美国文学练习题

A. To a Caty-Did B. To a Waterfowl C. Thanatopsis D. The Wild Honey Suckle 21. From the following, choose the poems written by Edgar Allan Poe. A. To Helen B. The Raven C. Annabel Lee D. The Bells 22. In his post on the Messenger, Edgar Allan Poe showed his true talents as

A. an editor B. a poet C. a literary critic D. a fiction writer 23. Edgar Allan Poe's first collection of short stories is___________ .

A. Tales of a Traveller B. Leatherstocking TalesC. Canterbury Tales D. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque 24. From the following, choose the characteristics of Ralph Waldo Emerson's poetry.

A. being highly individual B. harsh rhythms C. lack of form and polish D. striking images 25. Which book is not written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?

A. Representative Men B. English Traits C. Nature D. The Rhodora 26. Which essay is not written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?

A. Of Studies B. Self-Reliance C. The American Scholar D. The Divinity School Address 27. From Henry David Thoreau’s jail experience, came his famous essay, ___________, which states Thoreau's belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.

A. Walden B. Nature C. Civil Disobedience D. Common Sense 28. The finest example of Nathaniel Hawthorne' s symbolism is the recreation of Puritan Boston in__________ .

A. The Scarlet Letter B. Young Goodman Brown C. The Marble Faun D. The Ambitious Guest 29. The House of Seven Gables is a famous mystery-haunted novel written by_________

A. Nathaniel Hawthorne B. Nathaniel Hathorne C. Nathanal Hawthorne D. Nathanial Hathorne 30. Nathaniel Hawthorne's ability to create vivid and symbolic images that embody great moral questions also appears strongly in his short stories. Choose his short stories from the following.

A. Young Goodman Brown B. The Great Stone Face C. The Ambitious Guest D. Ethan Brand E. The Pearl 31. Which is not Nathaniel Hawthorne's long novel?

A. The Scarlet Letter B. The Marble Faun C. The Blithe dale Romance D. The House of Seven Gables E. Dr. Heidegger's Experiment

32. Herman Melville called his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne_____________ in American literature. A. the largest brain with the largest heart B. father of American poetry C. the transcendentalist D. the American scholar 33. Choose the characters which appear in the novel The Scarlet Letter.

A. Hester Prynne B. Arthur Dimmesdale C. Roger Chillingworth D. Pearl 34. __________ was a romanticized account of Herman Melville's stay among the Polynesians. The success of the book soon made Melville well known as the \A. Moby Dick B. Typee C. Omoo D. Billy Budd

35. With the appearance of ______________ in 1855, which is about American Indians, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poetical reputation was established.

A. Evangeline B. The Courtship of Miles Standish C. Song of Hiawatha D. Michael Angelo 36. Choose the authors who belong to the romantic group in American literature.

A. Ralph Waldo Emerson B. Henry David Thoreau C.Nathaniel Hawthorne D.Herman Melville E.Walt Whitman 37. In the early nineteenth century American moral values were essentially Puritan. Nothing has left a deeper imprint on the character of the people as a whole than did__________ .

A. Puritanism B. Romanticism C. Rationalism D. Sentimentalism

38. American romanticist writers, like Washington Irving and especially the group of New England poets such

as_____, _____, ____, ____,_____ and Lowell, tried to model their works upon English and European masters. A. William Cullen Bryant B. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow C. Oliver Russel Holmes D. John Greenleaf Whittier E. Thomas Gray

39. 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 40. \book Nature written by Emerson, which pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England______

A. Romanticism B. Transcendentalism C. Naturalism D. Symbolism

41. There is a good reason to state that New England Transcendentalism was actually _______ on the Puritan soil. A. Romanticism B. Puritanism C. Mysticism D. Unitarianism D. Herman Melville E. Walt Whitman 43. Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism? A. Nature B. Walden C. On Beauty D. Self-Reliance 44. Which is regarded as the \

A. The American Scholar B. English Traits C. The Conduct of Life D. Representative Men 45. ____ is an appalling fictional version of Nathaniel Hawthorne's belief that \lives into the successive ones\A. The Marble Fau B. The House of Seven Gables C. The Blithedale Romance D. Young Goodman Brown 46. Nathaniel Hawthorne's intellectual characters are usually villains, dreadful because of devoid of fellow feeling. Choose the specimens of Hawthorne's chilling, cold-blooded human animals.

A. Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter B. Hollingsworth in the Blithedale Romance C. Dr. Rappaccini in Rappaccini’s Daughter D. Pearl in the Scarlet Letter

47. Which three novels drew from Herman Melville’s adventures among the people of the South Pacific islands? A. Typee B. Omoo C. Mardi D. Redburn

48. 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

Part IV. The Literature of Realism

I. Fill in the blanks.

1.Realism had originated in the country ________ as a literary doctrine that called for \depiction of ordinary life.

2.The arbiter of nineteenth century literary realism in America was_______________ .

3.____________ probed deeply at the individual psychology of his characters, writing in a rich and intricate style that supported his intense scrutiny of complex human experience.

4.__________, breaking out of the narrow limits of local color fiction, described the breadth of American experience as no one had ever done before, or since.

5.__________ had an evident influence on naturalism. It seemed to stress the animality of man, to suggest that he was dominated by the irresistible forces of evolution.

6.The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called __________ , that is poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.

7.In his cluster of poems called Leaves of Grass, _______ gave America its first genuine epic poem.

8.There is no doubt that the solitary Emily Dickinson of _____, Massachusetts, is a poet of great power and beauty. 9.There was only one female prose writer in the nineteenth century. That was________

10. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s masterpiece is_____________ .

