考研论坛 2014-01-09
I. Multiple Choices (10’)
[Passage I分别给出了postcolonial novels和international novels的特征]
1.According to the features explained in the passage above, which one of the writers writes postcolonial novels?
A.E. M. Forster B. V. S. Naipaul C. Salman Rushdie D. Kazuo Ishiguro
2.According to the features explained in the passage above, which one of the writers writes international novels?
A.E. M. Forster B. V. S. Naipaul C. Salman Rushdie D. Kazuo Ishiguro
[Passage II讨论了某个文学作品的内容，其中有提到”A Game of Chess”, 并指出作品在这一章节里面有提到两个古代的女人（虚构或非虚构）和两个现代的女人，包括Cleopatra和Ophelia]
3.What’s the work discussed in the passage above?
答案为The Waste Land
4.Which of the following critical essays is also written by this author?
答案为”Tradition and the Individual Talent”
5.The author uses which of the following literary devices to bring in thosewomen?
应该是allusion
[Passage III讲的是the Theatre of the Absurd]
6.Who coined the term “the Theatre of the Absurd”?
答案为Martin Esslin
7.Which one of the following plays is the iconic work of the Theatre of theAbsurd?
答案为Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot
8.Which one of the following American playwrights also writes this kind of play?
答案为Edward Albee
[Passage IV只有一句话:”Call me Ishmael”]
9.This sentence is taken from which of the following books?
答案为Herman Meville’s Moby-Dick
10.关于这句话所起的作用和效果，选项已记不清了
II. Identify authors and titles. (20’)
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Henry James, “The Jolly Corner”
Ralph Waldo Ellison, Invisible Man
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
William Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
[以上9个没有按原题目的顺序哈。还有一个什么company of love的没认出来，貌似不是书上的]
III. Answer the following questions with about 150 words (60’)
1.Explain the title of the play Pygmalion. How does the title allude to the relationship between Higgins and Eliza in the play? What social problem can you learn from their relationship? (20’)
2.Examine the plot and point of view in William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”. Do you view it as a “coming of age” story? Why or why not? Please illustrate yourpoint with textual evidence. (20’)
3.Explain a key symbol in ONE of the following works: Hamlet, The Scarlet Letter,Lord of the Flies and A Streetcar Named Desire. (20’)
IV. Write anessay of around 300 words to answer ONE of the questions. (30’)
A Noiseless Patient Spider by WaltWhitman
A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
Design by Robert Frost
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
1.What is the thematic concern of “A Noiseless Patient Spider”? What poetic devices Whitman adopts to express this concern?
2.What is the thematic concern of “Design”? What poetic devices Frost adopts to express this concern?
3.Write an essay to compare and contrast the similarities and differences of these two poems.
V. Critical essay. (30’)
提供了一段某个评论家2013年出版的作品中一段话，段落里出现了很多个binary oppositions，比如 realism vs.romance, realism vs. epic, realism vs. oriental tales, realism vs. naturalism,realism vs. melodrama, realism vs. modernism等。要求从中选一个binary，自立论点，并用美国文学和英国文学中的作品进行论证。
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