英美文学选读考前总复习

一.What is the theme of Beowulf?

Thematically the poem presents a vivid picture of how the primitive people wage heroic struggles against the hostile forces of the natural world under a wise and mighty leader.The poem is an example of the mingling of nature myths and heroic legends.

二.William Shakespeare （i）Name his four greatest tragedies.（2）What are the characteristics of the four tragedies in common? (3)Briefly summarize each hero‘s weakness of nature. 1.Shakespeare‘sfourgreatest tragediesare:Hamlet,Othello,Kinglear,and Macbeth.2.Eachportrays some noble hero,who faces the injustice of human life and is caught in a difficult situation and whose fate is closely connected with the fate of the whole nation.3.Each hero has his weakness of nature;the old king Lear who is unwilling to totally give up his power;and Macbeth‘s lust for power stirs up his ambition and leads him to incessant crimes 三. try to discuss William Shakespeare ?s art of creations.

1.Shakespeare‘s major characters are neither merely individual ones nor type ones;they are individuals

representing

certain

types.each

character

has

his

or

her

own

personalities;meanwhile,they may share features with others.2.By applying a psycho-analytical approach,Shakespeare succeeds in exploring the characters‘inner mind .3.Shakespeare seldom invents his own plots;instead,he borrows them from some old plays or storybooks,or from ancient Greek and Roman sources.4.In his writings,disguise is also an important device to create dramatic irony,usually with woman disguised as man.5.He often wrote skillfully in different poetic forms,like the sonnet,the blank verse,and the rhymed couplet.

四.Briefly discuss why Hamlet is so impressive in Shakespeare‘s Hamlet. 1.The hero Hamlet in Shakespesare is play Hamlet is noted for his hesition to take his revenge,his melancholy nature of action only to deny possibilities to do anything.2.He came to know that his

father was murdered by his uncle who became king.He hated him so deeply that he wanted to kill him.But he loved his widowed mother who later married his uncle.This made him deep in trouble. 3.When he planned to kill his uncle,he was afraid to hurt his mother.And also,when everything was ready for him to kill his uncle,he forgave him for his uncle was praying to God for his crime.Thus he lost good chance.4.Hamlet represented humanism of his time. 五.Why is John Milton the greatest writer of his time?

In his life,Milton shows himself a real revolutionary,a master poet and a great prose writer.He fought for freedom in all aspects as a Christian humanist,while his achievements in literature make him tower over all the other English writers of his time and exert a great influence over later ones. 六According to the setting of the poem ―Paradise Lost,‖discuss the theme,the author‘sintension to create it and the implication that the poem expresses. 1.The theme of the poem ―ParadiseLost‖is the‖ Fall of Man,‖i.e.mans disobedience and the loss of Paradise, with its prime cause----Satan.2.The athor‘s intention to write this poem is to expose the ways of Satan to‖ justifythe ways of God to men.‖3.In this poem,the author implicitly expresses his fundamental concern with freedom and choice and his belief that the unquestionable truth of biblical revelation means that an all-knowing God was just in allowing Adam and eve to be tempted and of their free will to choose sin and its inevitable punishment.

一.Discuss Crusoe,the protagonist of the novel,as an embodiment of the rising middle-class virtues in the mid-eighteenth century England. A.Social background:The Eighteenth Century England witnessed the growing importance of the bourgeois or middle class.a.The Industrial Revolution;b.The expansion of international markets;c.Values different from those of the feudal aristocratic class—courageous,full of energy,hard working,practical,resourceful,selfreliant,etc.d.Literature should give a realistic

presentation of the life of the common people;it should meet the interest of the middle class people.B.Robinson Crusoe embodies the virtues of the middle class people.a.Crusoe as an adventurous man full of energy and courage b.Crusoe as a practical man c.Crusoe as a resourceful mand.Crusoe as a patient man.

一 Discuss whyRobinson Cruse became so successful when it was published?（Daniel Defoe） 1.Robison Crusoe is supposedly based on the real adventure of an Alexander Selkirk who once stayed alone on the uninhabited island for five years.Actually,the story is an imagination.2.In Robison Crusoe,Defoe traces the growth of Robison from a na?ve and artless youth into a shrewd and hardened man,tempered bynumerous trials in his eventful life.3. In the novel,Robison is a real hero and he is an embodiment of the rising middle-class virtues in the mid-eighteenth century England.4.Robison Crusoe is an adventure story very much in the spirit of the time.Because of the above reasons,when it was published,people all liked that story,and it became an immediate success.

