自考英美文学选读00604考前串讲(4)

英美文学考前串讲（4）Chapter 3 The Romantic Period

I. Choose the right answer:

1. The Romantic Movement expressed a more or less______ attitude toward the existing social and political conditions.

A.positive

B.negative

C.neutral

D.indifferent

Answer: B (P160)

2. It is _____who established the cult of the individual

and championed the freedom of the human spirit.

A.Jean Jacques Rousseau

B.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

C.Edmund Burke

D.Thomas Paine

Answer: A (P157)

3. The two major novelists of the English Romantic Period

are _____and Walter Scott.

A.Washington Irving

B.Jane Austen

C.Herman Melville

D.Charles Dickens

Answer: B (P165)

4. _____defines the poet as "man speaking to men,"

and poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in emotion recollected in tranquility."

A.William Blake

B.William Wordsworth

C.Samuel Taylor Coleridge

D.John Keats

Answer: B (P161)

5. For the Romantics, ____is not only the major source of

poetic imagery, but also provides the dominant subject matter.

A.love

B.man

C.nature

D.death

Answer: C (P162)

6. In the Romantic period, ____is the most prosperous literary

form.

A.prose

B.poetry

C.fiction

D.play

Answer: B (P161)

7. The tone of literature in "Song of Experience" by William Blake is _______.

A.doleful

B.lively

C.plain

D.utter

Answer: A (doleful: 悲哀的P168-169)

8. _____is regarded as a "worship of nature".

A.John Keats

B.William Blake

C.William Wordsworth

D.Jane Austen

Answer: C (P176)

9. Which of the following writings is not created by William Wordsworth?

A.I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.

https://www.360docs.net/doc/c33105385.html,posed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802.

C.The Solitary Reaper.

D.The Chimney Sweeper.

Answer: D (P179---182)

10. Wordsworth’s short poems can be classified into two groups: poems about nature and poems about________.

A.love

B.human life

C.freedom

D.social activities

Answer: B (P176)

11. "Don Juan" is Byron’s masterpiece, a great ______of the

early 19th century.

https://www.360docs.net/doc/c33105385.html,edy

B.tragedy

https://www.360docs.net/doc/c33105385.html,ic epic

D.novel

Answer: C (P194)

12. In his lyrics such as "Ode to Liberty", "Ode to Naples", Percy Bysshe Shelly expressed his love for_____ and his hatred toward tyranny.

A.the middle class

B.the poor

C.freedom

D.the proletariat

Answer: C (P207)

13. "Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; / Destroy and

Preserver; hear, O hear!" The two lines are found in_____.

A.Young Goodman Brown by Hawthorne

B.Ode to the West Wind by Shelly

C.Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

D.Ulysses by Joyce

Answer: B (P212)

14. In Shelly’s "To a Skylark", the bird, suspended between reality and poetic image, pours forth an exultant song

which suggests to the poet________.

A.both celestial rapture and human limitation

B.both image creation and profound meaning

C.both music and words

D.both inspiration and skills of writing

Answer: A (P206)

15. The author of "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is __________.

A.Wordsworth

B.Austen

C.Byron

D.Keats

16. Jane Austen’s first novel is __________.

A.Pride and Prejudice

B.Sense and Sensibility

C.Emma

D.Plan of a Novel

Answer: B (P222)

17. In terms of Pride and Prejudice, which is not true?

A.Pride and Prejudice is the most popular of Jane Austen’s

novels.

B.Pride and Prejudice is originally drafted as "First

Impressions".

C.Pride and Prejudice is a tragic novel.

D.In this novel, the author explores the relationship between

great love and realistic benefits.

Answer: C (P223-225)

18. After reading the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice,

we may come to know that Mrs.Bennet is a woman of_______.

A.simple character and poor understanding

B.simple character and quick wit

C.intricate character and quick wit

D.intricate character and poor understanding

Answer: A (P227)

19. Romanticism is a period of British literature roughly dated

from _________.

