1、 Newclassicism.ArevivalofclassicalGreekandRomanformsinart,music,literature,particularly duringtheeighteenthnineteenthcenturiesEuropeAmerica,usuallyassociatedwithEnlightenment,drawingonmodelsemphasizingreason,harmony,restraint.RenaissancewasliteratureartisticstylesEuropeanhistory.Ittransitionalperiod
2、betweenMiddle-Agesmoderntimes,.significantachievementchangesIn neoclassicisms they wanted to recreate classicism, generally the style of the Greeks and Romans. The renaissance was a rebirth, all of a sudden religion was not the main way people received information, science started answering all of t
3、hose unanswerable questions. The neoclassicists wanted a simpler less chaotic method of thought. Neoclassicism was the beginning of the enlightenment. In this phase the emphasis was on logic as the supreme tool for intellectual discovery and on order and simplicity in artistic form. In verse, the fr
4、eedom of the Renaissance was neglected in favour of strict forms while in music more formal structures took over from Renaissance free form. 3. In what different ways can the novel Robinson Crusoe be interpreted? The novel can be read in different ways. Most simply, it is a story of sea adventures.
5、To read it politically, we may interpret the story as an artistic projection of colonial expansion. Crusoe, backed by advanced technology （the gun）, conquers a less civilized people represented by Friday. Though they become good friends, Friday has remained a servant, if not a slave, to his master C
6、rusoe since the first day they met. To read it socially, we find that Crusoes adventures imply different Western cultural values. The novel sings a song of “the dignity of labor,” a slogan which the bourgeoisie used to justify their accumulation of wealth through diligent work and colonial expansion
7、. Robinson is a self-made man. He succeeds in creating a new life all through his own efforts. The novel also explores the theme of “back to nature”. Industrialization brought England material wealth, but it also ended the peaceful life in the countryside and created appalling poverty in the city. T
8、he novel expresses a desire to go back to a more economic and basic lifestyle. After four years on the island, Robinson starts to like its idyllic life.4. The most literary of Francis Bacons works is his famous collection of essays, The Essays. Could you list some of the typical features of The Essa
9、ys in detail?The most literary of Bacons works is his famous collection of essays, The Essays, or Counsels, Civil and Morall. These essays were immediately successful and greatly liked by the public for three reasons. Firstly, the literary form was new to the English audience. Although essays had be
10、en written since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the form received its name only after 1580. it was the French philosopher Montaigne who first called his prose pieces essays, and Bacon borrowed the title from him. But different from Montaignes persona and informal style, Bacons style is m
11、ore formal and more tightly organized.Secondly, these essays cover a variety of subjects, ranging from abstract subjects such as “the meaning of truth” and “the composition of beauty” to concrete, practical matters such as “friendship,” “marriage,” and “parents and children.” Bacons essays came at a
12、 time of great intellectual and social changes-a time when the English people were readjusting their visions and moral standards. These changes included a vast number of matters such as a new attitude towards life and death, a stronger desire to explore the unknown fields of knowledge, and a better
13、understanding of ones inner self in relation to the outside world.Thirdly, these essays, though short, are sinewy, full of wisdom, and elegantly phrased. They offer people useful and practical advice, and encourage people to play more active roles in their social life. Bacons essays consist of many
14、good examples of worldly wisdom. The following are among the most frequently quoted quotes in the English language.5.Give a brief account of the contributions which William Wordsworth made to the development of the English poetry.As a great Romantic poet, Wordsworth made great contributions to the d
15、evelopment of the English poetry. His Lyrical Ballads, written with Coleridge, is generally regarded as the symbol of the beginning of the Romantic period in England. He defined the poet as a “man speaking to men” and poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which originates in emot
16、ion recollected in tranquility.” Wordsworth is regarded as a “worshipper of nature.” Nature stands out in his poetry. A case in point is I wandered Lonely as a Cloud, one of the most beautiful poems in English literature. He sympathizes with the poor and their joys and sorrows are his constant theme
17、s. His poetry is characterized by simplicity and purity of his language. Wordsworth is the leading figure of the English Romantic poetry, the major poetic voice of the period. The most important contribution he has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry but also changed the course of
18、 English poetry. He is one of English “Lake Poets”.6.What are the similarities and differences between English Romanticism and American Romanticism?7.In what different ways can the novel Moby-Dick be interpreted? The difficult symbol of all is Moby Dick, the white whale, which can be interpreted in
19、different ways and means different things for different people. To Ahab, the whale is either an evil creature itself or the agent of an evil force that controls the universe, or perhaps both. As to the reader, the whale can be viewed as a symbol of the physical limits that life imposes upon man. It
20、may also be regarded as a symbol of nature, or an instrument of Gods vengeance upon evil man. To Ishmael, the whale has multiple implications. It is an astonishing force, an immense power, which defies rational explanation due to a sense of mystery it has. It is beautiful, benign, but malignant as w
21、ell. It also represents the tremendous organic vitality of the universe, for it has a life force that surges onward irresistibly, impervious to the desires or wills of men. These are just a few example of possible interpretations people come up with. In general, the multiplicity and ambivalence of t
22、he symbolic meaning of the whale is such that it becomes a source of intense speculation, an object of profound curiosity for the reader, as well as for Ishmael.8.What makes Dickinsons poems memorable despite their thematic simplicity?Her poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her poems
23、 have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines. In her poetry there is a particular stress pattern. Dickinsons irregular or sometimes inverted sentence structure also confuses readers. However, her poetic idiom is noted for its brevity, directness and plainness. Her poems are usually
24、short, rarely more than twenty lines, and many of them are centered on a single image or symbol and focused on one subject matter. Due to her deliberate seclusion, her poems tend to be very personal and meditative. She frequently uses personae to render the tone more familiar to the reader, and pers
25、onification to vivify some abstract ideas. Dickinsons poetry, despite its ostensible formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness; and her limited private world has never confined the great power of her creativity and imagination. 9. How does naturalism reflected in Theodo
26、re Dreisers works? As a genre, naturalism emphasized heredity and environment as important deterministic forces shaping individualized characters who were presented in special and detailed circumstances. At bottom, life was shown to be ironic, even tragic. Dreiser described earthly existence as “a w
27、elter of inscrutable forces,” in which was trapped each individual human being. In his words, Man is a “victim of forces over which he has no control.” To him, life is so sad, so strange, so mysterious and so inexplicable. No wonder the characters in his books are often subject to the control of the
28、 natural forces - especially those of environment and heredity. In Sister Carrie Dreiser expressed his naturalistic pursuit by expounding the purposelessness of life and attacking the conventional moral standards.From the first novel Sister Carrie on, Dreiser set himself to project the American valu
29、es for what he had found them to be -materialistic to the core. Living in such a society with such a value system, the human individual is obsessed with a never-ending, yet meaningless search for satisfaction of his desires. One of the desires is for money which was a motivating purpose of life in the
