405 United States Literature and Art in the Nineteenth Century
Paragraph 1: At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the United States was a provincial culture, still looking to Britain for values, standards, literature, and art, despite all the rapid improvements in communication—for example, the great growth in the number of magazines and newspapers—that occurred in the United States following independence from Great Britain. In a famous essay in the Edinburgh Review in 1820, Sydney Smith sarcastically inquired, “天津翻译专修学院In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? Or looks at an American picture or statue?”
1. Which of the ntences below best express the esntial information in the highlighted ntence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out esntial information.
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A. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the United States remained highly influenced by British culture, even though improvements had been made in communicatio
n in the United States
B. After gaining its independence from Great Britain, the United States experienced rapid improvements in communication
C. In the early nineteenth century, most magazines and newspapers in the United States dealt with British values standards, literature, and art
D. Communication improved rapidly in the nineteenth century, as demonstrated by the great growth in the number of magazines and newspapers.
Paragraph 2: Yet interest in the arts and the cultural institutions that sustain them was rapidly growing in America. To be sure, cultural institutions were difficult to create in the South, mainly becau the population was so widely disperd: and in the West, dominated in this era by pioneers, emphasis was on the practical rather than on the literary or artistic. But many eastern aboard cities were actively building the cultural foundation that would nurture a distinctively American art and literature. During the yea
rs, Philadelphia's American Philosophical Society, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, boasted a distinguished roster of scientists, including Thomas Jefferson, concurrently the president of the United States. Culturally Boston ran a clo cond to Philadelphia, founding the Boston Athenaeum (1807)，captionedan impressive library and reading room containing "works of learning and science in all languages, particularly such rare and expensive publications as are not generally to be found in this country." The North American Review, which became the most important and long-lasting intellectual magazine in the country, was published in Boston. Devoted to keeping its readers in touch with European intellectual developments, it had a circulation of 3,000 in 1862, about the same as similar British journals.
2. The word ''distinguished" in the passage is clost in meaning to
A. varied
B. very large
C. highly respected
D. newly formed
3. In paragraph 2, why does the author discuss the Boston Athenaeum?
A. To suggest that Boston in general was culturally superior to Philadelphia
obvious什么意思B. To provide an example of a cultural organization founded by a president of the United States
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C. To support the claim that cities in the East were building American cultural institutions
D. To argue that there were organizations founded to challenge the influence of Philadelphia's American Philosophical Society
4. According to paragraph 2, which of the following is true of the North American Review?
A. It had about as many readers as similar British magazines had.
拨弄>juice的复数B. It was published by the Boston Athenaeum.
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C. It was written by European intellectuals.
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D. It focud on intellectual developments in the United States.
上海新东方学校Paragraph 3: Of the eastern cities, New York produced the first widely recognized American writers. In 1809 Washington Irving published America's first great book of comic literature-A History of New York-a humorous account of life in New York both in colonial times and in Irving's own day. James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking novels (of which The Last of the Mohicans published in 1826 is the best known) achieved wide success in both America and Europe. In the novels, Cooper established the American experience of westward expansion as a rious and distinctive American theme.
5. According to paragraph 3, which of the following is true of the Leatherstocking novels?
A. They included America's first great book of comic literature.
B. They were widely read within the United States but were unknown outside that country.
C. They were more popular than comic literature
D. They began a tradition of literature dealing with America's westward expansion
Paragraph 4: It was New England, however, that saw itlf as the home of American cultural independence from Europe, a claim voiced in 1837 by Ralph Waldo Emerson in a lecture at Harvard: “Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands draws to a clo," Emerson announced. Rather than draw on British models, American artists, Emerson argued, should ek inspiration in the ordinary details of daily American life. Immenly popular, Emerson gave more than 1,500 lectures in 20 states between 1833 and 1860. “The American Scholar", his most famous lecture, carried a message of cultural lf-sufficiency that Americans were eager to hear.
