AMERICAN CULTURE and ARTS

AN OVERVIEW OF AMERICAN LITERATURE

Test your knowledge (p. 112)

1. Name some of the Puritan authors of the Early American Period.

2. Discuss the religious and secular aspects of Anne Bradstreet's poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband”.

3. What are the features of Puritan writing?

Test your knowledge (p. 114)

1. What was the influence of the Enlightenment on early American literature?

2. What was Benjamin Franklin's contribution to American literature?

3. List some of the virtues which are necessary for self-improvement according to Benjamin Franklin.

4. What was the significance of Thomas Paine's Common Sense?

5. What did Crèvecoeur write about America?

Test your knowledge (p. 122)

1. Describe the features of American Romanticism.

2. Who were the leading Transcendentalist writers and what did they propagate?

3. What kind of fiction did Edgar Allan Poe write?

4. What is the significance of Moby Dick?

5. Describe the contribution of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson to poetry.

Test your knowledge (p. 124)

1. Discuss the literary achievement of Mark Twain.

2. What is the predominant theme in the fiction of Henry James?

3. Who was Kate Chopin?

Test your knowledge (p. 126)

1. What are the features of American Naturalism?

2. Who were the muckrakers?

Test your knowledge (p. 132)

1. What are the features of American Modernism?

2. Who were the “Lost Generation” writers?

3. What was Imagism?

4. Discuss the contribution of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot to Modernist poetry.

5. What was the Harlem Renaissance?

Test your knowledge (p. 139)

1. Who are the most characteristic writers of the Contemporary Period?

2. Discuss the work of some contemporary American authors.

3. What are the features of postmodernist writing?

4. What are the features of “new realism”?

5. What is ethnic writing?

MUSIC

Test your knowledge (p. 140)

1. Name one of Irving Berlin's most popular melodies.

2. What were the most popular hits created by Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern?

3. What were the greatest hits of Rodgers and Hammerstein?

4. What is George Gershwin's most famous song?

5. Name a few American “evergreens”.

Test your knowledge (p. 141)

1. What is country music?

2. Which city is the “home” of country music?

3. What trends can be distinguished in country music?

Test your knowledge (p. 142)

1. Where was jazz originate?

2. Where did jazz develop?

3. Who was Louis Armstrong?

4. Who are the best-known jazz performers?

5. Where did Duke Ellington Band play in New York?

6. Who are the most outstanding exponents of “modern” jazz?

7. What does Wynton Marsalis say about the value of jazz?

Test your knowledge (p. 143)

1. What are the origins of blues?

2. Describe characteristic features of blues.

Test your knowledge (p. 144)

1. When did rock-and-roll begin?

2. Who was the greatest star of rock-and-roll?

3. Who was the most famous stars of pop rock in the 1970s and 1980s?

4. What is folk rock?

5. Who developed “surf music”?

6. What was the origin of rap?

VISUAL ARTS

Test your knowledge (p. 146)

1. Who are the best-known early American painters?

2. What was Abstract Expressionism?

3. What is pop art?

ARCHITECTURE

Test your knowledge (p. 147)

1. What styles in American architecture can be distinguished?

2. Who was Frank Lloyd Wright?

3. Who are the best known modern architects in the United States?

PERFORMING ARTS

Test your knowledge (p. 148)

1. What is the difference between Broadway and off-Broadway theatres?

2. Name some of the most popular Broadway musicals.

3. What was off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway?

4. What is the happening?

CINEMA

Test your knowledge (p. 153)

1. What was D.W. Griffith's masterpiece?

2. What are the most popular comedies with Charlie Chaplin?

3. Who were the most famous actors in gangster films?

4. Who were the Marx Brothers?

5. What are the best films starring Marilyn Monroe?

6. Name some of the most popular characters in Walt Disney's films.

7. Name a few most outstanding American film directors.

MORE TESTS AND TASKS

TRUE OR FALSE

Carefully read each statement. If the statement is true according to information in the book, write T after it, if it is false, write F.

Try to give reasons why a statement is false.

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE TEST

Identify the occupation of the following notable Americans

Name	Writer	Painter/ Sculptor	Film director	Composer	Architect
Herman Melville
Henry James
George Gershwin
Bob Dylan
Edward Hopper
Andy Warhol
Humphrey Bogart
Ella Fitzgerald
Duke Ellington
Frank Lloyd Wright
T.S. Eliot
Francis Ford Coppola
John Cage
R. Frost
William Gibson
I.M. Pei
Woody Allen
Truman Capote
John Dos Passos
Jackson Pollock

MULTIPLE CHOICE TEST (AMERICAN LITERATURE)

Complete the sentences below, choosing one of three possibilities: a, b, or c.

