Give brief answers to the following
questions. 1.What are the characteristics of the Colonial Literature?
In a real sense, there were no literal works in the early colonial period. They were just personal literature in the form of diaries, travel books, letters, journals, sermons, histories and prose.
(1) In content, they wrote about the voyage to the new land, about adopting themselves to unfamiliar climates and crops, about dealing with Indian, and especially about religion.
(2) In form, English traditions were imitated. 2.Comment briefly on Emily Dickinson’s themes?
(1) By far the largest portion of Dickinson’s poetry concerns death and immortality, theme which lie at the centre of Dickinson’s world.
(2) Dickinson’s nature poems are also great in number and rich in matter. Natural phenomena, changes of seasons, heavenly bodies, animals, birds and insects, flowers of various kinds, and many other subjects related to nature find her way into her poetry.
(3) Dickinson also wrote some poems about love. Like her death and nature poems, her love poems were original.
(4) Besides deaths and immortality, nature and love, Dickinson’s poems are concerned about ethics, with respect to which, she emphasizes free will and human responsibility.
4 Henry James is a great realistic writer. Name two of his major works. Do you know anything about his narrative “point of view”? What is it for? How does James employ it in his works? Briefly discuss this question.
(1) Henry James’s major works include Daisy Miller and The Portrait of A Lady, etc.
(2) One of Henry James literary techniques is his narrative “point of view.” As the author, James avoids the authorial omniscience as much as possible and makes his characters reveal themselves with his minimal intervention. So it is often the case that in his novels we usually learn the main story by reading through one or several minds and share their perspectives. This narrative method proves to be successful in bringing out his themes. 5. Tell the differences between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman
(1) Emily Dickinson expresses the inner life of individuals, while Walt Whitman keeps his eyes on the society at large.
(2) Emily Dickinson is “regional”, while Walt Whitman is “national” in his outlook. (3) Formally, Emily Dickinson uses
concise, simple dictions and syntax, while Walt Whitman uses endless, all-inclusive catalogs.
8. Briefly discuss the Jazz Age
“The Jazz Age” describes the period the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between World War I and World War II, particularly in North America; with the rise of the Great Depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term “The Jazz Age”. It can also be known as “The Roaring Twenties” and “The Dollar Decade.”
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