7.3 考研真题和典型题详解
I. Fill in the blanks.
1．Author: _____ Title: _____（南京大学2008研）
The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise popularly ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added moodiness which always afterwards, to the very day of sailing in the Pequod on the present voyage, sat brooding on his brow.
【答案】Author: Herman Melville Title: Moby Dick
【解析】题目节选自Herman Melville的 Moby Dick（《白鲸》）。《白鲸》刻画了捕鲸人与巨鲸搏斗的真实画面，人与宗教之间的关系，以及人性的挣扎与考验。
2．Edgar Allan Poe’s stories fall into two categories: _____ and “tales of ratiocination”.（天津外国语2010研）
【答案】tales of mystery and the macabre
【解析】埃德加·爱伦·坡（Edgar Allan Poe)，十九世纪美国诗人、小说家和文学评论家，他的小说分为“神秘恐怖故事”和“推理故事”两类。
3．Pearl is a character in _____ written by _____.（大连外国语学院2007研）
【答案】The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
【解析】Pearl是美国作家Nathaniel Hawthorne小说《红字》中的人物。
4．Tashtego, Daggoo and Queequeg are the three main harpooners in the novel _____.（首师大2008研）
【答案】Moby Dick
【解析】这三个人是《莫比·狄克》里的捕鲸手。
5．_____ is famous for writing stories about the sea and the islands of the Southern Pacific. In his masterpiece _____, he tells a story of a whaling voyage which is set a symbolic account of the conflict between man and his fate.
【答案】Herman Melville；Moby Dick
【解析】赫尔曼·麦尔维尔因写南太平洋的大海和岛屿的故事而著名。他的代表作《白鲸》讲述了以人与他自己命运的冲突作为象征的捕鲸航程。
6．In consideration of the beauty of poems, _____ concludes that “the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.” （天津外国语学院2007研）
【答案】Edgar Allan Poe
【解析】爱伦·坡认为，美的效应在于使灵魂激动而变得高尚；无论哪种美，其最高形式必然使敏感的灵魂悲泣。因此，诗的基调应该是“忧郁”。人最感到忧郁的事莫过于死，而最富于诗意的死莫过于心爱的年轻美女离世。
7．_____is regarded as the father of psychoanalytic criticism and the detective story. （首师大2008研）
【答案】Edgar Allan Poe
【解析】爱伦·坡被认为是精神分析批评之父和侦探小说的鼻祖。
II. Multiple choices.
1．Which of the following is closest to Shakespearean tragedy? （大连外国语2008研）
A. The Scarlet Letter
B. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
C. Moby Dick
D. Wuthering Heights
【答案】C
【解析】《莫比·狄克》是美国著名小说家Herman Melville（赫尔曼·梅尔维尔）的名作，是一个捕杀白鲸的复仇故事，也是一个人与自然相抗衡的噩梦，既有莎士比亚悲剧的格调，又有史诗般的气势。具体可参见：Julian C. Rice 的著作‘Moby Dick’ and Shakespeare tragedy。
2．In _____, Captain Ahab is obsessed with the revenge on a whale which sheared off his leg on a previous voyage, and his crazy chasing of it eventually brings death to all on board the whaler except Ishmael, who survives to tell the tale.（天津外国语学院2007研）
A. Typee
B. White Jacket
C. Moby Dick
D. Billy Budd
【答案】C
【解析】Captain Ahab（亚哈船长）是梅尔维尔的小说Moby Dick（《白鲸》）里的主人公。
3．The finest example of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s symbolism is the recreation of Puritan Boston in _____.
A. The Scarlet Letter
B. Young Goodman Brown
C. The Marble Faun
D. The Ambitious Guest
【答案】A
【解析】《红字》（The Scarlet Letter）是美国19世纪影响最大的浪漫主义小说家和心理小说家纳撒尼尔·霍桑（Nathaniel Hawthorne）的代表作。该小说是成功运用象征手法的典范。
4．Mark the novelist whose major works are characterized by the elements of the “grotesque”? （四川大学2008研）
A. Philip Freneau
B. Edgar Allan Poe
C. Washington Irving
D. Emily Dickson
【答案】B
【解析】Edgar Allan Poe（爱伦·坡），美国著名诗人、短篇小说家、文学评论家。他的短篇小说着意描写人的内心世界，对表现人的思想病态尤其感兴趣。其后期的短篇小说，经常充满一种恐怖气氛，情节阴森古怪，令人毛骨悚然。
5．_____ was a romanticized account of Herman Melville’s stay among the Polynesians. The success of the book soon made Melville well known as the “man who lived among cannibals”.
