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北京航空航天大学外国语学院821英语语言文学（英语语言文学专业）历年考研真题及详解试读：
2012年北京航空航天大学822英美文学考研真题及详解
I. Define and exemplify the following terms (20／150，5×4)
1.Symbol
2.Tragedy
3.Aesthetic distance
4.Ambiguity
5.Paradox
II. Essay Questions and Literary Analysis (30／150，3×10)
1. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the tragic hero Hamlet seems to be delaying his revenge. Why? Please give your
explanations by in-depth analysis with textual evidences.
2. How do you understand the Enlightenment Spirit? Please illustrate your points by analyzing at least two literary works from the English eighteenth century.
3. How do you understand the nature of the American Dream? Please analyze the theme of American Dream as revealed in literary works with at least two examples.
Ⅲ. Literary Translation(40／150, 2×20)
1.Translate the following English into Chinese.
No woman can be too rich or too thin. This saying often attributed to the late Duchess of Windsor embodies much of the odd spirit of our times. Being thin is deemed as such a virtue. The problem with such a view is that some people actually attempt to live by it. I myself have fantasies of slipping into narrow designer clothes. Consequently, I have been on a diet for the better—or worse—part of my life. Being rich wouldn’t be bad either, but that won’t happen unless an unknown relative dies suddenly in some distant land, leaving me millions of dollars.
2.Translate the following Chinese into English.
人有时非常矛盾。本来活得好好的，各方面的环境都不错，然而当事者却常常心存厌倦。对人类这种因生命的平淡和缺少激情而苦恼的心态，有时是不能用不知足来解释的。我曾对住在森林的一对夫妻羡慕不已，因为森林里有清新的空气，有大片的杉树、竹林，有幽静的林间小道，有鸟语和花香。然而，当这对夫妇知道有人羡慕他们的住所时，却神情诧异。他们认为这儿没有多少值得观光和留恋的景致，远不如城市丰富有趣。
IV. Literary Selections and Analysis (60／150，6×10)
1．
WHEN the sweet showers of April fall and shoot,
Down throw the drought of March to pierce the root,
Bathing every vein in liquid power
From which there springs the endangering of the flower,
When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath
Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,
And the small fowl are making melody
That sleep away the night with open eye
Then people long to go on pilgrimages.
a. Identify the author and the work from which the passage is selected.
b. Why is the work regarded as a masterpiece?
c. Comment on the language style of the writer.
2．
And yet nothing had changed since the moments when he had been kissing her: or rather, nothing in the substance of things. But the essence of things had changed.
…
These and other of his words were nothing but the perfunctory babble of the surface while the depths remained paralyzed. He turned away, and bent over a chair. [She] followed him to the middle of the room where he was, and stood there staring at him with eyes that did not weep. Presently she slid down upon her knees beside his foot, and from this position she crouched in a heap.‘In the name of our love, forgive me!’ she whispered with a dry mouth. ‘I have forgiven you for the same!’
And, as he did not answer, she said again—
Forgive me as you are forgiven! I forgive you, Angel. ‘‘You—yes, you do. ‘
But you do not forgive me?’‘O […], forgiveness does not apply to the case! You were one person: now you are another. My God—how can forgiveness meet such a grotesque—prestidigitation as that!’
He paused, contemplating this definition: then suddenly broke into horrible laughter—as unnatural and ghastly as a laugh in hell.‘Don’t—don’t! It kills me quite, that!’ she shrieked. ‘O have mercy upon me—have mercy!’
He did not answer: and, sickly white, she jumped up.
a. Identify the author and the work from which the passage is selected.
b. Analyze the significance of the book’s subtitle.
c. Analyze the personality of the heroine and hero.
3．
She became aware of something about her. With an effort she roused herself to see what it was that penetrated her consciousness. The tall white lilies were reeling in the moonlight, and the air was charged with their perfume, as with a presence. Mrs. Morel gasped slightly in fear. She touched the big, pallid flowers on their petals, then shivered. They seemed to be stretching in the moonlight. She put her hand into one white bin: the gold scarcely showed on her fingers by moonlight. She bent down to look at the binful of yellow pollen：but it only appeared dusky. Then she drank a deep draught of the scent. It almost made her dizzy.
Mrs. Morel leaned on the garden gate, looking out, and she lost herself awhile. She did not know what she thought. Except for a slight feeling of sickness, and her consciousness in the child, herself melted out like scent into the shiny, pale air. After a time the child, too, melted with her in the mixing-pot of moonlight, and she rested with the hills and lilies and houses, all swum together in a kind of swoon.
a. Identify the author and the work from which the passage is selected.
b. Define the author’s realism with the analysis of the above text.
c. What is theme of his work? Also explain the author’s understanding of sexuality.
4．
The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule, it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house somewhere in the vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson’s lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of King’s Chapel. Certain it is that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the New World. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilised society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.
