美国文学复习题（有答案版）

美国文学复习提纲

第一部分连线题（1*10=10’）

1. Thomas Jefferson The Declaration of Independence 2. Walt Whitman O’ Captain, My Captain 3. Mark Twain Jumping Frog 4. Robert Frost Mending Wall 5. Ezra Pound In a Station of the Metro 6. Carl Sandburg Chicago 7. Saul Bellow The Adventure of Augie March 8. Ernest Hemingway Men without Women 9. John Steinbeck The Grape of Wrath 10. Jack London The Call of the Wild 11. Sinclair Lewis Babbit 12. Flannery O’ Connor A Good Man Is Hard to Find 13. O. Henry The Last Leaf 14. Jerome David Salinger The Catcher in the Rye 15. William Falkner The Sound and the Fury

第二部分单项选择 (1.5*20=30’)

1. Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the “________” who appeared in America. A. Tenth Muse B.Ninth Muse C. Best Muse D. First Muse 2. In American literature, the 18th century was the age of the Enlightenment. ________ was the dominant spirit. A. Humanism B. Rationalism C. Revolution D. Evolution 3. Which of the following stirred the world and helped form the American republic? A. The American Crisis B. The Federalist C. Declaration of Independence D. The Age of Reason

4. At the Reason and Revolution Period, Americans were influenced by the European movement called the ________. A. Chartist Movement B. Romanticist Movement C. Enlightenment Movement D. Modernist Movement

5. Thoreau was often alone in the woods or by the pond, lost in spiritual communication with ________. A. nature B. transcendentalist ideas C. human beings D. celestial beings

6. ________tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a puritan community are involved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different ways. A. Twice-Told Tales B. The Scarlet Letter C. The House of the Seven Gables D. The Marble Faun

7. Washington Irving’s social conservation and literary for the past is revealed, to some extent, in his famous story, ________. A. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow B. Rip Van Winkle C. The Custom-house D. The Birthmark

8. The convention of the desire for an escape from society and a return to nature in American literature is particularly evident in ________. A. Cooper’sLeatherstocking Tales B. Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter C. Whitman’s Leaves of Grass D. Irving’s Rip Van Winkle

9. As a philosophical and literary movement, ________ flourished in New England from 1830s to the Civil War. A. modernism B. rationalism C. sentimentalism D. transcendentalism 10. Edgar Allan Poe mainly writes __________.

A. poems B. literary critic theories C. short stories D. dramas 11. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, “A” may stand for ________ . A. Adultery B. Angel C. Amiable D. All the above 12. The period before the American Civil War is generally referred to as ________ . A. the Naturalist Period B. the Modern Period C. the Romantic Period D. the Realistic Period

13. In the following works, which signs the beginning of the American literature? A. The Sketch Book B. Leaves of Grass C. Leatherstocking Tales D. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 14. The main theme of Emily Dickinson is the following except ________. A. war and peace B. love and marriage C. life and death D. religion 15. Emily Dickinson’s poetic idiom is noted for the following except ________. A. brevity B. directness C. plainest words D. obscure

16. The publication of ________ established Emerson as the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism. A. Nature B. Self-Reliance C. The American Scholar D. The Over-Soul

17. The Age of Realism in the literary history of the United States refers to the period from ________ to ________. A. 1861…1914 B. 1863…1918 C. 1865…1914 D. 1865…1918 18. ________ is considered to be Theodore Dreiser’s greatest work. A. An American Tragedy B. Sister Carrie C. The Financier D. The Titan 19. ________ is a novella about a young American girl who gets “killed” by the winter in Rome, and it brought Henry James international fame for the first time. A. The American B. The Europeans C. Daisy Miller D. The Portrait of a Lady

20. ________ is described by Mark twain as a boy with “a sound heart and a deformed conscience”. A. Tom Sawyer B. Huckleberry Finn C. Jim D. Tony 21. Mark Twain wrote most of his literary works with a ________ language. A. grand B. pompous C. simple D. vernacular 22. The book from which “all modern American literature comes” refers to ________. A. The Great Gatsby B. The Sun Also Rises C. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn D. Moby-Dick

23. In which of the following works Hemingway presents his philosophy about life and

death through the depiction of the bull-fight as a kind of microcosmic tragedy? A. Death in the Afternoon B. The Snows of Kilimanjaro C. To Have and Have Not D. The Green Hills of Africa

24. ________ is Hemingway’s first true novel in which he depicts a vivid portrait of “The Lost Generation”.

A. The Sun Also Rises B. A Farewell to Arms C. In Our Time D. For Whom the Bell Tolls

25. Robert Frost combined traditional verse forms—the sonnet, rhyming couplets, blank verse—with a clear American local speech rhythm, the speech of ________ farmers with its idiosyncratic diction and syntax. A. Southern B. Western C. New Hampshire D. New England 26. ________, one of the most important poets in his time, is a leading spokesman of the “Imagist Movement”. A. J. D. Salinger B. Ezra Pound C. Richard Wright D. Ralph Ellison 27. “Tender Is the Night” is a ________ by Fitzgerald. A. short story B. novella C. poem D. novel 28. ________ is said to be a “historical novel” by Faulkner. A. Go Down, Moses B. Light in August C. The Sound and the Fury D. Absalom

29. ________ stems from the ambiguity of the speaker’s choice between safety and the unknown.

