美国文学史及作品选读习题集(1)

the art of modern narration”.

A. T. S. Eliot B. Earnest Hemingway C. John Steinbeck D. William Faulkner

32. William Faulkner is one of the most important southern writer in the United States. ______, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom are works that ambitious critics tend to admire.

A. The Sound and the Fury B. The Invisible Man

C. A Good Man Is Hard to Find D. The Wrath of the Grapes

33. Most of the important 20th American poets were related with Imagist movement, including _______. A. Ezra Pound B. Wallace Stevens C. E. E. Cummings D. Carl Sandburg E. all of the above Ⅲ. Identification Passage 1

These are the times that try men?s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but” to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God. Questions:

1. Which book is this passage taken from? 2. Who is the author of the book? Passage 2

But you would have uttered more Had you known of nature?s power; From the world when you retreat, And a leaf?s your winding sheet, Long before your spirit fled, Who can tell but nature said, Live again, my Caty-did! Live, and chatter Caty-did. Questions:

3. Who is the writer of these verses? 4. What is the title of this lyrical poem?

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5. What is Caty-did? Passage 3

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form?d from this soil, this air,

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death. Creeds and schools in abeyance,

Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy. Questions:

6. This is the first two stanzas in the first section of a long poem entitled______. 7. The name of the poet is _____. 8. What is the verse structure? Passage 4

Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves And immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too, For his civility.

We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done;

We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound.

Since then ?t is centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day

I first surmised the horses? heads Were toward eternity.

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Questions:

9. Who is the writer of the lines?

10. In which category would you place this poem? A. narrative B. dramatic C. lyric

11. The poet is noted for her uses of _____to achieve special effects. A. perfect rhyme B. exact rhyme C. slant rhyme Passage 5

When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better worse. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human tempter. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human.

The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, vast array of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms. Without a counselor at hand to whisper cautious interpretations, what falsehoods may not these things breathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognized for what they are, their beauty, like music, too often relaxes, then weakens, then perverts the simpler human perceptions. Questions:

12. From which novel is this paragraph taken? 13. Who is the author of the novel? Ⅳ. Literary Terms

1. Satire 12. Irony 2. short story 13. Plot

3. Stanza 14. Nonfiction 4. Subtext 15. Narration 5. tall story/tall tale 16. Imagery

6. Verse 17. Simile and metaphor 7. Rhythm 18. Character 8. Foot 19. Surrealism

9. Meter 20. Theatre of Absurdity 10. Sonnet 21. Deconstructionism 11. Lyric Ⅴ. Questions and Answers

1. How do you understand Mark Twain?s use of Local Color in his writing?

2. Discuss the reflection of realistic and naturalistic tendencies on the American 19th-century novels.

3. Discuss the concept of Wasteland in relation to he works of those writers in the 20th century American literature. Ⅵ. Analysis of Literary Works

Rip Van Winkle

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At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant, (may he rest in peace!) and there were some of the house of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks.

In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple good-natured fellow of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen-natured husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation; and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. Questions:

1. Try to explain the setting by making reference to the above passage selected from Rip Van Winkle.

Daisy Miller

Winterbourne, who had returned to Geneva the day after his excursion to Chillon, went to Rome toward the end of January. His aunt had been established there for several weeks, and he had received a couple of letters from her.” Those people you were so devoted to last summer at Vesey have turned up here, courier and all,” she wrote.” They seem to have made several acquaintances, but the courier continues to be the most in time. The young lady, however, is also very intimate with some third-rate Italians, with whom she packets about in a way that makes much talk. Bring of that pretty novel of Cherbuliez?s---Paule-- Mere-and don?t come later than the 23rd.”

In the natural course of events, Winterbourne, on arriving in Rome, would presently have ascertained Mrs. Miller?s address at the American banker?s and have gone to pay his compliments to Miss Daisy.” After what happened at Vevey, I think I May certainly call upon them,” he said to Mrs. Costello.

“If, after what happens---at Vevey--- and everywhere-you desire to keep up the acquaintance, you are very welcome. Of course a man may know everyone. Men are

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