4.2 考研真题与典型题详解
I. Fill in the blanks.
1．Many Puritans wrote verse, but the works of two writers, Anne Bradstreet and ________, rose to the level of real poetry.
【答案】Edward Taylor
【解析】美国殖民时期最著名的诗人是安妮·布雷兹特里特和爱德华·泰勒。
2．The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America is a collection of poems composed by ________.
【答案】Anne Bradstreet
【解析】安妮·布雷兹特里特是美国殖民时期著名的诗人。其代表作是诗集《美国新崛起的第十位缪斯女神》（The Tenth Muse Late Sprung up in America）。
3．A complete edition of Edward Taylor’s poems appeared in ________.
【答案】1960
【解析】泰勒没有出版任何作品。直到他去世两百余年后的1937年，他的手稿才被发现。这一发现立刻使得泰勒成为美国殖民时期文学的重要代表人物，丰富了美国的诗歌传统。1960年，泰勒的一部完整的诗歌集出版问世。
II. Multiple choices.
1．Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan poet. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the “________” who appeared in America.
A. Ninth Muse
B. Tenth Muse
C. Best Muse
D. First Muse
【答案】B
【解析】安妮·布雷兹特里特被誉为“美国出现的第十个缪斯”。
2．The best of Puritan poets was ______, whose complete edition of poems appeared in 1960, more than two hundred years after his death.
A. Anne Bradstreet
B. Michael Wigglesworth
C. Thomas Hooker
D. Edward Taylor
【答案】D
【解析】爱德华·泰勒是清教徒诗人中最杰出的一位。泰勒在世时从没出版过自己的作品。人们是在1937年从其手稿中发现他的诗歌的，当然这已经是他去世200多年后的事情了。这个发现立刻确立了他在殖民地文学历史上的地位，同时也极大地丰富了美国诗歌遗产。1960年，泰勒诗歌全集得以正式出版。
III. Read the following quotations and answer the questions.
Passage 1
Questions:
1．This is the ninth of the “Contemplations” written by an early American woman writer. What is her name?
2．Make a brief comment on this short poem.
Key：
1．Anne Bradstreet.
2．This stanza, written by Anne Bradstreet, is taken from her best known and most attractive poem, “Contemplations”. This short poem offers the reader an insight into the mentality of the early Puritan pioneering into a new world. When the poet heard the grasshopper and the cricket sing, she thought of this as their praising their creator and searched her own soul accordingly. It is evident that she saw something metaphysical inhering in the physical, a mode of perception which was singularly Puritan.
Passage 2
Huswifery
Questions:
1．Identify the poet of this poem.
2．Make a brief comment on this poem.
Key：
1．Edward Taylor.
2．The poem indicates that the poet saw religious significance in a simple daily incident like a housewife spinning. The spinning wheel, the distaff, the flyers, the spool, the reel and the yarn have all acquired a metaphorical significance in the symbolic, Puritan eyes of Edward Taylor.
IV. Short answer question
Who was Anne Bradstreet? What were her literary achievements?
Key：
Anne Bradstreet (1612—1672) is one of the most important figures in the history of American Literature. She is considered by many to be the first American poet, and her first collection of poems, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts, was the first book written by a woman to be published in the United States. Mrs. Bradstreet’s works also serve as a document of the struggles of a Puritan wife against the hardships of New England colonial life.
V. Essay question
Do you agree that in colonial America there was no poetry at all? Give your reason.
Key：
①The strenuous life of the pioneer left little time for cultivating any of the arts, and the spirit of New England was too serious and too stern to permit indulgence in what was merely pleasant or beautiful. Even after the first critical years of danger and struggle were past, the intellectual life of the people was bounded by the narrow limits of religious discussion and theological debate. That the Puritan was not without imagination, however, is abundantly proved by the forceful figures and impassioned rhetoric of the prose writers who did only occasionally slip into rhyme. Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor are such examples.
②Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan who wrote ponderous verses of interminable, inter-locking poems. Her poems made such a stir in England that she became known as the “Tenth Muse” who appeared in America. Her famous “Contemplations” offers the reader an insight into the mentality of the early Puritan pioneering in a new world.
③Edward Taylor was a meditation poet. In his splendid, exotic images, Taylor came nearest to the English baroque poets. He was, first and last, a Puritan poet, concerned about how his images speak for God. He has faith in God who can save the erring, or possibly sinful, humankind from the evil designs of Hell.