自学考试《英国文学选读》备考练习题
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自学考试《英国文学选读》备考练习题 篇1
PART ONE
I. Multiple Choice
1. Although _______ was essentially a medieval writer, he bore marks of humanism and anticipated a new
era of literature to come.
A. William Langland
B. John Gower
C. Geoffrey Chaucer
D. Edmund Spenser
Answer: C
2. The religious reformation in the early 16th-century England was a reflection of the class struggles
waged by the _____.
A. rising bourgeoisie against the feudal class and its ideology
B. working class against the corruption of the bourgeoisie
C. landlord class against the rising bourgeoisie and its ideology
D. feudal class against the corruption of the Catholic Church
Answer: A
3. The statement that a man gained the whole world but lost his own soul makes a good summary of the main
plot of ______.
A. Paradise Lost
B. The Merchant of Venice
C. Hamlet
D. The Tragic History of Doctor Faustus
Answer: D
4. "Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and
when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?"
The above passage is taken from _______.
A. Francis Bacon’s "Of Studies"
B. William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice
C. Samuel Johnson’s "To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield"
D. Jonathan Swift’s "A Modest Proposal"
Answer: C
5. The essence of humanism is to ______.
A. restore a medieval reverence for the church
B. avoid the circumstances of earthly life
C. explore the next world in which men could live after death
D. emphasize human qualities
Answer: D
6. In The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan describes The Vanity Fair in a ______ tone.
A. delightful
B. satirical
C. sentimental
D. solemn
Answer: B
7. The 18th century witnessed a new literary form -the modern English novel, which, contrary to the
medieval romance, gives a ______ presentation of life of the common English people.
A. romantic
B. idealistic
C. prophetic
D. realistic
Answer: D
8. As a literary figure, John Rivers appears in _______.
A. Fielding’s Tom Jones
B. Dickens’s Oliver Twist
C. Bronte’s Jane Eyre
D. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Answer: C
9. Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe created the image of an enterprising Englishman, typical of the English
bourgeoisie in the ______ century.
A. 17th
B. 18th
C. 19th
D. 20th
Answer: B
10. In "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," Thomas Gray compares the common folk with the great ones,
wondering what the commons could have achieved if they had had the ______.
A. chance
B. love
C. money
D. material sources
Answer: A
11. The poetic view of ______ can be best understood from his remark about poetry, that is, "all good
poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."
A. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
B. John Keats
C. William Wordsworth
D. Percy Bysshe Shelly
Answer: C
12. Pip, Estella, Havisham, Magwitch, and Joe Gargery are most likely names of characters in _______.
A. Oliver Twist
B. David Copperfield
C. Bleak House
D. Great Expectations
Answer: B
13. In English poetry the _______ is regarded as the most common foot.
A. iamb
B. anapest
C. trochee
D. dactyl
Answer: A
14. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet finds out some weak points about herself in the process of
judging others. Which of the following is NOT a weak point of hers?
A. Blindness.
B. Partiality.
C. Snobbishness.
D. Prejudice.
Answer: C
15. In Byron’s poem "Song for the Luddites," the word "Luddite" refers to the _______.
A. workers who destroyed the machines in their protest against unemployment
B. rising bourgeoisie who fought against the aristocratic class
C. descendents of the ancient king, King Lud
D. poor country people who suffered under the rule of the landlord class
Answer: A
16. "Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean."
The above lines are taken from ______.
A. Wordsworth’s "The Solitary Reaper"
B. Blake’s "The Chimney Sweeper"
C. Coleridge’s "Kubla Khan"
D. Keats’s "Ode on an Grecian Urn"
Answer: C
17. In his poem, "Ode to the West Wind," Shelley intends to present his wind as a central _______ around
which the poem weaves various cycles of death and rebirth.
A. concept
B. symbol
C. simile
D. metonymy
Answer: B
18. In the conversation with his wife in Chapter One of Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bennet uses a(n) ______
tone with sarcastic humor.
A. solemn
B. harsh
C. arrogant
D. teasing
Answer: D
19. Charles Dickens takes the French Revolution as the background of his novel ______.
A. Great Expectations
B. A Tale of Two Cities
C. Bleak House
D. Oliver Twist
Answer: B
20. A typical feature of the English ______ literature is that writers became social and moral critics,
exposing all kinds of social evils.
