美国文学分章试题4

Exercises for American Literature

Part Ⅳ

Ⅰ. Multiple choice:

end of _____ marked the beginning of what Mark Twain called The Gilded Age.

A. The American War of Independence B. World War One

C. World War Two D. The Civil War

2. “A Psalm of Life” is a famous poem written by _____.

A. Edgar Allan Poe B. Walt Whitman

C. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow D. Emily Dickinson

3. By the 1870s _____ had waned.

A. Puritanism B. the New England Renaissance C. Realism D. Classicism

4. By the end of the Civil War, _____ became the nation’s literary center.

A. New York B. Boston C. Jamestown D. Los Angeles

5. _____ had originated in France, a literary doctrine that called for reality and truth

in the depiction of ordinary life.

A. Puritanism B. New England Renaissance C. Realism D. Classicism

6. Local color began to decline _____ .

A. after 1920 B. by the turn of 19th century C. after 1910 D. in the 1870s

7. The arbiter of 19th century literary realism in America was _____ .

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

8. The poetic style Walt Whitman devised is now called _____, that is, poetry

without fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.

A. free verse B. blank verse C. lyrics D. sonnet

9. “Song of myself” is a famous poem written by _____ .

A. Emily Dickinson B. Walt Whitman

C. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow D. Edgar Allan Poe

10. _____ was the first book of Mark Twain.

A. Jumping frog B. Innocents Abroad

C. Roughing It D. The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn

11. The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is the masterpiece of _____ .

A. Henry James B. William Dean Howells

C. Mark Twain D. Nathaniel Hawthorne

12. In “The Cop and the Anthem” the main reason for Soapy to deliberately commit

one crime after another is that _____ .

A. he hates the wealthy people

B. he just wants to revenge himself

C. winter is coming and Soapy has no refuge except the prison

D. he just does that for no reasons

13. The Gift of the Magi is one of the best stories by _____ .

A. O. Henry B. Mark Twain C. Harriet Beecher Stowe D. Jack London

14. Jack wrote the following except _____ .

A. The Four Million B. The People of the Abyss

C. The Iron Heel D. The Call of the wild

15. Which of the following novels is written by Jack London? _____ .

A. The Portrait of a Lady B. The wings of the Dove

C. The Scarlet Letter D. The Sea Wolf

16. Theodore Dreiser’s masterpiece of Naturalism is _____ .

A. An American Tragedy B. The Financier C. The Titan D. The Stoic

Ⅱ.Complete the following statements:

1. Realism first appeared in the United States in the literature of ________ .

2. James probed deeply at the individual ________ of his characters.

American naturalist writers attempted to achieve extreme ________ and frankness.

3. The naturalists emphasized that the world was ________ .

4. Darwinism seemed to stress the ________ of man, to suggest that he was

dominated by the irresistible forces of evolution.

5. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass are about man and ________ .

6. Many of Dickinson’s poems were based on single ________ or symbols.

7. O. Henry imitated ________ as a model.

8. Jack London was influenced by the teaching of Marx, Nietzsche and ________ .

1. Dreiser’s ________ consists of The Financier, The Titan and The Stoic.

2. Dreiser’s greatest and most successful novel was ________ .

Ⅲ.Define the literary terms listed below:

1. The Gilded Age 2. International Theme

3. Realism 4. Naturalism

Part Ⅴ

Ⅰ. Multiple choice:

1. Writer of the first 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

2. During the 1920s William Faulkner published one of the influential American

novels of the age, _____ .

A. The Sound and the Fury B. An American Tragedy

C. Winesburg, Ohio D. The Waste Land

3. After _____ a group of new American dramatists emerged, and the American

theater ceased to be dependent on the dramatic traditions of Europe.

A. the War of Independence B. the Civil War

C. World WarⅠ D. World WarⅡ

4. _____ came as a burst of literary achievement in the 1920s by Negro playwrights,

poets and novelists who prepared the way for the emergence of numerous black

writers after mid-century.

A. The Lost Generation B. The Beat Generation

C. The Harlem Renaissance D. The New American Theater

5. “The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.”

These lines were written by _____ .

A. Ezra Pound B. T. S. Eliot C. Robert Frost D. Carl Sandberg

6. Edwin Arlington Robinson was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for _____ .

A. three times B. twice C. once D. four times

7. The central image of Frost’s “Design” is _____ .

A. a fly B. a moth C. a spider D. a bird

8. Which of the following statements is NOT true about the writing atyle of Carl

Sandburg ? _____ .

A. He avoided regular stanza pattern and traditional blank verse

B. He wrote an utterly free verse

C. He developed Whitman’s long line but moderated its rhetorical impact and

intensity

D. His poems are often difficult to understand and rich in allusions

9. T. S. Eliot won the Nobel Prize for literature in _____ .

A. 1948 B. 1949 C. 1950 D. 1951

10. T. S. Eliot deserves the following titles except _____ .

A. a great poet B. a dramatist C. a literary critic D. a great novelist

11. In 1954 _____ was awarded a Nobel Prize for his mastery of the art of modern

narration.

A. John Steinbeck B. William Faulkner

C. Ernest Hemingway D. T. S. Eliot

12. The central theme of Faulkner’s works focuses on _____ .

A. the county of Yoknapatawpha

B. the universal theme of the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself

C. the Americans

D. Oxford

13. _____ received the 1950 Nobel Prize for literature.

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

Eliot

14. “A Rose for Emily” is a famous short story written by _____ .

A. William Faulkner B. Ernest Hemingway

C. John Steinbeck D. Sherwood Anderson

15. Which of the following works of Hemingway is NOT about the war? _____ .

A. Death in the Afternoon B. A Farewell to Arms

C. The Sun Also Rises D. For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ⅱ.Complete the following statements:

1. ________ stands as a great dividing line between the 19th century and

contemporary America.

2. The Lost Generation writers were devoid of faith and ________ from a

civilization.

3. In the 1920s the most prominent American playwright was ________ .

4. In “A Pact”, the poet makes a pack with ________ .

5. Robinson was interested in the ________ legends.

6. The later works of Stevens became increasingly meditative and ________ .

7. The first of Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot is ________ .

8. The Waste Land introduces a poetic form---- the ________ of related themes in

successive movement.

9. In his best novels, Fitzgerald had revealed the stridency of an age of glittering

______.

10. ________ was the spokesman for the “Lost Generation”.

11. For Whom the Bell Tolls was set in Spain during the ________ .

12. A farewell to Arms portrayed a farewell both to war and ________ .

13. In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for his “mastery of the art of

modern ________”.

14. John Steinbeck was the foremost novelist of the American ________ in the

1930s.

15. Faulkner’s Snopse Trilogy consists of ________ , The Town and The Mansion

Ⅲ.Define the literary terms listed below:

-garde 2. The Lost Generation

3. The New American Theater 4. Stream of Consciousness

Ⅳ.Answer the following question:

1. Discuss the thematic concerns of A Farewell to Arms.

2. Discuss the themes of William Faulkner.