美国文学复习资料
美国文学考试复习提纲
The Outline of American Literature
Puritanism:Edward Taylor
Revolution and Reason:Franklin, Paine, Jefferson, Freneau
Early Romanticism:Irving, Cooper, Bryant Transcendentalism:Emerson, Thoreau
Black Romanticism:Allan Poe,Hawthorne, Melville
Realism:
Poem: Whitman and Dickinson
Local Colorism:Mrs. Stowe, Mark Twain
Psychological:Henry James
Naturalism:O’Henry, Jack London, Dreiser
Modernism
Imagism: Ezra Pound
Lyrical Poet: Robert Frost
Jazz Age: Fitzgerald
Lost Generation: Hemingway, T.S. Eliot
Southern literature: Faulkner
II. Blank Filling
1. The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at _____, Virginia.
2. The term “Puritan” was applied to those settlers who originally were devout members of the Church of __.
3. Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety, these were the _____ values that dominated much of the early American writing.
4. The best of puritan poets was _____, whose complete edition of poems appeared in 1960, more than two hundred years after his death.
5. Franklin’s best writing is found in his masterpiece _____
6. Thomas Paine, with his natural gift for pamphleteering, was appropriately born into an age of ______
7. _____ has been called the “Father of American Poetry”.
8. In American literature, the eighteenth century was an Age of ______ and Revolution.
9. ______ was regarded as the first great prose stylist of American
romanticism.
10. In I rving’s work _____ appeared the first modern short stories and the first American juvenile literature.
11. The central figure in the Leatherstocking Tales is _____.
12. To a Waterfowl is perhaps the peak of ______’s work, it has been called by an eminent E nglish critic “the most perfect brief poem in the language”.
13._______ was the first American to gain the stature of a major poet in the world literature.
14. It is supposed by many that Edgar Allan Poe wrote the beautiful poem _____ to remember his dead wife.
15. In 1836, a little book came out which made a tremendous impact on the intellectual life of America. It was entitled Nature by ______.
16. Emerson’s essay _____ has been regarded as “American Declaration of Intellectual Independence”. It called on American writers to write about America in a way peculiarly American.
17. Melville’s novel ______ is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.
18. After his death, _____ became the only American to be honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.
19. _______ had originated in the country, France as a literary doctrine that called for “reality and truth” in the depiction of ordinary life.
20. The poetic style Whitman devised is now called ______, that is poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.
21. Abraham Lincoln ever said, “a little woman wrote a book which made this great war”, which refers that ______ wrote ______ to make ______war.
22. ______ was Mark Twain’s masterwork fro m which, as Hemingway noted, “all modern American literature comes”.
23. 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.
24. In the period of American realism, ______ 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.
25. The novel which was described by an American critic as “an
outrag e to American girlhood” is Henry James’ ______.
26. Jack London’s masterwork ______ is somewhat autobiographical.
27. The identification of potency with money is at the heart of Dreiser’s masterpiece ______.
28. Ezra Pound was the leader of a new movement in poetry which he called the “______” movement.
29. In 1920. T.S. Eliot began to write his masterpiece ______, one of the major works of modern literature.
30. In 1925, Fitzgerald wrote his best novel ______. It is the story of an idealist who was destroyed by the influence of the wealthy, pleasure-seeking people around him.
31. With the publication of The Sun Also Rises, ______ became the spokesman for what Gertrude Stein had called “a Lost Generation”. 32. In the novel The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway portrayed an old fisherman named ______, who shows triumphant even in defeat. 33. _____ wrote about the disintegration of the old social system in the Ameri-can Southern States, and its effect on the lives of modern people, both black and white.
III. Questions and Answers (24 points in all, 6 for each)
1. What’s American Puritanism?
2. What’s American Romanticism?
3. What’s American Transcendentalism?
4. Make a brief comment on Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter.
1)intelligent and capable 2) passionate 3) strong
5. List the features of Whitman’s poetry?
6. What’s American Realism?
7. What’s Hemingway’s style and his code Hero?
(1) Hemingway’s novels are always exposed to and victimized by violence in various forms with all the dignity and courage he could muster, confronts situation. (2) They are a group of wandering, amusing, but aimless people, who are caught in the war and removed from the path of ordinary life. (3) They are the men trapped both physically and mentally. (4) God’s design or his benefice nce and to suggest that man is doomed to be entrapped. (5) They believe: life is worth living and there are causes worth dying for. (6) In a tragic sense,
the struggle of Hemingway’s heroes show: it is a representation of life as a struggle against unconquerable natural forces in which only a partial victory is possible. Nevertheless, there is a feeling of great respect for the struggle and mankind. (7) Hemingway hero of athletic prowess and masculinity and unyielding heroism.
8.What’s the relationship be tween The Great Gatsby and the American Dream?
