2003年（上）英美文学选读试卷及参考答案 http://english.fjii.com
日期：2004-12-28 作者：Cathy  

 

31. As a naturalist writer, Theodore Dreiser was greatly influenced by _______.
A. Nathaniel Hawthorne
B. Charles Darwin
C. Henry James
D. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Answer: B

32. In Sister Carrie, Hurstwood, extremely hopeless and totally devastated, ends his life by turning on

the gas, while at the same time Carrie is rocking comfortably in her luxurious hotel room before she

boards a ship for _______.
A. New York
B. London
C. Paris
D, Geneva
Answer: B

33. In Henry James’ "Daisy Miller," the author tries to portray the protagonist as an embodiment of

______.
A. the force of convention
B. the decline of aristocracy
C. the free spirit of the New World
D. the corruption of the new rich
Answer: C

34. American writers of the first postwar era who were devoid of faith and alienated from the

civilization were commonly called "______."
A. sons of liberty
B. fatherless children
C. a beat generation
D. a lost generation
Answer: D

35. The raft with which Huck and Jim make their voyage down the Mississippi River may symbolize all the

following EXCEPT ______.
A. a return to nature
B. an escape from evils, injustices, and corruption of the civilized society
C. the heavenly kingdom of Christianity
D. a small world where people of different colors can live friendly and happily
Answer: C

36. Of the following American poets in the twentieth century, the one who has the best knowledge of

Chinese culture is _______.
A. Robert Frost
B. Allen Ginsberg
C. Ezra Pound
D. E. E. Cummings
Answer: C

37. Emily Grierson, the protagonist in Faulkner’s story "A Rose for Emily," can be regarded as a symbol

standing for all the following qualities EXCEPT _______.
A. no prejudice against the northerners
B. rigid ideas of social status
C. bigotry and eccentricity
D. grace and integrity
Answer: D

38. Robert Frost is a regional poet in the sense that his poems are mainly concerned about the _______.
A. life in New York
B. country life in New England
C. sea adventures
D. life on the Mississippi
Answer: B

39. In Hemingway’s story "Indian Camp" Nick, the protagonist, witnesses _______.
A. a tragic killing of the Indians by the white man
B. real friendship between the white men and the Indians
C. men’s senseless killing of each other
D. terrible scenes of birth and death
Answer: D

40. Great Gatsby, written by Fitzgerald in 1925, is a story about ______ who was destroyed by the

influence of the wealthy, pleasure-seeking people around him.
A. a vagabond
B. an idealist
C. an eccentric
D. an opportunist
Answer: B

PART TWO
II. Reading Comprehension
41. "Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains call on us?"
Questions:
A. Identify the poem and the poet.
B. What does the word "fool" refer to?
C. What idea does the quotation express?

参考答案：
A It is taken from Jone Donne’s "The Sun Rising" (P66)
B. "fool" refers to the sun.
C. Donne’s great prose works are his sermons, the quotation expresses a strong sense of rebellious

spirit, the author tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry.

(P63+66)

42. "Most mighty Emperor of Lilliput, delight and terror of the universe, whose dominions extend five

thousand blustrugs (about twelve miles in circumference) to the extremities of the globe; Monarch of all

Monarchs; taller than the sons of men; whose feet press down to the center, and whose head strikes

against the sun; at whose nod the princes of the earth shake their knees; pleasant as spring, comfortable

as summer, fruitful as autumn, dreadful as winter."
Questions:
A. Identify the work and the author.
B. What is the tone of the author?
C. What does the author parody here?

Answers:
A. The passage comes from "Gulliver’s Travels" written by Jonanthan Swift. (P115)
B. The author used the Ironic tone of the passage.
C. Romance (prose)/ Adventurous prose is the parody here.

43. "She thanked men -good! but thanked
Somehow -I know not how -as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift."
Questions:
A. Identify the poem and the poet.
B. What kind of tone does the speaker use here?
C. What idea does the quoted passage express?

Answers:
A. The poem is "My Last Duchess", by Robert Browning. (P286)
B. The speaker is Duke, he is a villain. The speaker uses the tone of arrogant (傲慢的) here.
C. The quoted passage reveals the duke is a self-conceited, cruel and tyrannical man. (P287)

44. "This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me -
The simple News that Nature told -
With tender Majesty"
Questions:
A. Identify the poet
B. What does the word "World" refer to?
C. What idea does the quoted passage express?

