美国文学史及选读试卷

美国文学史及选读试卷

Ⅰ.Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternatives. Choose the one that would best complete the statement. (60points in all, 2 for each)

1. Which of following can be said of the common features which are shared by the English and American Romanticists ?

A. An increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions. B. An increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. C. An increasing emphasis on the desire to return to nature. D. both A and B.

2. Which of the following statements about the Romantic period in the history of American literature is NOT true? （ ）

A. In most of the American writings of this period there was a new emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature.

B. The writers of this period placed an increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions and displayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters.

C. There was a strong tendency to exalt the individual and the common man. D. Most heroes and heroines in the writings of this period exhibited extremes of reason and nationality.

3.______ is unanimously agreed to be the summit of the American Romanticism in the history of American literature.

A. New England Transcendentalism B. England Transcendentalism C. the Harlem Renaissance D. New Transcendentalism 4.Hawthorne’s unique gift was for the creation of ______ which touch the deepest roots of man’s moral nature. A. symbolic stories

.

B. romantic stories

.

C. gothic stories

D. humorous stories

5. About the novel The Scarlet Letter, which of the following statements is not right? A. It's very hard to say that it is a love story or a story of sin. B. It's a highly symbolic story and the author is a master of symbolism.

C. It's mainly about the moral, emotional and psychological effects of the sin upon the main characters and the people in general.

D. In it the letter A takes the same symbolic meaning throughout the novel.

6. Which of the following statements is said about most of the poems in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass?

A. They identify his ego with the conservative America. B. They celebrate the self and ignore sexuality. C. They sing of the “en-masse” and the self as well.

D. They reject the pursuit of love and happiness of individuals.

7.Realism was a reaction against （ ） or a move away from the bias towards romance and self-creating fictions, and paved the way to Modernism. A. Symbolism B. Imagism C. Romanticism D. Mysticism

8. The subjects of Emily Dickinson’s poems are mainly about . A. religion

B. death and immortality

D. all of the above

C. love and nature

9. The three dominant figures in the period of Realism of American are William Dean Howells, Mark Twain and_________. （ ） A. Henry James B. Tom James C. James Joyce D. Henry Joyce

10. In his masterpiece The Portrait of A Lady Henry James _________ .

.

.

A. incarnates the clash between the Old World and the New in the life journey of an American girl in a European cultural environment

B. tells a story about a young and innocent American confronting the complexity of the European life as well as the American society

C. describes a young American girl who gets “killed” by the winter in Rome D. tells about some Europeans who learn with difficulty to adapt themselves to the American life

11. Which of the following can be said about the titular heroine in the novel Daisy Miller?

A. She has become a celebrated cultural type who embodies the spirit of the new world.

B. The author’s sympathy for her, a tender flower crushed by the harsh winter in Rome was easily felt.

C. Her innocence turns out to be an admiring but a dangerous quality in the new world.

D. all of the above

12. As Emily Dickinson’s poems about love are concerned, which of the following is not right ?

A. Many of them give original depictions of the longing for shared moments, the pain of separation, and the futility of finding happiness.

B. Some of her love poems treat the suffering and frustration love can cause. C. Her love poems show people’s feelings of rapture and happiness coming from their love experience.

13. More than five hundred poems Emily Dickinson wrote are about nature, in which her general ________ about the relationship between man and nature is well-expressed.（ ） A. denial

B. eulogy D. happiness

C. skepticism

.

.

14. In his “Trilogy of Desire”, Theodore Dreiser’s focus shifted from the pathos of the helpless protagonists at the bottom of the society to the power of the American financial tycoons in the late 19th century. The “Trilogy of Desire” includes The Financial, The Titan and _________.（ ） A. The Stoic

B. The Genius

D. Jennie Gerhardt

C. An American Tragedy

15.In the first part of the 20th century, apart from Darwinism, which was still a big influence upon the writers of this period, there were two thinkers____whose ideas had the greatest impact on the period.

A. the German Karl Marx and the American Sigmund Freud B. the German Karl Marx and the Austrian Sigmund Freud C. the Swiss Car Jung and the American William James D. the Austrian Karl Marx and the German Sigmund Freud

16. Eugene O'Neill is remembered for his tragic view of life and most of his plays are about ______.

A. the root, the truth of human desires and human frustrations B. the moral nature of the modern mankind

C. the relationship between man and nature as well as man and woman D. the inner contradiction of men before the real world

17. In general terms, much serious American literature written from 1912 onwards attempted to convey ______.

A. a vision of social breakdown and moral decay B. a vision of social continuity and harmony

C. the continuity and discontinuity between the past and the modern time D. all of the above

18. Which of the following is not said about the main principles of the Imagist Movement? ______

A. a direct treatment of poetic subjects

B. the elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words

.

