主题：英美文学串讲

21. In terms of Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, which is wrong?
A.The author employs metaphor in this poem.
B.The author excessively expresses his personal melancholy.
C.Here he reveals his sympathy for the poor and the unknown.
D.He mocks the great ones who despise the poor and bring havoc on them.
Answer: B (P152-153)

22. The Houyhnhnms depicted by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels are________.
A.horses that are endowed with reason.
B.pigmies that are endowed with admirable qualities
C.giants that are superior in wisdom.
D.Hairy, wild, low and despicable creatures,
who resemble human beings not only in appearance
but also in some other ways.
Answer: A (P108)

II. Read the quoted part and answer the questions:

1. "Words are like leaves;
and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
False eloquence, like the prismatic glass,
Its gaudy colors spreads on every place;
The face of Nature we no more survey,
All glares alike, without distinction gay."

Questions:
1) Identify the author and the passage;
2) Name the devices used in the passage with examples;
3) Explain "Words….found".
4) What is the mainly implied idea of the passage?

参考答案：
1) The passage is from Pope’s "An Essay on Criticism". (P94)

2) In the passage the author used "Simile" the device,
e.g. "Words are like leaves" and "false eloquence,
like the prismatic glass’ etc.

3) The sentence means: Where/When too many words are used,
they seldom express much sense.

4) The passage implies authors shouldn’t stress too much
the artificial use of Conceit or the external beauty of language,
they should pay special attention to True Wit, which is best
set in the plain style. (just as too many leaves will cover the fruits,
too gaudy/ showy glass will hide the face the Nature,
too false and eloquent language will hide the Wit in the articles.) <P93>

2. "Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

Questions:
1) Identify the author and the works;
2) What does "the inevitable hour"?
3) Explain the first stanza;
4) What does the whole passage imply.

参考答案：
1) This is Thomas Gray’s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard".
托马斯•格雷的《写在教堂墓地的挽歌》(P154)

2) "The inevitable hour" means time of death. (P156)

3) The first stanza means: The men with ambition and high position
shouldn’t laugh at the ordinary people for their simple life and hard work.

4) In the passage, the poet reflects on the death----no matter how poor or wealthy,
or how important and humble, every is equal before death, the author gives
much sympathy to the poor and unknown (P153)

III. Questions and answers:
1.Please analyze the Neoclassical period and the characters of the literature.

参考答案：
1)The Neoclassical period is about 1660-1798, also known as
"the Age of Enlightenment" or "the age of Reason".

2)Its background was:
a.It was an age full of conflicts and difference of values;
b.It was an age of fast development for English to become
the first powerful capitalist country in the world;
c.It was an age of economic development, in which bourgeois/middle class grew rapidly.

3)In essence, the Neoclassical Period was a progressive intellectual movement.

4)The Enlighteners believed in self-restraint, self-reliance and hard work;They celebrated reason/rationality, equality and science.
They advocated universal education, which could make people
rational and prefect, they believed.

5)In literature, The Enlightenment Movement brought about a
revival of interest in the ancient Greek and Roman classical works; the
works at the time, heavily didactic and moralizing; having fixed laws and rules for every type of the literature; among which prose and the modern English novel predominated the age. (At the end of the age sentimentalism and Gothic Novel appeared.) 6) The age was an important age with the remarkable authors Pope, Defoe, etc.<P79- - -83>

2.Please cite examples from "Gulliver’s Travels" to explain briefly
how did Swift criticized and allude to the government and the society.

参考答案:
1)In the first part of the "Gulliver’s Travels",
Swift described the tricks and practices in the competition
held before royal members to allude to the fact that the success
of the officials was not for their wisdom and excellence but for
their skills in the games;

2)In the part 4 of the book, Swift made horses with reason and good qualities.
The citizens who are "hairy, wild, low and despicable brutes,
who resemble human beings not only in appearance but also in almost every way" to criticize/satirize all respects of the English and European life,
and urge people to consider the nature of the human and life. (P108-109)

3. People always say that: "As a member of the middle class,
Defoe spoke for and to the members of his class" .
How do you understand this sentence? Please explain it with the character of him.

参考答案：
1) In most of his works, Defoe gave his praise to the hard-working,
sturdy middle class and showed his sympathy for the lower-class people.
Robinson Crusoe was such a character.

2) Robison goes out to sea, gets shipwrecked and marooned/landed on a lonely island, struggles to live for 24 years there and finally is saved by a ship and returns to England. During the period Robinson leads a harsh and lonely life and survives by growing corps, taming animals, etc. growing from a naive young man into a hardened man.

3) With a great capacity for work, inexhaustible energy (精力充沛),
courage and persistence in overcoming difficulties（在克服困难方面持之以恒）, in struggling against nature, Crusoe becomes the prototype / representative of the empire builder, the pioneer colonist. （他是大英帝国缔造者的完美典范，同时也是殖民者的先驱）．

4) In the novel, Defoe glorified human labor and the puritan fortitude
which the middle class praised highly, so he can be regarded as a
spokesman of the bourgeois. (P98-100)

Chapter 3 The Romantic Period

I. Choose the right answer:
1. The Romantic Movement expressed a more or less______
attitude toward the existing social and political conditions.
A.positive
B.negative
C.neutral
D.indifferent
Answer: B (P160)

2. It is _____who established the cult of the individual
and championed the freedom of the human spirit.
A.Jean Jacques Rousseau
B.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
C.Edmund Burke
D.Thomas Paine
Answer: A (P157)

