I, Please answer ONE of the following questions (40)
1, In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan displays tremendous heroic energy, and we cannot but admire him. Is Satan a hero? Why (not)? You might want to compare Satan with Adam and Christ the Son to make your point.
2, A conceit is a far-fetched and ingenious comparison. The metaphysical conceit is a more intellectualized, many-leveled comparison, giving a strong sense of the poet’s ingenuity in overcoming obstacles. John Donne’s conceits leap continually in a restless orbit from the personal to the cosmic and back again. Please pick two examples of metaphysical conceits form Donne and comment on them.
II. Please answer ONE of the following questions.(40)
1, Many people believe that the Puritan Movement and the Puritan migration to North American in early 17th century are a form of religious revivalism. However, critics argue that the Puritan enterprise is a much more complicated phenomenon, which cannot be limited only to its religious aspect. Which view do you agree? Please give two or more examples (and with proper analyses) from the writings of Puritan Era to explain your opinion.
2, In 19th century American novelists, Nathaniel Hawthorne stands out for his extraordinary familiarity with the social and religious life of early New England society and for his profound understanding of the innate complexity of human nature (its irrepressible tendencies and ambivalent impulses, the impossibility of eradicating sin from the human heart). Please give two or more examples (with proper analyses) from the novels or tales of Howthorne in order to demonstrate and explain both the historical imagination of Howthorne and his Mastery of psychological insight.
III. Answer ONE of the following questions. (40)
1The Romantic Age in Britain was a time when domestic unrest combined with international turmoil to raise the awareness of Englishness on the part of the people. Briefly analyze two literary works of this period, focusing on how they reflect such heightened national/international consciousness.
2. Choose two among the great number of heroines of the English novel and briefly analyze the source(s) of their social power. What, for example, give these women advantage over their rivals or men, and how?
IV, The following passage is taken from an essay by the modern French critic Roland Barthes. See if you are aware of any intellectual background against which Barthes’s view may have occurred, and elaborate upon or respond to or refute the passage in a way you see fit. (30)
Whatever the complexity of literature theory, a novelist or a poet is supposed to speak about objects and phenomenon which, whether imaginary or not, are external and anterior to language. The world exists and the writer use language; such is the definition of literature. The object of criticism is very different; it deal with “the world”, but with the linguistic formulations made by others; it is a comment on a comment. a secondary language or meta-language (as the logicians would say), applied to a primary language (or language-as-object). It follows that critical activity must take two kinds of relationships into account: the relationship between the critical language and the language of the author under consideration and the relationship between the latter (language-as-object) and the world. Criticism is defined by the interaction of these two languages and so bears a close resemblance to another intellectual activity, logic, which is also entirely founded on the distinction between language-as-object and meta-language.
试卷二:
北京大学2007年硕士研究生入学考试试题（专业能力）
英翻汉
A strong common sense, which it is not easy to unseat or disturb, marks the English mind for a thousand years: a rude strength newly applied to thought, as of sailors and soldiers who had lately learned to read. They have no fancy, and never are surprised into a covert or witty word, such as pleased the Athenians and Italians, and was convertible into a fable not long after; but they delight in strong earthy expression, not mistakable, coarsely true to the human body, and, though spoken among princes, equally fit and welcome to the mob. This homeliness, veracity, and plain style, appear in the earliest extant works, and in the latest. It imports into songs and ballads the smell of the earth, the breath of cattle, and, like a Dutch painter, seeks a household charm, though by pails and pans. They ask their constitutional utility in verse. The kail and herrings are never out of sight. The poet nimbly recovers himself from every sally of the imagination. The English muse loves the farmyard, the lane, and market. She says, with De Stael, "I tramp in the mire with wooden shoes, whenever they would force me into the clouds." For, the Englishman has accurate perceptions; takes hold of things by the right end, and there is no slipperiness in his grasp. He loves the axe, the spade, the oar, the gun, the steampipe: he has built the engine he uses. He is materialist, economical, mercantile. He must be treated with sincerity and reality, with muffins, and not the promise of muffins; and prefers his hot chop, with perfect security and convenience in the eating of it, to the chances of the amplest and Frenchiest bill of fare, engraved on embossed paper. When he is intellectual, and a poet or a philosopher, he carries the same hard truth and the same keen machinery into the mental sphere. His mind must stand on a fact. He will not be baffled, or catch at clouds, but the mind must have a symbol palpable and resisting. What he relishes in Dante, is the vice-like tenacity with which he holds a mental image before the eyes, as if it were a scutcheon painted on a shield. Byron "liked something craggy to break his mind upon." A taste for plain strong speech, what is called a biblical style, marks the English. It is in Alfred, and the Saxon Chronicle, and in the Sagas of the Northmen. Latimer was homely. Hobbes was perfect in the "noble vulgar speech." Donne, Bunyan, Milton, Taylor, Evelyn, Pepys, Hooker, Cotton, and the translators, wrote it. How realistic or materialistic in treatment of his subject, is Swift. He describes his fictitious persons, as if for the police. Defoe has no insecurity or choice. Hudibras has the same hard mentality, --keeping the truth at once to the senses, and to the intellect.
It is not less seen in poetry. Chaucer's hard painting of his Canterbury pilgrims satisfies the senses. Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, in their loftiest ascents, have this national grip and exactitude of mind. This mental materialism makes the value of English transcendental genius; in these writers, and in Herbert, Henry More, Donne, and Sir Thomas Browne. The Saxon materialism and narrowness, exalted into the sphere of intellect, makes the very genius of Shakspeare and Milton. When it reaches the pure element, it treads the clouds as securely as the adamant. Even in its elevations, materialistic, its poetry is common sense inspired; or iron raised to white heat.
Contributed by Ralph Waldo Emerson
RWE.org - The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson - Volume V - English Traits (1856)