A. Renaissance
B. Romantic
C. Victorian
D. Medieval
Answer: C
21. The statement that those extraordinary people, seeking something beyond the provincial life, have
finally to subject themselves to the limitations of the reality either due to their own weakness or the
social environment may well sum up one of the major themes of ______.
A. Fielding’s Tom Jones
B. Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
C. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
D. Eliot’s Middlemarch
Answer: D
22. A typical Forsyte, according to John Galsworthy, is a man with a strong sense of ______, who never
pays any attention to human feelings.
A. justice
B. property
C. morality
D. humor
Answer: B
23. Which of the following statements about The Scarlet Letter is NOT true?
A. It explores man’s never-ending search for the satisfaction of materialistic desires.
B. It relates the conflicts between the society and the individual.
C. It is about the effect of sin on the people involved and the society as a whole.
D. It presents a psychological analysis of the inward tensions of the characters.
Answer: B
24. "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
Answer:
25. Which of Hemingway’s novels describes the drifting life of American exiles in Europe?
A. The Sun Also Rises.
B. A Farewell to Arms.
C. For Whom the Bell Tolls.
D. The Old Man and the Sea.
Answer: B
26. The theme of _______ may be well stated as "It sings of nationalism and of the nature of the self in
relation to the cosmos and the meaning and purpose of birth and death."
A. Edgar Allan Poe’s "To Helen"
B. Robert Frost’s "The Road Not Taken"
C. Walt Whitman’s "Song of Myself"
D. Emily Dickenson’s "Because I could not stop for Death"
Answer: C
27. The American Puritanism as a cultural heritage benefited the Americans in _______.
A. strengthening their moral values
B. weakening their religious faith
C. knowing truth intuitively
D. developing their science and technology
Answer: A
28. Mark Twain, one of the greatest 19th century American writers, is well known for his ______.
A. international theme
B. waste-land imagery
C. local color
D. symbolism
Answer: C
29. "Strange names were over the doors -strange faces at the windows -every thing was strange. His mind
now began to misgive him, that both he and the world around him were bewitched. Surely this was his
native village, which he had left but the day before." The above passage is taken from ______.
A. Irving’s "Rip Van Winkle"
B. Hawthorne’s "Young Goodman Brown"
C. James’ "Daisy Miller"
D. Hemingway’s "Indian Camp"
Answer: A
30. 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
Answer: A
31. As a naturalist writer, Theodore Dreiser was greatly influenced by _______.
A. Nathaniel Hawthorne
B. Charles Darwin
C. Henry James
D. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Answer: B
32. In Sister Carrie, Hurstwood, extremely hopeless and totally devastated, ends his life by turning on
the gas, while at the same time Carrie is rocking comfortably in her luxurious hotel room before she
boards a ship for _______.
A. New York
B. London
C. Paris
D, Geneva
Answer: B
33. In Henry James’ "Daisy Miller," the author tries to portray the protagonist as an embodiment of
______.
A. the force of convention
B. the decline of aristocracy
C. the free spirit of the New World
D. the corruption of the new rich
Answer: C
34. American writers of the first postwar era who were devoid of faith and alienated from the
civilization were commonly called "______."
A. sons of liberty
B. fatherless children
C. a beat generation
D. a lost generation
Answer: D
35. The raft with which Huck and Jim make their voyage down the Mississippi River may symbolize all the
following EXCEPT ______.
A. a return to nature
B. an escape from evils, injustices, and corruption of the civilized society
C. the heavenly kingdom of Christianity
D. a small world where people of different colors can live friendly and happily
Answer: C
36. Of the following American poets in the twentieth century, the one who has the best knowledge of
Chinese culture is _______.
A. Robert Frost
B. Allen Ginsberg
C. Ezra Pound
D. E. E. Cummings
Answer: C
37. Emily Grierson, the protagonist in Faulkner’s story "A Rose for Emily," can be regarded as a symbol
standing for all the following qualities EXCEPT _______.
