Unit 10

Task 1:

【答案】

A.

1) T

2) F

3) F

4) T

5) T

6) F

B.

1) engaging

2) phenomenon，myth

3) ferment，burgeoning

4) history plays，comedies，fantasies，tragedies

5) theatre，companies

6) linguistic

C.

1) each of his plays has its own individuality

2) this sense of language，the importance of words themselves

【原文】

Presenter: It's hard to know where to begin talking about Shakespeare. No other writer in the story of the world has succeeded so well in engaging the imaginations of different generations. He is a cultural phenomenon, a kind of myth; yet behind that there is the reality of a man, who lived and wrote and felt, 400 years ago. Who was he? Here's Professor Stanley Wells from the Shakespeare Institute who is one of the leading authorities on Shakespeare.

Wells: Shakespeare was a genius who was fortunate in that he was born at exactly the right time. He was born at a time, for one thing, when the English language was in a state of ferment, when it was burgeoning, when new words were entering the language at an extraordinary rate. He himself introduced many of them. He was born at a time when the theatre was developing with extraordinary speed; when he was born, there were no public theatres in England at all, but by the time he died, the English theatre had started on a renaissance of quite amazing power of virtuosity.

Presenter: Shakespeare was born on 26th April, 1564, the son of a glover and wool dealer in the town of Stratford-on-Avon, in central England. When he was 18 he roamed a local woman Anne Hathaway, but sometime soon after this, he moved to London and became an actor in one of the leading theatre companies of the time. Dr. David Starkey teaches 18th-century history at the London School of Economics. London, as he points out, was an exciting place to be.

Starkey: There was a shift taking place, in the quite dramatic growth of London. One of the things that's striking about Shakespeare is where his plays were written. Some of them, of coupe, were produced at court, but they were essentially produced for this very remarkable city, the city of London--which at the beginning of the 16th century was an ordinary, big European city of about 50,000 inhabitants. But by the time you re getting towards about 1600, its population is multiplying at the rate of a modem Bombay.

Presenter: When Shakespeare began to write for the stage isn't known. His first play was probably performed in the early 1590s and may well have been The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Over the next 20 years, a cascade of masterpieces—history plays, comedies, fantasies, and tragedies—flowed from his pen. As Stanley Wells says, their variety is astonishing.

Wells: Shakespeare wrote at the rate of about two plays a year. This is a good rate, but it's not the rate of somebody who is expanding all his energy at extraordinary speed and therefore is in danger of repeating himself. To me, one of the great things about Shakespeare is that each of his plays has its own individuality. He's constantly experimenting. It's astonishing that the same man, for example, could have written the light, delicate comedy of The Comedy of Errors and also the profound, thoughtful tragedy of King Lear. And yet those two plays have things in common. This range is one of his greatest characteristics.

Presenter: In performance, most of Shakespeare's plays take between two and three and a half hours They're written in a mixture of prose and poetry, in a great range of styles: some very wordy and artificial, others much plainer. Every linguistic technique seems to be found Shakespeare: bawdy sexual jokes, intellectual puns and beautiful romantic metaphors. It's as if the language is being squeezed like clay into lots of different shapes. As David Starkey points out, words and the meaning of words were becoming enormously important to people in the late 16th century.

Starkey: For them, there was a single medium that dominated, which is words. Their world was a verbal world. It was a world that existed through words, through language. And so words are everywhere, everything is in words. And it's this sense of language, the importance of words themselves, which is the key to Shakespeare.

Task 2:

【答案】

A.

1) Shakespeare in his plays is very deeply concerned with moral issues.

2) Shakespeare clearly valued Christian virtues like honesty and love and trust.

3) People learn about Shakespeare's own views by looking at his sonnets.

4) The Tempest is the last play that Shakespeare wrote.

B.

1) c

2) a

3) b

4) c

C.

twofold，works，great performances，over the centuries，a part of culture，extending far beyond the West，a great writer，a great presence，dominating status

【原文】

Wells: Shakespeare in his plays is very deeply concerned with moral issues. We're constantly invited to think about the reasons why people do what they do, about the justification for them.., but I think one of Shakespeare's greatnesses is that he doesn't attempt to solve these moral questions in any way. And this is one of the reasons for the warmth we feel in Shakespeare, for the deep humanity we feel in Shakespeare—that we feel all the time, with his greatest characters, that he's more concerned with understanding them than judging them. So that these plays don t end in moral judgments: They end having given us fully rounded portraits of people who have the same sorts of difficulties in living as everybody else does at any time in human existence.

