10.2　考研真题与典型题详解

I. Fill in the blanks.

1．The Spy was written by ________.（大连外国语2007研）

【答案】James Fenimore Cooper

【解析】《间谍》是美国早期作家James Fenimore Cooper的一篇小说。

2．James Fenimore Cooper’s novel ________ was a rousing tale about espionage against the British during the Revolutionary War.

【答案】The Spy

【解析】詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库柏（James Fenimore Cooper）认为他的小说《间谍》“应当是一部纯粹美国式的以爱国为主题的书”。

3．The central figure in The Leatherstocking Tales is ________, who goes by the various names of Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, Pathfinder and Hawkeye.

【答案】Natty Bumppo

【解析】《皮袜子故事集》是美国作家詹姆斯•费尼莫尔•库柏的系列小说。该故事集中的主要人物是Natty Bumppo。在不同的故事中他有皮裹腿、杀鹿者、探路人及鹰眼等别名。

4．In 1823 Cooper James Fenimore wrote The Pioneers, the first of the five novels that make up ______. The remaining four books: The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841), continue the story of Natty Bumppo, one of the most famous characters in American fiction.

【答案】The Leatherstocking Tales

【解析】《皮袜子故事集》包括《拓荒者》、《最后的莫希干人》、《大草原》、《探路人》和《杀鹿者》五部小说。

5．The best of James Fenimore Cooper’s sea romances was ________.The hero of the novel represents John Paul Jones, the great naval fighter of the Revolutionary War.

【答案】The Pilot

【解析】小说《领航者》是詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库柏（James Fenimore Cooper）最好的海上传奇故事。小说主人公影射了美国独立战争期间的伟大的海军斗士——约翰·保罗·琼斯。

6．The first important American novelist was ________.

【答案】James Fenimore Cooper

【解析】詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库柏是美国首位重要的小说家。他最有成就的作品，如《皮袜子故事集》五部曲，对美国的西部小说产生很大影响。

7．_________by _________records the history of modern civilization advancing on the receding wilderness, and its basic conflict is between the protagonist who insists on man’s old forest freedom and the judge who believes that man remains savage without law and order. (天津外国语2012研)

【答案】The Leatherstocking Tales, James Fenimore Cooper

【解析】《皮袜子故事集》反映了野蛮与文明、自然法律与社会法律、好与恶等对立关系之间的冲突与斗争。

II. Multiple Choices

1．Natty Bumppo is the protagonist appearing in a series of five novels written by ________. （四川大学2011研）

A. Mark Twain

B. Theodore Dreise

C. Nathaniel Hawthorne

D. James Fenimore Cooper

【答案】D

【解析】James Fenimore Cooper (库伯) 是美国浪漫主义时期早期的代表作家之一，Natty Bumppo是他的五部曲The Leatherstocking Tales的主人公。同时代的代表作家还有Washington Irving。Nathaniel Hawthorne是这一时期后期出现的代表作家，其代表作是The Scarlet Letter (《红字》)。

2．Which ONE of the following is the author of The Leatherstocking Tales? （四川大学2008研）

A. Henry David Thoreau.

B. Washington Irving.

C. Edgar Allan Poe.

D. James Fennimore Cooper.

【答案】D

【解析】James Fenimore Cooper，美国早期作家，《皮袜子故事集》是他的经典之作。

3．James Fennimore Cooper’s novel _________ is the first to reveal the west and Native Americans’ life in a passionate way. （北二外2007研）

A. Go Down, Moses

B. The Last of the Mohicans

C. Winesburg, Ohio

D. O, Pioneers!

【答案】B

【解析】《最后的莫希干人》描写的是美国西部边疆和美洲土著印第安人的生活。选项A《去吧，摩西》的作者是William Faulkner（威廉·福克纳）；选项C《小城畸人》的作者是Sherwood Anderson（舍伍德·安德森）；选项D的作者是女作家Willa Cather（薇拉·凯瑟）。

III. Read the following quotation and answer the questions.

“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:

1．This novel was written by the first American novelist. What is his name?

2．What is the name of the novel?

3．The central figure in this novel appeared in this passage. It is ________.

