. 【答案】William Carlos Williams 【解析】威廉·卡洛斯·威廉斯的代表作是《佩特森》，它清晰地表达了诗人的美学观点。 6.At the age of44,Wallace Stevens was finally persuaded to publish a book of poems,entitled_____. 【答案】Harmonium 【解析】1923年，44岁的华莱士-史蒂文斯出版了他的第一部诗集《风琴》（Harmonium）。 7.After his death,Wallace Stevens’s previously uncollected works appeared under the title_____. 【答案】Opus Posthumous 【解析】华莱士·史蒂文斯死后，其之前未收集的诗作集合成册于1957年发表，名为《遗作》(Opus Posthumous)。
美国文学试题库 注：试题库内容仅作为学习参考使用，并不代表考试内容。任何一道题均可能变化为其它形式的试题。 1. Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more_____________. A. rational B. humorous C. optimistic D. pessimistic 2.The impact of Darwin’s evolutionary theory on the American thought and the influence of the nineteenth-century French literature on the American men of letters gave rise to yet another school of realism: American___________ . A. local colorism B. vernacularism C. modernism D. naturalism 3. ____________were idealists, believing the church should be restored to complete “purity” and dreaming that they would build the new land to an Eden on earth. A. Calvinists B. Puritans C. Romanticists D. Transcendentalists 4. All of the following are the features of Puritans EXCEPT _____. A. wanting to make pure their religious beliefs and practices
美国文学选读第三版课后习题答案洁(部分) Unit 1 Benjamin Franklin Questions 1.Why did Franklin write his Autobiography? Franklin says that because his son may wish to know about his life, he is taking his one week vacation in the English countryside to record his past. He also says that he has enjoyed his life and would like to repeat it 2.What made Franklin decide to leave the brother to whom he had been apprenticed? His brother was passionate, and had often beaten him. The aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to him through his whole life .After a brush with the law, Franklin left his brother. 3.How did he arrive in Philadephia? First he set out in a boat for Amboy, the boat dropped him off about 50 miles from Burlington, the next day he reached Burlington on foot, in Burlington he found a boat which was going towards Philadelphia, he arrived there about eight
美国文学史及作品选读模拟试题一 ) '×15=15I.Multiple Choice (1'______was the first colony in American history. C1. D.Georgia C. Virginia A. Massachusetts B. New Jersey War. the before Revolutionary only good American author 2. _B_____ was the
One “His shadow lies heavier than any other man's on of his fellow Americans said, this young nation.”D.Thomas Paine B. Benjamin Franklin C. Thomas Jefferson A. John Smith 3. Romantics put emphasis on the following EXCEPT __A____. D. individualism C. intuition B. imagination A. common sense The Raven was written in 1844 by __B______ 4. B. Edgar Allan Poe A. Philip Freneau D. Emily Dickinson C. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 5. The ship __C____ carried about one hundred Pilgrims and took 66 days to beat its way across the Atlantic. In December of 1620, it put the Pilgrims ashore at Plymouth, Massachusetts. D. Titanic C. Mayflower B. Armada A. Sunflower D____ is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in 6. Melville's novel __ pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale. Moby Dick D. C. White Jacket A. Typee B. Omoo 7. As a philosophical and literary movement, __D____ flourished in New England from the 1830s to the Civil War. D.Transcendentalism C.Sentimentalism B.Rationalism A.Modernism 8. The theme of original sin is fully reflected in ___A______. B. Sister Carrie A. The Scarlet Letter The Old Man and Sea D. C. The Great Gatsby 9. In all his novels Theodore Dreiser sets himself to project the ___B___ American values. For example, in Sister Carrie, there is not one character whose status is not determined economically. 页1 第 A. Puritan B. materialistic C. psychological D. religious 10. Realism was a reaction against____B__ or a move away from the bias towards
美国文学复习题(有答案版)