Presenter: Although Shakespeare clearly valued Christian virtues like honesty and love and trust none of his plays conveys a neat moral; They seem to emerge from life itself, with all its complexities, and it's very hard indeed to gain any sense from them of what Shakespeare's own views were. We know that while he was writing plays he also had a career as a leading actor, but no biography of him was written, and the tributes to him after his death shed no light on his personality. In trying to probe this mystery, people have usually looked not at his plays, but at his poems—in particular, at a sequence of highly elaborate poems called "sonnets", which he probably wrote in the 1590s.

Wells: They're very varied. Some of them are very formal; some of them are beautiful and have become appreciated in anthologies of verse, as some of the greatest love poetry in the language. But some of them are deeply tortured utterances that could almost be the soliloquies of a suffering character in one of the plays. Some of them seem to take us into the heart of Shakespeare himself, as a man who suffered a very great deal from emotions turbulence, from a struggle in his affections between his love, on the one hand, for young man who is always portrayed in a very idealized manner, and on the other hand for a woman, the woman known as "the Dark Lady", who he writes of with a curious mixture of love and scorn. He hated himself for being so emotionally entangled with her. So think the sonnets, if one regards them as autobiographical documents, are the place in which we get closest to Shakespeare himself.

Presenter: When he was in his mid 40s, Shakespeare seems to have decided to write less for the theatre. We don't know why this is. It may be that he needed to spend time looking after his business interests in Stratford; it may be that he was unwell; or he may have simply felt that his amazing creative energies were slackening. After The Tempest, he spent more and more time in Stratford, and died there in 1616.

Wells: I think Shakespeare's greatness is twofold. It's partly in the works themselves, the plays themselves, the opportunities for great performances that they give. It's also what's happened as a result of Shakespeare over the centuries. Shakespeare has become very mull a part of culture in England, in the West generally, and extending far beyond the West. now, in many other countries, too. So I think Shakespeare is both a great writer and a great presence. So I think he does deserve his dominating status.

Presenter: Shakespeare was buried in the local church at Stratford. His grave has never been opened because of a poem he wrote, inscribed on the tombstone, stating that anyone who disturbed his bones would be cursed. But nearby in the church there's his statue: that of a man with a little pointed beard and neat moustache, holding a quill pen. He doesn't look that exceptional. But Shakespeare is the greatest writer in the English language; and many great poets, novelists and playwrights in the West stand in his shadow.

 

Task 3:

【答案】

A.

1) F

2) F

3) T

4) T

5) T

6) T

B.

1) a hole under a hedge

2) into a long passage

3) in a long hall of many doors, all locked

4) through a deep wood

5) to a little white house

6) beside a mushroom to rest

 

【原文】

Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland

Alice sat nodding sleepily on a mossy bank beside her big sister, who was reading.