3. The two major novelists of the English Romantic Period
are _____and Walter Scott.
A.Washington Irving
B.Jane Austen
C.Herman Melville
D.Charles Dickens
Answer: B (P165)

4. _____defines the poet as "man speaking to men,"
and poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,
which originates in emotion recollected in tranquility."
A.William Blake
B.William Wordsworth
C.Samuel Taylor Coleridge
D.John Keats
Answer: B (P161)

5. For the Romantics, ____is not only the major source of

poetic imagery, but also provides the dominant subject matter.
A.love
B.man
C.nature
D.death
Answer: C (P162)

6. In the Romantic period, ____is the most prosperous literary

form.
A.prose
B.poetry
C.fiction
D.play
Answer: B (P161)

7. The tone of literature in "Song of Experience" by William

Blake is _______.

A.doleful
B.lively
C.plain
D.utter
Answer: A (doleful: 悲哀的P168-169)

8. _____is regarded as a "worship of nature".
A.John Keats
B.William Blake
C.William Wordsworth
D.Jane Austen
Answer: C (P176)

9. Which of the following writings is not created by William

Wordsworth?

A.I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
B.Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802.
C.The Solitary Reaper.
D.The Chimney Sweeper.
Answer: D (P179---182)

10. Wordsworth’s short poems can be classified into two groups:
poems about nature and poems about________.
A.love
B.human life
C.freedom
D.social activities
Answer: B (P176)

11. "Don Juan" is Byron’s masterpiece, a great ______of the

early 19th century.
A.comedy
B.tragedy
C.comic epic
D.novel
Answer: C (P194)

12. In his lyrics such as "Ode to Liberty", "Ode to Naples",
Percy Bysshe Shelly expressed his love for_____ and his hatred
toward tyranny.
A.the middle class
B.the poor
C.freedom
D.the proletariat
Answer: C (P207)

13. "Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; / Destroy and

Preserver; hear, O hear!" The two lines are found in_____.
A.Young Goodman Brown by Hawthorne
B.Ode to the West Wind by Shelly
C.Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
D.Ulysses by Joyce
Answer: B (P212)

14. In Shelly’s "To a Skylark", the bird, suspended between
reality and poetic image, pours forth an exultant song
which suggests to the poet________.
A.both celestial rapture and human limitation
B.both image creation and profound meaning
C.both music and words
D.both inspiration and skills of writing
Answer: A (P206)

15. The author of "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is __________.
A.Wordsworth
B.Austen
C.Byron
D.Keats
Answer: D (217)

16. Jane Austen’s first novel is __________.
A.Pride and Prejudice
B.Sense and Sensibility
C.Emma
D.Plan of a Novel
Answer: B (P222)

17. In terms of Pride and Prejudice, which is not true?
A.Pride and Prejudice is the most popular of Jane Austen’s

novels.
B.Pride and Prejudice is originally drafted as "First

Impressions".
C.Pride and Prejudice is a tragic novel.
D.In this novel, the author explores the relationship between

great love and realistic benefits.
Answer: C (P223-225)

18. After reading the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice,
we may come to know that Mrs.Bennet is a woman of_______.
A.simple character and poor understanding
B.simple character and quick wit
C.intricate character and quick wit
D.intricate character and poor understanding
Answer: A (P227)

19. Romanticism is a period of British literature roughly dated

from _________.
A.1660-----1798
B.1798----1832
C.1483-----1546
D.1836-----1901
Answer: B (P157)

20. Which of the following is the Gothic novel?
A.Shelly’s Prometheus Unbound
B.Keats’ Lamia
C.Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein
D.Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Answer: C (P166)

21.The lines "It was a miracle of rare device,
/ A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice" are found

in__________.
A.Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s "Kubla Khan"
B.William Wordsworth’s Lines Written in Early Spring"
C.John Keats’s "Ode to Autumn"
D.Percy Bysshe Shelly’s "Ode to the West Wind"
Answer: A (P190---191)

22. Which of the following is taken from John Keats’ "Ode on a

Grecial Urn"?
A."I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!"
B."They are both gone up to the church to pray.’
C."Earth has not anything to show more fair."
D."Beauty is truth, truth beauty".
Answer: D (P221)

II. Read the quoted part and answer the questions:
1. "A little black thing among the snow
Crying "’weep! ’weep! In notes of woe
"where are thy father & mother? Say? "
"They are both gone up to the church to prey."

(1)Identify the poem and poet.
(2)Explain "notes of woe".
(3)What does the sentence mean "they ate both gone up to the

church to prey."

Answer:
(1)It is from "The Chimney Sweeper (from songs of

experience) by Blake.(P172)

(2)"notes of woe" means the songs/notes of sadness.

(3)It implies: religion is the instrument of their repression/

oppression, its nature is to help bring misery to the poor

children.(P169)

2. "The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them all,
But all, except their sun, is set."

(1)Identify the poem and its author;
(2)What does it mean "But all, except their sun, is set."
(3)What does the passage imply?

Answer:
(1)The poet is Byron. The poem is taken from "The Isles of

Greece (from Don Juan)" (P199)

(2)The sentence means: The sun is still on the rise, but the

rest things all set.

(3)The passage implied: The author lamented over the fallen

Greece:
In the past, Greece nurtured/ cultivated great poets and

heroes,who enjoyed freedom and civilization, but now Greece had

been enslaved,the past honorable history couldn’t be found

again. (P199)