美国文学复习提纲 第一部分连线题（1*10=10’） 1. Thomas Jefferson The Declaration of Independence 2. Walt Whitman O’ Captain, My Captain 3. Mark Twain Jumping Frog 4. Robert Frost Mending Wall 5. Ezra Pound In a Station of the Metro 6. Carl Sandburg Chicago 7. Saul Bellow The Adventure of Augie March 8. Ernest Hemingway Men without Women 9. John Steinbeck The Grape of Wrath 10. Jack London The Call of the Wild 11. Sinclair Lewis Babbit 12. Flannery O’ Connor A Good Man Is Hard to Find 13. O. Henry The Last Leaf 14. Jerome David Salinger The Catcher in the Rye 15. William Falkner The Sound and the Fury 第二部分单项选择(1.5*20=30’) 1. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the “________” who appeared in America. A. Tenth Muse B. Ninth Muse C. Best Muse D. First Muse 2. In American literature, the 18th century was the age of the Enlightenment. ________ was the dominant spirit. A. Humanism B. Rationalism C. Revolution D. Evolution 3. Which of the following stirred the world and helped form the American republic? A. The American Crisis B. The Federalist C. Declaration of Independence D. The Age of Reason 4. At the Reason and Revolution Period, Americans were influenced by the European movement called the ________. A. Chartist Movement B. Romanticist Movement C. Enlightenment Movement D. Modernist Movement 5. Thoreau was often alone in the woods or by the pond, lost in spiritual communication with ________. A. nature B. transcendentalist ideas C. human beings D. celestial beings 6. ________tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a puritan community are involved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways. A. Twice-Told Tales B. The Scarlet Letter C. The House of the Seven Gables D. The Marble Faun
《美国文学》期末考试试卷（B卷） 1.Poor Richard’s Almanac ( ) 2.The House of the Seven Gables ( ) 3.“Raven”( ) 4.My Antonia ( ) 5.Babbitt ( ) 6.A Streetcar Named Desire ( ) 7.Maggie: A Girl of the Streets ( ) 8.A Farewell to Arms ( ) 9.The Call of the Wild ( ) 10.Long Day's Journey into Night ( ) https://www.doczj.com/doc/a216399863.html,mon Sense ( ) 12. “Rip Van Winkle”( ) 13. Walden( ) 14. The Song of Hiawatha( ) 15. Uncle Tom’s Cabin( ) 16.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn( ) 17.Sister Carrie( ) 18.The Waste Land( ) 19. A Farewell to Arms( ) 20.The Great Gatsby( ) 1.defined poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty. 2.While working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Samuel Langhorne Clemens adopted the pseudonym , the way of a boatman taking soundings, and meaning two fathoms. 3.Ezra Pound initiated a campaign for , which emphasized the direct treatment of an object or situation. He also advocated the language of common speech, but always the exact word. 4.Fitzgerald summarized the experiences and attitudes of the 1920s decade in his masterpiece novel _________. 5.is the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters. 6.The first of American literature was not written by an American, but by ___________________, a British captain, who thus became the first American writer. 7._________________ has been considered the “Father of modern American Poetry.\
美国文学自测题及参考答案I Directions: In this part of the test, there are 9 items and 10 blanks. Fill in the best answer on the Answer Sheet according to the knowledge you have learned. 1.The first American literature was neither ____ nor really ____. 2.Of the immigrants who came to America in the first three quarters of the seventeenth century, the overwhelming majority was _____. 3.The English immigrants who settled on America’s northern seacoast were called _____, so named after those who wished to “purify” the Church of England. 4.Washington Irving, the Father of American literature, developed the _____ as a genre in American literature. 5.Franklin’s best writing is found in his masterpiece _____. 6.The most outstanding poet in America of the 18th century was _____. 7.In the early 19th century, “Rip Van Winkle”had established _____’s reputation at home and abroad, and designated the beginning of American Romanticism. 8._____ has sometimes been considered the father of the modern short story. 9.In 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne brought out his masterpiece _____, the story of a triangular love affair in colonial America. Directions: In this part of the test, there are twenty items. Choose the best answer and write the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet. 1. The Colonial Period of American literature stretched roughly from