Presently a pink-eyed white Rabbit ran by, looking at its watch and crying, "Oh dear-I shall be late!" Alice bounded after the Rabbit, across a field and into a hole under a hedge. After running through the hole a distance she suddenly stepped off into space and began to fall. She fell slowly, and it was a very pleasant sensation. Alice was wondering whether she would stop at the earth's center when, bump!-she landed on a heap of leaves, unhurt.
    The Rabbit was scampering down the passage. Springing to her feet, she pursued, but it disappeared around the next corner and Alice found herself in a long hall of many doors, all locked. On a table was a golden key which fitted the smallest door, only fifteen inches high. Unlocking this, she be-held a beautiful flower-garden, but could not squeeze through the door.
    Beneath the table in a glass dish she found a cookie on which were the words, "Eat Me." She ate this and soon grew nine feet tall. Presently the Rabbit entered and, seeing Alice, fled in dismay, dropping his gloves and fan. Alice picked them up and began to fan herself. Soon she was only two feet high and dropped the fan in a fright. Thereupon she stopped growing smaller and knew it was a magic fan.
    Hearing footfalls, she turned to see the Rabbit standing near. It was nearly as tall as she and seemed very angry. "You go to my house and bring me a pair of gloves and a fan!" commanded the Rabbit, sternly. Alice, badly frightened, started to obey. Strangely enough, the hall vanished and she found her-self running through a deep wood. Soon she came to a little white house. The door-plate said "W. Rabbit." Entering, she hurried up-stairs to the Rabbit's bedroom and found, not gloves and a fan, but a bottle on the bureau. It was not labeled, but Alice drank the contents. She grew so rapidly that the room was hardly big enough to contain her, although she was lying on the floor with her head drawn up to her chin.
    While in this predicament some one threw a handful of pebbles through the window into the room. These turned into bits of candy. Alice ate several of them and soon shrank until she could escape from the house. Running into the wood, she sat down beside a mushroom to rest.
    "What can I do for you?" asked a voice. Alice looked up, and on top of the mushroom sat a blue Caterpillar, smoking a pipe.
    "Oh, please, sir," replied Alice, "make me larger!"
    "That's easy," said the Caterpillar; "one side of this mushroom will make you taller, and the other side shorter."
    Before Alice could ask more the Caterpillar disappeared.
    Alice broke off a piece from each side of the mushroom. After eating a bit of one she grew so short her chin struck her foot. Hastily eating some of the other, she grew so tall her head was among the tree-tops. "Oh dear, shall I never be my regular size again!" she cried, nibbling from the first piece and shrinking down to only nine inches.
    In despair she started to walk through the wood, and soon came to a little house about four feet high. Without knocking, Alice walked into the kitchen. The Duchess sat rocking a little pig in her lap, the Cook was sprinkling quantities of pepper into a kettle of soup, and a Cheshire Cat on the hearth grinned from ear to ear at her. All three sneezed violently from time to time.
    "Please go away-I don't like your grin," said Alice to the Cat.
    "All right," replied the Cat, and vanished, beginning with the tail and ending with the grin-but the grin remained after the rest had disappeared.

 

Task 4:

【答案】

A.

1) escape from the horrid grin of the Cheshire Cat

2) did not fancy white roses

3) Alice played croquet

4) live hedgehogs，the arches

5) stealing some tarts

6) to have a sentence before a verdict

B.

1) People: The King and Queen of Hearts

The gardeners who were painting the white roses red

Soldiers with clubs

Courtiers bedecked with diamonds

The royal children ornamented with hearts

The Royal Executioner

2) Animals and birds: The Cheshire Cat who grinned from ear to ear

The White Rabbit

The flamingo

The hedgehogs

C. 

1) She realized that her wonderful journey had been only a wonderful dream.

2) She is a nice, kind-hearted, honest, and adventurous girl.

 

【原文】

To escape from this horrid grin Alice ran out of the house and into the wood, closely pursued by the grin. Seeing a little door open leading into a big tree, Alice slipped through and slammed the door behind her, shutting out the grin.
    Turning about, she at last found herself in the beautiful garden. Standing about a rose-tree near the entrance were three gardeners painting the white roses red. "Why are you doing that?" asked Alice.
    "Because," replied one, "the Queen does not fancy white roses."
    "Hush!" said another; "here comes the Queen now!”
    Alice turned eagerly to behold the royal procession. There were soldiers with clubs, courtiers bedecked with diamonds, and the royal children were ornamented with hearts, while in and out among them hopped the White Rabbit. Last of all came the King and Queen of Hearts.
    When the Queen came to Alice she stopped and asked, "My child, do you play croquet?"
    "Y - y - y - yes," stammered Alice, much confused.
    "Then here is your mallet," replied the Queen, handing Alice a live flamingo. Then the game began, and such a crazy game of croquet Alice had never seen.
    The croquet balls were live hedgehogs and the soldiers bent over to make the arches. Besides, the ground was full of hummocks and ridges. All played at once. When Alice would get ready to hit her ball with the flamingo's head, either the hedgehog would walk off, or the soldier making the arch would stand up to rest his back.
    "How do you like the game?" asked a voice. Looking up, Alice beheld the grin of the Cheshire Cat. Before she could answer the Cat's head appeared, but no more of it.
    "I don't like it at all," replied Alice, drop-ping her mallet, which at once flew off. The Cat turned to look at the King, who did not like being grinned at, and complained to the Queen, who ordered the Cat beheaded on the spot.
    "That is all very well," said the King, "but I should like to know how it is possible to behead a cat which has no body?" While they were arguing the Cheshire Cat vanished, head, grin, and all.
    Alice went to look for her flamingo, but could not find it. When she returned, all the players had gone to the Palace. Alice followed and, entering, found a trial in progress. The King and Queen sat on their throne hearing the evidence. The Knave of Hearts was being tried for stealing some tarts the Queen had made. Several witnesses testified, but they talked of everything else except the stolen tarts.
    "What a silly trial ! " thought Alice, nibbling absent-mindedly at a piece of mush-room she had left. Almost before she knew it she grew so tall her head bumped against the ceiling.
    "Call the next witness!" commanded the King.
    "ALICE!" cried the White Rabbit.
    "But I don't know anything about the stolen tarts," protested Alice.
    "That's very important," remarked the King.
    "It's against the rules for a witness over a mile high to testify," said the Queen.
    "Leave this court at once!" ordered the King, addressing Alice.
    "I sha'n't leave until I hear the verdict," retorted Alice.
    "In that case," said the King, "let the jury consider the verdict."
    "Sentence first and verdict afterward," objected the Queen.
    "How absurd to have a sentence before a verdict!" said Alice, scornfully.
    "Off with that girl's head!" shouted the Queen, pointing at Alice.
    "Will you please stoop down so I can carry out the Queen's orders?" asked the Royal Executioner, politely.
    "No, I won’t!” cried Alice; "you are all nothing but a naughty pack of cards, anyhow, and I am not afraid of you!"
    Thereupon the whole pack rose up into the air and flew straight into Alice's face.
    "Come, Alice dear, wake up," said her big sister, shaking her gently; "you've been sleeping nearly an hour and it's time to go home."
    Then little Alice knew that her wonderful journey had been only a wonderful dream.

