2. 外语
  3. Nineteenth-century writers in the United States, whether they wrote novels, short stories, poems, or plays, were powerfully draw

Nineteenth-century writers in the United States, whether they wrote novels, short stories, poems, or plays, were powerfully draw

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问题     Nineteenth-century writers in the United States, whether they wrote novels, short stories, poems, or plays, were powerfully drawn to the railroad in its golden years. In fact, writers responded to the railroads as soon as the first were built in the 1830’s. By the 1850’s, the railroad was a major presence in the life of the nation. Writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau saw the railroad both as a boon to democracy and as an object of suspicion. The railroad could be and was a de spoiler of nature; furthermore, in its manifestation of speed and noise, it might be a despoiler of human nature as well. By the 1850’s and 1860’s, there was a great distrust among writers and intellectuals of the rapid industrialization of which the railroad was a leading force. Deeply philosophical historians such as Henry Adams lamented the role that the new frenzy for business was playing in eroding traditional values. A distrust of industry and business continued among writers throughout the rest of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.
    For the most part, the literature in which the railroad plays an important role belong to popular culture than to the realm of serious art. One thinks of melodramas, boys’ books, thrillers, romances, and the like rather than novels of the first rank. In the railroads’ prime years, between 1890and 1920,  there were a few individuals in the United States, most of them with solid railroading experience behind  them, who made a profession of writing about railroading --works offering the ambience of stations,  yards, and locomotive cabs. There writers, who can genuinely be said to have created a genre, the "railroad novel, "are now mostly forgotten, their names having faded from memory. But anyone who takes the time to consult their fertile writing will still find a treasure trove of information about the place of the railroad in the life of the United States.
With which of the following topics is the passage mainly concerned?
选项 A、The role of the railroad in the economy of the United States.
B、Major nineteenth-century writers.
C、The conflict between expanding industry and preserving nature.
D、The railroad as a subject for literature.
答案D
解析 主旨题。本文主要关注的主题是什么?A项小说在美国经济中的作用。B项19世纪的主要作家。C项工业发展与环境保护之间的冲突。D项作为文学主题的铁路。
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