This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history: but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it-or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison-door—we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolise some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.……
But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer,—so that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time,—was that scarlet letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself.
a. Identify the author of the work from which the passage is selected.
b. What is the structure of the story?
c. What are the symbolic meanings of the letter borne by the heroine?
d. What are the symbolic meanings of the four major protagonists?
e. Comment on the selected passages.
5．
There was, of course, a catch.“Catch-22?” inquired Yossarian.“Of course,”Colonel Korn answered pleasantly, after he had chased the mighty M. P. s out with an insouciant flick of his hand and a slightly contemptuous—most relaxed, as always, when he could be most cynical. His rimless square eyeglasses glinted with sly amusement as he gazed at Yossarian. “After all, we can’t simply send you home for refusing to fly more missions and keep the rest of the men here, can we? That would hardly be fair to them.”
a. Identify the author from which the passage is selected.
b. What is the absurd rule or regulation in the novel?
c. What writing technique is the novel famous for?
6.
The Apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough.
a. Identify the author and the work from which the passage is selected.
b. What literary school does the poet belong to? Please give a definition of that school.
c. Please analyze the poem.参考答案及解析
I. Define and exemplify the following terms
1. A symbol is an object that represents, stands for, or suggests an idea, visual image, belief, action, or material entity.
Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, or visual images and are used to convey ideas and beliefs. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for “STOP”. On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for numbers. Personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose symbolizes love and compassion.
2. Tragedy is a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes in its audience an accompanying catharsis or
pleasure in the viewing. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term tragedy often refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—“the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity,” as Raymond Williams puts it.
3. Aesthetic distance refers to the gap between a viewer’s conscious reality and the fictional reality presented in a work
of art. When a reader becomes fully engrossed in the illusory narrative world of a book, the author has achieved a close aesthetic distance. If the author then jars the reader from the reality of the story, essentially reminding the reader they are reading a book, the author is said to have “violated the aesthetic distance.” The notion of aesthetic distance derives from an article by William Bullough published in 1912. In that article, he begins with the image of a passenger on a ship observing fog at sea. If the passenger thinks of the fog in terms of danger to the ship, the experience is not aesthetic, but to regard the beautiful scene in detached wonder is to take legitimate aesthetic attitude. One must feel, but not too much. Bullough writes, “Distance … is obtained by separating the object and its appeal from one’s own self, by putting it out of gear with practical needs and ends. Thereby the ‘contemplation’ of the object becomes alone possible.
Authors of film, fiction, drama, and poetry evoke different levels of aesthetic distance. For instance, William Faulkner tends to invoke a close aesthetic distance by using first-person narrative and stream of consciousness, while Ernest Hemingway tends to invoke a greater aesthetic distance from the reader through use of third person narrative.
4. Ambiguity is an attribute of any concept, idea, statement or claim whose meaning, intention or interpretation cannot be
definitively resolved according to a rule or process consisting of a finite number of steps.
The concept of ambiguity is generally contrasted with vagueness. In ambiguity, specific and distinct interpretations are permitted (although some may not be immediately apparent), whereas with information that is vague, it is difficult to form any interpretation at the desired level of specificity.
Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity. For example, the same piece of information may be ambiguous in one context and unambiguous in another.
5. A paradox is a statement that apparently contradicts itself and yet might be true. Most logical paradoxes are known to
be invalid arguments but are still valuable in promoting critical thinking.
Some paradoxes have revealed errors in definitions assumed to be rigorous, and have caused axioms of mathematics and logic to be re-examined. One example is Russell's paradox, which questions whether a “list of all lists that do not contain themselves” would include itself, and showed that attempts to found set theory on the identification of sets with properties or predicates were flawed. Others, such as Curry's paradox, are not yet resolved.
Examples outside logic include the Ship of Theseus from philosophy (questioning whether a ship repaired over time by replacing each of its wooden parts would remain the same ship). Paradoxes can also take the form of images or other media. For example, M.C. Escher featured perspective-based paradoxes in many of his drawings, with walls that are regarded as floors from other points of view, and staircases that appear to climb endlessly.
In common usage, the word “paradox” often refers to statements that are ironic or unexpected, such as “the paradox that standing is more tiring than walking”.
II. Essay Questions and Literary Analysis
1. There are many reasons as to why Hamlet might be delaying the revenge. One of Hamlet’s many reasons could be that
he is afraid of the consequence after killing. He worries that the killing will cause turbulence to his country. He can not decide to take such revenge. Hamlet is quite religious seeing that he fears his fait if murdering Claudius during his prayer, “Now might I do it pat, now he is a-praying, and now I’ll do’t - and so goes to heaven, and am I reneged. That would be scanned. A villain kills my father, and for that, I his sole son do this same villain send to Heaven.” This shows the audience that Hamlet is religious and that he fears the result of killing, Hamlet knows that if he kills Claudius while he prays, Claudius will go to heaven, and Hamlet will have to suffer the sin of killing. Another reason as to why Hamlet postponed the revenge, could be that he didn’t want to hurt his mother Gertrude, especially after his father warned him not to hurt her in any way “I will speak daggers to her but use non”, this indicates Hamlets protection over his mother, he will “speak in daggers” talk to her with a sharp tone but “use non” to hurt his mother. It could be said that Hamlet didn’t want to kill Claudius because he didn’t want to see his mother suffer a loss of another loved one.