美国文学部分(American Literature) 一．独立革命前后的文学（The Literature Around the Revolution of Independence） 1．本章考核知识点和考核要求： 1)．殖民地时期的文学的特点 2)．主要的作家、其概况及其代表作品 2．独立革命前后时期的主要作家 本杰明·富兰克林Benjamin Franklin本杰明·富兰克林，散文家、科学家、社会活动家，曾参与起草―独立宣言。 《穷查理历书》Poor Richard’s Almanack 《致富之道》The Way to Wealth 《自传》The Autobiography 托马斯·潘恩Thomas Paine托马斯·潘恩，散文家、政治家、报刊撰稿人。 《税务员问题》The Case of the Officers of Excise 《常识》Common Sense 《美国危机》American Crisis 《人的权利》Rights of Man 《专制体制的崩溃》Downfall of Despotism 《理性时代》The Age of Reason 菲利普·弗伦诺Philip Freneau菲利普·弗伦诺，著名的―革命诗人‖。 《蒸蒸日上的美洲》―The Rising Glory of America‖
《英国囚船》―The British Prison Ship‖ 《纪念美国勇士》同类诗中最佳―To the Memory of the Brave Americans‖ 《野生的金银花》―The Wild Honeysuckle‖ 《印第安人殡葬地》―The Indian Burying Ground‖ 1二．美国浪漫主义文学（American Romanticism） 1．本章考核知识点和考核要求： 1)．美国浪漫主义文学产生的社会历史及文化背景 2)．主要作家的创作思想、艺术特色及其代表作品的主题结构、人物刻画和语言风格 3)．清教主义、超验主义、象征主义、自由诗等名词的解释 2.美国浪漫主义时期的主要作家 华盛顿·欧文Washington Irving华盛顿·欧文，美国著名小说家，被称为―美国文学之父‖.《瑞普·凡·温可尔》Rip Van Winkle 《纽约外史》A History of New York 《见闻札记》The Sketch Book 《睡谷的传说》The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库珀James Fenimore Cooper 詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库珀开创了以《皮裹腿故事集》为代表的边疆传奇小说，其中最为重要的一部是《最后的莫西干人》。 《皮裹腿故事集》Leatherstocking Tales 《间谍》The Spy 《领航者》The Pilot
I、Write the Names of the Authors、 1、Poor Richard’s Almanac 2、Common Sense 3、The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 4、A Streetcar Named Desire 5、The Waste Land 6、Sister Carrie 7、The House of the Seven Gables 8、The Great Gatsby 9、The Bluest Eye 10、 A Farewell to Arms 11、R ip Van Winkle 12、Raven 13、The Call of the Wild 14、The Marble Faun 15、Moby Dick 16、The Wing of the Dove 17、Of Mice and Men 18、The Bluest Eye 19、The Great Gatsby 20、The Bluest Eye 21、The Sound and the Fury II、Multiple Choices(Choose the best answer from the four choices)、 1、From 1622 until his death, , one of the greatest of colonial American, was reelected thirty times as governor、 A、Anne Bradstreet B、William Bradford C、Edward Taylor D、Thomas Pain 2、carries the voice not of an individual but of a whole people、It is more than writing of the Revolutionary period, it defined the meaning of the American Revolution、 A、Common Sense B、The American Crisis C、Declaration of Independence D、Defense of the English People 3、usually was regarded as the first American writer、 A、William Bradford B、Anne Bradstreet C、Emily Dickinson D、Captain John Smith 4、Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet、Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the " "who appeared in America、 A、Ninth Muse B、Tenth Muse C、Best Muse D、First Muse 5、_____ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club、 A、Henry David Thoreau B、Ralph Waldo Emerson C、Nathanial Hawthorne D、Walt Whitman
美国文学选择题及答案 1. William Faulkner is the author of ______. a. Far From the Madding Crowd b. Sound and Fury c. For Whom the Bell Tolls d. Scarlet Letter 2. Robert Frost is a famous_______. a. novelist b. playwright c. poet d. literary critic 3. The Old Man and the Sea is one of the great works by ________. a. Jack London b. Charles Dickens c. Samuel Coleridge d. Earnest Hemingway 4. _______refers to some contrast or discrepancy between appearance and reality. a. Allegory b. Conflict c. Irony d. Flashback 5. The great transcendental work by Henry David Thoreau is______. a. Nature b. Walden c. Experience d. Essays 6. Mark Twain shaped the world’s view of America and made a combination of _____and serious literature. a. American folk humor b. funny jokes c. English folklore d. American values 7. Who was the first American to achieve an international literary reputation after the Revolutionary War? a. Fennimore Cooper. b. Nathaniel Hawthorn. c. Walt Whitman. d. Washington Irving. 8. I Have a Dream is addressed by _____. a. Abraham Lincoln b. John F. Kennedy c. Martin Luther King d. Ralph Waldo Emerson 9. Which of the following is NOT a poem by Emily Dickinson? a. This is my letter to the world b. I heard a Fly buzz—when I died c. This is just to say d. Because I could not stop for death 10. Eugene O’Neil is an American ______. a. novelist b. playwright c. poet d. essayist 11. The period from 1865—1914 has been referred to as the _______in the literary history of the United States. a. Age of Realism b. Age of Classicalism c. Age of Romanticism d. Age of Renaissance 12. With “Collected Poems”, ______won the second Pulitzer Prize. a. Ezra Pond b. e. e. cummings c. Robert Frost d. William Cullen Bryant 13. Grass is a poem written by _______.