 

Task 5:

【答案】

A.

1) b

2) a

3) c

4) c

5) a

6) b

B.

1) President John Kennedy.

2) He wrote mainly pastoral poems.

3) It is located in the northeastern United States.

4) In England.

5) It is called A Boy’s Will.

C.

1) d

2) a

3) d

4) b

5) c

6) d

 

【原文】

In 1961, John Kennedy was sworn in as president of the United States. He asked one of America's best-known writers to read a poem on the President's inauguration. Robert Frost stood in the cold sunlight that day, his white hair blowing in the wind. He read the lines from his poem, The Girl Outright.

Robert Frost was one of America's leading 20th-century poets and a four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. An essentially pastoral poet often associated with the land of cold winters in the north-eastern United States, the area called New England, Frost wrote poems whose philosophical dimensions transcend any region. Although his verse forms are traditional—he often said that he would as soon play tennis without a net as write free verse—he was a pioneer in the interplay of rhythm and meter and in the poetic use of the vocabulary and inflections of everyday speech. His poetry is thus both traditional and experimental, regional and universal.

Frost was born in San Francisco, California. After his father's death in 1885, when young Frost was 11, the family left California and settled in Massachusetts. Frost attended high school in that state, entered Dartmouth College, but remained less than one semester. Returning to Massachusetts, he taught school and worked in a mill and as a newspaper reporter. In 1894 he sold his poem My Butterfly to The Independent, a New York literary journal. From 1897 to 1899, he attended Harvard University as a special student but left without a degree. Over the next 10 years he wrote (but rarely published) poems, operated a farm in Derry, New Hampshire and supplemented his income by teaching at Derry's Pinkerton Academy.

    In 1912, at the age of 38, Frost decided to try to make a new start. He sold the farm and used the proceeds to take his family to England, where he could devote himself entirely to writing. His efforts to establish himself and his work were almost immediately successful. His first book of poems A Boy's Will was accepted by a London publisher and brought out in 1913, followed a year later by another one North of Boston. Favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic resulted in American publication of Frost's books and in the establishing of Frost's transatlantic reputation. As part of his determined efforts on his own behalf, Frost had called on several prominent literary figures soon after his arrival in England. One of these was Ezra Pound, another American poet living in Britain, who wrote the first American review of Frost's verse.

In 1915, both of Frost's books were published 'in the United States. He felt that his books had “gone home”, and he should go home, too. When he reached America, he was surprised by the praise he received and the acceptance of American publishers. In the words of the poem he read at President Kennedy's inauguration many years later: The land was his before he was the land.

Frost's importance as a poet derives from the power and memorability of particular poems. The Death of the Hired Man combines lyric and dramatic poetry in blank verse. After Apple-Picking is a free-verse dream poem with philosophical undertones. Mending Wall demonstrates Frost's simultaneous command of lyrical verse, dramatic conversation, and ironic commentary. The Road Not Taken and Birches and the off-studied Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening exemplify Frost's ability to join the pastoral and philosophical modes in lyrics of unforgettable beauty.

