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 is local colorism in American literature?
A. Mark Twain, Sarah Orne Jewett and Joseph Kirkland are the representatives of local colorists whose writings are concerned with the life of a small, well defined region or province. The characteristic setting is the isolated small town.
B. These local colorists, especially Mark Twain, preferred to present social life through portraits of the local characters of his regions, including people living in that area, the landscape, and other peculiarities like the customs, dialects, costumes and so on.
C. This particular concern about the local character of a region came about as "local colorism", a unique variation of American literary realism.
2. The literary school of naturalism was quite popular in the late 19th century. What are the major characteristics of naturalism?
A. Strongly influenced by social Darwinism, naturalism emphasizes the determining power of the crushing forces of environment and heredity.
B. Being devoid of the freedom of choice and incapable of shaping their own destinies, men and women are helpless and insignificant in a cold and indifferent world.
C. The naturalistic writers reported truthfully and objectively, with a passion for scientific accuracy and overwhelming accumulation of factual detail.
3. Mark Twain and Henry James are two representatives of the realistic writers in American literature. How is Twain's realism different from James' realism?
A. Mark Twain's realism is tainted with local color, preferring to have his own region and people at the forefront of his stories.
B. James's realism is concerned with the "inner world" of man.
C. James's realism is also concerned with the international theme.
D. Twain's language is simple and colloquial.
E. Twain employs humor in his writing.
F. James's language is elaborate and refined with lengthy psychological analyses.
4. What is the language style of Mark Twain?
A. Use of vernacular made colloquial speech an accepted, respected literary medium in literary history;
B. Words: colloquial, concrete and direct in effect;
C. Sentence structures: simple, even ungrammatical;
D. Local colorism, his characters are confined to a particular region and to a particular historical moment; speak with a strong accent; different characters from different backgrounds talk differently.
5. In American literature what is the significance of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain?
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and, especially, its sequence Adventures of Huckleberry Finn proved themselves to be the milestone in American literature, and thus firmly established Twain's position in the literary world.
The childhood of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in the Mississippi is a record of a vanished way of life in the pre-Civil War Mississippi valley and it has moved millions of people of different ages and conditions all over the world.
Huckleberry Finn marks the climax of Twain's literary creativity. Hemingway once described the novel the one book forms which "a modern American literature comes".
6. What is the most famous theme in Henry James's fiction? And what is his favourite approach in characterization, which makes him different from Mark Twain and W.D. Howells as realists? Give two titles of his works in which this theme and this approach are employed.
(1)His most famous theme is international theme.
(2)Psychological approach.
(3)The Portrait of A Lady; Daisy Miller.
7. Daisy Miller brought Henry James international fame for the first time. What's the character of Daisy Miller, the protagonist?
A. the American Girl in Europe, embodying the spirit of the New World.
B. Innocence turns out to be an admiring but a dangerous quality and her defiance of social taboos in the Old World finally brings her to a disaster.
8. Theodore Dreiser is a celebrated American novelist in the realistic period. What does he discuss in his novel? Give examples to prove your viewpoint.
Dreiser set himself to project the American values for what he had found them to be materialistic to the core. Living in such a society with such a value system, the human individual is obsessed with a never-ending, yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his desires. One of the desires is for money which was a motivating purpose of life in the United States in the late 19th century.
For example, in Sister Carrie, there is not one character whose status is not determined economically. Sex is another human desire that Dreiser explored to considerable lengths in his novels to reveal the dark side of human nature. In Sister Carrie, Carrie climbs up the social ladder by means of her sexual appeal. Like all naturalists he was restrained from finding a solution to the social problems that appeared in his novels and accordingly almost all his works have tragic endings.
9. What is Dreiser's style?
A. For lack of concision, his writings appear more inclusive and less selective, and the readers are sometimes burdened with massive detailed descriptions of characters and events.
B. The time sequence is clear and the plot is straightforward, his sentence structure is awkward, inept and occasionally flatly wrong in word selection and meaning, and mixed and disorganized in voice and tone.
C. He broke away from the genteel tradition of literature and dramatized the life in a very realistic way.
10. Even then he stood there, hidden wholly in that kindness which is night, while the uprising fumes filled the room. When the odor reached his nostrils, he quit his attitude and fumbled for the bed.
"What's the use?" he said, weakly, as he stretched himself to rest.
The above is quoted from Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. Briefly tell the situation that leads to the suicide and interpret Hurstwood's final words "What's the use"?
A. Sister Carrie has made a great success. As her fame arises, she deserts her former lover Hurstwood. In a cold winter, Hurstwood makes a last attempt to seek help from Carrie, but has failed, so in desperation, he decides to kill himself by turning on the gas.
B. By making that comment, Hurstwood seems to have realized that it is useless to continue to fight against fate. His fate is not controlled by his own efforts but by some social forces too strong for him to resist, so he decides to give up.
11. "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 Dreiser's Sister Carrie)
What idea can you draw from the "rocking-chair"?
A. The rocking-chair is a symbol standing for fate. It is like a cradle that makes one feel peaceful.
B. It is also like a tide that ever goes on with life, the destiny of which is uncertain.
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. What are the similarities and differences between the three literary giants, Howells, Mark Twain, Henry James, in terms of their literary orientation?