A. Mending the wall B Home Burial C. The Road not Taken D. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 30. Hemingway’s writing style, together with his theme and the hero, is greatly and permanently influenced by his experiences ________. A. in his childhood B. in the war C. in America D. in Africa 31. The following writers were awarded Nobel Prize for literature except ________. A. William Faulkner B. F. Scott Fitzgerald C. John Steinbeck D. Ernest Hemingway

32. ________ is not considered to be one of the masters in the field of American fiction in the modernistic period. A. F. Scott Fitzgerald B. Ernest Hemingway C. Arthur Miller D. William Faulkner

33. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both…” In the above two lines of Robert Frost’s “The Road not Taken”, the poet, by implication, was referring to ________. A. one’s course of life B. a marriage decision C. a middle-age crisis D. a travel experience

34. Most of the writers in the modern period were able to probe into the inner world of human reality on the base of ________.

A. William James’ “stream of consciousness”

B. Carl Jung’s “collective unconscious” and “archetypal symbol” C. Sigmund Freud’s “interpretation of dreams” D. All of the above

35. Writers of the second postwar era self-consciously acknowledged that they were ____________.

A. a Lost Generation B. a Beat Generation C. a Jazz Generation D. none of the above

36. In 1862, President Lincoln exclaimed: “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!” The book refers to ________. A.Uncle Tom’s Cabin B. Beloved

C. Pride and Prejudice D.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 37. In Leaves of Grass, _______ is all that concerned Whitman. A. individualism B. freedom C. democracy D. all the above

38. It is not surprising to find in _______’s fiction a world of jungle, where “kill or to be killed” was the law. A. Mark Twain B. Emily Dickinson C. Theodore Dreiser D. Henry James

39. Which one of the following statements is NOT true of William Faulkner? A. He is master of stream-of-consciousness narrative. B. His writing is often complex and difficult to understand. C. He often depicts slum life in New York and Chicago. D. He represents a new group of Southern writers

40.The setting of the novel The Scarlet Letter is in ________. A. England during World War I

B. Paris during the French Revolution C. Puritan America

D. America after the Revolutionary War

第三部分判断对错 (1*15=15’)

(T)1. The Calvinist doctrine of “original sin” exerted great influence upon Hawthorne. (T)2. To Hawthorne sin will get punished, one way or another.

(T)3. Roger Chillingworth, the scholar, the embodiment of pure intellect, committed the “Unpardonable Sin”.

(F)4. Emily Dickinson didn’t like using capital letters where small ones are needed. (T)5. Walt Whitman used parallelism and refrain in his poems.

(T)6. Walt Whitman was regarded as the Zenith in American romantic poetry. (T)7. Dickinson was original. She never imitates others.

(T)8. Allan Poe defined poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty. (F)9. O. Henry seldom wrote about poor people.

(T)10. According to Poe, art serves for pleasure. The chief aim of poetry is beauty, namely, to produce a feeling of beauty in the reader. (T)11. According to Dickinson, death means immortality. (F)12. According to Poe, truth is beauty, beauty truth.

(T)13. According to Henry James, the aim of the novel is to reflect life reality.

(T)14. James wrote mostly of the upper reaches of American society, and Howells

concerned himself chiefly with middle class life whereas Twain dealt largely with the lower strata of society.

(F)15. American writers, especially novelists were rather experimental after the World Wars.

(T)16. O. Henry’s short stories are famous for their surprising endings. (T)17. Allen Ginsberg was the representative of the Beat Generation.

(T)18. Allan Poe exerted great influence upon many southern American writers, especially William Faulkner.

(F)19. Emily Dickinson was regarded as the forerunner of symbolism.

(F)20. Mark Twain never touched upon the problem of slavery system in his novels. (F)21. Allan Poe was regarded as the forerunner of American Imagism. (T)22. Mark Twain was the father of American language. (T)23. Allan Poe advocated “pure” poetry.

(F)24. Mark Twain’s contribution to the development of realism and to American literature as a whole was partly through his theories of localism in American fiction and partly through his themes.

(T)25. Toni Morrison is one of the most famous contemporary women writers. (T)26. O. Henry was the pen name of William Sidney Porter.

(T)27. Thomas Jefferson was the major writer of The Declaration of Independence (T)28. Henry James discovered the trick of making his characters reveal themselves with minimal intervention of the author.

(T)29. N. Hawthorne was a symbolic writer in some sense. (T)30. Whitman’s poetry suggests rather than tells.

第四部分术语解释 (4*5=20’) 1. Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism refers to the religious and philosophical doctrines of Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in New England in the middle 1800’s, which emphasized the importance of individual inspiration and intuition, the Oversoul, and nature. Other concepts that accompanied Transcendentalism include the idea that nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-reliant. 2. Naturalism

Naturalism, 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 and it came to be led by Zola, who claimed at “scientific” status for his studies of impoverished characters miserably subjected to hunger, sexual obsession, and hereditary defects. 3. American Dream

The American Dream is the faith held by many people in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. 4. The Lost Generation

The term Lost Generation was coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to a group of

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