Part III. The Literature of Romanticism
I. Make multiple choices.
1. Transcendentalism took their ideas from___________ .
A. the romantic literature in Europe
B. neo-Platonism
C. German idealistic philosophy
D. the revelations of oriental mysticism
2. As a philosophical and literary movement, ____________ flourished in
New England from the 1830s to the Civil War.
A. modernism
B. rationalism
C. sentimentalism
D. transcendentalism
3. Transcendentalist doctrines found their greatest literary advocates in___________ and Henry David Thoreau.
A. Thomas Jefferson
B. Ralph Waldo Emerson
C. Philip Freneau
D. Oversoul
4. _________ was the most leading spirit of the Transcendental Club.
A. Henry David Thoreau
B. Ralph Waldo Emerson
C. Nathaniel Hawthorne
D. Walt Whitman
5. Transcendentalists recognized__________ as the "highest power of the soul. "
A. intuition
B. logic
C. data of the senses
D. thinking
6. Led by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and
_______________ , there arose a kind of teachings of transcendentalism in the early nineteenth century.
A. Herman Melville
B. Henry David Thoreau
C. Mark Twain
D. Theodore Dreiser
7. Transcendentalism appealed to those who disdained the harsh God of the
Puritan ancestors, and it appealed to those who scorned the pale deity of
New England
A. Transcendentalism
B. Humanism
C. Naturalism
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D. Unitarianism
8. A new___________ had appeared in England in the last years of the eighteenth century. It spread to continental Europe and then came to
America early in the nineteenth century.
A. realism
B. critical realism
C. romanticism
D. naturalism
9. The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature, evident in _________ .
A. James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales
B. Henry David Thoreau' s V/alden
C. Mark Twain' s Huckleberry Finn
D. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
10. A preoccupation with the demonic and the mystery of evil marked the works of _________ , and a host of lesser writers.
A. Nathaniel Hawthorne
B. Edgar Allan Poe
C. Herman Melville
D. Mark Twain
11. In the nineteenth century America, Romantics often shared certain general characteristics. Choose such characteristics from the following.
A. moral enthusiasm
B. faith in the value of individualism and intuitive perception
C. adoration for the natural world
D. presumption about the corrosive effect of human society
12. Choose Washington Irving' s works from the following.
A. The Sketch Book
B. Bracebridge Hall
C. Tales of a Traveller
D. A History of New York
13. In James Fenimore Cooper's novels, close after Natty Bumppo in romantic appeal , come the two noble red men. Choose them from the following.
A. the Mohican Chief Chingachgook
B. Uncas
C. Tom Jones
D. Kubla Khan
14. In 1817, the stately poem called Thanatopsis introduced the best poet___________ to appear in America up to that time.
A. Edward Taylor
B. Philip Freneau
C. William Cullen Bryant
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D. Edgar Allan Poe
15. Choose William Cullen Bryant's poems from the following.
A. To a Caty-Did
B. To a Waterfowl
C. Thanatopsis
D. The Wild Honey Suckle
16. From the following, choose the poems written by Edgar Allan Poe.
A. To Helen
B. The Raven
C. Annabel Lee
D. The Bells
17. In his post on the Messenger, Edgar Allan Poe showed his true talents as
A. an editor
B. a poet
C. a literary critic
D. a fiction writer
18. Edgar Allan Poe's first collection of short stories is___________ .
A. Tales of a Traveller
B. Leatherstocking Tales
C. Canterbury Tales
D. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
19. From the following, choose the characteristics of Ralph Waldo
Emerson's poetry.
A. being highly individual
B. harsh rhythms
C. lack of form and polish
D. striking images
20. Which book is not written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
A. Representative Men
B. English Traits
C. Nature
D. The Rhodora
21. Which essay is not written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
A. Of Studies
B. Self-Reliance
C. The American Scholar
D. The Divinity School Address
22. From Henry David Thoreau' s jail experience, came his famous essay,
___________ , which states Thoreau's belief that no man should violate his conscience at the command of a government.
, ,
A. Walden
B. Nature
C. Civil Disobedience
D. Common Sense
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23. 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
24. The House of Seven Gables is a famous mystery-haunted novel written by_________
A. Nathaniel Hawthorne
B. Nathaniel Hathorne
C. Nathanal Hawthorne
D. Nathanial Hathorne
25. Nathaniel Hawthorne's ability to create vivid and symbolic images that embody great moral questions also appears strongly in his short stories.
Choose his short stories from the following.
