veeta大学英译汉短文题库
south africaSatiric Literature1
Perhaps the most striking quality of satiric literature is its freshness, its originality of perspective. Satire rarely offers original ideas. Instead, it prents the familiar in a new form. Satirists do not offer the world new philosophies. What they do is look at familiar conditions from a perspective that makes the conditions em foolish, harmful, or affected. Satire jars us out of complacence into a pleasantly shocked realization that many of the values we unquestioningly accept are fal. Don Quixote makes chivalry em absurd; Brave New World ridicules the pretensions of science; A Modest Proposal dramatizes starvation by advocating cannibalism. None of the ideas is original. Chivalry was suspected before Cervantes2, humanists objected to the claims of pure science before Aldous Huxley3, and people were aware of famine before Swift4. It was not the originality of the idea that made the satires popular. It was the manner of expression，the satiric method, that made them interesting and entertaining. Satires are read becau they are aesthetically satisfying works of art, not becau they are morally wholesome or ethically instructive. They are stimulating and refreshing becau with commonn briskness5 they brush away illusions and condhand opinions6. With spontaneous irreverence, satire rearranges perspectives, scrambles familiar objects into incongruous juxtaposition, and speaks in a personal idiom instead of abstract platitude. Satire exists becau there is need for it. It has lived becau readers appreciate a refreshing stimulus, an irreverent reminder that they live in a world of platitudinous thinking, cheap moralizing7, and foolish philosophy. Satire rves to prod people into an awareness of truth, though rarely to any action on behalf of truth. Satire tends to remind people that much of what they e, hear, and read in popular media is sanctimonious, ntimental, and only partially true. Life rembles in only a slight degree the popular image of it. Soldiers rarely hold the ideals that movies attribute to them, not do ordinary citizens devote their lives to unlfish rvice of humanity. Intelligent people know the things but tend to forget them when they do not hear them expresd8.
原子少女猫平行线英文Notes
1．这篇文章用词正式，句式严谨、周密、冗长，文风较为华丽。翻译时选词要正式，可多用四字结构和铺排形式。
2．Cervantes: 塞万提斯（1754-1616），西班牙伟大的作家、诗人、戏剧家。
personality是什么意思3．Aldous Huxley:奥尔德斯·赫胥黎（1825-1895），英国生物学家，作家。
4．Swift: 斯威夫特（1667-1745），英国作家，擅长用讽刺和幽默揭露社会黑暗现象。
5．briskness：brisk意为keen or sharp in speech or manner。
6．condhand opinions：不可翻译为“二手的观点”，应该是“人云亦云的的观点”。
7．cheap moralizing：这里cheap意思不是“便宜的”，而是vulgar, contemptible; moralizing不是“道德”，而是“说教”。
8．when they do not hear them expresd：当直译不方便时，我们可用视点转移法。
afternoontea
expertiAmerican Folk Art
What we today call American folk art was, art of, by, and for ordinary, everyday1 “folks” who, with increasing prosperity and leisure, created a market for art of all kinds, and especially for portraits. Citizens of prosperous, esntially middle-class republics—whether ancient Romans, venteenth-century Dutch burghers, or nineteenth-century Americans—have always shown a marked taste for portraiture. Starting in the late eighteenth century, the United States contained increasing number of such people, and of the artists who could meet their demands. The earliest American folk art portraits come, not surprisingly, from New England — especially Connecticut and Massachutts—for this was a wealthy and populous region and the center of a strong craft tradition. Within a few decades after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the population was pushing westward, and the portrait painters could be found at work in western New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. Midway through its first century2 as a nation, the United States’ population had incread roughly five times, and eleven new states had been added to original thirteen. During the years, the demand for portraits grew and grew, eventually to be satisfied by camera. In 1839 the daguerreotype was introduced to America, ushering in the age of photography, and within a generation the new invention put an end to the popularity of painted portraits. Once again an original portrait became a luxury, commissioned by the wealthy and executed by the professional. 肤色搭配
But in the heyday of portrait painting—from the late eighteenth century until the 1850’s —
anyone with a modicum of artistic ability could become a limner, as such a portraitist3 was called.
Local craftspeople—sign, coach, and hou painters—began to paint portraits as a profitable sideline; sometimes a talented man or woman who began by sketching family members gained a local reputation and was besieged with requests for portraits; artists found it worth their while to pack their paints, canvass, and brushes and to travel the countryside, often combining hou decorating with portrait painting.
Notes everyday: 意为commonplace, ordinary midway through its first century: 美国独立后50年间
perkportraitist：译为“画师”，以和前面的limner（画家）相区别。
Crows
take it easy
Crows are probably the most frequently met and easily identifiable members of the native fauna of the United States. The great number of tales, legends, and myths about the birds indicates that people have been exceptionally interested in them for a long time. On the other hand, when it comes to substantive─particularly behavioral─information, crows are less well known than many comparably common species and, for that matter, not a few quite uncommon ones, the endangered California condor, to cite one obvious example .There are practical reasons for this.