11. Samuel Langhorne Clemens is better known by the pen name______________ .

12. One of Samuel Langhorne Clemens' best books_______ is built around his experiences as a steamboat pilot. 13. The result of Mark Twain’s European trip was a series of newspaper articles, later published as a book called____________.

14. __________ was the first literary giant born west of the Mississippi.

15. Mark Twain's work__________ tells of the visits of an angel to the village of Eseldorf in Austria in 1590. 16. William Sidney Porter, whose pen name was_________ , was the author of The Cop and the Anthem. 17. Many of O. Henry's stories tell about the life of poor people in_______________ .

18. 0. Henry sympathized with the poor's lot and hated those rich who exploited and despised them. This is especially seen in his story entitled_____________ .

19. It is said that O. Henry imitated a French author named ______________ as a model, and there is indeed much in common between these two writers.

20. The title of one of O. Henry' s books_____________ indicates that he considered all the people of New York City worth writing about, instead of only the upper class.

21. Henry James' first novel is___________ , which failed to make him famous.

22. The novel described by an American critic as \23. Henry James' first important fiction was___________ , in which he took up for the first time the theme of The American in Europe.

24. In 1881, Henry James published his novel __________ , which is generally considered as his masterpiece. 25. __________ is considered the founder of Psychological realism. He believed that reality lies in the impressions made by life on the spectator.

26. The name of the heroine in The Portrait of a Lady is __________ . 27. In 1902 Jack London published his first novel____________ . 28. __________ is the novel into which Jack London put most of himself. 29. The first novel of Theodore Dreiser was____________ .

30. The identification of potency with money is at the heart of Theodore Dreiser's masterpiece__________ . 31. The protagoniswof Theodore Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire is ______ .

32. Theodore Dreiser visited the Soviet Union in 1927 and published______________ the following year. 33. Theodore Dreiser's novel____________ , a commercial and critical failure when first published in 1900, was reissued in 1907 and won high praise for its grim, naturalistic portrayal of American society.

34. Mark Twain’s first novel, ___________ was an artistic failure, but it gave its name to the America of the postbellum period which it attempts to satirize.

35. Three years' life on the Mississippi left such a fond memory with Mark Twain that he returned to the theme more than once in his writing career. His book_____ relates it in a vivid, moving way.

36.___was Mark Twain’s masterpiece from which, as Hemingway noted, \.” 37. The best work that Mark Twain ever produced is__________ , which was a success from its first publication in 1884, and has always been regarded as one of the great books of western literature and western civilization. 38. __________ is the pioneer who wrote in the naturalistic tradition.

39. Stephen Crane’s novel_____ relates the story of a woman’s downfall and destruction in a slum environment. 40. War in the novel _____ by Stephen Crane is a plain slaughterhouse. There is nothing like valor or heroism on the battlefield, if there is anything, it is the fear of death, cowardice, the natural instinct of man to run from danger. 41. Benjamin Frank Norris’s novel__________ has been called \first full-bodied naturalistic American novel\

42. Jack London's masterwork___________ is somewhat autobiographical.

43. 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.

III. Make multiple choices.

1. In the late 19th century, a host of new writers appeared, among them were _____.

A. Bret Harte B. William Dean Howells C. Hamlin Garland D. Mark Twain

2. Influenced by such Europeans as___, America's most noteworthy new authors established a literature of realism. A. Zola B. Flaubert C. Balzac D. Tolstoy

3. William Dean Howells defined realism as \more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material”, and he best exemplified his theories in three novels. Choose them from the following.

A.The Modem Instance B.The Rise of Silas Laphan C.A Hazard of New Fortunes D.The Prince and the Pauper 4. Mark Twain created, in____________ , a masterpiece of American realism that is also one of the great books of world literature.

A. Huckleberry Finn B. Tom Sawyer C. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg D. The Gilded Age 5. The pessimism and deterministic ideas of naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as___________

A. Stephen Crane B. Benjamin Frank Norris C. Jack London D. Henry James E. Theodore Dreiser 6. Although realism and naturalism were products of the nineteenth century, their final triumph came in the twentieth century, with the popular and critical successes of such writers as___________ .

A.Edwin Arlington Robinson B.Willa Cather C.Sherwood Anderson D.Robert Frost E. William Faulkner 7. American literature produced only one female poet during the nineteenth century. This was _____. A. Anne Bradstreet B. Jane Austen C. Emily Dickinson D. Harriet Beecher 8. Choose the works written by Mark Twain.

A. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer B. Innocents Abroad C. Life on the Mississippi D. The Tragedy of Pudd’ nhead Wilson E. The Prince and the Pauper

9. The publication of the novel____________ stirred a great nation to its depths and hurried on a great war. A. My Bondage and My Freedom B. Stanzas on Freedom C. Voices of Freedom D. Uncle Tom' s Cabin 10. Mark Twain had led an active life in the very center of the American experience. He had been a____________ . A.printer, pilot, soldier B.silver-minor,gold-washer C.lecturer, traveler, businessman D.novelist, autobiographer 11. Which statements about O. Henry are right?

A. He wrote about the poor people. B. His stories are usually short and humorous. C. The plots of his stories are exceedingly clever and interesting. D. The ends of his stories are always surprising.

E. Many of his stories contain a great deal of slang and colloquial expressions.

12. Where 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 13. Choose the well-known short stories written by William Sidney Porter.

A. The Gift of the Magi B. An Unfinished Story C. The Furnished Room D. The Voice of the City E. The Cop and the Anthem 14. Choose the novels written by Henry James.

A. The American B. Daisy Miller C. The Portrait of a Lady D. The Tragic Muse E. The Golden Bowl 15. Choose the novel which is not written by Henry James.

A. The Ambassadors B. The Wings of the Dove C. The Bostonians D. The Princess Casamassima E. The Mysterious Stranger