美国文学期末考试试卷模拟试题

1. In 1817, the stately poem called “Thanatopsis” introduced the best poet, ______, to appear in America up to that time.

2. James Fennimore Cooper launched two kinds of immensely popular stories: the sea adventure and ______.

3. Ralph Emerson was recognized throughout his life as the leader of ______ movement, yet he never applied the term to himself or to his beliefs and ideas. 4. Herman Melville’s novel ______ is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.

5. In the early 19th century, Washington Irving wrote ______ which became the first work by an American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic. 6. In 1845, Henry David Thoreau began a two-year residence at ______ Pond.

7. After his death, ______ became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.

8. The American Romantic period stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outburst of the ______.

9. The arbiter of 19th century literary realism in America was ______.

10. The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called ______, which is poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.

11. ______ is considered the founder of psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in the impressions made by life on the spectator. 12. ______ is the novel into which Jack London put most of himself.

13. O. Henry’s ______ is a very moving story of a young couple who sell their best possessions in order to get money for a Christmas present for each other.

14. ______ was the leader of a new movement in poetry which he called the “Imagist” movement.

15. In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald completed his best novel ______. It is the story of an idealist who was destroyed by the influence of the wealthy, pleasure-seeking people around him.

16. Ernest Hemingway’s stature as a writer was confirmed with the publication of his novel ______ in 1929. The novel portrayed a farewell both to war and to love. 17. ______ was the foremost novelist of the American Depression of the 1930s.

18. William Faulkner considered __________ to be “the first truly American writer”. 19. As a genre, naturalism emphasized heredity and ______ as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters that were presented in special and detailed circumstances.

20. A series of sixteen pamphlets by Thomas Paine was entitled ______.

II. Each of the following statements below is followed by four alternative answers or completions. Choose the one that is the best in each case. (30%, 1 point for each)

1. Moby Dick was dedicated to ____.

A. Ralph Emerson B. Nathaniel Hawthorne C.

Henry

Thoreau D. Henry Longfellow

2. ____ was Mark Twain’s masterpiece from which, as Hemingway noted, “all modern American literature comes.” A. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer B. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn C. Life on the Mississippi D. The Gilded Age

3. ____ usually was regarded as the first American writer.

A. Emily Bradford B. Ann Bradstreet C.

Emily

Dickinson D. John Smith

4. Benjamin Franklin was the epitome of the ____.

A. American Enlightenment B. Sugar Act

C. Chartist movement D. Romanticist

5. Thomas Jefferson’s attitude, that is, a firm belief in progress, and the pursuit of happiness, is typical of the period we now call ____. A.

Age

of

Evolution B. Age of Reason

C. Age of Romanticism D. Age of Regionalism 6. As a literary and philosophical movement, ____ flourished in New England from the 1830s to the Civil War.

A. modernism B. rationalism C.

sentimentalism D. transcendentalism

7. ____ is NOT written by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

A. The American Scholar B. Self-Reliance C. The Divinity School Address D. Civil Disobedience

8. There is a good reason to state that New England Transcendentalism was actually ____ on the Puritan soil.

A.

Romanticism B. Symbolism C.

Mysticism D. Rationalism

9. American literature produced only one female poet during the 19th century. This was ____. A.

Bradstreet Jane Austen C.

Dickinson Harriet Beecher

10. Which of the following statements about O. Henry is NOT right?

A. He wrote about the poor people.

B. The ends of his stories are always surprising.

C. Many of his stories contain a great deal of slang and colloquial expressions. D. The plots are usually clumsy.

11. The main theme of ____’s The Art of Fiction reveals his literary credo that representation of life should be the main object of the novel. A.

Henry Emily

D.

Anne B.

James B. William Howells C.

Mark

Twain D. O. Henry