美國文學-復習資料+答案.doc

1. The American Transcendentalists formed a club called _ .the Transcendental Club2. _ was regarded as the first great prose stylist of American romanticism. Washington Irving3. At nineteen_ published in his brothers newspaper, his Jonathan Oldstyle satires of New York life.4. In Washington Irvings work_ appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature. The Sketch Book5. The first important American novelist was_. James Fenimore Cooper 6. James Fenimore Coopers novel _ was a rousing tale about espionage against the British during the Revolutionary War. The Spy7. The best of James Fenimore Coopers sea romances was_. The Pilot8. To a Waterfowl is perhaps the peak of_s work; it has been called by an eminent English critic “the most perfect brief poem in the language.” William Cullen Bryant 9. _ was the first American to gain the stature of a major poet in the world literature.10. Edgar Allan Poes poem_ is perhaps the best example of onomatopoeia in the English language. The Bells11. Edgar Allan Poes poem_ was published in 1845 as the title poem of a collection. The Raven 12. From Henry David Thoreaus Concord jail experience, came his famous essay _. Civil DisobedienceBy the 1830s Washington Irving was judged the nation s greatest writer, a lofty position he later shared with James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant.In the early nineteenth century, the attitude of American writers was shaped by their New World environment and an array of ideas inherited from the romantic tradition of Europe.As a moral philosophy, transcendentalism was neither logical nor systematical.The foundation of American national literature was laid by the early American romanticists.At mid-19th century, a cultural reawakening brought a flowering of New England.Romantic writers in the 19th century placed increasing value on the free expression of emotion and displayed increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters.With a vast group of supporting characters, virtuous or villainous, James Fenimore Cooper made the America conscious of his past, and made the European conscious of America.No other American poet ever surpassed Edgar Allan Poes ability in the use of English as a medium of pure musical and rhythmic beauty.The Fall of the House of Usher is one of Edgar Allan Poes short stories.Ralph Waldo Emerson was recognized as the leader of transcendentalist movement, but he never applied the term Transcendentalist to himself or to his beliefs and ideas.In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson published his first book, Nature, which met with a mild reception.Ralph Waldo Emersons prose style was sometimes as highly individual as his poetry.The harsh rhythms and striking images of Ralph Waldo Emersons poetry appeal to many modern readers as artful techniques.Henry Wadsworth Longfellows writings belong to the milder aspects of the Romantic Movement.American romanticism was in a way derivative: American romantic writing was some of them modeled on English and European works.Ralph Waldo Emersons aesthetics brought about a revolution in American literature in general and in American poetry in particular.Henry David Thoreau was an active Transcendentalist. He was by no means an escapist or a recluse, but was intensely involved in the life of his day.The Scarlet Letter is set in the seventeenth century. It is an elaboration of a fact which the author took out of the life of the Puritan past.2.Transcendentalism took their ideas from_ .A.the romantic literature in EuropeB.neo-PlatonismC.German idealistic philosophyD.the revelations of oriental mysticismABCD8. Transcendentalists recognized_ as the highest power of the soul.”A. intuition10. Transcendentalism appealed to those who disdained the harsh God of the Puritan ancestors, and it appealed to those who scorned the pale deity of New EnglandA. Transcendentalism B.HumanismC.Naturalism D.UnitarianismD13. The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature, evident in _ .A. James Fenimore Coopers Leatherstocking TalesB.Henry David Thoreaus WaldenC.Mark Twains Huckleberry FinnD.Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet LetterABC14. A preoccupation with the demonic and the mystery of evil marked the works of _ , and a host of lesser writers.A. Nathaniel Hawthorne B.Edgar Allan PoeC.Herman Melville D.Mark TwainABC16. In the nineteenth century America, Romantics often shared certain general characteristics. Choose such characteristics from the following.A.moral enthusiasmB.faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perceptionC.adoration for the natural worldD.presumption about the corrosive effect of human societyABCD17. Choose Washington Irving s works from the following.A. The Sketch Book B. Bracebridge HallC. Tales of a Traveller D. A History of New YorkABCD18. In James Fenimore Coopers novels, close after Natty Bumppo in romantic appeal , come the two noble red men. Choose them from the following.A. the Mohican Chief Chingachgook B. UncasC. Tom Jones D. Kubla KhanABIn 1817, the stately poem called Thanatopsis introduced the best poet_ to appear in America up to that time.A. Edward Taylor B. Philip FreneauC. William Cullen Bryant D. Edgar Allan PoeC To a Waterfowl Thanatopsis21. From the following, choose the poems written by Edgar Allan Poe.A. To Helen B. The RavenC. Annabel Lee D. The BellsABCD23. Edgar Allan Poes first collection of short stories is_ .D. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque24. From the following, choose the characteristics of Ralph Waldo Emersons poetry.A. being highly individual B. harsh rhythmsC. lack of form and polish D. striking imagesABCD25. Which book is not written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?A. Representative Men B. English TraitsC. Nature D. The RhodoraD26. Which essay is not written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?A. Of Studies B. Self-RelianceC. The American Scholar D. The Divinity School AddressA30. Nathaniel Hawthornes 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 FaceC. The Ambitious Guest ABCDD. Ethan BrandE. The Pearl32. Herman Melville called his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne_ in American literature.A.the largest brain with the largest heart34. _ was a romanticized account of Herman Melvilles stay among the Polynesians. The success of the book soon made Melville well known as the man who lived among cannibals. Typee37. 