A. Moby Dick
B. Typee
C. Omoo
D. Billy Budd
【答案】B
【解析】赫尔曼·梅尔维尔（Herman Melville）年轻时曾做过捕鲸水手，航行于南太平洋一带，1842年7月在南太平洋马克萨斯群岛（the Pacific islands of the Marquesas group）被波利尼西亚的泰皮族所俘虏。后来梅尔维尔根据这一经历写成了小说泰皮（Typee）
6．Herman Melville’s _____ is an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy, religion, etc. in addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry.
A. The Old Man and the Sea
B. Moby Dick
C. White Jacket
D. Billy Budd
【答案】B
【解析】赫尔曼·梅尔维尔的《白鲸记》（Moby Dick）是一部内容丰富的小说，这部捕鲸小说成为当今公认的捕鲸的百科全书
III. Explain the following terms.
1．Edgar Allan Poe（北航2007研）
Key: Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
2．Symbolism
Key: ①Symbolism is a movement in literature and the visual arts that originated in France in the poetry of Charles Baudelaire in the late 19th century. ②In literature, symbolism was an aesthetic movement that encouraged writers to express their ideas, feelings, and values by means of symbols or suggestions rather than by direct statements. ③Hawthorne and Melville are masters of symbolism in America in the 19th century.
IV. Read the following quotations and answer the questions.
Passage 1
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as he shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me—upon ‘the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls— upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium—the bitter lapse into everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodeled and inverted images of the grey sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, has been one of my boon companions in boyhood, but many years had elapsed since our last meeting.
(1) Why does the author deliberately describe the architecture or mansion?
Key: This passage is selected from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”. The House of Usher, itself doubly referring both to the actual structure and the family, plays a significant role in the story. It is the first “character” that the narrator introduces to the reader, presented with a humanized description: its windows are described as “eye-like” twice in the first paragraph. The fissure that develops in its side is symbolic of the decay of the Usher family and the house “dies” along with the two Usher siblings. The house foreshadows doom and gives feelings of fear, and guilt.
(2) What is the author’s artistic view on literature?
Key: Poe believes that the short story must be of such length as to be read at one sitting (brevity), so as to ensure the totality of impression. The very first sentence ought to help to bring out the “single effect” of the story. No word should be used which does not contribute to the “pre-established” design of the work (compression). A tale should reveal some logical truth with “the fullest satisfaction”，And should end with the last sentence, leaving a sense of finality with the reader.
Passage 2
Hester Prynne’s term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into sunshine which falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison, than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. Then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph.
Questions:
(1) Which novel is this selection taken from?
Key: The Scarlet Letter
(2) What is the name of the novelist?
Key: Nathaniel Hawthorne
(3) What do you think is the symbolic meaning of the scarlet letter on Hester’s breast?
Key: Symbolism is traditionally a sign or token of something. In the matter of literature, the definition of the literary device, symbolism is more complicated. Symbols of literature are usually metaphysical. In this novel, the scarlet letter “A” changes its meaning in many different times. This change is significant. It shows growth in the characters, and the community in which they live. The letter “A” begins as a symbol of sin. It then becomes a symbol of alone and alienation, and finally it becomes a symbol of able, angel and admirable.
V. Short answer questions.
1．What does the white whale in Moby Dick symbolize? Why do you think so? （国际关系学院2007研）
Key: For Captain Ahab, the white whale represents evil. After the loss of his leg in his encounter with the white whale, Ahab begins to hate Moby Dick and tries his best to kill the whale. It seems that he embodies all of the evil he once consigned to the white whale. For other members on the whaling ship, the white whale symbolizes the unknown, mysterious natural force of the universe. For the readers, the white whale is capable of many interpretations, for it is “paradoxically benign and malevolent, nourishing and destructive,” “massive, brutal, monolithic, but at the same time protean, erotically beautiful, infinitely variable.”