A.1660-----1798

B.1798----1832

C.1483-----1546

D.1836-----1901

Answer: B (P157)

20. Which of the following is the Gothic novel?

A.Shelly’s Prometheus Unbound

B.Keats’ Lamia

C.Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein

D.Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

21.The lines "It was a miracle of rare device,

/ A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice" are found

in__________.

A.Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s "Kubla Khan"

B.William Wordsworth’s Lines Written in Early Spring"

C.John Keats’s "Ode to Autumn"

D.Percy Bysshe Shelly’s "Ode to the West Wind"

Answer: A (P190---191)

22. Which of the following is taken from John Keats’ "Ode on a

Grecial Urn"?

A."I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!"

B."They are both gone up to the church to pray.’

C."Earth has not anything to show more fair."

D."Beauty is truth, truth beauty".

Answer: D (P221)

II. Read the quoted part and answer the questions:

1. "A little black thing among the snow

Crying "’weep! ’weep! In notes of woe

"where are thy father & mother? Say? "

"They are both gone up to the church to prey."

(1)Identify the poem and poet.

(2)Explain "notes of woe".

(3)What does the sentence mean "they ate both gone up to the church to prey."

Answer:

(1)It is from "The Chimney Sweeper (from songs of

experience) by Blake.(P172)

(2)"notes of woe" means the songs/notes of sadness.

(3)It implies: religion is the instrument of their repression/ oppression, its nature is to help bring misery to the poor

children.(P169)

2. "The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!

Where burning Sappho loved and sung,

Where grew the arts of war and peace,

Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!

Eternal summer gilds them all,

But all, except their sun, is set."

(1)Identify the poem and its author;

(2)What does it mean "But all, except their sun, is set."

(3)What does the passage imply?

Answer:

(1)The poet is Byron. The poem is taken from "The Isles of Greece (from Don Juan)" (P199)

(2)The sentence means: The sun is still on the rise, but the rest things all set.

(3)The passage implied: The author lamented over the fallen

Greece:

In the past, Greece nurtured/ cultivated great poets and heroes,who enjoyed freedom and civilization, but now Greece had been enslaved,the past honorable history couldn’t be found again. (P199)

3. "With plough and spade and hoe and loom

Trace your grave and build your tomb

And weave your winding-sheet---till fair

England be your Sepulcher"

(1)Explain "sepulcher"

(2)What was the deep implication of the poem?

Answer:

(1)Sepulcher means grave. (P210~211)

(2)The poem ironically addressed to the workers who submit to capitalist exploitation. It warned them: If they gave up the struggle, they would be digging graves for themselves wish their own hands. (P211)

4. "Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:"

(1)Who is the poet? The name?

(2)Explain the sentence.

(3)What was the theme of the poem?

Answer:

(1)This is the "ode on a Grecian Um", which was written by the poet---John Keats. (P219)

(2)The sentence means: though time has passed, the urn ,

the works of the art still remains, and it tells a

pastoral/lyrical tale to us, and the description of the urn is much more beautiful than the words of any human. (P218)

(3)The theme is: Human life is transient, but the art is immortal. (P218)

5. "Place me on Sunium’s marbles steep,

Where nothing, save the waves and I,

May her our mutual murmurs sweep;

There, swan like, let me sing and die:

A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine---

Dash down you cup of Samian wine!"

(1)Identify the poem and its author. (P203)

(2)Explain "swan like, let me sing and die" (P199)

Interpret the passage and spot its implication.

Answer:

(1)The poet is Byron. The poem is taken from "The Isles of

Greece (from Don Juan)" (P203)

(2)Swan is famous for its faith to its lover, one of them die, the other will refuse to eat and drink, it will cry till death. Here the author used a simile to show his strong desire to

fight with the invaders till death, and appeal to the

suppressed Greek people to struggle for their freedom and

liberation.