2. Enlightenment refers to a progressive intellectual movement beginning in France and then spread throughout Europe. It is an expression of struggle of the then progressive class of bourgeoisie against feudalism. The phrase was frequently employed by writers of the period itself, convinced that they were emerging from centuries of darkness and ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science, education and a respect of humanity. The enlighteners fought against class inequality, stagnation, prejudice, and other survivals of feudalism. They attempted to place all branches of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual deeds and requirements of the people. They accepted bourgeois relationships as rightful and reasonable relationships among people. As to works, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels are representative works of Enlightenment. They fully reveal the enlightenment spirit of that age.
3. American Dream means that America is a place full of opportunities to be successful and if people work hard and are diligent enough, they can get the wealth and fame that they want; wealth, material possession and power are the core values of American Dream. Gatsby in The Great Gatsby and Willy in Death of a Salesman are two representatives of the victims of American Dream. Gatsby gets money by doing illegal business and lives luxurious life which makes him lonely and meaningless, finally, he was killed; thus, his American dream is shattered. While Willy is a salesman and he is eager to be successful, but he is frustrated by the environment and people around him, being not able to stand such reality, he commits suicide; his American dream is shattered as well.
Ⅲ.Literary Translation
1.Translate the following English into Chinese.
女人钱再多也不多，女人再瘦也不瘦。这句常被认为是已故温莎公爵夫人说的话，很大程度上体现了时代精神的怪异———瘦被视为难得的优点。此观点的问题在于有些人实际上力图身体力行。我自己就幻想能轻松套上瘦小的时装，结果不管对自己生活有无好处，一味节食。有钱也不是什么坏事，但这种情况不会落在我身上———除非某个遥远国度有个不认识的亲戚突然死了，留给我几百万美元遗产。
2.Translate the following Chinese into English.
People are forever in a dilemma. They live a fairly good life and their circumstances are as good as can be, but from time to time they grow tired of all this. One can hardly attribute this mentality, arising from life’s monotony and lack of passion, to insatiability on the part of humans. I used to envy a married couple who lived in a forest, where groves of fir trees and bamboos flourished, with quiet and secluded cobble stone paths meandering through the woods, birds chirping beautifully and flowers permeating fragrance. Yet when they realized that they had unwittingly become an object of admiration owing to the unique location of their house, they were truly perplexed. In their eyes, there was little in the forest which deserved to be seen or made such a fuss about when compared to the fun and abundant life a metropolis can provide!
IV. Literary Selections and Analysis
1．
a. The author is Geoffrey Chaucer, and the work is selected from The Canterbury Tales.
b. Because in this work, Chaucer shows a true-to-life panorama of his then time. Taking from the stand of rising
bourgeoisie, Chaucer affirms men and opposes the dogma of asceticism preached by the church. He praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love for life. His tales expose and satirize the evils of his time, attack degeneration of the noble and the corruption of the church. This work is full of beautiful thoughts and language, so it is regarded as a masterpiece.
c. Chaucer’s language is vivid and exact. His verse is among the smoothest in English literature. Chaucer’s contribution
to English poetry is that he introduced from France the rhymed stanza of various types, especially the heroic couplet to English poetry. He did much in making the London dialect the standard for the modern English speech. He is good at the terza rima, which makes his language a high style. Chaucer is a master of language.
2．
a. The author is Thomas Hardy, and the passage is selected from Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
b. The subtitle of the book is A Pure Woman which shows the great sympathy of Thomas Hardy. And from this subtitle
we can see that Hardy confirms the inner purity of Tess, at the same time, he criticizes people’s hypocrisy and the harsh reality.
c. Tess is a beautiful young woman who is intelligent, naïve, passionate and kind-hearted. She is trapped into her fate and
can not get out. She is unfortunate and deduced by Alec, who is the evil representative in the book and killed by Tess desperately in the end. As a result, Tess is sentenced to death.
Angel is the very man that Tess loves, but he does not cherish her love for him, and he abandons Tess when he knows that Tess is deduced by Alec. Although he is a freethinking young man and a thtypical 19-century progressive, believing in the nobility of man, he sticks to the traditional values firmly, which make him mean, selfish, narrow-minded and unable to forgive.
3.
a. The author is D. H. Lawrence, and the passage is selected from Sons and Lovers.
b. D. H. Lawrence was one of the heirs of the genre of realism, especially psychological realism. Through out this novel, Lawrence reflects the reality, criticizes the reality and fully embodies the realist thoughts of his. In the above text, Lawrence shows the realistic depiction of Mrs. Morel’s actions and feelings, which is true to life.
c. This work is taken as a typical example and lively manifestation
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