Ⅰ.Multiple ChoiceSelect from the four choices of each item the one that best answers the question or completes the statement. Ⅲ.Questions and AnswersGive a brief answer to each of the following questions in English.1. What did Shakespeare criticize in his plays?
The conscientious playwright criticized various kinds of human vices and sins, like greed, betrayal, pride, prejudice and deception, including acts of social inequality, sexual and racial discriminations in plays such as The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest. In his tragedies, he condemned the hypocrisy, treachery and general corruption at the royal court. He does not hesitate to describe the cruelty and anti-natural character of the civil wars, against religious persecution and the corrupting influence of money and gold. In King Lear, he criticized the bourgeois egoism while he feared anarchy, hated rebellion and despised democracy.
William Shakespeare is one of the most remarkable playwrights the world has ever known.2. Name his four greatest tragedies.
Shakespeare's four greatest tragedies are Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.
3. What are the characteristics of the four tragedies in common?
Each portrays some noble hero, who faces the injustice of human life and is caught in a difficult situation and whose fate is closely connected with the fate of the whole nation.
4. Briefly summarize each hero's weakness of nature.
Each hero has his weakness of nature: Hamlet, the melancholic scholar-prince, faces the dilemma between action and mind; Othello's inner weakness is made use of by the outside evil force; the old king Lear is unwilling to totally give up his power; and Macbeth's lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to incessant crimes.
5. Working through the tradition of a Christian humanism, Milton wrote
Paradise Lost, intending to expose the way of Satan and to "justify the ways of God to men." What is Milton's fundamental concern in Paradise Lost?
At the center of the conflict between human love and spiritual duty lies Milton's fundamental concern with freedom and choice. The theme is the "Fall of Man," i.e. man's disobedience and the loss of Paradise. In the fall of man Adam discovered his full humanity. The freedom of the will is the keystone of Milton's creed.
Ⅳ.Topic DiscussionWrite no less than 150 words on each of the following topics in English in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.1. Shakespeare is the master of English drama. He wrote all together 38 plays in his life. Discuss the four periods of his dramatic career.
The first period of Shakespeare's dramatic career was one of apprenticeship. He wrote five history plays (e.g. Henry Ⅵ), four comedies (e.g. The Comedy of Errors).
In the second period, Shakespeare's style and approach became highly individualized. He wrote five histories (e.g. Henry Ⅳ), six comedies (e.g. The Merchant of Venice) and two tragedies (e.g. Romeo and Juliet). His third period includes his greatest tragedies (e.g. Hamlet)and his so called dark comedies (e.g. Measure for Measure). The last period includes his principal romantic tragicomedies (e.g. The Tempest).
2. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's great tragedies. Try to analyze the character Hamlet.
Hamlet is neither a frail and weak minded youth nor a thoughtsick dreamer. He has none of the single minded blood lust of the earlier revengers. It is not because he is incapable of action, but because the cast of his mind is so speculative, so questioning and so contemplative that action, when it finally comes, seems almost like defeat. Trapped in a nightmare world of spying, testing and plotting, and apparently bearing the intolerable burden of the duty to revenge his father's death, Hamlet is obliged to inhabit a shadow world, to live suspended between fact and fiction, language and action. His life is one of constant role playing, examining the nature of action only to deny its possibility, for he is too sophisticated to degrade his nature to the conventional role of a stage revenger. By characterizing Hamlet, Shakespeare successfully makes a philosophical exploration of life and death. Hamlet is also a humanist, a man who is free from medieval prejudices and superstitions. He has an unbounded love for the world rather than heaven. He cherishes a profound reverence for man and a firm belief in man's power over destiny.
3. Briefly discuss William Shakespeare's artistic achievements in characterization, plot construction and language.
A. Shakespeare's major characters are neither merely individual ones nor type ones; they represent certain types; they are individuals representing certain types. By employing a psycho-analytical approach, Shakespeare succeeds in exploring the characters' inner world. Shakespeare also portrays his characters in pairs. Contrasts are frequently used to bring vividness to his characters.
B. Shakespeare seldom invents his own plot; instead, he borrows them form old plays or storbooks, from ancient Greek or Roman sources. In order to make the play more lively and compact, he would shorten the time and intensity the story. There are usually several clues running through the play, thus providing the story with suspense and apprehension.
C. Shakespeare can write skillfully in different poetic forms, such as the sonnet, the blank verse and the rhymed couplet. He has an amazing wealth of vocabulary and idiom. His coinage of new words and distortion of the meaning of the old words also creates striking effects on the reader.
4. According to the setting of the poem Paradise Lost, discuss the theme, the author's intention to create it and the implication that the poem expresses.
A. The theme of the poem Paradise Lost is the "Fall of Man", i.e. man's disobedience and the loss of Paradise, with its prime cause—Satan.
B. The author's intention to write this poem is to expose the ways of Satan and to "justify the ways of God to men".
C. In this poem, the author implicitly expresses his fundamental concern with freedom and choice and his belief that the unquestionable truth of Biblical revelation means that an all knowing God was just in allowing Adam and Eve to be tempted and of their free will to choose sin and its inevitable punishment.