6. "For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dance with the daffodils."

(1) What is the "bliss of the solitude"?

(2) Interpret the passage.

(3) Why did the poet write the poem, what did he want to

express?

Answer:

(1)The Daffodils the poem saw. (P180)

(2)It is a bliss/happiness to recollect the beauty of nature in

his mind when he is solitude/lonely.

(3)The poem depicts/deals with the flowers that he came across

along waterside, by which he expresses the quiet, sympathy,

loving feeling to nature just like his words "poetry is from

"emotion recollected in tranquility".

7. "Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind,

And the angle told Tom, if he’d be a good bye,

He’d have God for his father, and never want joy."

(1)Identify the poem and its poet;

(2)What does the poem implies?

Answer:

(1) The poem is take from "The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Innocence)", which was written by William Blake.(p171)

(2) This is a lovely poem presenting a happy and innocent

world, though the wretched child are exploited and orphaned, they had nice dream for life and the world, which implies

religion make people obedient to exploitation, and from religion, they can get consolation and an "illusory happiness".(p168)

8. "As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh! Lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

One too like thee: tameless, and swift and proud."

(1)Explain "I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed" (P208)

(2)Can you comprehend the deep emotion contained in the poem?

What’s that?

(3)The poet was called the "the heart of all hearts",

he trumpeted the radical prophecy of hope and rebirth.

Please write out his classic words.

Answer:

(1)The sentence call Shelley’s desire that he couldn’t best being fettered to/limited by the humdrum/too ordinary reality

of everyday! (P208)

(2)In the poem, the west wind has become the poet himself,

he wants to be free, proud and controllable like the wild west

wind,to destruct and construct with the strong power like the west wind. (P207~208)

(3)"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" (P208)

9. "O Attic shape! Fair attitude! With brede

…………

As doth eternity: cold pastoral!"

(1)How do you understand "cold pastoral"

(2)What device is used in the poem?

(3)Explain the implication of the poem.

At the end of the poem, the poet gave a famous saying,

and it is also the theme of the poem, what is that?

Answer:

(1)Cold pastoral means the lyrical scene on the Grecian urn lacks life and warmth. (P222)

(2)Contrast. (P218)

(3)The poet wanted to show the permanence of the art and the transience of human passion presenting his ambivalence/opposing

feelings about time and nature of beauty.

The saying is "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" (P218~219)

10. "Where fore feed and Clothe and save

From the cradle to the grave

Drain your sweat---nay, drink your blood?"

(1)Who wrote the poem? What’s its name?

(2) Explain "drones",

(3) Interpret the passage.

Answer:

(1)The poem is "A song: Men of England" by Shelley. (P209)

(2)Drones the male of the honey-bees that don’t work , referring to the parasitic class in human society.

(drones and bees are the devices of metaphor) (P210)

(3)The poet called all working people to rise up against their political oppressors, but point out the intolerable injustice

of economic exploitation. It expressed the love for freedom and the hatred to tyranny of the author. (P207)

11. "Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!"

(1)What does the "wild spirit "refer to?

(2)Why called it "Destroyer and Preserver" at the same time?

(3)Identify the poet and the poem.

Answer:

(1)"wild spirit" refers to west wind/autumn wind. (P212)

(2)Because west wind buried the dead year and year and prepared for a new spring, the poet call it "Destroyer and preserver". (3)It is "Ode to the west wind" of Shelley. (terza rima)

III. Questions and answers:

1.Please list the subjects and the faculties of the Romanticism.

Answer:

(1) The subjects are: love, nature, nationalism, individualism,

(2) The faculties they cherished are: imagination, spontaneity, inspiration. (P162)

2.William Wordsworth was the first representative author of Rom,How do you know his idea and style?

Answer:

(1)His poems are most about Nature and Human Life;

(2)Beyond the pleasure of the picturesque with the eye and the external aspects of nature, however, lies in deeper moral

awareness, a sense of completeness in multiplicity.

