II. Reading Comprehension
41. "And the native hue of resolution/Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought." (Shakespeare, Humlet)
Questions:
A. What does the "native hue of resolution" mean?
B. What does the "pale cast of thought" stand for?
C. What idea do the two lines express?

Answers:
A. determination (determinedness, action, activity, ...)
B. consideration (indecision, inactivity, hesitation, ...)
C. Too much thinking (consideration,...) made (makes) activity (action) impossible.

42. "Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; /Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!"
Questions:
A. Identify the poem and the poet.
B. What is the "Wild Spirit"?
C. What does the "Wild Spirit" destroy and preserve?

Answers:
A. Shelley’s "Ode to the West Wind"
B. The West Wind; "breath of Autumn’s being"
C. It destroys things/thoughts/ideas that are dead (obsolete, ...); it preserves new life (or seeds that represent new life or new birth).

43. "When the minister spoke from the pulpit, with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hands on the open bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading, lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers.
Questions:
A. Identify the title of the short story from which this part is taken.
B. What had happened in the story before this church scene?
C. Why was Goodman Brown afraid the roof might thunder down?

Answers:
A. Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown.
B. Brown had attended a witches’ party where he saw many prominent people of the village, the minister included.
C. Brown was shocked by the minister, secretly a member of the evil club, who could talk about sacred truths of the religion openly and unashamedly. He thought God would punish such hypocrites down on them.

44. (A lot of common objects have been enumerated before, and here are the last two lines of There Was a Child Went Forth :)
The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud.
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.
Questions:
A. Who is the author of this poem?
B. What does the "Child" stand for in the poem?
C. In one or two sentences, interpret the implied meaning of the two lines.

Answers:
A. Walt Whitman.
B. The young growing America.
C. The poet uses his childhood experience of growing up and learning about the world around him to imply that young America will grow and develop like that.

第二部分 非选择题
III. Questions and Answers
45. "’My boy!’ said the old gentleman, leaning over the desk. Oliver started at the sound. He might be excused for doing so, for the words were kindly said, and strange sounds frighten one. He trembled violently, and burst into tears." (Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist)
Explain why the boy [Oliver Twist] started first, then trembled violently and burst into tears when the words were "kindly" said.

Answers:
The boy started at the words because kind words were not expected; it is (was, must be) the first time in all his life that the boy [Oliver Twist] had ever been "kindly" greeted; strange sounds may predict another suffering/misfortune/torture/...) (At least one example from the text is expected to back up the above statement)

46. Here is the last stanza of Byron’s "The Isles of Greece":
Place me on sunium’s mardle steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
May hear our marbled murmurs sweep;
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine ---
Dash down you cup of Samian wine!
Determine the speaker first and then discuss BRIEFLY the main idea of the stanza or of the whole excerpt. You may want to consider the possible implications of the last two lines.

Answers:
A. The speaker is a Greek singer (or Byron in a Greek Singer’s disguise or Byron speaks through a Greek singer).
B. The excerpt presents a strong resentment for the Turk’s conquest of Greece and calls on the Greek people to rise and fight for freedom.
C. Thus, the last line may suggest resolution to take immediate action to free Greece from enslavement.

47. Why are naturalists inevitably pessimistic in their view?
Please discuss the above question in relation to the basic principles of literary naturalism.

Answers:
A. They accept the negative implication of Darwin’s theory of evolution, and believe that society is a "jungle" where survival struggles go on.
B. They believe that man’s instinct, the environment and other social and economic forces play an overwhelming role and man’s fate is "determined" by such forces beyond his control.

48. "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."
They above is quoted from Thoedore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. Briefly tell the situation that leads to the suicide and interpret Hurstwood’s final words -"What’s the use?"

Answers:
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 I 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.

IV. Topic Discussion
49. Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe was a great success partly because the protagonist was a real middle-class hero. Discuss Crusoe, the protagonist of the novel, as an embodiment of the rising middle class virtues in the mid-eighteenth century England.

Answers:
A. Social background: The Eighteenth Century England witnessed the growing importance of the bourgeois or middle class.
a. The Industrial Revolution
b. The expansion of international markets;
c. Values/virtues/moral standards/...different from those of the feudal aristocratic class -courageous, full of energy, hard working, practical, resourceful, self-reliant, etc; thus
d. Literature should give/provide a realistic presentation of the life of the common people; it should meet the demand/interest of the middle class people.
B. Robinson Crusoe embodies the virtue of the middle class people.
a. Crusoe as an adventurous/courageous man full of energy and courage: (example from the text):
b. Crusoe as a practical man: (example from the text);
c. Crusoe as a resourceful/self-reliant man: (example from the text);
d. Crusoe as a patient/persistent man: (example from the text);
e. And others.

50. Mark Twain presented the 19th century America in his own unique way. Discuss Twain’s art of fiction: the setting, the language, and the characters, etc., based on his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Answers:
A. Mark Twain uses the Mississippi alley 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, especially the unconventional Huckleberry Finn, who runs away from civilization and stands opposite to conventional village morality.
C. He uses a simple, direct vernacular language, totally different from any precious literary language. It is the kind of colloquial belonging to the lower class, the living local American English.
D. He has created a special humor to satirize and the decayed convention.