ENGL 2110 Online
Reading Quiz 4: Chinese Poetry
Download this document and then, underneath each question, type your answer. Submit your completed quiz to the appropriate iCollege drop box. The purpose of the quiz is to award credit to students who read the assigned documents posted in iCollege. This means that credit for each item (4 points each) will be awarded only to answers that come from the assigned reading and are spelled as they are in the assigned reading. SPELLING MATTERS. These questions cover ALL the documents posted in iCollege pertaining to Chinese poetry of the Tang and Song dynasties.
Three of the four poets whose work we are reading for this class wrote during the Tang dynasty. Give the exact dates for this dynasty.
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2.While Wang Wei is associated with Buddhism and Han Shan is associated with Zen Buddhism, Li Bo’s extravagant imagery often derived from a spiritual tradition native to China called __________________.
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3. Among the four poets whose works we are covering, only one is a woman. What is her name?
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4.Read Han Shan’s poem on page 986 titled “High, high from the summit of the peak.” The fourth line reads, “A solitary moon shines in the cold spring.” The word “spring” here could mean the season of the year or it could refer to the reflection of the moon as it appears in a pool of water fed by a mountain spring. In just a few sentences, explain which you think is the best way to understand this word. Use context (the other lines in the poem) to justify your interpretation. If you say that the reader is free to interpret it either way, or if you say that both interpretations are equally good, you will receive ZERO CREDIT. You MUST make a choice: which is the better interpretation? And you must briefly give the reason or reasons for your choice. Also, your answer should demonstrate that you read the poem. Any answer that uses vague generalizations that could have been written by anyone who did not even read the poem will receive ZERO CREDIT.
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5.Read Pauline Yu’s translation of Wang Wei’s poem “Deer Enclosure” on page 1020. Now read Burton Watson’s translation of the same poem at the end of the document titled “Erich Fromm Excerpt.” State which translation you think is better and why. If you say both translations are equally good, you will receive zero credit. You have to make a choice and explain your choice. Your entire answer should just be a few sentences, but it must make specific references to the contents of the poems to show that you actually read them both. For example, if you simply write, “I prefer Yu’s translation because it is more direct,” you just got a ZERO for this quiz item. You could have written that without reading either poem.
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6.Paraphrase in your own words the last four lines of Li Qingzhao’s “Spring in Wuling” at bottom of page 1070. Why is the speaker afraid of “those little boats”? You should need only one sentence for this. Do not write your paraphrase in lines of poetry; just write standard prose. Remember that a paraphrase means that you restate the meaning of a written passage in entirely different words and sentence structure that you make up yourself. You keep the meaning the same, but you change the wording and sentence structure entirely.
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7.Complete the following quotation, using the exact same six words found in the document posted in iCollege: “Buddhism radically altered the face of China. . . Like Christianity, . . . it promised personal salvation and ________________.” (six words)
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8.Name the poet whose poems “were largely overlooked in China until modern times, when they were also admired in Japan and in the West thanks to the attention they received in the 1950’s from the Beat poets.”
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9. Name the Chinese poet whose work “returns again and again to the connection between people and their possessions.”
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10 Complete the following quotation using the exact seven words found in the document posted in iCollege: “Hermits . . . retreated from society because they disdained wealth, power, and fame, desired to preserve their inner nature and integrity, or ________________.” (seven words).
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