英美文学选读历年主观题及答案

1、 英美文学选读历年客观题1.“let it not be supposed by the enemies ofthe system,that during the period of his solitary incarceration, oliver wasdenied the benefit of exercise, the pleasure of society, or the advantages of religious consolation.”what do you thinkcharles dickens intends to say in the above ironic s

2、tatement taken from oliver twist?the sentence is a typical example of irony. what dickens intends to say is just the opposite of the sentences literalmeaning.for the “benefit” of exercise, oliver whipped every morning in a stone yard; for the “pleasure” of society, he wascarried away every other day

3、 to the dinning hall and flogged as a public warning and example to the boys; as for the“advantages” of the religious consolation, he kicked out i nto apartment every evening at prayer time and listened to theboys prayer to be guarded against his sins and vices.the ironic statement is, in fact, a bi

4、tter denunciation and fierce attack at the brutal, inhuman treatment of the poororphan by the workhouse authority.2. how is romanticism different from neoclassicism? provide brief evidence from the literary works you know best?neoclassicists upheld that the artistic ideals should be order, logic, re

5、strained emotion and accuracy, and thatliterature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity, and thus, literary expressions should be of proportion,unity, harmony and grace.alexander popes “an essay on criticism” advocated grace, wit (usually though satire /humor), and simplicity in langu

6、age (and the poem itself is a demonstration of those ideals, too), henry fieldings tomjones helped establish the form of novel; grays elegy written in country churchyard displays elegance in style, unifiedstructure, serious tone and moral instructions.romanticists tended to see the individual as the

7、 very center of all experience, including art, and thus, literarywork should be “spontaneous overflow of strong feelings”, and no matter how fragmentary those experiences are(wordsworths i wandered lonely as a cloud or the solitary reaper or coleridges keble khan), the value of the worklied in the a

8、ccuracy of presenting those unique feelings and particular attitudes.in a word, neoclassicism emphasized rationality and form but romanticism attached great importance to theindividuals mind.3. english romanticism is generally said to have begun in 1798 with the publication of wordsworth and colerid

9、geslyrical ballads. why is lyrical ballads considered the milestone to mark the beginning of english romanticism?in this book, wordsworth and coleridge explored new theories and innovated new techniques in poetry wring.the preface to the lyrical ballads acts as a manifesto for the new school. in the

10、 preface, wordsworth definespoetry and poets.wordsworths poems in this book differ in marked way from his early poetry: simplicity of the language,sympathy for the poor, and expressions of inward states of mind.4. in pride and prejudice, jane austen explored three kinds of motivations of marriage th

11、e middle-class people had in thesecond half of the 18th century. try to make a brief discussion about them with specific examples from the novel. makecomments on austens attitude towards these motivations.motivation one: to pursue material wealth and social position through marriage. wickham, miss b

12、ingley andcharlotte lucas are examples of this kind.motivation two: to seek sensual pleasure and beauty. lydia and mr. bennet are examples of this kind.motivation three: to search for true love and also take personal merits and financial positions into consideration.elizabeth bennet is a typical exa

13、mple of this kind.austen celebrated the third kind of motivation of marriage while criticizing the first two motivations.5“ my boy! said the old gentleman, leaning over the desk. oliver started at the sound. he might be excused for doingso, for the words were kindly said, and strange sounds frighten

14、 one. he trembled violently, and burst into tears.” （fromcharles dickens oliver twist）explain why oliver twist started first, then trembled violently and burst into tears when the words were “kindly” said. the boy started at the words because kind words were not expected; it must be the first time i

15、n all his life that the boyoliver twist had ever “kindly” greeted, strange words may predict another suffering.6. discuss the way symbolism is used in melvilles moby-dick.to ahab, the whale is either an evil creature itself or the agent of an evil force that controls the universe, or perhapsboth. th

16、e chase of the white whale symbolizes ahabs pursuit of truth and fighting against the evil force.to ishmael, the whale is an astonishing force, an immense power, which defies rational explanation due to a senseof mystery it carries. it also represents the tremendous organic vitality of the universe.