A. Young Goodman Brown
B. The Great Stone Face
C. The Ambitious Guest
D. Ethan Brand
E. The Pearl
26. Which is not Nathaniel Hawthorne's long novel?
A. The Scarlet Letter
B. The Marble Faun
C. The Blithedale Romance
D. The House of Seven Gables
E. Dr. Heidegger's Experiment
27. Herman Melville called his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne_____________ in American literature.
A. the largest brain with the largest heart
B. father of American poetry
C. the transcendentalist
D. the American scholar
28. Choose the characters which appear in the novel The Scarlet Letter.
A. Hester Prynne
B. Arthur Dimmesdale
C. Roger Chillingworth
D. Pearl
29. __________ 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
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30. With the appearance of ______________ in 1855, which is about
American Indians, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poetical reputation was established.
A. Evangeline
B. The Courtship of Miles Standish
C. Song of Hiawatha
D. Michael Angelo
31. Choose the authors who belong to the romantic group in American literature.
A. Ralph Waldo Emerson
B. Henry David Thoreau
C. Nathaniel Hawthorne
D. Herman Melville
E. Walt Whitman
32. In the early nineteenth century American moral values were essentially
Puritan. Nothing has left a deeper imprint on the character of the people as a whole than did__________ .
A. Puritanism
B. Romanticism
C. Rationalism
D. Sentimentalism
33. American romanticist writers,like Washington Irving and especially the group of New England poets such as____________ ,
__________ ,__________ ,_____ and Lowell, tried to model their works upon English and European masters.
A. William Cullen Bryant
B. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
C. Oliver Russel Holmes
D. John Greenleaf Whittier
E. Thomas Gray
34. Washington Irving was best known for his famous short stories such as____________ and____________ .
A. Rip Van Winkle
B. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
C. Life of Goldsmith
D. Life of Washington
35. "The universe is composed of Nature and the soul... Spirit is present everywhere". This is the voice of the book Nature written by Emerson, which pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New
England______
A. Romanticism
B. Transcendentalism
C. Naturalism
D. Symbolism
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36. There is a good reason to state that New England Transcendentalism was actually _________ on the Puritan soil.
A. Romanticism
B. Puritanism
C. Mysticism
D. Unitarianism
37 . New England Transcendentalism was important to American literature.
It inspired a whole new generation of famous authors such as_________________ , and Emily Dickinson.
A. Ralph Waldo Emerson
B. Henry David Thoreau
C. Nathaniel Hawthorne
D. Herman Melville
E. Walt Whitman
38. Which is generally regarded as the Bible of New England
Transcendentalism?
A. Nature
B. Walden
C. On Beauty
D. Self-Reliance
39. Which is regarded as the "Declaration of Intellectual Independence"?
A. The American Scholar
B. English Traits
C. The Conduct of Life
D. Representative Men
40. _________ is an appalling fictional version of Nathaniel Hawthorne' s belief that "the wrong doing of one generation lives into the successive ones" and that evil will come out of evil though it may take many generations to happen.
A. The Marble Faun
B. The House of Seven Gables
C. The Blithedale Romance
D. Young Goodman Brown
41. Nathaniel Hawthorne's intellectual characters are usually villains, dreadful because of devoid of fellow feeling. Choose the specimens of
Hawthorne's chilling, cold-blooded human animals.
A. Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter
B. Hollingsworth in The Blithedale Romance
C. Dr. Rappaccini in Rappaccini' s Daughter
D. Pearl in The Scarlet Letter
42. Which three novels drew from Herman Melville' s adventures among the people of the South Pacific islands?
A. Typee
B. Omoo
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C. Mardi
D. Redburn
43. 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
II. Identify the fragments.
passage 1
 From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, 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 and 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 prophet 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".
passage 2
 "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:
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1.
2.
3.
This novel was written by the first American novelist. What is his name?
What is the name of the novel?
The central figure in this novel appeared in this passage. It is_____________ passage 3
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Questions:
1. What is the title of this poem from which these lines are selected?
2. What does the title mean?
3. The meter of this poem is__________ .
A. iambic pentameter
B. sonnet
C. scansion
D. rhythm
4. According to this selection, to whom does nature speak? To what two different human moods does nature respond?
passage 4
Once upon a midnight dreary, while i pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more. "
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;
— vainly I had tried to borrow
Questions:
From my books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost.
1.
Who is the writer of these lines?
2.
What is the title of this poem from which the selection is selected?
3.
Recognize the sound devices in the following lines. LI ________ L4
________L7________ L10________
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4.
Describe the mood of this poem.
Passage 5
Lo! in you brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!
Questions:
1.
