3.2 考研真题与典型题详解
I. Fill in the blanks.
1．“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was written by ________.（大连外国语学院2008研）
【答案】Washington Irving
【解析】短篇小说《睡谷传说》（“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”），是华盛顿·欧文的代表作《见闻札记》（The Sketch Book）中最著名的两篇故事中的一篇。另一篇是《瑞普·凡·温克尔》（“Rip Van Winkle”）。
2．Ichabod Crane, the schoolmaster, is a character in the short story ________ collected in The Sketch Book.（首师大2008研）
【答案】“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
【解析】Ichabod Crane是一个小学校长，欧文的《睡谷传奇》中的人物。
3．The Romantic period in the American literary history covers the time between the end of the _______ century to the outbreak of the _______. It started with the publication of Irving’s_______ and ended with Whitman’s_______. This period is also called_______.
【答案】18th; Civil War; The Sketch Book; Leaves of Grass; the American Renaissance
【解析】美国浪漫主义时期开始于十八世纪末，到内战爆发为止，是美国文学史上最重要的时期。华盛顿·欧文出版的《见闻札记》标志着美国浪漫主义文学的开端，惠特曼的《草叶集》是浪漫主义时期文学的压卷之作。浪漫主义时期的文学是美国文学的繁荣时期，所以也称为“美国的文艺复兴”。
4．In the early nineteenth century, Washington Irving wrote ________ which became the first work by an American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic.
【答案】The Sketch Book
【解析】美国作家华盛顿·欧文被英国作家萨克雷称为“新世界文坛送往旧世界的第一使节”。《见闻札记》被当时的英国评论界誉为“美国富有想象力的第一部真正杰作”，它“组成了它所属的那个民族文学的新时代”。
5．________ was regarded as the first great prose stylist of American romanticism.
【答案】Washington Irving
【解析】华盛顿·欧文是美国著名作家，他被誉为美国第一位浪漫主义散文文体作家。
6．_______ was regarded as Father of the American short stories.
【答案】Washington Irving
【解析】华盛顿·欧文被誉为美国短篇小说之父。
7．In Washington Irving’s work _______ appeared the first modern short stories and the first great American juvenile literature.
【答案】The Sketch Book
【解析】华盛顿·欧文的作品《见闻札记》（The Sketch Book）是现代文学史上第一部短篇小说集和美国第一部伟大的青少年文学读物。
8．Washington Irving also wrote two biographies, one is The Life of Oliver Goldsmith, and the other is ______.
【答案】Life of Washington
【解析】华盛顿·欧文撰写了两部传记：《哥德史密斯传》（The Life of Oliver Goldsmith）和《华盛顿传》（Life of Washington）。
9．James Fenimore Cooper’s novel ________ was a rousing tale about espionage against the British during the Revolutionary War.
【答案】The Spy
【解析】詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库柏（James Fenimore Cooper）认为他的小说《间谍》（The Spy）“应当是一部纯粹美国式的以爱国为主题的书”。
10．The central figure in the Leatherstocking Tales is ________, who goes by the various names of Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, Pathfinder and Hawkeye.
【答案】Natty Bumppo
【解析】《皮裹腿故事集》是美国作家詹姆斯•费尼莫尔·库柏的系列小说。该故事集中的主要人物是Natty Bumppo。在不同的故事中他有皮裹腿、杀鹿者、探路人及鹰眼等别名。
11．In The Pioneers, _______ represents the ideal American, living a virtuous and free life in God’s world.
【答案】Natty Bumppo
【解析】在詹姆斯•费尼莫尔•库柏的小说《拓荒者》（The Pioneers）中，主人公Natty Bumppo正直善良，向往无拘无束的生活，是理想美国人的化身。
12．In 1823 Cooper James Fenimore wrote The Pioneers, the first of the five novels that make up _______. The remaining four books: The last of Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841), continue the story of Natty Bumppo, one of the most famous characters in American fiction.