Robert Frost died in 1963. He had lived for almost 100 years, and over the years he received an unprecedented number and range of literary, academic, and public honors. He unquestionably succeeded in realizing his life's ambition: to write "a few poems it will be hard to get rid of".

 

Task 6:

【答案】

A.

1) b

2) c

3) c

4) b

5) a

B.

1) revealing her name，a locket and ring，in attendance

2) cruel neglect and semi-starvation，his unheard-of act

3) snuff-boxes, jewelry, watches, and handkerchiefs，in imaginary store-windows

4) efforts，in some safe refuge，rewards

 

【原文】

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist was born about seventy-five miles from London, in the lying-in room of the almshouse. His mother, worn and exhausted from a long and painful journey on foot, had been found unconscious in the road, and had been carried to the only place of refuge for such as she seemed to be. The unhappy mother died without revealing her name, and the only proofs of the boy's identity, a locket and ring, kept even at the price of starvation, were stolen from the corpse before it was cold by the old crone who had been in attendance.
    The orphan's childhood, passed in cruel neglect and semi-starvation, was brought to an abrupt close by his own unparalleled act. Desperate through hunger, he and his companions determine that some one of them shall secure for all an extra helping of the thin and watery gruel which is their principal diet. The lot falls upon Oliver. Nineyear-old child though he was, he was "reckless with misery." He rose from the table, and, advancing to the workhouse-master, basin and spoon in hand, he said, "Please, sir, I want some more ! " Such unheard-of daring receives speedy treatment. The next morning a bill, posted upon the gate, offers five pounds to any one who will take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish.
    Then there follows a brief stay as the apprentice of a coffin-maker and undertaker. His master is, on the whole, treats him well, but a fight with a bullying older apprentice brings him into unmerited disgrace and punishment and he runs away.
    On the outskirts of London he chances upon the fascinatingly droll Artful Dodger, pickpocket and pupil of Fagin. The curious behavior of his new associates is only a game to the innocent boy, when Fagin places snuff-boxes, jewelry, watches, and handkerchiefs in his pockets, and then stands looking in imaginary store-windows while (in an unbelievably short time) every one of the things is taken from him. The true meaning of it all bursts upon the horrified Oliver when he is taken on an expedition and sees the "game" in full operation. Dazed and con-fused, he is the only one captured and taken before a magistrate. His innocence is established, but he faints in the court-room, and is taken home by the remorseful Mr. Brown-low, the man whose pocket he was supposed to have picked. In his new friend's house Oliver is nursed through a serious illness, and better days seem to have dawned for him, when he again falls into the hands of Fagin. Dreading the information which the boy may give, Fagin has Oliver kidnapped while on an errand for Mr. Brownlow, by Nancy, a wretched girl of the streets, pupil of Fagin, and mistress of Bill Sikes, the greatest ruffian of the whole gang.
    In order to close Oliver's mouth, by making him also a criminal, he is taken along on a housebreaking attempt. Protesting, he is put through a small window that he may open the door to his companions. He is firmly determined to warn the people of the house, but the burglary is a failure, and Oliver, wounded by a stray shot, is left in a ditch by the fleeing gangsters. The next morning he crawls, injured as he is, to the same house, where his story is believed and he finds new and lasting friends.
    Again the lad is sought out by Fagin, aided by a mysterious man who has shown great emotion at a chance sight of Oliver in the street, and who now plots with Fagin, not merely for the possession of the boy, but for his moral ruin, which seems to be desired especially by this so-called Monks.
    Their whispered plottings are overheard by Nancy, who atones for her former kidnapping of Oliver by risking her life to inform his new friends of his true parentage. Then comes the startling account of what Nancy had overheard: Monks has secured, by clever inquiry and bribery, the locket and the ring; he recognized Oliver; he alludes to his father's will and speaks of the gratification it will be to him (Monks) to make a common felon of his young brother, Oliver. He also says with a laugh that there is some comfort in the fact that his identity has been kept from his latest friends, "since how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds they would give to know who their two-legged spaniel is.
    Rejecting all Rose's efforts to place her in some safe refuge from her horrible associates, and refusing all rewards, the weeping girl returns to the only life she has ever known. Nancy’s kindness, however, costs her her life, as suspicious Fagin has had her followed and watched. Sikes, insane with rage, brutally disregards her protestations that she has shielded him and has remained faithful to him. Disbelieving her, he beats her to death with a club, then flees vainly from the terrors of his own memory of the deed, and dies by an accident as he is trying to escape arrest.