2012-2013学年第二学期 《美国文学》期末考试试卷（A卷） 专业：英语年级：2010级考试方式：闭卷学分：2 考试时间：110分钟 I．Multiple Choices(每小题 1分，共20分) Directions: Select from the four choices of each item the one that best answers the question. II．Explain the Following Literary Terms Briefly (每小题7分，共14分) Directions: Please write down the answers on the Answer Sheet. Local Colorism Transcendentalism III．Identification of Fragments (每小题7分，共21分) Directions: Please give the name of the author and the title of the literary work from which it is taken and then briefly comment on it in English. Please write down the answers on the Answer Sheet. 23. “…That?s right.? He said; …I?m no good now. I was all right. I had money. I?m going to quit this,? and, with death in his heart, he started down toward the Bowery. People had turned on the gas before and died; why shouldn?t he? He remembered a lodging house where there were little, close rooms, with gas-jet in them, almost pre-arranged, he thought, for what he wanted to do, which rented for fifteen cents. Then he remembered that he had no fifteen cents.” 25. “Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why that would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. 24. “…Mr. Gatz, I thought you might want to take the body West.?
20世纪的美国文学，堪称美国文学史上的“黄金时期”，同时也可以说是又一次“文艺复兴”。这一时期，现实主义、自然主义和现代主义形成了多元并存的局面，促进了现代美国文学的空前繁荣。 ==小说== 这一时期的小说创作主旨虽然是现实主义，但不同的作家在创作实践中却呈现出各自的特色。这一时期的小说创作有几种倾向： 1、两种现实主义小说。在这方面的主要代表是亨利·詹姆斯，他的创作继承了19世纪的高雅“现实主义”传统，擅长描写美国东部有闲阶级男女的心理。他作品描写的民主思想浓厚、独立性强、天真无邪、不拘虚礼但又有些我行我素的美国上层妇女形象，始终被看成是美国文化产物的典型。与这种创作倾向截然相反的是乡土小说和反映农民心声的作品。这方面比较有影响的作家哈姆林·加兰。 2、乡土作家和幽默小说。这方面的代表性作家是欧·亨利。他的短篇小说篇幅不长，以情节取胜，一般以写小市民生活为主，充满了蕴含同情的幽默和恢谐之特色。尤其是那些出人意料的结尾和“情理之中、意料之外”的谋篇布局手法更每每令读者拍案叫绝。 3、“黑幕揭发者”与厄普顿·辛克莱。从19世纪90年代开始，一批以揭露资本家穷奢极欲和政府丑闻为主要内容的暴露文学曾一度发展到高峰。其中以厄普顿·辛克莱的《屠场》最有影响。 4、自然主义和现实主义的交织。这一时期美国文学的一个重要成就在于出现了一批既具有现实主义倾向同时又受到欧洲自然主义哲学和文学思潮影响的作家。他们所描写的往往是一些没有文化、出身贫寒的下层人民和社会渣滓。第一部显示出决定论哲学倾向的作品是斯蒂芬·克莱斯的中篇小说《街头妇女郎梅季》。 杰克·伦敦参加过美国的社会主义运动，曾有“美国无产阶级文学之父”之称。实际上，他同时受到马克思主义、尼采的超人哲学和斯宾塞的社会达尔文主义的影响，这些均反映在他的主要长短篇小说中。他的写作风格粗犷而刚健有力，人物性格常常在激烈的矛盾冲突中得到展示。 西奥多·德莱塞（代表作《嘉莉妹妹》、《美国的悲剧》）运用巴尔扎克写典型、写细节的手法，成功地再现出他那个时代大城市中的社会生活和典型人物，场面比较广阔，含义比较深刻。他虽然揭露了资产阶级社会中尔虞我诈、弱肉强食的现象，但是又塑造了一批随波逐流、任性纵欲的主人公。但是他常常因为写作风格的滞重和句段的冗长而受到批评。 辛克莱·刘易斯是美国第一个获得诺贝尔文学的小说家。他的小说多以讽刺手法揭露美国资产阶级社会中的丑恶现象和矛盾。作为美国中产阶级的代言人，他的视野从未超越中产阶级。他的作品虽然从某些侧面揭露示了资产阶级社会中的矛盾，和社会的黑暗，但总的来说，缺乏一定的深度。
