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Trang 1ĐỀ CƯƠNG ÔN THI MÔN VĂN HỌC ANH MỸ
PHẦN 1: TRẢ LỜI CÂU HỎI TRẮC NGHIỆM
KIẾN THỨC CHUNG
1 Writer is consideres to be the most outstanding representative of
decadence trend in english literature at the end of 19th century: oscar wilde
2 The leader of aesthetic movement: oscar wilde
3 The picture of dorian gray is wilde’s only novel and it is considered his
masterpiece
4 How is dorian gray depicted? Handsome, youngman, kinad, innocent
(generous, humance man)
5 Writer often compared blood to a rugby, the blue sky to a sapphire?
Oscar wilde
6 The writing style of charles dickens? Humorous with exageration
7 Lord henry wotten is a villain character in the novel the picture of
dorian gray
8 Maugham was trained to become a doctor but then he tured to writing
9 Maugham published his materpiece “of human bondage” in 1915
10 The novel “the moon anf sixpence” was written by maugham in 1919
11 Novel is partially an autobiography of somersrt maugham: of human
bondage
12 The important works of maugham: liza of lambeth & clakes and ale
13 The name of charles atrickland’s wife: amy
14 The forsyte saga is galsworthy’s masterpiece It consists of 3 novels
Trang 217 The novel “the picture of dorian gray” was written in 1891
18 As an artist, he doesnot care for fame or wealth He never “sold a single
pictureand he wa never satisfied with what he has done”: charles strickland
19 Oliver twist was born in a workhouse
20 Writer in his young used to work as an apprentice priter, a river pilot, a
miner and a journalist: mark twain
21 Writer gained great success with stories about the life of common
american people: mark twain
22 Writer used a lot of american vernacular in his works: mark twain
23 Writer had to work as a family breadwinner before he finished his grade
school: jack london
24 Writer had to do a lot of labour work before hecan earn money from his
pen: o henry
25 Writer was born and died in the year when halley’s comet was visible in
the sky? Mark twain
26 “the call os the wild” by london is typical example of story
27 Writer wrote mostly about the life of common people iin new york city:
o henry
28 Writer used to work in a bank and was imprisoned for embezzling bank
funds: o henry
29 Writer recieved nobel prie for literature in 1954: hemingway
30 Writer took part in many wars and realized the real nature of war:
hemingway
31 Which works helped bring the pulitzer to hemingway: the old man and
the sea
32 “a farewell to arms” written is based on what incidrnt in his life:
33 Writer commited suicide with his favourite gun: hemingway
34 “death in the afternoon” by hemingway is a story about: a nonfiction
account of spanish bullfightin
Trang 335 “the nightingale and the rose” by oscar wilde is a fairy tale
36 Artistic method was used in describing the god buck: personification
37 David copperfield is considered to be dickens’ most successful novel
38 The author compares his taking to writing career “as a duck took to
water”: somerset maugham
39 The nightingale sacrifice it life for a red rose
40 Author of such fables as “the crab and its mother”, “the man and the
lion”, “the wolf and the lamb”: somerset maugham
41 “the ballad of reading gaol” was written by oscar wilde
42 John galsworthy came from a well-to-do bourgeois family, thus he
understood very little of the world beyond and beneath his class
43 At the height of his popularity and success, oscar wilde was accused of
immorality anf condemned to 2 years; hard labour at reading gaol
44 John galsworthy is a great master of crating characters, in his opinion,
each character should possess features typical of a certain group of people insociety
45 In oscar wilde opinion, art is isolated fromlife, art is the only thing that
really exists and is worth living for
46 “death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whosepease and whose refuge are for all - the soiled and the pure, the rich and the
poor, the loved anf the unloved” is mark twain last written statement
47 One of the great losses in mark twain’s life was the breaths of his 3
children before they reached their twenties
48 After the deaths of his parent, somerset maugham had an awfuan
childhood under the care of his childless uncle who understood nothing aboutthe psychology of a child Because of his bad english anf small figure, hw wasalways ridiculed by friends at school He, therfor, developed little stammer and
it stayed all his life
49 In his life, hemingway was awarded 2 prestigious prizes for literature, a
Trang 4pulitzer prize and a nobel prize
50 In many of his works, hemingway frequently used coincidences and
surprise enadings to nderline ironies
PHẦN 2: VIẾT LUẬN VỀ CÁC TÁC GIẢ, TÁC PHẨM
1 Charles dickens (1812 - 1870) was the greatest critial realist in the 19th
century english literature Dickens was born in the family of a poor clerk inPortsmouth, the second of 9 children in the family In 1821, the family moved
to London, poverty still pursued the family even when they were in the capitaland Charles father was put on into prison for debts To help the family, charleshad to leave school for work in a factory He washed bottles and worked fromdawn to dusk Dickens describes this period of his childhood in the novel Davidcopperfield When his father was released from prison, charles was sent toschool again and he stay there for 3 years, learning foreign languages andstydying literature At 15, charles left school and worked in a lawyer’s office
He studied short - hand at that time and soon took up the work of aparliamentary reporter to a london newspaper This work led him to journalismand from journalism to novel writing Dickens’s life as a literary artist falls into
4 periods The first period (1833 – 1841) is the period of humour and optimism
In this period, he shows men and women who remain true to the principles ofhonor regardless of external circumstances with some novels such as: sketches
by boz 1833-36, oliver twist – 1838, Barnaby rudge - 1840 The second one(1842 – 1848) is the period of sarcasm and criticism with americannotes 1842,martin chuzzlewitt 1844 the third period (1849 – 1860) included the mostfamous novels by dickens: david copperfield 1850, bleak house 1853, hardtimes 1854,… this is the strongest social criticism on the soulless andunwholesome nature of competition in an industrial life where “devils take thehindmost” Dickens wrote only 2 novels in the fourth period 1861-1865: great
Trang 5expectation 1861, our mutual friend 1864-65 this is the period ofromanticization resulting from disillusionment In 1870, he died He was notonly the first story-teller of the common people in common place surroundings,but remained, after countless imitators and brilliant successors, yet the greatest.
He took the trivialities, the little comedies, the little tragedies, erradiated themwith his glorious humour and ever-flowing sympathy
2 Oscar wilde, one of the greatest literary showmen of the English nineteen
century, was born in Dublin on october 16th 1854 he was a son of an Irishsurgeon and a Dublin endowed with literary talent While he was at school,oscar was always among the best students of the humanities He was awarded anumber of classical prizes Under the influence of his teacher, john Ruskin, hejoined the Aesthetic Movement and soon became the most sincere supporter ofthis movement After graduating from the university, he turned his attention towriting , traveling and lecturing and when the Aesthetic movement becamepopular, he earned a reputation of being the leader of the movement and as anapostle of beauty His publications, among many others, include: the happyprince and other tales 1888, the picture of dorian gray 1891, lady windermere’sfan 1892,… at the height of his popularity, wilde was accused of immoralityand was put to 2 years; imprisonment He died in paris in 1900 like mostwriters and poets, he glorifies natural beauty but at the same time he is theadmirer of artificial color Though wilde’s claimed the theory of extremeindividualism, he often contradicted himself In his works, in his tales inparticular, he glorities beauty and not only the beauty of the nature and artificialbeauty but the beauty of devoted love
3 john galsworthy was a novelish, dramatist, short story writer and
essayist taken together His works give the most complete and critical picture ofthe English bourgeois society at the beginning of the 20th century He was born
Trang 6at combe, surrey, on august 14, 1867 and died on 31 january 1933 he camefrom a well-to-do bourgeois family of a rich layer He was intended to followhis father’s career, yet he turned to letters as his profession only 1 year later hisgraduation from oxford university He began to travel all over the world Hislife-long dream was to expose all the evils of society and to reveal the truth oflife He handed over to mankind a huge heritage of novels, short stories, plays,essays, letters He was the president of the association of writers until he died in
1933 he awarded the nobel prize in 1932 galsworthy’s masterpiece is entitledthe forsyte saga He was a great master of creating characters In his opinion,each character should possesses features typical of a certain group of people insociety His novel are appeals with characters, most of them are alive and full-blooded The author appeals both to the heart and reason of his readers, yetthere is little sentimentality in his works,
4 William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 in paris, he is the sixth
and the youngest child of an English family His father is a solicitor to thebritish embassy in paris When he was eight, his mother died 2 years later, hisfather also passed away He became an orphan and he was brought back toEngland to be cared for by his childless uncle There, Maugham lived throughhis awful childhood At home, his uncle proved cold to him and understoodnothing of his psychology At school, due to his small figure and bad English,
he was always ridiculed by his mates which made him to become more quietand private Also at this age, Maugham developed stammer and it stays all hislife Later, he was trained in Germany to become a doctor He worked as adoctor in a London hospital for a short time before turning to writing career.However, experience as a doctor was of rich literature values to Maugham As adoctor, he had chances to meet people of “low” sort that he would never havemet in one of the other professions and to see them in a time of heightenedanxiety and meaning in their lives Maugham wrote about people of all social
Trang 7classes in the contemporary society.
5 Mark Twain (pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens) was born in
Florida, Missouri on 30 november 1835 when his father died in 1847 the familywas left in financial straits, so 11 years old, he left school and had to do manyjob to earn living such as an apprentice printer, a river pilot, a miner,… hescored great success with stories about life of common American people.Despite the fame of a brilliant humorist, he made an important contribution toAmerican literature as a social critic His social criticism can be found in hisbest works The adventures of tom sawyer 1786, the prince and the pauper… in
1870 he married Olivia “livy” Langdon with whom he would have 4 children
He died on 21 april 1910 he suffered many losses in his life including thedeaths of 3 of his children and accumulated large debts which plagued him formany years Both adults and children enjoys mark twain’s book His mockinghumour is based on the common sense of common peopke living around himwho he always describes with a warmth of human understanding and sympathy
6 the American short-story writer William Sydney Porter, who wrote
under the pseudonym O.Henry, pioneered in picturing the lives of lower-classand middle-class New Yorkers He was born in 1862 he attended school for ashort time, then clerked in an uncle’s drugstore At the age of 20 he went toTexas, working forst on a ranch and later as a bank teller In 1887 he marriedand began to write free-lance sketches A few years later he founded ahumorous weekly, the Rolling Stone When this failed, he became a reporterand columnist on the Houston Post Indicted in 1896 for embezzling bankfunds, Porter fled to a reprting job in new Orleans then to Honduras O.henryhad a broad knowledge of the life of common people They are the maincharacters their stories and their fates comprise those unusual and unexpectedplots which never fail to surprise the reader He was the master of surpriseending The work of O henry reflect a specific period in the history of American
Trang 8literature: the turn of the 20th century He occupies an immediate positionbetween the critical and the romantic tradition in American literature, whichmeans that in his stories, realism and romanticism mingled O henry was mostfamous as a writer of city-life stories.
7 jack London is the praiser of strong-willed people struggling with severe
nature and tricks of fortune He was born in 1876 in the family of animpoverished farmer His life was one of unending toil After completinggrammar school, London worked at various odd jobs By the time he was 22, hehad lived more than most people do in fifty years He had worked on ships and
in factories, he had traveled across the ocean as a sailor, he had tramped fromsan Francisco to new york with an army of unemployed and back throughCanada to Vancouver he had learned life from his own experience and hadstudied it through art, science and philosophy Many of his stories including
“the call of the wild”, “sea-wolf”,… made him famous both at home andabroad His style – brutal, vivid, and exciting distinguished him from other greatmasters of world literature In 1900 he married Elisaneth Maddern, but left herand their daughters 3 years afterwaeds, eventually to marry Charmian Kittredge
In 1901 he ran unsuccessfully on the socialist party for mayor of Oakland Onthe morning of November 22, 1916, he died because of taking to muchnarcotics
8 Earnest hemingway, one of the greatest and most influential modern
American novelesh, short-story writers and essayist, was born in 1899 in OakPark, a small provincial town near Chicago, Illinois He started writing when heyet a choolboy On graduating from high school in 1917, he took to newpaperreporting, but left his job within a few months to serve as a volunteer ambulancedriver in Italy during World War 1 1914 – 1918 he later transferred to theItalian infantry During one of the attacks he was badly wounded at the Italian
Trang 9front It was there that he realized the stupidity and brutality of war which hecondemned in the works that followed He covered the war in the Near East forthe Canadian newspaper Star and spent several years in Paris Some his famouspublications are a farewell to arm 1929, the oldman and the sea 1950, for whomthe bell tolls 1940 hermingway’s style is often to as an expression of the
“iceberg principle” which means that he avoided describing his characters’emotions He made the reading of taxt similar to a travel into a world where thereader has to use his/her own experience to decipher what is unsaid In 1954 hewas awarded the nobel prize in literature On july 2 1961 he committed suicidewith his favorite shotgun at his home in Ketchum, Idaho
1 the nightingale and the rose
The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde is a fairy tale in which thefirst character that appears is a Student He is sad because a girl promised todance with him on condition that he brought her red roses, but he did not findany of this colour; there were white and yellow roses, but he could not find redones While he was moaning because her love would not dance with him, fourcharacters from nature started to talk about him A little Green Lizard, aButterfly and a Daisy asked why he was weeping, and the Nightingale said that
he was weeping for a red rose The first three characters said that weeping for ared rose was ridiculous
The Nightingale, who understood the Student’s feelings, started to fly until
‘she’ saw a Rose-tree She told him to give her a red rose and she promised, inexchange, to sing her sweetest song, but the Rose-tree told her that his roseswere white, and he sent the Nightingale to his brother that grew round the oldsun-dial The Nightingale went to see this new Rose-tree and, after promisingthe same in exchange for a red rose, the Rose-tree told her that his roses wereyellow, but he sent the Nightingale to his brother, who grew beneath theStudent's window So the Nightingale went there, and when she arrived, she
Trang 10asked the Rose-tree to give her a red rose The Rose-tree said that his roses werered, but that winter had chilled his veins and the frost had nipped his buds, so hecould not give her a red rose The Rose-tree suggested a solution: he told herthat if she truly wanted a red rose, she had to build it out of music by moonlightand stain it with her own heart's blood She had to sing to the Rose-tree with herbreast against a thorn; the thorn would pierce her heart and her life-blood wouldflow into the Rose-tree veins The Nightingale said that death was a great price
to pay for a red rose, but at the end, she accepted
The Nightingale went to see the Student and told him that he would have hisred rose, that she who would build it up with her own blood; the only thing sheasked him for in return was to be a true lover The Student looked at her, yet hecould not understand anything because he only understood the things that werewritten down in books But the Oak-tree understood and became sad because hewas fond of the Nightingale, and asked her to sing the last song; when shefinished, the Student thought that the Nightingale had form, but no feeling Atnight, the Nightingale went to the Rose-tree and set her breast against the thorn.She sang all night long She pressed closer and closer against the thorn until thethorn finally touched her heart and she felt a fierce pang of pain The more therose got red, the fainter the Nightingale's voice became, and after beating herwings, she died The rose was finished, but she could not see it
The next morning, the Student saw the wonderful rose under his window Hetook it and went to see the girl to offer her the rose, but she just said that therose would not go with her dress and that the Chamberlain's nephew had senther real jewels, adding that everybody knew that jewels cost far more thanflowers After arguing with her, the Student threw the rose into a gutter, where acart-wheel crushed it, and he said that Love was a silly thing and that hepreferred Logic and Philosophy
This fairy tale is very incisive and, despite its apparent simplicity, leaves thereader with a clear moral message: it is important to remember that some people
Trang 11sometimes sacrifice their life or suffer to help others, but at the end they aren’treturned with the same emotional intensity and their actions are not even fullyunderstood
2 soames forsyte is a typical forsyte
He was probably a worthy member of society, a good husband and father; butthere was no reason to waste one’s time over him…nothing could be moreordinary I do not know that there was anything about them to excite theattention of the curious.”
But the rest of the book shows that the first impression was altogetherwrong At the age of forty Charles Strickland leaves his wife and children andgoes to Paris to study art He was aware of the hardships in store for him but hisdesire to paint was so strong that nothing was convincing enough to make himalter his decision to devote his life to art
“I tell you I’ve got to paint I can’t help myself When a man falls into thewater it doesn’t matter how he swims, well or badly; he’s got to get out or elsehe’ll drawn”
The narrator felt that Strickland was possessed by some strange passion:
“There was real passion in his voice, and in spite of myself I was impressed I
Trang 12seemed to feel in him some vehement power that was struggling within him; itgave me the sensation of something very strong, overmastering, that held him,
as it were, against his will I could not understand He seemed really to bepossessed of a devil, and I felt that it might suddenly turn and rend him”
Strickland’s life in Paris was a “bitter struggle against every sort ofdifficulty”, but the hardships which would have seemed horrible to most peopledid not in the least affect him He was indifferent to comfort Canvas and paintwere the only things he needed “…when no food was to be had he seemedcapable of doing without… There was something impressive in the manner inwhich he lived a life wholly of the spirit”
Strickland did not care for fame or wealth He never sold his pictures, noreven showed them to anybody He lived in a dream, the reality meant nothingfor him “He was never satisfied with what he had done; it seemed to him of noconsequence compared with the vision that obsessed his mind”