 

Task 7:

【答案】

A.

1) F

2) T

3) F

4) T

5) T

6) T

7) F

B.

1) tragic，heroic，against certain fears and terrors，to the end

2) instability，uncertainty，the surface of order

C.

1) His view on mid-18th-century England: It is often depicted as an age dominated by ideas of reason and order. But beneath the surface of genteel life lay an enormous amount of hidden tension, with widespread poverty and crime.

2) His view on Dr. Johnson: Dr. Johnson stands as a vast, magisterial figure. But in fact, he was not nearly as confident and assured a presence as he sometimes appears.

 

【原文】

Looking back 200 years, over the landscape of English literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson stands as la vast, magisterial figure. Dr. Johnson the man is much more famous than his work. English people who have never read a single word he wrote nonetheless have a distinct sense of his presence: confident, commanding, oratorical, that of a man whose voice rings with authority, whose sayings are often quoted in today's newspapers as peculiarly English examples of common sense.

Mid-18th-century England is often depicted as an age dominated by ideas of reason and order. Yet the picture is not entirely accurate. True, England was at peace, but beneath the surface of genteel. life lay an enormous amount of hidden tension, with widespread poverty and crime. Dr. Johnson was, equally, not nearly as confident and assured a presence as he sometimes appears. Born in 1709 in the town of Lichfield, some 150 kilometers northwest of London, Johnson suffered from lifelong depression and melancholy. He went to Oxford University but was too poor to complete his degree. For several years in his 20s he was a desperately unsuccessful teacher; and finally at the age of 27 he went down to London to seek his fortune. When he arrived in London he had no money and no lob. Arid for several years he worked in what was known as Grub Street, a particular part of London where the penniless authors and journalistic hacks or freelance writers worked, living from hand to mouth. Dr. Johnson learned a lot about life here. He saw life from the bottom level up, and it formed him very much as a writer.

But his fortunes were to change, for he had been commissioned to write a new dictionary of the English language. Conquering what he saw as his own laziness, he toiled away for years in a garret near London's River Thames. The Dictionary is an extraordinary work for a man who is reputed to be slothful. It took him approximately 8 years to write. Johnson employed 6 part-time clerks, who didn't do the work but simply copied down what he directed. By the end he had defined 40,000 separate words, and he did this in a very particular way: He read through the entire bulk of English literature, including a considerable amount of scientific and philosophical literature, and he picked out quotations which illustrated the meanings of certain words. But it is the width of the Dictionary, its solidity, is fantastic coverage, which was such an achievement; and when it was published in 1755 Johnson was given an honorary M.A. from the University of Oxford where he had failed to complete his degree, and he almost immediately became famous as a literary man.

By 1767, Johnson's eminence was such that he was offered a state pension. Free from financial worries, acknowledged as a leading essayist and critic, he was able to work as he wished. It was at this Joint that he met a young man named James Boswell, who was to become his close friend—though the friendship was never that of equals. Boswell would eventually write two books about Dr. Johnson—one an account of a trip they made together round Scotland, the other a full-length biography. Boswell's biography has been described as the best biography ever written in English, and certainly it gives us an intimate picture of the late Dr. Johnson, who in his 50s and 60s had edited an edition of Shakespeare and written a series of volumes on the lives of English poets. This is the confident, magisterial Dr. Johnson, by turns serious or sarcastic or witty. But scholars and biographers have begun to draw back the curtain, revealing a somewhat different man. His melancholy, his loneliness, his fear of madness, his strong romantic streak, his unhappy marriage, the way his poetry and his essays grew it of great and intense private suffering—all this has given us a much deeper and more complicated se of Johnson. And in many ways, there is a sense of him as a tragic but heroic figure a man who is always fighting against certain fears and terrors, but fights to the end. He is a figure almost of tragic courage.

Dr. Johnson's statue stands in London's Fleet Street, and nearby is the house in which he lived while laboring over his Dictionary. Now a Johnson museum, it contains among much else a striking oil painting of him in his mid 60s. The face is not that of a man at ease with himself: the expression sullen, truculent, the powerful eyes seeming to glare with a certain suspicion. Dr. Johnson is a key to the 18th century, a time when instability and uncertainty were never that far below the surface of order. Five years after his death in 1784, the French revolution was to transform the course of European history, and also the way writers, composers and artists looked at the world.

