福建师范大学外国语学院英语专业 2005-2006学年度下学期03级 《美国文学选读》试题（B）
1. According to Hawthorne, the scarlet letter “A” which originally stood for “_______” finally
obtained the meaning of “able” or “angel” through Hester’s efforts. A. adultery B. arrogance
C. accomplishment D. agony
2. The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage benefited the Americans in _______.
E. strengthening their moral values. F. weakening their religious faith. G. knowing truth intuitively.
H. developing their science and technology
3. The Transcendentalists believe that, first, nature is ennobling, and second, the individual
is____, therefore, self-reliant. A. insignificant. A. vicious by nature. B. divine.
C. forward-looking
4. The period ranging from 1865 to 1914 has been referred to as _____________.
A. the Age of Realism B. the Age of Modernism C. the Age of Romanticism D. the Age of Colonialism
5. Henry James’s fame generally rests upon his novels and stories with________.
A. international theme B. national theme C. Eastern theme D. regional theme
6. In American literature, escaping from the society and returning to nature is a common subject.
The following titles are all related, in one way or another, to the subject except _______. A. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn B. Dreiser’s Sister Carrie
C. Copper’s Leather-Stocking Tales D. Thoreau’s Walden
7. Which scene in the excerpt of Invisible Man refers symbolically to the situation of furious life conflict?
A. corn-grabbing game B. graduation speech
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C. dance competition D. battle royal
8. In the lines “Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? / And driven the Hamadryad from the wood / To seek a shelter in some happier star?” here “Diana” is . A. a beauty B. the moon
C. the goddess of beauty D. the goddess of wisdom
9. “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind” is a famous quote from _______’s writings.
A. Walt Whitman
B. Henry David Thoreau C. Herman Melville
D. Ralph Waldo Emerson
10. Which of Hemingway’s novels describes the drifting life of American exiles in Europe?
A. The Sun Also Rises. B. In Our Time.
C. For Whom the Bell Tolls. D. The Old Man and the Sea.
11. “Helen, thy beauty is to me/Like those Nicean barks of yore,/The weary, way-worn wanderer
bore/ To his own native shore.”
Rhetorically, in Allen Poe’s lines, we find case(s) of ______. A. simile B. metaphor C. alliteration D. both A and C
12. With Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the literary scene, _____became the major trend in American literature in the seventies and eighties of the 19th century. A. Sentimentalism B. Romanticism A. Realism D. Naturalism
13. For Melville, as well as for the reader and _______ , the narrator, Moby Dick is still a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe. A. Ahab B. Ishmael
C. Stubb D. Starbuck
14. Walt Whitman is radically innovative in the form of his poetry. What he prefers for his new subject is__________. A. free verse B. blank verse C. lyric poem D. heroic couplet
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15. “Success is counted sweetest/By those who ne'er succeed./To comprehend a nectar/Requires sorest need.” Which of the following is Not true of the quoted lines: A. They are written by Emily Dickinson.
B. They are written in the form of iambic form.
C. The first two lines constitute a contrast to the last two lines.
16. Which of the following statements about William Faulkner is NOT true?_____.
A. He writes about the American south, with emphasis on Southern subjects and consciousness.
B. Many of his stories are about people from a small region in Northern Mississippi, the Yoknapatawpha County, which is actually an imaginary place.
C. there is often fragmentation of the chronological time in the narration of his stories. D. His prose is marked by simple diction and short sentence structure.
17. Emily Dickinson wrote many short poems on various aspects of life. Which of the following is not a usual subject of her poetic expression? ______. A. Religion
B. Life and death C. Love and marriage D. War and peace
18. Ezra Pound, one of the greatest 20th century American poets, is well known for his help of the founding of____. A. Surrealism B. Modernism C. Imagism D. Symbolism
19. The giant Moby Dick may symbolize all EXCEPT________. A. mystery of the universe B. sin of the whale
C. power of the great Nature D. evil of the world
20. The “____” refers specifically to a group of post World War I expatriate American writers, among them Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, who, alienated and disillusioned, wrote from their own experiences in the war.
A. Lost Generation B. Beat Generation C. Punk Generation D. Existentialists
21. The style and outlook of _____is said to be influential in shaping the writings of Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and many other American authors. A. Ezra Pound B. T. S. Eliot C. Sherwood Anderson D. Theodore Dreiser
22. “ONE’S-SELF I sing—a simple, separate Person;/Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.” These lines are taken from ____.
A. Walt Whitman B. Ralph Emerson C. Allan Poe D. Ezra Pound 23. Invisible Man ____.
A. uses the first person narration, and the narrator is not named B. blends naturalism with surrealism C. adopts techniques from symbolism
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