A. no prejudice against the northerners
B. rigid ideas of social status
C. bigotry and eccentricity
D. grace and integrity
Answer: D
38. Robert Frost is a regional poet in the sense that his poems are mainly concerned about the _______.
A. life in New York
B. country life in New England
C. sea adventures
D. life on the Mississippi
Answer: B
39. In Hemingway’s story "Indian Camp" Nick, the protagonist, witnesses _______.
A. a tragic killing of the Indians by the white man
B. real friendship between the white men and the Indians
C. men’s senseless killing of each other
D. terrible scenes of birth and death
Answer: D
40. Great Gatsby, written by Fitzgerald in 1925, is a story about ______ who was destroyed by the
influence of the wealthy, pleasure-seeking people around him.
A. a vagabond
B. an idealist
C. an eccentric
D. an opportunist
Answer: B
PART TWO
II. Reading Comprehension
41. "Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains call on us?"
Questions:
A. Identify the poem and the poet.
B. What does the word "fool" refer to?
C. What idea does the quotation express?
参考答案：
A It is taken from Jone Donne’s "The Sun Rising" (P66)
B. "fool" refers to the sun.
C. Donne’s great prose works are his sermons, the quotation expresses a strong sense of rebellious
spirit, the author tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry.
(P63+66)
42. "Most mighty Emperor of Lilliput, delight and terror of the universe, whose dominions extend five
thousand blustrugs (about twelve miles in circumference) to the extremities of the globe; Monarch of all
Monarchs; taller than the sons of men; whose feet press down to the center, and whose head strikes
against the sun; at whose nod the princes of the earth shake their knees; pleasant as spring, comfortable
as summer, fruitful as autumn, dreadful as winter."
Questions:
A. Identify the work and the author.
B. What is the tone of the author?
C. What does the author parody here?
Answers:
A. The passage comes from "Gulliver’s Travels" written by Jonanthan Swift. (P115)
B. The author used the Ironic tone of the passage.
C. Romance (prose)/ Adventurous prose is the parody here.
43. "She thanked men -good! but thanked
Somehow -I know not how -as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift."
Questions:
A. Identify the poem and the poet.
B. What kind of tone does the speaker use here?
C. What idea does the quoted passage express?
Answers:
A. The poem is "My Last Duchess", by Robert Browning. (P286)
B. The speaker is Duke, he is a villain. The speaker uses the tone of arrogant (傲慢的) here.
C. The quoted passage reveals the duke is a self-conceited, cruel and tyrannical man. (P287)
44. "This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me -
The simple News that Nature told -
With tender Majesty"
Questions:
A. Identify the poet
B. What does the word "World" refer to?
C. What idea does the quoted passage express?
Answers:
A. The poet is Emily Dickinson. (P520)
B. "World" refers to the outside world.
C. The poem expresses Dickinson’s anxiety about her communication with the outside world. (P520)
III. Questions and Answers
45. "For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
Than in her custom; it is still her use
To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow
An age of poverty; from which ling’ring penance
Of such misery doth she cut me off."
The above lines are taken from a speech made by Antonio, a major character in Shakespeare’s play The
Merchant of Venice. Why does Antonio say that Fortune is more kind to him than in her custom?
参考答案:
This sentence means she, Lady Fortune, is more kind to him because she is taking away both his wealth
and life. The speaker is Antonio, it’s said that his ship have all been lost, and he is penniless, and
will have to pay the pound of flesh. (Because Shylock has made a strange bond that requires Antonio to
pay him a pound of flesh if he can’t repay him, the money that he borrowed for his friend in due time.) (P38)
自学考试《英国文学选读》备考练习题 篇2
1. What are Shakespeare ’ s achievements?
a. Shakespeare represented the trend of history in giving voice to de desires and aspirations of the people.
b. Shakespeare’s humanism: more important than his historical sense of his time, Shakespeare in his plays reflects the spirit of his age.
c. Shakespeare’s characterization: Shakespeare was most successful in his characterization. In his plays he described a great number of characters.
d. Shakespeare’s originality: Shakespeare drew most of his materials from sources that were known to his audience. But his plays are original because he instilled into the old materials a new spirit that gives new life to his plays.
e. Shakespeare as a great poet: Shakespeare was not only a great dramatist, but also a great poet. Apart from his sonnets and long poems, his dramas are poetry.
f. Shakespeare as master of the English language.
