全国2011年7月高等教育自学考试
英美文学选读试题
课程代码：00604

全部题目用英文作答，请将答案填在答题纸相应位置上
PART ONE (40 POINTS)
I. Multiple Choice(40 points in all, 1 for each)
Select from the four choices of each item the one that best answers the question or completes the statement. Mark your choice and write the corresponding letter A, B, C or D on the answer sheet.
1. All of Charles Dickens’ works, with the exception of _________, present a criticism of the more complicated and yet most fundamental social institutions and morals of the Victorian England.
A. Bleak House
B. Hard Times
C. Great Expectations
D. A Tale of Two Cities
2. From ____________ on, the tragic sense becomes the keynote of Thomas Hardy’s novels, the conflict between the traditional and the moden is brought to the center of the stage.
A. The Return of the Native
B. The Mayor of Casterbridge
C. Tess of the D’Urbervilles
D. Jude the Obscure
3. George Bernard Shaw’s play ____________ shows his almost nihilistic bitterness on the subjects of the cruelty and madness of World War I and the aimlessness and disillusion of the young.
A. Getting Married
B. Too True to Be Good
C. Widowers’ Houses
D. The Apple Cart
4. It was only after the publication of ____________ that D.H. Lawrence was recognized as a
prominent novelist.
A. The Trespasser
B. The White Peacock
C. Sons and Lovers
D. The Rainbow
5. T. S. Eliot’s poem ____________ is heavily indebted to James Joyce in terms of the stream
- of -consciousness technique, also a prelude to The Waste Land.
A. “Prufrock”
B. “Gerontion”
C. The Hollow Men
D. Lyrical Ballads
6. Charlotte Brontё’s ____________ is noted for its sharp criticism of the existing society, e. g. the religious hypocrisy of charity institutions.
A. The Professor
B. Wuthering Heights
C. Villette
D. Jane Eyre
7. Shelley’s greatest achievement is his four - act poetic drama ____________ , which is an ex- ultant work in praise of humankind’s potential.
A. Adonais
B. Queen Mab
C. Prometheus Unbound
D. Kubla Khan
8. Among the Romantic poets ____________ is regarded as a “worshipper of nature”.
A. William Blake
B. William Wordsworth
C. George Gordon Byron
D. John Keats
9. The most perfect example of the verse drama after Greek style in English is John Milton’s ____________.
A. Paradise Lost
B. Paradise Regained
C. Samson Agonistes
D. Areopagitica
10. The major theme of Jane Austen’s novels is____________.
A. love and money
B. money and social status
C. social status and marriage D. love and marriage
11. T. S. Eliot’s most important single poem ____________ has been hailed as a landmark and a model of the 20th-century English poetry.
A. The Hollow Men
B. The Waste Land
C. Murder in the Cathedral
D. Ash Wednesday
12. According to the subjects, William Wordsworth’s short poems can be classified into two groups, poems about____________.
A. nature and human life
B. happiness and childhood
C. symbolism and imagination
D. nature and commonlife
13. Among the following writers ____________ is considered to be the best -known English dramatist since Shakespeare.
A. Oscar Wilde
B. John Galsworthy
C. W. B. Yeats
D. George Bernard Shaw
14. William Blake’s ____________ composed during the climax of the French Revolution plays
the double role both as a satire and a revolutionary prophecy.
A. The Book of Urizen
B. The Book of Los
C. Poetical Sketches
D. Marriage of Heaven and Hell
15. Charles Dickens’ works are characterized by a mingling of ____________ and pathos.
A. metaphor
B. passion
C. satire
D. humor
16. Daniel Defoe describes ____________ as a typical English middle -class man of the eigh- teenth century, the very prototype of the empire builder, the pioneer colonist.
A. Robinson Crusoe
B. Moll Flanders
C. Gulliver
D. Tom Jones
17. In Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novels, there is an apparent ____________ touch in his de- scription of the simple and beautiful though primitive rural life.
A. nostalgic
B. tragic
C. romantic
D. ironic
18. Of all the eighteenth - century novelists ____________ was the first to set out, both in the-ory and practice, to write specially a “comic epic in prose”, the first to give the modern novel its structure and style.

