单选题
Despite their many differences of temperament and of literary perspective, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman share certain beliefs. Common to all these writers is their humanistic perspective. Its basic premises are that humans are the spiritual center of the universe and that in them alone is the clue to nature, history, and ultimately the cosmos itself. Without completely denying the existence either of a deity (the God) or of irrational matter, this perspective nevertheless rejects them as exclusive principles of interpretation and prefers to explain humans and the world in terms of humanity itself. This preference is expressed most clearly in the transcendentalist principle that the structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self; therefore, all knowledge begins with self-knowledge.
This common perspective is almost always universalized. Its emphasis is not upon the individual as a particular European or American, but upon the human as universal, freed from the accidents of time, space, birth, and talent. Thus, for Emerson, the "American Scholar" turns out to be simply "Man Thinking"; while, for Whitman, the "Song of Myself" merges imperceptibly into a song of all the " children of Adam", where " every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. "
Also common to all five writers is the belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization, which, in turn, depends upon the harmonious reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies: first, the self-asserting impulse of the individual to withdraw, to remain unique and separate, and to be responsible only to himself or herself and second, the self-transcending impulse of the individual to embrace the whole world in the experience of a single moment and to know and become one with that world. These conflicting impulses can be seen in the democratic ethic. Democracy advocates individualism, the preservation of the individual"s freedom and self-expression. But the democratic self is torn between the duty to self, which is implied by the concept of liberty, and the duty to society, which is implied by the concepts of equality and fraternity.
A third assumption common to the five writers is that intuition and imagination offer a surer road to truth than does abstract logic or scientific method. It is illustrated by their emphasis upon introspection their belief that the clue to external nature is to be found in the inner world of individual psychology--and by their interpretation of experience as, in essence, symbolic. Both these stresses presume an organic relationship between the self and the cosmos, of which only intuition and imagination can properly take account. These writers" faith in the imagination and in themselves as practitioners of imagination led them to conceive of the writer as a seer and enabled them to achieve supreme confidence in their own moral and metaphysical insights.
单选题
Which of the following best reflects the humanistic perspective of the five writers?
单选题
By quoting Whitman in paragraph 2, the author intends to
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[解析] 逻辑结构题。本题问：作者在第2段中引用惠特曼诗句的目的是什么?第2段中指出，人文主义观点中的个人不是具体的某一个人，而是指抽象的人类。“Song of Myself”(自我之歌)中的“自我”就是“children of Adam”(亚当之子)，即指“人类”，在这里“任何一点属于我的东西．同样也属于你。”可见，作者引用惠特曼的诗句是为了具体说明惠特曼表达个人和人文宇宙之问关系的一种方式。[A]“表示诗人并不完全同意爱默牛”属正反颠倒。从第2段最后一句来看，爱默生和惠特曼的看法是相同的。[B]“表示惠特曼使用人文主义理想来评价自己的方式”和[C]“展示诗人关心所有人的幸福”文中均未提到，属无巾生有，故不能入选。
单选题
The author discusses "the democratic ethic" in paragraph 3 in order to
单选题
It can be inferred that the idea of "an organic relationship between the self and the cosmos" in paragraph 4 is necessary to the thinking of the five writers because such a relationship