Part 1 --- Part 3
1. The Old English poetry can be divided into two groups: the secular and _______.
2. In the 14th century, the two most famous writers are_________ and William Longland who wrote Piers the Plowman.
3. Today，Chaucer is regarded as the father of English poetry. His masterpiece is_______
4. The Canterbury Tales contains the _______ and 24 tales, two of which left unfinished.
5. Chaucer employed the _______ couplet in writing his greatest work The Canterbury Tales.
6. _______ is the most prevailing literary form in the Middle Ages.
7. The ______ is an important stream of the British literature in the 15th century.
8. Poetry can be classified as narrative or lyric. Narrative poems stress action, and lyrics ______.
Part 4
1. Shakespeare’s four great comedies are _____. _____, ______, _____ .
2. In Elizabethan period, ______ wrote many excellent essays, such as “Of Studies”. 3. ____ was the first to introduce the sonnet into English literature.
4. ____ wrote the famous The Faerie Queen and is often referred to as “the peots’ poet”.
5. A Shakespearean sonnet is composed of three four-line quatrains and a concluding _____.
6.The most significant intellectual movement during the English Renaissance period was _____.
A. the Reformation B. geographical explorations C. Humanism D. the Italian revival
7. Which of the following poetic forms is the principal form of Shakespeare’s dramas? A. lyric B. blank verse C. sonnet D. quatrain
8. Which of the following plays does NOT belong to Shakespeare’s great tragedies? A. Othello B. Macbeth C. Romeo and Juliet D. Hamlet 9. Christopher Marlow’s The Passionate Shepherd to His Love is a(n) A. pastoral lyric B. elegy C. eulogy D. epic
10. The real mainstream of the English Renaissance is _____. A. ancient poem B. drama C. prose D. romantic novel
Passage 1
To die, to sleep
No more and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation Devotedly to be wished. To die, to sleep
To sleep-perchance to dream: ay there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dream may come? When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us a pause. There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns, The patient merit of th’ unworthy takes
QUESTION:
1. 1. These lines are taken from a famous play named________. 2. 2. The author of the play is____________.
3. 3. In the play these lines are uttered by ____________. 4. 4. About the utterance what does the speech show?
Passage 2
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, 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:
1. 1. This is one of Shakespeare’s best known______. a. sonnets b, ballads c, songs
2. 2. It runs in iambic pentameter rhymed in_________.
3. 3. The fourteen lines include three stanzas according to their content with the last two lines as ______which complete the sense of the whole poem.
a. prelude b. couplet c. epigraph
? 4. What is the real purpose that the poet compare the beloved to the days of early summer?
Passage 3
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some boos also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Questions:
1. 1. This passage is taken from a famous essay written by______. 2. 2. What is the title of this passage?
3. 3. What’s the theme of the article?
Part 5
1, John Donne is the founder of the school of ______. His poetry is characterized by mysticism in content and fantasticality in form.
2. The 18th century England is known as the Age of ______ or the Age of Reason. 3.______ is called the Father of the English Novel. 4.______ is a typical feature of Swift’s writings.
5.______ , written in heroic couplet by Pope, is considered manifesto of English neoclassicism.
6.Thomas Gray has been regarded as the leader of the ______ of the day. A. romantic B. sentimental C. religious D. modern poetry
7. In his novel, Robinson Crusoe, Defoe eulogizes the hero of the _____.
A. aristocratic class B. enterprising class C. rising bourgeoise D. hard-working people
8. The modern English novel came into being in _____- A. the middle of the 17th century B. the 17th century
C. the late 18th century D. the middle of the 18th century
9. The Pilgrim’s Progress is often said to be concerned with the search for ______. A. material wealth B. spiritual salvation C. universal truth D. self-fulfillment 10. Of the 18th century novelists, _____ was the first to set out in theory and