 

Task 8:

【答案】

1) He had come to the House of Usher in response to a written plea from his boyhood friend.

2) The letter had told of an illness of body and mind suffered by Usher.

3) The Usher family, unlike most, had left only a direct line of descent.

4) Usher's eyes were liquid, and his lips pale. His web-like hair was untrimmed and floated over his brow. All in all, he was a depressing figure.

5) He believed that the house itself exerted great influence over his morale, and even over his spirit. What was worse, he was terribly worried about his dying sister, the only living relative he had.

6) They carried the encoffined body down into the burial vault beneath the house and deposited it upon a trestle.

7) Lady Madeline returned to find her brother. The two fell to the floor in death.

8) The house of horror split asunder in a zigzag manner, down the line of the visitor had seen before.

 

【原文】

The Fall of the House of Usher

 

As the visitor approached the House of Usher, he was forewarned by the appearance of the old mansion. The fall weather was dull and dreary, the countryside shady and gloomy, and the old house seemed to fit perfectly into the desolate surroundings. The stone was discolored and covered with fungi. The building gave the impression of decay, and a barely discernible crack extended in a zigzag line from the roof to the foundation.

The visitor had come to the House of Usher in response to a written plea from his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher. The letter had told of an illness of body and mind suffered by the last heir in the ancient line of Usher, and although the letter had strangely filled him with dread, the visitor had felt that he must go to his former friend. The Usher family, unlike most, had left only a direct line of descent, and perhaps it was for this reason that the family itself and the house had become one—the House of Usher.
    The visitor entered the house, gave his things to a servant, and proceeded through several dark passages to the study of the master. There he was stunned at the appearance of his old friend. Usher's eyes were liquid and lips pallid. His web-like hair was untrimmed and floated over his brow. All in all, he was a depressing figure. In fact, he was haunted incessantly by unnamed fears.
    Even more strangely, he was imbued with the thought that the house itself exerted great influence over his morale and that it had obtained influence over his spirit. Usher's moodiness was heightened by the approaching death of his sister, Lady Madeline. His only living relative, she was wasting away from a strange malady that baffled the doctors. Often the disease revealed its cataleptic nature. The visitor saw her only once, on the night of his arrival. Then she passed through the room without speaking, and her appearance filled him with awe and foreboding.
    For several days, the visitor attempted to cheer the sick master of Usher and restore him to health, but the visitor was helpless to dispel Usher’s fear. One day Usher informed his friend that Madeline was no more. It was his intention to bury her in one of the vaults under the house for a period of two weeks. The strangeness of her malady, he said, demanded the precaution of not placing her immediately in the exposed family burial plot. The two men took the encoffined body into the burial vault beneath the house and deposited it upon a trestle. Turning back the lid of the coffin, they took one last look at the lady, and the visitor remarked on the similarity of appearance between her and her brother. Then Usher told him that they were twins and that their natures had been singularly alike. The man then closed the lid, screwed it down securely, and ascended to the upper room.
    A noticeable change now took possession of Usher. He paced the floors with unusual vigor. He became more pallid, while his eyes glowed with even greater wildness. His words were utterances of extreme fear. He seemed to have a ghastly secret that he could not share.

One night, during a severe storm, the visitor heard low and unrecognizable sounds that filled him with terror. Then he heard a soft knock at his door. Usher entered, carrying a lamp. His manner was hysterical and his eyes those of a madman. The visitor picked up the first book that came to hand and tried to calm his friend by reading a story. As he read he seemed to hear the echo of a cracking and ripping sound described in the story. Usher sat facing the door, as if in a trance. His head and his body rocked from side to side in a gentle motion. He was murmuring something, as if he were not aware of his friend's presence.
    At last, his ravings became intelligible. He spoke louder and louder until he reached a scream. Madeline was alive. For days, he had heard her feebly trying to lift the coffin lid. Now she had escaped her tomb and was coming in search of him. At that pronouncement, the door of the room swung back and on the threshold stood the shrouded Lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood on her clothing and evidence of superhuman struggle. She ran to her terrified brother, and the two fell to the floor in death.
    The visitor fled from the house in terror. He gazed back as he ran and saw the house of horror split asunder in a zigzag manner, down the line of the crack he had seen as he first looked upon the old mansion. There was a loud noise, like the sound of many waters, and the pond at its base received all that was left of the ruined House of Usher.