問題詳情

IV. Reading Comprehension (10%, 2 for each)    Despite their many differences of temperament and of literary perspective, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, andWhitman share certain beliefs. Common to all these writers is their humanistic perspective. Its basic premises are that humansare the spiritual center of the universe and that in them alone is the clue of the nature, history and ultimately the cosmos itself.Without denying outright the existence either of a deity or of brute matter, this perspective nevertheless rejects them asexclusive principles of interpretation and prefers to explain humans and the world in terms of humanity itself. This preference isexpressed most clearly in the Transcendentalist principle that the structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure ofthe individual self; therefore, all knowledge begins with self-knowledge. This common perspective is almost alwaysuniversalized. 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"Main 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 virtueand happiness depends upon the self-realization, which, in turn, depends upon the harmonious reconciliation of two universalpsychological tendencies: first, the self-asserting impulse of the individual to withdraw, to remain unique and separate, and tobe responsible only to himself or herself, and second, the self-transcending impulse of the individual to embrace the wholeworld in the experience of a single moment and to know and become one with that world. These conflicting impulses can beseen in the democratic ethic. Democracy advocates individualism, the preservation of the individual's freedom andself-expression. But the democratic self is torn between the duty to self, which is implied by the concept of liberty, and the dutyto society, which is implied by the concept of equality and fraternity. A third assumption common to the five writers is thatintuition and imagination offer a surer road to truth than abstract logic or scientific method. It is illustrated by their emphasisupon the introspection—their belief that the clue to external nature is to be found in the inner world of individual psychologyand by their interpretation of experience as in essence, symbolic. Both these stresses presume an organic relationship betweenthe self and the cosmos of which only intuition and imagination can properly take account. These writers' faith in theimagination and in themselves as practitioners of imagination led them to view the writer as a seer and enabled them to achievesupreme confidence in their own moral and metaphysical insights.
1. The author's discussion of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman is primarily concerned with explaining__________.
(A)some of their beliefs about the difficulties involved in self-realization
(B)some of their beliefs concerning the world and the place that humanity occupies in the universal order
(C)some of their beliefs concerning the relationship between humanism and democracy
(D)some of their beliefs are shaped by differences in temperament and literary outlook

參考答案

答案：B
難度：適中0.5
統計：A(0),B(0),C(0),D(0),E(0)

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