A. Thomas Gray
B. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
C. Jonathan Swift
D. Henry Fielding
19. Shakespeare’s authentic non-dramatic poetry consists of two long narrative poems: Venus and Adonis and____________.
A. Julius Caesar
B. The Winter’s Tale
C. The Rape of Lucrece
D. The Two gentlemen of Verona
20. John Milton’s ____________ is probably his most memorable prose work, which is a great
plea for freedom of the press.
A. Paradise Lost
B. Paradise regained
C. Areopagitica
D. Lycidas
21.D. H. Lawrence’s novels ____________ are generally regarded as his masterpieces.
A. The Rainbow; Women in Love
B. The Rainbow; Sons and Lovers
C. Sons and Lovers; Lady Chatterley’s Lover
D. Women in Love; Lady Chatterley’s Lover
22. The best representatives of the English humanists are Thomas More, Christopher Mar-lowe and____________.
A. William Shakespeare
B. John Milton
C. Henry Fielding
D. Jonathan Swift
23. Mark Twain’s particular concern about the local character of a region came about as “local colorism,” a unique variation of American literary____________.
A. romanticism
B. nationalism
C. modernism
D. realism
24. As a poet with a strong sense of mission, Walt Whitman devoted all his life to the creation of the “single” poem,____________.
A. Drum Taps
B. North of Boston
C. A Boy’s Will
D. Leaves of Grass
25. William Faulkner creates his own mythical kingdom that mirrors not only the decline of the ____________ society of America but also the spiritual wasteland of the whole American society.
A. Eastern
B. Western
C. Southern
D. Northern
26. In his final years, Herman Melville turned again to prose fiction and wrote what is probably his second famous work, ____________ , which was published after his death.
A. Billy Budd
B. Redburn
C. Moby - Dick
D. Typee
27. The Sun Also Rise casts light on a whole generation after ____________ and the effects of the war by way of a vivid portrait of “the Lost Generation. ”
A. the Spanish Civil War
B. the American- Mexican War
C. WWI
D. WWII
28. Herman Melville went to the South Seas on a whaling ship in 1841, where he gained the first -hand information about whaling that he used later in____________.
A. Typee
B. Redburn
C. Moby - Dick
D. Omoo
29. According to ____________ , the life - death cycle, the spring and winter of the earth, the birth and death of the animals is reality.
A. Theodore Dreiser
B. William Faulkner
C. Henry James
D. F·Scott Fitzgerald
30. “Though life is but a losing battle, it is a struggle man can dominate in such a way that loss becomes dignity. ” This is an outlook towards life that ____________ had been trying to illustrate in his works.
A. F·Scott Fitzgerald
B. Ernest Hemingway
C. Theodore Dreiser
D. William Faulkner
31. More than five hundred poems ____________ wrote are about nature, in which his (her) general skepticism about the relationship between man and nature is well -expressed.
A. Robert Frost
B. Emily Dickinson
C. Ezra Pound
D. Walt Whitman
32. In 1954, the Nobel Prize for literature was granted to ____________ , one of the greatest of American writers.
A. Ernest Hemingway
B. Robert Frost
C. Henry James
D. Theodore Dreiser
33. North of Boston is described by Robert Frost as “a book of poople,” which shows a brilliant insight into ____________ character and the background that formed it.
A. Eastern
B. Western
C. Southern
D. New England
34. Walt Whitman is radically innovative in terms of the form of his poetry. What he prefers for his new poetic feelings is “ ____________ ”.
A. standardized rhyming
B. regular rhyming
C. free verse
D. strict verse
35. Henry James’ fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with the____________ theme.
A. international
B. local
C. colonial
D. post-modern
36. The Financier, The Titan and The Stoic by Theodore Dreiser are called his “Trilogy of _________. ”
A. Hatred
B. Death
C. Desire
D. Fate
37. In 1920, F·Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel ____________ was published, which was, to some extent, his own story.
A. This Side of Paradise
B. Tales of the Jazz Age
C. All the Sad Young Men

D. Taps at Reveille
38. In 1837, Nathaniel Hawthorne published Twice - Told Tales, a collection of ____________ which attracted critical attention.
A. poems
B. short stories
C. essays
D. plays
39. William Faulkner set most of his works in the American ____________ , with his emphasis on the ________subjects and consciousness.
A. North... Northern
B. East... Eastern
C. West... Western
D. South... Southern
40. The House of the Seven Gables was based on the tradition of a curse pronounced on ____________’s family when his great - grandfather was a judge in the Salem witchcraft trials.
A. Nathaniel Hawthorne
B. Washington Irving
C. Ezra Pound
D. Walt Whitman
PART TWO (60 POINTS)
II. Reading Comprehension (16 points in all, 4 for each)
Read the quoted parts carefully and answer the questions in English. Write your answers in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.
41. “Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. ”
Questions:
A. Who’s the poet of the quoted stanza, and what’s the title of the poem?
B. What does the word “this” in the last line refer to?
C. What idea do the quoted lines express?
42. “Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep !
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!”
( From Wordsworth’s sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge)
Questions:
A. What does this sonnet describe?
B. What does the phrase “mighty heart” refer to?
C. The sonnet follows strictly the Italian form. What is the feature of the Italian form of sonnet?
43. “ The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. ”
Questions:
A. Who’s the poet of the quoted stanza, and what’s the title of the poem?
B. What does the word “sleep” mean?
C. What idea do the four lines express?
44. “ I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. ”
( From Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself)
Questions:
A. Who does “myself ” refer to?
B. How do you understand the line “I loafe and invite my soul” ?
C. What does “a spear of summer grass” symbolize?
III. Questions and Answers (24 points in all, 6 for each)
Give a brief answer to each of the following questions in English. Write your answers in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.
45. What’s the theme of the poem Paradise Lost? What’s the author’s intention to create it and the implication that the poem expresses?
46. The Waste Land is T. S. Eliot’s most important single poem. What’s the theme of the poem?
47. In American literature, Emily Dickinson’s poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. What are the features of Dickinson’s poems?
48. What’s the theme of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby?
IV. Topic Discussion(20 points in all, 10 for each)
Write no less than 150 words on each of the following topics in English in the corresponding space on the answer sheet.
49. Discuss Charles Dickens’ art of fiction: the setting, the character- portrayal, the language, etc. , based on his novel Oliver Twist.
50. Summarize Ernest Hemingway’s artistic features.