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. PuritanismThe universe is composed of Nature and the soul. Spirit is present everywhere. This is the voice of the book Nature written by Emerson, which pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England_ Transcendentalism43. Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism?A. Nature45. _ is an appalling fictional version of Nathaniel Hawthorne s belief that the wrong doing of one generation lives into the successive ones and that evil will come out of evil though it may take many generations to happen.A. The Marble Faun B. The House of Seven GablesC. The Blithedale Romance D.Young Goodman BrownBOnce upon a midnight dreary, while i pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.Tis some visitor, I muttered, tapping at my chamber doorOnly this, and nothing more. Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had tried to borrowFrom my books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost.Edgar Allan PoeThe RavenDescribe the mood of this poem: A sense of melancholy over the death of a beloved beautiful young woman pervades the whole poem, the portrayal of a young man grieving for his lost Leno-re, his grief turned to madness under the steady one-word repetition of the talking bird.Work 3: Nuture1. As the leading New England Transcendentalist, Emerson effected a most articulate synthesis of the Transcendentalist views. One major element of his philosophy if his firm belief in the transcendence of the Oversoul. His emphasis on the spirit runs through virtually all his writings. Philosophically considered, he states in Nature, which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. He sees the world as phenomenal, and emphasizes the need for idealism, for idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion, as one vast picture which God paints on the eternity for the contemplation of the soul. He regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man, and advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature. In this connection, Emerson s emotional experiences are exemplary in more ways than one. Alone in the woods one day, for instance, he experienced a moment of ecstasy which he records thus in his Nature:2. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.3. Now this is a moment of conversion when one feels completely merged with the outside world, when one has completely sunk into nature and become one with it, and when the soul has gone beyond the physical limits of the body to share the omniscience of the Oversoul. In a word, the soul has completely transcended the limits of individuality and beome part of the Oversoul. Emerson sees spirit pervading everywhere, not only in the soul of man, but behind nature, throughout nature. The world proceeds, as he observes, from the same source as the body of man. The Universal Being is in point of fact the Oversoul that he never stopped talking about for the rest of his life. Emerson s doctrine of the Oversoul is graphically illustrated in such famous statements; Each mind lives in the Grand mind, There in one mind common to all individual men, and Man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life. In his opinion, man is made in the image of God and is just a little less than Him. This is as much as to say that the spiritual and immanent God is operative in the soul of man, and that man is divine. The divinity of man became, incidentally, a favorite subject in his lectures and essays.4. This naturally led to another, equally significant, Transcendentalist thesis, that the individual, not the crowd, is the most important of all. If man depends upon himself, cultivates himself, and brings out the divine in himself, he can hop to become better and even perfect. This is what Emerson means by the infinitude of the privates man. He tried to convince people that the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself are infinite. Men should and could be self-reliant. Each man should feel the world as his, and the world exists for him alone. He should determine his own existence. Everyone should understand that he makes himself by making his world, and that he makes the world by making himself. Know then that the world exists for you he says. Build therefore your own world. Trust thy self! and Make thyself! Trust your own discretion and the world is yours. Thus, as Henry Nash Smith ventures to suggest, Emerson s message was eventually (to use a telegraphic abbreviation) self-reliance. Emerson s eye was on man as he could be or could become; he was in the main optimistic about human perfectibility. The regeneration of the individual leads to the regeneration of society. Hence his famous remark, I ask for the individuals, not the nation. Emerson s self-reliance was an expression, on a very high level, of the buoyant spirit of his time, the hope that man can become the best person he could hope to be. Emerson s Transcendentalism, with its emphasis on the democratic individualism, may have provided an ideal explanation for the conduct and activities of an expanding capitalist society. His essays such as Power, Wealth, and Napoleon (in his The Representative Men) reveal his ambivalence toward aggressiveness and self-seeking.5. To Emersons Transcendentalist eyes, the physical world was vitalistic and evolutionary. Nature was, to him as to his Puritan forebears, emblematic of God. It mediates between man and God, and its voice leads to higher truth. Nature is the vehicle of thought, and particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts. Thus Emerson s world was one of multiple significance; everything bears a second sense and an ulterior sense. In a word, Nature is the symbol of spirit. That is probably why he called his first philosophical work Nature rather ihan anything else. The sensual man, Emerson feels, conforms thoughts to things, and man s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol depends upon the simplicity and purity of his character; The lover of nature is he who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. To him nature is a wholesome moral influence on man and his character. A natural implication of Emerson s view on nature is that the world around is symbolic. A lowing river indicates the ceaseless motion of the universe. The seasons correspond to the life span of man. The ant, the little drudge, with a small body and a mighty heart, is the sublime image of man