(it means poem not only deals with the beautiful world, but express moral)

(3)Common life and the joy and sorrow of the common people and inner self are his subjects;

(4)He is a poet in memory of the past and was called "prophets

of nature";

(5)He deliberately writes in simple and ordinary speech ,

refuses to decorate the truth of experience of pure and

profound feeling;

(6)He thought poet is "a man speaking to men," poetry is "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in emotion recollected in tranquility."

(7)He always writes an elusive beauty of simplicity or a rural figure. (P176-179)

3.What thoughts and event influenced the period of Romanticism?

Answer:

(1) Rousseau (a French philosopher) explored new ideas about nature, society and education, which provided guiding priding principles for the French Revolution and Romanticism;

(2) The French Revolution and "the Declaration of Rights of

Man"(written by Thomas Paine)aroused the great sympathy and enthusiasm in the English liberals and radicals,which became a great source for Romanticism.

(3) England itself had experienced profound economic and social changes as industrialism,which were reflected in the works of literature. (P157-159)

4.Byron’s greatest contribution is his creation of the "Byronic hero" What kind of the hero he is? Give comment on him.

Answer:

(1) "Don Juan" is Byron’s masterpiece, a great comic epic,

in which Byron described a hero named Don Juan.

He was a great lover and seducer of women.

In the conventional sense,al positives like courage,

generosity, and frankness…

In a word, Don was proud Juan was immoral,

but Juan had his own mor, mysterious, and a noble rebel

figure.

He was a young man with unconquerable wills and

inexhaustible energies,

one of rebellious individuals against outworn/outdated

social systems and conventions.

(2) Comment: The poet’s true intention is to present a panoramic view of different types of society,the main theme of the works the basic ironic theme of appearance and

reality,during which the poet also presented various materials

and the clash of emotions. (P194-196)

5. What is the difference between Romanticism and

Neoclassicism?

(Neoclassicism=Augustans=enlightener)

Answer:

(1)The Romantic Movement expressed negative attitude toward the existing social and political condition, the Romantics saw the

corruption and injustice of the

inhumanity of capitalism;

(2)The Neo saw man as a social; while Rom saw him as an individual in the solitary state;

(3)Neo stressed the common features of men; but the Rom stressed the special qualities of each individual’s mind;

(4)Neo celebrated rationality, equality and science of the

outside world; while Rom changed to the inner world of the human spirit, whose theory saw the individual as the center of

all experience;

(5)Literature was heavily didactic and moralizing. There were fixed laws for each type of literature; Rom expressed his feeling, valued accuracy in portraying, they thought literature should be free from all rules.

(6)The most important form in Neo was prose; while Rom was an age of poetry. (P160-161)

6.Analyze the characters of John Keats’s poetry.

Answer:

(1)The poems are sensuous, colorful, and rich in imagery, (which expresses the acuteness of his senses)

(2)Words are beautiful and musical.

(3)The ancient Greek and English poetry provides the most

important imaginative resource.

(4)The construction of poems are knit, and the description go

beyond the physical beauty of the world. (P218-219)

7. Jane Austen was the only important female author in the

18-19th century, how do you know about her?

Answer:

Generally speaking, Austen was writer of the 18th century.

(1)Her novels always dealt with the romantic entanglement of

the heroines;

(2)She believed in it that reason over passion, sense of

responsibility, good manners,

and clear judgment over romance; she honored the Augustan

virtues of moderation,

dignity disciplined emotion and common sense;

(3)She contempt snobbery, stupidity, worldliness etc;

(4)Her main concern was the relationship between men and women

in love;

(5)Her writing range was limited, all restricted to the

provincial life of the 18th century England;

(6)She presented the quiet, day-to-day country life of the middle -upper -class English.

(7)Her characteristic theme was: maturity is got by the loss of illusions. (P223--226)