Key：

1．James Fenimore Cooper

2．The Last of the Mohicans

3．Hawkeye

IV. Short answer questions

1．Make an introductory comment on James Fenimore Cooper’s frontier saga The Leatherstocking Tales. （四川大学2009研）

Key：

The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. Natty Bumppo is the protagonist of the series. Although he is the child of white parents, he grows up with Native Americans, becoming a near-fearless warrior skilled in many weapons, one of which is the long rifle. He respects his forest home and all its inhabitants, hunting only what he needs to survive. When it comes time to fire his trusty flintlock, he lives by the rule, “One shot, one kill.” He and his Mohican “brother” Chingachgook champion goodness by trying to stop the incessant conflict between the Mohicans and the Hurons. He is known as “Deerslayer” in The Deerslayer, “Hawkeye” and “La Longue Carabine” in The Last of the Mohicans, “Pathfinder” in The Pathfinder, “Leatherstocking” in The Pioneers, and “the trapper” in The Prairie. The novels recount significant events in Natty Bumppo’s life from 1740 to 1806.

2．What are the artistic achievements of James Fenimore Cooper? And what are his major works?

Key：

①James Fenimore Cooper is regarded as the first great American writer of fiction. He initiated three genres of fiction: historical novel, sea novel, and frontier novel. His novels are filled with action-packed plots and vivid portrayal of American life in frontier and wilderness. He turned whatever American history can offer—the west and the frontier as a usable past—to good account and helped to introduce the “Western” tradition into American literature.

②Cooper’s claim to greatness in American literature lies in the fact that he created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. In 1823 Cooper wrote The Pioneers, the first of the five novels that make up The Leatherstocking Tales. The remaining four books: The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841), continue the story of Natty Bumppo, one of the most famous characters in American fiction. The Leatherstcoking Tales are noted for their portrayal of American subject matter in American settings. The hero of the tales, Natty Bumppo, embodies the conflict between preserving nature unspoiled and developing the land in the name of progress.

V. Essay questions

1．The desire to escape from society and return to nature has become a permanent convention of American literature since the 19th century. Please discuss this literary motif in social and cultural contexts, and illustrate it with two or three examples from the 19th and 20th American literature. (厦门大学2011研)

Key：

Since the American Romanticism in 19th century, the desire to escape from society and return to nature has become a permanent convention of American literature. This convention is closely related to American social and cultural contexts.

Socially, at the time of Romanticism, America was experiencing a great time of westward expansion. The confrontation with the Indians, the Wild West and the frontier’s life, all these give an impression of nature and serve as the materials for writing. In addition the great success of industrial transformation and nation independence urges the coming out of America’s own literature.

Culturally, the influence of England Romantic movement in England and Europe and the cultural heritage of American Puritanism and the “newness” of a nation endow the American literature its own features.

This desire is particularly evident in Cooper’s The Leatherstocking Tales, in Thoreau’s Walden and, later, in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In these works, the authors give nature some romantic and mysterious motif.

2．The American frontier and wilderness plays a significant symbolic role in American literary imagination. Please discuss the issue in an essay within about 400 words and relate your discussion to TWO to THREE individual works in the history of American Literature.（武汉大学2012研）

Key：

The importance of the frontier and the wilderness in American literature is for the first time well illustrated in Cooper’s The Leatherstocking Tales and was to remain a major concern for many later authors. Cooper’s claim to greatness in American literature lay in the fact that he created a myth about the formative period of the American nation. He wrote with increasing awareness of the importance to fiction of the Western frontier, where American society may be conceived as passing from one set of principle to another in two directions. Cooper’s power lay in his assurance that one direction was morally right and the other practically inevitable. Here lies Cooper’s conflict of allegiance. He was devoted to the principles of social order and responsible to the idea of nature and freedom in the wildness. His masterpiece The Leatherstocking Tales contains a five volume biography of the protagonist Natty Bumppo, who lives in a mysterious wild country and has a legendary career. The fact that he had never been to the frontier and among the Indians and yet could write five huge epic books about them is an eloquent proof of the richness of his imagination. His Indians are among the first appearing in American fiction and probably the first group of noble savages. He is a typical frontier man who is simple, honest, innocent, generous, intelligent, brave, and full of love for people and life.

Later on, Emerson advocated that American literature should pay attention to the Wilderness. To some extent, it reflects the spirit of American frontier and wilderness in literature. He held that the universe is composed of Nature and Soul. He regarded nature as the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man, and advocated a direct intuition of a spiritual and immanent God in nature.

In the modern period, Mark Twain’s masterpiece, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a work that reflects the conflicts between society and wilderness, civilization and savage. The Mississippi River is the symbol of wilderness which is opposite to the society symbolized by family and social environment in the novel. Huck is tired of his living condition and escapes from his father to the river and drifts along the river with Jim, a black man, who escapes from his master as well. For them, the Mississippi River is a pleasant wilderness which satisfies their longing for freedom and liberation.

Thus, we can see that American literature of frontier and wilderness shows Americans’ pioneering and freedom-pursuing spirit.