美国文学练习1-4

2021年1月25日发(作者：shape)
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Chapter 1

Literature of Colonial America
Decide whether the statements are true or false.

F

1. American literature is the oldest of all national literature.

T


2. American poetry of the 18
th
century has an imitative character, imitating the reigning English models of the 18
th
century
Choose the best answer or answers for each of the following statements.
( C ) 1. The
Puritan philosophy
known as




is the most enduring shaping influence in American thought and literature.

A. Revolutionism



B. Reason



C. American Puritanism


D. Rationalism
( B ) 2.
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
( B ) 3. The secular ideals of the
American Enlightenment
were exemplified in the life and career of






.
A. Thomas Hood





B. Benjamin Franklin



C. Thomas Jefferson


D. George Washington
(B)4.
Thomas Paine
’s famous pamphlet “

” is often regarded as the gre
atest of the Revolutionary pamphlets. The argument is characteristic of plainness.
A. The Rights of Man




B. Common Sense



C. The American Crisis



D. Declaration of Independence

Chapter 2

Early Romantics
；
Chapter 3 Transcendentalism
；
Chapter 4

High Romantics
Choose the best answer or answers for each of the following statements.
( A ) 1.
Transcendentalists
recognized







as the “highest power of soul”.

A.

intuition



B. logic



C. data of the senses


D. Thinking
(B C D) 2. Choose the poems written by
Edgar Allan Poe
from the following.

A. “To Helen”

B.
The Raven


C. “Annabel Lee”

D. “The Bells”

(A B C D) 3. Choose the characters which appear in the novel
The Scarlet Letter
.

A. Hester Prynne

B. Arthur Dimmesdale

C. Roger Chillingworth

D. Pearl
( A B ) 4.
Washington Irving
was best known for his famous short stories such as “






” and “






”.

A. Rip Van Winkle



B The Legend of Sleepy Hollow



C. Life of Goldsmith


D. Life of Washington
(B) 5.
Herman Melville
’s



is an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy, religion, etc. in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the
whaling industry.

A.
The Old Man and the Sea


B.
Moby Dick


C.
White Jacket


D.
Billy Budd

( A ) 6.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
’s essay



has been regarded
as “America’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence”. It called on American writers to
write about America in a way peculiarly American.
A.
The American Scholar





B.
Nature




C.
The Rights of Man








D.
Self-Reliance

( B ) 7. A superb book entitled







came out of
Henry David Thoreau
’s two
-year experiment at Walden Pond.
A.
The American Scholar





B.
Walden





C.
The Rights of Man








D.
Self- Reliance

( C )8. From
Henry David Thoreau
’s Concord jail experience came his famous essay “






”.

A. The Rights of Man




B. Common Sense






C. Civil Disobedience




D. Declaration of Independence
( B ) 9. The central figure in the
Leatherstocking Tales
is




, who goes by the various names of Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, Pathfinder and Hawkeye.
A. Nature



B. Natty Bumppo




C. Deer





D. sailor
( A) 10.






was the first to develop the short story as a distinctive art form and to elaborate criteria by which it can be judged. Therefore he was often
regarded as the father of the modern short story.
A. Washington Irving







B. Philip Freneau




C. William Cullen Bryant




D. Edgar Allan Poe
( C ) 11.
The Scarlet Letter
was written by






, who tended to write about the






, and believed that evil was at the core of human life. He was
proclaimed as the first American romancer.
A. Washington Irving; past







B. Philip Freneau; future





C. Nathaniel Hawthorne; past





D. Edgar Allan Poe; future
( A
) 12. Dickinson’s poems demonstrate







and





.
A. inconsistency; indirection







B. consistency; indirection





C. inconsistency; direction









D. consistency; direction
( D ) 13. The poetic style Walt Whitman applied is now called





, that is poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.
A. ballad


B. blank verse


C. sonnet



D. free verse
( A ) 14. Dickinson’s greatest lyrics are on the theme of






, personified as a monarch, a lord, or a kind but irresistible lover.
A. death


B. friendship


C. politics



D. art
Chapter 5

Realism
；
Chapter 6 Local Colorism
；
Chapter 7 Naturalism

Choose the best answer or answers for each of the following statements.
( ABCD ) 1. Choose the works written by Mark Twain.

A.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer










B.
Innocents Abroad







C.
The Gilded Age













D.
The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson



( B ) 2. Whereas Mark Twain and William Dean Howells satirized European manners at times,







was an admirer.

A. O. Henry

B. Henry James



C. Walt Whitman

D. Jack London
( ABCD ) 3. Choose the novels written by Henry James.
A.
Daisy Miller















B.
The Portrait of a Lady






C.
The Wings of the Dove







D.
The Ambassadors



(ABCD) 4. Choose Jack London’s works from the following.

A.
The Call of the Wild







B.
White Fang






C.
The Sea Wolf













D.
Martin Eden
( A ) 5. The novel which was described by an American critic as “an outrage to American girlhood” is Henry James’s






.
A.
Daisy Miller














B.
The Portrait of a Lady






C.
The Wings of the Dove






D.
The Ambassadors
( B
) 6. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s masterpiece is






, which is considered to be the greatest of all anti-slavery literature, and help bring the North to
fight the slave-holding South in the Civil War.