一.Explain why he clenched his fingers so hard that he broke the fragile cup.(John Galsworthy,The man of Property) 1.he had never known,would never know what she was thinking.the sight of her inscrutable face,the thought of all the hundreds of evenings he had seen her sitting there like that soft and passive,but so unreadable,unknown,enraged him beyond measure.

一.By analyzing the poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley,discuss his art of poems.

1.Percy Bysshe Shelly is an intense and original lyrical poet in the English language.2.His poems are full of classical and mythological allusions.3.His style abounds in personification and metaphor and other figures of speech.4.He describes vividly what we see and feel,or express what parsionately moves us.

一. Based on her writings,discuss Jane Austen is greatest contribution to English literature. 1.Jane Austen is one of the most important Romantic novelists in English literature.She creates six influential novels.2.Her main liteary concern is about human beings in their personal relationships,which make her novels have a univer-sal significance.3.Jane Austen has brought the English novel,as an art of form,to is maturity because of her sensitivity to universal pat-terns of human behavior and her accurate portrayal of human individuals.4.She describes the world from a woman is point of view,and depicts a group of authentic and common women.

一.How do you understand that DicKens is the greatest critical realist writer of the Victorian Age? 1.In his works, Dickens sets out a full map and a large-scale criticism of the nineteenth century England.It is his serious intension to expose and criticize in his works all the poverty,injustice,hypocrisy and corruptness he sees around him2.With his first sentence,Dickens engages the readers attention and holds it to the end。3.The settings of his have an extraordinary vividness.4.In language,He is often compared with Shakespeare for his adeptness with the vernacular and large vocabulary.5.Character-portraval is the most distinguishing feature of his works.6.Dickensworks are also characterized by a mingling of humor and pathos.

一,Discuss Dickens is art of novels:the setting,the language,and the characters,etc.based on his novel Oliver Twist. 1.He uses a mixture of the contemporary and recollected past as his fictional settings.2.With his first sentence,he engages the reader is attention and holds it to the end.3.His best-depicts characters are those innocent,virtuous,persecuted,helples child characters such asOliverTwist.4.The figures that he depicted,marked out by some peculiarity in physical,speech or manner,are both types and indi-viduals.5.Dicken is works are aiso characterized by a mingling of humor and pathos.6.Adept with the vernacualar and large vocabulary,he brings out many a wonderful verbal picture of man and scene

一．Explain why the boy[Oliver Twist]started first,then trembled violently and burst into tears when the words were kindly said. ..(Charles Dickens,Olive Twist) 1.The boy started at the words because kind words were not expected;it is (was)the first time in all his life that the boy(Oliver Twist)had ever been kindly greeted;Yet,to him strange sounds may predict suffering.

一.Do you think Heathciff‘s above accusation of Catherine‘s betrayal can be justified?If you think so ,what reasons does Catherine have to betray heathcliff and their love? A.Heathcliff‘s accusation can be justified. B.The reasons of her betrayal may be:(1)The fancy she felt for linton‘s pleasant personality,his rich knowledge,and his elegant manners.(2)Her vainglory made her desire a kind of upperclass life and social status.(3)She was afraid that she might suffer poverty and be degraded if she had got married to Heathecliff.(4)She fancied if she got married to linton,she might have the means to help heathecliff in getting a good education and becoming a gentleman so that they could be united without being degraded. 一． Why is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte a successful novel?

.1.The story opens with the titular heroine, Jane Eyre,a plain little orphan.2.This novel sharply criticize theexisting society,e.g.the religious hypocrisy of charity institutions,the social discrimi-nation Jane experiences and the false social convention as concerning love and marriage. 3.The success of the novel is also due to its introduction to the English novel the first governess heroine Jane Eyre.4.It is an intense moral fable at the same time.Jans,like Mr.Rochester,has to undergo a series of physical and mor-al tests to grow up and achieve her final happiness.

一.Based on Jane Eyre byCharlotte Bronte,discuss the theme of her works,the image of woman protagonists and the comprehensive sense for contemporary society. 1.Charlotte‘s works are all about the struggle of an individual consciousness towards