2020年英语四级阅读题文章精读(8)
Passage Eight
Wakefield Master's Realism
理想与现实的关系
Moreover, insofar as any interpretation of its author can be made from the five or six plays attributed to him, the
我是真心爱你Wake field Master is uniformly considered to be a man of
sharp contemporary obrvation. He was, formally, perhaps clerically educated, as his Latin and music, his Biblical and patristic lore indicate. He is, still, celebrated mainly for
his quick sympathy for the oppresd and forgotten man, his sharp eye for character, a ready ear for colloquial
vernacular turns of speech and a humor alternately rude and boisterous, coar and happy. Hence despite his conscious artistry as manifest in his feeling for intricate metrical
and stanza forms, he is looked upon as a kind of medieval Steinbeck, indignantly angry at, uncompromisingly and even brutally realistic in prenting the plight of the
agricultural poor.
Thus taking the play and the author together, it is mow fairly conventional to regard the former as a kind of
ultimate point in the cularization of the medieval drama. Hence much emphasis on it as depicting realistically humble manners and pastoral life in the bleak hills of the West
Riding of Yorkshire on a typically cold bight of December
24th. After what are often regarded as almost “documentaries” given in the three successive monologues of the three shepherds, critics go on to affirm that the realism is then intensified into a burlesque mock-treatment of the Nativity.
Finally as a sort of epilogue or after-thought in deference to the Biblical origins of the materials, the play slides back into an atavistic mood of early innocent reverence. Actually, as we shall e, the final scene is not only the culminating scene but perhaps the raison d'etre of introductory “realism.”
There is much on the surface of the prent play to support the conventional view of its mood of cular realism. All the same, the “realism” of the Wakefield Master is of a paradoxical turn. His wide knowledge of people, as well as books indicates no cloistered contemplative but one in clo relation to his times. Still, that life was after all a predominantly religious one, a time which never neglected the belief that man was a rebellious and sinful creature in need of redemption, So deeply （one can hardly say “naively” of so sophisticated a writer） and implicitly religious is the Master that he is less able （or less willing） to prent actual history realistically than is the author of the Brome “Abraham and Isaac”. His historical n is even less realistic than that of Chaucer who just a few years before had done for his own time costume romances, such as The Knight's Tale, Troilus and Cressida, etc. Moreover Chaucer had the excu of highly romantic materials for taking liberties with history.
1. Which of the following statements about the Wakefield Master is NOT True?
[A]. He was Chaucer's contemporary.
[B]. He is remembered as the author of five or six realistic plays.
[C]. He write like John Steinbeck.
[D]. HE was an accomplished artist.
2. By “patristic”, the author means
[A]. realistic. [B]. patriotic
[C]. superstitious. [C]. pertaining to the Christian Fathers.
目标消费群体3. The statement about the “cularization of the medieval drama” refers to the
坚持四项基本原则的核心是[A]. introduction of mundane matters in religious plays.
[B]. prentation of erudite material.
[C]. u of contemporary introduction of religious themes in the early days.
4. In subquent paragraphs, we may expect the writer of this passage to
[A]. justify his comparison with Steinbeck.
[B]. prent a point of view which attack the thought of the cond paragraph.
打印发票
[C]. point out the anachronisms in the play.
党务工作培训[D]. discuss the works of Chaucer.
水生木是什么意思Vocabulary
1. clerically educated 受过教会教育的
2. lore 口头传说，口头文字
春节的由来和习俗
3. patristic 相关早期基督教领袖的
