Part III: Interpretation (20 points in all)
Read the following selections and then answer the questions briefly.
Passage 1
All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. We have theories of races and of functions, but scarcely yet a remote approximation to an idea of creation. We are now so far from the road to truth, that religious teachers dispute and hate each other, and speculative men are esteemed unsound and frivolous. But to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. Now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable; as language, sleep, dreams, beasts, sex.
Questions:
1. Who is the author and where is this passage taken from?
2. What does the author most likely indicate in the quoted passage?
Passage 2
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bought.
Questions:
1. What kind of form is adopted in this verse?
2. Why is the verse interpreted as a typical example of the Imagist ideas?
Passage 3
…
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—
….
Questions:
1. Identify the poet of this stanza taken from “Because I could not stop for Death.”
2. What do the underlined parts symbolize? Where were “we” heading toward?
Passage 4
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
….
Questions:
1. What does “Road” symbolize?
2. What’s expressed in this stanza?
Part Ⅳ: Give brief answers to the following questions. (20 points in all, 12 points for the first and 8 points for the second)
1. Please make a comparison between Henry James’ realism and Mark Twain’s realism.
2. Please make a brief comment upon Hemingway Heroes.