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A.
Daisy Miller










B.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin








C. “The Gift of the Magi”







D.
The Color Purple
( C ) 7. Hemingway once wrote: “All modern American literature comes from one book by






called
Huckleberry Finn
...”

A. Henry James







B. William Dean Howells








C. Mark Twain








D. O. Henry
( D ) 8. Regionalism, or Local Colorism is a subordinate order of






.
A. Colonialism


B. Puritanism



C. Romanticism



D. Realism
( C ) 9. Naturalists held that humans are controlled by laws of







and





.
A. heredity; Puritanism







B. Puritanism; totality



C. heredity; environment






D. truth; beauty
( A ) 10. Theodore Dreiser neither condemned nor praised the protagonist of






.
A.
Sister Carrie















B.
White Fang






C.
The Red Badge of Courage










D.
Martin Eden
Answer the following question in your own words.

What are the differences between American romantic writers, realist writers and naturalist writers in their attitudes toward
human beings in their literary
creation?

Romanticists
place
the
individual
at
the
center
of
art
and
make
literature
most
valuable
as
an
expression
of
his
or
her
unique
feelings
and
particular
attitudes and make its accuracy a portraying the individual’s expriences

Realists described with much vividness and great artistic skill the chief traits of the English society and criticized the capitalist system from a democratic
viewpoint. They not only gave a satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the ruling classes, but also showed profound sympathy for the common people.
But they did not find a way to eradicate social evils and did not realize the necessity of changing the bourgeois society.
According to the theory of naturalism, literature must be true to life and exactly reproduce real life, including all its details without any selection. Naturalist
writers usually write about the lives of the poor and oppressed, or the slum life, but by giving all the details of life without discrimination, they can only
represent the extend appearance instead of the inner essence of real life.

Chapter 8

Poetry



Decide whether the statements are true or false.


T


1. When the other modernist poets were obscure and difficult to understand, Robert Frost could be understood by the average person.




T

2.
Unlike
Wallace
Stevens,
who
experimented
in
his
language,
the
New
England
poets E.
A.
Robinson
and
Robert
Frost
were
modern
in
their
themes about the wasted, blighted, or impoverished lives, but
NOT
modern in their techniques and verse forms. They used traditional verse forms and
made their poems of modernist themes more easily understood by the public.



T


3. Robert Frost wrote about the universal matters of life and death, good and evil, with the deceptive, rustic simplicity.




F



4. Robert Frost did write pastoral poetry as a way to escape from modern life.




F


5. In the decade of 1910s, American literature achieved a new diversity and reached its greatest heights.

Choose the best answer or answers for each of the following statements.
(ABC ) 1. The Imagist writers followed three principles, they respectively are





.

A. direct treatment

B. economy of expression

C. clear rhythm



D. blank verse
(C ) 2. “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” This is written by






.

A. T. S. Eliot

B. Robert Frost

C. Ezra Pound

D. E. E. Cummings
(A ) 3.






showed great interest in Chinese literature and translated the poetry of Li Po (Li Bai) into English, and was influenced by Confucian ideas.

A. Ezra Pound


B. Robert Frost

C. T. S. Eliot

D. E. E. Cummings
(B ) 4. Ezra Pound’s long poem







contained more than one hundred poems loosely connected.

A.
The Waste Land





B.
The Cantos




C.
Don Juan


D.
Queen Mab

(C ) 5. “Richard Cory” and “Miniver Cheevy” are good examples of E. A. Robinson’s







attitude.

A. romantic



B. futurism




C. realistic




D. materialistic
(B ) 6. In 1922 Thomas Stearns Eliot published his great work
The Waste Land
, which catches precisely the state of culture and society after the Second
World War and graphically illustrates the spiritual poverty of the







of the time. It has been regarded as a central text of modernism.
A. East






B. West






C. North






D. South
(D ) 7. Robert Frost is famous for his lyric poems. Which of the following lyric poem was not written by Robert Frost?

A. “The Road Not Taken”





B. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”





C. “After Apple
-
Picking”






D. “Richard Cory”


(B) 8.

, oe of the essays in
The Sacred Wood
, is the earliest statement of T. S. Eliot’s aesthetic
s, which provided a useful instrument for modern criticism.

A. “Sweeny Agonistes”










B. “Tradition and the Individual Talent”




C. “A Primer of Modern Heresy”



D. “Gerontion”

( ABCD) 9.






was/were written by T. S. Eliot.

A.
The Waste Land



B.
The Hollow Men


C.
Ash Wednesday



D.
Four Quartets

( ABC) 10. T. S. Eliot was a






.

A. poet

B. playwright

C. literary critic

D. novelist
(C ) 11.

The Waste Land

reads like the manifesto of the “Lost Generation.” It consists of







segments.
A. three



B. four



C. five


D. six
(B ) 12. The essence of






, which began in Germany in the 1890s, and ended in the early 1940s, was a break with the past, and it also fostered a belief
in art and literature as an avenue to self-fulfillment.

A. Realism



B. Modernism



C. Naturalism




D. Sentimentalism
( D) 13.






dramatized discontinuity and imminent severance from the past while making determined efforts to use the past, its values and artistic
forms by incorporating them in new literary production.

A. Sentimentalism



B. Realism


C. Naturalism




D. Modernism

( A) 14. Modernists had a sense of fragmentation in social communities and the fragmentation within the individual himself. Hence







became a
common theme in modernist writing.

2