1. Who wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry ?

1. James Fenimore Cooper b) Herman Melville c) Mark Twain

2. A nineteenth-century writer known for his Romantic poetry and macabre stories is

1. Washington Irving b) James Fenimore Cooper c) Edgar Allan Poe

3. Who was Emily Dickinson?

1. a nineteenth-century novelist who explored her inner experience

2. a nineteenth-century poet who celebrated his native country as a land of great promise and enormous potential

3. a twentieth-century poet who experimented with unusual stanza forms

4. What is transcendentalism?

1. movement led by Benjamin Franklin that stressed the importance of reason in human life

2. a movement led by Jonathan Edwards that called for a return to strict Calvinism

3. a movement led by Ralph Waldo Emerson that stressed the divinity of man

5. Eugene O'Neill is the author of

a)Mourning Becomes Electra b) The Catch 22 c) Slaughterhouse-Five

6. What is the major theme of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town?

1. life of Native Americans

2. life in an American small town

3. life of blacks in the South

7. One of the major themes of The Great Gatsby is

1. the corruption of American innocence through the pursuit of wealth

2. the prejudices and injustices of Americans toward American Blacks

3. the loss of religious faith

8. Who wrote the lines:

“The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.”

1. Ezra Pound b) T.S. Eliot c) Robert Frost

9. Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, and Carson McCullers are all

1. poets who focused on the struggle for female autonmy

2. novelists who wrote on life in New York

3. novelists who wrote about the American South

10. What do Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, Samuel R. Delaney and William Gibson have in common?

1. They are American modernist poets.

2. They are all writers of science fiction.

3. They all write about animals.

11. The following novel was NOT written by Henry James

1. The Portrait of a Lady b) The Ambassadors c) The Age of Innocence

12. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald evokes the atmosphere of

1. The Twenties b) The Thirties c) The Gold Rush

13. For Whom the Bell Tolls was written by

1. Truman Capote b) John Steinbeck c) Ernest Hemingway

14. Walt Whitman's poem “O Captain, My Captain” is an elegy on the death of

1. George Washington b) Abraham Lincoln c) Franklin D. Roosevelt

15. The following poet did NOT write Imagist poetry

1. Ezra Pound b) Hilda Doolittle c) Allen Ginsberg

AMERICAN CINEMA TEST

Match the names of popular American actors and actresses with films in which they appeared.

1. Charlie Chaplin 1. The Deer Hunter

2. Al Jonson 2. The Gold Rush

3. Robert de Nir 3. The Jazz Singer

4. Marx Brothers 4. The Grapes of Wrath

5. Marlene Dietrich 5. Gone With the Wind

6. Humphrey Bogart 6. Rebel Without a Cause

7. Henry Fonda 7. Bonnie and Clyde

8.Gloria Swanson 8. The Graduate

9. Clark Gable 9. Citizen Kane

10. Marilyn Monroe 10. Easy Rider

11. James Dean 11. A Night at Opera

12. Orson Welles 12. The Titanic

13. Dustin Hoffman 13. Casablanca

14. Marlon Brando 14. Sunset Boulevard

15. Peter Fonda 15. Terminator

16. Arnold Schwarzenegger 16. The Blue Angel

17. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty 17. Forrest Gump

18. Eddie Murphy 18. Beverly Hills Cop

19. Tom Hanks 19. The Godfather

20. Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio 20. Some Like It Hot.

AMERICAN POP MUSIC TEST

Match the names of popular American singers with songs they sang.

1. Chuck Berry 1. “We Shall Overcome”

2. Bill Haley 2. “Bad”

3. Janis Joplin 3. Simon & Garfunkel

4. Bob Dylan 4. “Baby One More Time”

5. Joan Baez 5. “Mrs. Robinson”

6. Bruce Springsteen 6. “Me and Bobby McGee

7. Michael Jackson 7. “Blowin' in the Wind”

8. Madonna 8. “Born in the U.S.A”

9. Jessica Simpson 9. “Roll Over Beethoven”

10. Britney Spears 9. “I Wanna Love You Forever”

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