.

C. the rhythmical composition in the sequence of the musical phrase rather than in the sequence of a metronome

D. the treatment of the medium of poetry in agreement with Romanticism 19. Most of O'Neill's plays are concerned about the following except______. A. success and failure in man's literary career

B. life and death, illusion and disillusion, dream and reality

C. alienation and communication, self and society, desire and frustration D. the basic issues of human existence and predicament

20. Which of the following can be said about a typical modern literary work? A. It is a record of sequence and coherence of the history and the world. B. It is a juxtaposition of the past and present, of the history and the memory. C. It is a book of integrity drawn from diverse areas of experience.

D. Its perspective is shifted from the internal to the external, from the private to the public.

21. Which of following is not right about the thematic concerns of Robert Frost ? A. The terror and tragedy in nature as well as its beauty. B. His sense of failure and meaninglessness about human life. C. His love of life and his belief in a serenity coming from working. D. The loneliness and poverty of the isolated human being. 22. Which of the following can be said about O’Neill’s plays?

A. His plays concern especially the relationship between man and women of the modern age.

B. His expressionistic experimentations contained his optimistic vision in some non-realistic forms.

C. His plays of expressionistic experimentation daringly penetrate into race religions, class conflicts, sexual bondage, and social critiques.

D. Many of them are attached with a profound insight into nature and tremendous skill and logic.

23. Hemingway's first true novel （ ） casts light on a whole generation after the First World War and the effects of the war by way of a vivid portrait of “The Lost

.

.

Generation.” A. The Sun Also Rises

B. The Old Man and the Sea D.A Farewell to Arms

C. For Whom the Bell Tolls

24.In 1950, William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for the anti-racist （ ）.

A. The Sound and the Fury C. The Unvanquished

B. Intruder in the Dust

D. Light in August

25. As to Ezra Pound, which of the following statements is not correct? A. His artistic talents are on full display in the history of the Imagist Movement. B. For he was politically controversial and notorious for what he did in the wartime, his literary achievement and influence are somewhat reduced.

C. From his analysis of the Chinese ideogram Pound learned to anchor his poetic language in concrete, perceptual reality, and to organize images into larger patterns through juxtaposition.

D. His language is usually oblique yet marvelously compressed and his poetry is dense with personal, literary, and historical allusions.

26. Henry James is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century _________ novels and the founder of psychological realism. A. local B. color

C. physical D. stream-of-consciousness

27. In Henry James’ Daisy Miller, the author tries to portray the young woman as an embodiment of_________.

A. the free spirit of the New World B. the corruption of the newly rich C. the force of conviction D. the change of the social force

28. “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street.” This is a detailed description of Emily’s old house. The purpose of such description is to imply the person living in it_________.

A. is an old woman B. has good taste

.

.

C. is a conservative aristocrat D. is a prisoner of the past 29. In his novels, Faulkner creates his own kingdom that mirrors _________. A. the frivolity and carelessness of the young generation and the sense of loss and despair of the whole society.

B. the spiritual wasteland of the Southern society and the decline of the whole American society

C. the sense of loss and despair among the post-war generation and the decline of the whole American society

D. the decline of the Southern society and the spiritual wasteland of the whole American society

30. Which of the following can be said about Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily ? A. The “stream of consciousness” technique is employed in it . B. The chronology of narration is displaced.

C. Its language is too symbolic and the dialogues are fragmented. D. There are too many characters whose relations are too complicated.

Ⅱ. Choose the relevant match from Column B for each item in Column A. (10 points in all, 2 point for each) （ ）1. Theodore Dreiser （ ）2. Mark Twain

A. The Cantos B. The Great Gatsby C. Sister Carrie

D. Adventures of Huckleberry

（ ）3. Nathaniel Hawthorne （ ）4 . F. S. Fitzgerald Finn

（ ）5. Ezra Pound

E. The Scarlet Letter

Ⅲ. Explain the following terms. (25points in total, 5 points for each) 1. American naturalism 2. Lost Generation 3. Imagism 4. Modernism 5. Harlem Renaissance

.

.

Ⅳ. Answer the following question. (5points) What is the Chinese culture over Pound?

.