2. What are the basic characteristics of ballads?
a. The beginning is often abrupt.
b. There are strong dramatic elements.
c. The story is often told through dialogue and action.
d. The theme is often tragic, though there are a number of comic ballads.
e. The ballad meter is used.
3. How do you interpret Humanism?
With the spreading of the Greek and Roman culture there appeared a number of humanist scholars who took great interest in the welfare of human beings. According to them it was against human nature to sacrifice the happiness of this life for an after life. They argued that man should be given full freedom to enrich their intellectual and emotional life. In religion they demanded the reformation of the church, in art and literature, instead of singing praise to God, they sang in praise of man and of the pursuit of happiness in this life. Humanism shattered the shackles of spiritual bondage of man’s mind by the Roman Catholic Church and opened his eyes to “a brave new world” in front of him.
4. How do you sum up the characteristics of Neo-Classicism?
a. People emphasized reason rather than emotion, form rather than content.
b. As reason was stressed, most of the writings of the age were didactic and satirical.
c. As elegance, correctness, appropriateness and restraint were preferred, the poet found closed couplet the only possible verse form for serious work.
d. It is almost exclusively a “town” poetry, catering to the interests of the “society” on great cities. The humbler aspects of life are neglected and it shows no love of nature, landscape, or country things and people.
e. It is entirely wanting in all those elements that are related with the “romantic”.
5. What is the significance of The Canterbury Tales ?
a. It gives a comprehensive picture of Chaucer’s time.
b. The dramatic structure of the poem has been highly commended by critics. In the Canterbury Tales, stories are related to the personalities of the tellers.
c. Chaucer’s humor: humor is a characteristic feature of the English literature. His gentle satire and mild irony.
d. Chaucer’s contribution to the English language. Chaucer greatly increased the prestige of the English language.
6. Please summarize the characteristic features of the Romantic Movement .
a. Subjectivism: romantic poets describe poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” which expresses the poet’s mind.
b. Spontaneity: Wordsworth defines poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of feelings”. The role of instinct, intuition, and the feelings of “the heart” is stressed.
c. Singularity: romantic poets have a strong love for the remote, the unusual, the strange, the supernatural, the mysterious, the splendid, the picturesque, and the illogical.
d. Worship of nature: the romantic poets are worshippers of nature, especially the sublime aspect of a natural scene.
e. Simplicity: romantic poets take to using everyday language spoken by the rustic people as opposed to the poetic diction used by neo-classic writers. There is a dominating note of melancholy in the poems of the romantic poets.
f. It was an age of poetry by which the poets outpoured their feelings and emotions.
7. What is William Wordsworth ’ s definition of the word “ poet ” ?
He defines poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”.
8. What are the main factors that explain the rise of novels as a dominant literary genre during the Victorian age?
First, the growth of urban population resulted in the appearance of a new reading public.
Second, with the development of the method of printing and paper making, the price of books dropped, and besides regular books, there were serial publications. In addition, many libraries were set up by philanthropists so that books were now available to readers who could not afford to buy books.
Third, writing had become a profession, which made it possible for the writers to make a living by writing.
Fourth, with the ascendancy of the industrial capitalists, the majority of whom lived an idle life on interests, there was a large idle class who needed recreation and entertainment. Novels met with their desires.
Fifth, the conditions of the time and the dire poverty on the one hand and the enormous wealth on the other hand needed a secular form to explore human relations rather than sermons given in the church.
Finally, the feminist movement had much to do with the growth of the novel.
9. Please summarize Dickens ’ artistic techniques.
a. Dickens has a tendency to depict the grotesque (very odd or unusual, fantastically ugly or absurd) characters or events.
b. Dickens loves to instill life into inanimate things and to compare animate beings to inanimate things.
c. Dickens is noted for his descriptions of pathetic scenes that aim to arouse people’s sympathy.
10. Please define Robert Browning ’ s dramatic monologue.
A poem in which there is one imaginary speaker addressing an imaginary audience.
In his dramatic monologues, he penetrates to depth the psychology of his characters and through their own speeches, he analyzes and dissects his characters and reveals the innermost secret of their lives.
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