American Contemporary Literature

Test

Task I. Choose the correct answer. (2 points for each correct answer)
1. National American drama didn’t exist before:
a) the XX century
b) the XIX century
c) the XVII century
d) WWII.
2. It didn’t exist because there were no:
a) theatrical centers
b) companies of actors
c) national playwrights
d) public interest in performances
3. In “The glass menagerie” the name “Blue rose” was given to Laura because of her:
a) beauty
b) glass menagerie
c) illness
d) poetic character.
4. Which American writer may be regarded as a master of pause?
a) Faulkner
b) Dreiser
c) Hemingway
d) Steinbeck
5. J. Steinbeck chose the phrase from _______ as the title of his novel “The winter of our
discontent”:
a) Shakespeare’s Richard III
b) Shakespeare’s Richard II
c) Shakespeare’s Hamlet
d) Shakespeare’s King Lear
6. In William Faulkner’s novels Yoknapatawpha County is:
a) literary region
b) administrative center
c) geographic place
d) the lands, belonging to Indians
7. Choose a XX century writer who was never connected with Gothic tradition:
a) John Gardner
b) Joyce Carol Oates
c) John Updike
d) Ernest Hemingway.
8. Robert Lowell may be regarded as an important part of the _____ movement.
a) realistic poetry
b) confessional poetry
c) high-brow poetry
d) romantic poetry.

9. Who was the master of telegraphic style?

a) Ernest Hemingway
 b) William Faulkner
c) John Steinbeck
d) Sherwood Anderson
10. The author who was ostracized in his native town after publication of his novel was:
a) Thomas Wolfe
b) Theodore Dreiser
c) Sinclair Lewis
d) Kurt Vonnegut
11. What poem may be regarded as an archive of Western civilization?
a) The Cantos
b) The love song of Alfred Prufrock
c) Inferno
d) The Waste land
12. What unites Gothic novel and Science fiction is:
a) the idea of social equality
b) the possibility to escape reality
c) the abundance of supernatural details
d) the abundance of technological details.
13. The principles of Robotics were first introduced by:
a) Robert Silverberg
b) Ray Bradbury
c) Isaac Asimov
d) Michael Crichton
14. The first novel to initiate the genre of Gothic prose was:
a) The woman in white
b) The castle of Otranto
c) The monk
d) Dracula
15. Such a post-war development as ………..can’t be included into postmodernist literature:
a) non-conformist literature
b) the theatre of the Absurd
c) the “Beat generation”
d) magic realism.
16. In the Foreword to the novel “Gertrude and Claudius” J. Updike:
a) expresses his acknowledgement to those, who helped him to write the novel
b) explains why he decided to touch upon this theme
c) mentions the sources from which he borrowed the names in Parts I, II, III
d) surveys the main problems of the novel.

17. The only person, who radiated sympathy to Gerutha in the first part of the novel “Gertrude
and Claudius” was:
a) Amleth
b) Corambus
c) Horwendil
d) Herda

18. Who informed Geruthe in Part II about new undercurrents in “cultivated circles”, such as the
methods of deduction and relativity?
a) Fengon
b) Corambis
c) Horvendile
d) Hamblet
19. The narration of the novel “The Catcher in the rye” begins when the main character is:
a) at home
b) at Pensey Prep
c) at a new school
d) at a sanatorium

20. The playwright to establish the award for Dramatic writing was:
a. Eugene O’Neill
b. Tennessee Williams
c. Thornton Wilder
d. Arthur Miller