【答案】The Leatherstocking Tales
【解析】《皮裹腿故事集》包括《拓荒者》、《最后的莫西干人》、《草原》、《探路者》和《猎鹿人》五部小说。
II. Multiple Choice.
1．Which is NOT a main focus of the American Romantic Movement in general?（大连外国语学院2008研）
A. A return to eastern philosophy.
B. A deep and spiritual respect for nature and natural laws.
C. The introduction of self-salvation as opposed to salvation through Christ.
D. A demand for progress and productivity.
【答案】D
【解析】美国的浪漫主义运动崇尚大自然的力量，提倡自我拯救。其中以爱默生为代表的一批作家，吸收了东方哲学的智慧，融合了欧洲神秘先验论思想，形成了超验主义。
2．Which ONE of the following concepts is related to the understanding of American Romanticism?（四川大学2007研）
A. Survival of the fittest
B. indifference of the universe
C. exaltation of emotion over reason
D. the human beast
【答案】C
【解析】浪漫主义把情感置于理性之上。其余三个选项都是达尔文主义的观点。
3．Which of the following words does not describe the features of Irving’s writings?（天津外国语学院2009研）
A. decorum
B. humor
C. musicality
D. imagination
【答案】C
【解析】华盛顿·欧文的作品具有幽默风趣的笔调，活跃而优雅的写作风格，富于幻想的浪漫色彩。
4．The following selection is taken from _________.（大连外国语学院2007研）
A. The Cask of Amontillado
B. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
C. A Rose for Emily
D. Babylon Revisited
In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town.
【答案】B
【解析】题中片段选自美国著名小说家Washington Irving《睡谷传奇》（“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”）。此段文章交代了故事的背景。文章大意为：哈德逊河东岸有很多宽阔的小河湾，在一个河湾的深处，很久之前荷兰航海家们曾占领水域，并在那里小心地靠岸，寻求圣尼古拉斯的保护。现在，那里有个小镇，或者农村的港口，有些人叫它格林斯堡，而更多人叫它泰瑞镇。
5．Which ONE of the following is the author of The Leather-Stocking Tales?（四川大学2008研）
A. Henry David Thoreau
B. Washington Irving
C. Edgar Allan Poe
D. James Fennimore Cooper
【答案】D
【解析】James Fenimore Cooper（库柏），美国早期作家，The Leather-Stocking Tales（《皮裹腿故事集》）是他的经典之作。
6．James Fennimore Cooper’s novel _________ is the first to reveal the west and Native Americans’ life in a passionate way.（北二外2007研）
A. Go Down, Moses
B. The Last of the Mohicans
C. Winesburg, Ohio
D. O, Pioneers!
【答案】B
【解析】《最后的莫西干人》是库柏《皮裹腿》五部曲之一，描写的是美国西部边疆和美洲土著印第安人的生活。选项A《去吧，摩西》的作者是William Faulkner（威廉·福克纳）；选项C《小城畸人》的作者是Sherwood Anderson（舍伍德·安德森）；选项D的作者是女作家Willa Cather（薇拉·凯瑟）。
7．Washington Irving’s social conservation and literary for the past is revealed，to some extent，in his famous story, _________.
A. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
B. “Rip Van Winkle”
C. “The Custom-House”
D. “The Birthmark”
【答案】B
【解析】《瑞普·凡·温克尔》在一定程度上反映了欧文的保守思想。
8．It is on his _________ that Washington Irving’s fame mainly rested.
A. tales about America
B. early poetry
C. childhood recollections
D. sketches about his European tours
【答案】A
【解析】欧文的声望主要体现在关于美国的小说上。
III. Explain the following term.
1．American Romanticism（四川大学2007研；北航2008研）
Key: American Romanticism: American Romanticism is the name sometimes given to a flourishing of distinctively American literature in the period before the Civil War. American Romanticism is represented by works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, H. D. Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman. They share certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in individualism and intuitive.
IV. Read the following quotations and answer the questions.
Passage 1
“There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Rip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tome about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquility. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholoas Vedder…”
Questions:
(1) From which work is this passage taken?
