4.3　考研真题和典型题详解

I. Fill in the blanks.

1．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”。

2．_____, _____ and _____ are regarded as pioneers of American romanticism.

【答案】Irving; Cooper; Bryant

【解析】华盛顿·欧文、库伯和布莱恩特被认为是美国浪漫主义的先驱。

3．Americans developed their romanticism to _____, especially in New England, and its distinguished representatives were Emerson and Thoreau.

【答案】Transcendentalism

【解析】美国人将浪漫主义发展为超验主义，尤其是在新英格兰地区，其杰出代表人物是爱默生和梭罗。

II. Multiple choices.

1．Romanticism in American literature stretches from _____ to the break forth of American Civil War.（北二外2008研）

A. early 17thC

B. early 19thC

C. early 18th C

D. Spanish-American War

【答案】B

【解析】美国的浪漫主义时期开始于十九世纪初，到内战爆发为止。代表人物有欧文、库柏、爱默生、梭罗、霍桑、惠特曼、狄金森等。

2．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。

3．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。

III. Explain the following terms.

1．Romanticism（北外 2011研）

Key: Romanticism: (1) It refers to the literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and early 19th century in Europe. (2) It was characterized by a rejection against the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that were held by the neoclassicists. Instead romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. Romanticists also showed interest in the medieval, exotic, primitive, and nationalistic. (3) Romanticism prevailed in England from the publication of Lyrical Ballad in 1798 to the death of Walter Scott in 1832. The English Romantic Period is an age of poetry. Major romantic poets include William Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats.

2．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.

V. Short answer questions.

1．How to define the Romantic period in American history?

Key: ①The Romantic Period in the history of American literature stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. It started with the publication of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. ②Being a period of the great flowering of American literature, it is also called “the American Renaissance”.

2．What is the historical and socio-cultural background of the Romantic Period in American?

Key: ①The development of the American society nurtured “the literature of a great nation.” The young Republic, devoid of a heavy burden of the inherited past and history, was flourishing into a politically, emotionally and culturally independent country. ②Historically, it was the time of westward expansion. Emotionally, the whole nation was experiencing an industrial transformation, which affected the rural as well as the urban life. Politically, democracy and equality became the ideal of the new nation. ③With the founding of the American Independent Government, the nation felt an urge to have its own literary expression, to make known its new experience that other nation did not have. Besides, the nation’s literary milieu was ready for the movement of romantic feeling that was brought about in the first half of the 19th century.

VI. Essay question.

1．Explain something of the relationship between American Romanticism and European Romanticism.

Key: ①American 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. ② 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. ③ 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. ④They 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.