Gatsby is a mythical figure whose intensity of dream stands for a state of mind that embodies America itself; Gatsby is the last of the romantic heroes, whose energy and sense of commitment take him in search of his personal grail; Gatsby’s failure symbolizes to a great extent the end of the America Dream.
IV. Topic Discussion (20 points in all, 10 for each)
1. Discuss the figure of speech under the theme of Moby Dick.
2.Discuss Twain’s art of fiction: the se tting, the language, and the characters, etc., based on his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
3.How do you understand the Emersonian “Oversoul”?
1) Emerson envisioned religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the univers al “Oversoul”.
2) The “Oversoul” was an all-pervading unitary spiritual power of goodness, omnipresent and omnipotent, from which all things came and of which everyone was a part.
3) Generally, the Oversoul referred to spirit or God as the most important thing in the universe. Since the Oversoul was a single essence, and since all people derived their beings from the same source, the seeming diversity and clash of human interests was only superficial, and all people were in reality striving toward the same ends by different but converging paths.
4) The harder each person strove to express his or her individuality, the more faithfully he or she followed the inner voice, the more surely would the aims of his or her life coincide with those of his or her neighbor.
美国文学简史复习
美国文学简史 复习资料 2016年12月23日 目录 殖民时期及十八世纪美国文学 美国浪漫主义早期 新英格兰超验主义 美国浪漫主义后期 美国现实主义文学 美国乡土文学 美国现代诗歌 美国现代小说 美国南方文学
美国现代戏剧美国黑人文学美国华裔文学
殖民时期及十八世纪美国文学 New England：Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, named by Captain John Smith ?Puritanism Doctrines of Puritanism：predestination（命运神定), original sin, total depravity (彻底的堕落), and limited atonement (有限的赎罪)from God’s grace Puritans left Europe for America in order to prove that they were God’s chosen people who would enjoy God’s blessings on earth and in Heaven. They felt that they were exiles under the special grace of God to establish a theocracy in the New World. Style of writing：the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest；a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible Puritans’way of Life：hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter there is a good description of the Puritans’life. Main writers William Bradford Of Plymouth Plantation普利茅斯垦殖记 Thomas Paine Common Sense 常识；American Crisis美国危机；The Rights of Man人权；The Age of Reason 理性时代 Philip Freneau The Rising Glory of America蒸蒸日上的美洲；The Wild Honeysuckle野金银花 Benjamin Franklin Autobiography富兰克林自传 Thomas Jefferson Draft the Declaration of Independence. 美国浪漫主义早期 Romanticism Background of Romanticism：Economic boom and national optimism ；Favorable literary milieu: increasing number of magazines ；Foreign influences: the Romantic Movement in Europe. Characteristics of Romanticism：
美国文学选读复习资料
American Puritanism 殖民地时期 ( roughly from the settlement of America in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th) 一、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明?富兰克林 作品： 1、Poor Richard's Almanac 《格言历书》--- A Collection of maxims, or proverbs, on the value of work and savings for success. 2、The Autobiography 《自传》---“美国梦”的根源 3、参与起草《独立宣言》 浪漫主义American Romanticism The Romantic Period stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It is a period of the great flowering of American literature. The social and cultural background of Romanticism The young Republic was flourishing into a politically, economically and culturally independent country. The Romantic writings revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native lands. The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature. The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage exerted great influences over American moral values. Romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics:moral enthusiasm,faith in value of in dividualism and intuitive perception,and a presumption that the natural world was a source of good ness and man’s societies as a source of corruption. 二、Edgar Allan Poe埃德加·爱伦·坡 ---poet,short story writer and literary critic(48poems,70short stories) He greatly influenced the devotees of“Art for art’s sake.” He was father of psychoanalytic criticism(心理分析批评),and the detective story.诗歌的精髓就是追求美 小说的主题常常是恐怖和死亡，其中还运用了象征手法。 The Poetic Principle: 1.The poem,should be short,readable at one sitting; 2.Beauty(the rhythmical creation of beauty); 3.Melancholy忧伤(especially the death of a beautiful woman).
