问答题
Read the following poem and answer the questions.(20 %)Late AirBy Elizabeth BishopFrom a magician"s midnight sleevethe radio-singersdistribute all their love-songsover the dew-wet lawns.And like a fortune-teller"sTheir marrow-piercing guesses are whatever you believe.But on the navy-yard aerial I findbetter witnessesfor love on summer nights.Five remote red lightskeep their nests there; Phoenixesburning quietly, where the dew cannot climb.
问答题
List of Authors-. William Wordsworth, Oscar Wilde, E. M. Forster, James Joyce, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Arthur Miller.In the first stanza, what suggestions do you find in the magician and the fortune-teller? What do the two have in common?(5%)
【正确答案】正确答案：In the first stanza, both the magician and fortune-teller give the readers mysterious, supernatural and magical feelings since their power is sometimes beyond rationality.
【答案解析】
问答题
Does line 4 contain a literal fact, a meaningful suggestion, or both? Comment also on the poet"s reference to dew in the last line.(5%)
【正确答案】正确答案：" Dew" in line 4 carries a literary fact with no suggestions but the one in the last line carries another meaning which symbolizes the shiny, sparkling yet the touch-and-go beauty of the earthly things.
【答案解析】
问答题
Discuss this comment: "In " Late Air" Elizabeth Bishop doesn"t like vague, soggy language that can mean just any old thing the hearer wants it to—the language of pop songs and penny-in-the-slot fortune tickets. She likes language to be precise and mechanical, like an aerial. She doesn"t want language to be rich in suggestions. "(10%)
【正确答案】正确答案：One basic feature of Bishop"s poetry lies in its at once material portrayal of life and immaterial suggestion about it. The readers are often plied with an abundance of naked details but invited to relish a subtler taste. This feature of her art stems in a way from her catholic vision of life itself. This vision, large and all-inclusive, sees the world as one of joy and sorrow, physical and metaphoric, which the poet embraces and tires to represent so that life never becomes totally impossible. Bishop never theorizes about life. To her the physical, ephemeral setting, against which we live out our lives, is impersonal, amoral, non-judgmental, and there is nothing we humans could do about it but observe it faithfully and accept it.