Ⅰ. Write short notes on: Harold Stearn, Gertrude Stein and Earnest Hemingway.
Ⅱ.Questions on content:
1. Why were the younger generation of the 1920s thought to be wild?
2. Was there really a younger generation problem?
3. Was there a revolt of the younger generation? How did it manifest itself?
4. Why was the revolt logical and inevitable?
5. What does the writer mean by "the pattern of escape"? (para4)
6. How did World War I affect the younger generation?
7. In what ways did Greenwich Village set the pattern for the revolt of the younger generation of the 1920s?
8. What new philosophy were the young intellectuals trying to preach?
9. Why did young intellectuals of this period emigrate to Europe?
10. Why were these writers called the "lost generation"? Were they really lost?
Ⅲ.Questions on appreciation:
1. Analyse the structure of the whole essay, dividing it into its component parts.
2. What is the writer's central thesis? Where is it stated?
3. How does the writer develop his central thought? Does he support his opinions with convincing facts and details?
4. Do the individual paragraphs or paragraph units relate to the central thought of the whole, and develop new but related stages of the developing thought?
5. Would you consider paragraphs 7 and 8 as one unit? How do they relate to each other?
6. Do you agree with the conclusions of the writer? Give your reasons.
7. Are there any weak points in his presentation?
Ⅳ. Paraphrase:
1. Tho slightest mention of the decade brings nostalgic recollections to the middle-aged (para1)
2. The rejection of Victorian gentility was, in any case, inevitable. (para3)
3. The war acted merely as a catalytic agent in this breakdown of the Victorian social structure (para3)
4. it was tempted, in America at least, to escape its responsibilities and retreat behind an air of naughty alcoholic sophistication (para4)
5. Prohibition afforded the young the additional opportunity of making their pleasures illicit (para4)
6. our young men began to enlist under foreign flags (para5)
7. they "wanted to get into the fun before the whole thing turned belly up" (para5)
8. they had outgrown towns and families (para6)
9. the returning veteran also had to face ... the hypocritical do-goodism of Prohibition (para6)
10. Something in the tension-ridden youth of America had to "give" (para6)
11. it was only natural that hopeful young writers, their minds and pens inflamed against war, Babbittry, and "Puritanical" gentility, should flock to the traditional artistic center (para7)
12. Each town had its "fast" set which prided itself on its unconventionality (para8)
Ⅴ. Translate paragraph 6 into Chinese.
Ⅵ. Look up the dictionary and explain the meaning of the italicized words"
1. the moral and stylistic vagaries of the "flapper" (para1)
2. the artificial walls of a provincial morality (para2)
3. the code of polite behavior (para3)
4. Prohibition afforded the young the additional opportunity (para4)
5. The war acted merely as a catalytic agent (para3)
7. crowding into Greenwich Village (para4)
8. "go home and wait for the draft" (para5)
9. They fought with distinction (para6)
10. who had generally seen a considerable amount of action (para6)
11. Their energies had been whipped up (para6)
12. Something in the tension-ridden youth of America had to "give" (para6)
13. The burden of the volume was that (para9)
14. money-making and keeping up with the Joneses (para9)
15. innumerable others could never be written off as sterile (para11)
Ⅶ. Look up the dictionary and explain the meaning of the following Americanisms"
1. the first visit to a speakeasy (para1)
2. the flask-toting "sheik "(para1 )
3. the "flapper" and the "drugstore cowboy" (para1)
4. a magnolia-scented soap opera (para5)
5.against war, Babbittry, and "Puritanical" gentility (para7)
6. Each town had its "fast" set (par 8)
7. the cultural boobery of our society (para9)
[SRB]
1 . Webster' s New World Dictionary of the American Language
2. The Dictionary of American Slang -- Wentworth & Flexner
Ⅷ. Explain how the meaning of the following sentences is affected when the italicized words are replaced with the words in brackets:
1. The booming of American industry, with its gigantic, roaring factories, its corporate impersonality, and its large-scale aggressiveness, no longer left any room for the code of polite behavior (flourishing) (aggression)
2. it released their inhibited violent energies which, after the shooting was over, were .turned in both Europe and America to the destruction of an obsolescent nineteenth-century society (obsolete)
3. The young men of college age in 1917, knew nothing of modern warfare. (wars)
4. Those who were reluctant to serve in a foreign army talked excitedly about Preparedness (preparations)
5. business was suffering a recession that prevented the opening up of new jobs (depression)
6. Their energies had been whipped up and their naiveté destroyed by the war (innocence)
7. Instead, their ideas had been generally ignored (disregarded)
8. there was little remedy for the sensitive mind but to emigrate to Europe (migrate)
Ⅸ. Explain the meaning of the following sentences in plain, nonfigurative language:
1. we had reached an international stature that would forever prevent us from retreating behind the artificial walls of a provincial morality or the geographical protection of our two bordering oceans.
2. The war acted merely as a catalytic agent in this breakdown of the Victorian social structure.
3. this one lasted until the money ran out, until the crash of the world economic structure at the end of the decade called the party to a halt and forced the revellers to sober up and face the problems of the new age
4. Their very homes were often uncomfortable to them; they had outgrown town and families.
5. After the war, it was only natural that hopeful young writers, ttieir minds and pens inflamed against war, Babbittry, and "Puritanical" gentility, should flock to the traditional artistic center
6. As it became more and more fashionable throughout the country for young persons to defy the law and conventions and to add their own little matchsticks to the conflagration of "flaming youth, " it was Greenwich Village that fanned the flames.
7. Younger brothers and sisters of the war generation now began to imitate the manners of their elders and play with the toys of vulgar rebellion.
8. but since the country was blind and deaf to everything save the glint and ring of the dollar, there was little remedy for the sensitive mind but to emigrate to Europe where "they do things better
Ⅹ. For each word in the column on the left, find a word or phrase of similar meaning in the column on the right. Tell which of the two is more formal or literary.
amour a bitter criticism
questions a big fire
throw headlong exile
manifesto residence
fracas demolish
dissopate a love affair
conflafration dispel,break up
affluent a pubilc declaration
Susceptible brawl
Expatriation precipitate
Diatribe inquiries
dwelling place rich
tear down easily influenced
Ⅺ. The prefixes".un" and "-in" (-im, -il, -ir) have a negative meaning. Add the right prefix to the following words:
1. resistible 9. prudent
2. material 10. pleasant
3. comparable 11. legitimate
4. safe 12. alterable
5. secure 13. logical
6. literate 14. popular
7. precise 15.sensitive
8. pure 16.cmprehensible
Ⅻ. Read the first paragraph of the text and be prepared to discuss: 1) What interest and background material does the paragraph give the reader? 2) Does the paragraph include the thesis statement -- a single sentence expressing the central hought of the piece of writing? 3) Does it include a clear indication of the direction of the writer's flow of thought? 4) Is it a well-written introductory paragraph? Give your reasons.
ⅩⅢ. Write an introductory paragraph for an essay on one of the following topics:
1. The Younger Generation in China
2. The Workers in Socialist China
3. The Peasants in Socialist China
ⅩⅣ.Topic for oral work:
What younger generation problems do we have in China today?
What caused them? How can we solve them?
ⅩⅤ. Write a summary of the text within 400 words.
The Sad Young Men 课后练习题/EXERCISES 10
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