A. They are the three dominant figures of the Realistic Period. Together they brought to fulfillment native trends in the realistic portrayal of the landscape and social surfaces, brought to perfection the vernacular style, and explored and exploited the literary possibilities of the interior life.
B. Together in short, they set the example and charted the future course for the subjects, themes, techniques and styles of fiction we still call modern.
C. Howells focused his discussion on the rising middle class .and the way they lived. Mark Twain preferred to have his own region and people at the forefront of his stories. While henry James had apparently laid a greater emphasis on the "inner world" of man.
2. Why are naturalists inevitably pessimistic in their view?
A. Naturalism was greatly influenced by Darwin's evolutionary theory and French literature.
B. Naturalists accepted the more negative implications of Darwin's theory and used it to count for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were conceived as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.
C. Naturalism is evolved from realism when the author's tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic.
3. Briefly discuss Mark Twain's art of fiction in terms of the setting, the language, and the characters, etc. , based on his novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
A. Mark Twain uses the Mississippi valley as his fictional kingdom, writing about the landscape and people, the customs and the dialects of one particular region, and is therefore known as a local colorist.
B. He creates life-like characters, specially the conventional Huckleberry Finn, who runs away from civilization and stands opposite to conventional morality.
C. He uses a simple, direct vernacular language, totally different from any previous literary language. It is the kind of colloquial language belonging to the lower class, the living local American English.
D. He has created a special humor to satirize social injustices and the decayed convention.
4. Summarize the story of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in about 100 words, and comment on the theme of the novel.
Huck escapes from a lonely cabin where he has been punished by his father. He meets Jim, a run-away slave, and they start down the river on a raft. After several adventures, the raft is hit and they are separated. Huck is saved and later he discovers Jim. They set out again, giving refuge to a gang of frauds. Then he finds that Jim has been sold by the "King". He and Tom try to rescue Jim. In the rescue, Tom is shot and Jim is recaptured. Later, Tom reveals that the rescue is necessary only because he wants the adventure of it. At last, Huck is safe because his father dies. The theme of the novel is to expose the pre-Civil War American society. It presents a sample of the small town world of America and a survey of the social world from the bank of the river that runs through the heart of the country.
5. According to Henry James viewpoint, what is the conflict between the American personalities and European personalities?
James's admiration for European culture led him to a lifelong interest in the conflict of the American and European personalities. He saw that Europeans were often regarded as overrefined, degenerate, and artificial by Americans, and that Americans were considered naive, vulgar, and ignorant by many Europeans. The misunderstanding caused personality conflicts. The typical American in James' novel is fresh, enthusiastic, not perhaps as cultured as he might be, but eager to learn, and basically "good" in spite of his disregard of the outworn conventions and social graces of Europe. The European, on the other hand, is highly cultivated, urban, sometimes boring, but always correct. He was, however, sometimes unprincipled. The Americans often appeared to stand for morality, the Europeans for manners.
6. Henry James is regarded as one of the most important writers in the Age of Realism in America. Try to discuss his literary achievements.
A. International themes: novels always set against larger international background, usually between Europe and America;
B. Psychological realism: concerned with the inner life of human being, generally regarded as the founder of psychological realism and of 20th century "stream-of-consciousness";
C. Highly refined language: most expert stylist in his time;
D. Narrative point of view: moving away from authorial omniscience, making characters reveal themselves;
E. Literary criticism: "The Art of Fiction", theme: aim of the novel is to present life; freedom of the artist to write about anything that concerns him.
7. Henry James is generally regarded as the forerunner of the 20th century "stream-ofconsciousness" novels and the founder of psychological realism. Based on his work Daisy Miller, briefly discuss why he achieved this glory.
A. James's fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with the international theme.
B. Henry James's literary criticism is an indispensable part of his contribution to literature. It is both concerned with form and devoted to human values.
C. James's emphasis on psychology and on the human consciousness proves to be a big breakthrough in novel writing and has great influence on the coming generations.
D. Henry James is not only one of the most important realists of the period before the First World War, but also the most expert stylist of his time
8. The publication of Daisy Miller brought Henry James international fame for the first time. Try to discuss the character of Daisy Miller and the theme of the novel.
Daisy Miller:
A. A cultural type who embodies the spirit of the New World.
B. Innocence—the keynote of her character; defiance of social taboos in the Old World which brings her to a disaster in the clash between two different cultures. Theme of the novel: one of James's early works dealing with the international theme—to set a novel against a larger international background, usually between Europe and America, and centered on the confrontation of the two different cultures each with its peculiar value systems.
9. Emily Dickinson is now recognized not only as a great poetess on her own right but as a poetess of considerable influence upon American poetry of the present century. What are the qualities of her poems?
A. Dickinson's poems are usually based on her own experiences, her sorrows and joys.
B. Love is another subject Dickinson dwelt on.
C. Many poems Dickinson wrote are about nature, in which her general skepticism about the relationship between man and nature is well-expressed.
D. Dickinson's poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines.