清华大学2000年5月考博英语真题(06)

　　Passage 3
    　

　　One of the foremost authors of the era between the two world wars, Hemingway in his early works depicted tile lives of two types of people. One type consisted of men and women deprived, by World War I, of faith in the moral values in which they had believed, and who lived with cynical disregard for anything but their own emotional needs. The other type were men of simple character and primitive emotions, such as prizefighters and bullfighters. Hemingway wrote of their courageous and usually futile battles against circumstances. His earliest works include the collections of short stories Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923), his first work; In Our time (1924),tales reflecting his experiences as a youth in the northern Michigan woods; Men without women(1927), a volume that included "The Killers," remarkable for its description of impending doom; and Winner Take Nothing (1933), stories characterizing people in unfortunate circumstances in Europe. The novel that established Hemingway's reputation. The Sun Also Rises (1926), is the story, of a group of morally irresponsible Americans and Britons living in France and Spain, members of the so-called lost generation of the post-world War I period. Hemingway's second important novel, A Farewell to Arms (1929), is the story, of a deeply moving love affair in wartime Italy between an American officer in the Italian ambulance service and a British nurse. The novel was followed by two nonfiction works, Death in the Afternoon (1932), prose pieces mainly about bullfighting; and Green, gills of Africa (1935), accounts of big-game hunting.

   　 Hemingway's economical writing style often seems simple and almost childlike, but his method is calculated and used to complex effect. In his writing Hemingway provided detached descriptions of action, using simple nouns and verbs to capture scenes precisely. By doing so he avoided describing his characters' emotions and thoughts directly. Instead, in providing the reader with the raw material of an experience and eliminating the authorial viewpoint. Hemingway made the reading of a text approximate the actual experience as closely as possible. Hemingway was also deeply concerned with authenticity, in writing. He believed that a writer could treat a subject honestly only if the writer had participated in or observed the subject closely. Without such knowledge the writer's work would be flawed because the reader would sense the author's lack of expertise: In addition, Hemingway believed that an author writing about a familiar subject is able to write sparingly and eliminate a great deal of superfluous detail from the piece without sacrifleing the voice of authority. Hemingway's stylistic influence on American writers has been enormous. The success of his plain style in expressing basic. yet deeply felt, emotions contributed to the decline of the elaborate Victorian-era prose that characterized a great deal of American writing in the early 20th century. Many American writers have cited Hemingway as an influence on their own work.

    51. The novel that brought Hemingway greatest fame________.

    A) Three Stories and Ten Poems　　　　B) In Far Time

    C) Men Without Women　　　D) The Sun Also Rises

    52 Which of the following can best describe Hemingway's writing style?

    A) simple and precise　　　 B) bullfighting

    C) superfluous　　　　　D) complicated

    53. According to this passage which of the following is the great contribution of Hemingway?

    A) He introduced a new subject into literature.

    B) His writing style influenced a group of American writers　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

    C) He proved that one should write about details.

    D) He said that writers should know what they are writing