美国文学史期末参考复习资料
仅作参考，最主要还是要自己消化，整理 Chapter 1 Colonial Period 1. Puritanism: American puritans accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. 2. Influence (1) A group of good qualities – hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced American literature. (2) It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden. (3) Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chi efly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American. (4) With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible. II. Overview of the literature 1. types of writing diaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons 2. writers of colonial period (1) Anne Bradstreet (2) Edward Taylor III. Benjamin Franklin 1. life 2. works (1) Poor Richard’s Almanac (2) Autobiography 3. contribution (1) He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society. (2) He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this case) from heaven”. (3) Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melville thus described him “master of each and mastered by none”. Chapter 2 American Romanticism Section 1 Early Romantic Period I. American Romanticism 1. Background (1) Political background and economic development (2) Romantic movement in European countries Derivative – foreign influence 2. features (1) American romanticism was in essence the expression of “a real new experience and contained “an alien quality” for the simple reason that “the spirit of the place” was radically new and alien. (2) There is American Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider. American romantic authors tended more to moralize. Many American romantic writings intended to edify more than they entertained. (3) The “newness” of Americans as a nation is in connection with Am erican Romanticism. (4) As a logical result of the foreign and native factors at work, American romanticism was both imitative and independent. II. Washington Irving: Father of American Literature 1. several names attached to Irving (1) first American writer (2) the messenger sent from the new world to the old world (3) father of American literature 2. life 3. works (1) A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (2) The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this.) (3) The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (4) A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (5) The Alhambra 4. Literary career: two parts (1) 1809~1832
美国文学选读期末考试重点
1、The Colonial Period（1607-1765） American Puritanism ( in the early 17th century through the end of the 18th) 北美第一位女诗人Anne Bradstreet(宗教气息，夫妻恩爱) Edward Taylor 都受英国玄学派影响（metaphysical） 2、The Enlightenment and Revolution Period Benjamin Franklin:Poor Richard's Almanac The Autobiography---“美国梦”的根源 3、American Romanticism（end of 18th to the civil war） American writers emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature. 早期浪漫主义Washington Irving father of American Literature
美国文学史及选读期末复习
美国文学史复习1（colonialism) 第一部分殖民主义时期的文学 一、时期综述 1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记 b、journals 游记 2、清教徒在美国的写作内容： 1）their voyage to the new land 2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops 3) About dealing with Indians 4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit 3、清教徒的思想： 1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式 2) Wish to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位 3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who challenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be accepted. 认为自己是上帝选民，对他们的生活有异议就是反对上帝 4）puritan opposition to pleasure and the arts sometimes has been exaggerated. 反对对快乐和艺术的追求到了十分荒唐的地步 5）religious teaching tended to emphasize the image of a wrathful God.强调上帝严厉的一面，忽视上帝仁慈的一面。 4、典型的清教徒： John Cotton & Roger William 他们的不同：John Cotton was much more concerned with authority than with democracy; William begins the history of religious toleration in America. 5、William的宗教观点：Toleration did not stem from a lack of religious convictions. Instead, it sprang from the idea that simply to be virtuous in conduct and devout in belief did not give anyone the right to force belief on others. He also felt that no political order or church system could identify itself directly with God. 行为上的德，信仰上的诚，并没有给任何人强迫别人该如何行事的权利。没有任何政治秩序和教会体制能够直接体现神本身的意旨。 6、英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet 7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of Puritan poets is Edward Tayor. 学习指南： 1、Could you give a description of American Puritans? 关于美国清教徒的描绘 Like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to the "purity" of the first-century church as established by Jesus Christ himself. To them religion was a matter of primary importance. They made it their chief business to see that man lived and thought and acted in a way which tended to the glory of God. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God, all that John Calvin, the great French theologian who lived in Geneva had preached. It was this kind of religious belief that they brought with them into the wildness. There they meaant to prove that were God's chosen people enjoying his blessings on this earth as in Heaven. 2、Hard work, thrift, piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing. 3、The work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet & Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry. 4、The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards Italian, and Portuguese. 美国文学史复习2（reason and revolution) (2009-01-17 15:54:25) 一、美国的性质： The war for Independence ended in the formation of a Federative bourgeois democratic republic - the United States of America. 联邦的资产阶级民主共和国--美利坚合众国。 二、代表作家： 1、Benjamin Franklin 本杰明·富兰克林 1706-1790 1）"Poor Richard's Almanac" 穷人查理德的年鉴 annual collection of proverbs 流行谚语集
2018年自学考试《美国文学选读》试题
2018年自学考试《美国文学选读》试题 Multiple choice; 1._________ works are marked by a preoccupation with the Calvinistic view of original sin and the mystery of evil. A.Emerson’s B. Hawthorne’s C. Thoreau’s D. Allan Poe’s 2. Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”got ideas from _______ legends. A.B ritish B. German C. Italian D. French 3. “Rip Van Winkle”reveals the theme of ______ the past. A. nostalgia for B. rejectionn to C. detachment from D. dislike for 4. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter , “A”may stand for ____________. A. Angel B. Adultery C. Able D.all the above 4. According to Hawthorne, the scarlet letter “A”which originally stood for “____”finally obtained the meaning of “able”or “angel”through Hester’s efforts. A. adultery B. arrogance C. accomplishment D. agony 5. Which one is not the characteristics of the puritan style? A. Fresh B. Simple C. Grand D. Direct 6. In his ______, Benjamin Franklin creates the image of a boy’s rise from rags to riches and demonstrates his belief that the new world America was a land of opportunities which might be met through hard work and wise management.