2．How does Edgar Allan Poe anticipate the 20th-century literature? （国际关系学院2007研）
Key: Allan Poe anticipates the 20th century literature and his influence is world-wide in modern literature. He was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the father of psychoanalytic criticism and the detective fiction. Poe is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. His aesthetics and conscious craftsmanship, his attack on “the heresy of the didactic,” and his call for “the rhythmical creation of beauty” have influenced French symbolists and the devotees of “art for art’s sake.”
3．What are Nathaniel Hawthorne’s major works?
Key: Nathaniel Hawthorne is an American novelist, whose works are deeply concerned with the ethical problems of sin, punishment and atonement. His major works include short-story collections such as Twice-Told Tales (1837), Mosses from an Old manse (1846), and novels such as The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852), and the Marble Faun (1860).
VI. Essay question.
1．Discuss Edgar Allen Poe’s contribution to the genre of short fiction.（大连外国语2008研）
Key: Poe’s theories for the short story are remarkable in their clarity. His principles for the short story are best illustrated in his review of Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales. The short story, he says, must be of such length as to be read at one sitting, so as to ensure the totality of impression. The very first sentence ought to help to bring out the “single effect” of the story. No word should be used which does not contribute to the “pre-established” design of the work. A tale should reveal some logical truth with “the fullest satisfaction,” and should end with the last sentence, leaving a sense of finally with the reader.
As a short-story writer, Poe was a fascinating man of imagination. He places the subconscious condition of the mind under investigation and probes beneath the surface of normal existence. What interests him most is the deep abyss of the unconscious and subconscious mental activity of the people, the subterranean recesses of the mind at work. This area of human experience Poe reveals sometimes with alarming accuracy. His assumption seems to be that every mind is half mad or capable of slipping into insanity. As a result of all these, his fictional characters are mostly neurotics. He was the first author in American literature to make the neurotic the heroic figure, the protagonist, in his stories. Poe’s most enduring tales are those of horror, the horror coming from the working of an irrational or criminal mind, driven to evil or insanity by a perverse, irrational force which, to Poe, is an elementary impulse in man. A number of Poe’s tales treat a number of different people who, going mad, are all along aware that they are going mad, thus exhibiting the believable stages of mental disintegration. Poe’s best known fiction works are Gothic, a genre he followed to appease the public taste. His early detective fiction tales starring the fictitious C. Auguste Dupin laid the groundwork for future detectives in literature. Poe’s work also influenced science fiction.
（本题考查爱伦·坡对短篇小说这种文学体裁的贡献，可从理论和创作两方面进行阐述。）
2．Moby Dick by Herman Melville is one of the few books in American literature that has produced an exciting effect upon readers. Try to discuss the symbolism in the book.
Key: It is a mixture of fantasy and realism based on the South Pacific whaling industry. It might be read as an initiation story about Ishmael，the outcast，finding himself in a real world of hard work and danger and an unreal world of speculation and mystery.
It is a fabulous dramatization of Ahab’s obsessed determination to revenge himself in the pursuit of one particular whale who previously destroyed his boat and humiliated him by ripping off one of his legs. The book has so often been interpreted in so many ways，allegorically and symbolically.
Melville is a master of allegory and symbolism. Instead of putting the battle between Ahab and the big whale into simple statements，he used symbols，that is，objects or persons who represent something else. Different people on board the ship are representations of different ideas and different social and ethnic groups，facts become symbols and incidents acquire universal meanings; the Pequod is the microcosm of human society and the voyage becomes a search for truth. The white whale, Moby Dick, symbolizes nature for Melville, for it is complex, unfathomable, malignant, and beautiful as well.
For the character Ahab, however the whale only represents evil. Moby Dick is like a wall, hiding some unknown, mysterious things behind. Moby Dick is a mystery, an ultimate mystery of the universe, and the voyage of the mind will forever remain a search，not a discovery, of the truth. The whole story turns out to be a symbolic voyage of the mind quest of the truth and knowledge of the universe, a spiritual exploration into man’s deep reality and psychology.