(2) How do you understand this selection?
Key:
(1) This passage is taken from Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”.
(2) It shows the change that Rip sees as he enters the village after the 20-year sleep and the destructive effect of the change. It also reveals, to some extent, the conservative attitude of its author.
Passage 2
“From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of it sin habitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. Drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the product or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. ”
Questions:
(1) Who is the writer of this short story from which the passage is taken?
(2) What is the title of this short story?
(3) Give a definition of “short story”.
Key:
(1) Washington Irving
(2) “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
(3) A short story of a brief prose fiction, usually one that can be read in a single sitting. It generally contains the six major elements of fiction—characterization, setting, theme, plot, point of view, and style.
Passage 3
“Arms and the clarion for the battle, but the song of thanksgiving to the victory!” answered the liberated David. “Friend,” he added, thrusting forth his lean, delicate hand forwards Hawkeye, in kindness, while his eyes twinkled and grew moist, “I thank thee the hairs of my head still grow where they were first rooted by Providence for, though those of other men may be more glossy and curling, I have ever found mine own well suited to the brain they shelter. That I did not join myself to the battle, was less owing to disinclination, than to the bonds of the heathen. Valiant and skilful hast thou proved thyself in the conflict, and I hereby thank thee, before proceeding to discharge other and more important duties, because thou hast proved thyself well worthy of a Christian’s praise.” …
Questions:
(1) This novel was written by the first American novelist. What is his name?
(2) What is the name of the novel?
(3) The central figure in this novel appeared in this passage. It is ________.
Key:
(1) James Fenimore Cooper
(2) The Last of the Mohicans
(3) Hawkeye
V. Short answer questions
1．Make an introductory comment on James Fenimore Cooper’s frontier saga The Leather Stocking Tales.（四川大学2009研）
Key: The Leather Stocking Tales is a series of novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. Natty Bumppo is the protagonist of the series. Although he is the child of white parents, he grows up with Native Americans, becoming a near-fearless warrior skilled in many weapons, one of which is the long rifle. He respects his forest home and all its inhabitants, hunting only what he needs to survive. When it comes time to fire his trusty flintlock, he lives by the rule, “One shot, one kill.” He and his Mohican “brother” Chingachgook champion goodness by trying to stop the incessant conflict between the Mohicans and the Hurons. He is known as “Deerslayer” in The Deerslayer, “Hawkeye” and “La Longue Carabine” in The Last of the Mohicans, “Pathfinder” in The Pathfinder, “Leatherstocking” in The Pioneers, and “the trapper” in The Prairie. The novels recount significant events in Natty Bumppo’s life from 1740-1806.
2．In American literature history, the Romantic Period, during which many famous writers and their masterpieces came into being, played an important role. Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman, etc, all of whom are not ignored by us. According to their writings, discuss the features of American literature in this period.
Key: The whole nation had a strong sense of optimism and the mood of “feeling good”, giving birth to the spectacular outburst of romantic feelings. The English counterpart, especially the cultural heritage, exerted a stimulating impact on the writings of the young nation. Taking foreign influence into consideration, the great works of American writers still carried typically American romanticist color. The young nation had brought forth its own Philosophy, Transcendentalism, stressing man’s capacity of knowing truth intuitively, and of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses.
VI. Essay questions
1．Discuss the fiction written by American High Romantics with specific reference to one work.（大连外国语学院2007研）
Key: American Romanticism was influenced by its English and European counterpart since it was originated from those places. But when it came to the high romanticism, American Romanticism exhibited from the outset distinct features of its own.
The first was its puritan heritage and rejection of Puritanism. It was more moralizing, edifying more than mere entertainment. Sex and love, for example, are subjects American authors were particularly carefully approaching. The way in which Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter suggests that American Romanticism adapted itself to American Puritanism. It takes eloquently about the effect of the adultery on the people rather than the sin itself. Hester Prynne uses her whole life to get out of the shadow of the sin while Dimmesdale dies at last under the pressure of puritan. Hawthorne criticizes the Puritanism, keeping skeptical of religion authority.