17、to the reader, the whale can be viewed as a symbol of the physical limits that life imposes upon man. it may also beregarded as a symbol of nature.7. as a rule, an allegory is a story in verse or prose with a double meaning: a surface meaning, and an implied meaning.list two works as examples of all

18、egory. what is the implied meaning an allegory is usually concerned with?bunyans pilgrims progress and spensers the faerie queeneit usually concerned with moral, religious, political, symbolic or mythical ideas.8. take mark twains the adventures of huckleberry finn as an example to illustrate the st

19、atement that mark twainwas a unique writer in american literature.mark twain shaped the worlds view of america and made the extensive combination of american folk humor andserious literature.the novel has become a great contribution to the legacy of american literature.the novel is written in a lang

20、uage that is totally different from the rhetorical language used by his contemporarywriters such as emerson, poe and melville. it is simple, direct, lucid and faith to the colloquial speech. this style ofcolloquialism is best described as vernacular.he successfully used local color and historical se

21、ttings to illustrate and shed light on the contemporary society.thats why he is known as a local colorist.mark twains humor is remarkable, too. most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comicdetails, witty remarks, etc. some of them are typical of tall tales. and a great d

22、eal of his humor is characterized by puns,straight-faced exaggeration, repetition, and anti-climax. he uses his humor to criticize the social injustice and satirize thedecayed romanticism.9. how do you philosophically define transcendentalism?transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “th

23、e recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truthintuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the sense”. emerson once proclaimed in a speech,“nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind”. other concepts that accompanied transcendentalisminclude the idea that

24、 nature is ennobling and the idea that the individual is divine and, therefore, self-reliant.10. thomas hardy is often regarded as a transitional writer. some critics believe that he is emotionally traditional andintellectually advanced. how do you understand this idea?living at the turn of the cent

25、ury, hardy is often regarded as the transitional writer. in him we see the influencefrom both the past and the modern. as some people put it, he is intellectually advanced and emotionally traditional.in his wessex novels, there is a nostalgic touch in his description of the simple and beautiful thou

26、gh primitiverural life, which was gradually declining and disappearing as england marched into an industrial country. and with thosetraditional characters he is always sympathetic.on the other hand, the immense impact of scientific discoveries and modern philosophic thoughts upon the manis quite obv

27、ious, too. he read darwins the origin species and accepted the idea of “survival of the fittest”. he was alsoinfluenced by spensers the first principle, which led him to the belief that mans fate is predeterminedly tragic, drivenby a combined force of “nature”, both inside and outside.11. hemingway

28、code heroesit refers to some protagonists in hemingway s works. in the general situation of hemingway s novels, life is full oftension and battles; the world is in chaos and man is always fighting desperately a losing battle. those who survive in theprocess of seeking to master the code with the hon

29、esty, the discipline, and the restraint are hemingway code heroes.12“in your rocking-chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. in your rocking-chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel.”（from theodore dreisers sister carrie）what idea can you draw from t

30、he “rocking-chair”?the “rocking-chair” is a symbol standing for fate. it is like a cradle that makes one feel peaceful. it is also like a tidethat ever goes on with life, the destiny of which is uncertain.at the end of novel, carrie sits in the rocking-chair, which implies that her future is still u

31、ncertain and hard to foresee.13. the theme of hawthornes “the scarlet letter”the scarlet letter tells a simple but very moving story in which four people living in a puritan community areinvolved in and affected by the sin of adultery in different way. hawthorne does not intend to tell a love story

32、nor a storyof sin, but focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the peoplein general and those main characters in particular, so as to show us the tension between society and individual.14it is said that b. shaws play, mrs. warrens profession

33、, has a strong realistic theme, which fully reflects thedramatists fabianist idea. try to summarize this theme briefly.as one of the influential members of the fabian society, shaw regarded the establishment of socialism by theemancipation of land and industrial capital from individual and class own

34、ership as the final goal.as a realist dramatist, he took the modern issues as his subject; most of his plays are concerned with political,economic, moral or religious problemsmrs. warrens profession is a play about the economic oppression of woman.15. william faulkner, a nobel priza winner, has an i

35、mportant position in american literature. name two of his majornovels. do you know anything aboutyoknapatawpha county? what is unique of faulkners fiction, historically andgeographically?the sound and the fury, light in august, go down, moses, absalom, absalom!yoknapatawpha county is an imaginary pl

36、ace based on faulkners own hometown, a place that he took for thesetting of 15 of his 19 novels and many short stories. this small region in american south becomes in faulkners fictionan allegory or a parable of the old south.his literary representation of the old south; and his theme of the deterio

37、ration, loss and moral decay of the oldsouth when it was falling apart.16. mark twain presented the 19th century america in his own unique way. discuss twa ins art of fiction: the setting,the language, and the characters, etc., based on his novel the adventures of huckleberry finn.mark twain uses mi

38、ssissippi valley as his fictional kingdom, writing about the landscape and people, thecustoms and the dialects of one particular region, and is therefore known as a local colorist.he creates life-like characters, especially the unconventional huckleberry finn, who runs away fromcivilization and stan

39、ds opposite to conventional village morality.he uses a simple, direct vernacular language, totally different from any previous language.colloquial belonging to the lower class, the living local american english.he has created a special humor to satirize the decayed convention.it is the kind of17what