This is the last stanza of a poem To Helen. Who wrote this poem To
Heleni
2.
With whom is Helen associated in Line 4 of the present stanza?
3.
Who is Psyche?
Passage 6
 To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these preachers of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
Questions:
1.
This paragraph is taken from a famous essay. What is the name of the essay?
2.
Who is the author?
3.
What does the author say would happen if the stars appeared one night in a thou sand years?
4.
Give a peculiar term to cover the author's belief.
Passage 7
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 Standing on the bare ground
— my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space
— all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the
Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.
Questions:
1.
2.
Which work is this selection taken from?
How do you understand the philosophical ideas in these words?
Passage 8
 I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and
Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of
God.
Questions:
1.
This passage is taken from a famous work entitled _________ .
2.
The author of the work is____________ .
3.
List by yourself at least five reasons that the author gives for going to live in the woods.
Passage 9
 There is a time in every man' s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion... Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Who so would be a man must be a nonconformist.
Questions:
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1.
2.
3.
This selection is selected from an essay. What is the title of this essay?
Who is the author of this essay?
According to this selection, what do you think the author believes in?
Passage 10
 Hester Prynne' s term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the 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?
2.
What is the name of the novelist?
3.
What are the symbolic meanings of the scarlet letter on Hester's breast?
Passage 11
 It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho, was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho's story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions ofsecrecy, but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well
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withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod' s main-mast . Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record.
Questions:
1.
2.
From which novel is this paragraph taken?
What is the name of the novelist?
3.
Who is Ahab?
4.
5.
What is Pequod?
What is the theme of the novel?
Keys to Part III
I. Make multiple choices
1.
ABCD
2.
3.
D
B
4.
B
5.
A
6.
B
7.
8.
D
C
9.
ABC
10.
ABC
11.
ABCD
12.
13.
ABCD
AB
14.
C
15.
BC
16.
ABCD
17.
ABCD
18.
D
19.
ABCD
20.
D
21.
A
22.
C
23.
A
24.
A
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25.
ABCD
26.
E
27.
28.
A
ABCD
29.
B
30.
C
31.
ABCDE
32.
33.
A
ABCD
34.
AB
35.
B
36.
A
37.
38.
ABCDE
A
39.
A
40.
B
41.
ABC
42.
43.
ABC
B
II. Identify the fragments.
passage 1
1.
Washington Irving
2.
3.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
A short story is 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 2
1.
James Fenimore Cooper
2.
3.
The Last of the Mohicans
Hawkeye passage 3
1.
Thanatopsis
2.
View of death
3.
4.
A
Nature speaks to him who in the love of Nature holds communion with nature ' s visible forms. Nature responds to two human moods, one is gayness; the other is gloominess, or sadness.
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passage 4
1.
Edgar Allan Poe
2.
The Raven
3.
LI
—
Alliteration, L4
—
Onomatopoeia, L7
—
Internal rhyme, L10
—
Assonance
4.
A sense of melancholy over the death of a beloved beautiful young woman pervades the whole poem, the portrayal of a young man grieving for his lost Leno-re, his grief turned to madness under the steady one-word repetition of the talking bird.
passage 5
1.
Edgar Allan Poe
2.
3.
Psyche
Psyche is the goddess of the soul in Greek mythology.
passge 6
1.
Nature
2.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3.
Then, the men cannot believe and adore the God, cannot preserve there membrance of the city of God which had been shown.
4.
Transcendentalism passage 7
1.
Nature
2.
Ralph Waldo Emerson regards nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man, and advocated a direct intuition
3.
of a spiritual and immanent God in nature. In this connection,
Emerson' s emotional experiences are exemplary in more ways than one.
Now this is a moment of "conversion" when one feels completely merged with the outside world, when one has completely sunk into nature and become one with it, and when the soul has gone beyond the physical limits of the body to share the omniscience of the
Oversoul. In a word, the soul has completely transcended the limits of individuality and become part of the Oversoul. Emerson sees spirit pervading everywhere, not only in the soul of man, but behind nature, throughout nature.
passage 8
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1.
Walden
2.
Henry David Thoreau
3.
Find the answer from the passage.
passage 9
1.
2.
Self-Reliance
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3.
He believed above all in individualism, independence of mind, and self-reliance.
passage 10
1.
The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne
2.
adultery, able, angel passage 11
1.
Moby Dick
2.
Herman Melville
3.
The captain of the whaling ship
4.
The name of the whaling ship
5.
The rebellious struggle of Captain Ahab against the overwhelming, mysterious vastness of the universe and its awesome sometimes merciless forces.
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