The major theme of Jane Austen’s novels is____________.

Summarize Ernest Hemingway’s artistic features.

Discuss Charles Dickens’ art of fiction: the setting, the character- portrayal, the language, etc. , based on his novel Oliver Twist.

In American literature, Emily Dickinson’s poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. What are the features of Dickinson’s poems?

What’s the theme of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby?

The Waste Land is T. S. Eliot’s most important single poem. What’s the theme of the poem?

What’s the theme of the poem Paradise Lost? What’s the author’s intention to create it and the implication that the poem expresses?

“ I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. ”

( From Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself)

Questions:

A.Who does “myself ” refer to?

B.How do you understand the line “I loafe and invite my soul” ?

C.What does “a spear of summer grass” symbolize?

“Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. ”

Questions:

A.Who’s the poet of the quoted stanza, and what’s the title of the poem?

B.What does the word “this” in the last line refer to?

C.What idea do the quoted lines express?

“Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendor, valley, rock or hill;

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep !

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!”

( From Wordsworth’s sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge)

Questions:

A.What does this sonnet describe?

B.What does the phrase “mighty heart” refer to?

C.The sonnet follows strictly the Italian form.What is the feature of the Italian form of sonnet?

“ The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep. ”

Questions:

A.Who’s the poet of the quoted stanza, and what’s the title of the poem?

B.What does the word “sleep” mean?

C.What idea do the four lines express?