His only aim in life was to create beauty “It gave him no peace It urgedhim hither and thither He was eternally a pilgrim, haunted by a divinenostalgia, and the demon within him was ruthless”
Not long before his terrible death from leprosy on the remote island ofTahiti, Strickland realised his lifelong dream The pictures that he had drawn onthe walls of his dilapidated house were his masterpiece “…here Strickland hadfinally put the whole expression of himself …here he must have said all that heknew of life and all that he divined….perhaps here he had at last found peace.The demon, which possessed him, had exorcised at last, and with thecompletion of the work, for which all his life had been a painful preparation,rest descended on his remote and tortured soul He was willing to die for he hadfulfilled his purpose”
Maugham makes his characters neither all good nor all bad He expects thereader to draw his own conclusions about them We can dislike Strickland as ahuman being for he is selfish, cruel, pitiless and cynical He loves no one He
Trang 13ruins the life of Dirk Stroeve and his wife He does not care for his wife and hischildren He brings misfortune to all people he comes in touch with But, on theother side, we can appreciate him as a talented artist, a creator of beauty Hispassionate devotion to his art arouses our admiration
My personal impression of Strickland is that of a human being I cannotappreciate his talent and his art, because I think that the most important part oflife is human relations And a person who did not care for anybody is not a full-fledged person But still I must admit that a person who devotes his whole life
to fulfil his dream is worthy of respect
4 oliver
As the child hero of a melodramatic novel of social protest, Oliver Twist ismeant to appeal more to our sentiments than to our literary sensibilities Onmany levels, Oliver is not a believable character, because although he is raised
in corrupt surroundings, his purity and virtue are absolute Throughout thenovel, Dickens uses Oliver’s character to challenge the Victorian idea thatpaupers and criminals are already evil at birth, arguing instead that a corruptenvironment is the source of vice At the same time, Oliver’s incorruptibilityundermines some of Dickens’s assertions Oliver is shocked and horrified when
he sees the Artful Dodger and Charley Bates pick a stranger’s pocket and againwhen he is forced to participate in a burglary Oliver’s moral scruples about thesanctity of property seem inborn in him, just as Dickens’s opponents thoughtthat corruption is inborn in poor people Furthermore, other pauper children userough Cockney slang, but Oliver, oddly enough, speaks in proper King’sEnglish His grammatical fastidiousness is also inexplicable, as Oliverpresumably is not well-educated Even when he is abused and manipulated,Oliver does not become angry or indignant When Sikes and Crackit force him
to assist in a robbery, Oliver merely begs to be allowed to “run away and die inthe fields.” Oliver does not present a complex picture of a person torn betweengood and evil—instead, he is goodness incarnate
Trang 14Even if we might feel that Dickens’s social criticism would have been moreeffective if he had focused on a more complex poor character, like the ArtfulDodger or Nancy, the audience for whom Dickens was writing might not havebeen receptive to such a portrayal Dickens’s Victorian middle-class readerswere likely to hold opinions on the poor that were only a little less extreme thanthose expressed by Mr Bumble, the beadle who treats paupers with greatcruelty In fact, Oliver Twist was criticized for portraying thieves andprostitutes at all Given the strict morals of Dickens’s audience, it may haveseemed necessary for him to make Oliver a saintlike figure Because Oliverappealed to Victorian readers’ sentiments, his story may have stood a betterchance of effectively challenging their prejudices.
5 love between Robert and maria
Even though many of the characters in For Whom the Bell Tolls take acynical view of human nature and feel fatigued by the war, the novel still holdsout hope for romantic love Even the worldly-wise Pilar, in her memories ofFinito, reveals traces of a romantic, idealistic outlook on the world RobertJordan and Maria fall in love at first sight, and their love is grand and idealistic.Love endows Robert Jordan’s life with new meaning and gives him newreasons to fight in the wake of the disillusionment he feels for the Republicancause He believes in love despite the fact that other people—notably Karkov,who subscribes to the “purely materialistic” philosophy fashionable with theHotel Gaylord set—reject its existence This new acceptance of ideal, romanticlove is one of the most important ways in which Robert Jordan rejects abstracttheories in favor of intuition and action over the course of the novel
6 tom sawyer
Tom sawyer, the main character of the novel tome sawyer by mark twain is
a typical boy of western America He is playful, intelligent and cunning as well
He clever and cunning is shown very clearly through the chapter 2 when he