The second feature of fiction of High Romantics is its emphasis on psychological description. The Scarlet Letter employs many psychological activities to reveal directly the thoughts of characters and the psychological conflicts to develop the theme.
The third feature is that it explores the dark side of society and human nature. At that time, the society was under the control of Puritanism and human nature was tortured. Whereas Hester is able to reconstruct her life and win a moral victory, Dimmesdale undergoes the tragic experience of physical and spiritual disintegration. Though the scarlet letter refers to Adultery, Angel, Able, A may also represent Adamic, or prehistoric, an archetypal vice suggestive of “original sin”. This reveals another feature of this period fiction, which is symbolism. Besides, there are other symbols like the Meteor, Pearl, and the Rosebush Next to the Prison Door.
2．What is the relationship between American Romanticism and European Romanticism?
Key: American Romanticism and the European Romanticism share much in common: in reaction to the enlightenment and its emphasis on reason, Romanticism stressed emotion, the imagination, and subjectivity of approach.
European literary masters, especially the English counterparts exerted a stimulating impact on the writers of the New World. Born of one common cultural heritage, American Romanticism is surely to some extent, derivative after their English predecessors.
Although the European influences were strong, the great works that demonstrate what American romantic writings were typically America. They revealed unique characteristics of their own in their works and they grew on the native land. The content of the American Romantic period is an original and diverse body of work. American writers developed some new forms of fiction or poetry.
They also placed an increasing emphasis on the free expression of emotions and displayed an increasing attention to the psychic states of their characters. The strong tendency to exalt the individual and common man was another focus of the movement.
3．What’s Washington Irving’s main contribution to American Literature?
Key: Washington Irving’s contribution to American literature is unique in more ways than one. He did a number of things which have been regarded as the first of their kind in America.
He was the first American writer of imaginative literature to gain international fame. When he returned home in 1832, he was acclaimed as the one American author whom people in Europe knew about, and the Americans took as a sign that American literature was emerging as an independent entity. To say that he was father of American literature is not much exaggeration.
The short story as a genre in American literature probably began with Irving’s The Sketch Book, a collection of essays, sketches, and tales, of which the most famous and frequently anthologized are “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. The book touched the American imagination and foreshadowed the coming of Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe, in whose hands the short story attained a degree of perfection as a literary tradition. It also marked the beginning of American Romanticism. The Gothic, the supernatural, and the longing for the good old days which some of its pieces clearly exhibit, are Romantic enough in subject if not exactly in style, for Irving wrote in the neoclassical tradition of Joseph Addison and Oliver Goldsmith. Looking at a picture of Irving surrounded by his nieces, one does sometimes think of the old man, benign and pleasant and refined, as the uncle of American authors.
4．Analyze The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Key: Washington Irving’s short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is about the memorable event of an apparently headless horseman throwing his head at his rival in love, and the memorable character of Ichabod Crane with his mixture of shrewdness, credulity, self-assertiveness and cowardice.
The creation of archetypes is a particularly subtle feat of Irving’s consummate craftsmanship. We may see in Ichabod Crane a precocious, effete New Englander, shrewd, commercial, a city-slicker, who is rather an interloper, a somewhat destructive force, and who comes along to swindle the villagers. His book learning turns on him, and he is driven away from where he does not belong, so that the serene village remains permanently good and happy. Brom Bones, on the other hand, is of a Huck Finn-type of country bumpkin, rough, vigorous, boisterous but inwardly very good, a frontier type put out there to shift for himself. Thus the rivalry in love between Ichabod and Brom, viewed in this way, suddenly assumes the dimensions of two ethical groups locked in a kind of historic contest.
As to the style of the piece, it represents Irving at his best. The association between a certain local and the inward movement of a character, the emotional loading of almost every line of the story, their effect on the five senses of the reader whose attention is so fully engaged and who feels so much involved in what is happening—all these have placed this and other Irving stories among the best of American short stories.