英美文学选读-美国-现实主义时期-大题.doc

3 Emily Dickinson43. “We passed the School, where Children stroveAt Recess in the Ring We passed the Fields of Gazing GrainWe passed the Setting Sun ”Questions:A. Who is the author of this stanza taken from the poem “Because I could not stop for Death? B. What do the underlined parts symbolize?C. Where were “we” heading toward? (034) 4143. A. These lines are taken from a poem written by Emily Dickinson.B. The School, the Fields of Gazing Grain, the Setting Sun symbolize three stages of one s life: youth, manhood and old age.C. We were riding in a hearse (or a carriage), heading toward Eternity.43. “With Blue uncertain stumbling Buzz Between the light and me And then the Windows failed and thenI could not see to see ”Questions:A. Identify the poem and the poet.B. What do “Windows” symbolically stand for?C. What idea does the quoted passage express? (044) 4243.A. Emily Dickinson: (465) “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”.B. Eyes, for they are considered as the windows of human soul.C. The last thing the dying person saw and heard was the fly and its buzz. When the eyes failed, the human soul was closed and the person died. (The speaker could not see any of the afterlife or God or angels she expected to see.)44.“We passed the School, where Children stroveAt Recessin the RingWe passed the Fields of Gazing GrainWe passed the Setting Sun”Questions:A. Identify the poem and the poet.B. What do“the School,” “the Fields”and“the Setting Sun”stand for respectively? (054)44. A. Emily Dickinson; “Because I could not stop for Death”B. Three stages of life: childhood, adulthood and old age.43. “This is my letter to the WorldThat never wrote to Me The simple News that Nature told With tender Majesty” Questions: A. Identify the poet.B. What idea does the poem express? C. Why does the poet use dashes and capital letters in the poem? (104)4443. A. Emily DickinsonB. The poem expresses the poets anxiety about her communication with the outside world.C. Dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence and capital letters as a means of emphasis.43. “ We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess- in the Ring- We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain - We Passed the Setting Sun- ” ( From Emily Dickinsons poem Because I could not stop for Death)Questions:A. What does the phrase “Fields of Gazing Grain” symbolize?B. What figure of speech is used in the poem?C. What are Dickinsons unique writing features? （107）43. A. It symbolizes the mature period.B. PersonificationC. (1) Her poems have no titles. (2) Dashes are used as a musical device. (3) Capital letters are used as a means of emphasis. (4) Irregular and inverted sentence structure is used. (5) Her poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness and plainness. (6) Her poems are usually short, personal and meditative.48. The literary school of naturalism was quite popular in the late 19th century. What are the major characteristics of naturalism? (044)48. A. Strongly influenced by social Darwinism, naturalism emphasizes the determining power of the crushing forces of environment and heredity.B. Being devoid of the freedom of choice and incapable of shaping their own destinies, men and women are helpless and insignificant in a cold and indifferent world. C. The naturalistic writers reported truthfully and objectively, with a passion for scientific accuracy and overwhelming accumulation of factual detail.48Why are naturalists inevitably pessimistic in their view? （084）47. Who are the three dominant figures of the American Age of Realism and what are the differences in their understanding of the “truth”? (094)47. A. William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Henry James B. Mark Twain and Howells seemed to have paid more attention to the “life” of the Americans. Howells focused his discussion on the rising middle class and the way they lived; Mark Twain preferred to have his own region and people at the forefront of his stories; Henry James had apparently laid a greater emphasis on the “inner world” of man.47. What are the factors that gave rise to American naturalism? (104)47. A. The impact of Darwins evolutionary theory on the American thought.B. The influence of the 19th century French literature on the American men of letters.Mark Twain48. Local colorism is a unique variation of American literary realism. Who is the most famous local colorist? What are local colorists most concerned? （097）48. A. Mark TwainB. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. They formed an important part of the realistic movement.48. Briefly state Mark Twain s magic power with language in his novels. (104)48. A. His words are colloquial, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, even ungrammatical spoken languageB. His characters speak with a strong accent, which is true of his local colorism.C. Different characters from different literary or cultural backgrounds talk differently.Henry James48. What is the most famous theme in Henry Jamess fiction? And what is his favourite approach in characterization, which makes him different from Mark and W. D. Howells as realists? Give two titles of his works in which this theme and this approach are employed.(034)48. Henry James s most famous theme is what is generally called the international theme. His novels or short stories of the theme are always set against a larger international background,usually between Europe and America. They center around the conflict of the two cultures,represented by an innocent American and a sophisticated European. James is regarded as the founder of psychological realism for his psychoanalytical approach to his Characters. Daisy Miller, The Portrait of A Lady, The American, The Ambassadors are his representative worksof this kind.Theodore Dreiser47. “In your rocking-chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking-chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel.” The two sentences are taken from Theodore Dreisers novel, Sister Carrie. What idea can you draw from the “rocking-chair”? (044)47. A. The “rocking-chair” is a symbol standing for fate. It is like a cradle that makes one feel peaceful. It is also like a tide that ever goes on with life, the destiny of which is uncertain. B. At the end of the novel, Carrie sits in the rocking-chair which implies that her future is still uncertain and hard to foresee.48. Whats Dreiser s naturalistic belief? Please discuss the question with Carrie, a character in Sister Carrie as an example. (094)48. A. Dreiser believes that while men are controlled and conditioned by heredity, instinct and chance, a few extraordinary and unsophisticated human beings refuse to accept their fate wordlessly and instead strive, unsuccessfully, to find meaning and purpose for their existence.B. Carrie, as one of such, senses that she is merely a cipher in an uncaring world yet seeks to grasp the mysteries of life and thereby satisfies her desires for social status and material comfort, but in spite of he success, she is lonely and dissatisfied.Mark Twain50. Summerize the story of Mark twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in about 100 words, and comment on the theme of the novel. (024)50. A. Mark Twains 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 Toms 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 rafts journey down the Mississippi River to express his thematic contrasts between innocence and experience, nature and culture, wilderness and civilization.50.Take Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as an example to illustrate the statement that Mark Twain was a unique writer in American literature. (054)50. A. Mark Twain shaped the worlds view of America and made an extensive combination of American folk humor and serious literature. B. The novel has become a great contribution to the legacy of American literature. C. The novel is written in a language that is totally different from the rhetorical language used by his contemporary writers such as Emerson, Poe and Melville. It is simple, direct, lucid and faithful to the colloquial speech. This style of colloquialism is best described as “vernacular”. D. He successfully used local color and historical settings to illustrate and shed light on the contemporary society. Thats why he is known as a local colorist. E. Mark Twains humor is remarkable, too. Most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks. etc. Some of them are typical of tall tales. And a great deal of his humor is characterized by puns, straight-faced exaggeration, repetition, and anti-climax. He uses his humor to criticize the social injustice and satirize the decayed romanticism. 50. Briefly discuss Mark Twains art of fiction in terms of the setting, the language, and the characters, etc., based on his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry