英语六级阅读备考：仔细阅读练习(8)

　　Passage Eight

　　Moreover, insofar as any interpretation of its author can be made from the five or six plays attributed to him, the Wake field Master is uniformly considered to be a man of sharp contemporary observation. 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 oppressed and forgotten man, his sharp eye for character, a ready ear for colloquial vernacular turns of speech and a humor alternately rude and boisterous, coarse 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 presenting 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 secularization 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 see, the final scene is not only the culminating scene but perhaps the raison detre of introductory realism.

　　There is much on the surface of the present play to support the conventional view of its mood of secular 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 close 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 and implicitly religious is the Master that he is less able to present actual history realistically than is the author of the Brome Abraham and Isaac. His historical sense 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 Knights Tale, Troilus and Cressida, etc. Moreover Chaucer had the excuse 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 Chaucers 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.

　　3. The statement about the secularization of the medieval drama refers to the

　　[A]. introduction of mundane matters in religious plays.

　　[B]. presentation of erudite material.

　　[C]. use of contemporary introduction of religious themes in the early days.

　　4. In subsequent paragraphs, we may expect the writer of this passage to

　　[A]. justify his comparison with Steinbeck.

　　[B]. present a point of view which attack the thought of the second paragraph.

　　[C]. point out the anachronisms in the play.

　　[D]. discuss the works of Chaucer.

　　Vocabulary

　　1. clerically educated 受过教会教育的

　　2. lore 口头传说，口头文字

　　3. patristic 有关早期基督教领袖的

　　4. vernacular 方言

　　5. boisterous 喧闹的

　　6. metrical 韵律的

　　7. stanza 诗节

　　8. medieval 中世纪的

　　9. plight 悲惨的命运

　　10. secularization 世俗化，脱离教会

　　11. pastoral 乡村的

　　12. bleak 荒凉的

　　13. documentary 记录文献的

　　14. monologue 独白

　　15. burlesque 诙谐或游戏诗文的，讽刺或滑稽的

　　16. Nativity 基督的诞生

　　17. epilogue 收场白

　　18. deference 敬意，尊重

　　19. atavistic 返祖的，隔代遗传的

　　20. slide back to 滑回，这里指返回

　　21. raison detre 存在的理由

　　22. all the same 即便如此

　　23. paradoxical turn 自相矛盾的说法

　　24. cloistered 隐居的

　　25. contemplative 好冥想的人(如僧侣)

　　26. the contemplative life 宗教上冥想的生涯

　　27. redemption 赎罪

　　28. mundane 世俗的，现世的

　　29. erudite 博学的，饱学之士

　　30. anachronism 时代错误，与时代不合的事物