美国文学史及选读期末复习题

1. Captain John Smith became the first American writer.2. The puritans looked upon themselves as a chosen people.3. Poor Richards Almanac is an annual collection of proverbs written by Benjamin Franklin.4. Thomas Paines famous pamphlet Common Sense boldly advocated a “Declaration for Independence”.5. Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.6. Philip Freneau has been called the “Father of American Poetry”.7. In Washington Irvings Sketch Book appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.8. Coopers enduring fame rests on his frontier stories, especially the five novels that comprise the Leatherstocking tales.9. “To a Waterfowl” is perhaps the peak of William Cullen Bryants wok.Edgar Allan Poe is considered “father of American detective stories and American gothic stories”.10. Emerson believed above all in individualism, independence of mind, and self-reliance.11. Hawthornes stories touch the deepest roots of mans moral nature.12. Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.13. After his death, Longfellow became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey.14. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Toms Cabin, had become an American institution and the most famous literary woman in the world.15. The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment.16. The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called free verse.Henry James is famous for his international theme of the traditionless American confronting the complexity of European life.17. Writers of the first postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were a “Lost Generation,” devoid of faith and alienated from a civilization.18. With the publication of The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway became the spokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called “a lost generation.”Terms1. Transcendentalism Transcendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the middle 1800s, which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Oversoul, and Nature. New England Transcendentalism is the product of a combination of native American Puritanism and European Romanticism. 2. NaturalismNaturalism, a more deliberate kind of realism, usually involves a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment. As a literary movement, naturalism was initiated in France. Natural fiction aspired to a sociological objectivity, offering detailed and fully researched investigations into unexplored corners of modern society. The most significant work of naturalism in English being Dreisers Sister Carrie.The Lost Generation The term Lost Generation was coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to a group of American Literary notables who lived in Paris from the time period which saw the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Significant members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein herself. More generally, the term is being used for the young adults of Europe and America during World War I. They were “lost” because after the war many of them were disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to more into a settled life5. ModernismModern writing is marked by a strong and conscious break with traditional forms and techniques of expression; it believes that we create the world in the act of perceiving it. Modernism implies historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, of loss, and of despair. It elevates the individual and his inner being over social man and prefers the unconscious to the self-conscious.6. Romanticism 7. Puritanism The principles and practices of puritans were popularly known as Puritanism. Puritanism accepted the doctrines of Calvinism: the sovereignty of God; the supreme authority of the Bible; the irresistibility of Gods will for man in every act of life from cradle to grave. These doctrines led the Puritans to examine their souls to find whether they were of the elect and to search the Bible to determine Gods will.8. Hemingway Heroes / Code HeroSuch a hero usually is an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent. And usually he is a man of action and of a few words. He is such an individualist, alone even when with other people, somewhat an outsider The Hemingway heroes stand for a whole generation. But Hemingway heroes possess a kind of “despairing courage” It is this courage that enables a man to behave like a man, to assert his dignity in face of adversity. Give brief answers to the following questions.1. What are the characteristics of the Colonial Literature?In a real sense, there were no literal works in the early colonial period. They were just personal literature in the form of diaries, travel books, letters, journals, sermons, histories and prose.(1) In content, they wrote about the voyage to the new land, about adopting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops, about dealing with Indian, and especially about religion.(2) In form, English traditions were imitated.2. Comment briefly on Emily Dickinsons themes?(1) By far the largest portion of Dickinsons poetry concerns death and immortality, theme which lie at the centre of Dickinsons world.(2) Dickinsons nature poems are also great in number and rich in matter. Natural phenomena, changes of seasons, heavenly bodies, animals, birds and insects, flowers of various kinds, and many other subjects related to nature find her way into her poetry.(3) Dickinson also wrote some poems about love. Like her death and nature poems, her love poems were original.(4) Besides deaths and immortality, nature and love, Dickinsons poems are concerned about ethics, with respect to which, she emphasizes free will and human responsibility.4 Henry James is a great realistic writer. Name two of his major works. Do you know anything about his narrative “point of view”? What is it for? How does James employ it in his works? Briefly discuss this question.(1) Henry Jamess major works include Daisy Miller and The Portrait of A Lady, etc.(2) One of Henry James literary techniques is his narrative “point of view.” As the author, James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possible and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minimal intervention. So it is often the case that in his novels we usually learn the main story by reading through one or several minds and share their perspectives. This narrative method proves to be successful in bringing out his themes.5. Tell the differences between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman(1) Emily Dickinson expresses the inner life of individuals, while Walt Whitman keeps his eyes on the society at large.(2) Emily Dickinson is “regional”, while Walt Whit