40、 is the most famous theme in henry jamess fiction? and what is his favourite approach in characterization ，which makes him different from mark twain and w d.howells as a realist? give two titles of his first period works inwhich this theme and this approach are employed.(1)henry jamess most famous t

41、hemeis the international theme.(2) psychological approach.(3)daisy miller, the portrait of a lady, the american.18. discuss the way symbolism is used in faulkners story “a rose for emily.”rose, as a symbol standing for love, may refer to the love between emily and the northerner, yet used ratheriron

42、ically, in the way it is associated with decay and death in the story.rose could also stand for the pity, sympathy, or the lament “we” show for emilythe pity and lament goes not to emily but all those who imprisoned in the past and fail to adapt to the change.19. whitman is one of the representative

43、 poets in america. he employed brand-new means in his poetry. what are thefeatures of his poetry? his poetic style is marked by the use of the poetic “i”he adopted “free verse”, that is, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.the images in his poems are unconventionalhe uses oral englis

44、hhis vocabulary is amazingparallelism and phonetic recurrence are used at the beginning of the lines20.whitman has made radical changes in the form of poetry by choosing free verse as his medium of expression. whatare the characteristics of whitmans free verse?it doesnt have fixed beat or regular rh

45、yme schemehis poetic lines are simple and prose-like, varying in length, which allows him to express his ideas freelyhe also applies oral english in his free verse to make it an effective way to express freely the feelings of commonpeople.21. give a brief comment on whitmans style and languageradica

46、lly innovative in terms of poetic form by using “free verse”, poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhymeschemethe use of poetic “i” representing all those people in his poems as well the poetrelatively simple and crudehonest and undistorted images of different aspects of america of the daystrong t

47、endency to use oral english22. a rose for emil y is one of faulkners short stories. comment on the character of the protagonist, emily grierson,and analyze how this character is depicted.emily is an eccentric spinster who refuses to accept the passage of time, or the inevitable change and lossaccomp

48、anies it.she is the symbols of the old south but the prisoners of the pastthatin this story, faulkner makes best use of the gothic device in narrative, and deformed personality and abnormalityemily demonstrates in her relationship with her sweetheart is dramatized in such a way that we feel shocked

49、and thrilledas we read along.23. some of hemingways heroes are regarded as the hemingway code heroes. whatever the differences in experienceand age, they all have something in common which hemingway values. what are the characteristics of the hemingwaycode hero?they have seen the cold world and for

50、one cause or another, they boldly and courageously face the reality,whatever the result is, they are ready to live with grace under pressure.almost all his heroes are “soldiers” either in a narrow or broad sense. they are out there against the nature or theworld, or even themselves. but no matter wh

51、ere the battle-ground is and how tragic the ending is, they will never bedefeated.hemingway himself is one of those code heroes, some critics say his protagonists are autobiographical, for theyshare something that is hemingway.24“ my faith is gone! cried he（goodman brown）,after one stupefied moment.

52、 there is no good on earth;and sin isbut a name. come, devil! for to thee is this world given. ” （from nathaniel hawthornes “young goodman brown”）make a comment on this passage.goodman brown utters this cry when he finds his wife faith, together with lots of prominent people of the villageand the ch

53、urch, attending a witches sabbath in the woods.his cry shows his great surprise and disillusionment. thereafter, he becomes distrustful and doubtful. he lives indismal and gloomy life because he is never able to believe in goodness or piety again. here the author makes a pun ofthe word “faith”, good

54、man brown loses not only his faith in religion and life, but also his faith in his wife, for his wifesname is faith.from this story, we also can see that hawthorne is a great allegorist and a master of symbolism. the story itself isan allegory and is full of symbols such as the forest, the snake, an

55、d pink ribbon. 38. the following passage is taken from the merchant of venice. read it carefully and find the dramatic it contains. useit as an example to illustrate what dramatic irony is.“bassanio: antonio, i am married to a wifewhich is as dear to me as life itself;but life itself, my wife, and a

56、ll world,are not with me esteemd above thy life;i would lose all, ay, sacrifice them allhere to this devil, to deliver you.portia: your wife would give you little thanks for that,if she were by to hear you make the offer.”when the audience is aware of a discrepancy between a character s perception o

57、f his or her own situation and thetrue nature of that situation, that is dramatic irony.in the given example, portia, bassanio s newly-married wife, disguised herself as a lawyer to take charge of thecase, portia herself and the audience know all this, but bassanio is ignorant of it, so when bassani

58、o offers in front of hisdisguised wife to sacrifice her in order to deliver antonia, he makes himself behave in a ridiculous way in the eyes of theaudience. thus an effect of dramatic irony is achieved.26daniel defoes novel robinson crusoe was a great success partly because the protagonist was a real middle -classhero. discuss crusoe, the protagonist of the novel, as an embodime