The rapid transcontinental settlement and these new urban industrial circumstances of the last half of the 19th century were accompanied by the development of national literature of great abundance and variety. New themes, new forms, new subjects, new regions, new authors, new audiences all emerged in the literature of this half century.
As a result, at the onset of World War I, the spirit and substance of American literature had evolved remarkably, just as its center of production had shifted from Boston to New York in the late 1880s and the sources of its energy to Chicago and the Midwest. No longer was it produced, at least in its popular forms, in the main by solemn, typically moralistic men from New England and the Old South; no longer were polite, well-dressed, grammatically correct, middle-class young people the only central characters in its narratives; no longer were these narratives to be set in exotic places and remote times; no longer, indeed, were fiction, poetry, drama, and formal history the chief acceptable forms of literary expression; no longer, finally, was literature read primarily by young, middle-class women.
In sum, American literature in these years fulfilled in considerable measure the condition Walt Whitman called for in 1867 in describing Leaves of Grass: it treats, he said of his own major work, each state and region as “and expands from them, and includes the world connecting an American citizen with the citizens of all nations”. At the same time, these years saw the emergence of what has been designated “the literature of argument,” powerful works in sociology, philosophy, psychology, many of them impelled by the spirit of exposure and reform. Just as America learned to play a role in this half century as an autonomous international political, economic, and military power, so did its literature establish itself as a producer of major works.
1. The main idea of this passage is ______.
2. It can be inferred from the passage that the previous passage probably discussed ______.
3. The word “evolved” in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to ______.
4. The word “it” in the second paragraph refers to ______.
5. The word “exotic” in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to ______.
6. The author uses the word “indeed” in the second paragraph for what purpose?
7. The phrase “these years” in the third paragraph refers to ______.
8. It can be inferred from the passage that Walt Whitman ______.
9. All of the following can be inferred from the passage about the new literature EXCEPT ______.
10. This passage would probably be read in which of the following academic courses?
