Questions For American Literature
Week 1. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
1. Is Franklin a man of religious
principles? Why does he stop attending public service?
2. Explain 13 virtues Franklin
chooses for his moral improvement.
3. What is Franklin’s attitude
towards moral perfection?
4. What are significance of the
moralistic self- discipline, according to Franklin?
5. What virtues does Franklin
think he has never achieved?
6. Comment on the Criticism that some authors made on Franklin, such as Hawthorn, Lawrence. (History p.53-54)
Week 2: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
1.What does “whim”mean in the
“Self-reliance”? and why does Emerson call consistency “foolish”?
2.What is an acrostic or
Alexandrian stanza character like, according to the Self-relaince?
3.Explain “to talk of reliance is a
poor external way of speaking.
Speak rather of that which relies, because it works and is.”and the context that gives rise to this statement in the Self-reliance.
4.What are Emerson’s comments
on Jesus Christ in “The Divinity School Address”? Please compare it with Thomas Paine’s in The Age of Reason.
Week Three：Henry David Thoreau (1817--1862)
1.What is the analogy between that
striped snake lying on the bottom of the pond and the man in the
early spring? How is a stray goose like the spirit of the fog?
2.What is Thoreau’s
understanding of the beauty of an architecture? And what does he think of the architectural ornaments? In what cases will a “carpenter”be a “coffin-maker”?
3.Why does Thoreau say “Those
things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants”?
What is your comment on Thoreau’s idea of higher education?
4.Is Thoreau a quietist or a hermit
in the woods of Walden? Why or why not?
Week four: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864):
1.What did the boy, at nightfall, hear
when he was playing with the scattered fragments of marble?
And how did he respond?
2.What does author compare the
kiln with?
3.What question struck Ethan
Brand’s mind on that portentous night 18 years ago?
Did he find the answer to it after 18-year-wandering in the world?
What is it?
4.What kind of person is Ethan
Brand in his youth hood? What causes his transformation? What is the end of his life?
5.How does the old dog’s pursuit
of his tail parallel Ethan Brand’s search for the Unpardonable Sin?
6.What is your understanding of
the little boy Joe? What virtues does he stand for?