美国文学史复习资料
美国文学史复习资料
美国文学史复习（colonialism) 第一部分殖民主义时期的文学 一、时期综述 1、清教徒采用的文学体裁：a、narratives 日记 b、journals 游记 2、清教徒在美国的写作内容： 1）their voyage to the new land 2) Adapting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops 3) About dealing with Indians 4) Guide to the new land, endless bounty, invitation to bold spirit 3、清教徒的思想： 1）puritan want to make up pure their religious beliefs and practices 净化信仰和行为方式 2) Wish to restore simplicity to church and the authority of the Bible to the theology. 重建教堂，提供简单服务，建立神圣地位 3）look upon themselves as chosen people, and it follow logically that anyone who challenged their way of life is opposing God's will and is not to be
事的权利。没有任何政治秩序和教会体制能够直接体现神本身的意旨。 6、英国最早移民到美国的诗人：Anne Bradstreet 7、在殖民时期最好的清教徒诗人：the best of Puritan poets is Edward Tayor. 学习指南： 1、Could you give a description of American Puritans? 关于美国清教徒的描绘 Like their brothers back in England, were idealists, believing that the church should be restored to the "purity" of the first-century church as established by Jesus Christ himself. To them religion was a matter of primary importance. They made it their chief business to see that man lived and thought and acted in a way which tended to the glory of God. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God, all that John Calvin, the great French theologian who lived in Geneva had preached. It was this
美国文学简史复习资料精华版
A Concise History of American Literature Chapter 1 Colonial Period I.Jonathan Edwards 1.life 2.works (1)The Freedom of the Will (2)The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended (3)The Nature of True Virtue 3.ideas – pioneer of transcendentalism (1)The spirit of revivalism (2)Regeneration of man (3)God’s presence (4)Puritan idealism II.Benjamin Franklin 1.works (1)Poor Richard’s Almanac (2)Autobiography 2.contribution (1)He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital and the American Philosophical Society. (2)He was called “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire (electricity in this case) from heaven”. (3)Everything seems to meet in this one man –“Jack of all trades”. Herman Melville thus described him “master of each and mastered by none”. Chapter 2 American Romanticism Section 1 Early Romantic Period I.Washington Irving 1.several names attached to Irving (1)first American writer (2)the messenger sent from the new world to the old world (3)father of American literature 2.works (1)A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (2)The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (He won a measure of international recognition with the publication of this.) (3)The History of the Life and V oyages of Christopher Columbus (4)A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (5)The Alhambra 3.Literary career: two parts (1)1809~1832 a.Subjects are either English or European b.Conservative love for the antique (2)1832~1859: back to US 4.style – beautiful (1)gentility, urbanity, pleasantness (2)avoiding moralizing – amusing and entertaining (3)enveloping stories in an atmosphere
美国文学选读复习材料
一 1.―He was silent with conceit of his son. Mrs. Morel sniffed, as if it were nothing.‖(Sons and Lovers by https://www.wendangku.net/doc/482342473.html,wrence)From the above quotation, we can see that Mrs. Morel’s attitude to her husband is ______ . A. sincerely warm B. genuinely kind C. seemingly angry D. merely contemptuous 2. A boy makes a quest of his idealized childish love through painful experience up to the point of losing his innocence and coming to see the drabness and harshness of the adult world. The above sentence may well sum up the major theme of ______. A. Eliot’s poem The love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock B. Bernard Shaw’s play Mrs. Warren’s Profession C. Joyce’s story Araby D. Lawrence’s story The Horse Dealer’s Daughter 3. Linguistically, compared with the writing s of Mark Twain, Henry James’s fiction is noted for his ______. A. frontier vernacular B. rich colloquialism C. vulgarly descriptive words D. refined elegant language 4. Which of the following statements about Washington Irving is NOT true? A. Literary imagination should breed in a land rich in the past culture. B. He is preoccupied with the Calvinistic view of original sin and the mystery of evil. C. His stories are among the best of the American literature. D. Some of his works are based on the materials of the European legendary tales. 5. Which of the following is NOT one of the main ideas advocated by Emerson, the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism? A. As an individual, man is divine and can develop and improve himself infinitely. B. Nature exercises a healthy and restorative influence on human beings. C. There exists an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal ―Oversoul.‖ D. Evil and sin are ever present in human heart and will pass on from one generation to another.‖ 6. Whitman’s poems are characterized by all the following features EXCEPT ______ . A. the strict poetic form B. the free and natural rhythm C. the easy flow of feelings D. the simple and conversational language 7. ―Then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.‖ In the quoted sentence, the author might imply that ______. A. nothing changes in the 5000 years of human history B. man’s desire to conquer nature can only end in his own de struction C. nature is evil as it was 5000 years ago D. nature has the ultimate creative power