大四美国文学期末考试题型及例题： 1.选择/对错 60分（40道选择， 20个对错） 2.名词解释 10分（5个） 3.选段配对 10分（5个） 4.问答 20分（10/2） 1．历史：Father / poetess… 2. 名作家：Hemingway, Faulkner, Poe, Hawthorne, Emerson 3．作品：The Wasteland/Moby Dick/Scarlet Letter 选择题（40个，40分） 1. At the age of reason and revolution, Americans were influenced by the European movement called the ________. A. Chartist Movement B. Romanticist Movement C. Enlightenment Movement D. Modernist Movement 2. Which is NOT connected to Benjamin Franklin ________ A. He was born in a poor family. B. He was a pious puritan. C. He was phrased as “Jack of all trades”. D. He was a master of diplomacy. 3. Ernest Hemingway is noted for the following EXCEPT ________. A. Lost Generation B. Iceberg theory
美国文学研究 一、作者及其主要作品 梭罗《瓦尔登，或林中生活》 霍桑《红字》短篇小说如《教长的黑面纱》《小伙子布朗》等 麦尔维尔《白鲸》 爱伦·坡《怪诞故事集》 惠特曼《草叶集》 亨利·詹姆斯《一位女士的画像》 马克·吐温《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》《神秘的陌生人》 德莱塞《美国的悲剧》 杰克·伦敦《马丁·伊登》、《野性的呼唤》、《海狼》、《白牙》 T·S·艾略特《荒原》（诗歌） 菲茨杰拉德《了不起的盖茨比》 海明威《太阳照常升起》 福克纳《喧哗与骚动》 尤今·奥尼尔《毛猿》《琼斯皇》《进入黑夜的漫长旅程》（戏剧）斯坦贝克《愤怒的葡萄》 索尔·贝娄《洪堡的礼物》、《挂起来的人》 诺曼·梅勒《裸者与死者》 塞林格《麦田里的守望者》 厄普代克《兔子，跑吧》（“兔子四部曲”） 海勒《第二十二条军规》 纳博科夫《洛丽塔》 凯鲁亚克《在路上》 威廉斯《玻璃动物园》（戏剧） 米勒《推销员之死》（戏剧） 拉尔夫·埃里森《看不见的人》 托尼·莫里森《所罗门之歌》 爱丽丝·沃克《紫色》 谭恩美《喜福会》 独立战争前后的文学 富兰克林《自传》《穷查理历书》《致富之路》 托马斯·潘恩《常识》《人的权利》《理性的时代》 托马斯·杰弗逊《独立宣言》 克里夫古尔《一个美国农夫的信》
弗瑞诺《野忍冬花》《印第安人墓地》《纪念英勇的美国人》 查尔斯·布罗克丹·布朗《韦兰德》 二、简答题+论述题 1.美国文学的诞生及一般特色 1)历史背景：1775-81年的北美独立战争；1783年美利坚合众国的成 立；1861-65年的南北战争。独立战争以后，特别是进入19世纪之 后，独立的美国文学开始诞生。 2)美国文学的一般特色： A.早期人少地多，为个人理想的实现提供了很大的空间和可能性， 因此美国文学富于民主自由精神，个人主义、个性解放的观念 较为强烈； B.这是一个由各国移民组成的国家，所以文学的内容、思想倾向和 艺术风格都呈现出多样性、庞杂性； C.许多作家直接来自社会下层，使得文学的生活气息浓郁，平民色 彩鲜明，具有开朗、豪放的特点； D.由于美国作家的敏感、好奇，使得美国文学浪潮迭起，日新月异， 瞬息万变。 3)它是一种个人主义和冒险精神的文学，一种扩张和探索的文学，一 种种族冲突和帝国征服的文学，一种大规模移民和种族关系紧张的 文学，一种资产阶级家庭生活和个人自由与社会限制不断斗争的文 学······最后，这是一种始终由于有关身份的双重焦点而著称的文 学：一方面它把这个国家奉为未来的土地，“明天之国”，试图制造 一种关于“美国”的救世神话；另一方面它又进行自我折磨，对于 身为“美国人”意味着什么怀着一种极其痛苦的焦虑。 ——《剑桥美国文学史》2.浪漫主义时期的美国文学 1)浪漫主义产生的背景： A.独立战争的胜利、美国的独立发展 B.欧洲浪漫主义运动的盛行 C.美国大陆新的自然和社会风貌 2)前后两代浪漫主义： 前期：以纽约为根据地的作家，如欧文、库柏 后期：以波士顿为中心的新英格兰文化圈 3.早期浪漫主义文学（30年代以前）