Answers:
A. The poet is Emily Dickinson. (P520)
B. "World" refers to the outside world.
C. The poem expresses Dickinson’s anxiety about her communication with the outside world. (P520)

III. Questions and Answers
45. "For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
Than in her custom; it is still her use
To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow
An age of poverty; from which ling’ring penance
Of such misery doth she cut me off."

The above lines are taken from a speech made by Antonio, a major character in Shakespeare’s play The

Merchant of Venice. Why does Antonio say that Fortune is more kind to him than in her custom?

参考答案:
This sentence means she, Lady Fortune, is more kind to him because she is taking away both his wealth

and life. The speaker is Antonio, it’s said that his ship have all been lost, and he is penniless, and

will have to pay the pound of flesh. (Because Shylock has made a strange bond that requires Antonio to

pay him a pound of flesh if he can’t repay him, the money that he borrowed for his friend in due time.)

(P38)

46. "The first shot I made among these creatures, I killed a she-goat which had a little kid by her which

she gave suck to, which grieved me heartily; but when the old one fell, the kid stood stock still by her

till I came and took her up, and not only so, but when I carried the old one with me upon my shoulders,

the kid followed me quite to my enclosure, upon which I laid down the dam, and took the kid in my arms,

and carried it over my pale, in hopes to have it bred up tame, but it would not eat, so I was forced to

kill it and eat it myself; these two supplied me with flesh a great while, for I ate sparingly; and saved

my provisions (my bread especially) as much as possibly I could."

This is a very significant sentence with great details that reveals the character of Robinson Crusoe.

What aspects of Crusoe’s character are revealed then?

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 na?ve

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)

47. Situational irony occurs when what happens turns out to be quite different from what is expected;

sometimes what happen is just the opposite of what is expected. In "Indian Camp," Hemingway makes a

successful use of this kind of irony.

Please illustrate it with some examples.
(本题属于超纲题，书上没有现成的答案，可忽略不计)

48. "The only thing I don’t like, she proceeded, is the society." ("Daisy Miller" by Henry James)

What kind of society does Daisy not like? Why?

参考答案:
She doesn’t like the old world ---European life. Because she is the American Girl in Europe, a

celebrated cultural type who embodies the spirit of the New World. However, innocence, the keynote of her

character, 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 in the clash between two different cultures. (P499---500)

IV Topic Discussion
49. List three distinctive features of English Renaissance movement in literature and then illustrate

each with proofs from either the concerned chapter in your textbook or your own reading.

参考答案:
1) The first period of the English Renaissance was one of imitation and assimilation. Petrarch was

regarded as the fountainhead of literature by the English writers. Wyatt introduced the Petrachan sonnet

into England and Surrey brought in blank verse.
2) The Elizabethan drama, in its totality, is the real mainstream of the English Renaissance. The Greek

and Roman Drams had a great influence on the Elizabeth Drama, especially on Shakespeare’s tragedies. E.g.

Hamlet, the first of the great tragedies, is regarded as Shakespeare’s most popular play on the stage.

3) Francis Bacon, the first important English essayist, is best known for his essays which greatly

influenced the development of his literary form. He was the founder of modern science in England.
(P10---12)

50. "My faith is gone!" cried he (Goodman Brown), after one stupefied moment. "There is no good on earth;

and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given."

Comment on this passage from Hawthorne’s "Young Goodman Brown".

参考答案:
1) Allegorically, Young Goodman Brown becomes an Everyman called Brown, who will be aged in one night by

an evil adventure, and the evilness makes everyone a fallen idol in the world.

2) "My Faith is gone" is a pun, it means my wife has disappeared or my faith to God has gone. In the

angle of Symbol: "Brown look up to the Heaven and resist the wicked one" symbols Brown has the force to

resist the evilness of the Nature and he still has the faith to God; but "he is alone in the forest"

symbols the society is the place full of sins and evilness, Brown’s strength is not enough at all; then

after returning, he lives a dismal and gloomy life symbols he has been crushed down by the social

evilness and lost his belief in goodness and piety. (P434—435)